Hello there everyone, Jacob here.
So for those of that don’t know…
...we ended up getting there! Over 10,000$ was raised for the game! It's amazing!
To everybody that’s supported the kickstarter, be it either backing the project or telling others about it, I want to start off by ‘thank you’ from the bottom of my heart. Even days after the fact, the funding of this project feels like nothing short of a miracle to me. We’ve come so far thanks to all of your hope. Our last kickstarter a year ago wasn’t even able to get close to its goal, but now, things are so much more different, and I intend to honor this newfound wave of support to the best of my ability. This support is going to start with a new wave of developer’s logs to explores this game in a post-kickstarter world. Expect detailed updates on how the project is progressing, how the funds are being used, in depth looks at the characters and my thought process behind creating them, and much more.
But first, there are a few things that I need to go over with all of you in regards to voice acting.
In short, until we get a publisher, it sadly isn’t going to happen, at least not on a grand scale like we planned. I won’t dwell on the details because this entire scandal is something everybody on the team is ready to move past, but you can read more about why our voice cast has mostly left over here on our kickstarter updates, if that is something you are interested in.
Having voice acting was sort of...the entire point of the kickstarter...but after polling the backers about how they wished to have the money for the project reallocated, the majority of them said they wanted either more music, art, and translations, or that they just wanted to support the game as best they could. Results can be seen here for context.
I still want robust voice acting in the game, but after all of this, the majority of our team agreed it would be best to leave such casting and directing in the hands of a potential publisher. In short, we’re going to stick with what our team is good at and not poke the bear a second time, so to speak. If we do not get a publisher, we will still have SOMETHING fun we’ll do with voices, but for now, that is mostly a surprise.
So now that all of that is out of the way, what’s happening now? What exactly is next for Siren’s Call?
Well, we’re hard at work prepare both the physical and digital rewards for our backers to start! We haven’t received our funding from kickstarter just yet (that normally happens around two weeks after the campaign ends), but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been plugging away at getting those things done! Many emails and DMs have been sent making sure all avenues are ready once the funding rolls in. Some new art may also be in the works for certain pledges as well… ;)
On the game side of things, Raeis got a handful of Cgs done since the last update and I’ve even found ways to animate some of them! You can get a taste of what I mean closer towards the end of Escape Velocity’s demo, if you’re interested.
More music is also going to be in the works, and my intention is to replace as much of the music from the VNMaker engine with original tracks from The Pocket Protectors (our music team). Now that the kickstarter is done, I also been able to go back to fixing bugs in the commercial release and writing director’s notes for the translators so that the vibe of the original English script can still be felt even as it’s translated into other languages.
The thing I’m most excited about though is finding a publisher. We’ve been in talks with several different companies, but noting is set in stone yet, unfortunately. Right now, I feel like the kickstarter was a good start, but in order for Siren’s Call: Escape Velocity to be the best game it can be, we’ll need a good publisher to launch it into orbit and put it in front of as many people’s faces as possible. More eyes means more reviews on steam and itch, and from there, things will start to really build. We’ve got a great project here that’s going to be made even better thanks to the kickstarter...now we just need a little more professional help. I’m excited to see what the future holds.
I’ll wrap this dev log up by say that our next one is likely going to be more character focused. I plan on writing a bit about Violet-- kind of a behind the scenes look at what we wanted to do with her character, her design, fun stuff like that. I think that will be a fun reprieve from all this business related stuff and I look forward to exploring her conceptually with all of ya’ll.
Until then, stay cool everybody!
~Jacob