Hey there Heroes, Things are heating up with the arrival of Summer, so we hope you’ve found somewhere cool and comfortable to indulge in this month’s update! Let’s jump in! Komuta D’s Sneak Peek Komu-nichiwa, komu-banwa, director Komuta here. I'm excited to give you another sneak peak this month! And the contents for Komuta D's Sneak Peak #3 is... TADAAA!! [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/40722115/5c48cffd7c2126051cb3f41a51784c4e3a55d8e9.jpg[/img] What you see here is an imageboard of a key location in the story and a 3D model of the boss that appears there... Those who have played Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising may look at this and think, "...huh?" It looks like some sort of decaying ruin, but what kind of adventure lies in wait there? You'll just have to wait and see!! As you'll notice in Producer J's ‘Word from the Team’ segment, the art for the characters, backgrounds, enemies, UI, effects and other props, which is one of the most important parts of the game production process, are now finished and Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is finally taking shape as the game's framework is being fleshed out. To use an analogy, it's like an "unassembled Gunpla!" (It even makes noise!!!) From that point we started working on improving the art's quality in order to really add that level of polish, checking whether the implemented sections were working according to the blueprints, and figuring out how to improve the design if there were any errors. The image board above is just one of the blueprints from which everything started. I hope you're looking forward to another glimpse next time! Murayama's Monthly Development Report Thank you so much for the many submissions to our recent call for the ending theme choir! We can't wait to see how it turns out. We used a choir for the ending theme when I worked on Gensou Suikoden too. That was at the suggestion of Higashino-san who was in charge of the music at the time and the production staff. We had the option to hire a professional singer to record the ending song, but since the theme of Suikoden revolves around a group of bandits and drifters we decided a chorus of amateurs would be more atmospheric. The recording took place in a corner of the office and we gathered all of the development team for it. I was there too, but I was placed further away from the microphone because I’m loud and tone deaf (lol). Come to think of it, some of the game's sound effects were also recordings of the team member's voices. The development of Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes was undoubtedly started by the passion of our backers. I hope this chorus will properly represent how this project is a joint effort between the team and our backers. A Word from the Team J-diary vol.9 Hello all, Murakami J. here. In my last report, I talked about the pixel art end goal being in sight. Well now we've surpassed it and are in the process of polishing the art materials. I've mentioned this many times before, but the greatest challenge for the graphical portion of Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes has been meeting the volume of assets needed and our first priority was meeting each milestone and its quantity of assets. The primary reason for this was the need to keep pace with the progress of each part of the game's development, but creating a large number of assets in a short period of time was not an easy task. Not only was it very difficult from a planning and management standpoint, but then securing talent, managing costs, and resolving a variety of other problems at the same time made this project a major challenge. Somehow we managed to overcome those issues and are finally entering a phase where we can polish the finished assets. In all the years I have spent working on video games, I personally find this part of the process to be the most enjoyable. This is the stage where the visuals have been assembled to some extent, allowing us to look at the bigger picture as it comes into focus and make necessary adjustments and rearrangements. With these last pushes, the final product becomes more polished and different with each passing day. This is the most enjoyable part of development, when our only focus is on improving the game's quality. Komuta D said this in the last update, but seeing the characters and world come to life with the addition of music and voice acting makes us so happy. Regarding sound, its selection, timing, and how it is used can greatly affect how it breathes life into the game, so we want to spend as much time as we can on this. It isn't my area of responsibility, but I can't help myself from talking in detail about what's been added so far. That’s why the materials are almost ready. From this point on, the finished product depends greatly on how much polish we can add, so I hope we can continue to make adjustments and keep pushing to the very end, dedicating as much time to it as possible. We're entering the season of gaming events and conventions, so we'll have more opportunities to show you what we've made. I’m sorry for repeating myself every time, but please wait just a little bit longer. Thank you for your continued support. MURAKAMI J