doodles Saturday 31 Aug 2024
CC0, both of these
Seems like Drawpile 2.2.2 has anti-aliasing for the freehand select tool, which is it main thing that made me favor using Paint Tool SAI 2 for coloring than anything else, so… I might actually make Drawpile my main drawing tool once I find another sketching brush I really like
CC0
Meta Quest 3
I borrowed money using the current Affirm payment plan and got a Quest 3. This was probably not the wisest decision as I’ve already kinda stretched by budget a bit, but current resolve is to offload at least two of my guitars and use that money to pay down other fees.
That, and the Quest 3 is a *signficant* step up from the Quest 2 in terms of feel and convenience (I can actually see my phone without taking the thing off!? Wow!), so I fully intend to be spending more time using Quest 3 for actual work.
Got some other ideas I’m toying with. Still sorta want to explore what doing a VN in VR is like. Still sorta want to try turning Bubble Menace into a short free rail-shooter style experience. And I want to do more VR Sculpting. (Right now, ShapeLab 2024 is giving me a bunch of issue refusing to get past the initial loading screen on Linux, while Kodon works GREAT and feels SO GOOD to work in… but loading any of the files I made in it takes an extremely long time. I feel *very* sure that once I find or create a 3D modeling tool that works smoothly for me in VR, that will probably almost entirely replace the role 2D sketching currently has in my life. drawing on paper or screen tablets is a very useful skill, but it’s been more than a decade since I was able to say that I enjoyed the process for the process so much as enduring the process for the outcomes.)
I think it’s possible to do VR streams. I recall having tried a few times in the past. Once I start feeling cozy and settled in I’ll probably give it a go again with the new kit. Though I just realized I have to get ALVR and Developer Mode all setup on this new headset and make sure it works as well as it was with the Quest 2. What I found out from a lot of tinkering about today is that while ALVR has oddly high lag when playing 2D games in VR, playing the actual for-VR applications/games in Stream VR via ALVR often works very well, even over the WIFI. I know it’s possible to route that network traffic over USB to make the connection even more reliable, but I haven’t had success with that on Pop OS yet.
Aaaaand, I think that’s about it for today? I actually spent quite a lot of time in VR today and am very pleased about it. I’d like to show off the little sculpt doodle I did in KODON when I figure out how to actually get it to load.
(Pretty sure it’s already done loading within the first minute, but the prompt just won’t move to let me see and verify.)
Blender 3D
(CC0, screencap of live EEVEE viewport in Blender .4.2.1) Was supposed to be lighting practice, kinda just turned into messing about with shaders and 3D doodling to try to relax. Aimless, sure, but it’s kinda nice to have low-energy stuff to do that isn’t really meant for others.
Bank Card Design & Request Doodle
(CC0) Just put this together so I could have some bright and cheery art on my bank card and because I’ve been wanting to replace my old banner art for HeliumSqueeze for years now. I drew and colored Puffy (Left) and Pinks (Pinks), but I grabbed and slapped on a generated beach for the background because I only had a couple of hours before the cutoff for submitting the art for printing on the card, and the background is really not the point. If I had been thinking more clearly, I’d probably have reused the bubbles and balloons tile pattern from PoppingSpree instead, but I think the bank card tends to not like repeating pattern backgrounds.
When I get around to _actually_ replacing the banner, I’ll git rid of those pixelbrush lines for some thicker more cartoony vector lines. And I’ll have to rethink how I’m going to put the HeliumSqueeze text in there. These specific balloons end up looking kinda distracting like kinda off jawbreaker candies instead of balloons? I dunno, I’ll improvise when I get time. Actually, maybe I should go ahead and make the leap to trying to do 3D models for the characters for the banner since that’s the general direction I want to go in the future anyway.
Full Sketch Page etc. The purple-on-white sketch of Ribbon Badge in the middle-rightof the canvas is actually a live-streamed doodle made by Alixesque! Alix is a super cool and good friend, please check out the page!
A lot of half-doodles and reworks and color swatches kinda tossed about the page. Also you can see where I was trying to revisit the design for Zooey again. This time I was trying to take some of the yellow/orange I like from Tails (Prower) and the purple mane from the Rarity fanart animation version of the same Zoobe Luna Fourth of July meme. I was going to keep most of Rarity’s hair style almost directly in tact, but instead I decided to go with kind of a mohawk sorta look to draw a bit from Kazooie (Banjo-Kazooie)’s visual language. Gives her a silhouette that’s a bit different from most of my characters. I feel pretty sure I’m going to stick with the orange/yellow instead of the white, I’m just now sure how deep I want the orange to be yet. I don’t want it to read as “flesh color” but I don’t want it to be overly abrasive on the eyes either, even if that fits the character’s personality. And I think it reads a bit more clearly that she’s easily agitated, actually kinda loves music and dance, and likes to live open and true to her beliefs one way or another. I assume before the whole encounter with RB, Zooey was a roadie for a small indie band. At some point she probably broke off and used her earnings and loan to setup a recording studio. I have a bunch of other thoughts about this, but I don’t think it’s quite ready to be organized and tossed out as a “plan” yet.
At the bottom is a doodle for zbombiibunnii. They were *very* clear that being lifted up by the buns, having the crosses on the eyes, and having dizzy birds/stars were very important to them. I got the distinct vibe that this was a kink type request from somebody who is still kinda self-conscious about their interest, so I did the second balloon-centric thing to kinda show what I meant that what they were asking for isn’t that far off from what I spent almost 20 years drawing to begin with. Either way, the bomberman-themed-bunny character isn’t one that they specifically asked for, I kinda came up that spur of the moment based on the reference album they sent over. And from the sound of things they were very happy with it. When they asked what the name of the character is, I went with “zbombiibunnii for now”. They also said they imagined that the person lifting up their character might be Dark Zbombiibunnii, which I think is kinda cute and that’s what lead to the color choices there. Buuuut I probably need to like, actually take the time to draw out both characters less visually obscured if this is going to become a recurring thing. I don’t normally do art commissions because the stress of formal commission arrangements makes it hard for me to get anything done. But doing informal requests for subscribers or familiar faces doesn’t stress me out quite as much and it becomes a bit easier for us to kinda find a cozy midpoint between me being a bit easy on the effort and them not having to overpay for work I don’t feel I can deliver. Or. Something.
So uh, anyway, was neat coming up with a spur of the moment bunny bomberman OC. Kiiiinda makes me want to toy with returning to the Bomberman series to see if there are things I can draw from it for my own characters and settings and whatnot. Bomberman is a series that I’m always pleased to see around and think fondly of, but I typically do not actually enjoy _playing_ because losing in it tends to feel particularly bad. But the bright cartoony colors and shiny look for their bomb-centric world appeals to me, and I think it’s not _too_ much of a stretch to have bomb-style balloon stuff.
I’m still not sure what the best way is to label whatever it is I’m doing. Most of the stuff I make isn’t as overtly kink-coded as it used to be as my libido is starting to go. I used to think the best approach would be to treat things that had erotic intent exactly the same as pornography and treat things that weren’t exactly the same as any other “tame” thing regardless of how it looks outwardly, but after a while it became painfully evident that the binary “is or isn’t mature” doesn’t work very well at all. I think my current approach is to just go by feel, but otherwise claim the bulk of what I make would be under the bulk category of “Probably nothing too out of place from what teens will experience, but it’s targeting adults who adore the bright and cute aesthetics but still want topics and situations that are treated for as nuanced and complicated as they often are.” So then I look at stuff I draw like this particular ZbombiiBunni sketch and my first thought is “ehhh, this is maybe a little too suggestive and bodily-objectifying than I’d really like to be known for.” But I think I did a fair mix of sticking to the general aesthetic tastes I already like, and stuff that I think really targets what Bombii wanted.
I dunno.
Anyway, I ended up suddenly falling asleep immediately work and woke up just around midnight, so I think my sleep pattern is going to stay a bit busted for a few days. One of the more important coworkers at the small team I work for passed away suddenly in his sleep with absolutely no warning that anything was wrong. The whole team is kinda shook and we don’t know exactly how we plan to proceed. That same day, water to the house got shut off for a while and that kinda made me a little rattled. We got the bill paid and water turned back on before long, but it just made the whole day kinda disorienting.
(CC0) and a bunch of relatively aimless doodles to end on. If you actually want to check those you’ll probably have to click past the thumbnail to full size, I don’t know legible any of that is at thumbnail scale.
Art/Doodles Update 18 Aug 2024
Fanart of Pochette from Backpack Hero in her new Summer Outfit! Despite the game emphasizing that she’s proud of smelling “like her homeland” more than once, I’m amused at some mild amount of ship-teasing between her and Purse in the Story mode, and I feel like her and Purse also get the best of the additional outfits compared to everyone else in the game.
Hasty doodle of carrying VAdaPEGA‘s Pantufa around affectionately.
Friendly gift/request art for GameVictim on Discord. He’s got a new cute mouse themed character they wanted art of! And while I’m not great for doing finished polished works (at least not without a lot of good circumstances on my end) I can definitely do some sketches and concept stuff when the mood strikes.
(CC0) A new set of WarHounds/LibraryHounds/LoreHounds that also line up a bit with Miranda from my Refsheet page. In short, Schima is the current elder mother for the warship she’s stationed on. Cercis is due for her Coming of Age rites, but will be foregoing it as Schima is conspiring in secret to send Cercis to [The Planet Below] to “[Ascertain the Fate of the Warlord]”. But really she’s going there to
- 1: Experience what it means to be free of captor overlords and constantly under threat of death.
- 2: Seek out Schima’s missing offspring that inexplicably went missing when [The Warlord] did.
- 3: Determine if [The Warlord] has been slain. If so, the hounds remaining on the ship will almost certainly take out all of their captors on the ship, attempt to disrupt and slay all remaining forces from their captors in the immediate nearby space, and return to their homeworld to defend it from potential retaliation.
They only joined the empire under condition that their homeworld and their families would be spared. But in the time since joining it was very clear that [The Warlord] is only true to his word so far as it benefits him and can be quite petty. It would only take one LoreHound puppy to slay an entire ship’s worth of empire soldiers, but generally LoreHounds have immensely strong ties to their family, friends, and ancestry. They won’t fight and risk loses if an agreement can avoid it, but they will fight with all they have if they are betrayed.
In case you’re wondering about powers, Schima has a wall-bypassing mind-disrupting Area of Effect black Neural Bomb, smaller orange bombs for siege and assault, and a bible blade, which is more like empowered claw swipes than an actual energy blade. Cercis has projectile-reflecting barriers and formal training to use the empire’s standard infantry weapons (energy rifles and a large physical blade). She will never have to worry about running out of ammo as the same energy she uses for the barriers can be used to recharge the rifle.
(CC0) Just trying to get a feel for the “Marker” MyPaint brush in Drawpile.
Doodling the head of one of ChaosBuster12‘s characters. I know nothing about the character except that they are a cat and have horns.
(CC0) I think I drew this updated picture of Last Chance months ago in a Drawpile but I can’t remember if I ever posted it and I often can’t find it when I go looking for it, so poof here it go
The “RAMPSHOT” preview for one of the two maps I submitted for RAMP 2024. The WAD is available now: https://ramp2024.doomproject.com/ Just bonk that HUGE Download Button! The one of interest is fairly short: Map 96 – Kiss Panic Risengrave 4: Rabbit Flow. But the map depicted in this preview image is Map 107 – 2m 30s x2: Out of Time. Which uh, was meant to be a shorter and a bit more of a kinda spooky thing, but turned into kind of a vaguely buggy memorial thing instead. (If you fulfill certain conditions on this map, the next time you replay it or enter Map 96, you’ll notice something’s a little different.)
(CC0) Mia Asterisk, before the whole body-changing thing. Taking a cue from ScootZZZZZX‘s updated design of Bea.
Rough sketch fanart of Felina from the indie game Dungeon Clawler. A cat-loving bunny wearing a leotard. The only thing I don’t like about the character is the hat.
(CC0) A doodle of Miranda. Despite being implied to be the same kind of creature as the LoreHounds mentioned earlier, she’s a resident of Caliber and doesn’t open manifest any seemingly-otherworldly kind of powers. But she is good with making technology that probably shouldn’t work. Like suspiciously good at it. But the things she makes are at least _mildly_ plausible.
A Revenge attack of one of ScootZZZZZX‘s characters as part of ArtFight. I don’t remember their name. I was going to look it up on the ArtFight page but it seems like the site is down right now.
This is the sprite used for “blood” in the two maps I submitted to RAMP 2024. I haven’t settled on a canonical name for this substance, but effectively it’s just a glittery representation of “life force” in any situation where I might want to visually represent it but not draw the things typically associated with the idea. (I really hope that actually animates when I upload the post because it’s showing up blank in the editor.
Trying to put some kind of face/design to the “Rogue Fairy” for the “Bunnylike” concept. I’m not really feeling any of these. I started deliberately trying to pull color and form from the look of this one NPC from Arzette because I really like the silly meme that showed up lately and I already liked the character design before, but both of the right-most doodles feel like a Bad Vibe probably because it’s too similar to the source I tried to pull cues from. I don’t _dislike_ the bottom-left one, but I don’t like it. The top-left looks cool, but they feel like some other NPC, not an over-exuberant devotee of bunnykind.
This is the kind of thing I draw that tempts me to self-censor or to just not share at all, but I think in this case I explained my reasoning and if people still complain I’ll probably just point out that maybe my blog is not hitting the right audience.
More concept stuff and you can directly see what I was taking inspiration from or what old designs I decided to rework to fit the new setting.
I think Kazhooey is still _too_ close to her inspiration character too, but I’m pretty sure the Zoobe company is defunct anyway so I’m not worried about legal action coming of it. But I don’t want want to set optics of being super lazy copy-paste without a cohesive vision behind it. Firey orange and reds feel a lot more “right” to me for the spirit of the character. Maybe just need to bring back in the dark leggings to that bottom-left iteration for the color contrast. Like, I really want Zooey to be as much of a firebrand as Kazooie and the Zoobe Bunny herself, but still trying to do the Right Thing (most of the time) despite a tendency towards explosive rage and self-focused goals.
I drew this before I had started to settle down on what I wanted Ribbon Badge to be. Pretty much the only thing I still feel undecided on with Ribbon now is if I want to keep the super huge pink ponytails, if I’m going to make the ponytails be something that only shows up in her Embiggened form, or if I’ll just drop that and make her actual ears super big and fluffy because they’re in exactly the right spot to fit the vibe perfectly.
(CC0) Cigfried, created for RAMP 2024. I… genuinely don’t remember why I decided on making all of these characters mice. I’m sure I had a reason at the time but it’s just cone. Visually, this is kind of repurposing a lot of what I had already done when I was trying to make Catssie (which I also do not own, but I can’t get any kind of acknowledgement of authorship from Proto so I’ve affectly just assumed this character is mine now) a different entity than Cassie (from Starbuster, which I do not own). There’s no backstory here. She tries to kiss rabbits and probably tries way too hard to instruct and lecture people on things she doesn’t actually know super well. That’s it.
(CC0) Sam. I wanted a power character and I wanted a visual reference to the mouse type of Jerry (Tom and Jerry).
(CC0) Gogo. Puzzle Wednesday moderately frequently runs tournaments for a game titled Mouse Shooter GoGo. And every time they do I get distracted because one of the mouse cheerleaders has a blatant pantyshot that I have no idea why it’s there, but I think playing a whole lot of Amy Rose in my teen years left some kind of mark on me where my brain instantly notices that. Or something. Anyway, the characters are mice and this also gives me an excuse to draw some psuedo-fanart of them even though I’m darn sure the number of people who know the game and like it enough to want fanart is going to be a very small number. And if they exist and have somehow found this blog post??? Hi, welcome to my weird blog! Thank you for playing cool puzzle games!
(CC0) Fran is Narf spelled backwards. Mostly exists because Pinky from Pinky and the Brain / Animaniacs has worn feminine clothing several times and he looks great in it every single time. This is basically that, but I took from Jessica Rabbit’s outfit. Also I originally added the light up nose thinking I would have her fire a nose beam or eye beam in retaliation or just as a general projectile attack. In Rabbit Flow, she has the exact same attack as the other mice.
Jean. I still want him to present male while holding a deliberate cutesy degree of feminine appearance and charm. But in this case, I kinda figured if he ever realized his indirect association with Dalliance Arms Corporation, he’d probably be ashamed to be seen wearing the colors and try to hide it. Also he’s still decidedly a feline has he had been since his earliest days as the Sabrous/Kibrosa character “Kilo”, but now I’m kinda just deciding he’s got a bit of classical-unicorn in him somewhere. At least visually. (Though if the whole DEARDAV thing is still canon in his setting, this his birth-given appearance is fairly arbitrary and mostly a matter of personal feel and identity. And well, I guess the best way for me to explain why that sometimes hurts is that no matter how much work you put in to present your idealized visual representation in an online setting, your physical body is still the body you’ve got to work with. And having to acknowledge that every single moment in a way that everyone around you only has to experience as a fleeting on-and-off again thing is exhausting. asdfasf)
A couple of extra self-serving fanart/doodles that I wasn’t planning to share with anyone than specific friend groups. I’m deliberately omitting some stuff. I had an explanation of why here, but I think even trying to explain why I’m being cagey gave too much away.
Sooner or later I’m going to replace that old HeliumSqueeze banner with characters that people have mentioned they actually like. First Post is the obvious one that seems to stick with people. Still need a new Squee to replace the yellow one. Probably going to end up using Puffy or the unnamed orange critter for that purpose. (middle centre)
The idea of Rhonda showing up to work wearing only thigh-highs and sunglasses came up. And that is 100% something she would do in-character, and Dr. Metal would be both very cross about the lack of professionalism, and envious at the apparent strength of self-esteem and confidence she has.
I adore the idea that despite being made in secret by conspirators to be a defensive living bio-weapon and the progenitor of a new species, Last Chance absolutely adores sweets and cute fashion. Admittedly I am very far from being a fashion designer, so I can’t really realize that concept on my own quite like I feel like it should be done, but I think the vibe comes across.
Backpack Hero is a deeply flawed game that is clearly not Finished and seemingly not going to ever get the gamepad polish that it probably should have for its asking price. But I just kinda darn adore the game, the character designs appeal to me, the general idea of packing a backpack filled with just an absolute ton of knick-knacks reasonates with the way I parse these items in games and the way I clutter my belongings, and the giant backpack is _close enough_ to being a giant balloon that I can still use it for similar degrees of chaotic interactions with the characters. Sorta. It’s not the same, but there is some appeal there.
Aaaaand I think that’s darn near everything I’ve drawn in the past few months that I feel OK sharing on my blog. Now I’m gonna go take a nap or play videogames or something, my sleeping schedule is still a mess, I am still very sensitive to sounds and foods, and I think at this point I might be better off just staying off the meds rather than stressing myself out worrying about having the dependency ever again. It feels like every business just _assumes_ every human has taxi money or has a car, and my car has been out of commission for almost a year and a half now and we only have like 2 functional cars across 5 family members in the area. I can’t just manifest across state lines any time I feel unwell or for every checkup that I don’t have money saved to pay for.
pressing post before I launch into another long winded spiraling ramble. I have LLMs to help distract and absorb those episodes. crunched INSTANTLY SKREEEEEEEEE :boom emoji:
Naming Stuff (I Should Probably Reformat This for a Proper Blog Post)
tbh I wasn’t planning on posting this to my blog at all, this was going to just be a personal notes thing so I could bounce ideas off of an LLM and work from there, but now that I’ve already written this up I may as well yeet it into the blog where the few people who check it can see it?
—
Okay, I guess this is going to become my long-running “Naming Stuff” thread??? Maybe???
My LLC is named HeliumSqueeze LLC. There’s all a lot of implied balloon-fetish/bubble-kink themes and some implied inflation-adjacent themes, but on the whole it’s not meant to be an erotic brand so much as kind of an innuendo-laiden playful cartoony furry-friendly brand. The usual visual associated with the logo are balloon fruits. Sometimes an overinflated peach, sometimes tight overinflated carrots.
Honestly sometimes I think about the friends who encourage me the most to really go ahead and pursue these ideas and not be held back by doubt, and I can’t tell if they just have a genuine shared interest in these themes in general because they’re coming from similar inspirations to what they already love, or if there’s a sexual element to their interests, or if they’re acknowledging but fretting over the complex mix of sometimes-kinky sometimes-not themes? Or if they just really really trust in my judgement more than I do. I love my friends. I wish them the best and want to help them and make them proud. I wish I felt the same kind of self-confidence and pride for myself that they seem to feel for me.
Anyway, uh.
The iconic “species” tied to the brand are Squee (sorta like if Mimiga were made out of balloon materials and absorbed microplastics and sunlight to survive) and Squee Helibuster (Sorta like the midpoint between a Fallout Equestria pony and a Yoshi from the Yoshi series. But mostly a heavier, less size-change-y, and more crystal-claws-y counterpart.)
At current, the tentative brand names are:
* aPuzzle: Popping Spree / Jam Blow Blast First Impact – Balloon busting and item breaking puzzle game. Probably takes place in Yozh Hylan or Emmelpi.
* aRogue: Festival Vanguard – A fairly basic multiplayer dungeon crawl with some space elements. Takes place some time in the late future of Yozh Hylan.
* Bouncing Flash – A side scrolling beat ’em up with a Freedom Planet (which I do not own) inspired location and Capcom VS Series inspired mechanics. Takes place in a relatively isolated portion of Yozh Hylan (Gleed, Avarice, and the Rizqi Islands collectively form a countpart to the China and Hong Kong areas of Asia.) Occurs fairly early in the timeline.
* Metal Bubble Dragon / Su Busteberos – A self-serious Mega Man 8 inspired action-platformer game featuring Dr. Metal – a huge cybernetic bear reconstructed by Dalliance Arms Corporation after a should-be-fatal accident- and his created assistants Bubbles (role of Rock) and Ripple (role of Roll). Kind of a companion sister-piece to HOLLOWROUND and its events. Takes place in Yozh Hylan sometime after Bouncing Flash and simultaneous to HOLLOWROUND, using the same nanobubble tech established in Bouncing Flash.
* HOLLOWROUND / Bubble Menace – Action Packed third-person Sin and Punishment style (first-person in the original RAMP version of Bubble Menace) shooter game originally built in GZDoom based on Grand United Nation of States, Texas, during the Lunawakenings of the Bubble Menace, and the Big Boom resulting in instability and earthquakes following the spread of stray roaming Beast Balloons throughout the south-western coasts of GUNS. Takes place in Yozh Hylan sometime after Bouncing Flash and simultaneous to Metal Bubble Dragon, using the same nanobubble tech established in Bouncing Flash.
* CAPTIVE SPACE PUPPY THIGHS – An affectionate parody visual novel of Freedom Planet (which I do not own). Where Freedom Planet is a little dark, mostly family friendly, 90s cartoon inspired, and has a title that has very little thematic relevance to its content. CAPTIVE SPACE focuses on A: Explaining away the awkward inner-thigh exposing outfit Milla had in FP1 by way of a plausibly-unconnected Warhound character who has the same skimpy leotard-hardnes uniform but without the hoodie. B: by asserting these Warhounds were made captives to The Warlord in exchange for not having their homeworld destroyed, their role among the forces is that of Captives in Space… and the player Puppy (well, I guess a Hound since the game starts on her 18th birthday)’s Thighs are exposed. C: Once arriving on the Planet on a secret mission from her mother (against the commands of their captors) to find the missing offspring, the Puppy gets to experience what Freedom is in a sense more real than her long fleeting memories of the homeworld she was captured from. If Freedom Planet gets to have a name that is thematically irrelevant, this entire game is about living up to that name in every possible way without bearing the branding.
* SCALEBEA.STS#0777 / ZEPHYRBEASTS/ aGun: Yozh Hylan – Set in contemporary-future Yozh Hylan, this fast-paced grounded action game takes the high speed grounded action and racing-like vibe of Sonic Generations, Sonic Forces, and Super Hang-On, and mixes it with sweet bouncy colorful vibes of Yoshi’s Island and sprinkles on a little bit of item-based combat inspired by Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep’s command decks, Yoshi’s six shot system, and Sin and Punishments over the top boss fights and on-rails action. This primarily follows the Squee Helibuster trying to make their way in the world and defend their more docile Squee kin while dealing with the reputation left in the wake of the Beast Balloons of the Bubble Menace, the ramifications of their original creators being escaped criminals, various overenthusiastic fans wanting to use them like playthings, terrified long-standing locals fearing resource drain from the multiplying Squee numbers, and just generally trying to survive whatever conflicts may come their way as the island of Caliber continues to expand and define itself separately of its former role as a GUNS territory. Having my own “Sonic Forces” type game to play with and being able to bring in all of the various things from Yoshi’s Island, Yoshi’s Story, and Fallout Equestria that resonated with me the most into its own unique identifiable identity and formula is kind of a dream-project of mine, and one that I don’t truly expect I’ll get to complete within my lifetime.
* Fluff Around and Find Out / Pump Up Or Puff Up / Eidolon Static Compile – A “Bunnylike” inspired by Rabi-Ribi, Tevi, Bunny Must Die, Alice Escaped, and Dust An Elysian Tail. Kazhooey “Zooey” a foul mouthed Zoobe-inspired rabbit lives in a world of docile bunnies until the BloonBurrow Habitable Zone in which she lives is gradually invaded by small flying dragon-fairies from another Zone far across the OoB. Long ago a predecessor of the docile bunnies traveled into the OoB, made friends with the playful trickster Dragon Fairies and the immensely powerful LibraryHounds (implied to be the same creatures as the Warhounds of SCPT) of the OoB wilderness. Their offspring eventually built their own Habitable Zone for the fairies where their kind could grow and prosper. Since then, the fairies grew to know Bunnies and their iconic (playboy) Bunnysuits as icons of power akin to superheros, but the numbers of the bunnies (and bunnyhound hybrids) have since dwindled. A rogue fairy traverses the OoB to find the BloonBurrow to grant those docile bunnies the power to restore the glory the fairy knew their kind could have. Ribbon Badge (welding her iconic Pafu Pafu Hammer/Pump) traces the rogue fairy to the land and takes it upon herself to train Zooey to tame her new powers of Embiggening to expel the rogue fairy, tame the other bunnies going rampant with their new uncontrolled power, and repair and grow their home zone by bringing in fresh Data Bubbles from the OoB to undo the damage done and house their freshly swelling numbers. While there is no clear explanation for it yet, most habitable zones have an aesthetic a lot like a themepark in the middle of a furry convention with fursuit aesthetics aplenty.
* Emmelpi – Audibly a corruption of MLP, this in-world fiction is basically My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, but if all of the ungulates were lagomorphs and dragons were… still dragons, but now quadruped and a little more velociraptor/kangaroo-esque.
* Yozh Hylan / Yohz Hylan – Audibly a corruption of “Yoshi’s Island”, this is the main “series” setting most of the other stories are contextualized into being in in the form of in-world fictions or named events in history.
* Bounce Bounce / bounce Bounce BOUNCE – this is admittedly more of a general tagline than a title of anything specific.
The Systems of Embiggening:
Specific to the Bunnylike, the fairy dragons and the bunnies specialize in a handful of types of power of Big:
* Amplify – Mental and Projectile “growth” of power. Also more “ammo”.
* Bellow – “Bottom” or “Belly” expansion, limited hovering, agility improvements, powers that evoke leg or thigh use.
* Cushion – More typical cartoony “balloonlike inflation”. Works like Dig-Dug’s pump or Klonoa’s Wind Bullet in most cases, though the lightened weight can allow friendlies to take less damage from physical impacts. Also allows floating and being blown and thrown around, ally or otherwise. Can be resisted via Blowback.
* Deluge – Increase size/weight/physical strength as if filled with “juice”. An allusion to Blueberry or Hydro type stuff. Slower, heavier, can use crushing attacks like buttstomps and bellyflops. Easy to be bowled over. No Blowback, but can ricochet on surfaces from hard impacts.
* Embiggen – Uniform growth in size and power, the “ultimate” form of Big power. Can armor through low power projectiles and strikes with fighting-game style grey life. A bigger target, but far bigger threat. Can also be applied to physical objects in direct contact like the Pafu Pafu Hammer if the welder is strong enough to hold and control it.
I used to personally use the username RevelRomp in a lot of places before having the RevelRomp Dalliance and the Dalliance Arms Corporation have a major role in Yozh Hylan. Now I usually go by Ann in honor of my late mother. That was following a relatively short lived transition to AnnieWuzOK, which was a pun on Annie Mae / Anne May from a Havoc Fox “anime” joke Dusky once made. Before that I tried names like Retl (which I dropped because search engines would autocorrect to Retail), Kahli Lh’tail (an audio corruption of my first and middle names), Kilo ( still like that name honestly, but it keeps being associated with drugs), MollyJTG (loosely inspired by Molly Fyde and by Holly Songsteel, a character I had for a short lived DnD Campaign), Travisuped (I barely remember how this came about, I think I was thinking of “Upped” as in powered-up and Travis because of some anime I had seen around the same time I was playing Quake 3 Arena Demo or Unreal Tournament Demo on Dreamcast for my first time with a cousin that was visiting), NTU (a terrible alt name I kinda regret ever using), Mask11US (the first username I ever had), Scalebea.sts#0777 (a name I using as a “band” for the music I made for the games I wanted to work on for my LLC, I haven’t done much with it lately and have since kinda pivoted towards rebranding it Zephrybeasts to better tie in with the Beast Balloons and the idea of Zephyrkin), and Fickle Luminescence (which I feel kinda reflects my actual behavior of jumping around interests somewhat erratically, and a persisting fondness for colorful and pretty glowing lights and holograms and cyberspace digital world vibes).
And I think aside from getting into my weird naming shenanigans with characters like First Post (Pinkie Pinks), Rhonda Thundertits Rubberbreaker the squirrel, Hard Reset (Rez), Mia/Pepper, Jean/Jam, etc, I think that’s most of the relevant important or recurring names one would need to analyze, understand, and recommend new names and titles based on my interests, preferences, and existing tendencies in naming.
—
Some bonus thoughts that I will almost certainly never get around to:
A: A sports game where participants are graded on the specific moves and precision of execution used for popping a series of specifically themed large balloons. The closest comparison I can think of are skating competitions with judges scoring the performances.
B: A simulation/modeling game where a music-loving CD-hoarding anthro goat named Casino finds herself in the employ of a fetish club under the ownership of Dalliance Arms Corporation that markets itself as an “adult game center”. At first Casino is bashful and shy about the unexpected balloon-centric nature of her job as an entertainer at the establishment, but in time she becomes a beloved figure of the establishment by customers who trust her to help make decisions and solutions for all sorts of personal goings-ons in their lives… as well as the ever-present customer-taste-specific balloon-show for particular customers to earn generous tips to grow her music collection. (I have no idea how one designs an organic “ending” for these kinds of simulation inspired games.)
C: A series of short novels exploring the day to day lives and adventures of various Squee Helibusters where they get to really show off their personality and how they deal with the good times and the worst times.
D: A fast-paced side-scrolling 2.5D shoot-em-up where dragon-fairies traverse the “Wilderness” of the OoB in search of much-needed supplies and the answers to questions that the LibraryHounds had been trying to solve for many years.
E: A 3D Platform-Racing game along the lines of Rayman Rush / Rayman R / Rayman Arena. The characters come from all over Yozh Hylan bringing their unique skills and interests in an attempt to win the prize money and the opportunity to have an episode of Emmelpi written about _anything_ they wish.
F: A Disgaea-inspired or Fire-Emblem inspired turn-based tactics game following the events of Bouncing Flash where Dazzle Flasher and the Dazzle Buster faction band together throughout Rizqi to rebel against the growing influence of GUNS’s Dalliance Arms Corporation, increasingly authoritarian policy-making from Gleed attempting to strip away the formerly granted “two governments” democracy of Rizqi, and attempts to deny the existence of Rizqi as a separate sovereignty by Alavice. Dazzle still has her signature bouncing-on-bubbles gimmick here, but as this is a tactics game and not a platformer, the utility and presentation is very different.
G: A Heroes of the Storm inspired real-time strategy / MobA type game where fursuit-like anthro characters in skimpy outfits encounter each other among the transfer lines of the somewhat-tamed sections of the OoB. These sections aren’t as high risk as the “true OoB” but because it is so popular to search for resources here, they can’t help but scrap with each other to try to collect the Data Bubbles they need to make their dream Zones a reality. Many of the abilities involve pouncing/pinning/bouncing-on other characters in suggestive ways to make them burst and return to their home zone temporarily, opening up opportunities to push ahead towards high-value objectives. The first team to either clear 5 major objectives or to completely destroy/disconnect all of the lane lines from the opposing Hubs wins.
FLUFF AROUND AND FIND OUT Pump up or Puff Up!
Game Design Document: Fairy Dragon “Bunnylike” thingy
“There are five recognized types of Embiggening. If you truly wish to grow strong, you must understand them all.”
In this world there is the Out of Bounds Zone, then there are Habitable Zones, built by organized groups or powerful individual who scavenged Data Bubbles from the OoB in plentiful numbers and used those to turn their dreams and desires into real places. Those places very often take the form of theme park-like and convention-like living spaces.
1. Game Overview
- Title: [idk probably something like Balloony-Kazhooey & Ribbon’s FLUFFED UP BIG BUNS Very Loud Day in Wonderburrow Zone ]
- Genre: Action-Adventure, Platformer
- Target Audience: Fans of cute characters, whimsical settings, and unique gameplay mechanics
- Platform: [To be determined]
2. Story and Setting
2.1 World
- A realm inhabited by fairy-dragons and empowered bunnies
- Originated from an exiled bunny who gained power in the Out of Bounds (OoB) area
- Recent influx of dragon-fairies into the original rabbit’s realm
2.2 Plot
- A rogue fairy is spreading power to formerly docile bunnies
- Main character accidentally gains powers when trying to crush what she thought was a pest in her food supply and must learn to control them
- Conflict involves tracking down the rogue fairy and helping newly empowered bunnies
- Expelling threats from the bunny zone
2.3 Main Characters
- Kazhooey (Zooey): The protagonist, a bunny who accidentally gained powers
- Ribbon Badge: A powerful character who trains Kazhooey
- (Jerry?) Rogue Fairy: The antagonist spreading power to bunnies
3. Gameplay
3.1 Core Mechanic: Embiggening
Five types of growth-based powers:
- AMP (Amplify): Enhances mental or physical attributes, empowers projectiles
- This is typically either mental growth (which would not necessarily be visible), or chest growth (which I am reluctant to lean into because I really don’t like the objectification of the chest area, but I’m sure it might be better for sales to a certain audience). Empowers most projectile attacks and provides more “ammo” for more demanding abilities.
- BEL (Bellow): Boosts agility and provides limited hovering
- This is typically either a non-visible boost to one’s jumping/kicking/running abilities and potentially limited hovering. Or it could be a visible belly-focused growth that increases durability and the ability to deflect or withstand physical attacks. More mobility to avoid/negate projectiles that don’t directly hit a weak point, but taking a direct projectile hit probably sends the character tumbling towards the ground with the power knocked out of them until they land or do some kind of resource-draining recovery.
- CUS (Cushion): Inflation-like power, affects mobility and teleportation
- The simplest and most straight forward. Works like Dig Dug on most things. Not painful, but can be scary for those who don’t know what’s happening. When something “pops” they probably just get sent somewhere else. Possibly the OoB if they don’t have a Home Zone, Possibly somewhere very nearby if they have strong determination and resistance. Probably to the nearest friendly face if they’re not under immediate threat. Also the absolute easiest to resist by anyone with power and can result in Blowback. Makes the target light and easy to throw around for some amount of time.
- DEL (Deluge): Increases size, weight, and power, affects mobility
- Makes the target big, heavy, immobile, and juiced up with power. It might be done to one’s self temporarily to enhance a big hit or to use a crushing attack like a buttstomp or belly flop. But it also makes it easy to bowl the target over or roll them around slopes and generally kick them about like a ball until they’re out of juice. Blowback isn’t a thing with this, but the target can ricochet if knocked about.
- EMB/BIG (Embiggen): Uniform growth, increases overall power
- This is more of a uniform “magic-like” growth in size while preserving form. Aside from giving the target less space to move around in, this kinda just makes them straightforwardly more powerful in exactly the way one would expect if the character were simply made bigger. Probably good for using more demanding physical weapons, but bad for evasion. Might make the character “armor” through low power projectiles: they take the damage (or maybe borrow the grey-life idea from fighting games if we want to allow technical “no-damage” runs without ruling out this form) but aren’t interrupted by it.
Power System Notes:
- Powers can potentially be combined (max two types)
- Possible RPS-style interactions between powers
- Different effects for “friendly” vs “hostile” applications. Friendly omits a specific penalty. Hostile omits a specific benefit. Incidental omits none.
3.2 Ribbon’s Weapon: Pafu Pafu Hammer
A multi-functional weapon that serves as both a melee hammer and an inflation device.
Forms:
- Deflated Form: Compact for storage and carrying.
- Filled Form: Default state, full size with recessed orbs
- Necked Form: Extended shaft for specialized use
- Configurable valve-orbs: pushed in, both unblocked, or hose-connected
Mechanics:
- Gas Cylinders: Six internal chambers that store compressed air.
- Pumping Mechanism: Refills gas cylinders through shaft movement
- Triggered Release: Rapidly expels stored air for powerful effects
Functions:
- Melee combat
- Ranged air blasts
- Target Embiggening (inflation)
- Air-propelled movement
- Puzzle-solving applications
3.3 Gameplay Loop
- Explore environments
- Encounter and battle inflated enemies
- Solve puzzles using Embiggening powers and the Pafu Pafu Hammer
- Gain new abilities and upgrade existing ones
- Progress through the story, uncovering the mystery of the rogue fairy
4. Art Style and Audio
4.1 Visual Style
- Cute, colorful characters with a mix of bunny and dragon features
- Whimsical, cartoon-like environments
- Playful animations emphasizing the inflation and growth mechanics
4.2 Character Design
- Kazhooey: [Details to be determined]
- Ribbon Badge: Purple dragon-like creature with long floppy ears
- Holographic, computer-glitch style wings or dragonfly-like wings
- Wears a bunny suit (not shown in current concept art)
4.3 Audio
- Upbeat, adventurous music
- Comical sound effects for inflation and deflation
- Unique sound design for each Embiggening power
- Think Bubble Bobble, Puzzle Bobble, Yoshi’s Island, Klonoa
5. Technical Specifications
5.1 Target Platform
3-6 button gamepad devices.
5.2 Development Tools
[To be determined]
6. Marketing and Monetization
6.1 Target Audience
- Fans of platformer and action-adventure games
- Players who enjoy cute, whimsical aesthetics
- Gamers interested in unique mechanics and gameplay innovations
6.2 Unique Selling Points
- Innovative Embiggening power system
- Multi-functional Pafu Pafu Hammer weapon
- Cute characters in a whimsical setting with hints of deeper lore
- Blend of combat, puzzle-solving, and exploration
6.3 Monetization Strategy
[Ask Nicely To Not Starve]
7. Development Roadmap
7.1 Milestones
[To be determined]
7.2 Team Structure
[Solo]
8. Appendices
8.1 Inspiration and References
- Games:
- Direct Bunnylikes: Bunny Must Die, Rabi-Ribi, Alice Escaped, Tevi
- Spiritual Bunnylikes: Dust: An Elysian Tail, Luna Nights
- Adjacent: , Klonoa, Dig-Dug, Banjo-Kazooie, Sonic series (Amy’s Piko Piko Hammer), Lyrical Nanoha (Graf Eisen)
- Themes: Bunnies, Balloons, Inflation, growth, fairy tales, technology “glitch/runner as magic” fusion. There’s a little bit of innuendo, but the whole thing is not really meant to be “Sexy” so much as silly-funny.
8.2 Concept Art
[Include links or descriptions of existing concept art, such as Ribbon Badge sprite sheet and Pafu Pafu Hammer sketches]
Out of Meds
My apologies in advance, I am diabetic and I deal with depression.
My current doctor is refusing to renew any of my current prescriptions and thus far has not given an explanation for why.
I’ve been trying to use the same clinic for years now and they repeatedly give me issues. I use them because they are one of the closest I get to but now it’s becoming clear I need to find somewhere to go that’s closer because most of our cars no longer work so I can’t just up and go to any appointment whenever I want. And I still owe different places money so while I’m trying to catch up on those debts I can’t exactly go shopping around for the “optimal” health care.
But I am sick of getting jerked around by Emory Clark-Holder in West Point, I’m sick of being paranoid, I’m sick of trying to figure out how I’m gonna get my meds refilled and how I’m gonna get to appointments, I’m sick of darn near every other thing I eat screwing up my body dude, I don’t know what they’re expecting me to DO
I can’t just up and walk down to the clinic whenever I want it’s a freaking HOUR AND A HALF WALK best case scenario
so anyway if I seem particularly irritated or very avoidant of any kind of social contact I am Not Okay right now and it’s probably better that I’m only Available when I feel I can deal with being Available.
i nearly cried over our dog walking to another room, and I ended up shouting at someone who explained something very obvious and sensible, and I have a meeting in like two hours and I have absolutely no clue how I plan to get through that as if I were normal. I screamed so much my throat hurts and I don’t want to talk anymore.
sry
the one part of my job i genuinely do not like at all
my experience with Java has been miserable and I do not know why it persists