141. Deciding on the Game's Art Style

Friday, 3:30 PM. Toyogasaki Academy, audiovisual room.

The members of the game development circle—which, to this day, remained unregistered with the school and even lacked a proper name—had agreed to meet here after classes.

Wait, you ask about Umaru?

Well... don't worry about the small details.

As of now, only three young women were present in the room. The duo responsible for production and direction/programming were still held up in Class 2-B, serving their turn on cleaning duty.

About fifteen minutes later, the only two boys in the club finally made their appearance.

After entering, Jiang Yu casually found a seat and sat down. Aki Tomoya, however, walked straight to the podium. After catching his breath, he clapped his hands to draw the attention of the girls, who were each busy with their own tasks. He then spoke up, "Alright, the main goal of this club meeting is to check in on everyone's progress. Let's start with... Utaha-senpai!"

Hearing this, Kasumigaoka Utaha set down her paperback book, narrowed her eyes, and said languidly, "The second story arc isn't finished yet. I’ve been preoccupied with my new novel lately; the deadline is coming up soon."

As she spoke, she shot a glance at Jiang Yu, her eyes seemingly filled with dissatisfaction and... anticipation?

"Ah—Kasumi Utako's new work?! Please, you must not let anything else distract you, finish it as soon as—"

"Ahem—!"

"...My apologies. I understand. What about Eriri?"

Upon hearing news of the new work from her favorite author, Aki Tomoya proved his worth as a die-hard fan, only snapping back to reality after Jiang Yu's intentional coughing. He turned his question toward Eriri.

"Because of your help... ugh. Anyway, all my other work for this month was finished earlier this week, so now I'm focusing entirely on character design. I’ve finished the designs for the protagonist, Okabe Rintaro, and the heroine, Shiina Mayuri. The designs for Makise Kurisu and Hashida Itaru are still up for debate, and as for the other characters, I haven't even started. Also... there’s the issue of the coloring we discussed earlier."

With that, Eriri pulled a stack of papers from her bag, placed them on the table, and continued, "Following what Jiang-kun said before, I’ve prepared two versions. We really should decide today which one to adopt as our art style moving forward."

*Wow... has it escalated from 'Classmate Jiang Yu' to 'Jiang-kun'?* Jiang Yu clicked his tongue internally. It seemed that after visiting her home last Sunday and assisting her from an... artistic perspective(?), their relationship had grown significantly closer.

Though, it was probably just the upgrade from "random classmate" to "acquaintance"... He truly hoped no one had noticed this subtle change.

Then again, aside from hopeless otaku, who else would feel embarrassed about suddenly getting along better with someone?

As it turned out, everyone present—except for Aki Tomoya—seemed to have noticed the change in how Eriri addressed him. Kasumigaoka Utaha’s movement to pick up her book again was noticeably slower, and a flash of surprise crossed her wine-colored eyes.

Kato Megumi, who had been playing on her phone in the center of the room, paused for a brief moment before returning to her normal demeanor.

Aki Tomoya walked over, picked up the stack of papers Eriri had laid out, and began to flip through them. After a quick glance, he brought the drawings over to Jiang Yu, gesturing for him to take a look.

Jiang Yu had no objections; after all, this was exactly what he had called for.

Taking the papers, Jiang Yu spread them across the table and began a meticulous comparison.

The stack contained only two characters—Okabe and Mayuri, as Eriri had mentioned. Though it was called a "stack," it was really just six drawings. Three different expressions or poses for each were presented in two distinct styles: the heavy, oil-painting aesthetic Jiang Yu remembered, and the bright, vivid style popular in current trends.

To put it in layman's terms, it was the difference between the original illustrator Huke's game art and the subsequent TV anime adaptation's style.

After comparing them carefully several times, Jiang Yu still couldn't reach a decision.

Keep the original art style, or switch to the anime style?

Although this was merely a question of target audience size, Jiang Yu, facing such a choice for the first time, felt a moment of hesitation.

After frowning and thinking for a long while, Jiang Yu raised his head, looked at Aki Tomoya, who was still standing in front, and asked, "What do you think, Tomoya?"

Aki Tomoya pondered for a moment before replying, "As an otaku, I definitely find the latter style more pleasing to the eye. But for this specific game... I’m not sure which style fits better."

Jiang Yu sighed, stood up, took the papers to the front, and used magnets to stick them to the whiteboard. He tapped the board and asked, "What do you two think, Kasumigaoka-senpai and Kato?"

Kato Megumi looked at them carefully for a good while, but eventually shook her head, signaling she couldn't offer any constructive advice.

Kasumigaoka Utaha merely glanced up at them for a second before returning her gaze to her book. In a tone that was either indifferent or simply flat, she said, "Shouldn't you avoid asking the creators about something like this? Especially those not responsible for this specific module. Or rather, isn't making rational decisions exactly what a producer and a director should be doing?"

Jiang Yu fell into deep thought. The anime art style wasn't bad; if they used it, the audience would clearly be broader than the original.

But was that really for the best?

If *Steins;Gate* was no longer the unique, standout style among all visual novels, would it still be that legendary masterpiece that, despite a niche audience, was undeniably high-quality in his past life?

Wait... why am I worrying about the audience? We are just a doujin circle. And is the game I want to make—the work I want to present to this world—really just another high-standard visual novel?

Right. He had never harbored any grand ambition to overturn the industry, nor had he considered how high he could climb.

He simply wanted to be a pure game developer, presenting all the fantasies in his mind to the world.

Thinking of this, Jiang Yu couldn't help but chuckle.

He shook his head. The answer was already clear, wasn't it? Why had he been hesitating? Was it because the pride of a creator was still struggling in the depths of his heart, unwilling to rely on "plagiarism" to succeed?

Jiang Yu let out a long breath. Without capital, what right did he have to pursue so-called change?

And so, in the quiet classroom, only the voice of the director, planner, and lead programmer echoed:

"Let's go with the oil-painting style!"

A smile returned to the young man's face, his gaze burning with firm conviction.