#but i'll also make a flowchart this time

[mishkakagehishka]

I want you all to know that i have no idea what hnk the manga stands for so every time you put it on my dash i read it as hrvatsko narodno kazalište (croatian national theatre)

[smile-files]

the best part about making a flowchart for philosophy class is that i get to look like a conspiracy theorist and have a grade put on how insane i am

[steamberrystudio]

29/09/2024 Devlog

Hallo everyone!  Tumblr devlog time. This one is a little short because even though there's a lot that's happened there's not too much detail I can go into so it's mostly just kind of an overview. But here it is.

Summary:

Finished Asher Test play

Finished Asher's CG

Finished Daaz's CG

Mini-alpha testing

Made a lot of corrections

Mini-beta testing

Made a lot of corrections

Released Episode 1 beta to Patreon (Black Tea tier)

Made even more corrections!

Some additional artwork

Technically started working on Episode 2 coding stuff.

Writing/Playtesting:

I finally...*finally* finished my play test of the game (mind you, this play test was of all 630,000 words).

Once I finished my test, I gave a friend access to the game as sort of a mini alpha-test. After making a lot of corrections at that stage, I gave beta access for Episode 1 to another friend who uncovered a major issue with the flowcharts.

But that is also fixed now. And after even more corrections, I released the beta build to Patreon members at the Black Tea tier. 

And have sense made more corrections but haven't uncovered any more huge bugs.

Art:

Got Asher's CG finished and Daaz's CG finished. I also did some other miscellaneous art that is now squared away for the first Episode.

Like a background cut in and a couple of other really small art-related things.

Upcoming Weeks:

Continue to make corrections and, when reports of typos slow down, I will release Episode 1 to the Patreon tiers that have early access.

Public release is currently looking to be in November, most likely.

In the mean time I have been doing some of the preliminary coding set up for Episode 2 (Chapter 3 and 4).

I've also been making lists of new assets I'll need, or marking off where CGs will go in the next chapters, etc.

Anyway, that is all for now. I will see you in two weeks or so!

[ghostinthegallery]

As a transformers fan I love robots who have divorce drama stretching millions of years but also have a body count in the trillions. Thus it has taken little convincing but I think I shall investigate these undead robots.

In the event of my death I'm Telling. This is your fault. How do I start wading into this mess bc my only encounter with Warhammer was when a very drunk frat guy tried to explain the horus heresy at a party.

Well you are in for a treat then! Robots with marriage/divorce drama, severe mental health issues, and body counts best measured on a planetary scale are our specialty in Chez Necron.

If you want a setting overview before you dive in, Bricky's two part series going over all the factions is quite solid. Long, but hey this has been around since the 80s. (no drunken Horus Heresy rambles*)

First, watch this clip of Trazyn the Infinite, as an amuse bouche before your meal.

As for books, there are two main places I'd start for necrons:

The Infinite and the Divine- the classic starting point for necrons (and 40k in general). Trazyn the Infinite, lord of the Prismatic Galleries, battles against Orikan the Diviner, master chronomancer and prophet. Clash of godlike beings over...what amounts to a magic Rubik's Cube. It's so petty. This fight spans epochs, multiple wars, and one legal case. There's no heterosexual explanation for their dynamic. Also this book has dinosaurs. Some of whom carry shuriken canons.

Now, this book has a ton of 40k stuff. Most major factions make an appearance so there's a very good chance there will be words/things that a new person is unfamiliar with. If that doesn't bother you, awesome! Proceed. Ask me things, I'll explain that an aeldar is just a space elf or whatever. Or watch a lore vid beforehand. However if that is a turn off I'd recommend starting with...

Severed- Novella, so shorter which is nice. Do you like angst? The horrors of immortality? Lord/knight love story? One very silly guy? Then meet Zahndrekh and his loyal bodyguard Obyron as they set out to conquer a planet where the necrons are...wrong. Complicating factors include Obyron's crippling depression, Zahndrekh's asshole ex, and the fact Zahndrekh is insane and believes them all to still be the creatures of flesh and blood they were before a bunch of star gods ate their souls and turned them into robots. Prepare to cry.

After those, I cannot recommend the Twice Dead King duology highly enough. Oltyx, an exiled prince attempts to save his dynasty from destruction while battling his own creeping madness. He's got an adorable crush on his hot best friend. The voices in his head were put there on purpose so its fine. Well most of them were. Everything is fine. I didn't cry multiple times reading these...

Then refer to my reading guide for the good short stories and boom! The wonderful world of gay undead space robots is open before you.

I accept full responsibilities for my actions. If you die I promise to say mostly nice things at your funeral.

*mini rant, but I honestly think the Horus Heresy is one of the worst ways to introduce someone to the 40k world. It's a series with like 70 books! Many of them are bad! You need a flowchart to keep track of the timeline! I know there's some good books and characters, power to all who love the HH, but it is not newbie friendly! Also it only has humans which robs you of some of the best parts of the setting (like...y'know. Necrons). Ease people in, then they can make an informed decision about tackling the mountain of buff space men with daddy issues shooting each other.

[megumi-fm]

26th to 30th Apr; doa🚲 complete!!

hi. gah. okay. here's my wrap up for the month

📝 prepped for and completed the last set of internal tests for this degree [2/2] (which I got through after much cribbing and whining and quite literally projecting study topics onto my blorbos 👍 ) 📝 started GRE prep!

🎓 got some gradecard related paperwork done 🎓 spoke to my prof regarding my internship deliverables for uni—report format, certificate requirements, etc etc

📥 I voted! it was the first central elections since I turned to an adult and the whole experience was quite interesting

💻 completed a bunch of tasks for my internship

💻 made like a super extensive flowchart about all the work done at my internship which took me like a total of 20+ hours T-T 💻 finished preparing my Uni Internship presentation! 💻 submitted the presentation to the assistant guide, waiting on her response to make changes atm

🍶 7+ glasses of daily water intake 🎵 svt's new single is out and I've been going insane about it and thus this challenge comes to an end... I had started this off as an 18day daily habit tracker but then it kind of grew out into a challenge for the month. Special thanks to Yumi the loml <3 (@thelastneuron) for starting the Days of April challenge (Yumi idk when you'll see this but i miss you and I hope you've been kicking ass during your hiatus). also massive thanks to Zip (@zipstidbits) for leaving the kindest comments/tags on my post during the past week and to Tanishka (@booksbluegurl) who is literally the sweetest and has been sending in asks and keeping me company during this challenge <3

there's a lot more i wanna yap about in regards to how the month went but I'll leave that under the tags xD goodnight besties <3

month end brainrot

april started off with dips and more dips but by the end of the month it feels like I've caught up. productivity is a wave so as long as I keep riding at it i'll be okay.

also. progress is cumulative. even the seemingly inconsequential completion of daily tasks has lead to an overall improvement through the week. things add up

I spent a lot of time this month (and moreso this past week) feeling dejected that I've been leaving my tracker posts (and my digital planner entries) incomplete... but like. the whole point of trackers and planners (and this studyblr) is to get work done. work is the priority and the tracking is a means to an end. so if im getting work done that is already a win. yeah... i've had to keep reminding myself that

there is no one-tool-fix for tracking and journalling. what works for planning out one task will not work for the other. I need to strop trying to fit all my plans into one formulaic strategy box

on that note. it's time to return to handwritten journaling. digital journalling (notion + YPT + discord + tumblr) was fun while it lasted <3 but my brain needs novelty again so it's time i switch back. I think I finally have an idea for a system that could be sustainable for me... although I say that every time I switch to a new form of tracking. but hey. as long as it helps me get work done for whatever duration of time, it's good enough

using kpop and kdrama references to make notes and study really paid off. ngl I only did it cause I was super desperate but incorporating stuff I couldn't understand with a topic I really like paid off. It also gave me the motivation and momentum to study for much longer than I otherwise would have

last but not least. my water intake has been really good this month! I've also been eating healthy and I've been cooking more my phone usage has also been reduced by a lot. sure none of them have had a perfect streak but i started at zero and it feels like I've levelled up quite a bit. the exercise component has been a bit difficult to maintain given my workload :/ i need to figure out what to do about that...

yep. that's it for now. this month really tired me out, I think im gonna lay off daily challenges for a while. For now I guess I'll stick to my (bi?tri?)weekly tracker posts xD

[hypersomniagame]

HYPERSOMNIA JULY DEV LOG : “LIKE MOTHER LIKE SON”

Yeah baby, none of that "If you're new here" stuff anymore! This is dev log #6! If you're new here read anyways, because if you're reading this you probably know what HYPERSOMNIA is. If not though, then welcome! Let me show you what I've been working on this month!

BUT BEFORE THAT!

If you didn't know, the MOTHER DIRECT is TOMORROW! (Which is why I'm writing this on Friday instead of Saturday)

HYPERSOMNIA will be there! We released a trailer teaser that you can watch right now, and the full trailer will be a part of the direct premiering at 6PM ET!

If you are a content creator, I ask as an indie developer to please talk about the indies and don't just skip over them. I'm not asking this because I want you to talk about my game, but just please talk about the indies because they deserve your attention. Just because you're not familiar with these games doesn't mean they're not worth looking into. If theres an indie game in this direct or in general that catches your attention please talk about it, because it's incredibly valuable to people trying to find an audience.

TALK ABOUT INDIES!

Now, back to your regularly scheduled indie games:

So, what have you been up to Ferris? I'll show ya!

First off, I've been working on designing enemies for the demo! Now I've realized over the last month that I am really really weak at designing common enemies. Trying to avoid RPG tropes and weak/overused ideas and jokes is tough because it means I can't really bullshit like 50 enemies and call it a day, each enemy takes a long time and needs a strong idea, sometimes it'll take me multiple days to come up with good ideas!

I came up with these two recently, and I think they're good examples of my thought process for designing enemies.

HYPERSOMNIA's enemies revolve around a paranormal theme. It's an aspect of the first MOTHER that I missed in MOTHER 2 and 3, which inspired HYPERSOMNIA to lean into it so much.

I try to also keep some sense of comedy in my designs, HYPERSOMNIA has paranormal aspects and it has serious moments, but I try not to mix the two with common enemies because I just don't think it'd make a very interesting enemy roster. Could you imagine an EarthBound inspired game with enemies like actual demons from hell or serial killers? It's something I would've written in 7th grade, like the most basic bait-and-switch you could ever see from any media.

I also put together a flowchart while talking with my partner about enemy designs, they weren't exactly on the same page as me while thinking of ideas so I made this to illustrate my thought process for an idea.

It really helps me narrow ideas that I think would work for the game. It isn't exact, so don't look at it like some sort of design bible, but it's more a general guideline.

I also got around to spriting that cow enemy. My friend suggested the name Moo-F-O which I liked better than the names I was thinking of.

I'll probably get around to spriting that TV enemy after I finish writing.

As the next "Thing I Did This Month", you may have noticed that Katz's coat is a different color!

I made this change while redoing her sprites. I was dissatisfied with how her black coat blends into the game's brown outlines so I decided on giving her a brown coat instead. It also helps her stand out a bit against Iggy, who also has a black coat.

I've also recently been working on some concept art, I've talked before about how I don't like Ross' special attack sprite, so I've been trying to come up with a better pose

I tried hard to make that pose he has in the original work because I think it looks cool but I just found that the pose on the right was easier for me to draw.

I've also been thinking of giving Debra a new starter weapon, initially she had a pan but I figured I should find something else for her, I don't like how similar it is to Ana and Paula from MOTHER. I'm still on the fence about it, so if I don't write about her having a new weapon next month then I'm still thinking about it.

And other then that, that's all I've really done this month! It's not much but I feel its more interesting then the last few months. I've had a lot going on in my life, and early in august I'll be moving out. Hopefully I'll be able to settle quick, because for August I'll probably mostly be taking a break.

I usually do take a break after a trailer comes out, so you'll definitely hear from me next month but we'll see if I have things to talk about. Until next time! And don't forget to watch the MOTHER DIRECT, live at 6pm ET!

If this is your first log you’re reading, or even your first time seeing ANYTHING relating to HYPERSOMNIA, I got a whole bunch of links for you to check out if you wanna know more about me and my stupid little game.

TWITTER

YOUTUBE

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UNIQUE INDIE RPG’S [SHOW US YOUR GAME!]

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[miyakuli]

PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo

Game of Stones

Paranormasight is a half-horrific, half-thriller visual novel (I'll come back to this later) in which we follow several characters who find themselves involved in paranormal events caused by curse stones that are said to be able to bring dead people back to life. I really enjoyed the game as a whole, but I have to say that I found it very inconsistent in the way it unfolded.

❤ The game is very pretty. The chara-design is really well done and perfectly matches the characters' personalities, the semi-realistic backgrounds (based on real locations and redrawn on top of them) are superb and have a vintage feel to remind us that we're in the 80s, and the animations are quite often effective at giving you chills. ❤ The characters are the game's greatest strength. None of them are smooth, they all have their dark side and convincing motivations, some are certainly more complex than others, but each has an interesting evolution. And as much as they work well individually, their interactions with each other are also nice. You become attached to this group and find yourself excited when their paths merge (at least, I was rejoicing a little xD) ❤ As soon as you enter the game's menu, you realize that the soundtrack is going to be amazing. The themes are varied in style and mood, and contribute effectively to the dynamics of the scenes. ❤ There's a non-linear aspect to the plot, since we'll be following several character paths at the same time (represented by a flowchart), which will often overlap. As a result, you won't be able to unlock certain scenes without having fulfilled specific conditions in other routes. This gives the game a pleasant and original puzzle aspect.

+/- In fact, we often have to glance at the menu files containing all the historical information as well as the character profiles to help us move forward and understand the underlying plot, which makes the player an active part of the investigation. The story evolves in a coherent manner, buuuuuuuuut is a bit predictable when it comes to big revelations... +/- Some very good directional ideas, for example using the 360-degree rotation of the mouse to create some very scary moments (with jumpscares that really got me) or even playing on a rather surprising meta aspect…….but it all runs out of steam very quickly. Indeed, all these mechanics are concentrated mainly in the prologue (which is rather long, it has to be said), after which we find ourselves in a more conventional thriller with more "banal" scenes with no real gameplay apart from the choice of dialogues and exploration. This gives an impression of inconsistency in the evolution of the game, and makes the loss of that initial momentum almost bland. However, there are still a few good ideas here and there (such as an escape game phase), but I don't think they live up to this introduction. +/- The game asks the player to adjust the volume of the voices at the start….but the game is not dubbed xD actually, the option has its importance later in the story but I swear it gave me false hope at the time x')

✖ No skip option for dialogues already read, which quickly becomes annoying when you want to unlock the various endings. ✖ It's amazing how rushed the true end is! It's to the point where it didn't make any impression on me at all, and the final revelations fall flat. And I still come back to this feeling of inconsistency; we have an intro that is terrific for an ending that is anticlimactic (and it rhymes). ✖ Some of the characters sometimes make rather humorous faces that don't really fit in with the drama of the sequences at times; I didn't understand this choice…

If you're looking for a visual novel with a solid storyline and a charismatic cast of characters, you certainly won't get bored with this title. However, don't expect a purely horrific game, given the rather blatant change of tone and the more basic mechanics after the introduction. Why this choice? That's the real mystery of this game…

➡ My personal VN ranking (in french) ➡ My Steam page

[ladyelizabethraven]

Spy x family chapter 74 initial thoughts:

Well, for those who are looking for Yor....there she is! Had the hijacking issue been resolved by afternoon and not midnight, we would not be able to see her. But Endo said :"Where's the fun in that?". But still, it's wise that she just didn't buy Eden's BS reason and called her coworker to check.

This may be a Set up for the next arc. Which, if I can still hazard a guess, is a Yor-centric arc.

I wonder how this will affect Yor's character? By the end of the Ocean Cruise Arc, her reason for taking up the blade is to protect those she cherished most. Now, two of the most important people in her life were somewhat endangered in this situation : Anya and Yuri. While of course Yuri got shot in the line of duty, it's not that he can actually say that outright and instead may make up some BS excuse on how he got shot (stray bullet while walking home from work?). Either way, this will most probably make Yor question her ability to actually protect her loved ones.

This may go two ways : 1) Yor seeks the Shopkeeper for answers. I don't think she'll outright question the Garden yet because of her father - daughter like relationship with the Shopkeeper. But she may want to know if how come some loose ends with the Red Circus came to be. 2) She seeks solace with her new friends, the Lady Patriots. It's also a good way to see how Melinda Desmond reacts to the whole hijacking incident.

Anya really has put all her skill points in Wisdom - Charisma - Luck 😂.

But her first reaction after approaching her abductors is "I should've thought what to say before jumping in" is not only hilarious, but also contrasts her to the father Loid/Twilight who forms avenues of conversation flowcharts before jumping in.

The whole conversation of Anya and Billy looks like Anya picking up the most nonsensical line in the conversation wheel but because she passes all her skill checks, her audience misconstructs her words into something else but meaningful.

I don't really know if Anya meant all of those words or just parroting the stuff she heard beforehand + picking up the stuff she mind reads from Billy's head and then saying the things he wanted to hear. But I do hope that she this will someday form her character later on.

Billy finally came to his senses, thank god. But it's still sad to see how far did this military man had fallen to in his grief. He may have surrendered, but I don't think the SSS is going to give him clemency.

WHOOOHOO! Martha to the rescue! So it seems that time that tazers are still not yet around in the market but still a new prototype model from Blackbell industries.

Becky is really Anya's ride-or-die friend.

Bonus points for Master Henderson also for trying to protect Anya and even shielding her from the line of fire. I hope that he personally awards her the Stella.

Loid is still nowhere to be found. I guess Endo is really benching our main man for world building purposes... But still it's nice to see how WISE is going to handle this incident.

Yup, that's all for now. I'll be back afterwards Re reading the chapter lol.

[matthewmoorwood]

Currently compiling all of my personal headcanons for Vulcans in campfire so I can try to keep my fic stuff consistent and hrrgasdg I loveeeeee worldbuilding. Is any of this #realscience? nope. Is it still cool as fuck? Yep.

I'm not saying that biology is a special interest of mine, but I am saying that I did in fact make a flowchart of how I think Vulcans evolved into being humaoids from ocean bugs. Spoiler its by using desert cats as the mammal instead of apes. totally not because Vulcans are catboys or anything

I've even made separate evolutionary adaptations depending on what part of the supercontinent the Vulcans are from, like there are polar ice caps and so I've made flora and fauna that are kind of consistent with earth arctic stuff but also different and weird to accommodate for the desert conditions. (Yes ice is still classed as desert)

idk in my head Vulcans had a muchhh longer time period of being upright brain kinda work beings than we did because the climate was so harsh that evolution couldn't be as rapid + the whole fighting each other to death bit

Also those motherfuckers have tattoos and piercings and other illogical body mods, you're telling me that those pre-surak bitches wrote the most kick ass poetry and wouldn't?? ink themselves up with it?? yeah sure bud. Also sooo much socitial emphasis on jewelery and having either tattoo designs and stuff passed down through generations like taonga.

The level of drip Vulcans have is already illogical, idk I just think that most Vulcans who go offworld are taught to censor their cultural aspects in order to be less 'offensive' (appeal to space racists) but that the majority of regular ass Vuclans continue to practice their culture as their Surak given right.

Bc Uhura is my bbg and she's in all my tos fic (duh) I've also made some preliminarily language stuff (no dictionaries or anything) on potential communication things for the different regions depending on their available resources. e.g sign languages that require touching another person for dust storms/ blizzards.

'Cause of my physically disabled ass is in control here I've also been looking at how a semi-utopia view of accessible architecture could work while also tryna balance out the whole logical eugenics thing, too many cool sci-fi settings have like massive stairs and I'm like. :/ rlly.

When I do my ds9 fic stuff once the tos brainrot has abated I'll probably do a similar thing for Cardassians and Ferengi and Trill and all the other cool little critters.

I just think that Star Trek does WAYYYY to little with the ideas of alien cultures and ends up summeriasing entire planets and believing the same things and generalyl being copies of each other when there is so much diversity? across biomes? let alone galaxies. Semi-related it's like how obvs tos are my blorbos but I really want a new series which is just like "oh yeah this is Mr Brep and she kisses ladies and is also a spy for the Heebie Jeebie goverment and keeps getting into hijinks with her friends who she holds hands with all the time."

most of the time I wish I was normal and liked by my peers but other times, having autism kinda slaps.

[i-am-megalodonna]

Smth I think is funny about Borrowed Time is that Dexter is looking for ways to revive his body, yet unknown to him his body is still technically alive because Moloch is possessing it, so he'd need an exorcist and not a necromancer

Yeah getting Dexter back into his body is a whole mess that I haven't figured out at all, which is funny because it's the logical end point of the story. Then again, I hate writing endings.

From what I know of the lore his body is alive, in some aspects, but it's so fucked up by Moloch that it can hardly be called a human body anymore. If it gets exorcised maybe it'd go back to normal, but it also might not. The question of whether or not his body is even viable for repossession is just all over the place and I need to make a flowchart. Give me like twenty minutes I'll get back to you on that one.

But yeah, he's kind of trying to cast as wide a net as possible in his research because he really doesn't have the foggiest clue what's going on. All he knows is what he saw after his soul got violently transplanted by another, and that was a lot of body horror and then his neck got snapped. So maybe he's dead? But it's also a demon, surely it wouldn't be killed that easily. But who's he to make that assumption, maybe they are. He saw a lot, but he doesn't know what to make of any of it. Writing his perspective will be very interesting because he's working with both a lot of information and very little information because he has absolutely no idea what he's dealing with. He just wanted to catch a rat.

[nagito11s-yttd-stuff]

YTTD 3-2 Prediction

Here's a flowchart for how I imagine 3-2 going. I'll try explain as best I can:

After the banquet, the group heads to the sixth floor with the remaining dummy if they lived pre-banquet. Along the way, the dummy would get charged back. There's no major differences between logic and emotion until a certain obstacle. The obstacle doesn't really matter to this, all that matters is that it can only be bypassed by Shin. Here's where they split for a bit, so I'll talk about each seperately.

Emotion: Haysaka/Kanna try to overcome the obstacle but are unable to. Eventually, the main game begins.

This is where a majority of the mysteries get solved, as well as the death choice. In the main game, the player will get the choice between Keiji or the remaining Yabusame (Gin can get his own sacrifice end, similar to Nao).

Logic: Whilst trying to bypass the obstacle, the player would have to play something like battles in 3-1. Failing the obstacle will send everyone to the main game. Sara is the sacrifice here, allowing the player to basically choose which two to live (the only combination that can't be made is Sage + Commoner). Winning the obstacle will lead the player to a logic exclusive area. It's not too special, mainly a place for the mystery discussion to happen without the danger of the main game. However, this doesn't mean there's no casualties. At the end, for whatever reason, the player has to choose between Keiji and Gin. Not only would this cause the death of one of Sara's closest allies, it would also affect how Shin acts for the rest of 3-2. Saving Keiji will make Shin more resentful and hateful, whereas saving Gin will make Shin more willing to cooperate.

After the discussion, both routes will converge to a similar path. Eventually, the group will end up in a trap. Escaping it will lead the group back on to escape. Conversely, failing it will lead to a different bad outcome depending on the route.

Emotion: Only Sara and Kanna remain, all the others being dead. Led back to the main facility, the two spend time together for a few days before the doll clause goes into effect. The player will probably get a choice between making Kanna a doll or making Sara a doll. This will lead to the Doll Clause End.

Logic (Keiji Route): I'm not too sure how yet, but this will give Shin the opportunity to kill Sara and Keiji. When he takes it, this gives the player the Revenge Game Over.

Logic (Gin Route): They still escape the trap, although Sara stays behind for whatever reason. When Sara sacrifices her life to save Shin and Gin, this gives the player the Martyr Game Over.

Moving on to the route where the player beats the trap, the final mysteries get solved. As a reward, whatever survivors remain are able to defeat Asunaro and finally escape. For simplicity, here's the combinations:

Emotion: Sara, Kanna and [Keiji, Alice or Reko] (+1 dummy if they survived pre-banquet)

Logic: Sara, Shin and [Keiji or Gin] (+1 dummy if they survived pre-banquet)

Hope you enjoyed my speculation. It probably won't be correct but it's fun to imagine.

[steamberrystudio]

13/08/2023 Devlog

Hallo! It is time for the bi-weekly Tumblr update once again

Summary:

Sprite art finished and imported (all sprites are now in the game)

All CG art completed

50% of CGs coded

The Ramble:

So here is the quick ramble for Gilded Shadows.

I finished all the remaining sprite art and got that imported into the game. 

And I finished all the CG art. I have not finished coding the CGs as some of them take a bit longer due to Morgan. So I have a few more of those left to do.

I really did not expect to be finished with the CGs by this point but somehow managed to finish them by the end of Friday without killing my hand.

I've definitely been...uh...feeling it the past couple of days though. Ha ha. 

Fortunately the art is done now so my hand will have plenty of time to rest through beta testing! 

Upcoming Weeks:

Beta testing! 

I have a few more things to wrap up, including coding the rest of the CGs and then Yuu's route will move into the beta testing stage which will last a few weeks; but I'm not sure how long.

So yeah. We're nearly to the final release for Gilded Shadows. 

Even after release, I still have some KS related loose ends to tie up but the game is kind of the main thing to complete and we are nearly there.

=o

Anyway, that's all for now on Gilded Shadows. By next update we should be mid-beta testing and I'll probably be working on some of the KS loose ends while waiting for feedback.

When Stars Collide:

For those following updates on this project:

I have received one new background since last time and a new sketch.

I have also done a fair bit of writing but since this is just my side project I've actually been tracking my word count progress a little less meticulously than usual. I don't know how many words it was at my last update so I don't know how much progress I've made since then. LoL!

I have one more short scene for Yren chapter 5 left but I also worked on the new chapter 3, which I had planned out but not started last time. So it looks like I wrote right at 10,000 words based on how long the scenes I know I wrote are. ����

I also wrote Kav's first actual scene and appearance (well, it's part of the new chapter 3, not a separate scene.)

I've done a few other small things - worked on potentially re-designing the flowchart screens, changed up some character lore for a few characters. Changed a few character name spellings too (there are reasons for this; it wasn't just a whim. LoL)

And a few other minor things.

I also improved my WSC word count spreadsheet.

Keeping a detailed spreadsheet of my progress - including a specific goal system and progress tracker really helps keep me focused so that my forward momentum stays at a steady pace.

I'm not a naturally organised person - in fact, my natural state as a writer is quite chaotic and disorganised. But I have learned during Changeling that chaos does not serve me well in the development process and that I do better if I make myself use organisational tools to stay on track.

I haven't been meticulous with writing spreadsheets for WSC since it has been my side project until now. But as GS wraps up, it will become more of my focus so I want to be sure I have the tools in place to stay focused.

Hence...better spreadsheets. 💪💪

Side note. But did you lens flares are actually required when something is set in space? That is how you know it's sci-fi.

I don't make the rules.

[mikaharuka]

Find the Word Tag - Part 2 of 2

So, a funny little thing happened, and I got tagged for this game by both @sliebman10 and @mrsmungus at almost the same exact time... but not with the same words, so we're going to do this twice!

Also, I'll pass on 10 words this time, and y'all can choose a subset of 5 words (since that is the game standard). I'll include that list in both posts, so I'm not going to double-tag anyone. So... onto Part 2!

Here's Part 1, for the curious - Link

Words for me: wind, count, rise/rose, forward, later Words for you: sky, green, plate, ice, fly, mercy, wave, deny, tall, cage

Tagging (no pressure, of course): @tsunderewatermelon, @udaberriwrites, @oceangirl24, @axolotlsupremacyowo, @kayedium-writes, @lena-hills, @bleepbloopbotz, and as always, am leaving an open tag for anyone who is interested :)

---------- (all excerpts are from Apricity or Prithvi, Chapter 1 of Mahabhuta) ----------

Wind - only four instances total

[Azure Mystique, Ch 11]

Jolted out of his daze by the loud crash of a branch, Beau massaged his contacts into place, then opened his eyes, letting them adjust to the limited azure light filtering through the mostly dark surroundings. Ancient pines towered over him, wind whistled through dried leaves on the forest floor, the hollow bark of fallen branches, and the eerie trees hidden within the deep fog. Yet despite the silent forest and bare earth, the forest was far from dead. Thrumming with life, its air was ripe with the scent of petrichor as a new surge of energy coursed through his body. With the dusk hour underway and night rapidly approaching, Beau needed to return home. Looking around at his surroundings, he quickly recognized the trees.

----------

Count - shockingly, not present! So I went with 'number' instead.

[Sangria Totality, Apricity Ch 13]

“You know how a VN flowchart works, right? You start at the top of the chart, where there's just the one timeline. As you progress through the novel, you make various decisions and the timeline splits off based on the choice you made, and that repeats itself until the end of the game.” “Yeah… because the timeline splits several times, there are multiple endings,” Beau said. “Alice basically sits at the top of the flowchart and can see those potential futures at the bottom, even if she doesn’t know what the exact decisions and branching points are.” “That’s ridiculous! A VN only has one player and a few decision points, but real life has a ton of players and choices! The number of endings… of potential, parallel futures is practically infinite! She can’t possibly see all of them!” Mike exclaimed incredulously. “You’re right. She can’t. The more likely a potential future is to play out, the clearer the vision is. The less likely it is to happen, the hazier it becomes. And if the likelihood goes low enough, she loses the ability to perceive that future at all,” Mina explained. “So she can only perceive futures that meet some minimum probability threshold…” Mike thought aloud.

----------

Rose - This only showed up in two places as a word and not as the name that Mike uses for Rosalie, so... yeah.

[Midnight Freefall, Apricity Ch 14]

“You found out about the ambush as it happened.” “How would that be possible? I was not there myself.” Wait, there was a safer way to navigate this conversation. “Uh… Doc- Carlisle. By any chance, do you have some kind of mark on your person?” “What sort of mark?” Oh yeah, there were also those black marks from earl- huh? Was it just him or did those marks look different somehow? “A multi-color, geometric mark on your skin. In shades of blue, green, and indigo.” The vampire’s eyebrows rose ever so slightly as he crossed his arms and considered Mike more seriously. Several silent moments passed until the last bit of tension broke. … The doctor now wore an unexpectedly open expression - the first Mike had ever seen. The man shifted slightly against the tree he was leaning against and sighed. “You really are as they described you, Michael,” he repeated in a softer tone. Mike wasn’t sure what just happened, but somehow, a major weight was lifted from his mind - a weight he hadn’t even realized was there until it disappeared.

----------

Forward - showed up 12 times in Apricity, as well as in this part

[Prithvi, Mahabhuta Ch 1 - Raw Draft]

No. No way. That couldn't be right. ‘Seize him. Seize the Bride.’ As the guards rushed his table, they knocked the coffee cup to the floor and quickly had him surrounded. They’d confiscated his bag, roughly seized his arms, and forced him to walk forward, towards the shop’s exit. Why was everyone just watching this unfold? Yes, he was an outsider… but surely these people couldn’t just mistreat him like this… right? And what was with the Bride deal? Beau was confident he wasn’t getting married to anyone. He wasn’t engaged to anyone - hell, he wasn’t even dating anyone! But even if he was, this was… something was off. Normally a wedding would be a happy occasion, right? And normally people would be ‘happy’ for a bride-to-be, right? Or they’d realize they had the wrong person, or realize he was in trouble, right? But if that was true, then why was everyone looking at him like- ‘Take him away. Take him far away’ Wide eyes. A notable distance. Tense postures. Shaky whispers. All of that passed him by as he was paraded out of the bakery restaurant and into the town square. While he wouldn’t describe himself as aggressive by any means, Beau would’ve stopped them… or at least, he would've tried to stop the guards from continuing to push him forward through the town square like some heinous criminal. But those expressions. They weren’t just scared. They were terrified. They were terrified of this Bride - terrified of him, to be exact.

----------

Later - only 15 times in Apricity, interestingly enough.

[Sapphire Precipice - Apricity Ch 12]

Beau gazed out the window, considering everything silently for a few moments before speaking up. “I get why you waited those first two weeks. You wanted to rule out the obvious and waited for me to feel better. But you saw multiple colors when I showed you the Mandala that Saturday. Why didn’t you say anything when we were writing that list? Did you really think I wouldn’t believe you after everything?” Beau asked with a frown. “I didn’t say anything at the time, because I wanted more data. I was sure some kind of correlation existed and knew it would be a big clue once I figured it out… but then midterms and La Push happened and I didn’t want to worry you even more with all the new stuff. So I…” Mike sighed. “Would you have said anything, if I hadn’t asked just now?” “Yes. Later today, to be exact.” Mike met Beau’s eyes. He needed- no, wanted Beau to believe him at least on that count. “Go on.” Beau raised an eyebrow. “I… I was still a bit unsure, until we talked to Harper three days ago. That’s when I knew I'd ask about it in Seattle. I was going to give you a heads up before we got to the-… ugh, it sounds so stupid in hindsight.” Mike sighed. “You’re right - I should’ve mentioned it earlier. I’m sorry I didn’t.”

[quailfence]

[Image description: two flowcharts. The first one is titled "Hardware Acceleration Off". It starts with "Netflix: I have this cool thing that can be on your screen". It then leads to "CPU: Okay cool lemme get that sorted and then I'll tell GPU to display it" This then leads to "GPU: That's a neat thing! It's on the monitor now." CPU also leads to "Discord: I see you would like to share your screen with your friends. Allow me to take a look at your CPU's video buffer so that I can do that! I see a Netflix video, so now they do too (smile emoticon)".

The second one is titled "Hardware Acceleration On." It starts with "Netflix: I have this cool thing that can be on your screen". It then leads to "GPU: I am capable of both interpreting what you're trying to send me and displaying it. No need to get the CPU involved, it has better things to do, your thing is on the monitor now."

A separarte box reads "CPU: GPU told me it has this one so I'm just gonna spend that energy on making sure your Minecraft save with 500 mods doesn't run at 2 FPS." This box then leads to "Discord: I see you would like to share your screen with your friends. Allow me to take a look at your CPU's video buffer so that I can do that! I see you have Netflix open, but there's just a black box where the video would be, but I'm too dumb to understand that data is being handled by the GPU and also don't know how to access the GPU anyway so I'm just gonna broadcast the black box. I hope that's what you wanted!"

There is a final unconnected box that reads "Netflix: I'm actually not involved in this process at all, everything is being handled by the browser. I'm literally just showing you videos, like I get up to shady shit sometimes but this is not one of those times." End description.]

@a-captions-blog

firefox just started doing this too so remember kids if you want to stream things like netflix or hulu over discord without the video being blacked out you just have to disable hardware acceleration in your browser settings!

[elpscroll]

Saturday Report 120

I hope you all enjoyed the announcement of ELPS 2 on the Nintendo Direct. I wasn't watching, but I sent an email to Nintendo with the trailer, so I'm sure they played it.

Anyway, I've got great news! I am done with the writing, and all that's left now is a chunk of animation, sound, and music stuff.

Because I'm getting close to releasing the update, the screenshots probably won't show anything too new, and there might not be any for some days. But that's just how it goes; it's the very slow hype train for ELPS. I really want to get this done fast so I can start working on the next Halloween special. For that one, I only work for a month or so, which isn't a lot of time for scenario making.

As a reminder, the next thing I'll do in ELPS is the Memories route update, but after the update is out, I'm taking a little break! It's going to be a short break because I'll be working on the Halloween special.

Also, if you haven't seen it, the blog that posts many Student Transfer scenario reviews and a bunch of other stuff, Natalie.TF, made an ELPS review.

Here's the link to it: ELPS review

Even though I was nervous to read it, I still liked it a lot, and there are even reviews for the current specials (+ a very cute pixel art of YDGH!).

There's a spoiler in a comment I made there, so if you want to avoid it, don't look in there. I had to spoil it because of something I did by accident.

Also, if you're on the Report but haven't played ELPS much, you can always watch a bunch of previews on the Youtube Channel.

Well, that was all for today. Hope you have a nice Saturday!

Here's the Flowchart of what I've done so far:

What am I doing?:

Updating few things in "Rough and Tough"

How much is done?:

Did all the writing, now what's left is a chunk of animations and music and sound.

Progress of the update:

Rough writing:

Did pretty much all in the "Talk to Convince" path and all of the new "Corny Story" stuff.

Animation:

There's a good chunk of stuff in "Corny Story" to do and some stuff in "Talk to Convince"

Music and Sound:

There's a good chunk of stuff in "Corny Story" to do and some stuff in "Talk to Convince"

[irradiate-space]

Last Lunesday of the Week

Listening: No organized listening today; was out and about so the jams did not begin playing at the appointed time.

Reading: Started reading Princess of Mandalore, which is a Tanya x Star Wars crossover that starts sometime after Episode I but before the Clone Wars really kicks off. Good plot; intermittent grammar, spotty character differentiation but I'm keeping on because the plot outweighs the grammar issues. Will Tanya get recruited by the Jedi, or the Duke of Serenno? Will she develop feelings for her new adjutant? Will she ever get to fight?

Writing: Started a flowchart of the Iliad with major plot points, using a children's illustrated edition.

Crafting:

Have a more-or-less final version of the cyberdeck palmtop computer case thingy. Revision 29 is mainly about screw hole tolerances for the backplate. Still working on getting a functioning OS. I've been running Phosh on my touchscreen laptop and it's ~fine. I put Ubuntu on this Pi today and then realized I have to set up display drivers for it in order to be able to enter SSH keys. Ugh. If I rebuild this formfactor from scratch, I'm not going to use the Hyperpixel line of square touchscreens; they look cool but they take up GPIO pins needed for other stuff instead of using HDMI plugs. Waveshare has a better package for the same formfactor.

Built the hacked Vindriktning off of the Adafruit tutorial; it does what it says on the box. Still need to calibrate it against the PurpleAir sensor I have, which costs ten times as much.

Need to start Version 2 of the Vakama mask, if I want to print it by Halloween.

Kinda want to make a frogpad-style keyboard with a spare KB2040 microcontroller, a la the Scottopad. But that is a "after Halloween" project.

Also I need to take apart my HTPC projector and put it back together correctly so it doesn't scream.

Aaand I need to put a construction helmet inside a pumpkin. I guess I'll do that offscreen during tomorrow's meetings.

Playing: Got Tears of the Kingdom side quests done except the stable paintings and the last of Misko's set. After that, it's wells and Bubbulfrogs, and I wish there were a way to mute just that one guy's cackles.

Injuries: +1 TDaP booster, +1 knife slip hole in my offhand palm, -$40 to get a new set of fairweather biking gloves after I lost one last weekend biking to get my COVID and flu shots.

With some retroreflective fabric.