Hello! 

Welcome to the postmortem of Moonlit Wizardry! This is Altila, the one and only dev of this game.  As always, my postmortem will be very long and plagued with bad English, so I apologize in advance. Still, I hope this post will be informative for you in some ways. By the way, this postmortem contains spoilers, so if you haven't played the game yet, please play it first. Also, the important part is underlined.

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IDEAS AND GAME JAM PARTICIPATION

This game was created for Yaoijam and Spooktober VN Jam 2025. To be honest, I had no intention of joining Spooktober this year at first. I had some ideas about what to make if I wanted to participate, but this game wasn't part of the idea. My initial idea was something related to TRACE or the characters I drew for MVNA. But then, I noticed that yaoijam got extended, and I thought maybe I should try to make BL-ish story because I had wanted to explore different genres. So, I decided to make something that I could submit for both jams.

Around the time I got the TRACE prequel idea, my country's situation was very chaotic. I kind of wanted to express my frustration through the game, but then I thought to myself, instead of that, why not make something cute or maybe cringe? I shouldn't talk about politics if that stressed me out. My other idea was a Japanese-themed urban legend, but uhh too many characters. Then, I suddenly got an idea about a wizard (yes, I came back to my obsession) doing cute things with the MC. That was how I came up with the idea of Moonlit Wizardry.

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PROCESS - ART

The perk of being a solo dev is that I can work from anywhere I want to. And this time, I started from... the CGs! I started on September 4th, and the first thing I did was sketch the first CGs. I came up with the story (like what were they doing in that CG) as I drew. At first, I wanted to make a scene at an amusement park (noticed how many times I mentioned amusement park?), but it sounded complicated, so I changed it to a sunflower field. Actually, the CG with sunflowers is my favorite CG! When drawing that one, I got the idea of Wizard's 'actual' form, so I made two versions of that CG, but the one I posted on social media was only Wizard's sketch. I wanted to draw more CGs because it was so much fun, but yaoijam's deadline was mid-September, and I wouldn't make it in time if I kept drawing. For yaoijam, I settled with 7 CGs and 1 sprite (Wizard). After submitting to yaoijam, my mood to draw hit rock bottom, so I only added 1 CG and 1 side image (Nova). I ended up with 8 CGs (Wizard and Neil CGs are counted as separate), 1 sprite (Wizard), and 1 side image (Nova). I kinda forgot about making Wizard with Neil's hair for sprite, so I put it as CG instead.

About WIzard's design, honestly, I didn't put that much thought into his design. The notable change from his sketch was his motif. His original motif was rose, but my brain told me to put moon instead. So, I changed his motif and lore to moon-related. Nova's design was inspired by Limbus Company's Yi Sang, especially his appearance here. I was obsessed with that guy lately, sorry. The addition of Nova's side sprite was quite life-changing for me. I was having fun setting his expressions. His blushing face is especially cute. I also like the way the younger Nova was smiling a lot compared to the adult Nova.

The BGs are using photos. At first, I wanted to draw them myself, but I felt like it would be too much work. In my vision, the game's color theme was white, like moonlight, in contrast to the night setting (and because both mine and Nova's heads were that empty).  One of the reasons I made the BGs not full screen was to make Wizard's presence pop. Other reasons are that I thought it was cool, and Wizard was mostly black, even Nova's hair was black, so I thought the vibe would be too dark when it was supposed to be a hopeful game if I used the BG on full screen. As for the GUI, as usual, I barely touched it. GUI is the bane of my existence, and all-white already fulfilled my vision.

Also, the thumbnail! I really love my thumbnail! It's like opening a curtain. I played with it a lot because it's just so fun...

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PROCESS - WRITING

As I mentioned before, I thought about the scene while drawing. And that was also why the story was kind of all over the place, and they were jumping around. Honestly, I made this game to draw the CG. The story is like... bonus (yes, those 10.4k words are bonuses)?  The yaoijam ver was an absolute mess, but the Spooktober ver is slightly better because I already edited the scenes. Sorry to everyone who played before 2.0 release.

Nova, as a character, was actually rewritten three times. The opening scene was also rewritten several times. First, Nova was like an eccentric novelist, messaging his editor that he wanted to quit his job. I had quite a dilemma about how to present him as an MC: eccentric and spontaneous, quiet and depressed, or just a dude. The last one won. He is more like a normal person now, with cynical remarks every now and then. There was a story branch too, but I decided to scrap everything to simplify things. 

Wizard was also slightly changed. He was crying outside the balcony after Nova shut the window, but I thought it didn't quite suit his character. Wizard and Neil are the same person, but Neil kinda slipped in some RP from his favorite media.

About the window and balcony, in case you cannot imagine it, the window was wide enough for an adult to go in and out to the balcony from it. I imagined it to be as big as a door, just like my dorm's windows.

Basically, what Nova experienced was some kind of supernatural phenomenon where you see a very vivid dream featuring a dead person. Still, I found it a bit silly that your dead best friend came to your dream cosplaying as a random BL character from a game he reluctantly played and even RP-ing as a wizard. But hey, that day was Halloween, and it wouldn't be complete without a costume! But yeah, there were terms and conditions for him to appear on Nova's dream. Who told him to do that? Well, me.

On the topic of Halloween, the game initially was just about a wizard (actual wizard) and a depressed novelist going around on a night adventure like Peter Pan. But yeah, ideas came when I was drawing, which made me change a lot of things, starting from Wizard's motif from rose to moon, Wizard's identity from a normal wizard to the soul of a dead friend in cosplay, and the star/moon narrative. I know people like sun and moon better, but sun and star are quite something, I have to say. They are the night sky's properties. The sun isn't. Nova's birthday on Halloween and Neil was death a day before were something I thought of on the spot just to make it more on theme. I mostly wrote things spontaneously, without a plan haha. Also, about the birthday scene, my birthday was in September, and near the time I released the game. This year, I celebrated my birthday away from home (away from people too, actually), so I kinda had Neil celebrate my birthday. Many of the things Neil said to Nova were also directed at me. Since last year with Pavel, I realized that I tend to make my OC my voice of reason or say things that I need to hear (you know, that beach scene).

For the BL... uhh... this is my first time writing BL, and my usual romance story is not romantic either, so I don't know if I managed to do it properly. I thought Nova wasn't being too subtle about whatever feelings he had for Neil, especially ever since I gave him side images. But yeah, Neil is dead, so nothing will change, nothing will come to fruition even if he put it into words, so they maintain their status quo as friends. We have no idea about Neil's thoughts because this is Nova's POV. 

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AFTERWORDS

I can't believe I made 10.4k words BL VN with 1 sprite, 1 side image, and 8 CGs in under a month. The old me wouldn't be able to pull this off. I will take it as a sign of my personal growth. Regardless of what others may think about the game, I'm proud of myself for finishing this. The game was so much fun to make! 

If you enjoy the game, please leave a comment or rating; it helps a lot.  

Thank you very much for playing and reading this very long post!

Altila.