The master post for art related to the Toy Castle can be found here: The Toy Castle (Artist Squeakyfriend) (Master Post)
This topic is made to discuss Squeakyfriendâs idea as a potential game based on the concept and art he created, and also in the hopes that it may be of inspiration to someone.
Maybe delete this image from the master post? It seems weird to have it both here and there.
Anyway, about the game. Some of the elements, especially the dolls, give me Ib vibes. Things suddenly getting chaotic after you do something important. And I imagine the vibe in the castle to be similar to The Witchâs House. The many things to kill you can be in the style of The Witchâs House too.
Although, the mention of blood being more visible on white fur makes me think of a simple health system, where Snowconeâs health is reflected by how bloody her fur is. And the more hurt she is, the harder it gets to survive. This would also suggest having places where you can heal, maybe at save points.
It may seem weird, but I think of this topic being a discussion about a game specifically. The picture itself however is also art, and thus I consider it part of the master post to show when Squeakyfriend drew it compared to the other art he drew.
Wonder how much Snowcone can go through. She definitely was one of the more interesting creations of Squeakyfriend (other than Crazystein, of course)
Reminds me of the game âCorpse Party: Blood Coveredâ a littleâŚEspecially the ways you can die.
Hey there!
Oculus notified me of the new site and showed me this, and I think I can explain a bit more of this game concept!
Elias and Blibber3 are right to think of Ib/The Witchâs House/Corpse Party - thereâs a lot of games in that âgenreâ, RPG maker games where you explore and navigate traps/puzzles. Of note is âMario and the Music Boxâ, which had many game over sequences triggered by anything from getting caught by a monster, to going to sleep in a bad place, to trying to open a door, most of them accompanied by CG images which were saved in a gallery so you had an incentive to find them all. Since fluffies are infamously easy to kill, it seemed like a perfect fit.
FOALS:
My addition to this formula was the foals. Thereâd be a set amount of foals to find and collect throughout the castle (Snowcone would carry them on her back), and if Snowcone got hurt while carrying a foal, itâd hurt/kill the foal instead of her. To avoid this happening, players would be able to drop the foals off at safe zones/save points(fluffy nests).
The foals would also influence certain events! For example, the image mentions a scene of Wawa trapping you. He would stand on a button to hold a door open, but once you look through the door heâd run over and ram you through before the door closes, sending you tumbling down a set of stairs into a small empty room. Carrying foals at this time would kill them as Snowcone would crush them while falling, leading to a game over where she tries to get out until dying of exhaustion. But if the player had left the foals at a save point, theyâd come hold the button down and free her. (This would also affect later scenes, as Snowcone would know Wawa canât be trusted.)
SNOWCONE:
I think I later retconned her being a mom, in part to remove any foal favoritism, but it depends on whatâd work better for the story. The basic gist is that after all the foals are taken, Snowcone suggests someone go save them while everyoneâs arguing/panicking, but the rest of the herd is too scared to try and she kinda ends up volunteered for it. Since itâs trying or leaving all the foals to die, she agrees.
The mention of blood on her fur does indeed indicate how hurt/dirty she is, particularly in game over segments where she isnât instantly killed. (I imagine she could only take one or two hits though.) Itâs a good visual indicator for damage, but also for mud or anything else thatâd slow her down or feel yucky.
WAWA:
So! As the post mentions, Wawa is implied to be cursed. When he found the wish-granting thing he was a scared unicorn foal, and so wished for the strength to defeat any monster. Thus, he was turned into a monster - an alicorn - and took on the name Wawa because⌠Well, waterâs scary to fluffies, because heâs still gonna operate on fluffy logic. Heâs trapped in the castle and actively tries to kill Snowcone/the foals because heâs afraid of them reaching the wish-granting thing and making the same wish he did. After all, if they did, theyâd become monsters and be able to kill him.
As the main antagonist, I considered a lot of Wawa-related stuff. One was a boss battle where Snowcone has to open a water pipe to fill a canal while Wawaâs crossing it, causing him to be swept with the current. I also considered giving the player a choice between trying to save him or letting him drown, though I donât know what the benefits of helping him would be since by then his intentions are clear.
Also he likes dance music.
OTHERS:
I think the plan was for the castle to be divided into a few sections, each having a âbossâ at the end the player had to clear to move on (plushes, cannibal fluffy, etc). It had a bit of a dollhouse aesthetic, like someone just put an oversized childrenâs toy or bouncy castle in the middle of the woods.
As for the wish-granting being, I couldnât decide on what exactly itâd be. Maybe something similar to Discord? Reaching it would provide you with a list of possible wishes (âwant to leaveâ, âwant to get the babies backâ, probably âskettiâ just because fluffies), all of which would lead to a monkeyâs paw-type game over. The only way to get through would be refusing to make a wish.
The endings would have varied depending on how many foals you saved. Getting them all would get you hailed, while somehow not saving any would get you called selfish and horrid, with other reactions in-between.
Thatâs about all I can come to think of at the moment. If you got any questions, ask and Iâll see what I got!
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you find some new stuff to enjoy and feel no pressure to do anything more than you already have! Chill, relax, and enjoy us silly people 
And what exactly dissuaded you of making this game?
Sounds interesting enough to itch my interest
A variety of factors! I was falling out of the fandom at the time, had a bunch of troubles with RPG Maker, and very quickly got bored of the visual style RPG Maker required me to use if I didnât want to do every single background asset from scratch. I even struggled with getting the visual look of the cutscene graphics to look like I wanted, so they feel inconsistent and like some would need redrawing.
Plus, itâs a quite complex idea for a game. Itâd take a super long time to develop, requiring a lot of graphics, writing, level layout design (a weak point of mine), script coding, and even custom from-scratch code to make the foal collection work.
Itâs just all too much time and work required for a game that can only be advertised/sold to a niche fandom with a cruel and hated reputation.
Thereâs a whole lot of work arounds for many of those things. If youâre using rpg maker xp, you can use different spritesheet sizes (mostly multiples of 32px per frame). You can hard code it too (I once was making a pony rpg using animations of 8 frames, abandoned the project when artists droped out).
Custom scripts are an easy thing if you know the language well enough (RGSS are pretty much ruby with windowsâ c++ multimedia things given ruby isnât graphic nor sound friendly. Both RMXP, RMVX and the one later use RGSS1, 2 and 3 respectively).
In my opinion, XP is the most custom script friendly.
Iâm interested enough on this. Mind if I try my hoof on a technical demo?
Go ahead! And thereâs no workaround for the graphics - it was specifically the shading that I found boring to implement, which means that no matter the size I would have to either draw everything from scratch in a less boring style, or do a whole ton of shading I didnât like.
Honestly, I would love for the game to be made real, even if itâs not by my own hand - so Iâd love to see what you could make! Feel free to use or expand on the sprites/sprite bases I started making, the novelization, and any other Toy Castle things.
You could also go Godot or Unity, if the shading thing is the biggest issue. Though I might have an idea. All well. Letâs see what I come up with in the next few weeks
I still believe there can be an appeal to the fandom beyond such a reputation. Though I agree that a game (especially an RPG like this) is a lot of time and work, especially if its done without monetary compensation.
I knew youâd comment on that. Remember that this was conceived during the Booru days, and particularly that when I disappeared there was like 98% abuse content. And specifically recall that I mentioned the reputation, which reflected that abuse ratio. Itâs nothing I could have publicly advertised elsewhere without being ostracized and ruined. By the time this place appeared? Iâd made peace with not making the game, so no reason to go and start from scratch on it again.
I guess Iâm less caring about my own reputation, kek. Alternatively, one can always have double accounts everywhere and keep one thing apart from the other.
Either way, Iâm here to make more questions as I kept reading your story.
First of all (and I think the most important), would this game have a time limit? Seeing how the herd was going to leave by the night, it would make sense the game was timed. Of course, one can always meddle with the timer as events unfold (being knocked out cold or sleeping, is something Iâve been working on my own projects where having your characters sleep will heal them but also make it possible to miss out events). So yeah, are players against time? Or time will only progress as the player progresses, so if they stay idle in a section the time wonât pass?
I wouldnât say thereâs a time limit! It would either encourage save scumming or punish players for being careful.
If anything, it would be trap reliant (if you get stuck in multiple basement-like traps), but even that is a cruel sting in the tail since youâd only find out theyâre gone in the ending - unless maybe Snowcone says something to hint itâs too late, like âbeen stuck fow tuu wong⌠hope hewd am stiww thewe âŚâ.
In the story, however, itâs just part of the motivation for why she couldnât stop and rest.
You can prevent save scumming with limited saves per nest, though.
Or could wrap up all the hard mechanics with harder settings.
Eh, weâll figure things out later on.
Ah yeah, so, would there be actual items for an inventory system? Or just âkey itemsâ you pick and thus you donât seem to have a limitation on your inventory capacity?
Snowcone only picks up like two items that arenât foal-shaped, but I can imagine thereâs a one item limit. Your back is for foals, and any other item you have to carry in your mouth. It shouldnât make a difference since thereâs so few items to pick up, though.
Iâve figured you can carry as many foals as you want on your back, though it carries the risk of losing them to traps or enemies if you get hit - but having a limited amount of back space might also work. Maybe if you run out of foal space, you can carry one extra foal in your mouth?
Incidentally, I imagine that when saving a talky foal you carry it in your mouth until you get to safety, which prevents it from being part of your health bar.
Alright, Iâm working on the most basic form of foal inventory.
Still lacking the actions, but it already lists the foals. Gives you name, gender, race, if chirpie or talkie and if youâre carrying it, is in the roomâs nest or is your companion talkie. Will have to add the mouth space, but that will have to be later. I am busy with a research paper right now, but didnât want to leave you hanging and took my spare time to play a bit with rmxp
Lots of screencaptures
Initial map. The dude over there is for my debugging and calling the list
When you have no babbehs with you or in a safe nest, you should get a dialog (later will be fixed so itâs Snowconeâs) telling you that
Picking up a chirpie, represented by a chick, kek
List of available foals. Name, development stage, race, sex and position, in this case, fwuffy back means itâs on YOUR back
Letting the talkie join you. Using a rat to represent the shitrat
It follows you! This might come in handy in case you want me to let the player command the talkies around or make them wait you in a place.
Updated list. As you might have noticed, it puts your âcompanionâ talkie first. Thereâs a predefined order on the foal list, being the first one you can check the companion talkie, and next up the chirpies on your back. Will code later commands to swap them between the nestie (in case thereâs one) or even drop them if you think that would be a good idea for the game
So thatâs it. What do you think this far?