Four Takeaways to Consider

To start off, I'd like to thank all those reading for taking the time to check out our humble little visual novel! It's greatly appreciated.

This is H. Li speaking. In the project's four-person team, I was responsible for part of the script, the music, and the programming. I'd like to consider myself a multimedia artist, though I'm not particularly strong in any of my areas of interest ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

As mentioned on the store page, this project was made for a creativity-based school project. I've played through my fair share of visual novels before, and so has the rest of the project team. We thought a visual novel was a good way to touch upon various mediums of art (creative writing, music, visual art, etc.) in an efficient manner. 

The first sparks of this visual novel were ignited when the school project was announced in around April or May of 2020 (honestly, I can't remember anymore; life is too crazy nowadays). Fellow dev member J. Song approached me with the idea to create a visual novel, which I thought sounded like a great idea. Neither of us are any good at drawing, so we reached out to other classmates to help out with character sprites. 

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In my opinion, the essence of a team lies in how people with varying strengths can come together and fuse their skillsets to create a work that is, in a sense, greater than the sum of its parts. An ideal team experience is one where all members are very amicable with each other, and leads me into the first major takeaway I had from this project:

Get to know the people you're working with!

Ever wondered why it is that when meeting new people,  there's frequently an icebreaker? It's for this reason—to help everyone to get to know everyone else, and create a lively, amicable mood. I'd posit that a team of people who barely know each other aren't going to be nearly as effective as one where everyone gets along, but feel free to prove me wrong on this one. 

Above all else, working in a team is a great way to form strong relationships, either professional or personal, that people like you and I can depend upon in the future.

Oh, and of course, this takeaway doesn't apply to people working by themselves. 

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My second takeaway is a bit of a no-brainer, but I'll come out and say it anyways:

Don't procrastinate!

Procrastination is definitely one of the greatest evils of all humanity, and it was definitely something our group had to grapple with during the development of our game. As part of the assignment, we had to design a timeline for our project—when certain things would be done and so forth. The hard deadline for this school project was the end of the year, so our group considered this and created an appropriate timeline to match. 

But of course, the problem doesn't lie in creating a timeline; that's easy. The problem is following the timeline that you've set out for yourself. We had intended to have 90% of the game done by September. Unfortunately, this goal turned out to be far too idyllic. 

When September finally rolled around, I'd say that not even half of the game was completed. The script wasn't finished, the art was nowhere to be seen, and not a single line of code had been written.  As result, we spent far more time working on the project from September to December than we had anticipated, and it shows in the final game. 

If you've taken the time to play through it, you'll notice that for starters, the game is very short, and that secondly, the plot ends quite abruptly. I'd say that this was a direct consequence of all the procrastination that we did over the summer. What's uploaded right now is perfectly playable, but it's a shame that the plot isn't continued further. Curse you, procrastination!

To wrap up my thoughts here: remember to not procrastinate, and to follow the timelines that you set for yourself.

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The third takeaway I'd like to consider is closely related to the second one, and has to do with what really lies at the heart of procrastination. Put simply:

Stay passionate in what you're doing!

When people procastinate, it's because they don't want to do whatever it is that they're procrastinating on (duh). Ergo, I've concluded that this means there's a lack of personal interest/passion in the task. Upon first having an idea to create something, our minds are buzzing with ideas of what to do and what to implement. This excitement is a key driving force in the early stages of game development, and it shows that you're invested in the project. 

As development in the game continues, however, this excitement can start to die out. This can especially become the case when it comes time to actually make the game. We have all these great ideas of how the game will turn out, but when it comes time to actually put in the effort to achieve those visions, it can be mentally draining. 

In the case of our project, personal motivations weren't the sole factor driving development forward—there was also the ever-present project deadline, looming over our heads. Deadlines can be a great way to motivate yourself to keep working, but I'd wager that personal interest and passion are far better motivators. 

And that isn't to say that our group wasn't passionate in the project; we were. However, even those who are very passionate can slowly start to lose motivation as the days roll by, which holds for a lot of other things, besides game development. A quick google search will supply you with near endless ways to stay motivated, and I'm sure great things can happen when creators can stay passionate in what they're doing.

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When developing a game, creators often envision what their final product will look like. We dream of how great our finished game will look and how profound the story will be. Sometimes, these visions can start to become unrealistic. My fourth and final takeaway is related to this:

Recognize and acknowledge your limitations.

In every genre of video game, there are works which are hailed as being truly great. Every visual novel creator wants to create the next masterwork, like Higurashi or SeaBed (which are some seriously great games), but those works involve exceptional amounts of artistic vision  and skill. 

I don't mean to be a pessimist, but chances are that the works that we produce won't be able to hold a candle to the greatest games out there. And that's perfectly okay. No one's holding a gun to your head and demanding that you create a masterpiece (At least, I really hope that's not the case). As long as you've acknowledged your limitations and tried your best, then that's all that matters. 

In some cases, external influences can limit the scope and breadth of your project. For us, it was the hard end-of-year deadline, but maybe other people will have other limitations, whether they be extrinsic or intrinsic. To tie into previous takeaways, I'd say that procrastion and issues with motivation often make for powerful personal limitations.

If you can make the next legendary, genre-defining game, then by all means, go ahead and do it. But if, like me, you can't, then I worry about it. You should never expect yourself to be the best, but it's always good to strive to be better. As an inspirational pinterest quote puts it, "it's not about being the best—it's about being better than you were yesterday." A powerful messsage, for sure.

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To reiterate my four main takeaways from this project:

1. Get to know the people you're working with.
2. Don't procastinate.
3. Stay passionate in what you're doing.
4. Recognize and acknolwedge your limitations.

That about wraps up the major takeaways I personally had while working on this project. All of these takeaways are things that people say all the time, but the strongest takeaways are the ones that we personally come to realize as being true through experience, rather than the ones we simply read about online. To those still reading (thanks for sticking around!), I hope that you'll start to consider what I've been considering over the past eight or so months. 

I hope everyone has a great 2021!