(Many grammar and spelling mistakes)
I've totally forgot I'm supposed to ACTUALLY post about my game otherwise it will be totally unknown. It's lwk hard when I have barely motivation to draw but can't reveal too much without being scared of spoiling a lot of the actual game.
I've started progress of my game basically last year around July-August?? Before then (wasn't that long ago) I was just on and off writing fanfiction on Quotev. Mainly because Quotev has a BIG Yandere OC x Reader fandom. And I always eat that shit up. I think it was the most popular tag (not sure tho, never really read anything else on there). I managed to actually collab with some cool ppl before Quotev removed groups/forums??? And public community discussions from ppl you followed. That's when the big authors I used to follow or collab with moved to wattpad.
I stopped writing, then got an idea, wrote a bit again. Usually I'd get an idea for a fic in the middle of writing my main fic. And this fic that started my whole Yandere visual novel development journey actually revolved around a circus. Yes, a fucking circus.
The main idea was that you (the reader) would be working in a circus by your own will, compared to the other workers that were there by some sort of debt. You stay working even if you know how the other workers are treated (horribly btw). Not because of money but for other reasons I haven't been able to establish at the time. There would be a ringleader, still enslaved by the circus but he was treated better.
I created this whole analogy for the fic, that the reader was the "last pig" that let the other pigs die in order to be safe (loosely based off The Three Little Pigs) That they don't care for others being hurt as long as they can enjoy life. And that they were as bad as the wolves of the circus (the audience and the circus owners).
I didn't get that far with the fic, hell I didn't even get to writing it when the idea popped into my head for my VN.
I had stopped drawing for many years, I had always been frustrated with my lack of improvement compared to others. But that random day I picked up a pencil, stacks of old paper and drew the first ever "sprites". I scanned those pictures on my printer, imported it to ibisPaint X and edited it. Made my tiktok account and posted the most ugly and unimpressive speed paint ever. With the text speech having annoyingly long pauses where it didn't need to.
But surprisingly, some people liked it, enjoyed my concept. I don't have many followers but it was enough to keep me motivated.
Then I wanted to be ambitious, so I started an unpaid project on Casting Call Club. Saying I was looking for Va's, artists and writers. Va's are the most easy to find on there if your project looks professional and interesting enough. But writers and artists especially are hard af to find. Surprisingly when I posted on my tiktok about my open project, two cool artists that followed me auditioned for the project and now are working with me.
And concerning writers, I've had huge problems concerning availability and lack of communication. I think one even put the script into AI and asked it to write the next part because the tone was so AI like and totally didn't follow the rough outline at all (I'm fine with changes but they added a completely different scene that wasn't necessary.) So I'm sticking to being the only writer to keep my vision how I want it to be.
When development with the team officially began in September, I was so scared of seeming problematic??? That's actually my worse fear for some reason. And communication with people i don't really know in general. I can talk professional no problem but I get really nervous at other types. Especially when it feels like I'm being harsh, pushy or just annoying??? So that scared me, still does, but I get through it. (Tho sometimes I ignore a message for a few hours until I'm mentally prepared enough for it. No longer than half a day tho.)
I also may have gotten extremely cock when it came to my art, but then when it came to drawing sprites, nothing would come right. In the end, I commissioned an artists for sprites which made me feel extremelyyy guilty because the rest of my team was working for me.
I will be starting a Kofi donation thing once I get enough recognition so I can actually pay them for the work they've been doing. As well as for money to put the game of steam.
During December, my ass was stuck trying to put everything I've done so far into renpy. And I'm actually quite proud of myself, because before I knew nothing about renpy coding or any coding at all. But YouTube, forums and the renpy document saved my ass.
I might ramble more about my game in another post. The first ever post on my account kind of talked about the concept but only to attract people to the CCC project.
The pictures below show the first ever sprites of the game to the now finalised ones.
The artist is @palmittooosart on Tiktok, I'm not sure if they have a tumblr account.