Hello everybody, Jacob here. And yes, this is what its all been leading up to.
Half-sequel and half-update, Siren’s Call: Escape Velocity aims to take everything we’ve learned from the past year and use it to make the best version of this story imaginable. And I’m not just talking minor bug fixes and UI updates either…
Here’s a couple things to expect upon release:
*A true ending that can only be unlocked through our game’s new Lucidity System. Depending on player choices, Oliver will end things differently than in the original build of the game.
*An unlockable epilogue chapter centered around a conflict unique to Violet and Judith’s friendship (spoilers, it’s not related to Oliver).
*24 new CGs-- a number of which will be used to flesh out and add tension to the original story.
*An optional hint system create a more streamlined visual novel experience.
*Updated character sprites for Miss Lawrence.
*Translations into Spanish, German and Russian with more languages being added after the game’s release!
*The complete original story of Siren’s Call that remains (mostly) untouched in terms of its narrative.
*And much more!
While improved UI and bug fixes are a big goal of ours, the truth is that there’s a lot of story content we had to cut to meet our release date last year (and even more art assets and gameplay features that were left out due to lack of budget or time constraints). Since the release, I’ve been working tirelessly on polishing up the game to better meet my initial vision. The feedback everybody has provided in both the Steam Reviews and Siren’s Call discord has been illuminating and paramount in shaping the direction of this game. As such, I think it’s only fair to talk about some of these changes and why they’re being made. If you want to know more about why we’re doing things the way we’re going to, please read on!
1. The Lucidity System.
Along with a new UI comes a new gameplay mechanic: The Lucidity System. Essentially, the more Oliver is made to explore Siren’s Call through the player’s choices, the more he’ll get closer to the truth of what is happening, gaining lucidity in the process. This lucidity can be used not only to unlock hints during particularly difficult social interactions, but also as a means to unlock the game’s new, true ending. Essentially, Lucidity functions as a sort of cognitive currency.
While reception of Siren’s Call has been very positive at the time of writing this update, one of the complaints we did receive was that player choices on the whole felt like they lacked weight. There is intention in this, of course, and while we did try to make the different choices matter in some respect though the game’s unlockables, there were people that still wanted more control of Oliver. People wanted to better shape the story through him.
While complete control over Oliver and his story cannot be given to the player for major plot reasons, we did still want to provide more ways for the player to feel as if they are helping him reach the truth. What’s more, we also wanted to find a way to reduce the rate at which players got stuck in some of the trickier loops. A currency system that could pay for optional hints, as well as open the way to a better ending seemed like a natural solution. Even better, it could be implemented without taking away what makes Oliver’s role as a protagonist interesting. For now, it seems like a win-win that won’t take away from the game’s mystery and tone, but we’ll see how it stacks up in playtesting. For now though, we’re feeling great about its inclusion.
2. Violet’s Epilogue: Prove You Aren’t Dead
After waking up from a strange seizure on the beach, Violet is taken to her old high school to wade out the deadliest hurricane in the history of Siren’s Call. There, her and Judith are forced to work together to uncover the truth of their situation...as well as the nature of this bizarre, otherworldly storm.
Both Oliver and Judith had playable sections of Siren’s Call, so from the start, I really wanted to give Violet’s character the same attention. Her friendship with Judith is also something I wanted to explore in greater detail, as it always had the potential to be the deepest and most complex friendship out of the group. So in addition to being the completion of Violet’s character arc (as well as the game’s overall story), it serves as a nice bit of extra story content for those wanting to see everything Siren’s Call: Escape Velocity has to offer.
3. 24 New Cgs and updated versions of Miss Lawrence’s sprites
Raies, one of the artists we’ve been working with over the years, has agreed to create a batch of new CGs for scenes that desperately needed them. Not only that, but Miss Lawrence’s sprite will also be polished afterwards to better fit her new look in these CGs. Raies has done great work for us in the past (the art as been cited as one of the game’s strongest features), so we really just want to double down on the already great art he’s done and enhance the opening sections of the game in particular.
4. Pricing for Siren’s Call: Escape Velocity
While Siren’s Call itself is always going to be free, the reality is that this game (at least at the time of writing) has been made entirely out of pocket. As such, while the base version of Siren’s Call will stay free (and we have no plans of removing it from the store), Escape Velocity is going to need to cost something in order for my friends and I to continue making games. We’ve kind of hit a brick wall in development where in order to bring this VN up to the standards of the industry, we’re going to need funds of some kind.
There’s also the Steam Algorithm to take into consideration. Simply put, if a game doesn’t make Steam money, they’re just not going to show it to people. So making Siren’s Call: Escape Velocity cost something is kind of a necessary evil at this point. While the amount of people that have downloaded Siren’s Call already has far exceeded our expectations, in order to get this game the kind of attention our fans believe it deserves, we’ve gotta play things by Steam’s rules for the time.
That being said, we’re not charging more than 5 dollars for Escape Velocity. And we’re going to go hard with steam sales whenever we get the chance. None of this has ever been about the money, but if we can make enough to cover the costs of developing Escape Velocity, then the odds of us making future games is much higher. If we eventually get a publisher, that 5 dollar price may have to change due to contracts and such, but it will also open the door to things like professional voice acting and more translations, so it’ll be well worth it. For now though, we’re sticking with self-publishing, which means we get to set what we consider an honest price for this project. We hope this seems like a fair, consumer friendly way to handle things in the future.
TLDR: Siren’s Call is always going to be free, but Escape Velocity has to cost something for Steam to show it more to people and for us to keep making games. We hope you guys understand and find the new content worth the price.
Questions you might be having:
If this game is part-sequel, why not just make Prove You Aren’t Dead a standalone game?
The truth is that without the context of the first game, PYAD just isn’t as powerful of a story. Don’t get me wrong, PYAD is easily the thing I’m most proud of writing in my entire career, but it needs people to beat Siren’s Call to get full emotional value from it. While this is true for all sequels to some extent, our install base doesn’t really justify us making an entirely separate game just to finish up Violet’s story. There would just be too many people that would see this game on the Steam store, not have the context of Siren’s Call, and then pass up on it. Not only that, but having it be a heafty unlockable for devoted players makes more sense ludonarratively. Going from completing Oliver’s story to starting Violet’s story is gonna be way more satisfying than having to boot up an entirely separate game. The two stories need each other, so we think it makes sense to be in the same package.
Is anything about the plot/characters going to be changed? I didn’t really like X or Y; can you fix that?
We’re cutting down on some of Andi’s monologues a bit, but other than the re-contextualization the new true ending and PYAD will provide, the plot of Siren’s Call will still be alive and well in Escape Velocity.
Along with the plot, the cast as a whole has been largely well received. While a vocal minority of individuals didn’t jive well with some of Oliver’s character traits, he has fared way better than your average uncontrollable/belligerent VN protagonist in terms of public reception, so we’re keeping him as is outside of the True Ending. Based on the reviews, he accomplished his role in the story and then some, so axing core aspects of his character has the potential to greatly weaken the narrative and its themes. Most of the disdain has been centered on him ignoring player choices throughout the game anyway, so the new Lucidity System should help offset that a bit.
One thing we are changing is making Miss Lawrence’s role in the story more clear. Not spoiling how we’re going to do that, but let’s just say that people that wanted to see more of her won’t be disappointed.
Okay, so the plot and characters are mostly staying the same, but is anything being added to the original story of Siren’s Call outside of CGs? Or is it just a copy of what I’ve already read?
The opening chapter is being spiced up a bit to help aide with player retention and immersion. We noticed from play time on Steam that once people met Violet in the opening chapter, they were in it for the long-haul. To help bridge people to that point, we added some extra points of intrigue and trimmed down some of the slower sections of meeting up with Oliver’s friends for the first time. The new CGs are also going to help make some of those first meetings more emotionally impactful.
All and all, the additions to the main story are going to be relatively unobtrusive, as not to weaken what we already have, but still meaningful. We wouldn’t be satisfied with a straight-up copy. There are also going to be changes in the game’s opening splash-screens, main menu, and UI to help set the appropriate tone for new players. While that may not seem worth mentioning, presentation is everything (especially for VNs) and we’ve learned a lot in the past year. Typically if you don’t hold a player’s interest in the first 5 seconds, you’ve already lost them. So we made these changes in presentation with that in mind.
So when is it coming out then?
It’s going to take about two years to make the remaining CGs, as well as a lot of time to amass the funds needed for translations. Currently, this is all still coming out of pocket, but if our crowdfunding endeavors are successful, then these aspects of the game have the potential to be made quicker. Writing and programming are on lock; I can easily get all the bugs fixed that aren’t rooted to the Visual Novel Maker engine done in a years time and the story is basically done (just gotta program it). If there are bugs that require me to completely switch engines though, it could take years of free time learning/switching everything over to something like RenPy. Ideally it won’t come to that though.
So honestly, around two years, assuming things go as projected. Maybe less if we get some ground-swell going. Maybe more if there is just no saving VNMaker, but I know other devs that have used the engine to make more stable games, so not all hope is lost (the base game runs great on most recent hardware anyway). It all depends.
Are the translations needed? Can’t we get the game quicker if you cut those and some of the CGs?
As of the time of writing this, roughly 33% of people that booted our game for the first time did so in North America. This is a lot smaller than I was expecting. Honestly, the foreign market for Siren’s Call has been nuts (maybe people just like Floirda that much idk). Regardless, I’m grateful, and I want to show that. So not translating the game into as many languages as possible seems like a big loss for everyone involved. I know it’s not realistic for a team as small as ours to amass the funds needed for lots of translations, but it’s worth a shot.
As for trimming CGs, all I can say is that it’ll be worth the wait and better for the game on the whole. There are 12 that are absolutely essential to the story, while the other 12 serve mostly to heighten already emotional scenes. So trimming isn’t completely off the table, but would really defeat the purpose of this version being the best it could be.
I think you should just make another game entirely given that this one ending up being so ___ and ___. Why focus on it anymore?
Because I’m not done with it yet.
In conclusion:
I know all of this is kind of a big look behind the curtain so to speak, but I’m not in the business of being secretive. People need to know what goes into making a VN. So please know this: I am very very very excited to be working on what I think will be the best version of Siren’s Call possible. This game is everything to me and my team, and for those that found meaning in Oliver’s story, this game is for you, plain and simple. We wouldn’t be continuing this project without you guys because other than some vain sense of completeness on my part, there’s no point in polishing up a game people don’t find meaning in. So the fact this little game of ours has been emotionally resonate in any respect to anybody is more than we could’ve ever asked. So we’re going to keep polishing it, and provide a conclusion to this story that’s as good as it can possibly be.
We’re going to keep moving forward.
Stay sweet everyone.
~Jacob