#dive quest

Today's doodle is Muscio from Dive Quest Cause that's just sorta what came out when I started drawing and I'm mad tired lol

ACTION ADVENTURE/HORROR/QUEST/FURRY/SFW/FINISHED

It’s possible I’ve been limiting my reviews to the easy marks. The more classic ‘Webcomic’ webcomics delivered in the basic style. So, today we’re going to look at something a little different, something that only fits into the loose definition of a webcomic because this is my stupid review thing and I do what I like. That said, it’s a good one… If you can stomach it.

Ruby Quest by Weaver may need some explanation. Considered one of the first and best of /tg/’s Quest Threads, Weaver took reader input on the forum as one of the main sources of plot and character progression for the ‘comic’, with readers acting much like the players of video games, putting input into the machine and watching what happens. Well, you know. Within reason. Poor Weaver was subjected to a lot of grief at the hands of certain members of the board, either due to their choices in input, or complaints about the ‘rails’ the story seemed to be running on at certain points.

Because obviously, control of a story can only ever be a yes/no sort of thing, right?

That story, regardless of where each component was sourced, follows Ruby, a young rabbit borrowed in part from the game Animal Crossing. This is about as far from fanfiction as you can get, as for the most part, all Weaver took was the artistic style, as translated into a simplified line-art style. Poor Ruby wakes up locked in a box within the bowels of an eldritch facility called the Metal Glen, some kind of asylum, or hospital, or test lab. With the help of the readers, and fellow inmate Tom the cat, Ruby must make her escape as things get… Dark.

I’ll be avoiding spoilers more than usual. Some of the reveals are fantastic, and while I usually don’t have much time for obsessive spoiler defence it’s probably worth it here.

It’s not always a pretty comic. Weaver’s style is simplistic, as it must be for quickly drawn responses to the input of readers. But it’s expressive and charming in its simplicity, and the animal features of the petting zoo people are a great way to figure out which character is which based on ears or facial shapes alone. Later though, as things get… Intense the art develops, growing more complex and striking. Colour is used masterfully, as are digitally edited images included in some pages of the Quest. The writing, such as it is, varies in quality. Much of it isn’t too polished, as it was written in the spur of the moment, often in a variety of styles, but it gets the point across. The RPG-like nature of the plot does mean whole pages are spent doing little of note, but as the story progresses and Weaver gets better at wrangling his readers, thing smooth out and tighten. Some of the language and audience commands can get kind of salty, but as the actual art remains pretty safe, I’m keeping that SFW tag up there. Some random 4chan poster shouting about ‘Schlicking’ is manageable, one hopes.

Ruby Quest is weird. Cute animal people are put through the wringer physically and mentally. There’s body horror here, and gore, and eldritch horror. That it happens to cute rabbits and cats hardly lessens that blow, but if you have the stomach for some low-fidelity blood and bits, I would give it a look. If nothing else, that gore and horror is there for a reason beyond simple shock value. It feels like it means something.

Maybe Ruby Quest won’t be your cup of tea. It’s not a regular comic, not even close, and the theme and look of it will turn a lot of people off. But if you’re going to try out a Quest, I would suggest starting here. Weaver’s later work, Dive Quest, may be a little easier on the guts, but it ended with a whimper, where Ruby Quest ended with one hell of a bang.

“And what became of cat and hare?

Did they break free to purer air?”

Well. You’ll just have to take a look, won’t you?

This was supposed to be fanart of the Fangs, a group of mercenary gnolls courtesy of Knight Blades and Dive Quest. Unfortunately, I totally forgot what White and Blue Fang looked like, not to mention didn’t even attempt Orange.

Also Yellow’s kneeling at a weird angle