This Week’s Topics:

• Rundown Preamble Ramble: Rushing to Completion!
• Let’s Talk About Acquire Corporation! (Because They Made Mario & Luigi 6!)
• I Might Have Been Wrong About Unity (Unity Management Has Completely Changed Over The Past Year)
• Nintendo Switch Online: Playtest Program Has Slipped Through The Cracks (Nintendo’s Nintendo-some Nintendo-ing)
• More Musings About Re-Whatevers (Because I Didn’t Want to Go to Bed at 1 AM)

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Rundown Preamble Ramble:
Rushing to Completion!

This week… is really not ideal for one of these rundown preamble rambles. Why? Because so much of my time and mental energy has been devoted to wrapping up editing on Psycho Shatter 1988: Black Vice X Weiss Vice. As of publishing this, the story has been fully edited, the master copy has been assembled, and I have scheduled the individual chapters to go live on Natalie.TF starting on November 5, 2024 and ending November 21, 2024. 

That does not mean I am done though, as I need to create 19 unique art assets for this story. Including a cover, a cover header, and 17 chapter headers. Or rather, ‘atrocity’ headers, because I have this thing where I do not use the term ‘chapters’ to break down the ‘chapters’ in my novels, because I thought it was funny to use different words instead back in 2013. And despite changing a lot in the past decade… I am still, at my core, the same weird fuck I was when I was 18. 

Will I get all these header images done by then? No idea! I’m not that concerned. Because nobody is going to see the final headers until a few weeks after release anyway. Does that mean that the novel is not going to be done by November 5th? …Shut up! That is my answer.

Now that I am in this final stretch, I find myself wondering… what comes next? Well, I honestly would like to just make TSF Series #019: Gee-Gee’s Gyarufication Vacation, as it has been a year since the last TSF Series, and I do want to write something smaller as a detox exercise. However, I am also a bit worried about getting things done come 2025. A year when I am planning on releasing two major works. Verde’s Doohickey 2.0: Sensational Summer Romp – Act 3: Worldly Wonders on 7/1/2025 and Psycho Shatter 2000: Black Vice Mania on 12/11/2025. 

Together… I fear these two will be 400,000 words long in total. That is a LOT of writing that would take a LOT of time, and I will need to basically write new outlines for both of them. I have half an outline for Act 3, but things will need to change with what is already there. And I have not done meaningful concept work on PS2000 since 2018. I know what that story will be— Y2K nerdcore erotica with a lot of incest— but I need to do prep work so I know up from down. …And read a lot of old gaming magazines for the gaming bits. …And probably anime magazines too. I really wish I did this a few years ago…

As such, do I want to risk another rushed deadline? Or do I want to take the two weeks it would take me to outline, write, edit, and make header images for TSF Series #019 and allocate them to outlining work? Honestly, I do not know, and a lot of my mental thought process this November will be affected by the fucking election. 

I already did my part, I voted— arguably three times because my family copied my ballot— and I am hoping that young people in key states will do their duty and vote for Harris. However, people on social media, in the mainstream press, and political poll aggregators are— no, no, shut the fuck up Natalie. I’ll talk about the election in Rundown (11/10/2024). Which will either be entitled Humanity Has Declined or A Lingering Hope or Ret-2-Die if the ballots are still being counted. Now don’t fuck this up for humanity, Pennslyvania!

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Let’s Talk About Acquire Corporation!
(Because They Made Mario & Luigi 6!)

I’ve previously commented on Nintendo’s recent trend of not naming their development partners leading up to release and how it is both bad for gaming history and bad for game enjoyers in general. Their reluctance to name the developers of Super Mario RPG Remake (2023) and Princess Peach: Showtime! (2024) was particularly stupid. The former was developed by a ArtePiazza, a developer who has been working on Dragon Quest since the excellent SNES remake of Dragon Quest III. While the latter was developed by Goöd-Feël, who has been making good Nintendo platformers since 2008.

With the latest Mario & Luigi game, Mario & Luigi: Brothership, they were doing the same darn thing. Nintendo refused to name the development studio that was making this game until it leaked into the wild and people found out that it was developed by Acquire Corporation. A company who has one of the worst possible names for searching purposes, and a developer whose past catalog strikes me as remarkable while having very little mainstream appeal.

Acquire started with the Tenchu series of ninja stealth games for the PS1 which, for the time, were highly ambitious games, arguably too ambitious considering the limitations of the hardware. They represent an odd take on the genre, lacking the trappings introduced with the likes of Metal Gear Solid 2, Splinter Cell, and Assassin’s Creed. They are fully committed to being 3D affairs with limited visibility, largely in naturalistic environments. Unfortunately, the series was milked throughout the 2000s and ultimately has been in stasis for 15 years.

Then they created the Way of the Samurai series, which is one that I still don’t think I can properly explain. Because they were nonlinear sandbox games in a very… post-Shenmue sense. Where most adventures took place in a contained town, involved human relationships, and featured both intense drama and general absurdity. I remember them being compared to the Like a Dragon series during its heyday, but it was very much its own thing. Fortunately, the games were able to foster a niche international following with a PC release of Way of the Samurai 4 (2011) and later Way of the Samurai 3 (2008). The series recently received a spin-off with Katana Kami: A Way of the Samurai Story (2020), which was an overhead roguelike action game… and not a good one!

They developed the What Did I Do to Deserve This, My Lord?, also known as Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! series. A retro-styled… dungeon crafting game, where the player must carve up a winding maze-like dungeon filled with monsters to defeat wandering heroes and protect the demon lord. It was a cult hit that managed to garner four sequels and is something that I feel could have been a bigger hit in the west if it were brought to PC or Switch. Instead, the main series was just for the PSP. A puzzle game spin-off came out for Vita and Steam. And a VR version was released for PS4. …Neither of which were very good!

Oh, and I cannot forget the Akiba’s Trip series. Which, to this day, is something I’m still surprised ever left Japan. We never got Natsuiro High School: Seishun Hakusho (2015) or City Shrouded in Shadow (2017), but we got three Akiba’s Trip games!

 Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed (2013) was something of a meme game back in its day, as it was a low budget high effort 3D brawler about stripping vampires, i.e. girls, in the streets of Akihabara. It was a faithful recreation of the city, which was an allure for westerners, and while it was a perverted game, it was also deeply knowing and tongue in cheek about it. It inherited some of the humility of the Way of the Samurai series. The series seemingly should have died with the awful Akiba’s Beat (2016), a more traditional RPG… that just sucked. Combat was bad, the structure was bloated, the dungeons were lame, and the game’s lighting often made it look worse than the first game for PSP. However, re-releases of the first two games have, somehow, kept it vaguely alive. 

Now, those are just the big ones, but the title most probably know Acquire for is Octopath Traveler (2018). While Square Enix handled the producing, writing, music, and other stuff, Acquire handled the bulk of the development and game direction. It was a big success for them, got them a steady job on the Octopath live service, and led to the superior Octopath Traveler II (2023).

…So how did they become the new Mario & Luigi devs? Well, after AlphaDream went bankrupt— which still amazes me, like, how do you go bankrupt making Mario games? After declaring bankruptcy, many of the developers had been working in the industry, with Nintendo, for years, and the series was still selling well enough, the recent Nintendo-authorized remakes notwithstanding. I’m sure Nintendo could have brought them in-house, but that’s not their style, so they probably did some shopping around. 

There are many ways that this connection could have formed… but I’m guessing that it’s more of a ‘business acquaintances’ sort of affair. In the Japanese games industry, connections are key to getting new jobs and collaborations, and there was probably some connective tissue between AlphaDream and Acquire staff. Their offices were only half an hour away, and Nintendo was at least somewhat involved in Octopath Traveler, positioning it as a big exclusive. So either somebody knew someone in management or Nintendo played matchmaker.

Whatever the reason, I am glad Acquire managed to get such a lucrative, high-profile title under their belt… and I also need to ask how the hell they managed to develop the game. Not because they are bad at their job, but because, as a developer, their output has been all over the damn place! Here’s just some of their titles from the 2020s so far.

• Labyrinth of Zangetsu (2021) – A samurai blobber RPG with a striking black and white art style developed alongside KaeruPanda Inc.
• Adventure Academia: The Fractured Continent (2022) – A strategy RPG spin-off of the Class of Heroes series, developed by Zerodiv and published in Japan by Acquire.
• Xaladia: Rise of the Space Pirates X2 (2023) – A Space Invaders and Missile Command like single screen shooter that nobody has heard of and fewer people have played.
• Ancient Weapon Holly (2024) – An action dungeon crawler that really looks like a side project with its limited assets, tile sets, and questionable lighting choices.
• C.A.R.D.S. RPG: The Misty Battlefield (2024) – A deck builder strategy RPG with a very mishmashed art style, yet at the very least has a novel premise.
• Scars of Mars (2024) – A sci-fi 3D blobber RPG with real-time frantic combat and a robust ‘formation’ system. It actually looks really neat!
• Amedama (2024) – A possession-based action RPG with its own exaggerated unaliased PS1-like art style, presenting 3D models like sprites. Honestly reminds me a bit of Code of Princess (2012) and was pretty good based on the bit of the demo I played. Not much for TSF fans though— this is more akin to Avenging Spirit (1991) in that regard. Also, it was developed by World’s End Club (2020) developers IzanagiGames. Also also, they re-released the arcade version of Avenging Spirit on consoles two years ago? What?
• Hookah Haze (2024) – A VA-11 Hall-A like chat ’em up with a cast of cool looking girls you can do drugs with while enjoying some lo-fi beats and high quality pixelated artwork. Honestly, one of the best genres to arise from the past decades, and this one is the coolest! Because there ain’t nothin’ cooler than doing drugs!
• All-In Abyss: Judge the Fake (TBD) – A dope as heck poker adventure RPG that I gushed about last week.

…What the HELL is going on at Acquire? Sure, they have some collaborators, but they are a studio with only 148 employees. They wrapped up on a massive RPG in 2023 with Octopath Traveler 2. Are continuing to support a live service. Put out another huge RPG with Mario & Luigi: Brothership. And managed to push out five other games in the same year? How is that even possible? I have seen studios that cluster off teams of 10 to 20 people so they can work on smaller projects, but there’s simply not enough staff here to facilitate that.

So, how do they do this? Well, either with a lot of contractors… or through black magic. I’m guessing black magic. 

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I Might Have Been Wrong About Unity
(Unity Management Has Completely Changed Over The Past Year)

About a year ago, Unity committed one of the greatest violations of trust that I have seen in the history of gaming. Right up there with Nintendo ditching Sony as a partner for the Super Famicom CD add-on and the always online Xbox One reveal. Everything about the runtime fiasco was embarrassing, harmful, and generally undesirable. It inspired many smaller game developers to ditch Unity or rebuild in-development games in a new engine. Assuredly led to weeks worth of backroom discussions amongst game developers of all levels. And was a grade-A fuck-up on all accounts, staining their reputation.

They did undo this boneheaded decision about a year later, this past September, and I was very fiery about the company, saying the following: “Unity Technologies is beyond redemption, should not be forgiven, and I want to see the company fall apart.”

This reaction was based on several factors. Unity had just committed a grave violation of trust. I was looking at their prior year financial statements and observing the company’s mistakes. And viewed their new CEO as being horrifically overpaid, when that is just how CEOs are typically compensated. (It’s still bullshit and CEO bonuses should be capped by the Feds.)

However, I should offer an apology to Unity, as in saying those heated words, I failed to notice that they were actually heeding my prior advice on how to fix their company. 

“Now, there are ways to fix this. Almost all of which involve the executives leaving the company, and Unity being placed under new management.”

Rundown (9/24/2023) Ai’s Time Warp and Premise Predicament 

As I recently learned, Unity has indeed seen a dramatic turnover in management, with 9 out of 10 of the highest positions at the company having left between June 2023 and October 2024. (I would use a Wayback Machine link for a source, but that’s still down.) That… does not happen unless things go really bad. And they did. So far, it is too early to judge the future of this new management team. However, they have undone the biggest mistake of the prior management team and released a considerable update to the engine a little over a week ago. 

So perhaps I was too eager to disregard Unity and too hyperbolic in casting my judgment of Unity Technologies. I’ll say that this is because, again, trust was violated, and Unity is such a vital part of the games industry that I cannot help but get passionate when they fuck up.

Sorry for missing this obvious thing, and here’s hoping this turnaround keeps getting better.

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Nintendo Switch Online: Playtest Program Has Slipped Through The Cracks
(Nintendo’s Nintendo-some Nintendo-ing)

Something that I was more just… perplexed by on a conceptual level was Nintendo’s decision to announce an online-only game with a playtest. No trailer, no explanation of what the game was, just a playtest sent out to a select few online subscribers, with not so much as a title of the game. Naturally, information surfaced, people were live streaming it, live tweeting it (someone needs to make a non-platform specific of that verb) and details were revealed in the most fragmentary of manners. (…And I just got it into my mind that Bluesky posts should be called skeets.)

Having watched a few minutes of gameplay, the title is… a social co-operative exploration and building game. One set in a world made up of blocks where the goal is, seemingly, to unify a dark and barren planet with these mystical cubes of light. The higher these cubes are placed, the more they illuminate, so players are encouraged to build tall towers by themselves and with the help of others. That way more of the world can be seen, and players can more easily find each other in this truly massive planetoid.

Minecraft comparisons are a given, but the game puts far more emphasis on platforming and lacks the same fixation on mining, crafting, and survival. Also, it will be a live service with in-software purchases. 

From what I could glean, the game is a largely social affair, and the challenge comes from both building structures and navigating the world with others. The player characters are these weird ‘monkey bean’ type critters who have grappling abilities and can navigate around the world in style. In fact, the movement seems genuinely crazy, letting players grapple onto emotes they leave in the world. And I don’t need to explain what sort of nonsense players can get up to when they can place their own grapple points. Especially with a grapple system with such bouncy spring-like properties.

The game, whatever it may be called, definitely has some personality and charm, and is weirdly reminiscent of the Nintendo that greenlit Doshin the Giant (1999) and Cubivore: Survival of the Fittest (2002). I don’t quite get it, as I keep trying to compare it to Minecraft, but it seems like the sort of low stakes and casual building MMO that just works with some people.

…Or maybe this is truly just a test for what will transform into a far larger game in the coming years. I can imagine Nintendo wanting a big persistent online game to help lure people over to the Switch 2, and this could be a preview of that. I don’t know! Akumako took my crystal ball and ate it.

Akumako: “I didn’t eat it, I threw it into the trash!”

That’s what you want me to think, but I know better!

Akumako: “Look, even ‘Shin Megami Tensei If…‘ I did eat it, I would have pooped it out at this point.”

You sure about that? Because your digestive system—

Akumako: “Oi! No talking about my cloaca!”

Huh, when’d you get a cloaca? I thought you had that fungus.

Akumako: “I do. I can have both!”

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More Musings About Re-Whatevers
(Because I Didn’t Want to Go to Bed at 1 AM)

I tend to not comment on rumors unless they are related to tangible news, but screw it, this has been a light news week and this recent bushel of rumors just tickled my brain in a special way. The source of these capital-R rumors is a prominent Nintendo leaker who goes by the name of Brazil and, naturally, mostly publishes his stuff in Portuguese. I have no idea how guys like him stay well-informed, but they do. Anyhow, he chatted about some remasters that he hears are targeting a 2025 Switch release, so the system still gets ‘new’ games while Nintendo is shifting focus to Switch 2.

This is basically the approach Nintendo took when sunsetting the 3DS 6 years ago, where its 2017 to Q1 2019 was home to a bevy of re-whatevers of existing games. And I think it is a good approach, a way to keep existing users engaged while they wait for new hardware to get cheaper (not happening anymore, lol) and get more titles. This is also sorta what Nintendo is doing as of late, but they have been re-releasing old games on Switch since 2017. (Half of the big games on Switch are souped up Wii U games.)

My thoughts on re-whatevers are ever-evolving, and at this point, I forget what I even say half the time. I value preservation in this medium to the point where I would rather have every game ever made be accessible even if it prevents any new games or updates or mods from ever being released. I enjoy remasters as a general rule, but the spectrum is vast and messy, as there is no such thing as an industry standard for a remaster. Ideally, a remaster should contain the ability to play the game as it was on original hardware while featuring a spruced up version of the original. One with cleaner visuals, unfiltered textures, anti-aliasing, resolution options, widescreen support, quality of life improvements, and possibly a mild graphical facelift.

However, so many remasters screw up the visuals of the original that it’s getting harder and harder to remain enthused about them. While something like the upcoming Lunar Remaster is promising, they put in more work to make the game look worse. This turns every remaster announcement into an investigation for me, and frankly, I hate how I need to highlight where remasters get things wrong, as I would much rather just give a thumbs up and move on.

Unfortunately, game companies generally seem kinda shoddy about the whole releasing a ‘definitive version of classic games’ thing. So many of these projects are done using shoestring budgets and tight deadlines, with seemingly random levels of quality control. Then, when they do get ample time and money, it is often a remake. And remakes… the more I think it over, the less enthused I am about remakes. The line between a faithful remake and a remaster is ever fuzzy and transformative remakes basically just use the original as a jumping off point. Changing a lot, but also not doing enough to feel like a reboot or reimagining. What does that mean? More new shit. New ideas, new characters, new takes, and new shit. If you want to bring something back, it is way cheaper to just spit polish it and throw it onto digital storefronts and do a limited physical release. So… just do that!

Anyway, the supposed remasters cited by Brazil are just bizarre by my reckoning, which weirdly makes them more interesting to talk about. Particularly the Ubisoft titles, as Ubisoft is basically sitting on two generations of quality titles they could just re-release for newer systems, but choose not to.

The first title on the list is… Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc (2003), a game that Ubisoft previously re-released in HD for XBLA and PSN in 2012 after the release of Rayman Origins (2011). It makes sense from a production standpoint. Though, this would be a very odd release, as while Rayman Legends is on everything, who the hell would want to get into Rayman with Rayman 3? It was a good game, but is very much a sequel game.

The first 3D Rayman, Rayman 2: The Great Escape (1999) is generally considered to be the far better game, has never received a true definitive release, and has not seen a home console rendition in 20 years. 3D platformer nostalgia is pretty big at the moment, and people would love to see a gussied up version of this game, preferably with the option to switch over to the original look. Kinda like the Croc (1997) remaster. 

Now, it is possible they are working on that, as there is some insider information wafting about regarding a Rayman remake. My dumb brain thought that was referring to a remake of Rayman (1995), even though I don’t think Rayman Classic really jives with modern platform fan sensibilities. It’s just too slow, completely unlike the later UbiArt titles. Meanwhile, Rayman 2 is actually a pretty great place to start. I mean, there’s basically no story connection between them.

Next rumored remasters are Driver: You Are the Wheelman (1999) and Driver 2: The Wheelman Is Back (2000). A pair of PS1 driving (yes, really) games that… would be an odd choice. Racing games, as a genre, are very much sold on their aesthetic and world design, and were historically the big console showcase titles. However, that makes going back to them, especially PS1 driving games, pretty rough. There is definitely something to admire about these games from a historical perspective, but they lack the same ‘retro cool’ sensibilities that most remasters of games of this era would bank on. Compared to the overwhelming style of R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 (1998), this ish is sauceless, man.

Now, a Driver: San Francisco (2011) remaster? That would make perfect sense, as it is a good car game, with a distinct setting, a unique possession mechanic, and it sold well too! It was also delisted back in 2016, so people haven’t been able to buy it in almost a decade. I’d say that’s a great excuse for a quick and easy half-priced remaster.

The most intriguing, at least in my warped mind, is doing a remaster of the Splinter Cell, or any classic Tom Clancy branded games. The series is basically unavailable on modern systems beyond backwards compatibility when it was huge with the teenage White boys growing up in the Bush administration. However, the series is generally considered to have gone downhill with its HD titles, Conviction (2010) and Blacklist (2013) and went on a long hiatus. So long that they announced a remake of the first game in 2021… and we still have not seen anything of it. So, what would be the best option here? …To try and do a better version of the Sony-backed Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Classic Trilogy HD (2011)! 

Instead they are allegedly planning on remastering Blacklist (2013). Even though it did poorly (only met 40% of its sales target at launch), and was not liked by fans. 

In addition to the Ubisoft games, Brazil also mentions how Nintendo is bringing over a GameCube re-whatever and a 3DS re-whatever. Which are probably F-Zero GX (2003) and Kdicarus: Uprising (2012) (I made that joke 12 years ago and still think it’s funny) respectively, as we basically know those two are coming. 

A Wii game from EA, which I’m guessing is Steven Spielberg’s Boom Blox (2008) and Steven Spielberg’s Boom Blox Bash Party (2009). EA had a few Wii hits they could bring over, but I highly doubt that anybody would want a Boogie (2007) port.

And a PS3 game from Bandai Namco, who had so many games in their back catalog, speculation is futile. (But it’s probably the assumed Tales of Xillia two-fer.) Personally, I’d like to see a re-release of Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom (2010), but that’s because I am a weird freak who suffered enough chemical brain damage that I think it was one of the five Team Ico games. The fourth one being Rain (2013) developed by… Acquire Corporation? 

Akumako: “Natalie, no! The simulation is crumbling! You went full circle without even trying! To avoid this, you need to—”

BORING!

As Natalie turned off the monitor, she leaned back and awaited what was to come of her, knowing damn well that everything that ever was may cease to be in the next few minutes. She could panic, could try to prevent this imminent collapse, but sometimes… you just want reality to cease and be replaced by an effervescent nothingness.

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Progress Report 2024-10-27

Oh snap, I guess that Persona 5 gacha sequel is also coming to Steam, at least for a playtest. That’s just crazy! Five years ago, people were begging Atlus for PC ports, and now even the Chinese gacha spin-offs are coming to the platform. Now if only it were a honge (real game) instead of a nisege (fake game). I made up those terms by the way, derived from the terms kamige (god game) and kusoge (shit game). Which is a really funny bit of terminology to me. What is the opposite of God? Feces!

2024-10-20: Edited The Flip Side review and got it ret-2-go. Edited Ch 6 to 9 (naisu) of PS1988. Also, redid the numbering of the chapters and split one of them up into two. It’s a mind prison, BITCH! Wait, did I just edit 28k words in a single day? …Yeah. It was a Sunday and this is my hobby. This is top priority stuff, I didn’t have anything else to do, and Cassie wasn’t available for movie night. I’d say I’m halfway done… but despite being the first half of the story, it’s only 48.8k words out of 115k words. Can I finish editing it this week? May-bee!

2024-10-21: Wrote the 1,200 word Acquire bit this morning and then went back to the editing mines. Unfortunately, my TTS plug-in decided to STOP WORKING. This made it FAR harder for me to edit, as I rely on the sound of voices to help me maintain focus, and get bored when looking at this much text day-in and day-out. In total, I edited 6280+6048=12,328 words. Which is good, as I have a 10k words/day goal for editing. 

2024-10-22: Wrapped up the second longest chapter of PS1988 (5,712 words). Tackled the chapter where the 6/9 of the Supreme Court gets murked (6,895 words). And tackled the chapter where the president gets [REDACTED] (9,133 words). 21,740 words is some goooood shit! I’m in the final third! Wrote 600 word preamble. You are getting little from me this week. Also, Microsoft Zira works with my plug in, but not Google UK Female. Go figure. God, this shit is why I prefer offline software. Because it’s WAY harder for it to just BREAK like this. I’d legit pay $500 for an offline Google Docs and Sheets with built in support for custom TTS voices.

2024-10-23: Edited 13,329 words to wrap up the oversized climax chapter. I COULD break it up, but I do not want to. I want the preamble to the final battle and the final battle to be in the same chapter. Otherwise, one is all bread and the other is all meat. Then edited 5,959 words for chapter 15. That’s 19,288 words in a day, and that’s p.good! Only about 12k words left, and I’ll do ’em on the morrow. Woot! Also, I wrote the 400 word Unity bit. Wrote like 950 words for other segments.

2024-10-24: Wrote the remaining 950 words for the NintendMMO and Leaky Steve re-whatever ish. Edited this hot street trash for y’all street hussies. And FINALLY finished editing PS1988 with another 11,972 words in the bag. Meaning this only took me… a week? Wut? I edited a 114,191 novel in a single fucking week? WOW! New record! It took me 9 days to edit The Dominance of Abigale Quinlan! And that novel was 26k words shorter. However, the total production on PS1988 took me longer than… wait, no I should talk about this next Rundown! Also, I did a big achievement, so I rewarded myself with some gaming. Trying out Silent Hope after liking the demo from a year ago and… this really is not a Kaleidoscape replacement, as the game is just too slow, time-wastey, and grindy. I really need to install Dragalia Found on my phone…

2024-10-25: Finished copying over the contents of PS1988 to Natalie.TF and started work on the art stuff, figuring out what each chapter would be and starting with the character sprites.

In doing that, I kinda realized that I fucked up with the rainbow jumpsuit allocation by assigning Yasuke— yes, famous samurai Yasuke is in the story because Assassin’s Creed Shadows was announced while I was outlining it, and including him fixed a plot hole. How the fuck does time travel isekai cloning FIX a plot hole? Dunno. Point is, Yasuke is black, I assigned him the orange jumpsuit, and that can be seen as looking like a prisoner jumpsuit. So I had to fuck around with the colors and use the color of orange Sokutai to get around the racial connotation. No, I couldn’t just change his color, because orange is, unfortunately, part of the rainbow. Love the fruit, hate the color, would replace it with pink in a heartbeat.

I decided to start with the character sprites first and… fuck has image search gotten completely ruined. But I finished MOST of them beyond the extras and politicians, so that’s good.

2024-10-26: Oops! I forgot that I needed to make the back sprites for the header image and the Whiterat hybrid critter. I think I finished up the character sprites for this novel, and boy are these a lot of them! Here’s a WIP version of them for those curious (nobody). Honestly, getting a liiiitttle sick of the 6+ hours of sprite arting a day at this point, so I’ll probably work on a TSF Showcase after drafting the cover and first few chapters.

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Psycho Shatter 1988: Black Vice X Weiss Vice
Progress Report:

Current Word Count: 115,204

Words Edited: 115,204

Total Chapters: 17

Chapters Drafted: 17

Chapters Edited: 17

Header Images Made: 0

Days Until Deadline: 9