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!

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...

TOWNSQUEER vol. 1 📅 May 29 ➡ June 15@gamedev.lgbt · 2mo ago

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

TOWNSQUEER, the itch.io bundle is live! 
Get 30+ queer games, zines & more for $20!

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.

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.

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.

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 💪

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.

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.

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.

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).