#lop devs

[lopposting]

OMG I JUST REALIZED.

the helmet is a lop-eared rabbit 😭 with the square face and the down ears

[just-a-girl-with-a-pistol]

I played a thing.....

[littleprince612]

HYPE IS REAL

[manonamora-if]

June Check-In

Life has gotten a bit... errr... weird. Hopefully things calm down soon and I manage to write more than a sentence somewhere without wanting to throw the computer at the wall...

In the meantime...

The game is now available in English here. This is temporary, just until the Text Adventure Literacy Jam's voting period ends. Then it will go back to the main one.

Anyway, try out some fun and easy (?) parsers. The whole jam is meant for beginners, and all includes at least a tutorial to play.

MelS has made some decent progress on the next chapter, about at the half-way point? Almost done with the small exploration, still need to go over the investigation and puzzles.

And the map is drafted (can't finish it until the chapter is done :P )

We are hoping to be done with drafting by the end of the month. But that depends on MelS's schedule.

Honestly not much. IRL's been in the way of things. Probably will be for a few more days.

What can you expect this month? I dunno... Me taking a break, maybe?

Anyways...

At least, I am being somewhat productive by reviewing games I've played (see @manonamora-if-reviews - you can submit a title if you want my take on a game btw)

The confession box has truly risen from its grave and had some spicy takes lately (@if-confessions)

In the jam/comp corner we have:

the Anti-Romance jam 🖤 is slowly approaching its half-way point. Start the summer by hating on romance or flip off Cupid or something...

@neo-twiny-jam has passed the 20 submissions mark! 🥳

If you want to make your summer spicy, there is the Orifice Jam starting soon. Make it a Summer of Holes... (and share the post)

Want some feedback on an unpublished demo and an extra incentive to finish the project (there is a cash prize...), check out the IntroComp!

[pkgamedev]

I havent worked this hard on a game since Legend of Percivus. Its kinda nuts

[lopposting]

also, enotria devs like LOP!!

Umm...

This looks amazing?! Coming from Lies of P, an Italian-centric soulslike sounds EXCITING.

Wishlisting it.

[lopstuff]

On this bottle... did you spot him??

What a funny & interesting hidden easter egg. Thinking that might be a dev, someone from the LoP team, or a friend/fam.

[f0xgl0v3]

Various Pjo Character hc: games and Pets apparently

In honor of my snake shedding and scaring my socks off while he does so because for a solid moment I got to stare into the black void of my room and consider that a entity would chose to announce its presence by crinkling a like chip back before I realized and screamed, “it’s you” at him and grinding all day in royal high because the Dev team is setting it on fire but I still want to be a pretty princess in the game.

It is only day two of midwinter break please my marbles have already scattered,

Octavian; if he had access to the game. Would’ve played royal high. He strikes me as a dress up type of guy. Does profit trading but refuses to diamond farm. Also doesn’t like switching over to different rh like games. Again, like exclusively uses it for the dress up aspect, thinks everything looks really pretty. He has all of the stuffed animal items/stuffed animal like ones. Gets oddly heated about the game too. Like, would argue with someone about a value of an item and then leave to server hop. Yeah he’s that one I’m sorry guys. Also his dorm is so bare bones, refuses to spend a lot of diamonds on it until he can do it all at once. But Octavian likes a lot of games where he has total control of his character and everything about it. Really liked Animal Crossing, also feels like he uses the sims purely for character customization; has a bunch of mods and then just never uses them. Has all of his friends/probably the cohort as sims too. Doesn’t like rpg-rpg games that have like fighting mechanics, just feels like the sort of guy to not like video game fighting.

Octavian also had a rabbit. His family had a lot of animals (because he had a lot of family-) and he got to be the rabbit kid. His was the like toasty colored ones with the big lop ears. Sadly it was given away when he joined the legion. But he feels like a rabbit guy, it comforted him a lot.

Jason: you know the wolves life games? For a few certain amount of you I have just unlocked horrifying memories that your brain has tried to hide of emo wolves and if not then you don’t want to know. But I feel like he’d play them, they’d be the first ones once he gets on, along with like obbies. I just feel like he’s the type of guy to like a good obby. But also warrior cats ultimate edition. The first thing my man does when he enters the mortal world is get sucked into warrior cats because I feel like he’s that type of person. Also clangen. He feels like a clangen sort of guy, along with that Mario games. I also feel like he’s in a similar Octavian boat where he doesn’t like games with big fighting mechanics, just doesn’t find it that interesting or something he’s looking for in a game. He is however an open world type of guy, likes exploring.

I want to say he’s a dog guy and would’ve had a dog. But at the same time Jason feels like he’s deeply benefit from getting a cat. Cat’s are just soothing on the soul, also he just feels like the type of person to have a cat on his lap or laying on his chest. Silly little white cat for Jason Grace, or the scraggliest stray cat that was bestowed upon him by the distribution system.

Hazel: any of the like fighting games? Don’t particularly think she likes Roblox much, but if she is playing it’s either one of the games where everyone hates each other and you get to beat each other up or bee swarm simulator. Hazel either is having a de-stress day and it is through being stressed and upset at strangers in the beat ‘em up games, or by tending to her bees and being upset at other people and npcs in bee swarm simulator. Really likes other competitive games too? I don’t know she just strikes me as that type of gal to get waaay too invested in something like a Mario party. Also turn based rpg games, something’s ticks me as someone who’d like that.

Obviously she has Arion but Hazel also feels like she’d vibe with a dog, maybe a cat but I just see more dog with her. A silly little lab for the silly little lady.

Frank: does not play. I genuinely can’t think of Roblox games that are tame enough for him. Actually scratch that tycoon games. The super chill ones where no one interacts with each other and you just exist and build out your little space. He likes those. Enjoys seeing the progress he’s making in something. He’s also an animal crossing player, along with the casual tycoon games. However I’d also say he plays like CoD, just casually and he’s extremely average at it but I feel like he just, does that.

Frank feels like he’d have a really like barely a pet-pet. Like either a fish dude or he has isopods. Just strikes me as someone who can’t deal with a very like aaaaa pet. Or a ragdoll cat. Those are the options I present to you dear reader. Or an axolotl, he’d be an axolotl man.

Larry: Larry plays natural disaster survival. Larry is a menace to society. Also bloxburg, makes pretty okay builds but on a slightly different note feels like a Sims guy to me. I dunno, him and Annabeth get to be in the same boat. Also those really bad mobile games.

Larry gets a pet turtle or a bird. He also just feels like a bird guy, already joked about being a pirate I think he likes giving Camp’s eagles look overs and is happy when it’s his turn to look after them. Also just feels like a man who’d have like 50 pigeons.

Dakota!!!: I almost forgot my man. But Dakota. Dakota plays horror games, he can’t handle them but he still plays it. He is so loud when he plays too. Doors, fnaf, poppy playtime, the list goes on. I think he also sits there and is like, “oh I’m super good at them and like super brave” and it jumps cuts to him screaming because a monster is right behind him. He’s still super brave and great in battle, but he gets so jumpy once you put him in a dark area and instill paranoia. Also can’t play mafia because he screams a little too much.

Dakota is a hamster type of dude. He had a couple growing up and probably would’ve had another one if uh. Events didn’t happen (it’s literally so unfair what happened to him like aaa-). I feel like he had the really small ones.

Okay uh, that’s about it for the random headcanons I’ve spewed. These are 100% my opinions and probably don’t weigh on anything. Thank the Gods I managed to keep Bryce out of it (but if you ask me he is the opposite of Frank, plays CoD and is so annoying about it and very invested-). Anyway I’ll try and actually do something! Possibly New Rome things? Or more Camp Jupiter map, I want to finally put that one to rest. Or Dakota hc finally. We’ll see what happens.

[winterppeach]

small dev blog

need to remember to post here more often, but the bunny tf is getting a big update!

for starters the default ear sprites have been updated, currently available in the dev branch

left (new) right (old)

not only have the sprites been updated but their layering has now changed which allows me to add in the beloved lop ears! the sprites will be held in the dev branch until im done with all the new sprites

(rough concept for new ears below cut)

[geppettospuppet]

i was literally just talking to my friend on the phone last night abt how even though i've been keeping up with the game since its announcement, i never thought i'd be this deranged over it😭😭

i thought it was impossible for me to be ripped from the grasps of yakuza... BUT IT HAPPENED

but everything about the game is so wonderful. the storyline, the aesthetic, the atmosphere, the character design, EVERYTHINGGGG!!!!

lop could very well be my goty FOR SURE (but we'll just have to wait for lad: gaiden to come out for my final decision🤭🤭)

"hmmm today I'll try out this new 'Lies of P' soulslike since I haven't played any since Nioh 2 three years ago"

[lopposting]

I have the feeling that originally, earlier in development, P was supposed to die at the end.

(Or, About more than a year after the official release,

the headcanon that changed everything for me.)

So the ending I'm talking about is this, the Rise of P ending.

But what really made me think this is this event in 2022. (people back then correctly guessed might be one of the endings or the ending of the game. Taking from this post here)

At G-Star Neowiz booth in 2022, there was a promotional statue of the Saintess statue in the game, except the figurine of the puppet is strangely suspended, as if it's literally ascending to heaven. The post writer also notes even then that the figurine looks like P. (The literal Rise of P)

There's also some footage of the figure here: (around 1:16)

The symbolism seems very very apparent, as though Neowiz were spoiling their own game two years before release. Not only is the figure literally ascending to a higher plane (imagery often associated with death), the statue itself is an inference to a famous statue of Mary mourning the death of her son. The writer of an article covering Neowiz's section at the event also notes that the ascending figure looks like P, and that it has a feeling of melancholy.

Beginning and End

Around the time of the release I think what was going around was that Rise was being considered as the "true" ending. It's interpretably the best possible outcome of the game, but I feel like it's also because it made the most sense thematically (the puppet -> Human ending, and the saintess statue being foreshadowed earlier). But P's collapse at the end was also widely (mis)interpreted as his death. And I think that's also because, in a way, it makes the most sense thematically. Puppet awakens in the train, goes on an adventure, and then sacrifices himself for who woke him up in the first place, it's just narratively a very classic and might I say standard thing to do in that very traditional, circular sort of storytelling sensibility.

However, we know that the truth is that P has fallen asleep (a human act). It is still his death in some sorts - but he's leaving a past behind and it's his "rebirth" that is being emphasized now.

And then it hit me.

I don't know if P knows that he will survive reviving Sophia.

Keeping in mind that if P was originally supposed to die - I think the entire end sequence of ROP and the overall tone of it makes SO MUCH sense to me now.

Sophia brings a lone puppet to life in the train, he is animated, listening, fighting. At the end of his journey, so much has changed - but to return her favour perhaps, truly human at heart, he returns her life to her, and then - returns to back to stillness. It’s just a narratively very tight and circular thing to do in a traditional storytelling sense, especially when you consider a kind of tragic korean media sensibility that might have influenced the country in which this studio is based out of. (Film critic Roger Ebert once suggested that he had not yet seen a happy korean film.)

I am not an expert on the Korean cinema, which is considered in critical circles as one of the most creative in the world (“Oldboy” won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes 2004). I can say that of the Korean films I’ve seen, only one (“The YMCA Baseball Club”) did not contain extraordinary sadomasochism.  "Oldboy" review (2005)

Not to mention... Since release, I've always felt like there was this strange feeling of sadness, of melancholy, permeating throughout the entire game. Of course, we're walking through a destroyed city, but still. And I was glad that that didn't seem lost on other people:

We know that Sophia is able to turn back the clock for our main character, but turning back time is Sophia's ability, and it's possible that she can't just revive anyone once that part of her that animated him was returned back to her. Okay, maybe it's a little contrived - but that hardly matters when audiences can often overlook these things for the sake of a story making a statement. Besides, remembering that P could not even wake up without Sophia's help in the first place, it's possible that for whatever reason, he cannot sustain life on his own. In his POV this might very well be his final act.

Another thing to keep in mind is that P has just lost his father. He's witnessed Polendina's death, Antonia's death, etc., in a string of major losses throughout the game's final arc. We see him mourn over his dad but in the ROP ending it will then cut straightaway to the balcony scene. Regardless of how much time has actually passed, Geppetto's death is the scene right before this one. I don't mean to suggest that this act was one of pure self-destruction, but it is something that we as the audience can't help but feel affects him and the decision we are seeing now.

There's a certain gravitas to the way he's walking towards her that in the released version isn't unjustified, but the tone of the entire sequence has so much conviction and sombreness that it came across as a little odd to me in retrospect. And I also think this is why others might have (mis)interpreted the ending as "he died", because of the tone of this scene. But in line with the game's themes - I remember that often, it's the intent that matters. And if he doesn't know that he's going to survive this, and this is what he chooses is his final act, for all intents and purposes, it IS him sacrificing himself to save Sophia.

Re-contextualizing it this way, I think the balcony scene was maybe originally meant to be him choosing to look at Krat one last time. I definitely think that was the implication now.

P's blue butterfly flying away (his spirit leaving him). I used to think this blue butterfly represented Sophia, but now I feel like it represents P ? as I don't think we ever see this specific blue butterfly anywhere else in the game. [maybe a reach I dunno]

To be honest - when LOP first came out, up until about a week, I really did think he was dead. I was honestly pretty sad about it, but in equal parts I was sort of really impressed that Neowiz would have the guts to kill off their breadwinner straight away [I WANT TO WRITE ABOUT THIS TOO AHH]

So if this ending was originally written to be P's demise, I wonder why the powers that be would have rolled that back. Presumably they need him alive for some sort of future franchise instalment? Maybe they genuinely thought it was just too sad? But there is one thing that doesn't change, and it's what P doesn't know.

The truth is what you make it, I suppose.

Who are you? Are you a puppet or a human being?

[00fairylights00]

Feel free to completely ignore but I looked at that eheel, saw "burned" and immediately thought of how book Pinocchio got his feet burnt off and I'm just thinking damn what if they ended up doing that to P in the LoP as some fucked up nod to the book 😭

Book Pinocchio went through some grade A shenanigans, I’m crying over the idea of P having his feet burned off?!

How is one meant to go on with no feet when you fuckin walk everywhere? Like I know we’ve got access to stargazers but you gotta get there first.

The DLC is just the devs putting P in liminal space and giving players the options to unleash all the bad things that happened to book Pinocchio on him like some cursed Gmod clone.

[maleendumbblog]

I'm praying every night so the devs release LoP official merch 🙏 I missed the Deluxe Edition and now I feel hollow and sad

[the-damnable-fool]

re: the topic of LoP's questionable writing decisions. I've read other folks commenting on the idea that the only way Simon would had worked withing the plot is that it turned out Carlo never physically died (and Papa Geppeto was just pulling the gool ole narcissistic parent's you're dead to me-card) and that Simon was just Carlo as a grown man. What do you think about this?

Honestly, it's a good idea, but while it adds depth to Simon and Geppetto as characters I don't think it would've helped the fact that the game feels like there's just too much stuff in it generally. There's just too many ideas crammed into a small space and they're each encroaching on the room that the others needed to grow. The only real solution I can think of would have been to make the game longer, but that would've been its own problem because the game would've started to feel padded, and the devs seemed to understand that. For example, did you know that the Relic of Trismegistus was supposed to be its own full length area? Somebody did some game hacking and got out of bounds to find that there was a lot of unused map for that area that was never put into the final cut of the game, likely because the devs knew that the Arche Abbey was already pushing it in terms of length and having even more content on top of that would have made NG+ runs a bit of a slog. They knew that pruning needed to happen, but I think they realized that too late after most of it was already in the works, and that resulted in a lot of storylines being cut short and the game being trimmed up into a playable state. Honestly, they did pretty good despite it, but the evidence is there all the same.

[gemscales-and-tea]

LOP Devs: We have dubbed our protagonist ‘P’

The entire fandom: … We are not calling him that.

[artmunstudios]

I've got an idea of who the Cowardly Lion could be for the Lies of P-Universe! Maybe he could be the Beast from "Beauty & The Beast". A Werelion who was once a prideful prince, but because of his ego, he was cursed to become this & is now afraid of not only what everyone thinks of him, but of himself & his beastly nature. Thoughts?

Honestly that is not a bad theory!

The cowardly lion being The Beast was my first thought as well, and in the original story his personality is actually VERY meek—likely due to his isolation/loneliness. He’s fierce to the maiden’s father when he takes a rose, but the moment she shows up he gives her the most awkward dinner dates every night while kind of awkwardly asking every other week if she loves him. He did genuinely fall for her right away, mostly because of her kindness and bravery, being willing to take her father’s place as a prisoner. He actually even lets her go out to visit town/her family but her family doesn’t let her go back to the castle because they were jealous of the new riches she got access to, and he nearly dies of a broken heart thinking she abandoned him.

If we are thinking about the Beast and Cowardly Lion from the original sources, their personalities are actually nearly 1:1, it’s kind of amazing.

I’m not sure how the LOP Devs would go about it; they managed to make their adaptation quite unpredictable even to the ones who knew of the original story by heart—so because of that, I’m not even going to make the attempt to speculate on how, if the cowardly lion is the beast like we can theorize, the prince placeholder will even be turned into one to begin with.