Saturday, May 9, 2015

Sakura Spirit - 15/20 hours

The deeper I get into this whole modification thing, the more I realize that it's a huge mistake. I'm finding it enjoyable to tinker with the script of the game, making it say things the creators never imagined, but who am I doing this for? The readers of this blog get to hear about it second-hand, but by-and-large, it's a private joke, amusing to one person, and never to be shared.

After tinkering with the script for a little bit, I came to the realization that my initial aim of rewriting the entire thing to be closer to my own aesthetic sensibilities was a whole lot of work for a project destined to be abandoned long before it was completed (don't judge me - does the world really want a polished version of Sakura Spirit). So I came up with a new idea that I hoped would be more modular - commentary mode.

What this mod does is add a "commentary track" to the game. And not a "ha, ha, look at how stupid this stuff is" MST3K-style track. Rather, I'm working from the conceit that all of the characters in the game are actually played by actors, and they, along with the director, have gathered together to do a DVD-style audio commentary for Sakura Spirit. Furthermore, no one realizes how bad a game it is, so it's actually the sort of earnest love-fest that you'll often see on commentary tracks for good and bad movies alike.

It amuses me to make up personalities and backstories for the different commentators. "The Director" is a pretentious auteur and "gaming insider" who thinks Sakura Spirit is a major work of art, and has nothing but praise for the cast. The actress who plays Koyomo, "Angel Heart," is trying to make a transition from h-games to more "legitimate" visual novels. The main character was chosen for his Judo ability, and isn't actually an actor. And so on.

As satire goes, it's pretty mild, and I can't help but wonder about the overlap between "people who play Sakura Spirit" and "nerds who listen to audio commentaries" (because that's the hypothetical target audience for this mod), but it's keeping me interested, and has the side effect of forcing me to read and re-read the original script to look for good places to insert commentary, which makes me feel like I'm being truer to the original spirit of the Decadent Gamer Challenge.

It's still a lot of work, though. I'd estimate that I'm about a tenth of the way through the script. I'll probably make faster progress as I get more into the voice of the characters, but I doubt I'll finish by the time I reach 20 hours, which kind of puts me into an awkward position. Do I leave the project hanging or do I see it through? The whole point of this exercise is to keep me amused with this game by making stupid jokes, plus I have no infrastructure in place for distributing or publicizing the mod, and no particular audience who's interested in running it, so all the factors point to just dropping it when the time comes.

However, I'm starting to feel a sentimental attachment to this little sub-project of mine. If I quit, then it was only ever a vanity, a personal folly to wile away the hours. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it does make me feel a little lonely.

Though perhaps not as lonely as discovering there is, in fact, no audience for a "fake commentary track to a sub-par visual novel" mod. If I never finish, I can always comfort myself with the thought that it would have been huge.

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