The Abugida Effect - Episode 4 - The Harvest and The Harvester

[Chugachugs]

@Bonesmcco7
I have plans for a CG in the next episode that is gonna be good. Hint: Tight clothes.

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@Chugachugs

I did make some MSPA fanart in like…2009 or 2010 which is why I like the sharp no anti-aliasing look with thick outlines but smaller inside lines. I also like the chibi gag CGs you see in VNs or older games.

You know, I’m kind of embarrassed doing this, but I DID find my old DeviantArt collection from my 2007 account that has long been deleted. I guess I saved backups of everything awhile ago in case I ever wanted to…check them out again.

I’ll share some of it because maybe people will get a laugh. I haven’t seen most of this stuff in at least 10 years. I won’t share all of it because it is truly awful.

Most of these “works of art” are from around 2010. It’s almost entirely memes or fan art of anime or Homestuck. There’s also a comment I got from a pretty popular fat artist which people might get a laugh out of. Imagine if I stuck with art after 2011 instead of doing whatever I did until now.

None of my art back then was fat fetish or fetish-y at all, besides one I found but it’s so bad I don’t even want to share it. I’m really cherry picking here.

Anyway, here are some highlights:

ALOT of Bad Old Shit, you have been warned

It’s Ben Throttle from Full Throttle. I like the LucasArts adventure games so it makes sense I’d draw a Ben.

Andrew Hussie meme I guess.

KFC’s Double Down was a meme in 2010.

Homestuck stuff I vaguely remember.

I read the Umineko VN so there’s quite a bit of that. I recreated some scenes here that I liked. (I still like those scenes.) Jessica’s father cracks me up here. Look at that face. I’m still awful at drawing fingers.

TF2 Soldier, I think I did this the same time as the Ben Throttle one.

Dumb crossover shit.

Art practice? The arms on the right don’t look that bad. I like how I drew Luffy. I think the face in the middle is suppose to be someone from Gunnerkrigg Court. Gunnerkrigg Court is still going by the way that’s a really good webcomic. Otherwise more Homestuck and anime, this time Gurren Lagann and One Piece. I have even more One Piece scraps but they’re literally scans from my notebook and look awful, this was the only digital scrap I saw.

hOnK hOnK mOtHeRfUcKeR

Clothes practice?

These next ones are pretty edgy with blood/gore and dark themes so I’ll spoiler blur them just in case. I want to share them though because I think they’re some of the lasts ones I did before I stopped drawing. The line art isn’t the worst.

More Umineko and Homestuck fan art, this time with some kind of sacrifice theme. I don’t know what I was going for, but I don’t remember being particularly happy during that time of my life. I actually colored the Rosa one. They’re not great, but I kind of like them.

Lastly there’s some comics, I’ll share two. You’ll need to open them in another tab because they’ll appear really small otherwise because of the large vertical resolution, at least for me.

I appear to be copying the Cyanide and Happiness style here, probably because it’s easy to draw.

I think I actually did this in 2014, but I definitely didn’t do anything in 2012 or 2013 so just a spur of the moment thing I guess. If you’re confused this is me making fun of the main character in the Secret Game VN, which is a remake of the Killer Queen VN. If none of that means anything to you then don’t worry about it. Besides Killer Queen none of the VNs are in English still which sucks because Rebellions is very good in my opinion.

Anyway, I saved the best one for last, and you’ll see why…

It’s an Umineko comic! Wow, surprising!

Genji with that :y face at the end…man…

If you’re wondering, the :y face that the Commander makes in Abugida is 100% a reference to Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. So in a way the MSPA Homestuck has never left me.

The reason why I saved this one for last is because I did get a comment from a certain someone on it:

I thought it was very funny that Kip would even look at my dumb shit.

I could keep going, but I should really stop there’s far more than I thought there would be. Like holy crap. I’m done.

[Wulf_Diomhaireachd]

Just finished the new chapter, great stuff as always. Liking the slow burn with the WG, and the budding relationship between Mira and Veska. The various antics with the P-Team are fun too, with their differing levels of enthusiasm and unique personalities (P-Squad? P-Group? P-Something or other, I forget).

One point of criticism, the auto-scrolling text goes by really fast. I’m a pretty fast reader (if I do say so myself), but even I can only take in the first line of text at that speed, so for a full text box like in the XO’s interrogation scene I only catch a glimpse of what’s being said before it moves on and is lost.

Typo Report

All of these should be “supposed to”

nutritional needs

XO’s side walking sprite has a black bar at the top of it, but I didn’t screenshot it in time.

[Chugachugs]

@Wulf_Diomhaireachd
Yeah, I’m sure no problems will befall Mira in the process. In case people are curious, the stuff involving Veska and Mira in Ep3 was my initial barebones idea for the game back in June 2023. Everything else kind of spurred from there, and it took a bit of time to even get to the original idea of the story which at its core is suppose to be about weight gain. Oh my god, I said “suppose to” without thinking about it, we’ll get to that…

General P and the “P-Team” as he calls them are there to enable the inflation fetish, while also hopefully being funny characters in their own rights. P himself is a combination of the main character from Dig Dug (Taizo Hori, maybe a Kissy character will show up?), Super Sentai shows aka Power Rangers, and the P-Balloons from Mario. While writing Ep2 something that happened inadvertently is I realized I had actually created Team Rocket from Pokemon so I started to roll with that more.

About the auto-scrolling text: I can try to slow it down, it’s hard for me to gauge if people can read it in time when I already know what they’re going to say. I admit I may have abused the auto-advance text a lot recently, but I think it’s important for some parts and for dramatic timing. I’ve also been thinking about finding a plugin to enable a backlog. It seems silly for a narrative-heavy game to not have a backlog that would let you easily read anything you missed, while still keeping the dramatic timing. I can try to put a backlog function in for the future.

Thanks for the typo check again. I don’t think anybody has ever pointed out to me the difference between “suppose to” and “supposed to” in my life, I guess that shows the kind of people I’m around. It’s like when you pronounce a word incorrectly your whole life until someone who actually knows finally corrects you. I also find it kind of funny how many times I said “suppose to” incorrectly in Ep3 just to rub the point in.

I did notice the XO’s sprite is messed up, but I couldn’t figure out how to fix the sprite sheet so I just went “eh fuck it”. I’ll figure it out eventually. There’s quite a few “custom” sprites at this point. Most are still edits of Phantasy Star sprites, but I really like how some of them look and I think I’m getting better at spicing them up a bit. I wanted to draw at least one custom sprite from scratch for Ep3 which is one reason why the meeps exist (the milly were edits of ChuChu Rocket). I even drew some face portraits for the meeps which I probably didn’t need to do, but I felt like it so whatever. I want to start differentiating more and more from the default Phantasy Star style.

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Anyway…

Itch tells me stats about stuff like views and downloads which are pretty interesting. From what I can tell the Ep3 update was at least twice as popular as the Ep2 update, if not triple(!). I found that kind of surprising and wasn’t expecting a big jump like that.

Before I finish Ep4 I’ll release an update that fixes the issues in Ep3 that Wulf has mentioned as well as maybe some extra stuff. As usual I already have an outline in mind for Ep4, but I don’t know when I’ll finish all of it. I’m going to try to actually finish the whole thing this time even if it’s longer than 30 minutes, which is very likely. In other words, if my motivation remains the same I don’t expect to finish until May or June at the earliest.

Have a preview of Mira with her hair down being upset about something:

[Wulf_Diomhaireachd]

She’s upset she wasn’t allowed a 2nd dinner

The backlog sounds like a good idea, would certainly let you strike the balance between dramatic effect and readability. I forgot to mention earlier, but it’s really cool seeing how your art style has progressed over the years whilst still maintaining the same overall feel to it. And still much better than my art skills (or lack thereof lol). The facial expressions in particular convey so much emotion, especially in the comedic scenes.

[Chugachugs]

Episode 3 - A Cry For Help Minor Update:

1. Fixed typos in Ep3 as well as the XO sprite.
2. Added a backlog using Lunatlazur’s plugin. Press PgUp or scroll the mouse wheel up to open it. I rewrote the intro a little to reflect this.
3. Added a new scene to Ep3. It involves Miranda.
4. Added a short preview to Ep4 with a new title card.
5. Small graphical changes to some CGs.

I would still like to update some of the older face portraits. I’ve done a little for Mira but not the other OG people.

EDIT:
I 100% fixed the XO sprite but somehow it reverted itself?? So I’ll just upload it again.

[MrM]

I have a question before giving this a try, how big will the characters weight will be in the future? Like are there any plans to make them into blobs? I mean since there’s an inflation tag I guess they’ll become pretty big so I was thinking if in the weight part it’ll be the same or not.

[Chugachugs]

@MrM
There’s a few stuffing scenes with some of the characters. Nobody is blob-sized and this probably wouldn’t happen for awhile if it did happen. I want weight gain (and possibly other things) to be progressive with gradual changes over time. I want changes for characters to have a permanent impact, as opposed to bouncing back and forth between fat and skinny which I feel devalues the changes in the first place. I’m particularly fond of characters either embracing or resisting changes to themselves. Having conflicting feelings about something is what makes a person a person, however sometimes people will hold hard convictions and refuse to change their minds too.

The story is written in a third-person style, you as the player are not “playing” as a someone throughout the game, only taking the role of a character for that scene. I try to have narration to explain things I can’t visually show well. You’ll also get internal thoughts a lot of the time from characters.

There’s an inflation tag because one of the characters has a body expansion scene, with it only being implied before. This might seem to counter my previous point since these kinds of transformations are extremely sudden and abrupt usually, but I like them so that’s why they’re there. These body expansion events will probably only be for certain characters, or bad endings for others. There’s no bad endings currently although I want to do one for Ep4…probably with Victor being a fuckup, hehehe…

[MrM]

I agree with you completely that going back and forth devalues the fetish and the plot a lot, also I like the way you think about changes and how they define the characters as people making them feel more real. As for weight gain I just hope the story progresses to the point that blobs and immobility become a thing.

[Chugachugs]

@MrM
Immobility due to weight gain probably won’t happen for awhile, but there’s definitely going to be a lack of mobility due to other things for at least some scenes.

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General Progress:

I’ve been kind of busy at work lately so I haven’t done too much for Abugida. The outline has been “finished” for awhile but I keep making little changes, it’s almost finalized though. I’ve made a few maps and have drawn a few portraits. There will be a few new characters introduced. The story basically writes itself since I know exactly what the next episode will be about even though this one isn’t even finished, writer’s block be damned. Hopefully the progression beats are at least a little convincing. It’s exciting trying to implement the ideas I have.

I have some screenshots I can share with teasers. They’re not finished, but should hopefully give a good idea of what Ep4 will be like if you want to spoil yourself a little. I don’t think a release will happen in April, but May seems likely if I keep at it.

WIP previews (contains Ep4 stuff)

[bellystuffing1234]

Your arts getting prettier . Can you change Veska’s stuffing scenes art too?

[BubblegumCandy1945]

big fan of this one, I much rather games with gains that stick over the going up down bit.

[Chugachugs]

@bellystuffing1234
I might redo older CGs at some point. I think I’m going to save something like that though for when I try to make the tilesets look more unique than “default RPG Maker”. I’m not happy with the default tilesets obviously since I’ve changed out everything else, but it’s even more work to create unique tilesets and it’s not something I enjoy doing currently. I think creating maps is my least favorite part of working on this.

@BubblegumCandy1945
I’m trying to make the WG a slow burn for sure. I want to get better at drawing bodies and clothing. I’m jealous how good some artists can make clothes look.

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In other news:

I’m going to sound like a broken record, but I found another game project I worked on in 2012 that I completely forgot about. I think it’s the only time I tried working on a game before, probably, maybe. I remember working on it for a few weeks, but it was ultimately abandoned. Far, far less time than I’ve spent on this Abugida game. I’m a little surprised how much creative output I tried to do in this period of time though.

What was the game project? It was an Ace Attorney fan game using the AAO engine (their site is still around amazingly). I use quite a few AA sound effects in Abugida so it’s probably obvious I’m a huge AA fan so it makes sense I would try to make a fan case. This game project was not fetish related I just wanted to make my own Ace Attorney style case with original characters that I drew myself.

I even made gifs of the character’s idle and talking animations which is something the engine can do. You can probably do idle animations in RPG Maker, but this isn’t something I’ve looked into.

I was able to playtest the game which somehow was still functional after all these years, but none of the audio works and most of the images are broken. However, I did find my old project folder so I think it would be fun to share yet more shitty stuff I did in the past. I’m not going to share the script because it’s really bad and unfinished and reading the writing makes me want to die.

Old Game Project Stuff

Sad detective guy.

A bunch of gif animations. There’s a bit more than this I just grabbed a variety.

Some concept sketches.

Some of the uncompressed art before I made it into gifs for the AAO engine.

I have no idea what any of this means.

The next episode of The Abugida Effect is going to have a mystery focus which will heavily lean into these detective fictions. I really love murder mystery games like Ace Attorney, Dangan Ronpa, Raging Loop, Kamaitachi, Yurukill, etc., there’s too many to count. I also find the idea of combining a sci-fi setting with more conventional mystery elements to be very interesting (the latest Ciconia When They Cry does this). There will be fetish elements, of course, but I want the fetish elements to be built into the story. That’s always going to be the focus for me and what I want as I stretch my creative…bubble.

[Shugoki]

Well, I’m glad I actually sat down and played this after the AI debacle had long settled, because now the game’s actually pretty charming. Much as I love good turn-based fights, the absence of any battles is probably to the game’s benefit, given RPGMaker’s limitations, and the game is well-paced.

The characters are the main attraction here, and the ones we spend a lot of time with are pretty well fleshed-out. I actually got invested in the plot and found myself looking forward to learning something new and seeing what happened to the cast. The only beef I have with such a wide roster is, with so many characters, I feel like some don’t really get enough time to shine. The blue-shirts in part 1 get to show a slice of their personalities, but I can’t say they left any real impression on me in the way Mira or Cody did in that same act of the game. I don’t find myself imagining what they might do next, whereas most of the others have me thinking about just that. The same goes for the chapter 3 heroes to a degree–but certainly not the other “heroes” and their wacky shenanigans, who have VERY lively chemistry. We’re only 3 chapters in right now, so I am hopeful we get to learn more about them in the future.

The art is also nice. As I said, the Real Human Art is unique and appealing, with the overworld sprites being a nice change of pace from the usual RPGMaker bobbleheads, and the portraits still fitting with the game’s overall art style without sacrificing too much detail. Of note, Mira’s chub in the later section of the game looks believable and subtly thicker than we’ve seen her yet, and looks good by itself even without the promise of yet more squish piling on in the future.

So, yeah, I’m liking that “story-focused feederism RPGMaker games” are becoming a genre now, and I’m glad I gave this one a fair shake.

[themaninmidnight101]

Honestly, I like this game and its unique art style. It’s been a while since I played the last update so I don’t have much to say, but it’s nice to have fun writing with motivated creator. I’ll probably say more next update, but for now I look forward to your work Chugachugs.

[Chugachugs]

@Shugoki

@Shugoki

The blue-shirts in part 1 get to show a slice of their personalities, but I can’t say they left any real impression on me in the way Mira or Cody did in that same act of the game.

It’s true. I was thinking awhile ago about how Ange and Phil don’t really serve a purpose in the first episode, they’re really just along for the ride as spectators. I think it’s okay for characters to not be highly relevant to the main plot, but I can understand wanting to have more scenes with them. Phil doesn’t even have dialogue in Ep3 (although he does appear) which is the first time this has happened, and it’s mainly because I didn’t really have anything in mind for them. There will be more scenes with people on the UG Rhea including characters that are less developed than Ange and Phil.

@themaninmidnight101
Thank you. I wouldn’t say the art style is unique though. I’ve been modifying Phantasy Star sprites to fit my needs. I am also copying a lot of presentation from the old Phantasy Star games such as the font and borders:

I wanted to replicate how these games look because I think they look really good. I think the sprites and CG art is really cool for a 16-bit console game and it’s probably my favorite retro aesthetic. I was thinking about taking the tilesets from the Phantasy Star games too, but I just haven’t so far.

I updated the OP formatting so it looks a little nicer and removed the vore tag which I believe is more accurate.

[Chugachugs]

It’s not really game related, but last week I started posting non-game art on my DeviantArt account. It’s mostly belly stuffing anime…stuff, but I’ll probably do other things in the future. If that sounds interesting you can look here:

chugachugs User Profile | DeviantArt

As for game progress I haven’t done a crazy amount. I’ve written a lot of little scenes, it’s mainly just the big hard-to-do scenes I have to write that are left. I’ve also drawn the neutral portraits for every new characters, but still need to do their other variations. As well as most character sprites and CGs. I would say I’m probably 25% done with Ep4. I really want to try to have a release before the end of May, that’s my goal and it seems realistic if I don’t keep getting distracted.

Here’s an example of some of the new suspects–I mean portraits:

[Chugachugs]

Big news!

I’ve been keeping this under wraps for awhile now, however I have not been happy with the way development has been going. I think the focus on visual and audial story-telling is far too boring and uninteresting. So in secret I have been working on a massive genre shift for the future. What does this actually mean, well:

1. Ep4 has been completely thrown out and rebuilt from the ground up.
2. All dialogue has been removed, instead players will perform a series of QTE inputs to advance cutscenes. The QTE prompts will fill the entire screen and make it impossible to see what’s happening.
3. Cutscenes have been drastically reduced, Ep4 will be structured like the Arcade mode of a fighting game. It will be a series of fights that don’t really make any sense, and there will be roughly 1-2 minute QTE segments between fights that don’t really make sense either. I’m using a retro fighting game plugin I found for RPG Maker to make this possible.
4. Fight scenes will take place on really ugly backgrounds that burn your eyes, and the AI will cheat by reading your inputs. I’ve included a bad drawing I made quite awhile ago in the examples.
5. Lastly, the remaining story that actually exists will instead focus on characters following rigorous training to maintain a healthy and fit body. I would expect to only see weight gain in the form of muscle mass for the future.

I hope these somewhat dramatic changes will shift the game into something truly special.

Some example screenshots:

It’s a joke.

[Wulf_Diomhaireachd]

Based update, sending this to the Game Awards as we speak

[themaninmidnight101]

Truly the creation from a brilliant mind beyond our understanding. I will be watching this specific update with great interest…

[Koloss]

Played through the 3 chapters and you’ve hooked me in! Loving the characters and the different relationships and connections between them. Super curious to see what Veska is all about, and how widespread that Abugida effect will become.