Hello, how are you? I hope you're doing well! :D
Thank you so much for the compliment! I'm really happy that you enjoyed the story! ✮⋆˙
I managed to buy RPG Maker MZ on the 12th and spent the five days gathering assets, tweaking plugins and exploring the differences compared to MV, which always felt problematic to me. Honestly, I wasn't even planning on going back to using RPG Maker, but in the end, I only had about a week of actual development time. Initially, I was creating the story and game in Narrat, intending to release it exclusively on the Discord server. However, since MZ turned out to be a great tool (especially for beginners like me), I decided to make use of the text and narrative to officially enter the game jam.
Unfortunately, aside from the pacing challenges, there were also formatting issues that became more apparent toward the end. This happened because, during the last four days of the game jam, I had to be somewhere without internet access and without the ability to work on the project due to family matters. Because of that, I made the decision to turn the game into a kinetic visual novel. As a result, all the time I had invested in the tabletop RPG-inspired mechanic ended up not being used in the final version. If I had structured the project as a kineti visual novel from the start, the result might have been more solid and these problems potentially smoothed out.
However, all those mechanics are still present in the game I'm developing in Narrat, which is expected to launch in approximately 45~60 days. In this version, those rpg features will be included, and the player will experience the "Side A" of the story, with Maximilian as the protagonist, whereas this game represents "Side B." In the Narrat project, before players had to choose one of two routes, and the story branches out based on those choice. This made development much more challenging, especially since English isn't my native language—handling two routes didn't just mean double the work, but four times the effort, as I had to adapt everything into English. Now that I've split the project into two parts, my production cycle in Narrat is much smoother, which has had a positive impact on my workflow.
Trying to fix the removal of mechanics in "Side B," I decided to fill that narrative gap with the emails Maximilian receives between the prison and the start of his mission. This solution helped provide more context and, in the end, wrapped up the story cycle. I know this approach not have worked for you, but knowing that, overall, the experience was enjoyable for you makes me really happy.
I truly appreciate your time and your comment! Wishing you a prosperous and happy week! ᯓ★