As you might already know by now, we are currently working on a little update for SHINRAI, scheduled to be released for its 4th anniversary on August 26. As part of this update, I’ve gone through the entire script of the game again, in order to make some slight adjustments. Outside of fixing some typos and editing/restructuring sentences or entire paragraphs for better readability, I’ve also made some additions and changes here and there with SHINRAI‘s sequel in mind, titled Withering Without Hope.
SHINRAI was originally written in September of 2011, so in a sense, it’s almost nine years old now! Shortly after the story was conceived, I already began to gather ideas for its continuation, so when we decided to turn SHINRAI into a visual novel in 2013, I decided to handle some things differently compared to the original, and add a few things to set up the sequel.
However, since its official release in 2016, almost four more years have gone by. And naturally, I had many new ideas during this time, meaning that the story for WWH has further evolved.
In 2017, I was still working simultaneously on the SHINRAI sequel, as well as its spin-off GENBA no Kizuna.
After realizing that working on two big games at the same time only dragged out development for both of them, I decided to focus on GENBA first, which has also evolved a lot since its initial conception. Although GENBA chronologically takes place before the events of SHINRAI, and is kind of a standalone title, it can also be seen as the next step to set up SHINRAI‘s actual continuation.
A lot of plot points and characters are going to be introduced in GENBA, which will ultimately be very important in WWH.
I’m actually very glad that I decided to go with GENBA first, since I can confidently say that WWH‘s story has become much better now than it was in 2017. Partly because of my work on GENBA, but also thanks to the upcoming update for SHINRAI.
I actually spent quite some time this week, restructuring the plot for WWH, because looking over BBD in such detail, sparked some more new ideas. I feel super excited about it now and really can’t wait to focus on this story, haha.
But first, I still need to finish GENBA as well as the update for our original game. Which brings me back to the first paragraph of this post: since some things in WWH have changed, I want to use the opportunity to reflect these changes in BBD‘s script. Most of it are subtle things, so I’m not sure if many players will even pick up on them, if they decide to replay the game. Others should be pretty obvious, though. Anyway, I will talk in detail about all this, once the update is done and out there!
(Still, as mentioned a little while ago, don’t expect entire new scenes or anything like that to be added to the game!)
Well, guess it’s time for me to get back to work now, so please enjoy the rest of your weekend and, until next Saturday, take care! :3
