Dec 30, 2018

Arcade Spirits - Twoflower

It's been some time since I did a rambly developer blog update about our actual progress on the game. Today I'd like to do one of those, effectively wrapping up our game in a neat little bow, as we're going to be sending it off to be certified and prepped for the February 12th launch. (And we'll be launching at $20 for the game and $25 for game plus soundtrack and artbook. Details here.)

But first, let's recap the Developer Spotlight series, shall we? All these lovely people contributed to Arcade Spirits:

Hats off to you all for two and a half years of hard work. I've chronicled the ideas leading up to those two and a half years on the blog -- that's not what I want to talk about today. I want to talk in hindsight, as we're into the last days of this project. We're moving into 2019 and moving away from post-production, and it's a good time to take stock.

As my first true indie game project -- I don't think MS-DOS shareware from the 90s counts -- I wanted to make this as professional as I possibly could. We funded art, music, coding, and all the support needed to really make this game soar. It's a passion project, riding no particular trend, digging into subject matter rarely explored in visual novels and using interactive storytelling in ways we haven't seen very often in the genre. Everything we wanted to do, specifically to make the sort of game we wanted to play... we did it. And soon, we release it to you.

Since it's our first project, well, there are some shortcomings. I can be honest about that. A more in-depth character creator would be great, having stricter narrative consistency would be great, and we didn't plan on voice acting from day one meaning our scenes weren't always structured in a way that accommodated it. The fifth identity trait ("Basically") was never quite what I wanted it to be. Behind the scenes, files and code could be structured better, making it easier to write and less prone to errors. These are all great lessons to learn moving forward, all things we're taking into account for future games, should we get to make them.

But a lot of other things went spectacularly well. I wanted this to feel like an 80s workplace sitcom -- and it does. I wanted romance to be at the heart of the game, but not drive every single decision you make -- and there's variety here. I wanted to support and include as wide an audience as possible, every person no matter who they are -- and we've done that without sacrificing anything. I craved a game that spoke to wistful nostalgia without being entirely trapped within it, which was respectful of arcade culture but understanding of the modern era -- got it. And lastly, I wanted to tell a tale of hope and optimism in a dark time, where one could achieve their dreams if they were pragmatic about it and didn't give up. I believe we did that.

So. Some things we could've done differently. Some things we got *chef kiss* spot on. And overall, I'm damn proud of the work we're about to release into the world. Will it soar? Will it sink? That's not for me to say -- that's for you to say. If it soars, then we are ready to take these lessons and make something bigger and brighter, a game which explores player choice and narrative in new ways. If it sinks, I can still say with pride that I did what I set out to do. Few people can say they truly chased their dreams.

We still have a month and a half to go, so things are pretty intense for you right now, in anticipation. I get that. For me, we're winding down, we're packaging up and shipping things out... and I feel a kind of melancholy, letting this finally go. A bit of anxiety for how it will be received. But above all, happiness. We did this. And soon, we'll be able to show you.

Thank you. As I always say, if you're reading these words, you're farther down the rabbit hole than you expect -- most people don't chew through developer blog posts, don't engage this deeply. You, however, are here with us. And for that you have my gratitude.

So, who's ready to quarter up on February 12th? You got next.

Oct 30, 2018

A Star (Will Be) Born

Arcade Spirits - Twoflower

I want to thank everyone who sent in an audition for Ashley, from last week’s open casting call. And judging from the number of entries, by “everyone” I mean “a double digit percentage of the total population of the world” because WOW did we get a lot of auditions! We’re combing through them now — it’s going to take some time before we can find the absolutely best Ashley we can in all this amazing talent. But hey, that’s the kind of problem you want to have, right? It’s a great problem. Thank you for giving us this problem. We love you.

In other news, Arcade Spirits is headed to Dreamhack Atlanta! We love Dreamhack — I remember its roots in the 90s as a demoscene gathering, and seeing it blossom into not only an esports venue but also a thriving indie game showcase is really spectacular. Oddly appropriate, considering we made a game that’s all about chasing your dreams…

In the weeks ahead we’re going to have announcements for you about our voice cast, so you can get to know the faces behind the voices you’ll be hearing. I’ll also have some development notes as we head into the final stretch of dev work to get the game fully assembled and — this is the big part — tested extensively. We don’t want some obscure combination of choices you make along the way to ram you headfirst into a showstopping bug, do we? It’s going to take hard work, but we’re ready.

For folks in the $25 club from our old Patreon (now defunct) we’ll have a November build for you in November. For everyone else… we’ll be working to get you the full game as soon as we can. Good things are ahead — keep an eye on this space. And thank you for your support!

Oct 22, 2018

Help Ashley Find Her Voice!

Arcade Spirits - Twoflower

For those waiting to hear about open casting calls for Arcade Spirits, the time has come! Ashley Wolf, dedicated cosplayer and floor attendant for Francine's Arcade Funplex, needs your help!Are you a voice talent who thinks they have what it takes to help Ashley express her love of cosplay, arcade games, and weekend bingo night fiestas? Let's find out.

THE RULES ARE AS FOLLOWS! Any audition not following these rules exactly will be ignored and left behind, dwindling towards the horizon while sad piano music plays.

AUDITIONS ARE DUE BY: Friday, October 26th 12:00pm PST
THIS IS A NON-UNION GIG
AUDITIONS SHOULD BE SENT TO: arcadespiritscasting@gmail.com
You must have a home studio, a quiet space to record, and the ability to capture and send your audio. Don't worry about cleaning it up. We'll take care of that.
The audition dialogue you need to record can be found in this document: Ashley's Dialogue! (It has minor spoilers, so only read if you want to read for the part.) It includes two small scenes, and a number of short emotional reaction lines.
Files should be recorded in 48k / 16 bit and delivered as .mp3s. You can create one file for the whole audition, no need to split it up.
If doing multiple takes (MAX 2), record the script fully then the script fully again after.
STATE YOUR NAME (Just say your name at the beginning of your audition in your normal tone of voice)
Please label your file like this: Ashley_YourFirstnameLastname.mp3
Some of the dialogue will be fully spoken, some will be quick emotional reactions (similar to games such as Octopath Traveler, Dream Daddy, and Fire Emblem) that go along with the text on the screen.
The gig will pay $200 an hour with a 2 hour minimum. This means that if you land this and then rock the session and it only takes you an hour, we will still be paying for 2 hours of your time. We may cast you for a background role as well.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. Break a leg! Looking forward to hearing it!As for all the other characters of Arcade Spirits, the ones we've already cast... we'll have news for you of who's who and what's what in the weeks ahead. Keep an eye on Twitter and get ready for some fun!

Oct 8, 2018

Stepping Stones to Arcade Spirits

Arcade Spirits - Twoflower

First up, I want to say Woohoo! and Thank you! to everybody who responded so positively to our announcement of voice acting. I also know a lot of you want to audition but we aren't doing open casting calls at this time. We may open up one or more roles in the future, and if we do, you'll hear it here first. We promise. Until then, thanks for your patience.

Now, then! I had a long blog post written up about emotional sincerity, about how our game was meant to wear its heart on its sleeve and reject “lol cringe” attitudes... but it seems I already wrote that post like a year ago, so I had to scrap it. You can read it here if you like, though.

So instead of a pathos appeal, let's talk ethos. Let's talk about my past experience in game development, and how it lead to Arcade Spirits. This is Stefan speaking; Aenne has her own tale to tell and I'll see about getting her on the blog to chat about it later.

Most folks know me from two different paths I took -- writing (cough) anime fanfic and then original novels, and writing Neverwinter Nights modules. But truthfully Arcade Spirits first started out as an absurd little project from 1999 called “Culture Shock,” which was my attempt to write a visual novel engine in JAVASCRIPT to be playable in a browser. ...look, it was 1999, JavaScript was almost respectable at the time, okay?

It was a different time. A far weebier time.

Eventually I canned the project as I just didn't have access to the art resources I needed to actually do it, and JavaScript was clunky at best. Although there was this new thing I'd learned about at Otakon, attending a panel about... what was it called... Ren-py or something? Which seemed viable...

...but before I could dip too deep in those waters, Neverwinter Nights was released. And that changed everything. With a strong toolkit-based approach and an excellent dialogue editor, I was able to create storytelling adventures using a popular platform. I was in on it from day one, releasing Penultima, followed by Penultima ReRolled and the more horror-based elegia eternum series. Finally, I very nearly created an official Bioware campaign named the HeX coda, but corporate miscommunication resulted in the project being dropped from their roster and instead released for free.

(Interestingly, Fist of Discomfort -- the game-within-a-game of Arcade Spirits -- almost was a Neverwinter Nights module. I'd experimented with making a simplified brawler game out of the D&D based fightin' engine, complete with those flashy GO! arrows you'd see in Final Fight.)

All my NWN games were very character-driven, as you can see here.

But D&D wasn't really ideal for storytelling, because no matter how hard I tried I could never quite get the combat balance right. I could make stories featuring memorable characters, including some of the “dating” mechanics seen in Arcade Spirits, but it wasn't quite enough to really explore narrative potential. Exploring relationships -- both romance and friendship -- through game systems has always fascinated me. To make that dream a reality, I needed a different tool.

For about ten years I opted to go back to writing novels. I didn't need artists or musicians or coders to write a novel, just my own brain and a keyboard. It felt like a style I could actually work in without hitting the limitations I'd hit trying to be an entire game studio by myself. Meanwhile, the indie scene for games kept growing and growing, and visual novels started becoming more and more prominent...

Then in 2016, Aenne Schumann suggested working on a project together. She had friends who could help, resources we could tap. I had money to bankroll the venture and an idea that had been forming since 1999. Both of us combined had a diverse array of perspectives about arcades and arcade culture, which could be used to write a stronger story than either of us could have created alone. And we had the tool I'd learned about so long ago, RenPy. The time was finally right to make this work.

No more limitations. No more compromises. If I was only ever going to get one shot at making a professional video game I wanted to go all out -- hire amazing artists, collaborate with them, work with a publisher, get this in front of as many people as possible. If it tanked, I'd soak the loss and at least say “I did it, I crossed that off my bucket list.”

But if it succeeds. If this grand fiasco actually succeeds...

Well. We'll see, won't we?

Oct 4, 2018

Voice Acting For Arcade Spirits!

Arcade Spirits - Twoflower

Good news, everyone! 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!

How about some Q&A about this new feature? Yeah. 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!

Sep 24, 2018

20XX vs. 2018

Arcade Spirits - Twoflower

As production winds down on Arcade Spirits — we’re aiming to be content complete by December, to allow some time for testing and implementation before our Q1 2019 release window — I’m finding I have less stuff to talk about in the dev blog. Fortunately, we’ve got a strong community, and they had a good idea for this week’s entry: What are some of the key differences between our alternate timeline and the real world?

Now, keep in mind Arcade Spirits is a lighthearted game and not a history textbook. I know the Internet worships at the altar of CinemaSins and loves to pick apart every single logic gap as a “plot hole” but we’re going for a loose and fun interpretation of history. It definitely wouldn’t totally work out this way… but it’s fun to make believe, right? Right. So, what if…

The Atari 2600 Never Failed

Atari took their time to make a proper port of Pac-Man, and a really good E.T. game, and didn’t overproduce either of them. As a result there is no mass grave in New Mexico of unsold 2600 carts and the system continued to thrive. Without the power vacuum left by Atari’s death, Nintendo didn’t muscle in in 1985 to utterly dominate the home arcade scene — and Atari’s strength kept their arcade division going strong, maintaining the arcade scene in tandem with rising home consoles.

The three major players in the console scene in 20XX are now Atari, Sega, and Nintendo. In this timeline, the proposed Nintendo-Sony co-developed PlayStation never fell through, because the Philips CD-I didn’t get in the way of the project. Nintendo were the first to optical media, but Atari’s long-standing emphasis on backwards compatibility (you could play 2600 games on an Atari XL, for instance) means that they remain a force to be reckoned with.

The Mainstream Accepts Video Games

Since the crash never happened and Nintendo wasn’t forced to push the NES as a children’s toy complete with a toy robot, the momentum of adults and young adults playing games back in the 70s and 80s kept going. eSports rise sooner than expected, with organized tournaments like EVO launching early and staying strong.

While arcades never surpass more long-standing pursuits like going out to the movies or grabbing a pizza, they aren’t quite as looked down on as being only for nerds or children. It’s still a trivial pursuit, since they are games and games are silly, but generally they stabilize in the cultural consciousness.

The Inevitable Rise of Kiddie Casinos Still Happens, But Slower

Have you been in a Dave & Busters or Chuck E. Cheese lately? Basically they’re just gambling palaces with no traditional video games whatsoever. But this was a survival tactic, a way to keep their businesses afloat while traditional joystick gaming was migrating to home consoles for enthusiasts only. If arcades never died, these chain franchises wouldn’t have to rely quite as hard on prize games… but prize games would still be a major factor.

Everybody likes the rush of winning, and early ticket games like Skeeball(tm) (or ‘Alley Rollers’ to use the non-trademarked name) would prove the model can work. So while there wouldn’t be a mid-90s rampaging push towards abandoning ship on the arcade model, those who cared more about raw profit than tradition would definitely still migrate in that directions.

Oh, Also We Have Holograms And Sentient A.I. For Reasons

And here’s where I take a left turn into fantasyland, because Iris — your adorable virtual assistant — not only is amazingly sophisticated beyond any 2018 level smartphone tech, but I have a few cute pics in game of her literally sitting on the edge of your phone and extending away from the screen. It’s similar to the scanlines you see on the spotlights over Teo’s dance stage, or how Gavin’s tablet was originally going to have some hovering holograms.

This was something I debated removing to keep things realistic, but… instead, I just don’t comment on it. I let Iris stay adorable even if she’s implausible, because it’s cute and makes a nice visual and again, we are not a history textbook.

…although there IS a bit more going on behind why she’s so very, very intelligent. And I’d say more, but… spoilers.

I think that’ll do for missives from the year 20XX. I don’t want to spoil all the surprises. Hope you enjoy our alternate timeline when the game releases early next year!

Sep 18, 2018

Consolation Prize

Arcade Spirits - Twoflower

We’ve been asked this quite often — “Will Arcade Spirits be coming out on Switch or PS4 PS VITA or XBox One or Ouya or Intellivision or the Fairchild Channel F?” Console gamers like their story-driven games too, and it’s perfectly understandable to want a port.

Let me say up front we are NOT ruling a console port out. But I figured this week, I’d let you peek behind the curtains and see why isn’t not as easy as checking the ‘Compile Switch Version’ box and hitting OK.

Arcade Spirits uses the open source Ren’Py engine, which is a wonderful Python-powered system that gets you up and running quickly when making a visual novel. It’s powerful and customizable and has many of the features we needed right out of the box. We didn’t have to code our own save game system, or our own history buffer, or any of the standard visual novel systems — it just does it for you without much fanfare.

Alas, one thing we hadn’t realized when deciding to use Ren’Py is that there are no console ports of the engine. It’s open source, yeah, but requires Python, OpenGL, and a host of other tidbits to be ported before it can even consider the possibility of starting to maybe work on another system.

It’s not impossible — anybody with enough know-how and skill could probably port it. But so far nobody has, so we’d be starting from square one on a task we are woefully unprepared for. There’s a reason I picked a scripting system for this game instead of coding it down to the metal in assembly, folks. I ain’t that amazing at coding.

(UPDATE: A new wrinkle in the works. For a Switch port, it’s not enough to port the engine — since it’s not based on Unity, essentially every individual visual novel would need to be one whole and cohesive project with a complete dev kit and development contract, and likely still need to involve Renpy’s development team. So it’s a much taller ask than I had anticipated in the first place. Not sure if this is the case for PS4 but it’s likely the same issue. Fortunately there is a UWP version of Renpy in the works, so XBox One is possible, but still a long ways off and may have other hurdles.)

So, what’s the alternative? Basically, moving the whole kit ‘n kaboodle over to another visual novel engine, one which already has console support. Notably any system designed for Unity would do the job. But porting a game, even one as “simple” as a visual novel, is difficult. How do I do the customized visual effects and UI, when I don’t know enough to customize Unity to my needs? What about future localization efforts? It’s a tough sell, especially when we’re releasing in Q1 2019.

That leaves us with three options. Figure out how to port Ren’Py (or hire someone to do it), figure out how to port the game to another engine (or hire someone to do it), or let it slide for now and maybe switch engines before starting a sequel.

I won’t say what option we’re taking because, well, we don’t know! Right now we’re focused on getting the Win/Mac/Linux version out the door in good shape, so you have a quality game from day one. But… if that game sells well enough, if it’s clear there’s a burning hunger for Arcade Spirits… who knows what may happen?