User:EpicnezzEmily

What's up? My name's Emily, and I'm the creator of Royalty Free. I'm 21 years old, my birthday is December 12th, and I'm a broke college kid! I've been making this game since the beginning of my sophomore year of high school and it's finally out! Took me long enough.

I no longer have access to this account, so my new one will be over at HatoHeart. But apparently I can still edit this profile which is weird... but whatevs.

FAQ
Anything you want to know that isn't answered here? Feel free to ask me on my Message Wall!
 * Q: What inspired Royalty Free?
 * A: I was using a Princess Maker in early 2012 and made princess versions of girls in my class. In the summer of 2012, I began writing a play about Princess Emily (who would later become Utako), though I discontinued work on it after about a year. In 2013, a friend introduced me to Katawa Shoujo, my first exposure to the visual novel genre. Later that year, I discovered Hatoful Boyfriend, which inspired me to create a VN of my own. I found Ren'Py, learned to use it, and decided to use my unfinished princess play as the basis for it.
 * Q: Who's your favorite character?
 * A: I'll be honest, it's Utako. She's based off of me, so maybe I'm a bit biased :P. Apart from her, I really love Hinata and Ryouta.
 * Q: When will the game be released?
 * A: September 1st, 2016! Mark your calendars!
 * The original goal was 2014, which obviously didn't happen. I managed to get the demo out in May 2015 so I aimed for August-October 2015, which also didn't happen.
 * Q: How much will Royalty Free cost to play?
 * A: It will be free. There will be an option to donate, but it won't be required.
 * Q: What made you change the English names to Japanese ones?
 * A: To put it simply, I wasn't sure if all the people I used as inspiration would be okay with having characters that looked like them and were named after them (though a few told me that they were okay with it). Since the visual novel genre is from Japan, I eventually made the decision to change all the names to Japanese ones. It just made sense :P
 * Q: Why did the characters go through so many sprite changes?
 * A: Ooh, this is a long one.
 * My original ones were done by Brian Quinn, but they looked NOTHING like what I had in mind.
 * For attempt #2, I took the pictures I made with the princess maker and vectored them, but they looked awful.
 * I used DreamSelfy for the third batch, but they just didn't look unique enough.
 * The fourth batch was done with IIcharacter Alpha, but they had the same problem as DreamSelfy, and beared too much resemblance to Touhou characters.
 * Then finally, FINALLY, I couldn't take it anymore and put out Tumblr ads and deviantART journals trying to commission someone to do them for me. And to my luck, I found Viki . We worked out a plan and she drew me sprites that looked just how I wanted them, and they are the sprites that will be used in the final game.
 * Wow. That was a long one. But now I'm finally happy with how my sprites look.
 * Q: What were the reasons behind each girl's Japanese name?
 * A: I chose them all based on the meaning of the kanji used in them. For example: "Uta" means "song" and "ko" means "child. Therefore Utako = "song child". And so on. Use Google Translate if you're curious about the other names :)
 * Q: Which songs do you associate with each princess?
 * Utako: Run With the Hunted by Skyhill or Shut Up by Simple Plan.
 * Aya: Uh I'll come back to this one. I honestly have nothing that comes to mind for her.
 * Shizuka; Invisible by Big Time Rush? Yeah, let's go with that.
 * Hinata: Not sure why but the first song that comes to mind is Top Of the World by Greek Fire. Kinda fits.
 * Mai: Porta Vista by Hyper Potions. Just... all the changes in style, but still keeping the happy overtone. There's Mai in a nutshell.
 * Q: Given that you seem to love MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator), can you give a rough estimate of each character's type?
 * A: Got so long, I moved it to it's own blog post, so check it out there!
 * Q: Are you aware that there is no present day royalty system in Japan?
 * A: Yes. I'm aiming for realistic story, realistic characters, and realistic problems, not realistic setting. :P
 * Q: If you worked on the game for three years, then why is it so short?
 * A: Writer's block. SO MUCH writer's block. I never really intended for it to be especially long anyway. Here's a timeline:
 * I finished Act 1 around the end of 2013. This was back when the project started and I was still super excited about it.
 * Utako and Aya's routes got finished by spring 2014. I was still in my groove.
 * Shizuka's and Hinata's were both written over the course of two weeks during summer 2014. I was in Florida for a month, and spent a lot of time in Panera Bread, working on it because I had nothing else to do.
 * Then there was Mai's. Her route was the reason the game took so long, just because I had so much going on in 2015, and on top of that I had NO IDEA what to do with it. I finally finished it in August 2016.
 * Q: Are there any routes that are "canon"?
 * A: As a matter of fact, yes! Though all these routes are possible to achieve, Mai's good ending is actually the canon route, as in what is actually supposed to happen to Takahiro. Utako and Ryouta get together in this route, as do Shizuka and Daichi, so Mai is paired off with Takahiro. The princess trio and the guard trio, together!

Character Info
Includes: age, birthday, height, and favorite color.
 * Utako: 15, December 12, 5'6, sky blue.
 * Aya: 16, March 27, 5'2, hot pink.
 * Shizuka: 17, December 20, 5'7, forest green.
 * Hinata: 16, January 29, 5'4, black.
 * Mai: 15, June 22, 5'3, lavender.
 * The Queen: 48, September 10, 5'8, crimson.
 * Ryouta: 16, December 1, 5'9, silver.
 * Daichi: 17, September 26, 5'10, midnight blue.
 * Chibana: 11, September 22, 5'0, royal purple.
 * Naoko: 19, October 6, 5'8, teal.