Monthly Update - March 2021 (Patreon)

Hi everyone!

We're once again back to show you guys everything we've been up to for the past month. We'll have to start this one out on a sad note, though.

Unfortunately, The Divine Speaker's release date will be somewhat postponed. It's not ideal, but a lot of events have led up to this that we couldn't avoid, which I'll detail below. At the end of the day, we'd rather bring out a product that reflects what we want it to be, rather than a rushed game.

The main issue, and arguably the thing that has cost us the most time, is the pandemic. Last year was rough, which I'm sure we can all agree on. I was lucky myself to be in a location reasonably far removed from it - I was able keep my job and be able to work from home, which is something a lot of people didn't get to do. I could work like normal, writing and programming away, without much of a delay.

Others on the team were not so lucky. We have members working on this game from all over the world, and as you know, some places got hit a lot harder than others. We couldn't in good conscience expect everyone to be working at 100%. We couldn't force them to ignore their situations, and we definitely couldn't expect them to put the game over everything else when peoples lives were falling apart around them.

We're not a team that believe that people should suffer to get out a product, and I hope at the end of the day you will play TDS and feel that everyone has put all of their love into it.

On top of that, there's been natural disasters for many of our artists. They're working their hardest to create the art we all love.

So, what are we currently waiting on for the game to be complete? At the moment, it's voice acting and art. We're recording Cyne's route now, and the voice actors are all working extremely hard in this space. At first, we announced this game as being "150,000 words long". Well, it ended up nearly double this, which has meant that the voice acting has taken longer. Still, I think it was worth it.

Fuyuure is also completing the CGs for Cyne's route now. After this, we'll move onto Leos, and lastly Fawn. Some of the CGs are common between the routes, so this will be some time saved.

We have also welcomed "Cats on a Lilypad Studios" to the team. The wonderful C.L will be doing a few tasks for us - this mostly involves adding the voice acting to the game, testing the levels in game, editing voice files, and checking the words appearing on screen match what the voice actors have recorded.

This is a task that I used to be a lot more involved in. Our editor would edit the files, I would put them in game and test them, then send back any revisions that needed to be done. It was a little messy and definitely not my favourite job. I thought "wouldn't it be nice if our director directed the voice sessions, the raw files went straight to an editor who would put it in game and test it themselves, and I could be cut out of the middle?". So, we made that happen. I'd rather more time to focus on the tasks I really enjoy, and someone else gets paid! Yay!

We're not quite sure what the release date will be yet. When we're down the road a bit more, we will make an announcement. I hope that you can see in our monthly updates that no one has stopped working their hardest on The Divine Speaker. These updates won't change, either. Regularly updating everyone and showing our process has always been important to us. We want to be as transparent as possible with you all.

Thank you again for sticking with us on this journey. We'll keep working our hardest to deliver a product we hope will stick with you for a very long time.

Now, lets jump into our update!

Art

Art wise, Fuyuure has started work on three different CGs! Lets take a look at one of these below:

On top of that, we have two new sprites for Leos' route:

Lastly, Fuyuure is also finishing up the design for the wallscroll! We put this on hold so we could get more game art out of the way, but we are now preparing it for ordering.

Programming

Programming wise, Fawn's route is coming along nicely. We're using this chance to train up some of our non-programmers in our games style, so next time around we'll have more hands on deck when it comes to scripting.

The credits are mostly in place, although we're waiting to finalise them as we're still currently hiring more voice talent.

We also still have journal entries to add, but we're waiting for Fawn's route to be 100% so we can add common entries to all three routes at once to save time.

Voice Acting

We're currently running auditions for these four lovely characters (plus a few other extras). These four feature heavily in the next scripts to record for Cyne's route. Auditions are open until the 9th of March, so feel free to apply if you're a voice actor. You can find all the information here.

As stated above, we've also been joined by the fantastic Cats on a Lilypad Studios (make sure to go check them out, they work on lots of awesome projects) who will support us with adding voice acting into the game and audio editing. It's great to have them on board.

The team is still getting into the script and working on adding the voice acting. It's a pretty big task, and difficult to join half way in, so we'll have some to show next month.

Screenshots

Beta Build

You can still play the Leos and Cyne betas (which will be updated soon with additional CGs and voice acting) either through being a KS Beta Tier backer or a Patron! We also plan to put out the Fawn beta soon.

Mailing List

For those that don't know, we started a mailing list! It includes a lot of the same information that goes in here, but it will also include other things that we've been up to, so it's a great place to keep up to date with us! You can sign up here.

Discord

As usual, you can join our Discord here!

CuriousCat + Game Design Tips and Tricks

We can answer any questions you have about the game or game development on through our Blog and Curiouscat.

You can leave your questions in our Curiouscat!

Focus for the next month

Here's our focus for the next month:

• Insert more voice acting
• Finish off Fawn Route Beta
• Work on additional journal text
• Do second checks on Leos and Cyne routes