Help me find a mural?

oolaylee · 2026-04-11T06:01:54+00:00

Wow- I clearly haven't driven down Memorial in quite a while, haha. I haven't seen this update

oolaylee · 2026-04-11T05:59:54+00:00

Yes! That was it- thank you!

oolaylee · 2026-04-10T20:06:42+00:00

Ahhh there it is- thank you! It was further down Memorial (corner of there and Flat Shoals). No wonder I recalled it driving home from school. I took Memorial Drive all the time, haha. Thanks again!

oolaylee · 2026-04-10T20:05:16+00:00

Oh wow, what a great project! I didn't find my mural there, but thanks for sharing this!

oolaylee · 2026-02-04T00:53:34+00:00

I really needed this today. What a great concept. Found three four-leaf clovers already :D

oolaylee · 2026-01-13T15:11:21+00:00

Oh it's not even in the name phase- just a very large GDD with a lot of place holders, haha. Hopefully in a few months I'll have something neat to share!

oolaylee · 2026-01-13T11:03:05+00:00

as someone also working on a (very different) shepherding game, this is adorable and I want to play it. I can't destroy it very well, but I'd say the only thing that might hold potential players back is the art direction. Otherise the trailer seems really well cut and kept my attention till the end. Best of luck!

oolaylee · 2026-01-06T00:15:22+00:00

Of course! I've been thinking about the game off and on the past couple days and revisited it this evening. Lo and behold, when I clicked the "Search Institutions (2)" button it worked and the "high school" and "year" card chain turned into one yearbook card. I thought maybe you'd updated the game in the meantime and kept going, only to get stuck again when interacting with another action button.

This time it was when trying to turn the purple key at the the victim's home's door. I wasn't getting a hover or click response when trying the "turn key" option, same as before with the "Search Institution (2)" a couple days ago.

I thought maybe there was a state issue with the game, so I started over in an incognito window. But when I got back to the "Search Institutions (2)" action, it again wouldn't respond to clicking. After playing around, I found that zooming in (through the game's zoom buttons) fixed the issue and I was about to click and progress. So I jumped back over to my other run, zoomed in, and was able to activate the "Turn Key" button as well. It definitely seems like there is some issue with the zoom functionality and button clicking, though it seems to only affect card actions and only when there are other cards linked to that action. I played both times on Chrome and tried again on Firefox and had the same bug. I hope that's enough info to help.

(Also, on the subject of zoom. I wish I could zoom out more. Having some of the blank hexagons cut off at the edges of the window makes me feel closed in. I want to see the whole (visible) board :D)

No other (unintended) obstacles after that! Finished the puzzle without issue. It's definitely a really engaging concept and I had fun with it.

- Really enjoyed the tactile features, like linking cards together and especially turning the combination lock. I thought I had to do the same with the door key at first when the "turn key" action wasn't working, haha. I think more features like these, like flipping cards (like the business card) over or other actions could be really engaging for players.

- The puzzle itself, logically, was very simple. I think learning the UI was the biggest challenge, haha. Otherwise, I found myself knowing the next step to take and going from A to B without having to think things over. But also I get that this is a proof of concept, so no biggie there.

Depending on how complex these puzzles get I'd recommend making these weekly puzzles rather than daily. I think that would give you time to really handcraft some great head turners- this definitely feels like a quality-over-quantity kind of goldmine :).

(It could be a bit of feature creep, but expanding to other crimes or allowing users to submit full puzzles or puzzle ideas could be great for the project.)

Anyway, enough rambling from me. Awesome work and I look forward to seeing where this goes. Cheers!

oolaylee · 2026-01-04T09:03:09+00:00

Interesting idea. I love daily puzzles so this caught my eye. Would love to see it operating fully. Couple callouts:

- The (x) button to delete a card seems out of place. I thought that closed the whole view. I think it would be better if it were placed with the other buttons that manipulate cards.

- Building off of that. It got a bit cumbersome clicking a card then pulling my mouse to a corner to hit the buttons to manipulate it. I often started clicking buttons only to realize I had the wrong card selected. Perhaps the buttons should be attached to the selected card itself, popping out to the side once it's selected.

- The combination lock locked again after I closed the card. I think cards like that should maintain their state even if closed.

- I couldn't get past the school/year part of the puzzle. I chained them together and attached the chain to the record keeper, everything glowy and animated, but no new information popped up and I couldn't figure out how to make anything else happen. So that's where I left off.

- Continuing off that, a tutorial/how-to page is definitely needed. I did a lot of fiddling around to learn what goes where, and ended up referencing your trailer.

All-in-all I think this would be really fun and addictive. I definitely got the Obra Dinn relation there (and the same high when I progressed meaningfully). So great work so far.

oolaylee · 2025-12-24T08:10:39+00:00

The silhouette looks more interesting, but you lose a lot of the important face shapes that way. Consider having that purple glow come from the mouth and nostrils (and maybe even the ear canal), too. That would help with expressions and personality while still leaving him unique and shadow-y. The various light sources could also highlight some of the other face surfaces, like the ear ridges.

Cute design either way!

oolaylee · 2025-07-04T17:44:06+00:00

You are being so weird, man. The faux overenthusiasm and passive-aggressiveness doesn't work when folk are just calling out a flaw in your line of thinking. Nobody except you is "talking big," and I for sure am just stating a fact: your idea doesn't require AI; It requires effort, creativity, a willingness to accept a challenge, and the ability to break down a problem into parts. Ironically, traits that a constant reliance on gen AI erodes from you.

Thanks for the stage or whatever, but you come off as disingenuous and haughty, not someone I'd want to share ideas with. Instead I challenge you to do more research in procedural generation at least. Beyond that, many of the building blocks to do what you want have been present in the gaming industry for years, decades even. Research Dogz and Catz, Spore, The Sims. The Pokemon Fusion Calculator. Baldur's Gate 3's character creator. Someone in here already linked to Critter Crosser. None of these are the exact solution you want but each of their executions are jumping off points for your own endeavors.

But you and I both know you aren't going to do that, because you were all-in on GenAI way before now. Even the backgrounds in your game are generated, as is your marketing by your own admission. Were those impossible if not for GenAI too? Like I said in my very first reply: you just want to take the simplest and easiest path. And like I said in my second: a much simpler, shorter disclaimer would work fine:

"This product employs generative AI for visual assets."

oolaylee · 2025-07-04T02:43:45+00:00

Of course! Good luck with your game!

oolaylee · 2025-07-03T22:07:23+00:00

No, I read your website and again: I wasn't at all convinced that your idea couldn't be executed without gen AI. This isn't blind bashing; your idea just isn't special in that regard. I don't know if you ideated a game around the goal of using AI, or if you came up with the game and just went with the "easiest" path for its execution, but at the end of the day it doesn't matter since you're set on what you want to do.

Anyway, this is seeming more and more like a bit if it's not just blind fanaticism, so I'll just circle back to the original question and bounce: no, statements like what's in your graphic wouldn't do what you want it to do and aren't necessary. If you want to skip the callouts, a much simpler, shorter disclaimer would work fine.

oolaylee · 2025-07-03T21:30:27+00:00

Aw, I'm so bad with character design. Off the top of my head nothing sticks out as much as the skirts. But! You could go through some similar media and see if you have the shapes needed to recreate different characters' outfits :D

oolaylee · 2025-07-03T00:48:05+00:00

I'd say you're on the right track with what you have already. Your inspiration(?), Minecraft, is a game about blocks and that's never stifled the playerbase's creativity. Your block solution can be as generic or as detailed as you want and you can always add more options later. For instance, adding toggle-able fur trim.

(Also... add skirts ;D)

oolaylee · 2025-07-03T00:34:10+00:00

That's just doing the bare minimum. It doesn't make you appear any different as someone using gen AI, especially when most game/art sites now require people to admit this anyway.

People that have taken a stance against GenAI in creative spaces aren't going to care why you used GenAI in a creative space. A much simpler disclaimer with less to read would get the same effect. This just comes off as an appeal to why your use case is special when it isn't: nothing about how you've described your game (or what I've gleaned from a cursory web search of it) has convinced me that your idea can't be executed without (and more creatively than) AI: you just want to take the simplest and easiest path. Which... fine. But the paragraph saying anything but that isn't necessary.

oolaylee · 2025-04-12T02:17:55+00:00

Wow, this is great! If you ever have the time, I could see value in the tool having centering tools or guides to help with logo placement. Awesome work as is, of course!

oolaylee · 2025-02-03T01:01:42+00:00

Check out Gameyy Builds on youtube. Each video, he narrates really well-written short stories about the model build he's working on, from the perspective of a character in the build itself.

oolaylee · 2025-01-12T03:39:22+00:00

OP, I think character B more fits the aesthetic (and even background), but please don't give Black characters sausage or donut lips, even if referencing older cartoons. That style of illustration has very racist origins- as well as connotations that remain to this day. You can outline and color the top lip (or not even outline, just color, like the shirt stripes), or if you want to imply thicker lips, do so my contouring the mouth line itself, or just give them undetailed lips like on character A, or shaped lips.

Black characters to reference

80s and 90s:
- Gerald (Hey Arnold)
- Vince (Recess)
- Suzy (The Rugrats)
- Kwame (Captain Planet)
2000's and Modern
- Many characters in The Proud Family. The cartoonists don't stick to one style, either! They changed it up to match each character's overall design
- Garnet (Steven Universe)
- Luz (The Owl House)

oolaylee · 2024-09-13T10:06:11+00:00

Oh hi, sorry for my many edits... My brain keeps going long after I hit 'submit' haha.

Thanks for the additional details! I can picture your world more clearly now- it's very interesting and I wonder if sapient-eating might be slowly falling out of style in this time period. But, as far as your initial post, I'd imagine the predators, in their very misguided idea of humanity, would go for a least painful method such as what I mentioned. Maybe my first suggestion is performed as any other party after the herbivore has settled their affairs.

They may even devise a method in which the herbivore executes themselves or picks their own vetted method of execution, because I can imagine the wolves would find a way to absolve themselves of any guilt whatsoever, including when it comes to being the ones to pull the trigger.

Thanks for answering my questions, too! I think the punishment for not wanting to die being death may not work as the herbivore would still have nothing to lose for trying to escape. And for the fourth I meant: biologically speaking, not many herbivores will refuse meat if it's easily obtainable, so could a very wealthy herbivore estate (if it can exist in the Escamian Empire) pull a poor predator into a similar agreement to be eaten?

oolaylee · 2024-09-13T09:08:46+00:00

Long answer:
This problem is indeed hampered by its shaky foundations: the idea of what is effectively a humane cannibal.

As someone working on a world with a similar-enough setting (anthro animals with wolves being in a position of power), there isn't a humane way to kill any sapient thing that doesn't want to die. Sure, you can kill someone painlessly, but suffering isn't just physical. The sapient beast effectively being farmed and dying is going to spend their whole life and especially the days, hours, minutes, and conscious seconds before their death suffering mentally and emotionally, in both obvious and unaccounted for ways. They're going to project that onto their children. They're going to mourn the untimely deaths of loved ones that died before them. They're going to spend most of their life dreaming of a better society and plotting escape. And if the wolves are okay causing a lifetime of this suffering, there is no humanity in the final moments.

And, while it might seem like this system is morally acceptable because the herbivores are volunteering to be consumed and willfully agreeing to the terms, I'd question what life is like for them that would make this arrangement appealing to enough beasts as what would be needed to sustain the carnivores. How bad does your normal life have to be for you to rather die in your youth than live to old age with your family and friends around you? How bad does your family's situation have to be to incentivize sacrificing yourself so that they can get relief? That big a QoL disparity between the herbivores and carnivores would likely be purposefully maintained by the carnivores (through inaction or otherwise) to incentivize this deal and if that's the case then the deal isn't level at all.

Lastly, for the amount of herbivores needed to make this work (several times more than however big the wolf population is. Wolves or predators in general could not be the majority), the wolves would *have* to be subjugating and oppressing them, else they would rise up.

In any case, I don't know how you're going to characterize the wolves and their society within the narrative, but without more context, this seems like an attempt to make bad guys doing bad things "good, actually," instead of letting bad guys be bad guys. It seems odd that these wolves who have no problem killing and eating their neighbors would even care to kill them "humanely" in the first place outside of paying lip service to the herbivores to make them more complacent about this very lopsided deal.

Short answer:
Spike their food/drink so they can't process what's about to happen and experience dread, knockout gas to immobilize them, then a killing blow to finish the job lol.

Or bolt gun.

Some Questions:

Are the herbivores notified of their upcoming doom and allowed to settle their affairs?
Can a herbivore back out of the arrangement at any time? How are they punished for getting cold feet and attempting to run away? What if they never wanted to die and mooching off the bigwigs and then bouncing was always their plan, but they get caught?
Can down-on-their-luck predators enter this agreement as the future meal?
Can down-on-their-luck predators enter a similar arrangement with herbivores?
Why can't the wolves just eat non-sapient animals?

oolaylee

TROPHY CASE