#i also have game dev stuff to do soon so i have to get on those!!!

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

A fierce duel commences!

[grapegoggle]

sorry all ive been thinking about lately has been agent 4 and cowboys. their so fucking cool.

[astrxealis]

hiii :333 i think i am alive !! ( small update in da tags )

[felassan]

Snippets. 🐺💜 DA:TV spoilers under cut.

Carly: Lucanis is "pretty average [height] everyone else is ridiculously tall" [source]

John: "getting absolutely dummied by an encounter in the game you work on as your day job is a uniquely humbling experience" [source] Trick: "Me desperately doing side quests to bulk up before the next big critpath beat because I KNOW I am not currently good enough at Rogue to beat that meat grinder at my current level and gear without dropping the difficulty back down." [source]

John: "hands up if you’re in game dev and have ever caught yourself searching Google for a guide to the game you’re working on that’s not even out yet" [source]

Flaming greatswords? ^^ [source]

Jay: "God, I remember the concept art for this scene" [source] (the scene in the gameplay reveal when Solas sheds a tear when it fails)

Kala: "Thinking back to playing Dragon Age Veilguard with the Council and all the fun we had, the crying (mostly me) and the shock at some of the surprises (especially Caitie) and I can't believe that's gonna be the entire fanbase soon. I can't wait to experience it with everyone" [source]. "I genuinely cannot wait for everyone to see Veilguard. I *know* for a fact there is going to be things people will freak out about, just like we did. There's A LOT people will love. Everyone will have stuff they don't like, which is inevitable, but there's so much to love" [source] Caitie: "Holding hands and sharing headphones because i unlocked the [redacted] scene first ❤️ Fond memories 😭😭" [source]

Trick on some of the chairs in the Lighthouse library group screenshot: "As much as I ADORE the idea of Solas sneaking out of Skyhold with a U-Haul packed to the brim with furniture and all the good mage gear you gave him, I expect it's likely just a common Fereldan style." [source]

Caitie: "If it helps- ive also seen silly ‘head canons’ and jokes thats will end up true haha" [source]

Caitie: "I'm not sure if we can say where we ended up in the story- but we got farther than the GI guy did it seems! By quite a bit. Did not get close to finishing it, however." [source]

Kala: "Pssst… we saw the companion rooms and the Lighthouse and it was really something amazing 👀👀" [source]

edit/update:

here are some more snippets which were posted by the Dragon Age official YouTube account in the livechat on one of the videos last month:

"There are lots of hairstyle options, we’ll have much more to share on the character creator in the coming weeks!"

"It wouldn’t be a Dragon Age game without a visit to the Deep Roads!"

"Our team spent a lot of timing refining combat and making it feel fluid and fun whether you play as a Warrior, a Mage, or a Rogue"

"It wouldn’t be a Dragon Age game without consequences! Your choices will influence the world of Thedas, as well as relationships with your companions"

A user asked "Are you a Fen’Harel spy?" Dragon Age replied "👀"

[homeofhousechickens]

Arctic Eggs and CHICKENS ramble

There is a ton of themes and stuff and different interpretations going on in this game but Im going to just talk about the chickens an the stuff i noticed.

To start off, the chickens are modeled after a red sex link production hens a type of hen bred for egg production at the cost of their lifespan. Battery hens rarely make it past their second birthday. Im not sure if the devs chose this breed on purpose or if it was just what a generic chicken looked like in their mind. Maybe they chose this breed because a white chicken would be washed out in the arctic environment.

The game starts with the player looking at the chickens in the cages and it brings up a lot of questions. Why are there so many chickens? Why are we the player character here? After you walk through this poultry prison you are tasked with the job of a poultry prepper meaning you cook eggs. It doesn't matter how many eggs you drop there is always more to fall into your pan. Its interesting to me that there is a surplus of chickens and eggs but their is apparently a food shortage going on in the game.

I think the player character has much more in common with the battery hens then they realize. It doesn't matter though you are greeted with the first line in the game, "Can you fry eggs ontop of Mount Everest?" It seems like and irrelevant question and in a way it is.

This game is quick to show you that you have very little freedom, same with the people you are cooking for. A lot of people are hungry and its not really for food is it? You cook cigs, bullets, beer, sardine cans and cockroaches. Eggs are not the only thing on the menu.

As you play the game multiple people tell you they are caring for the chickens but they are worried about what happens to them when they get taken away. Many seem quite distraught that they aren't being told what is happening to them especially since eating poultry has been banned (but not eggs). Some people still think about eating the chickens but are quickly disgusted by it soon after. One person even said they all "taste like tomatos now"

We can almost see this worry about caring for something and having it be taken away paralleled to the robot prisoners and their cockroaches, one of them weeping over the roaches you cooked for them like they were their own children. We can assume people also get taken away in this game, we see the prisons and the discarded brain in the garbage after all. Maybe this isnt about losing the chickens or the roaches? Maybe the poeple raising the chickens wish to know if they are being eaten?

There is no privacy in this game, people squat over toilets full of feces in front of everyone and the prisoners do the same as the guards watch. It reminds me of the conditions of a chicken battery cage, cramped and full of feces. These people are living very similar lives to the chickens with little freedom to choose how they live.

After feeding the necessary amount of people you go and meet the Saint of Six Stomachs, the supposed ruler/dictator of this place. He is an amalgam of organs and.. chickens? To me It is implied 3 of his stomachs are hens. You see these trapped chickens right before you see his face. Perhaps this is why chickens are banned because the Saint is made up of chickens, maybe this is where the chickens who are taken away go. This part of the Saint's anatomy fascinates me. You go and cook the hens 6 eggs.

Afterwards you are met with the Saint's head eerily making eye contact from their glass container. After cooking his egg he asks "Can you fry eggs ontop of Mount Everest?" He says he never thought about it since it was irrelevant to him. He is right about that, how would someone in his situation even think about doing that, like you and the chickens he is trapped. Just like to the player character it is a nonsense question that is irrelevant.

The credits roll after you grasp the saints hand, you pilot some kind of fighter plane to a mountain where you have a serious crash landing. As you and your friend look over the wreckage (where you may have died in tbh) you ignore your objective of frying eggs since you abandoned your pan at the Saint's and climb the mountain finding a chicken out of her cage perched on a rock. Maybe the chicken is here because you need an egg or maybe she is here because she made the choice to be. It is quite likely the player character will die on the mountain or is already dead.

The game ends after you slowly reach out and pet the chicken.

This game is absurd and challenging. The surreal vibes can kind of make it easy to not take it seriously especially with all the silly dialog but there is something very special about this game and what it is saying. I think it really "gets" chickens as a symbol as well and it was nice to see a game really use them for its story.

[tsp-narrator-ask]

ANNOUNCEMENT TIME:

I MADE A VIDEO GAME!

also the shrimp is DEAD. Get over it, I’m not just a Stanley parable fan.

“WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?!”

You may ask…

I have decided to REBRAND this account, I know I know, not the best thing to do.

But since this is the only place I have a following (no one looks at my main account) I wish to share my NEW Interests in life/what I’ve been up to!

IM NOW A GAME DEV!!!

(Sorta-)

you see I’m only starting out, but I MAKE VIDEO GAMES NOW! I’m going into games and toy design for college instead of animation

(to be frank, I just didn’t have the chops for a full time animation interest, as much as it’s my passion, I also LOVE interactive media and physical media. SO VIDEO GAME CREATION IT IS!!

Starting now I’ll be posting my coding stuff on this account! The re-brand will be slow going, changing the look of my page soon.

If you like horror games with dumb ways to die/ sarcastic responses when you click random things then try out

DELIRIOUS DUMP

(SOON TO BE PUT UP on my itch.io page)

(LINK TO PAGE: https://artist-from-hell.itch.io/ )

It’s a point and click multiple ending HORROR GAME depending on what you click/what items you use!

I worked on/am credited for most of the art assets and help with story development!

You could also try my FIRST GAME I ever made

(Currently up on my page:

RAPUNZELL’S FATE

a text based choose your own adventure game with sprite are scattered between section/endings. This game is a multiple ending game with at LEAST 10 different endings!

(Once again FREE to play but accepting donations)

(Sadly College DOESN’T pay for itself, and I have two jobs just to do this.)

That’s NOT ALL!! I’ll also be posting about the OTHER game stuff I’ve been making!

I’m currently working on my own stand alone game “THE SEARCH (Into The Mythos)”

(based off of a “Call Of Cthulhu” Campaign I’ve been playing with my friends.)

This game will be solely coded by me, art direction/sprite work also by me, story telling aspects will be a mix of my own re-writes, and original scripting from my friends @shadow-commet and (the other who prefers not to be named)

Feel free to stick around or follow me to check out what I’ve got in store!

(Feel free to ask questions if any of this is confusing/sincere)

SINCERELY: Juniper ✨

[louroth]

Hello hello everybody! It is time for another months progress, and I am so excited to share with you, all the things I have gotten my grimy little gremlin hands on. First off, what we are all here for; writing. I have been on fire, to be honest! Last month I churned through the last of the first batch of erotica stories (there's 6 (!!!) of them on my patreon already) and set them up for publishing along with two more unseen ones- I'm still going over the logistics of where to publish for the best revenue (I know this sounds boring, but I have to make an income somehow, and hopefully find another audience as a smut writer on other platforms 💀 I love writing it so why not!), and I am making headway, learning the ins and outs of self publishing. On patreon, there are also two Q&A's that are written in a bit more fictional manner, in character: a more fun way than just writing answers straight up and down. I have enjoyed those so much! There's a bunch of other stuff I haven't even mentioned- honestly, I have to say, I'm really proud of my output on Patreon even though I have been really anxious about writing full time. It's going great! I have to thank my new friends and support-network on discord; you make this all worth it. I cannot express how fun it is to shoot the shit with you in vc, gaming together, or seeing your shenanigans in gen or your in depth theories (thanks for the brainworms!) or memes or staring longingly at the fanfic channel or drooling over your art (ouro related or not) or... Gah. You are just amazing people, and I will waste no opportunity in saying so. Thank you forever and ever and ever an-

When it comes to OUROBOROS, I am happy to announce that the next chapter is damn near done! I was halted because of the discovery that dashingdon is no longer supported by it's creator, and have been working on the twine version ever since, earlier than I expected- it's tough work, but I am so excited to make this an actual game made entirely by myself, and not submitting to a company that quite frankly leaves a bitter aftertaste. It is taking long to make because I want to make it mobile compatible from the start, which there isn't a lot of resources for. But I'm doing my best! The plan is that I will be posting the next chapter for Patreons in the coming month, and then treat you to a full twine release here on tumblr. I haven't made any rewrites when porting the twine build, but I would like to do that too... so we will see; this plan is not set in stone. I will just have to see how it evolves over the next month. Yes, beta-readers is still on the schedule, just holding off a little while while I wrap my head around this new coding landscape.

Other than that, I have been working on the set aesthetic for ouro, which has been really hard, a lot harder than I expected. You all know I am no wizard when it comes to graphic design, but I want to at least develop a set palette and imagery and portraits that is cohesive to the story. The work is ongoing, and I don't have much to say about it- even though it is taking a lot of my brain power. I'm hoping I can come to some kind of set and in depth conclusion that I am happy with before the twine release, because I want the game to feel like a treat to open up and play; a world to get lost in.

That's it! If you want to see weekly and more in depth dev-logs, you know where to go. I hope you have an amazing day or night, and we will see each other soon. xx

[infinitebrians]

Favorite Games of 2023 Part 4: Pseudoregalia

I knew Pseudoregalia was going to be good the minute I started the game and did the input for the Mario 64 side flip jump and the game’s main character Sybil did her own version of that satisfying jump. One of my all time favorite things to do in a Mario game (or any game) is that side flip, a jump that is as practical as it is just simply satisfying to do. Sybil being able to do that jump without needing any of the power ups found in the game told me that the developers of this game knew the importance to making character feel good jumping around in a 3D world. Her movement only gets better from there with a bunch of new platforming abilities that makes her capable of getting what feels like anywhere in that game world if desired. The pure control you have over Sybil's platforming capabilities gave me so many great moments of pure curiosity to experiment with what could work. What's better is watching friends and others play the game and figure out their own solutions to the game's open ended platforming design. There are no wrong answers in the world of Pseudoregalia, just results.

This game was a complete surprise in just about every way, just the best feeling platformer I’ve played in a long while in this small, cleaned up former game jam game. I’ve followed the main dev rittzler on twitter for a few years because the gameplay clips of their work have all looked fun and impressive and they always shared other really cool indie dev work as well. So, I was excited to finally play Pseudoregalia when it was announced to be released. It's super low price (6 dollars USD) and being something I was able to finish in the span of one day alone was a huge breath of fresh air in this current gaming environment. It’s something I’ve been personally thinking a lot about recently is the appeal of a simpler, lower priced game. It’s appeal to me coming from playing something that never needs to be some sort of omnipresent, super game. Instead, Pseudoregalia presents itself in a humble statement of, ‘here, enjoy a few hours jumping around this wacky maze like castle as a goat bunny lady!’.

I'm not a person who typically ever has a desire to replay a game right after finishing it, I usually prefer to immediately move on to another game that I've been wishing to play for for a while. Pseudoregalia is a game I've played four or so times now from start to finish, I even started another playthrough in preparation for this drawing/writing and found myself wanting to play it all the way through again. Its the first time I found myself actually physically seeing the appeal of speedrunning, a hobby I always just enjoyed as a spectator. Pseudoregalia just lends itself so neatly to that part of me that loves routing out a path for stuff. How quickly can you find all the vital movement abilities for Sybil? What's unnecessary, what can be improved, what can be gathered while on the path of gathering something else. From at least my perspective of not actually investigating the proper speedrunner's routing, the options feel immense. From these handful of times replaying the game I've gotten a good handle of finding my way around the map and a good idea of how to get a lot of the really important movement abilities almost immediately. It also made the game feel quite different from how it felt to me with my first playthrough, what was once mysterious and labyrinthine was now a familiar playground.

That is one thing I will miss when doing those repeat playthroughs is that sense of discovery that occurred with that initial run. Soon before Pseudoregalia came out, I watched a lot of Videochess and spaghoner's exploration and documentation of the incredible Mario 64 hack, B3313 ( https://youtu.be/pLKB0SG0i8c ). I found that hack incredible at creating a sense of uneasiness and wonder from simply keeping you constantly guessing what was next behind each door something even those two expressed while streaming. During my first playthrough of Pseudoregalia, I was completely lost in that castle and was constantly finding paths that led to new zones or ones circled me back to old ones from hours ago. It was a pretty incredible feeling of discovery that only wore out it's welcome at the end when I just needed one more big key necessary for progression. What helped make exploration in both of these games engaging the whole time is that aspect of having a really fun character to move around as while being lost. It was okay with being completely lost because I could still just keep doing these long jumps into wall kicks that just make Sybil go fuckin' fast in an immensely satisfying way.

I think in the time it's taken me to think about this game again, and briefly revisit it in preparation for this art/writing I've come to decide that this is probably my favorite new game of 2023. In a year full of fantastic platformers to pick from, this one was just a class above in terms of movement design and movement application.

[bakllori]

i really like the tcm movies but i've heard the game is like poorly balanced and that the devs fucked it up, so i just want to know, would it be worth getting into now? like i want to give it a shot but idk if i want to pay forty bucks just to play a game that's unfun, lol. i figured i'd ask you since you're into the game. i mean i really like dead by daylight so tcm is right up my alley but all the stuff i've heard is making me apprehensive

wait for the discount.

The game is not perfect, yes. especially if you always play the victim. but she looks very beautiful and it's fun to play especially if you have someone to play with and oh my god I literally bought this game just for Nubbins and family members' voicelines to each other.

sometimes the developers themselves don't know what to do with the game and make strange decisions...but damn...like I really loved DBD, it was literally almost my only game. But after TCM I don’t want to go back there. Well, I just liked TCM much more from a gameplay point of view. but I don't know how it will be for you

also 1v6 gamemode coming soon and we all wait Chop top because everything points to him being the next character (you have no idea how much I want to hear Chop Top and Nubbins' voice lines. Considering the fact that they might invite Bill if they already have Ed Neal for Nubbins )...So the game is trying to develop😭

and if you love tcm, then I think you, like me, will enjoy playing with your favorite characters

but it's better to wait for sales, maybe on Halloween or Christmas. 40 bucks is a LOT (especially for a game that sometimes breaks)

[zephyrdagonheart]

I LIVE, BITCHES--

It's been a while hasn't it? XD School has been kicking my ass and I'm trying my best to do things for myself on the side. I know, I know, I shouldn't worry but I do feel bad (especially for anyone who follows me for Little Light AU stuff) that I haven't posted, lol-

As for what I've been working on, I've actually been working on a TTRPG called Project: STARGATE (wip name). I'm currently working on weapons and the classes, as well as a fully fleshed out DoT system. I may make a few game dev updates on my progress, as well as being open to suggestions and tips from those who have made stuff for DnD or Pathfinder.

Other than that I'm also planning on starting work on a point and click visual novel (kinda like Phoenix Wright) in the near future, like character designs, backgrounds, and other little things, so that will also get game dev updates too.

For my followers who are wondering what became of Little Light, don't fret! The fanfic is currently on a break as I finalize the plot of Act 2. Outside of that, I just... forgot that it existed because of school... 😅 But I do plan on getting into the swing of doing drawings of Ember and Cardinal for some of Sky's events, maybe as soon as Days of Color next week!

Anyway, this was just a post to just briefly revive my page, so...eh, have a Mesmerizer Miku I drew!

This song has had me in a chokehold, I fuckin love it-

[pichongames]

It's time for a new DEV UPDATE! [February 2024]

Let's talk about the upcoming Nintendo Switch port, localization, plushies, and new content coming soon?

It's time for a new development update, we've been working on a lot of stuff behind the scenes so let's talk about some of it, shall we?

The Bunny Graveyard is coming to Nintendo Switch!

If you didn't know already, The Bunny Graveyard is on its way to Nintendo Switch. But this port will not just be any normal port, the game will receive some enhancements and changes both visually and gameplay-wise. Including motion-controls, HD vibration and more!

But do not worry PC users, even though some gameplay features will be exclusive to Switch, any content updates, improvements and future chapters will be released at the same time on all platforms.

More languages!

The Bunny Graveyard: Chapter 1 is currently being translated to more languages, some of these are:

Brazilian Portuguese

French

Russian

Japanese

Simplified Chinese

Korean

...and more!

Boxers Plushie!

You probably heard of this already, but yes! Boxers got himself his very own plushie, which is still available at the time of this writing, however, this is a limited edition plushie so make sure to grab one before they're gone. As of right now, there's still 8 days left, so think about it! You guys absolutely CRUSHED that funding goal by the way, 450 sold so far!

We're definitely making another one... hehe.

This is also our first piece of merchandise and we're open to do more merch stuff in the future! But for now we'll only be choosing things that don't slow us down during development. So, if you got any requests for merch, let us know and we'll look into it!

NEW free content is coming this year...

We are working on a new secret project for the game, it will be released as a free content update at the same time as the Nintendo Switch release. It's a small thing that we wanted to make for a while now, but never got the chance to do due to time constraints. Think of it as the next "4-1-1992" for now.

We'll be releasing a separate trailer for this soon, so stay tuned!

So... how's Chapter 2?

Finally, let's have a quick talk about Chapter 2.

We are still not ready to fully reveal Chapter 2, buuuut we can tell you a little bit about it. It is the most ambitious project we have ever done, we expect it to be about the same length as Chapter 1, but despite the length, this chapter has proven to be quite a challenge to develop... but you know us, we love ourselves a challenge!

The story has been fully written, the gameplay has been finalized, but there's still quite a lot of programming to go, and don't get me started on all the music and animations left. Oh, did I also mention that this chapter will be releasing at the same time on Nintendo Switch and PC? And that it will also release in multiple languages? And that I'm still working on this game mostly by myself?

Yeah, things are not the same as they were back when I was making Chapter 1, The Bunny Graveyard is no longer just a silly lil' indie game, but that's exactly what makes it fun. I seriously can't wait to show you guys what we've been working on, this chapter is going to blow you away. Expect a trailer sometime this year.

You can add Chapter 2 to your Steam wishlist now!

Final Thoughts!

2024 is looking like an awesome year for this game, I'm hoping that this year we can get more people to know about this game. I'm extremely thankful for all of the support that we've been getting lately, it's crazy that I can now FINALLY focus on this game full-time, something that I've been trying to do for a long time now. I'm still processing the fact that this game is coming to the Switch, but it really is! Truly a dream come true. If you got any questions, ask in the comments and I'll try to answer as many as I can! And as always, thank you all!

[ganondoodle]

some ramblings about the overworld and reusing of the map in totk

i was one of the people that didnt mind revisiting the same map bc i loved the world and would gladly rexplore it all again, i was confident theyd change it up so it felt fresh again .. but it really wasnt, but even if it wasnt i was fine with it bc i was sure theyd HAD to use the build up from botw, with the shiekah and yiga alone theres so much you could do, and a captivating story or characters are more important than any map change to me-

and then, most changes on the surface were artificially stuck onto the world, like some small boulders the size of a large boulder stuck onto a wall, weirdly fusing with it (but thats not relevant and doesnt have a reason either) which really doesnt change anything much, some caves and holes in the ground but nothing really substantial at all, the most changed was death mountain and the gerudo city (while the regions themselves didnt really change either .. no in any interesting way at least to the extend i saw in my what 200+ hours)

im no game dev expert but do know a little and changing up a model and breaking stuff off really isnt THAT much to do so i really dont understand why they dotted the world with useless rocks and little caves that are all extremely similar instead, but then change stuff that is WEIRD to change and would have been easier to leave as it was- like the shrine of life being scraped of the walls, or smoothing over the places were shiekah towers were in botw like they never existed in the first place, and then sometimes adding something for no reason (like apparetly theres a new useless tiny ruin on the akkala fortress??? why?? how?? and i heard someone say they changed how the big hole in one of the peaks of the big mountains looked, like the icy blue texture was removed?? i dont know if i went there in my playthrough but i dont doubt it lol) and instead of the holes of the big shiekah tech pillars being left its just .. filled up with dirt, just like the bit of the calamity ganon arena being jsut rock now and the pit being fileld with just dirt as well-

and theres MORE changes that are arguably MORE time consuming to do but are both unnecessary to do and also WEIRD, erase everything shiekah and say it all vanished into thin air while theres clearly guardian parts in the new, shittier, towers and one decayed left at the hateno institue, the ancient furnace isnt just GONE its filled with rocks that had no way to get there naturally

but then the rest of the world is pretty much the same, with very little changes and if its plopped onto it without actualyl meaning anything, even inconvenience you too, like the path to hateno being blocked by a fortress of monsters so you cant get there via horse, and even if you clear them out, with or without the quest, they just come back with the bloodmoon, i thoguht if i do it with the quest theyd be gone for good and clear the path again, but NO you participating in the fight means nothing but another checkmark bc they will redo it over and over and it will be blocked again anyway (but then the "pirates" which are also a monster fortress .... dont come back ... waht) or the blockage of the bridge at the twin mountains too, you cant actually change anything, the one in the gerudo valley is also just another weird blockage, do you want to force me to build stuff? no thanks ill just walk then and be annoyed about it bc thats way easier

(sidenote, satori being reduced to someone pointing at caves that doesnt even tell you if you did them already or not is so disrespectful, i loved satori bc it wasnt some player helper but a strange and beautiful being, it jsut lived there and you had to be careful to even catch a glimps of it, the atmosphere around it being creepy and otherworldly you dont know what its really capable of, like you are staring at a godly being you cannot talk to but it accepts you when you are there and leaves as soon as you let go of it.... and nows its just a cave pointer...)

so, especially if you played botw, it all very much feels like a retread but with little sprinkles and weird changes (or outright annoying ones like the shrine of life being licked of the walls) here and there and othertimes just plain annoying inconveniences, and then the main points of your quest are .... in the same spot as in botw as well, its at rito village, death mountain, gerudo town, zoras village ... its repetition is entirely unnecessary, you had interesting locations all over the map, put a temple into or under akkala fortress my god that things i BUILD for that, anything in akkala really, put another one high into the mountains, in or UNDER hateno?? the krog forest or the deku tree being one?? kakariko??? no ?? it jsut had to affect each species exactly where they are .. again, and even the temples are there so its not even a thing made there affects the town nearest but still far away enough to be different or the terrain literally leveled the ground and they are gonna have to look to settle elsewhere (the closest is gerudo town but like ... is it), its not just repetetive but also makes the regions feel WAY more disconnected and self contained, none of them care about each other or do anything but defend against the thing that conveniently affects them directly at the same place again and the activities are largely the same too, find shrine find krog

ok then we got the sky, .. which is largely empty with just some repeating minibosses or some get crystal to there thing, its empty and barren of life, not a single NPC ever goes up into the sky aside from two dungeons companions, despite them already using the sonau tech ballooons and what not and having literal bird people there AND being literally obsessed with anything sonau, rarely theres a construct there, a robot with little to tell and not really doing anything, the ruins dont tell a story either, its just .. there

then theres the underground and omg its just as big as the overworld map! and then the .. terrain and look of it is almost always the same (only in the gerudo region is it a little more sandy) with the same kind of sonau thingies being the same everywhere that dont even LOOK ancient, it bothers me so much, are you telling me this building has been here for well over 10 THOUSAND YEARS?? and then the lightroots ... are in the same spot as the shrines .. so its not even a discovery really bc you know where shrine or root is now .. and then every more important place is literally beneath surface important places (even under taburasa .. the town you newly built in botw) which again .. isnt really a discovery then, and then the map itself is just the surface map but inverted, which to some may be a neat thing but, to me ... so its the surface AGAIN but more boring bc it doesnt have any regional differences too and then they have the gall to put the old amiibo stuff there (the labyrinths??? you go throguh all that and its just the renamed same armor from botws DLC??? how dare you), or some crystal things for your battery that are just another currency that has to be exchanged twice to specific people to be most useful- and the big weird magician statues ?? man idk if i should help this one, the giant mech like statue is giving me the creeps, and how the hell is it talking through the statues of thE GODDESS??? HUH´? and then it turns out its just a guys that sells you largely useless stuff for yet another currency you can only use at few specific spots

even the enemies are the same aside from mini- and gigamas, it even repeats the enemies from the surface

the best part of the underground/surface are the yiga, and even they are made kinda boring, in the underground its little outposts that give you some crystal currency and blueprints for autobuild i bet you arent ever gonna use, the most valuable thing is their little diaries and on the bigger spots koga (he is surperior to every single other character, sorry gan) but even kogas questline is like .. removed from everything else, its its own contained thing ocne again ... the arenas that are kinda fun to do but ultimately

you have a barely changed map from botw, a largely empty sky with some rather boring shrines or minibosses that get used over and over and no story to tell really, and then the entire map of the surface again with important points and shrine points being repeated as well

and then you get option over option to skip any traversal of all that too, with ultrahand and the towers and the ceiling jump and fast travel its a repetetive map twice and one largely empty with out skipping from point a to point b

i know how difficult game dev is, but in all those years with a giant team and money this is it? and not even the story has anything to go for? how do you take the addictive exploration of botw and turn it boring

anyway, yet another ramble taking me the entire evenign to write, again, this is not meant as blind hatred but an expression of my feelings and thoughts about it and for this one why it felt so weird and boring to explore ... the thing i like so much about botw ..

[hypersomniagame]

HYPERSOMNIA JANUARY DEV LOG : "LOG 1, WOOHOO!"

Hi! For all of you who follow HYPERSOMNIA, or are just stopping by, let me introduce you to this post to really set the tone.

For 2024, I am going to try to release a dev log about HYPERSOMNIA once a month, may come earlier, may come a little late, but I'm doing this to help give insight on to how the game is going, and to give me motivation to work on the game.

First things first, big news!

HYPERSOMNIA IS NOW AVAILABLE TO WISHLIST ON STEAM! (LINK)

After a while of back and forwarding with Valve, I've finally got a Steam page to call my own, and MAN is it bizarre seeing my weird little RPG in my Steam library. Like, that's my logo, and my key art, and screenshots of MY game, that's so weird. It doesn't feel real. BUT IT IS!

And, I would really really really really really appreciate it if you would consider wishlisting the game on Steam. It helps with the algorithm, and my happiness because I like seeing numbers go up, it feels good.

I even drew this as a announcement/commemoration for the page going live.

(P.S; if you couldn't tell, I really like Half-Life, it's one of my favorite game series.)

Secondly...

A new trailer is in the works! We were accepted for this year's MOTHER Direct (4th time baby, whoo!)

The trailer has been coming along well, I hope to show more battle oriented clips that I've missed the last few years, like special moves.

Can you believe I've never actually gotten to adding those in the game? I mean, they come set-up in default RPG Maker projects but I've never gotten around to revamping them until now, year 4 of engine work. Isn't that strange?

I also hope to improve on editing in the trailers. Whenever I finish a trailer I come back a few months later to notice minor points where I was kinda sloppy.

I'm not much of a video editor, (I only learned so I could edit trailers on my own) but I'd like to keep them at a good presentable quality. You gotta have standards with that kinda stuff, it's important!

OK, TIME FOR THE ACTUAL GAME STUFF. HERE WE GO.

Abilities are now implemented! And work! Wahoo!

In HYPERSOMNIA, players are able to switch abilities between party members. I find this a really interesting mechanic for how simple it seems, you get to choose who plays what role in your party. I think this is HUGE, and opens up a lot of unique scenarios for the game's encounters. I've had this planned for years, as far back as 2021 if I can recall, so it's super cool seeing it in game.

Mapping is being worked on!

I've also been working on mapping out more areas of the game! The forest part you hopefully saw in the last trailer is almost completely mapped. I've been working on the second part to it and am hoping to finish it sometime soon.

Mapping forests really suck. THOUGH, almost all the maps for the first chapter of the game are done! That's just another step closer to the demo. (Which, FYI, will be on Steam and Itch! ^^)

I've also been working on re-spriting older scenes!

This one's been really fun to do, I've been going back and redoing older stuff from the 2022 trailer, like this train! It's weird seeing it side by side, because you can definitely see where it's come from but at the same time, it looks so different.

(Also side note, these sprites are CRUSTY! EWWW!)

Lastly, Script and Music updates!

The script for HYPERSOMNIA's first act has been completed! with just 37 pages of just cutscene dialog alone! We're also currently working on wrapping up NPC dialog! Not much else to say.

And music is being worked on!

Music has been making some progress! I like to lay out demo's for areas I'm mapping out to help make both the music and scene come together. (Also, to help break up the eerie silence when playtesting...)

Speaking of music, FIREBALL, the games main battle theme, was recently delisted on our YouTube channel.

We did this because we decided we wanted to resample FIREBALL, and found that it's best to not have the song uploaded until a complete, final version is made. At least for the demo, it could possibly change before the final game but that's a bit too far in the future for me to think about fully.

Hey! Thanks for reading the whole dev log! Unless you just skipped to the end, you should probably go back up and read it. there's a steam page now. and some cool ross art at the top. you're missing out!

I hope this was like, readable to you all. I'm new to this whole dev log thing, so if you read it all the way through, let me know! It'd be cool!

I'd like to use this portion to pretty much just advertise Unique Indie RPG's.

Have you ever seen that strange purple square at the beginning of the 2nd and 3rd HYPERSOMNIA trailers?

Yeah, that! That's UNIQUE INDIE RPG's, which is a Discord community for you guessed it, Unique Indie RPG videogames developed by people like me! Or you! Or whoever! Who cares!

I help run it with some of my friends, and we all share cool stuff about our videogames! There's a ton of other SUPER cool RPG Maker games there like Astral Guard [LINK], or SOMEWHEN [LINK], or even MOMOinc [LINK]!

And of course, HYPERSOMNIA. It's a really laid back community, we're all super chill. Come swing by! We'd love to have ya, and SHOW US YOUR GAME!

[LINK TO DISCORD SERVER]

TWITTER

YOUTUBE

STEAM

UNIQUE INDIE RPG'S [SHOW US YOUR GAME!]

[PREV] [ABOUT HYPERSOMNIA] [NEXT]

[izicodes]

Saturday 20th January 2024

Someone asked me earlier this week a question that I didn't really deeped about beforehand. Basically, I was stuck answering it and it boggled my mind ever since because it stuck to me how I didn't think about this earlier on?

"What are your career goals?"

Since I started learning programming and Web Development back in 2020, I just thought "Oh getting a proper job in Tech would be great!"... but now I got it, it's like okay what now? Do I just continue this, learn new things, and just stick to this position?

I had to answer this person straight away for specific reasons but I said "Maybe being a Senior Software Engineer would be nice 🤷🏾‍♀️" and yeah I'm sure having that title would be great for my Dad to boast to his family and mates about "Oh my daughter is a Senior Software Engineer~! 😎", which honestly I don't mind as he's happy, but what else? What do I actually want to work towards now - short and long-term?

But making short and long-term goals is very important. For some people, this helps them have a path for them to work towards. I am one of those people because that's what I did to get where I am now in my programming journey, but I didn't think THIS far as to what next after I got the job I wanted. I came up with some ideas but I might work on them a bit:

Senior Software Engineer be nice?

Whatever a CTO actually does? (long-term)

Be proficient enough in Web Development technologies to teach others properly maybe? Especially the younger generation (HELP I tried teaching my sister coding and she called me a nerd...)

Work on my own web app product thingy?? and sell?? and earn money?? (confused about how I would do that though)

Venture out to Game / App Development maybe? (long-term)

Ability to work anywhere internationally (I have other goals where I would have to visit countries so would also like to work in Tech as I complete those side-quests)

Right now I am comfortable working FOR someone / company - I'm the type that SOMEHOW I become a CEO I still would work than be a no work/meetings/travel to conferences type of CEO if that makes sense

Help other companies temporarily on Web Dev stuff (free or paid, I don't mind - just want experience, innit?)

Work in another country maybe? That doesn't speak English though cause that's cheating (to me, I like challenges and language learning is a really good one)

But maybe now I will have something to work towards, but I will soon convert this bunch of ideas to a roadmap a bit~! 🤔

Thank you for reading and hope this makes you think about your own goals in terms of career/work/profession~!

[felassan]

Some snippets from DA dev Luke Barrett on the unofficial BioWare forum, cut for length:

DA:I -

User: "I am still convinced that Bioware cut the healing spells and went with barriers instead because of the Multiplayer." Luke Barrett: I can't speak to any other games directly but I can give a bit of historic context for DAI. The game was initially a more dungeon/linear delving - see how far you can get - experience and there was no barrier of any kind. As a side note: healing has always been a hot topic in design because as soon as you include it there are many other conceits you now need take into consideration for the gameplay - one of which I will call 'the Anders problem'. Anyway, as DAI got the date moved and shifted more into the pseudo-openworld the concept of attrition (see how far you can get before having to return to camp) became less relevant and we needed to help the Players have more moment-to-moment agency around their survival. Unfortunately for various reasons (one of which is the sad reality of designing a game with a shifting timeline) the healing couldn't be re-added so we ended up with more of a mitigation strategy in the barrier system. It went through a lot of iterations but eventually landed on what it shipped with which I would call... acceptable (but just barely). Now, I will concede that a part of the reason it didn't return after that shift was an aversion to holy trinity gameplay specifically for MP but it wasn't the core reason. As a side story, trying to balance the game (as that was my job on DAI - and yes, it could be much better haha) we had to all but force Players to take barrier. It is intentionally the first skill in the first tree for the Mage and all the autolevel (I also handled that) is designed to get it right away." [source]

User: "Merry Christmas Luke! Sooo what was the hardest class you had to balance? [DA:I]" Luke Barrett: "I feel like anyone who was around for the post-launch content will already know the answer to this as it was the bane of my existence when I got put exclusively on MP after launch but the Knight-Enchanter barrier absorbing was a pain. Stuff like that is very challenging to feel good without being broken as they are relative to damage so scaling is fairly open-ended. Too little and the casual players won't get use out of it, too much and the character builders will be wildly OP. We actually had a 'no nerfing' guideline for the SP side so it was a hard battle to fix that silly thing 🙃." [source]

"As a fun fact, I did all the logic for autolevel on DAI and the guideline I was given was literally "make functional builds, but don't make something optimal that you'd play"." [source]

DA:TV -

User: "If you can, say thanks to the people making the no die option possible." Luke Barrett: "Done! My team handles this stuff so I let them know 😊" [source]

"Comically, I designed the majority of the items and skills and I am still finding it fun making awesome builds (been almost entirely doing playthroughs lately" [source]

"Was really important to the team that everyone could play the way that felt best to them." [source]

"Each specialization has a focus around a few specific mechanics, some of which are the weapons or damage types but you can go off script and make it work for sure (this was intentional in the designs)." [source]

"I designed all the skills and so they're each enjoyable to me to some extent. I have been playing through the game over and over the last couple months for balance purposes so I've played them all fairly extensively." [source]

User: "Necrotic sounds like it could be either Spirit or Nature." User: "For Rogue, it replace "poison". For Mage, it replace spirit (Spirit bomb). For Warrior, it's more spirit (especially Reaper), but some skills could work as poison too. So basically they merged spirit and nature." Luke Barrett: "Thats pretty close to spot on. They were actually heavily iterated on throughout development - I can't (at least currently) go into specifics as to why though." [source]

"the target for the progression vision is that you can make a viable build out of almost** any aspect of the gameplay." [source]

"As for timelines, We started DA4 in October of 2015 roughly. The entire team was moved to MEA for about 3-4 months to help it ship and I also spent all of 3 weeks helping out on Anthem. But otherwise I've been on some incarnation of DA4 for about 9 years now - pretty ready for it to release 😅." [source]

"yes, years of working on the same thing can cause some burnout but I've played through the full game probably about 8 times in the last few months and it's still fun (though some of the specific levels that haven't changed in a long time I've done 50+ times easily and I could do without ever seeing them again 😂)." [source]

User: "I do kind of feel that at this point the DA team has put so much work into creating and improving their tools and learning the ins and outs of Frostbite [...] But who knows what the devs in the trenches really feel" Luke Barrett: "I will say it does some things very well and some things poorly, relative to other engines. Personally I really enjoy Frostbite but I've been using it since 2012. In an ideal world, many engines would be viable and developers would make games suited to the strengths of a specific engine." [source]

User: "Since this game is much more stat heavy than prior titles, specifically when it comes to skills and gear, there's likely a need for some balance changes to be made post-launch. Does the game being playable completely offline hinder the data capture side for your team (in terms of analytics), or is this a non-factor?" Luke Barrett: "Generally speaking, most people leave data analytics on so we get more than enough data coming in. Additionally, I'll personally be watching several channels for things that are underperforming (relatively speaking) and not have to nerf anything. The rpg side is vast though and I'm sure people will find OP combinations/synergies that might need 'adjustments' but as long as it's fun and not an "I win" button that trivializes combat I'm pretty cool with it." [source]

Luke Barrett: "I can safely say there are many builds for each class that will feel very powerful if you're not on the highest difficulty 😉. What I'm really excited for is when the guides comes out that show people the fastest way to get some of the uniques that unlock 'special' gameplay 😊. Let's just say I love the feeling of rushing to Patches in DS1 and kicking him off the bridge for the Crescent Axe (iykyk)." [source] User: "Speaking of guides. Will there be a guidebook like there was for DAI? " Luke Barrett: "Not that I'm aware of but I'm happy to help feed info to somewhere like fextralife or the dragon age wiki after a week or so to help with those pursuits. Have to leave some time for exploration and discovery before the optimizers streamline the experience 😉" [source]

"Effectively, at least until the game launches (and likely a week or so after), you won't get anything interesting out of any of the devs save Mike Gamble or John Epler. Longer term I hope to be very active, at least for build mechanics and all the combat/rpg nuts and bolts conversations." [source]

"I started "da4" in October 2015 and so after 9 years of effort (minus 3 months on Andromeda) I'm quite excited for tomorrow and the launch week. I don't know if I'd say nervous, I feel pretty confident in the product, but definitely that eager kid before Christmas feeling 😊" [source]

"As the person who did all the balance, I will say that if you are comprehending how to make a cohesive build and understand the combat mechanics, you should play on Underdog. One of the downsides to having a lot of power growth vectors is the difference between people who engage vs those that don't becomes a chasm quite quickly. If you start blowing enemies up rapidly, turn up the difficulty (or play on nightmare where that will not be the case) - basically if it ever feels super easy or like enemies are health sponges you're probably on the wrong setting for your skill level. The custom difficulty settings are there to make the gameplay enjoyable (for whatever that means to you)." [source]

"As a tip from me, the balance is subtly tipped in the players favor until the last fight of the 3rd combat mission. Be warned if it's feeling too easy you may want to wait until after that to decide." [source]

[on DA MP] Luke Barrett: "It was actually pretty fun but very much not what most people wanted us to make (including internally). Also we had, let's say, limited staff who had a passion and background in MP so it was definitely the right call to go SP only. Now, it would have been nice had we just started that way but so it goes sometimes." [source] User: "You still play it yourself from time to time (DA MP), or have you left it be?" Luke Barrett: "After playing variations of DA4 for so many years (9!!!) it's hard to go back to anything with DAI controls/gameplay speed. Even the initial Joplin prototypes I was doing were much more snappy/twitchy - for everything good about DAI the combat was definitely in the middle of two different styles." [source]

[on aiming bows] "we actually used to have separate buttons for ADS and ranged attack but it was wildly overloading the controller. These RPG games need controllers with at least 2 more buttons (fingers crossed for the next gen)" [source]

User: "After the last few games, I'm really surprised by the current skill... tree?" Luke Barrett: "I call it a skill graph - aside from the beginning where you have 3 choices the entirety of it is 2 choice splits and it'll essentially make a build for you. Just go a little at a time and aim for whatever specialization seems most fun to you 😄" [source]

"Loot is not random so theoretically guides with drop locations should appear pretty soon." [source]

"Yep, Spellblade is the only spec that directly impacts fire damage but you can get benefits from most of them and still go fire. As for the specs, yes it would have been nice to support all of them but just wasn't in scope unfortunately. Mage has Mourn-Watch, Shadow Dragons, and Antivan Crows specializations - only the Rogue has a Veiljumper one. Deathcaller left side you can go beam based and use a Fire weapon. Evoker you'd likely need to do a hybrid ice/fire build." [source]

User: "Bit of a side question, but for those who intend to make more characters, is BioWare considering upping the amount of playable character slots you can have (currently at 3)? Or is there a hardware restriction here given the game is offline playable?" Luke Barrett: "Don't quote me as I don't handle the technical side of this but my understanding is we have to allocate a specific amount of HD space on the consoles so we basically have to pick a limit, relative to our save file sizes, and then divide that by number of careers. I'll inquire if this is something we can increase with an optional download or something but I suspect consoles are stuck that way, unfortunately." [source]

[on Patch 1] "It's been awhile since I actually did the content for this patch so I'd have to check but I have a pretty anti-nerf policy for SP games. I know I fixed up a couple enemies that weren't as hard as they were supposed to be and definitely boosted a bunch of synergistic things though. I'll take a look tomorrow but for those that don't know, the turnaround time on these things is about a month of it's not an emergency due to certification process with consoles. Longer term my goal is to keep an eye in telemetry of any underused abilities and items (or enemies with too many kills under their belt) and audit them just to double check if they need a boost or if people just haven't figured them out yet 😉." [source]

"The equippable items are all predetermined with a minor exception*. Some items are class specific (all the weapons, a small amount of armors and accessories, 2 runes) so when you play a different class you'll see your classes 'version' of that item. Things that are random (from a table/pool) are valuables. Exception: Near the very end of the game we do a few checks on what equipment you haven't acquired. A bunch of those final drops, and inventory on the final merchant, simply find stuff you don't have and give it to you. That's basically the only major RNG we have with loot. If you notice even 99% of the skills and item mods employ an effect after a condition is met X times rather than a more traditional 'proc chance'." [source]

[on modding] "Once this starts to pick up, feel free to PM me if anyone needs help 'finding' assets or has questions about how one might mod something. We don't officially support mods buuuuut we don't have any kind of anti-modding stance either" [source]

"To give the high level gist of the resource economy: - each class starts off with minimal ability usage, this is intentional to force people to learn the other combat mechanics as they're a necessary skill and it's easy to lean on a crutch like ability spam and kiting - abilities are designed to feel powerful on use, thus they all have a decent cost and can't be spammed* - weapon attacks generate your resource - in the bottom right of the center skills area is a node to make each class's resource easier to manage - halfway down all starting segments (N, SW, SE) there is always a node that boosts generation - there are +max nodes on all sides of the skill graph for each class, this is particularly important for the Mage as they start each fight at max - each class can build into being ability focused but starts intentionally rounded - loastly, the first ability is always a resource spender and 1 or 2 of the next available ones will be cooldown gated. It is recommended to have at least one cooldown based ability slotted" [source]

"So loosely the rogue momentum works like this: - each ability costs 50 momentum - hitting enemies generates ~2 momentum per hit (base), you get extra for bow weakpoints - when you are directly hit, you lose 15% of your current momentum, this means the more you hold the more you will lose (this loss has a small cooldown so you don't lose a whole bar when you get hit rapidly) - momentum carries forward between combats (compared to warrior rage which decays when out of combat) If youre having issues, make sure you get that skill in the middle section that reduces momentum loss when hit. As a helpful tip, the Quicken buff generates small amounts of momentum each second so it's a good way to get more if you're having issues." [source]

"I highly recommend using the belt that grants Quicken early game until you can generate momentum faster yourself. And yes, the time dilation affects everything in the world except the Player so all your buffs and things still tick at normal speed" [source]

User: "If I knock an enemy off an edge, if they were supposed to drop something will it appear on the edge, or is it lost for good?" Luke Barrett: "It should appear on the ledge. I will say the 'real' loot from enemy drops are all hand placed. The actual random stuff is just valuables and materials." [source]

" The way it actually works is very complicated with a lot of necessary exceptions but loosely - each ability has a base damage and ones that hit multiple times have an offset multiplier. - That value is multiplied by the sum of all your stat bonuses, conditional bonuses, resist and layer modifiers. - We then subtract enemy defense and multiply by 1-resist (with penetration being calculated here). - this new damage then gets multiplied by 1+crit+weakpointpoint (so those bonuses always feel meaty) and then multiplied by a random number between .95 and 1.05 just to give a little range to the floaties (basically just a presentation thing) - we then multiply again for buffs and debuffs so they, again, always feel meaningful - lastly, we take all added damage and add it flat on top" [source]

"Specific enhancements make enemies immune to the matching affliction. For example, Fire Enchanted enemies are immune to burning. Juggernaut enemies are immune to being staggered but otherwise it should work in everything." [source]

[davekat-sucks]

the whole "hs' point is to spite the audience" thing is just false as well, cause it forgets the whole video game and point and click theme of the site. stuff like act 1's arm bit and such were the type of old school adventure game logic where you're thinking one way while the game expects another. the frustration feels incidental. there were also other moments that would feel straight out of a sierra game, but much like those games, it never feels like the dev was spiteful. an asshole who set up a rake to laugh at you if you stepped on it sure, but not actively malicious.

also you know, that bit of a control is why the jabs at the audience in earlier acts work. if i crash the car, you know thats on me. if you crash the car and blame it on me, then no surprise that i'm just going to think that you're a dick. you can't be a trickster like bugs bunny but also the aggressor.

But audiences/readers giving input commands would later soon be discarded in later Acts of the original Homestuck webcomic. Even now for Epilogues and HS2/Beyond Canon, there is barely anything remotely relating to gameplay. One could argue it's because Alt Calliope and Ult Dirk are taking control, thus we cannot give commands. But it isn't like we are also actively seeing them give said commands to the characters that make them and the narrative worse each time. Any consequences towards the person in charge is not there either and it mostly falls on the characters themselves that had to perform the action (ex: Rose or Jade having the affair, not Alt Calliope being the one pushed it to happen). We do not even have any actual flash gameplay in HS2/Beyond Canon. Like how we got the flash game of John having a strife battle with Dad Egbert as our introduction what the battles will be like for Homestuck. All we get is a shitty visual novel because it is easier to code and made out of laziness to save time and money. It's not even like a walk-around exploration either like they did for John exploring his home upon entering the Medium, the segments in Alterniabound, or even Openbound. It's just click to read next textbox line like in Hiveswap Friendsim and Pesterquest. Doesn't help in the meta sense, it tries to imply the blame is not on the characters or even the ones that trying to take control, but the audiences/readers for wanting the series to continue, despite we had never once given any proper input command. The only thing that counts as being somewhat participant is just by giving money on Patreon for the project to continue. That's why Epilogues/HS2/Beyond Canon has shocking and bad moments because that's the story/characters themselves saying FUCK YOU to to the readers. Some people in the fandom also justify the bad things that happened in the story is because the original webcomic had always been trolling us. Hussie had always had an asshole persona, so it is just in nature for the writers to also troll the audiences. But that has lost all its meaning at this point that it's hard to tell what's genuine or what's suppose to be a joke. So all it ends up being is watching a shitty fanfic and shitty choices that nobody knows who to blame. Ult Dirk? Alt Calliope? Andrew Hussie? WhatPumpkin? James Roach? HICU? Or us for liking this series and had wanted to see it be better and have a legacy? The series fumbled when it was under Viz Media and the only way to read Homestuck is through an unofficial collection. Where the fuck can this series go even as the Kickstarter game is still in development hell after 10+ years since it was funded and the last update on that Kickstarter was just in 2021?