Mage's Initiation - NPCs Voiced

All NPCs in Mage's Initiation have been voiced and the work on giving the lead character a voice is in progress.

t's most pleasing to say that we've FINALLY hit the major milestone of getting all of the NPC characters' voices recorded and completely lip-synced. That equates to a total of 3,247 lines; a process that took almost one full year! With that task now squarely in the rear-view mirror, we've started concentrating on slaying the final beast - D'arc's lines. At this point in time we're still preparing his script and haven't actually started recordings yet. However, that's on track to commence within the next few weeks. D'arc has lines. A LOT of lines. 5,712 lines to be precise. So MANY lines that it's taken several weeks just to organize his script document, add all the directional notes, and put everything in the right contextual order. It's almost like proof-checking a short novel. (By comparison, a typical NPC script takes around an hour to compile and organize). Thankfully, not all of D'arc's lines will need lip-syncing, as many of them (such as narration descriptions) will merely be thoughts in his head that don't require his mouth to move.

It's anticipated that D'arc's lines will take another two to three months to record, lip-sync, and implement into the game. After that's been sorted, we'll need to do a few final rounds of beta testing to check that everything's working properly, tidy up a few remaining bugs, and to catch any voice files that may have been missed or that might require retakes on account of having the wrong inflection or tone.

Aside from that, only the cutscene intermission movies still need to be finalized by having the final character voices and lip-syncing added, as well as some editing adjustments to make the timing cleaner and snappier. We're excited to be nearing the light at the end of the tunnel – it's approaching like a Flame Bolt to face... only less cauterizing.