#the assets are from the game and are edited!!

[qwertyprophecy]

Mortholme Post-Mortem

The Dark Queen of Mortholme has been out for two weeks, and I've just been given an excellent excuse to write some more about its creation by a lenghty anonymous ask.

Under the cut, hindsight on the year spent making Mortholme and answers to questions about game dev, grouped under the following topics:

Time spent on development Programming Obstacles Godot Animation Pixel art Environment assets Writing Completion Release

Regarding time spent on development

Nope, I’ve got no idea anymore how long I spent on Mortholme. It took a year but during that time I worked on like two other games and whatever else. And although I started with the art, I worked on all parts simultaneously to avoid getting bored. This is what I can say:

Art took a ridiculous amount of time, but that was by choice (or compulsion, one might say). I get very excitable and particular about it. At most I was making about one or two Hero animations in a day (for a total of 8 + upgraded versions), but anything involving the Queen took multiple times longer. When I made the excecutive decision that her final form was going to have a bazillion tentacles I gave up on scheduling altogether.

Coding went quickly at the start when I was knocking out a feature after another, until it became the ultimate slow-burn hurdle at the end. Testing, bugfixing, and playing Jenga with increasingly unwieldy code kept oozing from one week to the next. For months, probably? My memory’s shot but I have a mark on my calendar on the 18th of August that says “Mortholme done”. Must’ve been some optimistic deadline before the ooze.

Writing happened in extremely productive week-long bursts followed by nothing but nitpicky editing while I focused on other stuff. Winner in the “changed most often” category, for sure.

Sound was straightforward, after finishing a new set of animations I spent a day or two to record and edit SFX for them. Music I originally scheduled two weeks for, but hubris and desire for more variants bumped it to like a month.

Regarding programming

The Hero AI is certainly the part that I spent most of my coding time on. The basic way the guaranteed dodging works is that all the Queen’s attacks send a signal to the Hero, who calculates a “danger zone” based on the type of attack and the Queen’s location. Then, if the Hero is able to dodge that particular attack (a probability based on how much it's been used & story progression), they run a function to dodge it.

Each attack has its own algorithm that produces the best safe target position to go to based on the Hero’s current position (and other necessary actions like jumping). Those algorithms needed a whole lot of testing to code counters for all the scenarios that might trip the Hero up.

The easiest or at least most fun parts for me to code are the extra bells and whistles that aren’t critical but add flair. Like in the Hero’s case, the little touches that make them seem more human: a reaction speed delay that increases over time, random motions and overcompensation that decrease as they gain focus, late-game Hero taking prioritising aggressive positiniong, a “wait for last second” function that lets the Hero calculate how long it’ll take them to move to safety and use the information to squeeze an extra attack in…

The hardest attack was the magic circle, as it introduced a problem in my code so far. The second flare can overlap with other attacks, meaning the Hero had to keep track of two danger zones at once. For a brief time I wanted to create a whole new system that would constantly update a map of all current danger zones—that would allow for any number of overlapping attacks, which would be really cool! Unfortunately it didn’t gel with my existing code, and I couldn’t figure out its multitudes of problems since, well…

Regarding obstacles

Thing is, I’m hot garbage as a programmer. My game dev’s all self-taught nonsense. So after a week of failing to get this cool system to work, I scrapped it and instead made a spaghetti code monstrosity that made magic circle run on a separate danger zone, and decided I’d make no more overlapping attacks. That’s easy; I just had to buffer the timing of the animation locks so that the Hero would always have time to move away. (I still wanted to keep the magic circle, since it’s fun for the player to try and trick the Hero with it.)

There’s my least pretty yet practical solo dev advice: if you get stuck because you can’t do something, you can certainly try to learn how to do it, but occasionally the only way to finish a project within a decade to work around those parts and let them be a bit crap.

I’m happy to use design trickery, writing and art to cover for my coding skills. Like, despite the anonymous asker’s description, the Hero’s dodging is actually far from perfect. I knew there was no way it was ever going to be, which is why I wrote special dialogue to account for a player finding an exploit that breaks the intended gameplay. (And indeed, when the game was launched, someone immediately found it!)

Regarding Godot

It’s lovely! I switched from Unity years ago and it’s so much simpler and more considerate of 2D games. The way its node system emphasises modularity has improved my coding a lot.

New users should be aware that a lot of tutorials and advice you find online may be for Godot 3. If something doesn’t work, search for what the Godot 4 equivalent is.

Regarding animation

I’m a professional animator, so my list of tips and techniques is a tad long… I’ll just give a few resource recommendations: read up on the classic 12 principles of animation (or the The Illusion of Life, if you’d like the whole book) and test each out for yourself. Not every animation needs all of these principles, but basically every time you’ll be looking at an animation and wondering how to make it better, the answer will be in paying attention to one or more of them.

Game animation is its own beast, and different genres have their own needs. I’d recommend studying animations that do what you’d like to do, frame by frame. If you’re unsure of how exactly to analyse animation for its techniques, youtube channel New Frame Plus shows an excellent example.

Oh, and film yourself some references! The Queen demanded so much pretend mace swinging that it broke my hoover.

Regarding pixel art

The pixel art style was picked for two reasons: 1. to evoke a retro game feel to emphasise the meta nature of the narrative, and 2. because it’s faster and more forgiving to animate in than any of my other options.

At the very start I was into the idea of doing a painterly style—Hollow Knight was my first soulslike—but quickly realised that I’d either have to spend hundreds of hours animating the characters, or design them in a simplistic way that I deemed too cutesy for this particular game. (Hollow Knight style, one day I’d love to emulate you…)

I don’t use a dedicated program, just Photoshop for everything like a chump. Pixel art doesn’t need anything fancy, although I’m sure specialist programs will keep it nice and simple.

Pixel art’s funny; its limitations make it dependent on symbolism, shortcuts and viewer interpretation. You could search for some tutorials on basic principles (like avoiding “jaggies” or the importance of contrast), but ultimately you’ll simply want to get a start in it to find your own confidence in it. I began dabbling years ago by asking for character requests on Tumblr and doodling them in pixels in whatever way I could think of.

Regarding environment assets

The Queen’s throne room consists of two main sprites—one background and one separate bit of the door for the Hero disappear behind—and then about fifty more for the lighting setup. There’s six different candle animations, there’s lines on the floor that need to go on top of character reflections, all the candle circles and lit objects are separated so that the candles can be extinguished asynchronously; and then there’s purple phase 2 versions of all of the above.

This is all rather dumb. There’s simpler ways in Godot to do 2D lighting with shaders and a built-in system (I use those too), but I wanted control over the exact colours so I just drew everything in Photoshop the way I wanted it. Still, it highlights how mostly you only need a single background asset and separated foreground objects; except if you need animated objects or stuff that needs to change while the game’s running, you’ll get a whole bunch more.

I wholeheartedly applaud having a go at making your own game art, even if you don’t have any art background! The potential for cohesion in all aspects of design—art, game, narrative, sound—is at the heart of why video games are such an exciting medium!

Regarding writing

Finding the voices of the Queen and the Hero was the quick part of the process. They figured that out they are almost as soon as writing started. I’d been mulling this game over in my mind for so long, I had already a specific idea in mind of what the two of them stood for, conceptually and thematically. When they started bantering, I felt like all I really had to do was to guide it along the storyline, and then polish.

What ended up taking so long was that there was too much for them to say for how short the game needed to be to not feel overstretched. Since I’d decided to go with two dialogue options on my linear story, it at least gave me twice the amount of dialogue that I got to write, but it wasn’t enough!

The first large-scale rewrite was me going over the first draft and squeezing in more interesting things for the Queen and the Hero to discuss, more branching paths and booleans. There was this whole thing where the player’s their dialogue choices over multiple conversations would lead them to about four alternate interpretations of why the Queen is the way she is. This was around the time I happened to finally play Disco Elysium, so of course I also decided to also add a ton of microreactivity (ie. small changes in dialogue that acknowledge earlier player choices) to cram in even more alternate dialogue. I spent ages tinkering with the exact nuances till I was real proud of it.

Right until the playtesters of this convoluted contraption found the story to be unclear and confusing. For some reason. So for my final rewrite, I picked out my favourite bits and cut everything else. With the extra branching gone, there was more room to improve the pacing so the core of the story could breathe. The microreactivity got to stay, at least!

A sample of old dialogue from the overcomplicated version:

Regarding completion

The question was “what kept me going to actually finish the game, since that is a point many games never even get to meet?” and it’s a great one because I forgot that’s a thing. Difficulties finishing projects, that is—I used to think it was hard, but not for many years. Maybe I’ve completed so many small-scale games already that it hardly seems that unreasonable of an expectation? (Game jams. You should do game jams.)

I honestly never had any doubt I was going to finish Mortholme. When I started in late autumn last year, I was honestly expecting the concept to be too clunky to properly function; but I wished to indulge in silliness and make it exist anyways. That vision would’ve been easy to finish, a month or two of low stakes messing around, no biggie. (Like a game jam!)

Those months ran out quickly as I had too much fun making the art to stop. It must’ve been around the time I made this recording that it occurred to me that even if the game was going to be clunky, it could still genuinely work on the back of good enough storytelling technique—not just writing, but also the animation and the Hero’s evolving behaviour during the gameplay segments which I’d been worried about. The reaction to my early blogging was also heartening. Other people could also imagine how this narrative could be interesting!

A few weeks after that I started planning out the narrative beats I wanted the dialogue to reach, and came to the conclusion that I really, really wanted it to work. Other people had to see this shit, I thought. There’s got to be freaks out there who’d love to experience this tragedy, and I’m eager to deliver.

That’s why I was fine with the project’s timeline stretching out. If attention to detail and artistry was going to make this weird little story actually come to life, then great, because that’s exactly the part of development I love doing most. Projects taking longer than expected can be frustrating, but accepting that as a common part of game dev is what allows confidence in eventual their completion regardless.

Regarding release

Dear anonymous’s questions didn’t involve post-release concerns, but it seems fitting to wrap up the post-mortem by talking about the two things about Mortholme's launch that were firsts for me, and thus I was unprepared for.

1. This was the first action game I've coded. Well, sort of—I consider Mortholme to be a story first and foremost, with gameplay so purposefully obnoxious it benefits from not being thought of as a “normal” game. Still, the action elements are there. For someone who usually sticks to making puzzle games since they’re easier to code, this was my most mechanically fragile game yet. So despite all my attempts at playtesting and failsafes, it had a whole bunch of bugs on release.

Game-breaking bugs, really obvious bugs, weird and confusing bugs. It took me over a week to fix all that was reported (and I’m only hoping they indeed are fully fixed). That feels slow; I should’ve expected it was going to break so I could’ve been faster to respond. Ah well, next time I know what I’ll be booking my post-release week for.

2. This was my first game that I let players give me money for. Sure, it’s pay-what-you-want, but for someone as allergic to business decisions as I am, it was a big step. I guess I was worried of being shown that nobody would consider my art worth financial compensation. Well, uh, that fear has gone out of the window now. I’m blown away by how kind and generous the players of Mortholme have been with their donations.

I can’t imagine it's likely to earn a living wage from pouring hundreds of hours into pay-what-you-want passion projects, but the support has me heartened to seek out a future where I could make these weird stories and a living both.

Those were the unexpected parts. The part I must admit I was expecting—but still infinitely grateful for—was that Mortholme did in fact reach them freaks who’d find it interesting. The responses, comments, analyses, fan works (there’s fic and art!! the dream!!), inspiration, and questions (like the ones prompting me to write this post-mortem) people have shared with me thanks to Mortholme… They’ve all truly been what I was hoping for back when I first gave myself emotions thinking about a mean megalomaniac and stubborn dipshit.

Thank you for reading, thank you for playing, and thank you for being around.

[katboykirby]

What might be even more disappointing is the fact that this isn't the ending that Solmare wanted to give us.

Without discussing any spoilers about the content itself, it's abundantly clear that the ending of Lesson 60 (and several plot elements throughout the last few Lessons) was extremely rushed. But we already know why that is.

We know for a fact that this is not where the OM team wanted to wrap up the main story. We know that the announcement that Nightbringer was wrapping up was very sudden and unexpected. This is why there's been so much backlogged content and unused assets being added to the game in such a short period of time - Solmare is trying to get as much remaining content out as they possibly can before being cut off at the end of the month. They've been operating under extreme crunch conditions.

Considering that it's very normal/standard for story scripts to be written in advance, it's very likely that the original version of Lesson 60 wasn't written as the ending to the main story. Because Nightbringer was never meant to end here. In all probability, the writers had to do a rush edit to change the original script into an unplanned, hasty ending.

I'm not surprised that anybody finds the ending disappointing or unsatisfactory. I also wouldn't be surprised if the writers themselves felt the same way. The announcement from last month was a huge rug pull for everybody, and it's becoming more and more blatantly obvious that that includes the OM team itself, as well. The parent company has been making some absolutely bizarre business decisions, as well as publicly mismanaging the Obey Me IP. I'm extremely sympathetic to the members of the OM team that I've gotten to talk to about this personally.

The situation is deeply frustrating all around, but especially for the players. It sucks.

Just remember: the main story has been wrapped up in Nightbringer, but OBEY ME (THE SERIES/FRANCHISE) ITSELF IS NOT ENDING. Both OM games are still going to stay up and running and will still be playable. There's still lots to do in both OG Obey Me and Nightbringer outside of the main story, and past events will continue to be added to the games.

There will also be multiple new Obey Me projects coming out starting next year, including new Obey Me content!

And on top of that, the community and fandom aren't going anywhere! ♡

//AFTER ALL THAT???

THAT’S THE ENDING YOU WANT TO GIVE US, SOLMARE??????

[killjoy-prince]

This is them to me

[paiirupie]

the murder of sonic the hedgehog spoilers.

[elisedonut]

Not me using anime face claims because I'm lazy and didn't feel like editing irl images because editing with real people is so much more annoying to me

Lavender FC: Kiryu Tsukasa(im@s) Percy FC: Keito Hasumi(Enstars)

Full Collection

At nearly 14k words I have completed Microfic May 2024!

While completely ignoring the whole microfic part um- anyway~

I had a lot of fun doing this challenge and feel like I've improved a lot because of it! even though it's a bit hard to tell since the order the fics went up and the order they were written in is pretty mixed up.

Thank you very much to the hosts of the challenge!! @microficmay I know its the last year you're hosting this so I'm happy i got the chance to participate!

Individual Links and Fic Summaries and Such Below The Cut!

Also keep an eye out for the five marked with a "🪻" Because that means I consider them my favorites c:

🍎 Day 1: Create

Characters/Ship: Molly Weasley & Percy Weasley

WC: 312

Summary:

Percy accidentally staying up far too late to make a shirt for his teddy bear Tallyton.

🍐 Day 2: Warmth

Characters/Ship: Percy Weasley/Oliver Wood (Perciver)

WC: 290

Summary:

Percy brings Oliver home with him and Oliver is confused that something that was always there is suddenly not.

🍎 Day 3: Horizon 

Characters/Ship: Lavender Brown

WC: 97

Summary:

Lavender is dying and she knows it.

🪻Day 4: Decision - Wand for a Kiss?🪻

Characters/Ship: Stan Shunpike/Percy Weasley (Stercy)

WC: 820

Summary:

Percy was going to miss his soulmate when he had to go back to Hogwarts. So, he chose to stay home while his family went to Egypt. To be able to spend time with him.

🍐 Day 5: Dreams & Reality - Once you decipher it, what will you see?

Characters/Ship: Lavender Brown/Luna Lovegood

WC: 240 

Summary:

A few weeks before you find your soulmate they'll start haunting your dreams.

🍐 Day 6: Flare

Characters/Ship: Fleur Delacour/Bill Weasley

WC: 71

Summary:

Bill is distracted.

🍎 Day 7: Innocuous - Are you sure he would like that?

Characters/Ship: Fleur Delacour & Molly Weasley

WC: 248

Summary:

Fleur and Molly are present shopping for Percy.

🍎 Day 8: Will - I'll bid my farewell to you without saying a word

Characters/Ship: Percy Weasley

WC: 538

Summary:

Percy had only a single hour to change things, to bring Fred back to his family. Another Percy decides to do something to get Fred back for his family at his own detriment fic.

🍎 Day 9: Agony

Characters/Ship: Colin Creevey & Dennis Creevey

WC: 122

Summary:

Dennis will return to Hogwarts even if he has to grit his teeth to do it.

🍐Day 10: Rise & Fall

Characters/Ship: Lavender Brown/Fleur Delacour (fleurvender)

WC: 206

Summary:

Fleur can feel herself being pulled towards her.

🍎 Day 11: Curse

Characters/Ship: Lavender Brown

WC: 298

Summary:

'Her scars don't define her.' Is what they keep telling her but it's difficult to believe it.

🪻Day 12: Vivid - Our path, dyed in blue.🪻

Characters/Ship: Dennis Creevey/Percy Weasley (Denperce)

WC: 736

Summary:

Until you first kiss your soulmate you will only see colour in the places that they have been, on things that they've touched. Dennis only sees colour for the first time when he enters Diagon Alley.

🍎 Day 13: Talisman - Talismans & Rabbits

Characters/Ship: Lavender Brown

WC: 499

Summary:

Lavender needs to find the right item to use for a new assignment.

🍎 Day 14: Humility

Characters/Ship: Percy Weasley

WC: 74

Summary:

Percy thinking about something Penny said once.

🍎 Day 15: Nothing & Everything - Spacing Out

Characters/Ship: Dennis Creevey

WC: 216

Summary:

Sometimes it's easier to just feel nothing.

🍐 Day 16: Squabble - None of Their Concern

Characters/Ship: Fleur Delacour/Bill Weasley (Bleur)

WC: 249

Summary:

Bill and Fleur like inviting others into their bed, some of the Weasleys find that weird.

🍐 Day 17: Worthy - To Be Good Enough

Characters/Ship: Marcus Flint/Percy Weasley (Flintley)

WC: 484

Summary:

Marcus is a fuck up but he's working on it.

🍐 Day 18: Healing - Pamper Me

Characters/Ship: Dennis Creevey/Percy Weasley

WC: 715

Summary:

Dennis wants to be pampered more. Percy wants to finish his work.

🍐 Day 19: Impatience - Listen To Me

Characters/Ship: Marcus Flint/Percy Weasley (Flintley)

WC: 901

Summary:

Tutoring Flint was typically an easy affair. When he's more interested in the clock and window then the words coming out of Percy's mouth though, not so much.

🪻Day 20: Push & Pull - Together with the waves, could we become happy?🪻

Characters/Ship: Lavender Brown/Fleur Delacour/Bill Weasley (Lavebleur)

WC: 632

Summary:

Lavender feels like she barely even knows herself anymore. Acting out in ways that seem to make sense in the moment but feel so cruel later. Luckily, she has someone around who understands what she's going through.

🍎 Day 21: Idle - Everything Changes

Characters/Ship: Percy Weasley

WC: 157

Summary:

Percy never liked moving.

🍐 Day 22: Precious - Every time we talk, "I like you" just loops in my mind

Characters/Ship: Lavender Brown/Parvati Patil (Pavender)

WC: 268

Summary:

Lavender loves days when the dorm is empty of everyone but the two of them.

🪻Day 23: Mistake - Gossip Club🪻

Characters/Ship: Angelina Johnson/George Weasley

WC: 970

Summary:

A normal night in the Weasley-Johnson household. Gossip and cooking just go so well together.

🍐 Day 24: Elation - Doomed From The Start

Characters/Ship: Colin Creevey/Percy Weasley/Oliver Wood

WC: 737

Summary:

Magic will always want you to meet your soulmate and sometimes to achieve that, rules that are known to be true have to be bent a bit. Oliver and Percy handle finding their third differently to say the least. The right answer isn't always so clear cut though.

🍎 Day 25: Day & Night - No Way of Defying The Waves of Time

Characters/Ship: Percy Weasley

WC: 522

Summary:

Percy got a great deal on this house, now if only it wasn't haunted.

🍎 Day 26: Vex - Who Do You Think You Are?

Characters/Ship: Fred Weasley & George Weasley, Remus Lupin/Percy Weasley

WC: 804

Summary:

Fred and George never thought of themselves as protective but learning that your brother's soulmate doesn't seem to want him would make anyone a little angry.

🍎 Day 27: Dandy - He's Not Blind

Characters/Ship: Roger Davies & Percy Weasley

WC: 355

Summary:

Roger is more observant than people give him credit for.

🍐 Day 28: Fetching - Masked Savior

Characters/Ship: Roger Davies/Percy Weasley

WC: 1,103

Summary:

Percy has to agree to social events to keep his family off his back, but he accidentally bites off a bit more than he can chew.

🪻Day 29: Thrall - Touching Those Petals And Asking For Their Name🪻

Characters/Ship: Sirius Black/Percy Weasley (percius)

WC: 599

Summary:

Sirius hates being at Grimmauld Place. Drowning himself in alcohol and avoiding thinking about it too much by roaming around the house.

🍎 Day 30: First & Last - That Time Dudley Almost Let his Daughter Fly Away.

Characters/Ship: Dudley Dursley & Daisy Dursley

WC: 588

Summary:

Daisy Dursley has had bouts of accidental magic in the past, but flying? Floating? He really thinks she's going to be the death of him one of these days.

🍐 Day 31: Fulfilment - Promise

Characters/Ship: Fleur Delacour/Bill Weasley (Bleur)

WC: 110

Summary:

Bill is thinking too much again.

[redstrewn]

touchstarved menu art hits different

[phyreunavailable]

I think when I have everything like, worked out, I might post the absolutely insane system I use for campaigns, like.

There is a reason I don't tag these posts dnd. This is held up by the fundamentals of bullshit and how much my brain can cook up and that's it.

Turning to the group of ppl who have played dnd and ppl who have never touched a ttrpg in their life: two of you will suffer greatly. It's the ones with experience.

My system basically priorities story and role play, then puzzles and exploration, then combat. I mostly cut out rests because like boo boring don't care. Combat? Much quicker, I hate numbers and don't want a turn to take 20 minutes. There's type advantages. I built a bloody type system.

I just reuse the same worldbuilding but in different spots. I made a silly Agency that works for literally every scenario and WILL be using them for such, thank you.

But yeah a lot of it is just me making a plotline and npcs, giving players their mission and telling them to make a character on call with me so we can live discuss what works, and based on that call and what type they choose I create their skills and abilities. They are always free to recommend things to me on how they see their character, and I take inspiration from there.

Like upcoming campaign? I gave them their roles beforehand since it's a shorter one and to keep it balanced. As I worked on the story, maps, and assets, they would hop on call and we would talk about their character. I put a human/hybrid (catgirl side of the chart) rule in due to the world they were playing in, and each player has found a way to work with that.

Currently the party is a lesbian swordswoman lizard-hybrid, a mage with a tree arm, an Irish man ready to throw hands, a nonbinary Healer that has an emo aesthetic and a giant hammer for their normal attacks, and a shark hybrid chef that throws pancakes and hot oil like Mr. Game and Watch.

Skills are balanced with cooldown rates instead of mana or whatever because I did not want to deal with that. The cooldown is how many turns you must go for before you get your ability back. You roll a d20 for everything, damage is predetermined so like it's just a crit/miss chance you roll for.

The 2 that have played dnd quite a bit hate this system. The 2 that play rpg games and have never touched a ttrpg think it makes perfect sense. I'm having fun. Everybody is stoked to start. Nobody really knows what to expect except for me, and I think that's beautiful.

[yumenosakiacademy]

🎧 Audio source: @/sam_ivey on Tiktok 📷 Official comic strip: Tsukito / Scans: @/Kaleidion

[gilliebee]

thinking about this god damn quote every time jack gives brick heart eyes which is always

[theabstruseone]

I slept in and just woke up, so here's what I've been able to figure out while sipping coffee:

Twitter has officially rebranded to X just a day or two after the move was announced.

The official branding is that a tweet is now called "an X", for which there are too many jokes to make.

The official account is still @twitter because someone else owns @X and they didn't reclaim the username first.

The logo is 𝕏 which is the Unicode character Unicode U+1D54F so the logo cannot be copyrighted and it is highly likely that it cannot be protected as a trademark.

Outside the visual logo, the trademark for the use of the name "X" in social media is held by Meta/Facebook, while the trademark for "X" in finance/commerce is owned by Microsoft.

The rebranding has been stopped in Japan as the term "X Japan" is trademarked by the band X JAPAN.

Elon had workers taking down the "Twitter" name from the side of the building. He did not have any permits to do this. The building owner called the cops who stopped the crew midway through so the sign just says "er".

He still plans to call his streaming and media hosting branch of the company as "Xvideo". Nobody tell him.

This man wants you to give him control over all of your financial information.

Edit to add further developments:

Yes, this is all real. Check the notes and people have pictures. I understand the skepticism because it feels like a joke, but to the best of my knowledge, everything in the above is accurate.

Microsoft also owns the trademark on X for chatting and gaming because, y'know, X-box.

The logo came from a random podcaster who tweeted it at Musk.

The act of sending a tweet is now known as "Xeet". They even added a guide for how to Xeet.

The branding change is inconsistent. Some icons have changed, some have not, and the words "tweet" and "Twitter" are still all over the place on the site.

TweetDeck is currently unaffected and I hope it's because they forgot that it exists again. The complete negligence toward that tool and just leaving it the hell alone is the only thing that makes the site usable (and some of us are stuck on there for work).

This is likely because Musk was forced out of PayPal due to a failed credit line project and because he wanted to rename the site to "X-Paypal" and eventually just to "X".

This became a big deal behind the scenes as Musk paid over $1 million for the domain X.com and wanted to rebrand the company that already had the brand awareness people were using it as a verb to "pay online" (as in "I'll paypal you the money")

X.com is not currently owned by Musk. It is held by a domain registrar (I believe GoDaddy but I'm not entirely sure). Meaning as long as he's hung onto this idea of making X Corp a thing, he couldn't be arsed to pay the $15/year domain renewal.

Bloomberg estimates the rebranding wiped between $4 to $20 billion from the valuation of Twitter due to the loss of brand awareness.

The company was already worth less than half of the $44 billion Musk paid for it in the first place, meaning this may end up a worse deal than when Yahoo bought Tumblr.

One estimation (though this is with a grain of salt) said that Twitter is three months from defaulting on its loans taken out to buy the site. Those loans were secured with Tesla stock. Meaning the bank will seize that stock and, since it won't be enough to pay the debt (since it's worth around 50-75% of what it was at the time of the loan), they can start seizing personal assets of Elon Musk including the Twitter company itself and his interest in SpaceX.

Sesame Street's official accounts mocked the rebranding.

[tofupixel]

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🎨 Pixel Art Beginner Guide

Hello, I'm Tofu, a pixel artist based in England. I work full-time doing pixel illustrations or game-art. I started learning in my early 20s, so no it's not too late for you!

I run a 7k+ member Discord server called Cafe Dot, where we host events like gesture drawing and portrait club.

I currently have Good Omens brainrot so expect some fanart on this blog. I also occasionally do/reblog horror art so be mindful of that!

Due to so much AI nonsense on every platform, all my public work will be filtered/edited with anti-AI scraping techniques. Supporters on my Ko-Fi can see unfiltered work and also download it.

🌸 Want to learn how to do pixel art? Check my tutorial tag!

Other tags:

tutorial (not pixel specific)

my art

follow (artists i recommend)

🌟Free Stuff!!!

❔FAQ

What app do you use? I use Aseprite on PC and occasionally Pixquare on iOS (use code tofu for 30% off Pixquare!! <3) Free alternative: Libresprite on PC

Why does your art look so crunchy / compressed? Glaze

How did you learn pixel art? I first started out watching MortMort and making tiny sprites. Then once I started getting interested in landscapes/environment art, I did many, many Studio Ghibli studies.

How can I also protect my art? You can use Glaze and Nightshade- Glaze protects against Img2Img style copying, and Nightshade poisons the data so the AI thinks it's the opposite of what it actually is. There is a lot of misinformation going around (likely from pro-AI groups) so do your own research too! If you're a pixel artist you can also tilt or blur your art after upscaling, which will make it near useless to AI models (or regular thieves) once downscaled again.

Feel free to send me an ask if there's anything you want to know! I am always happy to help beginners :--3

[omedapixel]

MORE DEBUG OBJECTS

By poular demand, here are the rest of the prop and miscellaneous objects enabled for decorating! I don't have any pics right now, but the full list of objects is below the cut, and each package is merged by expansion pack.

As with my other debug objects, these can all be found under DEBUG > MISC. The catalog names are often something weird, because I haven't edited or added any strings.

These objects are technically not CC, it just allows you to access and decorate with objects that are already in game. Therefore you can uninstall these overrides, share worlds and lots using them, and they'll still remain wherever you've placed them.

Also, if you have a default replacement for any of these props, for example a plate default, then the object will also be updated to reflect that.

I highly reccomment using this in conjunction with my S3DT mod, since some of the objects are half sunk into the ground by default.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Object List Below

BASE GAME:

Guitar Case

Amplifier

Bottle Spigot (unused asset)

Child Ladle

Child Mixing Bowl

Cutting Board (slots do no work, unfortunately)

Fire Extinguisher

Fire Poker

Fire Lighter

Hammer

Bartending Bottle Prop

Ice Cream Cone

Microwave Meal

Paper Plate

Screwdiver

Sponge

Toilet Brush

Wedding Ring

Wrench

WORLD ADVENTURES:

Canteen

Chopsticks

Dig Site Brush

Flour Bag

Fortune Cookie

Map (looks like plain parchment)

Nectar Glass

Nectar Tray

Pamphlet

Pickaxe

Pungi (snake charming instrument)

AMBITIONS:

Chisel

Fire Axe

Blowtorch

Chainsaw

Detonator

Gnubb Bunny

Gnubb King

Junk Pipe Piece

Magnifying Glass

Notepad

Shovel

Tape Measure

Tattoo Gun

Triangle Ruler

Walkie Talkie

LATE NIGHT:

Drink Shaker

Drumstick

Party Glass

Round Party Glass

Bartending Bottle Prop

Juice Can

GENERATIONS:

Envelope

Love Letter Envelope

Cheap RAM Disk

Expensive RAM Disk

Beaker

Rolled Diploma

Flashlight

Game Controller

Greeting Card

Round Flask

Sparkling Juice (champagne)

PETS:

Hoofpick

Adult Pitchfork

Child Pitchfork

Plastic Pet Food Bowl

Cat Hunting Chip Bag

Cat Hunting Feather

Cat Hunting Leaf

Dog Treat

Foal Bottle

Horse Brush

Litter Scoop

Pet Brush

Stick (for playing fetch)

Freezer Bunny Ice Cream

Kitty Litter Pile

Rainbow Ice Cream

(forgot to do the chocolate ice cream, sorry!)

SHOWTIME:

CD Case

Record

Golf Ball

Juggling Pin

Microphone (grey)

Snack Bowl

Headphones

Golf Club Average

Golf Club Expert

Golf Club Old

Firefly Jar

FireflyJar Lid

Juggling Knife

Magician Sword

SUPERNATURAL:

Fly Swatter

White Glove

Bonehilda Key

Alchemy Bowl

Alchemy Package

Beehive Smoker

SEASONS:

Horseshoe

Child Rake

Adult Rake

Barista Bar Cup

Egg Hunt Basket

Trick or Treat Basket

Carving Knife

Fruit Punch

Hot Beverage Cup

Stack of Hot Dogs

Love Letter

Pie (from eating contest)

Snow Cone Syrup

Soccer Ball

Tissue

Spooky Day Candy

UNIVERSITY:

Clipboard

Red Juice Cup

Art Scanner

Bonfire Logs

Candy Bar

Cold One

College Letter

Energy Drink

Manilla Envelope

Macot Plushy

Ping Pong Ball

Ping Pong Paddle

Mistletoe (unused asset)

Protest Banners (3 versions)

Protest Flyer

Smartphone

Soda Can

Paint Sray Can

Suitcase

Whiteboard Eraser

Whiteboard Marker

ISLAND PARADISE:

Broom

Coconut Drink

Cold Beverage

Grim Reaper Trident

Pineapple Drink

Rescue Tube

Glass Bottle Pool Bar

Pool Bar Juice Can

INTO THE FUTURE:

Microphone (black)

OIl Puddle

Stardust

Paper Bag

[messmers]

some graphic design resources cause im bored and itching to write something but i cant write anything i'm happy with--- anywayssss

unsplash for lots of royalty free pics

heres a cool site to learn how to pair fonts together

heres another site to learn kerning [spacing]

in fact heres a bunch of games to help u get better at graphic design stuff

some free online video editors x x x

color accessibility resources :]

savee.it - like pinterest but for designers!! unfortunately it has a save limit for free users but u should still be able to browse it for inspo i think?

some free fonts

aside from coolors i really love adobe color!! it has color palette generator [triads, monochrome, complementary, etc.], accessibility tools, palettes+gradients extractors, and color palettes inspired by trends within diff industries.

make moodboards online for freeee i miss u polyvore

spline and womp for web based 3d design! + blender of course [go make that donut!]

we all know and love them: photopea [photoshop but free and on a browser?!] and canva [no introduction needed im sure]

upscale the resolution / quality of pics it says anime but it works really well with most stuff like video game screenshots [gets rid of hard edges/pixels]

typography inspo

more color palette generators [already meets accessibility guidelines]

filmgrab - a curation of movie scenes 💕

here's another one but for color palettes from films

more inspo and tutorials

cargo - for web design stuffs

an archive of BRANDING GUIDES

free online zine hosting

milanote - very very useful for organizing creative projects :D kinda like a mix of notion and pinterest ? [its basically notion but more visual]

a collection of free luts

lots of pngs for editing

freepik - lots and lots of free design assets.

flaticon - lots of flat icons / vectors. i haven't used this in a while, but it was free last i checked

in case u need more help pairing fonts go here and here

idk ilu all have fun!!!!

[pyromaniac-cyndaquil]

It's been a lot of work over a lot of time but I think I can finally share this...

PMD:EoS, but with all of the starters!

...Including Grookey, finally!!!!! 🥳

Introducing PMD: Expanded Sky!

This is a public mod available to download now! It adds in all starters from unova all the way to paldea, as well as zorua, axew and rockruff, and allows evolving eevee into sylveon.

Speaking of which, fairy type has been patched into the game! Disarming voice replaces milk drink and moonblast replaces judgement, which was unused.

Some non-traditional starters are no longer available as hero options in this due to lack of space, but are still available as partners. (Skitty can be chosen as a hero in version 1.0.0 only, so download that version instead of the latest if you wanna use her! Riolu and Shinx are available in version 1.2.1 and below)

If one of your faves was taken off the hero roster (eg vulpix, skitty, riolu, munchlax, etc), I have a tutorial here on how to quickly edit the patched file to put them back in :)

Several regional variants have been added! Alolan Raichu, Alolan Marowak and Hisuian Typhlosion are now available as potential evolutions for their respective base stages.

Partners across both rescue team and all three versions of explorers are available too, including Cubone, Munchlax, Machop, Vulpix, Riolu, etc

Sprites and portraits are courtesy of the brilliant PMD Sprite Repository and the many incredible artists who contribute to it!

Credits for all improvement patches, sprites and portraits are included in the download, as well as an explanation on how to patch the game and the full starter list.

The mod is split in two versions to accommodate all the partners - MIDDAY version and MIDNIGHT version. The download includes both, as well as the tool required to patch your game! You'll need a clean US copy of pmd eos at hand.

A full list of moves learned by newly added Pokémon can be found here, as well as info on how to evolve them and their IQ groups.

If you run into any issues, feel free to drop me an ask or DM and I'll see how I can help/what I need to fix!

You can find the download for this rom hack here!

Edits/updates noted under the cut:

(27/04/23)

The overall mod now has a name - expanded sky! Reflected earlier on in the post.

I've been informed that the included patching tool (XDelta) doesn't work on mac, and after some digging around and discussions in dms we found this tool works for Mac instead.

Added graphics to the post displaying which heroes and partners are part of the hack.

(11/05/23)

Added link to learnset compilation for all new pokémon.

(17/05/23) Version 1.1.0 has been released!

Sobble is now a starter, replacing Skitty (Skitty is still accessible by downloading v1.0.0 on the download page). Sobble is also now a partner in MIDNIGHT.

Zorua/Zoroark's moveset has been tweaked slightly

Base forms of all new starters can now be found in Oran Forest, and can be recruitable in the post-game. The new fire starters can also be found in Giant Volcano.

Extra portraits and sprites were added for Cubone, Psyduck and Machop. Like the rest of the new assets in this mod, these were imported from the PMD Sprite Repository, and credits are on the title screen and in the readme.txt.

Extra credits + more in-depth instructions for patching the game included in the readme.txt.

(18/05/23)

Added a link to a tutorial on swapping out heroes for others already existing in the game.

(22/05/23) - Version 1.1.1 has been released!

Fixed genders for female starter options on the quiz. Updated Fuecoco to use new portraits and sprites. (Credits to Garbage)

(23/05/23) - Version 1.1.2 has been released!

Female starters from gens 5-9 can now evolve correctly (save for starters who don't have evolutions in the game yet - these are listed in the text file in the download)

Rockruff can now evolve, and Midnight Lycanroc's evolution method has been fixed to use the Lunar Ribbon as intended.

(15/06/23) - Version 1.2.1 has been released!

In 1.2.0, a second version of the mod was included in the zip compatible with melon emulator, and potentially others that were having issues with saving.

Fairy gummis were also made available as mission rewards and shop items.

There's a couple more things that can be seen in the changelog including bugfixes, but the main other thing promised was that Froakie and Litten can now evolve directly into Greninja and Incineroar. Due to an evolution flag not being set this ended up untrue, but has been fixed in 1.2.1.

This post claimed dazzling gleam is in the game, but it should've said disarming voice.

🆕 (10/03/24) - Version 1.3.0 has been released!

Dusk Lycanroc, Drizzile, Inteleon, Grookey, Axew and Fraxure have been added, as well as Alolan Raichu, Alolan Marowak an Hisuian Typhlosion.

Axew replaces Shinx in the hero roster, and Grookey replaces Riolu. Additional portraits and sprites added for starter evolutions, including vanilla starters. Sleep animations have been copied over to EventSleep/Laying/Wake animations if missing.

Greninja erroneously had the same moveset as Froakie. This has now been fixed.

Credits are no longer displayed on the title screen.

Sprite, portrait and patch credits can now be viewed by talking to a Cyndaquil NPC on the crossroads.

Evolution help can also be accessed by talking to this same NPC.

🆕 (23/05/24) - Version 1.3.1 has been released!

The uhh. Grovyle problem. Yeah. That should be fixed.

(Grovyle was missing several sprites as a side effect of trying to add new ones, due to his unique setup in the vanilla game as such an important npc. His sprites should now be reverted to a functional state, rather than leaving him to walk fowards on the spot all the time).

An issue present from the start that caused the game to freeze while advancing floors in dungeons occasionally should now be resolved.

[seraphinitegames]

The Wayhaven Chronicles—Update 24/May/2024 

Well, I should probably start the update by saying that the first demo section will be released tomorrow for the $5+ tiers on Patreon and publicly late next week! :D

It is a short section, only being Chapter One, but a lot of the work went into the behind the scenes and coding stuff, so hopefully it will be running super smooth! It’ll be a good thing to see if this new editing system is working, and also if all that intense work that went into the cleaning code, changing character creator, etc has paid off, hehe!

While I was waiting for the readers’ comments to come back in, I really went hard on Chapter Two this week. This new keyboard has made the world of difference, and I’ve been able to type pretty much back at the speed I was before. It feels soooo good!

I am getting tempted to go back to a bit I’ve already written and add in a Unit Bravo POV section though. It’s not a planned scene, but I think it would really fit in well. It’s just that it’s already quite a linear chapter (A LOT of setting up the story for what’s to come), so I’m not sure about adding in another section where the reader can’t pick a choice.

I’m definitely back and forwards on adding that in at the moment.

There’s something about Book Four that is feeling…different. Not the way it’s written or anything, just, well, I always put everything I am into all my works, but Book Four is drawing even more from me, and I’m pushing myself and digging deeper than ever before to really put my all into it. It’s feeling really special in many ways already!

Next week, I’ll be working on getting all the text and graphic assets Hosted Games needs for putting Book 4 on the Steam wishlist. Seems good timing with the first demo release!

I’ll also be pushing on with Chapter Two. I’m really hoping to get it finished next week. It’s a big one with a lot going on which will really make for an exciting next demo section… ;D

I can’t wait for you to try out the demo! It’s like Book Four is really coming to life now I’m finally getting to share it with you all, hehe! :D

[k-looking-glass-house]

Ghost wedding~ Alternative outfits k-imagination

More discount destock edit!!!!! Wouhou lol

Description edit lol:

Except for Ortho, Sam and Divus as being potential extra canon in the ghost wedding's story.

Everyone is just a wild imagination of mine with the help of @twiwoncrackpopcorn ~

Because.... Yay because xD that's the best argument !!

Oh my, some are wearing real outfits from "Balanciaga, Dior, YSL, Versace" yep !

At least big inspiration.

But yay just imagine that when Crewel's not here, K the rabbit is taxing Crowley's money against outfits.... Yes.... That's my job..... Robbing every madols from Crowley lol.

_Credit_

Asset game extract from @alchemivich and twst game

“Twisted Wonderland” concept belongs to Yana Toboso