Post by Stormsinger Studios in Homecoming ~Morenatsu Revisited~ comments

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Hey, Devilizer here!

Thanks for the feedback! I understand it's a controversial change, and everyone's opinions is valuable to us, but the changes were made both to revert some (very) unpopular design decisions, as well as make the art more manageable to Nova and I. The old sprites were a lot more time consuming than we foresaw them ever being, and we both decided to change them to something more easily manageable. In doing so, we changed a few design elements here and there (but kept some of our own design ideas, like Kouya's earrings) and the changes have been for the most part welcomed by players.

I understand an art style shift mid project is upsetting for a lot of people, and as a small team, it was a hard choice to make, and we ultimately decided it would be the best course of action if we wanted to be done with the project within a reasonable time frame. Please understand we're trying our best to accomplish our vision and satisfy as many people as possible, and that sometimes mean we have to make hard decisions. This was one of them.

Cheers,

Dev

Maaddie2 years ago (1 edit) (+1)(-8)

I can absolutely understand that, but please hear me, it's not just a petty complaint (as you can see by my the dislikes on my opinion haha), but rather something that is a bit of a criticism to the art as well. The biggest issue with the "old" sprites was that there was a bit of inconsistency with the heights like Shun being small, but he's absolutely tiny in comparison to Tatsuki, and some people felt that there were *too* many liberties taken with the characters IE, some feel that Torahiko was too skinny-- which is a mileage may vary sort of thing, but that's a refinement that can happen over time. The sprites needed to be refined as it was clear that the artist was getting the feel for the style that they wanted.

Now, the height inconsistency is going to be even more apparent because of how big they are in this version versus the original: take a look at this: Tora is a little more than half of the screen here, and almost a head shorter than Tatsuki. Now let's compare them here

Torahiko is taller now (which he needed to be as the original Torahiko was way too small in comparison), but now there's really no room left to make Tatsuki a head taller than Torahiko , much less any adults that'd be taller than Tatsuki, like his father. Tora is still less compact in build than he originally was, but he now loses the swimmer's build he had, so he feels like some sort of strange compromise between the two. People like Konosuke just straight up lost weight:

"chubby" doesn't even come to mind anymore-- versus the original ones seemed to remember that. It's not really so much that I "hate" the new ones, but prefer the old ones, because the inconsistencies feel even more distracting at this point since now they're trying to mimic the old Gamma style, but still don't *quite* look like it while still keeping the issues that some of the original ones had, and somehow bringing in new ones with the shift.

Bear in mind, this was never meant to be some sort of knock towards a shift, but rather a "I prefer the older ones because they seem less problematic." I hope that helps with what I was saying earlier.

Stormsinger Studios2 years ago(+4)

I can understand your concerns on the sizes, but this was a move we chose to give everyone's sprites more room to shine. As you pointed out, the old sprites had wild differences in size between each other, while this one will "streamline" everyone. There will still be size differences (Aichi is still huge compared to Kounosuke), but less pronounced (no more Shun barely poking out of the dialogue box).

Do keep in mind everything we're doing as of now is a work in progress. There's a likelihood we'll revisit everyone's individual sizes once every sprite is fully implemented in the game (I have sketches ready for every character I'm working on, but it can be deceiving at times), and feedback will be taken into account then, but as of now, we'd rather leave things as they are before over-correcting in any particular direction. While you might say the sprites are more problematic now, a lot of people have said the exact same thing about our previous sprites (not a lot of people saw our old Torahiko as "fit", but rather described him as "anorexic", for example), and just as many have voiced their appreciation over the new designs. We're always willing to listen, but unfortunately, everyone has an opinion and we do have to make our choice at a certain point.

Finally, I'd disagree on Kounosuke not being chubby anymore, having drawn him myself. Maybe his stance covers that a bit, but I'd say he looks similar, if not ever so slightly heavier than our previous version, especially when the clothes are off, so to speak.

Maaddie2 years ago(+1)(-5)

Sure, it's more so because of how the menu sizes and general resolution base choices of Ren'py that's kind of the issue here. IE, Taller sprites are harder to do because you seem to have less height in general to work with than the original Morenatsu engine (I forget what they used).

I'm aware. That's the reason I was trying to give feedback ahead of time so it's easier to notice from a "non-dev" perspective. I figured feedback would be useful in general.

It's not really chubby. He's just kinda averagish in body type.

OG sprite is a bit pudgier. And the revamped one takes it to the point where I wouldn't say he's chubby anymore.

Frostclaw2 years ago(+2)

Hmmm...

"Not chubby", eh? For Japan, Kounosuke is actually quite fat. The clothing we've given him does a better job at masking it.

Maaddie2 years ago (1 edit) (-8)

Yes, I still would say he's not chubby here but average. By virtue that he *still* has noticeably more defined pecs than the original sprite you have. The clothing doesn't actually make it apparent, because it still shows that he lacks in enough fat for there to be noticeable definition with his pecs. They are far more shapely than both your original sprite as well as the original Morenatsu sprite.

Even with Japan having "different standards for 'fat'," I'd say that makes it even worse in this case by virtue that 1) Kono isn't human (so the scales would already be different) 2) even on BMI, at worse, he's *barely* overweight based on his original stats (like, we're talking lose 5-6 pounds levels). But in the original, he was noticeably plumper. His face is more rounded, and he doesn't have cut pecs. Your original sprite has far less defined biceps and he's wider and smaller, so... Yeah, I'd say that he barely counts as chubby here. Going even further, he's not "quite fat" he's just not skinny.

IE, now, your Kono would be slightly overweight because he doesn't eat cleanly. Not because he's obviously sedentary.

itch.io

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