Lovestitch Devlog

A Devlog from conceptualization to realization, hopefully!

[lovestitch-game]

Lovestitch🪡

Meowdy! I'm mini, hopefully future dev of an indy game inspired by 3DS era JRPGs!

This blog is for any work i talk about or do on the game that i want to share!

[lovestitch-game]

Sheer: I still think living entirely in reality without fantasy is the way to go.

King Hem: gods, you and your ideology are impossible, die

Sheer (who is visibly a ghost): (¬ࡇ¬)

[lovestitch-game]

I was just struck by a thought: what do common clothes look like for the plushkin? Well, going by my own theming conventions, they'd pawbably wear blankets or other rectangular fabrics draped in various fashions over their body. I'm gonna be pulling a lot of references from stuff like this post for clothing. It's not about matching the style for historical purposes but instead to build off the idea of wearing blankets as clothing but also to help sleep, not wanting to cut them up lest they lose their ability to keep the plushkin warm

[lovestitch-game]

While most of the game follows a sewing and general textile theme for pulling together the world, the rest is all wish fulfillment, and weapon designs are definitely falling into the latter category.

I want to avoid stereotypical JRPG weaponry for Lovestitch; no swords, rods, staves, or daggers allowed, save for the Relic Needle and Scissors which are like swords. I've been trying to come up with my own things that better fit my imagination, but it's been a struggle to come up with more than four potential ideas.

I'm tired of the way claw weapons are stereotypically set up, where the blades are positioned on the back of the hand and thus mew mostly have to keep mewr fist closed to wield them, so the most wish-fulfilling weapon design will be claw gauntlets. As the name kinda hints at, the blades or puncturing points are on the digits/fingers rather than extending from the back of the hand. As a plus side, mew can mix up your slashes with punches too! It's the weapon class i've put the most thought into

Next up are weapons i can't really easily describe with a short name, but it sorta fits the theme of the claw gauntlets: weaponized leg armor. The way i envision them in my head is that the armor goes from upper thigh to the bottom of the shin and the expected damage-dealing spot is on the shin. Since these are plushies fighting, they've got no shin bones to worry about and this is as good a weapon as any. I want to call them something like "combat greaves" but that excludes the the cuisses which are still important for kneeing attacks.

All the remainder of the ideas are weaker than those two. I had mind to go with an idea where weapons and armor slots would all be the same and the armors mew equip could be for damage or defense and it was up to mew to balance them but the more i thought about it the more it either limited weapon ideas or forced the need for more armor slots.

I COULD make an armor slot for shoes specifically and then make a weapon that's essentially ice skates weaponized but then I'd have a shoes armor slot to deal with.

I could keep it down to head, body, arms, and legs for armor slots but then I'd need a decently varied pool of weapons to put in there. All this not to mention that i haven't even come up with a magic focused weapon yet! There's much idea work to be done to get this system fine-tuned and i'm still working on it!

[lovestitch-game]

So it turns out what i really needed was to type out my thoughts on it, because that very day and the day after and even today some new ideas have been flowing into my head.

Shortly after writing this i was thinking of articles of clothing i'm rather fond of and recalled a certain class of weapons from a non-jrpg 3DS game called Palms, and then a few ideas struck me all at once.

To guarantee the player has at least some form of defense, the chest armor slot will be exclusively for armor, but armor will come in one of three types or hybrids of those three types: Defense focused, Physical Damage focused, Magical Damage focused.

The physical damage head gear to match the weapons listed in the previous post could be some kind of biting implement, something that covers the mouth and opens and closes with the wearer's mouth to simulate and empower biting

the magical weapon for arms could be a sort of casting focus that's worn on the arm, something like a ribbon arm wrap that connects at and sort of draws the eyes towards the hands of the wearers

the magical weapon for legs could build off the idea of something-like-ice-skates i listed above. the whole Fabric of Noxlyte isn't icy, but if mew're using magic to float just a bit off the ground mew could feasibly still "skate" everywhere, maybe with some kind of glitter particle keeping mew afloat. combat and spellcasting with these might look something like dancing, and they could look something like slippers.

the magical weapon for headgear could be a blindfold, this one makes more sense if mew know how magic works in the game, but i haven't posted about it yet so to summarize: magic in Noxlyte is based on times of day, with the 24 hour cycle being divided into four sections which each represent basic magic, and their four borders representing higher magic for a total of 8 types of magic. Blindfolds would lend themselves well to all magic relating to night time including Dusk, Evening, Midnight, and Twilight magic since it simulates the dark. However, with some aesthetic adjustments i could probably make it fit any specific time of day

with all that i could easily see a whole system of interesting weapons and armor that sorta blends together well. since each weapon armor doesn't necessarily fit on the same part of the body as its counterpart, mew could have weapons that act as a mix of both like a full face mask that covers the eyes and still has a biting part for headgear, a casting focus that wraps around the arms until it ends with sharp points on the fingers for armgear, and weaponized leg armor that is designed for a bit more freedom of movement for the magic skating you'll be doing with the connected slippers. This gives me a lot more to work with, the only issue is coming up for a name for all of these weapon classes!

[lovestitch-game]

While most of the game follows a sewing and general textile theme for pulling together the world, the rest is all wish fulfillment, and weapon designs are definitely falling into the latter category.

I want to avoid stereotypical JRPG weaponry for Lovestitch; no swords, rods, staves, or daggers allowed, save for the Relic Needle and Scissors which are like swords. I've been trying to come up with my own things that better fit my imagination, but it's been a struggle to come up with more than four potential ideas.

I'm tired of the way claw weapons are stereotypically set up, where the blades are positioned on the back of the hand and thus mew mostly have to keep mewr fist closed to wield them, so the most wish-fulfilling weapon design will be claw gauntlets. As the name kinda hints at, the blades or puncturing points are on the digits/fingers rather than extending from the back of the hand. As a plus side, mew can mix up your slashes with punches too! It's the weapon class i've put the most thought into

Next up are weapons i can't really easily describe with a short name, but it sorta fits the theme of the claw gauntlets: weaponized leg armor. The way i envision them in my head is that the armor goes from upper thigh to the bottom of the shin and the expected damage-dealing spot is on the shin. Since these are plushies fighting, they've got no shin bones to worry about and this is as good a weapon as any. I want to call them something like "combat greaves" but that excludes the the cuisses which are still important for kneeing attacks.

All the remainder of the ideas are weaker than those two. I had mind to go with an idea where weapons and armor slots would all be the same and the armors mew equip could be for damage or defense and it was up to mew to balance them but the more i thought about it the more it either limited weapon ideas or forced the need for more armor slots.

I COULD make an armor slot for shoes specifically and then make a weapon that's essentially ice skates weaponized but then I'd have a shoes armor slot to deal with.

I could keep it down to head, body, arms, and legs for armor slots but then I'd need a decently varied pool of weapons to put in there. All this not to mention that i haven't even come up with a magic focused weapon yet! There's much idea work to be done to get this system fine-tuned and i'm still working on it!

[lovestitch-game]

I've drawn a few mockups of locations in the post-game dungeon(s) Via Ultima and one or two npc designs but i've never actually drawn the titular Needle Relic, so for now I'm just using one of the needle emoji as an icon. one of these days I'll draw The Hero wielding it

[bs-el]

My final arrangement, i'm fairly happy with this

The Canvas of Ginn The Canvas of Wiel The Canvas of Wyyv The Di Patches The Canvas of Mezhr-Mezhr The K’tenso Patch

[bs-el]

I'm still conflicted on if i want the setting of Lovestitch to be a continent and islands on a larger world or for the traversable area to be the whole world. I could do both given the premise but I'd like to choose ahead of time

Either way I'm in love with the cadence of "The Canvas of Noxlyte" and no matter what i choose that's what the setting will be called, "Noxlyte" for short.

[bs-el]

I changed my mind, Noxlyte will be the name of the world and while "World" is a word used by the plushkin, the phrase "World of Noxlyte" isn't used. Instead they swap out "World" for "Fabric" (or maybe "Weave", still deciding) to go along with the idea that their world wasn't simply "created" but was specifically "woven". "Canvas" is still a one to one replacement for "Continent" though, and I'm working on names for a few continents that the main characters will travel to

Also, I'd like to come up with a new word for Island that's fitting...

[bs-el]

I was just reminded that patches are a thing that exist, and that's a purrfect word for islands.

so, to consolidate the ideas i had in the tags of the last post and also mix in the idea of patches, here's the major landmasses mew might see in Lovestitch:

The Canvas of Ginn

The Canvas of Wiel

The Canvas of Lume (or Luum, still deciding)

The Di Patches

The Canvas of Mezhr-Mezhr

The K'tenso Patch

[bs-el]

okay, so, turns out that literally any homophone for "loom" is a brand that exists and there's almost no escaping it. SO, i'm just gonna unify the two different themes had going on here (1-3 were devices, and 4-6 are actions), and convert 1-3 into actions as well. I don't actually need to change Ginn b/c the name of the device came before the name of the action, so removing seeds and stuff from cotton is apparently called "ginning". so: i only need to change 2 and 3, and make homophones for "Spin" and "Weave". And thus i land on the decision to have the plushkin refer to the world as "The Fabric of Noxlyte" so as not to conflict with "The Canvas of [Weave]". If i didn't it'd be like if there was a continent on Earth named World. nyahahahaha >w<

[bs-el]

I've been setting my discord status to various conceptual Lovestitch quotes the past week and it's been slowly getting me into a writing mood. I even started typing up a script!

[bs-el]

in a fantasy world where everyone is a sapient stuffed animal and the world itself matches that... Why not use "Canvas" as a replacement for "Continent"

[bs-el]

sitting at my work desk getting through all of it while daydreaming ways to fix up plotholes in the game i've been planning for half a decade saying "chat are mew seeing this?"

[bs-el]

i could post about it but i'd have to go through SO much to give mew all the full context, like....

"oh yeah, what if the Hero during the tutorial section of the game isn't actually the main character Hero mew play fur the rest of the game, but in fact The Dreamer. and also the reason it's going to fight Gauze is b/c that's what it wants to do and it set it up that way. However, during the battle, the 'Hero' loses Lovestitch (the weapon) and thus by necessity of the mechanics of the weapon, there's a timeskip in the story (something i already planned for). this gives me a way to explain what The Dreamer is doing during the main plot of the story (meeting Sheer and exploring itself and the things that make it happy) and also allows me to explain the timeskip and gives me more wiggle room in coming up with the backstory for the main character Hero."

i really need to start working on this game and art for it or something!!!

[bs-el]

Hey in an rpg where the main characters are plushies do mew think Denier, Micronaire, and Thread Count would be a good thematic stand in for physical defense, magical defense, and HP respectively?

Abbreviations being something like DEN MCN and TC

Ideally there'd be a word for like.... Inverse Micronaire since mew'd want low permeability, but afaik that doesn't exist. For this reason MCN could be like an agility stat