Postmortem Part 2 - The Jam Experience

Hey, Joey here.

This is the second part of my postmortem series, the jam experience. If you haven't read the first part, start here

Jam Start (Sep 1st - 2nd)

I got off to a slow start with the jam. I didn't feel like I communicated the vision clearly enough for everyone to know what to do.

I was thinking a lot about the balance between communicating exactly what I want and giving creative freedom. I wanted to give the necessary details and let them have fun with the rest, but I didn't want to be too vague either. This is a difficult line I'm sure every project manager has thought about. Ultimately, I wrote thorough character descriptions and gave a few environment reference images.

A place I fell short was collecting visual references and mood boards. I got lazy about that, and never did. To sum up how my mind was working at the time, it was a cycle of: I need to do that -> It sounds like a hassle -> It probably isn't too important, I can do it later. This cycle happened many times. It makes the artist's job harder than it needs to be, they are usually visual people, not word-brained like me. 

The importance of communicating the vision thoroughly is validated by the devlog about managing big teams  from Tokidoki Tactical Squad, written by CuteShadow (Justinn). That's a good read if you want insight from someone much more experienced than I, and the game itself is proof it's true.

I've never had to communicate a creative vision like this before, since all of my past projects were either solo, boring software stuff, or the whole group brainstormed together and they know it already. The lack of experience created insecurity. I was confident in my ideas within my own mind, but when it comes to actually expressing it to others, confidence vanishes. It is a little silly, they asked to join after reading my long GDD, there's no reason to be concerned. 

Anyway, that is a very hard feeling to articulate, I tried my best. I hope it is at least somewhat insightful, and maybe relatable to some.

In the end, communication turned out fine; the sprites and music turned out great. But still, it isn't ideal. If there were multiple different people doing these roles, it would create issues with style consistency on a bigger team. I also gave loose timelines to everyone, but no scheduled check-ins to stay on top of what people are doing. I didn't want to be too overbearing, but that was completely unnecessary. People join game jams to work on games.

In the evening, the VA decision was made. Soli was Lily, ESHA was Lucy. Also, the twins' names were chosen. Before this point, they were Sister 1 and Sister 2. In notes, I used Ana as a placeholder name for Lucy. I brought that name back for a fun lore idea.

On Sep 2nd, I still felt like I should communicate things better with the team, but I doubt that feeling would ever leave no matter what I did. I was a little burnt out at this point because of all the pre-jam stuff and the feeling that I should be writing already. 

I don't remember what I did on the 2nd, and there are no docs or messages on the 2nd. I guess I ultimately did nothing? The next day, the 3rd, is when I started writing.

Writing Start - The Bunker Section (3rd - 7th)

On the 3rd, I finally started writing. I began at the point where you meet Lily. I started here because the parts with the sisters are the most important part, I wanted to focus on that and leave the beginning for last.

I won't dive too deep into the writing process itself. I want to keep this devlog focused on the project management role. I might do that in the future, but it's not planned.

It took me until the 6th, at the end of the day, to finish the first version, which is actually pretty close to the final version. Until I started this devlog I thought it took me 6 days to write it, but it only took 4. I also did all the coding for it side by side, so it was a fully functioning game, though silent with no art. 

It felt necessary to code at the same time because this part of the game has a lot of conditional dialogue, based on what you've explored, or scenes starting at certain points after conditions are met. When writing, I have to mark that stuff, so I may as well do that in Renpy syntax. I even write rough drafts in Renpy format nowadays.

I do wonder, what would be the process of writers that don't code? I'm sure my writing methods are much different than, let's say, a writer that does the art. I'm sure their brain works very differently than my programmer-that-can't-draw brain. One day, I need to join a project where I'm not doing all the programming, that should be insightful.

Upon reflection, I'm actually very proud of that speed. This part of the game is a full exploration segment, point-and-click adventure style, with a little over 7k words. Because of the first 2 days that I didn't write, I felt a little behind. The mind will find any possible way it can to find flaws. At least, mine does. 

Now, I needed to give the script to the editor. I couldn't just give an editor my Renpy file with a bunch of different labels scattered between files, and a ton of variables everywhere. So I had to make a more linear version for Google Docs. This actually took a few hours, and was annoying. In the future, I need to be writing in flowcharts, not scattered labels. 

On the 5th, Apririnn shared an early drawing of the sisters. It made me happy, my brain just said "yup, perfect."

This relieved me a lot, I didn't have to think about whether or not the artist understands how I want them to look. She clearly does.

On the same day, D.ray also shared his first 3 tracks. The music used in Father's study and the tunnels was made here. An early version of the main menu theme was there too, and then a track that didn't make it. A mistake I made here, was not giving feedback, or any response right away. The tracks were made for parts of the game I hadn't got to yet, so I didn't want to dive deep into listening and analyzing them yet. That's a bad reason, I should've just done it anyway. At least give the thumbs up discord reaction

Seeing both music and art being made on the same day felt very good. Things were moving, and this is when I was almost done with part 2.

Burn Out - The Tunnels Section (7th - 10th)

After finishing out that Google Doc, the burnout started to set in. Still, I got through the part of the game where you go through the tunnels leading up to Lucy, done on the 9th. But then the brick wall came. I was still burnt out, but now I had to write Lucy.

This part of the game is designed to be a heavily branching conversation, letting the player immerse themselves and guide the conversation, leading to different endings. Also, Lucy herself is very hard to write, I need to accurately portray someone dealing with excessive guilt, trauma, all that fun stuff, with all that branching in mind. That isn't easy, and it was daunting. I was running out of gas (writing gas?). After finishing part 2 I thought it would end up being the longest and most complex section, but once I had to start writing this part, I saw that was very wrong.

The 10th was a very down day, I was just stuck in this state where I felt I needed to hurry up and get it written, but I just couldn't do it. Also, I really wanted to make something great, but this is the wrong trajectory for that. Those feelings made me feel terrible. It's surprising this was only one day now that I'm looking back, it felt so long. And now that I'm writing about it, I feel it again. That's fun.

This is where thoughts came in, like how the stress of a game jam timeline is just bad, it would be way better to simply write my story, have it all planned out, then go find people to fill the other roles last. No stress of getting things done on time. And when it comes to things like what sound effects I want, or what expressions I want the sprites to have, I don't know all those things yet before writing. I don't know exactly how conversations play out before writing them, I have to be in the moment and write what's natural. I was really thinking about how I never want to do a game jam again, and just to do projects on my own time. But also, I joined the jam to give myself this same structure that I'm wishing I didn't have.

Another thing I was stressing over, is how it needed to be good. What I absolutely did not want to happen, is to release something bad, no one likes it, and this whole experience is a waste of time. The entire point I entered this, was to give myself a guaranteed audience to see what I make, but that thing has to be something I'm actually proud of. 

What I really wanted, was for some people to stick, and be interested in the next thing I make. A big reason why I haven't been simply making things on my own time, is because I don't want to release things into the void with 0 plays. What's the point? I want to improve, I need someone to see it and give thoughts. Writing stuff that only I'm gonna read just feels sad, and isolating.

Obviously, all these thoughts swirling in my mind is not helpful. A solution is necessary.

The fact I was on a team is a big thing that kept me going, because there was just no way I'd announce to the group "sorry guys, not doing it." So I just had to get it done, and do what I joined the jam to do. I had to get out of this rut. It was torturous. But underneath all this, I still did truly want to make this game and get it done, I still loved the idea.

Another massively helpful thing, go outside. Change the environment. This is something I did, and have done for a while. Drag yourself out. The mind changes along with the environment. While it didn't fix it, it still felt better.

In the evening, I just forced myself to start. Momentum. And so I wrote just a little bit. This was absolutely massive. It turned the terrible, lost day, into forward progress. And that momentum saved the whole project.

On the 10th, Miriam Lopez joined. I was happy to have her because at this point, any extra help was welcome. Although, I had no idea what to have her do. When she joined and introduced herself, I just said welcome, I couldn't think of anything else. I was at a point where I wanted to get the story done, then I'd know everything I need, so I didn't want to dedicate too much thought into that. I really should have just tried harder though, she was probably just sitting there wondering what the heck she should do. 

I also checked in with the background artist since they haven't said anything since before the jam, and they replied the next day saying they've been busy, should have stuff to show soon. I just said thanks for the update, left it at that. I just trusted they'd get it done. I should have done this sooner, and that goes back to my previous point of having established check-in days. 

If you're wondering what a team member is doing, you are probably failing as a project manager. That's an important thing I learned.

Rebound - The Lucy Section (11th - 16th)

On the 11th, I turned things around. I made myself a system. I would only work within the confine of a dedicated work block. What I mean by that, is I would decide "I am going to work for 1 hour." I set the 1 hour timer, and I work within that time. I don't work at all outside of those blocks. I started with 50 minute blocks on the 11th, but over time I extended it, making it 1:30 by the 14th. I did about 3 a day, sometimes a short 30 minuter late in the day. 

This system is very useful, I'm even using it to write these postmortems.

This flipped everything around, I made good progress in those blocks, and it eased any feeling of needing to do more. EASE, not eliminate. But much better. This ended that rut. If I didn't do this, who knows what would've happened. This section took 5 days to write with this system. It ended up longer than part 2, at 10k words. I wrote a bunch of branching points and endings, and hit the original goal, if not exceeded it. I was feeling good and got ambitious with it. 

At this point, the 15th, the core of the game is written. I still have to do part 1 and the intro, but I wasn't worried. Then on the 16th, I made the Google Doc version, which was hard because there was a crazy amount of branching. And the fact I didn't make any flowcharts was just silly. It took 4 hours, all 3 of my work blocks on that day, to finish it. I am good at remembering where everything leads, but when trying to make a readable version for someone else, not having one is just a nightmare.

During this period of writing, I focused heavily on writing, but neglected my project manager role a bit.

The editor went through part 2 with notes and answered some specific questions I had. I intentionally didn't engage heavily with that until finishing the rest, I wanted to focus on finishing the first draft of the game first.

Miriam, the person that I simply said "Welcome!" to, and ended up not saying anything else, followed up asking if there's anything she can help with. I totally put that off, I was tunneled on writing. That's not a good thing for a project lead to do, people should have a defined role at all times. I still didn't know exactly what to have her do, I ended up asking for her to do menus. She's never done that before, she's not a programmer, but that's just what I had in mind.

This was a bad choice, I should've thought about it more, or simply asked more about what she thinks she could do, instead of making someone learn something new mid-jam. Even something like "go make the submission page look nice" would've been better. Especially since I suck at that.

Another track, mystery of the bunker (one of the songs that plays in the bunker, not the one with the piano.) was made during this time. And finally, after finishing this script, I addressed the music, giving thoughts on how they fit and what we still need. I should've done this immediately, as I already had some thoughts then, but I was too set on getting the writing done first. As I've mentioned before, never leave people hanging. Even if it's "Nice, I'll check it out soon." Say SOMETHING. Also, some of the sound effects came in, and I made that same mistake.

I then checked in on how the sprites were coming. I finally did a good project manager thing, and got an update that they were coming along well.

To paint the overall picture of where the project is at the halfway point (the 16th), we have:

• A playable build with most of the game (part 2 and beyond)
• Some of the music and sfx made
• No sprites or backgrounds in the game yet
• VAs haven't started yet

Overall, it's a solid place to be. Putting assets into a working game shouldn't take too long. We were in a good spot here. Next up, picking lines for the VAs. We were past the halfway point in the jam, they need their lines soon.

The VA Doc (17th-20th)

This took me forever. I had my good structure going for writing part 3, but then it didn't work so well when working on this VA doc. Going through the full script and deciding on about 60 voiced lines per character, when Lucy had over 200, and Lily had over 400, was very hard. And I can be a perfectionist about these things, making me work at a snail's pace. 

What I had to do for the doc, was pick out a line, write notes on the delivery, then the context around the line. It doesn't sound so bad, but it is surprisingly draining and time consuming. I also tagged the line IDs in the script at the same time, which made this take a little longer but now I can just drop the audio files in, then it just works. I don't regret that part.

I think part of why I struggled to stick with my previous structured way of working, is that I just simply hate doing this kind of thing. Writing, while it can be hard, feels good. It's satisfying. But this felt like busy work. I probably should've delegated this, but I wanted to be the one to pick. I was the one that had the story in my mind, so I felt it would be best if I did it. In reality, I doubt I did a better job than someone else would've. To summarize this, I was being both a perfectionist and stubborn. I need to be better about delegating, this isn't a solo project.

So I dragged my brain through hot coals, pushing to finally get it done on the 20th. I promised I'd get it done earlier and that was frustrating, but it just wasn't happening. But now, I can pass things off to the voice director and move on. 

On the last day, when I was almost done but was a little worn out, I decided to give myself a reward to work towards. I dragged myself out of the cave and brought home a Baconator™. Now, if I wanted to eat it (I did), I have to finish. It took like 3 hours but I did finish it, and it was time to eat. Unfortunately, even though the foil they wrap it in traps heat well, it wasn't hot anymore. That's the price of being slow. It was still pretty good though. I could've warmed it up, but I just didn't feel like it.

Next, it's time to write the beginning of the game, leading up to the bunker. So close.

Writing Part 1 and Death Scenes (20th - 24th)

I got back into a decent rhythm here, although it was surprisingly hard to write. I worked rather slow. I've always been best when it comes to character interaction and dialogue. All of my writing before this jam was always like 90% dialogue. The taxi drive intro was very easy to write. The cellar part, not so much. I had to build atmosphere, fear, tension, etc., with a lone character. This was my first time ever doing that. I think I pulled it off decently. If I'm wrong, you can roast me in the comments.

I also went through the game and added death scenes. I don't think I did them that well. They were short, and just whatever. I do think my death scenes involving a sister were good, but that one where you just get cut in half when you pull out your knife? Lame.

During this time, I checked in on the background artist, but no reply for a few days. At this point, I was thinking we might have to pivot to open source, but I decided to focus on other aspects of the game, and leave it be for now. In hindsight, I really should've been checking in more, demanding to at least see one background. Or just finding someone else. They mentioned IRL stuff always going on when they sit down to work, and that was the last message I got.

Also, a colored version of the girls was finished. Not a final version yet, but they were almost fully done.

It was interesting seeing them at this stage, colored, but not polished yet. It was great to see that at least one aspect of art is being done.

Starting Social Media and Marketing (21st - Current)

This was also the time where I started to focus on marketing more. I made my first-ever Tweet on the 21st about the game.

This was my first tweet, though I didn't even have a profile picture yet (and my current one is meh). That cover art wasn't there either, posting the game blessed the tweet with that. I also went ahead and paid for that blue checkmark, I figured anything that could help visibility is worth doing, and I didn't mind paying it. I already dropped $10 for a judge pass, after all.

I made the decision to use a fresh Itch page. This is the 3rd one I made. One is my original one from when I was a programmer, one is my fanfic VN one. 

My plan is to have this new Itch, along with my new social media accounts, to be for all the games I make in the future where I'm actually being a writer. All my old games I was a programmer for, were simply bad and storyless. And I also wanted to leave that old name behind. I could've used the Itch the fan game is on, but I don't want to go by AzureBurn, that name sounds like it's trying too hard. I've always struggled to come up with names that I like, so I made my final decision; I go by Joey in real life, it's basically anonymous by how common that is, and so, here we are. 

I have never posted on Twitter before this. I've lurked around before, checking accounts and stuff, but I've never fully used it. I've never had an account for things like Instagram, Snapchat, etc. I'm out of touch. But, I did want to make an effort to get on Twitter and Bluesky. I post on them simultaneously and treat them like the same platform. I had 0 expectations of it pulling anyone in, it's a 0 follower account and I barely know what I'm doing, but the main goal is so that my account isn't fresh with no tweets anymore, in the future if I make better use of it, the account has a history.

I still occasionally tweet about the game, but I'm not consistent. I need to eventually make a system, like draft 7 tweets every Sunday and schedule them out. I need to figure out what to post though. I'm also not trying to make a "Forbidden Cellar" Twitter, it's a "Me" account. But, I'll worry about this later. This is a postmortem, not a brainstorm.

Script Refinement (25th - 28th)

During this time period, I went through the whole script again. I looked at what the editor said, and went through the whole thing, adding in the sfx, music, and making notes of how I want the sprites to look at certain moments. This actually took a long time. Also, my previously time blocking strategy got thrown away. I felt like I NEEDED to hurry up and have everything ready for when the assets come in. So I ended up working pretty close to all day every day. However, I worked slowly because I was burning myself out. It was bad. 

I needed to take breaks but I just couldn't. And of course, the hatred towards the hard deadline caused by the game jam was strong. I was just thinking about how nice it would be to take my time with this, then calmly go have people make all the art, etc. No rush, and I'm not bottlenecking anything. I ran myself into the ground here, total burnout, I wanted to be done.

One thing to note, is that I didn't have the finished sprites in front of me, which would have been better, so I could implement that with the rest. Instead I just noted a mental image of what they should look like. Since I didn't know exactly what expressions I'd need, I gave vague expression notes, and because of that I didn't know exactly how they'd look, so I couldn't just write the statements and add the sprites later. Also, I should've asked for a neutral expression sprite to work with while she did all the additional expression stuff. That would've taken a minute.

During this time, I had Miriam do the playtesting form, though I had the playtest build done on the 28th. That is not enough time for anyone to play test. I had her also spread it and get people to do it. While the game did get about 5 downloads, nobody submitted a form. I don't blame them. This should've been done much earlier, but I was just focused elsewhere. There is no such thing as playtesting too earlier, I should've been sending out builds to people as soon as I finished the bunker section on the 6th.

The Asset Sprint (29th - 30th)

Two days left. I was frustrated. No backgrounds. No art in the game. Burnt out (I sure love spamming this term). And it's the 29th. I wanted to go ahead and submit early, as the jam server aggressively states that you should. But, I at least want something visual in there. Still no art implemented, and I REALLY have to get that done.

The voice lines came in, and my effort of ID-ing the lines paid off. I dropped them in the project and they worked immediately. Amazing.

Miriam had those playtest forms sent out, and now her next job, background art. "Go find open source stuff and make it work". This saved me. If I had to do that myself, I would've died. She also did all the game page stuff.

On the 29th, I didn't do a whole lot, just looked through the script a bit and got a somewhat functional scene select menu. It was a bit of a mini-break, I was just done at this point.

The 30th is here. I woke up to find all the sprites and expressions completed and sent into the group Discord.

I was very happy to see that, and they looked extremely good. I know have the entire artistic backbone of the project There were more expressions to work with than I expected, too. 

Miriam started sending in backgrounds. All was well, I just had to implement everything and we're good. But I didn't realize how long it takes to go through an entire 17k word game and swap between sprite expressions for nearly every spoken line. I very quickly realized, not happening. And so I had to go and implement the bare minimum. 

I was also finishing up the scene select menu to get buttons to only be selectable when intended, added the bad end screen and journal functionality, and made sure all the respawns after death and entering mid-game through the scene select menu correctly displayed all the backgrounds, music, sprites where they needed to be, etc. A ton of things to juggle. The fact it was the last day was the only driving force left in me.

Eventually, we did it and submitted. Fortunately, unlike some of my early jams, I didn't submit within a minute of the deadline.

Other than a few minor errors that don't really affect much, it was complete. It was a playable game. It was so relieving, this was the moment I've been waiting for. I didn't make it to the exact quality I was hoping for, but I was too drained to care (yet). That had to wait until the next day. Which we'll get to, in the next part! This is already super long.

Bonus: Performance of Last Postmortem Devlog

I noticed that after posting the part 1 devlog, my game's views and downloads popped a bit, and I'd like to share that data here.

It isn't massive, but there was a period where downloads flatlined and views got very low. But right when I posted the first postmortem on the 13th, things seemed to jump. Also, if we look at the performance of all my devlogs:

The postmortem got quite a few more views. And another note, having more than just "v1.1 update" doubled the update views. While I don't have proof the postmortem caused it, I'm sure it didn't hurt. And it didn't make the game blow up or anything, just brought it back to life. 

Also, most importantly...

First follower! Yay. Validation. This happened the day after posting the postmortem. Coincidence? I don't know.

I'm curious how this second devlog will affect analytics, and I will share that in part 3.

Closing Summary

This was my experience doing this game jam. Next: post-jam, there is a lot to say about that too. I had some big highs and lows after submitting that I want to share. Things like unrealistic expectations, feeling like I didn't do good enough, etc. It will be the most psychological of the 3 postmortems.

I hope you enjoyed, and that some things in here were helpful.

If you have any questions, or any thoughts at all, comment them below! I'd love to discuss my experiences with this jam.