Indiepocalypse #39 Release + O2A2 VN Jam this year

Indiepocalypse #39:

I can finally make the formal announcement that Find My Mind is included in Indiepocalypse #39 which has been recently released! 🥳 It's an anthology hosted by PIZZAPRANKS (Andrew) that features 10 alternative indie games for $15 which also includes a zine with additional content such as guest comic and dev postmortems.

"Find My Mind" will always remain free and available on my page, but this is a nice way to support multiple indie devs at once. I also understand that a lot of players don't have the financial means, so it's great too as a reference point for game discovery to less known devs. After all, it's a bundle that highlights any type of game genre from action to narrative mediums like visual novels, interactive fiction and bitsy, even including physical games like tabletop RPG. Therefore I highly recommend you to check out Indiepocalypse at the very least. I found Andrew's initiative to be really cool that instead of him approaching devs (apart from the tenth game that is specifically commissioned), a selection is made from the submissions for next month's edition which is open for anyone to apply. I'm grateful to be part of this.

O2A2 VN Jam:

My bad habit is to lump everything into a single post, even if it delays an announcement to be a little bit late, whoops. I brought it up on cohost, but for fans of O2A2, may you be a player or dev, I've got great news! O2A2 VN Jam 2023 ~ Queer Edition ~ just started not so long ago.

Faceless Date:

Right now I'm penning a story script for it. The VN is about 20-year-old lesbians on a first date,  because I was in the mood for writing a wlw story this time. It's always a bit hard to tell where the story goes because I've got a plot outline and somehow I still get off-track writing too much for the intro part. And for this reason I cannot fully reveal the VN other than its title as well: "Faceless Date", which I hope can stick since I like the tone of it and it already underwent a title change after reworking the main character's background. You might guess from the sinister choice of words that it's intended to be to be a thriller, except the draft is leaning so hard on cozy vibes. 😑 (...To spare myself the headache I can just convert the story to cute romance and call it done)

It's also  decided that Blossom VN Jam 2023 will serve as my inspiration for the aesthetics and setting. Can't wait to draw a lot of flowers! 🌸 I also hope to be able to replicate the soft pastel colouring you see in manga covers to somewhat evoke a josei style.

It's funny that I haven't actually released a VN so far with visible character faces, as humans in The Snowperson look weird in general and I wasn't allowed to do it per O2A2 VN Jam rules because I didn't use character sprites in Find My Mind. There will be character art this time, but not for the MC, although I might do bonus art after the jam when I'm more relaxed.

Even the Silver Knight panics:

I'm quite certain O2A2 is also returning in its usual incarnation in July 2023. And... I also got an idea for that one. It will be an elaborate Fire Emblem Sacred Stones shitpost BL comedy starring Seth and Cormag.  'Totally straight dude friendship' than explicitly romantic, but I'll certainly try my best at drawing beefcake eye candy for the audience (regardless if you asked for it or not).  Benefit of imitating the GBA FE background artstyle is that it can be created low-effort through compressing a real-life photo.

This sums up my VN schedule of this year. Anyway, I'll stop here, as otherwise I spent more time on a DevLog than working on game development. 😅 

While I'm happily typing down the ideas, I won't deny that I'm also worrying a bit if it's the right moment in April to participate in O2A2 VN Jam in combination with accumulated work stress from the last months that hasn't been properly settled yet.  Alternatively I just miss this one deadline and make sure to submit it for Blossom VN Jam which ends in May (that's the nice thing about long-duration jams).