Considering it's also Shard of My Soul's two-year anniversary, I thought I'd make this an actual post, even though it's harder for me to write this kind of stuff than Kat's story itself. Anyway...

TL;DR: Random fragments of my somewhat incoherent thoughts, which are probably not very interesting to read.

It's been two years and ten chapters since the initial release, so you'd think I'd be much wiser regarding game development. You'd be right if you replaced 'much' with 'a tiny bit'.

So then, what did I actually learn?

• Continuous development has its own specific challenges, but it's an engaging and organic way of creating the story. I personally love it.
• It's important to plan the story ahead, but the more details you plan, the more you'll have to eventually change. But that's life I guess.
• It's okay to write an awesome dialogue/scene and throw it away. Don't force it in if it doesn't fit, no matter how brilliant I think it is.
• There will be bugs. Accept it.
• Ren'Py is not like Python. It's Python's erratic and tricky cousin, who throws a wrench in the works when you least expect it. Or in your face.
• The sooner a (potential) problem is addressed, the easier it is to fix. This applies especially to code or art that will be reused a lot.
• Potential problem = actual problem in the next chapter.
• The best way to ensure that the dialogs flow nicely is to talk through them. Out loud, ideally.
• Don't force stuff on players; if it makes sense, why not let them choose? (Well, uh, cause they choose wrong all the time? I mean, how could you decline to kiss her... you're playing my game wrong!)
• Just to clarify: There's no wrong way to play the game. That means accounting for all the possibilities, even extremely weird ones (after all, the game can be played under influence...).
• It's best to store every choice a player makes in-game; at worst, it will be useless; at best, it will make future interactions easier to write, enable richer and more natural dialogs, and provide cleaner code.
• Don't go easy on the game characters. Sometimes they just happen to get into a strange or shitty situation. It's their own fault. I'm not taking any blame.
• Always grammar-check every bit of text (yes, even itch.io posts).

That's it. Hey, I warned you it's not going to be interesting, and I have nothing else to say today.

Happy Halloween!