Missed the Kickstarter? Here's where you can belatedly back or pre-order some of the exclusive rewards we offered!
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
Dear Backers,
Here I am at last with our final update of the year; the fact that another year has come and gone alone is worthy of rest and celebration, though I imagine the holiday festivities that come with it in all corners of the world are a welcome excuse to many of us!
(Did I say the last update was lengthy? You might want a slightly bigger beverage ready for this one—it's been quite the year!)
This month, production has been at a slow trickle—as is common when the end of the year approaches—because we did quite a lot in November!
In our last update, it was stated that Act 1 would be completed within the month of November—and on November 27th, I put the final touches on scripting for the full act! The Prologue and Chapters 1-4 of both Seamus and Hugo's routes are in-game and playable, so Act 1 of OSAS is now considered complete!
There are still a few kinks to work out in the game after initial play-testing and some asset edits to make, so the Act 1 Beta Access period will begin in the new year (January 2024). This extra time should ensure that the Act 1 beta build provided to higher tier backers will run smoothly and better reflect the final gameplay experience.
(Most of the play-testing errors are easy fixes: they have to do with visual effects and background image placements, as some changes to image handling were made between the creation of the initial demo and the newer chapters. For instance, Seamus isn't meant to be tinted so dark here:)
As December came round and I began to feel the fatigue of months of nonstop work, I came to realise how much I—and our team as a whole—had accomplished in this year. It feels only appropriate to reflect on it all now!
On January 29th of this year, the Of Sense and Soul Extended Demo was released, setting our trajectory for the year ahead.
2022 had been about rebuilding OSAS better than ever before, and we'd brought on new team members—Henri for music, Feniks for programming, and Joseph for backgrounds, to name a few—to help us get there. With the help of our team, we were able to transform the OSAS Demo from its 2020 iteration to its current glory:
With the completion of the new demo and its release in 2023 we were on track to our next goal: breathing life into the game through giving it voicing, and funding its full production.
From then on, the first quarter of the year was dedicated towards casting, recording, and implementing voice acting for the game. We were joined by casting director Eamonn, voice director MAHO!Cody, and audio engineer Xuan Vinh, as well as 12 talented voice actors we cast for the characters in the Extended Demo.
Recording took place throughout February, including the first of several Live Direction sessions with Shaun and Max, who play Seamus and Hugo respectively, on February 20th.
Working with VAs as a whole, as well as with the two leads more closely, brought new perspective to the project on top of the value our VAs added to the game through their work. The confidence and love brought to OSAS through voicing cannot be overstated; in hearing the VAs' excitement over their roles and the story as a whole, Rowan and I felt more than ever that there was something truly special to be found in both making and playing Of Sense and Soul.
The Extended Demo Voice Update (2.0) was released on March 22nd, and contained soundbytes for all characters as well as a selection of fully voiced lines and scenes featuring our protagonists. We were able to feature it in the Storyteller's Festival held by Two and a Half Studios at the end of that month, as well as show off our new trailer:
Then, April saw the production and release of Confluence: An Of Sense and Soul Soliloquy: a short, free-to-play spin-off showing a tender glimpse of Hugo's life after the end of OSAS, featuring music by Henri and full voicing by Max.
It was a refreshing experience to have a short turnaround on a game (made in just two weeks for O2A2 Game Jam) compared to the herculean effort OSAS has proven to be! Confluence was also a fantastic exercise in Ren'py, the engine we use for OSAS—I was able to improve my understanding of manipulating the game's moving parts through making this little game.
Afterwards, Kickstarter preparations began in earnest with outreach to creators and designing graphics for the page itself. May was the month we announced the Kickstarter Pre-Launch page and continued live directed recording for OSAS to prepare content for marketing the Kickstarter with. (While some of it remains on the back burner—the blooper reel community challenge reward, for instance—I would love to share it with you all at some future point!)
You may remember a snippet of these recordings was shared as part of a Voiced CG Preview we shared as a Kickstarter milestone reward:
In June, we released Demo Version 2.5 for audio fixes and announced the Kickstarter launch date. I sent even more outreach emails, with a shift to seeking out Twitch streamers to cover the OSAS Demo. We were fortunate enough to get several streamers interested, and it was such a joy to see our demo played live! In this month, I was also fortunate enough to go to London and take some pictures of Seamus and Hugo in their natural habitat:
July 12th, of course, was the start date for the Of Sense and Soul Kickstarter Campaign. My Kickstarter Post-Mortem goes into greater detail about all the preparation and trials that came with it, but to say the very least—what a relief it was that in August, we were 103% funded in just the nick of time! (That's also when, of course, we first joined hands with you: our backers!)
As part of the campaign, we also made and released the Seamus Update (Demo Version 3.0) which included Chapter 1 of his route for you all to play. The completion of this chapter for the demo got us one step closer to finishing Act 1 on schedule!
As the latter half of August and start of September were spent waiting on our funding to come in, I trudged deep into the planning of the rest of production, with focus shifting to writing, voicing, and outsourced artwork. Once funding arrived, production restarted with recording more soundbytes and introduction lines with our existing voice cast members, as well as preparing and running a casting call for our 8 remaining roles.
Once those characters were cast, October was largely spent preparing lines, onboarding new cast members, and continuing to produce Act 1 of OSAS.
November, save for managing the recording of soundbytes and intros for our new cast members,was fully dedicated to completing Act 1 of the game as mentioned earlier in this post, and finish it we did.
And as for December, during which I'm writing this post—at last, I could rest knowing that we had completed the first of our most important production milestones.
Though the above overview covers all the biggest milestones and occurrences of each month, it has to be said that there were many little victories that took place behind the scenes, from completion of new art or music to improvements to the game's back end. It has taken a village to bring OSAS to this point, and we wouldn't have it any other way.
The progress we've made this year has truly been monumental, and I'm incredibly proud we managed to pull it all off! 🥳
There is still more to do, as ever...but that can all wait for the new year.
Happy holidays, everyone, and we'll see you in 2024!
Yours truly,
Ing
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
As much as I wish this post came to you all under better circumstances, it’s with great sadness that I must share this news:
We recently learned that Mateo Ervin, who voiced Cornelius, passed away in early August.
In even the very brief time I worked with Mateo earlier this year, it was evident that beyond his skill as a voice actor he was also an exceptionally kind and playful soul. My heart goes out to all those who knew Mateo far better and far longer—their grief must be truly immeasurable.
It has been a privilege to have met him and had him as part of our game, and he will always be an irreplaceable part of the story.
Accordingly, there are no plans to recast or record any further for his role. Mateo’s will always be the voice we know and love for Cornelius, and we are so thankful he lent us his talents.
A portion of the funds originally allotted to his role through our crowdfunding campaign will also be donated to charity in his name, though the beneficiary in question is yet to be determined.
We will continue forward in creating Of Sense and Soul in his memory, and in the spirit of sharing his voice and light with you all.
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.