Hello, everyone! It's been an exciting two days. Our development server has been buzzing non-stop ever since we launched the game for the Otome Jam, and we've been really humbled by how many kind comments we received. We cannot thank you enough!! 

Blooming Panic was directly inspired by my experiences with Discord servers during lockdowns, when I was feeling lonely and searching for a sense of community again. I read one specific visual novel in May 2020, got heavily involved in the fan servers, and found myself re-invigorated to do artistic and game dev stuff - something I hadn't felt the desire to do in years. So, I'm forever grateful to those communities and want this to serve as a little love letter to them for bringing my spark back. The characters in Blooming Panic are all inspired by actual friends I've made in Discord, and I'm sure they'll remind many players of a few people they've seen online as well over the years. <3 

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Now, while I did do a lot of work for the game, I absolutely did not do all of it. Time for some shilling. Spoilers ahead, so play the game first before reading!! 

Our writing and editing team, Destini and Allie Vera, were the backbone of the operation. Destini has an incredible writing style  that almost perfectly mimics real Discord conversations we've all had, so I feel incredibly lucky that she came on board to write the Quest route. That route has appealed to so many people in a way I couldn't hope to replicate, and I'm glad the conversations she created made so many players laugh, cry, and get angry all at once. Additionally, she was an absolute delight to have in the dev server, posting side story after side story that kept the team laughing and crying all at once. Cannot recommend her enough. 

Allie was an incredible writer AND editor over the course of development. They took responsibility for creating the world of the webnovel, and wrote document upon document upon DOCUMENT of lore and references. They sink their teeth deep into every project they are involved in, and, as you can tell, this project was no exception. They also tackled the editing for every single route and cleaned them up to near perfection, hitting every single deadline they had. I cannot thank Allie enough for being there for me during the entire project, both as a team member and as a friend. 

Next, our artist, Basil, did an incredible job on the emotes and icons. I remember we had a full list of things for them to make at the beginning of the jam, and told them to only do a small subset of them since we weren't sure how much time we'd have. Basil ended up knocking out beautiful icons and emotes so fast that they were able to not only do EVERYTHING we had on our list but they ADDITIONALLY made the cover art for the Blooming Panic theme song. They are incredibly easy to work with and I am so happy I got the chance to do just that on this project. 

Next, our OST duo, Kija + Orpheo of FaeField Productions, did an excellent job with the OST. Orpheo knew exactly what I meant when I asked for certain moods, and replicated them perfectly in the background tracks from the #bot-requests channel. I've worked with Orpheo now on a few projects, and he has always been charming and fun to have in dev servers. This is my first project working directly with the other half of the duo, Kija, and he's been nothing but a joy as well. Kija additionally helped a lot with the voice work (voiced a character himself!) and mixed the Blooming Panic theme song with the other VAs in record time. These composers are insane (in a good way, of course). Any project should count themselves lucky to have these two as team members. 

Next, our other voice actors, BardCommander + Charlatean + Katy, did a near-PERFECT job in each of their roles - and they're all very new to voice acting, too!! Can you believe that?? I actually lost count of the number of messages I received from players telling me they fell in love with the boys' voices, or how sweet BloomBot was. They have a gift that will definitely be welcomed back for future projects, and I hope I get to see them in other developers' projects as well someday. Also, the boys' voice work in that Blooming Panic theme song.... FLOORED me. They all sing!! 

Now, I know I said the writing room was the backbone of the operation, but the QA staff was absolutely the legs of it all. It started out with just one or two testers and expanded over the two months of development into a cheery team of ten lead by Arghund. They spent the last couple weeks extremely dedicated to finding any bug they could and helping to resolve them late into the night. And, honestly, their presence in the dev server made the whole thing fun. They were constantly posting their own fan theories, shitposts, fanart, and just in general amping the team up. Their energy LITERALLY sustained us. They have no idea how much they kept this project going, so I hope this helps them know how much I genuinely appreciated their presence and help during development. 

Also, I need to mention our meme creator, FakeImpostor. He had an incredible way of showing up once every week or so to drop an insane comment, then, just as we were trying to stop laughing, he would disappear like a ghost in the night. Amazing. 

Last but not least, our fanartists did an incredible job. They helped bring the world of the webnovel alive by providing fanart unique to their art style and made for a realistic fan server experience. Each one had heart and love put into it, and without their work this game would not have been as vibrant as it is. Can't thank them enough for accepting my requests. 

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Somehow, two months is simultaneously an eternity and no time at all. I'm sad it's over, but looking back on the journey makes my heart warm and full. Bringing stories to life is an experience like no other. 

The Blooming Panic story is far from over, though, so please look forward to our 2022 release next year, featuring the story of our favorite bloomic shitposter: xyx. 

Until then!