WinterVN Jam Post Mortem

Oh god, It's been a while since I made a game. Like, a proper finished game. I figured this post-mortem would be great to start the year with, and I hope you all have a happy new year! (or like, decent, at the very least. "Happy" seems a little much for these last 2 years huh?)

Anyway, some general thoughts about the jam:

This game would mark my 2nd game as a solo dev, and my 2nd attempt at the WinterVN Jam. I had planned on participating 1-2 years ago and did make some stuff, but never ended up with a finished game. This year, I finally got a week-long break from work, which I decided to use to make this game, and boy, was it hectic! Still, it's been a pretty good experience, and I'm glad to have some time to make games again :)

also, note to self: Stop trying to make games, alone in <1 week, during the holiday season.

What went right?

1. Art Direction. I think it was really wise for me to opt for a more sketchy, simple style for this jam considering I only had 1 week to make everything. I'm quite happy with the art style in general and this was easily the most enjoyable part of the whole thing. I sure feel like I've improved quite a bit with drawing environment 
2. Gameplay. Considering the fact that the only other renpy game I've made is a hidden objects game, it only felt right that I should work with what I've learnt from producing Through the Cracks to produce the point and click minigame in this. In fact, this is how I plan to... plan my future games, but adding on to things I've learnt in previous projects step by step. This allows me to revisit old topics, learn a few new things without making everything overwhelming.  Not to mention, It's also a time saver to be able to use older codes! I might move in the direction of point and click games in the future, as I learn to implement more mechanics to the game.

What DIDN'T go right? (I think...?)

1. Writing. I have to admit.... writing this was a pain, even more with the time constraints. If you know me, you probably also know that many of my writing read more like poems than stories.  Writing a dialogue rich thing like this was a first for me, and has been very difficult, even more so when I'm literally writing everything on the spot with a very short time constraint. I had to redo the first half of the game in the last few days because I only started to figure out what kind of characters I wanted to write as I was writing the end. This entire thing was unplanned, and was painful to write. It definitely got me thinking about the direction I want to take my future games in, and the kind of writing it should have. I am thinking of either looking for a partner who could write, or make the switch to have more poem-like abstract games like my prev one. 
2. Scope. I'm not gonna sugarcoat this, but I over scoped this game, mostly because I underestimated how much trouble I'd have with writing the game itself. I think if I had prepared better for the writing beforehand, I'd be able to implement the things I wanted to for this game. I spent way too long crunching just to get the writing down, which meant that I had to cut down the game elsewhere. Did you know?  I had planned there to be a minigame where you build a fire, and a drag drop mechanic to light the matches, and that the sprites for both characters would change depending on the blanket you take? I had planned for more CGs as well... All these sadly got scrapped :') There's a chance I might implement them in the future, but no promises. (And to be honest, I'd prefer to work on something new as well)

What should I do, next time?

1. Give myself more time to plan. I joined this on a whim, on the final week of the jam, just because I sort of forgot that this jam existed...? I feel like if I remembered sooner I'd have more time to hash things out, as well as implement things better. I think I might put this jam in my calendar with a notification just so I remember to join haha. On a more serious note, I spent more time planning my previous games, and that helped with smoothing out the production a lot more since I jumped into them knowing exactly what to make, and how big I wanted the game to be. It also felt a lot more cohesive despite having a shorter production time. This game was... not that...
2. Ask for help, especially for testing. Considering how I plan to slowly scale up my works, It would be important for me to allocate more time for testing and editing. This lil game proved pretty difficult to beta test due to all the routes and the length of the writing. I'm very, very grateful to my friends who helped with the testing and editing, but I feel a little bad that the whole thing was very rushed, so I should definitely allocate time specifically for testing and bug catching

and of course, a little shoutout:  I mentioned asking a few people for help here and there, with @cynimonogurui to edit the dialogue bc i was basically writing it and just- never looking back due to time constraints., as well as my irl friend, Dillan, who did some beta testing to ensure there aren't major bugs. I am once again putting it here that I am SO VERY GRATEFUL to them and I owe them my soul, which they'd have to split, unfortunately. I only have one soul :')