Look at the center of any good RPG and  weaving between the combat, conflicts and greater elements of its plot, there's bound to be one love story.

"Caj and Nita have a complicated relationship" I wrote on my art blog when I posted the image above, later tagging it #NotReallyItsJustLove -- and I think they're both true statements of the pair. Much of the same could be said for the decision to include the ability to romance one of your bandmates in Harmonic Odyssey. It's a VN after all, and a little love is to be expected... but with so much freedom given to the player as it pertains to other, more RPG aspects of the game,  it's bound to be a little more complicated than that.

When you look at your typical visual or kinetic novel format, the idea of making a few choices that either endear you to the game's cast of characters or not is second nature to the player. In fact, that might very well be the point of the whole experience. Check out this video from Karsten's Chronicle YouTube channel, and you'll not only get an excellent primer for writing your first VN, but you'll be treated to behind-the-scenes explanation of why relationship building in a game is a great "hook" to keep the player involved in the story until its end. This sort of progression, where little choices can lead to surprising results in character interaction was, I felt, a natural fit for a game like Harmonic, which at its core, claims to be a visual novel despite its many other RPG-like facets. But how to go about it in an interesting way?

As Nita, the lovable and lovely frontwoman of Baen-Shee, you might be tempted at times to woo your musician party-members. There's Caj, of course,  your longtime friend and protector with the boyish good looks who very probably has a crush on you that she's too badass to admit. But there's also Cherry, whose drunken escapades may give the two of you plenty of "intimate" moments backstage to discuss secret love and fantasies in between holding her hair back so she can blow chunks after having one too many. And what of Sparkles? The strong, silent woman (at least, you're all pretty sure she's a human woman) who never speaks and is otherwise a mystery that perhaps only you can solve.

As an RPG, I think it's important for Harmonic to have central, obvious relationships established by default, but as a visual novel, the fun of exploring what buttons one can push (both figuratively and literally) to garner a response from one's allies is too tempting. Too, for a game that boasts loads of good, bad, tragic, violent and downright ridiculous endings, what would be the fun if we left out fanservice? 

And it's not just happy endings and fanservice, of course. As a reward for going along with one  buddies' plans over another, you might get an item that'll make your quest to unite the Gods, easier. Too, you might learn a little more about your companion and her almost certainly sordid past life. What if your choice to favor one of your girls over the other is met with jealousy, and you find yourself without a party member for a time, or perhaps, for the rest of the game? Of course, there's also the possibility that your chosen BFF could lead you all to an untimely end.

When I set out to make Harmonic, one of the things I wanted was a story with an all-girl cast that you could easily forget was centered around a group of women, only. To that end, ours is not a lesbian/yuri game per-se, but it could be. It's also about teamwork, friendships, losing friends, and consequences when playing with others' feelings, just as much as it is a game about facing consequences in pursuing various routes within the central storyline. 

Hopefully, none of us will get lost along the way!