Trailer for a Visual Novel

Trailer for a Visual Novel

I’ve been working with a wonderful co-op video game development team called Questyard. The team is building several video games; the most challenging game is actually a visual novel, called Missing Pieces. Visual novels combine text, artwork, and music to produce a semi-interactive story. The reader is presented with choices, to direct how the story will proceed. Our visual novel also contains a set of mini-games and puzzles that follow the themes in the story.

Missing Pieces is a story-driven adventure in a vibrant alien world, full of hidden secrets, a plethora of languages and a sparkling cast of characters: lovable rogues, heartbroken families, and questionable allies. By following along the story, you can find friendship and love, learn about yourself and discover who you really are!

Unlike many trailers, this one has a quiet, subdued, introspective tone. Its main feature is a song that is sung softly in an alien language.

How did I do this? I used a special phoneme builder from the Ethera Gold Atlantis virtual instrument, developed by Stefano Maccarelli. The image on the right shows the set of syllables that I chose for the song. The virtual instrument plays back syllables that were sung by vocalist Clara Solace. This is not the phrase library component of the instrument, as I was able to choose the individual notes, and they are sung in a soft, undertone legato style.

 

The trailer, shown below, features artwork drawn by a great Brazilian artist, Rafael Saito, and aided by “metamodern” artist Valeria Yscava.

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