Beyond the Liminal Pt. 2: The Postmortem and Conclusion

The Results

I was originally planning to sum up the results along with a little write-up of how I felt about each category. However, Harold Jam 2023 was unfortunately suspect to voting fraud and several games were bombed with 1 star reviews including Stuck in the Liminal. While this issue is still being looked into, itch.io has yet to address it and the Harold Jam hype is fizzling out day by day. Since I’ve just dropped the Definitive Edition of SITL, I figured now would be a good time to conclude Beyond the Liminal as well. Trust me, my feedback on these results would either be unadulterated narcissism or complaining about how review bombs made SITL look bad so I’ll save you the cringe. With that said, here’s how SITL fared!

About what I expected honestly. The repeat Music win is only half-surprising, many complimented SITL's ability to do well on all fronts, and scoring top 10 in Gameplay is nice considering that was my biggest goal. A little surprised at the high Comedy score since this was my first time doing a more serious story, although I always try to lighten the mood from time to time. Story was kind of afterthought in some areas so that checks out. I am absolutely shocked that Graphics only scored middle of the road though, considering we pretty much had an entire art team and every single graphic was custom made. Several games mostly utilizing default RPG Maker graphics outplaced Stuck in the Liminal which, nothing against the creators of those games, kinda blows my mind. Is pixel art that out of style?

What went right:

With both my personal experiences and others’ feedback in the history books, it’s time to reflect on what went right and wrong and where to improve. I’ll be comparing and contrasting Stuck in the Liminal with Harold: Show-Stopping Hero since there was a lot to learn from last year. (Take a look at its postmortem as well if you have a bit!)

Prototyping my dream game and collecting feedback

Even if it may have been a rougher process than what I wanted this Harold Jam, I definitely achieved my ultimate goal. I threw every mechanic I had planned at the wall and created a feedback form to gauge which ones worked and which ones didn’t. Because of this, I’m leaving Ascent of the Allies with not just a personal opinion of what worked, but a more data-driven approach to how to design The Colors of Life. Additionally, entering the Definitive Edition into Feedback Quest 4 means I’ll be getting yet another round of feedback on a new and improved version! By far the most return on investment I’ve gotten out of a jam game.

Making something uniquely me for myself

I have been in a hell of an existential crisis this whole year, and I’ve struggled to identify who I am as a creative and as a person. Something like SITL could not have come at a better time. I didn’t go for a gimmicky theme like NES RPGs or stage plays; I went off my own intuition. There was no foundation other than my own instincts.

Additionally, I told myself the entire time I was making this for myself. I went so hard on Stuck in the Liminal because I wanted to see it. Contrast this with Show-Stopping Hero where it eventually became a big flex on the RPG Testers community. Considering how this jam's results went, I'm glad this was the jam I chose to put myself before others. The love of creating is so much more gratifying than proving yourself and has so much more long-lasting value.

Practical experience

One of my gripes with Show-Stopping Hero was how little practical experience I got out of it. It utilized a 3D plugin I have no further plans to use, restricted itself to one map and ten events (including common events), and was more of a visual novel with battles than a full-fledged RPG. Right after Show-Stopping Hero, I tried to make a TCOL prototype and froze up on the first map.

This time, however, I got to practice mapping, experiment with more advanced battle systems and enemy design, and learn a good chunk of the Yanfly suite. While it definitely started off rough and even embarrassing, I got used to the process by the end. It even got to the point where I was in a flow state and could quickly devise solutions for issues I ran into. I’m much better prepared for a non-jam game now than I was after Show-Stopping Hero.

Keeping priorities in check

While I once again let my ambition run wild, I was able to keep the scope down to what the player was guaranteed to see. This was pretty much a necessity since getting a finished game out on time did not look likely early on. One example is the unused Unga Bunga room which I was very excited to implement but had to cut out due to time constraints. A far cry from Show-Stopping Hero where I pretty much took an entire day to add in an event you could only trigger by deliberately sabotaging your score under extremely specific circumstances.

Writing more cool music and making even more money off it

I mean come on. Even if music wasn’t the focus, I’m pretty confident I can win best sound in any Harold Jam if I just apply myself to a good enough soundtrack.

Making sure everything worked from start to finish

I hardly had any time to test SITL, but I did at least take the time to make sure it worked both in-engine and after deploying. I also learned not to make any last-second changes to deploys without testing to make sure everything worked. The SFonts and character text sounds didn’t automatically get sent to deploy which screwed me out of some good alpha testing time, but I was able to circumvent this for every other build including the final deploy. Having beta testers on hand was a blessing as always, and some crucial last-second fixes came from the two days of beta testing I had.

Take it from Show-Stopping Hero. Having the three most stressful weeks of your life almost completely wasted because the last-second deploy you sent in crashed on boot burns this into your very being.

Making something that could be played and replayed

One of the biggest takeaways I had from Show-Stopping Hero was making a game with replay value. While I designed SSH to be replayable, the problem was the core gameplay didn’t support more than one playthrough. Why would you want to sit through the same cutscenes over and over again just to roll the dice on choosing the right dialogue branch?

While SITL ended up having less elements that contributed to replay value than I wanted, I did at least sneak in a true ending if you collected all the Facets. What also helped is Facets are not only easy to collect but able to be collected until you fight the guardian of the red floor. The Hard mode in the Definitive Edition adds a little more replayability as well. On top of all that, Stuck in the Liminal is an actual game with things that make you think and different approaches that can be taken.

Getting the whole team involved

I think my favorite part of the SITL process was getting the entire Colors of Life team involved. Pretty much everyone who’s been following my big ol’ dream had a big part in the process. Violet Spinel pretty much did at least a quarter of the game, Nate drew the portrait sprites and came up with some amazing ideas like the REID acronym for the Aspects, Myria’s art skills got a place to shine, and my little brother proved to be a multimedia powerhouse. Mooglerampage wasn’t directly involved in the process, but he always goes hard on testing and feedback and really ended up shaping the final product. It’s always a joy bouncing ideas around and watching them grow, and that’s not always something you can do very easily on your own. Even if The Colors of Life never sees the light of day, we’ll always have Stuck in the Liminal and no one can take that away from us.

Reinstilling my love for making games

I don’t think I could leave on a more important takeaway than this, even if it may seem obvious. After I finished Show-Stopping Hero and struggled to make a TCOL prototype, I questioned whether I even liked making games or if Stuck in the Past was a fluke. Sure I loved theorycrafting characters and worlds and stories, but does that mean I’m better off as an author? Likewise with music; couldn’t I just be a video game composer and call it a day?

While these thoughts came back in full force during a good chunk of Stuck in the Liminal, by the end it was apparent that maybe I hadn’t actually lost that love for making games. Maybe I just didn’t nurture it enough. Case in point, during The Sprint I started coming up with new ideas for games and even realized I didn’t want to be done making SITL! I even had the energy after the jam to try a prototype of a battle system I had theorized, and as I type the TCOL boys and I are crafting a story to go along with it. It’s about these two goober college students going on archeological expeditions with a bunch of their classmates and one of them might be gay. That realization I had after finishing Stuck in the Past is still relevant and I really want to pursue it this year.

What went wrong

I mean you should be aware by now the process wasn’t perfect. Let’s see why anyway.

Not applying all of what I learned from Show-Stopping Hero

Case in point, I underestimated the scope of my entry, gave myself way less time for testing than I would have liked, and ended up stressing myself out to the point of physical effects on my health. This destroyed me mentally during the process. The worst part is how permanent it feels; even if I make an amazing game, that little voice in the back of my head will keep telling me I’m incapable of learning anything or making any positive change. I’d say that’s only half false, and at the end of the day the player doesn’t see those struggles. They will, however, see the bugs I could have caught with more testing time.

Making something confusing

The battle system I based SITL around is kind of a lot to take in, yet I didn’t have anything to help the player understand it past the very first tutorial. As such, one of the biggest recurring complaints was how hard it was to memorize type matchups even with three colors. Even I struggled with this from time to time! I really should have had indicators in battle or even a matchup chart baked into the battle background, although I thankfully managed to get both of these working in the Definitive Edition.

Still not testing enough

Two days was not nearly enough for beta testing a game of this caliber. While working on the Definitive Edition, I noticed some absolutely criminal mishaps such as damage pop-ups not working because the plugin order was messed up or Energy nerfing defense instead of attack. Had I made something smaller or even had a less busy month, I could have definitely gotten more time to sort out all of SITL’s kinks. Case in point, I watched Myria run into at least five bugs while playing through the finished product on his own.

Overthinking and not coming in prepared

I’m a chronic overthinker, and chronic overthinking does not play nice with deadlines. The first week was spent putting way too much thought into whether everything was spot on even if it hadn’t been made yet. This delayed progress pretty significantly and could have been averted had I thought about how everything should be laid out in the weeks before the jam. I also ended up slacking hard on music because of this which was extremely unusual and out of character for me.

Skimping on story again

I will say this is not nearly as big of a flaw as everything above. I focused hard on gameplay, which is not only the most important part of a game but exactly what I set out to do this jam. However, I’ll always feel bad pushing story and dialogue to the wayside yet again, especially since I did it last year too. I think my dialogue was okay, but I definitely dropped the ball in some areas. For instance, the party was hardly fazed by the first Guardian Soul reveal in the jam version, which I thankfully spiffed up in definitive. There were also total excuses for gameplay mechanics and I hope I never have to do that again. Story placed in the upper half which was nice, but I'm personally not 100% satisfied and I still have yet to top the original Stuck in the Past.

Where to go

The most important part of any game jam for me is the experience gained and the lessons learned. Sure I like having people play my game and winning cool prizes  and stuff, but with every game I make I become twice the dev I was before. This year opens up some lessons I wasn’t expecting to learn but could seriously benefit me in and out of jams.

Try new approaches to game jams

Every Harold Jam I’ve entered, I’ve made something that started off simple enough but quickly grew much bigger than expected. All three times, I experienced crazy amounts of stress and barely made it over the finish line. With two big consecutive wins and the personal W of prototyping my dream game, it feels like I’ve really done all I can as far as jams go. What’s next?

Not killing myself, that’s what.

I’m probably gonna be working full time by the time the next Harold Jam rolls around. (At least I hope I am.) That means I’ll have way less time than this year, and that already means making something smaller. There are two approaches I feel I can take from this point forward.

• Meticulously plan out a game and pre-create almost everything but what’s contained in the game file a la Rage Against the Dying.
• Make a complete and utter joke game that will naturally blossom into something half-substantial.

Concerning the first approach, I already have a core gameplay idea and aesthetic that I can pursue for next Harold Jam, as well as concepts for characters I’m expecting to be featured. Concerning the second…

Don’t take it as seriously for real this time

This was one of the big things I didn’t apply from Show-Stopping Hero. I wanted to do a total joke this time around and now look. I aimed high from the get-go with Stuck in the Liminal but didn’t realize how high I aimed until it was too late. With every passing day SITL becomes more worthy of an investment, but it also means I’ve really gotten all I can out of Harold Jam. From this point forward, Harold Jam has to be something I can enjoy the whole way through more than anything. If I end up having another aneurysm next year, kill me if it doesn’t.

Stay focused on one task at a time

Being scatterbrained and lax with my pace meant less productivity. I started to get the hang of focusing on one thing at a time later in, but this should be something I keep with me from this point forward. This also applies to projects in general; it's extremely hard for me to really commit due to my constantly shifting focus, tons of other priorities, and absolutely crippling ADHD making things miserable.

Revise, not remove

An unexpected lesson I learned was to be adaptable and challenge myself. If something wasn’t working or someone else on the team had a different idea, I would revisit my own idea and figure out how to make them work in harmony instead of scrapping one or the other. This was something I think I did fairly well at with SITL, especially with the clashing plot points between Reid and Kasey's tight relationship and why they would fight each other at the end. The color system was less successful, and since that’s such a huge priority I’ll need to give it a second look and see how I can keep it fresh without being confusing. Already my team and I are thinking about separating changing stats and changing color to create a wide variety of builds while keeping colors more balanced.

Be proactive and authoritative

There were several times where I found myself getting frustrated at my own game mechanics but didn’t think about changing them out or devising ways to make them less frustrating. My beta testers carried me through this one, but this should also be something I try and work into my workflow. I need to be more aware about issues I feel hamper my testing experience and at least try to find a solution for them.

Are jams right for me?

And here’s the kicker. Jams are a good place to experiment or just have fun, but I’ve always treated them as huge Olympian efforts. Jams have deadlines, my games push deadlines, deadlines = stress, stress = I don’t enjoy it. It even got to the point where I wondered if I even liked making games. Now that I realize I do, I need to take that love and separate it from the stress I’ve associated it with in the past.

You know what that means? Full-length game with no deadline. The Colors of Life is obvious, but I actually want to prioritize that archaeology turn order game I mentioned earlier. It would be a great way to get my feet wet in making games, weaving tales, and having fun the whole way while not carrying the personal weight TCOL does. This is the biggest lesson I’ve learned from SITL and I hope I can find it in myself to apply it.

Conclusion

I’ve really said a lot about Stuck in the Liminal. Far more than I need to for a jam game you’ll only spend an hour tops on. With that said, despite all its trials and tribulations, Stuck in the Liminal was absolutely worth pursuing. Gratifying is the word of the day. While I may have griped about how I wish I just made a joke game and had a stress-free March, I would have gotten so much less out of something like that. My introduction to RPG Maker and its community came with the 2021 Harold Jam and devising my own far-fetched game idea a few weeks after. Since Harold Jam 2023 will be Human’s last, it’s only fitting I end it in a way that turns dreams into action while honoring the man who pretty much made it happen. It’s extremely hard to figure out where to begin with The Colors of Life and there’s so much that hasn’t been planned, but I have to start somewhere if I want to make it a reality.

There are a lot of times where I wonder where I’d be without the recent opportunities I’ve found to make games and write music. Long story short, not a good place. There have been days where everything around me was going wrong but hey, I had an Axial song to write or a still unnamed chameleon daughter to wake up for. Additionally, this has been a very unusual year for me as I’ve taken a lot of time to contemplate who I am as both an artist and a person and whether I even have an identity or not. Making Stuck in the Liminal and trying to let myself shine may not have been a total miracle cure, but it definitely set me on the right path and helped me remember what makes me tick as an artist.

So what’s next? Obviously enough, both full-length games. I don’t want either to fall to the wayside, but I think it’s appropriate to start the turn order game first since it’s a lot simpler and more stream-of-consciousness and has less core gameplay kinks to iron out. Obviously enough, as I learn about making games through the turn order game TCOL will continue to evolve. On top of that, there’s also composing for Toontown Rewritten (unreal), writing my final Axial songs for the time being (also unreal), and getting things lined up to start another very exciting composer opportunity (also unreal). And I also gotta play more games because I still don’t know how RPGs work.

I want to extend some huge thank yous before concluding Behind/Beyond the Liminal. My eternal gratitude goes out to the entire Colors of Life team, both what they’ve done for SITL and TCOL and as people in general. I would have never considered pursuing game development half-seriously if Violet Spinel didn’t take me on as a composer for Axial and introduce me to the RPG Beta Testers community. Myria and my younger brother are not only incredible creatives but some of the best friends I could ever ask for. Nate, Moogle, KV, and everyone else I met through the RPG Testers server have been so great to work with as well. To all of you who played and Stuck in the Liminal, (hopefully) filled out the feedback form and gave your honest thoughts, thank you all so much for helping form the path TCOL will take. This also goes for those who will be playing the Definitive Edition in Feedback Quest 4 starting this evening. And of course, the biggest thank you possible to Human for making this jam and the RPGBT community happen for the last three years. Cherish the newfound time you have for your family and career.

With Stuck in the Liminal officially behind me, all I can do is keep ascending. I'm really hoping to have a game or demo of my own to show by the end of the year. Let’s keep reaching for our dreams, making beautiful things, and loving the process despite everything it throws at us. Remember what's at the end of the road and keep running toward it. And hey, take an hour to play the Definitive Edition out now. DJ out.

Wait, hold up, they fixed The Results? Take a look at the actual final Stuck in the Liminal devlog!