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pleasanttaleswithkaityb · 7 months

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Welcome back to Pleasantview!

Beneath the tranquil surface of picket fences and suburban bliss lies a tapestry of intrigue and drama. The Caliente sisters bring a touch of spice to town, while the enigmatic disappearance of Bella Goth still haunts us. Love is in the air as Cassandra and Don prepare to tie the knot, and Dina and Mortimer take their relationship to the next level. The Burbs are back, seeking a fresh start, and the Ramirezes have just opened a furniture store that's all the rage. Young love blooms between Angela Pleasant and the notorious Dustin Broke, while an unexpected pregnancy shakes Brandi's world. Darren struggles with his art, Lilith seeks solace with Dirk, and Daniel and Mary-Sue Pleasant's picture-perfect life hides secrets. Dive into the drama of Pleasantview, where every family has a story to tell. Learn more about me and my blog under the cut!

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵

🌟 Hi, and Welcome to my version of Pleasantview! 🌟

🔗 The Save File: Big shoutout to @anotherplumbob for creating the amazing save file I use. Check it out here!

My Gameplay Style

Inspiration & Credit: A heartfelt thanks to @pleasantsims! Your creative flair and stories have reshaped my love for The Sims. I'm here to spread that joy and inspiration further. IYKYK!

Rotational Play: I switch households every in-game week, giving each household 7 days per season. I've disabled neighborhood progress to keep stories fresh and unexpected (though, oops, sometimes I slip up with the settings!).

Wants-Based Gameplay: My Sims' desires drive their stories. I aim to fulfill their wants, letting autonomy stir up some delightful chaos along the way. Remember ACR? Yes, those unpredictable moments are back!

The Sims 2 Vibes: I've modded my game to mirror the feel of The Sims 2, including aspirations, hobbies, and those quirky chance cards. Dice rolls and creative twists keep things interesting. All stories kick off post-scripted events. In my world, Don and Cassandra are married, Dina and Mortimer eloped, and Daniel... well, let's say he's had better days.

Resources: Check out these posts for more about how I set up my game to play rotationally and mod recs! [how I set up my in-game settings] [my mccc settings] [townie/NPC management] [mods rec list for whims and personality overhaul] [my tagging system / how to navigate my blog]Feel free to send me an ask or message if you have questions about my settings, notice that something clashes, or have your own resources or suggestions!

What to Expect from My Blog

✨Mature Content Alert: This blog is best suited for those 18+ as I am an adult.

✨Creator Credits: While I can't recall every mod, I'm always open to "Where Can I Find?" questions. Huge thanks to our creative community!

✨Sim Stories Galore: This space is dedicated to my Sim tales and related content.

✨Community Interaction: Got questions or thoughts about my game or Sims? Feel free to reach out! Your enjoyment of my stories makes this all worthwhile.

✨Sharing is Caring: Feel free to reblog and engage. Your support means the world!

✨Community Guidelines: Please keep interactions Sims-related. Off-topic outreach will be blocked. Y'all know exactly what bots I'm talking about -_-

✨No Pressure Zone: I won't adhere to a strict posting schedule to avoid burnout. Sometimes, even a Simmer needs a Sims break!

About Me

Sul, sul! I'm Kaity B (she/her), a 29-year-old Simmer from the USA. When not immersed in the Sims, you'll find me vibing to lofi, sipping coffee, exploring galaxies far, far away, sketching, rolling D&D dice, and juggling adulthood.

Proud parent of Nova (the best dog), Bellamy and Bella (my adorable cats), and a happily married life enthusiast. Keep an eye out for our Sim selves roaming around town!

Since 2004, I've been crafting tales with the Pleasantview crew. Now, in celebration of The Sims 2's 20th anniversary, I'm excited to share these stories with you.

Thank you for your likes and follows and for joining me on this journey.

Wishing you a pleasant day in your own Sim adventures, and welcome to the neighborhood!

#the sims 4 #ts4 #sims 4 #simblr #welcome to pleasantivew #new simblr #pleasantview beginning #sims 4 stories #sims 4 gameplay #sims 4 rotational play #sims 4 screenshots #pleasantview legacy #the sims 2 #ts2 to ts4 #sims 2 premades #pleasantview #strangetown #veronaville

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jones-friend · 3 months

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Wyrmspan! 🥳

Verdict: Wingspan’s scrappier cousin, for better and worse. You already know if you will enjoy Wyrmspan.

Most importantly: it IS meaningfully different from Wingspan in mechanics.

I love Wingspan. Genuinely one of the greats alongside Dominion and Terraforming Mars. It always feels like eating a well made meal. From the design to the aesthetic to the choices its an all-timer.

Wyrmspan is a delightful game I have a lot of good to say about it. I think Connie did a fantastic job designing this game. I want to make it clear going into this that when I critique a certain system its with love. Its not a laundry list of issues. I liked playing Wyrmspan a good deal and am excited to try it again soon.

In Wyrmspan players take on the roll of dracologists and look to create a dragon sanctuary by excavating caves and enticing dragons to stay. After four rounds we count points. Its similar to Wingspan with key differences in gameplay.

Action cubes are gone. They are now Player Markets. Each round players start with six silver coins. These coins are spent on actions, each action takes one coin. They replace cubes. This means you get six actions on each of the four rounds. It also means you can buy powerful cards by expending another silver AND some effects give you a silver coin and give you an additional action. It opens up the playspace for new options.

In Wyrmspan there are dragon cards and cave cards. To entice a dragon to stay you must excavate a space in one of the three rows. You spend a silver coin, and sometimes eggs, and place a cave, gaining its one time benefit (food, cards, guild points etc).

Once you’ve excavated you may spend a silver coin to entice a dragon, spend its cost, and place it. They can give effects for activating that row, have effects when played, give end of round buffs, or have end of game points. There’s also hatchlings: new dragons you “hatch” by spending eggs and milk. These hatchlings consume (cache) a resource to give you a different resource. On caching your third resource they reach adulthood with a one time bonus.

You can also spend a silver (plus eggs if you’ve already done so) to activate a row of caverns triggering all abilities with the walking meeple token. Each row leans towards a resource. The red caves help with food. Gold caves help with dragon cards. Purple caves help with cave cards. When you “explore” you walk your meeple along that row and gain effects of any abilities with that meeple icon, walking until you reach a stop sign.

This is the brown powers from Wingspan. In Wyrmspan dragons are set down left to right then activated left to right. You gain other effects as well, each row can earn a guild point and lay an egg. You also get endgame scoring bonuses from filling out each row. Red caches food, gold tucks cards, purple discards caves for eggs.

The last big change is the guild mechanic. There are four guilds that each prioritize a resource. Whenever you gain a guild point you gain the resource of the space you moved onto. For example the first space is always lay an egg. With the brown spaces offering more powerful plays like free dragons or high endgame points.

The guild mechanic really greases the wheels of the game. It kept me from spending an entire action on one draw. It gives consistent and variable value that gives the extra little bit you need to make your strat work. Its scrappy, but smart in that it prevents you from taking dud turns.

I also found the art to be a delight. Storybook art of dragons in a style similar to but differing from Wingspan. Charming entirely. I love them.

So Wyrmspan’s scrappiness is what sets it apart from Wingspan. It is where the game is strengthened and weakened. I like the guild points freeing up actions, I like actions as coins to be spent or gained, I like that excavating caves bounces you into playing dragons. I like it.

It also undoes some big brain choices by Wingspan. You no longer build left to right to activate right to left, you don’t have that nuance in playing cards down. You also don’t have the trade off of less actions with a bigger boardstate.

But none of that hindered the experience. Its just different. And different is good. I mean it when I say you already know if you want to play it. If Wingspan but dragons is appealing to you then you should buy it! It certainly justifies its own existence next to Wingspan on your shelf. You’ll have a lot of fun! If you don’t feel much one way or another the game won’t change your mind.

But I had a fantastic time and will be playing it again soon.

#Wyrmspan #wingspan #Board games #tabletop #dragon

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kazehita · 4 months

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what’s isat about/what kind of game is it? looks interesting :0

hi anon!! YOU ASKED FOR IT!

"Live with the ever-present burden of being trapped in a time loop only you can know about in this turn-based RPG. Create a better future for you and your friends. Find hope where there is none left. Pray to the stars and free yourself from time.

-- In Stars and Time's steam page

In Stars and Time is a FANTASTIC role-playing-game created by a solo indie developer. It centralizes around an absolute delight of a character and their efforts to escape a timeloop! But truly, it's contents are even more awesome than it's premise. This game has a similar feeling to Undertale or Omori, but is very distinct !!! In my opinion it's more intense than the former, but much easier to play than the latter (Omori's themes made the game too intense and visceral for me to finish, personally).

My favorite thing about ISAT is it's characters and story, with the would-building as a close 3rd! I have to be careful not to reveal too much, because it's really so charming to experience first-hand. ANOTHER favorite thing about ISAT is it's art direction! Don't be fooled by it's b/w style, it is chock full of attention to detail and delightful visual work. Ok though, I actually lied! My ABSOLUTE FAVORITE thing about ISAT is it's Storytelling through gameplay - you have to take a fair share of initiative to really dig into it all! The game doesn't really sit down and try to tell you everything in a writer-to-a-reader way; instead the world and characters feel like they're living and breathing and communicating and experiencing! And so, subsequently, you the player experience the world very naturally as well!

In addition to this, the tone and energy of the writing is something I found very unique! It is so worth giving it a go! Lastly, copying over something I've said before: I actually didn't realize the cast was LGBTQ+ before I started playing, so that was a fantastic surprise. This game is angled to talk about the queer experience while being interwoven with the themes and setting - and it was a great experience for me to see, in particular, aro and/or ace characters portrayed excellently - both thematically and realistically!!! (And i do mean this. To write the queerness into the themes/worldbulding is, really really cool!)

I'm currently working through my second playthrough of it! I'm trying to catch the few things I missed. In general the playtime of this game can vary greatly! Some places say it's got a 8-10 hour runtime, but some real goobers out there can clock 40 hours or more (because they are insane. I say this with an awed voice not a judgemental one).

I'm not actually sure how long my playthrough took! It's the price i pay for leaving the game running in the background....

#asks #Anonymous #isat game #isat review (kind of)#it's like critically acclaimed or whatever so you can check out reviews done by people more normal than me!#I'm not actually sure how to advertise it in a universally appealing way #so i wrote about what matters to me most!#kaze speaks

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sasaranurude · 11 days

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I'm a loser who both spends too much time playing gacha games and loves to hear myself talk, so here's another game review style post, this time covering my first day playing Break My Case. This time I'm not even being a little hater! I'm a lover! I'm cringe! I'm free! I love you Coly! I love you ikemen gacha games!!!!!!!

Break My Case is a new puzzle-music-adventure mobile game from Coly, the developers behind Mahoutsukai no Yakusoku and On Air. More relevant to BMC/BreMai is their game Stand My Heroes, with which it shares a writer, some gameplay elements, and of course a naming convention. Coly has developed a bit of a cult following for their unique status in the Japanese mobile gaming world: they're a company that was founded by women and hires women to make games for women. They put a lot of soul into their games. From the start, BMC is no different!

"Could you have pulled a clean version of this image from the internet so it didn't have all the game junk" no. it's my tumblr and you get my screenshots.

I (with help from friends) overviewed the initial Break My Case announcement back when it dropped. You can read that here! I said in that post that I thought a "dark rhythm game" would be a really cool direction for the game… and that's more or less what we got! GO ME!!!!!

First: the game's presentation is fantastic. Super slick graphical design and just amazing atmosphere. The sound design of this game is incredible. Genuinely. Really, really, good. All the music is amazing—I'm not knowledgeable enough to say anything other than "IT SLAPS!", but it totally does slap. The illustrations for the cards are all wonderfully atmospheric in and of themselves, and are just a delight to look at on the homescreen with its chill background music. Even just navigating menus is a sleek, seamless experience. The live2d is well-done, although it clashes a tad with the art style for a bit of an uncanny look at times.

The atmosphere! The atmospheeeeeeere!!!

Of course, the draw to this game is the characters and story, so let's jump into that. I'll admit right now that I read the story through a machine translation—I have aaaalmost enough Japanese knowledge to fill in the gaps, especially since the story is fully voiced, but I'm definitely not getting the full nuance of the story that someone fluent in Japanese is going to get. THAT SAID, after completing the prologue, I was definitely intrigued enough that I want to continue slogging through the MTL just to read more! There's a great setup, centered around the bar Aporia and its three modes—a daytime cafe, a nighttime members-only bar, and, secretly, a "fixer" service who'll help anyone with any problem. Our main character, a woman who was just forced to quit her job at a corrupt company, gets hired to replace Aporia's eccentric owner while he goes on a who-knows-how-long vacation. The owner also has the role of "tail"—as in, the tail a lizard sheds to avoid being eaten. If anything in the fixer service goes wrong, it's the owner who takes the fall and the blame. This hasn't come to mean much in practice yet in the (quite short) prologue, but it's a fascinating setup. The story promises to touch on themes of the threads that weave our lives together, how small meetings can lead to massive life changes, and whether any human being is truly replaceable, even in our modern corporate world where people are treated like cogs in a machine. According to a staff interview, there are a handful of references to Stand My Heroes in BreMai, but the games' settings aren't otherwise closely linked.

Rough translation in alt text. The Aporia manager Ai may be the most mysterious, intimidating character, but he also beefs with a parrot the first time you meet him, so...

All the characters are staff at Aporia with various unique roles and background. The prologue just gives you a little bit of each of them, but everyone does show up, and they all have interesting dynamics with each other already. Ai, the stern manager, has some history with the MC that he refuses to divulge, and goes so far as to force psychologist Riku to agree to not look into it. The range of relationships among the staff run the gamut from the calm and mature friendship between fortune teller Kiho and art teacher Kyoya, to the unfaltering dedication of Yu to his ex-mafioso savior Tomose, to the ridiculous Takeru and Soyogu who spend their first appearance waking up after having gotten black-out drunk together the night before. My favorite dynamic of all so far is that of Kou and Mao—Kou is a playboy who insists he's not a playboy, and is introduced evading a woman by… asking the icy Mao to pretend to be his boyfriend so that she thinks he's taken and gay and leaves him alone. Which Mao exasperatedly agrees to, telling Kou that he's used up his allotment for this month which ohmygod how often does Kou do this. Kou if you're asking this guy to pretend to be your gay lover so often he gives you a monthly limit I think you might just have to admit you want him to actually be your gay lover, Kou, oh my god—

Rough TL in alt text. Kou is letting the implication do all the heavy lifting here. He technically never said he was dating Mao. Technically.

youtube

On to the gameplay. There's gameplay! Unique gameplay! Good unique gameplay! Oh my god, uncharted joseimuke territory! The main gameplay mode is a match-3 puzzle game with rhythm elements. As in other rhythm games, each song in the game is its own level, more or less. (Each character has two unique songs, and three songs shared with the other members of their unit.) You set up a team with cards you've collected from the gacha, which determine your power level and special skills. The "leader" of the team has to be the character whose level you've selected. The puzzle gameplay is a tile-swapping match 3—think bejeweled or candy crush—but the tiles you've matched are only cleared once a bar sliding across the screen hits them, clearing them in tune with the song. Everything cleared in a single swipe of the bar ups the combo counter. There's also a life system, where if the bar slides across the screen without clearing a single match, you lose a life… But the bar moves pretty slow. You're not likely to game over or even lose a single life any time soon. There are more difficult versions of the levels I've yet to unlock, so I'm sure the life meter becomes relevant then. There's also "auto" and "loop" features if you want to grind a level over and over for exp and items, but, of course, the computer can't score as high as you playing it yourself.

And, really, it's fun to play, so why would you want to!? The sound of matches clearing with the music is so satisfying and really makes you want to combo as high as possible. Once you've matched some tiles, you can't move them again, nor use them in a second match (eg, in a cross shape), so if you want to maximize your combo and make as many matches as possible with what's on the board, you have to think ahead about which matches you're going to make. The bar slowly crossing the screen adds a visual timed element that gives some urgency to putting all the matches together. It definitely feels like a game you can pick up an instinct for over time, which is super fun.

All in all, a really solid, enjoyable little puzzle game. It would be fun to play even without the promise of anime boys. Stand My Heroes is also a match-3, for the record, which is what really cements the two games as being part of the same series.

Admittedly, the anime boy staring at you while you play musical candy crush is a little disconcerting.

The second gameplay mode is "Snap'n Spin", a… gameplay-lite mode that just puts chibi characters in random strange situations and lets you take pictures of them. The mode is explained to be a video game within the world of BreMai, so it's not even trying to be realistic or relevant to anything else in the game. Once you take your pokemon snaps of the boys, they get a fun little caption. You can save up to 40 pictures in your album. Other than being cute, the main way this mode interfaces with the rest of the game is that it's the primary way to unlock card stories for the cards you pulled in gacha.

This gameplay mode is... cute? I guess? It being so disconnected from the style and aesthetics of the entire rest of the game felt weird. The chibis are adorable, so it has that going for it. And I do like some of the captions you get on the photos afterwards. My favorite were the scenes you catch of a character drinking, and then the caption reveals their current favorite drink. That's a delightful detail for a game set in a bar. Mostly, though, this mode left me wondering "why?" ...And I imagine the answer is something like "because merchandisable chibi characters are a requirement for joseimuke games." This mode could've been anything so long as these cute, starry little dudes were in it.

Urara here hated the drink and the caption revealed that, lately, his favorite thing is sparkling water. He's the youngest character in the cast, so I guess he hasn't grown into booze yet...

One last feature I want to mention is the jukebox. Like many games, BreMai has a music player that lets you listen to tracks from the game… But its music player is, genuinely, a fully-featured music player app with shuffle, repeat, lyric displays, and even background play that works when you're in another app or your phone is off. What! Wild! When I first learned a few days ago that BreMai had a built-in player for its BGM tracks, my first thought was "Well, what's stopping someone from downloading the game just to use the music player and never spending a cent on it? Wouldn't you rather have the songs on spotify so you at least get a pittance of ad revenue, in that case? It's more than nothing."

But having played the game now, I see what they did to prevent that, lol. You don't unlock the songs in the jukebox until you get an SS score on the song's level. Which, I mean, that's normal rhythm game stuff, of course. Can't fault that decision. But, as in other gacha rhythm games, your score in a level depends on the power of your team of cards, and the cards you get from the initial handful of pulls aren't gonna get you anywhere near an SS score without significant investment. So you're either buying in-game currency to buy upgrade items, more gacha pulls, or both. Of course, you can also put a bunch of time into grinding for upgrade items—they drop from levels. Gacha currency is harder to come by. So you're not getting songs in the player without actually playing the game lmfao. The character solo songs in particular (the ones with vocals rather than just instrumentals) also require you to build up rapport with that character—the game calls it "Nice". You build up Nice with them by playing their other songs and using their cards in levels. It takes 1000 Nice on a character to unlock their song. In my first day of playing, I was able to get one character to about 250 Nice, another to 200, and a handful more with a few points, so it builds at an okay pace. There's ways to pay to speed up the grinding for Nice and for upgrade items with things like level skip tickets. So, basically: you're not getting that music player to a useful state without investing either money or time, lmao. Is paying-or-grinding to get cool music you can listen to while not playing the game more "worth it" than the usual freemium game goals of better units, new in-game outfits, or prettier card illustrations? ...Honestly, maybe it is? It's novel, at least.

All gacha rhythm games have the same card select screen, don't they. These were my cards' levels after my first day of play, and you can see they didn't quite reach a suggested score of "A", much less the maximum "SS".

But I do want to stress, the monetization is, for the most part, pretty easy to ignore. Nothing in-your-face. The button to go to the shop screen is a different color, but it's not flashing with an eternal indicator, it's not popping up at every second, it's just sitting there alongside all the other menu buttons. The game isn't shoving timers in your face at all times—there's a stamina meter, which is mildly annoying, but you get ten plays when it's full, and if you're just playing casually you're probably not going to want to play the puzzle game over and over enough to fully deplete that. I know the bar is on the damn floor here but Tokyo Debunker seriously made me realize how bad it can be with mobile game monetization. BreMai is freemium, yeah, but as far as dark patterns go, it's not egregiously bad.

So, the verdict: if you're a joseimuke game fan and aren't afraid to play a game that probably won't get an English port and doesn't even have a fan translation yet (which I realize is already counting out 99.99% of people), definitely give this one a try. See if you like the gameplay—it really is worth trying—and do check out the story if you've got the ability. Or just look at the pretty anime boys.

#suchobabbles #break my case #do you know how self-conscious i feel posting this. its actually so bad #so many feelings like 'did you seriously just write 2k words about a gacha game you played for a single day'#'why are you trying to pretend to be a game reviewer you have no qualifications and nobody cares about your opinions'#'stop roleplaying like youre a columnist blogger in the 2010s youre literally a tumblr nobody'#but im fighting the demons and im posting this anyways

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alexissara · 11 months

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Upcoming Sapphic Games Goddess List

Hey, well to my check in with upcoming sapphic games, this list cover every single game I saw in my research that is in active development that showed signs of sapphic content. This list because of time of writing potentially may contain a game or two that was released or just by the time of you reading this later but I am doing my best while looking at everything I can to figure out where gay may be. Games on this list are filled with my opinions and don't represent the companies opinions and I wasn't paid or anything to put any games on this list. This post is split into 5 categories Non Visual Novel, Narrative Games, Make Your Own Gay, A Gay Exists and Potentially Gay. So feel free to skim across sections.

Non VN

These are games that are not visual novels that are centered on an explicitly sapphic character. This character's sole romantic interest does not need to be sapphic but the sapphic desires have to be seen as a core part of the character or game.

Cycle

All Lana wants is to figure out the mystery behind her mother’s death. She embarks in a Megaman Zero inspired journey into a strange tower to get her answers. Lana has a girlfriend who is a core part of the story and is prominently shown in the trailers, art and stuff. I believe I even saw her fighting side by side with her girlfriend in a boss battle in the latest trailer.

Contains: Sapphic Lead, Her Girlfriend

Thirsty Suitors

Enter the world of a Southeast Asian bisexual disatar Jala in one of the most stylish games I’ve ever played [the demo of]. It blends some fun skateboarding, with a really neat turned based RPG, and apparently even a cooking mini game into one complete package. The RPG combat is fun, funny and delightful. The story hinges on two romantic relationships that have broken down for Jala, both of whom are women, one she recently broke up with that leads her to go back to her home town and the relationship she fucked up big time in her home down with her former best friend. She battles against her not so evil exes in these RPG style mind palace fights where they resolve their feelings current and former and come to some kind of resolution.

Contains: Bisexual Lead, at least two ex girlfriends

Boss Game [PC Release]

This game is already out but it has a PC release coming up and that’s amazing and great and opens the game up to more people. A pair of Girlfriends need cash and so they take gig work hunting demons but as they take the jobs they start to figure out what’s really going on and to do the right thing.

Contains: Cis Lesbian [lead], Trans Lesbian [lead], A non binary character, a bisexual character

Kitsune Tail

A mario inspired adventure about a little gay fox girl trying to save her crush from also a cute villain she might be into. It’s a super adorable platformer with a very light hearted tone invoking classic games with a modern queer twist.

Contains: Sapphic Lead, Sapphic VIllain, Sapphic Damsel

Love’s Crescendo

This is a Rhythm game visual novel hybrid about a couple of lesbians who are both doing music in their lives at this pivotal point. Valerie and Cadence complete each other, musically. This romantic musical adventure gives a lot of sweet and cute moment for these two and nice musical gameplay.

Contains: Two Lesbian of color Leads

Narrative Games

These are Visual Novels and similar games where the gameplay is mostly reading a story, maybe making choices along the way or playing a few mini games but the mini games do not comprise the core gameplay loop of the story.

Love In A Bottle

Ankora is a lesbian love demon looking for love, in a visual novel point in click adventure she can choose to go after four different ladies. This game boasts a bit of dress up on on Ankora you can unlock while playing the game. It’s a rare dating sim where everyone is a clear adult and everyone is another kind of fantastic creature.

Contains: Let’s Go Lesbians, Let’s Go

Pen Pal Princess: A Queer Romcom Visual Novel

You play as a queer princess looking to make her own love story. This is a game about online dating in a modern fantasy setting, it’s a cute and sweet concept and feels so relevant in a world where so many queer people date long distance.

Contains: Sapphic Lead, some amount of sapphic romance options

Flower Knight Hú Dié

A solar punk RPG with a lesbian main character, Hú Dié. After the Flower Knights failed her most important friend she wanted nothing to do with them but she finds herself thrown into a situation dealing with the monsters and more that infest the world.

Contains: Lesbian Lead, Sapphic Romantic Interest

High Elo GIrls

You play as a black college dropout who gets drafted into an all women esports team. You can choose if she is Top, Jungle, Mid, DPS, or Support and the kind of relationship she has with each woman. I am not currently aware if polyamory is an option but there is some degree of customization to the relationships.

Contains: Sapphic Lead, 5 women to romance including at least 1 trans woman.

Hardcoded

You're a sexy trans girl android and you are gonna have sex with some people. There is mysterious in this cyberpunk world you gotta solve and the best solution for a service android like you is fucking your way to the top. You explore, make out with hot women, and do your thing.

Contains: Lesbian lead, Big old lesbian cast [maybe they have some other sexualities and genders]

Make Your Own Gay

This category goes over games that queerness is an option but I believe it is possible for a heterosexual who doesn’t like gay people to play the game and just kinda, miss the queerness. This is typically games where you choose to ship characters together, normally your avatar character. This places games under a pretty high bar because straight people are not very smart on the whole and are really bad at reading media critically or engaging it. For me a lot of these games are obviously queer in some way and also these games are not out, so I have no way of knowing for sure. This placement is not an insult and I actually expect several of the games in this part of the list to be some of my favorite games.

Fields Of Mistria

In this game, you start a farm in a new town, connect with local villagers learning their stories and potentially even romancing some of them, your gender does not matter. Enjoy a cozy environment of lovely people and enjoy a wonderful farming adventure. Explore dungeons, fight monsters, and more. Customize your character with a selection of appearances and customize your home and make it feel like it’s truly your own.

The games special thing is an amazing 90s anime aesthetic. It’s magic for farming system also seems particularly streamlined.

Contains: Women, Men and Non Binary characters you can romance. Customizable character.

Moonstone Island

This games special thing that it has monster tamer with a really fun deck building element for your attacks.

Contains: Women, Men and Non Binary characters you can romance. Character who you can just assume is whatever gender, they are never gendered.

OVA Magica

This games special thing is that it’s kinda like pokemon and has cute little slimes.

Contains: Some women you can romance Customizable characters.

Story Of Seasons: A Wonderful Life

In this game, you start a farm in a new town, connect with local villagers learning their stories and potentially even romancing some of them, your gender does not matter. Enjoy a cozy environment of lovely people and enjoy a wonderful farming adventure. Customize your character with a selection of pronouns and appearances [She/He/They] and customize your home and make it feel like it’s truly your own.

This games special thing is that you grow old and die and get to see your kid grow up.

Contains: Women and men you can romance. Customizable character including three sets of pronouns.

Fae Farm

In this game, you start a farm in a new town, connect with local villagers learning their stories and potentially even romancing some of them, your gender does not matter. Enjoy a cozy environment of lovely people and enjoy a wonderful farming adventure. Explore dungeons, fight monsters, and more. Customize your character with a selection of pronouns and appearances [She/He/They] and customize your home and make it feel like it’s truly your own.

This games special thing is that is has online multiplayer and fairy shit.

Contains: Some Women you can romance. Customizable character including three sets of pronouns.

Lakeburg Legacies

A city, kingdom, town, world building type game where the game centers around pairing the people you put into your town, having them work jobs and create resources and them creating babies. You can decide what characters you want to move into your town and pair them with your gender of choice so you can filter out men totally if you don’t wanna see them [except you can’t pick babies genders]. It doesn't’ appear to have any trans stuff going on and the characters are like randomly generated silly things with a few traits. Still it’s a fun type of this game and I could see myself enjoying a few loops of it.

Contains: The ability to pair people up with the gender of your choice. You can’t control the gender of their babies.

Our Life: Now and Forever

This is a truly deeply in depth life sim that trades the depth of romantic options opting for two to give you a truly ridiculous amount of customization about yourself from growing up and transitioning changing your pronouns to altering all sorts of things about yourself and relationships. This is a game about living your life from childhood to adulthood together with someone.

Contains: Genderfluid and Lady Romantic lead, your able to pick your characters pronouns, transition them during the course of the story, and more. Customizable kind of relationship dynamic from love at first sight to slow burn.

The Office Type

What if office stuff was hot, you can date that hot office stuff. It’s a dating sim where you can pick your pronouns and stuff and date all sorts of office themed hotties.

Contains: Choose your own romances and choose the genders of all the options in the game between Lady, Guy and non binary.

Imperial Grace

A diplomacy and romance visual novel where you make choices for your kingdom and choose who you would like to smooch.

Contains: Contains Customizable Queen, 1 lady you can romance, has a detailed list of triggers for players to be aware of what their getting into.

Solace State

A cyberpunk story about building a revolutionary movement as Chole. YOu build relationships with people and communities. Chole can hack people’s brains and get information on their thoughts. A moral system that seems to be based around your choices in not a binary way but a, how do you evaluate the ethics of doing the actions your doing to make the world better. You can make the world worse or better in the game.

Contains: 1 Lady you can romance

Call Me Under

An Eldritch Horror romance where you can pick between three sets of pronouns He/She/They and romance a collection of hotties in this 50s inspired horror world while trying to figure out about the missing people in town and the other horrors brimming of late. You can be half siren or a human depending on that things in the story will change.

Contains: Several Women and Non Binary romantic options, a Sapphic Polyamarous route, character who can pick between human and half siren and She/he/they pronouns.

Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical

A muse has died and your character got her power, now the worlds a musical and you gotta solve her murder otherwise you're gonna be the one who pays for her getting killed. It’s a unique musical visual novel with a big cast of big names.

Contains: Woman Lead, two romacable women [? not confirmed], main character is probably canon bisexual but couldn't confirm in demo so here for now [but probably actually a narrative game].

Spirit Swap

Spirits are all around us and matching 3 pops them. In this match three game you play as Samara and look for love while trying to fix the issue with the spirits in town to utterly amazing low-fi tracks. For people looking to take a break from the story of the game you can also enjoy several other mods including playing against other players.

Contains: Multiple Romantic options of varying gender including sapphic ones. Main character is probably canon bisexual but in the demo her attraction to men was a lot clearer to me then her attraction to women and I think a straight person might not catch she is gay.

Love Shore

A true cyberpunk adventure where you pick between one of two protagonists. For our purposes your Farah. This game is probably not properly a make your own gay but your not gonna get any sapphic content in one route and I think you can technically avoid it. Regardless, this game boasts a really awesome weaving plot and some sexy horric monsters you might be able to kiss too. There is some hidden stat elements which is a neat part of the game and it overall seems really cool.

Contains: Your selection of one of two protagonists, one of whom is a woman and queer. You got to choose her to get to the sapphic stuff with at least three romance options that are ladies.

Gales of Nayeli

This game is still really early in development as far as I know so it’s hard to say how much will remain consistent but I was told directly that Nayeli and Keri could have a romance and Nayeli is the title character of the game so the main character of the story is sapphic to some extent [they also assured me it wouldn’t be the only sapphic pairing in the game]. I simply cannot judge if that is something we see in the story because we’ve not got that kind of trailer yet. There is also an avatar, one we can assume can have romances, you can pick their pronouns but not edit their appearance. This looks like a really fun strategy RPG in the vein of Fire Emblem, with grid based tactics and if your into that and want some sapphic stuff, this is one to keep an eye on.

Contains: Sapphic pairings between party members, self insert character who you can choose the pronouns of but not edit the appearances.

A Gay Exists

This Category is for games with ensemble casts, in which a sapphic character might exist in the game, be playable, be unavoidable but they are also not the focal point of the story but instead just a small part of the story. A gay does exist in this game they in theory could even be in the lead but you might not know it like a game starring Wonder Woman or Harley Quinn where in canon they might be bisexual but the game simply might avoid ever stating it.

Granblue Fantasy Relink

Set sails through the sky in a high flying action RPG with a wide cast of characters from the popular gacha series Granblue Fantasy. It features the canon bisexual icon Rossetta as a playable party member seemingly from the start of the game.

Contains: At least one playable canon bisexual. Player insert who can change genders on the fly. One playable subtextual sapphic knight.

Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising

Bullshit could or could not be blazing in this Arcsystem Works fighting game follow up expanding the cast of Granblue Fantasy Versus and the general contents of the game. We don’t know the full roster but the roster of all the last game is included giving us for sure several pieces of representation.

Contains: Two Trans women, one canon lesbian, several more subtext sapphics.

Potentially Gay

These are upcoming games I think probably will be sapphic to at least some extent in any of the above categories. Simply put, unlike the one’s above, I Am not confident enough to include them in the lists above because we simply haven’t seen any evidence to show that sapphic stuff exists. At least not in any trailer, demo, interview, or whatever that I researched when putting together this already very long list, so please be easy on me.

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood is a card creating, fortune telling, narrative game about revenge, isolation, and more. You play as Fortuna, a witch who has been put into isolation without her magic or the ability to see anyone else by her Coven’s leader. She calls on a mystical being and makes a pact so she can get her revenge. During the game you can express romantic, sexual, etc desires and it seems like you’ll be able to craft some relationships as well as the cards.

Rune Factory 6 and Rune Factory Dragon

In these games you’ll probably be able to pick your pronouns, romance people regardless of gender, and use magic to enhance your farming. Both will likely contain dungeons with simple combat and a light action RPG story to play. You probably can get married and have kids, you maybe won’t be able to customize your character beyond picking gender but you probably will be able to customize your house.

Fantasy Life I: The Girl Who Steals Time

The first fantasy life made it where you could only be straight but at this point, Fantasy Life would be the last remaining life sim series to not let you be gay unless they totally cut out romance. I think literally the last life sim with romance to not let you be gay was like Rune Factory 4, a 3DS game. This game isn’t a farming game but it stands out next to the sims and other similar games as well.

Hades 2

The first one had a bi guy lead, I assume this time you’ll be a bi girl.

Dark Deity 2

The first one had an gays, I assume this one will have an gays as well, hopefully more, I wasn’t totally in love with how they did supports in Dark Deity 1.

Beastieball

Really this one is just vibes based, the art style says “queer” to me. Also your little beasties can start romances with each other and tehy don’t have genders but I bet you could do some making your own gay shipping with your little pokemon.

En Garde!

The vibe of the main protagonist is serving lesbian. Please Devs at Fireplace games, tell me she kisses a woman, even in private, I won’t tell anyone if I am not allowed too, the game looks fun and I just want her to kiss a girl.

--- That is all for now but if you enjoyed me doing all this research and putting it together in a really nice place for y’all then consider backing me on Patreon or Ko-fi or recommending me for work,I got my card on my page with professional contact info. Other than that you can always just follow me, reblog, share on whatever other social media sites are your poison. If you know any other sapphic games that are not yet released PLEASE let me know, want to know them all and I’m going to keep a new list after this article goes up for a few months from now when a lot more of these games are out or maybe next year around not E3 time again.

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jaakap · 12 days

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Stardew Vally

Introduction

Stardew Valley, developed by ConcernedApe (Eric Barone), is a delightful farming simulation game that invites players to escape the hustle and bustle of modern life and embrace the simple pleasures of rural living. Whether you’re tending to crops, raising animals, or exploring the mines, there’s something enchanting about this pixelated world.

Gameplay and Mechanics

Farming and Community Building

At its core, Stardew Valley is about rejuvenating a neglected farm. You’ll plant seeds, water crops, and harvest your bounty. The seasons change, affecting what you can grow. As you expand your farm, you’ll build barns, coops, and other structures. The sense of progression is satisfying, and the daily routines become oddly comforting.

Social Interaction

The heart of the game lies in building relationships with the townspeople. Each character has their own backstory, likes, and dislikes. Completing quests, giving gifts, and attending festivals deepen your connections. Whether you’re romancing a fellow farmer or befriending the local blacksmith, these interactions add warmth to the game.

Exploration and Adventure

Beyond the farm, there’s a whole valley to explore. The mysterious mine beckons, filled with monsters, ores, and secrets. Combat is simple but engaging. Fishing, foraging, and spelunking provide variety. And don’t forget the seasonal events—the Egg Festival, Luau, and Stardew Valley Fair—where the community comes together.

Art Style and Music

The retro-inspired pixel art is charming. The landscapes change with the seasons, from snowy winters to vibrant springs. The soundtrack, composed by ConcernedApe himself, is soothing and memorable. Each track captures the mood perfectly, whether you’re strolling through the forest or tending to your crops.

Themes and Relaxation

Stardew Valley celebrates the joy of slowing down. It’s a game where time passes gently, and there’s no rush. The cyclical nature of seasons mirrors life’s rhythms. Amidst the chores and responsibilities, you’ll find moments of serenity—a sunrise over the ocean, a cozy evening by the fireplace.

Conclusion

In a world filled with high-octane action and complex narratives, Stardew Valley stands as a tranquil oasis. It’s a game that encourages you to breathe, connect with nature, and appreciate the little things. Whether you’re a seasoned farmer or a greenhorn, this pixelated paradise awaits.

#stardew valley #stardew farmer #stardew fanart

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miyakuli · 6 months

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Pentiment

The tribunal of Penitence

Pentiment is a narrative point & click game that plunges you into the Middle Ages in the small village of Tassing in the Bavarian Alps. Andreas Maler, a master artist visiting the village to finalize his masterpiece, finds himself embroiled in a murder case coupled with an emerging rift between the peasant population and the neighboring abbey. Will he be able to solve this enigma, or will he stir up even more tension? Our actions and choices will affect Tassing's fate.

❤ A fascinating and entertaining cultural experience, very well documented, and I think it will satisfy history buffs and novices alike (although you don't have to be allergic to reading). ❤ An absolutely charming and well-thought-out art direction; the mix of 2D and illuminated-style drawings works perfectly and fits the medieval atmosphere very well, and I loved that each dialogue bubble had a different type of script (handwritten, printed etc.) or even spelling mistakes to differentiate the characters and their status. I also found the animation very fluid and expressive. OH AND YOU CAN PET CATS AND DOGS BTW

❤ A well-written story spanning several generations, giving us time to get to know the village and its residents, to become attached to them and thus to truly fear for their well-being. The emotional moments then work very well, reinforced by the simple but impactful staging. ❤ Good replayability; as Andreas is limited in time for his investigation, we can't explore all the scenarios in one game. Also, our choices and affinities with the characters can have an impact on their destiny.

+/- The sound and musical ambience is very high quality; the sound effects in each place are immersive and the music is absolutely magnificent, juggling Gregorian chants and medieval instrumental music…on the other hand, they are all too rare, which can leave a certain emptiness. Also, the credits are silent, as I was waiting for one last musical moment before leaving the past. +/- Occasional mini-games enrich the gameplay. On the other hand, the investigation part is very poor in terms of puzzles.

✖ Story acts a little uneven in terms of pace. Also, the resolution at the end of Act 3 is delivered a little abruptly, not to mention frustratingly (can't say why to not spoil). ✖ The menu with the diary, glossary etc… is a bit cluttered for my taste and not very practical to consult. ✖ There's a lot of back-and-forth, and every time you change location, there's a page-turning transition - delightful at first, but after several hours of gameplay, it becomes downright tedious.

Pentiment is a game that doesn't shine for its simplistic, redundant gameplay, but it does make you discover a part of history in 16th-century Europe in an entertaining way, through an intriguing scenario and impeccable audiovisual immersion. In a way, it reminded me of The Pillars of the Earth, which I also recommend if you like narrative and interactive games set in medieval times. A quality trip into the past.

youtube

➡ My Steam page

#pentiment #I loooooooooooove the art of this game!!!! and all the references <333 #really a nice discover!! if you love narrative and medieval it's totally for you!#personal #Lola plays games

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itisthefunpolice · 4 months

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Book of Travels by Might and Delight

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You may notice I do not really post fandom content on this blog. This is not due to it "conflicting with the theme of my blog" but because I am not genuinely a fan or member of a fandom for any of the media I consume. I have never really understood fans or fandom, I've liked pieces of media, maybe even loved them, but I did not have the long term sustained passion that fans have nor the desire to expand the enjoyment of that media to other parts of my life like fandoms do.

I understand now though. Book of Travels is something I am passionate about, something I think about outside of my time playing the game or even when I don't feel like playing the game, it inspires me and I want that inspiration to be something I carry with me into my real every day life.

Book of Travels has, by sheer coincidence, much in common with my own passion projects and the values and aesthetics that shape them, except, while my passion projects are often just fuzzy imaginings that I loosely describe to others or occasionally scribble down, Book of Travels is very real and very much a realized concept, even in its current form.

While I certainly haven't consumed all of the content Book of Travels currently has to offer and Might and Delight put out new content all the time, I will try to describe my experience with Book of Travels and why I am so passionate about it so hopefully others will appreciate it and support it.

Book of Travels is a tiny multiplayer online role playing game (TMORPG) with a focus on exploration, lore, and cooperation rather than the traditional linear quests, experience grinding, and combat.

The game starts with character customization that focuses on the substance of who your character is as a person, setting up the framework of how you move through the world and letting you fill out the rest of the details to make someone that feels deeper than just a character class or stat sheet. You are then released into the world of The Braided Shore, where Book of Travels takes place.

The Braided Shore feels like a real location, full of history and culture that you discover organically with time as you trek across it, via the environment, the locals, and items you acquire.

The people of The Braided Shore feel like genuine members of this society with their own lives, goals, and personalities that exist outside of your interactions with them.

The immersion of the game is also enhanced via a real time day night cycle and a multitude of events that cycle depending on the day of the week, the time of day, and region you are currently in, making you feel as if the world exists outside of your character and changes with the passage of time.

The gameplay itself encourages this as well as you engage with the game as if you are genuinely a traveler in foreign lands, getting advice and directions from locals that you have to write down in your journal, being unfamiliar with certain aspects of the language or culture until you gain enough context or are educated by someone else, and using a map that only marks major roads and landmarks that you can add notes to as you explore.

In a media market saturated with western European style sword and sorcery fantasy, with the few alternatives tending to be different regional aesthetics, like eastern Asian style, on top of the same template, Book of Travels is something that feels, and as far as I can tell is, completely unique in almost every aspect.

Book of Travels is a passion project and it shows, it is not a gimmick, it is not trying to imitate, it is not trying to mock or spite, it exists as its own entity and is conceptualized as such. Everything from the art style to the music reinforces the atmosphere of the world, giving it a strong sense of identity, and while one can see some of the real world cultures and ideas that may have inspired some of these things, none of them feel derivative.

The world and its culture feel reflective of certain values while still feeling grounded and nuanced, lacking a need to preach to its players or hit them over the head while avoiding over complicating or convoluting itself, and that's something I greatly appreciate as I agree with a lot of the messaging in this game and how its reflected through how the game functions rather than being hand fed to the audience or made obtuse.

There is clearly a desire to create a game that encourages thoughtfulness and cooperation but that doesn't punish you for playing in your own way. Allowing you to succeed in this world no matter your desired play-style without it feeling cheap, unchallenging, or thin.

Book of Travels doesn't feel like an aesthetic, though it is full to bursting with aesthetic appeal. It feels like it has depth and clarity and a carefully hand crafted quality that is rare in our fast paced consumption focused world. It is that depth and quality which makes me appreciate this world so much and make me so willing to engage with it, fighting the desire to absorb as much of it as possible so I can discover and experience it organically at my own pace.

I haven't talked much about the actual content of the game as I feel so much of the enjoyment of this game is based on experiencing it for yourself, seeing all of it with a fresh and open mind.

I sincerely hope some of what I have shared here encourages others to purchase this game and support it, regardless of whether you just enjoy it casually or become a fan.

If you do end up wanting to play the game or share your enjoyment of it, feel free to reach out to me. I'd love to see more people experiencing it for the first time and interacting with it in general.

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dizzygradespells · 8 months

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VIDEOVERSE Accessibility Review

VIDEOVERSE by Kinmoku is a real blast from the past. Anyone who was in the online forum community from the late 90's to the early 2000's will instantly recognize this particular era of the internet. Even those of us who weren't, like myself, can still find a lot of love and nostalgia. The game is filled to the brim with references and doggo cameos! Like many visual novels, the gameplay is simplistic and easy to understand. It tells a story about online communities, both the good and the bad. The main art style looks like old-school internet pages with a simple and clean UI. Not only that, it features some fantastic animated cutscenes for a fake rpg game and animation for online video chat segments! Clearly, this is a game made with love. When it comes to accessibility, VIDEOVERSE hits the three single most important accessible features a game in this genre requires: easy-to-see visuals (high contrast between backgrounds and text), a screen reader, and the ability to change to a dyslexic-friendly font. It also has a full content warning list. The list shows every applicable content warning via broad label, but you can click on each warning to see details. These details do contain spoilers, but it's nice to see that it lets you pick.

That's the key to accessibility: the more options you have, the more accessible it is.

VIDEOVERSE's accessibility doesn't end there. The game offers subtitles for sound effects, separate volume controls (sound, music, and voice), and the ability to type your replies instead of selecting them from a list. It even gives you several different "themes" from the start so that you can pick and choose which visuals are best for you. VIDEOVERSE isn't perfect though. It falls short in a few areas. The biggest issue is with flashing graphics. One of the fake internet ads is a fairly large box that flashes every time it runs. There's no way to turn this off or avoid the ad. It's rng if the ad will pop up. But seeing as there are only a handful of these fake internet ads for the game to choose from, you WILL see it. The desk pause screen also has a subtler flash in the background, but it's large enough that it bothered me. Finally, the ending segment has a full-screen glitch effect that includes flashing. It's a shame I can't turn these off or select altered versions of the effects. Other accessibility features I'd like to see is the ability to make a custom theme from the get go. It doesn't need to be anything in-depth, but the ability to choose which background and text colors work best for the player would be golden. I'd love to see a UI adjuster as well. Though the font is by no means small, some people have smaller screens or struggle to see and require larger fonts. Another place VIDEOVERSE falls short is controls. While the controls are simple and it does have two different options for controls, I'd like to see custom keybinding. This way players can adjust as needed to specialty controllers or simply more comfortable mapping. At the end of the day, I've enjoyed my time with VIDEOVERSE. It's a cute, well-crafted game that clearly had a lot of love put into it. If you're a fan of retro games and visual novels, this one will be a delight. The accessibility options are a great start, though I'd like to see a couple extra features or some currently implemented options in a more in-depth way.

VIDEOVERSE is available on Steam and Itch.io for PC, Mac, and Linux. It currently costs $12.99, €12,79, and £10.99. Thank you, Kinmoku for providing me with a review copy!

#accessibility #accessible game review #accessible gaming #videoverse #indie games #game review #gaming #visual novel

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tanadrin · 1 year

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okay, final thoughts on beating inquisition. good stuff first:

the game is of course very beautiful. it is realistic without being drab, full of color, and very good at atmospheric environments and dungeons. the incidental art--the character tarot cards in particular--also have a very distinct and delightful style.

the sound design is also terrific, and that's something i usually never notice. the music is great, too.

the characters are all great. special mentions to Ms.-Killing-For-Jesus-Or-Possibly-Just-For-Fun, Captain-Buzzkill-The-Lady-Cop, The Ancient Furry Who Is Also an Elven Fascist, Mr.-Gets-An-Erection-Every-Time-We-Fight-a-Dragon, and the Necromancer with Daddy Issues. all of them would be exhausting as hell in real life.

many of the mechanics, like recruiting agents, the war table, and the way skyhold changes over time do make you feel like you’re building up a big organization, and that’s quite fun. it’s a pity it mostly goes to waste when it comes to the actual plot.

the game develops the backstory to the setting in tantalizing ways. the plot in some ways feels like it’s obviously setting up a sequel, but it manages to do so without feeling incomplete. the bioware method of storytelling and incorporating player choice is fraught in a lot of ways, just because of the limits of what video game designers can reasonably do with those choices, but overall i think dragon age as a franchise and DA:I handle those limitations well.

the meh stuff:

not wholly bioware's fault, but the fact that the only mod manager for DA:I is extremely hit-or-miss seems to be down to the fact that an awkward rube goldberg machine of software must kick into gear for da:i to start. if you are going to force me to use your storefront rather than selling me a standalone piece of software, *it had better run flawlessly.* as it is, i cannot recommend buying any game that isn't available solely through steam. (DA:I wasn't available on Steam when I originally bought it; it seems to be again, but if it's like DA2, you still have to install EA Desktop and run it every time you play). unfortunately, mods are a must for reasons i covered elsewhere. they help sidestep some of the boring padding, like idle mechanics and bad map design. otherwise, though, i think moddability in an RPG like this is a strength: one reason Skyrim has had such a long afterlife is that Bethesda has made modding relatively easy, allowing people to customize and embellish their gameplay experience in countless ways (only some of which involve giving the Dragonborn a monster hog).

shallower ability trees and thus less interesting combat. give me more tools, not less!

took away attribute customization for no good reason. let me minmax, dammit!

in general, despite the crafting system (thbbbbt), the armor and weapon customization still feels pretty shallow. you just don’t have that many options for stats, and since i can’t minmax my underlying stat scores, the benefits are limited.

the stuff that i think really fails:

all those zones are a fuckin' slog, lemme tell u. it would be one thing if the zones' quests fed in an interesting way back into the main quest, or if the zones had unified and compelling stories, but it's honestly mostly fetch quests and random collectibles. DA:O was *really* good about having narratively unified side/sub-quests as part of the main quest; there were other small tasks you could accomplish while doing those, but they didn't require taking a break from the main action. They were woven into it.

doesn't help that the zones aren't differentiated enough, and there's too many of them. why do we need three desert zones, all next to each other? why not have fewer, larger zones?

and on top of all that, the main quest is actually kinda sort! it's 1) join up, 2) recruit the mages or templars, 3) close the breach, 4) go to a party in Orlais, 5) visit the Temple of Mythal for a surprise macguffin not foreshadowed at all elsewhere, 5) kill the final boss. The only reason the game is as long as it is is that next steps are usually gated behind large amounts of inquisition power, so rather than the story carrying you along as it did in DA:O and DA2, it's "do a ton of filler quests and then have a major story beat as a treat." That structure sucks ass! and the recruitment/inquisition-building work you do only shows up in the background of quest 5. it doesn't take you to open-world locations much, mostly to one-off specialized zones like halamshiral, the temple of mythal, or the breach.

despite gating main quests behind inquisition power, i did a ton of sidequests and was swimming in it by the end. i had like 200+ power. i couldn’t tell you what those side quests were about, really; they certainly weren’t memorable, and didn’t affect the main plot at all. i wish all the time poured into those side quests had gone into developing the main story.

even da:o had a way for the armies you recruited to matter in the final battle; your forces are explicitly absent in DA:I (but it’s ok because the villain shows up to the final confrontation alone anyway??), which means that, narratively, it feels like all the side stuff you do to build the inquisition is mostly pointless. the final showdown is a 4-on-1 slugfest, and not even an especially interesting fight. and this is related to the next point:

last quest is kinda random and makes no sense. we made a huge stink about closing the breach earlier; but surprise! it's open again! and suddenly we transition to a boss battle, with very little intro. it feels *very* rushed, like they had to cut out a bunch of stuff in the middle. (also why dos a guy who can lift mountains into the air need an army to conquer Orlais?? he could just turn Val Royeaux upsid-down if he wanted) visually, it looks like a lot of the assets meant it was gonna take place in the Fade or something, but they changed it up at the last minute. Where do those towers in the distance come from? There isn't anything like that around Haven or the Breach.

there are no decision points, no interesting mechanics, and no stakes other than “lol the breach is open again i guess kill this guy or the world ends.” compare the battle of denerim in DA:O, where you’re defending a whole city, or the last quest in DA2, which (though it starts with little buildup), has immediate fallout with your companions, and forces you to pick a side, with repercussions for the game’s ending.

also this feels like kind of a minor writing quibble in comparison, but corypheus seems to go from "self-aware and very much in control mustache-twirling villain" to "gibbering megalomaniac" in the last mission, and it's pretty jarring

we got a moment with each companion before the climax in da:o and da2, and we don't get that in da:i for some reason. i guess it's in part bc the game doesn't actually end like in previous installments--you can finish up side quests after if you want--but it really contributes to the rushed feeling.

all the language in the post-battle scene about "just getting started" feels very strange knowing they shut it all down in the trespasser DLC just two years later. i still think that's a terrible ending--they should let a dragon age protagonist rest on their laurels a bit for once!

seriously, why the FUCK do i not get a mabari in this one?!

despite all the things i like about inquisition, it’s just not as good a game as da2! or even da1! i don’t know if the team was bigger and the franchise so popular by 2014 that it was harder for a single creative vision to cohere, what development was like and what executive mandates were handed down from above, or what constraints the frostbite engine imposed. i worry that with the departure of david gaider and the game’s financial success, those problems might only get worse with dreadwolf as commercial demands trade off against creative consistency. as it stands though i’m hoping dreadwolf is much more structurally linear--the three act structure in da2 was actually kind of a godsend from a narrative perspective, since each act had to have its own contained arc, and you had room for time to pass between them, and i would very much welcome something like that showing up again in dreadwolf.

#dragon age #da:i

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