Prequel: Let's All Make a Catgirl Cry

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > BSS: Bisexual Super Son > Prequel: Let's All Make a Catgirl Cry

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Liath Macha posted:

One of my favorite little things about this update was the X splitting in half when she took out the boss apple.

Incidentally, Kazerad, if you're not aware, the fact that this gif (and others) is made without a frame delay value means that it renders flickeringly fast in firefox and chrome but at much slower in IE, which inserts an automatic delay in gifs without them.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2011 10:55

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 15:33

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Hah. That took me a moment. 'But Katia isn't bla...oooooooooooooooooooooooh'

# ¿ Aug 22, 2011 13:16

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Wow. So much in there. I'll just say that the best bit was the conversation with the Count. And with the Kahjit barkeep.

If you've played Oblivion, is there a reason behind the reaction to the head priest?

# ¿ Oct 25, 2011 13:23

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Zenzirouj posted:

I think Kaz is trying to make us fall in love with Kvatch.

Except the Khajiit. They're all dicks.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2011 04:46

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Y'know, I've never played Oblivion, but if this comic does end with Katia as the protagonist I'm seriously tempted after it ends to make Katia in-game and play it onwards

# ¿ Oct 28, 2011 03:11

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Kazerad posted:

Hm, the problem I see with this is that it would work really well in a video game but not so well in a comic, where your readership basically has to be guided along a linear path. If Katia wins the dance battle in one person's playthrough but loses in another, I'd basically have to say only one of those outcomes is "canon". The only reason the minigame worked in Excelsior was because the setup meant any outcome could be equally canon.

Integrate it! If more than 50% of the viewership wins, she wins.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2011 11:53

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

The abseil gag was great.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2012 10:48

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

creationist believer posted:

Well it's got this thing strapped to it's back, so it probably already was.

Oh, wow. It also looks like it has a scroll?

# ¿ Jan 28, 2012 04:46

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

drat those poorly constructed medieval wells! Call that OH&S?

# ¿ Jan 30, 2012 10:27

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Pakled posted:

PNHF hasn't discovered how easy it is to break into peoples' houses and lick jelly off their necks while they're asleep.

Maybe she thinks it's far too rude to enter a house uninvited.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2012 02:37

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Haledjian posted:

She got away! Look where the stone got knocked out of the side of the well.

Also the blood. Unless the slaughterfish were really shaking her.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2012 11:16

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Is this one of those times where I'm missing out not having played the original Oblivion?

# ¿ Mar 4, 2012 23:53

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Kazerad posted:

Though fun background here: when it comes to character writing, a sort of defining moment for me came years and years ago when I was reading some obscure furry webcomic about two teens who started an assisted-suicide business (the comic might still be out there, I forget all the details). The comic was extremely entertaining, but it was also kind of horrifying how violent and twisted it was. I assumed it had to be written by some very, very sick and troubled individual. So, curiosity got the better of me and I started looking up info about the author... and if I recall right, I discovered he was actually a police officer who lost a close family member to suicide.

But the thing is, you could never tell this from his writing. It was never preachy, never heavy handed. There were a thousand places he could've detailed to say "suicide is wrong!", but instead he got into the minds of his protagonists and never broke character. You were left with the vibe that suicide was a bad idea, but you could never really tell if that was what the author wanted you to think - and that made the writing so much more compelling. It was one of my first introductions to the whole idea that an author could write protagonists that vastly differed from him in personality and beliefs.

You should put an FAQ page on your site and just paste this.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2012 13:04

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Excellent final-panel turnabout webcomicery.

I'm starting to get fond of that little clanfear.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2012 13:05

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Nooo! She left the clannfear behind!

# ¿ Apr 13, 2012 15:45

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

JT Jag posted:

Nope. She's probably level 0. Maybe level 1 at best.

She leveled in the ruins; she had one of the Oblivion level up messages.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2012 06:39

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

jng2058 posted:

Agreed, she's never getting another level. Indeed, my guess is that we're getting near to the end of the prequel part of Prequel here. It's my guess that Katia loses her amulet, blows up super-flammable Kvatch, and that's what gets her thrown in jail to start the game.

That can't be right. She has to deliver the package to Quill-Weave.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2012 22:15

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Ignatius M. Meen posted:

Still, there's going to be different consequences in this town at least.

I dunno, I reckon she could make it back whilst wasted.

# ¿ May 2, 2012 12:33

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Ignatius M. Meen posted:

...and run into Gro-Upp or other bad guys without protection?

You mean again?

# ¿ May 2, 2012 15:10

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

VictorGrunn posted:

Quill-Weave's Package, which also sucks.

That's really the key thing, I think. She has so much of her self-worth tied up in being able to repay the one person who's been good to her right now. The rest of it doesn't matter so much.

# ¿ May 7, 2012 08:31

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Dominic White posted:

Looks that way. Just how powerful does a spell have to be to punch right through a spell-sealing amulet, anyway?

Given what was said here, it would seem pretty goddamn powerful. Apparently even master wizards can't punch through that thing.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2012 16:22

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

She'll wake up with Kvatch burning to the ground by the Oblivion Invasion and think that it was her fault.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2012 09:22

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Katia's response to the hole-in-her-body-check was great.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2012 06:00

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Bobulus posted:

Look at the window. Looks rather castle-y, doesn't it?

Didn't she grow up in a castle?

Seems that it's full on flashback time. She's even acting like a child.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2012 03:27

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

OriginalPseudonym posted:

Every one of those stairs is a static image in an html element. They have individual functions to make them move from side to side, and a second function that moves them vertically inside their encompassing element based on the distance you've scrolled down the page.

Gotta say, that's pretty fuckin sweet.

Oh wow, I was page downing and didn't even see the vertical effect.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2012 11:54

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Young Freud posted:

Is that how Kazerad is pulling off some of the animations? I notice that he has single-play animations that seem to start up whenever your scroll to them, like the sword throwing one.

Sword-throwing one is a loop for me.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2012 06:43

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Oh god, I saw the shape showing occasionally out of the sides of the black but it seemed to be a circle and I was like 'oh, well, it's not perfect, there's a protruding bitmap element on this browser, bug in the animation...'

Then the last time it appeared I saw it had tentacles. :gonk:

Tarezax posted:

Note the shape of little Katia's shadow

I noticed that too. Damnit, Kaz.

MikeJF fucked around with this message at 11:47 on Aug 8, 2012

# ¿ Aug 8, 2012 11:41

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Lysdexique posted:

Next dream sequence calls you on your cellphone.

Next dream sequence is just a series of flashes and graphics on the screen which leaves you confused, but then that night you dream the actual dream sequence itself.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2012 00:49

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Suaimhneas posted:

It'd also be kind of inconvenient for going back and re-reading if you wanted to quickly check on something.

Really the main reason why Kaz won't be doing it, of course.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2012 11:05

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Kazerad posted:

Are you implying I can't, Mike? Are you really implying that Ch'marr and I can't do that with CSS?

YES I AM SO WHAT'CHA GONNA DO ABOUT IT PUNK

# ¿ Aug 9, 2012 13:35

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Of course, given the level which Kaz is openly acknowledging and describing the meta-game of appeal, and enjoying it even more than the drawing, it could be argued that it's his approach and method on that meta-game exploitation which is a piece of art, and both the comic and us readers are merely raw material used in its creation.

:350:

MikeJF fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Aug 10, 2012

# ¿ Aug 10, 2012 07:14

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Kazerad posted:

In terms of regular-vs-irregular, Prequel's took its inspiration from the irregular schedule applied by MSPA - in terms of behaviorist reinforcement schedules, it's known as Variable Interval reinforcement. Variable Interval is characterized not only by very frequent responses (people will check the site a whole lot) but for being very difficult to extinct - that is, if people are used to irregular timing, then it will take a pretty big delay before they stop checking. Even if I were capable of producing once/twice-per-week on the dot, I would probably add a day or two of variance just to get this benefit.

I'm really quite surprised that this is that effective in the era of RSS.

I'm normally notified of a new Prequel because of this thread, but if I'm not reading it, and with other variant comics, it's all RSS notifications for me. And I would imagine that this would be the solution most people would reach for, especially given that I suspect Prequel's fanbase is more technically inclined than average given the setting. It takes the frustration out of irregular updates.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2012 10:10

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Of course, the best way to find something entertaining is to run an electric current into a certain part of your brain every time you do it.

Artistic entertainment is basically a crude, sensory-based version of those little pedals that the rats kept on pushing until they starved to death. With science, we can figure out formulaic ways to do it better than we used to even if we're avoiding cutting into our brains, though.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2012 11:53

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

DrSunshine posted:

About two years ago, I came to the conclusion that comics, as a medium, are a form of linguistic expression, and like a language, are governed by regular systems of grammar, by which strings of pictures in sequence -- like the words of a sentence -- are codified and given meaning, instead of simply being arbitrary images. This led me to conclude that it was possible to codify and consequently write down all the "laws" of comics in the form of abstract expressions of symbolic logic. By doing so, one would totally clarify the mechanics of comics, so to speak, and build foundations for an analytic approach to comic-making.

I spent the next two years teaching myself symbolic logic just in order to write my ideas down and prove them deductively. I still haven't finished the writing -- I still need to teach myself more logic! -- but what I have shown to other people has tended to get reactions like "You can't apply math to art!" or "This is scientism!" It seems that people are resistant to applying deductive and scientific methods to the arts.

This is awesome, but I particularly like the irony that something that managed to be inexpressible in your logic system yet still 'work' as a comic would I would imagine be something that I would consider to be artistically superior to something that fit in. Not certainly, but I can see that being the case.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2012 17:37

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

jetz0r posted:

One day Katia will be the best pyro-guitarmancer in Cyrodiil.

Time to go and find out if there's a mod that adds Bard skills and lets you cross-skill to conjuration to summon pyroguitars.

There needs to be.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2012 09:04

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Holy gently caress!

# ¿ Sep 1, 2012 17:27

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Wrist Watch posted:

Also, is the text at the end supposed to have a bunch of squares in it? Some of it's Zalgo'd, some isn't: http://i.imgur.com/Au2Wt.jpg

Your browser's not using a font with enough of the unicode set.

I just tried it out in chrome and it suffered that issue, works fine in Firefox for me. Looks like the font that Chrome uses is more limited.

MikeJF fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Sep 1, 2012

# ¿ Sep 1, 2012 19:27