amithaknight

[amithaknight]

🎮 HEY I WANNA MAKE A GAME! 🎮

Yeah I getcha. I was once like you. Pure and naive. Great news. I AM STILL PURE AND NAIVE, GAME DEV IS FUN! But where to start?

To start, here are a couple of entry level softwares you can use! source: I just made a game called In Stars and Time and people are asking me how to start making vidy gaems. Now, without further ado:

SOFTWARES AND ENGINES FOR PEOPLE WHO DON'T KNOW HOW TO CODE!!!

Ren'py (and also a link to it if you click here do it): THE visual novel software. Comic artists, look no further ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It has great documentation! It has a bunch of plugins and UI stuff and assets for you to buy! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! (You'll just need to read the doc a bunch) You can also port your game to a BUNCH of consoles! ✨Cons: None really <3 Some games to look at: Doki Doki Literature Club, Bad End Theater, Butterfly Soup

Twine: Great for text-based games! GREAT FOR WRITERS WHO DONT WANNA DRAW!!!!!!!!! (but you can draw if you want) ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It's versatile! It has great documentation! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! (You'll just need to read the doc a bunch) ✨Cons: You can add pictures, but it's a pain. Some games to look at: The Uncle Who Works For Nintendo, Queers In love At The End of The World, Escape Velocity

Bitsy: Little topdown games! ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It's (somewhat) intuitive! It has great documentation! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! You can make everything in it, from text to sprites to code! Those games sure are small! ✨Cons: Those games sure are small. This is to make THE simplest game. Barely any animation for your sprites, can barely fit a line of text in there. But honestly, the restrictions are refreshing! Some games to look at: honestly I haven't played that many bitsy games because i am a fake gamer. The picture above is from Under A Star Called Sun though and that looks so pretty

RPGMaker: To make RPGs! LIKE ME!!!!! NOTE: I recommend getting the latest version if you can, but all have their pros and cons. You can get a better idea by looking at this post. ✨Pros: Literally everything you need to make an RPG. Has a tutorial inside the software itself that will teach you the basics. Pretty simple to understand, even if you have no coding experience! Also I made a post helping you out with RPGMaker right here! ✨Cons: Some stuff can be hard to figure out. Also, the latest version is expensive. Get it on sale! Some games to look at: Yume Nikki, Hylics, In Stars and Time (hehe. I made it)

engine.lol: collage worlds! it is relatively new so I don't know much about it, but it seems fascinating. picture is from Garden! NOTE: There's a bunch of smaller engines to find out there. Just yesterday I found out there's an Idle Game Maker made by the Cookie Clicker creator. Isn't life wonderful?

✨more advice under the cut. this is Long ok✨

ENGINES I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT AND THEY SEEM HARD BUT ALSO GIVE IT A TRY I GUESS!!!! :

Unity and Unreal: I don't know anything about those! That looks hard to learn! But indie devs use them! It seems expensive! Follow your dreams though! Don't ask me how!

GameMaker: Wuh I just don't know anything about it either! I just know it's now free if your game is non-commercial (aka, you're not selling it), and Undertale was made on it! It seems good! You probably need some coding experience though!!!

Godot: Man I know even less about this one. Heard good things though!

BUNCHA RANDOM ADVICE!!!!

-Make something small first! Try making simple: a character is in a room, and exits the room. The character can look around, decide to take an item with them, can leave, and maybe the door is locked and you have to find the key. Figuring out how to code something like that, whether it is as a fully text-based game or as an RPGMaker map, should be a good start to figure out how your software of choice works!

-After that, if you have an idea, try first to make the simplest version of that idea. For my timeloop RPG, my simplest version was two rooms: first room you can walk in, second room with the King, where a cutscene automatically plays and the battle starts, you immediately die, and loop back to the first room, with the text from this point on reflecting this change. I think I also added a loop counter. This helped me figure out the most important thing: Can This Game Be Made? After that, the rest is just fun stuff. So if you want to make a dating sim, try and figure out how to add choices, and how to have affection points go up and down depending on your choices! If you want to make a platformer, figure out how to make your character move and jump and how to create a simple level! If you just want to make a kinetic visual novel with no choices, figure out how to add text, and how to add portraits! You'll be surprised at how powerful you'll feel after having figured even those simple things out.

-If you have a programming problem or just get confused, never underestimate the power of asking Google! You most likely won't be the only person asking this question, and you will learn some useful tips! If you are powerful enough, you can even… Ask people??? On forums??? Not me though.

-Yeah I know you probably want to make Your Big Idea RIGHT NOW but please. Make a smaller prototype first. You need to get that experience. Trust me.

-If you are not a womanthing of many skills like me, you might realize you need help. Maybe you need an artist, or a programmer. So! Game jams on itch.io are a great way to get to work and meet other game devs that have different strengths! Or ask around! Maybe your artist friend secretly always wanted to draw for a game. Ask! Collaborate! Have fun!!!

I hope that was useful! If it was. Maybe. You'd like to buy me a coffee. Or maybe you could check out my comics and games. Or just my new critically acclaimed game In Stars and Time. If you want. Ok bye

[amithaknight]

Hi, Jenn. These recent children's imprints closings have been really sad. Is there anything we, as authors and readers, can do, aside from buying more children's/YA books?

No, and yes. No, you aren't going to stop corporate mergers. Yes, you CAN help the book industry more generally!

While some books are just straight up bestsellers that do not need your help to thrive, I'd say 90% of books and authors are hurting for attention, tbh -- and that probably includes some of your favorites. Media is so fractured / silo'ed and people are so distracted, discoverability is a huge challenge for authors.

So yes by all means please DO buy books! Give them as gifts! Pass them out to your friends! And enemies! But also: TALK ABOUT THEM! Start a book club! If you are on a budget? Use your library! Request titles they don't have! (For ebooks and audiobooks, too! Check out OverDrive and Libby!) Write reviews of books you love, or talk them up on social media!

(To paraphrase RuPaul: If we bookworms don't buy and read and talk about books, how in the hell can we expect anyone else to? CAN I GET AN AMEN UP IN HERE?)

ALL THAT BEING SAID: Imprints being bought/sold/closed etc has little to do with individual readers. Your buying three extra copies of your fav book is not going to affect an international multi-million/BILLION dollar corporation merging or divesting assets or whatever -- those kinds of decisions are above our pay grade as authors / readers / the general public! (Anyway, a publisher may be sold not because it ISN'T doing well and the owner is trying to get rid of it -- but because it is doing VERY well and a larger company wants it! Or for some other reason, something something shareholders, who knows!)

Think about it this way: You throwing your water bottle in the correct bin is good, but it's not going to stop climate change. CORPORATIONS need to stop it, GOVERNMENTS need to stop it -- your individual contribution is nice, by all means keep reducing, reusing, recycling, but it isn't YOU that is the real problem or the solution, actually. You can help not make it worse! You can rally for change and join groups and encourage corporations to make that change with your voice, your votes, etc. You can bring attention to it in whatever ways you are able! But it's not up to you as an individual to actually do the heavy part of the world-saving.

In much the same way: Getting more people to buy more books is actually a much bigger problem than your buying an extra paperback or tweeting alone can solve. It has to do in part with changing the CULTURE, with figuring out how to get all of our attention spans back, with getting kids to pick up books for fun instead of their phones, with valuing education, etc.

MOST IMPORTANTLY, IMO, the publishing industry and authors and everyone else in the country, quite frankly, would be greatly helped by investing more in teachers and libraries rather than de-funding and criminalizing them, with stopping the book banning madness that is happening, and with PLEASE GOD not letting "Project 2025" become a reality! So if you are concerned with any of these issues, do make the changes in your own life, and do use your voice, your VOTES, whatever you can do to bring attention to the issues -- join and support advocacy groups like Authors Against Book Bans, donate, yell about it! But ultimately it's going to have to be the government, and monied and powerful major entities (including corporations... like publishers!) that are going to have to step up to REALLY enact change. What you can do is show them by word and deed that you WANT that change.

[amithaknight]

[amithaknight]

I had completely forgotten about this poem I wrote and then recopied using brush pen calligraphy! What do you think?

[amithaknight]

This except "writes" a line amirite?

[draws a line] [tweaks it a little] [tweaks it a little] [tweaks it a little] [tweaks it a little] [tweaks it a little] [tweaks it a little] [tweaks it a little] [tweaks it a little] [tweaks it a little] [tweaks it a little] [tweaks it a little] [tweaks it a little] [erases the entire line] [redraws the line] [tweaks it a little] [tweaks it a little] [tweaks it a little] [tweaks it a little] [tweaks it a little] [tweaks it a little] [tweaks it a little] [erases the entire line] [redraws it] [undo] [redraws it] [undo] [redraws it] [undo] [redraws it] [undo] [redraws it] [undo] [redraws it] [tweaks it a little] [undo] [tweaks it a little] [undo] [tweaks it a little] [undo] [tweaks it a little] [undo] [tweaks it a little] [undo] [tweaks it a little] [undo] [tweaks it a little] [undo] [tweaks it a little] [undo] [tweaks it a little] [tweaks it a little] [tweaks it a little] [tweaks it a little] [tweaks it a little] [undo] [accidental undo] [redo] [erases the entire line] [redraws it] [undo] [redraws it] [undo] [redraws it] [tweaks it a little] [tweaks it a little] [tweaks it a little] [tweaks it a little]

[amithaknight]

the black bee-eater is a member of the bee-eater family found in tropical rainforests & secondary forests in africa. they are mainly black, with a scarlet throat and bright blue markings on their crown and the underside of their body. as their name implies, they are insectivorous and prefer bees & wasps. they feed on these insects without injury by repeatedly banging & rubbing the insect on a hard surface, which discharges the majority of their venom and/or removes the stinger.

[amithaknight]

favourite thing in the world is when the pages of a book go all soft and yellowy and the edges are slightly fuzzy and rounded. these books couldn’t give you a papercut if you tried they’ve been loved too much. they love you too much

[amithaknight]

Fanfiction Authors: HEADS UP

(Non-authors, please RB to signal boost to your author friends!)

An astute reader informed me this morning that one of my fics (Children of the Future Age) had been pirated and was being sold as a novel on Amazon:

(And they weren't even creative with their cover design. If you're going to pirate something that I spent a full year of my life writing, at least give me a pretty screenshot to brag about later. Seriously.)

I promptly filed a DMCA complaint to have it removed, but I checked out the company that put it up -- Plush Books -- and it looks like A LOT of their books are pirated fic. They are by no means the only ones doing this, either -- the fact that """publishers""" can download stories from AO3 in ebook format and then reupload them to Amazon in just a few clicks makes fic piracy a common problem. There are a whole host of reasons why letting this continue is bad -- including actual legal risk to fanfiction archives -- but basically:

IF YOU ARE A FANFIC AUTHOR WITH LONG AND/OR POPULAR WORKS, PLEASE CHECK AMAZON TO SEE IF YOUR STORIES HAVE BEEN PIRATED.

You can search for your fics by title, or by text from the description (which is often just copied wholesale from AO3 as well). If you find that someone has stolen your work and is selling it as their own, you can lodge a DMCA complaint (Amazon.com/USA site; other countries have different systems). If you haven't done this before, it's easy! Here's a tutorial:

HOW TO FILE A COPYRIGHT COMPLAINT FOR STOLEN WORK ON AMAZON.COM:

First, go to this form. You'll need to be signed into your Amazon account.

Select the radio buttons/dropdown options (shown below) to indicate that you are the legal Rights Owner, you have a copyright concern, and it is about a pirated product.

Enter the name of your story in the Name of Brand field.

In the Link to the Copyrighted Work box, enter a link to the story on AO3 or whatever site your work is posted on.

In the Additional Information box, explain that you are the author of the work and it is being sold without your permission. That's all you really need. If you want, you can include additional information that might be helpful in establishing the validity of your claim, but you don't have to go into great detail. You can simply write something like this:

I am the author of this work, which is being sold by [publisher] without my permission. I originally published this story in [date/year] on [name of site], and have provided a link to the original above. On request, I can provide documentation proving that I am the owner of the account that originally posted this story.

In the ASIN/ISBN-10 field, copy and paste the ID number from the pirated copy's URL. You'll find this ten-digit number in the Amazon URL after the word "product," as in the screenshot below. (If the URL extends beyond this number, you can ignore everything from the question mark on.) Once this number has been added, Amazon will pull the product information automatically and add it to the complaint form, so you can check the listing title and make sure it's correct.

Finally, add your contact information to the relevant fields, check the "I have read and accept the statements" box, and then click Submit. You should receive an email confirmation that Amazon has received the form.

Please share this information with your writer friends, keep an eye out for/report pirated works, and help us keep fanfiction free and legally protected!

NOTE: All of the above also applies to Amazon products featuring stolen artwork, etc., so fan artists should check too!

[amithaknight]

I'm back

I'm here again! I'm mostly on bluesky and threads but have a fav account here I'm checking frequently. ❤️

Looks like I missed tumblr live whatever that was about LOL i still don't understand what blaze is but that's okay.

[amithaknight]

Me reading from my recently published shortstory, "Kaliya, Queen of Snakes" published in Zooscape

[amithaknight]

[amithaknight]

cute!

Gem in her red skin! First time in a while I've drawn her human.

[amithaknight]

[amithaknight]

so cute!

trying to figure out what to do with these pressed flowers

[amithaknight]

social media?

so i'm now coming back to this tumblr account, i started a mastodon account and am also on post.news. I feel like i still haven't found my fav new hangout spot after (mostly) leaving twitter, but i guess this jumping around will have to do for now!

[amithaknight]

PLEASE check out the We Need Diverse Books holiday auction (closes tomorrow, 12/12 at 9pm EST) , which will also support their Books Save Lives campaign. There are tons of great manuscript and query critiques still up for grabs (including a query critique from yours truly)!

[amithaknight]

So fascinating!

TiL (click to go to the thread, which probably has more interesting tidbits I missed).

Bonus: