Hello everyone!

I’ll be using this post to summarize my(Zedie) experiences with otome jam and O2A2 2022, as well as my plans for the future! I'll put some various concept art for those two and my upcoming game for spooktober in the bottom for eye candy if you get bored reading :P  (Cover image is the LI for my spooktober game, Red String Theory, made by Awiola) ^^

So let’s start with otome jam….Overall, it was 100% a learning experience.  And I should probably mention, All that Glitters  is not going to be completed in full besides Albert’s route. This is due to many factors, like being completely unprepared, circumstances, and mental health. 

To say the least, I was completely unprepared to make a game, nonetheless lead a team of 10+ people for otome jam. As the first game jam I’ve attempted that I didn’t disband a few days in the works, I was lacking both skill and experience. I didn’t prepare a sufficient outline and constantly was changing the heart of the game in the first weeks. A game that was going to be a mass multiverse denpa etc etc was majorly scoped into a stand alone game(which A) made it a much more realistic and different from a naive person’s “anything is possible” philosophy B) allowed me to decide on a plot and work around the many plot holes much sooner).  If I didn't have my other writers send me messages of utter confusion, I might have continued and not have learnt the errors of my ways.  As I've never really written anything for not-school before, All that Glitters was definitely...something. I thought I could easily bluff my way through like school essays and get the quality of a game that deserves 5 stars (nevermind the fact that most other people do this too, so what qualifies as an A in school gets you probably around 3 stars orz), because the fact of the matter is that anyone can write. Writing "good" is something that takes preparation and practice as with any skill, like team leading.

 Team leading is a beast of its own, involving social skills and surprise surprise, leadership skills. Being a good leader is ≠ to being a good person, even if the two are not mutually exclusive. What I learnt about leadership, besides being rather bad at it, is that a lot of times you have to make compromises. You have to know when to take and give, but most importantly when to let go. Being laid back generally does not bode well and as I learnt from a video, your job as a creator is to foster creativity and surprise, but as a team lead, you want to do the opposite, limit variables and thus, surprise for your team. Telling them that they can "do what they want" or "whatever is easiest" just leads to frustrated team members which has a rebound effect on you. Especially, as usually as team lead, you have a vision for the project so it's truly not "anything goes".  Also, more team members does not equal more output. The more the merrier does not apply for teams unless...you know what you're doing and utilize them properly.  I got a little trigger-happy with recruiting anyone who posted that they were doing a position I was looking for, without checking things like compatibility(sorry to all those I recruited and wasted the time of) ;;  Knowing what you want as project lead is hella important to know before you start dragging anyone to work on your game.  It's more than just creating a pitch or a log line, but rather also figuring out themes, inspirations, and how you're going to get there. Trust me, it'll help you a lot, as someone who'd applied this to their spooktober prep.  

O2A2 was different because of the limits imposed, making it the perfect jam to test my new acquired knowledge. I think I did a lot better in O2A2 preparation wise, like making an outline that actually told future me something. As team lead, I didn't do that many things different but since I only worked with 2 people I was able to experiment again with much better results, although I definitely credit this to the people themselves ❤️ My success in O2A2 (aka finishing) has convinced me that preparation saves you a LOT of time and struggle, and starting too early is hard to do because you can never be too prepared. 

As circumstances would have it, I was ghosted by team members, have ghosted (not my proudest moment), and overall learnt that having back ups good. Never can have enough backups, because if those fail, you are your own backup as lead. So, even being with teams, you  want to be prepared for anything. Cuz being nice ≠ reliability yet again. Also you have to account for real life being a bitch. I, and my team mates, was hit with finals, jobs, drama, you name it. So I had to account for replacements. 

For O2A2, I recruited way beforehand to make sure if something came up, I could get a replacement easily. Thankfully that was unnecessary, but that’s also why I’ve recruited half my Spooktober team already(I’m still looking for some roles btw so feel free to hmu😳).

Last but most definitely not least is mental health. Mental health is…fucking annoying to say the least. Dealing with shifts of motivation, mood, energy, lifestyle, etc when your expected to do 1(one) thing over a period of time longer than the shifts means you get unrealistic expectations and unstable output. My motivation and self-esteem plummeted by the end of the jam and my output most definitely reflected that. Your mental health always takes priority, and it always reflects in your work for the good or bad. You want to aim for sustainable output especially for development that takes place over longer periods of time then, say, a week. O2A2 being a week long meant I didn’t need to practice that but I really should…

I’m not (that) upset otome jam didn’t go well, cuz I really did learn a lot about myself and just game development in general. I think my O2A2 project reflects that to some extent. And I hope my skill level only continues to improve💪  So I hope you enjoy this game, or if not, my future projects cuz I have a lot of stuff planned. ^^ Spooktober being my current focus and brain rot. After that, it really depends but I think I’m gonna experiment with different main genres with specks of romance (a romantic never rests).  My goal with games eventually is still the same though, mental health promotion, as it’s a topic near and dear to my heart. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to be all sad and depressing, I swear. Just a little angst…a little…mwahahaha

And that’s a wrap folks! Take some art!