postmortem

i've never done one of these before. this was suggested in a server by the lovely rombuffer, and i thought it could be a good way to wind down after cramming in the final days of the project

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[preamble: before the jam]

i participated in toxic yuri jam last year with two entries, miso shiru and swordmaidens elegy. neither of them were the game i had initially set out to make. in fact, i had actually instead planned out a completely different game called girlfriend factory: a much more stylized and cartoony story which would feature two girls in a dystopian world, working at a factory where girls who have died of a broken heart would be chopped up and their 'best qualities' salvaged and sold to anyone looking to 'improve' themselves

i spent the first half of that jam struggling with the script. i kept getting stuck, feeling unhappy with the writing, eventually i  was forced to confront the fact that i wasnt capable of writing this story in a way that i could be proud of. in the middle of spinning my wheels, i looked through my art folder for inspiration and the concept for miso shiru just spawned in my brain

that game wrote itself. not like girlfriend factory at all. the process was smooth, uninterrupted, i knew what i was doing, where i was going, and i think the end product came out very nicely. i also think its a worse game than girlfriend factory wouldve been, if i had been able to make it the way i had originally wanted. this frustration was so palpable that it caused me to make another game, swordmaidens elegy, just to try and fill the hole where it was supposed to be

i think the games came out good. but i also thought it wasnt the best i could do. so next year, for sure, id make something i was truly proud of

[preamble: next year]

i participated in toxic yuri jam this year with one entry, irregular x end. this was not the game i had initially set out to make. in fact, i had actually instead planned out a completely different game called death magic: a much more visceral and action heavy story which would feature a cockroach girl succumbing to despair in a world that didn't seem to want her to exist

you can probably guess what happened

i gave up. i said, 'i dont have it in me to be creative anymore'

my writing was awful. i fought the script for weeks. chronic illness, constantly passing out multiple times a day, depression, skill regression, loss of motivation and faith in myself. i had planned to submit nothing and just spent most of the jam window rewatching re:zero and playing deltarune chapter 5

then, when i decided to check the time and saw that there were exactly 7 days remaining, i had a thought

'i think this is actually pissing me off'

i wanted to submit something for this jam. i wanted to prove i could still make art. i wanted to validate my own existence

then, somehow, this game was born. i also think its a worse game than death magic wouldve been, if i had been able to make it the way i had originally wanted

[Toxic Yuri VN Jam 2026:The Actual Game]

The goal was to have fun. Not to make 'the best thing i could possibly make' or the next citizen kane or whatever. Have. Fun.

So, that's what I focused on. When I planned out this story, I tried to focus on how I could write it to maximize the amount of fun I would have working on the script. It mostly worked, so we'll call this project a success.

The concept for this story emerged from a single idea: A reclusive nerd unwittingly lets a preppy school bully into her inner world. Comedy(?) ensues.

The story doesn't deviate much from what I had initially planned, but there are some ideas that I ended up cutting.

For instance, there was supposed to be an entire subplot around the fact that Tunip wasn't allowed to be at the academy in an official capacity. Her background is that she got rescued by the protagonist as a monster cub thing in the forest, and then suddenly started rapidly evolving into a humanoid catgirl, as anime furries are apt to do.

This is one of the things Avery would have bullied her for, commenting on the 'weird bestiality aspect' of it, the grooming / age gap aspect; one of the major inner (and outer) conflicts was going to be that Esther would justify these things by saying 'it's not real,' which then leads Avery to point out the contradiction when she had previously claimed that this world was 'real' to her. Real things can be fake, fake things can be real, yadda yadda; I bring this up in a blase way but this theme is actually personally very fascinating to me and I end up exploring it in a lot of my works.

On the subject of cut things, the 'sex dungeon' that Avery joked about was going to actually be a thing as an escalation of this same idea. That's what that trapdoor was initially for, but I ended up repurposing its use entirely. Because, when I had started to write that scene as initially intended, I realized I actually hated this direction for the story and had to improvise a different turn of events while the clock was running out on the jam.

Esther was originally meant to lean much more into hypersexuality in the fake world, because she was entirely repressed in the outside one. However, the shame of constantly being in Avery's presence meant she had to constantly hide this fact from her, until she would stumble into it and force a confrontation with her. Of course, this didn't end up happening.

Part of Avery's resentment that got dropped due to lack of space in the narrative is that Esther lives in a fancy house wanting for nothing, and was never directly hurt by her family. In contrast, Avery's perfectionism stems from the fact that her parents wanted to enjoy retirement early and pressured her into becoming the earner of their collapsing household; when she resisted or failed to meet their standards, she would be physically attacked. Seeing Esther easily running away from reality and enjoying a cozy life, all the while complaining about how 'this is all she has' triggers her sense of unfairness in their lives.

When I first set out to write the story, I had expected a significant portion of the script to revolve around Avery persistently bullying Esther for the way she chooses to interface with this world, and that she would constantly be cockblocking her and stealing the love interests just to show her how easy it was and how little substance they truly had.

In actuality, this ends up taking a backseat to the private reflections, the repeated arguments, the bad sexual advances; it's not a bad thing I don't think, but I would've liked to play much more with shenanigans revolving around the love interests and it's a shame I didn't get a chance to do that, both due cramming all of my dev time into 7 days, but also due to my brain fog strangling creative thought. I do think the ending is pretty rushed, but I was down to the wire uploading the game file on time so it is what it is.

There was also supposed to be a sick as hell fight scene between Avery and Forsia, but I couldn't justify it in the script when I got to that point. In the original ending I planned, Forsia would've been killed -- due to Esther's psychic connection with her, she would go into shock and start dying, too. From there, I had two forks in mind: An ending where Avery is trapped forever in a fake world she doesn't care about along with the comatose body of the only real person that exists there, and an ending where Avery pulls Esther back out into the real world and tries to resuscitate her, only to be confronted by the mysterious robed members of her 'family'.

Despite my grievances, I'd say I'm actually kind of proud of myself for how the game turned out within that time frame. Though I had fun, it was also stressful due to what I assume are unchecked diabetic symptoms, which caused me to repeatedly pass out hours at a time in the middle of working on the game.

At the end of it all, do Esther and Avery actually, truly... love each other?

Hell no. No way in hell they would survive a sustained relationship LOL.

But even if it's not love. this is the closest that they will ever to get to it.

I hope you will get closer than them.

Thanks for playing!

Super special thanks to Blecat the main character artist and Fray (Fangsoft), who came in clutch during the last few days of the jam to help with the title art, coloring, and the final missing sprite!! You guys are the best!! mwah mwah