By now, you’ve probably seen PQube’s press release — we’re adding voice acting to Arcade Spirits! It’s our number one requested feature by far, something people kept coming up to us at conventions asking about. And now that we’ve got it in the works, I feel confident talking about this new feature with you all!
Since this is the developer blog, let’s pull up a chair and straddle it from behind while turning our ball cap to a jaunty angle so we can rap, kids.
How will acting in the game work, given all the customization options?
We’re using a couple stellar games as our model for this — Octopath Traveler, Danganronpa, Dream Daddy, Fire Emblem. Instead of voicing every single line (which let’s be honest, would cost us a fortune) we’re voicing key emotional moments in every “level” or chapter of the game. Outside those moments, you’ll hear brief emotional reactions (“Yes!” “Woohoo!” “Hrmmm…” “I don’t know.”) to ensure you’re still getting some of that juicy voice flavor in every bite.
How many characters will have voices?
Fifteen of ’em. The core cast, of course, as well as any secondary character that keeps coming back in the story. And a few fun surprises.
Who has been cast so far? Can I be in the game? Please?
Alas, can’t tell you. The casting process is ongoing. We may also have an open casting future in the weeks ahead, so keep an eye out for details — no need to contact us ahead of time, we’ll be sure to let you know when it starts. Gotta be vague here because this is a work in progress and I don’t want to promise anything just yet.
I don’t like voices in my visual novels!
That’s fine! If you’re a streamer who wants to do the voice-over on your own, there’ll be a volume slider for voices, just like everything else in the game. You can turn it down or turn it off at any time. And if you leave it on it should automatically “duck” the volume of our amazing music a bit, so you can clearly hear the voices. In addition, you can leave the emotional quips and reactions in, while turning off the fully-acted lines if that’s what you prefer.
Will the demo be updated with voices?
We might update it with the short emotional reaction lines, but the demo’s dialogue script doesn’t have any fully voiced scene content since it’s using a time compressed / specialized chunk of the main game.
When is Arcade Spirits releasing?!
We’ve got a target in mind, but again, we don’t like to promise anything until we’re totally sure. It’s not fair to you if we make mistakes. We’ll have an announcement for this in future, though, we promise! You won’t miss it.
Oh, hey, while I’m here, what’s going on with the Patreon?
October is the last month of our Patreon. Thanks to everyone who’s been supporting us along the way! Anyone who contributes $25 or more over the lifetime of the project (including October) will get a few final beta versions, and a final release copy of the game. If you want to get in on that as a new player, you can! Just join with a “monthly” donation of $25, then cancel it a day later. We charge up front, so it’ll count! Or you can wait for the full release, that’s cool too. It’s up to you.
Regardless… thanks for being a part of Arcade Spirits. All of you. If you’re reading these words, you’re down the rabbit hole with us, and we welcome you. Let your friends know about Arcade Spirits, get the word out. The more successful we are, the more likely we can keep this ball rolling well into the future!
I am trying to send in an audition for Ashley, but the page is gone. How can I email you the file containing my audition?
Thanks.
While I would prefer fully voiced, including an optional narrator to describe on-screen action, as someone who is completely reliant on the audio component of traditional game output, anything that reduces my reliance on text-to-speech is greately appreciated, and until we either get technology that allows computers to feed sensory data directly into the brain, bypassing, possibly faulty, sensory organs or text-to-speech AI sophisticated enough you can just feed it the game script and it output recordings that give every character a unique and appropriate voice and every line an appropriate inflection without sound like it came from the uncanny valley, hiring vioce actors to record the lines the old-fashioned way is the best option even if time and budget doesn’t allow for voicing every little twig and leaf of the dialogue tree or has to omit minor characters to avoid actors talking to themselves.
Its a matter of personal taste but I’d rather something be fully voiced or not at all. Otherwise its kind of distracting and more of a “gimmick” than a proper story telling tool. I guess my question would be is this truly necessary? Considering your a smaller indie type project where presumably every dollar counts what are the pros and cons to doing this.
I’d prefer fully voiced, too! But the amount of money that would cost would be prohibitive. We’ve asked our fans if they’d enjoy some acting and the vast majority have said yes, which makes this a reasonable feature for us to add to increase the enjoyment most players will have.
We’ve played and enjoyed plenty of games with partial acting, such as Danganronpa, Professor Layton, Octopath Traveller, etc. And you always have the option to turn the voices off if you don’t want to hear them.
Oh I understand and I wasn’t suggesting you do fully voice. Its just I’ve seen more than one crowd funded game over promise or otherwise try too hard to please their fans.
But like I said. YMMV