Hi, everyone! I’m glad these lines found you in the vast world of the Internet. There’s so much Internet out there. And yet here we are, together on this page 🥳

This is an introspective post about the origins of an otome visual novel “Deathwish Bloom”. I aim for this to be a nostalgic read for when the game is complete. As a teen, I drew graphic novels and played “Quest for Glory” point-and-click adventures with my brother. I dreamt of adding a ‘choose-your-own-story’ interactivity to my graphic novels yet couldn’t figure out how to do it. Making games was not even on my radar. I was too arty. Programming seemed like an extraterrestrial skill 💀

Decades later, I’d be working in the film industry. It was close to what I wanted to spend my life on. Yet, at lunchtime, my art department colleagues would be discussing the latest hot TV series, and I rarely had patience to watch anything.

That is until I was bedridden with the flu, and, having not much to concentrate on except for my phone, I discovered interactive visual novel apps. Those games had a level of immersion no film could provide and gave me comfort during the most miserable times of my life.

I wondered whether all the technological advancements could now help fulfil that long-lost teenager’s dream — making an interactive visual novel. A quick Google search said they could.

So I got to it.

2018:

Well aware that making a game would take years, I came up with characters and a setting that could entertain for a very, very long time and be a joy to come back to. My beloved bunch of anti-heroes in a soft sci-fi world.

First pencil sketches of the cast were made. An iPad purchased to learn to draw the game world digitally.

The first reality check was that my digital drawing skills seriously lagged behind my traditional artist skills. Characters didn’t look like themselves, backgrounds looked amateurish. After years of imitating various art styles for work, I couldn’t find my own. There was a lot of pride swallowing that year.

These are the first doodles. While I made progress, the images didn't measure up to what I wanted them to be. But a start is a start, and I was extremely excited to see something I imagined come to life in some shape or form.

2019:

The second reality check: putting the game plot on paper is not the same as imagining it. The story made a lot of sense in my head, but very little when I tried to share it with others.

I nerded out on the Hero’s journey, read ‘Save the cat!’, enrolled in an online scriptwriting course. I wrote and rewrote my pitch straight through a whole night to get it ready for an online group discussion at 10 am the next day.

I even pitched the story to a big film director at a wrap party, wondering if the plot made any sense. He reassured me that even though his own first movies shouldn’t really be seen by anyone – bad as they were – their quality is never a good reason to not make them. It’s a necessary step. And that my story sounded interesting.

This year produced the full plot outline, and I start learning Ren’Py to program the game. My digital painting game improved.

2020: 

The third reality check: force majeures. I programmed the first playable game snippet and made a prologue animation during a short Covid hiatus – right before our film crew became ‘essential workers’ and I got called back on duty. A LOT of duty, as the pandemic created a backlog of film productions. The free time I had was spent on going through chapter outlines with a dear scriptwriting course friend, but not much else was possible.

You can watch my first ever game-related animation… ok, my first EVER animation here:

2021-2023:

The forth reality check: creativity only blossoms in safety. I lived and worked in several countries, searching for a new home with an art space. The whole world went through major changes, and so did I and the game. It begged for a new art style that would reflect its world better.

The few attempts I made looked too much like a digital drawing tutorial — professional enough, but not exactly the disquieting world of “Deathwish Bloom”.  With the advent of AI, I wanted the game to do absolutely nothing with polished images I saw online. “Deathwish Bloom”will be fully hand-drawn – on paper and on an iPad – and the style must reflect that.

This year produced a lot of doodles and a couple of Sketch-Up models because I was set to figure out the game’s architecture.

2024: 

I found my home and set up an art area. Finally at peace, I spent days in parks and cafes doodling until I got happy with the new game art style, 'the needle doodle', as all images are made with tiny thin pencil strokes. Demo (Chapter 1) got storyboarded, some custom tracks were written by a friend of a friend. By the end of the year, I had 1/2 of the assets necessary for the Demo.

10 February 2025: 

Announcing the'Deathwish Bloom' Visual Novel Birthday and starting the socials. 7 years since its inception, it finally seems like a good time to start talking about the game as of something that has a chance to be made. 

Follow for more DevLog updates (not as historical as this one)!🥰