I was wondering what people would prefer for Bionic Heart 2. Have the game longer, like all my newer games, something around 100,000 words, but without voices or shorter, like 50-60,000 words but fully voiced?

Adding voices to a game is really painful, expensive and can delay the release by several months, so if I go on this route definitely the game will be shorter.

Note that the number of final endings will still be the same: it only changes the amount of writing that will be present. More scenes, more character inner thoughts, more descriptive texts, and so on.

I enjoyed the voice acting in Bionic Heart; my vote is to have voice acting in BH2.

Very respectfully,

fleet

Personally if it lengthens the game then I say no voices. Sometimes I like to 'hear' the voices in my head anyway and when I hear a voice that doesn't match what I imagine it's kinda off settling.



All in all though it's in the creator's decision.

Voices would be good to follow on from BH but saying that longer story is also good... Hmm I say only do it if you can get the same voice actors if not scrap it. Hate it when they change the actors even more if I liked the voice. (Zelos - ToS = Zelos - ToS 2 = )

Getting the same voice actors will be basically IMPOSSIBLE, since I completely lost contacts with the girl doing Tanya/Helen.

Then you know my answer without it is

you could go some polish guy way. not a while ago he confirmed his FREEWARE visual novel will include voice acting in polish and english. the problem is that he decided to dub only endings and several different scenes or something. i think that you could have 100k game (which isn't that long) with 10-20k lines being voiced. olah.

Voicing only specific scenes could be a solution too, even if to be honest I don't like much that option (I decided not to do that for Loren and only have the battle voices).

Just a note that after speaking with the writer, I might need to make the game shorter (so 60k words) because of his needs. I haven't made my mind yet but seems that will be the option, in that case will make it voiced. Anyway, even with 60k words lots of things can happen in the story. The first game was slightly less than that, and is the game with the highest amount of different endings I've ever made

Getting the same voice actors will be basically IMPOSSIBLE, since I completely lost contacts with the girl doing Tanya/Helen.

That is sad, as I really REALLY enjoyed her voice - it added a very nice dimension to the game. Did I say I liked her voice?



I definitively voted WITH VOICE - seeing that the voting did not help you a lot...



And I would prefer of course a longer game AND would pay much more for it... however, the solution with an "expansion" might help here...



And, on a side note, I don't need 21 or so endings, more than 5 or so seems unneeded, at least to me. I'd rather have a few, but longer plots than a plenty of endings, each with a shorter plot.



Thanks for keeping us informed about BH2 - it's my first WinterWolves Game and, imho, still the best (this doesn't mean the others I tried are bad, no - I just don't like them as much as BH - I'm kind-of a Dark Sci-Fi lover)

Yeah as a player, I like too less endings but longer paths, but I have to think about everyone's tastes. Still it will have about 12 endings, so less than the first one. As for the voices I think I could find someone else with a sexy voice good enough for Tanya

Was it decided already if the game is going to be voice or not?

Very likely not, since it would mean a delay of at least 3 months. Also based on what happens with the other games, I get typos/edits even after the game is out so there would be for sure different voices vs the texts and isn't really a great thing. If there was an OVERWHELMING response I might have considered it, but as it is not really worth it. Maybe if one day I'll make a more mainstream game like an adventure game.

How about delaying the whole thing until you get enough actors and resources?

like what happened with Heileen.

it would be sad if it is not an option any more

I'm not sure people would rather wait 3 months to play the game honestly! I can do this though, see how it goes with the normal version and then decide

thank you for considering

Np, I always try to make people happy, but if you see me opposing resistance so much means that from past experiences it means that I really think won't be worth it.

I'm checking back every other month or so.... Good news that we make progress with BH2 and it will be in our hands soon, but of course, I'd have liked it more with voices... anyway, I can understand your points but I'd like to mention that I would definitively shell out more money for a version with voices... or for a voice-expansion later...

Depending how the game does I'm not excluding completely a voice over expansion later, but for sure not right now, since people will inevitably find typos (like happens with all games because of the size) and better to have all the texts sorted before even starting the voices

Oohh, This is an interesting thread. Looking at the date on the last post I'm sure a decision has already been reached but I'd like to add my thoughts anyway. You may find yourself faced with this decision again some day.



From what I have seen in anime based forums there seem to by a lot of hard core fans that prefer english subtitles to english dubbed versions and from what I've seen of anime I think this has a lot to do with the typical quality of the voice acting it's self. Unless the voice actors are top notch the dubbing can really ruin it. case in point, Kashi Mashi (Girl meets Girl) I absolutely hated the voice acting of the english dubb in that. However I generally prefer english dubbs to avoid having to read subs. Funimation, for example, has a really top notch group of voice actors. They do such a great job with their english re-versioning you'd almost never guess it was originally japanese except for the Japanese names of the characters and such.



That said, fully voicing a game is a risky venture. But could work if the voice acting cast is good.



Also, I'd like to add that I did like the battled voices in Loren. In particular Dora's line at the end of a battle that I've made my signature on this forum. I chuckle every time I hear that.