Shoutout To Chris He's My Favorite White Boy

Seems like a promising game 🙏👀

Gods and Villains is a superhero/horror story set in a dystopian future where Earth is filled to the brim with crime and corruption—a.k.a MCU meets The Boys.

Warning! injury to major characters, gore, body horror, trauma and PTSD, amnesia, death, and sexual content. Rated +18. More specific content warnings will be provided at the start of each chapter.

You take control of a powerful metahuman, an otherwise ordinary human on the outside but who has the meta-gene, a potent mutation deep engraved in their DNA, which gives them superhuman abilities. This next step in human evolution comes with a setback, however, for the curse of madness seems to follow their every step. It lurks in the shadows, patiently waiting for the opportunity to strike—many metahumans fall prey to its alluring promises. 

With a dark and traumatic past filled with untold horrors and inhuman experiments, you are rescued from the clutches of crazy terrorists by a team of heroes that might lend you all the tools you need for redemption or complete self-annihilation. 

As the only metahuman with the ability to wield the powerful Chaos Magic, your very blood holds the answers to unlocking the secrets behind the control of time and space, but it has the drawback of being almost completely volatile. 

Who can you trust to keep you safe other than yourself? Trust no one, and maybe you can get out of this literal hell alive.

Play as male, female, or non-gender specific, along with transgender choices;

Romance one of seven characters, and if your heart is big enough fall in love with two of them. There's three possible poly routes available: Archon and Stardom, Archon and Mars, Paladin and Wildcat;

Customize your appearance, personality and powers;

Struggle against the shackles of madness trying to take hold of your psyche;

Battle a multitude of villains or become one yourself;

Uncover the secrets behind the meta-gene and your abilities;

Help the public fall in love with superheroes or forever destroy that chance;

In total there are seven romance options, each with their own personality, and dark secrets for you to uncover. You can read more about them below:

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The villain, or anti-hero, whatever you want to call them, Mars is an enigmatic figure; the very concept of life seems to hold no value to them. A trail of bodies follows wherever they go, and on the news, they are regarded as the biggest menace of the century. They will have the unique ability to sway your loyalty. Beware, their sweet words and promises may drip with honey, but they also drip with the blood of their victims.​

Trope: Forbidden love, emotional scars, blood-play

Zev/Zena Hammer

The oldest of the bunch and not a metahuman per se. Hammer acts as the spokesperson for the team, mitigating the often tenuous relationship between humans and the so-called "mutants". As a retired police detective they've learned firsthand how rotten the world can be for the innocent, and they've vowed to protect them at any cost. Their analytical and communication skills will go hand in hand when dealing with various crimes, just as their implants.

Trope: Widow/widower, age gap, don't-call-me-daddy/mommy

Adam/Ada Armstrong

The current leader of the Alliance Team. Headstrong and dauntless, they are regarded as the strongest metahuman in modern times and the most enigmatic of them all, whose past is shrouded in mystery and unknown even to their closest friends. On the outside, they might seem apathetic and unconcerned with human suffering, but their true feelings are hidden beneath layers of deep trauma. Superhuman strength and invulnerability are their greatest assets when fighting villains.

Trope: Nobody thinks it will work, love/hate, fucking-your-boss

Edward/Evelyn Osborne

The former leader of the Alliance Team and Archon's best friend. On the surface, they are the stereotypical showboat: cocky, greedy, and egoistical. Stardom does whatever they can to gain attention, fame, and riches. For them, the best feeling in the world is an adoring fan and a beautiful person fawning over their heroics. The meta-gene gives them a genius-level intellect, which in turn is used to develop several pieces of equipment that are employed by themselves and the team during fights.​

Trope: Billionaire, belated love epiphany, good-people-have-good-sex

Johnny/Johnnie

If Archon's past is shrouded in mystery, Paladin's is drowned in it. For all you know, their name is not even Johnny/Johnnie but an alias of their choosing. They are known to be the silent loner type and are somewhat socially withdrawn from other members of the team, only speaking when called upon to do so. Behind their silver mask, they harbor more than a few inner demons, and together with their superhuman weapon and combat proficiency, they fight for the innocent.​

Trope: Secret identity, oblivious to love, weapon-fetishization

Pedro/Pilar Flores

The youngest of the team, considered by many a lighthearted jokester without any real talent beyond their obvious powers—which set them apart from every human that walks the earth. With their metahuman status so evident for everyone to see, hiding just didn't seem like an option, so they chose the next best alternative. Known to be playful, energetic, and often immature, they are responsible for balancing the team's more serious side, and when someone can take the form of any living being on Earth, the repertoire of pranks is endless.​

Trope: Beauty and the Beast, broken in some way, begging

Doctor Malik/Malika Aziz

The renowned Doctor Aziz, a famed archaeologist and considered to be the most powerful sorcerer, or magic user, in the world. They wear several enchanted artifacts that, in turn, accentuate their already tremendous knowledge of the mystical forces. With an extremely strong moral compass and kind demeanor, they will show themselves to be the best teacher you could ask for, but why do they seem to be everywhere you look?

Trope: Time travel, twin siblings or clones?, teacher-student

LINKS

DEMO ✶ PATREON ✶ KO-FI

scout my beloved

GROW.

Art dump of some of my Naruto OC's, as well as a special piece I did a while ago hehe

Is it finnished? Hell nahhhhhh

Do I keep it rockin'? Hell yeeee 😏

Visual Novels, Sprite Crops, and You

Ridiculously specific thing I'm thinking about (and this is in really broad strokes and will segue later) but something I've noticed is that English Visual Novels tend to have their character sprites cut off around the knees more than I usually see in Japanese VNs, where they'll cut off around the hips or waist (unless characters are supposed to be explicitly standing further away.)

(Screenshots from Hustle Cat, Dream Daddy, and Growing Up's Steam pages)

(Screenshots from Little Busters, Aokana, and White Album's Steam pages)

Obviously this is a huge oversimplification. I've seen lots of EVNs that have sprite crop at the hips or thighs and vice versa.

But I think there's interesting presentation benefits to both methods.

If you crop at the knees, you can see more of the character designs, and probably fit more characters onscreen without it feeling as cramped. That would be useful for third person games, where you'll probably have more than one character on-screen for most of the game, if you decide your main character should have their own sprite when they talk.

The hips method, on the other hand, could make the speaking character feel closer to the camera/an invisible first-person protagonist. I think that could promote a more "intimate" feeling, which could be desirable in romance games.

It also never hurts to experiment with visuals that zoom in and out on the sprites, with varying crops.

(Screenshots from Muv-Luv's VNDB page)

For example, I think Muv-Luv looks fantastic. It positions the characters on a sort of 3D plane, and I remember it having small camera pans. It's useful for immersion, even before it begins showing action sequences. I know it's taxing to direct, but I've always wished more VNs looked like Muv-Luv. It's also a game from 2003, which makes it doubly impressive.

I've heard minori titles like Supipara and eden*, or Type-Moon titles like Mahoutsukai no Yoru or the Tsukihime remake are also a cut above the rest in how "cinematic" they feel, but I have less familiarity with those games (although I'm planning to play them in the future). I'm also running low on space in the post to add many more pictures, and expressing the focus on "movement" in more cinematic VNs is difficult to do with still images.

I don't really have a point to end on, these are just some assorted visual novel thoughts.

Why not share a sketchy, never fully finnished design of my OL1 mc?

Ignroing that comment up there, neither is quite her name lol

Me when I realise I could ppst my our life oc's on here 🍂

Ahhhh!

I'd love to talk abt them. There's also still the step 3 designs I haven't finnished yet.

Anyways, Adam and Donnie are for qiu, Ophelia and Reggie are for Tam!

Throwback to the unfinished peace

WIP of my oc from @collegetennisoriginstory 🤧

A REALLY good if 🩷🩷

Once it's fully done I'll post it again, as well as a good little chunk of get to know her spam text hehehe