Hello all. Well, I'm getting ready to do a trailer soon and I have two voice actresses at this moment. Neither are professional voice actresses but they are both quite skilled. I'm going to keep them secret for now but I'll make the announcement once their content is in the game files or on the trailer.
Which brings up some questions.
1: Do I want voice acting in the game?
I do, but I want it to be tied to the text and skippable. Much as I love Legend of Queen Opala, not being able to skip the voice acting was VERY annoying.
2: Do you want to volunteer?
I'm always open to female fans doing voices for the game. You'll need a skype account and a decent mic. Dropbox so I can give you scripts quickly wouldn't hurt either.
A quick note for volunteers: Just like artists you are free to keep your work and show it around elsewhere if you like, I'll promote you on the blog (and include a link to the site of your choice) and you'll get listed in the game credits. You can of course work under a pseudonym.
3: Do you want me to pay professionals to do voices in the game?
If so, this is an area where I'm going to need some donation based assistance. With the art paid for this is something else I can look into. However, I don't know what the costs will be or where to hire girls yet. This is something I need to look into.
I will stick to volunteers unless you all think paid VA's are a good idea. If you do, I'll look into researching costs and setting up a new donation goal for VA's.
Let me know your choice.
Voice increases filesize. Bad voice makes me mute the game.
ReplyDeleteTrouble with voice-acting is that it's so easy for it to be terrible.
ReplyDeleteAnd whether it's terrible or not is so subjective, far beyond visual art.
AND even stellar voice acting doesn't add nearly as much erotic value to a sex vidyagame as "reasonably acceptable" art would add, so it seems to me like it's a chance to do srs harm, on the negative side, coupled with a chance to provide minimal benefit, on the positive side.
I'd probably say skip the voice acting on the whole, but even if you didn't do that, there's no way in hell I'd suggest actually paying for it.
Cool that some chicks are enthusiastic enough about the project to volunteer though.
Typically, hiring voice actors/actresses is better for quality. This project, however doesn't seem like it will be big enough to need pros to do the work. I would say, if you go the voice acting route, that volunteers are the best option on this specific project. If you decided to have the male characters voiced, I would be happy to help.
ReplyDeleteArt >>> sound, in my opinion :)
ReplyDeleteAnd while I'm sure paid would be better, I would doubt whether it'd be that much better, unless you're paying a ton, just based on the voice acting that's undoubtedly paid for it crappy low budget video games..
let me put it as simply as i can. Most games MUSIC selection makes me shut off my sound. Honestly VA just ain't worth it.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteIf you do add in voice acting you should make it an option that can be turned off completely or has its own volume slider so that anyone who finds they don't like whatever you are able to get for voice acting can turn it off or turn it down.
ReplyDeleteMy opinion being if you do go with voice actors don't pay for it unless you REALLY want to.
Dr. Grant thinks it's a very bad idea.
ReplyDeleteAw come now don't you understand that CZ is not content with simply making an excellent RPG-M based eroge but rather that he must reform the entire gaming industry as we know it?!
DeleteSeriously after VA we can expect a poll about how viable partnership with facebook/oculus is and of course whether NASA would be willing to feature Overwhored™ on the new space station... :)
I believe one of the reasons why Fenoxo's Corruption of Champions is so popular, is because it leaves quite a lot to the players imagination. What the person sounds like, how they look, and while it gives a brief history of the heroine and the land, it explain everything and still leaves something that people can imagine a few things about their slaves/lovers. Also the sheer volume of choices involved when copulating, and a good amount of choices in dialogue.
DeleteI believe instead of worrying about voice actors, Cypress should worry more about filling the game with more general content. I mean if Fenoxo focused as much on the story line as Cypress did he'd be done with Corruption of Champtions by now, whereas Cypress lacks content that doesn't have to do with the general storyline.
The only problem that comes with creating more content is eventing, and creating a lot of content is going to involve a lot of eventing and variables. Oh yeah, and lots of artwork, Cypress seems to use art and not just text and all of his characters so far have been unique and original, (meaning he can not delve into the depths of the internet to seach through the vast swaths of pornographic images to implement in his game) I can see that becoming a problem. Though he might be able to get some fans to draw some art or commission some artists.
Valid points but
DeleteA: Doing randomized events like you suggest is much more difficult to pull off in RPGM then in a custom flash engine
B: Commissioning artists costs money, a lot of it and fan art even if it's good enough, is usually too different in style
Don't tempt me. Astronaut girls are my fetish.
ReplyDeleteAsstronauts huh? And here I was thinking you were a boobs kind of guy, although I can understand the appeal of "unwraping" them. ^_^
DeleteIn moderation voice acting couldn't hurt and could improve the experience. Having small conversations or orgasm sounds hidden in the land as easter eggs would be awesome!
ReplyDeleteHowever, even good voice acting can get annoying if it gets repetitive. Take the new South park game, its hilarious, its unique, I love the voices... But the repetitive complaints about how slow you are moving and the repetitive voices every time you use an ability during combat makes me want to break something :-P
I'm going to have to agree with the majority here, no voice acting. At best it can enhance the experience, but its never seemed to enhance it enough in a eroge game to make it worth paying for. When (fingers crossed) you and everyone involved in the #hgamedesign group are able to found a gaming company with more complex games then you should start looking for voice actors. (By the way the Irc.rizon.net doesn't work for me)
ReplyDeleteThrowing my opinion in with the other fellows that have said "If there is voice acting, please have the option to turn it off".
ReplyDelete