Whew! We made it! IM ALIVE! The action is going to calm down for a bit. Next chapter is going to be pretty chill. Then we will ramp back up into the next big thing. Hope yall understand, it should still be fun! I also MIGHT take a week off. I will probably do the Chapter cover post instead of a chapter cover post AND a comic page. Haven’t decided yet- but I do need to slow down a bit. Even though I really dont want to…
Hmm dual title fireworks? Now I’m wondering how much XP/levels are gained from killing an entire country (or at least most of their defenders)
are her boobs bigger or is it just me?
Her actress has been drinking from the water bottles like the rest, of course they’re bigger.
Hue Hue Hue Hue- I should probably shrink em a bit…
Blasphemy!
It has been done. The tiddies have been contained!
Nooooo!!! Free the ta-ta’s! They must run wild and free!!!
Probably a resurrection effect.
“The goddess of tiddies looks fondly upon your travels, adventurer, and will grant you rebirth and a boon!”
“Another? My back already hurts.”
“Consider not dying so much.”
Their flirting on this page feels like a well-deserved reward, and we get some great poses and expressions to go with it! They even get some amazing scenery with an aurora out there, which is a funny coincidence given the real-world solar storm events of the last weekend that has it on everyone’s mind. I know it could also be just each of them getting a ‘level up’ aura, but I like it better to think a sky glow is happening as if to honor their victory.
I’m actually VERY surprised to hear they’re giving up on hunting down other targets with knowledge of XP and the monster grinding system! At the outset they had said EVERYONE associated with it needed to die to stop the spread of that knowledge, and it felt fairly intense. At /minimum/ the forger(s) need to be dealt with, to say nothing of the still-unknown benefactor that apparently set all this up in the first place! The disconnect between what was said then and what Kaylin said now feels REALLY strange…
Maybe the other elves have been busy and that just gets ‘taken care of’ in the background, including the lower-level nobles that had been paying for xp… but after the earlier encounter I was kinda looking forward to a deeper dive into the Forgers themselves, and possibly some well-deserved revenge against them.
Also to hit the most obvious point… the last panel confirms something special happened when the pair of them got the concentrated xp from this encounter. Breaking the level 100 limit and earning an ‘ascension’ is probably what the king was trying for. I suspect from context that this kind of ‘ascension’ wasn’t possible before in Rune Aria, else Kaylin the max-level adventurer probably would have done it already. And Nyna is now a ‘unique’ instead of either an elite or a raid boss… and her level went up too. Really neat implications for both of them to be explored in future chapters!
The number of people that escaped, will be discussed in the next chapter. The Forgers themselves, weren’t /aren’t very strong. Think of them as crafters. Many of them died in the assault, and Kaylin’s line at the end- she’s implying that she hunted down everyone else left in the castle. If anyone did manage to escape, which she can’t confirm, she wouldn’t be capable of catching them. So it would be up to the team outside to kill them- or track them if they are too dangerous.
It would be odd, so it’s better to assume that she did something. She said – “Made cleaning up easy though” – do you think she meant body disposal? Fixing up walls and sweeping up rubble? Or do you think it means she tracked down anyone else left in the castle? Rather than assuming the negative, especially when it goes against the characters personality and traits, you should assume the most likely, negative or positive. She announced if anyone DID manage to get away, she can’t catch them. There’s no point in running around town randomly searching for people you know nothing about and have no way to track.
Yeah, it would be great if I could show her dealing with everything visually so people don’t have to assume or take context clues, but I am also having to stop myself from just doing exposition dumps and not cheapen the action that has already occurred. If i have Kaylin spend 3 panels talking about everything she just did- who is she telling? Nyna already knows what she was doing. She would just be talking to the readers. The forgers are important in their abilities, but they aren’t special. They aren’t like aliens, or players- they are NPCs that have somehow unlocked some unique abilities- that everyone should know that they were given that power by the benefactor, and while not explicitly mentioned, were shown being killed already on several occasions. Pages 7 and 8, 7 has one being chased down by Kaylin, page 8 has a panel of Nyna burning 2 to death.
I am sorry to disappoint on the forgers, I hope you can shift that to the mystery of the Benefactor. Though, I will say I do plan to have at least one Forger make an appearance later, perhaps not one that escaped the castle, but one that was not in the city during the attack along with a few other mentioned and possibly shown characters.
Finally to be clear – Ascension was not a thing in the game originally, and was the goal of the king. So- how did the King know about it? While Nyna didn’t get the Raid Boss title, she’s now a Unique monster. A technically more rare monster, but not as powerful as a raid boss. She still has the Raid Boss potential of course, but now she’s of another level of monster.
Hope this overly long message helps explain my decisions, and I hope you continue to enjoy the comics!
I think that in my initial reading I didn’t register a gap in time between the previous comic and this one. In my mind this was still right after Nyna burnt the king and said she wanted to spend time with Kaylin instead, leading into them being playful and flirting here in this comic. This idea was reinforced by their “level ups” showing in the final panel, which I associated with being their reward for the king battle.
So yes, your comment definitely helps clear up that point and makes Kaylin’s statement make a LOT more sense! I wasn’t trying to assume a negative, just calling out something that didn’t make sense to me from the first reading to try and because others could have the same impression. Basically feedback that I hope is useful for you, not intended to be criticism or negative, just informative 🙂
The “cleaning up” statement on its own could easily have referred to the king + knights battle; she took out the whole room easily with that cursed gear. In either case it didn’t land strongly for me as a “These words indicate that time has passed” – though honestly it was also 2am for me so maybe I was just tired and missed it 😀 On my second read I also see Kaylin referencing a conversation with Nyna we hadn’t seen on-panel. I totally get that not everything can/should be shown visually, especially taking down a whole kingdom!
I also appreciate the confirmation about Kaylin and Nyna’s new statuses, and look forward to seeing what comes of them in the future! I definitely enjoy the comics and appreciate all the work you put into them, so don’t worry about that 🙂
Yeah, TBH I thought pretty much all the same things until Sage’s response. My assumption about Kaylin’s “Cleaning up” line was implying that her armor added some kind of Vampiric effect to the Bloody Carnival attack that absorbed/disintegrated the victim’s body (improving the buff amount maybe?), and with Nyna burning the boss’ body, there wasn’t anything left to clean up! Given that and other possible interpretations, it’s not very clear at all that there was a time-skip between last page encompassing another foray into the castle to clean up stragglers. But I guess it is implied there’s some time passed, given that Nyna apparently told Kaylin about her end of the fight.
Anyways, I second Auryn’s statements, and appreciate the clarification!
I assumed something similar with the cursed gear,
Because the line “Cursed gear is strong, but it sucks!” was in the same bubble as “Made cleaning up easy though.” I automatically assumed that line was the reason it sucks, also implying that it consumes the victims and maybe their stuff to recharge or something, mainly since there was no actual clarification on WHY it sucked.
Assuming it just hurts her, if she was holding her arm and looked like she was in pain that would’ve probably helped, rather than her doing a very satisfying looking stretch.
I also saw the comment Sage made about the background, even if I read them back to back I wouldn’t have noticed they were different rooms, unless there is some furniture, lights, or banners on the wall, the only way I would’ve noticed is if the walls were drastically different colors, maybe others who have artistic talents/interests would notice, but not me.
Also not trying to give negative feedback, attempting to be constructive, text can make that difficult, but overall I have 100% been enjoying Artificial Incident, can’t wait for more, as an avid gamer I’m super excited to learn about how you make ‘systems’ work.
I think a narrator box in the first panel with something like, “Some time later…” wouldn’t go amiss. I have to admit, with the nondescript stone walls background I also assumed they were just kind of flirting over the king’s freshly-dead corpse. Which is….kind of icky, but they’re both hardened adventurers who are rather used to it. I was assuming “Made cleanup easier” just meant she magicked away her bloody pvp gear for later and magicked into her pve gear.
Love the comic, you do fantastic work!
I agree something like that would help, but I don’t remember if that’s something Sage has used elsewhere in the comic – narrator boxes I mean – so I hesitated to suggest the same idea earlier. It would certainly be a visual answer to confirm that time has passed between the two pages, which is what tripped me up.
There is room for it in the top of the main panel, but you’d probably have to stack the words vertically so that they don’t intersect with Kaylin’s arm. Alternately could just use the single word “Later…” and that might be enough.
It’s certainly possible for the page to stand on its own with dialog only, and per what Sage said earlier there will be more at the start of next chapter to further clarify how the night’s raid went. It’s something that affects us ‘real time’ readers the most, as we anxiously look forward to each new page instead of digesting a whole book or chapter at a time 🙂
I thought the change of location would make it more obvious. The Throne room was an enclosed room with a purplish blue color to the walls and a different pattern, and then the reveal that they are outside, on top of the castle.
if the cut-out is at level 100, then Nyna can tier up/ascend in 8 levels too ? 😮
Legendary levels unlocked? Epic? God-tier? Not sure the label.
*One-handed has reach 100*
100 -Level up -> 101.
Time to legendary that one-handed skill back to 15 and start again for more exp.
>:3
Gotta love it when new mods creep into sight and getting me to dusted off Skyrim once more.
I’m worried about that “Ascension Available” tag. Mostly because the way I’m interpreting it is that Kaylin now has the opportunity to become a Goddess in her own right. Likely either the Goddess of Rouges or the Goddess of Adventurers. And, given that the Gods don’t really stay on the planet interacting with people all that much, that would create some problems with her continuing being Nyna’s “pet”.
just make her the goddess of resurrection that way the goddess who runs that can unload that headache on someone else
Possibly goddess of the undead?
so wait is pink weaker or stronger than gold letter in the mmo color scheme?
Depends on the game. In Guild Wars 2 pink was the color of Ascended gear which is the best gear in the game. It is often used for Unique in other games which are either the best or more often exceedingly powerful for their level. Nyna is probably somewhere between a regular boss and a raid boss of her level.
I read some comments above, typed this as a reply to one of them and didn’t see it get posted, thankfully I saved it as that’s happened once and I’m forever paranoid now lol
Because the line “Cursed gear is strong, but it sucks!” was in the same bubble as “Made cleaning up easy though.” I automatically assumed that line was the reason it sucks, also implying that it consumes the victims and maybe their stuff to recharge or something, mainly since there was no actual clarification on WHY it sucked.
Assuming it just hurts her, if she was holding her arm and looked like she was in pain that would’ve probably helped, rather than her doing a very satisfying looking stretch.
I also saw the comment Sage made about the background, even if I read them back to back I wouldn’t have noticed they were different rooms, unless there is some furniture, lights, or banners on the wall, the only way I would’ve noticed is if the walls were drastically different colors, maybe others who have artistic talents/interests would notice, but not me.
Also not trying to give negative feedback, attempting to be constructive, text can make that difficult, but overall I have 100% been enjoying Artificial Incident, can’t wait for more, as an avid gamer I’m super excited to learn about how you make ‘systems’ work.
I read some comments above, typed this as a reply to one of them and didn’t see it get posted(TWICE, sorry if it just takes time and I’ve now posted this 3 times, didn’t know), thankfully I saved it as that’s happened once and I’m forever paranoid now lol
Because the line “Cursed gear is strong, but it sucks!” was in the same bubble as “Made cleaning up easy though.” I automatically assumed that line was the reason it sucks, also implying that it consumes the victims and maybe their stuff to recharge or something, mainly since there was no actual clarification on WHY it sucked.
Assuming it just hurts her, if she was holding her arm and looked like she was in pain that would’ve probably helped, rather than her doing a very satisfying looking stretch.
I also saw the comment Sage made about the background, even if I read them back to back I wouldn’t have noticed they were different rooms, unless there is some furniture, lights, or banners on the wall, the only way I would’ve noticed is if the walls were drastically different colors, maybe others who have artistic talents/interests would notice, but not me.
Also not trying to give negative feedback, attempting to be constructive, text can make that difficult, but overall I have 100% been enjoying Artificial Incident, can’t wait for more, as an avid gamer I’m super excited to learn about how you make ‘systems’ work.
Yo! So- I went ahead and just- approved all of your posts even those it’s duplicates. Namely because you changed your name one one of them- and one was a reply, and so you would see they got posted. The system doesn’t EAT comments. First time posts just require manual approval and I am losing the battle with Insomnia, passing out, waking up at random times, getting back to work, and passing out again. So when I check for comments and such is kinda random. Sorry this took a while, but I usually get them all within 24 hours.
Now that you’ve had a comment approved, it should always go through unless it catches something for review. However, since you changed your name, I had to approve both versions or else it might see you as 2 different accounts and I don’t know which one you are going to keep using.
I’m not sure why you would assume cursed gear literally sucks XD – She’s saying it has negative effects that make it difficult to use, thus why she’s taken it off (Shes not wearing it anymore- and she’s got the glow showing her necklace band has activated and swapped back to her normal outfit). Basically, cursed gear is extremely powerful, but is balanced by having negative effects that get worse the longer you wear it (Both reason for it being over powered and prevents players from just wearing it all the time. Usually used for raid battles and PVP). I usually assume that if someone claims they are using something that is cursed, it must have some effects that make it worth using. I’m not sure how to convey that without adding a ton of dialogue though that would be super unnatural for Kaylin to just, pull up a chair backwards, sit down add say “ok readers, let’s discuss-” XD
I get people not immediately recognizing the bricks are different color and design- but- like- by the end of the page it’s clear that She’s been talking to Nyna- who is sitting on top of the castle looking out at the mountains, city and skyline- XD So when I read stuff like “i couldnt tell”
I feel like the meme of some guy just gesturing at the thing I consider to be a massive change in scenery XD “Here we have a room with not even any windows, a few doors, some columns, and over here we have “AURORA BOREALIS OVER A CITY!” –
So – I get it, but I’m also like “please- look at my clues-” XD The chapter Cover for this page has Kaylin’s Necklace activating it’s effect, and the scarf she had covering it, and has an Aurora Borealis behind Kaylin – It’s all there- carefully planned out. But then I see people think she’s looking satisfied after removing the strain inducing cursed armor as a sign that she wasn’t negatively impacted by it- XD im like “nooo- she feels better because its off- I mean- i get it could work both ways, ‘oof im still hurting after using that painful thing’ but I went with ‘Whew! glad to have that painful thing off’. XD
I love this. Thanks for all the feedback, hope you dont mind my long winded replies, and thanks for the posts! Sorry I had to approve them all to make sure they appear properly in the future.
Super sorry about the triple post lol, the name changed because I thought it might’ve been a sign-in issue or something, I didn’t realize you had to authorize them, I’ve had posts just not happen on other websites so I usually try 3 times, save it somewhere, then try again later. Again sorry about that, now I know though.
I wasn’t saying cursed gear sucks, I was quoting what she said within “quotes”, I assumed she meant it “sucks” but is also nice for “cleaning up” because it eats people but also their loot(no loot = sucks), overall that’s just where my brain went.
I’ve played a few games where curses have different effects, the 5 I remember off the top of my head are,
– constant health loss for + Stats or + life-steal
– hurting enemies also hurts yourself + Stats
– dropped stats for extra large boosts (like a sword that gives 50 more attack than the ultimate weapon, but also drops defense by 50 or more)
– take 2x element damage, but immune to or heal from the opposite element(Ice hurt bad, Fire no hurt/heal)
– Stats + but a chance to have that characters turn skipped
Also, honestly, I must be blind at this point, I went back to check if the stones in the background of the last page were different(they were obviously), and I didn’t even notice her outfit was also different till you said it in this comment, I feel like when she first put it on I noticed and was like “Yo new outfit, that’s sick” but since then I completely forgot. Although if the cursed outfit was half on and there was a little ripple across her body showing the usual outfit reappearing I almost certainly would’ve noticed, no clue how hard that is in the world of art to draw though.
Also going from the walls to over the city with Aurora Borealis made me think they were walking & talking.
Overall, a lot of visual cues can be easily missed when you keep up to date with a comic because you have about a week+ of time between pages and just start to forget, if I just binged the whole thing I would’ve likely noticed a lot more stuff(especially the armor change lol).
From now on I’ll probably start paying attention to detail more.
Also you said,
– I’m not sure how to convey that without adding a ton of dialogue though that would be super unnatural for Kaylin to just, pull up a chair backwards, sit down add say “ok readers, let’s discuss-”
honestly, that would probably be a GREAT way to explain certain things between episodes, it also gives you the chance to make a post and give yourself time to rest when you need it, or if you refuse to rest, more time to work on proper pages, literally just draw Kaylin doing exactly that, have a couple of alternate options with different expressions, and have her arms crossed on top of the back of the chair, with a single alt image of one hand upward, then make ‘lore’ posts, ‘rules’ posts, or whatever you can think of. And if you decide to do this and occasionally use other characters, I request the chair is ALWAYS the same, so if it’s a little fairy, it’s sitting on a huge(for the fairy) chair, or a massive dude on a tiny(for him) chair.
Lastly, thank you for the long-winded reply, as you can probably tell, I also do that a lot, nice to not be alone lmao, tried my best to make it simple to read though.
P.S. This time I had to hit post a second time because my internet wasn’t working and I had to restart my computer to even post it…
Ok, assuming it sucks up bodies and equipment might be on the same level of weird as assuming its like a vacuum cleaner or something XD
That said – I want to point this out since you said you felt they were walking and talking.
Kaylin’s back is to a wall in panel 1. Nyna’s back is also to a wall in panel 2 but it’s darker and smaller bricks (further away)- Nyna is also not standing. Then Kaylin is zoomed in on a little bit – the bricks appear a little bigger- this is because its a closer shot, so she hasn’t moved much, then Nyna is looking backwards- in front of her is the open sky. Then Kaylin is seen with another close up but the bricks are smaller- she’s moved further away, Nyna is still talking over her shoulder- night sky still in shot. Then the final shot, Kaylin has come up behind Nyna and they are both looking out at the sky/city. This is a pretty basic setup to show one person is moving and the other isn’t, and the distance isn’t far because they are talking. One is seated, and the other is standing and moving away from a wall.
I try not to put too much into backgrounds that don’t matter too much, because they can be a huge time sync, but, they can still be important indicators I use. If you read manga- you have probably seen a lot of totally white backgrounds… I feel bad about leaving blank backgrounds unless it’s used for a specific purpose, like isolating the subject in darkness or an endless void of white O_O
It’s making more sense now, thanks for the explanations, I’ll probably notice things like that more now. There are a few things I’ve been following over the years, TwoKinds being the longest, but overall I don’t read very many things, I’m usually more of a watcher(shows), so I am 100% used to seeing physical movement lol
Responding to Sage’s comment since replies went too deep. Sage said:
I thought the change of location would make it more obvious. The Throne room was an enclosed room with a purplish blue color to the walls and a different pattern, and then the reveal that they are outside, on top of the castle.
I actually had to go back to see what you mean about purple vs blue bricks! At the start of the page my eye was drawn to the (very appealing) characters in the forergound, and only vaguely took in ‘bricks’ in the background – which felt consistent with the prior page, so I didnt immediately register a location change. It was “close enough” of a difference that change blindness happened, at least for me and seemingly for some others too. I certainly noticed the LATER panels had them on top of the tower for that great final shot, but all the confusion happened in that first panel or so.
You’re definitely right that there are cues that should point to time having passed since the last page, but it’s also apparently easy to miss those cues, at least at first. Wrapup summaries at the start of the next chapter will probably take care of it, but as Diremage noted some kind of extra indication in that first panel wouldn’t be a bad thing. They suggested some of narrator box, e.g. “Later…”, but I dont remember if you’ve done those elsewhere. You could also give Kaylin some kind of a ‘quest complete’ popup (Since Ellisia/someone gave her a quest to investigate Talithar) – even if it does not directly answer the time question, it would give her more ‘adventurer knowledge’ basis to say anything else is too far away and her job is done for the night.
It’s definitely a subtle problem, and leaving it as-is to be wrapped up in the next chapter is definitely an option. We’re giving this feedback to try and help, so hopefully it’s not too annoying 🙂 And again, we love everything you’ve done with the comic and look forward to seeing more!
I have used the time indicator boxes but I use them very sparingly, I don’t usually find them useful myself because when reading things, when something looks or feels off, I usually just adjust it in my head and think “this is either a shift in the situation or it could even be a sign of something to come.” Then I let future context guide me. Sometimes when I see a box saying “10 minutes prior” “A few hours later” “Later” I am always thinking “oh great, they are going to hop around in time a bunch or they are doing a sponge bob meme…”
But- if it’s necessary- it’s necessary. I’ll add it to the page as it seems it is XD
Why would she want to be the Goddess of makeup ?
Rogue….r-o-g-u-e…rogueroguerogueroguerogue… ROGUE !!!!!
You put rouge on your cheeks (or elsewhere) and it very literally means red.
You put rogues in your party to steal stuff and open doors.
I’m starting to think people spell it that way on purpose as some sort of in-joke.
/rant off but still annoyed