#God I LOVE using that tag in earnest heehhee

[hummingbird-games]

Dev Diaries

February 17, 2024

I almost put 2019 as the year and that's the energy I'm bringing to this update, help.

What Has Gemini Been Up To? -> The Knight Dance

This is around the time that the Black Visual Novel game jam would be in progress. Alas, there hasn't been an official announcement for 2024 so it's more than safe to assume that it's a hiatus year 😞 In my heart of hearts though, I still classify TKD as a jam project.

(Some might remember this idea was originally for the Yuri + Once Upon A Time jams but I had the suddenly good idea to like, chill, and shelve this project. I'm still a bit bothered I had to do that, but coming off of the development of Crushed was...brutal. Almost as if I didn't learn from my first project....huh.)

So late last month I started recruitment for sapphic project aka THE KNIGHT DANCE!! I have been DYING to work on this, but I wanted it to be a jam entry + team effort. I've never been on a team when it comes to game development! Way too anxious to function and for the longest stretch of time, I had zero experience. I have previous writing credits, but I wasn't sure how well my previous skills would translate over. And I was too embarrassed to reach out to a team and be like "hey, I don't know anything but I wanna help!". Maybe someone would have been cool with that, but I was too scared to put myself out there.

Well, Gemini is moving up in the world!! At the time of this post, I've assembled a team of people who are as jazzed as I am to work on this sapphic fairytale and bring it to life. There are a lot of first for me with this project, which means I will be learning a lot and taking copious notes.

Also I think I kind of suck at the leader part? 🤣 Methinks I was not built to be in charge.

This will have voice acting as well, and ohhhh my goodness after all the efforts to do partial VA in Crushed I really sat here and said, "Yes, yes... I shall do it again" 😭🤧💛

I don't anticipate TKD taking as long as Crushed did from start to finish (8 MONTHS Y'ALL, AHHHHHHH--), but I'm also prepared for anything to happen with TKD. I'm trying to extend the same grace to myself as I freely give to my teammates and anyone I work with, and let me say: I prefer bullying myself to being nice sometimes ☠️ I should work on that....

LOL I keep talking about TKD, but have yet to explain the concept! I'm unsure if this game with get the pinned post treatment but we'll cross that bridge later.

The Knight Dance is a sapphic remix not retelling of the original 12 Dancing Princesses story. We focus on the stubborn, youngest daughter of three, Princess Heather, and the knight who's already fallen in love with her, Lady Ezra. Are they meant to be or is love not enough???? 👀🍿

TKD takes a couple of the concepts I wanted but never saw all together.

12 Dancing Princess is one of my favorite fairytales and no one ever adapts this outside of literature.

I've wanted to do a sapphic game for a hot minute (HSDJY is basically yuri if you ask some disgruntled players LOL 🤷🏽‍♀️ Ryan and Langston are chopped liver...)

It's Black History month and I'm Black 365 days of the year and damn if I can't just see Black women falling in love and being loved in return????

The ridiculously stubborn girl trope and the love interest who loves her. I know some people are annoyed by MCs who would rather die than admit their feelings ('immature' comes up a LOT) so I was kind and kept y'all in mind when writing the script😂

So there's the update for the 'in progress' game. Tune in next time where we tackle -> HSD:JY 2...THE SEQUEL!!!!!!!!!!!!

- Gemini 🖤