A new month has just begun and so, it’s once again time to give you an update on our plans for the coming weeks. Of course, they will mostly revolve around our new project SHINRAI Saku – Blooming Beyond Despair. Now that the script is fully written out, and someone other than me has read the whole thing, we can finally shift focus more towards actual game development again!
But let’s take a more detailed look at the various areas that comprise making a VN like this, and check what kinds of tasks are lying still ahead of us! Beginning with the writing, given that Natsu and I were finally able to discuss the script together, now that she’s read it!
- Script
First of all, I’m happy to report that she didn’t find any real issues with the story, characters or structure (she did find a bunch of pesky typos, though…)! Of course, it’s not perfect. There are still areas of improvement, but these will primarily require minor changes.
So yeah, even though the script may be fully written, that doesn’t mean it’s 100% done yet. I’ll still need to do some more revisions and polish things up. Also, there is one scene I’m a bit unsure about. Natsu didn’t have any issues with it, actually, but I personally feel like I might want to change things and rewrite it a bit. But that’s something I’ll be thinking about more carefully over the next few weeks.
For now, I’ll probably just focus on polishing up the first couple scenes, so that we can translate them into VN format ASAP!
But of course, that will require a bit more than just the script.
- Assets
From here on out, character sprites, backgrounds and CGs will comprise the bulk of the workload still ahead of us. In terms of the latter two art categories, zero progress has been made yet. However, at least when it comes to the sprites, most of the base sprites for all the characters are done. I’m currently working on the one for Kobayashi-sensei, after which only two more characters will need a full sprite.
Since we really want to keep things simple this time around, there won’t be any major pose variations. Maybe an occasional hand that looks different, but for the most part, we’ll be working with different facial expressions only. And these are what I wanna tackle next, once all the base sprites are done.
Regarding the CGs, there also won’t be many… if any. I still have to think about it. There are only really three moments I can think of that would benefit from having a dedicated CG, so it wouldn’t be too much work, anyway.
Please remember that this is going to be a relatively short story (a little over 40.000 words), so there isn’t much of a need for too many elaborate visual assets. That said, we do need a number of BGs and those might pose the biggest problem for a reason I don’t yet want to talk about. I’ll elaborate on it some time soon, but for now, I still need to think a bit more about this as well.
I guess we could also address the GUI, but honestly… now that the base design has been decided on, the rest should be a piece of cake. Given that there is no investigation gameplay and no evidence presentation… things are gonna be much simpler this time!
- Sound
This is a topic… I also don’t want to delve too deeply into right now. When it comes to the sound effects, there isn’t gonna be much of an issue. In fact, we’ll be able to recycle a lot from the previous two projects. The music on the other hand, well… that might be what I’m worried about the most, as our composer is currently extremely busy, so we won’t be able to commission him for a while.
I guess we’ll see how things will work out. I have a couple solutions in mind, but for now, I’ll just focus on all the things I’ll have to take care of by myself!
- Conclusion
Now then, that about wraps up our very quick overview. As we continue to work on Saku, I’ll be able to give you more detailed stats and estimates as to how long things might take, but given that we’re still at the start of development, it’s gonna be a while. But one not even remotely as long as it was the case for GENBA no Kizuna! At least that I can easily promise you, haha.
Now then, time to get back to work, so… please enjoy the rest of your weekend and, until next Saturday, take care :3
