[redacted] Life is a visual novel game I created for the game jam, NaNoRenO 2016.

Since I won’t be making a post-mortem for the game, I’m instead making this behind-the-scenes post about the process of making  [redacted] Life.

The Writing

After making Three Guys That Paint and Must Love Jaws, I’ve developed and refined my process of writing scripts for visual novels. There’s still tons of room for improvement, but this is what it’s like so far:

1. Brainstorm ideas on Notepad and Twine (I’ll use one Twine card per idea/plot point/scene).
2. Arrange the plot points in Twine until I have a good idea of the game’s story (at this stage, I like to have a rough plot summary at this point).
   
3. Write a first draft of the whole game’s script in Microsoft Word 2013, organising the game by separating each scene (meaning each time the background changes) into a Collapsible Heading (which Word 2013 allows you to do). At this stage, I’ve got notes like “show this CG,” and “have Adrian enter from the left,” but they’re not written down as proper Ren’Py code.
4. After editing the draft for spelling and punctuation mistakes (and just general revising), I’ll start editing all of the character’s dialogue so that it’s written like Ren’Py code (meaning all dialogue has a character tag and in contained in quotes). Word’s Find/Replace tool is very useful here.
5. I’ll copy/paste the whole script into Editra and start replacing any notes with proper Ren’Py coding, as well as adding any coding I’ve left out until now (for example, I note some character expression changes in Word, but not every one).
6. Then I’ll start up the game to see how it looks so far, and, through trial and error, I’ll edit the coding.

Above image: All the plot points of [redacted] Life in Twine.

Above: The script in Word.

Inspiration

I generally don’t talk about or go into detail about the inspiration behind my games. It just feels futile to me because I often feel that the things that inspire or influence us the most are influences that we aren’t even aware of (I’m pretty sure that Hergé and Edward Gorey’s work has influenced every single project I’ve made, but I’d have trouble putting into words as to how they have). My eclectic nature also makes it hard for me to track down where an idea originally sprung from.

However, due to the nature of this game, I feel like I need to at least try listing some of my sources of inspiration…

• I think the thing that first made me come up with the whole concept of [redacted] Life was watching Retsupurea’s Let’s Play video series of Phantasmagoria. At some point during their playthough, one of the LPers jokingly says “She’s (re: the game’s player character) realising she’s in the game; she’s trying to get out!”
• On top of that, Phantasmagoria is also a horror game set in a mansion with a magician antagonist. Adrian’s name is also the male variant for “Adrien,” the name of Phantasmagoria’s protagonist.
  
• Save the Date, a visual novel where you have to replay routes to progress and alter the plot, was also a big inspiration. It also proved to me that Ren’Py was an engine that was capable of doing the things I wanted my game to do. The game also taught me about the concept of “persistent data,” which I’ll talk more about later.
• The first VN I ever played, Air Pressure, was probably where I got the idea of Rebecca glitching out.
• Hana’s character was based on an anime idea posted on Tumblr. The premise (later referred to as Nope: The Anime) was about a girl with pink hair who goes to great lengths to avoid becoming an anime protagonist.
• The Nancy Drew game series, as well as the indie game Dreaming Mary, was the inspiration for a Second Chance button after you’re told that you’ve made a fatal error, as well as a voice asking if you’re happy with your fate once you reach an ending.
• Pony Island’s idea of not playing the game as intended and seeing glitches.
• Undertale’s (ending spoiler alert) concept of the game deleting save files, smashing the screen, and crashing the game. Also Tirle’s direct conversation to the player is reminiscent of Flowey’s talk with the player at the end of the neutral and pacifist endings.
• The ending exchange between Adrian and Hana actually took a lot of inspiration from the ending scene of 1957′s 12 Angry Men. The film ends with the main character finally exiting the claustrophobic room, and walks down the courthouse steps. He spots one of the twelve other jury members and they exchange their names.
  
• Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, for its use of vagueness in why the place is haunted–letting the viewer come up with their own interpretations (I never fully explained how Miro and Clara died, but left some clues for the player).
• The Truman Show & Total Recall, for its futuristic/sci-fi elements used by the characters for everyday entertainment, as well as their exploration on how the technology can go wrong, or lead to unhappiness.
• This image:
  

Image source: (x)

During the time, I wrote the following about the image:

This actually reminds me of the one of the short stories from The Chronicles of Harris Burdick (the one titled Just Desert by M. T. Anderson).

It was basically about a boy who discovers that an outside entity has built a world for him, populated by false people. And the only proof he has of this is a book he finds that has the author saying something like, “This world is fake. They are watching. Just put the book down and don’t look shocked. They must not find out you know.“ (the book being obscure enough that it was able to get past the entity’s censorship).

This also reminds me of the British tv series, Life on Mars, which is about a police officer from the 2000’s getting hit by a car and waking up in the 1970’s. The series makes it ambiguous as to whether or not he actually time-travelled, or is in a coma and is dreaming all of it, because he keeps seeing/hearing messages from the 2000’s (the voice of his mother on a radio telling him to wake up, etc).

Some other bits of trivia/notes:

• Tirle is "Title” with an r. That’s literally how I picked their name.
• The splashscreen’s three-note song is a chip-tune version of the guitar strum I’ve used for the beginning splashscreen in my previous visual novels.
  
• The license plate on Rebecca and Adrian’s car is 2GAT123 (though part of it is cut off from the “camera” angle). It’s a fictional license plate commonly used in films and television to avoid accidentally using a real one.
  
• Rebecca and Adrian’s car is an orange 1970’s Mercedes-Benz 450 SL.
• The game was originally titled “Antique Paladin,” as a reference to the recurring suit of armour.
  
• Adrian musing that the barrels had secret passages was a reference to the Tintin adventure, The Crab with the Golden Claws.
  
• One of the error messages mentions “Lotus,” which is a reference to Homer’s Odyssey wherein the heroes eat a lotus that makes them forget about their quest (similar to how Adrian has amnesia).
• The tarot card reading can also be an interpretation of Adrian’s whole journey: He (the Fool) is trapped in a haunted mansion (the Tower) and ends up freeing himself from it (Death) by teaming up with Hana (the Empress) and through sheer determination (Strength). I wonder how many players picked up on that.
  
• Tirle was based on a character I had for another story (a dark comedy now in my Junk Ideas folder) about a cynical girl who was so apathetic about her own self-preservation that she ended up being a good ghost hunter because she was incapable of fearing anything.

The Art

[redacted] Life was the first visual novel I’ve made where I collaborated with other artists (before, I’ve collaborated with a writer for The Journey of Ignorance, and a programmer with Three Guys That Paint, but not an artist).

The artists I collaborated with used Trello to help us all stay on the same page.

Above: A screenshot of the Trello board. Source of “Painting reference” image at the top-left: (x)

I basically gave a description of the character/scene, along with reference photos, and the artists ran with it. I wanted this to be fun for the artists, so I tried to give them creative freedom.

Some of the concept and work-in-progress art:

Art by Jaye/@fakemagicjaye:

BONUS:

It was learned that Lisa Frank tarot cards exists. XD

Art by YuukiCrossPudding/@10_Salt:

Art by Kyuu:

Art by me/Katy133/@jkaty133:

The dog in the game is a Shiba Inu. Tirle was originally a woman named Talia. Clara was originally “Lenore Malloy.” I also played around with the idea of giving Hana blue hair.

Rebecca looked older, while Hana looked younger.

I really like Tirle’s concept sketch (near the bottom) for some reason; here it is cropped:

According to my notes above, “Harumi” was originally Hana’s name.

Sketches of background and CG ideas.

Programming

Prior to the start of NaNoRenO, I asked around on Lemmasoft what Ren’Py was capable of, and during NaNo, I was able to learn how to do the following:

• Changing the mouse cursor icon mid-game.
• Changing the main menu’s/settings menu’s/quit menu’s/save/load menu’s/textbox’s image, depending on the player’s progression.
• Creating a custom volume bar in the settings menu.
• Customising the save/load menu.
• Using persistent data.
• How to make imagemaps in Ren’Py.
• How to change the speed of a specific line of dialogue.
• Creating different character name tag images for each character (one for the mansion game, for the high school romance game, etc).
• Creating animated sprites (re: the glitch effects).
• Deleting a save (in the middle of the narrative) without a prompt.
  
• Forcing the game to quit without a prompt.
  
• Creating a True Reset (deleting persistent data)
• Creating “hackable” text documents that the player can edit.

I learned so much about Ren’Py, and I’ve ended up feeling a lot more comfortable using it and customising my games with it. So hopefully, I’ll be able to use what I’ve learned for my future games.