CuddlySpider

Oh so cute! Thank you both c:

I am 25 years old I am androgynous/fem South Carolina Graduated with a BA in accounting, volunteering at a pet shelter I have one pet cat

This probably will sound bad, but can't seem to find the right way to word this. I don't exactly admire people just for their style or creativity or even accomplishments, at least not for those things alone. Sure there are styles I take inspiration from and enjoy drawing, but I don't exactly admire the artists as individuals just for making good art. No, I tend to admire people for their passion, and overall personality. I am really bad with names, but most of the famous artist I actually look up to are the ones that crossed a social line with passion. They knew what they wanted to make and knew society would shame them, but they didn't let that stop them. I did a report on Marina Abramović for one of my classes. I had no idea who she was at first I just got left with her since I tend to always pick from the available subjects for an assignment last (I find it more fun that way). She was the most controversial artist on that list and I was thrilled to write a report and presentation on her. Warning for sexual content and odd and disturbing content if you look her up. She is most known for her liver performance arts. I just love how she pushed the limits and how most of her pieces were experiments! I respect her so much for her passion and ambition. I mostly love when an artist pushes the boundaries and crosses the line in a respectful and tasteful manner. They don't resort to mocking tragedies or other's sufferings to push boundaries and I just really admire that bravery. Not just for Marina but for any artist that does things like that. For example Michelangelo of course. I just like his spite and sass, he is my hero for that. I also really admire developing or even developed artists that give actually helpful constructive critiques without including uncalled for harsh comments.Artists who are willing to help beginners learn what they have learned or even are learning in a positive friendly way is just so great. I live for helping others I would love to try to start a channel for constructively critiquing art, be it drawing or photography. I would mean so much to me to help beginner artists learn new techniques and inspire them to experiment and push their comfort zones as my senior year photography teacher did for me. It is helpful to be reminded that failure is ok. We are told from the very beginning the mistakes and failures are shameful, but in reality they are the fundamentals of learning. You simply cannot learn if you do not fail. It is all about trial and error and I thing we forget that a lot of the time. I'm getting off topic. But yeah I really admire artists for what they do and why over their end results. I tried to keep this short and to the point, I rewrote this like three times. Sorry It's so long. I just have a lot to say on this subject. Oh at the moment I am really looking up to LavenderTowne on youtube. She is a handful of years younger then me, but that doesn't matter. She is just supper polite and nice to listen to and has wonderful inspirational things to say. Plus is a delight on her little let's play for passpartout (a game where you play as a "starving artist"). I highly suggest checking out her videos and her passpartout videos, they helped me smile and chuckle. Oh here is the play list of her playing the game, it's just four videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0BV8tpTOoM&list=PLhmHswx9NVfVyrIczfAovjml1sK5gGIdg Hope you enjoy! And can't wait to see who/what type of artists all of you admire too!

I guess I could add some more. I tend to use a few methods to try to draw inspiration. - Patterns from life - Scribbles - Random generators There are times I'm staring at something from life and then see a pattern in it. The pattern can look like a character, or creature or part of, when I look at it. I tend to have a small hard cover sketchbook in my bag with me as much as I can for this reason. I star at some mundane object, lets say a towel, and I'll start too see either the towel itself make shapes of a creature based on how it is laid or shapes that form creatures in the pattern on the towel or the way the fibers are laying. For example, there is a little hand cloth near me and when I look at it and focus on it I can make out a cute eyeball like creature in the way the fibers are shuffled. The other method I like to use is scribbling. I uses lines, curves, circles, and/or shapes. I just scribble them out in no particular way. This is like making my own patterns to see something in. This can also be done by silhouetting shapes instead of just using their lines. I remember when I was a kid I was shone a neat trick that involved wring a word on paper, folding it in half to cut out around the wording. When unfolded the outline of the mirrored word can inspired a design. This can be done digitally too of course. This also helps make fun and interesting creature or even character silhouette shapes. It can help prevent you from using the same body structure for all your creatures and characters. Next is one I have been mostly using, random generators. Now I am extremely picky but in all honesty you don't have to be, and is even better and simpler if you aren't. You can use an random animal, element, object, or whatever else generator to help you design a creature or character. There are some places that have a mix of things being generated, and that's fine, but don't forget that it's ok to use multiple to suit what you are looking for. I have spent days trying to find the perfect one use generator, and, you arne't going to find it, it doesn't exist and can't exist. What you are looking for or need is never going to be consistent so just one generator is simply not possible plus is a pain to try to make. I tried making an all in one random generator, there are a lot of words in this language. Anyway, it's best to just think of the general theme you want and find generators for those things to help pull inspiration from. Like maybe I want to make a creature based on a career, all I really need is a career generator and then maybe if i really can't think of an animal to suit it then use a animal and then maybe even some personality ones if I really can't feel inspired for more details. You do not have to be over the top complicated like I am. I just have this uncontrollable urge to make things 100 times more complicated than they need to be at times. However, if you want to find some cool creatures you may have never heard of before I highly suggest using http://www.catalogueoflife.org/col/browse/tree to generate from. It is not a random generator site and they did not take kindly to my suggestion to add that as a feature. So you unfortunately have to make it a three step thing. You can randomize each category, or the phylum in it or the classes in a phylum, and so on. You can keep going until you reach a species or you can just look up the group you got for inspiration. Not all species have pictures or data sine that is every known species, so many have nothing on them that is public. Just a little heads up there. But you can find some really cool and fun species or types doing that complicated method. But using a generic animal generator is honestly just as efficient. This is just in case you want to really be over the top complicated or really want to find something new not many use or may have in generators. Hope those are helpful! Oh and don't forget to have fun and remember not every creature has to be pretty, but try to avoid adding too much to their design. It's best for them to be easy to understand and remember.

I must ask, for the game discussion category channels, are they for development or for entertainment? Or is it both? I feel it might help having that specified somewhere if it is or is also for development.

I wonder this too at times. When I feel stuck on deciding what to put on it, I look to other pet sites. Many have all or some of these: Newsfeed Random Pet Random Avatar Newest Users Some buttons to social media or donate button or merch shop. There are sometimes some other things but they tend to be more specific to that site's game play. I Like to think of the home page as both an introduction to new unregistered users and an informational center for registered users. So visitors can see updates that have happened, some quick idea on what active user avatars look like, what the pets may look like, etc. So the can get a general quick taste of the aesthetics and activity. While for registered users it's a good reference to quickly see if anything news have been posted and even see names of new users if the with to great them and welcome them to the site. I hope this helps.

Ok. Sounds like something I can do. Let me know if there are further questions you have for me c:

Hello. I am very interested in the manager position. However, manager tends to mean different things to different people (and honestly that's what I like about it I never have a clear picture of what my job will exactly be). With that said I enjoy helping others, organizing, researching, and discovering new things in general. It seems the manager role is heavy on the writing here. I admit i'm not professional English major. But to be far the English language is a fluid and ever changing beast. I do not know Dutch specifically, but I feel confident about being able to find someone who does. May I ask what your minimal expected hours per day/week for the positions are? I am available any day, but Thursday is a toss up for a volunteer job. If you have further questions or wish to exchange contact info please feel free to PM me.

@SingSong, thank you so much for the list format! I was actually thinking of making forms for people to vote on and very briefly add words if they want . I was not going to attach the name or the core reason behind the data collection. But do plan on making it short but to the point so I can gather information on what people like and don't like about the few games with similar concepts. That way I can indirectly ask people's onions on it with out directly yelling out "hey I'm making a game" I have seen some people do this (tracked down the earliest origins that i could of some other indie games) and seemed many have asked questions and asked people to fill out some questions to help the progress without directly saying why. Not many people like filling out random questions about their opinions, but it seems enough do like giving their input (I know i'm one at least, I don't care if it's for a school project or just for fun, I like helping add to the statistics and data being gathered) Might do that with inconspicuous test runs on my personal social media accounts and just be like "hey i made this mini game for fun real quick, what do you think? But have it be a part of the or for a concept of my larger project for people to try out and tell me how they feel, again without putting the official name tag on it. It think only my closest friends will see the pattern of what I am doing, but most of my other followers probably will just think i'm messing around with small game design, which will be true. But yeah that's gain more in the future I need to plan out the order of which these happen and what I want them to contain.

@Hasi @hurricaneviolet, Thanks your advice was helpful! I'll keep my push back my official going public back a bit and just do my best to be able to pay for the programmer also in full or partial if they agree since I could code some of the main site layouts myself, it'd just need help with implementing java mostly. May need their help find a host and best place for the domain since since there are just too many options for me to narrow down. I could ask on programming and web design social sites myself tho. Thank you again I feel I have a clearer course of action now c: I think i will make that semi-public log so I can keep better track of things I have done and changes I have made in case. So only people who understand that I am still new, and this is a large project so i'd need to take breaks to make smaller projects to learn and experiment with any road blocks or concerns I encounter.

I have been trying to decide on this and planning out how I want to start and manage publicity during development. I am unsure how prepared I should be before going public on social medias. Should it be different for each stage of development? How frequently should I try post updates? Some seem to start making social media accounts for their projects right after they get a solid idea of what they want to make. However, it also seems some other wait until they have official and final visual content being made and have future update posts made and ready to go in a queue to create a s steady flow and they continue to work on more update posts. Everyone seems to do it drastically differently and it's hard for me to tell which path and course of action would be the best for my situation. Right now I assume that It would be best for me to wait to get enough resources on my own so I can pay for starting official visual content out of my own pocket and then work with the hired artist and writer to create at least a month's worth of queued update posts before starting up on social media so that updates can be flowing in at a consistent rate. This is because if I make social media account for my project right now, the updates will be scattered and inconsistent time wise. I have no idea how that will effect the public's opinion on the project or if they will take it seriously or not. There will be times I can post updates once a day/week due to getting a spark of inspiration, but I am only one person, I get art blocks and have other things to do so will have stretches of time where i just cant think of what part is should work on now. Or I feel stuck since maybe something I thought would work together just doesn't seem to fit together and I need to fix it to continue, but I can't at the time come up with a solution so need down time to think on it. Which might lead to disinterest or people feeling doubt. (even though, in my honest opinion, down times are normal) What I am thinking now however is a third option. A more semi-public option where I post logs instead of updates. This will help me keep track of things I have done and changes I have made, but also give me something to show people if they ask. I'd just have to make it perfectly clear that it is in the idea stage and not ready for full blown development yet so will most likely not be getting constantly paced log updates. On top of that since it won't be technically official my not so appealing writing style won't really be a problem since I'd only be sharing the logs with friends or people who directly ask or people who are interested and just want to stop by on their on volition to see what has been added. That might help me have something out in public while I work on getting a more solid idea to work with and save up my own funds to hire people to help me make official project posts in social media. I might still have those pre-planned and made in a queue to keep a consistent flow going and try to avoid long hiatuses. I am unsure how long or how much out of pocket money i'd need for that to gain enough interest and ready content for a kickstater (need a videographer for that too, that is not my specialty at all). Planning approximately how long that will all take and how much money I need to save for it is in my list of things to do for planning ideas and preparing things to show whoever I hire so they have something to work with and discuss. I'm terrified of going public too soon and make people feel skeptical because of inevitable hiatuses in the idea phase while it's just me working on this. I rather avoid getting a bad public imagery right off the bat. I have tried making my process for other much smaller project public and found many leave and loos interest if you don't update fast enough. They fail to understand that as one person working alone it's hard to have ideas to add in a constant manner. That's no one's fault, it's just stressful and disheartening. At least that has been my experience. So what stage of the development process is best to start going public? How much should you have prepared before posting updates? Should I find someone to help answer questions too since not many like how I word and explain things? Should I be this worried about my own lack of skill with writing when it comes to going public? (ie. do enough people even care how correct your English is in your updates). Should I find a bigger name to help promote my social media? I apologize for all the questions I am just trying to prepare for every possible hurdle I can think of that I might encounter or have encountered with smaller projects that I would like to avoid. EDIT: I think i'm overthinking things, as I tend to do. But yeah right now i'm just making a course of action for me to take and probly over complicating each step and wondering about the order of events and such.

I really like and appreciate how much transparency you seem to offer during the development! This sounds very interesting and is nice seeing each step of the way. Your market price change idea is nice! I would like to suggest adding a way to see the average sale or lowest current market price if you are not considering adding that already. It helps save time and avoids players needing to open several tabs or go back and forth to find how they should price and item. At least for me personally i find it a bit confusing and difficult when the market price statistics aren't on the same page of the item i'm trying to price. I could be wrong and you might want to encourage players to look up the price statistics vs hand it to them. The over all simplicity concept is nice and eliminates confusion or too many decisions to make.

I have been working on a game for several years on and off (everyone's development speed is very different) From reading a ton of guides for both this project and some others, If found that, for me at least, it was easier to start with a question rather than an answer. If helps me and some others stay organized with a clear goal in mind first. I do no know where you particularly are, so forgive me if you already have this done. I like to Have some base questions and have answers for them. Why am I making this? Who is this for? What type of players will be interested or use this game? What do I want the players to get out of this? Then I start asking How I plan on entertaining those types of players and how I plan on keeping them engaged and how or what part of the game will achieve why I want to make it in the first place. Some seem to jump on an idea before considering why they want it or what it would be for or what problems it may solve. Or even what about it will be new. I didn't do this before but I also am finding it helpful to make and plan out a time line of goals for the development of the ideas and concepts and how long each should take. Like finalizing and creating a string of events and features, what mechanics you want, and so on. It depends on your preferences and abilities and what you have access to it seems. But that I just stuff I learned and think I understand. I'm sure most is just from my engineering classes over the business courses I took. Engineering taught me to get in a habit of finding a problem I want to address first and then find answers for it and then development and prototype/test my ideas. Teams seem to come form anywhere, willing or able friends, family, volunteer, paid. Paid seems to be the easiest and most sure fire way for quality. I have no idea if it's right, but I'm starting with planning out visuals, sneak peaks, and explanations on what the game i'm working on's goal is along with planned features to post over time to get people hyped and know i'm serious so they maybe more willing to contribute to the future kick stater. But right now i'm still planning what I would want to show off to the public, what i want in production behind the scenes and about how much starting out of pocket money i'd need for that self advertisement so i can get enough interest to get enough donations to actually produce the full game and launch it. Again I'm just spit balling here. I have no business experience. This is just stuff I picked up on from classes and guides and asking. And of course I left out a tone of micro details so i don't send a novel of things I learned from guides and videos and such. I feel there are several ways to go about the development, this is just one possible, and vague, path of action. But do feel it is important to at least consider those questions at some point since you probably will be asked them by your potential development team I'd assume.

@Angel Oh ok! I didn't notice that But that is good to know I like pixels as a medium. Thank you c:

@hurricaneviolet Thank you for your input! I know it's hard to be open about this kind of stuff because of how sensitive that type of information can be. But it is very helpful to others who experience the same or similar difficulties. I did put on my development timeline to find a therapist or help group. Honestly on my down days I wonder where the time goes, but it is as you said, I'm using all my time and energy on negative/obsessive thoughts vs actually doing anything. I think all add "Find coping mechanisms and a support group/therapist" to my development timeline and put it at the top priority. I do have things that help temporarily, but once common events happen where I am I go right back down so to speak. I should focus on finding lasting coping mechanisms or ones i can do right after those events that bring me down or during them. It would be helpful and immediately helpful for me to move out, but that is a long term goals so I should find something that helps while I'm here and waiting for the ability to move to a healthier environment. Thanks again I was very narrow focused on moving out vs finding things I can do right now to help. c: