Sunday, May 14, 2023
From The Depths of Space To The Heart Of An Idol
One
of the greatest advantages of the approach to visual novel development
outside of Japan is the range of different themes and gameplay styles
a developer can mix into their games. Love In Space are an excellent
showcase of the innovation and freedom this allows and how it can
push a developer into new directions to not only create exciting
future titles but also improve upon existing series. Their portfolio
of titles covers two main through lines, these being the Sunrider and
the Shining Song Starnova games and these two could not be more
different from one another in terms of content with one being a
sci-fi adventure and the other being grounded in the idol industry.
You can never be quite sure what Love In Space will do next and how
they will put a new spin on something familiar. Just when you think
you have them pinned down they take a turn into somewhere you least
expected. Now let’s dive in and see what exactly makes Love In
Space’s approach to visual novel development work and how has been
reshaped over time.
Developer Overview
When
it comes to the output of Love In Space they lean heavily into the
realm of hybrid visual novels, these being visual novels with another
gameplay style attached to them which emphasises the narrative being
told in some manner. These complementary elements come in many
different forms from tactics gameplay to dating sims, but all work to
help the visual novel sections communicate their messages and ideas.
It is this balance between the two competing halves of their games
which is by far Love In Space’s greatest talent and the
biggest reason to play their games. However, this is not to say that
they cannot create brilliant pure visual novels as when they turn
their skills to this task they prove that their stories can stand up
on their own and do not need the accompanying alternative gameplay
elements to shine brightly. This ability to occupy both ends of the
spectrum of visual novels gives them a depth of perspective that
helps inform each new title they make in a way which creates a
compounding of experience and the results of this process speak for
themselves.
Sitting
beside this flexibility of mechanics and approach to what defines
their visual novels is Love In Space’s wide range of themes,
settings and subject matters. This is a developer who thought that
pivoting from space adventures to idol management was the way to go
and through their deft hand actually managed to pull this transition
off. Despite their regular shifts in gameplay and narrative style
there is an emotional and character driven focus which ties their
work together and defines their identity as a developer. This
manifests in their fixation on motivations and how they like to
deeply pull at a character’s inner thoughts to help the player get
a rich understanding of these people and their struggles. Above all
else empathy is what each interaction and carefully crafted plot
point drives home with an impact that is both satisfying and lingers
in your perception of the characters involved.
Selection of Notable Works
The Sunrider Series
Upon
the wings of the Sunrider Love In Space came into their own and had
their first big success. Now consisting of four entities, the
Sunrider series follows the adventures of Kayto Shields as he
commands the titular Sunrider through its spacefaring exploits and
the crew who reside within it. These games are the best showcase of
the improvement of Love In Space’s skill set and refining of what
they want their games to present to the player. Comparing First
Arrival to the most recent game Captain’s Return is like night and
day. Everything has improved across the board from the artwork to
writing and the gameplay has been completely reinvented to inject new
life into the ailing systems. However, despite all these changes the
core identity of the series shines through in exactly the same way.
This is a tale of a captain and his crew and the games never lose
sight of that fact as each one of the characters has to grapple with the
conflicts they encounter and the truths they uncover. These people never
remain the same but they do retain what makes them who they are and
Love In Space knows how to make that an exciting and wondrous journey
through the star and people’s hearts.
Shining Song Starnova
Idols
were not what many expected from Love In Space after the success of
Sunrider, yet that was exactly what they did and the result was a
fresh experience that maintained the core strengths of the developer.
The game follows the rise of a producer in his new job and the misfit
girls who will bloom into stars on the idol stage and it charts their
struggles to overcome their flaws and create a future for themselves.
This is by far their most character focused work and has quite a
large cast and the similarly large number of routes, but despite this broad nature there
in an intimacy to the player’s relationship with each heroine that
helps sell them as people. Each route knows how to focus in on the
main heroine to get the most out of their conflict without losing
sight of the other character’s relationships and how they relate to
the main pair. While the overall plots of the routes might be more
familiar to those who have played other romance visual novel, there
is a considerable effort to introduce at least one exiting twist to
the standard formula per route.
Sunrider Academy
With
Sunrider Academy we can see Love In Space’s first attempt to move
away from the turn based tactics gameplay that they had up to this
point been relying on. What they chose to experiment with is the
dating sim genre with a heavy focus on stat management and a tight
time frame to achieve the results need to secure the heroine’s
affection. Taking the Sunrider cast and placing them in a slightly
sci-fi school setting was a stroke of genius as it allows for these
characters to present another side to their personalities which is
born of this lower stakes environment. The heroines are introduced as
the heads of their failing clubs and Shields is tasked with bringing
each club into a reasonable state or they will be shut down. As a
starting point for a relationship this is excellent as it pushes
Shields into direct contact with the heroines in a position of mutual
interest from which the more personal conflict can spawn. You can see
many of the beats and techniques that Love In Space would later
refine in the Starnova games.
Shining Song Starnova: Idol Empire
The
logical continuation of the original Starnova was to give the player
direct control over the management aspects of the setting now that
the character arcs have all be concluded and this is exactly what
Idol Empire does for the series. Idol Empire has the player juggling
all the parts of the idol industry in a package which has fun playing
with the previous game’s established relationships and presenting a
dynamic set of systems. The various modes allow for the player to
express themselves and engage with the gameplay in whatever manner
they desire as some modes promote a focused story while others give
them a tool box to freely play with. Having the confidence to present
so many options to the player and being sure that no matter what they
choose they will have a good time is testament to how far Love In
Space has come with their unique identity and how much confidence
they have in it. There is a definite sense that this has been built
upon their previous experiences which they gained from Sunrider
Academy and remade here into a more refined and for purpose product
that truly shines because of the insights gained beforehand.
Conclusion
Love
In Space is a developer who has formed a unique and flexible identity
that has served them well over a variety of settings and mechanics
while providing the player with new and fun visual novels to play.
Focusing in on the characters and making them the core of their
narratives through the lens of motivations and picking away at what
makes them tick through well thought out conflicts gives their games
a common and strong core to form around. Coupled with their ability
to smoothly introduce new gameplay styles to their visual novels and
the resulting packages are compelling in a way that few other
developers can match.
