#coloring in mspaint.. it’s hard and no one understands

[tentacledwizarddraws]

day 15: already here

[pinkuboa]

Do you have any tips for making a maze?

I actually had some written out for Dream Diary Jam that I keep forgetting to post, so yes, you’re in luck.  In the small Yume Nikki fangame Community, we have a term called “Hell Mazes”, named after the original Yume Nikki’s big red pulsating map that was a bit frustrating to get through.  These maps are large, confusing, and serve to frustrate the player rather than to challenge them.  Here’s some steps on how to avoid one of those.

Whatever you do, I’d plan my maze out first.  Grab a sheet of paper or MSPaint and doodle down a rough idea of what you want.  Here’s my process of making a maze:

Step 1: Draw out your starting and ending points.  Step 2: Connect them like this so there is at least one main path out of your maze:

Step 3:  Fill out the rest of the maze with branches leading to dead ends or connecting paths.

Now you got yourself a maze.  Start playtesting it from there and see how frustrated you get with it.  Remember: if you’re not having fun getting through a map, your player is not having fun.  You don’t want your player to be bored or frustrated when playing your game - that’s when they put it down in favor of doing something more fun like cleaning the house or rearranging their music collection.

More tips under the “Keep Reading” below:

If your maze is big, I’d put in interesting things for the player to discover or interact with along the way so the map has more of a purpose than just “Go from point A to point B”.  It’s also more entertaining that way.

Too many branching paths or dead ends are a pain, no matter how big the map is.  They work in mazes you’ll do on a piece of paper since the person completing the maze can see all the branches of the map at once, but they don’t work as well when players can only see a part of the map at a time.

It’s always a good idea to add in a few unique landmarks, like npcs or larger objects so the player can orient themselves better in the maze.  A hedge maze could have a few odd statues here and there, an area with a small pond, a small area where the maze breaks into a few flower beds, a gardener trimming the hedges… that sort of thing.

One person on the Dream Diary Chat brought up that it would be nice if the Hell Maze in Yume Nikki had different colored sections in it rather than all of them be red.  Mazes are easier to digest in sections as they become smaller mazes that are easier to understand. 

If there are chasers in your map, make the with of the maze’s pathways 2 blocks wide instead of one, and have a few areas that are 3 by 3 squares or whatever you like.  This gives your player more room to move around.  The more room they have to move around, the less likely they are to ragequit.

Speaking of ragequit, have chasers be at a slow or moderate pace compared to the player’s speed.  Having them outspeed the player in a large maze is unfair.

It’s ok to make a small maze.  You don’t need it to be 100x100, you can just have it as 50x50 and get the same effect.    

I’m of the mind that having paths that go off from the main path but then rejoin it is better than having paths that lead to dead ends.  The player can still feel lost when they go around in a loop, but without having to backtrack all the way from where they left off.

You can add in an item that makes it easier for the player to get through the maze, like a compass that guides them or a switch that makes all the enemies disappear.   Not necessary, but it feels rewarding when you discover a secret like that.

Have the maze be optional: instead of having one certain area that can only be reached via hell maze, have a back way to them in addition to the hell maze path.  Or have a way to bypass them completely by doing something like answering a question right.

Obscuring the player’s vision is a dick move.  If you’re going to make the area dimly lit or covered in branches or fog,  make the map simple.  The challenge of regular mazes is getting through all the branching paths since they’re confusing.  The challenge of obscured mazes is that they’re obscured by darkness or another object making it hard to see.  Resist the urge to punish players by making them go through that.  Even if it’s supposed to be scary, it will stop after the player gets used to the dark from being stuck in there for 15 minutes plus, or reloads their save file for the 3rd time to start over at the beginning.

If the player saves at save points instead of via the menu, have a few save points scattered around the map to help them out.  If there are chasers nearby however, that might screw over a player’s save file by saving too close to a chaser.  Having safe spaces chasers can’t get to near your saves can circumvent that nonsense.

Hope that’s what you’re looking for c:

[schpiedehl]

An open letter to Hamilton (etc) fan artists, Re:whitewashing

Hello. Time for another ill-constructed rant on probably already well-tread ground. Specifically whitewashing in fan art (even more specifically Hamilton art though this could be applied to any fandom) and when it is ok. lol jk it’s never ok. PLEASE NOTE: I am an (amateur) artist. I am not ragging on artists because I “don’t understand how hard making art is,” “how hard artists work,” or what have you. These are legitimate problems of representation in fanart (that I have witnessed firsthand) and this is my earnest attempt to elucidate these issues. Feel free to interact with this post as you see fit. I am always free for debate if you disagree, would like clarification, or have anything to add.  

+Look out for those embedded hyperlinks for more content 

Preface: I am a member of far too many fb Hamilton groups. Sometimes people post their art, apparently forgetting that when you post things online you open yourself to critique. Hilarity ensues.

I often see Hamilton characters (generally portrayed as original Broadway cast members - Lin-Manuel Miranda, Okieriete Onaodowan, Anthony Ramos, etc.) who have been horrifically whitewashed - complete with lightened skin, bizarrely red or light brown hair, lightened eyes, and so forth. The most common defenses for this misstep, from both artists and fans, are personal style and apparent inability to approximate accurate skin tone (“I tried but skin color is hard”). Here’s why both of those excuses are utter bullshit.

1. Personal Style:

A lot of things in life are open to interpretation and all art is inherently interpretive. But the racial and cultural identity of a real life person is not one of these interpretive things. [PAUSE: before anyone says that this is precisely what Hamilton is doing with its casting, don’t.] First of all, I get it, personal style is important to art. Some people trend toward realism while others prefer more abbreviated, abstracted, and/or cartoony styles and part of that is selecting stylized color palettes, interpreting color in new and inventive ways, and playing with light, value, line, form, etc. This is NOT what I am talking about. It is entirely possible to honor a person’s background using relative or approximated shading/tone/coloration and to create beautiful art in the process [example: Chris Vision’s color series]. This little rant is specifically directed at people who "attempt" to depict Hamilton (etc) actors/characters using realistic/semi-realistic color palettes (as in, how they appear irl, accounting for abstraction, drawing style, etc) but fall short when it comes to depicting the actors, particularly in regards to racial background. You can find excellent examples of what I mean at Calling Out Whitewashed Hamilton Art and I’m positive you can find far too many examples in this and many other fandoms simply by scrolling through the tags on Tumblr and Instagram.  So without further ado, lightening a person/character’s skin in fanart is racist. There’s really no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Foremost, the practice of editing a person of color to appear more European (skin, hair, eyes, even facial features) intentionally erases the cultural, racial, and ethnic background of the person in question. This is incredibly disrespectful to the actors who portray these characters and works to undermine what Hamilton as a whole is trying to build. If Hamilton is trying to reclaim American history for People of Color, stripping the racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds from the actors represents a rejection of conceit and, perhaps, even a form of appropriation. It is as though “fans” are saying that they want the art that is made by and for POC while simultaneously rejecting the distinctly racialized aspects of that art. When artists depict Lin!Hamilton as white, they are rejecting the Nuyorican background which Lin brings to the character in both writing and performance and projecting faux whiteness upon the character. In doing so, whether consciously or not, they are rejecting the actor’s race as well. Lin is beloved because of the art that he makes which allows many fans to look past his racial and cultural identity rather than accept it as an intrinsic aspect of both the man and his art.  Moreover, the ubiquity of this whitewashed art also reveals a lot about what “fans” find visually appealing and acceptable - e.g., the Eurocentric standard of beauty. Whitewashing in art represents not only a rejection of POC’s culture but, obviously, their physical attributes as well. Dark skin is lightened and or whitened, hair is often straightened and/or lightened to a light brown or red hue (with the exception of Laurens, whose features, hair in particular, are often feminized as a form a queer fetishization but that is a rant for another day), and features are changed to appear more European. Often, depictions of characters are changed so much it is nearly impossible to tell that the art is based on any particular actor. In addition to being, again, extremely disrespectful to the actors, this further perpetuates the extremely harmful notion that beauty only exists in European features and sends a direct message to POC fans that their appearance is neither beautiful not accepted by the fanbase of a piece of media that was made by other POC specifically to appeal to them. This seems especially true of dark skinned black individuals who are often completely stripped of the melanin in fan art, further driving home notions of ingrained cultural colorism and anti-blackness. With Hamilton in particular, it is fine to “change” a character’s race if and only if you are depicting a character as a different actor. For instance, while Lin!Hamilton is Latino, Michael!Hamilton is a black man and depicting Hamilton as such, while uncommon among fan communities, is better than fine [*the lack of art of dark skinned actors is another point of contention. Not only are dark skinned actors frequently whitewashed, many are ignored altogether]. Depicting Michael!Hamilton as light skinned or white, however, is obviously not fine.  Having established that lightening a character’s skin or depicting them with more European features is inherently racist, the claim that whitewashing is a stylistic choice is invalid. If you make the “stylistic choice” to depict a POC as white, you are racist. End of story.  And if you want to do better but find yourself wanting to draw Lin!Hamilton as white, remember that this guy existed and just draw him instead. It’s not that hard.  2. Technical Difficulties:

One of the most unfortunately common excuses for whitewashing in fanart seems to be that, for some reason or another, artists have difficulty accurately approximating actors’ skin color so they presumedly just make something up, This results in Lin!Hamilton and Phillipa!Eliza looking a bit like Snow White, Oak!Mulligan looking a little tan, and so forth. As an artist, I understand that approximating realistic skintones can be rather hard, especially with traditional mediums, but it is glaringly obvious when artists don’t put in any effort.  With traditional mediums such as paint, markers, or color pencils, artists can blend to create the colors which accurately (or as accurately as possible given the limitations of certain mediums like watercolors) approximate actors’ skin tones. If the colors dry lighter than intended, the artist generally layer and blend more to achieve a better approximation. If they then scan their image, they can use a photo editor to fix or correct any mistakes. It might not be the easiest to find good matches (speaking from experience, there aren’t a ton of good warm brown toned markers and thus a lot of blending is sometimes required) but, as previously stated, it’s generally easy to tell when someone at least tried to get close to a correct skin tone. With digital art, it’s even easier. Fact: Nearly all art programs have a nifty eyedropper tool which can be used to pull color swatches directly from a reference picture. Even MSpaint has this function. By pulling multiple swatches from a variety of reference images (to account for different lighting conditions), an artist can build a relatively accurate gradiented palette for skin tone. It’s really that simple! And if an artist notices that the color isn’t quite right, it’s nothing a few tweaks to hue and saturation can’t fix!  If my tone seemed a bit sarcastic/passive aggressive in that last paragraph, it’s because it totally was. I see this excuse so much more often than I see any other excuse for whitewashed fan art and it is incredibly frustrating but also, as an (extraordinarily mediocre) artist myself, it rings incredibly inaccurate, especially for digital art. I completely understand that it sometimes takes a lot of time to get used to a medium but when an artist’s color palette is literally limitless, there is absolutely no reason (aside from personal, possibly subconscious/implicit but no less real, biases) for an actor/character to be depicted as white/light skinned when they are not. As previously discussed, that is disrespectful and harmful, and really only serves to make the artist (and those that support work) look like a jackass.  And look, if you find yourself making whitewashed art, it’s not as though it is impossible to change. When someone criticizes your whitewash-y art, don’t get defensive. Don’t claim that it’s your style or that you don’t know how to color POC. It looks and sounds really fucking ridiculous. Instead, evaluate your art and place it into a cultural context. Take it as an opportunity to improve. And maybe also take the opportunity to learn a little about yourself and your biases.  This wasn’t meant to be a call out post and I’d like to end this on a positive note so here are a few wonderful Hamilton fan artists who are worth a look:  terror-in-a-dream zzzoehsu linmanwhydididothis mikiprice thegentlehoneybee dorothywonderland maeng