Happy Canada Day all!

Thank you so much for having downloaded and played A Place to Grow.

I was hoping to have another route or two complete by this point, but, as you can see... that has not materialized. My day job has gotten quite busy in the last few months which made working on this game a bit difficult! 

I've gotten an influx of comments recently, thanks to some YouTubers playing the game. Thank you to EpyksLion and Your Game for checking the game out, and for all those who came to this page after watching the videos. It's been a bit overwhelming, so thank you for your patience while I'm a bit slow to respond.

I've done a bit of writing on some new routes, but it's been a bit of a challenge trying to figure out how to make characters seem likeable/loveable while also scary. Something I'm struggling with a bit, because I don't want anyone to be disappointed!

I guess some thoughts on the game to tide you over in the meanwhile. 

I think since the narration mentions that Joseph has a slight accent, some people might have imagined him as being ESL or from Quebec? He's actually Franco-Ontarien! Northern Ontario is notable for being a bit more Francophone than Southern Ontario... So it felt right to have a French Canadian character in the game. He would have been raised speaking both English and French, so his English would be perfect, but is only slightly accented or has a few quirks from growing up in a primarily francophone community. There are some slight differences between Quebec French and Ontario French, mostly as a result of proximity with Anglophones (more pronounced p sounds, some slang is just translations of English phrases).  But a lot of Franco-Ontariens have roots in Quebec, so there's a lot of cultural crossover. In my mind... He does mental math in French or if you asked him to tell you the 7th letter in the alphabet, he'd start checking in his head in French too.

The game was originally an idea I had from a horror game jam maybe 5 or so years ago? I wanted to make something like a Harvest Moon game where you move to a small town, but it's spooooky. I've scaled down the ambition there in terms of gameplay, but that game originally only had 3 characters and somehow I've expanded it to 5(?). I'm actually from Toronto (the big city), so I did want to be a bit conscious about writing about some aspects of small town living as being sinister, which is why there was so much emphasis on hospitality/food. But it seems like food might be a common trope in this genre of game that I didn't know about! Kind of a nice little bit of serendipity. 

When writing the game, I spent a lot of time listening to Leonard Cohen, particularly the album "Songs of Love and Hate." I guess that's why I wanted the music to be guitar heavy.  Music isn't a strong suit of mine, so it's hard for me to know if the songs I picked really fit the game well... I listened to some Beau Dommage as well. 

With Joseph in particular, The Dear Hunter's "Green" was on repeat, particularly "Things That Hide Away" and "The Canopy"! What other songs could suit him... Maybe Joe Dassin's "Et si tu n'existais pas" for something French. Maybe he'd listen to something like that while crying or something, haha. 

Anyway, that's all for now.  Hope that was interesting, and thank you for your support.