A (relatively) Brief Update - 5/31/2023

Hey ya'll!

Know it's been a minute, but wanted to touch base with ya'll and let you know where everything's at. I unfortunately don't have anything concrete to show ya'll quite yet, but will have something very soon. So, with that said, where are we at?

For the past month or so, I've been finding myself bouncing back and forth between 3 projects:

Project 1) Heaven Will Be Mine, aka the next collab with SulMatul. I've made good progress on this, got a through outline, some sources, and a strong vision for what I want the final video to look like. What I hadn't accounted for though was that SulMatul is currently ankle deep in her own absurdly long multi-hour megaproject at the moment, which means this will have to wait till production on that has wrapped. Still excited for it and driven to put it together, but this is the downside of collaborative work: Gotta have both parties for it to work. I'm confident though that we'll be good to move forward by the time these next two projects are all sorted out.

Project 2) Shadow Hearts aka 'wait, what?'. Okay, so, I know I listed a lot of projects last time (all of which are still in the works) and that this this wasn't among them, so what gives? Well, unsurprisingly, I watch a lot of YouTube while I'm working, and in the process of doing so, I couldn't help but notice: Koudelka is finding an audience. It's not a huge audience, but it does seem to be at last finding the cult fandom as it always deserved. In fact, it's finding a fandom so big, that I'm starting to see more videos on Shadow Hearts 1. Which means, of course, it's only a matter of time till the fandom reaches Shadow Hearts: Covenant.

I know we've had a lot of new faces around here lately, so for those of you who don't know, let me emphasis that Shadow Hearts: Covenant is a game I've been circling around making a video on since the earliest days of this channel. For years, my handle on twitter was 'Ruby 'Play Shadow Hearts: Covenant' Seals', anytime anyone has asked me what game they should play it has been my answer, and the only reason I haven't made something about it is that I didn't believe I was skilled enough to do it justice till recently. Suffice to say, it is my favorite game that no one has played and I've been begging the world to play it in vain for years. In fact, I was planning on doing a huge project for it towards the end of last year before Everything went down at the start of this year and all my plans got set aflame.

With that said: The only reason I ever put this project on the backburner again is because I assumed it was a personal indulgence, a video for me to make for myself, that only I would ever fully love. But now I see that this may actually be a thing that people would want to see. So if, after all this time, I let someone beat me to the punch on making THE giant video on Covenant, I'd never forgive myself for missing my chance.

And once I realized that, the bug bit me and it bit me hard. This instantly went from a 'we'll get there eventually' to 'I NEED to make this IMMEDIATELY', and I've been doing this long enough that I've learned, when you find drive like that for a project, you listen to it and you use it. Unfortunately though, this has also meant that most of my work on that so far has been replaying the games, writing, and doing research on all of the historical figures it namechecks, so it will still be a couple more weeks at earliest before I have anything concrete to show. Rest assured though, it is coming along and am excited to finally make one of my dream projects into a reality.

Project 3) Haruspex Route, aka The Big One. This is, at the moment, my top priority. For all of my drive on the Shadow Hearts project, it is currently what I work on when I feel myself needing a break from this. Progress is coming along really well, the rough draft of the first week is in place, and a ton of research has been completed (I have learned SO much about the Moscow Arts Theatre let me tell you). If I'd put 100% of my effort into working with what I have already, I'm confidant that I could have completed an early rough cut of Day 1 last month, and perhaps Day 2 as well. So, if that's the case, why didn't I?

Well, while I was doing all of that, I was also doing one finally normal playthrough of the Haruspex Route so that I was sure I had both the narrative and mechanical experience fresh in my mind. As I made my way through it though, the main question I found myself asking was 'Where do I make the cut? Where does the Act 1 video end and Act 2 begin?' And I found it! End of Day 7, first day you meet Aglaya and the Foreman, ends on a good dramatic cliff hanger, perfect place to hit pause on the story while I work on the second half.

After finding it though, I began to ask myself: 'SHOULD I cut it here, though?'

Fun fact: The sole reason I initially split the Bachelor's Route into two acts was precisely because I had no clue how it was going to be received and I didn't want to invest even more time and energy into what was, at the time, a deeply weird experiment that I was legitimately skeptical to believe would find a serious audience.

We know how that turned out, don't we?? So, I began to ask myself: is there any reason I should make a split into two videos?

There are quite a few good reasons to be sure, but I quickly found most of them outweighed by the pros. Doing it all as 1 video would make it possible to break into 3 acts, which I could then drop 'intermissions' into which would allow me to give a more comprehensive look at Russian theater without messing with the pacing too bad, letting me basically use it as a B-Plot during the main story. I also know that getting started on these projects is always the slowest part, particularly the parts involving casting, so if I could just carry that momentum through the whole route, then I'm confident that things could get done way faster than they would otherwise. Most of all though, it just flatly sounds better, more like something that I would want to watch and make.

All of this to say that, after talking it over with a lot of the people I know will be involved, it's been decided to pursue the Haruspex as just one, giant Megavideo. All 12 days, in one upload.

This has been really exciting, but it has also meant going back to the drawing board on a couple things. I suddenly have 5 more days that I needed to start writing immediately, as well as, reworking pacing and structure in the writing I already had, on top of fact-checking all the history info I've put together that will be making up the intro and intermissions. It's been A Lot, but I'm proud of what I've managed to do so far.

The downside though is that it meant I wasn't able to focus on editing and recording. I can't really contact most actors until I know every In-Game line that I'm going to include, which will now of course include Days 8-12. The decision inherently means moving every finish line this project has back further back though.

I do not expect this video to be 100% done, ready to upload, completed until much later in the year. It is the biggest and most ambitious thing I've ever attempted, and that will inherently take time. Till then though, it will remain my goal to have at least 1 new Day for ya'll every month for the foreseeable future.

It is my sincere hope that this will be the last month that I post something without a video attached for a hot minute. We've officially got enough irons in the fire that I'm confidant there should always be at least one ready to go at anytime. Till then, I'm gonna get back to work on everything and make sure I have something special to show off next month.

Until then, thank you all as usually for your support, looking forward to seeing ya'll again real soon!

Peace~
Ruby Anne Seals