so this is my first devlog published here on itch.io! before jumping into pre-production and greyboxing, i felt i should explain:

this is meant to be a very short play: i don’t plan on spending more than a week or two (for this first iteration at least!) for the most part, i’d like to try my hand at posting devlogs and creating a pocket-sized version of a project i might expand on.

now, onto pre-production and some background! i love making lists. online organisation, pen to paper, journaling, all of it. for me, it’s less about the actual planning aspect and more that it soothes my anxiety, helps me to sort out the mess in my brain. and most of the time, i find out that it’s not quite as messy up there as i thought it would be once it’s written down in front of me.

so here is this: a reminder that most of the time, the world isn’t trying to hurt you. it’s a matter of remembering the small things.

the idea for the written piece was inspired by one of my favourite poems, Wendy Cope’s ‘The Orange’, while the interactivity aspect was inspired by tools like Kind Words (lo fi chill beats to write to). experiences that marry a pleasing aesthetic with journaling/organisation/study tools are something I collect in my steam library like a little hoarding goblin with anxiety.

a theme, especially for a journaling tool, would have to work with the art and written text. i adore the way tools like Virtual Cottage and my.desk by the wonderful sez here on itchio (find her over @sez_yuu <3) use a main gorgeous art piece and incorporate panels that don’t take away from the centerpiece. i’d need to at least begin on the art that would accompany the words before i made a final decision on any panels or fonts. at the least, it’ll blend nicely with the colours in the artwork and i’ll likely use a blur or lower transparency behind the panel to make it pop:

sketching out the art to the story flowed naturally once I started - i did all the sketches first so I would have some placeholders to work with in Unity:

[a very messy opening and closing example]

["there is a warmness in today’s hand-knitted jumper, a thrift store pick that was made by someone’s grandmothers’ hand and..."]

["you don’t feel anxious at being out in public. you know this space."]

[initial character designs - initially i wanted a cute humanoid masked character, but decided on a more simplistic feminine character]

and speaking of working in Unity, look what we’ve got so far!

players will be able to read through the story like a dialogue system (a basic press-space-to-continue). i loved the idea of the text being hand-written, but hand-animating every single line is going to be pretty time-consuming, so instead I’ve chosen a quicker and messier bleed-out effect:

[hand-written text animation - i'll use this just for the title screen]

that’s all for now! i’ll likely post at least once more when the file goes up and document the process of importing my final assets and making everything work. a big thanks to sara - check out the my.desk prototype !! until then, take care and stay safe! <3