Aaaac's writing tip jar

April 2024 into June 2024

Plans going forward:

Work on Witch Hunter Izana Hard mode and outlining Save.Load (That's the code name for the secret project). I'm pretty confident that WHI Hard mode will be finished this month. The outlining for Save.Load is going but doesn't need to be finished until sometime in 2025, so I'm gonna take my time with it. So I'll probably use my spare time to start outlining for Monsters of the Forest. Generally I don't outline much if at all for Monsters, what I like to do is edit th...

Update on the "secret project" and Monsterifix microficiton

Secret project:

So the secret project is a game I'm making in collaboration with Bottled Starlight studios. I was told to not share too many details, but I don't really see the harm. It'll be a graphic adventure game in the studio's bespoke engine. Long time watchers will know I've done a lot work in that engine helping out with their major game. Good news is I'm just doing the scenario and some of the design, so less time shoveled into the furnace of programing.

This probably won...

Research tower 4 for the public!

Magical research tower 4 is a short timed puzzle hardening/katame centric tf game. It's a homage to japanese katame games, with an emphasis on something different happening each level, a high level of difficulty and cumulative effects across your run.

You play as a series of witches in a research lab under magical attack. As they attempt to escape their floors the risk of getting transformed is ever present. All of them unknowingly prepare the way for the witch who will come and solve...

Research Tower 4 for patreons!

Anyway, so the special patreon edition, probably called the "Polished" edition. It has one special feature, at the start and during gameplay you can switch to "Peril" mode rewrites the TF sequences to be more perilous and in line with how hardening transformations normally go. Mostly I was stretching as a writer.

I'm thinking I'll update the link/post when it comes time for the real release. The public version will have it's own post don't worry.

1.01 update: fixed a bug which w...

May 2024 into April 2024

Plans going forward:

Publish research tower 4. It's basically done. I'll do a bit more testing and release on Monday.

WHI hard mode time after that. This will take a while, all month I think. But since it's all programming I should be able to free up the bandwidth to do writing too. It'll either be writing for the secret project, or Monsters of the Forest" outlining. Secret project I can tell you about in like a week. (There was a miscommunication. It's very silly.) M...

April 2024 into May 2024

Plans going ahead:

Finish Research Tower 4 (RT4). It's at that annoying point where it basically needs one last big push and then the writing will be done. Then a couple days of programing and that'll be finally over. Bad life decisions stick around a for a while like that. Anyway there's other stuff to do after that. Witch Hunter Izana hard mode and possibly work on a secret project!

April:

Hmm first three weeks sucked royally I spent most of them not getting very much don...

March 2024 into April 2024

Plans going ahead:

Finish research tower 4. It's doable. I'm half done on the peril bits and the gameplay revisions aren't that big in the absolute sense. I just need to do writing consistently and keep feeling better. There's some hope for that, so I'm cautiously optimistic we will get there this month.

If I finish RT4? Finish salty's silly Witch Hunter Izana hard mode. If that goes quickly? Well that's not gonna happen but either start outlining for monsters kitsune 2 path or do...

Monsters of the Forest 2024 anniversary!

Happy anniversary everybody! I wish I had a spectacular update to share, but as usual couldn't deliver. I do have some spectacular art to share by the stupendous koops! (https://twitter.com/seyton19)

I asked her to imagine what the transformed kitsune might look like based on some art of her I got earlier.

https://imgur.com/a/QD7N556

As al...

February 2024 into March 2024

Plans going ahead:

Hmm, I'd really like to finish this hard mode thing I'm working on and then get cracking with finally finishing Research tower 4. The hard mode thing is about half done with the programming, which is the part that makes it take forever. This is doable even if it's not what I should probably be doing. 

Still once that's done RT4 is just a lot of TF sequences and a good number gameplay edits away from done! 

Neither of these are in an absolute sens...

January 2024 into February 2024

Plan going forward:

 God help me it's finish hardening game month. I'll be finishing the hardening game. That involves about 80ish TF sequences. They average about 10 lines long so it's not as bad as it sounds. If I meet daily word count goals we should be fine. Then I'll just need to add the last few features and that misadventure will be over. It's a real test of character to launch a flop.

Report on January:

 Hmm, all told a good month. I finally foun...

December 2023 into January 2024

Happy new year! Didn't have a great 2023 but I'm hopeful for 2024!

Plan going forward: Has there ever been a plan going forward that didn't involve working "Monsters of the Forest" at least a little? Anyway, there's that, working on Witch Hunter Izana's hard mode, and grinding out some of the transformation sequences for the Hardening game. I'd like to finish the hardening game in February but writing good TF sequences in bulk is hard, so it's better to split up the work. Average on...

November into December

Plan going forward: Monster of the forest time. Specifically the last few endings in the branch I'm on (kitsune 1). Then I also need to backfill a bit of the content in that branch to account for player choices and enable access to the secret ending. I'm somewhat optimistic I'll get a good amount of writing done. 

I also got contracted to build out the hard mode for my friend Salty Justice's game Witch Hunter Izana. I bug test as a way to relax, and I previously built out the bonus...

Hardening game almost to beta

Howdy! The hardening game I mentioned in the last update is almost done! Well it's almost to beta. All the transformation sequence pictures are made, but only about half of the sequences are written. Plan is to do some more polishing and release on the 30th. (I'll finish up all the tf sequences sometime next year.)

But I figure the almost ready to release game will make an okay patreon reward.
https://mega.nz/file/EX...

October into November post

Plan going forward: Finish hardening game, specifically finish the game-play and then get to work refurbishing the art and tf sequences while adding the last version of each (Alice's run), then back fill the alternate versions. Once the gameplay stuff is added then it just becomes a matter of patience.  Making content isn't the hardest, just have to be patient.
If there's time left, get to work on rest of Monsters of The Forest!

Report on October:

Had it's ups and downs bu...

September into October post

Plan going forward: Make the hardening game. If there's extra time finally finish the kitsune 1 endings and the last bit of work in that path.

Report on September:

Turns out I didn't have to do the driving! Instead my family member got out of the hospital and then quickly back into the hospital and they asked that I stay somewhere closer temporarily. I started to visit them daily and that really put a damper on my creative energies.

Then around the 20th I woke up ...

August into September post

Plan going forward: Continue work on Monsters mostly, maybe screw around with Daz3D and make some test renders to share with you lovely folks. If I can keep things together long enough I will probably finish the kitsune 1 endings. Once those are done I gotta go back and fill in all the fiddly bits, which is a chore but not that heavy writing load wise.

I really liked the whole possession sequence so I might even commission art to celebrate when kitsune 1 is done!

Report on Au...

July into August post

Plan going forward: More monsters if I can get cowflop together enough to pull it off. I'd like to finish the kitsune endings, but that's probably going to be in the neighborhood of 20K, probably edging into 30K when I go back and add all the content to the kitsune 1 path as a whole. That's a pretty heavy lift for a single month, but I'm gonna really try for a daily writing goal.

If I somehow get the writing done every day and need more to do, I'll either make a few more koikatsu comics...

Transformation equipment comic finished!

The koikatsu comic I started a while ago is finished! I did it mostly because it was a fun idea, I'll admit. Anyway I collected all three issues, and the epilogue and I'm putting them here for my lovely patreons.

A series of dudes play a VRMMO and transformed by what happens in the game. The basic concept was inspired by this art (https://twitter.com/ficusart/st...

June into July post

Plan going forward:

After a bad month I'm gonna try to get a writing roll going again. The two outstanding projects at the moment are Monsters of the Forest, and the koikatsu comic. I'd also like to do a small bit of writing to advertise the game, I'll keep you guys posted if that goes anywhere.

I'm going to keep using the monthly writing goal seems to help.

Report on June:

Well I got a lot of moving done, not so much writing or arting. I got a tiny smidge done of bot...

Transformative equipment comic issue 1

Hi everybody! Like I mentioned over in the monthly update post I'm making a Koikatsu comic for fun. A series of dudes play a VRMMO and transformed by what happens in the game. The basic concept was inspired by this art (https://twitter.com/ficusart/status/1658898434705825812?s=46&t=_rdELdNSgdakPjrrRuiCZQ) which I thought was a really neat concept.

This ...

May into June post

Plan going forward:

Try to get endings down for Monsters of the Forest Kitsune 1 and finish this koikatsu comic I'm working on. Before release, Monsters needs some tidying up so I'll also focus on getting that done. Assuming I finish both of those in a timely manner I'll start messing around with various things in the starlight engine. I simultaneously want to port my own game, and work on a mod.

I'm going to keep using the monthly writing goal seems to help.

Report on June:...

April into May post

The plan is to set a monthly goal for Monsters of the Forest and then release the "I broke 300K words" release with that. My hope is that if I set a monthly goal I'll do that before getting side tracked like I normally do.

Because I'm just starting out with this system it'll probably be a small goal of 15K, but hey 12 months of 15K is 180K words. Anyway the content additions will likely be the kitsune 1 endings. I also gotta do some smoothing in Kitsune 1 itself, tying things in better...

Aaaac's form reaction mod! (Version 1)

I am a super big fan of Runes of Pandemonium (https://bottledstarlight.com/) so as a writing exercise and as a way to help teach myself coding I made a mod for chapter 2.

Copy over the adventure mode folder and you should be good to go! I made a mod for chapter 2 of runes of pandemonium. This mod adds more form reactions to npcs in the kitsune village, the alraune fort, and the harpy base. It also adds examination r...

March into April post

Plans going forward:
Plan is to make daily progress on Monsters while working on the Pandemonium mod afterwards. Things have calmed down slightly with my living situation so I'm pretty optimistic about this month.

Next writing goal for monsters is to finish endings for kitsune 1, although I might put out a small release when I hit 300K. That's the most words I ever wrote about anything. The endings is probably going to be about another 20K words. So this month is unlikely.

Go...

The very special april fool's post

The very special April fool's post! I wanted to do something kind of goofy but I didn't have anything good, then I realized I could have the likely only paid post be an april fool's joke. 

What's on offer is the novel I wrote before I started "Monsters of the Forest". That's called "World of Monsters" or alternatively "The academy of monsters: Or the importance of being polite in the world of monsters" Quick blurb is: James has been exiled from Victorian England to a boarding schoo...

2023 Anniversary release!

Happy anniversary everybody! This one took a while but I think it's some good stuff. It's also probably pretty rough, I'm barely scooching in under the deadline.

.4.25.01: Anniversary release! Progress on kitsune 1, up to the end of  the possession content, just short of start of endings. Went up a  version! Word count: 296,460

Thanks again to everybody who reads my silly game. Monsters of the  forest is very much my passion project. I'm probably never going to ...

February into March post

Plans going forward:
It's March! March is a special month for Monsters because that's the anniversary month of when it was released. The plan barring me dying or other major life event is to have a release on or before the 22nd.(The game's anniversary you see.)

If I somehow finish early I'd also like to work on the Runes of pandemonium mod, but the release takes precedence.

Report on February:

Miserable again. I'm sorry guys, it really sucks to not have much to show. The ...

January into February post

Plan going forward:

I'm going to try and resume a daily word count goal on "Monsters of the Forest" I'd like to have a big release for the game's anniversary in march, but it'd be better to be done before then.

I'm also going to try and finish up a mod for Bottled Starlight's "Runes of Pandemonium" It's a small to medium project and I've already begun.

Report on January:

Just miserable. My life situation is changing and I'm going to have to move in the mediu...

Middle of January Progress Post

Howdy everybody! Patreon kept bugging to me keep people updated so here am I.

Monsters is going, I made a daily word goal that I'm mostly sticking too. I really like the current kitsune bit I'm making, I think it uses the structure of twine well. Sadly still going to be a while, the daily goal is not especially large.

I shelved the WWD port because my lift situation has gotten uncertain, and I rather spend free time I might not have in the future working on my life's work than n...

December going into January post

Happy new year everybody!

Plan going forward:

I'm going to try and resume daily progress on "Monsters of the Forest" the twine game. I figure a daily writing goal should get me there eventually. 

At the same time I'm hoping to adapt "The Witch, The Wizard and The Desperado" (WWD) to the starlight engine. That's probably going to take a whole month, because good god does game dev just eat time. 

Report on November:

Alright month, sp...