Reflecting

Wow.

This game was everything I never planned to make. For someone who loves pinball as much as me, I actually never considered making a pinball game before this. Seeing the positive feedback for the mechanic and gameplay has been incredible, I'm glad I was able to make something refreshing and new and yet, still fun!

This started as an idea for Trans Joy Jam 2025, which I originally was not going to participate in. I was still coming off releasing Poltersprite and working on Vekari: Remote Bypass part 4, which was the biggest update that game has had to date, and the jam originally only had 2 weeks. It was when they extended it to 3 that I said screw it and joined. The intention was to make a simple game to not push my own resources or body further than I had to, to tell some of my personal story as a transgender man in the only way I know how (artistically with minimal words). I've been through a lot with my transition, it cost me my family. The reaction of my family was in many ways traumatic, parts of which sit with me to this day, impacting my function in day-to-day life. As a transgender child in an unsupportive household, I was lucky to have the support of my community, other trans people who had my back and were able to relate to what I had gone through and, most importantly, show me that my life could be better. That I could be happy. I figure the least I can do as a trans adult who survived is to offer that back to my community, so that maybe a trans kid today in this mess we've made can see that someone gets it. That they aren't alone. That life goes on. But at the same time, I wanted to be able to speak to anyone in a similar situation. Anyone feeling as though they themself are lost, that the people around them don't understand or would rather they quiet, that they aren't worth it. You are worth it. Take from the game what you need. Sit and paint some pinball levels in peace for a bit, let your mind draw its own conclusions from the text snippets and palettes. Don't let my intentional meaning burn out your perceived one, because in the end it's how it speaks to you directly that matters.

The concept itself comes from my own interests and coping mechanisms. Throughout my life I have used video games as a way to cope with and process traumatic events and large emotions, but in an equal respect, I've done the same with art in general. From writing short stories to full novellas on Wattpad, to painting and drawing and sculpting and everything in between, I need to make art like I need air. Painting Tomorrow brings both of these together and puts you in my shoes. Enduring admittedly unforgiving challenges (which may be tweaked based on feedback, at least near the start) to emphasize that it is incredibly hard to grow up trans, the focus demanded by a little fast-paced pinball paired with the lack of focus in the backgrounds, replicating a dissociative state. Doing as I did, painting and colouring belongings and things that are valued to make them personal, to make items that help cope with bad things more familiar and comforting. The jarring flip of clearly favoured colourings to the all pink board lacking the loud SFX of the skateboard wheels entirely, and the burning need to cover it in black because it isn't right. It isn't me. This directly comes from an experience I had in which I used a black permanent marker to colour the pink sections on a pair of Heelys I was gifted, because the denial of who I was and being forced into something I wasn't, even as simple as the colour of my shoes, was too much to bear. As an adult, and having put in work to process much of this, I can say firmly that it wasn't about the colour or seeming "girly". It just felt foreign, like someone else's belongings. Nothing was mine until it looked like it could be mine, and sometimes that meant a little bit of an art project. This regularly ended with me getting in trouble for "ruining" my stuff, but to me, I didn't have a choice.

But why pinball specifically? It's a simple game design with limitless possibilities, and I was greatly inspired seeing Pinball Spire and Vaporwave Pinball all across my Bluesky feed. Also got very into an app called Bricky Boy. Those devs kickstarted me back into my love for the game. It paired well with the idea of a paintball splattering around, and I just so happen to also love Splatoon. That's all it took really.

I opened up Unity for the first time in years solely because it is the engine I am most learned in (that isn't GB Studio ofc), I figured it would speed up my process. I do believe this decision helped ensure its release, as it saved me so much time relearning or fiddling with the nightmare I keep hearing Godot nodes can be.

So when Vekari's update went wrong, I freaked out.

The polls I had added to the site required players to sign in with an external site in order to vote... and I hadn't been made aware until just then. Something so simple that I thought I had checked, putting a wrench in everything. I have only just been learning PHP and SQL with Vekari, and with the amount of confusion I was in over databases, I broke. I was convinced I wouldn't have enough time to finish Painting Tomorrow for the jam, started posting that I wouldn't make it in time. I was embarrassed that my larger project broke in such a visible way. I was upset even if I did finish this, it likely wouldn't reach as far without the planned jams (I'm really awful at getting people to see my work). I was a wreck.

My husband comforted me and got my head screwed on straight to fix the polls. I spent all day on them with minimal breaks, but managed to get them working far sooner than I expected of myself. I was back on track, sort of. My last week of the jam was then packed with making backgrounds, sorting colour palettes for each level, and figuring out how to implement different control schemes for accessibility. My husband made the music for the game to take some stress off my plate, and I wouldn't have it any other way now. Though there was more I wanted to do, I drew a hard line to not increase my scope at all if I could help it. I needed to let my body rest above all else.

Awful upbringing and close brushes with death aside, this game existing in any form of finished state is nothing short of a miracle. I can still feel the shock and awe I first felt the first time I ran the build and it worked. I played the game start to finish dozens of times to self-test all the bugs I could, and I'm still not bored of it. Making this felt like something I had to do, a moral obligation in today's political climate. If I'm going to live in a world where my very existence is challenged, then anything I make about my own story is an act of resistance. I never have been one for authority figures, as evidenced above in the paragraph about colouring Heelys.

I ended up dropping the game in a couple other monthly jams to reach a wider audience, and though I was scared due to the topics of the game and potential for hateful responses, I'm glad I did. I've received some of the best feedback and most supportive responses through these, and I can't thank you all enough. You can't begin to imagine how much this means to me.

When I dropped the game, I also made a post on Bluesky stating that I would add additional challenge levels if the game "did well". A vague statement. In my head, doing "well" meant the game got played at least 50 times. Which, I know, is small in the grand scheme of things. But if 50 people walked into this room right now to play my game, I would probably burst into happy tears and ride that wave for the next 6 years. And honestly, I didn't expect it to happen. Maybe the real lesson of this is I need to have more faith in myself as a dev. You read my mind and crept up on it, we're 1 off the last I checked. It'll be a bit, I'm still mid-update on Poltersprite which I promised first. But a commitment is a commitment. 

As my thank you for your support, your kindness, and just generally for checking out my game in the sea of games on here, Painting Tomorrow will be getting additional challenge levels (non-story, just for fun!), an extended soundtrack, and some nice extra effects in the near future. Depending on how quickly Poltersprite goes, I may be able to start work on this in mid-late April. I may or may not also fiddle with downloadable builds, so you can keep a copy for yourself. But don't hold me to that one.

Thanks for fighting the system with me, even if it's just a tiny bit. You all rock.