You know the drill. How'd it go? What were you proud of? What do you think you could do better next time? What's some cool stuff you've seen in other projects so far? Etc etc etc
Jesus godsblessed Christ. I jumped into this jam right after i won't finish this game and I swear to gods that I will never do 2 releases in such quick succession. I slept for 8 hours total this weekend and consumed criminal amounts of caffeine. I still don't know if my script is coherent to anyone who didn't play my previous games, I'm not sure if I incorporated both themes correctly and I'm pretty much sure I fucked up volume when it comes to music. But I'm happy! A lot of stuff happened to me this week and the fact that I could make art, write, do music and release it at all is just wonderful. I love the challenge of having 36 hours to do it all, even though it's not my first rodeo of this kind (see, Shibboleth lol). Also I find it kind of funny that my first Velox game was about actively killing Pharmakon and the second was about essentially watching Heartling die, since Pharmakon and Heartling are sort of 2 sides of the same coin in lore... and they die by the same blade, in the end. I have a strange, subconscious tradition of holding onto a theme for certain jams (Pride-Shibboleth duology for O2A2, Blythe's gender woes for Trans Rep Jam...).
Anyway. I loved the fact that we had to incorporate 2 themes! This allows for a wide range of combos and interpretations (and I know the person who suggested Flower Symbolism! they're pretty happy that their suggested theme is so loved). I can't wait to see what everyone else did and how they blended their 2 themes together. Also, please y'all, drink some water, get some rest, eat a fruit maybe. Y'all did it. Hope you're fine. See you at next Velox, if you want to be there! I certainly do.
It was my first time participating in such a short jam and I kinda decided to join on a whim. I'm so glad I did! I genuinely had so much fun and felt like I was able to create something purely for my own enjoyment. It felt like a little arts and craft project where I could just enjoy creating for the sake of creating. I'm very proud of what I managed to create in such a short time. Especially happy with the atmosphere of the game. I wish I would have had more time to polish the main menu and other parts of the GUI so hoping I can time-manage better next time (doubt). I haven't had time to play through all the entries yet but it's so fun seeing the different ways the themes have been interpreted and used in different types of stories!
I'm starting to think Velox jams are cursed for me lmaO
Fabula: life things, only had 5 days instead of 10
Turbo: work things, lost a day
Formido: woke up sick the day of
One of these days I will be able to join this jam and have the full time to participate and not feel awful while doing it ahsjsjs
With that said, while I think aesthetically it might not be my best entry, this is definitely my favorite story wise of all my Velox games. Something about it really clicked for me and I had to stop myself from not making the script like 10k words (if I hadn't been sick, this would have happened alas). I like the world I built up a lot, and I think it'd be fun to come back to at some point.
I also crash coursed how to code NVL mode, which wasfun. It's also why the GUI is....not the best LOL. I couldn't figure out some things, so I had to scrap giving the mc a custom name because it kept messing up NVL mode, but I'm glad I learned the basics of how to do it now!
I've been slowly playing through the other entries and have been really enjoying them so far. I love how popular the flower symbolism was, and seeing what themes were picked has been interesting to see. Hoping by the end of the week I'll have played and commented on all the entries!
It was definitely hectic LOL
I don't remember the last time I stayed up past 3AM, it was probably back in college... the crunch was real 馃ゲ I wanted to do some CGs for different scenes but did not have the time or energy, so Ren'Py transforms it was! I speedran the art in the game, I think I spent an hour on each sprite (first Dahlia the vampire, then Camellia using Dahlia's sprite as a base) and then quickly drew a main menu art in less than half an hour (anatomy be damned).
I really really wanted to do a web build for the game so I updated Ren'Py to the latest stable build and apparently the web builds on it aren't stable so it kept having WebGL errors otl So I scrapped that and just went with downloads because by that time it was 3:30 and I was working on pure determination at that point. Once the rating/judging is over I'll probably make a web build.
This was really fun though!! I got my start making games by entering Ludum Dare a lot so this was a fun way to show myself that I still got the ability to making short VNs in a weekend. Thanks for running this!
First off- I really liked this format of choose two of five of the themes so much more than a single one. I didn't do the 2nd Velox jam because my brain kept trying to go to very dark places based on that theme and I wasn't in a good headspace to do that. And it's been fun to see how the different combos turned out!
I've never done such a short jam, and I couldn't really get started until midday on the second day because of real life obligations. Halfway through I really did contemplate stopping because I just wasn't happy with how my art was turning out. I've learned a lot about digital art since I started last year but I definitely need to practice more. I was very happy to see how much I've learned since my first jam (Velox Fabula)- swapping between different modes, adding a sound effect (and editing the sound file to be shorter bc the one I found and liked best was wayyyy too long- it would've been obnoxious), layered sprites, multiple endings, and I was more prepared for things like an itch cover image/ screenshots/description/etc.
I still have tons of other stuff I would like to learn for future projects- more UI customization, adding custom screens/buttons, point and click elements, mini games, and I definitely want to do a chat sim at some point. And I'd like to learn how to do a web build for play in browser.
I played through all the entries yesterday, after I finally woke up, and thoroughly enjoyed it! It was awesome to see so many different interpretations of the themes and I was happy to see how many entries the jam got. Everyone did a great job and should be proud of themselves!
I'm off to play a bunch of Stardew before it's back to work on my current 'big' project. Try to get some rest everyone!
Also, stats on theme usage because I just. Like to gather numbers ig??? I might be very wrong though, I am so bad at counting.
Enemies with Benefits 5
Flower Symbolism 11
Doomed by the Narrative 8
Trapped with Someone 8
Forbidden Romance 6,5 (since Dahlia had "a tiny bit of forbidden romance", I count it as "a tiny bit", which I decided is 0,5. Haven't played yet. It could be closer to 0,25... who knows! not me.)
Conclusion: I have to tell my friend who suggested Flower Symbolism that their theme fucking slaps
I think this might be because some people will vote on themes that sound interesting in general, but don't feel like using them in their work and would rather see someone else do it. I think I voted for Enemies with Benefits because it sounds like a great idea, but also I had no plans of choosing it for myself.
it was really hard uuuuh two of us were busy for like half the day so we really had to just brainrot like crazy and grind for a day and a half. i was really proud of our ability to think of an idea and flesh it out ALMOST to its entirety. some parts are a little rushed but hopefully after this jam we can come back to it with an even better game. cyberpunk is a hard ass aesthetic theres so much world building and u dont really wanna get the tech wrong but it was fun. anything is possible in two days if u got ur two friends to complain with you and grind hard enough. three days have passed and my brain still fried - Ais
I THINK LikE i was confident in writing until i wasnt cause my brain was starting ro blank hence why me and el switched between art and writing, but overall it worked out in the end, though id be happier implementing more impactiful design elements to the characters, i was pleased with what we managed to finish! - Pluto
This was my first jam and holy crap, it was so fun LMAO. Definitely taught me a lot about keeping to really strict schedules and to focus on my work rather than procrastinating, which actually made me realise I can do a LOT in a short amount of time if I stopped getting distracted so much! x) When I initially heard of the plot idea from Pluto and Ais, I was quite worried it was wayy too much than what we could do in 2 days, especially considering we started pretty late. I'm glad that we got to wrap it up in a digestible way, but I do wish we could've explored the planned themes & plot a little more. I think I definitely could've spent more time on the GUI and choosing better audios or SFX, but we were a bit too close to the deadline to do much by then. I will say though, BEST SLEEP I'VE HAD IN AWHILE. THANK YOU ROBO AND ALLIE FOR THE HIBERNATION LMFAO - Lumi