This is a quick update log of my progress in my visual novel concept ‘My Dear Yumesora’. Go here to see my previous post, and here to visit the game.
So far, I haven’t done any work on the actual game in studio, but I’ve further developed the storyline, and began drawing new outfits for the female protagonist. I’ve also begun to brainstorm the script for the game itself.
Here are some more illustrations for the female protagonist:
Images
Casual Outfit:
More school uniform expressions:
(Note that this list does not include all of the expressions that are to be used)
The biggest update is the potential addition of voice lines. I discovered a program called VOICEVOX, and it has allowed me to create fairly comprehensible and life-like voices for the game. As VOICEVOX allows commercial and non-commercial uses as long as credit is provided, it will aid in creating a more vivid visual novel experience.
Since this is the first game iteration from me, and due to my limited budget and restrictions from my age (being under 18), elements from this visual novel will have to be made by myself as much as possible. Hiring an illustrator and/ or voice actor is beyond my reach, especially off-site, and it is more fun to do those by myself in the first place.
It is to note that I said ‘potential’, since I do not know if I want to add JP voice lines or keep it blank. It is just a possibility for now.
It is important to know that since VOICEVOX is text-to-speech, and considering the fact that I do not know Japanese, the speech is likely inaccurate. Perhaps other game releases will have an actual translator help with the dialogue, but for now, I am using DeepL to translate English into Japanese.
Here are some example voice lines (note that the official versions will likely be polished up before being used):
Audio
“Hello!”
“Nice to meet you, I’m Yumesora Hara.”
“I hope you are enjoying these updates.”
Of course, since the voices are made using text-to-speech, there are issues with intonation and perhaps pronunciation. Pronunciation in Katakana usually causes the speech engine to struggle (such as with the word “update” in the third audio file), and since I can’t read Japanese, it’s difficult to find the correct text to use in the program. While I can manually adjust the tone of each syllable, it is very time consuming.
Also to note: I’m probably going to tone down Yumesora’s voice for the final draft. It seems a bit high right now, and experimenting in the VOICEVOX program has led me to new thought.
Though the voice lines are probably comically inaccurate in most cases, the target audience for this game will be within the Western hemisphere, so hopefully most players won’t be bugged by it.
Besides blabbering on about VOICEVOX, there also will be an ENG and SPA (ESPAÑOL) release, just to further broaden the potential player base of the game. The Spanish translation is all done by my school friend, and the two games will be separated into two entities. It probably won’t receive any more translations, unless it were to gain popularity within other regions. Click here to visit the Spanish version.
That about sums up the update log. I’ll continue to work on illustrations and the story, but since real life is unpredictable, I don’t know if I’ll be able to release the game on schedule for alpha testing.
That being said, thank you for reading this whole post, and I wish you a great day/ night.