#overclocked!

[cassiefisherdrake]

I spent a goodly portion of my day making outfit references for the Overclocked! crew - I already had 3 of the 6 outfits done in at least some art, but it was SO helpful to nail down the last 3 properly. Obviously some details aren't accurate - no one has eyes here and Prime is missing his security camera box of a head, as just two of many examples - but hey. It was fun.

Top row: Tex, Peaches, Merit

Bottom row: Nova, Prime, Gali

[acidmouthed]

I'm redoing the pixel art for the Overclocked! gang because the original chibi style was feeling too cutesy. Didn't feel quite right for a treasure hunt-turned-revenge quest strategy rpg. This style is more inspired by the old Suikoden games and I love being able to see the variation in everyone's body shape now!

[acidmouthed]

Nova has a full walking sprite now! Look at her go! And, yes, her jacket's collar fluff bounces as she walks. :]c

Next up: Tex or Peaches? Nerd-cowboy bot or lesbian farmer bot?

Top: large walking sprite (500px).

Left: full sprite sheet at 100% (50px for a 48x48 sprite).

Middle: walking sprite at 100%.

Right: embiggened sprite sheet. Ignore the couple artifacts that Photoshop added even with nearest neighbor enabled

It took me a long time to nail down what kind of design I wanted for the back of her helmet, but once I got it, it was easier to keep rolling through. I might change her leather jacket to black to keep with the black/white + blue + yellow theme that I'm gunning for with her in Overclocked!, but the brown was how I originally envisioned her casual wear in Destiny, so. We'll see!

I'm having a LOT of fun with pixel art though. It's slow-going because I'm still learning, but since it requires a meticulous and detail-oriented hand to make sure everything lines up and flows correctly, well... "meticulous and detailed-oriented" are the only kind of hands that I posses, lol.

[cassiefisherdrake]

Been slowly plinking away at these guys - might add a few more details here and there. Then once they're all fully rendered, I'll make little walk cycle animations again.

[cassiefisherdrake]

I haven't shown robot sprite updates in a while. Still struggling working with Tex but everyone else I think is in a fun position, though unrendered.

Order: Tex, Peaches, Prime, Nova, Merit, Gali.

[acidmouthed]

Teaching myself pixel art for my game idea, so here's part of Nova's walking sprite! Her design might change a lot as I mess around - especially her helmet as I take her further and further from being my Destiny OC - but so far I'm having a lot of fun just messing around with the pixels. Finding hue-shifting to be especially fun!

Black & yellow backgrounds just to show contrast.

[cassiefisherdrake]

tell us about overclocked, what is it? you said 'a visual novel with tactical combat'?

EHEHE, thank you so much for asking!!!

Overclocked! is my idea for a strategy roleplaying game (combining a visual novel with tactical/strategy combat throughout) - sort of like Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy Tactics, or Into the Breach, if you've ever played any of those games. If you haven't, you can imagine each combat as a chessboard, if a chessboard sometimes interrupted movement with difficult terrain. Usually the goal is to move your characters across the chessboard, eliminating all enemies or a leader enemy to win the match and advance the story. Outside of combat, you can wander around your 'camp' to talk to your NPC companions, build rapport, and learn more about the story at large!

This story would follow 7 AI who find themselves on a spaceship, the Independent Variable, headed toward an extinct alien planet:

Tex (he/him), the Trapper -- and the player character!

Peaches (she/her), the Bomber

Merit (he/him), the Utility

Nova (she/her), the Dynamo

Prime (he/xe), the Pyro

Gali (they/them), the Floe

Democritus (he/him), the onboard AI - unlike the other characters, he doesn't have a mobile platform body and is housed literally inside the ship itself, controlling and piloting it.

The player, as Tex, is awoken by Democritus during a missile alert and instructed to wake the other bots. Turns out the extinct alien planet they're going to isn't so extinct after all... well, the aliens themselves are long dead, but they've left behind defensive robots to guard their ancient ruins. With the other bots awake and the missile robots defeated, Democritus explains that they were built to retrieve an ancient artifact from this dead world, one that could potentially bring about world peace: an alien AI whose purpose was to govern politics, the economy, and prevent war. To get it though, they will first have to fight through the planet's remaining defenses to collect parts of the artifact that have been scattered across the globe.

As they travel across the dead world, however, they start to realize that things aren't quite adding up. Some horrible truths are revealed about the aliens, the world, and the crew of the Independent Variable itself. Choices have to be made, which can lead to one of three different endings I have planned: the happy ending, the scattered ending, and... the worst ending.

More under the cut because I got really excited answering and this might be a bit long. Oops.

Each of the six 'Power' bots has unique capabilities split into two categories: Mechanical (Trapper, Bomber, Utility) and Thermodynamic (Dynamo, Pyro, Floe). Mechanical Powers focus on your 'typical' kinetic forces: hitting stuff really hard or tripping things up. Thermodynamic Powers are more like magic!

First up: team Mechanical! As the Trapper, Tex is fast, maneuverable, and great at battle field control, capable of leading enemies into well-laid traps like trip mines. Peaches, the Bomber, is... well. A bomber. Her main weapon is a grenade launcher that launches wire pods to deal damage and entangle enemies. What more could you want in a Bomber? Then Merit, as the Utility, is your strongest healer and buff support guy (pun intended on 'buff' - the guy is bara as hell). He's the one most capable of causing the other Power bots to overclock (i.e., land critical hits)!

And Team Thermodynamic! Nova, the Dynamo, is your go-to gal for a rocket-powered punch that leaves enemies quaking in their boots with dangerous electric currents. Prime, the Pyro, of course has a flamethrower, but is also capable of overheating enemy units such that they can just fall apart in a gust of wind. Gali, the Floe, is a sniper with pinpoint accuracy for freezing enemies out of their abilities, movement, or life itself. Probably the term Thermodynamic makes a bit more sense here now: electricity, hot, and cold "magic!"

While each Power bot starts off in their own niche of tactics, as the course of the game progresses and each bot levels up, they all learn new abilities that are more aligned with different strategies - DPS, healing, battlefield control, etc., - so that even if you lose one bot in the course of a battle, the others can fill in that niche a little bit.

Luckily, even if you do lose a bot, you can bring them back after the fight is over! After all, they're robots, they can be rebuilt! Luckily, no memories are lost in the course of a rebuild, so they can all keep on trucking until they acquire the treasure: the alien AI that can bring about world peace!

Thanks again for asking, I really love this story and the characters I have going and can't wait to share more about it! :'] Right now, I'm mostly working on dialogue (after all, RPGs in this style are MOSTLY dialogue!) since I have a majority of the plot line built up and slowly but surely working on each of the Power bots' character designs. I'm having a LOT of fun doing both!

[acidmouthed]

Now that I'm moving Tex (frombrad2worse's Guardian) and Nova into a new original game idea, I gotta redesign them away from their Destiny digs. It's been nice drawing for the first time since... oh, December or January? Having free time for the first time in so long is nice but trying to come up with outfit designs that mesh cowboy + treasure hunter + sci-fi HARD. Fun. But hard.

Gonna try to do maybe 2-3 of these quick sketches per week until I land on good designs for the 6 characters in the main party.