Hi, Loverwatchers! I'm Damon, the writer of Bastion's route. It's been amazing seeing everyone's reactions to our sneak peeks, and I'm equal parts thrilled and terrified to see how players respond to the full release.
This post is about three exciting things. Firstly, I'm going to give you a look into our production process. Next, I'll talk about the unique challenges of writing Bastion as a character. Finally, at the end, I'll wrap up with a progress update. Don't worry - the end of production is in sight!
Producing Fangames for Fun and (no) Profit
The Loverwatch team is comprised of professional game developers. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean we're immune to the pitfalls of game development. We maybe scoped too big in terms of wordcount - we're well on track to hit 150,000 words when you combine all the routes, which is... a lot of words. For comparison, that's a larger wordcount than the scripts of games like Final Fantasy XIII, Deus Ex, and Dark Souls. That being said, since Loverwatch is a visual novel and not a AAA-quality RPG, you should expect between three and five hours of playtime between all the routes, depending on your reading speed.
Writing that many words takes a long time, and dealing with Life Stuff takes even longer. So, for any of you who've felt disappointed by the delays in production, we're very sorry! We're just humans, and we're doing our best to make this free game for you.
ANYWAY: you don't want to hear about that! You came here for blackjack, and a peek into the production process!
One of the larger considerations we've had to take into account while working on Loverwatch is keeping the content in line with what Blizzard is generally okay with, so we don't get DMCAed. That means no M-rated content, which causes us to move more towards nuanced character interaction and less towards sex and violence. There's plenty of that in the Overwatch fandom already, so we don't feel any need to put that in Loverwatch.
With that in mind, what we're concentrating on in our stories is examining how the different characters bounce off of each other. Mei, in particular, is a hugely fun character to write for, and we think you'll love her even more than you already do after playing through both her route and Bastion's route, in which she's also a major character.
Here's an example of a Mei scene from the Bastion route:
Mei makes fingerguns at you.
Mei: Better watch it, kid! You know what they do to spies 'round these parts...
Player: ... What do they do to spies around here?
Player: I get the feeling that "they" is actually "you".
Mei: I don't know what you're talking about! They definitely get someone else to freeze spies who is absolutely not me!
Why, yes, she is yandere as hell. That's not important right now, though. What's important is that she'll support our player character through thick and thin, even if that sometimes involves judicious use of her endothermic blaster.
Bastion, on the other hand, is much more complex. You see, it doesn't speak in words. Instead, it speaks in actions and nonspecific vocalizations, and the player character spends a not-insignificant amount of time just trying to understand it. It's obvious from The Last Bastion that our robotic friend is a complex and deeply troubled character, and doing that justice in Loverwatch is my number one priority.
The machine is looking at you. The light on its head has changed from yellow to green, and, most curious of all, the bird has climbed onto its hand, and from there, onto its head.
Player: Mei... what's going on?
You hear the sounds of furious typing, as well as urgent, whispered commands to an AI.
Mei: Ah. Don't drop your guard yet.
Player: Why?! I'm staring down the barrel of a gigantic gun, I'd like some concrete-
Mei: It's a Bastion-class unit. Specifically, an SST Laboratories Siege Automaton model E54.
Mei: A few dozen of these leveled the town down the hill. I guess this one must have only been lightly damaged in the fighting.
She almost sounds... a little angry. And scared. Understandable. Imagine sending a recruit out on their first mission, only to have them face down an abandoned omnic soldier.
I don't want to say too much about Bastion's route. I do, however, want to make sure that our followers know that I'm doing my best to approach the story with feeling and nuance. This isn't a story about teaching a robot to love, and I can't promise that it's got a happy ending, but I can promise that you'll get The Feels. Hopefully.
The Light at the End of the Tunnel
In terms of writing, we're getting there. It's been a slog, honestly. Apparently announcing a game means that Murphy's Law is exponentially more likely to strike you down repeatedly. Fun, right? I'm over halfway through Bastion's route - around 30k words - and Lucy and Saf, our writers for Genji and Mei's routes, respectively, are even further along.
Everything else is going swimmingly, fortunately: our music (by Chris Kukla) and art (by sharkees and demkiwichans are essentially done, and implementation of the script is happening very quickly. Mike, our programmer and project manager, is doing most of the work on that.
Overall, we're on track for a release... soon? It's not a great idea to set a concrete date at this point, but we'll keep you updated. Promise.
Priority one is getting the game done. We might go radio silent for a bit, but we promise we won't quit! We've put far too much time into this to stop now!
One thing you can expect, though, is a blogpost from our very own Saf, writer of Mei's route. I have no idea what it'll be about, but if it's anywhere near as good as her script, you're in for a treat.
Damon out! Stay lovey-dovey, everyone!
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