#games i help

[crescencestudio]

VELOX FABULA: A TALE OF DELUSION AND MEMORIES

So… I’ve been keeping this relatively DL on this side of the internet. Twitter got a couple of sneak peeks, but in case you all didn’t know, I participated in Velox Fabula, a game jam where we are given a community theme and have 10 days to make a full game.

And when I say I participated, I mean I Participated.

Before I get into things, let me just say that as a disclaimer… I had Every Intention to enter this jam as an Extreme Sideline Supporter.

Shall we get into a “post-mortem” of sorts?

Let’s set the scene, shall we?

Crescence has just finished Intertwine and Otome Jam. They are feeling Good and Creative. Alaris has made good progress in the month of July and starting weeks of August! Crescence Sees Velox Fabula, and while wanting to participate, decides not to because they’ve just done one jam, they want to focus on their main game, and maybe they’ll touch grass a little. Who knows?

Enter about 1-2 weeks out of Velox Fabula, and people are posting their teams. Crescence gets FOMO. Many besties are involved in Velox Fabula. So Crescence reaches out to a team that’s pretty big and offers to do just QA! Help with brainstorming, scoping, narrative design, etc. That’s not too bad!

Another friend reaches out.

This is someone Crescence has always wanted to work with. Crescence will just be a writer! Again, that’s not too bad! Why not!

So now, come VF Jam, and Crescence is on two teams (I was originally on three actually LOLlxoap).

First 24 hours go off with a bang. The theme is Unreliable Narrator. There's lots of brainstorming, throwing ideas around, refining, and eventually we land on two ideas.

On team one, we have an otome game inspired by [REDACTED] that will feature and MC who is [REDACTED] and a character who [REDACTED]. The game ends up having three love interests and is Deeply Ambitious but with 10 people onboard we decide to push ourselves.

On team two, we have a point-and-click game with a rich story that explores MC's background and a narrative twist where [REDACTED]. It's fantasy-inspired, because bitches know me and fantasy. And has MC choose to cherish or forget their memories through the ingredients they decide to add to a potion.

Both of the stories are fun and relatively different compared to what I've done so far. One, while still fantasy, has a writing style that is more vivid and emotional compared to my usual more grounded writing. The other is, well, Horror. Which I have no experience writing.

And so the Jam begins

The first third of the jam is a blur of frantic writing, editing, narrative design, and more. It's a hodgepodge of ideas on how the script and gameplay will go together. What's the visual identity? What is the Story we're telling? What's the Mood? And how do we unite all of these things to elevate the atmosphere of the game itself?

Enter the second third, and I'm wrapping up writing on team two. I get asked to do GUI for potion team, which I hadn't anticipated. But hey, I'm feeling inspired. Plus, I want to learn how to code all of these GUI features in for Alaris. Why not use this as a learning experience? So I agree. Horror team needs some help writing, so I jump in as well. I've never written horror, but there's already an outline. How hard could it be?

In the span of maybe 3-4 days, I end up writing about 15k words and editing maybe 10k worth of words. Somewhere during this time frame, I've also made progress on Alaris

Enter the last third of the jam and these games needs to be Made. I code the GUI for potion team. I reformat both scripts for both teams to Ren'py format to ease the burden on coders while they figure out other game features.

Enter the last 12 hours, and I am still coding and QAing both games. Not even caffeine runs through my veins anymore; it is straight adrenaline.

Enter the last 30 minutes. Horror game has submitted. I am still QAing for potion team. Are the labels getting called correctly? Is the dialogue showing up when it should? We submit with less than 5 minutes to spare LMFASODLIJ

i still laugh at this

As I come out of the Jam haze, I feel two main things:

Proud of myself. Like I fckn did that. Considering the context of how I had come into these roles (as an NPC if u will), I contributed pretty heavily to these games. And I think not having to be director made me see the skillset I've slowly built up as a game dev. It was that moment where you step back and fight that imposter syndrome a little bit, which has been a Heavy companion with me throughout my game dev journey.

Tired but (Creatively) Rejuvenated. I think this jam was surprisingly what I didn't know I needed for Alaris. After Otome Jam, I definitely made progress and was excited to get into Alaris. But after this jam, where I feel like I am Done and 100% satisfied, there's no longer any temptation for any other project. Like I feel solely focused on Alaris, which is extra exciting because the next couple of routes are some I've been most excited to write!

At the end of it all, I feel like I learned so much from so many talented people. And I think my writing, GUI, and coding skills have come out for the stronger because of it. Something I like to do with my games is integrate every component together (biggest example is Intertwine and how the GUI plays a part in the narrative itself). Watching people who are exceptional at coding, GUI, etc. helped me learn different ways to approach my own creative process. And I am so unbelievably excited to bring all of this into Alaris! Velox Fabula was an unforgettable experience---it was cracked, fun, delusional all in the best ways. And I'm honestly pretty proud of the products we've made from it! If you haven't gotten a chance to, please feel free to check out:

A "beautiful and melancholic" game that explores the power of memories, emotions, and more in a fantasy potion setting:

And an eerie horror game with twists and turns that lurk around every corner, only to be interrupted by Cute Love Interests

[batcavescolony]

Katniss is such an unreliable narrator. She says "Then something unexpected happens. At least, I don't expect it because I don't think of District 12 as a place that cares about me" girl you deliver strawberries to the Mayor, you hunt and trade for the district, when you fell at Prim being chosen someone caught you, when you went to Prim people parted for you, when you volunteered EVERYONE stopped. Idk how to tell you but I think you're a pillar of the community.

[merrigel]

Everybody do the wenis!

Gif alt:

[bug-s0da]

blehhh...

i made an aa/lawyersona of @snapscube :3 we all know and love the lawyer+silly girl duos of ace attorney but it's about time the silly girl became the lawyer

[chloesimaginationthings]

The day FNAF Charlie Emily was shut out..

[captainjonnitkessler]

You know I used to think "tumblr's absolute refusal to actually engage with the Trolley Problem in favor of insisting that there must be a third, morally pure option that doesn't require them to make a hard decision and anyone who asks them to make a binary choice is just a short-sighted idiot is really fucking annoying, but I guess it's not actually doing any harm".

Anyway that was before we asked tumblr at large to decide between "guy aiding a genocide but making progress elsewhere" and "guy who would actively and enthusiastically participate in a genocide and would also make everything else much, much worse for everyone elsewhere" and the response was that there must be a third, morally pure option that doesn't require them to make a hard decision and that anyone who asks them to make a binary choice is a short-sighted idiot.

[asleepinawell]

let's fucking gooooooo

[lakesparkles]

Them with their favorite pokemons because I wanted an excuse to draw all of them (expect that other guy... I forgot his name)

[musubiki]

my favorite fields of mistria boys 🥰

[artist-rat]

some epilogue vibes (an excuse to draw some hugs. and my durge so many times)

[malinaa]

if i think about the hunger games in peeta's perspective i WILL start sobbing

[bkyngw]

don't forget about him

[slasher-art]

Zeus: I can't believe you're late. Where have you been all this time?

Hermes: I had urgent circumstances...

At that time, urgent circumstances:

[iguessyouregonnamissthepantyraid]

still kind of hilarious that people in the witcher universe are often extremely racist against witchers. like bro. how you gonna have beef with the pest control guys. sure they have yellow cat eyes and creepy magic powers but they got those specifically as part of the process to become the pest control guys. your pests are six feet tall and killing the neighborhood kids. why are you like this

[watchingwisteria]

listen there really was just something about how in the book, snow’s 3-page descent from hesitant lover boy to deluded mfer happens entirely in his mind. lucy gray gives him no indication whatsoever that she suspects him, that she’s going to leave or betray him. he’s just sitting quietly in the cabin waiting for her to return when that seed of calculated suspicion, which he has needed to survive the capitol, takes a hold of him and chokes the life out of any goodness left inside him. it really drives home your terror as a reader that “oh my god did he kill her? did she escape? what happened to her? why would he even think that?” in a way that when the movie had to adjust for visualization it lost some of that holy shit this guy has lost it emphasis.

[chloesimaginationthings]

Death looms over Vanny's shoulder in FNAF..