Bi-Weekly Report (#6) (Patreon)

I feel like I've been slacking really bad the last couple weeks, but then I write all of this and look at it and wonder about my perceptions of reality. I don't know! Things have been depressing. You see that debate between the confused mummy and the guy who wants to erase trans people and keeps being enabled by shit like the Supreme Court? Ha ha everything is fine. It's all fine!

Anyway, here's what I've done lately in an effort to make life more tolerable and give people boners.

GAMEDEV

Slime Forest? Slime Forest hasn't moved. It needs art. Lots of art. I need to do the art!! But also, a significant event has occurred...

We found the MarkGame.

Few years ago, Kaz and I started an RPG Maker project together about Markiplier and Danny Sexbang making a wish at a ren fair wishing well and getting isekai'd into a fantasy dimension where they needed to save a princess from an evil demon lord or whatever. You know the drill. It's one of those.

We poured a lot into it. There's a quest log, a whole stealing mechanic that is not part of vanilla RM, a bestiary, a warping system, custom sprite work, a couple Starbomb / NSP music covers, all sorts of crap. Easily a few hundred hours of work between us, and we thought we'd lost it when we switched computers. Even if we hadn't, there was concern that the file had gotten corrupted due to behaviors on my last machine.

But no. We have it, and the last machine just sucked ass. Our baby lives!! IT LIIIIIVES!!!

So we're working on that again. These two better not join the scores of YouTubers who cannot stop being absolute creeps! God, they're like a pair of statistical anomalies at this point. What a trainwreck website.

What was I talking about? Oh, right.

I've been using RPG Maker since a fan translation of 95 found its way onto my aunt's computer in one of my first experiences with the internet. That's right, it wasn't porn! It was something 12 year old me was MUCH more interested in... making a cat walk around a town to MIDI music! Needless to say, I've learned my way around the engine pretty well in the decades (*choke*) since, so even though we started this thing in stinky ol' cubes-rule-ass VX Ace, I still try to push it in all sorts of ways to have a solid ~presentation~

And, lest we get the wrong impression, I haven't slacked on the mechanical front either; the protagonist is a mage, the combat is built heavily on a foundation of strategic thinking and resource management (enough to punish someone for not engaging with it, but not enough that it's a cruel mistress crushing your nuts into powder), and even your gear loadout can change your options and roles in battle. We've even got a unique twist on mimic encounters and loot. This is not baby's first RPG Maker project.

For Kaz's part, she's done most of the initial map layouts, worked on assembling our custom sprites with a tool that keeps things in-style, helped develop or even initiate several pretty cool ideas, and even made a whole unique species of mushroom people for the thing. She also draws up all of the monsters you'll encounter in battle before it gets passed off to me for shading. She's very invested, which is why art for THIS project has, in fact, moved in the last couple weeks. Look out!!

I also worked through collision and layering issues with a couple of Kaz's MANY TILESETS, did some map corrections in a major town area, and reworked a very mazey dungeon that previously felt like you were stuck in purgatory even when you were making forward progress. Careful with them mazes, kids!

Now if only the opening cutscene wasn't two invisible men talking in front of a generic mountain background...

Oh, and in other news, some might remember my GODOT journey beginning with playing around trying to smash the Vampire Survivors and Musou concepts together under the Kitty Arcade banner, and since I have nowhere better to put this, I finally pulled one of the rival viruses out of my head, meaning that KA gets a new girl as a bonus!

One that will probably disturb and upset people with certain phobias, but still. Honk honk!

The server helped name her. I think we're going with Zip Bomb, on account of her proclivity to kick around giant beach balls that explode. You know, standard evil clown shit. Probably work cream pies into the mix somewhere. Maybe not the normal kind, though. This is Kitty Arcade, so.... well, whatever! She's perfect and I love her! Honk!!

Also, we must again thank Kaz and her one good eye (they're working on it!) for helping me pin down the gal's gaudy-gaudy colors! Thank you, wife! Mwah! <3

COMMISSIONS

I did some!!

• a lizard guy getting railed by Hare Moon's version of Fluttershy, by which I mean a dommy, assertive fuck-hound. It was fun!! I should... probably post any of these here. I have not. Oops!

• inside you are two wolves. one of the wolves is also inside of the other wolf. they're having a good time.

Present queues:

• Artistic Freedom: 1. I see your submission on the form. I am invoicing you later. Kiss kiss.

• Old junk: 10, but I'm running out of ways to avoid them. Oh no?

WRITING

New Thralls chapter is (finally) out!! Next Thralls chapter should (hopefully) not be far behind! I also started the chapter after, juggling three different languages in a way that would be impressive if I hadn't made up two of them.

Hare Moon's first chapter is written to completion, and you'll see the end of it before the month is out! Woah!!!

ANIMATION

I have finished the exploration of Rouge, settled on a style for her, and roughed out the first loop. This set won't be as singularly static as the last, hopefully! You'll see. ;) In the meantime, uhhhhh I did this.

There's an export of the roughed thing for the $5+ crowd. Let me tell you about Sonic the Hedgehog.

AND THAT ABOUT DOES IT

I've given Valheim a second chance, after waiting several years to see how it progresses. I'm much more into it this time, though I'm mad we call narrative games "walking simulators" when that's like 90% of what I seem to do in any open world anything. I have killed many trolls and I wear their skin as a hat.

Kaz and I have also continued our Minecraft adventures, including me building an offshoot of our village in the Nether, where the Villagers tend to just wander off to anyway from the portal I so smartly restored right in the middle of their town. I am a good co-mayor.

Also there's like three things left to find in TotK before I finally go deal with Ganon and set my poor Switch free to do something else. It's been over a year. Game too big. Too big!!

I really gotta get off my ass and animate some slime women...