#3000CWY

[ratgirlexe]

I guess I make things now, so I guess I’m also allowed to do a little year in retrospect thingy!

This last year is the year I started creating. On the first of February I decided to start trying to make video games, after playing Pseudoregalia. By valentines I had made my first game, a cute little CYOA game that I made for my girlfriend in preparation for a trip to see her. It was silly and cute and small and is the best thing I’ve ever made. I love that game.

Then, I made a little shmup game, mostly as a prototype for a much larger project that I’ve since put on hold until I have more coding experience. It was fun to put together, but it’s very much just a tester project. What’s most important is that it’s finished, and took me only 6 days! I’m proud of it just for that fact alone.

Fast forward a month and I met my lovely partner, who introduced me to Coquette Dragoon. After playing it I really wanted to create something for it because I loved the world and characters so much, so I actually wrote my first bit of fanfiction. It was messy and is still unfinished, but without that writing I never would have had the confidence to write anything for HDG, Or a truly story based game. I love Terra and the Pilot, and it’s a story I’ll probably keep coming back to off and on when I want to write a cute little girl having a really *really* bad time.

After that a lot of life stuff started getting in the way and I moved to much longer projects. Namely 3000 Cycles With You, an ongoing project that I’ll likely be working on well into this upcoming year, and a smattering of HDG fics, most notably Myosotis, and an unnamed and as-of-yet unpublished plushification fic set in the HDG universe. While I’ve definitely gotten a bit mired in these longer projects, it’s been amazing having these big projects to really sink my teeth into and explore. When I first started writing HDG I never could have imagined what Cin and Sepheri and the gang would have ended up meaning to me, and I’m so so so glad that I took the plunge to start writing longer form projects. Myosotis is the longest thing I’ve ever written, and while I definitely would have chosen to write some of it differently in hindsight, I’m proud of how it’s turning out, and I’m proud of myself for writing it.

As for 3000CWY, I cannot *wait* to get a playable demo into people’s hands. I love making video games so much, and while writing is my passion, I think game dev will always be the central hobby I keep coming back to.

Ultimately I’m really excited for where this upcoming year will take me, and I’m proud of where this last year has carried me creatively speaking. Even as it’s been a really tough year for me interpersonally (my current living situation has left me exceedingly isolated socially) it’s been the best year of my life for creating and having hobbies, and I’m proud of that fact.

Lastly, thank you to everyone who has supported me this last year, whether that’s liking my posts about HDG, or leaving nice comments on Myosotis, or giving me feedback about my games! I’m so grateful to have people who even care about the things I make, and without that feedback it would be a lot harder to stay motivated to create. I’m extra grateful for all my friends who have playtested and beta-read things for me, without which I think the things I’ve made would have a lot less flavour. I love you all. <3

[ratgirlexe]

Two environments from the game project I am currently working on. The final build will have ~10 environments, all containing plenty of objects to interact with to gain greater insight on the story and its world. I'll show off that interaction system in my next post!