Hello again!

I’ve been slowly getting used to VX Ace again (it’s been way too long) and I re-mapped a few areas that, coming back after a few months of not looking at them, I realized were quite ugly.
In this blog post, I mainly want to show you some of the new maps (and compare them to the old ones.

If see a map/picture that looks atrocious/ugly/off/not logical to you and/or you wanna tell me what I could improve, I’d appreciate that A LOT!

First, I remapped the entire town.
When I playtested the game and walked through it, I got lost – and I am the one who MADE it. So I knew I had to change it.
It used to be way too big – it was seperated into three maps that were just plain chaotic and hard to navigate:





Now my town „only“ uses two maps, is easier to navigate and it’s not as big:








I’ll probably add more details to make it more realistic, but that’s the main layout and I am pretty happy with it.

Then, I changed some of the „settings“ in town.
I’m honestly surprised how many of my maps I am still satisfied with, but a few clearly had to be improved:











On another note: I already made events for a few puzzles. I need to tweak them a bit, so they make narrative sense and I also want to add a few more.
To be completely honest: they won't be too complex. I love puzzle games, but I am not very good at thinking of any myself. I guess that comes with experience, but since this is my first try, I'll just attempt to do my best.

I’ve been in contact with Shisu and we will be working together to create more music. I know it’s pretty ambitious, but I want Lullaby to have an original soundtrack.


Slowly but surely, I am making progress.
I’ll probably slow down a little (I’ve been on sick leave for two weeks and I am going back to work today) but I am still super motivated – and I need to use that.

Thanks to everyone who welcomed me back so warmly. It really means a lot!

As awalys, thank you so much for reading.

Until next time!

Wow! It's beeen a while... where to start...?

Let's address the elephant in the room: I was inactive for months.
Which, to be frank, makes me feel disappointed in myself, because I promised myself that in order to finish it, I would work on this game one hour a day, no matter what.
And I didn't.

Which has multible reasons.


One: My job.

I was working in a call center. (Well... technically I still am, but I'll be quitting at the end of this month, so I'mma use past tense.) The pay was decent and my coworkers were nice. But the customers... oh the customers.

There was hardly a day where I wouldn't end up in the bathroom crying my eyes out cuz another customer shouted at me for something I had no control over. I know I shouldn't have let it hurt my feelings, but it's hard to stay professional and not take it personally when the people on the other side of the phone insult me by saying I was dumb and incompetent - one even called me mentally unstable.

It fucking drained me. Working there was mentally exhausting, so I had no energy for anything or anyone.
The irregular work schedule didn't exactly help.

But FINALLY I'm free!

I found a new job - or rather an apprenticeship(?), the German word is Ausbildung.
And I can't wait to start! I've been searching for a new job almost as long as I've been working this one.

The new job will give me more regular work times and I won't have to work 6 days a week anymore. I'll have weekends again, which will give me more time to work on the game.


Two: Money.

I know, this one is kind of stupid, but hear me out.

Technically, you don't need money to make a good/decent game, I know that. And maybe I'm way too ambitious - but I want custom pixel/sprite art so badly..
It's something that has been on my "have-to-have-in-my-game-list" since the very beginning. And I obviously wanna pay the artist for their hard work.

What happened was, that I had been saving money, so that I could comission an artist for sprite art. But then, unexpectedly, my phone broke. And I had to use the money I had saved up for that.

(I'm still thinking about making a patreon page. I dunno if I asked the last time I posted something about it, but if any of you guys have experience with patreon, I'd really appreciate it, if you wrote in the comments or hmu on twitter or something.)

Between that setback and my shitty job I lost most of my motivation.


So... yeah. Now you know.

Those were the reasons why I was inactive for nearly 8 months.


Phew, that post was kind of depressing. And long.
Sorry about that.

But! I'm getting back on track.
I will keep you guys updated. I promise. (If anyone even cares anymore, heh.)

I'll try to post a blog entry every other week - unless there is nothing to talk about. In that case I don't wanna write some useless nonsense - at least I don't wanna write more nonsense than I usually do.


As always, thanks for reading my blog.

Until next time!

I'm working pretty obsessively hard on my game at the moment, because luckily, I have the time to do so right now.
I pledged to myself, that I'll work at least 1h every day on the game, no matter how busy (or not) I am - because I really want to finish this.
I owe it to the people who are involved, I owe it to the people I annoy wth my ramblings about this game - and I owe it to myself.

You see, I first attemted to do this project, when I was about 16. I got pretty far, but then my computer broke and all the data (music, art, my progress) was lost.
I was devestated.
It took a long time (Obviously, seeing how it's almost 4 years later!) to find the motivation and resolve to try again.
Of course, I made a few changes to the game (seeing how, in hindsight, my first attempt was kinda shitty), but the name, the main character and much of the premise stayed the same.

Right now, I am in the middle of eventing. The only thing, I can really do without the rest of the face art, is write the texts for the objects you can interact with. I'm already done with 4(?) maps - out of 45. I am steadily working my way to the last one.


Ringelingeling ringelgingeling hier kommt der Eiermann!


I know, it's not exactly classic literature, but just wait and see... wink wonk

And even though this is a lot of work, it's tons of fun too!
I just love doing this!

-

Since this is my first game, I am kinda scared that I'll fuck up the gameplay part. Thinking of puzzles that fit into the world of the game and are fun is kinda hard. I am trying to gather as many ideas as I can, but I am still really insecure.

So, I decided to ask you guys about it.

What are your experiences? What puzzles are overused? What puzzles would you especialy like to see/solve? Do you think that riddles are boring or that the can be a lot of fun?

I'd really appreciate your input!

Anyways, that was pretty much all I wanted to tell you.
Thanks for taking the time out of your day and reading my dumb blog.

Until next time!

So, first of all, I'm am really surprised that my game got accepted so quickly? Like, I submitted it yesterday? Wow!
I'm really happy tho, good job admins (I am really new here, they are the ones who look through all the submissions and stuff, right?) and thank you!

Anyways, I made a small uninformative and super cringey youtube video about the game, more or less announcing it and celebrating that my submission got accepted. Soooo... I hope I'm not gonna regret this later - but here:




I am really excited and motivated to (keep) working on the game!
And I'll try to post updates when something interesting happens. Or when I make a big change. Or when I make a small change. Or something.

-

Okay, so small rant coming up. I hope this won't disqualify this blog post as a progress report.

I'm kinda unsure about how to make friends on this site?? I don't mean people who comment something like "oh ur game looks cool lol" and don't wanna have anything to do with me, but people who are nice and genuinely wanna talk to me. (Oh fuck, reading this, I realize that I sound like an edgy emo teen looking for someone who "really gets me and the darkness of my soul". Kill me.)

I mean sure, I want people to notice my game, but this is a community - and as far as I can tell, looking at the forums, (translation: I obsessively stalked this site long before I even thought about making my own game) it seems like pretty much everyone on this site is awesome.

I'm really (imagine a french accent here) socially retardè - and I can be awkward as all hell. But I'm willing to try.

So... yeah.
This rant was even cringe-ier than my youtube video.
Sorry about that. I'm done.