Community Update August 2024

August is extremely hot and humid in Japan, but we are doing our best to stay cool with some new updates! August is also "obon vacation" here, where many of us go back to our hometowns to visit family and pay respects to the departed. How do you guys spend your summer months?

Penny Blood: Hellbound - Early Access Update #2

We are approaching the full release of Penny Blood: Hellbound, but there is one more mid-release still to go! The Early Access Update #2 build will land on August 8th and include the following additions:

・Area 4 and a new boss ・Online Multiplayer Mode ・New set of weapons for every character ・Four new NPCs ・Blood-surfing attacks for ranged characters ・New quests ・New enemies added and previous enemies adjusted ・More functionality for support dungeon NPCs ・Various bug-fixes

We'll be adding the change list to the Penny Blood Discord later.

Penny Blood: Hellbound’s schedule has slipped a bit as we try to take on everyone’s feedback, so we are now aiming for the full release sometime in early Fall.

We apologize for the delay, and thank you all for your continued support in helping to share the world of Penny Blood!

Message from Hirota-san

Hello, everyone. The development goal point for Penny Blood: Hellbound is visible now. In most game dev cycles, sound development always comes in at the very end. The scenario, graphics, movies, programmings…once all that is done, the sound work begins. I always feel a lot of pressure when I get to this point and have to start making music for important spots such as the last boss battle and ending even though we don’t have much time left.

Some projects create a list of necessary sounds before we reach this last stage. I’m not sure if you can say one approach is better than the other, but if you create a sound list ahead of time, it becomes hard to create more than what you’re imagining. On the other hand, trying to create the best sounds for the completed story in a limited amount of time often results in last-minute strokes of genius and explosions of creativity.

Either way, the only thing I can do is work my hardest at finishing the tracks in front of me and make Penny Blood: Hellbound as good as it can possibly be. I also intend to gather up as much knowledge as possible to help me out with the main Penny Blood game as well. I’ll be doing my best to deliver good sounds to you all, so please keep cheering me on.

Now, about the concerts I’ll be doing in September in Kyoto and Tokyo for my birthday. I’ve gotten a lot of reservations, but there are still some seats left. I feel like this is really a one-of-a-kind event, so I hope that as many people as possible can come and listen to us perform live.

The concert will focus on songs I wrote for Penny Blood, songs that have been implemented in Penny Blood: Hellbound, and songs from the Shadow Hearts series (I acquired permission from Universal Entertainment). The concert will feature performances from Benyamin Nuss, a pianist from Germany, Shauno Isomura, a violinist from New Zealand, and I’ll be playing the cello and electronic instruments in order to recreate the world of Hirota music for you all in a variety of different styles: classic, jazz, rock, electronic, modern music, folk music, etc…

I hope you can all make a reservation and look forward to seeing you there.

How to make a reservation/event info: http://www.tts-products.co.jp/yoshitakahirota/index.php/2024/06/28/hirota_live2024/