The Space Between Hellwrought Souls

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3/29/22

I Actually Started A While Ago


Title says it all. I started outlining the actual story and writing the first couple scenes of dialogue several months ago. It's been a little bit of an on-and-off project, what with the mental illness and desperately trying to cling to a school career that ended up falling through. The actual story went through more than a few iterations, especially regarding its themes and goals. I don't want to spoil those here.

The story was originally going to have a few endings, until I realized that would undermine the point that it was hurtling toward. It's only got one ending, which makes it more of a kinetic novel than a visual one. Genres are for chumps, though. I'll keep referring to it as "my vn" when I talk about it.

Lilah was also originally going to be a way, way worse person, which I'm glad I changed.

I've decided to go with RenJS for my engine. I, like everybody, was originally going to use Ren'py, but after being a bit disappointed with the syntax, I switched to RenJS. It's an open source, TypeScript/JavaScript-based tool that makes deploying to the web extremely easy, which more suited my needs since I guess I run a website now. SBHS was always going to be free/Pay-What-You-Want, and deploying on a website that I run seems the best choice for that. No download needed.

I've been working a rather mindless job this week which has allowed me some freedom to write and begin transferring the script from its home in the Google Doc to RenJS, as a partial experiment in workflow. It's a bit tedious, but it gets the job done. For now, though, I think I'll continue to write in the Doc, and transfer things to the engine either when I feel like it or when I have nothing else to write. It'll make editing easier.

For now, I leave you with Lilah's first real concept arts. Cheers.