How Do I Do This Again...?

Oh I should probably get around to writing a post-mortem on Put It On My Tab, shouldn't I? I still have a lot to get used to in order to do this work better, I do. I know a post-mortem is meant to put a bow on the work that went into this project, to reflect on everything and what I was able to do here.

But I don't know. I think I've been struggling to reflect in a positive light here. To be clear, I accomplished all the goals I set out for here. I learned a lot along the way. I should be proud, I know. But I'm still working on that.

To kinda give an example, there's a really good friend of mine, absolute blessing in my life, who shared this with some friends of theirs early on and got them to try it out. And the first feedback they shared with me made two really good points I could stand to learn from:

- Some people are sensitive to certain sound effects - It's something I can learn from, be more aware of, make note of on the store page!

- It's not entirely clear that you can get more out of the game by Starting a new playthrough. Understandable; I tried to mitigate that by having it change to "CONTINUE" the first time you reach the credits!

It was really good feedback, but I'm embarrassed to admit that having this be the first feedback I heard stung a fair bit. I felt utterly miserable about asking "Did they at least... like what they read?"

The Jam I Could Never Have Done

I can't help but wonder if I tried something too ambitious for my second game here.

The idea came about from hearing someone bring up their Single Choice Jam project. Let's say you're trying to process your thoughts and piece together your memory, here in a diner for lost souls. You're not actually dead, you're not meant to be here. Ray and Chieko purposefully fake you out from placing your order, entirely because of that single choice rule. That's right I meant to jape you. Heehee.

I was never going to make that jam deadline, so I didn't have to keep this in. Ultimately, I think it works in the context of the story?

Do You Remember Why You're Here?

If you've ever played a game called Void Stranger, I could say that the idea of Chieko keeping you from ordering came from there. In Void Stranger, you're traversing the Void on a rescue mission, going deeper and deeper through ever-more-dangerous puzzle rooms. If you lose all your lives, you enter a Game Over state where a funky little bat offers you a way forward - eat a fruit from the void, and you'll become one with the void. If you accept, your game is now in a VOID state - you have infinite lives, but there are other ramifications down the line... Don't ask how I know.

...My point being, if you eat something from this realm, you become one with this realm. And that's why Chieko's trying to stop you from ordering, and why when you choose wrong, you get your food in the bad ending...

Huh, I honestly feel kinda better about this project the more I write out about it. So let's immediately flip this mood around by talking about the one thing I've seen out of the feedback I've gotten that I could still do better...

The Clarity Of Choice?

The single choice at the end is randomly generated, in the end! When the game starts it picks a route from the routes you've yet to play, and navigates you through the script appropriately. When you reach the choice, the game picks five options including the correct choice, and a pool of four from the other Real Routes, a pool of dummy answers (ideas I could have used if I wanted to expand this game somewhere down the line...), and a pool of silly answers (Try an option ending in ... if you see it!).

Oh right, I was being self-critical - Okay, the thing I could have done better I think was trying to make it clear on the bad ending that there was a 'correct answer' you should be looking for? I'm not sure how I would've done that, precisely - perhaps add clearer text to the bad end, or perhaps add an option to return to the choice instead of quitting to the title screen...

Actually, I kinda like that second idea. Let me know your thoughts...

What else do I want to say about this project?

The Team! And Learning...

I learned a lot along the way. My first game handling dialogue and sprites, working with transitions in more meaningful detail (Thank you so much Kristi for your transition advice, it was absolutely mind-blowing-), working with multiple music tracks/SEs for the first time, working with persistent variables in Ren'Py for the first time- I learned a lot all in all!

Oh right, did you know there was a movie/animated ending credits sequence? That was an idea I just thought would be neat, so I went looking for someone on vgen who did animated illustrations, and found Depasa Commiss, who did utterly gorgeous work on it, I think! Ruby's backgrounds are fantastic as well; both artists were fantastic to work well on their commissioned assets! Same with Kizuikki's sprites, those were the first assets I got on this project, and all in all I hope they're doing well right about now-!

In other firsts, I also learned some intricacies of GUI programming! There was no credit for the GUI because it was made by me! Baby's First GUI! It'll never live up to some of the incredibly polished interfaces put out by the incredibly talented people I look up to, but for my first time, I'm at least happy with that!

And The Characters?

Character designs - To talk about them, I'll have to admit that I have a ton of OCs that come from Tumblr RP days, and Chieko and her sisters are three of them! Panda did the original designs of them, and Reap did their updated designs! (If you met a certain barista, that's an example of their updated designs-) In the extra conversations available in this release, you can find some of this info, but I'll restate it here as well... Chieko and her sisters were based on the Moirae sisters, in their own way! Who is who, you might ask? That's for you to ponder, heehee...

In The End...

This turned out way more stream of consciousness than I may have intended, but I think it was theraputic for me, in an odd way. Writing about it brings back that joy I had when I was working on this, which I kinda lost along the way. If you managed to read this far, thank you kindly for giving my words the time of day. If you've played this game at all, again, I thank you very much for giving me some of your time here. If there's anything you're at all curious about I'd love to hear from you, I'll gladly talk more about this game and characters if you're at all interested. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed your stay here in my little diner...

As for me, it's time I paid my tab and left. Thank you for hearing me out, Miss Chieko... It's time I got back to writing, and seeing how much more I can learn on this little journey...