#developer log

[meo-eiru]

DUDE I JUST PLAYED THROUGH THE GAME, WHY IS IT SO SADDDD😭😭😭

and why is he hot

Starling went through quite a few redesigns through the entire development process so let me talk about it a bit :3

It all started with this notes app drawing I made with my finger

Right from the start we knew his tail would be made out of tongues but figuring out how many and placed how was quite hard, I really had to girlmath my way thru

This was the first actual drawing I made of him. The story wasn't complete yet but I went ahead and designed something anyway. Here he was definitely "scarier" and his scar was also placed differently. He had gills on his neck but as you will see I changed their location to under his arms later on. We were actually considering not giving him a tongue of his own so I wanted to make his mouth terrifyingly big and empty.

Here I tried giving him bigger eyes like a fish. This was when his playful and childlike personality had started shaping as you can see from the expressions. I definitely liked this direction better but it also wasn't perfect just yet so I went ahead and did a few more changes

I slowed down on trying to figure out his design a bit after that and instead focused on how his sprite would look. He is a merman after all, he can't just stand straight like a lot of the other visual novel characters. This stage was PAINFUL.

These were the first ones I sketched, we ended up deciding we liked the 3rd one the best.

I carried that 3rd one over to another canvas and started playing around with how we could place his tail, we started entertaining the idea of having him sit on a big rock

This is when his pose really shaped up. The animated Little Mermaid movie was actually a big inspiration, I sat and rewatched the entire movie and studied how they animated her tail

And after that I finally finalized his design. We decided to change the end of his tail to be more eel like for aesthetic purposes (normal tail shape looked weird with tongues)

And for anyone wondering this is what Maelyn looked like at first. Since the story wasn't complete yet I thought it'd take place in a more modern setting and designed her with that in mind but we decided to have the story take place in 1800s so I changed the design based on that. I did a lot of research on glasses and corsets to make the design as accurate as I could.

Yes glasses! We didn't use the sprites in the main story but Maelyn does wear glasses and looks very pretty in them if you ask me. You will be seeing more of it in the bonus episodes!

[4theitgirls]

november book journal

books read:

1. ‘the guest list’ by lucy foley

rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

2. ‘home before dark’ by riley sager

rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

3. ‘the last time i lied’ by riley sager

rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

4. ‘devil in ohio’ by daria polatin

rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

5. ‘nineteen claws and a blackbird’ by agustina bazterrica

rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

6. ‘the woman in cabin 10’ by ruth ware

rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

dnf:

the perfect marriage by jeneva rose

december tbr:

the bell jar by sylvia plath

and then there were none by agatha christie

the chestnut man by søren sveistrup

the exorcist by william peter blatty

[jcollinswrites]

New update 11/10/24

CHAPTER 1 IS OFFICIALLY FINISHED!

Whoooo! I can't believe I can finally say this 😂 Damn, this was a big job. Of course, it will probably have a ton of bugs and errors, and this is only a first draft, so scenes are always up to change later.

What's new:

Around 11k words added to the demo and the whole first chapter is finished.

The files have been merged into one, so I can finally give you a word count without code as well. The new word count with code is 216 000. Without code, it's 198 000 words.

THE LINK HAS CHANGED! Dashingdon couldn't handle the new chapter 1 file, so I had to move the whole game to a new hosting site. The old dashingdon link is not going to get updated in the future! PLEASE ALWAYS USE THE MOST CURRENT LINK!

NEW LINK

Happy reading! ❤️

JC

[aspenous]

Vampire AU who's with me💣💣💣

CW: Blood

I got some vague ideas about how they'd meet/interact etc but for now I'll leave it as is.

HC Javier's ears give away if he's blushing or not <3

[bladeweaver-if]

Devlog (18/11/24)

I've been a bit silent for a while, so I wanted to put this out!

I have been steadily filling out the fair scenes, and hope to have them done this week. Then I'll get right onto finishing the Chapter and polishing for an update! I just passed 300k words, so this coming update is looking to be a big one. Bear in mind a lot of that will be extra scenes, accounting for the two routes of the festival, with and without Sam. I've tried to optimise these as much as I can, since I know it's annoying to see a high wordcount and then what you actually get to read in one playthrough is just a fraction of that.

I also thought I'd use this opportunity for a poll. I'm fairly certain I haven't done one for this before, but I was curious to know what percentage of you initially picked one mentor over another, subsequent playthroughs nonwithstanding.

You can consider this a question for your eventual full playthrough, whether you'll ultimately be choosing Callen or Sonia. I'm sure there are those who've read through with both options. I know I have haha.

I've put a poll below!

Some other signs have told me Callen is the more popular of the two, but I'm interested to see if that's shifted with newer parts of the game expanding on each of your mentors' personalities.

I might do another poll on which mentor you personally like more, though that might just end up similarly to this one. It might be interesting to see, though!

If you'd like, I'd love to know why you picked one over the other too.

That's all for now, bye!

[allieebobo]

December Dev Log

Happy New Year everyone!

December was busy with lots of feasting and family time, but I did manage to get a lot of writing done :) 

As always, as this year winds to a close, I want to thank all of you guys for being with me on this journey, and supporting me through everything. Your messages and love for the game always, always make every hour I spend working on Merry Crisis or CT:OS worth it. <3 Interacting with you guys is a huge part of what made 2024 so incredible for me. 

I don't know if every creator is so lucky as to feel this way,  but I honestly get out of bed every morning excited to read the new messages you guys have sent at night (though definitely time difference is a huge factor in this haha) and get started with writing!

This is the second instalment of the monthly dev logs that I'll be writing to keep you guys updated on what's been happening! (This was last month's.)

Read the Dev Log here!

[notoh-dev]

The Doctrine of Perseverance (Re)Announcement

The Doctrine of Perseverance is an indie horror and mystery game currently in development. It is being developed in RPG Maker MV and includes visual novel elements. A freeware demo was released in 2016. At the time of initial demo release, I was a senior in high school. Since then, I have spent many years developing my art and have returned to my first project. The game is still early in development, so everything is still subject to change, but I still hope you find interest in my project! I'd like to showcase some updated portraits from the 2016 version.

Melrose, the main character. The story begins on her thirteenth birthday (this portrait not yet shown), where a traumatic house fire takes place. Three years later, on Melrose's sixteenth birthday, the events of the past manifest themselves once again, showing that what happened on that day is far from over.

Suzetta, a childhood friend of Melrose. A stark contrast to Melrose, she is upbeat, mischievous, and more often than not, the most mature in their friend group. Her father is a close friend of Melrose's mom, Florence.

Silas is a friend of both Melrose and Suzetta and also Suzetta's neighbor. His family harbors distrust toward Melrose's family and the renowned 'founding families' in the city of Noxton.

For those interested in the previous rendition of the game, @flareblitzedyt has a great playthrough and playlist featuring it on Youtube. Although, I must advice that many story elements have changed since then.

The previous demo was taken down a couple of years ago, but the game page for it is still up. I intend to update it in the future. Thank you for reading, stayed tuned for additional information and screenshots!

[freaky-wasatch-range]

"mormonism is american exceptionalism" has gotta be my least favorite anti-mormon take out there like you could talk about literally anything and THAT'S what you're going with????????? like you can talk about our weird relationship with manifest destiny and colonisation (extremely valid talking points!!!!!!) but to act like some kind of specific allegiance to the united states as an institution is inherent to our doctrine is so..... silence......

[mckencodes]

8-18-24

I am starting SQL on Codecademy today! I know nothing about databases, despite taking a class on in 2020 (😅). My sister has a bunch of photos from when she made a baking instagram and I want to make a website using them. I'm thinking a recipe that you can search based on ingredients. I'm taking a break from JavaScript, so the backend will be using Flask. I love JavaScript, but I'm a bit bored of it right now tbh. I'll try to update about this project, but this blog is kind of a mess (oops).

🎧: Join the Club by Tilly Louise

P.s. the coffee is cookie butter caramel latte with almond milk, from local coffee shop 🧡

[collegetennisoriginstory]

Dev update for CT:OS and Merry Crisis

Hi guys! Sorry it's been a while!

Life update

I've been so busy at work that I've barely had time to rest and hang with friends and family, let alone write as much as I need. I've still been spending some of my weekends writing, but rapidly discovering how little I can get done with just 5 or 6 hours of writing per week. (Crazy how much time IF-writing takes haha)

It's just peak busy period for my job right now before holiday season and things will calm down in December.

CT:OS

As y'all may know, I had been hoping to release the update in early Nov for early release folks and mid Nov for public folk.

I am still aiming to squeeze out the CT:OS update by end of Nov or early Dec and I wanted to let you all know where I'm at!

The scenes are about 95% written (all the way up to the end of the matches currently, I'm just finishing up the win/lose reactions and editing)!!

As of right now, the new update stands at a mammoth 90k+ words with code, but I think something like 35-40k in a playthrough, and there are new RO kisses for all ROs :)

The good news despite these delays is that this update (far from being a short pt. 2), is actually meaty enough to really stand as its own update.

Merry Crisis

I'll update again when I have a bit of a sense when CT:OS is done and how busy my December looks.

Ko-fi

Finally, because I don't want ko-fi folk to be paying out of pocket for this month as its taking a bit longer than expected, I will be refunding ko-fi monthly payments from beginning of Nov until the next update, which I hope will be before Dec.

Once again thanks everyone for continuing to read/play the IFs, supporting me, and sending me love/messages :)

❤️ hope to have some great update news for you guys soon!

[bartolomeo-the-cannibal]

!!!

[rema-toro]

Free Time

I'm currently working on the free-time events (which is taking a while so I don't have much to show.)

Atm I have half of the events scripted (6 done, 3 planned, 3 to-do).

[the-haven-keepers-collective]

Unreasonably long post about plural shit

So I'm gonna be honest and uncharacteristically vulnerable for a second because I think people might relate or have internalized similar things. My name is Pyre; at least that's what I'll be going by on Tumblr. I'm a fictive, some of you might've already seen me sign off on comments or something using my source name but I don't really care. Also I'm not Techno, he's open about his source. Thought I'd get that out of the way for those of you who know us. Pyre is a very Techno name though and I just stole it faster.

Anyway, to the point: We've seen posts shouting out systems/collectives who are "too similar," particularly median systems and such who experience a lot of internal fakeclaiming and imposter syndrome because of that. This is for the non-median systems who are "too similar," though. This is part a post to point out their validity, and part a post talking about my own experience so far with that.

In my source, I'm kind of a badass. I was admittedly an asshole, and very misguided, but at least within my canon (within the shows canon is questionable, we never did finish it rip) I was fighting for what I believed was right. Fighting for those who fall through the cracks for no good reason, for those that get hurt for things they can't control. If I were brought here, in this world, in my own body, I wouldn't afraid of shit. I'd gladly punt a transphobe. I wouldn't shy away from conflict; sometimes conflict is how progress happens.

In reality, I don't have my own body. And one of the things about our body is, well, its nervous system is wired to treat any small amount of conflict as a threat. We're incredibly risk averse, and this isn't a personality trait, it's built in. No one in our collective is likely to ever take an opportunity, no matter how well laid out, to call out someone being an asshole or have some witty comeback to a transphobe or whatever. We won't even think of one. That's wired into our nervous system, it's just how our body reacts to danger. We stumble over ourselves if we try to do anything other than freeze.

This isn't a fault. This wouldn't be overwritten by sheer personality and willpower in a "real system." Some systems, maybe, but not all. So for those of you who feel like you "should" be a certain way and just can't because it's built into the body you're in to act differently; you're not any lesser for it. Whether you're a fictive, sourced in some way, have a certain role that "should" be different, your personality is just like that, or some other reason I can't think of- don't be too hard on yourself for things you can't control. The body you're in just wants to protect you.

Even if sometimes, you (and I) strongly disagree with it on what exactly that means.

-Pyre

[jcollinswrites]

New update 15/11/24

I'm back! Partially. I still have plenty to do with the moving, but I managed to find the time (make the time) this week to write, so I could put together a nice update. I decided to continue with the method that already worked for me and only write one string of choices for now, which happens to be Qenna's route until the very end of Chapter 2.

Why Qenna's, you may ask? (or you may not but I'll tell you anyway) It's because ~that specific conversation~ will happen with them in this chapter, which makes the variations in their scene pretty extensive (same will be with Narmer), so I wanted to get the harder parts of writing out of the way.

When you read it, please be aware of the spoilers in that scene and do not shout it out from the rooftops for others :D

What's new:

14k words added to Chapter 2

Chapter 2 is fully playable on Qenna's route until the very end. If you aren't planning to romance Qenna, you can still read it because there are friends-only options included.

A very important new character finally makes a brief appearance in the last scene! FINALLY! I COULDN'T WAIT TO WRITE THEM!

Fixed some problems in the code in the previous parts

DEMO

Enjoy, and please send some feedback! ^^

JC

[funbil]

NEW WEBSITE NEW GAME

My buddies and I have finally put together a website for the games we develop! We're showcasing @ricecreamart's excellent artwork and concept sketches, all the music I've ever produced for our projects, downloads for the games themselves, and we plan to update the website with behind-the-scenes development blog posts.

https://www.pitterpatterdev.com/

In fact, the first article is public right now!! It details some excellent news we have regarding nearly every single game we've released, as well as information about our NEW GAME, which is the first time we've shown anything about it publicly!

https://www.pitterpatterdev.com/

It's a huge day for the Pitter-Patter crew – and yet, this is just the beginning. Our future is brighter than it's ever been, and we'd love for you to be there for it. Hop over to our website, take a look around, check out the exciting updates to our previous works, and learn more about our NEW GAME!

Thank you for believing in us!!

https://www.pitterpatterdev.com/

[bladeweaver-if]

Devlog (20/12/2024)

Sorry for the silence these past few days! I'll admit I haven't really done much--Christmas preparations and all that--but I've done some writing today. Once the holidays are over I'll be back to full-speed writing.

There's not much to say for this one, I just continued the ending section of Chapter 2 and did a little drafting for Chapter 3. I also did some thinking for other projects I have in mind, but nothing serious. I wouldn't cheat on Bladeweaver like that lol.

That's all for now, bye!