A few weeks ago I released a tiny visual novel called A Dark Place. I submitted it as part of the Only One of Any Asset 2023 Visual Novel Jam. The rules for the jam were very clever and inspiring: make a VN using at most one background, one character illustration, and no more than one thousand words. This actually matches A Cold Place, and without meaning to I wound up making something in a pretty similar vein (hence the title).
It's less a joke and more straight up horror than A Cold Place. It was also one of the few times I've made a whole complete game and still wasn't sure if I was happy with it looking at the finished draft. Most of the time I get excited about my projects very early. But since this only took a few hours to draft, I actually got to the end still unsure about the story.
I wound up taking it home and sitting on it for a weekend. I watched my partner play it, gauged her reactions and noted her suggestions, and made a few changes. I made a few more tweaks the next day after a shower epiphany. Suddenly I was really pleased with it! Very short fiction is an interesting form because even tiny changes in the wording or presentation can have a big impact. I hope to experiment even more with it moving forward.
Take a look at the other O2A2 submissions as well! The jam rule-set is so clever and it's inspired a ton of interesting work.
