Crescendo was pragmatic and hopeful while making Ciao Nonna
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Crescendo’s adventure game Ciao Nonna follows a young woman, Ofelia, who is returning to the seaside town she’s from in order to attend a memorial service. She explores and finds memories of her grandmother, who was kind and supportive in the vein of Lieve Oma. Also, you can pet the cat.
How long have you been making games?
I used to play around with RPG Maker 2000 and 2003 when I was around 7 or 8 years old, but never really made anything playable with it. I tried again ten years later, VX this time, and released a short RPG demo for a couple of friends. It was buggy and played horribly (notably, the poison status was particularly unfair), but I had fun both in doing it and sharing it.
Around that time I got into visual novels and started playing around with Ren’Py… but I think I only started taking it a bit more seriously in 2016, as I tried my hand at my first game jam. I did start another project a few years later, but I didn’t really get out of development hell before then… despite only releasing a game, it taught me a lot about teamwork and actually releasing something. So, kinda-making-games-for-real for about 6 years.
What tools do you like to use?
Ren’Py has become my number one comfort tool! At some point I realized it was the easiest way to put my ideas into something, so it stuck. RPG Maker reminds me of my childhood, and I’d like to work with it on one of my next projects. GBStudio is also another big one, and I’m very excited to see where it’s headed: it’s becoming much more than the little tool I made Ciao Nonna with.
What themes or genres do you like to explore?
Loneliness, the power of bonds, and finding your own place and dreams in the world. I want to tell hopeful stories.
What are your favorite and least favorite aspects of making games?
I love making music so much. Actually, I think I started making games because I wanted to score their music… I like to tell stories, but music’s where I really think, “Man, I love doing this!” I also quite like refactoring code (no, really…) and, of course, seeing it all come together.
Anything else takes turns into being the thing I dislike the most at the moment, but managing team members takes the cake in being my least favorite aspects of all. Delegating is great and it’s amazing when all parties are in tune, but it stresses me out…
“We need more games made with love on a whim.”
Is there a game that has affected you recently?
I recently finished Knight Bewitched, a fun short RPG with a major lesbian romance. Got into it for the romance, stayed for the care and polish. It made me think, “I want to make something like this too! I want my love to shine through just like this!”… or something like that.
Ciao Nonna is a short adventure game about visiting for your grandmother’s memorial service. What inspired you to make it?
I vaguely remember sketching a few ideas while at my day job and one of these was “take pictures in seaside town”. At first I wanted to try making a simple 3D game in Godot, but the scope was far too big and I decided to opt for something simpler: hence, GBStudio.
As for Ofelia and her story, I didn’t think too much about it. I thought it worked as a good, simple setting, and being vaguely inspired by some of my own experiences it was quite easy to write. Actually, I’m still not satisfied with the ending… but people liked it, so I guess it found its niche.
It’s for an “I can’t draw” jam but is honestly very beautiful. What was it like drawing the scenery and objects?
Thank you! I wasn’t sure it was eligible since I consider myself to be “not an artist but can kinda draw things to get my point across”, but I did see games much more good-looking than mine and tried not to think too hard about it. It was a great chance to try my hand at something I wasn’t very comfortable with… and I came to the realization that I really hate drawing tilesets. I’m also lousy at 3D abstraction, so I kept objects and environmental changes to a minimum, just to make maps a bit more interesting. I think it took me hours to get the stairs right.
I tried making a few sprite variations for Ofelia because I didn’t want to limit myself to the default GBStudio style… but went for it anyway, in the end. Portraits were fun to make, and the duck was too. There are also two full-screen illustrations in the game: Ofelia holding the letter and the title screen. The first one was traced, while the second one might’ve had a reference at some point. I purposefully didn’t sweat too much over it. “I Can’t Draw But Want To Make A Game”, after all.
Memories show that Nonna was a supportive person in the main character’s life. Why was it important to show these memories?
Despite being a pretty nice town (even though I couldn’t show it properly in-game), Ofelia hates Tor Marina with a passion. As if the intro wasn’t enough to point it out, she never passes a chance to say how much she loathes it. We share the common hobby of “leaving your seaside hometown and constantly dreading coming back and all the memories associated with it, fighting the uneasiness by making a bunch of snarky comments”.
But she did come back to Tor Marina, and she did love her grandma. It’s the one positive thing shown in Ofelia’s childhood, and I thought it interesting to challenge how much she hates her hometown. It’s where she shared those memories with grandma, after all…
Is Tor Marina based on a real place? I love the idea of a memorial service at the beach.
It’s supposed to be a small island off the coast of Liguria! The town map I never made in the end was supposed to look like Cinque Terre. I don’t think memorial services are that common on the beach there, but it did save me from making more tilesets. And it’s romantic!
What do you hope people take away from the game?
Don’t let the pain erase the good things that made you who you are. Ofelia managed to live a decent life after moving out, but she never stopped feeling bitter about her past. She’d rather forget it, but she still doesn’t want to forget her grandma. In the end she still doesn’t like Tor Marina, she still doesn’t trust her mother, she still won’t come back in a million years. But she’s a bit more at ease, and she can now calmly remember the good times she spent with her grandma. She didn’t magically get better, but she can now face her pain freely. And she does take the cat home, in the end.
But also! Another thing! If you feel like it, get out there and make games! Bad, short, messy, as long as they’re yours and you want to do them, just do so! I made Ciao Nonna on a whim and some people liked it. Others still like it years after I last touched its source code. We need more games made with love on a whim.
