DownRight Fierce Dev Update (9/2021)
Not sure if this is something folks here would want to see, but I'll share this update I shared with patrons for the original visual novel I've been working on, DownRight Fierce. It was conceived back in, like, 2014, but since just before the pandemic hit, I've been working on it as a visual novel. It's sort of like...if Street Fighter and Butterfly Soup had a kid? That was born before Butterfly Soup came out? And has been slacking off for a few years? There is a fully playable, mostly presentable demo of the prologue and first three chapters, feel free to contact me if you're interested in trying it out and providing feedback.
Thanks to the support I've received on Patreon lately, I've been able to commission more outfits for the main characters, new expressions, and was able to pay Hayley to re-organize the sprites so I have some more control over mixing and matching different things. We've also implemented a new pose for Nishiko's sprite when they're sending text messages (on their antiquated cell phone).
(all of the character art so far I have commissioned from my friend Hayley Sakura-Rose12)
I ended up deciding to have that sprite made when I implemented a whole text convo with Seiko near the end of Chapter 3. (or partway through the chapter, depending on what the reader chooses - OR they can even skip this conversation altogether, potentially)
The biggest updates to DRF lately have mostly been cosmetic: adding in more facial expressions and effects.
One example of this has been incorpating a more seamless and atmospheric effect for moments when Nishiko gets lost in thought.
There will be a recurring and increasingly important component tied to this, so I'm glad Jenny helped inspire me to pursue this kind of idea. You can also see here a version of Nishiko's sprite which has been visually updated with more texture, alternate color, etc., and that's something she intends to do with the other characters when time allows (she's been very busy for like, over a year now).
Fire and smoke are key visual symbols for Nishiko's character, so Jenny has been helping me figure out ways to express this more through the UI, etc.
(my wife Jenny has worked on the UI, giving it a more gritty look, and she's modified Nishiko's sprite in this image to give extra atmosphere to the character sprites; she also took a placeholder image and did work on it to showcase a potential art style for the backgrounds; we're considering something like this, though maybe including more color, perhaps intentionally depending on the setting)
But it's not just been visual stuff. I've also been adding in extra content, and incorporating more choices and elements that affect and are affected by the stats running in the background.
I've added in new short classroom scenes to help better illustrate Nishiko's experience inbetween social activities, while simultaneously using them to imply elements regarding Nishiko's attention span, as well as flesh out the lore of the world.
I've been a bit inspired by Tuca and Bertie in some weird ways, as well, trying to build lore within my own fighting game inspired world with references that double as, well, world building (like alluding to Street Fighter antagonist M. Bison via a political dictator who existed in this universe's history), including entire chunks of conversation that go in different branches based on weird Capcom humor that also serves to establish backstory.
Nishiko and Kayla bond over love of a dumb cheesy horror flick that's essentially one big meme featuring the 90's Street Fighter cartoon. The drinks in the vending machines are all Capcom references, but serve as a means of letting the reader more manually increase a stat of their choosing - and since they're vending machines, they recur, so as the reader might get to know what each drink is, they might make a deliberate choice to increase a specific stat on purpose, in a similar way to choosing to exercise, or meditate, or study.
A convo about Nishiko's prior schoolyear incorporates Dark Stalkers references while also, again, letting the reader affect stats in a narratively retroactive way.
I've fleshed out conversations in Chapter 3 to have lots of dialogue most readers won't see in a single playthrough, as well as making more efforts to lean readers toward experiencing certain scenes or moments they might have missed earlier, while allowing the possibility of skipping or missing out on scenes entirely should they choose.
For example, the end of Chapter 3 is focused on Nishiko's relationship with Seiko. There is a text chat convo that can happen in one of two different parts of the chapter, and an in-person convo I'm currently working on (the last planned new content for the demo). Both can be experienced, or one or the other, or the can both be skipped. I don't want to make the entire social life something optional, but I do want to have there be parts like this where the reader can choose to skip interacting with a character if they truly don't want to, to help reinforce the idea that every interaction is, in a sense, a deliberate choice.
Even something like picking 'the BAD' choices is something I want to not just feel like, say, Undertale's infamous 'genocide run' but rather something that is an expression of anger at the world around the main character, which even has some specific benefits - because people don't just become jerks because they like to feel bad, but because it serves them in some beneficial way. As a slight example, if the reader pushes Nishiko to become aggressive, their 'Psycho' stat will increase, which can lead to them having even more aggressive choices later, which further increase that stat. But as that stat increase, Nishiko will become more physically perceptive to certain details about the world around them, but in material ways rather than social ways. For example, they might sense certain inklings of things that allude to later plot points earlier than someone who is more cooperative and might learn more social backstory elements. It's likely not going to be some huge, monumental difference, but it hopefully will make a second playthrough feel noticeably different and give the reader more insight into certain things.
The planned demo will feature the prologue and the first three chapters. By the end, all four main characters will be introduced, and the reader should get a pretty good idea through bits of writing and visual presentation that the choices they make won't change the primary narrative, but will affect certain details and aspects of how things play out. This is actually related to a big plot element itself that will become important later. But for now, it's been really fun adapting content I wrote over five years ago into this format, fleshing it out, and trying to work out ways to not only make that content function better in an interactive format, but also just how to lay more foundation and foreshadowing for what's to come.
While the visuals are still far from finalized even for this demo, I do have a private build uploaded for anyone genuinely interested, as I still haven't received much in the way of feedback so far. I'm planning on releasing a public demo to itchio later on when we can get the visuals to look more finalized.
