herotome - Tumblr blog

[herotome]

Leave your shoes, get your heart, we'll groove on the way

[herotome]

Just a quick snippet of me opening up Ren'Py and working on TCD!

Tell me, did you notice the other projects in that list? 👀⁉️

Don't forget Tuff Mallow is on TikTok. I'll upload more if I know you guys wanna see what I'm up to! Link below 👇

Tuff on TikTok

[herotome]

OUT NOW! A Tavern at Night: Firelight

Past, present, or future. What fate will the cards uncover?

After striking up conversation with a wandering terrifying mercenary in a remote tavern, he's agreed to travel together for a while before you go your separate ways. 

That separation is approaching soon.  To commemorate your final night together you suggest reading him his fortune; might be useful for the road ahead, right?

Except neither of you are particularly looking forward to saying goodbye..

PLAY IT HERE!

features:

♡ a cosy campfire

♡ chooseable pronouns

♡ a variety of fantasy-tarot readings

♡ multiple endings

[herotome]

Devlog # 137

Hi-ho, Wudge here.

I spent the day working on (hopefully) final concept art for the mysterious Myster, a love interest who will be introduced in the next demo. ... I can't promise he'll show up in person, but you should be able to talk to him!

I've been working on both his heroic and his civilian design for more than three!! years!!!

His hero suit was inspired by: Lelouch/Zero Code Geass, Berzerker Fate/Zero, Zer0 Borderlands 2, and a set of scifi League skins. ... Weird that the first three sources all use the word "zero" somewhere but that's not the focus of our devlog today.

I've also started working on some sprite expressions for Griffin - not ready to show those off just yet but they're coming along, here's a sketch page I made before transitioning to digital art -

I wrote a decent amount, I believe somewhere over 600 words including some important variable-based scenes and menu choices... I'm pretty sure I started coding in and formatting that scene while I was at it.

I also BACKED UP MY FILES somehow I hadn't backed up my files for months!!! I guess I let that get away from me after the demo came out, but I definitely had to get back into the practice.

And uh... that's it for now!

Stay safe and keep warm,

Wudge.

[herotome]

Devlog #136

Hi-ho, Wudge here!

I wrote for and reworked the details of an upcoming scene this week - it's still very rough but it does finally feel like it's coming together.

Pretty much, it involves meeting Mia more officially in her hero get-up - and it involves her trying and failing to corral some paparazzi out of the road bc they don't wanna listen to someone who doesn't have that superstar rizz. (Though let's be real, they wouldn't listen to a superstar either).

It does mean I have to scrap a different scene (Mia showcases her powers by lifting something heavy) for now, but I may be able to re-use it a little later.

Other than that, I started putting together more art assets. Neverending art assets. Sisyphean art assets.

Concept for how MC's phone will be shown in the game, concept for the "imagination" filter I mentioned the other week (thank you to @bunnyrules and @velvet-cupcake-games for reminding me that radial gradients and vignettes exist!!), and concepts for Mia's hero outfit.

That's about it for now I think.

Stay safe and keep warm,

Wudge.

[herotome]

Devlog #135

Hi-ho, Wudge here!

jksdbj I finally put some expressions together for Ko-Fi after a delay I've felt very guilty about, and Ko-Fi won't let me post it. :( CURSES. It keeps logging me out when I'm on the herotome page?? ???

I suppose all I can do is to store it here on tumblr for now, and try ko-fi again tomorrow

More Warden expressions! One of these days I'll move onto Griffin.. one of these days.... Her eyebrows genuinely intimidate me.

Anyway.

I'm not sure I have much to update with. I did some more potential-future-antagonist sprite design (Clammy Lady's boss) and feel like I haven't made as much forward progress as I really should. It's already April... 😩 Looking through some previous devlogs, it seems I wrote some trashfire first draft and stored it somewhere. I should probably look for and get back to it.

Stay safe and keep warm,

Wudge.

[herotome]

somewhere on a long dead forum there's a link that no longer works to a mod to a game nobody plays that would be a valuable contribution to the way people see level design if it got a chance to be seen. somewhere on a website that gets 15 monthly visitors there's a webcomic that woulkd inspire and resonate with you and change your life even in a small way if you could just find it. somewhere theres a music artist that would inspire you for years to come but their work just can't manage to be seen online or off. theres so many things that would change your life that just can't seem to rise to the surface and remain undiscovered and forgotten. or maybe never shared

[herotome]

No devlog this week! See y'all next week. <3

[herotome]

about that MC "thinking about the LIs" scene, maybe you can use the characters' silhouettes and overlay some fun patterns on them. After all, the MC doesn't really know them yet.

Hahaha-- okay first of all, thank you to everyone who's offered suggestions. You've all really helped to get me think more creatively and feel less limited!

Masking the silhouette with patterns is also a rockin idea and quite doable in code, it's just-- my intrusive thoughts made it look like--

[herotome]

Devlog #134

Hi-ho, Wudge here. Devlog day!

I've mostly (90%) finished writing, editing, and coding in the scene immediately following the Super Demo! It's missing one choice set and I haven't put in any sfx or music just yet, but the conditionals and variables are all set and all of the images are in place.

I have room to improve with one of the images though -

It's so dark????? And I gotta add Jade and Dart, but--

I wanted to represent the MC thinking about the Love Interests, not that they suddenly teleported in. In the only outside example I can think of, shoujo anime, imagination/daydream scenes can be represented with pink bubbles and flowers, like so

...but that's a bit excessive for the tone of Herotome.

The most straightforward solution would be to commission a CG to showcase the characters from a different angle, but it'd only be for a couple of lines!! Not cost-effective 😂

So uh, wish me luck coming up with a visual solution that isn't cloaking the characters in darkness...

Stay safe and keep warm,

Wudge.

[herotome]

Devlog #133

Hi-ho, Wudge here.

I plugged in a bunch of expressions for Warden! (Don't mind the... recording window I accidentally left in the middle of the screen, and the way his eyes randomly turn gray after GIF compressions.)

Special thanks to my Ko-Fi donors - the variety of faces this man makes would not exist without them!

This past week I also drew some additional expressions not featured here, but I'll be putting them up on Ko-Fi soon. And, totally no relation, here's a mood board I made as reference for myself:

I also redrew an upcoming NPC, and put her into a test scene...

And I did a bit of writing and outlining. That's about it, I think!

Stay safe and keep warm,

Wudge.

[herotome]

I had a question about Daeng our Landlord. If you kiss his boo-boo he gets mad because he’s already seeing someone. However he has a score at the end of the demo. So I was wondering is that score related to the leeway he’s going to give us on paying our rent or something else?

Lol..... Very good guess, but no leeway on rent unfortunately. 😂 He'll be nicer to you if you're nice to him, but he'll never be that nice.

I think you might get a tiny approval boost if you try to kiss his boo-boo, actually? He does draw a boundary and tells you to stop, but inwardly he finds it a bit endearing!

Also, (super demo spoiler under the cut) -

With high enough Daeng approval, he'll show up to "save" you in the demo's bad ends because he considers you a friend and will make sure you're taken care of.

But you still gotta pay him rent. 😩

[herotome]

I just wanna say as a self proclaimed crybaby i greatly appreciate the crying scene. Like Yes my goto response to conflict is to burst into tears and it's just so validating to see that in a vn give it up for the emotionally volatile girlies /lh

LOL mannnn absolutely, it's important to me to put in a slew of dialogue options that rly capture instinctive, earnest reactions alongside the more neutral/possibly repressed choices

Assuming we're not playing in a constant state of explosive emotional crisis, the game won't really punish you for having an 'imperfect' response here or there. We're all gonna have moments where don't quite have it all together!

[herotome]

Flawless customer service ✨

No one can resist a good (or incredibly bitter) cup of coffee…something about The Familiar’s secret brew just hits those bones different 💀☕

✨ Wishlist Spill The Beans on Steam! ✨

[herotome]

Devlog #132

Hi-ho, Wudge here.

I did some writing!!!! 🎉

I scribbled over it here because I'm embarrassed, but I'm REALLY trying to embrace the suck(tm) and let my first draft be rough and ugly just so it can Exist. Other writers know the pain. I think.

I also did more expressions for Warden! Like... this one...

And drafted up concepts for the annoying couple at the federal center:

This isn't exactly how I imagined them, but it's a start.

On another note, has anybody been getting an influx of these on tumblr?

Apparently they're called "Back in Town" and they are... unfortunately getting on my nerves. Like I think it's great that people I follow are posting stuff!!! But I have followed A LOT of people over the years and when I wanna look at their stuff, that's what my dash is for 😭

Tumblr please I don't need all these pings auuUGHGHHGHHH. I tried going into Settings > Activity to filter them out but apparently that only filters them out from that specific activity page, not from my notifications.

If anyone has figured out how to shut these off please let me know. Thanks!

Stay safe and keep warm,

Wudge.

[herotome]

Devlog #132

Hi-ho, Wudge here!

Not much to update with, just doing my best to plug actual expressions into the game. Some of these will be dedicated to donors, I'm just gonna try to finish out the code before putting the images together to post on Ko-Fi.

I've also been writing a bit and sketching out moooreee NPCs... I keep in mind that there's a chance these people won't even show up in the game, but if they do, I'll want to have their assets mostly ready. Plus I get to exercise my art muscles.

I previously mentioned starting a new weekly schedule - and I think it's been going well. Keeping the daily task as bare bones as possible was really helpful.

Stay safe and keep warm,

Wudge.

[herotome]

Thank youi for the SuperDemo, I had a great time crying in public and fist-fighting Warden in his office!

Omg hello I recognize your pfp and username!!! You've been following for a while, yeah? Thank you thank you for playing <3

I inwardly call those scenes "classics" because they were written quite a while ago, surviving multiple drafts and without getting cut wahahaha. I'm glad you enjoyed them!