Welcome to yet another Rant pretending to be a post mortem! But before that, the full version of the game is now out! It includes:

• 8.9k words in total
• 3 endings
• 3 CGs with variants

I would have liked to add in more CGs, but I have my main projects to get back to and I'm honestly pretty happy with how all the art turned out for this! I hope y'all enjoy the updated version!

Postmortem (spoilers abound)

This game is probably my most self indulgent game to date, and you know what, I should make games like this more often. For whatever reason at the start of August I was in the mood to rewatch the Pirates of the Caribbean movies again (I'd last seen the original ones when I was about 13, the fifth one I saw when it came out in theaters). I had pretty much forgotten 90% of the story, and I immediately became obsessed with pirates for the rest of the month. When I remember Velox Fabula was coming up, I was like 'Hey! I'll make a pirate game!' I'm very lucky the theme that one was one that made it easy to fit a pirate tale in to.

Theme

'You shouldn't be here' was the theme, and this is actually what made me incorporate The Little Mermaid into this! I've always had a fondness for the original tale and the tragedy that it was (and how it was likely a gay allegory). I also just like when mystical or magical creatures are in places they don't belong.

I wanted it to be a bit of a switch of who the "you" for the theme was supposed to be. At the start, it's Captain Ambrose, because he's a wanted pirate on the run. But the real "you" was always Matheo. Both the witch Dolores and the Sea want him off the lands. It isn't where he's meant to be. A siren belongs in the ocean, and his choice to give that up doesn't rest well with either of them.

Characters

Matheo and Ambrose went through a lot of changes when the jam started, just because the vague original idea I had went through a lot of changes. It was originally about Matheo hunting down Ambrose to demand answers for the crimes he's committed. They were a lot more antagonist towards each other. Matheo was sharper. Ambrose was crueler.

But then the theme was revealed, and it shifted things. Matheo shifted a lot, and I think he became a lot more morally grey in the process. He also wasn't originally trans, and that realization definitely shifted things with some of his thought processes and how he views things. For not having much time with him, I think he became a lot more complex by the end of this project. He can be very unserious, yet calculating. He cares deeply about his life, but will also easily throw it away if he can't choose said life. He also doesn't mind skirting morals if it means there's hope at the end.

Ambrose also became far less cruel and a lot more...guilty? Now that he has nothing left to his name, he can suddenly reflect on the life he's lived and acknowledge that he hasn't been a good person. This reflection also doesn't automatically mean he's willing to change, either. He'll say he's not a good man, and claim guilt for what he's done, and then still threaten Matheo. All the contradictions both these characters had made them very fun to write.

Finally, we have Dolores who was a very Last Minute character. For The Little Mermaid theme to work, I wanted there to be a character to represent that past. The sea very much acts like its own character in this at the end, but I wanted something more tangible, and thus Dolores was born. Dolores is strange to talk about because I wouldn't exactly say she's a villain, but she is an antagonist. She wants what she thinks is the best for Matheo, and not what would actually be best for him. It creates this very unhealthy dynamic of "I know what's best for you. You're just being foolish" which, when paired with the implications of Matheo's transness is very uncomfortable. It's also why Matheo so actively dislikes her, despite how she presents herself.

Fun fact, this is also the first Velox entry where there were 3 main characters instead of 2! I think a story with only two main characters is super easy to do for a jam, but it was nice to change the story dynamic a bit by having another character. I also think it's a lot easier to do with ten days vs 4 days or 36 hours lol

The Story

For the first time in Velox Fabula history, I did not want to write something dark and/or tragic LMAO While I wouldn't say this is light hearted, it isn't exactly a grim tale either. I'm not sure what exactly to call the tone, but when you look over my itch profile, this is definitely the lightest you're going to get. This is also why I decided that this counts for my 2024 goal of making something happy, because this is as happy as it's going to get asdakjfs

Anyway, I had fun doing a pirate retelling of The Little Mermaid! I'm glad I shifted gears and went with a retelling instead of a revenge tale, and while I know there are some people sick of retellings I love them so much and it was nice to finally do my own!

The Jam Itself

Long story short, I got a chest infection on the third day of the jam!! I have been sick for every jam I've done this year officially (Velox Formido, O2A2, and now this one) and at this point it just circled around from tragic to funny in a very ironic way. However, because of this I couldn't do most of what I wanted to do. I'd get home from work and was just so tired I'd (attempt to) knock out. Except my cough would keep me up all night, so. I was pretty much exhausted the entire time. I also lost days going to the doctors and getting everything checked out, so I ended up losing a lot of time to actually work on this game.

Because of this, I ended up hyperfocusing on everything I couldn't or wouldn't be able to do and really did not care for it at the end. I almost didn't submit because I was like "I wanted to do x, y, z and I wasn't able to, and so this is bad." Which, really, was just the exhaustion talking. I think me having such a 'fuck it we ball' approach to my work is the only reason I was able to hit the submit button for this game at all. And honestly? I'm glad I did.

I took a break from looking at it for a week and just went through and enjoyed playing everyone else's entries for the jam (side note, I say this every time, but if you haven't checked out the other entries please do!). When I came back to do the post jam update I didn't despise it anymore. In fact, at the point of writing this, I'm rather fond of it. I definitely think going back and adding in everything I wanted helped a lot, but I do enjoy it! And I had a lot of fun working on the update.

I also mentioned it in the jam reflection thread, but this marks a year of doing the Velox Game Jams! I won't rehash what I've already said, but a tl;dr version is that going from my first entry [PRETTYBOY Inc. is Hiring!] to this one is like night and day. I could feel how much more comfortable I was working in Ren'py and how much faster my work process was because I finally knew what I was doing when it came to coding. I'm not the strongest coder, and I know I tend to have a slower rate of improvement than a lot of other creatives, but I could see and feel how much I've improved in game deving in the past year and it made me really happy and excited to keep going! I think a lot of indie devs have game jams that they can point to as being important in the game deving journey, and I think it's safe to say Velox Fabula is mine!

The Rankings

Debated on adding this seeing as I was sick when making this and I know you Do Not make magic happen when you feel like death, but I do like seeing the numbers and seeing where I've landed. Honestly, the comments I get during the voting have been far more important to me as a tool of learning and improving than the numbers themselves, but it still helps as a general idea of where I still need work (even if I tend to know what my weaknesses are). With that, here were my results!

Overall: 15

Narrative: 13

Visuals: 18

Sound Design: 14

Theme Incorporation: 13

So yeah! The worst ranking wise of all the Velox Jams so far, which is pretty fair. Again, I really only worked on this a total of 3 days before I ended up sick, and I'm proud I managed to submit anything at all. 

Anyway, I'm not sure how to conclude this other than I had fun! Playing everyone's games and seeing what everyone did is always my favorite part of the event! I've still managed to play every entry, and I hope anyone reading this will go check out the other entries as well! Thanks for reading and playing!