So, I rolled out my LD 30 entry, and there was quite some buzz about it, judging from the number of rankings placed as well as the coolness rating. And to be honest, I would have expanded everything in this visual novel — especially when I read the comments section and taking the criticisms to heart. As a solo participant, I knew very well the brunt of writing the full story line beforehand, coding the entire thing in Ren’Py, making the backgrounds and UI, and reading the entire thing over and over again to catch bugs and grammatical errors — all in three days.<\/p>\n
Hopefully, within this year, I will give e|merge<\/em> the polish it so deserves. Here are some things to be done.<\/p>\n 1. Expansion of the story is first priority. 1,800 words is not enough to convey the melodrama I wanted to impart, combined with the theme. Without handing out spoilers, I will definitely iron out some kinks and plot holes for maximum clarification.<\/p>\n 2. Rework the UI. \u00a0One comment stated that the text did not make full use of the game (or quite not the game)’s 1366 x 768 resolution. Fortunately, Ren’Py’s NVL mode\u00a0allows room for fully-customized NVL windows, as demonstrated in a recent favorite visual novel\u00a0of mine, Sepia Tears<\/a>.<\/p>\n 3. Some hints of interaction would be nice. Name inputs? Choices? Anything interactive can apply — as long as it does not mess with the essence of the story.<\/p>\n So there. Expect a new and improved\u00a0e|merge<\/em> some time this year. Excuse me while I’m still recovering from flu.<\/p>\n <\/p>","time":"August 27th, 2014 6:26 pm","title":"e|merge: Post-mortem thoughts"}