RALWORKS

I entered the final stretch of dev for #ATalkBeneathTheTree this week. All the dialogue, options, and endings are hooked up. 2/3 of the voice acting is done. There are only a few more things to wrap up before the big QA marathon. Stay tuned. Trailer coming soon.
#ScreenshotSaturday #VisualNovel

Here's a 10 second teaser for #ATalkBeneathTheTree. The content is ripped straight from gameplay, but I replaced the pretty standard #VisualNovel captioning and image sequence that the real game has with something a bit more dramatic. I still think this fits for #ScreenshotSaturday #IndieGameDev

YouTube video by RALWORKS Marbury & 3rd OST by RALWORKS

I woke up thinking about the #OST I did for the short visual novel I worked at #AlbertaGameJam 2024--Marbury & 3rd (saarth-rajan.itch.io/marbury-and-...). This is some of my favourite music I've made in the past few years. #IndieGameDev
youtu.be/4s-WNqtI-Wk

#doodles #sketchbook #ballpoint
Sleeping cats are round.

#sketchbook #myart #ballpointart
(Yes, I blurred out the journal entry around this)

Screen from a visual novel. A wax-crayon illustration of a long-haired man with a keyed-up, angry expression, standing near a tree. Dialogue text below. Celeste says, "What did you do?"

Added about 2500 words of new content to #ATalkBeneathTheTree (WIP) this week #ScreenshotSaturday #IndieGameDev

A branching narrative diagram, in artistic colours, with labels removed. 2 characters discuss animatedly in the background. Title text in foreground reads, "A talk beneath the tree"

#ATalkBeneathTheTree (WIP) is a distillation of one of my game dev obsessions: my quest to carve out my own style of granular yet impactful player choices, particularly inter/intra-personal. Pictured: artistic riffing on a draft flow diagram from one of the routes. #IndieGameDev #ChoiceBasedGaming

There is a very good reason why my WIP #NarrativeGame project, #ATalkBeneathTheTree now needs 5 times the sprites for the point of view character. I'd love to hear your guesses - but my lips are sealed as to why. #VNDev

YouTube video by RALWORKS RALWORKS: A talk beneath the tree teaser #1 -- "Reflections"

I'm switching gears for the next month or two to put out something a bit different from my longer term work. youtu.be/_AjnlgBnrzg
Stay tuned for more #ATalkBeneathTheTree #IndieGameDev #VisualNovel

A local dev I really respect, @pyranostudios.bsky.social is gearing up to release #SoundsTerrifying, an #AudioGame with spatial exploration and suspense. Got to participate in an early demo and it was a mind-bending and immersive experience. Go check out what they're doing! #IndieGameDev

Táls Caem Táls Sulu ("Tálsa") is a professional Guide, who sees people through the dangerous wilderness. She came out cooler than I intended. What do you think? Should I promote her from 1-off encounter to recurring character? #SaintOfMazesAgeOfDusk #IndieGameDev

YouTube video by RALWORKS Demo: Improved Character Creation UX - Saint of Mazes; Age of Dusk

Last weekend, I completely redesigned the UX for the character creator in #SaintOfMazesAgeOfDusk. There aren't actually any new customization options compared to the old one, but it really feels like there are.
#IndieGameDev #CharacterCreator
youtu.be/1UeaSP4JZNU

Here's a WIP in game #isometric scene from #SaintOfMazesAgeOfDusk. Blocking is done in 2 tone paper. Colours yet to be applied. #IndieGameDev

I think he's a friend. Look at those bewildered eyes! Those hesitant hands! He'd /never/ hurt us.

Early planning for a new area in #SaintOfMazesAgeOfDusk (WIP). At this stage of scene design, the edges of the viewport in each area aren't broken up yet. As you can see, the illustration has escaped the page. #IndieGameDev #ArtisticProcess

YouTube video by RALWORKS Saint Of Mazes; Age of Dusk -- Mazes: Visual Design Demo + Original Music

For #ScreenshotSaturday, here's one of my favourite sections of gameplay in #SaintOfMazesAgeOfDusk (WIP) for visual design and #OriginalMusic. I can't wait until I get to go back to this part and fill it up with puzzles and story!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LslR...

#doodles #BallpointPen #MyArt

Colourful illustrations on paper arranged on a desk. Colourful scenes of forests and overgrown buildings, along with line drawings of a man and and a horse. Box of wax crayons on desk beside.

#SaintOfMazesAgeOfDusk (WIP) relies heavily on traditional media--specifically, wax crayon and tinted paper collage--for scene creation. Here are some hard copies examples I pulled out of my archive to show how it works. #TraditionalMediaIllustration #IndieGameDev

♫ Run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run ♫
♫ Old Ones will blacken out the sun, sun, sun ♫

The star ritual is deadly if mishandled. Fail it while injured? You die. Recorded the music for this today. #SaintOfMazesAgeOfDusk #IndieGameDev #IndieGameDevMusic

Whoa. I love the way the black of the void makes the colours pop. You're really selling "fallen down deep"

Here's the "Star Ritual" mechanic, used to clear areas blocked by dark magic. Favourite detail: the way the character scowls when his health bar gets low. Side note: how do you like my new UI layout? #SaintOfMazesAgeOfDusk #ScreenshotSaturday #WIP

Reminds me of the swamp benders from ATLA. But the terror gets worse when the true nature is revealed, instead of better

A very accelerated demo of the visuals of day & night in #SaintOfMazesAgeOfDusk (WIP) #ScreenshotSaturday #IndieGameDev

A quick demo of the travel system in #SaintOfMazesAgeOfDusk (WIP) for #ScreenshotSaturday. I plan to add some details to the camps: tents; the horse & cart; evening & morning lighting, etc. But here's my proof-of-concept for now #IndieGameDev

Perpetual Poem Machine by RALWORKS, hl__ur Make a perpetual motion machine out of bubbles, and poetry

I spent the weekend jamming at #ggj. My team built "Perpetual Poem Machine" (ralworks.itch.io/perpetual-po...). Balance colours in a bubble-machine to create perpetual motion--using only a natural language control panel that interprets words in a regular but non-semantic way. #IndieGameDev

The main character recalls their mother, in #SaintOfMazesAgeOfDusk (WIP). Her skin and hair colour change to match depending on the player character's design. #IndieGameDev #characterart

YouTube video by RALWORKS Electric City - Lyric Video

youtu.be/CXPx9A7Xgic
You ever get one of those ideas that comes out of nowhere and *completely takes over your life* until it's done? Well, 3 days ago, I felt a hint of a song coming on. Now there's this. There has been no sleep.
#singersongwriter #multimedia #indierock

"Mortar of Pestilence"
#doodles #comics #myart

My first webcomic, from 2015, was "The Incurable Quake Family"--a story about a girl growing up in a futuristic utopia, but with a very complicated family life. My style has changed a lot, but some of these pages looked pretty cool. #webcomics #myart #digitalillustration