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ciriceart · 3 years

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OC profiles: the Lawson family

From the now-defunct semi-interactive comic/creative writing projects, “Hunger, Nevada”, “Far From Any Road”, and “Saudade”.

The plot of these three stories cover topics and conflicts such as learning to relate to those around you, breaking toxic cycles, smalltown stagnation and the isolation of close-knit communities, and metaphorical (sometimes literal) body horror monsters that slowly poison towns and families. I wrote these stories from the ages of 14 to 21, and they're all very much a reflection of myself and my perspectives/outlook at those times. I still go back and revisit certain areas, but can't see myself rewriting them in full any time soon. I feel like that would be a disservice to my past self - I used these to sort out and explore my own feelings and hangups, and they served their purpose, but I still draw and talk about the boys more often than I expected I would when I drew my first doodle of Ellis and Lawrence in 8th grade detention. This post is just an infodump about the family of the main characters. I'm not getting into plot details just yet. Though it is worth noting, this was at the height of my Silent Hill hyperfixation, and Ellis and Lawrence began life as the protags of my imaginary Silent Hill fangame for which I made an entire gamefaqs walkthrough because I did not know how to write or draw too well. That doesn't really matter too much now, I just think it's fun.

The Lawson family consists of Francis (or Frank) and Amalia Lawson, and their two sons, Ellis and Lawrence.

Frank is a large man, about 6’3 with green eyes, short auburn hair, and a beard. His skin is somewhat pale but has a minor farmer’s tan from working outdoors, and there’s a spatter of freckles across his entire face. He sometimes wears rectangular half-frame glasses and uses a walking stick.

Amalia is about 5’4 and stocky, with dark brown, almost black hair cut in the patented Mom Bob(tm) with bangs and dark eyes. Her face is somewhat oblong with round, soft features and her skin is a warm mid-to-light brown.

Ellis ranges in age from 17 to 26 across plots. His facial structure favors his father. He’s about 5’10, has very light brown skin, freckles on his face, arms, chest and shoulders, dark eyes and auburn hair. As a teenager, his hair reaches to about his jaw with an off-center part, and he keeps it short and parted on the side as he gets older. He usually at least attempts to comb his hair back but half of it just falls back in front of his face anyway. Sometimes sports various non-serious injuries such as scratches and bruises. He’s rough-and-tumble.

As a teen, most of his outfits consist of torn up jeans, skater shoes, and a plethora of graphic or band tees. Sometimes an old flannel stolen from dad, or black canvas jacket. As an adult, he wears mostly intact but faded black work pants, black or brown work boots, a plain T-shirt and often an unbuttoned overshirt with either short sleeves or the sleeves rolled up.

Lawrence also ranges in age across stories, from 9 to 17. His facial structure favors his mother. He has pale skin, freckles across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, green eyes, and auburn hair in a short, choppy buzzcut that he later grows out to reach past his shoulders as he gets into his teens. As a child, he’s very short and scrappy, and then becomes gangly and awkward as a teenager.

As a child, his wardrobe is typically all childish graphic tees and cargo shorts or jeans, all picked out by his parents. As he gets older, he becomes introverted and shy, always covering himself up in an absurd number of layers – he's often seen wearing a short-sleeved shirt with long sleeves underneath, either a flannel or sweater, and a massively oversized forest green jacket with a red fleece collar. He usually sticks to plain, slightly baggy jeans and sneakers.

Frank and Amalia married in their mid to late 20’s and moved to Frank’s hometown of Ansley, [state redacted].

Frank works in a hardware store and as a repairman. Some years ago, Frank suffered a spinal injury, resulting in chronic pain and his use of a walking stick. He still works at the hardware store and takes repair jobs, though he’s unable to work as often or for as long as he used to.

Ellis drops out of high school in the second quarter of 11th grade to work full-time at the hardware store and begins picking up smaller repair jobs around town. Lawrence, being much younger, is not employed but occasionally does smaller tasks such as sweeping up or organizing shelves after closing hours, or tagging along with his brother or dad on repair jobs to help where he can.

Amalia works at a packing and shipping facility in the city. She works overnight, six days a week with Mondays off. She’s usually home about an hour before her sons have to get up for school. Amalia’s pack a day smoking habit and Frank’s temper are the subjects of most conflicts, but they never progress past passive aggressive remarks or heated discussions. The family occasionally relies on financial help from a man named Mike, whose family has been friends with Frank’s for several years, to make ends meet. He’s often the reason that their heat and water stay on.

The Lawsons are a practicing family of Amicists. They regularly attend service at The First Church of the Shoal United in the next town over. More on Amicism at a later date.

Ellis has a lot of pent up resentment toward authority figures and “grown-ups” in general, even into his own adulthood, due to Backstory Reasons I won’t get into here.

James, Marie, Robin, and Brian are Ellis’ friends from high school. They mostly sit around smoking pot and watching bad movies, sneak out to drink at the park after curfew, and attempt to skate in vacant parking lots.

James was held back in middle school and is one or two years older than the rest of the group. Most parents in town still call him Jimmy and think he’s a very nice boy. If asked to describe him, his long line of ex-girlfriends would say “he’s so nice, but GOD he’s so dumb.” Marie was closer to Robin and James than she was to Ellis, so they didn’t hang out outside of the group at all. She thought Ellis was kinda weird, but not a “bad weird” so she never mentioned it or complained. Robin is that sort of midwestern emo girl in everyone’s math class who’s an artist, but all she draws is semi realistic eyes with elaborate eyeliner in her English notes. She regularly gets into arguments with Ellis and James on what genre different bands count as. Brian is the obvious stoner friend who would be kinda chill to hang out with if he weren’t so loud and annoying about how his parents totally don’t even care and just like, totally let him do whatever he wants.

Dropping out of high school to work a fulltime job, having no interest in college, minimal relationship experience, and staying in such a small and rural town leads to Ellis becoming socially isolated and unable to fully relate with people his own age. He slowly falls out of touch with his friends and people he knew from school, preferring surface level interactions with older coworkers, relatives and friends of the family.

Lawrence, as a result of his older brother’s attempt at parenting while Frank and Amalia are working, learns to be untrusting and uncooperative as well. He picks up a smoking habit by age 14, often stealing them from Ellis or from their mom's purse when she’s home, and sneaks out of his and Ellis’ shared bedroom through the window at night.

Lawrence is a nice kid, but struggles to make friends. Throughout all of middle school and into high school, he only manages to befriend two others named Catherine and Donnie.

Donnie is Brian’s little brother. He and Lawrence aren’t actually friends, but they tend to tag along when Ellis and Brian hang out at each other’s houses. Catherine has known Lawrence since they were in third grade, but they never hung out until they got put in the same advanced math class in middle school.

As he gets older, Lawrence begins to neglect his few friendships and social life in favor of fiction; most notably stories and unfiction focusing on the occult and supernatural, as well as a video game series called Sprout Friends, a puzzle game involving farming and anthropomorphic fruits and vegetables. If he isn’t hiding out on the rooftop of the house at night, he’s locked in the bedroom playing one of multiple Sprout Friends titles, or hunting for strange occurrences around town during the night.

Fun fact: Ellis' middle name is Layne, and Lawrence's middle name is Elijah. I thought it would be cute if their middle names had the same first letters as each other's firsts.

#ocs #lawrence #ellis #they have drawings go look at them

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ponett · 5 years

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Welp... it’s over. After nine years, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is over. I just got done watching the series finale with Anthony and, just like I knew I would, when the credits rolled, I cried my eyes out

I should probably say something, huh. I’ve been sharing thoughts like this mostly on Twitter lately, but I started using Tumblr to blog about MLP, so I don’t think it would be right to post this anywhere else

I have a complicated relationship with MLP:FiM. It’s a show that got really hit or miss after the second season, and it has a fandom so toxic and so full of edgy libertarians that it scared me off from formally participating in fandoms for the rest of my life. But it’s also probably my favorite TV show of all time. There are other shows that are much better written, that have more to say, that are more consistent, even including several other cartoons from the same decade. But I think I’d be lying to myself if I said it wasn’t my favorite show

No other piece of media has had as massive of an impact on my life as My Little Pony

I grew closer to some of my closest high school friends because of our shared enthusiasm for the show. I started PonyPokey with Jake and Derek and made a bunch of bad videos and got invited to be on a wildly disorganized BronyCon panel with Jenny Nicholson in 2012. (We went on stage immediately after Lauren Faust’s panel. I barely said a word due to stage fright.)

After years of being too afraid to share my art online, I started putting more effort into learning digital art so that I could draw ponies. It started out rough, but with the drive to improve, I quickly got better. I started Fluttershy Replies. For the first time, I had an audience. I had people who cared about my work and supported me. Even as times have changed, many of you have been following me since way back then

Around the time I came out as bi in 2012, I got really into MLP shipping. Writing sappy comics and drawing sappy art became an outlet for my years of pent up feelings, and helped me sort out a lot of stuff. My Little Pony also completely changed the views on femininity that had been beaten into my skull since childhood. Suddenly, it wasn’t this strange, alien thing to be afraid of. MLP, at its heart, is a show about how there’s no wrong way to be a girl. That’s an incredibly powerful message. Rarity wasn’t a vapid snob. Fluttershy wasn’t a background character who got made into the butt of the joke. Pinkie wasn’t a ditz. These were characters written to be empathized with. And writing about my own feelings from the perspective of Fluttershy felt... right. It took me a few years to fully process those feelings, but eventually, I realized the truth. I was a trans woman. And a cartoon about horses was the first step on my path to realizing this

In 2013, one of the roughest years of my life, I decided to download RPG Maker on a whim to give myself a distraction. Naturally, my first instinct was to make a game where Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash kiss. What was initially supposed to be a short, Fantastic Game-esque playground of silly little jokes spiraled out of control and became Super Lesbian Horse RPG, a game that I poured my heart and soul into over the course of a year. And then, a couple years later, my desire to preserve the ideas from my copyright-infringing fangame also spiraled out of control, as all my creative projects do, and became SLHRPG’s successor: Super Lesbian Animal RPG. SLARPG isn’t really a reskinned MLP fangame anymore--it’s more like a new game inspired in part by my old project. The story has been drastically rewritten, the characters changed, the levels and gameplay redesigned. Most of the cast of the new game wasn’t in the original project in any form. There’s much, much, much, much, much more new content than old left in the game. And the original game had already strayed so far from the canon anyway. But I’m also not sure it would exist without MLP

I made a bunch of friends online, including close friends I still have to this day. I met the people like Bee and Thomas who I’m still working with on SLARPG. Most importantly, because we both blogged about MLP and had some mutual friends, I met Anthony, the love of my life. We’ve been together for five years now and supported each other through good times and bad. This is the lamest, corniest, stupidest thing I will ever say in my life, but he’s the Rainbow Dash to my Fluttershy

...

So what about the finale itself? (spoilers, obviously)

I have... mixed feelings on the finale. There were some things that really annoyed me in there. But also, like I said, I cried, so I think it’s safe to say they did good overall

I think the thing that stuck in my craw the most was Discord. Which I guess shouldn’t be surprising. I’ve been saying for years now how I hate Discord, how he spits in the face of everything the show stands for. He’s an obnoxious elderly manchild who constantly causes problems on purpose and torments his so-called friends the second they stop paying attention to him. But they have to put up with him and give him infinite second chances, because he’s a god and Celestia said they had to reform him

The overarching plot of the final season is that Queen Chrysalis, King Sombra, Tirek, and Cozy Glow (a Darla Dimple-esque filly villain from season 8) had teamed up with Grogar, a “new” villain taken from G1. While this goes on in the background, Twilight is making her preparations to become Celestia’s successor, as we’d known would be her destiny since the day she got wings six years ago. The villain team-up stuff was genuinely fun, and a highlight of the season for me. But then, in the three-part finale, it’s revealed that Grogar was actually Discord in disguise, and that he’d been intentionally trying to orchestrate a big attack on Twilight’s coronation so that she and her friends could save the day and get a big confidence boost going into her reign as princess. This is like... one of the most bafflingly stupid plot twist of all time. It’s literally the end of the show, and Discord has learned nothing. He’s “nice” now, but he’s still intentionally causing huge problems and putting everyone’s lives in danger to solve his problems. He freed four different villains they’d already defeated just so Twilight could beat them again, and in the process they literally blew up the goddamn castle in Canterlot and nearly killed everyone. And yet... they still forgive him, because they have to

I did, however, think that the last two-part adventure episode was fun overall. It tied a nice bow on much of the series, bringing back a bunch of old friends (including cameos from the movie cast!) to band together and save the day. Of course, in the end, they beat the bad guys with a big rainbow laser and sealed them in a statue. You know, even though a previous season finale was all about how solving their problems with a friendship laser and sealing the villains away never worked. Also, Cozy Glow might be evil, but she’s still literally a child? And now her petrified body is on display in the center of Canterlot? What the fuck????

I’m complaining a lot, but again. It was fun overall. It was nice to have one last big adventure, and to have the mane six reflect on how they’d grown since Twilight moved to Ponyville

...

And then we got the actual final episode. And boy did this one hit me HARD

I’m so glad that they ended on a quieter episode about the main cast’s friendships, because that’s what the show is actually about. The two-part adventures to save Equestria every season are fun, but that’s not the real show. We all came back every week for Twilight and her friends

There are things I can complain about here, too. Spike being a buff adult dragon with the voice of a child is fucked up. I’m still not used to seeing Twilight be Celestia’s size. But more than anything, I was always worried that we’d get a Harry Potter ending, where all the characters are paired off into arbitrary marriages so they can all have kids. Thankfully, this didn’t really happen. The only one who had a kid was Pinkie, who apparently got married to Cheese Sandwich (Weird Al’s character) at some point. Like, they literally shared two episodes together, with no hint of romance? But then they got married and had a kid off-screen??? What the fuck???? A lot of people also think that Fluttershy ended up with Discord, and I know I’m massively biased against that ship, but... I mean, they teased the FlutterCord shippers, but there wasn’t really any actual textual evidence that they were any closer than they had been previously. Y’all weirdos who ship Fluttershy with an obnoxious elderly man can interpret that as being “canon” if you want, I guess, but it’s not

The other relationship that shocked everyone in the finale was Applejack and Rainbow Dash, who... appear to be a couple? It’s definitely hinted at. I have... very, very mixed feelings about this. I mean, okay, obivously I’m the big FlutterDash fangirl. But I think AppleDash is cute, too! The problem is that, like... they’ve barely interacted in years? Like, they had a lot of episodes together in the first two seasons, but then the writers barely ever had them interact past that point. I can’t even remember when the last time we got an actual episode focusing on them was. And no, the one where Rainbow takes Granny Smith to pony Vegas doesn’t count

Like... yeah, it’s cute. It’s a nice gesture. Lyra and Bon Bon getting married in the background was also cute. But we can do so, so much better in 2019. We have so many explicitly canon lesbian couples in cartoons. Couples that actually kissed, or got married, or showed feelings for each other. Rainbow and AJ barely even fucking talked to each other in the final few seasons. I dunno, it just feels very hollow to me. Even the Equestria Girls crew admitting they were pushing RariJack felt more substantial to me, because at least they were given on-screen chemistry and lots of canon interaction

But in the end, complaints aside, the finale was about Twilight moving back to Canterlot, and worrying that her friendships would fade because of it. Honestly, I think this is what the finale of the show always would’ve been. It was the perfect story to end on. And boy, it hit really close to home

And then the last song happens, reflecting on how things have changed, but how they’re all still friends. And we see all the other friends they made along the way. And the camera zooms out, and the book from the opening of the very first episode closes, bringing the entire nine-year saga full circle

And then I started sobbing really hard in Anthony’s arms

...

I dunno. I just got done nitpicking a lot, but I still think that the last episode was a good and very emotional ending for the show

I’m going to miss this show dearly. I know it will be back in a new form, and that the leaks indicate that it’ll still star slightly different versions of the Mane Six. I’m also used to shows like this getting rebooted. Hasbro cartoons are honestly lucky to last past three seasons. FiM, on the other hand, got over 200 episodes, a theatrical film, a few specials, some shorts, a bunch of comics (which I still need to read), and a spinoff human AU series that was also really great. There’s no shortage of content, and I’m sure I’ll be returning to the series for years to come. I’m also glad that the show managed to go out on a high note

But still. It was a constant presence in my life for nearly nine years. Even as the quality got really hit or miss, even as they took the premise in strange directions, even as the crew of the show grew more and more dominated by men, it was still a show I could rely on to always be there, 26 episodes a year. I’ll miss it. I hope what comes next is just as good, if not even better. I also hope it’s gayer

I was going to end my ask blog, Fluttershy Replies, around the time the show ended. I’m not sure if I’ll do that just yet. I don’t know. I think that might be a bit much for me to process emotionally. Too many doors closing in my life in quick succession. But I do want to do more with it. These characters will be special to me for the rest of my life

I mean shit, I haven’t even drawn StarTrix yet. I’ve still got a lot of work to do with these horses, folks

#bobby thinks about horses

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latin-dr-robotnik · 4 years

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You know, since I started this blog and my other Spanish blog I always thought my opinions were maybe a little too strongly biased towards Sonic, even when talking about many other gaming franchises...

But hooooo boy this video is something else.

But it’s fine. This is the sort of video I would expect for the 30th anniversary next year, but having it today is nice as well. I don’t know if I would get as defensive as some of the moments of this video (specially that 20-minute long introduction), but I get it. S3K is also my favorite Sonic game, and one of my favs of all time. I played this at such an early age that -without ever thinking too much about it- this has set a standard for all things gaming for me (and I finally realize why I said what I said in this post about judging videogames harshly for their music, it’s because these games showed me so much more). It ain’t just nostalgia, it’s brilliant game design and a benchmark of how ambitious this franchise could get when it gets its shit together. I too felt sad every time Sonic 2 got all the praise while S3K was forgotten and talked only because lock-on or because MJ worked a bit on its music. I did get mad at IGN for a while for their utter disrespect to a franchise that, despite receiving fatal blows that would kill any other game franchise not only once, but twice, still lives to tell the story to this very day. But not that much anymore.

Sonic is special, very special. Just before finding this video I was wondering about why the 2D Sonic games were harder to get into (I have no plans to translate that into a Tumblr post, so it will stay in Spanish, sorry not sorry), and parts of this video not only explain that very same point, but also reach similar conclusions as I did. Being more than your traditional platformer is what sets Sonic apart, and this is a point brought on the video but not on my part, but the experimentation part of this franchise is also a very big atractive point, regardless of the result. We Sonic fans tend to complain about lack of consistency in the games, yet we still love 3D Blast, Black Knight, Unleashed, Heroes, Battle, Spinball and more. Sonic, as a character and as a franchise, never settles for less, for better or worse. That’s why is a bigger sin to have a boring Sonic game rather than an utterly broken one, and why games like Forces can be much more heartbreaking than '06.

But, even if I consider S3K this golden standard for all things Sonic and most things gaming, I have to disagree when the video asks us to refer to this very game when someone says “Sonic was never good”. I don’t need to pull out a 26-year old Sonic game -my fav in the series- to say this “was” a good franchise, because it still is. We are just coming out from one of the most successful movie adaptations of a videogame ever; we have lots of animations -official and fanmade- made out of pure love and respect from this franchise. We have some of the greatest videogame soundtracks of any videogame franchise period. We have 27+ years of varied TV series that tackled topics ranging from wacky and silly fun to serious story developments. We still have the record for the longest running comic series based on a videogame, even though said comic has been dead for some years now. We have one of the best and worst fandoms of all at the same time, filled with well-known infamous personalities, and some of the best, most talented writers and artists I’ve seen and even had the pleasure to talk to and share a laugh or an idea. We have one of the strongest fangame and reverse engineering communities out there, to the point some fans have proven to have the professional skill and love for the franchise to create one of the best official Sonic games of the past decade, while many others use their knowledge to kickstart their own indie careers in the industry. And best of all, we have one of the most iconic fictional characters of all time, even people that haven’t ever touched a Sonic game in their lives know what a “Sonic” is.

If anything, we Sonic fans tend to undersell the value of this franchise, and while I can and will keep on referring to this game when the “best game” discussion pops up, I don’t really have to look that far back to find signs of Sonic’s greatness.

Even at its worst, this franchise keeps on chuggin’ along. (And there’s a reason why it keeps on going where other competitors have simply vanished from existence or been recently brought back for a quick nostalgia-check.)

On a different note, every time the Sonic fandom is brought up and how “Sonic fans keep fighting at each other when it would be better to leave our differences and join all together”, I can’t stop myself from thinking about this place, the Tumblr Sonic fandom, a place that can get a little bit tarnished due to the overall reputation of the site (it’s a constant love-hate relationship, I admit.) The place where we disagree from time to time but don’t really go nuclear on each other (at least not that often lol); the place where posts like this one pop up all the time, some with an astonishing amount of research and understanding of all the aspects of this franchise; the place where most people I’ve known (and even myself) said it’s “the best corner of the fandom.” And for that I raise my drink to all of you, thank you for sharing this passion together.

(Now, can we get Nick to look at this place? :P)

“There’s a moment when you realize you’re playing your favorite game”

You know when I realized that? As soon as I found the very first giant ring on Angel Island Act 1.

#sonic the hedgehog #i haven't got this emotional for the franchise in a while #i guess i just burned through my 30th anniversary speech #oh well something else will come to mind by that point #specially if we get more and more good news from now on

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synthient · 5 years

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The Key to Understanding Deltarune: The Halloween Hack

So we’re currently in the middle of a 4000 year content hiatus

Which is unfortunate, because ever since the big iconic Halloween-day surprise demo drop, my brain has been rattling a baseball bat against the inside of my skull and chanting “CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT”

Undertale was like candy for the thematic analysis side of my brain. I still wake up in a cold sweat some nights going “fun value......he put a quantitative value on fun.....numbers going up.....”

I am desperate to know what kind of themes Deltarune is going to tackle. Can you effectively predict that from one (1) 3 hour demo? No. Does my brain care? No.

Which is what lead me to the wonderful world of intertextuality, or examining how a media text is shaped by other media texts

It started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this with me doing a playthrough of EarthBound, the video game that Toby has cited as his biggest inspiration for Undertale

That was fun & interesting (the “throwing away an emotionally engaging experience to grimly make Numbers Go Up” thing feels a lot closer to home after trying and failing to get the sword of kings), but it didn’t provide much insight into Deltarune, specifically. It wasn’t enough. I needed more. I was willing to dig into literally any intertext (except Homestuck, which no force on this earth can compel me to read :) )

anyway thats how I ended up playing Toby Fox’s high school fangame

And somehow (sorry Toby) I walked out of there with an unironic theory (a game theory....if you will....): Deltarune is Toby’s adult reexamination of the Halloween Hack.

What is the Halloween Hack?

You know that thing where, like, people take the engine of a Pokemon game and edit it so there’s a new region and a bunch of new fakemon, and also There’s Swears Now

In 2008, Toby Fox entered a contest on an EarthBound fansite for the best Halloween-themed EarthBound hack

In one sense, reducing the Halloween Hack to a “bad romhack with swears” is a little bit of a disservice. There are some glimmers in there of a really affecting, thought-provoking game, and you can see some of the early blueprints of what would later become Undertale (“do video game ‘monsters’ really deserve to die” is a major theme, and the character of Dr. Andonuts was effectively split up into Alpyhs, Asgore, and Sans)

But it’s also. very much a fangame made by a 16-year-old.

You can read a basic summary of the Hack here. High school-age Toby wrote two pretty extensive analyses of his thought process behind the game. I’ll be referring back to them a lot, and I’d highly suggest giving them a read--Toby’s been so famously resistant to making any Word of God statements about Undertale that it’s kind of fascinating to see him being so candid

an extremely long and rambling examination of How This All Relates To Deltarune

The Halloween Hack opens in the town of Halloween Twoson. Twoson is one of the cites in EarthBound, and here it’s been painted orange. and there’s pumpkins now

See, high school Toby had...a bit of a chip on his shoulder. In the Making Of notes, he explains that he was frustrated that “most people generally thought I was just ‘another funny guy’”. So he designed the opening of the game to seem unoriginally close to the original EarthBound--like “a regular, funny, lazy hack”--to lull players into a false sense of security before the horror elements set in.

Two interesting things there:

“Lazily, unoriginally close to the source game” sounds an awful lot like the Dark World segment of Deltarune

Halloween Twoson looks very visually similar to Hometown

Toby’s description of Twoson also sounds pretty Hometown-esque:

The main impressions of Twoson that I wanted to give the player were: It's funny. It's a nice fall day outside. The person hacking this game is ridiculously lazy. It's a nice place to live. If you look at it a little closely, it's kind of claustrophobic.

And when does the horror kick in? When the player descends into the underground tunnels beneath the city.

The “horror” in the Halloween Hack is, however, Pretty Not Good.

There’s a whole lot of the flavor text narrator (put a pin in that one) insisting “this is so scary. you’re so scared. your hands shake and your head throbs because you’re so scared.” There’s also a thing where the battle text keeps going “the shambling zombie BITES your HEAD OFF!!! (you lose 15 hp).”

I think the True Lab sequence in Undertale is a decent demonstration that Toby’s come a long way since then (and that Honey We’ve Got A Storm Coming :’) ). But you know what the Hack’s style of horror reminds me of?

My first thought when I beat the demo and saw this stinger was “this looks like an intentionally shitty creepypasta.” Now I wonder if it’s lowkey adult Toby poking a little fun at teenage Toby

The Halloween Hack is a game about railroading. It’s Spec Ops The Line before there was Spec Ops The Line.

According to Toby:

The main theme of this game is the lack of choice. There is really no choice in this game. From the moment you start to the moment you finish, you're destined to kill Dr. Andonuts. There are two endings, but they both eventually end up the same way. It's all a big joke on the player.

You know why there isn't a choice there? Because you already chose to make Varik go into the door. You already chose to go forward. The only real choice, as Varik realizes at the end of the game, is to stop or keep going. By "stop" he means "turn off the game," and that's all you can do. Anything you play is your own fault for playing, and that's the only real choice you can make.

Interesting? Yeah. A little obnoxious? Also yeah.

That’s one of the criticisms people had of Spec Ops. "The atrocities we commit when we feel like we don’t have a choice” is an intriguing theme, but “~the only way to win is not to play~ [the game I worked hard on for the express purpose of people playing it]” isn’t a very satisfying conclusion.

Undertale, in direct contrast to the Hack, is all about choice. It earns the right to guilt you for the No Mercy Run by giving you every opportunity not to go through with it.

But even Undertale plays a little with the concept of railroading--you can’t stay with Toriel; you can’t spare Asgore in any of the neutral runs; you can’t save Asriel.

Now Deltarune seems to be returning full-on to the Hack’s “your choices don’t matter” premise. But it’s going to need to find something more insightful and satisfying to say about it.

Which makes me really curious about this:

If the Hack has a secondary theme besides railroading/lack of choice, it’s The Soul-Crushing Impact Of Internalized Homophobia.

The tragic antagonist, Dr. Andonuts, destroys his own life trying to repress his gay desire. He retreats into a dream world made of his neuroses and trauma, and he’s inevitably Otherized and murdered by the player. He’s something of a dark version of Alphys, who “disappears” into her lab without ever meeting and getting support from Frisk, Papyrus, and Undyne.

Undertale takes an opposite approach to its lgbt themes--the Underground is a utopia where homophobia and transphobia don’t exist. Everyone respects Frisk’s and Chara’s pronouns. Alphys finds solace and healing in her relationship with Undyne.

It’s a heartwarming growth from the despair in the Halloween Hack. And it’s a vision that’s been deeply meaningful to a lot of people. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no value in exploring issues of homophobia. 16-year-old Toby tried to do that, but...wasn’t exactly at a point where he was equipped to handle it with a ton of sensitivity and nuance.

(There’s. There’s a boss battle where you fight the physical manifestation of Andonuts’ gay repression. It’s a crotch. You fight a crotch.)

Some of the hints in the Deltarune demo, however--the Toriel Has Become Catholic thing; the fact that Alphys and Undyne haven’t met and Mettaton hasn’t been able to transition; the potential trans implications of choosing a name only to have it discarded for an assigned one (“you can’t choose who you are in this world”)--make me suspect that’s one of the themes that Toby will try to revisit from an adult perspective.

The Hack is interested in the idea of the flavor text narrator as a distinct, intelligent entity, whose thoughts and goals don’t always align with those of the player character or the player.

The Hack’s narrator makes a habit of dictating “your” emotions to you (you’re scared; you can sense ‘the monster’ and you want to kill it; etc). The narration starts to seem more and more unreliable, until, as Toby put it, “The narrator starts talking to you personally...rambling about incoherent things.”

At the game’s turning point, you’re given a yes/no choice to kill Dr. Andonuts. Choose yes, and the narrator (mockingly?) calls you a good person, describes the murder you commit, and then narrates what appears to be your (or their? or Varik’s?) psychological breakdown. Choose no, and the narrator tells you that’s not a real choice and redirects you back to the yes/no box. If you press the b-button to try and opt out of the choice (the game’s unofficial subtitle is “Press the B-Button Stupid,” and doing so allows you to follow Andonuts into his dream world), the narrator starts to panic, although the game ultimately ends the same way.

Not to NarraChara Real, but NarraChara Real

The Hack is also interested in the idea of the player character as a possibly-unwilling puppet controlled by the player (who in turn is controlled by the railroading/their need to beat the game).

According to Toby:

As you approach someone you've never met that you're labeling as a monster, your body pushes you forward to kill him. What's funny is that it's not even uncontrolled, it's really just the force of the player's controller pushing that little bounty hunter into murdering Andonuts. You might not realize it, but Varik is almost dead, and yet he can't stop moving because you keep pushing those buttons.

The Halloween Hack is, fundamentally, a nostalgic meditation on an existing game.

It’s a little obvious to say, but the Hack isn’t a standalone game. It’s a hack of EarthBound.

Toby writes:

EarthBound dominated my childhood, shaped my preteen years, and played a large role in molding me into the offbeat pseudohippie I am today. It gave me a sense of humor. It helped me learn how to read. Its lessons served as a basis for my sense of justice and courage.

But at age 16, Toby’s feeling about the game that had shaped him were a little mixed. He describes “the staleness of a fifteen-year-old video game” as one of his motivations for making the Hack.

In Deltarune, he (kind of hilariously) has Alphys parrot his teen-self’s “staleness” line:

(I could write a whole meta just on the Mew Mew Kissy Cutie vs Mew Mew Kissy Cutie 2 thing)

Still, Toby’s nostalgia for EarthBound is essential to how the Hack operates. Earlier, I said there were glimmers of an thoughtful, affecting game buried in the “bad romhack with swears.” The most genuinely moving moment in the Hack, in my opinion, is the Onett sequence.

You wander though a faded, dream world version of Onett--the hometown from EarthBound--while a slowed down arrangement of the Onett music plays. Snatches of forgotten conversations appear on road signs. Various monsters from EarthBound follow slowly behind you, but don’t attack. The only battles are against creatures called “Remember Me?”

The EarthBound characters appear to recognize “Varik” as Ness, EarthBound’s protagonist--or are they recognizing you, the player, as the same person who played EarthBound once upon a time?

The one problem, of course, is that not everyone has played EarthBound. It’s a relatively niche game. The sense of remembrance and regret and loss in the Onett sequence is universal, but being shaped as a person by the specific video game EarthBound isn’t a universal experience.

But in the years since the Hack, Toby has created something with a wider reach than EarthBound. Something that can evoke that sense of memory and nostalgia in players. A familiar game that he can take apart, rearrange, and examine in an entirely different light.

He made Undertale.

And now he’s rearranging the pieces into Deltarune.

#deltarune #undertale #o and to clarify: i don't think the flavor text thing means that chara's evil #in fact i think deltarune's going to deconstruct that very reading of undertale #which is maybe a whole nother (hopefully much shorter) meta

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starlightshore · 5 years

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Probably a loaded question, but with all the game engines you've worked with, what are the pros and cons for each? I'm really interested in trying my hand. So far I got rpg maker mv for a paid engine, but I'mma l look into free ones also. (Game Maker seems a bit expensive for my tastes :()

GOD YEAH game maker is... so expensive... i’m hoping my bro gets me it for Christmas when its on sale. but even then like. ouch. that price tag.

so here are all the programs I've used to make my fangame at some point:

uh. long ass post ahead.

COST: 15$

its a visual novel making program! like RPG maker, its not code based, but visual based! you just click and drag the stuff from the left onto the right area and boom. game made. Honestly, a really good introduction to making a video game! Its very basic and simple, which is very newbie friendly. Lots of Youtube videos on how to do things too.

You can technically do more with it by using the program’s coding language OR by using java-script, tho personally i’m not good at coding yet so i never really saw what i could do with it. i haven’t really used it in a year but honestly, i can’t thank it enough for being such a good introduction to game development.

Pros: cheap one time fee, easy for newbies and visual based.

Cons: very limited to just visual novels, and even then to do more complex stuff you really have to work for it to get it to work.

RENPY

COST: FREE

THE free visual novel program. It’s a bit of a learning curve since everything is done in script, (ie: no visuals) BUT its VERY simple and easy to learn and once you get it and it clicks, you can do a lot with it! because you code it yourself, the limits are nearly endless. uses it’s own language, but you can also use python (or its built on python? can’t remember lol) and python is built for newbies.

Pros: free, limited only by what you’re willing to learn to do with code, while you can make RPGS its pretty limited since its not built for it

Cons: only super easy to use once you get over the learning curve. if you have any experience w/ code, its a breeze. if not, still easy to learn!, you can only use it for rpgs, NOT a visual program

(and other RPG Maker game engines)

COST: 50$ (EXPENSIVE! but it does go on sale once in a while. i got mine at 20-ish$)

idk if you plan on making a UT fangame too but its totally possible!!! i’m doing it!! and i would be very happy to share/help others with theirs. i mean. mostly its just plugins from other people, but i did set up a pretty nice inventory and i can show ya’ll how i make the sprites. (since UT has a lot smaller tileset size) and honestly, if you need help w/ this program my instant messenger is always open B)

uh anyway. RPG maker is a godsend for someone like me who is very visual minded and has a hard time grasping code. i know python... ok-ish. im still a noob. ANYWAY yah, theres LOTS of tutorials and plugins you can sink your teeth into, big communities who are all happy to share and help each other out. its pretty great! (actually, you could say the same w/ all these game engines! but the RPG maker forums is like. super nice from what i’ve seen)

so like, with youtube you can learn how to use it within a day or two, frankly. and you can do SO much with it w/ plugins. and the community is ages old, and the game itself is a few years old and has plenty to offer. you need something? likely someone else has made a plugin or forum post on the topic and someone has helped them figure it out. HIGHLY recommend this program if you can afford it (and you already have it, so honestly, just go w/ rpg maker.)

i wouldn’t super recommend the default assets cause the community hates them. they’re way over used and people see it as “lazy.” its good as like, a stepping stone but you shouldn’t rely on them for your whole game if you can manage your own graphics or pay someone to make them. if not, theres still free tilesets you can use if you look for them.

Pros: big friendly community, lots of resources to use, capable of A LOT of things, hassle free for the most part!

Cons: price is big, but it goes on sale often and the older versions of RPG maker aren’t that much different/worse. granted, MV is the best but like, the others aren’t bad. quite a bit to learn at first, but really simple honestly.

COST: Free (sorta. you need a license for certain aspects, but really u could do it free w/ zero issue except for exporting to multiple devices)

ok so like. i don’t. really know how to use unity too well. out of all of these, i haven’t used it for long. while still somewhat visual, you still have to learn a quite a bit of code and look up tutorials to figure out specific things you want to do.

for UT fangames, there is UNITALE/Create Your Own Frisk which uses unity, tho you don’t need the Unity to make games unless you want to make a overworld. since i’m making a overworld and more, i’ll need to learn how to use Unity. It’s a uphill battle but i’m fairly certain i can do it eventually.

there’s a LOT of resources but theres also a LOT to learn. untiy is pretty big and well known, for both 3d and 2d so like, go ham. have fun.

Pros: can do anything

Cons: can do anything so you gotta learn how to do it w/ code.

Cost: has both a subscription and a license you can purchase. its,,, pricey and doesn’t go on sale all too often.

I actually don’t have ANY experience with this program except for like. a few night’s worth. i read the manual if that counts for anything lol.

uh, its very script base and it looks good? uh. idk. its. yeah? i heard its great and i’m sure for that price and for it to be respected so much its got a lot live up to. my brother likes it and hes a Real nerd. so. i guess??? it should be worth it? i’d say wait until around Christmas/later in November for the steam sale if you really want to.

i mean, UT was made with the first one (tho i hear GMS 2 is way better) and toby didn’t know how to code going in so like. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ honestly anyone can learn it and while i haven’t gotten to use it much yet, I want to.

there’s the Undertale Fan Engine made with GMS 2 and i’ve tried it, its pretty extensive and frickin cool.

TLDR; figure out what kind of game and story you want to tell/make. i could of saved a year’s worth of work if i just sat myself down and realized i wanted to make a completely new fangame separate from my old blog stuff. and that i wanted to make an rpg specifically.

honestly, i want to make more games after AL, like, if i could become a indie dev that’d be my dream. (ironic since i don’t play video games LMAO)

but yeah! theres lots of choices, and its all a little overwhelming honestly! if theres anything you need help with w/ any of these programs I am happy to help further. I wish you the best of luck!!!! video game making is hard work but its so worth it!!!

#long post #personal stuff #sams replies #also sorry i didn't go back and reread to fix things up im lazy #dream-unity

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enccrypted · 4 years

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Can be used for RP and non-RP blogs to get to know a bit about the person behind the screen!

1. FIRST NAME: my name is something else, but I actually do more commonly go by jun nowadays in my day-to-day life!

2. STRANGE FACT ABOUT YOURSELF: as a child i rode a bicycle into my aunt’s pool because I have no sense of foresight even though avoiding diving into the pool was the EASIEST thing to figure out in that moment. And riding a bike in a pool is illegal in California, so :( Please don’t call the cops on me

3. TOP THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU FIND ATTRACTIVE ON A PERSON: A lot of my partners I’ve dated on sheer basis of their personality, but... lean? not necessarily super slender but I personally tend towards slimmer builds, I think? And I also really like nice eyes and hands... and I love voices I find soothing and nice to listen to!! Sound is a hate or love thing for me, so if I hear a certain sound or string of sounds I like, I can get stuck on it. And likewise if a sound is just unbearable to me, it sends my brain into fucky spirals. So that’s why I have certain songs on loop for weeks on end, because when I like a certain type of sound, I want it in my ears constantly.

4. A FOOD YOU COULD EAT FOREVER AND NOT GET BORED OF: these spicy noodles 🍜 they’re called buldak bokkeum myeon, hot chicken ramyeon 😋

5. A FOOD YOU HATE: I’m actually five years old, so vegetables can get the fuck off my plate. Most of the time they just have some weird textures that I cannot handle in my mouth. I feel like it’d be better if I owned a blender and could make smoothies out of some of them, but that’s a plan for the future when I can actually have full control over my own diet

6. GUILTY PLEASURE: I love... to eat out... and to eat in general, but it’s hard to eat out a lot because it’s very expensive :( but then my opposite guilty pleasure is packaged ramen that’s cheap as shit... I’m a very inconsistent personality lmao

7. WHAT DO YOU SLEEP IN: my pants and nothing else

8. SERIOUS RELATIONSHIPS OR FLINGS: only serious relationships!! I mentally cannot make myself date a person if I haven’t been friends with them for at least a few months, optimally one or two years. I like to know the people I end up dating and feel comfortable around them, really know them before I even think about taking it a step further. Being good friends with a person, talking a lot with them, and feeling that I can speak to them as a partner AND a friend with whom I would trust my secrets (and therefore be honest with them about anything!) is so wildly important to me. And also I just don’t trust like that.

9. IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN THE PAST AND CHANGE ONE THING ABOUT YOUR LIFE, WOULD YOU AND WHAT WOULD IT BE: so many things. I think about it constantly. My most common daydreams and things I imagine as I lie in bed at night is somehow waking up with my current day mind in the body of my younger self and just living life differently. But I’m sure a lot of us would tweak a thing or two, regardless of whether they’re subtle or hugely impacting, and in reality it’s just not going to happen. So while I’m not “happy” with where I am, I’m at least happy with my efforts and where I’m trying to go from here on out!

10. ARE YOU AN AFFECTIONATE PERSON: It’s tough to get me to that point, as in I’m really picky with whom I choose to get closer to just based on compatibility, how much I initially feel I’ll be comfortable around a certain person, etc. But once I get to a status of friendship, I’m very free with affection :’) maybe too much? I drop a lot of “I love you”s and I occasionally make a fuss over the people I care about, but only to make sure they’re okay or something. Not overbearing!! I think... sometimes i accidentally say “babe/baby” to my friends and I realise two seconds later that it’s fucking weird but . can’t cry over spilt milk lmao

11. A MOVIE YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER AGAIN: I’m not a “watch a movie again” type of person because it takes me actually wanting to watch a movie, then making the conscious decision to invest the time in sitting down and watching it... so a song I like! because I can multitask while listening to music and it doesn’t take any huge commitment for 2-7 minute songs: Scenes from an Italian Restaurant. I could listen to most of Billy Joel’s songs on repeat for days, though.

12. FAVORITE BOOK: My favourite books switch around because I always discover something new, then turn around and go straight back to an old book I used to love after rereading it... over the years I most strongly remember loving: Crime and Punishment, The Great Gatsby, and Howl’s Moving Castle!

13. YOU HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO KEEP ANY ANIMAL AS A PET, WHAT DO YOU CHOOSE: I want a cat really badly! I do have a stray cat that I hang out with at my school, but that just isn’t the same as having one of my own! And I’ve always wanted a snake since I was a wee bab so, someday, when I’m moved out and financially stable 🐍

14. TOP FIVE FICTIONAL SHIPS [IF YOU ARE AN RP BLOG, YOU CAN USE YOUR OWN SHIPS AS WELL]: TWO OF MY FAVOURITES ARE WITH JAY: his higgs (death stranding, goldenmasked) and his revenant (iidolum)... I didn’t start off writing with either of them with huge shipping intentions in mind, but I’ve got some plots with him that are my favourite... 😭😭 other than that, cryptane, cryptage, and gibraltar/crypto! That’s five right there.

15. PIE OR CAKE: it’s illegal to make me make decisions like this. I don’t even like cake and pie that much but when I’m in the mood for either one, they’re equally good. I can choose flavours though: apple pie and chocolate cake.

16. FAVORITE SCENT: Gasoline? Cigarette smoke? Those are bad for me especially since I’m asthmatic, but they’re really the only thing that come to mind. AND also this oil because it smells vividly of childhood. I still have a bottle I use from time to time.

17. CELEBRITY CRUSH: I’m not really feeling any right now... but George Michael was always such a cutie :’)

18. IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE, WHERE WOULD YOU GO: I want to go home to Australia for a bit, and visit Vietnam again (don’t remember when I last went because I was too small...). Canada, maybe?

19. INTROVERT OR EXTROVERT: a mix of the two, but currently feeling very introvert.

20. DO YOU SCARE EASILY: it depends on my mood. I’m either really finicky and easily scared by anything if I’m on edge, or my brain just shuts off and blocks out the whole function of terror so when something happens, I’m just like. yeah??

21. IPHONE OR ANDROID: android and not interesting in ever switching off.

22. DO YOU PLAY ANY VIDEO GAMES: this is a blog for a video game character!!

23. DREAM JOB: I’m chasing a career in psychiatry and I might someday return to mechanical engineering.

24. WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH A MILLION DOLLARS: buy a nice small place somewhere!! fund the rest of my education on my own! give some of the money to my friends!!! fill my savings account to the brim!

25. FICTIONAL CHARACTER YOU HATE: im trying so hard to think of a character that i hate, but I’ve mostly enjoyed the character cast of everything I’ve watched/read/played lately. life’s too short, and so is my memory, for me to remember anything that hasn’t occurred in the past few months. at the least, it makes me a much happier man so, win for me ;)

26. FANDOM THAT YOU WERE ONCE A PART OF BUT AREN’T ANY LONGER: hate to admit it, but I used to be a Hetalia fan. Lmao. Some of the worst people I met there, but I also met my ex-girlfriend in the fandom, and we made fangames for it together :’) one of my favourite memories of younger years.

TAGGED BY: i stole it from one of jay’s blogs... my big brain can’t remember which but go follow him on both higgs and revenant anyway

TAGGING: @deathchasing, @mircoy

#time to change this up. \` * file: meme.#abt jun.#( a little something to kick me back into being here :'] )#( while i was writing responses i found myself thinking 'what ooc icon should i use' and then i remembered oh. i dont use those anymore... )#( when did that stop being a thing? for me personally and for rping? or is it just in these circles that no one is using them? im lazy idk )#long post cw

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rpgmgames · 6 years

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August’s Featured Game: Shroom Soup

DEVELOPER(S): Shroomy ENGINE: RPGMaker 2000 GENRE: Adventure, RPG, Psychological Horror WARNINGS: listed here (may contain spoilers) SUMMARY: You play as Arnika, a gloomy teenage girl. Perpetually tired, you live off excessive sleep, lime juice, and instant soup. You look into the vortex forming in your cup of said soup, this time mushroom flavour. Next thing you know, you are in an entirely different world where everything, from buildings to people, is being devoured by fungi. It seems like you have no choice but to walk on... Your journey involves exploration, puzzle-solving and battles.

Download the demo here!

Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! Hello! I am Shroomy, and I still haven't figured out which one of my nicknames I should go by, but I use "uboaappears" for art and "toxic shroom swamp" for games. I have a bachelor's degree in biology since two weeks ago and like everything surreal, gory and gay. Nice to meet you. I have been in the community since about 2012, and that might be also when I first wanted to make a game - a Yume Nikki fangame, because YN brought me here. I messed around with the engine for a long time, and certain characters and ideas gradually mutated to whatever this is now.

What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially? *Shroomy: It's about making a cup of instant soup and accidentally going on a very weird adventure. ...Okay, actually, it's a coming-of-age story with an emphasis on mental health, relationships, and toxic flesh-eating mushrooms. The idea came to me when I made myself an instant soup once. For some reason, I thought it would be cool if there was a portal into another world in the cup. That's how it started. (I was also into drawing mushrooms growing on people at the time, so that naturally made its way into my Awesome Game Idea.)

How long have you been working on your project? *Shroomy: ...A while. It's enough to say that I graduated from both high school and university with it. But to be honest, I didn't really do much with it until about two years ago. Right now I tend to think of the time before that as trial and error, playing around with ideas and learning to use the engine. I feel a little self-conscious about how long it took me to come up with a coherent story, but that might be a good thing. Since this is quite a personal game, it helped to grow as a person. I think it made for a more interesting and mature work than it would be otherwise.

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *Shroomy: I feel like I take little bits of inspirations from everything. But I'd say Yume Nikki and Re:Kinder were the biggest game influences. Maybe Hello Charlotte, too - the minimalistic world gave me some food for thought :> Design-wise, I think my current (character) style is a lovechild of Danganronpa, Killing Stalking and something else I am not sure about. Maybe just me.

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them? *Shroomy: I think the biggest challenges for me have always been centered around the lack of free time, the lack of energy or the lack of motivation. Some people manage to juggle life and gamedev, but I get exhausted really easily, so it's hard. This is an ongoing issue. I tend to try and free up a day just for relaxing and creative stuff. I've also started using the Forest app for focusing on things, and sometimes use it for gamedev as well. At the beginning I found it frustrating that my skills (in pixel art, for example) didn't match what I wanted to create. That one was improved by - you guessed it - making a lot of pixel art. Making and scrapping a bunch of tilesets for the game. It's as simple as practice and learning how to get the most out of your art program. (It also helps me to make a detailed sketch of a map before I start working, or at least brainstorm the main elements of it.) Another challenge was the incoherence of the story. Originally I wanted to make something really vague and open to interpretation, but... that actually didn't give me enough material to work with. In the end, I played around with the characters, tried to write them some backstories that no one was going to see, and somehow ended up with an actual plot..? Shocking, I know! And the final thing is putting gameplay into the game. To be honest, the puzzles in the demo were pretty random on my side, I just thought them up on the spot. In subsequent locations I tried to make them relevant to the game's themes and/or hint towards the story.

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *Shroomy: For one thing, the current project has a story and a plan, even if the story is presented in quite an obfuscated way. The original concept was not much more than an idea of a shroomy world. The characters also have a lot more depth and pain to them than they used to. The locations have changed a lot as well, to the point where most of the original ones don't exist anymore.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *Shroomy: My team is mostly just me. At the beginning it was a young and naive me, and now we have a slightly older and better-at-art me. After I started my dev blog, I was contacted by Tommuel, who now helps me with sound design and music. And my old friend Robin has made a few NPC sprites for me, and might give a hand with more pixel art in the future. They're not really involved with other aspects of development, but I really appreciate their help anyway! I prefer to keep most of this game to myself - it feels too personal to share, plus I'm a bit of a perfectionist.

What is the best part of developing the game? *Shroomy: I would say it's putting my work out there and sharing it with the world. I'm also really proud of how much I've grown as an artist and writer through developing this. I got attached to this story and this world, with all of its fun, weird and sad details. It's also been really fun, amazing even, to get to know other devs and make friends through being part of this interesting and creative community. I owe some wonderful friendships to it.

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *Shroomy: I definitely play other games for inspiration, it helps me a lot. Though I try not to make things "just like" other games, but make it a transformative learning experience instead.

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *Shroomy: I feel like I have been through stages. At first I was Arnika, then Lina, now I feel like I'm turning into Arthur. I guess I put my traits into all of them. (Does that mean that Bernard is the next stage? I'm /so/ ready to transcend humanity, finally learn how to do maths and become everyone's favourite character.)

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *Shroomy: I think the biggest mistake I made was jumping straight into making a game without thinking it through or considering the scope. In the end, the lack of planning set me back a lot. Admittedly, I was young and excitable, so I guess it was a learning experience? I didn't really know how to write stories or plan long-term projects, but over time, I somehow built up those skills. I think it's good to have a clear-ish idea of what you want to make before you start, and maybe start with something small. (So basically, do the opposite of what I did.)

Once you finish your project, do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *Shroomy: Aha. Actually, yes. I have accidentally started writing two sequels already. They will be small games focusing on other characters' perspectives (as opposed to Arnika). I'm not actually touching them yet though, only making some notes and writing scripts. Perhaps by the time the first game is released I'll have enough material to comfortably work on them.

What do you look most forward to upon/after release? *Shroomy: Fan reaction, I think? To be honest, I'm not really sure. I think I'll just be enjoying the incredible dopamine rush after finally setting this child of mine free to explore the world and infect people's brains with all the shroomy memes it contains. (Also will probably get off the internet for about a week from the anxiety.) Then maybe being free to work on other things, indeed. And posting spoilery concept art >:D

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *Shroomy: I am a little worried about the reception of the game's subject matter. If you looked at the list of warnings, you might have an idea what I mean. Sometimes it feels dangerous to explore certain themes in your stories, because people misinterpret depicting something bad as promoting it, for example. But that's why that list exists. I'm just going to let people know straight away that I explore dark themes in this project and I'm not going to hold back on how I do it. Creativity should flow freely, I think. (I am also a little worried about the ratio of my free time vs. gamedev time and /when/ I will finally be able to release it, but... Thankfully, I'm the one in charge of that.)

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *Shroomy: Take some time to make a plan for your project, start small, fail faster, and aim for something finished before you aim for perfect. Make a system for organising your files. Back up often, and on a different drive/cloud than your game is on, preferably several. Most of all, make something you would love to play! And don't be too hard on yourself.

Question from last month's featured dev @blackcrystalsrpg: What are your game dev pet peeves?? *Shroomy: I dislike the fact that sometimes I want to have made a game more than I want to make a game, but to have made a game you need to go and make the game. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But there's no escape from fate, so... go, go and make that game happen!

We mods would like to thank Shroomy for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out Shroom Soup if you haven’t already! See you next month!

- Mods Gold & Platinum

#rpgmaker #indie games #pixel games #rpg maker #rpg maker 2000 #shroom soup #gotm #game of the month #gotm august #august 2018 #august #2018 #interview #game making #game dev

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tumblunni · 7 years

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ANYWAY! I’mma gonna talk about my playthru of Digimon World Next Order, to distract me from the fact i’m rapidly approaching the ending and have to wait to sate my JRPG tastes on Persona 5 afterwards...

* it is really really REALLY REALLY really REALLy great to finally be able to play a game in the DW series as a female character. Holy SHIT, man this is overdue! And it isnt handled awfully like in Cyber Sleuth where everyone constantly calls you male and the character design is really oversexualized and doing weirdass poses for everything. There’s still a lil bit of ‘cliche girly option traits’ but seriously she’s like the least stereotyped design we’ve had in the games since Dusk and Dawn! She gets to wear SHORTS and A HOODIE! A hoodie that has an inexplicable hole in the back for some reason, but whatever! xD Also I actually like her version of the Protagonist Hair better, even tho I think its lame they colour coded them in the ol cliche genderedness. Boy character just has one streak of coloured hair at the front, but girl has a spiralling streak on the end of her ponytail that looks like a punk poison sort of fashion~! And it leaks pixels when she runs, and has a really nice glow effect that kinda makes it draw patterns as you swing her model around. Makes me wanna run in circlesssss~ Her dubbed voice is a bit boring cliche anime love interest tho, a bit squeaky after you’ve been hearing it for hours. But the dude is Like Every Shonen Hero Voice Ever, so i think its meant to be intentionally generic for both of them. I could swear he’s voiced by a bad Tai impersonator! XD Also I’m just kinda thankful cos every other girl in the plot gets a REALLY squeaky unbearable english voice, thank god protagonist is spared...

* its a lil bit of funnyness tho that for some reason the skill list is the only place where the translators forgot about the protagonist options. Like.. a LOT of Tamer Skills are weirdly gendered when it would have taken five seconds to change that. Why does it have to be stuff like ‘Cooking Boy’ and ‘Cooking Man’ instead of basic and advanced cooking? Especially cos the other one in between is called Gourmet Cooking...

* I love forever that so many of the virus type recruitable digimon are sweethearts of hugs and joy. Now THAT reminds me of the original Digimon World! Seriously I am SO GLAD that Literally The Same Myotismon has a sidequest about rescuing his precious myobrella so he won’t faint in the sun. or like.. if its not the same Myotismon then MAN he would totally be a great ship with the other equally helpless one in the first game XD He has a nice new function as a townsperson, instead of just being ‘a manager’ in the colloseum and never even being a fight. (That annoyed me as a kid! He just stands there!) Now he runs the card gallery, cos you collect ‘antique cards’ in this game and he restores them with his painting skillz. its a nice lil in-joke cos they’re all the original first trading card artworks from waaaaay back in the first season! And Piedmon is in this one too, yay! He’s actually like the only morally dubious virus type AT ALL, he talks like a cliche mwahaha mad scientist even as he does nothing particularly evil. His sidequest is a funny thing of playing hide and seek and he sucks at it. While yelling hammily about being an evil genius! And then he has quite a useful function in the town, he does a random effect on you once per day with his evil science, and it could be good or it could be bad, but if its bad he actually pays you compensation money for it! EVEN THE EVIL GUY IS TOO KIND And OH MAN I am so happy and sad for Skullgreymon! A good guy skullgreymon was always one of my ideas for a DW fangame, im so happy it happened for real! In this game Skullgreymon is a fashion designer with low self confidence, and you recruit them by finding weregarurumon who’s their biggest fan and becomes their first friend. Its so sweet! They never actually interact once you recruit them both tho, cos they work at different parts of the town. But im still gonna assume they keep in touch! Its also a shame skullgreymon doesnt actually run a fashion shop, cos there actually WAS a fashion shop in Digimon World Redigitize aka the one damn game we’ll never see dubbed T_T Instead skullgreymon gets this kinda depressing role of just standing around outside the entertainment area saying ‘i wish i could work with children but they’re always scared of me’, and then if you bring a newly hatched digimon to see them then they gain bonus stats from being terrified somehow?? NOOO WHERE IS THE OPTION TO TEACH MY CHILDREN THAT SKULLY IS A FRIEND

* Anyway, my main digimon are (still) Hershey and Zephyr, and I love them! I’m still working on hoping to eventually get the full terriermon and lopmon canon digivolution lines with them, wow its hard. But I adore them no matter what form they take at the moment! I ended up loving them so much that i never raised any other digimon ever. i just rename them the same name every time they reincarnate, and pick the same eggs! I’ve gotten close to unlocking every single variation of the bunno brothers evo lines!! But it IS getting really annoying that you have to type the name manually every time, why no option to just stick with the previous name? DW1 had that and it was on way worse hardware! Oh, and its funny that I started off calling them the bunny brothers cos thats what they were in adventure 02, but then after playing the game for ages I’ve settled on headcanoning hershey as female and zephyr as nonbinary. And also I started off with the cliche personalities of sassy rebel terriermon and stoic lopmon like in Tamers, but Hershey ended up being the rebel instead and Zephyr is like a shonen hero cinnamon roll! They’re both equally sassy and eccentric tho XD I’m not quite sure yet what would be their ‘canon’ final mega forms that I wanna keep them in for the final boss and stuff. But hershey’s made me regain my appreciation of Ladydevimon after I stopped liking her as soon as I grew old enough to understand that most of her fans only liked her for being ‘a stripper’ :P Like.. she’s a really damn good design even without the fanservice?? I like her way more than devimon, myotismon and etc, I wish she’d gotten to be a major villain! i mean it sucks that devimon got to be one when she’s literally his evolved form. (And yes I am happy that it continues to be canon that ladydevimon can digivolve from devimon and the same for angewomon and angemon. DIGIMON AINT RESTRAINED BY HUMAN GENDER ROLES YO) So yeah anyway, I kinda headcanon Hershey as a hypothetical less skimpy redesign of LadyDevimon? or like.. if she got her own unique Mega form that kept a similar design, rather than just being retconned into lilithmon and rosemon’s evo lines. I just don’t think the skimpyness fits with Hershey’s personality but the rest of the design just has such a cool piratey thiefy type look?? And she’s like THE BEST monster girl in the franchise, she’s the only one who really gets to be monstery looking, even if she’s still an hourglass figure sex object. i mean i always thought it was meant to be a subversion of that?? She has that giant monster claw hand and is really vicious and powerful in battle! All her animations in the game are her shredding things with it and doing the classic dracula rise-from-the-grave when she’s knocked out, and just... ITS REALLY BADASS!! I didnt know how cool a fight with her could be, cos she just got that stupid ass fanservice joke slap fight in the anime... ANYWAY Ladydevimon is good I appreciate her I like her even though she’s in the general genre of fanservice digimon that I dislike. She’s like the one single one I dont hate! (Tho I still wish we had more than like.. two un-fanservice female digimon in the entire damn series) Buuuut I dont think her design quite fits Hershey even though she’s the digivolution I keep using ingame. Maybe if I can find a different Mega that I prefer, and make up a fanmade digivolution line? or I could do a fanart variation of the digimon...

* ANYWAY I kinda ended up headcanoning Hershey as a former member of the broken apart pirate crew in Mod Cape. Cos like.. what if your digimon had backstories of what their life was like before they met you! like Gatomon in Adventure, they were chosen to be partners to a destined hero but had to wait so long they’d become disillusioned. Cos when you meet em at the start of the game they’re mega level and only get poofed back into eggs cos of machinedramon’s attack. WHAT LIFE DID YOU LEAD WITHOUT ME. I AM HERE TO PROTECT YOU NOW AAAAAAA!! So yeah it would be cool to headcanon Hershey as a former highway bandit type character who has trouble adjusting to living in a city surrounded by happy innocent people and hugs. I dont see her as grumpy tho.. like, she’s kind of a bombastic trickster archetype but she’s still super cynical and ‘I only care about myself, anything else gets you hurt’. I was thinking maybe if I designed a fanmade mega for her she could be like a magician pirate zombie demon??? Like.. yknow piedmon is a deck of cards clown guy with those four daggers? i actually got Piedmon as her digivolution when she was a Ladydevimon and I was thinking MAN it could be so cool if we had like a zany zombie digimon who attacks by stabbing a sword through her own back! Like ‘watch me saw a woman in half’ XD A design where she has a load of weapons stuck in her and uses them to fight with! like how mummymon is a mummy + soldier in a leg brace design, hypothetical zombiemon could be a zombie + actual tragic assassination victim. Plus a magician. Or a clown. And ladydevimon. And a pirate. LOOK I JUST HAVE A LOT OF MUTUALLY CONTRADICTORY HEADCANONS OKAY xD

* I don’t really have as much development ideas for Zephyr yet, aside from that they’re Hershey’s more cheerful and positive sibling. But I see them as also being kinda creepy and battle-hungry and stuff? Like.. both these twins are total virus types, clown type, typical final villain type of acrobatic doom! And both are good guys deep down. But Zephyr is a more cinnamon roll type of good and Hershey is grumpy unwillingly dragged into goodness. And like.. Zephyr is a bit dotty and only accidentally creepy, not really understanding how to socialize properly. And probably they would be like ‘NO BIG SISTER, STEALING IS BAD’ *currently stabbing a guy* I think maybe my headcanon for Zeph might be that they were for some reason left completely alone while waiting for the protagonist? Hershey at least found some companionship with the pirates, even if she became super bitter after the team broke up. I think Zeph maybe started off as a wild forest mon that’d even forgotten how to speak, until by pure chance they bumped into their long lost twin sister and then met the protagonist. So like an innocent angel who’s all new to the city and excited about everything, but also kinda fighty and dangerous because of the same stuff that makes them innocent. I dunno, I might make them an angewomon or ophanimon to match with Hershey? Tho I wanted to make them both good guy virus types, it could be an equally interesting contrast to have a vicious battle-obsessed angel who’s the absolute opposite of softspoken fancyness! And I also kinda associate them with the colour green even though I ended up picking a grey themed digivolution for Hershey instead. But all of Terriermon’s natural digivolutions are all machiney and don’t suit this personality as much... I dunno, maybe I could make up another headcanon/variant type thing? Cos after all lopmon’s line gets two champion level forms and two megas but terriermon only has two recolours for the same ultimate level. Maybe even it out, lol! Or like, I’m thinking like.. what if Terriermon had a mega that suited Henry more? i was reading someone’s review where they said it was weird that pacifistic Henry got a giant robot specializing in attack while Rika got the humanoid pacifist digimon. And yeah, that IS totally weird! And it got me imagining what if Terriermon got a humanoid digivolution that was like a martial artist?? or maybe like a speedy superhero lookin armour thing! Like just a more humanoid rapidmon! or I dunno maybe if puppetmon is in this game then zephyr could be puppetmon. I miss puppetmon. puppetmon never got to be in ANY games except dusk and dawn! I WANNA SEE A 3D PUPPETMON YO!!

* Man I just spent this entire post rambling my headcanons for silent protagonist characters instead of actually talking about the game... aaaa...

#bunni plays next order

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ddrkirbyisq · 5 years

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Life has just been chugging along, it seems. Nothing spectacular has been happening, but that's not a bad thing really at all.

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Crunchyroll Expo 2019 happened and I stopped by on Saturday to hang out, walk around, and go to some things that seemed interesting. I got to go see the premiere of the first two episodes of Season 3 of Chihayafuru which actually ended up being a highlight of the entire thing, I had no idea I was going to enjoy it that much! That moment near the end when _____ finished playing their match and thought to themselves _________ and the other member on their team suddenly realized _________, omg, that really really got to me for some reason. So yeah, that was great! Makes me want to rewatch the first two seasons at some point, especially to refresh my memory about all of the other more minor characters that I completely forgot about, haha...oh! And I just remembered that there's a live action movie series as well...maybe I'll give that a watch too =X

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I bought and played through all of Mega Man 11! I pulled the trigger after watching some reviews and such and since it was on sale on Steam.

I ended up enjoying it quite nicely! It's a nice blend of old and new as far as Mega Man goes. The thing with Mega Man is that the old tried and true formula is really just great at its core -- running and jumping and shooting.....more running and jumping and shooting....it's just good 2D platforming at its finest and I've always been a huge fan of it. That said there ARE already a ton of classic Mega Man games out there, so as much as I'd love more games in the vein of Mega Man 9 and 10 (which were faithful to the NES series) (various fangames also exist, some of which I've played through), I will say that the fresh coat of paint that Mega Man 11 offers does make a lot of sense.

The graphics were pretty decent and I didn't mind the 2.5D much at all! Unlike a certain other popular game pretty much everything was very readable -- just look at the screenshot above and how obvious it is that the yellow center pieces of each gear are in the foreground, while the rest of the gear is in the background. One thing I thought looked a little odd were the "fuzziness" of the black outlines on the cel shading, but maybe I should chalk that up to me playing on a monitor with only 1280x1024 resolution? Perhaps it looks better with a higher pixel density, but maybe rendering thin outlines is just not a strong point of the cel shaded look.

The bosses were pretty well designed -- they had a lot of personality, both in their animations and voice acting (I played only with the Japanese VA).

Maybe I was a bit biased after watching a video analyzing the level design, but I really did appreciate the designs of most of the stages and how they made for interesting progressions despite only using a few unique elements per stage. It felt like they really made the most of many (perhaps not all, but many) of the different "gimmicks" they introduced in each stage, and that sort of clean, logical, and pleasant progression reminded me a little bit of Celeste.

The main "new mechanic" of MM11 is the "double gear system", which allows you to get a temporary limited boost to your power or slow down time for a bit. It was an interesting concept, and actually played out pretty neatly in practice a few times -- those moments when you activate the both (double) gears at once for a last-ditch attempt to beat a miniboss and then finish the fight at low health.

However, one of my complaints about all of these "extra" 2D platforming abilities -- whether it be special weapons in mega man, additional items in shovel knight, or even magic spells in hollow knight -- is that they tend to provide a sort of frantic decision paralysis in the moment while you're in the middle of an intense fight or platforming section.

The issue is that platforming and jumping around and shooting and all of these things already occupies so much of your brainspace in terms of attention required, that it's really hard to also add in the double gear system and trying to use the different special weapons and all of those things.

Now that I'm writing about this, it really gets me thinking about 2D platformer ability design. I know that other people might really enjoy switching between different weapons during the middle of a Mega Man level, but I've always found it to be cumbersome, and a weak point of the series for me personally -- I always Buster my way through most of the stages unless there's something particularly well suited for a particular weapon (e.g. a tricky room, a platform that I need to air-dash too, etc).

There are multiple reasons for this:

- Weapons have limited ammo available (whereas the mega buster has unlimited ammo), so you naturally want to conserve them for situations where you actually NEED them.

- In addition, the bosses at the end of each stage typically have a significant weakness to a single weapon, and you don't know what it is ahead of time. Since the boss battle can be one of the most difficult parts of the entire stage, this incentivizes you to save all of your ammo for the boss. Again, you don't know which weapon type you'll need, and frequently you'll need all of the ammo of that type to beat the boss.

- Switching weapons requires either opening up the menu -- which is awkward in terms of game flow -- or quick-toggling via the right analog stick or the shoulder buttons. The right analog stick selection is actually great, but there aren't enough opportunities to really =practice= mapping each direction to a weapon in order for it to become second nature. Because of this, switching weapons requires you to stop and think about which weapon you want to use, figure out which direction to press in order to switch, THEN go about using the weapon.

So even though I thought Mega Man 11's eight special weapons were GREAT in their variety and design (you could tell they each would be useful in very different cases), I didn't find myself using them much outside of boss and miniboss battles.

I know this is part of Mega Man's fundamental core design, so I don't really blame Capcom for not iterating on it, but I do wonder if perhaps a different mechanic for boss weapons would work a little better.

If you look at abilities in Metroidvania games, you'll see that they fall into two different groups:

Some abilities fit very naturally into gameplay and you find yourself using them again and again very naturally.

The most common way for abilities to fall into this category is for them to just be upgrades to your existing powers. Get a main weapon upgrade? You're automatically using it all the time.

Note that some abilities are not "direct" upgrades but natural and very obvious extensions of existing powers. A doublejump ability, for example, is very straightforward to grok. The speed booster upgrade in Super Metroid is the same way -- there's nothing complicated about how to activate it, you just keep running.

Another common way for abilities to fall into this category is for them to be required to be used very very commonly. The morph ball in Metroid falls into this category -- you use it soooooo often that it becomes second nature for you to use it again and again and again.

Other abilities don't really become part of your regular rotation. They're either too situational, difficult to use, have a cost associated with them, etc.

The X-Ray scope in super metroid sort of falls into this. Not only does the X-Ray scope stop all of your momentum, but you often don't really =know= when and where you need to use it. So oftentimes your only choice is to go through the entire world pausing every so often to x-ray scope......but nobody does that because that would take foreeevvverr.

Most of the attack spells in Hollow Knight tend to fall into this category. Not only do they require mana to use (mana which could be used for healing instead!), but there aren't a lot of enemies where using a certain magic attack is required or even significantly recommended over just using your sword.

The good thing about the offensive spells in Hollow Knight, though, is that they're very easy to execute, like the special moves in the Smash Bros series: Button press gives you a fireball. Up + button press gives you an upwards attack. Down + button press gives you a dive. Very intuitive. So even though I never really ended up using most of these most of the time, they're still easy to remember.

Perhaps that's really the key -- the control scheme associated with the abilities. The WORST way to add a new ability is to simply add a new button or key for every single ability you gain. There are some games where at the end of the game literally every button on the controller performs a different action: Jump, Attack, Sprint, Dash, Glide, Special Move 1, Teleport, ....

So maybe =intuitive button combos= and =contextual actions= are the way to go. That still doesn't fix the problem of having limited ammo though.

What about something like this?

Every time you beat a robot master, you unlock a new ability. These abilities have various intuitive input commands, for example:

Jump + Attack (while in the air): Performs a mid-air forward dash with a sword slice.

Special button + no direction: Creates an energy shield around you that absorbs enemy projectiles. The next time you press the special button, the shield fires in the direction that you are holding (or facing)

Special button + either side: Shoots a boomerang in the direction that you're facing. It has some tracking ability, which means you can direct it upwards or downwards by jumping before or after the shot.

Special button + down: Sends an energy bolt downwards. When it reaches the ground, it splits into two energy balls that travel along the ground until hitting an enemy.

Special button (while mega buster is fully charged):

Button combinations and contextual actions are used to help your muscle memory instead of forcing the player to memorize the arbitrary position of each of 8 different weapons.

These abilities all draw from a =shared ammo pool=, encouraging you to choose the ability that best fits the situation.

The shared ammo pool replenishes every time you die. Normally Mega Man weapons encourage you to AVOID using them carelessly, because if you use up ammo on a boss and then die, you're left in a worse situation than you started with -- having to face the same boss battle, but with less ammo available.

In addition, the shared ammo pool also replenishes through normal gameplay, via something like:

- Gradual replenishment over time

- Replenishes with each enemy destroyed

- Replenishes via random pickups from enemies and scattered around the level. There's also a large pickup before each boss.

The point is to encourage the regular use of these weapons as the situation demands, rather than incentivize saving ammo for the very end. You need the player to become comfortable with using each of these abilities and the only way to really do this is to incentivize them to use them repeatedly.

So I dunno, maybe that's not a perfect solution. But I do feel like there is a lot of room for experimentation and iteration here.

One thing that Mega Man 11 DID do right was giving rush coil/rush jet it's own button. Woo!!!

=====

Have been continuing to drill puyo transitions -- I've gotten sort of comfortable with the sandwich transition and am now trying to wrap my head around GTR. Building the GTR core is ok, but I find myself having trouble finding the right forms to work on both the first and second floor simultaneously with GTR since it's only 3 tall and I don't yet have a handle on managing color conflicts.

#Blogger

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rpgmgames · 7 years

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November’s Featured Game: lux (dream.girl)

DEVELOPER(S): Rindre Rindere ENGINE: RPGMaker 2k3 GENRE: Psychological Horror, Exploration SUMMARY: lux (dream.girl) is a surreal psychological horror game created in RPG Maker 2003 where you play as Benjamin, a socially inept teenage writer who struggles with depression, loneliness, and writer’s block. When he decides to try lucid dreaming to figure out how to push his story forward, he meets new friends, new enemies, and his literal dream girl. Making certain choices will either help or hurt his relationships, and the outcome of his story.

Download the demo here!

Introduce yourself! *Hi! I'm Rindre! I've been working on RPG Maker for about 5 or 6 years at this point! First and foremost, I'm an artist, then a game developer, then a voice actor. I am also a garlic bread enthusiast. You might also know me as: -The voice of Aria/the lead translator in Aria's Story -Will's Teacher in The Hanged Man -The mod of Yumeresource -The admin of the RPG Horror Discord server -The host of the Pixel Horror Jams! I'm also on plenty of teams, mostly as a voice actor. These include b/f, AURORA, and The Doctrine of Perseverance.

What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially? *Rindre: lux is about a boy named Ben, who is an aspiring writer who hits a writer's block and tries to take up lucid dreaming to interact with his stories and characters find out how to advance his story. He ends up meeting interesting people, including his literal dream girl. Yume Nikki is a big inspiration for me. My stories I had written when I was younger also played a huge part, and I decided to recycle bits and pieces of them into lux. Ultimately, the frustrations and experience of being a content creator inspired me to make the game. Hopefully these themes will ring universal to whoever relates to being a creator as well.

How long have you been working on your project? *Rindre: You could say 5 years, or 2 years, or since July 2017! lux actually originated as a Yume Nikki fangame in 2012 (as are all games I've made...). I picked it up again on October 2 2015 as a concept to keep a work log, but actually making it into a tangible product took me until 2017's Pixel Horror Jam. The work log has 30+ pages to it! The Yume Nikki fangame version was prepared to be released, but I forgot, and now I'm too ashamed to release it because I meant to do it 5 years ago :(

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *Rindre: I'm a big fan of psychological and sci-fi/cyberpunk media. These things usually ask: Who are we, and who are we in other people's eyes? What defines us? What does it mean to be an individual in our society? It's a question I like to ask myself and explore in my own projects. My major inspirations who ask these existential questions are deep within Satoshi Kon's works and Philip K Dick's stories, as well as other movies that were inspired by those two or are in the genre (like The Matrix, Inception, Akira, Ghost In The Shell, Serial Experiments Lain, etc.). Some other inspirations and influences that might be surprising are: Kappa Mikey (art style mixing), Vocaloid producers (Crusher-P, Mothy, Yuyoyuppe), Evangelion, Linkin Park, the Hamtaro GBA games, Kirby, and my own dreams. Unsurprisingly, Yume Nikki is the biggest inspiration. I really like the concept of dreams and escapism, and how it often plays into existentialism.

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them? *Rindre: They say that when making a game, 10% is actual development and 90% is bugfixing/quality assurance. This is VERY TRUE. I spent a couple months working with my bugtesters (Thanks Biel, Choko, Meaka, Pinkuboa, and Uboaappears). The actual demo was a bunch of crunch time for the jam, which was July - August). There were a lot of bugfixes involved, including a bug I was so puzzled with and thought I couldn't fix but the solution was so simple. It took me a month to figure it out! The RM2k3 update caused a bit of trouble for me, but I thank my bugtesters endlessly for helping me squash most, if not all, bugs. On the other hand, in case anybody asks, yes: I have lucid dreamt of my characters in lux when I hit a roadblock. These were never successful. I've only been able to do it twice, both by accident.

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *Rindre: I usually go into development with a clear idea in mind with certain events and endings, but lux differs greatly from its old Yume Nikki counterpart (dream.girl). Notable major changes: Ben now wears glasses. Ben is now a writer. Stella used to not be a bunny. Stella also did not have any stars in her eyes before. The only things retained was the concept of dreaming a dream girl, and Ben's and Stella's names and facial appearance. Even if I make a bunch of plot outlines and flowcharts, things change, but it's natural! The stories that occur within lux also have changed slightly plot-wise from their earlier pre-2012 counterparts (most were written over 10 years ago!), and are begging for a facelift. One involved parkour, but sadly, there is no parkour anymore :(

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don't have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *Rindre: I prefer working alone when it's my project! I like working at my own pace, but if needed, I'll reach out to other people for help. I like helping people out on their projects too, but when it comes to my own, I like to handcraft everything by myself. It shows me what I'm capable of doing, and gives my game a "this was 100% made by me" stamp.

What is the best part of developing a game? *Rindre: Making music is relaxing and lets me convey a mood or theme without having to take out my tablet to draw or write something extensively. Being able to relax yet still work on the game is great. I like nights where I can sit down and make something nice I can put in my game. A lot of them are on my SoundCloud (Rindere), but some of the really nice ones are ones I haven't uploaded there. I'm really not a musician, but I did take a class on music technology. My favorite ones going to be in lux on my SoundCloud are "Nepenthean", which is also Ben's theme, "Choke On Your Misery", and "Empyria Incarnadine". It's also really nice to get files from your voice actors and they sound EXACTLY like how you thought your character would sound like! Special thanks to Aidan, Mizu, JR, and Nuei.

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *Rindre: I prefer to do my own thing! I like to push RPG Maker 2003 to the limit. A lot of the cool effects were done before the major update of RM2k3 that came out earlier last month. Some things I thought were never possible in RM2k3 are things that I made possible after some thought. Like any problem, it can be solved in a bunch of ways, even if you have limitations.

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *Rindre: The character I relate to the most is actually my least favorite character. It's Ben! I specifically modeled him after myself but changed certain things, like the intensity of his reactions. It was actually difficult to write him, because I had to think about how I would react in the situations I put Ben in. I feel like I had to get into some kind of mindset that was "mine", but also "not mine" as well.

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *Rindre: I feel like I could've released the game sooner, or continued work on FLUX instead. I would like to go back to working on FLUX soon, since I haven't worked on it in a long while. But after hosting the Pixel Horror Jam with Choko and jamming on this game, I'd like to rest up a bit before I take on a big project again.

Once you finish your project, do you plan to explore game's universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *Rindre: Because lux is part of the -UX Series, it would naturally be a series with other entries. I don't know if or when they'll all be created, nor if they'll all be games, but I do eventually hope to see it finish. Something I want to explore is to further flesh out the stories Ben has written, especially because they were concepts written before lux ever came up as a concept. I've also given them -UX titles! I think I'll work on Crux/quX next.

What do you look most forward to upon/after release? *Rindre: I am donating proceeds to the One More Light Fund with what is being donated to the itch.io-uploaded version of lux, so I really am looking forward to donating to a cause that is important to me. I encourage people to donate to the OML Fund directly, not through me. I also really like fan reaction, but I love the catharsis of releasing something you've made. It's a mix of relief and pride, but a little bit of anxiety because you don't know how well the fan reaction will be. I hope that my game will affect somebody in a positive, personal way, whether it be a new favorite game, something for them to draw, or become inspiration for their own works. I look forward to free time and rewarding myself with something good, like chicken parmesan too!

Is there something you're afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *Rindre: I constantly ask, "Is my game worthy enough for others to play? Is my game good enough?" But when it comes down to it, really you're asking it to yourself, not to the people that will play your game. Sometimes, you have to sit down and ask yourself, "Am I satisfied with what I have made so far?" Then you go down the list of things you've made and say either, "I'm proud of this!" or "This could use some more work." and you fix it accordingly. The first audience of your game is always you, so if your game is "worthy" and "good enough" to you, then it is for other people.

Question from last month's featured dev (Team Galanx): What kind of stories do you appreciate most in RPG Maker games? For example, do you like ones based off real-life experiences, fantasy elements, or morals? *Rindre: My series of games is called the -UX Series, with there being 4 main stories that are related to each other: "FLUX", "lux", "Ux.", and "X". The rest of the titles end in "-ux" as well. It was only natural to do that!

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *Rindre: Game Development -Give things meaningful names. -Back up your work in three different places. -Back up your games frequently. -Never be afraid to remake things, but do this occasionally. If you do this frequently, you'll be caught up in a loop of perfectionism. -Think if the cool new thing you want to put in will actually serve a proper purpose in the game. If it's only there just to be cool, don't put it in your game. -If things don't work out, it's perfectly fine to scrap ideas. -Don't pander. Make a game you want to make, not what others want to play. Releasing your game -Reach out to people who haven't played games similar to yours. You'll have opinions that you wouldn't normally get, compared to others who are familiar with your type of game. -Learn how to take critique. This might be the skill that will take you the longest to hone. -Not everyone is out to get you, but sometimes there will be people who want to bring you down. Even if this happens, there are always people there to support you. -You don't have to agree with every critique given to you. Other advice -If you're not embarrassed about your old work, then you haven't progressed. Continue to improve your skills and yourself. -Don't compare yourself to others. Compare yourself to your past self instead. -Don't be working on your game 24/7. Take up hobbies to occupy yourself, so you don't get burned out. -Learn to be a generalist, but also learn to specialize in something that people will recognize you for. -Be proud of your work.

We mods would like to thank Rindre for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out lux if you haven’t already! See you next month!

- Mods Gold & Platinum

#rpgmaker #rpg maker games #pixel games #indie game #lux #lux: dream girl #rindre #gotm #game of the month #november #games #demo #game #rpgm #rpgmaker 2003

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rpgmgames · 7 years

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July’s Featured Game: SLARPG

DEVELOPER(S): Bobby "ponett" Schroeder ENGINE: RPGMaker VX Ace GENRE: RPG, Fantasy SUMMARY: SLARPG is a short, turn-based RPG following the story of Melody Amaranth, a kindhearted but meek transgender fox who’s decided to learn healing magic and become a paladin. She’s joined by her adventurous girlfriend Allison, as well as their friends Claire (a sarcastic, rule-bending witch)(she is also trans) and Jodie (a dependable, somewhat motherly knight). Over the course of the story, our inexperienced heroes will meddle with forces beyond their control and find themselves responsible for the fate of their quaint little hometown. They’ll also fight some spherical frogs, travel to a forgotten land in the sky, befriend a robot or two, and anger the local librarian. But that should go without saying.

Introduce yourself! Hi! My name's Bobby "ponett" Schroeder. I have a background mainly in visual art and writing, and I've been working in RPG Maker VX Ace since 2013 after being inspired to try making my own game by Splendidland's masterpiece Megaman Sprite Game. I'd always wanted to go into game development, but this was the first time it felt like it was actually feasible for me to make something fun on my own. By the end of that year I released a much rougher freeware version of SLARPG, originally known as Super Lesbian Horse RPG.

I do most of the work myself, but I have several people helping me with some NPC and enemy design work including my boyfriend Anthony Field (@exclamationpointman on Tumblr) and my friends Thomas Landon (@schloogywoog), Gee (@fattoads), and Thom (@sidewalkwitch). My lead composer is the incredibly talented BEATR!X @neutralnewt) with more music contributed by other friends such as internet pop icon blacksquares (@blacksquares).

What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially? *Bobby: Super Lesbian Animal RPG is primarily about a timid transgender fox named Melody. At age 22 she's sort of coasting along on autopilot with no clear idea of what she wants to do with her life. One day, she and her girlfriend Allison get roped into a new adventuring guild founded by their friends Claire and Jodie. Melody sees this as an opportunity to impress Allison and to make herself useful by becoming a paladin and learning healing magic.

At its heart, the game is about the relationships between four girls in their early 20s. They're all trying to define themselves as people, they all have their own personal baggage, and they all have their own motives for seeing this dinky little adventurer's guild as a life-changing opportunity. And now, thanks to the trouble they get themselves into, they also have to figure out how to be heroes. It's also a game where you can have an anthropomorphic rabbit with a mohawk kiss her girlfriend and then swing a sword made of zircon at a magic tumbleweed

As I said, the game was originally released in a much rougher form under the title Super Lesbian Horse RPG. It started out as a cute, goofy little game where Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic were dating (of course) and went on a bizarre adventure, but it soon turned into a genuine RPG with a more sincere story. It also got much, much more attention than I ever expected. My use of copyrighted characters made the game difficult to distribute, though, and in hindsight I was holding myself back by presenting it as a fangame. So in 2015, I decided to radically overhaul and flesh out the game with a new, expanded cast that I have full creative control over. And now here we are today, with a game that's probably got more new material in it than old, but still hopefully has the same charm if you enjoyed the original.

How long have you been working on your project? *Bobby: Work on the original project lasted the entirety of 2013, with me foolishly releasing the 1.0 version on Christmas 2013 (my 20th birthday—I spent most of the day frantically squashing bugs). I returned to the project in 2015 and have been working on the new version on and off for about two years now.

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *Bobby: The humor is definitely inspired in part by Mother and Paper Mario, although my talkative protagonists might make it closer to something like a point-and-click adventure game. I've also always loved really casual comedy that skews towards normal conversation in stuff like Home Movies or Homestuck. Adventure Time has undoubtedly been a big influence, too, as one of my favorite shows, with its "anything goes" fantasy world and colorful cast of characters—but also because of its focus on grounded, introspective character moments in a surreal, fantastical setting

Gameplay-wise, early Final Fantasy titles are a big influence for sure, and I'm trying to take a page out of Zelda's book when it comes to exploration and level design. But tabletop RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons are also having an impact on the way I design encounters. I think tabletop games are still the gold standard for RPG battles, because they're often less about stats and repetition and doing what the designer wants you to do and more about improvising a fun story. Of course, an RPG Maker game can't compete with having an actual DM there to run an encounter, but I'm trying to give players lots of fun little "hey, what if I tried this?" moments with unexpected consequences.

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them? *Bobby: Honestly, the big thing for me is always time management. As development continues and my skills improve, I often find myself polishing areas and assets I'd already worked on before. If I didn't force myself to work on new stuff too I'd probably spend three years just polishing Greenridge to a mirror shine.

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *Bobby: Developing the protagonists further has really broadened my horizons writing-wise. I always wanted the game to have a nice emotional arc on top of all the jokes and surreal dungeons, but over time I've fleshed out Melody, Allison, Claire, and Jodie more and more, making everyone feel less like charicatures and more like real people with relatable motivations. The graphics have also gotten a lot better after several years of pixel art practice, and the level design has gotten less linear.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don't have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *Bobby: It started out as just me. Friends on Tumblr quickly showed interest in contributing designs and music to the game just because they liked the project, and before long a lot of different people were putting their own little mark on the game. Some of my favorite characters in the game have been designed by friends, and I don't know where I'd be without the absolutely phenomenal soundtrack.

What was the best part of developing the game? *Bobby: I love designing characters, and writing in all these little details to make them feel real, and figuring out how they talk to each other, and seeing my audience pick out their favorites. It's a very rewarding process for me. The second best part is getting to listen to the soundtrack and realize "Wow... this is gonna be in a game that I'm making. And it's gonna be SICK."

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *Bobby: Without a doubt, Melody. She differs from myself in a lot of major ways, so I wouldn't call her a self-insert, but she was created to give myself the relatable fat bisexual trans girl protagonist with anxiety that no other piece media was ever going to give me. A lot of her insecurities in the game are even loosely inspired by stuff I've been through in real life.

I also have a ton of fun writing the villains, but they're spoilers.

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *Bobby: I wish I'd been more consistent about my work ethic in the past. I worked EXTREMELY inconsistently on SLARPG throughout 2015, and I probably could've gotten a lot more done back then. But hey, live and learn.

Once you finish your project, do you plan to explore game's universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *Bobby: Oh, I'm absolutely hoping to revisit this world! Part of the reason I'm putting so much effort into revamping a game I already released is so that I can work with this new cast and setting again in the future. I'm not planning too far ahead right now, but I do have some vague ideas for more games I'd like to make in this world, possibly through the eyes of characters other than Melody.

What do you look most forward to upon/after release? *Bobby: I'm looking forward to being able to play some longer games in my backlog without feeling guilty about it, haha. I've been dying to play stuff like The Witcher 3, NieR: Automata, and Final Fantasy XV, but I'm always worried it'll just take time away from my work. It's a wonder I managed to finish Breath of the Wild this year.

Is there something you're afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *Bobby: This answer is gonna be a bummer, but I'm worried about is the harassment I'll have to deal with for putting out a game about LGBT characters. I've already dealt with this on several occasions, although thankfully it hasn't progressed past slur-filled anonymous messages. This toxic state of the gaming community is why I'm currently planning to release the game exclusively on itch.io, rather than exposing myself to Steam's hostile userbase. But it's a story that I think is worth telling, and for every piece of hate mail I get 20 messages from people telling me how excited they are, which is why I haven't given up.

Question from last month's featured dev: Is there any portion of your development that's gotten you outside your comfort zone? *Bobby: I think it's easy to say that most of it has been outside my comfort zone, actually. Working on SLARPG has really pushed the boundaries of what I previously thought I was capable of as an artist. When I first started I literally made a dungeon that was just a straight line with one 90 degree turn because I had no idea what else to do with the canvas. Now I can make dungeons that are actually slightly fun!

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *Bobby: Study the games and stories you love, and find out what really makes them tick. Don't just mimic surface level things, but study the mechanical, structural, and thematic elements that make them so memorable. Oh, and don't put too much effort into a fangame if there's even the slightest chance it'll get taken down, haha. Make something original loosely inspired by the things you love instead.

We mods would like to thank Bobby for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out SLARPG if you haven’t already! See you next month!

- Mods Gold & Platinum

#rpg maker #rpgmaker #rpg #game dev #rpg maker games #game feature #games #gotm #game of the month #interview #dev interview #slarpg #super lesbian animal rpg #pixel games #pixel art

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