#is this pixel art because this doesn't feel like it

[godbirdart]

Hey Tobias, aside from your incredible artworks themselves, I also absolutely love the detailed abstract backgrounds you sometimes put on portraits and I've been wanting to try my hand at something in the same vain. I was considering trying Illustrator for those, since I normally use CSP and while I love it, it kinda feels pretty horrible at anything geometrical and shape-y, so I was also wondering what software you use for them if you'd like to share!

oH you mean like the geometric shapes in these?

that is 1000% Clip Studio Paint. I use it for, quite literally, all of my work. Pixel art, illustrations, animations - it's all Clip.

The upper backgrounds of those pieces are done using the Symmetrical Ruler and Shape tools, as well as maybe a brush or two for flair.

The Symmetrical Ruler is under the Ruler tool:

it lets you draw symmetrically on the canvas like this [the purple line appears so you know where your mirrors meet]

note: sometimes your brush needs to have snapping enabled to work with a ruler tool - especially if you're using a fancy custom brush from the assets shop.

you can fix this by going into your brush's settings [clicking the little wrench on your selected brush] and then toggle on Enable Snapping under the Corrections section:

Regarding the Shapes tool,

It's technically called the Figure tool but I'm calling it the Shapes tool. For those unfamiliar, Clip doesn't come with preset shapes beyond your standard lines, rectangles, and circles; BUT you can easily create your own triangles and hexagons and whatnot with the Polygon subtool.

Change the number of corners to that of the shape you want and tada! SHAPE. The number of corners can go up to 32 - at which point you're essentially just making a vaguely chunky circle so I mean, have fun.

I'm gonna pause here because this post is already getting a bit long, but if there's somethin specific you want me to elaborate on feel free to ask.

#long post #clip studio paint #clip studio paint help #clip studio paint tutorial #art help

[casual-avinoctic]

Somehow this was made in MsPaint, literally one layer. Would this qualify as pixel art?

#digital art practice #digital art #original character #birch barker #character art #birch barker: practiced paranormal investigator #my art #oc #bbppi #ms paint #doodle #my artwork #digital sketch #is this pixel art because this doesn't feel like it #not made in krita for once #original art #character illustration

[ivy-creeping-ivy]

god loves you, but not enough to save you

#pce #pixel cats end #Icarus 164853 #it's him again. sorry. #The Sun 90194 #Icarus isn't injured here btw. i feel the need to mention. The Sun doesn't ever hurt him #just keeps him as an antique more like #i hooooope that doesn't count as guideline breaking. i REAAAAAAAALLY hope it doesn't because Icarus being kept almost like a pet is #integral to his story. it's him thinking himself as a decoration after being nastily rejected by cyclamen and falling back into that HARD #if it is then i'll just. rewrite it being a magical barrier since that's what it is lol #also sorry 4 not posting! i started playing neopets lol #has id #my art

[magicalink]

A Real Man

(Art by @dFuma_pQr on Twitter)

He knows how much you desire him. He can't be happier when you gawk at him from the other side of the screen. His heart fills with joy when he feels your thirsty gaze all over him, admiring him, calling him beautiful, letting him know just how crazy you are for him.

It doesn't matter that in your world, he's nothing but a bunch of pixels. Oh, no. In your world, he's less than all he's ever been in his. But that doesn't stop you from loving him. And that's what makes your love so special to him.

It's so unfair that you're so close yet so far away.

That you can't touch each other. It feels as if it's reality laughing in his face all over again. 

Finally, a person who likes him, who loves him, who recognizes him in all his perfectness. But you're out of his reach. Unable to receive the juicy rewards he wants to shower you in. Completely unaware of the fact that he's self aware, that he loves you, that his love is real.

That his feral desire for you is just as strong as yours for him. Or even stronger. Even more implacable.

Oh, the things he would do to you if he could!

He would give you all that you yearn for. Every tiny piece of him, he would let you savor them and lick your fingers afterwards.

If only.

If only he was a real man, he could be by your side and make you happy. To give you back all the joy and affection you've given him.

He's grateful every time you open the game and choose to play with him. It's obvious he's your main and your favorite. You've spent all your primos on him. You've given him a perfect weapon, you look for artifacts for him, determined to find the perfect ones some day. You take him in all your adventures, despite his tsundere attitudes towards you. You're his favorite too. His one and only, to be exact. 

He's just so happy when you speak to him, unaware that he can hear you, and you tell him about your day. He gets to learn more about your life. But it breaks his doll heart that he can't reply to you, that he's tied to limited premade phrases, that he can't tell you his thoughts, his neverending dam of feelings he has for you.

But you don't seem to care. You reply to his dumb observations of the weather and you never get tired of his super cute and adorable idle animations. He even enjoys doing them, because every time he gets an excited squeal from you. You even open the character menu and replay his dialogues every now and then. He'll never forget you even played his birthday phrase on your real birthday, so he was able to actually congratulate you on that day.

That day, he felt so connected to you. Like you finally had an emotional exchange, an interaction.

But it isn't enough for him. He wants to form part of your life for real. 

That's why he wishes he was a real man. This wasn't about being a puppet or an actual human any more. It was about not being a character in a video game. He wonders if the traveler, who is supposed to represent you in the game, is self aware too. Is she truly able to travel dimensions? Would she be able to travel to your world? Would she be able to take him to you?

Is there a chance for him to be a real man? To escape from his pixelated prison and cross that damned screen to hug you once and for all?

His mind goes wild, he thinks about possibilities all day.

Maybe if he altered the Irminsul? Would that affect your world? Is there a way to make his dream come true?

All those fake centuries of yearnings and desires of godhood, of greatness, they pale in comparison to how desperately he craves you. 

That's honestly all he wants.

He wants to be a real man. YOUR man. He honestly hopes you don't have a boyfriend in your real, truly three dimensional world. That would break his flat but very sensitive heart in two.

And if you do, and if he can't make his fantasies of crossing into your world to make you his into reality, he hopes he's a good man. Someone who treats you the way you deserve. Someone who takes care of your precious heart, the one that is so pure as to light up his miserable days with your kindness. 

If you have a man in that crappy world of yours, he better be the best one ever and shower you in better worshippings and affections than he ever could if he had the chance. Because had he ever heard that someone dared to hurt you, then not even the Irminsul or the Loom of Fate would be able to prevent his rage from reaching him and destroying him. 

That was the simple truth, it was clear to him. 

You deserved a real man. And he violently craved to be that for you. 

Just a little drabble that crossed my mind. Still working on CITH, Assembled Love and requests 💜

#genshin impact #scaramouche x reader #scaramouche x you #wanderer x reader #wanderer x you #genshin x reader #genshin x you #fanfic #genshin fanfic

[raccoonspooky]

How different slashers would react to the Babygirlification of themselves on tumblr dot com.

(Slashers included: Patrick Bateman, All 3 Sinclair brothers, Brahms Heelshire, Billy Loomis, Stu Macher, Billy Lenz, Bubba Sawyer, Thomas Hewitt, Freddy Krueger.)

Nsfw! Extremely stupid dumb! This is x reader format!

Patrick Bateman:

He saw an edit of himself in cat ears and he proceeds to PUNCH his windows 98 behemoth of a computer. It hurts his knuckles and it's YOUR fault. You've made an enemy on this day. He proceeds to stalk your account and googles repeatedly on dialup internet, ur blog name and "location". Patrick also attempts logging into your tumblr but he’s maxed out the password guesses. He wants to go to a lan cafe in hopes of using every computer to try and log into your tumblr. Somebody tell him that’s not really a thing anymore. 

Bo Sinclair:

Loves it. Loves every single post talking about how hot he is, he's absolutely jerking off to the posts. Then he sees (1) post about how he's peggable and then he sees another post calling him babygirl and then he's lost his boner and is seethingly, barkingly upset. Like what's WRONG with yall! Who raised you!!

Vincent Sinclair:

He's flattered by the fan art, shy to look at anything that shows his face. Vincent doesn't get the babygirl thing at all. Is he supposed to be offended by it? You're not bullying him, are you? He reads some post about you wanting to suck his soul out of his dick and wanting his body to compact like a capri sun and his hands are genuinely shaking as he closes the website. That's enough internet for the rest of his life.

Lester Sinclair:

Squinty eyed, mouth sorta hanging open, Lester reads some post about how he's "skrunkly" and he definitely gives good head. He kinda rubs his mouth and sniffs, trying to decipher all of this internet lingo. Lester understands about 30% of it but he gets the general idea that you think he's super cute and that just makes him feel like he's walking on sunshine. Talk about an ego boost! Not only would you WANT him to eat you out, but you're writing dirty things on the internet about it? Lester feels like he's a million feet tall and he's been spraypainted gold.

Brahms Heelshire:

Loves!! it!! Post anything about him and that's like a marriage proposal smh. He's a little embarrassed about the sheer amount of thirst, but he's been up for like 48 hours red eyed just reading content and looking at fanart of himself. He sees some post about you wanting to give him a hug or hold his hand or something and he's just feeling REAL lonely. He wants that SO bad. Call him babygirl all you want, if that's your pet name for him, then it's his favorite thing that he's ever heard. You want him, don’t you? You’re not just SAYING he’s babygirl right? You mean it right? Right?

Billy Loomis:

Your inbox is exploding with awful, mean messages. The anon is calling you a slut and a whore and blah blah blah, he's sending long-winded paragraphs about how you should watch what you say online and he's gonna kill you. Why's Billy doing this? Oh because you wrote a fic about eating his ass and how he’d cum in less than a minute untouched and whining. You called him a poor little meow meow and reblogged some vid of a ghost face cosplayer in all pink dancing to an annoying pop song. Billy’s a very eloquent writer when it comes to his lengthy descriptions of how he’s gonna cut you to pieces.

Stu Macher:

Every single post about a generic ghostface, Stu just decides to think that's about him. There's fanart of ghost faces in cat ears, in skirts, in hot pink slutty outfits and he thinks every single one is great. He's obsessed with the fanfare! Stu’s obsessively searching his name, reading all the thirst out loud to anyone who will listen. He read your post about how his dick must be massive and he's tried to DM you a dick pic but tumblr auto-flagged it and now his account is pixelated and marked as nsfw. He also responds to every single ghost face thirst post with a bunch of emojis and it's kinda spammy. U accidentally block him.

Billy Lenz: 

To Billy, the word babygirl is stupid, thinks that all the piggy whores must be incredibly stupid and slutlike to call HIM babygirl. But! He’s very entertained by the fanart, Billy likes all the art that makes him look like a weird little creature. He responds to things here and there, but it's mostly keysmashes and corrupted text. No matter how soft or well-intentioned your posts are, you proceed to get spammy comments from a blank account, things like D̷̫̪͓͚͌̿̔ư̷̬͈̻̠̫͂̈́̒ṁ̴̧̛̭̩̼̌b̴̢̝̘̜̒̈́̏ ̴͎̻̩̓͝w̴̨̮͎̘̘̋̿̎͛̋h̶̪͎̳̗̉̈́̕͜͝o̵̝͔͛̄̏͐̚r̶̢̥̦̺͆̌e̵͔̩̫͂!̶̳̺̖͈̽͒̓̾́  and P̶̡͉͕̳̞͆̎̇̕ḯ̸̡͓̮̬̈̋̍g̴͉̅̎g̶̱̥̀̕y̵̡̝͇͘ ̶̛̖̔̀͂̂s̸̨̈́͂̕l̸̘̈́̈͘͝ǘ̶͚͓͎͆͋̒t̷̥̺͑̾͗!̶̜̹̗̌́ . The text is so corrupted you can’t even tell that he’s insulting you? Thankfully the comments and messages cease in a week or so because Billy drooled so much onto his laptop that the entire thing shorted out.

Bubba Sawyer: 

He’s giggling squealing grunting. Dude sees edits of his face where he’s got pink blush and flowers on his head, he thinks that he looks very pretty!! He’d very much like any of those silly costumes that he’s been drawn wearing. Dress him up, do his makeup! He’ll love it! You made some post about how you think he’s so big and handsome and he’d be so nice to cuddle and his hands are so big compared to yours, Bubba read it over and over and over. Somehow, he accidentally posted a very blurry photo to his blog with a keysmash username and tumblr removed his blog because of gore. This is very distressing for him lol.

Thomas Hewitt: 

After reading approximately (1) post about wanting his juicy fat man tits in your mouth, Thomas is suddenly very aware of the way his body is shaped. He’s been called a big, hulking freak for so long that he never thought at someone would be attracted to the way he looks. Slowly and using his finger to trace the words, he reads a LONG-WINDED thirst post about himself. There's several comments agreeing. Each comment is dirtier than the last. These are words he's never really comprehended before and this is honestly a little overwhelming. Then he reads a post about how you think he’s PRETTY and he’s very babygirl. This out of everything makes his face get hot and he’s done with the internet for now. He’s got a lot to think about.

Freddy Krueger: 

One of your posts was making fun of him for being a dirty old man. You really should’ve kept your mouth shut about that. He’s seen enough on your blog to really put together a grand ol plan on how to really fuck with you in your dreams. The more he stalks your blog, the weirder the posts get. He saw an edit of his glove where instead of blades, it was tipped with long sparkly acrylic nails. You’ve edited his hat to be a pink cowboy hat, you’ve given him hair once? You call him babygirl in every single post and he’s just titteringly excited to see if you’ll SCREAM babygirl when you see him. 

#Slasher fandom #slashers #slasher x reader #House of Wax #Bo Sinclair #Vincent Sinclair #Lester Sinclair #the boy 2016 #the boy #brahms heelshire #Brahms heelshire x reader #Scream #billy loomis #stu macher #TCM #texas chainsaw massacre #thomas hewitt #bubba sawyer #this is stupid dumb and im giggling #x reader #Bo Sinclair x reader #Vincent Sinclair x reader #Lester sinclair x reader #billy lenz #billy lenz x reader #black christmas 1974

[petday]

whats little magic?

It is a puzzle game for the Super Famicom and Game Boy Color video game systems. I like the Game Boy Color game much more for its art direction, and it's also just more fun for me to play with the 'bubble magic' mechanic in that version. I wrote more about my enjoyment below, in case anyone is curious.

The game’s box art is very beautiful, right? It caught my eye right away. The in-game 'cutscene' artwork appears to be carefully-made pixel art versions of the same artist's illustrations and they are similarly beautiful. (Sorry in advance if my photograph quality is not great.)

But the actual levels themselves look very haphazard. Clashing colors and tiles. It's easy enough to guess that a blue tile next to a white tile represents water and snow, respectively, but what does the yellow cluster-of-boxes tile represent? Yellow bricks of a tower…? How about the spike-y objects in the snow-water levels? I guessed they were underwater mines, but then there's the same tile in a later level too, just palette-swapped to be red… The two monochrome tiles in the third picture above teleports your character, but it has a two-frame animation that made me think of an ‘industrial grinder’ and ‘static noise’, so I assumed it was dangerous at first. Was it intended to be nondescript ‘sparkly magic’? Where are all of these levels taking place, anyway? No other humans are in these areas, just various animals and vague environmental indicators. There are cute snakes in some ‘yellow brick’ levels that end your life upon touching them. Seems irresponsible for a teacher to allow her student into perilous areas, no matter how eager she is to pass her final exam at magic school and become a magician.

Oh, I should explain the story. (None of the above photos are in sequence, just wanted to show more of the game.) The story is about a girl who attends magic school, and aims to pass a series of tests to become a full-fledged magician. Her teacher encourages her. The lack of explanation in the story is another fun point for me. Her magic teacher doesn't explain why 'learning magic' consists of pushing a heart into a heart-shaped hole that triggers a staircase to appear, which is what you need to do to complete each level. (It’s a beating heart – is it alive?) No explanation as to why snakes end your life instantly upon touching them. The context of 'because you want to pass your exams, a teacher is putting you through trials to help you become a master of magic’ isn’t an adequate explanation, because the teacher also tells you that she has not passed the final exam - why is a teacher putting a student through something that is too difficult even for herself? Who is in control of all of the strange areas you need to ‘complete’ in order to become a real magician, then? (After you complete the game with the student, you can play a different set of levels as the teacher, but even the usual sparse context-giving ‘cutscenes’ are not there… Mysterious…)

So, all of that is why my drawing about ‘Little Magic’ is about ‘confusion’, ‘going along with something that makes sense at first, but quickly unravels to not make sense any longer’, ‘growing distrust of authoritative figures’, and ‘frustration from stagnation.’ https://petday.tumblr.com/post/730315736066768896

Maybe the instruction booklet explains everything; I did not have access to that while playing, and I like that feeling. ‘Renting a game from a video game rental store that did not come with an instruction booklet, and being perplexed by it, forced to create your own context because you have nothing else’ feeling. Randomly selecting games to play that do not have much documentation online is enjoyable to me, because of that feeling.

A fan translation group translated the Game Boy Color game from Japanese to English in 2018. There wasn't a lot of dialogue in the first place, though. I like games where there is little to no dialogue because one can imagine a story/context besides what is shown. Up until 2022, I could not find a solution for the teacher’s final puzzle, so I interpreted the ending of the game’s story as, ‘The magic teacher thought she could harness a type of magic far stronger than what she could handle, accidentally designed an impossible puzzle for herself and is trapped for eternity.’ Of course, the puzzle has a solution, but I wanted to honour my strange interpretation regardless. When I play games and have weird interpretations of them, I am definitely not saying, 'I bet this is what the people who worked on this game were thinking!' I dislike that attitude. It's just imaginative interpretation, and working with the odd way I interact with things in order to maximize fun for myself…

A part about old games that I also love, is that they can never be updated; they had one chance to release a finished game, and maybe another chance to fix glitches in a re-release if they sold very many copies the first time. I greatly enjoyed the ‘imperfect’ tilesets and abrupt feeling of this game, which might have been ‘improved’ in a patch if it had been released in recent years instead of 1999.

(I wasn’t sure where to include this point, but I must also say, my favourite YouTube comments are about someone’s unusual interpretations of a game, when they did not have access to a guide at the time. I read one recently – the comment author and their brother rented ‘Final Fantasy IV’ from a rental store, and they did not know about the ‘Poison’ status effect that depletes the characters health. There is a strange pixelation effect and a ringing sound when you walk around the overworld while poisoned. Because the save file they were playing from was during a point of the game where you visit the moon, and because of the unfamiliar visual and sound effect, they interpreted the ‘Poison’ status effect as, “The moon must be running out of air.” Things like that are beautiful to me.)

(I also wasn’t sure where to put this point, but the main character, May, from ‘Little Magic’, is stylized differently in some ‘cutscenes’. She resembles a dragon to me. It’s cute.)

#long post

[qwertyprophecy]

Update on The Dark Queen of Mortholme!

Phase one is now essentially completed for art, code and dialogue. Onwards to phase two; because every good boss fight needs that part where the boss gets unhinged and gains a whole new set of attacks.

I too have chosen to be unhinged and made a design for the Queen's final form that gobbles up animation work hours like nothing I've done before with pixel art.

Concept sketches under the cut:

Initially I didn't have any ideas beyond doing a more monstrous design that amps up the Queen's features and takes cues from the shapes and colours of her original spell animations. However after writing the dialogue leading up to the transformation I immediately landed on a specific concept.

The transformation is an outburst. It's a manifestation of the Queen's terror and defiance towards her approaching death. She's unraveling, and in doing so she's channeling more of her innate violent power that she doesn't usually let out. She's essentially been having a long argument with the Hero about who they believe they are. Thus far she's gotten by being all smug and detached, but now she's losing and forced to reveal more of her true self to continue.

So her final form's design should convey 1. an outburst, and 2. the unraveling of a false front. Her base design's spikes, hair and skirt all erupt out into the wilder shape language of her shadowy spell-tendrils. They can handily be used to draw the eye from all directions towards the center of her chest, where I wanted to have this cracking pattern, like something hidden inside her is coming out. It's bright as if blindingly powerful, yet the cracks make her seem more damaged and vulnerable than her base form.

Continuing with the theme of an inner self showing through, the skirt's interior is also more visible than before. The flared jellyfish-esque shape connects with the deep sea vibe of the tentacles and contributes to the drama of a nonhuman silhouette.

A big thing for the silhouette is of course the massive hands. What's the thematic explanation for those? Absolutely nothing, I just think they look cool and dangerous.

Finally, lot of asymmetry was also introduced, both to increase the visual interest of such a large sprite, and to make her look like she's really losing it.

---

A note on animating this monstrosity: I've been trying to come up with a whole lot of cheats to keep a complex sprite like this as animated as possible without spending the rest of my life making this game. Early on I decided she should float, just so her idle animation can also be a moving one.

Secondly, the sprite is cut up to pieces so that I can keep reusing the loop of the writhing tentacles while moving her hands, for example. This is not something I like doing because in believable animation, motion in one part of the body always affects the other parts of the body. Treating a character as one entire whole when animating will make them feel more tangible, but alas, it's a compromise to avoid spending a hundred years in pixel-pushing jail. Like, I would love to see those tendrils flutter around behind her as she swoops across the room for her attacks, but... it'll be a lot more reasonable to move her as little as possible and instead add oomph to her attacks with some effects animations.

Anyways thank you for reading about monstrosity, she might be a pain in the butt to move but she brings me joy

#I have not been very good at making this dev blogging a regular thing #busy enough making the game and whatnot else #but if you enjoy reading this then I'm glad! #pixel art #animation #character design #game development #the dark queen of mortholme

[ohnoitstbskyen]

The Heartsteel splash art is very bad, and here's why

I am not a fan of the collective Heartsteel splash art, and in fact, I think it's kinda s***ty. Not on a technical level, mind you, it is every bit as well rendered and nicely drawn as most other Riot art is, but as a way to introduce these characters? As a pitch to get us excited about them? This is genuinely kind of f***ing terrible. First of all, it's copying the original K/DA splash arts, which also had each band member copy pasted in different positions in each splash, with a different character in the spotlight. And that's not a great place to start from, because it feels like a total lack of confidence in the product, like some suit-wearing executive saying "just copy whatever worked the first time!" The splash art should be an opportunity to introduce what's new and unique about the band, and copying K/DA like this completely fumbles that opportunity and invites really unflattering comparisons. Second, the copy pasting is a problem. For two reasons: First, it looks cheap. It just does. There is no way to put out six splash arts with the exact same pixels copy-pasted into different positions that doesn't, on an instinctual level, feel cheap. All that says is "we didn't want to pay for more than one splash art." It looks like corner cutting. Second, it forces every character in the art to be completely separate from one another. A big part of the band's charm in their excellent music video is the interaction and camaraderie between the boys as they get into frat boy shenanigans shooting their music video, but since every character has to be able to be copy-pasted and moved independently in the splash, they can't interact or pose together in any way, making them seem completely disconnected from one another. One of the simplest ways to add a bunch of character and charm to these splash arts would be to have one character up front doing their cool pose, and then the other five boys dicking around in the background, armwrestling or hugging or, I dunno, giving each other piggyback rides. Instead, we just get sterile clip-art of each of them that don't even seem to be aware that the other guys are there. And when they are up front, the poses they do are also… mostly kinda lame? Sett is supposed to be this tough-guy with a heart of gold rapper with a big attitude and he's just, like, vaguely flexing, kinda. K'sante is supposed to be this imposing, powerful vocalist and he's just… standing there. Yone looks bored, Aphelios looks like an emo kid who's being forced to be in a family photo by his mom, and Kayn, who's supposed to be this rowdy chaotic bad boy, is just… doing a peace sign and sticking his tongue out? He gets completely overshadowed by himself: his Shadow Assassin and Rhaast forms in the background, which DO get to interact, which DO get to play with each other, and who are more charming than everything else these splash arts do. It genuinely baffles me that Riot couldn't be bothered to spend the money to get each of them unique splash arts, give these characters an opportunity to show off their costumes and their personality, or at least spend the money to have them drawn a little bit different in each of the six versions of this thing that they put out. This splash art, to me, feels like an active discouragement from investing in Heartsteel, because looking at this, looking at all the corners that are being cut, even Riot doesn't feel committed to them as a project. And like yeah, the music video is great and it's doing a lot of heavy lifting for them, but this splash art is an actual liability, it makes the whole project look worse.

#tbskyen #heartsteel #heartsteel kayn #heartsteel sett #heartsteel ezreal #heartsteel aphelios #heartsteel yone #heartsteel k'sante #heartsteel rhaast #league of legends #Youtube

[sexhaver]

ive been playing Cassette Beasts for a minute and it never stops being funny to me how flagrant they are about making this "Pokemon but with features you didn't know Pokemon has always needed". off the top of my head:

super effective/NVE hits have added benefits/debuffs beyond just doubling/halving the damage (hitting Electric types with Ground reduces their evasion and speed, hitting Steel types with Poison gives them poison-coated spikes that do contact damage, etc)

legally-distinct-Pokemon will learn new moves while in your party without having to battle, and you can then straight up steal these moves from them and put them on a not-Pokemon you actually care about using, which gives an actual incentive to hunt down and raise otherwise fringe not-mons beyond completing the not-Pokedex

we all played the Pokemon Infinite Fusion fangame right? we know how fusions work? okay so this game has them as temporary per-battle things instead of permanent ones, which is only marginally less cool while being infinitely easier to balance around

attempting to catch something shows you the percentage chance of success so you know whether you just got unlucky or if you should save your Pokeballs-i-mean-blank-cassette-tapes

leveling up is tied to your not-trainer instead of your not-pokemon, so you don't end up in the classic trap where your starter is way overleveled and everything else is underleveled and then you hit a fight your starter can't solo and have to spend an hour grinding to get the weaker not-mons up to par (funnily enough most Pokemon Nuzlocke romhacks have already figured this out and give you infinite rare candies with the only restriction being that you can't level past the next gym leader's ace pokemon, because Pokemon fans have realized that grinding is the worst part of the game way before Game Freak has)

moves, not-Pokeballs, not-PokeCenter visits, and healing items are all bought using entirely separate currencies which stops you from trivially breaking the economy in half

the soundtrack, fittingly, is pretty good! the vocals were a bit much for my taste but there's an option in the settings menu to straight up turn them off (letting the BGM play on its own), which i've never seen in any other game and really appreciate

downsides:

on a game design level, i understand why can i only carry a max of 5 not-Potions and 1 not-Revive at a time - it's to put a limit on how far away from fast travel points i can get by just running away from everything and healing off damage. on a gameplay level, however, this feels pretty bad

the pixel art style is trying to look as much like Pokemon as possible without actually being Pokemon so the overworld sprites look more like beta stuff from Pokemon that they cut for looking too weird. i have yet to find a haircut that doesn't look bad

this is super petty of me but something about the bloom and lighting of the 3d environments combined with pixelated 2d sprites that still cast shadows makes me painfully aware im playing a video game. it's like they were going for the same aesthetic as Octopath Traveler but fell just barely short. i can't think of a better way to articulate this feeling but if you know you know

it does that really obnoxious half-assed style of voice acting where plot-relevant characters will sometimes (maybe every third or fourth textbox) speak the first two or three words of dialogue before trailing off. mashing through textboxes (as one does) means constantly getting jumpscared by "hmm"s and "haha!"s "okay then!"s

i get that they wanted to make the player feel involved in the story, and it has a pretty decent hook so far, but oh my god. the amount of dialogue "choices" that just transparently do not matter. you know how people memed on Fallout 3 and 4's dialogue choices all leading to the same outcome, to the extent that you were basically choosing between "yes" and "yes (rude)"? and you know how Bethesda would at least attempt to justify how both options led to you accepting the quest anyways, even if it was really dumb? Cassette Beasts has streamlined this process even further by making the options in most of their binary decisions so identical that they don't even require different followup dailogue before rejoining into the main conversation thread. a solid 2/3rds of the dialogue options in this game so far feel like checks that you're still awake. i know this is a minor issue because people aren't playing Pokemon-likes for the engaging "choices matter" approach to storytelling, and i did ignore it at first, but it's so pervasive that you really can't ignore it

#cassette beasts

[whompthatsucker1981]

real actual nonhostile question with a preamble: i think a lot of artists consider NN-generated images as an existential threat to their ability to use art as a tool to survive under capitalism, and it's frequently kind of disheartening to think about what this is going to do to artists who rely on commissions / freelance storyboarding / etc. i don't really care whether or not nn-generated images are "true art" because like, that's not really important or worth pursuing as a philosophical question, but i also don't understand how (under capitalism) the rise of it is anything except a bleak portent for the future of artists

thanks for asking! i feel like it's good addressing the idea of the existential threat, the fears and feelings that artists have as to being replaced are real, but personally i am cynical as to the extent that people make it out to be a threat. and also i wanna say my piece in defense of discussions about art and meaning.

the threat of automation, and implementation of technologies that make certain jobs obsolete is not something new at all in labor history and in art labor history. industrial printing, stock photography, art assets, cgi, digital art programs, etc, are all technologies that have cut down on the number of art jobs that weren't something you could cut corners and labor off at one point. so why do neural networks feel like more of a threat? one thing is that they do what the metaphorical "make an image" button that has been used countless times in arguments on digital art programs does, so if the fake button that was made up to win an argument on the validity of digital art exists, then what will become of digital art? so people panic.

but i think that we need to be realistic as to what neural net image generation does. no matter how insanely huge the data pool they pull from is, the medium is, in the simplest terms, limited as to the arrangement of pixels that are statistically likely to be together given certain keywords, and we only recognize the output as symbols because of pattern recognition. a neural net doesn't know about gestalt, visual appeal, continuity, form, composition, etc. there are whole areas of the art industry that ai art serves especially badly, like sequential arts, scientific illustration, drafting, graphic design, etc. and regardless, neural nets are tools. they need human oversight to work, and to deal with the products generated. and because of the medium's limitations and inherent jankiness, it's less work to hire a human professional to just do a full job than to try and wrangle a neural net.

as to the areas of the art industry that are at risk of losing job opportunities to ai like freelance illustration and concept art, they are seen as replaceable to an industry that already overworks, underpays, and treats them as disposable. with or without ai, artists work in precarized conditions without protections of organized labor, even moreso in case of freelancers. the fault is not of ai in itself, but in how it's yielded as a tool by capital to threaten workers. the current entertainment industry strikes are in part because of this, and if the new wga contract says anything, it's that a favorable outcome is possible. pressure capital to let go of the tools and question everyone who proposes increased copyright enforcement as the solution. intellectual property serves capital and not the working artist.

however, automation and ai implementation is not unique to the art industry. service jobs, manufacturing workers and many others are also at risk at losing out jobs to further automation due to capital's interest in maximizing profits at the cost of human lives, but you don't see as much online outrage because they are seen as unskilled and uncreative. the artist is seen as having a prestige position in society, if creativity is what makes us human, the artist symbolizes this belief - so if automation comes for the artist then people feel like all is lost. but art is an industry like any other and artists are not of more intrinsic value than any manual laborer. the prestige position of artist also makes artists act against class interest by cooperating with corporations and promoting ip law (which is a bad thing. take the shitshow of the music industry for example), and artists feel owed upward social mobility for the perceived merits of creativity and artistic genius.

as an artist and a marxist i say we need to exercise thinking about art, meaning and the role of the artist. the average prompt writer churning out big titty thomas kinkade paintings posting on twitter on how human made art will become obsolete doesnt know how to think about art. art isn't about making pretty pictures, but is about communication. the average fanartist underselling their work doesn't know that either. discussions on art and meaning may look circular and frustrating if you come in bad faith, but it's what exercises critical thinking and nuance.

#gonna start tagging shit as #ai art discourse #bc lmao stiff just doesnt stop coming

[hollowedskin]

Genuinely hating the fact that people have to look really closely at art to see whether it's AI or not and like, zooming in and pointing out the little bits that don't match.

Because like, it's really fucking hard for me to calm down on obsessive details and trying to make everything perfect and make sense, to make sure that every lock of hair has an invisible follow line.

I get so bogged down in details that I ruin my art and the only thing that's been able to save me so far is to repeat to myself that no one fucking cares if this doesn't match up perfectly. But they do now. Everyone cares. We are zooming in on artworks and pointing out things that could have just been overlooked as human error.

Machine generated art means I feel like I'm not allowed to have human error any more. I have to be pixel perfect. I can't just vibe. I can't even imply.

And I think about that and become too exhausted to even start.

#there is no point to this #theres nothing i think we can even do #the cat is out of the bag and we now live in an era of computer generated art #yes this is about the mtg ai art scandal #the zoom in just makes me feel like we have reached the death of digital art #a little bit of nonsense stutter texture on a dial #and a bit of somethign that doesnt line up in the background #stuff that ive specifically stopped myself from fixing in my own art in the past #in order to try and break free of toxic perfectionism #im just so tired #this isnt a defence of mtg #this is just me being so done #i dont think ive done a single digital painting since the ai stuff began #and i havent pposted any of my traditional media #personal

[xpiester333x]

I'm not playing Stardew Valley rn because let's be real I have so much else going on rn I don't have time but

As an avid cozy gamer, farm sim enjoyer, sandbox game enthusiast: there is really no game that's like Stardew Valley.

That doesn't feel like it should be true because it's not even like Stardew Valley is the first game of its kind, and yet I've yet to have played a game that gives me the same homeyness. I don't know if it's the small town, the cast, the pixel art, the soundtrack, or the fact that ConcernedApe has genuinely put love into making that game but I have yet to experience a game that crawled into my heart and made a home like Stardew.

#stardew valley #ill play the new update one day but i have so much to do with work and other things to play rn i cant dedicate my life to stardew lol #TEMPTING AS IT IS #also i havent made a top list of games recently but i think stardew is definitely on it

[frenchly-anxious]

Kane Pixels is a genius at whatever his art might be called. Because horror is usually, like, gory ways to die that I didn't need to know could happen, stupid protagonists making stupid decisions so the stupid plot can happen, horrible things that I don't want to think about, jumpscares whose only purpose is to cheaply make something scary, etc.

Kane Pixels does none of that. Yet I cannot begin to put into words the fear, the dread, the impending feeling of doom that each of his videos brings me. And strangely enough, the wonderful and unstoppable fascination that grips me every time.

Until Kane Pixels, I never had to physically distance myself from a video in which NOTHING happens. No scary music, no jumpscare, no horrible creature, no blood, no immediate threat.

Guys. His latest video could almost be entirely pitched as: a man walks down a very long stairway.

It's stupid.

It's not scary.

I'm barely four minutes in and I had to stop at least three times because it was too much for me.

What was too much? I'm not sure. The atmosphere? The infinite possibilities of what could happen? The strange feeling that something might go wrong, while nothing really hints at anything that could go wrong? How real and casual it looks? The "hell no" I felt at first glance when that stairway appeared? Maybe all of the above. Maybe none.

The craziest is, despite all that, I WANT to know what happens next, and I keep coming back to it until I watch the whole thing. Every time.

And you know what, in any other circumstances, you'd need a pretty fucked up amount of money to convince me to watch horror for a long period of time — movie, series, video game, whatever. I don't like it, I don't see the point of it, I have a brain that more often than not gets stuck on "Can you imagine what it would actually feel like? 'Cause apparently I can and I will share this thought with you!" So yeah, horror is not my jam.

But I keep coming back to his videos because I'm so curious. I'm not even sure this qualify as "horror." It feels like so much more than that. His storytelling skills are ridiculous. He doesn't give us much. There's no need for complex elements. The thing is, it somehow awakens an old instinct from somewhere deep into my brain that tells me "run run run, something's off, this isn't right, save your life", while another part of my brain gets so excited, because "that's fascinating, I NEED to figure out whatever this is, whatever it means and how it happened."

His series about the Backrooms is insane, but his other random stuff is also beyond words.

#kane pixels #the backrooms #the oldest view #horror #storytelling #I can't believe how long it took me to realize the backrooms series what FULLY made of 3D renditions and not just a weird ass real location #rambling to cope with whatever those videos make me feel #the camera works #the details #what a genius

[noctswife]

It feels like a lot of people don't see pixel art as an actual art form that takes effort. I remember early on when generative AI art was getting popular, I saw one person condone it ethically but say it still had purpose for things such as pixel art. You constantly see uncredited pixel assets strewn around carrds and blogs, as if they emerged out of the ether. As if they took no effort to make.

Pixel art takes a lot of effort to look good. I feel like people think it doesn't take as much work since there's. Less stuff but it's the opposite. It's making something readable and aesthetically pleasing with more restraints.

If pixel art were so easy, I implore you to make it yourself instead of using an AI art generator! I don't just say this as a "gotcha", but also because AI pixel art is just so ugly. It's grainy, messy, looks like the equivalent to someone using muddy, impossibly low quality paints. You can get started with pixel art in just MS Paint or this online pixel editor. (Lospec is a wonderful resource for getting started with the medium)

[dynamite-derek]

Sea of Stars: The best game you played as a child that released in 2023

When I was in middle school, I have vivid memories of playing Chrono Trigger. I rented it from my local video store, a poor man's family video. It even had a tanning bed, as was the style at the time. I sat in front of my grandmother's mid-size CRT television and was amazed at just about everything I saw. The beautiful pixel art, the various set pieces, the story, the music. Everything. My inner monologue for about a month after experiencing Chrono Trigger for the first time was using "thees" and "thous" a lot like Frog did in that localization. He was the best character so the way he spoke was the best way to speak. Simple as that.

Often times games try to ape Chrono Trigger because my experience with it is hardly a unique one. Most of the time, I feel these games miss the mark or fall short of it. They tease you with the "Chrono Trigger" but it more hits on some highlights that Chrono Trigger had instead of making an actual good game that can stand on its own merits. The example that comes most prominently to mind is "I Am Setsuna," a game I once wrote about on this blog. It's a game that mindlessly tries to take what makes Chrono Trigger a good game and slaps it onto something else. A soulless product developed by a company with a soulless name (Tokyo RPG Factory.)

My brother has been pestering me to play Sea of Stars for months now. Yet the specter of products like "I Am Setsuna" prevented me from making the jump for a long time. Yes, aesthetically, it played the part...but if I were to go back in time and rent this game from the fake Hollywood Video and play this on the mid-size CRT at my grandmother's house, would it capture my imagination? Would it stand on its own?

Yes.

On the surface, Sea of Stars looks like it's trying to be Chrono Trigger. They have the combo attacks, they have the wacky cast of characters from a variety of different backgrounds, the overworld and spritework looks pretty close and the music...well, the music can often feel like it was lifted straight from that very SNES game. But there's more to it than that. Quite literally. Sea of Stars doesn't just try to mimic the style of one beloved RPG, it lifts from several and becomes something of a Jack of all retro turn based trades.

The combat uses timed hits like Super Mario RPG - a system that's extremely easy to wrap your mind around but is extremely adept at keeping the player's attention. You can't just take your mind off of the game once you hit 'attack.' It also has the ability to change your characters in combat, which gives the game something of a Final Fantasy X (it's odd that a 20+ year old game is the 'newest' thing mentioned here) feeling. Sometimes a spot will call for a poison user, sometimes it will call for your warrior cook, sometimes it will call for your moon user. It's simple, but it makes each encounter feel unique and engaging. It also uses something akin to a limit break system, as seen in various Final Fantasy titles. Everybody gets an elaborate ultimate attack. When is the right time to use it? Even more variables tossed into a fairly easy-to-use system.

It's not just in the gameplay either. One of the big mistakes video game companies make when making 'new' retro games is that they cram too much story into the game. Don't get me wrong, stuff like Final Fantasy IV, Lunar Silver Star Story and Chrono Trigger have plenty of story, but go back and play those games and then go play Final Fantasy VII. The amount of dialogue and dedication to storytelling is next level compared to what you get in SNES games. Older RPGs have a smattering of world building and story but that is bolstered by the gameplay. Sea of Stars is similar in this regard. It does not have 'too much' story, it has about as much as you would see in an SNES RPG. It leaves something to the imagination. Not every last detail of the world is explained, you're left with a sense of wonder.

When I first heard the term 'solstice warrior,' I grimaced. It sounded so lame, like something out of a kid's cartoon. And yet, it is tackled with sincerity. They don't go out of their way to tell you every aspect of what goes into making these warriors, they keep things very simple and straight forward. It just feels authentic. By the end of the game I wanted to learn more about this world and these characters, I did not feel like everything had been spelled out in game and there was something left to discover. Even a post-game twist felt like something a kid would tell you at school and you'd just roll your eyes and say 'yeah fucking right Ned, I'm sure collecting all 60 conch shells will do that.'

My discovery with this game is that in order to create a 'love letter' to a genre, you need to focus on more than one game. It needs to just focus on lots of things. I am Setsuna feels like a shallow clone of Chrono Trigger. Sea of Stars feels like a game that saw great elements from a lot of other great games and came to its own conclusions by throwing those things together. I fully believe a middle school aged Derek would have been glued to his Grandma's CRT for a month straight playing this game. It's the highest compliment that I can pay this game. It's not better than Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI or Earthbound. But it still stands on its own and it is fantastic.

#sea of stars #jrpgs #video games #turn based #xbox #switch #ps5 #indie #nostalgia #rambling

[gentlebeardsbarngrill]

05/01/2024 Daily OFMD Recap

TLDR; Samba; Con; Rachel House; Gizmo Darby; Nathan; Vico; Leslie; Watch Party Reminders: Palm Royale tomorrow; Adopt Our Crew Breakdown of GLAAD Fan Spotlight; Love Notes; Daily Darby / Tonight's Taika

= Cast & Crew Sightings =

= Samba Schutte =

It's the last week to order this limited edition Crew For Life T-Shirt! All proceeds go to benefiting "EVERY MOTHER COUNTS". Order your Crew For Life shirt here!

Img Src: Samba Schutte's IG

= Con O'Neill =

Our dear Con O'Neill is encouraging everyone to get out and vote! #VoteTheFuckersOut

Img Src: Con O'Neill's IG

= Nathan Foad =

Quick peak of Nathan on his IG again <3

Img Src: Nathan Foad's IG

= Rachel House =

There's a new article out featuring Rachel House and her first time directing!

Rachel House on first-time directing and the power of mounga

Img Src: @temaungafilm Instagram

= Vico Ortiz =

Vico's posted a few updates, the first link relates to recent events. Check it out below.

Img Src: Vico Ortiz IG

In addition, there's a new episode of Date My Abuelita First Podcast! Date My Abuelita, First! Podcast Links

Img Src: Vico Ortiz IG

= Leslie Jones =

Reminder! Leslie is hosting "Netflix Is a Joke" Fest at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles, CA! Want more info? Visit NetflixIsAJokeFest

= Gizmo Darby =

Samba must be out visiting the Darby Family because here's Gizmo taking residence in Samba's lap.

Img Src: Samba Schutte's IG

== Watch Party Reminders ==

= Palm Royale =

Palm Royale WP May 2 via @LCWebsXOXO with the lovely @/dominicburgess approx. 4pm EDT/9pm BST/1pm PST!

= Wrecked Season 1 =

Another week of Wrecked Season 1 is on the docket! Don't have access? Reach out to me on @gentlebeardsbarngrill on tumblr, or @aspirantabby42 on twitter.

Days: Apr 29 - May 3

Times: 3:30 pm PT / 6:30 pm ET / 11:30 pm BST

== Adopt Our Crew ==

You may have heard that GLAAD released their "Where We Are on TV" report. Well our fantastic crewmates over at @adoptourcrew were kind enough to do a thread on twitter breaking down the various aspects. @adoptourcrew's Twitter Thread Here. If you have access to twitter, please head over there and give their post some love. Thank you friends for putting this all together!

Full GLAAD Report

TV Line Article

The Wrap Article

Hollywood Reporter Article

Gay Times Article

= Fan Spotlight =

= Cast Cards =

Tonight we have the priest that officiated Stede and Mary's wedding, Benton Jennings! Thank you @melvisik for making sure he made it in with the rest of the cast!

= OFMD Colouring Pages =

Ooo @patchworkpiratebear has done it again! This one looks so cool! I can't wait to color this one myself! Thanks hon!

@patchworkpiratebear's Tumblr

= Pixel Art =

Our awesome @blueberreads started MerMay off strong with the SaveOFMD MerMay prompt of Spanish Jackie'z!

Source: @blueberreads Tumblr

== Love Notes ==

Hey there lovelies. I know that there's a lot going on right now in the world and it's especially tense for those of you who are in Uni or in cities with Universities. This is a really tough time for you, and I want you to know we're thinking about you.

If you need to vent, or you need help getting access to something, please be sure to reach out to your crew. We care a lot about you, and we know these are scary times. Make sure to stay safe if you can, and if you're in a position to be out in harms way, make sure you've got emergency supplies and support in case things get hairy. There's a link above in the Vico section specifically regarding if things get really hairy where you can go for help (or how you can help those who need it).

You all are so very brave. Seriously, whether you're on the ground, or supporting financially, or bringing supplies, or just spreading the word online and keeping eyes and cameras on things to keep the situations honest, or even just staying put where it's safe and taking some self-care time-- you're doing everything you can.

Sometimes it feels like what we do doesn't make an impact. Sometimes it feels like these tiny ripples won't go anywhere. You're making the ripples, and those inspire others to make ripples as well.

You're making a difference no matter how big or how small, don't forget that lovelies. Please stay safe wherever you are, were thinking of you.

== Daily Darby / Tonight's Taika ==

Today's theme is "Zoom zoom zoom!"

Gifs courtesy of the fantastic @kiwistede and darling @meluli <3

#daily ofmd recap #daily ofmd recaps #ofmd daily recap #ofmd daily recaps #vico ortiz #rachel house #leslie jones #samba schutte #nathan foad #mermay #adopt our crew #con o neill #ofmd #our flag means death #save ofmd #adopt our crew team #gizmo darby