i'll often have a loose idea that's bouncing around my head like it's in a rock tumbler until it turns into something i'm excited to work on, then i start on writing at the beginning of the jam i'm planning for (at least in the case for most of my games, which are jam games).

i try to figure out pretty early if i want the text to display in adv or nvl or a mix because that heavily influences the way i'll write the entirety of the work. adv lends more towards more conversationally-written things, while nvl is better for longer-form prose, though nowadays i've considered learning more and more towards using nvl mainly, even in things that might end up being more dialogue-heavy... i just tend to like how it plays with screen space a little better. i care about the visual ergonomics of my games a lot and i don't necessarily like making things that tire your eyes out and make you follow exhausting patterns of movement. the text is the thing you're looking at for 98% of a vn's runtime, so i want to create layouts with that in mind. this is the biggest part of why i tend to not want to go the route of traditionally-staged adv, because your eyes are glued to a little rectangle at the bottom of the screen, often with a wider resolution than necessary. for that reason i try my best to figure out a layout as soon as i can, but that doesn't always come as quick as i'd like it to. shortstop's layout came about mid-way through production and lyn remarked that it was like the light had returned to my eyes when it came to me, gahahah...

when writing i try to also keep a sort of 'choreography' in my head, even if it doesn't always manifest physically. i don't have to describe every single thing in text because i can use audio or visuals to communicate them, so i try to keep notes on things (at least, when i remember to take them). assembling vns sometimes feel like putting together a film or a play, because the actors will give life to the work after the script's been written.

if i'm doing the art myself, i tend to weave it in between working on the script when i want to have a day where i'm not just writing. a boon to solo work is if i'm getting tired of doing one thing for too long a stretch, i can chip away at something else for a bit and i don't necessarily feel like i'm stuck banging my head against one thing at a time. i do get pretty absorbed in my work even if i'm not actively working, so i get kind of crazy sometimes. this is why it's important for me to do things that aren't work while i'm actively making a game, like walking, or watching baseball, or seeing new places, or in general just seeking novelty. most of my better ideas come while i'm away from the keyboard and experiencing life. you need time by the creek, time and space to let your mind wander and be somewhere else.

i'll also try to do a bunch of research depending on what it is i'm writing for. for one of the games i'm working on i spent a ton of time visiting a bunch of out-of-use coastal sea forts and being in them, feeling their stone, feeling the sea air, and inhabiting those spaces while also learning about the forts themselves and their histories, and the histories of the surrounding areas. i don't get to be in the space of everything that i write for, but it definitely helps a lot. postcard i made while out in the midwest and i don't think i would have been able to write it like i did if i didn't immerse myself in it in the way i go to.

after i've gotten writing done, i'll generally give it a few editing passes, and let a friend or friends read it, and then give it a few more passes. i almost ended up sequencing shortstop's ending a little differently but lyn ended up giving me some pretty good direction for how it'd better work and i think she was right for it.

other aspects i don't have processes that are as clear, i have yet to really fully take on and complete a project where i've dedicated myself to just art for example, but i do tend to end up sketching a lot out in my sketchbooks.

all in all the process tends to be me going it's so over=>we're so back=>it's so over=>we're so back etc. for a few weeks and then it's done

i don't think i have anything that i can really particularly recall other than alan moore's 'read terrible books'. it's something that i think encourages a lot more curiosity because on one hand sometimes you read something expecting it to be ass but there are nuggets of things you really like and that can help inform your own opinions and tastes, but there's also the more obvious matter of, in his words, 'jesus christ, i could write this shit' and being able to dissect what doesn't work and why. you have to be curious. my other piece of advice is that you have to be curious about the world around you because you're most likely not going to make something particularly gripping if all of your inspirations are medium-incestuous

thank you for the kind words! i've been enamored with kigurumi for quite some time but hadn't really known how to step into it until pilot had given me a lot of help and guidance when i'd really started wanting to Grasp it, and that sort of yearning for kig i think really manifested in postcard... i remember seeing a chiaki nanami kig when i was a teen and was really enamored with that but it wasn't until years and years later where i'd put more thought into it when my love for kig openly blossomed into what it is now... dolls are more of a recent interest, though after getting into kig i might have to wait before i hop into another potentially spenso hobby haha, one day i may want my own angel philia there's something kind of awesome about how they're detailed in the ways that they are. it's quite profound that they have little doll butt holes

as far as what made postcard come about, it was largely influenced by being out in the midwest for a few months and the ways of which it made me feel vs. being in new england and i was definitely also taking an amount of inspiration from my own upbringing and all the various types of loneliness/alienation/atomization that a lot of circumstances would bring about, all on top of my own incidental desires to kig out and to really embody something. i wanted to write about it both from the perspective of a visitor, and as someone who's been deeply entrenched within it... i'll have a lot more to say about it once i get that damn postmortem written out

as in kigs, or art? if you're looking for folks who do kig i follow a handful of people, contrastkig, leyakigu, dawnchorusss, and of course my sister ppilotco just to name a few, and if you look thru you can find even more folks... as for art, there's some stuff in pilot's kig + doll jam, 'something more comfortable' by shelby j. fosse was really good and yummy, 'doll face' by sheeb was lovely, 'contenere' by catreturn+thoushallkill was super wonderful and super underrated... most of the rest of what i know is either private/in-progress/dropped, i wish i had more to offer but i guess i'll just have to make more. oh and if you haven't played postcard from brentville you should i'm assigning you homework