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Sacrifice Maneuver: The Sci-Fi Story You Need to Experience!

Written by Devil Darling, Writer, Otome Enthusiast, Horror Lover
Published on November 13, 2024
 

We’re so thrilled to bring you a peek behind the scenes of Sacrifice Maneuver! In this exclusive interview, we talked with the talented team at Painappuru Project, the creative minds behind this out-of-this-world otome adventure. They’ve poured so much heart and passion into building a galaxy of mysteries, lovable characters, and in this interview, they share all the details about their journey, inspirations, and even a few surprises!

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Let’s start from the beginning! Can you tell us a little bit about how you both got into game development? What inspired you to jump into the industry, and what were some of the challenges you faced along the way?

“Hello and thank you so much for the opportunity to speak about our game! We are two game developers from Czechia – Etuta and Temi. Temi is our main developer and tech wiz, but she also works on art and script, while Etuta is the main artist and writer, but she also helps with debugging when needed. Being sort of able to do everything is what we consider our main strength. Well, everything except for marketing…”

“We started as teenagers with our first visual novel Maido Manie, which we made for a contest at an anime convention we were (and still are) heavily involved in. Unfortunately, university put a stop to our dreams of making games (comics, illustrations, and basically all of our hobbies), because, inspired by our first game, we both went to study software engineering. After settling into our boring daily IT jobs, we decided we needed more excitement in our lives and re-ignited our passion for making visual novels. We also want to start making games professionally, not just as a hobby.”

Sacrifice Maneuver Doctor and Kairo
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Sacrifice Maneuver is such a creative concept! What was the inspiration behind it? Are there any sci-fi series or themes that helped shape the story?

Etuta: “I am a big sci-fi fan and there was a particular idea for a series, which was widely discussed in the Star Trek fan community – the Star Trek academy. I always loved that idea and when thinking of a plot for our new game, I really wanted to try giving my own spin on it. The world itself was also influenced by other sci-fi series such as Babylon 5, StarGate, Battlestar Galactica, The Orville, or Red Dwarf, which even has few references throughout the game.”

Temi: “We also wanted to make a detective story, so we merged these two genres together. The romance plot goes really well with the school setting and we have never done an otome game before, so that was another challenge for us.”

Sacrifice Maneuver Artemis
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The world-building in Sacrifice Maneuver feels so detailed! Could you dive a little deeper into how you created this fascinating universe?

“We spent quite a long time coming up with all the alien races and their relationships. Thanks to one of the most dominant races being inspired by ancient Greece and Rome, it made naming all the aliens much easier, because we could draw from already existing languages and mythology. Many of the races were inspired by other sci-fi franchises, mythology, animals and things around us. For example the Kareiesians were inspired by a friend, who is really into moth girls. The original Olympians got their physical attributes from bats and vampires. We also tried to have the space travel and technology somewhat realistic, so there is a whole technical bible written for the ship and all the tech.”

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I’m so curious—did either of you have a favorite character to write or design? Personally, I loved Kairo!

Temi: “My favourite characters were Holo and Bryn. Holo is a great mystery while being a very supportive friend and Bryn is just the nicest person in the game, so they are an obvious pick for number one.”

Etuta: “As the main writer, all of them were my favourite, you can’t pick your favourite child. And I feel really bad for killing a specific character, but because we wanted to solve a murder, we had to kill someone… From a visual standpoint, my favourite character is definitely doctor Thysania, I love her look. I am so tempted to ask what you like about Kairo, but I am the one being interviewed.”

Sacrifice Maneuver Bryn
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The main character’s experience of prejudice at the academy really stood out. Is this bias specific to the academy’s elite environment, or is it common in other parts of the galaxy too?

“I think that every society that presents itself as utopistic is just really good at hiding prejudice. You can see that the more mature characters are quite accepting of the main character, while some other characters, who maybe deal with some issues internally, have a harder time accepting her. That should show us that the people unsure of themselves have a harder time welcoming someone new and in an imperfect society, there will always be unwelcoming people. The main character does experience prejudice, bullying and lack of acceptance on a personal level, but the ending reveals that the issue is much deeper in the union society. We wanted the United Star Systems of Via Lactea to feel realistic, just like our own real-life examples. Big inspiration for us was the European Union, which in concept is a wonderful organization (and we are glad to be part of it) but is just not perfectly equal for each member state and doesn’t erase the rivalries and history the member states have between them.”

Sacrifice Maneuver Antaeus
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I love Sacrifice Maneuver’s art style! Did you have specific inspirations for the visual design of Sacrifice Maneuver? The uniforms gave me major Star Trek vibes.

“We wanted the interior of the Union ships to be quite sterile and clean, and we always described it as an “Apple Keynotes presentation” look. To contrast the whites and greys, all the screens, light and conduits are bright blue. We wanted to avoid red as much as possible in the interiors, as it is usually coded as evil in the sci-fi genre.”

“The uniforms are inspired by Star Trek as well as various other media – Neon Genesis Evangelion, game Murder on the Spaceship Altair, the anime I was watching at the time called Synduality Noir and plain old racing jackets.”

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How has the response been so far from the players? Has the community’s feedback matched your expectations, or were there any surprises?

“We made the game for the Ren’Ai Remixed contest and part of the evaluation is also feedback from other contestants as well as the jury panel. Because there was a deadline involved, the finished game is more of a prototype and Etuta especially was quite disappointed by all the things we didn’t manage to put in the game in the end. That’s why all the positive feedback was so surprising to us. People got really invested into the story and we even had one of the judges give a whole lecture on how to win the chess mini-game, algorithmically. It’s always the most fun to engage with the players and get live feedback and we gained a lot of valuable insight on how to make TSM even better.”

Etuta: “The most unexpected feedback was that we won the contest…”

Sacrifice Maneuver Cadets
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Were there any parts of the game, like specific choices or character moments, that players ended up loving more than you expected?

Etuta: “I had no idea people would be so sad about the murder… I think I made the character too likable…”

Temi: “I didn’t expect players to like Bastian so much. We thought he might be a bit boring, considering that he is the dedicated “Watson” character, but he seems to be the most popular so far.”

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Do you have any exciting plans to expand Sacrifice Maneuver? Will we see more content or updates coming soon?

“The current iteration of the game is what we consider a prototype for the Ren’Ai Remixed contest. We are planning on re-working both the script and art and make a full release on Steam by the end of 2025. We also want to add dub and maybe some of our own original music.”

Sacrifice Maneuver Engine Room
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What’s next for you both after Sacrifice Maneuver? Are there other projects you’re excited to explore?

“We are currently preparing our game called Mousehole Bookshop for release on Steam. It is an anti-dating simulator about an introverted mouse dealing with his job in services. We also have many more ideas for games, both bishoujo and Otome. The next project will probably be a sequel to our first-ever game Maido Manie.”

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For an exclusive look behind the scenes, Painappuru Project shared some exciting early sketches from Sacrifice Maneuver! One gem is the first design of characters Antaeus, Bastian, and Kairo, showing Antaeus with an original idea of bat ears before they settled on his now-iconic elf ears. They also shared initial technical drawings of the Scout spaceship.

Character Sketch
Engine Room Sketch
Ship Sketch

Painappuru Project poured so much love into Sacrifice Maneuver, and they’re thrilled to keep building this galaxy with you. If you want to stay connected, be sure to follow them on social media, join their Discord, and wishlist their upcoming games, including Mousehole Bookshop, which is on the way! For those who want to play Sacrifice Maneuver for themselves—you can find the game on itch.io here.

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