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May 11, 2025

Bloody Brief #5

Hello. I’m writing this on Saturday the 10th but will be sending this out on May 11th, which is Mother’s Day here in the United States of America. I started to write something about moms and executive orders but it was getting like, really out of hand bleak, so I just deleted it and am telling you about what I almost wrote instead. It’s called self-control, people.

Anyway, let’s meet one of Vesper’s many co-workers at ABO incorporated: NEFERSHESMU BLACK.

A slide with a black, red and grey gradient color scheme. On the left, underlined and bolded is the name NEFERSHESMU BLACK. Under it is an image of a femme figure with a long, face and pointed chin, their features very gaunt. Their hair is huge. it's like a big black diamond shape , implied to be curly. They wear huge, triangular earrings and their entire neck is covered in a stack of elaborate necklaces that eventually turn to thick collars. The necklaces lie on top of the dress she wears. She also sports a blazer with sharp shoulders. Her right hand is raised towards her neck, and shows that he wears a thick cuff bracelet, modeled after a snake wrapped around her wrist, and a chain that drapes between her fingers. The caption reads: Nefershesmu Black. Nef to her friends, they truly have no enemies at ABO. Rumored to be the oldest vampire at the company, yet works as a personal assistant to Rhema, the Director of Project Managers. He's a little...Off." On the right of the graphic is a radar chart that shows Nef's "Vampire HANDB score." Their scores are as follows: Hedonism: 7 Angsty: 3 Narcissistic: 5 Destructive: 6 Broody 6. There is a blood splatter on the upper right of the slide. At the very bottom right in tiny letters reads Vampire the Taskerade is an office comedy/horror game.
It’s not a typo. Nef uses any pronouns. When you’re that old, you get to do all the genders.

Nef (I can call them that, we’re buds) is a fave character. Like many helpless nerds, I too was obsessed with Ancient Egypt as a child. I don’t understand how anyone could not be. Nef is here because we are dorks and an ancient Egyptian vampire would be cool as hell and fun to write. We’ll have her sprites next month so you can see him in all his chibi glory. Do you think she is cute? Do you want date them? Well, you cannot. He’s taken. She’s in a committed, monogamous relationship with Shesmu, deity of blood and wine. If you think Nef’s flirting with you, they are not. He is just very silly and sometimes doesn’t realize how horny they sound. It happens when you’re old. When you’re 4,623, you will understand.

We’re currently working on what will be the vertical slice and we have only 1 (maybe 2) characters left to be able to introduce the gameplay (story + mechanics) in a way that is really representative of what this game will be like. We’re shooting to have the VS done in the next four months, mostly for monetary reasons. VS —> Publisher —> Money —> Game Done —> Probably something truly evil happening to us, given how the games industry is going. BUT. At least the game will be done and fun, which is what we want most of all.

Okay, I’m done with this part.


Important Dates

  • Steam Page Launch: TBD

  • Narrascope: June 20th-22nd in Philadelphia, I’ll be there with Camerin Wild giving a talk about translating TTRPG experiences to video game play and vice versa. Our talk is Saturday the 21st at 4:15pm EST in room URBN-120. I think I got the time right. I had to do a conversion.


Attention/Dinero

This time I want to shoutout 502 Studios, a studio based in Guatemala that ports games to different consoles/platforms while working on their own portfolio of fun games. I met Bryan, Rik and Lourdes while I was at GDC and I had a great time hanging out with them. I had actually seen Bryan and Ric talk at GDoC Expo last year where they talked about their game, 502 Arcade and their experience and advice to studios who want to make their games available on multiple platforms. I played the potion game on Ric’s Switch while hanging in the Yerba Buena Garden, which was very fun. Check out 502’s Arcade which is available on many platforms (which makes sense) and have a blast!

Well, that's the news for now!
In battiness (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ)
Tris

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