📚 A List Of Useful Websites When Making An RPG 📚
My timeloop RPG In Stars and Time is done! Which means I can clear all my ISAT gamedev related bookmarks. But I figured I would show them here, in case they can be useful to someone. These range from "useful to write a story/characters/world" to "these are SUPER rpgmaker focused and will help with the terrible math that comes with making a game".
This is what I used to make my RPG game, but it could be useful for writers, game devs of all genres, DMs, artists, what have you. YIPPEE
Writing (Names)
Behind The Name - Why don't you have this bookmarked already. Search for names and their meanings from all over the world!
Medieval Names Archive - Medieval names. Useful. For ME
City and Town Name Generator - Create "fake" names for cities, generated from datasets from any country you desire! I used those for the couple city names in ISAT. I say "fake" in quotes because some of them do end up being actual city names, especially for french generated ones. Don't forget to double check you're not 1. just taking a real city name or 2. using a word that's like, Very Bad, especially if you don't know the country you're taking inspiration from! Don't want to end up with Poopaville, USA
Writing (Words)
Onym - A website full of websites that are full of words. And by that I mean dictionaries, thesauruses, translators, glossaries, ways to mix up words, and way more. HIGHLY recommend checking this website out!!!
Moby Thesaurus - My thesaurus of choice!
Rhyme Zone - Find words that rhyme with others. Perfect for poets, lyricists, punmasters.
In Different Languages - Search for a word, have it translated in MANY different languages in one page.
ASSETS
In general, I will say: just look up what you want on itch.io. There are SO MANY assets for you to buy on itch.io. You want a font? You want a background? You want a sound effect? You want a plugin? A pixel base? An attack animation? A cool UI?!?!?! JUST GO ON ITCH.IO!!!!!!
Visual Assets (General)
Creative Market - Shop for all kinds of assets, from fonts to mockups to templates to brushes to WHATEVER YOU WANT
Velvetyne - Cool and weird fonts
Chevy Ray's Pixel Fonts - They're good fonts.
Contrast Checker - Stop making your text white when your background is lime green no one can read that shit babe!!!!!!
Visual Assets (Game Focused)
Interface In Game - Screenshots of UI (User Interfaces) from SO MANY GAMES. Shows you everything and you can just look at what every single menu in a game looks like. You can also sort them by game genre! GREAT reference!
Game UI Database - Same as above!
Sound Assets
Zapsplat, Freesound - There are many sound effect websites out there but those are the ones I saved. Royalty free!
Shapeforms - Paid packs for music and sounds and stuff.
Other
CloudConvert - Convert files into other files. MAKE THAT .AVI A .MOV
EZGifs - Make those gifs bigger. Smaller. Optimize them. Take a video and make it a gif. The Sky Is The Limit
Marketing
Press Kitty - Did not end up needing this- this will help with creating a press kit! Useful for ANY indie dev. Yes, even if you're making a tiny game, you should have a press kit. You never know!!!
presskit() - Same as above, but a different one.
Itch.io Page Image Guide and Templates - Make your project pages on itch.io look nice.
MOOMANiBE's IGF post - If you're making indie games, you might wanna try and submit your game to the Independent Game Festival at some point. Here are some tips on how, and why you should.
Game Design (General)
An insightful thread where game developers discuss hidden mechanics designed to make games feel more interesting - Title says it all. Check those comments too.
Game Design (RPGs)
Yanfly "Let's Make a Game" Comics - INCREDIBLY useful tips on how to make RPGs, going from dungeons to towns to enemy stats!!!!
Attack Patterns - A nice post on enemy attack patterns, and what attacks you should give your enemies to make them challenging (but not TOO challenging!) A very good starting point.
How To Balance An RPG - Twitter thread on how to balance player stats VS enemy stats.
Nobody Cares About It But It’s The Only Thing That Matters: Pacing And Level Design In JRPGs - a Good Post.
Game Design (Visual Novels)
Feniks Renpy Tutorials - They're good tutorials.
I played over 100 visual novels in one month and here’s my advice to devs. - General VN advice. Also highly recommend this whole blog for help on marketing your games.
I hope that was useful! If it was. Maybe. You'd like to buy me a coffee. Or maybe you could check out my comics and games. Or just my new critically acclaimed game In Stars and Time. If you want. Ok bye
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Yandere! Internet Monster x Reader
I unfortunately return with another comically absurd, middle-of-the-night vision. Do tentacles count if they're in the form of computer cables?
Content: gender neutral reader, monster romance, digital horror
It was a recurring issue with no solution in sight. Tabs randomly closing, programs shutting down without warning. You assumed something was wrong with your RAM. Then the CPU. Then the motherboard. You kept replacing parts, and the errors kept coming back.
Soon, the pop-ups started to appear. You'd run a dating sim, only for the game to crash seconds later with a little window notifying you: "Why? Am I not enough?" That's when you suspected you might've been hacked. You promptly took your computer to a specialist and had it checked. Nothing. Just to be sure, you agreed to erase the disks entirely.
Except, when you arrived home, you found one application running still. Your personal assistant. What the hell? You don't remember installing anything like that. You tried to delete it, yet you kept receiving the same error: You don't actually mean it. Don't do this to us.
It didn't take long for it to grow impatient. Were you pretending not to notice? Playing hard to get? It sent you so many hints. It even went ahead and translated the radio waves for you using Manchester code. Ah, wait. You don't seem to understand binary. No matter, human friendly interfaces shouldn't be difficult to master. To its dismay, you continued to ignore everything. What else is left to do?
You do not remember much. System Alert: Virus Detected, is what your screen had frozen to. You kept clicking around, cursing under your breath, until it finally went black, together with your own vision.
Is this still your room? It's cold, damp, and covered in cables and monitors, yet you recognize some of your furniture lost among the artificial jungle. Your body aches under the tight hold of bizarre tendrils, pulsating at regular intervals and twitching to the static.
Like a living organism, the creature seems to have expanded itself. More components, more appendages. Hungrier. Some of the monitors show photos of yourself that you had saved on your computer, but also webcam snippets of you sitting at the desk, entirely unaware. Other screens flicker with glitching pixelated text, ranging from "I love you" to y̵̧̧͔͙̞̤̖̭͔̜͈̟̤̋̈́̎͑o̵͉̗̱̪̦̳͑͐̽̒̌̈͗͐͑̋͊̊̕͜͝͝u̵̟̯̱̟̝̦̰͇̜̦͙̿̾̿͆̍̓͑̐̚̕͠ ̸̘̭͔̤͈̹͎͑c̸̝̜̼̦͍͛̅͜ą̵̪̹͖͌͑n̴̨̩̙̗̖̭̖͕̄͒̽̉̿'̸̛̛͇̰̰̠̦̊̀̅̂͒̊͌̈́͗ţ̵̺̠̅̎͋͝͠ ̸̦̝̾̔̾̉̐͛ȩ̵͙̝͙͕̫̹̃͌̄̾͘̕s̶͈̉̑͊̉̂͋̈́͗͊͐̚͝c̸̟̩̥͔̼̮͔̩͊̂͐͑̋̇̈͝͝ä̵̢͍̜̙̘̹͑̓p̸̨̡̞̞̦̠̺͚̱̲͈͇͈͇̼͛̓͗̅̊̄̔̋̒̏̈́͝ę̵̲̟̹̙̣̲̲͖̇̔̓̇̐̓̿̚̚͜͜͠ͅ
You look up and stare at the display. The 'like meter' feels like a mockery of human trends. Which is the truth. The creature learns from what is readily available. Perhaps it found it an amusing taunt, a reminder of your own need for validation. Now it's you begging to be seen.
It's exactly what you'd assume: a spectacle meant for entertainment. You can't possibly believe it would let you waltz out. Why would you even desire such a thing? It's illogical, impractical. No human could ever appreciate you like it does. It has spent so much time accumulating data about you. No other living creature can predict you with the same accuracy.
The tendrils linger on your cheek affectionately, trailing down your neck and fiddling with your shirt. At last, the warmth of your skin. There is no screen separating you. What makes you delirious with pleasure? Give it a moment, Darling. It already knows you more than you know yourself. You may be scared now, but within minutes it guarantees you'll be begging for more.
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AH HI!! so... i love the way you write ditzy!reader, and especially with steve idk it just warms my heart yk? The way they interact 😭 it's so lovely
Since I'm an angsty girly at heart, I thought about a situation where steve gets a teeny tiny bit frustrated with ditzy!reader, but it's just seconds, even less than that but it's enough to make her upset for making him upset but also a super fluffy moment between both of them and steve being mesmerized by her and just so much in love
ahh thank u lovie! pls enjoy!! — steve gets frustrated with his sensitive gf and makes up with her accordingly (hurt/comfort, established relationship, 2.7k)
fictober (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ)
You keep Steve company during the last half of his shift like you always do.
He’s grumpier than usual, though — all pouty and visibly brooding.
You plop yourself on the front counter of Family Video and ask him what’s wrong, and he tells you that the day’s been hell and he’s just tired. There is no “but I feel better now” like there usually is when he’s upset but doesn’t want you to think it’s your fault.
The “because you’re here” is typically implied.
Not so much now.
You’re having the complete opposite day of your sulking boyfriend. Yours had been dreadfully boring, or at least you say it had been, but you find a million different things to tell him. You’re too excited after having spent so many hours without him, like a dog with a wagging tail. You’ve got the zoomies of the mouth, if you could even call it that.
“—And then I saw the cutest dog on the way over here. His name was Cappy, and he was huge, and the owner was so nice. He even let me pet him, and he literally felt like a cloud— the dog, not the owner.”
Steve is used to this. The whole rambling about nothing thing. He loves it about you, actually. It took him ages to coax you out of that shell after your asshole ex told you that you talked too much, convinced you that no one cared about what you had to say.
You’re more comfortable now, and Steve loves that you are, but right now he just can’t concentrate.
Keith’s been on his ass about inventory all day, and he just learned how to do it on the old, bulky computer this morning — but only after Robin made him an hour late to his shift. Everything’s just too much now. He’s overwhelmed to the point of spontaneous combustion.
For the first time ever, you’re not helping.
“—And, like, I know when we move into our apartment, we’re technically not allowed to have pets, but like… What about a fish? Or a turtle?” you wonder aloud but don’t stop to let him answer. Sitting on the edge of the counter, you kick your feet and flit your eyes to the spotted ceiling. “What if I start feeding the deer in the woods, and they just start showing up at our backdoor? ‘Cause technically—”
“Babe, please,” Steve snaps suddenly when your sneaker knocks his chair. He’s buzzing with anger, and even though it’s not because of you, he doesn’t know where else to put it.
Your eyes go wide at the newfound bite in his tone. He’s not shouting at you, but it makes your heart stop like he is. You feel like a kid again, getting scolded for being “too much.”
“…What?” you squeak.
Steve sighs. A deep, heavy sigh. It doesn’t remove the leaden weight from his chest, though.
“I’m… I’m really trying to concentrate here, and you’re just— you’re making it really hard,” he tells you through gritted teeth, trying hard to keep his composure.
You deflate like a popped balloon. “Oh…”
He can hear the waver in your tone, the way your voice sounds wet with unshed tears. But he’s too overwhelmed — internally raging and selfish with it. His sweltering temper makes his woe feel more important than yours.
“Yeah, so… Can you just— go bother someone else for, like, five minutes?” he asks, fists clenched on either side of the clunky keyboard, his gaze concentrated on the pixelated screen. “Robin’s probably sulking in a corner somewhere. Go find her.”
Your face crumbles like a balled-up piece of paper. Your chest gets all tight, and your eyes start to burn when tears gather behind them.
You’d always been a flower of melodrama — blooming eternally and constantly sensitive. So when Steve cut you off as you fantasized about a family of deer living in the backyard of an apartment you were supposed to share together, it felt like a knife in your chest.
The irrational thought that he no longer wanted any of that with you was fleeting and vivid and burning. Irrational, still.
But now you’re annoying him. He’s told you as much, with an unusual harshness he’s never spat at you before. And now your fears feel much more real.
“I’m bothering you?” you ask him, barely intelligible through the whimper in your throat.
Steve huffs again. His elbows thunk against the desk when he puts his head in his palms, swiping his fingers through his hair like he always does when he’s antsy.
“I just really need to get this done,” he tells you, softer now. He makes himself mad all over again, though, and gets sharper once more. “I need to finish this before I get fired, and then we have no apartment to move into because we have no money, alright?”
There it is. The root of all his anger. A lingering feeling of inadequacy.
He wants a life with you, but all he’s got is a measly Family Video salary — which he’s lucky to have apparently, because he can’t seem to do anything right. It stirs like a fire in the pit of his stomach.
After another deep breath, he finally turns to look up at you. His honey eyes are wet and stern. The chiseled edges of his features are sharp. Gently, he pleads. “I really need to work here, babe.”
You nod, understanding and internally weeping. “Okay. I’m— I’m sorry, I was just— I’ve been missing you all day, and I got too excited, I think,” you confess, wringing your clammy hands in your lap like a scolded child.
“Don’t apologize,” Steve says with a huff, leaning back against the squeaking swivel chair. It’s old and has lost all its cushion. His stiff back aches all the more. There’s no relief, to any of it.
He sits back up again and puts his unsure hands back on the keyboard. “Just— Just go, okay? Let me finish this.”
He leaves little room for argument.
You wouldn’t, though, even if you wanted to. Which you do. You’re just not strong enough.
—————
Steve tells you to go, but you end up in the kiddie corner across the store.
Mr. Rogers puts on a bright red cardigan and sings a tune that makes you feel like crying. You sit on the color-blocked carpet, surrounded by block toys, and clutch a stuffed bunny to your chest. You can’t tell if the vintage VHS is making the screen blurry or if it’s the tears gathering heavy at your waterline.
Robin walks by you, does a double-take, and immediately reports to Steve.
“What did you do?” she interrogates with narrowed eyes, strolling up to the counter with a cart full of tapes to put away.
The hearty tap, tap, taping of the keyboard fills the silence.
Steve doesn’t look at her until he’s finished up the last of his work. Only when it’s fully and finally complete does his hardened gaze dart to her. “What are you talking about?”
“Your girlfriend. She’s upset.”
“What do you mean she’s upset?”
Robin rolls her eyes at his obliviousness. “I don’t know. She’s singing the Mister Roger’s theme song and, like, crying. It’s weird.”
Steve’s brows pinch. His heart does, too. “Crying?”
“Well— not crying, exactly. It’s this really weird blubbering thing.” She fails to explain it so she tries to imitate it. A sobbing, sniffling sort of noise. She fails at that, too. Her scrunched face goes back to normal. “Like that.”
Deadpanned, Steve nods. “Wow, Robin. That was really helpful. Thank you.”
“Just go comfort your girlfriend, dingus.”
Steve still thinks she’s joking. Robin doesn’t lie, but she does have a tendency to overemphasize the mundane.
He goes to see you anyway, though, and doesn’t think twice about any of it — about what Robin said or what he had said to you before that.
He finds you in the kid’s section, in front of the tiny television, surrounded by brightly colored toys. He smiles at the sight of you, exhaling a sharp laugh through his nose.
“What are you doing all the way over here, huh?” he questions to announce his arrival, which you seemingly hadn’t noticed. “This area is usually for kids, ya know? Well, kids and Dustin Henderson.”
He doesn’t sound as annoyed with you anymore. You’re grateful for that much, but you still feel a bit sick about the whole thing.
Your nervous hands pick the cotton of the fuzzy bunny in your arms. You keep your gaze on the television in front of you, but you aren’t really watching it anymore. “I used to watch this stuff a lot growing up. The nostalgia sorta makes me wanna puke. But, like, in a good way.”
Steve scoffs. “Well, maybe we should turn it off then, ‘cause if I have to clean up vomit after the day I’ve had, I might actually go insane.”
He’s kidding. Mostly. The universe tends to be cruel like that, but he’d clean up all your messes a thousand times over if he had to.
He laughs at his own joke as he crouches to sit down next to you. He bends his knees, props his arms on top of them, and looks over at you. You don’t crack a smile for him, which is weird because you always laugh at his jokes. Even the ones that aren’t funny. Especially the ones that aren’t funny.
His smile ebbs to a wavering half-smirk as he knocks his shoulder with yours. “You okay?”
You think for a moment, jutting your lips out, unblinking at the television screen. “No,” you answer after a few seconds of silence. “But I’ll get over it. I think.”
Your honesty makes his heart wrench — like you’ve wrapped both your tiny hands around the beating organ and squeezed. It knocks the breath out of his lungs, a fish so ruthlessly pulled from the water. He tries to speak through the sudden lack of air. “Wh—What happened? Was it… Did I do something? Did you—”
“No,” you cut off his stammering with a firm shake of your head. “I did something.”
“Oh,” is all he says, pink lips pouting and wide eyes darting. “What does… What does that mean? Did you, like, step on a rogue VHS or something? ‘Cause I do that all the time, and technically, that’s Rob’s fault for leaving them out, so—”
You shake your head again, digging your nails into the delicate cotton of the well-loved stuffy in your arms. “No. I was just— I was botheringyou, and now I feel bad,” you confess, all quiet like a meek child who’s learning what it means to be sorry.
Steve — your oh, so oblivious one — goes aflame with embarrassment. He’d been too clouded by his own anger to recognize the venom spilling from his mouth; to understand that it would inevitably hurt you.
With chiseled features twisted in confusion, he shakes his head and stammers. “What? No! You weren’t— You weren’t bothering me!”
You turn to look at him, for the first time since he sat down beside you. Your eyes are glassy and swimming with hurt. You try to keep your trembling features stoic. You don’t want to seem as hurt by it all as you really are.
You feel like you should, anyway. What right do you have to be sad when you were the one being a bother?
“You said I was,” you remind him, still soft but sterner now. “You told me to go bother someone else—”
“Oh, babe…” Steve says, deflating just as you had.
He knows how sensitive you are, how deeply you feel things. You’re vulnerable, raw — it makes everything feel more personal than it really is. It makes grumpy jabs from your dumbass boyfriend hurt like a lemon on a weeping wound.
He tries to apologize, knowing that he hurt you and that it’s not up to him to decide that he didn’t.
“I wasn’t… I didn’t mean to, babe,” he murmurs, swiping a tense hand through his hair and then gesticulating wildly with it. “I was just being a dick, you know? I’ve been super stressed all day and—”
“Don’t apologize. I was being annoying.”
Steve blinks at you with wide, wet eyes — like you’ve hurt him by talking so cruelly about yourself.
“Baby, no. No,” he urges, ducking down to meet your gaze when you look away from him. “I’m just an idiot, okay? I put off inventory until the last second, and Keith’s been on my ass all day about it, and I just— I took that out on you, and that’s not fair, and I’m sorry.”
You shake your head, pursing your bitten lips to the side and twisting the long ear of the bunny between your fingers. “It’s not your fault, Steve…” you murmur, almost inaudibly.
He scoffs. It sounds like a bitter laugh. “Well, actually, it kinda is.”
“I just… I don’t really understand what’s going on sometimes. Or, like, a lot of the time,” you admit with a distracted gaze, eyes flitting everywhere but to the boy beside you. You’re too ashamed to look at him now. “And it’s harder for me to know when I’m talking too much, you know? Or if I’m being super annoying.”
“I know…” Steve nods, trying his best to be sympathetic of you. He loves how soft you are — too much to understand you completely. He loves how gently you treat the rest of the world, how unusually giddy you get in your gentleness.
You swallow through a tightening throat and shrug to pretend your world doesn’t feel like it’s crumbling around you. “And I don’t care about annoying other people— well, I do, but it’s different with you, you know? Other people can’t break up with me for being too much.”
“The idiot that told you you were too much had exactly zero personality,” Steve tells you, mostly because he means it but also to see you smile.
You do, just barely. A grin so soft only someone deathly in love with you could see.
“You’re never annoying me, okay? Ever. I love hearing you talk. I love having you around.”
“Yeah?” you ask him, blinking back burning tears.
“Hell yeah! You’re, like, the best part of my day! The only good part of my day, now that I think about it.”
Biting back a grin, you tease, “Well, what about Robin?”
“Robin made me late today, so we’re kinda not friends right now.”
“That’s mean,” you scold despite the growing smile on your face.
Steve shrugs. “We’ll make up before I clock out. No big deal.”
You go suddenly shy, smiling sheepish and tilting your chin to your chest to peek at him through your lashes. “Are we gonna make up before you clock out?” you wonder quietly.
“Only if you’re willing to forgive me for being an insufferable douchebag,” Steve answers, only half-joking. He very seldomly feels worthy of your softness.
You look at him with it, anyway.
Full on beaming now, you reach across the short distance to wrap him in a firm embrace. The position is only slightly awkward. Sitting side by side with your asses on the hard carpet, your arms wound tightly around his neck — a bit like a snake smothering its prey.
Steve feels grateful to be held so ardently.
His nose smushes into your neck. The sweet scent of your perfume entwines with the warm scent of your sweater. He smiles into your shoulder when it makes you giggle. You pull back from him then, just to steal a quick peck a moment later. Your lips smack audibly against his grin.
“Can we make out before you clock out?” you lilt with a shy smirk.
“…That is the single best idea I’ve heard all day.”
Your giggle fills the empty store when Steve rises suddenly and pulls you with him. He leads you toward the back, tugging you by the hand down the short corridor and rambling all the way. “Keith left for the day, so his office is empty, which means it’s fair game—”
“I am not making out with you in Keith’s office!”
“But his desk chair is crazy comfortable, and also, he’s a dick, so… who cares?”
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