Six-ish month Postmortem
Hey everybody!
I released this project six months ago, and I've had plenty of time to reflect on it and think about how much I hate it. Many of my complaints can be chalked up to "oh, you made it for a game jam so it's not so bad," but I don't want to hold myself to that kind of standard. First, let's go over what I think I did RIGHT:
- The overall quality of writing is good enough. It's not great, but I'd say it's in the higher end of the indie-VN spectrum
- The music is good (mostly). I'd improve upon it by making sure it all fits together better next time
Hoo boy. Now let's get into what I think I did WRONG:
- The structure of the story is terrible. Most VN's can be split into three major acts, which I did, but usually the structure is:
- Act 1: Introduction to all the characters and a healthy amount of filler to get to know them
- Act 2: Conflict and plot info dump
- Act 3: Resolution and endings
- Act 1: Introduction to characters and beginning conflict
- Act 2: A weird maze of choices where if you don't select the right ones you lose, but if you do you're stuck with a boring info dump
- Act 3: Rushed, unsatisfying endings
- The art. Oh my god, it's so bad. Even now, I'm not at a point where I'd be okay with publishing a non-jam game with my own art in it. I'm learning slowly and steadily, but art is a skill that takes years of practice to get good at. The background art is also particularly embarrassing, it's just a bunch of stock images I found online. I could have driven up to my grandma's house and taken pictures of country roads up there that would have matched each other at least, but I didn't. Live and learn.
- Serena is the only character who has a real arc. This is a serious problem with the narrative that I just didn't really think about. In the original plans, these were supposed to be the character arcs (SPOILERS):
- Serena learns that her irrational anger prevents her from looking at things objectively
- Harry's life is torn apart by the revelation that he killed several people subconsciously
- Kayla finally admits to herself that there are some problems she really just can't solve by herself
- Veronica accepts that her magic was tainted and works on learning how to fix it
- Tony tries to get over his lingering regrets about Jonah, but eventually accepts there's nothing he can do
I don't regret publishing this project, I learned a lot about game development, writing, art and other topics because of it. However, I definitely want to go back and improve upon the things I did poorly. This is not an announcement for a remake or anything like that, but I will put on the record that if I have time, I would very much like to redo it.
Overall, I'd give Radio Noise a 3/10 for the above reasons. I rushed myself, and delivered a poor product as a result. My upcoming game, The Demon On 12th Street, builds upon the narrative of Radio Noise, but I'm going to write it in such a way that it will not require the player to have played Radio Noise.
Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think in the comments.
Get Radio Noise
Radio Noise
A short story about a girl trying to learn the truth behind a series of mysterious deaths
Status | Released |
Author | Rainy Day Studios |
Genre | Visual Novel, Interactive Fiction |
Tags | 2D, Female Protagonist, Magic, Mystery, Ren'Py, sad, Singleplayer, suspense |
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.