Some of you may know me from the last Dare, LD 30, in which I entered a short visual novel I developed myself called A New and Beautiful World (check my profile if you’re curious), and while I wasn’t able to participate in the Compo this time around, it was for a damn good reason.

Since then, I’ve joined a game development team of over 20 people from all around the world. We call ourselves Watercress Studios.

And for Ludum Dare 31, we have created and released our very first game together. A short macronarrative visual novel that we call “Lull.”

Link available here: http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=45841

God Bless the Ludum Dare, and God bless game developers all around the world. We are slaves to our art, and we love it.

Absolutely great jam, everyone. Even though the theme was pretty shitty. Good job to each and every single one of you.

I’d figured that maybe it was time for a postmortem of my entry,  so, well… Here we go. Be gentle.

This was my very second Ludum Dare, and for it I entered a short visual novel named “A New and Beautiful World.”

WHAT WENT RIGHT

• Writing a “real” story within the 48 hours– This was, more or less, the main objective I strived for through all of this. The personal challenge that I’d set for myself was that, “pretty much everyone in the world can make a better game than you in 48 hours, but can they create a better story?” Essentially, my coding skills are utterly amateurish and embarrassingly immature at best, though not nonexistent. My writing skills, though? Well, pretty much anyone that’s been to school can write good enough prose. That’s not bad, however; it means, I’m one of them. I don’t consider myself that great of a writer or anything; I just liked that it meant I started on even ground than on the gross disadvantage I’d have spawned on were I to go code-heavy with the game.
• Livestreaming  Apart from some stupid messing around with gaming and whatnot, this LD was the first time I’d ever livestreamed anything. I livestreamed the entire of my development of the game from beginning to end, and I feel like it’s what drove me on to the finish line. People, when reviewing the game, sometimes express how impressed they are that I managed to make that much content in such little time; that was absolutely all due to the stream. Not that I had a large audience, or anything like that. I think the very highest amount of viewers I ever had on at any time was 11.  What’s important isn’t that anyone was actually watching me. It’s that Twitch said there was at least someone out there who was. It just drove me on, subconsciously, is what I think. The fact that I was being recorded, and that that recording was available for everyone else in the world to see, just kept itself lodged in my mind. It made me think, “people are watching you do this, man; you ought to not screw up,” and it’s probably the reason why I made the deadline.

WHAT WENT WRONG

• Writing a “real” story within the 48 hours– Actually going forward and shoving all my weight onto story did have its cons. Er, it had a lot of cons. For one thing, I did not get to make as many branching paths or choices or endings that I’d wanted to. I wouldn’t have been able to keep up the quality throughout all of them, or I just wouldn’t have had the time or energy to pull it off, due to how taxing writing the story was even completely linearly. Furthermore, focusing so much blood and sweat on the writing meant I just didn’t have time to produce any art or music at all; which is my greatest regret with the game.
• Not a game– Essentially, then, I just feel like I failed to make this project an actual game, due to the reasons described above. I spent too, too, too much time on writing a story. I forgot that, in the grand scheme of things, what I wanted to make was a visual novel, not a short story. My first fault was not having enough paths. Having only one choice in the entire plot doesn’t even constitute it as a VN, let alone a game. That’s what I admit; that was my failure, was my undoing. I just don’t think “A New and Beautiful World” was a real game. And that’s the single most important thing that any Ludum Dare entry should be.

POST-COMPO

I’ve completed a post-compo release of my game, which also includes an Android version that you can side load onto your mobile device!  Things added include music, drawn backgrounds, credits, spelling and grammar corrections, and more. The downloads are available on my personal site, right here. Unless you have a certain affinity for total silence and black backgrounds in your visual novels, I’d probably play it over the compo version.

Ah, about half an hour from the deadline, it’s finally time for me to start breathing steady again.

I’ve finished.

While, in the end, the visual novel turned out to be more like a text adventure than an actual game, and I never got to dedicate any time to music or art, I still think the project just might be able to stand up on it’s own. The link to the game’s right here, if anybody’s interested. http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=6463

Here’s the first couple sentences of the blurb I wrote down on the game’s page, if someone want’s an idea of what it’s about:

“The story follows two brothers and their father throughout their lives together and apart in the near future, starting in the year 2074. In this future, all of the Earth is governed by a utopian government known only as the Empire. “

More information on the game’s page.

This was certainly a fantastic adventure, everyone. It’s been great, and I can’t wait for next time.

Well, after a wild, wild ordeal, it looks like I’ve finally finished my game. Essentially.

And, by essentially, I mean, I would be OK with submitting it as it is, but I would definitely like to add more. For example, having images would be nice.

My game, which I’ve made with Ren’Py, is a short, story-driven visual novel, with only one choice in it. So, really, calling it a “game” per se might be considered just the slightest bit of a stretch by some people, but, uh…

I’m going to ignore those people.

Right now, though, the VN is all just completely text. I haven’t had the time to begin on any art yet. So, forget the whether-or-not-it’s-a-game debate, because we need to clear the floor for whether-or-not-it’s-even-a-visual-novel debate. Spoilers, it probably isn’t. Maybe I should just call it a text-based game or a text adventure or something, if I can’t free up any time tomorrow to do some art before submitting.

Ah, well, I digress. This is my very second Dare, and I’ve had just amazing amounts of fun working on this little project as I watched thousands of other creative people across the globe work on theirs. May the best games win!

The last Ludum Dare I participated was one all the way back in 2012, where the theme was Evolution.

As to how well I did? I don’t even remember what my game was about.

But, as it goes, that’s all in the past now.

For this competition, I will be compensating for the loss of my coding skills throughout the years by using Ren’Py to develop a short visual novel. Cause that doesn’t really require such 1337 coding skills.

Cheers, everyone. Good luck!