According to the official itch.io page, my first visual novel 'A Night Out' is officially six years old now. I figure it was a good time as ever to talk about it. 
Before writing and developing A Night Out. I was writing fanfiction with largely queer characters with a more realistic setting that the original content could allow. After some time I wanted to get away from fanfiction and finally write my own original stories with my own characters, setting, themes, and in general I enjoyed writing stuff that others (mainly trans and queer people) can relate with.
What inspired me to originally start this story was discovering itch.io and playing other visual novels and various narrative games, some that come to mind include:
The biggest push though was the 2018 trans gal jam where I met a lot of cool trans gals and pushed myself to start my own visual novel and release something during the jam.
Problem is that I've never wrote ANYTHING original at that point, so A Night Out is my first attempt at doing anything creative with nothing to start with for reference outside of my experience with writing. I did some art for the fandom I was in, but I hardly drew people. I also never coded anything outside of a single college course (badly.) Even my experience in Audacity (which I used at the time for audio work) back then was minimal.
With the help of the various people on the discord channel throughout the game jam, lots of google searches, and referencing the ren'py tutorial and example game. I managed to get the game out on time and since then it's had over 1,000 downloads which is kind of amazing. 
(development screenshot of A Night out)
Writing A Night Out, I was already out as trans for 4-5 years. Throughout that time interacted with a lot of trans people online including... Minecraft servers, google hangouts, facebook groups, tumblr, fandoms, reddit, etc.
Everyone I met all had different backgrounds, careers, experiences, etc. Taking the experiences of everyone I talked to over the years, I ended coming up with my main character: Elle. An awkward, neurodivergent trans girl with all the bullshit most trans women have to carry.
I really connect with Elle when it comes to her anxiety and being shy when it comes to anything that is not within my comfort zone. What pushed me forward to doing things to was having a supportive friends, which is how I came up with Roxanne. Someone the polar opposite of Elle who has been trans for years, transitioned, and unlike Elle is more extrovert and has a straight up punk attitude.
I love how I wrote these two opposites interacting with one another. Whether it's the first time they meet at the concert, them hanging out after the concert late at night in an old diner as new friends, or Roxanne coming to Elle's aid when she is rejected by her family after coming out.
During the time I was working on A Night Out, I was at a bad time in my life. I was unsure what I wanted to do before I hit my 30s as all I was doing was work retail. Nowadays I am still working a crap job, but writing and game development brings me a lot of joy and I really hope games I develop like A Night Out, it's sequel: Reconnected, and my next project continuing Elle's story: Those We Keep Close make an impact on those that play them. 
