Interview with JDWasabi Studios
ReadCon: What have you been up to since ReadCon 2013?
JDWasabi Studios: Outside of JDWasabi Studios, my time mostly revolves around my work with Grimm Bros, where I write music for their upcoming game 'Dragon Fin Soup'. Some of my music work is featured in their trailer which you can check out here
I also do other activities like Javanese Gamelan, Japanese Taiko drumming, exploring new coffee shops and drinking tea. Tea's great.
RC: It’s your second anniversary-what’s been your favourite moment of the two years you’ve been working on visual novels?
JDWS: JDWasabi Studios is not a typical indie game development company; our primary focus is for members to work on creative projects for self improvement and portfolio work. We're essentially an open indie game development team.
The moments that have really stood out for me have been seeing the commitment and dedication shown through our member's work on our visual novel project 'Hungry Whispers'. It makes me particularly happy to see the amount of personal growth in members now compared to when they first joined. It is a positive and encouraging experience for our team and it shows that JDWasabi Studios works, which makes me want to keep it up even more!
RC: Are there things you wish you’d done differently/improved upon in those two years?
JDWS: That is a difficult question to answer since we focus on the 'learning' approach in JDWasabi Studios. I guess I would approach problems a little differently now than I would have in the past. This ranges from encouraging group productivity, being realistic to new members and being frustrated with my own lack of creative input. There is no set way of dealing with problems but with time and experience, tackling problems has eventually got less stressful.
A funny thing happened at ReadCon2013 actually. We marketed a new demo for the convention and there was a mad rush to finish it only to realise that our programmer used the wrong cutscene for it – making the story not make any sense. We decided not to show that demo, but we instead focused on our previous demo and used the amazing marketing technique of “DO YOU LIKE GAMES”. In-house communication could have been better there at that moment.
At the end of the day things can always be improved because nothing is ever perfect. Mistakes and errors will always happen. Whatever can go wrong will go wrong. The ride will almost never be smooth sailing. The most important elements are preparation, and how to react, build and improve on what you already know.
RC: What is Hungry Whispers about? What work have you done on the game so far?
JDWS: Hungry Whispers follows the plight of Yu Ling, a doctor struggling to cope with the death of a young patient. Set in an amalgamated Asia sometime in the near future and during religious period 'Ghost Month', ghosts and spirits are visiting the living from the underworld, and ghostly apparitions and hauntings are becoming ever more prominent for Yu. Are they the product of Yu's trauma or do they have a more sinister origin?
Hungry Whispers has been through many stages and evolutions since our first beta demo. So far the story has been expanded into an over arching plot structure that actually makes sense and the antagonist has been re-defined. It is still early days but hopefully many elements and original ideas from the first beta will still shine through in the finished product.
RC: What would you regard as your influences?
JDWS: The early Silent Hill games and their music will always be a major influence on me. The relationship between game and audio design is beautiful and creates an amazing gaming experience. Simple and effective games like Phoenix Wright and Hotel Dusk also deserve a special mention for their story telling and lasting impression.
The game industry (particularly the indie game areas) is filled with passionate people and it's great to be a part of it. I hope my work with JDWasabi Studios will become a significant contribution, if not help other creatives achieve their dreams of working in this vibrant industry.
RC: What are you working on at the moment?
JDWS: Hungry Whispers is currently coming out of its pre-production stage and entering production. The script for the first chapter is being worked on by concept artists and finalised by the writing team. Once some artwork andstoryboards have been worked on and finalised, programming, music and other bits can begin to be put together. It's all rather exciting!
RC: What are you looking forward to at ReadCon 2014? What are your ambitions between now and then?
Working with the lovely ReadCon staff is an honour and a pleasure so it'll be great to work with the guys again. I'm looking forward to meeting new people, hopefully inspiring others and having the opportunity to appreciate the passion of the otaku/gaming culture in a fun environment.
My ambitions back then were to a) create a game for my portfolio and b) use it to get a job in the industry. Now that b) is technically fulfilled, my current aim is to help others achieve their own goals of 'getting into' the game industry and show that with work and dedication, anything is possible!
We would like to thank JDWasabi Studios for their time, and look forward to seeing them at ReadCon 2014! The Demo of Hungry Whispers can be played here
