I didn’t think I would take part in NaNoRenO this year, and here we are now. 

Hi there reader, I hope you’re all right! I’m writing this devlog to share my thoughts on The Life I Lost. It will contain spoilers, but I’ll tell you when you should leave to avoid them, in case you’re interested in this game.

So, doing a whole visual novel in a single month is actually intense! And I guess I survived because I tried to stick to strict decisions: for instance, I decided this game would be a kinetic novel, which made me anxious at first. After all, would I manage to write an interesting enough story to compensate the lack of choices? I hope I managed to make the game interesting. At least, to me, this game had to be a kinetic novel. That’s maybe because I’m a huge fan of French classic theatre, but I firmly believe that good writing doesn’t work around restrictions, but with them. So, to me, it makes sense for this game not to give choices, because the only choice you have in life is to move on and to grow. I hope it shows in the game!

What has made me write this game in the first place is a specific topic I wanted to tackle, but I shall detail it further in the spoiler territory. For now, Jasper was quite challenging to write. He’s not especially sympathetic and has a selfish reaction to his wife’s pregnancy. Of course, he tries his best to hide it, but since the player knows everything, he might get easily obnoxious. Moreover it is the first time I write a faceless protagonist. If sparing me some coding for the NaNoRenO had some weight in taking this decision, I swear my first justification is artistic here: you’re watching your wife’s pregnancy, and you don’t feel concerned at all. I think putting Megan on a separate layer would make sense, especially regarding some further developments but… you guessed it, spoiler territory.

Eventually, this game is quite… special. It’s longer than Meeting my Weird Parents-in-Law: Aïcha, but definitely took less time to code (I think the number of sprites per scene has a big impact on it). I also made less mistakes in my coding, obviously.
Now, to be honest… I’m kinda fond of the result. I really love Megan and Jasper. They aren’t as iconic as Adolf or Aïcha, they aren’t part of a bigger scheme like Gabriel or Seiji, but… they are just so real to me. They are just random people, like you and me: they have friends, relationships, passions, jobs, tastes… They aren’t pop stars, they aren’t absurdly racist parents-in-law, but they are deeply human. And that’s why I do love them.

Now, we’re reaching the spoiler territory. If you’re interested in the game, go play it first before reading the thoughts below!

So, this game wanted to tackle the topic of miscarriages, above any other one. I read a lot about it but came to a conclusion: I am a cisgender man. I’ll never know what a miscarriage feels like, because I will never bear a baby. Not that a father won’t feel loss, of course, but it is a different kind of loss Megan suffers from. Jasper has this meaningful line (weird phrasing but, truly: these characters are the ones who speak, more than me writing: they are that real tome): “Megan has been traumatised”.
This is why the only character you see in this game is Megan: this story is about her pregnancy, not about Jasper. But, as I said, I could never understand Megan, and overdeveloping her trauma would have been out of place and fake. I wanted to put heavy development on it at first but realised… I couldn’t. Because Megan is real and I can’t just build what she feels. That’s why we’re from Jasper’s perspective: we can only support her, but we’ll never be in her shoes. That’s why the third act is shorter than the others. I was worried at first but realised it was the right way to go: losing a child isn’t a show, a pretext for overly dramatic scenes. It’s just a tragedy you have to learn with. It’s not about healing: it’s about accepting the pain and moving on. That’s what I tried to tell from my perspective in this game.
This is also why you don’t have any choice: you can just accept the pain and move on. There is no choice that’ll magically heal Megan’s and Jasper’s pain. It’s just about lending support — and a friendly ear.
However, something really significant happened this month and during the game’s development: my grandfather passed away. So, while I was writing a story about losing someone… the same thing happened to me. Yet, it’s still very different from what Megan and Jasper go through. But I discovered, by just looking at people around me, how pain can vary, how we never feel the same, no matter how hard we try. For instance, I discovered you could vomit out of sadness. This perspective of pain that can be shared but not understood is one of the messages this game tried to develop.

Phew, it got quite emotional, right? Well, if you’ve read so far, I hope you enjoyed the game! Or maybe you read although you haven’t played it yet… well, either way, have a lovely day!