Currently, I've been working on modding OMORI. But I've noticed something--- and that's that there's a lack of tutorials teaching one about RPGMaker through the lens of OMORI and modding.
So @tomatoradio and I have been working on making a set of blog posts to change that.
Presenting:
FruitDragon and TomatoRadio's Guide to Modding Omori!
(note: this is told through the lens of what we learned about modding OMORI through our own pursuits, and if there's anything you want to know that we didn't cover, please shoot me an ask.)
Hey everyone! I think this post will be a bit shorter, but recently, I've been thinking about some of the flowers that appear in Omori that we are never really given an explicit meaning for, and I wanted to talk about something that has come up. Omori spoilers ahead!
So! Obviously, based on the title, you know that the thing I want to talk about here is the use of the daisy in-game. We see it a couple of times in Sunny's dreams, and it's clear that they are associated with Basil. One appears in the Rain Area of Black Space, next to Stranger, where he talks about how Sunny was always someone that he could depend on.
And then, when you get to Neighbor's Bedroom in the Omori route, you will have a daisy, rather than a sunflower, in the lineup of all the friend's flowers.
Finally, Home for Flowers (Daisy) is the version of Basil's theme that plays just prior to the truth segment.
So, where does this association come from?
The first thing to note is that when Basil talks about sunflowers, he never says that he is a sunflower, only that he wants to be like a sunflower. The second thing to note is that in the game itself, there is no indication in the real world at any point that Basil ever assigned the daisy to himself. Some people say that the flower he wears in his hair is a pink daisy, but Basil's flower clip does not match up with how daisies are depicted in-game or in art, mostly due to the number of petals.
There isn't really any evidence for this one way or the other, but I personally believe that this is an association that Sunny himself made at some point, and that Basil doesn't even know about it. Like sunflowers, daisies can represent loyalty, and they have other meanings as well, such as innocence or purity.
However, the most relevant meaning, in my opinion, is its Victorian meaning representing the "ability to keep a secret".
Now, there is one big reason that Sunny would associate Basil with keeping a secret in the modern day, and I assume that that isn't something that I have to mention here. However, Sunny already notes Basil as someone that enjoys keeping secrets. Take a look at Memory Lane:
In the Treehouse Memory, Basil revels in his winning hand, and teases the others with his secret.
In the Beach Memory, we are given an example of Basil taking a picture of Aubrey without her knowledge, which is something that he prefers overall, as mentioned a couple times in the game.
In the Picnic Memory, we see Basil planning to hide a flaw with one of his photos (Hector's poop in the background) so that he can still include it in the photo album.
In the Rainy Day Memory, he of course promises to keep Sunny's crush on Aubrey a secret.
In the Birthday Memory, he teases the others by refusing to tell them what his wish is for.
And finally, in the Christmas Memory, we find out that Sunny's violin was actually Basil's idea in the first place, and that he successfully kept this a secret from Sunny even as the entire group was working the entire Summer to save up for it.
I'm not sure that Basil would ever assign a flower to himself based on his love of secrets, but Sunny's repeated memories of it make it likely that he would assign it to him, especially since Basil seemingly refused to assign a flower to himself.
This has all been pretty straightforward, but I want to hop into some possible connections that I've never seen discussed. Bear with me, because this link is going to sound tenuous at first.
First, take a look at the way the daisy in the Rain Area is referred to:
If we hop into the sorting minigame in the Omori route, one of the things we find this:
I promise this isn't as insane as it sounds I hope
So, most of the things that we go through in the sorting minigame have a direct link in Headspace. The similar wording is interesting, but my attention would not have been drawn to it if there weren't something more.
Let's rewind way back to the beginning of the game, during the prologue.
One of the first quests that the player is able to access (and I believe the only quest that the player can start while Basil is still in the party during the prologue) is entitled "Daisy's Dilemma". It can be and usually is completed during the prologue. Daisy is looking for some help in finding a gift that she can gift to her crush. When you get to Otherworld, you will find the "Flower Puzzle", which you can then give to her to pass on to Neb, her crush.
Ignoring the obvious implications of having such a quest so early on in the game with what we will later learn about daisies, I want to take a look at the puzzle itself.
The description of the puzzle in your inventory calls it "A perfect combination of flower and puzzle". The word "perfect" is of note here, with the very specific use of it throughout the game, especially as it pertains to Basil. But more than that: take a look at the icon for it:
The puzzle piece on the right, to me, pretty clearly shows a daisy, which leaves us with little triangle of evidence including a flower puzzle depicting a daisy given to a crush in Headspace by someone that loves flowers named Daisy, a single daisy depicted next to Stranger in Black Space (along with other evidence in the game linking Basil to Daisies), and a single puzzle piece that can be found among Sunny's belongings during the Omori route.
I realize that this may be a stretch to some, but I absolutely see this triangle of daisies and puzzles to be intentional.
So, is there anything else going on here that we should take note of?
Well, Daisy doesn't appear to have a direct analogue in the real world. You might be able to say she represents Bebe, who is said to have bad taste in men, and we see develop a crush on the Maverick throughout the real world sections of the game. I do find this a little unlikely, as Bebe seems unaware who the Maverick is at all, and doesn't seem to have any connection to Angel, who is represented by Neb.
Now Neb is very interesting. He clearly is representative of Angel, but it's kind of hard to tell due to their differences in personalities. To my knowledge, Angel is never really associated with puzzles in the real world, though he is pretty immature overall, and spends time at Hobbeez and enjoys games. The fact that his name is "Neb" is something that I find interesting, though, as this makes him the only one on the playground, based on a real person from Sunny's life, who's name seems irrelevant to his namesake.
I've wondered for awhile what the reason for this was. Recently, I discovered that one of the definitions for neb refers to a snout or nose. As luck would have it, there is another playground kid that is named Nose!
So Nose is one of only three of the playground kids that do not appear to be based off of a real person, including her best friend Bun, and the aforementioned Daisy. Like some of the others, she is based off of one of Sunny's plushies, though her and Bun do not appear to also be influenced by the younger tutoring kids in the same way Brows, Bangs, and Happy are. If you take a look at the photo album, you will find Nose in one of the pictures, being cuddled by both Aubrey and Basil.
And let's also take a look at some of the few lines of dialogue for Nose and Bun:
The term "best friend" has some pretty specific usage throughout the game. While Sunny himself appears to apply the term generally to his friend group, the real Basil is only ever shown to use it when referring to Sunny. Not to mention, the way that Bun is talking here is very reminiscent of the first few pictures of the photo album, in which Basil refers to Sunny as his best friend, as well as shy.
After playing hide and seek, Bun and Nose will play patty cake together.
The reason this is so interesting is due to the implications later on that Sunny himself was involved in the making of Basil's birthday cake, or at least learned the recipe for it at some point.
And there are some surface level similarities between Sunny and Angel that could've resulted in Angel being the one to play this role in Headspace. Both are the youngest in their respective friend groups, and Angel is seemingly raised by an overbearing older sister, with his parents nowhere in sight. He even has a "Foe Factx!" journal in his room that you can find, similar to the one that Sunny has in his dreams.
None of these characters really have a whole lot to say other than what we've gone over, but I also want to bring up the item that you get for completing this quest.
She gives you a Daisy charm, which allows the wearer to start the battle happy. I'm not sure it means much, but the two other charms that make the wearer happy are the Heart String and the Wedding Ring, which both use some fairly romantic imagery, and are easily missed by most players. The Heart String is available in the room in Humphrey in which you are chased by the cat monster thing. This is also the same room where you can get the blender item for Hero (relevant due to the smoothies being organized by Basil's tastes). This probably isn't an intentional connection, but it is also soon after the Branch Coral, which includes the line about Basil and Sunny being "tied by a string of fate". The Wedding Ring is of course given to the player by Spaceboy at the end of the Omori route.
Now, you might find a lot of this to be a little bit out there, especially with the connection to the puzzle piece that Sunny has in his belongings. However, I hope that this has at least shown that there is likely a connection between this first side quest that you can take and Basil.
Finally, while real world Basil is never depicted with daisies in-game, he is shown with one in some post-release official art.
The birthday pictures, and especially this last one for Basil's birthday, are notable for including pink daisies rather than white ones. Relying too much on flower meanings is kind of rough because most flowers have a lot of different possible meanings, and I don't like using art from outside of the game, since it really shouldn't be taken as canon, but I have seen that pink daisies can be given to someone to confess your feelings, and I believe that this birthday picture was the 143rd post to the Omori Instagram page, though don't quote me on that.
Hey all! Two posts in one day, wow! This is actually more of a quick follow-up to my post about Sunny and cooking, but I decided to put it as it's own post since it's more related to food in general. Slight Omori Spoilers ahead?
I briefly mentioned it in that post, but there is something interesting going on with the smoothies that you can find within Headspace.
(We're going to not include the Dino Smoothie, as the Dino snacks are kind of in a class of their own and "Dino" isn't a flavor.
So based on the descriptions, something that is immediately obvious is that these are not organized by how much Sunny likes each individual flavor, as if it was, it'd probably have Berry at the bottom, then Banana, followed by Strawberry, then Mango, and finally Melon.
In addition, they aren't organized by healthiness, either, as the Berry Smoothie would be at the top if that were the case.
So how are they organized? Well, they appear to be organized by Basil's preferences.
Basil says in the Birthday Memory:
and then, regarding Bananas:
Obviously, we don't have a full rundown of Basil's fruit preferences, but I think these being the two that are put at the top and bottom is enough to assume that that is the order that Sunny's mind went with here.
However, the fun smoothie facts don't end there. Meet Budgirl:
There are nine of these little fellas all in one area. Off the rip, they take the form of a tulip with it's color changed to match Basil's flower charm. It has a face that resembles a face that Sunny makes several times in the photo album, and it makes a "meowing" sound sometimes when you interact with it. It's the same audio as when Claus or Mewo meow.
More importantly, whenever you interact with the central one, there is a 20% chance that you will receive a Mango, Berry, Melon, or Strawberry Smoothie. This is also the only repeatable and reliable way to get Strawberry Smoothies, as they are the only smoothie that cannot be purchased anywhere, so it's either this or going with the 2% chance you get from fighting Strawberry Short Snakes.
I just think it's a little adorable that this even exists, a pink version of the flower Basil associated with Sunny, which dispenses smoothies excluding Basil's least favorite flavor, and which is the only way to reliably get the smoothie that his most favorite flavor!
As one last aside, Sunny does appear to know that that tofu can be used in the making of smoothies, according to the chef mole...
And what really ties all this together in a real way is that despite never really appearing in the real world, blenders appear often in key areas of Headspace (and even in a version of Sunny's kitchen in Black Space!) The Blender weapon for Hero is one that's easily missed while getting chased by Experiment 667 in Humphrey, and is in the same area as the "Heart String" charm, which makes the wearer happy (like the Daisy and Wedding Ring, no less).
What I'm getting at is Sunny likely used his book about tofu to learn how to make smoothies with or for his best friend Basil. Heck, the ingredients you are collecting for Hero are linked to Basil already, and use tofu sprites!
Sunny after the good ending! Still depressed and socially anxious, but at least he has his friends back... after they recovered from the shock of the truth.
I'm trying to get used to drawing these characters correctly, I don't think it looks quite right yet, but I'm getting there!
Hi so it was @/zoewillowz 's (on IG/twt) birthday last week and to compensate for being late I made it a big batch (also because I'm a big Slayer AU fan)
Anyway I love photobomb can y'all tell
Slayer is so cool guys
If you haven't already/didn't know about this, this is a fic on AO3!! Aubrey the Vampire Slayer :)) I highly recommend it<3
Happy belated birthday zoë please forgive me for posting an Interloper comic on your birthday LMAO
