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