Archives for December 2017

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and Pleasant Tidings To All. Here’s your present: a developer blog post! Let’s talk today about development roadmaps.

While Arcade Spirits is deliberately taking a “When It’s Done(tm)” attitude, since everybody involved has day jobs and families to support and timing must be kept flexible, we do have an ever-shifting roadmap which helps us stay on target. The targets can move, sure, but we’ve GOT targets and we know which ones we’re working towards at any given moment.

Let’s go into detail on that, and discuss what we plan to release each month. (Remember, to get full demo builds of the game, you need to be a $5+ backer on Patreon. But you can always read this blog for free.)

To recap, December 2017 saw the completed and polished release of Chapter 04. This is pretty exciting because Chapters 01-04 form one complete story arc, the “getting to know you” arc where you have opportunities to spend time with each of our core cast members. We also finalized Naomi’s artwork and a few backgrounds.

January 2017 (which will release on the 10th rather than the 1st, owing to the holidays) will feature the first half of Chapter 05, in which our crew takes a well-deserved beach vacation, and the player starts thinking seriously about which character they want to romance. The entire cast will be present and you can interact with them in new and interesting combinations.

February 2017 will actually be a special release of the game with no story content — instead you’ll be getting an interactive documentary about home arcade games, and how you can build your own. It’s narrated by Naomi, of course, and has a useful overview of the technology involved and some links to get you started. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, we’ll have spent two months preparing the Big Kahuna, which is…

March 2017, which wraps up Chapter 05, but technically has a TON of content because each and every dateable cast member has a half-episode worth of exclusive scenes. This is the payoff, where you and the one you love get to spend some real quality time together. (Not coincidentally giving us tons of replayability as people try to see the other scenes!)

And then there’s the Bigger Kahuna…

April 2017, which leads right up to PAX East in Boston, will feature the world’s first publicly playable non-Patreon-only demo of the game which we’ll be taking with us up to the show. We aren’t planning on getting a booth — the costs are a bit prohibitive since none of us actually live near Boston and flying gear and my disabled butt up there is a nightmare — but we’ll have download links so you can enjoy it no matter where you are.

And beyond that? Well, more chapters, more art integration, etc, etc. It’s a long haul to the finish line, but that’s okay. We’re ready. Are you?

We’ve had two super spiffy posts about artwork in a row. Let’s talk about writing today. Specifically, the epic mythic fantasy yarn of impossible dreams and wishes we’re weaving — a.k.a. “finding a job you love that pays well.”

(MINOR spoiler territory. I mean, you learn all this in the first fifteen minutes.)

The basic setup for our new visual novel, Arcade Spirits, is that you’re a down-on-your-luck millennial in the year 20XX who’s trying to find a job you don’t hate which will keep you in the black. Okay — realistic so far. But the fantasy element is in the overall theme of the game, which is to take risks, chase your dreams, and find a career that will make you happy… with success and wealth to follow.

This doesn’t quite work in reality. In fact, part of me was a bit worried I’m sending the wrong message with my “chase your dreams and it’ll all work out!” plot. That it’ll read badly, people will reject it, and reject the game in turn because it doesn’t ring true.

Take myself, for instance. One of the best recommendations I’ve heard for creative-type people is NOT to quit your job and try to become a full-time artist / writer / streamer / youtuber / whatever, but to allow yourself to live off a stable income doing something you tolerate in order to fund doing something you love. That’s what I’m doing in not quitting my day job, unlike some of these characters. But does that make me a hypocrite for writing a game-long thesis on aspiration? I don’t know.

Regardless, I decided from day one that Arcade Spirits would aim for an optimistic tone with a zesty side helping of pragmatism. I can’t shoot down the core concept of the entire game just because it’s probably bad life advice.

And really, I WANT to live in a world where you can aspire to something more than tolerably getting by in life. I want to write a story about the world we could live in, even if we don’t really live there. About 20XX, not 2017, or even 2018…

It’s my job to write a convincing case for this life theory, in game form. If my story helps you feel a little better about life, good. And if it’s a hopeless daydream… at least it’s a nice one.

Thought I’d share with you some of the progress we’ve been making on background art. Folks backing at the $5+ tier get to see this in game, but why not show everyone?

Backgrounds are being done by Taylor Rose of the Portland Indie Game Squad, the same group our co-author Aenne Schumann comes from. She’s got a different style than our all-digital character artist, which helps characters stand out from the backgrounds.

Here’s the Funplex, for instance. This took a lot of iterations to get the right amount of color and screen glow, to really make the place feel bright and cheerful while still being a relatively dark space (like, y’know, arcades are). The Funplex is a unique scene in that it pans left-and-right across the viewable area, instead of being a single screen.

Next we have your player character’s apartment, shared with Juniper. It’s a warmer and more muted color palette as this is meant to feel homey and a little bit run-down. It’s the cozy place you return to after a day of craziness.

Lastly there’s the overall shot of The City of 20XX, where our story takes place. It’s an urban sprawl, very busy, but we wanted a sense of brightness and optimism to it — where there’s a promise of excitement rather than a doomed megalopolis like in most near-future tales.

We’ve got more artwork on the way in the future — this is just a sampling of what’s in store for you in Arcade Spirits, the kind of look and feel we’re going for. Bright, cheerful, modern, electric, and fun.

First up, our December Patreon demo build has been released for $5+ backers! If you want to play four full chapters of the game, now’s the time to hop in.

Also today, I’ve got a special treat for you, particularly if you’re a fan of Naomi.

Thanks to some pretty intense code juggling and more than one feature added to Renpy itself just to support it (thanks a bunch, RenpyTom!), we’ve finalized our emotion and clothing system!

So, what are you looking at here, besides a cutie in various outfits? Let’s break it down.

You can’t see it here ’cause it’s not animated, but we have a 1/3rd of a second soft dissolve effect whenever her expression changes. This replaces the clunky-ass method I was using before, the one I beat my head against a wall over for three days, thanks to RenpyTom adding exactly the feature I needed.

Next, like most VNs, the facial expression can be changed to match the emotion of the character. Pictured there are Normal, Delighted, and Blushing. She’s got a pretty wide range of emotions she can express, and this is a small sample.

Unlike most VNs, her pose is actually randomized! Each time her emotional state changes, arm placement and position is drawn from a pool of appropriate poses. For example, her shy expressions usually end up with her hands behind her back rather than on her hips, while her more casual poses leave an arm or two slack.

Lastly, simply by toggling a variable, I can change her outfit from “Work Uniform” to “Casual” or “Swimwear.” (Since we’ve got an obligatory beach episode coming up soon, you see. Patrons will likely get to see that in January.)

Since all of this is handled in code, we don’t have to do any manual labor to ensure a nice variety of character visuals. All we specify is the character’s mood and any clothing changes, and the system handles the rest.

Naomi will be fully featured in the December Patreon build. Other characters will follow, but we’re going to focus on filling out the base of the temp art characters first (Percy, QueenBee, Teo).

Neat stuff, huh? All thanks to our proud backers, who have helped fund the artwork needed to make this happen. Thanks so much.