#nanoreno

Silent Soul Symphonic, the VN I’m making for the NaNoRenO jam, is heavily based on that sort of ‘stock otome game’ premise found in a lot of anime and light novels recently—you know, the one based on specifically 1994’s Angelique despite not actually really having much in common on Anqelique.

Wait, hold on, I looked up that year of release and they just made a new Angelique a few years ago? Impressive staying power, honestly.

Anyway. You know the drill; it’s set at a magic school populated by the aristocracy with the one commoner girl being the protagonist, with an emphasis on shoujo tropes. I specifically chose to go this route because I only decided to do the jam about a week before it started, and that left me with minimal time for preproduction. I wanted something simple that would also be easily recognizable without requiring much work on my part to actually write the thing within the month I have alloted. And even so, I had to scale back on the original premise a few times simply because of those time constraints. If I’d worked from even the start of February, I would’ve been able to do something a little more ambitious, but here we are.

I don’t want to go into detail on the plot itself; that would be a spoiler! Plus, as per the rules of the jam, the game has to be free when I upload it. I might set it to “pay what you want” or something at some point, but given the scope of the game and the jam it is from, I’m never going to charge money for this. What I can talk about are the cast.

Our protagonist is Esmeralda Ridian, the aforementioned commoner in the Royal Academy. She’s a bit naive about aristocratic power plays, a bit overwhelmed by the capitol, and a bit worried about being out-of-place. Underneath all that stress, she has a sharp wit.

Naturally, there are also a number of charming young men in her immediate social sphere, on account of all being in school together.

There is, naturally, a prince. Specifically, Crown Prince Albarious Whitsius. Aloof and impatient, but very enamored with the thoughts and feelings of the people of Lustrartes. He can be difficult to read with those walls he keeps around himself.

Darancia Vermeil comes from the northwestern border territory. He has dreams of how he wants to live that seem out of reach due to current rising tensions between Lustrartes and Filoran—the kingdom to the west that borders Darancia’s home.

Blaine Ambryn is new money, which puts him in a similar situation to Esmeralda. His father is an Earl, but wasn’t born into the peerage so to speak, and that’s left Blaine with something to prove.

Last on our list of hunky boys is Sorrel Orchidea, Third Prince of Filoran. He was sent to attend the academy as effectively a political hostage in an effort to soothe the rising tensions between Lustrartes and Filoran, and he’s taking that opportunity to get some research done on personal matters.

There is, however, one more character rounding out the cast list. Azure Cerul, fiance to Prince Albarious, self-proclaimed schemer, and nicknamed The Wolf of Sepphira. Where Albarious is difficult to read because of his emotional distance, Azure teases and taunts so much it’s hard to know what she means genuinely.

You may have noticed that everyone’s name is highly themed. Lustrartes is, of course, color based, while Filoran is, naturally, plant themed. I did this intentionally, because I think it will make it easier to remember who is who if I color code them. The idea that other nations have different theming is something I settled on because I think it’s funny.

Getting these characters going was pretty much what I spent my time on leading up to March. I wanted each of them to have their own personal goals and a private great fear that would drive them, ideally in conflicting ways. I’m well aware that most of these will never come up within the scope of Silent Soul Symphonic, seeing as it’s a short, linear VN I’m making in a month, but it helps to give them a spark of personality.

The plan for this week is pretty straightforward. I outline the broad strokes of the plot at the end of last week—not that it was hard, it’s a linear game—and I’m now working on the script. I decided to do it like a screenplay, since I’ll later be copying in each line individually to Ren’py, and it gives me a chance to think about how I want my visuals ahead of time, so that next week when I do my character sprites, I know exactly which expressions they need and I don’t do unnecessary work.

The jam started yesterday; we’re on the first week of four. The countdown is live on Itch.io. Honestly, a big part of me is excited to see what everyone else makes, and another part of me can’t wait to see what the other say about S3.

Until Next Devlog!

-DeusVerve