This is the image of the calendar in game. As days go on, it marks your choices. At the end, it will hopefully track your emotional landscape for the past month.
Even though I've set out to do #RitualoftheMoonReflections everyday, it's been 6 days since I posted. I was on vacation! A much needed vacation away from my laptop. In Ritual of the Moon, we ask the player to play for 28 days. It's a long time. I believe this habit forming self-relfection that RotM asks is beneficial to us, but of course sometimes we slip up. So the programmers and I had to figure out what would happen if someone missed a day (or 6). Should we make the game keep going, the comet always crashes into the earth? Not do anything? Freeze the game? Never acknowledge they missed a day? In the end, we decided that if you miss a day, the comet crashes into the earth that day, then if you miss the next day or any day after, the game freezes. This is to remind the player that their choices have consequences, but not to have the game punish them totally for missing it.
I missed days. It's ok. I have a goal. I don't need to punish myself if it doesn't go perfectly. I'll get back on track.
19 days until release.
Mini Games
Yesterday I wrote a little about the transformation of the mini-games. Before what they are now, a memory game and connecting the dots, there were 3 different mini games that the player had to do each day at different stations rather than just at the altar.
This sketch is from 4.5 years ago so I don't exactly remember how they were supposed to work. The top left is weaving, the bottom left is tracing a rune, and then the elixir is somehow filling a bottle with different colours. These were never programmed, just in the initial design brainstorming. I do think there is something to the texture of tracing, of slowly dragging a finger across the smooth phone rather than frantic tapping tapping tapping.
25 days until release.
Connecting the dots
This image is some sketches of images the dots connect to. The altar mini-game where the player connects the dots to form an outline of an image wasn't implemented until later in the game's design. Originally there were more formal mini-games, in the "Moon Witch" version, but those all got scrapped as it became more artsy and meditational. Connecting the dots at the altar is to be an action that is slow and physical with your hands (designed more for mobile than desktop). It can feel quite nice to touch the smooth surface of phones in that way, rather than tapping or absent-mindedly scrolling with your thumb. It is also to create a little more slowness before getting your daily mantra, to have it feel like a reveal (not a reward).
26 days until release.
Witch Bodies
Artists Rekha Ramachandran and Julia Gingrich made so many beautiful iterations of the witch's indoor and outdoor outfits. It was impossible to choose which amazing ones would be the finals, so it was more about it being the right time to choose than finding the right one to choose.
I can't speak highly enough of Rekha and Julia. I had the pleasure of working with them before RotM, again after, and again now for a new project.
27 days until release.
The Title
Four years ago I was at GDC like I am now. I had been working on preproduction on Ritual of the Moon, then called Moon Witch, and I found out that I got a grant to make it. This was my first major arts grant so I was very excited. But since I was at GDC, I felt immense pressure to make an indie successful popular game. In fact, Moon Witch was a normal videogame; it had an inventory, mini-games, and cut-scenes. It wasn't until I was on the plane ride home, away from GDC, that I had a breakthrough in my thinking about it. I decided to work with my favourite artists, who are not game artists or animators, make it art and not a "game", hold it to my own standards, not indie culture's, and to make it something the artists and I would want to play. Decidedly un-GDC. This photo is from when I was brainstorming new titles in my journal on the airplane.
From One Full Moon To The Next
Happy full moon! You probably didn't sleep at all last night. I didn't.
This is a big full moon for me because the next full moon will be the release of Ritual of the Moon. It's 29.5 days away. It takes the moon 27.3 days to orbit the earth but 29.5 days for the lunar phase cycle. Saying 28 is a nice middle ground.
Over the next 28 days I'll be posting little bits of process work, reflections, documentation of exhibitions, and miscellaneous thoughts about Ritual of the Moon. Please follow along!
