Finally a new shitpost game

Hi guys!!!! I released this game, oh my God!!

I have to say that I visibly decided to challenge myself for the start of 2024. After making an unexpected entry for Ace Jam sharing my most personal traumatic experience, I now release a game which is so much, so much out of my comfort zone.

Don’t get me wrong: it’s not because this game is a shitpost one. This game is far from being my dummy run, as the sole existences of Kawaii-chan and Bacon Monster are enough to prove.

But there is something that is really, really not chimcore…

EDGY CONTENT

Some writers thrive with yandere characters. Dark humour? Twisted comedies? Their oyster. And guess what? I HATE OYSTERS!!!!!!!

So, I wanted to start writing a yandere romance/horror game for Valentine’s because I released a sweet romantic game for Halloween, so I thought releasing something horrible for Valentine’s would be funny. Some words I’ve kept in mind come from my good nemes– erm, friend, Chattercap, when she explained to me how she created the characters and the story of her game Karamu (by the way, she releases the prequel very soon, and if you haven’t played it yet, you should definitely give Karamu a try if you like yandere games): the best match for a yandere character is a character who isn’t that good themself.

So, while my project was under development, I let the idea mature in my mind. Then, I realise how I would approach a yandere romance: I needed to have a parodic approach. I would have the edgiest love interest, with the most absurd and stereotypically “sexy” proportions, obnoxiously flirtatious and overall on the edgier side. And what was the best counterpart for him? An MC who would purposefully play the victim, because she is unhinged enough to actually find some charm in it, being some sort of yandere herself for the love interest (or at least, that’s the set-up). Now I just had to write it!

But now, there is one thing to remember: writing this really was stepping out of my comfort zone, and my impostor syndrome didn’t like it. AT. ALL.

But when you’ve been having it for years, you kinda learn to live with it. So, after I wrote the script for it, I did what I did with the script of River of Rebirth, or When The Wind Blew You Away: I left it, to look at it with fresh eyes. Most of the time, I realise that what I did was fine and that I don’t need to change my actual scenes (perks of having a well-structured outline in the first place).

Well… it wasn’t the case at all for this script: huge pacing issues. So I had to make a lot of adjustments, ending up rewriting some endings, deleting some, switching some scenes in the script (and of course rewriting them) etc.

In the end, I wasn’t sure to be satisfied with the script, but didn’t see how I could improve it. So I hoped I could trust my coding to enhance it.

And then, maybe this game has made me go crazy but… the more I worked on it, the more I… grew attached to it? I found it funny? I enjoyed Yanette as a character and, more than that, something happened: she didn’t feel like any character, she felt like a main character of mine, despite feeling so different from the others. She wasn’t like other girls, but still felt like my creation?

I also grew attached to Yancie: I think exploring the different endings of this game and seeing the different sides of the characters’ personality kinda help getting attached to them? From the cheap plot twists to the pure chaos, I feel like this game has some energy my other games can’t really approach?

To explain that, let me compare it with my two games from the Absurd Continuum (which is a fancy name for “shitpost games”):

– Meeting my weird parents-in-law is a game in which you play as 21-year-old Aïcha, a lesbian Muslim Algerian woman having to meet her white, racist and homophobic parents-in-law. Basically, even if the game gets quite chaotic, the conflict it will eventually tackle is obvious: Aïcha embodies everything they hate, and how she will react to this hatred (by being either pedagogical, assertive or more withdrawn) is the narrative-design. So, despite the game being shitpost, it had some sort of structure I could follow through.

– Kawaii-chan and Bacon Monster: a Forbidden Love Story is structurally a rather classical story, if you overlook the obvious “harem anime” and “shojo” parodical aspects of it. It is the story of a girl, disappointed in love, who finds romance where she didn’t expect to, and with someone who respects her more than her crush has ever respected her. So I still had some sort of logical framework to work within, although the game is indeed very out of the realm of the common.

I don’t think Yanette can compare to them: it actually has no point. Overall, it’s just me having fun with tropes, in a most crazed manner while parodying what I find a bit… exhausting about dark romance in general; and while ending 7 is here to confront myself to the vanity of such work and bring some meaning in this game (a leopard can’t change its spots after all…), in the end, I just wanted to channel the spirits of my teenage self who was writing the most chaotic Professor Layton fanfiction ever (to say how chaotic it was, 11-yo Luke in my fiction ended up dating a 14-yo future!Luke… I wrote this when I was 10/11, give me a break).

So, that’s why this project feels so out of my comfort zone: not only it is edgy, it is also more carefree than what I usually do. I feel like my projects are overall kinda deep and sad this year, so I thought having a fun project (and a sweet one for NaNoRenO) would carry me through darker stories (and not dark because they are edgy but dark because they explore their characters’ psychology lol)!

And that’s it for this devlog I think? Thanks for your attention, and thanks for playing the game if you’re/you were interested! Todaloo!!!