Previews of some things we’ve been working on and a look at the editor I’ve been busting my hump working on.
Scribblehub Leakage is Next Week
I was so swamped I didn’t even have time for literacy! The next episode comes out next week.
Holy Moly! Vhiel’s Darkwisp is now out!
Just in time for the holidays, Vhiel’s latest game Darkwisp is out. It has a demo version and a full version for a scant five bucks.
It’s got ghosts, possession, zombies, and yes it does have a little bit of doll. It’s a great, compact little game. Definitely worth a look and hey, free demo! Go give it a try.
Bottled Starlight Stuff on Sale!
Steam Scream Fest begins today, all our games are on sale. In addition, I set matching sales on Itch.io which you can find on this page. If you were waiting for a sale, now’s your big chance because we always do Halloween sales. Like, come on.
That’s in two weeks. I will be discussing our plans for Demo 2 as well as going over changes to Ophiucus and how we’re going to release it. We’ll also see some concept art around the new area and maybe some character stuff!
Scribblehub Leakage Episode 5
Find solace in the dumpster, protected from the elements. Episode 5 is out.
Welcome Change Halloween Collab is Out!
At long last the damn thing is out! As you can see from the ad copy, 14 comics and stories for just 10 bucks. Holy moley! Bottled Starlight’s contribution Moulded to Correction is in there, so get it while it’s hot.
Horrible joke courtesy of Terafreak. No royalties will be paid out in any circumstance.
That’s right, the latest Tales of Strings is out: Long Wing of the Law!
The chaos in Midvale over the past years has not gone unnoticed, but political paralysis and the True Path’s deep pockets have kept direct intervention away. That ends after the mayor is assassinated, and his replacement forms the ECTF, Exotic Crimes Task Force, to deal with both the True Path and the Knights of Justice. At first, they seem to at least be potential allies in the defense of Midvale, but there is always more going on. Who are the ECTF really, is this all as it appears, and just what is that strange sound Jamie keeps hearing?
This one comes highly recommended because it’s a Jamie-focused story and everyone loves Jamie. Get it on Wechange or Itch.io!
Next week we’ll see the next Elites story finished, and it’s the big exciting one where a lot is revealed. Look forward to that!
The best way to suffer is loudly and near others. In addition, I am yet again adding something to the format: I will only put a review on the Scribblehub page if I have something positive to say about the story. There’s a lot of dreck out there and yes, I can post a mean review of a bad story. Really, all that does is tell the author, who probably cares very deeply, that I want to ruin their day. I’m mean but I’m not that mean. My job here is to draw attention to good stories that are underrated.
The next The Elites is out! You can get it for free on Itch.io and Wechange.me as usual, or keep up on Scribblehub. Next up is the big one where everything changes. Fight the Logic if You Can.
Some slight changes to the format this time around. We’re still doing ratings, but at the end I’ll just give it an “Overall Thoughts” rather than a “How to Improve” or anything like that. A lot of these stories keep winding up being pretty good and don’t need a lot of improvement!
After that, we’ll do a “Is This For Me?” bit where I try to specify who should read it. If you’re into office romance, bombastic action, and space travel, there’s a story for you out there. This is where I try to find it.
I have set up a basic UI for the editor. It has relocatable and resizable windows, buttons, labels, images, and a top menu. Next up will be actually integrating the editor in so it can modify the level, then adding an undo/redo stack.
This is pretty exciting!
Klaysee Publishes the Chapter 2 Updated Guide!
The walkthrough is here. It’s now 182 pages of pure Sanya!
Scribblehub Leakage: Episode 3
Get the fuck in you dork-ass losers we’re reviewing random unreviewed fiction on Scribblehub. We’ve already found some diamonds in the rough and you never know what you’ll find so tune in!
The Princess and the Puppet, and the Welcome Change Collab
The Welcome Change Halloween Bundle is live! You can get it here, and it includes the latest Tales of Strings entry: The Princess and the Puppet. This one is very hot, and has some high-quality images by Xandra so you know it’ll be good. It’s got hypnosis, mind-control, and best of all, doll transformation!
The bundle is here. 16 pieces for a cumulative 80% off.
You can also get the story individually on Wechange or Itch.io. I know some people can’t use Wechange for payment processor reasons so I put it on Itch, but please consider getting the Welcome Change version if you can. It supports creators in the TF space.
Meanwhile, the big Halloween Collab has been moved back a few days so some artists can get last-second changes in. It should still launch this week. The next Knights story, Long Wing of the Law, is about 1/3rd edited as well. Get psyched!
I am an extremely busy person with multiple projects on the go and I decided to take up a reading and critiquing assignment because I’m really stupid. Let’s see if reading a lot makes us smarter!
Yes I am now working on Witches of Ravenbrook again. Why? Because Ophiucus is basically as far as I’d like to get on it and needs further art. The first floor is basically all done, but the second floor is not, and it’s really hard to design puzzles and examinables when you’re staring at a black screen.
Thus, I am now working on Witches of Ravenbrook’s 3D editor interface. Yeah it’s just the top menu right now, I have to put in things like windows, tile editors, saving/loading/exporting, and an undo stack. It’s gonna take awhile so updates are gonna be boring for a while.
Why am I making a 3D world editor? Because none of the other editors I’ve found did *exactly* what I want them to do. Most of them are model and scene editors, not proper tile editors with collision editing. So I’m making my own. On the plus side it means I can make features just for Ravenbrook, and like everything else in the engine, it’s open-source so you’ll be able to use it to make 3D tile levels if you so desire.
Scribblehub Leakage – Episode 2
The Racc is BACK and this week we’re looking at three more random stories with zero reviews. I keep finding good ones! Check it out!
Tales of Strings Releases In October
In October we’re looking at three releases. Two for WelcomeChange bundles (including the big collab!) and one Knights story: Long Wing of the Law. I’m letting you know now because the wechange bundles go live in the first week of October, which lands next week. The Princess and the Puppet is in the bundle going live on October 1st and I’ll post about that next week.
Welcome to Episode 2, where we look at stuff that I saw on the Scribblehub front page almost entirely at random.
Did we learn anything last time? Probably not. Let’s do it again!
The Rules
1: No AI. If your book cover has AI, if your book text is AI, or if you admit to using AI anywhere in your writing process, you go right on the slop heap. The slop heap is worse than the trash heap, because trash can be entertaining, even good, even if it’s trashy. You’re neither. Get the fuck out of here with that.
You do not get anything for tricking me and slipping AI past the radar. This shit is everywhere. However, AI detectors are laughably unreliable, there is no perfect way to catch it. I’ll be pissed if I find out.
2: I will give your work a fair shot. ALWAYS. This does not mean reading the entire thing, it means at least checking out a few chapters in. Tolstoy was long-winded because he got paid per word, and some of these stories make Tolstoy look like a bathroom advertisement.
3: I will leave a review on your Scribblehub page. It’s very difficult to get reviews for anything, good or bad. Most people don’t want to leave them. Well, I will. I will try to be constructive, too. Be the change you want to see in the world.
How Ratings Work
I will give your story letter grades in the departments. These are subjective, which if you’re new to the concept of artistic appreciation, is true for all works of art. Art is a conversation between the creator and the reader, it requires both, it will always be subjective. They are A through F, with A being good, and F being proFoundly bad. I can give out + or – added to the end but not for F, if you get an F reconsider everything. F’s are usually for a lack of eFFort, or perhaps, lack of skill(F).
Which categories get letter grades varies. Not all stories are the same, some have precious little dialogue and must be coddled and kept warm like a baby bird who drinks drinks with a lot of ice in them. I can’t give out a letter grade for dialogue to a story that has little dialogue.
Not all of these stories are TF stories. Sorry, I know that’s what you’re into but you’re gonna have to meet people who write about things like getting on the bus and don’t even turn into a bug.
This story has so many italics it’s wonderful. Italics are used to represent narration, but also dialogue, and inconsistently at that. Hell yes. Every story should mostly be in italics.
Inconsistent Chapter Naming – A+
The Devil’s Comrade has a II after it, okay so that’s the chapter number? Nope, after V it resets to I then II then III then I again. Fuck yes.
Story – A+
If you can get past the first chapter which is kinda lame, the story kicks right the hell up. This is a surprise isekai (Sorry) except it really fancies itself as a film noir. The first chapter is two dudes heading to a Korean BBQ. The second chapter is our hero arriving in a different world and befriending a samurai. The third chapter has the samurai decapitate a t-rex and save a random woman. Look at that escalation.
It’s very stupid in a wonderful kind of way. This is the good shit. I don’t care who anyone is just give me more stupid and awesome stories.
Overall – A+
Look, if you’re the kind of person who wants to hear about depressed people fucking their secretaries because that’s what “mature” fiction is to you, then go away. This is stupid and interesting, and I’ll take that any day over people in domestic situations being unhappy.
How To Improve It
There’s a few minor technical problems like spelling errors and the wildly inconsistent use of italics. Fuck maybe you don’t need to fix those. It adds character.
Bonus points that the cover art was made by the author in like 5 minutes in mspaint. This is good. Fuck AI, make it yourself and live your dream you madman.
Look I am going to be honest here. I picked this one entirely because the entire thing is in the synopsis. Here it is, in its entirety:
Hide-and-Seek in a Dead Man’s House is a supernatural horror story about twelve-year-old Jack, who spends a weekend at his cousin Ethan’s huge, isolated country house. Over two nights, a closet door opens on its own, a voice whispers “Hey,” and unseen footsteps stop outside Jack’s hiding place during a game of hide-and-seek to say, “I see you.” At 3:20 a.m., loud breathing comes from the dark closet, and Jack flees home.
Fifteen years later, he learns the house was cheap because of a murder, and he returns to find the truth. Behind a hidden closet panel, he finds a murdered child’s notebook, a toy police car, and a drawing of the killer. The discovery solves a 25-year-old cold case and lets the boy’s spirit finally rest. The story blends suspense, mystery, and an emotional twist: the ghost was never a threat, only a frightened child still hiding.
There it is, the entire thing. They tell you in the synopsis that it’s a kid in hiding and FUCK ME that ruins everything.
It’s actually a pretty good story. Short, doesn’t waste too much time, creepy and then sad. Nice work. But since I knew from reading the synopsis exactly what was going to happen there was zero tension. None. So uh, don’t read the synopsis?
What the fuck am I doing that I keep finding kinda-good stories. This is supposed to be us gawking at trash.
This one’s a zombie outbreak so there’s a lot of use of line-breaks and time counting. I think it’s pretty effective! Gives the story a breezy, fast feel and gives it a definite character.
The complaint is that this goes on for a while so it loses its kick the fourth time our heroes are hiding. Still, creative structuring is always welcome.
Overall – B+
I don’t have a ton to say about this one. I’ve read to the third chapter and it’s a zombie story. Stuff happens at a pretty good clip, our heroes aren’t totally useless and I don’t think anything is uncreative or cliched. Pretty good! Check it out!
Wrap Up
What the fuck these three were actually pretty good. This is supposed to be sifting through crap and four out of the six wound up being pretty good! Not life-changing good but still good enough that I wasn’t angry I had to keep reading.
Perhaps we’re going to learn a real lesson and that’s that not everything is terrible if you open your mind. I haven’t done that yet, fortunately.
Like all days, it only comes once a year. I guess other than Februrary 29th. Get off my back.
Project Ophiucus
I have finished primary work on the scripting of the game, though the final area of the game (the maid quarters) doesn’t have any art and will need that before I can start putting puzzles in properly.
I have moved on to combat! I finished the character abilities and am adding in convenience features. This week I will be designing the enemies and bosses, and maybe doing a quick combat balance pass.
Since I am, as usual, ahead of the artists, I might start doing Witches of Ravenbrook engine work once I’m done the combat. Get Psyched!
Scribblehub Leakage – Episode 1
Our new weekly segment, Scribblehub Leakage, premieres this week. Wherein I (Salty) reviews random stories I find on Scribblehub. Promises to be hot, like garbage put in the microwave! If you like literacy, check it out! If you don’t, I have been told I can be pretty mean so maybe check it out anyway.
Tales of Strings – Disaffection out now!
I know you’re probably reeling from all the literature right now. Keep reeling.
Zoey Bafford is going to die. She has a rare disease, so rare that there is no known treatment, and certainly no cure. Except one. Becoming a hybrid to bypass the flaw in her genes that deactivate her bone marrow. She’ll have to give up her old life and take a new one in an organization that she knows is, on some level, an evil one.
She is assigned to work security at a soup kitchen. When a handsome, charming, friendly boy in a black jacket volunteers to work there, she finds herself falling for his nerdy charms.
The great cosmic gardener tends to his garden. All things must become right in the end.
Out now on Itch.io and Wechange.me! As usual, Patrons of 5$ or higher send me a DM if you’d like a free copy.
Next week, The Elites: Picnic in the Bedroom will be finished!
Fan Art Overload
I have once again had an “Alice Went Wild” week where artist Alice (who has worked on RoP!) broke every bone in her body producing some god damn incredible art. Hats off to you, Alice.
Kocha drew Chris as a puppy but someone said they looked lonely.
So now Penny and Chris can be dogs together. Happy ending?
A Mass of Links
Where to find us:
Our Patreon and Subscribestar are great places to support development! You can also get cool bonus stuff like concept art and early releases of Pandemonium!
And there’s always Our Discord. You can shout at Salty *in person*.
We also have a Wiki! We’d appreciate it greatly if people keep it maintained for us. :3
Bottled Starlight Games:
Runes of Pandemonium, the big adventure TF RPG, always free on Steam and Itch.io. Witch Hunter Izana, a battle-TF RPG. Available on Steam or Itch.io. Witches of Ravenbrook, a battle-TF dungeon-crawler. The prototype is out now and free on Itch.io. WoR Kickstarter page (260% funded! Thanks a lot!) String Tyrant, a survival horror game, is on Steam and Itch.io. Upcoming Prototype for Project Ophiucus! Link will be added when it’s out.
Other Bottled Starlight Stuff
Salty writes a book series, with audiobooks and illustrations, called Tales of Strings.
