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Pinoy-made visual novel ‘The Letter’ is the product of passion, resilience
Launched on July 25, 2017, visual novel “The Letter” remains strong, with its average review score on Steam refusing to dip below 90%. It’s even been featured on popular gaming websites, blogs, and YouTube channels.
The game has been enjoying such a positive reception that it would be easy to assume that its development had been nothing but smooth sailing from day one.
Like any creative endeavor, however, “The Letter” was born of a combination of passion, hard work, and the resilience to bounce back from unforeseeable setbacks.
Challenges and triumphs
An original title from Pinoy game developer Yangyang Mobile, “The Letter” was in development for over two years. Naturally, its launch was met with both excitement and trepidation.
“It felt exciting and scary at the same time!” said Yangyang Mobile co-founder Danni Ann Taylan. “We had no idea how well people would take to the game, or if the sales would even be good. But it was also a huge relief to finally release it to the public after two years of development. It’s one of our greatest accomplishments!”
Taylan admitted developing “The Letter” was an important learning experience for Yangyang Mobile:
“We learned a lot actually — from game development, to budgeting, to marketing… But if there was one thing that stuck out, it was that not everything would go your way. Sometimes it would even feel like the universe was actively trying to put you down. But despite those difficulties, you should press on, think about why you were doing it in the first place, and surround yourself with friends, family and supporters who’d like to see you succeed.”
Anyone who has played “The Letter” will know how amazing it looks. Creating the game’s visuals, however, proved difficult in the beginning.
“At first, we were unsure which style we wanted for the game. We teetered between using western style and anime style for a few months, until we decided on a semi-realistic anime style,” Taylan explained.
“Another problem we faced was the lack of a solid pipeline for creating the game’s art assets, since ‘The Letter’ was our first big game. In fact, we didn’t even have proper concept art for the characters at the start! We had ideas on how to go about it, but making a single process work for different members of the team (all of whom have varying art styles) took some trial and error.”
She added: “Our lead artist also has a sophisticated style and our junior artists struggled replicating it, which made it harder for us to achieve consistency… But as development went on, we were able to form an efficient pipeline.”
The game’s sound design also proved initially challenging:
“One of the biggest challenges we faced in this department was making sure that the sound and music captured the feeling of every scene perfectly. Since this is a horror game, it was imperative for us to build up the tension leading to key scenes in the game, especially when the ghost appears. Otherwise, the ambience and the mood of the scene would fall flat. This also applied to several emotion-heavy scenes in the story.”
Speaking of story...
Yangyang Mobile took it upon themselves to tell the tales of a culturally diverse cast of characters.
One of those characters is Isabella Santos — a cheerful, hard-working Filipina who’s devoted to family and friends.
“The reason why we decided to have a Filipina character was to pay homage to our country!” stated Taylan. “She was one of the easiest to write because her backstory hits close to home. It was also a nice surprise to know that she’s one of the top favorites of our players!”
The team recognized early on the importance of relatable characters.
“We wanted our players to be able to relate to the cast,” said Taylan. “Having the game’s story told in the first-person point of view also helps in that it gives the players a chance to delve deeper into the characters’ histories and personalities. During the course of the game, it is inevitable that they will get to know what makes the characters tick and this is by design.”
Yangyang Mobile’s writers made enormous efforts to make each of the seven main characters as human as possible.
“We wanted our players to feel that these characters ‘exist’ like any other person you’d meet on the street,” explained Taylan. “They have good qualities but they also have flaws. Some of them you will love, while some you will hate to the bone. They have their own hopes and dreams. They have agency, but they also change.”
Similarly, to make the game world feel authentic, the setting had to be realistic as well.
“The same process went for building the game’s setting. While it takes place in Luxbourne, a fictional city somewhere in UK, we still had to do a lot of research on how things look and work there (even little things such as where the driver’s side is!). At the same time, we also took certain liberties in designing it to give the city a unique feel that’s appropriate for the game’s theme.”
Giving voice
“The Letter” features excellent voice work, but finding the right talents also proved problematic in the beginning.
“We met our current casting director because of (previous problems involving the voice acting),” said Taylan. “She was very nice, has extensive work experience in [the] field, and knew a lot of people from the voice acting community, so we decided to work with her.”
Talyan added: “We hosted a public audition through various voice acting websites and forums, while our casting director invited folks from her talent pool to audition. From there, we selected actors we thought were the best fit for the characters.”
“The Letter” boasts an international cast of the voice actors.
“It was tough (working with them) considering we lived in different time zones, and our only communication was through email,” stated Taylan. “We also ran a very tight schedule. Despite all that, it was fun. We enjoyed listening to their takes and laughed at the bloopers. It was also interesting to hear what they thought about the characters they were voicing… Overall, we’re thankful we found a strong and talented cast. They were all dedicated to bringing the characters to life!”
The only way is forward
Ultimately, the story of “The Letter’s” development is about how excellence can arise from hardships and complications, and how love for your work, faith in your team, and the resolve to see things through to the end can help you surmount any obstacle.
The good news is with the experience Yangyang Mobile has gained developing “The Letter”, the team is now ready for its next big project.
“We’ve just recently started working on (the tentatively titled) ‘Project Squire,’ a medieval-fantasy dating simulator. Unlike ‘The Letter’ which is purely a visual novel, ‘Project Squire’ will have an RPG turn-based combat system,” said Taylan.
“Project Squire” is still in its infancy. “We’re still ironing out the concept and gameplay system. What we’re sure of, however, is it would be on the same scale as ‘The Letter,’ especially in terms of quality (or even better!).”
And of course, Yangyang Mobile isn’t stopping at visual novels; they’re eager to explore other game genres, too.
“Apart from ‘Project Squire,’ we also have a hack-and-slash game currently under wraps!” said Taylan. “We’ll see how it goes from here!”
For more information about “The Letter”, visit its Steam page or official website. — AT, GMA News
