Dev Log 5: The First Project

The past few days, maybe even weeks, have been a string of incredible grey, foggy days, with snow and ice here and there. I’ve developed a funny routine of smiling into the fog and saying “Hello Ellie.” (In fact some friends do that too now.) Who would have known that I would have developed such a connection to it.

If it were the old me, I used to have that sort of connection to the sky, the wind, and the rain. I wonder if that story will ever come to light.

Since the last dev log I have gotten some feedback, and one that made me smile. It’s making me think even more about those future plans. For that feedback, thank you, and of course, for people who want to give more feedback, learn more about the game, or just chat, please join the discord, I am there an unhealthy amount.

Back to your regularly scheduled content.

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I always envisioned Achlys as rough around the edges.

I hope that the game has sharp strengths precisely because of the edges and abrasiveness.

Due to its evolution from a sandbox H game into an overly broody kinetic novel, lots of things such as the structure of the game and the navigation were set in stone as the rest of the game shifted around it. The idea of a dream world and a regular world was to mirror persona, but also to present a duality between the two realms. However, it became confusing and not fleshed out. Pacing was also completely an afterthought because my idea was actually to create something that is more atmospheric in mood and tone than pointed and plot driven. The idea was that a lot of games like persona or other vn’s try to create the idea of characters with personality and an inner world, with a plot to show it off, but they do not spending enough time to go delve deeply into what the character may think about the plot, or what type of coffee they may life.

This specifically led to Jessie’s first cafe scene, and was part of the aha moment that led me to make Achlys different.

I envisioned a game where you get so deep into the character’s inner monologues, and daily life that they begin to feel like people. Admittedly that sounds parasitic, but it was something I noticed from Vtubers and Gacha games, which doesn’t help my case either. In COVID, with the amount of time people have been stuck at home, those things became social outlets. (Honestly, I have full belief that the ripple effects of it are something that has changed society.) I wanted to create characters who understood the isolation and loneliness, and talked about it. After all, there was a lot of time to think and brood.

There was a scene in this movie, admittedly I only watched the ending scene and can’t remember the name without googling, but this guy runs up to the aisle to interrupt the wedding and runs off with the bride on the back of a bus. The scene doesn’t end however, as the characters recover from the exhilaration and shock of the event and become weary, confused, doubtful, and possibly regretful. To me, it was such an incredible instance of deconstruction, where this image of romance was deconstructed through elongated, uncomfortable time, as reality sets in. I wanted to take it further and go even farther past that. Once the shock wears off, the doubt sets in, but eventually a person gets to think through their doubts too. That is where the dates set in.

The dates were designed as an elongated motion for the characters to examine themselves, the world, and their relationship with the world. You know exactly how Lauren feels about Ellie’s coma, and how Chloe for better or worse barely acknowledges it. You know that Maya is protective and overbearing, in an almost Oedipal sense, and how Jessie is paralyzed by thought and indecision.

In fact, in one of the foundational planning documents for Achlys, the characters were first envisioned as personifications of their reaction towards trauma, COVID, the fog, Ellie, etc. Chloe was meant to represent a very American sense of pragmatism of focusing on practical issues/ignoring COVID exists as much as possible/only taking from things like philosophy where it helps the day to day. Jessie originally was meant to be meaner, and represent cold detachment, and blaming the victim. She evolved into neurotic passivity and anxiety, (and many other insults which indirectly are levied at me.) Lauren was meant to be a “thoughts and prayers” sort of girl. 

What I focused on after that, and something I got great feedback from a friend for, was taking these known archetypes and giving them enough depth and flavor to subvert some of these expectations. Said friend hates those sort of sunshine-y girls in her own life, but ended up enjoying Lauren.

Had I gone further with the sandbox VN style, I even had a section for things like shopping at the grocery store where I had planned out a long number of lines and responses to when someone clicked the “How Are You?” button, to really make it feel alive. This is why this exists in the intro of the game but nowhere else. It was supposed to evolve and change after each major scene progressed. I envisioned Achlys as a game that you poured time into in a dark room staring at the screen, where you really do feel the isolation, and the fog. (Sort of like how it was made.) Alternatively, you could also play Achlys in pieces, one scene a day when you have free time to allow the ideas of the game to sink in and repeat.

I was under the impression that in general, the first project always sucks, and it's the second project where the creator can learn from their mistakes and get it right. Oftentimes the creator makes a small first project to prove they can do it and take those lessons into a second project that they actually release instead of being wedded to early mistakes.

Unfortunately for me I am stubborn.

Ultimately, if you can’t tell from the other dev logs, (then wait until the additional ones posted) I had put a lot of thought into the game and tried to put together so many moving thoughts together. My own ambition led me to try to do so much, and thankfully I somehow managed to complete the game, which I am coming to believe is quite rare, as opposed to continuously extending it. There were so many ideas that I wanted to spotlight, so many hints I put in, (believe it or not I am tempted to put in minor edits as I get more ideas) and so many images I wanted to have in the game.

The title screen, which admittedly is a bit too dark for it to appear well when small, was something that I had envisioned for years. In fact I wanted the water to move and wash on the hair but that sort of rendering is not something I wanted to tackle. The still however, looks exactly as I had dreamed of for years, which was very pleasing to me.

I gained a lot of experience writing Achlys Book 1, and there’s a lot of things I have learned and can take away, depending on what I want to do next. There’s a few things I want to prove to myself, which I could try in smaller projects, but I could also tackle Book 2, or even make a complete separate but large project. (Were I to make a Book 2, I think it would look quite different in many ways, I have some ideas.)

I have a lot of ideas, but also no concrete ideas yet, but here are some thoughts I've had. In general this time I would like to focus on creating a more tight knit and singular focus. Achlys by design is incredibly ambitious, where I wanted to go for a new idea or style of writing every chance I could get. It is so expansive it’s hard for me to pin down and stop, but I don’t want to. If I were to make a smaller or separate project I would like to try to reel myself in a little.

I’d probably pull it back in terms of elongated character dialogues as well (I say this now but let’s see if I can help myself), still long by general standards, but more to a point, or to push a plot forward. Speaking of which I’d probably chase a more intelligible plot as well.

However all of those tweaks would in fact take the uniqueness out of Achlys which is why I would want that for something separate, unless I were confident I could keep the soul of Achlys.

Because of how I microfocused on character interactions and slight variations on mood, I felt it was absolutely necessary to render out every shift in posture to accommodate and make them feel like real people. In the future in another project, I doubt I could go for that again, given how long it took.

(However, I’ve come to believe in a form of Yin and Yang in terms of dev. During the creation process I had exerted all of my creative juice and ideas outward, and for a new project, to make it truly worthwhile, I would need to spent some time absorbing that energy in. Unfortunately in the meanwhile, it feel as if I’ve become creatively impotent, indecisive, and distracted. In fact when reading over the comments I made earlier about my goals for a next project, I already want to add addendums and corrections, but feel that it would be pointless.)

All in all, while I do have a lot of things that I think make Achlys flawed, I also see it as a game that tries to do so much, and doesn’t fall under its own weight. For that, I am deeply proud.