Fates Weekly Update #5

Hello, folks! Chief back for the weekly update! It has been an interesting week in the world… just not very interesting here. It’s one of those weeks where there’s not a lot for me to do other than try to amuse you all with a dance number! Unfortunately, I also mildly injured my knee this week, so no dance number either.

-Wordcount: 23,113 (5,239 this week) This week was mostly focused on writing a few scenes for the first world that Natalie will visit, the neutral world of commerce, Celestia. For those of you who have played Rising Angels: Reborn, you will remember that this is where we last left Natalie. For those of you who remember Rising Angels: The Red Rose, this is the homeworld of Jade and Mana. While it is a neutral world, it enjoys a good relationship with Katajion Directorship. This is good for our hero, as they are unlikely to try and deport Natalie. Sadly, they are also much more likely to let the Katajion Judicial Sector forces and SITO agents have free reign in trying to arrest a certain blonde SITO.

-Background art: A few more of the backgrounds were completed! Since the writing was about the adventures of Celestia, let’s show off one of the locales that you will get to visit. When you have one of the best SITO in the game hunting you down and an Intelligence Director who wants to have a meeting with you, back alley escapes are going to be your friend!

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-No updates on the wallscroll or Natalie dakimakura. I apologize. Also, next week I will give an excerpt from either the book of short stories or codex. Is there a preference people would like to see? I’m not sure yet what I’d pull from the codex, but I think the short story would be an excerpt from Zuri’s tale.

Short update this week, much larger update next week. Until next time, Chief out!

Fates Weekly Update #4

Hello, folks. Chief here with the 4th update of Rising Angels: Fates. As we get into the groove of development, things are settling into their standard routine. It has mostly been a mid-production week where there isn’t a lot to show and not much to talk about. Originally, I was going to do drunken karaoke to keep people entertained, but I’m still federally banned from singing. While that spares you from the brutal savagery of my singing voice, it means we have a fairly limited update for this week.

-Would everyone like to see a running word count? I like having one to help me, as the writer, keep honest about how much progress I’m making.

-Did some tweaking of the interface this week. Right now we are commissioning an artist to replace the temporary assets used to make it. Once we starting getting those done, we’ll be able to show some gameplay screenshots and perhaps make a demo for you all to give a try.

-For the dakimakura supporters, we should have a sketch of Natalie’s up next week. Hopefully, I will also be able to show off the wall scroll as well.

-Thanks in part to our friends at Innomen Productions, we now have a forum! For those of you who want to talk about any of the Rising Angels series, this is now the hip new place to do it. There are also several other awesome games to check out while you are there!

-Since the musical styling of Chief is out of the question, let’s talk about the existing romantic interest carrying over from Rising Angels: Reborn, the Nimross’s brave hero, Zuri.

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Name: Zuri
Age: 121
Gender: F
Rank: Lieutenant
Nationality: Ryu’llian
Bio: The security officer of the KSS Nimross. A former musician who joined the Katajion Defense Force for unknown reasons. Determined with a strong sense of right and wrong, Zuri’s fearless and optimistic nature serves as a rallying point to those around her. However, behind the mask of justice, Zuri constantly berates herself for perceived weaknesses.

Chief’s Notes: Zuri, the dragon fighter of the group and Natalie’s romantic companion. Zuri, the human co-pilot with the incredibly minor role. While these phrases might seem to describe two totally different characters, they both were true about Zuri at various points of development. When the game was starting out in its concept phase, Zuri didn’t really have a place. Like Commander Rasoona, she was designed to be a character who needed to fill a specific role on the crew. Sol needed a co-pilot to take the stick when he was off with Natalie and a foil to help bounce jokes off of. She wasn’t going to be anything more than a check on the crew line-up.

Then I saw her concept.

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It’s hard to explain what caught my eye. Zuri was the first draemon in the series. Despite the series always walking the fantasy line, I hadn’t ever considered adding dragons to the series. When Nuge showed me this concept after being told to do whatever she wanted, I knew I had an opportunity. Of course, I needed to start doing a lot more development on her personality. For those of you who remember, her original description was nothing more than two lines. She liked to work out and was upbeat. That’s all I knew about her at the start of development.

One of the biggest problems I had with writing Zuri was that I wasn’t sure how strong her relationship with Natalie was going to be. For the first two thirds of the story, I couldn’t find a spark between them. Sure, they were friends, but that was as much as I could do. They worked well as a duo. Zuri could provide the muscle, Natalie the brains behind it. Easy, by-the-books relations. I think it was around the picture of her hatch friends that I started to realize that I was underestimating Zuri. There was more to this fighter than I had originally thought.

Simplicity. I think that is the best word to describe Zuri. While you could interpret that as she’s dumb, as indicated by her lack of understanding of technology, I wouldn’t use it that way. Many people would say that there is no clear cut answers in the world. There is no single answer to a problem. Zuri wouldn’t agree. Right is right, wrong is wrong. There is no middle ground, there is no gray area. A warrior is a warrior. To Zuri, there is very little in the world that causes her to falter when she knows what her duty demands her to do. While Natalie sees a thousand different answers to the question of their fate, Zuri only sees one. Protect those she cares and never harm the innocent.

That simplicity is why I think Zuri and Natalie make such a strong pair. Natalie was a SITO with dreams of the top, becoming an admiral and rising to the top. Zuri never thought of herself or what made her happy, just what the code demanded and what others needed. Zuri never had anyone she could care about after Akurel left her. When Natalie entered her life, Zuri saw some of Akurel in Natalie and that old flame reignited in her heart. For the first time in a long time, Zuri started to think about herself and what she had lost on this path. For Natalie, she began to see that there was more in life than what she could get out of it. There were the makings of an eternal bond between them, if both of them could learn to see how the other did a little bit.

As we go into Fates, that bond is going to be tested. At the end of the Zuri route, the bond is still fragile and easily broken. When a figure from Zuri’s past returns to haunt her. With the universe falling apart around them, both of them are going to heavily depend on the other to help make sense of the new world they’ve stepped into. Out of all the character romances, Zuri is going to be the most difficult to maintain and see a positive resolution. To be able to hold the heart of the draemon warrior, you have to be prepared to put your own on the line. A warrior’s bond is forged in fire, after all.

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Okay, after having to rewrite this a third time because it kept getting deleted, I’m going to go take a break before I finally go off the mental deep end. Until next week, Chief out!

Fates Weekly Update #3

Hello, folks! It’s that time of the week again! I hope you all have been having a good week. Personally, I’ve had several strange moments this week, but most of them have been situations in real life by people trying to break the time-space continuum. Development, on the other hand, has been a lot more standard. No big updates for this week, but a fair number of small ones.

-The number of completed backgrounds jumped up pretty significantly this week. Five backgrounds were finished up this week, bringing our total up 6, all but one of them having different alterations for time of day. For those of you who played Reborn, you’ll remember that it only have a grand total of 8 backgrounds, so we are on course for having a lot more diversity in the destinations. I’m pretty stoked about that.

While Reborn didn’t really need a whole lot of backgrounds because it was very focused in that one setting, Fates is trying to expand upon that. To me, the story of an investigator going on a journey to save the universe needs some diversity in the locale. My thoughts drift back to Dragon Age 2 when I think about locale diversity. It’s limiting to recycle the same places again and again and again. We are on an epic adventure and we need some epic places to go!

The universe that Rising Angels is a part of is one inspired by fantasy. Fantasy and sci-fi… it’s an odd hybrid to be sure, but we are going to have an enjoyable time with Zuri and her ancient temples and Kika freaking out in her underwater bubble cities. Wait… I mean…

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-For those of you who are interested, updates to Rising Angels: Hope (The Red Rose remake) are also going along well. CG are looking pretty and the story is shaping up a lot better. No idea on the release date yet though. As part of my thanks, all Kickstarter backers will get two week early access to it when it releases.

-Some of the new things being added to Fates that were left out of Reborn are aiming towards increasing the amount of immersion. In the words of an old visual novel reviewer whom I can’t seem to convince to return, immersion makes the visual novel. The story needs those little things to help the player stay engaged.

For those of you who have been following me on twitter for a long time, you’ll know that I love Muv Luv. We can argue all day about various elements of the story, but there is one lesson from it that the EVN industry needs to take to heart. No movement is boring. You have a world, you have characters. Let’s give them a little life. Panning backgrounds, character poses and depth in the scene, and other little things help give that life. I’m pretty happy to admit that some of those things have been making their way in. With the help of Geckos, we’ve (she, really, not going to take credit for her hard work) been adding those things. As pathetic as it may sound, one of the biggest things that disappointed me in the previous RA series games is that Faye’s ears don’t wiggle with her emotions.

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Problem solved. (You have to click on the picture. Website doesn’t show it right.)

That’s about it for this week’s update. As always, stay tuned for next week’s update on the crazy world that is visual novel development! Chief out!

Fates weekly update #2

Hello, folks! Chief here with another rousing update from the development front. My chair is broken and my cat is sleeping on the keyboard, so this has been a tough update to write. I’m a rather tall person and sitting in the midget chair is nothing but pain. I tried to get a new chair, but they didn’t have the one I wanted in stock… Sorry, you all didn’t come here to listen to me rant about Fuzz and my broken kneecaps. Let’s talk about Rising Angels!

-One of the biggest problems facing me writing the outline for Akurel’s route was getting around the glaring problem of her being Zuri’s former best friend and crush. Having Natalie, Zuri’s current best friend/crush, leave poor Zuri and go out with her best friend just seemed too hard on the poor draemon. She doesn’t have many friends and only two crushes, so the route was looking to be a pretty bleak one. As much as I love sad stories, we already have Faye to lead the parade for stories that will sooner or later end in sadness. Thankfully, that hard work and brainpower that everyone has come to expect from a veteran writer as I paid off and we were able to make a less depressing story. …okay, it wasn’t me. It was Geckos, which leads me to my next transition…

-I’d like to take a moment and welcome Geckos to our team as a background artist. Geckos is a long-time friend of the studio and an incredibly talented artist. You can check out some of her work here!

-Sprites for the main characters are all done! Sprites for the minor characters are beginning! Progress!

-I promised a character corner, so let’s talk… Kika!

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Name: Kika Starr
Age: 23
Gender: F
Rank: Lieutenant
Nationality: Katajion
Bio: The navigator for the KSS Nimross. The daughter of a famous politician, Kika has always had whatever she wanted. When she lost her family in a terrorist attack, her only servant sent off to the far side of the universe, and her only friends gone, Kika found herself alone in a universe that didn’t respect her anymore. Kika questions if she can survive in this new universe, clinging to her former status and encouragement from her allies like a life preserver. Out of all the crew, the “princess” is the only person who can rival Natalie in battle tactics and technical knowledge.

Chief’s Notes: Kika Starr… Out of all the characters in Fates, Kika is the oldest of the fictional Katajion characters (concept wise). Her original development started back in the ancient days of 2004. Yes, back in those ancient days when we still used rocks for currency and dinosaurs still roamed the earth. Kika might actually be the first non-RP character to have been developed, I’d have to dig even deeper into my records to see who beats her out. Either way, she’s the oldest out of the Fates’s cast.

Though she’s ancient, Kika Starr hasn’t really changed much since her original concept. Physical build has changed since those days before time, but Kika has always been the princess. Her smugness has been the building block of her character. It’s strange, really. Most people says she’s an incredibly tsundere character, but her traits were designed before I knew what that term meant.

The princess type is a pretty cliche stereotype and Kika’s original role back then was small. I haven’t wrote too many princesses, Ahri from Pyrite Heart and Kika.

Side tangent: Even though they come from the same stereotype, Ahri and Kika ended up very different. Though it pains her to do so, Kika knows when she has to play as a team. She knows who her minions are, but she also makes sure she knows things about them. Though she’d never admit it, Kika cares a lot about her minions and does what she can to help and support them. The other major difference was why they do what they do. Ahri did what she did because she is focused on making herself happy. She wants to keep proving to herself that she is the best, even if nobody else is paying attention. Kika is almost the pure opposite. If there isn’t an audience to validate her, it isn’t worth trying. Kika will go above and beyond to thrill the crowd and show off her brainpower. If there isn’t someone to appreciate her, she slips into lethargy and depression. That’s why Kika always makes a big deal about having her minions around to awe. Behind that tsundere-ness is some pretty heavy co-dependency. Anyway, back to the history lesson.

Like Faye, Kika disappeared from the limelight for a long time. Unlike Faye, who lost her role to Sora before the revamp, Kika didn’t lose her role to anyone. No tsundere princess who wanted to take over the universe stole her crown. During the days of Anton, she simply dropped off the face of the world. It wasn’t Kika’s time or place. She could have infiltrated the story, but… I pretty much forgot about her. I’ve had thousands of characters in this universe and minor characters who never achieved story influence often disappeared. Kika was just another one who had her moment in a few little stories and then faded into obscurity.

When Rising Angels came around, Kika made her return to the scene. Why she made her return, I honestly can’t tell you. I have no idea how she managed to slip onto the roster. She wasn’t part of the original cast, I remember that. The original Red Rose cast didn’t include Kika, Blade, Termin, or Alana. They were included because I wanted to round the squad to an even dozen. The other three were originals, but Kika… Perhaps it was fate. Either way, Kika darted back to the scene, originally with blue pigtails, then with dyed pink drills. Her tsundere meter was cranked to 11 and she was pretty overbearing. I swore she wasn’t coming back to my cast again.

I was pretty adamant that she was unlikable and that she didn’t have a place in Reborn. I wasn’t ready to bet on her forcefulness getting a second chance. However, Kika got that chance thanks to being a favorite of the sprite artist, Nuge. Do I regret giving Kika her third chance at proving to the world that it would soon be hers? Nope. What I think was holding Kika back from evolving into more than Queen Starr was every story had her still attached to her prestige. Reborn was the first time where she had to depend on being Kika, not President Starr’s daughter. In the expansion of Reborn, I got to see more of that side. Even though she loves being the best and being beloved by everyone, even Kika still has dreams and sadness.

It’s something I’m really looking forward to exploring more in Fates. I doubt Kika will ever mellow out or lose that superiority complex, but I see more mental furniture filling in the space behind the wall. Seeing her learn to survive in a world with nothing more than her own strength is enjoyable and it is a lesson that Natalie can learn a little bit from as well. Kika’s route is going to focus more on discovering the truth about yourself when the world is falling around you; I think it is going to be fun. Not as fun though as when we take the water-phobic Kika and go on an undersea exploration to find clues!

I’ve got to bring this to an end. I’ve lost feeling in my knees and Fuzz still hasn’t moved from blocking the backspace key. Development is moving at a good pace and I’m confident for the future! Until next week, Chief out!