1 year of Words Left Unsaid: browser version + OST release!

Hi again! Just like with Colors of Nothingness around a month ago, decided to celebrate Words Left Unsaid and reflect on it for a bit!

Words Left Unsaid is, as of writing now, possibly my favorite thing I've made? It was very different for me: my first time entering a jam (minus the 2024 Worst VN Jam), and as such, much more limiting and giving me something I never really had to work with before: time constraints.

Time limits are weird for me. I may take forever to do something without them, but the moment I have one, I stress out and end up doing things WAY faster than I should. Words Left Unsaid was finished in 3 of the 10 given days due to that mentality of mine. Although it felt a bit easier since I knew precisely what I wanted to do for a WHILE when O2A2 actually started. O2A2 also seemed like the perfect jam to start with, as I'm too much of a control freak to let anything to other people so I had to attend a jam I would be comfortable participating in as a solo dev without score creep creeping in LMAOOOOO

There are two things I had in mind when making this game.

One, I wanted to use Rose, a character that, up to this point, has never been in any project of mine, although I did think of her a while back, as someone from the cast of the-big-project-I-wanted-to-make-since-I-started-making-visual-novels (y'all are still probably going to have to wait a few years before getting that one LOL, still have another non-jam vn I want to release before that). It helped me think more about her design too, and overall I really like how she turned out, expect her to show up again if I do another jam project at some point!

Two, I wanted to write about a particular experience that happened to me in November 2023 and that stuck with me since.

I'll say this: the reason Words Left Unsaid seems to have hit hard for a lot of people is because it is pretty much a retelling of a situation that actually happened to me.

A friend and former crush of mine sent a group chat to invite whoever could come to her 18th birthday. I, much like Rose herself, was never a party person to begin with, and I knew this was going to be a big party mostly due to the fact she has a HUGE family, to the point that around 90% of the people who attended the party were family LOL. Still, I wanted to go, because even though we hadn't spoken since the end of high school, I still wanted to see how she was doing and maybe have a fun time.

I ended up listening to a bunch of albums while looking at the other people dancing. I remember specifically one moment where Dance Monkey (yeah remember that......) started playing while I was listening to Tyler, The Creator's Igor, and that made me realize just how detached I actually was to the events of the party. It was actually that memory which inspired the idea of having two tracks overlapping each other as the one song for this game, with the faint electro beat in the back as the more string-oriented proper piece of music plays. I thought about how I had more fun playing around with the little cousins having childish, innocent fun than with anyone my age. 

How the only words I said to that girl who invited me were "hi, happy birthday", and "I'll go sleep now, good night".

And the rest... were Words Left Unsaid *mic drop, explosion sounds, mlg 360noscope epic montage here*

This is, to me, the moment I realized that my high school life was in the past. I don't have any contact with anyone from my high school anymore, the friends I have now are all from college or Internet. And honestly? That's completely okay! People change, and there's nothing you can nor should do about it, they just are that way now.

Words Left Unsaid ended up being a success to me (or at least more succesful than Colors Of Nothingness LMAOOO), and that was the first times I got as much feedback as I did on a project of mine, which is awesome! I was especially glad people really liked the soundtrack, because it kinda confirmed what I thought: no matter how hard I may fail everything else (and as we discussed, Words Left Unsaid isn't a project where I really failed at anything), I ALWAYS cook when it comes to the soundtrack, hell yeah B-)

oh btw SOUNDTRACK AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD ON BANDCAMP FOR FREE: https://esbi.bandcamp.com/album/words-left-unsaid-original-soundtrack

oh and WHY THE HELL DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME MAKING WEB VERSIONS OF GAMES WAS THAT SIMPLE DHVSGHVSFVNFV (browser version out now!)

I might do O2A2 this year? If I do, I'm absolutely using Rose again, and I think I know what I want to do but eh, we'll see, no promises

Anyways uhhhhhhh, take care, hope you enjoyed the read! :D