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Progress Report

The Heart of it All

Since the Jam is just about coming to an end, I can hopefully resume production on LoTL now. In between mapping the areas for Transcend, I've been writing out plot concepts at work and working on Luna Engine in VXAce while at home. As tempting as it is to make the jump from VX to Ace, I'm deciding against it, as it will not only kill motivation and push back development of a game that is nearing a two-year production cycle ( I'm terrible at setting deadlines for personal projects ).

However, Tristian's plot has become dark. Very dark. Actually, it's so grim now I will be forced to put TriAnna through some very difficult situations, and it will even jeopardise their blossoming romance. While it is difficult write situations like this, I feel it will yield more interesting outcomes as well as set the tone for not only more interesting scenarios, but better character and plot development too.

Now, I don't even know if I am a skilled enough writer like blueperiod ( whose LINUS heavily influences me, I've been following the project since 2010 or so ) to pull off a gritty storyline while handling the core themes in an adroit fashion, it is still an interesting challenge to improve ( in my opinion ) one of the weaker aspects of my game creation. Said core themes could involve incest, murder, betrayal and a child born out of wedlock...

So yes, the Kingdom of Liguria ( the old name was Kingdom of Genoa ) has become a pretty grimdark place underall the shiny pixel art. Aka Crapsack World/Crap Saccharine World, one of my favourite tropes, but I've never implemented it
yet. Until now.




I just love this woman, but if the plot will progess the way as it is, well...

The good news is I've basically finished summarising the entire plot structure, but it's still pretty rough around the edges. However, and I don't know if this is a positive or negative, but the arc structure has somehow pushed the estimated game length of around 7-10 hours to about 15+, if I'm judging correctly. Once Tristian is freed from her restraints as a knight of the Cerulean Order, she becomes the mercenary-swordswoman, Ira Cross. The game's progress also ties in with their character; Paladin Tristian rigidly follows her orders and thus the game's arc is structured around that. Swordswoman Ira has no allegiances apart from Ianna, and is free to do what she wants, which translates into the player being able to do so much more in the game.

She's only Tristian Katherine Liangale for about 1 hour of gameplay, for the next 6-9 hours, she's Ira Cross.

Ulltimately at its heart, although LoTL is dark medieval tale, it is still a traditional RPG, with the usual questing, looting and monster-hunting we've come to expect. And memorable characters. And sexy swordswomen and hunky pirates ( I'm looking at you, Trabant ).

Game Design

Moar TriAnna and Affinities

In the last blog post, I only touched on how characters in LoTL learn their abilities, and covered some of the classes, but I'd like to go in-depth today.

You will remember that I mentioned that I am trying to tie in character abilities with their personality, but I'm going to expand on that today. By adding in Character Affinities. So I'm going to just go over that quick-quick.

Character affinites:

What are they, you ask? Well, affinities are tied to natural elements such as earth, air, fire and water.

Each affinity grants a special parameter bonuses as well as elemental reduction. If you are into astrology ( each character has a zodiac sign, after all ), you'll be able to guess which elemental affinity a character is tied to ( since the 12 zodiac signs are all divided into four elemental quadrants ). Actually, when designing the cast of LoTL, I used the astrological signs to give them a 'base' personality, and just took it from there.

For those of you who don't dabble in it, here are all 12 characters zodiac sign and affinity:



Tristian/Ira - Capricorn/Earth
Ianna - Pisces/Water
Percival - Cancer/Water
Edmund - Leo/Fire
Bedivere - Virgo/Earth
Darcy - Saggitarius/Fire
Trabant - Aries/Fire
Lance - Pisces/Water
Ronin - Gemini/Wind
Laine - Capricorn/Earth *
Siglud - Leo/Fire *


* Yes, they will appear as playable units here, given that the game worlds of Enelysion and LoTL are linked.

If you really are into zodiac compatibility, you'll realise Capricorn/Pisces make er... great bedmates :D.

Now then. How does this affect them in battle? Let me cover the basics:

Earth characters take less damage in battle ( being sturdy, stoic, rocklike personalities ) and half damage from all earth-based damage.

Water characters are a little more fragile, taking more damage ( being emotionally sensitive and almost otherworldly ), but are actually healed from all water-aligned attacks. It does however, make them vulnerable to thunder magic.

Fire characters deal more damage in battle ( being impulsive, rash individuals ) and take half damage from all fire-based damage.

Wind characters tend to evade more attacks and deal more magical damage ( being swift-thinking individuals who pride themselves on their intellect ).



I'm not too sure about giving them elemental-based attacks without distancing it from game lore ( had magic been a concrete part of Eridanus' world building, it would have made more sense for my characters to be fire-flinging, ice-freezing elemental gods ), but it is not the case. I suppose I could tie the skills to the Crysali orbs which grant new skills, but being more restricted; aka Earth-aligned characters can only equip Earth-based orbs. After all, you either have the option to bolster character stats with the Crysali, or wait until you've got about 5 of them so it can be manufacted into a Magi ( yes, I decided to use Dyhalto's suggestion there XD ).



Ok, so enough of gameplay for now. I want to discuss something else, something that concerns our two lovely heroines.

As someone who takes a lot of inspiration from blueperiod's LINUS, I thought it would be an excellent idea to show flashbacks of how TriAnna met as youngsters, and how their growing friendship stagnated due to Tristian's military duties, which explains why Tristy is so rigid to Ianna in the beginning of the game; they've grown apart, until a rather heart-wrenching scene early in the game, when they both drop their restraints, how alone Ianna felt after Tristian's departure or how Tristy herself copes with the rigors of her training ( there's a reason her base stats are so incredible, after all ).

The flashbacks are quite valuable in a character-driven narrative, after all. The game is also meant to take place over a period of about three years.


Young Tristian. blueperiod did the sprite for me. ^^ Yeah, she clearly has no muscles at this point. Skinny little thing.

Not to sound biased or anything, but I really can make a whole game centered around the Trianna relationship-dynamic. I'm more attached to them now than what I ever was to Lainey and Co.

As for other stuff, I've been mapping the first town in the game too. I've taken to researching how towns are structured from the 16-bit CPRG era, but I also know how cramped medieval towns can be. This should not necessary translate into gam-mak. After all, no-one wants to navigate their players through one-tile wide streets, which could be further aggravated by an NPC that just refuses to move.



The pool in the above image is actually a water resiviour since Eridanus as a whole receives lots of rainfall. Which is why it's so green, but also because its based off medieval England. The town has crafted canals to distribute clean water to the residents, but there are 'water-bearers' who take the freshwater to higher-lying areas of the town ( hence those large, terracotta jars ).

I could go on at length about Trianna, their game world and everything tied to it, but as always, I don't want to get ahead of myself and post stuff that I may not even implement. XD But I'm quite sure you can tell, I have as much fun as writing these blogs as I do making the game itself.

And yay. 180 Subbers! 20 more to break 200! :D :D :D I'm very chuffed, given that the game is still in its demo phase. You guys are great!

Progress Report

Of Dragoons and Orbs: Part I

This rather lengthy update will focus on some of the gameplay aspects of Tristian. More specifically, their classes. But first, a quick breakdown as to how characters living in this world gain their abilities:

Magic:

As magic in Eridanus is an extremely rare practice, little to no true magic users will join your party. True magic simply implies, in videogamespeak, a character that learns magic while gaining levels, aka the traditional way. There was exactly one character in the old demo who could learn spells this way: Dante.

Ianna can only learn magic by equipping tomes or by learning new spells from skill orbs. These skill orbs are manufacted using the Crysali that the player randomly finds scattered throughout the world map, or as drops from elemental fiends. However, this way of gaining skills isn't only limited to Ianna. Virtually any character who has a half-decent magic stat will be able to use these skill orbs ( I need a better name for it, seriously ) to cast the spells associated with them.
Naturally, these spells are far weaker than their original counter-parts, but make up for their lack in firepower by adding status effects or chip-damage for characters with weaker ATK stats ( like Ianna and Darcy).

Furthermore, some magic-imbibed weapons ( only obtained in Connaught's captial and the game's first town, Enoun ) can also grant new abilites. However, due to their scarcity, they are quite expensive, so it is extremely unlikely that the player will be able to obtain these goods early-game ( or much later in trade towns such as Concordia Port, as seen in the old demo ).

Princess:

A magic-wielding class with access to powerful healing and light-based spells. Becomes a powerful Queen towards game end

Ianna's gentle nature naturally lends her to learning support and party-healing skills, but her thirst for magical knowledge allows her to cast spells from magic tomes. Later down the line, she asks Tristian if the knight can't teach her the basics of swordplay, which allows the young princess to equip light swords and ones of the magical variety. Although not a true-magic user by birth, Ianna's lineage allows her access to the Light-based magic of Dubhan ( who was previously aligned with Dark-magic in the older demos ).

Physical Skills/Abilities:

This is somewhat tied to character classes, so I'll kill two birds with one stone here. I'm also trying to tie a character's specific skill set with their personality.

Battle Skills are by tradition, taught by the various military schools scattered through Eridanus, though the best ones tend to be situated in Genoa itself. Squires training to become full-fledged knights either follow a discipline in offensive or defensive abilities. Most military skills tend to be linked to the trainee's weapon of choice as well, and require a certain degree of proficiency with them. It explains why Percival cannot learn any weapon-based skills, nor can Tristian learn any of Edmund's lance-based ones, despite the fact she can equip lances upon promotion.

Paladin:

A offense-based class with some turtling skills and low-level healing magic. Can either promote into a Templar or Master Knight.

Tristian's abilities centers around her equipping specific weapons to access her varied skillset of damage-based skills. Her Cover ability nullifies damage taken for the entire party, but at a price. Because the lady knight decided to study weapons-based fighting at Liguria Academy, she is more proficient at wielding weapons than her brother, Sir Percival, but her protective nature still allows her to shield her allies.

As a result, she has access to both the Templar and Master Knight classes upon promoting.
However, as an Infantry unit, she is weak against thunder-based magic and Anti-Infantry weapons like armourslayers and crossbows and her prideful nature actually limits some buffing techs only to herself ( such as Lionheart ).

Dux Knight:

A defence-based class centered around buffing and equipping heavy weaponary.

Unlike his sister, Percival is the opposite when it comes to encountering foes. He will rather defend the group with a wide variety of party-buffing/enemy-neutering skills, as he is none too comfortable to wield weapons to the degree of Tristian ( in battle, he is more likely to miss his attacks ). His quiet, pacifist nature lends him to be the 'strong, silent type' but he still has a formidable sword arm if the situation calls for it.

He promotes into a Duke Knight during the course of the game, inheriting the title of Duke of Reglay as well as gaining an array of more powerful techniques. Like Tristian, Percival is vulnerable to Thunder-based skills and anti-infantry weapons.

Dragoon:

A lance-locked class with devastating abilities. Already promoted.

As the game's sole Dragoon, Edmund has access to the most powerful offensive skills, even if he can't Jump. He lacks Tristian's all-round abilities and Ianna's healing, but more than makes up for it in sheer destructive power. All of Edmund's lance-based skills are Piercing and can inflict the Bleeding status.

I'll probably halt the update here, lest I bore you all to death since the update clearly does not contain any TristianxIanna goodness.

Progress Report

Plox rewrite... for death or glory!



So, whilst being stuck at home with a contagious stomach bug, I had time, for once, to think through the overall plot and narrative of LoTL and how it was going to move forward, out of its demo stage, and into a full release.

Pacing:

Yes, LoTL does the exact opposite of Enelysion. The plot moves at such a blistering pace that many important details were left out, and I've toned down some aspects of the plot and leave it for later in the game. The first hour or so of the game should try to focus on TriAnna's growing bond with each other, since it sets the tone for several more scenes much later down the line.

Plot:

I've also changed the structure of the plot, since I understand that in its current incarnation, it is a bit difficult ( not to mention there are too many loopholes to correct ) to follow, since I threw in too many details, and when all of it is thrown together into a one-hour long demo, it can leave the player confused and scratching their heads.

So, first thing I did was reduce the age of the main cast and stripped down some of Tristy's military achievements and rather having her serve under her mentor, Bedivere. Her rank is also a Paladin now, rather than a Master Knight ( which is a promoted Paladin ).

The second thing I did was a subversion of the evil empire wants to rule the world cliche. Rather than Genoa ruling most of Eridanus for five-odd centuries or so, I rather centered the conflict on one duchy fighting for their own freedom versus another who supports the monarchy. Naturally, their conflict of interests would give way to civil unrest, and eventually, an all-out war.

And in the middle of this conflict, you have Tristian and Ianna.


Making them younger also enhances Ianna's innocence and prompts Tristian to grow more as a character.

As for Dante, I'd imagine Connaught would remain a neutral ally but they won't get ambushed by Avegin's men in the rewrite ( this is a perfect example of me becoming too engrossed with the actual dialogue of the game, rather than its over-arching plot >< ) and he is no longer a playable character. Maybe as a guest, but I don't see any reason for him to join forces with Tristian and co. without endangering his entire country. I want to give every playable unit in the game a concrete reason for joining, after all. He may have been important in the older versions of the game ( what with Disma and the Ebony Hand ) but now that that has been written out completely, I don't see any reason for muscle-mage to join Tristy. Rather we get Percival, Edmund, Bedivere, and later on, Darcy and Trabant.

As for the Dukes, Avegin is more extreme, seeing as he wants to tear down the monarchy altogether. Which means he still wants Ianna dead, regardless of circumstances and makes him one of Ianna's primary antagonists and makes Duke Edmund one of her strongest supporters.

Sir Edmund Bolingbroke of Caliburn. A Dragoon at your service. ^^

I hope this slight rewrite will make it a bit easier for you guys to understand now. In the meantime, I'm writing out the biographies for the playable characters so far.

Oh, and if you guys have any suggestions to improve the gameplay, let me hear it. =)

Announcement

Of demo releases and the IGMC

I've made up my mind. I'm doing the IGMC, so I'll be releasing the Tristian demo over the weekend ( since I've sprayed most of the bugs ) then I'll be able to devote my time to brain-storming the IGMC and gam-mak. The exposure will be nice as well to people outside of the RPGMaker community too. I've already decided on a theme ( sci-fi ) and an idea built around the theme of 'growth'.

I will try to keep things simple ( as last year's Team Isolation showed us so well ) and avoid complicated systems, fancy menus and battle systems. The prize money is a nice bonus ( if I convert the current amount of $10,874, I get something like over 130K in my own currency before tax... and it will be much higher than this when the sale comes to an end ) but I'm going in just for fun and to get more MS here. I also realise that my shorter games ( like Lawrence of Aragorn and Accelerated World ) were a lot more fun to play than my longer, epic-length games, so I'm definitely drawing inspiration from them both.

After all, both LoA and AW were made in the span of 2 weeks and they're both around the 1 hour mark. And I want my product to look like an RPGMaker game. The engine needs more love, after all.

So, wish me luck guys! =)

Progress Report

Lions in sheep's clothing or vice-versa?

The current demo is a mite too short, but that could be that I tried to set a deadline and at least release something playable. At the moment, with some writing advice from Red_Nova, I'm extending at least three current scenes in the game and fleshing out important plot points that may have seemed like throwaway lines.

This is my first attempt at political intrigue, and I'm finding myself to be enjoying it far more than writing a generic plotline ( since I always was a bit of a history nerd in high school ). It makes for more interesting scenarios, 'villians', plot points etc. etc. and many of the antagonists have some personal connection with Tristian herself.

Which makes the eventual boss fights so much more climatic and exciting. There's also no real good vs. evil in this game, more like grey-vs-grey morality rather than the 'my country, right or wrong' ideals that have been seen so many times before. I'm blurring the lines so much at some instances that it is hard to say whether your new allies are with you or want to stick a knife in your back when you least expect it.

Even Tristian herself is a grey character, as is nearly every other recruitable party member with the exception of Ianna, who remains Lawful Good from the beginning of the game until its end.


I don't think he even needs a weapon. All he needs to do is headbutt his foe and he'll gore them to death. Ahem, that's Perc, Tristy's younger brother.



Because sedition among the ranks can decimate or pull apart an army faster than the mightiest of spells...

Gameplay wise, I'm scrapping the PTB-system. I feel it's a bit buggy and easily borked, whereas it's a lot harder to keep spamming the same attacks over and over with a traditional turn-based system, though I can change things up a bit. Maybe make the usual encounters turn-based and one-on-one duels either PTB or ATB, since BEM allows me to do that with a mere variable. There's also the lesser-known CTB/Charge Turn Battle which works off skill speed/ally speed and 'clockticks'.

I'll also lower the JP needed for most skills and passive abilities ( touch-based encounters don't allow for much grinding, unless the player likes fighting the same foe over and over again ) and sprayed some bugs ( like when Blessing was used, it closed up the entire main menu, or Tristian's walk speed, or silent guards >< ).

I'm hoping for a reviewable hour-long game by July sometime, so watch this space.

Progress Report

It prowls ever closer.

If I keep at this pace, I should have a demo ready real soon. I've got about 20 minutes down so far, so maybe another 10-15 more should round up a demo that will hopefully hold the player's interest from the moment they see the opening credits to when the game comes to a close. ^^ If I can get you guys to scream "More! Give us more!" then I would have succeeded in my task.

It has been a good few months since I started working on the custom tileset but it is paying off handsomely. The game actually looks and feels like a commercial product, and its the kind of demo I just want to play over and over and over again.
So that's a good sign.

Also, I've been overhauling some character skill sets as well as the ways in which Ianna and Dante can level up their magic spells. It works a bit like FF2's ( original Kawazu FF2 ) system but without the excessive and monotonous grinding. Of course, I need to give the player a reason to be leveling up those spells in the first place ( aka Tristy shouldn't be nuking everything in sight with that awesome Orion's Bolt skill of hers ). Tristy's skills are a combination of both a Dark and Holy Knight, a connection I make with regards to both sides of her personality while Ianna is a bit like a Mage meets a Healer. Dante is still a badass Mage Lord of course.

Also, the plot has taken a bit of a twist. I think I'm going to write out the entire evil cult thing ( aka Ebony Hand and Disma; he won't be appearing anymore. Same with Nestor ). I want to make it more centered on political power struggles and the things a person would do for the sake of their country. Even the usual soldiers you fight as mooks have a reason to ____________. Even your enemies need a bit of sympathy at times, and I don't want to portray Tristian as an idealised heroine who can do no wrong.


:0 Woman on the run with her future lover? Hell yes.


And I'm quite sure I can already hear unity squealing from the other side of the Atlantic. XD Then again, the game is only around 7 hours long, so it gives me a reason to uh... speed up their relationship.

So, I have another... 3 days to go, I guess. Consider it a gift since I missed out on the RMN Birthday celebration. :D

Progress Report

The Lion still roars

This month has been rather quiet for me, what with real life compounding my own struggles to be a better game designer as well as a few personal problems hindering my ability to gam mak. Which led me to delete some 300+ maps of the 10+ hour version of Tristian. But I felt this destruction was necessary to build a stronger project.

Back in July 2013 when I started working on this, like with Enelysion, I just threw together a couple of ideas without any real planning. But it wasn't 2011, and I've grown lot as a developer. As of now, I'm trying to outline the plot as much as I can ( though certain key elements from the old versions are still kept intact ) as well as drawing upon medieval history ( like The Anarchy and War of the Roses. Both FFT and Game of Thrones are based off the latter ) to build up a more realistic world and plot but with the usual fantasy elements of magic and myth thrown into the mix. The game world itself is being overhauled. I felt it was too large and too empty, quite unlike Enelysion's smaller but far richer world of Tairngire. As such, it also affects the game's plot ( i.o.w, no evil Empire taking over smaller countries and annexing them. Rather, it's a power struggle brought upon the death of Genoa's High King between two prominent Houses ). Of course, this means that there will be several new antagonists. The Blue Order from the old demo plays a much larger role this time as well ( think of them as the Death Corps ).

Between writing scenes and plot outlines, I've also done a bit of graphical work.



The helmeted paladin's identity will remain quiet for now. XD I also painted over the old portraits ( old versions on the left ) and fixed up TriAnna's skin tone and hair. I also wanted to portray Tristy as an ice-queen, hence her colour pallete.
She actually looks even more gorgeous now with those bright blue eyes and matching armour. <3


Some images from the prologue:


Parm Valley, because I need to add at least one lush area to the game.



Tristy protecting Ianna always gives me huge feels. 100% custom content.

As for the actual demo, I am planning on making a 30-45 min game. Given the amount of work I need to put into this, I'd rather make it brief but memorable, as opposed to a 2-3 hour sluggish demo. The game itself won't be as long as Enelysion anymore.

Given what happens to the lady knight, I feel her adventure should be brief, but glorious ( no more than.. say, 7 hours of playtime, half the game's proposed length ). This will be my first attempt at a politically-fueled RPG as well. I think it's more interesting to see how conflict brings out the best and worst in people, rather than fighting a millenial-old Eldritch Abomination come endgame. Even Tristian will have to make some questionable decisions, getting her hands dirty ( and bloody ), all in the name of her future queen.

So, that's the status of the game for now. =)

Progress Report

Chasing the Grail

So, most of you were probably wondering why Tristy went on a 'brief' Hiatus for about a week or so. Truth was, I felt a mite pressured with the scope of the whole project. Because Tristian is my second 'long' RPGMaker game, it needs to eclipse Enelysion in every possible way by way of visuals, story, audio and gameplay, but it is very hard to succeed in what I call the 'holy grail' of RPG development: That of fusing the audio/visual aspect of a game that is backed by strong gameplay and driven by a compelling narrative.

Ultimately, I want Tristian to succeed at this, but as an artist, I constantly find that I am never truly satisfied with my work ( it could be one of the reasons I went through developement hell for Enelysion, combined with the fact that I just wanted to complete the darn thing and left festering in a community where I got little to no feedback for the game's later builds ) and that in itself only hinders game development in the long run.

So taking that brief break just allowed me to get away from it all but as usual, the maker sucked me right back into its vortex.


Both of us will fight our demons together, Tristy. My gam-mak dev demons and your personal ones.

And I started work on the various art aspects of the game. Putting yet more pressure on myself is that I want to present Tristian as a commercial/AAA-title would, even though the game will remain 100% freeware. One of the reasons I have zero interest in going commercial is the ridiculous amount of marketing and branding a developer needs to do. I have absolutely no desire to spend 80-90% of my time on a skill I have little to nothing of, when I can use it for more creative gains. Like finishing games.

But I will call my make-believe studio LuchiSoft. XD


We all want nice things too...


A bamf and a cutie. Always a potent combination.

Gameplay-wise, I'm nixing skills gained via levelling. I'm not too sure how many skills to give the player, but the passive abilities should be a nice touch too ( Ianna no longer starts off with Pharmacology; I thought it was a mite broken, so has to learn it through a passive now. Tristian too, can now counter-attack once you get her the Parry passive ability ). I also need to strike a balance between the amount of JP gained and the number of game encounters. Of course, the player can spawn encounters by moving one screen away, so I should put a limit on how much max JP can be earned.


Nothing new. I did the exact same thing four years ago with Enelysion's earlier builds, circa March 2011. Laine's early design clearly went over to Tristy too.


Circa May 2015. My, my. I really have come a long way... Low numbers rule too.

Demo screens ( if only to excite you guys a bit ):



Stone Palace ( formerly Connaught Palace )


Cutscene. More TriAnna is always good, right?


Placeholder art. Can you guess what he is saying?


Interior.


Also, I was supposed to release a demo some time this month and possibly get an updated review score ( the game's current rating dates back to December 2013 ). And don't be angry with me but... said demo will take place right in the beginning of the game again. ><

Progress Report

Knight in Sour Armour

After putting my PC to sleep, I opened up VX, only to realise that the demo I had been working on failed to load area data. Which means that all the maps I've been working on are now gone. >< All this in the midst of going through a pretty shitty time ( I never curse, so yeah.. ). So all the maps I displayed in an earlier blog are gone. On the brighter side of things, I got my Wacom tablet and have been practising some portraits/illustration techiniques with Clip Studio Paint Pro ( weird name, but that's Japanese software for you. I'm certain it was the same software used by the artists who did the Fire Emblem pre-Awakening art. )




Fan art I'm busy with, using the software. One day, I want to make art like that, without using a base to work from. I can get away with it at fan-art level, but as for original works...




I may or may not use that menu portrait.

While making Tristy was easy enough, getting other portraits to match the size/scale is bloody hard. I've tried doing Ianna something like six times and failed every time. Not to mention I want to go with dynamic poses for the menu gfx. But until I've resolved that situation, I'll probably be sticking to the pre-pixel portraits ( read: FE edits ;_; ) Said pixel art portraits was going well until Lance came along and screwed up everything. Now I'm debating whether or not to scrap the pixel portraits entirely and just go with hi-res art ( which is within my grasp now; the only reason I took the pixel route was that I had no tablet ).


Pre-tablet portraits. Miserable little sod, that Lance. Just look at the size of his portrait compared to Tristy and Ianna. The two perfectly sum up my current mood... *boots Lance in the behind* And I've been debating over changing portraits for the last three days as well.

*sigh* God, I hate this heavy of heart feeling. It really saps my gam-mak drive dry. All this on my long weekend. I was fully intending to dedicate it to my gam-mak, but I haven't really been the same since the passing of my 15-year old cat...

Oh well. Live to gam-mak another day, that's what I say. I could use with a bit of advice for the portraits too. ;_;