Daily VA-11 Hall-A 2022 #4

So, fun fact: There was a period between the release of the Prototype and the final release of  Prologue where we weren’t sure if we wanted a main character gender choice or to have a main character set in stone.

We had named the bartender of the Prototype Gillian after Gillian Seed from Snatcher, but after that we toyed with the idea of a blank slate style of main character, maybe the player can pick between a guy and a girl. We already had the name Gillian so we tentatively called the hypothetical girl version Jillian or Julianne.

At that stage we actually made more illustrations playing with the concept of a female stand-in because… well… we like girls. However, during the development of Prologue, a problem started to rear its head. A problem that other stories with a similar approach had a precedent on how to fix.

Take for example the manga Bartender that we mentioned a couple of days ago. For those unaware, the manga takes place in Eden Hall, a small bar in Ginza manned by Ryu Sasakura, a bartender prodigy that, after hearing about whatever troubles that chapter’s client, makes just the right drink to soothe their soul and put them on a better path.

Sounds familiar? There’s more Bartender influences to discuss later on still, don’t worry.

However, Ryu isn’t as much of a character since his role is just to listen and serve a drink, as such the story tends to have Miwa Kurushima in the mix as a regular of the bar. This is because if your story is a revolving door of clients and the bartender doesn’t have much of an arc, then the reader isn’t gonna have any continuity or familiarity to cling onto the story. Even other stories in a similar vein like The Laughing Salesman tend to have a main character that, even without an arc, has a big personality to compensate for that.

So if the choices are: “add a regular to ground things” or “give the character a bigger personality” then… might as well settle for a proper main character with its own character arc.

However, during the original release of Prologue in 2014, the bartender character was just called “Bartender” by everyone. No name given, no insight given, just enough of a personality to make the conversations flow. Which sure made it all the funnier when the final game released and there were people complaining that they preferred “the Prologue’s bartender” instead of Jill.

But then again, I also saw people baffled because they believed the bartender to have been “an android” so it’s safe to say that people just… talk without thinking. A lot.

Because of this Bartender situation, however, Deal and Betty occupy a very specific spot in my head.

When I wrote Dorothy, Jamie, and Alma into the full version of the game, it felt like I was finally doing good by them (especially in the case of Alma), giving them proper focus and attention, exploring the potential they had at that point. Even Gillian from the Prototype is a really early beta version of his final self.

But when I added Deal and Betty to the full game they felt, to me, more like cameos of a completely different story, main characters of another product dropping by to say hi… because they kinda are.

Even if I retroactively made it so they were served by Jill in the new Prologue, originally Deal and Betty had their own arc in their own iteration of the game, one without Jill or anything else from the current iteration.

And I think this is why I didn’t feel the same need I had for Dorothy and Alma to write them more or make them pivotal to Jill’s arc. I love Deal and Betty, but their story was done in my head, even if the story wasn’t that consequential they did their time and were now enjoying the rest. They were the old main characters giving their blessing to the new ones.

This post was only tangential to the Prologue, but if you’re playing along then today’s the day for Prologue’s Day 3, which you can find pressing the + button on the title screen.

Tomorrow we go into the Anna Demo, and oh boy do I have a lot to say for that one.