#Finally making some progress on dynamic posing

[pawborough]

November 2024 Check In

Hello, everyone!

Got some stuff to share! Our artists had a bit of a respite as we took a breather between the Moontail push, but we’re continuing back to work! 

As stated previously, most of our art efforts have been towards accessories and mass illustration of the same things over again, so that legaves less “new” things to share, but we’ll be sharing what we’ve accomplished! 

Accessory Illustrations 

Necromantic Cloak 

We’ve completed the Necromantic Cloak on all starter breed poses! 

Illustration by Remmie, Tybaxel, and Hydde

And we have finalized colors! 

Color design by Emma

Creeping Thicket

We’ve completed the Creeping Thicket on all starter breed poses! 

Illustration by Remmie, linework by Tybaxel

We are actively working on the colors for this piece, but we shared a preview of the work in progress earlier this month! 

 We have also decided to divide up the original item into two items: the Creeping Vine and Creeping Thicket.

All Kickstarter backers who purchased a Creeping Thicket will receive both items! 

We decided this after understanding that a division will allow for more variability and utility of the item. 

Gilded Set

We have also divided this accessory into three items: the Gilded Teardrops, Gilded Collar, and Gilded Tailpiece, thus creating the Gilded item set! 

We’ve completed the Gilded set on all starter breed poses! 

Illustration by Azarel

Regal Set

We’ve completed the Regal set on all starter breed poses! 

Illustration by Azarel

Backdrops 

Grand Library

We completed the Grand Library backdrop!

Composition by Runeowl and Giulia, final illustration by Asp

Cogwheel Outskirts Nighttime

Nighttime edits by Giulia, original illustration by Kzart

Decor Check In

Previously, we shared decor which was attempted to fit into the backdrop style, intending for decor to fit seamlessly into a backdrop. However, after careful consideration and several iterations, we have decided that from now on, decor will by stylized like the cats and fauna. 

Decor will be lined with soft-cell shading, and will not look blended into the backdrop itself. We found that with varying textures and shading unique to different backdrop environments, the aesthetics were unsustainable and problematic long term. We have begun production on decor which closer resembles the stylistic truth of cats, icons, and fauna, and we feel this direction will be much stronger in the long term! 

Pelt System

And something big… a design for the pelt system! This design took a lot of work, as we wanted to make the process as seamless and quality as possible. 

There is a lot of information to work with on this page, and we’re quite proud of how it’s turned out. We hope users enjoy! 

Users will be able to toggle on breed poses to upload, so as to avoid a long drop down. If a pelt is a commission, users will be invited to credit the proper artist. 

In addition, we have an "add more" feature which will invite and allow users to submit more poses for their pelt even after the pelt has been approved and added into the game. 

Submitting more poses at once offers a slight discount because it is easier on the mod team. But importantly, at any time users will be able to expand pelts into new breed releases. This will serve to prevent item and submission bloat! 

One of the most exciting developments in this category has been our adaptation for pelts to utilize the dynamic layering. Using the PSD and layer system we already designed and implemented, users will be able to utilize it too for unclipped pelts! 

Our system works by users paying an upfront fee for moderation approval, and then all further printing will be at a significantly cheaper rate. Creators will also be able to list their pelts for sale without printing, in which buyers pay the print cost as a tax, giving sellers more freedom. 

We will be basing the cost of pelt submissions on our ability to pay moderators a fair rate. We are currently running tests to time and calculate our moderation efforts, so no prices are set in stone yet! 

Development Check In

User Settings

We’ve completed work on user settings. Users can now change their icons to any cat they own, validate new emails, change their password, username, and Borough! Mundane, but hugely necessary advancements.

In general, we're currently working on the pelt system and general polish. We’ve also just begun implementing ways for users to pay for digital content, which is huge for us. 

And with that, one more announcement regarding development support...

Trying out Patreon!

Many months ago, we discussed the option of opening up tertiary support efforts, such as "support bundles," as a way to continually aid and bolster development. We denied pursuing this avenue at the time, because we had to focus solely on development with the resources at our disposal already. We mentioned a plan to do something in the future when the time was right. 

Since then, we've gotten countless questions on how people can support us after missing the Kickstarter, and how they may help contribute to our development. 

We are at a point in our timeline now where we could utilize the support funds. Our scope is higher than it was when we first imagined the project, and while we've been able to manage expectations vs. the necessary additions to make our game the best it can be out the gate, we've decided to open up support for those who'd love to see more behind the scenes. 

Introducing our Patreon!

! Not signing up will not harm the project! It does NOT void nor devalue your Kickstarter rewards, nor will we EVER be handing out retired goods through this platform !

Please do not feel obligated to signup if you are not in a place to! This is simply something we're pursuing as an additional avenue of support in a time where we can use it, especially for those who have asked how they can engage with the project while having missed the Kickstarter. 

Like the idea of support bundles, we are offering something amidst the work. We'll be offering behind the scenes updates, showing off sketches, drafts, development shots, and the design process of content that is typically only shown in a finished or near-finished state for our public updates. 

Simply put: see things before the public sees 'em! 

We work every weekday, so there will always be something new to show. Get frequent posts of the lore workshopping, the design pipeline, UI/UX designs, compositions, and all the other juicy tidbits of behind the scenes. 

We'll be thinking about what more to offer in addition, but the last thing we want is to introduce more retired stuff, or undermine the exclusivity of the perks promised in the Kickstarter. This is not Kickstarter 2. 

However, if this Patreon offers a lucrative solution for us, we may be able to expand our expectations for breed releases, mechanic timelines, and content updates! 

All content on this page is available at a low price, and higher tiers do not give more behind the scenes. Instead, we've priced higher options if users would like to be credited as supporters on the credits page of the game. 

And Kickstarter backers will also be automatically credited from here on. 

As a way to reward the highest tier, we will also feature exclusive community polling. This is different and more lowkey than the giant polls we have done in the past. Sometimes, we as a team have deliberations for small things; minor design choices, UI differences, or content that has generally been too inconsequential to burden the community with giant polls. As a way to engage and have some fun, we're taking these smaller discussions here! 

Large polls which pertain to more serious and consequential topics, such as sweeping mechanic changes or big decisions that we specifically want community input on, will still be done publicly. 

Lastly, it's unclear at this time what the fate of this page will be once we move into launch. We may repurpose it as a way to recruit beta testing for new updates post-launch, we may shut it down, and we may keep it exactly as is with behind the scenes exclusivities and previews before content hits the game. Depending on the pros and cons during slower development cycles, we'll have to make that call when we get there. But right now we're in full force on mass production, and we'd love to keep on that track! 

Thank you everyone!

To summarize: We shared a large amount of accessory progress, backdrops, the pelt system, and what we're currently working on in development. In addition, we launched a Patreon to post sketches and early access content. 

What to expect next update: Potential beta updates, further asset and development updates. 

[fanofflames]

Another Skeptic doodle

[omaano]

SW Hades AU July Update

Other updates: May - June - July - August

I've made a lot more progress with my Star Wars meets Hades AU project than I'd imagined - and absolutely none in other aspects, so let's see how the past month has been!

I have finished the character illustrations both for Maul

and Omega, (look how cute she is in her pocket sized version! ^^)

and I have also finally rounded out my Din collection, so that I now have 6 variations on his character art (helmet on and off, with Grogu and the darksaber, and with and without Grogu and the beskar spear in hand).

Aphra has lines and flat colours too, as well as the very basic lighting layers on her!

I'm real hyped to start working on her! I'm very proud of the dynamic pose I picked for her, too. I'll likely up the red in her jacket and gloves for a bit of a pop in colour, because all this brown everywhere is growing a little boring tbh. Like with certain other characters...

There has been some progress with Obi-Wan, but it's going suuuper slow, and I continue to preemptively worry about how I should completely redraw him for after his reunion with Cody, too. (Iirc Patroclus is standing with his spear in hand after he's reuinted with Achilles in Hades, and I also very badly want to draw him with his lightsaber ignited, but I feel that wouldn't be very good for him just, you know, hanging out in front of his little house on Tatooine...)

And now I'm going to add my first ever poll for the next month in case anyone wants to weigh in on the order in which I add characters to this project:

I'm making no promises, but I thought this could be fun :)

This post is growing a little long, so I'm putting the rest about Obi-wan's background re-draw, and some musings on picking colours for Omega under the read more ->

There was no room for it in the previous update, but I'd fully redrawn one background finally for Obi-Wan's chilling spot!

It is the same setup as where you can find Patroclus in game, with the walls and the chasm and the doors out, but I added Obi-Wan's hut and a desert envisonment. (I've watched so many videos on how to draw in an isometric grid, because there was always something that just wouldn't work... I'd thought there was a trick to drawing squares and circles in this grid that I just couldn't figure out for the life of me - and it turns out that I was just careless and my grid wasn't tight enough so I had to eyaball distances and the width and length of things too much lol.) And now I'm faced with the difficult task of picking colours and figuring out if the character shading tricks also apply here or not.

For now these colours are more for just to block in certain elements in the background, but I have some more desert/desolate looking backgrounds saved from other Supergiant games (they've got some really vibrant and dark colours, like wow!) as well to hopefully help me out moving forward.

I'd redrawn those bulbs you can find over the door leading out of various chambers in-game, because I might as well go in full re-design mode bit by bit, and after some deliberation and googling I picked the Mandalorian Crusaders symbol as inspiration for it.

And now back to Omega for a bit:

While I was working on the character illustration for Omega and Batcher I became very aware of how weird it is to pick colours for me. (I very heavily rely on preexisting colour palettes; I have multiple saved just for the Hades project like for Rex, Ahsoka, Cobb...) I'd been working on Rex and Cody last (Maul doesn't count because he doesn't have very human colours, so picking reds and purples and browns for him wasn't so shocking tbh), and aside from the armor paint and hair colour they very much share the very same colour palette. That was easy, I'd picked the skintones off Boba and the little portrait icons already, upped the saturation a bit because seeing the base skintone laid down scared me, and off I went.

(Laying down the first layer of flat colours is always super scary because they too often seem too dark and too grey/green, which I know will change after the complete shading is done but it still looks very off putting...)

So. The way the colouring in Hades made sense for me is that it works with pretty desaturated colours, there is a lighter shadow colour that's a bit more desaturated and the hue is shifted cooler but is still pretty cool to the original base colour (so much that I'd often have to turn it darker so that I'd see it laid down if I'm not sitting right), and another darker shadow layer that is a tad more saturated and warmer in tone. And there is also (a possibly slightly cooler shifted) and lighter highlight, and another more saturated colourful highligt (in the skin that is the bright, peachy orange for example). (and the little super bright pops of colour at the very very end. I hate adding them so much, but they are very important!)

But while I could pick the skin tones off of Rex, the problem I'd tumbled into was when it came to shading her hair (it's very important to me that Rex and Omega shared all these colours). Omega has a lot more hair (shocking, I know), and so shading that required a lot more than Rex's simple two-tones, and the "shadow" colour from Rex just didn't work, it was too saturated and warm in a larger quantity. So I tried to find another blond character in Hades, picked some colours off of Theseus... and those didn't work too well either, because those colours looked too pale and washed out compared to how lively her skintone was. There had been a lot of adjusting - I'd colour picked all of Theseus' colours and watched like a hawk where my colour marker moved both in hue and saturation a couple times in every which way and tried to mimic that in comparison to my base colour... and then you already saw how she ended up.

Here is the visual representation of the process:

I do a lot of these swatches.

You can see them there next to Omega with the blues and the gold/metallic detail colours (the latter of which I'd ended up using in her crossbow), and up above with the Obi-Wan wip as well (I needed to pick a lot of colours from Chaos and Aphrodite to figure out how to go about his pale skin), but I also worked like this with Din and Achilles in the beginning, as well as trying to pick the greens for Boba's armor. Usually the first and biggest hurdle I run into is choosing my base colours... that's something I really need to work on; but after that this method really helped me feel a lot more comfortable with cell shading.

I hope it made sense to you, and it was at least a tad bit entertaining (or if I'd ruined the word "colour" for you for a while, I'm sorry XD, I know I'd used it a lot). This was really the first time I'd truly seen how I changed around the colours I worked with in a piece, and also tried to go a bit more consciously about shifting them around here (that's why I have all the screenshots XD) and thought I might as well share them here in this monthly update.

I've also switched over to using CSP and a display tablet, in the hopes that I can familiarize myself with them without the pressure of needing some fancy or very specific brushwork and work process. No texture, little need for pressure sensitivity - I hope to slowly pspsps my brain into accepting working with these, and build up some success and good experiences before I try sketching and drawing on it and maybe trying out some new unfamiliar brushes as well ^^;

[vals-sims-world]

Hey guys! Thank you so much for all the love you've given to my Sims versions of Merlin and the knights!

Since there's interest in my Merlin save I will be sharing some stories about what's been happening in that world. However, before I do I feel I need to explain the way I play this save since it's not your standard Sims 3 fashion. I typically play rotationally, spending a week with each family before moving on and using nraas story progression mod to keep everyone from aging while I'm not there. My nraas setup also keeps sims from changing their relationship status or progressing in their careers when I'm not playing them but they can meet new sims, make friends, declare enemies, and start up a bit of a flirtation on their own. I like coming back to a household and seeing what dynamics have formed when I leave them to their own devices, though I get the final say on what romantic interests they end up pursuing.

Now that's just my standard setup for most of my games. For my Merlin save I decided to add some interest by using Merlin characters for my own version of The Medieval Charter Challenge! For those unfamiliar The Medieval Charter Challenge is basically a sims 2 build-a-kingdom challenge where you start with a small settlement and slowly build your world up until you have a medieval city. There are a lot of rules including a tax system and class structures that I'm not going to go over but if you're interested you can check out the original rules here For those of you who are familiar with the challenge just know that I've tweaked some of the rules to fit better with the sims 3 and I don't always follow them strictly. I treat them more like guidelines than actual rules, especially since I'm using pre-established characters, some of which have magic which opens up excuses for all sorts of shenanigans. So if you see me doing something that doesn't follow the rules don't worry about it.

Mainly what you need to know is that I started with an empty world, 3 households who are not part of my rotation but are there to help populate the town (druid camp, knights barracks, and the Ladies' manor), 5 peasant families (du Lac, Smith, Hopper, Emrys, and Ealdor), 2 Yeomen families (Macken and De Grance), and the royal Pendragon family. As my save is currently I have 9 community lots, 3 peasant families (Hopper, Ealdor, Oliver), 1 yeoman family (Emrys), 1 Merchant family (du Lac), 1 Gentry family (Macken), 1 Noble family (De Grance), and the royal Pendragon family that have all dramatically changed as they intermarried, had kids, built up their businesses, and rose in the ranks.

My plan is to make a post on each of these families explaining their story. This will take time though as I plan to give you guys family portraits, before and after tours of their homes, any screenshots I happened to have taken while playing, as well as writing out the twists and turns of their tales. So please bear with me while I sort that out.

In the meantime here's some screenshots of some shippy poses I did with my sims that aren't part of the save

Tagging those who expressed interest in knowing more about my save (let me know if you want me to tag you in future posts about this): @tansyuduri @building-camelot @chairwiththreelegs

[blackflash9]

Reflections of the Kenway Family

A fascinating aspect of the saga is how each Kenway encounters someone on their journey who mirrors another family member and their respective character arc.

Connor meets Thomas Hickey — a man whose vanity and hedonistic greedy nature are very reminiscent of Edward and are a dark look into what he could've been if he had given entirely into his selfish desires. The way that Hickey's cynical nature contrasts with Connor's idealism is also a very similar dynamic to Edward's interactions with other characters such as Adewale, Mary Reed, Anto, and Ah Tabai.

Edward meets Duncan Walpole - a disillusioned Assassin-turned-Templar, foreshadowing the fate that will later befall his son. Edward's act of killing Duncan and posing as an Assassin mirrors what Haytham will become in the future. Another notable parallel between them is the theme of betrayal.

Reginald Birch's betrayal of Edward transforms Haytham into a Templar, while Walpole's betrayal inadvertently turns Edward into an Assassin. Unlike Duncan, whose commitment to the Creed is nonexistent, self-serving, and morally compromised, Haytham's ideological convictions in the Templar Order are resolute, unwavering, and uncompromising.

Haytham encounters Shay - an idealist with unwavering convictions, dedicated to protecting the innocent at any cost. Shay serves as a dark reflection of what Connor might have become without introspection, failing to forge his own identity. This lack of self-discovery makes Shay's virtues easily manipulated by others. In contrast, Connor continuously grapples with the demands of the Assassin's Creed and the diverse intentions and motivations of the people he meets on his journey, questioning and seeking to understand the world around him. ______________________________________________________________ ['On Johnson's Trail' Transcript] Connor: I was hoping you could help me locate William Johnson. Samuel: Of course. I'm headed to a meeting with some men who should be able to help. Why don't you come along? It's good to see the people finally taking a stand against injustice... Connor: Says the man who owns a slave. Samuel: Who, Surry? I practice what I preach, my friend. She's not a slave, but a freed woman... At least on paper. Men's minds are not so easily turned. It is a tragedy that for all our progress, still we cling to such barbarism. Connor: Then speak out against it. Samuel: We must focus first on defending our rights. When this is done, we'll have the luxury of addressing these other matters. Connor: You speak as though your condition is equal to that of the slaves. It is not. Samuel: Tell that to my neighbor—who was compelled to quarter British troops. Or to my friend whose store was closed because he displeased the Crown. The people here are no freer than Surry. Connor: You offer excuses instead of solutions. All people should be equal and not in turns. ______________________________________________________________ ['The Midnight Ride' Transcript] Connor: I thought it might bring clarity. Or instill a sense of accomplishment. But all I feel is regret.

Achilles: Hold fast to that. Such sacrifices must never come lightly.

Connor: I had to do it. Not only for my people, but for all the others Johnson would have harmed. ______________________________________________________________ ['Alternate Methods' Transcript]

Connor: I have been reunited with my father, but do not yet know if this bodes well or ill. Our goals are aligned, at least so far as independence is concerned. But he continues to defend Charles Lee— the man who murdered my mother and burned my village... Still, he makes a point about Washington and those who back him. I hear much talk of freedom and equality, but it seems one must be a landed white man to benefit. What of someone like me? Or Surry? What role for us in this new world? Is my father right, then? There is so much I must consider and so little time in which to do it. ______________________________________________________________ In contrast to Connor, Shay falls victim to their own self-induced tunnel vision, becoming ensnared in fanaticism and operating under a pragmatic "ends justify the means" mentality that he turned against his own Brotherhood for harboring. This vulnerability renders him a perfect tool and pawn for the Templars, diverging sharply from Connor's path of self-awareness, principles, and independence.

[omorimodreverie]

Reverie Devlog - 2024 July - CHAPTER 4

Overview

It has been a while since the last update since before the release of Reverie Chapter 3, so we finally are making an update on what happened in the past 3-4 months.

What’s with the Inactivity?

First, let’s get the reasons for our inactivity (at least to public) out of the way:

Chapter 3 released around April-May, so that period would be redundant to cover in a Dev Log in that time period.

Around the same period, some people have had high school finals (like in my case, Stahl writing here), or college exams. 

Despite that, there has been steady work done in the background by others in the team. The past few weeks have also picked up in activity as well, so things are moving in a positive direction.

Chapter 4 Info

Area

As it’s no longer a much secret since it's been speculated since forever ago: Chapter 4 takes place in dreamworld. The next area involves 1 major area, Sweetheart’s Castle; and 2 minor optional areas, Pyrefly Forest and Metro Depths. This info is relevant to development, as it changes the development process quite significantly.

The obvious benefit is that many assets can be reused and modified, especially for the castle. What will be done with it though, we’ll leave up to speculation. This applies to tilesets, maps, and even some sprites like enemies, leading to far less workload than Chapter 3 had demanded with the real world.

Gameplay

Gameplay wise, this will be where the “mid game” should start ramping up, so difficulty would start spiking here as well compared to base game. Normal mode would still be accessible for most players, but Hard mode would get more aggressive in terms of mechanics, and start to really pose a challenge. Regardless of mode, both would really push for players to learn emotion mechanics properly (I mean seriously, some people still played the entire mod without using emotions at all???).

For a rough overview for what’s coming gameplay wise:

Enemies throw ailments far more often

Some enemies nullify, absorb, or repel specific emotion damage innately

Charge skills and Telegraphed heavy attacks appear more often

Troops tend to appear in larger sizes

Considering feedback received from Chapter 2, it won’t be as tedious as Cattail fields, where enemy encounters tend to be spongy and slow-paced: leading to the next point;

Battles are generally more dynamic, going in a more aggressive direction: enemies are easier to kill, but so are you.

Area conditions that spice up the initial battle a bit

Progress

As of now, Chapter 4 is going relatively fine. There is a temporary knock down in activity from external factors, but we’re still able to keep a steady pace, which is what really matters in the long run. For easy viewing, the progress will be split into sectors:

Writing is going steady, it isn’t as difficult as the real world which has higher stakes, but it still matters to write in character. 

Pixel art side of things is also going well. There is far less work needed in terms of pixel art, due to less of both sprites and maps. Basically, anything now is relatively easier than CH3.

Drawn art also is going fine, the majority of spriteworks are already done. As mentioned before in CH3 dev logs, half of the sprites were done before CH3 even started, so this is not new information.

Music is also similar to Drawn art in progress, the majority of songs having been completed beforehand. Though one major difference is that a decent amount of those assets became “outdated”, so we might need to work on replacing or recomposing. This also happened in the art side, but just not to the same degree.

And finally in RPGMaker work itself, there is also some progress made, though less than others as this would be the final step after all assets are completed. The work here so far is mostly implementing all the assets and organizing files. On top of that, we have also started working on cutscenes as well as enemies.

Final Notes

Overall, progress is going steady, despite earlier difficulties in terms of activity. All sectors are progressing in some form, which is a nice change of pace compared to CH3’s very lopsided work allocation.

Thanks for reading this far, here's a preview of some work done so far!

[arimiadev]

Hello visual novel fans and vampire lovers! It’s been a while since I last wrote a postmortem, so I hope I’ll be able to write this concisely (and coherently).

Dahlia was a short visual novel I created in under 36 hours for Velox Formido, a shortform visual novel game jam ran by robobarbie and Allie Vera. It’s inspired by Ludum Dare, one of the longest running game jams in the world where devs are tasked to make a game in 1 weekend based around a theme. I got my start making visual novels by entering Ludum Dare…which was 10 years ago, as of 2024!

I had my eye on this game jam for a while now, as this isn’t its first incarnation. I’ve been a bit burnt out the past year or so, not completely where I can’t make progress but to where I feel like my work has slowed down a lot more than my peers and feel I can’t make anything quickly. When I saw the jam was happening this weekend, I hopped on board once the themes were announced.

the themes

While Ludum Dare has a rigorous process of eliminating themes until it gets down to the final one, Velox Formido has it where there are 5 themes that win and participants have to use at least 2 of them in their entries. The final themes were…

Enemies with Benefits

Flower Symbolism

Doomed by the Narrative

Trapped with Someone

Forbidden Romance

I started crafting ideas as soon as the themes were announced, which was what the jam started- meaning the clock was ticking!

My first idea was a shounen rivals-esque sapphic story about two rivals meeting up for alone time. I started writing it immediately but moved on to another idea- being trapped with a vampire. I doubt I’ll ever use the first idea, so I’ve shared the snippet I was able to write for it here. Every new line is the other woman talking, so think of it as a quick back and forth.

Even though I had started on this idea, I wanted to write something more… mysterious. Frilly. Girls in cute dresses, to be exact. So I began potting an idea where a girl wakes up to find a vampire in her room, unsure if she’s had her fill yet or toying with her next meal.

the story

The “flower symbolism” theme was definitely my first pick, as I love the concept of it and played around with it in my last visual novel, Asphodelium. I named the characters Dahlia (beauty, change) and Camellia (admiration, longing). Dahlia represents a change in Camellia’s life, a sudden burst of newness. Camellia longs for something different, some way for things to change.

The other theme I picked was “trapped with someone”, as the premise is a girl stuck with a vampire in her room. I didn’t want it to be outright horror, but still a little creepy and tense.

Dahlia "I've had enough pitchforks stuck in my face for today." Camellia "And why is that?" Dahlia "Because your kind isn't too welcoming to my kind." Camellia "I was asking why you were here in the first place." Dahlia "Obvious questions get obvious responses. I needed a snack, of course." Camellia "And you chose my residence." Dahlia "Didn't you say this was your fathers?" Her words curl around the last word, like ivy growing against a trellis. She's clearly already had a "snack", but was it enough to satisfy her? Or am I the main course?

Both of them are somewhat young, but there is still the element of the unknown. This creature clearly already had a meal, but does she want dessert? Is she just toying with her food? Or is she truly delighted to find someone her age to talk to?

With the time constraints I wasn’t able to flesh out much of their dynamic, but I hope it was still an enjoyable taste! The story ended up being about 2.3k words long with 3 endings.

the art

I started doing the art about….12 hours before the jam ended. I love working with fullbody sprites as they offer me a lot more versatility with posing, but I knew I didn’t have time for that here. This time I went for 3/4ths bodies, namely just so I could cut it off at the end of their dresses. I spent about an hour on each of these.

With the time crunch I didn’t have time to do concepts for them- I just winged it! I knew I wanted Dahlia to have pigtails, though she was originally going to have a purple theme. Camellia was supposed to have proper curls in her hair, but because the game starts with her being rudely awoken, I went with messy waves instead. Think of it as bedhead rather than her actual hairstyle.

I also quickly did a main menu artwork towards the end of my crunch in about half an hour. It was originally going to be the cover art on itchio but Dahlia’s >:D sprite looks more striking.

For the backgrounds I went with free photos from Unsplash and edited them. Personally, I like the look of filtered photos as backgrounds depending on the aesthetics of the game.

I didn’t have time to edit the GUI aside from the textbox, which was NVL mode.

the presentation

Dahlia is stylized fully in NVL mode, with the textbox to one side of the screen. I love NVL mode for scenes focused on narration and setting the right mood.

I was considering making the game a different resolution, but because the NVL mode is to the side rather than the entire screen I wanted to make use of the widescreen resolution.

The game is set late at night, so each of the backgrounds had to be nighttime. To match with this, I tinted the sprites to match each of them. For example, the above tint looks like this:

transform nightcolor: matrixcolor TintMatrix("#8594d6") * BrightnessMatrix(0.03) image dahlia night = LayeredImageProxy("dahlia",nightcolor)

I wanted to try something more complex like a tint + another light source overlayed onto the sprite, but ran out of time.

Another part of the presentation I did was to have a variety of shots. I had a very limited about of art to work with (only changing mouths and eyebrows, no arm poses or eye positions) so I knew I had to be smart about how I composited the scenes.

One thing I’ve done in other visual novels was to have one character further away and have another closer to the camera but their sprite turned black. This allows me to give the illusion of depth without having a sprite of the back of each character’s head.

for instance, this is that technique in Canvas Menagerie

Doing this in Dahlia was a quick and easy way to make the visuals much more interesting rather than swapping between two mostly static sprites the entire game.

The way I do it in other games is on a per-sprite basis, meaning I set brightness and position each time. It’s hectic, really! But because of the time limit for this jam, I was able to come up with a much quicker way to set it up.

transform lefttt: zoom 0.5 xalign 0.3 yalign 0.05 transform leftttb: zoom 0.8 xalign -1.6 yalign 0.1 matrixcolor(BrightnessMatrix(-1)) xzoom -1

The lefttt transform is for the character in the back- in this example, that’s Camellia. The leftttb transform (b standing for “black”) is for the character in the foreground who’s shrouded- in this example, that’s Dahlia.

Basically, the leftttb transform sets the sprite to a bigger size than the farther away sprite, sets the position, and then makes the color completely black before flipping the sprite (because this should be us seeing them from behind).

I also did quite a few small animations in the game, such as Dahlia dancing around or bouncing up and down. You define it once as a transform and can reuse it again and again.

transform dance: ease 0.7 xoffset -59 linear 0.25 ease 0.6 xoffset 74 linear 0.19 ease 0.76 xoffset -70 linear 0.3 ease 0.7 xoffset 102 linear 0.2 ease 0.8 xoffset 0

If you’d like to see the code in action, then guess what- I’ve released the entire source code for the game on GitHub! Feel free to sift through it to see the components in action and copy some of the code for your own projects. All I ask is that you do not redistribute the game (i.e. download the code, make a build in Ren’Py, and redistribute that as your own game).

wrapping up

I’m pretty happy with how Dahlia came out. It’s short and visually distinct and helped “prove” to myself that I’m capable of making visual novels in a weekend still. I tried to avoid spoilers here, so if you haven’t played it already then give it a try!

— Arimia

[plushmayhem]

Progress talk thread

I like to take a lot of backups as I draw so we I can show off my widdle Lilly wips!! I'm drawing again that means I get to talk about drawing again yahoo

Lately when starting a drawing I've been trying to block out very rough thumbnails as seen above! I usually just start drawing like, the head, and trying to then figure out a body under neath and line by line it all ends up pretty similar to my past stuff because it's just not planned out! I don't know where the road is taking me!

So by starting out and trying to throw together the general pose with just a blown up light brush I'm coming up with much more interesting piece! I can figure out the general shape of the entire piece and then start working on top. No making a shoulder then drawing the hand over it and then erasing the shoulder and getting frustrated because it just doesn't look connected right because I didn't plan it out… where does this drawing end? where's the limits?? where am I going?? So my current workflow involves

Make the dimensions of the piece roughly (just throw a coloured rectangle down) -> very roughly block out the shape of the body within it

This also has the benefit of inspiring me to fill in the blanks with a pose I didn't initially expect! The body is reversed from my initial vague idea because seeing the blobs made me go OH IT'D BE COOL IF I DID IT WITH THE BODY FACING THIS DIRECTION ACTUALLY LET'S MAKE THAT WORK!! If you look at the initial you can kinda see it looks more like she's looking down at you with the raised arm being the one facing you.

Anyways after doing my personal Holiday pic the other day, I was like, it would be cool to do a small run of postcards to send to people yahoo!! I checked the sizes of postcards and none were even close! They all had like an extra inch on of extra space on the bottom whoops! I free style my rectangle sizes when planning an illustration and I guess they're closer to square than the ideal rectangle! Whoops!

So for this one after getting the initial sketch down I thought, hey how close is this to 5x7? AND LO AND BEHOLD IT WAS THE SAME ISSUE!!! So I took filling out the extra space as a challenge. I'm trying to be more dynamic with my art after all!

I spent time adjusting the piece in sai2 using the transform tool with it's perspective skewing on. I wiggled and rotated and pushed n pulled and you get what you see above. A much more dynamic piece filling out the canvas!

The thing that took the most time in this phase was getting the skirt to a shape I found acceptable.

Up next was moving towards making it a finished piece!

Thick lineart is something I've been deciding if I want to stick with or not but honestly it's my natural state! I love thick lineart!! I grew up on manga I wanna see some black lines!!! In the future I wanna go back to colouring lineart as well but for now I believe I need to lean into my natural tendencies for thick lines!

I threw down my lineart to a mostly acceptable state, and brainstormed ways to fill the empty space surrounding Lilly. I found there was just a lot of empty space in the bottom left and I didn't really solve that in the final, but that's ok. It's something I'm trying to be aware of as I actually attempt illustrations. I want to finish pieces right now, I'm not in a place where I can let perfectionism slow me down.

Currently my layers are (face) and (lineart) I throw down some flat colours, a light layer above and for once I tried a shade layer too! It might of been a multiply layer. It was probably was. Anyways this is what I was happy with before moving forward with refining it. I'm currently going with more focus on like, backlighting/rimlighting because it's easier to make it work with my no context existing in da void illustrations haha.

To refine it, right now, I'm playing around with mainly using one layer. So I slammed together my layers other than the face (I made that mistake with my previous piece and that's how we ended up with the eyebrow incident. I wasn't going to put myself in a place where I had to erase an eyebrow again) and started sculpting!

I think sculpting is the best way to describe it, really. It's a lot of slamming down chunky lines, and since the lineart is on the same layer, I'm constantly pushing colours out and finding the ideal shape of both it and the lineart. It helps me push my shapes even farther and let the colours take priority when they need to. Instead of them being separate things I worry about they're all just one big piece!

I was a bit worried about merging the plaid pattern down as well, but I did my best to get the skirt in a place I wasn't going to adjust much after the merge. That was the biggest priority of the previous step really.

It's a lot of fun! I recommend people try it! Try sculpting your lineart a bit!

I added the necklace accessory after since I knew trying to fit it in earlier would also be a pain in the ass haha. I'm not a one layer purist! I'm just having fun!

The background, I went in with no idea for a bg. So this is what we get. I think it works fine for this piece, it's a vtuber attacking you with big fluffy bear claws with no context other than that they are a bear and they're going to fucking get you. Red fits, Lilly has a very orange/red hued design and it's an aggressive attack so the mood works. I could of even gone harder and made it look a bit more splattery but I wasn't sure if I was going to fill up the bottom left space or not.

Looking back maybe I could fit in her name on a cool blood splatter there but I am not a graphic design major my brain is growing slowly in this department thank you

Also fluffy claw gloves usually have much less defined fingers but I couldn't make mitts look good with my initial plans so I stuck with my initial idea!!! Thank u.

Anyways follow Lilly [Twitch]

[silver-wield]

Sorry for the length.

Tbh, the only mistake here is the perception of the viewers. Not all friendship are immense or beautiful. Sometimes it's just comradery.

You know why they specifically chose NAKAMA instead of TOMODACHI? Because tomodachi is much closer bond. The latter is not. You can be nakama with someone you're neutral with.

Someone on TLS shared this.

"expand...I'll add that nakama differs from tomodachi (the standard word for friends), and translates to something like close comrades who've shared sufferings / struggled / journeyed together. Like the LOTR fellowship or Ino-Shika-Cho type friends. But yeah, a very strong friendship, nothing romantic. Cloud's heart belongs to Tifa."

What does aerith and cloud have that is real and unique to them? Only two things. ZACK and saving the planet/fighting sephiroth. That's it. I'm sorry but, that's really it.

How come? When aerith was alive, cloud actually tried his best go befriend EVERYONE, in a cute way it could be that he doesn't want to be left out of the circle like when he was a stubborn kid. He's a kind person. But aerith doesn't let him be. He responds to her negatively because she keeps trying to make inappropriate advances on him. Making him act as her stand in boyfriend when he does not consent at all. Aerith took cloud for granted, not the other way around AT ALL.

Now, what does that platonic handhold that's an AC reference about? A line written there , still not sure yet, but it says, "you only think about is yourself, but I will be here for you" coming from aerith. I assume she's the one who held his hand like that. Now KEEP NOTE. Cloud thinks this handhold is platonic, maybe through madam m / the world of FF. I believe aerith still believed that what he did in her gsd is romantic, I really think so. But after being called a NAKAMA, she knows where she stands and the TRUE NATURE of that handhold from cloud. It is just cloud passing on support, giving her strength when she was mopping about Zack" that's why in that scene he looks at her in a way that says "it will be okay, be strong, you got this". Nothing shippy, like ZERO. So the same could be about that AC reference. She is here afterall to pass on what she can give to fight sephiroth and save the planet. Well I sure hope that final handhold comes FROM HER. Otherwise it won't make any sense.

Now, to address all the gsd. Some can say all HA are canon. It shows his progress with everyone. But Cloti gsd is the canon progression of the story.

But let's look here. During aerith's confession, if you get her HA gsd, cloud says "wanting to make more memories" instead of just Nakama. But personally, while that's cool and all, I just find it so out of character because his 2 main bond with her isn't enough to inspire this at all. So I can think it's from the player's perspective. They want to spend more time with her. Like fr, if he really did, how come he almost looks so sick of her in AC? Shouldn't he be glad and excited to see her again? Yet all it is , is just wanting forgiveness? Maybe they'll retcon AC but as of now, it's a bit out of nowhere.

Now, for my last point.

How does aerith become a friend here? Like at all?

-> Well, she said she wanted to get to know him= she realizes he thinks only of her as a comrade

-> "you only think of yourself" during that AC pose = finally awknowledging cloud's rude attitude in HER POV. Even tho she doesn't know he tried his best actually!!!! I guess she was uber BITTER with the word WEIRD. I assume she ignored his rudeness because she was escapist in denial that he can't be her Zack 2.0

-> She says shell be there for him after death, and like I said she should be the one to relay the handhold. This is just her being a comrade-in-arms, they have a huge battle. This is it.

That's it. I can't say it's a beautiful nor deep one, no offense to whoever wants to sprinkle this dynamic with so you can enjoy c/a platonically and have brownie points. I just don't buy it because she never got to be a decent friend to cloud AT ALL. While he's like mostly there because he feels sorry for her. Like no joke.

So what is it then? In his pov? I think it's like Zack. He's also not as close with Zack but his death was painful. Both of these deaths triggers a trauma of NUMEROUS afflictions of cloud. But this two is more painful because it was through specifically their deaths that made him have the life he always wanted with Tifa. Hence the survival 's guilt. So I can say that c/a bond is IMPORTANT, but not as deep nor beautiful. I'm sorry, it really isn't meant to downplay them. But just look at aerith's LSW line, it feels so detached af. Personally I think in AC, he was closer to Zack the most. He is cloud's idol and he knew him while he was real cloud, plus zack didn't try to get in his pants, nor only tried to be a friend after her died. NOPE.

Normally I'd delete this because it's filled with tons of spoilers, but it's just too on point and everybody should read it 👏👏👏

[schwender-exe]

Devlog #2

Hello all again and welcome to devlog #2!

First up, we have tiles! While not the final look of them (to be honest I drafted them up to try them out, but I kinda dig the simplistic look?) they'll be what's making up the terrain in the game! After playing around with it for some time, I found it a hell of a lot easier to map out levels/rooms with these tiles than the old system I had in place.

Originally, what made up the terrain was Polygon2Ds with collision added on top of them and while it was easy to use, it made the terrain a bit to one-toned for my liking and made plotting out levels a bit of a nightmare because I could do any shape or angle or whatever with it, which sounds nice but... well a bit too much freedom can kill my creativity which is why the limitations of the tiles feels like the right balance.

Moving on to what's next: the curse I wrought upon myself. To be more specific? The story vs gameplay and my failure to plan ahead.

I'm not one to plan things out much, I tend to just go with the flow and address problems as they come into view, but that's been biting me in the ass for a bit now. You see, I sent out a test build about a month ago to some dev friends and I got some feedback which has stuck with me. "You need something in between when you arrive at Chloe's abode and when you meet Chloe." (Chloe being the mushroom-headed character). The reason it stuck with me is because I realized, while I had a story, I didn't really have much in terms of gameplay to smoothly fill in the beats in between. The problem with trying to shove gameplay into a story which didn't account for that, well... You can imagine it didn't go well. So here's my new plan. I'm scrapping the story I have so far and will be re-writing it with new gameplay in mind that'll hopefully flow together well. What kind of gameplay? well that's a tough call. I've been juggling ideas around in my head for weeks and none seem to stick, so far I've managed to get a swimming/floating kind of movement in game which seems fun, but I'll have to tinker around with it more before I can say it 'fits' anywhere. If anything, it was at least a fun exercise in the new state-based character controller I've made this time around for the player.

Well what about combat? That's always an easy one, well... I've shied away from that for some time as I thought combat would move the game in a direction of becoming like most other platformers out there where slapping in combat is a simple solve-it-all glue you can put anywhere. If I'm going to add in combat, I want it to be interesting, unique and of course, fun. I'll be experimenting with more movement options, possibility of combat, the use of items, etc. and will be sure to update next blog post with what I achieve.

Moving on from that, I've also been experimenting with dialogue! I've added on to my dialogue code and have added dialogue portraits which, I'm not sure how I feel about as of yet, honestly. I don't think I have enough to base my opinion on whether I'll keep it or not as I like having the dynamic poses of the overworld sprites. I might have it as a toggleable feature in future as to give players the option to view the overworld sprites or the visual novel-esq sprites.

I hope this devlog was an interesting read, I know I didn't seemingly make much in terms of progress, but with the circumstances I'm in it's been a bit of a bottleneck in productivity. I hope next devlog I'll be in a better spot to provide more to show.

[alargehunkofdebris]

The Potential Dynamics of Aziraphale and Jesus

Season 3 prediction possibility—if “second coming” means a fully-grown Jesus and not a baby—is a ton of juicy dynamics between Jesus and the two. Crowley was already friendly with him, so I’m betting those two will get along like a house on fire. And now they have that whole “forsaken by a parent” angle to bond over. However, if we want a less obvious/slightly more subtle/more debatable possibility, it could be Aziraphale who will get close to him (given he’s the one handing the second coming) and have that good back-and-forth dynamic with him.

The thing about people like Aziraphale is that they will stubbornly die on the strangest hills when debating with people they’re close to. However, in the absence of these people, they find themselves on that other side, defending their loved one’s perspective when they’re not there to do it themselves (and because, deep down, they also share some of the perspective.) So I can foresee a Aziraphale/Jesus dynamic where Aziraphale is actually the Crowley of the two, and Jesus is the one who has to realize the toxic relationship he has with the mother who literally sacrificed him in the most horrific way imaginable.

It will not be as on-the-nose as Crowley and Aziraphale’s arguments, of course, but it would be such a neat reversal of roles to see Aziraphale hesitantly (but with more certainty as the season progresses) try to make Jesus see that he did not deserve what his mother did, and that she wasn’t right to push the burden of some false idea of “mankind’s sin” onto him. It would be a perfect way to show that progression towards that final step away from Heaven for Aziraphale, since it’s well known that the best way to learn something is to teach it.

And I’m going to pose somewhat of a hot take: despite how painful it is as a story beat, Aziraphale needs this time away from Crowley. This is because, when they’re together, Aziraphale’s reflex is to defend Heaven, and if they continued without any real change shaking up their life/relationship, it would always be to defend Heaven; Crowley’s perspective is a radical one, and Aziraphale is always desperate to steady a rocking boat. We can only imagine how unbelievably hard it would be to get out of a 6000-year-old groove, especially as a person with a certain level of unwillingness to admit being wrong.

But without that force to reflexively push against, he can finally have the room to come to the conclusion himself. And Jesus, I think, is going to be the person to push him to that conclusion, one way or another.

[merakiui]

You know what I liked most about Azul from your most recent thought? It’s that he’s portrayed with such confidence, such pomposity, you never think twice that he’s rigging everything from the beginning. For roughly 90% of the fic, he’s in so kick control and that’s terrifying.

From that very first interaction at the start, to that stupid bet in the library, Azul has got all the cards in hand. Even if you think there’s a rift between the two of you, no you don’t. He knows how to mix and match vulnerability with strategy and my gosh, it is a sight to behold.

Pathetic Azul is great and all, but one whose mostly in control and will pretend to concede it… I’m thirsty for more.

I do have one thought, though. If darling ever broached the idea of having a beneficial relationship with the twins, would he ever considered it? Darling thought about it once… and I’m pretty sure the twins would love to have fun once in a while.

All in all, wonderful work! It was well worth the wait and in time for the holidays, too.

That’s what is so fun and scary about Azul! He’s a very talented actor and he’s so good at what he does! From the very beginning, you were going to lose. It was only a matter of time. Two months was simply the challenge Azul set for himself in hopes that he’d be able to get you to break the contract terms within those parameters. He knows just what cards to play and when for the most effective outcome. You may think you hold all of this power over him when he whimpers and whines and acts oh-so-pathetic, but the truth is that he’s been in control of the entire situation since the start. He simply directs it on a path befitting his plans.

Azul has had plenty of time to consider a foolproof scheme. He knows exactly what he’s doing when he acts a certain way or says a specific thing. You’re too busy trying to work out what this scheme of his may be, but when he shows you sides of himself that appear genuine (and sometimes are) or vulnerable it chips away at your suspicion. And by doing that, Azul’s able to properly manipulate you to fit in the situation he’s orchestrated.

His overconfidence is what makes him so annoying (and very fun to write) because that sort of ego can quickly get under someone’s skin. While it may make you wary, any sort of suspicion you may harbor quickly vanishes when he goes on about his impeccable memory or observation skills because bragging is more irritating than it is dubious. You’ll forget any hesitations you may have had towards him as things progress because you’ll think you’re getting to know the real Azul, but the real Azul has so many facets—each a card he chooses to play when he thinks the moment is right.

What you think is a whirlwind romance is simply a byproduct of some very potent magic, but you’ll never know that because he’s so charming and sweet. Because he claims to love you (which he does. very much!!), and you’re simply blinded by the results of a potion, unable to truly see his dangers due to the innocent, flowery love you think you share with him. Azul has been cheating the moment he laid eyes on you. He’s assessed who you are as a person, the threats you may pose to him, your strengths and weaknesses, and he’s thought of plenty of ways to manage all of this information so that he can finally have you all to himself. You could never beat him at his game because it’s a game that was set in motion way before you even knew you were a player in it.

As for your question about a beneficial relationship with the twins, I don’t think Azul would be willing to share. He’s been so greedy with you and your time, so he doesn’t want to give any of that up! But a fwb relationship with the twins is something I really want to explore because there are so many interesting dynamics that can be portrayed. Also, a shameless part of me just wants to write eel smut. orz Azul really held back in the recent story, but the tweels would be ruthless in the best of ways.

[dokidokitsuna]

Working on Magical Friends: Doki’s animation “pipeline”

…Since this is still an incredibly basic 1.5-man operation, it’s not much of a pipeline. ^^; But I wanted to put together a little thing to show the public how I do what I do, and if this sounds doable or interesting to you, I’m always on the lookout for more volunteers! dokianimara@gmail.com is my official ‘art business’ email, just FYI~

So let’s start by taking a look at this GIF preview of a finished scene:

I chose this sequence because it’s probably the longest and most complex one I’ve done so far. The character rotates, the scene pans up, I got some spinny light effects in there, lots of weird stuff I’ve never done before. (●u●;;) But it came out alright in the end, so let’s examine it.

So before I start thinking about animating, I refer to the work of my storyboard volunteer, Greytan. They actually gave me just one simple shot:

Which I extrapolated into…what I did. ^^; I don’t mean to ‘ignore’ their boards, and I hope they don’t feel slighted when I do things like this, it’s just that they are genuinely a much more skilled and more professional animator than I am, and our brains just don’t work the same way so sometimes I have to diverge a bit. :P Or, y’know, sometimes I come up with a great idea of my own that I really wanna try, which is probably what happened here.

Anyway, my first step after looking at boards is to grab a pencil and paper and draw the shot: a picture that lays out what the scene will look like, with either the starting frame or a key frame, and the background included. As you can see, I doodled some of my ideas for how the sequence would progress, which is good, because after drawing this I wouldn’t return to this shot for like 6 weeks. ^^;

When I finally did get back to it, I grabbed a second piece of paper for Step 2, which is the actual ‘animation’: using the shot as a base to draw the rest of the frames that will go into the sequence. This is where my lightbox comes in handy, although usually I can see through the paper well enough to just draw wherever. ^^ [Fun fact: in my early days, I would just scan the original shot, erase it, and replace it with the next frame, drawing each new frame on the exact same piece of paper. I am…very glad I don’t do this anymore]

Now, animation is mostly guesswork for me. ^^ I mean, my guesses are pretty good, but they’re still guesses, which is why I call myself an amateur. It’s not me downplaying my skills, it’s just me admitting that they aren’t based on solid expertise or experience (yet).

When I animate a shot, I try to make sure each frame looks like it has movement in it all by itself. Gesture drawing, dynamic posing; those are things I’m already good at, so when I animate I make ‘em work hard for me. >:3c

The end result comes out looking kind of like a sprite sheet:

And I do use these drawings kind of like assets; Step 3 is to scan them (along with the initial shot) and use them to ‘construct’ the frames that go into the video editor. This is the step that takes the longest, where I clean up the sketches and color them and paint the backgrounds (separately, if necessary). It’s not as difficult as Steps 1 and 2, but it’s a lot more tedious.

So naturally, sometimes I like to make sure my sprites actually work before I start all that…work. ^^ So I throw together a test animation based on what I have:

And this did help-- it assured me that the first half with Mago would probably look fine, although the second half with the magic light-thing probably needed to have a cleaner sense of direction and more frantic movement as it ascended. When you’re working with a low frame-rate, you generally want things to move a LOT or hardly at all; you don’t want any of that in-between stuff. So I took that into account when preparing the “finished” product. I put “finished” in quotes because I’ll probably adjust the timing of the frames a little when I move to the video editor (Step 4, which I’m not going to talk about here). But yeah, that’s pretty much it. ^^

Generally when I think about adding artists to the team, I’m thinking about them doing Step 1, Step 2, Steps 1 and 2, or Steps 1-3 (so basically, completing a full sequence of frames that I can just add in). For me to hand sketches to someone and expect them to do Step 3 alone would require a level of trust that I’ve never had in any fellow artist before…but idk, anything can happen in the future. ^^;

[bvannn]

Weekly update June 14 2024

I was extremely busy this week and I’m extremely tired tonight. I got a bunch of life things tidied up but didn’t do as much as I would’ve liked but still got some stuff done.

Artfight prep is the main thing, Josh’s thumbnail is done and his refsheet is also almost done, Romeo’s thumbnail is also almost done. I was going to finish it tonight but I’m very tired. Maybe after I eat and shower I might get a burst of energy and finish it up but seems unlikely. Now that I’ve figured out the trick to overcoming adobe’s shitty drawing tools I’m making good stride on animation stuff, and while the OEB video is not a high priority at all right now, I’m looking forward to how it’ll look. Fwiw the puppet I’m building for that is going pretty well as a low priority task, and building it was much faster than what it used to be so I’m pretty sure the animation itself will also go a lot quicker. Again no progress made on that this week, though.

Music: I’m learning a bunch of new mixing and sound balancing strategies and I’m hoping tomorrow I’ll have the energy to unleash them all. I’m going to re-mix OEB for sure, already redid instruments and set up instrument channels. Also hoping tomorrow will put me in enough of a music kick to finish up the other projects I’ve been sitting on. Everything I’m sitting on could use the new plugin chain, plus BMBO has lyrics done and needs a VPR, WOTW could use some VPR tweaking, RR also has finished lyrics now so I can get going on it’s instruments and VPR (and also pick out what voice to use), plus the ambient quickie could needs a melody recorded plus mixing, the pop quickie needs that too and lyrics, BATB lyrics are close to done but I keep procrastinating, the SOS medley needs some more instrument selections plus mixing, and a couple other miscellaneous songs, there’s a lot. I’m hoping I can get to bed early today and just unload on a bunch of those tomorrow, so I think I’ll try.

Other news: that AC game I’ve been on and off writing: finally sat down and started like, actual coherent notes. This is a good step because I do want to turn it into a prewritten module for other people to run. Main thing I did this week in the way of that was a proper description of the setting, to help character creation. Any of these other times I’m too tired to do anything I’ll try to pour into that, which should in turn motivate me to get visual stuff for that done too. I have done a few character tokens that haven’t been posted because again, I’d like the module to be free and any extras to be paid, rather than the whole thing being paid.

Comic: it’s going, albeit slowly. This whole week at work I tried to sketch out stuff while I was working, but for whatever reason the comic wasn’t cooperating. Probably because the poses and layouts are more dynamic than my splash art, so drawing them with a pen doesn’t really work out well. Once I import and fix the panels I did sketch, the comic will be around 24% done. I will attempt to smuggle in pencils next week, in order to get more done. Like all things considered being able to sketch while at work is definitely a help for my confidence in my projects, and I hope to continue it wherever I can.

Plan for next week is: tonight I go to bed early, tomorrow I go buckwild on music and get a bunch of stuff finished up, maybe finish up Romeo’s AF thumbnail or get the assets for someone else’s done. Sunday, I’ll try to finish up Josh’s AF ref and redo Romeo’s, and get as many assets for the other AF thumbnails done as I can. Monday at work I’ll try to sneak in a pencil, and I’ll get more comic sketching or OEB storyboards done, then Monday night I’ll continue making and/or animating those AF thumbnails. I’ll continue sketches at work where I can and animations during lunch as best I can, Tuesday night I’m introducing another friend to epithet erased, so good chance I’ll get writing for TTRPG done that night too, Wednesday night have a pathfinder game so I should be able to get some digital art done during that, more AF thumbnail assets or maybe comic work, and the rest of the week I should be able to continue sketches at work, and digital stuff in the evening. I might swap out some of that digital drawing with more music if I have the energy but at the moment seems unlikely. I’m getting stuff done, but tonight I’m taking a rest. I’ll try to post something tomorrow, worst case it’ll be a WIP, but really hoping I’ll have something good! Thanks again to everyone for being patient with me!

[beneficialfondue]

Gotham Knights Review! (No Major Spoilers)

Okay, so this game is AMAZING!!! The story is incredible. The characterizations are perfect! This is the Batfamily dynamic I've been waiting for! Minus the Webtoon Batman: Wayne Family Adventures, Gotham Knights is the only story we've seen the Batfamily actually act like a family. The comics these days are so dark and I'm not saying they're bad, but it gets old having terrible thing after terrible thing happen and all of the characters are sad and broody and fight. The thing with Gotham Knights is that the characters feel 3D. They feel real in a way they don't a lot of times in the comics and I've never seen a Batman video game like this either. And it isn't like they're all running around smiling and happy all the time. That wouldn't feel real either. They're all mourning Bruce in their own way, but the beautiful thing in this game is that they lean on each other. They interact like siblings and Alfred is their Grandfather figure. I love the emails you can read for each character, it makes them feel even more alive. It's also fun to see the small cameos from other DC characters like Superman, Roy Harper, and Wonderwoman.

One of my favorite things in the game, and it seems small but feels so big to those of us in the queer community, is the support Tim receives from his family. For those who don't know, Time Drake is bisexual and in the game, there are lots of nods to this. There is a Bludhaven mug with Bi Pride colors. There is a rainbow flag hanging on a wall in the loft. Tim is embraced and loved and supported. The game developers could have ignored this. They could have never mentioned it, but they instead chose to add it. This fact doesn't affect the game. It's not even brought up much, but it's there and that's wonderful. The point is he's Bi and he's still Robin. His sexuality is only a part of who he is, but an important part and the game devs didn't forget that.

Jason's still angry. Tim is still a nerdy kid. Dick is punny and does acrobatics. Babs is smart and kickass. The games still let them be the characters we know, just with a new spin. It's wonderful. The Found Family vibes are strong with this one!

Now, the gameplay. It's good but there are still a lot of glitches. Small things usually that don't usually affect progression. Jason's hoodie strings, for example, just do whatever they want. It's funny but distracting. I really like the graphics, I know some people have some issues with them but I don't. I will say that after you've been playing a while, especially after you finish the game, the crimes around Gotham start repeating. It's just the same mission over and over again which can get a tad boring. I love the Batcycle and the different Momentum Abilities! Those are super fun and make fights interesting! I also love the customization options for suits! Dear Lord did I have so much fun playing around with colors and cowls, etc. Which leads me to another feature I LOVE! Photo Mode!

Photo Mode has so many options to take the best screenshots. From lighting to posing your heroes. They have different filters and frames. You can change contrast or brightness. Even your hero's facial expression! And with all the different suits and the ability to roam around Gotham, it sets up nicely for fun photo shoots! (This is also a helpful way to look at the pictures around the Belfry, they can be hard to see but if you switch to Photo Mode you can zoom in.)

This is officially my favorite video game hands down. I have to dock 1 point for the repetitiveness and glitches but my final score for Gotham Knights:

9/10!!!

[omorimodreverie]

August Development Update

Overview

August started out similarly to the last couple months, with progress being on the slow side and contributions being made in base asset development. However, progress began ramping up towards the end of the month, and we’re now at a place where we’re making some decent progress towards a test build. We’re only just beginning, of course; and it’ll still take a lot of time before anything is ready for the playtesters. But still, progress is progress.

This month is an important milestone in that we finally started to implement the assets we have into the RPGMV engine. At this point in time, we now have the beginnings of a playable city in the works, and we hope to refine it into a state where we can give you some sneak peeks sometime soon. All I can say for now is that I’m personally very excited with how the city looks, even now at this primitive stage: I can’t wait for you all to see it.

Progress

As mentioned previously, the most noteworthy progress made in August was that our base assets are being implemented into RPGmaker. However, this in no way means that other areas of development weren’t touched upon: in fact, quite the opposite. Everything we’ve worked on during the past month includes, but is not limited to:

With a few exceptions, maps for the city that will be shown in chapter 3 has been implemented into RPGmaker

Basic map events have been put in place that allow map movement, door accessibility, functioning stairs and elevators, etc

A number of cutscenes, as well as NPCs, have been mostly implemented into the game and fleshed out

A number of additional pixel artwork for NPCs and map objects were completed and added into spritesheets

Organization for various songs and the music department in general has seen significant progress

Progress was made on the writing for cutscenes and various flavor text/NPC dialogue

The game files in general were reorganized, as well as optimized

What’s In Plan For The City

Going into development for chapter 3, a very important and rather difficult challenge was posed to us in the form of the chapter’s playable area, the real world city. Of the two areas we worked on so far, Fallen World was based off of a preexisting area in the base game, and therefore much easier to develop; and the Neural Network, while original, was still a part of dreamworld, allowing us to conceptualize much of it based on our major interpretations of headspace.

The city is different in that this is a place entirely separate from Sunny’s imagination or even Faraway Town. This means that we have virtually nothing from the base game to draw inspiration from, and have to build it from the ground up almost completely by ourselves. This is partially the reason why chapter 3 is taking so long to complete: from a development perspective, we’re having to blaze our own trails. For a team of voluntary, part-time, amateurs, this has proven to be somewhat of a hurdle.

Our main goal with the city was to make an area that felt ‘dynamic’: basically, for it to feel like a real city. Faraway Town in base OMORI is a tiny suburban community: to that end, the buildings are sparse and short, with identical houses lining the streets. Combined with a general lack of large-scale activity and mostly static NPCs, it gives off an atmosphere of relative sleepiness, an aura of quiet. We wanted our city to provide a sharp contrast to Faraway in this aspect: we wanted it to be rambunctious, packed, and bustling.

Creating a ‘Dynamic’ City

So what makes a city ‘dynamic’? During the course of the last few months, we’ve been able to come up with a map of the city that’s filled with tall buildings tightly nestled together, in the backdrop of a tightly urbanized network of uniformly gray streets and sidewalks. All this combines to create an impression of crowdedness: however, it still falls short of being ‘dynamic’. That’s because the map itself is one half of a whole, the other half being the map’s inhabitants, NPCs.

Even with the most packed and busy city of all time, it doesn’t exhibit any life until actual people are living in it. And this is our real challenge surrounding the creation of this city: to populate the map we have with NPCs that can successfully convey the impression of bustling, busy and lively city people. There’s a few methods we can use to achieve this, such as:

Power in numbers: simply have many, many NPCs in the city

Passage of time: as the time of day changes, have NPCs move from place to place, with different NPCs being present at different times and etc

Literal movement: have NPCs literally move around, such as walking through the streets, wander through a shop, etc

While all three methods are important, and they’ll all be used for the creation of chapter 3, the third and last method of allowing NPCs to literally move around is arguably the most important. This is because NPCs moving around with the player are the most visually distinct: a room where everyone but the player stands around doing nothing is static as soon as the player stops moving, but a room where an NPC goes around doing something always has something going on, looking much more lively.

Take a look at this shot of the cafe, for instance. The player is mostly standing still, but two NPCs (the brunette waitress and the blonde waiter) are constantly in action: cleaning tables, washing dishes, entering and exiting doors, etc. This, combined with the map of the cafe itself and the patron NPCs sitting on the chairs, is what creates a ‘dynamic’ atmosphere.

While we’re just getting started with the NPCs, we want to eventually finish the entire map out that radiates the feeling of being ‘dynamic’, as described above. We’ll be putting up periodic updates on how we’re doing on that front with the dev updates in the future, so please stay tuned.

End of Summer Break?

It’s September now, and everyone’s summer breaks have mostly come to a close. For our team, this year’s summer break period was characterized by a time of generally slow progress. Now that it’s over, things have indeed started to speed up: while early August still had little activity, things gradually picked up as the month progressed. The last week of the month marked the zenith of this growth, with considerable progress being made in all sectors.

Still, it would be rather naive to think that this fast progress will continue on for the rest of the semester. Midterms are still very much a thing, and right now is just a short period between summer break and exam period. Still, we want to use the opportunity we have right now as efficiently as possible.

September looks to be a promising month in terms of progress. We won’t take that for granted, though. We’ll see you next month, with hopefully lots of news. Thanks for reading this far, and thanks as always for your interest in Reverie!