STARLIGHTSHOALS'S PROFILE

Yeah I did give that one a try after your earlier comment, it looked the best of any of them mixed with the dark ground tile :D But it still leaves it with a grey metallic edge, not as noticeable but still there, so I figured I'd just overhaul the floor with lighter tiles. And I just finished doing that! ^-^

I think it looks a lot better now, so eh, I'm happy with it. I made the screen darker by a slight bit and that seems to give it enough of a caverny feel. Now I know what to do with the rest of the cave maps as I make them!!

Yeah, I see what you mean, Dyluck -- I think the reason is because the dark floor is normally supposed to be a ceiling tile, but I used that instead of the regular light brown tiles because I think it suits the inside of a cave better. :/

Maybe I'll test using the light brown tiles with a darker tint to the screen and see if that works best~ ^o^

I always thought it would make sense if you could rest in the little bed in the cave, right next to where the save point is (although I guess it would be hard to sleep with all those hornets buzzing around :p )

Thank you for playing, Dyluck!! I've already started tweaking the battle difficulty a bit based on other feedback I've gotten, and I also plan to rework a lot of the early maps at some point since I made them a long time ago, when I had no idea what I was doing >w>

As far as money's concerned, the idea is that you can sell the items you get from beating enemies (slime residue, hornet venom, etc.) as well as getting lots of gold from chests and sidequests. Since the game's still in such an early state, I'm not sure how to balance the amount of money you obtain yet, but in future updates that should change. :3

The mountain-ish screenshot is the first area of the next dungeon, which I'm currently working on, and the screenshot labeled "Can you see the stars?" is just a test map I made for later parts of the game. Every other screenshot at the time of this writing is a place you can visit in the demo~

Thank you again for playing and commenting!! I'm really glad you liked the story and characters so much! n//n

author=suzy_cheesedreams
So (there's a point... sort of?) I think these three are great examples of female characters who defy the stereotypes associated with introversion, compassion, passiveness and femininity while at the same time embodying these qualities in a truer and more relatable sense.

Oh my gosh, thank you so much for the in-depth response, Ms. Suzy!! The funny thing is that Sansa, Yuna, and Garnet/Dagger are all characters I really like too. In the books (don't even get me started on how the show's handled her), Sansa's a much more complex character than people give her credit for and she has enormous amounts of character growth, she's prob'ly one of my top five favorites from the series (Daenerys is the one I relate to the most, though...in the books, not the show. Never the show). I haven't played through all of FFX/X-2 but I really like how Yuna evolves in the second game, it's one reason why I've always been tempted to finish it. And then there's Dagger, who I was actually thinking about while writing Step 4 of this article because she's a strong-willed, feminine, intelligent princess who does NOT immediately fall head over heels for Zidane, and I also like Zidane because even though he's a shameless flirt, he's also a gentleman, not to mention very clever and heroic...by far my favorite male lead in the FF franchise :D

author=Red_Nova
In fact, you can write nearly any step in this article as character flaws rather than traits to avoid entirely. Just as a character unironically chest-deep in cliches is boring, a Mary Sue heroine is flat and uninteresting. Obviously, the article isn't trying to encourage writing more Mary Sues, but to discourage writers to willingly dive into these pitfalls.

Yep yep, exactly!! This is what I was trying to imply in the last paragraph, you can take any of these tropes and make them work if you take a self-aware, realistic approach to them. It's the lazy, thoughtless, unoriginal way that cliches are usually utilized that makes them so annoying.

author=Marrend
For major characters, and sometimes minor characters, it's useful to know, and understand, why a so-called "tough-guy" (regardless of gender) acts tough. Do they actually have something to hide, and the attitude is a barrier they put up to protect themselves? Maybe they have something to prove to someone? Why is that other character meek? Did they witness something they were not supposed to see? Did they experience something that shocked them into ostracizing themselves?

Though, saying that, I've probably fallen into some of the traps outlined in this article. ;_;

I totally agree, these are some of the character traits that a lot of stories skim over the reasons for just because it's "cool" or "convenient" for the character to be that way. People's current personalities are almost always rooted in their past experiences, but unfortunately writers don't always think that through with their characters. :(

And yeah, I'm pretty sure most of us have fallen into the same traps as writers that came before us, because they were the ones who influenced us! But as our talents grow, we have the chance to dig deeper into these things and expand our abilities :D

author=Frogge
That tip about how strong =/= masculine is really great.
On the other hand, I personally relate to female characters whose entire world revolves around guys they like. My entire world revolves around guys I like, lol.

To be honest I also relate to it, when it's explicitly written as an "obsession" rather than a healthy attachment n//n;; In the article I was talking specifically about the cases where the love interest is nothing more than a plot device to further the male character's story in some way, like she's just a "prize" for his heroism, that kind of thing. :3

author=bicfarmer
hard to find good anime these days when they are sunk so deep in these tropes, its pretty sad.

You're gonna make me cry, farmer-san ;-;

Thank you so much for all the comments, everybody!!!