#labyrinthe.exe

last year i did a 100 day art challenge at the beginning of 2024, i totally knocked that out of the park. this isn't really a year wrap-up sort of post but i promise it's relevant! so, flashback to early 2024 in like april, i've been drawing 100 days back then and finished in april... and then for the rest of the year i spent it procrastinating...

i had FINALLY progressed my art, jumpstarted and kicked back into gear the budding sprouts of falling head over heels back in love with art... and i totally wanted to jump to the wind and just shout...

"HELL YEAH, I'M SO BACK!" and catapult myself into the most productive year of my life.

so did i end up actually keeping up with art? no. i arted very intermitted...ly... and then i worked on like everything else but art ( my mental health for instance, cause woo boy i went through a LOT of changes in 2024... but not gonna get into that, wow boy howdy totally a wild ride mentally... )

i ended up being inspired by artists that i follow and interact with, like wow :plead: they're literally all so amazing :sobbbb: crying all over the floor, for the fact they could all pull through, so could i!!!

i knew i wanted to do winter jam, i wanted to do and make visual novels and games... I HAVE LOTS OF AMBITIONS! but golly, gosh... am i a procrastinator... with a perfectionist streak...

i wanted to do spooktober, otome jam, etc and failed all those... that's why i was finally WINTER JAM WILL BE THE BEGINNING and it was!

in like three days i created a shitty visual novel demo called "it's only december, always december" about seasonal depression and it was like a psychological horror... i had LOFTY AMBITIONS! and it's not that i couldn't do them... its just the entire month of december was hectic... crazy... totally batshit insane... i was robbed of both time, mental energy, and my goals until i was nothing but a collection of ambition, fatigue, and all my wirings all sticking out... totally a not good sight!

but i promised myself, i will make a visual novel! so i got my ass up, collected the time that i had... and birthed up... "it's only december, always december" and finagled it on the last freaking day and WHAM BAM! that's the beginning of my wannabe villain origin story!!!

and thus after december ended ( finally ) it was decreed that january was to be born and it was 2025... THE TRUE BEGINNING of my totally super cool and amazing visual novel developer journey !!!

i decided like idk like 2-3 days into the year that i was going to make the most crazy and ambitious idea ever... for a complete newbie beginner fledgling dev... yes... i was going to make a gothic horror romance visual novel with SWAK ( sealed with a kiss jam )... with a whole whopping... you guessed it...

EIGHT WHOLE LOVE INTERESTS!

A MAP SYSTEM

POLY ENDINGS

A TOTALLY SUPER COOL PROTAGONIST ( CAIN my baby )

STAT BUILDING

AFFECTION POINTS

POINT AND CLICK MECHANICS

INSANITY COUNTERS

now if this sounds unrealistic, believe me, it is. LOL but i am nothing but incredibly idealistic... so i charged on with an idea! no programming knowledge! no idea how to make gui! and like literally no story or outline because i'm a fucking pantser! honestly, it started out pretty fun?

i concepted some gui, i made some progress and i was having fun thinking about and talking with dev friends about my totally wacky dreams! i spent the first week really researching gothic horror and like trying to get myself in gear, drawing concept art of beloved characters and trying to figure out the art direction i wanted to go for!!! this is where my first mistake was...

trying to change my art style!

my art style is naturally kind of super sketchy and retro inspired, my art direction was also super retro inspired: think matsumi inomata, castlevania, yuki nobuteru ( sorry if thats spelled horribly ) ... you know !!! vibes! but the thing is...

i'm still not a proficient artist, so consistency is something i really really struggle with UNFORTUNATELY!

pictured up here are sketches i went through, trying to design the love interests ( focalor, october ) and cain my beloved baby boy is the one that looks like griffith's child... yes i'm super aware of the resemblance but i swear they're totally not the same!

at this point, i was still super optimistic! i ended up discussing with a friend who told me some of my gui wants were possible!!! and also opening up renpy documentation and fully prepped to spam another friend w/ like a million programming questions... but also super excited to just tough it out! cause i _do_ love coding... mostly from a css/html background though...

i love learning though!

but golly, i underestimated how much the gui would send me into emotional turmoil. i was constantly second guessing myself like "does it actually look good? does it look nice? is this going to be slop just like always december was? am i going to give up? am i even cut out for game dev at all?" things like that...

keeping a positive mindset and taking care of my daily irl chores, spending time with friends, and being a cheerful person was kind of hard and especially as i hit a low point this past week...

i really really wasn't feeling up to par this week... i wondered if i sounded silly or irresponsible to my friends or like a totally dumb scatterbrain... i wondered if people looked at me like a totally naive super unrealistic nobody who would never achieve anything at all even dialing it back... i nearly spiraled!!! but...

good news though, i practically finished the gui!

but before that, i ended up drawing some more beloved characters in hopes to cheer my mood up and contemplate the story i would tell for yandere jam... and if i hadn't mentioned it before then... yes... i do plan to join jams literally all year and release a full game of always december for next winter jam!

it helps because i'm a hikikomori coded neet... i'm just trying to push myself into a more consistent schedule so thats why i'm doing the whole "go big or go home" because if i don't push myself like this, i'm just not going to do anything at all... so even if i fail or stumble, it helps me in the long run!

ta-dah!!! one part of the gui... i had so much lovely and amazing help from dev friends getting this all squared away from colors to how to shade better and encouragement to keep going! i love them so much ;--;

i spent like 2wks totally fluffing about, still haven't written jack shit ( but i'm confident in my writing ) and now venturing into sprites and background artwork!!! and since today is like 11 at night on the 17th... well i only barely hve 2 weeks left to get everything else squared away...

thank gosh, this is only supposed to be a demo! so all those lofty features i mentioned earlier... thats just for the full game! haha!

so where am i now? well...

ive made like two sprites! the gui and.... i'm a bit bummed out... i wanted to do full body but i decided today in the middle of drawing them after being unsatisfied and nearly crying over it...that i can just cut their knees off! :D ( which was suggested earlier but like in an actual cut their height down way cause they're all tall giant not human love interests )

it really sucked running into that roadbump, cause i realized i am lacking when it comes to my art... yes i know i'm improving but i am not proficient in full body and 3/4 angles and other angles at all and i really need to practice but i told myself i would try to get creative and look for other solutions... i did!

so now, i feel confident i can complete the rest of the cast... which i'm thinking that i'm cutting the demo interactables to just 4! which honestly is for the best and i can finish the next two tmrw or tonight... if i feel like drawing again..

but while i've hit hiccups and i'm not doing as much as i could be doing throughout the day... i am having a lot of fun! i'm learning a lot, what works for me and what doesn't... i'm learning that chatsims are actually massive ( i wanted to do one... i guess i'll hve to spend some time researching it ) and honestly... i haven't even TOUCHED music or audio but i'm excited to deep dive into that too...

and here's another side quest of art that i did while i was trying to improve my mood the other day... i really do yo-yo hard and while i wanted to cry today... i'm super glad i persevered... that's to say... uh... dont always do that LOL

OH! and here's what it was gonna look like if i managed to do all full bodies but i hated it cause like his feet was too big and his head was just- it was hard! okay!!! anyway... i'm also gonna have to learn proper marketing too but overall... i feel good? i feel like this year i will learn like super much like a million amount of knowledge...

i look forward to posting another log like idk next week ( don't hold me to that, i'm like all over the place... )

...and maybe i'll actually get up a site or post more art here or like on bsky... etc... but for now! i'm just doing my best to get a consistent schedule!

so! i left off in an optimistic spirit, while i was mentally in a downpour and feeling waves of hppelessness.... i also was positive of the future! i had to do some cuts in terms of cutting off legs but....

as soon as i finished that devlog, i ended up just... really really going through it mentally...

i was both tired, fatigued, and like all over the place even more. i had started to write but i was insecure about my story and the pacing and if i was even doing a good job. i was worried about if the story i was telling would even be interesting or if the designs were hot enough, attractive enough... i was wondering if i was doing justice to characterization, too?

that also was the fact i just felt like giving up completely LMFAO

i was powering through, and i wasn't progressing in ways that i want to... hell what can i show for it other than writing? that you can see in the game!

but anyway, i started working on the key art and this is where i spiraled again LOL wow... me and spiraling... is it professional to express all this? i dont know...

and this is where i was unraveling... you see i started out mapping stuff out ( i dont have the screenshots i dont think of the part before i fixed stuff but like its okay these are some i sent to my friends LOL ) but the third pic is where i hated it... i had to go to sleep cause i just wanted to cry

i felt like i was struggling with both trying to improve my art, stay consistent, but also develop an art style all at once in the same frame and that sort of progression... is hard? scary... terrifying... it made my heart totally break

but! i perservered!

and WHAM! i started getting somewhere with the help of amazing community of friends who i just spammed LMFAO like "pls i need it to look like clouds...." and also just in general to make sure i was on the right track with vibes...

i finally felt a little satisfied though it still didnt match the other cains i drew/other love interests but eh... honestly consistency is a hurdle i will have to learn how to get over eventually, i was looking at this game development process as not a fun experience but as a job and that was really fucking with my creative process

a lot.

AND I SWEAR I WAS COOKING THOUGH! once i was getting into a roll, but my progress still felt abysmal with all the things i wanted to achieve: good writing, good story, attractive characters..

i felt i was lagging behind my peers, i felt like i was making a fool of myself. who am i even trying to make games yanno? i'm just a sort of like... artist who struggles to even draw everyday. which doesn't mean im impassionate... i think i am passionate...

it's just a battle...

that and irl i have to take care of the household in terms of chores and the like, i only have so much mental bandwidth... it was hard to socialize some days cause i just felt like i was disappointment... would i even be able to finish in time?

well from the beginning of this log, it's clear i did finish something! aided w/ the power of friendship and eternal shounen determination LOL yes. call me naruto ( don't but funfact in elementary my friends called me ichigo kurosaki )

once again, i had to take an art break, here's my art from 2022 ( the subview ) versus 2025! i'm so happy with my progres even if the sketch i made was kinda shitty too LMFAO i do have plans for a project featuring this character, a little devil ( he'll be in a game with anathema... i'll take about anathema in another post one day, my precious baby )

either way, i found it easy to compare everyones progress to mine... like wow other people are able to be so organized and cool and i struggle with it... even checking off lists, it's hard for me? i felt all over the place, sinking into a pit that i created myself and that i was just showcasing the worst parts of me...

even though thats not true.

honestly i was incredibly worried people wouldn't like cain, the mc, he's like so pivotal to the story it'd be kind of hard to rework the entire story because cain is like... pivotal, i'd just have to write a completely different story...

but the show must go on, i kept making things.

honestly, in real life was a strong part of why i felt kinda crappy. even online, being busy so much and not socializing w/ key people that i usually socialize with was such a damper on my mood. i missed my friends. i wonder if they felt uncared for while i was busy ( which isn't true, but my brain is weird ) WOW AM I OVERSHARING? idk... i feel that its important to showcase that my design process includes being all over the place...

i didn't work every day. i tried to, but i didn't.

while my friends were trucking along on gui, i was frozen in a sense of wondering if i should even continue development or quit while i'm ahead and ghost everyone for being a disappointment.

the deadine was nearing and i still hadn't even written the kiss. the gui wasn't done either which didn't worry me as much as being worried that i would disappoint everyone i told "i'm making a game!" what would i look like then... if i didnt make it? a gameless loser?

i know right. what the heck?

it makes no sense.

i ended up writing the kiss yesterday actually, i was experiencing writer's block cause i was so insecure about my story.

but woo boi. the story got put out the gui got done and my stress... didnt dissipate. either way, i think the last two weeks of the jam was a tough time? i did learn a lot. like what i needed to prioritize, how to better prioritize for my workflow.

i have to go like gui - sprites - writing - editing - backgrounds - writing again... i think? it feels a little weird but i think that'll work for me? i can still fix that though.

ANOTHER THING! i couldnt actually sleep last night. i was nervous how my story would be recieved LMFO isn't that normal i think...

but i released the game!

and there was typos.. which to be fair, i'm not good at cross-editing.. i was trying to go line by line after a friend proofread the first part for me and then i... kept missing stuff- don't be like me, just copy paste all the edits and reformat it. or just write in renpy speak in the first time...

but overall i think i learned a lot from swak.

am i still going to be ambitious?

hell the fuck yes.

but will i know how to better work around my high and low mental peaks? also yes. i think i need to remind myself every so often why i'm doing this... well i love writing, i love art, i love telling stories... i like to share my perspective on things, my characters perspectives, and just ships too in general I LOVE SHIPS! SO MUCH YOU DONT EVEN KNOW

but yeah...

does any of this make sense? i don't know... maybe i overshared, maybe i didn't. but the demo is done. it's still a giant wip, but i feel better about the future of it. the extended demo is coming and i will keep on trucking on. cause that's all i can do.