Daily VA-11 Hall-A 2022 #16

It seems to me that people love day 11. As well they should, it’d be kinda bad if the day we based all the pacing around wasn’t as well liked.

I still remember the day when Kiririn suggested the idea of a day where “someone switches places and you serve Jill”.

Memory’s fuzzy on the exact timeframe since it might’ve been in late 2014 or early 2015 (the writing process was very frontloaded). It was long before we settled on Gaby but also long after we decided Jill was the core narrative pillar of the game.

We had just come back from an anime convention, which had become a rarity in that age due to Money Problems. I was waiting for my dad to pick me up at Kiririn’s house (I lived a couple of cities away) and while hanging out Kiririn suggested the idea of having a scene where the player serves Jill, switching roles. Which I loved the idea of, after all, if she was gonna be the core pillar of the game’s story that shift would let me write more about what goes on in her head.

He had also suggested it to be Dana who she switched with but… that didn’t sound right.

For one, by this point Dana was already the focus of the balcony scene and so much focus would unbalance things, but for another point, Dana isn’t good for that sort of scene.

Dana is very much a great friend, but she’s more the kind that looks for active solutions. She’s equipped to protect, to advise, and to fix, but not for moments where you just need to listen. She would’ve been pacing about, shaking in place, asking Jill “Well… uh… Want me to punch that kid?”. 

That’s why she leaves Jill to herself in day 9 after dropping her home, and why she sends Dorothy on day 10 not willing to make the same mistake twice. She knows she’s no good at the sort of passive comfort that Jill needed at that moment, but like hell she was gonna stay still and do nothing.

Then, what about Dorothy? Not quite…

Dorothy is also like Dana, less on the punching side and more on the hugging side, but still someone that prefers to act instead of just sitting by.

That left two regulars of Jill’s life: Alma and Gil, and Gil has had the sort of life where he cares about Jill but doesn’t know the first thing on how to approach the situation.

Alma however…

Now, by this point Alma’s personality was already set, but when we decided that the scene switching places was important for… whatever story we were gonna do, I actually adjusted Alma’s personality a little bit on her other appearances.

She was already flirty and caring, but she had a more… sardonic tinge here and there, so when I decided that she needed to be the one Jill switched places with I went and made her more affable, more willing and deliberate in trying to reach through to Jill. I added mentions of her wanting to hang out with Jill, of prodding about her life to no avail, so that when she finally switched places her own efforts finally paid off.

However, the assessment of “who should switch places with Jill” actually informed what everyone else would do in the situation.

After… whatever we eventually decided would happen, Gil would leave Jill to Dana and take care of the loose ends of the situation (escorting Gaby to safety) as he’s more practiced to do. Dana would take care of making sure Jill gets home safely aligned with her more proactive side, and after Jill cooled down a bit, Dorothy would provide more help in calming her down.

Even the pace of the game was dictated by this whole scene.

Whatever blows up would need to happen by the middle point of the week after the bank debacle is sorted out (we had already set on that by this time), and whatever leads to this scene would need to happen a couple of days before it, since if it was right after it’d be too soon but more than 2 days of separation would be too much.

So when people love and praise and remember that scene fondly, and even the smaller details we took care of like how it’s the first time you actually see Jill’s sprite in a non-static image…

To say it was a relief would be an understatement, lemme tell you.

If you’re playing along, today is Day 11th of the main game.

Tomorrow… hm… I know I wanna tackle game design stuff on Sunday, so let’s focus on more character stuff, there’s a neat bit with Dorothy tomorrow after all.