I recently released I Love You But We Must Fight for free on itch.io.

I started writing this game last year for the Powered by Sentinel jam, but as I’m releasing it now I clearly didn’t submit it last year. The jam gave me a push to create prompts for a veteran on what could be their final adventure before retiring. I found the jam a good spark to my limited creativity, and I intend to join more this year.

However, I didn’t manage to make the jam’s deadline because like a curveball, the game changed its trajectory just before it crossed the plate. I realised too late that most of the prompts that I wrote were about the veteran’s relationship with their nemesis. The tone of the reflections went from “I’m too old for this s#@!” to the titular “I love you, please stop!”. This new focus demanded some of the prompts to be rewritten and an entirely new end game.

Writing I Love You But We Must Fight was a new experience for me: the first time I had completed a journaling game. I hope it won’t be my last.