This looks great! If you're okay with games that already free, you're welcome to add Fishy, our spooky aquarium game with some wholesome ties to sustainability. Totally understand if you're not looking for free games & happy excited to promo the bundle when it comes out!
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Satan stole your Bro!!!! That's Whack!!! Smash explosive cars into the abyss to rescue your Bro.
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Spooktober 2nd Annual Visual Novel Jam by Devtalk+ community · Created a new topic Behind the Scenes with Katy - Last Meal at Cafe Mori
In Last Meal at Cafe Mori, you play as a bartender working at a cafe at the end of the world. Both playful and thoughtful, the game was well-received and placed second in the Spooktober Jam. A notable feature of the game is the voice-acted cast for the patrons of the cafe, whose personalities are charming, wacky, and at points, bittersweet. Katy, the creator, is now hosting the Winter VN Jam.
I caught up with Katy to look back on her creative process in making Last Meal for Cafe Mori.
How did you get involved with the Spooktober VN jam?
I'm active in the DevTalk server, which announced the jam, so that's how I discovered it.
How did you meet the other members of your team, and how did you choose them for this project?
I had worked with Mike, Chintsy, Kristi, and Lunaterra previously on the VN Dear Devere and wanted to work with them again.
Tavian and I met through a VN webinar. I worked with him before on a cover song and he voiced that he'd enjoy collaborating with me again.
Coda is a friend I met through DevTalk. We're already collaborating on another project (which meant I knew I enjoy working with her), so I really hoped that she would be available during September to voice the witch.
Cody I met when he was hosting several Jackbox games. His voice has a strong energy and I wrote Jack with Cody in mind.
Emma posted in DevTalk saying that she was looking to collaborate. I listened to her demo reel and saw that she would be a good fit with the Gargoyle.
Speck, Feinerine, Resurrected Hobbyist, and Claudia approached me after I made a post looking for a programmer and playtester.
How did you come up with the concept for Last Meal at Cafe Mori?
I think Cafe Mori came from a bunch of inspirations. Discworld's characterization of Death, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, a visual novel I played from NaNoRenO 2020 called Cafe in the Clouds, and various "bartender sim" games.
But I think the biggest influence was a 1998 film called After Life, a very quiet, thoughtful film, which posed the question, what memory would you want to keep forever?
How did the final version of Last Meal at Cafe Mori differ from your original concept?
In the original concept, I had an idea for a wererat character, but ended up cutting them and combining them with the Gargoyle to scale down the game.
The artwork also ended up less thickpaint-y than I had pictured it in my head. I wish I had had more time to practice the art style, but my laptop's drive broke a week or so before Spooktober, leaving me to use pen and paper concept art while looking for a replacement and trying to recover backups of my projects, including concept stuff I had done for Spooktober.
What was the most challenging aspect of this project for you?
I think the most challenging part for me would be audio editing. It's a task that I can't do while listening to a podcast or video, which I enjoy doing.
What takeaways or insights can you share from your experience making Last Meal at Cafe Mori?
It's okay to make a story that is bittersweet and has problems the main character can't fix.
What can you tell us about your future projects?
Currently, I'm working on collaborative visual novel projects. One is Winning Hearts, an otome game about professional wrestling. Kristi is the writer.
Another is MaFAEa, a supernatural story about a villainous protagonist who tries to make deals with the fae in Ireland and meets the Dullahan. Coda and NiA are the character and background artist, respectively.
And the third is a Frankenstein adventure game that's set in an alternate timeline from the original book. I've never made an adventure game before and would love to, as they're very nostalgic to me.
In the further future, I'd really love to make The Butler Detective, an episodic detective game where you solve different cases with each episode.
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Play Last Meal at Cafe Mori for free on itch.io, and follow Katy on twitter for updates on her future projects!
Yogscast Game Jam 2020 community · Created a new topic Silly, memey visual novel??? Looking for teammates!
itch.io Community » itch.io » Questions & Support · Created a new topic Are we allowed to advertise merchandise on our pages?
Spooktober 2nd Annual Visual Novel Jam by Devtalk+ community · Created a new topic Behind the Scenes with Madi - WereHouse
WereHouse stands out as one of the more cheerful entries to the Spooktober jam. You play as a human who gets roped into organizing a haunted house with three actual monsters, each of whom is charming, fun, and, if you play your cards right, maybe interested in dating you. Featuring a high level of polish and a lengthy script with three separate routes, it's obvious that this is not the team's first rodeo. I caught up with Madi (aka timepatches), the project lead, to get some insight into the process of creating WereHouse.
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How did you get involved with the Spooktober VN jam?
Pretty sure I saw either a twitter ad or a Lemmasoft post, and then checked out the details in the Devtalk+ discord server. I'm a chronic lurker in big servers (I find them really intimidating), so I'd never really been active in Devtalk+ before, but it was really nice to be in the jam chat, and the community made me feel really encouraged to actually participate.
How did you meet the other members of your team, and how did you choose them for this project?
The entire team for WereHouse is people I've worked with before! I try not to do that too often since it's nice to work with new people, but I must admit it was really fun to have a team full of friends, and I wanted to make sure the team was people I was familiar with so that I could trust everybody to get things done in time for the deadline.
Jane (writer) and Shar (CGs) have worked with me before on my upcoming release DemiDato, I've commissioned the sprite artist Devin for a lot of D&D and character art in the past, and the other writer Megan is an IRL friend who I've written with for years (though she's new to VNs!)
(Credit: inkymaw)
How did you come up with the concept for WereHouse?
I come up with my best ideas when I should be sleeping, and WereHouse was no exception! I was skimming the Halloween Wikipedia article before bed for jam ideas, and spotted the section about haunted houses (as well as the part about barmbrack cakes, which made its way into WH's last scene). Then the concept pretty much exploded into my head fully formed as soon as I shut my eyes. Was way too excited to sleep after that, so by 5am I had an outline, Morag and Dori's character ideas, and a list of team members I wanted to invite ^^'
How did the final version of WereHouse differ from your original concept?
It's not that far off the concept to be honest! Part of that is due to scope, for sure - since WereHouse is pretty big for a game jam game, we simply didn't have much room to deviate.
The game is pretty much just as I imagined it in the concept stages, though it did turn out WAY longer than I expected. (The route I wrote for the game is the longest by far, and I wrote the common route, so this is absolutely my fault haha)
What was the most challenging aspect of this project for you?
Probably a tie between managing a team for a jam (I've participated in game jams before, but only solo) and actually getting the script written and directed in time. The sprite directing in particular was pretty down to the wire, since we were still writing during the last week of the jam, oops ^^
(Credit: _yapsharlene)
What takeaways or insights can you share from your experience making WereHouse?
OUTLINES. I tend to write more by the seat of my pants, with a pretty spartan outline, but in a jam when you have very limited time, it's worth it to be more prescriptive in your outlines, particularly when you're writing with other people (and especially since outlines can be written prejam).
Also, just a small thing, but I used a program called Q10 to write in for the latter half (I usually write straight into Google Docs). It helped a lot to eliminate distractions, has an inbuilt sprint timer (so handy), and the extra little nuggets of dopamine from the little typewriter noises it makes as you write made a huge difference, haha.
I'd been struggling to actually join another game jam since I wrote When Aster Falls for Maximum Monster Month in 2018, so this jam has really put some wind back into my sails as a writer, and as a producer.
What can you tell us about your future projects?
Apart from DemiDato: Monster Dating Show, which should be coming out relatively soon (we're still working on art assets before the final push to a release date), I'm noodling with a few ideas for projects - hopefully the next one will be longer than anything I've done so far, with more gameplay mechanics, but that's all I'll say for now ;)
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Play WereHouse for free on itch.io, and follow Madi on Twitter for updates on her future projects!
(Credit: inkymaw)
Spooktober 2nd Annual Visual Novel Jam by Devtalk+ community · Created a new topic Behind the Scenes with Yamyolks - Devil's Door
Devil's Door is a horror visual novel set in the charmingly terrifying town of Marbrooke. It features an ensemble cast of creepy characters, brought to life by a team of seven voice actors. I talked to the solo dev, Yamyolks, about their background, their process, and how the heck they managed to produce a fully voice acted visual novel in under a month.
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How did you get involved with the Spooktober VN jam?
Spooktober was the first jam I’d ever participated in, while looking for a chance for a collaborative visual novel project through Lemma Soft forums.
How did you come up with the concept for Devil's Door, and how did the final version of the game differ from the original concept?
Originally, the concept was based on a classic trick or treat system - only that everyone at the door were real monsters. It was meant to be a very cute and light run through a town filled with vampires, dullahans, and devils.
Devil’s Door then expanded to a horror drama as I invested more time in certain characters and the stakes were raised in terms of plot while a darker tale began to unfold.
How did your background in art and storyboarding affect your process?
The best part about creating a visual novel is designing the characters - and that’s where lots of my energy went to during this process. I also imagined it closer to a movie than a book so adding in animated accents were a must.
What was the most challenging aspect of this project for you?
By far, learning to implement voice acting was the most challenging part of the whole project. I’d never done it before or even played very much with audio and thus didn’t realize the amount of hours of listening to takes, splicing and snipping files, and inputting them in their correct positions would take.
Devil's Door is completely voice acted. Why did you choose to use voice actors, and how did you select them? How does using this level of voice actors change your process in making a visual novel?
Originally, I only planned to have the main monster voiced at all! But then as more and more skilled voice actors came on the project to lend their time, I realized it would be best to have the full game voiced. In fitting dialogue with audio, I even redid some sprites to match the energy that my fantastic voice actors put forth!
What did you learn from your experience making Devil's Door?
The lessons I’ve learned from completing Devil’s Door are invaluable. It is my first finished project and to imagine so much work was done in a month is insane to me. More than anything, I realized the importance of maintaining balance and a good schedule on a project so as to not run yourself into the dirt on crunch time.
What can you tell us about your future projects?
I have a visual novel I’d been working on early this year that will be given a huge makeover with everything I’ve recently learned. Rebranded as “These Wicked Schemes”, it’s a passion project for which I aim to turn into a full fledged, fully voiced, and partially animated journey through a land full of magic and wonder. My dream is to one day push forth a funding campaign that will grant “These Wicked Schemes” the opportunity to become a grand project many will be able to enjoy and return to time and time again.
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Play Devil's Door for free on itch.io, and follow Yamyolks on Twitter for updates on future projects!
itch.io Community » itch.io » Questions & Support · Created a new topic Are payouts taxed, or will I receive a 1099 from itch.io?