Greetings everyone! It has been some time since I posted an update. But I’m happy to say that development for Serafina’s Saga: Awakened is still progressing strongly.
If you have been following me over the past few years, you know that I’ve hit a few creative hiccups. Finishing Crimson Spires and publishing with East Asia Soft was a gratifying achievement that I remain quite happy about. But as often happens after riding a big high, a rough downward slope followed after.
Malcolm Pierce left his role as partner of Woodsy Studio, leaving me (Jenny) as the sole writer and developer. Although this is how I originally began Woodsy Studio, returning to solo development after years of partnership has been a difficult journey. I was also in the midst of some heart-wrenching life changes that took a toll on my creativity.
Altogether, I had a year or more of very low creative output. I started and stopped projects that never got finished. But eventually, I decided to go back to my origins: the first visual novel I ever made. And since then, I have been completely remaking Serafina’s Saga. I’m writing all new scripts, drawing new art, building 3D environments, remixing old music, and composing fresh tunes. And I’m having a blast doing it. I’m also now working with an awesome voice cast to bring the characters to life, as well as some other creative colleagues (including Malcolm Pierce) who are helping me with some elements of the game.
If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the trailer for a sneak peak at how it’s all coming together:
Thanks to all of you new and old followers who have played my previous games and encourage me to keep creating. I appreciate your patience as I work on this new journey for you, and I hope you will love it when it’s complete!
I cannot provide a solid release date as of yet, but my aim is to release in early 2024. So stay tuned!
Thank you so much to everyone who auditioned! It was a very hard decision because there were so many great auditions! The roles have been cast as follows:
Serafina’s Saga: Awakened is a complete remake of the original Serafina’s Saga, released first in 2013 then remastered in 2014. The new version is an otome-style visual novel made in UE4. The script will be mostly rewritten, the art entirely redrawn, and the music remixed. Intrigue, romance, and drama combine in a rich fantasy world with animated character sprites and lush 3D environments.
Young Serafina has spent her entire life alone in the jungle with only her guardian, a mysterious man named Arken, as company. When Arken is captured by a group of soldiers and carried away, Serafina must venture outside the forest to save him. On her journey to the heart of the kingdom, Serafina discovers a whole new world beyond the shadows of the jungle.
As Serafina, you will mingle with noble warriors and salacious nobles to infiltrate the royalty of Castle Krondolee and save Arken. But in the process, you will become entangled in a wide web of relationships, schemes, and beliefs that may set you on a different path than the one you began. Learn the dark truth of Arken’s past and thus Serafina’s. Decide whom to trust, fight, or love. Your choice will change the fate of the entire kingdom.
Serafina as she appears in Serafina’s Saga: Awakened
Expected Work and Payment
Payment will be $0.10 per scripted word, with a minimum of $0.25 per line (for instance, a very short line or sound instead of a word).
*Side Note This project is early in development. Please be aware that batches of scene dialogue might be requested in gradual stages, such as once every few months over the course of a year or longer as the game nears completion.
Rating/Maturity
This game will contain mild adult language, violence, and sexual themes. Romance lines might get a little racy. I expect it to get rated somewhere in the Teen category (but I can’t officially say yet for sure).
Audition Process
Please record the included audition lines for the roles that interest you and send them in either .wav or .mp3 format to jenny (at) woodsy-studio (dot) com. Please include your name and the character name in the files, such as “YourName_CharacterName.mp3”. Multiple takes and styles are highly encouraged so I have a good sense of your range. The last day to audition will be Sunday, April 3, 2022.
WHAT I LOOK FOR WHEN CASTING: When I cast voice actors, what I care about most is acting ability and emotional expression. This is more important to me than vocal range, accent, or other secondary details. Although I generally don’t judge your audition on a resume or past roles, I *am* impressed when voice actors to have theater experience, so feel free to mention that if you have it.
As for demonstrating your ability to act, try to fully embody the character your voicing and let their personality shine through every line. Major bonus points if you can somehow help me see the character in a new way I never even thought of before. Err on the side of feeding an audition line too much emotion rather than too little; I always know I can ask you to tone it down, but I don’t always know whether you can kick it up a notch (and do it well).
SIDE NOTE ABOUT ACCENTS: Due to this game’s setting of a diverse fantasy world, the accent of some characters can be whatever sounds best. Those characters will have the note “Accent: Optional.” You could do normal American, British, Australian… or whatever strikes your fancy as feeling good for that character. That said, please don’t be too sloppy or or extreme with using accents to the point it distracts; the focus should still be on the emotion of the character.
Some characters have had previous voice actors from the original animation. If so, it might be helpful for you to listen to the previous voice actors as a starting point. But don’t feel obligated to copy them exactly. I’m open to new interpretations of the characters if they’re good ones!
CHARACTERS!
Nikolaos Perin
Nikolaos Perin
(Male, Love Interest) Nikolaos is a playful spirit trapped in the harsh role of a Royal Scout in King Kallias’s army. He descends from the noble House Perin, so he’s obligated to some involvement in the royal complications of Castle Krondolee. But if he could, he’d actually spend his life as a theater actor, performing dramatic roles on stage! He’s compassionate and light-hearted by nature, but he has a slight dark side: in a conflict, he’ll take the easy way out to avoid more trouble, whether it’s running away or deceiving the people around him.
OVERALL PERSONALITY: Playful, enthusiastic, but annoyed when people make his life more difficult AGE: 20s ACCENT: British or American (you can hear the original voice actor for Nikolaos here: https://youtu.be/ZMVwmMJrCbQ?t=706 but don’t feel like you have to copy it, just use it for inspiration)
***********Audition Lines************ Line 1: (playful, flirty) “Seems to me like you need to relax. Let’s get out of here. How about I give you a private tour of the castle?” Line 2: (flustered, angry)“Hey! Any more of that and I will break this thing, got it?” Line 3: (nervous, dodging) “Oh, that’s just servants’ gossip. I bet the story got passed around and exaggerated. You know how it is! *nervous laugh*”
Jezu Grandil
Jezu Grandil
(Male, Love Interest) Jezu Grandil is the General of the Royal Guard and he takes this role very seriously. His father died on duty when Jezu was very young. Jezu now wants to continue his family’s military tradition, but he wants to win and survive. This can lead to Jezu being cold, ruthless, and unforgiving on the outside. But underneath his harsh demeanor, he has a fragile heart that never wants to see his loved ones suffer.
OVERALL PERSONALITY: Dignified, Proud, Often cold, but occasionally that cracks and he shows his soft/caring side AGE: Late 20s ACCENT: Optional
***********Audition Lines************
Line 1: (cold, haughty) “Becoming a member of the Royal Guard is no simple matter. But you’re free to try, as freely as you might fail.” Line 2: (angry, threatening) “You are not ready for this, fool. Make a single misstep and I’ll smear you through the dirt.” Line 3: (guilty, upset) “I made a mistake. I never should have put you in that position. I deserve… to be punished.”
Kallias Jeridar
Kallias Jeridar
(Male/Gender-Fluid) Made King of Darzia at a young age, Kallias always intended to do what was best for the kingdom. But his idea of “what’s best” is flooding the kingdom with gold at the expense of everything else: including food, shelter, and all the things one would usually spend gold to obtain. Kallias descends from Mallion, the god of greed, and his personal greed for gold is insatiable. So he remains blind to his country’s starvation while he tirelessly works to acquire more gold.
Beyond his greed and kingly pride, Kallias still possesses a child-like personality that never quite grew up. He’s quick to throw a tantrum or chase after a promising prize. He can be playful, friendly, and humorous–when he’s not busy starving the country.
OVERALL PERSONALITY: Spoiled, Playful, Greedy AGE: 20s ACCENT: British (you can hear the original voice actor for Kallias here: https://youtu.be/ZMVwmMJrCbQ?t=884 but don’t feel like you have to copy it, just use it for inspiration)
***********Audition Lines************
Line 1: (flustered) “No, no, no! I’ve counted each one of them several times now. And every time, I come up with a different number!” Line 2: (joyful, excited) “Well well well! Isn’t this a surprise! Show me what you can do! How about one of those Wolven dance… thingies.” Line 3: (flippant sadness, disdain) “Too bad for the Elborns, divine magic was not enough to save their lives.”
Xavier Wolven
Xavier Wolven
(Male) Descended from Belazar, god of anger and death, Xavier is a devoted Wolven assassin. His passion is to kill and he’s very damn good at it. He’s not exactly the type of person you invite to a party–unless you want someone dead.
Xavier is not always just a hired hand, of course. He has his own needs, desires, and grievances. Right now, his desire is to kill Arken Jeridar. He thinks Arken destroyed the best chance of love he ever had with a woman named Vivian Trell. That was 18 years ago… but Xavier’s not the type to let go of a grudge.
OVERALL PERSONALITY: Dangerous, discerning, Cold and callous until sparked to anger AGE: Unknown, appears to be in 40s/50s ACCENT: Optional
***********Audition Lines************
Line 1: (Cold, threatening) “Do you know who I am? I could slit your throat right now and no one would challenge me.” Line 2: (annoyed, then uncertain/interested) “I don’t want tea. I want you to leave me alone until–… is that ginseng?” Line 3: (angry, hurt, passionate) “It has to do with EVERYTHING! You miserable pondscum. You seduced her. You won her affection. You made her believe you cared about more than the key. You LIED.”
Belatrix Grandil
Belatrix Grandil
(Female, Possible Love Interest) Belatrix is the Commander of the Royal Guard and she’s good at her job. Like her younger brother Jezu, she takes her role seriously and works to maintain the noble military traditions of House Grandil. Unlike Jezu, however, she harbors some doubts about the current structure of Castle Krondolee. She is a personal friend of King Kallias, but as such, she also questions his ability to rule the country. Most of the time, she keeps her doubts silent, and leads the army ruthlessly under Kallias’s supervision. But if she sees a chance to change the world for the better, she might take it.
OVERALL PERSONALITY: Strong, proud, ruthless AGE: Late 20s/early 30s ACCENT: Optional (you can hear the original voice actor for Belatrix here: https://youtu.be/ZMVwmMJrCbQ?t=945 but don’t feel like you have to copy it, just use it for inspiration)
***********Audition Lines************
Line 1: (cold, ruthless) “The Grand Traitor is the scum of this planet. He has no honor. No loyalty. No principles. He cannot be ‘talked’ to. The truth must be wrested out of him, but carefully, like pulling the heart from an animal before it stops beating.” Line 2: (Uncertain, In Denial) “That can’t be true. The queen’s daughter did not survive. I only took up this search to prove that.” Line 3: (angry, taunting) “COWARD! You would spy on us from the shadows, then flee when you fail to hide yourself?”
Valerie Sparkov
Valerie Sparkov
(Female, Romance Interest) Valerie is a farmer living on the outskirts of Darzia–in more ways than one. She is a free spirit who has never “fit in” anywhere, so she often keeps to herself and dances to her own tune. After meeting Serafina, she’s drawn to follow her to Castle Krondolee and embark upon a new adventure with her. But Valerie has no set agenda of her own. If anything, she just likes to throw chaos upon the rigid nobility and see what happens next.
OVERALL PERSONALITY: Mischievous, Cheerful, Playful, maybe a little crazy AGE: 20s ACCENT: Optional
***********Audition Lines************
Line 1: (happy, flirty) “I’m happy I met you, jungle princess. I like a little danger in my life.” Line 2:(uncertain, whimsical) “And what will I get in return? Can you give me joy? Can you give me sustenance, for my body or soul?” Line 3: (annoyed, mischievous) “This castle is a hornet’s nest. But I’ve dealt with those before. I think it’s time you and I did some swatting.”
Instructions (Refrain)
Once again, please record the included audition lines for the role that interests you and send them in either .wav or .mp3 format to jenny (at) woodsy-studio (dot) com. Multiple takes and styles are highly encouraged so I have a good sense of your range. The last day to audition will be Sunday, April 3, 2022.
Greetings all! Following an unusually long silence, I have big news to announce today.
You may or may not have seen the previous post about my struggles with inspiration and burnout. I have needed a small reprieve from game development. With personal on-goings plus the ups-and-downs of COVID dangers, there were other things I needed to focus on and explore. And while those explorations may continue, I’m happy to report that my inspiration is returning, along with my creativity. For a few months now, I’ve been working on a “new” project. And as production amps up, I’m excited to announce it to you today.
Woodsy Studio’s next release will be a complete remake of Serafina’s Saga!
I’ve revisited Serafina’s story many times before. Her story began as an animation, then became my very first visual novel. At the time, I was still experimenting and getting accustomed to new narrative formats. Now, 9 years later, I’m excited to remake the saga with new wisdom and skills.
The game will indeed be a complete remake. You can expect the same general storyline, but the script will be heavily edited with lots of new branches and content. Some characters–like Jezu–will be much different than before. Others, like Valerie and Belatrix, will get much more screen time than the original.
The 2D art will all be redone, including some animated motion as seen in the GIF above. The music will be remixed with new tracks added, sometimes using FMOD for dynamic layers. All of this will be combined in UE4 with 3D environments to create a rich and immersive experience.
Old vs. New Nikolaos Perin
New vs. Old Arken Jeridar
This project is still early in development, so I can’t yet estimate a release date. So stay tuned, and I’ll be posting updates as this game progresses!
It’s probably cliche at this point to say: we live in difficult times. Even so, it is true. For the past seven months (all of this year so far), I have struggled with creative inspiration. There are so many possible explanations for why I feel blocked. It’s all too easy to make a list of the prime suspects:
Existential depression from global pandemic
Year-long isolation from normal social structures
Loss of ambition due to reaching certain career goals (actually a good thing… ?)
Large emotional upheaval from experiencing huge romantic relationship changes in the last year
Loss of creative partnership
Post-vaccination restlessness to get away from my computer and related work
… I could probably keep going. But you get the point.
As this seven-month-long creative stagnation has dragged on, I have often crafted a mental list like the one above and tried to pick a single culprit. Once I do, I try to forge a plan to overcome that specific struggle, whether within my ongoing work or outside of it. But none of those plans have worked. Some of them are beyond my control. Others have no simple solution. In any case, fixing one would not fix the others.
One of the most confusing aspects of my blockage was that I normally obtain therapeutic healing through my creative process. How could I evolve from these life trials without my art? Had I changed so much that I no longer needed that creative outlet?
It was only through a long period of time, extensive talks with my former creative partner (Malcolm), and discussion with colleagues that I started to hone in on a singular problem I could fix.
The story I was writing no longer resonated with me.
Amidst life and world upheaval, this last problem hid more secretly, tripping all my attempts to wrestle the other demons. It was easier to blame my stagnation on the bigger issues in my life rather than the relationship with my creation itself. I DO process my feelings through story and creative expression. But the story I was trying to tell no longer expressed my feelings, even though I conceived it less than a year ago.
To give you a little more background, the story was called Incognis. It was a sci-fi romantic drama about a woman who found rare love and happiness within a polyamorous quad, only to throw it away for the sake of selfish ambition. The inspiration for this idea came from tumultuous emotions at a very specific time in my life.
I was nesting romantically with a quad during the pandemic
I wrestled with polar extremes of happiness and misery
I blamed myself for the misery–but would later realize it arose from toxic emotions from one of my partners
I was at the peak of self-focused ambition, having just lost my creative partner while trying to finish the studio’s biggest release yet
All of these intense emotions led to the conception of Incognis, and with good reason. During that specific period, the story of Incognis was a fitting expression of my emotional turmoil. But at the beginning of this year–around the same time I actually started working on Incognis–those personal emotions shifted. Life experiences and loved ones helped me overcome those struggles, rather than my art.
In retrospect, it becomes easy to see such patterns. But for seven months, I operated under the belief that I still needed to make Incognis. I blamed my creative blockage on that first list, rather than the nature of my creation itself. When you have been your own boss of your own studio for eight years, you learn to push yourself past periods of self-doubt and temporary blockage. But in this case, I pushed myself too far, and everything else suffered as a result.
At long last, I have decided to scrap my previous plans for Incognis. I will take some extra time to recharge and let some new ideas simmer. Most likely, I will still use a few scraps from Incognis in the form of assets and environment designs. But the story and characters will get a complete overhaul, leading to something new and truer to my current state of self.
As always, I hope you will enjoy the result, though it might take longer to create. What use is art if it doesn’t come from the truth within ourselves?
The time has come to drop our big Crimson Spires announcement! We’ve teamed up with EastAsiaSoft to release Crimson Spires on Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, and Xbox One–coming soon!
The new release of the game will feature a whole new fifth story path that unlocks after completing the four main romances, called New Game Plus. This content will also become available on PC at the same time it releases for consoles.
In the New Game Plus, you can experience an alternative version of events in which Erika saves Bradley Jones from death and he becomes the town Sheriff.
Obviously, I don’t want to tell you too much about the new content, so it can be a surprise! But I will say that involves a romance with Jones, polyamory, new revelations about Bataille, and what we feel is a solid ending for the game based on player choice.
Greetings everyone! Now that a few months have passed since the release of Crimson Spires, I thought it was time to let you all know what was going on over at Woodsy Studio.
I still have some big news about Crimson Spires in store, but alas, I can’t share that just yet! All I can say is that some big developments on the game are coming, and I hope you will love them!
What I can offer is a somewhat more personal reflection of what has been going on at Woodsy Studio over the last year and what I have planned going forward.
First of all, you might notice that I’m saying “I” more often than “we.” This is because my co-creator, Malcolm Pierce, has decided to focus on other work outside of Woodsy Studio for the indefinite future. Without a doubt, he will continue to advise on the story and game design, because we are still life partners and love to collaborate. But he will probably not lead the writing of any more Woodsy Studio games as he did with the Echoes of the Fey series and miraclr: Divine Dating Sim. I will miss his brilliant flare for humor and world lore, but I am also excited to see what we each go on to make independently.
Meanwhile in the realm of non-business partnerships, the two of us have also embraced polyamory. It is something we were curious about for a long time, then made a reality over the last couple of years. Through that process, we’ve survived some of the most challenging but also most rewarding moments in our relationship yet. We experienced a harrowing breakup but also found a new partner we want to spend our lives with.
I feel this is important to mention as a writer of romance stories, because it wasn’t until I actually experienced polyamory that I realized how horribly that lifestyle is represented (if at all) across popular media. When my partners and I sit down to watch something together, we wince at the barrage of Hollywood romances that fall apart due to jealousy and cheating. We are constantly hammered by the idea that caring about more than one person romantically is bad. And frankly, it’s painful. It’s offensive. It’s sad.
As a storyteller, I want to continue to explore a wide range of dramatic possibilities, but I especially want to better represent ethical non-monogamy moving forward. My next project will revolve around a quad, a polyamorous relationship between four people. It will also have intrigue, spaceships, betrayal, heists, telepathic aliens… but I get ahead of myself. (The header art of this article is my first pass at the main character. What do you think?)
You may not hear a lot from me over the next few months, but I assure you I’m still working hard to get better at my craft and bring you top-notch romances. Between projects, I’ve been taking some art classes to continue honing my skills. Thanks to all of you for your support, feedback, and for sharing this journey with me. I hope you will love the next story I’m weaving!
Hey everyone! It’s been a while since we updated y’all on Crimson Spires and other Woodsy Studio goings-on, so we thought we’d put out a post on how summer has been going for us. First off, it has been very hot and very humid. There’s a lot of great things about living and working in St. Louis, but the summer is definitely not one of them. Not for us, and not for our studio’s dog, a husky who dramatically changes her opinion on walks for three+ months out of the year.
Mira in the summer sun
Other than that, summer has marked a slow down for us, which brings me to leading with our biggest piece of bad news. Crimson Spires has been delayed until 2020, likely closer to the middle of the year than the beginning of the year.
This probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone following the project, as this is very clearly our most ambitious game. When we set out with this project, we thought that we would end up expanding the gameplay scope (to include 3D exploration) but have a similar-sized script to our Echoes of the Fey titles. We were incredibly wrong. Currently, the Crimson Spires script is approximately as long as Echoes of the Fey: The Last Sacrament and we haven’t even written 2/4 paths. The paths in this game are considerably more unique than anything we’ve done before, so we’re probably looking at a script close to twice the size of Last Sacrament.
We’ve also hit other difficulties. In the past, we released an average of a game a year and now we’re at slightly over the one year mark for Crimson Spires. Our quick turnaround wasn’t just about getting money from releases (although that was a necessary factor), but also our own fickleness with projects. We work hard and then we burn out–typically after about a year. That happened, and it sucks.
Finally, we both found that we needed to find other financial support for our studio beyond game sales. A few things happened. First, we didn’t release a game this year (duh, that’s a problem). Second, changes were made late last year to the Steam algorithm for recommending games to users. This has caused a rather dramatic reduction in views and wishlists for indie developers across the board. Naturally, it hit us hard as a studio that really relied on Steam sales of back catalog titles.
The growing 3D landscape of Crimson Spires in UE4
Here’s the good news: we’re not done. You’ll notice we’re not cancelling anything, just pushing it back. And we hope that it will be even better for the delay. To help support us, Malcolm has been teaching game design at a local university and Jenny has begun a full-time job in web development. This is going to slow us down, but it’s also going to give us the resources to make Crimson Spires even better. We’ll be able to ship with more voice acting, for one thing. And we’re not too proud to admit that we’ll use some of the extra money on assets that can improve the world of Bataille, Missouri. We always tweak any assets we buy to fit our game, but it’s especially easy with a game set in (relatively) modern day in a (relatively) realistic style to find useful ways to speed up environmental development.
So, what have we done recently? The 3D world of Bataille is considerably more built-out and explorable. Julian’s path has been almost entirely added into the game project. Maddy’s path is halfway written. New art for new characters has been deployed on the project, some of which we’ve scattered throughout this post.
And we’ve also made sure to start taking better care of ourselves. Jenny’s new job allows her to treat working on Crimson Spires as more of a passion project and less of a piece of work she has to finish to keep the lights on. Malcolm took a quick breather this week to participate in the UE4jam, a four-day long game jam put on by Epic Games. You can see his game here. Both of us know that if we stay burnt out, we won’t be able to provide the story and experiences we want to.
We pride ourselves at Woodsy Studio on finishing games. We don’t start something and just let it wither and die. Crimson Spires is coming, we just ask for a little patience while we make it the best vampire/serial killer romance about late capitalism in the Midwest that it can be.
It’s time for another game development update! Over the last couple of months, we added a lot of exciting features to Crimson Spires and found ways to make our development process more efficient. You can view these changes in action by playing our free demo, available on itch.
COMIC BOOK PANELS
As we began to block out an exciting action sequence in the story, we came upon an all-too-common challenge. How do we suggest a large amount of movement and action within a scene while constrained by static 2D characters? Sometimes movement can be suggested with slides and camera shakes, but other times, those motions look silly and dampen the player’s imagination.
The character sprites can’t properly overlap in this situation…
We consulted a fellow artist who has taken an interest in the project, Mike Harvey, who gave us a great idea. We could take a lesson from comic books and use panels to suggest some action while leaving the rest to player imagination.
Panels show character talk over CG
With panels, we can catch a glimpse of off-screen characters with a more dramatic flare than the typical side-portrait. Scenes like the one above are still a bit tricky to set up, and we might need to keep tweaking it. But overall, panels will be a fun feature for us to play with to increase the drama and action of exciting scenes.
We can also use the panels to display minor characters in an abstract way. Long conversations with a minor character become more visually appealing if that character remains on screen.
PERFECTING A NOISE / FILM GRAIN
We’ve talked in the past about how we occasionally work in/adapt UE4 Marketplace assets to Crimson Spires, but usually that comes up when there is a very specific asset we need and we search to see if there is a sufficient existing version that would save us the time of making it ourselves. This time, something different happened.
Every month, UE4 offers a new set of free assets that all developers can claim and use in their projects. For May, they offered Chameleon Post Process, a blueprint that applies a set of post processing effects. We’ve had our own journey creating the camera effects in Crimson Spires, starting with using the UE4 Post Processing volume to apply film grain, then setting up our own custom effect using Post Processing Materials.
When we tried out the Chameleon effect, we discovered that it could easily do everything that our custom effect could and more. We could still have the scratchiness and CRT noise we apply regularly in the game, but we could also use it for a few other dramatic effects in individual scenes. This left us with a hard decision to make of whether to replace our Post Processing with Chameleon. We could have never known that this Blueprint would later become available to us when we did our initial post processing work, but it’s still hard to throw away stuff you’ve worked on. We eventually decided that the extra effects would be worth our begrudging acceptance that we didn’t have to make the effects ourselves a few months ago.
In-game screenshot with Chameleon film grain and rain droplets
Once the decision was made, we carefully went through and replaced our PP volumes with Chameleon, which revealed some inconsistencies with how we maintained our effects between our player camera and cinematic cameras. This problem would have sprung up eventually, and we’re glad we were prompted to fix it.
As some of you may know, we recently closed our Patreon because we weren’t sure how well we’d be able to maintain it with other life responsibilities getting in the way. But we enjoyed sharing our development process with our supporters, and we’d like to keep doing that in some fashion. So here’s our latest development log!
OBJECTIVES
Prepare new demo for release!
Compose new music for romantic moments
Change the colors of Jones’s outfit
Set up barns for use in the 3D environment
CHALLENGES
Down-sizing a Demo
In case you didn’t already know, we recently released our first public demo of Crimson Spires on itch.io! We were excited to share it with the world, but it took some work to prepare. This game will probably be our largest yet in every way, including memory size. We knew we would need to delete a lot of assets from the full game in order to trim the demo to a pallet-able snack size. And this meant deleting a LOT of assets.
To spare you many tedious technical details, I’ll just say that we had trouble deleting the correct assets without causing errors. Our first few build attempts were missing some important files, so they failed. It took several attempts to juggle files around before we got a build that worked. But we finally got it working, and now we’re really excited to receive feedback from people who try it out!
The Scandal of Jones’s Pants
We also had the pleasure of sharing our demo with a live audience this week. It was a great opportunity to watch reactions in real-time and gauge people’s reactions to the opening of the game. In a group setting, people’s reactions can be heightened and more apparent than an individual playing alone. People might voice thoughts and reactions to the group that would otherwise stay quiet. In this case, a lot of people in the room started laughing when Jones’s first appeared.
We’ve demoed the game before, but always with individuals playing the demo alone. Never before did we get the reaction we got this time: a lot of people laughing hysterically. And it’s because they thought Jones had no pants on!
I’m not sure if it was the size of the TV, the color settings, or if it’s just something that no one had ever commented on before. But it did, in fact, look like Jones’s had no pants! So naturally, after laughing along with everyone else, we got to work fixing this as quickly as possible.
Now Jones has nice blue jeans instead of skin-colored khakis. Someone also suggested we make his shirt red; it’s an inside joke you might get if you play through the demo 😉
De-Bugging Modular Assets
To help build out the world of Bataille, as well as provide some variety to the environment, we’ve ended up using a few content packs purchased from the UE4 asset store. We’re very careful adding these to our game, because we’re aware that haphazardly throwing together different modeling/texture styles can lead to an aesthetic mess. Whenever we use something purchased from the asset store, we go through all of the models and textures and make sure that they are sufficiently low-fi, often modifying them to fit the style we’ve already developed.
Even though this is time consuming in its own way, it still is probably faster than building everything from complete scratch, especially when it comes to modular content. What is modular content? Walls, doors, roofs, and other sections that can be combined to make custom buildings. These are incredibly helpful because (a) they’re usually easier to modify to match our style and (b) they can be used to make a variety of structures.
This week, we picked up a content pack specifically for building barns. Since a decent amount of Bataille is spread out and rural, it makes sense there would be a few farms in the area. Unfortunately, this pack was a little more difficult to use than the other two we’ve added to the project, specifically because of how it flipped certain meshes by using negative scale values. This isn’t something we like to do in our projects for some complicated reasons related to using instanced static meshes, so we had to manually edit several of the modular pieces and build our own actors within the game. It wasn’t a big deal, however, and now we’re ready to fill out some of the outskirts of Bataille with farms/abandoned barns.
Romantic Music for a Horror Game
A challenge we’ve often faced while working on this game is meshing the horror elements of the story with romantic themes. This challenge presents itself in the music, as well. As we worked on blocking romantic sections of the story, we realized we needed softer, happier music that was not yet present in our soundtrack.
To solve this, Jenny composed a new song in a major key, but she tried to maintain a faint element of bittersweet sorrow in a few areas. To balance it with other tracks, she used a lot of the same instruments present throughout the soundtrack: strings, guitar, clarinet, and viola. She threw in a little harp to emphasize to the wistfulness of romantic emotions.
Made in UE4, Crimson Spires blends horror with otome-style romance. First-person character control allows you to explore the stark town of Bataille, MO–a 3D environment inspired by PS2-era horror games–while experiencing an interactive story.
The small mining town of Bataille, Missouri has been cordoned off from the outside world for six months. The inhabitants have no idea why. All they know is that ever since the so-called “Contingency,” planes no longer fly overhead, strange creatures have been glimpsed beyond the perimeter, and large mechanical towers gun down anyone who tries to escape. As Sheriff Erika Wright searches for the truth, she must listen to the advice of a serial killer, mingle with extreme conspiracy theorists, and negotiate with vampires.
Expected Work and Payment
For now, we are simply gathering expression lines for each character. These are short, expressive lines of dialogue that occasionally play when a character speaks to punctuate their current emotion. Payment is $0.50 per expression line, including all takes. Each character will probably have between 30-100 expression lines.
*Important Note!*
Please be aware that this casting is considered preliminary. Due to the project’s early stage of development, our immediate plans are only to record approximately 30-100 expression lines for each character to have in place for demos, pitching to publishers, etc. Our hope is to eventually commission scene dialogue with the same cast, but that is not guaranteed, and will be renegotiated in the future according to budget and project needs.
Rating/Maturity
This game will contain adult language, violence, and sexual themes. We are not yet rated officially, but we expect to land in the Mature/R rating category. There will be F-bombs. Romance scenes might get a little racy, but not explicit. Please only audition if you are comfortable with that!
Audition Process
Please record the included audition lines for the roles that interest you and send them in either .wav or .mp3 format to jenny (at) woodsy-studio (dot) com. Please include your name and the character name in the files, such as “YourName_CharacterName.mp3”. Multiple takes and styles are highly encouraged so I have a good sense of your range. The last day to audition will be Saturday, Sept 29, 2018.
WHAT I LOOK FOR WHEN CASTING:
When I cast voice actors, what I care about most is your ability to act. This is more important to me than vocal range, accent, or other secondary details. Although I generally don’t judge your audition on a resume or past roles, I find that it’s beneficial for voice actors to have theater experience, so feel free to mention that.
As for demonstrating your ability to act, try to fully embody the character your voicing and let their personality shine through every line. Major bonus points if you can somehow help me see the character in a new way I never even thought of before. Err on the side of feeding an audition line too much emotion rather than too little; I always know I can ask you to tone it down, but I don’t always know whether you can kick it up a notch (and do it well).
SIDE NOTE ABOUT ACCENTS: You will see a note that some characters have American/Slight Southern accent. Technically, those characters would have a Missouri accent, which is like a softer version of the typical Southern accent. I’m flexible on whether the final casting choice uses the accent, though; I’ll select based on acting ability and capturing the character more than the technicality of an accent. If you can, try a take each way!
CHARACTERS!
August Flynn
(Human, Male, Romance Interest) Before the towers rose, August Flynn was a philosophy professor accused of 7 murders, coined the “Heartbreaker” for removing the victims’ hearts. Erika doesn’t believe his claims of innocence, but she might need his expertise against darker forces.
OVERALL PERSONALITY: Playful, dangerous, can be charming, but slightly unhinged
AGE: Early 30s
ACCENT: American
***********Audition Lines************ Line 1: (playful, charming) “Do my hands look like they belong to such a cold-blooded killer?” Line 2: (threatening) “Truly, Agent, I would not advise trying to shoot me in these circumstances.” Line 3: (haughty) “You’re trapped in a prison far worse than mine, Sheriff Wright. The prison of your own mind.”
Julian Bataille
(Vampire, Male, Romance Interest) Julian Bataille excels at acting calm, polite, and practical in most situations. He claims to maintain order in Bataille with his wealth and influence. He does like to maintain order and peace, but in the end, he cares most about accumulating power and control.
OVERALL PERSONALITY: Calm, collected, very charming, but can be dangerous/threatening when opposed
AGE: Late 20s/early 30s
ACCENT: American
***********Audition Lines************
Line 1: (charming) “It’s a shame we don’t see you more often, Sheriff Wright. May… may I call you Erika?” Line 2: (cold, threatening) “I think the easiest thing for you to do right now would be to drop this whole issue and return to the police station.” Line 3: (angry) “Don’t be pathetic. Your decisions are your own. Don’t blame your poor life choices on your sister.”
Liam Bataille
(Vampire, Male, Romance Interest) Adopted by the Bataille family at a young age, Liam has always struggled to feel like he fits in with the family. He’s easily the nicest member of the Batailles with an optimistic attitude, and he regularly urges to Erika to relax and have fun. But his loyalty is frequently torn between his personal virtue and his desire to please Julian and Charlotte.
OVERALL PERSONALITY: Kind, optimistic, tries to be laid-back
AGE: Late 20s/early 30s
ACCENT: American
***********Audition Lines************
Line 1: (sweet, charming) “Oh, maybe I can show you around the mansion sometime! Beautiful building. Even has an indoor swimming pool!” Line 2: (reassuring) “Good point. I’m sure Charlotte will think of something. She always does.” Line 3: (upset/angry) “I will. I see now I never should have tried to help you at all. I thought I would win your respect. But you’ll never respect me, will you?”
Bradley Jones
(Human, Male, Deputy US Marshal) When you wake up in the morning and see the star of a 80’s action flick in the mirror, you tend to act like it. Jones is no different. Cocky and carefree until sparked to anger. Has risen quickly, in status if not rank, but not because of his careful police work.
OVERALL PERSONALITY: Works hard but knows how to play, kind, charming, a little cocky
AGE: Early 30s
ACCENT: American
***********Audition Lines************
Line 1: (relieved) “Thanks for the help, Agent Wright. I’m… I’m so glad you’re here.” Line 2: (charming) “I guess until the cavalry arrives, it’s just the two of us.” Line 3: (angry) “I’m not going to sit here and wait for them. Not after what that monster did to Gant!”
Madeleine (“Maddy”) Gray
(Human, Female, Romance Interest) Growing up as a lesbian in a conservative, rural town often made Maddy feel like an outsider in her own home. The Batailles were the only people who fully accepted her, so she feels loyal to them. But as she learns the real truth of the Batailles, she’ll have to fight for the greater good.
Line 1: (sweet, helpful) “You could use some help, don’t you think? You’ve been doing this alone for months and it has to get tiring.” Line 2: (cheerful, determined) “I’ve got your back, boss!” Line 3: (angry) “I can’t believe you’re letting a serial killer help you with this case over me!”
Charlotte Bataille
(Vampire, Female, Antagonist) The dangerous leader of the Bataille family, Charlotte may be the only one in town beginning to grasp what’s truly happening. She’s rather spoiled and used to getting her way, but she’s also smart and resourceful.
OVERALL PERSONALITY: Scheming, haughty, maniacal
AGE: Late 20s/early 30s
ACCENT: American
***********Audition Lines************
Line 1:
(tickled, laughing) “Oh, that man is a riot! Why on earth do you leave a brain like that to rot in a cell, Erika?” Line 2: (haughty) “You’re going to set him free, Erika. And you’ll do it now.” Line 3: (annoyed, dangerous) “I am growing rather tired of this exchange. Do I need to repeat myself? Or should we settle this… a different way?”
Stacy Grenier
(Human, Female) Growing up, Stacy never thought she’d be able to leave Bataille. Now she’s trapped permanently, but at least Bataille is interesting now. An optimistic foil for Erika, Stacy is also vulnerable to those in the town with quick fixes and semi-plausible answers
Line 1: (happy) “Oh, welcome home, Erika! I hope you’re hungry, because I just finished cooking!” Line 2: (concerned) “I reckon you had an awful day. I heard about Jessica and Gary. People at the Dollar Store wouldn’t stop talking about it!” Line 3: (nervous) “Then again, folks have seen some strange things since the Contingency. Silhouettes of monsters roaming beyond the towers.”
Instructions (Refrain)
Once again, please record the included audition lines for the role that interests you and send them in either .wav or .mp3 format to jenny (at) woodsy-studio (dot) com. Multiple takes and styles are highly encouraged so I have a good sense of your range. The last day to audition will be Saturday, Sept 29, 2018.
