Hello, it's ura! This is my second game, third game jam, and first solo project! To start, I'd like to thank you for playing and showing interest in You and Me+!
I thankfully wasn't as busy as I was when I was making 333, but solo development has some unique difficulties I learned about.
I believe I mentioned this in the 333 post-mortem that I'm borderline code illiterate. So while with that project I was mostly in charge of the art and writing, with You and Me+ I had to do everything. That should answer the burning question of "why would you make a visual novel in rpgmaker of all things?"
While I chatted in some servers about the project I was reminded of the ease of using ren'py. I know it's a good program (we wouldn't have used it for 333 otherwise!), but I didn't think I could teach myself the program and make something I was satisfied with in under two weeks.
I've played around in rpgmaker for years now. All of my unfinished projects are rpgmaker games. I was definitely inspired by things like OFF, Ib, The Witch's House, and other titles like that. The great rpgmaker canon you could call it.
I hadn't really played around with cutscenes for most of my time with the program, though. About a year or two ago, I finally added an opening cutscene to a project of mine. It was a pretty basic auto-run thing, but I learned a lot from implementing it, and eventually added more cutscenes to the project.
Jumping back to the present, I actually considered rpgmaker for a bigger VN for a different, upcoming jam. When I saw this jam, I thought it'd be a good idea to test my idea at a smaller scale. (A series of cutscenes auto running as a sequence is kind of like a VN! -Me, foolish).
I kind of quickly realized how… janky(?) this set up really is. My biggest concerns were the lack of a history function and the inability to save whenever. This is why You and Me+ is broken up into segments with little save points between them. Sure the game is short and probably best experienced as one play session, but I figured it's best to be considerate.
The hardest part of making this game was probably doing the visual theming and GUI. Initially I wanted to go for a pink and blue style. The idea was for the game to kind of look like a dating sim if you just glanced at the title screen. The orange colors kind of just hit me while I was playing around, and I decided I really liked it. As for the GUI… it was initially really bad. (I'm typing this after the 1.1 update). I didn't want to use the default rpgmaker window, but also a lot of rpgmaker window skins are made with fantasy styled games in mind I feel. I tried to edit something myself, found that it didn't look good with the default rpgmaker text outline, and only after seeing the game in other contexts did I realize the game was borderline illegible at some points. (If you played the original version I'm SO sorry).
With the update, I found something I was satisfied with and changed the color back to the rpgmaker default. I'd love to try making my own windowskins or textboxes in a later project though, preferably one where I have more time.
As for the story of this game, I was naturally guided by the theme of this jam, parasitism. I'm glad it had diverifiers, because the idea hit me really hard when I read the prompt for the "empathy test". That's one where the player has to decide who is and isn't the parasite. So we've ended up with Fina, someone who might be seen as a "parasite" based on one's standards for society, and a literal parasite.
Focusing more on her appearance for a bit, Fina was a nightmare to design. I initially thought I knew I wanted her with pink hair, but then wondered if that would suit the setting as the world took form in my mind. While I didn't have a concrete time period in my mind, the general idea was like… Japan sometime in the 2000s.
So I considered more grounded looks for her as well, though eventually I circled back to the long pink hair and just decided it'd use anime logic.
The parasite almost had its own appearance, but the reason it uses Fina's look is kind of two-fold. Like the parasite says in the game, it looks like its host and that fits it. The other reason was just to reduce the amount of sprites I had to make… lol.
I will say Fina was a real treat to write. She's very cute but also painfully insufferable. She was also a test for a later project, as I wanted to experiment with unlikeable leads.
I guess you could say this entire game was an experiment, which suits the theme!
Also to toss in a random fun fact, this game was almost called Fina's Gross World, which is why the old file was called Gross World.
Now when it comes to revisiting this project, I'm already thinking about a remake/expansion called +You and Me. There are some scenes that got left on the cutting room floor. I don't want to just update the base game, as I think that might ruin the fact that it's a tight experience. I also want to slightly build the game again from the ground up so I can fix the GUI more and maybe make more sprites. This will either in ren'py or videotome.
Don't hold your breath on that one, as I've got a few more planned games in the pipeline!
Until then! Thank you for playing!
I want to crawl inside you.
| Status | Released |
| Author | uraalice |
| Genre | Visual Novel |
| Tags | Female Protagonist,Horror,Indie,No AI,Short,Story Rich |
| Languages | English |
