One thing we learned from PAX East is that we need to step up our social media game. I’d always resisted setting up things like forums, subreddits, discords, and the like because… well, a small project like ours looks bad when we have a largely empty community meeting space, right? But… you know what? Dream big. Go big. Make it HAPPEN.

So, now we have a Discord. Click da link to join. https://discord.gg/gaCcH2N

We’re in our early stages — more stuff to set up, policies to write — but we’re hoping to make this a great place to get your Arcade Spirits fix, share fan works, submit feedback, or just sit back and talk.

And this is just the beginning. We’ll be opening up new channels of communication soon. Some of them will simply echo Twitter or the blog, but this way, you’ll be able to get your news however YOU prefer to get it. We want to come to you, rather than you needing to come to us.

April’s been a bonkers month, all told. Lots of behind the scenes schmoozing and chatting and organizing. In the end, we want to make the best game possible, and the best experience around that game possible. Thank you for your support; this couldn’t happen without you.

Not much development work this week; we’ve basically been taking a breather since the release of the demo two weeks ago, and preparing for PAX East. It’s gonna be an odd one, a working vacation where I’m taking meetings and shaking hands (or at least taking meetings, what with PAX Pox). I’m hoping to make some moves to increase awareness of the game while I’m there.

Way I see it, and this is 2f’s Half-Baked Theory #147, there are five degrees of awareness about one’s creative work. …technically six.

• #0 — Your mom might have bought a copy even if she doesn’t quite get it, as well as any friends who got tired of you nagging them.
• #1 — You’ve got a dozen or three dozen people who follow you from project to project and are always down for what you wanna do. Pretty much no media coverage, though, and no growth. (This is where I was at with my novel writing.)
• #2 — You’ve got a hundred or so people keenly interested and keeping tabs on what you’re doing, in anticipation of more. Some small blogs and youtubers/streamers are giving you coverage, which is super. (This is where we’re at with Arcade Spirits.)
• #3 — Word is seriously starting to get out; the community as a whole is vaguely aware that you exist and whenever a more well known site mentions you people go “Oh yeah, that thing…”
• #4 — Generally you’re well known and there’s a few thousand people eager to see the end result of your work, and following your news regularly. Professional blogs many have heard of are covering your new developments.
• #5 — Indie success; you’re very likely to turn a profit and folks are routinely talking about you as something worth looking into, beyond just being a hidden gem.

After PAX I’d really like to move us up from #2 to #3. With the help of a publisher, if we can find a good fit for us, maybe we could even hit #4 or #5. The day I tune in to one of my gaming podcasts and hear “So I played this game, Arcade Spirits…” is the day we’ve made it.

Although frankly as long as this crazy shenanigannery pays for itself in the end I’ll be a happy camper, but given the crowded indie scene, who knows?

How can you help us, in the meanwhile? How do we push up to another level? Grassroots support. Everybody reading these words right now has the power to help us get there, by talking the game up, suggesting people play the demo.

If you gotta, emphasize that it’s not what people traditionally think of as a “visual novel” or “date sim.” We’re highly interactive rather than simply clicking through and reading, and the emphasis isn’t on seducing hotties. We aren’t leaning hard into the predictable genre tropes. We’re doing something different, and anything you can do to help us get that out there will help.

Thanks so much. We’ll be back to the grindstone after PAX; for now, let’s schmooze.

In my research leading up to this game, I played a bunch of VNs, watched a bunch of anime based on VNs, basically soaked myself in what the VN-lovin’ community digs. Not to make sure I deliver on every single trope they love, but to see what parts I personally love and want to carry forward into my own game.

Here’s one that didn’t make the cut: the Death Game trope. Fun for 99 dudes dropping on an island looking for guns, not so fun when you want to tell a narrative tale, in my view.

The Hunger Games. Virtue’s Last Reward. X:1999. Fate. Danganronpa. The Saw movies. Battle Royale. Highlander, even… start with one large cast of characters, force them to fight each other to the death until only one remains. A perfect engine for generating endless “NOOOO!” moments by the cast and the fans. And totally not my bag.

It can be done right, mind you. Highlander did it by only knocking off one likeable character alongside a bunch of mooks or jerks, and the likeable character was the standard issue Doomed Father Figure, so that’s fine. But what I don’t like about this trope is when the entire cast are likeable, fun, and exciting characters… and they die off just to ramp up the despair, leaving behind big gaping holes in the ensemble just for the sake of yanking at heartstrings. It’s like the author grabbing you by the hair and rubbing your face in all the teen angst, screaming “ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!?”

My go-to example of when this trope burns me is Danganronpa. I thought “This game is spectacularly popular, it’ll be great research material!” and I’d completely checked out after episode two. Why? Because they took one of the only characters I really related to and liked and killed that character off before any sort of character arc could be completed for them. (Compounded by more stupidity when another character overcomplicating the crime scene for the literal lulz against all common sense, but that’s “Professor Laytoning the Plot” and that’s for another blog post.) Once that character I loved was gone from the ensemble we were left with a bunch of peeps I either loathed or didn’t really care about, and well, all my motivation to keep playing went out the window.

It’d be like watching the Captain America: Civil War, except they actually kill each other and the cast gets whittled down until it’s just Hawkeye and Vision and Hawkeye wins. (No offense to any Hawkeye or Vision fans, but.) Once the parts you loved about an ensemble cast are gone, who cares what happens next?

Now, obviously, a visual novel about working in an arcade wasn’t going to end up being a Death Game. Not exactly a perfect fit. But adding one more visual novel to the pile which DOESN’T rely on this trope, well, that helps my cause of promoting the sort of stories I’d want to read. While Death Game stories will likely always be popular, if I can provide an alternative for people like me who want something where you can really relish in the ensemble cast and dig in deep without worrying about losing your favorites… I’m happy to provide.

Join us next week for either some actual game developer nuts and bolts or more tropes and writing theory, whichever suits me at the moment.

“Wow. This is actually happening.”

That’s the phrase that’s been running in my head the last few weeks. The fiasco is coming together into an actual thing. The demo is finished and has been released to the public. (This counts as our April Patreon milestone, but we’ll release an updated build with bugfixes and new music and art anyway for Patrons in April. No new story content but a better quality experience.)

Today, I watched a professional streamer give our demo a once-through. Watched the excited chat reacting in real-time to the craziness going on. No real negativity, aside from a few randos being like ‘wtf is this’ which is fine. And soon… it’s PAX East, where I’m repping the game at the “Romance in Games” panel, taking meetings, socializing with the team, and generally being professional as @!#?@!.

Which is insane. It’s completely insane. I’m a nobody who writes novels people don’t read, and now… this is actually happening.

I’ve got you to thank for this. You, the one reading these words. Not just Patreon backers but anybody who believed in this madness, who helped it become a real thing. I’m going to need that support all the way to the finish line and beyond, to help raise awareness and get this in front of people who’d love to play it if they knew it existed. This is a long haul, folks, even if we’re 68.75% finished with the writing. There’s still so much to do…

But this is happening. This is actually happening. Thank you.

Heeeere it is! Head on over to the Arcade Spirits website and get your copy of our demo today!

We’re coming up on the release of our public demo. The work is 100% in place, and we’re releasing March 14th! Keep an eye on the website.

Then at PAX we’re going to be boots-on-the-ground promoting this thing, appearing at panels (thursday night’s “Romance in Games” panel notably) and taking meetings and talking with anybody who wants to flag us down. If you see me at PAX, say hi — I’ll be patently obvious as probably the only dude with dwarfism riding a mobility scooter there. I’ll have bookmarks with character art and info on ’em which you can have, too.

Now, for today’s dev blog post, I’d like to talk about some pie-in-the-sky ideas I’ve been having for how to translate the modern indie game culture into the arcade scene. While most of the games depicted in Arcade Spirits are decidedly retro… what would a modern arcade game look like?

Now, there’s two obvious answers for this, since there are still arcade games in 2018. One is the devolution into a kiddie casino form, Dave ‘n Busters style, with single-button spin to win mechanics. But y’all know I hate these, so let’s move on. Next are the modern revival games coming from Raw Thrills, but these are mostly driving and lightgun based or are ticket-powered remakes of mobile games, which are… eh, okay. Let’s think beyond that, though. Beyond even dance, driving, lightgun, or even VR games already common on both sides of the Pacific… how can we work with genres that are supposedly impossible to adapt?

Well. I’ve got ideas.

MOBAs / RTSes: This is easier than you think. Killer Queen is a MOBA-esque version of Joust, a 5v5 game where each player has a distinct role and there are a number of win conditions. Then there’s Tooth and Tail which uses a uniquely simple control scheme to present quick multiplayer matches in local splitscreen. And finally, there’s the insane-o idea in Arcade Spirits itself… Fist of Discomfort, a full blown two-lane 1v1 MOBA, with an item store and special moves on cooldowns and creep waves. By shrinking down the concept, speeding it up, you can make a high intensity but quite rich multiplayer game experience well tailored for arcades and eSports.

Roguelikes: Just imagine an arcade version of 20XX, Binding of Isaac, Rogue Legacy, or any other action-packed indie roguelike (or roguelite for you sticklers). It wouldn’t even need any major modifications! Each run is a quarter. Stay alive as long as you can. Ah, but how do you record your unlocks and progression…? Simple — USB port on the front of the game. Plug in any USB thumbdrive, it’ll record an encrypted save file. If these were standardized you could pack a keychain thumbdrive with saves for any number of games at your local arcade on it. Japan already has done this with a few games, storing your save data on cards, but what if it was standardized? What if it allowed for bite-sized chunks of longer-form experiences? In fact…

Narrative Games: An arcade version of Firewatch? Sure, why not? If a narrative game is divided into chapters or milestones, each costing one quarter each, you could end up playing the normal price of admission across a complete 2-3 hour game experience. Add in some replayability elements like branching paths and you’re good. I mean, it’s not like libraries or book stores don’t exist anymore just because video games exist, and there could be a market for folks wanting to consume a story a chapter at a time, coming back the next day to continue pumping quarters and seeing more unfold.

Party Games: Large-scale four-plus player installations are possible in arcades, so why not games like Mario Party? Or mobile device enabled games, like the Jackbox Party Pack — just use a mobile app to pay to join the game, and you can chill out in the corner and eat vending machine snacks between more intense arcade sessions while still playing a game. Or heck, just leave Jackbox running for free and rely on the natural snacking impulse to subsidize it.

MMORPGs: Okay, I’m pretty sure Japan’s already cracked this particular nut, but taking everything above into consideration… thumbdrive with login credentials, play a slightly more action-oriented game, pay per raid or quest, adjust the timing to deliver an intense session each time. Or use existing F2P mechanics. Done. Keeps folks coming back for more.

In summary, I think there’s a lot of ways to use the communal experience of an arcade to play modern genres. So in a universe where arcades never died, we might see some of our modern classics like Rocket League translate perfectly to that environment. If the economics supported it, I’d love to see some of these ideas in action. Anybody wanna take a shot at it?

Let’s do a general development update today.

The March Patreon build is in the can, and rolled out to $5+ backers on the 1st of the month. Eight different dates are possible, each a pretty darn long scene. You may want to drop a save at the decision point so you can see a few of them; they’re all quite distinct.

The April milestone is going to be our public demo, and EVERYBODY is getting that, backer or not. We’re hoping to release it long before PAX East, or at the very latest we’ll release it right before PAX East. It’s the cornerstone of the next big thing we’re working on: wooing publishers.

Why get a publisher? Marketing and distribution, mostly. We can make a game but have no clue how to get it into the hands of anybody not already reading these words you’re reading right now. Someone with business savvy can get the word out, far and wide, shouting from the treetops. It’s not a question of funding, as we’re safely self-funded and Patreon is helping slice away at the costs — but with the right partner, we can go so much further.

Meanwhile, it’s all art, all the time. New character art from Molly, new backgrounds for chapters 02 and 03 from Taylor, and temporary music gradually being replaced with kickin’ synthwave jams by Greg. I’ve been using Twitter to post little bits of content as they arrive, but we’ll be keeping plenty as a surprise for the Patreon builds and the full game. If you think you’ve seen it all… you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. (Which is a double negative. It means you’ve seen something. Just, y’know, there’s more.)

Not much in development news to share for Arcade Spirits; we’re grinding out minor fixes, content updates, and finalization of the dating scenes in 05 for the March Patreon milestone. It’s funny, when you play it it’ll feel like maybe a third of a chapter, but that third had to be written eight times over. One date per major character, plus an option to just chill by yourself if you’re not in the mood for lovin’. So it’s a ton of work for not much payout… but that payout is unique to you and your path through the game.

So, in lieu of some major content drop this week, let’s philosophize:

Is our game a visual novel?

We’re certainly using the visual novel style — character art, dialogue box, click through, pick stuff off choice menus. We’re using a visual novel engine, too. But we’ve got a few key differences which nudge us towards one subgenre, away from another, then down a different road entirely.

First of all, we’re using “date sim” style game mechanics, where your interactions are scored and can be tracked. Not just flags, but a numerical score based on how well you’re getting on with someone, and how your personality’s shaping up. I’ve heard some VN veterans say “date sims are not visual novels” so… apparently we’re not a VN? Sure feels like a VN, though.

Second, we have tons of interactivity. You’re constantly deciding how your character reacts to what’s going on around you… deciding who to spend time with, how to solve problems, even just what words you want to use in an otherwise trivial little conversation and what those words say about you as a person. Many VNs offer little or even no choices whatsoever; we’re going the Bioware/Telltale route instead.

Lastly, no routes. Many VNs will have few choices, but those choices send you down wildly different branching paths… often with no visible signposting. Picking “eat waffles for breakfast” could, for no logical reason, mean suddenly you can’t date Hiroko-chan anymore because you aren’t on her “route.” Our game has a lot of leeway for screwing up, saying the wrong thing, picking different options and still arriving at your chosen romance. You can’t accidentally step off the route. You can completely alienate someone and have no chance with them, sure, but you almost have to work at it to do that.

So, if we’ve got some actual game mechanics, lots of roleplaying, and no hard-set routes… what are we? A visual novel? A narrative roleplaying game? An interactive comedy? An eggplant? I don’t know. But I gotta figure this out because, uh, PAX is coming and I need an elevator pitch which isn’t soaked in too many genre buzzwords. Yikes.

We’ve been sharing a lot of Arcade Spirits art lately, but not much music. Let’s fix that. Have a listen!

Enter “Neon City,” the track which plays at the start of most chapters of the game. It speaks of the bright optimism of life in the unspecified city where Arcade Spirits takes place.

I was tempted to upload this one to YouTube but we haven’t even touched the idea of the possibility of the notion of a proper game trailer, and I’d hate to have that be our first and only non-screenshot media.

I’m looking to cut together a proper trailer soon, though. We’ve got a public demo releasing in early April, before PAX East, and, uh… I’ve never made a video before. I have the tools, so maybe I can learn? Unless someone reading this wants to volunteer or knows someone who can cut together screenshots and art assets into a quick promo video hint hint wink wink?

Meanwhile, enjoy the fine musical stylings of Greg Mirles. If you like it, scope out his bandcamp page. Seriously good stuff, yo.