About the development

DEVELOPMENT

"Sprint Down Memory Lane" is my first full game and my first experience with Ren'Py.
I opened Ren'Py for the first time two days before the start of NaNoRenO, read the entire tutorial and wrote down everything I thought I might need. Was it helpful? Not really, since I had to do lots of research online, but at least if gave me a general idea of what I was going to work with.
I wanted the characters to blink or move their mouths, but that was obviously too much work, but at least I managed to find help on how to automatically highlight talking characters. For that, I definitely need to thank Wattson's "Renpy Auto Highlight", it was a lifesaver.
I had a few problems here and there but, in the end, it was easy enough to fix everything. Working with TyranoBuilder on my last project was way more stressing.

STORY

Then I started writing, which took only a few days honestly, but I've never written a short story before, I didn't really know how to fit enough information in what resulted to be less than a third of my previous project's word count. I kept editing the script for at least two weeks, while working on other stuff at the same time. I wondered how to link all the memories together, how to make the player empathize with the protagonist and how to make it worth their time.
I'm not sure I succeeded in all of these, there was so much I would've liked to write, to give all characters more life and personality, I even thought I'd be able to make Haya's twins make an appareance instead of simply mentioning them, but there was simply not enough time to write such a script with my current abilities and I had to scrap that idea. That was pretty sad, to be honest.

ART

What I couldn't do in the script, I tried to do with art. I couldn't write as much as I wanted? Ok, then let's give the protagonists at least three outfits each! Art is my field of expertise after all, despite me not being an expert at all lol
Initially I meant for them all to have at least some subtle change in poses as well, as you can see with Haya, but I gave up after I noticed the amount of work I was creating for myself. Designing Tsuji and Haya's parent already took way too much time. If, on one hand, I already knew that Tsuji was supposed to have white hair and yellow eyes (so it was only a matter of actually giving life to the design), Haya's parents presented more of a challenge. I never draw older characters and I didn't want them to have the same faces as the protagonists, so I pushed myself to give them different shapes. I'm extremely satisfied with how Mrs. Kime turned out, not so much with Mr. Kime but, honestly, they're characters that probably won't see the light of day ever again, so they perfectly served their purpose.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Unlike last time, for this jam I didn't spend time creating devlogs and advertising. I figured it would take too much of my time and I believe I made the right decision, but maybe that's why the game isn't doing too well right. Or maybe because people simply don't like it? It could be anything, to be honest.
I'm aware that I'm creating these games more for myself than for others, since I'm using OCs that I deeply care about, but in the future I'll try to create completely new stories that can interest more people!
In the end, I gave it my all, I'm really satisfied with the game's art and I even managed to finish in time for the jam's deadline. This is definitely a win! I still need to work on my writing skills and to keep practicing with Ren'Py, so next time I'll be even fasted programming the game.

That said, thanks for taking interest in my project and I hope you liked my game! If you didn't, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion but please have mercy, I know I still have a lot to learn ^^'
I wonder what my next project will be~