#i might have just made this for reign dev? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

well-shit-im-a-morosexual-now · 3 years

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There's a new lesson that I can't get to, so I'm going to you!

-35 Anon

Ahhhh??? I absolutely loved this lesson? It's a mostly mammon focused lesson (thanks to all the other brothers nearly dying) with angel backstory/hierarchy added in!????? I'm bouncing off the walls

LESSON 43 SPOILERS

It starts the next day after Solomon nearly kills MC with Mammon waking up looking for breakfast while complaining about the sun (fair enough) he gets annoyed when no one else is up, breakfast is not made and MC is the only one he finds. MC (with what I can only presume is a ridiculous eyebrow wiggle) says 'guess it's just you and me huh?....all alone....' Mammon blushes and says 'that literally cannot be the first thing I hear from you in the morning you're gonna give me a boner' (he actually says something like 'yeah...but don't say sweet, romantic stuff to me first thing in the morning cause you're gonna get me excited')

Mammon complains about the others sleeping in late and says he's gonna not so gently wake them up (this shit validates my HC that Mammon's an early bird and I dunno it just makes me happy) Mammon, with MC trailing behind him, goes to find his brothers. Lucifer is still asleep in his room, Mammon says this is probably a sign pointing to the beginning of the end, Lucifer says 'actually I'm dying cause the scent and flavour of Solomon's food bubbled up in the middle of the night so I'm going the fuck to sleep good night'. Satan wonders what exactly Solomon's food is cause it was able to not have an effect for hours and then suddenly come up again to kill them - he then passes out. Belphie is by Beel's bedside screaming at him to not go into the light, Mammon wonders if maybe Beel's just dying of hunger and Beel says there's no way in hell he's gonna eat anything and Mammon calls Beel out on being an imposter, Beel collapses on the bed and Belpie laments the fact that Beel's dying and that there's nothing he can do. Mammon says 'ugh bro you look like ya gonna die too' and Belphie says 'yeah well i feel like I'm gonna die ever since i ate some custard as a midnight snack and actually maybe it wasn't custard...maybe it was some weird as dessert solomon made cool cool cool i'm gonna pass out too'. Beel says 'Me too' and mammon wonders about the power behind Solomon's cooking. Levi I'm assuming is dead cause no matter how much Mammon pounded on his door and asked him to say something there was no reply so RIP. Asmo blames Mammon for getting sick, cause the bottled water Mammon brought for Asmo when he asked for it the previous night was probably some weird concoction Solomon made. Apparently Asmo's been hearing things ever since he drank it. He also despairs not being able to go the cafe with MC before collapsing on his bed. Mammon considers the fact that Solomon's food should probably be classified as a lethal weapon. Later in the corridor Mammon says that it seems like MC and Mammon are the only ones who came outta this unharmed but like MC nearly died the previous night so what the fuck is your stomach made out of Mammon!? When MC asks this he says he has no fucking clue either but it looks like their entire fridge is now a nuclear waste dump and that they should probably go get some food and medicine (you know these idiots are never gonna return and the others are gonna die).

They go to the Angel's Halo but it's still closed and they decide to come back later, MC ever the opportunist says 'hey ik your brothers are like dying rn and that sucks but ugh wanna make this a date?' And Mammon who has to live with 6 others who are in love with the same person as him and are constant cockblocks says 'shit yeah them being on death's door will probably be the only time we can spend time together without the others breathing down our necks, guess we gotta actually thank -the devs and their massive soft spot for Mammon- Solomon'. Mammon tells MC stories about the other times the brothers were sick, smiling about how they always take things to the extreme (levi had a slight fever and freaked out and turned Henry into Lotan, Asmo had a cold and all his fans came to the house to take care of him and it turned into a party). He says since they are in the human world now they wouldn't have to worry about anything too crazy...then he ruins it by basically saying 'probably'. They go to buy medicine with Lucifer's credit card. MC can ask him how he got it and he'll say it's fine cause they'll just buy food and medicine and only a few things for himself. Or MC can say 'yeah but would medicine actually help?' and Mammon will say 'good point considering it's Solomon's food but we might as well throw some pepto bismol at it and hope for the best.' While heading to the market, Mammon starts blushing about how MC and him heading to the market to buy groceries for dinner sorta feels like something newlyweds would do and hwuidhqowsho8ef7ydjb I'M SCREECHING!? Look me in the eye and tell me this man doesn't have a whole ass colour coded wedding planner aihdhwgdxugz he probably started making it a week after meeting MC. So they head to the market and I shit you not I screamed cause the butcher WHO FUCKING GAVE ADVICE TO MC & BEEL ABOUT THEIR RELATIONSHIP calls out to MC. LOOK I joked about this happening last time but I didn't actually think it would???? and not this fast either! I thought i was gonna have to write a fic about this poor Butcher but solmare's really just giving it to me for free huh? When the butcher greets MC Mammon asks if he knows them and the butcher says that they stopped by the previous day (and look this part is kinda silly and self indulgent but some random as butcher just casually using they/them pronouns made me so happy???). The butcher then asks what the occasion is and if MC is inviting their friend to a party. Mammon, sweet beautiful Mammon goes word for word "Friend? Me? Nah, nah, I ain't just a friend. The two of us LIVE together." Bro at this point I'm in actual tears just imagining this whole scenario. the butcher stutters out an "Ah, I...I see..." MC has a horrid flashback to the previous day of the butcher happily giving them relationship advice for Beel. The Butcher and MC just silently stare at each other for a sec before MC goes "um so yeah ik that happened yesterday but see this one is the one I'm actually serious about." Mammon goes "hey!? wtf who's the OTHER one!?" Then to the poor butcher says "listen up, Me & MC are a THING, got it? so yeah MC's gonna show up with not one, not two but with six other hot guys at some point who are all gonna act like they're a couple BUT it doesn't mean anything got it!? Specially if 'it's a real evil, sinister-lookin' dude with a huge ego and a heart as black as night' that guy especially doesn't mean shit to MC". The butcher says "o-okay". Anyway I desperately need this to be a running gag. Mammon later in really happy that the butcher thought they were a couple and living together and then Mammon who I'm 100% certain at this point has his and MC's entire lives together planned out starts blushing and sighing and saying how he really wishes it was just the two of them living together, sleeping in the same room (bruh I think it's implied enough to assume you already do this half the time), spending the whole day together and staying by each other's sides and how just the thought of all that is nice enough that he can't fight a smile. MC's stomach, much to mammon's dismay, ruins his daydreams by reminding everyone that they haven't had breakfast yet. They decide rather than waiting for the cafe to open to go get something to eat.

They decide to stop at a deli with a line of customers and I think I said this in my answer to your previous ask but I kinda just assumed Mammon would be the most comfortable in the human world and how it was kinda shown when they went to get pizza and later Asmo's dessert that he was able to act the most normal and actually noted when the others were acting weird and tried to reign them in. And that it was probably cause of how much he went to the human world for the witches and MC actually brings it up! They can either say that he seems pretty at home in the human world and he says something like 'oh? I'm just acting like I normally would' or they can ask him if he eats at delis a lot and he says that whenever he gets hungry while he's in the human world for the witches he'll stop at a deli cause it's easy. He kinda gets a sad look while talking about the witches and for once MC gets to turn the tables and be the jealous one. They can ask him if he has pacts with anyone besides them and he says 'no obviously not, do you think I went around making pacts with random people' ....except MC was a random person when he made a pact with them and I've always thought Mammon started getting a crush after making a pact but do you think he was kinda subconsciously curious even prior to it despite how much he tried to get rid of them? MC can also say "witches, huh...?" And mammon goes 'jyggfsdyugadsyu wait are you actually jealous!?" he then leughs, calls MC a dummy and asks how they could be jealous of the witches. AND!! this part made me so happy cause they only mentioned it once before in the main storyline but it was important enough that they had a whole backstory UR card for it and I was wondering if they'd bring it up now since they were in the human world - mammon gets all sad and says there's a reason he can't refuse the witches. he kinda hesitates around telling them that he borrowed some money, and they took over some of his debts and "...And some other stuff, too" (Me, banging my fists on the table: SHOW ME HIS CHILD SOLMARE! PLS! LET MC HAVE A DAUGHTER! or at least give me a name) MC asks if Lucifer knows about this, Mammon says he probably does cause lucifer's his big brother and you can't keep any secrets from your big brother. then he sighs and says he wishes he could live in the human world forever cause he wouldn't have to listen to lucifer's lectures anymore. He seems to realise what exactly he implied cause he goes silent and starts blushing and starts stuttering through saying that what he actually means is that if MC really wants him to stay with them then he might be willing to. They're interrupted by customers talking about a rumour that drinking coffee from the new cafe would make the person you have a crush on fall madly in love with you so obviously Mammon says fuck the deli and drags MC away to the cafe. MC sighs about Mammon being really easy to read. Mammon seems to finally remember that he's supposed to be a tsundere and says him suddenly wanting coffee has nothing to do with the rumour so don't you dare think that and it's not like he's gonna chug their coffee just so MC would fall madly in love with him. MC quite literally goes 'no you' and says well sure you won't chug the coffee but i will and then you'll fall madly in love with me. Mammon, blushing and stuttering, says 'okay but you gotta warn me before saying stuff like that cause it could literally kill me also wtf 'I'm sorta ALREADY madly in love with you...' if you make me fall any harder we're both screwed." He then walks into Luke.

Luke looks adorable!??????????? Before realising who it is Mammon snaps at him to watch where he's going and then goes speechless. Luke says he saw a couple arguing and came to check it out cause they looked like trouble (can't believe Simeon sent a child to scope out a suspicious couple screaming in the middle of the sidewalk about who loves the other the most). Mammon takes offense at the arguing comment and Luke brushes him off to instead talk to Mc about not seeing them in a long time. Mammon snaps at being brushed off and Luke just completely ignores him to hug MC and keep talking about how it's really MC. Mammon does he whole 'no hugging, no getting close, no staring I don't want your germs on MC' routine. MC ignores him and tells Luke that they really missed him, Luke says he missed them too and that actually he missed MC 100X whatever amount they missed him and that he planned on getting in touch with them but the grand opening had them busy. Inside the cafe they meet Simeon who is happily surprised that MC and Mammon are their first customers but that they aren't supposed to open yet. MC asks them what the cafe is about and they say it's a cover for them while they are in the human world and when MC then asks them why they're here Simeon says that Michael appointed him to coordinate relations between the human world and celestial realm. MC and Mammon's stomachs start growling loud enough to resemble Beel's and Simeon offers them breakfast when they remember they haven't eaten. MC catches them up on what's happened and Luke and Simeon laugh about MC now officially being the brothers' babysitter. Mammon says that the angels are really starting to get on his nerves and what they really came for was the coffee that everyone's talking about.

Simeon says that it's just a stupid rumour. MC says but wouldn't it be good for business. Simeon says yeah but since the cafe is just a cover they don't really care about making money and that as angels marketing under a false advertisement is something he can't condone. mammon asks how a rumour like that started and Simeon says that a girl had accidentally walked into the cafe thinking it was some other place and he had given her a free cup of coffee just to see if their new brew tasted good. the girl had later had unexpected, dramatic good luck in her romantic life and had spread the rumour. MC asks if this means Simeon has cupid like powers. Simeon says that he doesn't have that kind of powers, though some angels do. Luke says that angels possess powers from the moment they are born but like humans who are good at some things and bad at others, certain angels can only do certain things with their powers and that angels are assigned a rank based on how skilled they are at what they can do. Simeon's an archangel. Archangels serve as warriors in the celestial realm. And this is really interesting cause it means that Simeon actually fought against the brothers during the war and was not just a passive bystander. It also means Mammon was probably an archangel cause of his 'warrior' card and probably the only archangel from his brothers considering they don't have similar cards. Mammon teases Luke about just being a lower level grunt and Luke says that's still just in training and in the process of determining what he's good at meaning he's not been assigned a rank yet. Simeon says that since Michael expects great things from Luke that'll be really successful. Mammon teases Luke about how if he works hard and aims for the stars he might one day be on the top - a seraph (If this is the highest rank does this mean that's what Michael and Lucifer were?). Luke says that he's actually hoping to be a principality, which mammon laughs about. Simeon finally serves breakfast and talks about wanting to find a way to squash the rumour. MC offers to help and Mammon (rightfully) calls them out on sticking their nose where it doesn't belong again and says he's not gonna help unless they offer to pay him in gold. MC uses puppy dog eyes. It's super effective. Man actually starts blushing and panting and gasping before he gives up and agrees to help. pls sir there's a child here. Simeon calls out Mammon for being a hopeless simp (he actually just says "You really do adore Mc, don't you Mammon?") Luke says MC and Mammon are fucking disgusting and if he watches another second of this BS he's gonna hurl.

while brainstorming about how exactly they are gonna spread a rumour about the first rumour not being true Mammon says that if people saw a couple drink the coffee and instantly break up it might work but hahah it's not like you have one of those. Simeon thinks it's a brilliant idea. MC agrees and Mammon who has probably never been complimented for his plans combusts before pulling it together and puts on his confident narcissistic persona. Luke and Simeon eye up MC and Mammon as their potential couple. Mammon refuses cause he doesn't want to fight with MC even if it's just an act. Simeon offers for their breakfast to be on the house if Mammon agrees and Mammon says he already assumed it was (I mean so did I...). MC says they would really like Mammon to be their partner for this and obviously he instantly blushes and caves in. Luke calls MC out on being a manipulative little shit. Simeon asks MC and Mammon to practice a breakup before the customers come. MC can either start with 'there's something I want to tell you...' - Mammon asks if that's the way they are gonna start and then gets sad and asks them to reconfirm if this is actually an act. or they can start with 'ugh! I can't take it anymore!', and mammon gets shocked and then sad cause he says that since there are so many things wrong with him he can't decide what they are upset about and HOLY SHIT can we get this man some therapy!????? MC gets to pick one outta three problems. 1. He needs to return what he borrowed from them - he says he will eventually. 2. he needs to stand up to lucifer for once - he says he would if he could but each time he tries lucifer just gets worse. 3. he needs to just come out and admit he loves them - he blushes and says not in front of the angels and that he'll do it when they are alone. He then growls and says he has complaints too and that there's a lot he wants to say. he then starts dishing out actual grievances while Simeon and luke awkwardly watch. Luke says something along the lines of 'uhh i don't think he's acting anymore'. Mammon while blushing and sad says that MC is always flirting with others, and asks why they stay up gaming with levi all night, or why they let Asmo touch them all the time, and why they let Belphie sleep on their lap without offering Mammon to do so, And how he absolutely hates the way they lock eyes with Lucifer and just smile and how he doesn't even want them to breathe in front of Lucifer and can we pls talk about the complex Mammon has regarding Lucifer? Lucifer really just took all his trauma and daddy issues and passed it on to his kids huh? Mammon again while blushing says he wants nothing to do with someone like MC and that it's over he then tries to growl at them but he fails cause "Dammit! Like I could ever really say that to you! I love you, MC! And I'll NEVER break up with you, okay?! NEVER!" and god this man is so soft my insides are melting i can't deal with this shit. Simeon sighs about Mammon being useless ((((Probably while Mammon and MC cling on to each other and cry about having to fake break up with each other i dunno they're both pretty useless))))

Since the whole fake breakup thing failed the cafe is packed and Simeon has MC and Mammon working for him during the rush. Satan and Beel end up walking in, when MC asks them how they are doing they both say they are better. Satan had found a curse that ended up transferring all his illness to someone he hates (RIP Lucifer i guess) and Beel's stomach is strong enough that he got over it quicker than the rest. Despite insisting they're only here as paying customers Simeon puts them to work with a sweet smile and a dark purple aurora reminiscent of Lucifer's and a flash of lightening (I love how they keep revealing that Simeon is secretly terrifying) with the reasoning that the cafe is flooded cause Mammon couldn't fake breakup with MC and as Mammon's brothers it's their duty to help out. Beel cries about having to work without being given to eat but is too terrified to actually protest. Mammon suggests MC and him sneaking away now that Satan and Beel are there, MC gives their best impression of Lucifer yelling Mammon (which considering it's previously fooled both Beel and Mammon is probably really good) and he gets back to work

back in their sitting room at home the four of them are beat, though Beel is happy considering he ate all the BLT sandwiches Simeon gave them as payment. Satan says it's a surprise to see the angels here and Mammon tells them about how Michael wants them to coordinate relations between the human world and celestial realm, Satan says that's sus cause that's usually a job for dominions not archangels and that it probably means that Michael is planning something. Mammon says "so you mean he's plotting something again?" . MC can ask about Michael from 1. Mammon - He says he's a demon masquerading as an angel. And that the punishments he gave Mammon gave him shiver, though Satan says that Mammon earned those punishments. Still doesn't excuse the fact that an angel was able to deliver punishments that can still make a demon who had to survive with Lucifer's punishments shiver... 2. Satan - Satan says that back then he was still just a part of Lucifer and could only see the world through Lucifer's eyes. He says that Michael was everything that humans imagine an angel to be and more and that he had a certain presence about him. Beel says the same could be said about Lucifer. 3. Beel - he said he smelled tasty.......like sweets. Mammon says that he was always eating sweet stuff. Mammon says that Michael was A LOT like Lucifer. Satan says that while they were the polar opposite in terms of appearance it felt like they were twins. Mammon says that Michael was crazy about Lucifer (I mean he still has a weird shrine for him so yeah...) and that he really cared about lucifer. Satan says that it's cause Lucifer embodied everything Michael wasn't but wished to be and that he projected himself onto lucifer. Beel says they should probably open up an umbrella. Mammon goes wtf and Beel says cause it's raining. Mammon goes 'bro wtf we're inside'. Satan goes 'actually wait no I'm getting wet'. MC notes a leak in the ceiling, above which is Asmo's bathroom. They've been in this Mansion for little over a week and it's already leaking...

That's the end of the lesson. I'll post screenshots of Luke and Simeon's outfits in a bit. Cause they've been talking about Michael's appearance and personality and cause at the end of the last season he told MC he'll meet them soon do you think we'll actually get to see him? Is it bad that the angels scare me more than the demons? Since they brought up the witches while in the human world do you think we'll get to meet them/have more backstory? hdgudysidhzsjb I loved this lesson and I have so many questions that need to be answered... Let me know what you think!

#asks #answers #obey me #obey me spoilers #obey me shall we date #obey me!#swd obey me #shall we date? obey me!#obey me mammon #swd mammon #om! mammon #mammon x mc #mammon x reader

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thenugking · 3 years

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Grand Academy For Future Villains II: Attack of the Sequel, Chapter 10: Rise of Chapter Ten. A commentary for Three.

General CW for the whole thing: parental abuse, internalised dehumanisation as a trauma response. Three’s not doing well.

Specific CW that there isn’t a chapter nine and it Bothers Me agh.

Game 1

Game 2

Alternatively, read on Google Docs here

***

#"Guards! Darkboard! Mom! Intruder in the school!"

But your voice only echoes down the empty corridors.

"DarkBoard can't help you here," says Val, zir pen working busily on the paper. "That's why I'm here in the first place. That and saving the world. Just like my destiny foretold, I guess, thought I never thought this is what it meant. Turns out destiny is a strange and ironic thing."

((The game actually reads “Guards! DarkBoard! Mom! Your mother!” I assume this is a bug.))

Scorpius is here with Val, of course, so Three’s first thought is that ze convinced zir to come back. But then why are they in the admin building, in particular? And what is Val doing with the paperwork? Three doesn’t have anything personal against Val, they’re even sympathetic to zir. But they do know ze’s dangerous. Val doesn’t exactly do anything to make them feel better.

"No, you disappointment," adds the clone, "not the replica, me. Do you know how hard it is to make one of these things talk? I'm in the School Head's decoy office and unless you come here and help me, Horror is going to lose the house tournament. I'll be ruined! As your original creator, I order you! Drop what you're doing and help me!"

Imagine that: teaching classes, the personal management of the mindless hordes of maintenance staff, the pursuit of tenure, the faculty sponsorship of the Science Fiction dorm, and the leading role in the final school tournament challenge might have been a little too much for your mother. Is this…is this the first time she's ever actually asked for help?

"Your mother's calling," says your former roommate, stacking up the papers on the desk with one hand, keeping the flashback gun leveled at you with the other. "Go on."

Three isn’t the kind of person to bail on plans, but they’ve already helped Aurion a fair bit, and dealing with Val really is more important. This, on the other hand…

They’ve spent years running around making Maedryn’s life easier, but she’s never just admitted she needed their help before. How are they supposed to ignore her now, particularly when she gave them a direct command? But even leaving aside the fact that this means betraying Aurion (as much as Three doesn’t want to, they know he’ll understand, and maybe even be impressed), they can’t just let Val walk free either. Not when ze’s a threat to the Academy. Val has to come with them.

Val doesn’t particularly care to help Three. They’re planning to pretend to leave, and then return with their gun raised and the replica as a shield, but luckily, Scorpius convinces Val to come and help Maedryn before they have to try. Scorpius, by this point, has stopped making even a token effort to pretend ze’s loyal to Thriller, has all but moved into Dev’s room, and even fought for Horror in the virtual DarkBoard quest. Ze’s still very invested in Horror’s win, and Val’s invested enough in Scorpius to agree to go with zir.

Cautiously you approach the throne room door. You're expecting a variety of traps to greet you—but you see they have already been sprung. Peering around the corner, you see your mother facing off against none other than Dev. Leader of the genre that you swore to undermine.Distracting your mother as a way to get her to call off the defending forces? Clever.

They circle each other slowly across the throne room floor, hardly needing to look down to avoid the bottomless pits, the illusory tiles, and the triggers for the giant descending pendulums. Your mother appears to be armed with a classroom laser pointer.

Of course, you've seen her blow holes in student projects from across the room with this particular tool, so she's probably as well armed as she needs to be.

Neither of them have noticed you in the doorway.

#Defend my mother from Dev. I know she'll make it worth my while.

Your mother catches your eye as she backs Dev towards you. She takes it for granted that you're going to assist her. You are, of course. It'll just take a little planning.

Dev is avoiding the bottomless pit in the floor with practiced ease, but is not counting on someone coming up from behind and giving a well-placed shove. Which you do. The long fading scream is a measure of satisfaction.

"There!" Your mother catches her breath and staggers back to the throne. "You have done well.”

I know Maedryn’s supposed to back Horror if Sci-Fi wins the semi-final, and considering she just told me she was worried about losing, this is presumably a bug. I’m not sure how easy Dev would be to shove into a pit, either.

Not that adny of that really matters. Three arrives to help Maedryn against Fantasy, but by this point, Aurion’s already distracted fighting Cazenar, who’s trying to sabotage him. Dev and Scorpius get distracted by smooching, because they haven’t seen each other since Scorpius went after Val. Three discovers that, as Maedryn’s RA, Sona is also here to help Maedryn out, so has to work out what to do in this chaos to make themself look better than Sona. Val really doesn’t care about any of this.

And then a forcefield appears around the seven students, and A Baroness walks in and shoves a very distracted Maedryn into the bottomless pit, before reminding everyone what she said at the beginning of the year. “You can accomplish so much when you bring people together. And even more when you play them against each other."

So, weak and mortal student, We cannot help but notice that you have selected none for your consort. Could this be because the flesh holds no temptation for you—that you know a stranger and more uncanny hunger? Join Us, join Us, and let your consciousness be absorbed into Our millionfold awareness! See with a thousand eyes! Reach out with a hundred hands!

Think about it anyway.

I mean, yes, that is absolutely 100% why. And assimilating would be… a welcome relief. At present though, Three feels they can serve better outside of DarkBoard. And they’d like to know who, precisely, DarkBoard’s been assimilating, to get a hundred hands but a thousand eyes. Three respects DarkBoard greatly, but that doesn’t mean they’re not going to tease them about how unrealistic their attempt at sounding grandiose is.

"…Thriller is the reigning genre of the Grand Academy for Future Villains."

Well deserved. Three is pleased to hear it, both for Ulik, and A Baroness.

"We have been unable to reach a conclusion on the final accreditation of the Grand Academy for Future Villains."

Groans. Hisses. The muffled sound of elbows being jabbed into ribs as the eyes of the Head sweep around the hall and students hush each other.

"We will be summoning a fourth member of the Board of Visitors and Overlords to assist us in our deliberations," says Lord X, "and anticipate having a final ruling on the Academy's future within the week. In the meantime…"

Ms. Goul touches his arm. He looks down as she passes him a paper.

"In the meantime," he says, "we will be conducting interviews with individual students and members of the faculty. The following entities will be summoned to attend over the course of the next week. Three—"

You don't hear any of the rest of the list. Is this about Val? Have they found zir? What do they know about what you did?

You jam your hands into your pockets to stop them from shaking, and there you find something strange. A paper of some sort—you definitely didn't put it in there.

Hunching forward over your table to prevent anyone from seeing, you draw it out. It's an envelope—yellow with age and smelling of dust. The last time you saw that envelope, Val was folding up a paper and putting it inside. Ze must have slipped it into your pocket over the course of your confrontation. How did you manage to miss it?

You take out the paper and unfold it. It's an official form from the days before DarkBoard digitized all of the Academy's records. You can't immediately make head or tail of it, but you see a spot on the printed page where information has been filled in by hand.

BY CONSENT OF THE ADMINISTRATION AND UNDER SUPERVISION OF THE BOARD OF VISITORS AND OVERLORDS, you read, THREE IS AN OFFICIAL REGISTERED FATAL WEAKNESS OF THE GRAND ACADEMY FOR FUTURE VILLAINS TYPE 3.3.75

There’s a lot of terrifying things happening here. Firstly, the fact that the auditors are undecided. Three doesn’t know what’s gone wrong for them to be undecided still. Is it because of Val? Is it the way Maedryn’s slipping? Have Three and Professor Ulik not done enough to cover Professor Arthenes’ workload? Whatever it is, Three should have done better.

And then Lord X says the auditors want to speak to them, which carries the terror that the auditors know who they are and care about their opinion at all, but also the relief and hope if they give a glowing enough testimonial about the Academy, they can save it. And another wave of fear over the idea of the auditors listening to them…

And then there’s the paper, which is the most terrifying thing of all. Val’s been telling Three all year that they’re more important than they make out to be, that they have narrative weight, that they mean anything at all. And now they’ve made it true. Three is only just able to crumple the paper up tightly in their hand before the room starts spinning around them in the worst panic attack they’ve ever had.

#three #scorpius sanderson #grand academy for future villains #choice of games #valorous flame #a baroness #maedryn #darkboard #Particular Associates in Personal Intimate Experiences

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botslayer · 4 years

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Top Ten games of the 2010′s

This trend seems to be doing the rounds at the moment and seeing as I’ve been gaming for about as long as I can remember, It just feels right. So, let’s get into it. But first, worth saying: These aren't really in any specific order, it's just the games I've personally had the most fun with overall, but it's pretty hard to decide what the hard numbers on things you enjoy for different reasons are if that makes any sense. 10. The 2010's weren't exactly the best time for anyone, I think. For me they were a slog of finding myself and learning things I wish I didn't. Amid all those things I wanted some levity. The world needs something and stupid. We got a lot of it ion 2013 but I feel like we could have used it scattered around a bit more. In that spirit, allow me to show you one hell of a pick me up:

Saints Row 4

Saints Row 4 does not give a fuck. It is aggressively demonstrating that the entire time you play. It doesn't care in the slightest what you think or why, It just wants to show you cool, if juvenile, and interesting, if weird shit. It's the finer points of Ratchet and Clank's arsenal, SR3's humor, And superpowers that genuinely put Prototype and Infamous in a blender and tell you to go ape shit with them. The soundtrack isn't top shelf, it's the roof of the building the shelf is in. Saints Row Two had a better story overall but SR Four's was just plain fun and a solid enough story to still be invested.

The DLC was just as irreverent and madcap, Featuring everything from an evil Santa Clause to evil Gimps on Game of thrones chairs made of dildos Or Tropey-ass costumes and weapon reskins that I'd be genuinely surprised the game dev didn't get sued over. It has earned its place in my top 10 and I will die by that decision.

2016 saw the advent of a new genre. They blended TF2 and MOBAs, and we got hero shooters in their first AAA forms, Overwatch and Battleborn. But neither of these games is on this list, much as I liked them. Partly because the whole time, I kept thinking of one simple question: "Why do I keep thinking of...?"

Anarchy Reigns

Anarchy Reigns is my favorite Platinum game. Full Stop. The Story mode is interesting and has genuinely good character moments, the characters themselves are completely mental, ranging from a mercenary with a bionic cat leg that secretly has a gun built into it to a giant cyborg bull-man with a jet-powered hammer. The soundtrack is mostly angry hip-hop, making every song a banger and fittingly speedy for things like random bombing runs from jet fighters that come from absolutely nowhere.

There are giant monsters, cars with mounted flame throwers, giant robots, and the online is still pretty sweet because even when abandoned, loading it up with bots still rules. I regularly have more fun with this than I ever did with Overwatch, and I don't care how insane that sounds.

Some games want to make you feel something and fail. Some games make you feel some things accidentally, for example, a desperate need to laugh. This game made me feel like a human blender. Like a Chthonic god of mangled flesh and raw destructive power. Nyarlathotep ain't got nothing on me. I speak, of course, of...

[Prototype] 2

There's no end to the absolute destruction you feel like you're causing in this game. It feels more fluid than the first, the main character is a pinch more relatable, and all the body horror, superpowers, zombie hordes, and big old monsters make for some of the most memorable and fun moments and fights in gaming. The DLC is also pretty solid, adding new fun side challenges, and new powers and weapons that elevate you from "Flesh god" to "Screw physics, I made them" Omnipotent. Best god/monster simulation of all time.

Sometimes some games are at an honest tie in your mind. Be it that you like them for essentially the same reasons, or for completely different reasons, but the overall total joy or entertainment they bring is roughly equivalent. Here, we have a case of the former:

Furi/Cuphead

Both games have a tight focus on giving players a unique, boss-centric challenge, both have interesting, somewhat minimal narratives, and both are absolute eye candy.

Furi has a more "Samurai Jack" Quality to me. A complete badass on a relatively simple quest with a somewhat minimalistic art style learning some things as he goes.

Cuphead on the other hand, nails that rubber hose animation style, and the fun levity of such animations while still making the player's ability to interact with the world damn impactful and fun.

They share a spot in my soul, games I love everything about but will never be able to finish. Hats off to both dev teams.

Now here we have another tie. Mostly because the games are so close together, they need to be evaluated more or less as one product IMO, not enough changed for me to consider them separate games, fortunately, that is the furthest thing from an insult it can be in this situation. I present to you, my next pick(s).

Costume Quest 1/2

Now, This might seem pretty random considering my other picks, but honestly, I love Halloween, I love creative madness, I love subversion, I love good characters, and I love cool action, these games have all these things by the bucketload.

The first game is a wild ride through Halloween in multiple very lively locations and the second, slightly confusing as it is, is pretty awesome for the things it introduces, including time travel. Other elements, like the battle stamps, the truly epic forms of everything in the fights, The ability to customize your costumes, etc. they blur together in a pretty big way, but again, there's not a thing wrong with that when both games rock like crystal candy.

Now, if you hadn't noticed, all of the games on this list have had some hard action at their core, and while I don't HATE calmer games, a lot of the time, so many are kinda dull to me in that with the exception of easter eggs of some sort, most farming sims, for example, just have you doing normal farm stuff with very few twists, may as well start a real farm in that case. My most chill entry is a game that tosses that to one side, asks you to grab a suck cannon, and start harvesting gelatinous monster poop.

Slime Rancher

While you don't spend a lot of time actually interacting with other characters, they just talk at you, the story of the game is pretty effective, the player character of Beatrix has left Earth for a simpler life of Slime Ranching, which entails the raising of alien crops, delightfully derpy and colorful chickens, and going all around in an attempt to farm new breeds of slime for their genetic material to sell off or trade-in for the creation of gadgets while being surrounded by a cast of interesting characters. It's all very wholesome family fun.

The game looks great, has great ideas, and is genuinely the best farming game I have ever played. @ me all you want.

The 80's are almost fetishized nowadays. Given all the property reboots, games that go for the vibe and aesthetic of the time, etc. It almost seems as though the eighties vibe train ain't gonna stop rolling any time soon. But we owe it to ourselves to remember the first big swipe of madcap neon-colored actiony B-movie bullshit and how mind-meltingly epic it was. Ladies, Gents, and whatever else, I present:

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

Blood Dragon's story is relatively simple, you play Sargent Rex "Power" Colt (A name said in full so many times I thought his last name was "Powercolt" for the longest time), a former "Omega force" cyborg. Rex and his friend "Spider" were sent into a secret island base to investigate the supposed defection and treachery of their old commander, Ike Sloan. It turns out he has gone rogue and taken an army of "Mark 5" Omegaforce cyber-soldiers with him. What follows is a long story of betrayal, science fiction of the highest nonsensical level, comedy, and brilliantly cathartic action.

The collectibles range from data on animals, to research notes from a scientist, to literal VHS cassette tapes that have full descriptions of movies that I would legitimately watch if I could. "You may now kill the brides" is not a real film and I am angry for every day that that is true. Anyway, play Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, I dunno if it's on PS4 but it's one game I'd buy a new/old console for.

A lot of superhero games NEED to railroad you. Your goals MUST be to save the lives of the people and help the weak and all that. But one dev asked the simple question: "What if it didn't?" "What if the player chose how to use their power? What if the player could be as evil or as good as they damn well pleased?" One game gave you the powers of thunder and lightning and asked what you'd do with it. It's sequel asked you the same, but against more... interesting forces.

InFamous 2

InFamous 2 is a game about making choices, just like the first one, also just like the first one, it can have an effect on gameplay. That effect went from "What does this particular power do in this allignment?" To "Which new set of NEW powers would you like?" The forces of the last game went from “Three flavors of gun-toting whackos” To “Possibly an allegory for the Klan, Swamp monsters, and Ice-powered super soldiers.”

This was, and still is, the best game in the whole series, The powers felt distinct from anything else and still do, the story is solid as a rock, and the enemy types were still varied enough to be interesting, I miss the Reapers from the first game, but that's about it. Everything else was a massive step up. If you have something that can run it, play it.

Action is something I think we can all appreciate on some level. We can understand when it does or does not work, we can understand when we do or do not like how it feels when we are the ones partaking in it. EX: Any schlep can tell you when the weapons in your game lack impact, or when your character moves too slow for the game to be fun. The following game is something I can't say anything of the sort about. And it's kind of like Wolfenstein, when you have enemies this bad, who the hell cares how many you kill?

Doom 2016

Y'all are lying if you say you didn't expect this one. It's DOOM 2016. This game is made of hate and fuck. AND I LOVE IT. You move so fast, you may as well be half cheetah and half sports car. You slaughter the dregs of hell by the dozens and even the biggest, baddest things this game throws at you can be beaten with the starting pistol if you have the stones for it. It looks amazing graphically, the demons all look appropriately threatening, and even the Multiplayer is a great deal of fun in my book.

Something worth noting: The story presented by default is pretty barebones, but that's where supplementary material fills in the gaps, the difference between supplementary material in most games and supplementary material here is the material is till IN THE GAME. You're free to ignore most of the plot as it happens around you, and even interesting tidbits of the lore like how certain demons function. Not only are these things missable collectibles, prompting continued play to find them, they are also pretty interesting reads. So yeah, just about everything you could want in a sequel/remake, builds the on lore and gameplay very organically.

And here we are, the last game I'd put in this category. An entire decade, and here, we end on the last game that left such an impact I'd put it in my top ten. But first, let's talk about expectations and delivery: When you say a game is coming out, there are certain expectations you have for gameplay, EX: I say "Ratchet and Clank" and you expect a TPS with platforming elements and crazy guns. I say "Gears of War" and people expect something to do with lumbering about in big armor, dismembering things with a chainsaw gun and otherwise shooting them to paste. We might also expect changes to things, better graphics, innovations in grenade variety, something as that franchise goes on.

After the last game in this series was released, there were tons of people who felt let down and disappointed by it. Then they released the still somewhat disappointing special edition of it. They were both still fun, but neither really felt like the full next step in the series. After a failed reboot, they returned to the original story and the lot of us rejoiced. And when it finally came out? It was a step up in most, if not, all regards, to its predecessors. You know what this last one is. Please, give a warm round of applause to:

Devil May Cry 5

A game that was not only a return to form, but a major escalation in gameplay for one character, and a new style of gameplay all together by way of yet another new character. It didn’t exactly hurt that the story kicked ten kinds of ass and that the game looked spectacular in both the design of everything and the actual graphical fidelity.DMC 5 is, like DOOM, Like InFamous 2, Like [PROTOTYPE] 2, everything you want in a good sequel. It built very well on already solid foundations and it was generally just a fun, slightly goofy, massively stylish, and ultra badass ride. I recommend this, and all these games, to anyone.Good night everyone, have a great 2020. And the rest of the decade, for that matter.

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thedistantstorm · 4 years

Text

Come Together 07

Fandom: Destiny

Pairing: Devrim Kay/Marc

Warnings: angst, homophobia, domestic violence (mentioned), wasted tea

Notes: If you haven’t figured it out yet, for the purposes of this story, Marc is bisexual, and Devrim is homosexual. Bungie doesn’t tell us much besides that they are partners, so this is purely my interpretation.

“A young city planner set his eyes on an older militiaman. He was unkempt and terribly forward. The militiaman had class. He wasn’t interested.”

“Clearly,” Marc tells their friends. “That’s why they decided to get married.”

(A story told in bits and pieces.)

Chapters: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06

"I'm sorry," Marc says. "For lying. And hurting you. There isn't anyone else."

The roughness of his voice makes Devrim flinch. He's standing there, beside his squadmate's tiny loveseat, and has never felt more out of his depth.

"I'm sorry-"

"None of this is your fault," Marc interrupts. "I did this."

He crouches down beside Marc, well aware that his heart is jackhammering in his chest. "I should have talked to you," Dev prattles on anyway. "Letting it simmer and taking an op certainly didn't help."

"It's fine."

"Look at me."

Marc shakes his head, his mussed, wavy hair hanging down like curtains to shield his face from his partner's view. Devrim sighs and stands in front of him, dropping back down, taking a knee this time. "It didn't help."

"I could have avoided upsetting you if I just told you, but I didn't, and-"

"We're going to get through this, you and I."

His head rockets up, those sad hazel eyes locking on him and Devrim doesn't know if he wants to pull Marc into his arms and never let him go, fight all of his battles for him, or maybe shed a couple tears himself. It's an unusual reaction for him to have.

But this relationship is certainly unusual, Devrim thinks. They're not sick of each other - Marc, the charming flirt who never seems to stay in one place for long, and himself - the gentleman who's all about romance until the threat of permanence becomes a noose around his throat.

"Alright?" He gives in to the impulse and encircles Marc with his arms. "Please," He asks, aware of the tremor in his voice. "Let me hold you."

It's not comfortable, Devrim half sitting on Zara's coffee table, leaning over Marc who has curled in on himself. None of this was. It was new and heartbreaking and so terribly raw. Devrim felt horrible for his younger partner, and utterly useless. All he can do is hold onto him, shushing and rocking him as he cries. And he commits himself to it thoroughly.

When his sobs subside heavy, ragged breaths, Devrim smooths back his hair, handing him a handkerchief from his back pocket. "Zara said she took you to get some clothes?"

He nods.

"Good. When you're ready, we'll go back to my place and figure this all out, alright?"

"Okay," He agrees softly, but his grip on Devrim gets tighter and the militiaman takes it as a step in the right direction.

Marc won't sleep. Won't eat. Devrim gets him home and the other man just stares off at nothing, his eyes red and glazed. The occasional tremors he sees suggests Marc would still be crying, assuming he had any tears left to cry.

He'd hoped that Marc might want to lie down, let Devrim coax him into sleep. But he refused, sitting at a stool in the kitchen, watching the tea Devrim had made them both go cold in his hands. Wouldn't come to the couch, at least get comfortable.

Now, Devrim has a sneaking suspicion why, but he doesn't like it. "Marc, you should sleep, before we have this discussion," He says.

He makes a sad little smile into his tea. "All the chamomile in the world couldn't relax me enough," He admits, with an off-kilter laugh that seems more like a sob. "Dev, I won't sleep. I'll just lay awake."

"If you're sure." He sets about fixing a different kind of tea. Not chamomile. When he pries the mug from Marc's fingers, he lingers, his fingers resting over Marc's.

There is no response, no movement from the younger man until another mug of tea - piping hot chai - is placed in front of him.

"It's not espresso, but it'll have to do."

"It's fine," He answers dully.

Silence reigns as Devrim also takes a seat at the kitchen island on a perpendicular stool. Marc inhales, looking down into the dark liquid.

"I lied to my mother. And you," He begins, not looking up.

Devrim nods.

Marc sighs. "Before, I only ever brought home women I was seeing," He begins. "Not like I made it a point to see them often, or like I enjoyed seeing them." He taps the mug, brows pulling together as he thinks. "I created this 'Margaret' person, to keep them from asking questions. I went with a girl named Margaret once. We went to school together. She lives on the other side of the City now. No one ever had to know."

There's a moment of tentative silence before Devrim reaches for his hands - a hand, something - but Marc shakes his head. Dev withdraws, clenching his fists.

"I always thought that I'd fall for a woman, and then I could just keep it to myself."

"That's not the way, Marc. You shouldn't have to-"

"No," He agrees. "I shouldn't. But it is what it is. It wasn't worth upsetting my parents." He lets go of the mug of tea, looking up into his partner's blue gaze. "I could handle it, y'know?"

"Marc…"

"Let me finish," He begs. "I never meant to hurt you. I was just trying to get through the conversation. I was going to explain it the second we'd gotten through the interaction, I swear."

"I know."

"You didn't at the time," Marc presses. "You looked at me like I'd stolen the sun from the sky, Devrim. Like I'd punched you in the gut."

"You're right," He agrees, lips thinning. He takes a sip of his tea to steady himself. "That is… close, to what it felt like."

"I'm sorry. I really am."

"I forgive you." Devrim answers immediately. "I just needed to cool off. I - your body language bothered me, but it - I'm not normally so irrational," He finally admits. "Never, to be honest. Normally I'd see right through it, and yet all I could think about was that there was someone else. I'm not - those things happen, Marc. Normally, it's no hard feelings, rejection stings, sure, but it doesn't waylay me." He exhales. "I'm terrible at keeping suitors around when I care for them. It's never them, I just.” The truth is heavy on his tongue. “Permanence leaves a lot of room for error, you understand."

There is a sort of hope that grips Marc then, like a small spot of sun in a rainstorm. Devrim reaches for his hands again, and this time they link together in a messy pile.

"I want to be with you, if you will have me," Devrim says, and Marc nods, his overused tear ducts managing to find themselves functional again. "Don't cry, darling. I'm liable to as well." They both manage watery smiles, not lasting long at all, but the warmth seems to find its way back into the room. "Now tell me what happened. Zara said-"

He squeezes Devrim's hands and withdraws. "They disowned me," He admits softly, detached. "I knew it was coming. I think," He takes a pull from his mug, flinching at the taste, "I think I always knew."

Devrim crosses his arms. "That isn't right."

"I mean, it didn't really bother me. I called, told my ma you were my partner. She didn't get it. She got it when I used the word boyfriend. You'd have thought I told her I was a serial killer. Asked me when I 'turned,'" He quotes. "If you turned me."

He sets the mug down. "She never knew. Raised me, pushed me from her womb and neither her or my dad had a single clue." He gestures to his chest. "Nobody turned me. This has always been who I am."

"I get it."

"I hung up on her when she started with the slurs. She doesn't understand. She's never understood." He bangs his hand on the counter top. "She and my dad came over, after. Started carrying on in the hall when I didn't let them in. So I did. Let them in." He looks to Devrim. "I-I didn't want the neighbors to phone in a domestic. And I paid for it."

"The apartment is bad," Marc continues, strained. "I don't think I want to live there anymore."

"We'll figure it out," Devrim presses. "You need to sleep on it."

Marc shakes his head, having already made up his mind. "I don't want them to know where I live." He puffs out his cheeks, then pushes the air from them slowly. "They can say what they want about me. They made me. I guess they have the right-"

"That isn't how it works at a-"

"But then they started calling you a faggot and I lost it. You didn't do anything. My mother thought you were wonderful right up until she knew you were interested in me romantically. I'm not-if it was just me, that'd be okay. But when I got in her face, told her she'd overstayed her welcome, my father threw his drink at me. Broke the glass on the kitchen floor."

"He didn't-"

"No."

"Good."

"I realize I look like hell, and now's probably not the best time to convince anyone otherwise, but I'm not broken, Dev. I know I'm not."

Devrim rises, coming around behind his emotionally battered man, hugging him fiercely. "No. You're not broken, Marc. Shame on them for insinuating otherwise."

"My father wondered if it was something curable. I like women, too, so no one would have to know, if I just kept to seeing women. It got," He swallows. "I told them to fuck off. And then when he really started throwing things, I knew it wasn't going to work. Not like this."

"I understand," Devrim says, swaying gently in their embrace. "I'm sorry you're going through this. Perhaps they'll come around."

"I'm not holding my breath," Marc replies, mumbling.

"Do you regret it?" Devrim asks.

Marc rises slowly, tired and unbalanced. "I'm sad. Angry. Hurt." His lips tremble, but he gives Devrim his best attempt at a smile. "But it's kind of nice not to hold it in anymore. Even if it didn't come up often, I don't want to pretend."

"Nor should you have to," Devrim agrees.

"Do you mind if I take the couch until I sort things out?"

Devrim sweeps him up in a romantic carry. "We'll talk terms in the morning. There is a perfectly good bed we can share, so long as you are willing."

#destiny fanfiction #devrim kay/marc #devrim kay #destiny marc #devrim x marc #tw: homophobia #there be unkind things said here #because the world is cruel

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of2worldsxmuses · 5 years

Text

COFFEE CHAT

It was a lovely day, the sun was out and despite missing her family, Charlie was wearing a huge smile on her face. Her chipper mood might have a lot to do with Dev. The man was sweet, not once did he complain when she told him that she wanted to go home. In fact, he’d even calmed her nerves by offering to be there for her. She was having coffee with Eli in cute little cafe in the middle of the city and she felt perfectly contented. “How have you been, Eli? Busy, I take it?” She wanted to ask him about his relationship with Dani, but she figured it was best for her to ease herself into the conversation.

Eli walked into the cafe, and found a table for he and Charlie. He just wanted to get out, and try to open up to more people besides Daniella. And he needed to get away from the stresses from work and Ezra, and Charlie was someone he enjoyed meeting, so he was excited to meet her again. He smiled when she came in. “Hey Charlie, yeah just a little, but nothing I can’t handle.” He got up and pulled her chair out, “How are you doing? Sold any more cars?”

“Well, I’m glad you texted me. You need to un-busy yourself for some coffee.” Charlie laughed and smiled graciously at Eli when he drew out her chair. “Thank you, kind sir…” After taking her seat, she looked back at him and answered his questions. “It’s been slow going. I have been talking to a few people though… They seem interested. I actually have a showing tomorrow afternoon.” She didn’t even bother to look through the menu, seeing as she didn’t read Italian, it would be pointless. “So, I’ve heard that you’re sweet on one of my friends…Dani. How’s that coming along?”

“That’s what I’m trying to do more of, and you are my first work distraction.” Eli smiled and gave her a slight nod, “You’re very welcome my lady.” He listened to her talk about the cars, and he knew selling those amazing cars would be easy. “I’m sure you will sell them all soon. They are amazing cars, and you definitely are passionate about them, so this afternoon, you will sell one.” He was about to call over the waitress, when he heard her question and smiled at the mention of Daniella. “You heard huh? Where did you hear this from?

“We all need to take a break every once in a while.” Ever since coming to Verona, Charlie had met a few very nice people. One of them being Eli of course and then there was Dani, the ball of sunshine. Judging by how kind Eli was, she could tell right away that the two would be a great fit for each other and she really wanted to see her friend happy. “I’m not too worried about the sale. I’ll sell them eventually.” With everything that was going on in Verona, it wasn’t really her fault that the cars weren’t selling like hotcakes, but she still had interests, so there was still a chance. “Oh, a little birdie might have told me. But I know I’m right. That smile on your face is too telling.” She teased.

“We do, and I plan on taking a lot more breaks, because I don’t have to do things on my own, and I have a very capable brother to help out with the responsibilities of the station.” This was a new thing for Eli to let go of the reigns, but he needed to do that for his and Ezra’s sake. “I’m sure your’re not, they are going to sell, once more and more people hear about it, I have no doubt.” Charlie was a great salesperson, and he found her charming. He smiled again even brighter when she continued to talk about Daniella, “We have been spending some time together, and I can’t lie, I really enjoy her company. She makes me smile, and is a joy to be around. If she is your friend, could she be the little birdie? And if she is, has she said anything about me?” He knew she liked him, as much as he liked her, but he wanted to get more insight, of what he needed to adjust.

“It’s always nice when you can relinquish some of your responsibility to someone else. It makes life easier.” Charlie said, smiling. “I’m not really in a rush to sell them off. I actually like staying in Verona. I’ve made some really good friends and it looks like you’re going to be one of them. So yeah, I’m not too eager to leave now.” Yes, she did miss her family, but she also loved the independence she’d found after moving to Verona. And she might never admit it, but she might also be staying because she’d met Dev. Sure, she didn’t want anything serious with the dom, but the sex was good and he made for very good company. She was never bored when they were together. “Isn’t she just a ball of sunshine though? I love being around her…” She smiled, liking the fact that Eli was very much interested in her friend. “She might have talked about you… She said that you’re sweet. I think you two would make a cute couple. Please treat her right, I don’t want to have to hate you.”

“I’m learning that more and more everyday. I have not been one to give up control, but I know Ezra can handle it, so I feel more comfortable with him taking control.” Eli smiled, and ordered a cup of coffee for him, “Get whatever you want Charlie, it’s my treat.” He was so happy to hear that Charlie was in no rush to leave, he liked her, and he would hate for her to leave so soon. He smiled when she said he was her friend, “That makes me happy, because I consider you a friend as well, and I would hate if you leave me so soon.” He nodded and smiled brightly, glad that Daniella was brightening up someone else’s life, “She is, and I can’t get enough of her sunshine. She makes me smile, even when I don’t feel like smiling.” Hearing that Daniella talks about him, made his heart melt, she was invading his heart more and more, and he didn’t want to stop it. “I promise not to do anything to intentionally hurt her. She is very important to me, and I want to take what we have, as far as we can possibly go. But sometimes I think she is way too good for me.” He said honestly.

“It’s good to know that you can rely on your brother. I miss my own brothers. They’re always teasing me and making me do stupid shit, but when they’re not around, I do miss them.” Charlie always were close to her brothers, Cooper especially. While Carter was tough as nails, Cooper had a tender heart and would spoil her when Carter wasn’t around. Eli reminded her a lot of Cooper in a way. “Don’t mind if I do.” She ordered a Cappuccino before turning her attention back to Eli. “Well, lucky for you, you don’t have to worry about me leaving yet. I plan on staying put for a while.” She promised and then listened in as Eli gushed over Dani. “She’s a happy person and I’m glad to have her as my friend as well. She can make your bad days good.” She knew she’d only met Eli, but when he promised that he wouldn’t hurt Dani, she believed him. He didn’t seem the sort who would lie about this sort of thing. “I’m going to hold you to that promise.” Her brows knitted at his last statement. “Why would you think that? I might have just met you, Eli, but I would like to think that I’m a good judge of character. As long as you care and love Dani like how she deserves, I don’t see why you would think that you’re not good enough for her.”

Eli wish Ezra knew that he could count on him, but they were both too stubborn to talk to each other. He doubt if Ezra would ever say he missed him. “Must be hard to be so far from your family, sounds like you all are pretty close.” He would love to have a relationship like that with his brother, but like Bella sad, just give him time, and space. He smiled when Charlie said she wasn’t leaving anytime soon, “It is lucky for me, I would hate to lose a friend so soon.” He was again blushing hearing her tell him how Daniella was talking about him, “She is a very happy person, and I think that is what attracted me to her in the first place. She just seems to have a aura of light around her, and it is impossible to not want to smile when she is around.” He nodded, “Please hold me to it, because I mean every word of it.” He sighed, “I just have not had the best of luck with relationships, and I know it’s has everything to do with me. The Eli you see now is not the Eli I was a long time ago. I have gone through a long, self reflecting journey, and it took me a while to become a man that I can like again. But I always worry that the old Eli can come out, and ruin everything again.” He didn’t like talking about his past with people, but for some reason, it came easy to talk to Charlie about it. He sipped his coffee, trying not to get into a funk about his past.

“It is, but it’s not too bad. I really am very close with my brothers, I love them to death.” Charlie could only smile fondly as she spoke about her brothers. They were a pain in the butt half the time, but she really did love them. “You won’t I can promise you that. I do like the friends I’ve made here and it really would be a shame if I had to leave them.” The more Eli spoke about Dani, the happier Charlie felt for her friend. It sounded like he had ever intention to make the relationship last, but when she heard what he said about himself, she frowned and said. “Your old self? If he was as terrible as you say, then for both your sake, I hope he never comes back. You can’t hold your past mistakes over your head for the rest of your life, Eli. You can’t be happy if you did.” Sometimes, she really wished she could take her own advice, especially when it came to the matters of the heart, but for some reason, she was still too scared to take that plunge.

“At least you have a good set of friends here in Verona to have your back, and look after you while you’re here.” He knew he would look after her, once you are in his life as a friend, he would always have her back, and make sure she is taken care of. “And maybe your brothers can come to visit you sometimes. If you ever want that to happen, you just so happened to make friends with someone with a private plane, and has no problem sending it to go pick your brothers up and bringing them here for you. Just say the word, and we can make it happen.” He smiled, and he wasn’t trying to show off, but just be there for his friend, like he would do for any of his friends. He knew she was right with her advice, Bella had said the same thing, but it was hard not to think about the past, when it was just so hard to get over. “I know, and I am not trying to hold onto it, but sometimes it is hard to let go, but I will not hurt Dani, I promise.”

“I know, I’m really lucky that way.” Charlie had always found it easier to connect with men as oppose to women, which was why it was surprising for her to have made so many female friends here. Then, there was Dev, she didn’t know what they were, but he was always willing to protect her. That was a nice feeling. “Oh no, you really don’t have to do that. They’ll come and visit on their own. Trust me… My brother Cooper is already threatening to come out here to take me home.” She rolled her eyes at the idle threat because she knew he wouldn’t do that to her, or at least she hoped so. “I’m sure you and Dani will do just fine. Just let go of your past. The rest will come naturally. I promise.” She beamed and took a sip of her Cappuccino.

“Yeah you have, and so have I, because I got to be one of them.” Eli smiled, and sipped on his coffee. He didn’t have a lot of friends, but he was slowly starting to build them back up, and he was very thankful for that. He nodded when she rejected his offer, “Okay, but know the offer is on the table.” He smiled, then laughed when he heard her brother Cooper had threatened to come here and take her home, “Wow, he must really miss you.” He thought that was sweet. “Well if he does, maybe he will fall in love with Verona and want to stay too.” He smiled, “I hope so, I really like her, and I want this to last.”

“You definitely are one of them.” Of course he was her friend, she wouldn’t be having coffee with him otherwise. “Thank you, Eli. It’s very sweet of you, but if my brothers are going to try to drag me home, they’ll have to fly in coach.” She chuckled. It was mean of her to want her brothers to suffer, but serve them right if they thought they could just drag her home. “He’s a pain in the ass. But I think mostly he just wants me safe. After what happened here, I don’t really blame him.–Maybe… If he does then at least I’ll get to stay and have my brother with me too.” That was of course too good to be true, but could anyone blame her for wanting it? “I know it will. So, tell me, have you done anything special for her lately? Take her on a romantic date, maybe?”

Eli almost spit out his coffee hearing Charlie say if her brother wanted to drag her away, they would have to fly coach, “I guess that’s fair, you shouldn’t make it easy for people to drag you home.” He laughed and shook his head, “I don’t blame him, it has to be hard to be so far away from your family, and hear about some mess going down where they are, especially for a brother and his sister is in a dangerous place. But he can be at a little peace to know that you have someone looking out for you.” He nodded, “Who knows what might happen, Verona is a special place, he could fall in love with it.” He smiled, “We have had a few special dates, we went on a yacht and a picnic date, but there are more to come I’m sure.”

“Now you’re with me. If he wants to drag me home, I’ll make sure he’s as uncomfortable as possible.” Charlie laughed. “I know, he worries about me. They all do. But I’m also an adult, I can take care of myself. Plus, I might have someone who’s promised to watch out for me. He’s kind enough to escort me around if need be. If you didn’t pick me up for coffee, I’m sure he would have driven me here.” She was of course talking about Dev, but she wasn’t going to tell Eli that, he would only question her about the other man. “Verona is a beautiful city… Maybe if he did come here, I could convince him to stay.” Charlie was suddenly very interested to hear about Dani and Eli, it sounded like he was spoiling her. “Aww… I’m so excited for you guys. I bet you’ll make even more memories together.”

“I’m definitely there with you, they shouldn’t be in a private plane, to come over and take you away from me.” Eli laughed, and finished his coffee, “They should trust that you will take care of yourself, but I get the worry.” He raised his brow, “You might have someone? Hmm, that sounds interesting, and very cryptic.” He chuckled, “I mean you know about Daniella and I, if there is someone in your life, I think it’s only fair you tell me.” He wasn’t going to push her, but if she wanted to tell him, he surely would listen. “Maybe you should lure him here, and let Verona work it’s magic on him, and he stays here and you can have your brother and your friends.” He blushed again, “I’m definitely going to try, she deserves the best.”

“I know right!” Charlie chuckled and took another sip of her cappuccino. “I’m almost thirty, they should let me spread my wings a little. Geeze…” Of course she knew that they worried about her and wanted to make sure she was safe, but it also felt like they weren’t letting her grow up. “What? He’s a friend.” She flushed, knowing that he was a friend that did very delicious things to her body. “Just so you know, Dani knows him. I don’t know if you’ve met him before. It’s Deviano Capulet. He’s…nice…” She needed to change the subject so she immediately talked about her brother again. “Uhmm… No thank you. I’m trying to get him to stay away, not come here and try to drag me back to LA.” She laughed. “Is that a blush I’m seeing. Oooh… You’re so into her…”

As an older brother, Eli could understand her brothers react, but he also understood Charlie’s reasoning for wanting to show that she could take care of herself. “Well if you ever need me to call them and tell them that you have an older brother here, then let me know.” He raised his brow, hearing that she was seeing Deviano Capulet, “The artist? I went to see his show at Daniella’s gallery, he’s very talented. I saw a couple of pieces that I wanted to purchase for my office and home. So you and him….” He smirked. “Well it could have been a lot worse. And as long as he is taking care of you, then I’m going to stay in my lane.” He will ask Dani about him later. He shrugged his shoulders, “Alright, alright, I was just trying to help.” He turned his head away, “I’m not blushing.” He lied, “But I am into her.” He smiled.

“Aww… Are you saying you’re like my brother from another mother? That’s sweet, Eli.” Charlie gushed. “You know though, you really do remind me of my brother Cooper. He’s the oldest one and super sweet. Like you, he’s the type of guy who would give you the shirt off his back.” She was so happy to have met Eli. It might have been purely business at first, but now, he was slowly becoming one of her favorite people. “Yes, that one. But we’re friends… Nothing is going on.” She lied, even though she knew Eli could see that she was doing so. She did feel guilty however, because Dev was a really nice guy and he deserved better. He definitely deserved to be with someone who wasn’t jaded. “I don’t know, Eli. If I’m being honest, I do like him, but after my last breakup, I don’t see how whatever we’re doing can go anywhere. I feel bad because it feels like I’m just using him for sex.” She stated with a frown. “You’re blushing, but hey at least you know what you want and you’re not hurting her. I respect you for that.”

“That’s what I’m saying, you are used to having brothers looking after you, so I’m going to look after you.” Eli always wanted a sister, so Charlie was going to be that for her. Hearing how he reminded her of her brother, just sealed it for him, “Well, I’ll be Cooper 2.0.” He laughed, and listened to her talk about Deviano, and it was some sadness in her voice, and that disturbed him. He could tell she was hiding something, but again he was not going to push. Luckily she started talking, and his heart broke for her. He had his share of heartbreak, so he could empathize with her. “So you had a bad breakup? And are you making Deviano pay for what this other guy did? Are you being honest with what you want with Deviano?” He knew that was a lot, but he just said he was like her brother, do he was going to act like it. “I do know what I want, and I think if you take the time, you will know what you want too.”

“Thanks, Eli. I do appreciate you looking after me.” Charlie said with a gracious smile. It felt good to know that she had someone she could look up to here and it helped that she could talk to him. She missed having that. “No, you can’t be Cooper. I like Eli. You can just be you.” She beamed, but the smile didn’t last as Eli threw questions about her past at her. “I spent years with Kevin. He was my first everything. I thought that he was it for me, but he broke my heart and now I’m just…broken.” She answered him honestly, her brows furrowing. “I don’t want to hurt him, Eli. I thought if I was cold towards him, he’d get the picture and leave me alone.” At least that was what she’d been trying to do when he texted her, but it never seemed to work. Her heart would skip a beat whenever she would see a text from him and then flirting would follow suit. “I know I like him, but he deserves better. I’m complicated…” She sighed, twisting the napkin in her hand. “What if he only wants me for sex? I mean, we do that well…” She highly doubted that, if all he wanted was sex, he would have moved on by now.

Eli smiled, “I’ll always look after you, and I promise to always be Eli.” He knew there was no replacing her brother, and he wouldn’t dare try. He just wanted Charlie to know that he was there for her. “So Kevin broke your heart, I get it, but you have to know that you deserve better. Only you can keep yourself broken Charlie.” He continued listening to her, “So you do like him, and it’s obvious that he likes you, so what you have to do is be honest with him, and tell him exactly what you want from him. If it’s just sex, tell him. Because that could be all he is capable of giving you too. But honesty is key.”

“Good. I like Eli just fine.” Although Cooper and Eli were alike, they were different people. For example: Eli would never bet Charlie to do anything stupid. Cooper would do it in a heartbeat. Her brothers were the worse, especially when they were together. “I know… But how do you let go after being faithful to one person for so long? He took my everything. My virginity, my heart…” She knew that she wasn’t being fair to Dev, but maybe Eli did have a point. He might want the same things that she did. “What if he wants more?” Was all she could ask. “I’m selfish, I don’t want to let him go… But I’m not ready to give him all of me either.” Since she was opening up, she figured it didn’t hurt to tell him everything.

“Well Eli is really all I can be, so you don’t have to worry about that.” Eli laughed, knowing that even of he tried, he would never replace her brother. They have a lifetime together, and he and Charlie was still getting to know one another. He listened to her talk about her past relationship, and he knew what she was going through, because he had his own bout of heartbreak. “You have to claim your life back, and know you have more to offer someone. If you act broken, then you let this Kevin truly win. And if Deviano wants more, be honest and tell him what you are able to give. If he stays, he is saying that is enough. If it’s not, then you would have given him the choice to walk away.” He took her hands, “I know that feeling, it’s not selfish, but you have to be honest with him, and accept his answer.”

This was what she’d been missing being away from her family. Honesty. Her brothers were good at giving that to her and so was Eli. He didn’t try to sugar coat things for her, and she truly appreciated it. “You’re right. It’s time I reclaim my life. I’m worth loving and since Kevin can’t see that, screw him. I’m better off without him.” She said that with conviction and all the pent up resentment she felt for her ex-boyfriend. “I’ll just take things slow with Dev. We don’t really have to give our relationship a title, right? If he wasn’t interested, he’d probably be gone by now. Besides, it’s not like I’m sleeping with anyone else and I hangout with him everyday since we jog together.” She felt a little calmer for some reason and when Eli took her hands, she smiled and gave it a squeeze. “Thank you, Eli. You’re turning out to be one of my favorite people. Dani is a lucky girl.”

“You have to do that, because there is no reason for you to be walking around here feeling broken, when you have people that care about you.” Eli didn’t want to see Charlie sitting around moping, or feeling defeated, over some guy that was dumb enough to let her go. She had so much going for her, and from what he could pick up, a guy that was totally into her. So she needed to accept that this Kevin was an douche, and move on with her life. She was so much better than that, and he was going to tell her anytime she needed it. “Exactly, you don’t have to define your relationship right now, just enjoy it for what it is. Have fun, let loose.” He could see her becoming more and more relaxed, and he wanted that for her. “You don’t have to thank me, I am just helping out my little sister.” He blushed, “I am the lucky one.” He looked at his watch, “Now, I am not going to hold you up too long, I am sure you have other things, or people you would want to be doing right now.” He smirked, and put some money on the table for their coffee, “Do you need me to take you anywhere?”

“I’m not going to anymore.” Charlie promised. Enough was enough, she’d spend the past year angry and bitter. It didn’t bring her any comfort. Why should she suffer when Kevin had clearly moved on with his life? It didn’t seem fair. She had the right to be happy too. Who knows maybe she would be able to find true happiness with Dev? For now however, she was just going to take it a day at a time. Things would work out in the end. “I will let loose. We’re having a lot of fun together.” Her smile couldn’t get any brighter when she heard Eli’s next words. “I like that. I’ll be your first younger sister from another mother.” She said with a laugh. With her brothers back in LA, it was good to know that she had someone looking out for her. Her cheeks reddened even further because for some reason, it felt like Eli knew what she was planning to do after having coffee with him. “You don’t have to drive me anywhere. I have plans with Dev. I’ll text him and he can come pick me up. You probably have plans with Dani, so you can leave if you want.” She stood up then, gave him a tight hug and said, “Thank you for the talk, Eli. I really needed that.” Once the man went on his way, she took out her phone and sent Dev a text.

#Canon Para: Coffee Chat #Canon: Charlie & Eli

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askagamedev · 5 years

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Let's say the feature/system/etc you are working on isn't working. Maybe the system does not work well in the game's engine. Maybe the feature that sounded so cool in paper is boring/confusing/frustrating/etc when put into practice. Maybe the amount of time you need to get it to a point where it will work well in the engine/not suck to play is far more than you have to spare. How do you, as a developer, let your boss know that what you are working on isn't work?

The right answer to this is “as early and with as much information as possible”. It’s your job to raise the warning flag as early as you can. I always notify my leads if something isn’t proceeding according to plan - maybe it isn’t fun enough, maybe it is taking too long and the feature won’t fit into the schedule, maybe it’s just too difficult. It isn’t necessarily your job to make the decision on whether to proceed - that’s the responsibility of the leadership. But it is your responsibility to provide them the most relevant information and context to make that decision. The earlier you raise the warning flag, the less wasted work there is. So you bring it up, you make it as impersonal as possible, and you ultimately follow the decision made by the leadership because you are a professional.

I’ve actually been in this situation before. I was building a game system some years ago for a PS3/X360 title. The high level design for the system handed to me from the team’s design leadership (both lead designer and creative director) was, in my opinion, not very good. The design for the system was ultimately a chore, something that we forced the player to do in order to progress past certain points in the game, and it just wasn’t very fun. I told the leads about my feelings about the feature (outlining the main issues I saw with it), but the decision to move forward was ultimately theirs to make - they said to proceed. Since I am a professional and I respect the chain of command, I did just that.

The prototype I built was completely built to the spec that they had asked for, but it had the exact problems that I had brought up with them earlier. The creative director later came to me and told me that he appreciated my professionalism in building it out even though he knew I believed it wasn’t the right move to make. I believe that this was one of the major factors in them eventually giving me the free reign on the feature and said “We’re giving this feature to you. If you can’t make this fun in two weeks, we’re going to have to cut it.” I did make it fun and the feature shipped in the final game.

It might be tempting to keep your head down and just do as you’re told, but it’s important to realize that games are a collaborative environment. We all have the same goal - make the best, most engaging, most performant, most fun game we can. We might not always agree on how to reach that goal, but we all agree on what the goal is. So if anybody thinks something isn’t working, it’s the responsibility of every team member to raise that warning flag as soon as possible so that we can fix the problem. It’s the leadership’s responsibility to decide what to do about it.

The FANTa Project is currently on hiatus while I am crunching at work too busy.

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#Working in the game industry #game development team structure #leadership #observations from the inside

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zombiescantfly · 5 years

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Words About Games: Unreal Tournament (Epic Megagames, 1999)

In 2291, in an attempt to control violence among deep-space miners, the New Earth Government legalized no-holds-barred fighting.

291 years earlier, I heard that for the first time. Unreal Tournament begins with a narrated flythrough explaining two very simple things: there is a Tournament, and you are going to win it. After the lonely melancholy of Unreal, that's a pretty abrupt pivot. Why, after getting through most of the 90s with platformers, pinball, and fighting games, did Epic Megagames barrel in headfirst to the multiplayer arena shooter market, a playground run exclusively by industry already-giant id Software?

Because they wanted to.

As I mentioned in the Unreal essay, that game's multiplayer was a fun shell filled with horrible, horrible problems. Epic set to fixing it, but realized that beyond some quick and dirty surface-level patches, there wasn't a lot they could do within the same scope. So they broke away from a simple expansion pack and landed on creating a full separate release by the name of Unreal Tournament.

Unreal Tournament, UT99 from now on, was released on November 23, 1999, to an almost absurd level of praise. Quake 3 Arena, id’s latest offering in the Quake franchise and first multiplayer-only title, would come out just over a week later on December 2, pitching the two games into a deathmatch of their own which still rages to this day almost 20 years later.

Let's talk about Quake a bit. Shooters, up until around the time the first Quake came out and probably still after that, were commonly referred to as ‘Doom clones’ because, well, many were. Any unambitious dev could buy an engine license, whip up some sprites on a lunchbreak, and ship a game. There's a parallel to be drawn between that era and the current ongoing avalanche of Unity and Unreal asset flips, but you can turn to others for opinions on all that.

Quake was, famously, id Software’s followup to Doom 2, and an early frontrunner of fully-3d shooters. It was so popular and noteworthy that it even caused the term Doom Clone to fall away in favor of Quake Clone. Quake expanded the popularity of online play, and saw the creation of the some of the first AI bots made exclusively for deathmatch. Quake 2 came along not too far after and pulled in even more interest. If you remember from my Unreal essay, that was when it grabbed my own interest, and I became a frequent over-the-shoulder spectator of many a Quake 2 deathmatch.

But then, UT99. When I first played Unreal Tournament, I was blown away. By the bots. Meaning that they killed me a lot. I was very bad at it. I didn't even strafe back then, just ran forward and turned with the mouse. But I learned.

UT99 is actually quite an accommodating game. Bots have 9 skill levels ranging from drooling idiot to a fittingly-named godlike, and I remember bumping them up a level at a time over the years. UT’s bots were one of its largest selling points back then, and the cornerstone of the Tournament part of its name.

The titular Tournament in Unreal Tournament is a series of botmatches of increasing difficulty over the game’s five primary gamemodes: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Domination, and Assault. A final series of three 1v1 matches caps off the Tournament, the third of which pits you against the Big Bad Reigning Champ, a robot named Xan Kriegor.

There were a handful of firsts in that short bit, so let's take a look.

As stated, Quake 2 was the de facto king of online shooters at the time. But Quake 2, for all its fame, only had three gamemodes available: deathmatch, team deathmatch, and capture the flag. Unreal had dabbled with alternative styles of deathmatch and team deathmatch, but all of them were, more or less, the same gamemode, save one. In a unique take on King of the Hill, the first player to score a kill got a permanent damage boost until they were killed, at which point that buff was transferred to their killer. Killing the King awarded more points, matches were first to X points, you get the idea. RtNP added Cloak Match, a take on this KotH concept where instead of a damage boost, players fought for permanent partial invisibility and infinite jump boots.

Unreal Tournament was a little more ambitious than just reflavoring deathmatch, however. Domination used its own unique rotation of maps centered around controlling three points. Your team scores one point per every couple of seconds, per point held. Touching a point is enough to flip control of it to your side, and the result is a fun, frantic match with enough additional focus to guide it away from just another deathmatch. Map control becomes something more than just controlling various weapon spawns, and demands you keep your attention between the three points. Random respawns instead of near your team’s current territory and the instant capture of points meant the game never ground down to just being spawncamped, and helped reduce the prevalence of one-sided victories. Domination was great, the extra effort put in to creating its own category of maps was great, and games today still use the gamemode. That said, Destiny 2 really needs to make capture instant and not have you sit around for 5 seconds in a tiny room, like come on.

Domination may have been new for the time, and DM, TDM, and CTF made their own waves that I'll get into later, but Assault is what really caught people's attention. Assault was an attack and defense mode where one team was tasked with completing a series of varied objectives, while the defenders tried to stop them. The most similar thing we get in games now is pushing a cart down a predetermined path in TF2 or Overwatch. Payload gamemodes in those games are similar in the sense that one team must progress down a path to get to a specific location, and I suppose it might come across as a streamlining of the idea, but Assault is just more interesting.

UT99 shipped with seven Assault maps, and each one presented a different scenario. Assault was not just replacing the objective on an existing map, the same as Domination had its own maps. Each one had a little story it presented, from the attempted hijacking of a supersonic train, assaulting an ancient fortress on an alien planet, sabotaging an underwater research facility, stealing a Navy battleship, escaping a medieval castle, destroying an experimental battle tank, and even a recreation of the D-Day landing. Assault maps varied in how linear they were, with maps like Guardia, HiSpeed, and Overlord being fairly straightforward, to the more open-ended OceanFloor and Rook. It was, by design, an asymmetrical experience, but that design went so far as to change in-level as the attackers pushed further and further in. On HiSpeed, for example, the attackers start in a helicopter hovering over the rear of the train, and drop down largely uncontested. There's a full car where they can grab weapons and powerups, and then they reach where the defenders have spawned.

As objectives are met and various places in the map are reached by the attackers, spawn points start to change. On the same map, attackers spawn with a serviceable loadout of shock rifles and pulse guns (we'll get to the weapons later), both good options for the mixed-distance encounter they'll be facing as they move towards the next car. The defenders, however, spawn with access to flak cannons and rippers, which in the close quarters of the car’s interior are absolutely brutal. Once the attackers push far enough in to it, though, that car becomes their spawn point and the defenders are moved further back, thus giving the attackers access to those weapons for the next part of the map.

The same sort of design echoes throughout all seven Assault maps, and it creates a varied and frantic experience that was new at the time and still hasn't really been copied. The feeling of actually taking part in an event in the game’s world added so much to even the relatively sparse setting, and it remains a great example of an excellent piece of very quiet but highly effective worldbuilding.

The other gamemodes were again, team and free-for-all deathmatch, and as standard as that was at the time, UT99 made some weighty impressions on the genre. At the time of Quake 2’s release, it was common practice to just repurpose singleplayer campaign levels as the multiplayer maps. Quake 2 would get its own suite of maps designed explicitly for multiplayer later in its life, and Unreal shipped with 14 multiplayer-only maps, with a further 9 added later as free updates. UT99 shipped with multiple dozens of maps, each one presenting a different take on design and execution. You have a standard collection of flat-ish arenas, some truly impressive vertical design, maps with stage hazards, big maps, small maps, maps with areas of low gravity, and maps with secret passages leading to hidden weapon spawns. A handful of Unreal’s maps were even remade for UT99, and two in particular became series mainstays - Deck 16 and Curse. Both are still thought of as iconic maps, and for very good reason. They're well-balanced and play to the strengths of the game they're in while also, going back to Unreal’s bit here, feeling like they're a real space.

Because while UT99 may be a multiplayer-only fragfest with no real story, it has lore.

The opening narration is just a small bit of fluff, but it sets up a whole lot that the various designers had a ton of fun expanding on. Official weapon descriptions in the manual talk about the (in-game) real-world applications of each, and even set some up as not even being explicitly for combat. The Translocator, a personal teleporter by way of launching tiny disks, is a repurposed tool given to miners to help escape cave-ins. The GES Biorifle is a vacuum cleaner for toxic sludge instead of dust. The Impact Hammer is a jackhammer but sideways. The in-universe justification for those few weapons doesn't mean anything to the gameplay, but given that the Tournament was set up by Liandri Mining Corporation, it adds a bit of fun sense-making to the whole thing.

Maps, too, are part of that lore package. Each map throughout the Tournament ladder has a short description, and it's almost always about what this particular arena’s place in the world is. Most boil down to “this is a site built for the Tournament” or “Liandri bought this and made it a Tournament arena,” but it's about the tiny details hidden in the lines. Deck 16 is a toxic sludge refinery, but it's also a single deck of the spaceship Gaetano, rented out to Liandri whenever it's in drydock. Curse is an ancient temple that was an archaeological site until Liandri bought it after funding ran out. Arcane Temple is a Nali worship site on Na Pali left abandoned after the Skaarj invaded. Oblivion is a Liandri passenger ship that tricks Tournament entrants by being their first arena. Hyperblast, the final stage of the Tournament, is Xan Kriegor’s personal spaceship made specifically to be an arena.

The whole thing paints the Liandri Mining Corporation as this quirky half-malicious corporate giant, as big and influential as any sci-fi megacorp but out of an innocent love for their decidedly not-innocent game. It's a world where humanity spent seven days on the brink of destruction at the hands of the Skaarj, where the Corporation Wars tore entire planets apart, and where despite that everyone can get over it, crack some beers, and watch people blow each other away on live television, kept safe by technology that respawns them within seconds.

Character backgrounds, too, drop hints in their two to three sentence lengths. The bots you fight against or with all have tiny snippets of who they are, making reference to revolts, arrests, rebellions, other worlds, secret government experiments, and revenge.

The important thing to take away from this is that all of this was put in but none of it had to be. It doesn't affect the game and it's not even immediately noticeable unless you let every map and character description load before entering a Tournament match. Just going to map select for a practice session/instant action game doesn't show the same descriptions, so you have to go through the singleplayer ladder. It's work put in that shows a genuine and earnest excitement for the world the devs had created, and I still get a smile thinking about it. Unreal Tournament is such a weird celebration of every gritty science fiction trope, but turns them all on their heads to create a world for this game that feels exactly as expansive as it isn't. Because Unreal Tournament doesn't have anything to do with the lore it hides in all these corners, it's just a multiplayer shooter with no story beyond “kill better than the other guys.” And boy do they ever make that part feel great.

For better or worse, Wolfenstein 3D cemented FPS weapon progression. Ever since and with only a few minor alterations here and there, the loadout progression is melee weapon, bad pistol, automatic weapon, shotgun (though those sometimes switch position), a better version of one or both of those, some kind of explosive option, sniper rifle (that was a later addition), and then a superweapon of some kind. From Doom to Quake to our old nemesis Half-Life to our slightly newer nemesis Halo to Call of Duty, you get those weapons in roughly that order.

So let's talk about Unreal again for a second. I didn't mention that game's weapons because I wanted to bring the whole discussion in at once, but it does require me to go back in time a year and talk about where the series landed on its own weapons. The first thing to know about Unreal is that it was not immune to the Holy Progression of Gun, but it did make some incredibly noticeable changes. Unreal saw a videogame gun, famous for being a thing you can left click on men with, and asked “what if you could also right click on men?”

I'm moving a rough sort of progression, so be aware that this is only the general order you get these guns in. In Unreal, the first weapon you pick up is the Dispersion Pistol, a projectile-firing semi-auto gun that doesn't do a whole lot of damage. One fun thing about it is that its projectiles cast a real-time light on the environment so you can use it as a way to peek into dark areas before going in them with your vulnerable body. But another thing about the Dispersion Pistol is its alt fire, where you hold down the right mouse button to charge up a shot which then acts essentially as a rocket launcher shot - it deals better damage, it deals splash damage, and it can gib enemies. In-universe, the Dispersion Pistol is a Skaarj weapon, and you can also find hidden upgrades for it that boost the damage of both firemodes at the cost of taking more ammo per shot. Luckily, as your holdout weapon, the Dispersion Pistol recharges its ammo passively.

The second weapon you get is the automag, a basic hitscan pistol. Primary fire shoots a fairly accurate shot, alt fire has you hold the gun sideways to increase the fire rate at the cost of accuracy. It's dumb and I love it to this day.

Third up, the Tarydium Stinger, a projectile-based minigun with an alt fire that acts as a projectile shotgun. Here's where the lines start to get a bit blurred, but we're not totally out of the usual progression just yet.

After the Stinger you get the ASMD Shock Rifle, a famously curious gun that, as its primary fire, shoots a hitscan beam, and shoots a fast-moving projectile orb as its alt fire, trading perfect precision and speed for a little bit of splash damage. The thing about it is that if you shoot the orb with the beam you get a giant explosion that does an absolute ton of damage.

Moving from that piece of sweet hardware brings us to the GES Biorifle, a rapid-fire goop-throwing mine layer with a charged shot as its alt fire.

Then, the Eightball Launcher, a rocket launcher that has not two but four firemodes. Click primary fire to shoot a rocket, fast moving and with splash damage. Hold primary fire to charge up to six rockets that fire in a spread pattern, or click alt fire while charging to shoot them in a spiral formation. Also, you can get a mild lock-on effect by holding your mouse cursor over an enemy for about half a second. Alt fire is the same as primary but with grenades - click alt fire once to lob one, hold to charge up to six. The grenades bounce around for a set period of time, and also blow up on contact with an enemy.

Then possibly the series’ most famous weapon, the Flak Cannon. Primary fire is a projectile-based shotgun that fires individual shards that bounce around the environment for a bit, allowing you to fire around corners or even up at the ceiling to bank a shot over cover. Alt fire is another grenade launcher, though this one fires its shells at a shallower angle, a higher velocity, has a smaller up-front splash radius, and still creates little bits of flak that bounce around for a short time. This gun is my and many other people’s favorite gun in videogames.

The Razorjack is a strange gun that fires disks that bounce around the environment at scarily high velocities, and even have the ability to decapitate enemies if you hit their head, a useful feature in the Skaarj-infested levels where you first find it. Alt fire is a tricky system that lets you influence the path the disk takes, though its high velocity, bad turning radius, and small size makes “influence” a more appropriate word than “guide.”

Next is the Rifle, a high-powered hitscan primary fire with an alt fire that zooms in. Headshotting enemies decapitates them but other than that it's just a sniper rifle, let's move on.

Finally, Unreal has the Minigun, a hitscan bullet-spewing beast that shows up near the end of the game, leaving you with just barely too little time to get to use it as much as you want and also to realize that hey, it's just a minigun. Primary fire shoots with a short spool-up time, alt fire shoots faster but less accurately. Unfortunately this does not make you hold the Minigun sideways like the Automag.

So that was Unreal’s loadout, and it made some big waves at the time. Physics-based projectiles? Well sure, Quake had the bouncy grenade launcher, but the Flak Cannon and Razorjack made being aware of and using the environment second nature to players. The ASMD’s ability to produce a BFG shot on demand if you could combo properly was amazing. And the upgradeable nature of the Dispersion pistol made what was usually a loadout slot reserved for being sad about having to use a legitimate late-game complement to your arsenal.

So it stands to reason that Unreal Tournament barely changed it.

UT99’s arsenal did change a little bit, but not too drastically. Most changes were to damage or fire rate, and every weapon got a new model. Some weapons were slightly renamed, like the Automag becoming the Enforcer or the ASMD receiving its full title of ASMD Shock Rifle, the Eightball Launcher was just called the Rocket Launcher, the Rifle became the Sniper Rifle, and the Razorjack was renamed the Ripper.

The next level of changes was tweaking some alt fires. The biggest change here was the new Ripper losing its guided blade in favor of an alt fire that shot an explosive disk. Unlike the primary fire, it didn't bounce, and while it had only about half the splash radius of the Rocket Launcher proper, its fire rate and projectile speed were both much faster. Other than that, the only change to another gun was the Sniper Rifle getting a thematically appropriate overlay when you zoomed in, instead of Unreal’s Rifle not displaying anything. Additionally, because it seems to fit here more than the next bit, if you manage to find another Enforcer lying on the ground, you can pick it up and dual wield. It's pretty rad.

Larger changes came in the removal of both the Stinger and the Dispersion Pistol, and the addition of the Impact Hammer, Pulse Gun, and the series’ first superweapon, the Redeemer.

I'm personally a bit conflicted about trading the Stinger out for the Minigun. On one hand, UT99’s Minigun is a great piece of visual design - massive, chunky, and bold, with the added flair of seeing your arm holding onto a forward grip to really sell the vibe of that one scene in Predator. On the other hand, there's something to be said about a projectile weapon over a hitscan one, especially since so many high-powered hitscan weapons exist in the game already. But at the same time, UT99 does have an answer to the automatic projectile weapon, the Pulse Gun.

The Pulse Gun should be instantly familiar to anyone with a passing understanding of id Software’s early titles. Primary fire is just the Pulse Rifle from Doom, and alt fire is the Thunderbolt from Quake. But put together, married in this suitcase-sized brick of green polygons? A thing of beauty.

Let me at least address the Impact Hammer before moving on: it's a melee weapon you can charge up. It'll kill someone pretty good if you charge it up and manage to make contact. It has a pretty fun and inspired visual design but ultimately the only reason it's there is because you can run out of ammo with the Enforcer you spawn with. The end.

Alright, the Redeemer. The Redeemer is a man-portal nuclear warhead launcher, kind of like the Fat Man from Fallout 3 except way, way cooler. Primary fire launches a relatively slow-moving projectile that, on contact with anything, explodes in a shockwave that does enough damage to instantly gib anyone without 199 health and a Shield Belt powerup. It goes through walls, too. It's a very good superweapon. Making it better is its alt fire, where you take personal control of the missile as it travels, allowing you to guide it around the map with a surprising degree of maneuverability. The BFG may have a classic flair, but the Redeemer took the idea of a superweapon to a whole other level.

So how did all of these weapons actually play together? How did an arsenal designed for and balanced around a singleplayer game with fixed enemy spawns translate to a multiplayer arena? Quite well, in fact. Epic didn't design the game in a vacuum, and as Quake 2 was the reigning champ at the time, they didn't have to look far to see what worked and what could be changed for the better.

UT99 plays fast, hard, and unrelenting. People load into a map and immediately start running around picking up weapons and letting the lead fly. Now, it's time for my bias to show a bit. I only ever watched Quake 2 multiplayer, but I have in fact played Quake 3 and Quake Live, as well as a handful of hours of Quake Champions which I know isn't really comparable but it uses the same weapons so I'm still mentioning it. UT is my series, I have a preference for it, and this next bit is all my own opinion and observation.

Quake only has three weapons.

Quake is a game where movement is fast, projectiles are fast, and time to kill is fast. It's a fast game. But it's so fast that only three weapons end up mattering - the rocket launcher, railgun, and thunderbolt. They're the three highest-damage weapons in the game and they make up pretty much the entirety of its arsenal. Quake matches inevitably all play out as taking potshots at each other with rockets as everyone strafejumps around like crazy, switching to the railgun if someone manages to be in the open for more than half a second, and swapping to the thunderbolt if you manage to get close enough that another character model takes up more than a handful of pixels on your screen.

Quake is a very fast and chaotic game, and I'm not saying that this kind of play isn't skillful, it's just so fast that actual duels never really happen, and people just kind of end up taking damage from one end of the map when they're on the other. Quake’s other weapons just may as well not exist, because if you find yourself using your starting shotgun, the nailgun, or any other weapon you want to be close for, you're likely doing so in range of someone's Thunderbolt and that's not a race you're going to win.

It's a difficult point to make, so let me move back to UT and why I prefer it. UT is a small but noticeable bit slower than Quake in a way that I feel greatly benefits it. Overall, it comes down to bringing the action in a little closer, really making the fights seem more personal, and really giving players more of a chance to dance around each other rather than hopping around the level on their own accord until they find each other by chance. Projectiles are both slightly slower and much more visible than in Quake, so trying to slam a rocket into someone's face from three hundred meters isn't really going to happen. So, from further away, you'll want to use a hitscan weapon, but since your target will be smaller they'll be harder to hit. Unless you want to zoom in with the Sniper Rifle, but then you lose a bit of awareness of your immediate surroundings. Close up, the Flak Cannon is king, but its range is short enough to matter. The Pulse Gun’s alt fire is just the Thunderbolt, and it'll tear someone apart pretty handily, to say nothing of putting the Minigun into overdrive with its own alt fire. Even flipping your Enforcer sideways will get bullets into someone quickly, and with fancy enough footwork you can save yourself from a gruesome fate with the starting gun. Or, if you're trying to keep someone away, quickly laying down a gooey minefield with the Biorifle works just as well as filling a hallway with a dozen bouncing Ripper blades.

Every gun in UT99 can kill someone, and not just in theory. The game balances each of its weapons almost perfectly, and nothing ever feels totally useless or has an obvious better version (I am not counting the Impact Hammer or Enforcer in this statement). Jumping over or dodging away from rockets to close with the Pulse Gun’s alt fire is just as reasonable as forcing someone to switch away from their Flak Cannon by retreating backwards as your Biorifle makes it impossible for them to safely advance. Lobbing a Flak alt fire over that minefield is alway an option though, so be ready to get out of the way, and maybe pull out your Shock Rifle to push them backwards. A fully stocked Minigun can keep an approach locked off, but a quick sniper bullet right to the face will put an end to it.

Alright, admittedly the Biorifle is historically a bit ignored, and the Ripper didn't even show up in subsequent games, but both still had a purpose. I, personally, am a staunch defender of the Biorifle’s utility as an area denial tool, and the ability to charge its alt fire will instantly kill someone no matter their health and shield level, if you can hit them. It's certainly better in team gamemodes like Assault or CTF, though. But just shooting at people with the weapons does not an arena shooter make. For there to be the proper levels of frantic action, movement needs to have a strong focus.

As in Quake, you'll want to get familiar with your spacebar. Strafe jumping isn't a thing as far as constantly upping your own speed, but it sure does make you harder to hit, and getting decent at dodging rockets always helps. Double tap a movement key to do a quick dodge in that direction, useful not just for avoiding projectiles but for snaking down corridors. On an elevator? Jump just before it reaches the top to get a massive boost and go flying. The Impact Hammer isn't ideal as a weapon, but a quick blast downward makes a decent stand-in for a rocket jump, if at the cost of significantly more self-damage. Capping it all off is the Translocator, the aforementioned teleporting-disk-thrower. Primary fire to shoot a disk in a pretty generous arc, alt fire to teleport to it. Disks emit light and can be destroyed, if you teleport while carrying a flag you drop it, and yes, you do fall faster than the disk travels upward. Truth be told, I usually play with the Translocator turned off, but that's mainly because the bots, as good as they are at the rest of the game, are less than stellar at putting those disks where they want, often leading to a cluster of them bouncing their shot off a wall just inches under the ledge they want up to, and not taking any action until they get it. I think it has to do with the accuracy modifiers based on bot skill level, but I'm not sure.

The bots are great in every other respect, though. Sure, they'll never actually replace a human player, but they're more than good enough for a few hundred hours of offline play. All the tricks the Skaarj demonstrated in Unreal are on display again, and tuned up to use every weapon. Bots jump and dodge, retreat if they're low on health, make decisions about what weapon to use based on their proximity to you as well as their own inventories, switch between firemodes when it makes sense, and plenty else. Upping the bot difficulty doesn't just make them do more damage or give them more health (it doesn't even do that in the first place), it makes them smarter. Or ‘smarter’ if you really care - it changes their reaction times and how accurate they are, how aggressively they'll act, and even how good they are at using the weapons beyond just aiming. A low-level bot might not get close enough to hit you with the Pulse Gun’s alt fire, or will use a Rocket Launcher in close quarters with all the risks of splash damage and self-death that entails. Higher difficulty bots will bank Flak shots off walls and bounce grenades around corners, lay fields of Biorifle goop, or be deadly-accurate with a sniper rifle from above.

The bots are what really put UT99 firmly on the ‘classic’ shelf, because its contemporaries just didn't offer the same thing. Again, Quake 2 had bots, but they served the purpose of being moving targets and not much else. Driving UT’s bots was a dead-simple, if tedious to implement, system. If you'll indulge me, I'm gonna pull back the hood and reveal the not-at-all-secret ways Unreal Tournament made all of its bots so good at playing each map.

All over a map, there are invisible waypoints hand-placed by the designer. The goal is to make a rough trail of waypoints to each part of the map. Bots see each waypoint and have the ability to travel in a wide radius around each. Weapons, ammo, health, armor, and special powerups all act as special waypoints that a bot will see and travel to if they don't already have what that pickup is. Players and other bots are considered waypoints as well, and when all that comes together, a bot will very intuitively move around the level. Placing a waypoint higher in the air will make a bot jump to reach it, so having them move over obstacles is simple. Like I said, it only requires a loose sort of web across the level, as the world geometry itself is also something a bot sees. Going around a corner or a box in the middle of a room is no issue provided the waypoints are good enough.

So now that you know how the sausage is made, what does that mean for the game? Well, quite a lot. Bot support is built into every single one of the maps UT99 shipped with, which is no small feat considering the base game came with 53 maps across four gamemodes (deathmatch and team deathmatch use the same maps), with a further 30 maps added for every gamemode but Assault over the course of four free downloadable bonus packs.

Every single one of those is playable, to this day, offline with a complement of bots just as ready to rock as they were almost twenty years ago. And that's not event counting the thousands of user-made maps still available for download, but we'll talk about modding in a bit. Because right now, it's time to talk about another excellent thing present on each map - the music.

Returning from Unreal are indisputable gods of music Alexander Brandon and Michiel van den Bos, who trade the previous game's subdued alien score for a soundtrack full of some of the boppin’est, crunchiest, hypest EDM tracks of the late 90s. (Can you tell I don't know anything about music?)

Run, GoDown, and Organic provide the upbeat bleeps and bloops to murder by; Save Me, Razorback, and Superfist let you rock out with your shock (rifle) out; while Forgone Destruction, Skyward Fire, and The Course chill things out a bit so you can focus on getting sick headshots. The quality of the music in Unreal Tournament is impossible to overstate, just as it was in Unreal. Brandon and van den Bos are unrelentingly good at their jobs, and the mishmash of styles all grinds together across UT99’s broad palette of maps like butter full of shrapnel. It's good, is what I'm saying. The music's really good. Listen to it. Please.

Stage music is something I personally miss from shooters, if you'll indulge another tangent. I love hearing the gameworld as interpreted by the composers, it adds so much to the whole package, and we just don't really get it anymore. The rise of the modern military shooter in 2007 with the runaway success of Call of Duty 4 kind of slammed the door on stage music with a tactical-lite focus on identifying footsteps and directional fire, but even Halo’s deathmatches were filled with a blank silence. Or Halo 2, I suppose, since Halo 1 didn't have online play, except for the PC version, which did. No stage music though, that's the main takeaway.

UT99 had a truly odd mix of contemporaries, from the last days of Quake 2 and the imminent release of Quake 3 a week after UT itself came out, to Half-Life creating a mod scene in its multiplayer, to Halo a year or so later. The turn of the century would bring with it the generally-accepted death of the arena shooter, but they all went out kicking, and the few hundred people still populating UT99 servers to this day are a testament to its tight, clean design and no-frills focus on gameplay.

Unless, of course, they're playing a mod.

Truth be told, I never actually played much UT99 online. I was very bad, you see, and when I got better my horrible social anxiety had progressed to the point where the idea of even playing a game with faceless strangers was terrifying. I was 8. But anyway, modding! You may have, in your travels as someone who presumably plays videogames - an assumption I'm making because you're reading this - heard of the Unreal Engine. In a hidden bit of Trivia, Unreal was the first game on the Unreal Engine, and Unreal Tournament also used it. Wild!

Along with the game itself, both releases also shipped with the Unreal Editor, or UnrealEd. UnrealEd is the exact development tool the fine folks at Epic Megagames used to make those games, and they just casually handed them to the players. The result echoes throughout the game industry to this day, and while Epic was hardly the only developer supporting mods, they were the first to do so on that kind of level. As a result, there are thousands if not tens of thousands of user-made maps scattered around the web, along with new gamemodes, fan-made expansions for Unreal, new character models, weapons, and mutators.

Ah, mutators.

Mutators can be thought of as ‘mini-mods,’ if you want. There's a list of them you can select before each game that all change, or mutate (see?), the gameplay a bit. Superjump, low gravity, replacing each weapon spawn on a map with another, big head mode, stuff like that. Mutators are a fun addition that can mix up a usual match, but don't bring with them the sweeping changes of a full mod or total conversion. They were a way to illustrate how flexible the development options were, and a nifty thing for players to have available to them.

So, Unreal Tournament had lots of ways to keep the game fresh, either built-in or crafted by other players. Turn a small map into Explosion Hell with the Rocket Arena mutator, or download a player-made weapon pack filled with weird goodies. Wondering how Quake’s iconic maps play in UT? Somebody's made them. Hell, someone's even made a bunch of UT2004 maps for UT99, complete with de-made character and weapon models. A lasting legacy of creativity is what UT99 brought above all else, and the fact that so much of what it did can remain as the primary example of how to do something right says more than I can about its impact on videogames as a whole.

Unreal Tournament is a fast, brutal game balancing all of its various systems on the edge of a spinning razor blade, and it does so with a mastery that I feel was not seen among its peers of the time. From the weapons, the movement, the maps, and the gamemodes, Unreal Tournament presents you the player with so many options, but it never feels like a generic crowd-pleasing paste has been slathered over everything. The game's core is simple and well defined, and everything else builds on that. It has a certain tightly-realized identity that I feel is missing from a lot of games that try to have the same sort of arcady arena vibe - Halo was probably its closest rival as far as small genre shifts go, and looking at Destiny 2 as the latest version of that is a weird mix of procedurally generated weapons, hero abilities, flat maps, and very few projectile weapons. Skill has been taken out of some areas and added to others, but the design feels looser, less actualized. Call of Duty is fast, but still has that small desire to be somewhat tactical, so there are recoil patterns and weapon attachments, the rich-get-richer killstreaks, and a progression system that murders any attempt at balancing their arsenal. Quake Live, from what I understand, has a healthy enough playerbase, but my preference has already been stated. Quake Champions tries to marry its classic gameplay with that of Overwatch, and the reactions have been mixed. Team Fortress 2 has been bogged down with more and more weapons that blur the lines between classes, and the official map rotation - already small on launch - has barely been added to in twelve years.

This isn't a “games are different now and that's bad” sort of thing, my point is just that UT99 had a much cleaner mission statement, if you will, than what we get now. The industry's gotten bigger, and budgets followed. Expectations of sales rose, leading developers to want to bring in as many players as they could. Games can't really be niche anymore.

Or maybe that was true five years ago, but now the indie scene’s getting huge, and you can find a revival of your favorite genre just about anywhere. Most aren't super well polished, but isn't that what made games like Unreal, Quake, and Half-Life into what we remember? They all had more ambition than was perhaps warranted, and each made their huge impacts despite a healthy amount of blemishes. Endless polish makes for a good player experience, but maybe not as much of a memorable one.

Unreal Tournament all but made me into an FPS fan, and I think it's great that we all have so many types to choose from now. Public tastes have shifted and evolutions of the genre happened. I've enjoyed my fair share of Calls of Duty and Battlefields, I plugged hundreds of hours into TF2 throughout highschool, I've ridden the Overwatch hype train, and I love poking holes in walls and getting sneaky kills in Rainbow Six: Siege. But Unreal Tournament is my oldest bastion, and one I return to every now and then when the whim takes me. It occupies my top slot, though admittedly in an endless 1v1 with Unreal Tournament 2004.

But there was another Unreal Tournament between the two, one that came and went with mild fanfare while paving the way for what I feel is, hands down, the best game ever crafted by human hands. Check back at the end of the month for a short look at the odd little Unreal Tournament 2003.

#unreal tournament #ut99 #words about games #videogame #review #essay #fortnite #unreal retrospective

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devastelin-ravensorrow · 5 years

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The Demon Within

The sound of the jungle was loud tonight. Insects chirping and chittering, creatures calling out to their kin, the breeze rustling leaves, the taller trees creaking as they swayed. Devastelin had told Le’Rassa he’d needed a few moments, something he had to do, it wouldn’t take long before he returned.

It wasn’t exactly a lie but it wasn’t exactly the truth either. He did need a few moments. Perhaps more. The bladedancer found himself wandering deep into the jungle, a difficult task for a blind man. The plethora of hidden life more than provided his spectral sight what it needed to guide him though. It was probably fifteen or twenty minutes from Reveria’s home that he finally stopped. The sound of a babbling stream giving him pause.

Squatting beside the flowing water, his fingers dangled within and felt the cool rush of liquid. ‘You must think this is a joke right, darlingggg?’ The voice was suddenly in his mind like an unwelcome guest. It cooed and droned in feminine tones as his lips curled up into a snarl. ‘You think you could be with her? That she will accept you for what you are? Do you forget so easily that you are beyond salvation?’ With a sudden whip of his head, Dev bashed his horns into a nearby tree, growling as he did. ‘She is not even an Illidari... She is just a weak little whelp hoping to rise alongside you.’ Another bash of horns into the tree, this time splinters shattering and spraying everywhere.

“Shut your whore mouth demon! Who was consumed by who? Who yet walks this world? You hold no power over me!” If anyone had been nearby, they’d have heard what might sound like the one-sided rantings of an insane man. Water began to sizzle on Devastelin’s skin as his body heated with Fel energies. He heard a long low cackle in his mind before hearing the reply. ‘Oh darling... I have all the power. Do you forget how I broke you when you were only my pet? Look how you still struggle. You want to let me be in control... You want to let me run wild in this world... Don’t you...? Just look at how they treat you... They think you’re just a sex-crazed idiot. -She- won’t even give up what you require. Such a prudish little thing... Any of the others would have spread their legs by now... Let me take control... I will take what I want. What I need...’

The man could feel the demon pressing on his soul, reaching out to let him hand off the reigns. His lips were locked into a snarl as he could feel change begin to come over him. It might seem slow but it happened quickly. His form grew in size, four additional arms sprouted, his body shape became something altogether more androgynous. Sitting there, squatting at the water’s edge in a demonic form, he could feel her tugging, yanking, clawing for control. It would be such a simple thing to just... Give in. To not fight it. To give up hope. There was an honest moment of thought given to it before something flashed in his mind.

Blazing green eyes. Scars that bled with Fel energy every so often. The only such things he had ever seen since taking his own eyes. In the blur of things that he saw with his spectral sight, these eyes burned bright, clean, and crisp. It wasn’t just the eyes that mattered though. It’s who’s they were. A creature that was broken like him... That had endured like him. In that moment the demon’s grasp slipped as he raged against her control. “I CAN HAVE ALL THAT YOU THINK I CAN NOT! I CAN BE MORE! I CAN BE BETTER! I AM IN CONTROL! YOU ARE NOTHING!” With a shriek, he flung all the arms he now had back as he stood, spinning in a slow circle. His eyes screamed to life with beams of Fel magic, slicing through trees and reducing smaller foliage to ash. With a final roar, he collapsed back to his knees, mouth locked into a scream as the beams from his eyes turned on the water, vaporizing and boiling it away into a mist for a moment. His form cracked with energy, sickly green light flooding from the tattoos across his figure before an explosion of built-up energy was released, leveling the trees and plant life nearby. Even the water was made to vanish a moment before fresh liquid began to burble from further upstream. In the wake of it, Devastelin was left kneeling in his kaldorei form, the demon once more banished. Standing shakily, he huffed for breath a few moments, hands on his hips and head tossed back as though he was looking at the stars, the stars -she- wished he could see. After a time he began picking his way back through the jungle towards the house. The bladedancer tugged on a mental link he had, a sense of determination about him. ‘Velerodra, I need your help. There has to be a way to chain her. I won’t put Rassa at risk...’ It wasn’t long before he was back at the house, brushing himself off before entering and returning as he’d said he would. There was even more reason to fight this now and he was determined not to fail. Tagging @theshalthera and @velerodra-valesinger for mentions!

#dev #stel #devastelin #inner demons #shivarra #the struggle is real #wra rp #wyrmrest rp #lerassa #rassa #vel #velerodra

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less-than-hash · 5 years

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Holes in the Firmament

Every dev I know has at least one dream game - stuff that they'd love to be able to make some day. The more ambitious these get - the more complex or long - the less likely they are to get made. And in a collaborative medium like games, the more people (and the more money!) involved in a project, the less control any given individual has over it.

This isn't intrinsically bad. (It can also be wildly valuable to a project and rewarding personally.)

But we devs still dream of those games we'd make if we had, say, the resources of a two hundred person studio, the backing of a major publisher, and absolute freedom.

Three of mine are behind the cut.

As a note, none of these reflect upcoming Obsidian projects. Nor are they projects Obsidian would likely ever make. They don't fit the studio's brand. Which is why I'm dreaming about them here, and not pitching them internally.

So, first up!

A Squad-Based 1st-Person Firefighting Game with a Robust Relationship System and a Branching Narrative

I don't understand why there aren't more games about firefighting - though if I had to guess it's largely because making fire look good in-game is extraordinarily difficult. As is making an environment decay over time (though I suspect there are probably some pretty good, easy solutions for this using dev sleight-of-hand).

There are actually a Iot of interactive sim games about firefighting for training purposes. Much like war and flight, firefighting is something best trained without risking real life and limb.

Firefighting appeals to me as a gameplay space because it's actively protective - it's about limiting destruction and saving lives. But it can very easily be modeled with similar gameplay loops to shooters - ultimately both are about emptying rooms of danger - here it's just with water instead of bullets.

I could be water!

In short, firefighters engage in almost unequivocal good. They're heroic. They’re human. They’re flawed. And they brave dangers every day. But our industry basically ignores them.

Firefighting would give us the opportunity to set games in the modern world with people who, during their off hours, experience much more relatable struggles than your average freedom fighter, super spy, or elite soldier - relationship difficulties, debt, children, and the like.

So what would this game actually look and play like? It would likely be mission-based (calls come in of their own accord, after all), make use of movement and environmental hazards (not unlike a cover-based shooter), and have simple companion-direction mechanics similar to the Mass Effect trilogy or Spec Ops: The Line.

(Alternatively, the action could be dialed down a bit to focus on positioning a la Valkyria Chronicles.)

The gameplay would be focused on keeping your squad alive while saving as many people as possible.

Between missions you hang out at the station, or the bar, or at home - or try to balance all three, a la Catherine. You build relationships, helping your squad perform better together. You never recruit anyone, but your companions, your fellow firefighters, can die in missions, altering the narrative in both tone and content.

tl;dr: Mass Effect 2 meets Rescue Me with some dashes of Catherine

Next!

Narrative-Focused Urban Fantasy RPG/Immersive Sim

How does this not exist yet? Where's our Dresden Files or Hellblazer inspired RPGs? Or even The Magicians or Harry Potter, for that matter?

Where my Chilling Adventures of Sabrina RPG?

There's Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines, which, while fantastic, is 13 years old.

While I'm looking forward to Necrobarista, that seems like a pretty tight, focused experience.

We've plenty of games with magicians in fantasy realms or in space - AKA BioWare's entire oeuvre - but few in the AAA space set in the modern world.

Unless you count superhero magicians.

Wait. Did Dr. Strange even get a game? Google suggests no. What’s going on here, videogame industry? Why won’t you suffer a witch to live?!

Honestly, I get to an extent why this is. There's a reason there've been Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse games, but no Mage games, either for Ascension or Awakening. Magic is broad, and often (especially in games) wildly destructive, which can be at odds with a modern setting (or rather what makes a modern setting interesting).

Art by Jason Chan, from Reign of the Exarchs by White Wolf.

But it doesn't have to be.

The flexibility of magic actually allows for a lot of different gameplay styles. You can do straight up first-person action like The Darkness or stealth survival like Last of Us. If I were to adapt Phonogram, a comic I love deeply, you can bet your ass there'd be beatmatch spellcasting.

A lot of gameplay mechanics we take for granted are actually damned-near magical.

Maps that point you where to go and tell you where your enemies are?

Dropping from a second story window without difficulty?

Regenerating health?

Items that make you smarter, stronger, or more likable?

Bullet time?

Rewinding to an earlier point in time to avoid death or a bad decision?

So that's another question a developer has to answer: if magic comes in so many shades, what color is yours? What are you hoping to accomplish?

For me, the presence of magic in the modern world demands a layer of secrecy that implies other layers of secrets. A modern world in which magic functions immediately deepens. What else lurks out there? Where are the other magicians? How are they using their abilities?

Additionally, magic is surreal. Bend and twist reality, and you're forced to look at it from new angles. If you can tweak people's emotional responses to you, how do you know the relationships around you are real?

And that's before you realize your dreams literally might come true - especially the nightmares. Is the face in the mirror a reflection, or something sinister and jealous? Is the ghost haunting you your literal past reaching out to reclaim you?

My dream modern magician game is an open-world immersive sim in an urban setting. Drop Prey, Dishonored, or BioShock style gameplay into a sprawling city filled with physics objects ripe for transmutation and NPCs waiting to be enchanted. Add an otherworld accessed by stepping through mirrors (the entire map within is reversed).

It's about what power can accomplish, what justifies its use, and what its limits are.

Populate the world with a few powerful magician NPCs with their own agendas; dozens of NPCs to chat up, learn more about, seduce, and manipulate; and a threat that could consume reality's very soul if someone doesn't step up to deal with it. Shake. Serve.

tl;dr: Dishonored meets Vampyr by way of Hellblazer and Hellboy

And finally!

Friendship Simulator 2019

My favorite parts of the Persona games and Catherine are the things outside of the core gameplay loops. The bits where you're hanging out with your friends, chatting with them, finding out more about them, and guiding and supporting them (or tearing them down).

Or hiding in the toilet to text your significant other.

One of the things I love about Persona 5: Dancing Star Night in Starlight is that the narrative is almost solely in this mode. It's entirely about learning more about your fellow Phantom Thieves.

Lest you think I uncritically and unabashedly love it, P5D has some major narrative problems - it entirely fails to pay off its initial premise, for example, and there's no persistence to the player choices or (player-driven) reactivity within the narrative.

Nor does the way the player "progresses" the narrative make a tremendous amount of sense within the fiction of the world.

Sorry I got distracted.

Point is, from a narrative perspective it's a game about getting to know people better - literally exploring their lives - and then supporting (or undermining, if you're terrible) them.

Similarly, nothing the player says in Persona (or, for the most part, Catherine) has any impact on the game. The player might progress a Social Link more slowly by being an ass to the protagonists' friends, but they'll still increase that Link over time, provided they put time into it.

And I don't want to be dismissive here. Time management is one of the major ways in which the player engages with the Persona games. Outside of combat and maybe monster-training, it's probably the most important mechanic at play. Taking longer to max out a Social Link means you're missing other content and missing opportunities to increase your stats. Or maybe the Social Link doesn't get completed at all. (Sorry, Haru.) Or maybe you’re not powerful enough to overcome the next Shadow in time and your game ends. Those are non-trivial consequences.

But the story of the Social Link, or the story of the game, will never change based on (the vast majority of) the player's interactions with their buddies.

Despite that, the games give the player a lot of freedom as to when (or whether!) they approach those relationships.

On the other end of the spectrum, Life is Strange (and Before the Storm) does a fantastic job of letting the player get to know the characters around Max (and Chloe) and responding logically to the player's choices.

The kid who has a crush on Max (Warren, I think?) remembers what the player promises him and then responds to whether or not the player follows through on it.

If Chloe plays A Game That Absolutely Involves Neither Dungeons Nor Dragons with her friends, they'll refer to it excitedly later and ask her to join in another round.

The TellTale games are also pretty good at this, especially Wolf Among Us, but that'll take me a bit far afield.

What Life is Strange does not provide the player is any control at all over the flow of the narrative. When the player completes a narrative beat within a scene, they're rushed along to the next scene, which is never one of their choosing. There's plenty of flexibility within the relationships (and within many of the smaller subplots), but little within the game's larger structure.

Ultimately, Persona provides little variability, while Life is Strange provides little narrative control.

I want to make a game that grabs the strong aspects of both of these while jettisoning their weaknesses.

(Far, far easier written than done!)

Basically, I want to make a game focused on the exploration of relationships. Where the personalities are the mysteries to unravel, and the interpersonal relationships between characters the dungeons to be navigated. Where the inner demons are the beasts in need of slaying - not through mystically entering the subconscious and doing battle with the Shadow, but through conversation.

I want a game about building a community, a family, and helping it come to support itself.

I think that one essential change that would make this significantly more doable is discarding the larger threats to the characters, especially those supernatural in nature. The relationships among the cast of Persona 4 are propping for the story of the Midnight Channel Murders. Arcadia Bay's pending apocalypse distracts from the relationships that seem to be the actual core story of Life is Strange.

(I find Before the Storm a stronger narrative than the original Life is Strange in large part because it's not being torn in multiple directions.)

Which isn't to say that there can't be threats, obstacles, and dangers. The world presents all manner of difficulties. Most of them requiring far more challenging and interesting solutions than "stick a sword in it."

That's a lot of abstraction, so what would this game actually look and play like?

Well, as I mentioned above, I think the Persona games, esp. Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5 already do a fantastic job of providing the player the framework for exploring a space and approaching relationships at their own pace.

Add into this characters that the player can engage with in order to learn more about them (not unlike Vampyr), help with their problems, and build (or break!) relationships with them or others, and you have something of an open-world interpersonal relationship game.

The narrative of these relationships would change based on the player's actions (both in regard to how they interact with the character and how they deal with (or fail to deal with) the character's problems). So would the player's reputation, which impacts their interactions with other characters.

(The reputation system is actually one of my favorite ideas in Pillars, but I think we sometimes fail to use it to its full potential. I certainly know I do.)

Side note: in this dream game, the relationships I'm describing are not expressed in a systemic way. They're not ranked like Social Links, and they don't have reputation bars like in Dragon Age or Tyranny. It's much more akin to Life is Strange here, with each character containing their own narrative(s) to be navigated.

Over time, you bring some of these characters closer to your protagonist, recruiting a tight-knit circle that helps you face the game's primary conflict. These relationships bounce off of one another. You can never make everyone happy, after all, and some people will never get along. Late game play requires that the player balance these relationships and help forge friendships or avoid catastrophic fallings out.

Yeah, but what is that primary conflict?

Potentially anything the world could throw at a person. A lot of television shows have provided us a framework we can borrow from. Veronica Mars comes immediately to mind. (Or one of my favorite films, Brick.) Then there's Lost, which is overtly about building communities and relationships in order to survive. The Wire is another possibility. (Imagine playing as a Stringer Bell type trying to build a crew while maintaining relationships with rival crews.)

My point being that we already know what these kinds of stories look like. We just have to be brave enough to make a game that's focused around understanding other people rather than shooting them.

tl;dr: Life is Strange meets Persona, minus the strange and the personas

And that’s three glimpses into my brain. Into my dreams.

You may have noticed a few through lines. I'm pretty clearly interested in making games:

Set in the modern day

That tackle modern, realistic (and I use that term extremely loosely) concerns

That are largely non-violent

With non-linear narratives

That involve exploring the lives and feelings of non-player characters

And give those interpersonal relationships systemic narrative bite

Obviously, the projects I've been involved in recently don't check off every one of those boxes on my wishlist. That's generally how it is, if you're making games with other people.

But if you're very, very lucky, you get the opportunity to work on projects that scratch at least one or two of those itches.

I've been very, very lucky.

Cheers, <3 <3 <#

#gamedev #game design #narrative #relationships #persona #catherine #mass effect #life is strange #prey #dishonored #vampyr #necrobarista

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