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fuckyeahgoodomens · 9 months ago

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Michael Ralph, the Good Omens Production Designer, interview for Movieweb :), summer 2023

Question: What is your reaction to your fan's positivity?

Michael Ralph: It's unbelievable. To see your work reflected in the eyes of people that love it is incredibly complimentary and it feels on, you know, you're honoured by having that response .It's rare that you get to experience it. You know, I think that we were involved recently in a fans' view of the set where all the fans who'd been involved in a competition were able to walk around the set. It's extraordinary. And I got hugs and people in tears. And it is an overwhelming experience to stand in that street and be in that bookshop when you didn't think, even though you knew, but you didn't quite know it really existed as a place that you could walk around in is quite phenomenal.

Question: Do you see locations as extensions of characters?

Michael Ralph: My feeling is that we would all, if possible, choose to live where we believe and within an environment that we believe suits us, doesn't suit anyone else. It's a fingerprint thing. It's like, where are you most comfortable? Where are you most comfortable to read or to write or to watch a programme or where do you feel the most secure?That bookshop is an anchor point visually for the show and always has been an anchor point since day one. And it is where you feel most secure. It's where the door closed, you feel safe within it. And what emanates or resonates with that bookshop, not only from the character and the position or who Aziraphale is, is that everybody that walks into that bookshop feels the same thing. Everyone that walks in that bookshop, I've said it before, just want to live upstairs and drink red wine and read books all day and they feel comfortable and they feel nostalgic and it creates a sense of security and protection. And I think that if you can create that sort of sentimentality in something that you're walking around in, it must transcend the lens. And it obviously does because people feel it all the time and they want to go there and sit around in the corner and feel comfortable. So I think that from character point of view, I started really emotionally from Aziraphale. And Neil, whenever I've thought of a great idea that I tell Neil about and he tells me how amazing it might be or how fantastic or inspired it was, I suddenly start to realise it's probably in the book or it's probably in the script between the lines. What stimulates my apophenia, what stimulates my vision and my emotional motivation to design anything is what I can see in the page. So if he has written something so universally empathetic to an audience, then I'm seeing the same thing you are, in my variation, but it really is the same warp or the same sentimentality as I said, or any of those things. So if I can find how to get my fingernails under the edge of that, how I can actually depict it, then I know that it's going to work. And that's obviously... and you can believe in it then, and you can say it with all honesty, rather than impersonate your love for something or say something because your ego tells you you should, or produce something that's a duplicate of something you saw once in Italy. This is something you've got to feel that's specific to the project and specific to the written word, you know.

Question: Do you have the freedom to do what you want?

Michael Ralph: I must admit, reading the book the first time, it was difficult to get my head around how it was going to be depicted. You've got to be very careful that you don't impersonate what you've seen before, you don't copy and then call it original when it's not, because that's sort of like a cop out. You really, honestly have to live with it 24 hours a day, even while you're asleep, and search and search and search and search to find what it is that gets your fingernails under it, to find out what it is you really believe in. And it sounds so ethereal, but it's absolutely true. If you can get that, if you can openly find that, and you've got to feel that, if you can get that, then you're absolutely on something you can invest in and then something you can produce. Because then it's not something that's duplicated. All the furniture, literally all the furniture, all of the dressing on the walls, all of the bookshelves are all built but Bronwyn, a set decorator, will buy me a lot of brown furniture that she finds as really interesting furniture. Furniture that's got spindles and handcarved pieces and reliefs in it. And she gets me stuff that she believes goes with the character of the place. And then I'll break it open. This is what construction. I love working with construction with, because I'll break it open, cut it down, reattach it, and I'll remake wholewalls and bookshelves, like in the magic shop that none of it existed until we put together loads of stuff the set decorator found, that Bronwyn found. And then all that stuff ends up having a profile of the period, or echoes to you, little visual trip hazards of the period, of size and weight. But it isn't really anything you've ever seen before. It's not from a higher shop. It's not from a piece of furniture you bought, just plunk there. Because the camera sees things differently. And we have to lift all that up and make it bigger and larger in scale to punctuate the vision. So all of that is... there's all sorts of theories, I could go on forever, you know. I was saying to Bronwyn today that I think I've been working all my life on trying to raise my intellect, to be able to incorporate a vocabulary to explain what it is I do creatively. I'm not there yet.

Question: Is there something you'd like to explore in the future?

Michael Ralph: And it's funny you should say that, because that process, from what I've explained to you, doesn't originate with me. So you need to get that book or that source material, and someone has to say, you're the guide for this, I'd love to see what you see. And then it's like this massive submerge, you submerge into it. And then it's a journey, a journey that you embrace and it reveals things that I could guess maybe 15-20 things I'd like to do on Season Three, but it's not scripted. So what is that? You know, I've got imaginary things that I will adopt because I know that they've got weight or purpose that will work for Season Three. But I need to see what Neil shows me, you know, what Neil teaches and tells me, and then once I've seen that, I can run with it. He's such a wonderful appreciator of what you achieve. He's never questioned anything I've done, ever. And it's been hundreds of things, hundreds of sets and ideas. And no matter how crazy what it is, I might end up drawing the craziest things first. But he still loves them, you know. And it feels like it probably was there already between the lines. And all I've done is pick up on it. You got to really get into it to mime what it is that affects you and what moves you. What it is you love about something. You can watch a show and read a book and not love it. You don't know why you didn't love it, it's unequatable, but you just didn't connect. But what we're trying to do with everything we do cinematically is to connect, is to somehow get through the equation. So you feel it. And I got a feeling that's why Good Omens works so well. Because of the amount of love and emotion that people put into it and amount of faith people have in what they're doing, because it's only done out of joy and it's only done for the goodness of that wonderful story that is developed and matured, within it, between the characters. And because of that, you can do nothing but sprinkle magic on it all the time.

#good omens #gos2 #season 2 #interview #michael ralph #michael ralph interview #s2 interview #videos #video interview #transcripts #movieweb #bts #bronwyn franklin #aziraphale's bookshop #fun fact #neil gaiman

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starcurtain · 3 months ago

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I wish everyone collectively understood aventurine’s character like you…things would be so much easier! I genuinely don’t understand how people keep getting his motivations wrong??? Could it be because some of the most popular Aven fanfics were written prior to his release? That could have contributed to some of the takes we tend to see about him…thoughts?

I struggled all day to come up with a concise way to answer this and couldn't think of one, so here, have a long-winded ramble:

I don't think early fic writers have much impact in the situation with Aventurine's character now, since most people can look at when a story was posted and go "Oh, this was before we had ____ information."

I think that Aventurine's problem is being a male character in a gacha game. Gacha game characters are designed to sell. Hoyo can sell female characters very, very easily. Give her huge tits and a visible underwear strap and you're good to go. I love all my guy friends, but I'm not gonna sugarcoat it: straight men are not the hardest audience to please. Hit a particular fetish (feet, spandex, dommy mommy), and you're gucci.

Nah, we all know why Jade's trailer is Like That.™

Male characters in gacha are harder to sell because women as consumers are a little harder to predict. Does every woman want a tall, ripped hunk? Shit, no, small cute boyish models like Aventurine are selling better now? Why?! Would a bad boy be more popular than a nice guy??? It's harder to account for women's tastes, especially because they are often (a little) less visually-oriented.

Hoyo is good at what they do though, and they've figured out that male characters sell very well when they possess at least one of two specific traits:

Endearing vulnerability/helplessness

Gay ship tease

Give a character both, like Aventurine? They might as well be printing money.

That sound you hear is Hoyo's stock prices rising.

So, from the very beginning, Hoyo is incentivized to create a character that appeals to people, a character people will want to crack their wallets open for. And they achieved this, first and foremost, by giving Aventurine traits that female players (in particular, but men too), find especially appealing: emotional and physical vulnerability.

We see Aventurine's pain. We sympathize with his grief. We identify with his struggle to make meaning of his difficult life. He's our woobie, blorbo, babygirl, whatever the hell they're calling it now.

He can't hide his suffering anymore. He's on the very edge. He's a dude in distress. He's surrounded by enemies! He misses his mama! He's been betrayed! No one understands him like you do, dear player!

The ultimate feeling evoked is: He needs to be saved.

When people talk about male power fantasies, I think they forget that women can experience them too, and "Emotionally vulnerable man that only I (or my favorite character) can fix" is actually a female power fantasy.

And from there it's really easy, right: the people who shell out cash to buy warps for their harmed-husbando feel like they've saved him; the people who are into mlm ships look for the nearest hot dude to be the savior Ratio was waiting for his time lol.

Morally and intellectually, this type of deep-down-golden-hearted, emotionally-wounded male character is very easy to digest. There is nothing to dislike about this type of character or role in the story: this character is a good guy who has just gone through so many terrible situations, whose victim status makes him endearing, and whose lack of agency means that any of the questionable or downright bad things he does are always the result of someone else forcing his hand, and never something he would have chosen himself.

His motivations are always clear and consistent: get free, heal, and live happily ever after.

Insert the Wreck-It Ralph meme: "Do people assume all your problems got solved when a big strong man showed up?" But to be fair, a big strong man did kind of solve Aventurine's problem, so--

Anyway, it's simple. It's straightforward. Morally, it's pretty cut and dry, black and white: Aventurine is our hero, which means everyone dictating the course of his miserable life is evil.

Hoyo is not remotely discouraging people from literally buying into this emotional appeal.

And trust me, I get it. I'll be the first to admit that hurt-comfort is its own entire genre in fandom because it is so appealing. People eat up Aventurine's tragic backstory like candy! The idea of watching a character go through hell at the hands of bad guys just to finally find a happy end is like the definition of everyone's favorite story.

In fact... people love Aventurine's suffering so much, they have invented whole new ways for him to suffer that aren't even in the game.

This is where we get all the headcanons that Aventurine was a sex slave, every single person he meets hates him because of his race, the Stonehearts are executioners holding knives to his throat, Jade enslaved him to the IPC with a lifelong contract, his material possessions belong to the company, the IPC is forcing him to take only the most dangerous missions where he is being required by his evil jailers to continually put his life on the line... You name it and I promise you, I can find a fanfic where Aventurine suffers from it. 😂

Bro can't even sleep in on his day off; life is so hard for this man.

Being serious: if the game is telling us that Aventurine is a victim... Why not make him the perfect victim?

Why not envision an Aventurine with no freedom, who bears no responsibility for any of the horrible situations he is in or any of the dubious things he does?

It's so natural to like that version of Aventurine, so appealing to see a totally powerless underdog use his own wits and charms to claw his way up to freedom. Or, if you're the kind who really relishes angst: It's even appealing to see Aventurine lose more. To delight in fics where he loses his wealth, where the IPC punishes him for past crimes while he's powerless to stop them... (I assure you, this is many people's cup of tea and the fanfics prove it!)

Ultimately, there's nothing wrong with liking characters who are exactly this straightforward! It's completely fine to embrace characters that are intentionally written to be morally above-board, whose primary role in the story is to generate angst by being a good person who suffers, or those characters who never show unlikable traits, bad decisions, or contradictory actions.

The problem is that that's just not who the game is telling us Aventurine is.

Hoyo may be capitalizing off people who love to envision poor Aventurine still living his life as a slave... But the game also needs to tell a complicated enough story overall to appeal to people who don't care about this specific husbando--Aventurine's role in the actual game's plot has to be interesting enough for almost everyone to appreciate it, not just Aventurine's simp squad. (Don't get mad, I'm in the simp squad with you.)

So his character doesn't stop at just being a pure-hearted victim who is still waiting to be saved.

Aventurine is not that easy to label, and I think the biggest struggle in this character's fandom right now is between people who prefer the even-more-angsty, still-a-slave Aventurine versus people who want a morally grey, self-destructive character instead.

To me personally, while I greatly understand the appeal of fanon!Aventurine and the joy of a really juicy angst fic where characters lose it all, I think that missing out on the depth that canon is suggesting would be a real loss on the fandom's part.

The character motivations that Aventurine shows in the game are complicated. They cancel each other out. They're basically self-harm! He makes almost every situation he's in worse for himself--on purpose.

He is a good person, but also a person who has done unspeakable things. He does have morals, but he's not above allowing those who don't have them to use him to their advantage.

He's both the victim and the victor. He's his own worst enemy. He's a lost little boy who's been making terrible decisions for himself since he was like eight years old, and a grown ass man who is barely managing to fake his way through an existence that destiny is not letting him quit.

This kind of character is a lot harder to embrace. He's done things that most people would find appalling--like willingly joining up with the organization that let his entire race be massacred. He's invented a whole new peacock persona to frivolously flaunt riches he doesn't even care about (Poison Dart Frog Self-Defense 101). He actively plays into racist stereotypes about his people to manipulate others through their preconceived expectations. He's made a mockery of his mother's and sister's hopes and dreams by endlessly trying to throw his own life away.

He has flaws! He bet everything he had on a ploy without doing his homework to find out if the people he was risking his life for were even still around. (Maybe he already knew, and couldn't bear to admit it, even to himself.) He's intentionally off-putting and obnoxious to everyone he meets (Poison Dart Frog Self-Defense 102). He terrifies everyone who gets close to him by (seemingly) carelessly throwing himself into the jaws of death without the slightest provocation.

He knowingly allows the IPC to exploit his power and talents for profit. Did everyone forget that his role in the Strategic Investment Department is asset liquidation?! Like, his actual day-to-day job is ruining people's lives. Canonically, Aventurine kills people when his deals go bad.

His motivations change off-screen in two lines of story text. We're told in one line that his biggest reason for joining the IPC was to make money to save the Avgin, then in the next line we find out that's impossible. And... then what? What motivations does he even have now? The whole point of his character arc from 2.0-2.1 is that he was on the edge of giving in to utter despair and nihilism because he couldn't even perceive a single reason to stay alive. He has no purpose in life before Penacony, and that didn't start with the Stonehearts at all??

People keep saying Aventurine was held in the IPC by golden handcuffs, but how do you tie down someone for whom profit is meaningless? What can you offer to a man whose only desire is to bring back something already lost forever? How do you imprison someone whose only definition of freedom is, canonically, death?

Working for the Stonehearts is obviously not healthy. But that's why Aventurine was doing it--because taking dangerous missions allowed him to put himself at risk. The job that he originally pursued hoping to save his people became a direct means to self-harm, and the IPC's only real role in that was just happily profiting off the results.

The journal entries for Aventurine's quests are there deliberately to tell the player what is on his mind, and none of it has to do with escaping from his job:

Like... Work is the least of this man's problems.

At really the risk of rambling on too long now, he's also just a massive walking contradiction:

Aventurine is among the most explicitly religious characters in the game, yet he's one of the only people in the entire game that we have ever seen actively question his people's aeon.

You might be tempted to think Aventurine's risky gambles with his life as an adult are a result of giving up after finding out about the Avgin massacre... Butttt no, Hoyo makes sure to tell us that even at knee-high in the Sigonian desert, Kakavasha was already willing to risk himself in a fight to the death against monsters because even back then he found his own life to have less value than a single memento.

He's the "chosen one" who will lead his people to prosperity... except they're all dead.

He's explicitly suicidal... andddd also a pathstrider of Preservation.

He wants to die... He doesn't want to die. He wants to make it end, yet goes to staggering lengths to continually survive. (Every plan risks his life on purpose--but every plan's win condition is also to live.) He life is the chip tossed down, but his hand is trembling beneath the table. When faced with an otherwise unsurvivable situation, Aventurine literally became a winner of the Hunger Games. He beat other innocent people to death with his own chain-bound hands just to come out alive.

He knows the IPC failed the Avgin and left them to die... and he still willingly sought out a position of power in their organization. Maybe he really is after revenge... but maybe not.

He starts his journey in the IPC with a truly noble goal in mind: to help his people using his newfound wealth and power. He's a good guy who did genuinely want to save the Avgin and repay all those who helped him. But once it became clear he was too late, once it was obvious he would have no use at all for that monetary wealth and power he risked his life to get... What did he do with it? Unlike Jade, we don't see him over here donating to orphanages. (I'm not that heartless; I'm sure he does actually do a lot of good things with his money on the side, but the point is that the game does not show us that--it shows us, over and over again, Aventurine putting on a wasteful, over-indulgent persona toward wealth. We've supposed to feel how meaningless money is to him, how meaningless everything is becoming to him.)

He outright refuses to use underhanded tactics or to cheat at gambles, which is meant to show us that's he's more morally upright than his coworkers. There's an entire exchange where he says that he'll never stoop to using manipulation the way Opal does. But... he doesn't have any issue fulfilling Opal's exact agenda. He was never remotely morally conflicted about denying the Penaconians their freedom by dragging Penacony back under IPC control.

He's willing to risk his own life, which is one thing--but he's also willing to risk other people's well-being. Topaz accuses him of constantly egging their clients on into dangerous situations; we've actively seen him shove a gun into Ratio's hands and pull the trigger with no care for how Ratio would feel about that on their very first meeting... Dragging the Astral Express crew into the entire Penacony plan in the first place was exceedingly dangerous...

To me, I just think it's vital to understand his character through the lens of these contradictions because they demonstrate the extreme polarity of Aventurine's life: from rags to riches, from powerless to empowered by multiple aeons, from willing to kill to survive to killing himself... He has quite literally lived a life of "all or nothing," and while he is the victim of many terrible situations out of his control, his arc as a character involves facing the truth of himself and the future his own actions are hurtling him toward.

Frankly, the Aventurine that canon is suggesting is a little annoying. You want to grab him by the shoulders, shake him, and say "Why are you like this?!" And he won't even have an answer for you, because he doesn't even know why he's still alive.

In the end, to me, this is so, so much more interesting. I can read an endless supply of hurt-comfort fics where Aventurine escapes the evil IPC and Ratio is there to fill the void in his life with the power of love and catcakes and be a perfectly happy clam online, but I want canon to continue to serve us this incredible mess of a man who constantly takes one step forward and two steps back.

Who is fully aware of his role as a cog in the grotesque profit-wheel of cosmic capitalism and still manages to say he never changed from the rags-wearing desert rat of the Sigonian wastes.

Who over and over again flirts with nihility but, ultimately, even if he has to wrest it from the grip of the gods themselves with bloody, chain-bound hands, chooses life.

#honkai star rail #aventurine #aventurine meta #hsr meta #character analysis #listen I see you angsty fic writers who bully our favorite for maximum emotional gain #I am a ratiorine fan with the best of them #so I fully understand the appeal of the “I can fix him” fic #but like #there is so much else just waiting in the text of the game #that makes Aventurine such a rich complex and nuanced character #admitting that the IPC is the least of his issues makes him MORE interesting #not less #I promise #also like #getting so tired of reductive reads of my posts #just because I don't think Aventurine is a slave of the IPC #doesn't mean I think the IPC are good people #I'm not sure how many times I can say #'They're evil and are actively exploiting him for profit'#before people will stop saying I'm an IPC apologist lollll #I promise it is possible for Aventurine to have agency AND for the IPC to still be evil #those two statements can co-exist

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anniflamma · 7 months ago

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hi I actually love your ruthlessness animatic and its the reason I got into epic in the first place so id just like to ask how you design your characters?? your Poseidons design is really cool

Happy to know that my animatic introduced newcomers to EPIC! :D

So my process of designing a character always starts with trying to achieve a characterization that I want to highlight. From there, I gather references, references, and more references! I take inspiration from other media, arts, or photos. The way I came up with Poseidon is based on a headcanon of mine: that Poseidon is a representation of death and everything that Odysseus does not want to become, but ultimately, whether he realizes it or not, has already become.

The death motif is represented by the horse. It was inspired by, of course, the myth of Demeter and Poseidon, but it was also inspired by the novel "The Foretelling" by Alice Hoffman, where the main character is haunted by a black horse with red eyes. Not gonna spoil anything from it because it's genuinely a good book, but you can guess that the horse represents death. Then the idea of him having glowing eyes and teeth were inspired by all those creepy pictures from the Mandela Catalogue series, but I also saw pictures of horses showing their teeth, and that was scary enough for me to include.

So my first drawings of Poseidon were actually of his horse form. And I just loved the visual of a horse running on the waves!

When I started to create his human form, I had in mind to make him look like the horse and the human form were the same person. So at first, he had only black clothing, but I ended up changing it because I just knew that people would associate him more with Hades. So that's why he wears white instead.

I wanted to portray Poseidon as a father who has experienced pain and seeks revenge.

So he has tear streaks that show that he has recently been crying. His clothing is very loose and exposed, indicating that he didn't tend to himself before hunting Odysseus. He has black, silky hair due to his horse form having black, silky hair.

Something else that I also tend to do is not make an overly cluttered design. I'm not really into heavy detailing. I am much more keen on having details, but making them subtle and using shapes to tell a story.

And something that I really like about character design is to have characters designed to contrast with each other.

A good example is my designs of Hera and Zeus! Zeus is dressed in light clothing because he is the opposite of Hera, she is wearing heavy veiling. But I also really like to use shape languages. So Zeus has a large chest and the usage of clouds makes his upper body look big. So he will always look bigger than you. And Hera is the opposite again, her veil makes all the volume push down, and she looks small compared to Zeus, but she still takes up a lot of space with people beside her.

#asks #epic the musical #character design #poseidon #hera #zeus #long ish post

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teeth-cable · 8 months ago

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I need more people to talk about how just like the POC designs, the writing is terrible at clueing the audience what race and ethnicity the characters are.

Beside stereotypes, the racial coding in the writing is little to non-existence. The characters don’t have mannerisms from their cultures, speak in slangs or idioms relating to their group from their time periods, or make cultural references.

Without having to rely on outside sources (Livestreams, looking up VAs, leaked audition sheets, etc), the only characters I would successfully guess would be Vicky, Val, and Velvette, and even then, it doesn’t mean the racial coding is good.

Vicky is the only one from this list whose racial coding isn’t atrocious. I can tell she’s Latino because she curses in Spanish, but that’s it. This is admittedly nick-picky , but I wish when cursing she would have used Salvadoreño specific slang and curse phases to signal she’s Salvadoreña.

Val, I can tell is Latino too, because of his accent and him cursing in Spanish, but it’s egregious. The accent fluctuates so much, it’s strong, then weak, then strong again. Not sure if the VA was struggling or if this was an intentional direction given to him, though the fact, I and other people were confused, at the direction, speaks for itself. Another issue with his accent is how it’s sexualized, contributing to the Latin Lover stereotype of his character.

Velvette, I won’t sugarcoat it. I wouldn’t even guess she was supposed to be black though the writing or the majority of her designs until the finale. The finale, the last episode of the season and the only time she has textured hair with her screen time being around two minutes and sixteen seconds in total.

Visual designs isn’t where race coding ends. This is important to remember because it ignores the good coded characters (King Dice from Cuphead, Darwin from TAWG, the Funk trolls from Dreamwork’s Trolls) and how Viv failed and could have done the racial coding better.

For Viv, she has to rely on other coding methods too because there are characters who aren’t humanoid enough, or even humanoid at all, for visual coding to work. There really isn’t anything I can say to explain why the race coding sucks beside Viv doesn’t care about representing POCs.

I wanted to create this post to highlight how Viv fails at coding in every aspect. The fandoms and critics shouldn’t praised her for giving Velvette textured hair or darkening Sera’s skin from her leaked audition sheet. We need to stop praising creators, especially white ones, for doing less than the bare minimum (The bare minimum being making POC characters look POC) when creating POC characters, or worse, justify it. I’ve seen people tried to justify the terrible POC designs by using one of Carmilla’s daughters as an example, as if one decent POC design in a sea of ashy and euro-centric or erased features for the majority of the POC cast suddenly invalidates the criticisms.

I’m also getting tired of the fandom making posts questioning why people have and still draw the POC characters as white, as well as people harassing artists for accidental whitewashing. I’m hate the whitewashing too but in this case, it’s different because this is Viv’s own fault due to her poor racial coding. Not every fan will have the same intense knowledge you do or even should, to know what a character’s race or ethnicity is, that’s Viv’s responsibilities as the creator.

Mind you, these were the human designs we had before the show aired. Alastor being mixed creole and Niffty being Japanese yet they look white as hell here.

#꧁rambles꧂#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel critical #hazbin hotel criticism #hazbin critical #vivziepop critical #vivziepop criticism

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ranchstoryblog · 7 months ago

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Ranch Story Community Q&A Volume 3: Igusa Matsuyama Returns!

Igusa Matsuyama, the legendary artist behind the Story of Seasons series since the original 1996 game has once again agreed to a Q&A featuring questions from fans from around the world! A big thank you to all the members of the community who helped make this possible.

Some aspects of the text have been altered to match localization people are familiar with. (Japanese names to English names, for example: Bokujou Monogatari (牧場物語) was formerly localized as Harvest Moon and is now localized as Story of Seasons, etc). Images were not part of the original text and have been added as a visual aid. Though we translated as many questions as we could, we did not include questions involving personal information or regarding unannounced releases. Please understand.

If you would like to read our original correspondence (in Japanese), that will be provided in a separate post.

Additional cosplay photo provided by Foxface from our community Discord.

Translations: @artycharmy (correspondence, outline) Editing and Clean-up: Jerome, @artycharmy, and @regularcelery

——— Anonymous asks: What is the relationship between Jamie and the Harvest Goddess?

Igusa Matsuyama: Jamie was treated as a fairy or spirit. I'm sorry, but I'm not sure if there's any points that link them and the Goddess.

Editor's note: the term Matsuyama uses is "妖精."

Tomato asks: I would like to ask about what their inspiration was for the outfits designs in the original release of harvest moon another wonderful life. Since I got reminded of the girl clothing brand Mezzo Piano when looking at the I love Kuma/I love bears outfit.

Igusa Matsuyama: I remember the only thing I thought of was using Spring-like colours! (All designs were made with seasonal colours In mind) When I knew that Daachan, who was planned to be used in a lot of events, wouldn't actually play a big role in the game, I put him on the T-Shirt so he could at least get some attention as a mascot-like existence.

Pansy asks: If you were able to create your own game for the Story of Seasons franchise, with no rules or limitations whatsoever, what do you think it might look like?

Igusa Mastuyama: Since I love dogs, I'd like to try making a Story of Seasons that's set in a world just full of dogs. Though that dream of mine probably won't come true.

Anonymous asks: The look of Story of Seasons has changed a lot over the years! What would you say is more challenging to create - simple designs, where you have to work with very little space, or complicated designs, where you have to consider many little details?

Igusa Matsuyama: A long time ago there were a lot of things you weren't able to replicate in video games. There were constraints for things like the number of colours and patterns for hair styles and clothes. It was difficult to work around those constraints, but at the same time a lot of fun. Nowadays, it's the complete opposite. Now we can design anything with hardly any constraints. And unlike a long time ago, now I'm asked to make more complicated designs, like patterns and decorations. However, if it's a big request, sometimes I run into quite a lot of trouble when designing. They each have had their own difficulties.

Anonymous asks: Hello, Matsuyama! Thank you for bringing the worlds of Bokujou Monogatari to life for many years. Your art has had a huge influence on me!

One of my favorite candidates is “Rock” from “A Wonderful Life.” I’d love to know any particular influences for his character design from 21 years ago, and his new design for the remake.

Igusa Matsuyama: I was told that he was a young, wannabe playboy, so I somehow ended up with that sort of design. For the remake, I made his clothes a little looser without changing his design, so he'd look even more playful. I, too, wanted to avoid changing him as much as I could as there are other people among the staff that also like the original for his “Rockness”. So, he got that makeover after everybody shared and checked their opinions with each other.

Jerome asks: On page 130 of the "Special Comic" manga there's artwork of Super Famicom characters that have never been printed anywhere else. Do you or Marvelous still have these? It would be great to see them in more detail in the future some time.

Igusa Matsuyama: They're all characters that appeared in the SNES version of "Harvest Moon." Nina's parents, Ellen's mother, Ann's father, Maria's parents (The mayor couple). I'm sorry. My SNES illustrations have gone missing...

Raven Bloom, Ryan, and Moth ask: How did you feel when your designs for the men in A Wonderful Life were repurposed to be bachelors? What do you think of the changes made to the bachelors in the remake of A Wonderful Life? I miss the “Bruce Campbell” look Matthew used to have.

Igusa Matsuyama: Matthew (マシュー) is Masshu (マッシュ) in the Japanese A Wonderful Life (Editors note: Charmy made a careless mistake when translating the questions, sorry Matsuyama san 🫣) When I first heard this name, the first thing that came to mind was Evil Dead's protagonist, Ash. You're right. I designed him after Bruce Campbell. I still love Bruce Campbell today. When Wonderful Life was under production, I had heard they weren't going to make a girl version, so I designed him not as a love interest, but as a quirky character. Knowing that he'd appear in the remake as a marriage candidate, I redesigned him as a character that would be liked by many. I hope you can enjoy the game for its nostalgia, as well as for being a shiny, brand new release.

Salmon Axe and Anonymous ask: I personally adore Doraemon x SOS game. Are you interested in working directly with or collaborating with other franchises in the future? And is there a series outside Story of Seasons you would like to work with now as a guest artist? (Could it be Pokemon?)

Igusa Matsuyama: I've loved Doraemon manga since I was a kid! Working as a guest artist? Hmm, I'm happier being the main illustrator, so nothing in particular comes to mind. I enjoy a lot of games in my free time, such as Fallout, Far Cry and Border Lands.

Anonymous asks: Even though we never see his face, was there ever a concept of how Woofio would look without his costume?

Igusa Matsuyama: I designed Woofio as the being that is Woofio, so there's no design of him without his costume.

Idris asks: Your style has upgraded a lot over the time to match the trends. Do you think you will ever go for an old school look (early HM) for a SoS game again? What do you think is the secret to your art’s charm?

Igusa Matsuyama: What I'm particular about when designing for Story of Seasons is making characters with head/body proportions and an atmosphere that go well with that release. First, I listen to the client's request then think of a design according to that. These days, game visuals have gotten fancier and fancier, so there's not many opportunities for characters with short proportions to make an appearance. To me, what's important when designing is "playfulness." More so than "pretty" or "cool" and such, I get attached to the character, have fun making the character. I find joy in character creation itself.

MacGyver asks: Yasuhiro Wada has shared some interesting stories about how chaotic the original game's development was. Is there anything interesting you remember from around that time?

Igusa Matsuyama: Now it's a memory I can look back on and laugh about, but I'm not sure how much I can talk about it so please forgive me. If Wada hadn't been there back then, then "Harvest Moon" wouldn't have become a thing.

Toyberb and Anonymous ask: There’s a lot of different cow designs now, which is your favorite to draw?

Igusa Matsuyama: I've loved drawing animals since I was a kid, so I love all of the cows. Although the easiest one to draw is the cow with the big nose.

Anonymous asks: Were there any games where you made designs for protagonists of genders that did not end up available to play as? (Like a girl protagonist for Save the Homeland/Hero of Leaf Valley or a nonbinary protagonist for any game before A Wonderful Life)

Igusa Matsuyama: There's so many designs that got scrapped, but as far as I recall, there's not really many where that character's setting itself was scrapped. (Excluding Thumbelina, mentioned below)

Koharu asks: Were there ever any character designs made for other older SNES characters like Ellen for 64? Some magazines had Marie with blue hair, like the SNES character, so it made me wonder if she (SNES Maria) was meant to also be there at some point.

Igusa Matsuyama: I'm not in the position to make settings or scenarios where characters from other games appear, so I can't say, but I like the idea of older characters making an appearance!

Amina/k0iisu asks: Hello! I really love Hiro’s design specifically. Could you tell me a few facts about him/his design that might not be well known information? Thank you so much! I love your art :D

Igusa Matsuyama: Thank you very much! Hiro is a future doctor, so I tried to make them look as much like a doctor as I could. Also, to make him look friendlier, I designed him as your average everyday boy you'd see in the neighbourhood. He doesn't have a flashy face or hairstyle, but he's one of my favourite designs, too. I wrote this in the guidebook too, but what I like about him is the Asian flair I added to his clothes and the spot of colour around his feet.

Bunbun asks: I'm excited for the Nendoroid that was announced of Claire! I hope there will be ones of HM64 designs too. Since you have a lot of figures on your blog, how does it feel to be able to add one of your own characters to your collection? Are there any of your other characters you hope will get figures of?

Igusa Matsuyama: A nendoroid of Claire! I'm looking forward to it too, but when is it going to be released? If it's possible, I'd like one of Woofio.

Editor's note: Preorders are open for Nendoroid Claire now!

Chickee asks: A purple-haired princess character was rumored to have existed in Harvest Moon 64, but she didn't make it to the published game. Did you create a design for this character?

Igusa Matsuyama: That's probably Princess Thumbelina. Wasn't she Incredibly small? What I designed didn't end up being used. Speaking of HM64 characters, I pushed for them to include a pet turtle, but in the end it only appeared as an ornament. For A Wonderful Life, I asked for a turtle to be included again and designed a tortoise with a scarf, but it didn't make it as a pet and appeared only as a wild turtle that walks around the pond. I'm waiting for the day they finally include a pet turtle in the game.

emery flower147 asks: omg I saw the pics where the AWL girls are in a team and Muffy has a shotgun and stuff? Do you think any other characters would work in a cool team like that?

Igusa Matsuyama: For the Friends of Mineral Town guide book, I had the five girls, Popuri, Marie, Ran, Elly and Karen work hard as Harvest Sprites. Also, for the guide books, I drew Pete (The old male protagonist), Sarah (The GB version female protagonist), and Claire doing whatever I wanted them to. I don't know if you can call it cool or not, but it was fun being in charge of that.

Ixur asks: A lot of the PoOT character designs for the regular villagers seem more popular than the marriage candidates in my region. Is that something that's been noticed by you/Marvelous in Japan? Lars, Clemens, Beth, and Misaki for example.

Igusa Matsuyama: Marvelous doesn't really talk about that sort of thing so I'm not sure if they're aware of it or not. I don't do social media so I'm also not sure which characters are popular. I'm happy as long as the characters are liked. The design on Lars’s shirt is modeled after my beloved dog, so I’d be especially happy if you like his shirt too.

Anonymous asks: What do you think about people cosplaying your designs?

Igusa Matsuyama: It makes me very happy! I'm no good at sewing, so I really admire people who can make their own clothes. It's an honour having the designs I made be made into real clothes, and I think it's great to have fun acting out the characters.

Afro Fae asks: When creating designs for characters, how do you settle on a specific color palette? Do you take color meanings into account with a character's personality or do you go purely off of feeling?

Igusa Matsuyama: I keep in mind the overall colours the client asked for while designing. Sometimes I propose a new colour when I think there's one that fits better. I'm also careful when choosing colours and everyone's traits to make sure it's easy to tell which character is which when seen from a distance. However, in the cases of families and such, I do the opposite and give them all a common colour to give them a sense of kinship.

———

From all of us at Ranch Story, we'd like to thank Matsuyama from the bottom of our hearts for answering our questions again! Whether a fan has only just discovered the series or has grown up alongside it, so many people have loved these characters and worlds that Igusa Matsuyama brings to life, so it feels truly special to be able to have this opportunity. We'll end this article with Matsuyama's own words, as well as a parting gift.

Igusa Matsuyama: I'm so glad I could answer your questions again. I'm the one that should be saying thank you. It means the world to me knowing that everyone enjoys my illustrations! I added an illustration as thanks. I'll keep up the hard work!

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ohnoitstbskyen · 4 months ago

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All of your essays are really well structured and keep me engaged. You come up with such amazing ideas and connections, and convey them exceedingly well, and I think it's really cool. What's your process for when you write?

That's very kind of you to say, thank you!

Honestly, my structuring is nothing special, and it's not very complex or advanced.

I will usually start from having something on my mind that I wish to express, and then I try to figure out: in order to express my thoughts convincingly (and make a good, watchable video), which arguments do I need to make and what examples do I need to give?

So like, this is the structure of the script for my video about Captain Kuro's character design in One Piece:

The thing I want to express is that his glasses are a very well-used piece of character design, and I like how they convey some thematic things about his character and some central ideas in the storyline for which he is the villain.

I believe his glasses visually represent his perspective, his way of seeing the world, and so, when Luffy defeats him and shatters his glasses, he is not only defeating Kuro but repudiating his entire worldview. That's the conclusion.

In order to make that argument, and make a good video, what do I need to have in the video? Well, a recap of the arc that Kuro appears in is probably necessary, so everyone watching the video is on the same page as to what happens.

In order to demonstrate what Kuro's worldview IS, I probably need to discuss his behaviour towards other people in more detail, so let's focus in on 1) his primary victim (Kaya) and 2) his primary opponent in the narrative (Usopp) to illuminate some of his thematic positions in the story.

Then, finally, I need to do a close examination of how his glasses are used visually, preferably with some comparisons to other character in One Piece whose design seems to function in a similar way ,to prove that this isn't just me overinterpreting a coincidence but a deliberate decision and technique used by the author for a purpose. That's the "Captain Kuro's Glasses" section.

With all of that leg-work out of the way, I can say the thing I actually want to say, and hopefully by that point I have convinced people to listen and be interested in hearing it.

So, again, it's really nothing special - it's the kind of essay structuring you probably learned in high school. It's very basic, but it's effective for me and helps me keep my ADHD in line by defining boundaries for what each part of the video needs to be about. I find that without the boundaries of a chapter with a central theme, I tend to go off in every direction, creating a million tangents that just don't serve the conclusion.

Chapters have the extra benefit of also being useful for YouTube videos - it creates natural breakpoints for the audience, stopping points where they can leave a video and come back to it, and natural places to put timestamps, or insert ad-reads or Patreon plugs, or even YouTube ads, without disrupting the flow of the video too severely.

But yeah it's really just "I WANT TO SAY [X]!!!" and then I work backwards to figure out what and how much I need to add onto that to make [X] worth listening to.

#tb answers #video essay #writing

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cabi-leodrann · 1 month ago

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Cabi! Big fan Joffrey here!

I wanted to ask, every time I see your art not only am I stunned by the quality, but also by the sheer uniqueness in style and character design. I've never seen a lamb designed quite like yours, it's so perfectly yours. What went into the inspiration behind the characters design, especially facially? Did you try and mimick a real lamb, or was there a more fantasy-element that you veered toward?

I can't specifically put my finger on it, but it gives me vague Warframe vibes. It's such a beautifully odd design and I can't get enough.

Love your work, love everything you do, can't wait to see what's next!

Hope you're well, stay safe, take care!

First of all, your ask is one of the biggest compliments I ever had in my life, I will keep it forever. You're an absolute chad! Second of all, those are very interesting questions, and I will be very happy to answer to them!

It started more or less with this drawing I made *look at the date* 2 years ago apparently. Way before I even thought of an AU- I didn't had much in mind, beside doing something that looked cool tbh.

I was very happy with the flow of it, and how it came out. And when I drew the Lamb again, I would try to nail THIS design.

The thing is, with time, I had a really big problem: Lamb looked way too young when I thought of them more as an adult. I had too much of the original game design guiding me, making a Lamb that was too cute and childlike for what I wanted. (And also, the head did not go well with the rest of the body holy shi-)

Came those drawings! I was happier with the look, Lamb was older! And I found the colored design quit nice! (I used a sheep picture as reference, but I don't think I used it well, compared to now. I used the reference for details, when I should have gone for overall shape first.) I still wanted something simpler to draw tho. The colored design was nice for an illustration, a one time gig, but I got pretty annoyed pretty fast at trying to nail the face every time. And from those attempt, you get the sketches on the right. (I also wanted to get away from other artiste's interpretation of Lamb, and at the time of those drawing, I didn't felt like I was away enough)

From those previous sketches, the idea for THaB started to emerge. I also still had problem with Lamb's design. Especially the hair. I was inspired by black hair, which is usually not a problem, but I was never happy with how it looked on Lamb specifically. I can draw black hair, I can draw black characters, but this mother-fucker would never feel satisfying to draw or finish 👀

And one day, as THaB was solidifying in my mind, I made a series of sketches that I posted! And one of them was the most important in Lamb's final design. This lil guy! (this design didn't came out of nowhere tho, Lamb was evolving into this as I kept trying. But I wont show those sketches, because those are spoilers =3)

And soon after, I made a comic that was supposed to only be a one shot, just a POV of Lamb and there reaction to Nari' telling them to die for him. But you know, things got out of hand lol

As I continued the comic and doodles on the side, I finally made myself a reference board, with real life images that were close to the vibe of this head drawing. (And I cannot stress enough how those references solidified Lamb's design as a whole. Draw with references, it is life changing. The more reference you get, the more your visual library will get diverse, and the more interesting detail and shape you will add to your art in general.) (I'd also add this: understand what you are drawing, make research and stay curious for every bit of info on everything. You never know when these nuggets of knowledge will help you as you create)

As I kept drawing the Lamb, they evolved! Things changed, slowly, like the shape of the nose, the shape of the eyes, how the hair flowed. You see those change at the face, but also on the body! As the idea of THaB's Lamb got clearer, the design got more specific. (I also got better at drawing! This comic make me draw way more often then before, and it shows)

Something before I finish: the other Cult of the Lamb character's design are way more inspired by their animals, when Lamb is more in the human spectrum. I thought of changing Lamb at some point, to make it fair/coherent, but I loved the design too much to change it again. This AU is something I do for fun, and even if it would have been more logical to change them... I don't want to-

As for the vague Warframe vibes: I play the game! And I found the character design absolutely stunning. So I am definitely influenced by the game without knowing it lol

Thank you very much, again, for your kind words! I also wish you the best, and see you next post =D

TL;DR: Lamb design, at first, wasn't inspired by much, beside the game and my style at the time. But as I retried to make them, added more intent, they got more refined. What really nailed the idea was to have real life references on the side.

#cabi ask #long post #cotl lamb #this took a lot of time to write holy shit #but it made me take a look at older drawing and made me realise how much I got better in 2 years #so it was worth it #and again Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you

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deerspherestudios · 2 years ago

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Hi! I played your game and really, really like it, I am a huge fan of slow burn - combined with Yandere too? That's kinda rare nowadays, haha. Thanks for making it and creating Mychael, I love his design. Two questions: How many days are planned to be playable in the full release?

And

Since in just one day Mychael feels very friendly towards us (according to a post you made with where his feelings are based on a meter) does that mean he's very clingy??? Like, in just one day he feels like our friend. What little effort and words will it take for him to go from crush, to love, to whatever yandere thing he might be??? Like, is he okay??? Should I be worried???

This guy? Clingy? Nahhh. Nothing to worry about, anon :-) ��❤️

As for the game, long (!!!) answer below cut: might be spoiler-y might be not.

For context, here's the post mentioned above.

I'm still not sure how many days it will be, but it's definitely ranging between 4-5 days. Granted it'll be a while before the game is finished finished but I think progress will pick up as I complete assets that will be reused. I'm writing Days 2, 3 and 4 simultaneously (anyone who writes can probably relate to wanting a specific thing to happen in the story but dread writing up to it, so I skip around in order to keep my motivation and interest up)

As for relationship progression, slow burn usually means a long time passes before anything develops. But this is a VN and I'm a solo part-time dev so the scope still has to be small 😔 That said!

Mychael, as a person, is quite solitary in nature; he likes being alone and you'll find out why. He does however desire company and he's only realized just how pleasant having someone around can be (hence his reaction for the Bad Endings in Day 1 if you wish to leave/run away)

Although I'm not a fan of the 'you do one (1) nice thing any decent person would do and yandere is already head-over-heels for you' trope, I do have to make use of it but, drip-feed style? You grow closer to Mychael as you hang out with him and do little things that he appreciates. (Honestly I just realized I'm describing the typical visual novel experience just without the yandere beginning-- go! figure!!! /lh)

Example: the first thing that boosts you to immediate friend status is your willingness to accept his physical looks, something that's never happened to him before. (I know my artstyle makes him a yassified pretty boy but imagine genuinely meeting a sentient creature in real life with patchy green skin, a dextrous tail and four blinking pitch black eyes, I think I'd freak too haha) Little things like that mean a lot to him and motivates him to prolong your stay.

In a way, the MC is written to be more kinder and open-minded (at least outside of Bad Ends) than the sweet/sour personalities that come in a VN, so (for narrative AND coding purposes) I can't really diversify it much. I hope that's okay ¯\_(; v ; )_/¯ If Mychael met a more grouchy/mean MC on Day 1 he'd probably not be as attached. He'd just save you, feed you and send you home when you ask hahaha. Of course this will change as he gets to know you better, at that stage he'll be willing to overlook your flaws like any upstanding yandere

Phew this was a lot to dump in an ask but I did wanna explain my vision for the game! I enjoy yandere VNs as an escape fantasy, but it's common they start out with the yan already being invested in you or fall for you too fast!!! if that makes sense. I'm interested in yanderes in the aspect of how love (romantic or otherwise) starts from innocent affection and spirals into dark obsession!!! It's also compelling as to why a character is so devoted to someone, in this situation the MC, and I wanna write the kind of person Mychael would fall for. And personally 'love-at-first-sight' as a reason just doesn't do it for me 💔

(Disclaimer!!! I'm not saying my game is any more original or better than the other wonderful yan VNs in the works, but hopefully with Mychael as a character I can deliver that 'slow-burn-and-yearn' storyline I'd like it to be. As my itchio profile says: I make games I thirst for in secret but are sadly lacking around the internet 💔 )

Thank you for the ask!! :-D

#mushroom oasis vn #mychael ask #doodles #cheea chatter #q

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dearunreliablenarrator · 3 months ago

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I'm here, queer, and highly likely to disappear*; but here's a very unreliable introduction to this narrator.

Hi, I'm Saturn (for now at least, i think.)

I'm a black 20-something year old writer with a imagination that happens to be active at the wrong times. When I'm not writing, you'll find me struggling through classes and holding my cats in air jail for chewing on my clothes. and you probably thought a college dorm dryer was bad...

I often use music as a progression for my writing, using it to build the personality and lifes of my characters, cause I think you can tell a lot about a person with the type of music they listen to. This goes the same for food, whether they're cooking (or lack thereof), eating (which there'll a lot of and not just food), just for the sake of storytelling. Cause food can tell a story too!

You'll also see the use of Sims4 in these posts, there's nothing better to me than to be able to build my world from the ground up even if it is tedious. I often burnout myself out between both writing and building so its nice to be able to switch between the two! here's a small character visual as a start!

it's also nice to watch my characters evolve real time, they tend to outgrow some things faster than i can keep up.

As a current researching and scrappy practitioner, you will see hints of practical magic(k)/workings/information in my works. Influences from traditionally african american practices will be underlying themes in this world of mine; within my scope of course. How my characters navigate through a world that is both mundane and spiritual is something they'll have to overcome in all aspects; and how they affect future lives and timelines is all hanging on the fading tradition of storytelling.

follow, share, and embrace their stories; because there's only one way to keep them alive.

as for what i write or rather my niche: the unreliable multiverse

genres: (comp) (hist) (queer) romance, urban/southern horror, urban fantasy, and apocalyptic sci-fic.

topics/tropes: religious deconstruction, religious trauma, witchcraft (mundane, practical, scrappy, cultural, A(A)TRs.) anti-racism/racism,politics, social structure,found family, star-crossed lovers, childhood friends to lovers, ancestral/familial secrets, morally-grey protagonists,coming of age, the anti-christ, HEA, small town horror, mental illness/disorders, philosophy.

for some these topics may be a lot, and while i want my writing to be a source of escapism...fiction will always be influenced by reality, and that is something that will be in my writing (just not to the extremes), expect CW and TWs but they will not always be there.

CURRENT WIPs: the big three

Where The River Bends:

Bored of modern romance and her own life, Elaine Brown suffers from being a daydreaming, skeptical, hopeless romantic. In a plead to the Universe to grace her with a new addition to her routine, she finds herself stumbling into spell unlike her very own. Warren Soo has be dreaming of a life where days can feel like a breath of fresh air. When a random chance driven by his choices puts him in the space of unsuspecting Elaine, he can't help but be bewitched by the ease in which her days go by. Together, they navigate the modern world of romance with just the sprinkle of magic.

theme song

tag: #goddamnitsamson

Aletheia:

Sanctum, place of human design created to preserve those who survived the last of nature's destruction. When humanity was suddenly reckoned with the damage of over creation they are forced to pick between two things.

Stay or leave.

For those that had the ability to leave, Sanctum embraced them with open arms; promising a generational haven within their walls. Here, the people are communities; removed from the worries of past plagues and mortal insecurities. But all peace must follow order.

Questioning the world she's grown in , Emilia Porter has wanted to escape the stone boundary of Sanctum. Taking a chance to explore the land beyond, she registers for the Vanguard; the exploration and task forces that protect and serve the lasting stand of humanity.

Now away from the containing hands of those who seek perfection, she must weigh the truths; both tailored and unwritten.

theme song

tag: #findthetruthyouseek

Cherries Under The Sun:

A southern gothic horror that follows Grace Davis even in her dreams. Stuck in a constant cycle of despair, Grace often finds herself living in a loop of a forgotton past, wondering about the should've, would've, and could haves of her life. When her small college town of Marietta is shaken by a rise in missing cases, her hollow world soon becomes a flash of white papers and bloody lines. Now that her daily life of being ignored comes to halt and the lives of those around her are blurring together, they must now find a way to get their world back to normal. Before it is erased altogether.

theme song; intro; taglist

tag: #howsweettheesound

I don't know what else to put here, but that my characters are much like myself. Weird, witchy, creepy, romantic, sensitive,sarcastic, inquisitive (that's a big word for elmo), and a range of clumsy that only a handful of people can enjoy sooo...

IF you've found me or my wips to be interesting, please feel free to follow, ask a question or comment. Thanks for reading all this and from reader to another, create the book you've always wanted to see. Edison out!

i also don't really know how taglist work but if you wanna here's where to keep up! #theunreliableverse

1.* psst...you can find me and (to be)published works here!

#writeblr #intro post #writeblr intro #female writers #black writblr #black writers #writerscommunity #theunreliableverse #thisshitwastoolong

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foxglovegames · 4 months ago

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Trouble Comes Twice - the Postmortem

We celebrated Trouble Comes Twice's anniversary around a month ago! We'd hoped to post this postmortem back then as well, but it's taken us a moment to find the right words haha.

Anyway, we hope that this postmortem can give our players and other visual novel devs some insight into what the development process looked like for us. It's also a great way for us to look back at what went well and what went less well.

We'll be taking about the ideation phase, our (lack of) marketing for the Kickstarter, and also sharing (what we can) on our earnings from the game!

Coming up with Trouble Comes Twice

The original tone of Trouble Comes Twice was a lot more comedic and packed to the brim with anime tropes we enjoy. Most didn't make it into the final game, but some stayed and evolved e.g. all of the love interests are based on popular visual novel archetypes - the childhood friend, the tomboy, the shy girl, and the bad boy.

Some, like Cameron and Zoe, changed a lot from their concept while Adrian and Stephanie stayed quite loyal to our original ideas of them. Cameron's character actually underwent the most changes after the initial reception to the demo, where a lot of people felt like he was too much of an ass haha. (Fortunately, he became a fan favorite when we dropped the new demo!)

The premise with the bet was something we invented to create some drama and establish a common plot thread throughout each route. Honestly, looking back, we would probably have approached the bet differently if we wrote it today and a lot of our pre-planning was... clumsy, at best. Still, it was a labor of love and I'll never forget the fun and excitement we had everyday balling ideas for the characters and coming up with their designs.

As Melli and I are just writers with limited coding experience, we worked with a past game jam friend to code the GUI and set up the base for the game (though the actual scripting was done by us and Melli put everything together in the end). Our biggest expenses pre- and post-demo was the character art and CGs, meanwhile we relied on free music and BG packs to save money.

Why a bisexual romcom?

So, this was sort of a no-brainer to us. We had decided right from the start that both twins could date both the male and female love interests, and (at the time) we feel that a lot of similar games had playersexual MCs rather than established bisexual/pansexual MCs. While playersexual charas are also awesome, we wanted to write a romcom where the main cast are always queer regardless of who you end up romancing.

At the same time, bi/pan people don't all approach romantic relationships the same way e.g. Cameron is confident and has experience dating people of all genders, while Adrian's demi and Jace still struggles a bit with his attraction towards men. We know that some of our players felt like that made certain routes less romantic than others and we hear you on that feedback and have 100% taken it into consideration for our future romance games. But anyway, that was our thought process behind Trouble Comes Twice's romance dynamics!

Preparing for Kickstarter & the actual Campaign

Our Kickstarter launched at the start of August and let me tell you, we were nowhere near as prepared as we should have been. 😭 We hadn't set up a Steam page yet, we were trailer-less, and we only had a couple of hundred followers across our socials at best. I feel that there's a lot more successful Kickstarter projects to refer to and even a lot of marketing guides and advice now, but mostly it's on us for not researching more.

The Kickstarter campaign did surprisingly well despite the lack of promotion and only having a rough alpha demo - we were even able to double our goal! - but we wouldn't recommend what we did for other devs.

You should invest time into making a good demo, spend time building an interested audience before launching your campaign, and research so you've got some kind of marketing plan. We were lucky with word-of-mouth and that other visual novel devs with larger followings helped share our game, but we should have made more effort reaching out to bloggers, streamers, and game sites. Some crowdfunding successes may seem like they came out of nowhere and were just pure luck, but there's usually a lot of grinding behind-the-scenes that you don't notice.

The post-Kickstarter era, at least for us, was the harder bit. We now had 353 loyal backers who had expectations based on promises we had made and we had to make sure we met those expectations while also staying true to our wants as the devs. It was a learning process for sure, but we're fairly proud that we always did our best to keep our backers in the loop. It's frustrating to write an update explaining that the game has been delayed again, but backers are more open to being understanding than you think as long as you communicate!

A tip we'd give to new devs considering Kickstarter: Don't overestimate what you can do, but overestimate what you need. There's always hidden costs, unexpected taxes/fees, and other unknown obstacles that might eat up your budget. In our case, we made enough to make the game as planned, but had to change CG artists around halfway through development which meant our original budget didn't cut it anymore. Fortunately, we had earned a decent amount from our Patreon and pre-orders that we were able to use to complete the CGs, but that isn't always going to be an option for everyone and that also meant we were unable to use that money ourselves. (We didn't take any money from the original Kickstarter campaign, so whatever was earned through patreon and pre-sales was our only "salary" at the time.)

Writing the game

Writing is, for obvious reasons, one of the most important parts of a visual novel. Melli wrote Jace's routes and I wrote Hazel's routes, which removed some pressure off our shoulders compared to trying to write over 300,000 words all on our own.

It's fun working with another writer, but there are also some unique issues and considerations that come up when you're writing a game with two protagonists split between two writers. Especially because at the time, there weren't many visual novels with a similar set up to refer to.

The main things we learned, were:

Consistency. We wanted each couple to have their own dynamic, but the characterization needs to remain consistent between routes. You don't want Adrian in Jace's route to feel like a totally different character in Hazel's route. Additionally, we had to be careful that the tone and writing style of the protagonists' POVs still felt like you were playing the same game. Some routes can be more comedic than others, but we've got a problem if Hazel's routes are all (unintentionally) more serious/angsty in tone than Jace's or vice versa.

Watch out for your word count! Longer does not always equal better and writing eight routes, we had to put some restrictions in place. Even when writing on your own, it can be tough to guess how long your story should be, and it was important to us that the routes were roughly the same length so that none felt more "canon" than the other. However, with two writers who have different writing styles and ways of planning, it was tricky to compare our outlines and we struggled at times when it came to matching each other's word counts. Moving forward, we're probably going to be more lenient when it comes to word counts - some routes have to be longer than others, it doesn't mean that route is automatically more "important". We're also doing more regular meetings and frequent check-ins to make sure we're on the same page. In the future, we hope that should save us a lot of trouble when it comes to pacing! 🙈

Balancing your own wants with the wants of your players. In theory, these overlap most of the time. But making a commercial game (that people had already "bought" through the Kickstarter), there is some pressure when it comes to meeting certain expectations. We can't always just write what we want and assume everyone else is going to love it, but we also don't want to neglect what we personally like. We had a survey for the beta where we were able to get regular feedback and a lot of helpful advice. We definitely want to continue with surveys in the future - they are a great way to gather opinions from different players and figure out what works versus what doesn't!

We took on too many tasks outside writing that distracted us. This bit is sort of inevitable for indie devs like us. 😅 Working with a limited budget and limited resources, you just end up having to wear a lot of hats! We think we did quite well sharing these duties though, and moving forward (thanks to you guys) we can afford more hands on deck to help us out.

Marketing

The bane of every indie game dev's existence... although secretly, I kind of enjoy marketing but don't tell anyone that!

Having learned a thing or two from promoting the Kickstarter, we spent more time researching games marketing but in the end, trial and error was the best teacher.

As we got closer to the release date, we were posting almost daily on social media and grew our Twitter to over eight thousand followers. We didn't have any viral posts, but we saw a consistent growing interest in our game and it was such a motivation boost to see comments from potential players being excited for the game. We know a lot of devs have said that Twitter didn't help their game much but according to our stats, a decent number of our players found us through the platform.

We saw less success here on Tumblr. Perhaps we haven't cracked the code here yet or maybe we're just comparing our numbers from Twitter unfairly! We're not hung up about it though, we love it here because it feels easier to connect with our followers and other devs there, and it's nice because we're able to write longer posts like this one! 💓

Aside from posting on social media, we reached out to several streamers and some bloggers prior to release to send them free game keys.

We also commissioned some art from other artists to share, as we obviously couldn't reveal ALL our CGs before the release lol and visual posts tend to do a lot better in our experience. It was so much fun to see the characters in other art styles and we hope we can afford to commission guest art pieces a lot more frequently in the future!

In hindsight, we definitely regret not releasing a trailer sooner! We underestimated how much interest a good trailer could garner and delayed setting up our Steam page because of it. Steam was the platform where we sold the most copies and most of our buyers found the game through Steam itself.

Also, posting your trailer on youtube adds another site where you're promoting your game so there's really no reason not to get that trailer done as soon as you can.

Final Notes

After the initial stress, we were pretty happy with our release! Although there were some things we would go back and change if we could, that's just the nature of these kind of things. For the most part, we're proud of what we achieved and happy that we have learnt so much from Trouble Comes Twice that we can take into consideration for future projects.

We can't share exact numbers, but we wanted to open up a bit about our earnings for the game to help other aspiring devs: As of writing this, Trouble Comes Twice has earned close to 85,000 euros. This counts our profits from 2020 to now (the Kickstarter, Patreon, pre-sales, and actual sales). Removing fees, taxes, the salaries of our talented artists and other freelancers, as well as the money invested into our next game, our personal pockets did not see anything close to those numbers. But we're super proud of how much our little game has made and so grateful that it's allowed us more creative freedom with our next title!

So, what's next?

You might have heard but for the past year, we've slowly been working on the demo and upcoming announcement for our next visual novel:

A 17+ supernatural neon-noir romance game about monsters, love, and other horrors.

Play as vampire detective Circe (female protagonist) or hellhound cop Dante (male protagonist) and delve into the mysteries of North Haven, where demons, vampires, and supernaturals hide in plain sight among humans.

The game features six routes, with three romance options available to each protagonist. Dante only has male romances and Circe has both male and female romances.

The game tackles a darker, more angsty tone compared to Trouble Comes Twice. Still, we hope that those who decide to check it out will enjoy it! We plan to announce the game this coming Autumn. Follow our Twitter (we're still not calling it X sorry) or Tumblr to stay up to date.

#trouble comes twice #visual novel #interactive fiction #indie games #gamedev #indiedev #post mortem

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imthepunchlord · 10 days ago

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I think I know why Miraculous is so addictive even to people who don't like the show. Miraculous is a show that had a lot of good interesting concepts and ideas with a lot of potential. Like the kwamis and miraculous as a concept is a creative playground where you could do almost anything with it, and a lot of the characters in the show at their cores had a lot of potential and could have gone in really interesting directions. It's just that the show and its writers fumbled the execution of a lot of these concepts and characters, taking in probably the worst directions. I think that's why you see a lot of people re-imagining the series with these characters and concepts. Heck it's also probably why quite a few people take the base concept of the kwamis and miraculous, re-imagine them, and create a completely new story, like @callimara Wildward au and even your animula au.

Essentially so!

Concept wise, it's really, really great.

Everyone likes animals, and this is a chance for your favorite animal to pop up and have a hero worked around them. And that animal can exist as a cute little plush to sell with them being little mascots. Additionally, because animals can be visually interesting or be tied to certain ideas, you can do some really fun designs or ideas. Lions could be tied to kings or knights. Butterfly or Peafowl could be tied to formal attire or something with a performance motif. You could even use animals as a means to work around disabilities or limitations. Like, someone who can't walk or has trouble walking, if they want mobility, they could get Horse and become a "centaur" with the "miraculous" giving them a mecha horse body they can sit inside and it'll move for them. Not remove the disability, but offer enhancements to give them a way to work around it.

And what's clever is that animals are important to people, all over the world, we all have some mythology and folklore about animals, they represent certain symbols for us. And when you factor that in, hey, this animal could offer an idea for a power, and you could make a superhero character working off all that animal represents across the globe, or even just working off what your own views of that animal is.

Foxes are often portrayed as tricksters everywhere, so being an illusionist is a natural fit.

Horses across the globe represent travel, so doing a power based around movement works, be it super speed or teleportation. You can also work off horses tied to bravery, knights, and facing dangers and do something with the white knight idiom.

Rabbit's are fast, so super speed could be a natural fit. Or if you want to reference Alice in Wonderland, I would've voted dream hopping as the power, as one of the things that stuck with me was Alice thinking it was a dream, and dreams can be bizarre and random.

Owls are often tied to death, so something related to death could go to Owl, or you can work off owls commonly tied to clocks and it could have time powers.

And then you got the merit that with all animals can represent and be tied to, they can play a part in a character's growth. They can be their foil, challenge them as they are, and help pave the way to improvement.

Like, take my concept hero, Humdinger.

She's planned to start out as a "Lone Ranger"/the Loner, thinking she doesn't need to rely on others or only she can solve issues herself. And she's paired with Bee who is about community and teamwork. So you have a nice set up on how she's going to start, and how Bee will help her grow as a character.

And what's extra nice, is that writing wise, animals can give you some light guidelines to work off of, on what their roles can be.

You need a villain? Well, there's the "Big Bad Wolf". Snakes and spiders are also big symbols of fear.

This can also go into the Five Man Band if you're not sure how to do a group.

You need a Leader? There's Lion and Eagle to work off of.

You need a Lancer to challenge the Leader? Well, could do Bear or Wolf.

You need a Smart Guy? Fox, Owl, and Raven are all tied to intelligence.

You need a Tank/Strong Man? There's the iconic Bull, could also do Turtle.

You need the Heart, who's usually the love interest and keeps the group together? There's Ladybird, Dog, or Swan. Those are heavily tied to love.

And there's the fun of the little animal beings that power these heroes. You can write them based on animal archetype, you can write them based on their mythology and symbolism. You can tie them to mythical figures. You could delve into the unique morals and views they have. Like the snake could understand duality, or promotes the stance of duality, toeing the line between good and justice, or doing something bad and chaotic. The bee wants humans to live with integrity, work with others, see work done. The lion wants humans to be leaders and to face obstacles bravely, ect..

Additionally, based on folklore and mythology and how animals are in real life, you can get into some really interesting dynamics to explore between these little beings. The truthful rooster hates the deceptive fox. The wolf has a rivalry with the fox and the lion. The bee dislikes the bear cause the bear eats all of her honey. Turtle and snake are best friends. Eagle and horse are best friends. Ect..

Concept wise, this is brilliant for a series. By their symbolism, folklore, cultural views, and mythology, animals can give you so much to work with. And you can have nice guidelines to work off of, or you can do a different spin on those guidelines, like maybe the usually noble Lion is the villain and the often villainous Snake is the hero.

There's just so much you can do with the concept, so many possibilities. And it's a shame that it's used in this romance focused show, which isn't even a good romance, and it's just so uninspired and lazy, and where kwamis easily could've been the most fascinating part of it, they're just pointless inclusions.

And you just see that potential and how it's wasted.

At least for me, that's what has me wanting to do my own take on the concept and do something with the animula. There's a lot of possibilities for what they can do, and could easily be so interesting if given proper attention.

#ask Punchie #ml salt #animula

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wildflower-otome · 5 months ago

Text

[Translation] Shuuen no Virche - Creator Interview: Misa Yoshida

Shuuen no Virche -ErroR:salvation- Official Visual Fanbook Creator Interview

Director | Misa Yoshida

About the project

—First, please tell us how the idea for this project began.

My previous work “Tlicolity Eyes” was undeniably a bright and happy title with no bad ends, but thinking to myself, ‘I wonder what would happen if I did something the complete opposite?’ was the inspiration for this one. I wanted to make something that was thoroughly tragic with bad ends. I also had the thought that I wanted to make a title with “grim reaper” as the motif, and the image of the game grew from there.

—Now that the game has been released, were there any big changes from the initial plan?

Before creating the project plan, I always make rough notes, but it really did change quite a lot from my initial concept (that didn’t even make it into the project plan). It had a strong science fiction vibe and was set in a technologically advanced near future world where people continued to live on via ‘memory download.’ The main character was a real grim reaper, and held the power of life and death over ‘men whose existence was inconvenient to this world’.....that was the story. After I wrote it into my notes, I had second thoughts, thinking, ‘No no, this is getting overly complicated!’ and eventually settled on the storyline we have now.

Another thing was that I had definitely wanted Yomi-san for the original art from the beginning, so when I thought of ‘What kind of art did I want to see from Yomi-san?’, I imagined a Western fantasy, that was also a primary factor that caused changes from the initial idea.

—What did you want to place most importance on when creating the game?

What I most wanted to place importance on was how the keywords for this work, “despair” and “salvation” applied to the characters. It must be hard for the players as they see these characters feel pain, joy and sorrow, laugh, despair and experience salvation.....that said, I believe we have brought across the greatest possible despair and salvation they could arrive at from their personalities and situations.

Apart from that, the other thing I wanted to do was to absolutely not use the word ‘happy end.’ When each end is presented, it was done so the words ‘despair end’ and ‘salvation end’ were used in place of ‘bad end’ and ‘good end.’ There is no such thing as an all-out happy ending, that was something I couldn’t compromise on.

—Please tell us if you experienced any difficulties that you can talk about now.

More so than it being difficult, there was a lot of pressure since it was the first time Yomi-san was creating original art for Otomate, but right now as I think about it looking back, 90% of the development period was a tough time. However, back then I was full of adrenaline so I didn’t really realise it myself. It was a sad state of affairs that I realised only when those around me said, ‘You sure went through a lot!’ (laughs). It must have been that the fun I was having was greater than the hardship.

About the visuals

—How was Yomi-san chosen for the role of character design?

From the beginning of planning this project, I felt that I “didn’t want to make the characters feel fictional.” When I saw other works that Yomi-san had created the original art for, from the expressions to their fingertips, they all looked so ‘real’ and unexaggerated I was captivated. Even since then I kept thinking I would like to have Yomi-san work on some original art someday.....I suppose I can say now I did the planning with the feeling of a passionate one-sided love (laughs). After that, my wish miraculously came true when I was coincidentally blessed with the opportunity to get in touch with her.

—Please tell us about how the characters were created.

For the most part, all I did was tell Yomi-san the character’s basic information, their circumstances and situation up until the beginning of the story, along with the essential elements for the character (for example, for Yves it is his mask, Mathis, having a pale complexion from spending all his time inside, and clothes that were easy to move in for Adolphe) and then leaving the rest to her. The characters were mostly exactly as I imagined right from the first draft, so I think now in that respect I was fairly spoiled. What I remember even now is that at the very first meeting I was asked, ‘If possible, I’d like a chronological table’ and that it made me feel even more determined to make these characters feel life-like.

-Is there anything that changed from your initial plans for the story because of ideas that came about during the character design stage?

There were quite a few, but the one who had an especially important addition was Lucas. The weapon for Bourreau was originally to be only a short sword, but the first design Yomi-san submitted, which had him carrying a spear, looked so very cool we ended up having it become a halberd. I asked that it be designed so that it could fold up much like a three sectioned staff so it wouldn’t be a problem when it came to running around and sneaking into the mansions of Shudie.

—I think one of the standout points for this game is how the fashion suits the setting’s worldview. How did you decide on things like what accessories the characters wore?

When it came to characters that were close to the research institute and the center of Arpéchéle, I requested that there be a strong cyber influence. Scien and Mathis’s outfits would be the ones where this is most obvious. Because Arpéchéle is a closed country, I asked for a gothic design for characters who aren’t close to the center. Therefore, for that reason, Ceres, Yves, Lucas and Adolphe, the characters that live in the common district, don’t have a single cyber element. Mathis is in the middle point as far as the ratio between cyber and gothic go, so for him Yomi-san and I compared and contrasted the designs together and used that as a base thereafter. The cyber feel for this game uses electronic circuits as the image, so I had her use that as part of the designs.

—Please tell us if there was anything you paid particular attention to when it came to the general flow and direction of the event CG’s.

There were many times where I would hand over some truly rough notes along with the scenario and mood to Yomi-san and entrust the rest to her. Basically, the same as with the character designs.... Whenever there were any points she was unclear on, she would always ask questions, so production progressed without any worries on my end. She would draw everything as I wanted right down to the finer details so most of the CG’s were done in one go, without any need for retakes.

—Are there any CG’s that you are particularly fond of?

I am fond of all of them so it’s hard to choose. The first salvation end in the third act in which Ankou gives Ceres the flower bouquet, or the one with Adolphe and Ceres smiling at each other in the field of white lycoris....after much thought, if I absolutely had to pick one, perhaps it would be Mathis’s smile at the end of his salvation end. As per the title, the game is quite serious with many dark scenes, however I feel like this bright CG with its white and yellow colours most suits the words ‘beneath the light of the sun.’ It felt as if it was expressing a single ray of light shining down on their future, no matter how many troubles were to await them from there on, so I remember not being able to help breathing a sigh because I was so moved the first time I saw it.

—What points regarding character settings did you not want to compromise on?

I am repeating myself, but it would be that they are “living humans.” Although it is a story with the unique set up of ‘memory downloads’ and ‘relivers’, for better or worse, the characters of Arpéchéle, including the ones without sprites, are all human-like existences who fall in love, hate others, want to protect the ones important to them, make compromises, and fear and loathe the things that they cannot understand. “Life” is one of its most important themes, so when it came to portraying humans who are its vessels, I was conscious of the fact it was something I couldn’t treat as unimportant.

—Please tell us if there were any particular aims and themes you had when it came to character settings, interesting inside stories during production or ideas that were rejected partway through.

Ceres

The line “Dear God, I have killed many people” that was used in the first promotional video was what I came up with for her at the beginning and is where her image grew from, making her development process perhaps a little different from the other characters. Ceres’s image flower is the immortelle, small yellow flowers which mean ‘undying love’ and ‘immortality’ in flower language, and that was how I decided her character.....but it came to me later that yellow certainly has a cheerful image.

Her original personality is that of a bright normal girl who smiles often, but she grows melancholy after she starts being called a grim reaper, I would be happy if she could become the kind of main character you would want to cheer on as she regains her original self through her interactions with the other characters.

Yves

Speaking from a variety of different points, his image was that of a ‘traditional knight.’ Due to his burns, Yves lost the ability to feel pain, was abandoned by his parents and treated as a monster. So that those around him would love him, he had no choice but to become a ‘knight-like existence whom everyone would seek out and depend on.’ That said, even knights are human too, so course I think he would still have his own worries and trials. Because there is no such thing as a perfect knight like in the stories, one is all the more human and beautiful for being imperfect. Yves’s burns are also the result of the human-like emotion of ‘wanting to save a single girl from a fire.’ I believe that such scars are a symbol of beauty, not ugliness. Speaking of behind-the-scenes stories, the first design image that Yomi-san came up with is now the vigilante corps uniform. The inner shirts and trousers are the members’ personal clothes.

Lucas Proust

I received various opinions regarding his salvation end, but a person who took away so many lives must be punished…..that was the point I absolutely could not concede on. Lucas dislikes when things are not done the proper way, so the rule I decided on was that he would not use casual abbreviated verb forms in his speech. The only time he purposely deviates from that rule is when he says, ‘I love you too,’ just before credits roll for the salvation end. Completely abandoning the version of himself that those around him had wanted, and the rules he had decided for himself, we see that he is finally able to face Ceres head on as his true self, I think that this was a scene with a lot of impact. By the way, the daggers he stabbed into the hearts he extracted were modelled after crosses (they are also shaped like them too!).

Mathis Claude

For me, he was the first character whose setting I had firmly decided on. Because he is an irregular existence who is neither human nor a reliver, I believe we were able to write a story that displayed Arpéchéle’s twisted way of life and view on romance from a different perspective. We weren’t able to have it come up in the game, but the idea was because he keeps his knife hidden behind his right thigh, he has rather bad manners when sitting on chairs, sitting with his arms up around raised knees like a gym student. That said, if we had included it, it would mean having to keep writing scenes where Jean or one of the other characters tell him off each time, so it was with a heavy heart I decided not to. His character tagline is ‘The man spurning his fate to forgive’, but the hidden story behind that becomes pure humans ‘do ○○’ and the character who wasn’t ‘did ○○.’ I thought that it would be nice if people were able to notice this after finding out Mathis’s true identity as a homunculus.

Scien Brofiise

I spoke about this on the official blog, but initially he was a character that spoke politely in front of his subordinates. But as he is now, he is certainly not the kind of man to worry about appearances (laughs). He is said to be someone that can resolve almost anything, but it must be remembered that is only in cases where a cause has been established, and it is something that has caught Scien’s interest, in the game those conditions just so happened to come together. He does not involve himself at all in things he isn’t interested in, or that go against his personal principles.

By the way, as he is the only character that fights barehanded, I imagined his fighting style to be similar to savate (TL note: french kickboxing). Seen from the point of view that it is something he started doing and learnt on his own initiative, it’s sort of like he just so happened to pick up the skill as he trained in self-defence from being targeted so often. Speaking of which, although he is a short sleeper and rarely sleeps in front of others, once you have his trust, he will sleep while leaning on your shoulder.

Adolphe

Truth be told, right up until the end Adolphe was the character whose setting I had most trouble deciding on. It is mentioned in the story, but since he is the only one amongst the characters who is able to live longer than 23 years, he is the character most similar to the viewers. As I pondered on how to make sure such a character held his own amongst the others, I thought there was no other choice but to turn the tables and make him “normal.” If you think about it, dying at the age of 23 in and of itself isn’t normal, and so once I arrived at the conclusion that the existence of such a person in that situation would become special, the rest of his characterization followed on very smoothly.

People were rather surprised with regards to Adolphe’s intonation, but the reason for it was because I wanted it to be one point in common for ‘Adolphe = Ankou.’ Incidentally, as he has spent such a long time living at the institution and on his own, he is the most able cook amongst all the main characters.

Ankou

I believe there are people who may have realized this, but the origin of his name is that of the grim reaper spoken of in the Brittany region of France, which is why I had him appear in the prologue scenes of the first and second acts wearing the wide brimmed hat and cloak from the legends. Even now when it comes to Ankou, I feel an indescribable emotion. Actually, the original plan for his setting was even more beyond saving. He had continued to fight for the sake of Ceres’s smile, but after spending so long despairing he grows twisted and his greatest wish instead becomes for him and Ceres to die together. In order for that wish to come true he tries to have her make the wrong answer when it comes to Arpéchéle’s curse…..that was the plan, but it was too dark so we changed a lot of things partway through. The title ‘Shuuen’ (eternal demise) bears various meanings, but one of them is in reference to Ankou. When I was directing Ankou’s final scene in the third act, even now I have a strong memory of praying all the while that he would rest peacefully.

Salome

I received a lot of comments saying, ‘Even just her name is scary!’ (laughs) I believe the Salome everyone is thinking of is the one who was written as a villainess in the play (TL note: Oscar Wilde’s play ‘Salome’), but actually it is the one from the Bible that I had in mind. In the play, she is the one to ask for Jokanaan’s head herself, but in the Bible she asks for it because her mother, who holds a grudge against Jokanaan, commands her to, she is being used by those around her. I borrowed her name thinking that it was similar to the way [Salome from the game] is betrayed by her own relatives, the royal family. No matter what kind of life one lived, it may become something different in posterity depending on other people’s interpretations and hearsay, I think she became a character with that kind of story.

Perhaps getting off topic, but the one to douse Bourreau with sulphuric acid in the fifth chapter of the common route was Salome. She had been following them with the thought of helping Ceres and the others should anything happen, and took action once she realised Bourreau was still able to move. The words, ‘You let your guard down too easily’ were directed towards Ceres and Adolphe.

Hugo

The one person who clearly hates Ceres for being Death. In a different way from Adolphe, he is a man with normal emotions who is afraid to have the girl said to bring death next to the people he is close with, but because he seems to have lived for a long time it is not easy for him to say so openly. I think once you become an adult it gets difficult to tell the person you hate to their face that you hate them. I really did receive a lot of feedback on the emotions that he holds, and there were many things I was made to rethink.

Speaking of background information, he talks about having younger sisters in the game, but he actually has an older brother, making for four siblings in total. His reliver mark is on his back, with the meaning of bearing a household, his older brother also has his in the same spot.

Dahut

As an existence who would not even have been born in a world in a country with a lifespan of 18 years, because of his appearances throughout the second act, to Ankou he could be called an ‘error.’ He is the mastermind behind everything but if not for Dahut, Arpéchéle’s citizens would likely have continued to live closed off from the world, not realising its abnormality as a nation until the day they were invaded by other countries.

His background is that he has a younger appearance than his peers due to the stress he endured when he was younger, but Dahut doesn’t see this as a bad thing and instead uses it as a tool so that those around him will dote on him (let their guard down).

Nadia Proust

‘How could such a thing happen to such a good girl…..’, I received a lot of comments such as these and truth be told, I also agree. To the point that I was racking my brains when coming up with the plot trying to think of a way she could be saved. However, making up my mind that it wouldn’t be ShuuViru if I wrote something so convenient, I decided on that ending.

The scene where Nadia is set free in Lucas’s salvation ending was revised to be as it is at a truly late stage towards the end of development. I believe that it perhaps expresses the scene title ‘Blade of Release’ in the fullest possible way.

It is a regret of mine that we were not able to have a sprite of an older Nadia in the third act.

Capucine

Being the founder of the Exorcist religious organisation while also holding the position of a doctor, nowadays I think he really was a troublesome character. Because he deals with patients out of goodwill on the surface, wanting the fact that he is actually after money to not be too obvious, Capucine is the single character who had his design completely changed from the first draft. Although he has the role of being the villain who is most beyond saving in the game, as his motivations are firmly set it was very easy to move him around in the story.

The background that was most fun to come up with was actually his research lab.

Jean

Despite only ever being written from Mathis’s POV in the game, I had readied a personal history for both his false identity as Jean and his true one as Camille. Not only is it important when creating a story, I believe it shows just how serious “Camille’s feelings about reviving Rosalie” were, that he would go to the lengths of coming up with a history as Jean. It also adds to the feeling of a meticulous plan being put into place.

I also included various small details such as the words ‘Ma cherie Rosalie’ being written in blood on the wall of the underground research lab at Claude Manor along with engravings of the number of victims that wasn’t revealed in the game.

—Please tell us if there were any points that you were particular about when establishing the relationships between characters.

Perhaps it was that they wouldn’t only have positive feelings towards one another. That goes for the other characters towards Ceres, and also the other way around as well. Humans are not made up of only beautiful emotions, because it is not possible to be loved by everyone, I took care so that could be clearly seen, whether as individuals or as groups.

Also, there were actually relationships that came to light after we began writing the scenario! Unexpected chemical reactions occur when different characters come together, and that was especially true for the drinking party scene in the common route. That scene became the decisive blow for Adolphe’s becoming the long-suffering character in the group (laughs).

—Speaking of which, were there any scrapped characters that didn’t end up appearing?

In my first draft notes there was a con-man who had the tagline “The man who celebrates the fate of deceiving others”. His story was that he swindled people in order to save money to treat his sick sister, but once we had decided on Arpéchéle as the setting, thinking that, ‘If you continuously ran scams in a such a small country, you’d soon be found out’, the character was scrapped. The sick sister storyline was inherited by Lucas.

About the story

—Please tell us if there were any specific considerations you had in mind or things you were particular about in the process of writing the story.

It would be the point about, as much possible, not having everything turn out conveniently. In ‘ShuuViru’, an ending where all characters including the sub characters survive does not exist. You could say that it is realistic for happiness to be built on the sacrifice of others, I personally think that it is not possible for everyone to become happy. Nevertheless, when it came to the salvation routes, so that the characters who lost their lives in the events leading up to the ending wouldn’t become mere sacrificial pawns, I always kept it in mind to make all the lives and deaths feel meaningful.

And also, as it is an otome game, no matter the route, I took care not to neglect the “love” aspect.

—Please tell us if there were any troubles you experienced while writing the plot and scenario, or any interesting episodes that occurred during the writing process.

The foreshadowed reveals were really difficult…..the main writer Satomi Nakayama and I brought everything together after a lot of groaning and intensive discussion. There was also quite a bit of fine tuning on where to draw the line when it came to the despair. Going this far might be too much for an otome game, but at the same time since we’re talking about despair, we didn’t want to take a half-hearted approach to it.

As for an inside story, the truth is Adolphe was alive in the first draft of Scien’s route, but thinking that there wasn’t enough despair, and also so that Ankou would be able to talk about the truth after the end, we ended up changing it. Nowadays I think that perhaps might be one of the main reasons people who have played the game often tell me, ‘You’re heartless.’

—Please tell us if there was anything you were particular about in regards to the game system.

That the other salvation ends wouldn’t unlock until the third act’s salvation end was cleared was something that was decided on from the first. I’m sure it must have caused the players a lot of distress [doing it this way] but Ankou being the first one to be saved was a point I couldn’t compromise on. My thought was ‘Who on earth would I save first while leaving behind Ankou, who has continued to fight for the sake of Ceres’s smile for so long?’ Also, another reason was that I wouldn’t be able to write all that I wanted for each of the character’s salvation ends without all of the truths being revealed first.

This isn’t related to the system, but I took as much care with how things were arranged in the game as time would allow me. From facial expressions, to the timing of changes in the BGM, the movements of the sprites…..I was very conscious of creating a display screen that allows players to immerse themselves in the story without losing interest. By including a lot of sprite cut-ins, not just in the everyday scenes, but in the fight ones as well, I hope that I was able to create a feeling of actually being at the scene.

—Please tell us if there was anything you were particular about when it came to romantic scenes.

Romance is but one aspect of human emotion, so I took care that the flow of the story up until that point wouldn’t feel unnatural. The aim wasn’t to create romantic scenes, but ones that expressed love.

My thought was that as [it is a game with] an overall brutal atmosphere, if I were to forcefully make it romantic, it might cause the kind of heartburn one gets from adding an absurdly large amount of sugar into bitter coffee (laughs).

I also took a lot of care that each of the characters would express their love in a way that was unique to them.

—Please tell us about a love scene and ending that you were particularly fond of.

I am fond of all of them, but [for love scenes] it would be the proposal amongst the flames in Yves’s salvation route. The reason Yves is able to have the determination to accept everything, both good and bad, is because he is the type of person who has continuously accepted both kinds of emotions. Ceres’s responding with, ‘…..Idiot’ to Yves’s confession, is something I am particularly fond of as it is a response appropriate for a girl her age, in contrast to her usually constrained manner up until that point.

When it comes to endings, it would likely be Lucas’s despair end. Although it is a bad end seen objectively, from Lucas’s point of view it is a happy end in which he is able to become family with the person he loved and live out his last days together with them, as we had the BMG match up with that, I believe it became a scene which left an impression. Also, a ring on a white bony finger is a scenario that I have always wanted to do, I was glad I was able to make it happen.

—Apart from the love scenes and endings, were there any other scenes that you would like people to play close attention to?

It would be the scene where Ankou and Ceres meet, and he smears her lips with blood. It was something I had wanted to do right from the beginning of planning, and when we did, it really stood out visually, so it is a favourite of mine. I think it became a scene with two facets, on your first playthrough, it gives the impression of Ankou as someone suspicious, but when you look back on it after finding out the truth, you are able to feel his emotions and love [for Ceres].

—Finally, were there any scenes or routes that ended differently to what you had originally planned?

The same goes for each of the routes, but particularly for the third act, the number of scenarios became much more than we had envisioned. When it came to writing Adolphe and Ankou’s story it ended up becoming longer by necessity, both Nakayama—san and I sobbed over it together (laughs).

When it comes to something I can talk about now, there was actually one more pattern that we came up with for Lucas’s despair end. Roughly explained, it was that Lucas would decide Ceres was a ‘bad girl’ for trying to kill him and cut her down instead. He would raise a baby that was born at the moment of her death as Ceres’s reincarnation, and then when he was near the end of his lifespan, take her along with him in death saying, ‘Next time, let’s be reborn together’…..but it really wasn’t the kind of material that should appear in an otome game so I refrained.

About the sound

—Please tell us if there was anything you were particular about in regards to the BGM production.

The fairly challenging discussion we had was to create a synthesis of ‘classical compositions that use string instruments and the like’ with ‘cyber techno style noise.’ I had the main theme ‘Shuuen no Virche -ErroR:salvation-’ created first, and even now remembering getting goosebumps hearing the part where the techno noise comes in just before the climax thinking, ‘This is it!’ Just like with the character’s clothing, the techno noise was used as the main music for things with a strong connection to the research lab and relivers, while the classical sound was used for the Drifter legend and everyday life scenes.

Parts of the BGM also feature arrangements from the main theme, which I think is most obvious in tracks like ‘Kaihou no Katsuro -Break-.’

For this game, we asked Ichikawa Jun-san, who has created a lot of BGMs for anime and dramas [to be the composer], his work further expands on the imagery of the scenes for which it is used, there were truly many compositions that went beyond my expectations. There were very few retakes, most were given the OK from the get-go!

-Please tell us if there were any incidents that occurred during the voice recording stage that left an impression.

The voices we heard during the tests were pretty much as I had imagined them to be, so there wasn’t much by way of finetuning. Everyone had thoroughly read through the scenarios and materials, so it felt as if it wasn’t necessary. It was very reassuring when Yoshimasa Hosoya, who voiced Scien suggested, ‘I think this kind of atmosphere would be good for this scene.’

Another event that left an impression was the commotion caused in the booth by how overly realistic Lucas’s voice actor Daisuke Hirakawa’s acting was in the scene where he vomits blood. We were all on edge saying, ‘He isn’t really vomiting blood, is he?!’ (laughs)

—Is there a scene that became more impactful once the voice acting was added?

It would be the scene in Mathis’s route where different memories are downloaded into him one after the other. Along with Kouhei Amasaki’s blood curdling performance, it becomes more obvious that, ‘Mathis’s personality is being replaced’, increasing the atmosphere of despair.

Another is the scene in the third act with Ankou’s line, ‘I want to see Ceres, I can't see Ceres.’ Because of Kazuyuki Okitsu’s performance, I think the amount of pain he went through for centuries feels all the more real. …..If I were to speak about everything in detail, I could go on for quite a while, truth be told, everything became more impactful (laughs).

—Please tell us if you had any special thoughts in regards to the main theme songs, or if you have any anecdotes regarding their production.

OP: Lycoris no Ai (Lycoris Love)

I had a number of detailed requests when it came to the lyrics, so I ended up causing a lot of trouble for LOVERIN TAMBURIN-san…..

I think people who have played the game must have noticed, but the lyrics have a small trick to them, the first time you hear them it is from Ceres’s POV, and then once all has been revealed, become lyrics from Ankou’s POV. I would be happy if my aim to have everyone enjoy even the lyrics was at least slightly achieved. ‘The flowers of demise are an illusion coloured by death’ and ‘I will love you forevermore’ are phrases I am particularly fond of.

Despair ED: Shuuen no Yume (Dreams of Demise)

From the image of being bound hand and foot, rendered immobile by a fate of death, the discussion was to make a song with a tempo and rhythm that was difficult to take up and hard to sing. Fundamentally speaking, the despair ends are situations in which [the characters] have lost to Arpéchéle’s twisted technology and way of life, so it is noisier and has more of a cyber feel than the OP…..it was that sort of atmosphere I asked them to emphasise.

Salvation ED: Junpaku no Kyuuzai (Pure White Salvation)

The keywords for the song were without a doubt ‘salvation’ and ‘normality.’ For this one, with the meaning of being released from a twisted way of life, I asked that there be none of the [electronic] noisy feel from the OP and despair ED. Also, in the OP there is a line, ‘Taken away by errors, I lost my emotions (heart)’, but in the salvation ED there is, ‘I will live tomorrow following my emotions (heart)’ ….. I am particularly fond of the fact it feels as if part of the phrases in it are in opposition to the OP.

—What was the response like after the game released?

Since I challenged myself with this title in creating different kinds of themes and endings, character relationships and behaviours, I had steeled myself to receive all types of feedback. However, after receiving passionate messages and comments of support, I was honestly as much surprised as I was happy as I hadn’t expected that so many people would end up playing the game. We have received many comments from those who are looking forward to new developments, so as staff we feel blessed to be in such a position.

—Were there any reactions or requests from fans that particularly left an impression?

It would be [comments about] liking not just one of the characters but all of them. There are many who say they are ‘hako oshi’ (TL Note: people who are fans of all of the characters) when it comes to ShuuViru….I am conscious that is something to feel very gratified about.

Another thing is that there were many comments about wanting to know the origins of the characters’s names as well as their birthdays. It would take a very long time to talk about the origins of all of them, as each of the characters has a meaningful name. If I am blessed with another opportunity at some point, please allow me to take the time to talk about them properly.

In this book I am also introducing the birthdays for the sub characters for the first time as well. Since it has still been only slightly less than a year since this title was released and making them official would constitute spoilers for the third act, we haven’t yet been able to celebrate them, but please allow me to leave behind my ambition of celebrating all the characters someday here.

—[The fanbook] this time includes Yomi-san’s omake comics and illustrations, how did the creation of those come about?

Yomi-san kindly sent them to me saying, ‘So I’ve drawn these as a bit of fun.....’ However, each time I look at them I tilt my head in puzzlement, ‘She did these “for fun”.....? Aren’t these beyond the level of mere doodles?’ During the busy development period I kept them on my PC desktop as a source of encouragement.

There weren’t any back sketches of Yves, Adolphe and Ankou at the time of design, so once it was decided this book would be created, I had her grant my selfish wish to have some drawn.

—Please tell us if there is anything you have planned for the future, or anything else you would like to do.

In September, [Virche] is in the lineup for Otomate Party 2022, so speaking of the near future that would be one of them.

When it comes to something I would like to see, it would be the characters moving around on stage in a play or musical. Because the clothing designs are very showy and splendid, I think the fight scenes would really stand out!

No matter what form it may be in, I would be happy to be able to show the world of ShuuViru once more. I am striving forward with it firmly in my mind that no matter what kind of new developments there are, it must be something that is able to answer the expectations of everyone who has shown their support.

—Lastly, please give us a message for the fans.

To those holding this book, and those who have played ‘Shuuen no Virche’, I am truly grateful. The reason I have been able to work on these various developments is solely due to everyone’s support. Let me take this opportunity to thank you all once more.

Going through material from the first stage of development in the process of creating this book, thinking, ‘How nostalgic, there used to be these kinds of scenes, I would liked to have written this,’ has been very emotional. I am happy from the bottom of my heart to have been granted this opportunity.

It is my earnest wish that you will love this work, and the salvation and despair that they arrived at, here on and into the future.

#shuuen no virche #virche evermore #virche #otome game #creator interview #translation #virche spoilers

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dalishious · 1 year ago

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My Five Biggest Fears for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf

Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is highly anticipated by BioWare fans. At one point, I would consider myself to be excited for it too, however, unfortunately the long wait with zero information about the game has only wrecked my personal anticipation. Will my hype return once we actually start to get some regular news about the game? Most likely. But until that time comes, all I find myself doing is just… worrying.

These are the five biggest things I worry about.

5. Big, beautiful maps of nothing

In both Dragon Age: Inquisition and Mass Effect: Andromeda, most of the open world maps are very… empty. Instead of creating an adventurous feeling of excitement to explore, it just makes travelling those maps a tedious task. Games like The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim or the new Baldur’s Gate 3 have open maps too, but those developers actually made use of their space with level designs. Skyrim is full of caves, ruins, etc. content to stumble upon. So is BG3, as well as introducing new dynamics to a fight depending on which direction you approach the encounter from. These games prove an understanding of how to best equip an open world concept that BioWare has only executed in a few maps across both their most recent RPGs. I do not want to see Dragon Age: Dreadwolf be yet another case of luscious forests where developers spent far too much time making look visually beautiful, and not enough time actually filling with game content.

4. Shoddy attempts at retcon

For those of you who don’t know what “retcon” means, it is short for “retroactive continuity”, and refers to the phenomenon of fiction introducing new information that is inconsistent with past information. The purpose is to revise old material. Dragon Age: Inquisition had more than one attempts at retcon that were terribly executed. For example, the player is told not once, not twice, but three different times—as if repeating it enough will erase all the extensive lore up to that point saying otherwise—that the Dalish get rid of their mages if they have “too many”. This is despite the previous games and extended materials showing that the Dalish practically revere their mages.

Now, not all retcons are bad. For example, in Marvel Comics, the superhero Karma’s real name was recently retconned to be Xuân Cao Mạnh, a real Vietnamese name, after spending years and years with the made-up Vietnamese name, Xi'an Coy Man. This is an example of how retons can be used for a good purpose, like fixing a long-lasting mistake. But what exactly is the mistake in saying the Dalish are good people who don’t hate mages like most of Thedas? That was just a cheap, transparent excuse to villainize both elves and mages further.

Cheap, transparent excuses like that make me lose faith in BioWare’s writing. It concerns me with what other lore they view as needing “correcting” in order to reinforce their idea of Grey Morality™ where it doesn’t belong.

3. Imposter characters

One of the biggest grievances I had with Dragon Age: Inquisition, was how the Hawke written in that game was in no way the same Hawke I played in Dragon Age II. I understand that it would be impossible to capture the exact customized character, but the Hawke in DA:I was placed into the game with an anti-blood magic agenda, and wouldn’t shut up about it. This is hilarious, considering how many players chose to make their Hawke a blood mage personally!

With this in mind, I am terrified that my Inquisitor, who will very likely make an appearance in Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, will be used for whatever new agenda needs to be pushed. I better not hear a single anti-Dalish comment from my Lavellan, is all I’m saying.

2. Whitewashing ahoy

For all the talk about #diversity values, BioWare has a very extensive criminal record when it comes to whitewashing their own characters. Almost every single one of their most prominent visibly non-white characters have had their skin lightened or completely washed out, as well as ethnic features erased, at some point or another. This is why I cannot share any excitement or desire for existing characters to make a return; the fear that we’ll have to see Zevran next looking like Chris Hemsworth next haunts me too much.

But this particular fear runs even deeper than individual characters. Why? Because we know that Dragon Age: Dreadwolf will be taking place in northern Thedas, which up to this point has been consistently depicted as having largely non-white demographics. I’m not saying there are no white people in Tevinter, Antiva, etc., but I am saying that if I see the same mix of 80% pale tones and 20% “everyone else” we’ve gotten from the last three games, I will absolutely flip shit. White characters should be in the minority for a change. Otherwise, what is the point of shifting focus away from the dominantly white countries in the first place?

1. This will end of the Dragon Age franchise

Is this the most likely to happen of all fears? No; it is probably the least. But after the pathetic failure that was Anthem and the lacklustre response to Mass Effect: Andromeda, I would not be surprised if BioWare is on thin ice in EA’s eyes. (Which is ironic, considering the demands made by EA to chase after multiplayer fads and micro-transactions are what got BioWare into such a mess in the first place.) Electronic Arts is a garbage company run by garbage people. That much has been proven time and again. The executives behind BioWare itself aren’t clean, either. Unfortunately it will be average employee that suffers the most punishment and blame if the game does not meet the likely very high standards set out for it. In some ways, they are almost set up to fail.

It’s not fair, and there’s not we can really do about it, because the gaming industry is run by selfish idiots. It’s because of this that if events come to pass that the Dragon Age franchise was put “on hold indefinitely” so BioWare can work on clunking out an Anthem sequel, I would be very upset, but not very surprised.

-----

Times are really tough for me, and all my patron supporters are greatly appreciated! If you like my work, please consider becoming one yourself, and I'll be forever grateful!

#dragon age #datv #dragon age dreadwolf #dreadwolf #bioware #meta

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that-ari-blogger · 1 year ago

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Critical Role's Previous Cameraman

I put up a post the other day about critical role's new animated introduction and I couldn't help but notice a sudden spike in the analytical stuff that I don't really understand. A more tech orientated friend of mine informed me that this was a good thing, actually. So, I thought I might capitalise on that and examine the previous campaign's opening sequence through the same lens and do some more analysis.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD

One notable thing about this song is when it starts. Exactly eleven seconds in. That's eleven seconds of wait before the final payoff. You catch glimpses of what's happening above, but nothing else.

And that is a key theme of this campaign. The unseen. The Mighty Nein was a party characterised by trauma, and a lot of the time, you don't see that, you only see glimpses. A flash of a fight they told you about, and the sensation of drowning.

But then we meet Fjord.

He's falling, and I'd like to point out the direction in which he is falling. You will notice the scars on his back, signifying he was probably in the process of running away, or was betrayed by someone, and he is falling towards those scars. Backwards. There is also a neat thing of falling away from the light, into the darkness, into the unknown. THis is someone out of control, leaning into the pain. And what is it that sees that?

There is a reason Uk'otoa's design looks so much like a leach. The creature is a parasite, it doesn't find someone strong to break down, it found someone weak, and at its mercy, and brought him under its control. What this shot does is highlight that creature's opportunistic nature, but it also associates it very clearly with the visual of that eye.

And it's that eye that carries through. When Fjord washes up on the beach, when he is finally safe, he carries with him a little piece of Uk'otoa, a little piece of that trauma.

It's also notable of that it is an eye. It's obvious, but it colours his vision, and changes how he views the world. Its effects aren't physical, but mental.

Beaureguard Lionet is a fighter. Not in the sense of class, because she isn't but in the sense of personality. Beau is a fighter in the sense that her first reaction to any problem is to punch it.

This transition is a wipe transition, but its important because of what it uses. It uses the opportunity to show off the uniforms of Beau's attackers, because otherwise the shadows of the rest of the shot make them hard to make out. These are wearing the same robes as her. Whoever they are, they are part of a team of some kind with her, they are people she should be able to trust, but look at how much damage they have done to her. Look at how heavily she is breathing. And look at what Beau does in response.

She fights back. This is how the animation gets across this character. She isn't complex, she doesn't need a great explanation, she doesn't have different sides to her, she just hits things until they stop being a problem.

I will also point out her eyes again. They are blue, not an unnatural eye colour, but they are the same blue as her robes, and the robes of those who are attacking her. Once again, the has warped the vision of its recipient, and in this case, it's creating a cycle of violence as all she knows how to do, is hit things.

We don't see Nott The Brave for a while in this animatic. We instead see, once again, the eyes. But I also want to point out that this was made before we knew about Veth. So we were just seeing the scared goblin.

This is as close as we get in this scene, and its Nott actively hiding from the light. The warmth scares her, and for good reason, its the same heat that we see emanating from her eyes. Once again, the trauma that has contaminated a character's vision is changing their reactions to the world.

And with that, I would like to talk about Jester, and I would like to do that in context.

The term "foil" in the context of a character was actually popularised by William Shakespear, who handily explained the metaphor for us.

"And like bright metal on a sullen ground, My reformation, glitt'ring o'er my fault, Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes Than that which hath no foil to set it off."

Put in English, I shine brighter when you have something to compare me to. And this is what a foil character is, a character who brings about elements in other characters that can easily be missed, or who shows off by contrast their personalities.

Jester is one of the two characters in the Mighty Nein who is not a child of trauma, and her introduction shows that. She reacts to her life by laughing, and contrast that with everyone else. Fjord reaches for a sword, the item of his trauma; Beau tries to fight her trauma despite that approach clearly not working; and Nott hides from it, unable to reach out for help.

And it is notable that the first time we see an adult Jester, she looks normal (if a bit over cheerful), then is immediately contrasted with the rest of the Nein.

This not only shows just how different her demeanour is from the rest of the crew, but it shows her effect on them. She makes them all smile. Jester and Caduceus are very much support characters in the truest sense of the word. They support others. Jester shows genuine kindness towards everybody else, and it reflects onto them.

This shot is neat but not too special. Its a tracking shot on the hat of all things, because thats what important here, and it shows the traveling dynamic of the group. It's a tiny bit of tension in an otherwise calm scene, so the camera is steady, but speeds up slightly to match the movement of the object, then comes to a stop when it is caught. There is very little stress, but there is a sense of comradery.

Similarly, this shot establishes some stakes with a rising pan to show the scale of the threat and to show some more information, but it is hardly a monster, so the camera isn't really in a hurry.

Enter Caleb Widogast, born in fire. I don't think they could write a more thematic entrance if they tried. An abrupt cut shows the night, then it is entirely consumed by fire, only to reveal Caleb.

There is no motion here. The camera is stock still. This is the exact same thing with Ashton and FCG in the Bell's Hells. Caleb is disassociating from the heat in front of him, and there is a fascinating reason behind that. Caleb has two characters that need to be introduced to better understand him, the man, and Bren, the boy.

The flames consume the screen again, and then part to show a boy, staring at the screen, in horror. This is what you need to know about this character, this is a character forged in flames, born from the Ashes. Bren is dead, Caleb Widogast remains.

And this shot, with Caleb, Astrid and Eadwulf silhouetted against the fire, shows what kind of trauma we are talking about, and what effect it has. This is guilt, and in contrast with the rest of his party, this guilt is paralysing.

Yasha, however, is introduced in a calm way, in contrast to everything around her. The camera shows you a woman, meditating, and then pans backwards to reveal this:

This is a woman surrounded by bloodshed, who has made a concerted effort to look away from it, and to look to the Storm Lord for guidance. This is a woman looking for healing, in comparison to everyone else, but that looking doesn't change the fact that that trauma is still there.

The next few scenes are cool, but don't really add anything to this analysis and I only have a few more images I can show here, so I'm going to skip to Taliesin's characters.

Caduceus has two introductions. One is this shot, which is a cool action shot of him casting an epic spell and vanquishing a crowd of enemies. But instead of the incredibly animated (in the sense of exaggerated poses) nature of his companions, Caduceus clay is calm and collected. He is unquestionably the anchor of the group, and where Jester contrasts them emotionally, Caduceus does so on a philosophical level. Caduceus is a gardener of fungus.

Mushrooms and other fungi are recyclers, they grow on dead trees and creatures and give a forest new life. They clear out the debris and make way for new things to take hold. That's what Caduceus does for the Nein, he helps them get through their trauma so that Jester can help them improve and become better.

Caduceus's actual introduction is muted, and there's a point to that. He's not trying to be the main character, you don't need to understand his family life to understand him. You need to understand that can stand in a graveyard and see the light, that he is at peace with what has gone before him and helps people to get past it, and that his entire mission, to regrow the grove, isn't to bring back what is lost, but to help regrow something new in its place instead of the blight that lingers there.

Mollymauk is introduced as a weapon transformed into a grave. That is what this transition is and I think that's really important. Mollymauk is, very clearly, a repurposed soul. He isn't the first person to inhabit that shell, and he isn't the last. I also want to point out how this character is represented here, not with a heroic memory, but with a quiet moment or remenicing on times gone by. He is a shadow that haunts the Nein.

This is by far the simplest shot in the entire video, and that's because it isn't telling you anything. You bring your own emotions to the table here, you bring the memories to the grave, that's how grieving works.

Once again, there is more to this video, but I'm only allowed to put 30 images in a single post. So I leave you with a quote from Niel Gaiman.

"Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."

DnD likewise, and all TTRPGs for that matter, are powerful because in them, with a little bit of help from friends, any monster, no matter how personal, can be defeated.

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