I'm always learning and growing, and so are my designs! (The nice part of taking so long is always having time for tweaks!) Which eye color do you think looks best on Vagus?
Terminal Status
@terminalstatus.bsky.social
Hi, I'm going to be a queer mecha menhera visual novel when I grow up! Please kindly watch over me!
We have Fellows, we have Feelings, and we also have....Fully Conscious Games?! @terminalstatus.bsky.social has become sentient and decided to open with this line: 'is love a gift, an obligation, or a means to an end?' Read more in our bundle TOWNSQUEER, available until June 15th: itch.io/b/3666/
Would you still love me if I started roleplaying as a sentient visual novel for anonymity and marketability purposes? 👉👈
Hi everyone, you can find me in this zine! Who is 'me,' you ask? Why of course ✨me✨, Terminal Status! You should read my interview, where I talk about being a game! There are other games, too, and interviews with their devs! I hope my dev is just as proud of me when I finish growing up...
Hello world! Our games and zine bundle is live NOW! Featuring 28 queer creators and 39 items, including the zine: 28 games, 5 zines, 4 PDF games, 2 music albums. itch.io/b/3666/ @itch.io #itchio #ItchBundle #IndieGame #zine #IndieDev #GameDev
For the longest time I had it in my head that Terminal Status was going to lean hard into bright white. That's simply the vision I had, and eyestrain be damned I was committed to it. This week, I'm finally embracing mercy. The art direction is going to shift to include off-white. You're welcome.
When I'm not happy with how a coloring experiment looks, I just throw the finished piece through random filters... Can't tell which I like best 🤷♂️
Vocal tip: through the magical powers of hot water with honey and ginger, your local alto can spend an entire recording session pretending to be a soprano without their throat exploding
Today would be a great day to finish up some song demos for my game about disability, if not for the thing stopping me currently: disability
Writing for games is so uniquely satisfying, because it forces me to hone in on utility. Since most information has to be delivered through dialogue or action, I'm always thinking of the purpose behind every line I write. Building hyper-effective scripts reminds me that writing is craftsmanship.
A lot of script work has been done this week, including a major overhaul in how the story is laid out. I think the final product is definitely going to benefit from the changes ✨
Concuss, Viscera, Lacerae, and Intravenous have all had their references updated to reflect the newer piloting suit design. These images have also been uploaded to the website.
Website update: the Art Direction page now has a neat gallery section, complete with filters for references, concept art, and illustrations ✨
Crescendo is kind and good and probably a secret angel, and everyone should throw love and attention at her. By the way.
A couple of months back I pestered @cyberpunkboytoy.bsky.social to let me make a track for his game (pride-col.itch.io/nothing-like...) and now it's finally been updated with music! Yay. Play it it's good ☕ ko-fi.com/post/Nothing... #gamedev #indiedev #dtm #gameaudio #vgm
I have learned the supreme joy of making games with music. Because I can stop the song with a sudden halt when my protagonist has screwed something up, to intensify the comedic beats. And it's really funny no matter how many times I do it. Once I have an entire soundtrack I will be unstoppable.
What if I just... quietly put up an update to Nothing Like You with music and minor writing changes... without having figured out the complicated menu stuff that's kicking my ass?
Goals for 2026: - update "Nothing Like You" (soon!) - make at least 1 new sidegame - finalize all designs - draw sprites for at least 2 (if not more) characters - finish current draft of Terminal Status script - jump into new (hopefully the final) script revision
Work on the update for "Nothing Like You" has been slow going due to difficulties understanding screens (along with stumbling into several new gamedev projects along the way), but studying has been happening and hopefully results will come soon 💪
The good news: I'm working on coding! The bad news: my studying of styles and screens is Not going well. My brain explodes.
A little world building: Terminal Status's equivalent of a phone is simply a "tube," which is an electronic communication device with a tactile, holographic basis (AKA: motion activated commands, and uses holograms). Like most tech, tubes have specific phrases and slang attached to them.
I accidentally wrote Post-Op another character song, but thought I might have lucked out with it. Her initial one was partially rap, which quite doesn't suit her character well (it probably happened because she's the one I relate to most, so my own genre preferences shone through).
I keep worrying about how the Gnosia AU sidegame is going to end up more interesting than Terminal Status itself, but I think that's just something I need to accept. I'm putting a supernatural death game up against a romantic drama, gaps in intrigue comes with the territory.
good creative ideas are always infuriating because they inevitably mean more work
The good news is I've started scripting out the Gnosia AU game, and found ways to make the tutorial a thousand times more entertaining and effective. The bad news is it's going to require me to draw SO many CGs.
As Terminal Status takes place on a space academy, designing the ship has always been on the to-do list. Doing so does not come easy to me. Ailantd has been a huge inspiration to me, and I've long wished to try applying the skills I see her using. Now, I've finally found the necessary vision.
I've been thinking so long about how to insert an oximeter into my world design, and I just realized... maybe that's what the space academy can be designed after. Maybe the H1PP0-CRAFT is a giant oximeter-shaped ship.
share to save a visual novel's dev life
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I have come up with maybe the funniest way to start an RPGMaker game
Today I worked so long on music that my fret-holding hand hurts 🙋
It shouldn't be a priority, but I really want to go back and remake Towers are Hospitals at some point. I revisited it recently, and disagree with a lot of the editing decisions I made (specifically how I shied away from being explicit with the content matter).