Hello everyone! Vy Starlit here. O2a2 is now over and the response to Death & Romance has been amazing. The players, my fellow game developers, and itch.io's community, I couldn't have asked for a better launch into being a game developer. So I wanted to share my experience with making my first game and joining my first game jam. 

I've wanted to make a visual novel for years but it was always on the back burner. Why? Because I'm a writer and the only experience I had with programing was html and CSS. On top of that, I wasn't very confident about my art. So it has been sitting in the background, a dream that I would get to eventually...maybe...

Jump to July 2022, for my birthday I rewarded myself with a game I have been dying to get since I played the demo, Gilded Shadows. (I highly recommend checking this out if you haven't already. It is one of my favorite otome VNs.) I was so excited about the game, I joined the discord and was greeted by some great people. While there, Ii noticed the server had a game developer channel and so I lurked there, reading about people making their games. I was shocked to find out there were people like me there, with no experience, who was just diving in and getting it done. It was a wake-up call. If these people were jumping in, maybe I should try. 

So I decided to give it a shot but honestly I had no idea where to start. I started to research game dev communities and eventually joined the Dev+ discord where I discovered a game jam was coming up. The game jam was O2a2 and the premise was simple - make a game that was only 1000 words with one background, one sprite, and one music track. The deadline was a week. 

That got me thinking. I can definitely write 1000 words in less than a day. Maybe I could do this. It was short enough to allow me to find out if game developing was for me or not. So I decided to go for it. I didn't want to do a team in case I discovered I wasn't cut out for game dev, so it would be just me that was effected. So I researched short VNs ( i only played long ones before) to get a feel how they worked and then came up with an idea. 

One my idea was formulated, I realized that I wanted to try getting a VA to voice Death. So I put up a call for a volunteer and that's when I met Jerron Bacat. He was extremely friendly and we talked about our expectations and I let him know when I would get the script to him and what the deadline was for getting the sound back. I made sure that I gave him plenty of time so he wouldn't feel rushed. 

Then the game jam began. I wrote my script on the first day and after editing it, sent it to Jerron. After that, I spent the rest of the day programming the text into Ren'py and looking at tutorials. After that, I made a schedule of what I wanted to get done each day. I also wanted to give myself an extra day to handle any issues I didn't foresee. And yes, I definitely had them. My biggest one was trying to get the hidden ending to work. Luckily, a wonderful programmer on dev+ helped me figure it out. Honestly, the programmers both on dev+ and ren'py discords are amazing and extremely friendly, helpful people. I can't say enough how much I appreciate them. 

After that was drawing and more drawing. It was super fun and for the most part the entire process went smoothly. Don't get me wrong. I had moments of doubts in myself, both as an artist and programmer, but I got through it. By Wednesday night, I had finished the game and was just  finishing up GUI aspects. GUI development...I think I both love and hate it. 

On Thursday, I received lines from Jerron and spent the day listening to them, slicing, and editing them as needed. Luckily, Jerron is amazing and no lines needed to be redone. The sound was very clean so the editing was pretty painless. Then I put in the last sound, played through all the routes for the 100th time and made sure everything worked and the sound was leveled. I ended up changing the music to what it is now, then I was finally done. 

I made my itch.io page, made it pretty, and then added the games and screenshots. Realized the android version was going to need some fixing and removed it, then made everything live.  The next day, the android version was also added with just some minor adjustments to the GUI. Then I sat back and crossed my fingers. 

And this is the result. People seem to like my short, funny game about death and love and I couldn't be happier. 

Wow. This post has gotten long. Sorry about that. But that's my journey. It's been great and I'm already planning a new game. So if you are a person who wants to make a game but have been delaying because of doubt I want to say - You can do it! I'm not a professional programmer, I'm not the most skilled artist. The only thing I felt confident in was writing, but I did it. I made a game. You can too. So if you really want it, go for it. As Adriel can attest, life is short. Take the chance to do the things you always wanted to do. Make the game and just have fun!

If you have any questions for me, feel free to ask. I'll respond to people as much as I can.