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TYVN26 Postmortem

I haven't written a postmortem in a hot second mostly because I haven't made a game in a hot second. So I apologize if this is a bit rambling. If you haven't played my game, you can do that here.

I joined the Toxic Yuri Visual Novel 2026 Jam a good chunk of the way through. When it comes to game dev, I am primarily a writer. So I was looking for a project to get the ball rolling again, and this seemed like a really fun opportunity so I went for it, though I don't typically write very much yuri. So all in all, between joining late and having a busy work schedule on top of that, I had to find opportunities to work on the project when I could. Definitely ended up being more bare bones that I was originally intending but part of game dev is knowing how to adjust scope for the time you have. Thankfully I was able to put out something I'm proud of, and something I plan on continuing soon to create a more finished piece.

Concept

I didn't have much time to spend on deciding what I wanted to write. I started off with two ideas. One was the concept I went with, the mecha story about a girl getting very intimate with her mech's AI and spending altogether too much time in it. The other idea, which I may return to as well later on, was a "Shape of Water" inspired story about a scientist in an SCP type of organization becoming very enthralled with the creature she has been assigned to study. Both were considered specifically because I wanted to write something that plays with the medium a bit. The Shape of Water story would've largely been formatted as lab reports and interview transcripts, and the mecha story would be stylized like Star Fox style comm logs, though in the end I did not get the chance to implement that too much. I may return to this concept for the finalized version.

Eventually I decided to just start writing, chose the mecha one basically 50/50, enjoyed where it was going when I started and decided to stick with it. Here is where I admit a great amount of ignorance. I love mecha. I love kaiju. But. I have never seen mecha anime in my life. No Gundam, Macross, nothing. I've now seen Evangelion and absolutely loved it but I intentionally held off until the jam was over to actually watch it. I figured I may as well write my own story without leaning too heavy on mecha anime, as I felt I would risk accidentally being too similar. I was already aware of the nature of the EVAs containing souls, and with my game having a similar twist (though its much more biological than spiritual), I wanted to stay a safe distance. Naturally there's similarities anyway but what can you do.

So what were my main inspirations if I hadn't actually watched any mecha anime? There were a few main ones. The biggest by far, and I don't really hide this, is Pacific Rim. (I am now realizing both projects are very Del Toro focused. huh). The nature of the mechs being neurologically linked to two pilots in tandem is blatantly stolen from there. The kaiju are a very small aspect of this story but they were also certainly inspired by the kaiju of Pacific Rim, along of course with various Godzilla movies.

I also love, and was in turn inspired by Titanfall and Lancer's mechs. The mech having a certain amount of consciousness to it was certainly influenced by Titanfall's BT, and the corpo-military dynamic the mechs are framed by was taken from both of these. The Metal Gear Solid series as well of course.

Weirdly enough, the twist with AVA actually had nothing to do with Evangelion, though I realized the parallels later. I was actually primarily inspired by an episode of The Magnus Archives, MAG 65 - Binary, in which a man's consciousness is uploaded to the internet and it doesn't go well.

A word about Mechsploitation

Mechsplo was something I was only vaguely aware of before beginning this project. I came across a decent amount of it while looking for inspiration and I did enjoy a decent amount of it. I have referred to Mecha Project as mechsplo but it really isn't in the traditional sense. There is of course the dynamic with the Pilot and the Captain, and that is something that mechsplo works inspired, but their dynamic is not at all the focus of the story. Intentionally so, as I felt that if I had done so, I would be retreading ground others have done much better than I have. And again, like with Evangelion, I wanted to avoid writing something to close to a work I'm familiar with.

In the end I'm not sure whether or not the story technically qualifies as "mechsploitation". Doesn't really matter. Certainly good for advertising it.

Development I

I'm somewhat disorganized when it comes to actually writing. In theory, I should have an outline of events I want the story to cover, and I then write following that outline. I instead will have a general premise, write what I think the first scene should be like, then just keep going. I just sort of ask myself "ok then what happens next" and write that. I do not recommend this method to anyone and it is liable to result in rambling stories that don't feel well thought out. Thankfully I find that I have a good sense of story structure at this point so I tend to avoid that. At least I sure hope I do.

The vast majority of development was spent on writing. I figured with the limited time I had, I might as well put most of that time in the aspect I think is the most important. Because I wrote everything sequentially, I do think the main issue with the story is the last scene. I had to wrap things up and unfortunately that meant just having to plate what I had. I plan on returning to the final scene and extending it a decent bit, as currently I do feel that AVA's personality almost flips in an odd way that doesn't quite feel natural. Additionally, there's two scenes I was planning on including that I had to cut for time. In fact they are the reason the game is called Mecha Project Quetzalcoatl funnily enough. Didn't get people asking about the name but I suppose if Gundam can put out "GQuuuuuX" you can name a mecha story just about anything.

The Missing Chapters

I am sort of going back and forth on whether I should see those last two chapters through or not. On one hand, I am always a big proponent of ending your story too soon rather than overstaying your welcome. On the other, it does give a nice little epilogue that may or may not be read as a "good ending".

The second to last chapter was planned to be another mission, taking place an undisclosed amount of time after the big reveal at the end of the game. CHIMALMA once again is grievously injured, this time with Pilot being beyond saving and on the AEGIS' life support system, unable to be extracted from the cockpit without simply dying. The final chapter is when Pilot wakes up again. She registers that she's in the cockpit. Her last memories being the fight that left her nearly dead. But oddly enough she feels fine. Great, even. She attempts to leave the cockpit to see what's happened. She realizes she can't. As she reaches to disconnect herself from the Neuro-link, her hands grab onto nothing. There's nothing connecting her to the AEGIS. She hears AVA/Kara's voice behind her. She turns and suddenly the cockpit melts away, and she's simply in a void, with Kara looking back at her. Kara explains that Pilot's body was injured far beyond what Toro would be able to heal her from. But she found another solution. She incorporated Pilot's nervous system into the AEGIS just as hers had been, saving Pilot's life, and giving the two of them what they had always wanted, being united again.

Again, I am not sure whether or not to fully develop these. It could feel kind of tacked on but maybe not. Dunno. And re: the name Quetzalcoatl. Toro's plan had always been to eventually create an AEGIS with its pilots fully integrated. The pilot of the CHIMALMA being lethally injured opened up the opportunity to attempt it after AVA's generally successful integration. Quetzalcoatl is, in Aztec culture, the child deity of the goddess Chimalma. Typically not huge on simply explaining my work but hey if you're reading this then you may have been curious.

Development II

Once writing was done, the rest of development went by very very fast by comparison. I used a stripped down version of Disco Framework by Katy133 as I wanted to still have a semblance of those comm logs I was initially planning on. Started implementing the script as quickly as possible, gave each character a symbol to identify them with, and shipped it. The music was done by my friend and previous collaborator Joey. The songs were for previous projects we've both worked on and he gave permission to include them in this, as I felt that they fit the aesthetic very well. Ultimately not a ton of interesting things to say about this part except that I wish I had more time to work on it.

Development II 2: Still Developin'

So, I move forwards with finishing this project properly. Thought I would talk about development goals for the final version.

  • Going back through and editing any errors and typos. The game has far too many simply due to the limited time I had to proofread.
  • Proper portraits for each character. I'm planning on photobashing some portraits together to give the dialogue more of a codec sort of feel to it. May also adjust the dialogue box to feel more like a back and forth comm.
  • Backgrounds. While people have commented that the lack of backgrounds worked for the story (and I don't disagree), I would also definitely like more visuals in my visual novel.
  • Implementing the lost chapters???? maybe???? who's to say.

Ultimately going to try and get the changes and updates done soon as there are other jams starting and I want to have this one safely in the can before moving on because otherwise I don't think I'll ever get to it.

Over and out.