I seem to receive a good few Asks and messages from people yet to play BWH asking me about character deaths, so I thought I’d do a roundup reply! Given the nature of the game’s setting, it’s a big part of the story that a lot of characters, including love interests, die. And I get asked a lot whether it’s pre-determined, whether you can prevent any of these, or even whether it’s random. Maybe I should change the store copy a little bit in order to make this more clear - it’s something I’ll consider.
This was also the subject of a discussion on Windmill Corner (the BWH Discord) recently - so I’ll try and summarise it into something publicly on the tumblr here rather than locking it behind a Discord haha.
It’s pre-determined. The game has romantic scenes at irregular intervals, in which you can choose who to spend time with, but the remaining 90% of the game’s content is the plot, which is one set storyline that you cannot alter - including the fact that a large amount of the cast do not survive the war. The plot segments are almost reminiscent of a traditional novel, or a kinetic VN - but there are dialogue choices that affect your relationships with the characters and whether you can choose/remain on their route. The only branches to the storyline are very small alternate endings on occasion.
I think Danganronpa is a good example of a VN that had the same narrative balance of ‘diminishing cast story with a pre-determined plot’ and ‘building relationships within that framework’. Characters' stories (including any unfortunate fates) remain the same regardless of whether you are on their route or not. (Although, in BWH you do get some additional scenes if you are on a character’s route at the time that they die.)
After this project is done, I'd definitely like to try and make a VN with a similar concept but with branching paths concerning characters' fates - after writing BWH, it would be a new challenge to try and capture the same feeling with a very different format. But this project, and its depiction of the war, really didn’t feel like the right fit for branching paths.
Although! A Small Announcement!
However! This seems as good a time as any to mention (and I don't think I've said this publicly before) that future acts are going to contain character-specific flashback arcs! So the death of a character does not mean that they won’t appear in the story anymore. I really think each of these characters brings something very different to the game, and I love them all (well... almost all) - so I’m keen for none of them to feel completely ‘written out’ just because their story, like a lot the cast’s, ended in tragedy. I think that these scenes are a really neat way to keep developing these characters and to paint a richer portrait of their wartime lives, whilst keeping the unflinching nature of the storyline in a way that I didn’t feel like branching paths would quite accomplish for this project. So I hope people enjoy seeing further windows into these characters’ stories. ^^ I’ll give more information on how these work at a later date.
So, I hope this post has helped clarify some things! I've had some people ask me about specific characters ahead of playing Acts I/II (I appreciate that some people would prefer to know what they're in for!) but unfortunately I can't reply to those publicly for fear of spoilers - as this is such a tiny game and there isn't really any plot synopsis or wiki or anything like that yet, please do feel free to either get in touch with me directly if you'd like any information before starting the game, or otherwise drop by the Windmill Corner Discord (the link is on this tumblr’s main page!) - everyone there is super friendly, and there’s a whole channel for spoilery chat where you can ask any questions you might have. ^^
