this is a lil devblog for my games!
PLEASE look at this post before reporting issues on after the bell! if your issue is not listed please message me! thank you!
btw unrelated but i broke up w my ex gf and i know nobody really follows me here anymore but
i Have been told that she’s tried to spread shit abt me abusing her when she was the one abusing me lol. dont harass her if u see her or anything. just ignore her ass. why am i saying this her? mainly bc im trying to remember to put it out there on Every account i have. just for safety reasons. i ain’t letting a mfer who gaslit and condescended and manipulated me for five goddamn years to spin her tale of being a damsel in distress.
she goes by a usernames that is a combination of A Misspelling Of Small and A Type Of Utensil. i ain’t name dropping but if you see someone w a username like this tryna say some heinous shit about me, i can promise with absolute confidence and screenshot evidence that she’s a liar
anyway. sorry for the rant. i had a nightmare abt her again so it made me mad lmao
tomorrow is the 7th anniversary of when i first released after the bell.
a lot has happened in the past 7 years.
i have/had an entire update planned, i wanted to rebuild the game from the ground up, especially since porting it to the steam version of 2003 fucked up the fade transitions.
but i never did.
i’ve tried starting many times, and failed every time.
i don’t think i’ve talked about it here, but im very open about this: i have ADHD and autism. the ADHD is what applies the most here.
the ADHD prevents me from doing what i want, and the RSD makes me overcomplicate things.
back when i made ATB, i was in a hyper focus state on RPGMaker. i had four ongoing projects at once: after i finished the first version of ATB, i was drafting the update, file:blue was added during a horror game jam, riitami, and one other project i literally cannot even remember the name of off the top of my head. i focused hard on these projects, mainly riitami, and then the novelty wore off. this is one of the worst parts of my ADHD. i get really into doing something for a short burst and then i get bored and can’t force myself to do it anymore.
i felt horrible for so long. why can’t i just DO things like everyone else? i need to remake ATB, i need to fix it, i need to take out the stair scene because it was in poor taste, i need to expand on the lore so i stop seeing people asking why ghosts can’t just go through the wall, i need to expand on these characters, etc etc etc. and i just couldn’t do it. i forced myself to come up with a logistical reason for not passing through walls, i rewrote and scrapped and rewrote and scrapped over and over again.
don’t get me wrong. i still do want to update after the bell. i want to remake it. i want to make it better. better maps, better art, better jokes, better characters, etc. but i can’t give you an estimate on when that will happen.
as for the lore of the game,,, i don’t want to put any more thought into it.
i didn’t go into that project with a real plot or world in mind. i just drew a little ghost girl and decided i wanted to make a game about her. then i made her a girlfriend and some classmates. i thought of a very simple fetch quest: getting her name. that’s all it was. nothing more, nothing less.
that said, i have new answers to things.
why can’t she go through walls?
who cares? i’m not gonna make transition events on every wall tile just to satisfy some people who can’t put their suspension of disbelief on hold for a silly ten minute game.
why are all these girls dead?
i don’t know. i just thought one character would be too lonely, so i added some more. i thought more ghosts would be better than filling the space with living characters and then dealing with whatever allows them to communicate.
and there was one person that once said in a comment that it was weird that protag’s parents had the same last name. that has always been a strange thought to me. they’re married? one took the other’s last name?
i don’t really know what i’m rambling about at this point.
in the past seven years (in no particular order), i have moved out, got my drivers license, lost my job, got another job, was ghosted out of that job, gotten a new job that destroyed my soul, fell into a deep depression at the start of the lockdown, went back to the soul crushing job once it resumed, fell out with my roommate, moved back in with my parents, quit my old job and got another job that i now love, adopted a hamster, had her until she passed away earlier this year from health complications, made friends, lost friends, started and ended therapy, got a psychiatrist, got on anxiety medication, started (trying) ADHD meds, started dating my girlfriend, saw her in person twice, was briefly hospitalized to get my first surgery (gall bladder removal), had ANOTHER surgery (septoplasty + removing polyps), went to new york to meet old friends twice, went thru multiple medications trying to find something to help me sleep at night, came out to my mother as a lesbian (she still does not know my gender identity), met some of the people who would become some of the most important people in my life, cried over dnd (positive), started writing stories again, tabled at a lot of conventions…
it’s been a long and wild road. and in those seven years, i have thought about the ATB cast. i know the game got a little traction when it was first released, and i’m a little shocked that it seems to get a lot more attention in spanish speaking communities! that’s a lil crazy to me! not in a bad way of course. i think that’s really cool. sharing our creations and experiences across different language communities is one of the coolest things in the world.
i’ve seen praise and criticism that have helped me think about my work as an artist, and some that have hindered me a bit. nevertheless, i’ve grown a lot since then. at least i hope so.
im rambling about a lot of things. sorry. my train of thought is more like a spaghetti junction, lol
at the end of the day, these silly little ghost girls were my first real journey into RPGmaker. i’d loved playing games for a long time and had made one shoddy little thing before, but ATB was my first real release. i’ve thought about these girls a lot. i don’t think too hard about their world, the lore doesn’t really matter to me; it was just a silly little game i made with no real forethought.
one day i will deliver that remake to you. i don’t know when. i love these characters, simple as they are, and i want to do right by them. im even thinking of asking for help, as i clearly have a lot of trouble moving forward; help with setting up maps and transitions is the most important thing, as i’m not very good at layouts or mapping, but i can handle all the artwork and writing dialogue myself. i also want to commission someone for custom music, as the original music used in the game was generated via online programs because i am also, shockingly (/sarcasm), terrible at music composition. or more like i have no experience with it. i’m tone deaf as all hell.
that is not financially viable for me right now, unfortunately (i owe my parents like $800 for insurance + some assistance from when bebbie passed away) and i do not want to just. not pay people for their work. as an artist i understand the value of the work that goes into these things, and i’m not about to run around asking for free help with a silly little ghost game. i want to be able to pay my help appropriately for their time and effort. that said, if you’d be interested in helping out when that time comes (paid of course, i can’t tell you when that’ll be bc as much as i love my job i don’t make a lot of money) please let me know.
i should bring this rambling to a close.
thank you for seven years of silly ghost girls. it’s been a long time, but i hope that these girls pop into your thoughts from time to time to say hello, as they do for me. i want to do them better, even if they are just a couple of silly middle school lesbian ghosts.
thank you for your patience and support. i’m sorry i haven’t lived up to be the person or developer that i wanted to be. i’m sorry i failed to bring you something to play so many times and for so long. i hope you can forgive me.
this is after the bell, a project i started last year and meant to have finished by halloween, but due to complications that never happened. but now its done!
in this game, you play as a recently deceased student who can’t remember her name (and is referred to in files as yuurei for the sake of convenience) and upon awakening as a ghost, she feels a strong urge to return to her school to look for her real name. explore the school, talk to a few other ghostly students, maybe grab some things for them and uncover your name!
this game features:
a limited color palette
all female characters
cute talksprites and art!
ghosts
cute girls
who are also all gay. gay ghost girls, what more could u want
and a small bonus folder for when you achieve the true ending!
i’m still a beginner with RPGmaker so it’s nothing too complicated, but i hope you enjoy it anyway!
click here to download!
this game requires the RPGMaker 2003 runtime package, which you can get here!
IF YOU HAVE TROUBLE WITH THE RTP, i’ve bundled a version of the game that includes it here (you will need winrar or another similar program that can handle .lzh files)
if you encounter any other issues, please let me know right away!
you can also send questions/comments/concerns of any kind to my ask box, and i will get back to you as soon as possible.
Will "After the Bell" be updated to the official version of RPG Maker 1.12?The latest version has better support for the games themselves and less headache. And I would also like you to pre-include the RTP files themselves in the game.
it’s possible! i honestly haven’t really touched rpgmaker for a good while due to several IRL circumstances, but hopefully i’ll be able to look into that soon!
that being said, i decided a while ago that instead of trying to correct multiple parts of the game through updating, i’d rather just remake it from scratch, so it’ll likely be a long while before that update/rebuild is available. i’ll still look into the updated rpgmaker though !
thank you for your continued interest and support, it really does mean a lot to me!
the site have any social medias? like twitter, instagram etc?
not for now (at least not any official ones), esp since my life has been Very Hectic as of late. if i ever get back into the regular swing of things, i’ll be sure to update any social media available ! thank you for your interest!
IM SO SORRY I DIDNT SEE THIS TILL NOW !!!! i’;m not sure if anyone else has uploaded it, but i’d be happy to do so ! would it be preferable to have all the tracks in one video with timestamps, or posted as individual videos ?
to those of u still following, i just wanted to say thank u ! i appreciate it. sorry if im super duper slow.
if yall were curious about any kind of updates, i’ve been drafting CGs but haven’t really gotten back into the groove of making stuff yet. to top it off, i’m finally moving out of my parents house come july so most of my time recently has been funneled into preparing for that, such as getting rid of stuff i dont need/want in the new apartment, taking care of medical issues, finding a new job (i have two but one hasnt scheduled me in over a month), planning things out, etc etc etc u kno how it is.
thanks for being patient ! sorry i can’t run on a more solid schedule. i know my work isn’t exactly good or ambitious, but i hope whatever i manage to churn out is enjoyable anyway !
thanks yall ! i hope you’re having a wonderful day !
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