#I've been drawing by hand or playing video games more lately so less posting

[cinimuffin]

Finally posting this greninja

[hummingbird-games]

Postmortem: #CrushedVN Edition

Okie doke y'all! It's been some time so I guess we're good to dissect this project!

(I almost didn't bother with writing this up, but at the end of the day I do the dev diaries and the random--game development related--posts for me to look back on and prove I'm learning. Getting better. Not regressing. So. Might as well move forward!)

Background/Inspiration

It's like if you took my late 2022 brain and threw it into a blender!! Most of these are self-explanatory (Boys Love media I adore with emphasis on early to late teen experiences.) Let me draw your attention to The Edge Of Seventeen: not sure how many times I've rewatched, but it makes me tear up every single time. Main character Nadine is awkward AF, still hasn't come to terms with the death of her father years prior, isn't on the best terms with her mom or her older brother, and even ends up on rocky terms with her best friend too!! Anyway, that feeling of being young, and a little angry and a little sad and not feeling quite right on the inside but eventually reaching a place where things fiiiiiinally start to work out...it's just a sliver of what I wanted to capture and infuse into Crushed.

Listen y'all, I just pulled and pulled and pulled from real life experiences. I was inspired by authors Julian Winters, Leah Johnson, and Jay Coles' works (all Young Adult authors LOL! Fitting since I seem to be creating things for the teens at this juncture in my life). This all provided the base for Corey and his inner world. Also, I've been wanting to create a bookworm character...no time like the present right???

As for deciding to specifically create a boys' love visual novel of all things?? First, y'all must understand that I fought the original idea and anything related to it. This was coming off the heels of me suddenly seeing (another) wave of players throwing fits about indie games forcing you to play as a femme character. First off, no one is forcing you to do anything. Secondly, we are still at a point in video games where the majority of characters you play as are male. Forgive some of us for wanting a little variety 😑Thirdly, for those looking for games where there's even more inclusivity (choosing pronouns, playing as nonbinary/trans, and etc) I really wish that players would seek out those games that ARE being made and support them so the developers don't lose steam and drop their projects. It's so disheartening to make something that's meant to be consumed and BOOM, silence.

Anyway, all of that to say that as a developer herself who's tired of watching girls' media be regulated as Less Than, made fun of, and just overall disrespected, I wasn't interested in making any games that didn't center a female character. But back to my main point!!!

I had Heartstopper, the webtoon, infecting my brain. I was so not immune to falling in love with Nick and Charlie like everybody else. But then I was hit for the 34573847th time that I was engaging with white queer media. And I knew that if Nick and Charlie were Black Brits, they wouldn't be getting half the attention they are now. Even less if the boys were girls and we had a sapphic relationship on our hands. (But that sapphic story from Hummingbird Games is still brewing, and Corey and Jacob's story was ready first.)

Also....the biphobia is real. It's insidious. I could write a whole book about how the straights and the gays need to get their shit together. I could then write a sequel about how the Black community can be some of the worst offenders when it comes to our Bi Fam and say some of the most ignorant and devastating things. But I had limited time on my hands and decided to write a short VN instead. Once I let Corey just be, exist as the person he is, everything fell into place.

Things That Went Right...

I took a very niche, very Specific To Me, very nestled in the space between my heart and my brain and wrote a script just so I could be a part of a game jam specifically highlighting and supporting the work of Black game developers.

And I submitted the bitch on time.

I'm always down for anxiety rep!!! As a fellow anxiety haver, I say the more visibility the better!!! At the same time, it's not a one size fits all, and there were some things I dealt with that I'd never seen depicted and I figured I might as well be true to my experiences. Maybe someone would take solace in Corey the way I've taken solace in other characters for reflecting my lived experiences.

I tried new things I was scared of or didn't have time for with HSD or didn't feel confident enough to sit and learn previously: partial voice acting (and holding auditions to incorporate more), a text message system (which wasn't my own but part of learning to code for me means being able to take what others have done and replicate and/or use it myself), and implementing music and sound effects with intention. I've done it with film, but games are a close cousin in a lot of ways. A LOT of ways. I should remember that.

I still didn't do too well in the marketing department but for this game, it didn't feel like a failure. I also didn't really try. Oops. I've got to do better. I went into Crushed knowing it wouldn't have half the audience HSD does, and yet the feedback I've received for Crushed has made me want to break down into tears of relief.

I launched the game around 10 something at night my time and proceeded to be sick with anxiety for about 3 days. For three whole days I legit felt like I was going to die. And then I wanted to laugh because didn't I just make a game to express a version of the human condition?

Things That Were Different...

HSD showed off my skills when it comes to intensive planning and sticking mostly to that plan. Crushed was a jam entry that became more extensive over time and found me flying off the seat of my pants.

I also had less (aha, zero???) budget this time around. Because again. Jam entry. It wasn't supposed to be a Big Affair. But now that it's over and out to you guys, I'm not mad. You could say that it all worked out.

If I Could Go Back, I Would...

For one, I would have smacked the voice in my head that said "let's add more voice acting now". I love the feature, but there's no reason why I couldn't have done auditions after release. I was impatient and restless waiting for art assets, and my idleness led me to take on more things just to not feel useless. I Have Learned My Lesson, thanks.

I Had The Pleasure of Learning...

There will always be an obstacle in the way of game development. (And sometimes your body will be your own worst enemy, yuck.)

I don't know who my audience is (yet) for HBG but I'm always a part of it. And that's not a bad thing. If I hadn't felt so strongly about Crushed or even HSD, neither project would have happened because I would have given up a long time ago.

To the Future...

Empasis on future, but the world of Crushed isn't exhausted. It lives in the bigger universe of HSD:JY but took on a life of its own. So it's no surprise that Corey and his friends became even more precious to me. Not that I know when I'll be able to work on it, but right after finishing and publishing the demo, I outlined a rough draft for a kinetic novel sequel told through Jacob's POV. In my head, Corey's story was always half of a whole, and busting out Jacob's outline so quickly confirmed that.

(What I didn't anticipate was how loved Oke and Keegan would be, or that there would be a want for their story outside of myself??? Between us and this postmortem, I hope to sort out their deal and get the satisfaction of seeing another type of love story/dynamic I can't get enough of and share it!)

Closing Thoughts

The comments I've gotten concerning Crushed and noting the appreciation for its slice-of-life/grounded-ness is reassuring! Maybe I'll branch out to other genres, but realism will be something I always come back to. Also, making Crushed wasn't too traumatic soooooo that means I'm still making games LOL! Can't get rid of me yet!

- Gemini 💛

(some links of other posts where I went on tangents concerning the creation of Crushed; these can also be found by searching the tag "crushed vn"!)

Music Inspo and Crushed

Memes Tag Game

Game Dev Commentary: Bonus Content

[wolfofthewisps]

Hello hello everybody! Whisper's been one of my more active muses lately, so I'll be posting this here. I go by Neo, though some have known me as Alex in the past, and I go by Jam in my art stuffs. (It's very confusing even to me, don't worry) I'm a 27-year old they/he/she enby. I've been in Isola for around three and a half years now, during which time I've had near constantly full muse slots, and would doubtlessly have more if I were allowed because I deleted Self-Control from my Contacts list. Current other muses in the group are Gaige the Mechromancer from Borderlands, Jester Lavorre from Critical Role, Margaret Moonlight from No More Heroes, Jinx from League of Legends/Arcane, Tatsumaki from One-Punch Man, Toph Beifong from Avatar: The Last Airbender, Eda the Owl Lady and Kikimora from The Owl House, and Anne Boonchuy from Amphibia. (Also the blog you're reading this from is Whisper the Wolf from the IDW Sonic comics)

I graduated college a little over five and a half years ago with a fine art degree concentrated in New Media and Design- lots of Adobe product stuff and some 3D was taught, though I've learned a lot more since graduating. I'm currently employed at a fast-food restaurant where I've been for far too long. =v= While working in animation, whether 2D or 3D, is my dream, I currently want to fill out a portfolio to get a job in video editing! I'm taking some online courses to get projects from, and I started a Youtube channel for video essays and such some time ago, though currently it's only for video essay, singular- only one video on there atm, about my Problematic Fave Kikimora. BUT I'm writing a script right now as a kind of follow-up to that video related to the most recent Owl House episode! Hopefully that'll be out soon and I'll get a newer video out less than eight months from now afterward. Maybe it'll even be one that isn't about a character everybody but me hates(jk, though I probably don't need much more than two hands to count how many fans she has in the fandom).

I'm a tremendous DnD fan, currently playing in two campaigns(one of which is using a homebrew Pokemon system). I also have one that I DMed, though it's been on hiatus for over a year now because of complications- hopefully everybody'll be interested in getting it started again when I'm good and ready. (I've even considered apping an NPC from the campaign here bc I've obsessed over her ever since her inception and the party hasn't even met her yet) Other hobbies include wanting to play video games and then not, drawing far too slowly, and puns.

I really like this idea!! Glad to really meet you all and I hope we can all have more fun together!

[chetungwan]

3, 10, 16, 32 & 49?

3. What show/YouTube video(s) do you put on in the background when you when you don’t have anything to watch but you want something on?

I zone out often enough that anything I put on ends up being this. I'll play something, anything, and then eat or embroider or play a browser game. But I think the show that best fits this is Community. I've seen it so many times at this point, and I don't have to be in a specific mood to just play it.

10. Do you own any signed books/memorabilia in general?

Oh boy do I! Okay so, my dad has some of the wildest luck in the entire world, because there is this one book of Ursula Le Guin's that most people don't know about. It's her book that she describes as anthropology of the future, and it is titled Always Coming Home. There are not many copies of it. It was published with a cassette tape of the music that the people in the book would have/will/might still listen to, and it's rare to find a copy with the cassette anymore.

My dad once found a copy in a secondhand store with the cassette, signed by her, for less than ten dollars. It's mine now. I have memorized poems from this books. It is truly beautiful.

I also have a signed copy of Alice Isn't Dead and a book of fairy tales by Leigh Bardugo, both of which I found in this bookstore in Michigan.

16. Pick a song lyric to describe your current mood (and drop the name and artist!)

"I'm going down to Liverpool to do nothing..." Going Down To Liverpool, by the Bangles. I wish I had a better answer for this but I can't think of anything witty.

32. Rainbows, stars, or sunset colored clouds?

Stars. Always and forever. When I was a kid, I used to go to this thing called Skill Builders, where I would learn to do rolls and run around and just generally do Active Things. I remember it as taking place at night, but it's unlikely it was actually that late because I was young and because some nights afterwards, my parents would take me out for ice cream. So it couldn't have been that late.

My fondest memory of that time is that sometimes, after getting ice cream, we would drive out to some back road (most roads were back roads there), park the car and get out. I would climb up onto the hood of the car and dad would hand me my ice cream cone and I'd lie back, looking up. That's how I learned the first constellations I ever knew. Out there, in the dark rural fields, eating ice cream during summer.

49. What’s something that you don’t have a picture of that you wish you did?

I've been taking photographs for awhile now. I started young, because I couldn't draw and I wanted to capture how things looked. I still take them, though not quite with the same desperate frequency as I had when I began.

I took classes on it, all through highschool and on into college. I like phototherapy. I wanted to do more. I dare even say that I'm good at it, though I'm reluctant to ever post them here. Too easy to divine a location, too easy to have my art stolen. But I have experience with this, is the point.

Here's the thing about photography. It captures what's there.

That's what it's supposed to do, after all. That's kinda the point. But what that means is that it doesn't show what you see. Our brains edit what we look at constantly, altering the lighting, the coloring, focusing on the thing you're looking at. They frame our view and spruce it up, so looking at something is never the same as a picture. Even a photo edited to look like that isn't the same. We're used to ignoring what are brains do; drawing attention to it ruins the illusion.

I want a picture that looks like what I see. It's why I started photographing in the first place. I don't think it's possible. But I want to try.