Technical Post - Directing Multiple POVs in Heart of the Woods! (Patreon)

Meowdy friends!

minute here to bring you this month's technical post, colloquially titled "In Another's Shoes", that's not as eye-catching. This will be about my design decisions as visual director of HOTW, and a bit into how they play into the characters as well. Hope you enjoy!

The animation pictured above plays a few times throughout Heart of the Woods. The ballerina spins, changing colors as she goes, and the name of the character whose point of view you've been reading slowly shifts to the new protagonist.

We spent a while considering how to present the switching of perspectives. The UI is totally recolored to the POV character, but it wasn't enough to be immediately notable: while reading, only the click-to-continue icon would be immediately different. I'm pretty happy with the final outcome! It took me awhile to figure out the gradual change of color and name, but I think it was worth it for the final effect. It also serves as a nice loading screen, because the game did tend to stutter a bit while updating the UI.

The "main" main character, every other perspective is based off of hers. Maddie is fairly standard, and I chose to show and hide her sprite based on a simple question: Is her expression more important than the characters currently on the screen?

Inspired by Madison herself, I tried to think of her POV as the most "film" like. The camera choices between showing her face or not, focusing on everyone in the conversation or just the speaker, blurring the background… I tried really hard to give a visible "pacing" to all the scenes, and I hope I succeeded!

Abby only has one POV scene in Heart of the Woods, and it was my favorite scripting. For the first time in the VN, I was able to show Maddie as the love interest. The camera was focused on Maddie longer than any other scene would have been. I put Maddie front and center, similar to how I showed Abigail in her first appearance. The most important part of this scene, for me, was making the reader fall for Madison the same way Abigail does. For once, Maddie's unsure narration and cold body language wasn't present. It was just Abigail watching Maddie on the lake in a tender moment.

Tara didn't have a ton of POV scenes, but one thing that sets her apart from the others is the amount of screentime she gets. Tara had the least amount of time "off-screen" narrating: She was almost always visible. This was a conscious choice on my end. Tara wears her heart on her sleeve, and more often than not, she tries to be braver and more confident than she feels. I wanted to make sure readers could see her face flushing crimson, her Ghibli hair getting crazy when she was flustered, her struggling and failing to remain cool in front of Morgan… I think her scenes were incredibly fun, even when they weren't.

My girl!

Her scenes all erred on the side of being the most "intimate" with her character. With vignette overlays and extended narration, I tried to create a divide between what the world sees, and what Morgan really feels. A direct example of this is Morgan when she sees Evelyn in chapter 4's opening scene.

Morgan never emotes in front of Evelyn, in any of the chapters. But in Chapter 4, we see what's really going on: she's afraid. She spent years learning to numb herself so she wouldn't show it to Evelyn, but on the inside, she's struggling.

Left: Regular || Right: True sight

When Morgan is the POV character, a variable is triggered on Evelyn's sprite. I called it "True Sight": Evelyn's final chapter's eyes are overlayed on her normal eyes, giving her an otherworldly appearance.

Overall, directing Heart of the Woods was a very memorable experience for me. I hope while playing it, some of you have been inspired by these characters and their story! I definitely have grown a lot as a developer throughout its journey, and I can't wait to be a part in bringing more of our projects to life.

Thanks for reading! - minute