SHINRAI - Broken Beyond Despair news & patch notes

If you've been following us on social media or kept an eye on our development blog, you probably already know that we've been eagerly at work on our next visual novel project for a while now.

But given that, today, we're celebrating the release anniversaries of SHINRAI - Broken Beyond Despair and GENBA no Kizuna, we thought it's about time to make an official announcement post here as well and not only share some more info on it, but even go ahead and publish its store page.

There, you can now check out some first screenshots, read a bit about what to expect and, in case it does strike your fancy, add it to your wishlist!

Over on our website, you can also find some intro cards for some of the cast, including both old and new faces, with the remaining characters getting revealed in the coming weeks.

But with all that out of the way, let's talk a little more about SHINRAI Saku, shall we?

• What is SHINRAI Saku - Blooming Beyond Despair?

As the note at the top of the store page says, rather than a full-fledged sequel, Saku can be considered more of an additional "epilogue episode" to the original SHINRAI. It takes place a month later and primarily deals with the aftermath of that dreadful Halloween night.

We really want to stress that this is not going to be another murder mystery (although there will be some very light mystery elements to it). Instead, it's a character-focused story revolving around the difficulties and struggles Raiko and her classmates are facing, while trying to move on from that horrible experience.

These were all things that were originally intended to be included in the actual sequel Withering Without Hope (WWH), anyway. However, after careful consideration, we've decided to splice them off and turn them into a separate mini project instead.

Because this will allow us to address them in a little more detail, while then being able to fully dedicate WWH to its new story, characters and murder case. It would've just felt a bit too bloated if we had included the BBD aftermath in it as well, so we figured that this would be the best course of action.

• Scope of the project

As a result, SHINRAI Saku will be a relatively short project. While still in need of a bit more polish, the script is fully written already and adds up to around 40,000 words, so it's a little less than a third of the length of the original SHINRAI.

In general, we're trying to keep this project very small and simple in order to release it ASAP.

• A visual novel in the truest sense of the term

As you might have already seen on the store page, one decision to help keep the development cycle short was to make SHINRAI Saku a kinetic experience. This basically means that there won't be any interactivity. So no choices, investigation segments or evidence presentation this time around.

While there will be need for Raiko to use her deductive skills again and players will be encouraged to ponder along, you can think of it as more of one of those situations where Sherlock Holmes or Conan Edogawa deduce the truth purely through observation rather than full-on investigation.

• Conclusion

SHINRAI Saku is certainly going to be a bit different, but even if there won't be another murder case for you to solve this time, we still hope that you'll be interested in meeting Raiko and Co. again and seeing how they're doing... before they'll inevitably do get wrapped up in the next crazy situation.

(You'll even find some setup for WWH in it, including a new character who will play a major role in what's gonna come next!)

Once there a bigger news to share, we'll make another announcement post here, but in the meantime, don't forget that we keep posting weekly dev logs every Saturday on our website, where you can keep up-to-date with the development.

As always, thank you so, so much for taking an interest in what we do, checking out our little VNs and continuing to follow and support us after all these years. We really, really do appreciate it!

Now please enjoy the rest of your August and have a very scary start into the spooky season ːspumpkinː Until next time, take care!

• General Fixes: A number of minor issues such as typos, bugs and visual errors have been fixed.
• GUI Adjustments: The textbox design has been updated to better fit with the rest of the GUI.
• Sound Adjustments: With the help of our new composer, Solo Acapello, we've tackled a number of sound-related issues. BGM/SFX loops are now seamless, the volume for various sounds has been adjusted, and some have even been redone.
• Music Addition: Since some players found the occasional (rather long) stretches of silence to be awkward, new ambience and music tracks have been added to fill the auditory void. In total, there are four new BGMs, one of them being a variation of an already existing track, whereas the other three are completely original compositions. (If you've bought the OST on Steam, they've been added to it through an update)
• Notebook Update: The text size for the notebook content has been slightly increased (yes, it was even smaller before). As a result, all "Diary", "Trivia" and "Clues & Evidence" entries, as well as all character profiles have been revised. In some instances, new tidbits of information have been added, along with references to our new projects. Since some players have gotten confused by it, the "DD/MM/YYYY"-format for D.O.B. information has been changed, as well.
• Script Changes: A bunch of dialogues and narration segments have been revised for better readability and structure, as well as to make them more concise and thus improve the pacing a little. Some parts have even been rewritten, while others were elaborated on. This mostly affects the first two chapters and the game's extra content.
• Checkpoint System: If you pick the wrong culprit and end up getting a bad end, you will now get a choice between going to the title screen, or returning to an automatic checkpoint that will let you try again. Thus, players who don't save often or overwrite their save files a lot will not run the risk of locking themselves into a bad end anymore.
• Code Cleanup: Natsu has taken the time to optimize the game's script, getting rid of thousands of unnecessary lines of code. Honestly, this is something that you, as a player, won't notice. Nevertheless, it makes us feel pretty good!