insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results
Albert Einstein
It has been a long ride! When I first started making the game it was late September, and I just started my academic year. The subjects were complex and I wanted some creative relaxation in my mind, so I started writing. Days later a thought crossed my mind, “Why not create a game?”, which would have sounded insane to someone that never made one before referring to myself. Nonetheless, I booted up good old Google and did lots of research about game making, I already had experience in the website-making branch but never had tried making an interactive fiction game before. So I found a beautiful community with a well-documented engine, little did I know when I stepped in there was no going back. Somewhere in mid-October, I published my first prototype to the community and the conclusion was “too small for proper feedback”. A little devastated I placed the game on a virtual shelf, exams came up and I was busy dealing with everyday life. Somehow the thought started tingling in my mind again weeks later, and I re-tried it.
After a lot of typing, debugging, processing, and work later (and many cups of coffee), I finally had a working game, a version close to version 1.0, but it missed a lot, namely the art! So I found the perfect artist who was even willing to do the job (Addictivities)! Not only was there a visual aid, but there were also a lot of rapid changes involving playability.
Fast forward to January, and the game starts getting some notice, which I am extremely happy about! All the positive feedback and suggestions pushed me to make an even better game, hence the reason I am in the middle of a rewrite. My old version would have never expected to make a Chapter 2, but soon this will arrive too! All in all, everything was going perfectly, even better than I could’ve ever wished for. For this reason, I decided it was time to give our community a facelift, something to function as a central organ, there to serve those who either lack Discord access or are not willing to become a subscriber to my Patreon page! Hereby I welcome you to the first version of the Written Horror ‘brand’, it’s not really a brand, but a place where people who love interactive fiction horror games could gather. Soon I will start to write game reviews of other great content found on itch.io and write a small blog once in a while.
As for the quote, I have tried making many small games in the past (years ago), all were written in python or with outdated engines. When you keep repeating something you like, you one day might achieve this insanity.