From the X-Files: Project Vermilion

Hello everyone!

Constantly bursting with story ideas, I generally tend to work on multiple projects at the same time. It's not about having ADHD (I don't), but has practical benefits too, such as being able to release works consistently with a relatively small gap in between, instead of years of silent grind with nothing to show.

However, as is typically the case, many of these ideas simply go nowhere and end up being abandoned. Oftentimes, the only way to test the viability of a concept is to just give it a try. It's only after seeing the idea unfold to a sufficient extent that you can judge if it was really such a good idea, after all, or wasn't.

I typically don't talk about dropped projects, since there's not much there to tell, and it's rather embarrassing to tell about were you've failed. But I thought I'd make an exception in this update, and show you a bit what sort of stuff I do when I'm not working on the completed, publicly available stories you all know.

One of the projects I got started with a few years back was work title Vermilion Flower. Beside novels and short stories, I've always wanted to create works in other formats too, and this one was envisioned as a visual novel.

Don't know if you've played any VNs, but they've somehow survived even while technology continues to evolve and more complex games are developed. 

I've been interested in visual novels ever since playing Type-Moon's Tsukihime in around 2006. It was quite thrilling and demonstrated that you don't need millions of dollars to create a captivating audiovisual experience. 

I stumbled upon the Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine some time after and tried creating various tiny games while learning the craft on the fly. But I lacked the art and writing skills at the time to produce anything worthwhile and my VN ambitions were buried for a solid decade.

But the spark never quite faded and, having levelled up my writing ability and visual eye somewhat, I had a new idea and thought I'd try it again.

The story of Vermilion Flower is set in the purely fictional fantasy kingdom of Akahana. Captured at the end of a bitter campaign by the technologically superior, ceaselessly expanding Empire of Gremalta, this small city state ends up occupied by enemy forces, its resources drained to fuel the invader's war machine.

In the city choked by imperial military presence, a young underground resistance fighter, Aria, searches for her mother, once a famous hero, who went missing in unclear circumstances during the Empire's invasion.

The player would navigate the story through numerous branching choices and seek clues to the fate of Aria's mother, while avoiding bad ends and helping the resistance turn the tables on the Empire. With many twists and turns to follow.

Pretty standard, eh?

It's a fusion of detective story and revenge story, sort of.

The concept was, "if I got asked to write the scenario for a new Final Fantasy game, what would I do?"

Final Fantasy is a game series known particularly for its creative combinations of conventional fantasy magic and modern technology. You have people fighting with swords and guns comfortably side by side, spirits, crystals, spell-casting, and magitechnical armors. And those were strictly present in planning the scenario of Vermilion Flower.

A preliminary script of about 100k words was written, and I did a bunch of concept artwork too. 

But, unfortunately, the script is only the very beginning of the effort when it comes to visual novels.

Necessary work steps would include also:

• Designing the common visual direction
• Designing prominent characters and locations
• Doing character sprites with varied expressions
• Doing background images for each location
• Doing imagery for story events
• Designing UI graphics and menus
• Programming
• Adding music
• Fitting all the elements together
• Beta-testing
• Doing promotional artwork
• Distribution
• Probably more

So...Yeah.

It was sort of a lot of work for just one person.

I knew that, of course, but I thought I'd see how far I can get, anyway.

Ambition grew as I worked on the script. I eventually abandoned Ren'Py, and moved the development to Unity Game Engine. I found some handy tutorials online for making visual novels on the engine, and got off to a solid start.

But then reality caught up with me.

By my estimate, even if I found some helpers, the production cycle was going to be around two years minimum. It was going to cost me a lot, with no promise of any return. In fact, I'd planned to distribute it for free. It was to be an all-ages game, but there were some plot elements that probably would've made release on Steam or some such platform difficult.

Which was why, in the end, I could only suspend work indefinitely and prioritize quicker, more profitable stories instead.

I wouldn't say I've given up on this project completely yet. I do feel the story ended up becoming sort of charming, so maybe one day circumstances change, and I'll be able to return to it. But, as things stand, this indie visual novel undertaking is buried in the shadowy corners of my personal X-files.

Preliminary concept artwork with a shorter work title. I was still searching the appropriate visual direction. The pros say that the simpler the title, the easier it's to remember, but it just doesn't carry the same impression.

The story is set fully in the royal capital of Akahana. I modeled multiple versions of the city on Blender. The plan was to include a 3D-map you could navigate with the cursor to move between chapters.

Early UI mockup. The game was meant to follow Persona-esque day cycle, with the protagonist posing as a university student during the day and meeting with classmates.

The magicians in the story harness energy called aether to fight. Due to plot reasons, the protagonist's magic power is limited, forcing her to rely on a gauntlet with a mini magic engine to fight.

Concept for the main character's primary weapon.

The sword of Iria, the legendary adventurer.

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That's all for now!

Once again, thank you for your patronage.

Until next time.