Ask Me Anything: Stacey answers your questions

Today, our lead writer Stacey Mockingbird is under fire from your questions in Ask Me Anything.

Hi everyone! I'm Stacey. Usually, I'm the one asking characters uncomfortable questions, but today karma has come for me. 🙈

Will there be a sequel/sequels to streets of sorcery just like lust academy?
What next now that SoS is finished?

Very soon we'll show our cards and tell you exactly what's coming. But while it's just us here, I'll let you in on a little secret: the whole team is already hard at work on our upcoming project.

Are there any characters from Lust Academy who appear sporadically but you would wish to develop more?

My favorite girl from SoS is Anhelica. She showed up right at the end, but still managed to get both the looks and a backstory that could fill another couple of seasons in George Martin's universe. After all, a woman who last went dancing in the 18th century and then became a Suppressor is probably a pretty interesting person to talk to.
Anhelica even inspired a new term in our team: «NPC curse». That's when you make a side character, look at the sprites and realize some of your main characters are about to start asking for a lawyer.

And from LA, I have a very soft spot for the gorgeous Adele. Running a strip club, I suspect, is a lot like running a space station: every day something breaks, someone does something crazy and somehow you have to keep the whole thing in orbit.

Will there be more combat/free roam in streets of sorcery?

In our upcoming project, we're focusing on a bigger, more open world. But a sandbox and a large world aren't quite the same thing.
The sandbox we all love works best in a contained setting, like an academy, a castle, or some catacombs. The more locations you add, the harder traditional sandbox mechanics become. But there are other ways to give players that same sense of free exploration.
We'll do our best to make it work, because we love that kind of freedom too.

Was there any mini game idea that was scrapped?

Mini-games that didn't make the cut usually ended up in the graveyard for one of two reasons: "too expensive" or "why does the story even need this?" For example, we considered mazes, but doing them well would take a lot of time, both for us and for the players who'd have to get through them, and we don't want to do them badly.
Mini-games in visual novels are basically like raisins in a bun: half the players think they make it better, while the other half carefully picks them out and curses the baker.
So whenever someone says «Let's add a mini-game», developers grab a balancing pole and step onto the tightrope, while both halves of the audience are already waiting below.

What is the process for developing a new character end to end? From ideation to asset selection and final modification.

THANK YOU FOR ASKING. 😏
Let's stay here for the next two thousand years. Everyone else can scroll down.
First, we realize we need a new character. Not an NPC with a couple of lines, but a proper character. That's my department's job: this is where the plot, lore and character arcs all simmer together.
Once we decide the character is happening, we start collecting references and building a mood board. We think of movies, books and familiar characters, rely on our visual experience and cultural background. At the same time, we write the character arc: basically, the script of their life and history.
Once everything is ready, we put together a brief for our 2D and 3D artists.

Here's a bit from one:
"A descendant of the Borgias, whose ancestors made their first million gold ducats selling poison to everyone, and the next twenty selling the same people the antidote. Despite her Italian blood, she takes a long time to boil, but once she does, plates start flying along with puttano-castrato-misfortunato curses. Strict, cynical, chops firewood with the edge of her hand".
Then different versions of the model go up for a team discussion. This is where spears are broken, feathers fly, and sometimes we may even get into a fight. 🙃

Our record is over three months for a single character. We changed the asset, made textures by hand, tested different lighting and eventually rebuilt almost everything. Recently, we finally saw the character in a finished scene from our upcoming project.
Let's just say those three months were worth it.

One of my reasons for leaving was the sudden addition of gross profanity - i.e. GD and JC or JHC I can take a damn, here and there, or an F bomb, or even a misplaced, comma. But I WILL draw the line at using the Name of God or Jesus to swear. THANKS for letting me rant

Thank you for expressing this as a personal boundary, and I'm very sorry that this is unacceptable to you. Speaking on behalf of the team, I can say that none of the language in our games is ever intended to insult, humiliate, or hurt anyone based on their ethnicity, gender, or religion.
The purpose of any work of fiction is to immerse you in its reality, and in any world, just like in real life, people sometimes swear, get emotional, use strong language, or take God's name in vain. Absolutely any word can also serve as a literary device, helping to create and convey the right atmosphere.

Any chance if there is a SOS 2 and we plays James again of letting us recruit Lik Sam and Haley, Dakota or anyone else into DIS. saw i remember the story renders for sabrina and Claire any chance that get into 2 as a scene?
Are there any plans to have Samantha and Haley back in the future?Do you have any future plans for Victoria? Now that our MC isn't her student, I feel like she might be more open to things with him.

If our upcoming project turns out to be either a direct or standalone sequel, we'll definitely find out what happened to most of the girls. As for what role they'll appear in, I'll leave that unanswered for now.

I just point it out that you sell your novel with pretty girl pictures and when you actually see screen captures its actually men getting on each other.

No matter how hard I tried, I still couldn't understand your comment, so I'd be happy if you could clarify what you meant.
LA did have male romance routes, but they've been gone for several years now, and SoS never had any. Even if you tried, you couldn't mistake the women in the screenshots below for men. The screenshots are taken directly from the game.

I'm going to ask the obvious question. Where is the GOG version of Streets Of Sorcery? Is this something you submitted but never got a response for? If so, I can alert them immediately so that the game can be brought over there.

I'm probably not the best person to answer this one, but I'm sure our marketing team will be happy to help in the comments.

With ALL of the established occupants of SOS-1 that our MC has encountered, have you (plural) given thought to how they maybe used as contacts for clues, or red-herring side quests with the MC in any of the further investigative cases in SOS-2?

I'll go one step further: we actually used this exact idea in SoS, in the "Art of Magic" case, when Morwenna Fermor came looking for her missing brother. That's when the MC got a lead from Annie.
But yes, I like the way you think. We're definitely on the same wavelength.

As with the previous game series, the MC DID get to have a holiday (as Europeans call it/ Vacation time, here this side of the Atlantic), will the MC ever get time off from the Ministry to visit old friends & family in-game?

Sounds like a hint at a solid Christmas DLC. 😊