Penny Blood March 2024 Update

We are back at it with a new month, which means another update. The team behind Penny Blood has consistently provided updates regarding the game and its development. So for March, my birthday month, we have the usual Project Diary, some information on Penny Blood Hellbound, and a word from Hirota-san. So let’s get into the latest update.

Kicking off  the Penny Blood update for everyone the team had this message for JRPG fans:

Many of you may have seen the news but we lost a true JRPG hero earlier in the month. Yoshitaka Murayama of the Genso Suikoden and Eiyuden Chronicle series has passed away. We were so fortunate to have him on the closing stream. He was a big personality with great stories to tell. We will miss him and send our deepest condolences to the team at Rabbit and Bear.

Penny Blood Hellbound Early Access

If you have stayed up to date with my updates on LOGNET or these updates in general you know the team decided to bring out a smaller game. In the meantime, while Penny Blood continues to go through development, the team will be bringing Penny Blood Hellbound to fans. This is what the team said about early access for the game:

Penny Blood Hellbound will officially enter Early Access on March 7th at 6PM JPN time. It has a host of new content, art, music, added stability, bug fixes, and more. If you purchased it via the Closed Beta Backer discount you’ll be able to play right away. If you are new to the game, the Early Access version is priced at $20 USD but that price will increase once we get to the full release. As always, any feedback is greatly appreciated via the official Discord.

Penny Blood Hellbound Early Access Save System

When it comes to the save system during early access the team wanted to clear this up for Hellbound:

In order to ensure the highest save stability we needed to rebuild the save architecture for future improvements. This unfortunately means that save data from the closed beta will be unusable in the Early Access version but this should be the only time we need to do a save data wipe for any future version. We know losing save progress can be frustrating but hopefully with all the new changes to the core game loop it will still feel like a fresh experience.

I don’t know yet if I will personally be playing Penny Blood Hellbound during the early access period. My focus is strictly more on the main game, but hopefully, this save system doesn’t cause any issues in the future for fans.

Project Diary

Another update means we have the pleasure of seeing another Project Diary from the team. This is what they shared with everyone in regards to Penny Blood:

Good evening, everyone. Just the other day it felt pretty warm, but the cold is back again. The weather continues to be very unstable, but I’m starting to feel like Spring is truly on its way now. Despite what I just wrote, however, it’s still extremely cold up here in Bandai, Niigata. So I’ve bought a bunch of snacks and holed myself up in my home. Now, let’s begin this month’s Penny Blood project update.

We’re continuing talks with publishers for the main game. There haven’t been any reports yet, so this month I’d like to talk about the early access version of Penny Blood Hellbound that was released on February 26. It’s been powered up quite a bit since the beta version. According to Furukawa, the director, they’ve taken care to make a lot of detailed gameplay adjustments. They are working hard to increase the quality of design-related elements as well.

Feedback and Implementation

The team continued the Project Diary talking about feedback and implementation for Penny Blood Hellbound.

While they weren’t  able to implement 100% of the feedback they received, they are taking everyone’s opinions seriously as they work hard to refine the game, and I for one find them to be highly dependable. The Early Access version is out now, so please give it a try if you’re interested. That concludes our progress report, but when I asked Kato-san if she had any art to share this month, she suggested revealing the trihedral figures she created for Clara, the main character of Hellbound, as well as Axeman, and Dr. Eugene.

Unlike the characters of Penny Blood, the ones in Hellbound are squished ‘chibi’ style characters, but Axeman still emits a dark, outlaw aura, while Dr. Eugene still feels like a psychotic mad scientist. Personally, I love characters that are this size.…That’s it for this month’s update! I’ve been writing this text while eating some oden and drinking sake, and I have to say, nothing feels better than drinking some Shimeharitsuru sake while thinking about Spring in the northern lands.

Message From Hirota-san

This month Hirota-san focused a lot on Penny Blood Hellbound. This is what was shared with everyone:

Whenever I get close to a deadline, I tend to remain shut up in my office. So I’ve been going on walks in the morning and evening in order to revitalize my brain. Lately, perhaps because Spring is near, really strong winds coming from the South have almost knocked me over. For a while, I was working exclusively on things for the Early Access version of Penny Blood: Hellbound. We’ve added a lot more sound effects compared to the Beta. There are still a lot of things missing or still in temporary states, so I want to keep adding a lot of new sounds.

I’ve been composing a lot of music and new songs as well. The combat is the main focus of this game, so I’ve worked hard on the battle music while considering where the battles are happening, the situations, the enemy characters, etc. Of course, I also keep in mind what sort of melody the battle music in the previous area had in order to select the right ‘playlist’ like a DJ while keeping in mind the feelings of the players and the overall flow of the game.

More on Music

Hirota-san continued to talk about the music featured in Penny Blood Hellbound and said this:

The music featured in the new area added in Early Access has already gotten pretty intense, so I’m sort of worried as to whether I’ll be able to compose an even more intense song for the next area, or whether some sort of ‘intensity inflation’ will occur. Still, instead of holding back and composing a song similar to what I did for the initial stage, I think it’ll be better if I just charge forward and try to develop a new frontier of intensity for the sake of the main game as well.

There are still some instruments I want to add to the songs that were revealed this time around, so I intend to update them in the future. I hope you can still enjoy those tracks as they are now, knowing that you’ll only be able to hear them for a limited time. In March, we’ll be doing our second round of voice recordings. I hope you’re all excited to hear the new characters’ voices. I’m going to do my best to keep charging forward and deliver to you the best sounds possible, so please keep cheering me on!

Wrap Up

If you remember right, Penny Blood was part of a Double Kickstarter with Armed Fantasia. While I appreciate these consistent updates, especially since the backer’s money went to back the project. I just hope to focus of the updates doesn’t veer too far from the main Penny Blood game. I know this smaller game will help funnel more money into the project. This isn’t the only Kickstarter that decided to make a smaller game to benefit the main project. I believe in the team and believe they will treat fans right. Stay tuned for more updates from me about the spiritual successor for Shadow Hearts called Penny Blood.