[skaruresonic]

My games:

On a Sunday by skaruresonic

Sonic, don't you know this is a very special Sunday?

On a Sunday

Join Sonic the Hedgehog as he experiences a not-so-average Sunday in this slice-of-life visual novel! Inspired by games like Doki Doki Literature Club and Undertale.

[***] Project is complete.

___

Antigravity by skaruresonic

WARNING! Dampeners will now disengage.

Antigravity

The colony's gravity has been cultivated for the maximum security and comfort of all those aboard. 

We urge you not to disengage the antigravity dampeners unless it is absolutely necessary. 

Be careful! This state induces powerful but unstable and irreversible effects.

Further research is needed.

___

Play as Shadow the Hedgehog, the ultimate life form living aboard the ARK: the world's most advanced space station, where scientific breakthrough is as routine as the colony's orbit around Earth. 

Although gravity is the weakest of the fundamental forces, its span can reach forever. The researchers warn you that it is not a toy to be played with. You must never tamper with it unless an emergency arises.

...Well. A rolling blackout may just count as an emergency.

___

Gameplay

Antigravity is half point-and-click, half turn-based visual novel. Battle enemies through the application of gravity and your Chaos powers. Show them why they call you the ultimate life form.

As Shadow investigates items on each map, he will unlock new areas of the colony to explore. Memos will help you figure out how to defeat enemies.

[***] Project is a demo; currently in development.

---

Moon Touched by skaruresonic

Let blood answer blood.

Moon Touched

"Arthur the king is dead. Arthur the ravager yet lives."

Arthur expected headhunters to loot his corpse as he lay under the bodies of his men in the blood-soaked fields of Camlan. He never predicted the enemy would instead crave his prowess for spoil. 

Cold executioner of justice, Creoda of the Gewisse, has been blessed by the moon god to taste death but not to succumb. Every murder he suffers demands blood as the price of his divine wergild. As long as he serves Mōna, he will pursue his butchers with neither fear nor mercy in his heart.

But even a tireless wolf like Creoda suffers the occasional thorn of conscience. In order to sever his thralldom and live as a normal man, he must slay the source of his curse: his brother. 

Emboldened by Arthur's fiery spirit but wary of his reckless nature, Creoda offers his captive a grim proposition:

"Fight." "Flee." "Die." "It makes no difference."

A hard-bitten skeptic, Arthur tests the Saxon's limits by fire, water, and blade. Each brutal encounter teaches him a little more about Creoda - and himself - than he cares to admit.

Armed with only his wits, a hexed sword, the loyalty of his companion, Bedwyr, and the cold whispers of death swirling about him, he must find a way to conquer his demons... Or find his head on a pike.

Reports of the king's death may be exaggerated. How much depends on you.

[***] Project is a WIP currently in development.

[skaruresonic]

Shadow on ARK AOL be like

[skaruresonic]

Smack dab in the middle of developing Antigravity.

This chapter has a heavier focus on puzzles and minigames as a means to progress over turn-based combat.

One is Chao Clicker, which is basically Cookie Clicker but with Chao:

Another is the Spring Festival:

The third is Super Sonic DJ Party, a rhythm minigame:

And then ofc, we have our usual VN stuff on top:

Honestly, I'm on the fence as to whether I want to submit the project to this year's SAGE. Even if they reject it or I don't make the deadline, I'm still finishing it anyway.

Lost some dev time at the beginning of the year (as well as some progress since I had to remake a few image maps), but I think if I put my nose to the grindstone, I might be able to squeak by in time. But we'll see.

[sonichedgeblog]

Even more unique Sonic artwork never seen! The top left image has been around for a while, but the Video Game History Foundation artwork archive has 3 new variants! You can read more here: https://gamehistory.org/gamepro-cds-201-300/ The art is in disc 283.

[bingusbnuy]

they really did just liquify-tool her eye for this lol this is based off of the sprites for sonic shuffle!

[sonicmerch]

Amy Rose Sonic Adventure Keychain Figure by SEGA

[wafflewarrior111]

So... I found this and now it keeps coming to mind. You hear about "life-changing writing advice" all the time and usually its really not—but honestly this is it man.

I'm going to try it.

[missroserose]

I love the lawyer metaphor, because whenever I see “John knew that...” in prose writing I immediately think “how?  How does he know it?”  Interrogate your witnesses.  Cross-examine them.  Make them explain their reasoning.  It pays dividends.

[heck-in-a-handbasket]

All of this, but also feels/felt. My editor has forbidden me from using those and it’s forced me to stretch my skills.

[ineedthesons]

This is your "show not tell" advice explained!

[tarysande]

Editor here.

First, let me preface this with something very important: you can treat all of this advice as SECOND-DRAFT ADVICE. It is so much easier to rewrite this kind of stuff once you have words on the page. Telling yourself the first draft is totally appropriate and acceptable.

What we’re talking about here are FILTER WORDS (and to some degree verbs of being). Yes, “thought” words are included. But so are “heard, saw, looked, tasted, smelled” etc.—most words having to do with the senses.

This isn’t black and white advice; sometimes you’ll use these words and that’s okay. They’re not WRONG. They’re just weaker. And they’re weaker because they create distance between the reader and the experience of the character.*

If you want your reader to feel like they’re experiencing the story right alongside the character, you want to cut down on filter words.

*This is particularly important with first person and close third POVs. The reader always knows whose eyes they’re seeing through and thoughts they’re privy to. So you don’t need to tell them “I saw X.” Or “I heard X.” Or “I thought Y.” You can just jump into the action/observation as it’s happening.

This is also where you want to pay attention to verbs of being.

“It was rainy.” Versus: “The rain pounded against the roof.” Or “The rain howled like an injured animal.” Or “The rain tapped against the window like an anxious lover.” All of these are inviting the reader deeper into the experience of the story by using stronger verbs and similes. And, at the same time, they stir feelings (instead of TELLING feelings). And feelings keep your reader engaged. Engaged readers keep turning pages; engaged readers become FANS.

[the-haiku-bot]

This is also where

you want to pay attention

to verbs of being.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

[defilerwyrm]

The most valuable advice that Author Ex gave me through the years that we wrote together was this: the problem with all these filter words is that they create distance in the POV.

That means that when you read a line like

John saw that the curtains were open.

It immediately takes you OUT of the character's perspective and instead tells you what they experience as a secondhand observation.

You don't have to get fancy or purple with how you rephrase things like this. Not everything needs a ton of breathing room.

You wanna know what's perfectly impactful while keeping a tight POV?

The curtains were open.

Simple as that.

[songlin]

This was one of my all time most powerful writing lessons! This mindset shift makes you a stronger writer immediately in a way that just keeps getting easier and better for you.

[elumish]

The take I always have on advice like this is that "John saw that the curtains were open." and "The curtains were open." are sentences that are telling you two different pieces of information.

Some of this, yes, is about POV distance--but some of it is also about the information being conveyed by the sentence. If you are using a sentence like "John saw that the windows were open" it should be because the information you are seeking to convey is that John saw it.

Maybe this matters because the next time John looks back they are closed, and so he's doubting what he saw. Maybe it matters because he later has to recount information about the room he was in, and it's notable that he specifically saw that the windows were open. The fact and method of his observation is part of the point of the sentence, rather than simply the observation itself.

When we are using sense verbs, it should be because part of the point is the sense. Same with "thought", "felt", etc.: "Mary thought that Susan looked a little thin" is telling us a different piece of information than "Susan looked a little thin."

Contrarily, at least in my opinion, simple telling phrasing like "It was rainy" can sometimes bring us more into a character's head than something showing like "The rain howled like an injured animal." I have read books when a relatively plain-spoken/plain-thinking character suddenly starts having elaborate descriptions of things like scenery or weather, and it is abundantly clear that the author wanted to spruce up their writing and avoid "telling." The problem is that it drags me as the reader out of the character's head and shows me where all of the strings are. I'm suddenly thinking about how the author is worried about being yelled at for "telling" instead of just reading the story.

Your writing, down to the sentence structure and word choice level, should be about what you are trying to accomplish. Is the point to tell us that the window was open, or is it to tell us that John saw that the window was open?

[feeshies]

One of my least favorite types of post on this site are when people are clearly trying to get added to that "needlessly profound quotes that originated on tumblr" list.

[feeshies]

"you fool. you stuff your burrito to bursting and weep as you hold a soggy tortilla, when the fillings are merely scattered among the foil."

200 reblogs with responses like "wait this goes so hard?????"

[gayvampyr]

it is funny when people who don’t draw tell people who do “i can’t even draw a circle”. a shape that is notoriously difficult for artists to get right on the first try. or “i can’t even draw a straight line,” something many artists literally have to practice drawing over and over again as a warmup exercise

[gayvampyr]

“i can barely draw a stick figure” so that’s like step 1 of learning to draw people. you are at the same stage and level of skill that every other artist started out with 👍

[gayvampyr]

i think some of you are missing the point. people who don’t draw need to stop using self deprecation as a way to compliment artists and stop discounting the effort people put into their art. stop dismissing the work they put into learning, the time and labor it took to master the basics and anything beyond. art is a skill that you must refine and practice, no one starts out automatically great at art, and tbh i don’t even want to entertain the theoretical concept of innate talent and ability simply because people who don’t have a desire or who think themselves too untalented or dumb to learn will use that as an excuse to not even try, to alienate themselves from certain creative elements that anyone could attempt and enjoy, on the basis that they are just inherently inept and have no ability to improve. so many of the “naturally gifted” artists you look up to once thought the same about other artists, but lamenting about your ineptitude only motivates you to stand still and never progress. if you want to learn to draw, you can. but you have to try and be willing to admit that it is something you can get better at, even if you think you’re terrible now

[tiktok-antis]

— Image given by anonymous

Fiction affects reality if you allow it to affect reality, but fiction in itself cannot change ANYTHING. It is an object a matter of thoughts.

Propaganda while is "fiction" it's pushed towards people as if its the truth, as if its real. Propaganda is lies covered in a blanket to make you see something that isnt there it's meant to change your world view and thought process.

The slenderman case, has already been a disproven clause by other people, I won't say much but they were not mentally there enough to acknowledge that it was fiction, most people do have the stability to acknowledge what fiction is even if they don't want to accept it.

Santa clause is something you tell a 2 year old which 2 year olds believe their parents on a lot because you are seen as a reliable and trusted source. Why would your child not believe you?..

Most fiction has a warning that it's fiction and if it contains dark topics and topics that may be sensitive, I have a book near me that's dark fiction this is what it says "as much as *books name* is a dark romance comedy and will hopefully make you laugh it's still dark, read responsibility." Then lists the triggers, whats stated in that post doesn't promote itself as fiction as fake while this "fiction affecting book" that I have does, because it's a fiction piece of work meant to be seen as fiction and enjoyment.

▸ I DONT CONDONE ANY HARASSMENT TOWARDS ANYONE THAT IS POSTED TO THIS PAGE, ANTI OR NOT.

[sonichedgeblog]

Another piece of never before seen Sonic artwork from ‘Sonic Adventure’, thanks to the Video Game History Foundation - Sonic covering his eyes! You can read more here: https://gamehistory.org/gamepro-cds-201-300/ The art is in disc 283.

[radicaldreamcaster]

flying high

[footlongdingledong]

rarely do i repost things and especially from shittr but this video is shutting down core partsof my mental processing i think

[doctormagikarp]

He's also done Slay thy dragon, it's living rent free in my brain

[skaruresonic]

Now that you think about it... I believe that fanmade sonic series are much more better than the idw sonic comics... Because they stay true to the games

Depends on what it is, but yeah. At the risk of sounding like your stereotypical game purist, it's not a very high bar to clear if you have a working memory or respect for the games. Experimentation doesn't necessarily need to be restricted by the games milieu in your fan work, which is why I don't get why people think games purists are the No Fun Allowed police. I basically made Sonic Sonic Literature Club. Do what you want forever.

In fact, it's kind of weird to me just how many folks will mock your fic/work if you criticize IDW, while not realizing they're inadvertently demoting IDW to the status of badfic. They think you must want a job with Sega, and it's like... No? That's the absolute last thing I want, because then my passion becomes work.

It's also wild when people act as though you're needlessly criticizing IDW like it's a free webcomic or someone's passion project instead of a commercial product sold for money. They want to pull the "Sega approved it so it's official, canon, and legit" card and the "but you can't criticize it bc they're so downtrodden and indie" card at the same time.

If we were judging IDW by the standards of fan work, allowing it a wider berth, even then it wouldn't pass muster due to the lack of creativity and just the mean-spiritedness with which it approaches the source material sometimes. There's a difference between fan work that treats canon like a deficit, and fan work that treats canon like the first half of a conversation.

Fan work that defines itself through what it seeks to avoid being is often hollower than fan work that is created from a sense of synergy with the original source material. If you're always saying "Well, at least my work's not XYZ," the substance of your work evaporates the moment it needs to stand on its own, because the only context in which it can ever exist is in comparison to XYZ.

Flynn's comments on how Tangle fulfilled a niche role none of the other girl characters supposedly could is a classic example, but you also see this in how people speak of characters like Surge and Lanolin. They often frame it in terms of "they're good characters because the main series is missing punk girls/traumatized girls/villain and antihero female characters." (Which isn't true, but for the sake of argument, let's say that it is.)

This argument presupposes that canon is lacking something, and it's up to fans to fill in the holes. However, that's always going to be a losing game because you could literally make up anything that games canon lacks. Today it's character archetypes; tomorrow, who knows?

Not to mention it reduces IDW's creations to the act of plugging holes in a dam, instead of taking what canon offers and saying, "Hmm, that's interesting. Where else can we take this?"

[skaruresonic]

No, my friend. That's a whole new sentence you're saying, not a cogent rebuttal of what I actually just said.

I also wasn't talking to you.

I feel like I could say "I like pancakes for [XYZ] reasons" in public, and they'd chime in with, "Hmm, very interesting. As a waffle lover myself, I think many people lack the proper palate to understand or appreciate waffles. But, you know, more power to you pancake lovers."

Don't care, didn't ask, never addressed you. You didn't even engage with my point. Go away.

It's one of those things about them that drives me up a wall because the goalpost-moving isn't rooted in logical consistency, seeing how they don't actually respond to my points.

They sort of tunnel around my arguments with rhetorical flourishes, offer the debate equivalent of "I know you are but what am I?", and essentially piggyback off of my thoughts without giving them due credit, in order to make themselves seem like an original thinker and me like an uncultured rube.

These are the mind games I was talking about. It's exhausting.

[skaruresonic]

Oh god. Hasan Piker. I can't stand that champane socialite Commie larper that is also so fake about everything he changes colours everytime people look away from him. The only good thing about him is that he flies off the handle so much, and is easy to watch him go absolutely nuts over something. That guy cannot take criticism, and paints anyone who calls him out on his bullshit as 'Isreal shills' or 'sloptubers', or will go a defemation tangent trying to pull cultists further into his carefully curated hugbox. The fact people feel comfortable calling him a 'dog shocker' after a long time of not bothering has shown that the guy needed to go a long time ago.

Dog... shocker?

Eh. I just listen to his videos sometimes for background noise.

I can't comment on his politics because I don't really follow his too closely. FWIW, though, everyone has blind spots because we all live in a racist system. No one is exempt from the casual remark. It's not that I think Hasan was going out of his way to be racist so much as his blind spot was showing.

Implying Native fans are a minority and therefore numerically nominal is, uhhh. Something. Especially considering he also tried to say something about having Anishinaabe friends/fans or something along those lines.

The topic of "what to call us" gets complicated, and it seemed like he was trying to seem In The Know without contending with the other stuff he was blurting at the same time. But that's also kind of where The Racism lives. In the stuff you blurt without thinking.

And you know what, sometimes even though you know that shit is coming and the other person doesn't consciously mean it, it's also like, the fact that they don't realize it means you have to walk away for your own benefit sometimes. From what I've heard, First Nations in Canada don't like to be called "Native," but it varies. I just tend to roll my eyes because people tend to talk about us like we're not here in any given room.

I also seem to recall one time he got into this stupidly circuitous argument about whether autism was a disability, because his chat likes to troll him during true crime videos with obvious "the perpetrator was just suffering from mental illness" bait.

[skaruresonic]

Back in 2017 and beyond there used to be this discourse among some Metroid fans that the remake of Metroid 2, Samus Returns, was immoral genocide glorification

Metroid 2 is about exterminating all the Metroids from their home planet. The Remake follows that same premise but aims at making the fights themselves more fun through more spectacle, more blood pumping music etc, since one the longest running complaints of the original was that the Metroid battles were boring and sloggy

Somehow some folks took this to mean that the game was glorifiying genocide on the basis that the fights SHOULD be boring and tedious because you're not supposed to feel "rewarded" for killing off an entire species

A species of non-sentient floating green jellyfish that evolve into big lizard monsters

Totally comparable to Irl genocide amirite?

"Genocide" and it's literal pixels and polygons on a screen. Sir, this is a Wendy's.

I don't even know what they expect when they say stuff like this. For people to stop playing the game? ...To keep playing the game but Feel Bad while doing so? Offer thoughts and prayers? Like??

I wonder if they realize the unfortunate implications of what they're saying. Because they're basically equating the fictional suffering of cartoons to the real suffering of marginalized people and war victims.

(Another win for ST, though: they had the decorum to realize the name "Genocide City" was in poor taste after someone pointed it out to them.)