Hey everyone,
I just got home from Anime Weekend Atlanta and am still in the process of recovering from that. It’s tough to decide if I should be drinking whiskey or coffee. Maybe I’ll go for them both. Anyway, with the con came some big news: our announcement of our second project, a yuri game called “Highway Blossoms.”
If you follow us on Twitter, you may have seen some teasing of this game. We’re thrilled to finally announce it. Not everyone at Alienworks is working on HB, but a few of us are. Syon and myself are the writers, and Kevin will once again be assisting with directing, graphic design, and various other things. Rosuuri and Shiyun form the core of our art team, and we’re also excited to say that Raemz/Weee, best known for her work on Katawa Shoujo, will also be contributing a couple CG’s.
With this announcement, there are a few questions that we anticipate, so I’m going to go ahead and address those now. Any additional inquiries can be submitted to us via my ask.fm or Syon’s ask.fm, or also via the usual Twitter/Subreddit etc.
Anticipated FAQ:
Q: How will the game be funded? Are you using HRP Kickstarter money for this? Will it have its own Kickstarter?
A: The game is being funded entirely separately from the HRP KS. Everything either comes out of our own pockets or through direct assistance from our publisher. Therefore, there won’t be a Kickstarter for the completion of the game. That said, if demand is there, we might run a campaign to fund the creation of physical goods and merch for HB – right now there aren’t plans for any of those things.
Q: How does the development of HB affect the development timeline for HRP?
A: Short answer: it doesn’t. Syon and I (Josh) both have pretty open availability and a lot of free time on our hands, so we’re able to put in the same amount of time towards HRP as we have been. Also, since Shiyun and Rosuuri can’t really do much in the way of CG’s for HRP until more writing has been completed there, work on HB doesn’t pull away time away from them. Additionally, those two are very professional and used to working on multiple projects at once.
Q: What will the game cost, what’s its length, and what is its rating going to be?
A: It’s too early for a definite price point, but it won’t be more than ten dollars. Right now, we’re estimating that the game will take somewhere between 3 and 4 hours to complete (it’s linear – no choices). The game will be rated M and contain explicit sexual content, but there will be an option to disable that if you’d like.
Q: Amber narrates in the trailer. Does that mean the game will be voice acted?
A: It’s tough to say, at this point. The original plan was to just have narration for the trailer, not the whole game. However, given how well-received it’s been, we’re reconsidering that stance. The main issue comes from cost – the current budget doesn’t accommodate voice acting, which is a pretty expensive endeavor. The current answer is “we’d like to, but can’t promise it.”
That’s about it for Highway Blossoms stuff. Now for the HRP news.
If you haven’t seen yet, some of our characters are getting new default outfits. While you’ll probably still see the old ones around in the game some, Senri and Yukino are getting total overhauls for the cover. Yukino’s sporting a sleek new Gothic Lolita look and Senri’s got a new jacket. You can see both in the game’s cover art, which we’re proud to finally reveal. The background will be undergoing some minor changes still, but since it’s 90% finished, we wanted to go ahead and show it off now. We hope you like it.
