not entirely sure what to call this post or how to format it i just have things to say so i will throw them down here and simply hope any of it is comprehensible

so, another ynfg. in my last update about memorial playground i think i mentioned that i would be working on a new game for dream diary jam this year but to be completely honest i wasn't even talking about this game when i said that, i had a different idea but it was both something i wasn't ready to tackle yet skill-wise (still haven't learned much about the engine i was going to use for it) and i also just lost interest in the concept so when i saw the announcement that DDJ was starting this year i had no idea what i was going to work on. i basically ended up saying "alright, so i need to come up with a concept for a new game before the jam starts in a week or two, and if i don't, i'll just update MP again" and thankfully i managed to come up with something i liked well enough

i don't totally remember how i came up with the concept, honestly. i know a lot of the environment was thought of lightly going off of one of the optional jam themes, brutalism, but i dont actually remember how i came up with anything further than that...i feel like that happens a lot with my games for some reason. i don't remember where i got the ideas for half of these things.

anyway, this game ended up being more of a character study sort of thing more than anything for me...or maybe a worldbuilding thing. more or less all of the dreamworld design choices were made with the thought process of "how would this character, who is in a very different world yet still has very little experience with it on account of never leaving the building and can only come to guesses as to how anything works or feels going off of what little she's seen, perceive that world and imagine things?"

i worried it may have backfired a little bit, because paint has *such* a small impression of the world that i ended up needing to reuse a lot of the same symbols and vibes again and again, so i thought it might make everything too samey... but i think i managed to keep all the areas decently fresh, in the end.

i liked doing the music for this one a lot. shortly before the jam started i got a guitar and was having fun playing around with it, and it happened to align with the feelings i was going for with a few worlds. so several of the tracks were done like that, with the Real equipment for once.

i still have very conflicting feelings regarding doing game jams. i think at this point i need to accept that i'm always gonna have a hard time with them, at least when i'm doing them solo. it's a little tricky because, like, i can't say they aren't effective at getting me to work. almost everything i've uploaded to itchio has been a jam entry of some kind with very few exceptions. but man, aside from the really short and low-stakes ones, it always takes it out of me in some way. i have been once again gifted with wrist strain from all the work i've been doing, and i ended up totally pushing aside a lot of hobbies i was trying to get into near the end and i haven't really had much time for any Fun stuff for a while...all of this not helped by the fact that when it was down to like less than 2 weeks i very suddenly ended up being the main person looking after two kittens in our home, so basically 100% of my time was split between these tasks. i WAS doing a good job of pacing myself at the beginning, but...when it was down to the wire i ended up getting sucked into that last-minute crunch mindset anyway. somehow despite it all i managed to retain a normal sleep schedule, which is rare for me even when i don't have anything important to be working on, so i guess there's that at least

honestly i think the most shocking thing for me about all of this is that i don't hate the game now that it's out

usually when i finish a jam project i kind of just feel nothing towards it at best or am actively embarrassed by the released product. i can barely look at memorial playground these days even though there's a lot of stuff in it that im very proud of because all the little other imperfections caused by rushing to completion combined with the just miserable experiences i have doing jams sometimes just entirely soured the whole thing for me, which is why i haven't been updating it since the thought of it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

but that isn't the case with aquarium, somehow. i'm coming out of this demo release thinking, "wait, i kind of actually want to keep working on this..?!" and there aren't any parts of the game that i feel ashamed of due to poor quality, other than maybe "i wish the lines looked more clean/consistent in a few of the maps on the Real World side of things" but that's a pretty easy fix anyway. there was one dream world that i did extremely rushed and last minute and it fucking showed for a while leading up to release but then on the like last day i made some minor changes to it and it ended up looking nice enough that i got multiple compliments on that area specifically so it all worked out on that front.

i'm a little disappointed i couldn't fit more worlds into this release since you can basically just do one loop around the game and see basically everything on the way but ehh, i was aiming to hit the minimum requirements for the jam and i did that so i can't really complain. i'm way too eager to emphasize how little there is to do right on the tin anyway so if someone is disappointed by it it's their own fault for not listening, i guess.

i realized while working on it that, man, these types of more traditional yn-style maps really aren't my forte, HAHA. MP was much more varied and experimental in its environment design and i think that's much more where my comfort zone is, i work better with smaller and more comprehensive areas than the classic big-looping-voids of yume nikki. every time i'd start a map for this one i'd get a cool idea for a background or something and then go "wait, shit, i have NO idea what to actually put in this thing" so they ended up being a bit more samey and void-y than i hoped.. that's probably fine though, i can probably get away with pivoting to more small and intentionally designed areas that just branch off of the big main ones in the future.

all of this is a lot to say that, despite not being what i expected to come out thinking at all, i probably will update this one off-jam eventually. miraculously i feel like i've dodged scope creep this time as after working on it for a long time, i honestly don't have bigger plans than what i came up with in my initial concepts for this. so in theory it should be simple enough to just pad things out with more worlds until it feels big enough, throw in some more effects and lore moments and an ending, and then be done with the whole thing. i hesitate to make any promises in this regard because finishing ynfgs seems like a comically hard task for more devs than just me and i have already talked about how it's hard for me to work without a fire under me and will be doing my best to stop lighting those fires in the first place but like, hey, it's possible. that's the most i can give you.

as a more general aside before i wrap this post up, in terms of like, OTHER projects i have on the horizon, well...i don't have anything planned, honestly, or at least not anything planned that i have any intention of finishing and/or publicly releasing. i will probably be making more things in decker like unordered list of birthdays was but i don't have anything i am specifically aiming for. i'm just looking to chill out and have fun for a while and you motherfuckers probably wont see any of it because its gonna be for ME!!!!!!!!!!!!! self care or some shit. i dont know. if i pick up any real dedicated dev projects anytime soon it'll probably only be if i can manage to rope someone i know into working on things with me so i don't have to die from that solo dev hell lifestyle but unfortunately i do not personally know many folks who work in the same engines i do so it has been a hard sell. maybe someday though. (NOTE: THIS IS NOT AN INVITATION FOR COMPLETE STRANGERS I'VE NEVER ONCE SPOKEN TO TO OFFER TO WORK WITH ME.) aside from that scenario though i am determined to just make a bunch of shit that is incredibly low-polish but complete because i like completing things but i am too much of a slave to perfectionism still so i think i need to just make some garbage that everyone other than me hates and it will cure me. so if i release anything any time soon, it probably won't be very good, and that will be the point and it'll be awesome and we can all smile and clap and play about it. i'm just rambling here so i'm cutting myself off now. thank you for playing and reading.