Shining Song Starnova: Idol Anime Themed Visual Novel!

Length of Shining Song Starnova
almost 7 years ago – Sat, Sep 02, 2017 at 12:46:10 PM

For this update, let's talk about something important to many backers: How many words are in the game's script?

As a disclaimer, the amount of words in a script does not necessarily equate to the amount of *content* in a game. For example, Sunrider: Liberation Day had fewer words in the script than Sunrider Academy, but we still made more assets for it thanks to Liberation Day having numerous other features not in Academy, including mechas and a tactical turn based gameplay engine.

For a visual novel like Shining Song Starnova though, the amount of words in the scenario should roughly translate to the amount of hours you're going to spend with the game. For this visual novel, we wanted to create something really big. With seven routes for each of the girls, this will be the longest scenario we've ever created.

More accurately, the scenario for Shining Song Starnova will be about as long as every single title we've ever released in the past ten years put together!

The scenario currently rests at 340 000 words as of the writing of this update. However, the 340,000 words only includes the common route, Nemu, Mariya, Mika, and Julie's routes. Once Nattan, Aki, and Sasami's routes are complete, the full scenario is projected to be 500,000 words long.

With that in mind, let's check out what Starnova's scenario length looks like compared to our other titles.

As the chart shows, Starnova is the most story-intensive game we've ever created. But why are the other games so much shorter, you ask? Like we said, scenario length isn't everything. For example, Liberation Day's mechas and gameplay adds an incredible amount to the budget.

 Now let's check out what this graph looks like if we combine everything we've ever made, versus just Starnova.

As you can see, Shining Song Starnova, when complete, will have as many words as everything we've made in the past ten years! Whew, now that's progress! If you like story heavy titles, then you should be interested in what Shining Song Starnova has to offer.

And now, just for fun, let's compare our own data with a novel series you might have heard of...

 Looking at the numbers, Starnova is longer than the entire Lord of the Rings novel trilogy!

Thanks to the progress we've made over the years, we will be able to write a scenario which, quite honestly, has no equal compared to our other works. However, making a visual novel of this scope is not an easy task. We've already worked for over a year to make Shining Song Starnova, and will be working hard throughout the rest of the year to deliver the grand story of our seven idols.

Making the Starnova OST + Mika Daki Preview
almost 7 years ago – Sat, Sep 02, 2017 at 12:45:44 PM

Hi everyone!

We've got 11 days and a little over 5,000 dollars to go until we hit our funding goal! As always, thank you so much for your support thus far~ Today, we have two new updates. The first one is a preview of the daki for our lovable chuuni-chan, Mika!

Just below, we also have a quick message from Seycara Orchestral, the group behind Starnova's soundtrack. Check it out, and like always, thanks for your support!

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Making the Starnova OST 

At Seycara Orchestral, we take pride in our signature Studio Ghibliesque style that hails from both modern popular music and classical influences. For the OST of Shining Song Starnova, we were tasked with creating pieces that were not only of professional, AAA anime quality, but something that was special and set itself clearly apart from the perfunctory soundtracks of most other visual novels. With this in mind, we set to work using not only our top of the line production studio and software, but also hiring some of the best musicians we could find to record them for each piece.

We started each piece with some reference/place holder tracks to get an idea of the atmosphere we want. Then, we would use a notation software or blank sheet music to start sketching out some ideas. After recording some of these drafts in studio or rendering them with software, we would discuss these with Love in Space to craft each completed piece as a glove fit for the scenes they were intended for. The end result of this process was an album of tracks that not only perfectly complemented the visual novel, but would not feel out of place in a Miyazaki film! In the Starnova OST, you will find that each track has a beautiful "studio" air to it that provides just enough soundstage and reverb to sound lively all the while remaining clear; this is due to both our carefully setup recording environment as well as our production engineer that professionally mixes and masters each track's raw material according to its individual requirements.

Seycara Orchestral is proud to present our sixth visual novel production: The Shining Song Starnova orchestral OST available to you soon through Sekai Project!

Check out a preview of the main theme, "Starnova!"

Set Design In Shining Song Starnova
almost 7 years ago – Thu, Aug 24, 2017 at 07:02:46 PM

One of our key goals when making Shining Song Starnova is that the visual aesthetics of Japan get faithfully represented in our work.

Even though Japan's a far cry from what we usually see in sunny San Diego (well, we don't see much of that either since we're working inside most of the time), we have over 25 GB+ of reference photography we've taken in Japan throughout the years. And of course, in the age of Google, we can always get reference pictures from the comfort of home as well.

Technology really has come a long way, and not only can we now gather reference photographs on the Internet, but we can utilize 3D modeling programs to simplify the production of complicated backgrounds.

Take for example, one of the more complicated sets in the game: The office where Producer-san and the girls work at. Since we knew that the office was going to be one of the most commonly seen locations in the game, we really put a lot of work into getting the details right.

First, let's start with the view from outside the office.

 So imagine yourself standing outside the office, which is on the second floor of the building to the right. Below the office, there's the dance studio where the girls practice.

Since we love unnecessary detail around these parts, we wanted both the office and the dance studio to be actually in the building. So if you go inside the dance studio like this...

 ...You can still see the same street you were standing in a moment ago, out the window! And as an added bonus, the mirrors on the dance studio also work as well, reflecting the chair and white board from the outside, while reflecting the blue vending machine from the inside.

Once you go upstairs into the actual office, you can once again see the right parts of the street out the window.

 How is this possible? Well, everything is just inside one huge 3D model, like this.

From this back view of the office building, you can see that the dance studio and office actually occupy the first and second floors of the building, allowing for a fully accurate depiction of the surrounding area.

From this back view of the office building, you can see that the dance studio and office actually occupy the first and second floors of the building, allowing for a fully accurate depiction of the surrounding area.

This is just one example out of the many, many locations in the game. But at least it was fun making this model.

Check out these other backgrounds and the details too.

Update + 2 Daki Designs
almost 7 years ago – Fri, Aug 18, 2017 at 11:34:33 AM

Hey everyone!

We're already 2/3 of the way to our goal, so thank you very much to everyone who has supported the campaign and helped to spread the word! There's plenty of time left, so please tell all your friends! Stretch goals will be revealed once the initial funding goal is hit...

We've got episode 3 of the Starnova Netshow coming out in just a few days, but to tide you over until then, we've got something a lot of people have been asking about: previews of the daki rewards! Love In Space are currently working hard to finish the designs, so Aki and Mariya, shown below, are the only ones that have been completed thus far. We'll keep updating each time a new girl gets their daki completed, though! Obviously, what's shown below is only one side of the daki - if you wanna see the backs, check out this page. Just don't click the link if you're at work! Unless you're like us, and your workplace is cool with that sort of thing.

As always, thanks for your support of Starnova!