The Road to Bad Summer: Plotting, People, and Ren’Py (Part 2)
If you read Part One, you already know how Bad Summer was born—with a shrug, a whiteboard, and an unreasonable amount of confidence.
Now as promised, we’re diving a little deeper into those early days: the wild story ideas we threw around, why we chose to blend horror and romance (because nothing says “date night” like running for your life), the adventure of finding the right artists, and our first brave steps into the world of coding an actual game.
To sum up the intro: Still early days. Still chaotic. Still figuring it all out. Let’s get into it.
FROM OPPOSITE TASTES TO ONE TWISTED VISION
I’m all about adventure, action, horror, fantasy, and anything with ghosts, monsters, or a sword fight every ten minutes. My sister, on the other hand? She lives and breathes romance. If there isn’t a slow-burn love story or a dramatic “will-they-won’t-they,” she’s out.
There was a time when I wouldn’t go near romance. Like, at all. If two characters made prolonged eye contact, I was already looking for the exit.
But over time, I learned to appreciate it. I may not seek it out, but I get why people love it—the tension, the drama, the emotional payoff. It’s just not my go-to. I’m more of a “monsters in the woods” than “kissing in the rain” kind of person.
So when we were tossing around ideas for our visual novel, we knew romance had to be a part of it. No exceptions. Romance was the dominant factor in almost every visual novel we looked at—and it’s no wonder. People love romance, and if you’ve ever glanced at a bestseller list, you’d know exactly what I mean.
Still, I wasn’t exactly jumping with joy about it. My sister, being highly perceptive, knew that. So she pitched a compromise: What if we added a second genre? Something with a little more teeth.
Enter horror.
Because what pairs better with love than fear, right?
ART IS EXPENSIVE AND OTHER LESSONS WE LEARNED TOO LATE
Once we had the story (mostly) figured out, we went on the hunt for artists.
Huge mistake.
In hindsight, we definitely should’ve finished writing the full script first—then found an artist once we were happy with it. But nope. We were new, we were excited, and we were dying to see our ideas come to life.
The result? We jumped the gun, blew through way more money than we should’ve, and made ourselves cry over how painfully avoidable it all was.
We semi learned our lesson. Kind of.
We still let our enthusiasm get the better of us sometimes—and that led to us rewriting the script more than once to keep up with whatever wild idea popped into our heads at 2 a.m.
Also, I feel like I have to say—our artists are amazing. Every single one of them. Seriously, Bad Summer wouldn’t be half as good without the insanely talented people we’ve worked with.
That said, our main artist, Harley, deserves a special shoutout. She’s been with us from early on and has done a lot. I’m talking: all of our CGs, character sprites, a few key assets (like the bus and cabin), custom animations, and even animated our trailer.
No idea we come up with is ever too outrageous for her—she rolls with it every time.
But getting to this dream team? Not easy. We were swindled more than a few times, learned some hard lessons, and almost gave up on the process altogether. But that’s a story for another post I think since this one is getting a little too long.
PICTURES OF ‘ANIMATION CONCEPT ART ‘
Concept art of our characters created specifically for the Bad Summer animated trailer—before they hit the screen in motion.
CODING A VISUAL NOVEL WHEN YOU’VE NEVER CODED A VISUAL NOVEL
CODING A VISUAL NOVEL WHEN YOU’VE NEVER CODED A VISUAL NOVEL
Now, onto coding.
I didn’t know much about coding a visual novel—because, well, I’d never actually coded one before.
But I had coded other things. My degree’s in computer science (surprise!), which is a big part of why my sister thought, “Hey, let’s make a game!” and not “Hey, let’s write a book!”
Long story short, I did a quick Google search, found Ren’Py, and went, “Yeah, this’ll do.”
It was free (big win), had a bunch of video tutorials, an official guide, a Patreon for support, and a whole army of forums dedicated to helping people just like me. It was a safe, beginner-friendly choice—and honestly? I’m still happy with it to this day.
In the beginning, I tackled the coding solo.
Until… I talked to a friend from school. I casually mentioned what my sister and I were working on and straight-up asked him if he wanted to join the project. Truthfully, I wasn’t expecting a yes.
But he said yes. HE SAID YES!
And I’ve been grateful—and honestly still a little shocked—ever since.
Because here’s the thing: this man codes for FREE. He’s never once asked for money. We give what we can, when we can, but he deserves so much more.
He’s the best. The absolute best.
Chanyu, you’re amazing.
(Hint hint: there’s a supporter pack if you’re interested in helping us out—just saying.)
Anyway, back to coding.
Chanyu is the kind of person who just gets it. He codes with ease and confidence. Meanwhile, I’m over here squinting at an error message like it personally insulted me.
So when my sister’s gameplay ideas started getting more and more complex (because of course they did), having Chanyu on board lifted a massive weight off my shoulders. And Bad Summer is so much better because of it.
He’s been a lifesaver.
WHERE WE LEAVE OFF—FOR NOW
That just about wraps up this part of our journey—coding chaos, artist blessings, and lessons learned the hard way (and sometimes the expensive way).
But there’s a lot more to say when it comes to the art side of things. Our struggle to find the right artists deserves its own post—because Bad Summer almost didn’t happen because of it.
I’ll be diving into that whole journey soon: the scams, the near burnouts, and how we finally found the amazing team we have now. I might even talk a little about how I picked up drawing myself—nothing major, but yep, I’ve got art in the game too.
So stick around. You won’t want to miss what almost killed the project—and what ended up saving it.