The last stretch of the year was fucked up busy and I even forgot I’m supposed to write these.

It’s the start of a new year and I just got back to work. We quickly assessed what needs to be done for chapter 2 and so far the focus will be on getting this and the other levels as close as possible to their “intended design”.

With that I mean that the chapter must have all elements that are meant to be available by this point, such as any new weapon types, skills, implants, etc.

Graphics don’t matter at this point in time. The priority is simply to test, test and test to bring out the positives and get rid of the negatives.

The way it works for us is that we will prototype a really basic flow including base enemy encounters, puzzles and whatnot (all of this was already done last year). I’ll also do a dirty camera pass, and dialogue may be crude but it’s there too. Once the annoying part of this process is ready, I’ll then start spicing up the encounters, add the actual new enemy types and see people play the level.

It’s hard to say how long it will take to fine tune each level but I have a pretty good estimate based on previous experience. For your own mental sanity I shall not disclose it.

Chapter 2 is currently going through the “let’s have this as stable as possible before we bring in testers” phase, and I expect to start proper play tests next week. Let’s hope I don’t have to renovate so much of the layout in the process.

God, so much has happened since the last entry it’s ridiculous. Not in terms of development since it was a simple grind to get things done, but rather in terms of events. We revealed the game at Bitsummit, which I mentioned in the last blog. There’s also EVA Play in Buenos Aires, then we organized Sukeban Visions; a fan meeting that took place in Akihabara that was half live dev log, half party and it was awesome. I got to dance with a bunch of fans of our games and I still can’t believe we pulled it off. Lots of things to fix for the next time but what matters is that there’s gonna be a next time.

I’m in the process of putting together a small digest from the event for everyone to see!

2025 will be much less eventful. I think I mentioned this but we’re gonna pull back on events since those take way too much time from our hands. Getting demos and such up to speed is a pain in the ass and we rather focus on the game as much as humanly possible. I actually wanted to attend Gamescom and have a booth there but nah, too much. We really do need to lock in. I might do EVA Play again since that’s closer and I want the rest of the team to visit Argentina, but we’ll see.

Lots of va11halla collabs on the way. There’s the new Jill figure, plushies… Kind of insane, but thank you all for still supporting us. Thank you thank you thank you. It’s what allows us to find our groove and keep making games at a healthy pace.

Speaking of games, we might release something before .45pb. It’s a bit of an experiment that I hope people dig, and I mentioned this in the live dev log at Sukeban Visions, but basically I’d like to start publishing small scale projects; closer in scope to va11halla, so visual novels and all sorts of narrative games. I did a little test drive by doing exactly that for this last winter Comiket, where we printed a CD bundle including a remastered version for one of my previous visual novels (She Vomited Guns) and a revised version for another (in the grace of our malice), plus an audio CD with music inspired by .45pb composed by June.

It went really well, and I’m in the process of figuring out a way to sell the remaining stock online for those who couldn’t grab a copy. The point is that it’s the start of something I always wanted for Sukeban: A proper pipeline to release more titles in general. From short narrative games to bigger releases like .45pb, and I’m pretty excited to try our hand at this.

That’s all for now, see you next time.

Omake

Been using the environment a lot more for enemy encounters. Sometimes it looks funny, other times it feels more like an action game than the weird pseudo-RPG we’re making. Point is, the game is not just evading and shooting; there are a lot of ways we’re spicing up encounters and I’m pretty excited to see players get creative with the possibilities at hand.

Another sample of what I mean with the above.

This is half compromise, half fun. Static cameras are great, but since the environments are all running in real time I can get creative with the way cameras behave. I say it’s a compromise too because, frankly, having to set up so many cameras is a grueling process, and if I can save myself some time using a simpler method then so be it.

I do make sure it’s thematically appropriate at least.

Our next game will definitely use either one camera per scene or just follow the player around. I really can’t do this anymore, it takes so long to debug the basic exploration… should have copied Parasite Eve more in this regard. They had it right with the diorama format.