I made three small games this summer as a way of avoiding my larger WIP. The games are
Querent, a tiny, humorous game of spirit communication created for the second annual Really Bad IF Jam. What was most fun: Writing a self-absorbed rogue. What was most challenging: Getting the timed text just right: a long enough delay to annoy players, but not long enough for people to totally bounce off the game.
Little Boxes, a neighborhood grotesque about dog walking. Made using the Videotome engine for the 2025 Single Choice Jam. What was most fun: Using images and music–not just the writing– to manipulate and modulate the mood of the piece. What was most challenging: Staying focused on this being a mood piece; not getting too caught up in justifying/explaining the details of the world and the changes that itʻs experiencing.
Seed Leaves: Scenes from Nova Station, a short Renʻpy visual novel created for the Unknown Cities Jam using assets, characters, and setting developed by the jam organizers, Cryptic Conservatory. What was most fun: Trying to get the dialogue and the character spritesʻ expressions to work together effectively. What was most challenging: Avoiding defaulting to military frameworks and language as a way to telegraph concepts, structures, and power dynamics in the game. (I admit that I failed miserably here.)
These games mark another shift for me: Besides learning two new engines, Videotome and Renʻpy, I moved from google docs to writing (mostly) directly into Visual Studio Code; I used tweego for the Twine game (thanks to manon for the 100% Good Tweego Ready-to-use Folder), and I used git and github for backups.
Okay, enough dilly-dallying. Now back to the WIP (and writing about Portrait With Wolf ;).
La Vie en Meow 