Every artist knows the feeling of looking back at their old work and thinking, ‘Oh, dear.’
Revisiting old work isn’t always a particularly pleasant experience, especially when you remember how much time and effort you put into it.
A month or so ago, I started thinking about one of my recent projects, Something by the River. This short visual novel was created over the course of a week as a way for me to create a simple Ink runner in Godot 4, while documenting the experience in a series of blog posts. In that capacity, it was a great little project. I don’t think it is ‘bad’, but, having given it more thought, I can’t help but feel that the game deserved better.
As a result, I’m now revisiting Something by the River. Let’s call it Something by the River: Director’s Cut. Or, if we’re being honest, Something by the River: Rescue Operation.
The curse of getting better
We’re all getting better and evolving all the time (hopefully). We learn new things, develop new processes, and gain mastery over the tools. This is a good thing!
Unfortunately, this also means that we get better at seeing the problems with our own work, and given that we are our own worst critics a lot of the time, those problems become glaringly obvious.
Some artists simply can’t bear to even look at work they did a year or so ago, but I’m not like that, I don’t think. I often think of my older works as archaeological objects, and in that sense, they are time capsules. I’m not the sort who takes photographs of myself or others, so for me, my old drawings or stories serve that same function, in a way. When I look at an older work, I can remember where I was when I made it, how I made it and how I felt. So, in many ways, I get a lot of satisfaction in looking back at my older pieces, revisiting a moment in time, and realising how far I’ve come (and how far I have to go).
Even so, there are moments when you make art that you don’t want to just leave alone, resting in its place in the figurative museum. That is the case with Something by the River.
To remake, or not to remake?
Of course, there’s a danger in continually revisiting old work.
If I spent all my time going back and improving everything I’ve ever created, I’d never get anything new done. At some point, you have to declare something finished and move on. Additionally, since I both write and illustrate stories, revising them often means making changes that could contradict other parts of my storyverse, which is something I of course want to avoid.
Let me explain. As a reader, gamer, lover of stories, I don’t like to see remake after remake. Who does? For example, as a teenager, I used to be quite the Marvel fan, even reading and collecting comics. My stopping point came when I realised that the same stories and characters kept being revisited, altered through retcons, and remade repeatedly. The plus side of this model is that new readers can always join the never-ending soap opera. The bad side, at least for me, is that the stories began to feel meaningless.
I bring that same attitude to my own work. What I make is what I make, and it’s all but carved into stone.
So why make an exception for Something by the River?
I think the answer is multi-faceted. First, Something by the River was finished and released not too long ago, so in a way, the clay is still soft. There’s still time to make some tweaks. Secondly, Something by the River is incredibly short, and therefore I wouldn’t be subtracting anything, but adding. Thirdly, and this is the important part, Something by the River did not entirely execute the idea.
The Z-Verse is a fictional universe I’ve been developing for years, encompassing illustrated fiction, alien cultures, characters and, increasingly, video games. It’s a setting I care enormously about, and one I want to keep expanding.
Something by the River is a small part of that universe. It follows Xa-Kol, an experienced member of a mysterious organisation known as the Illusionists, as she investigates a missing researcher. The idea interested me greatly, and the story and characters felt very strong. And as a one-week game jam, it’s not bad at all. However, I couldn’t help but feel that the Z-Verse deserved better.
So rather than abandoning the project or pretending it had never existed, I’ve decided to give it another go.
Revisiting the river
My intention with Something by the River: Director’s Cut isn’t simply to polish the artwork. I’ve also completely changed the underlying code, creating a more flexible VN Runner that can be reused in other projects. Additionally, I’ve taken learnings from A Binding Unmade: Prologue, and applied it to Something by the River. There now are additional scenes that expand the experience and add some minor point-and-click gameplay.
I’ve also changed the story, making Xa-Kol the player character. This radically changes the way the story is understood, but also allows us to meet a brand new character called Archimage Te-Vis.
Te-Vis is a new character, and an interesting one. Cold, calculating and ruthlessly pragmatic, she represents some of the less savoury aspects of the organisation Xa-Kol serves.
This gives me an opportunity to explore something that interests me enormously about the Illusionists: the difference between the ideals an institution claims to uphold and the way it actually operates.
Xa-Kol is hardly a newcomer to her profession. She’s witnessed that contradiction firsthand, and it’s shaped the way she sees the world.
These are things I wanted to explore more thoroughly, and the Director’s Cut gives me room to do so.
One of the advantages of being a solo creator is that I can work across the entire production process, from writing and character design to 3D modelling, texturing and implementation. I don’t need to restrict my changes to one particular discipline.
If something isn’t working, I can rethink it, though of course within reason.
Making peace with your older work
I don’t think the solution to feeling embarrassed by your old creations is necessarily to remake them.
Most of the time, it’s better to accept them as they are.
An old illustration might have awkward anatomy. An early short story might have clumsy dialogue. A game might have rough edges that you’d know exactly how to fix today.
That’s fine. They were created by someone with less experience than you have now.
But I also don’t think artists should feel obliged to preserve everything they’ve ever made exactly as it was.
Sometimes, a good idea deserves another attempt.
The important thing, I think, is to understand why you’re returning to it. Are you chasing an impossible standard of perfection? Or do you genuinely have something new to bring to the project?
For me, Something by the River falls into the latter category. At the end of the day, I simply wanted to be able to put Something by the River in the museum of Z-Verse and be able to point to it and say, ‘I was particularly proud of that one.’
Something by the River: Director’s Cut is in development. I’ll be sharing more about its characters, artwork and development process here on Zircona Works. When it releases, it will of course be completely free to play. I hope you will check it out!
