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[eigenbom]

Just wanna say Solstice on the NES was one of my favourite games!

[alastair]

Would be so much cooler if there was voice acting, I wonder if there are any games in this genre that do that.

[TeeGee]

There are some. Like this one. But it's mostly very amateur voice acting, which often makes me wish there wasn't any in the first place.

I thought about it before, but the costs of doing it right would be higher than what a VN can earn. For instance, Cinders has 450 pages of dialogue. Back at the company I worked for before going indie, we paid $500-$700 for just a few pages of professional voice acting. And that was very cheap, as we contacted the actors directly to skip the middle man and pulled some favors. Recording something like Cinders would be in tens of thousands.

Not to mention the logistics of it. Maintaining the quality of VO of such length, cutting it into lines, directing the actors, requesting re-recordings -- it would be a full time job. Also, once something is recorded, you can't change the text, as it would require another session. Which means we would have to do it only after the game is done and tested, pushing the release date by another few months.

All in all, it's completely beyond the reach of a small indie like us.

[alastair]

Ok, thanks.

[johnki]

-snip-

Thank you for posting that. One of the things I've always wondered but never bothered to ask (I couldn't afford it one way or the other) was how much VOs cost.

[TeeGee]

The game is going to have two controllable protagonists. Here's the first one:



YANI

They say that maintenance is an easy job. Twist some knobs, pull some levers, and learn to speak about the most mundane activities as if they were arcane knowledge.
 
But what if maintenance involves a system hundreds of years old, developed by scholars and practitioners of the Faith alike? What if people go missing around it?
 
Then, you send Yani.

[TeeGee]

And second main character of the game. Galen, a doctor on a contract who was just too curious for his own good.


GALEN

Is there a more respectful and noble job than saving people’s lives? Unless you become stuck with patients with a running nose or fits of hysteria.
 
But Galen’s first professional assignment might satisfy his adventurous nature still. The symptoms are clear, but the final diagnosis might well surprise him.
 
After all, nobody taught him how to treat a patient that is a city.

[TeeGee]

First screenshots:


(click to enlarge)

[Elrinth]

Solstice back on NES was an awesome game Quite hard aswell.
Your game is looking fantastic! I love how the text flows during dialog. Really fantastic, best of luck to you!

Oh and GALEN means CRAZY in my language :D

[johnki]

The screenshots are looking really good!

I kind of like the more stylized look of the second one. Based on Cinders, and the fact that it's the shot used for the logo, I'd guess that's the title screen?

The third one looks almost like it belongs in a different part of the world. Interested in seeing how the two settings blend together.

Is the fourth one animated, per chance? There seem to be a lot of little lighting details in it.

[TeeGee]

All four are animated. Including the aurora effect on the fourth because fuck yeah auroras!

The whole setting is based on the contrast of having a city out of One Thousand and One Nights in the middle of a subpolar wasteland, protected from the climate only by a thin techno-magical dome. Hence the third screenshot.

[TeeGee]

I haven't posted anything in a while, so there you go:



Meet Istvan. The deeply cynical informal ruler of the City. He wants this case closed fast, and he won’t take no excuses.

Fun fact: we’ve spent over an hour arguing the size of his hands.

Also, if you are interested in the game's progress, I recommend following our tumblr. I post more development screenies there.

[moi]

I Just took a look at the video and that animation style is really nice, and the graphics are somptuous, although I think the animation could do without the fading. It's probably not my type of game though.
Great character design, although a bit casual, but that goes with the audience.
And people need to shut up with their NES games.
keep it up