Between November and December of 2014, Weaver made a (short lived) series of "Behind the Scenes" posts on his Tumblr. With his Tumblr being set to mature and basically invisible to people under 18 (for understandable reasons though), these BTS posts are basically invisible and as of beginning this page, I literally only just found out about them today thanks to an old Ruby / Nan Quest fanblog on the site reblogging it, which gave me access to it (on mobile only for some reason). So, enjoy this republishing of these old Behind the Scenes posts, mostly intact in their original state.

Please keep in mind these Behind the Scenes contain MASSIVE SPOILERS so if you haven't read Ruby Quest yet, you should go do that already. I have a couple of links attached on the newcomers page if you want to find where to read Ruby Quest.

Also, if you're seeing this line of text here then it means I haven't uploaded all of the BTS posts I've found yet, this stuff is pretty manual and takes me a bit so I'm not gonna do it all in one rush otherwise I'll burn myself out. :p

October 31st, 2014 (November 1st in local timezone)

Happy Halloween, readers! Today I'm beginning part 1 of a very special event. In RubyQuest: Behind the Scenes, I'll be giving Creator's commentary, giving inside information, talking trivia, and explaining the making of RubyQuest. In the coming days, I hope to give both new and longtime fans insight into the project. I'll be using the original thread breaks as basic guides for length, but each segment will probably also include one or more overviews of concepts, characters, and behind the scenes themes. I won't be commenting on every single thing, but I'll do my best to cover what stands out. It's October 31st -- Halloween Night! Halloween Night is when Ruby and Tom finally escaped the Metal Glen and rode off into the sunset. So what better time to begin?

The History of RubyQuest

Around 2006, I spent a lot of time in what were called "Drawhore Threads" (a mutation of "camwhore"), which were basically just threads on 4chan's Random board (/b/) where one or more artists would work together to draw characters in various situations, and the audience could participate, usually by speaking to the characters. They were basically live (if slow) interactive cartoons . A lot of my art style evolved in this environment, where speed was of the essence, characters had to be distinctive and simple in their design, and you had to get across humorously exaggerated expressions with as few lines as possible. Most of my designs and techniques have clear roots in this method.

Eventually drawhoring sort of died out, for a number of reasons. I missed it a lot. But as the itch grew, and as I drew inspiration from sources like MSPaint Adventure's Jailbreak, I hit upon a solution. Questing, as it came to be known, was basically drawhoring with a consistent plot, a more structured form of audience-character interaction, and a more realized world and setting over a longer period. If Drawhoring was the one-off gag cartoon, Questing was the ongoing series. I didn't invent Questing. I wasn't the first or the most popular. But I like to think that through RubyQuest, I helped popularize the genre, and in part, inspire others to pursue their own creative endeavors through it.

By turning the concept into an interactive game, I could move it outside of /b/, to boards where it had a better chance of surviving. I tried /r9k/, a board that required unique posts as a sort of test gimmick, but nobody really cared, and someone kept spamming Legoland pictures. It didn't find its audience there, so I let it die. I was almost going to leave it at that, but it stuck in my mind, and because I had little else to do at the time, I needed something to focus on. So I tried again, this time on /tg/, 4chan's Traditional Games board. As a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure game, I thought it seemed to fit, and others seemed to agree at the time. So a second attempt was made.

On December 18th, 2008, RubyQuest as we know it began. It was right around my birthday, and I was in a really dark place. I tried not to show it during the quest itself, but I was more unhappy then than I've ever been in my life. Looking back now it's clear to see the things I was upset about didn't matter in the end, and I should have been happy to let some things go. But at the time, I was intensely unhappy. I was sleeping as much as I could and just letting the days flow by because I couldn't stand being awake. RubyQuest was, in many ways, just something to keep my mind focused on something else, and get me through the day. I wasn't depressed, not in the sometimes-apathetic and diagnosable sense. I was just miserable. I channeled all my negative energy into RubyQuest, and that plus the fact I had literally nothing else going on meant I got a lot of work done quickly. RubyQuest would regularly run for 10 hour sessions, usually starting at midnight my time. I didn't know it when I started, but the quest would help me get over my situation and put me back in a healthier mindset. So the game began. Designed to resemble the text parser of old Sierra games, RQ's simple pseudo-formal interface prompted for action.

Animal Crossing

I'd drawn a lot of Animal Crossing comics years ago. And around the time I drew RubyQuest, I had just made a few new ones, like the one pictured here. They were bizarre and hastily drawn and a bit of myself came through, like with Filbert here. When I started drawing RubyQuest, I didn't have a main character in mind. I needed something simple yet recognizable, so characters would be unique, and could be drawn quickly without sacrificing the capacity for expression. I played with a few ideas, but eventually fell back on Ruby as I drew her here. Several characters from RubyQuest were first featured in these "Crossing Pals" comics, including Ruby, Filbert, and Tom. Nan even shows up. All the characters in RubyQuest are named for Animal Crossing characters, and are the same visible 'species'. But despite the references, I don't personally consider RubyQuest an Animal Crossing parody/fanwork/whatever. They're just names and shorthand visuals. But I suppose it doesn't matter.

The Monster at the End of the Book

This may come as a surprise, but RubyQuest was not actually designed as a horror game. Not at first. When I first started RubyQuest, I had designed it as a distraction, as much for myself as the audience. It was very much in the style of Andrew Hussie's Jailbreak or any number of "escape the room"-style flash games. Just a weird, unexplained entrapment that had to be escaped. Many people ask about how far I had planned RubyQuest in advance, and I'll touch more on this in future installments of this Behind the Scenes special. As the quest went on, I certainly had more and more things planned, but at the start, I had nothing planned. I certainly didn't expect it to become a horror story. So the sudden tonal twist early on isn't because I was trying to mislead people, to make things seem innocent before the curtain gets pulled back and the horror lurking behind is revealed. It was a genuine twist, because at the start, RubyQuest was supposed to be innocent. Weird, and maybe a little eerie even, but I had so little planned out that when I started I didn't even know what was going to be in the next room. Sorry to break the illusion for people who thought I was a master schemer, because the very idea of the Metal Glen and all the backstory that eventually grew wasn't even a thought in my head when it started. It was just a rabbit girl trying to escape a room -- nothing more. Not yet.

Here begins the direct commentary. I'll go down the story itself, commenting on things as they strike me.

Part 1 - The Room

Time to begin. It is very dark here. Hardly anything can be seen. Please recommend an action.

The vague language here was just because I couldn't figure out what to say. It ended up being somewhat iconic to the start, but at the time I just couldn't figure out how to say "okay, start".

>Reach out and grasp for the red light. Ah, there we go. Ruby can see now.

I did my best to refer to Ruby and other characters in the third person, usually just by their name, and let the audience make their own deductions. I was pleased to see many began identifying with Ruby in the first person, e.g. "check my pockets", "what are we carrying?"

Only four pictures in and already people are crying "railroad". It was an omen.

So, what did the buttons do? Let's ruin the suspense and say: nothing that important, really. One of them would have let water in though.

Ruby has no magical or otherwise extraordinary powers. She has no knowledge of where she is or how she got here, and though she is not a specialist and holds no particularly special knowledge she is reasonably competent with things most people would be.

Her physical capabilities are varied. She's limber, in good shape, but not particularly strong. Ruby's limber, agile capacities and small frame were ultimately referred to by the phrase "girlish figure". Along with Tom's "manly physique", it was little more than a shorthand for her unique physical abilities as they would affect obstacles, which is why they were often referred to in all caps, like any inventory item would be. It became a running joke, more tongue in cheek than anything, and a way to manipulate puzzles. Apparently some people got upset with this.

There were a lot of sexual suggestions, especially at the start, when the tone of the quest and its scope hadn't been established. It's not surprising, given the medium. I denied most of the requests with sometimes cheeky explanations of why they were being shot down, but the reason I didn't outright ignore them until later was because as hard as it might be to believe, early on, RQ's fate was not certain. If people lost interest or thought they were being ignored, it wouldn't have the audience to continue, and would have withered and died. By at least responding, I was trying to keep what few participants I had interested. I do regret it, though. It gave the very start a tone that didn't fit with the rest of the story and I worry some people may have been alienated by the crude content, thinking it reflected the overall story.

The original intention was to facilitate quick updates by using a few stock poses so the characters didn't have to be redrawn every panel, but even within the first thread it became apparent that wasn't feasible, was too visually boring, and ultimately didn't help the story.

Because RQ was done on the fly, and because the nature of the medium prevented editing, I messed up a lot. Objects would be on the wrong layer, or transparent, or I'd forget to update things. This happened a lot with inventory items especially. I'd also sometimes lose track of what had and hadn't happened sometimes. All my mistakes are now preserved for all time, for everyone to see.

>Don the gloves, fix the terminal with the wire, and screw it together using one of the coins? A brilliant idea, especially since it negates the possibility of electrocution. Ruby sets to work splicing the door panel's wires back together.

One way I tried to bring more involvement and sense of accomplishment in RQ was to simply fudge things a bit. If someone suggested something that was more complex than I intended, I worked that into the puzzle as necessary. For instance, Ruby could probably have fixed this without the gloves, but since they were used, I played up the danger of electrocution. The players would often take things in directions I didn't anticipate, and sometimes I wouldn't bother thinking up the "right" solution to a given encounter, because I knew they'd find a way, organically. The artist-audience link is a mutual one. Their reactions and suggestions would get me thinking and I'd run with those ideas. There's no way I ever could have created RubyQuest as it exists if I had to do it all on my own. My audience was a huge inspiration.

It's supposed to be the light of the fishtank casting a blue hue on her, but it kind of looks like Ruby is filling up with water.

A deceptively formative moment. I had fun with this unexpected reveal, especially because no one could understand it at the time, and that response was just really fun to see. I ended up pursuing twists and dramatic reveals a lot, and I'd play them up just because it was a real pleasure to see people flip out when things went crazy. Strong responses are the best kind to get.

>Take off gloves, reach out, touch the water. Thankfully, there's a big glass window separating Ruby from a horrible drowning death.

This would be only one of many incidents where I realized the simplicity of the art confused some people, and I'd try to clarify in a diegetic way if possible. Ruby quietly reaching out and touching the glass seemed important.

Ruby descends down the access shaft's ladder. Congratulations! You've escaped the first room!

I mentioned that RubyQuest was not originally a horror game, and more of an "escape the room" type puzzle game. The concluding line on the first room certainly makes that clear. It's telling of a lot of things. There is never another message like that. You never see "congratulations, you escaped the second room". In a way, the development reflects the story itself as well as the genre. Ruby and the audience both believed she was escaping the room, and that future challenges would be much the same. It quickly turned out things weren't so simple.

November 7th, 2014 (November 8th in local timezone)

The in-depth event continues! More Creator's commentary, trivia, and secrets about RubyQuest follow. Put on your eyepatches and let's go!

It Grows Inside

You want a secret? The Metal Glen is my mind.

Not literally, of course. Just a bit dramatic of a psychological metaphor, but it's something that occurred to me only recently. I mentioned before that RubyQuest wasn't a horror game masquerading as an innocent puzzle game -- at the start, it really WAS an innocent puzzle game. But behind the scenes, it was here that RubyQuest was changing, right at the moment Ruby entered the second room, I was already beginning to plan for a darker purpose. I may not have had anything longer in mind when it was just Ruby in room 1, but by the time Tom showed up, I was already getting out the red brushes. It is in some ways that I eventually realized the Metal Glen was a reflection of my mind. Even though I had first intended for RubyQuest to be little more than a simple, innocent game, it wasn't long before the darkness started creeping in.

See, I also mentioned that I was feeling pretty fucked up at the time I made RubyQuest. There was a lot of depression and a lot of dark thoughts. In part, I think I may have a case of what the internet calls Cerebus Syndrome, or the tendency for even my lighter and simpler projects to become more serious/dramatic and involved as time goes on. But even more than that, it was only a matter of time before this cheerful little puzzle world I'd created was slowly infested by this corrupting influence. The happy little animal-people solving weird puzzles and opening locks now had to deal with my inner demons as I started feeding into the story. It was all unconscious, and the themes were ones I enjoyed anyway (I'm quite a horror fan, usually), so it's not as dramatic as trying hard to make something happy only to have it crushed by my inescapable bad thoughts; indeed, I had a great time doing RubyQuest as crawling horror. In fact, despite the dark themes, I think it actually helped me get through my own. Hell, in RubyQuest, good wins.

Here begins the direct commentary. I'll go down the story itself, commenting on things as they strike me.

Part 2 - A Friend

Our first encounter with another character. When we first meet Tom, he's aloof, disinterested in our presence, and preoccupied with his own thing. This was an attempt to deepen the strangeness of the setting, making things feel a little off, as well as a theme from older adventure games where everyone basically had one little obsession based on a puzzle. In this case, it was Tom's "Opus", which was just three items stacked together, titled "This Room is Boring", which pretty accurately reflected his predicament. It's made clear he only cares about it because he's got nothing else to do and he's kind of going out of his mind with boredom.

Eventually he sort of "came to his senses" and became more responsive. The implication is that he was just dulled from being trapped and didn't expect to get out any time soon, but that was just the diegetic explanation of Tom transitioning from a puzzle to more of a real character. It's a good turning point for the whole quest, in fact, because it represents that early shift from simple disassociated "escape the room" puzzles to a stronger and more involved story.

MSPaint Adventure's Problem Sleuth was part of what inspired me to try my own adventure, so the comparison was both apt and inevitable. I made this subtle nod in its honor, which has now been ruined by my specifically pointing it out.

Tom is being a sassy bitch. I don't quite know why I drew him in this pose, the stuff he was saying wasn't even that sassy.

Another (and one of the last) sexual requests shot down. I always did find this one kind of amusing, though. Especially how it seemed like Ruby was only just realizing this. Let no one ever claim I had a sophisticated sense of humor.

At one point, when Ruby returns to the room, Tom's "opus" is destroyed. Since that was the one thing he apparently cared about until now, it was meant to reflect his unspoken frustration in his confinement, and the fact he was starting to come back to his senses after some social interaction. Though it also helped to make him look a little unpredictable.

This is the moment where everything changes. Ruby removes the puzzle-key button diagram to reveal a strange, almost runic splatter of blood, and the eye painting on the wall follows her to boot. People started to take notice.

This was a good sign. As I mentioned, I loved riling people up and getting reactions. This was the start of a cycle. Some people have called me a troll author. I don't think this is entirely inaccurate, but it's not baseless either. I'll get into this more in the future though.

I don't like this whole bit. The shaft puzzle was dumb because I had to veto a lot of ideas and we were still in the formative phase where people would try to argue the rules against me, and there were better ways to do it. Also I ended up confusing myself with the button puzzle. Things were getting too technical here, but it was a learning experience. It helped me find a good balance of hard puzzles for later.

>Try and combine each of the items with each other in any and all ways that would not destroy any of the items. Using one COIN, the RUBBER GLOVES, the TINY CHEST, and a piece of the BUTTON DIAGRAM, Ruby fashions together the JUNKOTRON MISSILE LAUNCHER! This baby could break through a steel wall! NO WAIT, THEY DON'T. Too bad, I thought you were really on to something there.

I loved this part. My nod to those old adventure games where you'd randomly combine items, because that candle has to be melted down and coated over that glove, for a waxy glove. Or that swamp muck can only be scooped up into a teacup, not a bottle. Obviously this is something that really fit the lighter tone of earlier RubyQuest -- there was still some silliness later on, sure, but the mood was still up in the air at this point. Some people thought I was getting frustrated, but the opposite was true: this might have been the point I realized exactly how much fun I was having with RubyQuest. A subtle turning point where it occurred to me just how much it was helping me.

I mentioned that I ran RubyQuest in late stretches, usually midnight to 10 AM, my time. I usually spaced these sessions out a few days, for planning, drawing new rooms, and just sort of sitting it out and trying to recoup. Honestly the hardest part of RQ had just been getting myself to care enough to keep doing it, and sometimes it took a day or two to put myself back into the right mindset, but in the end it helped me a lot. By the time it was done, I didn't need to do that anymore. There was a lot of catharsis here.

No secrets here. I just like this panel. Tom, you dummy.

The moment of truth approaches, just before the first true horror reveal. I had already planned to take a horror twist. But if there was any doubt about my decision, any possibility of turning back, this reaction destroyed it. Just look at that. What storyteller wouldn't want to see their audience scream like that? The kind of storyteller I hope to never become.

December 7th, 2014 (December 8th in local timezone)

The in-depth event continues! More Creator's commentary, trivia, and secrets about RubyQuest follow. Get your best pirate impression ready and let's go!

The Huggening

I have some regrets about RubyQuest. And frankly, after reading it all over again, I don't think it was as good as I remembered. I look back, and I see all the mistakes, and all the things I would have done differently. My biggest regret is something I'll get into later, and it was entirely on my side.

But sometimes I sure do regret making Tom and Ruby hug. Don't get me wrong, at the time, I felt it was more than justified. But there's a reason "hug Tom" became memetic: People wouldn't stop suggesting it. Any situation, however inappropriate or out of purpose, there it was. Hug Tom. Hug everyone.

This became so popular and repeated there was even a hug-related RubyQuest easter egg/reference in Killing Floor, here. [Brief 2011 April Fools event documented by Weaver, where characters had their biographies changed into silly/nonsensical alternatives. One character listed as "Kevo_Chav", had his description changed as shown, to "Hit Tom. Kiss Ace!"]

It got tiring. There were more important things to do! Whatever connection Tom and Ruby may or may not have been making at the time was probably overshadowed by other things, and the hug was a symbol of solidarity, but it fast became just the go-to response for every situation. I tried to discourage it. Ruby and Tom only hug... I think three times in the entire quest? And one time it goes wrong. Maybe four, if you count the time it goes really wrong. Still, it stuck, and there was no going back.

Here begins the direct commentary. I'll go down the story itself, commenting on things as they strike me.

Part 3 - The Monster

The closet reveal is, to me, arguably the definitive scene of RubyQuest. I've seen people describe RubyQuest to others as essentially a children's cartoon meets a horror movie, and this may be the scene that first hammered that home. There had already been some ominous buildup, so people were already starting to suspect something, but then the door swings open...

AND THINGS GET KICKED INTO TWELFTH GEAR

It's our first look at Stiches! And boy, he seems a little worse for the wear. His body has become a liquidy, melted mess of flesh and blood, and he gets spilled everywhere like a cherry slushy. Why is Stitches in the closet? We'll touch on that later with Bella, but presumably Ace had stuffed him into it like he would if it were a locker. Whether the mixup was intentional or out of confusion is up for speculation.

At this point there's a sort of double-fakeout, where the horrific liquefied Stitches collapses like a corpse out of the closet, giving just enough of a pause for the audience to think he's dead,

Before everything goes totally crazy and it starts writhing after her like some demon snake, screaming and bellowing. At this point the tone of the story is fully set. The horror angle has made itself known, suddenly, violently, and unquestionably. The lurking, crawling horror has become direct and malevolent. It wants to kill you. We've confronted death and horror, and in a way that should not be possible. All bets are off, sanity is questioned, and readers now fully begin to question "just what the hell is going on?".

In case there was any doubt, yes, I did intentionally raise the possibility of Tom crushing Ruby in the hatch at the last second. Just like I raised the possibility that the buttons were horizontally flipped just as they were being pressed. It was worth it for the reactions. And speaking of which....

After picking up the pieces and some routine puzzle solving, Ruby's finally ready to let Tom out of the cage. So just for the sake of internal conflict, Tom starts acting a little weird and gives the readers a little last-second doubt. It was just paranoia, of course, but everyone was in a great place for a little paranoia. Still, she lets him out all the same.

I kind of wish I'd never had them hug. That big all-caps post convinced me, and I had a lot of sympathy for the tribulations of my own characters at the time, but as I said above, it sure got old fast. There's a very purposeful pause both before and after the hug, though, just to unsettle the viewers further. Had to keep up that atmosphere of unease, even at the most comforting times.

Part 4 - Foreshadowing

With Tom freed, we resume some basic puzzle solving, now with co-op. There's an interesting point here: the deep blue abyss outside turns out to just be an aquarium, yet no one ever seems to question or re-evaluate the idea that we're underwater, even though that had been the only indication. Of course, we eventually realize we are, so it doesn't matter. We enter the Security Station for the first time, Monitors everywhere. That blue pipe runs up from the room downstairs, because we're directly over it! I added it to give a sense of connection and coherence to the facility. I'll talk more about the layout in a later edition, but it was important to realize the facility's modular design meant lots of inter-connectivity.

The room is cropped vertically, with black space at the top. It seems to just be a small room, but soon we learn that Red has made his little home up in the ceiling. In fact, Red is probably sitting up there the entire time these scenes are going on, listening to the two of them. A little creepy if you look back on these scenes knowing what you find out later. We also get our first look at the Eye Disc, a symbolically and functionally important artifact and puzzle piece. The Eye Disc, as it turns out, is one of the artifacts that was dredged up from the Sunken Chamber, giving it a direct connection to the horrors going down in the first place -- but more on that later!

This is a moment I really enjoyed. It was important to impress upon the viewers that Tom is not Ruby, and they don't necessarily share all knowledge and impression. Tom hadn't seen what happened in the room, only heard all the screaming and thrashing. Seeing it soaked in gore had an obvious effect. I'm really pleased that it had exactly the effect I intended, and lots of readers sat up and went "oh, yeah, Tom hasn't been here yet". I like to think it changed the way they thought about managing the two characters.

Sometimes I feel my audience entertained me at least as much as I entertained them.

First look at the maintenance room. And hey, who's that in the background? Why, it's Filbert! Not that we knew that at the time, and he disappears pretty quickly, but the eyes are a giveaway. Filbert was lurking all along. Given what we eventually learn, it can be inferred that Filbert just cut his hand off in the metal slot, an act he references later. He sure seems unphased despite that.

You know what, you guys keep suggesting crazy shit, sooner or later it's actually gonna happen. I didn't have any payoff planned for this, but it was a good example of how story development required both me and the audience, and how we fed off each other. I had a hand and a chute. They suggested putting the hand in the chute. It happened, but I hadn't thought further than that about it. Then someone mused "well at least now if we find another mail chute with a hand in it, we know were it goes." Now, see, I hadn't considered that at the time. But it was a good idea! In fact, it became a vital point later on.

In this way, the world of a quest can be shaped by players even when they're not making a direct suggestion. Sometimes all it takes is someone thinking aloud or speculating a "what if" and then I take that or it gets me thinking about something else and boom, the story takes shape. It's very organic.

Tom is reminded we're in a horror survival setting and not a Lovecraftian porno. I thought this was funny, but my sense of humor has never been exactly sophisticated. In some ways, Tom's more the comic relief than the love interest. Obviously things change more or less throughout the story, but he has his silly moments. He's kind of a goof, he's not as sharp as Ruby, and he gets heavily into borderline-slapstick antics at times. But he does manage to stay pretty optimistic most of the time. And besides, who could stay mad at that face?

As far as I'm aware (and as far as I'm able to see), this is where the Behind the Scenes posts for Ruby Quest sadly stopped. Abrupt, I know but I really can't pull anything else here right now sadly. Maybe if theres more posts hidden away I'll be able to find in the future or if Weaver all a sudden decides to continue his behind the scenes series, I'll add more here.