#i have access to the files of the demo and most of the characters have multiple expressions/cut up

[emasakuraba]

nanoka.png

[carawenfiction]

The Shadow Society Remake: Chapter 2 Sneak Peeks

Hello everyone!

This is a little bit of a writing update and a little bit of a sneak peek update. I just posted a playable early access sneak peek of chapter 2 (which also contain the prologue and chapter 1, aka the entirety of the remake so far) on my Patreon for rebel-tier members.

When I first posted the demo, I counted it to be roughly around 35k words, code excluded. I haven't excluded code when counting lately since going through the files and copy-pasting each written section while leaving the code takes a bit of time to do. That being said, the Patreon alpha/beta build is currently around 70k words in total (prologue, chapter 1 and the beginning of chapter 2), mostly with code included.

The chapter 1 included in this early access sneak peek is the old version that was available before I privated it in order to work on it more; once I've made the changes I want, I'll add it to the alpha build and hope to have it publicly available again either now in June or July.

I wanted to post some screenshots here and show you what I've been working on :) <3 the genders of the characters were selected at random.

Please keep in mind that the content and writing shown in these screenshots are part of a WIP and will most likely be updated, edited further and/or change down the line.

[taintedsoul-if]

Welcome to the 5th installment of What to Expect From This Update. Can you believe we’re already at Chapter 4? Soon, my regular updates and demo drops will come to an end—and honestly, I’m almost a little sad. But hey, let’s not waste time. Let’s get right into it.

I’ve heard your cries about broken saves and having to replay the demo from scratch because I keep tinkering with the startup.txt. As many of you know, the demo has gotten pretty massive—so to ease the pain, I’ve added a jump_scene.txt file. For now, this will let you jump straight from the beginning to the first part of Chapter Three.

⚠️Note⚠️: This is still a work in progress, so please don’t expect perfection. It was originally planned for the sixth update... but I’ve been feeling a little idle lately and figured: why not?

If you're aiming to build romance points with T, I highly recommend replaying the demo from scratch. First-time readers should do the same to avoid any confusion with character points and progression.

To those of you choosing to wait for your destined one in the Ada branch: If you're not planning to romance Cadmus, please choose the other virgin option. The current one is connected to Cadmus’s storyline.

To access all available choices in Chapter 4’s opening, avoid selecting options related to your bedroom experience. While you can continue with your previous choices, if specific conditions aren’t met, you’ll be locked out of three other choices in this choice set. And as you all know—I refuse to add filler. 😉

What to Expect From This Update – 30k New Words of Content.

Learn to independently manifest Runic energy.

Finally confront Neosho — throw her out, or have Rallyum torture her for answers. The outcomes of this choice will begin to take effect in future chapters.

Officially begin the Gledir Academy Arc.

There’s something about the boy sitting beside you.

Most importantly, weigh in on two major policies that were put in place by your father. One of these will have a significant impact on Ragriel’s finances. The other will showcase the boy beside you's prowess.

If players aren’t on the romance path with Cadmus, he will fight the MC out of resentment.

What’s Coming in the Next Update?

The next update will focus entirely on the test matches. I know some of you will complain, but not everything should be rushed. Writing fight scenes is a pain in the ass for me — and I want them to be gripping enough to keep you on the edge of your seat.

New dates for each upcoming update will be posted in August for both Patreon and public readers, following the Patreon demo drop on July 21st. Since I’m already here writing this, I’ll go ahead and lump in my progress report too.

🗓️ My Week Ahead

It’ll be a straightforward week for me. I still need to take time off to handle some personal stuff. I’ve been sitting on a whole library of side stories from past lives between Cadmus, Atticus, and the MC, and honestly... I don’t know what to do with them. 😭 Here’s what I’ve got so far:

Military Cadmus × Broken-hearted MC, ft. a best friend who’s obsessively in love with the MC.

Delinquent MC × Hidden-identity Cadmus, who’s dealing with deep-rooted trauma.

“His Touch” — where the MC is forced to return home and ends up meeting a silver hair man their grandfather "adopted"... but that's a lie 👀

Now, I know some of you are probably raising an eyebrow and thinking, “But what about the other ROs? That’s not fair!" I hear you. And yes — I do have side story files for both N and T, if anyone’s curious.

T’s side story is a heterosexual romance

N’s side story is a gay romance (yes, yaoi!) 🌈

✍️ Writing Plans

Over the weekend, I plan to get a head start on the test match scenes. In between that, I’ll be scribbling away at the side stories. Honestly — I think my paid readers would probably prefer more of my actual writing over lore dumps and truth/truth sessions — so in August, I’ll be releasing one side story per month for Patreon supporters. So yeah, my week ahead is kinda boring... but meh, progress is progress.

The side stories I’ll be offering won’t just be extras — they’ll each be treated like mini interactive fictions, which means every side story will get a demo of its own. And no, just because I’m writing side stories doesn’t mean Tainted Souls is being abandoned. My demo and I are here to stay, whether you like it or not.

This demo—I’m finishing it. Even if I’m on my deathbed, I’ll finish it and move on to Arc 2. So please — don’t jump to conclusions. Sometimes, we all just need a break from the intensity of the main story to enjoy a side plot that makes absolutely no damn sense, and that’s okay.

And lastly, I’ve finished my round of edits. All that’s left is for me to run my random tests and then publish the chapter opening on Monday. Looks like my progress report turned out to be just one line, huh? 😂

Tomorrow evening, a poll will be posted where public readers will get a small taste of one of the possible upcoming side stories. Since this is all about side stories, Cadmus will not be excluded — his past life memories with the MC are just as precious as any other RO's. Please vote for the one you’d like to see first.

Important note: All of Cadmus’s side stories will feature his split personality — Cold and aloof by day, warm and gentle by night. These side stories will contain strictly NSFW content 🔞 — no fade-to-black. You’ve been warned.

I’m still considering launching a new tier on Patreon, but nothing’s been decided yet. So while I sort that out, think carefully about what side story you’d like me to write first — and I’ll do my best to fulfill your wishes. May the odds be ever in your favor when the results come in. 😌

I truly hope you all enjoy your weekend and the week ahead. Until next time — take care of yourselves. And I hope my silence on this blog hasn’t bothered you too much. I sometimes forget I need to check in, answer asks, and just talk to you all. So if I’ve been quiet, forgive me.

[sleepy-hart]

So while working through game concepts and deciding what to work on next, I've been refreshing my Godot skills. Wanting to get back into 3D and prepare for doing more narrative heavy games. Made this demo to learn nathanhoad's excellent Dialogue Manager addon and also test drive Kenney's new Godot platformer kit.

I'm really, really enjoying Dialogue Manager so far and feel it has a tonne of potential. Think it covers a lot of things I've been looking for:

Direct engine integration is super useful, as well as using custom resources to store dialogue. They're also text files so can still use external editor to update

Straightforward syntax, reminds me a lot of ink and yarn. As well it's named node approach feels familiar

Able to access global game variables for conditionals, and having conditional based loops and choices is very straightforward

Also able to call methods directly within dialogue, which is super powerful when combined with signals (showing/hiding coin UI mid conversation, playing sound effect)

Lots of options for random dialogue choices - just used the single line ones for now but in docs have seen they also have option for setting custom probabilities, just ncie to add more flavour

Hyped it has a built in approach for translations (create IDs and reference CSVs) that looks like integrates with Godot's localisation tools - a bit of a future thought but glad it has stuff to help built in

Docs you can mention you can create dialogue resources at runtime. Can imagine this being very useful - an example would be creating a record of all lines seen to replicate Ren-py's "log" feature.

The methods for displaying dialogue are super flexible. At the moment just used their example balloons but looks like it should play nicely to let you build custom GUI - and maybe even multiple forms (e.g. dialogue scenes vs flavour barks in main game world). Think next experiments will focus on this.

There's a few more things I'm keen to learn and see if they're feasible with this - "disabled" choices that still appear but can't be accessed would be nice, also looking at how you can integrate this with an audio system for voice acting - I think they have an example that includes voice acting?

Only thing I'm a bit nervous of is it looks like it can only grab variables from autoload/global scripts, so when putting into actual game will need to take care with save systems and methods for loading choice variables into a choice master global so we aren't keeping too much in memory at once. But if I'm wrong on this assumption, or others have approaches, more than happy to be corrected on this!

Also really enjoying Kenney's 3D platformer kit and it's been fun and . Making the shopkeeper bot was super simple. All the details on the original character model are modelled so just adjusted the face and for changing colours just had to move UV islands for limbs and face to different parts of the pallete textures.

Haven't tried this technique for modelling and texturing before but seen it crop up a few times so will definitely experiment with this in the future. Also might help with optimization - I think most of the materials in the pack refer to this single image texture? By default the pack only has the model glbs and a single colormap png so assuming that's how it's working.

Original plan was to fill in the shop with another pack so there's a few little platform challenges within this, but they all needed collisions adding so might add that in future. But main aim was focusing on the dialogue and think we've got a good approch going forward, and highly recommend the add on for other Godot devs making narrative games!

[graysontailor]

PANOPTICON

What is PANOPTICON?

PANOPTICON is an interactive fiction project about isolation, observation, perception, technology, and leaving dirty dishes in your sink. Unlike more traditional IF games on tumblr, there is no character creation and no romance. Observe the world from your room, speak with others through the terminals, and see if you can save them- or yourself.

PANOPTICON is a writing-experiment-turned-project that exists within the scope of a larger project of mine nicknamed Dreamscape. You might get some discussion of Dreamscape here too! You can play the current demo HERE*. The most recent update post can be found HERE.

PLEASE READ: PANOPTICON and all related content deals heavily with ideas of unreality vs. reality and altered perception. Due to file inaccessibility, the current demo does not have a content warning, but unreality is the only potentially triggering content in the demo.

Who writes PANOPTICON?

My name is Grayson, but you can call me Gray! My pronouns are they/she. I'm 21. I am the creative mind behind PANOPTICON. I've been around the block a few times as part of the IF community, but this is my first serious attempt at a game. I created this blog to help track my progress, keep me motivated, and hopefully find new friends in the IF community.

When will PANOPTICON be ready for release?

Who knows! You can check my other post for a more in-depth development timeline. The general summary is that the first draft of PANOPTICON will be created in ChoiceScript, for the ease of my own access. I hope to have this done by the end of 2023. After a few rounds of editing, I hope to re-create the final product in Twine. Ideally, the finished project should be available on Itch.io. I don't know when that will be, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoy the content you can find here!

You can find the full PANOPTICON proposed timeline HERE.

READY TO HOP IN?

PLAY THE DEMO || SEE THE LATEST UPDATE || LEARN MORE ABOUT THE GAME || CHECK OUT THE FAQ || ASK ME A QUESTION

[hee-blee-art]

tumblr user hee-blee i am trying to make a visual novel WHAT is the process like where do i start lol!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

hello anon, I am very happy to talk about this!! story-based games are a big interest of mine and while I am by no means an expert I do have some experience (I currently have four story-based games in the works and one demo out on itch.io) so I can offer a bit of advice based on my experience so far.

I think the very first thing would be to research visual novel/interactive story game-making programs. there are a variety of different ones out there, and going through tutorials for your program of choice will give you the best idea on what you'll have to do to put your novel/game together. I've been putting all my games together in the ren'py visual novel engine, which I have found to be fairly accessible and intuitive once you get the hang of it. there are lots of tutotials and videos and forums to learn from and ask questions in available, and the ren'py creator community seems very nice and helpful especially towards beginners.

regardless of your program, there are a few basic things that you can do to get started: 1) planning out your story (or stories if you have multiple paths; I personally find it helpful to have a document with all the story paths written out before I start coding to help keep myself organized, and to have a collection of character sheets on hand for the main cast, as characters are the most important part of visual novels/interactive stories), and 2) making sprite libraries and backgrounds (collections of images of your characters with different poses/expressions and the various settings for your stories. the basic setup for visual novels is sprites on backgrounds with dialogue/text, and you can definitely make a lovely visual novel using just those things. you can add in a ton of other elements if you want--there are lots of ways to get creative with visual novel/interactive story engines--but it's easier to keep things simple your first time around to avoid overwhleming yourself.

I'd also suggest checking out other visual novels for inspiration (itch.io is a great place to find free indie story-based games and visual novels), and taking a while to go through google and youtube to learn about how other people make their visual novels--the more perspectives you get, the more tips and tricks you'll learn.

some general pointers I have for people starting out with making visual novels/interactive story games:

- back up your code often! I copy and paste mine into a google doc every so often to make sure I have a back up of it just in case something happens to my active script, and for good measure I also copy my wip game files over to an external hard drive every once in a while just in case.

- don't worry about stylistic elements (title screens, menus, user interfaces, decorative flourishes, etc) until closer to the end of your coding process. I find it a lot easier that way as opposed to trying to tend to both the game script and the stylistic elements at once. if you'd prefer, the same benefit could come from handling all the stylistic elements first right out of the gate, but I would reccomend especially for you first time to leave styling your game until the end.

- don't let stubborn errors get you down! coding--even relatively simple coding like that used in engines like ren'py--is a lot of trial and error (at least for me), and you'll have to go back a lot to search for and correct little coding errors to get everything to work right. it can definitely be frustrating, but it gets easier the more you do it, and if you get stuck a quick google search will usually get you to a forum post with a solution (and if it doesn't, you can always post in a forum yourself to ask for help).

I hope that helps a bit! I'm very heartened to encounter someone interested in making visual novels--I think they're a wonderful and super versatile storytelling form and I would encourage anyone interested in making one to take a crack at it.

if you have any specific questions or just want to talk about the process or your stories, I would be more than happy to hear about them, so feel free to dm me (invitation open to anyone interested in visual novels/interactive story-based games!) best of luck, I hope to be able to experience your visual novel(s) some day!

[mage-parivir]

Recruiting Beta Testers!

Hello! Now that the game is starting to get into a more advanced stage of its development, I’m looking to expand my beta testing team. :D Please read on if you would like to help test and edit the game!

Benefits I’m offering beta testers:

For obvious reasons, beta testers will gain access to new updates roughly 3-5 days before it is released to anyone else.

Access to an exclusive channel in the AMR discord where I post WIPs of the game’s art assets as I receive them, and sometimes blabber about plots and plans I have for upcoming updates.

Special merch that will be mailed to your doorstep sometime after Book I’s release, with my compliments!

Details under the cut. :D

What I’m looking for from beta testers is feedback on the build before it goes out to patrons. In descending order of priority (though all are important):

Game-breaking bugs (most of which should be cleared via Quicktest, but just in case!)

Continuity errors (i.e. pronouns, the game showing you a limp-exclusive passage when your injury is something different, mentions of Nyx when your phantasma is Satiel; you get the idea)

Misdirection (a *goto-*label error, which makes the text repeat/look disjointed)

Sensitivity reading (Am I portraying discrimination insensitively? Am I propagating harmful stereotypes? etc.)

Grammar & spelling issues

High-level feedback (plot, pacing, character development, dialogue). Ex: 'I was confused how everyone found out about the mage's innocence', 'I found x character unsympathetic and unlikeable because x y z, I think it would improve their character if they a b c'

Choice suggestions ('I wanted to say x at y scene, but the option wasn't available)

Weird stat adds ('I thought this option would add +Emotional, but instead I got +Charming)

Writing style and diction

As a general rule, I welcome any and all actionable and elaborated feedback, no matter the nature. It just so happens that I won't act on them all the time, either because I don't agree with the feedback, or most likely because there are time/energy constraints.

If you are interested in applying, please note that:

You will be expected to submit beta testing reports on a regular, per-release basis. Beta testers who do not submit their reports on two builds without prior notice ahead of time will lose their beta tester status*.

You must have a discord account, or agree to set one up.

You must be willing to submit your feedback in the required format, via Google Sheets, with the following template (which will be made available to you upon becoming a beta tester):

(Filling out the file and line fields is optional, but appreciated. Special thanks to the amazing @devilbydaylight for coming up with this format!)

This should go without saying, but please keep exclusive information (like the beta build’s contents and stuff in the private beta testing channel) to yourself.

*At each beta-test build release, I will denote a 'deadline of feedback submission' in the build's opening screen. This is not a hard deadline, and submissions beyond that point are still useful! It just signifies the time I'd need the feedback to be received by in order for it to be implemented in the Patreon build. It is most likely a couple of days after the beta release, and one day before the Patreon demo release.

Application:

I am receiving applications via email, at amagereborn@gmail.com. If you wish to apply, please send me an email, with details as follows:

***

EMAIL SUBJECT: AMR Beta Tester Application - [Where You Found This Post (Tumblr / COG Forums)] - [Tumblr / Forum Username]

Paste this form into the email’s body:

What you would like me to address you as:

Pronouns:

Please list or mention, if any: writing and/or programming experience, your relevant experience in beta-testing other choice games, Choicescript familiarity, writing/programming your own IFs, and any other information you think may be relevant to your aptitude as a beta-tester.

Please list or mention, if you are comfortable disclosing it: your nationality, age (just major/minor is fine too), minority groups you belong to/identify as (for sensitivity reading purposes). It is okay to leave this field blank--your application will still be processed.

***

I already have four incredible beta testers working with me at the moment, and am presently looking for an additional four-five people, to prevent myself from getting overwhelmed. Deadline for application is 21st of April, 2021, at 11.59 GMT +7.

Thank you very much for your interest!

[gb-patch]

Ask Answers: December 11th, 2020

How old are terri, miranda, lee, shiloh and jeremy? Are they all the same age as the mc?

Step 1: MC is 8 and Shiloh is 7

Step 2: MC and Lee are 13 and Jeremy is 12

Step 3: MC, Lee, and Terri are 18, Miranda is 19 (though she just barely turned that age)

How many different personalities are there for Jamie? Does picking one color of dialogue option mark down the personality or is it the choices and actions themselves?

There’s not really any set amount of personalities. You can mix and match traits in different ways and different levels, it’s really up to you. The colored options just give an idea of the tone of what you’re doing (whether it’s serious or more lighthearted or more emotional, that sort of thing).

Hey! Sorry to bother, but I was just curious. Why does MC and Cove react the way they do in the errands moment? It just sorta seems like they overreacted to being left alone in the farmers market. 

I’m a little confused on what you mean. You can choose not to care or to have a good time, your MC doesn’t have to be upset. There are more choices that lead to upset feelings, but that’s because there’s really only one way to say you’re really okay and multiple ways to feel upset (sad, angry, scared, etc). And if someone is upset, there’s nothing wrong with that. Feeling fine is okay too.

As for Cove, he’s just like that. Cove is a sensitive guy and he is especially bothered by parents pulling stunts without talking to their kid ahead of time. If you wanna annoy Cove, that exact thing they did is one of the fastest ways to do it, ahah. And he’s not gonna let it slide just because it was the MC’s parents doing it to them rather than one of his own parents doing it to him.

so if I were to become a one time patreon pledger, would I still have access to the things from that tier after the month is over (such as 18+ pics or access to a demo/beta)?

If you join Patreon for one month you’ll get everything released that month and have access to all our past posts, and you can save the stuff to your own computer to keep it forever. But you won’t get access to things that come out after your subscription has ended. So if you want to join for a specific piece of content, just make sure you wait until that content has already come out and then subscribe.

Why did Noelani and Pamela decide to adopt within the USA when they had previously adopted abroad?

Because we wanted to highlight more than one type of adoption. Both are valid.

At what age was MC adopted in our life?

Only around a year old, but it’s flexible based on what the player wants for their story.

If Pamela is estranged from her family and Noelani doesn't really talk to her's, where did Lee come from? 

Lee is a backer created character, she wasn’t originally part of the cast. Because our main supporter wanted her to be related to the MC’s family, we gave Pam one sibling she still talks to and that sibling has a daughter, Lee. The game was still in pretty early development way back then when we first mentioned the family situation. It’s just kind of inevitable that during the game making process some things ended up changing, aha.

In the relationship DLC’s for Derek and Baxter will there be options for polyamory to include Cove?

I’m afraid not. The way Our Life: Beginnings & Always works doesn’t support developing a poly relationship well, it’d very quickly build up too many alterations to manage. But we do hope to feature polyamory options in future games.

Will it be possible to confess to Cove (or vice versa) in Step 4, if it hasn't been done already? 

Yeah!

are you going to put the credits song on youtube or spotify? i really like it and want to play it for my friends 🙏🥺 ty 

I’m so glad you like it! We have rights to use the song in our game and for our game to be the only game it’s ever used in, but the rights to sell/upload the song belong to the actual creators of the music. We’re happy to let them decide where they’re comfortable posting the track.

Quick question, do you plan on continuing to use MC we can custom? I liked all your games but being able to customize Our Life's MC was awesome 

I can’t say if every game we ever make from now on will have a super customizable MC, but we are planning other projects with that feature. Our Life: Beginnings & Always won’t be the only one.  It’s nice to hear you appreciated the effort to add that.

Can I just express my disappointment that you only get a 'makeout session' in Step 3 if your MC is outgoing? My shy MCs miss out on grabbing the Cove booty... xP

Whether or not you can make out with Cove and how intense it can get depends on how long you’ve been a couple. If your shy MC takes longer to get with Cove, he’ll need more time before he’s ready to do that sort of stuff. And if your confident MC has been with him for years already, then he’s at a point where he can go that far with them. I’m afraid patience is required when it comes to romancing that boy, haha. 

If we played in 1.0 and we updates to 1.1 do we have to start over? Or do save files transfer? I hit the "ignore" not sure if I should have for the game to work properly 

1.0 save files should work with version 1.1. If you’re getting error reports can you send us more details about what the error is saying?

Bug report: At the end of the 'Mall' DLC moment in Step 2, there's a point where Cove says the MC's name, but it's said in his Step 1 voice instead of his Step 2 voice. I don't know if it happens with ALL names, but it happened with my most recent game using the name Devin.

As a follow-up to my earlier bug report about the voiced names (or at least Devin) in the Mall moment, I had the same issue in the Soiree moment as well (with the same name - again, it might just be that one).

Thank you for the report! Can you let me know when you downloaded the DLC files? I think that should be fixed in the most recent version of them.

Dear gb-patch, I'm one of the OL Kickstarter backers (and I had and still have a great time with your updates, it's great to see the project grow and you are great in communicating with your fans 💕).

I want to wait until all steps are complete until I play, I know I'll enjoy it even more if I can experience it all together. Because of that I didn't open the game myself but I just saw your post with the screenshot of the voiced names and noticed that the name that I submitted to you isn't on the list. The name is Mai (or May), will it be available later?

Thank you for supporting us! Mai is one of the names that we’re still working on. It accidentally had a tone missed.

And thank you for all of these asks <3

—————————————————————— We released a new FAQ! It answers common questions and we’ll keep adding more to it. Please check there before sending an ask. FAQ   Also, if you prefer to just see the main posts without all the asks/reblogs, feel free to follow our side account instead: GB Patch Updates Blog

[yanderesleuth]

Yandere Simulator - A Sleuth's Blunt and Honest Review

Hello everyone! The sleuth is back and she is ready to give you her blunt and honest review of Yandere Simulator. I’ve been wanting to do this for SO long but I simply did not have a computer strong enough to do a fair and accurate review. Recently, I was able to get a decent laptop and the demo installed fairly quickly – perhaps 8 to 10 minutes.

To those who may be new to this blog, I started following the development in 2015/2016(?) when I first saw a gameplay by Markiplier, and I am one of many that has watched Yandere Simulator transform from bare-bones to this STUNNING atmosphere with tons of different gameplay options. I am so proud of how far this game has come, and I appreciate YandereDev and his volunteers for busting their asses every day and sticking with the development. I will be going through what is likely common knowledge, but I’m rather late to the game and I apologize.

The main menu is unique! I’m not the most knowledgeable gamer out there, but I have never seen one quite like this before. Pressing start creates a rather fast zoom towards Ayano, who is holding a love letter behind her back. After you defeat your rival, you can see a visual of the specific method you used in the background. (ie. Osana’s bloody body hanging out of the fan; I don’t want to provide a screen shot of this, so just pretend.) Last I heard, not every elimination had a specific visual yet, but I’m not sure if this is still true or not. The menu is very easy to read, and you are currently allowed three different game files. You are unable to use the easter eggs/debug cheats until you have eliminated your rival once, which is a nice touch.

The introduction cutscene is quite compelling and it grabs your attention easily. I noticed that the large flash of various images are now in a photograph format and gradually piles up in the middle of the screen (if that makes sense); I feel that the previous format, image after image, was a bit more thrilling. Though, I appreciate the current look, as it hints that you will be taking pictures in the game, at one point or another.

One question I have: It’s canon that Ryoba kidnapped Ayano’s father and tied him to a chair in her basement (as told by the basement tape.) Yet in the cutscene, it shows them under the cherry tree, holding hands. Is this simply a daydream of Ayano’s? Is she truly aware of how her parents got together?

The game runs VERY smooth overall; it is a little choppy in spots, but the performance is much better from what I remember. Out of force of habit, I adjusted my settings anyway; I’m personally not a fan of the outlines on each character. I’m not sure why; it’s just a preference for me. For the sake of this review, I chose an elimination method that I have never tried before: Expel. I believe that choosing a method that I’m well-rehearsed in would not make this a very fair review, and it would not represent the challenges in the game.

The current small town holds a variety of shops – hardware, games, lingerie, and even a small restaurant to earn money. (I’ve played it in the past and it’s pretty fun.) It has a lovely ambience to it, with perky music in the background and several familiar faces roaming the street. Despite being unable to adjust my settings or access my phone in general, the town still runs great on my new laptop. You are automatically given $10 at the beginning of the game, and I chose to buy the stealthy black underwear, to limit students’ range of sight.

I’m thrilled to learn that there are more ways to receive points for Info-Chan’s services. The bug mechanic is genius and is a lot more convenient for players. With this feature, you can receive fifty points per day. And for any other extra points you may need, you can ‘sneak’ panty shots.

The first (minor) complaint I have is the controls for taking photos. When you have a laptop with no actual buttons, and no mouse, it’s impossible to do so. I had to take my mouse from my Yamcha PC in order to take the lewd pictures on Osana’s phone, and for the vandalism of the vending machine. Aside from this, the expel method is very interesting, and I admit that I was a bit scared stealing the answer sheet. I had gotten caught once because I placed the radio too close to the door, but I was able to go back and successfully steal the sheet.

The second, not-so-small complaint I have is regarding the ring theft from Sakyu Basu. I had the WORST time stealing it! I learned rather quickly that for whatever reason, I could not distract Sakyu. I could not interact with her at all. She just sat there, eating lunch. I tried bang snaps, simply sneaking up on her to grab the ring, and even joining the drama club for a mask with the intention of just grabbing it and running. Each time, I would get the ‘don’t touch that’ dialogue and never got a chance to take it again. Out of frustration, I tried stealing it while INKYU was distracted and it worked!

The third and the biggest complaint is SNAP mode; I have been anticipating this for years. First, I will say that this feature is absolutely terrifying, and the concept is everything I imagined and more. Ayano finally loses her sanity, to the point of no return and you are free to eliminate anyone and everyone in your path, within a time limit. The objective of snap mode is to obtain a knife and kill Senpai, since he has discovered your true nature and he will never love you.

Unfortunately, SNAP mode hardly worked for me and I eventually had to close out of the game. I got the game over on the roof top at lunch time, and I got the command to find the knife. I would venture through the school to try to do so, and would press the space bar to transport a little further, but I would get static and teleport to the same exact spot I was at on the roof! I learned that eliminating students in my path would buy me time to search further into the school, but eventually, I ran out of students and I was stuck on the roof.

But… I have faith that the ring bug and the snap mode bug will be fixed.

After Osana’s expulsion, I admit that I am rather intrigued by this method and may actually use it in the final product. Senpai’s sanity will be playing a major part in the game, and it will be very interesting to see when it is fully implemented.

The first of three ending cutscenes introduced Amai Odayaka. She is absolutely precious and I cannot wait to learn more about her when her week arrives! I almost had her eliminated during the Amai challenge, but I messed up and had to end the game for the night.

The newest adjustment to the students’ models are just beautiful. Have a look at Kokona Haruka!

Overall, this game is rich in lore and plot twists, and plenty to speculate on. There is SO MUCH to do in Yandere Simulator! I feel that this game has a lot of potential and I look forwards to its release, whenever that may be. Unfortunately, the pandemic has slowed a lot of things down, including the upcoming crowdfunding campaign. This is a fantastic demo to check out if you have not already. I’m planning on going back in and finishing the Amai challenge, experimenting with mission mode and pose mode.

Sound off: Which is your favorite elimination method so far?

-Sleuth

Download Yandere Simulator's Demo Here

[megashadowdragon]

Joker & Japanese Sociocultural Issues (Persona 5 Analysis)

comments on youtube

I've already seen other comments talking about Ace Attorney, but it's highly recommended if you want more satire of Japan's justice system. One thing I'll add is it really relates to what you said about defense attorneys in Japan: the idea of Phoenix Wright as the loveable underdog hero comes across as weird to some westerners, who are used to defence lawyers being demonized. In Japanese fiction, it's more common for prosecutors and judges to be demonized, and... it should be obvious why from the subject matter of this video. The fact that all the playable lawyers in the series get basically no respect in both the court and daily live seems pretty accurate too. (The one time Edgeworth takes over as defense, he's so surprised at the drastic change in attitude that he wonders if there's a giant "kick me" sign attached to the defense's bench)

13:37 Not only that, he's willing to go out of his way to get arrested again and endure all that once more, just as part of their plan.

I think the term "Enzai" showed up in Ace Attorney, pretty late into the series. In Dual Destinies someone has a plush rhino that comes from a compaign against it. It got localized as "Bum Rap Rhiny", but from playing the Japanese demo I think the equivalent phrase was "Enzai yamate kudaSAI" (it being a rhino is a pun of "sai" meaning rhinoceros)

The whole issue with Maruki's reality I think also relates to abuse victims and those who've suffered tragedy. Maruki wants to help by making it so those traumatic experiences never happened. It's true that what happened to all these people was awful and shouldn't have happened, but I feel Joker and thw Thieves' position is that pretending it never happened would be an insult to all the growth and strength they've shown in moving past their hardships.

Here I thought Akechi's "99% Conviction rate" comment was an exaggeration. Man, this video put Sae's palace into perspective for me.

Loved the video Lady, I was looking forward to it and I was most definitely not disappointed!

On the game side of things, Joker is one of those characters that shows subtle consideration for the Player and Character dissonance. In many RPG's the writers will either try to give the protagonist a full character and personality without taking the actions of the Player into account or vice versa, making them a blank slate with no interesting character traits in order for the role-play aspect to be front and center. While either extreme does work for certain games, I've found a lot of other games try to provide a middle ground between the two, which ends up pleasing very few in the end.

However, what the developers of Persona 5 did with Joker provides a very good example of that middle ground protagonist. He isn't just a blank slate for us to insert ourselves into, as he possess' his own backstory that's integral to the plot along with motivations and wants that gives his actions and our choices as the player meaning. If we as the Player are able to understand Joker and see what he as an individual is trying to do or wants in the end, then we are able to see his story come full circle as opposed to ending it early and getting a "false" sense of satisfaction whether that be through the "Bad", "Selfish", "Good", or "Ideal" endings. Only by seeing who Joker is and how he continually takes the long road towards freedom do we finally receive the "Real" ending of Royal. A very similar idea to what Persona 4 did with it's "True" ending but more character driven on Persona 5's part, I've personally found anyway.

Also, you're video has definitely made me think when it comes to the issues present in Japan. I thought I knew how harsh the Japanese justice system was but I had no idea they were allowed to hold someone for 23 days without having to file charges. That is a very terrifying prospect on top of the prosecutors ability to block access to your lawyer, as well as the mental and physical abuse of their suspects to force confessions out of them. It really shows how they received that 99.3% conviction rate...

[finsterhund]

A comprehensive guide to Heart of Darkness lost media. Fake, and real

a forward: there appears to be some sort of conflict between Eric Chahi and Frederic Savoir. Things Eric speaks about, Fred denies. However Eric generally has proof to support his side of things but Fred never provides such.

I will edit this as I go along. I intend to source things as best I can. I will not post it to a better website until it is adequately sourced.

I’m not currently planning to include press material, promotional renders, alternate releases of the final game, etc. here (yet!! that may change)

The Movie

What we know is true:

Dreamworks was interested in adapting Heart of Darkness as a feature-length computer animated movie. Predominant parties at play were Jeffery Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg. They invited several of the devs including Eric to the Dreamworks studio in LA, showed them Prince of Egypt storyboards, and toured them around. The movie was never made and development was never started.

According to Eric, the head of Virgin Interactive, Martin Alper repeatedly went to Paris to bother and harass him to abandon all work on the game and give the movie rights to Katzenberg. Eric didn’t want to throw away all that work and wanted to release the game first. Alper abandoned the team and project soon after, dooming the game to years of development hell as they needed to find a new publisher. Fred claimed that “half of the article (in which Eric discussed this) was incorrect” but never went into detail as to how or why

Rumors:

Even though George Lucas was interested in HoD’s display at several expos, he did not involve himself in any film ideas. It is believed he may have stolen ideas of alien monster designs for use in the Phantom Menace but this can easily just be coincidence and is unfounded.

The movie was not going to be live action despite some fan speculation.

The Pilot Animation/character test

What we know:

In Eric Chahi’s biography he mentions that a small animation studio did contract work of some animation concepts for Heart of Darkness. They were ultimately replaced with what Amazing would go with. This may or may not be associated with the same concepts as when they briefly thought to make the cinematics with 2D bitmaps but it is unclear. Eric states that this pilot was made however and in a demo reel from the studio they mention working with Virgin and Amazing Studio.

Rumors:

Fred said it wasn’t a thing but didn’t clarify.

This might have been the opening cutscene in 2D, or it may have just been character models and test animation. It is currently lost entirely with no actual stills of the thing itself.

Blood

What we know:

Someone untrustworthy but people latch onto this sort of shit said the original version of the game has blood in it. We know from tradeshow footage, digging through the final game’s code, an early build of the game, etc. that if anything the original versions were LESS violent. There is no evidence there was ever blood. Anymore than there’s evidence of the poison berries (which we will get to later)

The Gameboy Advance port

What we know:

Heart of Darkness was going to be ported to the Gameboy advance. According to Frederic Savoir the project was quickly canned due to cartridge costs that Nintendo didn’t want to pay for.

Rumors:

Someone claiming to work on this port said that Infogrames founder Bruno Bonnel wanted the game to have an Adidas promotion and change Andy’s shoes. Fred says this isn’t true, and there’s no evidence that this was ever an actual thing.

The Jaguar Version

What we know:

Heart of Darkness was briefly considered to be published on the Atari Jaguar. There are internal letters discussing how good of an asset it would be for the console. That’s as far as it ever apparently went.

The fake developer copypasta:

A copypasta of obviously fake ideas that were potentially given from Amazing to this apparent Jaguar dev has been passed around since 2014. This included poison berries that would make Andy explode, fan-theory sorta ideas about how other children perished in the darkland, a magic mirror, and what is very clearly just the maggots from spiritual successor “Limbo”. This individual provided no proof and his story was far from convincing. And no evidence that someone other than the Amazing team themselves having access to official development code from the game has ever been brought forward.

The Saturn Version

What we know:

Before the game ultimately came out for Playstation, it was going to be a timed exclusive for the Sega Saturn with Sega purchasing an exclusivity from Virgin Interactive. This fell through due to Virgin intentionally (according to Eric) throwing a monkey wrench in things and the Saturn was not viable when they were finally able to publish the game after getting picked up by Infogrames.

There is an incomplete playable demo of the first level and first two story cinematics in English and Japanese from the 1996 Toy Tokyo Show. In it there are slight programming differences such as a screen sliding transition animation, the inability for spectres to eat Andy, features cut from the final game involving the shadow dogs that are still mostly present in the final game’s code, and some slight graphical differences.

Frederic said the Saturn was easy for him to program on, and he finished things quickly so it was likely fully playable but no complete copy has been found.

Rumors:

It is unknown if there is a full build of this version of the game for Saturn. The Toy Tokyo Show build is the only publicly known one.

Based on footage from other events it appears to be from after changes were made to spectre sound effects and some behaviors. So this may have been a build from after the game was altered to be “easier” as mentioned by Eric Chahi at the time.

The Phillips CDI Version

What we know:

Heart of Darkness was offhanded mentioned a handful of times in a few CDI magazines in 1996. But there is no actual evidence the game was actually in development for the console and it was never confirmed in more trustworthy publications. CDI has less evidence than the planning letters of the Jaguar version. A supposed slipcover of a Heart of Darkness CDI CD was supposedly in existence but the guy claiming to have it couldn’t or wouldn’t prove this, with the only evidence appearing as convincing as a fake mock-up photoshop job and CDI websites discussing the final version of the game in full despite providing no evidence development for the console existed in the first place.

The most likely explanation is some idiot at Virgin said “CDI” when discussing this at-the-time secretive project because it would have had to be on a CD-based console and there weren’t that many of them yet at the time and this slip up briefly spread.

The iMac Version

What we know:

There was discussion of a Mac OS version of the game being developed, but nothing about the final product has surfaced online.

There was a page titled “imac” on the official website but the image files weren’t archived.

Heart of Dakness: The Return of Shados

What we know:

A scam artist on indiegogo pretended to be affiliated with Amazing Studio by using stolen assets and copying the kickstarter campaign of a different indie game in an effort to scam HoD fans out of money.

Both Eric Chahi and Frederic Savoir collectively agreed that this was a big fat scam.

It got taken down in under 24 hours of its discovery after I personally called the guy out on being a scamming piece of fucking shit and tattled to Fred.

As it was a scam with its only “evidence” being stolen text and doctored fan art and concept art from the original game, it’s very obvious nothing about this mess actually existed.

Delicious meal.

Merchandise (various)

What we know:

There are photos of merchandise, there have been real items show up, and there have been rumors or discussion of potential merchandise. Real confirmed ones include:

The Vicious and Amigo action figures. Given away for contests, at trade shows, sold on the infogrames store, and potentially included as part of a special box set of the French version

The Japanese big box version came with a mousepad. It is different than the round mousepad that also exists. We do not know where the round mousepad originated from. Potentially tradeshows or contests like the other items here.

Playstation controller and memory card. A memory card was sold separate in the UK, and in France a controller and memory card set were sold. Only photo of the set is in Eric’s collection. Memory card has shown up several times online. I own a complete sealed one.

The hat. Given away at press events, potentially worn by team members, and a version was also available on the infogrames store. Only physically existing version documented has the VIRGIN logo on it however so there’s definitely variations

Skateboard and t-shirt. Discussed in contests. Photos in magazines. Have never shown up so far. skateboard may have been available on infogrames store.

Photos exist of a backpack and fanny pack. Eric has these, the only known ones to exist, in his collection. Fred said they were officially released but they have yet to show up.

Rumored Merch:

A blanket. Briefly mentioned as if it genuinely existed on a French forum

Probably more tbh but my memory is shit. As I am writing this it is 2AM

[unclerippuascension]

miitopia demo came out, im gonna talk about it

ok so just as a starting point, i LOVE miitopia. miitopia and tomodachi life are some of my favorite games on the 3DS. i’ve played both games (and restarted them bc the only have one fucking save file), i’ve watched vinny’s streams of both games (both highlights and the full streams, i have too much free times) and loved them, so when i heard miitopia was getting a remake for the switch i was... cautiously excited. so the demo is out now, and i have some thoughts.

first the goods the game looks great! i mean obviously its a graffical remake, so of course its gonna look good. plus its on a bigger screen and if you’re not like me and have a standard switch (and not a switch lite) the screen can be even bigger! mii customization is greatly added, like in the trailers you can add extra flair to your miis, and for those who like to make miis based on cartoon characters or just really elaborate OCs, it really helps. but they’re not in the default mii creator you add them in a menu fyi

now for the bads

how they handle miis, oh golly gee gosh i have some problems. it all stems from the fact that unlike the 3DS, the switch does not have a mii central, and honestly I expected them to make a mii central for the game. like a pokemon home kind of app where you could import miis. you have a few options if you wanted your old miis from mii-maker to be in this game.

you can create them from scratch or choose them from switch save data which are the same thing (which i mean if you can do that for EVERY MII in this game more power to you but i can’t) which is clunky and if you’re like me and are not good at making miis that aren’t all kinda same faced then you have option two

recieve miis from a friend or access key. now if you have a bunch of buddies who have a bunch of miis and really love miitopia too then you have no problem. but given that the mii fanbase is kind of niche and is heavily relying on the 3DS era from what ive seen, this kind of stuff isn’t a good fix. 

and finally we have the ‘popular’ section. this is a collection of the most popular miis from the 3DS version miitopia...and i fucking hate it. because they’re all meme characters. literally its nothing but sans, waluigi, wario, and other meme garbage. the fun thing about miitopia is that the miis weren’t just memes, and since the pool of popular mii’s never changes you’re either stuck with making your own miis for every character in the game, hoping your friends have a bunch of miis or that you find a bunch of access codes online, or choosing one of the 20 warios in the popular section.

also this is a nit-pick, but you can’t have click a randomize all option. idk the magic of seeing batman in the cast of NPCs isn’t as fun when i have to put him there myself. I really wish Nintendo put in a little bit more care when it came to what is the core most gimmick of the fucking game. like when i have to remake a mii from my 3DS mii maker onto my switch like a fucking caveman, something is wrong. again, the solution should have been a mii central for switch.

another negative for me is that the horse feels kinda...idk pointless? maybe im just a crotchedy old fuck man i dunno. and the UI is a smidge weird, but its a 3DS game on the switch so I wont give them too much shit

oh and the fact this game is 49 dollars plus tax, now i hope they add more stuff to justify that but the negative jackass in me says they won’t. speaking of my hopes for the game, my biggest hope is that they add more to the post game. maybe add more post-game bosses, after the game’s story ended it kind of feels like there isn’t much to do.

but yeah, those are my thoughts. again i’m cautiously excited for this release bc of how miis are handled compared to the original as well as the pricetag. 

[divinefutura]

DEV LOG UPDATE 1.5

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DEV LOG UPDATE 1.5

Welcome back, netrunner. 

Today marks an important milestone in our story. Today, we had our 10th Patron join us over on our Patreon page. These ten brave souls are paving the way for the future of Exposure Games with their generous donations. 

Making a AAA-quality title like this with an indie team is an expensive and time consuming task. We need software licenses and encrypted online storage so that our team members can share files with each other across the globe. We need to buy motion capture rigs to make sure our character animations look as good as possible. We need to hire voice talent to help bring our cast of characters to life.

And most importantly, we still need to add to our team. Right now, a very small handful of people are handling all the 3D modelling, texturing, and animation work. I’m coordinating the writing team, writing characters and dialogue, AND sharing marketing duties with a few other people at Exposure Games (and they all have their own massive task lists, too.) 

So, we need more help. But right now, we’re all doing this for free, and free is a hard pitch when you’re trying to hire talent. Those of us that are here on the dev team now are here because we believe in this project, but we can only devote so much time to Divine Futura while also balancing full-time jobs, university studies, and our families.

We are all here because we believe in Divine Futura, but also, because we all share a dream of working full-time in the gaming industry. Our first 10 Patrons are our first steps towards making that dream a reality. We still have a long way to go before any of us see a paycheck, but I want to take this moment to specifically thank these first ten Samurai of the Streets for laying the groundwork:

Stephen Moody

William Stapleton

Pendragon

Darren Huett

Yogurt Freedom

ChipsMan666

Ibuki Mioda

KayleeCake

lokiju

Avahe

One of these fine folks made a whopping $500 contribution, so we are making them into an NPC in the game, complete with custom augments and cyberware. If you’ve ever dreamed of being a character in a video game, you can make your dream a reality for a one-time contribution of $500, or you can join at the $100 level and stay on for five months to secure the same exclusive reward: being made into your own custom cyberpunk NPC in a AAA-quality RPG.

But you don’t have to spend that kind of money to help out. For as little as $5 a month, you’ll get access to exclusive behind the scenes images, video clips, and updates, plus access to our PLAYABLE DEMO when it releases (I can’t promise an exact date yet, but getting the demo completed is our current highest priority!) And the higher the Patreon Tiers you decide to climb, the better the rewards ;).

So head on over to https://www.patreon.com/DivineFutura and consider throwing a few bucks our way, if you can. You’ll be joining us on an incredible journey, as well as unlocking some slick rewards for yourself. And if your budget is a little tight right now, (Lord knows I understand) then you can still follow our progress and get lots of free stuff on our Patreon page.

To help us out for free, tell your friends about us. Talk us up on Reddit and Facebook. Use our hashtags #DivineFutura and #ExposureGames on Twitter. Share our Youtube videos (https://youtu.be/rBOdt-fzaqY) with your gaming buddies.

No matter what you choose to do, thanks for being along for the ride with us. Stay tuned here for more weekly Dev Log Updates and other behind-the-scenes bits and blurps.

From the streets of Spire City,

NexusSix, Narrative Designer, logging out.

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[knuxfan24]

Sonic ‘06 - Greenflower Zone Mod Technical Write Up

On April 27th of 2020 I released the Version 1.1 update for my Greenflower Zone mod for Sonic ‘06, a few days before release, I got the idea to do a technical write up on the process that I went through making this mod, as it is a strange one that has morphed over the span of almost a year, evolving and growing with the ‘06 Modding Scene itself.

Original Proof of Concept

Back in May of 2019, I started toying around with some old Sonic ‘06 tools, thanks to my interest in modding the game rising following improvements in Xenia which made the game more playable within it. As I’d previously done Greenflower Zone Act 1 for Shadow The Hedgehog in February of the same year, I decided to use it as an experiment for importing stage terrain into ‘06; as I already knew the rough process for converting a model to an XNO thanks to me trying to put one of my Sonic Forces Avatars over Sonic. However, we didn’t have a way to do collision at this point, so my initial plan was to use the common_stopplayercollision object to kind of fake the collision so I would at least be able to walk around it. Unfortunately, the character doesn’t treat that object as ground, so they just float above it. Yet I still decided to place some objects around by manually typing in coordinates based off the object placements I’d previously done for the Shadow port.

Initial Collision Experiments

Shortly afterwards, Melpontro offered to convert a collision mesh for me, while we didn’t have surface tags on it, it was a good enough job to let me experiment more with the stage, which I did by continuing to copy and paste object coordinates from the Shadow port, again, all in plain text XML files. As a result, objects weren’t rotated correctly due to Quaternion Rotation being literal satan and I would have to check an object in game to even see if it was close to being correct.

SonicGLVL

At some point, I hit upon the idea of using SonicGLVL (the Sonic Generations Level Editor) to visualise the object placements. This mostly came about due to me remembering that object rotations in Generations SET Files are also Quaternions, so I could copy and paste their values to get the rotations correct. While I was still hand typing everything, this made it easier to determine object placements, especially considering Shadow The Hedgehog could spawn multiple Rings from one Ring object, a feature ‘06 lacks, as a result, I had to guess the right coordinates for the other Rings with no way to visually check it without booting up the game.

Surface Properties and Sticky Walls

A few days after I’d done more SET work, I sent Melpontro a version of the collision with various meshes tagged by type, allowing him to create collision with various Surface Properties, resulting in proper footstep sounds for surfaces. However, this also led to an issue caused by ‘06′s unusual tagging system for collision meshes.

Walls in ‘06 need to be tagged as such, resulting in quite a bit of trial and error until we got it mostly working. With Act 1 done to a good enough state for a proper work in progress, it was time to move on to Act 2.

WinForms and HedgeLib

Around the time of working on Act 2, I decided to start cobbling together various small C# programs using HedgeLib to try and help me with the process, while I was roughly familiar with bits and pieces of the ‘06 SET Format thanks to my previous work on the Sonic ‘06 Randomiser there was still a lot of things I didn’t know.

One of the first things I wrote was something that would load a SET File and allow me to see all the parameter values of the objects within the SET. This allowed me to document what I thought the parameters for certain objects do (while also discovering a frustrating quirk in HedgeLib). As time passed, work continued on Act 2, while I also started creating an original layout for Shadow, designed under the mindset of playing the stage backwards. Before I got sidetracked working on something else.

The Mod Manager’s early beginnings

Over time, I gradually became frustrated with having multiple copies of ‘06 and accidentally cross contaminating them with various mods thanks to me copying them to the wrong install. While Hyper had a GitHub page for a Sonic ‘06 Mod Manager, it didn’t actually work, leading to me to write a small C# Command Line application to copy and remove the Greenflower files for me. This eventually led to me creating a small GUI for it with the ability to load multiple mods together, which would soon be expanded upon.

Around the same time, I also experimented with Melpontro’s old Emerald Coast stage mod, managing to get it running on Xenia, while also figuring out how ‘06 handles volume objects such as camera volumes. I also brought back a joke Sonic Forces mod at this point, Chair The Sonic, which would evolve into Furniture Adventure 3 before I killed the joke thanks to it going far enough to become unfunny.

Greenflower did take a backseat at this point, only really being used to test Vertex Colours for underwater colouring, as well as experimentation with the game’s dynamic lighting system. Though it would soon be used as a testing ground for something.

The GLVL Converter

On the 2nd of June, I posted this image to my Twitter, based on the wording of my tweet, it sounded like I already had a system in place to convert Generations objects to ‘06. However, I would have still had to do all the parameters manually in an XML. This process seeked to change that, with me manually creating GLVL Templates for objects as I needed them and writing code to auto convert them (shamelessly ripping off the GensToForcesSETConverter in the process). At a future point, I wrote a tool that would autogenerate the templates for me, although the object parameters were just labelled as Parameter1, Parameter2 and so on.

Throughout the process of experimenting with and understanding objects, Greenflower was used as my test bed, as I was too lazy to make a proper test stage for myself at the time and didn’t really have easy access to the unused test level recreations.

The Mod Manager and Tropical Jungle Extra

While working on the SET Conversion experiments, I continued to work on my Mod Manager alongside it before creating a new experiment to mess around with the DLC system and the converter. I started creating a layout for the third section of Tropical Jungle for Sonic, as he does not normally visit that segment of the stage.

Greenflower took a massive backseat at this point, as most of the focus went into Tropical Jungle Extra, before me and Hyper teamed up to create a better Mod Manager out of both of our work. After releasing Tropical Jungle Extra, I worked on a similar concept for Silver and the first section of Dusty Desert, although this never saw the light of day, nor did my short lived attempt at creating a DLC episode for Knuckles.

Lost in Translation and Camera Experiments

At some point in July, I started tinkering with Greenflower again, rebuilding the SET files from the ground up with our new templates and the GLVL Converter, while also experimenting with using dynamic cameras for some parts, at some point I also inserted the music thanks to our XMA workarounds. However, thanks to me having no ability to experiment with the collision, I drifted away from it again and started working on a new project, messing around with Google Translate’s API. This project became Sonic The Hedgehog: Lost in Translation.

I was still working on the Randomiser at this point, so my attention was very divided, with Greenflower slipping down the priority list. At this point, I was also aware of SRB2 2.2′s intent to redesign the zone from the ground up, which pushed it even further down while I waited for it.

The Collision Converter

Towards the end of the month, I remembered Sajid’s previous attempt to write a Collision Converter for me using LibS06, after requesting that code, Skyth provided me with the line to make it work, which I tested on a shoddy import of the Sonic Adventure 2 version of Green Hill Zone Act 1.

With a Collision Converter in hand, I started experimenting with other stages, creating a version of Westopolis for ‘06, as well as some other experiments that didn’t go very far. Before eventually jumping back into and finishing Lost in Translation.

At this point, Greenflower was still on the backburner, with me only really using it to see how the Sonic Adventure HUD mod would look with it and also putting it into the ‘06 demo for the hell of it.

More focus was placed into the Mod Manager around this time, with us rewriting it (leading to the creation of the Aldi Mod Manager jokes).

Mortar Canyon

For some silly reason, I started messing around with Mortar Canyon from Sonic Forces, there isn’t really much to say about it, other than the fact that I needed to use the Switch terrain, as the PC terrain behaved unusually.

SRB2 Version 2.2

Following the release of Sonic Robo Blast 2 Version 2.2, I tested opening and exporting the Greenflower Act 1 terrain for it from Zone Builder to see if it still worked, and it did. As a result, I started messing with it again, although my priority at the time was on my Tropical Jungle mod for Sonic Forces. Issues with the Zone Builder export also lowered my motivation to work on it, although I continued to experiment in the background, trying to find fixes.

About a week later, I toyed around with the Zone Builder source code, finally managing to correct the issue, which was caused by Zone Builder’s OBJ exporter “optimising” the exported terrain by throwing out certain vertices.

With the source for Zone Builder, I also experimented with having 100% accurate object placement, writing a small hack to export the Thing Placement into a text file which I could then use to write into a SET file with HedgeLib. However, object heights are handled incorrectly in Zone Builder, requiring me to fix certain objects manually.

As I finished up work on Tropical Jungle for Forces, I started working more on Greenflower in the background, while also experimenting with some dumb jokes. However, I soon hit another motivational block, The water and grass edges...

Nonami the Material God

Thanks to poor documentation of the XNO format, we had no clue how to make transparent objects look good or how to make translucent objects at all. As a result, I kinda trailed off for a while. However, on the 2nd of March, Nonami showed an image on the Lost Legacy Discord server of translucent water in their Emerald Coast mod and also told us the byte to hex edit to enable it. A quick test later, and I had translucent water

I soon moved the level over to the Kingdom Valley slot, as I wanted to use the breakable wall object that stage has, which meant I needed that slot for the sound, before following up with creating Vertex Colours for the underwater terrain.

Hyper later took over some work on the Skybox and Grass Edges, experimenting with hex edits and texture upscaling to help smooth out the transparent edges while I worked on creating the SET files for the other characters  He also worked on fixing up the fence collision for me, as the way it exported from Zone Builder caused Sonic to be able to fairly easily clip through them.

Eventually, I decided (with very little thought behind it) to make various elements of the stage grindable, before following it up with (incredibly tedious to make) Light Dash splines.  Eventually, me and Hyper screwed around with it in Multiplayer late into the night, giving us the inspiration to start trying to create a Prop Hunt gamemode for ‘06 too.

With most of the motivational stumbles out of the way, I decided to tackle the flowers and trees by recycling models from Sonic Lost World and Sonic Generations, a process which proved extremely tedious, as the XNO Converter we use only allows for one model at a time. A fact which didn’t help when I needed to export every single flower and tree one by one.

The Act 1 Release

On the 18th of March 2020, I decided to FINALLY release a version of Greenflower, with it soon being updated to correct a few small issues I’d overlooked. After a small break, I started working on Act 2. Thanks to my workflow developed for Act 1, Act 2 went fairly smoothly at first, as I already knew what I needed to do to make the grass edges and water look good. I could also copy the Skybox from Act 1 with no problems, which was nice.

The Act 2 Retargeting Whack-a-Mole

When it comes to level layouts for ‘06, easily the biggest annoyance comes from objects such as Springs. In ‘06, Springs can target other objects by their IDs, which is a really nice feature. However, if the object IDs get changed around, then the target will no longer match up, as a result, I had multiple points where I had to comb over the act to make sure every Spring still targeted the correct object. This was an issue that was much more pronounced in Act 2, due to there being many more Springs in it.

To make matters worse, the object IDs shown in SonicGLVL seem random, so to get the ID of the object I wanted to target, I’d have to convert the SET and look for the object there to get the correct ID. Towards the end of development, I hacked something together that would make the GLVL IDs match the converted ones, making it much easier to handle, if still tedious. My insistence on deleting unneeded objects in the various other character SETs is the primary reason for this headache.

Another problem I noticed a lot in Act 2 were seams in the terrain where Zone Builder didn’t export the terrain correctly, while these were (mostly) easy to fix, it was tedious every time. As it involved the following process.

-Remove the Skin Modifer -Edit the affected meshes so they’d join up correctly -Reapply the Skin Modifier -Export the edited meshes -Import them one at a time -Edit the collision -Export the collision -Convert the collision

Not hard, just tedious, as with a lot of the work that needed to be done on this project.

Specular Mapping

At some point, I toyed with the idea of adding a small specular map on the windows and roofs of the various houses scattered around the zone. After multiple attempts which blew up in my face, Nonami pointed me to a shader that would do what I wanted, creating this nice, actually fairly subtle effect which was also added to Act 1 for consistencies sake.

However, attempting to add this trick to the water did not go well at all...

Developer Time Trial

At some point when working on Version 1.0 of Greenflower, I changed the text for the Hard Mode selection on the stage select to Not This One. Thanks to me not bothering to make a Hard Mode SET thanks to me finding them to be a waste of time.

In Version 1.01, I did sneak a small SET in that would be loaded if you selected the option, but it otherwise served no purpose.

While messing with the Town Mission timer for Prop Hunt, I realised I could use it to create a Developer Time Trial mode, by simply recording my best time and setting it as the Timer’s value. Originally I intended to record runs for all nine characters, but a limitation of the DLC system prevented me from neatly adding them for the amigo characters, so it was cut down to just Sonic, Shadow and Silver.

These also use slightly modified SETs, mostly to remove the Bronze Medals, Starposts and Voice Triggers.

Bronze Medals

When initially importing the SETs, I decided it would be a cute idea to replace the Emblem and Emerald Tokens in SRB2 with the very underused Bronze Medals. As it turns out, ‘06 actually has a counter for these medals that goes unused in the final game, activating the counter was a simple as adding  OpenMedal(_ARG_0_, 15) to the main event in the stage’s Lua file. While the medals serve no purpose in Greenflower, I felt like enabling the counter just to show an unused piece of ‘06 off while also encouraging exploration in the form of Medal Hunting.

Closing Words

While it may not seem like too much on the surface, I personally am actually quite happy with how Greenflower has turned out. Its long development time and various restarts have given it the chance to fully take advantage of our advancements in the Sonic ‘06 modding scene. While there is still a lot left for us to learn, I’m content with this project’s release state and am ready to move on to something new in the future.

Greenflower for ‘06 has being nearly a year in the making, and I’m glad to have been able to see it through. A special thanks goes to the people who helped me in this mod’s creation, it wouldn’t look as good as it does without Nonami’s XNO research and it may not even have gotten finished if Hyper hadn’t helped me test it and thrown some ideas my way.

Here’s hoping we can do some more quality ‘06 mods in the future and realise some of the potential this game never got to show (and maybe do some silly stuff along the way too!).

[jeanvaljean24601]

Watch Dogs: Legion Hands-On — A World Worth Exploring

Watch Dogs: Legion follows the series’ established hack-heavy formula, but the new recruitment system adds a refreshing layer of intrigue underneath your run of the mill missions. All of which still have the fun of outsmarting enemies or finding the right angle to solve a puzzle, download a key/file, or wreak havoc from afar. But the most appealing part of Watch Dogs: Legion is finding and recruiting new people. From potential new weapons to lovable characters with fascinating backgrounds and recruitment missions, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by expanding DedSec.

Watch Dogs Legion’s Degrees of Dystopian.Set in near-future London, the bombings DedSec was framed for have led to an authoritarian state in which Albion - a private military corporation - has taken over policing while an intelligence community, led by Signal Intelligence Response Service (SIRS), spies on London’s citizens. In an attempt to clear DedSec, you’re tasked with finding out who is responsible for the London bombings. Villains include Nigel Cass, CEO of Albion, and Mary Kelly, leader of an organized crime syndicate in London. x96 tv box

In keeping with the series norms, Watch Dogs: Legion operates in the extremes of tech-gone-too-far and corporations-up-to-no-good. It’s what I expect, but  as an exaggeration of where society could head, some storylines are more believable and intriguing than others. An Albion security guard making a janky deal to get medicine felt like a natural extension of the current ways governments fail their people, but an evil CEO shooting someone with a room full of high-powered witnesses felt more cartoonishly evil than cleverly dystopian.

Making every character playable is a narrative risk, but it’s one Watch Dogs: Legion seems to pull off based on what I’ve played so far. Those who felt Marcus Holloway’s cutscene persona didn’t match his mid-mission murders may have a hard time buying into the idea of convincing anyone on the street to join what’s publicly viewed as a terrorist organization — favors aside.

The script differences highlight each character as a unique individual rather than a generic stand-in. From the reserved yet no-nonsense attitude of the old lady I added to my team to my recently recruited Albion guard frantically chatting while she drives through London as if to say “Oh my god; I can’t believe I’m actually doing this.”

And at the end of the day, there’s nothing wrong with things being a bit video game-y if the ends justify the means, and in Watch Dogs: Legion they seem to do just that. Playing as anyone goes as narratively smoothly as it can, given the gameplay, and the experience of recruiting randos makes for a joyous open-world experience. android tv box

While there are plenty of new elements to Watch Dogs: Legion, such as ridable cargo drones, the fundamentals are still present. Take over cameras to redirect power, download data, or interact with nearby objects to create distractions or explosions. Distract enemies by sending something to their phones. Or go straight into combat, which leans even more heavily on player choice with enemies only using melee attacks against you until you pull out your gun and decide it’s time for a firefight. This is particularly convenient for those looking to stealth and hack their way through encounters.

My demo dropped me to the midpoint of the game where missions were a routine to-do list of heading from location to location, hacking drones to scope out the area, and then hacking cameras to download access keys or cause mayhem. At this point in the game the ability to cloak enemy bodies was available, allowing for a more aggressive playstyle, with stealth easier to pull off without alerting foes. London’s various buildings, tourist spots, and construction sites made for a fun playground to strategize my way through each gig.

The loop may be familiar, but that doesn’t make it any less fun. As usual, I found that causing destruction without getting my hands dirty was far more amusing than doing stealth takedowns of less than intelligent A.I who have dull walking patterns and are easily lured or distracted. Seeing how many enemies I can kill by stringing hacks to set off carefully timed explosions before I even step foot in a building never ceased to satisfy. If I was spotted, I found it easier to lean on whatever guns I had available than to bother regaining my cover or fighting hand to hand.

Fast travel still exists and some characters even have their own vehicles (often equipped with useful tech), but otherwise there’s good old-fashioned carjacking. A clever, futuristic touch is the option to steal a self-driving car (just look for the icon on the windshield). No driver or passenger punching required!

Driving still feels arcade-y at heart but some vehicles control better than others. The narrower and more roundabout-filled London streets make for a slower, more challenging drive than speeding down San Francisco. Of course, there isn’t much of an immediate penalty for running over lampposts or even pedestrians.

However, upon closer examination you’ll notice that running over someone makes them like you less. Good luck recruiting the person you just hospitalized (still possible! But an awkward icebreaker once they recover). Albion may come after you if they see you commit a crime, but losing them isn’t too difficult as long as you put enough distance between the two of you. Some nice touches include the fact that they can follow you into buildings — your safe house is inaccessible when you’re under pursuit — and if you’re cornered, an electrical device can latch onto your car, rendering it undrivable.

Making Your Team is a Dream.By far, Watch Dogs: Legion’s biggest and most impressive differentiator is the ability to play as anyone. Though getting complete intel on a person (down to their schedule) requires you to upgrade the DeepProfiler by using Tech Points you find hidden in the world. Getting to know them will tip you off to what they’re looking for and unlock their recruitment missions to turn an initial No into a Yes. x96 tv box

The borough uprising system lets you take on missions to empower a borough and give them a more positive outlook on DedSec. Some recruitments will be mandatory as part of the campaign, such as an Albion guard, but you mostly have free reign. If you just want to get the best of the best, DedSec will mark a few people of interest on your map who have been predetermined as good recruits, such as a Drone Expert and Bee Keeper. But you’re also free to recruit whoever is roaming around London.

The first person who caught my eye was an adorable old lady who was looking for some Darts competition. To recruit her, the first step was to go to the pub and play her in Darts, which is one of the most appealing mini-game side quests I’ve ever had the option to do. Hell yes, I want to play this old lady in Darts to get her to join DeadSec! Winning led to her recruitment mission of investigating how her job replaced the 300 workers who were laid off.

I could see this recruitment loop getting stale over time but, during my brief session, I adored every moment of it because I was doing it for my new recruit and my reward was having her there for the rest of my adventure - despite the fact that the mission itself was nothing special.

Unfortunately, she was arrested shortly after being recruited.  Despite previous plans for mandatory permadeath, no one dies in Watch Dogs: Legion unless you opt-in to play with permadeath on. Instead, they just get arrested or hospitalized and locked by a timer. You can go to the police station and potentially get them out early but the easier solution is to just switch to a different operative. Having certain operatives on your team such as Albion guards, police officers, or EMTs will decrease your time in jail or the hospital.

A Dynamic and Diverse Group.Each character has their own loadouts, perks, professions, personalities, and backgrounds. Weapons and tools are shared across your team and can be swapped, but there are some gadgets and guns that are locked to certain types of recruits.

Uniform Access allows for certain characters to enter restricted areas more easily. So walking into a construction site as a construction worker means I can more freely walk through the area and it takes longer for enemies to detect my presence. However, they can still realize I don’t belong there so it’s not an instant win.

My assassin had a slew of powerful guns at her disposal but the graffiti artist had a paintball gun and would spray folks in the face after executing a takedown. Even across folks from the same background there’s some level of variation. android tv box

For instance, one construction worker will have a different set of tools than another.There were some rough edges in the build I played. When characters are defeated the animation looks a bit goofy, and there are some questionable drivers. But some of these may be cleared up by launch. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Watch Dogs: Legion and grew attached to the different characters, their arsenals, and their sparkling personalities. The lack of a primary main character doesn’t detract from the story. Instead, it incentivizes exploring and immersing myself in a world I otherwise may have ignored in favor of mainlining the story.

Watch Dogs: Legion’s gameplay follows the established formula of hacking devices to accomplish your task at hand with the option to go in guns blazing - though it’s the less enticing route when you have plenty of gadgets at hand and drones overhead.

[rpgmgames]

February’s Featured Game: Returning Nightmares

DEVELOPER(S): Saturn ENGINE: RPGMaker 2003 GENRE: YNFG, Exploration, Adventure WARNINGS: Blood, Gore, Swearing, Suicide SUMMARY: Returning Nightmares is an exploration adventure-horror game being developed in RPG Maker 2003, inspired by Yume Nikki and it's multiple fan-made homages (but with dialogue & easier to navigate maps). You play as Akira, a young man locked up in his own bedroom, exploring his dreams to remember the events that lead him to where he is now. But some things are better left alone…

Play the demo here!

Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! Hi, I'm Saturn and I like videya game. I've been into Yume Nikki since about... 2010? And RPG Maker in general since 2011. I've been cateloguing resources and reblogging RPG Maker projects on Pinkuboa for 6 & 1/2 years now (7 in June) and I run Dream Diary Jam, a game jam for making Yume Nikki Fangames. I also love pixel art, writing, and cooking, but the last one I can't make into a game (yet).

What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially? *Saturn: I was originally trying to make like a little intro to Yume Nikki project that people could peak into and copy for Dream Diary Jam & future use. However, it ended up taking a life of it's own as something I could goof off in and enjoy without thinking about it. The eventing I did for it could be better optimized, so I wouldn't use it as an example anymore (but don't mind at all if people look & learn from it!). It's basically about me thinking back on my edgy years and my years of looking at other's OCs and celebrating how goofy and fun the stories could be. A lot of the game is me asking "What would someone who watched a lot of anime and listened to MCR do?" There's an appeal to cool edgy stuff I think we forget about when we look back on our edgelord years. Sure, you may not have been the best writer and some of the stuff is over the top, but it was enjoyable to make and some of the characters still appeal to you for basic emotional reasons (good design, relatable story, fun power trip, you just like their hair, etc.) I hope the game is enjoyable to people whether or not they laugh at it or honestly have a good time with it. Both ways are valid - enjoyment is enjoyment!

How long did you work on your project? *Saturn: Oh gosh...I believe I started at the very end of 2017, like a week before the new year. Then I worked on it for like 2 months, took a break, then picked it up and went hard in September 2018 again.

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *Saturn: You bet buddy: -Yume Nikki -.flow -Ignite -The Looking Glass -Fleshchild -Yume Nisshi -Akuma (Yume Nikki Fangame) -Answered Prayers -Ultra Violet -Cheesy internet OCs I read as a kid -Cheesy modern horror movies -Cheesy Creepypastas ...and probably other stuff but I can't think of it right now.

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them? *Saturn: Sometimes I make a world without thinking about it all the way through and I don't know what to do it with or what to fill it with. That's why you can find a map of an Ouija board in the map files with some events and such that you can't access elsewhere. It's driving me mad still. >:T

Did any aspects of your project change over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *Saturn: It went from a side project to my current project, a project I wanted to use to help others but ended up teaching myself. I know better ways of eventing now and have an idea of how to make maps and tiles better and faster.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *Saturn: I prefer working alone on this game. Had it been something that I started with someone else, I'd like it with them. I do crowdsource ideas though: I'll ask discord randomly, "Hey, what should I put next in Returning Nightmares" or "Hey, what else should I put in this world?" Big shout out to Dream Diary Development & Pixel Horror for their help!!

What was the best part of developing the game? *Saturn: Seeing the worlds come together. Once a world has music in it and all the bits and pieces properly moving and intractable, it's immensely satisfying. I'd say finishing an event and having it work properly is second. Eventing is fun!

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *Saturn: I find myself playing with the engine and seeing what I can do with it myself.

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *Saturn: I don't relate to anyone in particular because they're all kinda hollow. However, I like the hidden wizard the best since he was a D&D character I never got to use, so I have a whole backstory and personality for him!

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *Saturn: I wish I planned better & fixed a few bugs for the first release. At least there's nothing game breaking: you can't get a few menus if you don't have enough money, but that's it.

Do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *Saturn: Leave as is. This one is mostly to get me comfortable with the idea of releasing a larger game. Akira doesn't have any great stories in him, he's just him. Most of the games I got ideas for are one off since I like one off stuff. Makes everything feel complete.

With your current project, what do you look most forward to upon/after release? *Saturn: I look for people's reactions to it. There's, there's a particular place in the game that's in the shape of a 10 year old webcomic meme that I had people @ me in chats and ask if it was a reference to, while I giggled like a fool. Games like most media can be an interaction between player & creator, and that's one of the fun parts of it all.

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *Saturn: God I don't know if I'll break the game or make it boring in any particular way. That's my top concern.

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *Saturn: Learning how to make a game is like learning how to read or how to do math: you won't be able to read To Kill a Mockingbird right away, nor will you be doing advanced algebra. It took a lot of time for you to be able to do either. Give yourself a break when you learn how to make a game as well: you won't learn how to make a big one in a month! Feel free to screw up. Someone says "Don't do that, it'll be too big"? Do it anyway: you'll either fail and learn a lesson, or you'll succeed and then look back and say, "Oh crap, I could of done that better now that I learned everything new." Either way, you got more practice to make another game, but better. "But I screwed up...." - see paragraph 1 on this question for the answer to that. Cut yourself some slack and remember you're doing this because you want to enjoy making a game! I found the best way I learned is by looking into other games (thanks Bleet & Jojogape for being cool with people looking at their games). I suggest finding the best way you learn as well, whether it's written tutorials, asking people, looking at other people's games, video tutorials, or just messing with the engine yourself. Lastly, I found the best way to take pressure off myself when making a game (as someone who loves perfection) was to make a few goofy joke games first. If they were bad, that was fine: they were supposed to be funny bad! It's like releasing steam by making MS Paint drawings, it makes you laugh and feel less nervous.

Question from last month's featured dev @leirin: What's something you really hope to see an RPG Maker game achieve in the future? * *Saturn: I want to see more games do something with the picture system in RPG Maker 2003. Like, I've seen games play with the new picture system, but not release and it's really burning my britches because it's such a great cosmetic game changer hnnnngh. Otherwise, I'm not sure. RPG Maker is a limited engine specialized for RPGs. I like watching fellow developers Cachi, Hogwash-dev, Rindre, and a few other people see how far they can push the system, but I don't have a particular "I want to see this" from something. I kinda like RPG Maker for it's limits, but I also like seeing what I wasn't expecting from it!

We mods would like to thank Saturn for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out Returning Nightmares if you haven’t already! See you next month! 

- Mods Gold & Platinum