Development Ciconia When They Cry is developed by
07th Expansion, with a scenario, original character designs and illustrations by
Ryukishi07. The game is developed and released
episodically, and is planned to be four episodes long. The game's title – "ciconia", a
genus of birds in the
stork family – comes from how the game focuses on child characters. While at a convention outside Japan, Ryukishi07 asked recurring 07th Expansion composer Gin Kreuz how to localize the title in Japanese to make it sound more appealing. Kreuz responded with "ciconia" as opposed to "chikonia". The latter, as Ryukishi07 claims, sounded similar to how a Japanese person would pronounce it. Convinced by how natural Kreuz's pronunciation sounded, Ryukishi07 opted for "ciconia", owing to its sound and how well he thought it fit the game's
science fiction setting. In October 2018, both were delayed until Q2/Q3 2019, due to inaccurate scheduling based on what Ryukishi07 had been physically capable of when he worked on
Higurashi and
Umineko about ten years prior, as well as due to the longer script compared to
Higurashi and
Umineko first episodes. Ryukishi07 intended for
Ciconia to stand out from previous
When They Cry games, and wanted change up some elements that had been recurring up until that point: he had for example specifically intended for the player to actively try to figure out the mysteries in
Higurashi and
Umineko, but changed this for
Ciconia to also let the player simply enjoy the story. This decision was influenced by the 1995
anime series
Neon Genesis Evangelion, which both presents a straightforward narrative and hints at larger mysteries of its world. Another change was the scope of the game's setting: the series had featured increasingly smaller settings, going from
Higurashi isolated village to
Umineko small island cut off from the outside world, so Ryukishi07 decided to create a
When They Cry game set in a large world. To show gratitude to international fans of the series, he also specifically wrote the script to feature characters from around the world.
Ciconia story was condensed compared to those in
Higurashi and
Umineko: both of them were split into four "question arcs" and four "answer arcs", where their mysteries are set up and solved, with an initial episode mainly serving to introduce the characters and setting. Meanwhile,
Ciconia was constructed to span four episodes, with its equivalents of the "question arcs" condensed to give more room for its "answer arcs", with Ryukishi07 describing the end of
Ciconia first episode as equivalent to
Umineko third or fourth episode in terms of plot progression. This was in part done due to time, as the series' release schedule had meant that it had taken two years for just
Umineko "answer arcs" to come out.
Music and visuals The music tracks in the game were specifically composed to begin quickly, and give the listener a feeling for the song's mood within the first few seconds, as the developers wanted to avoid a situation where a scene ends before the player has gotten past a long prelude. As Ryukishi07 did not have the musical knowledge to describe what kind of music he wanted in the game, he would listen to a lot of music and send tracks that fit his vision to Dai, who would in turn write instructions based on those tracks for himself and the other composers. The game's character sprites were created in a collaboration between Ryukishi07 and Remotaro: Ryukishi07 would draw sketches of each sprite, and Remotaro would then draw the line art and paint the sprites. She would specifically try to preserve the style and charm of Ryukishi07's artwork, as she knew that there were fans of
Higurashi and
Umineko who were attached to Ryukishi's art, while still adding more details and trying to make the art shine with focus on texture, light and shadow. ==Release==