You, the Sun is an interactive visual novel that brings the player through 16-year-old Oliver’s recovery from a traumatic incident that ended his friendship with his first love, Josephine. The player experiences both the present and the past in real-time, the latter of which is brought to life through a letter Oliver writes throughout therapy. Through certain choices the player makes, they will eventually piece together what happened to Josephine while getting to know the backgrounds and personalities of Oliver, Josephine, and the people around them. This was intended to be a rather large project, as the original story the game is based on is around 25 pages long, so I was not expecting to finish the entire story from the beginning. However, there were many setbacks that hindered the progress of this project, such as technical difficulties with Ren’py code and drawing software, as well as time constraints due to school and work. At the same time, I learned a great deal about Ren’py, how to use different types of drawing software, and adapting a traditional story into an interactive, dialogue-and-thought-heavy one.

There were a vast number of obstacles with technology and my inexperience while making this game. In the pitch for You, the Sun, I used a sketch-esque, minimalist look for the characters and premise of the game. The reception was surprisingly great; many peers loved the art style, while some liked the complexity of themes like childhood trauma and grief. I wanted to make it so that the characters and the backgrounds were hand-drawn by me, so the reception was a good start. However, when working on the Alpha Build, I realized that my inexperience with drawing software and digital art in general was setting me back. For instance, coloring and shading properly were not as easy as I thought with the introduction of layers, and using a tablet rather than paper and pen was a steep learning curve due to the vast variety of brushes. For the Alpha Build, I used Autodesk Sketchbook (ADS), which I used for the pitch drawings, along with a Bosto 14W tablet. ADS’ interface is relatively simple, but this beginner-friendliness also meant the capabilities were more limited than other drawing software like Clip Studio Paint (CPS), which I used later for the Beta and Final Builds. Additionally, my Bosto tablet is almost 10 years old, which meant the resolution was extremely blurry, causing frequent discrepancies between the screen’s display and my laptop’s. 

These obstacles left me little time to expand the Alpha Build’s script beyond the prologue, which covers Oliver’s car ride with his mom to his new therapist, as well as his session. For instance, I initially wanted Oliver’s parents to discuss Oliver’s “smoking addiction” among themselves before his mom takes him to therapy, but decided to scrap that for Oliver and his mom’s tense conversation in the car. Luckily, the rest of the build went as planned, as I wanted to show Oliver’s weariness with his situation and set the premise for his reluctance to move on from the incident. 

For the Beta and Final Build, I focused more on the script and immersion rather than the visuals due to time constraints. From the progress I made with the prologue, I decided to make the Beta focus on Josephine and Oliver’s first meeting, as well as the first part of Oliver’s meeting with Josephine’s dad. This time, I was using CPS for the characters with a newer tablet, a Gaomon S620. However, this tablet lacked a screen, making the learning curve even harder to overcome. Luckily, I was able to make decent-looking sprites with different emotions that help enhance the script. The Beta Build was where most of my coding issues came into play. For instance, when I tried to make a conditional for when past-Oliver rings Josephine’s house’s doorbell repeatedly, the game wouldn’t load. This was due to my inexperience with conditionals in general, but the game kept crashing even with all of the correct components in Atom. It took me several days to figure out exactly how to “position” the code in the script so that it would execute smoothly. Another issue came about when I was inserting Josephine’s dad’s sprite into the game. His image was transparent, but the checkerboard background kept showing for him. This also took me a while to figure out, as Professor Boluk and some peers tested out the image in another game and it worked fine. This turned out to be a very simple yet finicky problem: there was a space in the title I used to define his sprite. 

Narratively, the main issue was the scope of the content. This story was originally around 25 pages, and while I didn’t expect to cover it all, my expectations were still beyond what I achieved. In the Final Build, I was only able to finish Chapter 1 after expanding it to its full length, only having the text preview for Chapter 2 instead of its entirety. My initial goal was to implement at least the first rooftop hangout with Josephine, but with the time constraints from school and the time it takes for me to draw digitally, it was not possible. I also struggled with improving the story and setting more of a premise for why Oliver was writing a letter in the first place. In the original story, the letter is the entire story. In particular, Oliver’s character had little background information, which made him a rather bland character. The original story was also written two years ago, and my writing has improved and changed stylistically since then. In order to overcome this, I came up with criteria for present-Oliver. In the original story, Oliver’s present age is never disclosed, but he sounds older than he was in the events he describes. Thus, I decided to make this version of Oliver sixteen. He is still young, hence why he still feels something for Josephine, yet he is old enough to recognize that it’s not healthy for him to dwell on childhood trauma. I also decided to add in a misunderstanding that hinders how others perceive Oliver as he tries to seek treatment smoothly, which was Oliver’s “smoking addiction.” Although Oliver only occasionally smokes, it’s enough to make his parents think he’s heading down the wrong path. In addition, the fact that he previously had two other therapists and two substance abuse counselors but failed to improve much convinces his parents that there is something wrong with him, rather than the reality that he and the therapists and counselors simply didn’t understand one another. The character of Oliver’s new therapist Lucy and her approach to therapy (i.e., writing a letter to the reason why you’re in therapy) is not only there for Oliver to recover, but also to help his parents understand that their son was never headed down the wrong path, he was simply grieving and being misunderstood. 

Despite all of the issues that occurred, I learned a lot about using Ren’py, especially with audio and transitions. I learned how to use diegetic and non-diegetic sound in my game to immerse the player more, and tried my best to make the settings and situations sound realistic. I also learned a lot about different types of transitions. I used Fade transitions with backgrounds and audio and Dissolve transitions for characters. Although they are not perfect, they allow for clearer transitions between scenes and Oliver’s past and present. In terms of writing the story, I learned a lot about writing dialogue. I often had to read what I wrote aloud to make sure it sounded realistic. I don’t normally write much dialogue, since my strengths lie in essay writing. However, for the time given, I was able to make some scenes sound realistic, such as Oliver’s second session with Lucy, and the tension Oliver notices when he meets Josephine’s dad. 

In the future, I plan to expand this story to its full length and capacity. This means better (and cleaner) illustrations, less choppy transitions, and more interactive elements such as image maps and more consequential decisions. I also plan to make the dialogue less stiff and more indicative of each character’s personality. Even though the Final Build only covers the prologue and first chapter, I hope it is enough to make the player stay engaged and ready for future updates.