#should i do more isat art

[laufskadus]

wow i think siffrin may be the most notes i've ever gotten on a plush

thank you?? omg

[artilite]

star sailor 🎇

this was drawn a little over 2 weeks ago as i was in the middle of act 2! it's kind of funny in retrospect hahaha i put the star shaped light on sif as a nod to my vague theory that sif had a star for a heart/soul but lost it. Well it wasn't quite right but there was one line of dialogue going towards that direction? a win is a win

[harunefrog]

I drew a thing!!! You know this one!!!

[starstruck-critter]

Reminiscence...

+ some doodles

[codacheetah]

[bengallemon]

I'm gonna take one of each of these two sets and polish them. Anyway. DO YOU SEE THE VISION. THE IDEA.

[ajdrawshq]

ended up buying start again to play after i 100% isat to the best of my ability and i Also got the artbook bc the bundle is on sale for less than just the games usual price so why not. and im glad i did bc i got to see concept art of siffrin getting fucking impaled 👍

[the-game-spirit]

abruptly realizing I never posted the alttp sketches I did when I played it.....

I was planning a group of sketches of alttp/oox/la link at different points of his many adventures

I finished the alttp timeline (and like. WHO let this kid dress himself. this child couldn't color coordinate if his life depended on it. shashraslah why are you letting him fight evil like this.)

but I never got around to the oracles...... hmmmmm

[lucabyte]

i am looking at nohats au 👀 please share more

So! NoHats! I'm going to grab you and use this to ramble. A Lot.

The NoHats AU is @samhainian's it's just that I'm the strange little freak who takes the words said unto me and executes on them. But I can still do a little explainer on what our overall thoughts and vibes are. (And, that we are in fact propping up a little box with some cheese under it here. 🪤 Please (PLEASE) feel free to pick up what we're putting down.)

We're far from the only ones exploring a "what if siffrin fucking died" AU, though the main difference with NoHats is the placement of the death in the timeline. Instead of being 'Mal Du Pays Wins' or 'Act 6 encounter goes horribly wrong', the death is… Just after the (literal) falling action.

(This placement is because Sam is a comic book fan who thus has become used to characters being ripped away at the cruelest times by shitty writers. THANK FUCKING GOD adrienne is not that and isat is delightful yippieee, but, back on topic.)

Giving the party the full understanding of What Happened that you get by putting the death after black hole siffrin, but before the A6 encounter leaves an interesting gap to be filled. See, making Siffrin's death very much not Loop's fault means that… this once again reads (when not read as simply a tragedy...) as the universe doing what it sees fit to fulfull Loop's wish… Thus making Siffrin's death Loop's fault again, but only in their eyes. And only in a way they could express if they were honest about who they were…

And this is where having had excuse to waffle about my general Postcanon Loop thoughts the other day comes in handy, because Sam and I have that as our canon-compliant reading to begin with, NoHats plays off of a lot of the same readings of Loop's character. Namely: Uh Oh Somebody's Lying By Fucking Omission Again. (BECAUSE TO BE FAIR THIS TIME… HOW THE FUCK WOULD YOU HANDLE THAT?)

Now, neither Sam nor I are fanfic writers, so this has been a little bit trapped in our heads and DMs (and my unfinished art but,)

But our thoughts on how NoHats like… Goes.

Siffrin's death is peaceful, but that does not mean the aftermath of it is. I can't imagine the party takes it well, especially after understanding the circumstances of the Loops. (And, of note, in A5 where nobody had the discussion on what to do with each other's bodies should something happen…) But I'd imagine it traumabonds them somewhat (understatement of the century) and now knowing how the rest of the party feels, they resolve to travel together for the forseeable future.

The party track down Loop to deliver the terrible news, since they were clearly Siffrin's friend too, and invite Loop along to travel at least long enough to (let them grieve) get the burial over with. Loop, here, can be helpful in knowing what Siffrin would've wanted where the party would be at a loss. Loop, I think, takes a bit of a lead on the funerary aspects of it all, because, um. (Performing rites on your own body, huh?)

Then, as things are after a death, life just… Kind of has to continue on as normal. The party travel, pick up Nille, and get to know Loop as this mysterious new person. Maybe in this situation they might stay in Bambouche for a while to give Bonnie more stability since. They are probably taking it the worst. It would've come out of absolutely nowhere for everyone in the party obviously but god, for a kid? For A Kid?

It should be stated NoHats is not intended to be grimdark, just y'know. An exploration of grief. This is also why it's got a bit of a lopsided focus on Bonnie vs the rest of the party because hhrrhghghhghghhhghhghhh <- incoherent

Now, a crossroads.

How does the party discover Loop to be Siffrin? How long does it take. How much have the party embraced them as part of the family (especially with something as intense to bond over as this)?

There's the Odile option. Have her put it together and have to bring it up somehow. This could also be done by Isabeau, perhaps. He's smart. (which. God. If anything's the real Isabeau Torment Nexus it's this)

Then there's the other option batted around by Sam and I. The: The Universe Dislikes Duplicates option.

The items in the house that fzzt away when inspected. The Universe doesn't like there to be two of something, at least not when they're acknowledged. But one of something is just fine…?

Which is to say. I'm not a personal proponent of 'Loop getting their body back'. EXCEPT …… except this one time.

There's only one Siffrin now, so they don't need to be obfuscated to exist.

Consider, if you will. Loop swallowing their guilt for long enough to be comfortable. Falling back into old habits. Without another Siffrin around to compete for the niche of, they actually begin to act like Siffrin again. Not intentionally, it's just… The party is as welcoming as they've always been. And the party swears they keep catching glimpses of a face under all the light.

Then, one day, while still not fully human again, the resemblence becomes undeniable. Loop having not even noticed until everyone looks at them like they've seen a ghost.

Has it been months? How long have they kept up this lie? Is it even a lie, to them? They're Loop. But they were, once, Siffrin.

Even after explaining it, does that make it better or worse?

Bonnie cuts through the betrayed, struck-nerve reactions with a sobering "I missed you."

… Anyway !

Yeah so that's the vibe for NoHats. As for LoopLoops? That's more nebulous. I think it can go anywhere really in the NoHats timeline. I err personally toward the "Loop continuously replays the last 10 minutes before Siffrin's death almost immediately after they find out and have to parkour their ass up the House in the most distressing situation possible to try and get them to hold on, just please hold on." (Remember! Siffrin can remember the contents of Loop's loop backs in the A6 fight!)

But there is the possibility that this happens months, or worse years down the road. One last Loop back. Throw it all away for the chance to just get that one thing you didn't know you even wanted but now know you NEED.

Misc:

Okay miscellaneous time.

This is where I admit that I have a bunch of unfinished NoHats art that I haven't gotten around to yet because I feel like a right tool being so obviously Loop-Centric with my fancontent (I AM . . I REALISE I AM NOT DOING MUCH TO BEAT THE ALLEGATIONS.) So like if people want to see that please say because euaghghghhfh <- the nervous.

this is like the most fucked up place to do isaloop fr. anyway.

one of Sam's mid-game observations that I'm just going to share for no particular reason is that Bonnie's hair shares a bunch of shapes with Siffrin's. The flick up at the top, the 3 pronged shape of the fringe… just something to think about.

Without 2 Siffrins around to compare each other to it'd likely be a lot harder to notice Loop's similarities. Doesn't mean that those similarities don't sting more in this context though.

If you do NoHats without LoopLoops. The concept of this all fading into memory years down the line while they just have slightly-glowy but otherwise regular Siffrin hanging out is fucked up to think about. Just like real grief. Augh

6. a peek into the original dms as a treat from us

[insertdisc5]

Devlog #12: Localization Milestone and Key Art

Hello everyone! Welcome to this month’s devlog!

If you just stumbled upon this, I am Adrienne, also known as insertdisc5! I’m the developer, writer, artist, main programmer, etc of the game. The game being In Stars and Time, a timeloop RPG, which is also the next and final game in the START AGAIN series, following START AGAIN: a prologue (available here!). You can find out more about In Stars and Time here!!!

LET’S GET TO IT. This month has some localization news, as well as a breakdown on key art! What’s key art? Where do you use it? Can you eat it? Read and find out.

The first pass of the Japanese localization is done and implemented!!! You can play the whole game in Japanese from beginning to end now!!!

The next step now is the localization QA, where the localization team plays the game and makes sure the Japanese script works in context. The team got the script in an excel sheet and I tried my best to give context for scenes where I could, but playing through the game themselves allows them to get The Most Context. All Of The Context. So they can make changes to their localization so it can be the best!!!

That’s it for news. Other things are chugga-chugga-chuggin’ behind the scenes as well, and I can’t wait to share it all with you all!!!

Today’s topic-since-I-don’t-have-much-to-talk-about is: key art!

“Adrienne what on Earth is a ‘key art’” This above is the key art.

More generally (and keep in mind this is my layman self talking, I’m sure you could get a better answer elsewhere, but also you’re here, so you might as well learn something huh???), key art is The Big Art that games (and, I assume, other mediums???) use to show off their style and visuals in things such as store fronts, articles, and other such things. It’s Mario jumping in a cool way with his lil star buddy while the planets are behind him. It’s Kratos and Atreus on a boat. It’s sad Siffrin in the foreground, surrounded by stars, while his friends are having fun in the background. It’s The Art!!! It’s the first thing people see about your game!!! It needs to be cool and represent your game!!!

Here’s some examples of the key art being used for Steam store assets. Itch.io is very kind and asks for like 2 assets, but Steam asks for a whoopin’ 30 assets, all with different sizes and orientations, so it means one of the biggest things your key art should be is MODULAR AS HELL. From a massive 1440x3160 vertical banner to an itty-bitty 231x87 horizontal button (called a capsule, it’s the small banner above, and since it’s usually the first thing you see about a game it is THE MOST IMPORTANT ASSET), your key art needs to be ready for anything!!!

For the prologue, I did not plan for this very well. I learned pretty late in development that store assets for itch.io (and later, Steam) were gonna be a thing I should worry about, so I ended up deciding to use the title card art. Which, like, it worked out.

BUT! I had to redraw Siffrin to make sure their hat and body weren’t weirdly cut out, and had to remake the pixelly gradient like a thousand times for each asset to make sure it wouldn’t hide Siffrin’s face. And that’s without mentioning the hell I went through to make sure the massive title logo would fit. Why did I think “START AGAIN START AGAIN START AGAIN: a prologue” was a good title. It was so hard to make it fit in its entirety every time (because, of course, Steam asks you to show the logo in its entirety in every single asset). Why did I choose this title (I’m a Kingdom Hearts fan and my heart is rotten and thinks long titles are funny)

So since I went through hell with START AGAIN’s store assets, for ISAT I made sure to think about the key art way ahead of time teehee.

Every so often I become an absolute genius so I only had to sketch the key art once, as you can see above. You don’t need to understand it because I do and it’s all that matters. Teehee!

Here's the rough illustration! I made it to block out the shapes, and figure out where that dang logo would go. Once again, reminder: if you have text of any kind, figure out where it goes in the rough stage. Future you will thank you. I also had Siffrin look directly at the camera in this rough stage, and then figured. That it would look sadder. If Siffrin looked emo-ly to the side. I do like the look at the camera though. He Is Looking

To talk about The Meaning very quickly, I wanted to show Siffrin front and center, since the whole story is about them. And I wanted to show the whole party, but clearly separated from Siffrin- Siffrin is stuck in a time loop, feels completely apart from them, and I wanted to show that in the key art! With the expressions too- everyone else is happy or engaged in something, interacting with each other, while Siffrin is in his emo phase. And also stars everywhere. Because of course.

Here are all the layers I used- I made sure to draw them on a vector layer in Clip Studio Paint, which means the lines never become pixelated even if you zoom in a lot! As a side note, the full file for this is 4000x3000, which I thought would be too big, but is actually just the right size for all those dang assets.

I also made sure that Siffrin would look the most detailed, since I knew that while everyone could fit for the bigger pictures, for the itty-bitty small ones (or the extremely horizontal ones), I would only show off Siffrin’s face. MODULAR!!!!!

In the end this key art worked pretty well to make the store assets, but if I could talk to past me I would tell them. Make the circle bg taller so it’d fit the more vertical assets. And find a way to leave more space for the characters in the background. I had to remove them/rotate them/zoom them out very often because Siffrin hides them too much because Siffrin is just too dang big. But that’s still manageable, past me. You did a good job past me

So, TLDR, from my experience, what you need to keep in mind when making your key art is:

-make sure it has enough layers to be able to move things around as needed, but not so many layers that you become lost

-fun art that represents your game and its vibe well

-cool everywhere, but able to get by if you zoom in on one thing (which usually for ISAT’s assets is Siffrin’s face)

-able to work in a vertical and horizontal format and at many different sizes

I hope my key art made people interested enough in the game to try to find out more!!

That’s all I have to say for today! Let me know if you have any questions, or if there’s any aspect of the game development struggle you’d like me to talk about! See you next time!!!

AND DON’T FORGET TO WISHLIST THE GAME ON STEAM ALSO IT REALLY HELPS BECAUSE STEAM’S ALGORITHM IS MORE LIKELY TO SHOW OFF GAMES WITH A HIGH AMOUNT OF WISHLISTS THAT’S THE REASON WHY GAME DEVS ALWAYS ASK TO WISHLIST!!! OKAY BYE!!!!

[manaofflame]

Back again! I was doing a lot of experiment and trying to familiarize myself with settings and which I should use. Guess I really preferred Tapered Line Art (especially after I noticed something I misunderstood and realized I had it backward the whole time about tapered, oops), especially when sketching so... here we are. As for Art Note: I am not gonna draw Loop often (this is my first time finishing Loop's drawing), I struggle with spiky head. This is just a special occasion (especially since I'm going to be making a prequel ISAT fan-comic, Loop is not gonna show up, though I might make a cameo if the opportunity comes up). I will keep improving myself and exploring more. Perhaps keeping on changing and improving.

Also, some days ago, I improved the background and profile image, before I discovered the whole tapered misunderstanding I had (no need to know the context). Time to keep improving and more napping and thinking and... well, a lot of stuff. I am mostly self-taught, so experiences and understanding is really important if I were to keep growing and improving, it may be slow, but such growth and improvement in art feel special to me. Sorry about my rambling (if you are reading it for some reasons), enjoy the art!

[artilite]

PARTY ROCK IS IN THE HOUSE TONIGHT 🔥

Loop x Porty MK, idea courtesy of isatcord!

[marvellousstawler]

Tuesday 3 Oct 2023

The Vibe is this: it was the first day of daylight savings today but the sky was dark the whole day because of Melbourne spring rain, which couldn't decide if it wanted to be humid or cold, but was absolutely sure that it was torrential.

Art My excuse for not working on any of my unfinished drawings this week is that I have to finish my homemade Flame Emperor mask by Saturday for PAX Aus. For first-time mask-makers, take note: air-drying clay doesn't work. Past Marv was a fool and didn't realise it would crack as soon as it dried. Present Marv is wiser and is attempting to use Plaster of Paris. Future Marv is likely laughing at her, and is hopefully the proud owner of a wonderfully shitty Flame Emperor mask. The works being hiatus'd on account of the mask are a cool picture of my 2 D&D characters, a massive picture for Edelgard's birthday which I started the day AFTER Edelgard's birthday in June and is no where near finished, and, a while back I bought a copy of 'Wyrd Sisters' with one of those newfangled minimalist-graphic covers, and I thought I'd add a bunch of my gaudy spooky illustrations to it. Witchify it. Which I should just do, I should just get that done.

Writing Recent-Past Marv made the...truly *bewildering* decision to try and print out and hand-bind a very large, very unfinished fanfiction, in multiple volumes, for her friend AND herself. A fanfiction, which neither Past Marv nor Present Marv has even read. Apparently Recent-Past Marv's idea was that the project would motivate her to read it, because for some reason she finds the Ao3 interface...unfriendly? The reasons for her reticence are arcane. Anyway, this bizarre project has eaten valuable writing time, and will likely continue to do so. Even so, I did have an opportunity to outline my first chapter of the next part of the project currently known as TDD, a draft I like quite a bit. Also, memory doesn't serve well but I think I spent a weirdly large amount of time working on a comic-isation of Dorothea and Manuela's supports (working title is 'Mittelfranks'), which, that was supposed to be three chapters and one self-indulgent fourth...it is now nine. ...look the very specific dynamic between these two characters feels like it was custom-designed to infiltrate my limbic system and mass-produce serotonin. But only time will tell if THAT project ever exceeds the scripting stage. I also had a chance to write a hand-written draft of a novel about my most recent D&D character. The concept feels like it's too much to chew though. Still, worth getting an idea down.

Reading Finished 'Wyrd Sisters' by Terry Pratchett the other day, which has taken like a month. It's the first book I've finished in about 2 years, and it's instantly become one of my all-time favourites -- it almost feels like it was written FOR me and that is a RARE feeling. I've been collecting quotes in a notebook, the 'collecting' giving me a further incentive for reading, but I only started collecting from page 40 of the book. I'm torn between moving on to the next thing on my To Read list, or going back to trawl through the 40 pages for cool quotes. Might as well spend just a little more time with this new friend. Here's the most recent quote I collected, from page 2: "A key to the understanding of all religion is that a god's idea of amusement is Snakes and Ladders with greased rungs." Damn, Pratchett out here with takes that have remained piping hot since 1988.

[codacheetah]

Practice <3

[manaofflame]

An practice of a full art, not just a doodle or a sketch. A bit of spoiler cause of the context, the art themselves doesn't seem that spoilery but just to be safe.

"It's all gone. What's the point of trying to remember it? As much as he wants to remember it, it is futile. As much as he wanted to make it real, the universe doesn't allowed them to. There's no point. IT'S ALL GONE!!!"

In case there are people who are confused (which is unlikely I think if they had finished the game or finish ACT 3), it's basically about Siffrin's country, the Island, The Country that has disappeared from everyone's mind. I'm not sure if the font is appropriate here, but I tried.

The art was at first just me drawing sad Siffrin while listening to music that inspired me to draw this sad Siffrin, and I was testing out the line art. It turns out pretty well and I decided to fill in more than just sad Siffrin, so I added some texts. Still looking a bit empty, but I'm just trying things out and improving as time goes on. Also, the afterword quote (I think I should call it that) above, is not a direct quote from the game, just my own words of the situation. But, it does take place directly after the "PLEASE REMEMBER IT, BRIGHT ONE!" Scene, and before the... you know, before the end of ACT 3. Seriously, poor Siffrin.

Now I'm going to see if there's new ISAT playthrough with commentary and fanfics to keep my motivation going (though my motivation is still going strong). Also, on the ISAT Prequel Fan-Made Comic: Journey Through Vaugarde, I got the prelude pages all planned out, just need to revise it and do the line art and maybe redo some of the sketches.

Anyway, see you! I hope you are having a nice and good day!

[insertdisc5]

Devlog #3 - Musings About Text Speed

Hello everyone! Welcome to this month’s devlog! This one will be about what I did this month, and also text speed in video games.

Anyway, if you just stumbled upon this, I am Adrienne, also known as insertdisc5! I’m the developer, writer, artist, main programmer, etc of the game. The game being In Stars and Time, which is the next and final game in the START AGAIN series, following START AGAIN: a prologue (available here!).  You can find out more about In Stars and Time here!!! 

ALRIGHT LET’S GET TO IT

I've had quite the productive month, mostly because I took a one week break from my day job to chill and rest and work on the game. Which means…

Act 3-4 is more or less complete and implemented and tested!!! I say "more or less" because I'm still missing a few illustrations, and a few sidequests I'd like to add. BUT!!! The main story for those acts is complete!!! YAHOO!!!

I've also been drawing a bunch, which hasn't happened for a little bit. After months of not drawing, I hung out with a friend and we drew together, which helped me unblock myself art-wise! THANKS, FRIEND!!!!! Anyway here’s one cryptic illustration, just for you guys.

(Siffrin goes ^u^)

I’ve also been playtesting the game from beginning to (temporary) end! I haven’t done that in a while, so it was interesting to play it in its entirety and see what works, what doesn’t (and needs to be fixed), and also the parts that are broken code-wise and I need to jump into and figure out. There’s less of those than I anticipated though, so: YAHOO

I do want it on the record that while playing through I knew what was going to happen (of course I did, I wrote the damn thing), but I did get some very fun moments that made me go “oh god!!!! That’s really good!!!!!! Who wrote this!!!!” I wrote this. It’s always fun to feel surprised by your own work, and it happened a bunch, so I’m very happy!!!

And now it’s on to scripting the few things for Act 3-4 I have left, and then finally jump into scripting for the final acts, Act 5 and 6. I’ve had the base for the events written down for a very long time, as well as countless notes on “ok we GOTTA MAKE SURE that this thing happens”, so it’ll be a matter of sitting down and making sure all those notes become a cool thing. Which it will, because, come on guys (I strike a pose) it’s me.

What else, what else… Oh! Somehow I found myself wondering about text speed this month.

I’ve asked my followers on twitter what text speed they preferred in their games, (buzzfeed voice) AND THE ANSWERS WERE SURPRISING (not really)

A few random ramblings about text and dialogue in video games:

-I found it very interesting that most people set text speed to fast-but-not-instant (FBNI speed!), and that people using instant speed were relatively low. It almost made me wonder if I should just force the player to play the game at FBNI speed (kinda like how Ace Attorney forces you to use one speed), but hey. If I can add options, might as well add them. 

-I did leave instant speed in in ISAT, but it IS kind of sad to see the text appear all at once when I already made sure the text appearing would pause slightly at every comma or end of sentence (see above!) One of my gripes with instant speed is that it sometimes kills the pacing. Can you really feel the WEIGHT of a sentence if it appears all at once?!?! Thankfully, I did find out how to add very slight pauses with the instant speed! Heck yeah! Even at instant speed, you will go at MY pace, player!!!!

-Many people also love when, if your text speed isn’t instant, you can press A while the text is still appearing to make the text appear all at once! Thank god this is already a thing in RPGmaker and I don’t have to figure it out myself. What I DID figure out is how to make this NOT happen, for important moments! Again, you will go at MY pace, player!!! It’s a fun, subtle way to catch the player off guard, so I’m glad I figured it out, teehee.

-One of the reasons I was wondering about text speed is that I’m a very fast reader, and I didn’t really take that into account when I made START AGAIN: a prologue! I had a few dialogues where the text would advance to the next box on its own, without player input, mostly when a character would interrupt another or something like that. Because it’s fun and cool! Haha they interrupted this character so the text box advanced on its own! How realistic! What a good use of video game code powers!

    But here’s the thing: some players (especially streamers, who read everything aloud) did not have time to read what was on screen before it went away! And if they had the text speed on instant, the code made it so that they would get literally one frame of text before it went away! AND THAT’S NOT GOOD!!! So for ISAT, I made sure I would add text that advances automatically VERY rarely, and when I did (because, again, it’s fun and cool), I made sure the text speed would slow down significantly, and the text would stay on screen for as long as it took me to say aloud a few times. So you are welcome, slow readers everywhere. Sorry it took me so long!!!!

That’s it, that’s all for today! Let me know if you have any questions, or if there’s any aspect of the game development struggle you’d like me to talk about! See you next time!!!

AND DON’T FORGET TO WISHLIST THE GAME ON STEAM ALSO IT REALLY HELPS BECAUSE STEAM’S ALGORITHM IS MORE LIKELY TO SHOW OFF GAMES WITH A HIGH AMOUNT OF WISHLISTS THAT'S THE REASON WHY GAME DEVS ALWAYS ASK TO WISHLIST!!! OKAY BYE!!!!