The Sound of Fireworks: The Haiku
TSOF: The Haiku is now Free-to-Play!
It's been a very exciting 10 months since launch, and I'm happy for all the people who have kept up with the game, RT'd every sale, and took the time to play the game. I very much expected maybe, 10 people to buy the game? And while my sell count is nothing like other games out there, it's a very humbling experience for someone to take their hard earned money and play something you made. I'll never be able to thank you enough.
That said, over the past few months I've noticed the only times the game really gains traction or copies sold are during sales, which are few and far between. When I created TSOF, I never expected a total return on my investment, and frankly I put the price point where it was for the sole purpose of wanting to get the most people to try the game. But after giving it a lot of thought, I'd rather people...just play the game. Money wasn't the main benefactor and it never will be.
So I've decided to make TSOF Free-To-Play.
If you've purchased the game, I'll never be able to thank you enough for entrusting $5 (or $2.50) to play my dream. If you've been waiting to play the game, take this invitation to finally try the game out! Leave a review! Let me know what you think of it!
For what's next? I'm trying to carve some time to write a side project before potentially going back to TSOF for its potential sequel. Being self-funded and keeping most of the game responsibilities to myself make development times long but cheap enough that I can sink $4,000-$6,000 into these projects and not be financially kneecapped. I don't wanna do Kickstarter since deadlines are fluid for me and to be completely fair: visual novels have a tough time making numbers for that, and I don't want to feel that failure of not hitting that goal. I'll just pay for it myself lol
Thanks for everything y'all have done with me, and I hope y'all are just as receptive to what I do in the future!
Best,
Kyle
The Sound of Fireworks: The Haiku is OUT NOW!
We finally made it.
1.0.
After three long years, a collective sigh of relief and a very heartfelt thank you is now in order! Amimi's story is now available for purchase (and at a 20% discount as a thank you for picking it up within the first week) and we couldn't be happier to finally have the game done for you all to play.
There are far too many people to thank, but to everyone who has helped with the title in a technical or emotional standpoint:
THANK YOU!
And now...
Let Amimi tell you a story of hers.
Best,
TSOF Team
The Sound of Fireworks: The Haiku will launch June 24th!
Proud, excited, nervous?
Right now we are feeling a lot of emotions. But after 3 years of creating and fine tuning an original story and over 400 in-game hours of crafting it into a full-fledged Visual Novel, The Sound of Fireworks: The Haiku will be releasing here on Steam and Itch.io on June 24th.
About time!
Yeah, you said it. lol
So, how much are we talking?
Since we now have a finalized release date, we now have a finalized price point.
We will be releasing TSOF: The Haiku for $4.99, with a small discounted sale for the first week for early buyers as a thank you.
So where are we now?
On the final stretch, something that we felt like would never show up but here we are. We'll save the popping of champagne until after the game is out but it's a very amazing feeling of relief and pride seeing the game completely done and we cannot wait to see you all enjoy it!
Also, a BIG BIG BIG thank you to everyone who has their fingerprints on this game to help us finish this small project that became something so much bigger than we imagined. From our amazing voice actors to all the artists showing their ridiculous skills to every single one of you all out there on the internet who took the time to Wishlist the game: all of you mean so much to us!!!
Seriously, thanks again for being so so so patient, and we hope the wait is worth it!
Best,
TSOF Team
Game Progress Update - 3/3/2022
Winter has come and gone and Spring is almost upon us! It's been almost 5 months since we last spoke, so we wanted to give an idea of what's been going on and what's on the map going forward.
An update on our previous log:
Back in October we pointed out we were implementing some new additions to our game, below is how those are going:
A game website:
Our website has been up and running for about a month or so now and [patting my back - Kyle] it looks great! Some things may be tweaked here or there but all in all, website's solid.
Voice Acting:
Yesterday we were pleased to announce our Voice Actors helping bring the voices of our characters to life! Please let me welcome:
Character Name - Voice Actor / Twitter Handle:
Amimi - Hesketts / @thehesketts
Uta - Pascal Casimier / @pcasi_va
Hina - Hannah Dove / @HannahDoveVA
Aiko - Keidi Tabing / @HeidiTabing
Kenta - Drew Kocour / @dregtheotaku
Takumi - Nick Chang / @CloverHouraisan
Zuki - Ken Hoang Vo / @Komi_Ken_Art
They are currently working on their lines to be done in the next month or so and we're super excited to see everything come to life in the visual and the audio!
Post-Game Scenes:
Our Post-Game scenes have been scripted and now the art and voice work is being currently worked on. Hopefully not too much longer on these, but these will be small scenes to bridge the game to a potential sequel!
So where are we now?
Currently on a good path forward! Work is moving steadily and we're almost done with all the main assets to the game (Art, Scripts, Voicework). Once those are done, we will be internally working on QA with a few people to test issues outside the developer bubble and make sure everything works before announcing a release date. To give ourselves and the voice actors a comfortable timeframe to work on things, We are scooting our release date to this Summer. Hopefully this will be the last time we need to scoot our release date back since we are making some fantastic progress towards completing the game.
Next time we talk, we should have a finalized release date ready to go!
Thanks again for being so so so patient, and we hope the wait is worth it!
Best,
TSOF Team
Game Progress Update - 10/24/2021
We hope everyone's Summer and Fall went great and is going well! It's been a bit since we last spoke, so we wanted to give an idea of what's been going on and what's on the map going forward.
Let's rip the band-aid off first:
We know we said "as long as nothing catastrophic happens, it should be more to a Fall date, but all depends on how smooth the ride is this Summer," and welp, here we are. My work computer finally kicked the bucket after 7 years and my partner here had to work on moving to a new place, and these combined stalled development for quite awhile. I just recently was able to slap my Hard drive into a new computer that will last me just fine until I can acquire enough funds to fully upgrade the old computer (motherboards and various upgrades ain't cheap!).
So sadly, we are delaying TSOF: The Haiku to a later date in Q1 2022. We are going to try hard to work towards a February-March date, but we don't want to promise anything more specific until we are closer to getting the game to a complete state for review.
Now, we aren't going to be all bad news, as we are going to take this extra time to announce a few things:
A game website:
Buried somewhere on the internet is a website devoted to TSOF and potentially any future projects in the future. The website will provide game updates (but we will still post updates here!) and screenshots for review/preview purposes. We will be unveiling the website shortly along with another announcement:
Voice Acting:
With a couple more months of TSOF added to development, we have decided to add partial voice acting into the title! There will be a few characters available for auditioning, with more information to be announced when the website launches within the next month or two. Every spot will be a paid position with the possibility of a larger role in the future with a possible sequel to be made if enough interest is shown.
Post-Game Scenes:
After you finish the main story of TSOF: The Haiku, there will be a few post-game scenes showing off some side conversations and scenes with other characters in the game. These are planned to be fully voiced and playable at any time, though we suggest accessing them after you finish the game as some scenes may contain spoilers.
Thank you to all 500+ who have wishlisted our title and remain to be patient while we get Amimi's story to be the best we can make it! We will back with more info when the website launches soon!
Best,
TSOF Team
Game Progress Update - 6/26/2021
First and foremost, greetings to all the new people who have Wishlisted and taken a peek at what is to come from TSOF: The Haiku from Steam Next Fest! We are now up to 450 wishlists, gaining a solid 200 from the event, which is much more than what we were expecting, but it's awesome to see!
We've been working hard over the past four months and are ready to give a better idea of what we're looking at in terms of a release date. Back in February, we categorized the main aspects of where we were and how much we had left. We want to go over how much in detail and let you know our progress as we enter July:
Story/Writing - 100% Done:
Part 1 of the TSOF trilogy was written before game development, and we've done some proofreading and compressing to make the story better in terms of flow. While it was around 40,000 words at first draft, it's probably more towards 37,000-38,000 words now. Still plenty to go around!
Art - 75% Done
All character sprites have been completed and uploaded into the game engine, and we're working on getting the rest of the 11 CGs (a few you've already seen in our demo!) finished to settle them in where they need to be. Hesketts (@thehesketts on Twitter) has been amazing and has done an amazing job bringing Amimi and Co. to life for this project! Additionally, there are some smaller artistic projects like Chapter Screens and re-doing the Title screen a little that need to be completed to be more in line with the full release.
Scripting - 90% Done
All 102 pages of Google Doc text have been plugged into the game, which itself is a BIG check-mark checked off. There will be various text message conversations that happen throughout the story that are currently being workshopped in how to make it the easiest and most appealing to read. This is the next big task, and once that gets completed, we'll be closer to the homestretch.
Editing/Extra - 50% Done
Since we've added a ton of new content into the game engine, we will need to go through and make sure everything looks good and plays well. We've acquired a good bit of music from creators selling tracks specific to the Visual Novel Maker program, as well as some talented musicians being amazing to allow their tracks to be used, and this music is currently being implemented into the game. Some spring cleaning will also be done to remove any sounds/backgrounds/etc. that are unneeded to help keep download size and download times to a respectable amount.
With progress going about where we expected it to be, there are a few extra pieces to the puzzle that we want to explore and see if they are doable within the game's engine. If we have the time, we will add what we can and make sure the full product is worth it's weight.
Testing - TBD
After all of the above is completed, we can go into stress testing and making sure the game works so there are no issues for anyone generous enough to purchase the game. Since Visual Novels do not take much computing power, there shouldn't be any issues graphically that would hinder the experience, but we would like to have as many hands in the pot as we can to make sure things go according to plan. We've got testers set ready for the game to be in its final build, and hopefully testing will go smoothly, since an OK from our testers will get us preparing for release.
So, when is the game coming out, and how much will it be?
As of right now, The Sound of Fireworks: The Haiku is still slated for a 2021 release date, but as long as nothing catastrophic happens, it should be more to a Fall date, but all depends on how smooth the ride is this Summer. Once we have a set release date, we will announce the MSRP for the title, but we promise not to break your bank!
Thank you to everyone who has joined us so far on this journey, and will be around to enjoy Amimi's story when it drops this year.
Best,
TSOF Team