Welcome to the Hydrangea postmortem. Today I’m going to talk about the process of making this game a reality - as a first-time team lead after years of being a solo dev.

Please be aware that this contains SPOILERS. Only read it after clearing the True Ending!!

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I have divided this devlog into several sections. First, let’s talk about the teamwork.

TEAMWORK IS THE DREAM WORK

Hydrangea is a beautiful game. From the gorgerous BGs to the beautifully rendered characters to the emotional music and the incredible GUI design, every bit is immaculate and more than I could ever have hoped for.

The team was able to turn my concepts, vague ideas, and wishful visions into much more than I what had in mind.

For example, Abby had the idea of having the color scheme of the flowers in the logo be inspired by the pH levels of Hydrangeas, that influence how the petals are colored, and I was like - that’s genius, I would never have thought of that. Not to mention EJ dropping sick track after track in our Discord’s music channel, each one more amazing than the last and fitting each scene perfectly.

When working with a team, you have not only your perspective and vision, but also the other members’ interpretations and ideas. Combine these together, and the result is something much better than you originally imagined.

Hydrangea would not be what it is today without the hard work and talent of this team. I’m honored and ecstatic that we managed to pull through and release this project together.

But also…

TEAMWORK IS STRESSFUL AF, SOMEONE SAVE ME

I’ve never been so stressed working on a game before. The deadline haunted me. I had nightmares. Couldn’t sleep.

The last two days of the jam, I worked an accumulated 15+ hours on Hydrangea. When it was finally over, I didn’t know what to do with myself.

Looking back, I should’ve recruited a bugtester or an editor, or both. I was on a crazed adrenaline-fueled rush, testing the different builds, translating, fixing typos, playing over and over and over, creating social media graphics and posts, sharing them, editing the game’s page, resizing images, rewriting the script….

The twins, by our BG artist Jam.

The thing is, I usually do this when working solo with no problem. So… I thought I’d be able to do the same thing while being a team lead and writer. Nope, that’s the devil talking.

It was my first time leading a team; I had no idea of what I was doing. I constantly questioned myself: should I be doing more? Am I being clear enough? Do other project leads do things like this? Should I have done this instead of that?

The CGs, for example: we were going to have all 4 CGs, but then we were running out of time, so I thought we’d be releasing the game with just the true ending CG….

Until Nevi popped up with the remaining 3 CGs in less than four days, fully colored and shaded with backgrounds. This was not her role to fill, and I’m still horrified and amazed that she managed to pull it off. She was not going to do any art for the game at all.

In the end, it did work out. But next time, I will do some things differently. Both for the team member’s sake and mine. My head still hurts.

I am very tired, exhausted, and very burn-out. I don’t want to open Ren’py again for a good month or so. I’ll be okay, I know I will - but the moment bug fixes are done with, I am going on a break from game dev.

Now, let’s talk about various facets of the game’s design.

THE STORY

I believe this devlog (LINK) I posted before perfectly summarizes the reason why Hydrangea’s story is the way it is.

Can I tell you a secret? I’m not a huuuge, die-hard fan of the yandere trope. I don’t usually look for it when I watch anime or play games. I’ve made two games starring this trope now, so that might come as a surprise.

What do I really enjoy is deconstructing tropes. Turning them upside-down, breaking them apart, and questioning them.

Same goes for Hanahaki Disease - for about a year now I’ve had the idea of that trope, usually seen in angsty romance stories, used in a story the way Hydrangea uses it.

At the end of the day, I wrote a story about an abuse victim surviving and moving on from their abuser. A story about someone close to them wanting to help, but being unable to due to their own trauma.

A story about someone who never learnt that a healthy relationship is like…. repeating the behavior they DID see.

A story about inter-generational trauma and abuse.

I believe fiction is a way for writers and readers alike to heal. Writing Hydrangea was therapeutic.

Look beyond Hydrangea’s tropes, and you’ll see why I was so set on making this project come to fruition.

THE CUSTOMIZATION

While developing the game, the team named the love interest Sweetheart, and the twin, Bitterlung. This is an important distinction from Yuu and Yua, as those are the masc and fem designs’ names, regardless of which role they play.

While Sweetheart’s pronouns can be chosen, Bitterlung is always a they/them icon and legend regardless of appearence. Whether they’re nonbinary, agender, or plainly experimenting with pronouns is up to you.

Same goes for Sweetheart - is a he/him, fem appearence Sweetheart transmac? Is a she/her, masc appearence Sweetheart experimenting with her gender expression? That’s up to the player to imagine.

The player is also customizable, but the love interest customization was the most important thing to me while developing the game. I ran out of ideas for the default name for the player, so it’s just… Ember.

As in, Ash… and Ember….

Yeah.

THE PORTUGUESE TRANSLATION

I did not want a repeat of my other yandere game’s situation of the translation not having the option to choose pronouns. So, I did extra work to make sure that feature was left intact, for player and Sweetheart both.

Portuguese is a heavily gendered language. This meant I had to rewrite some lines in the TL to be similiar but not the same, referring to the pronouns as little as possible. Making it all flow seamlessly was a challenge I’m not sure I completed… still, I’m happy that you can use the pronouns ela/dela, ele/dele, and elu/delu for yourself and your LI.

One interesting thing about this translation is that Bitterlung does not use only gender-neutral pronouns - instead, they are referred to both as ele/dele and ela/dela, regardless of appearence.

I spent a lot of time making sure this translation is accurate and respectful of all possible gender/appearence combos. I want Brazilian players to enjoy that.

THE FUTURE

I will continue to provide bugfixes and improvements to the game as feedback comes in. I don’t know if there will be, for example, expansions and rewrites of scenes in the future as I’m very much creatively burnt out on this story at the moment.

It’s possible that in 3 months I’ll be hit by inspiration and decide to write a brand new scene somewhere in the script that increases the word count by 4k words. Just… not now.

However, I do want to one day write and maybe sell a story (not a VN) told from Bitterlung’s perspective, of the events in Hydrangea, the past, and maybe the future. I like Bitterlung a lot and I want their character to appear in more projects.

I’m also wondering if there would be interest from VAs and players for a possible partial voice acting patch, for endings at least. That’s for future Mei to worry about.

THE END

Will I work with a team again? Probably, but I definetely will release more solo games before that happens again. I’m somewhat afraid this will be seen as a onus, as my art is not at all like Hydrangea’s. I use free music and edit photos for BGs. My GUI-designing skills are simplistic.

I will always continue to write the stories I want to write, and create the games I want to create, as a solo dev or as team lead. I hope you’ll stick around regardless of what comes next for Meiri Games.

I sincerely wish that Hydrangea touches you in one way or another, be its characters, its story, or its beautiful graphics.

As stressful as it was to make the game a reality, having it out there the way I imagined it was worth it.

Thank you for reading.

• Meiri

Unused alt for the itch.io game image.