Behind the scenes art process: Ivy's game (Patreon)

This scene was one that I had in mind even before starting to work on Chapter 1. As I was finishing GGGB I began writing some ideas in a notebook under the title "Red String Project", defining what kind of character types and dynamics I wanted to include. And Ivy luring Lena, Louise and Jeremy into a heated drinking game was one of the first scenes I came up with and I knew I had to include it at some point. At first I thought I could slot it in in Chapter 3, but soon it became clear it was way too soon. I've been pushing it back chapter after chapter until it was finally time to write it!

I had a general idea of what I wanted the scene to be and what story beats I wanted to push forward with it, being mainly the relationship between Jeremy and the girls, his "girlfriend", Ivy and if the player so chose, Lena. But the specifics were up in the air until the last minute. I had a version where Stan would join the game is Louise and Jeremy had already split up, or maybe I could make him participate either way, but that meant that the scene had to take place at Lena's place instead of Ivy's, and the plot structure became too convoluted and other problems made it hard to make it work. This scene had so much potential and in the end I had to compromise and cut some ideas out, but as they say, sometimes less is more and knowing what to trim is often as important as knowing what to include. 

In the end, I think the scene is fun and interesting and serves it's purpose well enough. It was a really challenging one to write, coming up with interesting dares, structuring the character interactions and giving the player some interesting choices to interact with the scene. I still wish I could've added more, but if GGGB taught me something is that I tend to tackle more than I can handle and that can end up hurting the game, so I'm trying to be more mindful of how I structure things. 

Visually, I really wanted this scene to pop, that's why I decided to place it in Ivy's home. The purple lightning allows me to create a cool and sexy ambience, and this set-piece has a few of my favourite drawings so far. 

I have some other cool scenes in mind that I can't wait to develop, but I'm learning to be patient. Chapter 7 had a lot of scenes I had been wanting to work on from the start, and there's still a few left that have been waiting since the idea for ORS was conceived. I hope I can share them with you soon!

Other posts about the art process: 

Cindy and Ian 

Holly and Ian 

Lena and Ian