Developer Ask-Me-Anything!

[Ben]

You said that the character of Ash can be either male or female based on your own interpretation. When making the game, did you picture Ash as male or female?

[Violet]

Has any of the characters in the game was referenced of any real life people you guys knew?

[cowbunny]

You said that the character of Ash can be either male or female based on your own interpretation. When making the game, did you picture Ash as male or female?

When testing, we play through each scene imagining both male and female.

[cowbunny]

Has any of the characters in the game was referenced of any real life people you guys knew?

The short answer is no, we didn't base the characters off of any specific people we knew.

The longer answer is, it's complicated. When developing a character usually it starts with a concept or an idea that may have pieces coming from people we know and characters we've seen in other works. I'd say that most characters have a lot of pieces of ourselves, because that's one of the truest places to write from.

But ultimately, the writing process was about learning about these characters, asking them questions, thinking deeper about their pasts. If we ever had writer's block, we typically just had to get to know the characters more. What happened in their pasts? What were their desires? Usually the best mysteries and plot points and turns came from these character explorations.

A good example is the character of Roger. In our original incarnation, he was a very flat character who was scared at everything and everyone, and stuttered nearly every line, and didn't have anything interesting to say. He played a good opposite to the more direct and brave characters like Elise and A.C., but he was just not that interesting. After really digging into his past, also the truth about how he is actually a Prince of Winsdorhowl, we realized that he actually would have a more confident tone, even if it was just to hide a scared interior. This gave him more depth and complexity. He would often say one thing, but his actions would show the opposite. To truly understand Roger, you should look at his actions, what he does, not what he says.

He went through the most evolutions and rewrites, and it was less about basing it on any real person, and more about just getting to know him, and asking him questions in our minds.

What does he want? Where does he come from? What conflict is in his life? What drives him forward?

Any time scenes weren't working or a character felt useless or flat, or we weren't feeling the emotion in the scene, we always came back to getting to know our characters better. Even Allison started as a pretty boring character, just a random girl who liked A.C., but when we got to know her, she became more interesting, especially in her heartbreaking moment in Chapter 9.

[Violet]

We get to see more locations in the second game (and a nice map feature), so in the third installment, would Timecrest's overworld be largely expanded? (off topic: would you mind if i draw the characters hohohoH)

[cowbunny]

We get to see more locations in the second game (and a nice map feature), so in the third installment, would Timecrest's overworld be largely expanded? (off topic: would you mind if i draw the characters hohohoH)

We're not going to comment too much on Timecrest 3 for now, since it's so early on and we don't want to spoil anything.

We would absolutely love it if you wanted to draw the characters!!! If you're interested, I can start a thread where people can post fan art, and you can post your creations there.

[Ben]

How did you guys make the music for Timecrest 1 and Timecrest 2?

[Violet]

We would absolutely love it if you wanted to draw the characters!!! If you're interested, I can start a thread where people can post fan art, and you can post your creations there.

That would DEFINITELY be great!

[cowbunny]

That would DEFINITELY be great!

I've made the thread. Have fun!

[cowbunny]

How did you guys make the music for Timecrest 1 and Timecrest 2?

Unfortunately, as a 2-person studio, after writing the story, coding the whole game and drawing all of the art, (and responding on Twitter, forums, customer support, etc) it didn't leave much time for composing music. We found Andrew Riley who composes excellent RPG style game music from Lucky Lion Studios, who has a fantastic collection of royalty free music that we were able to use in our game. The songs turned out so perfectly, we're glad we didn't work to compose the score ourselves!

In particular, we really love the song used on Aion or whenever Chronos is speaking. Which songs did you like the most?

[Ben]

Unfortunately, as a 2-person studio, after writing the story, coding the whole game and drawing all of the art, (and responding on Twitter, forums, customer support, etc) it didn't leave much time for composing music. We found Andrew Riley who composes excellent RPG style game music from Lucky Lion Studios, who has a fantastic collection of royalty free music that we were able to use in our game. The songs turned out so perfectly, we're glad we didn't work to compose the score ourselves!

In particular, we really love the song used on Aion or whenever Chronos is speaking. Which songs did you like the most?

Ooh! Those are a couple of my favorites! I really like the upbeat theme at Aurumhalla. It really captures the hustle-and-bustle atmosphere you would expect in a merchant capital. I also really like the theme from when the creepy red text appears. It really sets the stage for such a dark and serious moment, and really makes those moments memorable. When in those situations, it is really important to infuse a dark, kind of scary music into your text, and you guys really took that home! I am very big into instrumental music, and I always feel that there should be music in life, so I have a very deep appreciation for the excellent music that you two chose! They really make the game much more intensive and meaningful, and a much more real experience overall!

[cowbunny]

Ooh! Those are a couple of my favorites! I really like the upbeat theme at Aurumhalla. It really captures the hustle-and-bustle atmosphere you would expect in a merchant capital.

Yes, the Aurumhalla theme is great. A bit of trivia--that one almost didn't make it in. We originally had the theme from Windsorhowl used there, but it didn't feel quite right. (It both wasn't right for the merchant capital and detracted from it being special for Windsorhowl). So the Aurumhalla theme was put in nearly the very last day we worked on the game when we found it at the last minute, and it was perfect.

[Wikidward]

Because my bets ended badly I needed to wait two days before being able to move on with the story line as I needed an aura potion. Is there a way to either make more money in the game or aquire it faster?

althought the reader is given many choices the storylines always seem to lead in the same direction. Are there any other dead ends and final stories to come or be discovered?

anyway to increase the speed of the text and reduce the battery drain?

[cowbunny]

Because my bets ended badly I needed to wait two days before being able to move on with the story line as I needed an aura potion. Is there a way to either make more money in the game or aquire it faster?

There are several ways to earn gold for free:
1. Collect each day from Morty
2. You can convert Time Crystals to gold by pressing on the + button by the gold. You can get Time Crystals for free in the relationship tab. Additionally, in Chapter 9, a way unlocks for you to convert Irillium to Time Crystals which in turn can be converted into gold. Irillium is hidden throughout the world.

althought the reader is given many choices the storylines always seem to lead in the same direction. Are there any other dead ends and final stories to come or be discovered?

There is an overarching plotline, but the journey there can change dramatically. You can learn different information, characters may live or die, and characters my like or hate you. For example, in Timecrest 2, you may learn more about either Ezra or Ignis depending on what you choose in Chapter 8, and you get a different storyline. You might get to know Ezra more or get to see Windsorhowl, and a lot of changes in the story occur as a result.

There are also several different endings. There are different items you can acquire, some rare but will stay with you even if you start over again. There are also special scenes you can unlock when you have maxed out relationship points.

Some scenes had to be written in a dozen different ways to account for all of the complex changes and decisions that you may have made previously.

anyway to increase the speed of the text and reduce the battery drain?

Since the game is text based and doesn't use much graphics, we would expect this game to be much easier on the battery than most games out there. Tell me if you find any specific bugs around battery drain, but it should be very light on battery.

The time it takes for the text to appear is based on how much text Ash is sending. We wanted the timing of things to be realistic, and having features around increasing the speed may affect the reality of it. We want it to really feel like Ash is talking to you in real time and speeding it up may break that fiction.

[Ben]

How many hidden items are there in Timecrest 2? In this run, I found the Old Photo and The Breakfast and was wondering if there were any others that I haven't found yet.