Postmortem
2022 November 2
Hello and welcome to the DRL postmortem. A few weeks after I published the full game I opened a google form to take questions however I realized upon reuploading the old blog posts that I've already answered a handful of questions in some way or another so I've opted to focus on my post-development thoughts. Check out the previous blogs for further insight. Continuing on will be some general postmortem introspection, retrospection, what have you.What went right I completed a game by myself!!!!! It is simply a remarkable feat to complete a game- this stuff takes time! So the game got made! HOW??? Read my previous blogs for the technical tidbits: why I chose the engine, why 10 students, why it's 4 chapters; all that nonsense was already answered. I've said this before as well but it remains true: DRL helped keep me busy through a hell of a time these past 2/3 years have put me through mentally. Now that the project is completed, I've been feeling aimless. I made this thing during the deep deep confusing depths of the pandemic social panic. I was working my day job when it started up and I didn't stop working (still working, even). Juggling my day job, pandemic stress and game development could have been an easy way to get stonewalled into dropping the project altogether. The opposite happened- I held onto the game more closely that I could have ever imagined. It's significant to me. Over the course of development I periodically would have moments of 'why isn't this FINISHED ALREADY???', neglecting the fact that I was making this long-winded piece all by my lonesome. I'm sure the wait was difficult for others as well, but it was an utter pain for me especially- I could see everything so clearly in my head and it was just a matter of doing all the tedius grunt work to put idea to paper (or in this case, put idea to bytes?)! But after all my impatience to finish the game, after publishing and letting it do its miscellaneous thing in the wild, I'm sad that it's over. Being so absorbed in the project gave me the distraction and fulfillment I needed to put the external world out of my head. Distraction in the form of problem solving: editing the story, managing the code, creating an artwork pipeline; and fulfillment for those very same reasons: creating the drama, learning new features, iterating on my illustrative skill. To see the project through to the end has been very rewarding. Not rewarding in the fact that I can put the game on a pedestal and say 'look at this cool thing I did' but rewarding in that each day that I chipped away at it, the process gave me something new to learn and experience. What went wrong I completed a game by myself... Solo development can, of course, provide a mess of pitfalls. Barring the obvious slow development pace, the primary problem I faced was my tunnel vision. I didn't field test the whole story with anyone during development so the theme that I shot for didn't end up as prominent as planned since I didn't have an editor over my shoulder telling me all the things I'm doing wrong. It was a very isolated process. I had some friends read through the full story... when I had already completed the game. Why didn't I bring people in sooner? Basely, the project was something for me, myself, and I- to bring people in meant that I would have to potentially face their judgement. Not that I was concerned with harsh criticisms but I wanted to make something that was unafflicated by outside influence, something wholly from my weird brain. So when people expressed their genuine interest in the story, I opened my heart a little (sheds a tear) and allowed folks to take a peek. I still left a lot in the dark until the very end because it was, again, verily much for myself to enjoy. My tunnel vision was fixated on making something that I liked. The purpose of the project was to gauge my abilities. I got an irritating question about the game's reception and whether it was what I expected but here's the thing: I didn't expect anything. My expections went so far as to 'is my game going to make people sad? I hope the answer is yes'. I knew going into it that developing a fan game would draw some form of clout, especially when there exists other more ambitious and true-to-form fan projects, but if it wasn't clear from my absolute lack of advertising on social media, I wasn't chasing that. Lessons learned I've learned a lot from development. primarily about myself: I'm consistent, self-driven, but most of all stubborn. And it's thanks to that bullheadedness I can make things happen. It's just a matter of wrangling that rush in the right direction sometimes. Ending I suppose what I hope to move in people reading this is: should one embark on a project, do it with and for the pleasure of it. Onward to the next project, whatever that may be!
Some things Video: My Favorite Artistic Advice (2m 42s) Video: What I Learned After 1000 Hours of Game Development (10m 45s) Article: On Learning Through Doing The Work Colophon Prologue Demo: 2019 Aug 21 Prologue Release: 2019 Sep 1 Chapter 1 Release: 2019 Oct 16 Chapter 2 Release: 2019 Dec 31 Full Game Release: 2022 Apr 14 Engine: Ren'Py Platform: Windows, Mac Tools: Photoshop CS6, Blender, Procreate, DaVinci Resolve