Postmortem and Future Plans

(0) Introduction

Hello friends. Once again, it's April; and once again, I have a post-mortem about a point-and-click adventure game for you all. Nice to have some consistency in these trying times. A belated Happy Easter to all who celebrate.

I've said this twice before, but, uh, wow. I never in a million years expected to win the Strawberry Jam, not when there's so many top-notch projects being made. Thank you once again, I still can't believe you liked this weird little thing this much. <3

This is especially notable because, well... I've mentioned this before, but February was an insanely stressful month for me. I won't mince words. May less than pleasant events occurred in my personal life, and at work. It's mostly sorted out now, I think, and somehow I managed to get a game out despite all of that. So it's all gravy.

Okay! Now. As in past years, I want to take a moment to discuss the game, now that it's all finished and shipped. What worked, what didn't work, and what can we learn from all this? Below, you'll find a little analysis, a little self-critique, and some bonus content.

(1) The parts that work alright

"A delayed game is forever theoretical, but a rushed game at least comes out." - Shiggy M

I guess the game got a few things right. Let's try to figure out some of the specifics.

First of all, I have a philosophy about game jams. That philosophy is this: You should finish something. A lot of jam submissions end up being tech demos, appetizers, proofs-of-concept, alpha builds... in short, unfinished sketches. That's perfectly valid! Strawb Jam 8 had a tonnnn of really solid entries, and they all have lots of potential. But if you keep doing that, jam after jam, then you run the risk of ending up with four unfinished masterpieces. You don't get to experience the joy of having something that's done. I want to tell complete stories, you know? Ones that have obvious ways to slot in more story, perhaps, or that are clearly part of a larger ongoing narrative - more on that in a bit - but which nevertheless have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Getting into the details next - I'm pretty happy with the state of the dialogue system now. (And the UX in general, really.) I recently had reason to work on Unspecified Behaviour again, and - yeah, the small quality-of-life improvements I added in Werewolf Detective, those really make a difference. Putting the "verb coin" in the middle of the screen is a much better idea, and it's very nice to be able to select dialogue options via keyboard. There's more that could be done here, like more clearly distinguishing skills and keywords, but I think I'm making progress.

That's also the first jam lesson I can point to. Polish the parts that matter. Usually, this means the core gameplay loop; in case of adventure games, that's moving around and talking. Yes, jams aren't for making polished experiences. That's a recipe for disappointment. But if you do happen to find yourself with a little extra time, that's probably where you want to apply it.

Along similar lines, I like using little bleeps and wiggles to break up dialogue. (In my head I call this "Golden Sunning.")  Unspecified Behaviour was very stiff and static at times, with long unbroken stretches of just text. I'll probably keep adding bloops and fidgets to my future games.

This gets us into the next theme here: The production values have been improved across the board. There isn't really a single big thing I can point to here, just a long list of small changes, like improved dialogue portraits and textboxes that aren't quite as static. That's the other big jam wisdom here, I think - you gotta iterate a whole bunch and learn the small lessons, not just the big ones.

... so this sort of contradicts the previous point, I guess, but I'm happy I tried something different for this one. I didn't venture all that far beyond my comfort zone, since we're still doing hypnosis and transformation and point-and-clicks, but the game's not about drones or dronification for once. (People expressed surprise here, haha.) It was a nice little palate cleanser, and it was implemented in a way that still let me use the experience I gained.

The skill system did what I wanted it to do! It adds texture to the story. The impact was a little weak, in the end, but I think it helped drive home the transformation.

... so this is unrelated, but I think Werewolf Detective has the first confirmed-for-sure on-screen gay male relationship in any of my games? There have been implications before, but Braids and Adrian are repeatedly and directly confirmed to be kissfriends. I'm aromantic myself, on top of being asexual, so I tend to just... not put that stuff into my work. No matter if it's straight or gay. But I did end up liking the relationship between the surprisingly nice rich kid and the disaster gay pirate. Braids cares way more than Adrian could've possibly thought, and this is what ends up derailing the scheme of the moon cult. Power of love, and all that.

On that note, I suppose that brings us back around to storytelling. I think I've finally gotten a handle on writing. It's more disciplined than past games and it doesn't get lost in the sauce quite as much. There's a bit of a balancing act here, trying to combine kink with humour and worldbuilding, and I think it functions well.

(2) The parts that didn't go so well

"I never said that thing about delayed and rushed games. Stop this. You're spreading misinformation." - S. Miyamoto

Since we're talking about writing, I'll be honest here: I ran out of time. Quite badly, too, I was actively writing story as late as the 27th. It's been noted in the jam comments that the cult isn't really built up as much of a threat, and that's true. I wanted to work in something like a random encounter with a cultist somewhere near the end of day 1, but then there were two days left and I had to hurry to get something finished at all. I didn't want to release a game that lacks a finale, so instead I ended up cutting from the middle.

For the same reason, there's no real wolf mode in this game. The changes in dialogue and UX are nice, but I really wanted to lean hard into the changes in perception. Well, I had to scrap the mechanical support for that, and just put in a quick thing as part of the dialogue system. Maybe next time.

This affected other areas of the game as well, like the lack of multiple endings, and the marginal impact of the skills. That's fine for a small story-driven experience, but I want to do more proper branching in the future, I think.

So, the lesson, once again: Project management. It matters. You have to know which parts you can just kinda wing, and which ones need to be planned. Having a plot skeleton with the major events in place, that probably would've helped a lot too. I did have that last year, when life wasn't throwing me quite as many lemons. Oh well! I know it really matters, now, and isn't something that can be shirked.

Art continues to be a sore spot. I've gotten faster at it, and a little braver, though I'm not sure it's better. There are some improvements here and there, mostly in the character design, but this stuff is such a struggle. Maybe I just need to give up and take some drawing lessons, one of those years. (Or find an artist to work with, haha.)

Areas of improvement for next time, for sure.

(3) Odds & ends

Okay! After all that self-critique, let's do a fun segment to close this out.

This year, there isn't much cut content to speak of. You may have noticed some dialogue options that you can't actually select, because the conditions are impossible to meet. (Like needing [STRAIGHT SHOOTER] when you've only gotten a single skill point.) But these are just there for flavour, nothing was ever planned for them.

There is, however, a little something extra that I can show you - and it's from the deep archives. More specifically, it's from an idea I had a long time ago, which has spawned many abandoned projects over the years.

The project that came the closest to becoming an actual thing was: A failed NaNoWriMo entry, all the way back in 2017. For example, here's a little glimpse of an alternate reality version of Embers/Ember's, and its friendly lizard bartender:

I like to think that my writing has gotten a little better.

(Notice the combination of "Yaric" and "missing person" and "lizard." If you're familiar with my alt account, then just let me confirm that yes, I've been using material from this abandoned project for a llllong time.)

Also, here's Charity:

None of the actual writing made it into the game, or I would've noted as much on the jam submission page. But I've had this setting and these characters in the back of my head for a very long time, and I'm really happy that I finally found a home for them. Because I do like these dorks. This is why I say you should finish something. The original project was too large and too messy to ever become real, but this game? This game came out.

(4) What's next

Well, that was fun! So what's next for Charity the Dragon and Werewolf the Detective?

I don't think I'll continue work on this game, except of course for bugfixes. There's a few typos and grammatical errors in the game's script. Apart from that, though, it's a fairly complete experience. Maybe I'll work in an extra scene or two, if I can find a good way to do so, because the plot does have its weaknesses.

That being said, there's many things you can do with a... well, werewolf detective. It's a really strong premise and this game has just barely scratched the surface. I do have got some drones to take care of, because those have been waiting for a while now - but I could see myself coming back to this setting as well. Sound off in the comments if you'd like to see more fantasy crimes, I suppose!