iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

(to add on to the last post about fell dragons) This is the Sagittarius fell dragon!

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It's more-so a visual theming and vibes thing! (Rather than lore/destiny) Fell dragons are like an evolution, so if a non-themed dragon became one they'd likely change visually to reflect the stars theme (If there is another derg shmup, it would be in the base design too like them for consistency)

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(EX/9) Mirage All of the fell dragons have astrological theming. Mirage's silhouette is based off of a sea goat (Capricorn), and her mane is shaped like a star idk where her big evil hand went in-game (just kidding, I do know)

(9/9) Past Velvet Her design changed a little bit between drawing this and actually putting her in the game (mostly the body shape and hair style) She was also going to be pink at one point, but purple makes her look better when standing next to Silk... Basically, Velvet is a servant to the story

(8/9) Snapdragon Her portrait was super easy to draw because she's just a noodle

(7/9) Lotus This one isn't that interesting tbh

(6/9) Lily Where did her froggy friends go?

(5/9) Esther Fun fact: This was the first spell portrait I drew, and it was the main style reference for the rest of the portraits Also, she is supposed to have 4 fingers I forgot to draw the 4th one, and instead of fixing it, I doubled down on the mistake and now she just has 3 fingers

(4/9) Poly "Poly" means "multiple", so I thought it would be funny if her design featured a lot of singular elements (one horn, single-direction eyelashes, poses that lean heavily to one side). Her sharp, irritable personality in contrast with her cute, soft design further explores this gag as well

(3/9) Rafflesia I think she has my favorite portrait. My non-nnff art style is more sharp and monster-y, so this was felt really comfortable to draw

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(2/9) Lobelia Lobelia was originally going to be evil and smug, but I thought having an in-denial optimist would fit way better with the overarching themes of the story On the surface she may look clueless and silly, but deluding yourself to that degree for so long requires a lot of intelligence

Posting the rest of the spell portrait timelapse drawings in a big thread with bonus background info!.. (1/9) Plumeria This was one of the hardest spell portraits to draw, and you can kind of see that here. She also lost some of her arms somewhere along the way (from 6 to only 2)

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oooh, that was one of the few sounds I made!* *(by made, I mean, it was sampled from something extremely obscure and edited)

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(posting more of those timelapse things) this is basically a 2-in-1 because the little sprite friend Silk was originally going to be the final boss and also would use minions to attack you. This is technically still the case in the final version of the game if you squint

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If you mean the boss sprites, the sketches for those are actually usually pretty similar to the finals! (no fun timelapse potential, though)

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Keeping this in mind for the future! (might not add it to NNFF specifically, though)

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(I'll have to put together a little collection sometime!)

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Mongo @mongosnowart.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I just realized because of how I save the versions of all my pixel art drawings, I can make weird little timelapses like this

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fun fact: the drawn scenes were not originally supposed to all be purple my go-to color to sketch in is purple, and I showed off the "greyscale"(purplescale??) version of the intro to some friends, and they thought it was a cool stylistic choice... so I just left everything as is

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Eden's Exalt by Aru, sylvysprit, Mongo

You can check it out here btw: wingedfox.itch.io/edens-exalt (Aru's gameplay/level design is so tight and fun to play, and Sylvy's music ties everything all together)

wingedfox.itch.io

Battle against the bird-like Angels, lay waste to their Garden, and find what's been taken from you.

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(also, this is the logo I designed for it!)

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it was a bullet hell jam, and we had to cut the scope to one stage from three due to only having a week to do everything I'm really proud of some of the ideas I came up with for it! The visual design was heavily inspired by Zone of the Enders, Evangelion, and Kirby

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Mongo @mongosnowart.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

some concept art I did for a gamejam I helped work on a while back! #indiedev #gamedevelopment #gamedev #art

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how I be sitting whilst at a computer (miraculously, no back problems)

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Mongo @mongosnowart.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

(more super old drawings) Over time she became less monster-y and more elegant (and old)

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Mongo @mongosnowart.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Lotus is the oldest character design out of everyone in NNFF. I made her over 14-ish years ago as a fakemon I'm glad she finally has a home #noneedforflowers #nnff

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Mongo @mongosnowart.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

I had to rewrite Plumeria as a character a few times too. But I think it was *extremely* worth it because stage 5 is probably the best one (this attack below SUCKED so HARD TO PLAY AAA)

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Mongo @mongosnowart.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Plumeria's boss fight was the hardest to design, and took me the longest to make (~8 months... for reference st6 boss took only ~3) all the initial prototypes of the boss fight were just like completely thematically random and aimless and I had to redo it from scratch twice #noneedforflowers #nnff

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Mongo @mongosnowart.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

my game design philosophy is that if it feels fun with minimal graphics, it's probably okay

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Mongo @mongosnowart.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

all of the boss fights in the game looked like this for like 80% of development (graphics were always added as the very last thing)

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Mongo @mongosnowart.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

hmm I might actually look into opening an Etsy shop sometime for them!

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Mongo @mongosnowart.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

good catch! This picture was actually taken right as stage 4+5 were being finished and the patterns in 6 were being drafted. Also, Silk used to be the final boss (long story) and a lot of the ones in that picture are HER patterns btw there's actually a whole set of stickers (I make stickers a lot)

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Mongo @mongosnowart.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

A lot of the notes and concepts for NNFF were done on sticky notes and paper which I would tape to my wall. Whenever I would finish with the notes, I'd stick them in this huge binder #nnff #noneedforflowers

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Mongo @mongosnowart.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Velvet is probably the character I have drawn the most art of besides Esther #noneedforflowers #nnff

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Mongo @mongosnowart.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

(there are no lore secrets hidden in the game files btw, just scrapped stuff (and koji))

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Mongo @mongosnowart.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

You were originally going to unlock a bonus room with flashback dialogues from deceased characters, but I thought introducing non-fightable/non-playable characters in a game as short as NNFF would ruin the conciseness of the story... so it was scrapped in the end.