Hi everyone! It's a pleasure to meet you all! 😌

My name is Rat, and I wanted to introduce myself and the small rag-tag indie game developer team of Spicy Bread! A little bit of history about ourselves: we are a group of 4 friends from college, the couple M&M who are now married, Annie Mei, and me, Rat. This game originally started as a DnD campaign between a college friend group, where Ms. Annie Mei was the DM. During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Annie came up with the entire world, built from the tender loving care of her talents and inspirations in the small dingy apartment that we shared (Annie and I lived together; we were roommates!). We played the entire campaign from beginning to end, spanning around a year. I was gobsmacked; her story was extraordinary, so well-crafted and emotional, intricate and woven, and just...fantastic, really.

The couple, M&M, had some experience in the game developing world and had originally approached Annie with the idea of making her campaign into an actual playable game, so the rest of the world could experience her mastery as we did. But, time went on and people got busy (plus M&M actually got married!), and the project fell through the way life does. However, two years later, I found myself having some more time on my hands (I am studying medicine), and we revisited the wonderful world of Ventreville. As we reminisced, I told Annie—"Why not pursue this game now?" She was hesitant at first, but I was just as captivated by her story the second time, and I realized that it would be such a shame if the world never got to see this beautiful world. 

With Annie wielding the mighty force of the pen as the storyteller and script-writer, and my coding background (plus, some rusty spoon music composing skills), we embarked on this journey with our old friends M&M to introduce our world to you guys. I hope you guys enjoy plunging into the gamedev adventure with us, and without further ado, I welcome our project, Ventreville: A Cure For Sorrow. 

I'll leave some sketches below of the original main character of our demo, Orven Zanry. He's a young, ambitious and wide-eyed man, who longs to help people and change the world. Enjoy these early sketches! I also included some other sketches of other characters, who you'll get to know coming soon!