Welcome!

hi! I'm Tess, TessXi wherever Tess is taken, I also go by notAduck in some places around the web.

About the Website

Some time ago I was pleasantly surprised to discover that personal sites and webrings weren't yet a thing of the past but were still being made now, by people trying to avoid the hegemony that comes with modern day social media, and while I think these platforms still have their uses, they remain impersonal by design.
So after browsing many personal websites, both here on neocities and elsewhere, I figured I'd try my hand at it.

This place is a work-in-progress, many pages don't yet exist, of what is available you will find on the sitemap

About the Creator

I'm not really good at talking about myself, or talking in general, so instead here's a list of things I like. (or y'know, just look around the site, you'll get an idea)

• Art - any kind of art, I like it when people make things. Ever since I was a kid I've sought out art that was even remotely novel
• Game Development - games are a kind of art, I like playin'em, I like makin'em (on occasion)
• RPG maker - for the uninitiated, RPG maker is a game development engine made for the sole purpose of creating shitty Dragon Quest clones, despite this, people have been using it to make narratively driven games with little to no RPG elements ever since the early 2000s. Many, myself included, grew up playing or watching someone play these, they hold a special place in my heart so I've dedicated a part of the "games" section solely to RPG maker
• Linguistics - phonetics and writing systems especially
• Purple - I fucking love urple

Updates

• 10.02.24 - added another entry to "writing"
• 06.02.24 - added another RPGmaker game: "Desiredriven"
• 19.12.23 - added a "writing" section, with it a single devlog
• 07.12.23 - added manga section and expanded the touhou page
• 28.11.23 - added thumbnails (makes text harder to read, might change)
• 21.11.23 - added buttons
• 14.11.23 - site's up

Video Games

the lifeblood of humanity

RPG maker games

game engine used to make RPG games, these get their own section

Touhou

japanese shoot 'em up franchise and internet multimedia phenomenon made by one guy

Mirror Stage

very unique and obscure puzzle game

Gimmick!

incredibly well aged NES platformer

Downwell

charming and tightly designed rougelike

Games without their own page

Anna

short sci-fi adventure puzzle game from 2005 about AI and free will. The minimal art style is nice and the puzzles are pretty well made, the voice system one in particular is a highlight. Takes less than an hour to complete.

Neko Yume

ever wanted LSD dream emulator but with like... cats?

Basilisk

creepypasta-esque game parading as an abandoned work in progress SNES game on an old emulator, if that description piqued your interest, play it, it's super short and memorable.
If you're familiar with Akuma Kira's other work you'd know they're exceptional when it comes to sound design, even though there's nothing in the game that pops out at you the ambiance still keeps me on edge. I enjoy the small flourishes made to make it more believable as an actual emulator, like the "readme" file, or the screenshot button that captures the window

Mighty Jill Off

short platformer featuring a BDSM slave/master dynamic. This is one of those games in that 2000's period when indie games were making a lot of headway in the west, back when a game being 'indie' was noteworthy in itself.
Jill might be familiar to some as she was featured in super meat boy as an unlockable character.

(any sufficiently difficult videogame has a slave/master dynamic if u think about it)

Paranoiascape

Paranoiascape is a 3D, first person, horror, pinball game. Released for the PS1 in 1998 by lead designer Screaming Mad George, a practical effects artist and outsider to the video game industry seeing as this is the only game he's ever been involved with. It features grotesque body horror graphics and befittingly horrible controls.
Being the weird little thing that it is, it never gained much popularity in Japan, and thus didn't reach other markets. It's surprisingly short, and aside from the artstyle there's not much here (his website's kinda cool tho).

Other

Kanoguti

obscure game developer, most of their site is in Japanese

Stephen Levelle

obscure game developer best known for Stephen's Sausage Roll and English Country Tune, he's released hundreds of games many in his own game making tools Flickgame and PuzzleScript, the latter of which comprises the majority of his discography, consisting of short excursions in novel Sokoban mechanics, surprisingly many penises abound.

Some highlights of his I'd recommend are:

Subway Adventure
Slave of God
Hirnfluch Braincurse
Signifier
Hypnocult
Worst Guest
and my favorite: Mirror Stage

Art

the "miscellaneous" page

Manga

a showcase of various manga I've enjoyed

Flash

some of the flashes I've accumulated over time, mostly touhou

stuff I've made

Games

a link to my Itch.io, which is unfortunately almost empty aside from a few joke games I've completed

if you've ever dabbled in game dev yourself you'll know that the real challenge isn't coding or art or whatever, it's being able to actually finish a damn thing

I have some 30+ unfinished games that range from a single room with a moving object to basically complete but not released for whatever reason

Writing

semi-coherent ramblings, proper grammar is optional right?

Pyrography

toying around with an old pyrography kit

Traditional Art

I like doodling with fineliners

Sitemap

• About
• Games
  • RPG maker
    • The Witch's House
    • Blank Dream
    • .flow
    • Desiredriven
  • Touhou
  • Mirror Stage
  • Downwell
• Art
  • Manga
  • my Itch.io page
  • Writing
    • Space Invaders Black Label
    • DIY Suika Gourd
  • Pyrography
  • Traditional Art
• Sitemap
  • u r here
• Links
• Chatbox
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr

(some of) The resources used to make this site

Oldschool PC Fonts

as the name implies, a large collection of fonts used by old computers

Fool Lovers

various site layout templates, this page's layout takes heavy inspiration from some of these

日本の伝統文様　(Traditional Japanese Patterns)

100 different traditional japanese patterns

Ikiya.jp

another website for traditional japanese patterns

Spriters Resource

website for uploading ripped game assets, great for getting backgrounds

Other sites I enjoy

buttons! here's mine, please refrain from hotlinking

cool people, check'em out

Chatbox

Wanna leave a comment? suggestion for the site?! call me a slur?!? all of that made possible here (btw if u grab the bottom-right corner u can resize the chat box, try it).

Socials

If you'd like to do any of the above but in DMs feel free to do so on my Twitter.

I've also made a Tumblr, I don't use it much but it's there.