Developer thoughts for v1.0

The development of Finding Neuro

For months before this game jam even happened, even before Vedal revealed his plan to make a gam jam for the subathon (probably around the time darkeew announced they're developing a Neuro-sama themed game on Aug 26, 2023), I had the idea of making a game that follows a very similar path to that this game does.

In case anyone's curious, here's the original vision:

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Vedal wakes up, leaves bed. Makes a remark on how the place looks nothing like his home, but doesn't question it too much. Does a quick walk around his house before entering his room. Looks at the computer. Realizes Neuro is gone. Wonders what happened. Then somehow ends up getting sucked into the computer as he fiddles around.

Suddenly, he's in a different world. In a random order between Anny, Camila, Miyune, Filian, Numi, and OniGiri (probably not all, but a random choice), Vedal goes through their worlds, interacts with them, and tries to get info, only to not learn much, and then being told to "say it back". He plays random minigames with them against his own wishes - probably a quiz with Filian, finding Tof with Anny, security breach with Camila, and space adventure with Miyune. Not sure how he goes from one world to another, but at the end, he finds himself in a weird fortress/dungeon.

He walks through some corridors, and then finds himself face to face with Evil. Evil tells him that she took Neuro away from him because he never loved her. After an intense back-and-forth dialogue, they then have an even more intense fight  (probably something similar to the first phase of Solgryn in "I Wanna Be The Boshy", or just bullet hell) in a temp realm created by Evil. After Vedal rises victorious, he gets teleported to a softly lit corridor, with Neuro looking towards him. Vedal then goes on a huge essaying session, but in the end, says so many sweet things, and wins Neuro's trust back. They go home by walking south off screen. After that, we get credits.

After credits, we see a scene of Vedal at the computer. How did he escape? Why does he not question the weird 'sucked into computer' part? I don't know. Anyway. We also see a small chat box with chat messages on the top right. In the computer, Neuro is talking, and Vedal is talking back. Then Neuro says "I love you, Vedal." Vedal now gets a choice: (1) Say it back, (2) Don't say it back. Depending on the choice, the mini chat window showcases different reactions, but deep down, Neuro knows how Vedal still feels, so she doesn't mind either answer. Fade to "THE END" on screen.

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The reason why I never started developing on it early is just because I didn't think it would be worth it. Barely anyone would probably play it. Perhaps Vedal won't play it either, or at least definitely not on stream, and if he does play it, he might be disappointed by the final product, because it would be a relatively small project, and I like to be reservative in terms of rating my development skills. Due to lack of any time limit, he would probably expect way more. Also I'm kinda lazy ngl.

I originally didn't even think about joining the game jam. I didn't know what the theme would be, and I thought this current vision would be too ambitious as well. As the deadline got closer, I actually started considering the possibility more, but I still didn't know the theme, so I decided I would click "join" and then decide on the fly whether I'd actually submit anything or not, depending on if I get any ideas from the theme.

As you may have guessed, the moment Neuro said "Lost and Found", I was like "...uhhhhh... that kinda fits? But... Idk...". I was immediately trying to think of other potential ideas, but all of them lead back to my first vision. A few minutes later, I made my decision. "This moment is too perfect to pass up. This is my calling. This is my time to shine. This theme is made for me. And I have the free time."

(Honestly, I was like 70% sure I wouldn't complete the game on time, and would just post it in a Discord thread later once it's actually finished. And judging by how I only just barely finished the last part of the game 30min before deadline - I was right to be worried)

My goal was never innovation. It was to make a fully-fledged storytelling game. And I have a problem - if the game is story-focused, then all the rooms must feel special, complete, "alive". If there's a room that adds nothing, it's a bad room. And thus, I started developing my game in the worst possible way - making the game one room at a time, in chronological order. Luckily, I had already made a game in the past that uses the same style and base code, so I could kickstart my game with some copy-pasting.

Day 1 (72h remaining):

Apartment room 1 - Bedroom. Lots of interactable objects, and make it look busy, lively. If it looks bland, that won't do. I added so much detail to this room. It was a very slow start.

Apartment room 2 - Hallway. I only finished this room halfway before going to sleep. My brain was already cooked. I started worrying how I would complete this game in time.

Day 2 (55h remaining):

Apartment room 3 - Bathroom. Wanted to make it always dark, but didn't have an immediate solution, and wanted to be faster, so I kept it for later. That "later" came after the deadline.

Apartment room 4 - Kitchen. I added cheese on the table, but my implementation was so horrible that you can't interact with it or even see it, and every time I playtested, I kept forgetting it even existed. RIPBOZO cheese.

Apartment room 5 - Computer room. I actually only planned on adding one computer at first, but then remembered Vedal has a two computer setup, so I added a second one too. I also wanted to add something new and interactable in the room, and I decided to go with Gigavedal for teh lulz. I also ended day 2 on this room. My brain wasn't as fried as last night.

Camila room 1 - I found a cool underworld tileset, so I used that to make a cool area, and I made Camila. I wanted to add some actual gameplay, but I had no idea what do actually make for minigames. I left the day off here, and proceeded to think in bed.

Day 3 (32h remaining):

Camila room 1 - I spent the whole night in bed thinking about how I would implement my vision for the computer world. I decided to only do 3 characters, and to add two minigames - one bigger, one smaller - per character. I couldn't figure out how  to easily confine it in a single room, so I ended up splitting them between two rooms as a result. First room = looks pretty, has small minigame; second room = looks basic, has big minigame. I realized I have both torches and crystals from the tileset, so I made you turn the torches on in the first room as my "minigame".

Camila room 2 - And in the second room, I made a gigantic crystal breaking minigame, inspired by the shovel digging minigame from Link To The Past. It's easy to program, which is good cuz I lack time. I also decided to go with a portal transition, that seemed to fit (I also accidentally made it play the effect and sound 10 times instead of 1). I even added alternative dialogue based on how many breaks it took you to complete it.

Filian room 1 - I initially wanted to make it cyberpunk themed, but I couldn't immediately find a good tileset, so I said "I don't have the time. Screw it. Grassland, go!" The quiz seemed too basic, so I went with hide n' seek instead. Also I couldn't be arsed to add more transitions, so I just made you walk up off-screen at the end.

Filian room 2 - The race was also an idea I got last night. It took me longer to implement than I thought cuz Filian would cut corners, took me a while to find the reason why. Despite that, the victory jingle still bugged, cuz I implemented it horribly. The classic Filian neck snap joke was also in my vision from months ago, I had to fit it in there somehow. Also, I wanted a special transition to Anny, so I beamed you up.

Anny room - I literally don't have the time to add minigames. I wanted to make you find Tof... I also have no idea what I would add as 2nd minigame, and I thought it might be better it skip it overall. I also wanted to make Anny, as the mother, have a stronger reaction, but I had reached the end of day 3, I just wanted to be done with it, so I made Anny not question anything. Funnily enough, it ended up working out, because it feels like she's a motherly figure now. I had no idea how you would go to the dungeon though, so after browsing random tiles, I found a well. I never playtested the well tho, I just naturally assumed it would be fine, I've copy-pasted the interaction objects so many times, what could possibly be wrong with this one? :Clueless:

Day 4 (9h remaining):

Dungeon 1 - I wanted to do more with it, make it look more sinister, but my time was now very limited, and I hadn't even started on the boss fight yet. I rushed through this, and rushed the dialogue a bit, to get started on the fight.

Arena - While in bed last night, I was doing some intense planning on how to make the boss fight, and I came up with the perfect plan to reuse the dialogue code. It worked almost perfectly right off the bat, which was good, because I'm low on time! I think this fight was pretty good.

Dungeon 2 - Confronting Neuro. With like 2 hours left on the clock, I rushed through the dialogue, trying to make it long and dramatic, but also not too long, but also not too short. This moment was supposed to be emotional, but the rush was stressful. Fun fact - I never finished Neuro's sprite. She only ever faces down, so I never finished the facing left, up, or right sprites. I was on a time crunch where every minute mattered.

Credits - Credits. Copy-pasted straight from a previous project, and then sat through to make sure credits song ends early.

Post-Credit Scene - With like 1 hour left on the clock, I had to rush this out. I had no time for the choosing own option path, nor did I want to add that anymore, because I wanted to make this whole journey into a dream, and that would explain all the weirdness. I thought it would be funny this way as well, and it made sense. I started keeping things with default names, like "object134".

Title Screen - Originally, it only has the "play" button. I had just enough time left to add the title, and the "Interact with objects multiple times" text, just to make sure people would read all the dialogue... Only for some to not read the stuff on the title screen. Oof.

Song choices:

Pursuit 2002 - I already knew I was going to pick a panic song from Phoenix Wright series, but I didn't know which one. As I was writing the dialogue tho, this was playing in my head, so I knew I had to use this one.

Hell - I think you've all heard of the game called Celeste. Well, the came creator also made An Untitled Story, one of my favorite nostalgia games. It's very basic, but it does it all so well. It only has one fangame - An Unofficial Story. The game was never finished, but song songs are still bangers, my favorite being the purple hell one, and I thought it would fit super well.

Sunrise & Onett - I needed a basic grassland theme. I scrolled through some Earthbound OST and found this. Works for me.

Horse Race and Snowdin - These ones was pretty obvious. They just makes so much sense. Especially since Anny's area was initially reduced to being very basic and calm.

Devastation & Revenge - Had this left over from that previous project I mentioned. This is quite nice for tension.

Rapture - I had no idea what to pick here, but suddenly I thought of Super Meat Boy for some reason, and immediately Rapture came to mind. Even though it's a level theme, it fits so well for this boss fight as well, so I'm glad I thought of this.

His Theme and Last Goodbye - These ones were also pretty obvious. A heartfelt moment of sadness and Undertale just go hand in hand in this department, so of course I was choosing these both. I even split the first one into 3 sections and looped them appropriately for the special moment.

And that's my gigantic essay on the whole process. I have no idea why anyone would read this, but if you did, you're an absolute madlad. So anyway, that's how my vision came together, and how despite all odds, I managed to finish everything barely in time. Those final hours were so stressful. I only had time for 1 playtest after completion, and all I did was rush through the main path, just to make sure the main path works, so I once again missed the well softlock. And because my upload speed is like 0.7mbps, I started uploading ~25min early, and only submitted it ~7 minutes before deadline. Needless to say, I was never gonna get a patch out, even if I did learn about the softlock early (although some people got an extra chance to publish after deadline, but my softlock was discovered 3h later, so Alex no longer gave me the chance).

If there's anything to take away from this essay, it's that sometimes, through the power of sheer determination, you can make miracles happen.