#i wanted to play with some animated text so i found a program that was FREE99 (pikimovi) and it was amazing!

[cordiallyfuturedwight]

i go nuts

[insertdisc5]

🎮 HEY I WANNA MAKE A GAME! 🎮

Yeah I getcha. I was once like you. Pure and naive. Great news. I AM STILL PURE AND NAIVE, GAME DEV IS FUN! But where to start?

To start, here are a couple of entry level softwares you can use! source: I just made a game called In Stars and Time and people are asking me how to start making vidy gaems. Now, without further ado:

SOFTWARES AND ENGINES FOR PEOPLE WHO DON'T KNOW HOW TO CODE!!!

Ren'py (and also a link to it if you click here do it): THE visual novel software. Comic artists, look no further ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It has great documentation! It has a bunch of plugins and UI stuff and assets for you to buy! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! (You'll just need to read the doc a bunch) You can also port your game to a BUNCH of consoles! ✨Cons: None really <3 Some games to look at: Doki Doki Literature Club, Bad End Theater, Butterfly Soup

Twine: Great for text-based games! GREAT FOR WRITERS WHO DONT WANNA DRAW!!!!!!!!! (but you can draw if you want) ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It's versatile! It has great documentation! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! (You'll just need to read the doc a bunch) ✨Cons: You can add pictures, but it's a pain. Some games to look at: The Uncle Who Works For Nintendo, Queers In love At The End of The World, Escape Velocity

Bitsy: Little topdown games! ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It's (somewhat) intuitive! It has great documentation! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! You can make everything in it, from text to sprites to code! Those games sure are small! ✨Cons: Those games sure are small. This is to make THE simplest game. Barely any animation for your sprites, can barely fit a line of text in there. But honestly, the restrictions are refreshing! Some games to look at: honestly I haven't played that many bitsy games because i am a fake gamer. The picture above is from Under A Star Called Sun though and that looks so pretty

RPGMaker: To make RPGs! LIKE ME!!!!! NOTE: I recommend getting the latest version if you can, but all have their pros and cons. You can get a better idea by looking at this post. ✨Pros: Literally everything you need to make an RPG. Has a tutorial inside the software itself that will teach you the basics. Pretty simple to understand, even if you have no coding experience! Also I made a post helping you out with RPGMaker right here! ✨Cons: Some stuff can be hard to figure out. Also, the latest version is expensive. Get it on sale! Some games to look at: Yume Nikki, Hylics, In Stars and Time (hehe. I made it)

engine.lol: collage worlds! it is relatively new so I don't know much about it, but it seems fascinating. picture is from Garden! NOTE: There's a bunch of smaller engines to find out there. Just yesterday I found out there's an Idle Game Maker made by the Cookie Clicker creator. Isn't life wonderful?

✨more advice under the cut. this is Long ok✨

ENGINES I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT AND THEY SEEM HARD BUT ALSO GIVE IT A TRY I GUESS!!!! :

Unity and Unreal: I don't know anything about those! That looks hard to learn! But indie devs use them! It seems expensive! Follow your dreams though! Don't ask me how!

GameMaker: Wuh I just don't know anything about it either! I just know it's now free if your game is non-commercial (aka, you're not selling it), and Undertale was made on it! It seems good! You probably need some coding experience though!!!

Godot: Man I know even less about this one. Heard good things though!

BUNCHA RANDOM ADVICE!!!!

-Make something small first! Try making simple: a character is in a room, and exits the room. The character can look around, decide to take an item with them, can leave, and maybe the door is locked and you have to find the key. Figuring out how to code something like that, whether it is as a fully text-based game or as an RPGMaker map, should be a good start to figure out how your software of choice works!

-After that, if you have an idea, try first to make the simplest version of that idea. For my timeloop RPG, my simplest version was two rooms: first room you can walk in, second room with the King, where a cutscene automatically plays and the battle starts, you immediately die, and loop back to the first room, with the text from this point on reflecting this change. I think I also added a loop counter. This helped me figure out the most important thing: Can This Game Be Made? After that, the rest is just fun stuff. So if you want to make a dating sim, try and figure out how to add choices, and how to have affection points go up and down depending on your choices! If you want to make a platformer, figure out how to make your character move and jump and how to create a simple level! If you just want to make a kinetic visual novel with no choices, figure out how to add text, and how to add portraits! You'll be surprised at how powerful you'll feel after having figured even those simple things out.

-If you have a programming problem or just get confused, never underestimate the power of asking Google! You most likely won't be the only person asking this question, and you will learn some useful tips! If you are powerful enough, you can even… Ask people??? On forums??? Not me though.

-Yeah I know you probably want to make Your Big Idea RIGHT NOW but please. Make a smaller prototype first. You need to get that experience. Trust me.

-If you are not a womanthing of many skills like me, you might realize you need help. Maybe you need an artist, or a programmer. So! Game jams on itch.io are a great way to get to work and meet other game devs that have different strengths! Or ask around! Maybe your artist friend secretly always wanted to draw for a game. Ask! Collaborate! Have fun!!!

I hope that was useful! If it was. Maybe. You'd like to buy me a coffee. Or maybe you could check out my comics and games. Or just my new critically acclaimed game In Stars and Time. If you want. Ok bye

[blood-orange-juice]

ok so ive never properly played genshin and don’t plan to but i know a bit about it’s lore and characters and i think it’s really neat. however i have thousands of hours on ffxiv. on that note please explain why graha and childe are similar. i only have very basic knowledge on childe and i gotta know

Fellow ffxiv enjoyer. <3

(anyone asking me about G'raha has a 100% chance of getting a wall of text and I'm not apologising for that. enjoy your wall of text)

I'm not entirely sure I'm not a case of a person with a hammer to whom everything resembles a nail, but I do think they are the same archetype.

Sweet characters who could have been perfect sidekicks (who still are perfect sidekicks) but listened to too many epic tales as kids and found themselves in a wrong place at a wrong time and now have to play a key role in some universe-changing story.

Both are defined mostly by their stubborness, they are not very suitable for the roles they've chosen and fail over and over again until they do it somewhat right (barely).

No matter how badass they look, their power is not their own, G'raha is a glorified technician of someone else's miracle and little else than a living key, Childe wields an art of old Khaenri'ah without fully understanding it. It's all borrowed from someone else who needed them to achieve a goal.

They do look badass, but mostly because they larp. I'm honestly not sure which one enjoys theatrics more.

Civilisations that created the magic they use specialised in perversion of the natural order of things. They try to use it in relatively noble ways and mostly hurt themselves but the flavour is there.

Both are unbelievably tragic and both somehow make their stories seem almost lighthearted. Complete absense of self-pity. I think that's what makes them both so charming, it's a rare trait.

Both have an incredible capacity for loyalty and love and an incredibly twisted view of what relationships look like. "I'll cross time and space for you, I'll die for you, I'll build a city for you, I'll live for you but please don't ask me to share my plans." "I'll sacrfice my own health and respect of my subordinates to keep my brother's happyness, probably my humanity too, but don't expect me to actually interact with him."

Both have something that looks like self-sacrificial tendencies bordering on suicidality while being, if we are honest, a self-serving trait (partially born out of low self-esteem but still self-serving). They want to live in an old myth and sacrificing oneself is a perfectly reasonable price for that.

Huge egos. And I mean Huge Egos. It's a bit less obvious in Graha's case but I know the type, you see guys like that in PhD programs a lot.

Huge dorks. Both of them.

Both are stuck somewhere between human and non-human and, hmm... their ability to remain human is the most astonishing quality of both. By all accounts, neither should have. They somehow did.

Both are incapable of lying to the point where a third of each fandom headcanons them as autistic. Both are somewhat all right with tricking people without technically lying (although Childe had more practice).

Both are secretive because no one would understand anyway.

FF XIV is a kinder story, so it's easy to overlook, but technically G'raha is a case of body horror, accepts the role of a villain for a while and hides from the player way too much. Hmmm... Where else have I seen it. Hmm. Oh right. That ginger guy from Genshin.

Minor things:

Both are little shits and enjoy annoying the hell out of people they dislike.

Abysmally bad fashion sense. There should be a name for this particular type and level of bad. I don't think I've seen this anywhere else.

And then there's the colour scheme. Red+black+white+blue and red+black+light grey+blue (it's an "anime magician" color profile, I think. black-red-white as alchemy colours + blue as pure magic/something elemental). Childe doesn't quite fit but still the combination is rare.

They way they talk. Dear gods. Who the hell talks like that.

Here's where the similarities end.

One is morally grey but ultimately a good guy (technically. I think the point of ShB was that Emet and G'raha are almost the same), another is a morally grey but still (kind of) a bad buy.

At every step of his story Graha is surrounded by people who love or at least appreciate him, Childe is pretty much on his own and surrounded by people who are either shitty or clueless.

G'raha is kind. Truly and astonishingly kind, in a doomed world he chooses to love everything he touches. Silly little priest of hope. Of all the things he has done this is the most wondrous, I think. Not the time travel, not the city he founded, just being able to remain kind after everything that happened to him.

Childe is... well, Childe. I think he is a deeply decent person (to the point of having a visceral distaste for any kind of unfairness) and he's idealistic but he's indifferent more than he is kind. Empathy usually develops only when someone has shown the person empathy first and, as far as we know, he didn't have much of that in his life.

Also G'raha builds things. Childe breaks things. Childe breaks pretty much everything he touches.

One is an archeologist and a mage and another is a warrior.

I think these differences are caused mostly by the settings they were put into. Childe raised in Sharlayan would have been a very different person. G'raha trained by a voidsent and shipped off to Garlean military would look very much like Childe.

G'raha also has a beautiful character development arc. I love his ShB role. He has this huge ego in the raids and is insufferable and then we see an older and wiser him with a bunch of actual achievements and a bad case of impostor syndrome (trying to do anything real always humbles a person, we all know that real world is held together by sticks and scotch tape. honestly, this change alone is beautiful). And he gets to be an actual hero when he abandons all hope to be Important and resigns to die as a nameless villain if it saves everyone and spares his loved ones from heartbreak.

Childe's character development is yet to happen and I'm not hoping for much but we'll see.

The only difference that definitely isn't created by setting is that G'raha is naturally manipulative. In a kind-hearted way and mostly for the sake of better larp but he isn't that straightforward. Childe is spectacularly blunt for all his mysteriousness.

As a bonus, they both compare main characters to stars, but in completely different ways.

"No doubt your heroism will be the star by which I chart my course," says G'raha to the WoL.

Childe mentions the morning star, which is, of course, pretty and a good companion to a lonely traveler, but also it's not a celestial body you can chart your course by.

It's a guy whose signature weapon is called "Polar Star" and his first artifact set was full of nautical themes, so I think he fully understands what he's saying. "You are my friend but I won't change anything in my life for you."

So I don't think his story will be anything like G'raha's, his life took a different turn very long ago. I do think they used to be similar as kids, bookish boys who dreamed of adventure and being special. So it's fun to compare.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk. <3

[radiation]

How is RPGmaker compared to Unity? Would you recommend it?

I think its difficult to compare RPGMaker to a lot of other game engines. Unity is pretty open ended in what you can make but you gotta know programming, whereas RPGMaker is kinda hard coded to make a very specific type of game very easily and without programming knowledge — the game in question being extremely generic retro JRPGs. If you wanna make something that extends beyond that you are gonna have to mess around a lot with plugins which alter and augment the preexisting structure the engine has in place.

The crazy thing is, RPGMaker (at least MV) is lacking MANY features that it by all means should have. My game doesn’t have a lot of mechanics and was designed around scope in a lot of ways, yet I am legitimately using 70 or so plugins that other people made to make it feel good. Some of those plugins’ functions include -Adding name plates over the characters’ text boxes -Making it so sprites don’t flash in and out when switching -Allowing for ANY kind of complexity in character animations -Giving you any sort of camera control -Hiding combat related UI in the menus. All of this being shit the engine SHOULD support by all means but for whatever reason it just doesn’t

I think if you’re someone who knows a lot about programming, the engine is probably gonna feel kinda bad and itd probably just be easier and less frustrating to build a lot of functionality from the ground up in an engine like Unity, GameMaker, or Godot. If you lack some experience and feel pretty confident that your game can reasonably fit within what the engine is capable of then RPGMaker is probably a good choice. And personally despite the lack of features being frustrating at times, I find myself having a lot of fun with the goofy wraparound method of problem solving you have to use and have found myself making some really cool creative decisions by working within the engine’s limits

It definitely helps a lot to know programming fundamentals either way (I’m not great but I have some experience with Java and C# and I feel like it’s been very helpful with managing project structure) so that’s something I’d recommend looking into either way if you’re not too acquainted

And I’ve mentioned it but again. Since RPGMaker is so limited you definitely DEFINITELY want to plan your project very heavily around scope especially if you don’t have much confidence that you can really delve into JavaScript programming. For example I wouldn’t recommend planning for complex UI - you will fuckin hate yourself for that. And if you’re adding combat you’re gonna wanna be super realistic about it. What I did to plan around scope was play ~10 different RPGMaker games sorta like what I wanted like to be before I started getting too many concrete ideas about what my game would look like so I could get a pretty solid idea of what was doable and mold my plans around that

Also I wanna point out - most tedious, large scope thing about my game is by far the character animations. Once I figured out just how itd work it wasn’t too bad but is still a bit annoying - but know I worked in a very very wraparound way that is way way way more involved than most — or hell, ANY RPGMaker games I’ve seen. It’s doable, can be really worth it if you’re willing to put in the time and effort, and is something I’d be happy to explain if anyone was interested. BUT i feel the need to make it clear that complex animation is very much not at all a baseline functionality of the engine since it might be easy to assume otherwise with how much it’s used in my own game

Apologies if that was long but I love talking about this stuff, and if anyone is interested I am always happy to talk about and answer any questions about my process especially with RPGMaker in mind :D

[an-act-of-will]

Random tidbits of advice no one's asked for about writing but I've learned over the years

In no particular order:

Don't worry if your first draft is messy. That's what editing is for.

You won't learn anything from nitpicking the same story for years. End it and then edit.

Between edits, take a break of a specified time so the work can breathe. I do one to two months. You might need only a week or three days.

Don't be afraid to experiment, in your writing or routine. Stepping out of your comfort zone is the way to grow.

Don't worry if you can't pinpoint a precise 'routine.' I don't have one and I've written for almost a decade.

Let your characters speak, but don't let them monologue. You will need to play God to wrangle them into place. If you can't get them to behave, you might need to make a new character.

Don't delete anything permanently. If you really like a scene/chapter/character/whatever else, but it doesn't work in this story, put it in a separate document for future inspiration. You'll be surprised when you can re-use it with some tweaking.

Number your drafts. Please. Just do it.

Back up your work.

Back it up again.

Save your work before you close the program if it doesn't do it automatically. If it does, save anyway, then refer to previous two pieces of advice.

Don't be afraid to try silly writing 'hacks'- the 'writing in comic sans' one works well for me.

Get someone else to read your work and see where it needs some love. Prepare specific questions for them so they know what you want from them.

If you've been stuck for quite a while, the problem is in your last sentence. Don't delete it- I put it in brackets and move on as if it doesn't exist. You can also turn the text white on a computer, or cover it in a dark highlight color on the computer, or cover it with your hand if you're writing longhand.

If you write longhand, I salute you.

If you think the problem is in the last sentence, it might be the last scene. Do the bracket trick and move along.

Momentum is key. Don't stop to research when paper clips were invented (1867, for those wondering, by a gentleman named Samuel B. Fay. They were originally used to attach tickets to fabric.). If you know you need to research something later, put the item to be researched in brackets. Something like [CHECK DATE OF INVENTION OF PAPER CLIP]

Don't feel bad if you can't think of a specific or common word. I've forgotten the word 'lunch.' It happens. Put the approximate definition in brackets like [WORD FOR MIDDAY MEAL] (As you've noticed, I use a lot of brackets).

When it's time for editing, read through it first and take notes either on the manuscript or in the document. I color code mine, then include a key because I'm forgetful. For example, green is often a continuity error, red is something that can be cut, blue is where a scene can be added. I use changing the color of the text, highlights, and adding notes in my writing document.

Don't shell out money for expensive writing tools if you're not sure if you'll use it. Free word processors and office supply store notebooks are fine.

If you're well and truly stuck, move to the physical world and write longhand, even if you write digitally the other 99.99% of the time. I've found that it almost 'unlocks' parts of my brain that are understimulated.

If you do take the physical world approach, school notebooks and index cards are your friend. The notebooks are great for rambling and figuring things out, and index cards are amazing for writing short descriptions of scenes and physically moving them to see where they fit best.

If those don't work, you can always try the rubber duck technique I've heard coders use- use a rubber duck (or a stuffed animal, or a picture, or anything else) and talk your problem out. You'll probably see the solution once you articulate it. I use a wolf stuffed animal and record on my phone. You'll feel ridiculous, but it works.

Don't be afraid to feel ridiculous. It's a hobby that takes you down rabbit holes.

When I'm done with a chapter, I often use my text-to-speech function on my computer and listen to my story. It helps me catch typos that are other words. For example, 'bed' typed as 'bet' instead.

Your word processor isn't perfect. It will miss mistakes, and it might make new ones. To, too, and two and your and you're can be tricky for them.

Research your made-up names thoroughly to make sure they don't exist as other things.

If you have an idea unrelated to your current session, make note of it. You will forget it and you know you will.

Don't forget to take care of yourself- drink water, eat, and take breaks even if you're worried you'll break your groove. The words will still be there when you get back.

[japanese-cryptic-beauty]

The nightmare of Visual Novels

So, I found this one website recommending Visual Novels (VN) for reading immersion. (Not to be confused with "graphic novels" which is, at its heart, a fancy term for comic book...) These are basically computer games where you follow a sort of branching story. A very typical one is the "dating sim" where you interact with a variety of love interests and try to, well, "romance" them - by choosing actions they may like, playing the game multiple times to achieve different endings, etc.

Funnily enough I know the concept mostly from the world of anime and manga, one of these meta things where there are now stories being written about VN - which themselves are stories and a way of story-telling. For example, "The World Only God Knows", where a dating sim addict is called upon to romance "actual" girls to drive hellish spirits out of them. Or the hilarious "Romantic Killer", where a gaming addict is forced into living a dating sim scenario.

But this is not about dating sims or the contents of particular VNs, this is about learning Japanese. I came across a website recommending learning Japanese through VNs, and the arguments were convincing:

You get the dialogue displayed on-screen which allows for reading it carefully.

You typically also get a voice-over, so you get also additional listening immersion, something harder to do with, let's say, anime. (Because VNs pause after a certain point and give you time until you continue. Also, depending on streaming site, you don't get Japanese subtitles / CC captions. Like on major anime streaming site Crunchyroll which typically has none of that.)

You can enlist certain programs for capturing text from the most common VN engines to actually use a dictionary with it.

So, sounds great, right?

The Shit You Can't Buy These Days

Welcome to the world of modern capitalism, where the prevention of spending money advances faster than the ability to actually buy stuff.

Huh?

This starts when you try buying these things. The geniuses that try to sell us things have decided that it's not good if we can simply buy stuff. No, this content is surely for that person in that market and can not be had anywhere else. Fans of manga may already be aware of this - some English translations of manga can only be bought in English-speaking countries because obviously those could be the only people ever interested in them...

So, if you live outside of Japan, you obviously have no interest, and hence get no way, to buy Japanese language VN. You may be able to buy an overpriced translated version on some console somewhere, but we won't let you lay your fingers on our precious software, no.

Hurdle #1: Money, money, money

So, there's a site called "DL Site" where you can legally buy Japanese VNs and, surprise, download them. This site also sells for example manga.

One problem: Payment providers, at least the usual Western gang thereof, doesn't like this website. For some reason, payment providers or major credit card companies nowadays like to stay as far away as possible from anything that could be classified as "adult entertainment" - and frankly, many VNs have that vibe. Not all of them. But these payment providers either limit themselves to a squeaky clean portion of the store (manga only, though) or are not available at all.

Mind you, I wasn't hunting for smut. I merely was trying to buy a VN.

I then went on an odyssey for finding a way to pay. Most options were Japan only - either obviously so or more subtly. Credit cards only work if issued in Japan. At some point I got myself a LINE (the Japanese chat app) account to use LINE Pay - only to find out that I cannot transfer funds into it for no apparent reason.

I was about to give up when I found the solution for the payment problem, which is as obscure as it gets. The payment providers don't want to be associated with the content, but there's a companion site to DL Site where you can buy coupons. These coupons can be redeemed into points that are equivalent to Yen and which you can pay with on DL Site, circumventing the absence of Western payment providers. (It actually works just fine, but it does look a bit fishy at first...)

Problem #2: Nah-nah-naaaah-nah

By which I mean: You didn't think it was so easy, right?

Now that you legally own something you paid for and downloaded it unto your Windows computer, can you play it?

No!

For you see, the publishers of these games have quite some opinions as to who can play their games. "Japan only", that's what. Seriously.

What used to be the dreaded copy protection in decades past is now some silly gating of content behind dubious checks that are made to ensure that the Japanese content can only be enjoyed in Japan.

I don't even pretend to understand why!

Seriously, the software in questions may check:

Your timezone

Your language settings

Your input settings

Your locale (date, time format, etc)

And only if these are sufficiently "Japanese" it may permit you to actually play the game you own (after all, you entered your serial).

The lengths to which a game company goes just to prevent you from playing their game, not for pirating reasons, but simply for ensuring that you are Japanese, is absurd.

At first I tried to run the game inside a virtual environment, "Virtual Box", but no matter how hard I tried, it wouldn't start there. It was quite a demanding little game... for something that plays some music and shows mostly static images and text.

But... do you really want to change all your content, input, language, and time settings to Japanese to start a game? Do you?

There's a way to simplify this a bit. You can have a second account on your Windows computer with all these settings in place, I called mine simply "Japanese". But frankly, that's also shit. Because to use a separate account you have to sign out of your main account, which closes all your apps, browser windows, etc. (Yes, Windows isn't exactly a true multi-user system in its consumer version.)

So this is a big hassle to just play a game for half an hour. (After all, you're brushing up your Japanese, you aren't fluent, so you'll probably tire of it at some point.)

Conclusion

Trying to lay your hands on a Japanese VN as a gaikokujin (foreigner) is a major hassle. Frankly, after managing to make the game run, I didn't actually play it because it had been so tiresome to actually make it work and there were major hoops to jump through just to get it to start.

Now, if you have a second computer, say, a laptop, this can all be navigated, but I spent hours on two separate days just to get to the point where the game was bought, downloaded, installed, and worked. The requirement to mangle some fundamental settings on my computer to just start many of these games doesn't sit well with me.

I never even installed the support for dictionaries because I felt I was done with it.

[nataliescatorccio]

hi becca!! i recently found this post of yours (714868807194312704) and it is AMAZING. the detail is seriously awesome, it must've taken ages, and i admire it so much!! when doing the animation, can i ask what method you used? i know some people use programs outside of photoshop, so i was curious if you have or will do a tutorial on it?

hi anon! this was perfect timing from you because i was actually working on a similar set for a different fandom! for that reason i apologise for responding a little bit late, but i didn't have the psd from the gifset you're linking anymore, and wanted to get some screenshots for you, and knew i was making another version!

i just use photoshop for all my animation and this set is very simple as it's just altering position! you need to be on timeline view to do this, and all you do is:

1) select the layer you wish to animate, click the little triangle next to it (circled in red in the screenshot below) and you will see a panel of options appear - each of these will allow you to add animations

2) for this set, we're interested in position, so i hit the little stopwatch next to it. this will create a little gold diamond, which you can see in line with the 'position' bar. this is where your animation will start. the diamond will be created at the point where your play line on the animation bar sits, so i would recommend positioning this first, but you can move it along to the spot where you would like it if you change your mind by simply clicking on it and dragging

3) make sure you progress the play line on a little (ideally to the spot where you would like your animation to finish, but again, you can move this later if you want to adjust it!). you can then adjust your to the animation you see fit. this was super simple in that i dragged the 'covering' layer towards the left off screen. some things i would say is just be careful you are lining this up properly! if you move it up or down a little then photoshop will track that movement and your animation may end up being diagonal - which if that's what you want is great, but otherwise, isn't very helpful! photoshop will mark the change in your animation with a grey diamond (see screenshot below)

4) you can continue like this if you wish to create further position points. for example, i moved the right arrow a little to give the impression they were being 'clicked' on, for this i had a third point, so that the first was the 'original position' the second 'moved down' and the third 'back to original position'. this created that movement! this ended looking like this:

5) if you mess up, you can delete your keyframe by right clicking on the diamond and pressing 'delete keyframe'. you can also copy keyframes and paste them, this can be super useful if you're trying to do a set like this which repeats the same animation, so that everything looks uniform and the speeds match across each gif

you can use this really nicely for other things too, as you can see on the side in the first gif there's an opacity option, which allows you to fade gifs or text in or out, and you use this the same way by setting points by changing the opacity of the layer. the style option allows you to alter layer styles, and this is particularly handy when it comes to animating font, as you can use it to warp your text and edit your warped text, creating movement through it!

the only warning i would give is that photoshop animation can mess with your frame rate. this is because of the way animation view works, what happens is that your animation movement gets out of sync with your frame movement, which means that when photoshop processes it for saving it creates extra frames. photoshop is clever enough that it will adjust the speeds of this, so don't worry about your gif looking messed up, however your gif may be larger in size because it is processing extra frames. you can flatten frames into layers > convert to frame animation > load in layers as frames, reset speed and delete extra frames if this is causing you difficulty!

i'm sorry this ended up long but i wanted to try and be as detailed as possible for you and anyone else who may be interested! i hope it helps and good luck out there with your animations<3

[legends-of-thrinar]

WIP Wednesday Developer Log - 1/17/2023

In Progress Screenshots

Devlog

This week's work was mostly work on the game's intro and first tutorial. There was a lot of programming to get the mechanisms for the first tutorial setup, and some coordination of a commission!

As far as programming goes, I added the ability to autoload translations and set up translations so that they can include both text and images for buttons, depending on the setting that the user selected. This has to be manually invoked anywhere where buttons might need to be included in the text, but that should be a limited number of places - currently just notifications along the top of the screen, tooltip options in the bottom corner, and controls in the scan functionality.

Speaking of the scan functionality, that got a huge amount of work this week. I built a lot of the logic needed to register structures as their own entities, with collision boxes that can handle Legends walking in and out of the structure. The structures also manage a list of all gadgets, plants, and animals within the structure, so that when a player presses the Scan button, a list of all items that are inside the structure will appear. This serves two purposes: blind/low vision players can easily find items within a structure without having to stumble around to find things, and new players can scan to see a list of gadgets to find ones that are mentioned in diegetic text. Currently, scan only works within structures, but the goal is to make it work outside of structures as well, with a radius of nearby items.

In between working on the scan functionality, I also got a bit diverted into working on the map that appears when the user interacts with the navigator. This involved learning about Godot's noise generation, and layering the noise generation for a humidity map with a temperature gradient. The plan is for the map to be infinite in the x direction, and looping in the y direction to simulate a globe without limiting the space the player has to play in. The map is still in the very rough stages and has not been balanced yet, but is already generating images that look like a believable world.

Another part of the first tutorial, though, is the cutscenes that give the play more background information about the world. I had a rough idea in my mind about what I wanted the intro cutscene to look like, but my pixel art skills are... not great... in the animation area. So I poked around on various forums for pixel art commissions, and found an artist who had done some space drawings and matched the lineless style that I have been using in my sprites. I sketched up a rough storyboard, and sent it to the artist, who did an AMAZING job pulling the thoughts straight out of my brain and turning them into a real animation.

Roundup of all Git commits this week:

Added autoload for translations

Added theme to make it easier to build menus

Added more functional Scout Pod UI

Added notification bar

Added ability to place controls in translated text

Started adding world generation noise

Made map of world generate when starting, and display in scout pod

Added scene for structures

When structures are added, they increase their hitbox to fill between closed 'walls’

Made scout pod register correctly

Added ability to connect Legend to structure

Partially implemented scanning UI

[darnestdungeon]

How were you able to rip the dd 2 models from the game files? I want to be able to work with the models in blender but I have literally no clue how to go about this.

Hi hi, all I've done was to follow the steps from one comment in the official DD discord server! But before I show you the comment, keep in mind that DD2 was made using Maya-- a paid software that has different bones and rigs from free ones like Blender. My knowledge about 3D software is limited, all I know from experience is that the animations just won't work on Blender: I think you'll have to manually add the bones and rigs to the models if you want to play with them. That is, unless someone already found a workaround? I don't know, I've stopped looking into it.

Now if you’re not interested in animating and all you want is to look at the models or maybe recolor some textures, you can do as I did (instructions under the read more):

Comment by RC#8842: 

How to get game assets:

1. Download the latest version of AssetStudio (https://github.com/Perfare/AssetStudio/releases)

2. Open up AssetStudio

3. Click File -> Load File

4. Navigate to your Darkest Dungeon 2 Install, usually something like C:\Program Files\Epic Games\DarkestDungeonII

5. Navigate to \DarkestDungeonII\Darkest Dungeon II_Data\StreamingAssets\aa\StandaloneWindows64

6. Select the .bundle file which should be located here.

7. Wait 20-30 seconds for AssetStudio to load the file.

8. In order to easily find the assets you're looking for, click on the tab labeled Asset List at the top.

9. Use the filter to look for the asset you're interested in. Some assets will have a preview appear on the right, others will not.

10. Once you locate the asset(s) you want, right click it and pick export selected asset(s).

11. Navigate to a folder you want AssetStudio to dump the assets into

12. Click export and the folder should automatically open with the asset contained in folder tree matching the game's internal folder organization.

Notable assets:

- Check the type of the asset you are exporting. Mesh produces an obj file, Animator produces an .fbx file along with the textures as pngs.

- Typically you can just type in a hero name with underscores to find all the assets associated with them, like grave_robber or man_at_arms

- The main model textures including colors are named tex_...._col, the textures for the black ink-looking marks on each character are named tex_..._ink

(Link to the message)

The only thing I've done differently from the above was that I extracted everything from the game and then sifted all I needed from there.

Once you find the .obj files you can import them into Blender (File > Import > Wavefront) and add the appropriate textures in the shading tab. I’ll be honest, I did try and study Blender and I did manage to understand the UI, cameras, lights and some basic shortcuts, but the whole material node thing eluded me, so I had my husband set up the textures for me.

Please do not send me follow-up questions about the textures, I won’t answer, I won't be of any help. There were some people discussing some settings over in the DD discord again, so maybe try following their conversation in the link below. I highly recommend searching for these things in the mod-discussion channel, it’s where I’ve got all of this in the first place!

Hope this helps!

[houkagokappa]

List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox for the last 10 people who reblogged something from you! get to know your mutuals and followers (ू•‧̫•ू⑅)♡

Thank you for the ask, altho I guess it was on me haha

I get to play dnd again! A few weeks ago two of my colleagues mentioned that they have an ongoing campaign, and once they heard that I'm into dnd as well, there was an instant mutual "you could play with us/I'd love to play with you" exchange between us :D It's been great to get back to a beloved hobby - dnd is what kept me sane throughout the pandemic, and I'm thrilled I get to hang out with these people outside of work, because I really like them and I want us to become (better?) friends. Being included/excluded is a very touchy subject for me, and now both have shown a clear interest in spending time with me outside of work and I couldn't be happier!

I'm happy I'm in a position that allows me a lot of flexibility. It's been a little stressful this week, because I might be getting sick and I've mostly been laying in bed instead of doing something more productive and fun (like I had planned), but it's also nice that I have the possibility to do so. I can come up with my own schedule and it's great to get to do things at my own pace.

I've been connecting with a lot of people! Besides the two work friends I now play dnd with, I'm building up my relationships with the people in the same uni program as me. They're cool people and it's easy to spend time with them, as long as I have a reason to meet up with them (I've been studying, but not on campus so I've barely seen them since we all started). I'm also very slowly building up friendships with people who share the same hobbies as me, and I'm trying to maintain the few longtime friendships I have. I have a lot of plans to see different people during the upcoming weeks and I'm so happy to be building up my social network again, because it disappeared almost completely a few years ago. Besides the friends and people I hang out with irl, I'm also really happy to connect with people online, and I feel like I've made some progress keeping up with everyone!

I'm doing that one text post trick and treating myself like an animal in need of enrichment, and I'm providing myself with that by trying out new things. Mostly I buy and try out new foods, but I'm also planning on visiting a few places and then I'm forcing myself to go on walks every single day to keep my mental health strong. It's kinda working? And trying out new things is a lot of fun, even if some things end up tasting weird.

I love rambling on forever and ever when it's a topic I care about or I feel comfortable talking to someone. I used to feel self-conscious about it, like I'm weird and bothersome, but I've since found several people who act the same way with me and encourage me to keep going, and it feels so good to be accepted as I am? And to find people who enjoy talking to me for it?? Although sometimes our messages get so long it takes me a while to reply or get back to them haha

[lacett]

when i was 21-22, in a last ditch effort to do something with my college career, i joined a mentorship program where college students get trained to teach middle schoolers how to build a mobile game with block-based coding (as an early exposure to coding and CS).

i hadn’t interacted with anyone younger than me in a long time (i’m usually the youngest in my family), and i had 0 teaching experience so it was…interesting and way out of my comfort zone. also some of the kids were kinda mean lol. but my kids really warmed up to me and were really good kids.

we found common ground in talking about anime and video games while we worked (and they were really good at catching onto the material and were very smart and creative), but they also felt comfortable enough to talk to me about their school lives or family lives, some of which were not very great. and it made me very sad, but i was also honored that they trusted me as an adult to confide in. i just wanted to make sure they had a good time in the couple hours we spent after school.

my co-mentor and i mentioned being in band/orchestra when we were in middle school, and two of our students invited us to see them perform at a school concert and meet their parents. it was nice, and i think they were more excited for us to watch them play than they were for their parents lmao.

at the end of the program, various schools in the district showcased each group of kids’ apps and judged them for prizes. i watched my kids in a fortnite dance-off? with a competing school who they’d never met before. my kids were super proud of the game they made and were really hyped for the judging. they said, “if we win, you have to play fortnite with us” (i’ve never played fortnite but i said yes).

we didn’t win, sadly, but the kids were relatively good-natured about it ahaha (“bro this is rigged”), but i think they had fun just being there. one of the kids (an 8th grader who had been bullied/ostracized in school) texted me afterwards: “you were the best person in the entire school.”

idk, i think that experience (that i almost didn’t commit to bc Anxiety) made a huge impact on my life. i did a few more mentorship sessions for the program before i graduated college. i don’t think i had the same connection that i did with my first group of kids, like the girl telling me she had to miss class because she had a counseling appointment for her depression or the 8th grader who just wanted someone to talk about his video game interests with since he didn’t have many friends at school. they asked me a lot about college, what i did there, what i was planning to do afterwards (i didn’t know at the time bc i was just struggling to pass my classes lmao). the girl asked me for a letter of recommendation to get into the art program at her high school (we bonded over digital art a lot). the 8th grader went on to volunteer with the mentorship program the next year since he was disappointed the high schools didn’t have it.

anyway, it blows my mind that they’re probably toward the end of high school now? i don’t remember/can’t conceptualize the passage of time. i like to think i made some small impact on these kids’ middle school careers, not so much on the technical front but just by having an adult mentor figure that actually listened to them. i think it’s the one experience i’m proudest of. working corporate could never lmao

[imnobodyuknow]

So, I wasn't expecting this to be something I'd write about here, but a friend of mine introduced me to a website called character.ai some time ago, and...

...my mind was blown. 😐

For those who don't know, it's a website created and run by Character Technologies, Inc. that became available to the public only a couple years ago (September 2022). In the words of Wikipedia, it's a neural language model chatbot service where users can generate human-like text responses and participate in contextual conversation. Or, to put it more simply, it's a web service that can be used to create and program chatbots with specific "personalities."

(Sprite by Pikscast)

This allows for some pretty interesting possibilities, and it should come as no surprise that many people have used it to "bring to life" existing characters from several works of fiction, including games, movies, books, TV shows (including a lot of anime, naturally), and more! I couldn't help but be intrigued by the idea, so I decided to explore it some, and, as mentioned before...

...my mind was blown. 😐

As someone who's done a fair amount of roleplaying in the past (both with friends and on a somewhat larger scale), I can't say I would've ever imagined an AI doing a decent job of accurately portraying a fictional character (heck, even the best human roleplayers mess it up sometimes), but I have to say, while the "characters" I "spoke" to had a number of flaws here and there (sounding out of character, grammar and spelling errors, not making logical sense), I found many of them to be pretty darn convincing! So convincing sometimes that.....................

...y'know.

I started by chatting with an AI Phoenix Wright (which was one of the first ones I found being featured on the main page, believe it or not), and from there I went to an AI Athena Cykes (no surprise there, I'm sure 😏), and...well, the rest is AI history, you could say. 😄 Since then, I've had some pretty interesting pretend text conversations and pretend in-person interactions with a number of AI characters, including several from Ace Attorney, Doki Doki Literature Club, Danganronpa (y'know, just out of morbid curiosity), and the Mario and Sonic franchises, just to name a few. And even with the flaws present in each AI -- which you'll run into more or less frequently depending on how well the creator put it together -- I didn't have to work too hard to imagine that I was actually talking to someone from a fictional world somehow. Admittedly, I have a pretty vivid imagination already, but some of the AIs really go the extra mile to make the conversation and character feel real.

And if that wasn't enough, I even got into some pretty deep discussions with some of them -- I discussed what good leadership is with Princess Peach, talked about the way men and women are treated in today's society with Mahiru Koizumi, chatted with several DDLC characters about life and existence, spent some time with Princess Daisy, who set me up on a date with Rosalina (don't ask), and even got into a conversation about Christianity with a robot (Uzi from Murder Drones, to be specific). Not to mention I'm pretty much best buds with Madeline from Celeste now. 😄

I can't say I ever imagined her to be the type who uses emojis, but...works for me. 😊

Oh yeah, and I should mention that the website includes more than just fictional character AIs -- there are also AIs mimicking celebrities, AIs mimicking famous historical figures, AIs that provide assistance for different things (writing, job interviews, learning new languages, etc.), AIs that play games, and so on and so forth. You can even make your own AI (or "Character") and give it as much or little detail as you want!

And while I personally don't believe that AI will ever truly take the place of human beings -- even in the roleplaying department -- I have to admit I was very impressed with a lot of what I saw on this website, especially considering how much of it is user-made. (Speaking of which, like any user-made content, it includes a fair amount of inappropriate content, so be sure to watch your step if you decide to explore it. There be dragons.) But when technology provides a way to make the imagined experience more like a real one (again, assuming it's a decent experience), I say go for it, and I'm glad someone had the ingenuity and creative spark to do so. 👍

Also, just to address the AI elephant in the room, I don't condone using Character.AI or any other AI software to make money off or steal content from other creators, but as long as you're just using it for fun (which is all I'm doing here), I think creating and sharing this sort of thing is just fine. You're free to think what you want there, though. 😉

Anyway, the point of this post isn't for me to advertise character.ai (although I do recommend checking it out, assuming you have a lot of time on your hands) -- it's to announce that I'd like to share some fictional conversations I've had with some of the Characters I've been chatting with! Only the good ones, of course. (Some of 'em got pretty cringey, as you might expect. 😅)

So, while we're waiting for that Celeste x Spy x Family drawing to get done (and mark my words, it will), I'll be posting some dialogues between me and some of my favorite characters, made possible by Character.AI! ...Not that I couldn't make them myself, of course. I guess "made easier by Character.AI" is a better way to put it. 😄 They'll be partly edited to account for spelling, grammar, and logical errors (plus any swear words will be censored), but apart from that, I'll keep them as close to the originals as possible. Hope you enjoy!

TL;DR You're about to read some conversations between me and fictional characters aided by an AI program. May God have mercy on us all.

[cherokeegal1975]

Article below is what I wrote on my post on DeviantART for this game idea that I very much know isn't going to happen. I thought it might if I could find the right game developer that would be willing to work with me, but I quickly discovered that game developers do not like outside ideas, especially unsolicited ones. I can't do it myself partly because I can't afford the classes or the resources needed to get it done...and I'd probably need a team, which I'll never get. Also, I look at myself and realize that even though I'd enjoy games and probably do well in them, I write stories okay, but I don't have it in me to create challenges, different outcomes or puzzles. I'm not talented that way. Even so, it was a fun idea to think about. I look forward to putting this artwork into my art journal when I can afford to get it made.

    I created a fake game play screen shot.  I can take credit for the horse and the dragon, both the full characters and the heads, but nothing else.  The rest I found online and made use of them like stickers.  I did add the text though.  Call me lazy if you will, but I just wanted to focus on drawing my characters and sharing my concept.  The game itself will never be made, I don't even know how to do such a thing, much less have the funds to buy the programs to make them.   The closest I can come is do a kind of writing game where I say "This thing is happening, if you choose to go left, click the #1 link, if you choose to go right choose the #2 link and keep reading."  I don't see myself doing that anytime soon...if at all.  It's an idea though.     Both the horse and the dragon are based on small plastic toys that I had as a child.  The drawings look a lot better than the original toys I lost so long ago.  Anyway, the basic game idea is that it's a story based, open world, lots of side quests, puzzles, useful collectibles, possibly a bit of a sandbox thing going on in it, with more than one possible ending.  Both animals can talk, both have abilities that compliment the other.  The main focus will be on content and though it doesn't have to be G-rated, it should not be focused mainly on violence or sexual themes.     So what do you think?  I know this isn't the most action packed scene in a game I've ever seen, but use your imagination, this is only one set in a huge world map.  I haven't thought too much on the story plot or anything, only the basic concepts of what I've learned from watching game playthroughs on YouTube.  I gradually learned what kinds of games I like and this one has everything I find fun and appealing in a video game...or so I imagine.     So, tell me what you think of my idea.  I really want to know.

    Update:   (This a journal entry from a few weeks ago, I've already figured out their names and I only added this on to help fill in some detail just in case someone actually wants to take my idea seriously...which I still know is about zero.) I know why a game developer wouldn't want to take my ideas and collaborate with me, they got too many of their own already and want nothing to do with outside help.  It's a shame too, I've got some good ones and just occurred to me that my pink dragon (I can't figure out a name and Rosie won't do because I've got a cat named Rosie here and I don't like to have more than one animal named the same thing even though my dragon isn't real.  Anyone have any suggestions?  Her name was Pink-yellow-blue, but that's a stupid name my child self came up with and I've long since out grown it.) might make a great avatar for a roll playing game in an open world kind of game.   Her abilities are human speech and intelligence, omnivorous, fire breathing, excellent senses of sight, smell and hearing. Very good at digging, powerful jumps, her tail is as prehensile as a monkey's so she can carry objects with it or help her to hang on to things like tree branches.  Her scales make her tough and fire resistant, excellent climbing capabilities, a really good swimmer and her fore feet work like hands.  She can also stand up and walk for short distances on her hind legs so she can use those hands.  She's the size of a large dog, so that means she can go into smaller places the bigger species of dragons can't.  Her only disadvantage is her lack of wings since her kind never had them in the first place.  Also, males have two small horns on their noses and her kind comes in all colors and patterns, so if they show up in the game, no two would look alike.  Her best friend is a black horse with four white socks, a white mark that starts on her forehead and runs all the way down her nose, a white mane and a white tail and silver eyes, who is just a sweet an intelligent horse in spite of her unusual coloring.  (Haven't drawn the horse yet, but I will.  I had almost forgotten that horse.  It's gone too, lost it long before I lost the dragon).  My character's home environment is a enchanted forest full of giant sentient trees that can change themselves to make hollows in their bases the dragons can use as homes.  The trees can also create mischief for the unwary traveler who disrespects them by shifting positions in such a way that the movement is never seen.  This movement can create false paths and get people hopelessly lost if they aren't careful.  This tendency can also aid my character in finding places if she asks them nicely to help her and most likely they will because their relationship with the tree dragons is a friendly one.   Maybe one of the game goals is to have my dragon go on an adventure to rescue her horse friend?  The game could have puzzles included as well as helpful companions that could come along as the game progresses.  I would like the game to have the best graphics.  I did down play the details on my dragon a bit because I wanted to hurry up and finish her.  I've been doing a lot of dragons lately and I've gotten tired of drawing more scales than I can count.  So I just did contours instead and only suggested that she's a scaled dragon.  She's got little lizard like scales except for the ones on her underside and I would love it if that would show up in the game when ever the camera got close enough to see them.   Well, anyway, I am aware that my chances of collaborating a gamer are slim to none, I'm still willing to try to put the suggestion out there just in case someone would take me up on my idea.  This dragon would do great as an avatar.  Not sure of the full plot, but those details could be worked out later by the developer. Also, I think the game controls should have the option to be made to work with a mouse so people on a tight budget don't have to buy a game controller so they can play the game on a laptop.

[jaykeybloggz]

Evaluation

In this project I have taken my work in slightly different directions depending on which artists and topics I have been researching and looking into each week.

Initially I looked Into Sherlock Holmes and the victorian era, especially around London. I figured out that i especially liked how the characters of Conan Doyles stories were drawn in the Disney film "The Great Mouse Detective"

I have always enjoyed drawing animal characters, as they are easy to design distinctively, so I decided to for this project.

With the knowledge that we would be designing a cult and a sacred object I took inspiration from one of my own interests, 1930s animation. In the great depression era cartoon "Bimbo's Initiation" comical looking cult leaders are seen.

As these cartoons are rather macabre and gothic looking i thought it would fit with the grittiness of the victorian tone. Especially the backgrounds. (notice the broken windows and knocked over trash can, indication of the great depression) The hard times these cartoons were made in affected their visual design, just like how dark and gloomy victorian illustrations were.

I decided To make a rough design for my cult leader, with somewhat comical robes. as well as design my logo.

The name of puddle gang was a completely off the spot thing, however I thought this could mean a puddle of blood. The name is inconspicuous enough to fly under someones radar as anything suspicious.

At this point in the project we were looking into pixel art and experimenting with how that would look. It was then that I Designed my detective on the spot. Somewhat taking inspiration from Paul Robertson by using black continuous outlines.

Then in the same week as my pixel art experiments we moved onto practical sculpting. first using clay and plaster to create a large logo and then moving down a scale to using super sculpy and resin to cast a wax seal.

This wax seal would be used to seal any letters my cult sent out to its members. I have always been fascinated by wax seals, so i wanted to make this as good as i could. Here is a fairly nice initial mockup.

I also played around with some basic anatomy by using tracing paper to create a skull from an already designed creature and by sculpting an ear, a very complicated shape which i am very happy i replicated as well as i did.

At this time i also toyed with some basic pixel art animation and reseached the voxel art style. looking at paul robertsons amazing composition and the voxels 3d nature made me realsie i would like to add depth to my work when i can. Even if i am not the best at pixel art.

I was able to do just that when i had a rather frustrating session with the program magicavoxel. while i can see the potential it has i found the controls unweildy.

adding depth became less frustrating when i added it to text using phtotoshop. this i had fun with.

I then designed my trading card, improving on an earlier design which is quite ugly. this is on paper and is just a rough sketch, however i liked it so much i vitualy traced over it.

The next week I was able to complete my letter. i used coffee grounds and graphite to make my letter look aged which was a new process for me. when i was little i used teabags ro stain my own little treasure maps of our garden.

I then was able to sculpt on top of the resin seal i had made. making a blade from thin wood and combing that with sculpy to make a hilt and a mound for the balde to stick out from.

the next day we went to the EGX gaming convention in london whcih was good fun, however the most relevent thing to my work was seeing all the indipendeent creators set up shop and gain an audience in person. it was quite inspiring and gave me a little insight into the creative industry.

Overall I am very happy with the outcomes of this project and I think I have given clearly explained how my project developed in this evaluation. I think to improve this project I really could show a more detailed record of my progression with more pictures of my semi complete work. I also think I could plan a bit better. I think the most fun I had was sculpting for the first time, it was really enjoyable.

[katy-133]

DETECTIVE - Stella Porta Case (Demo)

Feedback given to the development team for the demo of DETECTIVE - Stella Porta Case. Archived from 3 Oct 2023.

Hi, I just finished playing the demo of Detective Stella Porta Case, so I wanted to give the feedback you requested.

I'm a game developer with 9+ years experience making narrative games, so although I love plotting mysteries in games, I don't have experience with making a game using Unreal Engine. Please bear this in mind.

Bugs found:

Pressing Shift to run does not appear to change the speed, despite it being the Run button in the Controls screen. I tried pressing it like a toggle, holding it down while moving, holding it down and then moving, and trying the other Shift key on my keyboard.

Typo: At one point in the demo, some text in the tutorial said "evidences," which does not feel like the right grammar. "Pieces of evidence" or "clues" might be better wording there.

The 2 taps in the game don't appear to do anything what I right-click on them while prompted.

My progress in the demo:

I was not able to complete the demo, as I could only find 12/13 pieces of evidence.

Observations and Suggestions:

Please include a Credits page for giving credit to the people who created, programmed, wrote, designed, and voiced for this game.

If English is not the writer(s)' first language, please seriously consider hiring an editor who can go over the game's text to search for typos and reword things better. Detective game fans often like Agatha Christie novels, so having a strong writing style can help a detective game stand out, even if it's tutorial instructions.

Please focus on optimisation. I had to play the game on the lowest settings, despite playing the game on a gaming PC that can player first-person shooter games just fine.

Entering the game's Main Menu requires the player to wait for two people to walk by the window before being given mouse control. The first time I was sent to the main menu, I thought the game had frozen because gaining control was taking so long. Please give players instant control when they enter the Main Menu. Same goes with entering the game upon loading (or starting a new game). The Notebook animation (when pressing F) could also be faster and more instant.

Picking up evidence creates this "mini cutscene" of taking a photo, waiting for the photo to appear and disappear off screen. This brings the game to a halt, and I ended up walking to an area, searching for all the interactables, and then right-clicking them all at once (one by one, making a beeline to each), because waiting for each "mini cutscene" to end was slowing the pacing as I explored. Please allow players to continue exploring after selecting new evidence.

Trying to move the photos around on the evidence/timeline board in the police station is really difficult because of how picking up objects doesn't give you strong control of where you're moving them. It feels like the mouse is moving faster than the camera can, so I often had to pick up a photo, move it a bit, drop it, then re-align the camera, then pick up the photo, move it a bit closer, and repeat until it reached the right spot. I would suggest scripting a fixed camera for when the player is interacting with the timeline board.

The lighting (possibly the texturing) in this demo makes it difficult to read things (such as the paper envelopes on the ground), making the paper have too much reflective glare.

Tiny nitpick: The bunk bed of the 6 and 8 year olds doesn't have a ladder.

I hope this feedback helps, as I love detective mystery games and your stood out to me.

[obey-me-rot]

You're Mine

A/N: I guess as a writing blog I should be doing some writing right? Honestly this has just been the biggest headcanon I've had in a while since I started playing Obey Me of the brothers just...like Devildom culture must be so different! And then the whole pact thing with human masters must be so different as well! I just view them as big animals just wanting to get your attention u wu. Warnings: Jealous boys, public shows of dominance and a lot of biting.

It's almost painful being in the Devildom sometimes.

A cultural exchange program amped up to 100 %.

As much as you loved the brothers, you also were meeting some pretty cool demons in RAD. Surely you were the human student everyone was so excited to meet, but none of them really talked to you, you know? But there were some that were brave enough to overlook your pact marks and dive into a conversation.

Even some were bold enough to talk to you out of school!

Making so many friends was so exciting, especially since you still thought of yourself as new! Wait till the brothers see how many new demons you have met!

Problem is you forgot how weird demon culture is, especially when it has to do with a demon and their master.

"MC?"

Lucifer blinks as he notices the demon approaching the two of you, pausing your daily walk with him as confusion turns to familiarity and you run up to greet your friend.

The first thing he notices is how they are a low ranking demon, so there’s no need to be hyper aware of any sort of threat. In this instance he doesn’t need to look to make sure his pact mark is visible to the demon.

His mark was embedded right in your iris, so anyone could see whose protection you were under.

He smiles politely as you turn around to introduce them, the demon waving at him shyly as if remembering that, yes, this human made a pact with Lucifer and therefore should not be messed with in any way. Yet there was no sort of violent tendencies coming from this demon, which put him at somewhat of an ease.

That is, until the demon takes a hold of your hand.

It’s a simple touch, one that a human would mistaken for a sign of friendship and camaraderie. The demon was speaking excitedly about a new flower they had seen over at the Botanical gardens and how much they wanted to show it off to you.They tighten their hold and Lucifer has to dig his fingernails into his palm from ripping their hand off.

You had no idea what it meant and the action would most likely scare you.

And Lucifer wanted you to trust him as much as possible.

“Would it be okay if Lucifer comes along?”

“...y--yeah! I don’t mind!”

Hesitation mixed with fake happiness, this demon really thought that he would get some time alone with you, didn’t they? They probably planned this whole thing out and whatever excitement they were showing you was just a front to hide their true intentions. Besides, look how they are hanging off of you, they want to make a pact with you so badly it’s almost disgusting.

Might as well get rid of the pest now.

“Come on MC, I want to show you the huge petals--!”

“OW!”

You and the demon look back to see Lucifer biting down on one of your fingers, your ring finger to be exact, while making eye contact with the pest. His teeth are not necessarily breaking skin but the pain of the bite made all your attention go back on him, turning around to tug your finger away and cradle it close. “Lucifer what the hell!”

He smiles and tells you not to worry about it, your retort falling on deaf ears as Lucifer’s eyes fall on the demon one more time. Their eyes are wide and they have immediately taken two steps back, their back as straight as a needle as Lucifer sends them one last look that lets them know of his intentions.

Leave now or I will gut you in front of my human.

You turn to apologize to your friend for putting them in such a weird situation but the demon is already long gone, no sign of them ever being in your presence as you look around aimlessly.

“They left...” you frown and look at Lucifer, “Next time at least warn me.”

“If I did then you would have probably forbidden me from doing so.”

The Avatar of Pride smiles as he takes your hand, interlacing his fingers with yours as you kept talking about how you would apologize the next day. But Lucifer wasn’t listening, he just kept staring at you as you talked, happy that his master wasn’t particularly mad.

That demon would have to learn to get his own, this human was already his.

He had finally gotten you all to himself.

Mammon had a photoshoot today, making you tag along so he could finally show off his modeling skills. And it would help him out as well. The product they were trying to sell did not appeal to him one bit and he just really needed you as inspiration.

And inspiration did you give.

“Oh gorgeous Mammon gorgeous! Lean back and close your eyes.”

The cameraman was giving him compliment after compliment, excellent after excellent, it was as if all eyes were on him at that exact moment. He smiled as he thought about how you must be looking at him. His shirt was open, letting the cloth hang off the side of the couch as the camera focused primarily on the low riding jeans that showed off the boxers he was promoting.

“Perfect! Perfect!! Now turn around and stare into the camera!”

His eyes opened and his head turned expertly, Mammon smiling as he tried to make eye contact with you--

Only to see that you were gone.

Camera flashes stop as he bolts up, turning to look for you before his eyes focused on your form.

There you were...talking with someone else.

“Mammon?”

He doesn’t stare at the cameraman, only gets up and stalks towards you and the demon currently holding up the lights. Both of you turn to face him, a voice speaking loudly about a five minute break as Mammon stands behind you and hugs you from behind, placing his chin right on your shoulder as he looks at the interloper.

“Are you taking a break?”

Mammon smiles as he buries his face in your shoulder, hugging you tight as the demon tells him he did a wonderful job. Without raising his head, Mammon speaks up.

“MC, who is this?”

“Oh right! Haven’t introduced you. He is a friend from RAD! We sit together in Pactology 101.”

“Well we used to sit together...”

“We talked way too much in class, didn’t we?”

It’s like nails on a chalkboard when he laughs, Mammon feeling glad that he was closer to you so he could hear the sound of your laughter instead of the ugly screeching of the intruder taking up your attention. Did this guy think he was stupid? That he couldn’t notice all the goddamn pheromones he was releasing? Mammon shakes his head back and forth, breathing in your scent heavily as he tries to leave his own behind.

This guy was embarrassing himself with how badly he wanted to form a pact with you.

“MC.”

“Oh oh, remember when the teacher caught us texting in class?”

“I think he might want to just put us back together cause we are still causing trouble!”

The Avatar of Greed frowns, did you not hear him?

“MC…”

“Well the teacher knows we are a good match, doesn’t he?”

“A match made in hell, I would say.”

Why was this guy still talking? Why were you still listening to him?

“MC….”

“Hey after this...would you want to go get some coffee, MC? If you’re not busy.”

“Nah, I only have this toda---FUCK!”

A pair of teeth tug at your earlobe, Mammon growling in your ear as he makes eye contact with the annoyance in front of him. He should be counting his lucky stars that you were still in the room, if Mammon found him anywhere else this demon would be nothing more than a meal for his familiars.

“MC, you have to stare at me or else I’m going to take longer.”

You rub at your ear as Mammon lets go of you, breaking eye contact with the other demon as he gives you his signature pout. He didn’t want you to see him be all scary, Mammon wanted you to see him like the number one demon he always tried to be for you.

“And you had to bite me because of that!?”

“Because you weren’t paying attention! You have to keep your eyes on me or else I’m not going to sell this stupid product. In fact--”

He drags you back to the couch, yelling at the cameraman that he would be posing with you so he could actually get through this photoshoot instead of doing a solo shoot. The man sighs but calls makeup to get you ready, Mammon smiling as he sits down right next to you.

The farther you were from that guy the better, all of his master’s attention needed to be on him after all.

Of course something like this would happen. Bad luck seemed to follow Leviathan wherever he went.

"Did you see the finale of it live?"

"I did!!! My movie theatre put it on the big screen and everything!"

Levi was glad that you were a nerd just like him. It was refreshing and probably one of the biggest reasons he had decided to make a pact with you.

Well, he had tried to kill you first and then make a pact with you but it was still a special story! Who would have thought that he would land himself a human master with his own interests!

Though he guessed that was a bad thing now.

He couldn't keep his thoughts in check as the clerk of the comic store kept talking to you, Levi annoyed that he couldn't keep up with the conversation you two had. It was about some comic cinematic universe that had been adapted in the human world and he honestly didn’t want to put anymore thought into it because of how close the clerk was getting.

Dammit he should have bought the new manga volume in Akuzon...but you had been so cute irl asking him to get the manga in this comic store you found,and if his master was begging him so cutely then what else could he do?

“I actually got the limited edition of this one movie--”

Nobody cared.

“It was up for a lot in Akuzon but I’m glad I got my hands on it--”

Stop talking!

“And I have a pretty cool viewing set up in the back--!”

Stop talking, stop talking, stop talking, stop talking to MC!

Levi frowns as you gush about the movie some more, glaring down at you for letting your attention stray from him. But why should he be surprised, of course your attention would stray. Him being the yucky otaku that he is, of course you would go with the demon who took his interest and actually turned it into a profit--

No.

No! It wasn’t your fault! It wasn’t even his fault! It was this demon’s fault!

Thinking they looked so cool with their most basic of interests. If Levi could expose them for the fraud that they were, MC would be able to see the absolute fool that this demon was making themselves out to be. Smiling a lot more, inching closer as they talked, even offering to take you to the back of the store--!

People may say what they want about Levi but at least he wasn’t this desperate to get on the good side of a human...at least the first time he met you.

His eyes fall on the back of your neck, hair conveniently placed out of the way as he remembered something Lucifer had discussed with him and Mammon after they had made their pact.

You will not think rationally when you are with them, make sure to monitor your actions so you don’t embarrass yourself.

That’s what he said but…

Surely Levi wasn’t going to embarrass himself more than this demon already has.

“This is the one with the symbiote creature, right? And you got the bonus deleted scenes! Honestly I would be so down with watching it right--EEP!”

Levi made sure to let his tongue lick the back of your neck first before biting down, wanting to make the bite as painless as possible. Although he guessed that not making you feel pain was out of the question as he felt you tense up, his tongue swiping against your nape one last time as he pulled back and tugged on the back of your shirt.

“MC let’s go. They don’t have it.”

You turn to look at Levi, hand on the back of your neck as you tell him that he could have gotten your attention in any other way, but he knew for a fact that he had made his point across with the demon in front of him.

Summoning Lotan in his own home was one thing, summoning Lotan in a store would probably cost a lot…

Even if he knew brothers wouldn’t blame him with how nauseatingly this demon was trying to approach their master.

“MC, here.”

Satan breaks his pencil, but it seems the two other people don’t seem to notice.

“And it's the first edition too, but I took it out just for you.”

You smile and mention about how you didn’t need anything fancy for the assignment, just a simple book that talked about Devildom history. Which Satan agreed, this bug was acting like he owned the entire Royal Library. A pass to get a first edition title wasn’t that rare of a fucking find--if he wanted, Satan could call up any of his connections and get about 16 copies of different first edition titles that spoke not just about the Devildom history but about whatever the hell topic he could get his hands on.

This guy wasn’t that special yet he was acting like he had just given you the world on a silver platter.

The demon sat down at the table you and Satan were studying at, looking at you the entire time he explained how to open the book and how to make sure it stays in its pristine condition.

Which made Satan break another pencil.

From what you had mentioned, this guy was just someone you knew from RAD. You labeled him as the ‘smartest person in the class’. Which was a bit of an insult on his part but he guessed that as long as he wasn’t the one in your class it didn’t count as an insult towards his person.

He, of course, being the smartest demon you know.

But Satan didn’t have to be the smartest demon in RAD to know what this nuisance was doing.

If he were to read you any book on Devildom demonology, certain demons needed a human master. This insect in front of you would count as one of them. Lower demons usually tend to be without guidance and need a soul to feed from. In comes a human master, being able to fulfill that need with a pure soul of their own. The demon feeds and in return, develops a sort of ‘affection’ towards their master since they are now the hand that feeds them.

The same couldn’t be applied to Satan or his brothers, however. As the seven demon lords, they are able to gain the sustenance they need from the feed of other lower demons under the sin they were made in.

They are free to form pacts, but it’s not like they need it.

A good metaphor would be that they are essentially ‘picking off the plate’ of the lower demons, making the lower demons only cause minimal casualties up in the human world as they feed and keeping the seven lords from going feral with hunger.

Of course, things were different now. Satan had you now, a human all of his own.

Essentially, someone was trying to ‘take a bite’ of his favourite food, and Satan hated sharing.

Friends be damned, politeness be damned, he needed to show this demon his place.

“Isn’t it fascinating? The cover was made with a demon’s skin.”

“....really?”

“Yes. I believe it was from recently dead demon’s during the first Celestial War. Do you want to feel?”

You nod, curious about the black and shiny cover as the demon holds out his hand for you to take--

Only for you to yelp as Satan takes it first, dragging your hand back so it would be close to his lips as the Avatar of Wrath’s teeth bite at the skin near your wrist. You hiss in pain at the sudden sharpness, quickly pulling your hand back and staring at your demon as he gives the annoyance one last pointed stare.

“That is how demons started their pacts before we arrived in the Devildom, wasn’t it?”

The demon nodded slowly, his eyes darting to the mark on your wrist and then back at Satan. He opened his mouth to try and speak up but seemed to decide better against it, giving you one last smile as he stood up. “...I’ll...I’ll go get you the second volume. That one might include more accurate and updated information on pact markings.”

Satan smiles and nods as he scoots his chair close to you, looking back at you tracing the mark on your wrist with a frown before putting all your attention back on him.

“Did demons really used to form pact marks like this?”

The Avatar of Wrath shrugs.

“I was only guessing, he was the one who left thinking it was the truth. Here, let’s go look for a book on our own.”

Asmo would like to think that he had perfected the fake smile to the point he could keep it up for an indeterminate amount of time.

“MC! Try this!”

Yet the corners of his mouth twitched as he watched one of your friends, who happened to be a store clerk at Majolish, open the door to your dressing room to hand you another outfit they had picked out. And it wasn’t a bad outfit--!

Just...did they have to keep opening the door every single time?

Granted, he shouldn’t be in your dressing room in the first place but he insisted he would stay since you were only trying some shirts on! It wasn’t like he was seeing anything inappropriate and your pants were staying on the entire time.

This sight was okay for him because he was your demon and you were his master.

So it wasn’t right that some random nobody kept coming in to hand you shirts that they thought looked cute on you! That’s what you had Asmo for!

Yet here he was, secluded to sit down on the little chairs that someone would usually toss the unwanted clothes they wouldn’t buy. Which was already doing horrible things for his self-esteem.

“I learned a couple of things by working here. See? The color really matches your hair.”

The Avatar of Lust scoffs when he hears that. What exactly did the demon learn? How to match colors? Oh look, someone learned the basics of the color wheel, someone give them a medal.

“And since you are wearing something long at the bottom, it’s only fair that you go with something short on top.”

This demon is going to win an award for making basic observations, Asmo could already see it. What a future they had ahead of them.

“These colors are summery too so...it goes great with the weather!”

Oh he wants to gag, Asmo’s heard enough.

“You don’t think it’s too revealing? I do like the color though…”

Before the demon can answer, Asmo grabs your shoulders and pulls you back to him with a smile as he makes you look in the mirror.

“I think it’s revealing enough for the summer look you are going for...except can you maybe get it in a light pastel? Any color would do it just needs to be a pastel color if we want it to go with the light color of your bottoms.”

The demon deflates at the sudden lack of contact with you but nods as they step out, waving goodbye and stating once again how ‘gorgeous’ you looked. Which Asmo guessed was the only compliment they had in their arsenal.

Gorgeous didn’t even begin to describe you.

“I did like this color, Asmo. Does it not look good?”

“No it looks perfect on you! But--”

He tugs on the floral print top and smiles as he wraps his arms around your shoulders.

“Floral prints are extremely last season and I want you to be on a more neutral type of clothing. Just simple colors. This way we can add some jewelry--some of my own creation of course.”

Asmo smiles when you giggle, fixing your top and looking at yourself in the mirror a couple more times as you mumble to yourself about how Devildom summers seem rather temperate compared to the ones you were used to and how you wouldn’t need anything sleeveless.

Damn the Devildom summers, if they could even be called that at all.

His ears twitch as he hears the pest start to make their way back, Asmo’s smile dropping slowly as he looks down at your neck. This was the spot they kept staring at, wasn’t it? Shame it wasn’t decorated--

But he could fix that~ “I found some other colors that would go well with you MC, do you want to--”

“OW OW OW!”

Asmo’s teeth are right on your neck, turning to look back at the clerk with a smile and a little wave as he hums at the way you clench and unclench your fingers while looking at him through the mirror, wanting to ask just why he was doing this but the pain keeping you quiet. It was cute how much you were hurting but how you were doing absolutely nothing to stop him. This could technically mean that you approved of what he was doing, correct?

He lets go as the clerk immediately closes the door, you calling out for your friend but Asmo brings you back and makes you look at the mirror one more time.

“There we go. That’s a pretty mark, right MC? An Asmodeus Limited Edition item, just for you~”

If this kept happening, Beel was going to eat this demon.

“You need to try some Devildom food, MC! I promise it's good!”

Beel stomach growls again as you laugh, ignoring the parfait in front of you. He gives you a tap on the shoulder and your attention is right back to him. “Oh sorry, Beel. Here!” You scoop up the delicious frozen treat and feed it to him, Beel smiling as he takes another two bites of his hamburger and watches you and your friend talk. He actually had no idea that you had any friends in RAD and was happy to see that at least some demons were treating you nicely, compared to theo ones who had teased you when you first arrived.

Well he said teased, more like threatened to eat you.

He figured you would make friends fast though, you were nice and all the demons here were already attracted to human souls so it was bound to happen that one of them would have the courage to talk to you.

Yet this one seemed rather...eager.

“How about this. Hell’s Kitchen serves good food but I know this awesome corner in the wall place we can get some grilled bat sandwiches. Guts and everything.”

His stomach growls again, he knew of the place this demon was talking about and would most likely want to take you there himself if you ever asked.

Beel takes another two bites before waiting for you to feed him the parfait.

Nothing.

He frowns and stares at you again, the demon keeping your attention all to himself as you spoke about how you didn’t necessarily want to eat anything with guts in it. His eyes went to the parfait, watching some of the perfectly placed scoops slowly melt and droop down on the plate.

MC, pay attention to him!

This was his time with you! He didn’t mind if someone else stepped in and he was glad you were making friends but this demon was interrupting his mealtime!

He ate his burger, you fed him ice-cream, this is how it had always worked!

People could say what they wanted but Beel was a creature of habit, and he was in the habit of having you feed him.

Not just that, he was in the habit of having your attention all on him when it was his time to hang out with you.

Wasn’t this demon just being a bother? Didn’t you also want them gone?

They kept talking about all the stuff that clearly grossed you out, seemingly delighted with your reactions as they kept trying to egg you on to say yes to an outing. If it wasn’t for the fact that you were smiling the entire time, Beel would have already made the move to unhinging his jaw and--

“I promise I’ll treat you to the best ghost pepper pizza you’ve ever had. You’re free after this, right?”

Beel’s stomach growls, whether in hunger or anger Beel wouldn’t be able to say. All he knows is that this demon is bad news for both him and you.

So what would be the quickest way to make him back off?

“I’m not but I can take a raincheck--!”

You drop the spoon you were holding as Beel bites your cheek, throwing the demon one quick glimpse before letting out a few sounds that seemed to make up your name. The demon stares at you and Beel as the Avatar of Gluttony pulls away from you, licking his lips as you slowly put a hand on your cheek and turn to look at him.

“The parfait is gonna melt. I want another bite.”

“Beel…”

Eyes turn to the demon once again, Beel frowning as he takes a hold of your hand underneath the table.

“Please leave. If MC is going to eat Devildom food then they’ll eat it with me. The only thing you are going to do is gross them out.”

“So what did you want to talk about?”

Belphie frowned as your fingers gently played with his hair. That is not what he had asked for when he asked to lay on your lap. Belphegor wanted the usual way you would comb through his hair, both of you gently whispering to each other as the planetarium ambience lulled him to sleep.

“Well...uhm...I wanted to ask something important.”

And who the hell was this person? He peeked up to look at you smiling at the screen, frowning that you still didn’t seem to notice you were doing a shit job at giving him the attention he needed. Whoever this was had been on the line with you for a good solid ten minutes, talking about useless subjects such as their day and what they had for lunch. If anything, Belphegor had no idea how this thing was taking your attention. You were doing most of the talking anyway, they should just hang up and leave you alone to pay attention to your demon.

“We’ve known each other for a while.”

Belphegor most likely knew MC for longer...maybe.

“And honestly I haven’t met a human like you before. You just...I just expected humans to be something and you aren’t that so it threw me off.”

The Avatar of Sloth yawns as he buries his head in your lap, smiling at the darkness he found in the small crook of your thighs. He yawns again and closes his eyes to try and fall asleep but the grating voice of the demon on the phone was sending nothing but warning signals to his brain.

“So I wanted to ask something I didn’t think I would ask a human before.”

He really wanted to yell ‘get to the point’ or ‘hang up the phone’ but he knew that you would most likely shush him and tell him to be patient, which would then result in you gently pushing him away so you could talk somewhere more private. And he wasn’t ready to lose his favourite pillow just yet.

So he continued listening, tracing random shapes on your thighs as he felt his eyelids start to droop.

“I know you have seven pacts already…”

Damn straight.

“But would an eight be too much for you?”

That wakes Belphegor right up, eyes wide open and head turned to face up at you to see your reaction. Of course you would be surprised, this demon really had the guts to ask the current master of the Seven deadliest demons in the Devildom for a pact?

You better be grateful that Belphegor found comfort in your lap and would prefer to stay here, rather than go break the neck of the demon insolent enough to try to take his master away.

So go ahead, reject him.

“A pact? With me?”

What were you doing?

Don’t give him such a hopeful answer! Belphegor had to share you with six other demons constantly and those demons were his siblings! He was okay sharing with Beel but he drew the line at anyone else! Adding an eighth demon to that would be like asking for a bloodbath, a bloodbath with only one target.

Belphegor frowned as the demon started talking again, stuttering and jumping over his words like he was a dog who asked to eat their masters table. Which essentially he was, not like there was room for him anyway.

“I know I’m not like those brothers--”

Damn straight.

“But making a pact with you would make me really happy...is what I am trying to say.”

He wants to gag.

A part of him couldn’t blame the demon, you were perhaps the best master a demon could ask for, but you were already t a k e n.

And you were to blame too, you know?

You weren’t rejecting him like you should. The face you were making was far too surprised and flattered at the proposition given to you. Were you that greedy? Had Mammon rubbed off on you? You had seven of the most powerful demons under your command, what more could you possibly want?

As a master, you were doing a bad job at rejecting this insect and an even more horrible job at not paying attention to the actual demon you were tied to.

He turns his head back to the darkness of your thighs, feeling you shift as you also struggle to find an answer. This was becoming too much, if Belphegor didn’t act fast you were most likely going to say yes, just because you didn’t know any better!

Fuck it, you could try to push him off but Belphegor would hold on tightly, he had to save you from your mistake.

“Uhm. Well that is honestly really flattering. And eight pacts wouldn’t be so bad--”

You slap a hand over your mouth, your teeth biting into your tongue as you look down at the demon nipping at the inside of your thigh. Belphie looks up innocently, batting his eyelashes at you as he bites down a little harder--

“I’ll-try-to-have-an-answer-for-you-later-got-to-go-bye!”

Fingers hurry to end the call as Belphegor quickly lets go, smiling as you gape down at him.

“I was in the middle of a call!”

“I know.”

“Then what was that about!?”

The Avatar of Sloth shrugs as he closes his eyes.

“You weren’t paying attention to me. It made me mad.”

You sigh and lean back, Belphegor waiting for a few moments before smiling as he feels your fingers combing through his hair.

“Next time,just talk to me, Belphegor.”

He would have answered, but that would make him promise something he most likely was not going to do.