[this was originally going to be released on the anniversary itself, but life got in the way, so here it is now, 4 months later.]

it has been a year since the release of Snow Day! I can't believe a year has gone by already. everything is passing by so fast, but also so slow at the same time. in my personal life, lot of things have happened and changed (for the better), like how I'm officially a university student now! it's hard but I'll keep fighting!

I still can't quite believe that my scruffy little vn has won a honorable prize along with  the others though. this was my first work too...I'm so glad :'> (note: it is also the first work of many other submissions, so I'm not exactly special in that regard haha)

about vncup: back when the 1st vncup started, I really REALLY wanted to join the event, but I couldn't since I was still a minor back then. the only thing I could do was just observing as a spectator. but when the 2nd vncup came around, I immediately decided right then that I would join, but I didn't start working immediately when the event started because I didn't know if working on it while I was a minor would break the rule or not, so I didn't do anything for like a month. when I finally turned 18, I started working on it right away though. it took me around a month to complete.

I knew nothing about renpy, but it wasn't that hard or tedious to learn. I think renpy is something that's easy to learn, but hard to master. there's still a lot of things that I didn't know about it, but at least I could put something together. that's great I guess? I also made the music on my own, as I wasn't aware of the free bgm libraries like dova syndrome yet. I think it added to the vn's character I guess? I can't compose for shit, so I would rather have a normal bgm instead of my crappy self-made music, to be honest...

when I started on the vn, I had no idea what I should do with the story, until I came across the song inabakumori - hello marina while I was listening to his whole discography (it's really good! you should go take a listen.)  that song made me remember the concept I made a few years back, and I had a clear idea of what to do then. I love this song so much that I dubbed this song as "the anthem of EVTY" in my mind lmao.

Snow Day as a concept itself has been around for quite a long time already (since 2020 iirc? wayyyyy way back in my high school years) when I first conceptualized the idea, I just wanted to draw eva and tyrone going on a date in winter. I love winter and I love EVTY, so I was like "why not?" and  just mashed two of my favorite things together. at first it was going to be a short comic, but my lack of drawing skills had frustrated me so much that I canned it lol. I even drew a little design for both of their outfits and everything! even down to the espresso/green tea! for eva, the outfit design didn't really change much, but I overhauled everything for tyrone's since the initial design didn't really fit him. the drawing exists somewhere in my sketchbook. right now I can't find it, but even if I did, I would rather not post it... it's too amateur for this world to handle........

about the title: Snow Day is actually a placeholder name, but I couldn't think of anything better, so I just stuck with it. it's super uncreative I know lol.

eva's sprites (sketch)

while I was doing the sprites, I didn't even have a clear idea of what eva would wear in her regular outfit. I doodled some concept of what print would be on her tanktop, which ended up with a skeleton of a hare looking at the full moon. the print of her tanktop makes it harder to see her star necklace, which is one of her key point, so I got rid of it, thus rendering Snow Day obsolete. ah yeah, she is also taller that tyrone now, so it's 2x obsolete lol.  also, this vn was actually supposed to have CGs! but I scraped them, since I didn't like how they turned out at all. maybe I'll get around to it when I want to, but I have other plans 😉🤫

when the theme announced is about "any flavor of trans, queer & gendery nature", I saw an opportunity right away. I already have a headcanon that eva is trans, so I could write about my hcs freely and it would still fit the theme. I guess I was just lucky about that. iirc, my submission was the only one that is a fanwork. looking back, this is really cringe, but at least I'm happy with it. still do, even if the vn itself is amateur and cringy and flawed and filled with mistakes and whatever. I still love it with all my heart.

if you think about this hard enough, you will find that there is a lot of things that doesn't make sense at all, like the fact that there's ramune inside the vending machine. yes, a glass bottle. dropping a glass bottle from a high place doesn't seem like a great idea at all... I'm aware that there is a build-in moveable platform that will rise to the row of the selected drink to cushion the fall inside the vending machine, but I think the island is not  modern enough to have vending machines like that yet lol.

while working on this, I also realized how fun this was. I have always have an interest in writing and art. I would usually only share my writings with my close friends, so it's nice to finally get the story out of my head and into the public. this will not be my one and only vn for sure. I'll keep on writing!

there are other vn jams that I'm interested in (like the menhera and yuri jams) but as I said before that I'm in university now, so currently I have less time to dedicate on working on a bigger project.

[edit 21/4/2025: I am going to participate in the toxic yuri vn jam! so expect more devious wii sports cpu miis lesbian yurii actions coming soon in a few months 😈😈😈]

thank you for reading all of this! and if you decided to play this vn, thank you again!

p.s. I have something planned for the 5th anniversary, but I don't know if I'll have the time to do it by then. who knows... 👀