Log inLust & Lead – Dev Log 05
Hello everyone! Yep, it’s time for one of these. No pictures today, unfortunately. Plans fell through a bit and I was met with a few setbacks, so there isn’t much to discuss regarding the game itself. No new enemies, characters, gameplay systems or maps have really been worked on since the last Dev Log.
Not to say nothing has been done at all, but most of the last two weeks have been filled with correspondence, writing and chasing people up. I also had a small internet outage and some unfortunate crashes resulting in lost work... Anyway.
The Script
So, I mentioned last time that I was hopefully on the penultimate draft of the game’s story script. Well, I can thankfully say that it’s now completely finished! There’s still plenty to write in terms of miscellaneous dialogue, side characters and other optional material, but the main story itself is done and I’m quite happy with how it turned out.
I also wrote up recording documents for the game’s initial set of monsters, outlining their sounds, dialogue and purification vocalizations. Alongside that, I finished full gameplay dialogue documents for both Richard and Rebby. I wanted to get all of this prepared because it would be some of the first material recorded once casting was sorted.
I want the game’s Alpha to basically double up as a sort of demo that introduces the game and its characters. The intention is to have the tutorial and intro cutscenes alongside one playable map, so the voice acting for those sections is going to be quite important.
Casting
And this is where things get messy. The casting call closed at the beginning of the month with over 1700 audition submissions. Thankfully, I’d been keeping notes and paying attention to auditions throughout the process. In hindsight, constantly checking submissions was probably a distraction in itself, but I also wanted to get voices and monster sounds into the game fairly quickly so I could better judge how everything actually feels.
The next step was contacting people. I didn’t specifically seek out NSFW voice actors, so before properly shortlisting anyone I wanted to make sure they understood what kind of project Lust & Lead is and were comfortable being associated with it.
Thankfully, people can read, and most already knew what they had auditioned for. Some did decline once I asked, so it was still worth asking.
Now, I’m not great at messaging people or writing anything for someone else to read. It’s part of the reason these Dev Logs take so long. So writing messages covering what the role involved, payment, availability and everything else across a cast this large took quite a while. But eventually, after all that, I finally got the game completely cast... Or at least I had.
After casting everyone, I started sending scripts and payments to people who had material in the intro section of the game. Most recordings are still trickling in, but about a week after receiving their scripts and payment and agreeing to the terms, one cast member came back wanting to introduce a new condition before continuing.
I politely declined because this was something being introduced after everything had already been discussed and agreed upon, with payment already sent. They subsequently pulled out of the project. Unfortunately, that person was also voicing four characters.
Yeah, I’m a bit bitter about this, not gonna lie. I felt pretty blindsided considering how far along everything already was, especially as they’d previously been enthusiastic about the project and had even expressed interest in taking on more work. They’ve promised to refund me, but honestly, I care considerably less about the money than I do about the wasted time and the fact that I now need to cast four characters... again.
I’ve dealt with people disappearing or becoming unavailable before, so I know these things can happen. This one was just particularly frustrating because I thought everything had already been settled. Everyone else has been cool so far, though, and hopefully it stays that way.
Music
On the considerably sunnier side, the game does officially have a composer. I mentioned this briefly last time, but I wanted to give it a bit more attention here.
I had a lot of great composers submit their work, but the person I ultimately chose was someone whose test tracks and previous work kept sticking out in my mind. He’s relatively inexperienced with this kind of project, but based on what he’s worked on so far, I think he’s a really good fit for Lust & Lead’s style.
I’m being vague about names because I haven’t confirmed whether he wants to use his real name, an existing username or a separate pseudonym. Either way, it’s nice having another collaborator on the project and I look forward to when you guys get to hear his work.
What’s Next?
I’m not going to go too heavily into what comes next because timeframes, especially when it comes to things like casting, aren’t so straightforward. The immediate priority is sorting out the four reopened roles and getting the remaining recordings underway.
Once the main character dialogue starts coming in, I can move onto planning cutscenes and putting more work into the actual game again.
Hopefully by the next Dev Log I’ll have addressed the casting issue and will be back to working on the project itself rather than spending another two weeks talking to people.
Anyway, that’s all for today. See you guys next time.
