Posted November 14, 2021 by Arbit
#postmortem
Hello again for my second-ever postmortem, this time about Moments! Solchet but in high school... the prequel story...
Thinking about when I released Moments, I'm really glad - and surprised - by how well it's doing! Thank you for the currently 250+ downloads and also to those who donated! Sol and Chet are very dear to my heart and their story has been rattling in my brain for a long time.
Writing
Moments is a story that's been in my head for a year now. I've written oneshots about them, then tried a novel and even an unfinished Nanoreno project. Being able to put everything into one game that I can point to and say "Yes, this is it. This is the definitive Solchet high school story" is super nice.
But it sure wasn't easy!
Because I had so many snippets across so many files, combining everything was actually more work than writing from scratch. My original idea was to structure the game as non-linear standalone scenes, essentially "moments." Needless to say... that didn't happen. I ended up with a lot of drafts and a lot of rewrites.
After Moments was released, I went through them and honestly? Some parts are good.
UI
The theme was "school but as you remember it ten years later" and I think it went pretty well. The lined paper was a cute touch...
Something interesting I tried during development was NVL style screens: scenes with text and illustrations, like a book. I even made a prototype before realizing the code was going to take a lot of work. Renpy has only one format for NVL screens and I wanted three different layouts.
Made it work but as it turned out, I didn't even need these layouts because the narration wasn't heavy in the end.
(But if anyone does want to know how I did them, feel free to reach out! It'd just get too technical and rambly here.)
Art
I like the sprites! They're cute! That's all I have to say!
(I wrote about my art process in Mechet's postmortem and did the same thing here. Have some concept art!)
Programming
I split the face into three parts - the eyes, brows, and mouth - to stitch expressions together using layeredimage. Halfway in, I realized the time saved drawing was probably doubled in code. Changing the face line by line, each part individually, was a lot... They did turn out very dynamic in the end though!
Speaking of dynamic, this was the first time I tried ATL, or Animation and Transformation Language. It's basically code that will make things move, which I used to make the sprites bounce and walk. I feel like it added a lot more immersion into the game.
Music
I'm happy with what I chose. It feels like with each project, I think more about the music so my sense gets better.
All in all...
Thanks for making it to the end! Once again, I write a lot.
As for what I'm planning next... I told myself I'd take a break after Moments but then I got hit with ideas so! Solchet 10 years later! Please look forward to it!
And if you want to see gamedev updates, along with art and writing, I'm on Twitter!