Yukue's Development Blog Vol.04 (Patreon)

Hi!

If you're looking for weekly news, this kind of development blog has been posted weekly, for over two months!

Our development of "ASCOT: Demon's Waltz" is going smoothly, as of now.
I will continue writing blogs like these, from time to time, so check back regularly!

Today, I would like to talk about our philosophy about creating and designing characters.

We think that there's more to a character than just their looks and character traits. Just because we finished designing a character does not mean that creating the character is finished.

You have to accompany convincing character traits, events and actions to every character that you want to give life to. Characters like the protagonist, Ascot, and the antagonist are usually the most fleshed out characters.

The hard part about this is, that you need a character that fits into your story and narrative. And we have to try our best to tie the actual story into the overall arc of character progression.

For example, sometimes you want to hit a climax and have a character die. Or you'll be before a turning point of your story, which can really show you the true emotions of the protagonist.

And I think that killing characters is always exciting! (As long as you keep it convincing, that is.)

I think, that the less you can see an author's "hand" in the story, the more convincing a story becomes. Things like deus ex machinas can cause "That's bullshit" moments for the consumer.

A good author always keeps in mind, what their characters would do, and what should happen to them, in any given scenario. These actions can then always be subjectively judged by the consumer. Sometimes the consumer would think "Why would they do that?", but it is always hard to convince everyone.

We try our best to think of this philosophy whenever we produce a scenario.

We take notes, think about them and ask ourselves: "Is this convincing? Would someone enjoy this? Does this character seem believable, are the characters truly 'alive' and will a player be surprised or excited?"

ADW's story is intended to be completed gradually, while the player thinks about such things.

I don't have a budget of $ 10 million and I don't have 100 talented staff, but I would like to deliver something interesting about the story.

I hope it didn't feel like I hid it from our supporters, but we have another scenario writer working in TeamKRAMA.

He's called Satoshi Sasaki and I have met him in my school days, I've known him for around six to seven years now. After graduation, I just enjoyed my life casually.

And now two people are TeamKRAMAs scenario writers, me as a movie addict and Sasaki, a literature addict. I am more experienced in game scenarios, while Sasaki is more into dialogue and writing. So our areas of expertise are different, which makes it easier to work together.

Our usual schedule when creating a scenario is usually:

1. Think about a plan for the scenario

2. Discuss it with Sasaki

If he agrees:

3. We work on it separately and put it together

4. Make sure that it fits into the overall story

5. Make sure that it is actually fun and interesting

We do this around once a week while reading your feedback and ideas.

With this, I try to think about new ideas and try to form a new scenario.

Lastly, with ADW being an adult open world game, creating scenarios can get messy and you can easily get stuck. As two men, it's hard to write about the perspective of a woman in an adult situation. 

"Our perspective and her perspective" is a hard topic for both of us.

Sometimes all I can think of is "?????????????????" when I try to write a scenario, but I can usually manage to get over it.

There are also some small moral issues with Sasaki, but it seems that we have gotten over that as well. 

Well, seems like the holidays in May are over and all of us are brought back to our reality.

So I hope you'll work as hard as us until the next holidays! Heartly greetings  from TeamKRAMA and thanks for reading!