Dev Log 8: Chloe, The All American

A few years ago (geez that makes me feel old), as I began working on Achlys, I thought a lot about how I wanted to promote the game, or what I wanted to talk about. Granted, I think I could have done a better job, but something I found from following other games and creators was that I wished they talked about their work methodologies or thoughts about their own game more. A lot of their opinions you could learn from following them over time, but very infrequently was it something so personal like revealing early designs and sketches of a character, much like you had seen from an artbook/fanbook for a franchise after the fact.

What I can say is that I’m in a relatively unique position as a VN dev, having actually completed the game. I have the ability to speak in hindsight about the game and my characters without spoiling future developments (I’ll try to keep ideas for future books out of this. Outside of what I consider the obvious.) There isn’t the fear that I may change my mind about something for Book 1 and then just entirely rewrite it. I’d probably just create an alternate version if it came to that.

Of course one of things that I did reveal about the creation of the game is its interesting transition from H-game to non-h vn, which changed a lot of pieces to the game, but the characters themselves more or less remained the same. This is one of the reasons why there aren’t any male characters other than MC. The change happened so early on that it really wasn’t a large shift, and a lot of the lore about the details of the fog, and the dream world are accessories that could be added in without altering too much. For instance, the theme of the game is one thing, but it could have been done a ton of different ways.

One thing that’s funny about creating characters like a harem game and just creating characters for a story is that in many cases, having a variety of characters that fit certain niches really is good. It makes the characters easily identifiable and understandable, and they bounce off each other more nicely without stepping on each other’s toes. I don’t think it’s everything, but depending on the medium, the speed at which these characters can be visually processed means a lot.

Chloe is a character who is almost the platonic ideal of the tomboy gf. She does track, is a childhood friend of the MC, etc, etc. My focus for the characters, such as Chloe, was to take a generic trope, and turn it into something living, dynamic, and personal. While I feel as if Chloe never truly subverts expectations, for instance it’s not as if she was actually the book-ish reading type underneath, I tried my best to give her depth to her opinions and ideas and reasons for being.

Interestingly, many of Chloe’s qualities, athletic, outgoing, girl next door, and even being ambiguously tan make her an All-American Girl. For the character document which outlined how a character reacts to trauma, or mystery, Chloe, being the All-American, rejects the unknown for the practical. The fog isn’t something she can do anything about, whereas her relationship with her mom and her personal goals are practical things.

Chloe’s scenes were some of the easiest to write. Her personality is straightforward, and her ideas and conceptualization also lended itself towards straightforward, naturalistic dialogue. I found that writing the group scenes, such as the ones with Sarah, were incredibly easy to inflate into very large dialogues as opposed to one of the more monologue heavy scenes. It took about twice the effort to fill out one of Lauren’s for instance. If I were to make a game more group dialogue heavy, it would be one way to increase the length, though I am not too confident just yet about writing naturalistic, flowing dialogue. Stilted, awkward phrasing, and overly flowery and philosophical descriptions are more natural to me. Thanks Jessie.

One thing that I have kept in mind when talking to people about Achlys is who their favorite character is. I had the belief that a person’s favorite character reflects their own personality. For instance if you liked Chloe and Noel but hated Jessie, I understand your type. For sure. To that end, I found Chloe to be one of the more relatable characters in that her issues really are more practical, and her scenes are often more straightforwardly heartwarming. Many people who struggle with making ends meet, or finding themselves, or with relationships with family like her. Because of that, I felt that Chloe was one of the characters people would like best, and early feedback suggests that Chloe and Jessie are among the more popular, if not just because they had the most scenes.

I had a habit of running in the afternoons during the writing period of Achlys. I would feel the warm sun on my back, feel the breeze by the waters, and run. It was something that connected me to her, as I used running as one of my exercises to take the edge off.