When looking back on the project, I was very lucky. I didn't expect to have as many people willing to work with me, especially the voice actors! It goes to show you how integral a dev team is to any project, and it gave me the courage to keep making games. I've struggled with performance anxiety for the longest time. THe critic in me had me convinced that only myself would enjoy my games. Curbing perfectionism may as well be its own skill in game development, because your projects will never be without mistakes. And releasing them requires its own skill set. I plan on releasing two post morterms, one reflecting my victories and the other listing lessons I learned. i hope that this devlogs will be useful to any aspiring developer!

Victory 1 - Making a Game Design Document before starting

My lead programmer praised me for finishing the game's story within three weeks. Even though we had roughly two months of development time, he was impressed by how fast I got the script written and edited. And I couldn't have done it without my Game Design Document (GDD). For those who don't know, a GDD is a document that essentially has everything about a game written down. For my visual novel, it had character profiles, aan outline of the story, any mechanics such as the lore entries, and a report of all assets that the game would need. This helped immensely, not only in directing my teammates, but also because my recruitment posts had the GDD listed. I genuinely believe that I wouldn't have gotten as many volunteers without it. The outline gave me a roadmap to writing the story, and it gave the volunteers a rough estimate of how it would play out. I probably spent wayyy too much time on the outline, an I will try not to make the same mistake again. For your next jam project, I highly recommend writing up a GDD. It doesn't have to be professional, mine certainly wasn't. It just needs to give you and your volunteers an idea of what's to come. Anyone can say they're making a game, so a GDD sets you apart from the herd.

Victory 2 - Cohesion

As I said before, I was very lucky. Throughout the production, only two people drop out of the team. These instances were due to life issues, and I was able to remain on good terms with the individuals. But it cannot be overstated how unstable game jam teams can be. We have to remember that these people are usually working for free, so they have little to lose by dropping in the middle of production. It happens so much that it may as well be expected to some degree if you're not working with people who know you. With that said, our group had amazing cohesion! Everyone communicated well, probably better than myself. And my Voice Actor director assisted me with leading the voice actors, something I had never done before. The disagreements were minimal, and handled professionally. I wish I knew how to get cooperation as great as my own, so here are some pointers that might help.

1.  Be empathetic and eager to praise - This is obvious, but it can't be overstated. These people are volunteering their time. Life happens, and it will happen at the worst possible moment. One of my artists got Covid three days before release. Was it stressful? Absolutely! However I thanked them for their hard work and devised a strategy to get around them being sick. Lucky for me, they recovered quickly. I also took every opportunity to praise my teammates. I tried to take time out of my day just to let them know how grateful I was for their help. I often praised them on my twitter posts, tagging them and leading my followers to their page. This is a no-brainer, but it really makes a difference. And I plan to take this approach; whether my projects be commercial or for fun.
2. Welcome creativity - I think it goes without saying that being a stickler for details on a jam project isn't the best approach. While having a concept in mind is fine, I've found that my artists enjoyed it when I encouraged them to make some additions of their own. Desiree originally didn't have a fluorescent tail or a pendant, and her design came out a lot better than expected! Some of the voice actors delivered lines better than I anticipated, and I had no idea what made for a good cover photo. it became less about making assets and more about having fun. Consider trying a similar approach on your next project. You may be surprised with what your teammates come up with!
3. Relax - I had to remind myself to chill over and over throughout the development. As a developer, it's easy to see every imperfection and every inconsistency in your game. The day before release, I went on what I like to call a bender; with me scrambling to polish every nook and cranny in the game. I couldn't stop shivering as I clicked the publish button. But in the end, jam projects aren't meant to be perfect. They're meant to be expressions of our skill and creativity within a deadline. And an unfinished, wou;d-be-perfect project is also worse than a half-assed build stuck together with hot tape and glue. It''s important to remember that morale is often determined by the leader's demeanor. A stressed captain will take a ship down with him. So have fun!

Victory 3 - Writing Sprints

Our project had over 28,000 words in it, which were then seen by two editors after I myself edited. Being unemployed does give you way too much free time, however I only spent two to three hours writing a day. I just maximized my output with writing sprints. If you aren't familiar, a writing sprint is an exercise writers use to pump out as much content within bursts of productivity. My sprints involved writing for twenty-five minutes, taking a five minute break, then repeating. You don't have to be a writer to do this either. Sprinting is a popular way for others to stay on task. You could type in "writing sprint videos" and do anything really. Fair warning, these sprints can be exhausting, so feel free to start small if you aren't feeling up to twenty-five minute bursts. I highly recommend Abbie Emmons's videos on Youtube. She has sprints that utilize music, and sprints where she answers questions during the break.

Victory 4 - Marketing Plan

Marketing is easily one of the most daunting aspects of game design. Forget release anxiety, imagine posting about your game to Twitter; a site notorious for its toxicity! And us visual novel developers are already marketing a niche topic, with english visual novel developers having a bad rep because of all the low effort (porn) entries on Steam. I've struggled with these demons forever, and I can empathize with anyone who might be afraid. So a jam project is the PERFECT time to practice! For starters, you're paddling a FREE game! You're selling a good time with no charge! That alone would make people want to try your project. And with jam projects not being AAA by default, you have more leeway marketing one than a commercial project. In fact, the reason I chose to make Tears of A Mermaid was because I had crippling release anxiety. I've been working on my dream project and it looks great, but I was too terrified to release it. I kept asking myself, "Who the hell would enjoy your game besides you". And with this project under my belt, I feel a lot more confident. And I believe that using jam projects to practice releasing games is a great strategy for aspiring game developers. 

Now comes the question; how do I market my game? There's too many answers to this question, and no resolute strategy. I look to my consumers like squirrels that get distracted by every shiny they spot. I keep bouncing back between Baldur's Gate 3 and Granblue Fatasy Versus Rising, so I speak from experience on this. So here are a few pointers that you can use for marketing your next project.

1. Set your expectations low - When I posted about my game's release to Twitter, it got 11 reposts, 2 Quotes, 22 Likes, and 3 Bookmarks. When I posted it on r/visualnovels, the post got 31 upvotes with one person offering to make a video on my game. When I checked my analytics of the game Day 3 of release, it had only amassed 21 downloads and 17 collections. Now these numbers are pretty good by a jam game's standards, but a "successful" jam project on itch gets around 100 downloads. What's that? 100 is a small number? Well I imagine Rockstar executives would need an exorcist if Grand Theft Auto VI only got 100 downloads, but we aren't executives. Mind you, this was AFTER a successful marketing campaign on Twitter. There are a lot of factors that could've led to these numbers, but ultimately your first game is going to be a flash in the pan. Isn't it great that your first game was a jam project and not your magnum opus? Now it's not impossible for your project to get spotted by a big influencer, but it's also a good idea not to expect that to happen. So use this opportunity to experiment with your marketing.
2. Pick one social media platform - Here's the thing, if you're directing a project, you're only going to have so much energy leftover for other tasks. It's nice when you have a marketing director to handle the posting for you, however you might not always find one. So trying to market a game on multiple platforms might not be the best use of your time. The ultimate goal of a jam project is finishing it. Therefore, I highly recommend sticking to one social media platform. I posted on Twitter, and would make posts every now and then to Reddit. It is true that focusing on only one platform does hinder your game';s visibility, but most jams only give you 1-3 months to finish a game. Use the opportunity to try and master the platform, and to build your following for future releases.
3. Schedule your marketing - Consistency is key in marketing campaigns. If people know when to expect your posts, they'll be more likely to tune in. But I encourage you to go further and set a day just for marketing. Schedule this week's content, and then you don't have to touch social media unless you get replies. It helped me to get all of my stuff taken care of on Monday, so that I could focus my time on development. As for my schedule, I posted every tuesday, friday, and sunday. This gave some space between posts in case I couldn't figure out what to talk about, and those days weren't on big marketing days for twitter (#indiedevhour, #screenshotsaturday). Every now and then, I'd fluctuate, usually because someone said something hilarious in our discord, but my schedule was firm. But for a jam project, you can get away with posting one a week! That's much easier to set up compared to my schedule, and you could probably knock out a month's worth of posting in a single day! And if you're feeling froggy, expand it to twice a week! One post will always be greater than zero.
4. Beware of Saturation - So on Twitter, there are days where certain hashtags are used. #Indiedevhour, for example, is used by indies on wednesday to post about their progress. With such a popular hashtag on my post, surely my post will go viral! Nope. I did some experimenting and found that any post I made during #indiedevhour got LESS views than my other posts. Since everyone is posting on that day, you're more likely to get buried under the masses unless you pay Musk for verification, and even then bigger fish will be seen before you. So if you're using Twitter or any platform with similar hashtags, try to post on other days, and if you do post on those days, do so with the idea that you won't be seen. I normally posted funny screenshots on Wednesdays for example. I could go into detail about other hashtags that are overused, but I'll leave it to you to look into those yourself.

Victory 5 - Courage

In the end of the day, game design is a hard road to walk. I took a leap of faith with this project, and it paid off. But I'd be lying to you if I didn't question myself every night throughout it's development. 28,000 words is way above the length of most jam projects, and I also added in the lore compendium on top of that. When my editor asked if we could hire voice actors, I was terrified. When we recruited our sound composer, I was terrified. When we recruited our GUI designer, I was terrified. I didn't know anything about any of those fields, let alone how to lead them. I was scared of my story as well. If I had the time, I would've expanded on the middle of the story; giving the player more time with Aurielle and Jory, and more reason to fear the reverend and Orpheus. My visual novel only had a floating animation for sprites underwater,, so the sprites were stagnant for most of the game. There were plot holes too! Did anyone wonder why Aurielle wore only a dress during the Winter? Jory had his chest exposed to the elements too. Hell, none of the characters looked equipped to handle the cold, and it was too late to address the plothole because I had to focus on testing. We also had a massive team of people for me to lead, all volunteering their time because I liked one disney movie. What I'm trying to say his…the whole experience was scary! This victory proved to me that I had what it takes to lead, and now I'm considering leading my own studio once I get more projects under my belt. I've got plans for NaNoReMo jam in March, and I look forward to honing my skills as a designer.

I hope you got something out of this post mortem. My next entry will be focused on the mistakes I made, and boyy did I make a lot… If you enjoyed the read, consider giving me a follow and keep on rocking!