DEMO (prologue) | my substack (for free, non-IF writing), KOFI 🎈🎠 Circus : Eyes of God is a horror interactive fiction story with dark fantastical elements. It is written with an 18+ audience in mind due to heavy themes and topics such as body horror, non consensual use of drugs, swearing, violence, sexual content etc.
The Circus doesn’t come in town often. Never, really. Only when it needs to be fed.
On the outskirts of a decaying town, a mysterious circus arrives overnight. It seductively whispers of never-seen-before acts, and ardently promises healing for those that are desperate enough to bind themselves to the Circus as performers.
That sounds right up your alley, doesn’t it? Well, They know what happened to you as a child, why you keep your face hidden from the world. You remember too, don’t you? The darkness, the shadows, a voice as old as time asking you to follow it, and clawing at your face when you refused.
They think that you have kept your sweet face hidden under those veils for long enough. They will heal you, they will heal your scars. They will let you take the veils off. But They won’t do it out of the kindness of Their heart, no. You must give Them something in return. They want to know—what are you willing to sacrifice for it, for taking your veils off? For healing? For beauty?
You just need to whisper it, and They will give it to you. They will know. Because the Eyes of God are always watching.
THE RINGLEADER — Pharo's face is the first one you see as you step inside the Circus, lit by bright and colorful lights. He doesn't need all that, though. His skin dark, his teeth sharp — it's all gleaming on its own, glitching, barely holding Pharo at the seams. He sees all, he knows all. And his smile gets wider and wider with each secret he learns.
THE BURLESQUE DANCER - Odessa's red lips, with a cigarette between them always, ache with demands every time she opens her mouth. Yet no one is able to keep their eyes off of her when she is on stage, moving like water on land and between thin and hanging fabrics. Odessa doesn't seem keen on talking about anything before the Circus, but she will make sure to get you talking about it soon enough.
THE ATTRACTION - Vesper is the newest addition to the Circus, one that has never been seen before. Or you haven't seen anything like it, at least. Vesper is quiet, almost unnervingly so. The tail and gills and twisted arms with sickly green-grey skin are to make a profitable attraction for sure. Just ... don't ever lift up its tank's lid.
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Great news! Not much progress again! Did some drawing and writing this month involving some other project. It's not been a good month otherwise. My "I" key is loose and won't snap into place, my headphones broke and don't sit right on my head, my dog ate my homework... you get the idea.
What little I did get to was planning on Chapter 7. Finalizing what obstacles I want and how often they'll appear, deciding if extra enemy types are necessary, and spriting out the bases for obstacles.
Hmmmmmm what could the level theming for this area be... probably disco-related or something.
I did start plotting some of these elements down into level design structure. It's a unique chapter, like a I mentioned before, in that it's a point-of-no-return, so no chest puzzles and purposefully linear. The challenge is meant to be an endurance one, collecting the scant health drops and stocking up on drinks before going through a gauntlet of hazards and enemies to reach the end. I feel like it's going to be a short chapter that'll probably need a lot of refining afterwards, to find the right difficulty.
But for now I'm just figuring out functionality.
Something else I did was finally setting time aside to start a proper debug mode object, something that'll let me toggle settings and pick out rooms rather than binding a bunch of random keys. It feels pretty dumb I never did it this whole time, usually focused on other aspects of the game...
That's about it. Like I said just not a good month. It's all mental stuff I've brought up before; it feels like 3-4 major things happen in the past 4 weeks. The Boys ending, TADC ending, Mina the Hollower coming out, Deltarune chapter 5 coming out, Mouse P.I.... not that I played any of those games, but I do keep up with and it does weigh in a lot on my mind about my own game. I never feel like I'm doing enough, and it always seems pretty modest to me.
My approach with obstacles wasn't trying to come up with something super wacky/innovative, or being overly punishing. I tried to stick to pretty straight-forward stuff that feels more conducive with each other. It would easier to justify all of this if Pocket Adventure was made in 2 years instead of over 10, but idk. I really wanted to make something that fell like a full game, I'm hoping people don't find it underwhelming or annoying.
Next month, I'll be working on chapter 7 object functionality and level design. Hope your summers are going well!
Dev Blog #9 is up for Patreon subscribers! In it I show human Meteor's new face, talk a little bit about dialogue tree based cinematics, share some drawings, and show off dromi Meteor.
Here are some more drawings of Zara! Now talking more about the character itself, I can assure you that Zara will be the most disgusting character of all four. I mean, nothing too crazy, but she will put you in VERY repulsive scenarios.
I just like writing about disgusting stuff that in real life would make my stomach hurt and make me pass out from grossness :’)
I still haven’t written her route, as I’m fully focused on the demo right now. But I do have a list of the main ideas and events that I want to make happen in her route >:) And I’m so excited to start writing it.
Maybe in the future I'll show old art about all of them, because these characters are kinda old, originally from another project (that is still happening), but the idea of putting these four in a murder sim is recent, and I liked it so much I decided to do it.
The majority of characters from this other project could definitely fit in murder sims due to the violent nature of most of them. And I’m already thinking and having lots of ideas for this pyromaniac character to have his own murder sim. But that would happen a long time from now.
Also, I’ve been messing a bit with the writing, and I’ve added some more options and rewritten some of the scenes.
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Hello everyone! It's now April, which means it's time for another public devblog. There's a bit to cover this time, so let's hop right into it!
Battle Live
First off, let's go over one of the major projects I'm working on: Battle Live! The Idol School Collection.
In case you missed it, the Steam page for the game went public at the beginning of March! You can check out the page and wishlist it here:
Welcome to Pride Park! Experience six main stories and several bonus stories centered around the staff and students of this eclectic idol sc
So far the game has over 100 wishlists, and I'm hoping we can get a decent handful more before it releases. If you know anyone that would enjoy my idol kids, then be sure to share it with them.
In terms of dev-related news, as of this blog post I only have the CGs left to finish for the game before I can officially call it complete! I'll also be working on the trailer for the game to prep for the eventual release, so we're in the final lap of development.
As for when exactly the game will release, I'll be taking some time after I finish CGs to look at how the game is doing in terms of wishlists and go from there (I've also been debating making a "demo build" of Episode 1 so Battle Live can join one of the upcoming Steam Next Fests, but I can't guarantee that). I'll be looking to see how many wishlists I want pre-release before I commit to a release date (especially since this is a free game).
Deep Waters
I've also been working on my other, longer project on the side: Deep Waters!
(Still in ugly alpha lmao)
For March's patron blog, I released an in-depth look at the game, what I'd done so far, and what I want to accomplish for it this year. If you're interested in learning more about my modern fantasy, boy's love game, then you can throw me a pledge for even just a month and read it (and all of my other patron blogs).
As for what I've gotten done, I can say that I managed to get a decent first pass of the UI done, and I am one scene away from finishing the first route of the first POV of the game! My goal for the year is to get one POV entirely written, so I'm on track for that.
I admittedly didn't get a ton done for it the past month because of...
Secret Project
Yeah I'm workin' on something secret (unless you're a Patron, in which case you know what it is).
As of this blog post, this secret project's Steam page and build have been approved, and the additional content I'm creating for it is at 10k words for my first pass of the script! I'll be working my butt off to get out of my ugly alpha phase so I can throw it at my editor, and hopefully by the end of April/middle of May I'll be able to announce publicly what this project is!
I am planning on making a patron blog for May that goes into this secret project in more detail, so be sure to keep an eye out for that. (Although it might not be at the beginning of the month since I ideally would like it to be after I announce it publicly haha.)
Misc Topic roundup
Let's finish up this blog with all of the short miscellaneous topics that also happened these past two months.
On February 20th I released a blog post for Forget Me Not, that goes into what the first year of my first commercial game was like! If you haven't read it yet, you can do so here: https://solsdevblog.tumblr.com/post/809100175583920128
Another anniversary to talk about is the 1st anniversary of my NaNoRenO game: Madame Ro's Curiosity Quiz. To celebrate not only the anniversary, but also the fact that it hit 1k downloads on itchio, I created a mini artbook full of concepts, doodles, and my ramblings about what went into making the game.
On your usual walk you meet a strange woman who wishes to learn more about you...
Speaking of jams, at the beginning of February I collabed with OTOJANG to create the Strawberry Jam GUI Pack for the Make Visual Novel Assets Jam! I drew the food illustrations, made the quick menu, and set up the controller support (using Fen's pack of course). Be sure to check it, and the other fantastic resources that were released this year, over on itchio!
Strawberry Jam themed UI for Ren'Py.
What's Coming Next
As I mentioned earlier, I'll be spending the time finishing Battle Live's CGs to decide when exactly I want to release it. At the absolute latest I'll be aiming for August (in line with Battle Live's original anniversary), but I'll make a separate announcement post when I figure out when the release date will be.
I'll also be working my butt off on the secret project I mentioned earlier! I believe, so long as nothing major interrupts me, I should be able to get it to a finished beta state by the end of the month. Once that's set I'll be in a good position to publicly announce it (and start collection wishlists for it on Steam as well).
Otherwise that's everything going on with me! My next public dev blog will be in June, so I'll see you all then. Take care~!
– The core story design of The Dark Queen of Mortholme –
A game about being the end boss of a game. A hero comes in to challenge you, and even after you mercilessly destroy them, they return. That's because they're the player character, and each time they become stronger as they figure out your mechanics, upgrade their armour, find health potions, etc.
That's what it says in my old design notes, and although the idea's gone a lot further than that, it's still pretty much on point. The game starts with the final boss fight with the slight adjustment that you're playing as the boss. The so-called hero you're facing dies in one hit, unceremoniously. A pathetic attempt against your vastly superior power.
But you've barely made your way back to your throne when they're at the door challenging you again. They might be immortal, but also clearly an idiot. Except this time, they dodge out of the way of your massive weapon. No matter, you crush them on the next swing.
They come back and prickle you with their sad toothpick of a sword. First it was funny, now it's getting annoying.
They keep coming back. It feels too ludicrous to admit, but you're getting a little nervous.
---
It's a story about someone who's been given no room to grow and no ability to learn from mistakes trying to understand someone who has nothing but that. It's the stubborn force of change versus the might of the status quo. The unstoppable force against the immovable object, except the immovable object starts to notice she's crumbling.
If you were a boss facing down your inevitable death after a long dance with your ever-improving opponent, would you begrudge the them for dealing it to you? Would you be proud?
