Posted June 13, 2023 by arseniac_
#devlog
Hey there, this is just me going kind of in-depth for the developments of the game and how it came to be like it is (and maybe just a little tangent of me.)
Okay. To be completely honest, this game was meant to be a 'warm-up' for me to make my originally planned other game (I fxcked a lot of things up and got kind of burn out from it so I decided to make a simple project to familiarize myself with Ren'Py and everything)
Rooftop Dwellers is actually my first 'finished' game. Maybe one day I'll finish completing those other game ideas...
What was the inspiration and concept for this game from? Honestly? It's from a mix of real life stories and just content I've consumed my whole life. Of course, one of the biggest inspiration came from For Amerta by syllphana as I've also mentioned in the main game page.
The game, meant for a simple project in the span of 2-3 weeks took me almost a month and a half. I blame it on procrastinating.
I do feel like I could've written better for the game, some of the plot points were pretty weak, but I kind of gave up on writting better for it and stayed with this story instead. Originally, Rooftop Dwellers were gonna be about an outcast teacher and an outcast student who keeps on meeting in the school's rooftop and having awkward platonic bonding moments. But I don't actually know what to do with that. In the end it became more of a background theme rather than the main theme.
The prompt that I gave myself in the beginning was just a simple delusional part time teacher and other characters were slowly added into the making I suppose.
If you felt like the game was 'rushed' or the designs were inconsistent, congrats, you are correct. The reasoning was in the text before this.
This whole game was just made from multiple bursts of energy. I think I kinda messed up by not actually making a character design for the main characters. If you wondered why some characters look different in some scenes, this is why. I actually enjoy making in bursts of energy though.
I learned from my past mistake of making cgs and character sprites while also simultaneously working on the draft script was just pure hell for me. So, with this project, I decided to write the main script dialogues first and then work on the character sprites after. Then everything else kinda followed.
I also wanted to add more Mello and Law scenes to deepen the player but, well, maybe I can make a prequel or something.
What happened to the other students (that got sprites)?
What happened to the arsonist in Ending 1?
Who was the silhouette in Ending 2?
What is the Gaia Force? Was it real in the end? What about 'The Organization' ?
Why did Law keep on dying?
A fun fact that nobody asked for, the creator's favorite character is Lily(Student A)! She's just so real for a lot of things and I just love drawing her. I actually dislike Mello a little bit because of what I've written in his character.
That's all for the questions that I can think of, thank you for reading up till this far! I'm quite pleased in the end result albeit some things I could've done to perfect the game. Still proud of that changing menu thing. Thank you random person on renpy forum :'D
In the future, I think I'll be making other projects, whether that'd be connected to this project or not.
Once again, thank you so much for reading/playing this stupid short game I made for school vacation. Have a great day!
:)