#game dev interviews

[felassan]

New interview video from TheGamer: 'Exclusive Interview with The Directors of Dragon Age: The Veilguard'

"Will there be returning characters? Will the light prevail against the darkness? Will our comic book and graphic novel knowledge of Dragon Age finally come into play?"

[source]

The video has some footage from the DA:TV booth at SDCC.

Info from this video:

More will be shown of the skill trees over time

"We have 700 new unique characters to talk to"

This may be the biggest game they've ever made

"Rivain, that more tropical feel. Something we've never really been able to do before in Dragon Age is, what does the coast of Rivain look like?"

Lots of love has been poured into how the areas look. They all look and feel different, but also coherent and consistent with the style of the game as a whole

The writers did a good job of finding the light in the darkness of this story

Just after timestamp 5 mins 0 secs, John says Emmrich's surname Volkarin aloud

Emmrich's character design is kind of like the more classical, Hollywood actor type

On returning characters, they're excited for people to see them, especially in the context of how 10 years have passed in-world since the last DA

Each choice in the game, especially the major ones, has significant consequences on gameplay, what content is available to you, and also how characters in the world regard you. "No choice should be easy, we never want to make players feel like there's a right choice. There's always going to be a consequence, some that you don't expect, and some that change the world in real ways"

On casting - Ashley: "Casting is a collaboration. The ensemble that the companions create was basically where we started. We put the character art on the wall, we saw the writing, we auditioned vastly and we assured that the cast was very dynamic and complimenting, and opposing, to each other. We spent a lot of time in getting those companions the juiciest they could possibly be"

The acting talent was cast across 5 years

[project-sekai-facts]

Pre-broadcast station commentary

The next Broadcast Station will be on the 29th, featuring Yukki, Yuichan, and Furirin! No VOCALOID Music SEKAI segment was announced, so it looks like the main stream will be starting half an hour earlier than usual. There is a reason for this, which we will get to.

Next month will be the Virtual Singer WLE! It will be held towards the end of the month, with chapters being 2 days long instead of 3 this time around.

There's room for one unit event next month, which is looking very likely to be Airi's 5th event. Due to its proximity to the vsinger WLE, the lineup will be entirely MCs. I reckon Shizuku for one of the other rateups, since she's behind on 4*s, and got spammed with lims last year so deserves some perm cards as a break. I reckon Minori could be the other 4*, since her only rateup on an Airi event was back in 2020.

This month's mixed lim event is likely to be either kamikou fes 2, or emu mixed 2. If it's the first one, I reckon the lineup could be Mizuki/Toya (maybe with An, Ena, or Rui as the other card), and serve as the 2-B mixed event. If it's Emu, Haruka/Nene seems like the most likely rateup. Next month's lim is hard to call, but will likely have a Rui lim unless he ends up on this month's event. If he isn't July or August, he's fes.

Now onto why the stream's starting earlier. I'm sure everyone has heard about the teaser for a new project already, and this is scheduled to be announced at 8pm JST, aka halfway through the stream. Given the heavy use of Miku in the promo, as well as this being retweeted by the official Miku account, it's pretty likely this will be vocaloid/piapro related. CFM has already said they'll be announcing vocaloid 20th anniversary stuff soon. PJDiva also turned 15 recently, and while that series is, let's be honest, dead, a PC/console game in the same vein but under the project sekai franchise wouldn't exactly surprise me? It's still a franchise beloved by many, so a rebrand of sorts wouldn't hurt.

A lot of people on twitter have been bringing up colopale's job listings, but imo it's not pointing to anything. Clpl has been vagueing about working on more mobile games for years, job listings confirm some sort of RPG, and there's some listing that suggest it could have a gacha. kinda like genshin? Based on images from their blog posts and job applications for a costume and armour designer, we're talking medieval-ish which. doesn't seem in-line with this teaser at all. though some of their job listings seem to be for multiple different projects, so i might be talking about two different games here. it's worth noting that colorful palette is not bound to CFM and Sega and they are free to work on their own projects outside of prsk, and very likely already are. feel free to laugh at me later if we do get miku rpg or miscellaneous other game that could be either a platformer or open world or something else entirely.

[yellow-yarrow]

I listened to the podcast that was linked here. quick summary cause i want to talk about it

as a fan of Elysium and NGE it was fun to hear Robert Kurvitz say that NGE is is first recommendation when asked what inspired disco elysium and what could give a similar experience to the viewer

he likes its reckless take on christianity, and its take on human souls

and how "colossal" it is

he imagines the world revolution to be like the Third impact in the End of evangelion ("forming a unified red ocean")

NGE and EoE inspired the apocalyptic pale side of the story and the larger setting

maybe this will help us understand the world of Elysium a tiny bit more? so that means the pale apocalypse isn't only referencing the bible but nge too. and the "reckless take on Christianity" is present with the St Miro apocalypse & the Perikarnassian churches. The comment about the world revolution makes me think of Nilsen saying "it was a loss of self [..] It ran through the world like happiness intoxication". I think the "God is in heaven and all is right in the world" is probably referencing nge too and not the original source of the quote

[daka-d3monb0y]

*SLAMS HAND ON TABLE*

I LOVE THIS MAN-

LOOK AT HIM! AHHHH!

How did I only recently hear about this game?!?!

HE'A COOL AND SCARY!!!

(Thing is he's basically Darkiplier- ;-;)

BUT YOOOO HE'S COOL!

Gotta love this completely Normal Guy

He doesn't fit my description of a void demon 1 to 1 at all...

(Seriously how is he literally 1-1 my exact definition of a void demon!? That's fascinating.)

Anyways have a nice day. :>

[bossuary]

[pickedpiper]

What in gods name does Toby Fox possess to summon Kikiyama out of whatever realm they were hiding in and ask for their Denny’s order

I both fear and admire this man to a ridiculous degree

[jessyabeb]

check out my interview with the fabulous @insertdisc5 about in stars and time and other things like life and culture and mental health and and and

[folkdevilism]

I'll always have a soft spot for Dishonored 2, but I still occasionally wonder what kind of game we could have gotten if it had been allowed to focus solely on Emily instead of trying to accommodate two playable main characters.

[lulu2992]

Sorry if this has been asked before, but I want to analyze the dates revolving around the project at eden's gate, I remember seeing one of your posts where you mentioned a note in game that says the cult arrived in hope county 9 years prior to 2018? I also vaguely remember something like that too, but... my search results have been entirely fruitless DX would you be able to direct me to where I can find that information/where it is because I forgor

Yes! The note in question is titled “Devoted’s letter” and can be found at the Sacred Skies Youth Camp :) It’s dated and mentions Eden’s Gate, so we know thanks to it that they had already arrived and established themselves in Hope County in August 2009.

[brightoakgame]

Spooktober Streaming + Dev Q&A

Hello again, dear friends! I'm still working my way through entries before assembling a comprehensive list of my personal favorite games from this year's jam, but if you're itching to get a taste of what is out there, my lovely partner MisterShins is streaming Spooktober Visual Novels every Wednesday this month, followed by interviews with each game's developers.

For reference, here's the VOD of his stream of Tell It Slant (interview starts at roughly the 3:19 mark):

Some of the other fantastic games he has streamed so far are:

Sunk (stream VOD here, with Incredulous Interactive dev interview at around the 2:18 mark)

A Witch is Getting Married (stream VOD here, with Featherboy and Eli Hersh interview at about the 1:26 mark)

Tonight (10/16) at 10pm Pacific, he will be streaming the monstrously stellar game The Stars Under Lockehurst, as well as the delicious, bite-sized Paddy Makes Breakfast. Each game will be followed with a dev interview, so please feel free to tune in and ask any questions you may have!

Happy Wednesday to you all, and I hope you're enjoying the spooky season!

B.

[reliquarian]

Mo have you seen the sphinx from the Dragon's Dogma 2 trailers?? Her design seems right up your alley tbh.

So, incidentally, i saw this concept art of a dragon's dogma online sphinx recently and thought she was beautiful!

BUT i havent seen the stills from the dragons dogma 2 trailer. She's so scary and beautiful, i love herrr. They really tilted hard into a more unnerving creature.

Dragon's Dogma is one that's always skated under my radar but this is some really fun art direction. Always love seeing what people do with sphinxes.

[felassan]

Article: 'Dragon Age: The Veilguard took "so long" as BioWare "wanted to make sure we got this one right" - that, and "it takes a long time to record 700 characters" and 140,000 lines'

The Veilguard is "the best version" of itself that it could be

Excerpt:

"BioWare reveals why Dragon Age: The Veilguard has been in the works for a long, long time - and it sounds like the upcoming RPG is downright massive, from dialogue to voice acting. The 10-year wait for a new Dragon Age is coming to a close as the fall season approaches, meaning that excitement for the game is at an all-time high. Why did The Veilguard take "so long" to come to fruition, though? Speaking in an interview with GamesRadar+, creative director John Epler and creative performance director Ashley Barlow explain why work on the beloved RPG series' soon-to-come entry was seemingly slower. "We had other projects going on at BioWare as well," Epler says. "We wanted to make sure we got this one right." The developer continues, calling The Veilguard "the best version" that the new Dragon Age "could possibly be." Barlow then chimes in, describing how she's been working on the game for five years now alongside its cast of actors: "We started casting five years ago. The team, the talent has been on for five years." And, according to Barlow, five years isn't that long considering the amount of work the cast had to do: "It takes a long time to record 700 characters, you know - 80,000 lines or 140,000 lines with all the Rooks. It just takes time to make good."

[source]

[arimiadev]

✨new article✨

In January I was able to talk to the lead developer of @gb-patch, the creators of Our Life, about their philosophy for designing such a highly customizable game & their wildly successful visual novel Kickstarter!

read it on my blog:

[foxdriftstudios]

We were interviewed!!👻👻👻

Shout out to All Ages of Geek for taking the time to interview my studio about Boba Monsters and my other projects. If you want to know more about the inspiration behind Boba Monsters, project goals, and even bubble tea recommendations from the dev, check out our interview here. I was also asked what my advice to other indie devs would be, so if you are interested in that from a dev perspective make sure to check it out.

[bfilm]

wow i can't wait to play my completely normal copy of muppets party cruise! :)

[spyres]

i just think it's funny to get mad at people for expressing any sort of sexuality over a game that literally says the term "sexual attraction" in its actual dialogue