Postmortem

Hello, everyone. This is Altila.

First and foremost, thank you for playing [The Last Date]! When I write this, I think there are already 100+ plays and downloads. Thank you very much! If you haven't, please give it a try. 

In this post, I will talk about the production process of the game. Sorry for the messy English and writing, by the way.

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Planning

[The Last Date] is actually one of the two ideas I got for Otome Jam. I came up with the concept in February because I thought Otome Jam was in March. This game was inspired by some games like Akaya Akashiya Ayakashino and Ayakashi Gohan, as well as the manga Kuchi ga Sakete mo. All of them are supernatural stories. AkaAka has been living rent-free in my head and its theme about the meal is something that I really like. So, yeah... if you have played AkaAka before, you probably can tell that my game was inspired by that one. Also, I went solo this time because I just wanted to do things at my own pace.

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The Jam Start

I was enthusiastic in February, but all of those motivations disappeared completely in March. A lot of things happened, from health problems to whatever happened in my country. My research hasn't been progressing much either. I was basically on an energy-saving mode throughout the jam. I didn't know how I managed to finish the game.

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Graphic

Actually, there were some things that I cut because my energy and motivation were almost non-existent. The first one is CG. I mentioned this before in my social, but I won't be adding many CGs for my projects. At least, until I got my confidence and motivation back. Honestly speaking, I found drawing that many wasn't worth the time and energy I spent. So, yeah. One is enough. Second, in the original plan, the table wasn't supposed to be empty but it would show the food and drink you ordered. I butchered the idea. Don't make me talk about GUI. I'm not doing that thing. I hate GUI the most.

I tried drawing the BG myself this time. Not bad, I think? As for the character image, I really like the way the main image (the only CG) turned out. The sprite is not bad, but I feel like it doesn't truly capture the vibe of the CG. Skill issue, I know. When making a new game, sometimes, I will add a new thing that I learned. This time, I tried using the layered image.

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Story, Mechanics, and Characters

There are route A and route B in the current game. It was only route A at first, but when I thought about it again, it would be very short and the player wouldn't get much if I did that. I remembered Ayakashi Gohan where the heroine had different personalities depending on the route, so I also tried to do something similar.

In route A, Ten's words were ambiguous until you found what he truly meant in the ending. Meanwhile, in route B, he was more direct as the MC already knew about him.  Route A went for an innocent and cute vibe with a surprise in the end, while in route B, the MC was either just tired or just pretending to be tired. This is why I recommend going to A first before B.

I tried to make the flow on A and B to be similar. Some choices are similar or even the same, but the reasonings are different because the MC's personalities are different although subtle. 

The moral of the story is to bring your own umbrella.

The names Ten and Hana look like Japanese names at first glance, but they're not. Ten, as mentioned in the game, is number 10 and Hana is number 1 in Korean. But, I also like the idea that they maybe Japanese names. I thought of some combinations before like Hana and Ten, Hana and Yul, Hajime and Juro, Hajime and Ten but in the end, I stuck with Hana and Ten. 

Ten is based on his ten days lore, but at first, I thought about the hydrangea flower concept for him since the setting was on rainy days. But, I couldn't find good materials for it, so I used the number ten instead. 

The backstory behind Ten's lore was something I came up with three days before the deadline. I didn't know what to write and decided to go with a simple and cliche unrequited love story. I think it fits well, though. I also added some kind of epilogue after some endings for no other reason other than because I thought it would be nice to see a glimpse of what happened afterward.

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That's all from me. Thank you for reading! 

If you enjoy my energy-saving mode game, please consider leaving comment or review!

Altila