Chief’s Still On Vacation

If you are reading this, it means that the train was unable to push the DeLorean up to 88 MPH and I am stuck in 1885. It could mean that or it could also mean that I decided to spend an extra day with my family and am still on vacation without my computer. No matter which one is the correct answer, it means that the weekly update has been pushed until Sunday afternoon when I get back. Sorry, folks.

The video of this little post is where Chief could also be stuck at right now.

Fates Weekly Update #60

Hello, folks. It’s that time of the week again! Not D&D time of the week though. Overwhelmingly disappointed about that. They are the only people who get large blocks of my time scheduled out twice a month. It’s really complicated to balance everything out, but I love those guys so I always try my best. Sigh… I take some inspiration from my campaigns, so it creeps into the story slightly when sad Chief has to write sad scenes. Maybe in a couple weeks… But for now we have some updates.

Writing: Okay, first thing I need to do is address some questions I was indirectly given. Now, Zuri and Natalie are the established free route and the canon route. There’s no possible way that this could ever change. Even with the addition of Kika route in the Steam version of Reborn and the fact that the Sol romance has been lingering on the outskirts since the beginning, Natalie and Zuri are my established route. Her other routes are also very clearly defined as well. Akurel has a very odd relationship with both Zuri and Natalie, Alexi has a mix of friendship and playful romance, Sol’s is the romance the jump of friends to lovers, and Kika has the continuation of her previous story. Name and her team, however, weren’t as clearly defined and it has confused some of the audience.

The original plan had the free/canon route being Name and Anton. This had three major problems from the start. The first one was that a primarily yuri audience was not happy with the route being a male love interest. I might not always agree with the audience, but I do listen. If there are internal reasons to agree with external reasons, I am more likely to take action. In this case, there was two. The second reason was that established canon is… ambiguous. In the traditional writing, it is established that there is a heavy romance with leaning towards romance. Nobody ever says anything, but there are some subtext. The problem is that Yoi and Anton had a terrible romance and have a weird relationship and Syl has an established romance at the end of the episodes of Anton’s Vacation that never made it out. The third and final reason is that… they just don’t have that spark. They’re friends with some romantic overtones. Attempts to force them together just don’t feel right.

So where does that leave us. Syl’s route is not a guaranteed route and there’s no romantic feelings between them. Anton is the best friend who is there to support her through the tough times. Eve won’t be in the original release, so that isn’t possible. The two competitors are Yoi and Faye. While Faye has some established crushes in the past, Name and Faye really do hit it off well. Name is veeeeeery protective of her sick wolf. The other option is Yoi, who is a terrible flirt but has loved and flirted heavily with Name. Even though they fight, Name does care about her bodyguard and they make a cute couple as both try to discover their place in the universe.

Right now, Faye is going to be the free/canon route. However, I will listen to the audience. Yoi or Faye, who deserves the canoncy?

Backgrounds: The backgrounds are almost done! There’s only two backgrounds left before this part of the art chapter is brought to a close. I’m pretty excited because once the backgrounds are completed, the only art that remains is the little icons for the investigation sections and the CG. Since the CG will keep going until the end, the only art section left to complete is the icons. Very stoked about that. Two backgrounds and a bunch of little icons is really nothing.

Rising Angels: Hope: Great news on this front! All of the sprites for the new remake are all done. While the cast is a bit smaller than the original, as we had to cut some of the minor characters who didn’t have many lines, almost all of the original leads are still here. In a matter of a month and a half, we’ve made more progress on this than we did in six months. Very happy with how things are going. With what little spare time I have, I have been tinkering with a possible time management gameplay engine where you take Faye and have her try to keep the rest of the team studying to get them to pass. It is an experimental idea, but we’ll see in future updates where it takes us.

I think that’s all for today. Remember to send in your votes on who you would like to take that canon route. Until next week, Chief out!

 

Video of the post is whatever happens when I get in some tough weeks. Gotta rock out!

Order of Ataxia: Initial Effects Monthly Update #2

Hello, folks. It’s that time of the month again. Are you ready for some Order of Ataxia updates? I’m ready for some updates!

Backerkit: There was a fair bit of trouble with my understanding and operation of it. The best news though is that it has been resolved. Surveys have been sent out to all backers and you should be able to update and change things as you go along.

Writing: As we’ve continued our cooperative writing, Fuzai and I have had a bit of an argument on which character is out favorite and whose route is the best. Normally I don’t like getting into debates with other team members about favorites, but as we are both the writer, it helps us identify weaknesses in the routes and things we can do to make them better. I personally think Fallore’s might be my personal favorite. Her relationship with Charles as his uncaring caretaker makes me laugh a lot. I was originally worried that she was going to be a one-trick pony, but it turns out that gods have a lot of little tricks about them and Fallore can play more games than just beat Chuckie-boy with a stick.

Voice Acting: We have a cast list!

Charles- CrypticGhost

Fallore- Mel Gorsha

Beta- Christina Trouten

Sophia- Holly Lindin

Raiyne- Rachael Messer

The voice work has been amazing. For those of you who have been with IDHAS for a while, it isn’t a secret that I am always very leery when it comes to voice acting. I always worry about if it is a smart investment. It was a wonderful thing for Order of Ataxia. We’re planning on fixing up the demo so that everyone can hear the awesome voices as well.

For those of you who are interested in being voice actors, we are planning on casting again soon for some of the minor characters who appear in the script as well. The majority of those roles are female, but there will be at least one more male character in the script.

Backgrounds: We are almost 50% through the background list! There are a fair number of variants for several backgrounds as we have a variety of times and weather of settings that alter some of our outdoor scenes. There are still a bunch that need to be done, including the suffering markets of Aidis and the treasury of Castle Aidis that Sophia swears is completely full of gold and there is nothing wrong going on. Trust her, it is fine. No need to look behind the curtain! Here’s one of the most prosperous places in the city, the elven camps that have sprung up outside the walls of the city.

Happiest place in Aidis!
Happiest place in Aidis!

Illustrations: Right now we are at 17 CG done or in the advanced sketching stage. I don’t have a fixed number on how many more await because I am notorious for adding CG up until the last possible moment. I’m a sucker for pretty art and I love my CG in games. It’s also the bread and butter of a fanservice heavy game and I want to make sure that all readers have a great time with Order of Ataxia. It’s a balancing act of fanservice and plot. I know that might sound silly coming from a developer whose characters are wearing highly revealing outfits, but I refuse to let it carry the entire game. Of course, that’s not to say it isn’t carrying its duty out…

The finished version of last update's showing
The finished version of last update’s showing

 

Wouldn't be a game if the mage didn't break out the vines!
Wouldn’t be a game if the mage didn’t break out the vines!

Dakimakura: Production has started and we should be receiving them not too long in the future, so we should have some hard copies to show soon.

That’s all for this update. Based on how things are going now, I am hoping we are going to be at release time by this time next month. Production has been remarkably strong and we’ve made a lot of progress in such a short period of time. I want to thank everyone for their supporting of this project. We’re getting closer by the day to the reality of its release. Until next time, Chief out!

Two video of the posts in a single week… uhhhhhh… what have I been listening to this week? Well…

Fates Weekly Update #59

Hello, folks. Did you know 4 AM was a real thing? I keep managing to suppress my memory of it, but it somehow manages to infiltrate my life again. I’m pretty sure right now the only way we can properly ensure that it never forces me out of bed on the weekend to work is to destroy the sun. This may seem like a rather drastic solution, but I have come to the conclusion that it is the most efficient. Because of the work required to implement this strategy, I am going to be writing a fairly light post tonight. It’s not because I have to work super early all weekend, I promise you.

Writing: Not a lot of writing was done this week, sadly. It was overall a pretty quiet week on all fronts. Most of it was devoted to cleaning up the Zuri romance scenes and fixing minor grammatical mistakes. As it turns out, if you are half-asleep, you tend to make a lot of minor mistakes. Back in the day, I used to keep an error tracker to help me determine where and when I was making the most mistakes while writing. The data wasn’t that surprising. Being asleep causes some drastic downgrades to your ability to process coherent sentences. Even now I suspect I am making mistakes and doubt my ability to catch them. The flip side though is that being tired tends to help me increase the amount of writing I am able to put out. I can write creatively a lot faster when the thoughts aren’t being muddled by doubt and questioning. When you have a plan and let it run, amazing things can happen. You then just have to waste a lot more time fixing that torrent. Which is better to do is a matter of personal preference.

A bit on and off topic, but sleep is something that does play a small factor into Fates. While we all remember cute little Faye’s desire to sleep away 99% of the day, being well rested and focused is something that is critical to an investigator. When you’re worried about the world though, it does tend to slip away from you. I feel a bit bad for Natalie, who loses about as much sleep as I do. One scene in Sol’s route even tells a story of how losing that edge to weariness can get to you. Out of Natalie’s team, Sol is the one person who is most observant of those around him and the person most likely to vocalize when he sees weakness. Real life slipping into fiction…

I want to give a special thanks to everyone who showed up for the rambling and writing stream that we had last week. It was a lot of fun, even if things got really wacky there for a while. We are planning on doing it again tomorrow, though I will be tired from working all day and I’m not sure how wacky things are going to be this time around.

That’s all for today. I need to get a bit of rest before the day begins anew. Until next time, Chief out.

Video of the post is something that you old internet foggies might remember.

Fates Weekly Update #58

Hello, folks. This is was a pretty long week, wasn’t it? The weather was just starting to turn and the leaves are finally beginning to fall. Delaware has some really weird seasons for me. Then again, traveling the world has exposed me to a lot of really weird seasons. It’s one of the things that tends to creep into my works a lot. You might not believe this, but it turns out that different locations have different types of weather patterns. Weird, right? It won’t matter after I finish the device… I mean… there is no secret weather machine. This is an update about visual novels. Visual novels…

Writing: This week was pretty much geared towards two very specific scenes, one of which had a CG of it done this week as well. There was one event that was supposed to be in Rising Angels: Reborn that ended up getting cut from it since Sol’s route was dropped. Like everyone who exists, Natalie Puccile has a birthday. It’s one of those things that tends to get forgotten by heroes in video games, including some of the more mundane things like going to the restroom and vegging out on the sofa.

Every character has their own special way of celebrating the day of birth. It’s a bit trickier to do it in the middle of space, especially when certain races don’t really celebrate it. For most of the humans and lupide of Katajion space, it is a fairly traditional event. Parties with family and friends coming over, with the fifteenth being the biggest for humans. Lupide and kitsune tend to have larger celebrations since they generally have larger families and each birthday holds a lot more importance in their short lives. As such, Sol wants to bring back the good old days when they were kids while Kika wants to have an elaborate party that is befitting the moment. Kind of hard to do that on a ship, but never underestimate the resourcefulness of Kika.

Alexi is a bit of an oddball here as Raltins don’t generally have big parties to celebrate anything that aren’t state sponsored events. I’m not exactly sure how I am going to write out her version of the scene.

But the scene I was writing was with Natalie’s guardian. Draemon don’t really celebrate birthdays. Most of them couldn’t tell you how old they are or how long they were wildlings. It’s not like they have calendars in the middle of the unforgiving wilderness. So when Sol tells Zuri about Natalie’s upcoming birthday, she literally has no clue what it is. All she knows is what the rest of the crew tells her. Alexi in particular has some fun with her version of it. It ends up with Zuri not quite sure what to do, but knowing it might be super important to Natalie. The result… well, I’m happy with how the scene is turning out. I hope you will be as well.

Art: Several new CGs and backgrounds were finished this week! Sadly, most of the CG I can’t share because of the massive spoiler potential. Since I can’t share them, I will be a terrible person and give a bit of a tease. Lenna is getting a pretty sad CG. Probably the only one she will get in this game with her status as minor character. The next one is a super cute one with Zuri. Natalie and Zuri are still one of my favorite duos and Zuri really does give everything she has to giving her heart to Natalie. The last one involves a tired lupide trying to recover with the help of her caretaker who may or may not know what they are doing.

WIP: Always hire a trained doctor... wait, they do, don't they?
WIP: Always hire a trained doctor… wait, they do, don’t they?

As for the backgrounds, there are only a few left. The world of Rising Angels: Fates is almost completely developed!

Rising Angels: Hope: After a lot of problems and difficulties trying to get this project back on-track, we are moving it forward. So far, we have about 65% of the new sprites done and are moving along at a really good clip. Renmiou has been awesome to work with on fixing this. With most of the writing done and only the CG after it, I’m fairly confident that we may be seeing a new Rising Angels game on the horizon!

Yes, the twins are back.
Yes, the twins are back.

Sunday streams: One thing I used to do a lot was take prompts and have some fun with them to improve my skill as a writer. There’s nothing quite like getting some impromptu practice to help foster ideas and let loose some steam. Over the last year and a half, this practice fell by the wayside as work overtaxed me. Starting Sundays (the day I used to try and take off), I will be starting it up again for a couple hours. My intent is to stream it and give a chance to chat and ramble. The link should be posted tomorrow on the Rising Angels section of the Hyperspace Forums, assuming we can get the stream working right.

Brilliant Shadows has released! For those of you who don’t know, it is a really awesome visual novel done by Ithaqua Labs who are partners with IDHAS. Their artist is also the wonderful Geckos, who did Natalie’s sprite, the GUI, and the new outfits for the sprites. The game is amazing and I can’t stress it enough to go check it out. You won’t be disappointed.

That’s all for tonight, folks. Tune in tomorrow for our Sunday Stream! Until then, Chief out!

 

What’s the video of the post? I haven’t been listening to much lately… so let’s do a pop flashback! Yes, Chief listens to pretty much everything.