#and I only know so much rpg maker stuff

[memen18-m5r3]

new installment in my authleft lore saga ヾ(•ω•`)o this one's adding details to the things i've established in my previous posts so feel free to check them out for context (it's under "authleft family drama" tag now).

quick recap of what's going to be relevant here: the steel factory where all of authleft lives appeared long before any of them and as if by itself. this + the chthonic atmosphere of the workshops lead some to believe that this building is "alive". with its own will and needs.

Commie suspects Trotskyist of subversion and usurpation of production (how's that bad, you might ask? well, nobody knows what's gonna happen if production were to ever seize...and Commie's not risking it), and takes him out when no one's looking. Does it with a heavy heart, but believes it to be for the good of the family (or so he tells himself to better sleep at night).

There's no solid evidence, no go-to suspect (Trot wasn't popular with the rest of authleft for various reasons, at this point it could be anyone 'cept selected few), and no body. Therefore, the common story becomes that Trotskyist "disappeared" on the factory grounds. Naturally, Commie keeps quiet about his participation in this disappearance. Trot gets proclaimed dead after a while of him being MIA. It's a precedent that has never happened before so everyone's a little freaked out. Posadist searches under every pipe, but finds no trace of his father. It's at this moment when intrusive thoughts and voices turn more and more frequent for Posad. Gradually he is pushed towards the idea that it was the factory itself that ended Trotskyist.

This creates and fuels fear and paranoia regarding the factory's machines, and given that Posadist serves as a mechanic, he becomes unable to perform his duties. Which is a problem. Commie doesn't go straight for the kill this time as he finds Posadist more pliable, as well as less of a threat (and they need their mechanics). So, Commie tries to "fix" his nephew, but he doesn't know how to deal with this kind of situation and ends up making it worse, solidifying the delusions. Posadist reaches a point of breaking, where he starts to consider the factory an extraterrestrial technology or even a life form sent to Earth by a more advanced communist civilization. Not only does he fail to do his job, now he actively interferes with production.

Commie, in his final attempt to reason with Posadist, blurts out that he (Commie) is the one guilty of Trotskyist's death. This revelation comes too late, however, as it falls neatly into the conspiracy theory. Posadist calls his uncle an "alien accomplice", but he won't take him alive, for he himself almost got in touch with these alien creatures, and that he has something greater to offer them. Posadist hides in the factory's depths, and that's the last time he is seen in his "normal" form.

TL;DR: Commie kills his brother out of personal suspicions, then drives his nephew to psychosis with inept attempts at psychological help (and lying...lots and lots of lying). For the greater good tho!

[tofupixel]

I recently started learning to use rpg maker (vx ace!) and as a result have become increasingly interested in pixel art. I hadn't really done pixel work since my teens - I do more digital painting and vector art - so while I'm a little familiar and can do passable editing, there's a lot I don't know.

One thing that's kind of perplexing for me is understanding the differences in style between two creators of pixel art. I studied art history and I'm used to the differences being things like brush stroke length or degree of realism... I feel like I'm lacking in lexicon in this new frontier lol

What nuances of an artist do you think are most important to style in pixel art?

This kind of stuff is not really officially studied (yet) so it's all a bit of opinion from me.

Usually in pixel art the biggest differences in styles are which limitations the artists choose to impose on themselves; colour count, resolution, palette... Or more stylistic choices like hue shifting, anti-aliasing style or no, dithering or no, etc.

I personally think there are a huge variety of styles in pixel art, as it's literally just a medium, and I hope you'll agree by the end 8)

Also (imo) there is some seperation between the styles of art for art's sake, and art for videogames, where things have to be clear and readable to be actually playable.

🎮 Old school games:

Sometimes referred to as something like '8-bit' or '16-bit' (relating to the NES era / SNES era consoles), these artstyles usually follow the rules and limitations of the hardware at the time.

This all falls under retro art, most popular styles include: NES, SNES, GB, GBC, C64

Notable artists: Nickwoz, Sandy Gordon, Franken, Cisco

📚 Old school art:

There were also events called Demoscene (still are), where developers would go to a big convention and share their demos. A lot of pixel art competitions were held here, where artists would draw live.

Generally they used to favour a high realism/semirealism style, with lots of texture/dithering, fairly high resolution (if the hardware allowed for it), and adjacent pixels mostly being different from one another.

There are even older styles than this but they are fairly niche and I'm not that well educated. If interested look into some of the old PCs/consoles.

⭐ Modern pixel art:

Usually using more colours and higher resolution, larger clusters of pixels instead of individual ones. Strong use of art fundamentals.

Artists to look at: Adam Ferguson (yes it is pixel art), Snake, Slym, 6VCR, Yes I do Pixels, Gijotto, SovanJedi, JoeCreates, Franek, @8pxl

the rest below are "modern" pixel artists too but I think they have other things in their style that are a bit different!

🎨 Painterly:

Some artists choose to emulate the natural brushstrokes digitally, and keep their clusters large and loose. Usually don't focus on the minute details as much.

@makrustic, @hexh-pixel, Umbohr, Gawrone

🟦 Dithering

These artists all use dithering / texture in ways that make their styles totally unique.

Deceiver, Night, Reo,

💥 Experimental

These artists are always trying new things and honing in on their unique style.

AJ, hby, @ilta222, Alphons

I could really go on for ever, there are so many different styles, cute pixel art, horror pixel art, 1bit (2 colours only), and then adding animation takes it even further, but I think you get the idea

If you want to learn more, the Masters of Pixel Art books have works /interviews from pixel artists of different eras, including demoscene and contemporary.

😊👍

[carlyraejepsans]

If you are going to make a game here’s some things that might be helpful!

Game engines:

Godot: very new dev friendly and it’s free. Has its own programming language (GDscript) but also supports C#. It’s best for 2D games but it can do 3D also.

Unity: I don’t even know if I should be recommending Unity. It has caused me much pain and the suffering. But Unity has an incredible amount of guides and tutorials. And once you get the hang of something it’s hard to get caught on the same thing again. It also has a great Visual Studio integration and uses C#. I will warn you the unity animator is where all dreams go to die. It’s a tedious process but you can probably get some plugins to help with that.

Unreal: Don’t use it unless you’re building a very large or very detailed 3D game. It also uses C++ which is hell.

Renpy: Made for visual novels but has support for small mini games. It only supports Python iirc. Basically if you’re making a VN it’s renpy all the way otherwise you should look elsewhere.

What to learn: Game design and how to act as your own game designer. As a designer you need to know if a part of your game isn’t meshing with the rest of it and be willing to give up that part if needed. Also sound design is very important as well. If you want to make your own sounds audacity is perfect for recording and cutting up your clips. If you want to find sound effects I recommend freesound.org and the YouTube royalty free music database.

Sadly I can’t recommend a lot of places to learn this stuff because I’m taking Game Development in Uni. So most of my info comes from my lectures and stuff. One of my game design textbooks is pretty good but it’s around $40 CAD. It’s called the game designers playbook by Samantha Stahlke and Pejman Mirza-Babaei if you’re interested (fun fact there’s a photo of Toriel in there)

Anyway sorry for dumping this large ask on you I’m just really passionate about game design and I like to see other people get into it.

please do not apologize I'd never heard half of this stuff so this is super useful!! I've seen some godot tutorials on YouTube although so far I've played around with RPG maker MV (it was on sale. very very fiddly interface, i had trouble getting around it) and gamemaker, which recently became free for non-commercial use (a lot more approachable on first impact but like i said, haven't really done anything substantial in either yet).

mostly, I'm still in the super vague stage. I've got an idea for the main story conflict, the protagonist and their foil, the general aesthetic i want to go for (likely 2D graphics, but it would be cool to make like. small cutscenes in low-poly 3D) but not much else. haven't exactly decided on the gameplay either! it's gonna necessarily be rpg-esque, but I'm not much of a fan of classic turn-based combat so. I'm gonna check out other games and see if i can frankenstein anything cooler :P

[leidensygdom]

well @voidsteeth has given me the power to ramble a bit more. PLEASE ignore the cat in that picture, for some goddamn reason it's the only way tumblr let me post this goddamn picture. it's a nice kitty, mind you

Up above, some really loose logo/main pic ideas for it! Excuse my terrible handwriting. Let me do it bullet-point format since it helps my adhd pin down stuff

So, it's gonna be a RPG. I wanna figure some fun gimmick and I surprisingly have a bunch of that well fleshed out! (Part of it revolving the elemental system, concerning Flesh/Memory/Mind/Matter/Soul). I'm not a huge fan of the repetitive encounter "smash everything in front of you" format. I'm going to be using RPG Maker MZ. My partner has a lot of experience with that, which should help a lot!

Inspired by a bit of a mix of classic JRPGs and more recent indie RPGs, specially Rpg Maker stuff. I've been raised watching my dad play the old Final Fantasy games (which I love dearly, specially IX, X and VII), but I've ended up loving the more recent indie scene myself (OFF, Oneshot, Undertale/Deltarune, Everhood)

(I'm gonna be playing more RPG Maker games to help with inspiration and knowing how much I can bend the system- Please feel free to recommend me some!)

Set in a sort of high fantasy setting, and it takes a bunch of stuff from the one I run my current DnD campaign in. I think it will feel familiar to DnD/PF players, but I'm going all in with my own worldbuilding! I wanna set myself apart from these.

I want to have a sort of in-game illustrated encyclopedia because I really dig that. I liked the way OFF used images here and there to add to the lore. I just love the idea of being able to collect pages and learn more on the way. I've sketched the ones for the elements already!

Themes will spin around friendship and human connection, eldritch horror flavoured stuff, and some temporal shenanigans too. It will also tackle on the importance of understanding the past- The story will put some focus on how people are too busy pillaging a ruined city to understand what actually destroyed it in the first place. Which, well, it's the kinda thing to have consequences.

I'm planning to work on this on my free time, and once it has a nice shape (and perhaps a playable demo), I may consider having a Kickstarter to complete it. I'm fairly confident I can handle (with enough time) most of the parts of it. I just need to get a bit familiar with pixel art (for the maps). I used to do that ages ago! I'm also familiar enough with programming and have done small web-games in the past.

The one thing I am absolutely not qualified enough for is music. I wanna try honing my skills but- Oh boy. (on that note, if you know of small musicians that are open for commissions, do let me know! Just as a very preliminary view)

also you can bet this is gonna be really LGBTQ+ themed. I wanna also take the chance to maybe sprinkle in some of my heritage's stuff, I've wanted to do that for ages!

I'm of course always open for specific questions about this. I'm really excited to work on it and help my mental health on the way. I'll do my best to share some concept art, mock ups and such as I get it more fleshed out! I have some enemies pinned down and I think people will really enjoy these designs : )

[patiann345]

I'm gonna be honest; I don't think it's fair to blame a single game (BATIM in this case) for the state of Modern Mascot Horror...

That's giving Bendy WAY too much credit hj/

But seriously though; to say that BATIM is at fault for the state of mascot horror and that it started/popularized all the overused trends is just. really really unfair to it. And that's coming from someone who is extremely critical of the series, I WISH I could blame Bendy for everything but alas, I am unable 😔

I think my biggest issue with blaming Bendy, or really any big horror like Fnaf or Poppy, is that.. so many of those trends aren't unique to those games? Bendy takes SO MUCH from games like Bioshock, but we're not blaming Bioshock for mascot horror trends, are we? And yeah, you can say "Well Bioshock isn't indie and it's not mascot horror" but,, where do you think people are drawing inspiration? Yeah, a lotta games may be inspired by Bendy, but a lot of others, INCLUDING Bendy, are inspired by the classics before it.

To talk about some arguments I've seen; saying Bendy popularized "exploring an abandoned facility" feels almost silly considering how many popular horror games and media have done that before. It's been a horror staple for forever, so of course a lot of mascot and/or indie games would follow suit. There's the first Resident Evil, I think Silent Hill COULD count, RPG maker games such as Ao Oni.. And as for film; technically The Blair Witch falls into this category. And the same goes for "cute mascot turned scary" like.. I'm sorry but plenty of games alone were doing that before Bendy. Ever played Tattletail? You could argue FNAF has done this too. Spooky's jumpscare mansion perhaps? And if you wanna look past just games; Gremlins. And yes, I'm counting Gremlins as horror. If you don't, then consider Chucky or Annabelle (though maybe Annabelle is to a lesser extent since she's.. pretty freaky looking before the possession stuff in the film) I'm not. even going to address "free roam gameplay" because. I mean, do I have to? I should not have to go over a list of free roam horror games to tell you why that's 1. not even a trend? and 2. not.. Bendy specific.

All this also isn't considering a lot of other media you could take inspiration from; Creepypastas and ARGs and Books and so on and so forth. A lot of those have contributed to Mascot Horror, ESPECIALLY creepypasta.. Most of the popular ones do fall under the "cute-to-scary" trope such as Cupcakes, Sonic.EXE, the Tails Doll curse, and a lot of lost episodes and haunted gaming creepypastas. You can't tell me some of the big games now aren't slightly inspired.

Also also, a lotta popular mascot horror recently has followed certain tropes and trends, yeah, but that doesn't mean they're necessarily good or bad. People hear "Cliche" and think negatively, but you CAN do a cliche really REALLY well, you can put a super strong spin on it if you try and make it feel new and fresh, even if it's been done over and over before by other pieces of media. Yes, BATIM has "cute-to-scary" mascots, it has abandoned location exploration, and it released in chapters, and so on and so forth. But we're not considering HOW it uses these tropes and if they're done well. We're just saying "Well, it has them so.. blame Bendy ig" and that's, again, not fair! It's not fair to BATIM and it's not fair to other horror media, some of which has served as big inspirations and the sort of "building blocks" for modern horror.

To make something clear, and I know this may upset some people to hear; BATIM is not unique as a piece of horror media. The only thing that sets it apart is the artstyle, and even then, with the release of BATDR, we've been inching away from that rubberhose-1930s style for a more generic look and feel. Bendy is not special, and it's not special as a mascot horror, even by the standards of 2017 when it came out. There were other games doing what it was doing, and there will continue to be games that do what it did.

It is not fair to blame Bendy, and it's not fair to blame any one single game or piece of media. Tropes and trends and cliches come and they go, and whether or not you like the current state of mascot horror, if you agree or disagree that it's a problem (I personally don't think it is and don't. really care tbh?) You cannot blame a single piece of media for the problems you have with a genre.

(Sorry this is so ramble-y!! And if it's not super well structured, I just really wanted to get my thoughts out there akjagsdhljgadslh,, also, I'd love to hear other people's thoughts, if you agree or disagree or are unsure. Think it'd be cool to start a discussion ^^)

[hypersomniagame]

HYPERSOMNIA MARCH DEV LOG : "If you have love in your heart"

Hi! For all of you who follow HYPERSOMNIA, you should already know what the gist is here, but for those of you who are new, or just new to our tumblr, let me fill you in!

For 2024, I am trying to release a dev log about HYPERSOMNIA once a month, may come earlier, may come a little late, but I'm doing this to help give insight on to how the game is going, and to give me motivation to work on the game.

First things first, sorry about the incomplete drawing for this month's log. I've been sitting on this drawing for months and haven't touched it, and I needed a drawing for this months log so I thought "Eh, what the hell."

For this month, things have been a bit up and down, I've been focusing on more smaller stuff in engine this month, and bigger stuff outside of engine. So there's not a lot that's been added but there is new stuff that I'd like to share. :)

I'd like to start with the smaller stuff first, since I feel like most logs I've started with the bigger stuff and kinda run out of steam by the end. So it'll be along the lines of "Small in-engine stuff > Big in-engine stuff > News/closing thoughts".

NOW LET'S GET TO THOSE UPDATES!

Lots of menu work has been done this month, which isn't very exciting sounding but it's nice to be getting this stuff over with.

HYPERSOMNIA has a smaller resolution than RPG Maker MV's default, and the thing about that is a lot of content in menus doesn't scale accordingly, leaving stuff to get cut off and preventing the player from accessing information.

One of the things I've had to do is get the player's HP and HS to appear on the status screen. These usually appear on the main menu of the game, but since I use an alternate menu for screen space, they had to be relocated. (courtesy of SundialShark, I'm not familiar with JS so they've been a super big help with certain things in the game.)

The game's title screen also saw a slight improvement, I found a plugin that replaces the windowed options on the title screen with pictures, making them more customized. The title screen artwork itself will be revised later, as I whipped it up as a placeholder.

Also, do you remember last month's dev log? Specifically, the part of it where I talked about the equip menu in battle? Well shortly after writing that dev log, it was finished!

This works how you'd expect it to, you can equip/unequip eyes and give them to other party members. The only drawback to this is that touchscreen isn't fully supported I've been told, which is fine since this is a game intended for PC. It does work with controller though which is nice.

Speaking of battles, I've been working on special attack animations! I have the main 4's offense animations done.

My personal favourite is Jack's. Everyone else does it all cool but Jack aims like he's holding a gun which is cooler. I'll probably touch up Ross' animation, since it looks kinda weird to me. I think his head might be too small.

Also, would you believe me if I told you that isn't all the battle stuff that was done this month? This is where that "Big in-engine" stuff kicks in.

THE BACKGROUND SYSTEM HAS BEEN IMPROVED! (ALONG WITH ME DESIGNING SOME NEW ENEMIES!)

This took a bit of time to configure, but I replaced the old background system for a new one

(Which was originally set up with my buddy Majimjam of HYADES, awesome game that has a demo out RIGHT NOW!)

With Jengamon's EarthBound Backgrounds plugin, it's been really fun to just toy with it and see what I can make. I would try and run down how this works, but the funny thing is I don't even know how this works. Or, at least in full anyways. I know how to configure it and set up new presets for enemies.

That's pretty much all the in-engine stuff I've done this month, but I'm not out of stuff to talk about yet.

First, I recently wrote a thread on the RPG Maker Forums about HYPERSOMNIA, which you can read here!

Secondly, some of you might've seen this already but I decided to cut FIREBALL from the game's soundtrack fully.

There were a multitude of reasons as to why, but the biggest one is I just don't feel like FIREBALL fits HYPERSOMNIA anymore. The vision has shifted since 2021 and I feel like music for battles could reflect it better, so FIREBALL was scrapped.

The song was uploaded to my personal YouTube channel though, so you can still listen to it here.

Third, THE NEW TRAILER IS ALMOST DONE!

There's still a few things that need to be touched up, but the music and footage is all fully recorded! All that's left to do is throw it in the editor and refine it until it's finished.

I'm very proud of this trailer so far, and I think it'll blow every other trailer I've made out of the water. My goal for this trailer was to improve the editing and I think that's definitely one of the highlights for this trailer.

I'd really like to post a quick sneak peak, but everything about this trailer I feel will be such a surprise that I don't want to spoil it. You'll just have to wait for the Mother Direct!

And that's it for this month! Slow but steady progress is how I'd sum up March. I'm definitely looking forward to the future. Mostly because I'm going to a restaurant with family later today, but next month will have more in store. Like my birthday! Big things coming.

Thanks for reading to the end of the dev log, same as always, these are fun to write. I appreciate you reading them!

If this is your first log you're reading, or even your first time seeing ANYTHING relating to HYPERSOMNIA, I got a whole bunch of links for you to check out if you wanna know more about me and my stupid little game.

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[fl0w3r3d]

devlog #001

hello ! i am luci and im making a yume nikki-ish fan game-ish !!! this is mostly for archiving reasons only,, i dont plan on making a platform, hopefully this will help me focus and persevere on the game. i've also never used tumblr (as a creator) in my life but i like the thought of making a blog hi

i dont wanna reveal too much about the protagonist or the story and stuff- so i'll mostly discuss game making aspects :D i already know how to write, make characters, draw (even a little pixel art !).. however i'm still learning to use rpg maker (i'm using mv UGH >.>) and i have no idea what i'll do for music....... we don't talk abt music here we talk about game making

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

aanywayy.. progress so far, right, meet our protagonist: lopika !! you don't need to know anything about her nope nope nope

her story and stuff is basically done ? i don't know how much i will tell hahahaaaaa soo let's js jump to >.>

progress

lopika has a room !!!!!!!!!! it's- it's a placeholder ok- i will definitely change it up later but this is the base to start actually making stuff >.> !!! i used bindpicturestomap plugin, it was rlly helpful and surprisingly easy to use!! will def use it a lot during all of this hahahaha

so what have i done for now!?!?! first of all, lopika can walk, put on her mask from the mysterious ds that contains one (i will update that..), save from the mysterious black book (i will update that too...), sit very carefully in her pouf and... today's addition

she can sleep [cue aww-ing audience]

well its NOT an awwing matter ok ?! if you've ever played yume nikki you'll notice you can exit the bed before the timer goes down and you go to the dream world.... WELL. IT SEEMS. ITS A BIT MORE COMPLICATED THAN I THOUGHT TO DO THAT BASIC MECHANIC !

that thing took 3 hours of constant testing and whatevers- not counting the indefinite time i spent crying and loosing hope, plus the rpg maker forums are DOWN FOR SOME REASON???? i tried looking up my problem on reddit, and while there's very good explanations... they don't work, i'm afraid i'm dumb

so for now, until the rpg maker servers are back up again at least, i'll leave that aside... she can, however sleep and get transported to dream world!! it's just a one-time thing though so she can't exit the bed once she's in, bed jail

so i guess i'll begin working on nexus and worlds and... oh god what am i gonna do with worlds............ ok, next up i'll try to make a map of my worlds !! i feel like that will also make me spiral next

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

well, first dev log done !! idk how to actually do a dev log, i'm basically yapping, i made this account hoping no one will see it, but if u do and u have advice.. it is welcome here !!

i guess that's all for now, thank u 4 reding ദ്ദി(｡•̀ ,<)~✩‧₊

[lilithsterrarium]

Oh, my god, that sort of shit in size stuff is so obnoxious. And it's so fucking boring, too. It's all the same! Like, it's all 'oh no! I've been shrunk and now I'm being bullied and emasculated by my hot neighbor! Whew, I escaped, but oh no! Now I'm being bullied and emasculated by my teacher/boss/whatever!' Which, like, isn't inherently bad, but it's all there is! Where's the creativity? Where's the fun? Where's the game about being shrunk down to an inch tall and still having to help your daughter get ready for school in the morning? Where's the game about having to break out of a mad scientists lab by enlisting the help of their genetically enhanced lab rats only to "reward" the rats for helping you gain your freedom by letting them have their way with you? Where's the game about being turned into a fairy and the only way to gain enough mana to return to normal is to pleasure cocks that are at least as tall as you are and, along the way, you realize that it's a much better life than you were leading at your full size and you never want to go back? The possibilities!

THANK YOU!!!!! YESYESYES YES YOURE SO SO SO RIGHT AND AMAZING ANON YOU UNDERSTAND ME ON A GUTTERAL LEVEL

First of all. Holy shit. All AMAZING game ideas, I would play them in a heartbeat and probably play them again <3

I know the post I made was a stupid joke post but genuinelly, it does get on my nerves- it genuinelly sucks that us tiny gals have to settle for stuff like this! Whether it's porn, smut, or games, it always follows the same formula- it is genuinelly impossible to find some form of size fetish content that doesnt pander to that audience! I do get it, but I also think its fucking obnoxious!! Not only should there be more diversity in the actual genders of micros, I would LOVE more unique games... its gotten to the point where I am this close to rolling up my sleeves and teaching myself how to use RPG maker because we need some REAL size freaks making content.

Anon ily you are so so smart your ideas are genuinelly so so so SO amazing and make excellent scenarios, let alone games- giving you a big fat smooch on the forehead. MWAH!!!! I'm so sorry for ranting a little aimlessly on your ask lmao <3

[viridiave]

A little love post to HORROR JRPGs

Content Warning:

So I'm gonna be talking a lot about some pre-Undertale era RPG Maker Horror games, and this post is gonna contain both spoilers and the discussion of the following:

Blood and Gore

Psychological horror

Child abuse

Sexual assault

Suicide

Violence

Fictional minors being put into very messed up situations, because that's just the kinds of games these are

Other upsetting themes

Hetalia (because I can imagine that all of us have very complex feelings about this fucking franchise. It existing feels like it needs a warning)

This post is a nostalgia trip and exists purely because uh. I have literally no one else to talk to about these games, and please just click away if any of the above makes you uncomfortable in any way. Some of this stuff can't exactly be handwaved as just being products of their time.

I'll draw smthn real quick later just to make up for it I promise

I'm like days late to Halloween but I just wanted to write this after getting a bout of nostalgia lmao

I absolutely fucking love Horror JRPGs - the freeware ones, even though I haven't touched one in a LONG time. I'm talking about the pre-Undertale era freeware games by the way, and in the first place I don't think I can consider Undertale a horror game but that's a topic for another day. OneShot also doesn't count aksjak OneShot gives me existential dread and a nonzero amount of guilt sure, but never terror

But let's dial that back a bit.

To begin with. 'Vir, you're a fucking coward, you run upstairs when you see that someone on TV has a gun. You can't stand watching horror movies. How the FUCK did this happen'

Weirdly, you can thank Hetalia for that. Specifically, the freeware Hetalia fangames that used to circulate on DeviantArt - that shit led me down this rabbit hole. And I guess it made sense, most Hetalia fangames are a coin toss between a horror game and a fantasy JRPG with countries getting isekai'd. I also played the fuck out of those.

For a bit of background, I love video games, but neither me nor my family ever really had that much spending power to buy game consoles, so my selection was pretty limited. Before I turned 18, I remember that we owned a GameBoy, a GameBoy Advance, a PSP, and one of those Fun-Sized Nintendo consoles with built-in games. We never bought cartridges either. I got my first DS from my dad on my birthday when I turned 18, and that's all the consoles that my family has ever owned. Still kinda jealous of my friends who have Switches, but eh - one day.

I just played a lot of Harvest Moon growing up, that's been my object of interest in my elementary days. The most of a horror game that I've been exposed to was watching my friends play Five Nights At Freddy's back in 5th grade.

Then high school happened, and I got new friends and shit - and was introduced to both more conventional horror games and Hetalia. Which is. A really weird combination when I think about it now, but everyone who was alive and kicking around in the early 2010's would know what HetaOni is, and you can see how that slope led to me playing freeware horror games. I'll always be grateful to these games, seeing as I never had easy access to mainstream experiences growing up.

I think I played HetaOni exactly once, on my first laptop. I played most Hetalia fangames exactly once, but they all just stayed on my old hard drive. None of them really had anything interesting going on gameplay-wise, I mean it's RPGMaker and these were people who just really wanted to make Hetalia fangames, but I remember some of them just sticking with me. I'd play them while I was away on trips to my grandmother's house, then watch let's plays on YouTube when I wasn't otherwise occupied with schoolwork. Really when I say Let's Plays I only mean KyoKoon64's - and that's how I was actually introduced to horror JRPGs.

CLOÉ'S REQUIEM

There's been a couple of times where they played some of the more recognizable horror JRPGs on their channel, but the first one I REALLY saw a playthrough on was one called Cloé's Requiem. I don't know what exactly it was about this specific game that stuck with me, and at the time I didn't know that this had like. More warnings than you would usually find on a horror JRPG. Calling it now, please look up said warnings before you try ANYTHING with this game - I can't promise quality and nuance, but I can promise great moments. Those moments stuck with me to this day, SOMEHOW, even after encountering games with better story and gameplay experiences… it's about a cursed 12 year-old boy trying to free a cursed 13 year-old girl, never getting a shot at the normal life he wanted and playing the violin because he can't do much else.

I think this game changed my life. Not in like, any grand manner mind you - but I feel like it's the game that best represented this time of my life as a weird high school outsider who obsesses over games that nobody's ever heard about. I was introduced to a lot of things through this game, it's just this whole volley of firsts that I wouldn't trade for anything else. Baby's first horror game, first jumpscare I ever consented to, first taste of games containing disturbing themes of sexual assault and gore, first trips to Pixiv and NicoNicoDouga - just all the fucking firsts. I wouldn't call it a great game, but it IS important to me.

When I think about it now, it's a game about curses. Michel D'Alembert is a talented violinist at 12, and his alcoholic father milks the shit out of this talent because they're not exactly what you would call well-off. His twin brother Pierre is a pianist, is nowhere near as talented as his brother, and hides his misery over this situation under a big-little brother façade. Cloé Ardennes is a pianist too, she's wealthy, talented, and still plays with her stuffed animals. She is cursed with an insane father who rapes her, and a mother who hates her. Charlotte is a young maid with nothing and tries her best, only to be killed because she happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Unsurprisingly things fall apart for everybody very quickly.

Pierre's frustrations with his spoiled, lazy brother boiled over, and he curses Michel out in a heated moment. This drives Michel to murder their Charlotte by accident, and she becomes his curse - he runs out of the house, kills cats, and finds himself in the dilapidated mansion that Cloé inhabits. Cloé by this point is already dead, and so is her dad, her parents, and the maids. Cloé's father may be her curse but she is the curse of this mansion, and it transforms into something hostile until Michel comes along and saves her from the shadow of her father. Michel plays her a requiem, and resolves to go home to confront his crimes - and back to Pierre, who regrets everything he's done. Watching the sun rise with a disappearing Cloé in the True Ending will likely be the last peaceful moment he will ever have in his life.

That's like. Not everything that happens in this game, but this post is already so goddamn long and I still have a lot of other stuff I want to talk about. But the gist of it to me nowadays is that these children are cursed with loveless lives and the whims of the adults that have power over them. In the end, their lives are all ruined. Cloé and Charlotte are dead, and we have no idea what becomes of Michel and Pierre when word gets out that Michel killed a maid and assaulted several others in the house in a fit of emotional instability. In every other ending, Michel is killed and Cloé remains an evil spirit, so really this is the best that anyone ever gets out of this experience.

I remember watching a playthrough of Con Amore on YouTube, but I understood none of it because it was in Japanese, and the game itself was untranslated at the time. It follows the cats Noir and Blanc and basically serves as an addendum to the base game - honestly it made me feel sorry for Charlotte, who was nowhere near as psychotic as Michel thought she was. There's also light novels, but international shipping is expensive and I don't know Japanese so. I'll just never figure out what happens to everyone after the game ends I guess

One of these days, I'll buy the remake on Steam - which exists, and I can't say I recommend it if everything I just listed bothers you in any way. But I can't shake the attachment I feel towards this game no matter how many years it's been, nor how uncomfortable its themes are, so you know - maybe one day. I'll go back to it.

IB

So - following that, I got pretty curious about the other games in this genre of freeware horror. Ib is the one that everyone knows the best, both Markiplier and Pewdiepie played it so you KNOW it gets press, but even in Japan this game was a hell of a hit. To me, it's a simple game that I can finish in an hour, but man what an hour it can be.

If you were to play this game right now after seeing how much press it gets (which I think you should, it's on the Switch now! Go get it!), you MIGHT be a little disappointed. It's nowhere near as gory or disturbing as Cloe's Requiem for one and you know - a bunch of blood and guts and ghosts on the walls does not a good horror game make, but make your choices accordingly. Nah - instead this game's staying power lies in its atmosphere. Like how many games can you say take place inside of an art gallery where most of the pieces try to fucking murder you? I mean there's probably a lot, but something about Ib's almost ambient sense of dread and exploration just kind of sticks in people's brains. Everything's a little scarier when the shapes are so close to being discernable but aren't, and I guess that's the appeal and horror behind Guertena's gallery.

Ib herself is a mute protagonist, pretty typical, but she's also NINE, and the game will let you know that no matter how unfazed she gets or how precocious she can be, she is a child all the same - and children break very easily. I personally love how the game barely has to say anything about how shaken she actually is about her situation, because it will show you how - she has nightmares that you can't escape, she sees herself getting hanged, Garry will need to shake her out of her shock when she sees a picture of her parents in the gallery that should not exist. She loses all of her will to live when she loses Garry to insanity. And speaking of Garry…

There's one standout room in this game and it's the Doll Room. 10/10 would NOT recommend it to anyone who suffers from anxiety because WOW I did not think the RPG Maker 2000 engine could ever have been capable of that. Nobody blames Garry if this room fucks him up. I mean come on the dude has to literally rip open the stomachs of dolls to find a paint ball. Those sound effects make it sound like the dolls are made of skin and flesh and all the while the giant fucking doll is creeping out of the goddamn painting while some of the most anxiety-inducing background noise is playing -

Yeah no I don't know why I ever said you'd be disappointed by this game. Or maybe you still would, this is a low-res game made in 2012. But my god does it TRY to scare you in the best ways it can.

One of the best moments in this game I think is the one where Mary and Ib are alone together, and the conversation gets increasingly unhinged with Mary asking Ib questions non-stop with no background noise other than their steps. At this point, they're separated from Garry, and they're trying to find a way back to each other. Garry meanwhile is slowly piecing together the truth about Mary and how dangerous it is for Ib to remain alone with her, all the while still trying to figure out how to get back to both of them.

The section after that is in the Sketchbook which honestly? The vibes of this place are impeccable. Somehow it's fitting that one of the tensest areas in a game about a fine arts gallery is the place made entirely out of childlike scribbles.

Overall, I'd say the experience is well worth an hour or two - I'd recommend it happily over Cloé's Requiem, if only so you can have a taste of what Horror JRPGs were like before Omori came along. Yes I know that Omori isn't Japanese but it's very much in the same vein as these games.

OTHER GAMES

Those were the safe two that planted my feet firmly into the Horror JRPG fandom, but there's a lot of other titles out there, so let's go - lightning round!

Ao Oni is the ubiquitous one, like chances are you've at least HEARD of it in passing at some point in your life. Like this shit made it to the big screen in Japan, that's how much of a deal it was. I've never played the original myself, but it's partly because its formula of stuck in a mansion with a horror that chases you around is present in pretty much every Horror JRPG after its release in 2007. If you want some classic fun with the big blue demon though then you can't go wrong with the freeware version.

Mad Father and The Witch's House are part of what I like to call the Big 3 of JRPGs starring preteen girls experiencing the Horrors™, mostly because back in the mid-2010's I couldn't go three posts without seeing them all together. Mad Father is the only other one of said Big 3 that I've touched, because I was too coward to touch The Witch's House and Ellen's whole deal remains a mystery to me to this day. I think Mad Father got a remake a couple of years ago, so you can check that out if you want, but keep in mind that these two games in particular might not stoke the same kind of magical staying power that Ib somehow retained years after its release, and I know those two rely on jumpscares a lot more than Ib does.

I'll eat my fedora right here by the way, because one of my cardinal sins of being a Horror JRPG fan is that I've never played Yume Nikki. As far as these freeware games go, this is probably one of the more avant-garde ones - it's artsy, atmospheric, and a game best experienced by getting lost in the strange environments it provides. Out of every game on this post, this is the one I'd describe as the most Earthbound-esque, with its horror lying mostly in the surrealist ambience of just… wandering around in Madotsuki's mind. The end is just as quiet as the beginning, but is no less chilling to watch happen. Then you fuck around a little bit on Youtube and you find out what's actually going on, and uh - yeah that checks out, cosmic horror sounds par for the course at this point.

Yume Nikki and OFF are two of the games I think of when I hear about Horror JRPGs being talked about alongside Undertale - and nope, I haven't played OFF either. That's my other Horror JRPG sin. I was a picky teenager, but I've grown now and wow I need to find a time to play these games in peace. OFF actually isn't even Japanese, it was developed by Mortis Ghost and released in French back in 2008, making both pretty old and already pretty weird in the library. The reason I bring up OFF is because it's one of the older examples I know of that also incorporate Earthbound's precision 4th-wall breaks, and that it's a game about judgment and interrogates the player (more you than the Batter you play as, serving more as a vehicle that the game uses to ask questions through) about the choices they make in the game. OneShot is probably the one game in this genre of indie RPG that I know so far that employs this metaphysical idea of the player existing in the game in any kind of charitable fashion (aside from again, Earthbound and to some extent Mother 3), so between it, OFF, and Undertale they're what I'd refer to as the Interface Screw-RPG Trio.

Some other titles that I like are between the same devs, even some that I haven't really played to completion. Cloé's Requiem for example was made by Buriki Clock, and they've made other titles like Fantasy Maiden's Off Hideout and Trauma Traum - the latter I can't play because it doesn't have an English translation rip. Miwashiba is another dev which I think people who have a taste for light lolita goth-pastel colors would like, because my god the character designs in both Alice Mare and LiEat are peak. Don't even get me started on the fashion of 1BitHeart because everything in that game has such an impeccable aesthetic. I think I saw something at one point about 1BitHeart that like. Might count as a shared joke between Xenoblade fans, but I'd be hard-pressed to give context because again… packed schedule, who dis?

Just to talk about Alice Mare a little more, I've actually played this one - it sports a heavily storybook-inspired cast with some unique tastes on the tales. Most of my actual experiences with Alice Mare were from the English Light Novel, which I do still have! I really recommend it to people who have a couple of hours to spare on some light, relatively bloodless horror. Most of these games have Light Novels, come to think of it - hell Ib even has whole audio dramas, one of which was fanmade in English, and from what I remember of it the voice acting for Mary was PEAK.

One last dev I want to talk about is Segawa. I've saved them for last because their brand of horror is reserved mainly for one game, but their other games Farethere City and Tower of Hanoi are no slouches either. I don't know much about Tower of Hanoi (or if it even has an English translation right now), but Farethere City is a pretty cute experience as far as pseudo-horror games go from what I've heard, which is probably good for us because their other standout game is anything but cute.

END ROLL

Ah, End Roll. The last of the Horror JRPGs I've played before school kicked me even harder in the shins and I had barely any time for it. Out of all the games I mentioned on this list, this is the one with the most staying power in my brain - and also the one that influenced me the most.

So, I don't talk a lot about my original works. Nobody asks, so I don't overshare. But some of the prevalent overarching themes of my personal mythos are those of guilt, self-love, and the burdens of love. All of these themes were lifted directly from End Roll - which is to say, End Roll actually only deals in guilt, my brain just ran buckwild with trying to wrap itself around the logistics behind InfoRuss. One of my main protagonists, Rosso, is a dead-ringer expy of Russell - the same goes for Blanco with the Informant. One of the only ways I can describe Rosso and Blanco's relationship is 'selfcest as a metaphor for the painful coexistence of self-love and self-loathing', and how this relationship reached this point was largely thanks to the Informant and his role in Russell's dream.

I don't really know why I've come to associate the idea of self-love with guilt, because that's like. Not what the game is trying to do. The game's express purpose is to tell you the story of a boy who comes to love his victims and self-destructs under the crushing guilt that he carries from killing them. By some weird hand, I've fixated on the Informant and his determination in seeing that mission of the game through - AND his secret boss fight. Actually, I should. Go ahead and describe the build-up to his secret boss fight

You can only access it if you've purchased the optional villa, and if I recall correctly you can only fight him on the last day of the dream. The locked shed next to the villa is revealed to be a library of some kind called the Graveyard of Books and like - sure enough, there's books of every kind just torn apart and scattered about everywhere. The reason for all of this is because of the Informant's jealousy. He is created specifically so he can provide Russell with the necessary information to complete the Happy Dream Experiment, and in this regard he thinks Russell doesn't need anyone other source of information than him. So he does away with the useless other books, except for the strategy guides because that's the only kind of book Russell likes - and thus, the only kind of book that the Informant likes. Notes are scattered in the hallway leading up into his boss room, with the last one sticking out in my mind to this day:

'He thinks he's the most important thing to you.'

Which. I don't know why that line is so important to me. Whether it be because it awakened something weird in me, or because I myself was dealing with my self-loathing in a VERY complicated manner at the time, that line has gone on to dictate the way that I write about my characters even to this day.

It's such a visceral depiction of self-inflicted brutality. Russell Seager is a 14 year-old serial killer who grew up loveless and abused, and has no shortage of things that make every waking moment of his life fucked up. He killed people - some who just happened to be wherever he was at the time, some willingly by his hand - could not feel guilt about any of it, and when he lost Yumi to his drunken father while his nymphomaniac mother watched he snapped and killed both his tormentors. He then turned himself in to the police, a teen on death row. Happy Dream is him discovering guilt through dream versions of the people he killed. Happy Dream is what allows him to manifest the newfound emotions he felt through interacting with the kinds of people that his victims COULD have been. The world he creates morphs into the self-inflicted hell that is his guilt.

Russell has no happy ending, his guilt won't allow him that. Everything around him becomes a reminder of the lives he's destroyed, and how much of a living hell his own life was. Through feeling happiness and love from these fabricated visages of the people he killed, he learned guilt. It's such a weird exercise in sympathy, knowing that you're playing as this remorseless kid going through rehabilitation through extreme means. It either doesn't work, and he's deemed a failure - or it does, and he commits suicide either by confessing his crimes to one of his victims and stabbing himself to death with a syringe, or he stays in the deteriorating dream, never to wake up again.

At some point it honestly just turns into misery porn, if you look at it from a certain angle - this game is set on having Russell die no matter what. I couldn't tell you what EXACTLY it is about this experience was so impactful that it would go on to influence the way I want to spend my life - that is, I want to make games exploring these kinds of themes. Guilt. Sins. If loveless lives can be redeemed and made better. By the time the last day in the game rolls around, it's just a matter of giving Russell closure over his miserable life and choosing for him what his last freedom is going to be.

I think one of the reasons I like thinking about the Informant with regards to Russell is the scene that happens if you choose to go through with the first True Ending. Russell never really much liked the Informant, and the feeling is mutual. Russell is cold to him, and the Informant takes every opportunity he can to rub all of Russell's sins in his face - and that's his job, he represents the fundamental, uncomfortable truths of Happy Dream. If Russell chooses not to leave the dream, he is resigned to its destruction and waits for the inevitable along with the other denizens of Nameless Town. But if Russell chooses to get out of the dream, the Informant returns to Russell in tears, happy that he can finally be back to being a part of him - to this game, it's the ultimate acceptance. Russell then goes on to confess his crimes and the reality of the dream to one of the citizens, and he wakes up when they kill him in tearful retribution by his request.

He grabs the syringe next to his bed, and stabs himself to death, unable to handle the guilt. That's how the game always ends for me. The Informant succeeded, Happy Dream succeeded - and Russell chose to die as person who could finally feel remorse.

It's a regretful story with themes that really shouldn't be replicated in any fashion in real life, but somehow I found it fascinating in the way it explores the facets of the self. It makes me want to ask more questions and explore that angle of self-reflection to the furthest extremes that I can conceivably reach, and I guess that's one of the many reasons why I respect it so much.

SO… WHAT NOW.

Nah, that's kind of it. Like, OF COURSE this isn't all I have to say about the games that I mentioned, but wow this post is so long and I was just pining for the days of a couple of years ago. These games were present for the most transformative years of my life, and uh - whether or not that was actually a good thing remains to be seen, but I'll always be grateful for their presence in the void that I call my gaming experiences.

Horror JRPGs will always have a special place in my heart for how they tell their stories. Nowadays, I've developed more of a taste for fantastical RPGs that prefer to hide their horror in the margins of the narrative, fridging the terror for when the player wants to step back a bit and think about the implications of certain events in the greater world. Undertale, OneShot, and the Octopath Traveler games all tick that box for me - and all of those games are ones I hold dear. Like I'll probably ramble about OneShot some other day, because that's the other game that really changed my life in a way I felt like I can never come back from - but there's just a lot of special things to be said about these neat little self-contained, 6-hour freeware games. For now I'll close this long-ass post out. Happy late Halloween I guess - the M&Ms in our fridge have never tasted better.

[mar64ds]

Hello! Apologies if this question is phrased weirdly— I'm not a gamer.

When you release friendship test in January, what OSes will it be compatible with. Windows, Mac, Linux oses...? I *will* find a way to play it And maybe blog about it, but I'd like to know in advance what you have planned so I may prepare.

Also, I'm so excited for the release! I know I'm going to love it!!! I hope you're proud of what you've accomplished so far, 'cus it's truly AWESOME!

That's all, have a nice day!

Windows is the one that I'm working on, a friend if mine owns a Mac and we tried to make the game run there but for some reason it wasn't working. I looked online and apparently Macs tend to have problems with rpg maker, there are ways to make it work but it's a little complicated and something the player would have to figure out themself, from what I saw it's not something I can fix for them myself, although if i'm wrong I would love to know

I can always release versions of Linux and others, but unfortunetly those wouldn't be playtested. Windows is the only one that I can make sure it 100% works

However, because of this and for accesibility stuff, I was planning on releasing a full playthrough on youtube when I release the demo. So if you can't play the game for whatever reason, you can just watch the game on youtube. There are a couple of secrets that I won't show in the playthrough, to let the players figure them out, but the overall main plot will be shown

Also thank you so much! I'm happy you're excited about my little game!

[alpaca-clouds]

Remembering Digimon Alpha Generation

(Commission done by mel0dy)

Given it is still Digimon month, I cannot help but be kinda nostalgic about the fandom. Because, again, it was my longest hyperfixation. I had other hyperfixations, yes, but not a single one lasted me as long as Digimon did.

And I just wanna ramble about my Digimon fanseries that I wrote back then.

The year was 2006 when I created a goggle boy named Yuki Denrei for what was originally meant to be an RPG maker fangame, on which I was writing. But the team around that fangame kinda broke apart so by 2008 I was kinda like: "Hey, maybe I gotta make something else with this character." And then: "Hey, doesn't it kinda suck, that Digimon Tamers never got a sequel?"

So I sat down and started writing on my own sequel for Digimon Tamers. It was called Digimon Alpha Generation. The idea at the time came from the fact that we did have the Card Game Alpha (that did not last quite that long) happening at the time. And so I just made the hook that the main characters here were using Digivices to scan the Card Game Alpha Cards, rather than those of the original card game.

Now, my own writing back then was still kinda a mess, but the story went something like this:

The year is 2008, when rebellious teenager Yuki Denrei gets a mysterious invite to a card game fight. The girl who had challenged him is a weird one, though. As they talk she wants to find out which is the card he trusts over all others. And when he is unable to give a proper answer, she summons a Digimon on him. A real Digimon! The only reason Denrei survives this encounter is, that suddenly a card from his deck materializes into Dracomon. Soon enough, Denrei finds out that there are other Digimon Tamers around. Teenagers like him, who have Digimon partners. But again and again that mysterious girl keeps showing up, challenging and the other tamers into fights...

Again, my writing back then was messy as fuck. It took me years to complete the story (that ended up with about 250k words) and I did not have a concrete plan where I was going with it the entire time.

All I knew at the beginning was, that I wanted to have the demon lords as antagonists and wanted to have a more international story happening. Which is why the entire middle arc has the tamers world travelling.

It was an interesting experience as a writer, though.

I knew from the very beginning, that the main trio for this story was gonna be Denrei, a lone wolf character named Shoji, and a now 14yo Shiuchon. Due to Shiuchon having her partner from the very beginning, she is in fact the first one out of this trio reaching the Ultimate level (in the half-way final).

But it was interesting as given I had only rough ideas plotted out, I could kinda react to what the readers at the time were thinking. For example, the peopled fucking adored Shoji (he ended up as the fan favorite character out of all the Digimon Tamers stuff I wrote), so I gave him more scenes. And folks started shipping Denrei and Shiuchon, so I gave the two of them more scenes together and had them end up together in a later story.

I personally loved Denrei, because man I wrote a lot of my parent related anger issues into this character. But I also had so much fun writing Shiuchon in this as a type of character we really never quite got in Digimon. A female, very straight forward character who just says it as it is. And also... is kinda flirty with everyone. xD

At times I still wanna translate the story into English. But then again: 250k - and the sequel story has anther 250k. So a total of 500k - and that is without all the side stories.

And again, it was kinda a mess. So the temptation would be there to rather do a rewrite of Alpha Generation. I don't know. Just thinking.

Might talk about the sequel, too, in the coming days.

(Commission artwork by mel0dy.)

[fioras-resolve]

hihihi!!! I’m going over your work and it looks really awesome and cool!!! I noticed you use SRPG for your development—how do you like it??? I’m not familiar with the software and I’m curious as to how effective you find it to be :D

it's really good if you're willing to meet it where it's at. srpg studio is designed to make a very specific kind of srpg (see shouzou kaga's work) and if your tastes are more modern than that it can seem inflexible. fortunately there's plenty of community coders who've made plugins to add in a ton of cool stuff (i'm working with one of them on believer) so you don't have to limit yourself. but personally i've found it really productive to try to familiarize myself with the system, know its limitations and what it Wants me to do, because i don't really want to spend most of my game development time fighting the engine.

in general i really value srpg studio because it lets me make the srpg of my dreams without having to worry about code too much, but that is biased by me being a game designer who likes getting in the weeds with this stuff. there are some pretty big limitations to it that you should know about though. the default assets completely lack the option to make characters of color, so you'll need to rely on custom art for that. srpg studio games only really run on windows, so you lose a pretty substantial audience. the user interface sucks ass, the english version was machine translated and in general it's not amazing to navigate.

you gotta really love srpg's to enjoy srpg studio. it's not like rpg maker where a lot of the most popular stuff from it aren't even rpg's. this is an engine for game designers who *want* to make a tactical rpg. personally, i have never felt more at home with a game engine. but i'm in good company

[charonarp]

Fangame Inquiry

So...I've been trying to do some research into the logistics and legality of fangames and what is and isn't allowed, but I'm so confused because none of the examples share what I'm trying to do and doesn't help me know if what I want to do is okay or not...so...I decided to hop on here and see if anyone's able to give me a clear answer if possible.

Recently, I purchased RPG Maker (MV/MZ - got both since they share file sizes and I might like one over the other for different games), and had the idea to make 3 possible fangames: A Legend of Zelda fangame, a Curse of Strahd RPG, and a Thomas Sanders fangame.

I'll be focusing on the first two, since those are connected to large companies. I'm pretty sure I'd be in the green light with my third idea, haha :p

Starting with the Legend of Zelda one (Project Acorn - a temporary name), this is the one I'm the most confused about. With this fangame, I want to make an original story with original characters, which happen to take place in Hyrule and use the races from the game (Hylian, Gerudo, Rito, etc.)

During my research, many have stated that Nintendo is VERY unwelcoming of fangames, but from what I understand, it seems to mostly be due to games that share too much similarity and assets from their games? I plan to make a lot of the game's assets on my own: custom sprites, tiles, portraits, etc., so I don't know where my idea would lie in regards to legality.

I don't plan to call it "Legend of Zelda: ___". The main thing I'm confused about is if it'll be a problem with me using specific locations, temples and races, even if they're original characters and personally constructed. Like Kakariko Village, would I get in trouble if I had this as a location in the storyline? Would I get in trouble for using the word "Hyrule"?

I'm fairly confident that mentioning names of existing characters in the franchise would cause issues, but honestly, I don't plan to have them involved or mentioned at all in it. I genuinely want to make a fully custom story with my own characters in their own timeline/universe, in a time where there is no Hero of Courage, there's no looming threat due to the Triforce of Power or anything related to it.

I plan on making this game entirely free, should it be made. In fact, I plan on making all my fangames free, should I be able to make them long enough to publish. I am just one person after all, with no experience making custom tilesets or sprites or anything (pixel art is not my strong suit, but I'm willing to try). I just have a story in my head I'd love to see in an RPG format, that's all. I also plan to use custom or copyright free music for it as well. Even if I'm no musician, I do wish to learn.

For the second, I can see the Curse of Strahd fangame having some issues, considering the fact that I do have the idea of making an RPG fangame playing a majority of the plot from the campaign into it, but not exactly one-to-one. However, it'd use characters straight from the book, the only custom characters just being the character(s) you play and extras that may share importance to those characters.

This one I'm the most scared of because of this reason. Although I do plan on making the game free (should I be able to make it), I can definitely understand if this one in particular causes problems with wizards. I mean, it would also spoil a lot about the game...I just thought that Curse of Strahd would be a fun game in an RPG format, considering that it's a sandbox adventure that has the same plotline throughout the book, but changes drastically due to the tarot cards.

Now that I think about it, maybe I shouldn't make this game...hmmmm 🤔

Sorry for the long ramble, I'm just genuinely lost. If you tell me to "look it up", I tried. I hate looking up stuff like this because I'll find so many answers and none of them will answer my questions. There's so much information on the internet that I seriously don't know what's true or not by just one post.

Again, I plan to make these free, should I be able to publish them. I personally don't feel comfortable even charging money for anything I'd like to make in regards to games. I'm also pretty sure I'd definitely get in trouble if they costed money to play, lol.

I got inspired to try to make some games again thanks to my 14th re-watch of Markiplier playing the Hearts and Heroes fangame, haha. I tried making games before, but dropped it pretty fast due to being an inexperienced writer and not knowing how to progress at a certain point (I also didn't legally own RPG maker back them either, but that's all gone now lol).

I would probably ask this on Reddit, but I seriously don't understand that website and don't know where I'd even post this, lol. I am also very afraid of that site, so....yeah <_<'

Hope you take care! And remember to HYDRATE :D (Help idk how to tag-)

[emeraldcatears]

Making a Grass Autotile (part 1)

While RPG Maker gives you some tiles to play with, I find that really understanding how they work works best if you also know how to make your own. That and, well, I actually like making custom tiles. It takes a while - especially to make a whole set - but I just lose track of time while doing it and it helps me de-stress.

I won't claim to be good at it, mind you, but this is a learnalong so I'll go ahead and explore my process.

I'm using MS Paint. Yep. The basic art program that comes with Windows. There are a lot of tools in more sophisticated art programs that make this faster or easier, but for the sake of this example I want to show that you don't have to know anything more complicated than Paint to make an autotile that works in RPG Maker.

First I pick some greens since I'm making some grass.

This way I have a consistent set of colors to work with to make the tile. I'm no color expert and I'm sure someone experienced in that area would be better at explaining how to pick a good pallet. I just picked some that I thought looked nice together without being overly saturated.

Since RPG Maker MZ uses 48x48 tiles the next step is to make a square.

And I'm done!

Okay, not really. I could actually make a tile that's just a single color and save the details that make it look like jagged, growing grass for the parts where it borders other tiles if I wanted, though. For a simpler style that might be ideal - this is just the stuff your player walks on after all. It shouldn't look so busy as to be distracting. Variation could be done via decorative tiles like flowers added on top the base grass.

But I'm not leaving it here. I might experiment with a simpler style later but this is a learnalong so I'll make it more interesting.

I like to make an asterisk shape of grass. Here I used the middle green for the shape and highlighted the tips with the lighter greens. I added some dark green under the lower edges as shadows.

I also only made a few in the center of the tile. None of these touch the edges. That's because to make sure it loops nicely...

... I cut the tile in half and move the right side to become the left and vice-versa. If I were to copy this tile and paste it next to itself on either the right or left side, the edges would line up perfectly to recreate the first clumps.

Since I know it repeats horizontally I can fill the middle in with more clumps of grass.

And from there it's a matter of repeating the cut-and-paste process with the top and bottom halves to make a tile that loops vertically.

Huh. That bare patch actually kind of looks like part of the grass has been worn down from foot travel. I'll keep this in mind if I want to make a path like this sometime later.

For now...

More filling up the middle.

I want to do one more switcharoo of the left and right sides to make sure those last bare bits repeat correctly.

And once that last part is nice and clumpy...

I know it loops with itself, but I'll go ahead and place copies of this 48*48 tile next to each other so I have three tiles vertically and two horizontally. If I just wanted this patch on it's own I'd be done, but to make it an autotile I need the arrangement of six.

One last thing...

After letting it sit for a bit I decided the initial greens I picked blended together almost too much. I recolored the tile with a bit more contrast between the light and dark shades.

Again, that can be done in Paint if you'd prefer not using a fancier art program. While the tools available in a more sophisticated program can get the job done in a number of more efficient ways I do want to show that Paint can recolor things too. And I don't mean using the fill bucket on each of the different pixels.

Normally, Color 1 is the color of your brush and Color 2 is the color you erase with. But if you hold down the right mouse button while moving the eraser tool it’ll replace any Color 1 pixels with the second color. In the example above I’ve started replacing the lightest green with my new set’s lightest green.

While I do actually have a complete autotile with just this one tile in a group of six of itself, to really show why this is an autotile and not just, ya know, a tile, I'll have to make something with clear corners.

Join me later for a path.

[talesfromthebacklog]

Random: A gamer’s diary entry for October 2023!

While I finish writing, and playing, my next backlog games I’m excited to add to the wishlist ‘Little Goody Two Shoes’. Which looks like it’s going to be getting a physical release. (Which I won’t be picking this game up until the physical drops. I already know I’ll like it.)

One of my favorite YouTube channels called Nostalook worked on the trailer (and I think the in game cutscenes as well) and their work is stunning as usual. It really captures the 90s anime look. It deeply reminds me of Princess Maker.

Also it’s a shoujo yuri. Female romancable characters only! (And they’re all so ✨ PRETTY ✨) I can’t explain how HAPPY that makes me. I just hope it stays in an innocent direction.

You know, because in majority yuri isn’t made for women. 😐

I get it, but at the same time I feel locked out of the content because it’s so obviously not for me. But that’s a complaint for a different post on a different day! Makes me wonder if men feel the same way about yaoi.

I was very bad this month. There were a lot of physical sales. And then my preorders for new games rolled in. I always prioritize my physical games over my… “digital” games, so those will be in the front of my backlog!

Let’s take a look at what I picked up! (I paid full price for nothing on this list. I am wickedly good at finding deals and coupons. Which upon review I will attempt to pass onto you!):

Traumatarium

Dredge

Omori

FaeFarm

Inescapable

Sonic Superstars

Coffee Talk 2

Moon A Remix RPG

I’m already playing a few of these games, so my reviews on those should be out next week!

I decided to skip this month’s two biggest releases altogether until about next year. I want the GOTY Spider-Man 2 when it comes with all of the DLC for $20. The first one was amazing. I’m just willing to wait on it. Which is a similar story for Mario Wonder. I mostly use the fall season to get all the titles I’ve been wanting for a freaking sick deal. Why should I have to pay full price?

The older I get, the more I feel like I appreciate weird games and indie titles more anyway. I feel like those other projects have the freedom to take more aesthetic risks than the big companies. Not because of the creatives inside (They tend to always have good ideas), but the stockholders. 🙄

I adore some of these triple A titles to my core, but I crave to see more new things too. Different things.

Dave The Diver is a good example. That seems rad. I like ocean games. I like that we get more of them now. I’m gonna wait and see if that one gets a physical as well. You collect fish to go back to your restaurant to make sushi? Sign me up!

Don’t even get me started on Limited Run’s releases this month.

While ‘Persona 4’ and ‘This Way Madness Lies’ are no brainers for me; I was EXTREMELY on the fence about ‘Persona 3 Portable’. (I did pick it up reluctantly)

The remake of Persona 3 will be upon us soon and I don’t know if I’ll want to play P3P again. The problem lies in the fact that most of these games become much more expensive later. Buying it on “launch” from Limited Run usually IS the cheaper option.

That shit annoys me so bad. I don’t like picking up games for value. But because the game might be value I have to be ahead of the scalpers and pay for it at its maybe cheapest.

I collect games because I like ‘em. I want to play them and love them. I want to use my stuff. I don’t give a fuck about the “value”. I respect the folks that do care about that stuff but I plain just don’t.

But that’s also just kinda life. Not much can be done about other people. You can only truly control yourself. 🙄

Overall October has been an exceptionally excellent month for gaming! We’ve had so much good stuff come out this fall season. I’m excited for next month as well! Super Mario RPG will be making its re-debut and I can’t wait to talk about that one!

[kyriey]

intro post

i’m doing some funky stuff to my blog right now, and one of those things is an intro. thought it could be neat.

i made a cut bc i ramble too much whoopsy

it’s pronounced kee ree ayyy btw

hello! my name is sarah (she/her), i’m a 20 year old canadian and i doodle an obscene amount of fanart. its horrifying how many drawings i make in a day. my hands should be falling off but somehow they’re still there. one time i did draw for so long that my pointer finger went numb, however.

as a fair warning, i will fixate on something for a decent amount of time. and because its the ONLY thing on my mind, its likely the ONLY thing ill be drawing LMAO. so i might make a bunch of drawings for one fandom, and then on some glorious sunday, i will find something that tickles my brain chemicals in the right way and do a full 180. so uh... keep that in mind if you choose to follow me lol

with the basics and the mandatory warning outta the way,,, let’s seeeee,,, stuff about me,,,,

- big horror lover. just stuff that makes you go eeUUUGHH (i say horror, but what i mean is visual novels, rpg maker games, and little nightmares lol)

- big bird lover. i have an indian ringneck. his name is oliver and he tries to tear my lip off affectionately whenever i hold him.

- i’ll draw 23 hours a day if i am not stopped by my weak mortal body (and like... school...). if you ask me to draw something, i’ll most likely draw it. i like the challenge and i like the prompts teehee

- idk how to talk to people so i tend to just lurk a lot. i promise im not trying to be rude, thats just how i functionnn (im quite literally socially awkward, unfortunately not in the cute way, and sometimes i’ll come off as either really odd or really rude. i just want to clear that up for the sake of my sanity)

i dont really know what else to say. if i think of anything ill just add it. but tbh this is long enough as it is LMAO