Before you read this postmortem, please note that I’m specifically describing what I felt through the process and I’m not at all critical of what you’ve taken away from this project.

1) The Original Idea

I came across the O2A2 VN Jam while figuring out what to do for another jam. For the latter jam, I’ve hit upon an idea that seems delicious, but it’s so big that I felt like I should go for something else shorter and simpler. At the same time, I thought the restrictions of the visual novel jam were so loose coming after the Neo Twiny Jam that I decided to impose myself further restrictions (more on that later). I immediately thought up three settings I was familiar with and could explore, but my partner helped me choose the most interesting of the three: the Asian supermarket.

The Asian supermarket (specifically, the ones in Chicago) is a place that conjures lots of memories for me. I always visit it with my parents when I was still studying Fiction Writing a million years ago. In general, I have many bittersweet memories with Chicago. It was my first time living by myself, on foreign soil, etc.

This train of thought led me to another memory I’ve had: the passing away of my cousin from cancer. I wasn’t too close to her, but I remember being shocked when she passed away at 25 years old and I asked my family if I could visit her funeral. That was unreasonable of me, but the cousin’s family was appreciative of the sentiment. I was like 18 then, so I kept thinking how I’m so likely to survive longer than her and see more experiences than she could ever had. Well, I was right. I’m going to be 30 in a few months and I just think about how short a life my cousin has lived.

I thought these two memories sutured together would make a nice short story. I knew the ending was vaguely about the protagonist eating a whole jar of Lao Gan Ma. That’s all I needed to write the story.

2) Further Restrictions

Before this jam, I was inside the Neo-Twiny Jam where games must be 500 words or less. I found this restriction liberating and interesting. Since I believed (and still believe) the O2A2 Jam restrictions of 1,000 words and the inclusion of audiovisual elements were too easy for me, I decided to impose some new ones:

• It must be lesser than my previous game, June 1998, Sydney (499 words). I thought highly of this game because I was able to condense three personally tinged scenes into this short story. Surely, I must be able to surpass this.
• No dialog.
• No extraneous descriptions. Everything must be necessary (i.e. it sets the scene). I wanted to see how far I can go with the minimalist storytelling, hence the lack of interiority in narration.
• I’ll be using another engine that I’m sure most people haven’t heard of: Super Videotome. I had little experience with it, but after finishing this game, I must say that it’s a pretty good engine. I may consider returning to this if I ever have another visual novel idea.

I’m sure people might see these restrictions as draconian, but that’s the only way to make me write.

3) The Process

That said, I found the game development too easy. It was too smooth, almost rote-like. My first draft was already below 600 words and it was not too difficult to cut random lines I added in to ground myself (but not necessary for the reader). I recall using Archer Avenue to set the Asian market location and it was also going to have a name too – what it is, I’m forgetting right now.

I also wasn’t a fan of how the story, in my view, turned into a tragic romance story. But I think it was the only thing that makes sense for the protagonist, so I let it be.

As I went further into game development, I just found the process tedious. I knew what I exactly needed, what things to cut, and at the same time it isn’t really my story. One of the things that I wanted to show is how the Mingming character was young and the protagonist was gonna survive longer than she’ll ever be, but it kinda became this story about missing their lover who fell ill to cancer.

I guess I don’t view this story as ambitious, as anything stronger than Sydney. I kept hyping myself with this story because I wanted a work to have something grander than Sydney, so it was psychologically deflating to end up with a good romantic story about someone you love passing away so early on.

I tried my best to recuperate the story by making it more sicko: initially, I wanted the protagonist to buy a spoon to scoop out Lao Gan Ma, but I realized it’d be sicker to just have her drink it like a beverage. Instead, it made the romance more tragic. I realize no matter what I was doing, the story has a mind of its own and is refusing to bow down to what I want it to do.

In other words, I realized I was becoming a boomer parent trying to make their zoomer child behave instead of learning to let them go.

I knew I couldn’t add any meaningful contribution to this work without ruining it, so I published this game and hoped for the best. If you are wondering why I wrote “I’m tired.” at the end of the game, that’s me being exasperated and sick at the title.

4) Reception, Reflection

So, imagine my surprise when I saw the game appear on Fresh Games and get talked about elsewhere. I knew the visual novel might get some positive reception from friends, but it was confusing for me to see it get more than 50 ratings. It’s likely going to surpass the statistics for my first game, Hanna, We’re Going to School, and I’m still bemused by this.

It was interesting to see so many responses to this game. I don’t believe it got attention because it was a visual novel compared to my text-only adventure games; I just think there’s something in that game that speaks to people, just not me.

I’ve replayed the game several times to get any feeling from the work and I think it’s a good game, but it’s quite marred from how I wasn’t able to find any interesting self-discovery moments while producing the game. It’s so strange to play a game that you have memories of making, but you just feel emptiness.

At the same time, I’m glad people I’m influenced by like Taylor McCue liked the game. The comments I’ve read are pleasing to read and I’ve tried my best to respond to most of them. It’s cute to see people say it’s the best work at least.

As the O2A2 Jam is drawing to a close and I’m starting development on my newest game, I start to wonder if there’s any lessons behind this tortured(?) game development process. I guess I’ve come up with a few:

• I don’t particularly care about a work I love making getting attention as long as the people I respect got to play it and it still speaks to me. I enjoyed creating Their Time in This World, a game few people have played; it was an eye-opening experience to me and I’m glad I got to make that game.
• I need challenge, difficulty, and limitations. What’s exciting about game development is not the product but the process: the problems you’re solving, the unique solutions you’ve come up that remain personal to you, and so on. If I find the game development too easy, it just feels too unearned.
• If it’s also too easy, I find the stuff I couldn’t add in even more frustrating. The major theme that provided the impetus of the game, that I’ve lived longer than my cousin, couldn’t fit in the game. Its omission was so glaring that I just got pissed.
• I think I need to write something different, unplayable, and weird once in a while before I do something like this again. My mind goes back to Their Time in This World since that’s just a MYST-styled adventure game and how radically different it is from Hanna. A part of me fears of pigeonholing, but I also think I need different settings and ideas to really work my brain up.

As a result, my next game is likely to confuse new followers (hello!) because it’s gonna be something else entirely. If you don’t like the next game, that’s fine! I need to do something very different before going back to REALISTIC QUEER DEPRESSION GAMES. To take the title of this game, I MUST MAKE A SICKO GAME. This game only serves to amuse me and appeal to my eccentricities. If it has broader appeal than I realize, I welcome that – but that’s just a bonus.

I guess life imitates art in this way: the protagonist of I MUST EAT CHILI OIL has to do something really stupid to be closer to her ideal/partner; I am making a silly and obnoxious game to satisfy my own brainworms. This game, even if I don’t like making this game and don’t really see it as my own creation but something autonomous, is still reflective of my own pangs and desires.

Thank you for reading this postmortem if you do and I appreciate all the comments. It’s nice to see people enjoy this game.