DISCLAIMER: This post-mortem was originally in the "About" section of Silverstone: The Morning After. It's been edited for Itch.io's devlog format. It also contains spoilers to all routes in the game, so please read it first!

Hello, and welcome to the "Silverstone: The Morning After" post-mortem. S:TMA is a visual novel made for the May Wolf 2024 Jam and an indirect prequel to "Silverstone," the main FVN I'm planning. I (BrickZed) figured I would detail the process developing this game as it's my first visual novel.

The creation of S:TMA was somewhat turbulent due to many factors. I had just started living on my own, was having severe health issues, and I wasn't fully comfortable with being out as a furry yet; to my friends or family. Ironically, my friends are what helped me fully embrace being a furry and I might have constantly sent videos to them. My work on the game started a little later than most, on the 3rd of May instead of the 1st. The initial designs were, for lack of a better word, fucking shit. I quickly was able to create a better design for Walt on the 4th, however, and then Asher's design came to me almost instantly. The backgrounds were created along the way, with a lot of photography and Photoshop sessions happening when they were needed. Very few photos were borrowed from other sources since I wanted the majority of the game to be made by me. The UI was probably the biggest pain, simply due to hours of arguing with Ren'py's programming. It was eventually solved, however!

Music was created bit by bit since it wasn't a primary focus compared to other parts. There are only six songs in the entire game, plus an ambient track created from free sound effects (it's literally called "CreepyAmbience.ogg" lol). I like the arrangements of the tracks, but I feel like they would have been a lot better with an actual producer. "The Morning After" suffered especially since FL Studio has no good guitar presets. The unfortunate side effects of being a sole dev during a game jam.

My favorite part was probably the writing and programming. I already knew a bit of Python and Ruby, so coding issues were mainly from learning more complex algorithms and my own stupidity (something that happened often was putting the incorrect file name in), but coding was for the most part smooth sailing. The story changed quite a bit over development, mainly due to a lack of planning compared to other projects I've done. The initial idea was just a straight-forward romantic visual novel with little deviation, but this quickly changed as I wrote. As early as the breakfast decision, I added in a romance points system and multiple endings (initially there were two, but I extended this to three after having trouble deciding what "bad" ending to use). Later on, I added horror elements to tie it more into the Silverstone universe I conjured up a couple years ago. I decided to keep it separate from Silverstone's main story though so it could enjoyed on it's own.

Honestly, the hardest part was probably keeping a consistent tone when switching between different options. I didn't want Walt to suddenly divebomb into being an asshole after being an incredibly charming person. For the judges, I chose to present the theme of "expanding" as developing a relationship, which is another reason the multiple endings happened. Would the player cause the relationship to grow or completely turn to dust? In the "good" end, I took this literally by having Asher die of an enlarged heart. Is it kind of mean? Maybe. I wanted to subvert having the "earn your happy ending" thing most visual novels do, though, to drive home the fact that Silverstone is a place full of loss and pain. Even if there's brief moments of happiness, sometimes shit hits you when you least expect it. Then again, I was also kind of in a "I wanna kill my OCs" mood due to my mental and physical state at the time, haha.

For those wondering what books I had Walt read, they're all based on other furry visual novels: "Adastra" by The Echo Project, "Remember The Flowers" by Jericho, and "Socially Awkward" by monchimutt. All great visual novels you should read.

What's next for me? I'll be taking a month-long break so I can catch up on other projects and play games made by the other devs from the jam. If there are any bugs or typos, however, there will be some updates. After that the break ends, I'm going to start working on the main game for Silverstone. If you want to follow development, you can find me on Twitter (@BrickZed) or follow me on itch.io. Hope to see you all in the future, and take care!

-BrickZed