Hi hello! This shall be my third postmortem for my fourth game. (I missed the one for Frankenstein's Catboy because life got in the way and now I can't remember what to say :"D)

In this postmortem, I'll go over my general thoughts on creating Meaning, as well as the challenges that happened during the way. Meaning features Sol and Chet from Moments, so I really wanted to make a game that would give them a satisfactory progression. It's very close to my heart so I'm excited to talk about it!

Writing

I started thinking about Meaning after making Moments, going so far as to make an outline for it. However, I shelved the idea after struggling with the script, and I'm glad I did. Back then, the original outline was nothing like the final game, being a different story altogether. It wasn't how I wanted Sol and Chet's story to go so I let it simmer for half a year... then tackled it again over the summer. This time, after half a year to think about the characters, I was happier with my writing.

Highlights of what could've been:

• In the original draft, there was a crimelord who owns a jewelry store. He kidnaps Sol and holds her ransom???
• Later drafts had Lyon actually speaking through a phone call, which was awkward for everyone involved. This got cut because it somehow made everyone look like jerks. Consequently, the call with Sol's mom was added near the end of development because I still wanted to use the phone sprite.
• Chet originally didn't have much on his mind, but then I gave him problems. He's insecure now!

UI

I started making the game by copying Moment's files to use as a framework. Because of that, I didn't have to program the UI from scratch... most of it, at least. I thought having a similar layout would be a nice callback to the prequel :)

That being said, I did implement some new features. The Auto feature is now available so you don't have to click through each line of text, and NVL style text was used for the letters. My early mockups of the textbox also experimented with different formats, including one where it goes to the bottom of the page.

Art

The art process for this was... vaguely brutal. That's all I can say about it!

At the time, I was burnt out from drawing lineart so I set out thinking I wanted a lineless style. This wasn't a bad idea in itself, in fact, it was a good idea given it motivated me to draw. However, it's harder for me to edit things when I'm painting over them, which resulted in a lot more time.

I too would be like ;^; if my boyfriend was scribbly and I was not. 

I later realized that I wanted more than flat colours with some shading, so I headed back to paint over it. 

The final sprites are cute... just look at Sol...

Whenever I start a project, I always think I can do more CGs than what actually makes it into the game. Which is why, if you get the bonus artbook, you can see all my unused illustrations :"D The decision to go with less CGs was mainly for clarity and flow, as few strategically placed illustrations > many illustrations for the sake of it.

Backgrounds

I went with my usual strategy of "filter stock images" which I'm comfortable doing for all my games now. Although it was strangely hard to find interior photos that are in workable perspective. So I might've spent longer on the backgrounds than I thought.

I wanted to make the backgrounds look like a watercolour painting to match the UI and this was one of my attempts. It's nice, I like it, but I also lost the settings ORZ

Also yes, that's "weird in-between phase Chet." Gaze upon him and his curtain bangs.

Programming

Since the game code was copied over from Moments, most of the programming was in place, along with the framework for things like sprite expressions (layered images). The bulk of my time was spent doing the animations (Chet's little bounces <3) and expressions, because I have to go through the script and set them line by line. Coding the eyes, mouth, and eyebrows individually is such a time sink -

As I get used to Renpy, it's fun seeing how my games have become more polished. 

Music

I chose music that was similar to the soundtrack in Moments because I thought that would be a nice touch. It would be nice to have original compositions but I have 0 musical sense, so perhaps this is the safest option for all of us...? In the future, unless I have something unusual to say about the music, I might leave it out of postmortems because most of it is "I picked these tunes" :")

All in all...

SOLCHET :D

They are my favourite characters ever... I wonder if another game featuring them might happen ;^; 

At the very least, I'll be posting whatever art and stories I make of them on my Twitter!