Return to Ash postmortem

welcome to the postmortem for my "afterlife" game! (sorry this post came later than i expected, i had a lot to say...)

i already talked a bit about how this project came about in a previous dev diary, so i'll try not to repeat myself too much! the short version is: i pitched a game to Serenity Forge, they hired me to make it, then for scheduling reasons we decided to try and finish a smaller game first. Return to Ash was the smaller game that i pitched after the unannounced first thing (the most fleshed-out concept in a set of like 3-4 different ideas haha).

this post will contain spoilers for the game, so i recommend playing before reading this! but if you don't mind, that's fine too, most of the spoilers are in the latter half of the post anyway. let's goooo!

development process

production on this game began in november of last year, and had mostly wrapped up by april. they wanted to time the announcement with various events for marketing reasons, but that ended up meaning the game wasn't announced until JUNE!!! i felt kinda detached during that time when the game was finished but still a secret, since usually the only barrier for releasing a project is just posting it myself... but i didn't have control over that this time ;_; every game has new development challenges tho, i'm just happy the game is out and people are playing it and stuff! yay!!

just like with all my other games, it was mostly just me doing the art/story/music. i had a really strong vision for what i wanted, so i just went ahead and did all the parts like usual... z helped out with the backgrounds and sound effects though, which let me focus on the extremely long script! the individual routes ended up not feeling too long, but because i had to write all the variations it felt like it took forever...

the rougher art style for the illustrations was chosen in order to save time, too! i knew i'd run out of energy if i did them in the same exact style as the character busts (with cleaner lines and stuff) so i downloaded some charcoal brushes from the clip studio assets store (wait, is it a store..? i only ever download free stuff from there). doing shading in this style was really fun! by the way, the first and last CGs i finished for the game were both of celadon haha.

i wanted to mention some technical notes... we made this game in 4k resolution, which is wild to me because i'm used to working in 720p at most. i like a smaller resolution because if i take a screenshot of the game, i can draw over it or move things around and get the exact pixel sizes of things. i work on a 1080p monitor (do i even have a 4k screen in my house..? probably not...) so i can't even view the game at full res... BUT if we ever end up doing a console release, it won't need to be upscaled. that was part of the logic behind the decision haha, i was curious how it would go as well, so i wanted to try it for this one.

an unexpected difficulty of working at such a huge resolution is... the error screen when i mess up often has extremely small text.

we also had some strange issues with renpy (on some graphics cards???) not being able to render images that were wider than 3000-something pixels, so they would just get totally cut off. when i looked it up, it seemed to be such an edge-case of a problem that the solution was to just play it on a different computer lol. well, i hope no one has a bad experience because of it! (if it happens, maybe the person will just think it's funny...)

ooh, what other technical stuff can i talk about... z made a video intro for the splash screen, and i learned that if you use webm it's really small filesize and actually looks great!!!! what a cool format!!! i don't have a good process for video editing so i think it'd be faster to just keep scripting animations and whatnot in ren'py rather than start adding videos to my games normally, but it's still very cool to know i can rely on something like that.

collaborating with z was really fun! it really felt the same as doing a game jam with friends, though it was technically kind of a big budget project (they're paying me a salary and all...) so i've been kinda worried, like i would feel just awful if they didn't make their money back. in that sense it's completely different from a solo project where i can just shrug and say i had fun even if it was made "at a loss", haha. art is always worth making to me, no matter the cost!

as it says in the developer commentary, the concept for this story was something i came up with back in 2022… my isolation era, as i’ve been calling it lol. i wanted to write about different people who have fallen into loneliness from different circumstances, and how they would move forward from there. in that original concept you could choose between staying in purgatory, going back to reclaim your old life, or starting over as someone new... but in the final script, the lore changed to encourage returning to the real world. i still got to include the other options as themes related to each character, but... that was where my head was at while writing it, the good ending is where you re-enter society with your friends in your heart!!!

i probably wouldn't have made this game without SF giving me the opportunity to do so--i have tons of ideas that are stuck on the backburner that i try not to let myself think about while i still need to finish my existing projects. having an external motivating reason, or like, just an excuse to make a smaller thing really, is all i need to knock out something cool i guess! maybe once treat and syrup 2 are finished i'll go back to doing game jams all the time. or maybe i should just reign in the scope of the things i decide to make... ohhh gamedev is so hard.

gushing about all the characters

okay here's the big spoiler section, cuz i just wanna talk about the cast of this game in more detail! i spent a lot of time on the script so now i get to throw even more words at you!!!!! is this even a postmortem anymore...? i'm just holding you hostage (in post form)

ash(leigh)

ash was the first one i drew... hehe, gotta start with the main character right? the inspiration for her design comes from the music video for the song 祈りは空っぽ / Empty Prayer! i wanted the player character to be someone who had been involuntarily removed from society for a long time, so i thought it would be interesting to write someone who had been hospitalized for so long that their family kinda gave up on them. it feels a bit heartless that a parent would do that to their kid, but i think it also makes sense that they'd basically just move on with their life since nothing can be done but wait and hope their kid gets better… it just becomes like background noise, since she's pretty much out of sight out of mind. oof!!!!!

anyway, i wanted her to be on an iv because it was a really easy signifier for a hospitalized character, and because i like how the iv was drawn in empty prayer (so i basically copied that lol). z also had personal experience having been hospitalized and on an iv and everything, so we leaned into it! it worked really well as a countdown for how much time ash has left, really added to the tension and a bit of mystery and foreshadowing since it becomes more dire in some routes than others… so yeah, the whole countdown thing kinda came out serendipitously, i'm glad i chose this for her! (sorry ash...)

i didn't disclose her illness in the game, but her symptoms are a mix of things i've heard about from friends and loved ones. i think "vague anime illness" is kind of a whole trope on its own, but my purpose in writing it that way was for people to be able to relate to the symptoms and experience rather than describe any specific condition. i haven't done the research to write confidently about any certain illness, and i kinda worry about seeming like an authority or like, having a fictional character become the image of whatever specific condition in a real person's mind... does that make sense? i thought about it quite a bit, but maybe it's the wrong call... i'm not sure! i want to be sensitive since fiction about subjects people don't commonly know about can do actual damage when it's underresearched... and i'm not a researcher or anything... (i just like to write yuri and stuff......)

something i was very confident in though was writing ash as nonbinary! i got to express a bunch of gender feelings through her, yay!!! the route you're on really colors your experience with it too haha--celadon just treats you normally, scarlet can't seem to stop bringing up your femininity, and death ends up being fully supportive and encouraging (as a fellow trans nb lol...) i just really love the contrast, especially on scarlet's route where you try to ask her not to call you ashleigh but it's too hard to ask...

when i drew this cg i was like "oops this is yuri bait" but it's so sad because scarlet has so much learning to do before she would be remotely okay as a girlfriend. a real "HER PRONOUNS ARE THEY/THEM!!!" type. i love it. return to ash wasn't a yuri game at all, but i hope people make ship content anyway cuz it would be interesting to see! (i like the bond between ash and mauve best myself...)

scarlet

i was thinking of lynne from ghost trick when i designed scarlet, but now that i look at lynne, her outfit is completely different... was i thinking of some other character instead...???? ok her hands-on-hips pose though was just copying fenrich's sprites in disgaea 4 though, i really love when she looks all intimidating eheheh.

scarlet is a bit mean, kinda entitled and self-centered, and cares about others but... not really on a deeper level. she discards people too easily, too. i really enjoyed writing her because of her flaws, like with ash she's really trying but sometimes she says something and you're like OH MY GOD SCARLETTTT…. it's interesting that shes feels so immature for her position in life, like she basically throws a tantrum in her route haha. i think her sense of justice is really scary, especially considering people were harsh to her too, it's very telling i think that she also responds with harshness rather than true empathy… very black and white thinking, which i think just fuels her own shame/self hatred more. girl needs better friends!!!

her backstory was kind of a tricky balance. i wanted something that was an easy enough situation to understand/explain in one scene, and something that wasn't necessarily her fault but that she felt personally responsible for her actions regardless. i also wanted it to be something where there was a bigger villain involved, but she almost faced MORE outrage despite having done less wrong. so she feels like... both very certain in how unfair it is that the other guy seems to have gotten off easy, but also so crushed by having become a disappointment/pariah to the general public... and because of her black-and-white thinking (and the stress of the situation honestly), it causes her enough pain that she decides it might be better if she just died ;_; scarlet!!!!!!!! ouugguhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

on that note, another thing i was uncertain about was whether we should've put a content warning on the game for suicide. it's only mentioned briefly and she doesn't go into detail, so i felt like having the cw might overemphasize how much of that subject would be written about in the game... i don't know, i hope it's not too upsetting for anyone who plays. i think because the context is that she's opening up to you about something awful that happened, knowing that she's about to "wake up" and be in the aftermath of that situation... augugghhgh!!!!!!!!!!! SCARLET!!!!!!!!!!!!! anyway, i wanted her to talk about that no matter what, so i included it. it's a little scary to write about stuff like this, but i'm glad that i did.

celadon

celadon was really fun to write! his look is inspired by guillermo from what we do in the shadows. in the original concept i think he was a lot older and kind of a regular-ass business man, but i wanted to draw a cute round man in his 30s instead... i don't remember when i decided he's also divorced, but it was after i started writing (which is why he's missing his ring in the concept art lol).

celadon is a guy who is desperately trying to follow the rules of society. he has complete faith in the system even though it has failed him again and again... he worked in health insurance, which is supposed to help people afford medical care but instead exploits them, then he falls for a pyramid scheme buying into the false promise of like "anyone can make it if they work hard enough!" and it causes such financial/emotional strain that his wife divorces him, just another failure to live a "proper life"… in college too he partied like he thought everyone did, but because he had all this baggage with his sexuality at the time (another way he doesnt fit the mold) he went overboard just trying to cope with his stress of trying to be a good and proper due AHHH celadon…

i think it's really sad that he still believes in the system even after death tortured him for so long, like he always thinks it’s gonna work out if he follows the rules, but it literally never has for him ever. it's only because of ash’s kindness that he makes it out of that situation, and in other routes he just spirals into despair.

celadon, my broken man!!!!!! since his ending is shorter than the others i was worrid there wasnt enough going on with him, but theres really quite a bit… you get the full picture when you play all the routes haha. (i just love the above scene omfg)

the difficult subject that came up for celadon was... MLMs!!!!!! i've listened to quite a bit of anti-mlm content in the past couple years (thanks hannah alonzo) and i wanted to write about a person who's fallen victim to one of these schemes. YOUthrive isn't based on any particular company (d-don't sue me) but more like an amalgam of them... it's ironic that they sell health supplements (that don't help), like celadon really wants to be of service to others and make them healthier and happier, but he's ruining his own life instead... so tragic... anyway, that's why for his final trial, death helps debunk the supplement nonsense. and i got to take potshots at homeopathy while i was at it, lol... i think it'll take a while for celadon to fully untangle, but if he has some support i think it's not too late for him to get back on the right path!!!!!!! (his ex wife will never get back together with him tho)

oh that reminds me, i was glad i got to use the name chartruese because i associate it with marona from phantom brave! when we were naming the characters initially, chartruese came up, but i was like... we can't use that as the name of a major character...... a minor character is completely fine though!!!!!! wahaha, sneaking in yet another NIS reference (abeit vaguely lol)....

death

death!!!! rules!!!!!!! yknow how some gamers (derogatory) get mad when developers put politics in their games? death is my most political character in that sense… they are black and trans because that is the demographic that feels most likely to be at a social disadvantage, in a game about characters who were abandoned by society. so that's mainly what influenced their character design, i don't have a specific character to point to like the others haha. i guess you could point to syrup because of the hairstyle but... yeah i mean syrup could dress like this for halloween lol.........

in the original concept, mauve wasn't really acting as the grim reaper, but a character who refused to engage with the rules of purgatory. they were always the soul who had been there the longest and that the others could never get through to, but i wanted to give them a more active role in the story so they turned into more of an antagonist.

the truth that they decided to hide from everyone, the red text thing... that's an umineko reference, in case you're not familiar! it's like the most famous quote from that game... i made the little advance-text markers for the nvl screen just like the ones in umineko for this game, so i figured i'd go the extra step and include something more direct for the other vn lovers in the audience hehe. GDA is GTA, and they also say a line from yugioh... the whole vice city thing is exactly from my childhood haha, i'm sure other people had similar experiences with that series.

i like the idea of mauve having kept up with the real world entirely through the internet. and the fact that they can only lurk and don't want to make friends... i'm not sure i really clarified this in the story, but the characters each still exist in the real world, like they didn't get spirited away or anything. so you could think of mauve as just having disassociated through most of their life, preferring to live in a fantasy world where they have power instead of facing reality. i like their ending a lot because like, realistically there's no way ash can actually do much to help them, but they would at least have each other's friendship to get through the day... idk, that's for the realm of fanfiction i guess!!! send me all the "after they got out" fics!!!!!!!

alright i gotta end this post

umm, thank you for humoring me, i think those are all the things i wanted to talk about... in any case i worked on this postmortem for too long so anything else i say about this game will have to be somewhere else! i didn't even talk about the cardgame!!!!!! but there's not a lot to say about it, i just wanted a difficult minigame for death to torture you with and that's what i came up with...

writing stories that take place in the "real world" is hard and scary!!! i worried a lot about saying the wrong thing, but i wanted to stay true to the characters and it seems like people enjoyed it just as much as my other games, so i'll be happy if it's all well-received!!!! (please weigh in, was i cringe?!?!?!? wait, don't answer!!!!!!)

i said before that this game had some thematic overlap with vinegar's future game, but i think that one will turn out way different too... although it also involves an ethereal flower field.

see you next time :)