Velvet Cupcake Games

Digital art featuring Meissa, a character from the game Made Marion. They are resting against a tree branch, eyes closed under a beautiful night sky with a telescope in their left hand. Their long purple hair pooling down over the branch and over the water of the lake which reflect the sky above. Far in the horizon, a foggy forest and some mountains can be seen.

I'm trying out a new basic brush I never worked with before.

... I like it !

Art featuring Meissa of Nibiru, romanceable character from the game "Made Marion" by @velvetcupcakegames.bsky.social

Femme non-binary game developer says a) no such thing and b) I don't want my creativity "augmented" by a machine, thanks. My awesome team does that with their cool ideas.

🌹Red Rebellion's an adventure game about...

💘Robin Hood... but she's a woman!
🐺Red Riding Hood... but she's also the WOLF!
🧙‍♀️And with help from Grandma, they rebel!

this #indiegame is part of #Myths&Legends2026!

Play the free demo and wishlist now!👇
#gamedev

Best,
Marketer Kin🐣

Over 50% of game developers now think generative AI is bad for the industry, a dramatic increase from just 2 years ago: 'I'd rather quit the industry than use generative AI' The latest GDC survey also found that managers are more likely to use generative AI than their employees.

"Our standing rule is: If one of us brings up using GenAI in any of our work, then it's safe to assume we've been assimilated by The Thing and should be burned alive by Kurt Russell," said a game design consultant in the US.

Update 83: Made Marion Development Update, January 2026 · Made Marion Happy New Year, everyone!Today I put Made Marion 3.1EA live on Steam and Itch.io. The main purpose of this patch was to add the John PoV scenes to the game. You unlock them by completing one or more o...

Mini-Patch 3.1EA is now live on Steam and Itch, adding John's PoV scenes. Get the deets at:
www.kickstarter.com/projects/vcg...

VN devs, let's share our works together! quote this with 4 screenshots from your game and a link to it ❄️

Made Marion is an action-adventure romance VN inspired by the Robin Hood Legends. Fight for freedom and fall in love!

store.steampowered.com/app/1482150/...

P.S. Hours spent removing genAI bloatware from our productivity software should be billable to the companies that jammed it in there without our permission.

In addition, I found this nice guide to remove any existing Copilot bloat from Visual Studio Code:

leonidboykov.com/how-to-disab...

Visual Studio Code heads-up! The latest update includes the option to use a bunch of Copilot agents. If you detest that stuff like I do, right click the "Finish Setup" box at the bottom of the window and you can "Hide Copilot Status" which I assume means you'll never actually install the damn slop.

Made Marion characters Meissa and John stand in the Nottingham Great Hall, which has been festively decorated for a feast. Meissa's sprite has been color swapped so they have bright white robes and glowing yellow hair. John is wearing a red shirt and is wrapped in tinsel.

Season's Greetings from VC Games

With apologies to Arrapso for poorly messing with her sprites once again.

Santa John ushers out the old year and Angel Meissa, to whom John is passing the torch, ushers in the new. Hope you all have a lovely holiday/day off and we'll be seeing you in 2026!

Made Marion characters Meissa and John stand in the Nottingham Great Hall, which has been festively decorated for a feast. Meissa's sprite has been color swapped so they have bright white robes and glowing yellow hair. John is wearing a red shirt and is wrapped in tinsel.

Season's Greetings from VC Games

With apologies to Arrapso for poorly messing with her sprites once again.

Santa John ushers out the old year and Angel Meissa, to whom John is passing the torch, ushers in the new. Hope you all have a lovely holiday/day off and we'll be seeing you in 2026!

One thing I keep noting is that romance VNs aimed at women and LGBT folks have a very low rate of genAI usage (and vocal anti-genAI sentiment). You wanna find a principled segment of the game dev population, look our way.

We are tiny teams, too. If we can afford not to use it, what's the excuse?

I'm opening up three slots for commissions =^.^=

Check out my kofi for full price range and add-on options!
ko-fi.com/lawrichai

A black cat is sitting in front of a computer monitor, blocking the view of the screen. Made Marion is playing on the computer. A glass of alcohol is sitting next to the cat, which is impressive because in my house that glass would be on the floor.

A friend reports that she is playing Made Marion on high difficulty. How do you do that? This is how.

The style you used reminds me of Henri Rousseau's jungle paintings, which I adore. Looking forward to seeing the finished John/Marion if you get to it! (I know how this stuff goes as a dev.)

A digital painting of the character Meissa from the visual novel "Made Marion." It shows a person with long purple hair, purple clothes, and pale skin. They're set against a green background that is blurry and appears to be like leaves. Green light washes over them.

@velvetcupcakegames.bsky.social Hello!! I am your Secret Santa!! I ended up drawing Meissa from Made Marion! I really enjoyed what I saw of them so far!

I hope you enjoy! #VNSS2025

Aww, thank you so much, they're so cute!

And it took me all of a minute. Probably less time than doing a prompt and then having to resize it properly for the game assets.

Oh neat! Excited to see your second romance VN after Akash. I enjoyed that one.

Seeing discussions of why it's completely unnecessary to use genAI for placeholder art. And even dangerous, because like what happened to Sandfall, you can miss that it was a placeholder.

There was a 0% chance that I could miss my own placeholder art for our tarot deck.

Wanna avoid a huge PR blowup for your game company?

GenAI: Just Don't Use It.

Watercolour Wednesday

Alanna of Nottingham.
Watercolour on Moleskine Pad

Alanna is a romanceable character from the game "Made Marion" from Velvet Cupcake Games.
@velvetcupcakegames.bsky.social

Made Marion by Velvet Cupcake Games A romantic visual novel inspired by the legends of Robin Hood.

John's Route is Live on Itch now! Little John, now DRM-free! ;)

velvet-cupcake-games.itch.io/made-marion

Made Marion - John's Route Released - Steam News Made Marion has reached the halfway point in Early Access with the release of Little John's route. This marks the completion of the Sherwood-side love interests.

John's Route is live on Steam!

Please see our announcement and patch notes:
store.steampowered.com/news/app/148...

Made Marion by Velvet Cupcake Games A romantic visual novel inspired by the legends of Robin Hood.

John's Route is Live on Itch now! Little John, now DRM-free! ;)

velvet-cupcake-games.itch.io/made-marion

Made Marion - John's Route Released - Steam News Made Marion has reached the halfway point in Early Access with the release of Little John's route. This marks the completion of the Sherwood-side love interests.

John's Route is live on Steam!

Please see our announcement and patch notes:
store.steampowered.com/news/app/148...

The Made Marion Logo with "John's Release" written across it.

John Releases DEC 7!

Just a quick note from late evening December 6. John's route will release TOMORROW, Dec 7! However, I need to do a bit more QA and polish. So it will probably release later in the day rather at 12:01am or 10am PST like our usual releases. I will announce once it is out!

For how popular that "one guy slow-claps and then everyone else joins in" trope is, it's rather difficult to find that sound effect. Had to kinda queue it up myself.

2-panel comic about two guys lamenting about modern games whilst refusing to acknowledge indie games

Yep! Most of the Robin Hood characters were adapted and borrowed from older stories. Just like how there's now an entire category of lit that derives from Twilight fanfic. Humans have always humaned.