saprophytic(2023) post mortem

this post mortem was originally written and posted on itch.io devlog in early january 2024. i wanted to migrate this post to my personal site for posterity. i hope you enjoy reading!

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Post-Mortem

Back in school, whenever we finished a game prototype or project, we’d usually have a follow-up paper assignment where we write a Post-Mortem paper. My brain craving structure and some form of validation that I “completed it” besides posting on social media/sharing it, decided to write this out. I hope you enjoy, and find it insightful.

What Went Right

I did it. I wrote a story from start to finish! It's my first project in Ren’py actually, and I’m glad I was able to execute my ideas. It’s also been a couple of years since my last solo dev game, so it was nice to complete a project. It might be a while until I make another VN like this, but I enjoyed the process & learned a lot.

Art.Even though most of my art for this game was outside of my usual character wheelhouse, I didn’t have any major problems. It didn’t take too long to make each piece either. I would attribute this to multiple factors, but primarily:
Using 3D software and modeling to assist with block-ins and sketching.



In particular, I used Blender and Clip Studio Paint’s 3D Model Materials to assist with sketching and drafting. Specifically, using primitive meshes and forms to block out backgrounds in Blender or posing the characters with Clip Studio. I knew that I could draw these objects from imagination and reference, but it helped save time – especially for more complex pieces with lots of props and background elements. I’d also do more visual development tasks like designing certain props and characters to assist with the environment paintings. Thinking about what certain visual details say about the world or characters would help ease me into writing and script editing tasks.

What Went Wrong

When one of my professors said, the folly of every non-sound person is that they put sound in at the last minute.… he was so right. Don’t make sound your last priority.Before polishing, I think the last few bits of development primarily consisted of testing how royalty-free sounds and music fit the vibe of the scene. So sometimes my editing sessions would be hindered by me going like “Wait hold on, that SFX doesn't fit for this scene. Let me derail the next half hour by going on freesound.org and finding a more suitable one then pitching it lower slightly because the pitch is a little too-”.

If I were wiser, I’d have told myself to listen to a bunch of royalty-free music while drawing the art for this game. ( If I had the means to save up to properly commission a music writer/composer that is something I would have definitely done that instead…). I’d also probably list relevant SFX while writing and or editing the script, so I’d have a more focused list to search for what SFX I needed. Ultimately, I’m happy with how it turned out — musicians and sound designers who make royalty-free art are too kind for this world. Again, massive credits and props to Serge Pavkin, Patricia Taxxon, & watson in particular for the music. Patricia Taxxon’s astral6 during that afternoon scene of the game never fails to make me tear up a little every time I proofread that portion.

Recency bias aside, the worst part about saprophytic’s development is that: Writing is so hard.

When I complained to friends saying my writing sessions were dire – I truly meant it. I’d go on extended periods where I just could not write anything. Or more like I’d physically recoil and curl up reading past revisions. One reason is the very vulnerable subject matter and core of the story. Another reason is my lack of skills in creative writing.

I never took any courses or training related to creative writing back in school much to my detriment. I get a little embarrassed thinking about it actually. Before this project, the closest thing to creative writing I’ve done were rough screenplays related to my OCs. I wish I had prior experience writing completed works instead of just snippets of vague scenarios on my phone’s notes app.

This ties into one of the first:

Lessons Learned

I’d benefit exponentially from having people I trust to proofread and critique as soon as possible! I have the misfortune that nearly everything I write about is something incredibly personal and close to my heart. I also have the misfortune of being someone who’s incredibly guarded about my inner turmoil and traumas. Maybe it’s the raised Catholic in me. Who knows.

I could’ve gotten over writing challenges and other road bumps a lot sooner if I let people help me edit and proofread my work. The value would’ve been incredibly useful during the drafting stage, so I could get over issues sooner. I was only comfortable sharing when I put the rough draft in-engine. It was definitely useful, but I think by that point, it was mostly polishing and editing on my end. Stuff like the general outline or major narrative beats could've been finished up sooner or more tightly knit with earlier critique and proofreading sessions.

Another lesson from this experience is that I’m an incredibly stubborn person. When I hyperfocus on a task I'm excited for, it's golden. But I have to guide myself in the right direction and remain consistent and disciplined...even if I'm not as excited for the task. Not purely out of my former workaholic tendencies, but because I’d feel a lot better about myself. Directing that time & energy into something productive that I care about makes me feel a lot better mentally.

With that being said, I realized I needed to use the stick and carrot reward method for getting things done. I don’t love writing, but I love drawing. There are so many scenes that I found painstaking to write and revise. But I had to do it. So I’d reward myself whenever I’d get that task done. Like telling myself “Hey, if you finish writing [scene you find boring but you need to exist], you can draw/write for [scene you’re more excited to do] afterward”. Of course, I’d do other unrelated rewards to prevent burnout – like watching a movie, cooking something nice for dinner, or ultimately letting myself play a game for a couple of hours or so.

Balance is ultimately key; take breaks and do what you must to take care of your well-being.

On another note, I knew that any shortcuts I could take to save time and sanity – I should 100% take them. However, my stubbornness and perfectionism are simultaneously a constant knife in my side and a tempting snail whispering in my ear. I was committed to doing unique, exaggerated poses for each expression sprite...until I made a spreadsheet of what I wanted for the game and saw the amount of stuff I had to do. I made my perfectionist self take the L. I ended up painting over the bases of pre-existing sprites for certain expressions instead of Redrawing It All Entirely. I ended up with a nice range of expressions for multiple characters. And for that, I'm satisfied.

At the end of the day with this story, I’d rather have something finished and tangible than something perfect only existing in my brain. It’s a lesson that I have to keep relearning for every project. It’s part of the reason why I released this at the very tail end of 2023. I would rather start the year with a blank slate.

Inspirations

The rest of this post is an excuse for me to ramble and to serve as a sort of time capsule for where my mind is at. Muses and inspiration are so fickle - I thought it'd be interesting to write something a little more off the cuff for me to look back on during this time.

I’ve had the Astrodyne Academy characters in my head for a long while now. I think they first materialized in 2021 when I challenged myself to visually design them for a character design class project. Old art jumpscare incoming.



There are a lot of inspirations for Astrodyne Academy, but to prevent myself from rambling too much, I’m restraining this write-up to saprophytic in particular.

The grieving elephant in the room.

In terms of narrative themes and the overall scenario writing, works like Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart and Ryoko Kui’s Dungeon Meshi have profoundly influenced this story's themes of food and grief. No spoilers for either work, but so rarely do I ever feel so seen and deeply understood by a total stranger & by works of art. It's both comforting and heartbreaking that death and grief are the circumstances through which I feel such a deep connection with those works.

Reading through these works ( and by extension, Michelle Zauner’s music under Japanese Breakfast) has been incredibly comforting in my grieving process. It’s been 3 years since my mother passed away and I feel like I’m barely becoming a person again – albeit not the same person I was. The struggles around grief and identity – of trying to pick up the pieces of who you used to be and rekindling past relationships before losing someone – are things I injected straight into Astrodyne’s story and Atlas specifically.

I understand that "show don’t tell" is the #1 rule of writing -- but I think that grief and death itself are mainly felt in the absence of someone rather than the active act of dying. As someone who’s grieved - who’s still grieving and will be until the rest of time– I would be doing a disservice if I wrote something that doesn’t reflect that reality. It was a bit of a challenge trying to convey that feeling in a short story. I hope I was able to do so appropriately.

Everyone grieves in their way and I hope I did not nor was it my intention in any way to "romanticize" grief. In my experience, grief has been all-consuming. I'm filled with rage, regret, sorrow, etc., and have felt the whole gamut of human emotions in all sorts of capacities. Only through the lens of love & connection with others – has the grief become somewhat manageable for me these days.

On that note, the subjects of food and cooking have been deeply ingrained in my healing process and connection with my late mother. Some of my fondest memories of her are helping her in the kitchen and sharing meals; one of my most treasured keepsakes is a composition notebook of her recipes where I did a watercolor painting of some lumpia on the cover while she was alive. I regularly make some of my late mom's recipes, and I catch myself getting emotional sometimes.

One of my many favorite Anthony Bourdain quotes is:

“Food is everything we are. It's an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It's inseparable from those from the get-go.”

To me, food is all that and an expression of love. It's an intimate connection with both the living and the dead. Atlas’s attempt to connect to Mimi through something as deeply personal as food - it’s a way of healing. They choose not to self-sabotage and run away; they don't realize it but they are still capable of a familial, platonic love that they lost. Of course, this isn’t the main story, so I have them waffle a little bit, but nonetheless! The small bit of growth and connection never fails to warm my heart or make me tear up.

Ok I'm Normal Now Back to Other Inspirations

Before sitting down and actually writing saprophytic, I also did a lot of “research” – as in playing through other VNs and rereading some of my favorite poems and stories. If I broke down everything, this would take forever. So here is a short list of some media that I experienced [or re-experienced] in 2023 that helped shape this project:

✦In the House of Fata Morgana developed by NOVECT

✧Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong

✦This Munchies video of Maangchi and Michelle Zauner discussing the effect of the Korean War on the origins of Budae Jigae

✧Gourmet Hound by LeeHama

✦FFXIV Endwalker :The Margrat Custom Delivery quests

✧The Bear: S2E7 in particular

✦Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

✧Someone Who Will Love You In All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg

All these works were inspirational in some way to my narrative goals. I mentioned that I’m kind of insecure about my lack of technical writing skills. Most of my casual writing falls into 2 categories:

1. melodramatic, angsty poetry (see: any of my Twine games from waaaay back)
2. casual, step-by-step mechanical guides to inform as succinctly as possible. (do not see: my Final Fantasy XIV ultimate raiding hobby)

Most of my writing for this project fell into the category of a secret third thing of everything else like descriptions and dialogue. I think one of my hangups with writing for Astrodyne is that I often feel intimidated by the “fantasy” aspect of its world. I had this preconceived notion that I hath needeth to writeth like how thou would expecteth in ye typical fantasy setting. It didn’t click for me until I read some fantasy stories from Someone Who Will Love You In All Your Damaged Glory. Bob-Waksberg's writing style felt so casually heartbreaking - nailing this balance of comedy and vulnerability that I strived for.



I got inspired to write more in line with how I’d envision these characters would talk in everyday, casual conversation. By mostly keeping saprophytic character-centric & conversational, I had a much easier time editing and revising. I also found that emotional lines are more impactful the simpler the lines are. The words you exclude are just as impactful as the ones you include. To me, leaving out the flowery language and using short, impactful sentences feel much more raw and vulnerable. It cuts through meat and bone to the emotional core.



I also took part in my friend Froggo’s OC Anthology Project Snapshot of a Waking Dream a while back, and was deeply inspired by everyone’s works! For saprophytic, I was inspired by Apple’s The Match Alight - Green Lane comic. It contains a short story that isn’t necessarily part of the larger, overarching plotline involving their OCs, but still shows their OCs' interactions & dynamics with so much charm and personality. I wanted to do something similar, but I felt like certain plot points/background stories were vital to my characters for this story. So, I included parts filled with exposition that I might not have otherwise.

Eventually, I’ll get to “the big” main overarching story and plot of my OCs in Astrodyne Academy. However, there’s magic in the “mundane”, smaller moments that I want to capture too. I hope saprophytic was an apt example of that.

Special Thanks

Special thanks to Victoria – for everything – until we meet again.

I would like to give special thanks to my sibling Jess and friends Frey, Chi & Max for proofreading. For accepting me and all my Janel-isms and giving amazing, constructive feedback during development.




Thank you for playing saprophytic and for reading this post-mortem!

Thanks to anyone who’s ever liked my OC art or thought about them in passing. The support means so much to me. I love hearing about which scenes resonated deeply with people. I am extremely humbled and thankful for everyone who spent the time playing.

At this time, there aren’t many other finished Astrodyne Academy projects out. The only other completed works at the time of making this are my short 2023 Valentine’s Day comic about Luna Oblige(who had a couple of lines alluding to her) and my fake yearbook spreads in Snapshot of a Waking Dream’s printed anthology and digital counterpart.

Oh and this silly video.

Anyways, thank you again for supporting my work. With all my work I hope it inspires you in some way – to pursue your passions and to support your peers in making cool art.

take care and be well,
janel