Hello Hellbounders!
Spring is finally here. Great weather, beautiful cherry blossoms, and some awesome games being released as well.
Penny Blood: Hellbound Review
If you are new to Penny Blood: Hellbound and purchased it via Early Access, we would love to see your review! Good or bad, this helps other gamers read whether it's the right type of game for them or not. So far 100% of reviewers liked the game but there is still a long way to go and more content to add. As always, any feedback in the discord channel is helpful as well!
Discord Photo Contest Winners
Congratulations once again to the latest winner of last month’s Discord photo contest, The #EcstasyRush Challenge, @Yojimbo, who received a special #EcstaticEveryday Discord role and Icon as a prize!
Next Upcoming Discord Game
A ton of creative ideas were raised back in December when we asked Discord fans what kind of activities they’d like to see, which helped pave the way for our monthly photo contests. This month however, we’ll be switching things up with another request from the fans–a puzzle-based game to unlock some special art from the game! More information to come later on this month.
Discord Roles
As mentioned in previous updates, we are working through any customer service requests that come in to [email protected] and providing roles for mismatched survey responses or capitalization issues. You should be seeing more and more people with these roles and soon we'll be creating a specific channel for both backers and premium backers to communicate in.
◆2024.04.06 Penny Blood Project Diary
Message from Machida-san
Good evening, everyone.
One month has passed since the March update, and it has been a very eventful month for me. Unfortunately, most of those events were very sad. In March, we lost several well-respected creators and artists, beginning with Akira Toriyama and Mutsumi Inomata, two of the world's leading creative standard-bearers who represent Japan. We also said farewell to Minori Terada, the talented voice actor who played Muska in Castle in the Sky, and TARAKO, who charmed families around the nation by playing the main character of the Chibi Maruko-chan TV show.
I was greatly influenced by them from an early age. I always looked up to them, and they assisted me in my drive to want to become a creator myself in the future. There are also many other members involved in the Penny Blood project who have had their sensibilities stimulated by these figures, so I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere condolences. I would also like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude for the many accomplishments they have left behind.
I hope you will understand that I have specifically chosen to use this space to express my feelings instead of my SNS account in order to convey my feelings to people who love creative works not only in Japan but also around the world.
Regarding the progress of the Penny Blood project, I would like to talk about Penny Blood: Hellbound again this month. The game has evolved from closed beta to early access, and more and more content is being added to the game. Recently, the production side of the game has also been undergoing a lot of polishing, and I’ve been supervising storyboards among other things.
The storyboards are really interesting, so I suddenly got an idea. “Hey, we should feature these in the updates!” But then I realized, “Oh, there’s one particular scene in the ending that spoils a lot,” and sort of wrestled with myself. I’ll try to pick out what’s okay to show you all and feature it in the next update, so please hold on for a bit. Also, as a continuation of last week, we’ll be revealing the rest of the trihedral figures for the Hellhounders along with the Ivory Warlock, one of the bosses they face.
…That concludes this month’s update.
See you all next month!
Matsuzo Machida
Message from Hirota-san
Good evening, everyone.
A bright, cheerful spring has already arrived in the town where I live, and some days feel like it’s already summer, which makes me wish I could experience a bit more of the change from season to season. As an example, I just went outside in light clothes, but today I feel cold. The temperature difference is really extreme, so please take care of yourselves.
Now for Penny Blood: Hellbound sound update. In March, we completed our second voice recording session. All the voice talent’s performances went far beyond the expectations of myself as well as the development team’s, and there were several lines that were so well done that it became quite hard for us to choose an “OK” take. On top of that, some of the VAs even decided to do a few more takes on top of those, which were all also amazing in their own ways. Overall, it was a truly exquisite recording session.
Witnessing the moments when characters are brought to life is a truly mystical experience filled with surprises. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the voice talent agency for their amazing casting and to the voice talent who read through the material, dove into their roles, and did thorough preparation for the performance.
After the session, I made various adjustments to the voice recordings in order to prepare them for implementation.
When the VAs speak, sometimes sounds such as "pa" or "chi" create lip noise, and their throats can also make sounds that sound a bit like "koh" when they pronounce things in certain ways. These are all minute noises that are created naturally due to the way the human body works, and it's the engineer's job to check for these sorts of noises throughout the performances. If necessary, they'll edit the files and erase the noises, or ask the VAs to do another take if it's impossible to remove the noises.
The VAs all do their best to make sure these noises don't appear, but as long as the noises don't get in the way of the acting, or when they actually end up contributing to the human or monster-like atmosphere that we're going for, I accept the files as-is.
I check the file IDs one by one to make sure they're correct, cut out any unnecessary blank spaces, then unify the overall volume and quality. Finally, I consult with the planner and add special effects that are necessary for specific characters until the files are finally polished like jewels and ready for implementation.
Once the files are all in the right spots, as designated by when the characters are supposed to say certain lines, I deliver the files and implementation is completed. After that, a final stage of adjustment is done on the overall balance of music, sound effects, and voice tracks, and then the voice work is complete. The road to 'completion' in this part of the job is a very long and harrowing journey.
I hope you’ll enjoy the lively voices of all the characters once our work is done!
