I felt bad that I haven't posted the second part of the blog, so here we go ahaha... I think I was talking about what are the list of changes that came into this project from its early iteration and how it rose up again from the ashes. Something like that. During the...dark days, I guess, I thought about what I could salvage from all the stuff that I lost. It turns out that I didn't lose everything and thank goodness that majority of my 'source files' were still intact. So the lost wasn't as devastating as Advent Cirno and Sacrificial Alice.

However, it still didn't erase the fact that all my work from Chapter One onwards are gone. The first thing I thought of was to list what I had planned for this game. I was so focused on implementing features, which eventually lead to feature bloat, that I don't know what I was actually achieving for. It eventually boiled down to this:

Game Features

*Puzzles reminiscent of old school Zelda games.
*Exploration-centric gameplay. From battles to maps, the game has hidden secrets made for the adventurous types.
*Permanent Death, the loss of a character will lead to an entirely different outcome.
*6 Endings. Each path being unique from each other from beginning to end.
*No Leveling up. No Grinding. Your skills and equipment determine your worth.
*An alchemy-centric gameplay where crafting makes a difference to your survival.
*A deadline-centric game where you have to constantly win the favour of the King Ardius to keep sponsoring your expedition.
*A fame system that helps you prove your worth and be the change you want to be.
*A kill or be killed turn-based battle system that focuses heavily on the proper usage of your turns.


When I looked at the features, the first thing I thought was, oh boy, I fucked myself with this, but I'll gladly take the brunt of the force. However, I remember back during development, one of my biggest setbacks with delivering the illustrative narrative experience that I was aiming for, was the music.

I'm very, very picky with music. So much so, that when I look for a composer, I ask for so much revisions they eventually gave up or I compromised. I really gave up on giving information and just lead it the composer's creative output. I think sixe experienced this unfortunately, he's a talented musician and I regret not being a lot more involved with him when he was making the one track. The music is great though.



The closest I got was a user named, DJDarkX and I just asked him to remix the Rm2k3 Music somehow. And as amazing was our short partnership was, he eventually got IRL problems and that was that. We still talk and are good friends. So no worries!

I was really willing to give up to this point and make do with what I can find. I even had clashes with rhyme over some song usages (Ars Armandi for example). It did got me worried since we both had a similar taste in music over our specific 'Magnum Opuses' if you will. It wasn't until one of my friends, Crimson, came down from the heavens and introduced me to what would be the guy that made me want to fully dedicate myself to the narrative of this game. It was meeting 'TenseiMusic.' The first thing he told me was, "Archeia, this music is so you." and I was, "lol no way. My standards are like crazy high." And then this music happened.



At first, I was like, "what...? THAT CAN'T BE POSSIBLE." And eventually, I got into contact with Tensei, signed some contracts and finally, started the development of the soundtrack. So, what made our partnership so successful? Surely, it just can't be that one song. To sum it up:

We both love Jazz.
We both love Battle Themes.

It seemed like a match made in heaven. But I wasn't fully convinced. I was still afraid of disappointments. But what really nailed the coffin for me? I asked him to compose me a remix of my favorite classical piece, Tartini's Devil Trill.



This song alone, made me so happy I cried tears of blood and joy. And I knew that he was the man I was looking for. This theme contains so much personal feelings to me that I was absolutely floored. Over the 18 complete songs he made for me (and still counting), only one was revised. But that's only because I wanted it to be faster and nothing inherently wrong with it at all. I can only show WIPs because I want to reserve the awesomeness for later. But when I finally got a composer that can finally, finally, realize my vision, it made me extremely happy. You guys have no idea.

For my next blog post, I'll talk about the lore and character preparation that I had been doing for the past couple of years. Here's a preview!