#game dev resource

[arimiadev]

want to make a visual novel in 2024? do it!!!!

I just updated my master post on how to make visual novels to include even more resource links and a new misconceptions section to dispel some misconceptions about visual novels.

make the visual novel of your dreams this year!!

[blankd]

Do *YOU* have the desire to make an Fire Emblem/retro BG3/SRPG? Do you own a copy of RPGmaker MV or MZ?

Get the *FREE* (and official) DLC and make your anime chess dreams come true!

MV version: [Link to Steam Page]

MZ version: [Link to Steam Page]

*requires that you have paid for a steam copy of RPGm MV/MZ, but are otherwise standalone files

[vigilskept]

i do think it’s kind of fascinating how ME devs seemingly had so much more of bioware’s trust even after me:a flopped (especially when you set that failure against da:i’s success)

[acornbringer]

I just posted a character texture deep-dive where I take an in-depth look at one of my character textures used in Of Love and Eternity ✨

Watch the full breakdown by becoming a patron! There's a link to that in my bio 🎊

P.S. The video includes a surprise face reveal 🎃

[burning2know]

i read the jason schreier article. It's mostly stuff we nerds pieced together already before, but jason has more authority than our collective left brain lobe.

it's funny to me that people think the ME contingent did a good job with the ending because it was Not It. 😭 The best parts were undoubtedly in the 3rd act, but those parts had a distinct dragon age flavor that was completely absent from the "emotional" ending.

I feel so bad for the DA nerds because their company and leaders just did not get them. And yeah, not being supported in your work is going to hamper the quality your output.

[reel-fear]

Genuinely so curious who Mike thinks is gonna be buying The Cage or the new DCTL GN bc with the way he tweets as far as he's concerned, it's not gonna be:

The queer people he has actively admitted he will never show any representation of in the games.

2. The POC he has actively fought against representing in his franchise. [Who he also mocked for thinking they would be represented in his franchise]

3. The Bendy fandom which has always been concerned with topics of diversity esp in the sense of queer people since its creation. Who he has responded to really poorly esp in regards to the GN.

4. The fans who critique him. [He blocked me for doing so lol]

5. His fans in general who he tweets about like this currently. [He's being vague about why people were mad at him or sent him 'nasty messages' because if you actually looked into why you'd see he was in the wrong. Either way, a very hateful way to speak abt ur own fanbase.]

Reminder while Mike is trash talking his fans he has always treated them rather poorly. The fans who won the fanart contest for Chapter 5 never got their posters actually in game due to it being rushed. Not only was chapter 5 a big slap to the face story wise, but it was literally so rushed he couldn't be bothered to add in the art his fans gave him for his game FOR FREE. [Meatly blames this on a crazy timeline, reminder him and Mike are the literal ceos of this company. The proposal of future updates here is also pretty cruel considering Mike nowadays happily admits he corrupted Chapter 5's source code and therefore literally can't update it At All currently. Because he is a moron]

At least they got to be in Boris and the dark survival, and by that I mean that was the Only game they got to be in so far, isn't that just treating your fans like you love them? Shoving their hard work into a spin off game almost nobody has played or addresses much. [Hell, who knows if with the Lone Wolf rebrand they'll even stay there. In which case they'll be in None of the games, only in the credits of BATIM]

6. The Bendy fans who just generally disagree with him on stuff. Like the new ink demon design where there is literally a public poll showing people generally prefer the old one.

7. The Bendy fans who can see he is actively lying to them. To their fucking faces.

He says this has always been the case, but screenshots and links to tweets regarding the books being canon prove it was not. Does he really think bendy fans are stupid or something? [Unless he's admitting here he lied to Kress when he told her the books were canon which sounds worse!]

8. Anyone who doesn't like the idea of giving money to a guy who laid off tons of employees then afterwards thought it was a great idea to express his anti-union views! Also brag about how good of an employer he was, according to his employees, he was not!

So in summary; Mike is an awful person who has not learned anything from the awful things he did. I will not be purchasing The Cage because, combined with this and his absolute refusal to take any kind of critique or see any differing interpretation of his franchise, I have no reason to think my problems with the franchise will ever be addressed or fixed. I probably will pirate The Cage along with any future Bendy Products [Including the movie] and will do my best to avoid giving it any kind of monetary support. Unless this changes any time soon, I can't see myself making anymore positive Bendy posts soon.

Mike has just managed to make it so hard to speak positively or optimistically of this franchise when he's so willing to broadcast how little he cares about it or its fans. I'm at the point where I refuse to pull any of my punches with my problems with it. What's the point of trying to play nice with my critique when either way the people creating it don't care?

So with this post, I want to invite anyone who feels similarly about the franchise to tell me, make a post or send an ask talking about how all of this makes you feel. It may not change how things are, but genuinely seeing other people share my feelings of anger makes me feel better. It feels nice to see when other people share our same concerns and worries. I'd also love to know if anyone else thinks they'll be avoiding purchasing Bendy products over this.

I'm not forcing anyone to participate in it nor trying to say anyone who doesn't supports mike but genuinely maybe if we can collectively decide to boycott things like the movie, graphic novel and The Cage... It might at least make the bendy devs acknowledge how much they have destroyed their own fandom's faith and trust in them.

The way Mike tweets about his actions like he had no control over why people were mad at him at least proves to me he takes NONE of it back nor regrets it. If you didn't know about his actions and only went off his tweets, you would be led to believe Mike has been needlessly picked apart by fans over things he couldn't control [or in his own words, had his words twisted and taken out of context]. That is not how you speak about your actions if you have actually learned better from them.

anyway, that has been my bendy dev callout post. This is an open invitation to anyone feeling similarly upset about the way the franchise is going to talk about it. It's genuinely nice to see how people feel about this and the more we talk about the more it's likely the bendy devs are forced to address our concerns. I don't think they will but hey, that's why I'm not gonna support them with my money anymore nor am I gonna be nice to them in any content I make critiquing Bendy. I mean I'm also basically making this post just in case anyone asks me Why I feel this way towards to bendy devs/as a way to respond to anyone who thinks I am too harsh in my critique in the future.

As always, it seems the best part of Bendy isn't actually anything about canon but about what the fan's are creating with the ideas Bendy failed to do anything interesting with.

Also the books, the books slap.

[videogamepolls]

Requested by anon

[goblincow]

Been thinking about this & putting it into practice when writing The Perilous Pear & Plum Pies of Pudwick for a while: thanks to the ever excellent @babblegumsam (who you are probably already following and if not now is your chance to rectify that) for the final straw that made me write this up today. I truly believe if you have any interest in TTRPGs, play, or design you'll get something out of it, it's a further 5.4 mins read from here on out.

--------------------

Play is interaction.

Reading is interaction.

Below I will argue the necessity & usefulness of thinking the relationship between reading & play in TTRPGs as (almost) the exact same thing to unlock a wide & deep potential as reader/player/designer.

--------------------

Reading & play don't have to be the same thing. But you can't play without reading (in the sense of reading representations, images, ideas, concepts, interactions, etc, not just written text), because then there could be no interaction.

Reading and play can both accurately describe a given act or process. For instance: I read a table or piece of prose in a TTRPG book.

I say this because this is an idea that people struggle with, and while I encourage debate around the concept, we first have to agree on some basic building blocks that I hope I'm able to communicate here. For instance, there exists a potential reality in which tabletop roleplaying games are called tabletop reading games and nothing else about them changes (except for the consequential ability to think of reading in ttrpgs as play, and the potential this tool unlocks), because the prerequisite role for all other roles being played in a role-playing game is that of the reader.

This is true for much more than TTRPGs, but if we simply focus on acknowledging that reading & play in ttrpgs can and often are the same thing, then we are able to make informed design choices on this basis that we otherwise lack the agency to make – and which are nonetheless choices that are being made while we miss the opportunity to observe, read & ultimately interact and/or change and/or play with them.

To not think of the relationship between reading & play in TTRPGs in this way is to limit your agency as a designer, reader, player, and ultimately to cause yourself to be unable to synthesise these roles which are deeply inter-related, perhaps more so than they are disparate.

However you define it, Good Design necessitates the application of the right tool for the job. This requires making, maintaining & improving the tools that you have access to. The reader/player relationship is not only one of these, but an integral one that precedes a great many (if not all) of the other tools that you can & do employ as designer/player/reader.

If you allow this tool to remain blunt and imprecise (and especially if you don't acknowledge that it exists and that you use it in every choice you make), what you are doing is making a choice to blunt all of your other tools, even if you aren't aware of it.

This is poor design, poor play, and poor reading,* and I believe that this is true regardless of how you define each of those terms.

*though of course we could - and I think should - argue over the semantics & limitations of my imprecise use of the word "poor" there and the further ideas it smuggles in unacknowledged, but I trust that you will be able to infer what I'm trying to communicate in my use of it and I further hope that by leaving this imprecise application of a tool here in the way that I have used it, it might serve as a good example of the consequences, limitations & potential dangers of applying tools/terms/ideas that might be best described as "too blunt for the job", which is the very thing I'm attempting to highlight & address here.

It would not seem very sensible to choose to limit yourself in this way unless it allowed you access to new tools, which is a choice that you could only make once you are familiar with the central idea I'm presenting here – in other words, if you break the rules without understanding them you are very unlikely to be taking a step forward and much more likely to just be shuffling in place or even stepping backwards.

I hope that this short interaction has unlocked or reinforced your access to a useful tool that will allow you to sharpen your understanding of the play/reading relationship in TTRPGs and in turn refine & maintain your existing tools and your ability to synthesise new ones.

I look forward to discovering with you what new agencies this allows us to unlock, and I hope you take what you have read here and play with it to design new realities that you & I have yet to imagine.

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

ALSO ALSO I will die on the hill of the GSC final battle with Red genuinely being genius and one of the best moments in gaming history like it’s genuinely master crafted. Like to begin with Mt. Silver itself is built up to be this massive achievement to even visit. You’re literally not allowed to go there without having all 16 badges it's a place too dangerous for even champions. You literally beat the game and you’re deemed not strong enough to survive. The trek up is difficult, with strange Pokémon you possibly didn’t even know existed and that you straight up can’t catch anywhere else. And then when you get there, you find yourself. Like it straight up feels like a playground rumour but it’s real.

And Red's team is basically tailor made to be extremely similar to what most kids Yellow teams would be! It's your starter Pikachu, the starters you get as gifts, the Snorlax you catch, only the Eeveelution deviates from this and only bc Espeon isn’t in Yellow. You probably used some of those Pokémon! And while the music track isn’t unique to Red, it's associated with him because it’s a perfect song for this battle, because it's a remix of the very first song you’d hear booting up the first generation of games. It really feels like an epic finale, with even the music reflecting how everything’s come full circle, and it’s genuinely astonishing how well it works.

Like, it doesn’t seem as cool now because it’s been two decades, but genuinely it's a genius ending, especially considering no one knew if there would have been any more games after this. And honestly, if the series ended on that perfect book ends? That would have been an amazing ending. It’s so satisfying. And it’s still a beautiful moment that genuinely makes the GSC jank feel so fucking worth it and satisfying. Even if logically as adults we can recognise the team's kinda shitty and it’s not that difficult really the genius in the design doesn’t lie in the difficulty really. It's in how it’s perfectly set up to feel like a finale for both the first and second games that ties them up satisfyingly and makes you feel like you’ve become so much stronger than you ever could be. It’s awesome. Genuinely it still hits if you try and engage with the game on its level tbh.

[arimiadev]

released my next pack of cut-in action CGs for visual novels, RPGs, etc., they're free to use in free & commercial games.

over 70 different images / variations in it! sword strikes, arrows, bubbly whimsy, magic effects, cards, vines... take a look for yourself.

check them out

[snoruntfan]

Honestly I’m annoyed that Nintendo are suing PocketPair about Palword just because now I have to hear about that game again after it was gone for months

If you’re a Palworld fan just pre-emptively block me please, I don’t want to engage with you

[fisheito]

Started playing NuCarni 2 weeks ago it's so fun i love everything. But I wanna know is there any way to access past event stories??? I wanna read them and learn more abt the characters but obviously bc I wasn't there for them they're. Locked. And I can't read em. Idk man I've been an enstarrie for 4 yrs and counting so I'm used to every event or scout story being available somewhere on the internet so I can binge read to my hearts content so maybe I'm just being silly rn but I can't find anything so I'm asking u (bc ur blog makes u seem like a nucarnival god tbh praise be)

2 weeks ago!!! wow!! welcome to this pit of eternal suffering!!!!!! (i'm actually having quite a nice time don't tell anybody)

i bet my followers know more about nucarni than i do AHAHA (pls chime in if yall want!!)

i have no helpful advice... because any events i DID miss when i started playing (White Storm/Zest of Life)? i was still playing when the reruns happened the following year so ...i got em... thru accidental waiting......yeah.... sorryy..........

[magicalwarriordiamondheart]

Twit thread of some of my fav free resources for game dev assets :)

[acornbringer]

I made an in-depth tutorial showing my game asset workflow from start to finish including an overview of the post-processing that gives my game its distinctive look 🎃

Watch the tutorial and support the game in the process by becoming a patron 🎊

patreon.com/acornbringer

[liamajoris]

Just made a bunch of Gameboy-style assets and posted them on itch.io!!! It's my first asset pack, and I'm so proud.

You should totally check it out. It's FREE: Gameboy Laptop Overlay Asset Pack by Li-a Majoris

[damsels-n-dice]

WIP Wednesday: Name Troubles

greetings, tumblr hivemind. this wip wednesday, i'm making post-playtest edits to one of my games, and have encountered a small issue. i was hoping y'all might be able to help me fix it...

my work-in-progress game is called 'til it kills us, a ttrpg about queer teens saving the world with the power of emotion-based magic. each playbook is centered on a negative emotion and corresponding magic type, with a name that ties those two ideas together. the bogeyman, for instance, powers their shadow magic with self-hatred or guilt. thus, they take their name from a shadow monster used to scare children into doing what they're told. all the playbooks have similar names -- one word summaries of their general powers and vibe.

all of them, that is, except the creeping vine. this playbook is all about self-doubt, and the name is supposed to evoke that creeping, gradual feeling of distrust in your own ability. think of old stone or brick houses, where vines grow into the walls until they're part of the structure. or vines that grow on trees, cutting off their light and nutrients to feed its own growth. or hanahaki. the name does mostly convey that idea, but it's also... clunky.

several of the playtesters mentioned that the name doesn't fit with the rest of the playbook names, and i always intended it to be a placeholder. but i can't find a better name that represents that same idea and feeling. anyone got any better ideas than me?

if you suggest a name that you're happy for me to use in 'til it kills us, i will of course credit you in the acknowledgements of the game. and, for your reference: the other playbooks are called the bogeyman, the drowned, the gravedigger, the grey, the lighthouse, the siren, the spitfire and the wisp.