A Simple Love Story: Author's Note
^{Sorry for any mistakes. This is basically me rambling on and on about things.
September 25th, 2013}

First of all. The meaning behind this visual novel was for me to ease into python, into writing, into creating GUI and backgrounds, but most importantly, for me to actually complete something.

A few of you may know about the visual novel I was working on last year, The Last Note. It was overly ambitious (and I do believe someone warned me, haha) in terms of writing.

Art? I could handle that; it's easy and I wouldn't feel too nervous about it. Programming? I could've probably handled that as well, but python looked like a really strange language, so, I didn't feel like learning it at the time. Writing? Well, let's say writing was, and still is, something difficult for me. I mean, I've written some short stories in the past. The most I've written before A Simple Love Story was probably two thousand words? Even then, it took me a while to write, even though those short stories were very rough drafts. And, they weren't really that good. To put short, writing was the most difficult for me during the planning of TLN due to my lack of skill and practice.

I'm sure most of you would feel the same, but in the beginning, I was extremely hyped and excited to write something that would be awesome, at least in my terms. I drew a few mock-up sprites, doodled some backgrounds (which were bad, but at least they were worse compared to ASLS's backgrounds), fooled around with some of the programming and whatnot. These were really easy to start on, and they were really fun to do. Although, whenever I started on writing, I felt frustrated. I'd try to make a small chart on routes, what to write on, and outlines. Work on them a bit, then put them away until the next time I felt like looking at it. Well... I procrastinated and lazed around with it a lot, haha. Which frustrated me, of course, but whenever I'd look back on my writing, it seemed so dull and uninteresting, which would frustrate me even more. So, as you may have guessed, I stopped working on it entirely.

I'd like to say that I've matured a lot during the last two months of summer, in terms of working. I stopped being such a lazy bum, and started to push myself to do things.

Then, I finally felt a little bit of inspiration to write something before school ended. Write something and finish something. So, I wanted to test myself and see if I could actually go through the process of writing: outline, rough draft, first draft, edit, second draft, edit, xth draft, edit, finalized script. And, well, I actually did do that. With the help of a few of my writer friends, of course.

Of course, it didn't go through block stages. While I worked on the rough draft, I also drew up a couple of sprites, looked through programming, etc. I'll have to say, forcing yourself to do all of the work is pretty fun. To be honest, I'm a very possessive person, so I wouldn't be willing to give away my own ideas to someone else so that they could write it better. It'd be better to give it to a better writer, but, i-it's my story!

Anyway, let me try to break down what I felt about the whole process during the production.

Music. I... I can't really say much, since I got them as freeware. I do like solo piano tracks very much, so it influenced my choices a lot, haha.

Art. This was the easiest part for me, since I'm the best at art compared to my other skills. I'll have to say though, the backgrounds were the hardest part. I have some sort of habit on making backgrounds from a very low vantage point, so I'll have to fix that.

Programming. This was in the middle, compared to the other subjects. I'm going for a Computer Science major at the moment, so I have some programming experience on my belt. Not the greatest, but I had at least some, so it was easy to start learning it. I didn't do a whole lot of crazy stuff in Ren'Py, but I did get a hold of most of the basics.

Writing. Obviously, the hardest thing to do. The planning of the characters and the routes were very shoddy, but I was very excited to start on the rough draft, haha. Planning is the most important part, but I decided on spending very little time on it. The one I spent the most time on was probably the rough draft itself, since it's kind of hard to repress phrases that you say all the time. I did try to get a basis of what I wanted in each part, so instead of worrying about editing the sentences during the process, I tried to write everything I thought of. Which is a very different process, compared to what I did for TLN. To sum it up, writing was difficult, but I still managed to pull through with the help of my friends, haha.

After finishing the beta, giving it to the beta-testers, and then editing it up some more, I finally decided on releasing it. Which is pretty exciting too! I mean, it was a little nerve-wracking as well, since I had no idea what other people (who weren't friends) would think of it.

Hmm. I'd like to say that the response to ASLS was a lot better than what I had expected. Most of them were generally positive, and the negative ones had things that I could've improved or worked more on. A lot of you guys are really helpful, so, I really appreciate it!

Anyway, after all of the excitement, I feel really proud of myself. There are a lot of things that would need fixing (if I would ever get to it) of course, but I'm just really proud of myself for finishing something. It's not the greatest thing ever, but it's an accomplishment!

So, uh, to finish up my wall of text: it was a very enjoyable visual novel to work on, and I'm looking forward to the future projects I'll be doing. I hope a few of you will too! :)

- chocojax