About Scenes (Patreon)

Greetings at this fine hour! Just wanted to flex a little with the sheer amount of art I'm using to craft my scenes :)

Almost every game in the genre sticks to the same old boring dialogue that suddenly jerks right into the "strawberry" territory. Personally, that always yanks me right out of the immersion. So for me, it's crucial to convey the whole spectrum of emotions that comes before the main event—the thing we actually grinded through those stupid minigames, ran all over the map, and read those cool jokes for :D

Just as important is framing it all with the right soundtrack, to really highlight the mood of the conversation and the intimacy to come. Sometimes pulling the camera in, sometimes making it twitch (not like that, get your mind out of the gutter), sometimes dropping in a sound effect for an action. Little stuff that's just taken for granted in mainstream games but is surprisingly rare in our niche, even though scene direction is one of the most important parts.

Obviously this takes more time and creates certain headaches during the build, and the scene itself hardly gets any longer—all these elements only last a few seconds. But the result is totally worth it. All together, it makes the game feel richer and more varied.

I don't always manage to do it exactly how I'd like, though. Sometimes time's really breathing down my neck. I have to streamline the process and just settle for what I can get. Plus, there's always room to level up. :)

What do you think about all this? Is there any point in this level of detail, or am I just kidding myself?