#but these ten months in isat did

[rin-rin-kururin]

by the tenth month my game brainrot turned into ship brainrot and i can only pray for what will happen next

[drawcupidsbow]

Hi i made a post on instagram about the top five games i played for the first time this year and thought id share it here! none of these are in any particular order. except the last one. my favorit....

first up is oneshot! it took me wayyyy too long to play this game. oneshot feels kinda like one of the staple rpg maker games, yet i went into it pretty much completely blind, "finished it" in one sitting, found out there was over half the game left, played the rest, and cried real hard. such a good game that breaks the fourth wall in really interesting ways. and also it has niko who doesnt love little fella niko

♡

second is halope! this is a game i had never heard of before my friend ángel (@raccoonlover333) told me to play it and i feel like i still dont really see people talk about it? it has a very unique style i think and each of the areas have their own atmosphere and feel to them (aside from the fact that all of them have distinct color palettes lol). very lovely game i enjoyed it a lot. also one of the first times i played a game with multiple endings and felt satisfied not going out of my way getting any i missed ? i enjoyed what it had to offer and didnt feel the need to pry for more (good thing)

♡

hard shift from story based rpgmaker games but next is webfishing. webfishing is good. its so good youve probably heard a lot of people say this by now but its just so fun and calming to sit around with friends and fish for hours. theres something special about the kinds of online games where theres a physical space you share with people, especially those you havent met in person. makes you feel like youre there with them. and also you can get a man i love fishing shirt whats not to love

♡

o yea baby farming sim. this game is so charming and has a lot of quality of life features that i feel are missed in other farming sims. it is still in early access so i cant be too harsh on it, but i will admit that the characters feel a bit too flat currently. a lot of nothing burger dialogue which isnt always a bad thing but when 20 characters tell you Hey this weather huh? must be good for farming! its hard to differentiate their personalities in your mind lol. im sure thatll be added to in the future though like i said its still ea and only has enough content to last you about a year in game. what it does have is very fun though and i would recommend it

♡

You knew it was coming be honest. where do i even start. technically i Did play isat for the first time last year, however, it was for like one hour and then i didnt pick it up again for half a year. so it counts to me. and also i take any excuse i can to talk about this game

in stars and time is a game that portrays characters and relationships in such a realistic light to a degree ive never seen in any other game. it makes it so easy to immediately become attached to this group of friends despite knowing them for less than ten minutes. its a very emotion heavy game. and who can forget the time loop Ohhh yes the time loop. siffrins slow decent into hopelessness and anguish after failing to escape time and time again is something rarely shown in time loop media i feel. at least to this degree. madoka magica comes pretty damn close though lol. also looping in time and zoning out through dialogue (and doing so having consequences) is such a cool game mechanic

while im talking about isat im slipping its prequel game in too, start again start again start again a prologue (or just start again). this one, though much shorter and more of a proof of concept, feels much more harrowing in the ways it pulls it off, especially without a certain characters presence. but i wont say more than that as to not spoil it teehee

this game changed my life for the better. and has been causing me psychic damage every day for 8 months. heart ♡

♡

and thats some of my favorite games i played this year! there were more but not enough for it to be 10 and 5 was a nicer number than like 7 lol. happy new year! i hope this year treats you all well and i cant wait to draw one million fanarts as i have been doing for the past 5 years. Yayyy

[openphrase123]

You said you (and your gf) hated loop after the twist reveal. Did you think the twist was disappointing? Stupid? Too obvious? And what exactly changed your mind later?

oh see it wasn't really hating loop specifically - i've always liked how like. abrasive they are?? and how even though they're a very typical "helping the player" character they're a fun little mystery to try and unravel when you're playing for the first time. it was more that i got the twohats reveal and was like "well THAT'S fucking dumb" and it soured me on loop for like. two entire months LOL. but we're chill now. gf still thinks the twist is dumb but she's not on isat tumblr like i am

readmore for extra rambling

and, admittedly, i did NOT get twohats the first time i played - i had No idea you could show loop items until i was actively trying to get twohats. so my reveal on loop was watching someone ELSE get twohats on stream, and i was fairly detached to it. gf had a similar detached reveal because it was me running into the room ten minutes later going "HEY DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO LOOP IS"

so i've done a 180 on the loop twist in retrospect because i Obviously did not experience it in the way that's the most personal and cool. but like. "this character used to be that character" is worse to me than "it was all a dream in the end" as far as story twists go. but after dwelling on it and playing twohats myself i was like "oh loop my friend loop i can't stay mad at you"

anyway on my third playthrough of isat i'm thoroughly enjoying how oblivious siffrin (and me) is about loop's identity. loop i am Shaking You (affectionate)

also endnote (edit: this had nothing to do with any of this but i wrote this while hungry and frustrated) but loop is one of those characters where, because of my past with them, i am SUPER picky with any fanworks surrounding loop. it's so easy to me to get loop wrong (not to anyone's fault i realize it's a Me Being Picky Situation). i am also like this with isabeau and odile. mirabelle i mostly think people understand enough, the fandom is very aroace, and bonnie's fanwork likability hinges on whether the artist likes kids. and siffrin is also a mixed bag

[jklpopcorn]

*crawls out of the in stars and time timeloop, visibly disheveled and exhausted after spending 33 hours playing + Another 2 hours mass reblogging with friend* WE MADE IT TO THE END, OH LORD, WHO SAID THAT THE GAME WAS ONLY 21 HOURS LONG

Hiii! This is an update on my last ask pertaining to finishing Start Again and starting ISAT. It tooked another session to completed SAAPAand then over ten 3 hour sessions over the course of a month to beat but we did it!

Thank you for bring this game on my dashboard! Truly, one of the games of all time

Some highlights of those 33 hours of stars and timing.

Both of us just STARING at isat Siffrin during acts 1 and 2 because holy shit, they're so joyous and filled with whimsy and the timeloop horrors hasn't hit them yet. <--- used to saapfrin's depression

The two of us experiencing the dawning horror that is all the callbacks to Start Again in act 3+4

LOOP HANGOUT IMPLICATIONS THAT SIFFRIN HELD THE PARTY BACK BC THE PARTY WAS ABLE TO MAKE TO THE KING ON THIER OWN DESPITE HOW THERES SO MANY POTENTIAL SOFTLOCKS

I (person who knew that saapfrin is loop since the beginning and that loop is a Siffrin) had to desperately gaslight the streamer friend when they randomly joked that there could be multiple Siffrins across different timelines in act 2 (they didnt remember saying that when we were chatting at the end credits)

Destroying Odile's old women kidneys via making her drink 8+ bowls of salty broth whenever we fought the king

Yelling HOW ARE YOU STILL STANDING??? When odile froze Siffrin in time at the 5th act finale like Ma'am using timecraft even for a second is said to cause the user to turn to dust?? And you're like 80

Heartbreaks during the 'Odile stands in front of the party after Siffrin disposing of sadness too excitedly" '"We cannot trust Siffrin" clocktower act 5' and 'Odile uses papercraft against big Siffrin' because she's the oldest and logical one and she must protect everyone/make sure everyone is prepared to fight the king even if her actions seem too extreme

Got a beautiful moment at the secret loop bossfight when the streamer friend learned loop is a siffrin and I no longer had duct tape over my mouth and could finally tell them that loop is our saapfrin (been talking about what happened to saapfrin in general during the playthrough)

SBXUXBUDHXUDHCUCCU I am SO glad you enjoyed the game :DDDDD

I also thought the game would normally take 21 hours but I was prepared for it to take longer since I love to investigate more 😭😭 yeah it did take longer, 41 hours in 4 days to be more precise, twice as long 😭😭 loved every second of it 😭😭

I can imagine seeing act 1 and 2 siffrin would be such a whiplash! When I learned that sasasap may contain spoilers and reused scenes i went straight to isat so I first got used to the whimsy of the act 1 and 2 siffrin and then saw the slow descent into the poor meow meow in act 4 😭 i was actually surpised when i played sasasap that the little guy skipped all of that and is lowkey worse off than isat siffrin 😭 Loop truly did make a difference when it comes to sif's sanity (and like... actually helping him get out of the loop too ^^)

I was actually surprised they went into an actual breakdown in act 4 and 5. Didn't expect the creator to explore how a person would feel after dying and looping a hundred or so times! I was fully expecting for sif to go "well that happened :)" with no consequences like some games/movies like to do... But within the first 5 minutes of playing I could bet that the creator was a tumblr user so I had hope that our little fella could go a little feral later on <3 i was not disappointed <3 (but honestly, the game reeks of tumblr at times /pos /pos /pos <3)

I suppose that without Sif during the Loop hangout the party got both super lucky and searched even more thoroughly for keys and such since their main guy was out! Not that it really helped them in the end...

I guess it's just canon that that old woman's immortal. Speed and running are her only weaknesses 😔 and mommy issues 😔

Also her truly wanting the best for the party and also taking the least shit from siffrin the moment they could be a danger to her family 😭 violence is not always the answer odile you saw what happened to siffrin 😭

Loop..... nooooo......

[kazehita]

I'm a huge fan of all your ISAT doodles! Sif esp their expressions are always so good on your style >:o

Would you happen to have any advice for someone who also wants to draw faster? I love how loose your doodles always look!

Wah !!! thank you so much !!!!!!!!!!! Honestly I've always really struggled with expressions, but Siffrin. They changed me.. Of course !!! Drawing looser was something I recently really worked at so it's fresh in my head! Tldr; art speed is all about having a solid workflow.

Earlier last year, I decided to do as many finished-ish pieces for Artfight as I possibly could. It really did speed me up!!!!! Gotta be careful taking on that kind of challenge though - it's really easy to burn out that way. I recommend taking something like that on when you don't have anything else going on at the time.

My workflow for those was sketch as fast as hell you can, clean up the sketch, flat colors down, and then bedazzle with layer effects. At the time, I really struggled to make flat-colored pieces look good, but I think i got it by the end!!

(this was for my homie okami, in artfight last year! I did 32 of these, in under a month. Phcoo.) But specifically with my isat doodles - the Real Speed comes from blocking it out with shapes first, sketching until it looks okay, coloring under it kind of approximately, and then slapping paint over the top, darkening the darks, and lightening the lights! and then i messily scribble over it again a bit to make it more vague.

( i didn't timelapse any of these doodles. do forgive me)

These sketches look the way they do because i don't really clean up the sketch that much, and I'm messy as hell with the coloring and shading. Having an eye for what is too much and what is too little just takes practice! Though, if you're like me, a very handy tip is to stay zoomed out on the canvas - when you're too zoomed in, its easy to loose track of the overall picture!

If you specifically want to sketch fast, use references! Pose in front of your own camera to get them even!! (i did not for the doodle above. that's why it took ten thousand year). It's terrifically annoying to find references for something specific, so in that situation I just accept I'll be in sketch iteration land for a while.