Thank you!!

First and foremost, I want to give a big thank you to everyone who played this game and supported me throughout the past 2 years! 🙇‍♂️I wouldn't have the power to finish this story otherwise! I hope this third and final part was enjoyable for everyone. And… Uh… if you didn't enjoy it… I'm sorry, I'll work harder on my next game! 

General

Truth be told, I'm a rather negative person, but for the sake of this post mortem, I'll be as positive as I can be!!

Things that went incredible!

• The voice acting added an incredible extra dimension to the game I could never have imagined! 
• The art rendering style brought about a great contrast to the grim themes of the game!
• All aspects of the story I wanted to tell were told in the full game!
• Every single scene had its own original BG! A total of 33 CGs were included! And that doesn't include the numerous mini art inserts that show up within the game!

I had a great group of folks supporting me for this game, I thank every one of them dearly for helping me make this a reality. 

And things that didn't go as well…

• Burnout… 

I will talk in detail about this within the later sections of this post mortem, but "burnout" is the one word summary for the final race to the finish line for this game. I didn't notice until I was testing the full game, but I truly was much more creative when putting the contents of the first Demo together. There were interesting uses of the sprite positioning, more varied expressions, and more unique use of voice clips in different situations. By the end of it, my creativity was squeezed dry. I simply wanted to get the job done, even if it meant making more art to show the scenes of the story. For that, I apologize deeply. But, if there's something I learned from being an indie VN dev the past few years, it's that a finished project is worth more than a perfect one stuck in deadline hell. 

Art

There is something incredibly dangerous about being your own artist for a visual novel project. This game includes 45 original BGs, not including variations, and 33 CGs, not including art cut-ins. Since for me, these images didn't cost any money, I simply added another BG when I felt like my existing BGs didn't suffice for a scene. Similarly, anytime I felt like sprite expressions didn't suffice, I drew a new CG.

Since I had no monetary limitations for art, I simply shot off like a rocket adding more and more art to the game. While I think that's beneficial to the project as a whole, it certainly contributed to the aforementioned burnout. 

Akua helped me out with the sprite coloring since during scheduling for Demo 1.0, I was afraid I didn't have enough time to finish the sprites. The original plan actually included multiple arm poses for the main characters. However, upon start of work on Demo 2.0, I realized I didn't have the mental fortitude to return to the Demo 1.0 script to re-script the scenes with multiple arm poses. 

I did not provide Akua with any instructions on the rendering other than for it to be cell shade so I would have an easier time replicating the style for the BGs and CGs for a more cohesive artstyle for the game. Akua is truly a master of the craft, she turned my lineart into something beautiful. Try as I might, I could never replicate her style perfectly 😭 I'm so thankful she was willing to help me with this game!! 

There are also a lot of Easter Eggs referencing my other projects (released or not) throughout the game! See if you can find all of them! (:

Writing

I've said before that SYVNH was originally planned to be a 20k word game. Who would've thought that it would end up as an 84k+ word game 💦 Part of me is a little sad that it didn't reach the 100k word mark, but most of me is very relieved I didn't have an additional 16k words to script. 

I don't have any explanation on how or why that happened. 

Truth be told, I'm actually very insecure about my writing. Every time I finish a project, I consider not publishing out of an unfounded fear that everyone would hate it. I had this fear throughout submission of Demo 1.0 and 2.0, and now for the full game too. It's through the encouragement of fellow devs that I muster the courage to push a button. (Silly, isn't it?)

Regarding writing, I also have to give a very heartfelt thanks to both Smoke (editor) and Mamep (proofreader) for their help on this project! There's a very good chance that I would not have published anything without their help. Having a second (and third) pair of eyes on the script eased much of my stress and helped me overcome my fears. Thank you, Smoke and Mamep!! 

Music

The music for this game comes from Oneul, who makes really cute background music! During the art process, I listened to a lot of their playlists so the music simply felt right for SYVNH! I gathered courage and asked them if it was alright to use their songs. Their upbeat music created a perfect contrast to the themes of the game, in a similar way to the colorful art. 

However… I do wish I spent some time/money commissioning a musician partway through the project. There were simply some scenes that darker music might've fit better. For some reason, I was very determined to use the same tracks throughout the game. 💦 In hindsight, I'm not sure why I was so determined. Perhaps, I just disliked searching through CC0 music…

A special final track was ultimately used within SYVNH, however. This track was specially commissioned for a future game and composed by BlackCatSkulls. Look forward to hearing it in a future project!

Voice Acting

My original plan for SYVNH did not include voice acting. It was only with Smoke's recommendation that I decided to give it a try! She went out of her way to listen through dozens of demos just based on my vague descriptions of "kinda deep", "very normal sounding guy", and "the kind of guy that would be voiced by a girl." (Okay, I was probably a bit more helpful than that, but I definitely did not know what I was doing haha…) She also helped coordinate and communicate with all the voice actors for the game. Just watching from the sidelines helped me learn a lot! 

The end result is definitely amazing! I've never seen my characters so alive! I definitely want to work with more voice actors in future projects. I was definitely nervous about the reception of voice actors to work on such a weird project with me. So thank you to Patrick Hurt, Christian Cox, Nick Chang, Meggie-Elise, Lasli Tran, and Jason Wiley for helping me bring all the characters of SYVNH to life!

A tip for future me and other devs who want to create VN projects with sound bites, though, is to record lines for all situations, positive and negative. I had a good idea of the type of lines for each character. Since it was a yandere game, I figured it'd be negative and filled with screams. As I started scripting, however… I realized, no matter how negative or frightened my characters are, they also had moments of positivity. 😓 Certainly, a wide spectrum of emotions, even for a character that leans towards one type of emotion, is something I'll ask for next time. 

What's Next?

If you're here reading this, I assume you've finished the whole game. If not… spoilers ahead!

I may have irresponsibly teased more content regarding SYVNH for the future, BUT! I'm here to clarify that. SYVNH as a story is complete. However, I tend to reuse my characters throughout my own mini multiverse. Although I created SYVNH for Yandere Jam 2022, I "backfitted" a couple characters for roles in the story. 

One of them was Reme, and the reason why Jon and Moria were given sprites. She served as a villain for another VN project I'd like to make in the future, but nothing solid has been completed for that story. (I'm certain I finished the script, but it might be lost in a separate drive somewhere…)

The other was Newt. His character was originally created for a project called "Inter-Hell Police." As I developed SYVNH, the story essentially served as a backstory for his character. So while SYVNH is finished, his adventure is not. I want to start on this project soon, but I'm a little lost on the genres this story would take… 

And Finally…

Once again, THANK YOU SO MUCH for playing this game and supporting me on this project! Certainly, you are all a big help to me finishing this story!