On the day before her twenty sixth birthday,
Undertale and Deltarune artist Temmie Chang
shared a present with the internet.
She was finally ready to publish her very
first game.
She was a little embarrassed by it, as it
was only a short affair, just twenty minutes
or so, and it didn’t have much gameplay.
She joked that it could be called "Tem Learns
How Switches Work: The Game".
Yet in spite of Temmie’s hesitation, her
short game very quickly found a dedicated
audience of players.
It was hard not to love this small title,
as it was filled with beautiful, atmospheric
art and wonderful animation.
This is the story of Escaped Chasm, and how
Temmie Chang went from being a game artist,
to a game developer.
Temmie began work on her first game at around
the same time that Deltarune was released
to the world.
She had worked closely with game developer
Toby Fox on Undertale before this, drawing
much of the artwork for the game, but Deltarune
featured even more of her unique art style
and visual aesthetic.
Toby stated that if something looked good
in Deltarune, it was probably Temmie that
had drawn it.
Temmie had an idea in her head for a game
that she’d like to make herself, featuring
characters of her own design that she’d
been working on for a while.
But this project felt intimidating and far
too ambitious, so in order to figure out how
to go about making a game, she decided to
try something a bit more achievable first.
Escaped Chasm was to be built in RPG Maker,
a versatile yet easy to use program that had
also been used by people like Temmie’s friend
Laura Shigihara to make her critically acclaimed
story driven game, Rakuen.
But even though this program was intended
to simplify the game making process, Temmie
felt the need to read up extensively on how
to get everything to work.
Making Escaped Chasm would be a learning exercise,
and she didn’t want to over exert herself.
She’d have to leave elements like a battle
system and even a pause menu for a future
project as she just focused on learning to
tell a simple story in a video game world.
But while Temmie wanted to keep Escaped Chasm
simple, she still wanted to make something
special.
Her greatest talent was art and animation,
and she worked very hard to give her game
its own distinct visual style.
This included spending the first few months
of development working on animating some beautiful
2D animated cutscenes to appear in the game.
This was what would really set Escaped Chasm
apart from other RPG Maker games, as the mixture
of gameplay and animation made the story all
the more powerful.
Temmie spent three or four months animating
these short segments in her spare time, and
another couple of weeks creating the sprite
art for the game.
She struggled a little with making a game
font that she was happy with, but before long,
all of the game’s art assets were completed.
Having done her research and prepared fully,
Temmie was surprised to discover that actually
building escaped Chasm in RPG Maker only took
an accumulation of four or five days’ work.
At first, there was no game, and then suddenly,
Escaped Chasm was finished.
Except for one element.
While Temmie was very experienced at making
art for games, and while she could get her
head around the challenges of building a game
in RPG Maker, there was one skill she lacked.
Even from the start of the project, Temmie
hadn’t known what to do about the game’s
music.
She’d played around with a program called
BFXR to make some sound effects for Escaped
Chasm, but it was clear that she was in over
her head when it came to creating a soundscape
for her work.
It was frustrating.
Temmie could almost imagine a tune or simple
melody to include in her game, but she had
no way of turning it into something concrete.
She couldn’t even find a way to adequately
record any music that she came up with in
her head, and she found herself wishing that
music composition was more like sketching.
That at least came easy to her.
Temmie fretted over the music for her game
for the entire time she was working on the
project.
She even wondered if she could get away with
releasing Escaped Chasm with no sounds or
music whatsoever!
With everything else wrapped up on her game,
and still no idea of what to do with this
challenge, Temmie decided to move on for the
moment.
She began plotting out a second game, which
would feature many of the elements that she’d
not been quite ready to put into Escaped Chasm.
This new game would be more ambitious, and
would push her further to learn new skills.
For weeks, Temmie’s fans waiting patiently
for news on her first little game.
And then, on the day before her birthday,
Temmie revealed it to the world, releasing
it for free on itch.io, and even publishing
it under a Creative Commons non-commercial
license so that fans could legally use her
art assets in their own hobby projects.
But how did she solve the problem of the game’s
sounds?
Ultimately, unable to figure out how to make
music herself, Temmie had turned to her friends.
The sound design for the game’s cutscenes
had been done by the musical duo Fat Bard,
while Hiveswap composer James Roach had also
worked on a very special scene in the game.
Finally, for in-game music, Temmie had turned
to her friend Toby Fox.
Toby was, first and foremost, a composer,
so it made sense for him to help Temmie on
her game, just as she had helped him on his
two games.
The pair both have skills that complement
each other, and Toby was able to compose some
wonderful, atmospheric music that works well
with Temmie’s game world.
Temmie felt a bit sheepish upon the release
of Escaped Chasm.
She hoped that nobody would be disappointed
that it was only a short game with very little
challenge.
To her surprise, the game got a lot more attention
than she’d ever anticipated.
People everywhere were playing her game, and
saying such nice things about the beautiful
experience she’d crafted.
Temmie was pretty embarrassed by all the attention.
But she was also very appreciative and grateful.
Inspired and emboldened, she rededicated herself
to making her next game even better, safe
in the knowledge that her fans would continue
to support her as she tried to learn new things.
The moral of the story is that it’s always
fun to try something new.
In making Escaped Chasm, Temmie Chang wanted
to learn a new skill.
So she did her research, came up with a small
story she could tell, and put it together.
She made a game that fitted her existing talents.
When she lacked knowledge or experience to
create what she wanted, she turned to others.
She read up on guides to learn what she could,
and she asked for help when she felt she was
completely out of her depth.
Don’t let yourself be paralyzed by the daunting
task of learning a new skill.
Don’t think that your first new project
will need to be perfect.
Set yourself achievable goals, play to your
strengths, and push yourself just enough that
you learn something, without being overwhelmed
by trying to meet a high standard.
Keep trying new things, don’t be afraid
to fail, and bit by bit, little by little,
you’ll make progress towards what you want
to achieve.
