 On the day before her 26th birthday, Undertale and Delta Rune 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 20 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 Delta Rune 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 Delta Rune featured even more of her unique art style and visual aesthetic. Toby stated that if something looked good in Delta Rune, 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 overexert herself. She'd have to leave elements like a battle system and even a pause menu for a future project as she'd 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 still 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 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 waited 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 the 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 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 where she felt she was completely out of her depth. Don't let yourself be paralysed 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.