The Grand Pumpky is the Ghost Of A Game I Literally Buried

Hello All,

This is my first time doing anything like this so please let me know if this isn't how it's done traditionally or if this even counts as a post mortem.

Trigger Warnings: Death of A Loved One, Depression, Overworking

Coming off of 2021 I I told myself I would release a video game commercially in 2022, 2022 being the deadline because my grandmother who always encouraged me to be creative had suffered 2 strokes and at that point we weren't sure if she would make it to 2023 and I wanted her to see me publish something more long form than the short story videos I would make in college.

I decided that 2022 game would be a sequel to Spooky Arena for a number of reasons:

1. Spooky Arena as is was the unfinished husk of a twin stick pseudo fighting game I was making with a friend who ended up having to stop working on the project due to being charged with a hit and run, in doing so leaving me with a metric ton of code that was not commented nor really understandable. What released was essentially me scrapping everything and starting over and in a lot of ways it shows so I wanted to give the world another go and try to do it justice.
2. Mechanically I feel like more can be done with the gameplay such as new weapon types, actually using verticality in stages, and incorporating a battle mode as originally intended with Spooky Arena 1.
3. I really like how cute the ghost designs are.

Work began on Spooky Arena 2 (Spooky Revolt) December of 2021 after I got back from visiting my grandmother for Christmas. Scope wise I wanted to keep the game small enough to be manageable while still big enough to justify asking for 50 cents to a dollar for. 

And thus my personal hell began; when I wasn't working my full time job or doing work for Java Saga I was working on Spooky Revolt, by month 3 or 4 of this I was exhausted and wanted to stop game development all together but kept pushing myself to finish what I had started. A few additional stressors came up in that I ended up moving and by the end of that I was informed another Grandpa and Grandma died and I was asked to fly from the midwest to Nevada for their memorial service which I ended up doing so and had a surprisingly good time given the circumstance. It was the first time I really socialized in a while to this degree and my first time meeting much of my family. With my week spent doing this I had flown back to the midwest when I received another call as soon as I landed- the grandma who encouraged my creativity, who never gave up on teaching me when my own teachers did in school, who practically raised me for a few years of my life; had suffered a third stroke and at this point it would be her last.

She was still alive but barely, I asked if I can come visit (they were being cared for on the west coast) to say goodbye only to be told "there's no one left to say goodbye to" and that it was only a matter of time before she died.  I knew I couldn't finish a game for them by the time they passed so I started 3d modeling their favorite animal as a goodbye gift someone in her area could show them. I got the model down but the exhaustion from the schedule I've been performing between all these projects and work caught up to me and I passed out before I could apply textures.

I got up the next day and while I worked my full time job I made the textures when I had any down time. I checked my phone and saw no updates- I had made it and all that I needed now was to know that they saw it or whatever they were still capable of. I began exporting and no joke- right when the export finished I got a call- my grandmother was dead.

I don't recall what happened next but I think I just laid on the floor for a few hours.

I bit before I was to fly out again to go to her funeral I got a small flash drive that I loaded Spooky Revolt onto and then 3d printed the animal with a slot I could fit the flash drive into. I put this in her coffin during the open casket. I didn't cry once during all of this- I just felt numb for some reason even as many of my other family members broke down around me.

Describing that last bit was pretty hard to write.

Once I flew back home from the second funeral I've been to in 4 weeks I ended up just laying down and not wanting to get up. I didn't even want to look at the unity icon, I didn't want to open blender, I didn't even want to think about coding (that last part especially hurt given that my profession involves coding). 

I started to break down crying at least 2 or 3 times a week spontaneously. I didn't want to eat. I had grown to hate game development. I only kept working out because I knew it was the one thing that still made me feel any semblance of satisfaction.

I began seeing a therapist because of all of this and sought the help I knew I needed. I'm not going to go into the details because this wall of text has already grown to the point that it's going to be a pain to proof read and I haven't even gotten to the actual post mortem yet.

I continued working on Java Saga throughout all of this due to the team needing me to keep moving and I didn't want to disappoint them nor the people looking forward to the game.

I think it was early September when I was modeling something for Java Saga and I realized I wasn't miserable doing so anymore. I still didn't want to open Spooky Revolt's files again as to not risk this feeling fading back into anguish. I didn't want to push my luck when it came to my mental health and creative drive crumbling again so I just did what I was asked to do for Java Saga, this all changed when later that month my brother told me he was making a game for Halloween. I thought the idea sounded fun and decided that if there was any time to see if I can enjoy game development again it'd be good to test it on a smaller project.

THE GRAND PUMPKY POST MORTEM:

The controls were based on what I remember Spooky Revolt's twin stick gameplay being until I realized that the level I had in mind for something short and sweet like this would be hallway like to keep it simple. Given that the enemies the player would fight only come from one direction twin stick controls didn't make too much sense so I made it that you shoot in the last direction you were facing and when the shoot button is held down it keeps shooting in the last direction you fired in for a "strafe" mechanic, from what I was told by the people that played it this didn't feel the best initially and took some getting use to. A few of the people who played it after release told me going full on twin stick controls would have been best which is something to note for next time I do a project like this.

Art style was based on what Spooky Revolt's style was as it's very easy to do and in my personal opinion it looks charming when you have 2d characters running around a world that has textures drawn onto in a similar style. As of the time of writing I really do love the art style because it's easy to do and very cute- to the point that I'd like to use it in future projects, it's also the one thing players have universally praised so far.

Music and sound design are my weak points, luckily I was able to re-use some of Buber's sound effects they made for Spooky Revolt and Felix.Rodent stepped in to do music right when I delayed the game past Halloween due to not being able to find anyone for that field, Felix also being super rad and pointing out that the music resets when the player dies/ completes the stage- this was fixed before the game full on launched hence why it released in v1.01. I would not have thought about the music breaking it's loop upon reload being an issue but upon fixing it it really makes the world feel like an ever-present thing rather than something that only lingers with the player, thanks Felix.

I really loved making the Grand Pumpky, it's short length, simple art style, and (hopefully) enjoyable feel really reminded me why I love making video games- it's the process of creation and iteration, seeing the project come together and evolve into something beautiful. While I don't think I'll really work on Spooky Revolt again in any meaningful way I feel that much of what I learned lives on through this project (and hopefully others)- that being said I think it would be a dis-service to my grandma to have the game only exist in her coffin so I am posting the secret link to the draft page, I hope someone out there- if anyone reads this can enjoy playing a bit of something personal to me:

https://spectreloaf.itch.io/cute-looking-squishy-ghosts-the-video-game-2?secret=...

If you made it to the end thank you very much for reading what was essentially a thesis paper going over the lore of what this game that can be beaten in 4 minutes meant to me followed by roughly 4 paragraphs of an actual post mortem- I just felt the backstory was essential to fully explain why this game was important to me.

Thank you all.