What's New Games

In Stars and Time Livestream!

June 15, 2023

I (Adrienne, insertdisc5, the dev, me) will be livestreaming a playthrough of In Stars and Time's demo on Tuesday the 20th at 10am EDT, as part of Steam Next Fest! Come on by and listen to me do funny voices and talk about development, and chat with all of you ✨

Come on by with questions about the game's design, its development process, the characters, Bonnie's favorite recipe book, whatever! Or just come as you are with no questions and say hi! Or just come to watch and lurk silently! You're not allowed to not come at all. This is a binding contract. You fell right into my trap

The broadcast will be on the Steam page! So don't forget, it'll be on Tuesday at 10am EDT!!!

(Also, In Stars and Time's demo will be available to play starting the 19th!!! If you missed it the first time, this is for you! If you played it the first time, then uh, it's exactly the same demo. BUT YOU CAN REPLAY IT! AGAIN!)

Devlog #14: Big News Incoming and Illustrations

June 1, 2023

Hello everyone! Welcome to this month’s devlog!

If you just stumbled upon this, I am Adrienne, also known as insertdisc5! I’m the developer, writer, artist, main programmer, etc of the game. The game being In Stars and Time, a timeloop RPG, which is also the next and final game in the START AGAIN series, following START AGAIN: a prologue (available here!). You can find out more about In Stars and Time here!!!

LET’S GET TO IT. This month has some Big News about Big News Incoming! And also some illustrations!

The Big News Incoming first: In Stars and Time will be a part of Future of Play Direct on June 10, 8:00am PT | 11:00am ET | 5:00 pm CET! Future of Play is part of the Summer Games Fest and showcases a lot of incredible indie games, so I hope you’ll tune in. There might be a little something for you to see :> And...

In Stars and Time will also be a part of The Mix on June 8th! The Mix is an amazing games showcase over in LA. There will be a lot of press there, so I’m very excited to get some eyes on ISAT! Please stop by the booth and say hi to the lovely people from my publisher, Armor Games Studios, if you get the chance!

Alright! That’s it for the big news. Now for other big news.

Porting the game to Switch seems to be close to done! Currently, the porting team is taking care of optimization thingy things. The game is playable, but tends to drop frames every so often, so the team is optimizing the game to make sure it’s playing smoothly so Switch players can have the best possible experience! And…

The (hopefully) final round of Japanese localization is underway! Last April, the localization team sent back a couple of sentences that should be reworded now that they have further context. Now that those changes are implemented, they are playing it one more time to make sure everything works as intended!

I sadly don’t have a Fun Gamedev Thing to talk about this month (or… last month either…) because I moved elsewhere back in April and have been taking care of many things so my move went smoothly. Did you know that moving and getting used to a new town is hard work? So, here’s some things I posted on social media in the last couple months!

Here’s an illustration I drew a while back but only posted recently! I imagine that during their journey, everyone must’ve shared a bed at least once. This is also an occasion to show everyone’s sleepytimes clothes. Siffrin on that honk shoo honk shoo fit

Like many people, I have seen the Barbie movie trailer. So of course I had to redraw these iconic frames.

And someone over on Tumblr asked me about how I picked everyone’s names! Here it is copy-pasted for your convenience.

Siffrin: i think. i will wait until the game comes out before saying how i picked their name. ask me again later (it’s not a spoiler its just silly)

Mirabelle: her name was actually Prunille for the longest time, but I kept mixing it up and calling her Bonnie… so I went looking for another fruit sounding name (prunille>prune>plum in french) and Mirabelle fit her perfectly :> (Mirabelle is a kind of plum!)

Isabeau: it’s just a nice name. It actually is a girl name but i refuse to accept it because “beau” is the masculine form for “beautiful”, but either way it fits his character pretty well…

Odile: old sounding french name. that’s it. when i was early in preproduction her name was Isabeau actually (and she had a WAY different personality)

Bonnie: it’s a nickname and not their full name. have i said their full name yet? (checks the wiki) i did. Boniface is just a name that I had never heard before, and I could easily imagine Bonnie not liking it because it sounds “old and lame”. i think as they get older they would like it more and more

This is also a reminder that In Stars and Time has a wiki page. I am so grateful that this is a thing someone made. You know you've made it when your game has a wiki page!!!

That’s all I have to say for today! Let me know if you have any questions, or if there’s any aspect of the game development struggle you’d like me to talk about! See you next time!!!
AND DON’T FORGET TO WISHLIST THE GAME ON STEAM ALSO IT REALLY HELPS BECAUSE STEAM’S ALGORITHM IS MORE LIKELY TO SHOW OFF GAMES WITH A HIGH AMOUNT OF WISHLISTS THAT’S THE REASON WHY GAME DEVS ALWAYS ASK TO WISHLIST!!! OKAY BYE!!!!

Devlog #13: Achievements and Q&A (one more time)

April 1, 2023

But let me tell you, trying to make steam achievements work for RPGmaker was hell. I must’ve spent 3 months trying to make the (admittedly, somewhat easy) code work. Most plugins for it just use the magic sentence “refer to [someone’s plugin] for instructions on how to do it”, and guess what? SOMEONE’S PLUGIN ISN’T ONLINE ANYMORE. So I had to figure out how to make it work with the few crumbs I found on forums. And I still couldn’t make it work!!!
Thankfully, In Stars and Time’s programmer extraordinaire Isabella Ava took one look at it and figured it out instantly. And I tried it out. And it worked. And I yelled very loudly. Thanks Isabella for saving me again!!!

(pictured above: ISAT’s testing room, and steam achievements unlocking for the first time. Yes I took a screenshot and I was so happy the screenshot is a little cropped. Adds to the experience)

There’s currently 40ish achievements that can be unlocked in In Stars and Time, I hope you will have fun getting them all!!!

Overall, development is going well, from QA to localization to porting, and many things are in the works! Like, MANY things. I hope I get to share more with everyone soon because I am so excited for everyone to see what’s in store!!! Thank you for your patience!!!

…What? That’s it for this month? Well, no. Once again, it’s Q&A time! I asked the lovely people in In Stars And Time’s discord to send me some questions! So let’s get going! (Side note, you should join the discord channel teehee) ((Everyone is anonymous this time because it’s discord. Discord names are a very private thing.))

What's everyone's favorite food/animal/both? Which character do you like or relate to the most?
I answered food some time ago, so you get favorite animals! Siffrin likes cats because of course. Isabeau might actually prefers cats over dogs but its a close one. Mirabelle is a dog person. Odile is cats all the way. Bonnie is right in the middle. Wait, that’s just cats and dogs! (I exit the stage.)
As for which character I relate to the most: Siffrin :) He’s my little meow meow rotating in my brain for all of eternity. Closely followed by Odile!

does anyone in the main cast know magic tricks/sleight of hand stuff? if so, what kind of tricks do they do? where did they learn them?
Siffrin for sure knows some coin tricks and maybe some sleight of hand, which they’d probably learn while traveling… Being a traveler means you gotta know some of those right??? It’s part of the mystique???
I also think Mirabelle and Isabeau would know some basic sleight of hand as well, just because I can easily imagine the House of Change having this as a class…

How do you write the name of the island east of Vaugarde? The map from devlog #10 makes it seem like it's M Wudu? (Similarly, how do you pronounce it?)
Mwudu! And as for pronunciation, hm… Maybe with a soft oo sound for the U letters in there? I wonder… (<- never pronounces things out loud)

Q: Does Odile have a massive collection of books back home? Are there certain books that she took with her on her travels, or had to leave behind? Same for Mira, if she has any books outside of her collection in the House.
I actually don’t imagine Odile having a massive collection of books, just because I imagine Ka Bue as having libraries that are easy to access… Like she definitely owns books, but not a massive collection or anything. She brought the one book with her (her weapon!) but it’s more of a notebook than a book.
As for Mirabelle, her room is her home, so she doesn’t have anywhere else to put her books!

are there any deaths that are random chance? if so how would that be programmed?
also. what ARE the gang's favorite books
No, not really! Mostly because it would be very fun from a story perspective, but hellish from a gameplay perspective. Dying for reasons that are just Numbers Said So and this can happen at any time is not very fun as a player! What about my sense of control!!! So, when you die in ISAT, you will know why. HOWEVER, a bunch of events are random chance <3
And Mirabelle’s favorite book is a book series called The Cursing of Château Castle. I’m freestyling for the rest of these: Isabeau would say it's some book like “How To Get Bigger Muscles For Dummies'', somehow I’m certain Siffrin’s favorite book is a memoir of some kind or a poetry book, and Bonnie’s favorite book is the current most popular comic book for kids in Vaugarde. Odile’s is a secret <3

Q: Are there any bugs you've made into features?
alternative Q: What do the characters think about freeze tag?
YES!!!!! YOUR QUESTION IS SO GOOD IM MAD I CAN’T SPECIFY HOW… PLEASE ASK ME AGAIN WHEN THE GAME COMES OUT <3 Without giving away too much, there’s a couple events in the game that are here because of a bug that I thought added a lot to the atmosphere <3
Most of the gang are adults so they do not think about children’s games. However I imagine that for most kids in Vaugarde, freeze tag is the new fun game to play. Maybe they’d call it King instead. Who’s the King? Don’t get tagged by the King or you’re gonna be frozen!!! (Bonnie doesn’t want to play tag anymore.)

what & when was your first exposure where you went: "time to make a game"? im just wondering what got you started
would there be an official subreddit for the isat community? i dont really use reddit much anymore but its something that croessed my mind a while back and by that i mean would there be official support for it or would it just be supported by fans?
whats your favorite track from the prologue?
A lot of things made me start making the prologue and then ISAT, but really: boredom from the pandemic teehee.
A subreddit… That’s a neat idea!!! If enough people are into it, that’s definitely something we’d consider, so if you want that you should make some noise :3
As for tracks, I genuinely think every single track Studio Thumpy Puppy has made is a 10/10, but the King’s battle theme holds a special spot in my heart… And Long Journey too ;w; And that’s not counting the tracks from ISAT which are just All Bangers All The Time (pst go get the prologue’s soundtrack here)

What’s something about working on the game or the prologue that was more difficult than you thought it would be?
The… scope… I truly intended to have both the prologue and ISAT to be very short experiences, and they became way bigger than I envisioned! I did know they were going to be bigger than I thought, but They Sure Are Bigger Than I Thought. For example, I intended the prologue to be a 30mn experience… And it ended up being a couple hours long teehee

with a scale from 1 to 10 how much will the poor guy suffer in the game
Aiming for 11 baby

You got to the bottom of this devlog! Have a Silly Little Picture, which I sent as payment to everyone on discord who sent in a question

That’s all I have to say for today! Let me know if you have any questions, or if there’s any aspect of the game development struggle you’d like me to talk about! See you next time!!!
AND DON’T FORGET TO WISHLIST THE GAME ON STEAM ALSO IT REALLY HELPS BECAUSE STEAM’S ALGORITHM IS MORE LIKELY TO SHOW OFF GAMES WITH A HIGH AMOUNT OF WISHLISTS THAT’S THE REASON WHY GAME DEVS ALWAYS ASK TO WISHLIST!!! OKAY BYE!!!!

Devlog #12: Localization Milestone and Key Art

March 1, 2023

That’s it for news. Other things are chugga-chugga-chuggin’ behind the scenes as well, and I can’t wait to share it all with you all!!!

Today’s topic-since-I-don’t-have-much-to-talk-about is: key art!

“Adrienne what on Earth is a ‘key art’” This above is the key art.
More generally (and keep in mind this is my layman self talking, I’m sure you could get a better answer elsewhere, but also you’re here, so you might as well learn something huh???), key art is The Big Art that games (and, I assume, other mediums???) use to show off their style and visuals in things such as store fronts, articles, and other such things. It’s Mario jumping in a cool way with his lil star buddy while the planets are behind him. It’s Kratos and Atreus on a boat. It’s sad Siffrin in the foreground, surrounded by stars, while his friends are having fun in the background. It’s The Art!!! It’s the first thing people see about your game!!! It needs to be cool and represent your game!!!

Here’s some examples of the key art being used for Steam store assets. Itch.io is very kind and asks for like 2 assets, but Steam asks for a whoopin’ 30 assets, all with different sizes and orientations, so it means one of the biggest things your key art should be is MODULAR AS HELL. From a massive 1440x3160 vertical banner to an itty-bitty 231x87 horizontal button (called a capsule, it’s the small banner above, and since it’ usually the first thing you see about a game it is THE MOST IMPORTANT ASSET), your key art needs to be ready for anything!!!

For the prologue, I did not plan for this very well. I learned pretty late in development that store assets for itch.io (and later, Steam) were gonna be a thing I should worry about, so I ended up deciding to use the title card art. Which, like, it worked out.

BUT! I had to redraw Siffrin to make sure their hat and body weren’t weirdly cut out, and had to remake the pixelly gradient like a thousand times for each asset to make sure it wouldn’t hide Siffrin’s face. And that’s without mentioning the hell I went through to make sure the massive title logo would fit. Why did I think “START AGAIN START AGAIN START AGAIN: a prologue” was a good title. It was so hard to make it fit in its entirety every time (because, of course, Steam asks you to show the logo in its entirety in every single asset). Why did I choose this title (I’m a Kingdom Hearts fan and my heart is rotten and thinks long titles are funny)

So since I went through hell with START AGAIN’s store assets, for ISAT I made sure to think about the key art way ahead of time teehee.

Every so often I become an absolute genius so I only had to sketch the key art once, as you can see above. You don’t need to understand it because I do and it’s all that matters. Teehee!

Here's the rough illustration! I made it to block out the shapes, and figure out where that dang logo would go. Once again, reminder: if you have text of any kind, figure out where it goes in the rough stage. Future you will thank you. I also had Siffrin look directly at the camera in this rough stage, and then figured. That it would look sadder. If Siffrin looked emo-ly to the side. I do like the look at the camera though. He Is Looking

To talk about The Meaning very quickly, I wanted to show Siffrin front and center, since the whole story is about them. And I wanted to show the whole party, but clearly separated from Siffrin- Siffrin is stuck in a time loop, feels completely apart from them, and I wanted to show that in the key art! With the expressions too- everyone else is happy or engaged in something, interacting with each other, while Siffrin is in his emo phase. And also stars everywhere. Because of course.

Here are all the layers I used- I made sure to draw them on a vector layer in Clip Studio Paint, which means the lines never become pixelated even if you zoom in a lot! As a side note, the full file for this is 4000x3000, which I thought would be too big, but is actually just the right size for all those dang assets.
I also made sure that Siffrin would look the most detailed, since I knew that while everyone could fit for the bigger pictures, for the itty-bitty small ones (or the extremely horizontal ones), I would only show off Siffrin’s face. MODULAR!!!!!
In the end this key art worked pretty well to make the store assets, but if I could talk to past me I would tell them. Make the circle bg taller so it’d fit the more vertical assets. And find a way to leave more space for the characters in the background. I had to remove them/rotate them/zoom them out very often because Siffrin hides them too much because Siffrin is just too dang big. But that’s still manageable, past me. You did a good job past me

So, TLDR, from my experience, what you need to keep in mind when making your key art is:
-make sure it has enough layers to be able to move things around as needed, but not so many layers that you become lost
-fun art that represents your game and its vibe well
-cool everywhere, but able to get by if you zoom in on one thing (which usually for ISAT’s assets is Siffrin’s face)
-able to work in a vertical and horizontal format and at many different sizes

I hope my key art made people interested enough in the game to try to find out more!!

That’s all I have to say for today! Let me know if you have any questions, or if there’s any aspect of the game development struggle you’d like me to talk about! See you next time!!!
AND DON’T FORGET TO WISHLIST THE GAME ON STEAM ALSO IT REALLY HELPS BECAUSE STEAM’S ALGORITHM IS MORE LIKELY TO SHOW OFF GAMES WITH A HIGH AMOUNT OF WISHLISTS THAT’S THE REASON WHY GAME DEVS ALWAYS ASK TO WISHLIST!!! OKAY BYE!!!!

Devlog #11: Localization and Organizing Notes

February 6, 2023

Now that the first pass is over, it’s time for the very time intensive work of adding all that translated text into the game, as well as translating any illustrations. And after that, the localization team will take over QA, and will play the game from beginning to end in Japanese, making sure everything works well in context!

I can’t wait for Japanese speakers to try out the game as well!!!

Oh! Also, speaking of words, I wrote a post on how I approach worldbuilding, more specifically expressions and swear words and about how Jesus Christ is not canonical to the ISAT universe. Mayhaps it could tickle your fancy?

Uuuuuh this devlog is so short. I feel bad. Well uh (thinks very hard) how about you come with me on a journey, and look at how I organize my notes? Yeah? YEAH!!! (This section will feature: blocked out text) (Also: I realized after writing all this that I did talk about my writing process a bit in my #2 devlog. Well uh you get writing process: 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

I use OneNote for all my ISAT notes! I use it because quite frankly this was the first software I tried and it works. I like how it has tabs within tabs within tabs, so I can easily (ISH?) find any notes I’m looking for!

If you look at the colored tabs, the first one is “demo”, which is everything related to START AGAIN: a prologue (aka: has not been looked at for a year). It contains all the text in the game, as well as general gameplay notes and musings like “hey wouldnt it be fun if I used rock/paper/scissors.” You might notice the text here isn’t in the correct order. That’s a feature not a bug, thats just how my brain works OK!!!!!

The second tab is “Game”, which is the big In Stars And Time tab. It’s divided into a lot of sections, including:
General Dev Notes, which contains general reminders (“ADD MORE PUNS”).
Random Dialogue Corner, which, as the name implies, contains a lot of random dialogues between the characters. They’re also divided into different sections, depending on what kind of dialogue it is- is it a funny scene, or a more serious one? Is it between characters, or just Siffrin going on a big monologue? Etc. This dialogue may or may not be in the game, its main reason for existing is “hee hee I like when my little guys talk in my head”.
Gameplay and Stuff, which is all about the rpg part of the game. What are the skills? How does each enemy behave? What quests are available? How does the game over screen work? Etc
And finally, a big section filled with The Story, which is divided into acts. From the very start, I knew ISAT would have very delimited story beats, which made it easy to just go “ok, this scene goes into Act 3”, etc. For the text, I made sure to keep all the different drafts I had of a specific scene, partly because I sometimes lose a nugget of Fun Stuff by rewriting a scene, and partly because it’s fun to see how a scene has evolved. I tend to write important story scenes 3 times, each time without looking at earlier drafts to see what comes out, and then frankenstein the scene from what I have.
In general I try to keep as many of my notes as possible, because I deleted a lot of my notes for START AGAIN: a prologue and it makes me sad I can’t look at my thought process on a lot of things anymore. KEEP YOUR NOTES KIDS

Going back to the big tabs, next we have “World”, which is everything related to worldbuilding, relationships between characters, the general timeline, more detailed notes on the culture, etc. I used this tab a lot less as time went on, but at the start it was very useful to be able to refer to it, especially for all the city names and their spelling…

After that, we have the “Devlog” tab, which is my own private devlog! I find it very useful to keep a private devlog for myself, because it helps me see clearly that YES, the game is coming along. Every week, I try to write down where I’m at, any problems that I have, as well as screenshots of what the game looks like.
I also give myself space to write how I feel about the game! How is it going? Is it fun to work on this? What do I think about the story, about this character, about this development? I think it’s important to write those things down in the moment- I always keep in mind this post by Wreden, the creator of the Stanley Parable- in it, he talks about the fan reaction to the Stanley Parable, and how getting so many Thoughts thrown his way about what his game means meant that he lost sight of what his game meant to him. In Stars and Time means a lot to me, and I want to make sure future me remembers why!

Next is “meta”, which is mostly coding references. The way rpgmaker (and, I guess, most video game software???) works is by using variables to keep track of quests and whatnot, and so I used this tab to write down “if this variable equals 5, it means we’re at that point in this quest”! I also used it for code I always use but can’t be bothered to remember, like the conditional code that checks if a switch is ON or not. Aka the simplest most basic code. LISTEN I DON’T WANNA REMEMBER CODE OK

After that is the “To Do” tab, which is pretty self explanatory. I try to divide it into chunks like “To do (localization)”, so I don’t have a massive to-do list, but instead lots of small ones, teehee. This is also where I keep my changelog, to write down any changes I make between builds.

And last, but definitely not least, is my “Messy File” tab! This is where I put ALL MY NOTES. It needs different parts because I made a new part every time opening a tab made my computer chug like crazy. Because it has so many words.
I get an idea for a scene in the middle of the night? GOES INTO THE MESSY SCENE. Oh, I realized when I was grocery shopping that I should fix this small bug by doing this! MESSY FILE. Hehe what if I drew Siffrin baldMESSY FILE. Everything goes there, and then every couple weeks I go through it and put all those little nuggets of ideas into their actual tab. I find it useful to have a file that is allowed to be messy as hell, so the other tabs can be clean and neat!
The Messy File tab also contains the “Entire Story”, which is something I wrote in August 2021 when I started thinking I had no idea where I was going. I took like 4 hours to write down the entire story, from beginning to end, and if I had no idea what would happen, I would just make it up on the spot even if I thought it was bad. And guess what. After that, I knew where I was going. CRAZY!!! I did that a couple more times when I felt stuck at a specific point in the story, and it helped me every time. Would recommend.
And, that’s it! That’s how I organize my notes! I hope! This was! Insightful! Somehow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That’s all I have to say for today! Let me know if you have any questions, or if there’s any aspect of the game development struggle you’d like me to talk about! See you next time!!!
AND DON’T FORGET TO WISHLIST THE GAME ON STEAM ALSO IT REALLY HELPS BECAUSE STEAM’S ALGORITHM IS MORE LIKELY TO SHOW OFF GAMES WITH A HIGH AMOUNT OF WISHLISTS THAT’S THE REASON WHY GAME DEVS ALWAYS ASK TO WISHLIST!!! OKAY BYE!!!!

Devlog #10: Questions and Answers

January 3, 2023

Hello everyone! Welcome to this month’s devlog!
If you just stumbled upon this, I am Adrienne, also known as insertdisc5! I’m the developer, writer, artist, main programmer, etc of the game. The game being In Stars and Time, which is the next and final game in the START AGAIN series, following START AGAIN: a prologue (available here!). You can find out more about In Stars and Time here!!!
LET’S GET TO IT. This devlog is all about questions!!! So many questions!!! I’m gonna answer them all!!

Happy 2023, everyone! It’s the year of In Stars and Time! In Stars and Time will release sometime this year on PC and Nintendo Switch! I hope you’re excited!!! In the meantime…

Nothing much to talk about this month! I am still fixing bugs, playtesters are still playing, etc. So… here’s another Q&A (Tumblr asks edition)! They're mostly characters/story based, because that's what Tumblr is all about. No spoilers though, I promise!!!
(PS: you can ask me questions whenever on tumblr btw teehee)

Anonymous asks: Hi!! Thank you for making such a wonderful game with lovely little characters!! I spin them in my head like microwaved macaroni. Can I ask what everyone's hobbies are? And their deepest fears? (If that's not too spoilery) Also have a good day!!
Siffrin likes to do wood carvings! Isabeau likes fashion, designing clothes, sewing them, that sort of thing. Bonnie likes to cook! Mirabelle and Odile both like to read- Mirabelle is a horror fan/YA type stuff, while Odile prefers non-fiction.
As for their fears, most of them are spoilery, but Odile is really afraid of heights.

Anonymous asks: I am DYING to know what that rope is on Mirabelle's outfit is, it's sometimes visible and sometimes not and I don't know what it's attached to?? I want to draw her but this rope!! Is getting me

It’s a rope that works as a belt! It goes around her waist, not her hips. It’s so her dress isn’t all flat and boring

Anonymous asks: oh DOES Sif like wearing slippers?? They seem like a slippers guy. Also what small things ticks the characters off?
YOU FELL INTO MY TRAP!!!!!!!!!!! Siffrin prefers socks. Mirabelle is the one who wears slippers.
Hm… I think saying those would be spoilers also, so I’ll just say that Odile hates when people keep secrets from her.

Anonymous asks: What is each party member's favourite season? While we're at it, what's their favourite kind of weather?
Hm… I think Siffrin is split between winter and summer (they have a good cloak that works for all kinds of weather!). Mirabelle’s and Odile’s are fall. Bonnie’s is summer (coastal kid!). Isabeau hears everyone say every season except spring and picks spring.
They all prefer sunny weather for different reasons. Siffrin because it’s easier to travel when it’s nice outside. Bonnie because they like the sun. Mirabelle because she likes to read outside under a tree, same with Odile. Isabeau because “being under the sun gives your skin a healthy glow!”

Anonymous asks: Questions! Do you have a rough estimate for how long the game will be? If this isn’t a spoiler, how did the gang all first meet? And if it is a spoiler then… what’s each of the gang’s favourite colour?
I don't want to give any numbers just because playtimes will vary drastically depending on the way you play, but I can confirm ISAT is SIGNIFICANTLY longer than START AGAIN: a prologue!!!
For the gang meeting, first Mirabelle went traveling to try to save Vaugarde, then she met Isabeau in Jouvente, then they met Odile while traveling, then they met Siffrin, and then they met Bonnie. The nitty-gritty details aren’t really that important so I haven’t thought about it much. Most of the details on how they met will be found early in the game, so you won’t have to wait hours to know!
As for their favorite colors (Looks at the game. The game is in black and white) Think you’re funny, huh? HUH!?!???! NEXT QUESTION!!!!!

felikatze asks: how did siffrin obtain their fantabulous hat? and who is your favorite character to draw?
Siffrin was born with this cool hat. Popped right off with it on. And Siffrin is my favorite to draw, with Mirabelle a close second. Bonnie is my least favorite to draw within the gang but I still love them dearly. The King is my least favorite to draw period

inverts asks: why does siffrin wear gloves? what's loop's favourite food? what's the KING's favourite food? teehee
Bunch of reasons, but really the two main ones are 1. Looks cool and 2. Keeps them from biting their nails.
Thank you for the Loop question. No one asked about Loop!!! If Siffrin asked them their favorite food, Loop would say “bananas”. But is it true? Yes. But is it? Yes, for sure. But? Yes.
The King’s favorite food are uuuh (I go through my rolodex of foods) carambolas. Yeah

Anonymous asks: what are the gang's favorite hot cocoa toppings?
I don’t know enough about hot cocoa toppings to answer this, so have their favorite nonalcoholic drinks instead. Siffrin doesn’t think they have a favorite drink but really it’s sugarcane juice, Mirabelle’s is either tea or orange juice, Isabeau’s is probably milk or something, Odile’s is tea (but it’s gotta be expensive), Bonnie’s is pineapple juice.

Anonymous asks: whos the shortest (besides the kid) and tallest of them all?
Within the crew, Siffrin is the shortest (besides Bonnie), and Isabeau is the tallest! The real tallest is the King, of course.

Jovial-gender-jester asks: did the kid & their sister ever cook together?
Their sister taught them how to cook, so yes!

Anonymous asks: will we learn more about how Siffrin damaged one of their eyes?
Yes :)

Anonymous asks: what’s your opinion on speedrunning isat/saap from a lore perspective? as in, what do you think goes through siffrin’s head when they decide to do it?
>:3c teehees evil-y (⬅has added an item and lore made specifically for speedrunners)

Anonymous asks: is the gang gonna be okay. are they gonna be happy
>:3c I teehee evil-y once more

Anonymous asks: Is there a map of the world? Where are things exactly (e.g. where is Ka Bue compared to Vaugarde (?) ?)

Have this map I drew early in development of the countries around Vaugarde. The story doesn’t really need me to know about The Whole Map so I didn’t think about it. I only figured out two neighboring countries’ names too so I could say other countries’ names for Worldbuilding Reasons (as in, to show Vaugarde is a country inside a world, and not just The Only Country In The World), but I do see Vaugarde as being surrounded with many other ones. Could’ve figured out more country names, but two is a good number. Ka Bue is on the other side of the world- Odile has been traveling for A While. For country sizes here, think European countries!

jovial-gender-jester asks: is it alright to ask how you came up with craftonomy? it was cool realizing it's different from craftology, and maybe has no bearing? the concept's fascinating!
Welcome to insertdisc5’s brainstorm theater
Hi I am insertdisc5 and I am making the prologue> ok i need a magic system for this world > fuck i can’t use basic fire water grass because one of my puzzles is all around finding a fire > ok well every magic system in rpg games is just rock paper scissors really > so… why not… just… rock paper scissors > ok but what kind of world comes up with that tho > so maybe it’s all around Creating Things… you can make all kinds of art with rock (sculpting) paper (art, writing) and scissors (uh… idk cutting things) and i kind of like the idea of magic being something similar to art, so let’s call it Craft > ok now i need to create events with every fucking thing i added to the maps, and also explain the world a bit more > the study of craft… craftonomy > hey you know how you have astronomy (studying space) and astrology (adding meanings to constellations, horoscope) so it’d be funny if it was the same, it would be a funny joke > craftonomy (studying craft) and craftology (“if you’re rock type you’re probably very strong but gullible hehe”) are born

Punkitt-is-here asks: How is RPGMaker treating you ⬅(best wishes)
Rpgmaker is my little cat that stays on my lap cutely and doesn’t even scratch me anymore. This is in big part thanks to my programmer who takes care of the really hard code for me teehee (THANK YOU ISABELLA!!!)

hummingcrows asks: How do you stay motivated!
I genuinely don’t have a helpful answer for this, I don’t find it hard to stay motivated to finish things in general lmao… The few times I felt discouraged, I just either went “ok what’s like A Small Thing I can finish today, so this day isnt a total wash” even if it’s just doing one sprite, or “what’s one thing that would make me really happy to add” like a small scene or something, or just making the chairs’ backs rounder for Lore Reasons, and then I do it, and I am happy, and I am motivated

Anonymous asks: what was it like converting the character designs to game sprites? did they transfer easily or was it difficult?
Pretty easy! Outside of Siffrin (who already has a very simple design), I knew I would have to convert them into sprites, so I knew I couldn’t go too detailed with them. Even with their first concept art, I made sure to doodle them as sprites as well so I could make sure they would look distinct from one another!

(Very First Concept Art for everyone except Siffrin. Got their faces first try! (Except Bonnie))

Honestly the main problem was with their height… In the prologue, they all are very small, since I used a 48x48 size, and Siffrin has a MASSIVE hat that takes almost half his size, so all the other characters had to be drawn relative to Siffrin’s size, which meant I couldn’t add as many details as I wanted. I’m glad that for In Stars and Time I found a way to make the sprites taller (they’re 48x96 now, but I’m not using the full height), so now they are all cute and not squished.

(Some of the first sprites I did for the prologue. Look at how squished everyone looks!)

(Profile sprites for In Stars and Time)

roebeanstalk asks: Have you run into any mechanics you've been excited about, but have decided it's better to save them for a future project to keep this one going? Kind of a "kill your darlings" but for game mechanics?
I’m very happy to say that I’ve managed to add all the things I wanted to add to the game! It helped that there weren’t that many mechanics I wanted to add in the first place lol. I even had time to add one I scrapped early in development because it wasn’t that important! But it made me happy to add it so it’s in now!!!!

galaksyz asks: how many siffrins must be stacked on top of each other until they overtake the eiffel tower in height (ok i just wanted to give you the mental image of the Siffrin Pillar)
actual question: once the game is released, what part of fan reactions & creations would you look forward to most/what would you hope for most?
i think it would be awesome to see fan comics or animations, or OST remixes, or YT playthroughs, analysis/essay videos, maybe AUs... if you had to pick just one of those sorts of things, what would it be that you'd like the most?
212.9 Siffrins. Thank you for asking
And I genuinely love every single fan reaction/creation I've seen so far!!!! I have many folders filled with everyone's reactions/creations that I love to look at when I feel down :')

Fan comics definitely have a special spot for me in my heart tho... Those were always my favorite kind of fanarts to make, as a fanartist myself. The comics I’ve seen from the prologue already make me so so so happy!!!

And also, people just writing about the game… Like, just about things they like, things they’ve noticed, or theories they have, there’s also been a few and they just make me so happy. My brain goes on a loop of “yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah”. This is why I love the theories channel on the discord so much hehe, I tried really hard to add little breadcrumbs so it makes me happy when people pick up on it!!! And someone made a post that was just a list of everything they liked about the prologue and it made me so happy it felt like I was floating for a week hehe

pixxyofice asks: I am always curious about gamedev struggles. So... how hard is it to fix bugs for this game in particular? With the time looping I bet it would be hard to figure out maybe.
Uhhh and also what are each member's favorite colors?
Not that hard! I haven’t done a lot of Big Weird Code inside of rpgmaker, so any bugs are usually because I messed up a switch or variable, so it’s just a matter of figuring out the problem and changing one (1) thing. As for finding out there’s even a bug, that’s what QA and playtesting are for!
Bugs related to the time loop mechanic have (FOR NOW?!?) all been taken care of, so the bugs now are mostly related to choices, since some choices appear/disappear depending on where you are in the story. So sometimes I get a playtester like “hey Adrienne, i don't understand this choice i'm getting here”, and it’s because i messed up and it shouldn't be here yet. OOPS!
As for their favorite colors (I look again. The game is STILL in black and white. I try to run towards you but I'm held back) lemme at ‘em, LEMME AT ‘EM– (a few minutes pass, I calm down) Ok. What's the last question?

itr13 asks: what's everyone's favourite colors?
…..
Mirabelle’s would be a warm pink, Siffrin’s black, Odile’s dark green, Isabeau’s sunflower yellow, and Bonnie's black (but really, light blue). ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?!?!?

That’s all I have to say for today! Let me know if you have any questions, or if there’s any aspect of the game development struggle you’d like me to talk about! See you next time!!!
AND DON’T FORGET TO WISHLIST THE GAME ON STEAM ALSO IT REALLY HELPS BECAUSE STEAM’S ALGORITHM IS MORE LIKELY TO SHOW OFF GAMES WITH A HIGH AMOUNT OF WISHLISTS THAT’S THE REASON WHY GAME DEVS ALWAYS ASK TO WISHLIST!!! OKAY BYE!!!!

Devlog #9: Play and Testing

December 5, 2022

Hello everyone! Welcome to this month’s devlog!
If you just stumbled upon this, I am Adrienne, also known as insertdisc5! I’m the developer, writer, artist, main programmer, etc of the game. The game being In Stars and Time, which is the next and final game in the START AGAIN series, following START AGAIN: a prologue (available here!). You can find out more about In Stars and Time here!!!

LET’S GET TO IT

Playtesting!!! Has finally started!!!

So a few weeks ago, I gave a code to the game to a few dozen friends, and they’re all slowly playing through it and giving me their feedback. Finally, a small sample of people (that are not me or QA) get to play Da Game…

To elaborate a bit more on QA vs Playtesting (at least for this game??? I don’t know if that’s how it is for other games???), my publisher Armor Games has a QA team whose job it is to play through the game and check for bugs! As a QA team member from Armor Games puts it, QA is about
1. Making sure the main path functions correctly (aka no soft/hard locks, no blockers, etc),
2. Attempting to check every interaction in every possible situation, and
3. Confirming previously known issues that are stated as fixed are actually fixed, and that no new issues resulted from the fix!
What I’ve been doing for the past few months is wait patiently for the team to tell me “Adrienne, this thing happened and we’re not sure if it’s intended or a bug” and I go “it’s a bug” and I fix it and then the game is better. Know that their work is irreplaceable and SORELY needed. Thank you QA team, and thank you to QA teams everywhere.

Playtesting is (again, for this game) me giving the beta to some trusted friends and telling them “what do you think? Is it good? Do you GET IT? Also you’re a Normal Gamer ™ and play like a Normal Gamer ™ and not like me (the dev, I made the game, I know the game so I won’t do anything “”weird””) or the QA team (who are trying to break the game so it can be fixed, so they play in very specific ways) so your experience is valuable please tell me everything you’re thinking plz”.

Having some people playtesting the game is very, very fun. I told them right away “If i had my way i would want to stand behind you really close and look into your brain to hear every single thought you have, but once every so often is fine <3” so I’ve gotten a lot of very excited livetweeting my way, which is. The Best Thing Ever. For me, the most important part of playtesting was figuring out if the story was good! Beyond “does the story make sense?”, I asked a few times “so, what are your theories Right Now”, to see if my crumbs of foreshadowing were leading them where I wanted to, or if it led them in completely the wrong direction (which is also fun teehee). Also yes I did get a lot of screaming already. Love it when my friends yell at me that the story made them feel something <3

Having Normal Gamers ™ play the game means I also got some valuable feedback on some other important stuff, like: Does the game feel good to play? Are the battles too easy, too hard? Is there anything I can do to make the game better? Do you get what’s going on, or are you completely lost as to what you should do next? Thanks to them, I figured out where the game needed more explanations or tutorials, so hopefully this should make for a smoother experience!

Having a bunch of different eyes on the game was also VERY useful for typos and various writing mistakes. Did you know “discretely” and “discreetly” are two different words??? I learned that this week!!! Wow!!! And also did you know that I am bad at remembering the difference between East and West? I messed it up three times in the script!!! Oops!!! I’m bad at directions!!!

Of course, with feedback comes not-positive feedback as well! I did get some feedback on a potentially upsetting scene- I didn’t warn for it enough, and a friend thought it was too sudden and shocking, and would’ve appreciated some warning. I left the scene in, but I made sure to warn for its contents before it happens, so players can avoid it entirely if they’d rather not see it! In Stars and Time deals with some heavy subjects, but I want to make sure players can skip some of it if they know it would upset them. As a note, we don’t have the content warnings written down yet, but we definitely will before the game comes out! They’ll be pretty similar to START AGAIN: a prologue’s.

Overall, I’m very glad I got over my apprehension and showed the game off a bit. I’m getting some extremely valuable feedback (negative AND positive!) that I wouldn’t have gotten elsewhere. Anyway, this just turned into a “hey if you’re making a game you should have people play it BEFORE it comes out. I know it’s scary. I know you’re afraid of showing people something you made. I know you’re afraid of The Feedback. But also it’s better to have The Feedback now from people you love and trust, rather than all at once from strangers. Please make people playtest your game” manifesto for small indie devs. This is also addressed to past me. I didn’t ask enough people to playtest my previous game before it came out and I missed some obvious bugs. PLEASE ASK YOUR FRIENDS TO PLAY YOUR GAME THEY’RE YOUR FRIENDS AND WANT TO PLAY YOUR FUN GAME

(In other non-playtesting news, I had an interview with Pocket Tactics if you wanna read it! It's good!!!)

That’s all I have to say for today! Let me know if you have any questions, or if there’s any aspect of the game development struggle you’d like me to talk about! See you next time!!!
AND DON’T FORGET TO WISHLIST THE GAME ON STEAM ALSO IT REALLY HELPS BECAUSE STEAM’S ALGORITHM IS MORE LIKELY TO SHOW OFF GAMES WITH A HIGH AMOUNT OF WISHLISTS THAT’S THE REASON WHY GAME DEVS ALWAYS ASK TO WISHLIST!!! OKAY BYE!!!!

Devlog #8: QA and Q&A

November 2, 2022

(all the screenshots i have left are spoilers. while i take more, have a meme)

Hello everyone! Welcome to this month’s devlog!
If you just stumbled upon this, I am Adrienne, also known as insertdisc5! I’m the developer, writer, artist, main programmer, etc of the game. The game being In Stars and Time, which is the next and final game in the START AGAIN series, following START AGAIN: a prologue (available here!). You can find out more about In Stars and Time here!!!

LET’S GET TO IT

With the game’s alpha finished, I didn’t do anything much worth talking about this month. QA is underway! I’m fixing bugs! I’m writing changelogs that say stuff like “At the hallway before that one room, getting to the edge 2+ times wont softlock anymore if you do it between the wall and a column”!!!! I’m also resting because September was a LOT!!!

So, since I have very little to say, I asked people on Twitter to ask me questions, so I could answer them. Q&A time!

@ItsMeLilyV asks:

1. I really have been in love with monochrome & limited palette styles recently :3 How did you figure out the art style for ISAT? Are there any distinct challenges or walls you've run into?

2. did you get to take any good naps. how would you rank the naps on a 10-pt scale

1. The TLDR is: it’s more fun to draw in black and white. And it’s faster. And it looks cool as hell!!!

I did run into some challenges especially when it came to UI- how do you draw the eye of the player to a selection, or something they need to interact with, when you can’t use an eye-catching color to draw them in?!? I ended up relying a lot on level design to do that… And animations, too, especially in the House where everything is frozen! Keeping a very limited palette also helps, I think I mostly used black, white, and maybe 5 shades of grey in between… It’s all about contrast! And not having a big muddy grey mess!!!

2. I got some good naps in, yeah. I’m a big fan of naps after lunch, so I eat, wait for the sleep to kick in, and sleep for 2-3 hours. Solid 8/10 naps. That’s heaven babes!!!

@gertritude asks:

I am curious about what your writing process is for the game!! Like, what is your planning process (if you have one) and how do you approach actually writing for it?

My writing process… It’s a little all over the place to be honest!

I had the big strokes of ISAT figured out from beginning to end before I even finished the prologue, but then I had to really sit down a bunch of times and really figure out how to get from point A to point B. So it involved a lot of writing, and also rewriting, to Foreshadow some Cool Stuff. Also, early on I was really struggling with some plot points, so I sat down for a whole day and wrote down the entire plot from beginning to end, and tried to get really granular and write down those middle point A to point B things! If I didn’t know what would happen I just invented something on the spot! As long as the whole story was written!!! It took a while, but I’m really glad I did this, because this saved me a lot of time later on hehe

Apart from the big plot events, the smaller events that are conversations between the characters usually just come out of nowhere, like “ok I have a table here and I put cookies on it. How would everyone react?”. I try to strike a balance between “this is how people talk” and “does it say anything new about those characters”, whether it’s a character’s favorite food, or a nice foreshadowing moment that you’ll reread later and go “OH DAMN… ALL ALONG THIS WAS HERE…”

My big go-to technique to actually write is that every day 1. I decide I’m going to work for 15mn and I start a timer 2. I put my headphones on 3. I start my concentrate playlist, which is full of instrumental electro/dubstep/wub wub adjacent music 4. ????? 5. Writing accomplished. The 15mn goal is just because it’s easy to write for 15mn. I always write for longer, but I just need to get started with an easy goal!

@_blade0fgrass_ asks:

Is it hard coming up with such immaculate puns

I would like to thank punpedia from the bottom of my heart. And also google. Thanks punpedia thanks google!

@kayleighdotjpeg asks:

keeping spoilers in mind, who are your favorite characters to write? which character dynamics are your favorite? did any of them surprise you?

This is THE question. Thank you so much.

I loved to write Siffrin (especially when they’re all depressed teehee), but Odile ended up being my Actual Favorite to write. Most characters are either 1. Full of secrets or 2. Pushovers and/or oblivious, so it’s very nice to have Odile be the one to say “Alright, enough of this. We will talk about the elephant in the room Right Now”. She’s very blunt and doesn’t care about anything and she is so useful as a plot device and I love her.

Siffrin and Odile is my favorite dynamic, followed closely by Siffrin and Loop! As for surprising character dynamics, I reaaaaally enjoyed writing Odile and Isabeau… I didn’t get to write them often, but they are so fun to write together. Please ask me this question again once the game comes out so I can say more.

@novvclutchmate asks:

How do you go about finding a balance between levity and seriousness? Would you say your story tips more in one direction than the other; if so, was it on purpose and why?

What a good question! Hmm, for me and my writing style personally, it’s less about finding a balance, and more that One Cannot Exist Without The Other. It’s like adding sweetness to a savory dish- adding them together elevates the whole thing!!!

If I have a serious scene, I like to add some levity to kind of bring the characters back to earth. I don’t know about you, but when I have a serious conversation for too long, I automatically laugh or tell a joke to break the tension! I get uncomfortable when it’s too serious! It’s normal! I’m normal!!!! It’s also a way for the audience to breathe out- don’t worry player, we’re good! We’re back to the usual stuff! Plus, I find that funny scenes right after a serious emotional scene hit harder.

As for seriousness to levity, I think it’s fun when you have a funny slice of life scene and then the story reminds you that this scene is Serious Actually. Like having everyone talking happily and the narrator saying “it makes you sad when your friends keep repeating the very same lines every time.” :)

ISAT tips more towards levity I’d say, because of the reasons listed above! If you’re used to funny cute scenes and then I give you a Serious Emotional scene it makes you go Σ(っ °Д °;)っ

@gala_ksyz

is there any words youd like to tell aspiring/young indie devs?

Just make the dang thing!!! Stop putting it off!!! Just do it!!! Buy a simple game maker thing like rpgmaker or renpy or whatever and make the thing!!! Yes it’ll take time!!! Yes it won’t be as good as you imagined in some ways!!! Yes making games is hard!!! But you gotta just do it!!! It’ll be so much better than you imagined in other ways!!! It’ll be real!!! You’re the only one who can make it!!! It’s yours!!! It comes from your heart!!! It IS your heart!!! No one else can make it but you!!! So just make the dang thing!!! I believe in you!!! JUST MAKE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That’s all I have to say for today! Let me know if you have any questions, or if there’s any aspect of the game development struggle you’d like me to talk about! See you next time!!!

AND DON’T FORGET TO WISHLIST THE GAME ON STEAM ALSO IT REALLY HELPS BECAUSE STEAM’S ALGORITHM IS MORE LIKELY TO SHOW OFF GAMES WITH A HIGH AMOUNT OF WISHLISTS THAT’S THE REASON WHY GAME DEVS ALWAYS ASK TO WISHLIST!!! OKAY BYE!!!!

Patch Notes: Demo v1.6

October 4, 2022

CHANGELOG:
-Rancoeur and Amertume now attack correctly, according to their type
-Fixed some descriptions
-Losing in battle now teleports you to the big gate room and doesn't lock you out
-Checking path North of Dormont won't softlock you anymore
-You can now talk to the fisherperson twice
-Torch in shop won't change graphics when interacted with
-Fixed problem with pressing shift during convos

If you come accross any bugs, please log them here!
Thank you very much, and happy playing~!

Devlog #7 - Tokyos and Game Shows

October 4, 2022

And in case you didn’t know (second edition), In Stars and Time had a booth at the Tokyo Game Show! And I got to be there, along with Gabrielle, the Release Manager from Armor Games Studio! AND I GOT TO SEE PEOPLE PLAY THE DEMO RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY VERY EYES!!!! It was such a surreal experience, and so validating too… Feedback has been very positive and I couldn’t be happier! (I also got a lot of compliments on the battle system, which has surprised me??? I’m glad people like the battle system…)

I’d never been to a video game convention before, or to Japan, so I had a lot of new experiences thrown at me very fast! Japan is such a beautiful country (so clean!!!), and I had a wonderful time exploring and looking at the other TGS booths and talking to people… Gabby was here to use her Japanese language mastery to show off the demo, but thankfully I also learned the key words to survive and be able to explain my game in Japanese: “time loop RPG” to explain the concept, and “Jankenpon” (Rock-Paper-Scissors) to describe the battle system! Sometimes that’s all you need!!!

Thank you to everyone that played the demo, and passed by the booth!!! The demo will be available for the whole month of October still, so you should play it while it’s still up!

As for development, it is going well! The game having reached alpha last month means it’s time for intense rounds of QA to catch all those nasty little bugs. And localization into Japanese is underway! And!!! Studio Thumpy Puppy finished the soundtrack, and oh my god!!! I cannot wait for everyone to play the game and hear all those amazing tracks!!! So exciting!!!

That’s all I have to say for today! Let me know if you have any questions, or if there’s any aspect of the game development struggle you’d like me to talk about! See you next time!!!

AND DON’T FORGET TO WISHLIST THE GAME ON STEAM ALSO IT REALLY HELPS BECAUSE STEAM’S ALGORITHM IS MORE LIKELY TO SHOW OFF GAMES WITH A HIGH AMOUNT OF WISHLISTS THAT’S THE REASON WHY GAME DEVS ALWAYS ASK TO WISHLIST!!! OKAY BYE!!!!

Newer posts Older posts

In Stars and Time

Nov 20, 2023