Team Q&A Session: 05/12/2020 Transcript (Patreon)

Panel

• Sam (Samu-kun) - Founder
• Ben (Nemjen) - Community Manager

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Due to this being a voice chat orientated session there are spoilers for Love in Space IPs that come in and out of discussions, if you haven't played through all our games then please be aware there is a chance of having something revealed that you weren't yet aware of.

Question by Roberuto-kun

“Recently on Sunrider Spoiler section, there was a quarrel about diplomats from Versta. I am curious about the fate of passengers of Agamemnon. If you let PACT to sink this ship, is no chance for survivors, right?”

Samu: Yeah, if PACT sunk the ship, everybody died on that ship. There was no way anybody could have survived, right?

Nemjen: Well, you never know with technology. They've gotten far enough that people are still drifting to this day. A certain Star Wars film, after all, showed us that it certainly is possible to travel through the vacuum of space.

Samu: [laughs] Well, that that's only if you're Force sensitive, though, so.

Nemjen: Want to come out and say maybe it’s applicable to any crew members?

Samu: I don't think anybody survived that. I mean, if you chose to save them, then yeah, that they made it out alright.

Question by Snickett

“What valuable skill or lesson came out of the development of Shining Song Starnova: Idol Empire?”

Samu: Idol Empire was really important to learn how to code in the game engine. I would say it was absolutely necessary that Idol Empire come out before Sunrider four or else we would've made a lot more mistakes in Sunrider 4. The most difficult part about coding a game is actually getting the game to save and load, and you never really think about that. You just take it as a given that any game will be able to save and load whenever you want. But actually, it's very challenging to code that. You would think that it’s gameplay encoding is the hardest part, but actually it's the stuff that you never think about. That's actually the most challenging to create in a game. The UI and Save/Load and so much of it is just behind the scenes data management which nobody ever stops to think about, and that stuff should work automatically and perfectly, it’s not noticeable. That's the most important lesson we've learned.

Nemjen: One of the things that was most memorable with me was when we were trying to wrestle with the concept to the saving system and some of the interesting interactions it would bring across. So, things like sprites disappearing and the like. I think my favourite was when it started spawning in security guards that decided to patrol the outskirts of the office.

Samu: [laughs] I thought your favourite, was when Nattan wouldn’t appear on her alpaca.

Nemjen: [laughs] Oh yeah, I remember when you came back to me with a breakthrough that it was based on how fast the sprite was going with it, determining if a transformation would take place. That did lead to quite an interesting session before you patched it out of trying to find ways to speed up the sprites.

Nemjen: For me in particular, surprising as it sounds, I’ve never really come into contact with GameMaker before, so it was interesting for me just to get my hands on it and join in on your (Sam’s) journey. When it came to getting to grips with what we could make possible in the engine as well as the tools that are available, I suppose the lesson is being flexible when it comes to that journey. I now feel a lot more confident in what we have as options and look forward to hopefully catching as many bugs as early as possible so then to make it a nicer experience for everyone over all.

Samu: That's the most important part. If we hadn’t a made Idol Empire, how to make Sunrider 4 would be unknown, but now there's a lot less unknowns. Going forward, we know what to expect now and it's not going to be like Idol Empire when everything was just a shot in the dark and we were just guessing all the time and trying to improve as we went on. Now, we don’t have to start from zero anymore and that's the most important part.

Nemjen: Exactly, we've now got that confidence, so the ideas we've had in the pot for a while, it should be easier to make them a reality and while we can't show off the full scale of things that are happening between behind the scenes at the moment there are a lot of interesting and fun things to come. So, look forward to that.

Question by Elikuz

“How mature will the S4 be? Would we see more hentai scenes than in the Sunrider: Liberation Day for example?”

Samu: Oh, the age rating. Well, the porn basically depends on the platforms, if they ban it then we can’t really do it, I mean, that really is so random, in the past it used to be fine, even on Patreon and stuff, some people post porn and Patreon totally just chills with it, and other times you get nailed with a hammer and Valve is kind of similar.

Nemjen: I was just going to say it’s a bit of the evolving environment in a way, that when it came to development before we could plan these things quite far in advance and feel fairly confident it would be fine when it came to platform policy. Now it’s one of these things that you definitely have to see how things develop over time and tackle it a bit later in development if you really want to, because who knows when the next policy change is going to be and how it’s going to buckle things, so it’s one of the discussions we have from time to time to see the sentiment of the policies that are coming up. I find it quite hard because it is literally speculation [laughs].

Samu: Yeah, the main lesson we’ve learnt is that they can change their policies unilaterally, they can just completely change them based on what they want. They don’t really listen to us no matter what we say, so it’s definitely very, very random and hard to predict. But with that said, I’m definitely going to say that Sunrider 4 is not going to be, you know, like a porn game? It’s not going to be about the porn [laughs]. Let me just put that out there from the very beginning. It’s not going to be about the porn, it’s definitely going to be more about the gameplay and a lot more, I think, more science fiction than... you know, just being a porn. So yeah, I wouldn’t... I wouldn’t really expect much porn.

Question by Hannibal

“Will (we see) in the future some DLC or spinoff for Shining Song Starnova?”

Nemjen: In terms of the immediate future, I would say we pretty much got our hands full so we’re not looking at it right now, but who knows what tomorrow brings as definitely there’s still quite a bit we could do when it comes to the narrative of Starnova. Sam probably has his own opinions as well, but never say never.

Samu: Yeah, it would be fun to make another one, but yeah right now we got a lot of work for Sunrider ahead, so we’re not even talking about it, but it would be fun.

Nemjen: I think the only thing we do now for Starnova is occasionally bicker about the merchandise numbers. Still to this day we’re quite competitive over whose best girl in the numbers.

Samu: Oh yeah, Starnova... it’s pretty competitive, it’s pretty tight.

Nemjen: [laughs] It’s a bit of a battlefield behind the scenes.

Samu: A bit of a battlefield, everybody. There’s no one girl that is totally ahead of the other girls. I wonder if Sunrider will become like that one day. I think like in Sunrider, some of the girls are so far ahead, but maybe one day it will reach the point where all the girls are pretty even.

Nemjen: I don’t know about that that sounds like prototype brainwashing. You’re starting your conditioning of other people. [laughs]

Samu: Every waifu can be equal then.

Question by Sorzo

“How literally should the gameplay battles in Sunrider be interpreted in terms of scale? Even though the Sunrider and its Ryders are clearly meant to be standouts in terms of combat ability, from a lore standpoint I would imagine they're not tearing through entire fleets on their own like we do as players.”

Samu: Okay, for this question it’s kind of like two parts: Sunrider Mask of Arcadius and Liberation Day. The engine was very limited so we couldn’t really display many units on the map in the first place so it’s not to scale at all. I mean, I envisioned like a couple capital ships and several times as many Ryders (so a lot of Ryders and just a few ships), but you know, it’s the engine could only like, put maybe thirty... thirty units on the map at a single time, and then it starts lagging for some reason, so it’s not to scale at all.

Samu: This is something I really want to improve for Sunrider 4 because we can now put hundreds of units on the screen and it shouldn’t lag, because this is a regular game engine. In terms of combat ability, I think in Gundam and stuff the heroes do cut through the mooks pretty easily. So, I think the hero units would be able to really take on a lot of enemy Ryders and we’re able to display a lot more enemy Ryders, so hopefully we’ll make it all work. Now as for ships, that’s a little bit more difficult. A Ryder is going to have a difficult time taking on a ship just because there’s a size difference that’s not really well conveyed in the game. A Ryder is just like a fighter while a ship is like an aircraft carrier, it’s so much bigger.

Samu: That’s something we really want to improve for Sunrider 4. We want to definitely make sure than we can display more units on the field and introduce a lot more complicated game systems, more realistic. For Liberation Day and Mask of Arcadius it was really difficult to introduce new gameplay systems and have everything that you imagine in your head, because the gameplay was so limited but now, now I feel like we can really make it more like space battles. I don’t know how much of this information has like been shared, but the gameplay is not even grid-based anymore, you can move your units and each unit has stuff like momentum and facing direction and directional armour and stuff like that. It’s definitely gotten a lot more complicated and hopefully a lot more realistic. I mean at the end of the day it’s still a 2D turn based game, so I wouldn’t say it’s realistic, but now it is just more... more like it makes you feel you’re an actual “Space Captain” instead of just playing a board game.

Nemjen: So, you’re not willing to make it into a Musou genre game then, Sam? Because that would certainly have the scale.

Samu: What genre?

Nemjen: Like Dynasty Warriors? Hack and Slash?

Samu: Oh oh oh oh, no, no, it’s still turn based, it’s still [a] turn-based [game] guys, don’t worry.

Nemjen: I think it’s one of these things too in general where it can also be reflective in the narrative that sort of gives you the visual stimulus you need to apply to scale, so we want to go further with Sunrider 4 technically and we’ve got all these new mechanics but don’t forget your own imaginations are just as powerful when it comes to stuff like scalability. But yeah, no inspired Musou [style], so no mass scale destruction of enemies.

Samu: It’s not like, we didn’t go like Sakura Wars and change it from Turn-Based to like Hack-and-Slash. It’s still turn based, I just meant that we can like have more than 30 units on the fields now, hopefully! Hopefully we’ll see like I’m hoping! I’m really hoping we get to see a battle like with 100 units at least. I’m hoping I’m able to pull it off and the game still needs to coded but I’m seriously hoping that...

Nemjen: Looking at our options, hopefully we get to a point where we can show off some of the betas via Patreon and you’ll be able to see how we’re approaching topics like this in terms of gameplay.

Samu: That would be so cool man, hundred plus units that I don’t know if it can be pulled off but that would be so cool.

Nemjen: It could be like a certain regenerating Ryder when it came to Liberation Day, right? We just need to replicate that to scale.

Question by Hazy Phantom

“You guys created one of my favourite series of VN. When working on the writing, what do you start with? Like an outline or do you run concepts by one another?”

Samu: Hmm, I don’t really outline, I mean. First, I just start writing and this has happened twice now, like Starnova I started writing and then look back on it and I just went ‘Wow this is really, really bad.’ and I actually just scrapped everything and then rewrote it again. Wrote the same story again a second time and then the second time it came so much better, because now you know where the story is about and who these characters are and how they talk and where in all this plot points you want to hit. I actually just write at once and then sometimes if I don’t like it (which is often) I just rewrite it.

Samu: Sunrider 4... funny story, the same thing happened. I have a script that's pretty much like 70% of the game right now. The only issue is that I hate it. I’ve scrapped it and I’m rethinking it over back from scratch and I think that’s going to be what saves us because... it’s just lets the script get much better because then I already know what the plot points are and how the characters talk and everything. Also, it’s really important to understand how the game will be made and how the game works as well. I’m really hoping that the second rewrite is going to be what really elevates the story of Sunrider 4 and makes it so much better than Mask of Arcadius and Liberation Day.

Nemjen: It complements it as well, you want something that slots into place and feels at home, and that can take a few attempts to find what you feel is the right tone. I mean, I’m not the writer so I’m sort of doing a bit of armchair theorising here, but I would imagine it’s quite an intense and emotional process, wanting to make sure you hit all your objectives and people takeaway what you had planned for that part of the narrative.

Samu: That’s the thing! That’s kind of the reason why I feel like the first version needed to be trashed and rewritten because I don’t really feel it the first time around... it’s like it needs to really hit you. In some parts of Starnova, it really, really hits you. The first script draft. for Sunrider 4... it didn’t. It’s kind of eh...

Nemjen: It’s just quite hard to say specifically what [writing] discussions can come up for now, because otherwise we’re going to end up revealing what Sunrider 4 is about and...

Samu: So, you like... rewrite it because the first time, you don’t even know what it’s going to be like and what is going to be about. Second time, now you know! Now you can get the punches in and now you know because this is going to happen! So, let's make it even better! Let's make it even more intense!

Nemjen: Like I remember when you first put forward the Sunrider 4 script quite early on I was like ‘Bloody hell, where did this come from?’It was like you’d gone on a quick spiritual journey or something, and then upon return you magically summoned it to your desk.

Samu: Yeah, Ben was like ‘No, what, no, I hope this isn’t...’Ben was crying, Ben was like ‘Oh my god, oh my God...’ but yeah, we’ve gotten so far from that first script. That was like the first one of the first one, so technically that’s been rewritten and then it’s being rewritten again so [laughs], hopefully by the time you experience it, it will be rewritten so many times that all the issues will be fixed.

Nemjen: It’s going to get to this stage where someone asks me a question and I give them an iteration of a previous Sunrider 4, I mean heck you ought to just change the direction and let’s just call Sunrider 4 a Multiverse in terms of possible actual stories that could happen.

Samu: [laughs] After the game comes out, comes the DLC that changes the story again.

Nemjen: Sunrider 4: The Revisionist Universe.

Samu: Yeah, the DLC, the REturn. With Claude, anything is possible. But you know, I don’t want to do that if you’re taking that seriously, we don’t want another Re:Zero thing again. Yeah, that’s been done to death, the whole ‘Re:Zero return by death’ thing.

Nemjen: We’ll should that sort of thing to Fanfics, shouldn’t we?

Samu: Now watch it happen, it’s going to happen, isn’t it? Even though I really don’t want it to. Watch it. just watch, it’s going to be just like Re:Zero [laughs].

Question by RunicSage

“Will there be any base-building aspect in Sunrider 4?”

Samu: I don’t think so. I think Sophita was pretty much what was there in previous games, you were just upgrading the ship or Ryders. I haven’t really made this yet, but I’m thinking maybe it will be more like a progression ladder instead of just upping stats this time, but I don’t know. Maybe it will be like a research ladder instead, but we’ll have to see on that.

Nemjen: There you go, start your journey your captain’s journey in the basement and work your way up to a starship.

Samu: [laughs] No, I don’t think there’s going to be any base building, it’s going to be about ships and Ryders.

Nemjen: Don’t forget pilots, pilots are also important.

Samu: In terms of base building, I don’t think Shields is going to get a base... Shields has a ship, it’s not [Star Trek] Deep Space 9, so he has a ship, not a base, not a space station.

Nemjen: Another thing as well, Sunrider 4 is going to have a bit of a different tone than the rest of the series considering the situation he now finds himself in, so these elements would be quite hard in a way when it comes to the narrative. I suppose you can always create room but it hasn’t happened yet.

Question by Adam Rebellion

“What do you think about mods? I mean the big ones, even on another engine.”

Samu: Mods?

Nemjen: Are we going to offer mods which we have touched upon briefly in previous Q&A, but it’s one of those things that needs to wait until we’re a bit further along in terms of development now so we can start to see what options we have available and the form the final form of the systems. Maybe this time if we just start specifically with if you’re thinking about any new concepts when it comes to mods for Sunrider 4, Sam?

Samu: Oh well, if you modded Idol Empire to get languages in, they’ll work the same way. But in terms of other mods, it just comes down to your own knowledge. If you have the knowhow to mod the game, then feel free. It’s a much more complicated game engine so it’s going to have a higher difficulty level modding it. But it’s just like, we can’t... we can’t provide official support. I do think we’ll be providing official mod support for new languages, that basically works the same way as Idol Empire, but for other stuff, that pretty much comes down to your own skill level.

Nemjen: We’ll keep talking about it through development though, things like this require some messing around to see if we can make it work.

Question by Master Yoba

“To what extent will it be possible to choose loyalty to any faction?”

Samu: That’s ah, pretty much dictated by the story, like it’s not an open-world game by any means where you can just sign on with any of the factions. I mean, Kayto is never going to sign on with PACT and it’s kind of awkward with the Alliance right now because you... kind of... kamikaze’d their flagship, so that’s kind of awkward. So, it’s not an open world game where you can just form alliances with other factions. It’s pretty much entirely controlled by the narrative. I mean, the main factions in the galaxy right now are PACT well, you’re not going to be... Shields would never sign on with PACT, right-?

Nemjen: I’m up for that scenario, let's do it!

Samu: And it’s pretty big... pretty big changes happened in the story, and maybe, maybe it might happen one day in the story, maybe... like one day they will team up but it would take some pretty big development, and it’s not going to be you go to a PACT station and just press a button and ‘Congrats, you signed up for PACT now!’, it’s going to require an entire story development... so it’s not going to be a thing like in open world games.

Nemjen: One to reserve for my head-canon then.

Samu: Oh well, maybe, maybe you could make your fanfic or maybe one day it might happen. Or maybe like some alternate universe DLC, who knows? Who knows?

Nemjen: They’re destined bros to be, destined to be the new Galactic Order. [laughs]

Question by Elikuz

“I am a composer and would be more than happy to make any music for your games. Do you hire anybody "from the side" or only buying music from some specific authors?”

Samu: For Sunrider we’ve already have that library of songs that have been used in prior games and you know, since everybody has already heard those songs so many times and it has become so associated with it, we’re going to have to license those songs again. In terms of buying music from specific authors, well...

Samu: I’m probably going to bore the majority of people now with some game industry talk, but I feel like it’s gotten pretty rough for the composers that want to actually create good music like orchestral music. There’s really only so far that you can go with synths and fake instruments and if you actually want like the full-bodied instrumentation, you’re either going to have to buy some very expensive sound packs or expensive sound sampling libraries or basically hire musicians to play the instruments for you and both paths are very, very expensive, and the thing is, there’s so much music available for very cheap now that it’s becoming very difficult for composers to make custom quality orchestrated music for an indie game...

Samu: The thing is that I could either pay a few thousand dollars to have a custom song... or I could buy just a licensed one that already sounds pretty good for just a fraction of that price, and it’s just so much more economical now to license a song that it’s becoming very difficult for composers. But that's just my opinion...! That’s just one game developer’s opinion and I’m sure a lot of people would disagree with me on that point.

Nemjen: I’ll throw my hat into the ring now, if you ever need someone to play the recorder, I’ve got you covered.

Samu: [Laughs]

Nemjen: I’m not sure how it would fit into the soundtrack but yeah, you know my ability with a recorder is all yours.

Samu: Yeah, are we going to have like the Posthumus Regnum, but in recorder version?

Nemjen: Yeah, it would add to the atmosphere, just record the covers when it comes to the soundtrack.

Samu: That’s the song that comes up when Cosette appears in her messed-up Ryder, it’s supposed to be a big event and suddenly it’s just a Posthumus Regnum with a recorder. [laughs]

Samu: I’m not going to sugarcoat it, it’s very hard to make a living as a musical composer, if you want to make you know... big production music. Ah, what is much better if you want to be hired as a musician for a game is using more budget techniques like chiptunes or more synthetic music. That’s more affordable to you and more affordable for the other party, unfortunate for Sunrider that’s not an option because people have already heard the full orchestrated music and it’s so much more... we can buy that; we can license that for much cheaper.

Question by Firi

“Were there any new VNns/games you've recently played that inspired/improved elements of Sunrider 4, whether it's gameplay/story? Like for instance you've finished VNs like Muv-Luv, did it have any impact on you as a creator?”

Samu: Oh yeah, I really loved Muv-Luv, that was a lot of fun. And yeah, we’re playing a lot of games all the time to figure out how to implement it for the game, err rather not “implement it,” but see how other people are doing and other people’s standards are. You don’t release a game in a vacuum, people don’t just look at your game when they’re playing your game, they’re comparing it against other games, they’re going ‘Fire Emblem was kinda like this, and this game is kinda like this and is it really up to par’ and so it’s really important to look up what other games are doing. Yeah, I've logged around I think... 80 hours in Fire Emblem Three Houses, yeah, I’ve played that for a bit.

Nemjen: Yes, that’s a game I want to come back to at some point too,, I’ve done two of the Houses but I think it’s time for a break before I tackle the third. Had a great time so far though.

Samu: Yeah, that’s what I’m playing too. Turn-based tactics. A popular one I’ve also played is Battletech, trying to figure out what people expect out of turn based tactics games. That one doesn’t have any waifus, but you know it’s made by Americans so what can you do? The robots look kind of ugly too honestly, they look like American robots, they’re build like Buicks. No offense to them, I guess it’s a matter of choice, but it’s like ‘American Buicks versus Japanese Mechs.’ [laughs] In terms of VNs, I actually haven’t played a VN in a while.

Nemjen: I was just thinking and the last one I played was Robotics;Notesand there’s not really a lot of gameplay you can take away from that one, because it’s mainly looking for intractable elements in an environment and quick-time events, but as a VN I’ve definitely enjoyed it even though the Switch version could use a patch or two. There’s a moment in the novel where the models are T-posing and bobbing their head and it’s not ideal, you’re having the semi-emotional segment and you have a model T-posing and bobbing its head, it’s... yeah. But the actual underlining story, I’ve avoided the actual anime so this is my first time and I really enjoyed it.

Samu: Oh, Baldr Sky, I’ve played a lot of that game, I cannot believe how difficult some parts of Baldr Sky are, man! I’ve almost smashed the C and X buttons on my keyboard just to Baldr Sky just to how hard some parts were.

Nemjen: I feel so bad because every time when we’re sharing a conversations and you bring it up I say ‘oh, I’m thinking about giving it a go but I’ve still got it on the backlog’...

Samu: You haven’t played it yet, Ben? Yeah, Ben play it!

Nemjen: Yeah, but you keep mentioning all these potential bad endings so it becomes a thought process of “am I in the mood to...”

Samu: We’re putting a 18 plus mature warning on this conversation right now. [laughs] Yeah Ben, you really need to play Baldr Sky, I think Baldr Sky may have been THE best game I’ve played in like... I don’t know it could be the best game I’ve ever played. I’m obviously very biased because you know, waifus and robots, I’m a little bit biased here, but it may be the best game I’ve ever played it and I love how hard it is.

Nemjen: I do feel bad because I installed it sometime in December last year and it has just sat on my hard drive ever since, so yeah, I mean get my act together and give this one a proper run.

Samu: Going back to what we're alluding to, but it’s like become a running joke that now we’re going to have like these Baldr Sky-esque punishment game segments where if you don’t beat a mission within a certain time your waifu gets groped and it’s just like- [laughs]

Nemjen: Yeah... it’s not something you want to read, there some pretty scary behind the scenes discussions.

Samu: Ben is just like ‘No! That’s not the part of Baldr Sky you need to take inspiration from’

Nemjen: I’m trying to protect you guys here from the canon that could soon be, you don’t want it. I know it may sound interesting but no you don’t want this.

Samu: Yes, Ben is trying to protect you from my sadistic side, I want include stuff like this but Ben is just like ‘No no no! Sam! You have better things to do with your time!’ But yeah... that Baldr Sky was so...pressure inducing, it’s like whenever one of those time segments happened, I was smashing my keyboard through the table because I was hitting it so much.

Nemjen: Is it all like that, or you have a mix of scenarios and time missions and other variant takes?

Samu: [laughs] Protip, you need a guide to know which segments are punishment segments or else you’re in for a very nasty surprise, man.

Nemjen: Yeah, I’ve hit my limit now, with trying to do games like these blind.

Samu: I got surprised the first time, then I went ‘Okay, guide only, this is... I don’t need this in my life.’

Nemjen: I don’t think I’ll be taking a guide off you though as I get the feeling you’re going to try and push me into some of the traumatic scenarios...

Samu: Okay, let's not talk about Baldr Sky forever. I could talk about Baldr Sky forever but... [laughs]

Question by Shadow Kayto

“When will Sam continue his completionist playthrough of Idol Empire?”

Samu: I don’t think I really need to record that because I have already logged too many hours into Idol Empire, I’ve played it for hundreds of hours in various stages of readiness, you know bug testing, mostly when it was pretty buggy, I’ve indeed put my time. Yeah... I think I will just log thousands of hours into Sunrider 4 now until I’ve completed my duty there too.

Question by Spiceman

“I wanna see more of that playthrough and see Mr. Yang play through other games too”

Samu: Yeah, unfortunately most of my time gets spent coding, making the game and playing my own games in very buggy stages, so I don’t really have time to be a game streamer, that was another career which I chose not to go down so... Unfortunately, I’ll just be maybe playing Sunrider 4, maybe I’ll record myself playing Sunrider 4, but for other games... too busy...

Question by Firi

“Will you be using a VTuber to promote Sunrider 4?”

Samu: A man can dream! A man can dream...

Nemjen: I mean we do have experience with being a talent agency now through Starnova so we have the skillset we need. Just to find the right person!

Samu: Yeah... who would I want to play Sunrider 4... I suppose if Senchou plays Sunrider 4... if Marine plays Sunrider 4 it would be like... I would quit, I don’t need to accomplish anything more in my life that... I can quit happily because I’ve already accomplished everything.

Nemjen: Okay, save your simping for later superchats.

Samu: [Laughs] Yeah, you’ll see me in the superchats. A man can dream but let's move on, two more... let's take it seriously I think we’ve been joking a bit too much.

Question by Noobrage

“Are there plans to bring English voice acting back?”

Samu: With the English voicing... right now we have obviously the Japanese voices mostly arranged, I mean, I haven’t heard from them in a long time because of COVID, which guessing that will go away next year we’ll be able to continue working with Japan and going to Japan again. In terms of English voicing though... for the first Sunrider game the English voices weren’t done by me so I actually don’t know. I’m sure it’s possible, but having the language does increase the budget costs quite a bit, so it really depends on how much money we have. That’s pretty much what it comes down to. If the game makes lots of money, then why not? I’s pretty much what it comes down to really, I’m sure I can make friends with somebody who knows how to do the English voices again, but... I’ve already paid for Japanese voices so paying for English voices on top of it...

Nemjen: I’ve already given you the answer for this, we need to do our own voice pack. Together, we have a range of vocals on our side.

Samu: No guys, I’m not going to traumatize you guys with my voice in the game. This is probably more than enough for you guys and if I voice Sola, I think it would be very hard to look at her with a lot of... look at her the way I want people to look at her if it’s my voice, just putting that out there.

Question by Snickett

“Do you talk/collaborate/consult with other VN creators? People within the Sekai Project network perhaps?”

Samu: Yeah, whenever I’m looking to hire somebody, I hit people up and go ‘Hey, you know about anyone who is looking for work?’ They are on my Discord list; I can chat them up whenever something comes up.

Nemjen: I’m similar, I have a few of them on my friends list as well and occasionally we toss things between each other for different topics. Within the Sekai Network you find a ton of friendly people both for a natter or you just need some advice, everyone’s really willing to go the extra mile and help you out. Which is pretty nice.

Samu: Yeah, you can pretty much hit them up any time if you need help, no particular issues there. Too bad like though, this year’s anime expo was cancelled so I couldn’t drink with everybody, but what can you do. There’s always next year.

Nemjen: You don’t want to try and organise an alternative? Because one of the biggest additions of the pandemic lockdown has been the regular Quiz Nights. [laughs]

Question by Sorzo

“How do you balance pacing between gameplay and narrative? If there's an instance where the story seems to demand several hours of consecutive pure VN segments, are you inclined to bite the bullet and let the narrative play out gradually, or do you prefer to rework things so that there's a regular alternation between the gameplay and story halves?”

Samu: Well, coming from my visual novel experience I’d say just say ‘The hell with it, you guys are going to get nothing but VN segments for the next two or three hours, it’s just the way things go.’ I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that because you know we all are used to visual novels by now and we’re used to movie games where the cutscenes are three hours long and you don’t get any gameplay. Five years ago, it would have been crazy talk to say ‘Hey, there’s going to be no gameplay and you’re just going to be reading for a few hours’ but nowadays I don’t really see an issue with that at all.

Nemjen: One that I have been meaning to ask you about as you were playing it, I’ve heard Death Stranding apparently has the last part of the game just being made up of a two-hour cutscene which I don’t know if was true? The cinematic angle is one that is cropping up more and more.

Samu: Okay, I haven’t finish it though, I haven’t finished Death Stranding. But yes, games have changed a lot, they used to be ‘You need gameplay every fifteen minutes, or the player will get bored and quit’ but today I don’t think that’s an issue at all. I think everybody stays for the story segments and they’re just as interested in the story segments as the gameplay so I think there’s no reason to have random gameplay interrupt the story just so the player gets gameplay. If the story needs to be there for a long time, it's going to be there for a long time.

Question by Kaylee Brown

“How is the work on Sunrider 4 progressing? What rough percentage of the game is complete, or what part of the game are you working on right now? Any details will be very appreciated”

Samu: You would have a better idea of where we’re at if you’re on Patreon, but in short, we still are in the early stages. We got the basic engine worked down and some of the art done and story done but there still a long way to go. Right now, I’m working on the very first battle, the battle tutorial, so that’s pretty much an indication of how early stage we are. I’m literally working on the tutorial.

Nemjen: We’ve got quite a few ideas slotting together now, haven’t we? That’s quite a lot to date that is being geared around organizing assets that are going to be featured within the game itself. We’re now at a state where we have this environment where we can implement things like the first battle but also go through story segments. Some of the other little background things we’re working are starting to take form so it's beyond the concept stage, but it’s definitely a work in progress.

Samu: I mean at least we got... well... is this a spoiler? At least we got Kayto off the...

Nemjen: Yeah, I’m watching you; you go too far and you get the REDACTED from me...!

Samu and Nemjen: [Laugh]

Samu: Yes, we got Kayto off Tydaria at least, so that’s something, he was on that planet FOREVER from my perspective it took so long to make that happen. But how long that took... Okay... let's not talk about that because it can actually be a spoiler. But yes, we’re still pretty much at the beginning.

Question by Hav0k

“If you did make a Vtuber to promote Sunrider 4 who would the model be? Icari?”

Samu: Well, now for the Waifu Wars.

Nemjen: Okay so I get one veto a year that I’m allowed to use when it comes to Love in Space policy, and we would go with Ava if it’s ever a reality, so yeah let's leave that there, I have used my veto. You don’t get to say, end of the story.

Samu: Huh? It’s the first time I’ve heard of this veto. [Laughs] I didn’t know that Ben had a Command Seal, those Command Seals are won lightly.

Nemjen: They do take a long time to regenerate.

Question by Bite Me Universe

“Have any of the weird theories [that] we've made or have any [of them] been relayed to you from the spoiler sections?”

Samu: Well Ben, you make sure that [I see them].

Nemjen: I do, don’t I?

Samu: Yeah, you make sure I don’t miss a single moment of it.

Nemjen: What would you say about the general atmosphere that you pick up from some of these messages that are being relayed?

Samu: Well, I have to be careful with spoilers here.

Nemjen: You getting a feeling of chaotic energy, [from] these theories are coming forward?

Samu: Well, you know... I was reading on reddit about Cracked Star Wars theories that people used to have in the 1980s.

Nemjen: You mean like the Christmas Special being actual canon.

Samu: Well, one of the crack theories I read was that Darth Vader might actually be Luke Skywalker’s mother...

Nemjen: Well... I... Eh, how does that work?

Samu and Nemjen: [Laugh]

Samu: But yeah, there are all sorts of ideas...!

Nemjen: Well, we’re not going to say if anyone’s been able to hit nails on their heads just yet, they have to wait until the end of the game before we see if anything’s linked up... but yeah there’s definitely quite a lot of wacky stuff that comes out of that chat and while I don’t always poke them, so to speak, they are very entertaining to read.

Question by RubyAnon

“Are there any thoughts for adding any sort of stealth-like segments for Sunrider 4?”

Samu: We’re talking about ships or like with... literally a Metal Gear Solid style, Shields infiltrating a base? If the latter I wouldn’t count on that. It probably be focused around the ships and the Ryders in the gameplay with that. I guess Icari has that cloak machine for her Ryder but in terms of other stuff you’re in space, so you don’t have much opportunity for stealth segments.

Question by Luca

“Will the battles be similar to Fire Emblem's gameplay where you select the unit and target the enemy unit still or can we expect something different?”

Samu: I think it will be like what you would expect from a turn-based strategy game, with some twists of course. I think the big twist is the momentum [mechanic], really. You’re in space, so you keep going in a particular direction and nothing really stops you in space, so if you start moving in one direction you will keep moving until you fire your engines and change your direction again, so I think that’s the one big twist we’re working on right now. It’s... kind of hard to explain...

Nemjen: It’s one of these situations where you’ll be able to dissect it once we can show it off.

Samu: Yeah, it’s something that will have to be definitely shown instead of talked about. Once we have all this set up up and working, you’ll be able to see it in a video and you’ll be able to get a much better idea of what we have planned once we reach that stage.

Question by Master Yoba

“Is Sunrider 4 planned to be longer than Liberation Day?”

Samu: I mean, you never really know how long a game is until it’s done, and you never really know how long... how much money you’ll have in the indie business, but we have a lot of story to cover so hopefully it will be a lot longer. You would think... LD without the DLC is kind of on the shorter side so yes, I think that’s it.

Nemjen: We’re currently redrafting parts of it, this sort of stuff is up in the air at the moment. [Laughs]

Samu: I mean, in the indie world, you never really know, I mean, you think you’re going to have this massive masterpiece of a game, and then something happens. We’re used to it now, we know the ropes, let's hope we can cover everything we want to.

Question by Hav0K

“Will there be an upgrade to the naval combat? New features and abilities? Maybe customizing Ryders?”

Samu: There will be pretty big changes, but once again, you will have to wait for a video of the gameplay to see it.

Question by Kaylee Brown

“Will Cosette have more screen time?”

Samu: Well, she’s actually on my screen right now, so I guess that counts...! Yes, she will have screen time.

Question by Firi

Regarding Sunrider 4 game length compared to Liberation day: “How about script size-wise at least?”

Samu: Well, the draft of the script that I scrapped was longer than Liberation Day, so that’s longer... but that has been scrapped. I predict the second draft will even be longer than that. Hopefully I will be able to cover everything. But that’s not entirely [clear]. that’s pretty hard to predict in the indie world.

Question by RubyAnon

“Now that you mention her, I would hope there will be more Kryska focus, so hopefully there'll be some for this one?”

Samu: Oh, well I can’t spoil much but we’re going to find out what happened to Kryska after Liberation Day.

Nemjen: You’ll get to hear more from her don’t worry.

Question by Sorzo

“Are there any player choices you offered in previous games that you now regret giving?”

Samu: Not really, I don’t think any of the previous choices really have caused any serious problem. I can’t really think of one... Obviously the story goes on and it just develops. The way the story develops affects a lot of choices as well... Kayto Shields is not at the center of this universe, he’s just one player inside of that big universe, so he chooses some things, but other things happen, and that’s just part of the narrative.