You've asked and we've answered! Thank you all for your lovely questions! Strap in, because this post will be a longer one!
Our first category is Game Content!
Twixxer56 asks: Will there be friend-zoned outcomes? And are they all actually cousins or it's a lie to cover multiversal travels or glitches?
"There are friendship outcomes that are the players choice in end. ... It's only towards date 3 that player gets to pick weather to date or just be friends with the skeleton. There hasn't been a stray from that yet."
Penn asks: Probably obvious, but are we gonna learn more about how the guys got into one big house in the game? Or is it going to be something left open for interpretation?
As for this question... no spoilers, but it will be discussed by some of the skeletons in their dates. ;)
@galaxyglitter99 asks: For everyone on the team, who's route are you most excited for?
"I'm biased I look forward to finishing Nox and seeing his route. However, I also look forward seeing Boss, Blue, Papyrus and Reds."
"I have a heavy Papyri bias, so I'm looking forward to all of their routes, but Stretch has always been my favorite!"
"I guess I'm pretty excited for Nox. Despite being his number one op, he did grow on me quite a lot so I'm interested to see where his story goes. I'm also eager to see Rus."
"I'm most looking forward to Boss' route, he's not what you expect from the jump and I really love his story."
-@/chrysanstarset, @/justasamwich, @/buttergriffin332, @/goatdadjaxx
@lovliaaaa asks: What inspired the names given to all of the characters? Is there any meaning to names or are they based on vibes?
"Red, Blue, and Stretch are all nicknames already common in the fandom. Fell Papyrus used to be called "Edge" but that was a bit demeaning to his experiences and personality, so he got "Boss" instead. Rus is also a common nickname, and the swapfell boys were originally based on the fanfic Dirty Laundry; he was called Rus there as well. Nox is a little pretentious and would probably want something that he would find personally fitting. So we decided on Nox, which IIRC means "Night". I don't fully recall where Rayne got Ash's name from. I do know it wasn't intended to be short for Ashley, and I believe the intention was to invoke both the tree and cremation. I actually recommended the name Poplar way back before I joined the project officially, back in early 2020 or even late 2019... It is also a tree that is common in graveyards, and starts with a P."
Moving on to questions about Writing!
LaughingLillian asks: Were there any scenes you didn’t use, and what were they?
"Not an omitted scene, but originally, all of Poplar's dates were written with them using he/him pronouns. This was changed after Poplar was confirmed genderfluid, and they now use they/them in their first date."
"There is a scene with a carriage that might be used or not. Most likely it will be repurposed, however it remains to be seen."
"I started co-writing for Rus after his dates were already locked-in; we did discuss some alternate ideas when I came on, but ultimately decided not to change what Jaxx had planned. I did end up using a few of those other ideas in his Valentine's Day 2025 one-shot, though!"
"I originally really wanted Stretch to have a scene with him... [spoiler] but decided against it. That seemed to be everyone’s first idea... back during the planning stage, so I tried to think of other ways for him to express himself."
-@/duskyskye, @/chrysanstarset, @/justasamwich, @/buttergriffin332
@teddy-the-queer-wizard asks: How do y'all solve disagreements and not get stuck finding the same story dull and repetitive due to over exposure?
"Just a matter of self expression I guess. Cause what’s dull/repetitive is really subjective to one’s self. I just try to make the emotion realistic and not try to poke fun at it."
"We plotted out each date location and general arc as a group before we started, that way we could avoid overlap. ... Each interpretation of the boys has traits that the writers enjoyed from other interpretations, as well as new traits and personal touches. Stories and character arcs will naturally differ between one writer's decisions on personality and background and another's. BHC is primarily character-driven so the characters are where the shake-ups occur."
"Since technically this work was passed onto me, I ended up looking up what was previously said before and making a guidebook for myself and seeing how I wanted to adapt it. I used a lot of different ideas that I found interesting, and ideas of friends to tie it all together. In the end, most of what I write tends to be listening about what this character needs and to have an open perspective of where they are coming from."
-@/buttergriffin332, @/duskyskye, @/chrysanstarset
feedmestraycats asks: How long has a typo gone unnoticed in the writing before someone caught it?
"To be honest, sometimes it really just takes someone else who isn't editing or looking at the script for a long time to notice it. After spending a long time reading scripts, your brain automatically fixes any typos to be normal when you're tired, or used to seeing the same words over and over. ... things might still slip through the cracks, but that's why having many eyes on it is a good thing."
"Honestly, with the number of scripts involved in BHC even before we go through multiple passes of editorial drafts, it's difficult to concretely say how long any one typo might stubbornly survive. I imagine the oldest ones will be those that, if any, sneak into the final game."
-@/chrysanstarset, @/justasamwich
Next are the questions about Art & VA!
@moonshadowtwilight asks: How long does it generally take to make a sprite for one character, after it's polished and all?
"If I lock in I can get a sprite fully finished in about two days. ... I did the sketches, I was able to mimic Rayne's style pretty closely, and I can get back into doing it easily. The line work is not difficult for me because other than it being in Rayne's style and not my own, the brush type and techniques are basically the same as my own. Coloring is easy, and the shading style is actually borrowed from my personal style so that is also really easy for me."
@fishinspace22 asks: I always wondered how the sprite art is incorporated into the code?
"Because we are using Ren'Py for our coding my explanation only really applies to Ren'Py as it's not the same for other programs. ...The Ren'Py tutorial really gives you the basics you need and including sprites.
It's pretty easy if your doing a basic visual novel. Just create a sprite image, label by the characters name or whatever name you gave them when defining the character in code and add the expression.
When you want to make a character emote you use this command:
show character happy
This is just rudimentary and there is technically many ways you can implement sprites into your game like defining your list of expressions for a character at the start of a script, using layered images, making animated sprites within the code and etc. ... I'm not an expert, but looking at lemma soft forums really helped seeing what methods people used for their own games."
LaughingLillian asks: What is your favourite outfit/design one of the skeletons have?
"Rus as the Sexy Dashcon Ballpit."
"I love Stretch's scarecrow costume, and Boss' [spoiler] from date [spoiler] because he looks so good in [spoiler] while you're [spoiler spoiler spoiler]."
-@/insanelyadd, @/justasamwich
Last, but certainly not least, Bee (@astralfloof) asks: What were all the VAs favorite lines to record so far? any notably funny bloopers?
"Rus is always fun to record. The whole passport sequence in the moving van was funny. Also recording Rus involves a lot of loose speech like mindless rambling and words so tends to cause bloopers of "word diarrhea " as I call it.
Sans and Ash were pretty easy. Like the "alright then keep your secrets" line from Sans. Also the "saved most awkward for last" Ash line you get specially for leaving them last to visit.
Boss so far is pretty chill besides the occasional cough here and there from rasping my voice."
"Every Nox line is fun, because his character practically requires every thing he says to be saturated with drama. But probably my favorite line specifically is when he's trashing Stretch's tastes in coffee. I got to inject so much venom into the words "nutmeg" and "cloves", in a way that very quickly tells you everything you need to know about the petty hills Nox will die on, and how much he absolutely will die on them."
-@/davetasticdave, @/improvidence318
That's all for now, folks!
As always, a HUGE thank you from our team to you for all of your support over the years. We can't express enough gratitude for all of your kind messages, your questions, and your presence. <3
