Returning to the Horror Month

Who wouldn't miss the horror month?

Definitely not me!

...

Well, I kid. I didn't run any horror games this month, but instead, I took this opportunity to make games. Here we go!

Mind snacks

• Quick updates
• RPG games updates

Life updates

I had some content ideas planned... I envisioned scheduling the posts with some polished grammar checks.

Turned out it was not a case for me, and I hope you don't mind my awkward grammar conventions.

To be honest, the current political landscape has me going ups and downs that affected how I manage my time effectively to make more games. It's difficult to try and get back on track, especially with my day job demanding more of my creative time.

But not all hope is lost. I made small steps to get some of my ideas in, and do some artwork that I have been putting them off.

I like to believe that I gave myself some pats in making good progress.

What I have been doing so far is just to focus on polishing (and mental course-crashing) my digital art skills. Recently, I was into studying the creature design, which I made two creatures for Marta's Vineyard of Despair and Catamount Cliff — I never thought that was that simple. My nonsense thoughts that held me back were the execution of my techniques. Each time I had an idea, I doubted myself many times whether if I can execute it well or not. I wasn't going to let this lingering thought set me back for another 2 years!

I decided to dive in the rabbit hole at Youtube and peek into each streamer's lens. While it may seem unconventional, this method was what helped me understand better, which, in turn, helped me figure out the particular technique this way. Watch the Draw Sessions' channel if you want to improve your creature designs. Draw Sessions does have a Discord server that hosts monthly challenges and gives some mentorship opportunities.

Taking a huge step back did a wonder to get a fresh perspective, and find out what was in front of you whole time. I encourage you to do the same — small changes will make a big difference for you in a long run.

On the other hand, I built more confidence in my graphic design, which helped me with layout design. To get more practices, I decided to join a few jams, and made those games mentioned above. I still have a long way to go, but at this moment, I'm glad that I did it.

Liberation 4

Liberation 4 is a short adventure using Mothership 1e, inspired by Independence Day. It contains three scenarios with a fun minigame, dogfighting, tables, and items. My co-designer Root and I worked on it for a while in between our little free times.

We finally made some progress and completed the game design. Right now, we submitted it to Tuesday Knights Games for the review. Very excited!

Marta's Vineyard of Despair

I saw some jams coming up, which two of them caught my interest: Non-investigative Horror Game Jam, and Folklore Jam.

A word "folklore" made me think of Deaf culture and I felt there is a need for more Deaf representations. With that in mind, I refreshed my knowledge about Deaf history and its culture along with help from the small Deaf community with mutual interest in RPG. Voila, Martha's Vineyard. I recommend looking it up to learn more about a mini utopian island between Deaf and Hearing communities in the past. The spelling "Marta" on the game title was intentional just because why not?

Not just the history of Martha's Vineyard, I also recalled visiting the theater, similar to the concept of Broadway theater when I was young. There was a troupe doing anthologies about Deaf history, "Deaf Monologue." They had excellent lighting and background sound that come with vibration. Each time the troupe made a certain point that gives a tension, the vibration with red light turned on and carried a powerful effect to make the scene memorable. This show was one of the inspirations I came up with to make some horror elements to the game.

Anyway, I'm excited to let you know that I finally submitted it on two jams!

Play it and let me know how you feel about it.

Catamount Cliff

This game has been on my mind for a while since I didn't feel satisfied after rushing to submit it for Liminal Horror Twisted Classics Jam, hosted by Liminal Horror dev team.

When Liminal Horror dev team announced the next jam, Horror of the Americas Jam, that kinda pushed me to revisit it and their resources about writing the mystery were incredibly helpful. For starters, I decided to use the mystery framework as my guideline and see where the game went bland.

In breaking down the game, I identified the weak areas that needed to improve:

• Doom Clock — particularly on the environmental vs faction impact
• Unclear point of the story
• Dissociated artwork with text
• Weak premise supplementing the storyline
• Weak supplemental materials to support the story progression

That took me several months to fill in between my spare time and finish two pieces of artwork. I'm glad I did it because it looked much better, slightly more polished in that process.

If you haven't checked it out, do it now — an artwork is included in the files as part of the major changes.

That's a wrap-up! I can't think of anything to share more with you at the moment, other than asking you to consider supporting my work at itch.io. Have the rest of spooky fun month!

Currently doing some fun stuff:

• Running RPGs: Wonderland by Adam Kolb, The Isle by Luke Gearing, Cain by Tom Bloom (PBP)
• Playing RPGs: Ave Nox, Longwinter
• Playing mobile game: Honkai Star Rail, Etheria Restart
• Reading book: Strange Pictures by Uketsu
• Watching Let's Play video: HABROMANIA, streamed by ManlyBadassHero; Bye Sweet Carole, streamed by Gab Smolders