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toasttt11 · 2 months

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new home

April 7, 2023

Luke let out a shuttering breath as leaned his head againt the cold glass of the airplane window, he looked down at his phone smiling at the locker screen, a picture of Grey smiling at him and he could feel his lips twitch at the sight of his favorite smile.

He turned his music on and turned his phone off, resting his head against the window watching as the plane started to take off.

He was mixed with emotions, he was sad and upset that they lost their game and couldn’t continue on in the tournament meaning his collegiate career was now finished and he was on the way to New Jersey, knowing he’s going to miss all of his friends he had made during his time at Umich but he also couldn’t help but be super excited as he’s about to start his NHL career and have his debut.

He also was about to move in his with his girlfriend and be able to see her more often than he could at college, he’s going to be playing with his brother in the NHL a life long dream.

All he wanted was to have the plane land and see his girlfriend and have her in his arms again after a few weeks but he knew she wouldn’t be coming home for a awhile as she is busy in her season right now and he understood but it does make his first night in the apartment sadder knowing he will be alone and not being there with Grey.

Luke got off the plane taking a cab to his new home.

Luke unlocked the door and could feel himself start to relax smelling the scent of Grey as he walked into the his new home, he closed the door behind him. Luke looked around the very familiar apartment; having stayed many times with Grey in the past.

Luke walked into the kitchen and smiled seeing the large bouquet of flowers that he knew Grey had her assistant put in the apartment for him.

Hello my love, welcome home

love your grey

Luke smiled a the note and next to the flowers was all his snacks he likes to eat during the hockey season and then their was a note that said check the fridge.

Luke shook his head fondly seeing Grey had the fridge stocked with his favorite stuff knowing that Luke gets very hungry.

He picked his bag back up and headed down the hallway to what he knows is Grey’s bedroom. He saw a basket on the bed and set his bag down and walked to the basket, he smiled seeing his hoodie that Grey had and knew she wore it and left it for him to have as it smells like her now and Grey added lot of other goodies in the basket for him, he smiled and set the basket on the dresser and headed to the bathroom.

Luke fondly shook his head again seeing all of his products in the shower already, he quick got into the shower and took a quick hot shower before hopping out and putting a pair of sweatpants on.

Luke saw another note on the bathroom counter with an arrow pointed to the right side of drawers, Luke opened the drawers and chuckled fondly seeing Grey clear out her stuff on the side and fill it with his stuff.

Luke quickly did his hair routine before grabbing his phone and hopping into bed, he hit the FaceTime button and called Grey.

“Lu!” Grey beamed as she answered the FaceTime and couldn’t help but feel giddy seeing him in her apartment alone even if she wished nothing more to be there with him.

“Hi Lovey.” Luke tired but brightly smiled at his girl, “Thank you.” Luke knew she would understand what he was thanking her for.

“You would do it for me.” Grey smiled and watched as Luke was desperately trying to keep his eyes open, “Lu, can you plug your phone in for me.” Grey knew if he feel asleep with his phone on FaceTime and not plugged in he’s not gonna wake up to his alarms for his practice tomorrow.

Luke sleepily nodded and reached over plugging his phone resting it on the edge of the nightstand still facing towards him, “Tell me about your day.” Luke always loved falling asleep to the sound of Grey’s voice.

“Oh! I pet a kangaroo yesterday and Ossie brought me to this-“ Luke slowly fell asleep to the sound of his favorite voice.

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wonuwrites · 22 days

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Birthday Boy

A Kim Mingyu B-Day Drabble

Mingyu x reader <3 ft. Wonwoo bc why not

warnings: fluffy as shit, cursing because that's the kinda author I am, mentions lingerie so Minors DNI. just a cute lil thing <3

inspired by: him being born 27 years ago so like Happy Birthday Gyu? Also this song helped

One word: Success. That is what you felt when you got the text from Wonwoo confirming your adorable boyfriend of two years had no clue your plans of his surprise birthday gift.

Kim Mingyu is a smart man and surprising him was a bit difficult. He always knew if you were up to something which is why you had to get his best friend and group mate Jeon Wonwoo involved.

You see, your boyfriend had thought you were in London today for a schedule which was true but schedule ended up concluding a lot sooner than You originally thought. So, you were able to celebrate Mingyu's 27th with him.

The game plan was that the guys were going to take him out to celebrate and you would have his favorite dessert and something you had been working on since he asked you out.

A mini scrapbook with memories you both shared together. It was a bit cliche but you both enjoyed that sappy stuff.

If he wasn't a fan, you made sure to wear a little red set you had bought while in Paris awhile ago with him in mind.

You put on a bathrobe as you heard your phone buzz causing you to quickly glance and see it was Wonwoo.

Wonu: leaving the restaurant. he still has no idea. Wonu: he's a little drunk btw. I tried to cut him off sorry.

Wonwoo's texts caused you to giggle and made you a bit less stressed. Gyu wasn't an awful drunk at all. If anything he was a bit cuter and wanted to cuddle a lot more which was fine with you. You just would give him the scrapbook tomorrow.

Tonight was all about him.

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You were finishing up lighting some candles when you heard the door unlock and you couldn't help but smile.

Your world, your life, your everything was here.

The door opened and suddenly the momet you were waiting for was here. You're handsome boyfriend was walking through the door while taking off his jacket and shoes.

You stood at the end of the hall and waited for him to notice you and it felt like it took ages.

After a million years, Mingyu made eye contact with you and his jaw dropped.

"What?!" he whisper shouted while a smile spread across his face.

You then attempted to sing Happy Birthday to him even tho it was obvious he was the singer between y'all which made his smile grow even wider.

He ran down the hall and wrapped his arms around you and just started cooing.

"Babyyyyyy, you're here?" he said into your hair while rocking you back in forth, "I thought you were in London until Monday?!"

You just giggled and whispered surprise and he just kept hugging you and kissing you all over.

He would never vocally admit it, not to his members, not to you, not to anyone but just seeing you stand at the end of the hall made every birthday wish come true. You were his person and just being with you made everything seem perfect.

After awhile you broke away from each other and that's when he noticed what you were wearing. He looked at you with a curious look before you nodded and he got excited as he started to undo the bathrobe.

"oh Y/N," he gawked as he stared at the new piece you got. "please wear this every day not just my birthday."

This caused you to giggle and place another kiss on his lips.

"Anything for you, birthday boy."

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AHH this was crap but I wanted to finish it before it was officially not his birthday EST. :( Happy Birthday Mingyu <33

#wonuwrites #seventeen #svt fluff #svt x reader #mingyu #kim mingyu #svt #svt drabbles #mingyu drabbles #jeon wonwoo

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sally-mun · 10 days

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OH BOY MY FIRST RAMBLE SINCE MY RETURN, now I'm really getting back in the swing of things

SO!

I noticed something about myself today

I have a history of getting to the very end of a video game and then just inexplicably just not finishing it. Like, literally I've made it to the final boss, this is THE LAST thing left to do, and I just... wander away and never return. I always attributed this to the weird amount of stress/anxiety I get while fighting bosses, as though I'm -actually- in danger in real life.

HOWEVER, it occurred to me today that it has nothing to do with that, and everything to do with another side of myself that I've known about for years: I fucking HATE having to do combat in video games. I know a lot of you guys live for it, but for me, it is just the fucking WORST. It's a shitty chore I have to do in order to get back to the things I actually like, such as the storytelling and puzzles and exploration. Low-level fights with average goons or minions don't particularly bother me, but anything that's meant to be a 'challenge' can fuck right off in my book. I'm not here for that, and I've often lamented that I wish boss fights could be skipped the way so many games give you the option to skip the story. Lots of players don't care about story and just see it as a delay to get back to fighting monsters, and I simply want the reverse. I want a button that'll let me bypass the bosses and skip straight to the next cut scene before turning me loose in the world again.

Anyway, I realized today that this... approach? Philosophy? POV? whatever it is, it's probably the real root of why I get to the end of a game and then fuck off. I only tolerate boss fights because I want to get back to the good stuff, but once you get to the end? There is no more good stuff. After the final boss you get one more cut scene and NO MORE GAME TO PLAY. Why would I want to bookend my experience with a game I've otherwise enjoyed with a chore that I hate?? I can just look the final cut scene up on Youtube and be just as satisfied.

The only time I'd really have significant motivation to do it is if the game actually does offer a post-game reward of some kind. For example, in Arkham City, you go back out into the overworld and can finish up any side quests you hadn't completed yet + get a couple extra quests that ONLY unlock after you've finished the main campaign. That's good shit, that's worth putting up with the final fight! Arkham City is also the type of game to offer a second quest/new game + scenario, where you get to replay the main campaign with different challenges and you start out already having all your equipment. That's also very cool, I'll put up with an annoying boss fight for that!

But for games where the game effectively never 'remembers' that you beat it? No thanks, I'm good, 99% is all I need.

#how many Gamers™ am I going to piss off with this post #OH WEEEEEEEELL #this came up because I've been replaying Twilight Princess and actually getting 100%#yet once I made it to Ganon's throne room I felt all my motivation evaporate in real time and I just suddenly turned the game off #this game ends in a FUCKING -FOUR- STAGE FINAL BATTLE ARE YOU SHITTING ME??#thanks but no thanks couldn't care less #so long and thanks for all the fish

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derekscorner · 8 months

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Witchy Timez: Origins

Part Five & the art-style so good it's supernatural

Welp I finally got to playing Origins a while back. Finished it a week or two ago. I wanted to add it to my other Bayonetta rambles (listed at the end) but I wasn't sure what to add really.

I found the game good and very pretty. It's art-style is genuinely it's greatest asset. They wanted to portray it like it was a storybook and they did it so well that it's hard to put into words.

Gameplay was fine too. I had a few personal issues at most.

Game-Play(ed)

My biggest complaint was the lack of a mini-map. I felt the game needed one badly. I was opening the menus to view the map every few minutes and got lost more than once.

Which, yes, is a bit funny because the purpose of the Avalon Forest is to be a maze but it can leave you frustrated if you plan to track down all the items and Wisps.

My second issue was a very personal and nitpicky one. I didn't like Cheshire's forms by the end of the game. It got a tad annoying to swap repeatedly when I'm having to control both he and Cereza at once.

Had I no experience with TWEWY in my youth I imagine I'd be even more annoyed with the set up there. That said, I do like the abilities so rather than forms I wish Cheshire had abilities rather than forms.

Something to streamline the annoyance of color-coded enemies regardless of how lite they are used.

Hell, I wouldn't even have this complaint at all if I had free access to unbound Cheshire after you complete the game. His unbound form is what I would prefer in this situation.

They'd have to nerf it compared to the unbound form naturally but it would be a welcome idea....watch someone comment that you can unlock unbound Cheshire as soon as I post this.

Dat Story

I don't even know what to say on a base level here. The story was solid given what we've seen of young Cereza in Bayonetta 1. Watching her befriend a newborn demon is cute even if their squabble arc could be seen a mile ahead.

It also makes you genuinely curious about the fairies as a facet of the Bayonetta universe. Several things in this game make you more curious about the Bayo-verse in fact.

Such as Prince Lukaon, Morgana, and the whole unseen backstory of the fairy kings. The whole nature of the mischievous creatures is fascinating and they offer an odd parallel to humanity.

Hell, let's just dive into the broader strokes of that multiverse.

The magical & non-magical

As we learned in Bayonetta 1 & 2, humanity itself is weak. They lack magic and die easily. They only gained a semblance of power through Aesir's mercy but even then they couldn't do much.

The whole reason Lumen Sages & Umbra Witches form pacts with Heaven & Hell is to gain power. Their magic is tied to that and their soul is the cost they pay.

But like I mentioned in a previous post, the world of chaos is fittingly full of parallel timelines and pocket dimensions because it is, by definition, without solid order.

There is a future for every human there is to shape that future. Purgatory itself only exists as a pocket space between Chaos, Heaven, and Hell.

However, as if to exist in counterbalance, Chaos does have it's own form of magical being, the Fae. We don't know where they came from nor do we know which timeline they hide in.

Going by Bayo 3 and Origins they seem to pick specific worlds to hide in implying they have a means to jump them. It's possible that Avalon Forest itself branches into more than one world given how it feels as if it's a world unto itself when you play Origins.

Vast enough to have warring kingdoms and kings. Countries hidden in illusions. It's all very fascinating stuff and I find myself hoping to see more of it....well with caveats.

Baoynetta 3's Shadow

You know I would have to bring it up when it's shown that this Cereza is the younger version of Bayo 3. If you complete the Jeanne chapter you even see ol' Singularity himself. We also see that this Jeanne is the one that'll die in the third game.

This...did not sit right with me. Many others praise this reveal because they feel it fixed some of Bayonetta 3's story but I had the opposite impression. It felt like patch work, a band-aid.

Just like Bayo 3 it also opens up other cans of multiverse worms. Such as Prince Lukaon and his relationship with King Lukaon and every version of Luka to exist ever.

How can the king of Fae be Luka's variant if the prince Lukaon died? There's several ways theorize theorize that question of course but it's the question existing at all that kind annoys me.

Is Luka the prince's reincarnation? The game does make a note to point out the unknown destination of fairies when they die. Is King Lukaon a version of the prince that lived to adulthood? Probably.

Then there's the question of this backstory. The extra chapter makes it explicit that this is bayonetta 3 Cereza as she's referred to by the 3rd games villain via the name "Arch-Eve Origin".

Yet, the issue of Bayo 3's ending splitting the previous titles crops up. Sure, we know that young Cereza in Bayo 1, this Cereza from Origins, and the Bayo 3 Cereza are the same person.

But what about Cheshire? Why does Viola have Cheshire when it's made clear she's not this specific Cereza's daughter. Does Cheshire have variants due to being a young demon or is he just a single demon that's partial to Bayonetta in all forms due to his experiences?

Hell, does this backstory also apply to the Cereza of Bayo 1 & 2? Does it apply to even more such as Beta Cereza (viola's mother)?

From what I can tell the devs are being smart enough not to clarify but I do think this makes Bayo 3 messier in ways. It doesn't harm this games story or fun to me.

These questions only really pop up if you've played Bayo 3 and the Jeanne chapter....

THEN THERE WAS THE FUCKING EYES

I was trying to ignore it but I can't. I had a whole separate post for these eyes because it's a personal irk of mine. Do they still exist? Don't they?!

Sure, this is in the past. We saw Baldur regain his right eye once he was thrown back to his proper time but that just amplifies the headache!

On the one hand, her having the eye still explains how she defeated a fully matured witch BUT ON THE OTHER WHY IS IT STILL HERE?

To hell with arch-eve's. If the eyes still exist then Singularity is a fucking fool for not trying to claim them. Arch-Eve's & Adams may be a way to collapse the timelines but by hell the eyes are the objects of a god.

They MADE that world of Chaos. They briefly gave it order. He could find a timeline, steal the eyes, and be done. The eyes and eves existing in tandem adds to the headache. I don't understand if they were erased from one timeline or all of them.

Do they just cease to exist in the present due to Bayo 2? If they persist regardless then why have this stupid Arch-eye plot? Just go for the fucking eyes.

The worst part is that I'm unsure I even want an answer. The multiverse as presented in Bayonetta 3 hasn't been that well done and even this mini tangent I've added at the end is mostly my nitpicks.

But I do worry they will double down. If you can't construct it well or at least pass off the paradoxes with levity then don't try it. Please.

Conclusion

All in all a good game. Love the art-style, love little Cereza's story, I even love how the game goes from this new thing to full on Bayonetta in the final battle.

You can quite literally feel the shift from beating up fairies to kicking a witches ass as soon as Cereza says her iconic "let's dance" line.

It's just the minor things that annoyed me at worst. No mini-map, lite color-coded enemies, all the multiverse sh*t t hey snuck in with Jeanne's chapter.

As with any Bayo game it's very good as is. It's only someone like me who'd be bothered by what's mentioned. Not for story consistency so much as character consistency.

Action game stories tend to be less serious and more setting so any time you see someone mad at a Bayonetta or Devil May Cry type of game it's usually because it's really bad to play or a character was just did wrong.

Anywho, bye now~

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For the rest of the Witchy Timez Ramblings go here: https://derekscorner.tumblr.com/tagged/Witchy-Timed

#bayonetta #bayonetta 2 #bayonetta 3 #bayonetta origins #cereza and the lost demon #Witchy Timed

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arionwind · 8 months

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re: BG3 alignment stuff

Alignments always seemed a bit weird to me because it always felt limiting. I preferred systems with reputation instead where it builds as you go, good or bad. Same with something like faction reputations. It was also a good reminder of who hated me or not when coming back to things after a while. lol

Oh my friend. Congratulations and also I am sorry, because this ask has unlocked not one, but two long infodumps from me! Feel free to just skip by the one on reputation systems and/or alignments, but also thank you so much for giving me an excuse to talk about both of them at once, this is an excellent gift!

=On Reputation Systems=

So I have mixed feelings about most reputation systems in most games these days. Generally speaking, for me, if a reputation starts at 0 and only goes up (or back down to 0), it doesn't do much for me. Especially when it is for an individual or a plot-relevant group/organization, it always feels to me like lazily offloading narrative character development to a player for the sake of "making choices matter" or just to boast they have such a system.

Even a lot of systems that have "negative" reps either don't really seem to have substantive consequences for going negative, or make the consequences things that probably should just be the natural narrative result of following that narrative path. Which isn't to say that happens in every game with a system like that, but I find that the majority really don't need reputation systems any more than they need alignment ones.

There are, however, two games (for which spoilers follow) that I consider the goldest of gold standards for reputation systems and that I wish other games would take cues from and implement: Tyranny and Alpha Protocol. Again, spoilers will be following, mostly minor and early ones for Tyranny, but fairly major ones for Alpha Protocol.

So in Tyranny, they have two different sets of two reputations, depending on whether it is with one of your companions or not. For your companions, their opinion is measured in Loyalty and Fear, while organizations and individuals of power/influence are measured in Favor and Wrath. Importantly though, you can build both "sides" of reputation at the same time, and get different benefits - narrative and mechanical - from each.

For example, on the companion side, your very first companion is Verse. She's a skirmisher who can swap between twin melee weapons and archery pretty freely, and getting Loyalty or Fear to a certain break point will unlock special team attacks with her. If she is sufficiently Loyal and trusts you to do your part, you get an AoE bow attack where she steps into your hands and you launch her into the air to fire a volley down. But if she Fears you enough to take whatever orders you give, you can hurl fire magic at her, which she will catch on her swords for a long-lasting melee damage buff.

Likewise, certain actions can build both sides at the same time. My favourite example of this is with Lantry, the scholarly spy/librarian/healer companion, who pretty much as soon as you get him, will take time to teach you the Life Magic rune (if you want to learn it). And he cautions you to take a while to practice it before trying to do actual spellwork with it, because the slightest mistake could spell disaster. But if you have the right character background (War Mage, in my case) you can confidently and immediately fire off a flawless Life spell as soon as he finishes his instruction, ignoring his warning. And doing so makes him Fear you, as he is pretty sure your hubris will backfire one day, but he also gains Loyalty, as he is glad to be working with such an exceptionally skilled and experienced mage.

Alpha Protocol goes a different direction, giving you a -10 through +10 opinion score with pretty much every character (and I think organization, it's been a while) that you meet. Just a single axis, but it is explicit from the start and borne out in gameplay that bad reputation is not necessarily a bad thing for your character. (Seriously, as soon as you meet your boss for the first time, he basically says outright "You are a spy. You have specific goals to accomplish and none of them include being liked by everyone. If pissing someone off is the best way to accomplish your goals, do it.")

On the simple levels of basic perks, they have some neat ideas for passive things you get in either direction. My favourite example is the agency tech expert: if he likes you, he massages requisitions and gives you more room or uses of consumable tech for your missions. If he doesn't, you get all the buggiest shit-tech . . . which still works, but zaps your character often enough to grant electricity resistance.

But then, on the major narrative end, you can also get pretty huge differences in outcomes based on reputation. The Italy area's final boss is a very coldly professional head of a PMC. By default, when you fight him at the end of that region's arc, he fights just long enough to delay you from saving everyone, then has a scripted retreat. But if - and only if - you've managed to get him all the way to -10 opinion by then, the scripted retreat scene starts, he looks at his watch, and he decides fuck it, there's still enough time for him to put an unprofessional shit like you down. And then you can kill him, changing how the final level will play out pretty notably.

Basically, if a game is gonna have any rep or alignment system, I want it to do more than numerically increment progress towards what could just as easily be natural narrative progression down a specific path.

Also, this has gotten fuck-you levels of long already, so I'm gonna just. Publish this half, then will reblog it with the talk on Alignment stuff in a day or two? xD

#essay #original ari #answered asks #snowsisterskiss

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everygame · 9 months

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The Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild (Nintendo Switch)

Developed/Published by: Nintendo EPD / Nintendo Released: 3/3/2017 Completed: 09/06/2023 Completion: Beat Ganondorf with all memories. Trophies / Achievements: n/a

I’m not going to talk about Breath Of The Wild at length because I’m sure that–as the kind of person who is reading this–you’ve already read hundreds if not thousands of words about what is now generally considered the greatest game of all time (unless it’s been supplanted by Tears Of The Kingdom for sure by now?)

In that, of course, it supplanted Ocarina of Time, and after playing through Breath Of The Wild and, wildly, having my breath taken by it [“Ah, that’s what you come here for”--Ed.] I’m really struck by what a basic bitch I can be. Even as time passed and people tended to sneer at the idea of Ocarina of Time’s position as the greatest of all time (or perhaps I’m just too Insert Credit-pilled?) while I’d admit the game would probably not be in my top ten now and I have little-to-no urge to replay it, I’d still probably go to bat for it, simply because it’s a game I remember so fondly.

I just remember playing through basically all of it from a bean bag and it maybe being one of the first games where I tried to get as much done as possible before a point-of-no-return, and then trying to basically 100% it before beating the last boss (which I eventually gave up on because I was feeling left behind by the other people I new who had beaten it.) Something I remember playing because I just liked playing it, not because I was trying to finish it or anything.

And bloody hell if that wasn’t Breath Of The Wild–and I’m truly surprised by that. As is my usual behavior, I finally played this because everyone was having fun with Tears Of The Kingdom, but I’d have played it a lot quicker if I hadn’t (weirdly) been waiting to see if Nintendo would ever announce an upgraded Switch or anything after a friend had offhandedly said “oh, I can’t imagine playing that on a Switch Lite.”

Well, I did anyway and it was fine.

The weird thing about Breath Of The Wild–and the thing you’ve probably heard endlessly about it (I haven’t read much on the game, to be honest)--is just how it trusts the player implicitly in a bafflingly un-Nintendo way. I cannot believe that the game literally starts, gives you like three small tutorial dungeons, and then goes “kill Ganondorf. Er, probably do these other things first, but if you want to try and kill him immediately we won’t stop you.”

It’s wild! And what really blows me away is how for the most part all the game really is is a open-world checklist, and one where the things you are doing are honestly very basic tiny dungeons that usually have nearly no reward at all, and yet… I felt constantly rewarded by it. Is it simply that Nintendo polish? That effort on feel, on visual? When I think about playing something like, say, Days Gone, which actually has perfectly fine moment-to-moment gameplay.. why do I feel like I’m chewing through something endless and repetitive there, but here I climb a tower to unlock the map–the exact kind of thing I’d roll my eyes at in an Ubisoft game–and I’m like “yeahhh dudeeee!!!”

I mean, I guess I’ve got complaints, but I also sort of understand for the most part why those things are the way they are. I wish cooking was easier (holding stuff in your hands and dropping them into a pan sounds cool, but you’re still mostly navigating a menu, and the lack of it recording a cookbook is a bummer). The economy is totally broken (everyone I’ve talked to about this game eventually relied on an exploit like snowman bowling to get enough cash). The “major” dungeons are kinda nothingy. Quests are as unrewarding as the ones in Nier and they’re not even trying to take the piss out of you.

But this the kind of thing that we want to call the greatest game of all time because it just works. You can quibble this, you can quibble that, but it’s a game I played because I liked playing it, and when I was done with it–I’d got a nice horse, I had a nice house, all the armor and weapons I wanted and that–I just… finished it and felt good about it.

Will I ever play it again? I probably could have played it more! But that’s for Tears Of The Kingdom.

Final Thought: I also rather appreciated the game’s attempt at telling a fairly minimal narrative in a non-linear fashion that (at least for me) paid off. I don’t think it was that successful at recontextualising the whole “save the princess” trope or anything, but it was trying something a little thoughtful, so even that got points.

Support Every Game I’ve Finished on ko-fi! You can pick up a digital copy of exp. 2600, a zine featuring all-exclusive writing at my shop, or join as a supporter at just $1 a month and get articles like this a week early.

#gaming #video games #games #txt #text #review #nintendo #nintendo switch #the legend of zelda #the legend of zelda: breath of the wild #breath of the wild #2017 #nintendo epd

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frostehburr · 2 months

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Games I 100%ed Between Scrambling to Put Up and Away Holiday Decorations

So... Been a while since I've actually put stuff up on the internets.

I was particularly busy with IRL nonsense, specifically: putting away Christmas decorations followed by putting up Valentines decorations that only lasted one week before I was ordered to put those away and put up Spring decorations because, yes, my family decorates for ALL holidays and seasons. This year is different because St. Patrick and Easter are in the same month, granting me some real downtime for once.

I bring all that up because the games I 100%ed recently were very short and easy.

The first one being One Night, Hot Springs! A very very small visual novel with adorable art about a trans woman celebrating her friend's birthday. Honest, I was intrigued because I'm trans and wanted to play something that was about a trans person. My options were very limited in that department. All I got left is Celeste.

Anyhow, it's FREE on steam and it's a small part of a bigger visual novel that costs about $5 on Steam. The creator is npckc and their art is consistent with all of their games. Thought it would be nice to drop the name so anyone who stumbles on this post can at least consider supporting them.

Next game was Shadow Burglar, a stealth game that made my computer's fan go haywire. I put all the settings on low, how was it still going nuts?

Well, aside from desktop issues, the game played very well. However, there was no save points. Meaning, you have to play the entire two levels in one go. The achievements were barely a thought since I got them instantly. Although, I'd imagine the last one would be trouble for anyone who has no idea what the Konami Code is. Hint: Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A.

Shadow Burglar was free as well bu I don't really think it's worth the time to invest in. Maybe if the developer expanded the concept to a larger game but as is, it's best to focus on other games.

The last game I played, on Steam, during this time was Fable (Anniversary Edition). I've stated before that Fable 2 and 3 were super easy and could be finished in little to no time. I still stand by that even with the first game because the only actual grind was finding all the keys, books, chests, and stuff for the doors. Everything else was a cake walk. Mostly because almost all the achievements had two methods of unlocking them. Didn't even have to open the Demon Doors since flipping one off gets you the achievement.

Oh there was this one issue with a glitched npc that wouldn't let you play the mini game for Twinblade's doll. I got past it by giving him some gems and slowing time.

That was it for the games on Steam. As for Playstation... Have to admit... I purchased a psn subscription.

As painful as it is to admit. I had to because I couldn't get my old PS3 fixed nor could I find a refurbished one nearby. Wish I knew a reliable repair place because I enjoy playing my games on discs rather than stream but I don't so I'm doomed.

And the one game I streamed on psn was the Sly Collection. I already have to original discs but since PS4 can't play PS3 discs I was stuck with the streaming.

It didn't get too bad until the Ms. Ruby boss fight. Which has you match buttons as the icons slowly creep towards Sly. Issue with the streaming was that it lagged a lot on that level so I lost 11 lives to Ms. Ruby because the stream would not register the inputs I made.

The lag did not get better after that. I ended up having to watch Panda King's level in slow motion and Clockwork froze twice! Thankfully, the lag let up once Sly 2 started. It was smooth sailing from there. Got through all of Sly 2 and 3 nice and easy.

Until I had to do the challenges in Sly 3.

Not to say they were hard, far from it. They were just tedious. I did not like the challenges one bit. Something about putting a timer on something drives my anxiety through the roof and I freak out more because of it.

After the challenges were done I just had four mini games and the Sly Collection was 100% complete.

And despite Nintendo being the family friendly company with easy games... 100%ing a Nintendo game is a nightmare! So I had the bright idea of avoiding Nintendo stuff for some time. Only recently restarting Pokémon Scarlet after seeing the teaser for Pokémon ZA.

This puts my total amount of games completed (for these past few months) at 7. 3 from Steam and 4 from the Sly Collection (yes, I'm including the mini games as a separate game much like PSNProfiles does.

#100% complete #100%#opinion not a review

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iustitians · 6 months

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ooc; post-4.2 Neuvillette characterization

Whew. So about that Archon Quest, huh.

With the conclusion of Act V, I will be slowly but steadily adapting Neuvillette's characterization to accommodate for that quest having taken place. Neuvillette still isn't open about his identity, so there's still going to be plenty of situations where that stuff is not going to come up anyway - but if it does, I will be tagging Neuvillette's posts as both #genshin spoilers and #fontaine spoilers.

The main piece of open knowledge that most/all characters can have heard of, regardless of where they are from, is that there was at one point a huge flood that covered almost all of Fontaine, but it receded after a few hours. That's I think as much as I can say without going really deep into heavily spoilery stuff.

Further details below, with a spoiler warning for Act V story as well as Neuvillette's newly unlocked bios.

If anyone wishes to write with Neuvillette but has not yet played/finished the Fontaine story, I am still happy to do my best to adapt as much as possible, so that our muses are able to interact while you enjoy the game at your own pace. Simply let me know.

Something else that many muses may have heard about, because I feel like this is news that would have spread, is that the Hydro Archon abdicated, leaving Iudex Neuvillette as the de facto ruler of Fontaine. But this is something I leave up to you to decide whether or not your muse would know.

As for Neuvillette himself, his situation going forward will be as follows:

He is a fully fledged Hydro Dragon Sovereign, having regained all of his powers.

Having grown to respect and value humanity over the centuries, he willingly stays and lives among them, and wants Fontaine to be a good place to live.

He is Fontaine's main authority, the leader of all the Maisons + Marechaussee Phantom, highest judge and now also the country's BATTERY, as it's thanks to his complete control over Pneumousia that Fontaine has power. Dude's busy and leaving the country has become even more complicated for him than it was before.

THAT SAID, having developed both respect and curiosity for humanity, he does endeavor to see more of the world. Any time he leaves Fontaine, he has to not only get all immediate affairs in order, but also provide extra energy for the country so that everything may function while he's gone. This leaves him somewhat weakened for his travel. This is basically how I'm going to try and explain 1. why he's still able to thread outside of Fontaine and 2. how I'm going to avoid having him be a super OP Gary Stu in combat (in addition, of course, to the fact he's still hiding his identity).

The main people who are aware of his identity remain the Traveler and Paimon. Whether or not Furina would know, I leave to the future Furina mun's discretion. I'm happy to discuss it, I think Neuvillette would have told Furina while relaying Focalors' words to her (she may have simply overheard at the end of 4.1), but I don't want to make the decision for someone else.

Neuvillette is now the person who hands out Hydro Visions to humans who prove themselves worthy. The first one he gave out was for Furina.

I think that's the main gist of it for the time being. I'll edit this post if anything else comes up.

#✦ ooc.

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crashingmeteor3 · 1 year

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My absolutely marvellous review of Yoke Guy Watch T!!

So I just finished the game (just as in yesterday) and I haven't done much post-game stuff other than favours and my daily things. But, I can say I definitely enjoyed the game.

But I'm going to go over the things I found difficult or just didn't enjoy in the game.

I found the whole supermarket thing difficult, especially the chase at the end, it took me an embarrassingly long time to time my jumps correctly. But the boss battle was fun and not too challenging. Zombie Night isn't half as bad as I thought it would be, but I still don't enjoy it very much lol.

The Clown time thing gives me the creeps, I don't like clowns in general so being chased by one suddenly? I barely made it lol.

Terror time is terror time. I still suck at it.

As I said before, I wish you could do more storywise as Hailey that's not getting stuff after the stories merge. While I found playing in BBQ as Nate more fun, Hailey's character is a lot more entertaining. So I wish I could've played as her more.

Not a nitpick, but I still haven't got Sighborg Y after so many attempts. I guess I'm just not lucky lol.

More of a personal problem but the fact it took me up until chapter 5 to get Dimmy and Dazzabel because they hardly showed up is a pain in the butt. But I got my children and unfortunately, I had to swap Ratelle out for Mee2 to have a second healer since I desperately needed one. Auntie Heart is the punching bag and having a backup healer in case she goes down is helpful. I also wanted to use Allnyta but never found bothered to figure out where Tengloom is.

Again not really a problem but I feel like quests were a lot less relevant in the main story, sure you have the detective agency but once I got Mirapo unlocked and I didn't have to do any quests there to progress the main story I totally forgot about it and Sparkopolis altogether. I didn't see many quests at all on Nate's side. This is good because I got to focus on the main story more but I do enjoy getting sidetracked and doing fun quests.

Unpopular opinion, but I didn't enjoy the alternate dimension quests (at least the ones I have done so far). I skipped most of the cutscenes for the first quest because of how uninteresting it was for me, I didn't enjoy the concept, but I did like playing the game as Katie! For the second quest, I don't understand why the tour was changed to some heroine competition? They probably didn't want it to be the same tour again, but they could've changed some things to make it more interesting.

And in the end, we get the most (in my opinion) unsatisfying ending, with the shark winning the whole thing? But seeing No-Bot was cool in the quest, especially when you see him in the Bada-Bing Tower later. This makes me wonder if Yopple Bot would be at the tower instead in Katie's dimension. Or if the whole Ghoulfather thing has happened at all there.

I wish Buck had more involvement, his whole personality for the most part was adventure, aliens and ufos. I thought the Hazeltine Manor chapter would give us some more information about him, but we hardly saw him at all. He doesn't do much outside of the three things I mentioned either, which kind of sucks. Or maybe he does, and I just forget. I still love him though. I feel a similar way about Jessica, she's Hailey's best friend or something and it would've been nice if she had a role similar to Katie's as a good friend character. I kind of wish she got involved in the yo-kai stuff to at least some degree so she could be like how Buck is to Nate. But that'd be messy in the end so I understand why they didn't.

I didn't find many of the Merican/New yo-kai very interesting, the ones I found most interesting are the S-ranks, unfortunately. I still like some of them though!

And now the good parts!

The characters are fun, and while the main characters are great apart, they're so entertaining together I enjoyed the times in later chapters when they were together doing stuff! Whisper, Jibanyan and Usapyon are wonderful, as usual. Blunder and Folly, while I question their relevance, were also entertaining to watch.

I like the involvement of the Blasters House, it was a nice surprise. I liked seeing them again seeing as I didn't enjoy playing Blasters much game-play-wise. Which is probably why I didn't play Blasters T very much. I liked the yo-kai heroes too.

One of my favourite parts of the game was the Yopple Tour, seeing old characters like Kyubi, Venoct, Arachnus, Toadal Dude and Komasan and Komajiro was awesome. And Spect-Hare and Double Time were entertaining.

I loved the Dukesville storyline with Unnbearaboy and Jane, it was very sweet, but sad how they had to split again so soon.

Deadcool. All I have to say.

The boss battles were fun, yet difficult. I lost to Slackajack a couple of times. I was worried I wouldn't like the grid system, but it's fun to strategize where to use my yo-kai and being able to dodge attacks.

Yo-kai watch blaster go pew pew, all I have to say.

And there's a lot more stuff, but just so I don't write a whole book here. I'll stop listing stuff XD

My final team was Usapyon, Blandon, Sgt. Burly, Mee2, Mama Aura and my Originyan called Nyanplay (pun on Nyan, as most if not all of the jibanyan variants, have nyan in their name, and cosplay!) . But I also used Jibanyan, Wydeawake, Ratelle, Demandi, Intune, Thurston and others. I tried to use the new yo-kai, but that failed. Maybe on my other save file, I'll do a Merican yo-kai-only run.

#yo kai watch #yokai watch #yo-kai watch #meteor rambles #meteor being serious? omg?#fun fact!#I have used blandon in 1 2 and 3 #and I used Dimmy in Blasters but never got far enough to evolve him because I got bored :(#meteors rambling again #if you read all of this #you are epic!!

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evasivaardilosa · 6 months

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So, fun story

Some weeks ago I was looking for Ao3 Originals™️ to read, and I found out that some authors I really really like had an au series that looked really promising. Except that series was not Original Work fandom, but… Batman fandom. Never touched a single comic of him but watched many of the movies, cartoons, and video games over the years, so I decided to give the fic series a try, because the premise sounded so so good

That was either my best decision or my worst mistake. One fic led to the other, and now the account I use to bookmark Original Works is unrecognizable. I have been doing this all day every day since then. I probably have read more of these than I have read mk fics in this time

But it was supposed to stay like that, just au fics, that would be all. Except I told my sister and she told me I *had* to watch both Teen Titans Go movies, and I know you may be rolling your eyes but I actually enjoy that cartoon, we both do, so I accepted

We watched them today. And then one thing led to another and now we started watching the live action Netflix Titans show. Because why not. So that’s how it is currently

Anyway, I need some mk vs dc facts to inflict on my sister, it’s all for a good cause. The only thing that stuck with me from my wiki reading (I never played the game and I didn’t bother to watch the story mode video) is that in his ending, Kuai becomes Batman. Does that make Frost Robin?

…. I think I have a fic idea

(Funny enough, those fics I have been reading playing a big part in getting rid of my writer’s block. Getting to read a bunch of good fics one after the other, all with my favorite tropes and themes, was a very inspiring experience. Not that I don’t read a lot of good fics in the mk fandom or other fandoms that I am properly in, but I never got in any of them to read so many fics that had all these specific tropes. I wish every fic enthusiast one day finds an ao3 collection or two full of fics that hit that exact spot, whatever that may be for you)

(I’m still not getting a new fandom, but…. maybe this morning I intended on playing Injustice 2 instead of mk1. It’s only because I am bored with mk1 after finishing the season, and I have been meaning to go back to unlocking stuff in mk11 or Inj2 some of these days. The fact that I may have formed an emotional connection with some characters since last time I played is just a coincidence)

(Nrs should make a Spider-Man or Symbiote fighting game. I know they belong to Warner but. There is something magical about the experience of having your blorbo in a fighting game. And I like how nrs does games)

#ea talks #long post #personal

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level1cleric · 6 months

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alright, so this month i spent some time trying out something new for me: castlevania games. yknow, in the halloween type spirit. i already had the anniversary collection and advance collection on steam, thought this would be a cool time to try them out. and they're cool! but also hard as balls

castlevania 1 - the classic. the original. few frills. two buttons, jump and attack, and a combination of up+attack to use your sub weapon (holy water, axes, whatev) so that part is simple. the rest not so much.

castlevania 1 is a game that expects you to be patient and know your timings, and punishes you pretty hard when you flub either of those too bad. definitely a good example of NES difficulty, with pits and spikes that just kill you. usual stuff for the time, but harsh. speaking of harsh, much of the difficulty towards the back half of the game is created by fleamen.

just this one guy existing in a room can be so much pain. and then sometimes there's two, or three of them! and they can have random movement patterns.

anyways, i spent the most time this month on castlevania 1 thus far, and i haven't beaten it. the game liked to crash in the hallway leading up to the death fight (it may not have liked my trying to load state from there so much). overall not bad, willing to go back and finish.

castlevania 2 - okay so this is a but of a flub. i haven't played this one at all for years. i came upon it in the wii shop channel as a teen, played it, got through at least one dungeon (got drac's rib) and put it down. overall not bad gameplay wise, but backtracking is intense from what i remember, and a guide will be required to finish due its infamous translation issues. (or find you a version of castlevania 2 that's got patched translations. its good stuff) not too interested in going back to this one

castlevania 3 - harder as balls. a game that expects you to have beaten castlevania 1 and 2, possibly multiple times. early stages include enemies and enemy placements from late-game castlevania 1. it expects a lot from you. the level designs are cool, but are also filled with death pits next to stairs.

this shit does look p cool, especially for NES

but! due to something with how the game manages inputs for left or right versus up, holding up and right will have you walking right past the stairs and likely to death. this game is cool, with a lot of new stuff for castlevania, like split paths and unlockable characters you can swap to mid level, but it is still hard as balls. i might go back to this after beating more of the other games

super castlevania 4 - named for being on the super nintendo, not entirely indicative of its quality. its castlevania, but pushing in new directions. the scale of the game is different, your character is much larger on screen, but the levels are much longer. you can now attack up, down, and diagonally, meaning you don't usually need that sub weapon. not a bad game, but did not captivate me like some of the other games in this collection. not super interested in going back to it (lol)

and so i'm off to go stream symphony of the night for the rest of the month. wish me luck!

#castlevania #symphony of the night #nes games #retro gaming

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l-1-z-a · 10 months

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Interview With The Sims 2 Producer, Jonathan Knight

Thursday, June 17, 2004 - 23:10

What are aspirations? How many hats is enough for a Producer on The Sims 2? Find out the answers to these questions and more!

Hello! What's your name and what do you do on The Sims 2?

My name is Jonathan Knight. I'm a Producer on The Sims 2, working mainly in two areas: first, the new Aspirations feature, which involves a new simulator whereby Sims tell you what they Want and Fear (like, I want a baby, or I fear an alien abduction). Achieving Wants drives up your Aspiration Score, which unlocks rewards, and keeps your Sims happy and living long. Secondly, I'm supervising the shipping neighborhoods, which are all the pre-built houses, Sims, and stories that we're shipping with the game.

How did you become an Assistant Producer for The Sims 2?

After graduate school, I got my start in the industry as an assistant producer at Interplay on a big interactive movie. I worked on a lot of different games over the years, but about 3 years ago I was lucky enough to land an opportunity at Maxis, which is a studio I'd admired for a long time. I started out on The Sims 2, when it was just an R & D (Research and Development) project, then moved over to the expansion pack team to help finish Vacation. I then produced the final 3 expansion packs for The Sims, and after we shipped Makin' Magic, I re-joined the Sims 2 team.

What's the best part of your job?

The best part of my job is working with incredibly creative people to imagine new stuff, and then see it come to life in the game. The process of going from blank canvas to implementation to ship is incredibly rewarding.

What's your favorite feature in the game?

Well, I guess it's a tie between two things. The gamer in me loves the new Wants & Fears, because they really give you clear short-term goals and cool rewards, while at the same time helping you tell interesting stories with your Sims. But the builder in me loves the Eyedropper Tool; I can build and decorate four times faster than I could in the original Sims. It's such a simple tool, but it's so powerful!

How do you come up with the ideas for the new game-play design?

I'm lucky to work on one of the most creative teams working in games today. In this talented group of programmers, artists, designers, producers... ideas can come from anywhere. We also continually monitor the fan sites for ideas and suggestions, so be careful what you wish for! Ideas can also come from unlikely sources. I met Bijoux Philips at a party once, and she pitched me an idea for an object: she wanted a bathmat to put in front of her showers to absorb the water from her sloppy Sims. I thought, "we should totally make that object!"

What are your hobbies?

My wife and I love to travel and cook, and we spend a lot of time fixing up our house. We're re-doing the floors in our house right now... and we sure wish we had that Shift-Click feature... Happy

What's the first computer game you ever played?

Like a lot of people, the first video game I played was Pong. But the first computer game I played was Star Trek on the Apple II. I think it was about 1977, and we had to load the software from cassette tape.

* * *

* K *

E * *

That game ruled!

If you could take 3 things with you to an island and had to stay there for the rest of your life, what would you take along?

The collected works of Shakespeare.

Civilization II.

Sunscreen.

What's it like working in the game industry?

I imagine it feels a lot like Hollywood must have felt in the 40's. Which is to say... incredibly exciting.

How many hats do you own?

I have no idea. But you can never have too many hats.

#sims 2 #ts2 #sims2 #the sims 2 #Jonathan Knight #interview

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shadowqueen402 · 2 years

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How I Would Make Balan Wonderworld A Better Game

Before I start, I will let everyone know that I loved the game and always will. I have played it several times and read the novel several times. I even have the Tim plushie whom I lovingly called 'Cotton'. That was how much I loved the Balan Wonderworld franchise.

That said, despite it being an awesome game, I know there is still room for lots of improvements. I am well aware of what Yuji Naka went through with Square Enix and the fact that the game wasn't really finished. So it's safe to say that this game definitely deserves a second chance.

Without further ado, let me explain to you guys some ideas on what I think should be added in the game in order to make it better.

CAMERA FIXED: One of the few things I took notice was the camera. If you stand in a certain part of the Chapter you're in, the camera blocks most of your view. This is bad, especially if you're either fighting Negati or standing near the edge of the pits. So you pretty much can't see what you're doing or where you're going. So I believe the camera being fixed should be the first thing that needs to be improved.

CONTROLS: This one is pretty obvious, but almost all of the control buttons cause the player to just…jump. That's pretty much about it. You can't really do anything else except for either move or jump. Another thing I would like to be added in the game is more action. For example, if you press the Y button on the Switch while holding the left controller down, you can make Emma/Leo walk instead of just running. Or pressing the X button alone will cause them to grab things with no costume required.

DIALOGUE: Another one of the few things I took notice is the dialogue. Balan is the only character that has the most speaking roles in the game. Lance only has one line and the other characters have no speaking role. I believe more dialogue should be added in the game. That way, it would give us more insight of Emma and Leo's relationship with Balan, Balan and Lance's relationship with each other, or the Inhabitants thanking the player for saving them before telling their backstory. Plus, more dialogue will also mean character development as well.

MINI GAMES: The reason why I think these should be added? To help get more gemdrops and unlock modes and cool stuff. We'll get to that in a bit, but for now, let me explain the mini-game idea. If mini-games were added, I would like to imagine them being unlocked after you save the Inhabitant. For example, after you save Fiona Demetria, the mini-game you unlock is a dolphin race. In the mini-games, you can play as either the main protagonist you chose, the rescued Inhabitant, or Balan himself. The mini-games will include stuff such as racing, collecting items, hide and seek, protecting the costumes from the Negati, maze games, etc. The more points you collect, the more gemdrops you'll receive. If you hit a Negati, you'll lose points.

UNLOCK CHARACTERS: I would also love the idea where, after you rescue an Inhabitant, you can choose to play as them. Regarding the dialogue section, each Inhabitant will say something depending on what they're doing. If they're feeding/holding the Tims, they'll say something nice to them. If they're fighting off Negati, they may either grunt while battling or say something about wanting to protect the Chapter. If they're defeated, they would either groan in pain before passing out or possibly refuse to accept defeat. But it would all depend on the Inhabitant you play as.

ENDINGS: I like to believe that Balan Wonderworld should have four endings in general: a good ending, a true ending, a hidden ending or a bad ending. Here's what I believe would happen in each ending and how you would obtain it. Also, when the player is about to fight Lance, they should be given the option on whether they wish to fight him or save him. Options will be explained in a bit.

—In the Good Ending, the player must not only save all of the Inhabitants and have good relationships with them, but their relationship with Balan must be high. However, their relationship with Lance must not be at maximum. And in the finale, the player must choose to fight Lance. It will end up with a similar ending to what we saw in the game. But I would like a cutscene where Balan speaks to himself, saying how he wished things would turn out differently for Lance, but he is still proud of Leo and Emma for saving Wonderworld and everyone.

—In the True Ending, all relationships with Balan, the Inhabitants, and Lance must be at maximum. In other words, the player must earn both Balan's and Lance's friendship throughout the game. After saving all of the Inhabitants, the player must choose to save Lance instead. After Lance is saved, the true ending will play out and everyone will be sent home while Lance will start his road for redemption.

—In the Hidden Ending, the player's relationship with Lance must be high. Their relationship with the Inhabitants must either be high or not at maximum. Their relationship with Balan must not be at maximum, but it can't be low. This would be the only ending where the player does not fight Lance automatically. Upon entering his domain, Lance will reveal to the player the truth about Balan just like in the novel. At this point, the player will be given the option to either save Lance or fight him. Regardless of the choice, after everyone is sent home, Lance will reappear and warn Balan about ending up like him.

—And finally, in the Bad Ending, the player's relationship with Lance must be low. But their relationships with Balan and the Inhabitants must be either not at maximum or low. Also, in the finale, the player must choose to fight Lance. Without the Inhabitants' help, Lance will trap Emma and Leo in Wonderworld along with the others. Balan will be unfortunate enough to witness Wonderworld get corrupted by Lance as he sadly laments the two teens' fate before going off to try to save the Inhabitants.

For the Inhabitants, I would like for them to have secret endings for them as well. After you complete the whole game, Act 3 will appear. If you play Act 3 as a certain Inhabitant, you can unlock their secret ending. For example, Iben's secret ending will show her introducing her son to his baby sister while a picture of her late parents can be seen. But the secret ending can only appear if you get either the good ending or the true ending.

OPTIONS: I would also love for both Emma and Leo to have options on how they should respond or react in a certain situation. In a conversation cutscene with, let's say, Jose, they would have either two or three options. If options were implemented, I would like for them to affect the ending that you're going to get. Positive responses increase your chances of the good or true endings while negative responses increase your chances of a bad ending. Neutral responses won't do anything.

RELATIONSHIPS: I would also love for each of the characters to have a relationship meter. Each meter will have a symbol that represents them at the top. The more positive responses you choose, the higher it will grow. Playing mini-games with the Inhabitant can also increase their relationship meter. If the player chooses a negative response, the meter will decrease. Once the meter reaches up to maximum, the symbol will glow and you may unlock something.

MODES: I would like a few modes to be added into the game that could make it interesting. Each of these modes will not only increase your relationships with the characters, but they can also help you practice your skills to fight stronger enemies. Here are some of the modes that I think should be added.

—Daycare Mode: This mode will allow the player to practically adopt either a Tim, a Negati, or both. Any Negati that you adopt will not cause any harm. When the player adopts the creature of their choice, they will be given the option to give them a name. The player will be allowed to not only pet their creature(s), but also feed them, bathe them, or dress them up. Owning a Tim/Negati will increase your relationship with Balan/Lance. The more you take care of them, the better.

—Inhabitant Mode: This mode will cause you to play as any of the Inhabitants that you've rescued. It will unlock the moment Jose Gallard is saved. But once you've selected the Inhabitant of your choice, a cutscene will play that will show how they found the theater. They will then have to navigate through their Chapter to complete a quest that Balan assigns them. A cutscene will show their reaction to seeing Lance for the first time.

—Customization Mode: In this mode, the Inhabitants that you've saved will have their own wardrobe. Any outfits that you've unlocked will appear in their wardrobe. Plus their default outfits will appear in Emma's or Leo's wardrobe too. Wearing the default outfits of the Inhabitants give an increase to the relationship meter of the Inhabitant. There will also outfits for Emma and Leo. Also, you can decide on the hair color and eye color for your character. Hairstyles for the female characters can also be unlocked.

—Balan's Mode: This is kind of like the Balan Bouts, but with some more twists to it. The player will play as Balan in this mode. Like the Balan Bouts, you will have to enter the mode by approaching a floating Balan hat. Once the player touches the hat, Balan will appear and you will begin to play as him. But this time, Balan will stay in the Chapter and complete his quest. Completing Balan's Mode in every Chapter increases your relationship with him.

UNLOCK ITEMS: I would definitely like for the game to have items hidden around each Chapter that can be unlocked. Some of the items will require the player to complete each Chapter as well as win mini-games. The items that can be unlocked include some of the following: outfits for the player, the Inhabitants' default outfits, accessories for the Tims and Negati, certain types of snacks for the Tims and Negati (aside from gemdrops), etc.

STATUES: I took notice that the Balan Statues which are usually hidden around in the Acts of every Chapter require costumes from later Chapters in order to get. Let's think about the dancing scene after you saved an Inhabitant. I have this idea where, instead of just trying to risk losing a costume by getting the statues, the dance level is a game that you play in order to earn statues. If you time the moves right, you get a better chance at earning one.

ENGLISH VOICE ACTORS: Yes, I would love for english voice actors to be in the game. Especially if there was more dialogue to begin with. In an earlier post, I wrote which of the voice actors that I headcanon the characters being voiced by. I would love to hear the talents of those voice actors if they ever starred in the game.

And that's pretty much it. Let me know in the comment what you guys think!

#balan wonderworld #random thoughts #what if

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carcharsaur · 1 year

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alright I finished another game, this time it's amnesia: crowd

^a succinct summary of my thoughts on this series as a whole this came out as a 2-in-1 pack on the switch last year, bundled with amnesia: later as both are follow-ups to the original amnesia: memories but I had to take a uh. almost 7 month break after finishing "later" because I literally have to build up an immunity to the parts of these games in particular that piss me off. but also I still really really like kent so I keep buying it LOL I'll put my deranged unfocused rambling under the cut though

my fav parts of this game were the "suspense" scenario things for ikki and kent, most the "work" scenarios and then like basically everything else is just "ehh" or actively grated me.... the after stories were weird also because some of them had to jump around to avoid overlapping with the after stories from "later" which for the most part I liked much better (for the characters I actually care about anyway). I'm too lazy to go into real gritty detail but a lot of stuff just felt regressive compared to the developments that happened in the first FD!?!? and I don't understand why.... it felt like suddenly they had to be a god-fearing christian game.. was there some controversy back in the day when they first were developing this for the vita LMAO it might just be I'm weary with it's... extremely stereotypical japanese 'demure woman vs voracious men' thing but it felt worse than normal. I think I might just spoiled from playing games that are as good as cupid parasite but also just most newer otome games being more comfortable with talking about sex in a way that doesn't feel fucking insane to me. there's making a nonsexual or asexual friendly mc/game and then there's "how are you alive" levels of airheaded unawareness that are just plainly grating.

I will hand it to this game that it finally did make my like ukyo more than I did through the first two games, where I thought he was just very "whatever" but despite the like... weirdass nature of "evil alter ego" they ended up resolving it in a way I think was pretty good and fully undid the initial game's thing about supernatural mental illness = inherent evil nature uh oh!!! but he still has hilarious joker mode sprites so it's still like. funny as hell but also taking itself seriously? at least I'm amused instead of completely checked out I still want toma to just die forever, hate his whole character and the dynamic he has with the heroine and I WONTTTT say more because I will write 3 paragraphs analyzing his character and tearing into how much I hate his fucking writing and how gross every bit of his execution feels. shin is still just unsatisfying as hell and actively frustrating at times (STOP BRINGING UP WHEN YOU WERE ALL 6 YEARS OLD YOU'RE LIKE 19-20 YEARS OLD MANN) also I'm still bearing a grudge on whoever did voice direction for the game because I'd never imagine kakihara would be so boring to listen to!!!!!! ikki was a little funny, sometimes good, but other times just... eyerolls forever and ever and less interesting than in the first FD and thennnn kent is still one of my fav LIs ever, to the point that I still don't know how someone that wrote him and his dynamic with the heroine and then also wrote the rest of these damn games... but his after story frustrated the fuck out of me. it wasn't necessarily ooc but just a couple of the narrative choices they made for it were unfitting and felt contradictory with the "later" route which is somehow still canon and so I was left kind of conflicted and frustrated with it.

the work scenarios were all cute though, and I enjoyed the really good side characters still being involved in the unlockable mini scenarios (except the New side character is just straight ass no question about it) but the minigames were tediously time consuming to get all of them unlocked =_= also kent was SO good in it that I wish his canon route had their coworker dynamic... instead of "math tutor to rival to lovers" LOL

and other than the ones I mentioned earlier, the "suspense" scenarios were just.... mehhh... and the fact I did enjoy kent and ikki's a lot leads me to think it's not just me. or it's just because I do not care for the other characters much LOL maybe both also the unlockable scene with orion, it's not outright 'wrong' sure but it's so fucking weird man. obviously gross bait. wish it wasn't there lmao

anyway taking a complete left turn, to me in my delusional mind palace they're a throuple with an adorable adopted child. or ikki is the mother👍

(the other half of this cg has all the other LIs pointedly avoiding holding hands with each other so this is real TO MEEE because ikki and kents dynamic is so fun forever also this:)

also, pointlessly, here's my fav clip

#car talking #car's 2023 media #also god the original art style is. it's own thing for sure #but all the timeskip outfits for the dudes were STRAIGHT ASS!!!#anyway overall. mid ass series but kent is so good that even though I'm sick to bastard death with half these guys #if they localize amnesia: worlds for some fucking reason I will still buy it #not a series I would really recommend to anyone though unless I thoroughly know what all their icks are. ymmv etc #glad to have it out of my small backlog though

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moongothic · 7 months

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Finished TOTK yesterday, I have a mouth, so I must scream

Be warned, the be spoilies, but TL:DR; Good Game

I don't even know where to start, maybe the boring stuff? The gameplay changes from BOTW?

I dunno, I feel like generally speaking TOTK improved upon BOTW's gameplay mechanics in every way, or simply changed neither for better or worse

Like. The Sage Powers are fine, they're fun. But I did prefer the original Champion Abilities from BOTW. I do understand why they changed the abilities the way they did, the BOTW ones were kind of... basic. Like they were game mechanics any game could have, and some of them (Revali's Gale ESPECIALLY) could have literally broken the game and/or made much of the other new abilities completely pointless. They NEEDED to change for TOTK. And so we get the Sage Powers, which were much more situational. But they also helped add challenge to the game because they weren't these get-out-of-jail cards you could pull out of your pocket to cheese through any situation. Like no Mipha's Prayer means either you make sure you have fairies in your pocket, or you heal yourself every chance you get, or you simply die. Mipha ain't got your back. Nor Daruk. Nor Urbosa. Nor Revali. It's just you and the Sages if/when their powers happen to be useful.

That said. I did miss Revali's Gale the entire time I was playing and would have exchanged literally every single other ability in the game for the Gale. It was just so convenient man

If there's one thing I WISH TOTK hadn't changed and/or kept the same, it would be the Memories. Like. I didn't dislike the system they had going with the memories, but they way they changed it WHILE keeping it the same made TOTK's Dragon Tears a worse experience than BOTW's Memories (for me at least)

You see. Based on all the dialogue through out the game, it's kind of obvious in hindsight that you were arguably meant to do the Geoglyph Quest AFTER finding AT LEAST the first four sages, maybe even after finding Mineru and/or saving the Deku Tree. And that would be fine, but the thing is.

Like. In BOTW the Memories you really had to go out of your way to find, they were sometimes pretty well hidden and hard to find after all, but in BOTW even if you did find the Memories out of order or before doing any other sidequests, they didn't really affect the story at all, right

In TOTK, they attached the Memories to GIGANTIC LANDMARKS YOU CAN SEE FROM MILES AWAY. You don't have to go looking for jack shit, the Geoglyphs will fucking find YOU instead

NOT TO MENTION, in BOTW there was a True Ending you could only unlock if you got all the Memories, right. Knowing that OF COURSE most players would go out of their way to just fucking RUSH to each Geoglyph as fast as they could, because OF COURSE we want to know what happened to Zelda and the Master Sword

And. Like I know My Experience is not universal.

But, being the massive Fi Simp that I am, immidiately after I finished the Wind Temple I headed for the Korok Forest and the Master Sword geoglyph, because I wanted to know where Fi My Beloved is and if she's fucking okay

So The Master Sword Geoglyph was literally the third memory I watched.

The one where Zelda states she's going to become an immortal dragon to reach the future.

The third memory I watched. That fucking one.

Like. I'm not saying getting spoiled on Zelda becoming the Light Dragon so early on RUINED my precious experience, I still enjoyed the game deeply despite that. But I do, really really wish, that I hadn't seen that memory until much later. Not just because it was frustrating to listen to every character be like "oh jeez I wonder where Zelda is" when I know exactly where the fuck she is, but also because it did affect my enjoyment of the rest of the memories. Like, there's a great story TOTK is telling, but I've already seen the most important part, the part I was the most invested in, the end of it. So the rest, the way we get there... kind of doesn't matter.

I feel like had they either NOT given the players advice on how to interact with the Geoglyphs so early in the game (meaning you probably wouldn't know how to see the memories until later unless you figured out how to brute force them yourself), OR had they just kept the Memories more hidden like in BOTW... IDK, I think either method would have worked better than the way TOTK ended up doing it

All that aside, I gotta say. It's not often that a story leaves me feeling as mortified, empty and sad as TOTK did. Nor as inspired and full of hope as TOTK did. Like. Normally I'm very numb and don't get invested in storie, I rarely get emotional over a story. I rarely get invested. And TOTK just managed to wack me over the head, it's genuinely impressive

Like I don't know what to say, that was so fucking good man

Like. Of course, the best parts of the story where when all the sages united together and I just WISH Nintendo would have allowed there to be more moments like that, I could not get enough and simply yearned for more. I don't even mean during gameplay, just give me a few more cutscenes man 😭

I don't even know what to say anymore. It was a good game. I don't know what to do with my life anymore now that I beat it lmao

#Moon posting #LOZ #Shout out to me when I first went to the Korok Forest #Spent like two hours trying to figure out how to get in until I realized the Depth's map matches the Surface map #And that the entrance to the forest would be in the same place #Of course. I did not remember that there was a chasm near to the entrance at all #I just knew there was a Big Chasm near Typhlo for Dinraal to use #So I just had to haul ass from all the way there #And when I finally got to the Forest Area #There's fucking GLOOM HANDS #AT THIS FUCKING POINT. I HAD ENCOUNTERED THE HANDS. ONCE. JUST FUCKING ONCE BEFORE #I did a Shrine in Central Hyrule. Came out. Walked to some trees to pick some apples. Saw something on the other side of the trees.#Before I even knew what was happening I was fucking dead #Jump scared by the god damn Gloom Hands #My only encounter #And mind you I had just barely finished the first temple. I was in no fucking way prepared to fight these fucks #But at this point I had spent so much fucking time trying to get to the Forest I didn't want to give up #So after Many Attempts (and abusing saves) I managed to somehow run past the hands and get to the actual Korok Forest #Shit it ain't good. Of course #So I go check what's wrong with the Deku Tree and. Oh. MORE GLOOM HANDS #So for like the first third of my playthrough my only goal was to get strong enough to beat the Gloom Hands and save the Deku Tree #That was the only thing I cared about. The only thing I worked towards. Must save tree and find Fi #ALSO. I DID NOT KNOW HESTU WAS AT LOOKOUT LANDING #Don't think I even went to the Landing after leaving it. So as far as I knew when Hestu left Tabantha it meant he was on his way to home #And just wouldn't appear at the Korok Forest until the Deku Tree was saved #So I played with no extra inventory slots for a GOOD LONG WHILE #WHICH DID NOT HELP WITH THE GLOOM HANDS #This game was so scary like. It did not have to go so hard on being scary and yet it did

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tomyo · 7 months

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Hometown Story

The expectations of this game can be summarized as C grade ds game to awkward mobile game era game to one of those games that they really mean it when it takes time to warm into.

Given my years with Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons, I was genuinely expecting a much more in depth experience but came to an admittedly mid experience. When you find out it was also released on iphone with minimal downgrade, it suddenly makes it clear why I was able to buy a sealed copy for $4 . It isn't bad, it's a different focus and while admittedly too bare bones at the start, once I found a good gamefaqs guide for event triggers I found my rhythm. You really don't have to do much in the game, walk around, pick up everything you find, maybe buy some stuff from the village but definitely come to buy from the 2pm merchant, and stop in your shop to check a bunch of people out every so often.

Things I wish I better knew starting out:

Your tables are not limited, the game has you start out by just dropping one down but you can in fact immediately put more down. My dumb ass went in game weeks with just one item for sale awkwardly waiting around for someone to want it thinking I had to desperately wait for the merchant to have more.

The day doesn't start till you open your shop so if you want to reorganize a little first, do it at 6am.

Sometimes events are triggered by putting up key items to be sold on shelves. I didn't want a rando to buy it but the won't. However, also put it into unreachable corners since you won't need to restock those shelves often. I would definitely cross check guide info on what items go to what event if you dgaf about spoilers like me because sometimes you'll get them for characters you haven't even met yet which takes up valuable space. Then there's ones like the masterpiece which might require in game months of sitting around for their event to trigger.

Fill your store with fruits and sewing kits initially as some characters require that for unlock.

ALWAYS. BUY. WOOD. I was so used to wood being such an easy resource but this game has made it hell for me to wait to get 5 pieces. It can only be bought from the merchant and while he stocked it often at the start, suddenly he never had it. I'm making so much money but I'm stuck on level two because of not having wood.

Thus far I've gone a 12 hour playthrough probably with some gratuitous pausing to read several half finished sources to know that I'm supposed to do. I'm the type of person who like to tailor a guide for my HM style games so my ADHD doesn't overwhelm me trying to keep up with all the tasks so having a lot of very barren wikis and gamefaqs is stressful to say the least. It's been more of a game of patchwork this time. Speaking of said ADHD, the point was I'd say I've made it about half way through the story. I'm at a very awkward point where I feel like I've finished some quest lines while still not having met some pivotal characters to the story. So far I think I'm missing 7 story based characters. It is pretty annoying that the cutscene activation is fickle, I'll follow everything but sometimes it just won't activate that day. I'm barely one month through and I'd even say it's possible to see that whole game in just that one month, maybe two at most but its dependent on things you can't control. Multiple items sit on my shelf waiting to introduce a character to me for weeks in game while I had two item based cutscenes for a character back to back. I mean like literally the moment I placed the next item down after having watched the first. The imbalance in that can only make me think I might end up getting stuck in a slow down after this point.

I personally would like to see the story through if I can. I've been mostly playing this while sick at this point so I've had the time to rip through it.

I think the most unexpected thing about it is how the scenes kind of actually stick with me. As a long time fan of the series, I feel like I've always had a surface level relationship with villagers in farm games. I would say older ones give relatable struggles but don't get too deep into them, maybe even the closest being A Wonderful Life but that's a series I consumed as a kid when a lot of things went over my head and admittedly a lot of my backlog is just catching up on a series that admittedly, looks to have gotten extremely fluffier as it went on. Olive Town has not been that deep. I think one of the bachelors has a somewhat deep plot but since I'm not romancing him, I'm just off with my horsegirl girlfriend having cute dates and befriending the locals when I'm not drowning in makers. And then on the other hand theres Stardew Valley which for some reason only hit me in the last year how like, all the townspeople are just as terrible as the villians.

Maybe that's a stretch but it slapped me in the face when I realized the reason why I spent so much time on my farm was because a lot of them had pretty unlikable traits. So in all the places to feel emotionally invested, I did not expect the half baked spinoff to be it. Yet something about how the mayor and his wife are actually kinda cute with each other or how the mayor's wife coyly has an unaging friend wanting to bring her puddings, or the kinda real moments where the fisherman and the girl from the sea are clearly in an intimate moment and I'm let to realize this isn't even a rival moment like it would've been in some other game. This is it, you are irrelevant to the relationships these characters have.

I think maybe there was some really good power to that. The fact that it seems intentionally most of the romancible npcs are the last characters to arrive in town (two still have not moved in for me) but that you aren't in control of the relationship and can't even date till after the main storyline I think is actually a function that would benefit it's parent series. Imagine a Bokumono where you spent the majority of the time focusing on your farm, building the relationship you have with the town, and saving the day (the town, the harvest goddess, the farm etc) and then after all that some of the friends you met turned out to be people who might like you as more than that. I get why the formula is what it is, this series started in the 90s as a simple 'work hard and raise a family' type of life sim narrative and while it's been modernized that's still at its core but when we talk about franchise shake ups, I could see this being a really good one. I think to some extent people look at the marriage candidates as a check list goal rather than characters to bond with and sometimes that dating check mark even made me not really associate with other villagers outside of benefit. I can't say I'm still not doing that to some extent but the fact the character cutscenes are the progression checks has some satisfying merit to them. I can't ignore the village anymore and it's made me appreciate the characters beyond their benefit to my part in the story. How do I put this, I like the idea of being with Reina in PoOT because I like the idea of her with me and it also feels wrong that she's the only person in the whole town who lives in a basement and I could change that. I only ever saw Rick as an absolute dick as a kid because well he was but also out of some competition to win over Karen and I could never understand why she would go for him. In games like Animal Parade, I'm debating my spouse based off of what kids they'd have moreso in the way I'd miss out on content rather than think about how those characters work with each other or why they'd like each other at all. But hell, again I see this fucking probs a mermaid and fisherman and the way he's bothered she likes being with him and its like okay wow fuck, I'm feeling things for these baby faced sprites.

So like yeah, this was low key working up to talking about the big spoilery plot twist that they kill the local boy. He's literally every generic child boy character to exist in one of these games. He's excitable and adventurous and like, I acually hate kids y'know? But fuck if they didn't masterfully try to fuck with your heart to grow attached to him. Of course they use him for a bunch of like, early level questlines. He's basically a tutorial kid but then the town starts to expand and he gets some fellow snot nosed kids in town, a girl he likes and a 'in the shadow of my manly dad' best friend and y'know conveniently he's always there in storylines. His mother has a few about her restaurant and he's there fucking up making a sign because he's a hyper and excitable 9 year old or something. His sister is interested in medicines so one of those episodes revolves around him. Pretty much everything related to his Peter being sidekick to his grizzled shonen warrior dad has him chilling in the background as well or if there's a crowd around some newcomer of course he's apart of it. I applaud how well they probably actually fucked with the few who played this who then had to deal with a dead kid. Digs up a whole bunch reading The Bridge to Terabithia as a teen.

Like I said, I'd love to make it to that point if the spread of content last well. I don't think I'll play much after this weekend of the game if I don't but I'd say in the end $4 is worth the experience I got.

At first the town looks garishly barren. I still can't fully say it looks good either. A lot of areas start to get a couple of houses in it as it goes on and it really changes a lot though I feel the Town Square needed some much more in it. The map is confusing as hell and the fixed angles are nauseating at first but I've mostly worked out a rhythm. It was hard to stick through it this far if I'm honest but I think it was worth it.

#tomyo's backlog adventure #backlog #hometown story

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