♥ Hot Cocoa Magic! Postmortem ♥

Hi Everyone!

Now that HCM is out, I thought I'd talk about my experience in making this game! Especially in comparison to my last Jam project,  "Just Kiss Him Already!". 

- Goals list - 

I knew Winter VN Jam was approaching, and I made up my mind and started (sketching and brainstorming) on/around November 3rd. I felt a bit burnt out after finishing JKHA, and so my main goal coming into this jam  was to avoid that.

My little goal list was as followed:

• - 3k words approx Kinetic VN
• - 2 Characters 
• - Cute/Humorous

and of course, 

• - Completable without feeling burnt out

My bonus goals were:

• - Watercolor???  because I'm doing other digital art right now
• - "I have a lot of wintery synths and I'm going for something small so maybe I could attempt making music idk"

As you can see in the final product— both the watercolor and the music goals were met! Everything was, actually. The only difference being the (approx) 3k words— That was what "short"  meant in my mind, so even shorter than that is even more achieved. I think.

I was working on the project before it became watercolor— here's the digital rough sketch of the main background and the two characters:

(I'll be doing a separate devlog on the process for digital ---> traditional media (with photos!) in the future.)

- Where am I? What am I doing? What's happening?? -

The way things progressed felt almost completely opposite to JKHA. Instead of giving myself 2 months of structured VN work, I plodded along, doing a little before the official start of the Jam (which is allowed). 

It felt weird having such a small script, unsure of exactly how much work I had left to do. With JKHA, it was very clear— I had X amount of scenes to write/things that needed to happen, but with this VN? It was a couple of scenes, all filled out already.

Here's my rough outline for the game (Spoilers if you haven't played it yet!!):

I wrote maybe a couple lines for each of these points, and suddenly my VN was finished!

I put off writing until the end, focusing on getting all the watercolor artwork done. The art took the majority of the time, and I felt like I was making little progress. I'm so used to the artwork being the fast part! 

- Accidentally completing the script early -

With a week or so left (and the artwork now added), I let my sister play the game (expecting some kind of feedback/idea where I could write more) and she said the script flowed nicely and that she felt there wasn't anything left to add. 

I haven't really changed anything since that, either. Somehow, I'd managed to write the game in its entirety. Suddenly it was basically finished and it kinda felt accidental.

- Accidentally making the music -

Then during the day I'd decided to try and find some free music for the VN, I decided on a whim to open up FL Studio and see if I could mess around and make something I like.  And I did. This is the first composition I've ever liked enough to want to include in anything, and I managed it within a day without much trouble. It's boosted my confidence a little, so I might try again in the future.

The rest was just small polishes (the additions of the pie and hot cocoa as physical assets + the sparkles were last minute choices).

- In Summary - 

And that's about it! Definitely a different feeling compared to my last game jam. I felt like I didn't have a good judge on how long things were gonna take. So much just kinda... happened.

But Everything somehow was less work than I was expecting it to be.

Really channeling Shirley's spirit here.

I'm not really sure what the takeaway is. That I'm not used to making smaller games?  That the parts of the VN  process I struggle more with aren't nearly as scary as I think they are?

Whatever it is, I had a fun time this Jam, and I'm excited to have another Visual Novel completed! Here's hoping if I don't even feel the work I did for the VN, I can't feel burnt out by it (haha).

Happy Holidays/Happy New Year, Everyone! 

I hope you enjoy "Hot Cocoa Magic!" and have a wonderful 2023! ♥