Jam Postmortem

Hey, its me, the game dev! (you can just call me Max.) Now that the May Wolf 2025 Jam is over I want to share my thoughts regarding this VN and its creation. This postmortem is going to be separated in bullet points so I can organize my thoughts better.

•  This was my first time coding and writing a visual novel, I have had no experience before in writing in particular so dialogue and monologues were hard to figure out at times. This was also my first game jam, and I am terrible with deadlines which lead to me programming in the script while coming up with it at the same time hours before the main deadline (which also explains the lack of other assets.)

•  I have seen the comments left on the submission page, and I do appreciate people taking time out of their day to explain their thoughts on this game, the truth is, the script was thought of during the last week of the jam, as I had NO ideas and procrastinated during the majority of May. With this being a project so rushed out with little to no editing of the script, it lead to me being very nervous about what people had to say about it. I still am nervous, and it's a flaw of mine I hope to start overcoming going forward.

•  When first thinking of ideas of what to include in my game, I knew for sure that I wanted to subvert many of the "My Wolf" tropes that games like Adastra and Lyre have, alongside a guide-like character that told the MC what to do, what I didn't know was how the rest of the story was going to pan out, the ending was always planned to be the main character defying the guide in some way, the issue was getting to that point. It definitely could have been executed better, as I could have done more with the script and made it at least slightly funny instead of just focusing on subverting the tropes, but that's what happens when you procrastinate.

•  I plan to update this game sometime in the future with some edits to the script following some criticism and adding backgrounds (when my ADHD brain feels like it) but I really appreciate anyone who gave this game a shot and commented their thoughts on it. I know I'm not a social person so excuse me to not replying to any of your comments, but I have seen them and plan to improve the story with what they've said. I had fun creating this game, and the fact that I submitted a game at all is still crazy to me, but I know it can be better.

That's it from me for now! Even just writing this postmortem exposed my writing weaknesses to me once again so I definitely need to improve on that front (I for sure rambled a bit). Have a good day/night and take care of yourself and others around you.