So, first of all, in case you’re a patron and haven’t seen it yet, I have published a new Patreon post last Sunday, which delves a bit deeper into the topic of beta-testing! You also find instructions there as to how you can apply to become a beta-tester for the full version of GENBA no Kizuna! It’s still gonna be a bit longer, since Natsu and I have yet to thoroughly test the full game ourselves, but the beta-test phase is slowly drawing closer, so be sure to keep an eye out for more info to come very soon!
Jun 01
Weekly Update #513: Plans For Jurassic June
The most important month of the year has once again come around: Happy Jurassic June, everyone!!
This year, we’d really like to share some exciting news with you regarding our upcoming murder mystery project GENBA no Kizuna!
So, today, let’s talk about our plans for this special dino-centric month!
As you may have seen last week, I’ve already started my own beta-test run and our primary goal right now is to finally hand out the full version of the game to others for testing. In order for that to happen, however, I first still need to thoroughly test the second half of the game myself, which I’m doing my hardest to get around to very soon now.
This past week, I’ve been mainly busy with some more script adjustments to the finale and bad ends and also finally whipped up a game over screen which I only yesterday noticed we were still lacking, ahaha. It’s nothing too fancy, since I didnt want to stray too far from how we did it in SHINRAI, but I think it gets the job done:
(There may have been a tiny bit of inspiration from old-school “Tales of” game over screens w)
May 25
Weekly Update #512: Testing & Polish
As the title of this post already gave away, this past week, I’ve been primarily concerned with testing GENBA no Kizuna and refining it!
Basically, I’ve started to go through the entire game from the beginning again to check if everything is in order, both on a technical level and regarding the script. I also had a list of things to retroactively add, remove or change, which I’ve compiled while working on the last two chapters. You know, stuff like foreshadowing or hinting at a reveal that happens later in the game, or removing dialogue from the earlier chapters, because it made more sense for the topic to be discussed in the later ones.
May 18
Weekly Update #511: Another Quick Progress Update
So, last week, I mentioned a huge zip package I was preparing for Natsu and by now, she has essentially already taken care of coding everything that was inside of it! The gallery illustrations still need to be properly placed and there is some checking/testing to be done in order to ascertain whether everything works as it should, but that aside, GENBA no Kizuna‘s credits, ranking system and most of the extras are done now, too!
When it comes to said extras, I still need to do some more work on the three remaining bonus scenes, unfortunately, as I ran into some unexpected issues. However, I’ve at least made up for the delay with those by also tackling the Steam achievements and starting to do some play-testing. I think I will primarily focus on this latter task now, given that we really want to hand the game out to beta-testers ASAP and I can always show them the extra scenes later.
Things are thus progressing well, even though I would obviously love for everything to be done at a much faster pace “orz
With that in mind, I think I’ll get right back to testing… once I’ve shared some more art with you, of course! This time, I’ve got some more chibis once again drawn by one of my favorite artists and fellow VN dev Jun:
As always, they’ve turned out super cute!! Be sure to check out Jun‘s Ko-fi for commissions, her very own store for adorable anime and gaming merch and, most importantly, her VN project Neko no Sentouki! Personally, I’m very much looking forward to it!
Now, please enjoy the rest of your weekend and, until next Saturday, take care :3
May 11
Weekly Update #510: Quick Progress Update
Yep, it’s a shorter post today, given how late it already is and how busy I still am. Since Natsu has just finished coding everything from the previous zip package I gave her, I really want to send the next one over ASAP. Thankfully, that really only requires some more double-checking, but it’s a lot to go over, since it’s a huge package! It’ll contain everything for her to code the credits, ranking and extras. Well, at least most of the extras, because I still need to do some more work on a few of the bonus scenes.
But this will be the last package to really contain any new game assets! Everything I’ll have for her after this will really only be additions and changes to the script!
So yeah, we’ll soon be able to focus solely on testing, which I’m super excited for! And to get there as quickly as possible, it’s right back to work for me now! But not without first – you guessed it – leaving you with some cute art again:
Fefi has already drawn our entire investigation team in her cute “children’s book” art style before, which you can all find in our gallery!
It’s just so super adorable!! Please be sure to show her some love by checking out her linked IG profile!
Now then, as always, I wish you to enjoy the rest of your weekend and, until next Saturday, take care :3
May 04
Weekly Update #509: Extras & Plans For May
Last week, I primarily worked on the credits and results screen for GENBA no Kizuna, figuring out how to handle the Detective Ranking this time around. Ever since then, I’ve moved on to the game’s extras section!
Apr 27
Weekly Update #508: Detective Ranking
I’ve mostly wrapped up work on the credits for GENBA no Kizuna now. All that’s left to do in that regard is the Patreon section, as I’m still waiting for some of our patrons to tell me if and how they’d like to be credited. So, in the meantime, I’ve moved on to tackling the Results Screen of the game, which will show you how many Detective Points you’ve earned and what Detective Rank you have achieved upon conclusion of the investigation.
Apr 20
Weekly Update #507: Credits
As you can see from the title, this past week, I’ve been primarily working on the credits sequence for GENBA no Kizuna, so I figured we could delve into that topic a little more today. There are essentially two parts to the credits: the credits themselves and the “epilogue” scenes interspliced with them, just like it was the case in SHINRAI – Broken Beyond Despair or how you might know it from the Ace Attorney games.
Apr 13
Weekly Update #506: Quick Progress Update & Mystery Gamedev Website
Last week, I talked a bit more about the connection between SHINRAI – Broken Beyond Despair and GENBA no Kizuna and how, even though there is a chronological order to them, you can really play them in any order you wish. So, if you want to learn a bit more about that, be sure to check out the respective post linked above!
As for today, I’m just gonna leave you with another quick update, as I’m once again incredibly busy. My work on the credits, extras and bad ends for GENBA continues and I really wanna try to wrap it up soon, so that we can finally hand the game over to beta-testers. The biggest hurdle right now is overcoming my perfectionism, since I wanna keep tweaking various things a bit more… “orz
Anyway, I’m aiming to finally have the bad ends fully done by tomorrow evening, so maybe that might be a topic to delve into a bit more next week. But for now, I’ll just get back to work! Well, almost… I want to highlight something as you could already tell from the title: the newly updated website for our Mystery Gamedev Community! It’s still a work in progress, but now features a database containing mystery games (nearly 200) which you can search for by various means (keywords, release dates, demos etc.).
As of right now, only games available on Steam can be discovered, but itch games will eventually be added as well!
So, if you’re itching to delve into some mystery games, do check it out! And if you want to discuss said mystery games or learn more about how to make your own or even partake in a mystery game jam, head on over to the Mystery Gamedev Discord which is close to reaching the 300 member mark, so yeah… it’s grown quite a bit since it was established last year!
Now, with all that said, please enjoy the rest of your weekend and, until next Saturday, take care :3
Apr 06
Weekly Update #505: Which Order…?
I’ve talked about the differences and similarities between GENBA no Kizuna and SHINRAI – Broken Beyond Despair before, particularly when it comes to the feel of both projects, how we approached them or how the mysteries and characters are handled (which you can read all about here). However, I haven’t properly addressed yet how exactly the two projects tie into each other and how they are connected in terms of their plots. And since I’m currently working on the GENBA stuff that really highlights its connection to SHINRAI, I figured it’s a good time to finally tackle this topic and answer an important question:
In which order should you ideally play them?
