After checking this entry's analytics today, I learned that it has actually reached 2000+ plays- of downloads and browser plays combined, and to celebrate, I'll be releasing some of the behind the scenes(?) of this 1-week project!

... Actually, I was planning to do this a week after the release or after reaching 1k plays, but yeah ^^"

ANYWAY, let's start with the concept of this game...

The Origin

I've actually had this idea for a while now, about how a hero just confesses to one of the demon lord's generals. On my notes, I wrote down that there was supposed to be a 'law', 'chaos' and a 'true end/neutral' route- which contains continues the story instead of leading to an ending. Of course, for o2a2 jam, I had to  make it fit for the jam, one of which was to change 'demon general' to the 'demon lord' himself.

The original story had an established protagonist whose backstory would have been explored, but given the rules of this jam, I found that a genderless, blank character would be more beneficial. With a blank slate protagonist, the player themselves could fill in the blanks of the character- their backstory, appearance, personality, etc... although, despite being a blank slate, the 'hero' still did possess some personality. For one, they're definitely blunt and straightforward given that they can easily confess their feelings. At the same time, they're someone who originally didn't fully understand these feelings and can easily be swayed.

The Hero

If you've played through the game, do you recall the part where the hero is asked what they liked about the demon lord? Choosing 'appearance', you can make the choice of agreeing with the demon lord that there's no reason to like him. Why? Because the hero had been rationalizing what they really feel about the demon lord throughout the story.

"My heart started beating fast when I saw him... why is that?"- the hero asks their self. By the end of the battle, your choice allows the hero to process these feelings or to ignore them completely. 

The Demon Lord

Now, we get to the 'Demon Lord'. Demon Lord is the one who carries most of the game, and I'd like to think that you got to see his different sides even through such a short play. 

Demon Lord, at his core, is a demon with an incredibly low self esteem. I don't know if anyone ever wondered why he considered himself 'hideous' in appearance... is that from a human's perspective, or a demon's? A demon's of course, and for this, we dive a little into this world's lore.

In this world, the demons and humans don't see eye to eye. They don't mingle with each other, and being friends with them is unheard of. Demons look down on humans, and humans are disgusted by demons... because of this, neither was aware of their own culture- which applied to both the hero and the demon lord.

For demons, there are two measures of 'beauty'- power and their horns. Yeah, that's right, their horns. Of course being the demon lord, he'd be the strongest, thus one of the most beautiful... but notice his horns? Yeah, they're cracked, and one is even broken. Having been defeated by the hero, our demon lord had been reduced to being 'ugly'- weak. Before he worked his way up to become powerful, he had already been considered 'hideous' with his damaged horns, thus, the source of his low esteem, and to add to that, he had lost his title of strongest... so by the beginning of the game, he practically had nothing left- all this time, that's all he had: his power.

His 'demon lord' persona is all that- a persona. It's his façade to hide this weak self that demons in their society look down upon. By showing him kindness and genuine affection, the demon lord experiences being cared for for the first time in his life- not for his power, but for himself.

...I mean, yes, there's also a choice for you to care about his power, and that's fine too since doing so also helps him rationalize the hero's affection for him.  Showing him that he's loved can come later... but that story is up to you ;)

Art Direction

As you have noticed, The Demon Lord is Mine! has a rather... RPG-esque feel. I wasn't originally going to go full-on RPG with pixel art and all that, but it just kind of happened. I even tried making the character sprite look pixel-art-y and utlilized Paint Tool Sai's pixel pen for that. I don't think I pulled it off well, but it was an experience ^^"

If you've noticed, he has two pair of ears in his final design- that one was inspired by a certain character in YuYuHakusho ;) 

He was also supposed to have a third eye, but his bangs covered the area, so I had to scrap that.

Well, I guess that's all!

I hope I didn't forget anything. I doubt I'll put up any new posts about our demon lord in the future, but this is it for now. 
Again, thank you all for playing! :)