Hello hello! Welcome to the dev notes for Rewriting The Legend (RTL)!

As a preface, I’m going to divide this into two sections; one concerning my thoughts about the development process, and one addressing the historical context and inaccuracies surrounding it. Keep in mind that all this will all be incredibly spoiler-heavy!

If you’re more interested in the latter, feel free to scroll down! Otherwise, if you’re interested in hearing my thoughts about game development and potentially learning from my mistakes, read on!

Reflections:

First off, wow. RTL has finally been released. My gosh.

I don't know how long it’s taken me to do this, but this is officially the biggest game I have ever made. At least, for now. It’s an absolute labor of love, and one that I’m so, so happy to finally share with you. I feel like I’ve been working on this game forever, and now that I’m finally done, I can’t wait to move on to something bigger and better! But before, I do, I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge how I improved, and all the mistakes that I made, so that in the future, I (and maybe even you) can refer back to this, and learn from it.

Improvements and general thoughts:

I’ll begin by discussing my improvements and thoughts about the development process. First off, I think it’s safe to say that I’ve improved a lot better since Mermaid Shores (MS). I’ve actually developed a proper intro screen, for one, and the GUI itself feels more streamlined. I finally learned how to use mini CGs, and the gallery looks a lot better too! (It was really irking me in MS.) The game itself just feels less clunky overall.

I think the thing that I improved the most on though, is the art and writing. This is really good, because those were the things I’ve wanted to improve on the most! Regarding the art, something big that definitely helped was that I downloaded Procreate, a paid drawing app. My previous free art app, Medibang, was alright. It has art app functionality yes, but was also limited. I didn't have access to certain features that other artists would otherwise have, like filters and complicated brushes, which unfortunately limited me. I found it especially detrimental when I wanted to draw something in nature, since I didn't have the tools to do so. Also, it plays ads on your canvas, which I find extremely annoying.

Besides giving me access to more tools, Procreate also introduced me to another crucial art feature, the ability to animate! I’m not entirely sure if Medibang has animation. I think its upgraded version does, but I never had access to it. I’ve always wanted the ability to include animation in my games, and seeing my characters move and come alive is such a rewarding feeling! I know I have lots to improve on in terms of animating (more on that later), but for now, I’m just happy that I have the ability to do that at all.

Animating itself was an incredibly tedious process, though. Frame-by-frame animation takes a long time, and can involve hundreds and hundreds of layers. In fact, the scene in-game where Arthur raises his word took around a thousand layers, and that was just for the line art alone! Coloring and background animation took even more! While I’d like to do this faster, I’m, unfortunately, only my own person. Professional studios have teams of multiple artists, and also use more advanced software specifically geared to animation. While Procreate is nice, it’s also a more general all-in-one art app. However, I’m hoping to up my game by exploring animation apps. Procreate Dreams was released recently, which is animation-focused software. It’ll take me some time to learn it, but I’m willing to put in the effort if it improves things.

Writing was also something that I think I improved on. As strange as it was to admit, my first two games were basically built off first drafts. I never gave myself time to really work on the writing, because I was more concerned with the bigger picture, specifically with how much time the non-writing parts would take. While my previous games came out much faster, I never really felt satisfied with the writing because I didn’t take the time to look back on my work. As such, they always felt significantly less polished to me.

When I started RTL’s game development, I was determined to improve my writing skills. Part of that included reading more and trying to emulate the style of more experienced authors. As RTL’s word count is much higher compared to my other games, this was certainly a challenge, and took much longer. However, this also served to be a blessing in disguise. Game development took lots of time, yes, but the lengthy duration gave me the ability to look back on my work with fresh eyes, and build off what I wrote before. This taught me the importance of second and third drafts. Comparing my work now, it’s almost strange to believe I wrote what I did.

This last thing isn’t an improvement per se, but it certainly helped my workflow. I ended up creating a GitHub for myself, which allowed me to work across multiple devices. At first, I did my writing on mobile, which was fine. However, coding the game was best done using my laptop, which wasn’t as accessible. With the GitHub app, I gained the ability to code on mobile, and access the work on PC, making things more streamlined.

Changes for the future:

With general improvements out of the way, now it’s time to list my gripes about the game, which are many.

1. First off, RTL’s artwork spanned across multiple platforms. I used 2 different software to make it, which made things confusing once it came time to import them all into the game. I couldn't tell which app had the final versions, and it took me way too long to scroll through all my past work to figure it out. In the future, I’ll keep things more consistent, and port my work into a specific place when I’m done with each piece.
2. Next up, the sprites are too stiff. I had many costume changes planned for Arthur’s character, so most of my sprite work was dedicated to that. While the outfits themselves turned out fine, I didn't realize how stiff the game would look with all the sprites just having one pose. In the future, I’m planning on every character having 2 to 3 poses, depending on their involvement in the game.
3. This one is more of a me-specific issue. I drew all my sprites on the same sized canvas I made the rest of the art, to keep it consistent. This became a problem when I needed to have 2 sprites appear at the same time in game. Although my art program could make the background transparent, it couldn't change the canvas size once it was made. As such, I had to export all the sprites and resize the canvas for every single costume change and expression each character had, which was incredibly tedious. In the future, I’ll be sure to set an appropriate, smaller canvas size for sprite work.
4. When animations were played in the game, there was a certain whiplash I experienced. I liked having animation, yes, but because of the work they required, I didn’t include much shading in them. It was strange to suddenly go from a fully rendered CG, to a base color-only animation. Hopefully, my future animations can have more detail. (As a side note, figuring out how to code animations in Renpy took me forever!)
5. Now, I’ll move on to the writing. This is an issue I already tackled, but I want to discuss it here for posterity’s sake. During writing, I was incredibly caught up with chasing my word count. So much so that my writing became somewhat purple prose-esque. I didn't realize it in the moment, but when I came back after a while to read it, I realized that much of what I wrote didn't make sense. Because of that, I ended up spending even more time to rework it! In the future, I’ll set a goal word count for myself, yes, but I won't have that be the end all be all of my writing,
6. This issue is something I didn't realize while writing the game, but was instead something I only noticed after completion. The pacing of the game is far too fast. When I played romance games, I always hated sections that focused on side characters, as it distracted from my love interest. To be honest, I still kind of do. Romance scenes were always what did it for me, and that definitely reflected in RTL’s writing. However, this came back to bite me in two ways. First off, Arthur’s character ended up being a bit too static. He didn’t have much development, and it’s a bit strange to see him be so… comfortable with the player after such short periods of time, even if there is a plot-related reason for it. I would have fixed this, but as I mentioned before, it’s something that I only noticed after the game was done. I suspect that it’s because I wrote the game in chunks, rather than working on it consistently, as professional authors do. While I’d like to do so, it’s something I unfortunately don’t have the luxury of, since I can’t do this full-time. In the future though, I’ll have to learn to balance the story’s sections better, which leads me to my next point.
7. I feel like the game’s intro is a bit too long. I wanted to set up the player’s motivation, but it felt a bit dragged out. This ties in with my previous points, so I won't harp on it, but I’ll hopefully be able to tie in future love interests with more mundane scenes to balance them out.
8. This issue is something I’ve debated on for a bit. Until now, the player character has had no definitive dialog. I chose to do this as it allowed for easier self-insertion, but unfortunately, it makes dialog scenes feel stilted and chunky. As I plan to have more dialog in my next game, this will be changing. I’ll have to find out how to maximize self-insertability while doing this, but I think it’ll help with the overall flow.
9. This problem is something that may be unavoidable, but it’s something for me to be aware of. My art and writing style changes were incredibly prominent in the game. As development went on, my skills improved, and the art platform I used changed. While this is a good thing, my output post-improvement contrasted quite heavily with the work I did in the past. I’ll try to keep everything more consistent next time.
10. This final problem is a more general one. My music and sound effects weren’t a consistent volume, as I sourced them all online. I ended up having to turn my volume up and down during certain sections of the game, which was very annoying. In the future, I’ll be sure to keep everything consistent, again.

Historical notes:

I based RTL’s world off the Anglo-Saxon time period, as that was probably when King Arthur would have been alive (yes, I know he’s meant to be Roman British, but just roll with me). However, I want to state that this game is not historically accurate. It’s a mishmash of different medieval periods, sprinkled with a heaping helping of artistic license. With that said, if you’re interested in learning more about the things I reference in the game, feel free to do so here! Again, this is going to be spoiler-heavy, and I will be referencing in-game events, so things might be confusing if you haven't played the game yet!

1. First off Geoffrey of Monmouth’s book, History of the Kings of Britain, is actually available online. Feel free to read it here: corrected.geoffrey_thompson.pdf (yorku.ca)
2. Anglo-Saxon houses did not have glass or overly fancy modern hinged doors. This explains more about their life in general: https://www.lancashire.gov.uk/media/935523/anglo-saxonspptx-1.pdf
3. Here’s what was sold in Anglo-Saxon markets: https://regia.org/research/misc/trade.htm
4. Here’s more info on what leeches were, and what they did: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2237356/pdf/jroyalcgprac00349-0014.pdf
5. Here’s what happens to weapons and bodies after wars and battles: https://lieber.westpoint.edu/dead-bodies-war-legal-historical-context/#:~:text=While the bodies of knights,a certain collective or community.
6. Here’s what briw is. Another term for it is pottage: http://www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/kids/food_drink.html#:~:text=Barley was the staple of,(two big spinning stones)..)
7. Here’s a website detailing more about anglo saxon weddings: http://www.richarddenning.co.uk/anglosaxonsurvivalguide/wedding_pagan.html
8. The gift you give Arthur for his coronation is called a rondel dagger! Read more about it here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rondel_dagger
9. The story that Arthur mentions, Beowulf, is an epic poem. Not epic as in the modern day definition, but a long, adventurous work dealing with heroic and supernatural figures. Read more about Beowulf here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf
10. Okay, this isn’t a source, but it’s something I want to correct. In the original mythos, Mordred's is not actually Arthur’s adopted nephew. Well, he is technically his nephew, yes, but I will not elaborate more on his connections to Arthur because it’s a… let’s say, questionable relationship. Also, I’m not really sure if I can explain it here without age-restricting the page, so do some of your own sleuthing! Feel free to be mad at me for this, but hey, if I’m having you explore the mythos more, I see it as a win.

Conclusions:

Well, I suppose that wraps up what I have to say about this game! I may have missed something, but if you want to hear me discuss more about anything, feel free to comment your thoughts! As I mentioned before, development took me forever, but ultimately, the final product is something that I’m relatively happy with, which is a tall order since I usually can’t look back on my past work without wanting to crawl into a hole. There are lots of mistakes and many things I could improve on, sure, but life is a never-ending quest for betterment, and I can only hope to get better in the future.

Anyway, although I’m happy with what I have now, there’s much more to the King Arthur mythos than what I have included in the game. I’ve compressed and edited out a lot to make it work, but there’s still so much I haven’t covered! I would have loved to expand more on Arthur’s family, like Sir Kay and Ector. I also have a full backstory for Mordred written out, but never included it because of time constraints.

Many things also occur beyond the wedding that I didn't tackle, like the quest for the Holy Grail or Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table! Well, technically his knights wouldn’t really exist anymore since you married Arthur, and the table would come from Guinevere’s dad, who was meant to give it to Arthur as a wedding gift, but hey. This isn’t Guinevere’s story. It’s your story. Who knows what will happen with you by Arthur’s side? I certainly don’t know now, but maybe time will tell.

As I said before, this game has been an absolute labor of love. I love you for playing this game, but most of all, Arthur loves you, and I hope you know that.

Now get out there and rewrite the legend.

P.S., a very special thanks to my Patreon Kroxxy, who’s supported me for so, so long during development. You’ve listened to me gripe about anything and everything, and have seen all my ups and downs through this project. It’s because of you that I’ve been able to work on this game for as long as I have, and I am infinitely, eternally thankful. Sending you the warmest virtual hugs across the interwebs!