The Human Reignition Project - An English Visual Novel

December 2020: Merry Christmas!
almost 4 years ago – Fri, Dec 25, 2020 at 07:25:58 PM

Hello all! Mondo again.

So here we are again, Christmas time! Though we realize not everyone celebrates Christmas per se, the holiday spirit is more than a little contagious all the same. For all of us at AlienWorks, things in our everyday lives have been busy as expected, but we're still managing to keep progress moving along smoothly. 

First off, a brief progress report: 

Since the music composition has been completed, Tim is currently in the process of mastering the audio tracks so that everything sounds cohesive and nice for launch. Once things are smoothed out there, he's going to be spearheading the SFX gathering efforts. 

As for visual art, we're working on the UI and getting the last of the critical CGs together first, and then getting a few more additional CGs together while we get the rest of the writing and scripting to play nice with one another. 

To go into detail where writing is concerned, we're tightening up the elements that we already have in order to make sure that everything fits together coherently and progresses smoothly, as well as adding or subtracting elements where necessary in the interest of smooth pacing and proper character development. To put it one way, we're trying to ensure that the story we have written in-game properly reflects the story we initially set out to tell, and that the reading experience is overall a pleasant one. What that ends up meaning is that the current writing efforts are going smoothly because the plots themselves are concrete at this point, but due to sheer volume of work it's still taking a little bit of time. We'll keep you posted particularly with regard to writing as we move forward.

As for scripting, Jasper is playing a double role of programmer and director, keeping track of expressions and little details while also wrangling the Ren'Py 3D Camera and other more "homebrewed" AlienWorks touches together such that they play nice with each other. As with writing, this should take a little bit, but it's the kind of work that gets faster and faster as we streamline the process. We'll have some examples of some nice in-engine scenes very soon.

We've still got a ways to go, but the general idea right now is that once we get those critical CGs ready to go, we'll have most of the significantly "time consuming" elements behind us, which means we'll be able to finish the remaining elements faster since everything else is being done in-house.

Though we're getting to the end of the visual assets we can share for now, we do have some quality content from our very own Myuto, showing off some of the range of Senri's recent redesign:

As well, Myuto has also been generous enough to give us a wonderful new Christmas art!

And finally, there's the annual Challenge-Based Christmas Song by yours truly:

That's all for now; we'll have some more detailed updates early next month, as well as some extra insights into the HRP plot and characters as we start to (hopefully) get things that much closer to wrapping up. As always, thank you for your continued support. Merry Christmas!

-Mondo

November 2020: Music is Done!
about 4 years ago – Wed, Nov 18, 2020 at 07:58:52 PM

Hey everybody, Mondo again.

Apologies for the late post, but once again it is for a very exciting reason: the full HRP OST is done in its entirety! There are still plenty of other things we still need to do to get the game ready to go, but this is a major milestone for us here at AlienWorks. Tim and I have been working on this soundtrack for years now, and to finally see it come together is really an indescribable joy. To get into the specifics, we're looking at a total runtime of about 2:30:00 for the in-game soundtrack, and then somewhere around thirty minutes to an hour's worth of bonus content. I'd estimate the whole package to be roughly 3 hours' worth of music in total.

Partly as a matter of saving the best for last, this final push has been focused on finishing the character themes. Why not give them a listen? There are also a few others that we're keeping under wraps for now, but you'll just have to listen to them when the game launches!

In any case, on to the themes. I'm sure you can figure out whose is whose.

As for our plan from here, Tim is going to be spearheading the mastering process and SFX as we move forward, and I'll be switching purely to edits and scripting and such, joining Jaspirian. Myuto is still plugging away at the UI elements, and we should have something cool to show you with regard to all that very soon.

That's about it for this month's update. As always, if you want to hear more from us directly, or even if you just want to chat, you can always reach us at the AlienWorks public discord, linked here:

 https://discord.gg/Jrf9w86 

With each major milestone we pass, we get that much closer to getting the game out to all of you. It's difficult to put to words, but it truly is a powerful feeling seeing all of these individual elements come together to make something greater. Everything is falling into place, and it's all thanks to everyone's support and patience. Thank you so much for sticking with us! We promise we'll deliver something we can all be proud of.

Until next time,

Mondo

October 2020: Music is Almost Done!
about 4 years ago – Sun, Oct 18, 2020 at 06:50:21 AM

Hey everyone, it's Mondo again.

Sorry for the delay, but it's been an exciting month at AlienWorks! As the title may suggest, we're almost completely done with the HRP soundtrack. As of last count there were only 5 tracks remaining, and all 5 of those tracks are currently in progress. If all goes well, they should all be finished by next month. That means that music will be joining the ranks of sprites and backgrounds in terms of being finalized and ready to ship, and that we're that much closer to having the whole game ready. Also, since we've been approaching development by completing section by section completely, that means that Tim and I will be able to fully devote our time to working on the scripts. We'll keep you posted on that as we get there, but for now why not take a listen to some of the new tunes?

Maybe not as chipper this time where titles (or content) are concerned, but it does mean we're starting to get into our finalized track names. There are still some other character themes to share as well, but we'll save them for the next update.

For now there's just one more thing. To get right into it: AlienWorks is merging with Matchasoft! No worries If you're not familiar with Matchasoft, but what does that mean for AlienWorks? Well, nothing really. Everything will continue as normal here. HRP and the HRP Team are still the same, and AlienWorks is staying as AlienWorks, but from now on we'll be a brand under the Matchasoft company name for things like merch, etc. as we move forward. It's not a critically important move for anything day-to-day, but it's something we're doing, and we want to keep you all up to date on these sorts of things as best as we can. If you have any questions or even if you just want to chat, as always you can reach us at our public discord:

 https://discord.gg/Jrf9w86 

We'd love to hear from you!

Well, that's all for now. Next time, we'll give the music a formal wrap-up, and share some insights on the OST as a whole, as well as showcase each of the HRP's main heroine themes!

As always, thank you for your continued support. Each day brings us closer to that fabled finish line.

We'll get there together!

-Mondo

September 2020: More Music, and a Sprite Showcase
about 4 years ago – Wed, Sep 09, 2020 at 07:42:04 PM

Hello again, everyone! Mondo here this time.

This month, we've once again got a few new music tracks, as well as something cool and exciting to show you in terms of sprites. Things have mostly settled back to normal for AlienWorks, so things should continue picking up speed as we continue forward.

Overall, everything is moving along smoothly in the music department as we narrow down the remaining tracklist; there are now only about 4 or 5 new tracks and a few touch-ups for us to tackle before we can say that the HRP OST is complete in its entirety, clocking in at roughly 3 hours or so. Of note this month, we have:

which is a partner track to this one from before, for that nice thematic bonus:

and a new track from Tim for those goofy moments we all crave:

Also, we're currently working on finishing out the character themes. It wouldn't feel right not to post them all together at once, though, so we'll have more for you there by the next update.

Back to the here and now, we have a few examples of the girls' updates and some new outfits:

Myuto has gone the extra mile to not only give everyone potentially hundreds of possible expressions, but also to give each character plenty of fun outfits, as well as some minor improvements to coloring and linework. These aren't the only outfits in the game, just a nice preview of what's to come.

Still on the subject of sprites, there's one more exciting new thing for now: Senri's beloved sweater has made a comeback! We're still getting that one fully into place, but for now you can see Myuto's fine handiwork first-hand in this in-engine screencap, as well as a bit of our in-progress UI:

And with that, that's most of what we've got to show you for this month. We're still hard at work getting everything together, and we should have some more exciting news next month. As always, thank you for your continued support. We'll reach the finish line together.

-Mondo

August 2020: Closing in on the End of Music
over 4 years ago – Sat, Aug 08, 2020 at 10:01:58 AM

Hey everyone, our apologies for the wait. It’s time for the lovely monthly HRP update.

Once again music has been our focus this past month, with Tim and Mondo both toiling away at the last few remaining general tracks of the soundtrack. Along with those tracks, we've also had a few upgrades to our tools, so we've gone back and touched up a few tracks as well, including the ever-enigmatic ARoOYEMSTS, which has been given a sick new guitar overhaul courtesy of Tim. An enigmatic title is part of the fun for ARoOYEMSTS, so we won't spoil the fun by actually giving its full name away. However, we can give you a hint:

Accompanying R_________  or  O________-Yet-Extremely-M______  S__________ The Song

As well as, of course, the new version of the song itself:

On a completely different note (no pun intended), we also have a more tense track to show off for this month, simply titled 'Panic' for now. Maybe not as mysterious of a title as ARoOYEMSTS, but the track itself more than makes up for it tonally. Tim described this one as "a.k.a. fighting a Dark Souls boss, summoning an ancient evil god and shooting aliens on strange planets." 

Take a listen:

As we mentioned, the music team is slated to hit the finish line sooner rather than later now. All that's left are a few more general themes and some character themes, and then the HRP Soundtrack will be finished and ready to go. We're super excited to see the soundtrack coming together, and we hope you'll enjoy listening to it as much as Tim and Mondo have enjoyed making it. 

As always, thank you for your continued support. Times may be tough right now, but we'll all pull through it together.