Rosenberg was created for the purpose of practising my drawing skills and newly acquired knowledge in Python. It allowed me to test out some of the amazing things Ren’Py is capable of. I had a different kind of vampire game in mind last Summer when contemplating what to create for Spooktober (2024). I wanted to add an interactive, survival game component in the story, but I decided to stick with more traditional storytelling in the end since there is a short time window for project completion for game jams.

I have mentioned before in devlogs for One Last Goodbye that I am not very good with spooky themes, and yet my third published game is another Spooktober entry. The reason is that on a personal level I am usually freer around the time of Spooktober, and making myself complete a game within a limited time window is a much more efficient way to create projects because I have a tendency to become distracted. 😅 So Spooktober is the perfect opportunity for me to stay focused on game making for an entire month within getting sidetracked by other things.

Inspiration

I wanted to create a vampire game because I thought vampires would be less scary than ghosts, and I’ve always held a fascination for the themes and symbols that vampire lores evoke. (But in the end I still found them difficult to draw on the mental level. 😞) The idea that these terrifying creatures of the night who inspire as much fear as they do admiration used to be human always got me wondering — what could be the circumstances or situations under which a normal person would turn into a vampire, literally and metaphorically? For me, as much as vampires could be bloodthirsty and fearsome monsters, there is a certain sadness about them and their condition.

The most iconic vampire lores, inspired by Bram Stoker's Dracula, associate vampires with the exploitative noble class that literally and metaphorically “suck" their subjects “dry". But what about victims like Lucy who are turned against their will? And under what kind of situation should someone embrace their darker side, their darker powers, and acknowledge the raw destructive nature that is within each of us, without letting it eat us from within? To me figures like Lucy are tragic victims. They are preyed upon by monsters, unwittingly become one, and end up becoming the targets of vampire-hunters. They are hunted, hurt, and killed over and over again by groups representing extreme ends of a spectrum — one that represents “evil" and another that purports to be good and provide protection, representing the antithesis of evil, only to end up doing exactly what “evil" does. Figures like Lucy are never given respite until they are completely silenced by death, reduced to nothingness, their humanness and darkness never given a chance for expression.

Through the story in Rosenberg, I wanted to explore how “Lucy"s can take control of their own destiny and live and thrive, despite the hand they’ve been dealt in life or the occurrence of sudden and violent destruction that breaks down everything that is “normal" and “good" in their understanding and experience of life.

The title of the game, “Rosenberg", was a last minute creation because I was unable to come up with an appropriate title for the game through the month of Spooktober, and still had no inspiration for a good title after taking an extra month to complete the game. There is no other meaning to the title, except that it refers to a significant fictional family in the game.

The Making

During the period of the game jam, much of my focus was on the art in the game — creating character sprites and CGs, the scenes that are unlocked for certain endings. I really wanted to make sure that the published version will contain all the CGs for the game since this was something I was not able to do for One Last Goodbye. Surprisingly, these did not take as much time as creating the background scenes did. Realistically, time-wise, I would not be able to make my own background art, so I had to modify existing photos, but even this took up much more time than I thought it would. Modifying the built-in Ren’Py UI also took up quite some time, compared to my first experimental creation of a partly-interactive messaging system in the game (Python is amazing!). And added on top of these was learning to incorporate voices to the characters. Even though I had the help of two experienced and amazing voice actors (thank you Tyler and Lucifer!), there was the issue of syncing the characters’ expressions and lips to the voices, which I did not think about before, but did have to go about working on when finalising the game.

All in all I was more or less able to stick to schedule despite the last minute decision to take a break and therefore publish the game one month after the Spooktober game jam deadline because I was just completely exhausted by then. I was quite proud of my progress, and the fact that I managed to complete a game, but I don’t think I can pull off something like this again! With the extra month for project completion, I was able to experiment more with the UI and create the unlockable gallery with extra media and materials nested in the “About" section of the game — my pride and joy. As simple and common as this concept is, learning to do it in Ren’Py with my newfound skills in Python was truly satisfying. I also took the opportunity to dabble in a bit of animation, a feature that I hope to incorporate more of in future games. I am also proud of being able to create a UI that matches more or less with what I had in mind.

Other new features:

• Main menu background that changes according to the current route taken and the completion of “good" endings.
• The use of persistent data for the user’s custom name, which adds to the convenience of using the same preferred name for each new game. (The name can still be changed afterwards, but it only needs to be changed once.)
• A different GUI structure and design compared to the standard built-in Ren’Py model.

Future Games

I had thought about adding a gender option to the game, but this would mean more art and coding, which I was not confident I could pull off given the limited time we had. Another feature I really want to add to my games in the future is the further customisation of the character’s appearance like skin and hair colours, and maybe even body shapes. But these would require further practice in art and coding, and I hope that in some of my future games I will be able to accomplish them. As I continue practising, I may create more “traditional" games and stories with limited customisation, as I find that it is easier to create when I go with the flow of inspiration and what feels realistic skill-wise to me at every moment. Another skill I am working on at the moment is creating background art. Lastly, nope, I have not forgotten about One Last Goodbye. I will still create a final version complete with CGs and extra stories, but I want to practise more before creating a final version of it!