Papina's Life Update #11: Gradually Getting Deeper Into The Music World

CASE 3'S iOS VERSION IS FINALLY OUT!! *tears of joy* Well, it was actually out 2 days ago and Barnabas just mentioned it to me today.

I decided to lose the 'otaku' in the title because it makes me feel bad and aware of my obsession. Well, people usually refer to it as passion, but it's an obsession to me.

Anywho, my wrist hurts from all the music editing so I'll make this quick.

Azuneko Studio Stuff

The last chapters, cases 4 & 5 will be released together. The game script is about 70% finished. I'm around halfway through the images. I'll make a post with more detail soon when my wrist doesn't hurt.

What's the next game after Black Diary? Barnabas and I have two concepts in mind. He wants to make this comedy game set in our hometown. On the other hand, I want to make a cutesy dark game inspired by Kikuo's Gomene Gomene (this game is sure to be made cause I actually already drew all the concept art and sprites lol). If you've heard of the song, then yes. Prepare for some gore. More details to come when my wrist doesn't hurt.

Recent Works

Besides Case 3 getting released, I've mostly been working on music-related things, like Takane Papina's UTAU voicebank. I remade it from scratch since I purchased the mic earlier than expected. Again, I need to make sure I didn't miss out on any bad notes from the first screening and finalize the configurations, so it will be released after I do 15-20 songs or so (right now I did 6 songs).

I've decided to do some singing myself, so I can just do the vocals myself when I compose the opening and ending songs for my games. I honestly don't think I'm THAT good, but I'll do my best to push my skills to its lvl cap.

Random Facts About Black Diary

It's been nearly a year since Barnabas and I met up at a cafe and started conceptualizing Black Diary. So, I decided to post all the behind-the-scenes random info.

- Cohen's name is taken from Sander Cohen, an antagonist in Bioshock.

- Mikhail's personality is partly based off a character from one of Papina's novels, Ivan Korsakov from Rondo Capriccioso. Ivan's second name is Mikhail.

- Rondo Capriccioso is an actual novel. It was Papina's entry for NaNoWriMo 2010. The completed work can be found here.

- Rosalie was supposed to have a cat doll named Nekotara that kept her sane.

- Nora's personality is based off a real-life person who works at the hotel Barnabas' family runs.

- Winston was supposed to be a sporty girl, but Barnabas said there were too many girl characters so I turned him into a guy. His look is partially inspired by Yosaf from The Grey Garden.

- Tom is named after Papina's animator friend from Japan. They're both introverts.

- The song that plays during funny scenes "I am A Little Seahorse" was an unused track from an animation Papina worked on with a group before. It was supposed to play during a scene when the main character was staring at an aquarium with a seahorse in it.

- Case 2's bad end took a while to finalize. Papina, Barnabas, and Lyndon (Barnabas' brother) gathered together in the living room to brainstorm. One of the endings they thought of was that Colette goes crazy and ends up in the mental hospital.

- It took around 1 month for Papina to finish making all the graphics, dialogue, and music for Case 1.

- Harumi Hatsumi (the idol Mikhail is a fan of) is a parody of Hatsune Miku,

- Ayase's sprite was the first one made, followed by Colette.

- Papina made an unfinished horror version of Black Diary titled Afterschool Nightmare, which is set after the events of Black Diary. Mikhail, Rosalie, Jean, Nora, Peter and Shara stay late in school and tell ghost stories. Rosalie gets possessed by a ghost and starts going psychokiller mode.

Papina's Otaku Life Update #10: Living in the UTAU World

It's been a while since my last update, huh? I've been working on a lot of things (mostly music and game sprites).

But first off! My Corpse Party light novels finally arrived! Whee! I'm sorta confused about the timelines for them, but as far as I read the one on the left follows the events of Blood Covered. I might post up some summaries if the Heavenly Host forum members want it.

And the current game in my PSP is Persona 3 Portable! I swear this game made me experience a wide range of emotions. There should be more games with this kind of script writing.

Recent Works Released

After talking to Sango, the CV of Neko Kanochi, I decided not to switch the vocals and just keep the currently released version of the song Open Eyes for Black Diary's ending song.

Along with that, I'm also working on a voicebank to sing covers for me. I plan to make a clearer recording once I get my new condenser mic, but that'll be a few months from now. Takane Papina's voicebank won't be released until after I do 10 songs at least. I need to make sure the configurations and clips are just right.