That Article Going Around Abt Firefox's New Ad Program Is Annoying Bc It's Phrased As Though "mozilla

I fucking hate game apps. I wanted to play tetris the otherday so I figured there must be a simple tetris app out there its the most basic game. But every app is like heres your daily log in bonus of 10 gold! You get 5 free plays a day. Here's an ad. To replay a level costs 1 diamond. You can eart gold by earning points in levels. 1000 points = 1 gold. You can exchange 550 gold for one diamond but we have a sale right now that they only cost 500 gold. Heres an ad. You can buy a loot crate of diamonds for 5.99$! You leveled up! Heres 1 free diamond. Youve run out of free replays for today, would you like to buy some more diamonds? Heres your daily tasks, make sure to log in every day this month for a free reward chest. its free! Heres an ad. Would you like to sign up for this credit card to recieve 10 free diamonds? Invite a friend and you can earn points! Ding! Youve leveled up. Heres an ad. This is our special bonus play weekend, you get one free replay and a pack of diamonds only costs 4.99$. You can use your gold to purchase new skins for the tetris blocks. This ones shaped like cats! It costs 100 diamonds. You need to collect them all. Free to play, may be some in-app purchases.

A message from a brother in Gaza addressing all of us as we continue to live our lives as the genocide goes on:

"From your right upon us is that we feel joy for your happiness. From our right upon you, is that you don't forget us, even in your joy."

Ummm? My side blog @lil-bloomz is gone? Or I can’t see/access it from being logged in on mobile?

🎮 HEY I WANNA MAKE A GAME! 🎮

Yeah I getcha. I was once like you. Pure and naive. Great news. I AM STILL PURE AND NAIVE, GAME DEV IS FUN! But where to start?

To start, here are a couple of entry level softwares you can use! source: I just made a game called In Stars and Time and people are asking me how to start making vidy gaems. Now, without further ado:

SOFTWARES AND ENGINES FOR PEOPLE WHO DON'T KNOW HOW TO CODE!!!

Ren'py (and also a link to it if you click here do it): THE visual novel software. Comic artists, look no further ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It has great documentation! It has a bunch of plugins and UI stuff and assets for you to buy! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! (You'll just need to read the doc a bunch) You can also port your game to a BUNCH of consoles! ✨Cons: None really <3 Some games to look at: Doki Doki Literature Club, Bad End Theater, Butterfly Soup

Twine: Great for text-based games! GREAT FOR WRITERS WHO DONT WANNA DRAW!!!!!!!!! (but you can draw if you want) ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It's versatile! It has great documentation! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! (You'll just need to read the doc a bunch) ✨Cons: You can add pictures, but it's a pain. Some games to look at: The Uncle Who Works For Nintendo, Queers In love At The End of The World, Escape Velocity

Bitsy: Little topdown games! ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It's (somewhat) intuitive! It has great documentation! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! You can make everything in it, from text to sprites to code! Those games sure are small! ✨Cons: Those games sure are small. This is to make THE simplest game. Barely any animation for your sprites, can barely fit a line of text in there. But honestly, the restrictions are refreshing! Some games to look at: honestly I haven't played that many bitsy games because i am a fake gamer. The picture above is from Under A Star Called Sun though and that looks so pretty

RPGMaker: To make RPGs! LIKE ME!!!!! NOTE: I recommend getting the latest version if you can, but all have their pros and cons. You can get a better idea by looking at this post. ✨Pros: Literally everything you need to make an RPG. Has a tutorial inside the software itself that will teach you the basics. Pretty simple to understand, even if you have no coding experience! Also I made a post helping you out with RPGMaker right here! ✨Cons: Some stuff can be hard to figure out. Also, the latest version is expensive. Get it on sale! Some games to look at: Ib, Hylics, In Stars and Time (hehe. I made it)

engine.lol: collage worlds! it is relatively new so I don't know much about it, but it seems fascinating. picture is from Garden! NOTE: There's a bunch of smaller engines to find out there. Just yesterday I found out there's an Idle Game Maker made by the Cookie Clicker creator. Isn't life wonderful?

✨more advice under the cut. this is Long ok✨

ENGINES I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT AND THEY SEEM HARD BUT ALSO GIVE IT A TRY I GUESS!!!! :

Unity and Unreal: I don't know anything about those! That looks hard to learn! But indie devs use them! It seems expensive! Follow your dreams though! Don't ask me how!

GameMaker: Wuh I just don't know anything about it either! I just know it's now free if your game is non-commercial (aka, you're not selling it), and Undertale was made on it! It seems good! You probably need some coding experience though!!!

Godot: Man I know even less about this one. Heard good things though!

BUNCHA RANDOM ADVICE!!!!

-Make something small first! Try making simple: a character is in a room, and exits the room. The character can look around, decide to take an item with them, can leave, and maybe the door is locked and you have to find the key. Figuring out how to code something like that, whether it is as a fully text-based game or as an RPGMaker map, should be a good start to figure out how your software of choice works!

-After that, if you have an idea, try first to make the simplest version of that idea. For my timeloop RPG, my simplest version was two rooms: first room you can walk in, second room with the King, where a cutscene automatically plays and the battle starts, you immediately die, and loop back to the first room, with the text from this point on reflecting this change. I think I also added a loop counter. This helped me figure out the most important thing: Can This Game Be Made? After that, the rest is just fun stuff. So if you want to make a dating sim, try and figure out how to add choices, and how to have affection points go up and down depending on your choices! If you want to make a platformer, figure out how to make your character move and jump and how to create a simple level! If you just want to make a kinetic visual novel with no choices, figure out how to add text, and how to add portraits! You'll be surprised at how powerful you'll feel after having figured even those simple things out.

-If you have a programming problem or just get confused, never underestimate the power of asking Google! You most likely won't be the only person asking this question, and you will learn some useful tips! If you are powerful enough, you can even… Ask people??? On forums??? Not me though.

-Yeah I know you probably want to make Your Big Idea RIGHT NOW but please. Make a smaller prototype first. You need to get that experience. Trust me.

-If you are not a womanthing of many skills like me, you might realize you need help. Maybe you need an artist, or a programmer. So! Game jams on itch.io are a great way to get to work and meet other game devs that have different strengths! Or ask around! Maybe your artist friend secretly always wanted to draw for a game. Ask! Collaborate! Have fun!!!

I hope that was useful! If it was. Maybe. You'd like to buy me a coffee. Or maybe you could check out my comics and games. Or just my new critically acclaimed game In Stars and Time. If you want. Ok bye

If you’re a Leftist, if you support Palestine, it’s absolutely fundemental that you read this. I actually encourage that everyone should read this:

“The Palestinian People have consistently made it crystal clear that our enemy is the colonialist and racist ideology of Zionism, not Jews.”

“I have zero interest in memorising or apologising for centuries old tropes created by Europeans, or giving semantics more heft than they warrant, chiefly when millions of us confront real, tangible oppression[…]”

Words by Mohammed El-Kurd.

Go follow:

Yousra El Bagir, Bsonblast, Modathir Zain Alabdeen, Yasmine Al-Magied, Sudan Updates, Sudanese Diaspora Network World, Nas Al Sudan, I Am Sudani, Sudanese American Physicians Association.

The links are all there. Please follow and educate yourself about Sudan. Partake in their fundraisers. The presence of Sudanese activists is much bigger on IG and on Twitter than on Tumblr. Educate yourself there and start partaking in the movement. It needed to gain more momentum 13 months ago.

Alternatives to Adobe Photoshop 🎨

Adobe's recent changes to their terms and conditions have been a bit frustrating for many of us long-time users, myself included. After using Photoshop for about 15 years, I'm a little sad to move on. But, the good news is there are plenty of excellent alternatives out there! It's always a good idea to explore different options, regardless of any changes Adobe makes. Here are some great alternatives I found while searching online:

Read more 🌸

Turns out with the Affordable Connectivity Program, ISPs CAN NOT shut off your internet.

Seriously. If you’re living in the US, and you’re at or below poverty line, sign up for the affordable connectivity program. it gives you like $30+ a month off your current internet bill and it makes it so they can’t disconnect you if you don’t pay them.

It's so sad that I am hearing of Bosnian genocide survivors talk about how they are triggered by the genocide denial happening around gaza. That the rhetoric that is being thrown around in the media and the rationalization for killing thousands and the talk of "let's be careful of what we call genocide. Let's wait before we call it that" is repetitive of what they were hearing when they were living through it

And Holocaust survivors who were protesting in DC and feeling the burden of having to come out and protest another genocide being done in their name except the media has completely sidelined them because it does not fit the narrative.

I have no other words except how terrible this is but it feels comforting in a weird way that genocide survivors are standing with Gaza. Who needs the acknowledgement of governments when you have them

If I had I nickel for every time I saw a lil calf with a heart of her forehead collecting flowers for her mama, I’d have two nickels!!!

Last year in May, I made a small pixel art game about a lil cow with a heart on her forehead who collects flowers for her mama 🐄💐💖 I love hearts and I really wanted to draw a cow character that day

[Image Description: A pixel art graphic of a green grass and flowers background. The title at the top reads "strawberry's flowers" with the words "on itch.io!" underneath. The title is in red text with a white outline, dark red dots inside and green stems at the top of each letter to mimic a strawberry. On the left of the title is an animation of a small cow wearing a blue dress. The cow has dark eyes, tiny horns, brown fur with pinkish-white spots, and a spot on her forehead in the shape of a heart. On the right of the title is a group of flowers. At the bottom of the image is a red play button. End ID]

A heart shaped friend 🐮 she is picking flowers for her mums flower shop!! (i will be posting more about her and her family!)