Hello there.
This is A Kiss For The Petals series producer Mi Kara Deta Saba.
Once again, I’ve been given the chance to write about certain day-to-day particulars you become aware of as a yuri game producer. I hope you’ll enjoy hearing about all the subtle differences between yuri games and male/female romance stories.
Peculiarities of the Yuri System
In your standard male/female romance game, frequently you’ll have one male protagonist, and a number of female heroines, right?
Then, during the opening scenes, you’ll accumulate a certain amount of goodwill with each of the girls, and whoever ends up with the most is the route you’ll progress down. Once you’ve done one character’s route, you have to start all over from the beginning, this time starting down a different girl’s route. And by repeating this once for each character, you get 100% completion.
In other words, Girl A’s route and Girl B’s route are like some kind of simultaneously coexisting parallel dimensions.
Now you’re probably thinking, “Yeah, I guess you’re right. So what?” Well, with this sort of system, making a sequel featuring the same characters is exceedingly difficult.
If you play out the scenario with Girl A, that means you end up not going out with Girl B, so when they try to push out a sequel, no matter what, it has to have you going out with Girl A.
And if that’s the case, then all the other girls have to get relegated to background characters, and a whole slew of new characters are introduced… Isn’t that how it would have to work? Which is why, for the sake of sanity, they usually don’t make direct sequels to those types of games.
Yuri games couldn’t be more different.
Just because you diverge down a certain couple’s route doesn’t mean you create a parallel dimension. So depending on how things play out, you can potentially make an infinite number of games featuring the same couples.
This happens to be the case in the Petals series, and we’ve even received comments from the voice actresses that, “This is the only series where I’ve voiced the same character for this long” (lol).
And as a creator, you get all the more attached to these characters you’ve put so much effort into.
Because of this peculiar system, I find making yuri games to be very interesting these days.
Check back tomorrow for another installment of the Day-to-Day of Yuri! A Kiss for the Petals: Remembering How We Met will be available for download on our site and on Steam this Friday!