Uplifted 2014/08/20(Wed)00:31 No. 84792 ID: a32d59
File 140851988947.png - (188.95KB , 712x512 , AriaChica.png )

I̗̥͇̥ͧ̿̆ͧ͜Ṭ̽̆͆͗ͫS̰͉̤̬ͯ̾̍̊̓̃ ̯͉͓͓̞͎͋͑M̫̭̰̬̮̩͕̽̓ͬ̂̀E̫͙̘̫̜͍͉ͮ̾̐͛ͫͩ!͖̗̮͎͕̎

>>84792
OH GOD PLEASE STOP PLEASE

>>84792
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
YES! YEEESSSS!

Although truth be told five nights at Freddy's would probably be even more terrifying in Aria's world simply because of the fact that All the characters are trying to put you IN clothes instead of taking them off. Well an animatronic suit really but same difference.

>>84794

I'm pretty sure an animatronic Abbey would still be trying to rip you out of clothing.

Cher Nobel confirmed for new protagonist

>Cher Nobel
>1985
I'm kind of bothered Cher Noble didn't blow up in 1986.

OH! what if one of Cher's powers is radiation based?

Uplifted 2014/09/05(Fri)00:00 No. 85099 ID: a32d59
File 140990040496.png - (127.18KB , 712x512 , 143.png )

Okay, so we're done with the first thread. I would like to see if I could get some feedback and constructive criticism, and maybe spark some discussion on how the quest could be improved. If anyone just wants to voice their opinions on SCDA, even if they aren't exactly positive, that'd be good too. I'd like to collect as much information as possible.

I'll avoid posting until I feel that everybody else has spoken, as I'd like to hear what people have to say before I taint the discussion with my own thoughts.

>>85099
thought it went pretty well but in my opinion when you got to the slumber party I felt like you didn't know weather you wanted to slow down and focus on the party games or just speed through it. I mean I felt like you wanted to slow down and let us play the games as much as the characters but at the same time we blew through the games so fast they didn't really leave an impression and felt more like filler to tide us over until we got to the next thing.

Also a question, just how innocent is Aria's world? I mean I'm not sure if Aria is just naive as hell or other then battles to the nude there's really no conflict for people to worry about?

I'm more curious about where the pace will go now, though I am quite enjoying the world building aspects myself.

Kind of interesting how the setting started to come together there at the end. A world where violent injury just doesn't work. It kind of suggests how their society could have developed to be what it is. Different safe norms, different means of conflict resolution, people ending focused on different stuff.

...although someone is going to have to explain where they get bacon from.

With the explanation on the kind of damage experienced by people as given by the main character...

I am convinced this is a virch-world with high levels of abstraction, and most or all of those who chose to live in this virch had opted to have their old memories edited out. Those who are born in-virch are entirely real, even if they never had a physical body crafted by evolution.

The Good King is probably a local first-singularity AI who is sponsoring this virtual world.

For a virtual world of this level of resolution, assuming that the main server also hosts the intelligences living in the virtual world, i hazard that this world occupies roughly 1 cubic kilometer of computing substrate on some local asteroid. Fairly cheap, considering most asteroids are several thousand cubic kilometers in size.

Virtual world taxonomy:
http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/484f30b8af839

Individuals born in virtual space:
http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/48bcaaf9cad5c

Artificially created NPCs of various levels of sentience, and their ethical circumstances:
http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/4cfd428eec56a

>>85132
Maybe it's made from pressed soy-beans. Or somebody has powers that go "Zap! Bacon out of nowhere!" Heck, might be a "Push button, receive bacon" machine!

>>85135

That might be it actually, considering that her mommy has the ability to make cookie's that way.

But at the same time it would mean that it would never evolve past a single shop, nor could grow to a chain.

I personally thought of it almost as a Shonen world but half-sexualized (because nudity) half-innocennced (no injuries, just clothing damage)
It's odd in the balance between the two, but I personally lean more towards childish, almost? The artwork, the way things work, the fact that 'horror' as a concept doesn't seem to exist in this world...And besides really little toddlers I bet don't care one way or the other about clothing so... Yeah.

I was going to write a wall of text outlining all of my concerns, but I'm sure you all want to read it even less than I want to write it. Instead, I'm going to post one concern at a time to fuel the discussion, and reply to what people have to say as I go.

Okay, now for some replies.

>thought it went pretty well but in my opinion when you got to the slumber party I felt like you didn't know weather you wanted to slow down and focus on the party games or just speed through it. I mean I felt like you wanted to slow down and let us play the games as much as the characters but at the same time we blew through the games so fast they didn't really leave an impression and felt more like filler to tide us over until we got to the next thing.

Admittedly, I kind of wrote myself into a corner there in terms of pacing. I feel the whole Jumprun segment went well because I was able to work through it in a session format, thus allowing a decent amount of interactivity while still being manageable in terms of how long it took. That might have felt like it went by quickly because it literally did.

However, even putting Clothing Party on the list was a really, really stupid idea that I regret immensely. With the sort of game it is, actually doing a full play session (with an appropriately sized map) would have added an unreasonably amount of time to a segment that was already dragging.

On the bright side, I do feel like it did give me time to flesh out the characters, even if the characterization there was kind of hit-or-miss. (I'll get to that later.)

>Also a question, just how innocent is Aria's world? I mean I'm not sure if Aria is just naive as hell or other then battles to the nude there's really no conflict for people to worry about?

A little of both. Aria is kind of naive, but there really is very little serious internal social conflict outside of the battles. This isn't to say that there isn't any, but it's pretty minor for the most past. Most conflict in this setting comes from small-scale interpersonal conflicts.

>I'm more curious about where the pace will go now, though I am quite enjoying the world building aspects myself.

I'm hoping to increase the pace in later installments, as at the current pacing this will never be finished. There are a number of ways I'm planning to increase the pace.

1. Use character sprites whenever possible, especially during battles.

This will let me get more updates out much faster, thus allowing more content to be presented. This will not be at the expense of actual character expression. If a feel that you should be able to see a character react to something in a more flexible manner, I'll draw a separate image for it. I might also be introducing a specialized "sprite mode" for battles, which I'll elaborate upon once I have an example image to show you all.

2. Switch from script format to paragraph format

In other words, I'll be going from this:

ARIA: Ha ha! I did it!

MAURINE: Great game, Aria.

ABBEY: I almost beat you, too!

Abbey looks at me and twitches her eyebrows.

ABBEY: So... Is the birthday girl still too chicken for strip games...?

To this:

"Ha ha! I did it!" I yell, pumping my wing and raising my controller.

Maurine looks over to me and smiles, "Great game, Aria."

"I almost beat you, too!" Abbey yells, sounding a enthusiastic, but a little disappointed. She looks at me and twitches her eyebrows, "So... Is the birthday girl still too chicken for strip games...?"

The prose there isn't exactly stellar, but I think it gets the basic idea across. The I feel that this format is much more readable, descriptive, aesthetically pleasing, and easier to work with. It'll also let me fill in the holes between images better, and allow me to describe the tone of voice characters are using, which is something I felt I was lacking in script format. More to-the-point, it allows for more fluid abbreviation, so I'll be able to simply describe less important moments instead of having to write out dialogue for everything.

3. Increase the text-to-image ratio, occasionally longer posts.

Basically, more text to less images to allow me to cover more ground quickly when imagery is less important.

4. Abuse closeups

This is something I saw Nem's Quest doing, and I feel it might be a good idea. Basically, simply use head-shots to fill in some less important updates.

>Kind of interesting how the setting started to come together there at the end. A world where violent injury just doesn't work. It kind of suggests how their society could have developed to be what it is. Different safe norms, different means of conflict resolution, people ending focused on different stuff.

Pretty much.

>...although someone is going to have to explain where they get bacon from.

Things like this will eventually be explained in-quest.

>>85134
Not addressing this, as I don't want to tip my hand here. You do make some interesting points, however.

>I personally thought of it almost as a Shonen world but half-sexualized (because nudity) half-innocennced (no injuries, just clothing damage) It's odd in the balance between the two, but I personally lean more towards childish, almost? The artwork, the way things work, the fact that 'horror' as a concept doesn't seem to exist in this world...And besides really little toddlers I bet don't care one way or the other about clothing so... Yeah.

This is pretty close to spot-on, though I feel the innocence-sexualization balance should rest at closer to 30-70 in favor of innocence, as opposed to 50-50. Admittedly, keeping the tone and characterization properly balanced has been difficult, as I basically have to walk a tightrope between the two.

If I go too far on the innocence side I risk losing psychological realism, as we are dealing with adults with sex drives, so of course the fights will be sexually charged to at least a small extent. However, if I go too far in the other direction, I risk falling headlong into creepyland, a place full of creepy leering drooling neckbeards, which is somewhere I really, really do not want to end up, especially given the currently skewed gender ratio of the cast. I feel like I haven't exactly done the best at walking this tightrope, especially in terms of character design, but I plan to take measures to make it easier to do so. I'll address those in a later post.

Whelp, that's all the replies. So much for not writing a wall of text. *sigh*

Also, there's an announcement I should probably get out of the way here: I am putting this on hiatus for the next month or so to allow me the time I need to properly build out the world, plotlines, and possibly mechanics. I will occasionally post sketches and such to show you all the kinds of stuff I'm working on.

Before I close out this post, I would like to drop a few questions.

For one, how was the dialogue? I feel that it was kind of stilted and awkward, personally, but I'm not sure how I would even go about fixing that.

I was also considering starting to take suggestions through Weasyl as well, denoting any of their suggestions with >the color blue. Is this a good idea, y/n?

Also, how do you all regard the two arena leader fights you saw near the end, not only in terms of mechanics, but also tone. Who was right there?Were the forfeits too much? Was anyone right? Did you feel there was a particular side you were supposed to be on in those fights?

Actually, one more question: Any thoughts on the art? Any improvements that need to be made to it?

>>85173
personaly I feel the heads look a little large

also you might want to tone down the genital blush a little, they kind of look like they are glowing

>how was the dialogue
I thought it was alright, only thing I found weird was when you used cutesy words when the whole quest is about striping people down to there birthday suits and then gawking at them, but that's more me then anything. Didn't take anything away and I get that is just how the characters talk but I still found it odd.

>I was also considering starting to take suggestions through Weasyl
uhh, I'm not very familiar with weasyl so someone else would be better answering this.

> how do you all regard the two arena leader fights you saw near the end, not only in terms of mechanics, but also tone.
first fight seemed pretty straight forward to me, standard tourny fight that Noble also used to advertise her business. She risked a lot but for the most part It was easy to follow, business women try to get her business to grow.
Second fight I kinda laughed at the idea of there being a school solely based on how to better strip someone in a fight but eh. I don't know either of the fighters so I can't really pick a side but I did do a double take when I heard what the bet was, and was more surprised when the dragon chick actually went through with it.
In both fights though I did find it odd that there was a bet on top of the fight itself. I mean I could understand the bets in a grudge match but in an actual tournament fight I would have thought that all you needed to do was win, get a badge or something, and then move on to the next guy on the list. Does this mean we're going to have to make bets when we actually start doing tourny fights as well? What would have the bet been if we decided to actually fight Aria's aunt?

>Any thoughts on the art
Arts fine, you can tell who's who and what's what without having to ask so I say it works fine.

>Weasyl
Well, I don't know anything relevant about the community or culture there to comment on.

More generally, the only disadvantage I can think of having two separate suggester pools is it makes it harder for us to interact. It removes some of the ability to respond to or disagree with bad ideas, or to support or flesh out good ideas (or at least, raises the bar it would take to do so). It's also possible a split might make majority actions more complicated if each group comes to conflicting consensuses.

That, and you'd have to cross-post all the images and text. Unless you're just linking to here from there. Although, if you're doing that, why couldn't they post here?

Ultimately, though, I don't think we've had many cross-platform quests to compare to. It would be something of an experiment, and a lot of how well it would work would come down to execution.

>For one, how was the dialogue? I feel that it was kind of stilted and awkward
>instead of having to write out dialogue for everything
I'd say you don't have to write out dialog for absolutely everything. Especially if you feel you're forcing it. Don't force it, and don't be afraid to come back and mercilessly edit things if they feel too long.

>Who was right there? Were the forfeits too much? Was anyone right? Did you feel there was a particular side you were supposed to be on in those fights?
I'm not sure anyone was 'right' really. It was all self interest and ego. Both fights boiled down to "I want to advertise my methods / shame your methods." Which fits with the whole dual nature of this exhibitionist duel culture anyways. Showing off in success, and, well, being shown off in defeat. The penalties fit.

I like the way the quest went. Yeah, clothing party was kind of... Well, we didn't really get to do much in that. The movies were some interesting backstory (Still a fan of Dragons, but my mention of that was supposed to be in quest so that Aria heard it), the art is pleasant, the nudity is artistic rather than perverted... I don't feel that there's anything to ask to be changed. What you will change, you will change, and what you won't, is good as is anyways.

The quest was pretty good for its prologue. It gives us some insights of how their world works, and a nice introduction to each character.

The dialogue: it was great as it shows each character's personality through their actions, and what they say. one thing I would have probably liked to see to make things easier is a character icon for each person talking, but since you are going for paragraph format over the script format for future installments, you might not need to do that.

My opinion on having suggestions from Weasyl join in: it will be nice to have more people help make suggestions for the story, but it might be hard to communicate with each other, and might be a little hard on you to keep track of everything between the two communities. Maybe you can advertise this adventure through Weasyl and invite them over here to make suggestions.

the video fights: while I thought it was mean spirited, I think it also shows what can really be at stake in these battles, especially in the punishments for losing. This can be shown in contrast between Aria's battles, and these battles. Plus, with how powerful we have seen the characters are against actual injuries, the punishments they receive seem fitting enough.

Artwork: it was pretty cute for this kind of adventure. I like how sketchy you are with the color. I think that there is way too much white in the background though. It makes it kind of hard to see the characters with their bright colors against the white. I liked how the colors in the background looked in the video battles though, as it was easier on the eyes.

extra note: I heard Bad King was mentioned during one of the games the characters played, but Aria said he isn't real. Even if he isn't real, I would like to see what he looks like (unless I missed him somewhere). It also makes me wonder if there would be a neutral king as well.

Final thoughts: it is a fun adventure, and I can't wait for more.

>Weasyl

Not a fan of Weasyl, only use Furaffinity.

More replies. Here we go.

>>85176
>personaly I feel the heads look a little large

I'll experiment with head size and see if I like the results, but I honestly feel that it's an important part of the art style.

>also you might want to tone down the genital blush a little, they kind of look like they are glowing

I've gotten similar criticism from other sources, and I agree, so I'll be toning that down in the next episode.


>>85178
>first fight seemed pretty straight forward to me, standard tourny fight that Noble also used to advertise her business. She risked a lot but for the most part It was easy to follow, business women try to get her business to grow.

Alright, that was basically what I was going for.

>Second fight I kinda laughed at the idea of there being a school solely based on how to better strip someone in a fight but eh. I don't know either of the fighters so I can't really pick a side but I did do a double take when I heard what the bet was, and was more surprised when the dragon chick actually went through with it.

Juliana values her word quite a lot, so she did it. As forfeits are not formal part of battles, so she would have just lost some face for refusing to do it. Bets are officially sanctioned, however, so if you bet something you generally have to actually hand it over. I feel that the distinction had to be made here.

>In both fights though I did find it odd that there was a bet on top of the fight itself. I mean I could understand the bets in a grudge match but in an actual tournament fight I would have thought that all you needed to do was win, get a badge or something, and then move on to the next guy on the list. Does this mean we're going to have to make bets when we actually start doing tourny fights as well? What would have the bet been if we decided to actually fight Aria's aunt?

Most Arena leaders will just hand over their badges if you win, and it's considered very greedy and nasty not to do so. However, betting allows you to get more, such as leader-owned marks, stones, gadgets, money, and equipment. The more you bet, the more you stand to gain, but also lose. Mechanically, this basically functions as a loot system, and provides a proportionate penalty for losing.

>Does this mean we're going to have to make bets when we actually start doing tourny fights as well? What would have the bet been if we decided to actually fight Aria's aunt?

In most cases, no. You probably don't have to bet anything to get Rosa's badge, but you stand to get more by doing so.

Forfeits stack on top of that, are not really in the rules, and are usually the result of a personal conflict spinning out of control and ending up in a cycle of escalation.


>>85179

>I'd say you don't have to write out dialog for absolutely everything. Especially if you feel you're forcing it. Don't force it, and don't be afraid to come back and mercilessly edit things if they feel too long.

This is part of why I'm switching to paragraph. It will allow me to not write dialogue for conversations and actions where characters would logically speak, but would work better in abbreviation.

>I'm not sure anyone was 'right' really. It was all self interest and ego. Both fights boiled down to "I want to advertise my methods / shame your methods."

Good, this is what I was aiming for, and based on the other feedback I got, that's where it is.

>Which fits with the whole dual nature of this exhibitionist duel culture anyways.

I was going more for ambiguity, in the sense that the battles mean different things to different people, and are sometimes not used in the nicest manner.

>Showing off in success, and, well, being shown off in defeat. The penalties fit.

Now, this is what I was worried about. I feel that dips dangerously close to genuinely creepy territory, where the battles are much more about sexual domination and humiliation than they are about fun, games, and raw risky thrill-seeking. The games are not supposed to be about the former. I feel that I should make it abundantly clear in later installments that the sort of behavior seen in those fights is more of a self-interested abuse of battling than it is actually a valid way to approach it. What you're seeing is other social influences working their way into the battles. (in an arguably negative manner)

>>85181
>I like the way the quest went. Yeah, clothing party was kind of... Well, we didn't really get to do much in that.

It kinda sucks that the segment couldn't have been more extensive, but I kinda put myself into a situation where I genuinely couldn't do that.

>(Still a fan of Dragons, but my mention of that was supposed to be in quest so that Aria heard it)
I apologize. I didn't think that comment was directed at Aria since it was a reply to a spoilered post that she couldn't hear, so I sort of struck it out as unnecessary discussion. You can always resubmit that later, but she honestly probably doesn't have much to say about it.

>the art is pleasant, the nudity is artistic rather than perverted...
Awesome. This is what I was going for. The writing on the other hand... needs some work.


>>85196
>The quest was pretty good for its prologue. It gives us some insights of how their world works, and a nice introduction to each character.

I'm glad to hear that.

>The dialogue: it was great as it shows each character's personality through their actions, and what they say. one thing I would have probably liked to see to make things easier is a character icon for each person talking, but since you are going for paragraph format over the script format for future installments, you might not need to do that.

Once again, pretty relieved to hear that. I'll still work on making the dialogue sound more natural, but it seems that the issue may not have been as huge as I thought it was.

>My opinion on having suggestions from Weasyl join in: it will be nice to have more people help make suggestions for the story, but it might be hard to communicate with each other, and might be a little hard on you to keep track of everything between the two communities. Maybe you can advertise this adventure through Weasyl and invite them over here to make suggestions.

This is one I've heard more than once, and I feel like having separate suggester pools might create a significant issue. I think I'll just push harder for people from other sites to come to tgchan to suggest.

>the video fights: while I thought it was mean spirited,

That pretty much encapsulates my issue with how I handled that.

>I think it also shows what can really be at stake in these battles, especially in the punishments for losing. This can be shown in contrast between Aria's battles, and these battles. Plus, with how powerful we have seen the characters are against actual injuries, the punishments they receive seem fitting enough.

But this does seem like a valid point, and I think that's what was going through my head when I wrote that. I might compromise and emphasize bets over forfeits.

>Artwork: it was pretty cute for this kind of adventure. I like how sketchy you are with the color. I think that there is way too much white in the background though. It makes it kind of hard to see the characters with their bright colors against the white. I liked how the colors in the background looked in the video battles though, as it was easier on the eyes.

I started realizing the issues with the excessive white usage near the end. The rest of the frames will look roughly like the videos did.

>extra note: I heard Bad King was mentioned during one of the games the characters played, but Aria said he isn't real. Even if he isn't real, I would like to see what he looks like (unless I missed him somewhere). It also makes me wonder if there would be a neutral king as well.

I'll see about posting a picture of him later.

>Final thoughts: it is a fun adventure, and I can't wait for more.

I happy to hear that, and I look forward to running further installments.

Expect another post within the hour, discussing another aspect of the quest that I feel may need improvement.

Uplifted 2014/09/08(Mon)18:22 No. 85212 ID: a32d59
File 141022576888.png - (146.06KB , 712x512 , weirdos.png )

Here's a sample of the kinds of character designs I'm going to be introducing more of hopes of running the quest a bit more toward my intent in the future in.

This was supposed to be a setting where literally anything could exist, no matter how far-fetched, silly, or weird. What I ended up with in practice was a group of conventionally attractive furries, mostly due to a lack of proper planning. Whey the quest was always supposed to have a lot of fanservicey sorts of moments, it wasn't supposed to be all there was to it. I feel like a good chunk of the possible creepy factor is having a cast of characters who are all designed like they are meant to be ogled by the audience.

Character designs were supposed to be appealing as opposed to attractive and I feel like I kind of messed that up. Characters were supposed to range from cute to silly to cool to outright unsettling. I feel like I got cute and cool down, but not much else. So here's a sample of the silliest and most unsettling designs that Margos and I have devised. The one on the right walks on her back and uses protruding ribs as a weapon. Can you guess one of the reasons this setting doesn't have horror movies?

>>85197
Almost missed you there. There is a furaffinity version too, though it's only 7 posts in. I kinda hate furaffinity's design and staff, and I don't want to overburden myself, so that will resume updating when the weasyl version catches up. The weasyl edition is 64 posts in, and will resume shortly.

Links:
http://www.furaffinity.net/user/uplifted/
https://www.weasyl.com/~uplifted

Uplifted 2014/09/12(Fri)17:29 No. 85291 ID: a32d59
File 141056815470.png - (475.57KB , 1000x512 , sprite mockup.png )

Well, x4 post combo, I guess. Do you all have anything to say? Anyway, here's what the sprite mode I've come up with for battles might look like in the middle of a double battle.

It will probably use a wide-angle view of the battle-field with pared-down versions of the character art expressing the battle, and floating panels showing any relevant details, such as character expressions, damage, item usage, ect. In actual usage, the background art will likely be a bit more detailed than it is here, so keep that in mind. Not every battle frame with look like this, as I will intersperse more normal frames when I feel it's necessary to do so.

If you all approve of this, I might see about coming up with something similar for use outside of battles. Don't forget that I'm perfectly fine with criticism, too, so if you think it sucks please tell me so I may fix or discard it.

On a side-note, I've reconsidered putting a hold on uploading the furaffinity version. I will try to do so concurrently with the weasyl version, but I feel that I will probably have mixed success with it. Not that stuff like that really matter here on tgchan anyway.

>>85291
that...
that actually looks pretty good, I might use that same idea for when I get back into questing.

>Do you all have anything to say?
>>85212
This "Chaotic" design is actually quite interesting. I hope we can see such characters in the future. Maurine is sort of such a character, herself, come to think of it, but barely so.
>>85291
The sprite layout is a bit brushed (Yes, brushed, not rushed) for sprites; people typically use the pencil tool or an aliased (indexed colors) brush when making sprites. Honestly, I'm a fan of aliased lineart for sprites, sort of like what Homestuck does in Hero mode (Granted, it's aliased even outside of hero mode, but still), but I suppose I can cope with it being brush-art.

Other than that little complaint, I like it. Might even go as far as having a bar for detailed icons, to avoid interfering with the battle view, although since it's all sprites anyways, it's not really blocking much out. Remember, this is your quest. While it's nice to let us give some input, the final decision is yours.

The Background you made there looks much better, the characters stand out a lot more than they had before.
You said that the background art will be more detailed than the shown example, I am kind of interested in knowing how so (like more shading? more texture? etc.) Don't be afraid to keep things simple from time to time if you feel too overburdened.

You mentioned this was a setting where literally anything can exist as a character. This sounds like it will be a lot of fun for this quest. I had a silly thought that came to my mind for this world: a character literally being clothes that wears clothing (not a request, just a fun thought).

>>85291
looks pretty good and it gives us a good view of the battle field letting us see more and react appropriately so I say it's fine. Only thing I'm a little worried about is if those little close ups of the fighters might clutter the battle field but if it does it will probably be pretty quick fix so it's probably nothing to worry about.

>>85291
I like this.

>>85291

Can't lie, this is pretty boss.

Uplifted 2014/09/14(Sun)16:42 No. 85331 ID: a32d59
File 141073813325.png - (308.45KB , 712x613 , Sprite2 Mockup.png )

A young girl stands in her bedroom...

Alright, so since the battle sprites got a good reception, I decided to try my hand at doing something for outside of battles, too. What I ultimately came up with was this: An isometric view with panels similar to battle mode for showing detail. Since this is a mockup, the background is a bit less detailed than I would otherwise have it, so keep that in mind. Additional detail would likely be in the form of more "clutter" in this case probably plushies, discarded clothes, a small rug, ect.


So now for more replies...

>>85292
>>85302
>>85311
Glad to hear people like battle sprite-mode.

>>85294
>This "Chaotic" design is actually quite interesting. I hope we can see such characters in the future. Maurine is sort of such a character, herself, come to think of it, but barely so.

I was honestly not expecting a positive reaction to the decision to introduce weirder/less-traditionally-attractive designs into the quest, so this is certainly good to hear.

>The sprite layout is a bit brushed (Yes, brushed, not rushed) for sprites; people typically use the pencil tool or an aliased (indexed colors) brush when making sprites. Honestly, I'm a fan of aliased lineart for sprites, sort of like what Homestuck does in Hero mode (Granted, it's aliased even outside of hero mode, but still), but I suppose I can cope with it being brush-art.

While I'll certainly be experimenting with more aliased art in some updates, the sprites will probably continue to use brushwork for the sake of consistency. Unfortunately, I don't really have a steady enough hand to make truly aliased lineart without "inking" over sketches with an aliased brush, which adds an additional step to the process that can become a real time sink for more complex images.

Funny you should mention homestuck, though, since I have a homestuck-related project in planning stages, which is why I'm going to experiment with aliasing a bit more.

>Other than that little complaint, I like it. Might even go as far as having a bar for detailed icons, to avoid interfering with the battle view, although since it's all sprites anyways, it's not really blocking much out.

I gave that idea some consideration, but I don't think that would work in this context. A "bar" would likely have a fixed frame size, only allowing me to show what would fit in the frame. The reason I decided to use bubbles is because I can scale them up and down as is needed for the amount of detail I need to show.

As for the possibility of clutter, you'll get a relatively unobstructed view of the battlefield at the start of every fight that uses sprite mode, so you'll already know what the layout of the battlefield is like. I'll never have them cover something you haven't already seen. I might give the idea of using a bar on the top exclusively for character portraits a shot, should clutter actually become an issue.

>Remember, this is your quest. While it's nice to let us give some input, the final decision is yours.

I'll keep that in mind.

>>85299
>The Background you made there looks much better, the characters stand out a lot more than they had before.

I'll be using a least light colors for most backgrounds from now on, so the visibility issues will hopefully stop being a thing.

>You said that the background art will be more detailed than the shown example, I am kind of interested in knowing how so (like more shading? more texture? etc.) Don't be afraid to keep things simple from time to time if you feel too overburdened.

I'll scale back if I need to. Currently, there will simply be more detail in design of the actual background. So things like architecture and arena hazards will well-defined. That's the idea, anyway.

>You mentioned this was a setting where literally anything can exist as a character. This sounds like it will be a lot of fun for this quest. I had a silly thought that came to my mind for this world: a character literally being clothes that wears clothing (not a request, just a fun thought).

I might do that at some point if I can find a way to make it work within the design constraints I've set.

I'm liking the isometric view, makes me think of this as a videogame, which it kinda is to them, and I suppose it could be explained the 'voices' are gaining a new view after being attached to her for the while.

Or maybe it's a benefit from the good king for accidentally tossing us down as well, who knows.

>>85331
I like that sprite rather less than the last one. She's got kind of a... creepy vacant spaced out living doll look in her eyes, there. And some part of me still feels weird calling anything not handcrafted out of individual pixels a sprite, but that's neither here nor there.

>>85336
Thankfully, that's not intentional. Next time you see the sprite, she'll be wearing a less creepy expression.

>>85336
Man, what are you talking about? That's not a blank expression, that's an "Oh man these movies are great" expression. Or games, whichever she has stockpiled there. I mean, look at it, she's staring straight at the case that's showing a closeup view.
...That being said the smile on the beak is a little too pronounced, so if that's what you found creepy then I've got no counterarguments.

Uplifted 2014/09/15(Mon)14:03 No. 85346 ID: a32d59
File 141081502160.png - (320.20KB , 712x613 , Sprite2 Mockup2.png )

Expression has (hopefully) been fixed, and I dropped some random stuff from the last mockup into this one to test how easy it is to port stuff back and forth between the two sprite views. Apparently, it's pretty easy.

>>85346
Much better.

I know that this isn't exactly on topic, but there's currently nowhere to put it, so I guess I'll put it here.

Alright, so I took a short break from SCDA to play around with other ideas, and now I suddenly have another quest in development. I don't want to spill too many details, so I'm not saying too much. All I'm really saying about it right now is that it's primarily a text quest, but it will probably have illustrations every now and then. The reason I'm even posting about it is because I'd like some reccommendations for high-quality text quests that I could read for research. Any chance you all could help with that?

Also, I want to make a strip poker module in the near future. It may be related to SCDA, or it may be related to the new quest, but if anyone would like a module of a specific SCDA character, feel free to pitch it. I may make it at some point in the future, even if it's not the first one I put together.

>>85479
I'm fairly certain you're entitled to use your own thread for your quests, even if it was only made initially for one.
Strip poker in SCDA is an interesting idea. I kind of imagine that there would be characters with a "Dealer" power, which lets them strip clothes off people who lose a game, but that would probably be overpowered since they could make a game from anything. Seeing them take clothing damage could make it funny, though.

>high-quality text quests
Well, Magician Girl Quest, Bastion of Innocence, Breaking Reality, and Not Moms Fault are all examples of text quests that are currently running and I enjoy.

Brom's Vodou! is a text quest that actually ran to completion, and mixed in a sometimes-image style. And it's pretty excellent, to boot.

(Of those, BR is really the only one I'd consider a long read, if you're just looking to see what styles and methods have worked).

>>85479
Cirr's Beneath a Red Sky was pretty good in my opinion.

he just used the same little icon image for all his updates so it was easy to tell which post were his with 3.5 actual images. (I count the last image he used as a half image just because all it is, is a quick sketch of the night sky without a moon.

Uplifted 2014/09/25(Thu)19:02 No. 85657 ID: a32d59
File 141169694453.png - (171.10KB , 471x738 , SCDASarahFinal.png )

This is from a request I got for my draw thread, but I feel it's relevant enough for me to post here. Also I'm totally taking requests over there, if anyone cares to request something. The request was as follows:

><Archivemode> uplifted: Draw a redesign of anon44's sarah character as she'd appear in clothing damage rpg

So here it is, a full redesign of what Sarah would look like in SCDA. Since her quest partially horror-themed, with a clear Rubyquest influence, I took that and ran with it.

Her offensive power is, of course, telekinesis. I just took what appeared in quest and took it to it's logical extreme.

Her defensive power gives her the ability to remold her bone and flesh to allow her to block and parry attacks, and generally be hella intimidating. It's inspired by the mutations the zombies in her quest tended to have.

Her main weapon, her pistol, is now inset with a channeling stone, thus allowing her to fire telekinetic bullets, or if it's able to strike bare skin, mutate her opponents to immobilize them. If anyone has any further questions about the design decisions here, feel free to ask.

Clearly SCDA needs more ghoulish characters to encounter.

Imagine the main cast encountering that !Sarah you drew, except she would be entirely civil!

The lack of bodily harm in SCDA would mean that anyone who appeared so monstrously dangerous would be that way out of aesthetic desire or external reflections of internal powers.

Because of Magic.

Uplifted, is it a thing in the world of SCDA that people forms can be altered by magic, or the form of a future child can be chosen by magic?

So, hey guys. I've kinda blown past the deadline for ending SCDA's hiatus, and that's extremely upsetting. Fortunately, I'll probably be starting it back up early next month, which is pretty nice. This has certainly been a leaning experience. Basically, planned hiatuses are a BAD idea and I'm never doing that again unless I have a damn good reason, and even then not for more than a week or two, as doing so turns out to wreck project momentum. Never again.

In better news, I've got two text quests in the works! I'm not entirely sure when they'll be starting up, but I hope it won't take too long.

They are the following:

- Burrow (working title): Spiritual successor to Cloverleaf Corners (found here: http://tgchan.org/wiki/Cloverleaf_Corners). Basically, post apocolyptic survival sim with Funny Animals/Furries. Will have occasional illustrations, usual images may be stat screens and the like.

- SBURB: Pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. It will be a 1980s Text Adventure styled playthrough of a single SBURB session, probably from a single perspective. Will require a lot of prewriting, so it may be a little while before I can start it. If you don't know what SBURB is, this quest probably isn't for you. I haven't decided whether or not this one will have any illustrations, will probably depend on a lot of things.

Also, I will likely be starting a thread for every quest I'm involved with, so I don't have to manage like four threads simultaneously.

>>85728
You'll probably see some of that. It'll be awesome.

Oh, almost missed the question.

>>85728
>Uplifted, is it a thing in the world of SCDA that people forms can be altered by magic, or the form of a future child can be chosen by magic?

Yes (to an extent) to the first, Nope to the second.

Oh cool, I was waiting for an SBURB session quest to happen.
Eagerly awaiting that!

Color me curious as to how a SBURB quest/adventure will work with an imageboard posting format?

The participation will be weird, seeing as how most SBURB adventures are done on the MSPA forums with a community that is used to proactively throwing things into the game world via suggestion, whereas tgchan community is more reactive and usually works only with what is provided as given.