Dev' team here, ask us (almost) anything!

[Fallen Snow Studios]

An AMA thread for the people who want to direct questions directly at us. Please understand that we can't answer all your questions, especially the things related to the next part of Lucid9, but we'll do our best to answer!

Make sure to use spoiler tags in case you want to discuss about something related to Inciting Incident, or the story in general, since some other people might come to ask things while not necessarily having read the complete story. As a reminder, you just need to use [/spoiler]
If you want to have a more lengthy chat with us about the content, or would like to know more the devs, you can join our open discord channel where we are always available : https://discord.gg/EFZyrb8Xeg

[Nemjen]

Two and a bit questions:

#1 - I know there will be a resistance to 'next part' questions considering how recently Lucid9 launched (that and I understand if it is still a topic that is being discussed on your end), however if possible I was curious with the second arc / patch if it will continue on from the ending of the current game or will it focus on an earlier piece of the narrative?

#1.A - (Following the above question) Will this patch form the 5 routes mentioned in your FAQ or will these play into the product further down the line?

#2 - Why the title 'Lucid 9'? Is there some meaning behind the name choice?

Feel free to slap my wrists if there is anything there you do not fancy answering / know at this stage.

Thanks team.

[Fallen Snow Studios]

Originally posted by Magpie:

Two and a bit questions:

#1 - I know there will be a resistance to 'next part' questions considering how recently Lucid9 launched (that and I understand if it is still a topic that is being discussed on your end), however if possible I was curious with the second arc / patch if it will continue on from the ending of the current game or will it focus on an earlier piece of the narrative?

#1.A - (Following the above question) Will this patch form the 5 routes mentioned in your FAQ or will these play into the product further down the line?

#2 - Why the title 'Lucid 9'? Is there some meaning behind the name choice?

Feel free to slap my wrists if there is anything there you do not fancy answering / know at this stage. :claudeheart:

Thanks team.

#1 The next part will be set up after and in continuation of the events of Inciting Incident. There are a few things I can't reveal yet about that though, so I can't reveal much more details.

#1A Our current plan is to have the next arc contain heroine routes in the next patch. It is possible that True route (because, yes, we're planning on making a true route) ends up being what you could call arc 3 (or if you've very lucky, everything could be implemented in the next patch, true route included, though I highly doubt it).

#2 Answer in the next arcs! ;) Though I can tell that it's somehow a reference to the Infinity series (despite our games not being really similar haha).

[Nemjen]

Haha much appreciated, looks like I eagerly await your next patch. I am not familiar with the Infinity series though I am afraid, still a bit of a newb on the whole VN front. :)

Okay a bit of different direction, how did you all come together as a project team? What is the origin story of Fallen Snow Studios?

Somehow I think it would be optimistic of me to imagine you all used the 'late for school' trope and bumped into each other, toast wedged between your teeth.

[Ellixer]

1. Will any of the routes need to be unlocked? If not will there be a recommended play order?

2. Just curious, do you keep the Knox's Decalogue in mind when writing the story.

3. Can you tell us your own personal favourite character from the game?

[lunachaili]

Writer Luna Chai here.
@Ellixer - #2. I actually had never heard of the Knox's Decalogue, but as an avid fan of Phoenix Wright, Layton Brothers, and Danganronpa, it's highly likely that a lot of mystery / detective fiction standards seeped into the writing.
#3. (Not sure at whom this is directed, sorry!) My personal favorite is a tie between Akira and Airi, just because they're really fun to write. And to some extent, Yama in the bad ends because his state of mind was really interesting to immerse myself into.

[Fallen Snow Studios]

Originally posted by Magpie:

Haha much appreciated, looks like I eagerly await your next patch. I am not familiar with the Infinity series though I am afraid, still a bit of a newb on the whole VN front. :)

Okay a bit of different direction, how did you all come together as a project team? What is the origin story of Fallen Snow Studios?

Somehow I think it would be optimistic of me to imagine you all used the 'late for school' trope and bumped into each other, toast wedged between your teeth.

Well, it's a long story. I think there's a first part you can find here, that I wrote a very long time ago : lucid9(dot)weebly(dot)com/blog/fallen-snow-studios-already-6-months-part-1
That should give you a good insight about how the team came to be, though that was only the first 6 months. A lot more happened after, but it'd be quite long to narrate. Maybe that will come in another blog post one day, who knows?

[Ellixer]

Originally posted by lcli:

Writer Luna Chai here.
@Ellixer - #2. I actually had never heard of the Knox's Decalogue, but as an avid fan of Phoenix Wright, Layton Brothers, and Danganronpa, it's highly likely that a lot of mystery / detective fiction standards seeped into the writing.
#3. (Not sure at whom this is directed, sorry!) My personal favorite is a tie between Akira and Airi, just because they're really fun to write. And to some extent, Yama in the bad ends because his state of mind was really interesting to immerse myself into.

#2. That's interesting cause the mystery was very fair and I thought several lines (such as Yama questioning whether the culprit is even someone he knows) were direct references to the Decalogue.

#3. Lol I sort of directed that question toward the whole team. I thought maybe for this kind of thing each member would have a known personal favourite. If not that I'd also liked to know which character is most popular among the team.

[Fallen Snow Studios]

Originally posted by Ellixer:

1. Will any of the routes need to be unlocked? If not will there be a recommended play order?

2. Just curious, do you keep the Knox's Decalogue in mind when writing the story.

3. Can you tell us your own personal favourite character from the game?

1. True route is supposed to be something that you'll have to unlock, otherwise heroine routes will all be accessible from the beginning. We're not sure about a recommended route order, we'll see as we progress with the writing and if we should suggest a particular order to the readers or not. Ideally, we'd want to make your playthrough be interesting no matter the order you intend to read the routes.

3. Personally, that'd be Airi, though I'm pretty biased regarding her since I'm the one who designed her. Overall I really like Natsuki though.

[lunachaili]

Originally posted by Ellixer:

#2. That's interesting cause the mystery was very fair and I thought several lines (such as Yama questioning whether the culprit is even someone he knows) were direct references to the Decalogue.

Not intentionally, though now that I look up the Decalogue, it has really solid tips. Unintentional references to the Decalogue probably just came from my huge interest in the mystery genre (even outside of Japanese media), and balancing what seems to be rational if Isamu was a city that existed in real life. It's never twins, after all.

One thing that I always attempted to implement was that if there needed to be a leap in logic, it should be lampshaded directly, unless that leap in logic was within Yama's character (since he does tend to overthink /get fixated on one track). So there's a LOT of lampshading in Common.

[war_duck]

i need help on a question
pls msg if you can help! its the rich man question XD

[Nyanthotep]

Why must you tug on my heart strings with that ending

[Nemjen]

Originally posted by Anhita:

Why must you tug on my heart strings with that ending

That and we can't change the outcome by not having any heroine options available at the end of the game (opening up that 30 minute slot), I was so sure that I would be able to save her in this way when I tried it.

[grommile]

Something about Natsuki makes me wonder if she's even human. Am I barking up the wrong tree?

[Fallen Snow Studios]

Originally posted by grommile:

Something about Natsuki makes me wonder if she's even human. Am I barking up the wrong tree?

(Reaad in Natsuki's voice) "I wonder..." ;)

[war_duck]

thanks