Behind the Scenes: Bittersweet Enemies Battlers!

Whoooooop! Combining browser plays and downloads, Bittersweet Battlers's has 68 plays! Who cares if at least a hundred of those are probably from me, I'm celebrating anyway. 

As of the publishing of this post, BB has been up for a week. It has been a wild ride, working on the script, working on the script, working on the script before rushing the rest of the project at the very last week. Last minute scrambling aside, I'm glad that it's done, no matter the outcome. 

What on Earth is Bittersweet Battlers?!

For the people who had stumbled across this post from the wilderness- BB is a superhero-inspired romantic comedy between a 'Sweet Battler' hero Spearmint and a morally dark, dark off-white 'villain' called Lico Ice. After reconnecting with the latter again after his three-month disappearance, how does their relationship change? 

From this point on, there will be spoilers for the game!!! The game is free on itch.io and can be played from the browser, so check it out: 
Bittersweet Battlers by flufffables (itch.io) You've been warned :D

Quick warning! This post has 1,992 words. Sit back and grab a cup of coffee/tea/whatever drink before starting. Hydration is important.

Idea and Inspiration

Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE!

Yes, I've memorized the title. Boeibu (for short), is a fairly obscure anime released in 2015 about cute anime magical boys fighting against human turned monsters and championing love and justice! Yup, that's mostly the plot. The story isn't that deep, but it's enjoyable. It's just cute boys doing cute things and has pretty entertaining and funny moments. 

So how is a super niche anime a huge inspiration for BB? Aside from the magical fantasy theme and transforming pretty boys, I've definitely blasted the anime OP a lot, mostly for the magical vibes---> Zettai Muteki☆Fallin' Love☆ - Cute High Earth Defense Club Love! OP 1 Whenever I write scenes for Lico, I'd blast the VEPPER song (they aren't my fave characters, but their theme is a bop) ----> (Beppu Twins - Henshin Song) ☆Star☆The☆VEPPer☆ 

This is a hot take, but liking mid or less popular shows/media has helped me to fight against my imposter syndrome. Seeing happy, chill shows that aren't masterpieces get fans, get to exist and simply be entertaining is a surprising breath of fresh air for me. I don't want to be caught up in making an 'objectively' good or popular game that I forget to make a VN that is actually entertaining or fun for readers and myself. 

If this sounds like me nerding out over an almost 10-year-old anime, it is. By the way, it's getting its own 10th anniversary movie in 2025! Movie Trailer 

Another inspiration I had was Tiger and Bunny, for the cool setting where heroes are sponsored by brands and is a job. I liked the character driven/focused episodes and wanted a more character focused approach to BB as well. This portion is much shorter than the one on Cute High Earth Defense club because the influence of that anime is much more evident in the other scrapped romance routes that I'll explain further on. 

Character Design and Inspiration(?)

Why is Lico Ice like... this?

As for Taro/ Lico Ice, explaining him is a bit embarrassing. I'm a sucker for over the top misunderstood, not really villainous villains in media, and there's a clear lack of e-boy Megamind on the BL market. We can't romance Papyrus and I respect his decision, but there's such a missed opportunity to romance a Saturday morning cartoon villain. I love chunnibuyou characters who act over the top and pretend that they are part demon or something like Rika from Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!, Kaidou in Saiki K, Yohane in Love Live! Sunshine or Gundam Tanaka in Danganronpa. The reason why Lico looks like that is because I decided to make a fun redesign of Franziska in Ace Attorney, and that had an impact on Lico's design right after. That's why he is wearing a sort-of-suit and looks like candy Narumitsu. 

...I'll stop trying to explain myself.

Lico Ice's costume is based on a circus performer. Incidentally, he wields a whip, because he is an 'animal tamer'. The organisation he was under destroyed planets and captured strong creatures there as prisoners to continue their war against other planets, which includes the ones that Lico summons like Milkshark and Sorbear. But Lico Ice only turns his whip towards Battlers. 

Spearmint/Minze

Back when BB is an abandoned idea I had during the pandemic, the cast is all female and are magical girls. Here's old Spearmint!

Haha, he looks so different! Back then, Minze/Spearmint is Minty and Starburst. Minty is a loner girl with black hair with green highlights with a sharp tongue, while her hero version as Starburst is crude, smug and vulgar as a magical girl, causing her to be very unpopular. This supposed magical girl fights with brute force and with a delinquent like intensity, which makes her appear 'eviler' than the monsters she fights. Minze inherits her cynical nature, but he's much less abrasive and more of a tired grandpa than anything.

Spearmint was my first time designing a superhero costume:

I might have to rework it. He was going to wear a modern ninja like outfit, but I couldn't find a way to make it interesting and less stereotypical. The original idea is that he's wearing relatively 'normal' looking black clothes (kimono top and a hooded jacket) that allows him to blend into a crowd, but with bright green accents and 'symbols' that allow other heroes and the police to identify him. 

I tried adding the bird/crow symbolism to his clothes (the wing like shoulder pad and the mask), but it might've been too subtle. He is sort of based on the three-legged crow Yatagarasu, which is why the number 3 is extended throughout his hero design. I've tried to make his mask look like a beak without looking like the Plague doctor or something, but I went with a less on-the-nose approach with the spear/beak design on the mask. Even though I ditched the whole ninja thing, I knew that I wanted his outfit to be sleek, simple and not too flashy. If I were to change it now, I'd give him a carrier for his spear that he can sling on his back. 

Honestly, before I designed my characters, I assumed that I'd lean more into the candy theme and stuff a lot of candy imagery into their outfits, but I think I prefer it this way. 

Minze is a grey-haired dude in a green/black jacket. What else can I say? I mean, original Spearmint is inspired by Sakata Gintoki from Gintama, so Minze is kind of 'lazy' and dead fish eyed like him. I specifically drew Minze's eyes like the drawing tutorial they had in that one episode where they proved that all characters can be derived from Shinpachi.

But in the end, it gave Minze a 'cute' vibe. 

The appeal of this protagonist is that he's unemotional/ lazy/ aloof on the outside but caring/ wholesome on the inside. This is why his inner dialogue is especially important, and his outer reactions are sort of suppressed and limited compared to Taro/Lico Ice. It's not easy as Spearmint wears a mask, and the bulk of his expressions comes from his eyes and eyebrows. Taro has the opposite problem as he is mostly reserved and has occasional outbursts while having thick bangs that obscure his eyes. It's difficult to juggle between making characters show emotion, repress/ hide emotion while making the characters likeable and understandable to readers. 

Scrapped Ideas, Cut Scope

From a dating sim with three characters over the course of a month, to a shorter dating sim that takes place in a day, to one romance route with a character in one day. That sums it up. 

Yup, two love interests are scrapped from the project, and the only reason why they're taken out is because Taro/Lico Ice's route appears earlier in the script, so it's random. Sucks because I had the routes and backstories planned out. I think I'd update Bittersweet Battlers with all three routes in the future, but I'm going to let the project sit for a while until I get better at being a dev. These LIs are sort of alluded to in BB once or twice, but I didn't want to make it obvious that there is missing content. 

Left guy: 

As civilian (Jo): Looks up to Minze in school, calls Minze 'Boss' after getting his ass kicked by Minze, due to respecting the boy's strength. 

As Sweet Battler (Toffee-B): Spearmint's battle partner who has a strong rivalry with him. They joined up six months ago, and already have fights in public over the 'right' way of being a battler. Despite this, they are an unstoppable team. 

Right guy:

As civilian (Rhys): Minze's ex-childhood friend. As a kid, Minze used to save Rhys from monsters and Rhys kind of plays the dude in distress role. However, they slowly grew apart and it led to Rhys moving away without telling his former best friend. Recently, Rhys became a transfer student to Minze's class. They have an awkward relationship. 

As Sweet Battler (Caramello): A mysterious yet powerful battler who is said to have stopped all monster attacks in the big city. He hints at knowing Spearmint's real identity and wants to put an end to Spearmint's hero career. 

Welp, I'll let them out of the storeroom one day. 

Production Hell

Guess who rushed everything on the last weekend before the submission date for the Spooktober Visual Novel Jam 2024? I'm surprised that that visual novel could hold together with so much duct tape that it didn't collapse in on itself. The only reason why I know it wouldn't, because I tested it a couple of times. 

I should have a better, detailed plan, smaller scope and less backtracking from the beginning. At least this is my longest, 'completed' visual novel as of now at ~8k words, so I'm pretty satisfied with myself!

Final Thoughts

I eagerly await the day where BB kicks Catching Butterflies!'s stats. Hilariously, my serious game (Catching Butterflies!) used to do poorly compared to my shitpost game (Thirsty For You) for quite a while, so I joked about having Thirsty for You as my legacy. Since then, Catching Butterflies! has... caught up, mostly through tags. Catching Butterflies! was in a much bigger jam and kind of got buried under the other submissions compared to Thirsty for You in a smaller jam, but in the end, I believe what does matter is telling a good story. 

However, it's good that flufffables stays small-time. Sometimes my stories are cringe on purpose- it's better if less people read them... And if I'm not that popular, no one is going to read my rambling posts to this point and find my confession that most of what I make is 99% self-entertaining bullshit. Sure, I can't put out malicious ideas, but there's a certain freedom you get when making stuff as a solo indie dev. Case in point- in this post I'll say that I'm a 32 feet tall squirrel that barges into a random apartment to write and code stories. Deep lore right there. 

The reason why I took on BB is to challenge myself to write a longer story and succeed in finishing a longer project. And that's what happened :D ! As of now, it's been barely a week since I've released BB. It had been a wild ride.

SEE YA NEXT TIME! HUZZAH!!! ( ˘ ³˘)