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,
I think everything has sunk in more properly now that it's been a few days since the end of the campaign (though I'm still bewildered) and preparations for the Backerkit surveys have been in progress!
The team and I have been incredibly excited to continue with the game, though the remainder of this month was slated for planning time from the get-go! We should receive the funds within 2 weeks, and then we'll really be able to get moving. 💖
These Backer Bulletins will be a roughly monthly occurrence here on out to update you all on the development of Of Sense and Soul and how the rewards are progressing!
Now, there are a few housekeeping matters I need to attend to before we get to the fun parts of this update:
Speaking of Backerkit...
If you know anyone who missed the campaign and would still love to get in on the action, our Backerkit Pre-Order Store is now live!
This will only be around until the end of September, so now's the time if you want to grab those KS exclusive goodies. (Both Stripe and PayPal can be used here!)
Five of the tiers from our campaign (Reflection, Memoir, Biography, Chronicle, and Manuscript) are available on the page, in case you're looking for a bundle offer. Add-ons including additional game copies and all the rest of the digital rewards are available as well! ➔ Visit our Backerkit Pre-Order Store here.
If you've already backed the campaign and want an extra copy of the game, never fear! You'll be able to add up to three additional copies to your pledge once our Backerkit Surveys go out sometime in the next month.
Note: Unfortunately, we cannot retroactively grant those of you joining us from Backerkit via Belated Tiers access to Kickstarter exclusive updates, but you'll get the same rewards otherwise! (Most updates will be made publicly regardless.)
Our 75% milestone reward of a Voiced CG Scene Preview was reached in one fell swoop with the funding of the campaign itself, and I'm so excited to share this clip with you now!
This preview is an example of how the characters, sounds, and visuals collide together for OSAS through the development process, and I love seeing it all together these early stages. It makes the story feel so real, I want to hurry up and finish it!
As always, Max and Shaun did a spectacular job with every nuance in this scene, and MAHO!Cody's direction made it all the better! Listening to the voice acting as I draw has been really helpful in deciding what expressions and variations I should include in the CG itself.
The Scene: Hugo and Seamus are en route to the library via omnibus, and the close quarters they're forced together in lead to a conversation that gives Hugo quite a bit to mull over...
Now that our campaign has been successful, it's only right that we spread the love to a few others we would love to see fully funded—namely, BitterSweet Detectives' Tea Party by ConsteRia and Dual Chroma by Galen Games!
"Tracking down the cases left by a mysterious phantom thief named “Beneatha”, on a journey full of Bitter and Sweet."
The campaign for BitterSweet Detectives' Tea Party has just three days left on it, and is by fellow Hong Kong developer ConsteRia! They are well on their way to their goal of US$8,314, and they could get to it with your help.
It's an adventure-mystery visual novel inspired by Ace Attorney and Danganronpa with lots of beautiful artwork, a late 19th century inspired setting, and an intriguing plot about one girl's hunt for a mysterious phantom thief and the murder cases she must solve along the way.
I'd absolutely love to see this campaign succeed as a Hong Kong dev and mystery VN lover myself! So much effort and care has clearly been put into this project, and I always appreciate that attention to detail.
"Journey alongside the Second Prince of the Galens Empire to unlock ancient secrets in this romantic fantasy adventure with a dark twist"
Dual Chroma by Galen Games is launching on Kickstarter on August 15th! With 550 pre-launch followers and counting, it promises to be a campaign as epic as the story itself.
It's an otome fantasy visual novel with RPG elements in which you must follow your head or your heart as advisor to the Second Prince (Keldran, shown below) of the Galens Empire in a ruthless war against the monsters returning from the empire's tragic past.
Now, I may have a slight bias seeing as I designed the logo of this game, but to Crysil, the dev behind Galen Games, Dual Chroma is her OSAS—that one project that she wants to bring to life with everything she has! Just as my hopes rested on outcome of our campaign, so do hers, in wanting to tell the stories that have lived in our heads for years and years.
I was able to play part of the demo in the midst of my campaign madness, and there's some great dialogue and some quality characterisation on display already—and the art is stunning! I'd love to see Crysil and her team succeed, and I hope you would too!
➔ Play the Demo and Follow the Pre-Launch to know when the campaign starts.
That will do it for this update! I hope you enjoyed that video preview and that you'll check out these two lovely campaigns.
The next time you hear from me, there'll be some more news on the Backerkit front! 💌
Yours truly,
Ing 💖
Dear backers,
What is there to say except an ecstatic "thank you"?
In just the nick of time you've helped us cross the threshold and Of Sense and Soul is now fully funded! Though the game would have continued onward either way, this campaign's success means the world in terms of ensuring our team can be well compensated for a long while and we're elated we've gained your support in doing so!
It's empowering to know our labour of love, which has grown so much with us over the past seven years, is one that has touched your lives as it has ours.
Now, before I get any sappier, there are some matters I ought to address so this all winds down smoothly!
For all of you who are interested in supporting our game or missed our campaign, our new Ko-Fi Page would be a great place to do so! You can also make one-time or monthly donations towards the game's development there.
We would also love to hear you thoughts through our Post-Kickstarter Survey—what did you like about the campaign, and how could we improve if we try for another?
Once again, thank you for joining us on this adventure, and we'll be in touch soon!
(Remember to fill the post-KS survey and double check your payment information!)
Yours happily,
Ing and the Forsythia Productions Team
Dear Backers,
You read that right—it's the final countdown! 📯We have now reached the 4 week mark on the Of Sense and Soul campaign, meaning there are just two days left! Where has all the time gone?
If you know of anyone who would consider backing the campaign or who would know people who do, now is as good a time as ever to share Of Sense and Soul with them. (Our linktr.ee is a great place to start for newcomers!)
As an additional note, if you have any questions or messages for us I'll be around on our Discord and the comments here on Kickstarter.
Now! Shall we proceed?
This update marks the end of Week 4 and the start of the final 48 hours of the campaign, and we're sitting at 65% of our funding goal!
Another 35 backers joined us this week (potentially including whoever is reading this right now!) Thank you so much for being here, along with all the rest of our supporters and backers, to make this possible.
As for our community challenges...
We're just 21 retweets from unlocking that blooper reel! Here's the announcement post if you'd like to help give us a push along in these final hours. We're also 6 posts and 9 fanworks away from those Love Letter and Inspired Works rewards, so keep 'em coming!
Be sure to tag us @ofsenseandsoul or @forsythiaproductions on Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram if you post about OSAS.
We were able to release the new demo update earlier this week thanks to your help! The Seamus Update adds, well, more Seamus content to the demo in the form of chapter 1 of his route, as well as refinements elsewhere in the game!
Play the update now on Itch.io or Steam!
You may recall that there was an anonymous demo feedback form which accompanied the Extended Demo from its release in January up until the Voice Update!
Thank you to everyone who submitted a response. It's been enlightening and amusing (and at times baffling) to read your input, and I thought I'd share some of it here!
Most of you were new to OSAS without previous experience of the original 2020 demo, and you loved the visuals, music, characters, and voice acting the most, which we're very proud of! (Thankfully, very few respondents encountered bugs or issues playing the demo. Phew!)
When asked, "where do you think the story might go in the rest of the game," you responded:
To address that last respondent: We can confirm for sure that no one will be dying in OSAS, least of all the main characters! Heaven forbid!
There's quite a large cast in the Extended Demo with more characters still to come in the rest of the game, so we were very curious to know who stood out from their demo appearances!
Your favourite BACKGROUND character was...
Your favourite SECONDARY character was...
And finally, for the MAIN character you all found the most likeable or relatable...
With Hugo being the starting player character in the demo up till the most recent update, it's no surprise to us that you all related to him more.
Hopefully, playing through Seamus' first chapter will cause a little more inner turmoil at the prospect of having to choose between them!
Fans of HUGO had this to say:
Fans of SEAMUS had this to say:
And one player, who had mixed feelings but ultimately responded "Hugo" said:
(Aren't we all?)
As ever, thank you for being a part of this campaign no matter how big or small! 🫶✨ If you'd like to recruit others to join in on the final hours of funding, that would be a great help! You can link them our linktr.ee or Itch.io and Steam pages. 💌
Yours truly,
Ing
P.S. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments, we'd love to hear from you!
Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter for weekly campaign updates written by the characters of OSAS! We're sure Hugo would love for another reader to join him for the Illustrated OSAS News.
Dear Backers,
We have now reached the 3 week mark on the Of Sense and Soul campaign, meaning there are just 8 days left. It's the final stretch, which means it's more important for us than ever to push on till the end! 🔥💪
First, as this is business, the usual PSA: If you know of anyone who would consider backing the campaign or who would know people who do, now is as good a time as ever to share Of Sense and Soul with them. (Our linktr.ee is a great place to start for newcomers!)
As an additional note, if you have any questions or messages for us I'll be around on our Discord and the comments here on Kickstarter.
Now! Shall we proceed?
This update marks the end of Week 3 of our campaign, and we're sitting at 48% of our funding goal!
Another 21 backers joined us this week (potentially including whoever is reading this right now!) Thank you so much for being here, along with all the rest of our supporters and backers, to make this possible.
As for our community challenges...
We've reached 200 backers, so we're only 34 retweets from unlocking that blooper reel! There's still time before "re-x-ing" catches on, so you can make this announcement post one of your last official "retweets" if you'd like to support our cause.
Be sure to tag us @ofsenseandsoul on Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram if you post about OSAS or create some fanwork for the remaining two challenges!
When we sowed the seeds of this story as a webcomic in April 2016 we never could have known it would become the visual novel it is now—nor could we have dreamed we'd be in any position to hold a Kickstarter! Regardless of its degree of success, that anyone cares about OSAS at all or is reading this update is a massive accomplishment to us, and one that Rowan and I certainly could never have fathomed.
Though there have certainly been changes to the game since then, many of our original ideas remain in the game today. Hugo and Seamus have grown as characters but have always been the bookish poet and brooding gentleman you see in the game now.
(Excuse me as I dive back into the archive to retrieve my old artwork, this will take a few deep breaths.)
That webcomic, titled Green Carnations, never got far; between our school commitments and creative limitations, we found we'd bitten off more than we could chew. And so, the project slipped into a long "sabbatical"...in part necessitated by the fact that I had realised I knew nothing about the Victorian Era. Research was required if we hoped to really bring a sense of believability to the story, so I hit the books!
A year passed, then another, and at last the idea of making the story into a visual novel came about. Here you can see an extremely early (c.2018) VN video test:
(Yes, Hugo only grew his beard much later!)
Perhaps the most fundamental change between the comic and the game is the addition of Seamus' plot-line and his route as the second of two player characters. Hugo was the original protagonist, meaning the story was much more fleshed out for his point of view when we embarked on Seamus' story. In fact, the first OSAS demo from 2020 was meant to contain more of it, but the perils of inexperienced development meant only the first chapter of Hugo's route and a bit of the second chapter made it in.
While the original story was much more focused on their romance, we've now made a distinct split between their personal character plots, with Hugo's work assignment and Seamus' family conflict happening independent of one another. This shift towards character-centricity away from focusing overtly on their romance developing is one that we're really proud to have made and we think it really sets OSAS apart as a narrative!
Of course, the visuals themselves have changed dramatically, though you may recognise the foundations of the Daily Creed Offices background from the original demo.
With our growth in skill and experience (both personal and creative) the current Of Sense and Soul is a true showing of the very best of our abilities, and we couldn't be prouder of it!
This week also brings with it a few exciting interviews I've been asked to be a part of, starting with Arimia's interview with me on Scene Direction in Of Sense and Soul!
I was very excited when she brought up the prospect of doing an interview for her blog, arimiadev.com. Besides making VNs for her own studio, Crystal Gameworks, she specialises in indie game marketing and writes about marketing VNs from the perspective of both a fellow developer and marketer! Her articles have been a massive help in guiding my own approach to marketing for OSAS, and I'd highly recommend you give them a read if you're a dev or simply curious.
In this interview, I delve into the impact of cinematography as used in OSAS and visual novels in general and offer some insight into the interplay between scene direction and storytelling in the game.
Read it here: Developer Interview - Scene Direction in Of Sense and Soul with ingthing on arimiadev.com
I'll also be doing a live interview with SailingOcelot over on their Twitch channel later today! Ocelot is a VN developer (itch.io) making a science fantasy visual novel currently titled Sea Hears and they approached me a few weeks ago about an interview. They've also got a Visual Novel Week planned for their channel later in August, but kindly offered to hold this interview earlier so it would fall within our Kickstarter timeline!
If you're free for an hour or so at 9:00AM UTC+1 today, August 3rd, I'll be sitting down with them to chat about all things VN development and Of Sense and Soul!
You can watch the stream or find the VOD at twitch.tv/sailingocelot.
There's nothing more I love than talking about this game and all our achievements—I'm incredibly proud of our team and myself for making something so special, and it is even more special to have your support.
As ever, thank you for being a part of this campaign no matter how big or small! 🫶✨ If you'd like to recruit others to join in on the making of this game, that would be a great help! You can link them our linktr.ee or Itch.io and Steam pages. 💌
Yours truly,
Ing
P.S. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments, we'd love to hear from you!
Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter for weekly campaign updates written by the characters of OSAS! We're sure Hugo would love for another reader to join him for the Illustrated OSAS News.