Hello everyone! It’s me, Flori, the game’s creative director! The Widow’s Shadow was released a couple weeks ago, and I am so happy about the reception it’s gotten thus far! I thought it would be nice to write a little something about the development experience, but there’s a chance it may not end up so little! After all, I have so much I’d love to talk about when it comes to this game and its inspirations!

So let’s get this introduction over with and go ahead to the real meat of this devlog, shall we?

Once upon a time…

We’ll start with a bit of backstory… We’re going back to my film school days for this, so you’d better sit down! Just kidding, it won’t be that long… probably. But it’s true that my interest in German Expressionism started there, when I had to research the movement for a final exam. I don’t quite recall if I picked it with the classmate I did the exam with or if it was assigned to us, but either way, my path was marked then. I grew quite interested in it; aesthetically, it really stood out among other films of the period I had seen, with its set design and use of contrast. At the time, I didn’t do much with this interest other than do the exam, but the seed had been planted, and I would never forget it was there.

In the years that followed, it became  sort of a joke among me and a group of friends that I was fixated on German Expressionism. I think this began when I streamed Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines for them and kept mentioning German Expressionism any time a Nosferatu appeared on screen (though it may have popped up elsewhere before that and I just forgot). I kept bringing it up from time to time, but it was still just a detail about me, a bit of trivia I gave to my friends.

That was until last year, when in the months prior to September I was stricken by inspiration! “Wouldn’t it be cool to make a visual novel in the style of German Expressionist films?” Yes, it absolutely would, past Flori! I could see the visuals in my mind’s eye, the GUI, the stylization! But there was one key aspect missing…an actual story. I tried to come up with something, but nothing stuck. Then I realized that Spooktober wasn’t in October as I thought, and was, in fact, in September. My mom and I planned to go on a trip in September, so even if I had a solid idea, I wouldn’t be able to do it for the jam.

And so, my beloved idea had to be put inside a drawer.

A Year Later

Quite a few months passed and I began working on other visual novels (such as my current main project, Our Dollhouse) and was happy doing them, as well as helping friends with theirs! But as the year advanced, a memory came to me: a visual novel inspired by German Expressionist films. There were a few months until Spooktober, and this time I already knew that it was actually in September, so it was the perfect time to pick it back up! Still lacking the key component, I started trying to brainstorm an idea for a good story.

Films from that movement tended to explore the dark side of the human mind: madness, despair, greed, obsession! So it was clear I had to do something of the sort, and knowing this, something popped into my mind… 

There was a game series I had been playing this year: Persona. Persona 4, in particular, had struck a chord with me. Other worlds created from people’s distorted cognition; their most secret feelings and their public image coming together in a hostile version of themselves; the concepts of the Shadow and the Ego from Jungian Psychology… That was it. That was the moment a proper idea started forming in my mind. Around July, I got an actual concept for a story and  told my friends about it! I was a bit unsure at first, since I thought the idea could be a bit cliché, but my peers encouraged me and gave me the confidence I needed. And so, after some deliberation… I knew that was the story I wanted to tell: a tale about a widow, abuse, and loss.

Pre-Pre-Production

Having finally decided on a story—and excited about the project—it was time to recruit members for the team! After all, this one was going to be a big one, and I most definitely couldn’t do it alone! 

At first I considered doing the sprite art for the project myself, as well as CGs, writing, and leading. I knew I wanted a semi-realistic style for the characters, so why not draw them myself, no? Except…I realized that was going to be a huge amount of work for one person. After thinking about it for a long while, I decided I would recruit some artists. I wasn’t fully set on having a dedicated sprite artist, but I thought that at the very least I could have people help with sketching or rendering to make it all much easier. I didn’t anticipate the offers I’d receive! Frankly, I was in shock at the lovely art I was seeing, and it was so tough to choose! I kept going back and forth looking at the examples artists had sent, banging my head against the wall in trying to make a choice (I am known for being very indecisive). In the end, I was advised to go with my gut, and there was something that drew me to a certain individual’s art. At first glance, it was not what I had pictured, but I had a feeling that they would bring something great to the table. And so, Rian joined the team!

As for backgrounds, z0mbievalentine reached out to me and I thought her style had a lot of potential for the Otherworld backgrounds, so I invited her to join! Then, I saw Cara looking for a team, and as I had seen her in another project I worked on and still needed someone to make the Real World backgrounds, I asked her to join us.

On the writing side, recruitment was also tough! There were a lot of good writers and to be quite honest, I was a bit intimidated! These people were too good for me, better than me! What were they doing here?! Someone with a background in film came to me and oh boy, I felt they were too cool for me! But I did end up recruiting that person, and let me tell you, despite my initial anxiety, Fluffnight is one of the coolest people I have worked on a script with. And of course we can’t forget Victoria! Hers was one of the last applications I got, and I liked what I saw! Plus she was also a film student! Leave it to a film-related game to bring us all  together!

While some roles were much easier to pick people for, there was still quite a bit of deliberation for others. The amount of awesome people who reached out to me is staggering, and I’m really thankful for it!

In the end, I managed to form a team, and it was time for…

Pre-Production

At last, we were going to begin planning and preparing for the jam! It was exciting, if only a little bit nerve-wracking considering there were many people I had never worked with! But luckily for me, everyone was a delight and I soon became better acquainted with the team. I had already started gathering a lot of reference material from films and made some slideshows to present all of the concepts, mostly for the artists! Backgrounds were some of my favorites to find references for, as some films from the German Expressionist movement had some really fun sets! In fact, I’d love to talk in more detail about my inspirations, but I may just leave that for a different devlog, heh! Still, I’ll leave you a little peek at one of the slides here.

As The Widow’s Shadow took great inspiration from German Expressionism, it was only natural that we’d have to watch some films from the movement! So I organized a few sessions for us to get together and see what they were all about. Sadly, not everyone could join, but we still had a blast! Plus I even saw some that I hadn’t seen before and gathered a lot of reference material! In case you’re curious, the movies we watched were: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, From Morn to Midnight, and Genuine: A Tale of a Vampire. I absolutely recommend them if you’re interested in learning about this film movement. As a disclaimer, please be aware that these films may contain offensive material reflective of the time periods of their production.

Writing

With some deeper knowledge of what I was going for, the co-writers and I decided to discuss the outline over a voice call. This was a suggestion from one of them, and I was a bit unsure at first as I had never discussed development over voice chat. (Plus, I’m a bit shy!) But in the end, it turned out to be a great idea! I felt more connected to the writing team and I was much less likely to fall for any foul distractions. Furthermore, Fluffnight was an organizing demon! She wrote down anything and everything important we mentioned for the plot, then polished the doc for easier access, which helped a lot. We managed to get a pretty good outline after a few sessions! Some ideas were left out in the process, such as a point and click mechanic and the addition of even more rooms. It’s inevitable that some raindrops from a brainstorm turn into vapor. (Is that a good metaphor? Who knows!)

I wanted to add some comments from team-members in this devlog, so here’s some words from one of the writers, Fluffnight, about pre-production:

Fluffnight: Team building during pre-production was fun! It was cool getting to know each other and finding out a number of us had a love for film!

Fluffnight: Outlining was interesting as 2/3 of us had not made a game before but did come from a screenwriting background. We approached our writers' calls much like a TV writers' room: talking it out, taking notes, pitching ideas back and forth, and going far down certain ideas only to pull ourselves back!

Art

When it came to art, Rian was getting some concept art ready! I only had references for the main character at first, so that was the first design they worked on. I wasn’t completely sure what to expect, as I knew Rian was going to try something different with their style for this, but the moment they showed me their first concept I was enamored! Then, the further they progressed with the concepts, the more certain I was that this would be a great game!

As for backgrounds, Cara was really quick to share some thumbnails that we used to decide the composition of the town, and z0mbievalentine showed me a forest sketch that captured the vibes I was looking for!

Design

I had a very clear idea of what I wanted for the GUI from the moment I first thought of this concept, and so it’s no wonder that I also made a slideshow for design elements! We chose to go for a more “standard” silent film look for the text box, rather than going all-in with a German Expressionist title card style. This was for one simple reason: the more iconic examples of title cards from the movement had a tendency to be very exaggerated and…hard to read. While they’re gorgeous and I love the style a lot, I didn’t want players to have to read huge chunks of text in fancy typefaces. Skai, our GUI designer, also took this into account and agreed on not sacrificing readability. But while they stuck with a more traditional style with silent film title cards as inspiration, they gave the GUI their own twist by adding details related to the Shadow, such as spider webs and feather imagery. Plus, the main menu was all their idea, and it came out absolutely lovely!

Now the logo, oh dear, the logo! I had a lot of references, but what I noticed in film posters of the era was that there wasn’t one consistent title look, for the most part. This was true among posters for the same film and those for different films! So, frankly, there were so many ways we could go about it!

Our logo designer, Leporine, picked some typefaces on her own, then showed them to the team for us to vote on which ones we liked the most. It was an intense contest of fonts, with some getting eliminated as if we were in a reality TV show! 

And I, being as indecisive as I am, had such a hard time making a choice when we were down to the finalists! I took a while thinking and changing the typefaces a little bit to see some variants. Everyone waited with bated breaths as the judge (me) stared at the options.

Until finally…I did it. I picked one font that would be the ONE! Who would have thought picking a typeface was this hard?!

Music & Sound

During pre-production, I had to decide what kind of music I wanted for the game. I knew I wanted something classical, but I wasn’t sure exactly what kind of classical. I decided to first watch some of the aforementioned films to properly assess the music they had. And yet…that wouldn’t be enough, would it? As these movies didn’t have sound “attached” to them and would instead have live music played during screenings, it was hard to figure out what would have been played during that time! Many of the film versions I found had music added by uploaders, and I had no way of knowing how accurate this was to the period and the genre. My lack of research on the music side of things was showing, and I started getting a bit worried. In the end, I decided to give Ryan some of the film scores which I had enjoyed as references, as well as some expressionist music! The latter is something I learned about during my research, and while I don’t know that much about it nor if it was used during screenings, some scores sounded really fitting for the game and I thought they’d be a good point of reference regardless.

This has taught me to put more thought into music, especially on a project of this kind, and do more research when needed.

In regards to sound, the most I could do was to begin preparing an asset list and add sound effects that I was sure would be necessary. This would come in handy later, as Leon was able to get a quick start on the sfx once the jam began.

Shortly before the jam started, I prepared a schedule for everyone to follow. I’m still not completely used to making them, and with a project like this that had to be done in a month, I was aware of the possibility of things not going quite according to plan. But then, I could only hope!

Production (The jam officially begins!)

At long last, September 1st arrived and we could get started with actually making assets and writing! The team was brimming with excitement to do things, and that only fueled my own! But I was also a bit anxious. This project was one that I felt really passionate about, and one I was trying new things with, such as planning cinematics. While I was very confident we had something great in the works, sometimes it’s hard to shake the nerves. Plus, it was important to finish writing so other members of the team could have the full asset list! There was no time to waste! 

Though it seemed we had forgotten something important… Should we write in American English or British English? I generally go with the former, but considering the game takes place in Europe, we ended up deciding it was more appropriate for the vibes to go with British English. We had to decide other things as well, such as how we’d tackle the difference between narration and the Widow’s thoughts, the names of extras, etc. I also had to make sure the other writers were alright working in a new format, as neither of them had written for Visual Novels before, and I have my own way of writing for them. Luckily, they got it super quickly! I asked them if there was anything they’d like to share about their first experiences writing for something like this, and they had this to say:

Victoria: The main thing I prioritized while writing was that it matched both of your styles, so [it was] a lot of referring to that plus following your lead on listening to persona music. (Though I’m much more familiar with the [Persona] 5 soundtrack, hehe)

Fluffnight: Following your lead in your writing format and then your writing style. Looking to match your voice while also trying to find moments to include some of my own. Being able to feed some of me, and my experiences, into the story too! It was fun writing in a new style!! Oh! And thinking in a different type of production pipeline and [its] logistics, especially when throwing out assets and ideas to artists and sound team!

Victoria: Oh yeah! Especially since I’ve never worked on a VN before, seeing the technical side of it and needing to consider the limitations of what I could write was a bit overwhelming, but in a good way?

Another decision we had to make that day was how we’d handle editing. We realized that leaving it all to the few days after the script was done could either take too much valuable time or be too much work for the editors to do in so little time. So we made a change of plans and had them edit scenes once we were done with them.

And just like that, the writing team got started, writing a little bit each day. In the meantime, z0mbievalentine pulled off several background sketches for the Otherworld so we could settle on the Main Hall and the Office. Here’s a small peek at some of them:

Jazz, who didn’t have much to program yet, decided to draw some thumbnails for the first CG in order to help Rian who was in the process of making sprites!

Jazz: The worst part about joining a team as the programmer is that you're the last man on the assembly line. When the starting pistol goes off and everyone else is off to the races, you get to hurry up and wait. You get about an extra week of those pre-production jitters.

Jazz: I'm an artist first. I was kind of upset that I got accepted for programming and not art―and then I saw the other artists on the project and I was happy I didn't get those roles. Still, I wanted to help out with more than just the programming, so I offered to thumbnail the CGs because I had ideas.

Rian started by sketching the Widow and the Husband, the latter of whom hadn’t gotten a full concept just yet. It took quite a bit of revising, leading into a very lively discussion on whether or not he should have glasses and/or a mustache.

While we did enjoy the mustache, we felt the look may have been a bit too much and too cartoony, so we had to scrap it. Not without having some fun talking about its potential first, though!

All in all, it was a very productive start, and we kept that groove going! I was particularly excited when I got to write scenes with the Shadow—she’s just so fun—and I got to listen to Borderline of Madness which really put me in the right mood. Also, seeing the scenes my co-writers wrote just heightened my excitement! I felt like I was the one that had to match them because of how incredible they are!

On Saturday, the 9th, we had our first check-in to see where everyone was. We had gotten a good amount of progress. Leon had even made some sound effects early! But I also noticed that there was a lack of updates from one person, and I would soon learn that they were actually busier than anticipated, which was a bit of a concern. And another member had a personal situation that made things a little tough for them! So I began wondering what to do in case we needed to make changes to the schedule. At the very least, the rest seemed to be going well. We had a logo, sketches for all the sprites (and one almost finished), a draft for the GUI, and more! So even if we weren’t 100% on track with the schedule, we were doing rather well.

After that, we had to write the last parts of the script so we could do one last editing pass on the whole thing. It was a bit later than intended, but we had a great story! The editors had already done some of their work earlier, so it definitely saved time. 

Alyssa: When life happened outside of the jam, I was glad to have another editor able to lend a hand, so being part of an editing team was good. I also liked the small back-and-forth when processing editorial queries. [I] also appreciate how with visual novels, I have been able to explore combining some of my favorite things, [namely] copyediting/proofreading and games.

Because we'd made and updated the asset list as we wrote, Rian was able to get started with some expressions and poses before we were fully done. After that, they just had to finish what they’d started! They shared a fun fact about the creation of the Shadow, too:

Rian: When I was doing the poses for the Shadow, I combed through Pinterest and whatnot but I wasn’t happy with the 3 I chose, so I posed for what I had in mind for one more pose… which we ended up choosing XD So there was a little [layer with me in] shorts and a sleep shirt posing for the Shadow in the files. [It was like a mini jumpscare whenever I came across it] while I was coloring or changing things XD

In no time, we were due for our second check-in right in the middle of the jam! It was quite nerve-wracking, as we had just finished the script! Many assets were done or at least had a good amount of progress, but we also had several that were in only the early stages, which was contrary to what I expected by this point in the jam. It made me quite anxious, but I’m always aware that unexpected things can happen in development work of this kind, so I tried to keep my cool and see if anyone needed any help. 

For one, I did the Hallway backgrounds myself to save some time, as well as the silhouettes in the Main Hall for a certain scene later on. Fluffnight also started helping out with getting things ready for the itch.io page, like the credits, synopsis, and so on. Leporine helped finish some GUI aspects when our main GUI designer had a personal situation.

Jazz: Every game I make, I try to add something new to my skillset. This time, it was GUI programming. I don't think Flor knew that I hadn't actually done any GUI programming when she accepted me, but I was confident I could figure it out, and hey! I did! Big, big thanks go to Skai and Leporine for giving me beautiful assets to work with.

While I was a bit concerned about the music due to unexpected circumstances, Ryan delivered awesome concepts unbelievably quickly soon after that second check-in. I have no idea how he managed it, but it was incredible to witness.

Jazz had started implementing the script and would later begin creating the wonderful animations that fill our game with life. I had written many of them in the script as scene direction, but Jazz elevated them by adding his own ideas, resulting in even more incredible and dynamic scenes.

Fluffnight: When it came to Jazz programming, I was once again reminded why I don't want to direct. You both were able to discuss and add in so much to the direction/expression choices/cinematography that I wouldn't even be able to think up!

Jazz: In-engine animations [are] my absolute favorite part of the VN dev process. I'd dipped my toes into it with prior projects, but the scope of them didn't really allow me to go all in. Well, with a project based on cinema, and [with] such detailed stage directions from Flor, I had no more excuses to hold back. Now I'm doomed. Every future project's going to have to live up to the standard I've set for myself here. (I can't wait!)

Thinking of how to make the game more cinematic was fun, if a little confusing at times, as it was the first time I tried something like this. But seeing the result of our ideas in the end was absolutely satisfying, and I can only hope to keep learning how to make even cooler scenes!

But alas, the anxiety that had been building within me would grow as the fated date approached. The end of the jam drew near. There was only a week left, and there were some big assets still missing! Plus, it seemed that the workload for our character artist may have been more than we anticipated, and we still had CGs to finish. To help with this, I asked (begged) Rian to let me render them so they could focus on finishing everything else and didn’t have to sacrifice sleep. They accepted and we got to work! But that wasn’t all; some sounds and backgrounds were still missing. Would we be okay? I told myself we would, and I was right!

Having allocated the rendering task to me, Rian ended up having extra time to do a promotional image we’d previously discussed; I’m so glad they were able to make it, because it’s one of my favorite pieces! Those who follow me on my socials may have already seen it, but allow me to show it off here too:

As we neared the end of the jam, I made a google form for the team to share their thoughts on what we should do were we to win any of the jam’s prizes. We had already discussed it a bit earlier, but I didn’t want the thought of it to hang over us while we worked on the game. After all, this was meant to be a project for fun! I had, however, been preparing the form for a little while as a way to keep everything organized on what the team thought would be best to do. Prizes were not our objective, but I was confident in the quality of our entry and our chances, so at the very least, it was important to be prepared! We wouldn’t want to run into any trouble between team members after the fact, right?

As the finish line drew closer and closer, we managed to get all the assets we needed! Hurray! Many of us got together to watch Jazz play through the game to see if anything else should be changed (even inspiring our sound designer to add more sound effects). It was a super fun experience, like watching a film with the team…but it was ours!

Jazz: Did I mention that I'm an artist first? That doesn't just go for drawing―I'm an actor too. Playing through the game for the team wasn't just practical for me (though it was helpful in ironing out the last few changes that needed to be made), it was play! As in a play! A dramatic reading of a script with just one actor. Voices and everything. Lots of fun.

We even found out that the jam had one extra day?! All that panicking about submitting on time, and we got it done a bit earlier! (But hey, I very much prefer that, honestly! Saves me some anxiety.)

Once the game was perfect for release, Leporine added some much needed pizzazz to our itch.io page, something I didn’t even know was possible! How did she make it so pretty?! Everything was set for release, and that fateful night…it was out.

Post-Release

The first thing I did after releasing and promoting the game was…go to sleep. It was quite late. By the time I’d woken up, though, the team had already shared that we had gotten our first comment! I was so excited, especially when I saw that it was someone who had been hyped up for the project since I’d begun promoting it. It made me so happy that they had enjoyed it and would even recommend it to others! I feel a bit bad that I keep repeating the same thing about these comments making me feel this way, but it’s just the truth! Then we got more comments and ratings! You really have no idea just how hyped I was. I remember at one point I was smiling and almost jumping when telling my parents about the game.

Seeing people’s theories and guesses on certain things happening in the story is also a delight, and I encourage people to share their thoughts because we have fun reading them!

In any case, this story isn’t over yet! After release, we still had to continue advertising the game a bit, and we’re still doing it! We’re also working on adding more sound effects and polishing a few things, as well as optimizing the game, since it ended up being a bit bigger than we expected. There’s also a few other surprises coming soon, so keep an eye out for that!

The Finale (or is it…?)

I have learned a lot through the process of creating this game. The possibilities for what kind of visual novels you can make seem almost endless now! I’m still learning how to handle trouble when it arises, but I’d like to think I’m improving with every project. For future games, I definitely need to be more careful with the workload I give certain members, particularly artists. Dividing work between multiple people can definitely help to make things easier. And of course, don’t be afraid of asking for help if you need it. After all, when we work in a team, we’re in this together!

I can confidently say that I enjoyed this whole experience a lot. Yes, there were several moments where I felt anxious, but they won’t take away the joy I felt working on this. I got to make a gorgeous game inspired by something I adore, one that is even better than I could have first imagined; I met many new people and created a fun environment and would love to work with them again (in fact, we’re already in the process of creating something new).

Thank you so much for reading all of this. I hope this was interesting to you, and maybe even inspired you a little! I’m excited to see more people play this game and share their thoughts, and I’m excited to keep working with wonderful people to tell stories.

Let’s see each other again soon!