In this kinetic novel, at a certain point a quote attributed to Alexander the Great, King of Macedon and conqueror of the Persian Empire is mentioned:

‘Nothing is impossible to they who would but try’

That quote expresses the feeling I am having as I am tackling one of the most technically challenging aspects of ‘Shinikake No Koi’, the ending credits.

Being the fool that I usually am, instead of going for a simple roll of credits text, or even ignoring the matter entirely, I decided I wanted a propper  (if humble) cinematographic-esque ending sequence.

To make matters worse, there are animation effects that come into the screen from its edges and this requires making scene transitions with heaps of layered images and……

Alright this is getting too technical and I guess none but other Devs would really be interested in the nitty-gritty of it. Let’s move along.

The cherry on top of my self-punishment was deciding that at certain points in the credits the image changes should accompany musical queues of the tune that is playing.

This requires anal-retentive levels of attention so that graphical change A occurs right at point B of the soundtrack, down to the tenth of a second sometimes.

Then I have to pray Ren’Py’s software, and the peculiarities of whatever machine a reader is running the novel on can handle it without hiccups.

Ideally, the ending credits should be made into a movie file which Ren’Py would play. But alas, the crap laptop I am working on lacks the processing power to extract footage from  gameplay in any form that does not look like utter ****.

But all in all, the ending credits sequence is coming along nicely. Almost completed in fact.

At a certain point I was nearly deciding to pull the plug on it because of the amount of time and effort it was requiring and taking from finishing the rest of the VN (i.e. the actual writing that still has to be done). But I am glad I didn’t.

Last but least on this matter, to add salt to the self-inflicted wounding I decided to change the song I used for the end credits sequence.

I had originally chosen to go with the one used for the menu song of the VN ‘Maggot Baits’ (now, there’s a doozy of a visual novel. There aren’t enough trigger warnings on the whole planet to get you ready for that one) because the lyrics fit quite well.

But after coming across an old song by ‘The Prodigy’ on a Discord channel, I like it’s more upbeat nature and rhythm so much I decided to go along with it.

Of course, a faster-moving, beat-filled tune is harder to gel with visuals…...

I just hope down the line, some sensitive soul with the patience to read the whole thing watches the credits sequence and say ‘‘Hey, that was kind of cool.’

So, where does ‘Urban Fantasy’ come into all this?

That is a different matter. I am considering adding that tag to the novel (or the ‘fantasy’ one since itch.io appears to lack the urban variant).

‘Shinikake No Koi’ does not have ‘Word of God’ or an ‘Author’s Voice’ (more on that on a later devlog, maybe). It is up to the reader to interpret what he sees.

The story began with a fairly simple premise and one twist, coupled with a combination of abiding to some of the tropes of the Yaoi (in it’s Japanese variant) and going against them (i.e. the age of the characters).

But the project ballooned up since then. Even with a lot of ‘tell don’t show’, because this is supposed to be a short tale written within a time limit I found myself throwing some elements into it that were not a part of the original concept.

Some of it came organically, most was perhaps a matter of throwing stuff into it and seeing what stuck. And that included some Gnostic elements.

This was when I realized that some of what is in ‘Shinikake No Koi’, if the reader chooses to interpret it that way (and there is no one right way to interpret it) is veering into the realm of Urban Fantasy.

By the time I was working on the credit’s sequence I just went ‘what the hell’ and decided to go along with it. 

This does not mean the VN is urban fantasy, or even that it has any supernatural elements. It is up to the reader to interpret it, and decide what their true story is. 

I just wanted to vent a bit, but this is getting long,. I should get back to working on the novel.

Catch you later in some other Devlog, maybe.