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slitherpunk · 1 month

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games i liked in 2023 (And Other)

I like games ! You know that ?! and I played a lot 2023! and I liked a lot :). They aren't in any specific order, it's just a little highlight of games that stood out to me this year. I've attempted to write a few thoughts on each so I hope take a look. I wrote playtimes for some also but that is very subjective.

-Ones that actually came out 2023-

Lunacid https://store.steampowered.com/app/1745510/Lunacid/ I think I mentioned enjoying this in 2022 but it officially released so I can say it was one of my favorite games in 2023 :3! I like to feel around this game's walls for secrets. I like the npcs that are full of hope and whimsy despite the bleakness of its world. Chill and occasionally spooky first person dungeon crawling around moody caverns and ruins varying from underground forests to vampire castles and blood lake. (Blood lake!!!! Lake of blood!!! Big creature there.) Lots of fun weapons and spells to find, I like the one that lets you turn blood into coffins.

~20 hours

Orbo's Odyssey https://feverdreamjohnny.itch.io/orbos-odyssey If you played the massively popular demo for "Peeb Adventures" by feverdreamjohnny then you know that Johnny makes some fun and funny games and this is certainly one of them. speedy and satisfying platforming! funny dracula moments! short and sweet.

~2 hours

A Walk in the Woods https://mooncaller.itch.io/a-walk-in-the-woods Quaint little GBStudio game :) Made by some friends of mine for a jam :) It's cute I like it. There's minigames where you catch bugs and birdwatch.

~30 minutes long

Undertale Yellow https://gamejolt.com/games/UndertaleYellow/136925 I've only completed the pacifist run and checked out a neutral run so far. as the title somewhat implies, this is a prequel to Undertale where you play as the fallen human who had the yellow colored soul. This Undertale fangame has a lot of charm!!! A lot of battles really feel like they could have been in the original, with quite a bit of extra flair in some circumstances.

~10 hours

vs really cool bird https://bobacupcake.itch.io/vs-really-cool-bird you know that really cool bird that rob bobacupcake made well you can fight it in undertale and it's really fun. yeah two undertale fangames. . . wat of it …

~30 minutes

Misericorde: Volume One https://xeecee.itch.io/misericorde I wont lie the main draw for me into this was cute anime nuns I sure didn't know a whole lot else about it when I dug into it. But it's (the first part of) a VN murder mystery! And I enjoyed it a whole lot. All the characters are memorable and I really enjoy how all of them have differentiating designs. The protagonist is so failgirl. She sucks so much and I love her. I'm very intrigued by the mechanics of the game's world, it clues you in near the beginning to expect something a bit supernatural/fantastical, which gives you (and later the protagonist) a curiosity about what's real and what isn't. The music is all very impressive too, with the ost reaching past 100 tracks varying through post-rock, folk, drum & bass, and others. (Remembering when the track "Scandal" played and my friends and I took a moment to be like- okay hang on this track pwns.) Big fan of its haunting locals and how the aesthetic of the game fits them well. Also the humor is a lot of fun, and I love all the moments getting to know the different characters. Very excited to see the eventual continuation of this.

~12 hours

Absolutely Perfect Specimen https://chambersoft.itch.io/absolutely-perfect-specimen It seems like a lot of people are craving toxic horror yuri lately. Here's a recommendation. It's a VN about the android maid "Pan" and the mad scientist girl who created her. Horrifying & gut wrenching & largely about having other people define you. The art and music is haunting & poignant and matches the ever increasing feeling of dread throughout. It's yuri with the chunks. Peak robotgirl horror for those who can stomach it.

~90 minutes

Wordhopper https://kokoscript.itch.io/wordhopper Very quaint word search type puzzle game for ms dos! I think its style is very slick and that's pretty impressive to see. Chill game with nice vibes and eyecandy visuals. also it was so cool to have played this and then ended up seeing the dev's booth at Vintage Computer Festival Midwest. I was like omg woah I just played this.

~bunny

Bossgame https://lilyv.itch.io/bossgame This game is yuriful as f*ck. Delightful humor and fun character dynamics! A simple-to-understand-difficult-to-master boss rush battle system that makes you satisfied to get it right, and enticing to get just a little farther if you get it wrong. There's a lot of detail and charm to this game's menus and dialogues and win screens, I remember noticing that once you beat a boss there would be some marquee text that would pass by with some prose on it. I love how it balances its silly moments with its heartfelt moments and its high octane moments. I like the character development and revelations had throughout the plot. & I like how good the protagonists are for each other :) It's very sweet. It's hype as hell. if you want some boss rush action paired well with that sweet sweet girl's love, you *will* play this game.

~5 hours

Elly's Adventure https://bikwins.itch.io/ellys-adventure Very cute and witchy!! You are the little witch girl "Elly" on an adventure to get your toys back!! Feels like a pretty authentic gameboy type experience, it takes a lot of design cues from Kirby's adventure and the like. I am a big fan of how playful it feels.

~1 hour

Nour https://store.steampowered.com/app/1141050/Nour_Play_with_Your_Food/ This was a treat for me, but I understand that not everybody is going to get it. It's a game where you play with food(and food accessories). And that's it. It knows what it was going for. I think a lot of people were expecting something else for some reason. It's a cute little toy game and I felt satisfied with my time with it.

~food

Hi-Fi Rush https://store.steampowered.com/app/1817230/HiFi_RUSH/ Do I have to say this game is super fun? It's a big one everybody probably already knows it. This game's dopey humor made me laugh a lot and I'm not afraid to admit it.

~12 hours

WHISKEY.ST2007S https://bonicle.itch.io/whiskey-st2007nes One of the last games I played in the year because it released super last minute. Does anybody else get a rush when running a shopping cart down the parking lot? This emulates that feeling. Short game where you collect whisky stones in the whisky stone dimension because you forgot to go christmas shopping until the very last minute. it rules. It's very short you can go play it right now & get a highscore.

~5 minutes

re:curse https://devpalmer.itch.io/re-curse Discovered this one near the very end of the year also. Fun little rpg maker horror/humor game about a weird scientist lady, her butch, and an evil clown computer virus that figured out how to warp reality. I got a kick out of it. and also enjoyed digging through the game's files, which was actively encouraged by the dev, which I thought was very fun.

~90 minutes

-Didn't technically get to until 2024 but released last year-

SWOLLEN TO BURSTING UNTIL I AM DISAPPEARING ON PURPOSE https://1207.itch.io/swollen-to-bursting-until-i-am-disappearing-on-purpose People love to dunk on a lot of indie rpgs for being "quirky Earthbound inspired and about depression" or whatever. Earthbound's great. If people can nail the kind of humor and absurdity it likes to pull off while also balancing difficult topics I think that deserves a high mark. SWOLLEN TO BURSTING was fun. Bizarre and charming places to explore & distressing secrets to find. I like how it blends meander-around-the-town gameplay with Yume Nikki sort of exploration and effects. Also I'm a big fan of the music. I like how it has the lofi sound which matches the early 3d look of the game.

~6 hours

HalOPE https://starbage.itch.io/halope Another for the fans of sweet little rpg maker games that have a lot of heart. HalOPE is about an incomplete little angel wondering through worlds. Each has a theme, usually to do with an emotion or feeling, and they do well at evoking that feeling as well as its antithesis. a lot of the music is very homey and charming at moments and unnerving at others, sometimes lonely, all doing well in their corresponding chapters to further the feeling of its specified theme. There are so many delightful characters and designs in this & I found myself feeling really attached to their tiny little stories. The narrative at the core of it all hit me. If I may be vulnerable, I cried a whole lot at various moments in this game. It was really cathartic. I feel very excited for people to experience this game.

~5 hours

-Favs I finally got around to that didn't come out 2023-

An Outcry https://quinnk.itch.io/an-outcry Kind of sad it took me so long to get to this one, but glad it meant I got to play the "definitive" updated version of it. Apartment wandering RPG maker horror. Bum smokes from your neighbors and use them to save the game. I wish I could unwrap a lot more of what I like about this game than I can without spoiling too much. But if I could, I'd probably go on for too long. Let me attempt to be succinct & not giving too much away. You can tell pretty early on that An Outcry is about taking action when necessary & not turning a blind eye. What it explores about player vs protagonist agency is very fascinating to me as well, and I enjoyed learning about the inspirations for why the game's narrative works the way it does. The character Anne is such a sweetie and I love her a whole lot. This game has a very tangible feeling, this apartment complex is dirty and crumby, it smells of smoke, and there's a surrounding desperation you can feel.

~5 hours

Pigments https://punkcake.itch.io/pigments Honestly I had gotten this game in a bundle and while I was playing it I hadn't looked at the name and I just kept calling it FRUIT. On call with my friends I'd be like "hey im gonna play more FRUIT". I straight up didn't read the title screen. But it's called Pigments. You play as a fruit and you try to paint the whole floor and not get sliced by buzzsaws. Fun little arcade type game.

~fruit

Bridge, October 3rd https://lowpolis.itch.io/bridge-october-3rd Very short vignette. I like it. It's what it says it is. I'm not going to overexplain.

~like a minute

-Other Games I Want To Mention-

Pseudoregalia https://store.steampowered.com/app/2365810/Pseudoregalia/ I think a lot of people might have already known this one but I felt like it was a pretty fun 3d platformer. There were a few issues I had with it (boss fight at the beginning was frustrating, and I got lost a lot [but it looks like there's been a map patch by now, so, perhaps for some that is a fix]). I enjoyed it but sure felt weird that the only accessibility option was to give the protagonist pants. What kind of joke is that?

~5 hours

Mushroom Musume https://mortallymoonstruckgames.itch.io/mushroom-musume (Disclaimer, this game is still early access, but I saw a lot of people talking about it last year. SO I will mention here?) Haven't played much of this yet, but I have enjoyed what I played so far!! As of writing I've gone through 6 playthroughs, I feel like I've hardly scratched the surface and I've been so impressed by its depth. It's very charming, you never know what sorts of fairytale shenanigans are going to happen, and it's very cool to see how your different stats will affect things. It very much plays out like a roguelike vn. Which is not the sort of thing you may expect to make much sense but it pulls this off well. Also all the mushroom girls are very cute and I love them very much. I hope the sad goopy one who had bugs in her skin rests in peace.

~mushroom

Knuckle Sandwich https://andybrophy.itch.io/knuckle-sandwich -_- Hm. Where do I start with this one. I was pretty excited for this one since the demo and kickstarter in 2018. I felt like the demo was a hell of a hook that got me curious & horrified. As time went on, it seemed to be shaping up into something really cool. turn based combat with action commands and wario-ware-type microgames?? with a banging soundtrack?? like, count me in!! Then it released and well, the gameplay, art, music all delivered. It was very fun and engaging in those aspects. But the story… oh it just devolves into disappointing nonsensical randomness. The whole hook at the beginning seemed to be completely thrown away for the wild goose chase plot that ensues, leaving you to wonder if it was ever going to be relevant again. It felt like it had no idea what it was trying to say or do. It disappointed me that a game that has so much good in so much else about it gets brought down so much for me by this plot.

~12 hours

Rhythm Doctor https://store.steampowered.com/app/774181/Rhythm_Doctor/ (Putting this one in mentions because it is early access.) I really enjoyed the act 5 release. When I first saw this game, I kind of shrugged it off, thinking "that base mechanic doesn't seem like it will last". I thought it was basically just that one ghost shooting game from Rhythm Heaven which I Hate. Well let's just say I am now seeking penitence for my previous transgressions. It's really fun. There's a lot more to it that I didn't know when I first took a look. Also, consistently amazed by people's custom levels, I had no idea that its level editor allows people to do so much in it, I look at some levels and think "This editor seems as complex as an industry standard video editor". I'm looking forward to what they're planning next, very curious how they could possibly one-up the last update.

~rhythm

El Paso Elsewhere https://strangescaffold.itch.io/el-paso-elsewhere This was really fun & funny so far but unfortunately I had been encountering an issue with a certain level where the game would crash. I reported the issue, got a response, and there has been an update since then so I think there's a possibility that it got fixed but I have not tried yet. I would like to return to this sometime but having to relearn controls midway through is always daunting to me.

-Things that looked good but didn't get around to-

Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood https://store.steampowered.com/app/1340480/The_Cosmic_Wheel_Sisterhood/ Still don't know a whole lot about this. But there are witches, and I like witches.

Casette Beasts https://store.steampowered.com/app/1321440/Cassette_Beasts/ I haven't felt thrilled about Pokémon lately. I know a lot of people seemed to really enjoy this little monster-collecting-rpg. The style is appealing to me as a die-hard gen 5 fan. I started playing it but haven't set aside the dedicated time for it yet, but I'm excited to dig in more when I do.

Little Goody Two Shoes https://store.steampowered.com/app/1812370/Little_Goody_Two_Shoes/ Started watching a friend play this, and I'm certainly curious.. Some sort of horror fairytale but also there's yuri? Yum. Enjoyed the style and animation in the nightmare segments that I saw.

Venba https://store.steampowered.com/app/1491670/Venba/ I've picked this up a while ago but still haven't gotten around to it, but I'm eager to, I've heard nothing but good things.

Goodbye Volcano High https://store.steampowered.com/app/1310330/Goodbye_Volcano_High/ I think there are gay dinosaurs in a band and it's going to be the apocalypse? I have also heard nothing but good things about this.

-Things I watched friends play-

Signalis https://store.steampowered.com/app/1262350/SIGNALIS/ This was a pretty big one. You probably already know it, right? Watched a friend play this and I missed various parts but I understood a solid bit of it. hey. robotgirls are always getting put in these fucked up situations. have you noticed this? one time i got really high and cried about it. it isn't fair

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk https://store.steampowered.com/app/1353230/Bomb_Rush_Cyberfunk/ This one was also probably big enough you don't need me to sing its praises. but it looked really neat. swag.

-Various Thoughts-

Lately I've been thinking more about design and narrative. I feel like I haven't been doing as much analysis as I should be when it comes to games. I want to dissect more what games are saying and figure out meaning. Also attempt to see how the mechanics aid in that. I feel like most of my own work is pretty abstract & random. I simply make what I like. While that's fun and all, I still want to improve in a lot of ways, especially in having more of a theme or message. Figuring out how other games accomplish this is obviously a good step toward this.

If you saw games here that interest you I highly urge you to take a look, many are pretty short, and I pretty explicitly wanted to highlight some smaller titles. If you know me you know I like to uplift small games. (Save for the occasional big game, but that's rare these days) I think it's healthy for you to play and support independently developed & published works. I don't want to ramble too much this time about why that's important, but I hope that you might have found something you may enjoy here and if not then I encourage you to find small stuff that you would like. And I would like to encourage everybody to share their findings as well! Little games need our help to be seen and talked about! They don't have the budgets the big ones do for advertising, and advertising on your own is a whole ton of work. If you like something, spread the word! I'm sure the developers would very much appreciate that.

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thydungeongal · 6 months

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I don't wanna clog anyone else's mentions with this but like I've seen multiple posts going around about how to evade YouTube's attempts to prevent adblockers and I know this isn't applicable to every situation (only works on Android phones) I recommend Newpipe. It's basically a third party YouTube client that as far as I understand works in a way that you as a user don't ever need to interface with YouTube itself. So you keep your data, there are no ads, and you can even make your own playlists and subscription feeds without logging in.

It also natively supports tabbing out while leaving videos playing (great for listening to music via YouTube while doing something else) and watching videos in a popup (something that AFAIK used to be a feature of the YouTube mobile app but was made into a premium feature).

The only downside is that watching through Newpipe doesn't register your views, which means that watching videos through Newpipe won't increase the channels' view count and thus cost them ad revenue, which does suck but since ad revenue is already tiny on YouTube I've reconciled this by finding other ways to support the YouTubers I enjoy. (Buying their games and art, supporting them on Patreon, or even throwing them a small tip on Ko-Fi, whatever.) Anyway, just wanted to share this, it's been an absolute godsend for me.

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moonlit-tulip · 7 months

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What's your favorite ebook-compatible reading software? Firefox EPUBReader isn't great, but I'm not what, if anything, works better.

Very short answer: for EPUBs, on Windows I use and recommend the Calibre reader, and on iOS I use Marvin but it's dying and no longer downloadable so my fallback recommendation is the native Apple Books app; for PDFs, on Windows I use Sumatra, and on iOS I use GoodReader; for CBZs, I use CDisplayEx on Windows and YACReader on iOS; and I don't use other platforms very often, so I can't speak as authoritatively about those, although Calibre's reader is cross-platform for Windows/Mac/Linux, and YACReader for Windows/Mac/Linux/iOS/Android, so they can serve as at least a minimum baseline of quality against which alternatives can be compared for those platforms.

Longer answer:

First off, I will say: yeah, Firefox EPUBReader isn't great. Neither, really, are most ebook readers. I have yet to find a single one that I'm fully satisfied with. I have an in-progress project to make one that I'm fully satisfied with, but it's been slow, probably isn't going to hit 1.0.0 release before next year at current rates, and isn't going to be actually definitively the best reader on the market for probably months or years post-release even assuming I succeed in my plans to keep up its development. So, for now, selection-of-ebook-readers tends to be very much a matter of choosing the best among a variety of imperfect options.

Formats-wise, there are a lot of ebook formats, but I'm going to collapse my answers down to focusing on just three, for simplicity. Namely: EPUB, PDF, and CBZ.

EPUB is the best representative of the general "reflowable-text ebook designed to display well on a wide variety of screens" genre. Other formats of similar nature exist—Kindle's MOBI and AZW3 formats, for instance (the latter of which is, in essence, just an EPUB in a proprietary Amazon wrapper)—but conversion between formats-in-this-broad-genre is generally pretty easy and not excessively lossy, so you're generally safe to convert to EPUB as needed if you've got different formats-in-this-genre and a reader that doesn't support those formats directly. (And it's rare for a program made by anyone other than Amazon to work for non-EPUB formats-in-this-genre and not for EPUBs.)

PDF is a pretty unique / distinctive format without any widely-used alternatives I'm aware of, unless you count AZW4 (which is a PDF in a proprietary Amazon wrapper). It's the best format I'm aware of for representations of books with rigid non-reflowable text-formatting, as with e.g. TTRPG rulebooks which do complicated things with their art-inserts and sidebars.

And CBZ serves here as a stand-in for the general category of "bunch of images in an archive file of some sort, ordered by filename", which is a common format for comics. CBZ is zip-based, CBR is RAR-based, CB7 is 7-zip-based, et cetera; but they're easy to convert between one another just by extracting one and then re-archiving it in one's preferred format, and CBZ is the most commonly distributed and the most commonly supported by readers, so it's the one I'm going to focus on.

With those prefaces out of the way, here are my comprehensive answers by (platform, format) pair:

Browser, EPUB

I'm unaware of any good currently-available browser-based readers for any of the big ebook formats. I've tried out EPUBReader for Firefox, as well as some other smaller Firefox-based reader extensions, and none of them have impressed me. I haven't tested any Chrome-based readers particularly extensively, but based on some superficial testing I don't have the sense that options are particularly great there either.

This state of affairs feels intuitively wrong to me. The browser is, in a significant sense, the natural home for EPUB-like reflowable-text ebooks, to a greater degree than it's the natural home for a great many of the other things people manage to warp it into being used for; after all, EPUBs are underlyingly made of HTML-file-trees. My own reader-in-progress will be browser-based. But nonetheless, for now, my advice for browser-based readers boils down to "don't use them unless you really need to".

If you do have to use one, EPUBReader is the best extension-based one I've encountered. I have yet to find a good non-extension-based website-based one, but am currently actively in the market for such a thing for slightly-high-context reasons I'll put in the tags.

Browser, PDF

Firefox and Chrome both have built-in PDF readers which are, like, basically functional and fine, even if not actively notably-good. I'm unaware of any browser-based PDF-reading options better than those two.

Browser, CBZ

If there exist any good options here, I'm not aware of them.

Windows, EPUB

Calibre's reader is, unfortunately, the best on the market right now. It doesn't have a very good scrolled display mode, which is a mark against it by my standards, and it's a bit slow to open books and has a general sense of background-clunkiness to its UI, but in terms of the quality with which it displays its content in paginated mode—including relatively-uncommon sorts of content that most readers get wrong, like vertical text—it's pretty unparalleled, and moreover it's got a generally wider range of features and UI-customization options than most readers offer. So overall it's my top recommendation on most axes, despite my issues with it.

There's also Sigil. I very emphatically don't actually recommend Sigil as a reader for most purposes—it's marketed as an EPUB editor, lacks various features one would want in a reader, and has a much higher-clutter UI than one would generally want in a reader—but its preview pane's display engine is even more powerful than Calibre's for certain purposes—it can successfully handle EPUBs which contain video content, for instance, which Calibre falls down on—so it can be a useful backup to have on hand for cases where Calibre's display-capabilities break down.

Windows, PDF

I use SumatraPDF and think it's pretty good. It's very much built for reading, rather than editing / formfilling / etc.; it's fast-to-launch, fast-to-load-pages, not too hard to configure to look nice on most PDFs, and generally lightweight in its UI.

When I need to do fancier things, I fall back on Adobe Reader, which is much more clunky on pretty much every axis for purposes of reading but which supports form-filling and suchlike pretty comprehensively.

(But I haven't explored this field in huge amounts of depth; plausibly there exist better options that I'm unaware of, particularly on the Adobe-reader-ish side of things. (I'd be a bit more surprised if there were something better than SumatraPDF within its niche, for Windows, and very interested in hearing about any such thing if it does exist.))

Windows, CBZ

My usual CBZ-reader for day-to-day use—which I also use for PDF-based comics, since it has various features which are better than SumatraPDF for the comic-reading use case in particular—is an ancient one called CDisplayEx which, despite its age, still manages to be a solid contender for best in its field; it's reasonably performant, it has most of the features I need (good handling of spreads, a toggle for left-to-right versus right-to-left reading, a good set of options for setting how the pages are fit into the monitor, the ability to force it forward by just one page when it's otherwise in two-page mode, et cetera), and in general it's a solid functional bit of software, at least by the standards of its field.

The reason I describe CDisplayEx as only "a solid contender for" best in its field, though, is: recently I had cause to try out YACReader, a reader I tried years ago on Windows and dismissed at the time, on Linux; and it was actually really good, like basically as good as CDisplayEx is on Windows. I haven't tried the more recent versions of YACReader on Windows directly, yet; but it seems pretty plausible that my issues with the older version are now resolved, that the modern Windows version is comparable to the Linux version, and therefore that it's on basically the same level as CDisplayEx quality-wise.

Mac, EPUB/PDF/CBZ

I don't use Mac often enough to have opinions here beyond "start with whatever cross-platform thing is good elsewhere, as a baseline, and go on from there". Don't settle for any EPUB reader on Mac worse than the Calibre one, since Calibre works on Mac. (I've heard vague good things about Apple's native one; maybe it's actually a viable option?) Don't settle for any CBZ reader on Mac worse than YACReader, since YACReader works on Mac. Et cetera. (For PDFs I don't have any advice on what to use even as baseline, unfortunately; for whatever reason, PDF readers, or at least the better ones, seem to tend not to be natively cross-platform.)

Linux, EPUB

For the most part, my advice is the same as Windows: just go with the Calibre reader (and maybe use Sigil as a backup for edge cases). However, if you, like me, prefer scrolled EPUB-reading over paginated EPUB-reading, I'd also suggest checking out Foliate; while it's less powerful than the Calibre reader overall, with fewer features and more propensity towards breaking in edge cases, it's basically functional for normal books lacking unusual/tricky formatting, and, unlike Calibre, it has an actually-good scrolled display mode.

Linux, PDF

I have yet to find any options I'm fully satisfied with here, for the "fast launch and fast rendering and functional lightweight UI" niche that I use SumatraPDF for on Windows. Among the less-good-but-still-functional options I've tried out: SumatraPDF launched via Wine takes a while to start up, but once launched it has the usual nice SumatraPDF featureset. Zathura with the MuPDF backend is very pleasantly-fast, but has a somewhat-unintuitive keyboard-centric control scheme and is hard to configure. And qpdfview offers a nice general-purpose PDF-reading UI, including being quick to launch, but its rendering backend is slower than either Sumatra's or Zathura's so it's less good for paging quickly through large/heavy PDFs.

Linux, CBZ

YACReader, as mentioned previously in the Windows section, is pretty definitively the best option I've found here, and its Linux version is a solid ~equal to CDisplayEx's Windows version. Like CDisplayEx, it's also better than more traditional PDF readers for reading PDF-based comics.

iOS/iPadOS, EPUB

My current main reading app is Marvin. However, it hasn't been updated in years, and is no longer available on the app store, so I'm currently in the process of getting ready to migrate elsewhere in anticipation of Marvin's likely permanent breakage some time in the next few years. Thus I will omit detailed discussion of Marvin and instead discuss the various other at-least-vaguely-comparably-good options on the market.

For general-purpose reading, including scrolled reading if that's your thing, Apple's first-party Books app turns out to be surprisingly good. It's not the best in terms of customization of display-style, but it's basically solidly functional, moreso than the vast majority of the apps on the market.

For reading of books with vertical text in particular, meanwhile, I use Yomu, which is literally the only reader I've encountered to date on any platform which has what I'd consider to be a sensible and high-quality way of handling scrolled reading of vertical-text-containing books. While I don't recommend it for more general purposes, due to awkward handling of EPUBs' tables of contents (namely, kind of ignoring them and doing its own alternate table-of-contents thing it thinks is better), it is extremely good for that particular niche, as well as being more generally solid-aside-from-the-TOC-thing.

iOS/iPadOS, PDF

I use GoodReader. I don't know if it's the best in the market, but it's very solidly good enough for everything I've tried to do with it thus far. It's fast; its UI is good at getting out of my way, while still packing in all the features I want as options when I go looking for them (most frequently switching between two-page-with-front-cover and two-page-without-front-cover display for a given book); also in theory it has a bunch of fancy PDF-editing features for good measure, although in practice I never use those and can't comment on their quality. But, as a reader, it's very solidly good enough for me, and I wish I could get a reader like it for desktop.

iOS/iPadOS, CBZ

YACReader has an iOS version; following the death of my former favorite comic reader for iOS (ComicRack), it's very solidly the best option I'm aware of on the market. (And honestly would be pretty competitive even if ComicRack were still around.) I recommend it here as I do on Linux.

Android, EPUB/PDF/CBZ

It's been years since I've had an Android device, and accordingly have very little substantial advice here. (I'm expecting to move back to Android for my next phone-and-maybe-also-tablet, out of general preferring-open-hardware-and-software-when-practical feelings, but it'll plausibly be a while, because Apple is much better at long-lasting hardware and software than any Android manufacturers I'm aware of.) For EPUB, I recall Moon+ reader was the best option I could find back circa 2015ish, but that's long enough ago that plausibly things have changed substantially at this point. For CBZ, both YACReader and CDisplayEx have Android versions, although I haven't tried either and so can't comment on their quality. For PDF, you're on your own; I have no memories or insights there.

Conclusion

...and that's it. If there are other major platforms on which ebook-reader software can be chosen, I'm failing to think of them currently, and this is what I've got for all platforms I have managed to think of.

In the future... well, I hope my own reader-in-development (slated for 1.0.0 release as a Firefox extension with only EPUB support, with ambitions of eventually expanding to cover other platforms and other formats) will one day join this recommendation-pile, but it's currently not yet in anything resembling a recommendable form. And I hope that there are lots of good reader-development projects in progress that I currently don't know about; but, if there are, I currently don't know about them.

So, overall, this is all I've got! I hope it's helpful.

#Archive #Social #Ask #Ebooks #Infodump #the short summary of why i want to find a web-based epub reader is:#currently i'm learning to read japanese.#one of the natural next steps for me to take in the japanese-learning process is to start reading actual books.#i have some very useful browser extensions—yomichan and jpdbreader—which make reading japanese in-browser more convenient than elsewhere.#(jpdbreader in particular is probably the best training-wheels-ish japanese-reading tool i've found to date.)#however i can't use firefox extensions in non-firefox reader apps such as calibre #and browser security limits are such that i can't use them on other extensions' associated webpages either #thus i need to find a non-extension-based website i can get to display my japanese books so i can then read them with those extensions.

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5thcloud · 4 months

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hello again :D

what resources do you use to learn khmer, if I may ask? I want to get my fluency back after English overwrote it in public school 😔

(also this our art blog , is feel more comfortable / recommend asking stuff over on our personal main @yomcloud ! is also recommend go on that blog n go on "kh writing" tag for other khmer stuff ! we also do lot casual khmer writing in "system stuff" tag )

augh man our big sis faced same thing . she used to be fluent but then lost it all when go to school .

being last in family , we never were fluent or able speak it , just able listen and understand roughly as parents speak very frequently . but besides our big sis , think we only one in family who did have some kind interest

and even in extended family , we know so so much extended family fluent Only in speaking but know nothing about how read or write (feel sad about that )

and sense little long and not art related , will put under undercut ! [also plz understand we No Way fluent at all or likely not even able keep conversation , this just what we have ]

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so sadly , we not really many good resources , like books (one n only book we have is , not great !) or sites as there so few resources available compare to other languages or even southeast asian languages . is remember that our big sis said that there was practically NONE at all when she try learn again several years ago , but now theres some apps , books , youtubes , etc . , though still very few

we also not really able give many as we have learn best from listening to parents talk , watching random khmer videos , and writing what we hear (we not able speak because semiverbal unable speak 95% of time or so )

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personally is feel this youtube channel is best one found so far that teaches . made by native speaker and echoes true to how our parents speak it . gives more detail on things and way ppl actually speak

we use these two dictionaries though they not perfect : [1] [2] (1st one is easier use and have more stuff and can copy text , 2nd one is little harder to use , but can give more on word if not show up in 1st one , not able copy text) neither have "speak word" , but google translate robot voice usually very accurate

This site shared by another khmer american we met ! it looks very very good , but wasnt able use much as seem not always load , but hope it has better time with you

online khmer keyboard is recommend start use online / on screen keyboard and try learn desktop keyboard / get language keyboard installed on mobile stuff (apple comes with just need go language setting , our android doesnt so we use app call "phum keyboard" , it janky but works)

keyboard can be hard learn cuz it different across devices , but generally how remember is that letter sound is in same place and in rough latin equivalent place , shift is to change from Series A and B

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but tbh , that Honestly really it , we dont really have or know much and most of what we know is just from parent speak and just learning script so know how write what they say down and use that to know how say other things

but here some personal tips from us ! (also is want remind that this more about written language than speaking since not able speak much)

1. learn khmer script and how works soon as possible and drop latin transliteration as soon as possible . khmer works in specific way that makes Much Easier if know script . lot of time you wouldnt know what word is what with just transliteration alone since it can be written many way . not help that transliteration not regulated and lot words can be transliterated in like , 5 ways 😭

2. From experience , it often resources made by non-khmer ppl tend be Very Very Wrong or poorly transliterated or badly explained . is often find there lot of issues in them and harder learn from them compare to stuff made by khmer ppl or native speakers .

3. dont be afraid make mistakes !! when we grow up learning language as children we always misspell or write wrong , this no different and it part of learning

4. Look things up directly with khmer language script instead of using english ! youll find so much more and is often how we find and watch random khmer videos , things like cooking and music .

5. incorporate khmer writing into things you do frequently and enjoy ! for example , we honestly learned best from just writing khmer casually on our art . we learn a lot from drawing (and since you like writing , you could make things like characters talking to each other little bit in khmer or try describe things in khmer !)

here some stuff weve done !

allowing language just be part of life and things like and enjoy instead of "this is specific important thing need treat different separate and need be school like learn" doesnt work for us . we sometime just draw write it , talk to ourself in it , be silly with it !

like if draw bird , write "bird" . if draw cat , write "cat" , and other stuff

write a bunch , speak a bunch whenever possible

6. heres more resource stuff we personally made (take with little bit of grain of salt , but feels work best and true to us and feel accurate as of now )

this is alphabet order and mix of pretty much everything weve seen , then use one that remember sound best to us ("ô /oh" also sometimes written as "er" , "â/au" also sometime written as "or" , but sound made is same and to us sound more similar to "au and oh" so that what most helps , khmer isnt tonal )

and here is thing we made to group them next to their series equivalent ! imo , remembering what consonant is part of what series and what vowel sound change to is hardest part of learning , (also sub consonants so that why always include ) so making this helped ton ! (we havent made updated vowel guide , man )

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and thats all ! we know lot more but is hard explain sorry it not much , but hope all this helps on learning journey ! អរគុណច្រើន !

#ask #ramble

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dreamtydraw · 2 months

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Hello from the Fishbowl!

Oh I’m so glad you and plant anon agree with me on my vn red flags/icks! Like I said a lot of the red flags and icks I tend to have are really subjective so I get that some people will love what I kinda hate but it’s nice to see I’m not alone on stuff :)

Also, is it bad that I kinda wanna hear more about Heir to Love and Lie? I’ve never played any Fictif games but this sounds like some hot gossip I want in on, tell me more about how bad of a game it is lol. From an outsider perspective I think it’s kinda funny how it’s like “Yes the Fictif app has a bunch of great and fun stories with a ton of good content- NO DONT LOOK AT THAT STORY ITS HIDEOUS-” I know the stories are probably made by different teams so it makes sense that there’s differences in quality but still

Last Legacy and now Roadkill have peaked my interest since I’ve seen you talk about it here (I had never heard of Fictif at all before) but I’ve been a little hesitant to give the games a try because they’re mobile games and frankly I’m not the biggest fan of playing vn style games on mobile, I used to all the time but the grinding for stuff like story keys just to get content that may or may not be good kinda grated on me so I stopped and haven’t looked back. But idk maybe I’ll decide to give Fictif a chance when I have the time, your love for the games are definitely convincing me to give it a shot :)

Also I hope you get better soon and you’re not sick with anything too serious! Take care of yourself!

-🐟

( ok i’ll do proganda about the good game of fictif ask me about htlal on another ask )

Ok so i’ll start by saying that you should def play roadkil, last legacy and monster manor on the fictif app, WITH A CRACKED VERSION! If you have an Android play with a mod app and you won’t have to pay for the special choice ( you still have to wait for keys tho but it’s manageable) I personally use Modyolo. With the mod there is no grind, you just wait for your keys to regenerate to play the chapters.

Why you should play last legacy ? Last legacy is a really well written fantasy romance made by queers, for queers with good queers characters. The narrative is limited but realize that fans of this game haven’t had update in 2 years and we all still love this, that how good the game is for us. What I really appreciate is the approach of the romance, the well-written worldbuilding, and the interesting plot and evolution of the li throughout the story + bonus points the art is really pretty + the music is awesome

This is an otome where you feel the passion of the dev because of all the details and care they put into the characters. It sad that we’ll never get an ending but just because it’s my second favorite otome after Our life i really recomand.

Now another wonderful story on the app is Monster manor. It’s a reviseted tale of beauty and the beast where mc is a reparator that come helps the resident of the manor to fix the place and also fix their issue. Again it’s very well written and although you can get subtile subtext on romance this one is very axed on exploring the character's mental health and their story of self-improvement. ALSO IT HAS A CANON TRANS DRAGON CREATURE WHO’S THE SWEETEST I LOVE HIM HE’S SO WHOLESOME-

Bonus the music is so good i even added it on my spotify- and good art

Monster Manor is one of those stories that leave a very specific feeling in you. I don't know how to describe it but it just has a lot of wholesomeness and character going troughs sad but relatable problems that you see get better and makes you happy that they're healing.

now.... my guilty pleasure.... Roadkil !

THE BROMANCE OF THIS GAME IS SO GOOD I swear

Objectively: This game feels like a wild mess of fan fiction with random scenario after scenario and cliché horror moments, but oh man the ambiance. The best trio of Li, they are close friends, and in the 3 routes the group is just such an amazing friend group. The characters are lovely and it's like reading a bad yet good wattpad fanfic : well written ? no ? But the ideas ? good !

Like i said, this game is based on cliché of horror movies but also on american culture ( which I learned trought this game lol ). It has longer chapters than the other two games (except Tess but Tess got hit by the sexism of a greedy company that wants shirtless men in dating sim to attract gurls ) BUT they all shine.

Poe's route had me ugly crying in the end, Howie's ending is AWFULL but I had a great time, Tess is actually a superbe F Li even whith the dev having to cut her short and ruin her ending, she shine very britgh in the other routes and her own ( for ex she's the one with a shotgun and the one that won you and howie a teddy bear )

I really need more people to play roadkill because it's an underated banger in my opinion and it has many great scenes in the mess of scenarios ( the intro is really good for ecxemple )

Like, when I say not all game needs to be well written? That's what I'm talking about, this one is a hot delightful mess

ANYWAY! My rambling was long but I hope it was interessing !

#fish anon #ask answer #visual novel #fictif app #monster manor fictif #last legacy #fictif roadkill #dreamty's ramble

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artistalley · 2 years

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How do I become a featured artist on Artist Alley?

It’s easy! Just send over an image of your art and a link to your storefront to Artist Alley’s submission box to be considered. Selected artists will be contacted via email. Please include your email address if you want us to contact you at an email address other than the one associated with your Tumblr account. The submissions box only gathers information and will not be made public.

What kind of artwork is Artist Alley looking for?

Anything. Anything! Anything weird, original, funny, cute, strange, beautiful, precious, furry, glittery, oozy, slimy, bubbly, metallic, silky, or fun. Anything! This is your chance to show off what you do best. It just has to be something you created, and it has to adhere to our Community Guidelines. Also, no live frogs. Not again. Not like last time. We can’t go through that again.

Does Tumblr take a cut of the profits?

Tumblr does not take a cut of any purchase of original art from a featured artist’s storefront. When we feature your art, we link directly to your storefront.

What kind of storefront do I need?

You can link to any digital storefront that uses a secure online payment processing system. Some examples of this include WooCommerce, Etsy, Redbubble, Ravelry, or Society6.

What if I don’t have a storefront?

Not a problem, bud. WooCommerce is here for all of your storefront needs. WooCommerce is a customizable, open-source eCommerce platform built on WordPress. They offer a flexible and secure payment system, allow you to manage orders on the go with their iOS and Android mobile apps, and have so many customization options. If you have a WordPress site, setting up your storefront will only take a few minutes. They walk you through everything in their New Store Owner Guide.

…What happened to the frogs?

It’s fine, don’t worry about it. Everything is fine.

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fluidangel · 4 months

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ok since i've been sharing some piracy stuff i'll talk a bit about how my personal music streaming server is set up. the basic idea is: i either buy my music on bandcamp or download it on soulseek. all of my music is stored on an external hard drive connected to a donated laptop that's next to my house's internet router. this laptop is always on, and runs software that lets me access and stream my any song in my collection to my phone or to other computers. here's the detailed setup:

my home server is an old thinkpad laptop with a broken keyboard that was donated to me by a friend. it runs yunohost, a linux distribution that makes it simpler to reuse old computers as servers in this way: it gives you a nice control panel to install and manage all kinds of apps you might want to run on your home server, + it handles the security part by having a user login page & helping you install an https certificate with letsencrypt.

***

to stream my music collection, i use navidrome. this software is available to install from the yunohost control panel, so it's straightforward to install. what it does is take a folder with all your music and lets you browse and stream it, either via its web interface or through a bunch of apps for android, ios, etc.. it uses the subsonic protocol, so any app that says it works with subsonic should work with navidrome too.

***

to listen to my music on my phone, i use DSub. It's an app that connects to any server that follows the subsonic API, including navidrome. you just have to give it the address of your home server, and your username and password, and it fetches your music and allows you to stream it. as mentionned previously, there's a bunch of alternative apps for android, ios, etc. so go take a look and make your pick. i've personally also used and enjoyed substreamer in the past. here are screenshots of both:

***

to listen to my music on my computer, i use tauon music box. i was a big fan of clementine music player years ago, but it got abandoned, and the replacement (strawberry music player) looks super dated now. tauon is very new to me, so i'm still figuring it out, but it connects to subsonic servers and it looks pretty so it's fitting the bill for me.

***

to download new music onto my server, i use slskd which is a soulseek client made to run on a web server. soulseek is a peer-to-peer software that's found a niche with music lovers, so for anything you'd want to listen there's a good chance that someone on soulseek has the file and will share it with you. the official soulseek client is available from the website, but i'm using a different software that can run on my server and that i can access anywhere via a webpage, slskd. this way, anytime i want to add music to my collection, i can just go to my server's slskd page, download the files, and they directly go into the folder that's served by navidrome.

slskd does not have a yunohost package, so the trick to make it work on the server is to use yunohost's reverse proxy app, and point it to the http port of slskd 127.0.0.1:5030, with the path /slskd and with forced user authentification. then, run slskd on your server with the --url-base slskd, --no-auth (it breaks otherwise, so it's best to just use yunohost's user auth on the reverse proxy) and --no-https (which has no downsides since the https is given by the reverse proxy anyway)

***

to keep my music collection organized, i use beets. this is a command line software that checks that all of the tags on your music are correct and puts the file in the correct folder (e.g. artist/album/01 trackname.mp3). it's a pretty complex program with a ton of features and settings, i like it to make sure i don't have two copies of the same album in different folders, and to automatically download the album art and the lyrics to most tracks, etc. i'm currently re-working my config file for beets, but i'd be happy to share if someone is interested.

that's my little system :) i hope it gives the inspiration to someone to ditch spotify for the new year and start having a personal mp3 collection of their own.

#spotify #music #streaming #yunohost #subsonic #soulseek

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awnowimsad · 10 months

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Hi I know you're aroace and aroallo blinkies are about a year old but can you please make an oriented aroace one or at least tell me how I can make one on my android phone?

Hi!! thanks for asking! even tho I haven't posted blinkies in a while it's no problem at all! I made these, I hope you like them! <3

I included the original ones and 3x upscaled ones. Also blank templates if you want to put custom text in them.

Also! I can't really make a proper tutorial rn, but if you or anyone else want to make blinkies on an android I'll still explain how I made it! I actually make blinkies on my pc, but everything can be done on android, too. (under a cut because wrote a bit much)

First you'd need a digital art app that supports layers (so most of them.) I use ibisPaint x which works fine. (though if you want to use it for blinkies or anything like pixel art you should go to the settings and disable "interpolation on zoom-in"!)

Make a canvas that is 150 x 20 px, and then make your background. In this case that was four 5px tall stripes.

Then for the actual blinking part! blinkie patterns are varied ofc but often for the simple ones I'll just copy them from a different blinkie. This one uses a simple pattern based on the pride blinkies from blinkies.cafe. I just changed it so the bottom "stripe" wasn't aligned with the top one, because then the blinkie would be asymmetrical, I prefer it this way.

For the flowing colors animation, you'll need as many frames as there are colors, so 4 in this case. Make the first frame on one layer then make the following frames, each on its own layer, however you want - by drawing them again or copying the previous one and editing it, whatever.

Then save each frame of the blinkie as a .png and plop them all in order in Ezgif gif maker. Change the delay time to 10 (or something like 8 or 12 depending on how you want it). And voila, a blinkie template.

The text! I'll confess for these ones I just made blinkies.cafe blinkies and removed the background. My art program of choice does NOT like pixel text so sometimes it's easier that way.

Anyway! The text! Write something on your canvas, either by hand lettering or with the text option. ibispaint x has some pixel fonts built in you can use.

You can save the individual frames with the text on it, but then you'd have to do it all again if you wanted different text. I prefer making the blank template like I explained.

So you should make the text look how you'd like it to look in the blinkie, and then save the text as a .png with a transparent background. Then go to Ezgif again and use the overlay tool to add your text! And it's done! Hooray!

Of course, if you wanted to add stuff like animated text it'd be more comlicated, but in general this works.

#blinkies #oriented aroace #webcore #stuff I made #eyestrain #flashing #fun fact! I accidentally deleted my response halfway through writing this so I had to rewrite the thing

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barkercast · 1 month

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443 : 31 Projects

Welcome to Episode 443 of the Clive Barker Podcast. The Only Podcast dedicated to the imagination of Clive Barker. I was going to take a vacation, but this news popped up, and it couldn't wait two weeks, so we hopped on Zoom and made a mostly un-edited news episode. In this episode we discuss Clive's recent announcements with Bloody Disgusting, as well as Nightbreed and Peter Atkins updates. Also, do you remember the Poe Project?

Sponsor : Don Bertram's Celebrate Imagination | ETSY Store

Just 2 days ago, The Nibbler was revealed on Facebook. Not on the Etsy Shop.

There are some new paintings on his Etsy shop to check out. Mother and Child II, The Star Gazer, The Folk Singer, The Pearl, Top of the World. And don't forget about is books, The Chimney Sweep's Tale and Celebrate Imagination

News From the Reef

Moontown by Peter Atkins now on Audiobook from Encyclopocalypse

Nightbreed Extended Soundtrack Update

Bloody Disgusting Interview With Clive

Stopping public events, conventions, signings

31 Projects in the works!

Abarat 4 & 5

Book 3 of the Art

Sequel to The Thief of Always

Surprise return visits to characters

“These final convention appearances begin with Days of the Dead Chicago”

Discussion:

The Poe Project that almost was

Patreon Members Shout-Out (Become a Patron)

David Anderson

Erik Van T' Holt

Returning Sponsor: Don Bertram's Celebrate Imagination

Coming Next

Dead Pit

Hellraiser Quartet of Torment Coverage

News Episodes

Jericho Squad 77 Returns

A-Z Commentaries Z for Zombies: Evil Dead 2

More Boom Hellraiser comics discussion

And this podcast, having no beginning will have no end.

web www.clivebarkercast.com

iOS App| Android App, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, Stitcher, Spotify, Pandora, Libsyn, Tunein, iHeart Radio, Pocket Casts, Google Play, Radio.com, DoubleTwist and YouTube and Join the Occupy Midian group

Discord Community

Twitter: @BarkerCast| @OccupyMidian

Buy Our Book: The BarkerCast Interviews Occupy Midian | Hardcover | Kindle | Apple

Become a Patreon Patron

Support the show, Buy a T-Shirt

Opening Music is by Ray Norrish

End Credits Music by Matt Furniss

All Links and show notes in their Entirety can be found at http://www.clivebarkercast.com

New episode of the Clive Barker Podcast

#Clive #Barker #Podcast #Hellraiser

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heartschoicegames · 1 year

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New game! Changeling Charade, by Ruth Vincent

New game! "Changeling Charade" by Ruth Vincent is now available on Steam, and in the Heart's Choice app on iOS and Android. A new love story just in time for Valentine's Day! It's 40% off until February 16.

Masquerade as a noble with fairy magic! What will you risk for your family? For fairy revolution? For true love?

https://www.choiceofgames.com/hearts-choice/changeling-charade/

Changeling Charade is a 450,000-word interactive supernatural romance novel by Ruth Vincent, where your choices control the story. It's entirely text-based—without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

Magic is illegal in the city of New Victoria. That means that Supernaturals--werewolves, djinn, fairies, and more--have started an underground trade in potions and spells. As an impoverished fairy, you’ve joined that trade in hopes of earning a better life for yourself and your family: you’ve become a changeling, transforming yourself to resemble the human noblewoman Lady Constance Weatherby.

Living in Lady Constance’s lavish townhouse, you can wear the finest fashions, attend masked balls, make friends among the nobility, learn the arts from a skilled tutor, even gain an audience with the Queen herself!

But there is more to New Victoria’s high society than meets the eye, and you are not the only one hiding a magical secret. Which noble house conceals a werewolf? Which one has suspicious ties to the shady Potion Market? Not only that, but there are fairy revolutionaries fighting to reverse the laws that forbid magic, and spies among the nobility working for the same cause. Will you join them? Or will you stay in the comfortable human life that you have made for yourself?

And where will you find love? With the distinguished earl that Lady Constance’s overbearing mother hopes to match with her daughter? The fashionable noble with a pet fox and a mischievous smile to match? The penniless tutor, artistic and sincere? Or even the idealistic fairy revolutionary who leads the charge to restore magic?

Play as a woman; gay, straight, bi; poly or monogamous.

Romance a melancholy earl, a mischievous noble, an artistic tutor, or a bold fairy revolutionary.

Uncover the supernatural secrets of New Victoria’s human nobility

Dance at masked balls, attend pastoral picnics, refine your artistic accomplishments - or laugh and drink at a fairy pub.

Find acceptance for your true fairy self - or discover new comfort living as a human

Meet the Queen - or work to overthrow her, or even take her place on the throne!

#heartschoice hearts choice

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cravingforsweetsbooksandpurpose · 2 months

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My Journey on Learning How To Draw

I've always wanted to draw and thought art is very cool. I was intimidated that I'm not good at it. I couldn't even draw a straight line! 😫 But threads on twt had me realize that drawing isn't just about talent, age, and tools. It's all about hardwork, dedication, and practice.

And so I've decided to start learning how to draw! I've been wanting to make my zosan or sanji imagines into fanarts. I wanna draw pretty Sanji too! 🥹 And I wanna post my progress here on Tumblr just for funsies. So here's what I did so far

Day 1

I started to trace one of my favorite Sanji shots in Wano. And you can see how unsteady my hand is 😭 I'm using my phone (android) and the app IbisPaintX with a universal stylus.

I tried to do tracing first to get a feel of what and how much I needed to improve and grow. And I basically don't know anything but trace 😭 While the second and third on were just for funsies when I got comfortable scribbling.

Day 2

Now this is where I'm the happiest and proudest thing I did for this year. Heheh. Day 2 is technically today. And these 2 that I made is what made me want to share my progress here on Tumblr.

The first one's still tracing though and still hasn't finished it yet (hair & bg) but I wanna challenge myself to copy the whole shot which is a big game for someone who doesn't know anything about coloring 😭 but I really wanna push myself and see how far I can go and if I can do it. My lining is still rough and squiggly and I almost gave up when I started coloring. It looks so blah. But I remember all the art shorts/reels/tiktoks I'm always watching and shading/shadow changes everything and I have to be patient. And it paid off 😭 I have a lot to learn but to know that I'm not just grasping straws. Knowing how to work around making art and the basics makes me more comfortable to go into the very basics now. Bc I still don't know shit about proportions, positions, size and anatomy.

Also the second I just did just 2 hrs ago. I really wanna draw chibis and I wanna practice drawing Sanji's hair. Heheh. Still don't know anatomy but thank god IPX has free materials of anything. And scrolling through the chibi trace sketch pose I remember it's near Valentine's so I made this! Took the inspo from the third pic! Bc zosan chibi is so cute!

Most proud of that one. I did it on my own beside the body. It's not the best but it's the cutest thing I made to date.

So that's all!!! Mehehe definitely gonna start the serious anatomy drawing lessons I found on yt tomorrow. Good night everyone!

#learning how to draw #sanji

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satoshi-mochida · 8 months

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PLAYISM and Alphawing announce roguelite action game Metal Bringer for PC

Gematsu Source

Publisher PLAYISM and Samurai Bringer developer Alphawing have announced roguelite action game Metal Bringer for PC. It will launch via Steam in 2024 with English, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese language support.

Get the details below.

About

Samurai Bringer, Alphawing’s previous game, is a Japanese roguelite action game released in 2022, where you play as Susanoo and defeat world-famous Japanese samurai as you collect combat techniques to create your own fighting style. It has received over 800 reviews on Steam with a Very Positive rating. Metal Bringer is the second game in the Bringer series, and this time, the setting is completely different—in this game, you fight in a science-fiction world with androids and giant robots in horde-based combat that’s even more satisfying than the last game, and of course, your combat actions will evolve as you fight. The Steam page is now up, so don’t forget to wishlist the game!

The Story

“The sky is blue, infinitely high, and infinitely vast… Whose words were these again…? Ah, I remember… It was about a virtual reality Rudra told me about. A fairy tale. How many years has it been since humanity took refuge underground? No one alive has ever seen a blue sky. And now, I’m trapped in the depths, in a small, lifeless room. Just how long have I been here…?” A young girl named Suria wakes up in a laboratory and finds out that she has been put in cyrosleep for 1000 years without her knowledge. In order to search for the rest of humanity, she builds Labor with her trusty Buds, and sends them off to investigate…

Highly Customizable Player Characters

Build and control android soldiers called “Labor,” or have them pilot giant machines called “Arms.” Each and every Labor and Arms you build is highly customizable. You can change the color and appearance of their features, or swap out parts to change their fighting styles. The sheer variety in character customization will allow you to create and fight with the mech of your dreams.

The More You Play, the Stronger You Get

In Samurai Bringer, you could mix and match combat techniques to create every step of your very own action combos. But in Metal Bringer, you instead collect “disks,” which contain apps that are installed onto your Labor. These apps strengthen your character and power up your actions in an easier and more intuitive way, making it all the more exciting and satisfying to mow down hordes of enemies as your character keeps growing stronger.

New Technologies, Both Visual and Audio

This game uses the same voxel art style as Samurai Bringer, but just like Samurai Bringer, it also implements a real-time pixel art generating system, and will also feature the newest raytracing technology for beautifully lit environments. The music too is made with the newest technology, as it is played in real time and changes according to the situation.

All-Star Creative Team

The key art and Suria’s character design is done by Suzuhito Yasuda, and on the writing team, we have Sami Shinosaki on board!

Suzuhito Yasuda (Twitter) – Illustrator, manga artist, and character designer for multiple popular games and media, such as Durarara!! and the Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor series.

Sami Shinosaki – Novelist. Known for the novelizations of the Armored Core and Fire Emblem series.

Word from the Developer

Hello, I’m Takahama, the development director at Alphawing. Metal Bringer is set in a completely different world from Samurai Bringer, where you can use humanoid robots called Labor and giant mechs developed from heavy machinery called Arms to wipe out waves and waves of enemies! We’ve developed new technologies for this game, such as a technique that renders pixels in real time, and another technology that plays music in real time to make it feel as if you were accompanied by live music! Right now, we’re preparing a demo that focuses on the battle aspect of the game. We hope a lot of people will stop by our next event to try out the game!

Play the Demo at PAX West 2023

It’s been four whole years since PLAYISM last participated in PAX West, but this year we’ll be there in Seattle, from September 1 to 4! We’ll be showcasing the very first playable demo of Metal Bringer at the PLAYISM booth, so please stop by the Seattle Convention Center to try it out! Everyone who tries out the Metal Bringer demo at the event will receive a special postcard.

Watch the announcement trailer below. View the first screenshots at the gallery.

Announce Trailer

English

youtube

#Metal Bringer #Samurai Bringer #Aphawing #Playism #Rouguelite #Roguelike #Gematsu #Youtube

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