Posted September 01, 2025 by callmeDJ
The process of making I Dream of Harold wasn’t really eventful, so I’m treating this more as an open letter about my life as a game dev and composer over the last nine months and how I Dream of Harold tied into it all. I vent about something really bad that happened to me and get really emo. I also joke about transphobia and the funny suicide number near the end so CW for that. (I’m nonbinary don’t worry I love my trans family) If any of this makes you uncomfortable, you’re more than free to stop reading and continue on with your day. If you choose to keep reading, thanks for listening to me be more open than I have in a long time. These tears are for tomorrow's sake.
I am sick of game jams.
I’m not sure what exactly spurred it. Maybe there’s not much higher I can go (or want to go) after winning Harold Jam 2024 last year. Maybe it’s because after hinting at the possibility for four straight Harold Jams, I finally have a full-time job. Maybe the lack of time that comes with one has finally convinced me to focus more on long-term projects. Maybe I feel that short-term sensible chuckles with serviceable gameplay, cute stories and eldritch god-tier music absolutely no one will ever hear shouldn’t define me anymore.
Either way, I’m just sick of deadlines in general. I’m sick of having to rush and sacrifice creativity all the time. I’m sick of my victories not being able to be properly celebrated because they’re just inconveniencing some big shots who thought they had it in the bag. I’m sick of the way they immediately evaporate the moment results drop, no longer carrying any legacy or even being relevant at all. I’m just beyond it now.
So why the hell did I enter Harold Jam? Hell, why did I enter Harold Jam and another way bigger game jam this year? For the other one, I have no idea. But this year’s Harold Jam was a way for me to actually progress on making bigger games from the beginning of the year to now. Let’s take a look at how that developed!
I touched on this one in the last postmortem, but it’s worth repeating here because it’s more relevant this time. I had been wanting to make a GB Studio game for Harold Jam since 2023! It would be a delightful little romp about Harold getting his apples stolen by Fred and having to chase him down. It would have been a simple game made of short levels where you catch items. You’d collect apples from your tree while avoiding slimes, grab equipment falling off the shelves of a shop as you prepare for adventure, catch a falling Marsha and ride on her broom, and face off against Fred by catching items and throwing them at him. I was really excited about this idea at first, but Harold & The Curse of Teebeyae’s mechanics won me over in the end. A RPG Maker game would also mean more practice for my then-upcoming game Kalyla: Colors of Life (or KCoL), so harvest season promptly ended. It only ever made it as far as a basic sketch in Game Boy dimensions.
By the way, this is my beautiful daughter Kalyla. Considering barely anything about her or her game even exists, you will be hearing her name a lot today. Character design and even name are subject to change. Just be careful around her, she gets nervous really easily.