What it says on the tin! Can’t believe I finally get to do one of these haha. ANYWAYY!

First of all, thank you for playing my game! I wasn’t sure if I wanted to push through with joining O2A2 VN Jam, but if I hadn’t then I wouldn’t know the stuff that I know now in regards to game development and production management :)

O2A2 wasn’t my first rodeo; I’ve previously joined both Otome Jam 2022 then this year’s to help produce two games that I’m really proud of. Neither of these games however were authored by me. Instead, I would always take up the art direction and UI department role- nothing else. I’ve always wanted to make a game. And while Pabili Po was technically the first completed visual novel that I wrote and directed, it wasn’t THE game I wanted to make (it was a project requirement for school).

If you follow me on Twitter then you’ve probably heard of me screaming about [In The Middle] from time to time. [In The Middle] was THE game that I wanted to make after I decided to shelf [JACKHAMMERED] for a bit, due to how big its scope was. It would be a smaller, bite-sized version of jackham as it shared some of its themes and had similar plot beats. I was very confident! Confident, with a year and a half of game deving experience under my belt. But this was where I fell short.

I was making considerable progress on [In The Middle]’s story until I hit a block. I never really considered myself to be that good enough of a writer for visual novels, which meant that my confidence in that regard was… pretty much in pieces from the start. And so back to that writer’s block in question- man, I took it hard. How am I so good at helping out with someone’s project and nothing more? Maybe I’m just not really cut out for making my own games. Eventually I put the writing on an indefinite pause for ITM because I was too sad at the fact that no matter how much I tried to wring the juice out, I could not seem to come up with anything that felt good enough to me. This was also coupled with the fact that I have an unfortunate case of extreme perfectionism and set very high standards for myself. No yeah, that’s definitely the reason why.

Aaaaand that was another project shelved (for now). Burn out was rearing its ugly head and I had no choice but to ask Marina (my lovely programmer) for some time off Keyframes before I make things worse for myself. For a while, I felt aimless. I was reflecting on how I always let my perfectionism and lack of confidence hold me back. WHICH IS… PRETTY IRONIC, considering I always tell people that if you’re going to do it, then do it afraid.

I was browsing on Itch’s game jam tab when I saw O2A2 VN Jam. It was eleven days away at the time and staring at the big red “Join” button stirred a familiar feeling in my chest- it was the excitement shaking through my nerves when I was first considering Otome Jam 2022, and that same excitement when I was mulling over Otome Jam 2023. But I was holding back. The reason I went on break was to recoup, not to work on another project! Yet, when I read up on the jam rules out of curiosity and looked at the jam restrictions, I felt like this was something I could do. 1000 words feel like a lot to someone who doesn’t write often, but I always love a challenge.

And so I joined!!!!! Er, tentatively. I was telling Marina about the jam, my idea for the game, and how I’m “gonna do everything on my own” including programming- which was something I wanted to learn for a while now. I thank both Marina and Allie for being so supportive and encouraging of my ideas, without them I would’ve completely backed out. Now around 2 days before the jam, I was starting to get cold feet. I was not-so-confident about my lack of programming knowledge, but I still wanted to do this game so bad. One thing I learned is that in game dev, you can’t always do everything on your own. And if you’re both a perfectionist and desperate to prove yourself to god-knows-who, that pill is real hard to swallow.

I eventually asked helped from Marina to help me code my game and–let me tell you–I have learned so much compared to just studying renpy’s documentation and following tutorials on my own. I was able to handle the fine-tuning of the code on my own right before the deadline, and it made me realise how fun programming can be if you give it enough patience. Oh and another thing, I also got to stretch my VO directing skills that I picked up from Orpheo whenever Seven and I would go over the lines together on call.

All in all, I’m really glad I did this jam despite being on break! The restrictions helped me boil down my game to the core. Limiting myself is something I struggle with, so participating in this jam really helped me practise that.

Thank you for playing The Prototype and I hope you tune in until the next project!!