Conviction Chronicles blog post #21 - Song "I'd Never Be" has released


Album Cover Art

I put a little more effort into this cover art than the other vocal songs, it's very artistic and symbolic for the role the song plays in the story, along with some other details. I don't want to spoil too much about it, but like many things, people might see it if they think about certain aspects of the game in a certain way.

 Link: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/michaelrichardlannon/id-never-be

Role of the Song

So the song is more mature, but also more depressing/somber with it's bittersweetness. It plays in the second credits once certain things have been revealed, and it's meant to be that way to showcase the player's progression and the understanding of the characters with the events of the overall story. The innocence of the player is gone by this point, which is why the song's instrumentation and lyrics fit "depressing/loss of self". It also falls in line with the previous two vocal songs which by this point have been engrained with the player. One of standing up and moving forward, hitting a roadblock. 

In many ways the story progression is set up for the player to begin as a fool then to reach a point of darkness, and in this darkness they reach an understanding which becomes a sobering liberation. It's really hard to state it without spoiling too much for hints, but the story structure has some ideas from the tarot system where once the tower, aka the lowest point, is hit, there is some time of reflection to learn more before judgement is past and everything reaches it's highest point as a conclusive ending. 

Once the second credits has been activated, the original credits will never happen again. This is to make the reveal and the credits switch much more impactful and long lasting, as the song is meant to remind them of the main reveal. The interesting thing is the original credits song feels more like an ending to an anime, which this song feels much more rooted in reality. So the game's story turns into something fictional into something real. I also did this to help with fans of other games that might play this game, where Kodaka left Danganronpa, which was a big inspiration I have to say, in fiction. Some players might have that mindset of Fiction internalized even after all these years since V3 released. This is meant to help lead 'fiction' back into 'reality' in a sense. It's a small detail, but knowing that psychological and mental place people might be in to make the scene more impactful I believe will be worth the over analyzing I have done for this moment.

The main idea is to be like many popular animes where they have two sets of songs, where it replaces the original end credits with a new layer of understanding. I'm not sure if I want to replace the original title/main menu theme as of yet. I'm going to wait before making any more additions like that. I want to get much more done with the transition scenes for the reveal aspects before investing more into it to make sure everything is going to be as good as it can be.

Now you might be asking why I uploaded an instrumental song with it when I didn't do the same with the others as of yet. Well, I took the opportunity to switch out one of the songs I used in the past with this instrumental, since the original song was not the best for how important the information was. I really don't want to spoil what scene it's played in, as it is a spoiler, it also adds a little ironic detail which is fun. There are more spoilers tied to the song lore wise I don't want to go into either, as it's much more interesting if it comes up naturally in game once people figure it out. 

The song also has a fun thing to it where it can symbolize multiple characters instead of just one like the other songs. In many ways, it shows the player knowing the group more as a whole and supporting their struggle in the game. 

With this, I hope it's going to be as impactful as I want it to be where it makes people think more about the moment, and to act as a reward for playing that far into the game to reach that moment.

It also has a very nice sax solo which symbolizes the hope to try to make the despairing aspects of the song less powerful as I didn't want it to be overwhelming. And yes, I did have some of the lyrics being a little cheeky references and some other stuff to the other vocal songs and some other references. I kind of had to have "Hope" and "Despair" in the same line sneaked in somewhere as a nice little nod to Danganronpa. 

Other stuff

I asked the same producer from before with the vocalist and they made something really nice. I went for an indie rock sort of feel. I would say it was worth it and adds the mature feel I was looking for. 

Anything else?

I'm gonna be posting some more blogposts soon, mainly since I have 3-4 days left of the mechanic I am working on. The mechanic after that is gonna take a very long time where I plan on splitting up the blogposts about it, due to the amount of content it's going to store. Unless I work more on editing the game settings, either or at this point.

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