amaiguri

[amaiguri]

City-States in my World

So, I someone post something like "We need more fucked up fantasy city states that both trade and get in trade wars and share culture but also don't" and I was gonna reblog it and then Tumblr ATE MY POST. Dear OP whose name I didn't catch, this is one's for you:

I have fucked up city-states!

Let's do a highlight reel by region...

THE NORTH

The North is a region of perpetual cold twilight -- as it is UNDER an entire other continent. This other continent is so high up that weather systems form under it normally. It has:

Nouveau Thuille: A city known for being the heart of the old empire that used to cover all of the north. While the Nobles who rule it claim to hold the throne for the return of their Emperor (who is magically asleep or something), they are all absolutely here for themselves. They're lowkey isolationist because Mages are unregulated in Nouveau Thuille. This causes a lot of illegal experimentation and a lot of danger.

Saegeneime: This city is on the Northern shoreline and is run by Mages. (Called Sages. Endonyms, amirite?) You'd think this make them friends with Thuille -- BUT all their Mages are carefully marked and have strict rules about what they can and cannot do with their magic. Magic children are taken from their families even.

Everyone else in the North: While many communities end up going to Saegeneime in winter, they return to the mountains in the summers. This means there are LOTS of pockets of subcultures and communities through the North, though they're less developed in my work atm.

THE SOUTH

Now here's the deal: The South is trying to take over the North. But while they're a giant empire today, they didn't used to be because:

Telethens: The Isle of Telethens was occupied during an ice age and then isolated for thousands of years. However, in the face of annihilation by the Kivihk Empire some 400 years, they answered with some of the greatest magical weapons ever developed. And after defending their home, the next obvious step was to conquer the Kivihk Empire before they got conquered...

Kivihkya: Aptly named as the heart of the "barbaric" Kivihk Empire, they were rudely and brutally conquered and its citizens made prisoner in their own home. In reply, the desperate civilians began to their repressed Demonic heritage and to Mages using blood magic. The problem with blood magic is the... uh... blood. It's not exactly acquired in a consensual manner. And this drew the ire of...

Ririkya: A city run by Witches (which is just another word for Mages). These Witches are the kinds of earthy spiritualists who prioritize helping and healing others -- and carefully weed out and re-educate bad actors. And naturally, a city where all the Mages are focused on healing and education are mad at a city where the Mages are taking the non-Mages blood.

But the reason this Southern Empire kinda works is because it isn't headed by one person -- it is a representative Democracy that prioritizes the needs of the Community. It's led to free public transportation, free healthcare, and free housing options in every major city -- which, as you can imagine, is popular. But unfortunately, they also think this makes them the best people in the world. And so, they plan to take it over.

The North, notably, would like to be left alone.

And thus, the city-states are fighting.

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Nouveau Thuille

The Demonlands

I finished all of the art for the outside in the Demonlands! Just have to do the interiors! :D

One of the things I learned that I have to focus on more is making walkways more clear. I think the docks, (which I did first, hilariously) looks the best. The hills is OK in motion, because the player is high contrast on the hills. But the Obsidan Palace is a mess. It's so unclear where the walkways are. Now, it's a small part of a game and I already spent like a day on it, so Idk if I'll do more on it because I kinda gotta move on. (I did a count and I have like 80 more maps and 90+ body poses, not counting faces OR sprite animations. Yikes!)

But stay tuned because I also finished all the maps in the Abyss (and I even started the puzzle down there!) and I think they're waaaay better! Yay! Growth!

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Welcome back to Manor d'Magnia

I finished ALL of the interiors for this Manor :O I'll probably do a video comparing the Manor d'Magnia in Little Burned Maiden with the interiors now sometime soon... BIG fan of the colors though -- I think my color theory has really improved recently and things are looking so moody now :D

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xenia, the doll🪡

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Yssaia World Guide (p44-66)

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Yssaia World Guide -- Gods (p157-162)

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My Steam Page is LIVEEEE?!

I just posted my very first Steam store page! I've still got like another 9-12 months to go (if not longer AHHHHH) so it's ROUGH but likeeeee, it's GOING. And better Done TM than "perfect but still in my head," amirite?

So, what am I making?

All the Promised Burn: An Yssaia Game is a narrative-focused, hand-drawn adventure. Navigate an assassin through her delicate, brutal world after the War annexed her homeland. Delve deep into the geopolitics of magic, your past trauma, and the Abyss beneath the world!

Here's a little teaser I made!

https://youtu.be/DeIfE36ZxqY?si=1BvrgaMf7RnUsF1_

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OP: How to Guide Hanfu Models in Posing for Photos

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Burn the Midnight Oil is a supernatural neon-noir romance visual novel starring dual protagonists: the flirtatious vampire Circe and the brash half-hellhound Dante. Both have their own story, as well as three different romanceable characters available to them. 🦇❤️‍🔥

Burn the Midnight Oil is coming to Kickstarter (alongside our very first demo!) in the second half of 2025.

Please consider signing up to our pre-launch page and helping spread the word to your friends so we can make this project happen together!

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All of Nouveau Thuille's Exteriors are DONE!

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"Amaiguri, what ARE you doing?"

Well, firstly, this is the first of my devlogs that I am writing and posting on itch.io -- so "getting my life together", I guess. I just finished collating all the other devlogs on itch.io as well. Looking back, I love how you can see my descent into madness and uncertainty through the last few months. 

I've been doing a lot of self-reflection lately and one of the things I concluded about the emotional side of this process is I'm experiencing Gifted Kid problems. I was in a Gifted and Talented program for 1st through 8th grade. Unlike some GT kids who apparently hit a wall where things stop being easy for them, I WAS (thankfully) taught to work hard -- I excelled in school. HOWEVER, I always felt that I needed to do "better than the expectations" or else I was failing. This served me fine in school. Even when my grades starting taking hits in college, I got the absolute delight of having professors I despised -- and thus, did not trust. As such, I concluded, "Amai, don't trust their grades -- trust the results." And in comparison to some of my peers, I was still going above and beyond. (I was passing my classes, I was doing all the tutoring things, I was TAing for classes, I was writing outside of school, I was developing my brand online, etc.)

 BUT NOW... what ARE the expectations? Even with decently intelligent choices, the chances of me becoming a multi-millionaire overnight are extremely slim. I often feel the expectation of an entrepreneur is that they like... make a product that people want and thus, gain a huge following and make money doing it. But I am not making money and my following is just a charming 3k at the moment. WHICH IS FINE. I'm not ungrateful for the people who support me -- many of you are WONDERFUL. But it's also messing with me because I cannot sustainably do this for my full time job yet.

I share this, not to brag about my education or whatever, but to point out yet another way my brain has found to bully me. And maybe your brain is doing the same thing, and you should tell it to be nicer. We have to remember that just because we haven't "made it" yet, it doesn't mean we've failed. And for me, I have to remember that people love me, even when I'm inconvenient to them.

AHHHHH *ahem* ANYWAY! Vidja games! This last week, I worked on the exterior environments for Nouveau Thuille until my wrist got sore.

Then I switched to work on my big Genshin Impact video for the year. It's gonna be a big history of Genshin Impact's marketing. I'm debating between calling it "Marketing as Performance Art: A Genshin Impact Case Study" and "History and Analysis of Genshin Impact's Marketing." Let me know which YOU'D click on!

And this upcoming week, I am going to do more Nouveau Thuille art. Ideally, I'd get it all done. But I likely won't (given how much of the day has already been writing this and other correspondence.)

Send me your good vibes by WISHLISTING #AllThePromisedBurn on Steam or following me on itch.io!

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🐋✨️🐳

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sanctum

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working this tiny cozy aquarium game that sits at the bottom of your screen while you work, study etc!

it's talled Tiny Aquarium

🐟 fish grow when you're offline 🐠 breed of 70 species of fishy friends 🦀 crabs 🏰 decorate your fish tank 💖 visit your friend's aquariums

we just released our first demo and would love to hear your feedback https://store.steampowered.com/app/2581950/Tiny_Aquarium_Social_Fishkeeping/

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Cannibalism = Line Go Up?

This is secretly just a video about market research on story-rich RPGmaker games. If you wanna know how well the top 10 RPGmaker games sold on Steam and what their store pages look like and then what we can steal to make OUR RPGmaker games JUST AS SUCCESSFUL (just kidding, not the last one lol), check out this video.

Also, for the record, I love Coffin of Andy and Leyley #LeyleyDidNothingWrong