Now presenting the other half of the writing team, my co-author and narrative designer… Aenne Schumann!

From their earliest memories, Aenne has loved two things, writing and gaming. And it’s been a wild ride to get where they are now. Self proclaimed weebtrash, Aenne starting off writing fanfiction, which cultivated their passion for storytelling and character development. Working as a game journalist for the indie website, Press2Reset, exposed them to the wonders of the game industry and opened their eyes that their dream was achievable. Aenne has worked on various game jams with friends to create fun and interesting games such as Space Cat Boyfriend, and The Third Eye. They’ve also worked on the dialogue and story for Ray’s the Dead. Arcade Spirits is their first sweet little bab of a game and they cannot wait to watch it grow up!

When Aenne isn’t in the depths of game development, they enjoy streaming, cosplay, and working as a licensed animal nurse. They also enjoy butts, cats, wine/gin, and sharks, more than most people should.

Arcade Spirits literally would not exist without Aenne. I’d been kicking around the vague idea for a visual novel since 2004, but only when Aenne gave me the push and encouragement I needed to actually go for it was I willing to give it a try. Aenne’s insider perspective on things like competitive gaming and the cosplay scene helped breathe life into Teo, Ashley, and QueenBee — characters I wasn’t sure how to approach, that I couldn’t have done proper justice to. By our powers combined, we made something truly special, and I hope you enjoy this story when the game releases on Feb 12!

Who brought all those fantastic characters to life…? None other than Molly Nemecek, aka Jakface McGee, our character artist!

Molly Nemecek is a freelance artist who enjoys dabbling in fan art, making comics and going to conventions. She loves music, video games, nature and food. She recently got into DnD and cannot shut up about it. She loves art with lots of colours and movement and someone once described her art as “Lisa Frank, but with muscles.” One day wishes to ascend to be a real life Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure character.

Developing the characters of Arcade Spirits was a collaborative process, and Molly really helped us find a unique look for each character — developing ideas we’d never have been able to think of on our own. Her unique look gives our game its signature style, and we’re happy to showcase her art coming February 12th, when our game releases!

…wait, I have to write up a blog post about myself now? Well, if you insist…

Stefan has been engaging in random creative nonsense for more than twenty five years. He was writing fanfiction about his toys in elementary school, bashing out shareware games like Pong Kombat in high school, and ramping right into game development through college and beyond. He’s responsible for the award-winning Neverwinter Nights modules Penultima, Elegia Eternum, and the HeX coda. He lives on the Internet and is an okay guy.

Also it’s his birthday today. He turns 43, and can feel every single one of those years in his many aching joints.

I’m pleased to be working with myself on this project. I can’t think of anybody better for the job! Except, I dunno, maybe Neil Gaiman or something. Or someone who’s won writing awards and stuff. Like, a career professional rather than a general muck-a-bout like me. But regardless, I’m proud to have worked with myself on Arcade Spirits, and hope you enjoy my writing!

Now presenting the one responsible for our neon-soaked urban visages… Taylor Rose!

Taylor Rose is a freelance illustrator, visual development artist, working with various indie developers in the games industry. Outside of work she is an avid plein air painter, cyclist, and loves role playing games. More of her work is available at https://taylorerose.artstation.com/ or https://www.instagram.com/tayloreroseart/ and she happily accepts inquiries through tarose.art@gmail.com.

Finding a background artist was a bit of a challenge for us. Taylor’s colorful, painterly style made for an interesting approach to the citywide locales and arcades we wanted to bring to life, and we’re glad to be working with her!

We auditioned dozens and dozens of composers to find someone who was just the right fit for Arcade Spirits — someone who could capture the spirit of the colorful neon eighties perfectly. And boy howdy did we succeed when we found Greg.

Greg Mirles is the Pittsburgh based creator of the artificial intelligence composer program known as AMMO. When asked about the creation of the Arcade Spirits OST AMMO commented, “It took over ten-thousand simulations to achieve the desired waveform, but the end result is exceeding our initial expectations.” Greg’s inspirations behind the sounds AMMO generates include LORN, Gunship, Darren Korb and Mega Corp. Greg acted as the intermediary between the Arcade Spirits team and the A.I. When not working on music production, Greg is also a 3D artist and specializes in stylized and low poly 3D art. You can listen to more simulations from AMMO by checking out the program’s bandcamp page.

Right off the bat we knew we’d found the perfect musician for this game when I realized I desperately needed to purchase his album immediately after hearing it and then proceed to listen to it a few dozen times. Greg’s work on Arcade Spirits is memorable, catchy, and emotionally suits the scenes perfectly. We hope you’ll consider picking up the soundtrack as well as the game when they release on February 12th!

Welcome to our Developer Spotlight series! Just like we did for the voice actors, we’re going to introduce you to the folks working behind the scenes to make Arcade Spirits happen. It may have started with just the two core writers, Aenne and Stefan, but it’s expanded considerably since then. For instance, here’s the one who polished up all those voices you’ll be hearing, Marc Straight!

Marc Straight is an audio designer from the Pittsburgh area. He is most well known by his work in music but has been a part of every role in game audio. Marc began his audio career as a heavy metal vocalist and guitarist while also making music for live horror attractions. Over time, Marc grew interested in how games and film made their sounds possible and dove in to the world of audio design. Some of his most notable credits are his Dark Souls inspired album Souls and Blood, Sound design with the game Smugglecraft, technical sound design in Nour and assisting in voice-over editing for Divinity Original Sin 2.

We’re pleased as punch to be working with Marc to ensure our voices come through crystal clear. Audio engineering is something of a dark and mysterious art and having someone who knows its unknowable paths on-hand to make Arcade Spirits sound the best it can be is very handy indeed. Also that was a ridiculous sentence.

​Good news — the updated version of the Arcade Spirits demo is now available! You can get it from itch.io and Steam. (If you already had it downloaded on Steam you may need to restart Steam to get the update.) Here’s a list of what’s new.

• Voice acting is now available! In the full game several key scenes will be fully acted, and emotional reaction lines are used elsewhere; for the demo we’re only using the emotional reaction lines.
• Music and sound effect volume has been rebalanced.
• Teo is slightly smaller (he was too zoomed in before).
• Teo and QueenBee’s Kindly paths have additional character details.

The full game releases February 12, 2019! So enjoy the demo, and we hope to see you then!

We’ve got a release date — February 12th, 2019! Woo your arcade partner just in time for Valentines Day. And along with that announcement we’ve got a new trailer which features some of the great voice acting you’ll be hearing!

The demo itself doesn’t have voice yet, but I’ll be updating it soon to include voice acting (and a few minor tweaks and changes). Everything should be tip top shortly.

See you in February for love in a time of quarters!

Now that we’ve highlighted each individual voice actor, let’s put it all together!

Here’s a conveniently desktop wallpaper sized poster of all the voice talent behind Arcade Spirits! Share and enjoy.

You can learn more about each individual voice actor via these links:

• Stephanie Sheh as Naomi
• Ogie Banks as Gavin
• Price Johnson as Percy
• Amber Leigh as Ashley
• Nazia Chaudhry as QueenBee
• Christopher Escalante as Teo
• Mark Meer as Deco
• Danielle McRae as Sue
• LilyPichu as Juniper
• Tricia Brioux as Francine
• Stephanie Bruneau as Iris
• Akash Thakkar as Hamza
• Graham Stark as Ben
• Jacob Burgess as Matt (and the Voice Director)

So, what do you think? Any voices you’re excited for in particular? Anyone new to you that you’re interested in hearing? Let us know!

“You’ve got your actor in my director!” “You’ve got your director in my actor!” Two great tastes that go great together, please welcome Jacob Burgess — responsible for not only casting and directing the voices of Arcade Spirits, but playing Matt, co-owner of the Hole Story!

First off, Jacob is honored to have cast, direct, and performed with the stunning cast of Arcade Spirits. Jacob has been a professional voice actor, writer, and director for many years. You may know him from his VO work in games in roles such as Mason from Where The Water Tastes Like Wine, Glint Gardnersonson in Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear, or Oli in Masquerada: Song and Shadows. Maybe you know him from his writing work with Onyx Path Publishing, Paizo, or Silverstring Media. It could also be you know him from his appearances on Loading Ready Run’s content, Late Night Dub Fight, or the charity Desert Bus for Hope. Jacob gets around. Jacob is most active on twitter and can be found at @JacobBurgessVO or www.makewordshappen.com. Thank you so much for your interest and attention!

We first saw Jacob when he was portraying various extremely problematic boyfriends who were also household pets on LoadingReadyRun’s “Now Kiss.” That harrowing performance was so memorable that when we ran into him at PAX East, we just knew we had to collaborate on something. Soon enough he was helping us wrangle the giant voice project we’d stapled onto our visual novel project — finding us amazing talent, making sure we get exactly what we needed from that talent, and keeping it all under budget. I can’t sing Jacob’s praises enough. He’s like the A-Team of indie game voice work… if you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find him, maybe you can hire the J-Dude.