March Q&A - Answers

Here are the march answers!

If you could give a single piece of advice to yourself back during work on your first game, what would it be and why?

Haha. Probably "Do what you want." 

I'd encourage myself to look outside of VN dev communities for game design information because a lot of times visual novel communities don't discuss game design.

I was telling someone recently that I didn't learn the word 'signposting' until Changeling was already done but it's such an important part of game design!

Game structure, branching types, signposting, and feedback loops…

None of this stuff is talked about in any meaningful ways in a lot of VN dev communities but it's really important to making good games so yeah. I wish I'd learned some of it way earlier.

But I guess maybe I'd have been overwhelmed by it too. Journeys are the way they are for a reason and in some ways, Changeling's development flowing the way it did was probably necessary. So maybe I wouldn't say anything but "Do what you want" LoL!

I've noticed that your world building in your games is extremely deep. How do you balance deep world building with the risk of information overload for the player? You seem to have one of the better balances in this regard I've encountered in VNs, and it seems like it would be challenging to juggle these two things.

That's part of the role of the glossary - allowing me to dump things in there without having it all in the game as exposition. You can't really get away with NO exposition, but it helps a lot to just have a place to put that stuff.  

I also think that at some point you accept that certain players aren't going to vibe with your games. I mean, I've had reviewers complain about the amount of lore. And a lot of times if I post-stalk or review-stalk, I find someone who clearly enjoys short, simple games with soft (or no) world building.

I can accept that some people just aren't into deep lore and that's okay. I'm not going to try to please everyone. I write the way I write and build worlds that have a lot to them because I find it fun. And if that is not someone's cup of tea, that's all good.  

I will not ask who it is if so, but do you find you end up having a favourite LI in your games? 

Not really. I like different things about different characters. I may have one character who has my favourite personality but another one who has my favourite design, and another who has my favourite romance progression, and another who has my favourite storyline.

For instance, I might say that Elliot is my favourite character from Changeling but is he my favourite _love interest?_

Marc has my favourite interactions with Nora even though they butt heads a lot. His route was really fun to write.

Ewan has my favourite route and story.

Danny's route is the one that still makes me laugh and I think I like Nora best in that route.

William's route has some of my favourite scary and emotional moments.

Corvin has my favourite design and personality.

So none of them are really my favourite in the usual sense. All of them have things about them that are my favourite though. The same is true in Gilded Shadows and WSC.  

Including independent agents that you commission or hire to do a specific element (say, a background or a musical score) and people that you consult for things like beta testing, research assistance, expertise, etc, approximately how many people are involved in making one Steamberry Studio game? How much has this changed from your first game to your current project?

This one is hard to answer. If we're talking asset creation, it's usually me and 4-5 other people (background artists and composers). When Stars Collide is using royalty free music so there's probably a dozen different composers, though.

There are usually only 1-2 other people who do any significant amount of coding but they're often on a single part of the project (just the flow charts, just the GUI, etc).

So usually it's me managing 4-6 freelancers.

When it comes to things like authenticity checkers and research assistance, it's pretty nebulous. I have about 6 people that I regularly go to for that sort of thing. But I could end up reaching out to others and I may not need to reach out to certain people on certain projects. So that number can fluctuate a lot.

On top of that, I get advice on my server a lot. I'll just poll the community there and they have a lot of good thoughts on multiple subjects. They also serve that purpose and the server is like…200 people. But to be fair, they're not all active…

Still. That is an aspect of it too.

And then beta testing is a whole other thing because through the Kickstarter alone there were about 50 people with beta access. And then another bunch here on Patreon. Then a few friends. So probably close to 70 people. But not all of them actually did testing.

And some posted like…one typo one time while others were really, really thorough. We really had two beta testers for GS who really stuck with it the whole way through even though a lot more people signed up to do it.

The simple fact is that there's no easy way to answer this. I pull from a lot of different areas to get these games done - that's the real answer here. LoL

I’m gay. I love your stories so much that I enjoy the romances. Here’s to good writing! Would you ever consider a female LI? (A short ‘no’ is fine).

It's not off the table or anything. I don't know if/when it will happen or what project that might be.