#pixell.rpg

[pixellangel]

guys. i'm making an rpg.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

so i bought rpg maker vx ace* and ive been coming up with a plot and characters!!!!! and im gonna make a video game!!!! aaaa!!!

its a meta little cyberpunk rpg starring you, the protagonist in someone else's body, and your allies V, Xenon, and Kori (names subject to change). infodump and some doodles under the cut read for a fun time :3

*edit: ill actually be doing it in rpg maker mv! vx is a little limited for the scope of what i want to do with this project

welcome to under the cut. here's thirty billion information for you. :D

essentially, the plot revolves around V and the player finding people who have been wronged by the Narrator, who bends the story to his own will to create a plot he enjoys, and how they want to shape their own destinies. your goal is to defeat the group of cybernetic monsters that he created as villains.

YOUR PARTY CONSISTS OF

- Sylvie (she/they): that's you! everyone calls you "Player," though. your body used to belong to V's childhood friend before the Narrator decided they were the perfect base for a protagonist. general all rounder in combat, with a basic sword for a weapon. you want to find out more about the Narrator's goals and what happened to V's friend. also, why are you "Sylvie?"

- V (she/her): a firey girl who can hear the Narrator speaking. she teaches the player how the world works, and is the first person they meet. uses two daggers in combat, efficient and quick fighter. immediately tells the player she plans not to befriend them. wants to fight the Narrator for taking her childhood friend away from her for the sake of a story.

- Xenon (he/they): wears a completely black mask with a white X on it to hide their identity. miraculously, this works despite their neon green hair. graffiti artist. medic in combat with both single and multi target heal skills. fights w/ a paintball gun. grew up in a cult that thinks death is such a natural part of life that it should never be prevented. became a medic as a type of rebellion against his cult.

- Kori (she/her): TINY GAL. HUGE HAMMER. VERY YELLOW. self explanatory combat - high attack, big damage, hits hard. not much else. she's actually super sweet, but the giant electric hammer she carries around makes her seem way scarier than she is. really really wants to be helpful. she lives in a town based around fighting and fight clubs, so she had to learn to defend herself to survive.

some doodles of V and Xenon :3

ill draw the whole lineup soon!!! :D

also if anyone wants more info or has questions PLEASE ASK!!! I LOVE LOREDUMPING!!! anyway my tag for this Huge Project is #pixell.rpg :3

[pixellangel]

"Don't you feel stupid answering these questions when you don't even know who you are?"

STORYTELLER SYNTHESIS SCENE 1 - A GIRL NAMED V

overview - masterpost - taglist

____

Storyteller Synthesis is an indie cyberpunk RPG that I’m currently writing and designing. This is the first scene of the game, where we're introduced to our first party member - a girl named V. Please enjoy!

____

Onyxveil is a troubled city. The streets are covered in litter, the skies are gray with smog, and the only sources of light are flashing neon advertisements on walls. Within this bleak cityscape stands an equally troubled young girl, one with hot pink hair and an unfocused gaze. Just a few years ago, she experienced a horrific eve-

"Can you shut up and give the Player control already? Nobody wants your stupid expository speech."

...Ahem. As I was saying, just a few years ag-

"Why can't you ever listen? The Player isn't interested and neither am I. Get it over with."

Ugh. Fine. I came up with this whole summary, but if you're so ungrateful I GUESS I can throw it in as flavor text somewhere...

"Perfect, I'll make sure not to read it. Now get rid of this black screen so the Player can see."

Excuse me? I know what I'm doing.

"Sure. Just get rid of it."

Ugh. Fine.

[Now, in tile RPG format, we see the aforementioned girl from behind. She's at the edge of a rooftop, looking out into the smog-covered cityscape. The camera shifts downwards to show another person, one with a long, pale blue ponytail. The girl turns around and walks towards them. She keeps her distance, but begins speaking. Her character portrait shows a girl with purple, rectangular irises. Her hair is spiky and she wears some sort of strange cropped techwear hoodie. She looks dissatisfied.]

"So, "Sylvie." Long time no see."

> I could say the same to you.

...

"How long has it been now? Three years? Four?"

> Three.

Not sure.

"And how was your little warrior's expedition? Successful?"

Very.

> You could say that.

Not exactly.

"Good, good. Now, Don't you feel stupid answering these questions when you don't even know who you are?"

Wh- hey! I already told you not to go off script!

> I'm not sure.

Oh. Sorry, you don't need to answer that. Let me just fix this... small bug.

[The Narrator goes silent for a moment and the girl stiffens.]

There! Much better.

[The girl's character portrait is different when she speaks again. Her eyes are wide open with no shine. She has a wide, fake smile. Her hair spikes stand up a little less.]

"So sorry, SYLVIE! I don't know what came over me there. I'm glad your expedition went well! Woul d y ouu be wil lin g to h e-"

[She snaps out of it, shakes her head, and glares up at the sky.]

"UGH!! Stop doing that!!! I would literally NEVER talk like that. You of all people should know. Ughhh... anyway, Player, I'm not gonna keep up the "Sylvie" act. You aren't her and we both know it."

If you go off script again, I'll have to keep acting for you. Get back to the story or else.

"Shush. Player, follow me."

[The Narrator protests as the player follows the her down from the rooftop. The two come to an arcade, which the girl enters without hesitation.]

Ahem. Sylvie. You don't need to go in there. If you would just give me a minute, I can get her to come back out...

Sorry, this is going to take some time. Please be patient.

[The player enters the arcade anyway while the Narrator is distracted.]

"Hey. Glad you could make it."

[The arcade is empty, save for the two of them. Most of the machines look like they're out of order. A few of the arcade cabinets are still working, though.]

"If you're waiting for him to talk, you should know he can't hear us in here."

> "He"?

"The Narrator. He's messing stuff up in Onyxveil, and probably in other cities too. If i had to guess, I'd say his other targets would be The Sunbasked Stratum and Karma Point. They'd be good settings for a story, so..."

> Why can't he hear us in here?

What is he trying to do?

Who are you?

"I dunno. My guess is that he never intended for anything to happen in this arcade, so it's barely more than set dressing. I've never heard him speak a word while I’m in here, though. It’s pretty nice."

Why can't he hear us in here?

> What is he trying to do?

Who are you?

"He's writing some stupid story. I don't know... it's hard to explain, and we probably don't have much time. All you really need to know is that he's meddling with reality for his own selfish reasons and not taking anyone else into account."

[Her face contorts in anger.]

Why can't he hear us in here?

What is he trying to do?

> Who are you?

"My name's V. There's nothing else you need to know about me."

> Who am I?

"You’re the one playing the video game. Obviously."

> That's not what I meant.

"Oh, you must want to know who's body you're in. It's another person from Onyxveil. Their name is Sylvie. They went out on some training journey a few years ago. I... haven't seen them since."

> ...

"It doesn't matter. I need your help, Player. I don't want to be trapped in this stupid reality where I'm a character in a story I never asked to be a part of."

> What do you want me to do about that?

"I want you to help me kill the Narrator."

[V looks determined, but angry. This Narrator person has very clearly wronged her in some way, and based on her face, it looks like it was extremely personal.]

> How are we meant to do that?

"I don't know all the details just yet. However, I think the most effective method would be for us to assemble a party of several people. More people means more firepower, and he already wants us to gather more allies to fight the robots that keep appearing in the city. It'll be easy to fly under the radar as long as we don't discuss it in front of him."

[She speaks quickly and confidently. It seems she's been thinking over her plan for a long time.]

> Do you know who we need?

[pixellangel]

the official (for now) weapon designs for my cyberpunk rpg, storyteller synthesis!! people have been asking for them and i am here to serve my lovely fans <3

i also included the characters' signatures next to each of their weapons! initially they were just space filler but they actually ended up being really fun and im very glad i added them :D

masterpost link (all the other info on ss is here if you'd like to check it out!)

[pixellangel]

WHOAH!! THE PARTY IS COLORED NOW!!!

for those unfamiliar, hi!! these are my initial designs for a currently unnamed cyberpunk rpg i'm making. their names are sylvie, v, xenon, and kori. you can read about them here!

anyway, these are only my initial designs and so they're still very much subject to change. i decided to just color the sketch instead of doing lineart because i don't want to spend excessive time on a simple lineup, but i might line it one day. who knows.

the weapons are currently just silhouettes because they're eventually getting their own post about designs!!

a bunch of stupid gifs under the cut for whoever wants em :3

rotating them in my brain at all times

[pixellangel]

yknow the trope of a deus ex machina soving a huge problem out of nowhere in a story? essentially, the main religion in storyteller synthesis is based on worship of a literal machine god. the followers of the religion worship it by telling it stories :3

if youre thinking "what are you talking about?" the storyteller synthesis masterpost is here! its an rpg im making :D

[pixellangel]

YOU'RE MAKING A GAME??? HOLY SHITT THAT'S SOO COOOOL

PLS INFODUMP PLS PLS PLS

YESSSSSSS YAHOO!!!! I WOULD LOVE TO!!! THANKS FOR ASKINGG

for the sake of posterity, here's a very quick overview and my masterpost!!! today i shall ramble about something a little more specific than usual: the fight club at karma point!! :3

Karma Point is, in itself, a pretty simple mid-sized city. It deals with a lot of the same problems as Onyxveil - pollution, disconnectedness, aggressive advertising, et cetera - but there’s one key difference. Karma Point's culture revolves around its fight club.

There’s not a single person in the city who hasn't heard of it. The fighters are treated like celebrities. People make incredibly risky bets on who will win certain matches, and get into some fights of their own because of it. Kids dream of growing up to be the coolest fighter there ever was. The city walls are always plastered with posters of champions' faces and advertisements of their next matches. A good chunk of profits to be made in Karma Point involve the fighters in some way. It goes without saying that the city would fall apart without them.

One of these fighters is a young girl with neon yellow hair who wields an absolutely gigantic hammer. Her official club win streak is in the high fourties, but she does even more fights outside of the club for fun. She's one of the most famous champions right now, and many people underestimate her due to her tiny size. This champion's name is Kori.

Kori is a bit of a mystery. Nobody really knows how she got into fighting, let alone how she got so good at it. During her numerous interviews, she often gets asked about her origin story, but she always just flinches for half a second before brushing it off with a joke. People love to theorize about it, but she's never confirmed or denied anything. All the public knows is that there was some formative event that got her to want to fight.

When the party gets to Karma Point, they're lucky enough to catch one of Kori's matches. Maybe if they're even luckier, they can recruit her for the cause...

[pixellangel]

storyteller synthesis doodle dump except its mostly xenon cause my friends are in love with him

half mask and teefers xenon is not canon i just thought it would be fun to draw him evil

masterpost link

[pixellangel]

STORYTELLER SYNTHESIS: LINK MASTERPOST

hello there! i'm in the process of writing and designing a meta cyberpunk rpgmaker game, which i'm calling Storyteller Synthesis!! this post has all the links to posts ive made about it so far, with short descriptions.

if you want to reblog, please reblog the original post to avoid spreading an outdated version too much!! :3

to get added to my taglist, comment or reblog this post to let me know you want to be on it!!!

my initial concept, loredump, and sketches

my first colored sketch of the main characters

a silly doodle with a bit of in-universe religion info

a doodle dump of mostly xenon and exactly 1 sylvie

info on interpersonal dynamics in the party

weapon designs and character signatures

religious beliefs in the sunbasked stratum (xenon's cult)

voices i imagine for the characters

karma point and kori loredump

INTRO TO V!!

there will be many, many more links on here!! in the meantime, thanks so so much for checking out my stuff <33

[pixellangel]

ngl the more i learn abt kori the more she becomes my fave. absolute silly.

If the squad found a fan-group cosplaying as them what would be their reactions?

and yes Karp is in that group of fans. she's the one who started it obviously.

MEIN GOTT. THE KARPIFICATION BECOMES CANONNNN

they would all be pretty surprised!!! just in different ways :3

sylvie and xenon would be shocked to find that people even knew who they were (but they would both be flattered), while v would wonder why people would put in the effort to make cosplays of their little gang. kori would be ECSTATIC and probably offer them free tickets to her next match or something :D

here is a bonus very messy kori i drew forever ago and never posted. as a gift :3

[pixellangel]

wwait ur making video game??? can i have Knowledge for The Art (im so ready to throw fanart of ur game characters at you. if The Pain doesn't kick my ass that is lol)

AAAA OMG??? ADSGDHFNJLHLK IF YOU MAKE FANART ILL EXPLODE I SWEAR ON MACHINA ADSFFHJKJLKLL

THE MASTERPOST IS HERE!!! LOTSA TEXT BASED STUFF GOOD FOR PERSONALITY AND SUCH

HERE'S VISUAL REFERENCES FOR THE SILLY GUYS AND THEIR WEAPONS!!! vvv

EXPLODES YOU WITH MY MIND. AAA

[pixellangel]

storyteller synthesis inter-party dynamics!!!! WOOHOOOO

so. for those who don't know, im making a little cyberpunk rpg called storyteller synthesis!! ive already said a bit about the individual party members, but i haven’t really mentioned their interpersonal dynamics yet, so here's that post!!

masterpost with all other info is here :3

(from left to right, this is sylvie, v, xenon, and kori!!)

its a little long, so i put it under the cut!! :D

so sylvie is a pretty typical silent protagonist type. they want to be friends with everyone else in the party and have the usual rpg protag affinity for breaking random stuff. she thinks v is a little weird but they trust her, she appreciates xenon's rebelliousness, and she likes hanging out and being silly with kori :] there's really not much to her because she's supposed to be what is literally just a vessel for the player to experience the story, even in-universe

v has a real "i hate it here when can i go home" vibe tbh. she does not actively want to participate in the story, except to get it over with and get the original sylvie back instead of protagonist sylvie. she tries to stay somewhat detached. she misses original sylvie so hanging out with protag is kind of bittersweet for her, and she sometimes forgets its not the same person she knew as a kid. she likes that xenon is pretty quiet and thinks he's easy to hang out with. she only grabbed kori for the team because she was the fight club champion and that seemed useful, but she gets kind of annoyed with her general happy-go-lucky attitude. v is pretty edgy asdfdhgkljl

xenon is the mysterious coolguy of the group. talks the least out of everyone. he is very closed and defensive when sylvie and v first meet him, but he opens up little by little as they explain the situation to him. by the time they meet kori, they've opened up a lot more already. he likes talking to sylvie because she's what he views as "mysterious" and worth investigating, but he also respects her a lot as a person and wants to help her out. thinks v is kind of a weirdo?? but he also understands her feelings after she explains her situation. SUPER HIGH respect level for kori, weirdly enough. despite her general vibe of not caring and having fun, she's an excellent fighter so she deserves to be respected. unexpected joke buddy for her.

kori is so silly!!! she has trauma too but she ignores it and is silly instead!! usually the one to make jokes about the situations the party finds themselves in. enjoys saying BONK as she hits things with her hammer. very much a performer, in a way similar to a tv personality. she's the last party member so she unfortunately gets less screen time, but she's pretty talkative so that kind of makes up for it. thinks that fighting is the quickest way to prove someone's worth (wow, biased much?) but realizes there's other ways... eventually. enjoys hanging out with sylvie cause they can bounce jokes off them and get a response, unlike v. she still thinks its kinda funny to bother v, but knows when to stop. xenon is her joke buddy :3 they're friends :33

[pixellangel]

I was told to ask about YOUR VIDEOGAME!!!!????

YES!!!!! YES YES MY VIDEO GAME

SO im making a fun little rpgmaker game called Storyteller Synthesis!!! it's a meta cyberpunk rpg where your goal is to defeat the Narrator of the story to let the characters have their lives back. everyone in the game is aware of the fact that you're playing it, too, and they know you had to replace another person to be able to play. i think its pretty cool :3

i have this masterpost with a bunch of links to my info so far, and you can see it all on my blog under #pixell.rpg!!!! yippeeeeee

thank you so much for asking!! :D

[pixellangel]

if the main 4 characters of ur game got into a death match whos coming out alive?

OOO GOOD QUESTION!!!

hmmmm i think based on strength alone probably kori but she would underestimate everyone else and lose. xenon heals himself the whole time and could blind people with paint but he isn't physically strong enough to finish anyone off effectively. i could see either v or sylvie winning honestly but i think sylvie is tanky enough to take most of v's hits so she would probably win :3

honestly though i can see any of them winning in any number of ways hehehe

[pixellangel]

who's the one that would get the most annoyed/angry about getting banned from a social media site/a place they like. Like who is refusing to accept their fate of being banned and whos just gonna be like "whelp, guess I'll die" or ban evade on social media

KORI 100%. miss girl is a fighter CELEBRITY if she gets banned she would be pissed and all her fans would come up with the most insane conspiracies about what happened to her

the rest of them probably wouldn't care that much swhfhdgsfs

[pixellangel]

would any of the characters fail that "Are you smarter than a 5th Grader?" thing. I immediately ran out of good asks and I suddenly remembered watching somebody fail miserably at that lol.

sylvie 100% would but she would say she was doing it on purpose to see what happened. they actually just don't know anything about anything lmaooooo

[pixellangel]

Hi again! I hope this is not too broad of a question, but I'd love to hear more about Xenon's cult! I find the concept quite interesting and I crave more information!

not too broad at all!! ive actually been waiting for a good chance to talk about it hehe

The Sunbasked Stratum is a small city that is, in actuality, a cult. The place is pristine - all the walls and floors are a perfect white, the windows are always clean and clear, and there are tiny patches of color in the form of carefully curated gardens and flowerbeds. The people who live there worship Death as the thing that makes us human - in their eyes, the ability to die is what separates the flesh from the machine, the animate from the inanimate, and the mortal from the divine. It's such an important concept to them that they think it should absolutely never be interfered with. The Institute, a combined government and religious organization, consequently outlawed the practice of medicine within the community. It happened so long ago that nobody within the Stratum even remembers it. They've all become so accustomed to their lack of a healthcare system that they hardly even think about it, let alone desire it. For them, a small cold could mean the end of a life, and they accept that fate with open arms.

Every once in a while, citizens see a masked rebel tagging Institute buildings with their signature green spray paint. They've been told this person is dangerous, that they want to destroy the foundation of the community beliefs, that they should absolutely never be trusted, and that they should be reported to the Institute on sight. They haven't been told why.

This mysterious person is Xenon, graffitti artist, petty criminal, and the only medic in The Sunbasked Stratum. His goal is to teach the brainwashed people of their community that this is no way for them to live, and that they have more of a purpose than to simply die and "prove their humanity." There is an inherent worth to life besides death - and he wants the Institute to realize that.