anfeycare

[anfeycare]

"do i want to be loved or do i want to be supported" is the question it seems (i'm feeling a lack of both

[anfeycare]

oof it's been a day... i'm afraid that i won't remember that so soon

i even tried drawing what i remembered but what i drew doesn't remind me of any specific "non-special" character so i'm stuck with-

welp.

i still wanna try to remember later, but as vague as they look- i guess they're one of my OCs now-

peers i'm trying to see something, tell me nerd and background characters

from games, movies etc

even/specially "less memorable" ones

("vaguely a twink" works too)

[anfeycare]

peers i'm trying to see something, tell me nerd and background characters

from games, movies etc

even/specially "less memorable" ones

("vaguely a twink" works too)

[anfeycare]

[anfeycare]

peers i'm trying to see something, tell me nerd and background characters

from games, movies etc

even/specially "less memorable" ones

("vaguely a twink" works too)

[anfeycare]

the project i'm currently working on is a horror roleplay game, but there'll be a few cute moments and so i'm considering allowing to pet a little animal at some point

and the existence of the animal plus the fact it's horror gave me a fitting horrible idea for an implication that makes the animal feel more linked to the ambient plus course of events in the story, and it makes me both smile from how fitting it is and the thoughts of how a player would react, and curl up from the agony of the implied horror-

[anfeycare]

that is a little thing i made last year, by the way :3

i didn't post it before so i figured i should

"The candlelight" 🕯️

[anfeycare]

"The candlelight" 🕯️

[anfeycare]

ooo, the points of June making all the things her friends did and still not being affected like they did, and it not being anything objective the people on the island did in particular that affected them to act like they did, are very interesting points! it makes a lot of sense

i feel like fear of deviating from the intention of the writing could have made part of the audience take the more subtle points with the "but i don't know if it's really part of the idea" grain of salt, which didn't help them explore the points (i'm included in this part of the audience kjskksc i'm guilty of being afraid and thus not taking some points as points that were intended — there's some fear to unlearn i think), but this is a thing that comes along with subtleties, subtext and such — what is subtle can go unnoticed sometimes and it happens; noticing subtleties and taking them into account is more on the audience, who is encouraged to learn and exercise it, than on the writer who wrote something in a subtle way

the best a writer can do to make a subtle point more clear is adding more points that go on the same direction, which can be subtle too, and Rot in Paradise had a lot of those! even if some points a writer does could feel a little against other points, they're often there not to contradict but to add nuance to the main point, and this is a nice touch! it deepens the idea

part of the audience not exploring some subtleties in the story could make the subtleties feel confusing when looking from other points, but also, on other hand, a lot of the confusion complements the idea of the game itself

June gets confused with the situations with her friends and the island, and then the players who get confused too really get in her shoes — and this honestly makes Rot in Paradise amazing as an RPG; feels like role-playing at its finest, with the players feeling just like her, getting on her role, sometimes without even noticing it

Hello!!!! It's been a while since rot in paradise came out but was there a canon reason everybody went in the ocean at the end? I know it was more metaphorical but I was still confused

Typically I don't like giving an outright "this is what the game was about" with projects I work on because I feel it can take away from the player experience and leaves less room for speculation and theorizing. Right after the game came out and for the month during the game jam I wanted people to be able to have their own take away of the game and didn't want to interject or place the idea that there was a "right" way to view it, especially since its a game with a looser plot and I didn't want it to cloud players individual interpretations of it.

A lot of people mentioned feeling like the story hit hard and felt personal to them which tells me that the themes and emotions we were going for were felt by some players but even more players were left confused or frustrated by the ambiguity. I understand that stories with more subjectivity that lean more into surreal visuals and open endings will land for less people but it still falls on the creator to tactfully deliver that message and I agree with a lot of the criticism that Rot in Paradise kinda fell flat of that.

From what Ive seen a lot of people felt like RIP had potential but it didn't follow through or feel cohesive enough. The main story was meant to touch on the themes and feeling of losing loved ones to dangerous ideologies and addiction. There wasn't a set in stone plot reason that everyone on the island falls victim to it, there wasn't a secret wrong thing that all of them did that June didn't- which was intentional to portray it as some people being susceptible to things you wouldn't think as reasonable but also potentially muddled the themes.

It was also meant to work as grounds for making the player feel confused and disoriented and wonder what they could have done differently to save them. There isn't anything that it seems the others interact with that June doesn't, she's able to partake in the same activities everyone else does without it altering her the way it alters them. It's a matter of forces outside her control effecting them more than it effects her and whether she wants to succumb to something she's capable of escaping to stay with her friends or leave them behind as they get worse and worse is up to her.

There were a lot of elements I think that worked against the favor of having that theme work. Even with a lot of the people who did notice and remark upon the message, it felt like the general vibe was "oh heyyy this part kinda sorta reminded me of this theme but idk if that was intentional" rather than a direct "this is what the theme of the game is". Overall while opinions on RIP were more mixed than previous entires I'm excited to tackle stories with more subtextual elements more in depth in the future outside of game jams. Rot in Paradise is probably one of less narratively successful games I've worked on in my opinion but still got me really excited about exploring that space and improving on stories like it in future projects and I'm still really proud of working on it

[anfeycare]

pros of making the expressions animated and blinking while the characters aren't talking anymore: little neat touch, adds personality, is another signal that the player can press to continue to the next dialogue/end dialogue

cons: ... more work

[anfeycare]

good evening long time no see, i'm about to write a devlog update of a project i'm working on for a game jam, i just have to finish the dialogue system i'm thinking of and get it working (i'm halfway through the code) (you know where i'll post the update :3 for supporters) (they'll also get to play it a week earlier once it's done!)

[anfeycare]

So I was going through an image gallery of these old Wizard of Oz promotional pictures and uh-

...🤐

[anfeycare]

❄️🦭🦑

[anfeycare]

i just realized that HTML tags work here, that's neat ✨

on blogs' descriptions at least (which is pretty useful)

[anfeycare]

i'm having lots of fun developing characters and imagining scenes, the only problem i'm having is that this is happening mostly inside my mind only

[anfeycare]

"Red Guy doodles"

directly from january of 2023, still my beloved ✨

[anfeycare]

should be obvious, but i mean the context is casual lighthearted and they said that instead of "whatever, dude" or any other expression like that

˃▿˂ [little face laughing with eyes closed]

i just made a character say "whatever, queer" to his friend 'cause their friend is genderqueer and to be honest i'm feeling euphoric about it ✨