#Aspiring Indie Game Developer

[neotrix-09]

PIRAZZA

The Maddened Beast of Alchemy --------------------------------------

Working on concepts for different games,and I wanted to make more inhuman OCs (People bore me,) so I created Pirazza! I may make more on him later.

Fun fact; He was partially inspired by two songs...

[twinklebyisnthere]

i JUST celebrated that out bed bugs had stopped decapitating the neighbours and then this guy arrived outside the boundaries of an island, decided to "move in", and by "move in" i do mean he walked directly into the horizon never to be seen again

[barrow-belle]

I finished aces character design and here she is

This is her new official look

[14dayswithyou]

Some long-term followers may have noticed this subtle shift already (especially those who are in the 14DWY Discord server or have read this post), but I figured I'd make it official.

I'm no longer associating myself with the yandere VN community.

The TLDR is that the energy here really fuckin SUCKS!! And I don't want to be part of something so hostile and needlessly competitive.

The constant infighting and epicaricacy between communities is deeply upsetting, and it's very disheartening to see aspiring developers cancel their projects because of the unwarranted backlash and harassment they face.

Some entitled folks on here reeeeally need to understand that constantly harassing others for updates, encouraging developers to belittle others to make themselves/their project look better, complaining about a project not meeting the expectations you specifically put in place, attacking other communities because of the parasocial relationship you share with another developer, getting mad that you chose to ignore important PSAs or warnings and faced the repercussions, or even sending in hate messages on anon because you're bored are not things you should be doing — let alone be proud of.

I try to avoid bringing up these topics as it's not the vibe I want to have on this blog (nor do I want to negatively contribute to the Streisand Effect and blow things out of proportion), but I'm genuinely getting tired of being on the receiving end of all this harassment and negativity, seeing it happen to others, and watching other indie developers encourage such vile behaviour. I'm done.

For those wondering what this means for "14 Days With You": for the most part, everything will still continue like usual. I've said this from the very beginning, but 14DWY is just a passion project I pursue whenever I feel like it. It's something I do for fun as a hobby — not because I want to publish a well-known game or turn it into a career. I've been on Tumblr for over thirteen years now, and it's taught me how to grow thick skin, so everything that I'm yapping and yammering about won't stop me from working on 14DWY.

However, this does mean that I won't be as interactive with other developers or their communities anymore; many ill-natured people have ruined this for me.

Because of them, I'm no longer able to voice my opinion on other games without some opinionated rat whispering in my ear about how the developer is "problematic" or that I could get cancelled for simply following them on Twitter. I can't interact with certain games without its parasocial community becoming hostile or gatekeepy towards anyone they don't like. I've seen communities belittle and devalue promising demos because in their eyes, nothing can compare to their favourite game (or their favourite developer). I have been harassed, bullied, and doxxed by other communities and have seen the same thing happen to others as well. I've heard about the developers who weaponise their community's loyalty to attack and drive out their competition. And I've witnessed more than enough developers expressing how badly they want to take a hiatus due to how much unwarranted negativity they receive, but don't want to disappoint their community by doing so.

By saying all of this, you can understand why I dislike being here so much, as well as why I no longer find any enjoyment in interacting with the yandere VN community.

Many people here — fans and developers alike — are so needlessly pushy about their standards and personal opinions being the norm, and if anyone else goes against them, they'll purposefully try to ostracise and bully them out of the community. This place isn't as laid-back or inclusive as it used to be, and I don't want to be associated with a community that acts so hostile and aggressive towards anyone who shares a differing opinion — nor do I want to be part of a space that caters towards developers who'll tear down others in order to have a moment of relevancy.

We're all doing our own thing and making our own games; it shouldn't be a competition. But if you see it as such, then I urge you to take a moment to stop and rethink your actions — or, at the very least, understand how it's affecting you and others around you.

So until there's a reasonable change and people can go back to being less... demanding, hypercritical, and gatekeepy about who interacts with what, I'll be stepping away and continuing to stay in my own bubble, as I have for the past two years now. I've already unfollowed everyone associated with the yandere community many months ago, but I think I'll just unfollow everyone entirely now for my own peace of mind. I will also no longer be interacting with any yandere VN communities (aside from close friends), nor will I be as public with my interests from this moment on. Everything on this blog will be strictly related to 14DWY like usual, and I will continue to block and report any spiteful "anons"/burner accounts sent my way and delete their messages.

Again, this isn't really much of an announcement — it's more so just paragraphs of me bitchin and moanin 🫶 — but I wanted to get this all out there instead of leaving things unsaid and having people come to their own conclusions as to why I've suddenly become less active, less optimistic, and why I've stopped engaging with a majority of the yandere community in the last two years.

So, yeah... ^^; If there's anything I want y'all to take away from this entire post, it's to be kind, open, and understanding towards everyone — developers and communities alike — and to spread support rather than negativity. It's what I want my own community to be known for, so please be mindful of how you treat others online.

And if you find yourself being surrounded by constant toxicity and negativity (be it from friends, mutuals, or even other developers or communities), please don't feel ashamed to step away or cut them off entirely. Put yourself and your mental health first. I also think it'll be good for me to leave all this negative energy behind and continue to kick off 2025 in a better light, so if y'all need to let out any frustrations of your own, feel free to go ham in the replies (obviously, be kind and civil though jghsjg T_T)

[insertdisc5]

I forgot if I asked this last time your inbox was open (though even if I did, you never answered it) but how long did you have the ideas for ISAT in your head before you started the development process? I've had this idea for a game for 12 years and haven't coded a single line. I'm writing the story first. Is that a bad idea? I know it's not a race, but I feel like I'm behind my fellow mid-20s creatives. I also can't draw for shit, nor can I afford to commission a thousand or so art pieces. Do you have any advice (other than replaying your game, which I plan to do anyway) for an aspiring indie dev who has felt like giving up but hasn't actually done it?

writing the story first is never a bad idea. however i think you should start actually making the game where you know stuff like "so im gonna have this boy and he's gonna become a jedi to fight the emperor and then the emperor is gonna be his DAD and then he saves the galaxy", even if you don't know what happens in between those cool things. aka when you know your beginning and end.

the reason you should start actually making the game then is because while making the game, you will realize the strengths and weaknesses of the software you're using. which means you'll realize you cant make this cool moment with a thousand enemies. but you CAN add little scenes every time the player uses a specific item. and knowing the intricacies of the software will make your game cooler

tldr: just start da gaem already!!!!! u can do eet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[moiraimyths]

Howdy, fateful friends! Are you an artist or illustrator with an interest in visual novels?

If so: Moirai Myths, creators of the visual novel The Good People (Na Daoine Maithe), are in need of guest artists! More specifically, we're looking for up to two artists to help us with the content graphics ("CGs") for Maeve and Shae's upcoming routes. All of the details will be listed on our application form (linked below), but here is the gist:

This is paid work with 20-30 business day deadlines per piece!

Complicated revisions in the post-sketch phase are compensated!

You will be prioritized for future guest artist opportunities!

You will be featured/credited on Moirai Myths' website and in the game itself!

Sound interesting? If so, apply here:

Click under the cut for some F&Q 👇

Who are you? (I'm new here!)

Hi! We're Moirai Myths: a small, newish visual novel company based out of Canada. We're making a game inspired by mostly Irish mythology, which was funded on Kickstarter in 2023! Our game's got fairy politics, a diverse cast, a Gaeilge-to-English translation tool, and routes that can be played either romantically or platonically! Also horses. An ungodly amount of horses, really.

If that odd pitch sounded intriguing, perhaps you'd like to play our demo! It's free on Steam & Itch.io.

Why are you looking for guest artists?

When we originally launched our Kickstarter, the plan was to have our three in-house artists collaborate on the CGs in the same way our header image was. However, we quickly realized that adding CGs, even if they're done collaboratively, onto the existing duties of our artists was a tall order. Add to that the departure of our original sprite artist (who has since been replaced by our graphic designer), and we determined that having our in-house team work on CGs was simply not possible if we still wanted our first release to happen in 2024. So, rather than omitting CGs or adding them in at a later time, we came up with the idea of hiring guest artists. Overall this means our CGs will be a bit more varied in terms of art style, but we like to think of this as a positive! NDM's development will take a number of years to complete in full, so we hope our CGs will allow us to feature a lot of artists either within the VN/indie dev community already, or artists who aspire to work in gaming and are looking for entry positions.

How long will applications remain open for?

This application will be open until Sunday, March 24 at midnight (EST)! If we intend to extend past that deadline, we'll make an announcement about it.

I can't apply right now. Will you look for more CG guest artists in the future?

Definitely! As mentioned, NDM will take a while to develop in full, so this is by no means your only opportunity to apply. That being said, we suspect we're going to end up shortlisting a number of artists over the course of this application period, and we intend to keep a list of all the runners-up. So, even if you won't be able to participate this time, it might be a good idea to apply anyway just to remain in our contacts! Either way, this will not be the last time we have apps.

Will you be looking for guest artists outside of CGs?

Maybe! We already have two guest artists (Nefukurou and Madi Funk) working on sprites and CGs respectively, so it's always possible that we'll have other artistic needs later down the line. Likewise, we may also reach out to past guest artists for future work with us, whether it's on this game or something else!

You say we need to sign an NDA. What does that entail?

The non-disclosure agreement essentially means you will be legally unable to publicly disclose any confidential information you become privy to as a result of working with us. This would include personal information about the developers, as well as spoilers from the game itself. In addition do this, you will be expected to sign over the IP and copyright of any artworks you produce for us.

Can I still use my artworks in portfolios, even if I don't own the copyright?

Yes! We'd only ask, if your portfolio is a website, that you wait to do so until after your art has been made public by us, either on our social media or via the publication of the game. Our first release is anticipated to happen later this year, most likely mid-autumn.

How do you guys feel about AI? Do you intend to use it, or would you ever train an AI off of the artworks whose copyright you own?

No.

Making a game is expensive and time-consuming, but AI is no replacement for human artistry. We fundamentally believe that any advancements in AI should be used for the purpose of giving people more time to make art, not take away opportunities for it. Moirai Myths will never, ever use AI or train an AI off your work.

***

If you've got any more questions for us that we didn't think to include here, feel free to send us an ask!

[fireflysummers]

Heroes, Gods, and the Invisible Narrator

Slay the Princess as a Framework for the Cyclical Reproduction of Colonialist Narratives in Data Science & Technology

An Essay by FireflySummers

All images are captioned.

Content Warnings: Body Horror, Discussion of Racism and Colonialism

Spoilers for Slay the Princess (2023) by @abby-howard and Black Tabby Games.

If you enjoy this article, consider reading my guide to arguing against the use of AI image generators or the academic article it's based on.

Introduction: The Hero and the Princess

You're on a path in the woods, and at the end of that path is a cabin. And in the basement of that cabin is a Princess. You're here to slay her. If you don't, it will be the end of the world.

Slay the Princess is a 2023 indie horror game by Abby Howard and published through Black Tabby Games, with voice talent by Jonathan Sims (yes, that one) and Nichole Goodnight.

The game starts with you dropped without context in the middle of the woods. But that’s alright. The Narrator is here to guide you. You are the hero, you have your weapon, and you have a monster to slay.

From there, it's the player's choice exactly how to proceed--whether that be listening to the voice of the narrator, or attempting to subvert him. You can kill her as instructed, or sit and chat, or even free her from her chains.

It doesn't matter.

Regardless of whether you are successful in your goal, you will inevitably (and often quite violently) die.

And then...

You are once again on a path in the woods.

The cycle repeats itself, the narrator seemingly none the wiser. But the woods are different, and so is the cabin. You're different, and worse... so is she.

Based on your actions in the previous loop, the princess has... changed. Distorted.

Had you attempted a daring rescue, she is now a damsel--sweet and submissive and already fallen in love with you.

Had you previously betrayed her, she has warped into something malicious and sinister, ready to repay your kindness in full.

But once again, it doesn't matter.

Because the no matter what you choose, no matter how the world around you contorts under the weight of repeated loops, it will always be you and the princess.

Why? Because that’s how the story goes.

So says the narrator.

So now that we've got that out of the way, let's talk about data.

Chapter I: Echoes and Shattered Mirrors

The problem with "data" is that we don't really think too much about it anymore. Or, at least, we think about it in the same abstract way we think about "a billion people." It's gotten so big, so seemingly impersonal that it's easy to forget that contemporary concept of "data" in the west is a phenomenon only a couple centuries old [1].

This modern conception of the word describes the ways that we translate the world into words and numbers that can then be categorized and analyzed. As such, data has a lot of practical uses, whether that be putting a rover on mars or tracking the outbreak of a viral contagion. However, this functionality makes it all too easy to overlook the fact that data itself is not neutral. It is gathered by people, sorted into categories designed by people, and interpreted by people. At every step, there are people involved, such that contemporary technology is embedded with systemic injustices, and not always by accident.

The reproduction of systems of oppression are most obvious from the margins. In his 2019 article As If, Ramon Amaro describes the Aspire Mirror (2016): a speculative design project by by Joy Buolamwini that contended with the fact that the standard facial recognition algorithm library had been trained almost exclusively on white faces. The simplest solution was to artificially lighten darker skin-tones for the algorithm to recognize, which Amaro uses to illustrate the way that technology is developed with an assumption of whiteness [2].

This observation applies across other intersections as well, such as trans identity [3], which has been colloquially dubbed "The Misgendering Machine" [4] for its insistence on classifying people into a strict gender binary based only on physical appearance.

This has also popped up in my own research, brought to my attention by the artist @b4kuch1n who has spoken at length with me about the connection between their Vietnamese heritage and the clothing they design in their illustrative work [5]. They call out AI image generators for reinforcing colonialism by stripping art with significant personal and cultural meaning of their context and history, using them to produce a poor facsimile to sell to the highest bidder.

All this describes an iterative cycle which defines normalcy through a white, western lens, with a limited range of acceptable diversity. Within this cycle, AI feeds on data gathered under colonialist ideology, then producing an artifact that reinforces existing systemic bias. When this data is, in turn, once again fed to the machine, that bias becomes all the more severe, and the range of acceptability narrower [2, 6].

Luciana Parisi and Denise Ferreira da Silva touch on a similar point in their article Black Feminist Tools, Critique, and Techno-poethics but on a much broader scale. They call up the Greek myth of Prometheus, who was punished by the gods for his hubris for stealing fire to give to humanity. Parisi and Ferreira da Silva point to how this, and other parts of the “Western Cosmology” map to humanity’s relationship with technology [7].

However, while this story seems to celebrate the technological advancement of humanity, there are darker colonialist undertones. It frames the world in terms of the gods and man, the oppressor and the oppressed; but it provides no other way of being. So instead the story repeats itself, with so-called progress an inextricable part of these two classes of being. This doesn’t bode well for visions of the future, then–because surely, eventually, the oppressed will one day be the machines [7, 8].

It’s… depressing. But it’s only really true, if you assume that that’s the only way the story could go.

“Stories don't care who takes part in them. All that matters is that the story gets told, that the story repeats. Or, if you prefer to think of it like this: stories are a parasitical life form, warping lives in the service only of the story itself.” ― Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad

Chapter II: The Invisible Narrator

So why does the narrator get to call the shots on how a story might go? Who even are they? What do they want? How much power do they actually have?

With the exception of first person writing, a lot of the time the narrator is invisible. This is different from an unreliable narrator. With an unreliable narrator, at some point the audience becomes aware of their presence in order for the story to function as intended. An invisible narrator is never meant to be seen.

In Slay the Princess, the narrator would very much like to be invisible. Instead, he has been dragged out into the light, because you (and the inner voices you pick up along the way), are starting to argue with him. And he doesn’t like it.

Despite his claims that the princess will lie and cheat in order to escape, as the game progresses it’s clear that the narrator is every bit as manipulative–if not moreso, because he actually knows what’s going on. And, if the player tries to diverge from the path that he’s set before them, the correct path, then it rapidly becomes clear that he, at least to start, has the power to force that correct path.

While this is very much a narrative device, the act of calling attention to the narrator is important beyond that context. 

The Hero’s Journey is the true monomyth, something to which all stories can be reduced. It doesn’t matter that the author, Joseph Campbell, was a raging misogynist whose framework flattened cultures and stories to fit a western lens [9, 10]. It was used in Star Wars, so clearly it’s a universal framework.

The metaverse will soon replace the real world and crypto is the future of currency! Never mind that the organizations pushing it are suspiciously pyramid shaped. Get on board or be left behind.

Generative AI is pushed as the next big thing. The harms it inflicts on creatives and the harmful stereotypes it perpetuates are just bugs in the system. Never mind that the evangelists for this technology speak over the concerns of marginalized people [5]. That’s a skill issue, you gotta keep up.

Computers will eventually, likely soon, advance so far as to replace humans altogether. The robot uprising is on the horizon [8]. 

Who perpetuates these stories? What do they have to gain?

Why is the only story for the future replications of unjust systems of power? Why must the hero always slay the monster?

Because so says the narrator. And so long as they are invisible, it is simple to assume that this is simply the way things are.

Chapter III: The End...?

This is the part where Slay the Princess starts feeling like a stretch, but I’ve already killed the horse so I might as well beat it until the end too.

Because what is the end result here?

According to the game… collapse. A recursive story whose biases narrow the scope of each iteration ultimately collapses in on itself. The princess becomes so sharp that she is nothing but blades to eviscerate you. The princess becomes so perfect a damsel that she is a caricature of the trope. The story whittles itself away to nothing. And then the cycle begins anew.

There’s no climactic final battle with the narrator. He created this box, set things in motion, but he is beyond the player’s reach to confront directly. The only way out is to become aware of the box itself, and the agenda of the narrator. It requires acknowledgement of the artificiality of the roles thrust upon you and the Princess, the false dichotomy of hero or villain.

Slay the Princess doesn’t actually provide an answer to what lies outside of the box, merely acknowledges it as a limit that can be overcome. 

With regards to the less fanciful narratives that comprise our day-to-day lives, it’s difficult to see the boxes and dichotomies we’ve been forced into, let alone what might be beyond them. But if the limit placed is that there are no stories that can exist outside of capitalism, outside of colonialism, outside of rigid hierarchies and oppressive structures, then that limit can be broken [12].

Denouement: Doomed by the Narrative

Video games are an interesting artistic medium, due to their inherent interactivity. The commonly accepted mechanics of the medium, such as flavor text that provides in-game information and commentary, are an excellent example of an invisible narrator. Branching dialogue trees and multiple endings can help obscure this further, giving the player a sense of genuine agency… which provides an interesting opportunity to drag an invisible narrator into the light.

There are a number of games that have explored the power differential between the narrator and the player (The Stanley Parable, Little Misfortune, Undertale, Buddy.io, OneShot, etc…)

However, Slay the Princess works well here because it not only emphasizes the artificial limitations that the narrator sets on a story, but the way that these stories recursively loop in on themselves, reinforcing the fears and biases of previous iterations. 

Critical data theory probably had nothing to do with the game’s development (Abby Howard if you're reading this, lmk). However, it works as a surprisingly cohesive framework for illustrating the ways that we can become ensnared by a narrative, and the importance of knowing who, exactly, is narrating the story. Although it is difficult or impossible to conceptualize what might exist beyond the artificial limits placed by even a well-intentioned narrator, calling attention to them and the box they’ve constructed is the first step in breaking out of this cycle.

“You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it's just a cage.” ― Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad

Epilogue

If you've read this far, thank you for your time! This was an adaptation of my final presentation for a Critical Data Studies course. Truthfully, this course posed quite a challenge--I found the readings of philosophers such as Kant, Adorno, Foucault, etc... difficult to parse. More contemporary scholars were significantly more accessible. My only hope is that I haven't gravely misinterpreted the scholars and researchers whose work inspired this piece.

I honestly feel like this might have worked best as a video essay, but I don't know how to do those, and don't have the time to learn or the money to outsource.

Slay the Princess is available for purchase now on Steam.

Screencaps from ManBadassHero Let's Plays: [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6]

Post Dividers by @cafekitsune

Citations:

Rosenberg, D. (2018). Data as word. Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, 48(5), 557-567.

Amaro, Ramon. (2019). As If. e-flux Architecture. Becoming Digital. https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/becoming-digital/248073/as-if/

What Ethical AI Really Means by PhilosophyTube

Keyes, O. (2018). The misgendering machines: Trans/HCI implications of automatic gender recognition. Proceedings of the ACM on human-computer interaction, 2(CSCW), 1-22.

Allred, A.M., Aragon, C. (2023). Art in the Machine: Value Misalignment and AI “Art”. In: Luo, Y. (eds) Cooperative Design, Visualization, and Engineering. CDVE 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14166. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43815-8_4

Amaro, R. (2019). Artificial Intelligence: warped, colorful forms and their unclear geometries.

Parisisi, L., Ferreira da Silva, D. Black Feminist Tools, Critique, and Techno-poethics. e-flux. Issue #123. https://www.e-flux.com/journal/123/436929/black-feminist-tools-critique-and-techno-poethics/

AI - Our Shiny New Robot King | Sophie from Mars by Sophie From Mars

Joseph Campbell and the Myth of the Monomyth | Part 1 by Maggie Mae Fish

Joseph Campbell and the N@zis | Part 2 by Maggie Mae Fish

How Barbie Cis-ified the Matrix by Jessie Gender

[snoozykazoo]

happy springtime allergies! 🌸

The flowers at this time of year are so lovely! sniff sniff sniff… They’re pretty enough that I’m THIS close to forgetting the pollen up my nose. So it goes. Regardless of springtime allergies or not, it’s Snoozy Devpost time!

If this is your first time seeing us, hey! We’re Snoozy Kazoo, a game dev studio of six guys who make dumb, silly, and fun games. We made the Turnip Boy games, and we’re currently in the midst of working on our latest game, Hobnobbers!

This month, we're getting into our task management workflow to help all you fellow indie devs out there!

What's Snoozy been up to?

Ah…! We’re so, so close to being able to announce something really exciting…! But you have to forgive me. I can’t say anything yet. Keep your eyes peeled — there’s going to be a LOT of exciting Snoozy News™️ come May. Even if I can’t say the big deets yet, I can at least drop this link right overrr here for you merch heads out there…

Cool Makeship Link 👀

Buuuut since we can’t talk about our projects, let’s talk about the next best thing: Project Management! This past month, Snoozy switched from our old task-tracking system to a new system called Codecks. Imagine if you could track your project progress with a deck-building roguelike, and that’s what Codecks is! It’s a nifty little tool specifically made for Indie Game Developers, which we just happen to be.

And to clear the air: no, we are not sponsored in any way by Codecks. Though if Codecks is reading this — we’d totally love to be!

We wanted to share how this system has been working for us, so any aspiring indie devs out there can see if this system is appealing to them and potentially benefit from it!

How it works

What’s made Codecks click for us is how it blends structure with playfulness. It doesn’t just let you organize your work — it encourages you to think about it in terms of clear progress paths, visual layouts, and deck-building metaphors.

We kept falling off of our past task systems because jugging a game’s worth of art, code, design, writing, marketing, and bug-fixing while ALSO needing to come up with constantly updating organization methods is. Hard. Codecks simplifies that process!

Codecks organizes itself into Cards, Decks, and Projects. Cards are tasks (like “Animate a Hob’s death!”), Decks are chunks (animating a Hob would go in our ‘Art’ Deck, but you could split it up further into a ‘3D Animation’ deck while also having a ‘3D Modeling’ Deck), and Projects are, well, projects! (‘Hobnobbers’ is, well, our project!)

What we like

Myyy personal favorite bit of Codecks is how it handles Conversations. Conversations can be had on any card, which makes it really easy to find discussions and notes on particular topics. In the past, we’ve used Discord to talk about ideas, critiques, and problems as they’ve come up. When notes are discussed quickly, they don’t necessarily quality for opening up the whole task itself, which has made remembering clarifications like “Wait, what resolution did this sprite need to be, again?” as simple as pulling up its relevant card.

Other people on the team love the ‘Required Effort’ settings, which allow you to set an amount of effort for each card and then see how much total effort a single person has. Basically, all of us adore the fact that you can use Markdown (which I, Yukon, am currently converting this post into for the Snoozy website haha). There are just a ton of little quality of life features that really feel like this tool was made by indie devs, for indie devs, and it’s really smooth to use!

But I’m just a little guy. Just a Small Man. With Few Dollars?

Codecks is free for up to 5 users on a team! If you’re a solo developer working on a project in your spare time, it’s probably more than suitable for you.

Aaaand that was our non-sponsored shilling of this tool we really like! There’s only so much we can say without going too into the weeds of it, but we hope that giving you a peep into our processes helped you out!

Team Corner!

It’s back a second time! Almost like it’s always going to be here!

This week we’ve got… badadadum, Jake! Our musician and developer!

What are you most excited for in Hobnobbers?

I’m most excited for the physics. Some of my favorite games have really robust physics simulations like Gang Beasts, Motor Town, and BeamNG.drive. I love sandbox games that have fun and unexpected environments to explore in a tactile way.

What’s something you’ve worked on in Hobnobbers recently that you’ve found particularly frustrating?

Audio Volumes and spatialization. In a 3D game, each space needs to sound different, and sometimes dialing that in just right can be a pain. Large open rooms and tiny little tunnels sound different in real life, and they will do the same in Hobnobbers, after lots of tweaking and iteration. Coming from 2D development, this literally opens up a whole new dimension of sound design.

What kinds of feelings do you hope for the Hobnobbers’ music to bring about?

I really want to mix dreamlike folktale and plastic consumerism. I am super inspired by I spy books, grimms fairytales, folk/americana music, and toy instruments for the Hobnobbers musical palette, and the music comes very naturally when the inspirations are so vivid. A lot of Hobnobbers is about simulating something tactile and physical in a digital space, and I hope to channel that into the music.

Yay! Thank you for your time!

Andddd we’re all wrapped up!

As a reminder, feel free to send in questions for us to answer right here on our Tumblr, or join our Discord and ask questions in the “ask-the-devs-❓” channel!

Keep your eyes peeled for this upcoming month in particular — we’ve got a lot of cool announcements coming up!

As per Devposts, see you next month!!

[lovedrunked]

STARTER CALL. like this post for a starter from any of the following muses below. feel free to message me to specify which muse and/or to plot it out.

katrina delgado (olivia rodrigo) - aspiring movie actress

mira nadar (simone ashley) - event planner

nico lombardi (aron piper) - drug dealer to the elite

sammy finch (rudy pankow) - indie band guitarist

savannah price (michelle randolph) - ballerina

oliver choi (justin min) - game developer

[radiation]

Video games talk dont even mind me

Bro video games as a whole are so far behind movies in terms of storytelling and pacing that it’s kind of baffling. Which of course is obvious and makes sense for plenty of reasons but like, just think about it — watching movies a lot can’t help but train a certain muscle that gives you a strong instinct for structure. I find that people who watch movies very casually, without too much artistic consideration, and don’t really know the language associated with it are still very often irked by specific issues with a movie’s pacing, dialogue, etc and are relatively capable of putting it into words. Likewise, for many movies out there, regardless of your opinions on any specific directorial choices, you do feel as if the movie is essentially cohesive and creatives involved reasonably knew what they were doing and were acting very intentionally, and there weren’t any major oversights. This includes independent films as well. Meanwhile I think both players and developers much more commonly lack the instinct for narrative cohesion when it comes to video games. Definitely a fair amount of exceptions to this, but in general I find it’s difficult to find video games that are very narrative heavy & aspire to great artistic heights that don’t suffer from inherent structural problems, pedantic dialogue, tons of dead air, etc in a way that wouldn’t slide as easily in a movie. A lot these flaws certainly have to be due to the presence of gameplay elements and having to balance that with story when the two are almost always, at least in some small respect, inherently at odds. As for the inability for devs and players to pick up on / fix these flaws…is it because gameplay can distract from it and make up for it? With longer games that have runtimes closer to the experience of a television series, is there a similar reaction where if it’s long enough you will sit thru smaller, momentary issues because you enjoy the bigger picture? Yet games are a lot more engaging than a show as a audio, visual, and tactile experience, you can’t multitask and tune the information out as easily as with a boring episode of a show, so you’d think people would be more picky? But maybe because it’s so attention-demanding people are more immersed, and believe in the experience enough to more easily accept the story? Books demand the same kind of active attention to experience though, and the bar for story in books is a lot higher, so what gives? Well a lot of these have kind of obvious answers but still Interesting questions to ask that lead to Damn , That Is Still Crazy How Much This Shit Is In Its Infancy like sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy with how many writing issues are present in games, particularly in indie games that are Trying To Be Good At Writing that feel excessively obvious and yet I often struggle to find my sentiment mirrored by others. IDK. And back to movies the thing is I feel like if the same people trying to write these kind of games had pursued movies instead then they would’ve ended up making well structured movies that avoided all of these pitfalls. WHAT IS IT WITH GAMES? Well we know what it is with games and we could spend all day discussing a million more reasons this is the way it is but no matter what I think we should just be super conscientious of these pitfalls when making narrative focused games and aspire to a greater level of intentionality that is absolutely possible . Build that muscle by really understanding the quality of storytelling long-present in other mediums.Well the other issue with indie devs is that everyone believes they are totally breaking new ground story wise that they don’t take a step back, humble themselves a bit, and cross-reference what they’re doing with the tons of other stories that have already achieved similar things But thats a conversation for another day .

[elesh-n]

Toby Fox is 34 years old.

Toby Fox created the Earthbound Halloween Hack when he was 16. This was 2008, when the tools for creating video games as an individual were extremely scant, not to mention the culture of indie development just wasn't there like it is now. When he released Undertale, a game that is by no means perfect but was still beautiful enough to captivate a generation, he was 23 years old, turning 24 in a month.

When I was 16 years old, I learned to code for the very first time. When I was 17, I learned to create video games. I feel like I'm pretty decent at it now, but I am currently 23 years old. My Undertale does not exist. I'd be lucky to even be able to finish my Earthbound Halloween Hack. Seeing this, I am left to wonder: what am I doing wrong? Does this mean something bad about me? Video game creation is probably the main discipline in which I aspire to success, and I look at Toby or anyone else whose work has captivated me and can only see the shadow of what could have been. What have I done... wrong? Have I done something wrong?

I have been trying to create the same game since I was 17, building on skills I had been learning since I was 16. I tried in high school, when I had no idea how to do anything, really, especially how to manage a project's scope / scale. I tried during the Coronavirus pandemic, when my ultimate silver lining to the whole thing was the opportunity to work on this thing, and when I agonizingly slowly became too depressed and helpless to contribute meaningfully to anything, much less something self-motivated. I worked on it in college, where I did a lot of negative work and some positive work. And I've continued to work on it past college, where I feel like it's started to come together. Started??? I'm 23 and just starting????

What's to blame for this? When could I have done better? I have been trying for a long, long time! Am I to blame my 13-14 year old self for not having productive enough interests as a small child? Am to blame my 18 year old self for choosing to attend a University that gave me so much else to do, even if it opened the doors to countless other opportunities? Am I to blame my 22 year old self for caring so much about those other things? Am I to blame every part of me that cares about something other than game development, just for distracting me? My opportunities, the present beauty of my life - how much of it was I supposed to sacrifice?

Is any of this supposed to matter? I know, as an adult human, that we are not supposed to aspire to greatness. But I also know it only comes to those who are too stupid to believe that. Am I wasting my time even thinking that I, regardless of life decisions, could have created anything near the level of the games I admire? In Magic the Gathering, we talk about playing to our outs: that regardless of win or lose, you should evaluate yourself on if you took the path that gave you the most opportunities to win. Sometimes, though, there are no outs. Did I have outs? Do I have outs? How many people have an out? Why? Why, any of this? A why desperate in its pointlessness and pointless in its desperation.

I know in my brain that I will never be anything like Toby Fox. And yet, that doesn't stop me from having the most primal, visceral, soul-crushing urge to make something as beautiful as the things he has made. This urge is so strong that I can't believe in a world where I'm not supposed to follow it.

Billy Basso worked across various creative and uncreative disciplines and even went back to school for film (I think? It's been a bit more than a year since I asked him.) before creating Animal Well. He told my friend that he draws his inspiration from the game from walks with his dog.

The player of a game doesn't know or care whether you are 16 or 17 or 18 or 22 or 23 or 24 or 34. They do you this favor, one so great the universe itself does cannot grant it for you. We are very lucky in this way; the clock ticks, but it is a blurry clock with few hour marks. Maybe it's not too late for me yet. Toby Fox, or any other good role model, will at all times walk the line between envy and inspiration. From that voice comes many messages, and so far there is only one whose importance I am utterly convinced of:

"Let me see you grit those teeth!"

[barrow-belle]

Ok I have something big to announce. me and a big team of people are going to try and make a game!!!!!!!! It's called inter dimension tension or IDT for short currently working on the set in stone designs for all of the characters so far we have concept art for ace decoi Kirsten luner and the first boss named Bella!!!! Here are all the early concepts of them as they will all be heavily charged these are just bases

I'm excited to keep you all updated on how it's going!!!!

[dyswarpia]

MalRev Demo is out!!

₊‧.°.⋆✮⋆.°.‧₊ ⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺⋆˚☆˖°⋆｡° ✮˖ ࣪ ⊹⋆.˚

Welcome to my blog! I'm dyswarpia, an aspiring indie game developer. I just released my first game on itch.io and would really appreciate if you checked it out :D

It's a visual novel dating simulator about investigating a mysterious family who are rumoured to be vampires. There's 8 unique love interests and the demo features multiple endings depending on which character likes you the most!

₊‧.°.⋆✮⋆.°.‧₊ ⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺⋆˚☆˖°⋆｡° ✮˖ ࣪ ⊹⋆.˚

Click below to check out the game!

[beekeeperspicnic]

Hi! How's your day going? Are there any games that you would like to recommend? Except yours of course as It's already on my wishlist ❤️

My day is going goooood although I'm really tired! I was speaking at a conference for my day job. I'm a weirdo who loves public speaking, but it's still tiring.

So with my "supporting the indie game development community" hat on I will recommend checking out the demo for An English Haunting

I've been thinking of it as being Beekeeper's Picnic's much more professional and competent big brother - it's created in the same game engine, and the gorgeous pixel art is so aspirational for me.

And Arthur Conan Doyle is in it!

With my "what I'm actually spending a lot of time playing at the moment" hat on, I finally bought Red Dead Redemption a few weeks ago.

YEE-HAW

I'm putting so much effort into growing period appropriate facial hair

[winterwolvesgames]

The death of visual novels

What a charming title for a blog post, uh? haha

Well, sadly, I think this year could be the year. Let me explain what I mean by this. I mean the death of visual novels as a viable indie developer genre, not the death of visual novels as genre!

Rather the opposite, indeed. Last year I asked my old friend Ichiro about some Steam visual novel stats and this was the result:

Yes you read it right, in August and November 2024 there were 199 new VNs released in a month. In December, 156. In January 2025, 186.

That means that players see roughly 7 new VNs a day on Steam. A day! Imagine opening Netflix and every day there are 7 new shows to watch. You wouldn’t even have time to do check the trailers !

So, for players it’s a very good moment, but for developers? It’s super tough, of course.

What is the reason?

That’s the next question of course. Well, VNs are probably the easiest kind of game to make. So that’s the start. But recently, there’s another element which is making the overall development even easier: the advent of AI, and Steam accepting AI in games.

Until early 2024 (I think, I don’t remember exactly) Steam had a strict anti-AI policy, but then they allowed it, providing devs disclosed any use of it. And guess what? A lot of devs started using it. I know many players are against AI, but apparently the majority isn’t (also maybe in the adult games category, people really don’t care much lol).

So while before anyone could make a game, but they still had to pay character artists, background art, music, and even a writer if they didn’t know how to write, now they can do all those things with AI, saving a lot of money.

Because let’s be honest – the first thing that catches interest in a game like a visual novel is the art. You can write the best story ever, but if there isn’t nice art, most people aren’t going to buy and play your game.

Personally, I find AI generated art all soulless and even ugly / unrealistic. But this is my personal opinion. Let’s go on with the reasoning.

But wait, things can get worse!

A consequence of this influx of games is the likely onset of a price war—and to some extent, it’s already begun. This could play out in one of two ways:

Lower Prices: Games that would typically sell for $15–$20 may now be priced at $5–$10 to remain competitive.

Overloaded Content: Developers might keep the original price tag but pack their games with massive amounts of content—such as 8–12 love interests, 100 CGs, animations, full voice acting, and more—to justify the cost and attract players.

So, once again, for players it’s only good news – more bang for their bucks! But for devs ? Uhh, things aren’t going to be great!

For established devs like me who have a following, things are already tough (I barely broke even with my last 2-3 games) but for starting indies? I honestly I wouldn’t want to be an aspiring visual novel dev right now.

I know this whole post might seem depressing, but I swear I’m only trying to warn people about the current state of the market, nothing more, nothing less. Then of course, there are still chances to make money, but it’s important to keep expectations low, very low.

In a way the VN market is becoming similar to the books market – where the 1% earns 99% of the money, and most of people fail to make a living with it. So, nothing new, really.

What am I planning to do?

I plan to keep working on the current projects of course, and in particular Thieves of Dingirra and games that have more complex gameplay added to the visual novel genre. I think in future might be even more important, to add extra gameplay to differentiate your game from the huge crowd of VNs.

However, I don’t want to hide that at the end of this year I’ll need to review a bit the results and then I might be forced to make a choice – simply stop making simple visual novels (which would be a pity since sometimes I like to just write a story without having to design gameplay or code), or maybe be very careful when planning the budgets.

Another thing is that in the past in several games I overspent, using all crowdfunded+patreon money and adding funds from my own pocket because I wanted the game to turn out the best possible, but sadly it had no noticeable impact on the sales.

As you can imagine, raising funds to use them all to pay artists and then earn less than a minimum salary isn’t a sustainable long term strategy! Also, in the last 3-4 years felt like that my games’ success was all a bit random, and depending ONLY on the game idea/setting, art, kink and so on. Like if all the work behind it meant nothing. Totally based on the Steam “algorithm”. Ugh.

This is what surprised me mostly! It was like “you need to chunk out cheap games as quickly as possible, hoping to hit a jackpot, and nothing else matters”. You add a theme song? no impact. You spend $2k on beautiful hand drawn backgrounds? no impact. You spend lot of time writing interesting dialogues? sure, lots of praise in the reviews, but for sales? no impact. And so on. It’s… a bit depressing, really!

Conclusions

One last thing: this is not something exclusive to visual novels, there’s a sort of global crisis of game development companies all around the world. I think though, for the reasons above, that VN is one of the genres that are suffering mostly from this. On Steam you’d have better chances of making money doing a roguelike, strategy, survival, sim, etc, the less crowded genres.

Anyway, let’s see what happens first, since I have high hopes for the games I plan to finish this year! Also, a friend doing adult games commented on my games saying that the main issue is not having a male protagonist (which apparently is very important considering the Steam target market), so who knows maybe that will change things in the next months! Thieves of Dingirra will have all the romance combos, and the unannounced game will be boy x girl exclusively.

Speaking of Christine’s Care, I am planning the beta later this month, since all the art is basically done, and the final release sometimes in March! So if you haven’t yet please wishlist the game on Steam.

Sorry if the post sounds too negative. I’m honestly not too worried for myself, I’ve been indie since over 20 years and I’m confident I can always find a solution. But I think young devs approaching the VN world needs to know the challenges that they’re going to face! And if you’re one, good luck !

[abacktobite]

I think this might be a bit of a hot take but I really don't participate in discourse. I think pirating indie games is fine actually

I'm a little sick of seeing people like villainize people who can't afford games or people with no purchasing power (broke teenagers like me, for example.) We deserve to experience things too!!!

+ honestly I think playing a really good indie game illegally comes more or less with a guarantee that you'll buy it later. I don't like to admit this but I pirated Undertale and Hypnospace Outlaw before getting actual legal copies on Steam. Both of them are fucking incredible games that I would not have experienced had it not been for that (watching playthroughs really isn't the same thing!!!)

I say all of this too as an aspiring indie developer. If it means they'll enjoy it and tell their friends about it then they can download it wherever they want. Word of mouth means a lot!!