Hello everyone, Passiv Boyo here again to dish out another daily dose of suffering ^^. Below, I will show in detail the entire process of coming up with ideas and making this VN, plus detailing my thought process along the way!

Note that this is just my thoughts as I wrote the VN, and not the only way to interpret the story (there isn’t anything much to interpret anyway).

This is my first published piece of writing, so I was thinking of doing something big, but believe it or not, the VN actually started from very humble beginnings…and by that, I meant a meme.

Sometime in February of 2025, while I was scrolling through distressing memes like any normal person -.-, I saw one that really resonated with me (I can’t find the meme anymore, but the gist of it is being trapped alone and realizing the friend that was with you is nothing but a fragment of your imagination). At the time, I had already joined the Jam so I thought ‘Why not use it as the topic of the VN?’. That meme then became the core theme of the story.

I detailed the ideas in a doc, such as the rough path to the ‘end’ (I still haven’t detailed what it is), the gist of the plot twist and more…then I completely forgot about it until the jam theme was released 2 weeks before May. The theme ‘The Light in the Dark’ doesn’t necessarily diverge too much from the original core of the story, but from the entries I’ve read in MayWolf24, the more literal the interpretations the better the score. Also the fact that with the MC being imaginary, it is difficult to show affection between each other through touch, so I had to change it to something else. I know that Awoooopocalypse is not the theme, but that no doubt influenced me into choosing the setting as the afterlife with the MC and Ian basically being memories playing in a loop.

But then…why a loop and not just a one-shot one ending? I want to bloat the word count a bit to really let the emotions sink in rather than focusing on mystery (the point of the story is romance anyway), and I don’t think I have the capabilities to balance them in such a short word count, hence the timeline of each cycle revealing bit by bit of both their relationships and the overarching mystery (still didn’t think it was done well, but I tried my best). This is also when I wrote the ‘end’ as a beach, after deciding the reason for the cycles is Ian’s wish ‘Quality time with you forever.’

So, with those two core ideas grounded, I drafted a rough timeline of their time living, starting with:

MC graduating > MC works under Ian > They fell in love > MC gets to go to the beach (which is his dream for continuity reasons) > They are now a couple > But then an incident in their job causes both to die.

This is also when I realized the scope is too big, and with only myself at this point, I wasn’t sure the people I’ll recruit would want to continue with the project when the jam ends. Plus I hate leaving an unfinished project, so I chose to focus on the important part, the journey to the beach only. In an effort to make the two not mention that they died every other line, which would really dampen the mood of their relationship, I had to use the age old trope: ‘they forgor ;>’

That is all that I planned before May. When May started I threw together a quick recruitment post for artists and musicians (and beg my friend MisoOkami to draw the sprite :v) and onward with the project I go.

I set the target of 1k words per day for the writing (and I somehow breeze past it, reaching ~19k words in 16 days, and I’m really satisfied about that.

The first scene when you wake up hints at the nature of the cycle (‘once again’); at the same time, I want it to mirror where the start of their beach journey (which was in a room detailed in postscript 2; when the funds are sufficient). Of course, going from strangers to lovers in the span of 19k words is too much, so I had to have some extra push to make it happen. That push happens in the form of both roughly remembering each other, which is shown as a very blurry subtext. Ian was desperate for people, and extra happy to meet you; while you make up an excuse to go with him (no way you believe the vague ‘everyone is afraid of being alone’ is the only reason right); even through some other choices (like the bridge), MC kept going on and on about being alone, making up reason after reason to go with Ian.

Additionally, to avoid leaving the player confused instead of curious, I showed Ian’s backstory while keeping both the characters in the dark (which would align with the player’s viewpoint). I’m not sure if it ended up being enough to raise curiosity, but anyway, the scenes after that mirror what was told in ending 3 (the field + the bridge).

These 2 scenes are like a speedrun of their relationship, basically solidifying the prospect of the two staying together, marking a change in their relationship in this world. This is where the route splits where if you are more attached to Ian, you put everything into the jump and pass, otherwise you will fall. This is where it most diverges from reality, as in their irl journey they went through both places (grotto first, city later).

The next major plot point is at the mansion, where there is a major revelation and also the blossoming of their relationship (depending on the route). In the real journey, this is also where they ‘cuddle’ together 😏️. I tried to match the height of the route with the journey, but arguably, the final scene later on had more impact. The beach being revealed right after is sort of telling the characters that their journey is ending. (For this world, it is the end; for irl, it’s the end of their current relationship. From dating to marriage, that is).

This is also where my biggest regret lies, since the NVL segments really took away the chance for me to really let their relationship build up, but alas, the scope came back to bite me in the ass 🙁.

The final scene comes, and I tried to emphasize the inevitability of this moment (MC fading/their relationship develops into marriage). The detail of time being constant and finally moving now is pointing at the fact that this is the part where Ian remembers the most (since the world is built based on what he considers as ‘good times’). And MC fades, for this world it means the cycle will reset to stretch the moments to ‘forever’; and for irl, it means MC is no longer just a lover, they’re now husband and…husband 🤤.

The two postscripts was an attempt to connect everything back together slowly, and also hinting at what you as the player needs to do to get the other endings (MC’s name being Tor; the retold of the journey suggests playing the game again for the 3rd time).

‘Death’ as a character is something planned from the first draft, and originally, I had meant for this character (and by extension, you) to be evil. This is due to another factor that influenced my writing which was the Arcadia ARG, where there were horrors beyond comprehension coming through an inter-dimensional portal, and in similar terms, ‘Death’ is one of them. However, as with other things, that’d make the scope too big. So in the end, I made the journey a voluntary thing (Ian’s wish), and left the existence of ‘Death’ as something a magical world has.

Truthfully, there isn’t too much thought put into every individual detail, and I have intended for this to be a wholesome and rather bittersweet journey. The fact that they are researchers doesn’t imply anything, since it’s just a fragment that stayed from the first draft. There is some intention to connect it to a multiverse of sorts (but we’ll see if I ever release more snippets of writing).

I had also wanted to mess around more with the code, but due to only coming into contact with Renpy and Python a little late, I just have to settle with variables, if clauses spam and an intentional error screen…Don’t check my code guys it’s spaghetti.

I think that’s about it for me, other aspects like the music (aside from those Lilithpad provided), I just kinda vibe on the fact that if it sounds good, I use it.

Thanks again to all of the people who helped me work on this VN, it wouldn’t be possible without your help <3.