goba (ACT 2 out NOW!)

goba (ACT 2 out NOW!)

@gobadev.bsky.social

26 year old artist | making REAL WEB LEGENDS: Carter's Quest https://store.steampowered.com/app/2409110/REAL_WEB_LEGENDS_Carters_Quest/ https://patreon.com/GobaDev http://discord.gg/MUHG5YjMHs

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REAL WEB LEGENDS: Carter's Quest Act 2 is NOW AVAILABLE!! My solo action-adventure game inspired by Zelda, DMC, and Bayonetta just got bigger. A FREE update to Carter's Quest, adding a whole new chapter to the story, massive graphical updates, and more. Available on Steam now!

I think, if I could redo it all, I'd probably make the colonialism aspect of Carter's Quest clearer. It's in the text very explicitly that the Elves have on and off occupied large swaths of human land, but I don't think the game's characters reflect the scars of that enough.

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When you arrive in Kaliere for the first time, with word of Kelly's death spreading, Tara is burning thousands of documents. The implication you are supposed to take away is that their entire political system will collapse without her and Elven invasion is imminent.

Act 2 begins with us seeing what Kelly's leadership looks like in practice. She commands deference by force of habit. She isn't just the beneficiary of personality cult, she is the only reason the system works to begin with. This is itself a reflection of colonialism!

I think, if I could redo it all, I'd probably make the colonialism aspect of Carter's Quest clearer. It's in the text very explicitly that the Elves have on and off occupied large swaths of human land, but I don't think the game's characters reflect the scars of that enough.

I think the scenes that are there are so obfuscated that people miss them. Elys very explicitly says that she became a Helix terrorist because she felt that existing Human governance structures weren't combatting Elven colonialism enough.

Kaliere is engaged in an ongoing national struggle to retain sovereignty and independence, and the constant pressure imposed upon them is why their political structures are presented as so warped and obviously unstable. Is this communicated effectively? Absolutely not.

I'm planning to leave early access at some point next year. I wonder what price is fair for Carter's Quest assuming the game only gets an additional 30-45 minutes of content and a lot of polish

I was so scared for so long of being seen as pretentious. It's kind of gauche for an artist to talk about what their work is supposed to mean, but I think I designed the game to be so unassuming that I failed to prepare people for the kind of story Carter's Quest is trying to be

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When Elys says the Helix is the "negation of negation," what she means is that they are not trying to create a God, proper. Rather, they are returning to the source (religion) at a higher level of development (through its inverse, atheism), to create something new.

This is the meaning of their motto, "History twists forward." They are a cult dedicated to the motions of history itself. They stand against those they specifically see to be denying the natural motions of history. The teleology of the Perfect Homunculus.

I was so scared for so long of being seen as pretentious. It's kind of gauche for an artist to talk about what their work is supposed to mean, but I think I designed the game to be so unassuming that I failed to prepare people for the kind of story Carter's Quest is trying to be

The phrase "negation of negation" was not understood by any playtesters, and I was enthused at a few steps to cut it or directly explain it, but I felt like leaving it in the game was a direct hint to the player that there might be paratextual concepts worth investigating

Act 2 rhymes with Act 1 because it ties into the dialectical understanding of history Elys expounds: that, even though we are witnessing echoes of the same events, the same event can never take place twice. The forces involved are always irrevocably changed by each other.

The hand is a motif in CQ that specifically relates to agency. Carter makes Yooba by piercing his own hand, a piece of his own agency is given away to create him. He rejects enslaving this piece of himself, that choice setting in motion the entire real plot of the game.

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Phyllubis hints at the dialectical relationship between the hand and the development of intelligence in the course of human evolution in this cutscene. Our capacity for logic and reason is downstream of our ability to manipulate and experiment with our own world.

You will notice that the Homunculants are everything but hands. They can only lead Carter towards the truth, but are incapable (both literally, due to the curse, but also metaphorically) of directly influencing the events of history. I tried to layer these ideas in without hamfisting it.

The hand is a motif in CQ that specifically relates to agency. Carter makes Yooba by piercing his own hand, a piece of his own agency is given away to create him. He rejects enslaving this piece of himself, that choice setting in motion the entire real plot of the game.

Yooba gaining a hand in a moment where his own lack of agency reaches an apex. He was, up to this point, incapable of self-actualization because he lacked the ability to manipulate his own environment. Yooba as a being with an ego really only begins in that moment.

Carter as an abused gay guy whose unique experiences prime him to be recognized by a god-like figure beyond anyone's comprehension is not a direction I think anyone could have seen coming, but the root of it is implied all the way back in one of the first cutscenes I ever made.

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He speaks through Yooba in Act 1 as an object of his own subconscious world. It is not until he sees true recognition that he can consciously verbalize his own motivations. Carter's arc is told mostly through implication and I think most players have missed the subtle implications

I like Carter and Yooba as two sides of the same coin, literally genetic clones of one another, one a human born into the human world of trauma and pain, and the other a homunculus born innocent and without sin; their arcs are intended to be in a dialogue with each other.

Carter as an abused gay guy whose unique experiences prime him to be recognized by a god-like figure beyond anyone's comprehension is not a direction I think anyone could have seen coming, but the root of it is implied all the way back in one of the first cutscenes I ever made.

Carter becomes literally endowed with voice as a result of the recognition of his true self in the eyes of another. The point is to play with the concept of a mute protagonist, Carter is not to be read as literally mute, but as metaphorically silent.

goba (ACT 2 out NOW!) reposted

See, I've described this game many times as 'Zelda 64 + Devil May Cry as fueled by feral bisexual energy', and you can see ALL OF THAT in action in this tiny gameplay clip.

goba (ACT 2 out NOW!)@gobadev.bsky.social

my friend keeps sending me carters quest combos other games may have better combat but name a single other game where you can do this

REAL WEB LEGENDS: Carter's Quest is 30% off for the Steam Autumn Sale!! 8 hours of scandalous action adventure goodness in one, cheap package. Recently updated with the second chapter of the story: bigger, better, longer, and stronger than ever. Go check it out!!

i played it. its really, really good. here is my fanart (?)

Feverdream Johnny@feverdreamsoft.works

Haven't mentioned it yet but Jasper is feature complete, still need to work across this month to wrap the project and get the narrative content in, but I'm closing in on the end here

for the record I had a fridge problem!!! it's perfectly spotless bc I had to throw out everything inside. I am not so comically, naked-but-for-a-barrel broke that my freezer opens up and a single fly flies out

goba (ACT 2 out NOW!) reposted

It was always fun to find any sort of 80s/90s japanese fantasy game where you'd have a design like this as the universe's idea of a Medieval knight. Have we (as humanity) forgotten how gnarly it was to have dudes built like the Quin Mantha?

goba (ACT 2 out NOW!) reposted

goba (ACT 2 out NOW!) reposted

I'm making a #blender add-on that lets you sculpt directly onto low poly models via the manipulation of object space surface normals under the hood

goba (ACT 2 out NOW!) reposted

I'm immensely proud to announce that my texture library that's been in the making for nearly a decade is now available on my itchio store for indie devs to purchase commercial licenses. makkon.itch.io

goba (ACT 2 out NOW!) reposted

Hi, Im Wondo, an artist from Venezuela, I would love to work with you! I do cute/sexy stuff and full on character design I just recently lost my job, so it would help me out a lot if you could at least repost this, thank you! #art #furry #furryart #wondo <-(me)