EVN Developer Spotlight: Reine Works (interview)

This interview was originally published on Fuwanovel Forums on March 16th 2018.

 

For the last few months, I’ve published reviews and top lists, presenting worthwhile or interesting OELVNs that usually have little presence on Fuwa and don’t get discussed as much as they deserve. From the very beginning, however, my goal was to focus not only on the games themselves, but also the people behind them – the independent creators and small studios that make the core of the Western VN market. Today, I present you with the first “Developer Spotlight” post, where I’ll be talking to Jackie M., the founder of Reine Works, authors of multiple yuri and otome VNs and the studio behind the recently-published otome title Seven Districts of Sin: The Tail The Makes the Fox, about the game’s somewhat-turbulent release and the realities of today’s OELVN market. Be sure to check out my review of the game first, where I also touch on its unusual appearance on Steam.

 

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Plk Lesiak: Hello and thank you for agreeing to this interview! Let’s start with your latest VN. It’s pretty rare for me to be the first person to rate a game on VNDB, especially four months after its release. What happened to The Tail Makes the Fox that it went so much below the radar of the VN community?

 

Jackie M.: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there are nearly as many users on VNDB who rate otome games, as compared to anything that could be construed as aimed at men. I took a quick look at some other developers' titles out of curiosity, and it seems that female-aimed titles in general tend to have very few votes. Funnily enough, I can confirm that we do get sales referrals from VNDB. We've had a few of them.

 

PL: For a few months, your VN was only available on Itch.io, a platform usually associated with free games. Regardless of other plans, what was your experience of trying to sell your title there?

 

JM: Itch.io isn't really a storefront where a developer can make a profit unless the game in question is very low budget, nor should they particularly expect to, what with the smaller userbase. From when pre-orders opened before release till today, itch.io sales have only amounted to roughly 1/4 of the game's development cost.
 

That said, we do like it, because it isn't subject to a lot of the restrictions that similar shops are, and transferring earned funds out is also much quicker than anywhere else that I'm aware of. We just wouldn't recommend that anyone only ever sell their games there.

Blossoms Bloom Brightest

 

PL:  Steam, to which your game made it only recently, is a pretty inclusive platform nowadays. Why the 4-month gap between The Tail Makes the Fox showing up on Itch.io and its Steam release?

 

JM: I could do a huge write-up on this, but to keep things short, we didn't previously have a publishing deal for Steam beforehand. Such agreements do take some time to sort out.
 

In fact, we never actually heard back from the first publisher that we contacted, even though they said they'd review the game and get back to us, all the way back in October. We waited for them for a while and then reviewed our other options and decided to contact another publisher, rather than wait any longer for them.

 

PL: What’s your experience with Steam as a marketplace for VN? Even within the OELVN niche, it feels pretty saturated lately.

 

JM: If you're asking for my general opinion on releases by anyone/everyone, then yes, I agree. In February alone, I noticed that around 5? Other new otome games popped up within days of The Tail Makes the Fox releasing.
 

Since this is only our first full commercial title on Steam, I unfortunately can't comment on general sales trends. We've been told by other developers that all game sales have decreased dramatically from when there was Greenlight, though.

 

PL: Let’s talk about the game itself. One of the ways in which it stands out from most OELVNs is the voice acting. Few western studios decide to risk such an investment – what was your rationale behind including full voiceover and how much it affected the development process when compared to your “silent” titles?

 

JM: Honestly, we're a small studio, and we like to make games we personally enjoy. Voice acting is just one of those things for us. It's that extra something that brings stories to life. In the past, we'd experimented with partial voicing (to mixed reception), and we knew we definitely wanted to try full voicing at least once, too.
 

As for how it affected development – it made it longer overall in an annoying way [laughter]. I do a lot of the development footwork myself, so I was also the one who had to cut the hours-worth of voice reels into individual clips, master them, and then edit them if necessary. I didn't get much sleep in the weeks leading up to release. There was also the trouble of having to recast one role literal days before release.
 

I don't think I'd recommend it to the faint of heart. And if/when we do it again, it'll only be for short titles.

The Seven Districts of Sin: The Tail Makes the Fox

 

PL: Still, one thing that was clear from your posts about the continuation of The Tail Makes the Fox is that it will be significantly larger in scale. Will it follow the same formula, when it goes to voice-acting and the variety of art assets?

 

JM: For the most part, yes. We actually had the artwork for Episode 1 finished well before release, so we don't expect that to be an issue this time, either. As I've mentioned elsewhere, however, we're considering releasing an unvoiced edition first to ensure that we can get everything done in time.

 

PL: Have you ever considered cancelling the further episodes, considering the rather slow momentum of the first game?

 

JM: No. If I may be so blunt, that would be a dick move on our part. It seems to happen a lot with OELVN developers, I've noticed, but we don't plan to end up in that group. Heck, we've had Episode 2 in development since November.

 

PL: About the general ideas behind your work. While otomege are a huge part of the OELVN market, they are also pretty distinct from their Japanese sources, ex. in how they present female characters. What are your thoughts on JP otome VNs and you would name any of them as inspiration for your own projects?

 

JM: Yes, definitely. I personally enjoy JP otome games a lot. As long as the translation isn't Engrish, I'll buy it, even if the premise isn't my cup of tea. They aren't exactly the kinds of games you go into expecting strong female leads or anything, but I do generally find their ways of storytelling very interesting.
 

We actually didn't have a specific inspiration for The Tail Makes the Fox. Gaki, one of the characters in the game, is the embodiment of Ashe’s (the game's writer) and my hatred for the "flirt" archetype of love interest in Japanese otome games, though. We shoved all that hatred into him and decided to... Majorly play up those traits, as anyone who's played the game or demo will have noticed.
 

Reflections ~Dreams and Reality~ and The Wilting Amaranth are both based on Western fairy tales, and Blossoms Bloom Brightest is loosely based on a more Star Trek-like idea I had for a larger title. Our upcoming larger otome title, Mizari Loves Company, is sort of meant to be a Western take on JP-style otome games, but it's not actually based on anything specific. It actually started as a parody idea, similar to The Tail Makes the Fox.

 

PL: On your Itch.io profile, you write that you create games “aimed at women of all orientations” – yuri games, and otome with a high number of yuri routes are pretty commonly enjoyed by men. Do you know what kind of audience your games usually reach?

 

JM: If you mean our general audience, then it's pretty even in terms of gender, based on the information available to us. The games with male love interests always have more sales from women than men, though.

Reflections ~Dream and Reality~

 

PL: Do you think there’re any fundamental differences between Japanese yuri romances, targeted towards a male audience and the games you make for the Yuri Game Jam or yuri routes in your otome titles?

 

JM: For sure. The big one seems to be that Japanese yuri titles are very focused on the girls being young and overly pure and such (ex., SonoHana and even Kindred Spirits to an extent), as well as the popular titles almost strictly using moe-style artwork. This also applies to yuri-themed manga and anime, in my experience, so it seems to be a very cultural thing, perhaps similar to how JP otome game protagonists are often very submissive.
 

As a Western WLW myself, I can honestly say that those sorts of yuri titles don't appeal to me. I'd like to see actual adults with adult relationships interact, all depicted in a more mature bishoujo style. Even better if they're formatted similar to otome and bishoujo games, with proper character routes. Perfect if they're set anywhere that isn't a school.
 

So, yeah, we're just trying to make games that appeal to our own sensibilities as Westerners. I personally think that's a pretty huge difference in itself.
 

Relevant tangent: Funnily enough, though, I've been accused of both being a man and pandering to dudes because we generally don't write our female characters as chaste or innocent.

 

PL: Can you say which titles these comments were connected to? Your games seem very tame in comparison to ecchi OELVNs popular on the western market, or even some Yuri Game Jam entries.

 

JM: The comments I mentioned were all referencing Blossoms Bloom Brightest and yes, the game itself is very tame and contains no sexual content or nudity. And it's always men who make these assumptions. I'm not really sure what that says about men's views of real life WLW, but there you go.

 

PL: Thank you for your time!

 

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I hope you've enjoyed the review! Please feel encouraged to check out Reine Works' page on Itch.io. Also, all feedback on the interview itself or the kind of questions you would like to see in the future will be hugely appreciated. Have a great week everyone!