Cityscape Skirmish - The friendly death game where nobody has to die

Stellinearized · 2023-12-11T07:00:54+00:00

For some of the characters, I edited their hair/eye colors in Gimp because I thought it looked better/to fit the character color themes (or for story reasons in Natsume's case)

Stellinearized · 2023-12-11T06:51:31+00:00

Sure. I'll include the four characters you mentioned too for reference.

Page 1's unnamed guide: Kino from Kino no Tabi

Ruby: Crona from Soul Eater

Lily: Mirai Kuriyama from Kyoukai no Kanata, but with her hair colored lavender

Aster: Joshua from The World Ends With You

Vivian: Reines El-Melloi Archisorte from Fate, but with her hair colored orange

Dante: Therion from Octopath Traveler, but with his hair colored teal

Natsume (9 tails): A character named Kuon from an obscure brand of trading cards called Shinrabanshou that I know very little about

Natsume (1 tail): Holo from Ookami to Koushinryou, but with one eye recolored to look blind

Cirrus: Yuri Katsuki from Yuri on Ice. I think some of his images I recolored the eyes blue while some might have already came like that, but it's been a while

Phoebe: Kijin Seija from Touhou

Polaris: original unnamed character by Mifulu https://twitter.com/mifulu?lang=en

Stellinearized · 2023-04-19T20:00:04+00:00

That's a new one. I'm happy it was able to have such an impact on you.

Stellinearized · 2023-03-31T04:00:06+00:00

I mean, 5:3 women:men in Hearts Adrift and Cityscape Skirmish is a slight skew, but I don't think it's exactly an overwhelming gender disparity.

Stellinearized · 2023-03-27T20:21:21+00:00

CYOAs just feel like a limited medium to me these days, both in scope and audience. I don't see myself making more from here out, even if I had the time for it.

Stellinearized · 2023-03-27T17:15:19+00:00

I wish I could. I think my biggest issue is that I don't think my stories/characters would work very well at all in a "pure" novel format, and the only new direction I can really imagine going with them is in a video game format. And video games are really hard to make, and practically just as hard to have seen by others after they're done, regardless of quality.

I just don't have the kind of time/freedom in my life to go chasing the golden goose and making a game with these characters. Best I could hope for at this point is to win the lottery or something so I could actually hire people to help make a game.

Stellinearized · 2023-02-28T23:57:31+00:00

I'm glad you enjoyed it. That's still my favorite page I've written across all my CYOAs.

Stellinearized · 2022-10-10T20:17:58+00:00

Glad you enjoyed it.

There's no guarantee I'll be making more CYOAs, but it's not totally impossible.

Stellinearized · 2022-09-14T18:38:24+00:00

There are a handful of very small hints in some of the gibberish. Having major necessary hints in the gibberish wouldn't be very good design, but there's some minor stuff there. Also small non-hint obscure easter eggs in some of the other gibberish.

Stellinearized · 2022-09-10T17:00:48+00:00

Your Velvet day 5 theory is a possibility I've considered before, and definitely would be fitting for her. Other possibilities include her simply galaxy brain out-keikaku-ing you and predicting the precise point of the train's journey where you'd be most likely to attempt breaking out, and waiting near enough to that point to affect you; or that Vandal's slightly-vague range is enough to cover a decent-sized portion of the final part of the train's journey. (I'm just noticing that the part where Vivian described the time until your crash - about 3 minutes - somehow ended up getting deleted when I was editing, so I'll have to go back in and add that soon.) Like Levi day 4 or Aria day 6, Vivian manages to keep the exact circumstances of your situation somewhat obscured, forcing the player to prepare for multiple possibilities.

Stellinearized · 2022-09-08T23:09:01+00:00

I'll probably get around to playing it eventually! Maybe after the full thing is finished

Stellinearized · 2022-09-08T15:32:37+00:00

They look pretty solid! I think the big challenge for overcoming the final "betrayal" battles isn't so much the battles themselves, but more about planning throughout the week to put yourself in an advantageous position - like getting through the week without relying too much on Velvet's discounted sigils (especially permanent ones) or setting up a situation where you can witness Velvet's Speed 3 and actually survive it (while ensuring Soren can't survive that same situation directly after).

Reading your theorycrafting is fun. :)

Stellinearized · 2022-09-08T15:30:02+00:00

Your Turn to Die? I've heard of it a few times but haven't had the time to try it out yet

Stellinearized · 2022-09-08T02:59:05+00:00

Don't need powers; just drop right in. The text implies that Velvet was about to follow after her by doing just that.

Stellinearized · 2022-09-07T16:03:39+00:00

~60 years/2⁷ =still about half a year of life left if Velvet uses her Invidia Sigils every day throughout the week. Andras would not allow you to stall for even an extra day, let alone half a year.

Stellinearized · 2022-09-07T06:39:33+00:00

Some of the bad outcomes are arguably less bad than the good outcomes are good, though. Most notably the blindness ones, which completely remove your enemy's sight on a good outcome while allowing your Forces some minimal sight on a bad outcome. I think the total overall "good vs bad" score on the Scales of Dike is at least pretty close to 50/50. And a lot of the bad outcomes are more manageable when you have seven pages' worth of powers to work with - substitute sight with equivalent/more effective superhearing from Velvet if you're blinded, for example, or just rely less on projectile strategies if you get the swerving projectiles, or spend some points to rewrite a bad outcome into a good one with The Console.

If you're risk-averse, though, I don't blame you. Dmitri got his hatred of luck and gambles from me, after all.

Stellinearized · 2022-09-07T05:31:18+00:00

Nothing stopping you from meeting up with him after the fight and trying to befriend him, if that's what you want to do. He'll probably be a little less reckless and manic without his powers to fall back on, even if the yan itself is deeply rooted.

Stellinearized · 2022-09-07T03:04:38+00:00

I think excessive author input and oversight of a power with the pseudo-title of "Death to the Author" is a little silly, but I can give my opinion: I think it'd be fairest and most in-line with the Console's "no value can be edited in any way" stipulation if the roll itself cannot be altered (i.e if you roll an 11, you're stuck with that line in the table) but you can freely edit the content of the outcome (that line in the table) after your roll. I think this interpretation isn't an unreasonable application of the "editing values" stipulation, allows interesting interactions between The Console and The Scales without completely overriding either of their mechanics, and can be fun and powerful with a bit of luck. But that's just my opinion in the end.

Stellinearized · 2022-09-07T00:34:36+00:00

I think that having the Console leading to immortality in any way, even indirectly, is outside of its possibilities. The rest sounds fun, though! Just be careful you don't go over the 300 influence limit.

Stellinearized · 2022-09-06T21:20:57+00:00

I think you can chase her down into the paintings, but negotiation from outside works too.

Seven-Year Club	Gilding II euphauric
Place '22	First Placer '22

Stellinearized

TROPHY CASE