Personal Thoughts

What does it mean to accept that someone is never coming back? That you will never again hear their voice or feel their touch? These are questions that have been haunting my thoughts recently with all that is happening in the world as I write this purple prose. On a fundamental level accepting that someone is gone is a rejection of their life, that they can no longer witness what they had build. This is not to say that their life suddenly has no value, just that context for that value has changed. It is now the value of memories rather than the value of their actual person. Trading their voice for an echo if you will. 

On some level we know that by accepting that they are gone we are accepting that they will fade away, that we too will fade away. Memories deteriorate over time and cannot be directly transferred to other people. Soon enough nobody will remember them. Sure, their name might be written down somewhere with a few pictures, but this is an echo of an echo and no substitute for the real thing. Even those who are fortunate enough to be memorialised by others cannot escape this fate for what is preserved in their case is the legend of their life not its actuality. 

Does that mean we should cling onto them and reject the idea that they are gone? Everyone does this to an extent, from catching yourself thinking about them as if they were still here because you are not used to their absence to keeping their room and possessions exactly as they were and being afraid to move them. This is just part of the process of grieving, you cannot simply move on from a person that they loved.

The question then becomes, how long should it be tolerated? Too short and it harms the person’s ability to process their feelings and if too long then they will stand in the way of others who are trying to move on with their lives. Tolerance might be considered a potential sin within this context as you do more harm than good for everyone involved. However, I could never truly convince myself of that idea. 

So round and round I went until I decided to put it into the form of a narrative. I hope that from it you can find a more satisfactory answer than I. Giving it written substance has made the topic haunt me less than before and on that front at least I consider Me and My Pet Cat a success. Our own mortality can be as terrifying and it can be reassuring. At least I am happy right at this moment. In the end I suppose that will have to be enough.

Narrative and Technical

The idea that formed the backbone of Me and My Pet Cat had been floating around in my head for some time, but never with enough coherency to form into proper narrative. Something about the image of a person walking their cat has always struck me as bizarre and the perfect device to use as a set up for even stranger events. Thus when the SuNoFes for 2021 came around I decided that it offered the perfect opportunity to force that idea out of my head and form a visual novel around it.

This proved to be an easier process than I had expected as when I pulled the idea out of my head I found it connected to a string of others that were hidden beneath. The result was what has probably been the smoothest creative process I have ever had from a narrative stand point, although in retrospect I may have over used the rule of three without realising it. Considering how busy I have been recently I would consider the speed of my writing to be well above the level that I normally work at and that is a big improvement in my book.

On a technical front I have more or less settled on a based framework of programming and layout which I borrowed mostly from my still in process game Tempestas: The Last Play. Now that I am more comfortable with exactly how Ren’Py functions, I think that for future projects I’ll try to more heavily modify the menus and interfaces. Currently the most I have done is move certain elements within them into more aesthetically pleasing places, but I could make more wholesale additions and changes future games so that they pop out more at first glance.

Final Thoughts

Overall, this project has been an informative experience, both personally and technically, and I am quite satisfied with the outcome. Now that I have a grasp on what I am doing and how exactly I should write for a visual novel, the way forward is through constant refinement. I hope that all of you will meet me in the next world of my dreams.