(Warning: lots of typos ahead because i couldn't be arsed to proofread this)
Hi there!
The thought of writing some sort of recap of the year was something that had already crossed my mind in occasions. Specifically, last year. And ultimately I didn't. So when the time came around again, I thought I might as well do it because I could regret it tomorrow. I thought having some sort of writing to reflect how I feel right now and that I could reference in the future could be something worthwhile doing.
So here goes!
I don't really think many people will be interested in reading this and in a way it's kind of embarrassing to share these words with anyone (says before linking to this post in every fucking website possible). So if you've found yourself reading my ramblings, guess I hope you enjoy them!
2022 started in a relaxed and calm manner after a horribly stressful Christmas period. Not only I was suffering some mild burnout from making two games at the same time during December (and keeping one of them a secret from my partner as it was a Christmas present!) but emotional hungover from a visit to family that ended up having to sleep on a cold floor two nights in a row. So January was a time in which I took some time to relax. I also told myself I'd set boundaries, I'd only participate in a couple of game jams this year and that was that.
I obviously didn't follow it through. In fact this year I made WAY more games than last year, most of them WAY more complicated and also in shorter periods of time. So I fully failed forwards with this one, because I learnt a fucktonne and it's been a great experience. And I also learnt from my mistakes of 2021!
So what are the games I made this year and what did I learn while making them? Let's have a look.
Done for the Dying MMO Jam, this was my first time using the wonderful bitsy 3d. I originally wasn't planning on joining this jam but the theme was to enticing to resist and I did give in eventually. My friend Ellis was also participating! It honestly felt like working on an assignment for uni. It was so much fun chatting about how we were doing and encouraging each other.
I felt super proud of what I achieved using the engine for the first time. It did take me a week or so to get my head around it, and looking back I didn't really use the most interesting features bitsy 3d has (nesting sprites) but I made very pretty dioramas and people seemed to connect with the story. My self-imposed goal for this game was to write good foreshadowing. I wanted to add a sense of mystery and then have a nice final twist. And I think I achieved it! People also seemed to like the setting and how melancholic the game was (choosing the right song definitely helped). Trivia: I've actually never played an MMO in my whole life.
The game didn't originally get as much attention as I would've wanted to. I was still slightly bitter that my most successful game to date (and still to this date) was one I made in a week, while this one I had really put some serious effort wasn't "performing" as well. I understand now that this thinking was stupid and I apologise for it. I learnt that later in the year, so I will discuss in more detail below. Nonetheless, I submitted the game to the Queer Games Bundle 2022 (thank you so much nilson and Taylor for organising) where it did garner some attention, to the point it was briefly mention in a Polygon article which blew my mind and was also kind of scary.
Also, please play please tell me you love me by Ellis. It's really really good.
Yeah, literally a couple of weeks after I finished Running Back to You I was already working on another game. This time it was for Duo Jam, a very nice little jam I decided to host for the folks at Sprout (games writing discord server created by Elliot). I was hosting the jam because I did NOT want to have to make a game for NaNoRenO, and this was my excuse. However, I failed miserably because I had an awesome idea for a stupid VN in which you are Lady Gaga and you go on a date night with Carly Rae Jepsen and the story is told using their lyrics and I just couldn't stop thinking about it. So I made the bloody game.
This was my first time using Naninovel (and my first game in Unity altogether) and the self-imposed challenge was to make a story using lyrics and nothing else. It was inspired by those videos of celebrities in korean bbq restaurants or in the dinosaur island. And the game was going to be a kinetic novel at first until KentuckyFriedDreams told me what made it different to a video if there was no branching. So I made fucking branching in the game. One we made in like 2 weeks and a half.
The game was labelled as NSFW because LG and CRJ have sex in the game (not graphical and they are semi-naked in the last scene so I decided to play it safe). So it didn't get many plays (it got lots of views though), and it was the most unhinged thing I've ever made and I'm just so proud of what a shitpost is. I even submitted it to the Indiepocalypse Sicko Showcase 2022 (part of the Pledge Drive 2) and it was so much fun to be on stream. Fully worth it.
Funny tibdit: while I was working on GBA: LT I had been applying for jobs! Work had been crap for a few months now (Running Back to You was some sort of therapy to take my mind off things).
I made this little bipsi hd (by the great mark wonnacott aka candle) to deal with the consequences of my actions (I got the job), so I had to fight the little impostor inside me. This game was just therapy (again): I packed lots of trauma in it and I came out a better person after it. I was mildly obsessed with old-school tamagotchi at that point. I got the idea for the title first and I just knew I had to make a game using whatever was on my mind at that point.
One of the greatest things of this year has been binksi, a fork of the forementioned bipsi that allows you to use ink for the narrative. Ju / smwhr cooked this fucking delicious food for all of us in Sprout and I just KNEW I had to develop the first publicly released game for it. It has smwhr as well who brought to my attention the Rayuela de Arena 2022 jam, which I ended up developing this game for.
I took some bold choices while making this game, but the self-imposed challenge this time was to write in Spanish. I already felt semi-comfortable writing in English at this point, but I was fucking scared of writing in Spanish because I barely speak it regularly, let alone write in in Spanish. While it's my native language I just don't use it as much and all of the memories I had writing in Spanish were as a child and I can remember how much cringe corny and cliche my writing was. So this time I just wanted to prove to myself I could write cute but witty dialogue (and write in general) in Spanish.
I had been watching some videos about Zelda Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons a few days before the jam started so this heavily influenced the story and the puzzles in the game. And also... I MADE A GAME WITH PUZZLES? How awesome is that? I never thought I would, and yet here I am. We also were able to iron out some bugs and add new features to binksi prior to inkjam...
The game got 1st place Rayuela de Arena, by the way. If you can't speak Spanish I'm so sorry for you because you can't play the game. And believe me it's fucking good. It is the longest and most complicated binksi ever at the time of writing. A friend on mine played it on stream and it took him 1h 45 min to complete. Normal playtime should be around half that time, which is still very long.
The game ended up being a little homage to the people at Sprout, but most importantly was a birthday present for my niece, whose name I took for the protagonist: Eva.
I took a tiny break from gamedev after Cien Años Después tellign myself the next jam I'd participate in would be InkJam (that was the original plan either way). I had already reached out to BáiYù (from tofurocks) a few months prior asking him if they were going to run O2A2 this year and needed help I was happy to lend a hand. I hold this this jam very close to my heart. It's such a fun and original concept. It would've been a shame had it not happen again this year. I was also offering to help out to AVOID participating in it. We know how that went with DuoJam, don't we?
I had been playing around with the capabilities of vanilla bipsi, mostly the say-styles. I ended up for the concept of the game fairly quickly, and of course I took the plunge. This game was a little bundle of many different things that came together into what I hope is a cohesive package. It was VERY challenging to try to write a story with lore in under 1000 words. The original story had 3 endings, but after I had the wonderful s. l. statler reading thought the draft and hearing vis feedback I decided to chop off one of the "routes". Just so I would have more space to write flavour text and give Ai-chan more personality.
I did use one of those ai image generators to create the CG for the game, specifically because it worked on a meta level AND after all the game is a cautionary tale about why tech companies shouldn't just do stuff because they can. This game was the first one where I used dithering as a processing technique for images and to me it felt like a huge leap in my "visual identity".
I had recently finished Disco Elysium (which obviously blew my mind) and this little engine was brought to my attention. It's called Narrat, and it's a game engine for making interactive narrative RPGs. It looked pretty cool and I told myself I'd have to check it out at some point.
And then... a Narrat Game Jam was announced. I thought it'd be great to have a few games in the jam to give Narrat the visibility it deserves (it's really cool, trust me), and it's be a nice break as well from my usual gamedev stuff (yeah, i have a problem). So I made a silly little game as a birthday present for my partner. It was a great exercise and a game I made in like less than 2 weeks? Next time I come back to Narrat I'll make something more complicated. I just need a good idea for it.
THIS. FUCKING. GAME. RULES.
Some time in May(?) I approached Ellis and asked if they wanted to team up for inkJam this year. I knew I wanted to make a binksi and wanted to prove it's a great tool. But there was no way in hell I'd be able to showcase it's bleeding edge features (LOL) in a 72 hour long gamejam by myself. So I was super relieved Ellis accepted because I would've have asked anyone else. I just had to be Ellis. Ellis recruited their friend Bb, and we had a nice team and ready to tackle the challenge.
Is it the best game we've ever made? NO. It was made in 72 hours and honestly it's a miracle it didn't have any game breaking bugs when we released it.
Does it fuck? YES IT DOES. It's just this weird little thing with really nice character writing, cute sprites and the songs are a bop.
We did plan a lot further ahead. A week prior to the jam I had created miro boards and we had made a list of possible ideas we could use (pending the actual theme for the jam). So when the theme was released we were raring to go. It was super cool to take Bb's "lil guys" and create my own based on their style. I feel like I was able to convey the personalities of the characters Ellis wrote with my portraits. As the producer/art director for the game, I am SO SO proud of how the game looks and feels. And I was able to keep everyone on task as well and ensure we made it to the goal on time.
The game came bundled with the Matter Character Creator, which I created in an evening using flickguy (by candle). I made it so people could create their own little alien.
We released an improved version for Spooktober 4th Annual Visual Novel Jam with lil changes, and the game should get a bit more mileage in the next week or so but I can't say any more than that... And it was also part of the Queer Games Festival - Naarm/Melbourne! It was great to be there with so many other cool developers.
This was just a silly game I threw together for ECTOCOMP and the Cosmic Horrors Jam. As always, I didn't plan to participate, but rubereaglenest (from Textualiza) was looking for people to participate in ECTOCOMP and I thought making a lil game in the Petite Mort category (made in 4 hours or under) was a low effort commitment, so I bit into it. It was only after I submitted the game that he said he was hoping for more entries in SPANISH. Oops.
The game uses the same template I made for One More Sleep🌙️ and One More Time❄️(which is Calico, by the lovely Elliot), with some quick modifications. So it was fairly painless to create the game under 4 hours. I do not think of the game as third installment on a trilogy, but rather a "side story" in the same universe. It was received with okay-ish reviews by the IF community and people at the MechJam. People didn't like how slow the text was revealed in the game and I can't really blame them.
BUT! I wrote a game in under 4 hours! I can't believe I did that! I think it was at this point that I had already come to terms that my games don't have to "do well" in terms of numbers of people playing them. It don't matter. I make these for my own enjoyment only. And if people like what I make, then that's just a plus!
I had been made aware of the A Game By Its Cover jam at some point last year and I thought it was a really cool concept. And you know the drill at this point: I saw the jam was happening again this year and I was just... compelled to participate.
I had a look at some of the famicases, and to be honest I was a bit undecided about what to make! For once I didn't have a lightbulb moment! There were many great options, but many of them required lots of thought and having to make puzzles or complicated systems. And I did not want to do anything like that at that point. It was in a conversation about the jam that someone pointed out to me nbmach1ne's famicase. And I just thought "this is perfect". And the pieces started following in place: it was going to be a first person walking simulator in bitsy 3d. Relaxing, not very ambitious, but doing something that I had never tried before: Non-linear narrative. Or maybe parallel narrative? So that was my self-imposed challenged this time around. But I did not know what the game was going to be about actually at this point.
Cat Wizard (Tom) had posted a little snippet of a song on their twitter and it really stuck in my brain. To the point when I was originally working on the look and feel of the I ended up accidentally whistling to this tune non-stop. I worked up the courage to ask them if I could use the song in the game, and they came back to me saying they'd be super happy to make a new song specifically for the game.
Collab'ing with Tom was an absolutely delightful experience. Even with as little as I gave them at the beginning about the vibe I was going for, they were able to put a really nice piece that actually informed me about what vibe the feeling of walking in the forest was going to be like. It was so cool to take inspiration from their music and them taking inspiration from the screenshots I sent them and we just had this really good creative flow happening between us. Tom was also super good at suggesting little things we could do in the game to add flourish.
There was a lot going on in my mind at the time I was writing the game: stuff at work, I had been watching documentaries about global warming, and all of these things made their way into the game. There's a lot of personal stuff in this game, but it wasn't as difficult to pour my heart out in it as it was in I Gotcha (I had experience, you see).
Personally, I think it became a beautiful little game that I will cherish forever. I am so proud of this thing we made together. And it was a stress free experience, just like what the game is about. Working on it was very therapeutic for me too. I'd like to think of it as a spiritual successor of Running Back to You - both in form (bitsy 3d) and theme, but in a more distilled and pure form.
This game was literally released 8 days ago, so I don't really think I've fully digested it yet. However, I do have some formed opinions about it.
Solsticio itself is a prequel of Cien Años Después. While I was working in a post-jam version of CAD (that I have yet to release) I came to the conclusion that the character of Violeta was not really explored in much detail and I thought I could do so much to shed some light into her and her experience. So when I heard about the Cultura Abierta jam, I knew I had to make this prequel. Something silly, cute and very gay.
It originally was going to be a lighthearted game about two Sapphic girls cooking together, or for each other. Some sort of cooking game? But then I watched this talk about art by vitiña. and I was so inspired that I departed from the original idea, and made a game where food was really a plot device, something that the narrative would lean on to tell a different story.
Speaking about technical features of the game, I learned a lot about using advanced ink while making this. Kinda suprising taking into account it's such a short game. I will be taking what I learned into my next games, for sure.
I actually don't know if anyone has finished the game, and if they have I haven't received any feedback. So I don't know if I did a good job putting across the message I wanted to convey. I hope I did! The game is currently awaiting judging by the panel of professionals (one of the reasons why I wanted to participate in the jam, tbh) so we'll see what they thought!
Even though I failed in my resolution to not game jam more than I should, I feel like I exposed myself to many different tools, learnt a lot about game making in general and was able to strike a nice balance . I didn't burn out, and I could recognise the signs when I was getting close to it! Also, I must say there were at least 3 jams that I wanted to participate in and I DIDN'T! So I did apply some restraint LOL
The highlight of this year was not only having the courage to put myself and my games out there, but also building a really nice network of gamedev friends. I have participated a lot more in communities and I am super thankful to everyone that has played my games, helped or encouraged me to do better. Also to the people that have unknowingly inspired me to try and do different things. And most importantly to the people that have welcomed me into these spaces.
I feel like my gamemaking has turned from just utilitarian "let's make a game" into a more artsy "this is what I want to tell the world". I have been able to tell these stories thanks to the lovely (and very talented) folk that have worked on creating these tools. So that's another thing I'm grateful for.
"2023 stop using death as a theme or a plot device in a game" challenge.
Also, I'm working on a new game. A long one. Not a jam one. I hope people like it once it's out, whenever that is.
Cien Años Después and Solsticio will be getting a full English language re-release sometime soon. But aside from that, I have no more plans for the future because, let's be honest, I wasn't great at sticking to my new year resolutions this time around.
If you are still reading at this point... Happy New Year!
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ur so incredible + im so happy we got to work together sm this year!!! can't wait to see what u do next 💕💕💕💕
Hey, I think you don´t give yourself enough credit. I mean you made like 7 games in a year, I could never do that.
I got to know you thanks to the O2A2 2022 I ever since then I have loved your games. I really hope you can keep making games and despite it all come up on top. Thanks for everything and hope I can keep playing them.