Before we begin today’s random ramblings about game development… behold this screenshot, which is 40% final!

Awwwwyeah, that’s the stuff. That’s Justin from SleepNinja Games doing the amazeballs pixel artwork for Moopy, along with a rough of Taylor’s Funplex background. UI’s mine. (Characters are still temp art.) And for folks who don’t dig the CRT effect, don’t worry, all the pixel art will be in unlockable via our prize gallery.

Remember last week, when I was talking about achievements? I decided to go with my idea of having an unlockable image gallery, which is tied to achievements. Standard fare for visual novels, really. Ours are called “Prizes” because, well, arcade. Currently you unlock Moopy artwork at the end of chapter two, but that may change. Unlocks are also available for various romance paths and hidden endings and stuff.

Okay, so next, let’s talk the October Patreon release. (Folks reading this free blog, if you join today, you’ll get this!) My current plan is the following:

1. An “export tuneup” which fills in a few plot flags we forgot to record, and lets you set some other stuff up. It’ll also unlock a few items in the prize gallery for your completion so far, then it’ll re-export.

2. A sneak preview of the first half of chapter 04. I’ll use your data export for it, but it won’t export at the end, ’cause this is just a sneak preview.

Then for the November milestone we’ll have the rest of chapter 03, and for December the entirety of chapter 04. It’s a little wonky but this beats us going fallow for a week, yah? Plus you get to play around with your new prizes. Go ahead. You’ve earned them.

(For folks just reading the free blog, well, pixel art up there, yo! Enjoy. And more art on the way!)

Arcade Spirits will have cheevos. This really shouldn’t come as any surprise, as every modern game has achievements in it — Steam’s got support built right in for it, and we can hook into that. (Although I do need to research a bit more what we do about non-Steam versions. I’m sure this is a solved problem given how many renpy authors are out there.)

The question is… what do we do for achievements? I’ve been brainstorming, so let me run some by you.

The obvious one is endings. One cheevo for finishing the game with each of our seven romance options. One cheevo for each of our hidden “bad” endings. One for a clean sweep of all possible outcomes. I mean, that’s Visual Novel 101, right? But we can go deeper.

What about achievements for becoming a Paragon of Quirkiness? Or a Stalwart Steady? Or a Kindly Caregiver, a Gutsy Improviser, or a Basic Bitch? …okay, the last one probably needs work *cough* but basically, finish the game with your top identity trait as one of our five available options. You can stack this up with the character-specific endings, too, to optimize your playtime.

But I’m also debating what else there could be. Hidden achievements for taking unusual options, or unexpected decisions that normally would feel out of whack. How deep should I go with this? What becomes annoying busywork and what becomes a nice extra?

And… should I tie other things to cheevos? Art gallery items like concept sketches, for example? Desktop wallpapers? We’ve got a lot of possibilities, here. What would people enjoy?

I welcome your feedback!

Two things I’d like to talk about today…

One, non-linearity. This is the first story I’ve written where I’m working on chapters out of sequence. Seriously. Until now I’ve followed a very specific pattern of hammering out one chapter after another of a story, posting them online as I write them. But a game’s a different bag, and compartmentalizing content is possible, and I’ve got a lot of moving parts and moving people involved… so the optimal path is to work on things out of order and, if needed, tune up the connecting tissue later.

This is a long-winded way of saying that October’s Patreon update will probably be a sneak preview of chapter 4.1, rather than chapter 3.2. Truth is we’re well past 3.2 and I’d hate to skip another month, so backers will be getting a special testing version of 4.1 if 3.2 isn’t available yet. (3.2 might be coming! Depends on a LOT of those moving parts.)

Second thing I’d like to talk about, choices. I’ve talked about choice in visual novels quite a bit in this blog. I think the reason why I’m soaking Arcade Spirits in these micro-decision moments, roleplaying-focused, is because so few visual novels really satisfy my desire to play a very interactive story.

I’ve tried and I’ve tried but the visual novels I’ve played are typically focused on VERY long stretches of read-click, read-click with no decision making outside of some very vague branching moments. (“You chose to have breakfast rather than wash the dog? Guess you don’t get to romance Shizue-chan.”) It’s weird. I love the style of storytelling but I have a very low tolerance for awkward pacing, unnatural translated dialogue, over the top seriousness and pretentiousness, and complete lack of interactivity.

Rather than sit around slagging off visual novels I chose to sit down and make one that I’d want to play. (He said, after spending a paragraph slagging off visual novels.) My goal is to create a game that isn’t trying to make a sprawling, massively-branching story, but instead an intensely personal experience that you can enjoy again and again in different styles. And I’m sure VNs exist which do this without being soaked on genre tropes… so if you’ve got any suggestions, let me know. Thanks.

Let’s talk heroes. Because that’s you guys. Both folks reading the free dev blog, and our Patreon supporters.

I warned the patrons ahead of time that we wouldn’t have a demo available for September, due to PAX and other related life obligations. I said I was totally cool with folks dropping out or just cutting back support for a month in response.

Know how much the Patreon sank? A dollar. One dollar. That’s it. You guys? You’re awesome and I can’t thank you enough. This is proving my most expensive creative lark ever and this genuinely does help us make it happen.

Okay, now let’s talk villains.

While my co-author and various artists were off at various conventions (DragonCon, FanCon, PAX West, etc… man, that’s a lot of simultaneous events) I was here by my lonesome having the most productive weekend in a LONG time. Relaxing, too, go figure. I’m happiest when I’m working, I guess.

My goal was to bash out as much of Chapter 06 as possible. “But wait!” you cry, as I slowly advance on you with a knife. “We haven’t even finished Chapter 03!” Yes, well, this is video gaems, not sturry novals. Since we had a solid roadmap and outline I was able to move ahead to a part of the story I had firmly fixed in my mind for months… the confrontation with our main villain.

Who goes by the name Deco Nami. (It’s built on two references, one of which is a pun. Bonus points to anyone who figures them both out in the comments below.)

I think it’s no surprise that I have a deep loathing of the modern “arcade,” which is more of a kiddie casino than a game parlor. Dave & Busters and the dessicated husk of Chuck E. Cheese lead the vanguard there, providing loosely-legally safe slot machines to drag kids into Skinner Boxes and never let them go. So, our main villain is rather specifically spearheading the movement to pulverize arcade games and turn them into Mini-Vegas. And writing him is an absolute joy.

I won’t spoil the circumstances of your conflict, or the outcome. It’s something we’re building towards and the fallout is going to be spectacular. But hopefully, through Deco’s Palace, I’ll make my case for what the ideal of arcade culture should be. And hopefully, you’ll have fun thwarting him.

Let’s talk story.

As conceived, Arcade Spirits follows a pretty rigorous structure — a story divided into distinct arcs, each with their own themes and challenges. (MINOR spoilers ahead but really, nothing too critical.)

Episode 01 is our introduction. You take a job at the arcade, meet our core cast of characters, get equal opportunity to score relationship points with each of them. Everybody gets screen time. You have to solve a few problems, allowing for some complex crisis management moments, too.

Episodes 02, 03, and 04 are our “relationship building” arc. Each one focuses in on two of our six characters, and a particular area of arcade culture — auctions, conventions, tournaments. In each one, you also get a chance to spend time with a non-focus character. These are pretty structured episodes and follow a very tight focus.

Episode 05 is where your relationship truly starts, where you have a few last minute moments with the cast before you’re asked to pick someone and start dating them. Like all my love stories, I don’t roll credits right after confessing love… that’s not reality. Relationships are messy, they take work, they have to grow and evolve. Same here. That’s why the start of it is in the middle.

Episodes 06, 07, and the finale in 08 are part of a rivalry arc. No more character focus episodes; now it’s all hands on deck for dealing with a larger scale crisis than they’ve ever faced before. You and your new partner take it head-on, while you keep morale up with the others. (Relationship points outside your love interest aren’t wasted and will affect the ending!)

You know me — I looooves me some symmetry. Start, bam-bam-bam arc, transition, bam-bam-bam finale. Nicely mirrored. Although I’ll admit the bam-bam-bam finale, since I’m not vigorously focusing in on individual characters, is going to be more of a juggling act of nonlinear writing. I haven’t got all the details planned… but there’s time. And I’m going to do everything I can to deliver one hell of a tale.

(Before we begin, one warning for potential folks who’d like to join the Patreon — we’ll be skipping the $5 tier demo offering for September. This month has been all about juggling business on the backend of the game, so we don’t have anything new for a demo build. But if you’d like to join anyway to help pay the bills and dig us out of the red, well, I’m not gonna stop you.)

Recently I put together a google document for Arcade Spirits which plotted out all the “relationship point” opportunities, as well as common paths through them. I checked paths where you fanatically chase after one character, where you chase after two characters but they share a focus episode, and even a path where you try to balance your affections evenly. My goal is to make sure that by episode 05, you’ve clearly earned enough points that the game can effectively say “Okay, this is your special sweetie.” We don’t want to say “Wait, you weren’t interested in so-and-so? Well, too bad, you picked all the secret paths that lead right into bed with them” or anything like that. (See also, Bioware.)

Unlike many other visual novels, we’re erecting huge signposts which say “THIS WAY TO NAOMI’S HEART,” for example. We don’t want to have the players making uninformed decisions — if they choose to visit one location and not another, don’t ambush them with a character opportunity for someone they weren’t interested in, for instance. You can mess up now and then, say the wrong thing, it’ll be just fine as long as you’re paying attention to the clear clues along the way.

Now, that said, I’m deciding exactly HOW the opportunity to ink in your romantic choice presents itself. Do we let you pick from your top three of the six offerings? Top two? Do we allow you to say “screw you, destiny” and make a desperate last pitch to someone you didn’t entirely hit it off with? How game-y do we want to be, how natural do we want it to flow?

Everything comes to a head in the fifth episode. Well. There’s eight total, so obviously there’s more STORY, but we want to give you time to spend with your sweetums after deciding who your sweetums is. You know me; I don’t let my characters declare love and then immediately roll credits. But that declaration… aye, that’s going to be tricky.

I welcome your input and suggestions and thoughts and ideas and cupcake recipes in the comments.

Hey hey, it’s time for some major Arcade Spirits news!

It’s been a long week of combing through portfolios, weighing pros and cons, debating back and forth with my co-author Aenne. But I believe we’ve settled on a sweet roster of artists to start replacing those doofy temp assets with real, actual, paid-for artwork. Without further ado, I’d like to announce the artists!

CHARACTER ART: Molly Nemecek (Twitter) (Webcomic)

It didn’t take long for Molly to win us over. While her art style isn’t what I expected I’d crave for Arcade Spirits, I decided it give her the old matchbook art test (“Can you draw this parrot?”) with Naomi in the place of a parrot… and she knocked it out of the park with a slew of really great variations on the character to pick from. That sealed the deal for this skeptic, to be certain.

Adorable. We’re looking forward to working with Molly to really fine-tune and nail the art style of Arcade Spirits, and to bring our cast of characters to life!

BACKGROUND ART: Taylor Rose (Tumblr)

Taylor’s beautiful natural and surrealistic landscapes certainly caught my eye. But can she draw arcades, I wondered? So, I asked her. And this was her reply.

And that’s only a one-hour sketch with no real refinement or tweaking. In order words, she’s already this good and this isn’t even her final form. I look forward to her evolving into Tayloruru, the Legendary Art Pokemon.

PIXEL ART: Justin Baldwin (Twitter)

I feel kind of ashamed having Justin on this project. Why? Because he is too good for us. He’s super professional with tons of game industry experience and some amazeballs pixel art landscapes which make me want to fall on my knees and weep. He’ll be doing artwork for Mr. Moopy’s Magic Maze and Fist of Discomfort.

GRAPHIC DESIGN: Michael Borel (Website)

When you need flyers, posters, logos, and fake corporate branding… who you gonna call? How about a professional graphic designer? Seriously, check out his digital art and his stickers, he’s got a wide variety of really clean work in there.

ADDITIONAL GAME ART: Emma Rust (Tumblr)

Skilled in a wide variety of traditional and digital styles, Emma will be providing additional art for the Wyvern’s Keep game in Arcade Spirits, and it’s going to be just lovely.

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There you have it, folks! The Arcade Spirits art crew, in living color. And these quickie sketches you see are just scraping the tip of the iceberg, to mix metaphors in a horrible fashion! It only gets better from here.

We’ll be integrating their work into our game as it’s made available. Want to be the first to see? Join the Patreon! For just $1+ you get one-week-early access to these developer blog posts, and $5+ gets you monthly demo builds as they become available. If you contribute $25 or more over the lifetime of the game’s development, you get a free copy of the final game! What do you have to lose!? Well, other than a few bucks. Sign up today! And if you can’t afford to sign up, we got you covered — select pieces of art will be posted here to this dev blog after Patrons get their sneak peeks.

Thanks so much for your support. Arcade Spirits is soaring!

Today’s developer blog post is all about art, and how much we crave it.

We hunger for art. Our palms sweat and our eyes itch. We wish to consume art. It will be pushed into every pore of our body until we are saturated with its visual goodness. And then, at our most perfect moment when we are one with flesh and art, we shall Transform into Something Greater.

In short, Arcade Spirits is looking for artists.

(For new folks, Arcade Spirits is a visual novel set in the alternative year 20XX in which arcades never faded away. It’s a workplace romantic comedy and if you like games and/or love, you’ll dig it.)

If you’re interested in drawing character art for Arcade Spirits in the visual novel style (anime or western), or you know someone who’d be keen, let us know! We’ll need your contact info, portfolio links, your typical pricing, and so on. This is not a free gig (artists die from exposure) or a short term thing — we’re looking for someone we can collaborate with over several months to a year, and will pay fair rates for contracted work. If you’ve got the open schedule and we like what we see, we can bust the piggy bank for ya.

Here’s what we’re looking at, approximately, so you know what you’re in for.

• Character art will be head down to upper thighs, sized for 1080p, on a transparent background. Some may require layers which can be recolored and composited together (such as the player’s image).
  • Seven core cast members have 1-3 alternative poses or costumes, and several facial expressions.
  • Approximately 10-20 side characters, with no alternate costumes and only a few expressions.
  • Some “CG” illustrations, moments where characters are depicted at key points in the plot.
  • Will collaborate with the writers on the broad strokes but have some freedom to make suggestions about attire, accessories, etc.

Since I know a lot of creative sorts from my Impromanga / Improfanfic / ULTRA / Neverwinter Nights days I wanted to throw the first fishing lures out here on the dev blog and see who bites. So, can you draw? Does someone you know and love like to draw? Hook a fellow up and let’s see where this goes.

One of the common things developers share with their backers is development roadmaps. Since we figured ours out recently, I thought I’d share it with you.

Date	Patreon Release	Writing Work	Other Work
July	ep02	ep03 pt1, ep04 pt1
Aug 1?	ep03 pt1	ep03 p2, ep04 pt2
Sep 1	ep03 pt2	ep05 pt1	story finalization, asset list finalization
Nov 1	ep04 pt1	ep05 pt2	artist shopping
Dec 1	ep04 pt 2	ep06 pt1	contractors working
Jan 1	ep05 pt1	ep06 pt2	bartop demo unit, PAX arrangements
Feb 1	ep05 pt2	ep07 pt1
Mar 1	ep06 pt2	ep07 pt2	finalizing PAX demo
Apr 1	ep07 pt1	ep08 pt1	PAX East!
May 1	ep07 pt2	ep08 pt2	integrating finalized art and music
Jun 1	ep08 pt1	done!	integrating finalized art and music
July 1	ep08 pt2		integrating finalized art and music
Beyond	final assets

Right now we’re writing two episodes at the same time — Aenne’s in charge of directing 03, I’m directing 04. These conclude the first act of the game, episodes 02/03/04, which represent the player rising into their role within the arcade and staging a grand event.

Once we complete that and start in on the more asset-heavy Obligatory Beach Vacation Episode in 05, we’ll be finalizing exactly what assets we need for the game, and will start shopping around for artists and musicians to help us flesh out the content.

With some of that final content baked in we can work on a demo unit and hopefully bring it to PAX East. We’ve got plans — notably to use a bartop-style arcade unit to demo it — but it depends on the timing.

Finally… we’re aiming to have the game completed in Q3 or Q4 of 2018.

I figured you’d enjoy this peek behind the curtain… but all of this is subject to change, as conditions shift, plans go awry, and development refocuses priorities. No game has ever 100% stuck to a roadmap and we likely won’t either. Consider this a work in progress, much like the game itself.

EDIT: Disregard the paragraph I had here about not meeting the August milestone. We are go for launching on Tuesday!

Thanks for walking this path with us. We’re looking forward to the months ahead!