#Three Seasons VN

[blank-house]

Hi! I hope this is alright to ask and doesn’t come across as too demanding/rude/ignorant, and obviously feel free to disregard if it’s a spoiler, but will there be a fourth love interest for the whole ‘seasons’ effect? Again, apologies if this seems rude or has been already asked/discussed.

nah, not rude at all!

right now, there's no plans to do that. it's just percy, elio and jamie, but i do believe we stated before that, if certain kickstarter milestones are reached, that we may add deja and cameron on.

[penultimate-step]

Lately, I've been thinking about the effect of real-world time on perception of media. Or, wait, let me start from the beginning.

When I was 11, I read the book Ender's Game for some school assignment or another. I don't remember ever considering Ender a relatable character, but certainly my understanding of the events was shaped by being of an age to see the protagonist not so much as a young child but as someone of my peer group, someone who could have been slotted amongst my classmates without anybody batting an eye.

Over a decade later, I read the sequel, Speaker for the Dead; it takes place many years later, when Ender is in his thirties, and my feelings about the in-universe time skip were undeniably shaped by the real life time gap between my reading of the novels. Reading the first book back then and then the second book now created a feeling where it's almost like, I'm browsing the facebook page of someone I had known in middle school but lost contact with, checking up on how they're doing today. The real-time factor caused me to perceive it less like a timeskip, and more like a reunion - the feelings were closer to "oh wow, that's my boy! I haven't seen him in years! Wonder what he's up to?" Which in turn gave me a better position to appreciate the parts of the narrative about him struggling to find a place in his adulthood than I would have been had I perceived it more strictly as a quick skip from 11 to 20 to 36.

While musing about this, I considered a VN I played a few years back, which took place over three in-game days - except at the end of one in-game day, the game would lock you out from progressing for 24 hours real time. So that as the in-game investigator protagonist was ruminating on the information that had been discovered that day, the player would be forced to do the same. In this example, by forcing the player to experience the same timeframe as the in-game characters, the sense of it being an in-depth and extensive investigation increases, even though without the forced pauses the game would be short enough to blow through in a handful of hours real-time.

Which brings to mind how time effects things in long-running serial works. It's well known that an audience which watches an episode or reads a chapter week by week has a very different experience than one binging through whole seasons or volumes at a time, but I wonder if the real time relative to the in-universe time makes that effect stand out more? Fight scenes, for instance, have been known to take up several chapters in certain manga or webnovels. What does it do to the reader's perception, if from their point a view a fight takes a whole month, while for the characters they read about it's only been a couple hours? Readers might feel that the situation is more stressful, since the pressure of the fight has been ongoing for a long time for them, while in-universe it was a rough afternoon but no more than that. Contrastingly, when a series skips ahead or otherwise has long periods of time for characters that feel short for readers, it can feel like no time has passed and everything is still the same, unless the author really stresses the differences in world-state that occurred offscreen. Because the reader hasn't changed at all.

No conclusion here exactly, I just think it's interesting how often an audience's response to a work, the emotions felt, are more closely tied to their real-life timescale, something almost completely out of the author's control, as opposed to in-universe time, which can be intentionally shifted or played with for the sake of the narrative.

[if-whats-new]

What's New In IF? Issue 18 (2024)

By Erika, Marjorie, Axelle, and Noi

Now Available!

Itch.io. - Keep Reading below

If you read the zine, consider liking the post: it helps us see how many people sees it! And sharing is caring! <3

~ EDITORIAL ~

Another weekend, another zine!

Unfortunately, the end of summer is approaching. For many of us, it will mean a slow down in the time spent in the IF spaces, playing or creating.

But the IF machine never sleeps! No matter the time or season, there's still something happening!

Whether it is events or releases, we'll continue to do our best to report on it!

On to the zine!!

This week, we “sat down” with Drew Cook, author of the award-winning Repeat the Ending and retro-IF enthusiast at the head of the Gold Machine.

We had a lot of questions for Drew, and learned a lot about IF and meanings in the process!

So don't forget to check out our interview with Drew Cook on Small Talk…

We hope you enjoy this extra long issue!

ERIKA, MARJORIE, AXELLE, AND NOI

~ BE PART OF THE ZINE ~

WHAT'S NEW IN IF? HAS EXPANDED!

Since the release of issue #14, we've enacted some changes with the zine. It is now expanded with interviews of creators from all around the IF world, as well as direct contributions from you, our readers!

THIS ZINE ONLY HAPPENS WITH YOU!

Want to write 1-2 pages about a neat topic, or deep-dive into a game and review it in details? Share personal experiences or get all academic?

WRITE FOR THE COLUMN!

Prefer to be more low-key but still have something to share? Send us a Zine Letter or share a game title for Highlight on…!

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

Excited as we are about next week's interview and have questions for our guest? Or want to see a certain author answer questions next? Message us!

SMALL TALK... IS WAITING!

Came across something interesting? Know a release or an update announced? Saw an event happening? Whether it's a game, an article, a podcast… Add any IF-related content to our mini-database!

EVERY LITTLE BIT COUNTS!

Contact us through Tumblr asks, Forum DMs, or even by email! And thank you for your help!!

~ EVENT SPOTLIGHT : SuNoFes Jam ~

Have yourself a project during the summer…

Hosted every summer since 2015 on itch, the Summer Novel Festival is an unranked narrative game jam with a focus on visual novels and story-based games.

From July 1st to August 31st, participants are welcome to submit a single narrative entry. From a simple demo to completing previously unfinished project, the goal of SuNoFes is to create a game during the summer.

Hosted every summer since 2015 on itch, the Summer Novel Festival is an unranked narrative game jam with a focus on visual novels and story-based games.

As for restrictions, there aren't really any. You do not have to wait for the start of the jam to start working on something, and there aren't any restrictions or themes to abide to. Only depictions of sex and gore are prohibited.

With over two weeks left to go, there is still a bit of time left to whip up a short game and be part of the biggest SunNoFes cohort yet!

~ ENDED ~

Over 30 entries were submitted to the Single Choice Jam! If you are looking for a quick read or despair over (the lack of) choices, check them out!

About a dozen bitsy entries can be found at the last bitsy Jam #82. It's intentionally bad... or is it?

~ ONGOING (VOTING) ~

You can now check out the entries submitted to the IntroComp and vote for your favorite demo!

~ ONGOING (SUBMITTING) ~

Just this weekend is left to submit for the Velox Fabula. If you are looking for a challenge, join this ranked VN jam, with a theme.

If you still want thrills but in a chiller way, the Tales to Thrill Jam also just started. Take your pick from the three themes and try your best at emulating the creepy campfire vibes!

For those who created an intent to participate at the IFComp, you have until the end of the month to submit a full game… or wait for next year! (Or you can look our for beta-openings, create an account to vote when the games are released, or offer prizes!) @ifcomp

For the francophones, the French IF community is organizing a summer-long camp to create parsers. Join the Confiture de Parser if you're interested!

Do you have WIPs on indefinite hiatus? Projects you've started forced to be set aside? Bring Out Your Ghost is a jam to show off your ghosts (and maybe even spruce them up and finish them)! @neointeractives

On the CoG Forum, Halloween is already there! Until Oct 31st, submit to the Halloween Jam - it has funky themes!

Looking for motivation to try your hands at Visual Novels? The Phantasia Jam just started, and will run until Halloween! Three months to create a fantasy VN, with the theme of “Hidden Magic”.

Do you understand or write Ukrainian? Until the end of the year, the Ukrainian IF Festival is happening on itch.io!

~ OTHER ~

Over on the IntFiction Forum, the Review-a-thon is continuing its initiative to get more reviews for games. Check out this post by Tabitha if you want to participate! It ends on the 30th. This is also a sponsored event, aiming to raise funds for one of the Forum members.

The Interactive Fiction Showcase is still running! If you have completed an IF piece this year, consider submitting it! It is happening only on itch!

~ SMALL TALK… ~

WITH DREW COOK (@golmac)

Joining us today is award-winning author, retro IF enthusiast: Drew Cook ~ Author of Repeat the Ending and creator of Gold Machine

This interview contains links that were not included due to the Tumblr links limits. Please download the itch.io version!

⟶ Hi Drew! Thank you for joining us this week!

Thanks for having me! I love the positive vibe of What’s New in IF and was glad to hear from you.

⟶ Please tell us a bit more about yourself and how you got into IF.

I first got into interactive fiction as an 80s kid, and my most treasured possession was a Commodore 64 microcomputer. The “C64” was one of the more popular and affordable home computers in America at the time. Text adventure games (today we say “parser”) were very popular. I was a nerdy, lonely child who spent a lot of time playing games like that. Adventure games were a huge part of my childhood and were a good way for me to get lost for a few hours. I was also into sci-fi, fantasy, and collecting tabletop RPG rulebooks.

My childhood was not great, and imagination was what sustained me. Adventure games helped to sustain me.

There was a whole, non-IF life after that. I went to college and got a grown-up job. Unfortunately, I had a very serious and escalatory diagnosis of Bipolar I with psychotic features. There were some other problems as well. That complex of issues changed the course of my life drastically. When it became clear that I couldn't continue working in my career, I tried to find something else to do. I earned an MFA (Master of Fine Arts) degree in creative writing. I enjoyed that work, but I could not complete further study because teaching was too difficult for me. I had hoped to find a new career after becoming disabled, but I hit a wall. I was devastated at the time.

My partner and I agreed that I had to find something challenging and fulfilling to do, and I tried a few things without any luck. Out of nowhere, I thought: “What if I wrote some literary-style criticism of those old 80s games?” That turned out to be the answer. I've been writing about games and making games ever since! I feel very lucky to have found my way into this scene. I have two blogs, a podcast, and three works in progress all churning, so I stay busy with IF content.

⟶ And this is how Gold Machine started, then? Could you tell us about this project?

I had the initial idea of writing literary criticism for games by a company called Infocom in 2020, but it wasn't fully baked. Initially, I started a forum thread where I planned to narrate a playthrough of the entire company's catalogue, but that didn't really take off. It was the wrong venue, and I didn't have my voice yet. I tried again with a blogging site, but I hated the way everything looked and engagement was very poor. Nobody was reading any of it!

This was all during COVID, late 2020 into mid 2021. Somewhere in there, my mother died, and my father was in another state, taking things very poorly. I was driving a lot, missing my own little family, and just trying to do whatever it is that good sons do. It's a recurring thing in my story: interaction fiction was a part of getting through that. I was playing old games in hotel rooms and making notes, and the time went by. Things settled down.

I thought: I should spend a little money on this, get the look I want. I took a few months to plan things out. I put myself in the frame: there are several posts about my childhood relationship with classic adventure games. While those pieces aren't confessional, I am honest about my memories of childhood. I've realized that I can't see those games outside of those memories. I can't transcend them or get beyond them. Anytime I look at something, I'm there. What would my experience of art be without me? I can't imagine it.

That was a new and growing focus for what became Gold Machine. I wanted to talk about these games as art, yes, but also as experiences that real people have. That I have. Perspective was the piece missing from earlier efforts, and I've put it this way in the past: authors have intent, while audiences find meaning. The blog is about me finding meaning in interactive fiction. The mix has been good; the blog has done pretty well for a niche subject like 1980s parser games.

My goal with Gold Machine is to write about every single Infocom game. My general approach is to make three posts: a critical introduction, a plot analysis, and a game-specific craft topic. Most games have more posts, though. I'm proud of the work there, and I especially enjoy bringing in philosophical concepts or talking about mental illness.

I'm halfway through the catalog, though writing games has been making a lot of demands for my time. Things were moving more quickly before I started learning Inform 7! I always have more than one Inform 7 thing going.

⟶ So you are halfway through that catalogue now. How does it feel being in the middle point of your journey?

It feels really good! I've gotten past halfway, now that I think of it. Trinity is 21 out of 36, I believe. I'm proud of the work. Several pieces that I've written have been mentioned at Critical Distance, and I've

always loved their weekly roundup posts. Very few essays about classic interactive fiction get mentioned in those spaces, so those acknowledgements made me feel like I'd really accomplished something as a critic. I wasn't sure, early on, if Gold Machine would find an audience, but it seems to have caught on with people. Every once in a while, I'll see somebody mention something I've written and it feels great. I never take that for granted.

I'm most proud of my series on A Mind Forever Voyaging. It is more special to me than it might be to other notable critics, so I wanted to lift it up and explore that: why was it so special? I took my time getting there, and I think it was worth it. I hope it was.

Other things along the way have been very satisfying to write about. To name a few examples: gender in The Witness, Mental Illness in Deadline, modular narrative design in parser IF generally, and the failed database system Cornerstone (“Adults Are Not to Be Trusted”). It's been a great ride!

I have to admit, though, that things have slowed down. Trinity, along with Spellbreaker, Plundered Hearts, and A Mind Forever Voyaging, is probably one of the biggest Infocom games in terms of critical reception. To many players, it is Infocom's best work, their peak. I'm midway through it right now, and I feel I need to be thorough and careful in a way that is unique when compared with Infocom's other games. Its author, Brian Moriarty, writes thoughtful and textured prose, so that deserves a more deliberate pace. Because of this, I've often found myself tempted by other activities with Top Expert and game development. I will finish, though. I've played all of the other games recently, so once I get through this slow patch I should be able to make progress.

By the time this is over, I may have written more about Infocom than anyone else. If not, I think I'll be a close second. I'd be proud of that, as I think those works deserve that kind of treatment.

With that said, it is and has been a big project and a long road. I'd love to write about other games someday, as I have a lot of post-Infocom interests! I wonder what Gold Machine will do next? I haven't decided.

⟶ What has been your favorite game to play so far for Gold Machine?

My favorite game to play for GM was A Mind Forever Voyaging [review], and I hope I raised awareness about its important place in the history of narrative games. I got mentioned at Critical Distance for “The Year In Video Game Blogging” for this specific one, and I am very proud of it.

⟶ Out of the Infocom games left, which game are you most looking forward to?

As for what lies ahead, my answer is easy to come by: Amy Briggs's Plundered Hearts, which I feel was overlooked for many years. That tide has shifted, and it is listed on the most recent “Top 50 of All Time” list! It's an unusually narrative-focused Infocom game, and it feels ahead of its time for that reason. I'm very excited about it.

⟶ Next to Gold Machine, you also have the Gold Microphone podcast, which came back this year with Trinity. What was your goal with the podcast, running along your blog and also discussing the Infocom-era games?

People had been asking for more podcast episodes. By some measurements, the podcast was probably more successful than the blog. It had fallen off because a) my partner/collaborator Callie got busy with her doctoral dissertation and b) she started doing art for my game projects! We are still working together a lot, but we're doing something else now. Still, as I've said, I don't take it for granted when people talk about my work. It's very motivating, in fact. I wondered: how can I keep this going? If there was interest, I wanted to do it.

People like getting information in different ways, because we experience life differently. I just said this over at Top Expert, I think! Some listeners told me they enjoyed the less formal nature of the podcast. I like it too. I can unwind a bit and talk about Graham Nelson. Or I can say, “I want to think about challenges differently” and try to map that out. Gold Machine is a little too rigid for that kind of conversation. I like being able to loosen up a little, and some listeners seem to prefer me that way, too.

Thinking about Trinity specifically, the podcast is a way to bring in more outside content and zoom out the camera a bit. What about this or that kind of critical writing? What about modern adventure games? What do I consider “good” and “bad” types of friction? I like it because it enables different kinds of analysis and observation. I'm really looking forward to talking about VTM: Swansong. That's something Gold Machine can't do right now, but it's interesting, right? My basic idea is that some design challenges are constant: there are similar problems confronted by Trinity and VTM, two games released nearly forty years apart. I like being able to show that, despite changes in tech and presentation, those old games engage with fundamental elements of narrative game design.

⟶ If you could have any guest on Gold Microphone, who would you like to talk to for an episode?

Wow! That's very hard to answer. I want to pick someone actively making content right now. Possibly Brian Rushton (mathbrush)? Brian is the Spring Thing organizer, a successful author, knows a ton of IF history, and a prolific reviewer. I interviewed him once about a single game, but he has a lot more to say, I'm sure. My other answer might be Mike Russo because he knows a ton of not-IF stuff that informs his reviews, so they're very textually rich and insightful. Other thoughts: Manonamora, Kastel. There are so many smart people doing IF these days, so this is not an exhaustive list!

⟶ Moving on to Top Expert, your other side project focusing more on making IF rather than playing IF, started about 2 years after your first Gold Machine post. What prompted the creation of this website?

I've talked about the difficulties of being a beginner. We all come to IF with different skill sets and capabilities. I was not a programmer when I began Repeat the Ending. Sometimes, when asking for help, I felt a little... incapable. Like, there are beginners and then there are beginners. Sometimes I might have been a little embarrassed, as in “Why am I not getting this?” After I got a ‘Best in Show’ ribbon at Spring Thing, I wanted to tell people new to Inform 7 that you don't have to be a brilliant programmer to do well. Sort of, “If I can make stuff, you can too”.

My first step was making a new tag on Tumblr and just making posts with code tips and tutorials. People responded well to these, and I was glad! That's when I started using the status messages “let's make IF” and “IF is for everyone”. I really believe that; it isn't just marketing. I started Top Expert maybe five months later, as a place to move that forward. My intent was to write mostly about making IF. The initial goal was to live-blog making a game for Spring Thing, but life got in the way. I am hoping to get after that again, maybe after if/when I wrap up my IF Comp entry.

In the meantime, I've done a soft reboot there to get new readers up to speed with the basics. I've also written my first essay about the writing, less technical side of my process. People really seemed to enjoy that, so I plan to do more in the future.

“Top Expert” is meant to be ironic, which.. maybe I never explain? I don't see myself as an expert, and my whole message there is that you don't have to be an expert to be a part of this scene. It's for everyone.

⟶ Let's Make IF is your main series in the Top Expert blog. Before starting it, did you have a plan on what you would cover? Or you just shared what you thought was interesting?

The earliest plan was very general, but there was a specific goal and format: write a small game based on a story for young people about a boy and a cat having an adventure. I'd make posts as I made progress. I had some topics that I wanted to learn about, so I thought I'd write as I learned. I paused that effort because I had to pause work on the game.

A challenge I haven't completely solved is that difficulty climbs as a project goes on. I want to manage that curve so that the blog remains approachable. For the foreseeable future, I want to combine writing and coding advice, which will slow things down and hopefully make the advice more practical. What do I do when I make a room, for instance, or write object descriptions? And so forth.

If/when I return to Marbles, D, and the Sinister Spotlight (the live blog game), things will get more challenging, tech-wise. Still, the nice thing about that one is that I'm sharing new source code as I write it. People can read the code in progress. I'm not sure anyone has done that before? Perhaps not to that extent. I do want to complete that effort, since it could be a good reference for people.

My vague answer about planning is that I have things I want to accomplish, but there is never a step-by-step plan. I like finding my way. I like doing this, so my own fulfillment guides a lot of my decisions. I think: maybe if I'm having a good time, my readers will, too.

⟶ Which post for Top Expert did you particularly enjoy writing, and why? Was there a hurdle you wish you had known before starting with Inform?

The recent post about “Let's WRITE IF” was very well-received! Text hasn't been a huge focus for me,

but I think I should integrate more discussion of it. In terms of tech, I discovered a ton of cool stuff in the Marbles and D series. I made my first ‘relation’, which is a subject that feels intimidating to people. When you relate things in Inform 7, you are able to make custom sentences in your code. It's very powerful because it allows you to make really readable code.

For instance, in that project it's possible to write code like “the stage is visible from the audience” because of a relation. This was a huge ‘ah-ha’ moment for me!

I've enjoyed all of it, though. The more I write about Inform 7, the more I learn. I really see myself and readers learning together. “Let's Make IF” is more than a name. It's how I feel about the blog.

⟶ For our readers who don't know the project yet, can you tell us a bit more about Marbles, D, and the Sinister Spotlight?

Marbles, D, and the Sinister Spotlight is part of the RTEverse: a much more gentle and lighthearted corner of that universe. The main character is a young boy, D, on an adventure with his best friend, a cat named Marbles. They find out they are trapped in a mysterious theater and must discover the secrets of the space, hopefully escaping in time for lunch with the Guildmaster of the local Enchanter's guild and his pet lemur, Loretta (I'm serious!). From a tech point of view, it is a way for me to explore “scenes”, a powerful feature of Inform 7 that can be used to create a sense of dramatic movement.

I discussed my plan for the project with Brian Rushton, the organizer of Spring Thing. He agreed that I could enter the project as a Back Garden entry (i.e., not compete for Best in Show) while sharing source code, as long as I didn't distribute a compiled game. That's what I've done! There is no binary out there, but anyone can compile the source

themselves. There are fifteen posts so far. The latest version – from the last post in the series – compiles if you delete the last two lines about filename and date. Anybody can look at it right now! Here are all the posts with the ‘marbles and d’ tag.

It's an exciting game for me. Callie and I are big time into cats, so we've enjoyed talking about the story and characters. I'll continue to publish new source code when the project resumes.

⟶ Repeat the Ending is your actual debut in IF authorship, which was pretty successful, winning both the SpringThing and a bunch of Awards (which is pretty rare!). How did you (and Callie) get to work on it?

Things just kind of happen, sometimes. Gold Machine was linked on the IntFiction Forum, so I wandered over there and joined. People discuss Inform 7 over there a lot, and I would sometimes lurk. After a while, I realized: I could understand some of it! That's all thanks to Inform 7's unusual syntax, which just clicked in my brain somehow. I recall that Amanda Walker, who has made some good games, was very open about not being a super technical person, which I thought was very cool. Maybe I could try, too. Before long, I had downloaded the Inform 7 IDE and tinkered in secret.

What everybody knows as Repeat the Ending didn't exist yet. I had pictured a kind of light adventure with a depressive young man and a quippy demon. Pretty light fare. I built the magic system for that. A scene with the demon, the orange-eyed woman, followed. I discovered shortly thereafter that I couldn't write what I wanted, a kind of magic buddy movie. Emotionally, I just wasn't in the right place for that, and I needed to do something darker. It was a healthy dark, as I had been through a lot during COVID and was trying to make sense of it all. Perhaps I wanted to explain myself to myself, if that makes sense, or maybe I just wanted everything to mean something. I wasn't being a shrewd artist. Everything was intuitive.

Early testing was kind of rough. My code was messy. I guess a lot of it was messy. Eventually, things stabilized, and I found some solid, committed testers.

There was a long way to go. After those first tests, I think I had the opening scene with the orange-eyed woman and part of the trailer. That was a lot! I could really start thinking about things like narrative voice, tone, and all the writerly things that interest me. More important than that: a couple of people told me that they thought my project was worthwhile. They encouraged me. Without them, and I'm not exaggerating, I might not have continued. I wasn't sure at all about the project or my skill level.

I learned a lot while making RTE. Design, yes. Code, yes. I also came away from that experience wanting to be nicer to people about their work. I don't write negative reviews anymore. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking people who do, but it all hits differently for me now.

At that stage, Callie was my confidant, editor, advisor. I showed her everything. She doesn't want that kind of credit, but it's the truth. When she showed up with a drawing of the orange-eyed-woman just out of nowhere, I was floored. I never told her what to draw. All of the art is hers and hers alone. I wouldn't have had it any other way.

⟶ Can you tell us a bit more about the premise of the game?

The basic idea of Repeat the Ending is that a young man wrote a game for the 1996 IF Competition. It was very buggy and came in second to last. Years later, some new media types are looking for an IF game to revive as a “lost classic”, so they hunt down the author, “Drew Cook”, and ask him to work with them on a new “critical edition” of that game. He agrees.

The playable game is that critical edition. There is also a PDF “transcript” of the buggy 1990s version. In both versions, a mentally ill young man named “D” must travel to the hospital because his mother is dying. On the way, he uses magical powers to help people and a cat. This new “edition” contains footnotes, essays, archival reviews about the game.

It features a “story mode”, which allows people to experience the game even if they're not really into parser gameplay.

It took maybe 18 months, and I put out revisions for months after release. It's big for an Inform 7 game: 150k words of text and code, I think. I didn't target a specific competition for releasing it, so I had an “it's done when it's done” mindset. The story was written from the center out. That is, there were core concepts and themes: mental illness, entropy, grief. I had the characters of D and the Orange-Eyed-Woman. From there, writing happened along multiple arcs. There was the basic story, which came first, and the critical stuff, which followed behind. I wrote the story in episodes, perhaps like issues of a comic book. Each is self-contained, but builds on what came before. As I recently said over at Top Expert, I sincerely didn't know the ending before I got there. I wrote my way to it, if that makes sense.

A note about process: testers were always bouncing ideas off of me, and I really took their experiences to heart. I'm glad I was able to be open in that way, because the game is better because of it.

⟶ Mental illness and emotional distress is a pretty major aspect of the story in Repeat the Ending. Was it something you've drawn from your own experience? What inspired you to include this in the game?

It was never my original intent to include mental illness in Repeat the Ending, but mental illness had other ideas. People have told me specifically that the portrayal of mental illness holds a lot of meaning for them, so I want to just let them have that without saying too much as the author.

Taking RTE out of it: mental illness is a huge presence in my life. I spend a lot of time and money managing it. Energy. And that's just the logistical side of it. The symptoms, the feelings, that's more, that's on top of everything else. My diagnosis is never far from my mind.

⟶ Was there a particular scene of Repeat the Ending that you found challenging?

I think that there were some challenges for me, tech-wise, with getting D and Brad from the trailer park to the house on Lakeshore Drive. There were some narrative challenges, too. Brad went through a lot of versions. He was a victim of violence, but I didn't want that to be all that he was. I didn't want him to be just a sad moment in D's journey. So far as combining programming and writing challenges, I think it's Brad's scene. I'm happy with it, too! That's another one people have commented on, so it must have come across for them.

Emotionally, the scene in the drug store is rough for me. Which is good, I think.

⟶ What was your favorite moment of Repeat the Ending?

My favorite is either the ending or the beginning. I love the Orange-Eyed Woman as a character, and she turns up in both places! In terms of my own fulfillment, though, it has to be the ending. Even now, I have an emotional response to it. In terms of the art, I think Callie's portrayal of the scene outside the hospital might be my favorite, though it's hard to pick just one.

⟶ Let's focus on the “story mode”. What brought on this feature, and was it difficult to implement?

A general concept of built-in walkthrough for parser games was bubbling up in a few places last year, but I first encountered the idea in John Ziegler's How Prince Quisborne the Feckless Shook His Title. He wanted to give his friends and family who weren't into parser games a way to experience the work. That was very relatable to me! I was impressed with the concept, but didn't have any time to think about it with Spring Thing coming up.

A couple of months later, during Disability Pride month, I was talking to author Wade Clarke about accessibility in IF. We were both interested in some research that the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation had done on accessibility, and we both explored ways to build walkthroughs into games. I think we finished around the same time. Wade wound up giving me some tips about saving game data, so my tool [Story Mode Extension for i7] is much better thanks to him. Writing it was challenging for me technically, so I'm proud of it.

It's my hope that people can use it for different things. An author could use it to make their parser game into a kinetic experience. It could be used as a training or tutorial tool. One thing that I hear again and again is that new players worry about messing things up or making the wrong decision, so it has a sandbox mode that lets people experiment without consequences. Ultimately, it's an accessibility tool that can make parser games more approachable. It's portable and can scale to accommodate very large games.

I'm not sure how widely used it is, because people who don't like parser games probably aren't expecting a feature like that! But I know some people who wouldn't have played RTE otherwise, so that alone makes it worthwhile for me.

⟶ Having created a whole system yourself, do you have any advice for someone looking to make their parser accessible to players?

I think considering screen reader experience is important, and a little work can have a big payoff for players. For instance, there are two extensions for menus in Inform 7. I use Wade Clarke's because it supports screen readers. One thing I've realized while writing my current WIP is that my image descriptions in Repeat the Ending aren't good enough, so I need to go back. I'm still finding things to improve there!

Going back to IFTF's accessibility report, I think having a strategy for presenting and recalling in-game information can make a huge difference to players. What information does the player need to know to succeed? How easily can they get to it? What if they need to access it later? I probably went overboard in RTE, as there are many commands for reviewing footnotes, discovered sources, and even “deaths”, but I'm really convinced that information management can be an accessibility problem. Is the player performing multiple steps to see information they've already discovered? What for? And so on.

My best advice is to talk to the community! In my games, words that players can type verbatim as commands are bracketed with asterisks, as in *READ NOTE*. I do this because a screen reader user told me that it would help them. Almost everything I've done to make my work accessible has come from research and conversation. I'm not an expert, so I try to understand what people with experience are saying.

⟶ Another form of accessibility with parsers is the inclusion of Tutorials at the start of the game, which is also included in RTE through C.A. Smythe notes. To you, what should be the goal of a tutorial, and how do you achieve that?

Tutorials are really hard to write. I think at a basic level, the goal of the tutorial is to teach the player something, but there are the questions of “what?” and “how much?” Repeat the Ending isn't meant to be an introduction to parser games, so its tutorial started as a way to introduce unique commands for the magic system and various bits of paratext (guide, footnotes, etc). From a design point of view, my earliest priority was walking the player through completing the basic gameplay loop: find magic, get magic, use magic. If a work has a unique mechanic, players have to know about it.

People writing tutorials for players brand new to parser games have a much bigger challenge to take on: what does a person who has never played a parser game need to know? That's something that comes up in discussion a lot. I don't think there's a perfect answer yet, but it probably involves not just command entry but presentation and information management.

The other aspect of the tutorial is narrative voice. Who is giving these instructions? Does that work with or against the in-game narrator? My initial tutorial involved a generic, omniscient persona, but a tester suggested making it a distinct speaker instead. Things really took off from there! Smythe also teaches the player about the "meta" aspect of the game, since the player sees a lot of her comments early on.

In everything I'm working on now, having a solid answer for the question “who is explaining the game to the player” is a priority.

For a new player, I think I'd recommend Lonely Troll by Amanda Walker. That's got a lot of strong tutorial content.

⟶ With the heavy meta aspect of the game, we couldn't help but notice a link to your other project Gold Machine and how people find meaning in IF. Was this done on purpose, or were you simply influenced by your player-first-perspective on the medium?

I'm always careful about discussing my intent, since I don't want to influence the player's experience. However, I have discussed my writing process: I discovered Repeat the Ending while writing it, beginning with only a small idea. In that sense, I was its first player. I experienced its loops, saw its text as it went from head to screen. In other words: I had my own experience with it, too.

That experience involved finding meaning. It definitely led me to ask if players could have that same sense of discovering and interpreting. I also wondered: is this what people want out of IF? Out of my work? Ultimately, I had to put it in front of people and find out.

I'll be honest. I was completely unprepared for the reaction to RTE. I thought it would have fans, but it would ultimately wind up an obscure curiosity. I'm very grateful that people engaged with all of the text and discussed it. That meant a lot to me.

⟶ And a great reaction it got! You not only won Best in Show at the SpringThing, you also received a handful of IFDB Awards, and was ranked in the TOP 50 IF of All Time... all as your debut game. This is pretty unusual. How did it feel getting this reaction? And does it put any pressure on you, for any future project you are thinking of releasing?

It's strange, I entered Spring Thing feeling very competitive. I wanted to prove myself, and that was always on my mind. I felt vulnerable because I was putting myself out there with a game that felt personal, and I didn't want to fail. That was a lot of pressure that I was putting on myself. I think that I'll be able to go easier on myself next time I enter Spring Thing. I'll also do a Back Garden entry next time whether it's Marbles and D or something else.

That will remove concerns about winning altogether!

There's another kind of pressure, though, which is what you're asking about. People liked Repeat the Ending so much, and I really want to give them a good experience. I think that one way around or past the pressure is to do something completely different! My IF Comp game has nearly nothing to do with RTE, though I think my writing style might come across. It will hopefully be a good palate cleanser before the other RTEverse games hit next year.

⟶ After a large competition, we've seen some authors blow off steam by entering small game jams (especially more recently). Is that kind of event something you'd participate in the future as well?

I've always seen myself as a “big game” person, mainly because my writing style leads me down side roads and discursions. I like to tinker, and that takes time, code, and text. I'm not very efficient!

I've wanted to challenge that, though. Marbles, D, and the Sinister Spotlight began as an ECTOCOMP game. First as La Petite Mort, and later, when things got out of hand, Le Grand Guignol. I still couldn't keep it under control, so it became the Let's Make IF idea. That's what it will stay, sharing code and tutorials will be its final form.

⟶ With the IFComp upon us, can you give us some details about your entry?

It is another answer to your jam question. I hang out on the Neo Interactives (@neointeractives) discord and I'm always curious about their events. Single Choice Jam in particular sounds like an interesting challenge from a narrative POV, and I've wanted to write something single choice for a while. But! My attempt for this year's jam turned out to have more choices, so I'm hurrying to finish it up in time for IF Comp. Callie is making art, too. I don't want to spoil any surprises. It describes itself as a “fun fortune telling game with a gimmick”! The title, emoticons included, is “Portrait With Wolf ^_^”

So, single choice-inspired, fortune telling. It's very choice friendly, for people who prefer that to parser gameplay. I hope your readers will try it out!

⟶ So you have Top Expert, Gold Machine and Gold Microphone, and working on your own lengthy parser projects, how do you manage balancing all that?

Honestly, I don't balance it very well. These are all things I got into out of love, so they are each pulling at me all of the time. Right now, hitting the IF Comp deadline is the priority, so everything has to get out of the way for that. I have this feeling that Top Expert should update weekly. Honestly, Gold Machine and the podcast have much bigger audiences, but if somebody can use my stuff to meet a jam or comp deadline, I want it to be there.

I don't know if that ever happens, but I'm listening to that impulse for now.

I need to get serious about Gold Machine once the game is done, though. I've let Trinity go on too long and it's starting to feel weird.

However, I've learned to be nice to myself about this stuff. I lost three months to depression earlier in the year. I just couldn't make anything for three months. That's why I didn't hit the Spring Thing deadline for the Marbles, D, and the Sinister Spotlight project. It's possible to get stuck there, thinking “I can't believe all that work is down the drain”. I wanted to write those posts, and be part of that event. People were following along and taking part. It's disappointing, but I can't beat myself up whenever that happens.

My core philosophy is that I want to do what I love when I can. Some good things have come out of that!

⟶ You've reviewed quite a few games since you joined the IF scene. Do you have any recommendations for our readers?

I have reviewed a lot of games, though there are a ton more that I hope to talk about someday. A lot of my favorites are outliers, usually because I'm attracted to certain themes or mechanics.

Thinking of parser games: my favorite Andrew Plotkin game is Shade, and I've never seen anyone say that before. My favorite Amanda Walker game is The Spectators. I love Brian Rushton's The Impossible Stairs! Something by Chandler Groover: Eat Me, probably. I think A Mind Forever Voyaging is Infocom's best game, though my sentimental favorites are Enchanter and Zork III. Gestures Toward Divinity by Charm Cochran. One more: Sting by Mike Russo.

I seem to be drawn to choice-based works these days, mostly because choice games are often better at driving their narratives forward. I enjoy that sort of storytelling momentum and also want to learn from it as a writer. I don't think many would agree, but my favorite Emily Short game is Bee, and it's not very close! I love Brendan Patrick Hennessy's stuff (@brendanpatrickhennessy). Spy Intrigue by Furkle. Computerfriend by Kit Riemer (@adz). My opinion on this varies, but, for today's interview, my favorite Autumn Chen game is A Paradox Between Worlds [Drew interviewed Autumn]. Vampire: The Masquerade - Night Road by Kyle Marquis is my favorite Choice of Games title.

There's so much great IF out there. I could probably spend days making a comprehensive list of favorites!

⟶ What is on the horizon for Drew Cook, and where can we follow it all?

Currently, I have three Inform 7 works in progress. The IF Comp game is going to some testers this week. I'd love to get Marbles, D, and the Sinister Spotlight in next year's Spring Thing! As I've mentioned, I'd like to make some headway with Trinity. I've wanted to write an essay about Victor Gijsbers's The Game Formerly Known as Hidden N*zi Mode for quite a while. We'll see! I always have a bunch of stuff bouncing around in my head.

I always announce new content on mastodon and tumblr (@golmac). It's ok to contact me at either of those places. I'm always happy to hear from nice people!

Less formally, I follow Neo Interactives (@neointeractives). They have cool jams and a nice discord. That's a good place to just run into me. You can check out their tumblr for more info.

I'm very open to questions about Inform 7 or anything else. Don't be afraid to get in touch!

WARMEST THANKS TO DREW COOK FOR BEING SO CANDID WITH US ABOUT HIS INTERACTIVE FICTION PROJECTS!

~ NEW RELEASE ~

~ We didn't find new complete releases outside of events ~

As always, don't forget to check out the submitted entries to the events mentioned in the previous pages. They deserve some love too!

~ NEW RELEASE (WIP) ~

To Taste Sweet Silver (Twine) is a dark gaslamp fantasy, where survival is not really your end goal. @sweetsilver-if

The Sun Coven (CScript) is a fantasy project where you play a fleeing witch trying to survive and maybe rebuild the old coven. @the-sunhold-coven

Knight of Greenhaven (CScript) is a high-fantasy project, where you play a newly-made knight looking to compete in a royal tourney.

Weeping Gods (CScript) is a historical fantasy set in Ancient Egypt, where you goal is to recover powerful artifacts, or risk death. @jcollinswrites

Freak: Falling Awake (CScript) is a reimagining of the Freak story, following your journey as a nigh indestructible superhuman.

At the mercy of hatred (CScript) is a superhero story, where you play a vigilante seeking revenge. @darkrose-thewriter

Heart of the Mountain (CScript) is a fantasy romance project, set 5 years after Heart of Battle, with a completely new cast.

Orphic Love (CScript) is romance fantasy project inspired by Greek Mythology, where you play as the goddess of nightmares.

~ GAMES UPDATES ~

The Wayhaven Chronicles (CScript) released the second chapter of Book 4 to the public. @seraphinitegames

Incubus (Twine) released its fourth chapter. @sonnet009games

The Bastard of Camelot (Twine) added Chapter 5 to the demo. @llamagirl28

Link Rot (Custom) released a new transmission. @qrowscant

The Lonely Shore (CScript) updated the demo with Chapter 2. @thelonelyshore-if

The In-Between (CScript) added Chapters 7 and 8 to the Patreon demo. @dalekowrites

Zombie Exodus: Stronghold (CScript)'s demo updated with Chapter 4.

Peninsula Campaign (CScript)'s demo is now available to the public.

Dawn of Heroes (CScript) added Chapter 26, its final chapter, to the demo.

A Shriek of Ash and Fire (CScript) updated both the Patreon and public demo with extra content. @krogpile

Before the Incident (CScript) added Chapters 3 and 4 to the demo. @remnant-verse-if

The Bar on the Abyss (CScript) updated the demo with a lot of extra content and improvements. @thebarontheabyss

The Ballad of Devil's Creek (Twine) complete its move from Harlowe to SugarCube. @devilscreekballad

The One Chosen (CScript) updated the public beta with Chapter 31. @parrotwatcher

~ OTHER ~

After a few quiet months, The Rosebush returned with a new essay, “Game Design Lessons Learned Trying to Write a Cento” by Hugo Labrande. @the-rosebush-mag

The new issue of the Amare Fortnightly Bulletin just released! Check out issue 22. @amaregames

Communistsister released a new fork of her engine Videotome, for lightweight stat raising datingsims called VIDEOTOME HEARTBREAK. @communistsister

Honor Bound (CScript) is officially in its Beta Testing Period, and is looking for official testers. @hpowellsmith

~

As always, we apologize in advance for missing any update or release from the past week. We are only volunteers using their limited free time to find as much as we can - but sometimes things pass through the cracks.

If you think something should have been included in this week's zine but did not appear, please shoot us a message! We'll do our best to add it next week! And if you know oncoming news, add it here!

~ MAYBE YOU NEXT? ~

We did not get a submission this week. But if you have an idea for a short essay, or would like a special space to share your thoughts about IF and the community...

Shoot us an email!

~ HIGHLIGHT ON ~

A couple of games that we thought were cool.

Shepherds of Haven by Lena Nguyen @shepherds-of-haven (CScript - dashingdon)

“An absolute masterpiece, one of the best IFs out there. The world building is so detailed, interesting, the writing style is gorgeous and lush, and the characters are honestly TO DIE FOR. Impeccable found family who have their own personalities and lives and who feel like real people!! Insane branching and freedom of choice!!”

//submitted by anonymous//

Pokemon by Anna Anthropy (Bitsy - itch.io)

“Just play it.”

(ok sorry, here's the real rec:)

Cowgirl Boots by fellerooni (Bitsy - itch.io)

“The coziest and cutest lesbian western piece I've ever played. It's only good vibes all the way down. Cried like 500 times.”

//submitted by hehehehe//

Sobre lo inevitable by paravaariar (Custom - itch.io - IFDB)

A symbolic and surreal escape adventure inside a sandcastle, where one wrong move sends you back to the start (but your progress doesn't completely reset). It is beautfifully retro, and charmingly atmospheric.

While the puzzles are not too complex, one or two does need a bit of remembering info.

Also available in French.

//recommended by Axelle [Team]//

Your favourite game here?

Do you have a favourite game that deserve some highlighting?

A old or recent game that wowed you so much you spam it to everyone?

Tell us about it! And it might appear here!

WE LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU ALL! WETHER IT'S GOOD OR BAD, OR EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN...

Dang! yall are doing amazing interviews here! I don't know who asks the questions there, but they are really so good and bring such interesting answers from the interviewees! Barbara's interview was fantastic!!! - catsobabel

I don't want to be a huge bummer but I learned that the author of Magium passed away. His game was what got me into IF... this week really sucked... - a sad reader

i'm giving my shoutout to @nothingherebutthefog this week, because i know she's been having some hard time lately. so i hope this will cheer her up a bit! you got this Anna!!!! - anonymous

Have something to say? Send us a message titled: Zine Letter!

As we end this issue, we would like to thank:

a sad reader, catsobabel, hehehehe, and so many helpful anonymous users!

For sending news, interview questions, helpful tips, cool links, filled form, written Sheet line, even emails... all these help us so much to make this Zine possible!

And as always, huge thanks to all you readers to liked, shared, and commented on last week's issue! What might be tiny actions are huge support and motivators to us! Thank you for cheering us on this journey!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We also hope you join us again next week, for we have a very special guest on the zine:

Creator of the beloved Stay?, independent author, and podcaster, fanfic writer (@dirgewithoutmusic @ink-splotch) We're talking to E. Jade Lomax next week!

Want to know more about her work? How she found IF? Or learn more about her non-dev projects? Send us all your burning questions!

And see you again next week!

ERIKA, MARJORIE, AXELLE, AND NOI

WHAT'S NEW IN IF? 2024-ISSUE 18

[neodoodles24]

2023 MUTUAL WARFARE, ROUND 2.5, THE QUALIFIER ROUND!

@otsu09, @pear-island, @melesmee, @bread-pat, @spacebitch68

DOODLES' PROPAGANDA:

otsu09:

Partner of Doodles

Probably one of the coolest people in this tournament tbh

Was the originator of this idea. He did his OWN mutual tournament

Makes very cool art (tag is otsu.art....)

Making his own vn dating sim!

pear-island:

My buddy, pal and bro Perry

Makes very very cool art which can be found at @/perryisle and @/evilbiomes

Funnyman

melesmee:

Likely a bigger CKC fan than me

Seriously it's not even funny

Like she bought me season 2 she has a library of commissioned art she has a folder full of pre-built sprites which i constantly use and she made a whole ass CKC discord server that I have since joined and im having a great fucking time

bread-pat:

Does a lot of things actually. Art as well as music. Only music guy in this tournament!

Probably one of my top ask-senders

spacebitch89:

scrunkalicious art that i wish i could eat

COMMUNITY PROPAGANDA:

otsu09:

"guys if i don’t win The Hitman is going to get me. you wouldnt want that would you"

"vote otsu and I will open requests"

pear-island:

IM IN THIS!!!! vote for me PLEEEAAASEEEEEE

PERRY SWEEP FOREVER!!!!!!!

for every time i win my sinuses get clearer. vote for me baby

melesmee:

"VOTE FOR MEEEEEEE im the coolest specialest girl in the world and i deserve it. anyway if i win you guys can see some of the cool kid cody art"

"if i win the mutual tournament ill buy [Doodles] cool kid cody season three"

bread-pat:

"Vote for me cuz I'm neato"

[princessmacedon]

{ happy anniversary!

Celebrating TOA and the people who contribute to make our group what it is. Repost, don't reblog. Only fill in what you feel comfortable sharing! Happy anniversary, TOA! Here's to many more years spent together. Template courtesy of Neffi! 💕

Name: Red, more commonly nicknamed Reddo

Pronouns: they/them preferred, she/he OK!

Birthday (no year): December 28th

Where are you from? What is your time zone? moved to kentucky when I was young, and for sake of ease i use EST (TOAST)! i live near a timezone line, so i get to be flexible like that >vo)v HAHA

How long is your roleplay experience? with a few on and off breaks, roughly 15 years? i forgot about a period of my life where i 'moderated' (read: was the most active user on) a warrior cats RP site; my first foray into rp proper was in pokemon rp on tumblr, my first muse was lyra but i didnt have an internet name until i picked up and settled into writing (you'll never guess who)

How were you introduced to roleplaying as a whole? kind of half answered this above oops, but with warrior cats i genuinely dont remember? i probably just googled warrior cats and wound up there HAHA. for pokemon...... honestly probably the same thing

How were you introduced to TOA? key had mentioned it to me in passing a few times, so i knew she was there, but it wasn't until my friend zyra mentioned it to me and suggested we write macedon siblings together again that i actually joined, hahaha

Do you have any pets? i do! i adopted a ?? year old dog from the shelter about six years ago, so now he's x+6 years old :] pretty sure he's some kind of border collie mix, but not certain! his name is tobin, but he'll answer as long as you say 'ob'. he's a sillyhead

What is your favorite time of year and why? (Season, holiday, general period) it used to be winter because i love the snow! but as i get older and more harrowed by weather conditions, i appreciate how normal and not-trying-to-kill-me autum is HAHA

What is your IRL occupation? (finger guns) figuring it out

Some interests and things you like/enjoy? drawing was my first love! i like reading, especially comics, and writing; i like video games and immersing myself in stories, and have passing interests in things that i don't commit to trying out (like resin, charms, etc etc)

What non-Fire Emblem games do you play? FFXIV, mainly; genshin impact and hsr; various farming-ish sims (story of seasons + old harvest moon, stardew valley, rune factory, currently fields of mistria); to a lesser extent dragon age, ace attorney, various VNs / otome / rhythm games, pokemon until roughly scarlet/violet era and then my wallet couldnt keep up with it HSDFSGVSD

Favorite Pokemon type & Pokemon: as a kid it waffled between fire / dark, but not sure i have a dead set favorite type anymore. favorite pokemon still lucario and appletun for sure though!

Tell us some funfacts and trivia about yourself! (Optional bonus challenge: if you filled this out last year, try not to repeat what you said back then!) - i love christmas and thinking about gift giving! when i was in school my christmas spreadsheet hit like, 50 names HAHA nooooo way do i have that energy anymore, though - i'm reasonably fond of baking and also reasonably terrible at it! something always goes wrong but usually (usually) stuff comes out pretty tasty in the end. except for that time i set my oven on fire

How did you get into Fire Emblem? my friends were talking about how much fun they were having with the new game at the time, awakening! it looked fun so i decided to try it out

What Fire Emblem games have you played? - Beaten: Genealogy, Blazing Blade (FE7 if youre like me and still cant remember which one is which), Shadow Dragon & New Mystery, Awakening, Fates (Conquest + Birthright), Three Houses (Blue Lions) - Started: Binding Blade (FE6), Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance (FE9), Fates (Revelation), Shadows of Valentia, Three Houses (Black Eagles & Golden Deer), Engage

First & Favorite Fire Emblem games: Awakening -- still Awakening! possibly tied with 3H, though. i really enjoy games where i can peacefully level grind

List your 5 favorite Fire Emblem characters across the series! vaguely ordered, it's: Wolf, Maria, Cordelia, Seliph, Katarina...? if you think you're seeing a trend you're probably right, hahaha ^^ writing a character is an expression of love for me, so inevitably my muses climb higher and higher on my list over time

Who was the first character ever to make you go “ooh I like this one in particular” and why? Can be any context and reason! the clearest one i can remember is wolf, because when i was playing fe11 i was passively using him because he was pretty, and then he got 7 crits in a row and i was like :pika:

Any Fire Emblem crushes? 😳i'm weak toward green haired women AHSJASFDSF but actual game crushes, hmm... not sure!

If you’ve played (or are familiar with) the following games, who was your first S support? Who would you S support nowadays? - Awakening: chrom -> still chrom! - Fates: takumi -> hmm... silas or flora? - Three Houses: dimitri -> still dimitri, except now he's duking it out with yuri - Engage: i have the ring in my pocket as we speak, suffering from the burden of choice... probably diamant though?

Favorite Fire Emblem class? whatever class my blorbos thrive in

If you were a Fire Emblem character, what would be your class and stats? Would you be playable? in all likelihood i'm a villager with just absolutely baffling AI. not entirely stupid, but you cant in good conscience say it's smart either HAHA as a playable unit though, i might be a recruit-type? i could do well if you help me grow, otherwise i'm just this scruffy shitty thing tucked into your pocket. middling-high skill growth, paper defense, and you wish you knew what my speed growth was because i don't (probably fast as a mage but realistically NOT as anything physical)

If you were a Three Houses character, what would be your affiliation? (Black Eagles, Blue Lions, Golden Deer, Church of Seiros, Those Who Slither in the Dark, unaffiliated civilian, other - for example Almyran) my heart says blue lions, but if i'm just some guy (unaffiliated civilian) i won't be surprised

If you were an Officers Academy student, what would be your boons, banes and potential budding talent? - Boons: Reason - Banes: Authority, Gauntlets - Budding Talent: Flying

If you were an Engage character, which nation would you originate from? (Firene, the Kingdom of Abundance; Brodia, the Kingdom of Might; Elusia, the Kingdom of Knowledge; Solm, the Queendom of Freedom; Lythos, the holy land of the Divine Dragon; Gradlon, the desolate land of the Fell Dragon) hmm... probably either Firene or Lythos! i'm too much of a weenie to be from brodia HAHA

How do you pronounce TOA? 🤔(separate letters, to-ah, other?) toah, like noah! to all my xiv gamers out there this definitely applies to job shorthands too. durg. dirk. whum blum sidge. rurpur and rogg...

Current TOA muses: Maria & Katarina

Past TOA muses? Cordelia my beloved

Who was your first TOA muse? If you no longer have them, can you see yourself picking them up again? Maria! unless something unprecedented happens, i don't see that changing. writing her, her want and determination to love and find wonder in the world, to spread and be joy -- it just puts me in a good place! it's really, genuinely helped me a lot, even if her extroversion is exhausting to my introvert ass sometimes HAHA

Do you believe you have a type of character you gravitate towards writing? (If you filled this out last year, has this changed in any way?) uhhh... i definitely tend toward characters who are in some regard defined by a form of love or strong emotion, romantic though it need not be -- people who have some sort of powerful, aching tenderness in their heart. i've not really done as much as i've wanted in terms of bringing that out of them, but it's definitely something that draws me in to a character in the first place!

Do you have characters or types of characters you don’t think you can handle writing, but wish you could? ooh, there are lots of characters i like who have a brusque edge or manner, who might be harsh or cold... i wish i could do that! i'd like to try, i think. and also the funny, energetic, boisterous types -- i love to see them and be around them, but i definitely can't pull it off hahaha

What kind of scenes, situations etc do you believe you enjoy writing the most? (If you filled this out last year, has this changed in any way?) it's been a while since i've gone all in on this kind of scene, but i love emotional scenes and heart-to-hearts -- the sort of thing where you're communicating your feelings with everything you have and trying to reach someone else! i usually rein myself in well shy of that though, hahaha. i worry a lot about getting too lost in the sauce and derailing a conversation/thread, or making it all about what my muse/what they want to communicate.

Do you have any scenario in mind for your muse(s) that gets you thinking “man I hope I get to write this one day”? for katarina, i'd love for her to make some friends! she's her own worst enemy in this regard, separating herself from friends/friendships whether consciously or subconsciously. for maria... well, i'd love for her to have a real heart to heart with someone!

Favorite TOA-related memories? to this day i miss and adore annie's frederick! his dynamic with my cordelia at the time was so much fun to write and to talk about and we had such thoughts for how their relationship would evolve -- it's one of the most interesting and endearing relationships i've had the pleasure of writing! on a sillier note, i often think about leif hauling ass after kanoesa's lewyn HAHA

Present or past tense? it used to be past tense, but i think toa's successfully converted me to defaulting to present hahaha ^^;; consciously at least, i try to match whatever my partner does!

Normal size text, small text, no preference? it doesn't matter to me, but i do hate fighting tumblr to keep all of the small text small.

Got any potential muse delusions to share? 😉 the wolf app/blog i've been refining on and off for the better part of three years is no secret HAHA, but i've seriously contemplated writing a few other characters! radd and boucheron, to name a couple. i get super attached to my characters though, so it's a bit tricky

[renaisguy]

Celebrating TOA and the people who contribute to make our group what it is.

Repost, don't reblog. Only fill in what you feel comfortable sharing!

Happy anniversary, TOA! Here's to many more years spent together.

Name: Ashera

Pronouns: they/them

Birthday (no year): 6th June

Where are you from? What is your time zone? England, GMT

How long is your roleplay experience? I think it must be like 10 years technically

How were you introduced to roleplaying as a whole? Naruto OC roleplay on Google+

How were you introduced to TOA? I played FE4 and the brainworms took over, so I started following the genealogy tag on tumblr. I kept seeing posts about X character being accepted to the officer's academy, so eventually I looked into what that was all about.

Do you have any pets? No.

What is your favourite time of year and why? (Season, holiday, general period) My wardrobe is minmaxed for warm weather, I hate layers and I like having my window open, and having hours and hours of daylight. So summer.

What is your IRL occupation? IT.

Some interests and things you like/enjoy? Pixel art and cross-stitch, card games, social deduction games, doctor who, long walks.

What non-Fire Emblem games do you play? Zero escape, Aitsf, puyo puyo tetris, balatro, slay the spire, ace attorney, umineko, other vns.

Favourite Pokemon type & Pokemon: Delphox. I like dragon, fire and dark types.

Tell us some fun facts and trivia about yourself! (Optional bonus challenge: if you filled this out last year, try not to repeat what you said back then!)

I like dressing fancy. I regularly go to hang out with my friends wearing floor-length gowns, my grandad's boat cloak, and heels. I have a drag queen friend who sometimes gives me clothes he doesn't want any more, and it's great.

(Apart from the wrinkle where RD is technically my brother's and not mine) I own every FE game that got an English release.

I will always spell things the British way.

How did you get into Fire Emblem? At the time feh was released I was just playing every nintendo mobile game that came out. I thought the characters were cute and I found a second-hand copy of birthright sometime later. I then had to wait until Christmas to play it cause my brother's 3DS was broken.

What Fire Emblem games have you played? Beaten: Genealogy, Blazing Blade, Sacred Stones, Radiant Dawn, Shadow Dragon, Awakening, Birthright, Conquest, Echoes, 3 Houses, 3 Hopes, Engage Played a decent amount of: FE1, Binding Blade, Path of Radiance, Warriors

First & Favourite Fire Emblem games: First: Heroes/Birthright. Favourite(s): Genealogy, Sacred Stones, Radiant Dawn

List your 5 favourite Fire Emblem characters across the series! Laylea, Dew, Forde, Larcei and Jeritza. Maybe. I have too many faves.

Who was the first character ever to make you go “ooh I like this one in particular” and why? Can be any context and reason! I liked M!Robin's art in heroes and he was the first 5* I summoned. Also I fell in love with Kaden the instant I met him cause he's cute (unfortunately my Corrin was already married)

Any Fire Emblem crushes? Like so many. For brevity I'll give the biggest one from each game: Wolf, Sonya, Arvis, Karel (FE7), Joshua/Cormag, Nasir, Reina, Jeritza, Zelkov. Shout out to Arvis for being the reason I played FE4 to begin with, and Jeritza cause the morning he became playable and bisexual I went insane.

If you’ve played (or are familiar with) the following games, who was your first S support? Who would you S support nowadays? I prefer to S support a new character each run cause I like filling the support log. The only time I've S supported a character more than once is the bisexual ones in 3H. So instead I'm giving my first and my favourite. Also at this point I've played 3H so much there's only like, 6 characters I haven't S supported. - Awakening: First: Miriel, Favourite: ??? - Fates: First: Jakob, Favourite: Kaden, Reina, Mozu - Three Houses: First: Jeritza, Favourite: Jeritza - Engage: First: Zelkov, Favourite: Zelkov

Favourite Fire Emblem class? Swordmaster

If you were a Fire Emblem character, what would be your class and stats? Would you be playable? Mage cause they have cape. I'd have great stats (delusional)

If you were a Three Houses character, what would be your affiliation? (Black Eagles, Blue Lions, Golden Deer, Church of Seiros, Those Who Slither in the Dark, unaffiliated civilian, other - for example Almyran) Black Eagles.

If you were an Officers Academy student, what would be your boons, banes and potential budding talent? Boons: Reason, Axes, Authority. Banes: Heavy Armour, Riding, Faith. Budding talent: Faith.

If you were an Engage character, which nation would you originate from? (Firene, the Kingdom of Abundance; Brodia, the Kingdom of Might; Elusia, the Kingdom of Knowledge; Solm, the Queendom of Freedom; Lythos, the holy land of the Divine Dragon; Gradlon, the desolate land of the Fell Dragon) Firene.

How do you pronounce TOA? 🤔(separate letters, to-ah, other?) Tee-Oh-Ay

Current TOA muses: Forde

Past TOA muses? Larcei, Tine, Dew, Yune, Laylea

Who was your first TOA muse? If you no longer have them, can you see yourself picking them up again? I had Larcei for over a year and honestly I'm really happy with what I did with her (even if rereading her stuff makes me cringe). So as much as I love her I have no strong reason to pick her up... apart from that swordmaster drabble I never got around to.

Do you believe you have a type of character you gravitate towards writing? (If you filled this out last year, has this changed in any way?) There's overlap between the 'old' and 'new' gens of my muses. There's a hotheaded sword girl, a mage with issues :tm: and a cute blond guy. I think I have an easier time writing characters that have a positive outlook, and say what they mean.

Do you have characters or types of characters you don’t think you can handle writing, but wish you could? Idk really. I don't think I'm that good at writing sad shit, so muses that have heavier stuff going on I'd struggle with.

What kind of scenes, situations etc do you believe you enjoy writing the most? (If you filled this out last year, has this changed in any way?) I like being a little silly. Some of my favourite posts have been where I've just thought up some nonsense, and allowed myself to write it.

Do you have any scenario in mind for your muse(s) that gets you thinking “man I hope I get to write this one day”? I want Forde to be obliterated emotionally. I do not care if these emotions are positive or negative.

Favourite TOA-related memories? SO many this group is awesome. I loved coming back after some time off and seeing what muses were still around. There's one in particular that Larcei and Forde are both close friends with and it cheeses me so much. Anyway happyland was my favourite event ever thank you mods.

Present or past tense? Present usually, but sometimes I use past don't worry about it.

Normal size text, small text, no preference? The most formatting I do is the occasional italics.

Got any potential muse delusions to share? There is *someone* who's been on my mind... (but really I have no strong muse thoughts at the moment, and I don't think I have the energy to double muse rn)

[andy-skull]

Just in time for Valentine's day the team released the Spanish translation for this VN!!!

We all worked really hard and I'm happy this is finally in my native language. It wasn't easy to make it neutral gendered since Spanish is a very gendered language, but I'm happy with the outcome.

This is an og story/concept, making it the first original content I throw out to the word and based on a personal experience.

It's a chill and cozy romance with three different endings and two romantic interests.

Hope y'all can give it a chance and enjoy!!!

[propertyofkylar]

Do you have any recommendations that don’t have like.. canon mcs? Bc I’m.. ✋🏾😭

SHXKFKLSLS okay bestie understandable. i get it. i never self-insert in games but also im white so i see how this would be a problem.

anyway your best shot is indie otome games because these have a LOT more customization options and a lot more diverse LIs, too. itch.io is the best place to find them and as a plus a lot of them are free !

here’s some of my favs:

our life beginnings and always is like the end all be all when it comes to customization. play childhood through adulthood with the best man of all time cove holden. you decide what your character looks like, their sexuality, gender etc. it’s so amazing overall there’s no other game that has this amount of customization. the dev (gb patch) is working on a similar game called our life now and forever which you can play the demo of!! this one will have more customization! everyone needs to play olba. this is the game that got me into otome. it’s so cozy and warm and peak romance. COVE IS THE MAN OF ALL TIME. free with paid dlc that adds more scenes, i bought it after like an hour of playing lmao

a date with death yall know how much i love this one. also great customization here. if you love teasing and harassing pretty men this is for you. also free, with paid dlc that adds more options

keyframes is only a demo for now but im so excited about the full game!! choose your name and pronouns and a fun quiz that determines your seasonal personality which impacts the game!! the three boys you can romance are so cute too…

haven’t played blooming panic in a minute but iirc you customize your name and pronouns here. it’s a chat sim kinda type where you’re in a discord server for fans of a comic. all the LIs here are super charming and unique, and since it’s all online w fake video chats with the LIs it’s really immersive!!

there’s a lot out there but these r some of my favs!! definitely check out indie vns. i love jp otome games but you’ll find the most customization in the indie world!!!!

[ryo-maybe]

I'm not sure who else I'd ask and you just reblogged some art of it so! Should I retry Steins Gate? I feel like I didn't get a great experience the first time I watched it. My friend had me watch the anime english dub and originally he was apparently just having me watch so I could give my opinion on the "trans" (?) character in it but after 10 or 12 episodes I just really wasn't seeing the appeal and he told me to just drop it if I wasn't enjoying it. But I've heard such incredible things about it! Is it worth trying a second watch or consuming it another way?

I'm gonna out on a limb and say that - yeah, the way That entire arc and character are treated are Not Good. If we take a deep breath, pinch the bridge of our nose and utilize the secret technique taught by the ancient masters...

...I find the rest of the show/VN to be very enjoyable, but I am also aware that the appeal of the story, its atmosphere and narrative devices may be lost on people who lack certain specific tastes. It's an unabashedly chuuni story, is what I'm trying to say. If you are the kind of person who can tolerate - or even embrace! - the inherent silliness of the conspiracy and time travel bullshit around which the story pivots, then it's down on whether you can enjoy the colorful cast of characters presented to you. If even those just don't appeal to you, it means that Steins;Gate simply doesn't cater to your preferences, which is honestly understandable!

That said, I don't know how long ago you gave the show a try, if you like VNs and thus would be willing to give that a spin on the off-chance it may convey the same story in a more palatable fashion, or even there may have been a whole slew of other reasons why the show didn't appeal to you. Speaking out of personal experience, if a significant amount of time has passed since you first gave it a spin and you've got the time to spare, try watching the first three or so episodes. We cannot account for how our tastes may change and evolve through time, or how much context actually factors into how we absorb fiction (and experiences in general). I used to think Code Geass was a dumb, crappy show back when I watched most of the first season, until I decided to give it a second try nearly a decade later and found myself welcoming it as one of my top favorite anime ever. While this is more likely than not to be a fortunate exception, I find there's always worth in giving something a second chance and seeing if now you're actually ready to enjoy it or it really just wasn't meant to be!

[cute-girls-from-vns-anime-manga]

What video games do you like to play?

Honestly Im a grab bag of a gamer!

I used to be massively into the souls games but after I played them too much I just cant seem to go back to them.

I absolutely love a good chill vibing game like Stardew Valley, Story of Seasons and Rune Factory, have frankly logged far far too many hours into Stardew as it is.

Then recently Ive been feeling the urge for some fast paced action so Ive been going through some older fps's like I just beat Blood on well done a few months back working my way through Amid Evil now, absolutely adore Ultrakill even though I am god awful at it and am not even good enough to beat the first Gabriel fight much less unlock the entire second act.

Of course if you want to count them and I most certainly do I am a visual novel addict, and if you dont think VN's are games go find a copy of Kamidori Alchemy Meister and get as addicted to that games tactical combat as I am! (Its a fire-emblem like only more high fantasy)

But the Majikoi series stands out above all the visual novels, hell Majikoi is so important and amazing to me Id put it in my top three favorite experiences Ive ever had from a piece of art!

Occasionally when the mood strikes me Ill boot up a good ole RPG obviously you have your OG classics like Chrono Trigger (Which I happen to have a SNES cart of) but newer classics that forgo the turn based combat systems as well like Ni no kuni!

As with all things however I have a pair of games that I play for comfort and never bore me or get stale, the first is Diablo 2, I began playing Diablo 2 when I was just six years old something about the game drew me in and has never let go the moment I first laid eyes on the rouge encampment an obsession was formed. During a move my dad lost his copy of Diablo 2 and I begged him to get me a new one, when my asshole abusive brother destroyed that copy I scrounged every penny I found on the street to buy it again, due to complicated circumstances ive lost or had my copy of Diablo 2 ruined I think about 6-8 times but when the Itch to play it comes from deep inside my skull I cannot refuse so Ive had to re-buy the damn thing that many times! I dont know how long Ive spent playing Diablo 2 but just a gut feeling says that it would have to be measured in YEARS.

The other Game is Terraria I bought Terraria on Steam day one, I remember watching the developers lets play back on youtube at the same time I was playing the game, Terraria does not have as much of a story in my life as Diablo 2 but since I bough it day one on steam 12 fucking years ago I actually do have my total collective play time

That's 3,204.4 hours thats more than double my next most played game on steam (Titan Quest at 1,417.8 hours CAN YA TELL I LOVE ARPG's?) that equates by the way to 133.5 days straight of just playing Terraria. No I do not have all the Achievements in Terraria I play games to have fun and escapism doing a checklist of things in a game isnt fun!

There are so many more games I adore but this is already too long!

[heyseihai]

Now BoS season 2 is over, I can focus on adapting it to VN format. If everything goes well, it will be ready for beta-testing before christmas.

But part of me is also eager for writing season three asap, it's here that Tenjin's paranoia starts to build.

He still thinks Seihai was pretending to be Coatlicue when she said those things and therefore, that she's interested in Leiftan. He thinks she has taken the opportunity that he was away (eastern border, some rebel elves causing a ruckus for not agreeing with the soon-to-be Sovereignty Triad Alliance) to bring Leif to court as some sort of paramour. He thinks she's like the Sakurai dynasty, known for their countless lovers off-screen.

There's even a moment when he tries to make a move on her, and *gasp* she refuses. The guy is so stunned for Leiftan's presence in the north he completely ignores the fact that Seihai refuses him not because of Leiftan, but because she's still recovering from labor weeks before. He's been away for so much time he had even forgotten she was pregnant.

Then we have the issue with Tsubomi and how she only shuts up when Leiftan is around. He is kinda forced to accept Lief there for it was his only choice. He could have found a way to get rid of the girl, but sooner or later the fact would have come to light and he would be known as kinslayer. Well, Leif is lesser of two evils for now.

And then it's when things start getting wild:

Tsubomi stops crying.

Seihai, who had never cared that much for spending time with the children, starts doing so from time to time.

And even Yuki, who was known for spying on him in the throne room 24/7, is not there all the time anymore.

And worse: it's quite common to see them together now, like, Leiftan combing Tsubomi's hair while telling Yuki stories of his adventures before his arrival. While Seihai just sits there close to them, listening as if she's not paying attention but she is.

In that court where Seihai knows nobody and the only one she kinda knows is there just to lecture her (Rin) or the other noble families who are kinda meh, Leiftan is a reassuring presence for her. And Tenjin doesn't realize it because the guy is more king, than husband or father.

He's so dumb when it comes to this kind of thing, that he even starts comparing himself to Leiftan and comes to the BRILLIANT conclusion that if he wants Seihai to be the way she was before Leif's arrival, he needs to get off his pedestal a little and make her pay attention to him... aka, "I need to remind her that I'm the boss here, and I'm her husband, and I'm amazing blablabla but how am I gonna do that? Oh I know, dragging her to my bed and pleasing her" considering that he had never done that before. The man thinks he can conquer her with that, even if he's not the horny kind lol He does think that having a better "bed performance" than Leiftan's will make Seihai come back to him, because he's 100% sure Seileif have an affair haha!

But it's funny seeing how Tenjin asks RIN, of all people, about how to please a woman in bed lol. On one hand is cute because it shows she's the only one he trusts to ask these things, the only one he trusts to show he's vulnerable in some way, the only one that knows he's just a normal kitsune doing his best to rule despite not having an answer for everything. On the other though, it's funny to ask an old woman (who most likely knew nothing about it) such a thing.

He summons her to his chambers at some point, and he just lets his hands do the work at first. He asks if she likes it, she says something like "if you like it I like it too" or similar, and he gets all angry: "I'm asking YOU whether YOU like ir or not". The guy is so insecure in this moment but he can't handle it and his insecurity is masked by anger, it's mask of picture-perfect king starting to shatter.

All because of Leif. It's amazing how Leif-baby can contribute to the story, be it in a character-driven aspect, be it in a plot-driven aspect. Some characters can only contribute in one aspect, he does with both! Leif is a goddamn gamechanger (L)

[ghostsofruefell]

Hello, followers of this account and the others I will reblog this too. I'm just gonna kinda ramble here, but I also have some important info re: when Ruefell will be completed (and Burwick)

I'm sure people have noticed I have a habit of starting projects and never getting anywhere with them:

Honey and Fire, that was my first try at IF and I was a teenager and had no idea what I was doing and it's just no longer a viable project, so that's cancelled for real.

Burwick Destination, I was still inexperienced and young, so my planning is total garbage and needs to be completely rebuilt from the ground up, perhaps the story will change a good deal when I get around to that. But I'm not ready to do that and I won't be for a while. I'm ashamed of how long it's been on hiatus, so I need to take this time to clear my plate and just not look at it for a while, that way it won't go the way of HoF and take a toll on my mental health.

Magic of Ruefell, my planning is much better and I'm still confident in this one. But it's a big project. Which brings me to my newest project.

The Book of Broken Candles. @bookofbrokencandles This one is my new and primary focus. I feel prepared to see this one to completion.

See... I have problems lol. I'm just gonna level with you guys. I struggle really, really badly with executive dysfunction and some symptoms that lead me to certain labels I can't get diagnosed, but are symptoms that frequently strangle my creative efforts. I was in a much worse place when I started those first three projects (and my not-so-secret other one on my main) so they also got this treatment as I fell into yet another pit that prevented me from working. But I feel like I'm in a better place now. It's not perfect and I'm still slower than hell at writing, but I'm also still writing. Consistently, at that, which is something that hasn't happened for me since my fanfic days in my teens. That's a good sign, to me.

I'm worried about what will happen as we get into December, because I already hate how early the sun sets where I live and I don't do well with seasonal depression. But I won't be too hard on myself, whatever happens, and I hope that will be enough to get me through this season without a great deal of pain to my writing.

But that's neither here nor there right now. I wanted to clear state what's going on in my head right now regarding my projects:

Truth be told, Burwick and Ruefell are too much right now. Burwick moreso, but that's for multiple reasons. I've already said it, but I need to return to it at a much later date and pick up the pieces of my teenage mess.

Ruefell, it's in a way better state, but it is... a big bite to chew right now, in terms of being my first completed IF. So I don't think it can be my first completed IF. Its cast and number of variables are on the large side and I don't want to burn out on it. There's also more promise in the plot that I'd really like to have the experience needed to deliver on.

Candles is... getting a bit on the big side haha. It's seeming larger than I expected when I first conceived of it. But I'm keeping it in a much tighter scope. Its focus is much narrower, I'm more confident in the decisions I'm making to keep the number of variables under control (aka not being too much of a people-pleaser) and I have a set limit on the number of chapters it will have, so I can see the timeline a lot clearer. What this means is basically just that Candles will take a little longer to complete than I initially thought, but it won't be harder to complete.

So here's the timeline: Candles completed -> Ruefell completed -> Circle back around to Burwick and complete that.

Then I'll see what ideas I've shelved in that time. I have some I've been kicking around for a long time, and one that may very well end up being my magnum opus when I get to it. And I think my dream is to one day write a VN. I have an idea, but it is also massive, so maybe I'll manage to make that dream come true with a smaller project before that one.

I think that's all I have to say right now... Thank you, everyone, who's been patient with me all this time. If you still enjoy my work, please follow me over at @bookofbrokencandles and send me asks and stuff, I need engagement to survive or I feel like I'm screaming into a void that won't echo.

Ok, bye.

[neomedievalist]

If i want 2 get into fate what should i watch/read/etc 1st

Hi bestie. i risk angering the entire fate fanbase with this. but the way i see it you have two options

what you need to know about fate is that it was originally a visual novel from 2004 that has had many many many adaptations and spinoffs over the years. i am personally reading it right now and i love it....Because i already like fate. to be honest, this might just be me, but id find it exhausting if i wasnt already a fan. its extremely long (about 80 hours is what ive heard?) and it does show its age. however if you have experience with VNs you probably wont be bothered by that.

i personally started with the unlimited blade works anime. this is the most accessible way to get into it. it's gonna give you more or less the "full story" in a condensed way. unlimited blade works is the second out of three routes of the original visual novel and this is an adaptation of that. i think it's made really well and ive watched it umm. 3 going on 4 times. this is what im going to recommend everyone who asks me this as the easiest option to get into fate.

Some notes: some people will tell you to start with fate/zero because it's first in chronological order. this is NOT TRUE!!! just because it's a prequel does not mean you should watch it first!! holy fucking shit!!

there is an unlimited blade works movie adaptation by studio deen. it's not good. you want the 2014 anime adaptation by ufotable.

now to confuse things further: there's a prologue for this anime. i recommend watching episode 1 first, then going back to the prologue, then watching episode 2. ep 1 and the prologue are the events of the same day from the perspective of the two protagonists and even though the prologue comes first in the vn, i think it makes way more sense to start with shirou's perspective than rin to introduce a beginner to the series.

you *need* to watch the prologue though. you will be so confused if you don't. the prologue and episode 1 are both double-length so it can be kind of tiring to get through them, especially when it takes a while to get to the action, but do your best to stick with them!

nows the part where i post piracy links publicly on my blog and hope i dont get deleted

Unlimited Blade Works first season: 9anime.to/watch/fatestay-night-unlimited-blade-works.1vm/ep-1

Prologue: 9anime.to/watch/fatestay-night-unlimited-blade-works-prologue.jzr8/ep-full

Prepatched Visual Novel Torrent: sukebei.nyaa.si/view/3472050

[ullerrm]

Honorable Mentions for my 2022 games list:

Slice and Dice: Fantastic casual strategy game. You get five heroes, each of which has six possible moves per turn, represented by a D6. Different classes of heroes have different sides. Each turn of combat has you roll the dice up to three times, locking in moves and their targets, and everything plays out once moves are locked in. It's got some depth and some tactics to it, but super easy to pick up and explain, and a session usually finishes pretty quickly. (itch.io)

Backpack Hero: Imagine a deck-building game like Slay the Spire or Monster Train, but instead of a deck of cards, it's a bunch of items that you have to fit Tetris-style into a backpack. The items in your backpack -- all of them -- make up your verbs in combat, literally clicking items in your pack to make attacks or build up defense points. Some items care about where they are (e.g. a helmet gives extra defense if it's on top of armor, gloves want to be on the left or right sides), some weapons damage items next to them when swung, etc. It's still in active development, but it's got promise. (itch.io)

DRAINUS: Terrible name aside, it's great that people still make shmups like this in 2022. (Steam)

Wolfstride: At its core, it's just a visual novel with some minigames, about a group of retired bank-robbers coming together to honor the dead by becoming... a professional mecha combat team. The writing is merely okay, but it gets carried by having a fully voiced cast (a rarity for indie VNs, especially with some of the high-profile VAs present), and the mech combat parts are actually pretty fun. (Steam)

Nuclear Blaze: Little short pixel platformer with physical simulation aspects for fire and water -- explore an underground bunker and put out fires. (Steam)

Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator: Changing the path of the galaxy by buying low and selling high. It'll capture your heart -- and sell it to a cult trying to resurrect their lost flesh deity. (Steam)

Also, I should mention Destiny 2, which is by far my most played game of the year despite not being on my top ten.  It’s just the game I do with my friends and chat, really.  Ignore the 2700+ hours sunk into it.  (Although holy crap I love what they’ve done with Season of the Seraph, enough that I might put it on the top ten list for 2023 if they keep doing bangers like this.)

[sean-gaffney]

I posted 6,004 times in 2022

54 posts created (1%)

5,950 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@lady-griffin

@crunchbuttsteak

@dduane

@tokiro07

@dayseternal-blog

I tagged 1,846 of my posts in 2022

#spy x family - 127 posts

#naruto - 115 posts

#star trek - 77 posts

#bleach - 70 posts

#orihime - 68 posts

#ichigo - 66 posts

#my hero academia - 66 posts

#ichihime - 64 posts

#ichigo x orihime - 64 posts

#baccano - 60 posts

Longest Tag: 66 characters

#the gap between strength and maiden heart is indeed very important

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Since the article doesn't give much context, this is a MASSIVE rating for its late-night time slot. Huge hit numbers.

7 notes - Posted April 11, 2022

#4

A reminder that Higurashi Rei is now available on Steam!

Three new arcs!

Saikoroshi-hen, in which Rika, post-Matsuribayashi-hen, gets hit by a truck and wakes up in a Hinamizawa where - supposedly - everything is perfect. (Spoiler: no, it's not.) This is essential reading for VN fans.

Hirukowashi-hen, the VN adaptation of the Daybreak game, a must for fans of Rena.

Batsukoishi-hen... you can skip this, honestly. :p

11 notes - Posted June 3, 2022

#3

Birdie Wing Season 2, January 2023.

15 notes - Posted June 28, 2022

#2

Even Pakkun is crying.

41 notes - Posted April 27, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Biggest manga news in a long time. This has been on everyone's license request list for decades.

501 notes - Posted February 16, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[padmahearts]

Lotus' Major Iconing Projects (Hell's Checklist)

Currently Iconing: -Spy Classroom Manga, VN illustrations, and other canon material (8 main characters + a few side characters) -Prima Doll New Order + other official illustrations (5 main characters + 1 manga-exclusive character) -My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU (Seasons 1 + 3 screencaps I got elsewhere because NO. One character, but it's YUKINO. HELP ME.)

To Icon: -Spy Classroom anime (same list of characters. I am not okay.) -Wonderlab (probably all the recurring characters? At least, everyone who gets enough appearances to warrant iconing.) -Eternally iconing Limbus Company with every update that gives me new material to work with. Currently only five Sinners + a few NPCs, BUT I do have plans to icon more Sinners for my own NPCs. Probably nine or ten of the Sinners will end up iconed, depending on how I end up with certain FCs. -Magilumiere (At least one side character I already started iconing, probably at least two of the main characters, if not more.) -I Used High-Level Medicine To Counter Magic/Any Highly Advanced Medicine Is Indistinguishable From Magic (At least one side character, might pick up more FCs from here in the future.) -Kiseki/Trails Series - An ungodly list. I have at LEAST ten FCs from this series. I'm not joking. And I will likely pick up more as time goes on, because I really like the designs.) -Psycho-Pass (At least five characters across all three seasons. I need to remember how many FCs I have from there.) -Re-icon HnK bc I never finished that and I need to get icons for a few characters bc apparently I misplaced some files and I need to redo them anyways (At least nine characters, maybe more depending on other factors. I also need to icon the manga for a few specific characters.)

If any close mutuals have any overlapping FCs as me, I don't mind sending the files once I'm done. Wonderlab icons will be posted elsewhere, so those you can get from the other source once I send it to them. Other than that, I won't be ADDING characters from these series to icon. Feel free to ask on either here or Discord on who I'm iconing so we can hash shit out.

EDIT: FUCK I FORGOT -Danmachi (I think only a few characters, but they appear in basically the majority of the material. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.) -World Trigger (S1-3 + manga, one, maybe two main characters, and a few minor characters.) MILGRAM - Fuuta and Kazui. Might pick up a couple more if needed. Peach Boy Riverside - Mikoto and Winnie.