I'm always learning and growing, and so are my designs! (The nice part of taking so long is always having time for tweaks!) Which eye color do you think looks best on Vagus?

We have Fellows, we have Feelings, and we also have....Fully Conscious Games?! @terminalstatus.bsky.social has become sentient and decided to open with this line: 'is love a gift, an obligation, or a means to an end?' Read more in our bundle TOWNSQUEER, available until June 15th: itch.io/b/3666/

Would you still love me if I started roleplaying as a sentient visual novel for anonymity and marketability purposes? 👉👈

Hi everyone, you can find me in this zine! Who is 'me,' you ask? Why of course ✨me✨, Terminal Status! You should read my interview, where I talk about being a game! There are other games, too, and interviews with their devs! I hope my dev is just as proud of me when I finish growing up...

For the longest time I had it in my head that Terminal Status was going to lean hard into bright white. That's simply the vision I had, and eyestrain be damned I was committed to it. This week, I'm finally embracing mercy. The art direction is going to shift to include off-white. You're welcome.

When I'm not happy with how a coloring experiment looks, I just throw the finished piece through random filters... Can't tell which I like best 🤷‍♂️

Vocal tip: through the magical powers of hot water with honey and ginger, your local alto can spend an entire recording session pretending to be a soprano without their throat exploding

Today would be a great day to finish up some song demos for my game about disability, if not for the thing stopping me currently: disability

Writing for games is so uniquely satisfying, because it forces me to hone in on utility. Since most information has to be delivered through dialogue or action, I'm always thinking of the purpose behind every line I write. Building hyper-effective scripts reminds me that writing is craftsmanship.

A lot of script work has been done this week, including a major overhaul in how the story is laid out. I think the final product is definitely going to benefit from the changes ✨

Concuss, Viscera, Lacerae, and Intravenous have all had their references updated to reflect the newer piloting suit design. These images have also been uploaded to the website.

Website update: the Art Direction page now has a neat gallery section, complete with filters for references, concept art, and illustrations ✨

Crescendo is kind and good and probably a secret angel, and everyone should throw love and attention at her. By the way.

I have learned the supreme joy of making games with music. Because I can stop the song with a sudden halt when my protagonist has screwed something up, to intensify the comedic beats. And it's really funny no matter how many times I do it. Once I have an entire soundtrack I will be unstoppable.

What if I just... quietly put up an update to Nothing Like You with music and minor writing changes... without having figured out the complicated menu stuff that's kicking my ass?

Goals for 2026: - update "Nothing Like You" (soon!) - make at least 1 new sidegame - finalize all designs - draw sprites for at least 2 (if not more) characters - finish current draft of Terminal Status script - jump into new (hopefully the final) script revision

Work on the update for "Nothing Like You" has been slow going due to difficulties understanding screens (along with stumbling into several new gamedev projects along the way), but studying has been happening and hopefully results will come soon 💪

The good news: I'm working on coding! The bad news: my studying of styles and screens is Not going well. My brain explodes.

A little world building: Terminal Status's equivalent of a phone is simply a "tube," which is an electronic communication device with a tactile, holographic basis (AKA: motion activated commands, and uses holograms). Like most tech, tubes have specific phrases and slang attached to them.

I accidentally wrote Post-Op another character song, but thought I might have lucked out with it. Her initial one was partially rap, which quite doesn't suit her character well (it probably happened because she's the one I relate to most, so my own genre preferences shone through).

I keep worrying about how the Gnosia AU sidegame is going to end up more interesting than Terminal Status itself, but I think that's just something I need to accept. I'm putting a supernatural death game up against a romantic drama, gaps in intrigue comes with the territory.

good creative ideas are always infuriating because they inevitably mean more work

The good news is I've started scripting out the Gnosia AU game, and found ways to make the tutorial a thousand times more entertaining and effective. The bad news is it's going to require me to draw SO many CGs.

As Terminal Status takes place on a space academy, designing the ship has always been on the to-do list. Doing so does not come easy to me. Ailantd has been a huge inspiration to me, and I've long wished to try applying the skills I see her using. Now, I've finally found the necessary vision.

I've been thinking so long about how to insert an oximeter into my world design, and I just realized... maybe that's what the space academy can be designed after. Maybe the H1PP0-CRAFT is a giant oximeter-shaped ship.

share to save a visual novel's dev life

I have come up with maybe the funniest way to start an RPGMaker game

Today I worked so long on music that my fret-holding hand hurts 🙋

It shouldn't be a priority, but I really want to go back and remake Towers are Hospitals at some point. I revisited it recently, and disagree with a lot of the editing decisions I made (specifically how I shied away from being explicit with the content matter).

decided to do #the_color_wheel with Terminal Status's limited palette! get pastel'd 😎

I've been a songwriter longer than I've been a gamedev, & I've been a weeb even longer than that. So I've always been bewitched by the idea of the ever-elusive Character Song, á la old anime and Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. As such, I decided character songs would be a part of Terminal Status.

My cats heard me recording vocal demos for the game today and thought, "you know what this needs? The sounds of me violently jumping around and pushing over piles of objects."

I have been developing Terminal Status for upwards of four years now, AND finished two full (short side) games, and only now do I start working on proper promotional art. I know exactly why I have put this off, with is typography. Fonts & logos are not my friends. Graphic design is not my passion.

Thank you for your interest in Terminal Status! Terminal Status is a future #VisualNovel about #queer 20-somethings in space. It's a #scifi #pastel #menhera romance, and my passion project. Itch: pride-col.itch.io Website: terminalstatus.neocities.org Mastodon: gamedev.lgbt/@TerminalSta...