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erotickilop · 2 years

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Void bastards exculisvity deal

VOID BASTARDS EXCULISVITY DEAL PC

VOID BASTARDS EXCULISVITY DEAL SERIES

VOID BASTARDS EXCULISVITY DEAL FREE

WildStar is coming to Steam with an immense amount of new content WildStar is definitely coming to Steam and there's a lot of new content coming along with the Steam release.The Division may get an open beta this month Didn't get into The Division's closed beta? Don't fear-it looks like an open beta is coming soon.

VOID BASTARDS EXCULISVITY DEAL FREE

Star Citizen is free to play for this week let you try before you buy Star Citizen is hosting a free play week to help encourage naysayers to take a look at the product they have out now.

Fable Legends is 'up to 40%' faster under DX12 compared to DX11 Lionhead Studios squeeze 'up to 40%' more performance out of DX12 in Fable Legends.

VOID BASTARDS EXCULISVITY DEAL PC

We’ll be watching E3 as it unfolds and cover all of what’s good to play on your PC during E3. We’re sure that there’s plenty more to talk about. Microsoft has set its E3 conference for 3 PM Central time, and you can watch it on Twitch. We can’t find a complete list of games on Microsoft’s site, but The Verge has taken time to bullet-list the whole game list. That’s not everything in Xbox Game Pass for PC, though. There’s also a little-known building-focused adventure game called Minecraft. Yu Suzuki’s sandbox RPGs are still fun today, if a little dated. Sega’s Shenmue I & II give me the warm fuzzies thinking about my Dreamcast. While I haven’t played it yet, the art direction made me start downloading. Void Bastards is a cool-looking cel-shaded FPS inspired by System Shock and BioShock. Human Fall Flat is a silly third-person walking puzzle / maze game that is endlessly charming and pretty challenging once you get into it a ways. In an attempt to make Game Pass for PC work for all kinds of gamers, Microsoft has included a couple of titles that wander off the beaten path of AAA PC-killers. Gears of War 4and Halo 5: Guardians are staples of Microsoft’s console experience. Also available, but not pictured, are some of the best first-party Xbox One games that are also available on PC.

VOID BASTARDS EXCULISVITY DEAL SERIES

Forza Horizon 4 is the latest in Microsoft’s open-world racing series with tons of licensed cars, true-to-life controls, and great graphics. Fallout 4 is an oldie at this point, but Bethesda’s post-apocalyptic adventure is huge and beautiful, so if you haven’t experienced it yet, you should. Many of these games you probably already own if you’re interested in them. It’s easy to see what’s available because Game Pass games have a badge on the tile that reads “Included with Game Pass”. What I found was a collection of good, if older, games and some recent Xbox ports. At a dollar I figure I can’t lose, so I signed up just to see what’s available. To give gamers a chance to find out if the selection is what they crave, Microsoft has cut the price of the first month to just a dollar. Five bucks a month doesn’t seem too shabby for access to a bunch of games, if the titles are right. However, at the service’s launch Microsoft is offering it for half price. The company has unveiled the price of Xbox Game Pass for PC: ten dollars a month, just like the Xbox version. Microsoft dropped the first bit of chocolatey goodness this morning. It’s almost E3 and so it’s time for game makers and platform owners to start dropping gooey morsels of gaming news.

#Void bastards exculisvity deal

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maddgicalgirl · 3 years

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Paracosm Resources <3

Need help bringing your paracosm to life? Try these free resources!

⚠️ Updates always pending! Suggestions always welcome! Feel free to message me any tips or questions <3 ⚠️

(Cont. below cut, or with real time updates on this google doc!)

Art Programs

FireAlpaca - 2D Art Program, Animation. Where I make most of my digital art, and paint the frames for my animations :) It is free to use, and easy to learn and use! It can make basic animations as well, such as gifs. It requires download.

Krita - 2D Art Program. Professional, free digital paint software :) I have not used it before, though I have heard good things.

GIMP - 2D Art Program, Photo Manipulation. It's free to use, but I do not like it/recommend it highly. But! If FireAlpaca and Krita don't float your stoat, try Gimp! For 2D art, but also able to emulate Photoshop to a degree ^^

Inkscape - 2D Art Program. Free to use digital illustration software. Makes 2D art :)

Of course, who can forget classics like good old MS Paint, and the new and exciting 3D MS Paint, which can both be used to create some really neat things! Classic MS Paint is available here in browser form! If you need that. I just think it's neat!

Art AI

Petalica Paint - Coloring Software. An in browser, watercolor manga style coloring software, which can (almost) effortlessly color in any of your line art pieces! I've played around with it for my Thorn illustration style piece, and enjoyed it! It is free to use, and can take user input to make the colorations more precise.

ArtBreeder - 3D Realism Software. Using Artbreeder, you can create lifelike images of your paras, planets, or potentially even fursona, using the intricate AI they let you work with for free! A premium version exists, but most functions are fully usable without - though I recommend donating ^^ You can randomly generate, or prune and shape what you make until its perfect! Slow to use and get the hang of, but very worth it! Artbreeder is also pioneering an intriguing animation software to go alongside their product! Browser based.

3D Software

Blender - 3D Modeling, Animation. The best (in my opinion) free 3D modelling software.

MagicaVoxel - 3D Pixel Art. Free to use! Could be interesting :)

MikuMikuDance - 3D Rigging. Anime style rigging and animation software, free to use, and certified internet artefact! Has stood the test of time, and is still used and loved today. Can support ports of many kinds of assets, including, I believe, those from Blender, and of course those that are downloaded. DA has a bunch of old MMD communities you can raid for assets!

Animaze - Face Rigger. Use 3D models and a webcam to watch your paras talk! Models can be made in Blender, downloaded online, or even from CHARAT V, CHARAT GENESIS sister app!

Character Creators

CHARAT GENESIS - 2D Character Creator. Browser based anime style character creator, with multiple crops and poses, and infinitely customizable options. It is legitimately insane. Has a 3D function called CHARAT V which can apparently convert characters made in CHARAT GENESIS into 3D models compatible with Face Rig and Animaze!

V-Katsu - 3D Character Creator. Free on steam! Anime style, intensive character creator, by the same people who made Koikatsu, and Koikatsu Party, two amazingly detailed 3D hentai makers. While V-Katsu is a SFW VTuber maker, if you're looking for NSFW anime content, you could always spend roughly $70 on the full NSFW versions. V-Katsu requires a translation mod (free online as well) which you have to install, or the ability to read Kanji <3 Works with VR tech.

V-Roid Studios - 3D Character Creator. Free on steam! Anime style, fairly in depth character creator, that allows for some degree of digital 3D hand sculpting, particularly with their amazing hair engine, to get your paras looks perfect!

And, of course, Picrew has thousands of character creators of various styles and quality uploaded by the artists who made them! Also, honestly I think we as a society should embrace making dinky chibis in Gacha Life. IDK why everyone is mean to the gacha kids, like we weren't all cringe at some point,

World Design

HomeStyler - 3D and 2D Room Designer. Make a model of an interior for a home or building, using real 1:1 furniture of IRL brands! Apparently this is free to use, though there is a premium version, and it offers 3D and 2D models.

Map to World - 3D Planet Maker. Turn your fantasy world into a 3D model of the planet. Put maps directly on, or design the surface and textures of your world. Takes a lot of getting used to, but it is AMAZING. Free to use, and browser based!

PlanetMaker - 3D Planet Maker. Make a customized 3D planet! Free to use browser site! I have never used this, but I would love to mess around with it sometime! Allows you to add orbital rings, change textures, and more at the click of a mouse.

If on sale, I also recommend snagging a copy of the Sims, particularly 3 or 4, for character creation and world design. Maybe not the best gameplay without mods, but it's also a load of fun, and very easy to add custom content to! Minecraft also. But you just need Minecraft, in general. Beyond its ability to fairly faithfully recreate structures from your paracosms, it's just Good.

Game Creators

Maybe you wanna turn your paracosm into a cool game idk, just thought I'd put these here!

Construct 3 - 2D Game Creator. Beginner level game making :) Drag-and-drop if/then style programming.

GameSalad - Codeless 2D Game Creator. Drag and drop style/no coding, beginner friendly. Free version available!

Solpeo - 2D Game Creator. HTML5 based game engine for 2D and isometric game development. Some programming knowledge needed. Platforms supported: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer 9+. Free version available.

Stencyl - Codeless 2D Game Creator. Drag and drop style building/no coding skills needed. Has editable templates!

Scratch - 2D Game Creator. Very easy to use and totally free, though relatively basic!

Unity - 3D, 2D, and VR Game Creator. Make games with 3D software. Import your own assets (Blender compatible) or download free options, or buy the rights to models. Works for 3D and 2D games. Free version available, and now works with VR tech!

Unreal Engine - 3D Game Creator. Extremely advanced 3D game developer. Highly customizable. Free to use!

Twine - Text-based Game Creator. Use a map to make a branching paths text-based story game. Free to use.

Squiffy - Text-based Game Creator. have used Squiffy and it can make some really, truly incredible things. Can take a while to pick up, and learn how to use to its full potential. Free to use! Has an online and offline library of player creations you can get inspiration from!

Quest - Text-based Game Creator. I've never used this, but it seems cool! Use it to make interactive text-based DND game adventures in browser.

Ren'Py - Visual Novel Creator. Visual novel engine, that is well acclaimed, and of course, free to use!

Companion AI

Replika - 3D Companion.

Kajiwoto - Chatbot Companion. Customizable, learning AI you can shape into a personality. Communicates via Discord like chat box.

Organization

Toyhou.se - Character Gallery. A customizable library where you can upload all of your paras and characters for the public to view! Free to use, but requires a premium member to invite you!

Refsheet - Character Gallery. I haven't used it before, but I've heard good things, and that it's a suitable alternative to toyhou.se if you can't get an invite!

Notebook.AI - Character Gallery. I haven't used it before, but I've heard good things, and that it's a suitable alternative to toyhou.se if you can't get an invite!

World Anvil - World Building Toolset. Like character galleries, but for worlds and their lore :)

Scabard - World Building Toolset. Aimed at DnD campaigners, but I reckon it'll be useful for many!

YARPS - World Building Toolset. More focused around story and lore than Scabard or World Anvil, and looks beautiful! Still in its prototype stage, however.

Pinterest - Photo Organizer. Look at, collect, and sort images into boards. Personalizes your feed based on that, and is free to use and join! However, unlike their myriad of wonderful recipes, DIY tutorials, and the likes - a lot of the images are uploaded by second parties and not credited, so be careful reuploading anything you find! Also great for finding outfits and art inspo for your paras!

Generators

Fantasy Name Generator - Name Generators. Does what it says on the tin! Generates fantasy names. Is a lovely website, run by a purportedly lovely woman.

Fantasy Map Generator - Map Generator. Randomly generates a fictional map, which you can view in 2D or 3D.

Donjon RPG Generator - Multiple Generators. Can make maps, weapons, items, etc.

Seventh Sanctum - Multiple Generators. One of my favorites from high school! Does all kinds of things - the standard items, spells, and names - but also prompts, backstories, characters, and even comedy generators!

ShindanMaker - Multiple Generators. User created and uploaded, any kind of generator you can imagine, of varying complexity. And when I say any generator? I mean ANY generator.

Audio

Audacity - Record and Edit Audio. What can't Audacity do? I love Audacity to death. At surface level, it records audio. I've used it to record voices for my paras, and get audio for animations and games I've worked on. I cannot recommend it enough. Comprehensive editing, and with some investigation, it can do so, so much more than just record simple dialogue.

FL Studios - Compose. Compose music with an unlimited free trial. Upgrades available for purchase!

Indie Game Music - Royalty Free Music Library. Free to use Indie Game Music. What it says on the box!

AudioJungle - Royalty Free Music and Audio Library. Thousands of free to use audio clips!

Online Piano - Someone could use this, for recording, or just messing around. I've seen plenty of paras who play piano, this could just be used for fun!

Online Guitar - Same reasons as above, but this site looks kinda sketchy. Use at your own risk or reward! Audio

For real, if you ever need music, sound effects, or really any MP3 clips that can be used without infringing on copyright laws, just search 'royalty free' (music/audio/insert thing here) same applies for photos! Make sure the source is reputable, however.

Tutorials

W3Schools - Coding. Learn the basics of coding, for free, online!

Miscellaneous

Debut Video Capture - Screen Recorder. Record game footage and let's plays for free! Professional and home versions. I see a few of our community members have paras who run YouTube channels, and I thought these might help! It could be a nice way to connect your parames. YouTube quality <3

Pixton - Comic Maker. Comic making website. I have no experience with this at all, but some may find it useful!

Picfont - Image Editor. Puts customizable text on an image. I used these for @paraesthetics paracosm header edits <3 It has a premium version (???) but the free version has all functions, but it crashes regularly (honestly seems timed :/) but once you get it down, it's a very quick process, and you won't have to worry about that at all.

Itch.io - Publishing. You can publish your self made games here :)

Korsakow - ??? Described as, "The Future of Storytelling" and is apparently a way to create interactive films. I *just* found out about this, but thought I should include it for someone who may know how to use and appreciate it! Free? Unknown, at the moment.

Tips and Tricks

Animation Done Easy

Our forefather's of internet animation used MS Paint, Windows Movie Maker, and Audacity. All of these, or their equivalents, are free on standard computers. I, personally, use FireAlpaca - which works just as well, if not better, than MS Paint for animation - but takes longer, and definitely lacks that retro feeling. I also use my trackpad to draw and animate everything, so its doable, but probably not totally comfortable, to animate like this for most people :)

⚠️ Updates always pending! Suggestions always welcome! Feel free to message me any tips or questions <3 ⚠️

#immersive daydreaming #paraportal #paracosm #paracosms #paracosmonaut #madd art #art resources #masterpost #free resources

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norcani · 4 years

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I watched a bunch of losers best games of 2020 videos and decided I can do that too

except I don’t play recent releases so only a few of these are 2020 releases and out of those all of them are vns.....I did play these in 2020 though..I think...

10. Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Miotsukushi-hen

I also read Yoigoshi and Tokihogushi but they fucking sucked! The rest of the console arcs I had played beforehand. What to say about this? It’s been a real mixed bag and by this I mean its been a pile of shit but in the middle of a shit there is this puzzle piece that you needed for a puzzle you completed the rest of 10 years ago and you grab the shit covered piece and go “holy shit! look at this! I’ve been looking for this all along!” but of course it’s still covered in shit and you’re not even sure it’s quite the right piece, it’s not made by the original puzzle maker but with some cleaning wiggling it fits into the puzzle perfectly and you can finally rest assured that the stupid puzzle you thought would never work out is completed. (And then the puzzle maker is like, hey here are a bunch of new pieces and drops gou on you but irrelevant) . Anyway this got translated this year so I say it counts as a 2020 game.

9. Witcher 3

wow i played this game this year apparently! Or at least, steam tells me so. Honestly I never had any intention of playing this game because people are annoying about it but I somehow ended up playing it anyway....and it was...fine? I liked it, especially the blood and wine dlc. I like geralt as a protag a lot. And I somehow spend 100 hours on this thing. So you know, I liked it. People are still annoying about it though. The best part of finishing it is that I can now call it overrated with the confidence of someone who played and even enjoyed it!

8. oneshot I got this one from the bundle of racial justice though it was on my radar for quite a while. In this one, you are god, and there is a cute cat child that talks to you directly, which rules.

fuck yeah!!!!! (there is also a huge light bulb in this, for the moths in the audience)

7. the ghost of you

This is a text based vn with minimal visuals. A uh.. lesbian horror survival romance story? Is that too many genres. I was utterly obsessed with this for a short while. The gore and body horror stuff in this were top notch but towards the end it got a bit too over the top campy and silly for me, though still enjoyable I mainly wasn’t expecting it to go that route. I also thought ironically the romance was by far the weakest part. The villains were super fun though I still think about them...

6. iwaihime

i really thought i would end up disliking it until about halfway through but afterwards it was really good except when it was kinda fucked up to the point of I made a cw list for the vn. This is like a shameless mishmash of half of ryukishis previous works and the worst part is it *works* and i love it. I ended up being suprisingly attached to the cast even though they seemed super generic at first glance. Also at some point someone puts the actual yugioh shisha sosei(monster reborn) card in someones coffin so yeah you know..... this one was actually released in 2020 too so goty

5. Cyberpunk2077 Dry Drowning

another one from the bundle. This is a cyberpunk noir detective mystery / sorta political drama? One of the rare games I replayed immediately after finishing, Great setting, solid plot and cases, great art, kinda generic characters but they grew on me. My fave was a cool trans lesbian character but the circumstances surrounding her were a bit *vague hand gestures* . Definitely a shame not more people know about this one!

4. Vampire the Masquerade: Shadows of New York

first of all incredible art and music! 2nd of all.... its just a really well written vtm story with a goth girl in a toxic lesbian relationship of course I love it. This vn also justifies coteries of new yorks existence which is a great accomplishment since that vn itself just felt like a introductory course to vtm. Also another 2020 release! No one can criticize my list now.

3. Fire Emblem 3 houses

I’m still playing this one but I put 60 hours in already so I think I can include this here. This is the main thing I’m playing the past few weeks and as with all my favorite games I could complain about it for ages , However its really fun and compelling in a way I can’t quite articulate and also Rhea and Sothis I love you both

2. Assassins Creed Vallhalla Expeditions: Viking

this fucking ruled!!! Solid 40 hours or so of solid story and characters that ends exactly when it should. really unique protag a lot of different ways to “win” would. Also one of the few rpgs where the evil choices make just as much sense as the good ones. Would have replayed immediately if my switch hadnt arrived just when i finished my first run. I wish the cast had more lines but at the end of the day Roskva is adorable as is. 10/10 would tell my enemies to not fucking talk to me again. 1. Demon’s Souls Dark Souls 2

(I coudln’t find any decent screenshots I took for this so enjoy this meme. Trust me my character was really cute. )

I’ve been playing this for 2 fucking years and i was somehow still sad that it was over....I played for around 140 hours and approximately died every 6 minutes. If you do the math you might notice I’m not very good at this game. I also don’t know what the fuck the story is even about. But hitting things is fun, and I beat fume knight twice which was great. Too bad I will never play the other games since steam never puts them on FUCKING sale.

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theindiegamereview · 4 years

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Meet the developer: "Space Pilgrim” series

We caught up with Noel Clay of Pilgrim Adventures - yes, the very same beloved creator of the famed Space Pilgrim series - to discuss some of his recent games. We also took the opportunity to ask about his upcoming game, The Deadly Facade, which is an exciting departure from his previous works. Read on for more!

TIGR: Hi Noel! We see you've been really busy, with a couple of new games released in the past year! Tell us more about them.

NC: Sure! A Sceptic's Guide To Magic is a '90s style point-and-click adventure game that follows Lester Chapman, a forensic investigator who discovers a secret underworld of magic and mayhem after becoming involved in a grisly case of ritual murder. A pair of witches named Fi and Val guide him on his journey, and you also get to play as those two characters at different points in the game.

Sceptic's Guide is chiefly inspired by the classic LucasArts games - there's humour, but it also gets quite dark at times. The story takes place in Birmingham, England, near to where I grew up. Most of the locations in the game are based on real-life places, and I had a whole lot of fun trying to recreate them.

The gameplay involves a mixture of traditional puzzle-solving and spell-casting. In order to cast spells, you'll need to gather all the appropriate ingredients as well as correct apparatus, a clue for which is normally given in the form of a riddle. It can be a bit silly and lighthearted, but the game does also delve a fair bit into magical history, mythology and folklore. People who are interested in those things will probably get a kick out of it.

Screenshots from A Sceptic’s Guide To Magic:

The Deed II is a follow-up to The Deed and The Deed: Dynasty, and explores the same basic concept: you need to commit a murder, and then get away with it - usually by planting false evidence to frame someone else, then convince the police of your innocence.

Deed II takes place at a 1930s French brothel, where an Englishman named Kenneth Miller recognises one of the orderlies who had cruelly abused him during his time at a mental asylum. He decides it's time for revenge... but which of the patrons or employees of this establishment should take the blame for his crime?

Although the basic formula of Deed II is the same as its predecessors, there are also a bunch of new features: a new game engine, improved graphics, and an in-game clock. Whereas in the previous games, time would advance as a result of your actions, now it moves forward naturally, and you have one hour of in-game time to commit the murder. The NPCs in the brothel will also move around according to their own individual schedules, which affects a lot of your choices. As always though, there are a whole bunch of different endings and ways that you can approach the game - more than ever before.

Screenshots from The Deed II:

TIGR: Wow, both games sure sound exciting, and I'm sure your fans will be thrilled to try them out if they haven't already done so! And you've got another game coming out very soon right?

NC: Yes! The Deadly Facade, which will hopefully be released later this year, is my first crack at a full-blooded visual novel. In a setting inspired by 1950s' Hollywood, you are an actor about to star in your first major motion picture. Things seem to be going well, until you get tied up in a shocking murder mystery. Can you solve the case while also delivering the performance of a lifetime?

Here are some exclusive images of The Deadly Facade for TIGR:

TIGR: Very interesting! Tell us more...

NC: Deadly should offer something a bit different from the typical visual novel. Among other things, I've been developing a fairly complex relationship system, as I wasn't really interested in the simple like/dislike variable which seems to be quite common among these types of games. Over time, through your actions and conversation choices, every character in the game will develop a sense of your personality and morality. That will ultimately determine how they feel about you.

As for the setting, I'm hoping it will allow people to live out the fantasy of being an up-and-coming Hollywood star in the olden days, while also delivering a sense of the fear and paranoia that was rife during this complicated era.

TIGR: Deadly sounds like it's going to be amazing! It's also made with a different game engine from what you usually use. What motivated this change?

NC: All my previous games have been made with RPG Maker. Although I really enjoy working with that engine, it can be tricky to market RPG Maker games even though they may not resemble the typical fare. So I figured it was time to try something different - in this case the Ren'Py visual novel engine - if only to convince more players to give my games a chance.

TIGR: Well, we at TIGR would happily play another thousand (and more) of your games even if they continue to be made in RPG Maker - it's all about the gameplay and content, right, not the platform?! :)

But moving on, tell us more about how you craft these fantastic stories of yours. Where does all this imagination and creativity come from, and what are some of your sources of inspiration?

NC: I've always had a lot of creative energy. When I was a kid, I was constantly writing stories and drawing comics. I wasn't making any video games back then yet, but my older brothers John and Edmund were - throughout the '90s they created numerous adventure games for the Amiga from their very bedrooms (The Lost Prince, Starbase 13, Lethal Formula, Epsilon 9, The Experiment).

As an interesting side note, Edmund also developed a program called GRAC (Graphic Adventure Creator) for the Amiga in 1994. It was designed to allow people to create their own adventure games with a minimal amount of programming knowledge. GRAC was probably the first program of its type in the western world. Meanwhile in Tokyo, unknown to my brother, Enterbrain were already creating the early versions of RPG Maker.

I tend to consume a fairly varied diet of media – movies, TV shows, comic books, novels, board games – from a wide range of different genres. Not much of my inspiration actually comes from video games, but rather from these other sources, which I suppose is one way of maintaining some originality!

The universe of Space Pilgrim owes a large debt to Joss Whedon's Firefly. Another of my games, Sentience: The Android's Tale, is a love letter to Philip K Dick, whose writing also inspired elements of the main Space Pilgrim Academy storyline. Ender's Game also played a role there.

TIGR: We are seriously impressed! It certainly sounds like you and your brothers were born to make video games! So do you do everything alone, or do you have a team to help you? Take us through your development process.

NC: I pretty much work alone, although I do often commission work from artists or use commercial art and music assets. This has been the case with all my games except for Sceptic's Guide - for that one, I had some help from a friendly witch when it came to writing the spellbook. I'm currently collaborating with an artist named Llyrel on developing some characters for an upcoming magical fantasy game, which should be my next project after Deadly.

I'd also like to mention my publisher, GrabTheGames, with whom I've been working for nearly five years. They handle a lot of the marketing and promotion so that I can focus on the game development side of things.

These days, I usually start with a tonne of research. The first month or two mostly just consists of reading books and taking notes. For Sentience, I read about AI; for Deed II it was 1930s Paris; for Deadly, it was 1950s Hollywood as well as the biographies of some major stars of the era. I also watched more than 50 movies from that time period, partly for inspiration and partly because I just love movies. After that, my time was split between scripting the game and creating the 3D renders. I tend to only have a loose plan for the story at the beginning, so that things can continue to evolve along the way.

TIGR: One last question for you before we end - what's something we should know about you?

NC: Tyrkisk peber. It’s awesome.

We thank Noel for his time and look forward to playing The Deadly Facade when it's released! In the meantime, check out all of Noel's published games on Steam here.

#developers

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supericonblog · 6 years

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SUPER ICON NEEDS YOUR HELP

Our History So Far…

I began developing games back in the late nineties – Xtreme Racing on Amiga was my first game, and ever since then I have only ever worked at my own development studios.

Starting with Graphic State, which initially was a sub-contract artwork studio, later moving into handheld game development on the Gameboy systems. This then evolved into Icon Games, focusing on small-ish console games on Playstation and Wii.

I then founded Super Icon in 2012, with a focus on creating the games that I wanted to make, rather than trying to ride the coat-tails of current popular games or casual games. The focus was always trying to make great games, as good as we possibly can – games that people enjoy playing. Like many other small indie developers, we’ve had ups and downs, but I think the games we’ve made are the best of my career so far. Our first proper release was Life of Pixel on Playstation Mobile.

Back in 2016, after the release of Life of Pixel on Steam and our Battlezone type shooter Vektor Wars, we decided that it would probably be best to partner with a publisher going forward. Our sales numbers were low, and we failed quite badly at building any sort of interest in the games. They didn’t completely tank, but the numbers were bad, and not enough to sustain a business.

At the time we had just finished a Kickstarter for another game, Best Buds vs Bad Guys, and managed to get a little income in to complete the development. During the Kickstarter I started chatting to a great bunch of guys at a studio called Whitemoon Dreams, in particular its CEO Jay.

The upshot was I explained we were not having much success at selling/promoting our games, and they agreed to act as a publisher on Life of Pixel and Best Buds going forward, to take them over onto Playstation and Switch.

We worked together with them, releasing Super Life of Pixel onto Playstation 4 and Vita in December 2018. Also, during the development phase, we pitched another title we were making, called Platform Maker. After a fair few rejections, we finally found a publisher, pQube. We renamed the game to PLATAGO, and it was released onto Steam Early Access in 2018.

Fast forward to 2019…

The Current State of Play

So, here we are. Unfortunately, despite most players seeming to enjoy Super Life of Pixel, the sales on Playstation have been DIRE. So bad, in fact, that Whitemoon have decided they are unable to continue publishing for the time-being. As such, in the first quarter of 2019, we have seen our income pretty much completely grind to a halt.

Our income wasn’t much before, and we have had several very tough times since the later Icon Games period onwards, where we’ve had little or no income for months at a time. This time though, it is all a little different, I’m kind of burnt out. I’m also getting on a bit, I’m 46 this year, with a family, including three great kids who are now that much older, and it is tough for them.

I think being a penniless indie develop is a younger person’s game! Certainly not conducive to maintaining a stable family life and keeping the wolves from the door.

A Tough Decision

So, I have come to the decision that, unless this year things improve and we break this cycle, I don’t think I am able to continue making games.

I love making games, but there comes a time when you think if no-one wants to play your games, and you can’t support your family – perhaps it is time to re-evaluate.

Another thing I have done over the last couple of years is develop and pitch other games – the first a horror game called The Tower, the other an Action RPG called They Came from Beyond. The plan was to make sure we continued to maintain revenue once we completed the on-going projects.

I pitched both to various publishers, and they were both rejected. I stopped work on The Tower, as without funding it was just too ambitious. There is a blog for it (updated until I stopped working on the project):

https://thetower-game.tumblr.com/

I continued with They Came from Beyond, for the following reasons:

I love the game and believe in it

I have enjoyed every second of developing it

Although larger in scope than our other titles, it was still a realistic scope

It is my last chance, perhaps, to continue making games

You can download the in-development build for free from itch.io:

https://supericon.itch.io/they-came-from-beyond

Alas, I can’t get any interest in it at all, which kind of breaks my heart. I’ve also been working on it now for 15 months, completely un-funded, so there is a big personal commitment there.

So, there we are, but I do have a request…

If You Like Our Games, Support Us

We need your help!!

If you like any of our games – Life of Pixel, Vektor Wars, PLATAGO or like the look of They Came from Beyond – can you help us spread the word?

Without more support and a much larger community of followers, it will be impossible for us to continue making games. We just can’t continue without income – and I’ll be honest, it is a constant gut punch to try and continue developing when everything you do fails.

So, if you can - spread the word – help get us a little more known. Join our community on Discord or elsewhere, tell other gamers, sites or anywhere you think might be interested in our games. Without more followers, and more people buying our games, we’re done.

This was a tough post to write, and I hope it doesn’t come across in the wrong way – I just don’t know where else to turn. If anyone out there plays and enjoys our games, and wants us to continue making games – well, we can’t do it without you now.

Richard Hill-Whittall, March 26

Links

You can follow us in the following ways:

Website: http://www.supericon.co.uk/

Blog: https://supericonblog.tumblr.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperIconLtd

Discord: https://discord.gg/vPBTFtf

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/supericonltd/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SuperIconLtd/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/SuperIconLtd

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dailydosemiku · 7 years

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So I just beat Yume Nikki -Dream Diary- 100%

I’m gonna write this as an in depth review I guess. So I got done just recently discussing it with an old friend, the very same friend who roughly a decade ago showed me the original game. We have pretty polar opposite opinions of the game and I’m seeing that seems to be the trend with people who have played it so far. This isn’t a call out post or “Your opinion is wrong and mine is right” bullshit. I just want to explain why I liked it and maybe help some people see the game from a different light.

First things first. I want to premise, if this even gets read, that nothing will ever top or match Yume Nikki the RPG maker game that has gained a cult following. Even Yume Nikki on a second playthrough, will never feel like Yume Nikki on a persons first playthrough in my opinion, granted that is if they enjoyed it. Before this re-imagining came out there were mostly 2 kinds of people and barely anyone in between. People who loved it for it’s entire concept and execution and people who thought it was the most boring chore in the world. There is barely anyone I know or have met that’s in between those who are just like “yeah it’s ok I guess” Just because this re-imagining came out does not mean the original is now bad or doesn’t exist and I will respect your opinion if you think one is better then the other, because it’s an opinion, and they aren’t the same.

Below this is the Steam Store page, I want anyone reading this to read it and read it again.

“Yume Nikki has been hailed as one of the greatest (and most controversial) games ever created with RPG Maker. The new YUMENIKKI -DREAM DIARY- is not a remake, but a full reimagining of the original―reconstructed and enhanced using elements and styles of modern indie games. “

If you read this and thought this meant that this is going to be the same game, you went in with your expectations to high. One of the biggest reasons Yume Nikki was so beloved and how most people go into it was, THEY KNEW NOTHING, hell I knew nothing, I got like 2 sentences and like a 5 minute gameplay video of the game and that sold me. Then these people were to learn after diving into this strange game that only told you things with visuals, the creator disappears. For years even. So to do both games right I want to break them down into some basically game design elements to the best of my ability. Gameplay, Soundtrack, Story, Visuals, and Atmosphere/Presentation. Of course I’m going to reference both games because that’s what everyone else is doing for each of these.

Gameplay, well there really wasn’t much of a game to play in Yume Nikki the RPG maker game. I’m sorry I love Yume Nikki, but there’s not a lot of interactivity. It’s more of an experience, a long giant question of How and Why did this game get to this point? If you were at all like me, you kept playing to answer these questions and ultimately you either didn’t get an answer and were happy with it or you found your own answer, which if you ask me is part of the magic of that first playthrough. But as a 2D free RPG Maker game with no admission to entry, it was an experience and just that AN EXPERIENCE. As for Yume Nikki -Dream Diary- the 3D platformer, there’s actually a game to be played which understandable makes it very different then the RPG maker original. But this is an re-imagining, it’s not fair to directly compare the 2. They are in completely different medians and special in their own ways. In it’s essence, whether you agree or not both games at their element are about exploring an experience. If one having gameplay elements, that if you ask me were fairly well tested but not perfect, makes it less of an experience and was frustrating, then I don’t think you remember some of the frustrating non-sense that the RPG maker version had, such as navigating NES World, Locating the Bike which for most of the playthrough you were guaranteed to use because the normal movement speed was slow as shit and that’s usually what stopped a bunch of people from getting farther into it. But I say this with pride, it was part of the experience, it was part of the fun and by all technicality, was it’s own form of rudimentary puzzles and gameplay. Now yes I hear some of you die hard fans cry but there’s not as many effects and not as many doors and worlds, not as many themes and they took out so much. I am sad to say some of the things they took out I will miss, that is if the original game was wiped off the face of the planet with this games release, but it wasn’t.The original is still there as it always was. Because it can’t be replaced. It won’t ever be replaced, people have tried. So onto the point, the gameplay of the 3D one. It’s a horror platformer with puzzle solving and a few jumpscares I guess. You are sitting here reading this, I hope, going wow it’s that easy to categorize? Well yeah sorry to say guys it’s 2018 not 2004, in the time between the first RPG maker classic which I love to death and this newer retake of the very concept of Yume Nikki in 2018 we have had 3 different presidents, saw the rise and fall of many platforms like Vine, went through not 1, not 2 but 3 generations of Video Game Consoles, got 10 versions of the IPhone, like 8 versions of Samsungs Phones and a bunch of other stuff. Needless to say, times change, information is easier to access and we have gotten older and more analytical when it comes to the things we do as hobbies or otherwise. If we are to just look at the word re-imagining at face value and by definition.

reinterpret (an event, work of art, etc.) imaginatively; rethink.

Is the new Yume Nikki a reinterpretation of the RPG classic? Absolutely, it’s a different take on what the game was. Key word different, problem is in 2018 things are easier to find then 2004, communities are larger, people are older, and things in general are going to less surprising. So from a gameplay standpoint is the new Yume Nikki the 3D Platformer a well thought out game from a gameplay standpoint? Yes it is, it has it’s bugs which is unfortunate, but even games that got GAME OF THE YEAR were horrible buggy messes when they came out and those were backed by Triple A developers, COUGH COUGH FALLOUT 3 EVEN THOUGH I LOVE YOU YOU ARE A MESS COUGH COUGH. Moral of the story for the gameplay, it’s different yes but that doesn’t make it bad just not the same. If you can effectively get from beginning to end regardless how the journey goes, the game did what it needed to do. If you felt obligated to finish -Dream Diary- that was nostalgia and that almost need to feel the magic of the first playthrough of the RPG Maker classic, meaning you aren’t taking Yume Nikki -Dream Diary- as it’s own game, you are trying to take it as a replacement for a beloved classic.

Now that I’m done with that portion I guess, hopefully my point was more or less digestible and hopefully didn’t come off as if you disagree I hate you, cause that’s not my intent, if you don’t like it, you don’t like it, I just want to give a separate perspective. The Soundtrack. I think the Soundtrack in both games is just weird and beautiful and bizarre and conveys messages on a spectrum going from of uncomfortable to serene to almost intimidating. I’m no music expert or major or whatever but the music in Yume Nikki -Dream Diary- not only was very good and did what it meant to do in my opinion but was an incredible nod at the RPG Maker classic featuring a lot of remastered tracks from the original which I think portrayed similar emotions as I felt from the first game. I don’t have much else to say on the soundtrack, it’s timing and consistency felt as good as the original in it’s own special way but should not be interpreted as the same.

So the next thing I want to bring up is story. Now if you are a fan of the RPG Maker classic, you know as well as I do that the story is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, it’s almost entirely up to interpretation. The story was what you thought it was, you just get kind of a beginning and kind of a ending. People who wanted a classical game with a story with a beginning middle and end, would not really even touch this game. Cause it doesn’t hold your hand, but not in a “is this the dark souls of RPG Maker games?” kind of way. It’s entire conception, how it came to be, how the game played, how the game ends and how you get an ending to begin with and the mysterious creator and their disappearance are all ultimately part of Yume Nikkis’ Story in my opinion. The time the game came out, the so little information about the game that was known, the fact that Youtube was still young, fuck me I was using SKYPE when I played this game in like 2008, it was the perfect storm but only because of the games story outside of the game as well as inside. It was a mess, but it was such an amazing mess that was so hard to describe and time and time and time again the only thing people could really say is “you just have to play it, I can’t explain it without ruining it” That was also a part of the games story if you ask me. It was so strange and so meta but it always made people say the same thing. Now 14 years later, the developer is back, is older, sees his own mistakes better then any of us ever could, and I know if anyone reads this, some of you are artists or content creators or game designers and you know EXACTLY what I’m talking about being hyper critical of your own work. And now he has help now, a team of developers and even though he worked side by side with these people, of course there’s going to be a disconnect, something lost in translation, that’s exactly what fangames are, an interpretation of the original. So yes sadly there’s a bit more going on that’s coherent now but it’s 14 years later being lead by a guy who knows his own mistakes for a game he made alone, which is an achievement yes, but he has seen and allowed to be published in the very beginning of this new game a nod at where his last game left off. Meaning of course he acknowledges what he made and knows people adored it, but people also hated it. It was a judgement call, and you may not like the result but I assure you it was a decision in good faith, at least that the message I got from this game. Now enough beating around the bush, this games story? It does it;s job without telling you to much and honestly I still feel like in this games case like the last one, explaining what happens loses the impact, and some of the impact is because I played the game prior. So I think it does it’s job at re-imagining the story of Yume Nikki the RPG maker game well enough.

Next is visuals, now as an RPG Maker game you could argue it’s not good looking, till you think about it, that one guy, made all of that basically from scratch, it’s poetic, it’s awe-inspiring, that this one guy makes this strange game and it moved people so much and all you really do is just look at things. It’s a stunning game to the eyes because you want to know what this guy could have possibly created next and each environment is so different from the last, each effect so silly and cute or scary and gross all at the same time making you feel these mixed emotions of joy, excitement, nausea, tension all at the same time. It almost mesmerizes you into this feeling of wanting to do everything while simultaneously fearing when it’s all over and the dream ends both literally and metaphorically. It’s only because of this, in my opinion is why visually the RPG maker game is such a work of art. Now for Yume Nikki -Dream Diary- if you ask me I think the game is breathtaking, there’s so much care put into so many little details, yes there are clipping issues and the animations aren’t great but remember Yume Nikki the RPG Maker game wasn’t perfect either, we didn’t care though, we were young, we just wanted to take whatever it was in for what it was worth. From a technical standpoint I feel like this game is stunning in the visual department, but it’s not that complicated compared to games of it’s time, much like the older classic. The older classic came out the same year as Half Life 2, which was a technical marvel when it came out, now it’s kinda dated but regardless that didn’t make Yume Nikki in 2004 any less of an unique experience, and I feel like that same way of thinking should be applied to this new title as best as a person can. I’m going to steal a line from another reviewer loosely, Portal 2s biggest flaw is that it came out after Portal 1. I must have heard those words 5 years ago or something and they still stick with me. If you look at Portal 2 it’s literally an evolved embodiment of Portal, but you already knew the concept of Portal cause it already came out so it’s shock value, it’s rare and raw punch is lessened because something did that already. It’s the same reasons fangames and Yume Nikki -Dream Diary- won’t feel the exact same. Cause it came out afterwards.

Lastly I wish to touch on a final point before closing this review I guess, more of an analysis. The presentation and atmosphere. Broken down as simply as I can both games share this. They are Surreal Horror Exploration games whose job is to seemingly immerse you in the strange world of a little Japanese girls dreams. That’s where the disconnect begins. Cause even though you wouldn’t think of the RPG Maker classic to be a horror game it has horror themes and the occasional jumpscare or visual for shock value. Now as a re-imagining does the new Yume Nikki -Dream Diary- fit the bill for an amazing strange atmosphere just like the first? Absolutely, it tells most of it’s story passively, no dialogue, nothing crazy, just you and a simple platformer. But alas, it’s a platformer with tension and parts with severely more interaction then the original causing you to feel urgency and demand to escape or jump the next hurdle or challenge, which is not the same as original. Which understandably is this games biggest flaw, if from the very beginning it said it was a remake and that the original is no longer an actual concept. If we were to look at Yume Nikki -Dream Diary- the same way as the original, where we had nothing to compare it too, it’s a lot better of a game and it’s creepy atmosphere is on point, the environments are great and the nods it makes to the older game make me happy.

All in all I think that even with it’s flaws on release that Yume Nikki -Dream Diary- is a stunning love letter to the original game, written by a team of people copying down the words of the creator, ultimately dedicated to those of us who gave Yume Nikki it’s following while simultaneously being something more accessible to wider audience so that by chance they may also play the original game to fully understand why this game exists and what purpose it serves. It’s a thank you letter, an attempt to redo in a different sense what we have tried ourselves many times to recreate and even though a lot of the fan games are great they don’t feel the exact same and neither does this, it’s fantastic but we should all know by now that it can’t be done again, that’s why it’s special. But the creator knew this and wanted to try again but with more knowledge this time and I respect him for it, I respect the team who worked on this game, flaws and all. Perfect or not they wanted us to feel that special feeling one more time, and maybe it wasn’t what you wanted but I don’t even know what I wanted.

-Katy

#yume nikki #yume nikki -dream diary-#kikiyama #kadokawa #kadokawa corporation #madosuki

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jimmyandthepulsatingmass · 7 years

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August Update

Since I’m getting near the end of the level design/mapping for Jimmy and am within a year of finishing development, I thought I might have some interesting enough stuff to say to start giving a little monthly progress report, so I’m going to do that! This month is going to be pretty big in terms of showing stuff off. I’m putting level design aside for a few weeks so that I can tackle some of the bigger promotional stuff I’ve been putting off forever. This mainly means that I’m going to mostly focus on getting a Steam campaign together. I’m admittedly a little scared of this since this is going to hopefully put Jimmy in a bigger context than the RPG Maker community and the slightly broader coalition of stragglers I’ve accumulated on here and on Twitter (but I LOVE my stragglers). This is something I know I have to do, though, so I’m giving myself a deadline for this month because if left to my own devices I’ll just work on the game itself rather than promoting it and then unveil it to great critical acclaim to my close friends, family, and the stray cats that hang around my back yard.

Since I’m going to be doing the Steam thing, this means that I’m also going to get a more polished demo together. If you’ve played the current demo, then there won’t really be a need to play the upcoming one, as it will be largely the same, though there will be the new battle background, some more dialogue with Buck, some quality of life improvements, and some stuff under the hood which will hopefully eliminate any lag that some players were experiencing.

I’ll also be getting a promotional video together, so I’m going to have to finish up a bunch of stuff I’ve been putting off--mainly getting all of the battle backgrounds together and getting the world map 100%. If I have time, I’d also like to finish two or three more levels this month. It should be an unusually diverse month for me, and I’m excited (and a little scared) about the upcoming promotional stuff. Stay tuned!

#Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass #rpg #rpg maker #rpgmaker #progress

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choko-flan · 7 years

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Hello, I wanted to ask you a few things... do you use an RPG Maker? If so, which one? Is it hard to use? Is it difficult to make a game? I, too, would like to make one... I have the plot, characters and all but I have zero experience nor idea how to start... (btw I really like Desolate Village can't wait to play the remake :3)

Hello there, thanks for asking this question. I’ll try my best to answer it as best I can. (・`ω´・ ●)Yes, I use RPG Maker. I actually four rpg maker engines which are XP, VX Ace, MV, and 2003. But the three I use are actually XP, VX ace, and MV. I haven't have a chance to make something in 2003, but I hear it’s very easy to use and it's only $19.99 (which is $20.00).

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But from my experience of the three engine:

RPG Maker MV:Game Made In This Engine: [Desolate Village]

It’s was very easy for my to use.

It’s pretty user friendly with the plugins, since plugins are easy to edit.

There isn’t lot of plugins (since it’s still new)

It is the most expensive rpg maker engine since it’s $79.99 (pretty much $80.00)

One of my favorite engines.

Does tend to not responded, it may be my computer though.

RPG Maker VX Ace:Game Made In This Engine: [Demon Tea]

There is a lot of scripts that you can use.

The engine did tend to not responded to me, but I think it’s just my computer.

Editing the scripts takes a while to get use to. Since it has you dealing with the code at times.

The engine is expensive but a bit cheaper then MV since it’s $69.99 (pretty much $70.00)

One of my favorite engines.

RPG Maker XP:I didn’t finish a game in this engine

There isn’t a lot or any scripts for it.

It is very easy to use.

It’s $24.99 (That’s $25.00)

It’s my least favorite rpg maker engine, since there isn’t a lot I can do it it.

I just don’t use this engine last time I used it was 2014 This is just a few things I could think of at the time, sorry it’s it’s not helpful. ;v;

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I would say the best engine to by would be either RPG Maker VX ace or 2003. Since there a lot of people that use these engine, so it would be easy to ask for help. I would say get by MV when it’s on sale on steam or humble bundle. Since it’s becomes $30.00 or $40.00. When it’s originally $79.99 ($80.00). But the engine I mention which you should not buy is XP, since it’s a engine I never use. It’s the most forgettable one out of the bunch. There are devs that use XP and they make amazing games, but from my experience XP has been a engine which I don’t even use any more.

Making games does take a lot of work and time. At times making the game can get difficult, but that would be the first few stages and the last few stages of development.

It’s okay to have zero experience, since most people who try new things out have zero experience. When I first got into rpg maker had had no experience. All I can say is when you pick out the engine you should make a few test projects in it. So you can get use to it and learn how to use it. So when you make your main project, you can get right into making the game.

Just to make this more simple, the engines I recommend are:RPG Maker MV, VX Ace, and 2003. I hope this was able to help you out, I wish you the best of luck on your game. Also I’m glad that you liked desolate villages (　･`ω･´).

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keyofjetwolf · 7 years

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Would you mind sharing what other games you have on your steam wishlist? I am always looking for new interesting games. =]

Sure! Though I have to point out that since they’re on my wish list, I’ve not tried them. In many cases, I barely know anything about them other than “Hm, this looks interesting to me right now in this moment!” I can’t vouch for anything beyond it catching my attention at the time I added it. BUT LET’S SEE. Games in the order they currently are on my wish list.

Puzzle Quest. I played this a bunch on the 360 but it’s not on sale, it’s never on sale, please go on sale one day.

The Amber Throne. I can’t remember anything about this.

Tales from the Borderlands. I really like Telltale Games.

Game of Thrones - A Telltale Game Series. See above.

ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery) ???

Tyranny. An RPG by Obsidian (Pillars of Eternity) where you play the side of evil and fight good. I’ve really wanted this one for a while now, I may finally pull the trigger.

Valley. Dunno!

Thea: The Awakening. No clue!

Firewatch. Another I’ve been really interested in for a while. Story and mystery-heavy where you’re a ranger in Wyoming with only the person on the other end of your radio to help you. I’ve been considering suggesting this for a the Life is Strange replacement.

Master of Orion. We had this a million years ago and Hubby seems to feel certain I liked it, so okay, onto the wish list you go.

Novus Inceptio. YOU SURE HAVE A FANCY NAME FRIEND. Completely can’t remember what you’re about.

Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! Okay I fucking loved the first Cook Serve Delicious and I don’t even care. I’ve had the sequel on my wish list for like eighteen months and one day, ONE DAY, it will be released and mine.

Planetbase. I like space games, I dunno guys.

Project Highrise. I’m guessing this is a Sim Tower kind of thing. I also really like building and strategy games and shit and regret nothing.

Divinity: Original Sin 2. I can’t remember what this is, but I crack up whenever games have seemingly contradictory name elements such as “original’ and “2″.

LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens. You will pry the LEGO games from my cold dead fingers.

Windward. I think this is a pirate kind of game maybe? Man, I loved Sid Meyer’s Pirates!.

Renowned Explorers: International Society. I hope the game is good enough to support the pomposity of its title.

The Witness. Shiny and chrome? Look I can’t remember what any of this shit is.

Dead Man’s Draw. A card game. That’s all I got. Steam has it for $3.49 right now though, so I mean, damn.

Starbound. DID I MENTION I LIKE GAMES IN SPACE

Folk Tale. I think this is some anthropomorphic RPG?

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. A JRPG, I think, and I seem to remember it being really well loved in the reviews, but I can’t remember anything else.

Rocket League. Soccer, with race car dune buggy things. ACTUALLY SUPER FUN. I played Hubby’s a lot and just never got around to buying it for me.

Child of Light. SHRUG

Rebuild 3: Gangs of Deadsville. I think this is a town-builder with a zombie twist? I like that shit, too.

Epic Battle Fantasy 4. I think this is one of those deeply indy games made with Game Maker Studio or something. Also super cheap at $3.49 right now.

Armello. Your guess is as good as mine.

XCOM 2. Looooved the first XCOM. Fucking love grid-based strategy games. All of my characters were, of course, Senshi. One day, they’ll lower this to the price I want to pay for it.

No Man’s Sky. The hype train kind of killed this before it could even get started, I think, but I still love the concept. As with above, one day they’ll drop it to the price I’m willing to pay.

The Banner Saga 2. Another grid turn-based strategy game with gorgeous animation and a Norse-themed story with death and sadness everywhere. I love the first Banner Saga, even as I never finished it. ONE DAY.

Stellaris. More space shit I think.

Dog Sled Saga. IT’S CALLED “DOG SLED SAGA” COME ON.

Stories: The Path of Destines. No idea, but I love the title.

If you (anyone) picks up something based on it being on this list, let me know! I’m exactly that egotistical enough that I’d want to take some measure of credit.

#jet wolf also talks about gaming #anonymous #ask a jet wolf

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bunnyandbirb · 7 years

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Birb’s Steam Cleaning #1: Weeb Trash RPG

Not too many years ago, I had an addiction called the Humble Bundle. I was suckered in by the pay-what-you-want (what I wanted to pay was usually around 1 cent) model for one game that looked interesting, plus four others I didn’t really care about. This weak-willed behavior has left me with a mountain of games in my Steam library that I’ve never beaten, never played, never even read the description for…

So now it’s time to unearth some shit.

While scrolling through my library, I read titles that I’ve never seen before in my life. Project Root? Leviathan: Warships? Super Chain Crusher Horizon???

In the end I just randomly choose to install something I don’t recognize: The Clans - Saga of the Twins.

It’s only after I’ve installed the game that I go to its store page and read the description.

“Experience a point-and-click adventure RPG game like never before featuring seven playable female characters and a male vampire in this not-so serious tale. Catz and Kitsune desire to go on an adventure with Xenonight who have no choice but to follow them.”

…I’ve made a mistake.

Now you may be a much more open-minded person than me. “Come on, birb,” you might say. “You haven’t even played it yet. Maybe they’re just bad at writing descriptions and naming characters. Give the game a chance.” And you know what? You may be right.

BUT I START THE GAME TO SEE THAT THIS IS THE MAIN MENU:

There is no hope left for me.

Not only is this wannabe-waifu’s character design an assault on my eyes, but there is also an infuriating retro arcade-sounding techno track playing on repeat in the background, featuring some overly autotuned guy speaking in tongues as the accompanying vocals. Also, that (three option) “menu” located right on the girl's crotch is so clearly ripped straight from RPG Maker that it physically hurts me. By “point-and-click adventure RPG game” I guess I should have guessed that it was going to be another amateurish RPG Maker product, but really? You couldn’t even have customized the UI for the first screen the player sees? And this is being sold on Steam for $10???

I tentatively click “New Game” (because there is no ‘Options’ button, I can’t even try to change the wonky resolution, lower the music volume, or do anything other than dive headfirst into the void. Lord help us all) and am instantly introduced to our protagonist, Catz.

Catz has… cat ears. Two seconds into the game, she randomly decides to go on an adventure. No, seriously. The game starts as Catz is having a conversation with her bodyguard, Kitsune, (who has fox ears oh my god kill me) and this is a transcript of the first three lines of dialogue:

Catz: Your food is as great as ever.

Kitsune: Thanks. Even though you hired me as your bodyguard, I’m also a capable cook.

Catz: I feel like going on an adventure.

At this point I’m wondering whether my laptop charger’s cord is long enough to strangle myself with.

I find out that I can access a settings menu from here, and eagerly try to turn down the volume of the music. It doesn’t work. It turns out, nothing on the settings menu is actually clickable. Utterly defeated, I go back to playing the game.

Catz goes to find her “despicable sister” to tell her that she’s going on an aimless adventure. It turns out that this girl is the one we saw on the main menu! Catz’s sister, Sakura (please jesus why) proves that the two are related by being equally horrific at exposition.

The subtlety there is astounding. Catz leaves after saying a bunch of nonsense (she doesn’t want to be her sister’s ‘Master’ or something?), and now I get to control Sakura instead. She goes to a control room and talks about creating battle mechs, activates the “Dream Web”, and then uses her magical powers to beat up some random trash ghost-things that spawn. None of this is explained. Even though the trash ghosts didn’t even touch her, she says she needs to go to the infirmary.

Here, not even five minutes into the game, is where I find my first bug.

Obviously I’m going to tool around instead of actually going where the game tells me to. I make Sakura walk up to a train and try to hop in:

Why the hell is Catz’s sprite coming up and telling me this? Is she the conductor? Does she hide behind that vending machine just to bitch about the train when people walk by?

Anyway, I just walk to the infirmary after this because I don’t want to prolong my suffering any further. Sakura blows up two more trash ghosts on the way with her magic lightning (I have not manually battled a single thing so far) and goes in to take a nap.

We’re switched over to Kitsune’s perspective, and are introduced to a new character: Xenonight.

This is the conversation we are treated to:

X: Finally you are here.

K: Who are you?

X: I’m Xenonight.

X: I will also come to help Catz with her adventure.

K: Well, welcome aboard.

The two find Catz watching some practice fight on a holographic battlefield. She doesn’t even bother to ask who the fuck Xenonight is and why she’s so edgy. Instead, she’s just like, “oh yeah! I was supposed to go on that adventure.”

And then they do.

Yyyyuuuuuuuuuup.

I now enter Catz’s dream sequence, which demands that I pick a difficulty level for the game.

The sound of laughter = having fun, right? Might as well click on that one.

Instantly, I’m placed in a battle sequence where some guy is holding a weapon in the most inefficient manner possible.

I hit him once with a basic attack, and three more appear. None of the combat is explained, but it’s pretty easy to figure out. Just click on a type of attack and then on the enemy you want to hit. Basic attacks seem to do around half as much as the mana-based one, so I end up just torching everything I see. The first battle earns me exactly one wood log.

The rest of the dream consists of meeting some gothic lolita chick named “Lilith Bloodrose” (sigh), miscounting a group of four people as three, and fighting a dragon. Then Kitsune wakes up the MC and we’re in a forest.

I played this game for about another hour, and I can only say that it gets worse. The dialogue is SO cringe inducing, with the characters making XD XD I’m so randumm~1!1! jokes in every conversation without fail. There are also grammatical errors everywhere, and the characters’ names aren’t even spelled right sometimes. The combat is incredibly repetitive and boring as shit. All I have to do is just spam click forever - I might as well just play Cookie Clicker, at least that game gave me some shred of satisfaction.

All in all, I’d rate The Clans - Saga of the Twins a ReconsideredAllofMyLifeChoices/10

~Stay tuned for nonsense~

- birb

#thisisbunnyinthetags #i had to drive today so i had no idea what was going up on this post #im not disappointed #wednesday #wednesday vvideo games #birb #the clans - saga of the twins #steam #video games #steam cleaning #point and click #adventure #text post #bunnyandbirb #long post

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peppermint-shamrock · 7 years

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Your sprites are so amazing! Do you do requests and/or commissions for them? There's a bunch of characters that I'd like, cuz I might make something using them, if that's alright?

Thank you!

Yep, I’ll take requests. I am generally not very fast with making the sprites, so I wouldn’t feel right doing commissions.

There’s a few stipulations regarding usage - I’ll just copy-paste what I’ve said previously:

1) The sprites can only be used in the appropriate RPG Maker Engine, due to these sprites being constructed from edited assets from these engines. These particular sprites use RPG Maker VX/VX Ace assets and therefore can only be used in RPG Maker VX or RPG Maker VX Ace. Other sprites I have made use RPG Maker MV assets and can only be used in RPG Maker MV. See my sprites page if you’d like to see which sprites can be used with which engine.

If you don’t have those engines and are interested, they are on Steam Sale right now. I would not recommend purchasing when they aren’t on sale.

2) They’re only for commercial-free use. Basically you can only use them in a game if you aren’t making money off the game. Since the characters belong to someone else I think this is reasonable, and probably not an issue for you but it needs to be stated anyway.

3) Also, this is a non-exclusive agreement: Anyone is welcome to use my sprites.

That said, I’d love it if you made something with them! That’d be amazing! Just let me know what characters you want and I’ll see what I can do.

#thanks #sprite requests #viewtifulfox

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secretsofthemasquerade · 8 years

Text

What this all means? WoD prelude issues

Abuse will be mentioned

Disclaimer: I don’t want VtM to become a nest for gamer-gaters asshats, so let it be clear that I stand for feminism, positive representation and progressiveness. And further than that, I stand for meaningful, well written media. This is both beyond offensive, and badly written (and badly coded!).

Alright, now that you may (or may not) have read my spoiler free review of the WoD: Prelude vampire game (we eat blood all our friends are dead), this is the second part of this review. The one that really stirs shit, tackles what this all means, and talks about the problems surrounding the two authors. Good brew incoming!

There are a few issues that need mentioning; Zak’s reputation of being a dick (to say the least), white wolf saying they don’t give a shit, and one trans character in the game.

First, I must say I said what I needed to about Sarah (the second author of the Vampire gale) in a few reblogged discussions I had with her about it; you can read that here. She claims the “problematic trans character” is a reference to someone else, but as the anon in that ask pointed out, the name given to the character totally references someone else (and it’s not like Avery is a common first name, so the “coincidence” excuse is weak, to say the least). It’s probably a little bit of both tbh. White wolf stands behind their choice btw.

This is my random, worthless opinion on the trans character’s subject: I don’t think the trans community deserves to be treated like this, and I’m not going to police whether trans people can talk about their dicks (or lack thereof) or not. Sarah likes her characters bold and unapologetic, which is perfectly “none of my fucking business”, I just find that it gives too much of an excuse for people to actually ask trans people about their dicks (or not) which is a definite no-no when it comes to, you know, basic manners. Why encourage that? Most trans people do not want to talk about it to random strangers they’ve just met, so why have that be the main representation of trans people in the media? Sex workers who brag about their dicks and who are serial killers? I find it tasteless at best, dangerous (again, “hey, if this is what trans people are, i totally can ask about their dicks!” kind of shits) at worst. Not that sex workers who talk about their dicks are wrong in anyway, of course. Note that I have no problem with a character being trans, being a serial killer, or being a loud unapologetic bitch. I have a problem with what it may lead to, and how respectful of/to the community the character is. And it’s simply not written with the respect and the love the trans community deserves. The fact that Sarah herself is trans doesn’t make her a good candidate to write well-made (trans or not) characters. I’m all for more diversity in authors (cuz it’s still a bunch of white old dudes out there), but they still need to be good writers (or at least more decent than the shit that’s being published nowadays). Writer is a job. And this is were Zak and Sarah failed; they just didn’t work with basic decency, respect and research of the characters, and what they are, what they represent and what they mean to the community. The fact that White Wolf Publishing used the “but we have a X friend!” excuse only makes it more profoundly wrong. And you guys can’t even blame that on Europeanism (racism takes very different forms here than in the US, certain things are more blurred, and ethnicity is overall understood differently), even in France we consider the use of a token minority person to excuse controversial stuff to be just plain wrong (and god knows France can be very weird about the treatment of minorities).

If you’re trans and knowledgeable of trans representation, please tell me off about this. It’s just my thoughts on the matter as someone who cares deeply about characters.

The other trans character, Morgan, exchanges like, four texts with you. So, this character’s existence gave nothing to my run. I need to replay the thing and see if other choices give us more interaction with this one, and I really have no problem with this one so far.

Now, the “unique aesthetic” that was brought to the game, I could find interesting modern artists on tumblr to draw for this game, and actually have their modern art be readable, as in, “really in accord with the game’s content (a quick sketch needs to be a quick sketch)”. I can also guess that it would come out far cheaper than whatever this guy took (I hear he sells his art pieces in the thousands? people, you’ve got too much money on your hands, give it to me instead).

The writing, however, I’m pretty sure (read absolutely certain) there are very knowledgeable wod fans out there who can decently hold a pen (half of the RPers I exchange with can come up both with a decent story and can write it out in a very.. literary and interesting way, and so without having to sort through the bs ramble that brings nothing, and without the “options” branches that lead to just a game over screen...).

Zak’s reputation of being a harasser and abuser doesn’t seem too far fetched from where I stand, especially since people who complained have said that White Wolf never contacted them back, even if they said they did. I can’t say deffo what he did or didn’t, but I can certainly assure you that the choice of White Wolf knowingly hiring the guy, then defending him, all while knowing all of this shit, and having one of their writers be one of the victims of the abuse, is not an innocent move from WW/Paradox.

We wanted fresh blood, fresh views, fresh takes, and they willingly hire a veteran known for beyond “problematic” behavior. And excusing all this shit because “but he’s an artist!” doesn’t cut it. Not from White Wolf. Not from a Scandinavian company. Not in the world we live in today. Not with the very talented people who are fans of the WoD and who can come up with something so much better, so much smoother, so much more respectful, and without all this negative publicity. This isn’t just some loud mouth rough corners guy (like I can admit I am!! let’s be honest I’m a harsh bitch lol), this is seriously.. wrong. It leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth, and tbh, Werewolf already has a reputation of being a game played by fascists, and LARPs are known hunting grounds for less-than-polite predators, why fucking continue this fucking shit? This isn’t what we want our hobby to be. This isn’t the kind of people I or anyone around me want to be associated with. Art is political in nature, but that doesn’t mean I am willing to accept the company owning the IP I love most hiring fucking extremist assholes. Everyone has a “problematic opinion” on something, honestly, that’s fine, I mean I get my share of anon hate for many of those, but can you guys straightforward tell me I’m a bad person doing evil and spreading evil into the gaming industry? (If I am tell me now so I can quit!)

TBH, I believe they hired Zak because he was a known “controversial figure”. To have free publicity. To pander to the GG community (EDIT: I failed here, I wanted to say “attract extremes”, Zak is not a gamergater at all). To get everyone angry about “the gay agenda”, “modern art” and more. They’ve succeeded. But it’ll blow up in their faces, and I really want us all to show them this is not acceptable.

What to do now? Be heard. Show your displeasing of such choices. Don’t let them have it their way with an IP you care about. They may own the rights, but ultimately, as Brucato (Mage RPG author), the games belong to us, the fans. Write to white wolf, boycott. Do not harass and insult, but tell them exactly what you think.

There are free visual novels out there, and cheaper princess makers who have more interesting outcomes, badges, achievements, easter eggs, all sorts of different endings if you fail/die, and all sorts of different failure paths that still let you play, and replay, and replay, without feeling frustrated, fucked over, and just plain trying to follow some incoherent druggie’s trail of thoughts.

Here’s a few things I recommend playing, to read how good characterization, art and horror can come around, as well as player agency and choices that mean you continue playing despite failures (linking steam, but gog works too for most of them). So here’s a few games you deffo wanna try out instead of these.

Long live the Queen

Actual “Princess Maker” games :)

Cupid (I can’t recommend @cupidvn enough, it’s great free game, it has a few flaws considering it’s purely fanmade but overall, it’s very interesting and treats the subject with a good amount of respect)

This war of mine

Choice of vampire (free on web, available as a mobile app)

Vlad the Impaler A very awesome replayable story, you pick one of three characters who has one of two specializations mid game depending on your choices. Just. Get Vlad. It’s great.

I’d also mention an Actual Lone Wolf (by Dever!) video game/visual novel/cyoa.

Heavy Rain (PS3) So many choices, and the game goes on regardless of what happens. The illusion of choice is so well made. Beyond Two Souls also does this fairly well, but the story is more linear

The Last of Us (the MC is still a 40 something rough guy, but there’s more to it I promise! there’s no “choice” to be had, but the characterization is great)

And finally, I highly recommend watching like, all of Extra Credits videos about game making, characterization, illusion of choice and so on. They did a playlist. And other one about genres that might come in handy.

I’m very close to angrily make the text/choice/agency/multiple paths adventure we all need and deserve, and publish it for free... But I really don’t have the time, nor the funds, nor the skills, nor the legal knowledge to make it. So if someone wants to, know that I have a hot story that’s worth telling to initiate new players to the WoD :)))

#wod preludes #world of darkness #wod #vampire the masquerade #vtm #rant #review #video games

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eddsworldarmageddon · 8 years

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First of all, holy cow you're amazing, just getting that out of the way; otherwise this ask would be huge. Second, what programming software do you use? I now want to try to program a game, but don't know any good software. Thanks!

Aw, you’re sweet! Thank you, you’re amazing too!

I uh… I practically wrote a novel about game making programs… so I’ll put everything under a read more:

(i hope you can see the read more button cause it doesn’t show up for me on mobile)

The program I’m using is called RPG Maker, specifically the 2000 version, which is very intuitive and reliable despite being so old. There are loads of different versions, each one more polished than the last, and they’re all available on Steam!

I’m no programming expert, so the simplified commands allow me to do whatever I want without having to learn a coding language. It may look complicated at first, but once you learn the basics you can do quite a lot of cool stuff with it. You can even make your game for iOS and Android if you use the latest version of the program!

RPG Maker is advertised to be simple enough for children, but powerful enough for game developers, and that’s true! I first started working with this program when I was about 9 or 10. It’s got a special place in my heart for sparking my love of game design.

The community for RPG Maker is huge!! There are lots of websites and forums you can go to if you have a question or need help programming something. There are even large libraries filled with music and graphics that people have created for others to use, free of charge! If you want to go deeper down the rabbit hole, fans of this software have created add-ons that allow you to alter the way your game plays. You can do all kinds of things using these unofficial patches, but you do have to know how to code things, which can get very difficult. Personally, I don’t use add-on programs. I would be too scared of accidentally destroying my game or something crazy like that!

Some famous RPG Maker games include: Ib, The Witch’s House, OFF, and To The Moon.

I’m not sure what your budget is, but the latest version of RPG Maker, MV, costs $79.99 at its core, and $129.99 if you get the bundle, which I assume has more stuff. If you want the version I’m using, it costs $24.99. If you’re interested in getting an RPG Maker, I’d recommend waiting for a Steam Sale, or check the website Humble Bundle for any sales they might have. Buying a game there gives you a code you can redeem on Steam, plus part of your purchase supports a charity of your choice!

Summary: Great and simple program, not free, large community of smart helpful people.

Link to the latest version: http://store.steampowered.com/app/363890/

Another suggestion is Stencyl, a program that also doesn’t require much coding knowledge. As long as you’ve got a basic grasp of math, this should work just fine!

The programming style of Stencyl seems a bit limited, I’ve seen this kind of software before, but I don’t have it myself so don’t take my word for it. It’s a fair bit more complicated than something like RPG Maker. You’ll need a basic grasp of how programming works before you start, but there are loads of tutorials on the site to help you get started, in case you need help.

The program works by dragging and snapping together snippets of pre-made code to make long strands of mathematical goodness. I personally don’t like this style of programming, but you can try it out for yourself and see how you like it! There are loads of cool games people have made with this program, however the community doesn’t seem to be as large as RPG Maker’s.

There’s a free version of Stencyl, but only allows you to publish games online. You won’t be able to make downloadable (Steam-type) games or mobile games.

When it comes to the other versions, you don’t pay for this program up front like RPG Maker or GameMaker: Studio, instead you pay once every year, and the price depends on which version you have. The “Indie” version costs $99 a year, while the “Studio” version costs $199 a year. It’s pretty expensive, but not as bad as our next contender below!

Summary: Interesting program, good for learning how to code, has a free version

Link to their website: http://www.stencyl.com/

You could also try GameMaker: Studio! I don’t know much about this program, but I’ve heard good things about it. If you need a selling point, I believe Undertale was made using it. It seems pretty intuitive, and there are a lot of tutorials available on the website, if you need help!

GameMaker is the most unique out of the bunch, offering many different tools for you to use. It’s sleek and polished, with loads of options for you to choose from. It may take a while to get used to this one, it looks like a lot to take in, but with enough practice you could create a best-selling game, just like Mr. Toby Fox!

You can get a free version of this program which has a lot of the same features as the full versions, but you have limited distribution options.

The other two versions of GameMaker are incredibly expensive, with the standard version being $149.99, and the fancy ~master~ version being $799.99. That, ah, is a little absurd. Don’t get the super expensive one. Love yourself. Just…. no…….. why would it be that expensive oh my god…… do they even realize how many Delicious Taco Bell Tacos you could buy with that kinda cash??? mmmmno i dont think so. this is a really long post is anyone still reading at this point? hello?

Ahem, ah, anyway.

Summary: Great program, more complicated, has a free version, the paid versions are BEYOND expensive.

Link to their website: https://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker/studio2

So those are my picks for high-quality game designing programs for beginners. It’s tough finding good software that’s free, actually it’s almost impossible. But, if you do pay the money to get a nice program and put in the hard work and dedication necessary to create and sell your game, the software should pay for itself!

Alternatively, you can find online tools designed for schools and colleges that allow you to make small games, usually for free. I’ve seen a few and they’re pretty good if you’re just starting out and you want to learn how to make games. Try Googling “free online game maker” and see what you find!

Yikes those are just a few of your options for programming. Don’t even get me started on art and music software!!

Sorry this turned out so long, I wanted to be as helpful as possible. (I think I went a little overboard… whoops)

Let me know if you have any questions!

#this took me like 2 hours to write lol i need to stop doing this #im so sorry this is so long xD asdfghjkl #Anonymous #eddsworldarmageddon asks

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