Hello, Moonlight Bomber here.

Because I wasn’t able to speak up at the local hybrid Global Game Jam site (managed by IGG Philippines) to present this game, I’ve decided to write this port-mortem to tell everyone how I, a GGJ veteran of 11 years, came up with this in the first place.

I actually came up with the concept for The Peregrination of Criselda dela Vega one month prior to the Jam. And because GGJ 2025 began right on my 40th birthday, my mind was set on making a kinetic visual novel where both the protagonist and the heroine are of the same age as yours truly – which is a rarity for visual novels from both sides of the Pacific that more often than not focus on teenage and young adult protagonists and romantic options. It was also a chance for me to make something more down-to-earth after churning out fantasy games in recent months.

Three games, which are all visual novels, all influenced the story and tone of the game.

First is Collage, a freeware visual novel released by Komineto in 2004, which then received an official English localization for the al|together festival two years later. This mainly influenced the look and feel of the game, which I will tackle later on.

Second is Highway Blossoms: Next Exit, the DLC sequel to the original yuri visual novel by Studio Elan. This mainly influenced the metropolitan setting and more realistic situations both Stanley and Criselda experience.

Third is ef: a fairy tale of the two, by the now-defunct studio minori. As I’ve completed the chapter focusing on the heroine Miyako Miyamura on the first day of the Jam, some of her traits and backstory influenced how I wrote Criselda.

Now onto how I exactly prepared the game once the theme, “bubble”, was unveiled on January 20, my aforementioned birthday.

With the theme in mind, I first prepared the base code in Ren’Py (and also updated it to the latest version) as a means of pre-production, because wrestling with the code during those precious critical 48 hours is unacceptable for me.

I also took photos of several sites around P. Ocampo Street in Manila, which hosts Rizal Memorial Coliseum and College of St. Benilde on opposite sides. That was because I participated in a developer meet-up organized by MEE Games on the day before the actual Jam (January 23).

I also made the choice to sneak in a reference each to Power Rangers SPD (which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year; and 2025 is also the year where the events of the season canonically happen) and Ultraman Arc (which ended its run on January 18).

And most importantly, I also dug my cabinet for things that could prove useful to what I would be writing. I especially focused on a plastic bag containing paraphernalia from my late high school and early college years, which I haven’t touched in around 20 years; and took photos of some of them for use in the game. So yes, I essentially found something new in something old.

When the IGG Philippines-hosted GGJ actually started on the night of January 24, I used four diversifiers: Y2K, Tranquility, In a liminal space, and Transit Transcendence. Take note that I have a habit of using as many diversifiers as possible, as long as it’s feasible on mostly the narrative side of things.

Y2K: “It has been 25 years since the start of this new millennium. Celebrate it by implementing any early 2000s / late 90s aesthetics such as Y2K Futurism, Frutiger Aero, Metalheart, etc.”
For this diversifier, I had to step up my UI design game while also understanding the limits of the default Ren’Py UI.  I decided to use one specific era-appropriate aesthetic – Gen X Soft Club.
Since I lived through that era, I had to utilize some of the key components of that aesthetic: Train stations (hence the opening scene that happens on a train), urban architecture and cityscapes, Lomo lens effects (which were implemented by utilizing a Lomo effect on every background photo in the game), blurring (which was used in the title screen and game menus), and neutral colors.
The aforementioned Collage utilized Gen X Soft Club to its fullest; and the more natural, soft feeling the aesthetic invokes also influenced the story’s tone.

Tranquility: “Use music and sounds to induce a sense of calmness and relaxation.”
Despite my status as someone who’s hard of hearing, I still have a predisposition towards picking the right music for the right scene and mood. Good thing that IGG Philippines struck a deal with Joel Steudler to offer a one-time free offer on the latter’s music and SFX packs, exclusive to jammers within the site. This saved me lots of time having to search several royalty-free music download sites for the choicest of music.

In a liminal space: “The game is set in some kind of eerie empty space, like an abandoned mall or a vacant hotel.”
This is implemented in the game’s climax, which I won’t spoil for you.

Transit Transcendence: “Design a game that re-imagines public transportation as a key to connecting people, stories, and places in innovative and inclusive ways.”
Again, this diversifier influenced the game’s opening scene where Stanley and Criselda first meet after 20 years.

Now onto the actual writing. After a period of time where I intended to enter a single game to multiple game jams, mainly to see how the jams’ themes would meld in a creative way, it’s back to my early days of jamming, where I have to make a full game for only one jam. But now, with 11 years’ worth of game jam experience under my belt, I had to make a full three-act kinetic visual novel in 48 hours, even as I had to battle nasty vertigo a few times.

And during this year’s GGJ, veteran actress Gloria Romero passed away.  Naturally, I had to sneak in a dedication to her in the game’s credits, simply because she was an influential figure in Philippine entertainment. And did you know that the Mamasapano massacre also happened during GGJ 2015?

So there. This is the second time I’ve wrote a lengthy post-mortem for a game that lasts for 20 minutes at most (the first was Vantage, my GGJ 2014 entry; and it can be found here). But as a veteran speaking out to potential game jam participants, I have to hand out knowledge and wisdom like candy for the next generation of indie game developers.

Cheers.