Autumn Rain’s nonlinear comic Voidland Mystery Goodnight
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Autumn Rain is a bit of an icon, with infectious enthusiasm and a growing list of cool, weird, wonderful games. Voidland Mystery Goodnight is like reading a comic in a labyrinth, and somehow it’s all on your old CRT TV. It’s surreal and sometimes scary, with many twists and turns, and it’s a lot of fun.
How long have you been making games?
For so long, basically! When I was a kid I liked to make little tabletop type games for classmates, growing up I liked to tinker in Gamemaker and RPG Maker, then I was told a whole lot about how difficult it is to get into games as a career and that I should give up, so for a long time I had.
But in my final year in college I finally thought I’d try and learn Unity, and like that my passion had been ignited once again! And I’ve been making games ever since. I’ve been working in Unity specifically for about 4 and a half years now. But I learned a bit of Godot for Voidland Mystery Goodnight!
What tools do you like to use?
“Like” is a funny word here. I’m not sure if I “like” to use Unity or if it’s just what I’ve grown accustomed to.
When it comes to tools that bring me joy to use, I quite like Aseprite. There’s a lot of charm in its UI, and its timeline, oh, oh Aseprite’s animation timeline. Top tier best of its class. I really wish other programs had a timeline like it.
I also like using Atom as a text editor, because I’ve got this plugin that makes cute sparkles happen when I type and that makes me happy. :) But I recently found out that Atom is being retired soon and no longer updated and that makes me sad. :(
What themes or genres do you like to explore?
All sorts! I just have a big passion for games and honestly would like to fill my portfolio with all sorts of genres.
I tend to lean toward first person exploration because that’s kind of what I like a lot, just chill exploration games.
I’m working on a few different genre games right now, like a 3D platformer. I’d like to make a FPS at some point.
Theme-wise, I think emotion in general plays a lot in what I make.
Honestly, I think my work is a reflection of my emotion. I kind of want the player to feel the kind of things I felt when making it, if that makes sense.
What are your favorite and least favorite aspects of making games?
This is hard to say! I feel like the joy of creation is my favorite part in general haha. Like, design and art and story. That’s all fun to me!
But… after thinking about it a bit, it is tough for me to do level design! Mostly because I still haven’t learned a whole lot of 3D modeling.
I still use Probuilder in Unity instead of something like Blender. I really ought to figure out Blender more sometime.
Is there a game that has affected you recently?
Wish I had more time to play different new games!
Most recent thing that comes to mind is probably FRANKEN by splendidland. It was just a very cute funny experience. Made me happy!
[Editor’s note: See more discussion of Franken and its engine.]
Voidland Mystery Goodnight is a labyrinth of surreal and horror panels. What inspired you to make it?
Besides video games, I do love comics! I’ve wanted to make comics too, but I kind of feel weird telling a totally linear story for some reason.
I just like the player being able to wander around and uncover some sort of mystery.
There were a few inspirations, but they are mostly comics! Here’s a few short ones that inspired me (first, second, third, fourth, and [CW gore] fifth).
Something I like in a few of these is the realism of some dialogue. It helps suspend disbelief and immerse you?
In Voidland, I kind of wanted a similar feeling. I wanted some panels that are reality, some panels that are visions, and some to be delusions.
The thought was, at first this girl has visions that are grounded in reality. Visions that could be explained as “it could have happened anyway”.
I think that helps establish that suspension of disbelief?
We the player have explored some other realm in some panels though, one that isn’t real to us.
Eventually the girl peers into this other realm.
How do you think the experience benefits from being nonsequential rather than something more linear?
You know, honestly I’m not sure if it does benefit. I didn’t make this because I thought I was making something better than a comic or a VN or something like that, I just kind of wanted to experiment. A lot of these drawings were just scribbles I made when in bed, and wanted a cool way to showcase them.
I like giving people the feeling of exploring a place, though. They can wander around and discover things. They can get lost.
I’m not sure if that helps the narrative in any way. People seem to enjoy it though, and that makes me happy. :)
I like the lo-fi art and the CRT filter. What was it like making the animations? Do you have a favorite?
Thank you!
So I started making the art in Voidland on late nights when I was lying in bed and couldn’t really sleep yet.
My laptop can run Aseprite so often times I’d just scribble some abstract emotions as pixel art.
I liked the pixel art enough that I figured I could tinker with it to animate it, and wanted to share it in a unique way.
Eventually I came up with a few characters and a few themes and compiled a story in my brain.
My laptop is also able to run Godot, so I figured I would try to learn it a bit each night before I fell asleep.
My favorite panels are these two, near the end. I am proud of the sudden emotion.
How does Voidland Mystery Goodnight fit into what your games are doing overall? Where should a fan go next?
Voidland Mystery Goodnight has a few emotions from me.
There’s nostalgia in there from when I was in college. Like I said before, I liked having the feelings of realism, so I pulled a few things from my college experience.
Angels! Demons! I like to make angels kind of scary because, IDK. Religious trauma or something.
There’s lesbians! Because I am a lesbian and I like lesbians. YAY.
If you played Voidland Mystery Goodnight and want to see games with similar themes from me, check out:
Be Not Afraid A.K.A. Seraphim Horror Show. That’s the full religious trauma experience.
Limbocore. That’s just a cute little B/W prototype. Abstract little realm to explore.
I would love a tiny, so small, little discussion of Cartomancy and how your work is going!
We’ve actually wrapped up development for our Cartomancy a few weeks ago!
The rest of the time before release I assume is the organization team making sure everything works and getting the launcher working, marketing, etc.
I’m super duper proud of our game for this. I’m really proud of my super talented friends who did the 2d and 3d art and the audio and the writing and of course brainstorming all together and it was fun to be able to make something with them all again. (Our previous game all together was Heckle Dungeon, from 2019.)
Our game is about a little seer girl and you solve a few puzzles. It gives me similar emotions to the emotions I felt when I played Celeste. Maybe that’s a little self-congratulatory. But it’s fine because it was work done by my friends. And you HAVE to gas up your friends. And yourself. Build some self confidence. Love in yourself what you love in others etc etc.
THANKS for looking forward to it and THANKS for playing Voidland!!!!!! I’m super happy you enjoyed. YAY!
