#love death devlog

[love-death-game]

Devlog #001 - Starting Progress

Hello! This is the first devlog for my current game project called "Love, Death."

As stated in my previous post, this project was originally a research assignment for one of my university classes. As I had already made quite a few assets already, I have lots of stuff to show off in this devlog!

(Pictured Above: A screenshot of a work-in-progress shot of one of the opening scenes of the game)

Characters

So far, I have created the two central characters that I want the game to be focused on: Ghost and Shepherd. As this is incredibly early in development, I hope to update these sprites in the future should I make any major changes! (Especially Shepherd's sprite since it feels the roughest)

(Pictured Above: A gif of Ghost and Shepherd's sprites doing their walk-cycles)

Concept Art

While most of the concept art I have so far are in the rough-sketch stage, here is one piece that I've been working on for a while now that takes place further into the game's story :)

(Pictured Above: A work-in-progress illustration of Ghost and a mysterious man in the foreground)

Level Design

With the original rooms I made in the prototype, I learned a lot about how RPG Maker MZ handles parallax mapping and in general, how maps should be laid out.

(Pictured Above: the opening room of the "Love, Death" prototype - a long blue room with a glowing door to the left and a gravestone to the right.)

(Pictured Above: another room from the "Love, Death" prototype -Shepherd's office which is basked in hues of red. In the far left, there is a desk in front of a window.)

With all that information, I've started planning out the room layouts of the levels I want players to go through with an emphasis on good composition, exploration, and different points of interest.

In the coming days and weeks, I hope to assemble some placeholder rooms with layouts I've created to see how they turn out and figure out ways I could improve upon them.

(Pictured Above: A mock-up of a level with different rooms and interaction points)

Tilesets

(Pictured Above: A screenshot of a test room with a custom tileset.)

When planning out this game, I was unsure of whether or not I should use RPG Maker's default tiling system or if I should focus more on parallax mapping for the game's maps. In the end, I decided to do a little bit of both!

I've created a placeholder tileset for the first area of the game that works with RPG Maker's autotile system and some other tiles that I could use for different variants.

When it comes to parallax mapping, I'll save the maps and their tiles to a png and use those as a reference point for the elements I want to parallax map. These include lighting effects, foreground elements, and scrolling backgrounds.

Gameplay Mechanics

Below are a few things I've been working on during my testing!

(Pictured Above: A video showing a few tests in the game.)

Idle Animations

I made simple idles which happen to characters when they are idle for more than 5 seconds.

Character Switching

When pressing the [TAB] button, players will be able to quickly switch between playing as Ghost or Shepherd. Depending on who they are playing as, new mechanics would become available to them.

Shepherd Crawling

One of the unique mechanics that would be available to Shepherd would be crawling! While small spaces would be unreachable to a tall sprit like Ghost, Shepherd can reach them with ease!

When interacting with small spaces, Shepherd would crawl into the space, giving players access to whatever lies within.

Goals for Next Update:

Complete a draft layout of the tutorial area of the game

Create at least one area-specific puzzle

Create a Ghost-specific mechanic

Fun Facts and In Closing!

I thought I'd take this portion of this post to talk a little about myself and why I'm developing this game.

For those of you who don't know me, I'm Somewhatcold (you can call me Jan), an 18-year-old university student in Canada interested in game design and concept art. I've always been in love with RPGs and some of my favourite games include the Dragon Age series, Final Fantasy XV, and OneShot.

I'm currently doing a Bachelor's of Design in Illustration with a minor in Games and Play and hope to use this experience as well as further projects to learn more about game development.

Although I've made different RPG Maker games in the past for a few school projects, I've never actually made something of this scale. It's always been a long-term goal of mine to create something like this so I'm incredibly excited to see where this goes!

Feel free to ask me anything in my ask-box or to contact me via the instagram I linked above!

The next devlogs are definitely not going to be this long - this one in particular had a lot of information simply because I already started this project a few weeks ago. Going forward in the future, the devlogs are mostly going to be smaller updates and new things I've added to the game.

Below, I've also included some samples of my previous illustration work just for funsies :D

(Pictured Above: An illustration of Hebra Mountain from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild)

(Pictured Above: An illustration of a woman on a balcony overlooking a cityscape.)

[snowhavenstudios]

July 2023 Devlog: We Updated our Steam Page for Drops of Death!💀💔

Hi everyone!

We’re back with another monthly devlog, bringing news of a good number of accomplishments we’ve achieved this past month. First of all, we updated the Steam page for Drops of Death, which now features freshly made assets, fun character gifs (see below), and polished character intros made by our fantastic artist Eleanor (link to Eleanor’s twitter)! 

Our Steam page doesn’t currently feature a demo, but just know that we recently began work on one. We encountered this funny Adrien ghost sprite while we (and by we I mean Kristi aka @husbandogoddess) started to add the characters to the build! (Left: Barbie Trend art for MC & Fawn (possible love interest/killer); Right: Adrien sprite expression)

Another huge accomplishment is the Drops of Death trailer that we dropped when we revealed our fresh new Steam page. Dara’s (link to Dara's Twitter) attention to detail is immaculate; can you believe how detailed her design of the slot machine is? It really fits the vibe of a game where the killer can easily wind up being any one of the love interests.

In other news, Love’s Crescendo is getting the attention from us that it needs, and I hope you all enjoyed the demo update we released just a few months ago. Things really feel like they are moving along! One thing to note is that we are currently deciding between a few different composers to create the final tracks of the game.

That’s all for this month’s update! Be sure to follow us on our other social media pages to stay in the loop on all things Drops of Death, Love’s Crescendo, and more!

TIKTOK TWITTER INSTAGRAM

[twoandahalfstudios]

Did you guys know that you can support us on P@treon and get…

✨ Secret announcements and devlogs oOoOoOoOOo ✨Monthly exclusive SFW/NSFW artworks ✨Sketches, WIPs, and behind the scenes info ✨My love forever and ever

Here's a few previews!

[phoenotopia]

Star Iliad DevLog # 02: The Importance of Pacing

When it comes to making commercial video games, let's just say it's not our first rodeo 😎

(It's our second)

Steam automatically compiles various play data from gamers. From Phoenotopia, I know that we have a roughly even split of keyboard users and gamepad users. From achievements, I can tell which bosses were defeated and how far the player got (although our implementation of achievements requires the user manually unlock it, so it's less useful data). Today, I want to focus on one specific data point—the median playtime for Phoenotopia.

Unfortunately, the median playtime clocks in at 4 hours.

I think that's right when the player reaches Atai.

(Atai - the death place of so many playthroughs)

A working theory has been forming:

Atai is the first real "slog" where players are stuck in one place for a long time. It’s a big town with 70+ NPCs to chat with. It’s easy to get lost, feel like you're not making progress, and then tap out.

Two major quest lines must be completed before reaching the second dungeon: getting the bombs and getting the flute.

Get BOMBS

Meet Lisa and learn of her plight

Find the bomb maker’s house—it's locked.

Tell Lisa you need to unlock a door.

Lisa refers you to Garnet, who gives you a “watch the kids” quest.

Play hide-and-seek with the kids.

Comb through the entire town looking for the kids

Go to the bomb maker's house and claim bombs

Get FLUTE

Meet Lisa and learn of her plight

Find the jailed Ouroboros man—he wants wine.

Go to the tavern—no ID, no wine.

Talk with Lisa and get her ID

Dye your hair to look like Lisa

Buy wine with fake ID

Go to the Ouroboros bandit and exchange it for the flute

Phew. Looking back, that is a LOT. And we don't even have a quest tracker >_>

I love romping through towns and chatting with NPCs—it’s my favorite part of JRPGs (the genre I’d be making if I weren’t making this). But maybe I let that influence the design a bit too much 🤔

During these quests, there’s very little action—unless players explore optional caves (which don’t quite scratch the itch). So after 1-2 hours of town questing, many players drop off. That’s why so many runs end at 4 hours. That's my theory anyway.

That brings us to today’s blog topic: PACING

Long story sequences should generally be avoided—it's a sign of poor pacing. If a long sequence can’t be trimmed down, it should at least be broken up with action. Think of it like making a burger—it needs balance.

(Atai is like the burger on the left—only meaty "story" sequences. A well-paced game is like the burger on the right — it utilizes crucial tomato and lettuce "action" set pieces to mix things up)

Now, one of our new core design goals for Star Iliad is that if you take any 90 minute slice of gameplay from anywhere in the game's campaign, you’ll experience all of the following:

Exploration

Combat

Puzzles

Boss Fight

New Upgrade

Story Progression

That's the core "game loop". Of course, to stay balanced presents its own challenges because we can only control so much. Players set their own pace, and some will inevitably get lost. As designers, we can mitigate this by packing the game with so much content that there's always something new around the corner - make getting lost fun!

(It's going to be a lot of work though...)

It does raise some challenging design questions. For example, how can you deliver "story" sequences when you're deep in the whale's intestines, far away from town?

Our answer is to employ something akin to Metal Gear Solid's codec calls. It's the future and people have "cell phones" (or holographic communicators in our case). You can call NPCs and they can call you (Players can also ignore calls if they'd prefer less story)

To conclude —pacing is important! No more hour+ long story sequences! Excepting a couple scenarios - say at a crucial turning point in the game. Long exposition dumps need to be earned. Pacing is something we’re going to be vigilant about through all of development.

(Steve Ballmer understands how important Pacing is)

Thanks for reading!

(Next update will be in two months, at May’s end)

[nemastraea]

Doormat extraordinaire: Andrew Graves is down horrendous for his own sister | Part 1

Or as I like to call it, actual literal word vomit attempting a proper character analysis!

Here's a link to the AO3 version for archive purposes: The doormat extraordinaire has a bit of a romantic streak,

Content warning: This will heavily feature spoilers from Episodes 1 & 2 of The Coffin of Andy and Leyley. Trigger warning: Abuse, cannibalism, child neglect, codependency, harassment, incest, murder, self-harm, and suicide. Disclaimer: I will occasionally reference an extremely normal essay from Sufficient Velocity commenter Leyleyfication (here). It would be a lot easier to read this essay first as Leyleyfication does a pretty good job establishing the following: - Ashley is dependent on Andrew to assure and validate her of her own insecurities, and - The game heavily implies that Andrew wants to fuck his own sister.

Anyway: The Coffin of Andy and Leyley! A game in early access where a pair of siblings are stuck through a seemingly never-ending quarantine together, desperate not to starve to death. When their cultist neighbor dies in a ritual gone wrong, they rationally resort to cannibalism. Fun!

I am definitely going to assume that you read Leyleyfication's extremely normal essay (I am on my knees, begging you to read that). Which is why this essay immediately starts with, "yeah, Andrew definitely wants to fuck his sister" as its baseline.

What I will be adding to that funny little cauldron of fucked up sibling dynamics in a horror visual novel are the following: Andrew's fixation and sexual attraction manifests as his desire to control, dominate, and possess Ashley. And it is framed as a fatalist attraction and the totality of his existence (for worse or even worse).

Because of Tumblr's limit for 30 images per post, though, I'm going to have to split this extremely normal and reasonably lengthy essay into... multiple posts! Yeah! I have no idea how long this will fucking go!

So first things first: how can we tell that Andrew is even attracted to Ashley in the first place?

Nemlei (Devlog 05). Note the hickeys above and below Ashley's choker and her left inner thigh, and Andrew's left hand creeping into her right thigh.

As Leyleyfication points out, the game primes us to believe that Andrew is a pushover and Ashley is his abuser. This occurs in the Steam page as it explicitly says Ashley is "in fact, very bad" and Andrew is a "doormat extraordinaire." Moreover, it's very easy to tell that Ashley is, on some degree, obsessed with Andrew:

She's happy to hear that Julia broke up with Andrew over the phone;

She repeatedly accuses him of finding the Lady from Room 302 attractive and he 'tried anything with her;' and

Her flashback to wanting to punish her friend Nina ("the Bitch in the Box") for crushing on Andrew.

Episode 1, dream and memory. Leyley previously said that Nina should know better than to 'steal from another woman,' referring to herself. The implication that Andy is hers is toyed with after this moment, when she says she'd put Andy back in the box.

The game does prime us to think that Ashley is Andrew's abuser. It also suggests that Ashley projects an unrequited and incestuous love onto Andrew. Before we consider Episode 2's narrative, Episode 1 gives the initial impression that if Andrew comes to reciprocate her feelings, it's more of a reaction and subsuming to her will. That it may not be something he wants for himself and independent of Ashley's manipulation.

But again, I do believe Andrew wants to fuck Ashley. And always has been. He just frequently vacillate between 'subtle' and 'really fucking obvious' tells that completely take advantage of the game's third person limited POV.

Keep in mind that both Andrew and Ashley are extremely unreliable narrators. We aren't going to get information they personally do not care about and that is on top of our own choices as the player.

(A digressive example: you will not learn that the founder and CEO of Toxisoda's company was a former surgeon unless you interact with the television in Andrew's Episode 2 dream and memory of their blood oath. Otherwise, it neatly ties into the surgeon that Mrs. Graves conveniently says she was directed to regarding the siblings' quarantine in the main story.)

When it's really fucking obvious

When you play as Andrew in Episode 2, his post-dinner argument with Ashley carefully frames them both. They are cramped in the foreground and Andrew's left arm is conveniently blocked by Ashley and the kitchen knife, as seen here.

Episode 2, common route. Prior to this, you can interact with Mrs. Graves for her to pointedly comment on the siblings being inseparable.

At this point in the game, their physical closeness is something we're used to by now. After all, we've already seen Ashley on his lap at least twice; Andrew slept in her bed in Episode 1; and Ashley confirmed they've shared the same motel bed multiple times in the one-week interim between Episodes 1 & 2.

But the game abruptly shifts to Mrs. Graves' POV when she enters the scene and not only do we see the two as physically close, but we notice a few more details.

Episode 2, common route. The first picture transitions from Andrew's POV to Mrs. Graves as it introduces us to her entering the scene.

The contrast of how spacious the kitchen is from Mrs. Graves' POV to Andrew's cramped POV is obvious. More importantly, Andrew's fingers loop through Ashley's belt loops when the two are huddled together. When Mrs. Graves clears her throat, the two don't really separate.

Ashley pivots on her left foot so that her body is turned to their mother, not Andrew, but she doesn't step away from him. Andrew, meanwhile, recoils from Ashley and withdraws his hand. But he isn't turning his body to face their mother like Ashley does here. His attention, at least in this moment, is still towards Ashley (and, yanno, the sink).

Episode 2, common route. Two things to consider in the second picture: Andrew hides Ashley's bite mark on his cheek with his left sleeve and he conveniently moves the pillow from behind him to his front.

The 'tell' isn't so much as the two are unusually physically close. Again, we're used to that by now. But it's how the two siblings react whenever Mrs. Graves comes into the picture. Ashley doesn't really give a fuck about whether or not people assume the worst of her or even her intentions regarding Andrew. To Ashley, their proximity is normal and anyone who sees that as a problem is not worth an explanation or reason.

But Andrew is at least subconsciously aware it's 'not normal.' As far as these moments are concerned, Andrew instinctively tries to do damage control by either putting space between them or keeping his hands occupied so they aren't visibly touching Ashley. Still, he either does not mind or actively appreciates his physical closeness with Ashley.

When it's really fucking obvious (but only in hindsight)

In Episode 1, Ashley passes out after trying to clean up after the apartment. Regardless of her passing out in the living room, the bathroom, or their parents' room, she will wake up on the couch with her head pillowed by Andrew's lap.

Episode 1, Ashley's POV. Andrew's hands often hover over Ashley's head, but more than that—

I personally didn't notice this until I replayed Episode 1, when I basically have the hindsight of Andrew's fixation with hair. But yes, his fingers idly twirl through the ends of Ashley's hair as they watch TV. It's implied that Andrew can and will do this when Ashley pillows his lap, awake or asleep. He does not recoil from it when Ashley does wake up and later on, in Episode 2, even continues to brush it from her face.

Episode 2, common route. Ashley fell asleep at the passenger seat, so Andrew had to have transferred her to the back seat to pillow her head again. Though, technically, she's more cramped at the back seat than if he'd just reclined the passenger seat.

So far, we've seen that Andrew has a natural tendency to not only be physically close to Ashley, but to hover over her personal space and be in constant and direct contact with her. Whether it's by having her head on his lap, twirling her hair through his fingers, or even constantly grabbing her by the head in various states of comfort, playfulness, or outright threat (but let's put a pin on that for now).

The weight behind this candid contact shifts when Episode 2 draws a pretty explicit parallel between Julia and Ashley. Assuming that you interacted with Julia's landline and heard Ashley's voicemails, you know (and Andrew knows) that Ashley draws that connection herself:

DO YOU THINK YOU'RE BETTER THAN ME!? Just because you can fuck him and I can't? You think that's love?! Are you fucking delusional?? Cumdumpsters like you are just that. He will never love you. Not like he loves me. I am the only one. I am everything. I am the secrets you'll never hear. When he lies in bed at night, and when he needs someone to hold on to... It's not you he seeks out. It is me.

Episode 2, common route. Andrew's dream and vision implies that Andrew's heard these voicemails before.

That connection extends to the hair contact as well, as Andrew goes in to hug Julia, cards his hand through her hair and requests she tie her hair up.

Episode 2, common route. Andrew's dream and memory of Julia when they're older. From the use of Andrew's present-age portrait, suggests is closer to the timeline of the game's events than his and Ashley's memories as Andy and Leyley.

From this moment, we can have one of two assumptions: either Andrew wants Julia's (black) hair put up like Ashley's, or Ashley caught onto Andrew's hair kink and puts her hair up to imitate it.

Regardless, we infer the following:

Andrew teases affection through touching and even pulling on one's hair.

His fixation on ponytails and pulling on them does not exclude his own sister. It still stands and without reservation, perhaps more explicitly since he can do it so candidly, as we saw before.

The last of that Julia-Ashley parallel is self-contained within Episode 2. But only if you end up in the Burial route regardless of Ashley's platonic or incestuous vision.

Episode 2, common route (first picture) and Burial route (second picture). It's worth pointing out that Andrew is actually disinterested and moody during his conversation with Julia, and only perks up when he mentions Ashley or feigns care for Julia (since he extends his care of Ashley to her as well).

The game ends up drawing parallels on how Andrew treats Ashley, for better or for worse, with his ex (which is definitely worse, poor Julia). In doing so, the game blurs the lines between romantic affection for Julia and 'platonic and familial' affection for Ashley.

Y'all, this isn't even getting into how Andrew respectfully gives his parents space and only crowds them when he threatens them with his cleaver. In his mind, Ashley and Julia are in that same space of physical and romantic displays of affection; something he reserves only for them (only without reservation for Ashley) that does not extend to anyone else. His ex-girlfriend, and his sister. Shit's wild.

When it's obvious BUT it's violent!

That isn't to say that his hair fixation (hair kink?) is completely innocuous, though, as it rears its ugly head (pun unintended) in Decay. Which is what that previous pin was for! Yay!

You end up in the Decay route if Ashley doesn't trust Andrew with keeping an eye on their parents. Here, Ashley sleeps on their parents' bed by herself and has an alarming vision: an unknown party chases after her through the in-between and when they catch up to her, it's Andrew. Ashley has nowhere to run and Andrew eventually grabs her and threatens to kill her.

Whether or not Ashley can defend herself depends on Andrew expending all of her gun's ammo when he deals with the hitman, or not. But that outcome divergence will matter much, much later (so that's another pin for us to come back to).

The sequence of events actually mirrors the way the siblings ambush the Lady from Room 302 back in Episode 1. There, Andrew closes in on her and grabs the Lady by her wrist and uses his front to pin and restrain her. With his cleaver to her throat, the Lady is completely at his mercy.

Episode 1 & 2, common route (first picture) and Decay route (second, third, and fourth pictures). Note that Andrew restrains the Lady from Room 302 by the wrist while with Ashley, by her hair.

Andrew asserts control of the person and the situation through violence. Whether it's by killing them (the wardens) or by threatening physical violence (the Lady from Room 302 and Ashley). It's always on the table for him. As Leyleyfication puts it, "He's so calculated in how he approaches his use of violence [here]."

That violence includes Ashley. It's always on the table where Ashley's concerned. The game even juxtaposes when Andrew threatens violence and physical assault 'playfully' versus when he's seriously out for blood:

When you interact with the wall of call girls' numbers and Ashley jokes about leaving her number on the wall, Andrew 'jokingly' threatens to backhand her for even thinking about it.

When you interact with their parents' latched window for a second time, Andrew 'teases' slapping Ashley if she doesn't find a way to open it. (Ashley jokingly asks if it's on her ass or at her face, and assumes it must be the face when Andrew says she'll have to find out.)

The two other times that Andrew exerts violence against Ashley are both in Episode 1 & 2. We can remember when that happens in Episode 1, when Andrew's had it with Ashley's fits and threatens to kill her:

Episode 1, common route. Y'all, Andrew was choking her hard enough for his grip to bruise.

It happens again in Decay when he confronts Ashley about repeatedly calling him Andy and therefore, breaking the promise he coerced her into from Episode 1.

Episode 2, Decay route. Another thing to keep in mind is that Andrew's outburst is preceded by Ashley prodding him about his current state and insisting that Andrew was fine with 'Andy' during their home invasion.

In Episode 1, Andrew resorts to harming Ashley because he's fucking had it with her accusing him repeatedly of trying anything with the Lady from 302 and, in her eyes, his 'infidelity.' Where she accuses Andrew of not loving her enough that if his eye catches another girl, he'd leave her behind or flip on her. In Episode 2, she's poking and prodding on his boundaries on 'Andy' and whether or not, once again, he's with her on their now-committed life of joint crime.

If I can give another example, it happens in Andrew's common route memory of Nina's death and his blood oath with Leyley.

Episode 2, common route. Prior to this, Andy expresses immense exasperation at Leyley's tantrums over him 'thinking about that bitch again.' When he goes to grab the kitchen knife, cleans it, and returns to Leyley on his bed—he's briefly considering killing her.

Andrew threatens Ashley violently whenever he intends to confront her on her perceived brattiness, for lack of a better word. And keep Leyleyfication's essay segment on Ashley's insecurities and need for Andrew's validation in mind here—when Ashley does this, she wants and even needs Andrew to comfort her. But her aggression treads Andrew's patience and really, his tolerance of her behavior.

When Ashley's anger, clinging behavior, insecurities, and possessiveness of Andrew slips his control and tolerance, he resorts to violence to coerce or even dominate her.

I think (or hope, if it's clear enough) it reinforces what Leyleyfication points out:

The truth of the matter is, Ashley can only make Andrew do anything because he lets her. I don't mean in the sense that I'm saying abuse victims let their abusers emotionally abuse them, I mean in the sense that he is clearly considering his options on the table and choosing to discard those that could stop her, or bring an end to any of this.

It also reflects on another aspect of why Andrew resorts to violence: in all three situations, Andrew remarks on Ashley's behavior and her sake. If she acts up again once they're out of the apartment, it'll cause trouble for him while they're evading authorities. If she's going to call him Andy from hereon out, what's the point of running away with her. If she expects him to leverage keeping 'her secret,' he won't because it's for her sake.

Andrew rationalizes his attempt to control of Ashley's behavior as being for her sake. But really, isn't it him confining her behavior to something he can tolerate and personally handle?

I'd also like to point out that Andrew admits that he noticed Ashley push for calling him 'Andy' during the home invasion, and he did not argue with her on it while they held their parents hostage and readied to sacrifice them. We can infer that when Andrew calculates his use of violence, that can also factor when, where, and how he exerts it.

--

Well, that's where I can reasonably end this half of my word vomit! Now, onwards, to part 2!

[vermilionsun]

Notes; "Added new sprite expressions. Leander in particular is feeling a lot more expressive now that his novocaine has worn off." - RSS, Devlog; "Changes" in Demo 2.0

For those who don't know; "Novocaine" is another term for procaine, aka a local dental anaesthetic. It's chemically related to benzoic acid, which is an aromatic carboxylic acid aka FUCKING DANGEROUS. Benzoic acid itself is ~relatively~ mild and safe in low doses [cause it's an acid]

Stay in school, kids, it makes you better at catching easter eggs. And for the love of EVERYTHING, don't try procaine [it leaves an awful taste like shit - my dentist's fault smh] and don't breathe near reactive aromatics

Word count: 1.6 k Rating: - Relationships: Leander/Mhin Tags: Drugs, Blood - just a little, Smut, Riding, Dirty Talk, Worship, Top Mhin/Bottom Leander

The door slams open with a crack of thunder. Rain spills in over the floorboards, and there stands Mhin, soaked to the bone, hair plastered to their face, dragging… something behind them.

The Wick goes dead silent. Leander, hunched over the bar, a glass half-empty in his hand, trying very hard to stay awake and not scratch his skin off, blinks blearily.

Mhin strides forward, every step leaving bloody footprints, and slams the dripping, severed head of the Soulless onto the counter. "Proof,” their voice is low, almost bored.

Leander just stares, half-horrified, half-turned-on-on-the-spot.

Because—gods above—they look damn good; wild-eyed, dangerous, rain-slicked and bleeding. He’s not sure if he wants to kiss them or pray to them.

"Fuck," he rasps out. "You're— godsdamn, that's hot."

Mhin squints at him, unimpressed. They're shivering, adrenaline still crackling under their skin.

Leander downs the rest of his drink and stands. He's a little wobbly. His skin's itching. He needs his dose.

"C’mon, avenger," he drawls, grabbing Mhin’s elbow. "You’re gonna catch your death like that. Shower. Bed. Now."

"I’m not sleeping in your bed, Leander." Mhin digs in their heels immediately.

"Didn’t say anything 'bout sleeping," he winks, half-joking.

Mhin glares at him, dead-eyed. "No."

"Yes."

"Fuck you."

"After you’re clean."

Despite the bickering, Mhin gets hauled upstairs—resisting every step of the way—while the rest of the patrons watch like it's the best show they've seen all year.

Leander shoves the door open, steering Mhin inside. "Shower’s there. Towels. Soap. Don’t bleed all over the fucking floor, yeah?"

"Bite me."

"Later."

Leander tosses a fresh shirt and pants onto the bed for them, giving them a pointed look before sinking onto the edge of the mattress like a man who’s just fought a war.

His skin is crawling. He needs his hit. Now.

Mhin slams the bathroom door behind them, locking it tight. Water roars on.

And Leander, exhaling hard through his nose, fumbles for the vial and needle hidden into the inner pocket of his coat. His fingers shake as he loads it up. He hates needing it, hates that Mhin had to see him without it; the messy, fraying version of himself.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck—" he mutters under his breath, jabbing the needle into his arm. Relief hits fast—warm, golden, sweet—flooding through his veins. He slumps back, head thudding against the wall, eyes fluttering shut.

He breathes. For the first time in hours, he breathes.

But there’s still that awful, gnawing hunger under his skin. A need he can’t shake…

Mhin leans against the cool tiles, water pounding over them. They’re exhausted, every muscle aches, but their heart won’t stop racing.

Leander’s fussy hands, sharp eyes and stupid drugged-out grin are etched into their mind once again.

They scrub themselves clean, rough and fast, before wrapping a towel around themself.

The shower shuts off. Soft footsteps pad across the floor. Finally, they crack the door open and step out of the bathroom, steam curling behind them like the breath of a dragon. Their hair, flattened against their skull, drip wet down their throat, collarbone, chest and onto the worn wooden floor, eyes sharp even as the post-battle exhaustion that should have sent them straight to bed tugs at their shoulders.

The room is dim, only the faint glow of a few candles spilling golden pools across the tangled bed. And him. Leander’s still perched on the bed’s edge, looking... wrecked. Relaxed in that dangerous way that says the drugs are kicking in; shirt clinging to his chest, hair damp, legs spread, leaning back on his elbows, watching them with a soft, slow grin that makes Mhin want to punch him in the face. Or kiss him. Maybe both.

"Stop looking, you pervert." Mhin mutters, hunching their shoulders slightly, tugging the towel tighter. Their cheeks are red. From the heat or the embarrassment, Leander doesn’t know—he only knows he’s absolutely enchanted.

Leander just grins lazily, heavy-lidded, fucking gone. "Can’t help it," he croons. "You could stand here in full armor and I'd still be staring."

Mhin’s glare deepens. Their bare foot taps once against the floor. Leander just leans back further, arms spread wide across the mattress like he’s inviting divine judgment.

Something dark flickers behind their eyes. Then, slowly, deliberately, Mhin steps forward, standing right between his knees.

They scoff… and drop the towel.

It hits the ground with a wet slap. Mhin watches him coolly, and Leander—as the poor fool that he is—almost falls off the bed. He's seen them naked before. Gods, he’s worshiped them with mouth and hands and teeth, but this… this feels different.

His mouth is open now, no sound coming out, brain clearly trying to reboot like a broken music box. He stares up at them like they’re the sun and moon all at once, muscles taut, hands gripping his knees. He doesn’t dare reach out, doesn’t even blink. If he moves wrong, they'll bolt. He knows it in his marrow.

"You're high." Mhin murmurs against his ear, voice low and mocking. "You sure you want this?" They run their hands through his hair—almost tender.

Leander lets out a shaky, desperate laugh. "I've only ever wanted this." And gods help him, he means it.

Mhin crooks a finger at him, commanding. "Undress."

Leander swallows hard, Adam’s apple bobbing. He moves one piece at a time; First the shirt; tugged over his head, revealing the lean, scarred strength of his body. Then the belts, fumbled loose with trembling hands. The pants, shoved down, pooling at his ankles. The world's slowest striptease.

"Slower," Mhin orders, voice like smoke, standing over him like a god demanding sacrifice. "I want to see if you're sober enough for me to use." As if either of them believe that little lie.

When Leander is finally bare, chest heaving, Mhin runs their fingers torturously down his chest, over his ribs, nails scraping lightly enough to leave him shuddering, his hands moving to fist the sheets, white-knuckled.

Then, they shift, swinging a leg over his lap, straddling him, arms bracketing his shoulders. They settle their weight across his thighs, hips aligning perfectly. 

"Holy fucking shit." Leander exhales hard, running a shaky hand through his hair. "You’re... you’re killing me," he mutters.

"Good." Mhin hums, pleased, rolling their hips slowly, wickedly, just once. Leander chokes on a moan, head falling back, baring his throat—a silent offering. He’s so far gone, it’s not even funny. Mhin leans in, teeth grazing over the strong line of his neck.

"Say it," their voice is a whisper against his skin. "Beg."

He's helpless. He always was, when it came to them. "Please," he chokes out. "Please touch me. Please stay. Please don't leave—"

Mhin surges up—hands framing his face, mouth crashing against his, swallowing his words. It’s messy and desperate and not nearly enough, even when their fingers tangle in and tug his hair and Leander is gasping into their mouth.

"You can touch me, you idiot." Mhin murmurs. “I’m not gonna break."

Leander’s arms wrap around them, roaming all over; reverent, almost shaking, down their sides, their back, learning every new scar, every curve he missed. He drinks them in like a man dying of thirst.

Mhin pushes him back gently until he’s laying down completely. They take their time guiding him in, inch by agonizing inch, until they're fully seated in his lap, taking all of him. And gods, Leander would let them destroy him a thousand times over if it meant getting this again.

Leander sobs soft, desperate sounds into the crook of their neck, trying not to lose it too fast, trying to be good, trying so hard not to flip them over and fuck them into the mattress until they both can’t breathe.

Every few thrusts, he forgets—gripping too hard, hips snapping up—and Mhin bites his shoulder. "Easy, pretty boy," they grit against his ear. "Let me fuck you how I want."

Leander whimpers; a broken, beautiful noise. Beneath their hands, he’s feverishly hot, skin slick with sweat, muscles trembling. Mhin is no better; their nails dig angry, red trails down his chest, their teeth sink into his collarbone. Their curses fall like filthy prayers against his skin.

"You'd let me ruin you. You want me to—fucking thank me for it."

"Thank you, thank you— I love you, thank you— " The words pour out of him, messy, undone, punctuated by kisses pressed sloppily against their chest, their throat, their shoulder. He’s not even fucking coherent anymore.

He looks up at them, eyes glassy, wet, stunned. Like they’ve shown him God, like he’d sell his soul a thousand times just to stay here.

Mhin drags a hand through his sweat-damp hair, admiring the absolute mess they made of him.  “Good boy,” they kiss him.

And Leander—a man who should’ve been untouchable, unbreakable, impossible—shatters, letting out a broken gasp, pressing his forehead onto Mhin’s shoulder.

Later, tangled in sheets, Mhin tucked into his side, Leander whispers into the darkness; "Stay. Please, stay."

[foxglovegames]

DEVLOG: AUGUST 2024 🦇

It's already time for the August wrap-up??

Demo Progress

It seems no matter how much we get done, there is always more work to do haha! That said, August has been a good month and we have made a lot of exciting progress on the demo for BURN THE MIDNIGHT OIL. :)

Programming

Please welcome Renbie to the team as our lead programmer! 🙌

The past week have been spent prepping sprites and setting things up in Ren'py. Although we still have a long way to go, the game feels more real than ever now which is both exciting and scary!

If you followed the development of Trouble Comes Twice, you might already know that programming was a big hurdle for us and a major source of frustration. ;( Now that we've got some more experience under the belt thanks to Trouble Comes Twice, we already feel a lot more confident but having a dedicated programmer on the team is going to be a massive help both time and quality-wise. As a bonus: Renbie's also super lovely to work with, so we're super happy to have her onboard!

Art

We mostly made progress on promotional assets. We decided on a sketch for our key art (check out a little sneak peek at the top of this post) and received the first sketches for some of our merch designs! They're looking super cute!

Writing

With the demo script done and dusted, most of August was spent outlining the main game's six romance routes. The routes (subject to change) have five chapters each and various longer endings and shorter 'bad/death' ends based on your decisions.

BURN THE MIDNIGHT OIL has dual protagonists, so similarly to Trouble Comes Twice, we're two writers in charge of one MC each (and the MC's respective three routes). Unlike Trouble Comes Twice though, the cast here is a lot larger and not as (directly) connected.

So, how do we outline our routes? First, we wrote shorter summaries of each route - including important themes, character motivations, etc - which we then go over together. Although the plots of the two protagonists are very different, we have to make sure we keep the same 'themes and vibes'. We also need to be careful that the pacing and the scopes of the routes aren't too wildly different!

With the feedback from the shorter summaries, we move on to write the detailed outlines. (Here, we regularly reach out to each other and get feedback on minor elements and sometimes run brainstorming sessions when one of us runs into a wall.) Once these are done, we're going to have another review and write as many drafts as it takes until the routes are ready to enter the writing phase!

We're super excited about a lot of these scenes we've got planned and though you guys don't know much about the project yet, we think you're going to love the ideas we've got once it's time to learn more! We learned so much from Trouble Comes Twice that we can't wait to apply to this game! 🖤

Goals for September

There's too many little goals to count! But the major ones are:

Start looking for music composers, item artist, visual effects artist - we're not doing a public post for these, but if you or someone you know might be interested in one of these roles, shoot us a DM! ;)

Making as much progress as possible on the remaining UI screens

Making as much progress as possible on the merch designs

Continue working on the detailed outlines

Continue programming yay

Fingers crossed, we can get the key art done and dusted!

There's still so much to do, but we really look forward to the next couple of months!

[nanapop]

Demon's Fate has been decided

Hey everyone, I've got some bad news 😭

I've decided to shelve Demon's Fate indefinitely and I have posted a devlog regarding this on the game's page, which you can read >here<

But I also will probably get deeper into the reasoning behind it here since this is my blog and feels less like a "professional" space and I'm thinking that getting my thoughts out might help me to move on from this one and better help me focus on new projects without feeling guilty about it.

So gonna pop this all under a read more, feel free to skip the rest of the post and just read the itch version!

So in the itch post I mention lack of motivation and consistently being unhappy with the results as the main reasons behind wanting to put this one down. I also talk about how I've had these characters and their stories (specifically Vy) hanging around with me for over a decade. & I feel like all of these things combined really made it hard for me to really get into making this game.

A Cruel Demon's Fate was originally going to be a novel, with Vy as the main character and it followed him after he fled from the demon realm after the death of Damin and his impending crowning. I tried to rewrite the story multiple times, over the span of like five years and I only ever got a few chapters in before I decided that I hated the way it was coming out (sounds really familiar, huh). So the story got put away for later.

Then I decided to try out visual novels. I'd always found the medium interesting and fun, the art side of it really spoke to me as someone who enjoys doing drawings of their characters and stuff. So Demon's Fate felt like a good starting point. I had all the characters and a loose plotline, though I reworked it to fit the style a little better. Now instead of Vy being the focus, it was all of the brothers and the story would take place in the palace specifically.

Maybe this was the first mistake I made. The story had already previously been difficult for me to fully get into, despite the want to work with the characters. I think the lack of motivation partially stemmed from the fact that I had failed so many times before to make something from this idea. The previous plots and their failures kind of stained the entire project from the start.

As much as I wish I could have started with a clean slate, it just didn't work out that way. So I wound up being unhappy with all the writing in this new version just like the old versions.

Something I didn't mention in the itch post is how throughout all the years, this story and the characters had been brainstormed with friends and so the whole thing really just feels tied to those relationships, and they're relationships I no longer have nor look back on fondly anymore. So perhaps that's part of the problem too.

The whole things is too close to a past that I've been working on detaching myself from and while I will always love these characters and will probably always toy with the what-ifs of them in the back of my mind, it just doesn't seem feasible for me to continue to force myself to work with them.

So, now that I've gotten all of that out. I won't be taking the game down, you can still play through the prologue if you want to. But I won't be picking this back up again. If I do, it'll be in a completely new setting/plot or as a series of mini stories with each of the boys, I don't know. For now, I'll just let them rest and focus on fresh projects that don't have emotional attachment to things I no longer wish to think about.

That's all. I am really grateful for those of you who have shown interest in this project and all the other ones I've posted about. It really means a lot to me and I hope that I continue to see you guys around when I post about new stuff 🧡

[maicolgoldlion]

Sunless Odyssey - Devlog 1: Dark

In this first devlog, I'd like to analyze the various choices I made in creating the Lite version of Sunless Odyssey. This is a simplified version that I wrote in a few hours, summarizing the 39 pages I had managed to write. Unfortunately, I signed up for the jam late, and even with the addition of a few days, I couldn't finish in time, especially since the project turned out to be extremely ambitious!

Here you can find the game downloadable for free:

The first column refers to a worldbuilding phase that also serves as the back of the pamphlet. Here I have written six settings that I have created over time playing other games or that I have prepared for Sword&Sorcery campaigns. In reality, I hope to be able to reuse each of these settings in a game of its own.

Roll or Choose together the Legend from which your world will originates from:

A battlefield wrecked by horrors left behind by a celestial war.

Ruins of a great empire roamed by its ghost servants.

The palace-tomb of a dead God fighting to escape one more.

A land devastated by the many magical calamities unleashed by one wish.

Baronies ruled by fools and knight-kings on the verge of a pointless war.

Placid isles and villages of the Realm under the full moon, now ablaze.

All or some of the above.

he third part contains a very brief summary of the exploration rules. Obviously, I didn't have the space to include all the mechanics I wrote, but I must say I'm satisfied with what I included. My main inspiration for games where a pointcrawl map is created during the game is On Mighty Thews. The idea of creating a map of influences on the territory allows you to have reference points to tell what is there and the distance from the center acts as a second factor, both visual and intuitive. I've always found this mechanic brilliant and, as simple as it is to explain, it can be included in minimal games like this one.

The second part, on the other hand, is inspired by The Golden Sea, which, however, has deeper insights into how to build points of interest. While I limited myself to opening the creation of stages to dialogue through questions and answers with the Lorekeeper. I used the last part to insert the Encounter mechanic that I thought of for the finished game. Even though I couldn't include a part on Shrines, I'm happy to have given space to the various types of encounters, which are inspired by the structure of 5-room dungeons.

This flap can be folded to be read next to the Lorekeeper column on the other page, so you have everything you need for the exploration phase in front of you.

Now, before we move on to the second page, a small ad from our sponsor: Water

Drink water Unclench your jaw Drink water

On the second page, we have character creation in the left column, the main resolution mechanics, and finally a section on death and the GM/Lorekeeper.

I am a big fan of Laser & Feelings' character creation, which shows us that complex parameters are not needed to make a character unique. So I built the characters on two very simple pillars: Skills and Class, to which I later added a deeper look at objects (consumables, of course).

Specifically, the Skills part was inspired by reading those of Gubat Banwa, one of the games I used as my main inspiration and which I will talk more about in a future devlog. The idea of having High/Low Skill comes from there. To be clear, Gubat Banwa doesn't use a minimal approach at all, but there's a chapter where it describes what it means to have a high or low value in them, and when I read Wrath as a skill I was already in love.

For the classes, I was inspired by D&D, it's a low blow I know, but I recently read some articles about the identity of the classes and I wanted to use those smoky thoughts to write a list of classes and move on to a more fun part to write.

Here in Italy, D&D is as famous and played as it is in US, remaining firmly the most played game. But there is also a significant number of DMs who have tried to adapt it to their style and I am no exception. One of my most extreme homebrew rules is to treat race, class and background as traits without using any parametric elements given by the manual. What does it mean to be an elf? What can a paladin do? I don't know, you're the elf paladin, tell me and if it helps you in this situation you have advantage or +2/+5 on the roll (like M&M 3e, kinda).

While for the objects I used a very simple structure with traits that give a lot of freedom but which I think also pushes you to think about how the objects you choose. Since these can have traits that you don't attribute to them, the player has simple restrictions that can give impetus or make you think more creatively.

Immediately after skills, class and items are consolidated in the game through mechanics on their use during a test and the character receives further color through simple questions.

I would have liked to add something more about the role of the group but I have few reference tropes since souls-like games are generally individualistic and I had already run out of space.

I've already written a lot and I don't want to make this devlog too long. There's still a lot to cover and I feel like I could talk about the system for hours, so I'll leave that for the next post!

Now on my to-do list before I pick up this project again:

Make an Italian translation

Propose some one-shots

Create a layout and find some suitable art

Complete the itch page

Side quests:

Work on the other Jams this month

[moonrosevalley]

Chronicle of Roses Devlog 1: Design Notes Ronya

Li's Portrait of Ronya

Hiya ! This is the first devlog of Chronicle of Roses ! I’m Scarlett, the narrative and game’s designer and today I will showcase the game’s protagonist, Ronya. Showing the influences that helped me mould her character and the concepts for her design as well. This is still early in development and subject to change, those changes will be clear as the project continues.

This game is set in the holy city of Lorne, based in a highly theocratic society headed by a holy prophet worshipped as a protector & harbinger of safety. The citizens heavily disdain witchcraft and magic, anything that goes against their holy scripture. In a cruel twist of fate, Ronya was born with the markings and blood of a witch. Ronya was orphaned as a young child and was taken in personally by the holy prophet Ursula. Ronya was raised to be a soldier, climbing the ranks to the top despite her persecution. Eventually, she became a ‘Raven’, a member of the prophet’s most trusted inner circle of soldiers. Carrying out espionage, scouting, and assassinations under Ursula’s direct orders. 

Throughout the game, we follow Ronya as she searches for her lost wife in the newly corrupted Lorne, having to fight old neighbours and comrades whose minds have been lost. Battling against the strings of fate, old prophecies, and horrors beyond human comprehension.

Li's Early Concept Art

Ronya’s inspiration is from a plethora of stories and mythology. Still, a few of the main ones are Ronja the robber's daughter, a Swedish kids' tale about two kids from rival robbers gangs becoming friends, leading to the two gangs making peace eventually. My early idea for Ronya was more feral and outgoing, much like the Ronja of Astrid Lindgren, but we developed her to be more restrained and no-nonsense. 

Norse mythology was a heavy surplus of inspiration for Chronicle of Roses, especially for Ronya. We were inspired by Huginn and Muninn, Odin's ravens, and the valkyries of Valhalla. This is where the raven, winged and death motifs came from.

Signalis, Silent Hill, Bloodborne and Dead Space, were heavy inspirations for the game’s plot and characters. Elster as well as Kratos from God of War (2018) were the characters that inspired me to make Ronya more no-nonsense and hard-set on saving the person she loves most. The existential and personal horror of those games were heavy inspirations for COR; Ronya is looking for her wife, time and space are warped and fragmented, and the story is incredibly personal and character-driven. Where the horror is directly linked with a character's mental health, and tackles heavy themes of motherhood, codependency, and hate.

Scarlett's Moodboard

Ronya’s armour and equipment, as well as the rest of the game, are heavily based on the mid-1600s. A time of religious turmoil and witch hunts. Ronya’s main weapon is similar to a Polish sabre, which saw its popularity rise through Europe during the Thirty Years War, & she has access to bombs and early flintlocks, as stealth is not particularly a worry anymore. Her armour is based on the early 1500s to mid-1600s armour that was used throughout Europe. 

My intention with her design was to try and showcase a quiet specialist, struggling with her born identity, the use of the black armour and cloak was to symbolise her relation with death. Her hair used to be black in our early designs, but as we started figuring out the different covens and Ronya’s link to fire and magic, we changed to make her hair long and red, almost like a mane, to showcase that separation between her societal identity and her actual identity. To really hit it home with the split of her personhood, we gave her a burn across her face, splitting her face in two, she has loads of other burn scars but they can’t be seen under the armour. 

Scarlett's sketches.

Ronya’s story is one of self-actualisation and self-acceptance, her story is a very personal one to me as it is a heavy allegory of queerness and transness, and I’m literally the gayest queer to ever exist and I’m about to start my hormones this coming week ! Ronya’s themes of codependency and having to find purpose and meaning for herself also add to the list of things I grapple with. I use my art to shed light on those struggles to hopefully make someone who relates to this connect with it, see that they’re not alone, and potentially to find my work helpful in their journey of growth. 

For next time ! We will showcase Ronya’s and Li’s favourite character, Lilith, the second most important character in the plot of Chronicle of Roses (Ronya being third~).

(Don't mind this being a few minutes late of schedule <3)

[mewos-laptop]

i need 2 yap abt nanook n terminus symbiotic path nature and i feel like you would enjoy hearing the yapfest

noke of this makrs sense m basically high on sugar rn

the first thing we learn in devlog for nanook is this from herta ;

" frankly , i still don 't understand why nanook the destruction was born . terminus the finality was already traversing the universe before nanook appeared . is destruction not included in finality ? "

now , this is the first part of my theory ; we know that right now , as of the current timeline - terminus hasn 't already ascended , or well to tldr the complicated mess that terminus is ;

terminus currently going backwards is terminus from a Prior Lifetime , the terminus of the current timeline Has Not Aescended yet

which is why i believe that nanook is a fundamental part of terminus ' existence ; requiring the destruction nanook brings about to bring themselves into being as an aeon ( and also providing nanook their own destruction )

now , into character analysis of just nanook because terminus appearance is more unknown than my autism diagnosis not known right now ;

nanook has multiple wounds , specially a large chest wound , missing parts of the arms and hands , and 0 legs .

based on their lore , it 's Very likely these injuries were sustained in a close timeframe -which would be lethal for an Adult but nanook is Never stated to be an Adult in the time period of their ascension

( from fuli su encounter 1 )

" you find yourself become a weeping adlivun

baby with an uncut umbilical cord . you remember that there is a golden scar on your body , and golden blood flowing on the dying planet . you find yourself dark -skinned and wearing a robe on the wasteland . "

nanook is described as an Infant - an infant w an umbilical cord which makes the injuries so much more horrifying to think about , since the follow-up lines are " you find yourself dark -skinned and wearing a robe on the wasteland " .

which is implying nanook was basically a Newborn when they became an aeon via , basically lethal wounds

( and i personally despise whoever wrote that into the lore )

okay so now into terminus more ;

terminus in the cn name basically tls to like " king of the end " iirc , basically just death

in a way i think this shows more of nanook n terminus symbiotic paths ;

death is destruction of the soul ( & adlivun in the inuit culture nanook takes from refs to " spirits of the departed and the underworld " fun fact ) in the specific implications of hsr terminus & the destruction always leads to finality and ue

and if you go with " nanook 's injuries literally killed them " theory than there 's an added layer of nanook bringing about terminus into ascension to escape from being a soul alive in a deceased body which in most media is shown to be painful for the deceased .

n depending on how much control you believe terminus has over ascension whknws mb terminus ascended nanook so they could make sure they continued to exist against nanooks will n back to top thing

idk what i 'm on about I LOVE YAPPING !!!!

The Nanookerrrrrr /ref, silly

(I have nothing to add onto this other than that it was interesting and I read the whole thing 💪💪💪💪💪 /gen)

[moreteethplease]

> Play it here!

Five old men sit at the back of my church every single week after sermons and prayers. I wonder if the source of their sweat is the same as mine.

Hellfire (The Old Men At The Back Of My Church) is a short, semi-autobiographical bit of rambling made in bitsy for the Queer Wrath Game Jam. It (and parts of the devlog below) contain themes of death, suicide, homophobia, religious trauma, and implied sexism, all depicted in text only.

Devlog (and spoilers) under the cut.

This was a very easy, straightforward "game" (if it can even be called that) to make. I haven't made anything in bitsy in a solid six months and wanted to ease myself back into it with something that wasn't too hard to make work.

The events in Hellfire are generally true, but out of order, and some narrative gaps are filled with best-guesses or embellished. With that being said, the rage that fuels it is very real and the tale it tells is dear to my heart.

Writing

I started with the last two sentences of the script, then got writer's block and didn't touch it for a week. I almost thought I wouldn't finish it and would have to find a different concept.

Then, one fateful sleepless night, in the middle of a depressive episode, I wrote about 80% of the script on my phone while my spouse slept beside me. Usually depressive episodes are creative slumps for me, but this time it worked out. I finished off the script the next day without much editing. The result is a few too many run-on sentences, but I do think it works for the style of this "game", and it really does make it a "bit of rambling".

Art

By the time I was done with the script, I knew that I wanted the words to be the main focus of this "game". That meant no real gameplay beyond progressing through the script. I've done this before with You Died On A Tuesday, but even that had a minor interactive element, where you move your sprite across the page to get to the next "point". For Hellfire, I just wanted a story with pictures changing in the background. It was important to me that the pictures were always easily in view so the dialog box never blocked any of them. T make this work, the images are all on the bottom half of the screen.

I'm not sure if I'm 100% satisfied with the art for this "game". For example, the plate with the rice ladle animation is a bit too jagged and feels jarring to me, but by the time I noticed I disliked it, I had already finished putting the game together. I also am not sure about the air-conditioner animation. I asked my spouse what he thought it looked like and he said "a printer", so I might be cooked.

I'm also not sure if I like the frame where two hands slowly reach towards each other. They were originally a lot more solid, but I wanted them to be almost translucent in effect, as if they're fading away or not quite real. I tried to space out the solidness of the colour, but it always came out very uniform and looked strange. In the end, pixsy's image-to-bitsy converter got a better look than I could create myself:

Thoughts

I usually have something to say at the end of these, but I find myself at a loss for words. I've struggled with religious trauma and queer trauma for my entire life, and while I've learned to slowly heal the former, the latter has buried deep in a way that I don't really know how to heal from. I've lost so many queer friends and loved ones and I know that my government is unlikely to grant queer rights to its people in my lifetime. It's these sources of pain that make me write things like Hellfire... though hopefully my next work is a little less of a ramble.

Thank you for reading! If you’d like, you can play this not-quite-game here:

[project-sigmarheim]

Project Sigmarheim devlog Nº1: Hi there everyone!

Hi, I'm Nico (he/they), known as FrayCebolla on the internet. I'm a ttrpg and wargame designer that loves lots of things, some of them being Warhammer and skirmish wargames.

What is Project Sigmarheim?

Project Sigmarheim is a hack of the beloved skirmish wargame Mordheim by GW, set in the universe of the somewhat less beloved epic fantasy wargame Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, designed by me :D

Why is Project Sigmarheim?

I love Mordheim. It's one of my favorite wargames to play next to Necromunda and Trench Crusade. Buuuuut it's not perfect. There are many things I would change about the game, and since you gotta be the change you want to see in the world, I've set to modernize some quirks that this 25 year old game has.

Also I like the setting of Age of Sigmar, and even though the original setting of Mordheim is fine, I would like to play with all the cool factions that don't exist in WHFB.

Wow, this sounds amazing! How can I know more about it?

I'll be posting about the whole process here on this blog, so if this sounds like something you would like to play, just follow along! My goals for an alpha playtest will be to have one warband each of the four Grand Alliances Order - Stormcast Eternals Chaos - Slaves to Darkness Death - Soulblight Gravelords Destruction - Kruleboyz After that I'll slowly but surely keep working on the rest of factions + all the other things I'd like to change for Project Sigmarheim (but that's for the next devlog anyways) If you have any questions/complaints/death threats feel free to leave them here on my blog or send them to my twitter/bluesky

Anyways that's all for today, have a lovely day and see you on the next one!

[slugdragoon]

Devlog #0.2

Wow, I have had an incredibly productive past two days in terms of my game development. I've been sticking to naming my devlogs 0.x because I didn't consider them "real" until my prototype was playable/not embarrassing, and I didn't want to start with #1 until I thought I'd be doing it regularly, but all of a sudden, it seems very close.

I thought that, after my Devlog #0, I wouldn't post about it at all for some time, but it's been 24 days and I felt the need already to provide two more updates. Every time I post my thoughts about other games (which is fun), I always think I'd love to have something to show for mine, and coming back keeps me connected and working on it.

I think posting on Tumblr has really motivated me. Really, indie devs, and particularly solo devs are so motivating to me (shoutout to artists too), and I feel more accountable to the 5-10 or so people who have been viewing my posts so far. If that's you, thank you, if you even just took a small look.

Just a text post this time, but just in the past two days:

Party members are now implemented with their own stats and skills. Currently I have dummies hard-coded in there, but it is possible to add new ones to the party. Probably recruitable enemies will have a method to create a party-version of themselves.

The basics of the battle system work. There is a system in place to maintain turn order between party members and enemies. For the player turn, we have skills that target either your own party members (healing spells) or enemies (hurting spells), and both have single and multi-target variations. Enemies do basic attacks. Death of party members is not yet implemented.

New UI elements (ugly ones for testing functionality) have party member stat windows in-battle displaying their remaining health and magic, which update when they change. These windows are outlined in a highlight currently for the player whose turn it is, and selector arrows are shown for targeting of spells at both the party and enemies.

Oh, also for at least few days before the last two of coding, I wrote out a decent bit more in my design doc for planned skills/mechanics/enemy types, and worked on some art. They go hand-in-hand in my workflow, and each side pushes each other along, as I need to know what's going in the game to know what assets I need, but sometimes drawing and animating makes a idea clear that goes back in the design doc. Just in a creative zone right now!

The next stretch will be doing some work on items, NPCs (especially shops, and an out-of-battle menu for accessing Party Info, Skills, and the Items.

[thewakingcloak]

The State of Things Past

this post is mirrored from the Studio Spacefarer Patreon! please consider supporting me, and you’ll get access to devlog posts, gifs, and other info before the public!

Like I mentioned in my previous post, The Waking Cloak has been in development for eight years.

ProtoDungeon: Episode III has itself been in development for a few years, pretty much since 2019 (oooof). I've gotten plenty of questions about how the project is coming, as well as the occasional question of whether The Waking Cloak / ProtoDungeon is even alive at all at this point. Thank you for asking this. It means people are still interested in these games.

Okay, but still, what happened? Why are things taking so long? Well, this post is the first in the Christmas Carol series, in which the ~Ghost of Spacefarer Past~ appears to explain things (wooo spooky explanation sounds).

Progress has been made, very slowly, on ProtoDungeon: Episode III. I'd love to have done more, but, well… in the time since I released Episode II, we continued adjusting to parenthood for our first kid, went through the pandemic, had a second baby (who is now almost 3yo), and survived through a series of really difficult events, which culminated in a move to a new house in a new town and the start of a new chapter (but that last bit we'll save that for the Ghost of Christmas Present so he feels useful).

But yeah, it's been a rough ride. My wife and I are intentionally open about what's been going on. At the same time, the internet is an extremely public place, and I don't want to overshare, or worse, trigger anything for anyone, so I'll try to keep this list brief:

Two miscarriages (the first one was late term, and absolutely, brutally devastating)

The loss of our faith community due to the pandemic

Loss of job for my wife due to the pandemic (the pandemic was unkind to teachers)

Loss of a dream job prospect for my wife (same issue)

The great Texas freeze and power outage (us huddling under blankets in shifts through the night with our newborn infant (he's fine now!))

Severe, life-threatening post-partum and post-natal depression

Family covid and two-week cabin-fever quarantines (twice, despite being vaccinated and careful)

The death of my grandma (we were not able to attend her memorial due to aforementioned covid and living on the other side of the country)

Multiple heart attacks for my father despite his active and healthy lifestyle

Autoimmune disease scare for my wife (may still be a thing, just dormant?)

etc., etc., ad infinitum.

A lot of people have had things significantly worse, so this is definitely not an attempt to "compare griefs" as it were. This is just context for, no matter how much I wanted it to be otherwise, the fact that I didn't have the mental or emotional (or temporal) space for creativity. It was one thing after another, and we were just trying to keep our heads above water.

Even when we'd mostly recovered from the hits that just kept comin', we moved away from what my wife lovingly refers to as the "trauma house", and she started a teaching job at a brand-new school. Both were good things, but they were pretty big transitions, and it takes time for the ol' brains to adjust. We love our new home now and have a bit more breathing room.

Okay but also I HAVE been working on ProtoDungeon. Dev was really sporadic, but it did happen. The next post will have more detail on the status of Episode III, but there were kind of two big things I worked on during the past three years, big shifts in the foundation of ProtoDungeon and The Waking Cloak.

First, I switched game perspective. I made a few posts about this a while back, but PD/TWC interiors were originally like Zelda interiors (where you see the insides of all four walls). There are good reasons to do this, but it was also kinda making me crazy. So I switched to a more natural front-perspective, keeping things consistent with the exteriors. It definitely was the right choice for the game I wanted to build, but it took time.

Second, and building on that, I made the game fully faux-3D. You can walk behind or in front of stuff--not something the old Zelda games did, and still pretty rare for 2D games. I was toying with the idea for a long time, but I played through an old PlayStation title, Alundra, and that convinced me it could be done. It's way harder than you might expect, and it was a massive block for me for literally years. I was able to slowly work my way past it and finally resolved it with a 3D z-tilting method, but dev slowed to a crawl.

And that's it for now! The ghost releases you from your vision of Spacefarer Past….

Thanks for reading :)

[demonsteapot]

devlog. um. whichever one this is (6 i think): i couldnt be fucked to record a decent demo video so you get this aimless clip i guess

i got a console feature working, it is some old code that i grabbed from a different project. i love when i don't have to do work

also new enemy, the death bug (REALLY fuckig creative name i know). it is supposed to spawn from a different enemy that i haven't made yet

i also still haven't figured out how to record sound