YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO! BEST PART? WORST PART? THINGS YOU LIKED IN OTHER GAMES? DROP EM HERE
Hello it is I, Naarel, the chronic threadstarter!
So basically I wasn't even meant to be here but I checked the theme in the morning once it dropped and I got struck with divine inspiration so I had to make something I guess. 10 days is a lot of time and I spent like 2 of them dying because the way I approached the topic was killing me mentally. Actually, you can read my extremely rambly postmortem (if you played NIEZWYCIĘŻONA [SEMPER INVICTA] already, of course).
I was kinda surprised that there aren't that many games here but then I remembered that Spooktober exists and people are probably busy with that (as I should be with Ectocomp, which is like Spooktober for the interactive fiction community except nobody wins money lol), so that might be a factor. That's better for me because I frankly am in a bit of a downward spiral mentally (not because of Velox) and it's hard for me to play anything except for Minecraft and Disco Elysium lately, so the amount of entries makes my job of playing every entry a little easier. So far I played... two! I really need to speed up.
When it comes to my project, I was scared at first that it'll be too Polish to be understandable for international audiences but I guess not because the reception seems to be pretty good so far. The concept of a lowkey yandere city traumatized by war seems to be enough of a banger in itself I guess? There's been some interesting interpretations and takes going around and honestly, that means that in my head, I won already. Yippee!
As always, drink some water, touch some grass, eat some fruit maybe, hope you've been sleeping well and all, happy to be here with you once more! See you in the thread and at the winner reveal!
LOVE when divine inspiration strikes HATE when divine inspiration doesn't shield me from other parts of the creative process
I'm glad you were able to finish your game and decided to publish it! I've definitely made things where I'm like "this must never see the light of day" just because of how much of a struggle it was to make it, but I think the world is better with NIEZWYCIĘŻONA in it <3
Helloooo I also wasn't going to participate because I have a million other things to do, but the theme was banging and procrastination is my middle name lmaO
I remember checking the submission feed once the jam finished and wondering where?? Everyone was this time around?? But tbh I also forgot Spooktober takes place in September, I keep thinking it's an October jam lol
Having less entries to play has been really nice as a participant, though. I do think I ended up a little burnt out in previous velox jams by the time I hit like entry #15. I think being able to take my time with the entries and have more time to think about each one made it a lot easier to rate everything, especially in terms of comparatively to each other. Anyway, as always, I enjoyed every entry and I love how creative everyone got with this theme!
Anyway for my game I had 0 plans for anything so I went into this whole thing very...head empty, no thoughts. I normally go into game jams with something I want to learn or try and this time I was like "let me just try collages" since it's actually one of my favorite art forms lol it was fun to do whatever I felt like (which I guess.....is what I usually do sksjsjd), but yeah. It honestly was a really chill and relaxed process and I think part of that is 10 days for a jam now feel too long somehow sksks
But anyway yeah! It was a fun time!
so right now is actually a very dark time in my life (if you know anyone hiring a postbac for a clinical psych crc position next year CONTACT ME) (or if you know anyone recruiting a grad student for a clinical psych phd CONTACT ME) but when the chance arose to collaborate not only with my longtime collaborator and irl friend lemonink BUT ALSO pamdrabbles of velox fame, i put aside grad school apps and got right to work 💪
also … also … !! not to sound too desperate, though i am very desperate, it would mean so much if fellow velox participators could rate our game 🥹🥹 across timezones and sleep schedules we worked very hard and i would hate to see the effort that lemon and pam put in to go to waste. and since i rated everyone’s entry 👉👈 …
but let’s put aside the begging. since i’ve only done the 4 day and 36 hour jams prior, having a full 10 days was interesting for me. but i know if i were on my own, i couldn’t have done much. a 2d sidescroller? minigames? having someone carry the other half of the 37k words? this was a group effort in the best way possible, and i’m happy with the way it turned out. i don’t know what people think of it, but i hope that for those who do play — they enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it.
i also really enjoyed going through everyone else’s entries as usual! i always love how different games made for the same theme can be. heartsync, of course, with that beautifully designed and intimate city… miseri’s cult-y, come to life subway racing past tracks and fueling the central conversation… bez’s heart and also the world of spirits and music (no fair, you dropped two fascinating games?!)… naarel’s yandere city digging into the psyche of such a traumatized city (and when psych comes into the picture, let’s just say i’m invested 🤓)… and of course, the way skyshard weaves memory and recollection with the present, living maze… let’s all continue to submit to velox jams forever and ever, okay? i want to see more!
and if your job is hiring… reach out to me!!!
Omg you put aside grad school apps for me 🥺 It's been such a pleasure working with you I'm the luckiest girl on earth~ thank you so much for letting me into your and lemonink's little group. I don't know if I love you or hate you for ruining all future collab experiences for me. It was SO perfect and SO much fun that I'm afraid I can never join a group again because it won't be as smoothly run as this one (what if I join a group and it's like Spread Thin: We're Toast! ....no....I can't face such horrors....).
Good luck with all your apps and stuff! And please, for the love of God, GET SOME SLEEP <3
I feel like such a newbie in a jam full of star veterans, woah. Thank you for having me, lmao. This was a fun experience for me! Not only my first time joining one of Velox series, but also my first time publishing a game solo as well as making a game in Decker. Lots of firsts, haha.
Again, I gotta thank Naarel for just casually showing off their game and getting me inspired. I've only used Twine and Renpy so far in the game dev journey, Decker was a really interesting system to use! (I struggled A LOT, ngl. I will never say that I'm a good coder, and so I accepted the limitations in reluctant stride.) I do like the final product, I'll say. But I'm really glad that I just got the opportunity to write about these characters that I've been thinking about for a while. And happy to see that people liked these noobs. I hope to write them again one day!
As someone who also takes awhile playing games, having the small entry list was a blessing to me. (Thank goodness for the Spooktober conflict, haha.) It was nice to appreciate every single one without having to rush them into completion. Everyone here got so creative with the theme interpretation! (And I was here being very cheeky given the first line in my game, whoops!)
Who knows if I have it in me to do any of the quicker turnaround game jams for Velox, but I'm happy that I joined this one. You guys are a cool bunch <3
I'm in 3 Spooktober games and am in a directing & producing role for 2 of them (I'm the casting & voice director in the 3rd), but when a Velox jam comes a long, I always try to participate when I have time. And so, I made fucking time.
my heart is a city is similar to But You Are in the case that the Velox theme offered an opportunity to explore some feelings I wanted to let out/share in some way. What's depicted in the game and discussed in the description are things that happened to occur during the Velox period; it was only thinking about it in the aftershock that the personal allegory(?) came together. I've been in this cycle for 9 years and I need to stop. I was surprised how many people related to it; it felt (and still feels) like something only I've experienced.
As for A Sunset Never Truly Fades. . . I love giant/tiny shit. Have loved it since I started writing at 6 years old. And I've been thinking more about borrowers thanks to Flori, a borrower VTuber I like (he's your 4-inch tall pocket protector! Isn't that cute?). I thought about what kind of genres borrowers haven't been in, and post-apocalypse came to mind. Then the character appeared, an old witch. Originally, A Sunset was just about Zara and was her story, but when I brought Fray on board, she said that Zara needed someone to bounce off of, and we made Orion--changed the game completely, in a good way. Now it's a game about Orion's journey, learning about her strength and what it means to be a healer. I got the chance to work with some VAs I've wanted to work with for years (Sky & Kaylee of course) so that was very exciting. (I was the VA behind the spirit's whispering, btw. )
If you don't know, there was a bit of a problem getting in on time for the deadline--it turns out you can't submit to a jam a game page you don't own, even if you're an admin on it, so we missed it. Thankfully, talking to robobarbie fixed that right up--very grateful for that. I didn't get to play the game until it was released, and I worry that while the story is good, it doesn't make a good visual novel, so please tell me if I'm wrong on that. I'm scared lol.
The voting period ends in approx. 3,5 hours, which means I'll be fast asleep. Not sure when the results will be actually announced but just in advance, thank you everyone for playing and I hope you had fun participating. Congratulations to everyone who won and for those who didn't, I hope I'll see you on next Velox, whichever it might be. I'm always happy to be here with y'all. Take care of yourself.
Late to the party, but it's time to reflect!
I wasn't sure if I was going to join at all because ten days feels like an impossibly long time and I kind of burnt myself out on O2A2 jam (play Canary Caged, I hate it but some people really like it, and then read my reflection on the 152 jam entries I played). But when I had the chance to team up with Katherine, Lemonink, and later Jon, I couldn't pass up that opportunity. It's my first time working as a major participant on a team, but it was so much fun! Time zones made things tricky, but Katherine and Lemonink are so organized that it was so easy to wake up, see what the plan is supposed to be, and then just hit the ground running. Then Jon would drop some banger music in the chat, and it was impossible not to be inspired to do my best. I highly recommend not only joining a team, but joining a team with people that you trust and admire creatively.
Like everyone else, I was sad to see not as many people joined (or were able to finish their games) as previous Velox jams. The first entry was spam mp3 and png files, so I was so worried no one would be joining at all! What draws me to the Velox series is the community surrounding it. Like bro, where are all my friends :( I was so relieved once actual people started submitting games!!
As always, it's an honor getting to play and rate everyone's games. Everyone really came through in the creativity department and made such delicious narratives. Congrats to everyone that placed, and to those that didn't, I hope you know your games are still good games and hold inherent worth. There were so many neat tricks that I'm going to be stealing for future projects. As always, thanks for giving me inspiration fuel.
Spoilers for In Full Bloom
Okay, so I know In Full Bloom is the longest entry. I knew when when we made it people might not have time to play the entire thing or would have to take longer to get through it. I know some parts of the game are extremely tedious (and intentionally designed to be that way dklfjlkjfgkgjlkg). I also try not to operate on a "I need comments and validation to survive" mindset. But man, getting comments and validation is so nice. I don't need people to shower me in endless compliments, but I am desperate to know everyone's innermost thoughts about my work (every artist is like this, right? Right??).
There was definitely a moment of fear of "oh no, no one is going to play this game" when other entries were receiving comments and we weren't, even though we had steady downloads. Even if we received no comments at all, I would still be absolutely proud of the game that we made. I love it, and it's one of my favorite games I've worked on. Still, it was hard not to be a little bit sad when people said they played part of the game but not all of it alkdfjlkgjlgj. To me that's like rating Doki Doki Literature Club before even getting to Sayori's scene (which admittedly happens a lot sooner than In Full Bloom's twist). I'm glad In Full Bloom works as a dating sim, but that's only a part of it! We need that part to work well for the end game to work, but the end game is where we truly tried to put the heart of the narrative. All that to say, I need to work on being more patient, especially with projects like this that have a slow start. I'm trying! And I'm still really grateful for how the game has been received so far! But yeah, I needed a moment to complain, and now I'll leave those fears behind forever ^-^
See you all at the next jam! I'm off to the Celestial Signs mines for now <3