Thank you!

Thank you! And I'm glad I could help <3

I'm glad! Thank you for playing :D And heck yeah they are

Thank you!

Bringing the dagger the second time does automatically bring it the third time! It's meant to reflect that by now, you're bringing it out of habit and you're not really thinking about the consequences. 

The usage of first to admit rather than last to admit is intentional, just as holding her closer to you is intentional ;D

But thank you for taking the time to bring them up!

Wow that's a big compliment, thank you! The full version should be out in a day or two, so look out for that!

Thank you! I'm glad to hear that!

Ahh! Thank you so much for your lovely comment!

I'm glad! I didn't want to make anyone feel that there isn't a community out there for them~

And thank you for playing!

Ahh! Thank you, that means a lot!

A straightforward abstraction of living in a world that doesn't accept you. It's quite difficult but I suppose that's the point xD

Love the concept, and how the blocks change not only in colour, but appearance, when they're in the safe spaces. 

However, the method for jumping when you're not in a safe space isn't the most intuitive thing, especially considering how many buttons you have to end up pressing at once.

A game with simple but effective mechanics. I love the pixel art!

I'm amazed at how complex your entry is!

Pathfinding, AI, attacks that can hurt/heal multiple targets, simply incredible!

Damn, I'm impressed by how much you managed to do in these two weeks. 

Other than the fact that the crewmates seemed to get stuck on parts of the ship/each other, this is very well done!

I love the story you have so far! The worldbuilding is great. I really want to see all of these characters prosper.

Wow! A simple but effective game, tied together with great art and lovely music. I especially like the way the protagonist has a rest when they can't deal with all of the angry people, especially when that screen doubles as the main menu.

A quick but striking game! I especially liked the art style.

As I understand it, this is an abbreviated version of the full concept you wanted. I hope we can see that full version some day! 

I love the idea you had for this game! The designs for the characters are very cute.

Is it possible to reach her in the current stage of the game? I drove around in the rover many times but didn't seem to be able to find anything.

Cute concept! I really like how many mechanics you put into this game. It's been a pleasure watching the game develop over the two weeks.

I do have to admit though that the game was a bit hard to control, and the angle of the camera meant that I wasn't sure of where I should be going, but it's a great game regardless!

Seeing these other comments, I expected to not be able to play your game, but I was able to on my High Sierra Mac. Woo!

A simple but nice interpretation of the theme. I would have liked to see the different symbols do different things, and I never actually needed to hide behind the safe space shield but, I think it is a fairly good metaphor.

Thank you!

Thank you so much <3

Thank you! None of the bad endings happen during this first part of the game so you weren't in danger, but, we can call that a good ending  :P

Thank you! I certainly like to draw on personal elements in my games and I'm glad it came out well!

Thank you very much!

Yeah, sound effects and audio is definitely something I wish I was able to do by the deadline, and maybe I'll be able to get round to that in the future~

I'm glad c: Thanks for playing!

Thank you :D I'm glad you enjoyed!

I haven't been doing dev logs for the last while because I thought I might as well put my head down and hammer things out. Now, it's a few days since I submitted Acetone. I was thinking about adding music before the end of the month, but I am burned out from doing Global Game Jam.

So here's a Post Mortem!

When I started planning this game, I set out to test my limits, and to learn Ren'py. While I have worked on a visual novel before, and while I have written interactive fiction before, I didn't know a lot about the ins and outs of Ren'py itself. My past experience did not require me to look at the scripts themselves.

Considering that I managed to write around 6.5k words, make four sprites with varied expressions, six backgrounds and four CGs with variants, I definitely think I achieved what I set out to do. I initially didn't think I'd have the time to draw backgrounds or CGs, so I actually achieved more than what I thought I would. However, a factor that I am keeping in mind is that I had a lot of free time on my hands. The last few times I made games for jams before this, I was in the tail end of my university degree, a degree for which I also had to make games for.

As I mentioned in my previous dev logs a couple of times, it was interesting getting into the mentality of writing for visual novels. I was more used to Twine, where you had to indicate dialogue in a more traditional manner, with "said" and the like. My style of writing is also very to the point, which means I had to go back and elaborate on what I wrote to pace it out better. It doesn't help that for Acetone, Zoya is both a very to the point person, and also not a newcomer. She doesn't serve as an audience surrogate. She knows all this already, so it wouldn't make much sense to dwell on things like description or exposition.

I made this a kinetic visual novel because I knew from one of my previous jam games ("Who Knows (Where They're Going)" for Yuri Jam) that a lot of my writers block came from making sure that all choices are equally as rewarding, and have a similar amount of words written for them.

What I did not expect from making a kinetic visual novel is how appealing they are to me. Not only in a sense of "I don't have to worry about choices" but also because they made me think about what I'd do if I added choices. The ending of Acetone is its best case scenario, meaning that by adding choices I'd be adding less good endings or bad endings. And what's the point of that? I definitely want to make visual novels with nuanced choices, but this was definitely food for thought.

I'm really happy with how Acetone turned out! I learned a lot about Ren'py, the changes I have to make with my writing for it, how much I can do for a Ren'py game in a month, and my opinions on kinetic visual novels. And of course, I came away with one more game with an Asexual Aromantic protagonist in the world!

I have made a massive amount of progress since the last dev log.

I have now completed the "Rising Action" and "Climax" part of the story. It doesn't really have a "Falling Action" section as the next and final part will be an epilogue. This means that I am mostly done with the writing!

My word count is currently 5,020 words, meaning I have officially reached the low end of my word count estimate. Given my start, I wasn't sure I was going to make it, but now it seems the final word count will be around 6k. Exciting!

On the graphics front, I have completed all of the placeholder sprites. I am preparing to draw the final sprites once I finish writing. I also decided to draw the backgrounds, and I have completed three so far. I have yet to draw the title image. While CGs are low priority, I have a good idea of where I'd put them if I do draw them.

Since the last dev log, I've made quite a bit of progress on the writing front. 

While I initially had problems getting to the word counts I had set out for myself, I have now mostly managed to reach those counts. I owe this to the fact that I take the advice "show don't tell" to heart a bit too much. I trust in the reader's ability to read between the lines and understand a bit too much. The reader isn't in my head, and I need to keep that in mind.

Of course general refinement has also increased the word count.

I have officially finished writing all of the "Exposition" of Acetone! This means I am now at the early part of the "Rising Action" part of the story. This should go much smoother, because the tone is generally more urgent, and well, establishing characters isn't that fun for me. 

My word count is currently 2306!

Thanks! c:

Ace Jam's started, meaning that I have began writing! I was able to write the first four scenes. Considering that there are eleven planned scenes in total, this is a pretty good achievement! Ignoring the fact that the more climatic scenes will be much longer.

Writing a Visual Novel is so far very interesting for me. I always mentally compare VNs to Twine games, since they're both interactive fiction. However, as VNs are generally more dialogue driven, with no need to write things like "said",  and therefore can convey the same scene in fewer words, I overestimated how long some scenes are. Two of the four scenes I've written out currently are roughly 90 words long! I'd love to come back to them later and make them longer, but for now my aim is to get through all of the scenes as fast as I can.

My word count is currently 766. It will be interesting to see if I'll even reach my estimated 5000 word minimum! 

Thank youu. Me too :P

Thanks!

Sadly I do not listen to TAZ (I'm behind on enough D&D podcasts as is), but that sounds like a neat idea!

Thank you! :D

Practically everyone who goes through Mage Academy wants to become an Arch Mage, the strongest of Mages.

But for Zoya, that option was removed from her the instant she realised she was Asexual Aromantic.

You see, magic is the connections you have with others. Care for someone, and you can heal what ails them. Despise someone, and all you can do is lay curses upon them.

Furthermore, strong mutual bonds are essential for the most powerful of magic. The bonds between those in a committed relationship are seen as being the strongest of all. Which is why Arch Mages are required to be in a relationship with another Mage.

She tried once, she’ll never try again.

So when Kyo, her ex, shows up at her door, with an invitation to his Arch Mage ceremony, painful memories flood back.

And when disaster strikes at the ceremony, Zoya decides to try and help a world that never tried to help her.

—

Acetone is a Kinetic Visual Novel that will be made in Ren’py. It is estimated to be around 5k to 10k words in length.

This will be the first time I’m using the engine in a capacity that’s more then just drawing assets. It’s going to be an interesting learning exercise for me!

Given the flexible nature of the start of Ace Jam, I have decided to only start writing and drawing proper once January begins. However, I have allowed myself to draw concepts and write outlines before then.

I am planning on doing an Art Book for this game. However, the majority of my character concepts will be available for free as I am doing a Character Design Challenge with this game.

My twitter thread for said Character Design Challenge can be found here.

This was lovely! I went with Cailean and he really is just so sweet and wonderful.

WOW I AM GAY

The story was wonderful, and the RPG mechanics worked so well! The sentence typing mechanic is so unique as well!

The full game is now up and done! Please enjoy! 

https://drazillion.itch.io/who-knows-where-theyre-going

The final word count is 3593, which is a pretty good medium between my estimated word count (2k) and maximum word count (5k) so I'm pretty happy with that :D