soulstation news & patch notes

hello big world! it's a big rainy rainy where I live and I decided to go to the library to play old MMOs! I like the rain and I like to feel cold and wet like natalie imbruglia. my head is spinning because ive been looking at screens a lot lately, especially yesterday - when I finished soulstation! 

yup that's right :) we're good to go - I'll see you all August 13th, when the full game comes out.

I guess that makes this the final devlogue... I'll miss writing these im sure :) they were one of my favourite parts of making soulstation. in the end I like the game more than I even thought I would, and I was able to do a lot more than I imagined ! so of course my lesson to everyone here is to at least try making something - you'll probably end up somewhere good regardless :)

and with the announcement of soulstation, I will also reveal the sister album '21st century trauma addict'. it comes out August 13th too ~ though many songs are already in the game.

the intro movie to soulstation will also be uploaded to the net today ! the vocals were sung by my friend em (I maybe even mentioned her before... wait yeah she was giving me those t-shirts that time) and another em played the flute !! if you like the music of soulstation, a lot of my music is similar! feel free to listen while you wait for the full release

i'm polygoncove, it was nice to meet you

- gray ☆

good news ! the game is finished (sorta)!

right now I'm working on the soundtrack (very important) and we'll do some bugfixing I'm sure ! but yes everyone lets jump and celebrate yaaaaay! were making it in time....

let's talk about music! it's what I do. actually to be 100000% honest I kind of made this game as a pretense for making music ? half and half... game music is very specific (I believe it's more than the genres that inspired it) and the framework of soulstation gives me lots of chances to make the type of music I wanted to but didn't have an impetus... isn't that strange though...

usually if left to my own devices I would write lyrical songs with guitars and structures and excruciatingly personal words... but I dreamed of making a shop theme for an RPG.... for some reason it felt so hard to write a song like that without having a real purpose for it . well maybe you think that's weird but unfortunately I operate under many such restrictions (it's okay I free myself when I remember) . anyway maybe now you understand kin a little better . . . I still haven't made a shop theme.... maybe I should add a shop to ss (NOT HAPPENING)

that's the other thing with this music! it's surprisingly hard to write VN music ~ i feel like a lot of what I write is too jarring and takes you out of the scene... I'm not sure how games like umineko incorporate trance music without distracting me from reading, but I feel like in soulstation it's hard to read and listen to the complex music I've been making (so I'm trying to simplify it)... but maybe that's just because I'm focusing on it ...

I'm sure you know (it's the case for all art I think) but it's so hard to feel how your creation really feels for an audience . . .we are so skewed....

perhaps I should talk about the companion album to soulstation? there's a vocal album coming out around the same time, similar to that one MOTHER album ! it's using vocal versions of SS songs and some new stuff :) I made both projects at the same time and they're both focusing on the same feelings/concepts. . . it's called \

how does rust sound? how does time sound? how does decay and rot sound? I'm asking myself these questions while making music . i want it to feel familiar and warm but not human . did you know? metal doesn't make a noise until you interact with it

- gray ☆

right now I'm watching an elderly woman sweep leaves in this park. with a bamboo sweep. I didn't have enough money on my travel card for the bus to the museum of contemporary art so I'm walking. . . it's a nice day don't worry :)

but this elderly lady... let me try and read her jacket

.. it says something like silver person center? let me research it… oh it's like a volunteer program for the elderly who want to be more active and help the community!!! that's good I was kind of worried she was sweeping leaves just to get by.  this dog over here is staring at me so intently... if youre in the park and look around it's crazy how many people are in the same place but not communicating. We're all in this same environment and aware but too embarrassed to talk. well I'm mostly scared of people until I remind myself not to be, maybe others are the same ...

kin is like this a lot ! it's really nice writing a character with a flawed worldview, from their pov. I get to play around with perception and lies and expectations... one of my favourite things about visual novels is the timing of the text! maybe you noticed in the soulstation demo that other characters continue to speak without clicking, but when kin is speaking the player must click to continue each sentence.

I initially did that to help you feel more like kin - putting in more effort to communicate with the world. but it also means I can give different characters slightly different voices by making them speak slower, or pause longer between sentences. or maybe they'll surprise kin by suddenly speaking without waiting!!!

when people say visual novels are just books with images I think they must not notice how much thought goes into time. I'm a musician by heart, and I think of most things through the lens of music: which is a time-based art form. you have to think about tension and release, and how your body and heart are feeling, what they're anticipating and what they want to hear. coding soulstation feels like this to me at a much (MUCH!) longer timescale.

do you ever feel like some days your eyes defocus all the time unless you're actively focusing? I think it's more a tiredness thing than having poor vision for me, because it only happens some days. I sort of have to remember to look at things actively. even though it's uncomfortable.... it feels uncomfortable to purposefully focus again after defocusing right! does anybody know why? 

so don't forget to not be scared of people. and to focus your eyes:) let's start there today

it's the 2 year anniversary of when me and my best friend decided to tell each other we really love each other. we made this game studio together, and we're making soulstation together. it's really nice to starstep our feelings into something real we can hold. maybe a lot of art is when you turn your feelings into something real 

that's step 3 for today

- gray ☆

hello everyone again ! 6/4 is a fun date, like the console . . isn't 64 such a fun number... they called their console the (brand name) 64.... if lemon+blood had a console it would probably be called \

today I'm cafe hopping while finishing up the text and sprites for part1 soulstation(of which there are two) . the guy next to me just kissed his phone - I think he's calling a loved one. I think if you wrote down exactly what was happening around you every day word for word you'd have a very detailed and weird story

I love to create this visual novel . I feel more like a director than a programmer . the characters and world are right there, I'm just asking them to stand in a specific spot and speak in a certain manner (for the shot!)

a couple days ago I got asked to volunteer for Yokohama theatre group . (backstage sound tech etc) . the show was an original, based on a poem which took 30 years to write. I wonder what lemon+blood will take 30 years to write...

OH my lovely friend em just messaged right now !!!! she just recieved some blank white t-shirts for free and is asking if I want to use them ??? well I was planning on making some clothing for lemon+blood, soulstation and the companion album \, maybe I'll ask her about that .. . !

it's a game about grief, trauma, fear and love . so i have to be careful with my feelings when I work on it - it can be easy to start thinking negatively.... maybe this is why horror writers always depict themselves as tortured souls..

clef is a happy infohazard to me, in that when I see them it's like remembering I can breathe and that the world is still in rotation . they're of course based on someone I know very well

maybe you have a happy infohazard too :)

happy Poisson D'avril etc ! I pranked Riley with a fun(ny) klonoa picture I edited....

today is my first day writing a devlogue for SS, though I'm already way over halfway through!! I'm at the end of Day1, which is maybe 30-40% of the game? A large intro . . . 

There's something special about the way we're making this game . . which means I'm not sure exactly how long it'll be in the end :) 

Today I woke up and ate cereal(bad idea) which immediately started burning my blood(t1d) so I took my laptop for a walk by the river. actually today was a cool anniversary(?) day for me because it's the day I theoretically should have learned 10,000 German words(using an app)!! I'm learning bc my beloved Riley is a native swiss-german speaker :) and I'm moving there next year. anyway I was ~750 words away from achieving this goal... I normally only learn 100 a day but something neurotic within me (probably evident in soulstation itself) lead me to . . . cram all 750 today so I could keep on track.

I heard that you retain information better while moving/exercising so I walked my laptop while doing my vocabulary drills in the other hand and dodging the elderly and dogs. 

then a 5.0 earthquake happened but I didn't feel it. i live exactly next to Tokyo bay so im also confused how I felt nothing but yknow us gamedevs are real oblivious to things sometimes.