Last Life Questions

Currently posting updates for upcoming game Transience. Archive for Sulmere Story blog, previously active here.

[sulmere]

Game Announcement: Transience

Heyo! On the off-chance that anyone is still following this account... I have an announcement to make! I'm making a game! It focuses heavily on story, deep character interaction, and themes of mortality, immortality, and the passing nature of things. It also miiiight have some connections all the way back to things on this blog!

I am a little over 1 year into dev work, and have finally built up enough that I can start showing things off! I anyone is interested in following this project, you can find it on

bsky: https://bsky.app/profile/transiencegame.bsky.social

Discord community: discord.gg/NHgYhRDH4d

And for fun, here's an early dev screenshot of a conversation with an alien critter! Gosh, I wonder what they might be saying...

[sulmere]

Pre Alpha Conversation Engine

So this is an introduction of the pre-alpha version of the conversation engine! There's a decent amount going on here under the hood that I will get into more in future posts. I want to start off with a basic explanation of what I'm going for with this engine.

Most games with strong roleplay elements depend on the player listening to long, unprompted dialogue from characters. You walk up, hit the interact button, then listen to their spiel. After a while, you might make dialog choices to branch the conversation one way or another.

This engine inverts that. When you interact with characters, you prompt them for responses, and take a much more active role in conversation. Through the game, any person, place, race, faction, or item that you hear about, you can then ask any encountered character about. There is also a Facts mechanic that works similarly. I'll go into more detail about this system as more posts drop here.

The "voice" that I made there is one of the more complete elements that I'm showing off here, but that's for a future post's explanation as well.

All graphics are obviously just stand ins for now, and the cute picture that I animated (poorly) there is by 9Doodles (whose FA account I can no longer find or I would link it).

[sulmere]

H'lo? This thing plugged in any more?

Heyo. Anybody still around here? Blowing off some cobwebs.

So. I am working on a new project again. Some folks here might already be aware, but I'm working on a game that I hope to finish within 2-3 years from now. I will be posting more here about it once I get back into the social media groove.

I am not quite at the stage where I'm ready to start pitching the project to artists/musicians (since I will need folks with talents I am lacking!). But I am getting there! I have a number of systems I am very excited to show off, and have been putting together the foundational gameplay mechanics for the last few months.

Trying to figure the best way to generate excitement and whatnot as well. I'll figure a way to post what I'm working on periodically. Feels good to have a personal project again. ^^

More to come soon!

[sulmere]

Tarot Book Release

Heyo, everyone! If you're reading this, you get a free book! Hooray!

No, seriously. I just finished my companion book for the Tarot deck that Karen and I were working on for so long, and I'm putting it out there for anyone who cares to read it! It took quite a bit of work and editing, and I'm sure that it's not perfect, but it's gotten to a point where I had to draw a line and say "Ok. It needs to be done now."

So! Please check it out and please enjoy! It explains both Tarot and Lomisht interpretations of the cards, both histories, my genera philosophy of Tarot, and a lot of the thought that went into designing the images seen on the cards. Please enjoy, everyone! :3

A Darisa Tarot: The Lomisht

[sulmere]

Do you have a preference for giving or receiving in sexual encounters? Is there any kind of stigma if someone prefers one or the other?

https://askakukun.wordpress.com/2019/02/06/758/

[sulmere]

Do you have games like chess?

https://askakukun.wordpress.com/2018/12/31/do-you-have-games-like-chess/

[sulmere]

Sulmere, how seriously do you take your religion?

https://askakukun.wordpress.com/2018/12/27/sulmere-how-seriously-do-you-take-your-religion/

[sulmere]

Do you have a new year's celebration? Or a midwinter festival? Those are very common on earth.

Note: Ok... continuing issues with Wordpress, but please bear with me. This link should be good.

https://askakukun.wordpress.com/2018/12/18/do-you-have-a-new-years-celebration-or-a-midwinter-festival-those-are-very-common-on-earth/

[sulmere]

Wordpress Post Corrections...

For anyone wondering why the last two posts that went to wordpress were broken, that was my own misunderstanding of how the platform functioned. The links are now fixed, and I’m dropping both of them again here. 

Thanks for the patience as I get everything working correctly over on the new platform!

1) INTRO POST

2) How does your society treat pornography?

[sulmere]

How does your society treat pornography? Is it legal? Are children kept safe from it?

LINK TO POST

[sulmere]

Wordpress Post

Heyo! Again, I’ve migrated to Wordpress at this point, but will continue to post links to that at least for now. If anyone has thoughts/concerns, please send a message or ask!

LINK TO POST

[sulmere]

Regarding Tumbler’s Boner Policy

So. Tumblr is getting a revamp soon in which it will gut itself and spill its insides on the ground, hopefully making it more healthy. I am not a doctor, so I suppose I’m not qualified to guess whether this will make the site a better place to be.

However.

I am going to be experimentally moving to http://askakukun.wordpress.com to try to address this. I don’t know whether this will be permanent or not... but I must say, things do not look good for Tumblr. I feel like this is the beginning of the end. For the moment, I will keep both updated, but once the purge happens, I will likely choose one or the other. If I move permanently to Wordpress, I will leave the last post here as a reminder of where to find the blog.

Also! Sorry for the slow updates lately! I am working very hard to get the Lomisht Tarot set shipped out to everyone who ordered it! Also, time allowing, I would like to release a new version of PolyGlot with some much requested features before the new year!

Cheers, everyone!

[sulmere]

Midwest Furfest

Heyo! A reminder to folks that I am at Midwest Furfest this week! If you’re here, come see me at G5 in the Dealer’s Den! Sitting at Karen’s table, who generously offered to share. ^^

[sulmere]

Tarot Convention Readings!

Heyo, all! Draque here with a tarot and convention announcement. I’ll be headed to MFF and will be sharing a table with Karen! We will have the first of the decks there and be doing free readings!

If anyone reading this hits Chicago for it, please swing by and let me do lay some cards down for you!

[sulmere]

Wait. If lactation doesn't exist on darisa that means you have no cheese. How can you have no cheese?! That is so sad.

The writer agreed that this was very sad, but I don’t really have much perspective into why. I guess it’s pretty good to eat?

We have a number of fatty curds that are cultured and spreadable that sound pretty similar to what you’re describing. I have to admit though. Hearing the writer talk about pizza, they really sell the idea. Our loss, I guess!

[sulmere]

Vialio, does your astrological affinity for the color purple really mean you have an affinity for yelling? Do you speak in purple often?

…

I am completely calm when it’s appropriate to be. Sometimes people think they can get away with pushing me around or bullying just because I’m young and I have to put them in their place. But I never do that when it’s inappropriate.

And how am I supposed to know that someone founded an entire region dozens of lives back? They wanted me to basically give away half my business! It shouldn’t matter who they were if they presume that I’ll just hand over everything I’ve worked so hard like it’s nothing at all. And I didn’t say anything that was actually wrong about what they were wearing.

I think everyone made some missteps there. But people I’m working with can’t be bothered to tell me some critical piece of information, it’s more their fault if negotiations get heated than mine.

And they were yelling more than I was anyhow.

[sulmere]

So Sulmere should I presume that you believe in astrology and fortune telling?

Ok, I am not some kind of plant worshipping hippie like my parent or anything. I know they aren’t scientific, and I know that you can’t depend on them. But you have to admit that they are pretty accurate sometimes, especially if you are getting your fortune or signs read by someone who knows what they’re doing. 

So I know it’s not science. But sometimes other things can be real too. Just because you don’t know how something work doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work.