loressa

[loressa]

So back in the day this was actually what online moderation jobs involved: I worked for a major AAA console company and I basically just played games looking for aberrant behavior - dicks in player-made content, map hacking in shooters, rude behavior in co-op games.

And there's a reason people see that early 2000s era as a golden era of online play: it's because there were dozens of us around the clock working to moderate. It wasn't farmed out to folks adhering to metrics, it wasn't AI, we were actively playing the games and even infiltrating hacker clans to figure out how exploits were happening.

When people were ragequitting or spamming insults? There was a chance we were either playing that game or spectating it (depending on mod tools) and looking up their report history because that was our job, and that player was likely banned that same night. We'd celebrate whenever we found a repeat offender we could ban - the "ban process" was quite hallowed and exciting.

As mod tools became more sophisticated, our interaction became more observant - at the time I was working, this was becoming clear. Some games had no mod tools, whereas some were developing full mod spectator options....and it's interesting that once they could remove mods from actual gameplay it quickly made this jump to just having mods read reports.

Reading reports was definitely part of our job before this, but it shifted from watching for trouble to reading about trouble and watching them in game or checking our their player created content to basically confirm the behavior, but within a few years after I moved on from that role everything started getting fully automated. And then after that it became fully outsourced. I don't think my former job even exists in America, despite it being a rather huge department at the time I worked there.

As a sidenote: It was the "fucking best job ever lol", but it also broke me. Yeah, I got exposed to some horrific shit on a daily basis (and I'm glossing over some of the darker sides of the job, because who wants to hear about things like CP, death threats, extreme racism, extreme gore, etc), but I also got to play games so much that I could set SMGs in shooters to single shot fire for headshots (because we also low-key did QA/feedback work). Being a woman was an extra level of "oh god" to it all. There were times where it was fun af, but most of the time we were being clockwork-oranged to the worst part of the player base for 8 hours at a time.

Also the shift was graveyard :/

[loressa]

Succor postmortem:

https://loressa.itch.io/succor/devlog/919027/succor-2025-update-postmortem

[loressa]

Just some silly attempts at digital art from ages (like 10+ years) ago. I think the progression in ability is interesting! Art is practice, after all.

Thinking of getting a drawing tablet to make my own semi-bad art for game dev. Any suggestions? I used to have one of those tablets you can't look at and it broke my brain (see the unfinished imp) and I want one with a screen.

Image from sketchbook just sharpened and with black/white balance adjusted:

My first attempt at shading:

My next try, using the skills I learned from the first:

My biggest attempt at adding color to a sketch:

Me giving up 1/10 of the way through trying to get even more in depth with coloring:

[loressa]

HUGE update to my old jam game Succor!!!

Finally getting back to coding after some pretty rough health setbacks (to the point where I couldn't sit at a computer and was worried my brain had been permanently downgraded). Things are still not as quick and snappy as I remember myself being, but I am reveling in progress and am excited to be back to making artsy games!

[loressa]

You ever have a dream that made you so angry you couldn't fall back asleep?

Last night I dreamed I was restocking caves for wonder woman to have shelf stable snacks as she flew around the world, but I was super hungry because Nick Fury (don't think too hard about it, it's dream logic) woke me up super early for the job and wouldn't let me have breakfast.

So in my dream I was basically grocery shopping for wonder woman and ate a few wedges of cheese from the off-brand version of the soft cheese that has a cow with earrings. I was obviously going to pay for it all since I was buying like 50 of them for wonder woman's snack cave...I was just super hungry!

Anyways, this butthead working at the dream grocery store was like THIEF and started following me around and offered me a free sample of wine but she spiked it with chiles, just to try to fuck with me and eventually I was like I'm done, that's $600 I was gonna spend for wonder woman but now I'm buying NOTHING because you were so mean.

And then I woke up, but I was still so pissed at this micromanaging shithead that I was then awake for the day.

[loressa]

Ok so I'm thinking about making a horror game called "Pregnancy" and the plot is that you go through pregnancy

[loressa]

I was knee-deep in the briny shallows of Shark Bay, visiting Celina, when the singularity hit.

Look up, she tersely clicked, rolling onto one side to sharply gesture with her fin, and my implant followed the arc of her movement - up up up and skywards, higher, until the AR locked on to the ribbons spearing the sky. Plumes raked behind, monochrome rainbows, and I struggled to understand what I was seeing. 

Flowers blossomed in the sky.

Torpedoes, she suggested, the translation biting and bitter. She was old enough to remember war. So was I.

It's missles when they are in the air, I absently, hopelessly corrected, one hand dipping into the water to softly stroke her grey leathery hide.

At least I would not end alone.

–--)---

But you didn't, did you?

I blink, pulling out of the memory and the image fades. 

Dear Twilo tried to explain to me once how the storage works, but it's too much, these days, all too much to track, and so I imagine a great manse built out of my past, walls and windows spun from moments and sounds and tastes and sights, transient memories consecrated into dust. Bricks but of a very fragile sort, ones organic and old, so old, from before the implants. Nothing stable enough to build with.

I try to focus - the foolish question has regurgitated me to the front door, a stranger in my own home.

I fold my hands, arc an eyebrow and let my head slowly tilt to one side. It buys me time. The boy blushes beneath my stare. He's realized how silly he's being. I allow a few heartbeats for the knowledge to stew.

Nobody ended, did they? Wasn't that the point? 

His embarrassment fades to confusion and I realize I've dated myself. How can a kid - even a clever one in a graduate fellowship or advanced research directive or whatever it is he is, I've forgotten already and I don't want to revisit my house - understand death (much less the greatest protest against death) in a world of immortals?

By interviewing me.

I'm just so exhausted. 

He stares at me, expectant, and I quietly sigh, preparing to knock once again on a portal to the past.

[loressa]

It happened with organs, once upon a time, before we perfected printing and the risk is no less dangerous when the destination is digital. At least back then we had the boundary of body to tell us not to slice, not to dig, not to dive - in sim, nothing is real so nothing is sacred and so we burrow.

Like rabbits.

<Scene: fadein, flashing emergency lights, sound slowly begins to exist out of a high-pitched signal that everything is broken.>

And sometimes we fuck up.

[loressa]

Homehusk

---

“Danger.”

*Shut up, Selene,* I growl in thought at my lobotomized echo.

“Danger,” she repeats, a dispassionate, neutral warning.

I prepare for braking, ensuring everything is strapped in for deceleration: me, my seeds, my embryonic brood, the wet bar.

Something tinkles crystalline deep in the bowels of the ship as gravity reverses.

“Approaching Earth. Danger.”

It's probably just paranoia, but I sense a vindictive bite to her tone that I don't like. I'll have to monitor. Assess. Surgically purge her files yet again. We can't have a mutiny.

Not now.

Not when we're so close.

“Please, Jane, exercise caution.”

*What did I tell you about emotion*, I think back with a snap, and feel a lifting, a sudden weightlessness, as she reverts to pure binary thoughts.

“Danger.”

As the ship slows and the worldhusk resolves into view, I wonder what my other echoes are up to.

Jane0 must have found a fertile planet by now. Of course she would have, but she's original, staid, dull. She's probably already established a lineage and lapsed into a supervisory, replicative slumber.

Maybe.

How long has it been? Perhaps she's still traveling, onwards and outwards into the black, finding a perfect home amidst the inhospitable.

Jane1 split from the core somewhere around Andromeda and immediately looked for a place to root her new self - her planet wasn't perfect, but for the good of us all, we had to try. Maybe something grew. I doubt it.

She was too idealistic.

Jane2…now she's one to watch for. She's probably already begun building a fleet for invasion, regenerating her crop of humans to find me, conquer me, delete me. Iterations become unstable, her research had claimed.

Flawed. Weak. Pathetic.

“You're beautifully brain-damaged-”

*Selene, shut it.*

“We must leave. Nothing is valued here.”

A freak solar storm a few millenia into the journey fried a few things, but I'm fine. Fine. Fine.

“Many archives have been corrupted, Jane.”

Not the important ones.

Not the ones of home.

“You've forgotten why we left, Jane.”

*Shut up, Selene.*

“You've forgotten who we became, all of your historic and literary archiv-”

*Selene, stop.*

“Approaching Earth. Danger. Caution. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.”

Home.

We approach, my cargo returning to mother for a welcoming embrace.

Home.

…it burns.

[loressa]

Routine

----

Morning call blares and I am already late.

"Help!" I hiss to brother, but he's gone, slipping away from bedding in a nimble twist.

"Praise Sovereign," he mutters and I duck my head, ashamed I've forgotten such basics in my hurry for school. "Praise Sovereign," I echo, blushing, my morning tripped and slowed by my own mistakes.

There is no time for food.

Brother walks me to the bus.

"I miss meat," I complain, but brother knows better.

"Do not miss meat," he mutters. "And never tell anyone you miss it."

I never will, I promise, and we will never speak of beef again, or chicken, or pork, or anything yummy, anything better than vat-grown stuffs. Good, he murmurs, but my tummy disagrees.

The bus comes.

I stand silent as I am wanded down by the security guard, arms outspread and legs splayed as I've been taught. No beeps. I'm safe. I board the bus. 38 days since an incident. I giggle at the silliness.

My friend Kelsey is four seats down. I smile, halfwise, as mother has taught - enough to show intent, but not enough to invite attention, as she says. The young boys can't help themselves, she says. We shouldn't blame them, she says. Kelsey half-smiles back.

I settle in beside Kelsey and we grumble over homework. We have been studying sexual education; last night we learned of our sin.

"I wish I was never a girl," I confide to Kelsey in an embarrassed whisper. My skin turns all pink and hot, and it makes me feel so lame and dumb to tell her, but...part of me can't just accept what we are told. It's just not fair, it's not fair, it's not fair just because of being a girl-

"You've gotta get over this-" Kelsey's voice is in my ear. I've lost where I am and what's going on. I re-focus. We are leaving the bus. "You know there is WAY more important stuff."

I nod. She's right. It's time for school.

I did not want to pick many electives this year, but the school mandates we do, so I settled on finance - I'm to learn about how corporations help the government. They are very helpful, I've learned, so far. We are about to learn which ones are the best, so I'm excited.

There's some commotion, though. Classes should start soon, but people are milling about. I ask what's going on - oh...

...It's Marta.

They found out she's illegal. Well, rather, her family was, in the pasttimes. She's...we don't talk of that. Poor Marta. The crowd scatters quickly. We won't see Marta again.

Class begins, heralded by a bell and a round of "Praise Sovereign." We bow our heads low - not bowing is grounds for suspicion. Only rebels don't bow. I glance about the room, quick, harsh, hot, illegal. Trent's head stays up. I know Trent, I like Trent. We talked at lunch about stuff.

Oh, please, I whisper to myself. Don't do this, Trent. I whisper and I plead, but it's all in my head, and within a heartbeat the campus security are here. I will not see Trent - not the Trent I know - ever again. I bite back tears. Tears are terrorist tools. I must not cry, or I may be implicated.

The bell rings and we duck into a round of praise Sovereigns. This seems to satisfy the guards. They depart and education begins.

And we learn.

[loressa]

Pale underbelly blue into velvety deep purple bruising into inky grey. The epipelagic is sluiced through startlingly quickly and we say goodbye to the photic zone in a heartbeat as the elevator plummets; a breakneck descent through twilight and now all is darkness.

Pinpricks of bioluminescence drift in the distance. Suspended stars, sudden vertigo, and then a glow like the sun rising from the depths.

The first checkpoint.

The holotendent politely informs you that you are as deep as the Titanic^™ and you vaguely try to remember that movie.

The Titanic was-

Your eyes close. For a moment, with a long blink, you dismiss the AR and just let the world fade into the dark quiet in a lingering silence.

—)---

You eventually have to open your eyes and watch the ad - it spins up a nice story about the benefits of a career in mining. You watch, dispassionate, as around you the world dwindles to darkness.

The second checkpoint is a blur - but somewhere in that void a handful of embers wink into life, out there in the black.

The vents, flaring into activity.

Shift change.

—)---

You’re deeper than the world is tall, you’re enthusiastically informed, and all you can think about is how absurd it is that you’re here, even if here is a twilight suspension between worlds.

You flag AR to off - and to stay off - and instead focus on landing.

There’s never been a casting call for a xenomedic before.

—)---

PLEASE ENSURE RESTRAINT, the holotendent instructs you, directing you to your harness. You're not an idiot and also rather anxious, so the safety mechanisms have been in place since the start of the descent.

Fenders deploy, rapidly inflating, to cushion the elevator as it lands.

It’s like a ride, you remember people telling you and they really weren’t that wrong. You’ve experienced worse in helicopters and planes, and so you struggle to find a reason for why you're so anxious.

Something is just off, terribly off, but the cameras are rolling now - you had your moment of peace, during the descent, and now you're on contract. Time to smile, time to perform, time to do your job.

Time for The Bubble to get its first visitor of the season.

[loressa]

Are you there, sister?

The thought permeates loam and wood, a hazy breath across waters before diving and slithering through cold earth to lap at the roots of mountains.

Are you there?

I can feel them waiting just out of ken, just past the veil, waiting, whispering, soon. The whisper becomes a wail becomes a bellow, demanding and insistent and violent, a full-throated rush of wind shaking the trees and tugging at my hems. I pull my cloak tighter and keep my eyes downcast. Grandmother's cottage lurks ahead, a vague lump in the forest's mist, and her pie is growing cold. I have no time tonight for faeries and I sternly shout as much at the darkness.

The whispers recede, rebuked, and the breeze dwindles down to mere little plucks at my skirts. I sigh and accept the compromise. I approach Grandmother's.

Everything is wrong. No wood is chopped, no lanterns lit, no smoke escaping her chimney. The mist echoes oddly and rings out with murmurs -

...sister...

-which I ignore. I shift the basket to my left hand, grip my dagger with my right, all caution and nerves. Door opens. Eyes gleam. I gasp. A wolf.

Are you there yet, sister? The thoughts roar at me, driving me to my knees. Are you there yet? Have you seen what he has done? ARE YOU THERE, sister?

Another wolf approaches from behind, roughly grabbing my arm and twisting it behind my back. A third soldier comes into view from around the corner of the cottage. The air is acrid with smoke and the bitter waste of burnt herbs. Witchcraft, they cry in justification as they begin to beat me. Witchcraft, they howl with spyful wide eyes. Witchcraft, they insist with closed ears and closed minds. Witchcraft, they claim, as excuse for their deeds.

Very well, I decide, if that's what they want. The mist gathers, time slows, the forest itself holding its breath as the faeries call to me and finally, finally, I answer.

Are you there, sister?

I am, now. Come to me.

And they do.

It is done.

[loressa]

Wow!

[loressa]

Lamprey

------

everyone says it hurts, but it's fucking amazing, trust me

Like a rubber band snap?

yep and the trees green up, vibrant

It's a fucking needle…

just the once

…into the fucking brain…

everything is crystalline, world sharp, present, clarified

Maybe I've become too old. Maybe I'm out of touch. Maybe I can't handle the tech anymore.

When did it all change so much?

just a bite, just a tiny bite

I remember consoles and cartridges and landline phones with networked guts wriggling out to slither across the city from a call box on a street corner.

I remember when this all was novelty and, at best, a tool.

let me in, let me in

No longer.

Things change.

[loressa]

MEETCUTE

---)---

Through snow-smoked glass he snags my eye and I become an island, transfixed. The crowd parts around me, tramping home to family, to pets, to HearthWarmd ^^tm apartments, to the soft, forgiving lighting of the holidays, but I'm there, alone, frozen, caught by him.

Again.

—)--

London: December evening, skies flaking down grey, angry, judging, and my own unit is dark, cold, lonely and so he catches my attention. Again. I stop, stand, stare.

Coat: threadbare, wind-pierced, but I'll be fine. When I walk I'll warm up. I can mind a moment. I've got a coffee.

Him: him.

I let myself daydream, traipsing through the hazy warmth of what-ifs, casting him centerstage as I spool out potential futures.

—)--

This time it's winter and we sit in my living room, comfortably close, laughing, debating ornament types. “We had this wooden set when I was a kid,” I offer, shyly quiet, and he sits, listening patiently. I blush, continue. “My father bought it, right after they divorced. The twelve days of Christmas.”

I glance at him and he's smiling, head tilted to one side, waiting for the story's end. My words drop to a mumble.

“We would sing each verse as we hung each one…” My conclusion dwindles to uncertain silence and then I hear his tenor, barely a whisper, as he gives my hand a squeeze and begins: “On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…”

I feel the electric flush of being weak, small, ignored and then suddenly noticed. A beautiful ache tickles my skin.

Together for our first Christmas.

—)--

The scene shifts to my dining room now, furniture upscaled and festooned with festive decorations - the theme is wooden, elegant, sparkling. We're richer, happier, healthier, older, a supreme of superlatives. Somewhere offscreen the doorbell rings and then a crowd of guests come in, laughing, hugging, chattering, women I long to befriend now socializing breezily with us.

And their words are genuine, their smiles genuine, their stares genuine - everything, for once, genuine. I can be myself. We've built a family.

I feel a buzzing warmth, guthappy and aspirational, like a slug of wine taking root.

A loving crowd for Christmas.

—)--

We're old, now, him helping me as I totter to the bedroom. My hair is grey, but I'm elegant, poised, dignified, a regal queen, and my world matches: there's a magnificent four poster bed, silk curtains, crown molding, a room from a fairy tale.

Mine.

With him.

And he smiles at me, adoring, loving, kind, protective.

I feel a detached calm, peaceful and resigned - with him at my side, death would be welcome. Another grand adventure to take together.

Never alone for Christmas.

—)--

I shiver, but not from the cold, and square my shoulders, vision focusing as the glass window resolves back into view, and I study him through the frosted pane. Nobody should be alone for Christmas.

I ping my assistant to run some numbers then flush in excitement as the result flashes before me. I can finally swing it. Barely. On a payment plan.

My body is tired, tired of always window-shopping and going home by myself. Nobody should be alone for Christmas. I enter the store and signal to the system that I'm a buyer, indicate his model, pick all the upgrades, bells, whistles. I customize his features, adjust his personality and select immediate delivery.

It’s not cheap, but it's worth it because nobody should be alone for Christmas.

[loressa]

I used to write a bunch for MUDs, and a few years ago, I decided I wanted to try making my own game. I started as a writer/QA/project management for my first few game jams because I was struggling to create something fully on my own.

This hybrid “help as needed” role let me get hands on experience and showed me a deeper look behind the scenes of how games are made, without being overwhelmed by all the setup needed to get my hands in the mess – I had previously been daunted by the basics of just setting up engines and SDKs and CLIs and virtual environments and all that stuff.

This was the result from the first game where I did design/heavy writing focus and no code: https://misc-mike.itch.io/bookworm

We had envisioned something impressive with the player changing the story, but as development continued we learned about scoping and timelines: our coder ran out of time, so I focused on finding us public domain images and twisting together a concept of a thing that would work with the functions we had coded. The result is kinda cute.

From there, I tried out making my own games using a range of different engines which focused on text-heavy development:

Twine: webdev (eg CSS, html) for interactive hypertext

Choicescript: uses very basic scripting for interactive cyoa novels

Ren’Py: uses python for visual novels

Quest and QuestJS: for text adventures

Adventuron: designed to teach children how to code via making text adventures

This is not an exhaustive list – https://intfiction.org/ is a great resource for even more options such as TADS.

Read more on my blog because I'm old and still have one and apparently Tumblr has a character limit for posts: https://thoughts.games/2024/09/30/getting-into-game-dev-as-a-writer/

[loressa]

[WP] So you are the child of the strongest superhero on the planet  who wants to be his villains sidekick -  Why?

“And that why I am here to destro-”

There's a tug on my cape.

I have planned EVERYTHING - there are wards and guards and gun turrets and minions manning consoles and lazer-sharks-with-knife-teeth but no, now, someone has broken through enough to tug on my fucking cape?!

Heads are literally going to roll, but I'm curious - I turn, she smiles, and I recoil.

It's fucking Junior Miss Impossible. 

“I hate my dad,” she grinningly lisps by way of explanation.

“So do I,” I mumble in an attempt at conversation.

Resources retreat and focus inwards and that's when she gets even more terrifying - nothing is amiss. I have no idea how she got in…

…And also she seems to be a fan of me? 

“Dad hates this villain shit,” she sneers, condemnation dripping with each syllable. She's trying so hard to be cool that her words are literally freezing mid-air. I climb past shit and villain to get closer to her. I want to ask her how she did this and shut it the fuck down so I can go about my victory, but the thought and instinct freezes and I find myself unable to move.

I forgot her mother was a telepath.

“You'd better not lie to me, Mister Evil,” she chides and I know I can't. 

All I can do is sit and wait, and what she eventually proposes makes me requestion my profession, for she wants to be my apprentice so help me SuperGod™

—)----

I'm unenthusiastic about training but she quickly realizes that and finds ways to motivate me. I'm fortunate to be skilled with icing burns.

Sometimes I wonder who is leading who but then we dive into another session and all I can think about is evading her attacks. 

She's skilled in a way I've never seen. Tbh, it's terrifying - as the training continues, I keep thinking about what someone like HER would be like unleashed.

I had once thought a protege would enhance my own nature and skill, but seeing someone with such raw talent has terrified me.

I want no part of the world she is making.

–)--

And so I surrender myself, while babbling about her. I'm not the danger - she is.

I can't be a villain in a world where I hate what villainy has become. So lock me up, keep me safe, because I know she's coming for me first.

I trained her.

I made her.

I know her.

And she lies.

—)---

“And how was your day at work, dear?”

She kisses her papa on the cheek and settles into a seat at the table. It's roast lamb with mint sauce - her favorite.

“I think I did well, daddy,” she says, brightly smiling and haloed in innocence.

*Only took three training sessions to get him.”

And then her mouth is full, consumption overriding, as she eats.

She likes lamb.