Hello! Welcome to the first VRMN devlog.

I wanted to mention some of the recent developments happening in the project. We are mid-development of the game, after most of the mechanics are complete, and we are designing the remaining levels, and worried more about the sound design and story. It’s a good opportunity to discuss how we are designing the soundtrack, and our plans with spoken dialogue.

VRMN NVZN has been inspired by the Halo series since I wrote the opening paragraph of lore. I grew up playing Halo: Combat Evolved, and later got my brother’s Xbox 360 with Halo 3, when he left to go into Marines boot camp. Inspiration from Halo is important to me for this game. I might not draw inspiration from Halo in future games, so I definitely want to show my appreciation to the Halo franchises’ story in the one shot I’ve got.

A massive part of a game’s story is its music. The music tells you a lot about the meaning of certain events. If you’re telling a narration about a cold, tactical investigation, it might supplement that narration to provide a resisted sound. And similarly, if you have a lot of action, it might not be a great idea to have jazz.

I’ve been working with someone to design the music for the game. After a couple days of work and study, I believe we now have the ballpark of the sound we need. After you have the first song, it opens the door to use part of your game’s soundtrack in a trailer. So, I have taken that opportunity to start choreographing the trailer we will use for the game.

The only narration of the story comes from the dialogue of the female AI character: the Admin. Female AI characters became popular because of Halo’s use of one – Cortana. Obviously, that is the inspiration for the Admin. Her dialog drives the narration, but it scrolls rather quickly at the bottom of the screen, and at the most inopportune times.

Because of that, I have decided to have spoken dialogue performed by a female voice actor. The recordings may be edited to a slightly lower resolution and possibly modulated tone, to fit the aesthetic VRMN NVZN intends to portray. This means the scrolling text may still remain, but the recordings of the dialogue will be played at the same time. Consider the old scrolling narration, subtitles!

We don’t yet know who will be performing the voice acting, but I will make an update whenever that happens. Voice acting will be really interesting, and should also make a valuable addition to the trailer that is in the works.

Thanks everyone for your valued support! Adios.