#and with starting my own challenge and seeing how much more enjoyable my new gameplay style is... it's all i want to do | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

greatbritishsimchallenge · 1 year

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Tag Game for Historical Simblrs! 📖

1. What has been your favourite time period to play in or which one are you most excited for?

The Anglo Saxon era has been my favourite so far. The thrill of working to build Kennedi up to the chief of her own Queendom was very fun.

2. Do you have a favourite piece of historical cc? (CAS or BB)

BB - I don’t know if ‘favourite’ is the right word, but I really value the CC toilets. Having my sims pee/poop in a historically accurate looking toilet somehow really helps with my immersion!

CAS - basically every historical style dress that @sifix has made

3. Who is your favourite sim currently?

I’m very early into playing the Second Estate of the Medieval era so I don’t have one for that Estate yet. Of the Medieval era as a whole, William hands down.

4. What is your favourite world?

I really like Brindleton Bay, but my most used is definitely Henford-on-Bagley.

5. Are you more gameplay or story focused?

I’m going to say gameplay because that is what I use to create the story, but I do enjoy trying to thread together all the little gameplay moments into an enjoyable narrative.

6. Do you like to play with pets in your historical saves?

The Second Estate of the Medieval era is the first time I’m doing it and, I have to say... I’m not a fan so far.

7. What’s your biggest immersion breaking pet peeve with the game?

Townies not being dressed historically. I do periodically go through and dress all the adults, but I can never be bothered with the children or younger and over time I end up with sims walking around in the typical modern, hideous Townie fashion. If anyone knows how to use MCCC or any other mod to get townies to dress themselves historically, please let me know!

8. What’s your favourite in-game historical item? (CAS or BB)

CAS - The Outdoor Retreat outfit for men and women is very useful.

BB - woodworking table to make chairs, tables, bathtubs, toilets etc.

9. What would you like to see as a new pack or asset to the game?

I need to think hard about this one... and I'm drawing a blank

10. What pack do you think is invaluable as a historical simmer?

Expansion pack - Cottage Living

Game pack - Outdoor Retreat

Stuff Pack - Laundry Day

11. Do you have a favourite mod to enhance historical gameplay?

Ye Olde Cookbook kit by @littlbowbub

12. What’s your ideal family size for playing?

My preferred is 4, but I spend most gameplay with 8 because of how many goals require that many sims.

13. Do you use poses?

I used to a lot, but now I only use poses when I cannot find an in-game animation that suitably captures what I am trying to achieve.

14. Do you use any overrides in your game?

Yes. My favourite is by @simverses and is basically an override for all the outfits of the NPC roles - maid, butler, gardener, mailman, bartender etc. It helps with immersion SO much.

15. Do you, or did you, play off-the-grid during your game?

Yes. The challenge required me to for the Iron Age, Roman Britain and some of Anglo Saxon era.

16. What lifespan do you play on?

Normal life span. I wish I could fiddle and make old age much longer, but the the challenge doesn’t allow messing with lifespans.

17. What inspired you to start playing a historically?

Short answer - finding a Sims Forum thread about the History Challenge and then falling down a very deep rabbit hole that ended up with me creating a simblr account.

Thank you for the tag @aheathen-conceivably and @taanoir!

I tag @shelbycompanylimitedd @soulful-simmer just because they haven’t posted their historical stories in a while and I miss them :)

#simblr ask game

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aheathen-conceivably · 1 year

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Hey Alexis. I have to say your Darlington legacy is amazing and Zelda is the cutest and I love her story, and omg don't get me started on Antoine. I want to start the decades challenge myself, I’ve tried and failed before, but reading your story is making me want to do it. BUT, how? I’m not asking for a long detailed explanation, but more like your top 5 ways or something, you used to start it? Mods, cas-blogs, etc? And only if you got the time and of course want to share it with us/me?<3

Hello, there! Thank you so much for the kind words! And I’m incredibly glad to help. The Decades Challenge is a bit of a beast compared to other sims gameplay. It takes a little more research, effort, and organization to make it really enjoyable. So if I can push a few people deeper into historical sims life I’m happy to do so 😉

A key point before we get in resources below the cut (because prepare for paragraphs babes), how do you want to play the decades challenge? Do you want to stick to the original challenge? Do a version with more realistic aging? Just play casually for the gameplay? Have a meticulous storyline planned out (ahem 👀)?

In case it isn’t super clear, I’m not playing the decades challenge anymore. I have used it as a jumping off point for storytelling. Truly, I play the game very little. Usually I try to recreate the story posts in gameplay for myself but I do not try to achieve any of the challenge goals or gameplay rules (although I do have my own rules).

For this reason, I am not the best resource on gameplay mods. There are some mods that I’m dimly aware of that make the challenge more fun, like those by @janesimsten and this mod which I used a lot in the 1900s.

That being said, there is a lot of freedom in the the historical simblr community to craft the experience that you want. You can always try one idea and change it as you go. When I started the Darlingtons it was meant to be about 50/50 gameplay/storytelling with randomized death rolls and challenge goals. Then, I realized what I enjoyed and leaned further into that. I think this is the key to sticking with the challenge, because otherwise it’ll just feel like checking off boxes and you’ll give up sometime around 1900.

So without further ado, let’s get on down below the cut:

First and foremost, and I cannot stress this enough, start a mod organization system from day one. Playing historically requires a good deal of CC and if you don’t organize at the beginning, it gets very very difficult to sort stuff out later. This can easily make historical simming overwhelming and frankly, unenjoyable. I personally would start with a clean mods folder. Keep this separate from your regular (modern) mods as well. I have three mods folders, one for regular (modern) gameplay, one for building vanilla, and one for the Darlingtons.

For the Darlingtons, I have everything organized by mods, CAS, and then BB. Within these folders I organize by decade. That way when I enter a new decade it is easier to pull things in or out. I also have a folder on my desktop for subsequent decades CC, so if I ever find anything that isn’t easy to save on my Pinterest (more on that later), I download it then and there, and put it into the appropriate folder. Then when I hit a new decade I already have a bit of a CC collection going.

Now for finding CC, I am really not the best resource on BB stuff. I just don’t download a lot of it, and what I do is usually super specific or things that I see others using regularly. There are a couple of pieces of mainstay BB CC that I use consistently, and I’ll be glad to point you in the direction of those if you see something you’re interested in. However I don’t really have a central resource on BB they way that I do for CAS. So without further ado (because CAS is really why we’re here for historical simming, isn’t it?)….

Lookbooks, lookbooks, lookbooks. Seriously. Pixelnrd’s lookbooks we’re one of my first references, and I find them so helpful that they’re the reason I started to make my own. Just looking at a couple lookbooks can be much quicker and easier than scrolling through pages and pages of CC. But if you’re willing to go a little deeper down the rabbit hole, @twentiethcenturysims has truly made the resource to end all recourses. Their CC is categorized by decade for easy scrolling, and they also have a lookbook tag if you prefer to get your CC that way.

Now, and this is a personal one, I have used Pinterest SO much for this legacy I cannot even stress it enough. I have two boards: one for poses and one for CC. The poses one is a whole different beast, so if you ever want an answer for poses and storytelling please send one. But I’ll refrain from diving down that rabbit hole right now too.

My Pinterest CC board is organized like my mods folder, by decades. I also have a board for BB, general mod finds, hair, and (this one helps me a lot) CC that I have already downloaded so when I do lookbooks or get a WCIF, the link is already there for me.

These boards serve two purposes. Whenever I find a piece of CC that I like, I do not have to download it immediately. I save it to the appropriate decades board and it’s there, waiting for me, whenever I reach that era. This makes the hunt way easier, and also makes me SUPER excited to get to the next decade because I already have CC that I can see the characters in.

Secondly, Pinterest is an amazing resource in and of itself. Once it “learns” what you’re looking for, Pinterest will pull CC from all over the internet, including stuff that I’ve never seen in people’s lookbooks or the resources listed above. Then it’s an easy click to save this link for myself for later.

So scrolling through Pinterest then turns into a sort of inspiration board as well. This is a broader point regarding the tendency of people to quit the decades challenge: find what inspires you to do it and what makes you excited for the next decades.

For me, part of this is the storyline and seeing my characters reach the next plot that I’ve written for them. But much simpler, it’s the clothes! I’ve always been into fashion history and historical CC is actually how I found this community in the first place. So often if I’m tired out with writing or editing I’ll just go look through Pinterest for new stuff or scroll through my historical inspiration blog (which is linked in my pinned post if you’d like to check it out).

But above all, honestly, just don’t take it too seriously. Sometimes I see rather stringent calls for fashion accuracy or anachronisms but like…it’s your game. Start whenever you’d like, play however you’d like, for as long as you’d like. Hopefully this just gives you a bit of a framework for making that happen ❤️

#ask #answered #probably about 4x the answer that was necessary 😅#but y’all know me #why use two words when 10 will also work?#WCIF #resources

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cidthesquid · 2 months

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Princess Peach: Showtime Demo! - More than Just Cute Outfits!

Today l'll be talking about the demo for:Princess Peach: Showtime!

Yeah, I know this is not a 'Fashion Game', But I make the rules here! Also I think even the 'ideas' here are worth talking about, as well as the gameplay! The demo is free, so I'd really recommend checking it out for yourselves if you're interested, but if you're interested in my commentary with a few personal connections, feel free to stick around! --- Alright, so first off, I've never really had any strong connections or feeling about peach as a character before playing this. She was just another Mario character to me, and did not really represent or stand for anything. I remembered hearing she first got her own spin-off game on the DS, "Super Princess Peach" (2005) where her actions are powered by various emotions, people often described it as "the game where one of her powers is crying:

Also, it was still very much just a platforming game, so it did not really stand out for me. This game however is a lot more difficult to categorize:

I guess the easiest way to describe it would be an 'Adventure Game', You'll be given various challenges, based on the level, there is some combat as well as mini-game style activities, and each level with have multiple activities, so it's not like "just do one baking mini game, then move on to the next level.

There's combat, even if it's very simplistic, I still find it enjoyable. You have a jump button, and a single button that does everything else, attacking, dodging, counter hits, etc. But you'll have a health bar to manage, and enemies may have invulnerability phases, so while it's simplistic, the game by no means 'plays it'self' some level of interaction is still required.

The Mini-games are also simplistic, but do allow you to mess up, they also have a 'soft failure state' so the time limit does matter, and you can actually fail the event, and will be required to retry.

Most gamers would not consider this game difficult, or challenging to any degree, but unlike some other 'cute games' it dose actually offer some form of push back, and I think that makes it more rewarding! --- Ok, Now with gameplay out of the way, I'd like to talk about the game's ascetics. It's clear that making the game as cute and charming as possible was a core design decision. And this is shown from the very start when they make a change to peach's default hairstyle:

Now, I actually see written out in my notes "Don't spend multiple paragraphs talking about peach's new ponytail", So I'll have to keep this short, I think it's a great addition, for a long time I just saw the concept of a "ponytail" as something exclusively reserved for very young people, that's how it was mainly shown in western media. So I was surprised when a lot of Japanese games gave it as an option for adult characters, Monster Hunter, Final Fantasy XIV, and tons more had it as part of the character creator. And while it's not the style I generally go with for my own characters, I've come to embrace the idea, and see how it can be a cute or fun additional to a character design regardless of their age. And I think it works really well here, especially as it offers great secondary motion:

I'm sure there are plenty of ways to interpret Peach's last game, using emotion as peach's own real actions. But I vastly prefer this game's ideas, the whole idea is someone's ruining all the plays, and corrupting them and the participates with negativity, and you fight back with positivity and encouragement!

When things start to get dark, and the characters' perspective change. But Giving them hope (by attacking them :P) you're able to help them push through.

When I first saw this game's trailer, I though it was just an excuse to put peach in various cute outfit, and (I have no problem with that), but it seemed to lack any real substance But overall, I really enjoyed this short demo, You get cute outfits, a very pleasant world, and a nice theme! The game is just full of charm, and there is just so much detail in the background characters, and even the idle animations,

So I'll probably pick it up regardless of the game length, it's just really nice. I probably won't blog about like I do with style savvy.

(Screenshot from the nintendo store page NOT IN THE DEMO) It looks like the full game may offer some unlockables and a little customization, so that could be fun! At $60, It's a bit on the pricey side, so I may end up buying the JP version on play asia to save a little money (~$40) But much like Style Savvy, I really enjoy the variety of outfits, and how it shows that style is more than just one thing, and how various outfits can impart various different moods and feelings.

--- Alright, that's my main thoughts on my small sampling of the game, but feel free to stick around for my added personal notes! ---- /!\ Caution: End of Cute screenshots, Mostly unedited Ramblings beyond this point /!\

So I've been thinking a lot about the concept of 'Cute' in general, to some people, this may seem like an odd thing to think about, But if you've followed my blog for a while, you'll probably understand why. But regardless, I've started to get over the weird feelings of being a guy playing 'cute games', but one of the things I was still trying to figure out was where my own perspective of 'cute' lies when it comes to characters. I have no trouble designing cute outfits for others in style savvy, and I do really like a lot of cute designs, but when it comes to created characters that I plan to stick with long term, it's not really a style I focus on, generally leaning more towards Bold/Rock or even Elegant/Feminine Styles.

For a while, I thought I was subconsciously avoiding anything 'cute', and that I needed to 'fix that' or something. But recently I've been learning a lot about the different ways you can 'like something', You can find something nice because you relate to it, you could like how neat and organized it looks, or you could even really like the feelings it evokes. And I think this was the missing piece and understanding how I relate to various types of fashion. As silly as it sounds, I was not even aware there was an option to like different styles for different reasons. For example: I now know that I do like the 'cute' ascetic, for character designs, outfits, and tone. However, it's not really something I'm drawn to, or relate with. So if something looks 'cute', it may receive bonus points in my brain over something plain, and it can offer a bit of a relaxing feeling.

The Cool/Bold Style has a much bigger draw for me, and as such, when I'm making my own character (especially in a multiplayer game), and want to stand out, this is what I go for. I love the energy it gives off, and playing character that look cool, make me feel cool as well! as such, I'd have to say it's my favorite to use. Elegant/Feminine Style: I still don't really have my exact feels on this nailed down yet. But I really enjoy the flexibility it provides. It offers a lot of what I like about the 'bold' and 'cute' styles, without being too loud or aggressive, you can make this style as mature as you want, or add a more youthful edge, And it can look a bit simplistic, or very stylized. This refined style honestly feels like it has endless potential, yet I have the hardest time designing for it, but it's probably my favorite to experience others interoperation of.

--- Alright, hopefully that was still a fun read, and not 'too personal' . As always, any comments/critique are welcome!

#fashion game #nintendo switch #princess peach #cute #dress up game #dress up #switch #princess peach showtime #magical girl #gif #nintendo #peach #cosplay #fashion #existence #life stuff

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sevrai · 10 months

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Armored Core

I went on a journey this year. Or maybe I should say I continued an old journey.

On July 10th, 26 years ago, the first Armored Core released in Japan. On an unknown day about 20-ish years ago a young me stumbled upon a copy of Armored Core 3 for the PS2 in a used game store.

It's been some time since I decided to indulge in a lengthy, meandering post about my loves and hobbies outside of awkward Twitter threads, so I wanna air my thoughts on the Armored Core series! (This is gonna be a long post, primarily for my own enjoyment. You have been warned.)

Most who know me online or read my comics will know of my penchant for fantasy, but not all may know of my love for the "Real Robot" subgenre of mecha. As someone obsessed with DBZ and magic, you'd think I'd fall more into the epic "Super Robot" camp of mecha anime, but growing up I felt captivated with Gundam Wing and the Universal Century OVAs that aired on Toonami and Adult Swim. They hard-wired my DNA early on. (With the Escaflowne film later impacting me so hard with it's grounded mecha and magical fantasy setting that it played a huge role in inspiring WOE, though my comic is noticeably lacking in Guymelefs.)

Naturally that awe and love for such works made me feel incredibly drawn to Armored Core 3 when I first saw it. It was my introduction to a series that I wouldn't comprehend the true breadth of for well over a decade.

I was terrible at it, both due to my lack of experience with TPS games and the oldschool control scheme, but the customization, detail, and overall atmosphere of the game were incredible to experience all the same.

It wasn't until the holiday season of 2008 that I was finally able to fight through an AC campaign, when I was gifted a PS3 and several games, among which was Armored Core: For Answer. It blew me away. I already had fond memories of bumbling around AC3, but For Answer's over-the-top presentation, haunting soundtrack, challenging gameplay, and dystopic atmosphere really sucked me in.

Along with Demon's Souls it kick-started a general admiration of FromSoftware and the distinct games they developed. After getting swept up in the excitement of Dark Souls, me and a friend dabbled in Armored Core V and Verdict Day, even playing a decent amount of the territorial multiplayer, but it never drew me in like AC3 and AC4A did.

The years went on and although I always adored Armored Core, I took my sweet time getting around to going backwards in the series. I've always been a fan of emulation and rarely used to feel a particular drive to collect physical games, (can't say the same for myself nowadays. Sorry, wallet!) but I always remembered how much AC resonated with me, and when walking around used game stores I would muse to my friends that I wanted to someday collect all of the Armored Core games in physical form.

I made relaxed progress grabbing the games when I saw them over the years, but at the end of 2022, the Game Awards hit everyone with a bombshell reveal. The show faded to black, the screen eventually being lit by the Bandai Namco logo, followed by a little red light. Something in my soul knew what was coming as soon as I saw that simple red light start to glow, I jumped out of my seat and exclaimed out loud "Armored Core!?"

youtube

It was a trailer for Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, the first new AC game in ten years. It was a surreal moment that still makes me smile now.

The series was always niche, but since it went dormant From has achieved superstar status as a developer thanks to the Souls series and Elden Ring. There's now more attention and interest in Armored Core than it has ever gotten in the past. It didn't dawn on me until a buddy messaged me shortly after the reveal that the prices of the old games were gonna go crazy from the huge amount of people who were From fans but had never heard of AC, and were now interested in trying the old games.

Some were content to wait patiently to see if the market and prices would calm down, but I took a gamble and started shoring up my collection ASAP. Sure it felt embarrassing paying so much more for several of them than they were going for a mere few weeks earlier, but I supplemented my hunt by selling a few rare old SHF and Figmas.

After a few tense months of scanning listings for good prices with some very focused personal criteria, the result was expensive but satisfying;

On top of this investment I even went all-in on the Premium Edition of ACVI. Perhaps people should rightfully poke fun at me for throwing so much money around for video games about giant robots, but it's not often I can say I accomplished a goal of this caliber in my life.

Now with all the games in hand a new journey had begun; from collecting to playing. I've played Armored Core games off and on since the early 2000's, but I was only just now finally making the pilgrimage through the series proper from the very first release, alongside the huge wave of newcomers dipping their toes into the old games before the new one comes out. Like an Armored Core version of Billy Madison.

I started playing the PSOne Classics release of AC1 on my PS3, before transitioning to my PS2 Slim once all of the PSX games were in my hands. Learning that both systems used funky software emulation for PSX games I went on a subquest of ordering and cleaning up a SCPH-39001 model PS2, (which was super nostalgic in it's own right since I started with a fat PS2 in 2003,) hooked up to a massive KV-36FV310 via component cables. I even went down a DualShock 2 model rabbit hole. Every game now looks and runs like a dream on this hedonistic setup.

As of the day I'm posting this silly blog post, I am seven games deep. I have 100%'d, (all parts unlocked, all missions complete, all enemy AC beaten both optional fights in missions and in the Arena,) without any Human PLUS enhancements or OP-INTENSIFY used, and even sticking with the default control scheme:

Armored Core

AC: Project Phantasma

AC: Master of Arena

Armored Core 2

AC2: Another Age

Armored Core 3

… And right now I'm just a few percent shy of 100%ing AC3: Silent Line. Sorry if this sounds like juvenile bragging, but it's always been hard for me to focus on and finish games. My ADHD has me jumping from game to game for years on end, never seeing many of them through to the end, so I want to indulge in a bit of pride being able to spend several months blasting through these games without slowing down, and without taking any shortcuts.

Admittedly I haven't played on Hard Mode in any of the games that have offered it, and Silent Line is really pushing me to my limit demanding S Ranks on every mission, but I'm still enjoying it and hoping to finish it up in time to sample a bit more of the games I missed out on, as well as make a nostalgic return to For Answer, by the time ACVI comes out.

Returning to Armored Core 3 felt especially sentimental. Like a return home. I'm sure many people can relate to the feeling of returning to a childhood game with newfound abilities and knowledge, finally able to do what your younger self could not. Having beaten the game that started this whole obsession for me about two decades ago is a really great feeling.

I adore these games. I always loved the few I did play as a youngster, and knew that From was a consistent enough developer that I would enjoy the rest as well, but not to the extent I truly have. Despite the time and money spent collecting them, I still underestimated just how much I'd fall in love with each and every one. Even the aspects others struggle to return to. I love the FCS quirks, the turn speed, the bunny hopping, the heat and energy management, the opponents riddled with cybernetic enhancements pushing you to your limits, I even love the old controls of using L2/R2 for vertical camera movement. For all it's quirks and older design philosophies it's such an engrossing and immersive series.

ACVI will be a very different, (and streamlined,) beast. I'm okay with this. My adoration for old Armored Core will only make it easier to return to and appreciate this storied series I've gone to such lengths to collect, even after the new one releases. I trust From to do the series justice, no matter how easy it is for newcomers to jump in.

I love Armored Core, I love this genre of mecha, and I hope lots of people will learn to love it as well. I want the new game to do well so we can see more in the future. I sincerely doubt anyone will actually have read all of this, but if you did, thanks for your time. I know my rambling can be unfocused and pretentious. I don't need to put this much effort into waxing nostalgic about video games, but I miss the part of me that used to do this on a regular basis.

(I also apologize for how much my comic updating will probably slow down when ACVI drops, regardless of what momentum I can build through July and August.)

#rambling #blog #armored core #video games

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lovecidik · 1 year

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ask game for historical simblrs!

1. what has been your favorite time period to play in or which one are you most excited for?

so far, i was definitely most excited for the 1910s! although it was definitely fueled by the fashion as i am obsessed with it, i’m still having a lot of fun with it.

i’m super excited for the 1920s though - i have a lot planned for it and only hope i get to execute it well!! ALSO the 80s purely bc of my love of the goth music of the era lol

2. do you have a favorite piece of historical cc? (cas or bb)

right now, absolutely all of katya’s outfits. i can’t choose a favorite, i’m just OBSESSED with all of them

3. who is your favorite sim currently?

quite obvious, but i love and have always loved katya. she’s my little baby and i will cherish her forever!!

i am also loving what i’ve got planned for the crowley children’s future, so all of them are very dear to me :) oh and also miss mystery sim 👀

4. what is your favorite world?

in terms of historical gameplay, probably brindleton bay! henford is a very close second though.

5. are you more gameplay or story focused?

i definitely used to be more of a story-based gameplay person, but i think you can tell in my posts i’ve started focusing on story more! its just more enjoyable for me and i can always play other saves for pure gameplay :) that being said it does vary for me!

6. do you like to play with pets in your historical saves?

not all that much! i like having them around but i tend to forget about them oops

7. what’s your biggest immersion breaking pet peeve in the game?

definitely phones 😭 i know there’s like a notebook override for them but as i also do modern gameplay in my own time i will just struggle with it!!

8. what’s your favorite in-game historical item? (cas or bb)

i really can’t say! i’m such a heavy cc user i barely use items from the game. maybe the wash buckets?

9. what would you like to see as a new pack or asset to the game?

i think i would love some new dances! especially from the 20s. i’d love to throw a big party and have my sims actually accurately dance 😭

10. what pack do you think is invaluable as a historical simmer?

absolutely cottage living! from the gameplay to the build/buy, it’s just such a useful pack. no clue how i did the decades challenge before cows and chickens

11. do you have a favorite mod to enhance historical gameplay?

i don’t actually! i tend not to use many historical gameplay mods for some reason.

12. what’s your ideal family size for playing?

as much as i love having huge families, my current 8 sim household is so overwhelming!! the 1900s 4 sims was definitely ideal.

13. do you use poses?

most of the time, yes! i do tend to use in-game animations sometimes too, but i generally find them too expressive and animated 😭

14. do you use any overrides in your game?

not that i can think of! if i solely played historically, i definitely would.

15. do you, or did you, play off-the-grid during your game?

kind of! i find especially many of the bathtubs i like aren’t off-the-grid compatible, so i just… pretended they didn’t have power and water i guess

16. what lifespan do you play on?

i’m generally on normal, but i switch between long and short to either speed up or slow down my story/game.

17. what inspired you to start playing historically?

i quite literally don’t remember! 😭 i’ve been playing historically on and off for about five years now. a million decades challenges and many others later this is still the farthest time-wise i’ve got. oops

thank you sm for the tag @aheathen-conceivably !! tagging @bardish-cryptid @antiquepixels and anyone else who wants to do this <3

#ask game #simblr ask game

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chronicas · 1 year

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Okay, FINALLY getting around to the games played 2022 top ten ranking!!

10. Hollow Knight

VERY fun although I unfortunately didn’t spend much time on it. It definitely presents a pretty significant learning curve because it’s not very much like many other games I’ve played. I hope to revisit it soon!

9. Astro’s Playroom

This cute little platformer comes with the PS5 and demonstrates many of the consoles new functionality! It’s a great way to see what the console is capable of and is also just VERY cute and enjoyable!! Definitely don’t skip this game if you get the chance to play it!

8. Pokémon White

The second oldest game I played this year and also the first non-Pokémon GO Pokémon game I’ve played. Was a lot more simple than I thought it’d be and it’s super fun. I may not know much about Pokémon, but it was really easy to grasp. Really enjoyed it and loved it as an introduction to the franchise. I hope to play more Pokémon games in the future!

7. Bloodborne

My first Fromsoft game hopefully of many! I love the gameplay and design. It’s a really fun game for when I want a challenge! I absolutely adore the boss design in it and would love to you know.. actually beat it someday.

6. Ratchet & Clank (2016)

Despite my many criticisms for this game, it was VERY enjoyable. I still argue it doesn’t quite live up to the original, but the level design being overall the same certainly made it enjoyable! It’s definitely lower on my list than other R&C games, but again! I had a great time with it.

5. Oxenfree

I’m not usually a fan of these kind of point and click games, but the narrative of this game was so so fascinating that it’s actually one of my favorite games I played this year. Only outranked by some of my favorite games in general. I highly recommend giving this game a shot and I’m VERY much looking forward to the sequel.

4. Final Fantasy VII Remake: EPISODE INTERmission

A lot of debating back and forth if this DLC really counted as a “game played” this year, but I decided it did because of how much I enjoyed it. I definitely had my issues with it, mainly all stemming from DOC being my least favorite part of the FFVII Compilation. However with Yuffie being one of my very favorite characters, I think her getting her own dedicated DLC was well deserved! It makes me incredibly excited to use her move set more come Rebirth. While I wasn’t a fan of the narrative of this DLC, the gameplay more than made up for it!!

3. Destiny 2: The Witch Queen

I was EXTREMELY excited about this expansion and I tell you it did NOT disappoint! The story of this expansion was one of my favorites since The Taken King and is in my top five Destiny storylines. The Lucent Hive are among my favorite enemies right after my all time faves, the SIVA corrupted Iron Lords. Something I have wanted since TTK was a storyline about fighting against enemy guardians (not in the Crucible) and this is probably one of the BEST ways they could’ve done that. Oryx, Xivu Arath, and Savathûn are in my opinion the most interesting characters in Destiny, and getting to see Savathûn in action was EVERYTHING I hoped it would be. She unfortunately didn’t live up to the hype of her brother Oryx, but there’s only so much you can do to live up with that without turning into a goddamn kaiju. Still, EXCELLENT expansion and a GREAT place to start if you’re looking to get into Destiny right now!!

2. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

ONE OF THE GAMES OF ALL TIME!!!! Rift Apart ABSOLUTELY lived up to the hype and is in my opinion the best game for next-gen consoles to be released so far. The story is INCREDIBLY enjoyable, the new characters are WONDERFUL additions to the franchise, and the gameplay is hours and hours of pure enjoyment. It was a wonderful use of the new features of the PS5 and absolutely didn’t hold back on using the console to its full potential. If you happen to own a PS5, this game is an absolute MUST!!

1. Sonic Frontiers

SONIC FRANCHISE SAVED!!!! I had a lot of hopes riding on this game and this game blew my expectations out of the water. Ian Flynn’s writing was exceptional and truly captured everything that I love about Sonic games. The open world design was SOOOO much fun and I REALLY hope to see more of it in the future! The boss fights are probably my favorite in any Sonic game I’ve ever played. The MOVESET was SICK AS HELL, I loved the use of combo attacks in this game, not a single battle ever felt boring. The enemy design was EXTREMELY fun, every miniboss was extremely fun and creative. And SAGE?? Everything to me, I hope she appears in every single new game from here on out. The game isn’t without it’s issues, the Cyber Space levels have many of the same issues I had with the level design in Sonic Forces, but that’s pretty much my main complaint. This game makes me EXTREMELY excited about the future of Sonic games. If you haven’t played it yet… do it immediately. There is no game I’ve played in the last five years I would recommend higher than Frontiers.

#Okay annual ranking completed. Swag.#As you may be able to tell. I am. Passionate about Sonic the Hedgehog.#And also Destiny..#ophidian lore #game rankings

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self-loving-vampire · 3 years

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Geneforge 1 - Mutagen (2021)

Geneforge 1 - Mutagen is a modern remake of Spiderweb Software’s classic Geneforge series, which spanned 5 games and ran from 2001 to 2011. It is notable primarily for its unique setting and quality writing. I especially like how the game does not squander the potential of its premise and explores many of the ethical, political, and legal aspects of Shaping.

Summary

In the world of Geneforge, there is an order of mages called Shapers. Shapers are capable of creating and modifying living beings simply called “Creations”. There is a very wide variety of Creations, built for different purposes.

You are a Shaper in training, sailing the seas in a living craft as part of training. While doing this, you come near an island that has been Barred, meaning that entrance to it has been strictly forbidden (this can happen due to failed experiments, secret projects, etc.)

At that moment, your craft is attacked and killed by a strange ship. You manage to reach the shore, finding that the island you have found yourself in is far from abandoned...

Freedom

Really good overall. Not only do you have a good selection of playstyles but you also have multiple endings and various faction choices. Additionally, you can explore the world rather freely, stopped only by organic barriers such as strong enemies, environmental hazards, and lack of access tools rather than plot contrivances.

Many quests have multiple solutions, and you also often get multiple dialogue options in reaction to various things.

One weakness I noticed is that there are situations where your dialogue choices make for a simple binary. However, this is not such a big deal in the grand scheme of things and this game still does far better than many others in this department.

One thing I particularly like is that while some of the game’s final decisions determine the bulk of what ending you get, your relationships with the game’s three main factions still seem to have an impact on the ending and interact with your other decisions in complex ways.

Character Creation/Customization

On the surface, I thought the character creation of this game was simply good but basic. You can select one of three classes and spend some points to increase your initial stats and skills. There are no backgrounds, traits, races, or even all that much appearance-based customization.

However, after some hours of playing I discovered that the versatility of Shaping makes things far more complex than they first appear.

The three classes available to you are:

Shaper - A specialist at creating and enhancing various allies. They are weak in combat, but can have the strongest and most numerous Creations. They are also decent at magic.

Guardian - The warriors of the shaper sect. They are the strongest in terms of physical prowess but have very weak magic. Of the three classes, they are in the middle in terms of shaping ability, being able to field some Creations but not as many as the Shaper.

Agent - Allegedly the most challenging class to play. They are highly skilled in “conventional” (non-shaper) magic and average at combat, but not very good at shaping, often acting on their own.

Out of these, I think Shaper is not only likely the easiest but also the most interesting and the most appropriate to the themes of the game. In addition to your basic stats, you can select skills in things like combat, offensive magic, buffs, a few different shaping styles, and three non-combat skills (Leadership, Mechanics, and Stealth).

The Leadership skill serves as a diplomacy skill and also allows you to control Creations with your will. The Mechanics skill allows you to disable traps and pick locks.

The complexity comes from the creations you will unlock throughout the game.

There are nine base creation types (each with an alternate form with slightly different abilities) plus hidden creations you will have to discover as you play.

All creations consume varying amounts of Essence. Often, more powerful creations will have higher Essence costs, and you have a limited amount of Essence to distribute among all of your creations.

You can spend additional essence to enhance your creations with better stats and additional abilities, both passive and active.

On top of that, Essence is also required to cast most spells, so the more of it you spend on creations the less of it you will have for things like healing and combat buffs.

This means that even within just the Shaper class there is a variety of playstyles available. From bombarding the enemy with multiple weaker ranged creations to focusing on just a couple of more powerful ones such as upgraded Drayks, while also keeping some essence on reserve for your own spells.

Story/Setting

The game takes place on the mysterious Sucia Island, which has been barred for reasons you will uncover during the course of the game. You are not alone in this island, as you will soon make contact with intelligent life in the form of Serviles.

Serviles are a common Creation, made to essentially serve as slaves to the Shapers. Many of the Serviles you saw while growing up treated Shapers with fear, awe, and absolute submission.

But that is not the case here. The Serviles of Sucia island are largely “rogue”, and have divided themselves into three factions.

The first is the Awakened. These Serviles remain grateful to the Shapers for giving them life, but wish to deal with them as equals rather than slaves. They believe that all intelligent creations should be treated equally.

The second is the Obeyers, who retain the instinct bred into Serviles and wish to remain loyal to the Shapers, yearning for their return to Sucia. However, dealing with them is still not so simple. If you try to tell them that they should be independent like the other two factions, they will (correctly) see you as a rebel who does not represent the true will of the Shapers or act in accordance to their laws.

The third, and probably most complex, of the factions is the Takers. This is a group of radical Serviles who despise the Shapers. Their name comes from their willingness to take their destiny into their own hands by any means necessary. Many of them treat you with some degree of hostility, but none of these factions is a monolith with a completely unified worldview.

In fact, if you meet the leader of the Takers, you will discover that at least some of them would be willing to forgive everything if granted freedom, they just don’t think it is likely that the Shapers would grant it and are willing to die rather than return to slavery.

And the thing is that this is probably correct. The more you play the more you realize that the sect you grew up in is twisted and would sooner genocide all life in Sucia island than treat “rogue” creations as equals.

One moment that I felt really highlights this is when you meet one of the few Drayks who inhabit the island. Drayks are pretty much Geneforge’s take on fantasy dragons. They are highly intelligent and independent creations, which is the reason why creating more of them was forbidden by the Shapers.

As Sucia has been barred and isolated from the rest of the world for a long time, the Drayk you meet is not aware of this new law. When you inform them about it, their reaction is grim.

The drayk realizes, in that moment, that their entire species will one day go extinct simply because your people will it. Because they were not submissive enough. Not good enough slaves.

The Shapers may have the power to create life, but they are not kind to that life. They are no different from abusive parents who want children to be servants or property.

And this is not even getting into the topic of the titular Geneforge or the other inhabitants of the island...

Overall, I found the story and worldbuilding of this game to be excellent. None of the factions feel one-dimensional and often there are many different points of view within each of them. That makes them feel deeper and more real than many other video game factions, where everyone on the same side is implied to have broadly the same beliefs and there are no schisms, sub-factions, or major differences.

Immersion

Judging how immersive Geneforge games are is somewhat complicated. On one side, this game lacks a lot of the features that make it easier for me to roleplay living in its world day to day.

On the other, the writing and worldbuilding are great and the consequences for various actions sound sensible.

The writing is really carrying this aspect of the game I think, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Gameplay

Combat is in a reasonably good place. It is extremely simple to understand, while still offering some level of depth later in the game. For the most part, combat is also not that difficult unless you push yourself into areas you are not yet ready for.

I do have a number of complaints to make, but want to make it clear that these were never enough to really ruin my enjoyment of the game.

The most significant of these complaints has to do with the way experience is awarded in relation to your own level.

As your level increases, not only enemies but also quests will start granting you less and less experience. I can see why one might make such a design decision, as it means exploration and unique quest rewards will quickly become more significant sources of power than combat alone, but on a purely psychological level I just don’t like to go through a fight and get nothing at all in return, especially since the game does have quite a bit of combat.

This can make some sections of the game drag on. In particular, fights against defensive crystals in a couple of locations can be a bit slow, as the crystals are very durable and dangerous to approach in melee due to how they explode upon death.

Aesthetics

Spiderweb games are known for having minimal budgets, and the area that usually ends up receiving the least funds is the graphics and sound.

So despite being a remake from 2021, this is a game that looks like it was made in the 90s and has no music apart from the title screen’s.

Personally, this does not bother me at all. I think pretty graphics are nice and good music can definitely add to the atmosphere of a game (see Fallout 1 or Planescape: Torment, for example) neither is the core of what I am looking for in a game, especially in this genre.

I do like some of the ambient sound effects though. In particular the corvid cawing in some of the game’s more desolate areas.

Putting the graphics and sound aside, the way the game uses Shaping to establish its setting earns it a lot of aesthetic points, as it ends up with a very unique identity.

For example, Geneforge does not use bows as its primary ranged weapons. It uses living batons that launch thorns. It also largely does not include any generic fantasy races like elves or orcs.

Accessibility

Actually really good, far better than I expected even. Combat is an extremely simple affair, making a functional build with most classes is not complicated, the game’s general mechanics are transparent, and there is both a short tutorial and in-game instructions.

Really if you can get past the presentation you won’t have many obstacles to playing this game. It even has multiple difficulty options, including a casual mode for those who just want to follow the story and don’t want to have to think too much about how to overcome the game’s obstacles.

Conclusion

Geneforge has a lot of what I like in an RPG. Things like character creation, rich worldbuilding, non-linear gameplay, and the ability to make meaningful decisions.

I especially recommend this one to people who want something different from the standard fantasy RPG experience, and also to the type of mega-nerd who will enjoy analyzing the game’s world and themes in detail. There is much to talk about here.

#vampire reviews rpgs #geneforge

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thatgamefromthatad · 3 years

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3 more games like Merge Mansion - the genre is evolving!

More and more games like Merge Mansion (two-item merge games) are being released and I can hardly keep up, but I’m glad because I find this genre so satisfying! Here I’ll review three more relatively new games, which are all unique in that they break off quite a bit from the original Merge Mansion, and include their own mechanics not seen in the other Merge Mansion-esque games I’ve covered!

You can see my original Games like Merge Mansion review here, although it’s quite outdated as many of those games have made significant changes since I wrote that in early March. I’ll try to add some updates to the original post sometime in the near future to better reflect that current status of each of those games. You can also find links to the other two-item merge games I’ve previously reviewed in my final ranking at the end!

Read my full reviews of Plantopia, Merge Adventure and City Boom below:

***

Plantopia: Merge Garden (Early Access)

Developer: Voodoo

Release Date: May 7, 2020 (Early Access)

This game is an interesting one because I only found it recently and started seeing ads for it recently although it’s apparently been around for about a year. I’m thinking it was soft launched and only recently made available in my region. The title screen indicates it’s still early access so that would make sense.

An initial release/soft launch date of May 2020 would actually make it older than Merge Mansion, which I believe was released in Sept. 2020. However I’m not sure about the exact timeline as they could have been in development/soft launched around the same time and the games are actually quite different overall so the basic similarities could be a coincidence.

This game truly amazed me because although it has the basic elements of what I would consider a Merge Mansion-like game, that being the two-item merge mechanic on a two-dimensional grid-like board viewed from the top, with item generators and item collection objectives, it’s otherwise very different from the other two-item merge games I’ve played. There are at least three separate boards, possibly more considering the tool shed and flower lab unlock a bit later in the game, and instead of completing objectives by getting items right off the board, you use items from the greenhouse and tool shed boards to start growing plants and then harvest the resources. The flower lab adds an additional step, as you can take the plants you’ve harvested to that board and merge them further to create bouquets and oils etc.

This game is probably the most complex and challenging out of all the two-item merge games I’ve played, which I think makes it more fun but less relaxing. Basically if I want something to play mindlessly while chilling out and watching YouTube videos I would play Merge Mansion or Merge Friends, but when I want to play something more advanced and for a longer period of time I play Plantopia.

🌼 Art: 3/3 (although I mostly prefer all 2D art, this game does the 3D/2D mixture better than some other games and I just love the colors and style of the different plants, boards and products. It all feels very “cottagecore” as the kids these days would say lol. The 2D character designs are also OK and pretty cute)

🌼 Story: 2/3 (it’s definitely a step above the “moving into this old mansion with my grandparents” story, I did get to know the characters a little better and some of the objectives are plot-related, such as growing aloe to help another character with his sunburn, or growing a special flower that reminds another character of her late husband etc. But I wasn’t really feeling like I wanted to learn more, and the storyline didn’t have a huge influence on my overall experience)

🌼 Gameplay: 5/5 (definitely the strongest game in terms of gameplay in my opinion, like I said it is more challenging and there’s more to think about but it makes for a really fun and varied experience!)

🌼 Variety: 2/3 (although there are three whole boards and you unlock different plants as you go along, there isn’t as much variety in the merging part since you basically just merge seeds into sprouts, sprouts into younger plants etc. until you have the full plant to place in a plot. You know exactly what you’re merging up to and there’s no thrill of discovering a new item by merging up. The items also come from boxes or from preset, unmovable generators so there’s no fun in discovering new generators either. But it is cool that each plant has its own planting requirements like more water, more fertilizer, more light etc.)

🌼 Playtime vs. Wait Time: 4/4 (another huge advantage of this game, there’s no energy system so you can play for very long, the only time constraint is waiting for plants to grow)

🌼 Overall Enjoyment: 4/5 (I’m definitely very impressed with this game but the things I mentioned in the Variety section are probably the biggest thing that prevents me from giving it a 5/5 overall. It is exciting when you unlock something new by progressing through the game but I especially enjoy moving up item ranks and discovering new generators, so in that area this game didn’t really do it for me. But otherwise it’s really a great game and a very unique entry within this genre!)

🌼 Total: 20/23

Merge Adventure - Dragons!

Developer: Ludigames

Release Date: March 25, 2021

First of all, even though the full name of this game includes the word dragons, I haven’t seen a single dragon unless one was mentioned in the written adventure logs, which I don’t usually read.

With that out of the way, this is another very unique game in terms of merge games as it is also an RPG. Some of the items you merge on the board are used to equip your hero, while others are used to unlock new adventures that yield different loot upon completion. You don’t actually get to engage in battles since the adventures themselves run on an idle system where you just get an adventure log to read to how your hero is doing and then collect the loot after a certain period of time. It is definitely something new for two-item merge games and deserves credit for the unique concept, but execution-wise it unfortunately fell short in a lot of ways.

🗡 Art: 1/3 (the art here isn’t necessarily awful but it is on the uglier side compared to a lot of the other games in this genre, specifically the board pieces. Maybe I’m biased because I prefer fun and colorful items, and these items involve a lot of wood and metal and such, but the board often seems so monochrome I can’t even tell certain items apart or remember which item track they belong to. Some of the level 1 items are just differently-shaped scraps of metal. The hero design isn’t bad but I only have one character to base that opinion on. We’ll get to that later)

🗡 Story: 2/3 (I honestly can’t remember if there’s an overarching plot but I will give it a point for the adventure logs, even though I usually don’t read them, it is cool that you can read what your character’s doing and how they obtained the loot they ultimately bring back)

🗡 Gameplay: 2/5 (I want to give it more points for being unique but despite the interesting concept I did have trouble with the gameplay. First of all, it has one of the smallest boards out of all the games I’ve played and a lot of different generators, which guarantees your board will become clogged very quickly. The numbers in the corners of each tile are supposed to help you keep track of what level items you have I presume, but they only make an already cluttered board look more cluttered, and the fact that I already couldn’t tell some of the item designs apart means having all the items crowded and jumbled makes for a very confusing and frustrating experience. Getting new items through loot from adventures seemed cool but then led to more frustration with more items to squeeze onto my fully packed board. Also I have no clue how to get more heroes, I’ve only had one this whole time playing so far, so there’s not much more to the RPG experience other than equipping more powerful items)

🗡 Variety: 2/3 (technically there’s a wide variety of items but as mentioned previously the very monochrome nature of the items makes the experience feel less varied and you can barely enjoy discovering new items when you’re just trying to find space on the board 90% of the time. Also, most of the item tracks just go: item, bigger item, bigger fancier item, biggest fanciest item, or, piece of item, more pieces of item, mostly put-together item, fully assembled item)

🗡 Playtime vs. Wait Time: 1/4 (your time is limited by the energy system, generators needing to refill AND waiting for your hero to return from an adventure)

🗡 Overall Enjoyment: 2/5 (sadly I didn’t really enjoy this game, although I guess my favorite part would be merging up weapons and other equippable items to make my hero more powerful, which isn’t something I could really do in any of these other games)

🗡 Total: 10/23

City Boom

Developer: Playwind Ltd.

Release Date: April 9, 2021

This game is very interesting as it’s the only merge game I’ve personally played that has you compete against other players. This game actually works pretty much exactly like a game I played loooooong ago called Coin Masters, where you gain coins by attacking or raiding other people’s bases while spending coins to build up your own base. The main difference here of course is that the other way to get coins is to merge items and complete requests, while in Coin Masters it was like a slot machine thing. I checked and they are not made by the same developer.

Anywho, the multiplayer aspect of this game was exciting since I definitely have a competitive streak, and I’ve been playing every day to try and climb up the leaderboard (I’m in the top 1,000 so far lol!) However this game is still new and pretty wonky, and it aggressively tries to get you to buy things, much more than any of the other two-item merge games. Also, this game is one of those games that’s very reliant on a constant internet connection so if you don’t have great internet (which I don’t) you will have a lot of issues with the game freezing, just a heads up.

💰 Art: 3/3 (I got to admit I’m a sucker for the cute, colorful and cartoony, and I just can’t get enough of the silly little cats in this game 😂 I appreciate that the 3D art style in this game is very consistent in all parts of the game, and this game also has 3D animated sections: for example, when you go to attack another player a cat rolls up in a little tank and rockets fly around)

💰 Story: 2/3 (there isn’t really a linear story but I give it a point for the different themed areas you progress through as you grow your town, plus the personality put into the cat characters)

💰 Gameplay: 3/5 (I do enjoy this game, especially the fact that I get to compete against other players, but there are a few issues. This game has a lot of limited time events, there’s seriously like 2 or 3 running at a time and seem to change every day, which does add some fun and variety, but creates a unique problem of having event-specific items on the board that I don’t know what to do with when the event ends. I don’t know if that event will come back again or if those items are just completely useless and should be sold now. Currently they’re just keeping my board very clogged. Also, this game really aggressively pushes overpriced microtransactions, which can get very annoying, but I will say that I was still able to play and enjoy the game a fair amount without paying anything. Lastly, the items make a really off putting clunk sound when they merge. May not seem important but it makes the merges less satisfying for me personally)

💰 Variety: 2/3 (There is a variety of event items but as far as the main items there’s very little variety, basically just four categories of items, so I put this in the middle)

💰 Playtime vs. Wait Time: 2/4 (what I like is that there are a lot of chances to get extra energy but what I don’t like is that rather than having energy refresh one at a time every few minutes, you have to wait like half an hour for all the energy to refill at once)

💰 Overall Enjoyment: 4/5 (honestly despite all my criticisms of it I kept coming back to this game, I really enjoy the competitive aspect and none of the problems with it are to the point where it seriously impedes my ability to play. That’s why I kind of have a separate category for overall enjoyment to begin with, because even if a game scores well or poorly in specific categories that won’t necessarily reflect my overall experience)

💰 Total: 16/23

Rankings

Plantopia (scored the same as Travel Town but after playing Travel Town for a while I’ve gotten more bored with it. Plantopia is the new reigning champion! 🎉)

Travel Town

Merge Design

Mergedom: Home Design

Merge Friends

Miss Merge

Merge Mansion

City Boom (scored the same as Merge Mansion but I preferred it less)

Merge Life (note: the linked review is outdated as the game has undergone a lot of updates since I wrote it, I will update it at some point but take the current version with a grain of salt)

Merge Matters

Merge Villa

Merge Adventure (scores the same as Merge Villa but I think I was a little harsh on Merge Villa to begin with, this game is much less playable)

Thank you so much for reading!!! I hope these reviews helped you if you enjoy merge games as much as I do! 💖 You can find more of my full game reviews here and follow me for more stuff about mobile games. Have a great day 🥳

#mobile games #merge games #plantopia #gardening games #merge mansion #merge adventure #city boom #rpg #mass multiplayer games #cat games #full review #casual games #weapons tw #image descriptions in alt text

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theindiegamereview · 3 years

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Meet the creative team: “Spellstone”

Are you a collectible card game (CCG) fan? If so, read on, because this week we spoke to the makers of Spellstone, a free-to-play (F2P) casual story-based fantasy card game that features vibrant, colourful, hand-drawn art on hundreds of beautiful cards that you can acquire and use in battle, both against the computer and other players!

TIGR: PABLO and DUSTIN are artists who have worked on Spellstone's art, helping create some of the iconic characters Spellstone fans know and love. We asked them how they came to work on the game, as well as what intrigued them about this project.

DUSTIN: I was working as a contract artist when I was asked to create some sample cards for a potential CCG, which is something I'd always wanted to do. The samples I submitted eventually led to me getting a contract to create the initial art for Spellstone. After about four months, I was offered a full-time position. I had such a great experience working with the team that I jumped at the opportunity!

PABLO: Prior to starting work on Spellstone, I remember doing an art piece to test my skills. I greatly enjoyed that because I particularly liked this game's art style - which is actually similar to my own! There were still slight differences though, so I've had to adapt a little. Blending my own personal style into an existing one was challenging. But something that intrigued me about Spellstone was the variety of factions in the game. Each and every one opens up a big array of possibilities when it comes to creating a character. I felt my options were unlimited and I loved it!

TIGR: Spellstone features many different cards and characters. We wanted to know who conceptualises all this, and how much creative licence artists get when crafting a character. FERNANDO, currently the main artist for the game, gave us more insight.

FERNANDO: That Spellstone has such an immense variety of characters means it's a complete and delightful dish for artists. It's hugely gratifying to find such visual diversity with which to play with. You're completely free to create, as long as you respect the game's universe and visual language.

As for the process, the concept of what a card must look like and how it must be functional in terms of gameplay comes from the guys in the game design department. Very creative people... sorcerers maybe? I don't know. Haha!

From a brief but concise description they give me, I can get a sense of what kind of character and action they want to see in a card. Once I have all the information I need to start sketching, my favourite hour finally begins: creative hour!

If the card description involves an existing type of character, like a goblin, part of the fun has to do with the way you depict that character, situation, action and specific emotion. There's also some freedom to create from scratch if needed - that's exciting and challenging! Sometimes the ideas come from a mix of characters, and that's when the laboratory inside my mind starts working: I press a button and something cool, spooky or funny comes out - whatever the game requires. Other times, new concepts require that I look for approximate references of what's needed, so that serves as the starting point. No matter what, it's always a very enjoyable process. Sometimes we have to make corrections, that's true. But as with everything in life, this is necessary for things to work properly. You may have to redraw stuff, but finally the card is done - it works, it delivers and it entertains!

TIGR: In Spellstone, cards can be upgraded from a single to a dual to a quad, and we really like that this sometimes tells a "mini story" of of sorts through the artwork. Some are funny (we just love Honeycomb Lobber!), some cute (Bomb Spirit is soooo adorable when he’s angry!), some uplifting (Aurora Shaver ranks among our favourites), and some, um, a bit disturbing, to be honest (Cleaverstorm Hunter, anyone?!)! And some are just sad - we can't help but feel sorry for the poor li'l forest furries that presumably got devoured by Alphamech Stalker! We asked the team how they came up with ideas for all these tiny narratives, and MELINDA, one of the game designers, told us more.

MELINDA: When I was younger, there were a few creatures in video games that terrified me. One of those I remembered most was Medusa, an air jellyfish from Ecco: The Tides of Time. While traversing through a water pathway in the sky, Medusa would try to pick up Ecco the dolphin and fling him off the path. Tetraspout's concept came from that, and you can even see poor little dolphins getting swept up in its attack!

TIGR: We asked the team if there were any cards they particularly liked creating, or found challenging to conceptualise. IVÁN, a colorist who worked briefly on the game, chipped in, as did TONY and RHADA, two of Spellstone's game designers.

DUSTIN: I loved working on the goblin cards! You could get silly with them. Frogs were a lot of fun too - the variety of colours made them interesting. For me, the water cards were challenging but I grew to love working on them.

PABLO: My favourite characters are Goblins! You can play around with them, making them look funny even when the card is telling a dark story, like a massacre. All of the cards were challenging to create!

IVÁN: I enjoyed working on Hedron The Critical Threat, Zyd The Unhinged, and some awesome Insect cards that have yet to be released (as of the time of this interview). I mostly liked them because of their cool concepts and Fernando's awesome sketches. Hedron in particular was a technical painting challenge, as it has textures, transparencies and glow!

TONY: As something of an artist myself (/sarcasm), the card I am most proud of has to be Dinged Waptor. Or really any of the cards I did for the April Fool's event, which is about the only time the art team lets me anywhere near card art. :) For April Fool's, I decided it would be funny to try my hand at drawing some cards I felt players would enjoy. So the first year I drew some original characters that consisted of a few stick figures, a chicken, and a bomb. The response was good, so the following year I continued the tradition, eventually going through and tracing some famous cards like Winged Raptor. My one rule while making these cards was that I could not erase what I did!

RHADA: We used to sell boxes that contained two new premium cards instead of one. We thought of making both cards in the box thematically linked. At the same time, while brainstorming concepts for dragons, I thought we could try to make cards that formed a bigger picture on the battlefield when placed consecutively, side by side. The initial idea was a serpent whose artwork overflowed into a second card, and after some iteration, we stumbled upon the idea of a dragon dance. The result was very cool!

TIGR: With the Spellstone story campaign recently concluded, we asked what was next in store for Spellstone fans. Would there be anymore new characters and amazing art to look forward to?

TONY: Absolutely! While the main story has come to a close, we still look forward to adding new characters, cards, and art to the game that lets our artists have fun and shows off the world of Spellstone.

TIGR: And finally, the most important question of all: would real-life Spellstone merchandise ever be made available for fans of the game? We really want a plushie of the adorable Bomb Spirit (complete with detachable bombs, perhaps?), as well as his angry counterpart, Firebomb Spirit! Also for Quetee Que and Adorabilis, please! And would there ever be any actual physical Spellstone cards produced for collectors?

TONY: I would personally love to see real-life merchandise, but we currently do not have the means to take on such an endeavour. Maybe one day we can strike a partnership with a team that can make this happen!

We thank the Spellstone team for their time and all the wonderful art assets that accompany this interview! Check out the game here on Kongregate, on Steam, or on mobile - three different ways you can enjoy this fun, cheeky and adorable CCG!

P.S. We just had to include our favourite card: Darkwater Adonis - don’t be fooled by his charms!

#developers

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antibioware · 4 years

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My final thoughts on Mass Effect: Andromeda (a 3 years late review)

So I spent the past week and a half playing a game I paid 13€ for, one that I promised myself I wouldn't touch but that in the end I gave a solid try to anyway, because I was willing to give Andromeda the benefit of the doubt. Because I'm aware that sometimes I'm a bitch, and that the Mass Effect trilogy had its own problems too, but I still regard it as one of the best gaming experiences of my life.

It wasn't as bad as I had expected it would be, but that doesn't make it good. Above all else, Mass Effect: Andromeda is a game that could have been interesting, had the creators actually cared to make something out of it outside of just “Dragon Age Inquisition in the Mass Effect universe”.

I wanted to write a more coherent post about what I didn’t like about it, aside from just shitting all over it like I’ve been feeling like doing since the canonical bury your gays in the game slapped me in the face. So here it is, an overlong post about a 3 years old game.

Before getting into the main elements that I disliked, I wanna preface this post by saying that I enjoyed parts of the game. The main characters, while not as well characterized as they could have been (no Bioware character ever is), grew on me the more I played the game, and by the end were the main reason why I kept playing. Unlike DA:I, the writers did a really good job building up the found family trope in this game, and while it turns corny at times, it’s very heartwarming. I think many of the planetary settings in Heleus were stunning to look at, to the point that I didn’t even mind all that much having to drive from point A to point B.

I didn’t hate the game, and I’m speaking from the point of view of someone who enjoyed it, but not enough to simply accept its many flaws.

The problems with the gameplay itself

There are three main things that I don’t think work well and are up in your face since the first seconds of the game: the game interface, the fight mechanics, and the open world aspect of the game.

◦ The first impact I had on Andromeda, right from the first 2/3 hours of playing it, was that it was very cluttered and very, very confusing. I had just finished playing ME3 and I had issues understanding how to move without having a proper map onscreen, how to read throught the thousand tutorials for the 100 new, useless elements they added to the game that are either reused from ME1 or taken directly from DA:I. The game didn’t need a crafting system, especially not one DIVIDED IN TWO DIFFERENT SECTIONS, it didn’t need an inventory system, and especially it didn't need to have the sheer amount of sidequest it had.

◦ The fight mechanics + leveling up/classes system is a hot mess. I understand they wanted to try something new, and in part they did make the fighting feel more fluid, but not being able to rely on teammates for necessary stuff like overloads/specific powers that you need during fights severely impaired the strategic element of the game. Now it’s just a third person shooter with teammates dying left and right because you have 0 control on how they fight, aside from putting them in one place or another.

The fact that you can only use 3 powers at the time is a consequence of the confusing leveling up system. Because you can have an endless amount of powers you can give your character, they needed to find a way to make them not too overpowered. The problem is…. You had more powers to use in-game in ME1. It doesn’t work so well.

When the fighting mechanics in ME3, a game that came out in 2012, feel way fluider and more enjoyable than the ones from the game that came out in 2017, something is very wrong.

◦ Open world games are a challenge, because too many developers don’t understand that turning a game into an open world doesn’t make it good, it just makes it bigger and slower. It was a problem with Dragon Age Inquisition, and it’s a problem here with Andromeda - with the only good aspect being that at least Andromeda gives you a decent car to explore the planets.

ME1 had some level of open world-ness, and there was a valid reason why ME2 and ME3 got rid of the concept: the maps you’re given are a big, cluttered mess of nothing. You have several thousands sidequests, many of which incredibly similar to each other, and nothing fucking else. Sometimes you will accidentally stumble upon something interesting, and then return to a 6 hours drive into the nothingness that keeps repeating over and over again.

It got to the point I almost stumbled upon the endgame because I got exhausted of running around doing errands, and I tried continuing the main plot, only to realize I was almost done with it. That was it.

Empty self-referencing

This is the term I used to describe my girlfriend why the way the game made call backs to the previous games bothered me so much. Call backs aren’t new to the concept of the game (the Mass Effect trilogy literally lived on characters returning from previous games, referencing things that had previously happened, etc.), but because this game wanted to be a separate thing from the ME trilogy, it couldn’t use this sort of material. And that’s completely fine! The game wanted to be its own thing, I was happy about it at first, because the trilogy was over and done for. If Mass Effect was indeed gonna continue, it needed a fresh start.

The problem is, it also needed to remind players that it’s a Mass Effect game, the game from which Commander Shepard came.

So, how to solve this matter? Well, instead of referencing stuff that actually happened in the trilogy, it solves the referencing aspect by putting a bunch of relatives of characters from the trilogy in the game. You get Conrad Verner’s sister, Nyreen Kandros’s cousin, a lost illegitimate son of Zaeed Massani, a brief cameo of Garrus Vakarian’s dad, a krogan on New Tuchanka being from clan Urdnot, and so on. And it was funny the first time or so, maybe even the second, but at some point it just turned awkward, and I started asking myself, “is this it? Is this all that’s left of the trilogy, just a bunch of big name characters to remind the player you belong from the same universe?”. The brief way they referenced back to Shepard was also very awkward and felt... out of place, with the rest of the game.

A couple call backs I really liked were:

Liara being acknowledged for her work as a Prothean researcher and being in contant with Ryder Senior, without much reference being done to her time in Shepard’s crew. It was good, seeing her from an outsider perspective.

The fact that Avitus Rix, being a turian ex-Spectre, knew Saren and was in fact his disciple.

Both these elements are things that make sense and tie the game back to the trilogy beyond just going “hey, this x character is the relative of this other x character, isn’t it crazy!”

The plot, and the problem with binary choices

It’s easy to make fun or critique the game struggling to find its own plot after something as big as the ME trilogy was. But Bioware isn’t an indie developer, it’s a huge fucking company, and they could have done better.

While I liked the design of the Remnants architecture and enemies, putting a plot point revolving around an ancient, long lost alien civilization who was much more technologically advanced, sounds a lot like a bad repeat of the Protheans.

I liked the Angara conceptually, but I didn’t like their design all that much and I often found it hysterically funny that angara are supposed to be a deeply emotional race, when the animators left them stuck with those mono expressive faces and unemotional eyes.

And on top of all of this, the kett are boring villains. The exaltation progress is really just a bad repeat of how Reaper indoctrination worked, and the way they talk reminds me of the big bad templars from the Dragon Age universe. It’s literally nothing new, and because of it, it’s boring.

When I was playing the endgame, all I kept thinking was “this is it? this is all they came up with? for real?”. I liked the twins aspect of the endgame, but aside from that, it didn’t feel satisfying.

And now comes the reason why it didn’t feel satisfying: the game got rid of the Paragon/Renegade system from the trilogy, and because of that, they also got rid of the possibility of additional problem-solving solutions during big choices.

In Andromeda, almost every major quest has a binary choice attached to it: choose this or that. Burn the facility or save all the angara but leave the facility standing. Save the krogans or Raeka. Pick Sloane or Reyes. Keep Sarissa as the Pathfinder or not. Etc.

in the trilogy, complete, important binary choices were rare (choosing Ashley or Kaidan is probably the biggest one) and the consequences had long lasting effects. Not all of them did (saving or killing the rachni in ME1 and rewriting or destroying the geth in ME2 didn’t have so many long term consequences in ME3, for example), but a great deal meant big changes in the following games.

The issues with these choices in Andromeda? None of them matter. Characters will get angry at you for going against their will in a single dialogue line, and then never mention it again. The opinion on the Nexus won’t change if you expose Spender, Addison’s connections to the Exiles, or Nexus people targeting the angara. None of your companions will betray you or leave you for going against their will during their loyalty missions.

A Mass Effect game with choices that don’t influence the final result of the game feels like a joke, and while I know in many ways the trilogy also had a problem on this matter on some parts, dead characters stayed dead and betraying a friend’s trust meant losing them in the near future

The unavoidable part where I mention the issue with LGBT rep in this game because I’m a nonbinary lesbian and I can’t detach that aspect of myself from how I consume media

Endless gays and trans folks out there have already written this sort of matter so as my last point of critique, I’ll make it quick. Bioware has a long story with homophobia and transphobia in its character writing - this without mentioning the huge problems with racism in the character writing, too. Many gay/bi women in Bioware games are written by the same homophobic straight cis man with a lesbo fetish, AKA Lukas Kristjanson, and that alone gives a really good feeling on why such issues exist.

The original Mass Effect trilogy had very little gay romance options, out of the amount of romance options: as of ME3, there are two main gay romance options for fShepard (Liara and Traynor, without counting the mini-romances that were put in the previous games for pure fetish fuel) and two for mShepard (Kaidan and Cortez, both only added in the last game).

Andromeda wasn’t... the big breath of fresh air in the representation department they tried to pass it as. There are more romance options, but for once, there add to add another m/m romance option later on because the only gay romance available were with minor NPCs, and there’s an issue with the amount of content gay romances get compared to main het romances.

There’s a single trans NPC, and it's a random person you meet who tells you her deadname and the reason she transitioned right away. Ugh.

And now we come to the bury your gays mission that made me almost uninstall the game: the mission to find the turian Pathfinder with the help of his partner, the previously mentioned Avitus Rix, who also happens to be the first gay male turian character in the game (the first gay female turian being Nyreen Kandros, who dies btw). You invest time to trace back to the turian arc, while listening to Avitus talk about how important the turian Pathfinder is to him, you realize pretty fast they’re lovers, and when you find out the turian arc, it’s all to discover that the Pathfinder is already dead. Not a choice in the game that could accidentally kill him, like with Raeka, or an active choice you make to keep him in his role, like Sarissa. He’s already dead, and you’re left with Avitus alone and mourning.

The game is from 2017. This sort of bullshit is unacceptable, and I will keep screaming it until Bioware manages to pretend like they care about their LGBT fans.

To end this mess of a post - Mass Effect: Andromeda lasted me a total of 50 hours of game, and in a way, I’m glad I got it out of my system. It was a delusion, but at least now I can cross it off my list and go back to playing other stuff. I understand that this is a game many ended up liking, and I’m sad I can’t say I’m among them, and that I couldn’t even fully enjoy the game at times. Also I promised myself I wouldn’t mention this but goddamn the facial animations of the game were so ugly.

DESPITE THIS, I really loved the characters, and I very much enjoyed Vetra’s romance, which was the main reason why I bought the game.

#long fucking post ahead beware #mass effect #mass effect andromeda #me:a

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baphomet-media · 4 years

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Dad of Boy - A God of War (2018) Review

Genre: Adventure

Subgenre: 3D Adventure

Developer: SIE Santa Monica Studio

Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Platform(s): PS4

Release Date: April 20th, 2018

I have never played a God of War game before. Though I know the basic gist of the story (Kratos kills all of the Greek pantheon before they can kill him through powers of rage), that’s about it. Still, I saw nothing but praise for the new game, and the setting, story, and gameplay that I saw intrigued me. I got the game as a gift a short while ago, after it seemed to collectively drop off the media’s radar, and eventually decided to give it a shot. So, does it live up to the hype? Let’s dig in.

Story

God of War 2018 (GoW18) takes place many years after the events of the previous games. Kratos, the former bloodthirsty deicidal barbarian Ghost of Sparta has moved to a new land of giants, dwarves, and Norse gods, and has settled down with a wife and child. But Kratos cannot run away from his godhood forever, and things catch up with him one day after his wife dies, when a mysterious stranger shows up at Kratos’s door. The two engage in a brutal fight, with Kratos seemingly emerging victorious. Kratos and his young son Atreus then must set off to take Kratos’s wife’s ashes to the top of the tallest peak in all the realms.

Along the way, Kratos teaches his son about how to survive in the world, in his own gruff way, of course. The interplay between Kratos’s grim and serious nature contrasts delightfully with Atreus’s impatience and youthful energy. Various other friendly and hostile faces present themselves throughout the story, with the highlights being dwarf brothers Brok and Sindri, two dwarf smiths with clashing personalities that spend most of the game passive-aggressively bickering about how horrible of a smith the other is, but actually do their best work together. The supporting cast are all fantastic, however the enemies left a lot to be desired, and there were very few actual named enemies, making a lot of the story beats just feeling like they lacked impact, and were instead just stepping stones along Kratos’s way. Still, there were plenty of moments of good humor and intrigue, especially for anyone with an interest in mythology, particularly the Norse variety.

While the game does not have a completely canonical representation of Norse myth, it takes a lot of the established characters and ideas and puts its own grim spin on them. I enjoyed learning a bit about different mythological figures and events, even if the majority of them are merely exposited to the player and make no physical appearance in the game itself. It leaves me wanting more, and hopeful for a sequel.

Gameplay

From what I know about past God of War games, combat used to revolve around Kratos using his Blades of Chaos, two beefy short swords chained together, which he uses to spin, grapple, slam, and juggle hordes of foes. GoW18 takes a different approach, slowing things down and moving the camera over Kratos’s shoulder. His main weapon now is the Leviathan Axe, which excels at one-on-one combat, and can also be thrown and returned for ranged combat. To put it plainly, combat in this game feels a bit more like Dark Souls than Devil May Cry. Longtime fans of the series may be disappointed in the shift in gameplay direction, but as a relative outsider, I found the combat enjoyable. I liked that it made me think about my strikes, blocks, parries, and throws, instead of mindlessly mashing attack buttons to rack up insane combos.

However, combat demands that you stay in control. Even the weakest enemies can drain your health quickly, as Kratos is vulnerable to being stunlocked. Plus (at least on the Hard difficulty, which I played) enemies have a ton of HP, so you’ll need around 5-6 combos to finish off most weaker enemies. It doesn’t help that the beginning of the game only drip-feeds you the controls, so I got killed multiple times on the first enemy because I had no idea that Kratos had a shield or how to dodge properly.

Still, as you progress through the game, the number and strength of enemies increase, but the overall challenge gradually decreases as you unlock new moves and combat options to help you deal more damage, more easily stagger enemies, and better deal with multiple foes. Unfortunately, for most of the game, the combat struggles when there are multiple foes. The lock-on system is extremely reluctant to switch enemies, and it’s sometimes difficult to maneuver, dodge blows, and keep the camera looking where you want all at once. Particularly in boss fights, which are numerous.

Still, when it goes right, using the shield to parry, and landing heavy blows with the Leviathan Axe is very satisfying. Along the way Atreus himself gets more capable in combat, improving his archery, and learning assist moves that distract enemies and set them up for combos by Kratos. You can also command Atreus to shoot arrows and use special abilities, which gives you more options in combat. This starts out being only marginally helpful, but gets much more useful the further you advance in the game, and Atreus also gains abilities that help you progress in the overworld, allowing you to bypass obstacles that Kratos couldn’t deal with on his own.

The game has a fairly expansive world, though this is not so much in the sheer size of the world, but more in that the main area of the world is constantly revealing more depth to it. The Lake of Nine, the game’s main area, is constantly revealing new areas to explore, which constantly keeps it fresh, although sometimes it definitely feels like you’re constantly revisiting the same areas. At most points in the game, you can explore freely, though you may stumble across challenges and enemies that are too difficult for you to tackle at your current power level and need to come back once you’ve powered up by upgrading your gear. On one hand, I like this, because it gives you the option to try instead of just locking out higher-level content, but on the other hand, even if you’re really good at the game, you’ll have a lot of difficulty felling enemies that are even slightly higher in level than you, mostly because their HP is ridiculously high, which leads back into enemies feeling like HP sponges.

Presentation

GoW18 is a gorgeous game to look at, with the scenery being drenched in detail. The various realms that you travel to throughout the game also add differences in visual appeal, keeping things fresh when you’re outside of Midgard.

While the game doesn’t have much in the way of music, the heavy brass and choir vocals on more dark and foreboding tracks remind the listener of Kratos’s violent past, and let you know not to mess with him. You don’t want to be on the receiving end of his Spartan Rage when that music swells!

The voice acting in the game is top-notch. Christopher Judge is great as Kratos, and as a longtime Stargate fan, it’s funny just to see how much Kratos mirrors Judge’s previous role as Stargate’s Teal’c. I also particularly enjoyed the voice acting of the character Mimir, voiced by Alastair Duncan, who exposits his own twisted take on Norse mythology to the father-son duo during travel periods. The rest of the cast are fantastic in their own right, as well.

Conclusion

God of War 2018 is a great game that manages to step out of the shadow of its previous games to create something unique and new for itself. Despite how violent and dark the series is, GoW18 tells a touching story of a father and son getting to know each other better, travelling the world together, and meeting all manner of colorful friends and foes. The combat, while slower and more methodical than previous games and tedious at times on higher difficulties, rewards skillful play and empowers the player more and more as they stick with it.

All in all, if you have a PS4 and like action games, definitely give this one a try. You’ll be glad you did. I look forward to Kratos’s and Atreus’s further adventures on the PS5 when God of War Ragnarok comes out next year!

Score: 8 / 10

#gaming #review #god of war #sony #santa monica studio #article

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frostedsims · 4 years

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FALL INTO WONDERLAND LEGACY

have you been looking for a new berry challenge? or do you just really, really like alice in wonderland? boy, do i got the challenge for you!

the fall into wonderland legacy was originally created by @unicorns-tea-party-archive and is absolutely amazing! i wanted to adapt a few things for my personal gameplay, and thought i would release the edits in case anyone else wanted to play! alice’s original challenge can be found HERE and i encourage you to check it out!

here’s the first gen, then the rest under the cut (or message me for the doc link!)

Gen. 1 - Alice You never really fit in at home. You wanted adventure, you wanted to collect everything you saw, but your family wanted you to forget all of your silly dreams and follow the path that they had set out for you. One day, while avoiding responsibility, you see a peculiar sight… A white rabbit! Or, a person with pure white coloring? You follow them and fall down a rabbit hole in the process. Once you’re in the strange, strange world, you’re forced to adapt— and excited to have finally found one great adventure. You meet so many strange people— berries! — and meet a berry that’s just a bit absurd but understands your desire to explore the world.

Founder should be vanilla and from a vanilla world. Of course, Alice can develop berry qualities from falling down the rabbit hole!

Name begins with an A, and preferably doesn’t sound berry. We want them to stand out a bit!

Trait: Childish

Aspiration: The Curator

Must explore Wonderland & visit at least three different types of lots.

Attend three of the Mad Hatter’s parties before you can marry them.

Heir must pass for a berry. Have as many kids as that takes!

Gen. 2 - Mad Hatter (Blue/Aqua) One of your parents is from another world, but you never really seemed to bond with them. You feel more attached to your berry parent, and you want to follow in their footsteps in every way that you can. You’re just a bit unhinged, and you found friends that seem to connect with that. A lot of people are bothered by your mixed heritage, but you don’t care what anyone thinks! You’re just here to have a good time. You’ve studied everything you can to have a good time, and you marry one of your friends after the world’s most legendary party.

Aspiration: Party Animal

Trait: Erratic

Max the mixology skill.

Have a better relationship with your berry parent.

Each outfit must have a hat!

Marry the March Hare, one of your childhood friends, after a wild night out!

Have more than two kids, exact number is up to player.

Gen. 3 - March Hare (Orange) To you, everything is a joke. You grew up in a big family, and you’ve always used comedy to break out of the mold. Your parents are a bit exhausted with your jokes, but your siblings love it. You stay close with them even as you all grow older, and you know you can tell them anything. Just like your parents, they love throwing parties, and it’s at one of these parties that you meet the most interesting person. When you meet them again, they’re far more reserved, but you’ve made up your mind. In their house, where they’re comfortable, they light up the room. Slowly, you fall in love, and after a while, you get married, you have a kid, and you never stop telling jokes.

Aspiration: Joke Star

Trait: Goofball

Must maintain a ‘Good Friends’ relationship with your siblings throughout your life. If you have a mod to enable multiple best friends, they must stay at ‘Best Friends’ level!

Max the Comedy skill

Meet the Dormouse at a party that your siblings throw! Then, when you meet them again, they seem a lot more reserved and shy. You can only romance them in private and show affection indoors. Spouse should have the ‘unflirty’ trait.

Have only one child.

Gen. 4 - Dormouse (Peach) You grew up with a silver spoon in your mouth. Your adorable parents (sickly sweet with your love), gave you absolutely anything that you wanted. As a child, you were a musical prodigy, and you had big dreams and big plans. But something changed. You give up music, and you prefer to just laze around the house all day. You spend your days napping wherever you can, and on one fateful day, you’re poked awake by someone who’s tired of your lazing. You manage to charm them a bit, and after a short-winded week wind up with a child. You never hear from them again.

Trait: Lazy

Max Violin skill or Piano skill before reaching Young Adult.

Use Odd Jobs as your only way of making money.

Stay in your parents’ house your whole life.

Take lots of naps in parks, or at parties. Be woken up by a snobbish berry (Purple) for napping in a bad place.

Slowly win them over with your charm and have a short but passionate affair that results in a child. A messy break up leaves you with the kid, and you don’t hear from that berry again.

Gen. 5 - Cheshire Cat (Purple) You grew up in your grandparents’ house, and figured out pretty early on that you were an accident. As a child, you acted out a lot. You pulled pranks on anyone who passed, but until you were a teen, your family only saw the perfect side of you. When you become a teen, you start lashing out at everyone around you. After annoying nearly everyone around you, it seems that you’ll be on your own forever. Almost miraculously, you meet one person who doesn’t even react when you pull pranks. They see the hurt child underneath, and just being around them seems to calm you. You don’t fully change, of course, and still manage to pull a few pranks at your wedding.

Aspiration: Chief of Mischief

Max Mischief & Charisma

Your mischevious acts cause negative relationships with most people you meet, but when you’re younger, you don’t bring it home.

As a teen, you lash out. Have a negative relationship with your parent.

When you’re a young adult, you meet a berry (aqua) who isn’t fazed by your antics. You slowly calm down from your wild ways, but you do pull a few pranks at your wedding.

Have as many children as you’d like!

Gen. 6 - Caterpillar (Turquoise) You’re well-educated in many things, and you like people to know that. From a young age, you prided yourself on the things you knew and the things that others did not. You prefer the finer things in life, and the finer people... And you like to hang around a bubble machine most of all. You go through a transformation in your life that changes you almost entirely. For better or for worse, you like what you’ve become.

Aspiration: Renaissance Sim

Trait: Snob

At some point, you go through a transformation that turns you into a different person, for better or for worse.

Spend lots of time at a bubble bar or using the bubble blower.

Max Logic skill

Meet your spouse (yellow) at the bubble bar, and then their twin a few days later. Accidentally romance both without realizing they’re two people, and marry the one you have a better relationship with in the future.

Have children until you have multiples.

Gen. 7 - Tweedledee & Tweedledum (Yellow) Being a twin is your favorite thing in the world. You have a built in best friend, someone who you know you can rely on. You go through life attached at the hip, merrily making mischief. Your sibling is more of the creative type, but you help them out by writing their songs and silly rhymes. When they hit it big, you stay by their side. You end up having to protect them from a lot of the crueler critics. There’s one person who’s green with envy over your twin, and after a lot of time shouting at each other, you somehow end up at dinner with them.

Aspiration: Friend of the World

Max singing skill

Publish three poems

Be best friends with your twin for your entire life. Visit with them every few days, or even keep them in the same household!

Be enemies with a berry (green) and wind up on a dinner date. Somehow, it’s enjoyable, but neither of you are willing to admit that. After running into each other a few more times, you slowly begin to grow romantic feelings.

Gen. 8 - Jabberwock (Green) You don’t really know how your parents ended up together— they’re polar opposites. One’s all sweet and fluffy, and the other… Is exactly how you want to be. You seem to have inherited their ruthlessness, and you very quickly take to the criminal underground. You like the more dangerous parts of life: spice, crime, violence. You marry someone who understands that just as well, and you have children that you hope will carry on the family legacy.

Aspiration: Public Enemy

Max criminal branch

Marry a coworker (red).

Max the spicy food skill.

Gen. 9 - Queen of Hearts (Red) Both of your parents expect you to follow in their footsteps along a path of crime, but it doesn’t really fascinate you. You’re more interested in using romance to get what you want, and then breaking their hearts to little pieces. Your parents get tired at around the sixth partner and threaten to disown you if you don’t settle down. You find the meekest person you can to settle down with to get them off your back.

Aspiration: Serial Romantic

Trait: Hot-headed

Have at least two negative character values from growing up.

Must have a messy breakup each time the romance is done with.

Marry a skittish berry (white) when your mob parent threatens to cut off your head. Which sucks because, hey, that’s your thing.

Gen. 10 - The White Rabbit (White) You grew up under the watchful eye of your grandparents and living parent, always terrified to make the wrong move. You have your head in the clouds which makes you late to almost everything. You spend as much time as possible outside the house, away from watchful eyes. It’s on a late afternoon hiding that you meet a new friend. You sneak out as much as you can to see them, and slowly start saving up money so that you can both run away.

Aspiration: Freelance Botanist

Trait: Vegetarian or Paranoid

You never break the rules because you’re scared of your grandparents. One of your parents died when you were young.

Arrive late to most events you attend

Meet spouse (white) when hiding out from your parent’s wrath as a teen. Exchange promise rings and marry young

BOOM THE END.

#Berry Sweet Sims #berry simblr #sims 4 challenge

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sodapaladin · 3 years

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Top 10 Games of 2020

Time again for PawelCyril/SodaPaladin’s GOTY 2020 countdown! As usual, these are not games that came out in 2020, but games that I played in 2020. At least when it came to gaming, I had a great year.

Honorable Mentions: Final Fantasy VIII: I loved everything about this game except for the actual gameplay. I didn’t enjoy the battle system one bit. Far too many flawed ideas. But everything else was so enjoyable. The story was cheesy and ridiculous, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. It might actually be my favorite main Final Fantasy.

Fall Guys: This TV show-esque challenge is tons of fun with friends, even though I’ve still yet to win a single time. See Saw is the worst game, btw, and if you like it, I hate you. :)

Sonic Mania: Best Sonic game in years that made me smile from ear to ear, but I forgot if I played it this year or last year, so I’ll put it here haha.

10. Super Metroid: I finally played my “first” Metroid game after years of friends badgering me, and they were right. It’s a good game. I’m not as wild about the music and map design as some people, but it is indeed a fun game that holds up well. The atmosphere of the ghost ship was incredible.

9: Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution: I’m a casual Yugioh fan at best, having not played since the GX era. I like the original manga and first few anime series, but everything in the past decade is a mystery to me. Feeling nostalgic, I bought this hoping it wouldn’t be too overwhelming, and was pleasantly surprised with how accessible it is to all sorts of fans. There are tons of cards and opponents from all eras of Yugioh. I’ve learned to play with the new abilities, and can also enjoy the rules like I’m used to by playing through Duelist Kingdom. I didn’t expect to enjoy this as much as I do, but I could easily put dozens of more hours in.

8: Ogre Battle 64: I’m still apparently near the beginning of this game after 40 hours, because I’m the slowest gamer on earth, but I’m enjoying every minute of it. While I love strategy games, they tend to be turn-based. This RTS RPG has been super satisfying.

7: Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night: It’s exactly what I expected it to be: Symphony of the Night 2. And that’s a good thing. I have some minor gripes with the bloated inventory and crafting systems, but the core exploration is a joy.

6: Super Mario Odyssey: Of course it’s great. I’m sure everybody knows this already, so I don’t have much to say. The amount of love put into all of the costume references made me smile with each one. Rocking the Picross explorer suit!

5: Persona 5 Royal: I hadn’t put too much time into the vanilla P5, so I figured I may as well play the definitive version when I saw it on sale. I have loads of complaints about the story, characters, and abysmal pacing, but despite all of that, it’s still a stylish, fun game that I’m enjoying a lot.

4: Animal Crossing New Horizons: You all knew this would be on here. The timing for this game was perfect. I haven’t touched it in a couple months now only because I know I’ll get sucked back in, and I’ve already put in a couple hundred hours.

3: Street Fighter III: Third Strike: Never expected to get into fighting games this year, but here we are. I picked up the SF Anniversary Collection on a whim because it was a sale. I mainly intended to play SF2, the one I’m most familiar with, but gave Third Strike a try because my good friend @arkthepieking recommended it. I can see why. This game is smooth. I’ve since tried other fighting games to recapture that magic, but I started with the best. The intrinsic motivation of winning through your own skill, from hard work and practice, is such a great feeling. Makoto forever.

2: Moon: Remix RPG Adventure: As a fan of Chulip, I had been curious about Moon for a long time, and I’m so happy it finally was released in English. It’s exactly what I hoped it would be: Chulip 0. The core ideas are still there, but better executed due to being less punishing. The music system where you buy CDs was a fun, novel idea at the time, and the atmosphere as a whole is charming. It’s an incredible, unique experience that I don’t think everyone would enjoy, but those who give it a chance may discover something wonderful.

1: Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling: Sometimes with spiritual successor fan games, I can’t help but feel I’d rather play the original. Like I love WarGroove, but it doesn’t quite scratch the same itch as just playing Advance Wars sometimes. I expected Bug Fables to be a cute love letter to Paper Mario, but it blew my expectations away. I would dare say it even surpasses Paper Mario in many ways. Everything about it is a delight. The story, the characters, the battles, the music, and the setting. There are tons of sidequests for backstory and lore, too. The main trio are so likeable, each having their own motivations and feeling like the main character of their own story, and I’m amazed at how naturally they warmed up to each other over the course of the game. Bug Fables may be one of my favorite games period, and I cannot emphasize enough how much I love it.

#goty #game of the year

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rnbwrv · 3 years

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“The Sims 4″ Gamer Review 6/10

Hello everyone! This is Rainbow Raven Jezell (he/him) with the initial major post of this tumblr, the intro & 1st gamer review. I hope you enjoy!

Welcome to the Rainbow Rave, home of the Rainbow Raven streaming community based from my twitch, twitch.tv/rnbwrvnjezell. Here I will be doing amateur game reviews. I am by no means an expert or even an experienced gamer. All of these are my own opinions. I am writing with the primary audience of new or non-gamers in mind, those who are interested in getting started gaming in-general or in different game genres / platforms than they are used to. Ultimately my goal is to get you thinking about what you enjoy about games and whether the games I review are worth your time and money.

“The Sims 4” - 7 years after release, is the simmer dream still alive? …Eh yeah, if you believe in it enough- 6 out of 10 stars

[Disclaimer: I play and stream on the PS4. I have multiple packs and kits of different varieties, but I do not own them all. I have owned “The Sims 4” since 2018, and it is the primary sims game that I have played as well as my primary game overall. I stream Sims 4 on Twitch through console 2-3 times a week.]

Gameplay- I’ll be putting my reviews into 3 categories that mean the most to me. The 1st of which is “gameplay,” and I say “gameplay” for lack of a better word. What I mean is the overall experience of the game, such as the main activities, side quests, actions, and diversity of things to do in the game. Is it complex or simple? But most importantly, does its content engage with the player to pull them in? “The Sims 4” is a “sandbox game.” There are aspirations, worlds, careers, and families to engage with / build up. However, there is no “story mode.” And it might be controversial to say, but I give “The Sims 4” 3 out of 3 stars for gameplay. I never lack for activities or things to do in this game. You are only limited by your imagination. There are so many player-created challenges that can keep one occupied for years. I don’t see this as lack of gameplay in the sims. I see the open nature of the sims as it’s strongest point. For me, it is a storytelling device, and I keep coming back to the sims to create unique sims and narratives. I return to many other simmers / content creators on twitch + youtube to watch their stories / series as well.

Aesthetics- As all of these are subjective, aesthetics really are a personal preference. For me, I give “The Sims 4” 1.5 out of 3 stars for aesthetics. I like more realistic looking games personally. Overall, “The Sims 4” has a good look; the quirky nature and styles of the sims are realistic enough but campy in the right ways. However, it was knocked down in points due to the visuals not working often because of glitches and crashing. Top simmer news sites, other content creators, and myself can name multiple visual glitches that happen every time the game is played, breaking the emersion too much to avoid deceasing the quality of the game. Also, players with strong PCs can get custom content to make their sims look more realistic or more cartoon-like. Build and buy objects can also be downloaded, often for free or much less than EA sells “The Sims 4” DLCs. Custom content allows the game to become more personalized in gameplay and aesthetics. Sadly, a lot of PC high quality tech is needed to use this content plus console players, like myself, cannot get custom content at all. With a franchise as old and well-supported by a huge fan-base as the sims, the game should be fully playable and customizable for players of all ages (teen and up) on all platforms to enjoy the whole experience, running relatively-well.

Enjoyment- This is the hardest one to rate for me. “The Sims 4” offers a sandbox experience like no other out right out. I constantly play the sims and, for the most part, enjoy the experience. However, the experience is by no means smooth. I give “The Sims 4” 1.5 out of 3 for enjoyment. “The Sims 4” has a huge fanbase with tons of content creators + storytellers + modders that are constantly inventing new ways to play and improve the game. The blank slate of no story mode with the backdrop of the sims worlds allows a wonderful individual playground on your platform while connecting you to a community of lovely simmers. If you love the idea of creating your own sims and growing their grandkids up for generations, “The Sims 4” is for you. If you like the idea of being left alone to provide care or inflict chaos on your sims while also having a huge base of fan ideas for gameplay, give this game a shot! However, to the other side, if the past two sentences don’t intrigue you, there might not be much for you in the sims. There is no direction for how to play from the game itself and sims can feel generic on console without a lot of imagination. From a larger view, the enjoyment of the game is largely knocked down by the constant crashing and game-breaking bugs that frequently prevent the storytelling that players are tying to portray. The lack of response from the sims team is concerning. Some apologies and explanations have been posted, but it’s unrealistic to expect the average player to constantly be turning in save files for bug inspection when everyday gameplay is prevented due to those issues. Larger social justice issues like bad skin tones and hair textures for sims of color still linger while pronouns have finally made the “laundry list” too little too late in 2021. With DLC such as “The Sims 4: Knifty Knitting” less than a year old (July 2020) excluding non-binary sims + they/them pronouns, featuring “Lord and/or Lady of the Knits,” I fail to see the sims team living up to their proclamation of being super progressive in their support of the LGBTQIA+ community. Supporting a few LGBTQIA+ content creators and adding a trans flag to new trailers (Dream Home Decorator Game Pack, 2021) does not de-construct the gender binary in the game (language such as “boyfriend/girlfriend, male/female bodies, he/she” only pronouns). The sims team listens to some of the sims community, but whether it is EA or Maxis or something else that is blocking a deeper social justice dialogue is still unclear. Only time will tell if “The Sims 4” addresses the issues with an overhaul, but with leaders discussing 10-15 years of sims 4 while sims 5 is in process, I am not hopeful.

Overall - 6 out of 10 stars. “The Sims 4” is worth buying, especially if you’re new to the game and if the game is on sale. With 3 points for each above category (9 total), I leave a single point for myself to award games if I definitely recommend them. However, I stand by 6/10 for “The Sims 4.” The game offers an experience like no other main simulation title out there right now, but the lack of forward planning and game-improvement focus leaves many with unfulfilled dreams 7 years after release. Some of the packs are worth the time and money, but sims content for the sake of content is becoming unplayable due to bugs. I recommend buying the packs that intrigue if they go on sale while leaving out the rest. Spend your money on other games to experience, “The Sims 4” will likely be here for you to come back to with us simmers trekking along (hopefully not) decades later.

#thesims4 #game review #ps4 #thesims #the sims custom content #gaming #lgbtqia #Socialjustice #newgamer #twitch #streaming #smallstreamers #contentcreator #content creation

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kyndaris · 3 years

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A Solid Beginning

My journey when it came to the Legend of Heroes series began with Rean Schwarzer and his merry band of misfit classmates that comprised Class 7 in Trails of Cold Steel. I can’t say what prompted me to purchase the title on my PlayStation Vita, but purchase it I did and was subsequently taken on a grand adventure throughout the Erebonian Empire before I was mildly displeased at the sudden appearance of an ancient mech. In all my anime-watching, I’ve always hated fictional worlds with huge mechanical suits. They’re much too cliche for my tastes and frankly, the less they appear in the media I consume, the better.

While I did purchase Trails of Cold Steel 3 and fully intend to play it in the near future, forums I scoured recommended playing the Trails in the Sky series beforehand. Why? Well, how better to understand what Olivert Reise Arnor was doing prior to the events of Giliath Osborne trying to take over the world? And what of the sudden appearance of a certain Lloyd Bannings in Trails of Cold Steel 2?

So, after slowing purchasing the games from GoG (Good Old Games), I began Trails in the Sky just before the impending releases of a hundred thousand different games that would be coming out in November.

Trails in the Sky begins with a mysterious boy being delivered to a bright-eyed Estelle Bright by her very own father. Shenanigans occur and it is not long before there’s a time skip and we rejoin Estelle and her adopted brother, Joshua, when they turn sixteen and decide to take on a test that would allow them to become junior bracers at their local guild in Rolent.

When her father takes on an important mission, both Estelle and Joshua are left behind. Eager to prove their worth, they assist the townsfolk by completing odd jobs. It is not long, however, that they rise to the role of detectives, solving the theft of a valuable orbment necklace that was meant to be delivered to the Queen of Liberl for her birthday celebration. Estelle, never one to pick up on subtle clues, is shocked to discover it is Josette - a girl she assumed was a student at a prestigious academy in the Kingdom - a sky pirate. They duke it out before Josette is rescued by her brother, fleeing towards Bose.

Thus ends the prologue after several hours of gameplay and dialogue.

Within days of uncovering the crime, Estelle and Joshua learn that the ship their father was on has gone missing. Worried, they enlist the aid of Scherazard and head to Bose (not knowing, yet, that the sky pirates and the disappearance of the Linde are connected). It is not long before they are swept into another mystery, which they solve within days of arriving in the new city, and begin travelling around the Kingdom of Liberl to learn more about its denizens.

Throughout their journey, they make new friends and impress each local branch of the Bracers guild while solving major problems plaguing the cities that they visit. It is the fourth city, Zeiss, however, when the plot starts to pick up and the characters begin to sense something darker and more sinister is at play. It was also here that I started paying more attention, having nearly fallen asleep at the proverbial wheel with the glacial pacing of the narrative.

After carrying around a MacGuffin black orbment, several questions were answered even as the game set about laying out the seeds for a grand conspiracy plot. But as with always the case of protagonists, they plod through most of the subtext, oblivious until the villain of the piece declares his master plan. Without the means of airships, Estelle and Joshua set out for Grancel via foot and finally arrive just as the Intelligence Division begins its coup d’etat.

While the rescue missions were fun and served to propel the plot forward, the final boss was a bit of a letdown. In many stories from the Japanese role playing genre, I find the human to human struggle much more engaging than having to fight an archaic machine Alas, that was the case here.

Worse, was the fact that Reverie was hardly what I might have called challenging. Instead, the machine proved annoying with his high defence and health stats. Equipped with two magic users and having Estelle and Joshua dish out the occasional hurt with physical attacks, the battle was soon over and the kingdom saved.

Trails in the Sky plays like the first arc of a major story. Were it the sole game in the series, it would have felt incomplete. Knowing that there were two other games waiting in the wings, I was able to stifle much of my disappointment. Even though I would have liked for most of the loose ends to have been tied off. A stand alone title, Trails in the Sky is most assuredly not. Whether that was uncovering Olivier Lenheim’s true identity and purpose in Liberl, to whatever was Ouroborous and the mysterious Weissmann.

The combat is turn-based and felt much simpler than the mechanics employed in Trails of Cold Steel. I can’t rightly say why but I will chalk it up to the fact that there were no bonuses to experience points being earned through certain victory conditions. Just like in Trails of Cold Steel, characters place quartz into spare slots - triggering certain spells and stat boosting abilities.

Being familiar with the system, it was easy for me to pick up the mechanics again and trounce my foes. Most bosses gave me hardly any trouble - except of course, Lorence.

As for the characters themselves, my favourites were Joshua and Kloe, the disguised princess of Liberl. Tita and Agate were also enjoyable. But as the credits rolled, I regretted not getting to know them a little better. After completing each major city, the other characters left and it was back to my two-man party of Estelle and Joshua.

Overall, Trails in the Sky was a good introduction to the complex world created by Nihon Falcom. It provides some much needed background and introduced players to certain key characters that would later play important roles in later titles. The world building in The Legend of Heroes is top notch. As a writer, it was interesting to see the multiple and opposing views shared by heroes, villains and the general public. For that, the developers and story writers ought to be applauded. But while the story to Trails in the Sky FC was fairly simplistic, I am eager to see how the characters fit into the larger narrative and what the sequels have in store for this new fan to the franchise.

As a side note, I hate the fact that several side missions are missable, have a limited time frame or are hidden. Of course, having played through Trails of Cold Steel, I knew this beforehand and played through the game with a trusty walkthrough to guide me.

#video games #trails in the sky fc #estelle x joshua

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