Petal Crash Round-up (Patreon)

Hey all! I've been hard at work on freelance behind the scenes for a good while now, which isn't always easy or possible to share, so I figured the least I could do now that I've finished one such project is to do a write-up about my work on it for you guys! Let me know if posts like this are something you enjoy, I'd be happy to do more when the possibility arises. And thanks in advance for your support throughout all this!

If you haven't seen me talk about it on Twitter yet, Petal Crash is an action puzzle game created and developed by T. Ashley Jenkins (@Fluttersprite on Twitter) and published by GalaxyTrail. It's coming out this August on PC, mobile, PS4 and Switch! The gameplay is simple, exciting, and rewards practice and forethought, comparable to competitive sliding block puzzle games like Tetris Attack but still wholly unique. If you haven't seen its latest trailer yet, PLEASE watch it. Ashley commissioned a theme song with vocals that purposefully evoke old anime intros like Yu Yu Hakusho's, and it came out so good.

ANYWAYS, late last year I was approached by Ashley about writing the game's story mode.  

Each of Petal Crash's seven protagonists has their own storyline told between a series of Petal Crash matches against the rest of the cast. Every character has their own "Sacred Blossom," a magic flower that can grant wishes if gathered with the rest, like the Dragonballs from DBZ, and collects the others' Blossoms as they go. When I pictured doing writing for an arcade game with that format, the image that immediately popped into my head was:

The reality of the process and finished product was something MUCH different, special and heartfelt.

I started work on Petal Crash in earnest while on an extended visit with my partner's family over the holidays. Ashley had prepared reference notes about all of the characters, and at that point we'd already discussed them and their arcs at length. The process was instantly collaborative—we both brought revelations about their plots to the table, often realizing them together. I had free rein to flesh out each of their voices and relationships, and also a TON of existing creativity to work with; the sprites alone were a huge boost towards getting to understand their personalities. It felt both like creating AND getting to know a cast of characters, an ideal freelance writing sensation, in my opinion.

The first month of work was a rapid learning experience, as the project quickly ballooned from the initial concept—a few lines of set-up before a fight, closer to my Chun-Li mental image—to genuine skits, conversations of a dozen lines or more that had comedy and moments of serious conflict and reflection. Lilibri, the character I started with, a kind and energetic librarian slash passionate historian fairy whose wish was to obtain a true window to the past, was a testing ground for this. You can definitely see me finding my feel for the project in that story.

After the initial rush born from the freedom of the holidays and my underestimation of the project's scale, I slowed my work down into a more sustainable pace. With a few extended breaks when my chronic wrist strain acted up, writing continued until now, July, two days ago! By the end, I was proud of my work and deeply invested in the characters (I had a reader's emotional reaction to some of the cast's finales as much as I had a writer's one)... I hope that passion will be met with the same investment from people who play the game!

The technical constraints of writing for a video game were super interesting to work with and around. Ashley had made an interface for me to write while previewing how it would look in-game. At my request, it was made to fit my phone screen, so I could write without typing (which shreds wrists) and with voice-to-text as much as possible, despite its limitations (if I see one more brand name auto-capitalized I'll scream, and having "grew" input normally and then suddenly change to "Gru", as in the Despicable Me character, was a nail in my horrible freelance vampire coffin). The interface looked like this!

Not only did I have a limit on what would fit in one text box, I also had to fit it in an aesthetically pleasing way in two different types of text box shapes! The amount of influence that had on word choice and pacing was immense, sometimes frustrating but usually more just a productive challenge.

Having emoticons and two different text colors to work with was a huge tool for expression. The game quickly developed a language of its own where both things could set tone in ways plain writing can't, and helped give the eye places to rest for text boxes with longer lines. It's a very delicate science, dear patrons, and—working as intended—entirely invisible to the human mind's give-a-damn sensors... so consider yourselves lucky that I've brought it to your attention!!! Hmph! Humph! Harumph!

Seeing my writing spit out as game text in the interface was a joy, but even more exciting than that was seeing it alongside Ashley's graphics and directing... looking like this!

That's a full character intro scene (I love you Strelitz, you little punk), and it feels even better with the game's excellent soundtrack in the mix. These little scenes add up to some real fun arcs. All in all, each character has 9 scenes worth of story in the game, all unique for each character's protagonist perspective. If you enjoy my writing, my comedy, flowery prose, or Paranatural's more emotional character moments, there is a BUNCH of stuff for you to love in Petal Crash. I hope you will play and have a blast with it!

You'll hear more from me soon... with this and other freelance projects done, I'm going to have a LOT more time and wrist energy to start up my own projects again. I'll be posting Animal Star progress in the coming weeks, for instance! I hope you'll stick with me through then.

Thanks again for all your incredibly generous support! It's the reason I'm able to survive as an independent artist, working on my passion projects and exciting freelance like this. Talk to you soon, all!