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yuurei20 · 2 months

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Idk if you've talked about it before, but have you seen the voice lines for Crowley's card? At the end people were saying he implies HE'S the one who brought the MC to Twisted Wonderland👀

Hello hello!! Thank you for this question! ^^

I am not sure that that is how I would interpret his line!

The original Japanese is 「貴方みたいな勤勉で優秀な生徒がいてくれて助かっています。これからも問題児を“監督”してくださいね」

The form of the verb "help" makes this difficult to put into English...literally translated it may be something close to, "It's proving helpful to have diligent, excellent students like you available. Please do continue to ‘supervise’ the troublemakers."?

A vaguer translation might be "It helps to have diligent, excellent students like you," and I can see how that could be interpreted into the implication that he arranged for students like the prefect to be on hand for assistance.

But given the form of "help," I don't think there is that much depth to read into! :> There is nothing to insinuate that he is glad he brought the prefect here, or that he was involved in their being here at all.

Of course there is a lot that is still unknown about Crowley, and the theory that he intentionally brought the prefect over to make something happen (or to keep something from happening 👀) is a popular one (and very fun to think about!).

But if I were attempting to champion that theory, I personally would not use this particular line as proof! It could, of course, be setting a foundation so that a future reveal does not blindside the players 👀 But the line by itself is vague, which is probably by design!

And there were two more Crowley lines that I found interesting!

「私の全力を知りたい？随分と怖いもの知らずですねえ……学園長として心配になってしまいます」

"You want to know my full power? You are quite audacious…as headmage, it is worrying."

Crowley is not the first character to comment on the audaciousness/fearlessness of the prefect: Malleus has a very similar line but their phrasing is different, with Crowley saying 怖いもの知らず, while Malleus says 恐れを知らない. Malleus repeats this same phrasing at least twice in the original game, though it it written in two different ways on EN.

Both Crowley and Malleus' phrasings are two ways of saying something that could be localized as the same thing in English, but subtle turns of phrase are proving to be very important in the original game.

For example, when you set Crowley to the homescreen he will say, "私をお呼びですか？"

And this is an interesting parallel to Malleus', "僕を呼んだ?"

Malleus’ phrase tends to be rewritten as various different expressions on EN such as “You called?,” “Was it you who called me?” and “Did you need something?”

But in the original game he always uses the exact same phrase, which is different from Crowley’s “私をお呼びですか？” while meaning the same thing.

While it would normally not be an issue for a localizer to take something that seems repetitive in one language and give it more flair in the other, it seems that this repetition was intentional and maybe should have been kept consistent to the original game?

Especially because English does not have things like different words for "I" like Japanese does (Crowley uses "watashi" while Malleus uses "boku") to help tell one person's phrasing apart from another's.

EN experienced a similarly unfortunate problem with Idia’s, “Leave it to your big bro,” with the phrase getting rewritten into "I'll get you trilling like a canary" and "I got this!" on EN, presumably before Aniplex USA realized that it was being repeated word-for-word for a reason.

Is it possible that the information that Aniplex USA receives in advance is limited, so they just do not know which of these phrases are safe to change and which need to be kept accurate to the original game?

With all the variations to Malleus' "You called for me?" on EN, Crowley has the potential to be localized with a phrase that is identical to at least one of Malleus' multiple English-language interpretations. In the original game, however, Malleus' phrasing is consistent, and completely different from the phrasing used by Crowley, while meaning the same thing! (and the "same but different" pattern has the potential to be very significant 👀)

#twstask #twisted wonderland

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hyunjinsbelovedamericano · 9 months

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Dating skz headcanons pt2

fluffy fluff

not proof read yet

Bangchan

You guys would play board or card games together,like monopoly.He would get a bit pissed when you win so he would resort to cheating."Chan you just can't just do that!","Do what?Your just mad cause im better",If your playing Uno he would secretly look at your cards then put down the card colour he knows you don't have.You get him back though and make him lose three in a row because that's what he deserved

Lee know

You guys would bully kidson roblox together,you would go on the voice chat games and just roast little kids😭,one of the little kids would be secretly one of the members(han)and you would just annoy and bully him so much to the point you could hear him get mad in the other room.When you hear him talk about someone bullying him on rolls you guys would just look at each other and smile while Han is whining about being bullied

Changbin

I feel like you guys would match with each other,intentionally and unintentionally.You guys would have matching bracelets,rings,shoes etc.One day you would wake up and feel like wearing a saniro onesie turns out that's exactly what Changbin was thinking.you guys would take so many pictures and post them.The captions would be like "I just unintentionally matched with my s/o,soulmates?yes."

Hyunjin

You guys would act out movies scenes together,you would be watching twilight and something cringe would happen so you just have to pause it and act the scene.The best one you guys would do is when Regina George got hit by the bus,especially because he's so good at being dramatic,you would be fully convinced he's a part-time actor"Your acting is so good you should be the next Zendaya", "I am zendaya"

Han

You and Han would try act like each other,you know those tiktoks like "acting like my sister for the day", that's what you guys do but more regularly.He would purposely exaggerate what you do,for the memes of course. "Han I do not act like that"," Are you sure?".But when it comes to you acting like him he would get all embarrassed," Stop,I don't talk like that", "Are you sure?" You say mimicking him from earlier

Felix

For each others birthdays,you guys do this thing where you make your own cakes for them(You have a backup just in case)You would do the funniest designs on the cake,the fans know about this because on his birthday live he explained it and said "so far they've been on a big foreheaded style,last year they have me pennywise,this year they gave me megamind"he would show the cakes to the fans and have a whole taste testing thing to see which came taste better,his normal cake or your cake

Seungmin

I feel like you guys would remind each other or embarrassing moments that happened,if you guys were play fighting (verbally)he would 100% be like "remember when you fell in front of the whole class after doing a presentation?" , "You can't even talk because you did horrible aegyo for the whole world to see",So you wanna be like that?" He would say then you guys would go back and forth about humiliating moments

Jeongin

You and Jeongin would have staring contests out of nowhere,You could be standing line for something and you spot Jeongin in the room instead of saving you just stars and him and it becomes a contest to see who can not blink for the longest,if he wins more than three times in a row he would flex it on you non-stop,he would have so much fun reminding you that you suck at staring contests but then quickly shut up when you win

#skz x yn #skz fluff #changbin x reader #hyunjin x reader #lee know x reader #stray kids fluff #felix x reader #han x reader #jeongin x reader #seungmin x reader #Bangchan x reader #skz imagines #skz headcanons #skz drabbles #stray kids x reader #stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios

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aidaino · 1 month

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M:tG x Xenoblade Set Mechanic: Bond

Let's start with the first mechanic I created for this set, before I even decided to make a set of it: Bond. Basically I wanted to create a Pyra & Mythra card and wanted some mechanic to represent the way Blades work in XC2. From there was a journey of iteration that's still ongoing. But enough rambling, let's get into the mechanic:

Bond is a tap ability on creatures that says "{t}: Until end of turn, target nonbonded, non-Blade creature adds this creature's power and toughness to its own, gains the following abilities, and becomes bonded. You can't bond during combat." It's intentionally templated similar to March of the Machine's backup mechanic where everything below the bond ability printed on the card is what gets transferred over to the other creature. Here's an example:

What I like about this design: The bond ability is a lot to take in at first, but it feels very intuitive to play with and since it's all over the set you only need to learn it once to start evaluating all the cards. The bond ability adds a lot of the complexity for even simple designs like this that are just a single keyword to feel dynamic in how they play. I also like that it encourages the desired play pattern of "I want to get out a creature that this can bond with so I can give lifelink to a large creature instead of a 1/1."

What I don't like about this design: The reminder text is so loooong. This is essentially a creature with two keywords that doesn't have space for flavor text. It's also complicated reminder text with numerous restrictions that make sense either flavorfully or mechanically, but still have to exist. Secondly is that it's really powerful as is. This is a 2 mana 1/1 with lifelink and it's probably too powerful because it can just hand out a slight stat buff but much more importantly, lifelink to creatures that can just start running away with a game of limited, all while not having to commit this creature to combat. I'm actively looking to nerf this creature in particular (especially as I'm also looking to nerf the tool the aggro decks have that deals with this creature well) though I've been experimenting with different ways bond could work so the entire mechanic might just change in the meantime.

What changes have I considered/am I considering: A lot of the restrictions on bond as it exists now are the product of testing. Until end of turn helps weaken the ability with vigilance (which is important since the archetype is supposed to be in white). The nonbonded restriction keeps you from being able to load up your entire board's power, toughness, and abilities onto a single creature. Non-blade is admittedly more of a flavor restriction though it also helps prevent power/toughness stacking. The "you can't bond during combat" was to prevent using bond as an on-board combat trick while still allowing it to be used for blocking. Currently bond is about as powerful as I would ever want it, as it allows you to switch what creatures are getting bonded to from turn to turn and it gives a full power, toughness, and ability effect, which is why all these restrictions are in place. One idea I've been testing out recently is to limit the power and toughness increase to just +1/+1 until end of turn. This helps limit the swinginess of the mechanic, as it alleviates the problem that can sometimes arise where giving your blades counters, equipment, and auras to boost their power made them much more powerful as they could transfer that boost to other creatures. It also helps to support the more slow and incremental advantage vibe I'm constantly trying to reinforce throughout the set's design. This more restrained form allows me to remove the "nonbonded creature" restriction, since power stacking is less threatening in increments of 1. The main issue is it removes a major distinguishing factor between different blades. Making designs at 5 or 6 mana becomes harder to do since what are you getting out of tapping your creature to give +1/+1 that's worth that much mana, especially when the blades are meant to have those abilities inherently. Also removing that restrictions required me to reword some abilities or change them altogether because they were too powerful when they could be stacked onto the same driver by untapping and retapping the blade (which is a major set mechanic). The other design I've been considering, though I haven't tested it yet, is to make bond more similar to soulbond from Avacyn Restored. Specifically, I could see it working where you could pair the creature with a driver when either of them enters the battlefield, and then the bond ability can only affect the paired driver. This could help a lot to reduce board state complexity in cases where you have multiple drivers and blades which is nice. You could even somehow work in a mechanic where if the driver dies, the blades return to hand, making it harder to send creatures into battle and not have those threatening abilities go away if they are defeated in combat. But a lot of that would be down to iteration and testing.

Final thoughts: I really like Bond, even if it is a very powerful and volatile mechanic. The flavor pops out of the cards and having a mechanic start from a place of power and fun and tempering it from there is a good problem to have. I also just like the design challenge presented by abilities like backup or bond that say "How do I make an ability that is cool on this creature, but is potentially even cooler if I give it to other creatures?" Oh and now I can properly say I'm living up the "Rambling" in the blog name. Have a good one, y'all!

#magic the gathering #mtg #mtg custom card #xenoblade #xenoblade chronicles #xbc #xbc2 #xenoblade chronicles 2

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oopsalltes · 8 months

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WHAT THE HELL EVEN ARE BOMBERMEN? (AN IN-DEPTH REIMAGINE AU LOOK INTO BOMBERMAN ANATOMY)

ridiculously long text dump incoming but i figured i'd finally go over some more technical stuff about the au. ive seen other people talk about their headcanons for how the bombermen work in-game and got a bit inspired since ive mostly been going over lore with my comics!

SO, WHAT ARE BOMBERMEN? true to most of the games, they are still robots in the au! entirely mechanical with no organic components. the vast majority of them originate from the former planet earth, now called planet bomber, but some models have been integrated into different planets (planet scrapheap for example) for specific jobs.

all bombermen come from "the original", Shiro, who was built by evil forces lurking underground on planet earth before it was renamed planet bomber. during his tenure as a reluctant minion of evil, his purpose was to create bombs for their efforts of subjugating the remnants of humanity on earth.

prior to his escape from the clutches of the evil forces, he looked very much like how he is depicted in the games!

WHY DO THEY LOOK LIKE HUMANS NOW? in the original NES bomberman game, the plot revolves around bomberman's escape to the surface under the belief that he will become human. the AU follows this premise, but more literally: although Shiro doesn't actually become an organic human, he is rebuilt to resemble their appearance more faithfully! thus, all bombermen that come after him retain that human-like appearance.

this applies to the human experience as well. they can cry, taste food, live like humans even though they are artificial. they're aware of the fact that they aren't human, mind, but the line is very thin for some! Shiro goes so far as to say that he's just as human as any organic one because of his free will and his ability TO desire to be human. but most are pretty normal about it.

BASIC ANATOMY STRUCTURE bombermen possess an internal structure intentionally designed similar to that of humans. their endoskeleton is practically 1:1 of a human skeleton, the only difference being that it's obviously metal. they possess significantly less "organs", with most of their computer components centralized in a single case located where a human heart would be. their central processing unit and memory cards are located inside of the skull, reinforced by pure steel to prevent any potential internalized damage. while ripping off the outer layer of skin takes about as much effort as it would to a human, you'll be hard-pressed to actually penetrate their head/skull. pain receptors are probably the most complex and delicate in terms of structure, essentially microscopic detectors found across the body like nerves. the part of the processing unit that recognizes the feeling of pain can be manually turned off if needed, but is usually left on so that the individual is aware of damage or something malfunctioning.

all bombermen have an antenna attached to their left ear. this is used for communication with others across distance, and is also used to monitor their surroundings! it can pick up movement, energy, and other various things. it's one of their trademark identifiers, and can also be used as a sort of ID for other bombermen, so its very important to them! to remove their atenna is like declawing a cat.

don't.

like most computers, their capability of information storage is limited. although usually equipped with multiple memory cards, many bombermen elect to move data/memories they don't need all of the time onto items like USB drives so they don't need to outright delete things. their sleeping routines are the most effective way for them to undergo defragmentation.

with resources on earth having been very scarce, bombermen are equipped to run on multiple kinds of energy. like most computers, electrical energy is the most common and widely used, but their synthetic skin is capable of taking in solar energy and a furnace "stomach" can transform eaten foods into chemical energy - think of the latter as burning coal to fuel a locomotive. the one thing they DON'T use however is oil. its seen as very volatile source of energy because it's not renewable. this means they don't bleed! there's no need for them to have any liquid circulation, so replacing parts is also easier in that regard since there's no fear of losing any potential lifeforce.

ASIMOV? WHO'S THAT?? they do not follow the three laws. they are completely independent. most bombermen lean towards being good-natured (if not with their own quirks), so murder of organics/destruction of their own kind is HIGHLY taboo. this doesn't mean they're incapable of making that decision, though.

WHO BUILDS THEM? this answer is a little more complex. early in the timeline, the only way to make a bomberman was to build one yourself. this was especially apparent during earth's final years before being renamed, as most of humanity had abandoned the planet after the evil forces were reawakened decades prior. as such, bombermen were short in number because the few remaining humans that were technologically competent were the only ones capable of making them.

however, ALL bombermen are capable of recreating their own kind. this was information originally given to Shiro by the evil forces so that, for whatever reason, it would be instinct for him to prevent the extinction of his own existence. when more bombermen began to populate the planet, they started to do the creation themselves since they knew everything they needed in order to accomplish it. this is where familial relationships become possible! many bombermen who create their own kind view their creation as siblings or children, and this carries over further into the timeline even when a mother computer meant to mass produce models comes into existence.

WHAT'S IN A TITLE? "Bomberman" is both a species and a title. while most common bots will refer to themselves as "a bomberman", very few have the privilege of being called Bomberman. this name is reserved for particularly outstanding individuals who are responsible for the protection of planet bomber, meaning only a few of them exist across the timeline.

so far these include Shiro (the original), Ivory (Shiro's brother and the protagonist for most of the games that take place on Planet Bomber), and White (the sbr iteration - his siblings get privileges by association but since he's the only cracker white bomberman of the group he gets the official title). depending on how development of the timeline goes there might be more...

WHAT THE HELL ARE PSEUDO BOMBERMEN? I actually addressed this question on my twitter with a funny little comic but i'll go a little further in-depth with the discussion here.

as the name implies, these aren't considered to be "real" ones for various kinds of reasons. bombermen become very popular to imitate due to how (in)famous Shiro becomes across space, but building a robot might not exactly be conventional for some people. this is where pseudo bombermen come in. anything from bomber-cyborgs, organically made bombermen, etc are all considered pseudo bombermen. the general rule of thumb is if it isn't a robot, it's a pseudo.

notable pseudo-bombers would be Max (cyborg), Shirobon from Jetters (alien), and the Bomber Shittenou (made from elements).

ARE YOU GOING TO ADDRESS THAT LINE FROM YELLOW IN SBR2 sure they can have cock and balls why not. full human experience or something.

well that was long as fuck!! thanks for reading!!! if there are any questions feel free to leave them in my inbox and ill be sure to respond to them :)

#text #bomberman #bomberman au #good lordt this is massive #it was fun to write though!!#hopefully i dont come off as insane

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calmrot · 2 years

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Personally, I hate ads, so this feels a lil gross

This is here cause I’m looking to generate interest in my card game! Board game? idk, it’s kind of in between the two. It’s called Drawn to Rule - read all about it under the cut. As of today, version 0.4 has been sent to the printers!~

You can play it for free through tabletop simulator, or print it out at home!

Join the Discord Pick up the files on Itch.io Just hop right into the game yourself with the Tabletop Mod

So, whats this all about?

Here’s the pitch.

Drawn to Rule is a customizable and replayability focused free-for all. A race to build the strongest character, and roll the most dice! With Legacy, Hidden Role, and Character Building mechanics, a totally unique combat and injury system, it is quick to learn and surprisingly in-depth. Every single piece of this game, except the fonts, are made from scratch by myself!

Included plenty of optional decks to add unique mechanics, allowing you to make your individual game simpler or more involved.

Drawn to Rule wears a lot of its' influences pretty openly. It's a battle royale, it's a hidden identity game, it's a character builder, and it's a drawing legacy game. There is a focus on the esoteric, unknown, creating its own mythos by what is missing, while still being rich in content.

The hidden role cards focus on making many alternative and unconventional ways to win - I don't want the game to always turn into a slugfest. But, I love a good combat game, and this one makes sure that it's very interesting, with unique injuries instead of health, and dice rolling that have both the attacker and defender both doing something.

The game intentionally incorporates asymmetry as a way to force alliances. Throughout playtests, there often was a clear antagonist: a character who's starting stronger, and will only get stronger with time. Forging temporary alliances is something that's really satisfying. It's a game that leads well into betrayal, and sudden upset wins.

Finally, the Legacy & Drawing aspects. This game is entirely in black & white, with very simple iconographic design. There is no card art, and none of them are named. Instead, you have canvas space, and name tags. Name your characters, and draw them up! Everyone's copy of the game will be totally unique to them. And, whenever someone wins a game, they have an opportunity to change their cards permanently, using those new cards in all future games.

Sound interesting? I’m looking for playtesters, and anyone who can give good feedback. If you want to get involved, I’d be happy to make you a card that would be featured in the game as well, and try to get you an official copy for cheap.

I’ll be running games, and it’s always a good time.

#board game #original work #developers & startups #battle royale #tabletop games #freebies #discord group #playtest #dark ages

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spooky-ghostwriter · 11 months

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Sentinels Deck Number 6 - Ol’ Inkwell Town

A while back, I posted some Sentinels stuff which included a set of 1920s cartoon promos for all of my heroes - except Silhouette, who I hadn’t made at the time, but she is not left out!

But I know what you’re thinking. What are these old-timey cartoon versions of my heroes? How do they fit into the flimsy made-up canon that my decks are retroactively based on?

Okay, you’re probably not asking those questions, but I made a whole deck to answer them. Welcome to Ol’ Inkwell Town...

The story behind this deck is basically that the heroes woke up one day and found that they were no longer in New Granwall City. They were in an alternate cartoon version of their hometown - and they had to find a way to get back.

Ol’ Inkwell Town is made up of three distinct locations. My heroes Gold Dragon and Skimmer, plus guest heroes Charade and Alius (by insomn and Mistillitain respectively), explored the main city. Various street corners looked familiar to Gold Dragon and Skimmer, though danger lurked in the skies.

The first cards to show off are pretty simple mechanically, so let’s talk thematics. Ol’ Inkwell Town is mostly based on black and white cartoons. I watched a lot of Popeye in particular, since Gold Dragon’s old timey cartoon version was heavily based on Popeye. The deck also includes some Loony Tunes clichés like falling pianos and anvils.

Instead of simply drawing a falling anvil, I turned it into a character. Living objects is a bizarre trend of those classic cartoons, so I put faces and white gloves on everything from lamp posts to other heroes’ equipment.

The deck is intended to be wacky but deceptively brutal. Making hero equipment cards “come alive” is an effect that already exists in Sentinels, and it’s a dangerous effect because it allows villains to destroy your cards simply by doing damage. Ol’ Inkwell Town’s version is even more brutal by having your equipment fight you when you try to use them. However, heroes whose equipment are mostly magical (denoted by the Relic keyword) are immune.

Bomby is a very destructive effect, but you have a whole round to try deal with him before he goes off.

The second location visited by heroes is the cartoon equivalent of the Alesia Circus. This is where Escarlata, Electrogeist, and Tsukiko ended up.

The Table of Pies is both a benefit and a negative. Playing the top card of the environment deck usually means another cartoon is coming into play, accelerating the deck’s nonsense. Then it increases the damage the cartoons are throwing around by giving them an arsenal of pies.

However, the heroes can use the pies too - either throwing them as well, or eating them to recover HP. Heroes typically have powers that are better than what Table of Pies offers, but in a pinch, those powers might be exactly what you need.

Past the pies and into the circus proper, Escarlata and Tsukiko discovered an old-timey version of Tsukiko herself, who cast a horrifying spell on our modern-day Escarlata...

When Escarlata was pulled into the box, a cartoon version of her appeared as well! Electrogeist and the modern-day Tsukiko were shocked!

The Enraged Escarlata isn’t really a card in the deck. At the start of a game of Sentinels, you choose one of the 2-5 variant character cards that each hero has available, play as that character card, and put the rest back. Only one card in the official game can switch variants mid-game, but I think it’s interesting design space, so I threw it on a card here in an intentionally wacky environment.

The “thematic” way to play this deck is to have my heroes switch into their cartoon selves when Forced Volunteer hits them, but you’re free to switch your hero into any variant you want.

The modern-day Escarlata wasn’t really gone forever, though, and she quickly found her way back to the stage from wherever the magic had put her. There, she met her own cartoon counterpart...

The deck has two copies of Cartoon Counterpart, and even though it took extra drawing, I was convinced to change the art for the second copy. This is an annoyingly wordy card, but the premise is simple. Cartoon Counterpart fights its “owner”, who thematically is the one the cartoon is a counterpart of, but if you beat it up enough, it helps you. Cartoon violence is the solution to all of cartoon life’s problems.

So, where was the original Tsukiko during all of this? Erm... occupied.

When I asked my friends on the Custom Sentinels Discord for things they wanted to see in an old-timey cartoon deck, I got lots of ideas for tropes and clichés (most of which I already had on my list). But someone (insomn?) reminded me of a saw I’d drawn chopping Tsukiko in half on the incap for her own cartoon version.

This inspired Choppy Sawington, who is once again harassing Tsukiko. He has a really nasty effect that I’ve toyed with before, of either chopping a hero’s hand in half or dealing some damage. (I would’ve liked it to chop the hero’s HP in half, but that’s way too strong.)

The icon on Choppy is Tsukiko’s nemesis icon, meaning that Tsukiko and Choppy deal extra damage to each other. Given Choppy’s ties to stage magic, and Choppy focusing on discarding cards compared to Tsukiko’s focus on handing out card draw, and the fact that Choppy’s only victim so far has been Tsukiko, I felt it was more than justified.

The third location in the environment is only touched on briefly, but it’s the haunted mansion where a devilish vampire lives.

Silhouette’s cartoon counterpart, The Zany Zywen mentioned right at the start, is a user of dark magic who offers power to those who seek her out. This is usually a monkey’s paw situation where the person who gains the power realizes they were better off without it.

Naturally, Silhouette herself is all about dark magic and cursed power, and envious of her cartoon self, so she charged right into the castle. A guest hero, Antiquarian by Gaist, joins her.

The gargoyles themselves are your typical prankster minions, and in the game they’re annoyingly hard to kill and annoyingly destroy the heroes’ stuff. I don’t have much to say on them in particular, so let me go off on an art tangent.

When I first started this deck, I’d been drawing simple backgrounds (or no backgrounds at all!) for the old-timey cartoon stuff. However, not only did I need some background art for the digital implementation of the deck, actual old-timey cartoons really did have nice background art.

The backgrounds are still fairly simple compared to what I usually do, but I used CSP’s pencil tool to shade and add a unique texture to everything. I wanted to give everything a grainy look to it and make the non-cartoon characters really pop.

Zany Bats is a card designed pretty much for Silhouette. The bats seek out the hero with the lowest HP, and Silhouette is likely to be lowest since she starts with such low HP. A hero bitten by the bats may deal themselves Infernal damage, which is Silhouette’s whole shtick. And finally - this one was accidental synergy - if Silhouette plays her own Form of the Bat card, she has enough damage reduction that the bats won’t hit her at all.

After the three groups of heroes escaped their perils, they all tried to meet up to share their findings. But there were still two obstacles...

As the various cartoons met up, they started a fight that escalated into a giant brawl.

The two in the center of Big Ball of Violence are Escarlata and The Zany Zywen. You can also see Tsukiko’s Tank Top sticking out of the cloud, as well as Gold Dragon’s tail, one of Charade’s now-sentient Stun Batons, Choppy Sawington’s... nose...?, and a foot. That foot belongs to Ampere, another guest hero by Mistillitain.

Finally, there was but a single obstacle...

Me!

Cartoons and their animator fighting is a classic cartoon trope - though admittedly it’s more of a Looney Tunes thing than a black-and-white cartoon thing.

I had some mixed thoughts about what the animator should look like. A giant hand from the sky? Should it even be a character, or just the reality-warping pencil itself? But I like where this settled.

The Animator has two abilities. It “erases” a cartoon and deals radiant damage, and it also plays the top card of each deck, essentially creating and rewriting the game every round.

In the art, we see a guest hero Chronan the Barbarian (made by Gaist) as The Animator draws a cartoon counterpart for him.

And that’s the deck! None of the cards represent how the heroes actually got home, but I think there are a few possible options. Maybe The Animator was the one responsible for bringing them there (I was) and sent them back. Maybe Silhouette managed to make a deal with her cartoon self and got sent back with dark magic. And maybe Tsukiko’s magic box was powerful enough to return them to the real world.

Whatever the case, I had a blast making this deck and I hope Sentinels custom content players have just as much fun playing it.

#sentinels of the multiverse #fan-made environment #new granwall guardians #tsukiko #silhouette #escarlata #gold dragon #my art

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demonichikikomori · 2 years

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(Enters with my megaphone because I’m ready to speak on something I agree with)

I agree that the strap was intentionally colored in the Nonbinary Pride Flag in Caters new card design for Club Wear. (we’re getting the boys in their respective clubs and currently have Cater and Kalim, meaning Lilia is next woo!!) The developers of Twisted Wonderland are quite forward thinking with the game being how masculine presenting characters can dress in traditionally feminine ways and in the JPN server Vil Schoenheit was mentioned to use pronouns that are not traditional when referring to oneself as their gender (atashi being the genderless form of referring to oneself) he also likes being called ‘beautiful’ and no one really refers to Vil as a man or woman in the game. With such information it wouldn’t be strange that a character in the game would present themselves as nonbinary to the audience. I think such a declaration would be something as basic as the character telling you they liked the color purple. Cater Diamond is most likely comfortable with he/him but if you directly ask them: They will inform you that they prefer they/them/he/him pronouns. And would be happy you asked.

(Carefully turns off my megaphone. I feel happy.)

#cater diamond #twst #twst wonderland #twisted wonderland #cater diamond headcanons #headcanon #twst headcanons #twst hcs #cater twisted wonderland #nonbinary #a. hellish. secret

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ultrasuperexplore · 2 years

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SKETCHES & THOUGHTS - LET'S TRY THIS

Alright, lemme peel myself away from XIV for a bit and do something a bit more self-driven!

I've loved to doodle pinball playfields ever since I was in elementary school - I'm sure a lot of other folks can recall sketching new levels for their favourite games, at some point. These days, I still prefer using pencil-on-paper to design new layouts, as opposed to figuring everything out from within Visual Pinball. Curved walls, in partucular, take some time & finangling for me to construct in CAD software, but curves come easily when drawing by hand.

Recently, I had the bright idea to make simple card stencils in the dimensions I most often use for these sketches. I also cut some notches at a couple of key points, which are meant to mark where the flippers ought to go. They're... okay, but I think I should have had a couple more notches for the flippers & the inlane guide leading to them. Something to keep in mind for the next go around at making stencils, I guess.

Here's 3 sketches I made today:

And here's some words on my thought process creating them! I'll mention details in roughly the order I sketched them in.

#1: Started with the U-turn on the left that leads to an upper flipper, then added some shots for the upper flipper. Next, added a center ramp above the entrances to the upper flipper's shots. The center ramp drops the ball above the upper flipper. Tried to make a 2-bumper nest (an increasingly common trend in modern pinball) but I'm not fond of the design I came up with there, at least not on paper. Very strange 'reversed' left inlane/outlane setup - the idea is that a ball can be shot into the semicircle on the left, and it will quickly whip around towards the Left Flipper. A captive ball placed between this semicircle and the U-turn can steal the in-play ball's momentum, ideally making the ball drop here and bounce around in the inlane area, a dangerous situation.

#2: Wanted to make an upper playfield that was 'split in two,' as opposed to having one continuous arc running along the top. One side would have a common bumper nest, the other would have a set of drop targets with stand-up targets behind them, inspired mainly by Cybernaut. Orbits surround this combination bank. The right orbit around the bank throws the ball over a jump ramp leading to the bumpers and lanes in the left half of the upper playfield. The left orbit brings the ball down an isolated alley along the right side of the table, below the flippers, to a kicker that throws the ball past two one-way gates to arrive safely in the right inlane. (Probably not a good idea.) A hook lane with a spinner target, on the left side, throws the ball across the table and into the combination target bank. 3 drop targets, just above the spinner lane's typical shot angles, add another obstacle on the left side of the playfield. Lots of room is left over, but I decided to end that sketch there and start fresh.

#3: Once again, I wanted a playfield that was effectively split in two at the top - this time, I decided to try a symmetrical layout. The outer orbits, with walls running along the top of the table, are designed to throw the ball at a bumper. Stand-up targets fill in the upper gaps created by the orbits' guidewalls and protect the bottom two bumpers. Inner orbits run between the bumpers, allowing the ball to pass through the 5 bumpers at different angles. A saucer at the top-center of the table, guarded by the center bumper, would be difficult to hit intentionally, but could add some more beneficial randomness to the ball's behaviour in the upper playfield. Ruleset would probably need to involve going thru particular lanes at particular times. Simple lower-playfield with a discrete "lower orbit" and target banks (this may be extending too far down the table to work as a proper shot.) This table would not use a traditional plunger to launch the ball; it would instead kick the ball up from the drain area, similar to 'Big Hit' and other plunger-less games.

So, I think I've got some interesting ideas here, but nothing I'd want to flesh out further right now. One thing I noticed while writing these explanations was the lack of consideration for the game's overall theme - not just in how the game looks, but in how the game progresses & how different accomplishments are weighted when awarding points. I often think about interesting shot layouts before thinking about appropriate themes for them, as opposed to coming up with layouts that reinforce a pre-established theme. I think it's important for a game's shot layout to be at least somewhat coherent with its theme - a familiar theme will give players clues as to how they should approach different targets. (Consider the many, many playing-card-themed games that were made before the rise of video games! Many of them demanded that players shoot labeled targets to form poker hands, like pairs and straights, combinations that the layperson of that time would be likely to recognize as valuable.)

Hey, this was kinda fun! Maybe I ought to elaborate on my sketches more often.

#pinball #design

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jcmarchi · 2 months

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Star Wars Outlaws Preview - Exclusive Hands-On Impressions - Game Informer

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/star-wars-outlaws-preview-exclusive-hands-on-impressions-game-informer/

Star Wars Outlaws Preview - Exclusive Hands-On Impressions - Game Informer

As one of the main components of our trip out to Malmö, Sweden, for this issue’s cover story, we were the first to get our hands on Star Wars Outlaws, the highly anticipated open-world action game from Massive Entertainment, the studio behind The Division and last year’s Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Taking place between Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Outlaws puts you in the shoes of Kay Vess, a common pickpocket-turned-thief who gets in over her head and becomes a player in the thriving underworld during this dark period in the Star Wars timeline.

Mirogana

Star Wars Outlaws features several planets and moons for players to explore, including iconic and well-known locales like Tatooine, Kijimi, and Akiva, but my hands-on demo takes place entirely on Toshara, a new moon created by Massive Entertainment in collaboration with Lucasfilm Games. Given the timeline placement of Star Wars Outlaws, the Empire’s presence is immediately felt and consistently present. After landing on Toshara following an unfortunate turn of events, Kay heads to the moon’s capital city, Mirogana.

Mirogana is dense and multi-leveled, but it was intentionally designed to not be a sprawling city like in other open-world games. “If you open up the map, the location that we’ve built for Mirogana is quite compact,” creative director Julian Gerighty says. “What we wanted to do is to have something that is very dense in activities rather than super expansive where you get lost, and there’s not much to do. It’s very, very focused on providing a dense, busy city experience.”

Following an encounter with a Stormtrooper at the entrance to the city, Kay flashes a fake identification and is allowed through. This exchange is a reminder of the state of the galaxy in this space between the two classic films. Making her way through Mirogana, Kay ignores the beckoning shopkeeps, arcade games, betting areas, and a table hosting the in-universe card game Sabacc to find her way to the cantina. In each city you visit, the cantina is always a central location for getting the lay of the land, gathering intel, and finding work. Toshara – and Mirogana in particular – is primarily a Pyke enclave despite being home to other syndicates as well.

To gain some ground with the Pyke Syndicate, Kay wants to speak with their leader, Gorak. Sadly, he’s in a private VIP section of the cantina, so Kay needs to find a backdoor. Luckily, Kay’s hairpin is a dataspike, so I can lockpick a side door using a rhythm-based minigame. After entering the backroom of the cantina, I see a blue icon in the distance. These icons demonstrate that Kay can send her companion, Nix, to interact with it. In this case, he fetches the item and brings it back. Nix is a merqaal, a new species created in collaboration with Lucasfilm Games. Gerighty describes him as having two sides: Nix is very cute and friendly but also extremely protective of Kay, even to the point of aggression.

Kay reaches Gorak’s suite and is immediately picked out by the Pyke Syndicate leader as an intruder. Kay gets a chance at face time, but after making a joke that lands with a thud and name-dropping the wrong person, Gorak has his guards toss her out. So much for making headway with the Pyke Syndicate. As Kay dusts herself off, Nix reveals he stole Gorak’s ring during the scuffle. A voice tells her that might be an unwise move given the Pyke’s power.

Pyke Infiltration

The voice comes from Danka, a Mirogana broker. She gives Kay a rundown of the syndicates operating on Toshara, then offers her a job from an unknown client. The job? Steal a file from a heavily guarded Pyke stronghold.

This mission surfaces one of the defining elements of Star Wars Outlaws: the Reputation System. Kay must navigate the criminal underworld through four syndicates, each with its own leader. Jabba the Hutt, leader of the Hutt Cartel, stands out as the most recognizable underworld boss Kay crosses paths with, but she’ll also deal with Lady Qi’ra (who many know from Emilia Clarke’s portrayal in Solo: A Star Wars Story) of Crimson Dawn, Queen Ashiga of the Ashiga Clan (a new syndicate created for Outlaws), and Gorak of the Pyke Syndicate.

The Reputation System represents your standing with these four syndicates, ranging from Terrible to Excellent for each individual group. Your reputation with each syndicate determines how that criminal organization treats you. Having a good reputation may mean they let you walk freely in their hideouts, offer you special stock or discounts at shops in their territories, and even help you out if you get into a hairy situation with another syndicate or even the Empire.

In my case, my introduction to the system starts with the mission of stealing from the Pyke Syndicate. I take Kay to the front entrance of Pyke territory, but the organization isn’t exactly eager to roll out the red carpet, even though I just met with their boss. Since my standing with them is firmly in the “Poor” section of the meter, I’ll need to sneak in. I loop down a back alley, climb a ledge, and emerge in a restricted Pyke area.

Star Wars Outlaws strives to provide player agency, but in early portions of a hideout infiltration, you need to be stealthy. As such, Kay’s blaster is off-limits until she can get deeper into the territory. However, you can perform stealthy takedowns to clear the path to her destination. This is where Nix really comes in handy, as you can guide him from the shadows to either distract or attack guards. In this instance, I go the slightly louder route of having Nix run up the guard’s leg and latch onto his head. This way may be a bit louder, but it also means I can have Kay sprint up and take the guard out without being detected.

After taking out and sneaking past a few guards, I find a door that Kay can lockpick. After completing the rhythm minigame, Kay finds herself in what appears to be a maintenance room. Using Nix’s senses, Kay can spot the electrical circuits in the walls, which tell you which buttons to press to call the elevator needed to reach the next area. Sadly, the first elevator doesn’t raise high enough, and the second elevator’s button is out of reach for Kay – but not for Nix. By directing Nix to press the button, Kay lowers the second elevator, creating a makeshift staircase to climb onto a grated wall to reach a ledge. Continuing into the ventilation shafts, a whirling fan impedes Kay’s path, but by telling Nix to pull down the shutter, Kay can blast the power supply and get past the fan.

I use Kay’s grapple hook to swing across a gap, and she reaches the area with the file. Unfortunately, it’s protected by an energy shield with two generators. Even worse, the area is heavily guarded. Since I’ve entered fully hostile territory, I’m able to choose my approach to the generators: Do I continue my stealthy approach, or do I pull Kay’s blaster out of her holster and go in guns blazing? I decide to try the path of least resistance and continue operating in the shadows. Using Kay’s binoculars, I mark enemies to keep track of them once I descend to ground level.

I take out a few enemies using a combination of Nix’s distractions and the “stun” setting on Kay’s blaster, but it doesn’t take long for a guard to spot me, and a shootout begins. Unfortunately, I did not think to disable the alarm system, so it’s triggered. Even if I had taken down the alarm system, it wouldn’t have made a difference, as I accidentally walk past the sightline of a security camera.

I dig in and try my best to keep the Pykes at bay. As I take out more and more Pykes, stronger enemy types emerge with shields and more advanced weaponry. Thankfully, I have healing items, and the fallen enemies drop better weapons than Kay’s blaster that she can use until they run out of ammo. Since I triggered an alarm, my reputation with the Pykes drops; had I made it through without being spotted, my reputation with them would not have taken a hit.

Sadly, that’s not how this played out, as the bodies are piling up, and the enemies are closing in on my location with an increased intensity. At the risk of exposing myself and doing something rash, I make a break for it. In breaking the line of sight with the guards, a blue silhouette shows my last-known location; that’s the first place they’ll look before fanning out to try and find me. I use this temporary de-escalation to make a break for the generators. After quietly taking down the guards stationed by them, I deactivate both generators and go to retrieve what I came for.

The Reputation Game

Kay accesses the terminal and easily finds the file the mysterious client wanted, but she finds something even juicier: video footage of one of Gorak’s underlings plotting against him. Ever the opportunist, Kay knows that someone would pay a pretty penny for this information – maybe even Gorak. That’s right; even after the violence I just took part in with the Pykes – my face on camera and everything – Kay still considered going to their leader. That’s because there’s somewhat of an understanding in the criminal underworld that these relationships aren’t about making friends. They’re about mutual benefit.

It seems like Kay is set on giving it to Gorak to curry favor, but after returning to the Mirogana cantina with the file for the client, she spots another opportunity. It turns out the anonymous client was a member of Crimson Dawn, and this file retrieval was a test to see if the syndicate could rely on Kay for more important jobs. With a foot now in the door, Kay thinks fast, wondering if she should give the extra file regarding the Pyke Syndicate coup to Crimson Dawn instead. At this moment, the player has a choice: Do you provide it to the Pyke Syndicate as initially planned or your new associates in Crimson Dawn? I opt to give it to Crimson Dawn, causing my reputation with them to increase.

After Stealth Mission

After taking an optional job with another quest giver in the cantina, I return to Danka for more work. She tells me to go to a particular merchant to retrieve a part for Kay’s blaster. Sadly, when I arrive, I learn he doesn’t have it, but I can probably steal the part from a nearby syndicate. Player agency and the Reputation System again pop up in my playthrough, as I can choose if I want to steal it from the Pyke Syndicate or Crimson Dawn. Both of them have a presence in Mirogana, but since I have a better reputation with Crimson Dawn, they let me walk right in without resistance.

However, even with my decent reputation with them, they’ll only let me get so close. My reputation isn’t good enough to get into the guarded heart of Crimson Dawn territory, so it’s back to the stealth mechanics. Like the earlier Pyke encounter, if I can get in and get out without raising the alarm, Kay’s reputation with Crimson Dawn won’t take a hit, so I make that my goal. After some close calls and last-second takedowns, I reach the part without making Crimson Dawn skittish about trusting me.

Outside the City Walls

Before wrapping up my demo, I get a brief chance to explore the open world of Toshara outside of Mirogana. With a press of a button, I summon a speeder, which Massive designed with inspiration from a Swedish motorbike manufacturer. The vehicle feels excellent in action – smooth, quick, and agile like a speeder should. After some brief navigation that includes hearing radio chatter for some activities I could pursue, I arrive at a small town called Jaunta’s Hope, which is the current location of Kay’s ship, the Trailblazer.

I need to go to a nearby building and grab an item from it, but the door is locked. After a quick modification to Kay’s blaster, her weapon gains the Ion Blast ability, which gives her an advantage over droid enemies and allows her to solve environmental puzzles like this one. Kay can access the building and loot all the goodies by shooting the two transformers for the lock with the Ion Blast.

Unfortunately, just as I was starting to get a true feel for the gameplay loop of Star Wars Outlaws, my session ended. I didn’t have an opportunity to explore the Reputation System truly, but I love the notion of keeping up appearances with the various syndicates, not to mention making sure not to annoy the Empire too much.

After spending my afternoon taking in the sights and sounds of Toshara, I came away excited about how far you can manipulate the various systems at play in Star Wars Outlaws. Massive Entertainment came into the project wanting to create the ultimate scoundrel experience set in the Star Wars galaxy, and from what I’ve seen and played, it has a lot of important elements in place to accomplish that goal. I’m more excited than ever to get my hands on the final product when it arrives on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on August 30.

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jeremy-ken-anderson · 7 months

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Beecarbonize

There's a little of Cultist Simulator or Stacklands in the design. Its emissions gauge that triggers frightening events at various thresholds is also strongly reminiscent of the absolute banger of a climate diplomacy board game, Keep Cool.

Cards have timers, there's an invisible event deck, and you're trying to manage resources to obtain cards when you're not entirely sure what they'll lead to.

Some of the cards also have side-effects that are difficult to measure: Coastal Barriers have an emissions cost - presumably representing the industry behind their ongoing maintenance - but they reduce the odds of three of the nasty event cards you can draw (possibly to 0%; I'm not clear on whether it fully removes the card from the event deck or not). Emissions are how you got in this mess. Can you trust that you'll survive the next threshold if you get there? But the disaster effects are so inefficient they can make it nearly impossible to proceed. Making them go away might give you the time to turn the corner.

I admit I want to see whether it's even possible to push things to the edge of disaster in the game. I hit 4 of the thresholds and managed to turn things around, but barely and only by getting into an emissions-negative state. I get the sense that I'd have to stabilize my funds/populace/science builder economy, and then intentionally bring back enormously polluting industry, or leave some of the pollution disasters (such as burning forests) to just do their thing and only solve humanitarian crises like disease and starvation.

I've found 4 of the win conditions in the game. I think one of the two I haven't seen is some kind of anti-science tribalism, but I didn't have enough people to spare on making it work when I saw the little star indicating I was heading the right direction.

Overall I appreciate the design of Beecarbonize. It demonstrates how much easier things are the earlier you make shifts to biodiversity promotion, social change, and renewable energy. But it does nod to the risks attached to early adoption, as well as the prospect of outright starving your community if you try to do everything with austerity measures.

Really the dishonest part is the fact that there's a single person with control over most of Earth's humanity and the stated objective of saving said humans from climate change. That unified purpose makes things a lot easier. Keep Cool at least made space for people to bicker, increasing the odds that nobody wins because enough players consider last place on the economic stage no better than everyone losing due to the whole place becoming unlivable.

I haven't played hardcore mode.

#game design #review #it's good!#beecarbonize

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eqicbunny · 1 year

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One day i’ll finish a game i want to design 🙄

I’ve been slowly chipping away at 2 projects and put 2 other projects on the backburner.

I’m working on an online playing card game so i can play it with my partner and partners family cause they always play it when they’re here. Ideally wanna make it for web so that they can play it on their phones but my god that’s a hastle

Also working on an intentionally small scale BR game. Want it to be fast paced with a small map because games like apex and pubg just end up turning into a “jog till next circle and hope you don’t get sniped” situation.

Might try and update you on different projects to get some personal use out of tumblr

#game design #indie developer

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vickisventures · 2 years

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It's the Final Countdown

"We're leavin' together, But still it's farewell, And maybe we'll come back...It's the final countdown..." by Europe

I know I’ve gone radio silent since May. As was the case last year, this job at DigiKey is a doozy. We just don’t have a lot of time for “extras.” The only excitement we have had is going to see the new Top Gun movie, playing putt-putt golf, and the occasional trip to Grand Forks to eat at Pizza Ranch! We did go to the fair when it was in town. We were shocked to find they didn’t have FOOT LONG corn dogs. Is that a Texas thing? We had to get normal sized ones. (Sigh) They had 2 barns filled with animals which were fun to see. It was like a huge petting zoo. You don’t see that at fairs much nowadays. They also put on a nice fireworks show the first night of the fair, so that made up for the lack of fireworks on the 4th of July.

We only have 6 days of work left for a total of 44 hours. Not like I’m counting or anything. Ha! In general, it has gone better than last year. For one thing, we aren’t newbies and the job has been more manageable due to that previous experience. The other thing is we haven’t moved from bay to bay like last year…or maybe I should say, I haven’t moved. Steve didn’t move quite as much as I did last summer. Steve and I have both stayed at our bays the whole time. We have even gotten to know several employees pretty well and I think people see us as hard workers and an asset to the area we work in. I even went a whole month without a single repick (when you messed up an order by either an overage or shortage or poor packing) which is hard to do. I have gone downhill since then… Steve’s bay mate started out a bit hostile, but he won her over with his work ethic. My bay mate, as I mentioned in my last blog, is definitely cray-cray. I have only put up with her shenanigans because I knew my job was short lived. I could NOT work with her for long term. She thinks I don’t know what she does, but I do. She watches the pick labels and knows when a bad one is coming up and she either intentionally slows down so I get stuck with it or she conveniently has to go to the bathroom. It is amazing. She talks non-stop even when it’s obvious I’m trying to count or concentrate on a pick and she doesn’t even stop if I walk away. There’s more but I don’t have the time to mention it all. Today Steve and worked some overtime (on our day off) and her not being there was a blessing. It was so quiet and peaceful. I also got a lot done! I hate to be unkind, but she needs God about as much as anyone I know. I tried to be a “light” to her and Steve says that she sees that I’m “different.” I hope so, because it has taken every bit of patience that I gained as a teacher to “turn the other cheek” when I really wanted to get her back by playing her same games. I can’t say I have been a saint but she actually thinks we are friends, so I guess I did something right.

DigiKey had a safety day and gave us an extra 15-minute break so we could attend. The police had 2 simulators in the parking lot. I “made” Steve try out both of them. One (in the photo above) replicated what it would feel like to roll your vehicle with a seatbelt on. The other had your hitting a wall going 15 miles per hour with a seatbelt. Both were designed to show the value of wearing a seatbelt. Glad we always buckle up! Steve also won a gift card to a local restaurant. Score!

We took our RV into Fargo in June and, thankfully, they fixed the leaking bedroom slide.

We have had soooo much rain while we’ve been here, we really didn’t need a leak. It didn’t even cost us all that much and they got it done that day. We have enjoyed some beautiful days where I wanted to skip work and just sit outside all day, but as I mentioned, we have had a ton of rain. I have been hearing about the heat wave a lot of the country has been having, but we have escaped that and have only had a few really hot days. It is a different summer than when we were here last year. We have had more humidity and more clouds. I’m not really sure which summer is more normal for this area. We were so worried that the rain would bring out the huge mosquitos we have heard about but they must spray well here. I hate to jinx it, but I have not seen a single mosquito the whole 3 months we’ve been here. They may find us in Michigan or in the Smokies but maybe we’ll get lucky again!

We leave next Saturday for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This type of traveling is new to us so I’m not really sure how we’ll do with our budget. I know we have to watch our dining out but it’s hard when you are on the road.

We have another trip planned, for 2023. We put down a deposit on a Hawaiian cruise leaving out of California for 15 days. We had planned on booking a cruise but the places most cruises (that depart from California) stopped at didn’t excite me. We have never been to Hawaii so we decided we would pay a bit more and be gone a bit longer in order to check out Hawaii via cruise ship. That, I can get excited about. We plan to finish working mid-April, leave our rig at the resort in Arizona while we take the cruise, and then go back to Arizona, pack up and head out for wherever our next summer leads us. We saw a job in Colorado that piqued our interest, but otherwise we have no idea what we want to do. They did say they will most likely be looking for help again at DigiKey next summer, but I think we are ready for something new.

We will try to take lots of pictures on our trip and I will try to blog about our experiences. I am excited about using our recreational vehicle for some recreation!

#workcamping

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greater-shade · 2 years

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About the Bosses

It’s no secret that the Uberbot bosses of Act 3 roughly correspond to the four Scrybes.

But the other day I noticed that the Act 1 bosses might have some connection with them as well? Maybe?

Well, I could be way off the mark, but I still wanted to talk about it.

It’s gonna be a bit long, so head under the readmore if you’re curious.

First, just for the reference, one of the things that indicates the connection between the Uberbots and the Scrybes is the color of their respective dialogue.

The Archivist uses a green color, like Grimora:

The Photographer uses orange, like Leshy:

G0lly uses blue, like P03:

And the Unfinished Boss uses red, like Magnificus:

Now, switching over to the Act 1 bosses, during the Prospector’s battle, the board turns green, a similar color to the dialogue of the Archivist and Grimora:

And aside from that color, the Prospector’s second phase gimmick of destroying all your cards and turning them into gold is similar to Grimora’s second phase gimmick - destroying all your cards and turning them into corpses.

Not really a boss, but for completion’s sake - naturally the board is orange during regular battles in Act 1, reflecting Leshy’s dialogue color:

During the Angler’s boss battle, the board turns blue, like P03′s and G0lly’s dialogue color:

The Angler’s passive gimmick of hooking the player’s cards and pulling them over to his side is also similar to P03′s passive gimmick of rotating the board, putting the player’s cards on P03′s side and vice versa.

Plus, the Angler even ends up offering you his hook so the player can do that same thing too, if only once. Just like P03′s conveyor belt going both ways.

The Trapper/Trader connection is a bit more shaky, but the color of their board does appear as a more reddish shade of orange compared to the regular board:

And Magnificus is kinda the weirdest when it comes to colors anyway, he has less of a clearly defined main color.

His dialogue is red for one, but lots of colors are associated with him, too.

Which makes sense, given that he is a painter.

Colors aside though, with the Trapper’s traps rendering most sigils useless when it comes to dealing direct damage, and the Trader’s offering all being inhabited cards with altered sigils, I do think their boss battle has some similarities to Magnificus’ - at least mechanically.

With all that said, I’m not like, 100% convinced the three regular Act 1 Bosses were intentionally designed to be similar to Grimora, P03, and Magnificus, but I couldn’t help noticing these small parallels.

I guess either way there’s really only so many completely unique color schemes and gimmicks you can have.

Still, I find it fun to think about from an in-story perspective, also.

Like, obviously the Prospector, the Angler, and the Trapper/Trader are not literally connected to those Scrybes, they are distinct individuals separate from them, and not even closely associated.

So, I find myself picturing that, when Leshy took over the game and made his subordinates into the new Bosses, he basically just “layered” them over the spots that would’ve normally been held by his fellow Scrybes.

The order you fight them in is even in the order indicated by the Forgotten Monuments - excluding Leshy himself.

So yeah, even if this does turn out to be a complete coincidence irl design-wise, I still enjoy it, personally.

#inscryption #inscryption spoilers #inscryption grimora #inscryption archivist #inscryption photographer #inscryption leshy #inscryption g0lly #inscryption p03 #inscryption unfinished boss #inscryption magnificus #inscryption prospector #inscryption angler #inscryption trapper #inscryption trader #that's right everybody gets tagged #inscryption details #pondering inscryption

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werenotadulting · 3 years

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Routine Procedure pt. 5

Over the next couple of days, it was actually abnormal for Kate not to give me some special attention down there during a diaper change. Just woke up? Let's try using my vibrator on your soaked diaper. Need a change before lunch? How about reverse cowgirl while laying there on top of your fresh diaper. Time for your night diaper? Bedtime blowjob.

Don't get me wrong, Kate and I have always had a very good sex life, but this past week was unlike any other.

On Saturday, in the middle of a mid-afternoon change, was when Kate suggested we try getting out of the house for a bit.

"You really soak through these diapers quick, Mike. We're gonna have to see about getting some more soon."

"I suppose we should, right? I mean, they're working infinitely better than that condom thing," I said as I was laying back while Kate took care of wiping me down.

Despite what she had said about showing me how to change myself, she didn't seem to mind taking care of it, and I was in no rush to put a stop to it considering what was in it for me.

"That's very true. There was only that one minor leak you had last night, which I'm sure we can find a way to prevent in the future. I'll put in an order for some new diapers tonight, so they get here by Monday."

Kate secured the last tape and ran a finger along the elastic leg gathers. "You know, that new game store opened up in the mall on the other side of town. What do you say we stop over there and see how it is?"

I froze. Being diapered at home was one thing. Going out in public though.... Kate seemed to know exactly what I was thinking.

"Mike. Earth to Mike. Remember what we talked about? No one is going to be paying attention to the size of your butt or the sound of your pants. And guess what? Even if they do, who cares? You have a medical need to wear diapers. Just like people who have trouble walking use canes, it's a medical thing. You didn't ask to be incontinent."

────────

I looked at myself in the mirror. My jeans appeared to do their job of concealing my diaper.

"You know," Kate popped up behind me in the reflection, "if you're so worried about people seeing, they do make onesies for adults. Just a thought."

I scoffed at her, and we headed off to the mall.

About 30 minutes later, we arrived. I couldn't help but notice that it seemed like there were a heck of a lot more people there than normal. Another 10 minutes later and we were finally able to find a parking space towards the back. As I got out of the car, I made sure my shirt was pulled down as far as it could go. It was all I needed for my shirt to ride up and expose my plastic waistband.

Kate grabbed my hand, but not before giving my padded butt a firm slap. The corner of her mouth turned up ever so slightly, and we walked hand-in-hand up to the mall.

────────

You know that feeling you get when it feels like someone is watching you? Yeah, it did not go away no matter how much time passed as we meandered through the mall.

Our first stop was in the food court, where we grabbed a late lunch of chicken and waffles. Kate went to order the food while I found a spot to sit down.

"All ready," Kate said as she walked up with a tray piled with chicken. "They accidentally made your lemonade a large, and I wasn't about time tell them they were wrong."

"It is the best homemade lemonade in town," I said, grabbing my plate off of the tray.

Kate set the tray down, then went to grab a couple of napkins. A few moments later, I noticed my shirt rising up and the back of my diaper being pulled open. I spun around and swatted the offending hand away, which turned out to belong to Kate.

"What in the hell do you think you're doing?!"

"Giving you a diaper check, what else?"

"We are in the middle of the mall!"

"It's been awhile since you had your diaper changed, and I know you are bad at knowing when you're at capacity," Kate gave me a 'prove me wrong' look.

"I'm fine!! Just... not out in broad daylight, please?" I pleaded.

"Well I didn't even get a chance to properly check just now, but if you say so...."

────────

After stopping in a couple clothing stores, ("Hey, we should think about getting you some new jeans. Those ones seem a little tight all of the sudden.") we finally made our way to the new gaming store. It was like a one-stop shop for gamers, with board games, collectibles, and video games. Towards the back, there were tables setup, where people could break out their games or card decks and hang out for a bit.

Once we had searched down all the aisles, we found ourselves in the back next to the gaming tables.

"Hey, we're looking for two more for Ticket to Ride! Do you guys want in?" said a blonde girl from a table in the corner. She and another girl were setting up the board, getting ready to start.

Kate's eyes grew to the size of saucers.

"Oh heck yes! I never lose at this game!" It was true, she did never lose, and she never let me hear the end of it whenever we played.

An hour later, and it was clear that it was between Kate and Melanie, the blonde girl, on who would be crowned victorious. The other girl and I had all but given up. Seeing that there was no way I could complete all my routes, I had long since resorted to my usual strategy of trying to sabotage Kate.

"Annnnnd 110, 111, 112. I have retained my crown," Kate gloated.

"Oh wonderful," I said, "I can't wait to hear about this all the way home."

"Well played, you two," Melanie chimed in. "Don't worry about cleaning up, we are actually waiting for some friends to come play a round."

"Oh thank you, that's so nice," Kate said as we both stood up to leave.

"Of course! It was nice meet....." Melanie trailed off, staring at my crotch.

Both Kate and I followed her gaze, and it was then that I saw that I'd had a major leak.

Large wet spots had formed down the inside of my jeans, as well as two half-moon shapes on my butt. Looking at my chair, there was more evidence of my accident, there for all to see.

It was obvious to anyone looking what had happened.

I was speechless.

"Oh shit, we're so sorry! Let me just wipe this up..." Kate said as she frantically wiped the seat down with a tissue.

The girls were equally dumbstruck, as they watched Kate lead me out of the store waddling behind her.

────────

The feeling of eyes on me increased tenfold on the walk through the mall to the car. Without a jacket or anything to cover up with, we moved as fast as we could, whispers and giggles following us out.

In what seemed like an eternity later, we finally made it back to the car.

"I'll get the seats cleaned, don't worry baby, just get in." Kate pulled open her door and got the car started. I didn't need to be told twice, as I practically leaped into the car.

"That...I...I'm so embarrassed...." I was starting to get choked up, tears forming in the corners of my eyes.

"Hey, hey, there there sweetie, I'm sorry. That can't have been fun, I know. It's not your fault." Kate was rubbing my back, the car still in park.

"That doesn't make it any less humiliating! And it's not even like I had a little accident, Kate, my diaper leaked!" I was almost yelling, my emotions getting the better of me.

"Shhhh baby, it's okay, take deep breaths, it's going to be okay. We didn't know anyone there, no one important saw, you'll be fine."

I was still upset, but I listened to her, taking steadying breaths that at least got my heart rate under control. Seeing this, Kate started to back out of our parking spot.

"Let's get you home and into a bath, baby," Kate soothed. We drove on in silence for awhile as I continued to calm down.

I think," Kate broke the silence, "that we might want to consider getting you some thicker protection. Just to be safe, you know? What do you think?"

"I think that means I will definitely be waddling, and it will be obvious to everyone what I'm wearing," I said, staring out the window.

"Well, do you prefer people maybe noticing that you walk a little funny, or running the risk of leaking like happened back there?"

"I don't know Kate, I just...I don't want to think about it."

"I'll take care of it then, babe," Kate said, "those hospital diapers are notoriously cheap anyway. We'll find something that works better for you. And I'll look into some of those onesies, so you don't feel so self-conscious about your diaper sticking out."

"Yeah, whatever," I said, as we continued down the highway.

────────

Kate knew exactly where to look when she logged on to order new diapers.

Let's see, she thought, I think probably a case of ABU Simple Ultra. Maybe a mixed case with some fun prints? No, it was too soon to go all-in like that. I'll just add in another pack of PeekABUs. That's 90 diapers, so at 2-3 diapers a day, that should be good for a month. Better throw in some boosters, too. And set up a recurring monthly order, yes please.

With that order placed, it was then to the ODU website, where she settled on several of their basic onesies.

"All in good time, Kate," she muttered to herself as she looked longingly at all of the cute designs. She could just picture how adorable Mike would look in that dinosaur onesie.

She was so horny right now. The sight of Mike in his wet jeans, his face burning bright red. Her hand slipped down the front of her shorts.

Oh fuck, she thought, he was so humiliated. She rubbed her clit to the image of Mike standing there over the pee puddle on his chair while those girls looked on.

Had she taped on his diaper perhaps a little loose before they went to the mall? Yes.

Had she intentionally ordered Mike a large lemonade? Also yes.

Had she suspected during her impromptu diaper check at the food court that Mike would protest and insist he was fine? Triple yes.

Had she known those flimsy hospital diapers would fail sooner rather than later, and she could talk Mike into something a bit thicker?

Ding-ding-ding, we have a winner.

Kate closed the laptop and got up.

She had a diaper boy she needed to fuck.

#werenotadulting

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isolaradiale · 3 years

Text

If any were paying attention to the sky that night, they might have noticed the bizarre phenomenon of some of the mists from beyond the island’s perimeter rolling in from the sky above. It obscured to moon and the stars, and converged upon the hole in Spirale’s center; absorbed into it, almost like the hole itself was an exhaust fan. It was a sight that only transpired for roughly ten minutes before a beam of bright light shone up from the hole’s depths, parting the mist in the sky above and freeing the light of the sky once more.

And once that light had cleared, there was no longer even a hole to gaze down into. Constructed upon it was a large, medieval castle, walls alight with torches and a magical glow that seemed to attract the pixies of Cotes. The front gates would open, beckoning anyone who wished to explore inside. Anyone that entered would be given a blank mask and would then by ushered by pixies into a big and beautiful ballroom at the castle’s center.

“You’re invited to the Fairy Queen’s soiree!” The pixies would cry, and among their ranks all manner of faefolk had gathered to make this event a success. But who was this mythical Fairy Queen? What was the point of this event, which would rage on for weeks? The tiny helpers would not provide answers “Wait until the end, and have fun!” is all they’d chime in chorus with each other.

SO WHY NOT TAKE A LOAD OFF AND ENJOY THE PARTY?

SO WHAT’S GOING ON?

A beautiful castle has appeared where the hole in the city’s center usually is. Various fairies and pixies are constantly present, throwing a two-week long party in the honor of their ‘Fairy Queen’ of undisclosed identity. Upon entering the castle, all guests will be chased down and given a blank mask to wear. Wearing one is optional, but enchanted with magic they can manipulate your character’s appearance:

Typically, these masks are designed to transform your character into their ideal self. Whether they wish to be taller, more beautiful, or even something more extreme like being someone else entirely. They cannot give your character any powers, but could alter their personality to whatever they consider “ideal”. So if your character is shy but would like to be bolder, wearing the mask might bring that out.

Sometimes pixies will intentionally give out faulty masks that will have the opposite effect and will twist the ideals and enact the opposite. Going back to the earlier example, if someone wanted to be bolder they might become even shier than before. Using the masks this way is up to your own discretion, and we ask you do so tastefully.

It is possible to manipulate how the mask changes you by writing a description of your desired form within the back of the mask before putting it on, but the pixies are pretty hush about telling people this.

Masks can also change your character’s clothing!

Once a mask is put on, it disappears to reveal the wearer’s face. It can be removed at any time by an intense desire to revert back to one’s true self.

The masks, and their effects, can be used anywhere in the city during the event duration. Even in SpiraleFES locations.

As a reminder, the masks are completely optional and you do not have to have your character wear one, nor is it required for event participation.

The castle grounds are set up into three “layers”. The castle itself, the cellar below, and the sky above. Each area features different manners of party.

THE CASTLE

The ballroom is the main draw of the castle event, for this is where the soiree’s masquerade ball is held. However, characters are free to explore the castle’s many halls, courtyard gardens, and the four towers in the corners at their leisure. It’s essentially a traditional medieval fantasy castle, to give you an idea of what you might find.

If you stick to dancing, the ballroom is grandiose and lit with a gigantic diamond chandelier above. The dance floor alone can accommodate roughly two-hundred people at once, and while the “masquerade” portion of the description comes from the unique, form-altering masks you get for free upon entrance, you can also purchase traditional masquerade masks from pixie vendors if you’d like to hide your face nonetheless.

Seating areas surround the ballroom, be they on the outskirts of the dancefloor itself or suspended above in overhanging booths. There’s plenty of place to sit and mingle, with no shortage of free food available to the guests in attendance.

If you attempt to steal anything from the castle you will be instantly turned into a frog for twenty-four hours thanks to an enchantment placed upon the building, so don’t get any wise ideas!

THE SKIES ABOVE

Ascend the grand foyer high enough, and you’ll walk right up to the top of the castle itself. Even here are little dancing lights and sparkles of color in the sky as the music from the ballroom continues to fill the air.

When you arrive, the pixies will grant you a temporary set of wings so you can dance on the clouds themselves! Your special wings will take whichever form best matches your mask (and if you aren’t wearing one, the wings will take the form most fitting to you as you are!)

The size and look of them doesn’t quite matter, and even the smallest or daintiest wings will grant you flight. You can use your wings to dance across the sky of the city itself, and isn’t limited to the castle walls! But if you use them to cause trouble for the castle or crash the party, your wings will disappear, and you’ll have to take the float of shame down to the ground again.

If you don’t want to walk up all those stairs, there’s an elevator to the castle roof.

THE CELLAR

Though its existence is a little hush-hush, there’s one more part to the castle. Those who have a keen eye can open up a secret passage by pressing on an out-of-place stone, and descend the stairs to the castle’s underground. Despite what the imagery suggests, it’s taken on more of an underground tavern than anything truly spooky, and torches provide pleasant ambient light in the chambers.

Aside from games like darts, cards, axe throwing and billiards, there’s a group of pixies who will tell your muse’s fortune! Whether you get a simple fortune or a cryptic one is entirely up to the pixies, however...

Rumor has it that there’s a paintball arena somewhere down here, for some reason.

#isola event #isola event: latesummer night's soiree

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