#that is maybe best left in the drafts because I don't want to restart all the drama

[separatist-apologist]

MB the monster poll is the most fun I've had in the fandom since I got here and I need to thank you. I was going to leave but maybe I was just surrounding myself with the wrong people. Anyway thank you for your humor ♥️

We needed a little reset and I am happy to put on the clown wig and provide it. I was with you though, anon- I felt so burned out and needed a distraction.

I think fandom is best when its just a silly, unserious conversation between friends. The monster poll is a good way to be VERY unserious, to come together (AND HAVE FIVE PEOPLE VOTE FOR NOT LOVING ME UNMASK YOURSELVES VILLAINS) and just be weird. This is my hobby and presumably everyone elses too?

What else is the internet for if not to be weird and horny?

[allqrcoded]

Devlog 5: Where are we headed? + Year end origin stories

Welcome back.

In all seriousness, I don't know how to number these things. Does the counter restart once the game you were talking about last dev log finishes production? Do you just keep on continuing despite now starting a new project? Either way, I'll go on & keep this as is. The year's almost ending and I feel like it's about time to announce the new game I'm working on (as if it weren't obvious that the MCs were revealed in my art blog months ago, but either way...)

With angel care officially being released on July of this year along with into sun&dark being a mini game jam project I sent out within the same time, there left a hole in my heart where handling a big project such as a game cemented itself in. Albeit, working on angel care has been a wild journey to say the least, but throughout it, I found out that telling stories through games allows me to merge the 2 things I love doing (writing & art). If making comics didn't click for me and solely writing a novel makes me worry about the specific character designs that might get lost, then making games is perfect.

Whilst the characters of angel care were solely made out of new OCs, Lucas and Del from sundark were actually repurposed characters from an old story I never completed. The universes weren't exactly the same, but the concept of doomsday remained. Rex from this new project, Descent to Negative Zero, follows the same repurposing. This time, it's about someone who comes back… Again, yes, but that trope is my favorite.

Origin stories

If you've been a follower of my art blog since last year, you might've seen a character I drew during October, Ace, with another character from a fandom I was active in (Daybreak.) He was a submission in a contest, but never got in, so I shelved him for a bit until this year, thinking that I could use him for an RPGMaker game in the future, since I always had the dream to make one (and guess where we are right now...) A bit dismayed because I had a fondness for him at that time, I clung onto that "maybe." And so, he sat there for a while, and eventually, my fondness for him faded away once I got the idea of angel care. Long live his skater boy and bunny motif along with his pink dyed hair.

And, look! Some drafts of the AC trio from last year too. But, moving onto Ace and fast forward to the final stretches of the AC bug-fixing hell...

(^ I remember back then that I really liked this final piece. Sometimes I keep thinking to myself that last year's events were from 2 years ago.)

My mind then drifted to Ace again... Disappearances and mist snatching, huh? Well, disappearing sounds good for a plot point, but I still need to work around the mist thing (Daybreak character entrails he left that I needed to clean up before he's completely separate from it.) The bunny motif and the pink hair were cute too. I wasn't too sure about the skater thing, so I decided to change it.

Long story short, he transformed from a skater to a shoegazer (my projection. I just wanted to include that song genre into this because I love it and for the sake of OST potential too). Kyle (the dude I used to draw him with a lot) needed a replacement too, so thus, his skater boy gene got transferred to Josh, his new best friend. Whilst that whole tangent was a big factor in the repurposing stage, in terms of clothes, Rexosh both wear some items in my closet that I just took and adjusted a bit -- both came from thrift stores, actually! Knowing that, I decided to make them thrifters and have them go to one in an early game flashback.

Right now, I don't have the jacket Josh wears because that's being tailored, but most of the elements are inspired by that.

I won’t spoil too much of the plot, but I will say that it’s connected to one of my previous games. Dt-z almost became a short summer visual novel until sundark came along and replaced it instead. Whilst its main element in the story stayed the same, it turned more puzzle-focused in the end.

Progress report/since when?

Starting up the project during summer, it’s been around four months since I made the first (yes, since it did get corrupted in some instances) RPGMaker file for it. Right now, I’m around coding the mid-point of the game with a bunch of placeholders in the project to get the ball rolling in the coding space since making parallax maps takes a while for me. Dt-z is more visually out there than AC, with the use of shadow overlays and what not. Making them for dozens of maps is a bit tedious (so, that’s why I’m putting that job in the late coding stage), but the end result is stunning.

As I’m writing this, I’ve paused on coding one of the mid-game puzzles. Surprisingly, I get a lot of stuff done in the weekends with this project. Making the solutions for them is a bit time-consuming, yes, but seeing it play out makes it worth it. Unlike AC, I don’t have all the time in the world to work on this game because of IRL matters, etc. So, the fact that I still managed to get a good amount of progress in just 4 months is pretty good. The dialogue doc for this game is also done in areas regarding important cutscenes, including a rough draft of what the end game would be like (right now, it's longer than AC's script page count wise! Maybe that's because I included some flavor text there.) I still have to adjust aspects of the script to keep their situation plausible there, but other than that, it's good. Without any context, here are some screenshots of what the maps look like from October and a recent one I took:

Albeit, I still need to adjust some things accordingly, but since this project is still in its baby stage, I'm not prioritizing that sort of thing right now.

So far, I'm trying to avoid the trend of RPGMaker game puzzles needing to find a key in every room and while puzzle making is a thing I'm not that experienced with, I realized that I took most of my inspiration with them with the games I've been playing these months, Death Mark and Spirit Hunter: NG.

Of course, me picking up those games wasn't because of wanting to take inspiration from them first — I just wanted a way to de-stress, but after a bit, I took some mental notes in my mind. NG's puzzles are very satisfying to solve. Whilst this dev log isn't focused on what games I played for the month, let's just say that I preferred NG over DM for a variety of things.

Moreover, I've been adjusting the endings and the way you get lore tidbits through the story to make the true end of the game pack more of a punch so that by the time you go ending hunting, you won't get dragged down by the same realizations the characters go through. There's a lot of flavor text I have to write, essentially.

Let's talk about themes

Continuing the trend of wanting to explore themes close to my heart in my bigger projects, Dt-z is in the same light with AC. Whilst the mood is entirely different (color palette not so cool/winter, characters being younger, even the premise being puzzle focused), Dt-z's themes were the ones that more or less defined my summers, just like how AC defined my winters (even if where I lived didn't snow, but, nevertheless, the phrasing still sticks).

I like to think that making art, helps me process stuff a bit and that's why I still got an itch in me to take up another big project similar to AC despite me knowing that this year would be busier than the last. I'm remaining vague here to not spoil the entire plot of it, but let's say that I hold the message I want to say through this dear to my heart. There's a lot I want to say regarding these two games (including sundark!), but I want to work on letting my audience make up their own conclusion on the work just based off the content without my involvement.

Albeit, as an artist, I've always had this selfish desire in me to want everyone to get this one conclusion — this one reading on what I worked on because with every piece I make, there's always a message I want to tell. But, through the years, I've gotten to the point where I stopped pseudo-denying the fact that people aren't like that. I've started even enjoying other readings of my work because through them, I get to see more perspectives I haven't even considered whilst keeping the main point in mind. So, let's just say that AC is about death and angels and winter and friendship and love. And with Dt-z, it's about love too because love is just universal.

Thanks for coming

Restraining myself from talking more about Dt-z's details… In summary, I've been enjoying working on this project. Rexosh really are fun to draw & I want to share their story sometime once I'm finished. I want to write more trivia blogs later on with my released games (especially AC because I have a lot to talk about there), but for now, I'll keep on going.

[wsdalt]

hey there, sdol anon here! so that’s a great question, i dont know if there actually is a place where you can access all the vods 😬 felps is a dinossaur both on youtube and on streaming in general, so i think he doesn’t quite mind lost content usually

i know that the vods on (on, in, at? i never know when to use each sorry💀) twitch start at “1” because there was a twitch apocalypse in brazil a few years ago, in which because of the strikes twitch started throwing around basically every streamer just immediately deleted all their vods and clips. poof, gone. and the streams count restarted. (i was really sad because that included a vod of felps, cellbit and alan playing stardew valley together rip) so there is a *lot* of lost content from before that time, there only remains some clips and whatever is left at the Felps LIVE youtube channel i believe

he was one of the first few youtubers on twitch, but somewhere in the middle - around 2018/2019 if i remember correctly - he stayed a while on facebook live (searching google for “felps facebook live” you can probably find links to some of his vods from that time, but i dont remember if there is a place to access *all* the vods at once - facebook is a mess to me KKKKKKKK). otherwise, best shot at finding old content i would say still is the clips on Felps’ youtube channel or on Felps LIVE, but it’s usually just the gameplay parts that remains there

i really hope it helps somewhat, but it has been awhile since i tried to watch old vods and my memory’s a bit spotty so maybe someone out there may have a better idea

is there anything in particular you’re looking for that you want some help with or just random vods? whatever it is i hope you find it soon, good luck!

-sdol anon (i think i enjoyed the nickname lmao)

i drafted this because i was worried i'd lose it if i clicked out of it pfft and then hit post instead of edit oops. anyway \o/ i wanted to check some things before responding to you, but we will get to that

thank you so much for the information \o/!!! it is… a bit sad honestly (stardew valley with felps cellbit and alan sounds fun…) but i am also very happy to know because i was driving myself crazy trying to figure what happened

i did look through facebook, but it was mostly clips--although searching what you suggested in google got me some vods? something i'll keep looking into i think. i never use facebook it is a mess to navigate for me too…

felps' archive is honestly very very good considering a lot (the fact his twitch vods don't delete after 2 months is amazing) and as you say there's a lot crossposted to youtube even though it's not full streams

now for what specifically i'm looking for:

it's referenced three times from memory during the qsmp as part of qfelps' backstory, so i wanted to try and find the vod to get a sense of the vibe so i can integrate it into anything i write for the character

the reference i checked before answering he mentioned he "drove a bus for 25 1/2 hours without stopping while demons tried to attack" i think i also heard it referenced later on as specifically a 24 hour doom challenge? or something? i'm not sure

maybe i'm just searching wrong because i'm searching in english, or i misinterpreted what game was being played, but i haven't been able to find anything for it on both youtube and twitch. so um… if you have any information on that or maybe even a place to look (or maybe it was one of the things deleted…) i would appreciate it a lot \o/!!

as it is i am probably going to see what i can get from facebook for the moment. thank you again \o/!!!