#awdbackend

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while i'm gearing up to show off more outfit drafts this week or next, here's a little tidbit for you:

once upon a time, Kodaka did a mini-lecture on character creation. it was at a conference in ~2014, i believe, and it's online, though i can't find a link to the video here on Tumblr for the life of me.

every day i think: "i've never been more proud of a project than A WONDERFUL DANGANRONPA."

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originally, when it came to this dev blog, i wanted to put out a “State of the Empire” post every 2-3 months. these posts would describe where A WONDERFUL DANGANRONPA stood in terms of development and serve as a sort-of reminder to the community that this is a Real Project. additionally, i just like the illusion that the blog is active. ha!

however, there’s just not enough movement right now to justify such updates, hence why there hasn’t been one since, uh, february. the team’s just two people at the moment, so we can only Go So Fast.

✨ essentially: as of right this very moment, we’re working on finishing design and a few incidental writing bits (i.e. not the main script), and that’s what’s been up, repeatedly, since last September or so. the design posts i’ve been making speak for themselves, i think.

but now that we’re nearing the (relative) end of design, i decided i did want to give…

🔪 A DEV TIMELINE FOR THE NEAR FUTURE, SORT-OF 🔪

this timeline is tentative and subject to change, like all things A WONDERFUL DANGANRONPA. since the dev team right now is, again, just two people, both of whom have wavering health issues and real lives, i would ask you not hold us to the following list of events. (we’re already holding ourselves to it, possibly harder than we should.)

➡️ BY THE END OF THE YEAR (2025):

all main characters will have their tentative designs finished, including color, with reference sheets as clear as i can make them.

note that i am not the final artist of the game. my skill level and health issues forbid it, and drawing in a relatively "realistic" style has been a little painful as-is.

the references and designs you’ve seen are essentially beta sketches to hand off to our future (paid) artist/team of artists down the line. people who actually care about proportions and things. ha

but i want to give them all the information they need, with as little confusion as possible, and so that’s what we’ll have at hand. 

i am gunning for November or sooner but, y’know. i’m moving soon so we may be pushing it into December.

➡️ AT THAT POINT, IN EARLY 2026:

Manager Bunny (my Writing Consultant, the other half of the “we”) disappear into a hole to finalize, in order:

character bios, and

a more in-depth outline of the game’s events.

these should only take a month, and once those are done…

the “writing year” begins. i let Manager Bunny out of the hole and remain inside to sit and bang out the main script, hopefully within a year to a year and a half.

DRs 1-v3 scripts took Kodaka anywhere from between 6 months to 1.5 years. i am confident that, health willing, i can hit that middle spot. maybe.

➡️ 2026 IN GENERAL:

is probably going to be a very, very quiet year on the Actual Update Front.

i will be writing, because there’s very little we can do to move forward as a team until we have a script at hand.

in the meantime, dev-side, we will be doing a lot that you won’t necessarily see, like:

first and foremost, locking in an engine (very likely RPG Maker at this point),

shopping around/budgeting artists for the team,

more incidental writing, such as FTEs etcetera,

and moooore.

but you will see things like UI/environmental design posts, i.e. the approximation of what the game will look like, or what we want it to look like. don’t worry: i know it seems we’re a load of amateurs, and we are, but we have guidance! this thing’s not just built on blorbos and wishes!

i will also, of course, keep posting art, silly comics, mysteries, Rabbits’ Eyes, and other fun fun things. i'll additionally continue to answer asks etcetera.

➡️ BY THE END OF 2026/EARLY 2027, WE HOPE TO HAVE…

the main script at hand,

most FTEs/etc finished,

the engine picked and plug-in’d, a foundation on which to build this lovely tale,

and a shortlist of artists and musicians to wrangle into this thing with dolla dolla bills.

➡️ AT THAT POINT (~MID 2027 AT MOST, WE HOPE):

The Real Art Assets start work,

soundtrack work begins,

AWD will expand to include more social media,

the first major wipe of this dev blog will occur, so that we can start a clean marketing push,

and we begin searching for (paid) voice actors.

whew! that’s a lot, isn’t it? but we’re slowly progressing, despite it all.

- Is the death order completely set in stone? If yes, did you write the characters around their predetermined fates, or did things just fall into place as you established their other aspects? If no, is there anything in particular that makes figuring it out tricky?

- About how long will each chapter be (either in terms of gameplay time, or length in days as the characters experience them, or both)?

- Will there be a soundtrack/music of any sort?

- Lastly, because I have a self-assumed title to defend as the Veritas Enjoyer: how tall is he? And do you have heights set for all the Wonders, or is that still in development?

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oooh! some really fun questions here!! thank you for giving me A Chance To Blab.

Is the death order completely set in stone?

death order is like 99% set in stone, so we'll go with yes. ha. the 1% is like, if we come up with an insanely good idea that blows our current order out of the water thematically or narratively. i'm always open to that. but we're liking where things are sitting right now, even if it took us a thousand years to hash out trials 2 and 4 in particular. (can't wait for you all to experience them.)

it helps that we plan on attaching a "nice AU" mode/"friendship/dating sim" mode as free DLC later, so if we feel shitty about killing a character early, we know we can write a lot more content about them in a better world. (and, hey, isn't the point of a good DR character to want more of them when they go...? Kodaka even said the same thing...about Rantaro, i think, in particular.)

If yes, did you write the characters around their predetermined fates, or did things just fall into place as you established their other aspects?

ooh, i want to talk about this, but so much of it is big spoilers, so excuse the sort of roundabout way i'll discuss it...

definitely "things fell into place as i determined aspects of the characters" WITH THE EXCEPTION of two characters who were doomed from their conception in my silly brain. i will not say who, but they are our narrative tent poles, and i refer to them as such when my beloved Writing Consultant throws ideas at me. go go theorycrafters!

but, yeah, beyond those two? i built the murders and trials around the characters after said characters more or less came into full fruition. even then, some of them got switched around in the last six months as we solidified the outline. quite a few characters had differing roles in my original plan until my consultant made cases for (or against) them. go go theorycrafters again!

About how long will each chapter be (either in terms of gameplay time, or length in days as the characters experience them, or both)?

too early to tell precisely, but if i were to guess, the gameplay itself, if you skipped every optional bit of content i have planned, would be a little longer than V3. if you sat and did everything, it'd be muuuuch longer.

from the start, i decided that what we may lack in "new" gameplay, we'd really make up for in total word count. if you like to read, if you like to spend time in a different world with its people, this will be your game. there will be lots of (optional, skippable) (but i don't recommend it) content to get to know the characters and this strange timeline. total immersion, even if we can't quite make the debates work the way you all are used to them working!

in-universe, like most DR games, i think the plot takes place over maybe two weeks tops. of course, the backstory stretches back 400 years...

Will there be a soundtrack/music of any sort?

absolutely. in my Grand Master Plan, this is one thing i intend to fund, and i have (probably too many) notes about what i want down the line.

it's still way too early to talk much about it, but what i can say is that...mostly, it'd be remixes of existing Danganronpa tunes, since this game is so intertwined with DR as a whole, and since we know precisely where a lot of Takada's samples come from.

there are two characters in particular that i intend to have original themes, though. speculate!

Lastly, because I have a self-assumed title to defend as the Veritas Enjoyer: how tall is he? And do you have heights set for all the Wonders, or is that still in development?

right now, Veritas is the tallest boy at 5'11" or around 180cm. he's the second tallest character in all, with only Yuwa beating him (6'3" or 190cm). and, just for fun, the person underneath him is Senju (5'10"/178cm).

funny you asked about heights, because we set them just the other day! as we're still in super-duper-alpha design stage, so the usual disclaimer that anything could change suddenly, even things i've shared here on the blog, but we're feeling good about where the heights are now.

and as an aside, other measurements are still in flux, as we're still picking over body types. but! i expect to have those to show you all by the end of summer. fingies crossed

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i'm unsure if i ever mentioned it, but if by some small chance A WONDERFUL DANGANRONPA gets a full no-go C&D, the project is done. there's really no "filing the numbers" off AWD: it's a Danganronpa game about Danganronpa and a celebration of it.

if we're told we just can't make a game, it'll be a fanfiction or fancomic or Twine CYOA.

if we just have to change the name of the project, i do have backups.

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in A WONDERFUL DANGANRONPA, there are numerous collectibles you can gather up like a squirrel in a roofless gymnasium. some are optional and some are not. here's a list of all the available types so far!

🎁 PRESENTS

presents! you know them, you love them. in AWD, you can use your Monocoins to get gifts for your pals from M3, aka Monokuma's Mini Marketplace. (it's a Grecian-style agora he and his Monothralls set up in the gymnasium like weirdos.)

as of writing, about 50 presents from previous games return in AWD, including the Rose In Vitro and Autumn-colored Scarf, though a few take a decidedly new form in this unfamiliar world. 50 other presents are completely unique to the game.

if you want, you can ignore Free Time Events and all of that, of course. some folks don't care about them on the first go (or at all). but if you view all of a character's FTEs, you'll get their...

✨ ANIMA

for many reasons, Free Time Events in A WONDERFUL DANGANRONPA take place in a subconscious, collective flow of memories called the Dreamstream, not in real life. when you complete all of a character's Free Time Events in the Dreamstream, you acquire their Anima, which is a representation of their subconscious self. that does happen in real life. (Usami is dodgy about how it all works, but she'll deliver presents for you regardless.)

generally, one's Anima takes the form of a little tchotchke of some kind. you can't get rid of these, and why would you want to?

this means there's no undies-collecting in AWD, but i'm not sure half of these guys wear undies anyway, so, y'know.

by the way: you can even get Suzuran's Anima, though she is the protagonist. so maybe beat the game if you're a completionist.

❗ SPECIAL ITEMS

other presents are unique items you'll receive after beating a trial, as in other Danganronpa games, or are rare "drops" from Monokuma's Mini Marketplace. that second category includes A Woman's Ultimate Happiness, an item which can reveal an extra fan-servicey scene or hidden CG, if you so choose. of course, you can also just give it to Six or whatever if you want to be her buddy. no one's gonna stop you.

🛐 RELICS

relics are the optional "Hidden Monokuma"-type collectibles you can discover all throughout the Monastery and the ruins underneath. turns out, when Monokuma decided to start a killing game and all, he scattered all the Monastery's holy relics to be a funni funni guy. total disrespect of his surroundings. how rude

there's more than 30 of these relics, and though you can ignore them entirely, you can also bring them to Usami to discover a little bit about what became of the Saints and students of the old Hope's Peak Academy. what might she tell you about The Twelve Grains of Sand belonging to Amami the Traveler, or Saint Pekoyama's Rabbit-eater Sword?

🐰 RABBITS' EYES

the final collectibles, which are non-optional. as you descend into the bowels of the Monastery, you'll find ancient, divine replacement eyes for Usami. each one seems to contain data about an important document, image, recording, or other piece of history regarding the mystery behind the Monastery and the game itself. she'll project them onto the wall for you to see.

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A WONDERFUL DANGANRONPA will have, of course, a main story mode, including trials and our version of "Free Times" in which you/the protagonist get to know the characters.

tentatively, on my development timeline, i also have free "DLC" which will be added not long after: the game's "Nice AU" School/Island/Salmon Mode, code-named "Monastery Mode" for now. it will include our Love Hotel, which is called "Salacious Sanctum" at the moment. (kind-of as a joke, because it's a Usami term, but i almost want to keep it.)

there are other things i'd ideally like to add as free DLC, such as alternate outfits you can unlock after playing through the game once. i'll try my hardest to ensure those happen, but can't promise anything, since it entirely depends on time, energy, and future funding sources.

if you're still taking suggestions on the characters that folks would like to see the designs for.

i would love to see Nagamori's design so i can draw him! i love the mask.

i am definitely taking suggestions! next week i'm going in-depth on Outfit Design and i can bump him up in the queue!

Teisuke's outfit is one i've had planned for a while and it's super fun.