Wahoooo! Another year we made it through life, a little older, but a little wiser. Despite it's flaws, I hope everyone has had great memories to look back on 2023, and are excited for the future!

December 23: Pobble Batch (2 pobble tickets each)

December 24-31: Outfit Extravaganza and Cervabloom Masquerade

December 30-31: Winterborn MYO Sale

Our prompts have updated! Please head over to the prompts page to view them all!

The main prompt will be the December 2023 Monthly prompt.

Note that for the end of the year, the rewards are slightly different, so please read the description before completing the prompt!

❥ POBBLE TIME

The pobble batch this month will be winter themed, and each have a Frozen Cryptid Dumpling applied. It will be a FCFS sale on December 23, for 2 pobble tickets each!

❥ OUTFIT EXTRAVAGANZA AND CERVABLOOM MASK-ERADE

In the spirit of giving, from December 24-31, there will be a series of raffles for winter themed outfits, as well as pre-designed Cervabloom raffle. If you possess an Amethyst Heart however, you may opt to skip the raffle "line" and claim an outfit, or Cerva for yourself. In order to get one, please complete this month's monthly prompt!

But wait! There's more! How will the Cervabloom's look be determined?

❥ Every day, I will be writing out a small winter-y scenario, with several paths you can take! Each path you choose will determine a specific aspect of the look of the Cervabloom. This will be a community vote, and the option with highest vote wins. If votes are even, we will rely on rngesus. Play as one or more of your OCs, and complete optional mini prompts and doodles to add votes to the scenario you want (like out aliens vs cowboys event). The final result will be a winterborn Cervabloom, looking as put together or as chaotic as the community deems, for raffle.

Almost there guys, haha! I just wanted to thank you all for another wonderful year, and for sticking by our little group! So... phew... now comes the news. I've done a lot of thinking, and I've decided to make a decision regarding the direction I want to take this group in moving forward into the New Year. 

This is something I've been mulling for a while now, because it is something new and I'm really not sure how it will be taken, but it's almost 2024, I'm going to go through with it! Firstly, Guide and Seek will still remain a closed species group, that is not changing. By "closed species", to me it means that it will be a private group where I hope to be aware of most people participating and sharing the world I've built, and not opening it too much to the public in a way that makes it unmanageable.

That being said...

❥ Primarily, I want to bring GnS back to its roots and transition it into an ARPG with less monetized aspects. I want to focus on continuing to build GnS's lore and running events over hosting sales. GnS has always been a creative passion project for me, and I want to dedicate all my energy into building this world with games and events that everyone can enjoy. With the economy not being great, and the overall "adoptable" concept and deviantart dying out, it has become increasingly more stressful for me to run and manage sales, and if I'm, being honest, I don't think I've been doing a very good job because of my loss of interest in doing so. Unfortunately, this means I will be discontinuing our permanent GA system, and is why I've adopted the new "rolling GA" application system, so I can better manage and control sales whenever inspiration strikes. However, self-managed GA sales like the one ducc, maz and honeydebt and mika have done may still continue.

❥ Game Development: Many of you may know my sister, myst, who is an avid lurker of the group. She is going into her first year of game art and development, and we have been having so much fun developping mini game ideas based off of GnS lore. Myst and I have talked a lot about this subject, and we are planning on working together on future game projects, and are both inspired by the already established lore and premises of the GnS world and characters. We have a lot of future plans, and although currently the games we have are super simple and not as immersive, we are hoping to slowly change that and make more exciting and community - involved projects as we both grow and develop as a sibling not-so-studio! Of course, this won't be all we ever do, it will just become a more regular part of GnS events in the future. Additionally, if anyone in the community wishes to help out with anything on a volunteer basis, feel free to reach out, and we can even figure something out, like adding your OCs into a game! Doing this however, also takes time, and so I may have periods of time where I am less consistently active and more "dormant" months of rest. Fret not though, I will always be back with new event ideas!

❥ That being said, sales will still happen, I am and have always been in love with character design, but they'll occur much less frequently and only when I feel inspired and have the energy/time to hold them. I also plan on holding more raffles instead of sales for smaller designs, or maybe even in game currency sales that are more accessible for everyone.

❥ Regarding MYOs: Natural MYO slot sales will continue to be available permanently, for those who want a quick way in. The reason I am not making them free or open however, is purely for management reasons. However, I have made it so it is very eassy to get MYOs through participation. We also have a very lovely and giving community who are extremely welcoming to newcomers, so I am very proud of that. Synthetic MYO slots will no longer be available for irl money sale, but can still be given out as event rewards or purchase via in game currency. Again, synthetic potions are plenty to come by. For now, Seasonal MYOs will continue to go on, and legendary sales may as well, albeit not very frequently.

This change may not even be a huge deal, but to me it feels like one. I am super thankful to have been able to grow and develop this world with all of you in it, and I hope to continue doing so, albeit in a slightly different direction! I hope you are understanding of the situation as my interests and passions change.

Myst and I have finished another minigame, and have a larger, more exciting project in the works, that is scheduled to be finished on December 18th!

TOMATO'S REVENGE

The sequel to Tomato's Escape, this is a classic space shooter! Tomato's set on revenge!! How many aliens can Tomato take down before his ship fails him? Don't worry though, Finch has left cheese out, Tomato will ALWAYS find a way back home, even if he's willingly left again to exact ketchup-filled justice.

GUIDE AND SEEK ISLES: A GUIDE

(These are still WIP screencaps, and not all the art has been imported yet)

This is the project we are currently the most excited about! It is a simple, top down rpg style game aimed to give players a more visual idea of what the GnS Isle is like. It is mostly wandering around, but you may meet some noteable NPCs and do some little side quests! For now, we have part of the Grove of Life, as well as the Amethys Isles. In the future we are hoping to expand this to the entire GnS Mainland map, so community members can actually walk through, explore, and read interesting lore tidbits by interacting with the "!" symbols. The first version, with the grove and Amethyst Isles, will be done on December 18, and will be released before next year! I am super excited to add some level of community interactivity into this, like adding your OCs into the game with some cute dialogue, or your OCs' houses as a landmark! We are also playing around with the idea of customizeable protagonists, but that is not a promise I can make currently. 

As Myst progresses with her skills and learns more complex coding, we are happy to take any suggestions on how we can further include a level of community involvement and roleplay in games, as GnS works the best when everyone here is involved! We are also considering hybrid game/rp event gameplay. Many possibilities in the horizon!