Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Backstage Pass

Edit: Learn more at the official Backstage Pass website.

I'm currently zapping the last of the bugs and typos in Yousei, so now seems like a good time to let you all know what's up next. If you read my New Year post, you probably already noticed this. But hey! We're working on another otome game. Backstage Pass is the first otome game in our Green Tea line, and it will deal with the ever so popular theme of showbiz. The four main guys are a musician/singer, an actor, a model, and a magician - all at different stages in their careers (and varying ages). And before anyone asks, the lead girl does not get approached by an agent who totally sees something special in her and wants her to be a model now.

The main character is Sian Goodin, a young makeup artist currently trying to balance work with her first year of college. She's smart, skilled, and generally a friendly person, but she has a mild case of agoraphobia, which makes being in crowds difficult for her. Not the ideal situation for a girl who works with celebrities, but she makes it work.

Gameplay will be similar to RE: Alistair++, although it will cover a year's worth of time instead of just a month. While there will be romantic endings with each of the four lead males, there are sixteen endings total including cultivating strong friendships with other characters, or working your way up the professional ladder.

Once Yousei is out, keep your eyes open for more updates, including character profiles and cool features we'll be adding. Until then, please look forward to it!

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Will it be free?

bd said...

Huh. A magician is a love interest you never really see in star dating games. And a make up artist protag is definitely different! This has my eager attention.

Anonymous said...

I want to buy this now.I can't wait till it is out.

skribbles said...

Oh this sounds so interesting. I cant wait til it comes out!

Annie said...

@ (The first) Anonymous: Games in the Green Tea line are sakevisual's commercial ones, so they aren't free.

I'm glad to see that the heroine isn't a rising starlet! That should add a fresh twist to the plot. And I also like the way you can cultivate strong friendships as well as just getting a normal romantic ending. That's awesome.

I'm a little sad to hear that it'll have similar gameplay to Re: A++. I loved that game, but going through the same motions and recycled messages just to get some extra points--that basically did nothing until the end--wasn't that fun. The only time I've found a stat-raising mechanic interesting instead of dull was in Long Live the Queen, where the things you trained in genuinely affected what happened to you in the story.

Anonymous said...

Haha. I think I know what game they were talking about. But how did they know about it? I doubt SakeVisual made the otome of a girl who is suddenly approached by an agent wanting her to become a model. SakeVisual is waaaay better at making otome than that. ;D

Milki said...

Hm. I can't really think of many otome games where you're actually a rising starlet.. most of the time you're the manager or some sort of support for the starlets.

There's been a series of games on the DS with otome elements (dateable guys) where you're a rising make-up artist tho (http://www.gae.co.jp/game/DS/cosmetick4/). Two of them even saw English releaes (Cosmetic Paradise & Imagine: Make-Up Artist) ^^

Will you put some make-up mini games in your game as well? I'd love to see that happen... :)

Milki said...

@Annie: I found Long Live The Queen way more dull in a sense tho. If you raise the wrong stats, you die. So you start over, raising exactly the stats you need to survive until you die again. So you load up a save, train just the stats you need to survive again.... etc.

In the end you are VERY limited in your choices of how to develop your queen... at some point I cheated my way through half the game since I finally wanted to know how the story continues WITHOUT dying every second day and having to reload.

In terms of stat-raising I find Sheherezade praise-worthy - even tho I found navigating the menus a little uncomfortable. (There should have been one screen that shows all your stats like in LLTQ)

Annie said...

@ Miruki I actually found LLtQ offered a lot of variety in which stats you could use to survive. For example, with the "final boss" (spoiler warning here): You could talk him out of making war on your country through music and strong speaking skills; you could use magical strength to duel him; you could use magic to sink his ship before he ever got there; you could use military skills; and so on. Plus, the fantastic branching meant that every situation had repercussions.

At any rate, I'd love to see Sakevisual prove me wrong and offer stat-raising elements that are genuinely deep and interesting, no matter how they go about that! I'm sure they can pull it off.

Anonymous said...

How much is it going to be?

Anonymous said...

@miruki that's why they were afraid to give out the cheat codes, because some people would then try to 'skip to the end' without ever learning how the game worked.

there are SO many different ways to get past every death!!

Milki said...

@Anon: Let me rephrase what I said a little to make my problem with LLQ a little more obvious: You don't know what you have to level unless you fail a trial and die. At that point you reload to fix that. Then you won't really know what you need to level up in order to survive the next attack on your queen until it is too late. The whole having to reload and do it all over again part is tedious and time consuming. It's about as annoying as having to grind for hours in an RPG until you are finally able to beat the boss. And even that is a lot less annoying, since you have a vague idea about what you're supposed to do.

I've played twice "through" LLQ before using cheats and I only occasionally used them to get me through some assassination attempts that would have otherwise required me to spend another 30 minute of skipping through texts and training a different skill.

While I had fun with the game, I prefer to know what's going on and plan accordingly. I want strategy, not frustration. And if the difficulty level is too high for me, I see no wrong in using cheats to make a game more fun to play / less annoying (just like how I can't play Pokemon without a double walking speed & instant text cheat)

And in the end, they decided to post the cheat codes after all, I'm guessing I wasn't the only one wanting them to be able to enjoy the game more?

I know it's meant to be a little frustrating. But if it starts to stop making fun, there's only two things to do for me: Make it more fun or delete it.

rayray said...

How much is it and what kind of payment does it require? Can it use mastercard?

Ayu Sakata said...

We're not sure what the price will be yet. It depends on how much content is in the final game. We'll be using BMTMicro to sell online, and they accept Mastercard.

Unknown said...

I have been waiting for it to come out for awhile is it any time soon?

FlyingMintBunny said...

Looking forward to this! Can't wait till it comes out!

FlyingMintBunny said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Pikangie said...

Just saw this now, but is there any info on the release? I think I saw somewhere that showed a picture of this game saying Winter, but is it this year(2013), or next year?

I also looked around every page on the official site and didn't see information on whether you download it for free or pay for it(paypal?).
How much will it cost, if it's not free? Normally I do not buy these kinds of games, but this one looks very high quality with the art, so I would buy it if it's out...

Also, the main female having purple hair is definitely a plus for me, because I am sick of otome heroines always having pink/blonde/brown hair.
It's about time I see an otome heroine with cool hair colors like purple/blue/green. :D