Aether (moved) @Taylor@awoo.space

I'm a big dragon.

The best sort of game accessibility features are the ones where you don't need options for them in the first place, because they're provided for through the default behaviour. Like making captions always contrasted and readable.

An accessibility sin I've admittedly committed in Twelve Thousand is disabling/removing the transition setting and text-to-speech functions that Renpy provides. The main reason I did this was I felt their behaviour was too broad-strokes.

It would definitely be a good idea to include them, but if I do, I would rather have more control on how they behave.

Turning off transitions for example would keep some slow effects on, while reduce the strength of others. Some motions might not even be affected by the setting, so I could implement that.

And the text-blip sound naturally interferes with the text-to-speech system, so I will have to make one or the other play, never mind determining what voice synthesis it uses and such.

In Witness to Unity, I added an option to switch what the run button does - besides the usual walk vs run by default, I also added the option to make the button toggle between different modes.

Both WTU and Twelve Thousand also have a volume setting for the "text blip" effect, since that could either be annoying for people or Lets Players could turn the effect down to better balance with their voices.

WTU's options screen also has an "assist mode" there. This setting was to serve as a "time freeze" option to halt the calender/time system if a player wanted extra time to level up. However the calender system in and of itself might be scrapped, so this option too would be moot.

I watched today's Game Maker's Tookit video on accessibility, and it had me thinking about accessibility in my own projects.

Since they're RPGs and a VN, certain issues like QTE settings are less applicable, but it's still something worth thinking about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWQcuBigOj0

Also some good shots of the current state of my avatar... (pictures taken by friends) ... so much shine and good shape, aaah.

Spent... several hours in VRChat earlier, half testing the avatar I've been working on, half hanging out with friends.

VRChat is... just... really good...

This is wonderful...

I'm big, shiny, my seams are coming along nicely, and I have a big swishy tail and big dragon-y belly...

@ -@

Shiiiiny.

So I've been working on a model of myself for VRChat, and I've reached the point of testing it and, aaaaa?

This feeling of seeing something that feels close to seeing myself is intensely powerful. Looking down and seeing paws was wonderful enough, but these are my paws.

Watching today's Jimquisition talking about ~the $70 price tag~ .

I once again will always be snarky about this because game prices have always been varied and changing.

What games are 60USD? Where?

I paid 120NZD for FF13 when it came out. Atlus games are often around 90NZD. Both of these are, supposedly, 60USD new, in the US, right?

There's no consistency here because of a combination of publisher choices and exchange rates.

Add to that special editions muddying up the prices I frankly never see a digital storefront where any two games are the same price. (Though, admittedly, Switch games are pretty consistent... consistently 100NZD.)

So now we're going to get games 15-25NZD more for the new generation, all because of whatever the US is doing.

World-shaping toy...

Imagining getting space-pattern leggings or dresses but then using the silken material for a fursuit.

I have five different songs I've imagined as Twelve Thousand's OP over the years, and while some reuse visuals, there's a lot of changes I've imagined over time and show the evolution of the story's feeling and my brain wants there to be animations of all of them...

I wish it was easier to do music, 3D, and animation. Also that I could focus on art more instead of putting it off due to anxiety but that's a different subject.

I'm mostly annoyed that my brain does a good job at imagining anime OPs to my ideas but I can't even get myself to storyboard them, never mind what animating them would be like~.

Raaaar.

"Galaxy brain" except for me it's literal.

This is an interesting article on issues around creating media that's... english enough to be understood by Americans, but not American enough to be completely understood by Americans, resulting in some cultural tension and miscommunication.

This part in particular stands out to me:

America’s cultural and linguistic hegemony is stifling and all-consuming. [Media is] either Familiar — made for you, an English-speaking American — or it’s steadfastly Foreign, made for people very much unlike you.

That's such a big frustration for me, personally.

I want to insert some cultural dissonance into Twelve Thousand, my visual novel (half) set in New Zealand. I want it to have elements that are distinctly New Zealand-y. The problem is that when your friends are online and in the US, but also introverted weirdos, it can be hard to tell what international culture you're assimilating.

I don't get out and about so I can't be sure what about me or how I write would come off as New Zealand flavoured either, as opposed to plausibly "neutral", or rather, American.

Also, you know, I fucking hate how we have Black Friday and other junk down here. It's not just that we're getting American culturalisms (e.g. "Santa" over "Father Christmas"), but we're getting American capitalism. I would go so far as to argue capitalism is the main driving force behind homogenising western culture, because it smooths out the bumps in marketing demographics.

It's especially egregious in dubs in the 90s. Take this example from Pokemon 2000:

"I didn't know vikings still existed."
"They mostly live in Minnesota."

Completely incomprehensible joke to anyone outside of America, and even to Americans it might not make any sense. I think it's a reference to a sports team? It doesn't even make sense in-universe, but that's just 4Kids for you.

Point is, I would be pretty happy if America stopped sticking its nose into EU and Oceanic culture. Let us have our quirks and differences. Let us express our cringey, dark, ironic humour that we use for confronting difficult issues. Let us do things in different ways that might make you uncomfortable, and don't make it out like we're wrong for it.