The Human Reignition Project - An English Visual Novel

October 2017 Update
over 6 years ago – Tue, Oct 31, 2017 at 08:29:45 PM

Happy Halloween, everyone!

We held off on posting this month's progress update so that we could include some thematically appropriate art for the day. But really, we'll take any excuse to dress up the HRP girls in other cute costumes.

Here's Aya, drawn by Katzchen.

 

And a sketch of Senri by Myuto.

 

In terms of progress, things are going pretty well. Like before, we're still hard at work on the new demo. Obviously, it's taken us a bit longer than expected, but we're still confident that the end result will be worth it, and a much better representation of the final quality of the game. We'll keep you guys posted on its progress.

We're still hard at work on the rest of the game too, of course, but remaking the demo has been an "all hands" sort of endeavor. The way that it works is that each writer wrote the demo scenes for their respective heroines, as well as their girl's parts in group scenes. The majority of the scenes that don't focus on a particular heroine were written by Auric, Senri's writer. We're all working together to edit everything, and  programming it will be a group effort, too.

We'll update you guys again when we have news, or in December for our next regularly scheduled update - whichever comes first. Hopefully, next time, we'll be able to give a solid estimate for the new demo release. We hope you're looking forward to it.

Thanks for your support!

August Update - Demo Side Characters and REIGNITE Remix
almost 7 years ago – Tue, Aug 01, 2017 at 08:41:11 PM

Hi everyone!

It's that irregularly-scheduled-time-of-month again! We hope your summer has been going well. If you're heading back to school soon, good luck!

HRP progress has been going well. I feel like I say that a lot, which is probably a good thing. We have two new things today!

The first off is a new remix of "REIGNITE." All backers should've received the the original song via Backerkit during our last update two months ago. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, check your emails/Backerkit accounts to find out!

This remix was done by James Landino, well-known remix master from Game Chops as well as a key musician on the revival of Harmonix’s cult classic Amplitude. This has been released in cooperation with Attack the Music, who you may remember as the people responsible for the excellent dance events at Anime Expo this year.

Like before, all backers will be receiving the remix for free via Backerkit. If you weren't a backer, you can get the song here on Attack the Music's website. Be sure to give James and AtM a follow on Twitter for more cool songs~

 

In addition, we're still making good progress on the new demo! There are a couple side characters who will be appearing who weren't present before. These are some of their design sketches as Myuto finishes up with their sprites! The first draft of the new demo has been written, so now it's a matter of editing and then the arduous task of programming it all in. Spoilers: we've changed how we write the ambrosidone scenes, since those were pretty divisive the first time around.

As always, we'll make another post if we end up with big news to share. Otherwise, see you guys in two months! Thanks for your patience and support.

REIGNITE Single Released + Backerkit Lockdown Soon
almost 7 years ago – Sat, Jun 10, 2017 at 11:44:06 PM

Hi everyone,

First off: We released something! It's not the game or the new demo, sadly (those are still coming!) but it's the full version of our opening theme, "REIGNITE" by Sasaki Sayaka. This is just an mp3 version, and has the original, instrumental, and karaoke versions. Later on, we'll be releasing an updated single that also includes lossless format, plus a couple special bonus versions of the song. This is backer-exclusive until the game actually comes out, so we hope that you like the track! If you pledged for any version of the game, check your email for a notification from Backerkit! You can grab the track under the "Digital Downloads" section of your Backerkit.

As for our progress update, things are still plugging along. Myuto has finished all of the sprites for the demo, including side characters and alternate outfits! Next he's going to be finishing up some of the extra KS rewards, like the character prints and the custom art pieces from the $200 and $250 tiers. Almost all of the demo is drafted, and will be going through editing soon. It should be around the same length as the original demo, but with more branching and more balanced screentime for the different characters. We're really sorry it's taken longer than we'd anticipated, but we firmly believe the wait will be worth it!

Side note kind of thing: we're going to be doing a second round of lockdowns and card charges for Backerkits soon. The last time we did this was back in 2015, so that means that for some people, even if you chose addon's and stuff a year and a half ago, you may not have been charged yet. We don't want to surprise people or anything, so if you purchased addon's and you're not sure you've been charged, please check your Backerkit and see its status. If it says "Survey Answered" or "Locked down," but not "card charged," that means that you'll be charged around the end of this month! We totally understand if your situation has changed and you need to cancel some of the items you chose before, so you're still able to do that.

If you're unsure about your Backerkit status, or have no idea what I'm talking about at all, feel free to send us a message and we'll help ya out!

Finally, just like the past two years, a number of us are going to be at Anime Expo next month! Come say hello if you want! A couple of us, Josh (Yukino writer and the person writing this) as well as Mondo (Shion writer and lead musician) are going to be working a few shifts at the Sekai Project booth in the exhibit hall. Some more of the team will just be around as attendees. We hope to see some of you guys there~

Finally, right now, there's a Humble Sekai Project Bundle going on, featuring some great SP games, and our yuri VN "Highway Blossoms" is in there too! You can get almost $300 worth of games for just $12 bucks, and support some charities while you're at it too. Please give it a look!

 

April 2017 - New Screenshots!
about 7 years ago – Wed, Apr 05, 2017 at 09:56:19 PM

Hi everyone, Today we wanted to give you guys an update on how our new demo is going. That’s been our main focus over the past couple months, and we’re really happy with how it’s turning out so far. Just like the first demo, this will be the majority of the “common route” of the game, and will end right around where the final game is going to split into the different heroine routes.  

This time around, we’re aiming for a standard of two CGs per heroine in the demo - one each from Katzchen and Rosuuri - in addition to the general CGs like the HRP group meeting. We’re also making sure that each character has an ample amount of screentime, since some of the girls (hello Yukino) were a little lacking there the first time around. Myuto is aiming to have all of the sprites for the demo finished sometime this week, and then he’ll be moving onto side character designs and other stuff. Most of the custom backer reward images have been completed, with Myuto handling half of those and Katzchen doing the other half. As for writing, it’s looking like Senri will be the first one with a completed draft of her route, since Auric only has another ten scenes to go there.  

In a previous update, we might have mentioned how we were going to be trying something new with some of our CGs, where our background artist Aimless does the, well, background, and either Rosuuri or Katzchen draw the characters over that. Usually, when drawing a CG, the character artist draws the background as well, even though it’s not their specialty. By splitting work up like this, we’re able to get really gorgeous backgrounds alongside our great looking characters. Simply due to the amount of time it takes, we won’t be doing this for every CG, but we’re definitely going try it for some really important moments in the game, as well as for scenes that just have high potential for a nice view.  

We still don’t want to name a release date for the new demo, just so we don’t end up eating our words again later, but it’s our top priority right now so it shouldn’t be too much longer. We hope that you guys like the look of everything so far. Thanks for your support!

February 2017 Update
about 7 years ago – Sun, Feb 26, 2017 at 10:58:22 PM

I really need to come up with more creative titles for these things.

Anyway, hello again, everybody! We hope your 2017 has been off to a great start. It's been a while since our last update on here. I may have mentioned in a previous update, but we're going to be switching to an update probably every other month or so, unless we have any big announcements. As we're still solidly in the middle of development, the progress that's being made is consistent but not always very exciting. We don't want to show too many things from later in the game, so we're trying to keep our previews relegated to the Act 1 stuff. That said, here's an out of context Kyou CG.

Development is still going pretty well. As you might have seen, over the past few months, we've had a few team changes: we hired an additional background artist and replaced a writer. Plus, a couple others had some personal circumstances that affected things too. That's part of the reason why, a few months ago, we announced that we'd be pushing back our release estimate. Rest assured, though, that we are still hard at work and won't be vaporware. Here's a recent mockup that you may have seen on Twitter. We're currently experimenting with giving sprites a thicker outline, such as what you see below. Thoughts on it?

Speaking of Twitter, as a reminder, we're very active on Twitter. You can follow @AlienworksDev and @SekaiProject for news or special promo images that we post. Also, the Alienworks account only follows people who have contributed to our games, so you can check that list for all of our personal accounts. Backerkit is still open, which means that you can still preorder items like physical goods if you want.

Just for example, this is a sample of a 3D Shion mousepad we just got. While they weren't available during the Kickstarter campaign, it's an idea we had that we might work on in the future, if anyone's interested in 'em.

As a side note, a bunch of us will be at Anime Expo again this year. If you're going to be there, be sure to come say hello! It's still a few months off, so there's plenty of time to make plans to attend if you've been considering it.

Until next time~