And a more structured, proper Q&A on the game itself. Written by a buddy who I'm 90% sure is using ChatGPT.
Q - "How do your friends react when they see their D&D characters (Kaas, Keito, Leran, etc.) in the game? Have they ever complained about how you portrayed them?"
A - "Actually, most of them are really appreciative. The player for Keito was glad that I showed his long term OC the respect he deserved. And the player for Leran is still my lore guy. The player for Kaas is a goofy goober and the player for Sylvanna doesn't play the game. Kaori's a sub character for Keito so same guy."
Q - "You mentioned you really like the protagonist of your new WIP game. Without spoiling too much, what is their vibe compared to the cast of LoA?"
A - "The cast of LoA is funny because they're functional screwups in a found family dynamic. The cast of our new game, Adventure Redux: From Zero to Zero, is a remake of the original ARx. They're significantly less moral and a bit less lovable than the cast of LoA. They're designed to be the worst in a love-to-hate sense. This is also my first time genuinely trying to write an isekai, so I'm making things a bit less sincere. LoA is, deep down, a very sincere love letter to the JRPG genre. So I'd say this new one's a bit more cynical than the last." It definitely has heart. But it's definitely been given more of a bite.
Q - "As someone heavily inspired by Mitsukiyo and early Touhou music, how do you go about composing or selecting tracks that capture that specific nostalgic, piano-driven, or high-energy feeling?"
A - "I'm going to be very real with you, I usually start off by whistling something offhandedly, when I think it's really good, I run to my computer, try to ape it, fail a bit, and come out with something funny. I then use an auto mastering tool like Bandlab or Soundcloud's to make it sound less robotic and after a day or two it usually comes out acceptable."
Q - "You mentioned a love for Stephen Crane and William Blake's poetry. Does any of that dark, romantic, or realist imagery find its way into the lore of LOA, or do you keep those influences strictly separate from your writing?"
A - "It's a running joke from the D&D campaign. I would use poetry to signal an event that was exceptionally absurd and surreal. And eventually every time I'd start quoting Stephen Crane, our lore guy would tell me to go fuck myself. It's hilarious."
Q - "As an electric motorcycle rider, what model do you ride? Has your daily commute or any close calls with bad drivers ever inspired an encounter or a character's dialogue in the game?"
A - I drive a Yadea, I don't know the model offhandedly but it's all angular and they made me get a yellow plate for it. If I put anything close to what I say to bad drivers on the road we'd be banned for hate speech in an hour.
Q - "Since Linne is both your favorite and the strongest character in the lore, how did her concept come about? Is she a game-original, or did she have roots in your D&D campaign?"
A - "Both I guess? She's a character from D&D for sure, but during the adaptation, we kind of merged her with Est from Adventure Redux. And eventually it became a bit of both. Though it's still more D&D. I still recall them meeting her, a woman in white dragging a rapier deep in the forest during summer, standing in a snowy field of forget me not flowers surrounding a white leafed tree. Alongside one of the last sessions, where the players fought an illusory copy and survived all of 3 turns before calling Ruby and breaking the illusion because it couldn't handle the processing power of two avatars fighting. It was admittedly extremely creative."
Q - "Was Leran always a dagger user in the original campaign, or did you change their weapon when translating them into the game?"
A - "For the first bit of the campaign? Yeah. He used the sword of sacrifice. But unfortunately he switched to a plain knife and staff in order to maximize casting. I liked the Sword of Sacrifice more though so we just made it a what if in the game that became what we now know as Cut Strings.
Q - "Since you're down to a two-man team (you and your assistant), how do you divide the workload? Who handles what when it comes to art, programming, and music implementation?"
A - "Jolla's still learning but right now he helps find typos and bounce ideas while we start on his own project. I'm confident it's secondary flagship material, might be even better than LoA. Though for now most of the actual LoA game is all me..."