#ACTUAL GAME DEVS DO NOT INTERACT!!!1!!!!!

[insertdisc5]

🎮 HEY I WANNA MAKE A GAME! 🎮

Yeah I getcha. I was once like you. Pure and naive. Great news. I AM STILL PURE AND NAIVE, GAME DEV IS FUN! But where to start?

To start, here are a couple of entry level softwares you can use! source: I just made a game called In Stars and Time and people are asking me how to start making vidy gaems. Now, without further ado:

SOFTWARES AND ENGINES FOR PEOPLE WHO DON'T KNOW HOW TO CODE!!!

Ren'py (and also a link to it if you click here do it): THE visual novel software. Comic artists, look no further ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It has great documentation! It has a bunch of plugins and UI stuff and assets for you to buy! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! (You'll just need to read the doc a bunch) You can also port your game to a BUNCH of consoles! ✨Cons: None really <3 Some games to look at: Doki Doki Literature Club, Bad End Theater, Butterfly Soup

Twine: Great for text-based games! GREAT FOR WRITERS WHO DONT WANNA DRAW!!!!!!!!! (but you can draw if you want) ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It's versatile! It has great documentation! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! (You'll just need to read the doc a bunch) ✨Cons: You can add pictures, but it's a pain. Some games to look at: The Uncle Who Works For Nintendo, Queers In love At The End of The World, Escape Velocity

Bitsy: Little topdown games! ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It's (somewhat) intuitive! It has great documentation! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! You can make everything in it, from text to sprites to code! Those games sure are small! ✨Cons: Those games sure are small. This is to make THE simplest game. Barely any animation for your sprites, can barely fit a line of text in there. But honestly, the restrictions are refreshing! Some games to look at: honestly I haven't played that many bitsy games because i am a fake gamer. The picture above is from Under A Star Called Sun though and that looks so pretty

RPGMaker: To make RPGs! LIKE ME!!!!! NOTE: I recommend getting the latest version if you can, but all have their pros and cons. You can get a better idea by looking at this post. ✨Pros: Literally everything you need to make an RPG. Has a tutorial inside the software itself that will teach you the basics. Pretty simple to understand, even if you have no coding experience! Also I made a post helping you out with RPGMaker right here! ✨Cons: Some stuff can be hard to figure out. Also, the latest version is expensive. Get it on sale! Some games to look at: Yume Nikki, Hylics, In Stars and Time (hehe. I made it)

engine.lol: collage worlds! it is relatively new so I don't know much about it, but it seems fascinating. picture is from Garden! NOTE: There's a bunch of smaller engines to find out there. Just yesterday I found out there's an Idle Game Maker made by the Cookie Clicker creator. Isn't life wonderful?

✨more advice under the cut. this is Long ok✨

ENGINES I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT AND THEY SEEM HARD BUT ALSO GIVE IT A TRY I GUESS!!!! :

Unity and Unreal: I don't know anything about those! That looks hard to learn! But indie devs use them! It seems expensive! Follow your dreams though! Don't ask me how!

GameMaker: Wuh I just don't know anything about it either! I just know it's now free if your game is non-commercial (aka, you're not selling it), and Undertale was made on it! It seems good! You probably need some coding experience though!!!

Godot: Man I know even less about this one. Heard good things though!

BUNCHA RANDOM ADVICE!!!!

-Make something small first! Try making simple: a character is in a room, and exits the room. The character can look around, decide to take an item with them, can leave, and maybe the door is locked and you have to find the key. Figuring out how to code something like that, whether it is as a fully text-based game or as an RPGMaker map, should be a good start to figure out how your software of choice works!

-After that, if you have an idea, try first to make the simplest version of that idea. For my timeloop RPG, my simplest version was two rooms: first room you can walk in, second room with the King, where a cutscene automatically plays and the battle starts, you immediately die, and loop back to the first room, with the text from this point on reflecting this change. I think I also added a loop counter. This helped me figure out the most important thing: Can This Game Be Made? After that, the rest is just fun stuff. So if you want to make a dating sim, try and figure out how to add choices, and how to have affection points go up and down depending on your choices! If you want to make a platformer, figure out how to make your character move and jump and how to create a simple level! If you just want to make a kinetic visual novel with no choices, figure out how to add text, and how to add portraits! You'll be surprised at how powerful you'll feel after having figured even those simple things out.

-If you have a programming problem or just get confused, never underestimate the power of asking Google! You most likely won't be the only person asking this question, and you will learn some useful tips! If you are powerful enough, you can even… Ask people??? On forums??? Not me though.

-Yeah I know you probably want to make Your Big Idea RIGHT NOW but please. Make a smaller prototype first. You need to get that experience. Trust me.

-If you are not a womanthing of many skills like me, you might realize you need help. Maybe you need an artist, or a programmer. So! Game jams on itch.io are a great way to get to work and meet other game devs that have different strengths! Or ask around! Maybe your artist friend secretly always wanted to draw for a game. Ask! Collaborate! Have fun!!!

I hope that was useful! If it was. Maybe. You'd like to buy me a coffee. Or maybe you could check out my comics and games. Or just my new critically acclaimed game In Stars and Time. If you want. Ok bye

[duplicityvn]

devtalk #1 11/10 ::

Hey, I've been recently made aware of a... I don't know what to say so I'll just put, "controversial" update of one of the games in this community.

First off, I want to say kudos to @/fantasia-kitt for biting the bullet and putting some actual real dark shit into the game. This is what's been missing from the community.

Personally, I think these devblogs and interactions between community and developer have watered down yandere stories and have promoted an almost unhealthy look towards what a yandere actually is.

It also has caused several people to develop an unhealthy sense of relationships, thinking that you're only loved or capable of showing love if you do extremely toxic things as a "Look what I'll do for you, don't you understand?"

This isn't to say that I think devblogs should be removed, or we should stop dev-community interactions all together. No, this is just me saying, "Hey, guys. These characters are meant to be dark, are meant to be evil, they're morally reprehensible and irredeemable. Remember that."

When you get into dark content, you have to be prepared for dark fucking content, okay?

Onto my second point of this post.

Do I think there should have been clearer warnings in the game before some of this stuff happened? Yes and no. I think FK's warnings are appropriate and clearly stated.

I also think that following a similar format to Boyfriend to Death, where there is a content warning/trigger list for each separate character would help in expectations for these incidents. People get attached to characters, it's a thing that happens. If you asked me several months ago, I would have a different opinion. As it stands, I now have comfort characters of my own.

Do I think anything is wrong with TKATB or FK? No, absolutely not. FK is entitled to create whatever story they want to, however dark they want to. I appreciate that they're bringing this into the community and it's a little inspiring and motivating if I'm being honest.

Anyway, this is just my own personal thoughts and ramblings on this matter. I am but a tiny dev with a tiny following that wanted to make a post about this in general. In the future, I will personally be making a trigger/content warning list for each character before such content is released to avoid this happening. I will also be implementing it into the game itself so it's very in your face about what Duplicity: Revival contains.

You have your own responsibility to listen to and heed warnings that developers list for their games. If ***any*** of that content on those warnings are an issue for you, then don't interact with the game. At all.

I think that's all I had to say about this. I'll add more if I think of anything.

Take care of yourself, bunnies. <3

-Cin

[riding-the-sunset-bird]

Another day, another post dissecting Our Life's code! This time we'll be going over how Our Life decides whether your Cove will be Studious, Sporty, or somewhere in the middle!

If you've already seen my post on how the game decides where Cove is on the spectrum between warm and cold, then most of this will feel extremely familiar, but you don't need to check that post to understand this one! I'll be going over everything exactly the same.

According to GB Patch, getting a sporty or studious Cove is primarily based on what you do with him activity-wise.

Part of it is what Cove literally ends up doing in the events. There are multiple times where he can do something more physical or do something more low key. Another part is a somewhat meta “the player is creating their reality” type of deal. For example, if the player makes it clear that their MC is the sporty one around, that would have to mean Cove isn’t the sporty one. So even without interacting with Cove directly you’d rack up a lot studious points for him because your choices are describing a world where Cove isn’t that into sports. That’s not to say it’s impossible for the MC and Cove to both be into sports. Describing your MC specifically as the one into sports is excluding Cove from being super into sports, but he doesn’t have to be excluded. The most straightforward way to get a sporty Cove is to just really focus on it. Whenever there’s something that could possibly make him more interested in bookish things, lean away from that. And whenever there’s a way to encourage him to like or do physical stuff, do it. So, for example, don’t accept just being a silver medalist in Grown-up, don’t say that the MC is a faster runner than Cove when trying to get away from Shiloh, do ask him question that lead to him talking about outdoorsy activities he does, etc.

Calling it "points" is very accurate because it's very much a points system. Whenever you do certain actions with/say certain things to Cove, the game will add a "point" to either Cove being studious or Cove being sporty (in extremely rare cases, it will add two instead of even subtract one).

(also, shockingly, reading the book with Cove in Sleepover actually has zero effect on Cove being Studious/Sporty; I even had to read through the script to confirm and the only reasoning I can imagine is because it's related to getting a CG and the devs wouldn't want players who want the CG to feel forced into making Cove more studious just to get it)

The tutorial of the game also vaguely details the studious to sporty spectrum:

[Cove']s interests fall along a sporty-mixed-studious spectrum. It works similarly to the personality one. When he's young, Cove has a variety of interests. As time goes on that can stay the same, begin to focus on more athletic/outdoorsy activities, or become more interested in academic/indoorsy ways to spend time.

And, if you've ever been in the Cove Creator, you'd know that there are five "states" that Cove can be in when it comes to his interests, with one state being between Studious and Mixed while another is between Mixed and Sporty. However, as far as I can tell, the game will never actually check for these two states, meaning that Cove is either Studious, Mixed, or Sporty, without any sort of Studious-Mixed or Mixed-Sporty at all.

In terms of the first check of the game - after the end of Step 1, of course - the game will examine the points you've gathered and decide where on the spectrum Cove is. If you have more Studious points, then the game will look only at how many points you've gathered there and vice versa with Sporty points. If you have an equal amount of Studious and Sporty points, then there will be a sort of "coin flip" to determine which points the game will check (this actually happened to me once where I had to go back on a save and got a Sporty Cove instead of a Studious one even though I'd done nothing different, simply because I'd accumulated an equal amount of sporty and studious points with Cove).

The remaining points in the other category are thrown away, and if you don't have enough sporty/studious points (depending on what you had more of or what the game chose in the "coin toss"), then you get a Mixed Cove.

Interestingly enough, the game is actually uneven in how it calculates a "fully Studious" or "fully Sporty" Cove. If you have six or more points in Studiousness, then you get a "fully Studious" Cove, but the game only asks for five of more in Sportiness to give you a "fully Sporty" Cove. This means that you could have five points in both Studiousness and Sportiness, which would give you a "fully Sporty" Cove if the coin flip picked Sportiness, but if the coin flip picks Studiousness, you'll only get a "Studious-Mixed" Cove.

As stated above though, the Studious-Mixed and Mixed-Sporty states don't really exist and serve as Studious and Sporty respectively anyway. In the grand scheme of things, it won't matter, but I digress.

Keeping that in mind, the game only cares if you have three or more points in either Studiousness or Sportiness. If you have three or more Studious points, you get a Studious Cove, and if you have three or more Sporty points, you get a Sporty Cove (and a coin toss if you're equal in both to decide whether he's Studious or Sporty). If you do not have enough points in either, you get a Mixed Cove. A Mixed Cove is most likely if you either play through Step 1 without playing any moments or avoid leaning Cove towards anything Studious/Sporty at all.

Cove's personality and appearance are also unrelated to whether he's Studious or Sporty, excluding moments where a multiple choice option might affect multiple values at once (but this is coincidence rather than direct correlation and, yes, I'll mention them when they come). Cove will also still do things like go surfing in Wave even if he's Studious, it's just that he'll be an awkward surfer instead of a graceful one (no comment if he's Mixed).

In terms of things that affect the player directly, the gummy bear toss in the Step 2 DLC moment Birthday is one of the biggest things that come to mind, as you'll lose if Cove isn't sporty and your MC hasn't been given any "sporty points" of their own (since this post isn't about the MC, I'll keep it brief and just say that the game keeps track of your own athletic ability during Step 2, such as if you tell Kyra that you like to swim). If that matters to you, you can opt for a sporty Cove and save yourself the trouble as there's no Studious equivalent of the gummy bear toss.

As for all of the moments in Step 1 where you have a chance to influence Cove's Studiousness/Sportiness, here they are!

Step 1 - Prologue

When Cove and the MC try to flee from Shiloh (if the MC agrees to go along with Cove):

He was fast, but you knew you could outrun him if you had to. [sporty +1]

He was not that fast, you knew you could outrun him if you had to. [studious +1]

He was not that fast, but neither were you. [studious +1]

At that speed, you weren't sure if you could go fast enough to reach him. [sporty +1]

Shopping

When Cove is staring down absentmindedly at the sand:

"Are you looking for snails?" [sporty +1]

"Are you looking for shells?" [studious +1]

"What is it?" [studious +1]

"You didn't feel the need to ask why." [sporty +1]

When Cove goes back to not saying anything on the beach:

You didn't either. [sporty +1]

"What did you want to go to the shops for?" [studious +1]

"What do you usually do on the beach?" [sporty +1]

Grown Up

When Lizzie tells Cove and the MC that they won silver in the pretend Olympics:

"Silver sucks. I don't want silver." [sporty +1]

"I'm okay with that." [studious +1]

"Hey, we can do better than silver!" [sporty +1]

"Silver's not bad. Nice." [studious +1]

You stayed silent. [no change]

Long Day

When Lizzie asks the MC if they're a chicken who doesn't want to ding-dong-ditch the mean grandparents:

"Yeah. Cluck-cluck." [studious +1]

You'd rather just avoid them. [studious +1]

You thought they deserved worse. [no change]

"I'll do it." [no change]

When the MC gets to decide what they see in the clouds:

You saw a dolphin. [studious +1] {note that this will give Cove the dark blue short-sleeved shirt}

You saw a car. [sporty +1] {note that this will give Cove the red salamander sleeveless shirt}

You saw an alpaca. [sporty +1] {note that this will give Cove the dark blue short-sleeved shirt}

You saw a smiley face. [sporty +1] {note that this will give Cove the red salamander sleeveless shirt}

You saw cloud shapes. [studious +1]

Sandcastle

[NONE]

Fireflies

When the MC notices Cove lagging behind the group while en route to poppy hill:

"Are you not gonna come?" [no change] {but will give Cove cold +1}

You tugged him along. [sporty +1] {note that this will give Cove cold +1 on Indifferent and warm +1 on Fond/Crush}

You walked with him. [no change] {but will give Cove cold +1}

You waved at him to hurry. [no change] {but will give Cove warm +1}

You ran off. [no change]

When Cove fails to catch a firefly after the MC catches one:

You encouraged him to try again. [sporty +1] {note that this will give Cove warm +1}

You told him about the firefly you had. [studious +1] {note that this will give Cove cold +1}

You made a joke about what happened. [studious +1]

You did your own things. [sporty +1]

Library

When the MC chooses to go with Cove rather than participate in the quiz:

[sporty +1] {note that this will give Cove cold +1}

When the MC and Cove are about to be interrupted in their game of hide-and-seek (dependent on how good the MC has been at the game; answers marked with a * are the correct ones):

1st round of hide-and-seek

Next to a Peter Pan poster.

*Beside the fairy tale display.

*Behind the solar system model.

2nd round of hide-and-seek

By the fire awareness station.

Near the stuffed animals.

*Under the giant piece of fruit.

By the outlaw poster.

*In the fantasy section.

Near the toddler books.

3rd round of hide-and-seek

*In all the old Christmas stuff.

Next to the kid detective poster.

*Behind the Willy Wonka statues.

Final Tally

the MC won zero rounds (Cove will say "I'm doing good.") [sporty +1]

the MC won one round (Cove will say "I'm doing good.") [studious +1] [sporty +1]

the MC won two rounds (Cove will say "I can still win.") [studious +1]

the MC won all three rounds (Cove will say "I need to do good in at least one round.") [studious +1]

If the MC chose to go do the quiz instead:

[studious +1] {note that this will give Cove warm +1}

Ghost

[NONE]

Barbecue

When the MC is racing the other kids to catch the girl with the squirt gun (if the MC chose to go play with the kids in the first place):

You outran them easily. [studious +1]

You outran them with effort. [sporty +1]

You weren't as fast as them because they were speedy. [sporty +1]

You weren't as fast as them because you just weren't fast. [studious +1]

You moved to the side to let them pass; you didn't wanna win this race. [no change]

When Mr. Holden comments on his interests:

"Those are things Cove likes." [sporty +1]

"Wow. It's a good thing you live by the beach." [studious +1]

You stayed quiet. [no change]

Runaway

[NONE]

Sleepover

[NONE]

Step 1 - Ending

When Cove tries to skip a rock across the water (if the MC chose to stay with him):

You were impressed over how far he got it to go. It sailed way out into the sea. [sporty +2] [studious -1]

It was a good toss. That was pretty neat. [sporty +1]

It wasn't a long throw. But he didn't care to try for that. [studious +1]

The rock sunk kind of... like a rock and fell back down almost right after he tossed it. [studious +2] [sporty -1]

And that's all of them! A few surprises are in there, but it's mostly straightforward in either prompting Cove to talk about outdoor/active things he does or choosing options that imply he's particularly good/fast (whether compared to the MC or in general). Particularly tricky are the ones that might change Cove's appearance/personality when you didn't intend for that to happen and are trying not to use the Cove Creator to get the Cove you want.

Still, it's definitely easier to gauge than Cove's appearance or personality, so whether you wanted this for a guide or just for the data, I hope you enjoyed! :D

[allieebobo]

Monsoon Games: Roadmap

I'll continue to tweak this rough roadmap according to the responses I get from the google form, but here's the plan (ideal-case) for the next 1-2 years!

If you haven't filled out the form yet, please do, as answers would be super valuable in helping me better gauge, prioritize, and budget my next steps as well as tweak the pricing for the tiers!

Phase 1: Now till end-2025

Full-time urban planner

Part-time game dev.

Likely to be mostly solo-work and choice-script based

Phase 2: Beginning 2026 till end 2026

Part/Full-time game dev

Likely to involve / bring in an artist/coder, depending on eventual decision on game format (ren'py, Godot or choicescript)

Phase 3: Beginning 2027

Launch phase 2 game

Re-evaluate what to do next, likely back to my full-time job, but to KIV this based on what happens in Phase 2

Details below the cut!

Again, if you have comments, suggestions, preferences, do leave a message or email (allieebobo@gmail.com). If you're interested to collaborate, or to find out about what games I'm thinking of, click here.

Phase 1a

Timeframe: now till end 2025

Scope: Keep rolling out choicescript updates for CT:OS and Merry Crisis. This will form the base of content for ko-fi/patreon (with subscribers continuing to get early-releases until these games are complete).

Phase 1b 

Timeframe: start sometime 2nd half of 2025, run concurrently till end 2025)

Scope: Write a choicescript 'concept demo' for 2 new games I've been haunted by over the past couple of years. (I'll release more info on this if I think they're viable). Whether or not they become more complex games, I'll at least have the choicescript demo. 

Phase 1c 

Timeframe: optional, but to start as soon as funding is obtained

Scope: Depending on interest, I want to consider doing a port to ren'py for Merry Crisis (or CT:OS, but likely MC) for a more visual-style game. This would involve either hiring a coder to help with the port, or doing it myself. More importantly, will need to commission art for this.

_____

Monthly-subscriptions for both Phase 1a and 1b would include the following tiers: 

$3/month (existing): Just to support me :) 

$6/month (existing): Early-access links to CT:OS and Merry Crisis

$9/month (new tier): Same as above + Early-content (e.g. lore, character snippets & art, non-interactive stories, dev logs) for new game(s)

$12/month (might not go for this tier, but including just as a concept): Same as above + Expanded early-content (e.g. interactive choice-script based demo access)

Phase 2a

Timeframe: Beginning 2026, probably 6-9 months or more depending on scope

Scope: With CT:OS and Merry Crisis completed, I hope to then turn my sights to converting the choicescript demo created in phase 1b into actual complete games. This could either take the form of: 

A full choicescript game

A full ren'py (visual) game

A full Godot (2D) game

About 2-3 months into Phase 2a, I will also have enough content to launch a kickstarter, which would hopefully bring new backers on board and funds to speed-up production of the game(s). For folks who prefer supporting once-off instead, they'll also come in at this stage :) 

Phase 2b: 

Timeframe: Probably 6-9 months into 2026

Scope: Once there's a playable beta version of the game, I'll then do testing with subscribers and other beta-testers, and do de-bugging.

_____

Monthly-subscriptions for both Phase 2a and 2b would include the following tiers: 

$4/month: Just to support me :) 

$8/month: Subscriber-only content for all new games in development (e.g. character snippets & art, dev logs)

$12/month: Same as above + Little interactive patches/expansion packs for CT:OS and Merry Crisis 

$16/month: Same as above + Expanded early-content for all new games (e.g. non-interactive stories, scene peaks/teasers, interactive twine or choicescript based playable content, access to beta version of the game when ready in phase 2b)

Kickstarter tiers: 

$12 once-off for a specific project (a selection of content from the pool of characer snippets & art, dev-logs that $8/month subscribers get) 

$25 once-off for a specific project (same as above + a selection of content from the pool of expanded early-content) 

$35 once-off for a specific project (same as above + special perks e.g. ability to design a character or item or request chapter) 

Phase 3

Timeframe: Start of 2027 onwards 

Scope: When at least 1 game is launched, hopefully by start of 2027, I'll re-evaluate and see what to set my sights on next! This probably also means going back to full-time urban planning :)

[lxrd-ren]

ALRIGHT

PART #2 OF NICO MASTERMIND THEORY

https://www.tumblr.com/lxrd-ren/763859465077456896/nico-mastermind-theory-hear-me-out?source=share

^ Refer to part 1

Now

MonoTV + Nico Likeness

Already listed a lot of these in the last post but I found more somehow

Never thought I'd be comparing colours for theories again, let alone shades of red, but here we are once again

So, in some of MonoTV's sprites it's got red claws, so I thought, kinda reminds me of Nicos red eyes

The colour on Nicos default sprite does make it seem like a stretch, but fortunately, the dev released the sprites of the cast without any shadows or similar things added to the colours (bottom right of image), and you start to see how the reds do seem to look pretty similar; the colour on the wheels are also quite close in hue

Also noted down how the little dent on MonoTV's right antenna thingy may be reminiscent of Nicos little tuff in-between their own cat-like hair, but I may just be reaching

MonoTV Being Made For Nico

Also concerning MonoTV, in the last post I mentioned how MonoTV might've been made for or with Nico in mind

Now, take into account how Nico literally feels better being around things that remind them of cats, and MonoTV basicly being a cat really makes it seem like it was built specifically for them

Think of it like Semiotics, like Veronika mentioned at one point funny enough. Nico feels better being around things that remind them of cats, so MonoTV is built to resemble a cat so Nico feels better around them

Or, Nico could've just asked for MonoTV to be like a cat, cause, y'know...

Cat-THEMED things they like specifically, not cats surprisingly

Narrative Things

(And yes the birthdays might be significant)

^ Straight from the Dev

Their birthday might fit into two narrative things:

1) The whole narrative of Teruko and David being swapped with the protagonist / antagonist role, I know I saw a post mention Greek mythology and fate with those fighting against fate (David + Xander) being the heroes in this story and those who accept fate being the (I guess) villains (Teruko), for lack of a better word

Normally the one who started the killing game is the villain, but if the roles really are swapped, then the masterminds birthday being on Hero's day lines up perfectly

2) If the killing game was started out of revenge for Mai, Nico could consider themselves to be Mai's 'hero' of sorts; doing her justice after death in a way

Speaking of narratives..

Rose + Nico Friendship + Parallels

Yep, I wanna talk about these two

First off, they both seem to be significant; atleast to each other. Nico doesn't seem to interact with many people, and Hu seems to be the only other one they actually choose to speak to. Aswell with Rose sleeping so often, we don't really see her hang out with people, let alone a specific one. But, the time she spent with Nico in the boutique was brought up again. Sure it was because of Nico stealing the turpentine, but the fact that it was their friendship and the broken trust that came with it that was also touched upon makes me think that we might be getting more out of this duo besides how Nico got the turpentine

Now that's established, I'll talk about they could parallel each other (and how they do so more if Nico is indeed the mm)

I believe they parallel each other in relation to memory; specifically, how much you know

With Rose's photographic memory, she is at one end with knowing a lot, and is even suffering with so much knowledge

With Nico, I believe they are at the other end with not knowing anything

Not sure if I mentioned this in the last post, but I believe that if Nico is indeed the mastermind, then they are not even aware of it themselves; and this time, I got things to back it up YIPPEE

Nico Is Unaware

(Thank you to @1moreff-creator for the masterpost that the image above came from)

So, this makes a lot more sense if a big part of Nico is indeed how they are not aware they are the mastermind. I could see this being relevant in the last chapter when they are confronted

'Dude wtf why did you start the killing game'

'I don't remember. No matter how much I think, I don't know.'

Etc, etc..

Revisiting the Mai statements also adds to this

Nico: Everyone confided in her.

Now, we know they are connected to both Mai and whichever cast member the sentence is assigned to. However, I saw someone (probably @demodraws0606) talk about the possibility that some of them are connected to the character in a different way. And that way is that whatever the statements say, the opposite is true for the character

What this means for Nico exactly?

Well

The opposite of this would probably be to withhold information from someone. Could be referencing everyone at the XF-TURE company or any potential traitors purposefully not telling Nico they are the mastermind, especially if they went out of their way to prevent them from knowing this

Could explain why MonoTV keeps insisting they are not a cat; just another attempt to keep Nico from the truth. Afterall, Nico is heavily associated with cats. But ofcourse, MonoTV is incompetent so its attempt is not the best. Furthermore, although MonoTV doesn't know who the mastermind is, they may have just been programmed to, idk, 'Don't bring up the cat thing whatsoever, and if it's pointed out, deny deny deny.' Lest the very cat-like mastermind gets discovered. I mean, even Arei's drawing of Nico includes cat ears; not hard to put two and two together. Mf even smells like cat

From Last Post:

(Thanks to @takesometimetoreflect for commenting)

Now, they mentioned several things that add onto this

First,

1) They are consistently placed last / next to MonoTV

Both in the heading and cast list, they are dead last. I don't think this would be significant if not for the fact they are like the only one who this applies to

Whilst the default sprites are on display, I'll talk about the next point

2) Nico is the only one to have their default sprite looking away and not in front of them

Again, hella suspicious purely based on the fact that they are the only one to do this

(Also I checked; David's new default sprite is also facing the front like everyone else's)

And finally..

3) Their secret quote is the only one to be a question

Similar thing, they are again the odd one out

(Their secret quote is: Why should I own up to the mistakes that someone else made?)

Nico if you keep this up you gonna be as suspicious as Whit

Extra:

Just something else I noticed

Again from the masterpost, the first thing that appears is the above sentence. Only thing I wanna point out is with nicknames, only two scenarios come to mind. First is how Hu's nickname used to be Julia, but no one really uses it as a nickname. Only time someone even refers to her using the name is David, and at the time the fucker (/aff) is mocking her

Only other time is how during the introductions, for some reason, Nico calls Teruko 'Teru' as a nickname. Its never brought up again, and I found it quite strange given that Nico has never called anyone else by a nickname

I mean the statement is basicly saying to not call anyone by a nickname, except the protagonist (aka, Teruko)

If that moment is not what that statement is referring to, then I'll eat my none-existant hat

[urlknight]

Hi there, Love your work! I'm also doing stuff in Unreal and it feels like it's rarer to find other indie devs using it. I love how clean all your UI feels, and UI is something I seem to really struggle with.

Do you have any recommendations for workflows / tips / sources etc for getting better at UI?

Also I'd love to know more about the material / shader workflow for your latest post if you have more information anywhere.

Thanks :)

Hello there! Thank you!! I hope you don't mind me answering publicly as I feel like some people might be interested in the answer!

I really appreciate your UI (User Interface for those not knowing the acronym) compliment as it's something I've spent a long time working on and specializing in, in my career as a software engineer. UI/UX often goes completely unacknowledged or taken for granted even though it takes a lot of time and hard work to create and develop. In the engineering world I frequently had to advocate for and explain user experiences to those who didn't have as deep of an appreciation for UI or a very sophisticated understanding of why a good, visually appealing user experience makes, or on the flip side, can break everything. I think it's a very challenging, overwhelming topic to grasp and communicate, but just by being interested in it you're already way ahead!

There's a lot going on with UI. From visuals to knowing common design elements to successfully conveying a story to the user to implementation to testing to designing for accessibility to animation and I probably didn't cover everything with that run-on sentence. There's frontend engineers out there whose role is solely to maintain and improve UI component libraries for companies. And that's without throwing games, whose UIs are all uniquely visually tailored to their experiences, into the mix... I could keep going on about this honestly, but I'll get to what I think you can do personally! 1. Learn about common design patterns. What's a toast? What's pagination? What's a card? Little things like that. These apply to all software UI/UX, including video games- and knowing these off the top of your head will make it so much easier for you to invent your own UI designs and patterns.

2. Study the UI in the everyday applications you interact with. Step through menus and think about how you got from point A to point B. Take a moment to think about the why someone put a button where they did. Study the UI in your favorite video games, too! Take a lot of notes on what you think works really well and what you think doesn't. And also there's online resources that are great for inspiration. I personally spend a lot of time on the Game UI Database. - https://dribbble.com/ - https://www.gameuidatabase.com/ 3. Don't be afraid to start with basic sketches or even just simply representing everything with grey boxes. All my UI starts out as really crappy sketches on paper, or tablet sketches on top of screenshots. Visualize your ideas and then keep iterating on them until you've got something. For example, I went from this:

To this. (And come to think of it I might actually still want to make those cooler looking buttons in my sketch) 4. Break everything out into pieces and individual components. A good UI is made up of building blocks that you can reuse all over the place. That's how it stays consistent and also saves you a lot of stress when you need to go in and update components. Instead of a million different looking UI pieces, you just have to update the one! These individual components will make up your very own UI Component Library, which will be the standardized design system and source of reusable components for your project. This also applies to your visual elements that don't do anything (like I personally have a whole mini library of diamond and star shapes that I reuse everywhere).

For reference, here's a breakdown I made of my Inventory UI. On the right, I've labeled most of the individual components, and you might be able to see how I'm reusing them over and over again in multiple places.

5. Spend some time listening to designers talk, maybe befriend some designers! Many of them have an unique, interesting view of the world and how we interact with it even beyond just software. Their perspectives will inform yours.

6. Test your UI on users whenever you can. Get feedback from others. This is the best way for you to see what works and what doesn't. As game devs we spend so much time with our games it's easy for us to lose sight of the full picture.

7. Be patient and don't give up. Continue to be open to expanding your knowledge. These UI skills take time to develop. I personally am still learning even after like 10 years of doing it. Coming up with the visual elements is very challenging for me and I spend a lot of time rearranging things in photoshop before I actually start coding anything at all in Unreal.

Whew, that was a lot, but I hope that gives you some thoughts and a place to start!

I don't have any posts out there about Blender/Unreal shader workflows right now, but I'll consider making another post sometime soonish. I appreciate you asking and you're welcome! :)

[omg-ame-chan]

ok i played tokyo debunker all day here is a quick (not really) review

first off gameplay is for the most part non-existent. you do fight against monsters but the entire thing is in autoplay and you can skip the whole thing by pressing a single button

there is a rhythm game part every like 10 battles or so though which made me happy. even if the songs are all public domain ones. and it's extremely offbeat. and there's tap registration issues.

ok next why does tokyo debunker use ai art in it. genuinely embarrassing.

went on a 4 year hiatus to "elevate the quality of the game to further meet your expectations and be able to face elevating competition in the gaming industry" only for the game to release and not even have the effort put in to hire actual artists... ITS SO DISAPPOINTING what was the point of that hiatus if you aren't even gonna try. they should've released the original game they had at this point

ai art is used in all the backgrounds of the visual novel section and some of the interactable items like the images for the quiz you do during the prologue. The manga style and card art don't use it at all it seems though

and once you realize it you cannot unsee it and it completely ruins everything

seems like all the budget went towards the voice actors because the game has no original soundtrack either. everything is remixed classical music.

not to mention the game is super cash grabby. it's a zigzagame game so it's to be expected but still. stuff like having to pay more than a 10 pull just to be able to change your icon from the default one is actually insane. also 1% SSR rate and pity is at 500 pulls and it doesn't even guarantee a character card it could be a warding card please end it all!!!

also the devs are blocking everyone who criticizes the game on twitter. lol. lmao.

despite all that the story is interesting and i really like the characters especially these 2 guys i love the "medic who definitely shouldn't be a medic because they are Extremely Off and have committed medical malpractice atleast 10 times" type of characters they are always my favorite

damn you "bad gacha game that makes me have to resort to watching youtube videos of the story because i don't wanna support monetarily it in any possible way and go through the pain it brings by actually playing it".... you have won once again

[manzaza]

perirep with airpods promoting mY WHOLE REVIEW OF THE NEW WISH SOUNDTRACK BECAUSE OHHHHH MY GOD IT GOES SO SO SO HARD (under cut feel free to listen here (also on apple music + yt do in fact give it a listen please yay) !!)

theme song (all the singing songs)

— although i can never truly let go of the og the new theme song will always be a bop

— so upbeat, so happy !!!

new yorkity york

— hazel’s va is such an amazing singer PLEASE if there’s a season 2 give them a musical episode there are not enough musicl numbers

party possum’s friendship song

— better than the chuck e cheese one i heard in the theater earlier lollllllll

— the live band version ate i liked the difference

— unhinged version was so fun the nickelodeon drummer ate up

lovely love song

— still haven’t watched this episode (i was shopping when it aired oops)

— hazel was so silly idk what happens i just remember cupid being there (idk if he was in this at the end that might’ve been hazel’s dad)

i love fries

— HAZEL’S VA SLAYING AGAIN !!!!!

— banger song so real live laugh love fries

— cosmo + wanda contributed yay let them sing

time loops

— addiction,,,,, brainrot even,,,,,,,,,

— cosmo and wanda singing yayyy !!!

— the actual little yay at the end was so silly got a good chuckle

proud of my son — dubstep remix

— this was actually the funniest thing to watch i had this episode pulled up in a panera’s and i was just staring at it like “bro just took over the world for THIS”

— dev is ten so it does make sense

— almost

a new wish (yay background music !!)

— i love all the jazz in the ost just soooo so good

— reminds me of a sam and max kinda intro

— listening to this + the rest just makes me want a video game for ANW so so bad it would genuinely be so much fun to play (will genuinely plot out a tumblr post for this idea)

fly hazel

— banger warmup vibes in the intro

— love how some of the insteuments give like a fly-feeling gimmick (cause she’s a fly)

— little intro chord at the very end eats up

teacher’s pal

— might be one of my fav tracks

— nickeloxeon pianist and saxophonist are eating uppp

— 1:15 was so good

— nickelodeon symphony when

fearless

— somewhat out of place but still fits in with the show vibes

— very lurking

— fnaf 3 am jumpscare (idk i see more poppy playtime in this despite never watching or knowing anything about poppy playtime

— very cheerful kinda scary at the end (yay jasmine!!!)

wellingston hotel

— i rlly like hotel music play this at a marriott hotel NOW

— still haven’t seen this episode (i’m dying to watch it i need to see winn’s introoooo)

— sudden rich person music change

— love you nickelodeon saxophonist !!!!

dev dimmadome

— classic dev intro

— 0:54 is so cruel just label this project h whyyyyyyyy

— just sheer pain in the middle but then they remebered at the end “oh yeah he’s ten”

— it gets so intense at 1:30 broooooo

fairy heist

— i love spy music

— little dev-ness in the middle with the certain gimmick in his track (i might be crazy for this one but idk the “waeahwow” reminded me of something from his track + i think this was in the breaking into school scene idk)

prime meridian love

— literal anime ost

— eats with the dramatic intro

— it faintly reminds me of an ok ko track but just slightly at the beginning of some of the melodies idk might be crazy for this one too

peri and irep

— no way.

— actually no way.

— ship interacts once and they get their own song.

— the twist at the beginning of the track was so hype like the beat is just constantly at odds during this song (and because i’m just like that i have the track times put down too when they swap)

— to not make this any longer the noticeable parts after their intros are like 0:50–1:02 is peri-sounding and then 1:03–1:18 is irep-sounding and from then on their themes are always at a clash with more differences spotted at the end

— will say i love irep’s part at 0:32 and 1:03 that’s so funnnn ahh

— the little villainous laugh at like 1:50 was silly

— the little theme at 3:00 ahhh !!!!!

— might be another fav……. yeah def another fav my airbuds says so

viozalea

— feels so medieval at first and i love it

— quick just like viozalea’s appearance (rip)

rattlleconda

— fire western theme

— still in character with the show the beat was firee

— the soft violin gahhh sheer joy

— intense pressure put on at the end ate

love and games

— rock paper scissors core

— me when rock paper scissors

— wait i actually never watched the valentines episode

— uhhhhhhh second half might be rock paper scissors

— BANGS

— love u Nickelodeon drummer

battle of wands (FINALE)

— shut up this is too glorious of a melody

— ok intense

— oh might’ve just hit one million wishes idk how this song is following the episode

— the chaos in the rhythm eats

— littlt theme at 2:30 aghhhh won

— peri lying dead right after again idk how the episode paces through songs i can spot little scenes here and there

— banged

— little clock beat ahh the happiness

— can’t even tell what happened but good finale

OVERALL i really enjoyed the soundtrack i love how it tries and takes you through the course of the episode and it’s so so fun!! almost feels like video game music sometimes which is so so good for them like YES drop a new wish video game it would be so good !!!!

[itsbenedict]

Zero has an edgy pokémon coma theory, and I kind of love it.

Obviously this is contradicted by a bunch of things, and presumably isn't secret lore the devs decided to include. But in the spirit of demonstrating how easy it is to develop a plausible conspiracy theory with sufficiently hyperactive pattern-matching, here's some "evidence" we found:

Apart from Wishiwashi, which might be a separate phenomenon (where do the extras even come from when it does Schooling?), no pokémon which is actually multiple pokémon exceeds a squad of six members. Falinks tops out at six, and Exeggcute has six but one of their heads exploded.

Random trainers around the map tend to only have two or three pokémon in their team. Game balance reasons? No! Only career trainers like the Elite Four or breeders bond with the maximum safe number of pokémon at once!

Gary/Blue has seven distinct pokémon, but only swaps one out when it- judging by its disappearance in the fight in Lavender Tower- literally dies.

The protagonist of gen 1, Red, shows up in the next game... totally nonverbal, hanging out at the top of a mountain, unable to interact except to battle. He's lost his mind to bonding with too many pokémon! The price of power!

Things this theory explains:

Multi-pokemon like Magneton- what makes Magneton a single pokémon, and not two or four Magnemite? Magneton is the configuration of Magnemite that's capable of bonding with a trainer as a single pokémon.

This is the function of pokéballs- they're a prosthesis for the organ pokémon have but humans don't that allows them to form psychic mind-meld links with other pokémon. It's not mind-control or convenient loyalty- you're in each other's heads now. Escape from a pokéball is rejection of the psychic link.

The original four trade evolutions- Gengar, Alakazam, Machamp, Golem- all become more humanlike on evolving. This is a side effect of trading a psychic bond with one human for another one, giving them more humanity to sample.

Things this theory makes way more sinister:

The pokédex quest is way spookier under this paradigm. The box system- if you can't catch more than six, why do boxes exist? Actually, it's weird that they exist at all, isn't it? Boxing the majority of your pokémon is a weird neglectful thing that the games just kind of pretend doesn't happen- trainers rarely if ever acknowledge its existence.

What if most trainers don't HAVE boxes? What if that's something you have, because the evil professor gave you a special pokédex that can access a private computer system belonging to a confederate? For example "Bill's PC" or "Lanette's PC", as opposed to "[playername]'s PC"? You don't normally keep pokémon in indefinite stasis in a computer system- this weird app just exists to allow you to complete the pokédex without your brain exploding!

In Red/Blue/Yellow, Oak gives Blue a pokédex, sure, but he clearly makes no attempt to fill it out. And... really, why would he? He didn't give his grandson the special pokédex that cares about whether you've caught pokémon. He just gave him the normal one! The one that's already filled out! Because of course a filled pokédex already exists! It's yours that records new information only when you catch stuff.

The implied endgame here is... the professor wants to create a pokémon-catcher capable of melding with a legendary pokémon, to interrogate it about the secrets of life.

There are so many levels on which this doesn't even kinda work, but it's extremely fun to occasionally cut loose and take a swim in some cool refreshing Edge.

[fanganfessions]

Seeing the confessions on this blog reminds me why I stopped interacting with the DR fandom years ago.

I am not so gently putting my hands on y'alls faces, and look directly into your eyes. This is the "fictional characters will kill each other, yes even your favs, yes even if they're interesting, yes even if their whole story hasn't been told yet" game series. You know what you're getting into.

If you're mad at the devs of a (FREE TO PLAY BTW) fangan for killing your favs, especially if their death makes sense narratively and isn't done maliciously, and even more so if there's still more to the murdered character and they're still relevant in a way, please play another genre of videogames and leave the devs alone holy shit.

Also, some of you need to realize that these are fictional characters. in a killing game. No, neither the devs nor the fans of the killer or the victim deserve any harassment for not caring about your pookie enough or whatever. They're just characters. Yeah, you can get attached to a character, but also again. They Are Characters. In A Killing Game. Some of you are acting like some devs or fans violently killed an actual real life person and spit on their corpse while you watched. Instead of, y'know, the devs creating a story and the fans liking the product.

It's exhausting to watch, especially when you like to analyse media and even criticise it, and you want to talk to other people about it, but every single comment and/or piece of criticism you see is just "I'm mad they killed a character I liked in chapter 1 >:(" or "um, they used a trope another story also used once (y'know, like every story ever?) and didn't subvert everything they could've subverted, because they were too focused on making a good story, instead of just being completely contrarian. So it's bad". Like c'mon.

Also, reminding people that every single dev of a fangan is doing this for free, as a passion project. Game development (and voice acting, story telling, etc) takes a lot of time and effort. If you don't like their product, simply ignore it and play something else. Be nice to the devs. Unlike your favorite characters, they are real people with real feelings.

.

[autumnslance]

Explaining to a sprout why people have been doomsaying, since FanFest Vegas, a FF14 expansion not even out to play yet & it boils down to how much this fandom Hates a game & setting they spend so much money & so many hours of their lives interacting with for whatever reason. Yes critical thought & analysis of media you consume is good. But assuming Bad of future content isn't the same. It's attention-seeking. Also makes me wonder why some of y'all play something you claim to ideologically oppose. Stop hate playing/watching/reading, you'll be happier.

-Me. Cuz while there is some cause for some concerns, much of the wailing and gnashing of teeth are the same people who loudly complain about everything that doesn't cater to them, specifically, and their fanons/headcanons, or assume 1 writer will make or break a giant group effort, and/or that mistakes in the past mean it will never get better cuz the devs are just ignorant bigots, etc and so on and so forth...

While still interacting with the game and fandom.

It's OK; you have all your pals' social media and Discords to stay in contact. Stop buying into the sunk cost fallacy, and if you actually hate the game and SE so much, stop paying them money and wasting your precious time in the game. There's other media out there, other games to play.

And if you do still enjoy the game, maybe consider how much of what you put out into the world is actually constructive criticism (are you posting concerns on the actual forums where the devs actually look for feedback?) or just salt for salt's sake to get Likes from your followers.

[last-sprout]

Last Sprout Dev Diary - Nov 28, 2024

Hello again! This is one of those "low progress" weeks as I battle with shader code and scriptable renders.

What I see in my nightmares.

So, for this week's Dev Diary, I wanted to take this opportunity to talk a bit about one of the core systems for Last Sprout - Brains.

Hopefully this is interesting even if you don't know much about programming, but I could always use the feedback.

I live my life assuming I'm some amount of this comic.

Brains & States

Part of my process in developing Last Sprout is taking the time to build systems that are as generic and abstract as possible - any time I'm thinking about writing something directly into the code, I try to find some way to pull that out into some kind of data that can be changed in the editor. Mostly because, as much work as it is to do the programming, it's also a ton of work to do the tweaks and edits that make it feel right.

A Brain isn't actually much on its own, just a framework that defines the bare minimum an Entity (the core 'thing' that exists in the game) needs to interact with.

Less fleshy than I'd like for this game.

The key here is that Brains just give instructions and move on, they don't know or care what happens once those instructions get passed to the Entity.

Brains don't take actions, they make polite requests.

So a Brain really just says "I would like to move in this direction, aim in this direction, and perform these actions".

Actions are bit flags, which means inputs are stored in one integer number that uses its 1's and 0's as true/false values. A brain toggles these bits based on a lot of different parameters - for instance, the PlayerBrain just listens to user inputs and sets its instructions accordingly, whereas an AggroBrain contains logic to look for valid targets and chase them down.

Hopefully this is a little easier to visualize for people that aren't familiar with bit flags.

An entity, every frame, asks its brain to update its instruction. Then, it passes that instruction along to a State. The State is responsible for actually taking the actions the brain recommends, So they'll have names like IdleState, WalkingState, MeleeState, and so on. States are also where animations live, so a given IdleState (which is an object that lives in the game files), will have an associated animation for Idling, and it will play that animation when the state is entered.

Not the most interesting state, but the easiest one to understand.

The state is what decides what input flags to listen for, and which states to exit to. Because states always have an EntityStateType, and Entities have a list of all their allowed states, they don't actually have to know what the options are, they can just say "Exit this state to a Walking state" and the entity will find a match.

This is a ton of words, but the core of it is that Brains and States are separate, and don't know anything about each other. This means that you can attach any Brain to any Entity, and it just works. If you want to test the attack range on an enemy, you can just slap a PlayerBrain onto them and suddenly you can control it! You can duplicate the player, change its tags to Hostile, and put an AggroBrain on them and suddenly you have an AI controlled hostile copy of Twiggs! While it adds a layer of complication to developing behavior, it also means that our code is reusable and modular, and it lets us experiment freely in engine.

Brains are one of many lego brick style systems, maybe next week I'll talk about another. Thanks for reading this, and if you have any particular questions, feel free to drop and ask to @last-sprout or my personal tumblr over at @oneominousvalbatross. Fair warning though, the answer may be extremely wordy.

[morn-yvri-winters]

Fun CogDis Fact [+ Some Theory Crafting & Regards to Lore itself] (STORY SPOILERS... for a 15 year old fan-game)

So i was doing some data mining (as in looking inside of the game files for fun to see how the game ticks and works, and boy howdy let me tell you, RPG Maker 2003's UI scares me, props to Otherhand for navigating through these... many variables, numbers, & symbols going on, because it honestly overwhelms me) I had learned that:

Cerue appears in the Maria & George Magicant Flashback as one of the background Gieegs behind the windows. While this most likely is just a matter of reusing sprites, it should also be noted that not all Gieegs in the "allthegoogs" sprite sheet actually get used. Like, i want to say around 3/4ths of them actually ever get used (there are a total of 4 Gieegs in "allthegoogs".

(UPDATE 1: She's actually present for one more scene, i think? For whatever reason, her event handler has two pages but she appears for both pages, from what i can guess, she is meant to be the Gieeg that appears during the sequence where Maria & George are walking down the hallway [i think i want to say when George wants to show off the mental amps to Maria, since they share similar variables "0049: maction", which is meant to be the activation of an event via some number inputted by some handler)

(UPDATE 2: Yep, she is present for the scene when George & Maria head to the giant vault door to then breach using the Mental Amplifier Device, yet she doesnt seem to look, which could mean Otherhand forgor to make her turn or she wasnt meant to be there)

Another fun fact, the two Gieegs (referred to as goog 1 & goog 2 internally) that appear when Giegue has his overstimulation moment by Maria's Melody are actually using Giegue's Sprite Sheet (referred to as "Newgiegue")

(a part of me wanted to say its probably due to Giegue being the only "stock-standard" looking gieeg to have a moving sprite, but that isnt even remotely true since the gieegs from "allthegoogs" ALSO have walk sprites as well)

...the fact that the misc googs dont get used here either really feels like there was some manner of implication there by the dev. Personally i feel like its meant to imply that this is Giegue's actual parents but that would be a MONSTROUS conclusion to jump to, especially when there is ZERO mention about the BG Gieegs other than them appearing in scenes and the "(They're watching)" interaction.

Actually, the only real plausible theory to make here would be that Cerue was around for the Human Caretaker Experiment/Goog's Arrival to the Solar System. I mean, the fact that she knows about Giegue and refers to him as an anomaly, seems to imply she knows a LOT more about Giegue (as in a majority of his history/biography) than what the player already knows (who he is, what he is, what he becomes, etc.), in addition, she has a Starman in a chamber and seems to know about their origin/capabilities, even calling their transformation into Starmen a mistake yet compliments the design itself.

Which reminds me of something else, the timeline of events in CogDis which are awfully questionable in terms of order (at least for 1 to 4):

"QUESTIONABLE" TIME OF EVENTS

(190X) - The Gieegs arrive to the Solar System and successfully neutralize the Martian's Space Station's Inhabitants to ensure they have the element of Surprise on their hand.

(190X) - The Gieegs arrive to Mars and engage in war against the Martians. They are successful in doing so and assimilate the Martians into their Army/Empire as the "Starmen" (?).

(190X) - Maria & George find Giegue out in the wild, they are then kidnapped and Maria is supposedly in a mini coma for over a week??? Regardless, George & Maria take care of Googie (also George works out some arrangements with the Gieegs to make sure that everything is comfortable to their liking).

(190X) - 2 or so years later, the event occurs, Maria gets Magicant'd and George runs away with the Mental Amplifiers.

(190X -> 198X) - Mother 1's Back Story involving George's Return to Earth occurs and eventually leads to the events of Mother 1 itself (also apparently PSI spreads out across Earth itself?).

I refer to this as being "questionable" as I am highly unsure as to whether or not the Gieegs were the only ones present on the Mothership OR if the Gieegs had done Mars dirty, assimilated the Martians into their Army as the Starmen and then went to Earth.

Personally a part of me wants to believe its potentially the former, as them getting pissed off at Humanity and taking it out on the Martians seems fitting in terms of MOTHER/Earthbound Logic (problem is that this wouldnt really align too well with the Mars' Data Log).

However it might actually be the latter considering that the Gieegs come from outside the Solar System, and by this time the Martians are the only one with a Space Station/Satellite, them getting neutralized by the Gieegs feels fitting, as the Gieegs themselves REALLY dont like it when another race has PSI (or at least, if they do, they dont like them being a potential threat to their goals, whatever THAT may be).

[tl;dr version of this paragraph, either they got super pissy and took out their hate on Mars or they are the equivalent to the Viltrumite Empire from INVINCIBLE and neutralized Mars so nobody would know and potentially warn others who about their arrival]

(now im thinking of the "THINK MARK! THINK!" meme in my head but with Giegue & [insert fitting character role here])

(Also if you're wondering why i've come to such a strong assumption about the Gieegs, it mainly has to do with a friend of mine bringing up a really good point when i was discussing lore stuff about my sona's world (aka the one in my pfp and which i have a ref sheet to), that being "Why would a race that seems peaceful, need weapons of mass destruction to defend themselves? That would imply that they aren't peaceful in the slightest or have blood on their hands." and it sorta stuck with me. Like, the best example I can currently think of is: An alien race comes down to Earth and says "we come in peace" and then pulled out a nuke and vaporized an entire forest after one deer spooked them; thats sorta what the Gieegs feel like to me whenever i think about them now, CogDis obviously doesnt make them peaceful and afr kind of 'shifty' but Official Mother (Game) Lore never actually quite describes what their intentions even were in the first place, only that they were afraid of Humanity having access to PSI and that Giegue needed to stop them)

Actually, i find it even more weird as to what could have possibly had occurred to the other Gieegs. So if we were to go by the theory of "Cerue being around", then there was probably at least... Three to Four unique Gieegs total?

(Hell, maybe there could of been even more aboard the Mothership for all we know, considering that when Maria is running through the halls, she mentions that the aliens on board all sorta just looked at them without stopping them, never brings up if they were just other Gieegs or what, just that they were being observed)

We know Cerue could have potentially disembarked at some random point (maybe potentially after the Human Caretaker Experiment OR after the Mars Invasion, depending upon which happens first) and goes into hiding on Mercury, basically collecting various creatures from around the Solar System (some either being alive or dead).

We do not know what happens to the other 2 to 3 Gieegs except that they were present for the Human Caretaker Experiment & The Invasion of Mars, as they were most likely responsible for the majority of opposition & were described as being all-powerful by the Mars Super Computer's City Records, so I imagine only a few were needed to take over.

Giegue is the only one around on the Mothership (excluding Niiue) but doesn't know where Cerue went.

(...potentially, Niiue's dialogue about him knowing that she doesn't want to meet him could imply that he's referring to his true identity as Giegue & knows that Cerue possibly sensed him but as Giegue and not his own unique being, which is why she said she only trusted the Applechasers [the main 4] and doesnt try to erase their memory).

(WARNING LINKS LEAD TO FANDOM WIKI, CARRY A BLOCKER) Oddly enough, the fandom wiki for Earthbound has a really interesting tidbit of a theory regarding as to what Giegue's Race even was or what may have happened to them (since after Mother 1, Giegue's People gets ZERO mention), mentioning that after he returned to the ship, he may have ended up killing his people in a fit of distress & deterioration before eventually transforming into Giygas, but its fandom wiki so take it with a tablespoon of salt.

(if youre wondering "why not use WikiBound?", it mainly tends to be game information rather than like, external media information..? Idk, i personally feel like i found more substance to Giegue's Fandom Page than compared to his WikiBound Page)

something i will mention however, is that the fandom wiki uses a lot of information from the novel for Mother 1 (apparently?) as a means to sorta fill in information regarding events that occur between the games. Also its the only wiki with a page regarding Giegue's Race, also this really cool illustration of the Mothership:

Anyhoot, I'm done rambling now, i just sorta wanted to share this because it was on my mind. Gonna stop now before my brain overheats and combusts from thinking too much, also i am hungry, its lunch.

(UPDATE, 12/23/202X, I've realized Cerue's Sprite has different opacities, which might mean that she's been sticking around quite a bit when George makes his discoveries & when the two escape)

[pondering-gales-left-orb]

I have said it many times with the sims and i'll sayit once again with DATV (it really seems like an EA thing now to force thier devs and writers to do thier own game advertising by themselves) , the devs need to stop being at the forntline of interacting with the public and fans, because of 2 reasons

1- they are not prepared in any shape way or form to interact with fans at all, they dont know how to word things professionally, they dont know how to set boundries, they dont know how to seprate thier personal views from thier fan facing persona, they dont know how to take criticism correctly (think how actors do it) and they come at this from a very biased pov because its thier work that they spent alot of time and n effort on, plus they have to advertise positivity or the company will come down on them so they do not take well to any criticism and start to only respond to Scripted postive interactions, while turning on the online equivalent of a pitty party, they end up cornering themselves into this echo chamber with a bunch of yes men they pretend are the entire fandom (bonus point if that group ends up being the most racist bitches out there lol)

2- 99% of them cannot keep thier own personal politics and opinions from seeping through and frankly most of them are a flavour of racist and unpleasant which then ends up souring anything they comment on, and without fail every single time i read anything that they say i think to myself "i wish they would just shut up and stop making it worse somehow"

like i appreciate thier input on the technical side of things sure thats awesome tell me how you made things show me the thought process your sketches your work flow thats insanely interesting!

but once they get into answering fans or fan service or whatever it just gets so bad they somehow always end up alienating a massive amount of fans and kiss ass to a specific group (see point 1)

I dont keep up with other games to know if this is a consistent thing all game Studios put thier devs through

i know sdv is a one man show so the dev kinda has to talk to the fans but even then Eric( the dev) doesn't even talk much or interact that much at all just answers the occasional troubleshooting question but sdv is not the same as DATV scale wise so the comparison is not fair

The one other non EA game i know is BG3 and i know they had the actors do the talking which is the CORRECT way to go about this as they are fucking trained for this they are very charismatic and are very aware of the impact thier words have they dont just say shit out of thier ass and can command a room they know boundaries and not to create a false echo chamber and generally avoid creating a parasocial relationships atleast...

I think EA's strategy of just making the deves do the advertising themselves with no help fucking sucks and its really really reflecting negatively on decade long franchises that are genuinely now dying at the speed of light because of this specific move to strip the team down and unrealistically put everything on the devs and just make the success of thier game thier sole responsibility with no help from other departments as they dont exsist anymore (late stage capitalism yay!) And no training or preparation with insane expectations for devs to know every single peice of information they need to pull at any given moment and just....

Yeah YEAH if you play alot of EA games i think you will notice a pattern as to how they oprate behind the scenes and how actually uncaring and greedy they are yeah

[starsaparilla]

you said you wanted asks so i must ask

1) do you have a courier oc? like, an actual character.

2) thoughts about christine and veronica (and Christine staying in Sierra Madre)?

3) what's one character you wish had been a companion but wasn't? and why and how would their quests go idk im shy despite asking on anon 😔💔

1) yes!! i have a couple.. i make new ones depending on the run i’m doing or the faction im siding with etc but for my current playthrough (neutral karma independent vegas) i have cherry!! she’s super cool… i like her lots. nepo baby that wants to run vegas herself as a way to get back at her family for disowning her (long story) + learns about love and friendship and kindness and also backstabbing along the way! i can’t draw so i mostly make pinterest boards for characters but yeah… i love my ocs. trying to flesh out the rest of her family at the minute too bc they were (to me) pretty prominent figures in the wasteland until around 50 or so years before the events of new vegas!!

2) christine and veronica are so dear to me!!! canon lesbians in a video game… i do wish they didn’t fall into the trappings of gays with unhappy endings but yk. 2010 so i suppose it was par for the course. as for christine staying in the sierra madre i have mixed feelings- ultimately i like it narratively, i think christine becoming a guardian is very fitting. the sierra madre houses vera keyes, a woman who had her life derailed and destroyed by the greed, cruelty, rivalry and jealousy of two men. in a similar vein, christine royce had her own life- and her love- uprooted and snuffe out by a cruel and greedy man too. it makes poetic sense to me that christine would stay to guard the sierra madre. christine/vera parallels are so srs to me and i would definitely go into way more detail at another point but im trying to keep this concise because you didn’t ask to be blasted with my dead money brainrot. anyway also i find it oddly beautiful that a place with such a dark past can perhaps become a safe haven like it should always have been now that christine is there. my one issue is that there’s no option to inform veronica of where christine is or anything but i know this was due to technical limitations and nothing else so i don’t harp on the devs too much for this.

3) benny maybe… i think doing an independent run with benny as the companion makes soooo much sense and i do think an ending where you both take vegas is super fun. but i have the benny companion mod so i don’t think he counts as an answer here for me personally. in terms of what would be best for gameplay id say a legion companion would be interesting as while i dont play legion nor do i like them, i think its a shame they’re underdeveloped. victor as a companion could be rlly fun! good for a house run and id love a securitron companion anyway :) id also love to port ulysses to the main game as a companion 💔💔💔 and then obvious popular answer sunny smiles my angel <3

i forgot to add quests!!! god actually i’m gonna have to think abt this one but i think for benny an interesting quest would be anything to do with the boot riders… will nvr forgive the lack of backstory we get for him in the game. legion companion could potentially involve visiting old settlements and learning about their history? it would be interesting for a legion companion to be someone disheartened with the legion’s methods, kind of like veronica (BUT NOT LIKE VERONICA) , and you can ultimately talk them into leaving (good karma) or convince them to stay with you and the legion (bad karma). i’m not sure on specifics for victor but given that he’s a cowboy likely inspired by old world western movies it could be so fun to have a quest that follows the plot of some famous western movie… big dramatic shootout at high noon. fun times. ulysses i’m split on bc i think it’s entirely contingent on how you interact with him in lonesome road and which faction you’re aligned with as there’s a lotttt of ways he can feel about you due to all of these factors that might make creating one Definitive companion quest hard. as for sunny idk. something that lets us go back to goodsprings ^_^ very last minute but i also think a great khan companion would be nice mostly bc i like the khans and the narrative is so awful to them

[still-nix-d-goffic]

I'm not really sure the devs of V Rising know what they actually have on their hands there. Like they started with a vision of what kind of game they wanted to make and have blinders on for what could be.

Aaand now I kind of feel bad for not being vocal in the reddit back when it came out. I was doodling skin themes for items and stuff and getting imposter syndrome and not posting.

Anyways, I really really really think they have the bones to bridge some genre gaps between players. They just need to add some role play elements and focus on fleshing out the castle building. More functionality on that part.

Like, make the game co-habitable between PvE and PvP players. Make it so you can make that a setting when you place your castle heart. Like you can choose neutral/hostile and maybe even set a different clan on the server as your "rival" so that PvP players get rewards for being PvP.

A lot of people have expressed interests in being able to assign servants to different rooms, probably setting them to do different actions. (Guard/Clean/Lounge/etc) Major kudos if they added animations for them interacting with different objects.

Which, it would be nice to be able to interact with objects. Even in like a basic Sims 1 kind of way.

I want to be able to add rats and blood essence to my table to present a "blood feast" that can be consumed by you and allies for maybe an effect.

Likewise it would be cool to "set the table" with a prisoner from the cages. Stuff like that though, ya dig?