Sooo, it took a little while longer than I initially anticipated because, as always, life likes to throw me off when I try to make plans xD But it's done now and the game now has full voice acting for both the masculine & feminine voices for Snowe :3

If you already downloaded the game prior to this update and started playing, you might have to delete your save data completely in order to avoid possible bugs loading old data with the new version since some big changes to the files have been made >.< I can't say for sure because I accidentally loaded old data while testing and it seemed to work, but then I wiped it and started from scratch to test more stuff!

If you do need to delete your save data, it's usually stored under Users > (your username) > AppData (this folder is hidden by default so you need to select to show hidden folders) > LocalLow > Melancholy Marionette > (then you should see either 1 or 2 folders related to Sapphire Snowe, you'll want to delete both of them)

I hope I've uploaded the right files anyhow and not broken anything in the process x3 That's always my biggest fear when working on updates, haha. I did do a lot of testing again, but you can never catch absolutely everything >.<

With any luck, I'll be able to get the OST out on YouTube soonish! Probably not until sometime in early February though.

Big Change

Full voice acting is now implemented for the masculine version of Snowe

Small Changes

I also made some other tweaks here and there so other small changes are as follows:

• Made the text in the music player a tiny bit smaller so the 1 track name that didn't fit on the button should now

• Added a few extra efforts and sfx for fem Snowe

• Swapped a few of Saffie's voice lines for retakes in the fem Snowe path

• Edited some of the dialogue text for the masc Snowe path to better match Jason's voice acting and account for some ad-lib moments

• Fixed a minor bug where a BGM wouldn't stop playing if the skip function was used during fem Snowe path

• Added an extra loading point to help struggling systems load the last part of the game

• Added the use of the dev console for players (more on this in an updated section of the guide)

• Fixed the text box not changing from the narrator's style to Saffie's style during one of Saffie's ending monologues

• Updated the splash screen and credits to include the Yandere Jams that the game was finished for

Some Notes On Voice Acting

Alrighty, so I want to be honest about this here because it's a bit of a contentious subject, haha.

Basically, the voice acting in this particular project of mine is a mixture of both human VA and AI-assisted VA (I recorded some lines myself & used speech-to-speech to change my voice). I don't know if you could already tell which characters are voiced by actual human beings and which were me dubbed over by AI, and tbh, I think the AI is quite scarily decent >.< although definitely still no match for real human voices!

Technically everything was voiced by humans in the sense that the AI-voiced characters were voiced by me using speech-to-speech, kinda like a voice changer in a way I guess x3 I basically sat and recorded all the lines for the narrator, misc characters, and for fem Snowe. I then very carefully chose appropriate AI voices for those characters, and through the magic of technology, the AI basically took my delivery of the line, kept all my intonation and pauses, breaths, exclamations etc. intact, and essentially transformed my voice while keeping the way I delivered the lines practically identical. (It really struggled with some of my exclamations xD)

Saffie is voiced by a real human, the wonderful Jennifer Kiffe & masculine Snowe is voiced by the equally wonderful Jason Hall :3

But yeah, everything else was sadly just me >.< haha. I credited the remaining VA to 'Al Kingsley', 'Ashen Raven' and 'BunnieBrie' because:

A: I didn't wanna slap my name over the in-game credits too many times as I find that uncomfortable, haha.

And B: I wanted to wait until the project was properly finished with full VA so I could actually explain my use of AI in a post like this x3

My brother said I shouldn't speak about it and just see if anyone actually notices, but that would feel wrong >.<

But Whyyyyy?!?!

So you might be thinking, why would you do that when you're such a huge fan of voice acting? Why have you bowed down to the robots? x3 Well, I have to say, like many others, I'm extremely worried about the impact of AI in general on creative endeavours, so I didn't use it lightly or without a reason I could personally justify.

This was my first time experimenting with AI in a project, and my aim was to use it as an assisting tool rather than to replace a human. My reasons are different when it comes to the narration compared to using it for fem Snowe.

Narration

Firstly, this game has a lot of 3rd person narration from a proper narrator that isn't a character from the story. I don't usually write like this, but I really wanted to have a detached narrator for this particular story to make it feel more like a fairytale; more like Saffie's story. However, if the narrator wasn't voiced, that would involve reading a lot of text, and as someone who has dyslexia and knows others who do too, I personally find it A LOT easier to hear text read out to me.

Sure, there is that open dyslexic font, but I don't really know how to implement font changes in Naninovel yet + I personally find it to be useless >.< It's a nice thing to include if you can, and I'm sure it helps some people, but both my brother and I have discussed before that we can't read it any easier than other fonts, haha. 

On top of that, when attempting to proofread my own writing, I find it far easier to spot mistakes or areas that could be quickly improved if I can hear the text being read to me compared to me just reading it myself. So being able to record myself speaking the lines out loud and then have the AI dub over me allowed me to edit the text a lot better too.

You might be thinking, okay, fair enough, but why not just cast someone as a narrator? Well, the answer to that is a pretty simple one. It wouldn't have been fair to put the workload on anyone but myself x3 I was trying to get things finished for jam deadlines as usual, and the narrator has over 400 lines >.< Around 100 of those are lines for pronoun variations to account for the player picking between a masculine or a feminine Snowe. To ask a voice actor to record that many lines on a deadline with little pay would just be wrong. And there's no way I could have fairly compensated a person for their time.

I was willing to record the lines myself, but my mic isn't great, and I don't have the loveliest voice in the universe either. Using speech-to-speech meant I could dub over my voice with an AI voice of choice that sounds a lot better than I do!

Fem Snowe & Misc Characters

This use of assistive AI was a little different. This was more about me wanting to have a shot at voice acting in a way that felt safer. I have extreme anxiety, so I don't feel like I can really get into voice acting properly as much as I would like to >.< As I mentioned, my mic is also kinda poop! I really, really hate my voice, and I definitely wouldn't cast myself x3 But as with the narration, using speech-to-speech, I was able to record all the lines for fem Snowe and other misc characters and have AI dub me, keeping my intonation and delivery of each line intact, but changing my voice. 

To be honest, it's kind of creepy in a way because the AI voice that I picked to dub me for fem Snowe sounds kind of like how I used to speak when I was younger xD My voice has become less posh over the years though since I was bullied for speaking like that, haha. Kids at school used to tease me for sounding like Hermione from Harry Potter >.<

So yeah, this was my experiment at voice acting without actually having to include my voice within the game.

It wasn't the only reason for dubbing myself though. The deadline played a part too. Since Jason became ill before he could finish recording his lines for the masculine version of Snowe and I really didn't want to release a version of the game for the jam that didn't have full VA for at least 1 version of Snowe, I took it upon myself to give it a shot.

I couldn't possibly have cast someone else in the role because there wouldn't have been enough time for them to record before the jam finished. I pushed myself to get it done in 48 hours like a crazy lady x3 and I wouldn't dream of asking a poor VA to do that, especially when I wouldn't be able to afford to compensate them fairly for their work!

Would I do it again?

Possibly, but it really depends on the situation. In this case, if I hadn't used it, then those narrator lines and fem Snowe would have been left unvoiced. I think I would prefer to use AI speech-to-speech dubbing over nothing at all, but it would really be a last resort for if it wasn't possible to get a full human cast!

While it was an interesting experience to work with, it was also pretty boring, haha. And while the speech-to-speech dubbing is undoubtedly impressive, I much prefer working with proper human voice actors! I'm a huge fan of voice acting in general, and one of my favourite parts of game dev is working with voice actors :3 For me, it's their talent that breathes life into my characters and I'd be lost without them.

I don't think even my best efforts at recording the lines and dubbing over myself can compare to a properly talented voice actor tackling the task! It just about worked out as passable in this case because the narrator and fem Snowe didn't require that much emotion. I don't think even with the dubbing the AI can properly replicate the nuances in a talented actor's performance, and even if it reaches a point where it can come close, it still wouldn't be the same because there's no real soul there in the AI >.<

For me, true human VA will always win, and I would only ever resort to using partial AI dubbing again for accessibility purposes, or in a similar situation where there's no time or I can't afford to cast a person.