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What’s your name? Want to introduce yourself? I’m “yam655” or “Steven”, he/they. Most of the places where I am online I go by “yam655”. This includes other time-limited contests, such as February Album Writing Month and National Novel Writing Month. I’m old (Gen-X). I’m a parent. I’m the “A” in LGBT+. I like LGBT+ games that my LGBT+ kids can play, so expect some of that from me for this jam.
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Did you participate in the last jam we held? If so, what do you plan on doing better this time? If not, what’s your reason for joining? No. I only recently started making games. (I’ve been thinking about making games for decades. Finishing and releasing anything? Only did that the first time yesterday.)
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What games are your favorites? Did any of them inspire you, or made you want to make your own? I was watching some anime and visual novels played a small part. I self-describe as a “mad artist” though I normally add that they’re “wordy arts.” I engage in songwriting as well as dabble in fiction writing, but I’ve been wanting to stretch my visual art skills. When I looked at it, it seemed making visual novels was a good overlap of my creative hobbies. I particularly enjoy cute LGBT+ visual novels and dating sims that are family friendly. Itch.io is a great place to look for cute LGBT+ visual novels!
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Do you have experience with game development? What did you do/with what engine? When I was young, I was a fan of roguelike games. (It’s a genre that predates cursor keys on keyboards.) I dabbled with that for years, but without a challenge to push me to do something small enough to finish, I only ever really dabbled. The languages included C, Java, and Python, but either it was directly using “curses” or (for the Java) it emulated the “curses” API. Since the past week, though, I’ve made a visual novel with Ren’Py.
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Tell us about something you’re passionate about! I engage in a type of improvised acapella that was almost shamed out of existence. Back before radio and recorded music, the air was filled with the sounds of people singing to themselves. Once “good singers” became readily available for folks to listen to, this disappeared. Back when there were only two genres of music, the sacred and the vulgar, it was vulgar. These days, I call it “folk acapella.”
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What are your goals for this game jam? I used a Ren’Py template for the last one, because I thought it would make things easier, but I don’t know that it did, so I’m doing this one without. I’m using Ren’Py Sprite Creator for my sprites. Last time I used Mannequin, which has a bit of a cleaner style (and was easy to use), but is a lot more limited in what it can do. I want to use my music skills to make some music I’ve not released before, and I want 14 new tracks that are all used in the game.
For returning jammers:
I’ve done a jam before, but not this jam. It was The Unspeakable Jam that ended recently. I showed up with just four days left with a goal of making something both unspeakable as well as entirely lacking inappropriate language and graphics. At least in the eyes of my children, I succeeded as they want nothing to do with it at all. It’s about attending your boss’s party while trying not to poop yourself. It’s called “A Crappy Game.”
I’m happy with how it turned out. It’s my best work so far!