Strangers On Paper - DevLog #9: About Inspiration

Grogu: Many times in our no-meetings we have talked about how we’d like SOP to be perceived, and we both agree that we feel like some indie movie directors entering a movie festival for the first time (?)

I remember when we talked about the first few scenes, or when I would ask Gizmo to tell me a bit about the idea she already had in mind so I could see how to depict the characters and try to create something we would both be happy with.

Before getting into it, I’d like to tell you a bit of a secret, and that is that Becca’s character was created before we even began developing SOP… kind of.

From ancient times I’ve been very interested in creating a game (I’m too embarrassed to show you the other 25 projects I started with renders and then never stuck to) and ever since I came across games like Acting Lessons, City of Broken Dreamers, Depraved Awakening among many that I started and never finished, the idea of making a VN got rooted very deep in my heart.

Becca’s original render. Fortunately this is the model we ended up using (with some tweaks and changes)

Once we had the settings, characters and a story to tell, the visual development set off. I’d like to share some film screenshots that I keep in mind when creating a photograph/render and setting the lighting among many other films:

Only God Forgives and every movie by Winding Refn.

Last Night in Soho.

Pusher II.

Good Time.

If I think of video games that have inspired me or got me thinking about creating one, I need to talk about Mass Effect, Heavy Rain, Red Dead Redemption 2, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Detroit Become Human, and last but not least, Life is Strange - which both Gizmo and hold in high steem and use as a great source of inspiration for our game.

Finally, I’d like to add some details I chose to include in SOP visuals:

• Using lenses from 85mm forward.
• Complementary colors in lighting.
• Adding film grain in post for that indie touch.
• Love.

Gizmo: Grogu and I usually remind each other a lot that we are just making things up as we go, and that’s pretty much it. Just trying stuff until it feels right. For me, that kind of instinct comes from knowing what I have liked to see in other stories, and why.

Here are some personal takeaways from stories I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the writing of.

As Grogu has already pointed out, I hold Life is Strange very dear to my heart. The visuals, the music, the characters and their stories - it doesn’t feel like a video game at all. It redefined my idea of what a game should be like.

Detroit: Become Human is one of the best examples of character development. I think I’ve played the whole game over five times now, each time pushing the characters in different directions and I love watching how different the end of the road can look in each scenario. Even if SPOILER character gets offed early in the story, by that point you have still learned about their journey and how it has affected them - or prevented them from changing.

Nowhere else are inner monologues as fun to read/listen to as in The Longest Journey. Wildly underappreciated game.

Other games I thoroughly appreciated the stories of for different reasons and keep very much in mind are The Witcher 3, Tell Me Why, Missed Messages, Her Story, Unpacking - I know this last one is an unconventional answer since there’s very little writing in it, but the storytelling through personal belongings is *chef’s kiss* and makes me think a lot about what things I’d like to see the characters wearing, what kind of objects they would leave lying around, etc.

However, I find that when I’m needing inspiration the most, it usually comes from other types of media.

Nothing ticks as many boxes for me as Whedon’s early works (which infuriates me nowadays, but for the sake of this log I’ll separate the man from the work itself). Buffy is one of those cases in which you could remove all characters’ names from the script and still know exactly who said each line.

And as Grogu pointed out above, I usually feel more like I’m writing a script for an indie film rather than a visual novel, and my biggest inspiration in that regard may forever be the Before trilogy, especially Before Sunrise. The conversations these two have feel so organic, like those late nights with your friends when you start opening up the later it gets and everything just flows.

And last but not least, music helps a lot too. Actually, just as Becca was born from a single image, Amy was born from a song - I may or may not go into detail on that in the future. Once I find a song that clicks with what I’m writing, I may have it on repeat for hours without realizing it. Sometimes it’s about the tune matching the atmosphere, sometimes it’s about the lyrics, some wonderful times it’s about both. The only example I can think of right now is this one day I spent over seven hours writing nonstop, and many of them were spent listening to Risa by Babasónicos. Come to think of it, much of SOP Chapter 1 was written while listening to Babasónicos, a band that I had never really stopped to listen to before but damn.

As a way to thank you for reading through all this rambling, I’ll leave you on a heartwarming note. Once I’d finished reading Grogu’s log, I went back to that first conversation about Becca’s render to see how it’d all played out and his literal words were:

“Next time we have a no-meeting let’s talk about this, I just FEEL deep in my being that something could come out of this.”

Now that’s some corny shit.