Daily VA-11 Hall-A 2022 #25

We opened this year’s Daily VA-11 Hall-A telling you all the origin story of how it all started, but did you ever wonder what happened afterwards?

VA-11 Hall-A left us a mess, for all the undeniable good it did even before release. There’s many elements I could point fingers to, but I think the most relevant one is the mindset that stuck with us.

As you can probably tell by many of these posts, VA-11 Hall-A happened in a very… frantic state of mind. A mindset that let us power through everything while releasing the game in a situation with everything against us.

We had to keep going, things won’t change if we sit down and do nothing, we have games to make stories to tell and a situation to escape from. There will be time to worry about things or enjoy things later, just keep pushing.

Two years pass, VA-11 Hall-A released… well, good! First step of the plan done, let’s keep pushing, we can’t afford to stop, we have games to make, stories to tell. Let’s start with that other project we wanted to make after we finished VA-11 Hall-A. We don’t know what gameplay we want it to have but we HAVE to keep moving! Things won’t change unless we do!

Releasing the game in Japan? Fuck me, I gotta stop not making a game I don’t have the full concept for to fix the code so it can be translated, ugh…

Okay, this whole making new project thing is getting silly, there’s been too much time without an idea and I’m sitting here doing nothing for it. We know it’s gonna be full of text so let’s just make some sort of text framework I can have full control of and we’ll figure things out later.

Training a new programmer to handle VA-11 Hall-A’s code or to make the new thing? THAT TAKES TIME WE DON’T HAVE! WE HAVE TO KEEP MAKING GAMES SOMEHOW OR WE’LL DIE.

But the game’s doing well enough that we can afford to relax? CAN WE??? HOW LONG IS THAT MONEY GONNA LAST HUH???? JUST KEEP MAKING… WHATEVER IT IS WE’RE MAKING.

Okay, there’s some gameplay ideas for a hypothetical sequel game to VA-11 Hall-A and fuck me we don’t have any better concept in our hands right now, let’s just go full steam ahead with that instead, we’ve spent two fucking years without something new released and this is getting ridiculous.

Story? Characters? We’ll figure that out later, just keep moving, it worked for us the first time around why wouldn’t it now after 5 years?

3 whole years with no new product, what’s this shameful display? It’s my fault for not being strong enough to learn a whole new language and the logistics of living alone while needing to program a whole new game. It’s my fault for not being diligent enough to cook, clean house, and pay the bills on top of needing to manage the paperwork of a company and the immigration paperwork to be able to stay here.

VA-11 Hall-A? Lingering on the hits is what has-beens do, don’t they? When you start resting on your laurels and only talk about the one cool thing you did, that’s when you know you peaked and you might as well retire.

There will be time to rest later, there will be time enjoy things later, for now I just need to find out why this fucking game isn’t progressing! I keep working and coding and staring at the screen all day and I haven’t even gotten to the part where I can write the game! There’s so much I wanna tell…

…

…I do have things I wanna tell… don’t I?

…

Exhausted yet? I haven’t even gotten to the part where the 2020 pandemic starts.

It shouldn’t be a surprise then, that by January of 2021 I took what I like to call “voluntary forced vacation”. I call it that because I knew inside of me that I needed to just take a full break from everything, but I couldn’t bring myself to stop until my friends stopped me and I felt absolved of the guilt of stopping…

Uh… SOMEWHAT, at least…

My mental health had deteriorated severely, I wanna say since 2018 but the process revealed scars that go back to way earlier, earlier than VA-11 Hall-A even. I started therapy in late 2020 but I didn’t focus properly on it until 2021 hit.

It’s honestly surreal to look back into all of this because I somehow went from being barely able to answer one email to finishing 27 lengthy blog entries that average 1000 words each in the same month.

No, you’re not reading wrong and I did not fumble the numbers!

If you were following Daily VA-11 Hall-A today would be the day with the Anna Epilogue. After playing through ANNA > DEMO on the + button of the title screen, and finishing the main game’s story, you unlock START with a whole new story focused on Jill and Anna.

But despite Daily VA-11 Hall-A ending for this year, I have one last surprise for the time being for you all! Come back tomorrow at the same usual time to find out!.

No it’s not N1RV Ann-A you dense motherfuckers I swear to fucking God I’m gonna