Ayrith’s Fashion Show

 How is it already August… Hey everyone! Posty here, with a new post coming straight to your post-box. This month's update will go over some visual updates that we have made to some of our characters, featuring some fresh new drip and a little bit of plastic surgery, a little treat for you all from the music men, and a new character joins the Desolation cast? This time around, you will be hearing from the team and not just me! So let’s get into it, Ruby will now take over and go through the graphical updates she has been making to the game.

Ruby’s Plastic Surgery Clinic

Hiiii it’s me Ruby, and as the title above states I’ve once again reopened the doors of my plastic surgery clinic. Truth be told I have no clue why I held off so long to do this, but whatever, it’s done finally. Here’s the redesigns of both Aderyn and Aaron!

Someone’s gonna have to stop me from giving everyone long coats. Even if someone tried to stop me, they’ll find I’m an immovable force. Alas…

I tried to keep most of their physical appearances intact from the original. I already liked Aderyn so she faced minimal bodily changes besides her outfit. Aaron, however, got sent to the barber lol. Unfortunately I’m not a fan of the type of hair from his old sprite, so I changed it up to something still similar but more to what I find looks better haha. You’ll find I base my design principles half off of vibes and half off of actual studies haha. 

For the thought process, I tried to give Aderyn a ranger look (that wasn’t just the X/Y ranger lmao,) that I thought also fit the actual rangers aesthetic present in the game. For Aaron, I tried to lean more into him being the Director of Cellia North, his arguably more important job in the grand scheme of things, haha. These sprites are still subject to change, so there’s a chance for there to be some differences in the end product.

As a signoff, these two aren’t the only ones who went under my knife~ There’s one more existing character I’ve taken for a haircut and shopping, so have fun with that info until I inevitably decide to spill who it is hehe.

Catch you whenever I have fun, non-spoily stuff to show~

- Ruby

Oh no. We have to update the ron emotes now…..

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 What do you think about the drip? Ruby has been smashing it out of the park with all the graphic updates she has been making to the game, and with Omens working alongside her in the artist department, Desolation is looking pretty sick Now I’m going to pass over to our musicians, Darius and Rust, who have something in store for you all!

Darust’s Music Corner

Welcome to Kanzen Cliffs  -- a new, explorable area on Arcanius Island after traversing through Chryseum Canyon! Because of this area's relevance to the main story, I wanted to be very particular in how the track was written.

Rust and I actually went through three different iterations of the track before we finally settled on this one, and I am super proud of the work that went into it! Please let us know what you think either on this blog or in our channel on the Reborn Evo server! We're always looking to improve player experience :)

The composition is written for string orchestra with flute, french horn, vibraphone, and piano taking turns with the melody. Usually when composing, I come up with the melodies first and then work out the harmony, but in writing this piece, I'd actually had the chord progression in my drafts since Episode 6, just waiting for the right opportunity to use it.

My goal with this piece thematically was to separate two very distinct areas with strong personalities (Chryseum Canyon and Kanzen Temple) with something much more serene and playful -- almost a respite from the stressful canyon's irregular meter (each major is seven beats/counts) and the unsettling temple's pulsing D minor #13 chord. (For those interested, minor chords contribute to darker feelings like anger or sadness, but adding the #13 brings an air of mystery, very common in Jazz music. I recommend listening to "So What?" - Miles Davis if you'd like to explore further)

Funnily enough, I came up with this chord progression when I was experimenting with Christmas songs back in December of 2022. I was working on a reharmonization project at my university (where you have to take an existing song and change the chord progression while still keeping in sense with the melody), and developed this progression from the classic, "Let it Snow!" The resemblance is a bit obscure, but the observant ones of you may hear slight references here or there throughout the piece. That's all for the composition side of things, I'll now turn it over to Rust to tell you about the magic he casts during the production.

– Dariusolation

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Oh boy, my turn!

Kanzen Cliffs as far as I know is the first track I worked on as an official member of the team. There's a few where Darius asked me to do some production work, but this one was special since I was an actual team member.

Kanzen was a funny one because I went in planning to try to have a cohesive sound between tracks. Give the OST its own identity if I had to describe the plan and it started with this track. When Darius passed it over to me, I initially went with my usual down-sample to DS quality and combined it with the Gen 4 and 5 instruments.... Yeah, that pass didn't really hit the spot. I then decided to go for a hybrid of higher quality samples mixed with soundfonts (though this track is actually void of Sfs). I did at least try as much as possible to pull from the same sources as the Game Freak Composers. I've now got a solid set of general sounds I can pull from now, but let's focus more on this track.

While Darius did say we went through three iterations, I went through way more changes before sending a version to him that I thought might be good. So many French Horns were tested on my end to fit the feel until I remembered I had a program called Noteperformer that does an amazing job of replicating realistic playing. It hit the spot for the overall vibes of the track (get it? Because, there's a vibraphone in the track).

A good portion of my work is just hearing the original base Musescore playback and trying to the best of my ability to figure out what Darius heard in his head when writing. Luckily, I seem to get close to the mark most of the time (pretty easy with this track for the strings considering he had used the BW strings, so I just used the original source!). Throw on some reverb to Darius's taste with a few effects and mixing and you get a nice track.

If just hearing this track gets you excited, then I can't wait for you to hear what else Darius and I have in store for you!

- Rust

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Without further ado, here’s the track!

Don’t say we don’t treat you all… We dropped quite a few teasers and it’s about time we just go ahead and reveal a brand new track for EP7. I am really excited with the musical direction we are taking with Desolation, and I hope you enjoy this!

How would you like your tea?

 As a fellow British man, I like a good ‘ol cuppa during the day. It could be anytime, in the morning while I’m hard at work, when I come home from my job, or even later in the evening when I have some bits to crack on with. But sometimes it’s nice to head down to a nice cafe, sit down and enjoy a nice cup of their finest tea, accompanied by a treat of your choice. Do you want some scones? Maybe even a slice of cake? I definitely find myself indulging in a nice cafe every now and then, when I went to Berlin recently I found myself in a few cafes (including the Hoyoverse cafe… 3 times… Don’t ask), anyways where am I going with this?

You might remember from a previous update last year, I shared this screenshot of Astraciel.

Amongus

 A Gym situated in this town full of mushrooms and wonders, but did you know it was also a cafe? Of course you didn’t, I never mentioned it to you, until now. But who is the Gym Leader? Well, let me introduce you to the newest character to the Desolation Cast!

 Meet Delica! Yes, she finally makes her appearance in Episode 7. You might have heard her name throughout your journey thus far, but you haven’t seen her yet, until now… Actually I think we revealed part of her outfit in an old dev blog during Episode 6’s development, so shout out to you if you recognise the drip! She acts as the Gym Leader in Astraciel, in which her Gym is situated within Astra Café. All in all, she’s a sweet girl who cares a lot for the people around her. Whether that be those she’s attending to in the cafe, or her challengers at the Gym, she will always greet you with a smile on her face, an absolute sweetie pie! How will she be able to assist you during your travels? You’ll have to wait to find out!

 Delica is a character that I’m really excited for you all to meet in game, she’s essentially Ruby’s “babygirl” and a character we’ve been sitting on since we joined the development team back in 2019. I look forward to you all getting to find out more about her story.

To celebrate her reveal, here is a cute icon that you all may use!

To accompany the reveal of the newest character joining the Desolation Cast, she needs a theme to go alongside her right? Anyways, here’s a snippet of Delica’s Theme :)

Yes we’re past the music section and you’re getting more music, wow wow!

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 Before I finish off this development blog, I wanted to throw it back to you all, the community. Progress is being made but with no end in sight currently, I understand that it has been rather slow as a whole, and I know a lot of you are eagerly awaiting the next update to Desolation. So while I can’t hand over EP7 to you all now, I wanted to ask if there is anything in particular you would all like to see in our next development blog? And we will look to base that post around community feedback! So ask away, drop comments on this blog or in the Deso General channel in the Reborn Evo Discord, and I will compile a selection!

Til’ the next one folks

Posty