Fates Weekly Update #57

Hello, folks. Normally I write something incredibly witting and charming up here, but not today. Today was supposed to be the release date for Rising Angels: Fates and as you can see, the game has not made it out. This is a personal failure upon my part. So instead of my usual song and dance on the stage, we are going to give a full report on the status of everything.

Writing:

-Core writing: The core writing for the game is in the editing stage and has been completely finished in terms of story. The core of the story is the entire voiced section that is common amongst all routes.

-Investigative writing: As much as I mentioned how much I love this part of the game, there is a lot of writing that is needed for it. Every item that can be presented needs text for it and most of them have small scenes that go along with them. It was far more writing than I originally intended and I am ashamed to say that it is the most behind. As a rough estimate, I have to say we are maybe a quarter of the way through all of the scenes. I’m considering cutting down on the number of events and recycling dialog, but I would rather add as much content as possible to the game.

-Character writing: Most of the character scenes for everyone in the first act have been completed. About twenty percent of the other acts have been finished up and a fair bit of work is still required in this section. Zuri and Kika have the most work done so far on their routes with Yoi taking the lead for the Name side of the house.

Art:

-Background art: We are almost done with the background art. Out of the 50 backgrounds for Fates, 45 of them are completely done and the last five are sketches. We should hopefully have those done soon. 4 planets and two spaceships ended up with a lot of backgrounds.

-Character art: All 21 of 21 characters have been completed! We ended up going a bit beyond what our original estimates called for. Natalie got a sprite and an extra outfit; Kika, Name, Zuri, and Yoi all got extra outfits as well. The cast list is a bit excessive, but I must admit that I quite enjoy large casts and there are a lot of different teams and players in Fates.

-Illustration art: One of our other areas that is a bit behind as well. Right now we are 28 (73 with variations) out of… we don’t really have a set number on this one. Probably going to keep at it as long as the CG artist is willing and I still have my day job paycheck to add more art.

Audio:

-Music: All of 15 of the tracks for the soundtrack have been completed. There are a couple extra tracks in the works that may bring that number further up.

-Voices: All voices except for the final act have been completed. Since we are still finishing up the editing on the final act, things are a bit delayed there. Hopefully, we should have it finished up very soon and we can close out this section.

-SFX: Since the lack of SFX was lacking in RA: Reborn, getting plenty of sound effects for Fates was a high priority. We are still coordinating all of the scenes that require SFX, so our numbers aren’t accurate at the moment. We are investing heavily into acquiring good ambient sound effects and action effects.

GUI:

-Art: All of the art for the GUI has been completed except for the icons for the investigation section. This is the one area that is quite behind. We had a lot of problems securing an icon artist and we are back in the neighborhood of finding one.

-Coding: This is a mixed bag of goods. While the engine for the investigative section has been finished for a very long time, we are still behind on the much larger task of coding in all the sprites, voices, and effects. This is a section I am dreading, to be honest. It is a colossal amount of work and I may be hiring assistants to help out with it.

Kickstarter related:

-Merchandise: All the wallscrolls and dakimakura have been made and sent out. We’ve considered making a couple other ones, but we are waiting to get things caught back up before we design any more.

-Codex: We are about two thirds completed with the codex. Turns out there are a lot of different things in this universe and I’ve got a bad tendency to ramble when I talk about the past.

-Book of short stories/ Collector/Faye side stories: Since work on the main writing has been slowed, efforts have been shifted away from here to help bolster the main. Most of the short stories are slowly progressing when I get some down time after long days at my day job when I just don’t have the mental acuity to wrap my head around the thousands of options and possible factors in the investigative sections. They’re progressing, but slowly.

In short, we still have a fair amount of work to do and most of it depends on the writing. I can give excuses about how many hours I work at my day job, but those are just that. Excuses. We’re fully committed to making this the best game possible and worth every penny that has been invested into it. Though I know delays are painful, I once again humbly ask for your understanding. Next week we will be back to our regular updates. Until then, happy Halloween. Chief out.

And something that spooked me out as a kid for this video o’ the post Halloween edition.

Fates Weekly Update #56

Hello, folks. Chief here reporting from the other side of the world. Or the same side of the world, depending on where you live. There’s nothing quite like traveling the world by working 24 hrs straight. I know it is good life experience that help inspire writing, but some days I could use a little more rest and a little less life inspiration.

Wordcount: With the core of the story done, work has been focused on the investigation sections. The investigations might be my favorite part of the game. While the core of the story is the overarching line that ties everything together and the character route scenes are those sprinkles that tie the bonds of the characters together, the investigations are where a lot of the smaller stories of the Rising Angels series come together. Now, some of the items are simple present the object to the person like Phoenix Wright. I won’t lie, I am the type of person who plays PW and presents EVERY SINGLE ITEM to EVERY SINGLE PERSON to see if it gets some sort of reaction out of them. That is one thing that will carry itself over into Fates.

The other big thing that makes me so excited about the investigation sections is being able to present clues or stories you heard to characters. Knowing who to talk to about what topic will let you see a lot of the smaller stories that take place in this universe. Most characters have their own side stories that you can flesh out and experience. One of my favorites, and one I’ve been dying to tell for a while, is the story of Syl and her brother/family. You can start with the story clue of Syl trying to give a brief moment of comfort to Name about pursuing her sister. You can just take her sympathy and let it end there or you can question around to gather clues and figure out what happened those many years ago. However, not all stories have happy endings and not everyone appreciates you digging through their past or pushing things they don’t like. Push too hard and routes and stories will disappear before your eyes. Push too light and events will never come to light. The life of an investigator is never easy.

Well, I have to end this early as they are calling me back to continue our trip around the world. Never a break for the weary. Until next time, Chief out.

Video of the post is…

Fates Weekly Update #55

Hello, folks. I managed to do something that I so rarely get to do and managed to watch an anime series. Not just one, but two! A fair number of people have told me that I needed to watch Gate. I think it was once referenced to me as Komi’s Magical Adventure. While I wasn’t much of a fan of the last half of it when it went full anime and forgot it was a military expedition into a fantasy world, it was still an awesome show. It was then followed up by Aldnoah.Zero. It was nice getting a few moments of stress relief and getting some fun ideas for side stories. Makes me eager to finish up and let Natalie rest while another batch of heroes takes on some mech fun.

Wordcount: One ending left. One ending left and we will be completely done with the core, which means we can be completely done with the voice acting not too long after it. While there is still a fair bit of investigation and route scenes to write, having the first major milestone completed towards release is a major boon to morale. The last ending is a much happier one than the rest. There’s something peaceful being able to write the ending where the heroes succeed with a clean slate over endings where they carry mental and emotional scars for the rest of their lives, assuming they live.

Writing contest entries: The writing contest has come to a close! We only had three entries, so everyone who entered takes home a prize. I was a bit worried that we weren’t going to have enough entries, but we had a last minute entry that saved the day.

Third place:

Matthew Oosthuizen

Third place took the first place for cute endings. I’ve always been fond of a Yoi/Faye romance, even if I don’t think it would have worked out for long. It was a nice entry that encompassed a lot of the themes that the original Rising Angels story aimed to tell. While not long, it does tell a good story that we enjoyed. It might have overtaken second, but it suffered from one major problem in the four categories. There were a lot of grammatical mistakes that detracted from the reading. The biggest one is the super paragraphs. While most of you don’t remember the days when I was Chief Editor instead of just Chief, but there was one thing that always bugged me and it was super paragraphs. Improper grammar can hamper a good story, and when the race is incredibly close, it can influence the voting just enough.

Second place:

Xavkul

First off, I have to say that this entry has my favorite character. While the other judges put that in check, I personally have to give a standing ovation to an entry that includes Chief as one of the lead actors. I mean, he is just so handsome and dashing. Overall, it was a fairly well written story with few grammatical mistakes and a nice focus. One of the things that docked points, however, was that it was fairly short. Now I am a man who likes a story to be concise. What bugged me was that there was a fair bit of build-up, but the climax of the story was very fast and a bit unfulfilling. Nevertheless, it was a solid story that is deserving of second place.

First place:

R Zomberez

If you can remind me of characters that I forgot existed, I’ve got to give a point. Including Headmaster Tyclue and a few other characters there were only in the demo of Rising Angels: The Red Rose completely caught me off-guard. I quite enjoyed the adventure of Aria as she paralleled the adventures of Faye in the original story. There was a lot of adventure that spanned the story of RA and it exemplified the theme of the contest at almost every turn. All in all, the story was enjoyable even if it messed up some canon points (Syl will never say more than three words, but that isn’t actually established in the VN continuity). The biggest weakness that put its hold on first in jeopardy though was the one that caught third place. Grammar, grammar, grammar. You can have a fun story, but if your grammar is weak, it throws the reader out of your world and into one of annoyance. If there was one takeaway from this contest for everyone, it would be to always take some time with that old pesky man of syntax.

It was a fun contest and I had a blast reading the entries. While all of us were a bit disappointed in the lack of entries, the ones we received were awesome and a blast to read. With the art and writing contests down, the only thing remaining is the raffle. We’ll be preparing that one closer to the time of release.

That’s all for this week. Stay tuned for more updates next week! Until then, Chief out.

Video o’ the post was an easy one. I’ve been jamming to this all week.

Fates Weekly Update #54

Hey, folks. Chief here with your weekly update! Last weekend was a bit of a sad weekend as the D&D campaign that I play every other Saturday has come to a close. It was a fitting end for a campaign of epicness. I’m tempted to slip my character into a story later on, she was quite fun to play with. Still, we have a more pressing story with characters to write! Last week’s update had some issues, so things didn’t make it out. I’m quite sad that the combo had to come to an end. On to the update and the start of a new combo. The first update I am sad to announce is that we are looking at changing the release date. I was hoping that we would be further ahead than we are, but there are enough things behind the power curve that I have to admit that a delay is in order. Right now, we are rerunning estimations in order to get a more accurate release date. I am sorry about this and we will keep you all in the loop.

Wordcount: 3,414; Writing this week has led me to the point where I am not really sure what sort of romantic relationship Name and Anton had, are having, and could possibly have. They’ve always been good friends, even in the original work of fiction that introduced her. It was a bit of a rocky start, but it managed to grow and strength as time went on and both of them realized that they didn’t have to be right all the time (just most of it). In Anton’s Vacation, there is some slight romantic undertones between the two of them, but it ended with them showing their strong ties to each other. In the original storylines, Name acknowledged Anton as one of her few close friends and contemplated having deeper feelings for him, but it never formulated anything.

Now that we are going into Fates, the same thing is once again developing between them. The new storyline still has Name leaving the force between the previous events and breaking ties with her profession, but this time Name takes a transfer from SITO to a regular judicial detective. They end up paired together again, but this time there are no major adventures between her leaving and rejoining that would cement the bonds of their friendship. I thought by breaking these existing bonds that it would be possible to reforge their relationship to be a bit more romantic.

Turns out that it doesn’t work out the way I wanted it. That familiarity very rapidly reestablished itself between them, but the spark of romance just won’t ignite. They feel very much like siblings instead of lovers when I attempt to write romantic scenes between them. Anton might be the friend she’ll call at 2AM when she just needs someone to vent to about her terrible day, but he’s not the type to sweep her off her feet. I could force it between them, but it just never feels right. I think I am going to keep them as close friends in Fates. Maybe someday that spark will ignite between them, maybe they just need more time, or maybe the investigative duo are simply meant to be best friends through the nightmares they live in.

Writing contest: There is only five days left in the writing contest! Get those entries in soon!

CG update: We are almost done with the CG in Act 3! Act 3 is one of the most interesting when it comes to illustrations because a lot of the big mystery reveals are in 3 and they’ve got a lot of fun scenes tied to them. There’s also Natalie’s birthday in there, which has a fair number of cute moments between them.

Rising Angels: Hope: We are back on-track after finalizing the details with the new artist! We should have some new art to show you in the upcoming weeks!

Once again, I am sorry for the delay. Once I hear back on some of the delaying problems, I should be able to give everyone a better update on how much longer you will have to wait. Until next week, Chief out.

 

Video o’ the post this week is a song that’s been on my mind lately. Epic video the first time I saw it.