My mother always called me her sunshine growing up. I was born two months early. Tiny and blue from lack of development. It was a difficult birth. One of us was supposed do die when I was born. Somehow neither of us did. I was her "miracle child". I know she only ever said that out of love. But how could I ever live up to miracles. How could I ever shine as bright as the sun.
Was this a miracle? Or the blinding light of something worse?
All I can see is light, bright and blinding but without heat. No energy wasted on warming me. I can't feel my hands, feet, body, face. being dead was a lot more boring than I thought. Although even without a body or head or even eyes somehow the light was still aggravating. Was my hell merely an eternity of blinding light and migraines?
Finally after what felt like 9 hours, I felt something change around me. Words emanating from nowhere, being burned into my mind's eye.
"You too are unfinished"
"Complete the world. Complete yourself."
"Mercy for another half made"
Suddenly the lights turned out. From blinding white to pitch black, I expected to be stuck in another hell of waiting, left to ponder whatever those words were. They didn't come from my own mind. It felt like they were pushed into my mind.
After what was likely only a minute or two, words arose from the dark around me, Sanguine Sacrifice. Oh joy my mind has decided to remind me of my failures. Could I hallucinate playing a different game?
As soon as I thought the word "play" the scene shifted. A mirror arose from the darkened surrounding me. What stared back was…. Empty? Something shaped like a human but blank, devoid of a face, gray colored skin, so utterly devoid of individuality or any type of remarkable feature.
To the top right of it was a floating dice. Oh god. This was my character creation screen. What the fuck is going on.
Like most other features, I never fully finished the character creation screen. I added a bunch of random assets I bought online to stylize a character, but just made a randomize button, no sliders or buttons to select specific looks. I had a feeling I was about to regret not adding that among many other features. Time to roll the dice.
The first spin was about par. Bright pink hair, overly large eyes, creepy looking mouth, a very large torso with stubby legs. Suddenly I could feel my body again. Well sort of. I felt a body again. Looking down at my similarly stubby legs and massive torso, I had the feeling this would take a while.
Noteable rolls being when I ended up getting a haircut that was just a pirate hat I couldn't physically remove, when I got a certain dark wizard's lack of a nose, and when I had my hands replaced with feet and vice versa. I really should've looked at those character design packs more closely.
Around 330 spins give or take a dozen I finally got a decent body. Tall, not as muscular as I'd like but lean, the eyes are still bigger than I'd hope, but not beyond the realm of imagination. The most unordinary aspect is the dark green hair, which honestly I don't mind. The face gives a little bit of a puppy dog look, but hey, it's better than looking like a Sailor Lune character or having feet for hands. Looking below the mirror I see the word "Continue" (side note: why did I ever decide comic sans was fun for prototyping purposes) and now with the ability to actually touch things with functional hands, I press it.
The ethereal mirror immediately sinks into the fog around me, with a new stat selection screen falling into place from above. This I knew like the back of my hand. Well… I guess the previous back of my hand. Since the stats were integral to the gameplay, they were one of the first systems I worked on and finished most of. The menu from top to bottom was:
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Stat Selection:
Available Points: 10
Dexterity: 10 [ - ] | [ + ]
Strength: 10 [ - ] | [ + ]
Intelligence: 10 [ - ] | [ + ]
Constitution: 10 [ - ] | [ + ]
Charisma: 10 [ - ] | [ + ]
Wisdom: 10 [ - ] | [ + ]
Luck: 10 [ - ] | [ + ]
[Continue]
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There was supposed to be tooltips to say what each stat was for when you hover over it, but that wasn't something I'd made yet. Luckily I remembered what each was for well enough. I'd stylized the system off of classic tabletop roll playing games. Luck was a stat I added myself, I always love a little bit of chance, and it was supposed to help with success rates on certain actions as well as with finding rare and more items.
For now the question was, how did I want to minmax.