[EN] Year 7: A retrospective

Tl;dr: We’re turning 7 today, and we’re preparing to return from the long hiatus as we get the backlog cleared steadily.

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Hey, everyone, it’s Andy and Rex here! It’s been a while since we said anything, but here we are. This time, it’s a different post than the usual one, because After Class is turning 7 just today! <cue celebration music>

I realized that I never talked about how After Class became a thing, so I think I’ll take a trip down the memory lane for this post. It’s going to be a SUPER LONG post, so if you’re not interested, feel free to skip over to the next part!

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// How After Class came to life.

I was still in college when I first started writing this novel, and now I’m 7 years older, with two lovely daughters that I fostered, and I’m soon about to start my own family (hopefully!) What a crazy time it has been.

I want to take this moment to look back into what has happened since I started writing After Class 7 years ago.

I’d always been a fan of visual novels, and so I thought making one for the school assignment would be fun. (Yes, school assignment.)

When I first made the draft for After Class, it was honestly a part of my school assignment, mainly for my basic, mandatory IT course I was taking at the time. It was to showcase my knowledge on Python language (which isn’t that cool, now that I think about it.)

As time went on, I messed more with the draft, and I decided on the story to be my real-life experiences. It wasn’t even a furry novel at that time, just something that would probably get chucked into the sad pile of my unfinished stories that I’ve written over the years since I was in high school—and it did. Life got busy, school was swamped, and this unfinished draft got added into the pile.

I still found time to read more visual novels though: I stumbled upon many great titles such as Tavern of Spears, Badtime Stories, Lustful Desires, Extracurricular Activities, and many others. Extracurricular Activities in particular took my attention the most, I was seriously engrossed in the story. To me, it was one of the best I’d read at the time.

The more I read, the more invested I was. I was all caught up; I was genuinely a little sad that I binged the whole thing in less than a week. I thought to myself, “Wow, I want to write stories like that. Something that will make the readers come back for more.” I looked at my scrapped pile of stories, and then I saw the draft I did for my school assignment. It was an utter disappointment <laughs>

I got slightly upset, I turned off the lights, went to browse the internet and saw Doki Doki Literature Club! I thought it would be a comfy, fun, and short romance visual novel, and I finished it in one day feeling pleasantly shocked. It was that moment when I decided to be serious about writing, I wanted to write something impactful and meaningful, both to my would-be readers and myself.

After looking at my unfinished stories again, I decided to use that draft I wrote in college, but now instead of making the story my real-life experiences, it’s going to be my real-life experiences but with a fictional twist. I came up with After Class because you know, I was super into Extracurricular Activities and DDLC, and both took place right after school, so at the time, that made sense to me.

I polished the draft and started making a concise plot for it. Back then After Class had only 3 main characters: Lars, Mark, Gil. I based them on my life experiences as well as the people I knew at the time. I did plan After Class to be a small project after all.

It was about a year later that I kept working on the draft, and before I know it, we already had 6 main characters: Anders, Andrew, Gil, Lars, Mark, Parker. I was unsure if I would be able to finish it though, so I did the bare minimum with half-assed assets and a super short intro before listing it on itch.

It took about a week before it started seeing traffic, but no one posted a review for it; then when we got some, it wasn’t generally favorable. It was compared to Extracurricular Activities—which was fine, I did take heavy inspiration for the art and settings, heck I even kinda traced (I’m sorry!!) over the artwork temporarily because I couldn’t draw anything and I was desperate for assets. That’s also the reason why we still have these common, royalty-free music from Incompetech <sweats>

I’ve always been a super anxious guy, and I never put any of my works out there; so, despite the scathing reviews, I was kinda happy that I finally took the first step by putting myself out there. I kept reading the reviews to find what I could fix and add, and then I started noticing good reviews when it gained more and more traffic.

A few updates later, it somewhat got popular—at least as popular as a small project could get. It was in front page of itch for a good while, and people started talking about it. I remember clearly when I went to reddit and read about After Class: it wasn’t super popular there, and people said it’s just another trash Morenatsu clone. That was the first time I was genuinely upset because well, I loved Morenatsu, but they called mine...trash. I kept scrolling down the thread and saw some okay reviews there, but I was already petty, so even now I still don’t want to visit the furry visual novel subreddit…no, I’m just scared to visit that subreddit.

Although thanks to that review, I worked extra hard to build an identity for After Class. I stopped reading other visual novels so that I wouldn’t get influenced, I started getting more serious about designing the UI for it and even asked permission from EA (Electronic Arts) to use The Sims’ assets as temporary backgrounds for After Class.

But a visual novel wouldn’t work if there’s no good visuals for it, so I went on Twitter and started reaching out to many character artists; I initially wanted Sollyz to work for me, but they were either too busy or not interested, so I looked again. I don’t know how, but somehow, I got a deal with Wolgen, and I’m forever grateful for it because from there on, things really started picking up and I could forget the super cursed drawing that I plastered onto the project (Please don’t dig for it, and if you did, don’t mention it to anyone.)

So many things happened after that, from me getting super sick and having to drop out from college to taking care of my dying brother (it’s the reason why we have such a long backlog…) I wanted to share those experiences, but I don’t think I have the time (or word count limit) to do all of that. I’m sure some of you have already left the post to do something else more fun...but I’m super happy with how far we’ve gotten, and I’m looking forward to spending more with you guys.

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// Message from the main devs:

“I’m sure everyone’s tired of me yapping so I’ll make this one short. I still can’t believe it’s been 7 years already! If I can be real with you guys, I’ve felt super pressured to constantly push for updates, and it’s been burning me out bad. There are many moments where I kind of gave up and wanted to stop it all; I’ve been in a bad place past these months, and things seem bleak to me, but whenever I go to our Discord server and read how many of you are patiently waiting for the next update, it gives me strength to move forward.

So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for supporting us—for supporting me. I hope to see you guys in many years to come.” —Andy.

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“It’s still a bit surreal for me to know this project has kept going for so long, since it seemed like life was doing its damnedest to make it stop. Financial problems, family problems, health problems, mental health problems, even just plain schedule conflicts; I am proud of us for keeping at it when I’m sure a lot of other people would have pivoted to something easier.

It’s also surreal to know that Anders actually has some fans! As the guy in charge of writing him and knowing that I gave him a characterization that a lot of people wouldn’t find attractive, it didn’t surprise me (but still made me sad) when I saw people saying they found him boring or even outright hated him. Still, I kept with my vision for him, believing that his redeeming qualities would shine thru, and I’m continuing with that vision to this day. Much like the gemstones in his collection, his true worth isn’t clear to see until you break thru the outer layer and see the gem he really is…at least, that’s my conviction. I’m very happy that some of our readers see him in a similar light that I do.

The third and final surreality I’m facing with this 7-year anniversary is the fact that this VN does get compared with others. It’s inevitable and important for people to do so, in order to understand it, but I have shared Andy’s ambition to make this into a project that stands out on its own: in presentation, messages and lasting impressions. But it’s funny, because in order to be unique, or more aptly put incomparable, you have to be compared to others, so as worthy of a purpose I know it is, it’s also a paradox. It just goes to show that the purpose behind the purpose is to make After Class the best it can possibly be, within the means we have. And I hope all of you will join us, or continue to stay with us, for this journey to realize this story’s full potential.

Happy 7 years, and here’s to…however many it takes to finish!” —Rex.

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// Featured Questions

Last week, we opened a Q&A on our Discord server, we didn’t get that many questions, but quality over quantity, right? <copes hard>

I’m going to feature some that was super interesting to me, so here they are:

xan asked:

“Happy 7th anniversary! I can’t believe it’s been 7 years already for you two, well, working on this massive project that is. I look at the early version sprites compared to now and what an insane journey of growth and discovery. I can’t fathom enough how this novel impacted my life. To say it changed my life would be an understatement. And I know it has done the same for so many others as well. So thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for helping me become a better person. Thank you Lars for everything.

Ok real question time. I started writing my first ever novel at the start of this year. 5 months later, it’s finished. Throughout the process, I’ve learnt so many things and had to unlearn many things as well. What did you learn and have to unlearn during the process of writing this novel? I would assume that this is the biggest project you have been a part of. I can’t even imagine the amount of edits, revisions, days and nights spent writing, concept-proof, proof reading, etc etc. I guess I just wanted to ask what was the process of writing this novel was.

Keep up the good work!" —Xan , Lars’ husband.

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“Seriously, yeah. I seriously didn’t realize it’s the 7th anniversary already. 4th anniversary still felt fresh to me. Thank you for your kind words, and I’m glad our little project has made that big of an impact in your life.

Well, congratulations on finishing your first ever novel! That’s a big achievement. After Class is also my first and probably the biggest I’ve ever done, and I personally believe that I bit more than I could chew…but I started it, so I’ll have to finish it, or I’ll live to regret it.

As time goes on, I learned how to turn non-constructive criticism into a constructive one. Another thing is that I also learned English by a lot the more I write the novel. I’m not a native speaker, so this has been a big challenge to me (I want to forget the earlier days, and I can’t wait to revise it in the future.)

Our process of writing this novel is quite straightforward, I have the skeleton--bullet points and a bunch of lore related, world-building framework stored on a private server.

We work from there and adjust as we go since the project is constantly evolving thanks to the readers, but the endgame and what we plan to do with it is there, sometimes we take small detours to get there.

After the first pass of writing is finished, I have Rex check for typos and grammar errors while I look for bugs. Sometimes Rex will playtest while editing, sometimes I will do while bug checking, but we’ll have to do the playtest one more time before we push the update out to ensure it’s shipped with as little bugs as possible.” —Andy.

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“7 years of After Class really did sneak up on us, but I’m happy we’ve kept at it so long and look forward to the years to come. And congrats on your novel, that’s no small feat!

The biggest thing I had to learn with this project, and unlearn things within it, was communication. This project only works in terms of writing, lore and planning if both of us are on the same page, and we definitely had to resolve issues with that along the way. Anders’ Day 8 was almost a disaster because of how much got overlooked on both our parts, but thankfully we rescued it in the nick of time, and now it’s one of my favorite updates I’ve led.

We also had to learn what exactly each of us was responsible for early on. I did write some Days for other routes in the beginning, and you can still tell thru the rewrites if you squint, but andeh having 99% of the control for those routes ended up working a lot better, and we’ve kept it that way since.

As for the process itself, I draft an outline for the then-upcoming Anders’ update and submit to andeh for approval. Once that’s done, I start writing all the script itself, sometimes updating andeh along the way for feedback but other times giving the whole thing to him in one go, depending on what’s happening in our lives at the time. I do the bulk of the playtesting for Anders while just doing usually one pass of playtesting if necessary for the other routes.” —Rex

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けもさんです asked:

“What kind of emotions or themes do you hope players take away from the game? Also in which moments in the game were the most emotionally charged during development. BTW just wanna say I've been enjoying After Class for almost half a decade and I enjoy every part of it, thanks for making such a wonderful game~” —けもさんです

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“Initially, After Class was created because I wanted to tell a story of my own (with a bit of twist.) I had been an avid VN reader since my teenage years up until I started writing for AFCL, so I’m sincerely hoping this VN will make the reader feel the same thing I felt back then: something that feels cozy and nostalgic to the readers, like things will be okay in the end. But of course, due to the nature of the VN, there’s going to be a lot more they will feel along the way.

I’m still figuring things out and not a great writer in general, so I’m hoping the readers will be able to pick up the vibes I’m going for...

Writing Parker and Gil is very taxing to me, they are quite popular along the readers, and I’m scared to fuck it up.” —Andy

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“I disagree with andeh’s ‘not a great writer’ comment, but that’s not what you’re asking so I’ll leave it at that. The kinds of emotions and themes we have in the game have changed over time as we were figuring out what AFCL was really going to be, in no small part due to us changing and growing as writers. I hope readers will take away the hope that better things will come one day, even if it’s not clear to see at the moment, and that making the best of a bad situation is a vital life skill.” —Rex

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Animalgin asked:

“If you gentlemen could add anything else in the game would you? Little snippets, extra routes, fanarts section.

Love you both.” —Animalgin

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“For me, I’d love to add fan art section, but After Class isn’t immensely popular, and we can’t host fan arts all the time.

We’re working on an extra section where you can get collectibles and such. Personally, I’d love an extra section to show the side character’s life, just like an Episode, but it’s not high priority right now. Love you too!!” —Andy

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“There really isn’t anything I’d add for extras that isn’t already planned. As for ‘the sky is the limit’ things in general I’d want, it’d boil down to a bigger budget so we can add things like custom music, animated backgrounds and even voice acting. Love you too~” —Rex

I think that’s all we can feature before we started running out of word count, hahah!

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// The return of After Class, moving forward, end note.

Well, I want to take this opportunity to let everyone know that we’re 90% done with the release backlog, and we’re looking into returning! I personally want to reopen it during July, but we’ll see how it goes!

We’re changing the way we run things internally, and with that I’m hoping we consistently get more assets than we did the previous years. I can’t go into details now, but I promise you that we want to push out more updates more what we have now. <gloom>

I want to make sure that After Class sees its deserved end, and I can’t do this by myself, so I’m forever thankful for everyone here who’s supported us so far.

Here’s to 7 years and many more!

To celebrate the 7th anniversary of After Class, we had Mr. Bear work on an amazing piece featuring seven of the main cast members!

You’re the eight main cast! You're the reason we're celebrating! Thank you!

We’ve also included a higher resolution to this one (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160), so if you want to make it your wallpaper or something else, you’re free to do so!

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With love,

Andy Peng, Rex Mundane and the rest of the developers.

Thank you.