Posted July 01, 2023 by Rylie Eric
(Note: This post contains discussion of the content warnings on the main page, so if you haven’t looked at them yet and want to, then now’s your chance)
Hello users of the internet! I decided to make another post mortem close to a game’s release. I just felt like it. This probably won’t happen again until I finish the 3 post mortems that I still need to write, plus any other that I may need to do after them for other game releases. With that though, let’s take a look at this piece of fiction!
After I completed Listen to the Phone Ring, I wanted to do another game for Neo-Twiny. Two ideas came to mind, a game about suicide titled “goodnight” and another about a theater’s last play. Both would of been completely new with no returning characters like in Listen to the Phone Ring. I didn’t start immediately, though, since I was mostly worrying about college. Once I did start on something, goodnight took priority.
goodnight was originally meant to be completely about suicide. I’ve been thinking about doing a game that covers it for a while now and while I forgot that I wanted to that idea, I wanted to work on goodnight since it felt relevant to me. goodnight’s idea changed quite a bit though… when I had a rough night on a trip to see family.
I had several inspirations for goodnight. Like almost all of my other works post-Get a Glass of Milk Because You Have To, my life experiences tend to inspire the content of my works. goodnight is no exception to that, even when I changed the direction of the game (I’ll call them 1st and 2nd iteration for the rest of this post). I won’t discuss specifics for this project here since I want to keep it personal, but you can see a big example of this throughout this section.
The primary source of inspiration for the two iterations of goodnight were my trips to see family. The setting and the photos described in the game originate from those trips. For some reason, those details always stood out to me. Especially the photos. When I look at the photos of a certain person (or people), I notice some details that may of changed in the time between photos. goodnight’s second iteration replicates this detail well.
The biggest source of inspiration, though, and the main difference between the 1st and 2nd iteration of goodnight was a night during these trips. When I decided to go to sleep, I had a… rather familiar, unhappy thought. One thought became two, and it later became a rush of thoughts that changed constantly. One minute, I thought about my plans for tomorrow, and then the next I thought about suicide. Then, the thought became my relationship with my family and friends. During all of this, unrelated images would appear in my head as well. It certainly wasn’t an easy night.
But after that though, I considered about goodnight. I considered that, perhaps instead of suicide, it would cover the bad night that I recently had. I ended up changing the direction of goodnight after that. A game that may of been extremely dark ended up becoming a little less dark and a little more hopeful.
goodnight’s development started with it’s 1st draft of the 1st iteration. This time, I used google docs to as a word counter instead of Twine’s built-in counter. It allowed me to more accurately count words, since it was not only the first draft but there’s also no code being counted. I only wrote the first paragraph though (the paragraph describing the atmosphere) before I shifted into the “thoughts” idea. The only notable difference between this and the one that ended up in the final game was that the word dark/darkness appeared three times in that paragraph, so I reworded it to only have darkness once.
Also, in terms of the 1st iteration, it was originally intended to end with an implied suicide as a form of “falling asleep” (or at least the protagonist would of considered it before falling asleep). This was changed, as you may of already read, to something much lighter in the 2nd iteration.
The 2nd iteration has two drafts. The first passage remains the same on both drafts, except on the 1st draft where there’s a sentence difference in it. Below is that sentence in the 1st draft.
I’ve been here for most of the day, considering that if I left this room, I’ll likely have to lie to myself or participate in conversation in a language I am mostly unfamiliar with.
This was changed to remove the language bit, since language is completely irrelevant to the story.
The 3rd passage was the passage that went through the most changes between the 1st and 2nd drafts. This was also the passage where the characters really started to form. The main character was originally going to be the character named Reese in the 2nd draft, with their friend being named Abigail. Abigail was the transgender character who ended up being the main character in the 2nd draft. Abigail’s name was chosen because of the name’s meaning - “cause of joy” (there’s different wordings for it I think). It helped bring in the idea that being transgender brought Abigail happiness (helped further by the photos in the same passage). Sadly, this name didn’t show up at all in the final game. Reese’s name was chosen because I liked it. The changes between both drafts were to accommodate the perspective change.
The 2nd passage (the one with the thoughts) had about the same amount of changes between the two drafts as the 1st. Instead of removal, though, I added some more words. This was done to specify a detail for the idol discussed.
“Should I even call them an idol? I don’t really agree with them much, but they contributed so much to my life…”
There was also a change for a word that was italicized in a sentence. This was mainly an mistake I made when transferring the draft to Twine, but I kept it in. Below is the version with the original italicized word. Note that the word, that, was italicized in the final game.
“I’m not what they are saying about me, but if they knew, they might hate me. What would I do in that case?”
The thoughts are similar to the thoughts I had that night. However, the thoughts were way more detailed, different, and stressful compared to how the thoughts in the game were. This was intentional, since as I was writing the thoughts, I considered that it would work better like that. I still kept in the stressful part in with how I showed the 2nd passage, although I don’t think it works as well as I think it does.
Once I completed the 1st draft, I left it alone for a while. When I came back to it, I realized that with how the thoughts were structured that Abigail would work better as the main character. The 2nd draft was then made. That change likely made the story make more sense with the thoughts that were written.
With this change also came in Trans Representation Jam. I was originally planning (and still planning) to make something different for that jam. Once I completed the 2nd draft though, I considered that it could also work with Trans Rep Jam’s rules and decided to also put it as a submission to that as well.
The last thing I will mention is the game’s art. The cover image was originally just going to be the moon with the game’s title (presented in the same way it is in the version used). I added stars just to make it more lively. There’s also an alternate version of the cover image without the text and more stars. The alternate version is shown below.
The icon for game (the one you see on the game’s tab and in certain places on my site) also has two versions, which are shown below. The version with the crescent moon tilted was made since the cover image featured a tilted crescent moon.
Listen to the Phone Ring and goodnight were my first two Twine games, which were made within a month between each other. The two both featured a trans main character and were entries to the Neo-Twiny Jam. This is also where the major similarities end.
The obvious difference between the two is that goodnight was much darker compared to Listen to the Phone Ring. Since goodnight was a linear story and that I used Google Docs’ word counter instead of Twine’s, there were less code tricks used compared to Listen to the Phone Ring. goodnight was also not based off anything I made previously, allowing me to make the experience stand on it own more. Listen to the Phone Ring is still impressive to me, though, with the tricks that I used to lower the word count (even if it was unnecessary).
The two games has their own ups and downs. I mainly just wanted to compare the two since they are related to each other. Perhaps you have a preference?
goodnight was the product of a bad night during a trip. It also was the product of me wanting to tackle a relatively dark subject in a story. Depending on how well this game does, I might consider making more like it. Anyway, Pros and Cons
goodnight’s origin is merely a bad memory now. Perhaps, as a way to recover from bad experiences, we share our bad experiences with other people, seeking empathy. I guess in a way, writing stories is how I mostly share my bad experiences. goodnight was a fictitious version of that night of the trip, alongside multiple other bad experiences, packed up onto an html file playable on a web browser.
Perhaps, with these stories, I could find hope in my own life…
I currently have no idea how well this game is being received by the few people playing it. Maybe they will like it. Maybe they won’t. I don’t know. Nobody has even interacted with the game yet outside of some discussion of the icons(). If this game ends up being poorly received, this wouldn’t matter to the game’s point of existence. It exists because I wanted to share a story, and that is it. Might as well keep it in your mind should you ever review it.
() - Actually while finishing this, someone did make a comment on the game (not on itch).
Edit (7/1/2023): I mainly just made text bold (The top content warning and the added idol words). I guess since I’m here I might as well comment on the fact that goodnight is one of the last games submitted to the Neo-Twiny Jam and the first game submitted to the Trans Rep Jam 2023. You know, something a game called goodnight would do, which is be one of the first and last submissions at the same time.