Lavender Mocha Games

Hobbyist RPG Maker XP game developer.

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Some people have a moral code they live by. The Adamant has a moral code they believe everyone should live by, and they judge those around them accordingly. No one, however, is held to a harsher standard than they are. They are dogmatic, combative, and repressed.

The Adamant is a playbook for Interstitial 2e, inspired by characters like Inspector Javert, Galahad Teomes, Natsuhi Ushiromiya, and Juri Arisugawa, who avoid questioning their worldview at all costs.

My playbook for the Interstitial 2e playbook jam is done! Check it out on itch.io as The Adamant!

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Getting back into away in the woods development

With both Inn Need and my grad school semester wrapping up, I'm getting back into away in the woods development. In my last blog post, about a week ago, I made the following to-do list:

Break down ending statistics

Finalize quest flowchart

Now I can happily say I've knocked it out! This looked like making a big flowchart of all my story notes from 2022 and how they worked together and editing it until I was satisfied. Along the way, I even made an ultra-truncated demo version of the game so I could test how the pathways to different endings work.

I'm honestly really glad I ended up putting off development for so long, because I feel like I have a much stronger handle on what I want from the game and how to make it happen now. First of all, the Inn Need/the Studio Overdoing It team has taught me so much about the organizational aspects of game design (huge thanks to Tei, who went to game design school and has shared her wisdom). Secondly, I've been trying out a lot of new-to-me media, from television shows I thought I'd never watch to reading for fun again to playing some truly remarkable video games.

I'm not sharing it yet because I don't want to get cocky, but I made a timeline for away in the woods development that I hope to follow. In the meanwhile, I'll share it one month at a time. Here are May's goals for away in the woods:

Implement scripts

Remove RTP (re-import as necessary)

Create placeholder graphics

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Entering Inn Need Wrap-Up

Cross-posted from the Lavender Mocha Games site.

Studio Overdoing It (As Usual) is officially in the final stretch of Inn Need Build B development! I finished the most recent (and nearly final) list of Inn Need bug fixes and updates, and now all we've got left is for each dev to run through it one more time and find any final stragglers. All of our schedules are their own types of busy and not really lined up with each other, so I can't say what means for a Build B release date yet, but it's getting close. I'm so excited to be able to share the final version of this game! The original build was already really solid, and something we were all proud of, but I think we really rocked it with this final version.

Wrapping up Inn Need also officially means I can return to development on away in the woods. I really didn't mean to neglect its development for this long, but my schedule is about to slow down as I take two semesters off grad school, so I'm planning to settle into enough of a consistent rhythm to hopefully help make up for lost time. For starters, I'm re-writing all my to-do lists to help break it down. My current focus will be on writing. Here's an abbreviated version of that to-do list:

Break down ending statistics

Finalize quest flowchart

away in the woods has a far more branching (pun unintended) plot than I'm used to, so even though I have almost all the story beats laid out, I need to make sure they all fit together mechanically before I start trying to put them in the game. In seaglass, when I realized I needed another quest, it was really easy and straightforward to add it, since only a few of them were interconnected. In away in the woods, adding in another quest or event might have broader mechanical implications either for its position in the timeline or along an ending path, so I want to have everything planned as solidly as I can before diving in. This has the bonus benefit of giving me the chance to revisit and rewrite my initial plans from a couple years ago. I've learned a lot about writing since then and I'm hoping to make away in the woods a much stronger game for my time off from it!

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New Website

Hello tumblr! I have launched a new Lavender Mocha Games website! Trying to keep multiple social medias running was just not working for me, so I've decided to consolidate it all in one place.

The website includes a blog you can follow via RSS and a Status Cafe you can follow with Atom. The blog features sparser, more detailed updates, and the Status Cafe is a basic notice of pretty much every time I'm working on game dev.

I'll still share new games on Tumblr and try to cross post blog posts here, but it's much easier for me to have a designated site where I put everything!

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Pumpkin Snake Games is now Lavender Mocha Games!

I love the name Pumpkin Snake Games, but I've always felt like it's confined me to a very specific aesthetic that doesn't match how I want to represent myself online. So I'm shifting gears to Lavender Mocha Games - a fun twist on an old favorite, not unlike my game design philosophy. New username, same Darwin dev!

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Aaaand Inn Need has its settings menu (the one on the right), adapted from KShlenam XP (the one on the left!)

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Transferred all my game dev notes to Obsidian and I am having a ball with the flowchart function! Here's an obscured version of the Inn Need Build B quest flow.

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May 2023 Goals

Compile guide for using Wine for Inn Need players

Map house in away in the woods (all three time frames)

Map cavern in away in the woods (baseline)

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Pleased to share the first version of each stage of the protagonist's graphic! I may end up tweaking them, but for now I'm ecstatic to have something done for each of them.

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Well, as much as I wish I did, I don't seem to have the technical know-how to successfully port a game. It looks like Inn Need will come with a Wine recommendation instead!

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Worked a bit on away in the woods this weekend - specifically, finalizing the (first) design for its leading lady! Here's a breakdown of the sprites I made her from, and all the little variations I tried out before settling on the one that will be in the game.

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Finished all my eventing/gameplay parts for Inn Need! Onto researching Mac and Linux ports...

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This month's goals:

Finish my part of eventing for Build B of Inn Need

Research Mac and Linux versions for RPG Maker XP games

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Hey Tumblr! Excited to share I just updated themes across the entire blog, including giving each game its own nice new page. I have a couple more changes I want to make but I'm going to get some actual game dev done first haha.

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seaglass, my first ever game, turned five years old last month! Celebrate by playing it today!

seaglass is a free non-combat RPG maker XP game about love and gestures of affection, focused on item collection.

The player controls Eliot, a young adult who has never met their closest friend, Loren, in person before. The two have conversed exclusively through messages in bottles tossed back and forth at sea. After seven years, Loren is coming to visit Eliot, and they want to commemorate the occasion with a special and suitable gift.

They decide on a seaglass necklace, and it's up to the player to obtain it!

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Happy last day of Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week! Going to do the same thing on Tumblr as I did last year and take the opportunity to introduce the game I currently have in development, away in the woods!

You can read the full post here, but here's a TLDR for tumblr: away in the woods is going to be a non-combat RPG Maker XP game based on exploration and item collection. In it, play as a woman who lives alone in the woods, and spend three days in her life, each 25 years apart, watching as the woods around her change.

The reason I keep talking about this game for aro week is because it's based very heavily on the life I grew up wanting for myself as an aromantic kid who didn't know how to express that: happily alone, and ideally tucked away in the woods. It's inspired by all of the media that made me feel like that was an option - which was hard to find, but always worth it, and intersected heavily with the "old woman in the woods" archetypes from high fantasy. Now that I'm an aromantic adult in a committed partnership, that idea of expressing myself by being alone but not lonely isn't something I want anymore, but still feel a strong connection to. I decided to express it with a video game!

development for this game got a little derailed by Inn Need, but once Build B is finished this will get back to being my primary game dev focus and I'm looking forward to it. I hope you are, too!

(Also, credit to heckosart for the lovely title screen!)

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Pleased to announce I checked off the next big point in my Inn Need to-do list, and am jumping back into working on events! Next: my first try at RPG Maker puzzles ever.