- Intro -

Hullo, this is the postmortem of Last Meal at Cafe Mori: A postmortem is a document that talks about what went right while making the visual novel, what could have been better, and what was learnt and can be taken from the experience and used for future projects.

- Reactions -

Reactions to Last Meal at Cafe Mori were very positive. I was surprised by how many people told me that they cried or almost cried at the different endings. I don't know how to properly word how comforting it is that people can connect with my work like that. I really remember stories that make me emotional in a bittersweet way (The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry comes to mind), so being able to share that feeling means a lot to me.

Last Meal at Cafe Mori won second place for the Spooktober Jam, which I've elated by! It's wonderful that it resonated with people so much!

Here is the metadata of the visual novel's pageviews and downloads on Itchio during the first month of its release.

These are the files type downloads (as of the 26th of October).

The top link referrals (as of the 26th of October) were from Itchio (236 visits), Twitter (61), my own Itch page (37), and the Spooktober Jam page (35).

- What Went Right -

Collaborating with a Team:

I collaborated with many different people to create Last Meal at Cafe Mori and the experience of working with everyone was a positive one. Despite the Current Events of 2020, everyone came in to help out.

The Schedule:

I used a similar schedule to Dear Devere where I aimed to finish the script within a week so that I could give the proofreaders and voice actors time to read through it, and so on. The timeline was able to let everyone in the pipeline to hand in what was needed for the game to be released before the end on the jam.

Clip Studio Paint:

I used Clip Studio Paint instead of Photoshop to create the art assets of the game, and I was happy with how CSP handles brushstrokes. The program has a very organic quality to various brushes, allowing you to mix paint colours in a way that looks natural.

- What Could Have Been Better -

The Great Laptop Crash of 2020:

My laptop crashed and had to be replaced, causing me to lose about two months worth of work (apart from some files that could be pulled), and a week of headaches trying to save the old laptop. Canada's still in lockdown, so taking the old somewhere to have the files possibly salvaged is something I won't be able to attempt until much later in the future.

More Time to Practice a New Art Style:

Because of the laptop crash, I didn't have as much time as I would have wanted to practice drawing in the painterly style I wanted. I think the artwork of the game could have had a noticeable improvement had I been able to.

Save Every Audio Edit:

I edit the visual novel's audio in the program Audacity, changing things like the timing and volume, and then exporting it for the engine Ren'Py.

Usually, I'll save a copy of the edited file as an Audacity file, but for Last Meal at Cafe Mori, I only did that for some of the audio edits. I didn't save copies of the files wherein I only edited the volume as Audacity files, thinking that I would be saving time and file space. I still have all the raw audio files, but now it means that for my version 1.1 update of the game, I'll need to re-import those files into Audacity to edit their volume levels, and then compare them to the in-game edits to make sure the timing is the same, which will take extra time.

Now I've learnt to always save a copy of every edit you do using your sound editing program.

Promoting More:

I wish I had spent more time promoting the jam as I did with Dear Devere. To be honest, I felt tired and unmotivated once Spooktober ended and was trying the tie up loose ends, project-wise. I know I'm in a very fortunate situation, all things considered, but I also have to remember that everyone is going to feel the strain of existing through 2020.

[link: The Onion: Man Not Sure Why He Thought Most Psychologically Taxing Situation Of His Life Would Be The Thing To Make Him Productive: https://twitter.com/TheOnion/status/1253032100963508226 ]

- What I Learnt -

Clip Studio Paint:

I'm glad that I was able to learn how to use Clip Studio Paint during this game jam. In the time I had, I was able to learn the basics, the UI layout, and customised the hotkeys to what I was used to using Photoshop.

CSP has a helpful community and there are many resources on YouTube and CSP's website for tutorials and custom brushes, respectively.

Players are accepting of bittersweet stories:

As I was writing Last Meal at Cafe Mori, I wondered how people would feel about a visual novel with multiple endings, with none of those endings being a traditionally happy ending. They are more bittersweet.

I'm glad that people appeared to react well to these endings and didn't feel like something was missing or that the endings should have been done differently.

Save copies of every edit you do using your sound editing program:

See above.

- Conclusion -

Last Meal at Cafe Mori is a visual novel I'm proud of. I got to collaborate with a wonderful team, and not only did we create a work to show people, it was an enjoyable experience making it with those people.

Turrah.