Keyframes: More Than Just a College Romance
College life, deep friendships, and unforgettable love stories? Keyframes offers all that and more in this engaging Amare visual novel. Developed by (BLANK) HOUSE Games, the game captures the whirlwind of university life—its challenges, triumphs, and everything in between. We had the pleasure of sitting down with Marina and Floss, two of the brilliant minds behind the project, who shared exclusive insights and behind-the-scenes stories about the game!
Marina: “Hi, my name is Marina. I have my hands all over the project, but the primary jobs that I have are being project lead and director, so I would be directing the team towards the vision we have for the game and overseeing the general production of the project. I’m also programming a lot, specifically in scripting and implementing the various assets we have for the game.”
Floss: “And I’m Floss. I am primarily the editor for Keyframes, which means I am checking grammar and formatting, as well as story consistency throughout all of our scripts and other written materials. So I work a lot with writers, Marina, and our narrative lead, Lily, to maintain a solid narrative as we’re developing the game.”
“And speaking of Lily, they are our narrative lead, and that means they handle all the planning and outlining for our story and the scripts. Um, from that planning stage, when we go into scripting, it’s usually much more of a combined effort. Um, but that’s, that’s just pretty true of how we do things in general.”
Floss: “Keyframes is an amare visual novel, which means it focuses not only on romantic relationships, but also on platonic ones. It does start when you’re in your second year of college, finishing up the end of your spring semester. At that point, you already have two friends, Deja and Cameron, and you meet three more who are also the love interests, their names are Percy, Jamie, and Elio.
“Then from there, you finish out the semester by spending time with everyone. The choices you’re making throughout that remaining time impact your character as well as the relationships you’re starting to build with all the other characters. And again, it’s not just in the romantic sense. Keyframes is very much a slow burn with a lot of focus on, I’d say, the friendships that you’re making, keeping, and possibly breaking while figuring out all the rest of the college stuff. Because. It is very much a college-life game, for sure.”
Floss: “So, Percy Tozaki is also a second-year student. He’s a biology major minoring in math and, at a glance, he’s got a bit of punkish energy and he seems to have a lot of audacity. He gives off this very flirty and forward first impression but once you get to know him you get a quieter sense of his personality and how he behaves around his friends. Depending on how your protagonist responds to his joking attitude he can either mesh really well with your own sense of humor, or he could even consider you a bit of a buzzkill. He’s easygoing, he likes to go with the flow, and if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t like going with the flow, then he could come to have a bit of a problem with that.”
“Then we have Elio Kealoha, an astrophysics major, who’s kind of our brains and brawn put together like that rare combo. He’s definitely the most extroverted of the bunch and really determined to enjoy life to the fullest, but he’s a really big sweetheart. He’s super considerate of everyone around him. If you vibe with him right away, he can be part of a great physical comedy duo with your character, or he can tone it down as much as he can.”
“And then, last but not least, we have Jamie Porter. He has a reputation for being the campus boyfriend, which basically means that he’s who a lot of people are looking to with starry eyes. He’s generally very polite and distanced, which feeds into this thing where a lot of students are fixating on just his good looks and how nice his manners are. This impression that everyone’s building about him makes him really cautious of actually getting to know new people. So when it comes to your player character, depending on how you treat his boundaries, he can either continue to ice you out and hold you at a distance or he can maybe begin to thaw and consider you part of the friend circle, at which point you might discover he’s actually a little mischievous?”
Marina: “Our team is largely comprised of freelancers. We’ve gotten into contact with some really cool talents who previously worked on TV shows and for other incredible studios. We do have a couple of mainstay members like C, who handles our CGs and sprites, and Angel, who is our UI artist. We give them a brief overview of the assets, pass over a reference doc, and do a lot of back and forth with the occasional screaming and crying because of how cute they made everything. Occasionally, working with the art team is a pretty smooth process.”
“They just just know what I’m visualizing in my head. There are some rare moments when something isn’t clicking, however. Whenever that happens, I usually start taking pictures. There’s been one or two moments where I had to put on a fit for a sprite or a pose for a CG. Most of the CGs in the game are inspired by places I’ve visited.”
Marina: “For a story about growth and discovery, we really wanted players to have a chance to experience their own changes alongside the cast. And so we just wanted to show players how impactful their choices can be over time. The quiz and the stat decisions specifically let us do that. So by knowing how a player is likely to act with the personality quiz in the beginning, we could then track how much they’ve changed from their initial personality with the stat-based choices. We use that knowledge to inform the cast around them, and how they would react if anything were to go down. The quick-time events, however, are more so for immersion. I love visual novels but don’t particularly like how certain choices are usually just given to you, so quick-time events were made for that kind of immersion.”
Floss: “The summer installment is to be about this sense that everyone’s got their own things going on while school’s off. At that point in the game, it’s really up to you which moments you want to be involved in as time passes. We do have two main events lined up that’ll gather everyone in one spot. But outside of that, what you’re getting from summer will really depend on who you’re spending your time with.”
Marina: “As for what’s in store for the future, we’re going to be leaning a lot into that growth and discovery so you’re going to be learning a lot and you’re going to be deciding a lot. Floss said summer is just going to be a time for you to learn enough about someone to set the foundations of a firmer friendship or romance, but those are the regrets that keep our cast awake at night.”
“You know, the kind of fears that hold them back or some facts that they refuse to acknowledge. It might get a little bit messy, but you know, growing up was never supposed to be easy anyway. So whenever we get to that part of production later on in the seasons, I’d say players would have to get ready for a lot of things to change.”
And as always, we have a special treat for our readers. The team at (BLANK) HOUSE Games has shared exclusive draft sketches of Keyframes‘ cast, brought to life by their incredibly talented sprite and CG artist, Tsy. It’s always great to see the creative process behind a game’s characters.
Be sure to follow (BLANK) HOUSE for updates, and don’t forget to check out the game’s Steam page so you can try the demo and add the full game to your wishlist!
You may also like this
Upcoming Otome Games We’re Excited For
If you’re anything like us, you’re always looking for more games to add to your collection. And with many fantastic titles on the horizon, we...
Sacrifice Maneuver: The Sci-Fi Story You Need to Experience!
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...
Mirage Noir Should Be on Your Otome Radar
New otome titles are constantly being announced, so I like to keep an eye out for any promising new additions to my collection. After playing...