pkgamedev

[pkgamedev]

and now lets sum up the forces on the town side

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[pkgamedev]

How expensive is voice acting (assuming professional actors with experience)? What amount of budget goes towards it? If there is a way to determine that, of course. I realize it probably depends a lot on the project. I'm looking at SWTOR which seems to be really struggling to afford VO these days, opting for unvoiced dialogue and even replacements of the main cast. Is it really taking that much of its budget (which is probably on the lower end these days) or is there some other factor at play?

Voice acting has a lot of associated costs. Specifically, getting the voice acting requires us to pay for:

The voice actor's time

The recording studio time

The voice director's time

The developer time

These can add up - we pay union voice actors about $2000 per day each according to the current [SAG-AFTRA interactive media contract rates], and we spend at least that much for studio time. We also need to factor in the time the developers are away from the development studio and are at the recording studio because they aren't doing their normal tasks while taking care of this. It isn't uncommon for voice recording to cost over $10,000 per day, all things considered.

In addition to this, voice actors are often quite busy. They often have many roles already scheduled that they have committed to. This means that they might have only one or two days they can commit to recording, then be unavailable for months after that. In such cases, it means that we can't make any modifications or changes to the script after the recording is done because the voice actor isn't available to do those lines anymore. For example, take a look at [Aleks Le's IMDB page]. He did a lot of voicework for games like Persona 3 Reload, Street Fighter 6, Octopath Traveler 2, etc. I count 18 separate projects he recorded for in 2023 alone. If he's one of my voices, I probably wouldn't be able to get him back in the recording studio for several months since his schedule is so packed.

SWTOR is especially difficult to record for because player voice lines need to be recorded once for each character class. That means aligning eight different actors schedules before a hard deadline, and that can be extraordinarily difficult. Anyone who's tried to schedule events knows this - things happen, people change, agreements fall through, things get pushed back. As such, it's a small miracle they're able to keep putting out fresh voiced content like they do.

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[pkgamedev]

Visual Novels, Sprite Crops, and You

Ridiculously specific thing I'm thinking about (and this is in really broad strokes and will segue later) but something I've noticed is that English Visual Novels tend to have their character sprites cut off around the knees more than I usually see in Japanese VNs, where they'll cut off around the hips or waist (unless characters are supposed to be explicitly standing further away.)

(Screenshots from Hustle Cat, Dream Daddy, and Growing Up's Steam pages)

(Screenshots from Little Busters, Aokana, and White Album's Steam pages)

Obviously this is a huge oversimplification. I've seen lots of EVNs that have sprite crop at the hips or thighs and vice versa.

But I think there's interesting presentation benefits to both methods.

If you crop at the knees, you can see more of the character designs, and probably fit more characters onscreen without it feeling as cramped. That would be useful for third person games, where you'll probably have more than one character on-screen for most of the game, if you decide your main character should have their own sprite when they talk.

The hips method, on the other hand, could make the speaking character feel closer to the camera/an invisible first-person protagonist. I think that could promote a more "intimate" feeling, which could be desirable in romance games.

It also never hurts to experiment with visuals that zoom in and out on the sprites, with varying crops.

(Screenshots from Muv-Luv's VNDB page)

For example, I think Muv-Luv looks fantastic. It positions the characters on a sort of 3D plane, and I remember it having small camera pans. It's useful for immersion, even before it begins showing action sequences. I know it's taxing to direct, but I've always wished more VNs looked like Muv-Luv. It's also a game from 2003, which makes it doubly impressive.

I've heard minori titles like Supipara and eden*, or Type-Moon titles like Mahoutsukai no Yoru or the Tsukihime remake are also a cut above the rest in how "cinematic" they feel, but I have less familiarity with those games (although I'm planning to play them in the future). I'm also running low on space in the post to add many more pictures, and expressing the focus on "movement" in more cinematic VNs is difficult to do with still images.

I don't really have a point to end on, these are just some assorted visual novel thoughts.

[pkgamedev]

PEOPLE LIKE IT

"Cringe culture is dead' i whisper to myself as i await my fee3 video to get uploaded on wednesday

[pkgamedev]

"Cringe culture is dead' i whisper to myself as i await my fee3 video to get uploaded on wednesday

[pkgamedev]

I havent worked this hard on a game since Legend of Percivus. Its kinda nuts

[pkgamedev]

NEVER feel bad for doing jack shit. if you didn't get anything done today, that's wonderful. and I love you.

[pkgamedev]

If i didnt make symbolic Persona-inspired art for Cycle of Remorse for much longer, I was going to EXPLODE

[pkgamedev]

I feel so happy to get my creative juices flowing again god i love making games

[pkgamedev]

not me learning GB Studio for My First Game Jam when I should be taking a bit of a game dev break

[pkgamedev]

Me, making a blatant reference to said rpg maker game in CoR's trailer: h e h

Thinking about a certain rpg maker game and how it was a huge inspiration for Cycle of Remorse but I cant talk about it because if i mention it, i may inadvertently spoil a huge plot twist in CoR because it has a similar plot twist to said rpg maker game

[pkgamedev]

Yeah

Krista: “Oh no we’re all doomed by the narrative” maybe you are. I’m the narrative’s favorite.

Later...

Krista: Update: turns out this is not a good thing for me.

[pkgamedev]

Me: Cycle of Remorse has a serious plot, I swear

Me memeing on my characters 0.2 seconds later:

[pkgamedev]

yeah

Download Fire Emblem Cycle of Remorse btw. it good. not just saying that because I'm its developer-

[pkgamedev]

I love them, your honor

[pkgamedev]

what is your most controversial video game hot take? 🎮🎮🎮