Ever wonder what you'd get with a Night Market Patreon subscription? Let me tell you!
Every month, I write at the least five short stories about our RO's and a lot of time, the MC with them. These stories range from snippets taking place in the distant, nebulous future, to past ficlets, to post chapter shorts.
On top of that, I write little sm*t (I have to censor the word now given the fun new attacks coming out) fics for each of the RO's with an MC partner.
You also get dev blogs, polls, and access to any art that I commission for the book.
AND!
You will receive early access to all new chapters plus access to any of the unmentionable scenes.
You can sign up to have your own personalized stories written for you and your MC. Read other stories that have been commissioned, AND read at least two cozy fully choose your own adventure ficlets.
Pay when you sign up and not have your subscription renewed for thirty days. No more hidden patreon fees. With hundreds of thousands of more words to read, what are you waiting for?
Starting from today, this tumblr is being converted to a place where I share my ttRPG creations and publications. I’ve been working with Xin, a friend, on a 5e-compatible adventure currently dubbed “Project Pan-gu”. It’s a beginner friendly 6~8 hour adventure for 4~6 players that are at level 0 (yes, that says zero) and level 1. The story of the adventure involves you, members of a neolithic community in China, working to fulfill the demands of the resident Oracle to save your village.
You may find the playtest doc on my twitter: https://twitter.com/SenHHS/status/1182642812472283137?s=20
Playtest with your friends, fill out a form, and you all will get a discount for when the actual adventure comes out! (It’ll be at least 10%. I’m bargaining for more at the moment, wish me luck.)
In addition, I’m going to be doing weekly dev threads on twitter, which I will also be sharing here. This week, it’s about why I decided to combine neolithic China and the Chinese creation myth of Pan-gu into a single thing...
To read the contents of that tweet, click on the read more below! Or you may find the thread here if you prefer reading it on Twitter.
Please give this post/blog a like, reblog and follow to stay updated on more progress of the project!
Starting this week, until we release "Project Pan-gu", I'll do a thread on Fri/Sat (timezones!) on an aspect of our #5e #dnd #ttRPG module. While mostly about design, I will also share what I've learned on my journey. #Pocdnd #dndpoc
Over the years, I've noticed ancient Chinese history isn't taught the same way as modern history. There's always a heavy emphasis on storytelling, as if there's a remnant of how it all started in the beginning with oral traditions and folklore.
Like, the mnemonic for memorizing the dynasties literally starts with "Myths". If that doesn't scream "This is probably fictional", I don't know what does. And though what that myth entails has been rewritten over the ages, the backbone remains somewhat the same.
But then ... in comes archaeology.
Young Chinese students everywhere: I've memorized all the myths! I can ace ancient Chinese history, woo--
Archaeology: Ahem, would you like to hear the good word of our Lord and Savior, science? :)
YCS: :(
And that, peeps, is what I call the "Great Disconnect of the Chinese Origin Story", b/c while we've got records times gazillion of how our ancestors think they came about, it doesn't always line up well with the artifacts we dig up from archaeological sites.
A: So like, your culture believed the world was an egg for a giant, humans were created by a snake woman, and some god taught you how to farm?
Person B: Yep!
A: So what's up with all the pottery we found in the prehistoric burial grounds then?
B: ...well, sh--
Needless to say, this can make identifying as Chinese a bit... harder to grasp than one realizes. Are we as a culture connected by common stories we tell one another, or are we connected by the objects we discover in the graves of what may be our distant, ancient relatives?
This nagging question is part of why I decided to write project Pan-gu. I wanted to reconcile the fiction and fact of my learned history. I wanted to imagine how believing in said myth might have affected the way life went about in the neolithic age.
Of course, given how long the neolithic age is, how many archaeological sites exist within the ever-changing-and-being-argued-upon borders of China, AND the numerous versions of Pan-gu's tale that exist both as oral tradition AND written-- *Sigh* I had to pick and choose.
The GOOD news is I had a wealth of information to pick from, because OH BOY is there A LOT.
Ancient rice cultivation? Look around the Yangtze river!
Evidence of dragon worship? It's Xinglongwa & Hongshan!
What about silk? Qianshanyang's got you covered--
Me: Thanks, but I think I'll go with Yangshao as the basis of the setting.
Internet: ...But...but why--
Me: Because derp fish.
Internet: ...What?
Me: Derp fish............. Yeah, derp fish.
Internet: /:(
Me: ;D
And that... is a story for another time. Thank you for tuning in for this week's dev thread! For more s like this, please give @xin_115 and @SenHHS (yours truly!) a follow <3!
Oh, and Project Pan-gu playtest is open until Nov. 30th. Get yours now!
tinyurl.com/ChineseMythDnD1
Like if you have a demo out of your game, there is absolutely nothing wrong with linking it in every game related post you make afterwords. Helps spread the word and let's people know how far along you are!
Its hard for me to focus on regularly updating my dev blog and my game jolt and such. This may be a stupid question but do you have any tips on remembering to update stuff like that
lmao i’m bad at that too just look at this ask
Don’t worry, the only dumb questions on pinkuboa are shitpost. This is a good thing to ask!
If you have a digital phone or computer calendar you like to use, I’d set up like little reminders of “Update tomorrow!” “Update in a few hours!” “Upload your update now!” every week or so. If you have a physical one, I’d just write it in my planer as a goal for the day. It’s a simple solution, but it helps!
Any tips for getting your projects popular? For example, what contents to post? What tags to use, etc.? Thanks in advance :')
I should probably add this to my FAQ :o
What content to post? Content about your game, of course. *ba-dum-tish*
As this is tumblr, people love artwork and screenshots. Tumblr in particular loves cute and/or anime style things since there’s a high amount of young anime fans on the site. If you don’t have either of those, your game won’t get as popular as other games on this site due to it - it’s just the nature of the site.
I always encourage people to post on more than one site because of this - your audience will change wherever you go. You’ve got a lot more Old School JRPG fans on RPGMaker.net than you have on tumblr. Tumblr enjoys Spooky Horror, Short and Cute games, Surreal Artsy Games, games that make them cry, or a combination of any of the 4. You have JRPG lovers on this site too, it’s just not as many. Use other social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. to advertise as well. They’re free & easy to set up. RPGMaker.net, the official RPGMaker forum, reddit, and steam are also great places to set up shop.
Otherwise, you should be posting content about your game. Best stuff to post are concept art, in game screenshots, explanations of the mechanics of your game, character profiles, AR
What tags to use? Every topic you can think of that relates to your game. No, really.
Generally, you want to tag your things as #rpg maker, #rpgmaker, #game development, #game dev blog, etc.
If you’re making a furry game, tag it as #furries, #anthros, etc. If you’re making an HP Lovecraft + Silent Hill inspired game, tag it as such. If there’s a similar indie game to yours like Ib or the Witch’s House, tag it as them so those people in the Ib & TWH’s tags can hopefully find your game to be something interesting and worth a look since they liked the game you’re tagging it as. As long as you’re not spamming the tag, you’re good.
Other things to note:
> Make sure you have a short description of the game’s plot & genre in the description of your blog so people know what the heck they’re looking at. Here’s a quick and non-fancy example:
Welcome to BeeRPG, a turn-based RPG where you play as a beekeeper named Bob and have to save the land of bees from an invasion of wasp. Featuring custom sprites, crafting, and a ton of bees!
Then you should have an about section that describes the game in more detail. If you have a unique mechanic or premise, make sure you add that to your game’s description. That’ll help it stand out from the crowd.
It sounds obvious, but a lot of people won’t follow a game if they don’t know what it’s about. Pocket Mirror is the exception since it had nicely drawn cute art, came right on the heels of the original RPG Horror boom (that’s amazingly good timing), and featured a demo within 6-9 months of announcing itself that didn’t give much away but you got the gist of it. So you better have at least a vague description of your game visible on your main page, buddy.
> If you have a demo of your game and it fits a certain genre or special interest (witches, lolitas, dating sims, furries, etc.), go find some nice blog owners of various popular blogs of that interest and send them an ask saying something like “Hey, I’m making/made a game related to this! I’d appreciate it if you could reblog the demo if you’re interested. If not, that’s cool too. Thanks for being cool & reading this ask!”
I’d like to reiterate that you should only do that if you have a demo or full game out: people need something tangible to play or else they’ll pass you up because they don’t know if you’ll come through or not. A demo is a sign of putting effort into a project. I’ve seen 200000 projects appear, post about their game for 2-6 months, then dissolve into oblivion without ever releasing a single demo or anything like that. You don’t want to hype people up and then not deliver. :c
> Have a separate account for your game dev blog with it’s own email address. That way, people will see you following them (+BeeRPG has started following you) and that will act as advertisement for your game. As it will be a main account, you’ll also be able to interact with others as your development blog, which means that your blog has a face & presence in the community.
>When you post, it’s a good idea to be friendly to others. ...that may seem obvious but I just want to reiterate that. It’s good for your game’s blog to fit the tone of your game of course, there’s no need for a depressing horror game to be cracking jokes left and right.
> Reblog your game stuff to your personal often. Occasionally reblog very big things like demos and such to any other blogs you own.
> Finally, I’m going to quote something I’ve said before:
The tumblr RPG Maker fandom & community is small. I’ve been posting for about 4 years and I have around 2,000 followers, with probably ¼th of them being inactive/spam blogs. I’ve heard of other fan blogs having up to 4,000 followers, so you can guess that there’s no more than like, 3,000 people who are actively interested in RPG Maker games at any one time. It’s a good idea to try and advertise your game in tags like #game development, #game dev, & #game design. The people who like indie games are a small audience as well, but they’re bigger than just the RPG development scene so I encourage you to put your game in there as well.
Basically, if you have around 150 followers, you’re pretty lucky. Getting popular is a crapshoot.
Alright, that’s all I can think of. Check the #advertising tag for more suggestions if you’d like.
What do you think is the best time and day of the week to post an update so that as many people as possible will see it? This is the Big Question for me, I've tried some different schedules that don't seem to differ much, but in my sleepless nights I thought asking you may be worth a shot. And off topic but kudos to you for speaking out against a popular game/team on art theft. I never played PM but it's disappointing to hear regardless.
From 6pm to 1am EST on Friday & Saturday are when I see the most people on since it’s the weekend and people are free. That’s what my follower base seems to respond to. But I guess any time between 7pm and 12am on a weekday would do. :o
whats a upcomming little known rpg horror game your looking forward to a lot? im trying to find new blogs for them to follow so i can play them all
there’s nothing I’m particularly looking forward to right now since I’m a bit focused on developing my own game and a few other online and irl stuff, but here’s some of the blogs I’m following that fall under the category of horror:
@ariastory-project - almost to release!
@fragmentedeve-project
@pakilusin
@akademia-project
@pollinating-games
@project-sabbath
@havenfell
@kc-aurigrids
@projectcursedmarionette
@rosaryofthereaper
@collectorsgameproject
@expiatora-project
@crushedmary
@diaphanous-autumn
@yugamiprojectblog
@amareproject
@toxicshroomswamp
@ghosthospitalgame
@baby-teeth-game
Check ‘em all out - everyone has something different to offer. c:
How often do you think a game dev should post about their progress? It seems like there's a fine line between annoying spamming and being forgotten by everyone...
Spam: more than five times a day (but you probably won’t have THAt much to update without spoiling anything)
Being forgotten: updating every 3 weeks or more. Updating twice a month/every two weeks works. There’s nothing wrong with updating every month, it’s just easier for people to forget about your game that way.
