(Yes, it’s a silly title. I just needed a nice cyberpunk-ish word salad)

‘Electrical Faerie’ is a bit of an odd duck. What you have now is neither what was originally envisioned, nor what It could have become. 

As previously mentioned, this kinetic novel was supposed to be my individual submission to the O2A2 jam. I worked on it while coding Heartmoor Studio’s "Nature’s Lament" for the same jam. The ‘story’ was already in my head so it was simply a matter of writing the dialogue and finding the required assets.

While the jam was ongoing, and EF partially done, combing through the rules of the jam (and the extensive FAQ annotations) revealed that what I wanted to do was not allowed. Not because it was too elaborate, but due to the Byzantine nature of the guidelines.

It was not simply a matter of realizing ‘Ups, I can’t do that one thing in the novel’.  The limitations of the rules and their interpretations prevented using concepts which were at the very core of what EF was supposed to be like.

Rather than revising my idea and re-adapting the work already done, I decided to release it later and take the chance to expand it a bit, both in writing and assets used.

The final version of ‘Electrical Faerie’ could have been longer and delved deeper into the conversation between Muto and EF. But the labor of adapting the dialogue and narrative from the original 1,000-word limit (I used a lot of acronyms and contractions on the original script to avoid going over the word count limit) was boring enough. I could have used more elaborate graphical effects on a couple sequences. But, EF was just supposed to be a short, entertaining exercise and I did not want to spend more time and effort on it.

So, what precisely prevented the original kinetic novel from being a suitable O2A2 submission?

1 - Too Many Frames

Electrical Faerie’s sprite exceeds the frame limit for animation by 2-3 frames.

2 - Recycled Graphical Assets 

I used the BG for the main menu during the novel, altered by the engine. While it is technically one asset, the rules said you can’t do this. (Curiously, the reverse is not true. You can use your novel’s game background as the background for the main menu).

3 - Alternate Main Menu

The main menu changes after the novel is fully read. No extra assets were used to achieve this, but the rules prevent alternate main menus.

Anyway, I do not regret the extra polish and expansion that is part of the version now available to you.

I hope you find it entertaining.