Step two. You’ve joined a game jam team or started your project, but what are your next steps? Every successful jam needs to have a plan, even if things don’t always work out the way you anticipated. We asked the team what their approach and first impressions were when starting Parasite in Love.

Which brings us to our next question. Buckle up because there’s a lot to say for this one! A testament to how important it is.

What was your approach and first impressions going into the project?

NiA - Director, Writer, Artist

I can shed light on how I approached people to join the project. At first, it was more me being impressed with their work and especially with Baguetti and Amidst. I knew they had the same passion for horror as me. So, I knew we would communicate well. The other team members, I already knew, or had great recommendations behind them. We all quickly clicked together, so I could put my full trust in them. 

The next thing, during August, was to prepare the idea well. As director I must communicate my vision clearly. If I don’t know what we’re making, everyone’s job would be more difficult. 

I did lots of research. I made multiple google docs, some to summarize the idea in general, like the amoeba the idea is based on. I myself find parasites to be one of the scariest things that live in this world, so making a horror game based on it just felt right.

The progression of the infection itself gave me a good story structure, so I had the beginning and the endings written down quickly. 

The horror movies I like the most are the ones where the “what” is happening is established fast, while “how” it happens is explored during the movie. Like with “The Shining” and “Ringu”. This is also why I made the intro with the TV reportage about the amoeba, so people knew what was happening. Without it people might just think our Niall is just a ghost. 

With the idea settled, it was time to refine the outline. I added “mood” images as well for each scene since I’m more of a visual person. For all other elements of the game, I tried to gather as many references as I could. Thankfully, people dived into the documents on their own and made themselves familiar with the world and characters I had in mind. 

Another early decision made, was that when it was clear we could be adding voice acting, to set a hard deadline and cut it out, if it became likely we wouldn’t make it. Adding something under crunch and still seeing it at lower quality is never satisfying.

The conditions were: If we did not find the right person to voice Niall, and if I couldn’t finish the script by around the 11th of September, so we knew how many voiced lines there would be, we would drop it. You need time to plan the voice recording sessions, so those were the conditions I set myself. 

Adding Coda as Marlowe and Cody as voice director was easy for me, since I knew them, but finding the right person for Niall was hard. 

Niall is an abusive character, who can also be very loving and is very much in denial about what he’s causing to Marlowe. At the same time, he loves acting like a family man.  The true horror he’s causing is not by sounding like a villain, but by acting gentle in contrast to the actual horrifying scene happening. This is not a character type you see often portrayed in demo reels of voice actors.

Thankfully a voice actress with whom I worked before, Shiena, for the visual novel “Christmas in Space”, recommended Trickle to me, and in the end, it worked out. I am very thankful he took this role on and worked on his performance with Coda and Cody until it truly gave me shivers. 

Overall, my plan was to be well prepared so that I could try and answer any questions that my teammates would have.

Allie - Editor 

My initial approach as an editor is to comb through every document available to me, whether they're immediately relevant or not, so that I can do a holistic assessment of the project the creator intends to execute. By viewing the progression of ideas from early concept documents to current production bibles, I more easily see which ideas are core to the project, as well as what the creator may be a little less certain on. Even scrapped information is valuable information! This was especially important for the developmental editing phase because I felt it gave me a better handle on Nia's goals and mindset, and as a result we were able to communicate much more effectively as we finalized Parasite in Love's narrative structure.

For line editing, I use a similar plan– read through the manuscript first, take mental notes, then do my line edits during the second round. This way I can familiarize myself with a writer's habits before beginning my work and catch fixes that I would not be able to spot as well on a first-time read (inconsistencies, repeated turns of phrase, etc.). It gives me a more complete perspective!
When tackling both line editing and proofreading, a changed word or shift in punctuation can make huge differences to a scene, so I make it a priority to focus on the story as a whole even as I hone in on the smallest details. What mood did Nia intend to convey using certain punctuation? Which substituted word fits best for Niall's personality in this line of dialogue? Every line has to both stand on its own and contribute to the overall narrative. 

The biggest part of my approach was something that related to every facet of my editing, but stretched much further than that– I wanted to foster a good relationship with Nia, and make sure that she felt comfortable with my role and its impact at every step of the way. A lot of people consider editing to be about 'improving' the work, and I suppose that's true, but above all else editing entails working with your writer to ensure the story they've created is presented in the most effective way. It's a huge show of trust when a writer hands me their script, and with Nia and Parasite in Love I did my best to make it clear from the start that I recognized that trust and would show due care and respect in turn. This was especially important considering that Nia was relatively new to having an editor on board– that can be intimidating! So, I think the most important part of my approach was that rapport. My editing skills can stand up on their own, but it's that first step that led the way to make our combined efforts really shine.

Ooyu - Programming

Programmers usually have to wait for the assets to come in before they can make much progress. I knew I would have my hands full with the script and the in-game assets when those finally dropped. If there was anything more complex that I wanted to do, I needed to make sure I had a solid plan for those first, because I wouldn’t have the time to tinker around with it in the latter half of the month. So, I spent some time at the beginning playing around with a wave shader and nail down the microscope transition. Heavy on the brain power in the beginning of the jam so I didn’t get toooo burnt out by the end.

Ingthing - UI & Design 

In my design practice, I typically seek out ways that a game's GUI can not only facilitate but also enhance the story being told beyond basic function. Upon reading the script outline, I saw an opportunity to change the UI as Marlowe's illness progresses, and began concepting for a text box that deteriorates over the course of the game. This eventually expanded from the text box alone to the UI itself—upon Niall's first appearance, the interface itself becomes "infected."

Baguetti - Backgrounds

I spent at least a week on research and development. It was really important to stick to the theme and regional location of the game. All my references for the backgrounds came from real-life video, photography, and news stories. My goal was to make it feel like a place you could actually visit, and how someone would remember it after the fact. Sunshine, soft light, warm colors, and comfortable. Only to later contrast with the second half of the game that take a much more different direction and perspective.

Amidst - Sound

Going into the project I immediately had an impression from NiAsobu and everyone else on the team that this was going to be something special. Feeling I was the most inexperienced, I made it my goal to study and join in on as many sessions as possible. From here, being able to take a proactive part in the process every session with the voice actors and/or the artists was a major point for myself to stay consistent and disciplined.

This helped me understand everything that was happening as a whole and kept me from falling behind on any updates. I felt absolute inspiration from seeing everyone on the team bring in an immense amount of enthusiasm, professionalism, and hard work. Within the first few days of production, I immediately thought to myself: “this is exactly the environment I need to be in.” So, I decided to challenge myself and take on multiple positions to provide various audio assets to the project. As a way for me to grow in not only audio, but also as a developer in this medium.

I collected all the excellent reference tracks provided by NiAsobu, then had those stacks of references parallel to my own collection. They were of a similar vein to NiAsobu’s reference tracks for the music of the game; however, my own set of references were not of sounds, but of techniques used from various artists that I can then copy and learn from. This, as a result, created a specific approach to musical ideas moving forward. For instance, copying and studying how the dark ambient artist “The Caretaker” conceptualizes the deterioration of the mind through recontextualizing samples of 20th-century ballroom music. To illustrate the destruction neurodegenerative disorders are capable of to the listeners, this artist ingrains very comforting motifs and samples with a slight sense of dread to always be present. And then, in very subtle layers, begins to slowly add and remove various parts of the sample to the listener to show just how much can be taken from your mind against your own will. The horror of having the most secured parts of one's being filled with invading forces out of their control. This technique ended up becoming one of the major components of my approach to each production session.

In addition, I noticed that this approach resulted in me producing backwards from my standard pipeline for production. In which I would create the bed of ambience before any musical techniques are even considered. I was in a way producing an immersive atmosphere to manipulate myself into being in these scenes in the script.

Correspondingly, I found myself with my eyes closed listening to the ambience while visualizing the scenes in the script for a few hours. This resultantly had me creating chord progressions and motifs that would later be inserted into the ambience as enhancers to the narrative.

Coda - Voice Actor

I've had a range of experiences on jam teams. Some were delightful, some were nice, save a few incompatible members. And others were absolute nightmares that extended my blacklist—or more forgivingly, put clarity to some folks' incompetencies. All of these are vital to learn from! I knew going in that the people on the Parasite in Love team were peers who respected themselves and other people's time and hard work, communicated honestly and frequently, and no clash of egos would be present. But the most important thing for me is, most of the team was multidisciplined! Like yeah, I can do voice work, but I am an illustrator, narrative designer, and project consultant too! I have worked through productions in various roles, so I can see a more complete picture of the moving parts of several departments on a team, and the nuance in how a decision in one area may affect another. Therefore, the things offered are more considerate of the general pipeline's efficiency. Almost everyone on the team was like that, and those who were less so made up for it with their curiosity! They interacted with other departments in their server channels, sat in the live direction sessions to be inspired and informed by how the voice acting and script motivations, asked questions, and gave fun, relevant ideas! They actively participated.

My plan going in was to do my part and only my part, as I don't like to get dragged into an inefficient process if I can help it now, thanks to the worse jams behind me. If something fails because it deserves to, that I not go swooping in and overextend myself to save it, because failure is also a lesson to learn from, and I owe it not to rob someone in need of that lesson to grow. I would offer my advice to NiA if she was looking for any. But should I see the team showing genuine passion and responsible decision-making, I would do my thing where I end up helping wherever I reasonably can. And surprise! Everyone was wonderful and immersed, so my hands were covered in a lot of pies!

Cody - Voice Direction

Both Coda and Trickle are trained singers, so there was nothing mechanically that had to be sorted out. My major goal, then, was to prepare them for layered back-and-forth conversations. As they were the only actors, and each voiced scene was an ending of the story, we had to make sure to deliver something that paid off for the player and the end of their journey together. I prepared some sample scripts from Hollywood exploring the potential power dynamics of Marlowe and Niall: Who has power, who believes they have the power, who's going to blink first when there's conflict, etc. Among others, we read snippets of Return of the Jedi and (of course!) Silence of the Lambs.

After the script was finished, Coda immediately read it twice, and gave invaluable insight to Trickle on his character's motivation. As voice director, it is not my job to get in the way of my actor's knowledge and passion. Once Coda laid down the details of the scene, my job was to build the emotional roadmap and give them some interesting ways in which those details could matter. "Try this voice bark both as if you're excited to have a family, and smugly satisfied that you tricked her into having a family." Stuff like that.  

Elm - Casting Director & Marketing 

With my game plan for casting direction quite quickly out of the way, I was ready to embrace handling the social media despite having limited experience and access. It’s something in which I’ve always been interested. I was very curious about how things would turn out, but I had full faith in the team as I knew how skilled everyone was.

Going in, I knew we weren’t going to have any content to show until the final stretch of the jam, after script and content had been made, so I had to think of ways to not waste the time I had till then and steadily build up ideas and hype. This included drawing chibis and writing introductions for every single team member, which gave us a week and a half worth of tweets, and was a nice way to encourage the team from my corner. Whilst the script was being developed, I created a document where I drafted social media content for every day. This sort of planning helped me keep track of specific hashtags for certain days, and also plan out how I could vary them across tweets. It prevented me from creating content that I thought would be too repetitive or too similar. For content ideas, I read the script and associated documents several times, sat in on other sessions or chill calls, and overall kept an eye on any content the others were creating, that could be utilised on a social platform. My target was around one tweet a day for that constant flow of activity until release, and even some post-release “aftercare”.

As I did this, I started developing a “voice” for the social media. All the parasite in love tweets have a kind of morbid humour to them, making particularly innocent or normal things sound slightly creepy. However, NiA is quite personable, so I didn’t want the tweets to feel very removed or corporate either. In hindsight, I wanted things to sound a little like a creepy friend. Planning things in advance allowed me to keep some consistency to this voice, and be prepared for anything unexpected that came our way.

I also considered what type of voice would increase engagement. I knew that I wanted Night Asobu’s account and reach to grow, and this meant straying away from content that sounded a lot like “BIG NEON SIGNS, HEY LOOK AT OUR STUFF” and focusing on wording that may be slightly amusing or intriguing. Our stats pre and post-release show an increase of engagement as we found our rhythm.

The Takeaway 

Despite members of the team having various levels of experience; they were overall stellar in their approach to the project.

Everyone made sure to familiarise themselves with the scope and details of the project, as well as giving themselves time to do their own personal prep work – whatever helped them bring forward their best selves.

No one wanted a project that was derailed or an uncomfortable experience and did their part to avoid this.

With everyone having a shared and clear vision of the game and how they wanted to progress, the rest of the development was off to a great start. But that doesn’t mean there weren’t any surprises. We’ll talk more about that in Part 3.