#gotm 2020

[fallowhearth]

I absolutely loved ur answer about your fandoms! (Particularly ROTE for obvious reasons 🤭)

Do you mind indulging/ rant a bit why you love Discord and Malazan? How you came across the series? Why u reread it so often above other fantasy novels?

Who are your favourite characters from each and why? What’s so special etc? What books you’ve read from the two fandoms? (For discworld, what books was ur entry point))? Did u read them On a kindle? Or physical copy? Any shelfies to share?

And finally, I just started Gardens of the Moon and to say I feel like I’m reading something sans context is an understatement. But I remain intrigued. I’m starting book 2 tonight of GoM. Do you have any tips? When do things start clicking together etc? What’s ur fav book etc?

Thanks in advance, I appreciate the indulgent reply :))

Sorry for taking so long to get to this ask!

I'll take this opportunity to talk about Malazan, as I know a few people in my orbit are considering reading it. I've maintained for years that it's a series that is impossible to recommend. Anyone who would like it already discovered it, anyone who hasn't read it by now will likely bounce off. I've softened that stance somewhat. For two main reasons:

1. The fantasy genre has developed significantly from the early 2000s, to the point where Malazan is no longer such an outlier in terms of density or complexity. In many ways, what Malazan has to say is fairly simple compared to contemporary favourites. And it's hardly even trying to confound or mislead readers at all!

2. This point is maybe more conflicted. Malazan is, in many ways, deeply embedded in the types of fantasy that were being written in the 90s and early 2000s. It's as much a commentary, or recontextualisation, of other stories, as much as it is its own thing. So on the one hand, people who have come up on more recent fantasy maybe won't recognise some of what it is doing as meta. But on the other hand, I think if you can approach it that way in the 2020s, it's a very rewarding read, and dovetails nicely with more recent developments in the genre.

To actually answer your questions, I discovered Malazan via traditional means: my Mum randomly bought the first two books on recommendation from a coworker, but never read them. Teenage me discovered Deadhouse Gates while ransacking the family bookshelves and started it knowing nothing about the series. So yeah, anyone who complains about GotM being confusing is weak I started with Book 2 and loved it :P

I think you just have to accept you won't have context for all characters / referenced events and roll with it. It's fine. You'll catch it on a reread. And you'll still be able to understand the main plot.

[iamnotdoinganythingillegal]

Genuinely I think the answer is it takes place in the fictional land of the past and present and also future. Like yes, it’s the 80���s. Yes, when Scrooge was working at Fezziwig’s it was also the 80’s. Time travel and changing the timeline is a theme of the show (note how grandmaland never actually happens). Yes Della has 1 dollar 87 cents. Yes LMG is selling matches for one penny. It’s London, though not one single member of the cast sounds like that’s the case.

I think the idea is that it’s a story, made up of three old stories, as is said in the opening number. It’s something we’re watching on a VHS tape ie. it’s old but it’s still relevant. TLDR: it’s timeless

As for your question OP, I think you can set it where/whenever you like. Each of the three stories is from a different country and while ACC and TLMG were both written in the 1840s, GOTM was written in 1905, a long time later. The show is also very influenced by being written in the 2020s, and I think the 1980s setting is also totally valid (good luck in your writing, the fact you took the time to analyse this is already amazing)

Okay, when and where do VHSCCS take place? Like seriously 80's aesthetics aside all stories are implied to take place around the same time and at the beginning of Bah Humbug it's stated that it's in London 1800 something like the original story. But that can't possibly be true because it's explicitly said that Della has 1 Dollar and 87 cents making it American currency so it can't possibly be in London??? And Tiny Tim has a carebear, Teddy bears as a concept weren't even around back then.

please I need answers for my fanfic

[rpgmgames]

April’s Featured Game: Nobody's Home

DEVELOPER(S): oates ENGINE: RPG Maker MV GENRE: Survival Horror SUMMARY: After a night of extreme drinking and partying, you wake up in stranger's bed to discover... Nobody's Home.

Buy the game here! Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! *oates: Hi, this is oates! I'm a pixel artist and game developer, I've started making games with rpgmaker in 2016 with VX Ace and now currently using MV for recent projects. Previous projects I've worked on were the FNaF-inspired Souls-like One Night at the Steeze, my first rpgmaker game and it's prequel, the FNaF-inspired roguelike No Delivery. Other games I've worked on include the fangames Day Dreaming Derpy, made in VX Ace and Spike's Day Off, made in MV and the latest in a series of previous fangames previously developed on Adobe Flash.

What is your project about? What inspired you to create this game initially? *oates: Nobody's Home is largely based on my experiments to find and apply horrific elements in modern situations or phenomena. The scenario being explored here in Nobody's Home is the aftermath of some crazy party. Sound design is especially important when crafting a horror scenario, so I often look to music to draw inspiration. Much of the atmosphere and house design was inspired by music and imagery associated with '70s yacht rock (a sub-genre of soft rock). Another important note is a lot of the general mood and 'weirdness' was inspired by a band I listen a lot to, Dance Gavin Dance, specifically their "deathstar" album. However they have a tendency in all their albums to switch genres mid-song, often going from their post-hardcore sound to funk, pop, and even rap; aside from that, some of the subject matter covered can range from disturbing to unpleasant to nonsensical, but combined with the amazing music, it creates an experience that pulls the listener in all different directions. It got to the point that I was naming events in the game after some their tracks so I had to be careful not to inadvertently make a fangame haha But there are some easter eggs in Nobody's Home that were intentionally left in, and I'm fairly certain players have identified it already.

How long did you work on your project? *oates: I used much of the same framework left over from my previous project No Delivery for this development cycle, so the hassle for setting up asset pipelines was very much mitigated. I started in earnest, making assets back in January this year so it took roughly 2+ months to finish development for this project.

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *oates: Aside from the previous music inspirations, I was really intrigued with the way Resident Evil 7's Beginning Hour demo was able to pick up where Konami's cancelled PT left off in terms of survival horror games to look forward to back in 2017. Prior to later updates, the initial demo really only included a few set pieces, basic item interaction, and almost no puzzles from the full game. It was largely able to pull off scaring players from almost atmosphere alone (if you exclude the Jack Baker and ghost encounters). It was later in the full game that it was able to show off it's metroidvania-esque design to its fullest. After my previous project, I wanted to step away from roguelike design for a bit and focus a little more on an exploration-based experience, so I took a few notes from the way RE7 and RE2: Remake handled map design and progression.

Did you come across any challenges during development? How did you overcome or work around them? *oates: I was coming off a severe cold last year and it took most of January for me to recover, so it was a little hard to start full-on development immediately like I normally would on top of other career matters. And looking at events today, it's even more imperative that developers practice healthy habits during development.

Did any aspects of your project change over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *oates: I've had the idea for Nobody's Home as a concept for a while, but filling in those gaps with actual gameplay between centerpieces was a big variable. I went back and forth between the turn-based item combat from the previous project to cutting out combat entirely. While I didn't implement it, I also brainstormed a few concepts for overworld action and combat ala Zelda, but it seemed too complex given the time frame I set for myself. Eventually I settled on a middle ground between full combat and separate encounters, with "enemies" acting as essentially a toll gate. The rest of the game followed suit with various tolls and "mouse traps" for the player to trigger at their own behest. This wasn't necessarily the design I had in mind at first, but it helped to concisely fill a relatively small location with specifically "deadly" content.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *oates: I largely work solo for both development and art, but I do regularly work with a few musicians for an original soundtrack. I first started working with other composers for the fangame Day Dreaming Derpy, where after the initial demo was released, I received emails from a few musicians volunteering to contribute some tracks for the game. In all, the original soundtrack contained 9 tracks in total, with 3 tracks from each composer; each of them doing an amazing job and, in my opinion brought the project back then to a higher degree of quality. This was how I met some of the composers I still work with today and they all have some really great work! TheNGVirus @NGVirusNG1 Kaminakat @thekaminakat dRedder @HornyGremlin

What is the best part of developing a game? *oates: It's a toss up between the initial brainstorming/research and the first run-through when you have your desired maps linked together. For the brainstorming, it's pretty fun to learn about subject matter you want to do justice to as well as stretching your creative muscles for the first time in service to a certain concept. However this obviously wears off when you devote too much time to a particular concept, but it's still enjoyable nevertheless. For making that run-through, it doesn't necessarily mean to have all the events implemented, but to experience your game the way players will experience it for the first time does give a sense of completion/cohesion to what you, as a developer, are trying to accomplish. It essentially puts what you're working on into a different perspective for you.

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *oates: I do keep an eye out for what other rpgmaker projects are doing, and to see what others can do with the engine helps get the creative juices flowing; it's also fun to try to mentally reverse engineer how certain mechanics or effects were made. And it's always great to see fellow devs showcase what's possible with the engine.

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *oates: Nobody's Home has a relatively small cast of characters, whom you do interact with but never see, this is largely to done to create a sense of "un-relatability", but if I had to pick a character, it'd be "car guy", the guy you find stuck in the car. They have a good line, " ...there'd be a good reason for this, but there isn't..." Story of my life.

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *oates: There were a few areas I would have liked to expand on or add, specifically- the attic + roof, the front lawn, behind the walls, and an entire second floor. Unfortunately that meant potentially adding more questlines and NPCs while the first set of questlines were pretty interwoven so it would have been way more complex, also again, given the time frame I set, it would have extended the development cycle way beyond what I had time for. But if I had implemented those extra areas, the game's length would also go way beyond the 30 min - 1 hr it takes to complete the game as it is now.

Do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *oates: I'd like to do both really, each installment of the VCRPG line of games is definitely a stand-alone story, or an isolated incident, but I would love to explore the aftermath of the game's events and how the passage of time ravages and twists the story into urban legend. I like to treat places and environments like characters as well, capable of making memories, being misunderstood, preserved, destroyed, and ultimately capable of change.

What do you most look forward to upon finishing the game? *oates: Both the fan reaction and free time honestly speaking. Once the development cycle finishes and the game is published, your work isn't really finished as there's always a chance someone's feedback can apply to immediate changes or patches you can implement, even during the release period. Marketing is also another large step to take into consideration after release, this includes tweeting, sending keys for lets plays, etc. Watching playthroughs is also a really good way to collect data on what parts of your design fall through and what fail to land. But after all that is said and done, some free time really helps the brain recuperate.

Was there something you were afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *oates: Just whether or not I handled the game's subject matter tastefully. Like horror cinema, everything done is in service the the themes and message of the piece as a whole.

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *oates: The game engine is essentially a tool, and like any tool you can find plenty of creative ways to get the same result. And don't be afraid to research whatever it is you need help with, it also helps to be specific with what you want.

Question from last month's featured dev @moca-pz: If you can collaborate with any game developer in the world, who would it be? What would be their role(s) and what would be your role(s)? *oates: Game developer I'd like to work with: Hidetaka Miyazaki His role: Story Lead and Director My role: Drinking buddy Game we're working on: SciFi Souls

We mods would like to thank oates for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out Nobody's Home if you haven’t already! See you next month! 

- Mods Gold & Platinum

[fishalthor-archive]

jordan patrick smith & georgia hirst as ubbe & torvi in vikings (2013-2020) requested by @ritual-unions-gotme​

[jules-portfolio]

[Big, Fat, Voluptuous, Round Anime Tiddies] GOTM 1st Edition - Rias Gremory

made with Adobe Photoshop 2020

[triplexmile]

Starting a tradition where whenever there is a Friday the 13th I draw a chibi pic of the current “Girl of the Month” in some sort of Friday the 13th Movie inspired piece. Jubes was September (2019) and Bayonetta was December (2019) The next Friday the 13th isn’t until March of 2020 so I guess it’ll be Sakura’s turn, since she’s always GotM in March.

[djgojabean-blog]

@HighlandRadio1 Top 10 For October 2020 1.#SoLongSoGone - @DarlinghurstBand 2.#SingleSaturdayNight - @ColeSwindell 3.#OneHotMama - @TraceAdkins 4.#BlessTheBrokenRoad - @RascalFlatts 5.#WasteOfAWhiskeyDrink - @GaryAllanMusic 6.#GotMe - @GabbyBarrett_ & @ShaneAndShane 7.#Nobody - @DylanScottCountry 8.#TrashMyHeart - @WalkerHayes 9.#GirlsLikeMe - @MartinaMcbride 10.#GoneCountry - @OfficialAlanJackson Listen Live On Www.FleetDJRadio.Com Or Download The Official @FleetRadioNetwork & @FleetDJs Apps Available In All App Stores Worldwide. Highlandradio Is A Digital Tracking Station by @DigitalRadioTracker Follow Us On All Social Media @HighlandRadio1 #HighLandRadio #FleetDJs #FleetRadioNetwork #CountryMusic #CountryVibes #Country #Music (at Jersey City, New Jersey) https://www.instagram.com/p/CGagAM7l6gG/?igshid=38t4b0dokt3f

[212travel]

Remember that all winning GOTM organizers and all players who deployed in the winning gardens will be awarded special badges for their contribution to growing the map. #scavenger #trips #tourism munzeeblog.com/august-2020-gotm-winners-september-potm-requirements/

[rpgmgames]

May’s Featured Game: Verloren

DEVELOPER(S): Choko ENGINE: RPG Maker VX Ace GENRE: Horror, Adventure WARNINGS: Flashing images, loud sounds, sudden sounds/images, full list (contains spoilers). SUMMARY: Chris Winter, find himself alone and lost in a black void filled with nothing but coldness. The only warmth you feel comes from your breath. In this void the young boy sees a door filled with light, trying to reach the door only leads to the boy to fall deep into a world filled with nothing but nonsense. Only when you find the key, then you’ll be able to leave.

Download the demo here! Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! *Choko: Hello, I'm Choko! I'm the developer, artist, and writer for Verloren. I've been messing around with rpg maker since 2013 but finished my first finished game in 2016 which is Desolate Village. I've also made other games since then. Those being Demon Tea, Friend Hunt, and Star Detective. So Verloren isn't my first rodeo in the whole game development stuff, but it is the biggest project I've ever work on so far. Besides game dev stuff, I'm a huge rpg maker games, horror games, rhythm games, and just games with a interesting style to them.

What is your project about? What inspired you to create this game initially? *Choko: Verloren is a horror adventure game that focuses on Chris Winter, a young boy who finds himself alone and far away from home because of this he won't stop for anything to find a way home and learn why did he arrive here. During the course of the game Chris would meet others who have their own goals. What inspired me to make Verloren is a bit hard to say from what I first started to work on it back in 2017, I was mostly trying to work on another project after finishing Desolate Village. It could have been something else but I really forgot. But since I took a huge hiatus year break during 2018, I would personally say the time I actually initially started to work on Verloren was in February of 2019. Since everything was rework with a fresh outlook on everything, so the whole head space with Verloren is totally different from 2017-2018. What inspired me when I went back to rebuild/fix the game was friends, since their support made me feel I could go back to work on the game. During 2018 I would say I wasn't in the best mood while working on the game, so the support my friends gave me really helped a lot and encouraged me.

How long did you work on your project? *Choko: I've been working on Verloren for three years now. But will say 2019 to now is when actually development started/actually got going. 2018 I took the whole year off to cool down/chill. So the Verloren of 2017-2018 is very different from the Verloren of 2019 to now. If that makes sense....

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *Choko: Oh boy, this section might be very long since there's a lot of games and media which inspired/ influences Verloren, though for many different reasons. Will say the two rpg maker games that inspire me a whole lot when it comes to everything they do is Mare and Akademia (I know it's just a demo still at the time writing but it's very good. Good demo, like the characters are great!! Everything is very nice!) Other rpg maker games do inspire me, mainly friend stuff but Mare and Akademia are two games I really love and wish I can make Verloren a game which has characters which feel realistic in a way they do. Like please go play them. Besides rpg maker games will say that NieR Automata, Okage: Shadow King, RE 1/RE 0, Deemo, Rule of Rose, Smile For Me, and the Kirby series are games that just really inspire me with Verloren, there's just certain aspects of them which I hope I can capture in Verloren. Other than video games, I do get a bunch of inspiration from artist I follow, comics/manga, and anime though if I mention all of them it would just lead me to ramble away, but will say Pandora Hearts and Death Parade are two series I really love and both. I just enjoy series that shows character interaction and bonds, because that's a main part in Verloren. I really just get inspire by character development if you couldn't tell..... ^^;

Have you come across any challenges during development? How did you overcome or work around them? *Choko: Besides the 2018 thing I mention earlier. There has been tiny bits of challenges, like with creating maps, since it takes me a while to get into the mood to make them, but wouldn't really call it a challenge. Since all the time I just have to take time away from the map to gain motivation to make them. Another challenge I guess would be writing cut scenes which I love, though it's a whole process of making sure the characters aren't just rambling or going off-topic since when I write I tend to get in character, as in voice act the lines or try to think how they would. Though the process isn't really a bad challenge since it just takes a while until I get it right.

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *Choko: There's been soooooo many changes to this game. The biggest change I would say is the characters, they had a lot of design changes and personality/motivation changes. But other than that, I would say the mood of the game change a lot, also how scenes play it, originally it just felt like stuff happen to happen. Now it makes a lot more sense and isn't just some random thing I added. Sadly I can't list everything that change because that's spoilers but trust me everything change for the better.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *Choko: At the beginning there wasn't a team, since I wanted to do everything solo. I mostly enjoy doing art, writing, and eventing the game. Though currently now there is a team, mostly with people I know, it's more so just a critique/feedback team + voice actors. Currently there are only two VAs since I didn't want to focus on voice acting before I had most of the game done, in the far future I may make a post about it. But so far the whole team is more so just a chilling area then anything else and I enjoy all the fun talk that happen there.

What is the best part of developing a game? *Choko: The best part of creating a game is to see the characters you created come to life. I just really enjoy seeing everything come together. Idk I just find it cool that when making a game all starts out as concepts/ ideas and then after days/weeks/months of work it becomes a actually thing you can look at and show others. Most cutscenes in Verloren I get super happy when I finish them up, because I can see them as a real thing rather than a bunch of ideas of "this is what I'm going to do". Also the joke/shitpost memes....they are also the best part of making a game.

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *Choko: Yep!!! I play a lot of rpg maker games, I really enjoy seeing what other people do. I just find it cool that anyone can pick up the engine and learn how to use it. Also it's a fun way to find inspiration, just seeing other rpg maker games and being like ">:O I didn't know you can do that!!!".

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *Choko: This question is very hard, mainly because I relate to because a lot of characters in the game I relate to in tiny levels. For my favorite character it's Vladimir....I do like every other character in game. Chris is my second favorite I have to say (kinda a lie since ties with another character) but Vladimir number one, he's just soo much fun to write. He's maybe the one character who has a lot of scenes which gets a huge smile from me.

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *Choko: Not really, mainly since I was lucky to be able to take a huge hiatus which help me in 2019 to rework everything. So every problem I had with the game I fixed.

Do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *Choko: I would just leave the game alone after I finish Verloren, it's a game that doesn't need any follow ups because I feel it would just take away from the impact when you get to the end. There really isn't anything I would need to explore, since Verloren is meant to be a single game and that's it.

What do you most look forward to upon finishing the game? *Choko: I look forward seeing how people react to the full game, I am low key shock on how people are reacting towards the demo and all the tiny predictions/speculations. Also the warm positive feedback towards Vladimir is shocking, since I thought no one would like him because of all those jokes/puns. I hope the final game has the same positive reaction, also that other characters get a warm positive feedback towards them.

Was there something you were afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *Choko: The only thing that worries me is that if I mess up and people can't understand reasons why x character did that. Since one of the main things with Verloren is that characters have their own way if viewing stuff. Like morality is pretty gray because I don't want to write a black and white story.

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *Choko: Main advice I'll give out is placeholders are your friend. Don't spend time making assets for a system you didn't test and you test it and it doesn't work. Just have a placeholder graphic which helps you test it and when it's done you can always slap on the asset. Following up with this, create a debug room. It would come in handy to test systems/ events than having to play through your game to test it and learn you need to fix it.

Question from last month's featured dev @cheesesteak-horror: Do you have creative processes you practice before starting development? *Choko: No, not really. I often just jump right into development and go from there. Most of my practice come from when I work on small stuff or just when I'm bored I often just mess around with things.

We mods would like to thank Choko for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out Verloren if you haven’t already! See you next month! 

- Mods Gold & Platinum

[tomoevo4wo5-blog]

【乃木坂46】脚出しすぎじゃないか・・・？？この二人、いい脚してるなあ・・・

182: 君の名は(東京都) (ﾜｯﾁｮｲW 8e02-Gotm) 2020/07/01(水) 17:30:44.34 ID:gNw4EGEJ0 ANNコンビ

続きを読む Source: 乃木坂46まとめ 1/46

[jules-portfolio]

[Big, Fat, Voluptuous, Round Anime Tiddies] GOTM 2nd Edition - Nino Nakano

made with Adobe Photoshop 2020

[wildassweirdo]

HennDawg & This Weed Got Me By 12 It All Was A Blur😈🥵🖕🏾 . . . . #dt #explore #like #lgbtq🌈 #hennessy #thc #weed #followforfollowback #dmsopen #gone #newyears #faded #single #2020 #2020vision #explorepage #fwm #chef #entraupanuer #rodwave #gotme #crossfaded #getlikeme #fuckem https://www.instagram.com/p/B6xmXUPlUui/?igshid=qklsd9so4868

[sonotekvideo]

Kartoot | Aman Dhillon |Gotm | Vikas | Haryanvi Song | New Haryanvi Songs 2020 | Sonotek Haryanvi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_64BCOwZpIM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_64BCOwZpIM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_64BCOwZpIM

[rpgmgames]

January’s Featured Game: Roji's Room

DEVELOPER(S): Spicy Roll ENGINE: RPG Maker MV GENRE: RPG, Adventure, Mystery WARNINGS: Shifts in consciousness, Spooky, Strong language SUMMARY: Roji's Room is a turned base RPG about lucid dreaming, consciousness, emotions, friendships, meditation, wholesome, sleep paralysis, and adventure. You play as Jae who is an avid lucid dreamer, he wakes up in a room with no memory. You sleep and enter a dream world full of many entities that view their world as the real world. You meet Roji who is the key to solving what makes this dream world different from any other dream.

Download the teaser demo here! Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! *Jaies: Hello this is Jude S. (Jaies) and I’m the lead composer for Roji’s Room! I’ve always loved making video game music, and following indie projects, and now I get to pair that love with a really great game. It’s a dream come true! I hope everyone enjoys the music and the game (: *Spicyroll: Greetings! This is Jaeroll the game developer for Roji's Room! For now I am mostly working alone with the game along with Jude who composes the music. I am a intro/extrovert who is in love with life and its inhabitants. I am a registered nurse and a Reiki master. I love meditating , yoga, anime, JRPGs, indie games, crystals and music. I have been dabbling with rpg maker since 2006 with RPGMaker XP. Making so many projects but not completing them haha. I am grateful for the indiedev and rpgmaker community met so many awesome people through this development.

What is your project about? What inspired you to create this game initially? *Spicyroll: Roji's Room is an experiment for self discovery there will be many choices and activities that the player will be doing. It might be risky but my goal is not only to benefit the characters in the game but also the player themselves. Meditation, actions, emotions, wholesomeness. Display the rewards to practicing self love and the outcomes to not. I am a strong advocate to self love, I would love to deliver inspiration to people to practice more self love for themselves. I hope the game can invoke such emotions. But as the story its a mystery involving a boy who is a master at lucid dreaming but lost his memories. He was able to enter a dream world that is in disorder because the moderator lost it's body and is only a brain. The brain is Roji, its your quest to help retrieve the body and restore order to this special dream. While hopefully restoring the memories of Jae. Meeting many dream entities along the way your choices are really important. What inspired me is the many years of playing RPGs, and creating projects that was very surface and generic. I love art, creation and the helping of others.

How long have you been working on your project? *Spicyroll: It's been a good year (:

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *Spicyroll: Many games like Moon remix RPG, Undertale, Mother 3, Nino kuni. Artists Bryan lee O maley, Rebecca Sugar, many more. I love the aspect of alternatives to fighting in RPGs. Wholesome.

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them? *Spicyroll: Yes there were many, sometimes just like many other developers you would get dev block or whatever. Burnt out for overworking and what not. Fear of people not liking the concept. Also a big one is the the limitations of rpgmaker, however I am grateful to the engine because just as an artist its easy to use. How I worked on it was giving time to myself, self love, doing other things other than game dev where it sparked that flame. Staying positive and interacting with other game devs. Playing story driven games.

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *Spicyroll: Many aspects! It was going to be REALLY spiritual and concepts were thrown onto you to "wake you up" However I realized it would be very jarring to people who aren't open to such concepts so I thought I should make it gradual. Current one is much more simple and I feel like more organized.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *Spicyroll: Well my team is basically just me, I have many friends who produce music but most of them just wanted to chip in one song or two. I found an amazing composer online and built a cool friendship with him. I like working alone in terms of directing but I would be open to members. I just have the fear of butting heads and what not.

What is the best part of developing a game? *Spicyroll: The BEST part of developing a game is just creating something in general and to share in a interactive medium of your tastes of music and design. My most favorite is in hopes of invoking emotions for the player to release to help them in their daily lives.

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *Spicyroll: I have played many RPGMaker games most are on this list, the big ones Oneshot, Lisa, To The Moon. I realized the limitations of the engine but just remains grateful to be able to create a functional game with little knowledge of coding. Shout out to them plugin creators!

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *Spicyroll: Although majority of the characters haven't been introduced in development, I relate to the main character. The name is a self insert but the character himself is at his core wanting to empathize with entities and connect. Its up to the player who is the guide to flesh those out or go a different route.

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *Spicyroll: I actually dont have any regrets, I am just grateful to the whole process cause everything negative was a learning experience (:

Do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *Spicyroll: TAs of now I would leave it as it is and if characters are likable maybe some side stories?

What do you most look forward to now that you have finished the game? *Spicyroll: I look forward to the many smiles and emotions players give while playing the game. Also just art in general characters in many different mediums of art. I would hope that any concept or action can help the person in their waking life.

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *Spicyroll: It would have to be the engine, I know that sometimes errors will occur and hinder the process of completion. But it will work out ^^

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *Spicyroll: Practice self care for yourself, you only have one body, mind and soul. If you practice those things and better yourself you can bring your best self to work on this project. Its sometimes unavoidable due to habits but when you realize that overworking yourself doesn't do any good to yourself or the project you can evolve into higher conceptualization? Also make the game YOU want, like as a love letter to yourself (:

Question from last month's featured dev @grimmshollow: What tricks do you use to make playtesting/debugging easier? *Spicyroll: Tricks? Uhhhh keeping save points and such around? Having your friends play your game with unbias so you can get the whole picture. Which cuts out time doing final edits at the last min of release.

We mods would like to thank Spicy Roll for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out Roji's Room if you haven’t already! See you next month! 

- Mods Gold & Platinum

[rpgmgames]

February’s Featured Game: Ressurflection

DEVELOPER(S): charlottezxz ENGINE: RPG Maker MV GENRE: Fantasy, Cartoon, RPG WARNINGS: Paranoia, fear and tension, mild swearing and blood. SUMMARY: Ressurflection is a Fantasy/cartoon RPG set in the fictional universe of the Arbvar and taking center stage primarily at the coastal city of ‘Horizon Bluff’. Its story and game play are heavily character driven, with its narrative divided into two parallels told both within and outside the mirror itself. Ressurflection’s core themes draw from our inevitability of fearing death, and that at some point or another, we all must accept it, and to treasure what’s really important in the time that we have.

Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! *charlottezxz: Hiya this is Charlotte, lead game developer for Ressurflection! I’m some silly, overactive drawing monkey who works a lot with Narrow on Ressurflection! I’m always sketching and conceptualizing monster bois, taking a lot of inspiration from various games, primarily monster hunter! I’ve had avid interest in the Indie scene for a while now and a lot of the great friends I've made have been due to it and a lot of my recent favorite games have come from it! I would have had Narrow say a few things here but he’s hiding in a corner somewhere!

What is your project about? What inspired you to create this game initially? *charlottezxz: Ressurflection started out as what can be described as two separate stories. Myself and Narrow wrote our own stories and every so often we swapped over ideas or combined them together with each other. One day I said to ourselves ‘You know what? This could work quite well as a game rather than just a story’ so eventually Ressurflection was conceived, around the idea of a mythical mirror capable ‘Ressurflection’ the title of the game. We’ve gone through quite a few iterations of the story before it came to its current form and to be honest if we even showed or compared them side by side they’d be pretty unrecognizable as the same thing except for certain characters, locations and the mirror itself to identify its primordial form having any kind of ancestral relevance to how it is today. As for what Ressurflection is about, I think our synopsis can get that across quite nicely! ‘Horizon Bluff has always annually held its ‘Legend of the Wyvern Glass’ festivities. The Wyvern glass was a long lost mythical mirror, once fabled for its power of ‘Ressurflection’ and coveted by a kingdom now all but gone. That is quick to change however with the arrival of the Roulette Runner’s circus to the coastal city of Horizon Bluff. Trouble is soon to set in motion not just the kingdom’s sudden reappearance but the entrapment of one of their own acrobats within the mirror silver. Yet things are soon to worsen...with the spread of a purple ‘corruption’ across the city and the fact that our most unfortunate trouper is far from alone within the mirror, finding himself at the mercy of its ‘Mirror Maiden’. > The apparent all powerful manipulator of its realm…’

How long have you been working on your project? *charlottezxz: Conceptually we have been working on it for 4 years which is hard to even fathom, however that’s more tinkering around the idea for the story and conceiving it as we learnt the engine. The blog itself is hitting its 4th birthday in February! Ressuflection’s development went on as i attended university, so its always been a side lined hobby of ours.Steam says 108 days worth of hours in the engine and most of the game progress other than concepts has been done in 2019. So I could say 4 years for the ideas/stories and concepts and a year of that for actual game making!

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *charlottezxz: We each have our own inspirations, Lost Odyssey, Final Fantasy 9, Xenoblade Chronicles, Monster hunter and many older PSX titles such as Medievil, Tomba and Heart of darkness are great influences and inspirations to me personally. The dark, dangerous environments of Heart of darkness contrasted by some innocent characters, the monster designs in capcom’s franchise and the storytelling and themes with a cinematic approach to cut scenes found in some of FF9, Xenoblade and Lost odyssey, a lost game stuck in the recess of the xbox 360. There are many more but these spring to mind first and foremost. Narrow himself draws inspiration from games such as Earthbound, the Persona series and FF10!

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them? *charlottezxz: We started the project in VX ace to begin with, until MV released. It was in Ace that I experimented learning RPG maker and in the early days of MV too. Although before Ressurflection’s time i also dabbled a bit in XP. MV seemed more in line for what we wanted, as i really wanted to try animating beyond SV sheets and do more, with Java being a bit more flexible and the scope of it being able to allow dragon bones later. However it hasn’t been without its hiccups! Part of that is the sheer amount of time you underestimate games and certain elements to take in their development. That and everything that comes with it, streamlining, trimming the fat...in the past week alone i spent days optimizing pictures, sounds and music in the game to cut down the staggering file sizes they were. So far they have retained their form without being as costly on the MB! Since I do the vast majority of the game development myself, everything takes a lot longer to develop. You underestimate all the little things to consider and that you may need later. By the end of development, I hope to have the vast majority of the game consist of custom assets and be able to truly call it something that is ours. Though that path is long ahead we won’t stray too far from it.

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *charlottezxz: The game itself has always been a story-driven RPG at its heart, although certain game mechanics have been scaled down or developed further from puzzles to battle flow. As mentioned previously, the story has changed considerably which changed the direction of the overall narrative and gameplay as a whole. Certain characters and scenarios have been culled completely too. At its start the story wasn’t as heartfelt nor was the scope of the story all that big - Oh and the game had a time limit, a bit like Majora’s Mask! But it is a lot more meaningful now and we hope that you will enjoy it when the time comes.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *charlottezxz: It has been just myself and Narrow for the majority of the development but we reached a point where we wanted to reach out to find a musician for our game. We eventually came across Geoff who has done the majority of our music up until recently. However we have had friends help and contribute along the way such as Harry helping sprite some NPCs for me, Bart helping formulate and do some math balancing, Vaijack has also contributed to music making him our second musical boi and more on the way, our preliminary demo testers( it would take a little to list them all) and more peeps i’ll be sure to credit!

What is the best part of developing a game? *charlottezxz: For me it has to be conceptualising all the little ideas we have and bringing them all into being. This is especially so for any monster and character bois! I spend a lot of time visualizing and planning the design of areas, locales and creatures. Would this thing live here? Why would it be this way? If this is a historical town wouldn’t it have x and x? Then when we ultimately put it together, and all the pieces of the puzzle line into place and then you can just...experience, the final thing, that for me is the best part in developing our game for me.

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *charlottezxz: I learn best by doing, so more often than not I just dive into things, including the engine blind and tussle around with it. It’s a silly way of doing it, but I've often found myself learning more that way than following tutorials. Although in any game I've played, RPG maker or not, i do like to ponder and deconstruct scenes within them. The Witch's house, Pocket Mirror, Dreaming Mary, Mad fathers and Ib are all wonderful games that are great to learn from, dissect and understand what makes and made them tick. This applies across any game I've played or intend to play! I look at game making as one giant puzzle with lots of intricate little details that need to be solved, it’s more fun and engaging that way!

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *charlottezxz: There’s some characters I like a great deal, but i can’t talk about as it would be spoilers to the plot, that and it’s hard to pick any overall favorites. Charm comes across as a fun character to write for as she’s quite witty and sarcastic, the kind of dialogue that comes a bit too naturally to me. She’s a budding magical prodigy of the circus under the tutelage of Jerine. She bigs herself up a lot but isn’t quite ready to deal with the problems of the adult world just yet, as much as she strives to get into it. Then there’s the likes of Ashley as well, she’s the loudest circus member and a close friend to Zakai, its ringmaster. She’s a super hard working down to earth country girl who isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty and jump into the thick of things. Honestly I love all the cast, but there’s those two for now!

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *charlottezxz: I would say ideally we should have had all our ducks in a row before we dove into development. My development style is very messy, especially since when we started development we had a lot of learning ahead of us. That combined with focusing on a lot of coursework and real life things meant I often forgot how we made things for consistency. This has improved considerably since i started getting more organised now, keeping lists and things tabbed for reference. My desk has bits of paper kept with it with information I need to retain. I forget far too many things for my own good, but now I'm taking better count measures! I would advise anyone to keep tabs of important information about your game such as consistent sprite style sizes, resolution size, x and y positions of certain things and important variables and switches.

Do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *charlottezxz: There’s a few ideas bounced about to do side stories for some of the cast of characters in the circus, such as before they became one and the origins of how certain members joined the circus essentially the ‘First Stringers’ and ‘Second stringers’, these being those that joined afterwards. These would be great to do as small little episodes added onto the game post development, but currently they are just ideas and won’t be given too much thought until the game is either done or close to fruition.

What do you most look forward to upon finishing the game? *charlottezxz: My most hopeful thought is for people to enjoy the game and have as much fun and interest in it as myself and Narrow have had in creating it. It’s the kind of game we want to make and hope that the characters and story chime with people enough for people to see the journey through to its end! It’s a big scope of a project but i have endless enthusiasm for it, no matter how long it takes it will get out there at some point!

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *charlottezxz: That the games story and overall feel doesn’t quite hit the right notes, it's always a little back concern. From a technical perspective I would say that the game might have some oversighted bugs or critical crashes that slip under the radar or not run as smoothly on other PCs on release. We will do our best to optimise the game as much as possible for MV and squash those pesky bugs during testing, but it is on our minds often as a niggling fear.

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *charlottezxz: Gut everything from the base project that you know you most definitely will not be needing and give all your files smart tags and naming conventions. It would be great if MV allowed for sub folders, but it does not so naming your files smartly is key to finding what you need. Any of these files you know you will use often in certain ways, make them common events and call for those in events and cut scenes. This saves you mass editing them later. With naming conventions this could be Actor_1_Hurt or Chapter_1_NPC. Anything you want at the top of the list name it with _ to begin with. The bigger our project gets, the more important this has become for us and we hope it serves other inspiring devs well all the same.

Question from last month's featured dev @rojisroomrpg: How do you keep yourself happy and healthy when making your game? *charlottezxz: I’m normally a happy-go-lucky person, so I'm rarely not happy when working on Ressurflection. It's the happy little hobby I devote most of my spare time to. However, recently i would say my hands, wrists and neck have been hurting from spending a little too much time drawing assets and pieces for the game. Taking more breaks and spreading that time with other activities in between has helped to ease that pain and i would like to advise any dev to do so for their own health, including always having one or two bottles of juice, water or whatever beverage always at hand to sip at as you dev away!

We mods would like to thank charlottezxz for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out Ressurflection if you haven’t already! See you next month! 

- Mods Gold & Platinum

[rpgmgames]

March’s Featured Game: acai cOrner

DEVELOPER(S): moca & Mitty ENGINE: RPG Maker 2003 GENRE: RPG, Adventure, Surreal SUMMARY: acai cOrner is about Mizuki, someone who has fallen into the sewers and who happens to find their favorite electric guitar! Upon obtaining the guitar, Mizuki turns into a magical girl who must defend herself against spooky sewer creatures using the guitar's magical powers.

Download the game here! Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! *moca: Hi, I'm moca, a Starbucks barista aspiring to be a writer and game developer. I have been making RPG Maker games for about six years now, with my first two projects being a Pokémon fan-game and a Corpse Party fan-game. Those two happen to be my two favorite franchises as well! I have also created the RPG Maker game MOMOKA (IGMC 2018). I have founded a group called 'Team Shibu!' dedicated to making horror games! Our current project is a RPG Maker survival horror game named 'Katharsis'.

*Mitty: Hey there, I'm Mitty! I've been working with Moca on several games for a while now, helping with mostly graphics! Please support him, as he is very kind and hardworking!! I'm also the main developer of a game called "Marinette", so I hope you'll check that one out too, when the demo is released!

What is your project about? What inspired you to create this game initially? *moca: acai cOrner is an experimental spooky RPG Maker game that only uses 4 colors! You are a magical girl with a just-as-magical electric guitar that you use to fend off spooky sewer slimes and other weird enemies you find in the surreal sewer system. It's half exploration and half RPG battles. What inspired me to create acai cOrner initially was to actually get myself back into the groove of making games again. I had just recently came back from a hiatus and found myself having trouble getting back into the development of 'Katharsis'. That's when I decided to make a short, experimental game to get the juices flowing.

How long did you work on your project? *moca: acai cOrner was finished in just about under a month!

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *moca: I had always wanted to make a Yume Nikki-like game and thought this was the perfect opportunity to try. So for the more surreal parts of acai cOrner, I took inspiration from Yume Nikki and a Homestuck random planet generator. Gameplay wise though, I took inspiration from a RPG Maker game called Ghost Suburb 0! I really loved how unique it was, especially with the timer and no dialogue aspect. I knew I wanted to do something with a timer, so I tried a rogue-like approach with the gameplay.

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them? *moca: If you played any of my previous projects, you know that acai cOrner is vastly different than anything that I have ever done. I'm so used to using words to describe the violence in my games, so when it came to making the story, I had a lot of trouble. It wasn't until I looked deeper into why people like these types of games that I had realized that people like to interpret the story on their own, guided by exploration, to enjoy these games. After that, I let loose a bit and made something more open-ended. Another challenge was the difficulty. I was the only one playtesting the game, and since I knew the game front and back, and had no trouble getting the ending. That's why when I sent out demos to friends, I was really discouraged to hear that the experience was mostly frustrating and rage quitting-inducing haha. I worked closely with their feedback and made changes accordingly to make the experience less frustrating but still difficult. *Mitty: I think I was going through a weird artblock during the development of the game, so for some of the illustrations and backdrops for each area's fights, Moca sketched out the basic idea of what it could look like, and I just put my spin on it! It made the work much easier and faster!

Did any aspects of your project change over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *moca: Well, the game was meant to be short so there wasn't room for any big changes. Sure there are a couple gameplay changes and enemy tweaks, but not anything mindblowing. I added in the idea of making four surreal worlds kinda last minute, if that counts, haha.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *moca: In the beginning, it was just me! I didn't think I was gonna need any outside help since this was supposed to be a relatively easy project to release, but the further in development I got, the more I realized the game needed pizazz. The four color limitation wasn't enough for my lack of graphical talent. That's when I contacted Mitty about helping with the games battle backdrops and sprite animations! She is also a member of Team Shibu!, but we have collabed together even before that. Her art really made the project shine and I enjoy working with them on games! *Mitty: Moca contacted me, and I wanted to help! We are working together on another game called Katharsis, so we are quite familiar with each other. I like working with other people, especially if I'm not in the lead, it releases a bit of the pressure I feel sometimes ahaha

What is the best part of developing a game? *moca: To me, it's seeing everything come together and just... working exactly the way you envisioned it. As a game developer, you section the game off into parts to make development much more organized and faster but seeing it all come together in the end. Pure bliss *chefs kiss*. *Mitty: I like a bit of everything, but currently I've been enjoying animating and spritework, as well as map assets' designs a little more than usual!

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *moca: Mm... not really! I have an idea of what the engine can do, so when I do go out of my way to player other RPG Maker games, it's usually for writing inspiration rather than gameplay inspiration. Ghost Suburb 0 is something that I accidentally stumbled upon and immediately fell in love with it the minute I played it haha. (Fun fact: the developer of Ghost Suburb 0 is apart of Team Shibu! and is in charge of monster design!)

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *moca: There is a rat in the game that is internally called 'Ratthew' who leads you into a funky room. I relate them the most. *Mitty: I relate to the land sharks the most on a spiritual level. They are pretty much confused beans, and that's very relatable.

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *moca: I wish I added more random spooky events and trap rooms. But the game was also supposed to be short and I knew that if I kept adding more and more things, development was never gonna end haha.

Do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *moca: Well, by the time this interview comes out, there should be a new update for the game. The update should include 100% custom music by a talented composer, and a nerf in difficulty. As for sequels, who knows! The next time you see acai cOrner may be in 3D.

What do you most look forward to upon finishing the game? *moca: Definitely the fan reaction! The satisfaction of seeing your work being noticed by people and actually enjoying makes me happy. It's also the relief of just... finishing something! *Mitty: For this particular project I was obviously looking forward to seeing what people said about the little animations and such ahaha! I also was curious about the reaction to the timed difficulty mechanic, I had never seen anything like that before Moca presented it to me, so I had no idea on what people's feedback would be.

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *moca: How people will handle the difficulty. The game isn't supposed to be completed on your first playthrough, but in 2-3 playthroughs. There are rooms and places that are meant to waste your time that you should ideally skip the more you play. By later playthroughs, you should be shaving time and be better. I understand that it's not handled as best I could, but I think the experience should still be challenging and hopefully fun! *Mitty: I was a little conflicted on the timed mechanic, I loved it because it's pretty original and helps set an interesting athmosphere of worry and unease, and also seems to tell a bit of the vague story; and at the same time I don't like it much because I prefer more story-driven games and the vagueness mixed with the mechanic feels different from what I'm used to playing! I think it's more of a personal taste kind of thing, it was an experimental jam game, after all!

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *moca: Take it easy! Take short breaks throughout development. And most importantly, have fun. If it's a hobby and it's making you overly stressed, just take a step back!

Question from last month's featured dev @ressurflection: What would you say is the weakest part of your game development? *moca: Procrastination. I'm so bad at sticking to my own schedule, it's something that I try to keep in check when working with a team especially.

We mods would like to thank moca & Mitty for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out acai cOrner if you haven’t already! See you next month! 

- Mods Gold & Platinum