#i've been in a pixel art mood

[tiffany-chan123]

Tiffany's Fancuries For Your Consideration

Hey there folks! This is actually the fourth Fancuries that I'll be participating in, and my second "For Your Consideration" post that I've made during my time as not just a pretty cure fanseries creator but as a pretty cure fan.

Over the past couple of years, my cures and by extension fanseries tend to change a LOT, I have been trying to experiment with Kisekae and my drawn art more and I am planning on getting back into writing fanfiction and my fanseries (In fact I'm currently writing episode one of the main fanseries I'll be talking about in this very post)

~~~

Deep within the reaches of cyberspace, there is a secret world known simply as Arcadia, a place where all video game characters around can travel to their own games freely. However, the land of Arcadia was soon under attack by the villainous "Dark Network" and their army of monstrous glitches wanting to take over their world. However, a sneaky and speedy rabbit named Riki and a fairy named Aruna end up making their way to the human world and end up running into a girl named Mariko Asoda, but with Riki and Aruna on the run from the Baguras, Riki hands Mariko a Pixel Curesette and she then transforms into the heroine of exciting Action, Cure Action! Filled with determination to save the gaming world of Arcadia as well as her own, Cure Action's truly wild adventure is about to begin. Now! Pretty Cure Game Start!

The main themes of this series deal with stuff like technology, cyberspace, and reality and fiction, while motifs include stuff like video games, pixels, and 90's aesthetics. I plan on releasing this fanseries on a few fanfic sites (AO3, Quotev, even Wattpad) and I do have a wiki for it, if you are wondering about what I used to make the cures and other characters, it's Kisekae a pretty well-known dollmaker software (It can be pretty NSFW though just keep that in mind, though there is an SFW version if I remember correctly), though two characters have been made with picrew, but enough about that let's get into...

~~~

The Cures!

From Left to Right: Nene Kanemitsu, Mariko Asoda, Kayla Coleman, Aruna Yushi

Mariko Asoda / Cure Action (Pink)

A fourteen-year-old student council member with a soft spot for video games, a big daydreamer, and a selfless escapist who just wants to help people like the video game heroes she loves, but has a big sense of righteousness about her, loves to over indulge in her hobbies and always expects gratitude from others. Has a bit of a habit of saying "Level Up!". Becoming Cure Action, she is themed after action games and platformers and has fire powers.

Kayla Coleman / Cure Puzzle (Green)

A fifteen-year-old foreign exchange student originally from Brooklyn, New York, and despite her quiet disposition she is very much a crafty inventor type who has a love for crafting new ideas, despite that confident mask she wears, she is a massive introvert with some slight confidence issues, with a love for sarcasm and darker topics and just wants to be accepted and loved by others for the games she creates and codes. When she becomes Cure Puzzle, she gains the powers of the earth via stones and tetrominoes, and is themed after puzzle games.

Nene Kanemitsu / Cure Song (Yellow)

The daughter of the creator of the famous game mascot Riki the Rabbit, Nene is well-known as a passionate and competitive professional gamer who is a regular at the Skyblue arcade center, especially when it comes to rhythm games. Nene essentially acts as the mood maker of the group, going through life with a rather positive and takes life and everyday situations through good humor and optimism, but has a big obsession with idols and isn't afraid to talk about her hyper fixations for a long time, can be a bit careless, short-tempered, boisterous, and is not good with money at all. As Cure Song, she is themed after Rhythm Games and has the power of sound.

Aruna / Aru Yuushi / Cure Hero (Blue)

Originally known as the fairy priestess Aruna, a character that originated from the video game RPG Valianta Quest X, she made her home in the Pixel Pocket (Basically the transformation items of the season) after she was saved by Riki, who always wanted to become a knight out of the want to truly help out her kingdom, she eventually transformed into a human via learning a spell. A very defensive girl with a hard shell and tries to convey a heroic and yet cool image, but is a way more sensitive person underneath it all. As Cure Hero, she is themed after Adventure games and RPG's, and wields the power of light via the Bravery Sword, instead of the Virtual Sticks the cures normally use.

Allies

Riki

The protagonist of a popular platformer game series that Mariko is a big fan of. Riki can move at super fast speeds and pick things up with his ears, who is adventurous, lively, and a bit of an adrenaline junkie.

Princess Dahlia

The fair and sweet ruler of the Bloomfield kingdom, and despite her dainty and cutesy appearance, she is actually the leader of the resistance fighting against the “Dark Network” in Arcadia, in which she comes from the popular puzzle game “Puzzle De Puyo”.

Fumio Kanemitsu

Nene’s father and the man who created Riki the Rabbit, and currently works as a programmer for the video game company Kurotaki, moody, fickle, changeable, and obviously weirded out by the fact his creation is real, he ends up becoming a big ally to the team, mainly due to his knowledge about programming.

The Dark Network Fuguerror A mysterious glitchy being hidden within dark depths of cyberspace, he is a cruel, cunning, and yet oddly playful being, and is the one the Dark Network are trying to essentially complete, and summon him mainly via collecting Digi Data.

Belladonna

Leader of the generals and the one who founded the Dark Network group in the first place after discovering Fuguerror, a rather seductive and devious enchantress who is known for her self centered-ness, her love of making her presence known, and getting a kick out of seeing people enraged and essentially teasing her enemies, she's also known for her love of making very odd smelling (And toxic!) "perfume". Belladonna comes from the medieval beat em up game "Radira Fight Knights"

Doctor Serpentine

Riki the Rabbit's number one adversary and a rather dastardly mad scientist taking the form of a snake, he mostly tries to take down foes with the many robotic suits he builds, and he loves flaunting his intelligence skill in robotics, despite his aggressive way of speaking to others. Nikto

A rather cunning if rather short wizard. Nikto acts as a mediator between the villainous group and tends to try and take Belladonna down the peg a little, he's also very skilled at magic, especially when it comes to illusions and trickery which he often tries to take advantage of to his own benefits, and really doesn't like it when people make fun of his height. He is the main villain of the famous RPG "Valianta Quest V". Adalram

A Mysterious Swordsman with a wide set of tools, and a man who is a rather flirty soul who likes to use his wit and charm to recruit other villains to Dark Network's cause, but he is dedicated to protecting the other members, namely Miss Belladonna. He comes from the popular adventure game series "Secret Sword".

~~~ And do you think this is the only fanseries I have...No, I have another, a Ninja, family and Japanese mythology-based fanseries, that being... Doron! Kunoichi Precure!

I haven't made a logo for the fanseries yet and I don't have a lot of designs for it (Only the cures have been designed so far), so please bear with me.

For nineteen generations, the Kaminarimon school of ninjas have been protecting both Earth and the Celestial Plains from the Kagemashu Army of yokai, creatures who emerge from the shadowy depths of the underworld to cause fear and terror to those around them. But when it seemed that the nineteenth generation of ninja had finally sealed Nurarihyon and his army for good, one yokai ended up breaking the seal years later with the Kagemashu beginning their attacks again, with the current head of the Kaminarimon household Shosuke, and his daughter Tomoe beginning a plan to recruit some new legendary ninja to combat the new threat. And when a compassionate middle school girl named Shinobu Fuuno ends up stumbling upon a scroll hidden within the back of a shrine near the Kaminarimon household, and she ends up summoning five friendly spirits but ends up running into Nopperabo and the Kagemashu’s deadly monsters the Maganoke, however with the help of the Doron Commune she transforms into the legendary ninja of the wind, Cure Shippu! Protecting the Earth from evil, hiding deep within the shadows, now change! Precure let’s ninja GO!

Cures!

From left to right: Tomoe Kaminarimon, Fujiko Takayama, Shinobu Fuuno, Hiyori Hinomiya, Kozue Kobayashi

Shinobu Fuuno / Cure Shippu (Pink)

An airy girl with a love for Japanese Traditions as well as Samurai and Ninja Dramas (with her father being an actor in these drama’s himself in the past), she prefers not standing out among her classmates though can't help but run her mouth when she feels like it, but wants to find out what happened to her mother. Has the habit of saying “Feel the wind!” and as Cure Shippu, she wields the power of the wind.

Kozue Kobayashi / Cure Shinrin (Green)

A sensible, tall, reliable, and yet traditional girl akin to a Yamato Nadeshiko, Kozue is good at giving advice to others and is a geisha in training aside from her pretty cure duties and has a love for familiarity and making wagashi…However, she is a massive party animal and is terrible with technology, and such her fellow piers at her geisha training look down upon her because of it, and as Cure Shinrin, she wields the power of wood.

Hiyori Hinomiya / Cure Rekka (Red)

A Shrine Maiden working at a local shrine with a bit of a hot-blooded and passionate flair, she is skilled at archery and is very action-oriented, and can be a bit prideful and impulsive despite her being a bit responsible and mature. Is a bit jealous of Shinobu being the leader and has a habit of setting high standards for herself, mainly due to the fact she was chosen because her sister (Who was going to become a cure) had fallen ill at the time, and as Cure Rekka, she wields the power of fire.

Fujiko Takayama / Cure Gunzan (Blue)

A very emotional yet secretive and sensitive girl who is rather knowledgeable though with a bit of a hard shell, but can have her moments where she can get more than a bit dramatic, mainly because of her theater-loving background and has a soft spot for folklore, especially spirits, and yokai, and as Cure Gunzan she wields the power of the earth.

Tomoe Kaminarimon / Cure Raitei (Yellow)

The future head of the Kaminarimon household and a woman who acts as the mentor to the cures, and while she does have a rather cold and strict exterior, she actually has a rather adventurous and even unpredictable and spontaneous side to her, akin to that of lightning, which she wields as Cure Raitei.

Unfortunately, I only have basic ideas for the other characters currently. I'm planning on the mascots essentially being small spirit gods from the Celestial Plains which are ruled by the big good Amaterasu (Yes, the Shinto Sun Goddess herself). The villains I do have more ideas for, with them basically being a sort of criminal organization of Yokai with each general being based on one (The Nine-Tailed Fox, Tengu, Oni, etc.) with the big bad being Nurarihyon. But Aside from the cures I haven't designed em. ~~~ And that's all I have been mainly working on so far in terms of Fanseries, really hope you all have enjoyed reading this post, as much as I had fun making it.

See you later guys, gals, and enby pals alike!

[silverspleen]

Big Sad about how I reinstalled ARK to try and play with my other friend group like, off the cuff, not realizing that it would wipe my single player save with all my og game dinosaurs on it.

I have saved a copy of the game file but it was older, and I'm not sure how many of my dinosaurs I had, notably my spino Black Sun, who I've posted about here. Like. Did I port that save before or after taming him? It's been so long I can't really remember. Don't think I could ever play again knowing that he was gone, you know? I am very attached to him as a concept. My little assortment of dinosaur-shaped pixels that I assigned personality traits to.

I think, when I pull off some stuff I forgot to bring over from the old PC (Hal still has a few games that didn't cloud sync and I NEED MY ANTICHAMBER SAVE I AM NOT REPLAYING ANTICHAMBER) I may try and boot the game up and see how old it is, but also ARK is now on a different version and I don't know if I could bring over my dinosaurs anyway? Not sure I wanna mess with that. I have other things to do, tech-wise. Other games to play.

To be honest I'll probably come back to Ark someday. I both hate and love it. Maybe when Ark 2 is a thing, who knows.

Anyway I made a toyhouse profile for Black Sun. I've been, very weirdly, in a mood to get art drawn of him. He was genuinely a very pretty dinosaur and I miss running around on him. :/

[phoenixradiant]

Hey all I've been in a Daurian-writing mood lately, and since the character intros are held up by my current pixel art escapades (i.e. No character portraits atm), thought I'd write something instead, so here, have a treat. Not my best work, but passable for something that isn't part of Kelovir proper.

The Wolf - Lycoris

Lycoris had never killed anyone before. She'd wanted to- in her situation, who wouldn't- she'd had nightmares about it, she'd trained to be able to; but by Awai's grace, it had never come to that. Until now, at least. Her dark green hair flew out behind her as she dove under the bandit's next swing. Battle wasn't a dance, not in the mystical sense many regarded it, but there was a sort of rhythm to the steps. Rolling to her feet without wasting an instant, she backpedaled another few steps, trying to remember where she'd dropped her sword. Finally she spied it on the ground in a patch of tall grass. Lycoris raised her hand to her forehead, then imploded into mist. For a brief moment, she was as a spirit, gliding effortlessly through the air, hearing light, the pleasant tones of late morning bathing her in warmth. Then she began to fall. She hit the ground hard, but her fingers closed around her sword and she was on her feet again before the bandit had even realized she was behind him now. A dull pounding in the back of her skull reminded her not to get reckless. She ignored it, flinging her newly recovered blade at the man's back. It sunk in deep, but the wound began to close almost instantly. She raised her hand to her forehead once again. The pounding multiplied a hundredfold. She couldn't feel the warmth through the pain. She was trying to think, but her head felt like splitting. She waited for the pain to abate, floating there in the world of light. It didn't. She'd finally pushed herself too far. Should've waited, she thought, a few more seconds between glides. She couldn't think much more than that; it was drowned out by her mind's screaming. She searched for something soothing, something familiar, solid. Something free from pain. Nothing. There never was anything. She had to push through the pain. She always did. She was good at it, by now. Her hand grasped her sword once again, but this time she drifted down onto both feet. Lycoris stepped back, pulling her blade out of the man's back before swinging wide through his neck. His body tried to grow a new head and his head tried to grow a new body, but eventually both gave up. From stories her father told her, other lands were less... brutal. You killed people and they died quickly, stayed dead, unless they were demons. These days she questioned how he'd known. Lycoris staggered a half dozen steps away from the pooling blood before collapsing to her knees. Separate herself from her mind. Like she'd practiced. Breathe in. Breathe out. Trace a prayer for mercy on her forehead. Breathe in. Breathe out. Separate the mind. What was left? Body and soul. Doing and being. No more thinking. Lycoris stood, pain receding slightly, and continued along the road.

---

Lycoris was running out of people to help. It was time to move on. She drew a few sketches of the plants in question, then handed them to the boy. "Give this to your mother. You're going to need to forage all of these and grind them into paste and eat it once every two days for the next three weeks." He nodded earnestly; they always did that, acting like she was some sort of angel, for her words to be internalized and proclaimed to the world. She admitted to herself it was fulfilling in a way. But that wasn't why she did it. She helped people because it was good to do so, and because doing good felt good. So maybe she was an angel, in an odd sort of way. Someone who did good for the sake of good. And that was why it was time to move on. There was more good to be done elsewhere. She patted the boy on the shoulder and turned to leave. "You sure you don't want to stay, priestess?" A shepherd asked as she passed the village gate. It reminded her of home, how the grass grew so plentifully you could keep the sheep within eyesight of the village. Then she realized what he'd asked. Her hands clenched, though she hoped he didn't notice. "I've said before, I'm no priestess." The shepherd shrugged. "You're a Daurian. Makes no difference to me. Now do ya want to stay or not? In just a few days we've a festival, seems to me you could use 'ne o' those at least. Few days can't hurt." "Can't hurt me, maybe. But there's people who need me. Some of them desperately. I'd best be off. Thank you for your hospitality." She smiled as she bowed, but strode swiftly into the wilderness like a child running back home through a dark forest. They hung on her every word like she was an angel, but she knew the truth. They were brave. She wasn't.

---

The salve was a touch too thick, too viscous. Lycoris moved to add some water, thought better of it, and poured out the contents of her wooden cup instead. The wine mixed better than water did, for reasons Lycoris hadn't studied enough to quite understand. She would love nothing more than have understood, to have spent the days cloistered away in study, reading until her eyes grew heavy and her skin turned paler than marble for want of sunlight. But she couldn't. She knew that. That was why she'd sworn the oath. "Cor? You're making that face again." Lycoris drew herself back to the present. She turned to the young Thasnian woman whose bandages she was changing as they sat watching the sunset. "Was I? Sorry, just concentrating." "I'd believe that if it hadn't been half a minute since you'd actually done anything." She smiled, a teasing, yet half-serious smile. That was exactly the kind of smile her brother used to give her. "Something on your mind?" "No more than usual, Seln." "So yes." Lycoris grimaced. Seln was infuriatingly perceptive like that. Or perhaps she was just easy to read. Lycoris brushed the salve across one side of the bandage before beginning to wrap it around Seln's foot. "At the moment I'm thinking that you ought to be more careful running through the street barefoot." "And the moment before that?" "I was thinking how annoying your questions were getting." "And before that, Cor?" Lycoris pulled the bandage taut, painted on a touch more of the salve to act as glue, and secured the loose end to the rest of the binding. She neglected to answer. "Why do I keep coming back here, Seln?" "Because I need your help, and no one here knows how to do it the way you do." "You hadn't yet driven a stake through your foot when I came here the first two times. Yet I came back a third." "Well, the sunset's nice," Seln offered. "And we've a proper temple. I suppose you'd like that." Lycoris shrugged. She'd never liked temples, though she'd never been able to place exactly why either. "And I suppose it's pretty quiet here. It's not like everywhere else, where there's a festival every three weeks and if not that than a wedding, or a war, or a plague. Here we just... are. I like that. I don't see why you wouldn't." She knew why she wouldn't. The same reason she wasn't a priestess. The same reason it bothered her that she'd been here so many times before. The rest of her people were like dogs. They lived each day serving their masters, be they mortal or divine, and in return they were taken care of generously, and allowed to live life in the otherwise reclusive communities of western Alador. Nor were her people alone; it seemed that this was how most lived their lives, and were happy to do so. Lycoris, like a wolf, envied the dogs, loved the life they led, but it could not be hers. By nature she feared it. Hated it. And so she tried. Each day she would not rest until she had done the work of the dogs, to help a poor soul in need, in hopes that one day, the work would make her ready for the reward. She'd made that oath five years before. "Cor?" Seln drew her hand back to slap her back to reality. Lycoris stirred. "I- Seln, I don't think- I have to go. I don't know when I'll be back." "Lycoris, what's-" But she was already running away.

---

Lycoris ran for hours, through twilight into the night, her light pack beating into her back with every frantic pounding step. Tears were streaming down her face, moonlight illuminating wet streaks from where she'd wiped them away with her hands. She couldn't go back. She couldn't live like them. Not yet. Maybe never. She stumbled to her knees, heart racing, but body and mind giving out. She couldn't keep going. But she had to. Lycoris gathered herself and looked into the place where spirits glided and light made sound, listening to its soothing tones. It was calming. A beautiful place. One that pained her to even watch. No longer frenzied or panicked, Lycoris lay down among the dew-touched grass, not shaking, not lashing out, but weeping all the more for her stillness.

[miqoquest]

Get to know me (at this present time)

Tagged by: @xmimiteh (thank u!)

Last Song

I'm in a folksy kind of mood, so the songs that I keep listening to at least once a day, and the last ones I listened to during my drive to work this morning, have been Frog and Toad by Sonntag and Carrion Comfort by aeseaes.

Currently Reading

I just finished On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers. It was good. The Pirates movie is based off it, so its about Blackbeard trying to find the Fountain of Youth.

I'm almost done with Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky and I highly recommend it. It's a novella, it's short. It is about a royal daughter who seeks help from a reclusive wizard to save the kingdoms from a warlord and his demon army... But its Science-Fiction... And its really about linguistic anthropology and language and culture barriers! It is so good!

I also started Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny. I bought the big collection book with all 10 novels. I just started it and I'm already hooked. I don't know who started the Big Dysfuntional Family trope where everyone pits against eachother, but this gives me some Umbrella Academy vibes.

Currently Watching

I'm not really watching anything besides G-Witch. I should be watching Secret Invasion because I love Nick Fury, but I'm so Marveled out at the moment. Disney+ shows have been hit and miss for me. My favorite MCU shows have been Loki, She Hulk, and Ms. Marvel.

I'm looking forward to Ahsoka, though. I'm a huge Rebels fan since day one.

Current Obsession

Uhhh. I've been playing the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters. I'm on FFII right now.

Still chugging away at pixel art.

Currently reading about garden prepping for next year!

[fae-iii]

It's been 1 year since I started making pixel art; yayy~!!!

This was my first sprite, btw (though I made a little better-effort one later that day). Posted to Cohost, please use Cohost!!! I mean, if you want.

What could I do to pay homage to this masterpiece? How could I go beyond. The next evolution, so to speak. Then, it came to me:

✨Two Gastlys!!!✨

So I was envisioning a little grander of a celebration for today, but the day kinda snuck up on me.

I think I've made good progress. I don't know if I have any big resolutions for this next year. I wanna get a little bolder, off-model, experimental with my stuff.

Better shading, that's always the dream- I mean, lol, that's my point of not going too into any resolutions, cuz they're essentially just "continue to make improvements to your process." lol

Done a lot less nervous-breakdown-style rambling alongside my art and in general and, even though right now my mood's kinda in a downswing right now, I've been markedly better than the lows of, idk, the past longer than I wanna remember. I'm still not, like, 100% a fully actualized person- I feel- but also I'm adding ΘΔ to my social medias, so it balances out :P

I think attention span and perfectionism are my biggest enemies at this point art-wise. Patience for finer details has gotten very good, almost too good in some ways cuz it does fuel my perfectionism a bit, but I'm still a bit proud of cultivating that.

I think that's a sufficient amount of rambling. Thank you, goodbye!!!

[ga-wsc-fmp]

Idea Generation: RPG Battle System

As i explained in a previous post, I've been interested in turn-based battle systems as seen in many J/RPGs such as the Dragon Quest series. Specifically I've been inspired by Dragon Quest IX's battle system as i've been replaying through that game lately. The dynamic camera, party system, unique skills and effects, all of that stuff has piqued my interest and i'd really like to give it a go making something similar myself.

It might be a struggle to find a way to tie in elements from king midas into something like this however. Any attempts to do so may either feel forced/out of place, or not significant enough. This would require some thinking to resolve.

Mindmap:

Mood Board:

(Not much, but i honestly don't know what else to add for smth like this)

Summary:

This project would be focused on JUST the battle system itself, rather than being tied into an actual full game. This means I can focus on making it as polished as possible and can set it to be highly versatile, so that it can be implemented into a full game seamlessly.

If this is the project i decide to do, i'll aim to make it as robust as possible. For example instead of hard coding an enemy, i'd have a system that checks what enemy triggered the battle (so if the system was put into an rpg and the player ran into a slime, it would tell the battle system that it should use the attributes of a slime). This would also include information about the enemy such as health, what attacks it can use, chance to flee, whether or not it's a boss, and probably some other stuff as well.

I reckon I'd like to try and base the battle system on a mix between Dragon Quest IX, as well as Octopath Traveller. Since I imagine i'll end up using pixel art sprites for such a game instead of modelling, it makes sense to base a lot of the visuals on something such as Octopath. However for actual battle mechanics i want to take more inspiration from Dragon Quest IX

[momentaryunicorn]

I've been in a very NOT pixel art mood lately. I'm having fun though and that's what matters.

[leavesofmaple]

I haven't filled out one of these in a hot second. Just an overview of my favorite video games.

Favorite Game of all Time- I don't have an all time fav, so I had to go with a game that I think about a lot, and intend to replay every five years

Favorite Series- Again, I couldn't pick a single one. There are more series that would have qualified, but they were mentioned elsewhere on the list (Danganronpa, Life is Strange, etc.)

Best Soundtrack- This was close, between Assassin's Creed Black Flag, Undertale, and The Witcher 3.

Favorite Protagonist- There might be better written protagonists, but I have the most fun playing as Zagreus in Hades.

Favorite Villain- This one is purely nostalgia. I was obsessed with Kingdom Hearts in high school, and Marly was my fav Orgy XIII boy.

Best Story- Another category with a lot of contenders, but in the end I had to give it to Virtue's Last Reward for its non-linear, branching narrative that includes the best use of time travel I've seen in any story, ever.

Have not played but want to- I've been meaning to try Persona for years. I'll get around to it eventually, I swear!

You Love Everyone Hates- Mask of Eternity is considered the black sheep of the King's Quest family, but I really enjoyed its open-world, horror adventure setting.

You Hate Everyone Loves- On paper Baldur's Gate should be right up my alley, but I found the UI and gameplay mechanics too obtuse to function. I still intend to give Baldur's Gate 3 a shot!

Best Art Style- Square Enix's 2.5D pixel JRPGs are gorgeous, and Octopath Traveler II is the perfect encapsulation of this.

Favorite Ending- I have never seen an ending completely recontextualize the series it came from the way the final chapter of Danganronpa V3 did.

Favorite Boss Fight- This was tough, because I wanted to say the Sans fight, but I never actually played the Genocide route in Undertale. Between the Pacifist route and the Neutral route, the battle that stood out the most to me was the Asgore fight, because the King of the Monsters reaches through the UI and destroys the Mercy button at the beginning of the fight, so you have no choice but to fight him. Absolutely haunting.

Childhood Game- Gotta give it up to the ray gun wielding kid from Wisconsin, Commander Keen.

Relaxing Game- I am never not in the mood to play Stardew Valley.

Stressful Game- I haven't made much progress in Cuphead ^_^; It's a beautiful game though!

Game you always come back to- Someone seriously needs to release a remaster of The Neverhood. I don't have Windows 97 anymore, so I haven't played it in over a 15 years D:

Guilty Pleasure- I was originally going to put an otome game here, but none stood out in particular, so I went with the games I've currently been binging: The Ace Attorney series.

Tons of Hours Played- I currently have 465 hours in Fire Emblem Three Houses. I will probably replay it again in the future (For sure the Blue Lions route, at the very least).

[hdawg1995]

Get to know me!

I GOT TAGGED IN A THING! I don't remember the last time that happened! Tagged by: @haelleno Share your wall paper:

its a pixel art i made titled over and over.

Last song you listened to: From Now On We're Enemies. Its a mood and also just makes me feel better on days where I feel too stressed from the nothing I did.

Currently Reading: I'm not gonna lie, i'm currently reading all the non shippy RE fanfics that have sprung up because of the RE4 remake AND a YA book called The Black Dragon Codex. a lot of books haven't been able to draw me in (even this one didn't get my attention right way, i only bought it and started reading it cause its a extension of a fantasy encyclopedia i read as a kid) which really sucks cause i miss reading.

Last Movie: I think it was Glass Onion. Watched it with my mom but she had a hard time paying attention so i spent most of the movie explaining things than enjoying it or following along with the mystery.

What Are You Wearing Right Now: Red Wings shirt number 365 and some running pants. my PJs basicily.

How Tall Are You: i'm 5 foot nothing and some times i'm mad about it but most of the time i'm just glad i don't have to duck into a car or dodge tree branches.

Piercings/Tattoos: they're the same answer so i lumped them together. No. Never gonna happen. I think they're dope on other people but I wouldn't want them.

Glasses/Contacts?: Yup! for most of my life actually! my current pair are blue metal frames that tint blue in the sun. bonus: they have that yellow/blue light layer so looking at screens doesn't hurt my eyes, and i'm told it makes the whites of my eyes tinted blue.

Last Drink: a cold pepsi. nothing special, was just the pop that was in the fridge today.

Last Show: Ghosts (the 2022 version). I watch it with my mom every week, we're having a good time with it and although its mostly second hand embarrassment I like that it puts it on it's head every now and then.

Last Thing You Ate: Dinner! box pasta and some shredded chicken. I wanted to try one of the recipes i found on here but i didn't have most of the stuff i needed.

Favorite Color: Orange! If its orange i'm going to love it and its bright and warm. Runner up colors are blue and green.

Current Obsession: Resident Evil. A friend of mine is playing the remake and i've been watching him stream! and of course the fanfics (although the RE fandom is drinking their horny juice so there isn't actually a lot for me to read at the moment).

Unrelated Obsession: I have been writing little ficlits of my WoL oc being friends with Thancred Waters from ff14 and nothing will stop me from writing about how they are buds.

Any Pets: sadly no. Had a dog who died in 2020 (she was 14 if my math is right). right now closest thing to a pet I have are the three stray cats who use the backyard as a in between since its the only yard without a dog.

Do You Have A Crush On Anyone?: I've given up on perusing crushes. I still have them but I've accepted i'm better off ignoring it than acknowledging it. honestly thought about ignoring this question but i've made it this far!

Favorite fictional character: Thats a long list i'm afraid, so i'll list the same number of characters Haelleno listed. Tomix (DF) Thancred (ff14) Liger Zero (Zoids) Leon Kennedy (RE) Yosuke hanamura (P4) and Arata (Digimon: Cyber Sleuth).

Tag Someone: no :3

[bizar-got-some-stuff]

Oh, hello there! It's been some time, ey? So anyway, I'll mark this as the 18th AND 19th day of my 100 Days of Productivity challenge, because I did stuff yesterday I forgot to post about lol

So, firstly, we have a Morakk, who so happens to be in a situation where he drowns He explains himself pretty well, I hope

And here we have my bot Jim! He didn't make an appearance for a long enough time, and he did make for a nice hair and torso structure practice This amazing bean (@diddly-darn-its-gone-to-shit :3) has helped me with hair, and I will practice further according to their advice.

...but, to be entirely fair, I love the less detailed hair too It looks simple, and it does what it's supposed to do, so hey, that's cool))

yeah so, the very next day I remembered that Pain...t exists, and decided to doodle there Big mistake, it's actually pretty uncomfy, that's why I'm cursing in russian there It'd make for a semi-good program for kind of pixelated but not so much arts, I guess? It's Paint, what did I expect?

And here we have an overly excited grandpa, who is not so much a doodle, as it's just a result of my sudden urge to draw and practice torso construction, caused by me listening to Pizza Tower OSTs.

Here's the original picture, in case you'll ever need it He is more aggressive and has drumsticks in the original, but I just got lazy for drawing those lol

And, going for things a bit more serious, here we see a younger Morakk, sitting in a trench, in not the best mood in the world. ...I will have to say that Morakk is actually written as a veteran character, who took a part in an armed conflict, and, simply put, did not let it go for a big chunk of his life Honestly, it could be much better, if I put a little bit more effort into this Luckily for me, I will bring this piece to a more or less excusable state the very next day, when I have some proper sleep on a Monday night for the first time in several months (we're on spring break lol) I guess this is the 18th and 19th day of my challenge? Honestly saying, I think I'm making progress each time I sit down to do stuff. Jim, for example, turned out pretty nice! And Morakk (the last one) is pretty ok too, though there are many things to work on. I have certain things in my plans too! For example, I've been replaying Undertale recently, and... dear god, this game is just beautiful. I'll try to redraw some scenes from there, primarily from Waterfall, along with trying to practice body structure ...I think I should start using books or proper tutorials. Anyways - toodles ^^

[blazehedgehog]

Do you enjoy spriting for fun, I mean, for stuff you don't really want to use in fangames or only necessary stuff?

I occasionally dabble if the mood strikes. Once upon a time I was part of a daily sprite challenge thread on a forum somewhere (NeoGAF?), where you'd be given a theme for the day and have to produce something before the deadline.

In fact, yes, here are all the sprites I did for that, which are all literally prefixed with "neogaf_[object].png". These had to have been more than ten years ago. File creation date says 2012, but I don't know if I trust that. It was a very long time ago, though.

In that similar spirit, I follow the Pixel Daily account on Twitter and intend on joining in some day but as of yet have not.

I forget why, but I assembled this image collage of a lot of "recent" pixel art I've done over the last ten years:

Some of those are for games, some of those are for videos, but some of them are just for fun. Like that Sonic on the right there was just for fun, inspired by the work of Paul Veer.

That lobster sprite up top was also just a moment of inspiration, because I saw Tom Payne's Sonic 2 concept art versus his attempts at translating that concept art for Sonic 2, and I felt sorry for the little guy. There was no intent on making that for an actual game, I just wanted to do it.

I also put these together just because I felt like it when I watched Turning Red last year. Thought the second one could be used for a discord emote or something.

Similarly, about a month ago, somebody I know was looking for sprites of new Genesis-Sonic-styled animal buddies to pop out of badniks, so I ended up putting this guy together on a whim:

Nobody asked me to, I just did it because I wanted to. I may do one or two more. I may not.

But really, I do this kind of stuff for fun about as often as I do hand-drawn art for fun. Part of the reason I started putting art (and in particular pixel art) in my videos was to force myself to use my artistic talents for something.

Drawing was something I did because it was right on that edge before everybody had a computer two feet away from them at all times. Now I am creatively fulfilled by a lot of different things and I only really do art when I force myself to do it.

There are other reasons for that, too, like how I started to feel frustrated by the fact my art wasn't in a place where I truly felt happy about it anymore, but that's a topic for a different post, maybe.

[fuka-petals]

I rlly need to finish updating dreary automatia's ref bc I changed a fuck ton of things. Also I've kinda started focusing on wired angels lore bc every time I listen to any song from shattered beginnings the like crystal sounds put me in a mood to work on that project, I associate temperatures with a lot of things and both feel cold to me, along with snow gates while dysphoric wishes and heavens hospital feels just warm and bitter sweet hell (changing that name btw) feel hot

Also I have some oc wips that I think rlly fit wired angels + been putting more time into pixel art on as, specifically sprite work, so it's fitting

[lex1nat0r]

White Elephant: The Core of the Problem

AAR #09

Session report from my ongoing Lancer campaign.

Characters (LL 1):

Raiju (They/Them, Hacker 2/Ace/Centimane, Barbarossa 1) - GMS Everest - Delta (Player not present this session)

Sunshine (They/Them, Grease Monkey/Technophile/Engineer/Juggernaut, Pegasus 1) - GMS Everest - Exchange of Affection

Rook (He/Him, Walking Armory/Stormbringer/Brutal, Balor 1) - GMS Everest - Not Fun By Myself (Player not present this session)

Daylight (She/Her, Technophile 2/Crack Shot/Infiltrator, Vlad 1) - GMS Everest - Hits Different

Magpie (They/Them, Hacker 2/Technophile 2, Goblin 1) - GMS Everest - General Protection Fault

NHPs:

Molotov - Via Sunshine’s Technophile talent - Projects as a small velociraptor - unshackled

Willow - Via Daylight’s Technophile talent - Projects as 1-2 squid - unshackled

Murgatroid - Via Magpie’s Technophile talent - Projects as a wizard? - shackled

Prev session writeup

Raiju and Rook split off from the main group to help get more of the vast cloning facility under control. The other three made it to the computer core, encountering Security Chief Haase in THUNDER KING, the most mall ninja chassis imaginable, trying to smash up the core supported by NHP-controlled units delegated to the Security Chief. Haase doesn't seem in the mood for talking, so the lancers have to get kinetic in order to preserve whatever data's in the core.

Combat 2.2: Heavy Metal Thunder

Sitrep: King of the Hill (Enhanced Combat)

OPFOR:

THUNDER KING (Ultra Demolisher - Kinetic Compensation / Superior Frame / Repulsion Field)

RPV Engineer Grunt x 2

RPV Support

Outcome: PC Victory

(Tokens by Retrograde Minis (on the basic blank hex tokens that come with Lancer so they show up well), map by Interpoint Station’s pixel art assets, VTT is Roll20)

I've been following the template for combats laid out in the Lancer modules, designing enemy comps for 3/4/5 PCs, so dropping down to 3 lancers for this session wasn't a problem. The win was close, with Puppet System from H0R_OS System Upgrade I coming in clutch at the end.

I hadn't anticipated how deadly an Ultra Demolisher would be - the multiple activations from Ultra mean that it can cross the board frighteningly quickly, and at LL1 that hammer is very close to doing a Structure per hit (and THUNDER KING hit a lot). Good to know that an Ultra Demolisher is a viable threat, at least at tier 1.

Rules quibble: I don't think the Grunt template mentions anywhere that drones deployed from a Grunt only have 1 HP, so RAW there's some ambiguity over whether a Grunt Engineer's turrets have 5 HP or 1. Common sense dictates that the turrets only have the 1 HP (explained in-fiction by the Drone-type Recluse models popping bits of themselves off that become the turrets), but it might be fun to have Grunts that are themselves easy to kill but which can choke the board with more durable deployables if left alone (maybe they have some kind of teleport homer).

King of the Hill is a functional sitrep, but it ended up a little too static for me. With some more confidence in the system I'd maybe brew up an NPC type that can inflict more forced movement on PCs to get people bouncing around the board more. Maybe swap out the Support for a Mirage with Metafold Shove. Maybe make it so there's sitrep-specific NPCs around the board that need to be taken out before the PCs can rush the objective. King of the Hill was good for this narrative situation, and I certainly enjoyed having the unstoppable force of a Demolisher to threaten the point, but I don't think it offers a whole lot over a regular Holdout as it stands.

With THUNDER KING locked out of access to the computer core and the combat stims wearing off, Security Chief Haase powers down and surrenders.

Next time: Bringer of Fire?

[littlecarnet]

I just found a bunch of old manga in a yardsale and now I know what I'll be doing this summer. Man, these take me back to my summers as a kid reading in my room, letting my friends borrow them, and us trying our hand at drawing manga ourselves. I remember my friends and I printing copies of our zines in the back of a convenience store, and then taking a bus downtown to the mall to buy lemonade slushes and corn dogs. Then I'd come home to do homework, write penpal letters with milky pens or play on my gameboy while listening to music.

I honestly miss the aesthetic of that era and the 3Ds era. There was something very unpolished about them. I think it's the graphics tbh. Everything was still pixel-ish and chiptuney. I think modern graphics are okay, but they lack the warmth and coziness of pixel art. There's also the other side of that too. The spooky side.

Sometimes I stayed up late playing a game in the dark, then suddenly encounter a glitch. The transition from a familar game to something garbled and warped would unnerve me. At the time, I knew nothing about what caused glitches, so the experience almost felt supernatural. Top it off, this was when Youtube was just starting. Before creepypastas or anything like that. When the only way you heard about gaming exploits or glitches was at school or in magazines.

I remember one time, one afternoon, during the monsoon season when I couldnt go anywhere, I tried the Mew glitch from a friend's explaination, but somehow messed it up. What resulted was the screen inverting its colors and this weird red veritical line appeared on the screen with a jumble of characters on one side. It looked like something peeking out from behind a door, looking directly at me. Not the character, but ME. This freaked me out so much I put my Gameboy in my closet and refused to touch it for a few days. I told my friend about it, and she said I probably saw a Poke-god or devil.

That was a thing back then BTW, there's whole videos about it, it's wild how kids' imaginations can be. Lol sadly I've never been able to recreate that glitch I saw. It no longer creeps me out, now that I know what glitches are, but it still intrigues me. I learned later I'd come to appreciate Meta Horror. Things breaking the 4th wall. Fiction becoming self-aware and they're either very horrified about it or very angry. Something about it is just really cool.

There's a few games out there that pull that, but I think they're missing a key ingredient. When I encountered that glitch the first time, it came only when I attempted something the game wasn't meant to do. Something creepy happened because I went out of my way to break that 'reality'. Otherwise, it's an entirely normal game. Thats what's missing in those Meta Horror games. They should be just ordinary games right up til the player decides to break it. Out of bounds stuff is creepy for the same reason.

Kinda wish there were games that took that approach. I'd love to play them, especially in the right kind of mood or atmosphere like when I was a kid.

[gaminganxious]

Stay - Review

Genre: Narrative suspense puzzle game

Release Date: Sept 12th, 2018

Playtime: 7hrs

Completed: Yes

Would Play Again?: I Absolutly plan to revisit this game again. I think it's smart to take some time between plays though.

Before I begin the review, I wanted to give a warning. This game deals with themes of anxiety, depression, and death. The game will caution you about the presence of these themes before you play, but I wanted to be sure I said something here as well. Please be sure you are in the right mindset before you play this game or avoid it entirely if needed. Your safety and well-being are not worth sacrificing to play a game. Please take care. 

With that addressed, I can say I’ve yet to play anything like Stay before. The main character is Quinn, a man who has been kidnapped and left in a dark room with only an old computer for light. On that computer is a chat room and on the other side of that chat room is you. Who you are or how you came to be on the chat is not explained. I’m certain it's left intentionally vague as there are multiple endings to the game. Your every interaction with Quinn impacts how much he trusts you and influences his decision making as he explores his confines. You’ll need to be cautious as the decisions you make can and will get him killed. 

This is a pixel art game which I can go either way on. Sometimes I find the stylistic choices can make objects hard to discern in pixel games. That is not the case here. The art is very clean regardless of whether it's a full blown pixel painted cut scene or just regular gameplay. There are several distinct styles of pixel art throughout the game that range in their complexity and detail but even when it switches to the more base style its still clear what every object is. There are a few points where Quinn looks a little goofy at times but wasn’t enough to really distract from the game. The music lends to the atmosphere without overwhelming the game at anypoint. Despite playing a straight seven hour playthrough I didn’t find it repetitive or intrusive at any point.

For the most part Stay is a narrative experience. Aside from the occasional comment from you, you’ll spend most of your time reading Quinn’s messages and watching him explore his surroundings. It does a good job of making your decisions feel impactful but I did find myself really wishing I could interact more at times. The only other interaction you will have is helping Quinn solve the many puzzles he comes across in his attempt to escape. Aside from a brief and very basic overlay of the chat controls at the beginning of the game you are not given any explanation of the controls. This can be particularly frustrating with the puzzles as the controls are not consistent from puzzle to puzzle and the only way to figure them out is by trial and error. Once the controls were sorted out I found I spent most of my time figuring out how to solve some of the puzzles rather than the actual solving part. The puzzles sort of broke the experience for me in places. Some of them fit the theme of the game really well but others just felt plain unnecessary to me. The use of humors to indicate Quinn’s mood was really interesting to me. Although again I feel like some explanation might have been helpful with regards to it. I have only the many strange internet rabbit holes I've fallen down to thank for knowing what humoralism even is. It fits the theme of the game well. I just wish they had expanded on it a bit more. There is one more feature of note with Stay and that is the Stay and Away tracker. Essentially once you start a game your time spent playing is tracked and your time spent away from the game is also monitored. Even if you close the game entirely, that time is still being recorded. If you spend too long away from the game you’ll begin to lose trust with Quinn so its best to be able to play the whole game in one sitting if you can. 

The story as I experienced from start to finish was suspenseful and captivating. Stay has a real lock on the thriller aspect, at least in the beginning. Things got a little weird for me towards the end and I’m not sure how much of that was the story path I was on and how much is part of the base story. I would definitely like to play it again and see if I come to a different ending. I was invested in the outcome the entire time and I was a little surprised to find just how quickly I became invested in Quinn’s escape. I wanted him to trust me and I wanted him to make it out. 

Stay is currently listed on the Playstation store for $9.99, which I think is certainly worth it for what I got out of the experience. I get the feeling this might be a game most have overlooked, as I did. I will say again that, though not quite a horror game, Stay has some dark and heavy themes. You might also take into consideration that it's best to play the game in one sitting and could take seven hours to complete. Something good for a weekend if you enjoy thriller games but not the best for a casual afternoon.

[the-foolish-ghoulish]

I don't really know what to say, I've been in a bit of a downer mood lately. I've started to get back into some pixel art though, so I can learn how to do animations and gifs. I might make some more Pokémon themed ones idk. I'm currently trying to make a gif of a Moh-Moh's idle animation, though I might just scrap it.