Devlog Update / Q&A (Sept 24)

Hey everyone! First up, the link to the live stream hosted on Friday is now available to watch on YouTube! We answer some frequently asked questions and also go into some major announcements!

I'll do a breakdown here of the major announcement for those who don't have time to watch the full stream :)

Apollo Studios - A New Direction

So, this is less a new direction and more a focused direction—a road with intent. Creating VNs is a lot of work, but it is even more taxing because of our cinematic approach to the visuals.

After some intense research, we decided to change the way we create VNs from now on. That means the product you guys receive will be slightly different. 

We’re going to adopt a hybrid style that mixes cinematic visuals and sprites. We found that we were creating hundreds of individual images for scenes that were primarily just conversations. This wastes time and increases the game file size to incredible amounts. 

By including sprites, we can produce conversational scenes that don’t need that cinematic touch in a fraction of the time. We can also introduce new settings that we previously had to avoid because the intricacies of the characters moving through the scene were just too intense.

Now, this isn’t to say the games will be mainly sprite-based with the odd image. No, this shift will help us be more purposeful with cinematic shots and moments, improving their quality and impact on the story. You’ll still see a lot of the shots you’re used to peppered through the VNs; they’ll just be focused and localised to those special moments we want to create.

So, what does this mean for games already in production? 

For New Hope, nothing. It’s already reaching its final batch of updates, and recreating everything thus far in this new style would be pointless and create more work… Which isn’t the point. New Hope will continue as is. 

The same goes for Lonely Lights. It’s only a VN Short, and it’d be more work to redo part 1 than to finish part 2 with the current style. 

However, Hollow and Fortune Favors will adopt this new style. Hollow is just getting started, so it’s the perfect project to transition to the hybrid style. 

Fortune Favors was originally designed as a mini-series to work on when my ADHD takes over. However, the cinematic style just takes too long. So, Fortune Favors will also be going hybrid so that I can release more frequent updates.

And finally, any new projects on the horizon will be in this hybrid style. 

If you're wondering what this new style will look like, head over to (46:00) in the video above to see the reimagining of the opening scene of Hollow.

Hopefully, this devlog sheds light on why the past few months have been quieter than usual as we transition into this new storytelling style. It's been a lot of work to get it initially set up, but we're now making quick progress on the next update for Hollow!

As always, thank you for your continued support and enjoy the rest of your day! <3
- Blayke