#emeraldwasp

The lines are still a bit rough and it needs to be colored, but happy 2nd anniversary to a RPGMaker Horror game that I love!

(I'll make a separate drawing of Bèla at some point, too)

"Now I can lay my head down, And close my eyes, 'cause I know we're together, again"

What were the most difficult parts of development, if you don’t mind me asking? Your favourite parts & the aspects of the game you are most proud of? 🐝

Thank you so much, Bloodorangee1! First of all, good luck for the developing of your game! If you need advice feel free to write to me! Now to the questions:

🐝 The process of making the game: I'm not very methodical when making games, but I usually start by sketching out the idea on paper. Maps are usually placeholder blocks with temporary graphics just to test out the events, the whole bunker looked like the grey pavement block at the start. I still have screenshots! Then, when I start writing the actual dialogue, I always start from the endings. The bad endings first (so I don't repent later and remove them because I feel bad for the characters), in Emerald Wasp's case the first one that was coded in was Archie accepting Béla's deal. I did parallax maps prematurely and I had to scrap them several times and remake them from scratch (I do not reccomend) but I wanted the game to look good even in twitter screenshots at the time. While doing those I was working on the CGs, which were one of the last things implemented.

🐝 The difficult parts of development: At first, I wanted to release Emerald Wasp for a gamejam but missed the mark because at the time I was still writing the master thesis and then I started working as a commuter: so it began my first time slowing down development. It became a whole different creature to me for this. Burnout from study\work and IRL situations made it difficult to stay motivated for long, after the first year I was getting discouraged. There had been moments of burnout and moments I was considering shelving it and abandoning the project. Feedback from friends, beta testers and people online really saved the spark. On a technical note instead it has to be either the bug fixing or the way I had to navigate around my limitations. My skills at drawing, coding and making maps could get me only so far back then and it led to write scenes to adapt to my skill level and to the money I could invest - budget went all into the portrait sprites so I needed to take care of the rest.

🐝 The favorite parts & aspects: Oh, I'm really proud of the secrets in the game! It was something new I tried for the first time in Emerald Wasp, I never speak out loud about this on the pages otherwise I spoil the fun, but the game is an iceberg… there's more other than the gamefile. I like to inject history knowledge, musical quotes, personal experience and weird trivias in the game and Emerald Wasp is no exception, I had lots of fun making everything work together starting from "what do wasps and bunkers have in common?" Story-wise my favorite scene (to write) was Béla's flashback, especially the part with the queen, and the character I had more fun writing is Archie! Also, this is not something I did, but one of my favorite aspects is the themes that Alexander Bruyns composed specifically for the game. I love music and never had a personalized OST before, so I was overjoyed… and I still am!

Are you familiar with sign language? [Irena]

Why and when did you start learning this language? [Béla]