These last few days, work on the script for GENBA no Kizuna‘s forth chapter has gone rather well. Set aside a couple more revision and proofreading passes in order to be fully satisfied, Rei‘s, Shinketsu‘s and Himatsu‘s first investigation routes are done now, while Keiichi‘s is around the 70% completion mark. Granted, the routes for the other three a really short, but it still feels pretty nice to have the first segment of the new chapter almost taken care of!
Jul 02
Weekly Update #411: MegaMan Battle Network
Yeeeaaaaahhhhhhhh, you might be thinking right now: “Wait, what…? MegaMan Battle Network!? Why??”
We’ll get to that in a sec, but first of all, let’s have a little progress update, shall we?
Jurassic June has come to a close and a new month has begun and, as you have undoubtedly noticed, I haven’t really posted any screenshots for GENBA no Kizuna‘s third chapter yet, nor is it available for testing to patrons, even though that was the goal for June.
Unfortunately, there is going to be a bit more of a delay. June has ultimately been a very… difficult month for both Natsu and myself.
While she had some other, rather time-consuming responsibilities to take care of, which slowed down her coding progress, and is currently suffering under an unforgiving heat wave draining all her energy, I’ve went through quite a bit of a rollercoaster in my private life, somewhat similar to what happened last year. It kind of really incapacitated me for a bit and made it difficult to find the drive to focus on VN development, but I’m slowly getting back to my feet and have made quite a bit of progress these past few days.
That said, it’s still very frustrating that we didn’t manage to hit our goal and for that, I want to apologize.
Jun 25
Weekly Update #410: Chapter IV
So, today, I’d like to talk a little more about the fourth chapter in GENBA no Kizuna, which I’m currently doing script work for.
As the game’s penultimate chapter, you can probably already guess that there’s going to be a lot going on here. I can’t say anything with certainty until it’s fully written out, but it might very well turn into the longest chapter of the game.
This is where we get into the core phase of the investigation and, by the end of it, all the puzzle pieces will be available to figure out the truth behind the incident at the Kaseki residence, similar to how it worked in SHINRAI.
Jun 23
Summer Sale 2022
Summer’s back and so is the annual Steam Summer Sale! If only the chills of finding a dead body are good enough to help you cool down in the heat, maybe consider grabbing the PC version of our murder mystery SHINRAI – Broken Beyond Despair this year!
Jun 18
Weekly Update #409: Very Quick Update
I’m beginning to think that June might be cursed. Last year, at almost the exact same time, I was unable to do a proper update, because of something serious suddenly happening in my private life… and here I find myself in a similar situation yet again, so…
Apologies for the lack of a proper blog post today. If you want to read something fun GENBA-related, you can check out the TV Tropes page for it, though. I only stumbled upon it just a couple of days ago.
Anyway, gotta go, so please take good care of yourselves!
Jun 11
Weekly Update #408: Quick Progress Report
As the title already says, we’re gonna have another very quick update again today, as I still have quite a bit of stuff to take care of and therefore want to return to work ASAP. There isn’t much to report, anyway.
Natsu will still need more time to code the remainder of GENBA‘s third chapter, as mentioned in last week’s blog post, and I have primarily focused on the script again this past week, alternating between polishing the second social phase (which occurs between chapters 3 and 4) and working on Keiichi‘s next investigation route, in which he once again summons our two witnesses to ask them a few more questions.
The first set of investigation routes in chapter 4 is relatively short, so I hope to finish it by the end of the month or even a little earlier.
The way the chapter is currently structured is that players have to tackle four investigation routes at the beginning (one for each character) and complete them in any order, just how it works in chapter 2. Afterwards, there’s a social phase, followed by another set of investigation routes, an intermission scene once those have been completed and then, the rest of the chapter will unfold in a slightly different manner, which I don’t really want to get into yet.
But yeah, as you can see, there is a lot of investigating to be done this time! And I’d like to get right back to work on that, so…
As always, please enjoy the rest of your weekend and, until next Saturday, take care! :3
Jun 04
Weekly Update #407: Jurassic June
Jurassic June is finally here and, as I’ve already announced in last week’s blog post, our major goal for this month is to finish up GENBA no Kizuna‘s third chapter and release it to patrons for beta-testing! All that’s really left now to accomplish that is to finish the coding and then to play test everything ourselves. Since coding is all Natsu‘s task, though, I will already move ahead and slowly start delving into script- and asset-related work for the fourth chapter:
May 28
Weekly Update #406: Almost Jurassic June!
It’s time to get hyped, because the most important month of the year is right around the corner! That’s right, only a couple more days until Jurassic June! And this time, we’ll actually have something special to celebrate the dinosaur month, since GENBA no Kizuna‘s third chapter is currently getting wrapped up, meaning that more than half of the game will finally be fully playable!
Pretty huge milestone, especially when you consider that last year around this time, only about half of the first chapter was fully done!
Natsu is still busy with the coding and, due to other obligations, will need a little bit longer to fully finish things up, but our plan is to release the third chapter to patrons for beta-testing some time within Jurassic June. I will also share a bunch of screenshots and maybe even some video footage during my own little testing phase, so even if you aren’t supporting us on Patreon, you will be able to see some glimpses of the game’s first “Confrontation Phase”!
May 21
Weekly Update #405: Chapter 3 Nearing Completion
Work on GENBA no Kizuna‘s third chapter continues and, as you can tell from today’s title, we’re nearing the finish line!
After sadly running into some issues with his music programs, causing a bit of a delay, Solo has literally just provided me with the two variants of our “heated case debate” music and, as always, his work is pretty amazing! Just gotta wait for him to do a final mix now and all the music for the chapter will be done! Meanwhile, Natsu has been very diligent in coding the middle part of the chapter, while I’m currently getting the script for the rest of it ready, so that I can send it over to her tomorrow evening, meaning that…
…by next weekend, the whole thing might finally be playable!
Of course, there’s still the testing phase left, so patrons will have to hold out a bit longer until the next demo upload, I’m afraid.
At least we’ll have something pretty neat to properly celebrate this year’s Jurassic June, though!
Speaking of which, I’ll be off from my day job for a lengthy period throughout June and I’m planning to get things started on chapter four as soon as I can. Which I can’t believe is finally about to happen! Last year around this time, the first chapter was still quite a few steps away from being completed… we’ve really increased our rate of tangible progress over the past twelve months, haha.
Anyway, there’s still quite a bit left to do, so I’m sorry that I’ll have to leave you with a rather short update again, but I’ll have more to say (as well as more time to do so) very soon! Until then, please enjoy the rest of your weekend and take care :3
May 14
Weekly Update #404: Chapter 3 Coding Progress
The coding phase for GENBA no Kizuna‘s third chapter is finally in full swing! Over this past week, Natsu has made the first third of it playable, meaning that, at long last, we now have some nifty evidence presentation sequences in the game as well!
In the meantime, I’ve been busy getting the next part of the script ready for coding, which I’m going to send over tomorrow evening.
That will leave one last part for the week after, so by the end of the month, the third chapter will hopefully be done!
Solo is also currently working on the next piece of music which will be used throughout the final part of the chapter’s debate.
He should finish it real soon, so if you’re a patron, you can look forward to another BGM upload within the coming week!
Other than that, there isn’t much else to report. I’ve been working on some fun art on the side, which I’m not ready to share anything of yet, but you’ll get to see it once June comes around (and if you know me well, you should already have an idea what that means).
Oh right, during my script revisions, I had to consult my trusty GENBA timeline a couple of times, so just for fun, I shared a little (heavily censored) glimpse at it over on my personal Twitter, so if you’re curious, you can check that out here.
Maybe I’ll unveil the whole thing some day after GENBA has been released, or simply add it to the SHINRAI timeline on this page.
Anyway, 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
