This is spoilers if you have not played the original game!

I realized belatedly that the final afterward for Forgotten lacks Lilac's background. I could go back and update the game to change the afterward but I figured it would be fun to also do a short devlog about the development process!

In that afterward,  I said the VN took about 7 months to develop. During that time, I really should have realized I wasn't making a short VN when I had multiple documents in Wordpad and Notepad that stored the character scenes in groups. Everyone's final scenes have their own dedicated document! I spent a full month writing just the first draft for everyone's scenes and spent the next while after that coming back to each scene in order to edit for new themes or characterization.  I was still making small changes as I was playtesting the VN alone... Haha...

I even had to draw multiple sketches of what the possible routes looked like as I was writing the story and when I was coding the VN in Renpy! The coding was simple but it was less simple making sure the right ending would play depending on how many times the player met a character. I couldn't let the player meet two characters the same amount of times and I found myself losing track of the potential points the player could accrue on A's route especially. In the end, I had to simplify the timeline down, removing a couple of scenes, so that I could finally make sense of the coding. Those scenes were more of a transition into a choice scene and one in particular has only L thinking  alone to herself so I don't think it really changed the content of the VN much.

As for the drawing process, that was definitely time-consuming and I admit that I didn't put that much effort into it. I mean I definitely chose to make the time just to draw all those images! I was pretty much making simple animations with all the actions I drew. And I did go through the effort of making sure the colors looked nice or that the background and character actions made sense. But you can tell I'm not much of an artist and because of that, I had to convince myself that there was a 'good enough' point for each image and to move on to the next. Otherwise, the VN would have never been finished!

That said, I think the VN's style is very cute and I'm glad I decided to make everything blobby - no line art! The next VN is definitely uglier looking because I was trying to make things more realistic/proportional. Alas...

Also yes, I have been calling C's childhood friend 'idiot' and 'dumbass' the entire time. And I feel sad about some of the thumbnails because I think I drew them prettier there than on the final image ;-;

Finally, let's talk about L! I actually didn't think I would ever give her or anyone in the cast a name but realized as I was writing their final scenes (and all of C's scenes especially) that it would be more meaningful if they had names. Despite how meaningful they should be... everyone's names without exception are chosen without much thought. Lilac's name doesn't actually match her outfit because I realized after having finished all the images that Lilac is more purple than pink... oh well!

This is never mentioned in the VN but L does mention she had a name in her previous world that she abandoned.  Also without much thought, I pinned it as 'Mia'.  In the game, there isn't much explanation as to why Lilac abandoned this name or why it makes her uncomfortable.  Is it because it's tied up in the past she wants to leave behind or just because she happens not to like it? You can come up with any reason you like but the important idea is that L is more free than she ever was with her new name.   

As for L's profession in her previous life, I decided it would be as an accountant for a small company that she's been with for several years. The kind where the business is big enough to disappear in but small enough that it's busy so everyone is working their tails off consistently. The environment isn't hostile but she doesn't find it particularly friendly either. Just the kind of job that's meaningless but stable enough that you're reluctant to quit and go somewhere else.

L is also meant to be older too though I never pinned an exact age. My best guess would be late 20s where things still feel pretty new and uncertain yet you can tell it's all settling down into mud. I wouldn't be surprised if you think L is younger since I'm actually trying to write above my age for... well everyone in the cast I guess.  C is also meant to be around the same age as L but C's energy makes him appear younger than he actually is.

And that's the background for L that I forgot to add! I hope it was neat?