By @MagmaChipmunk, who adds, “*뮤트는 귀엽구나!!” SHE IS, ISN’T SHE.
Commission for Christine Love! Kendall from Don’t Take It Personally, Babe and Hyun-Ae from Analogue: A Hate Story, both games by her which you should absolutely play.
Also, a bonus, because I realized this not adequately gay:
So I asked June to draw anything so long as it was “SOMETHING WILDLY INAPPROPRIATE WITH MY CHARACTERS PLZ.” She did not disappoint. <3
Christine Love, author and developer of Digital: A Love Story and Analogue: A Hate Story agrees, was part of the original Lost Levels lineup. “Robert Yang asked me to do a talk at Lost Levels and I was very excited,” she says. Her Lost Levels talk concerned the role of cuteness in games, similar to Andrew Vanden Bossche—in fact, it was Love’s maid outfit Vanden Bossche was sporting. She lent it to him.
“We need to be less about giant, grandiose bullshit and more about cute lumps of sincerity. We have a lot of—” She pauses, flexes her muscles, and grunts at me. “And a lot less of—“ Now she folds her hands under her chin, looks up at the ceiling, and sighs. “I think we should have a wide range of that.”
This is a pretty rad write-up of what happened at Lost Levels—which, by the way, was AMAZING and probably my favourite part of GDC. (Photo by @rich_lem.)
I made a story in Twine called Magical Maiden Madison for the Pulse Pounding Heart Stopping Dating Sim Jam! (Source is available.)
Hate Plus: ~Mute’s Golden Days~
I’ve talked a lot about Hate Plus, but I haven’t really formally announced it in detail yet… so here I am! (No, this is not a joke.)
Hate Plus is a sequel to Analogue: A Hate Story that continues directly from the end of that game, and explores, over the course of three days, the events leading up to year 0. If Analogue was the backstory of *Hyun-ae, then Hate Plus is the backstory of *Mute. It’ll continue from your Analogue save file, so each ending will have its own route with equal focus. It plays similarly to Analogue, but instead of your AI companion simply showing you files they’ve picked, you’ll have to investigate yourself, and discover what happened together!
It features new art and costumes, an all new soundtrack (plus theme song “It’s Not Ero!!”) from Isaac Schankler, a whole new and improved UI, and more writing than Analogue did. It’ll be out summer 2013.
Please look forward to your sharing your hateful days with *Hyun-ae and *Mute!
So I am going to be spending the next couple weeks on the road, which is a welcome relief after the whole fire thing.
March 22 - 24: Boston. I will not be attending PAX, but I will be in town at the same time.
March 25 - 31: GDC, obvs.
April 1 - 7: I am back in Boston, as a special guest jammer at The MIT Game Lab QUILTBAG Jam. It’s being run by really awesome people, and I’m pretty excited about it!
If you’re going to be at any of those things, you should come say hi to me! Also, I will be available for interviews and/or blabbing about Hate Plus in casual conversation.
I’m really looking forward to it!
I’ll go into more detail about it when things are a little more under control, but here’s the short version: Two nights ago, there was a fire at my apartment. Everyone, human and cat, got out safely and unharmed, thank god.
Thankfully, my room only suffered from smoke damage and was still structurally sound enough to get stuff out. Most of my clothes were destroyed, but other than that, my most expensive valuables have been salvaged and are okay. Only maybe $2-4k worth of stuff is ruined, all told, and I can afford to replace that; basically, I got very lucky here.
The apartment itself is ruined. Basically the entire back of the building was destroyed; the building will very likely be condemned. But I have a place to stay with a relative for the near future until everything gets sorted out, and my laptop still works, so I’ll be okay.
Thanks to everyone who’s offered condolences and support.
“When did I ever do such a thing?” said Bao-yu indignantly. “[…] I fully realize that poems written in the privacy of the women’s quarters are not lightly to be passed around outside. Ever since you spoke to me about it, I have been careful not to carry that [poetry-inscribed] fan with me anywhere but inside the Garden.”
“Cousin Lin is right to be worried,” said Bao-chai. “Now that the poems are written on that fan, there is always the possibility that you might one day forget and carry it with you to your room outside. Suppose Uncle’s literary gentlemen were to see it there, they would be sure to ask you who the poems were by. If as a result of that they were to become public property, it would be extremely unpleasant for us. ‘A stupid women is a virtuous one’: that is what the old proverb says. A girl’s first concern is to be virtuous, her second is to be industrious. She may write poetry if she likes as a diversion, but it is an accomplishment she could just as well do without. The last thing girls of a good family need is a literary reputation.” She paused and gave Dai-yu a smile. “There would be no harm in letting me see them of course.”
— Dream of the Red Chamber, chapter 64
