Behind the Games - Interview with RoseVeRte Games

Hey Hey Heroes, Travelers, and Wandering NPCs, I’m back with another Behind the Games post!

For those of you just joining the party, Behind the Games is a segment where I interview the folks ‘behind the games’ I review. The series is meant to act as a complement to the reviews, giving you guys a chance to get to know the developers that spend so much time carefully crafting the games you enjoy. For each interview I send the Devs five questions (and one random bonus question), to kind of flesh out who they are, while also getting a bit of insight into their inspirations for their games. It’s completely voluntary and meant to be a fun way to get you guys acquainted with content creators.

Last time around I spoke with Ertal from the BL games developer, Ertal Games, so if you missed that, I definitely recommend checking that post out too! This time around, I had the chance to chat with Chu-3, the person behind the otome game developer, RoseVeRte Games!

RoseVeRte Games started out as a small circle of independent developers and has since become a one person operation helmed by Chu-3. The team got their start back in 2010 with the otome game Duplicity and has since grown to to produce a number of wonderful game titles. RoseVeRte specializes in romance themed visual novels, that are known for their imaginative settings and unique characters. Their most recent Eroolia series has achieved great success, and currently consists of three games: How to Take Off Your Mask (2015), How To Fool A Liar King (2017), and How To Sing Open Your Heart (2019). But, enough from me, let’s turn things over to Chu-3…

Could you tell me a bit about yourself? What do you do when you aren’t making games? (Interests, hobbies, etc)

Reading manga/ web novel/ watching anime? I want to say playing games, but lately I really don’t have time for that (since once I start to play a game, I won’t be able to stop for hundred hours ) Oh yes, I also really love to try new and delicious food And watching movie sometime, and sleep!

What sparked your interest in developing visual novels? Is this something you’d like to do for a living or is it mostly a hobby?

I do this for a living. I formerly interested with story telling, mostly manga, but then I feel like I want something more than simply drawing manga. Then in my late 20, I found about visual novel, and I notice that this is what I want to make, since it’s a combination of programming, story telling, and more. It’s not easy to live by making visual novel, there are a lot of challenge, and also the risk of going bankrupt at anytime…. Hopefully I still can survive

Your team has quite a few games in your portfolio, many of which feature imaginative settings and characters, most notably the Eroolia series. What was your inspiration for the series? And how has the series grown since the first game, How to Take Off Your Mask launched in 2015?

Urm, I got the game’s idea quite fast actually. For Story Of Eroolia series, I simply thought I wanted to make something cute, which means: cat. And since I like transformation theme stories, I immediately imagine about a transformation to cat girl story. The next world building is actually finished in no time, while I was waiting for a friend in Starbucks while drinking café latte It just… happens?

About how the series grown… Hmm… actually I already had the concept when I make the first game, but the first game was a test to see if the series worth to be continued or not. I want to show the people relationship within the unique Eroolia world, and it could be between the luccretias (cat people) or humans. That’s why the protagonist from each game should be different, to show how the relationship between the characters with different background will progress in the world of Eroolia.

Your team is very active on social media, posting polls, game updates, and even behind the scenes content on an almost daily basis. How important is social media in engaging potential players? Is there a difference in the types of feedback you receive from fans from different parts of the world?

Am I? Well it’s basically only me alone who run Roseverte, while other staff work as how I commissioned them. Rather to engage potential players, well, I simply like to talk! Though I do think that I need to update my patreon more often, but sometime it’s hard to show stuff while doing scenario or other stuff which is not related with art.

About the feedback, of course there are differences, and some I can’t apply on my game, as it’s on the contrary of other feedback. Such as the feedback to add quick save/load button on text box, and other feedback asked to remove them.

Roseverte has been pretty consistent with new releases, putting out a new game every few years or so. Are there any projects in the works that you’d like to share with my readers? (You can be as vague as you want)

Urmm….. I’m learning a new engine now, and it takes time to get used to it. But if I succeed probably my next game would be in a new platform that I never made a game for it before. It’s not really a new title but I made it nearly from scratch again Sorry but I’m not ready to reveal the title.

Q. Of your games, which was your favorite to work on? Why?

Every game developments have their unique episodes. But if you want to say about fun, probably the Eroolia series, as the whole team, including the VAs are very supportive and friendly. Making twists in CAFE 0 is really fun too, but since the theme is tragedy, sometime it makes me sad in making it I’m not saying I dislike it though!

Bonus: If you had the chance to live in any fantasy world, where would it be and why?

In a place where I can have unlimited fund to make games because my main stress these days is to calculate if I can spend XXX to break even for the game or not ☠☠☠

I want to give a huge ‘thank you’ to Chu-3 for taking the time to do this Q&A with me, they are super sweet and definitely worth chatting with if you have the time. The first time we spoke was just before How To Fool A Liar King was release, the RoseVeRte twitter account was running a poll to help decide the appearance of a demon character and there was an option for him to be a megane. Anyone that knows me knows that megane are my bias… so you can imagine what happened next… I ran a one woman crusade to the get folks to vote for the megane option LOL. But, Chu-3 was super awesome and we got to talking about games and the rest is well history!

Chu-3 is a delight and I strongly urge you to give RoseVeRte’s games a play, they are amazing especially the Eroolia series! Below are some links to RoseVeRte Game’s social media pages and game related sites. I highly recommend subscribing to their pages for the most up to date news on their current and future projects.