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theartofmedia · 5 years

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The Art of Review: YIIK: A Postmodern RPG

I have been sitting here for about two hours with this tab open, trying to find out how to properly introduce this. At the time of writing this (May 7, 2019, 10:02 PM), I have just finished watching YIIK several hours ago. However, I have been doing just about everything to avoid actually writing about it, because I have no idea how to ease the reader into this.

YIIK is so reprehensible that I created this segment--”The Art of Review”--because I needed to talk about this game. I needed to explain just why this game fails on every single account, and is so blatantly offensive. Initially, I was going to do a piece on something creator Andrew Allanson had said about games and his protagonist, Alex. It had to do with character development, and a common criticism was Alex’s sheer lack of it; naturally, I decided to watch a walkthrough online in order to see this for myself first-hand.

I was not prepared for what I saw. I have never had to take as many breaks from any media before due to sheer anger at what I was witnessing. I have never seen a game that fails in every single sense, that is regarded as such high art by its developers. Except maybe David Cage, but he’s a topic for another day.

YIIK: A Postmodern RPG is one of the worst pieces of media I have ever had the displeasure of viewing... probably in my entire life. I wish I was exaggerating.

Before I go any further, I would like give immense credit to GrandmaParty and the others at the Something Awful forums for doing an LP of the game with commentary and cutting out the fights. GrandmaParty graciously linked the thread to me--which is full of sources that I will also be linking to throughout this piece--and made the entire game tolerable enough for me to power through. It wouldn’t have happened without you guys, so thank you very much for extending a hand to a small creator trying to get her footing in the world. <3

I will also be linking to the various episodes of GrandmaParty’s LP with timestamped links to show particular scenes or dialogue. I’ve heard that one Andrew Allanson likes to say that people doctored screenshots of his game to make him look bad. Sorry, but I don’t like being accused of forgery, so I’m going to just preemptively strike that claim down.

Now then. This is going to be a big, long review. Allow me to tell you how we’ll be separating this.

We’re going to have two main sections: a non-spoiler review, and a spoiler review. This is mainly due to the fact that a lot of the game’s issues come from its mess of a story, one that can only be understood fully if you’ve seen it through to the end (and its multiple endings).

But let me be clear here.

DO NOT BUY THIS GAME.

Don’t buy it for a laugh. Don’t buy it to see how bad it is. It’s broken, it’s offensive, and the creators and proven themselves time and time again to be genuinely awful and prejudiced people. Do not give these people money.

The non-spoiler and spoiler sections will be divided into subsections, which may also have subsections of their own.

With that said... let’s begin my review of YIIK: A Postmodern RPG.

Non-Spoiler Review

Plot:

The plot of YIIK (it’s pronounced like Y2K, but I’m going to pronounce it as ‘yick’ personally) follows Alex, a freshly-graduated college student, and the strange events that begin to occur once he returns to his hometown of Frankton. He follows a cat to an old factory/hotel, where he meets Sammy, a young woman who appears to live there. When she is taken by some mysterious creatures in front of Alex, he begins a journey to try and find out what happened to her, and begins to make discoveries that could endanger the very fabric of the universe. In theory, at least. In reality, the story is an absolute clusterfuck of vague metaphysics, and the rules of the world were never clearly established, so everything just becomes an incoherent mess.

Characters:

The characters are bare-bones at best and absolutely insufferable at worst. Alex especially is infamous among critics and detractors of the game for his arrogance, ignorance, underlying racism/sexism we’ll get to that, and lack of properly-written development. I’m not going to go into full detail with Alex just yet--there will be an entirely separate post on him. Something also to keep in mind that general consensus appears to be that Alex is an author-insert for Andrew Allanson. Whether that is or isn’t true is frankly up to the viewer, but there’s no definitive proof of it.

(Oh!!! Quick thing!! This image here keeps circulating around--this person is not Andrew! That is someone named Cr33pyDude on both Twitter and Reddit! He just so happens to look like the main character. Don’t rag on this guy, everyone, he doesn’t have anything to do with this shitshow. <3)

Most of the other characters are bland and underdeveloped, but all have potential to be better (Rory especially, in my personal opinion) if they were in the hands of a better writer. The female characters, though... either they are fawning over Alex, being written as nagging and overbearing, or having so little significance that taking them out entirely would change nothing. Don’t worry, we’ll get to that. Other NPCs are forgettable, and enemies are out-of-place monsters that hold no consequence to the story.

Writing:

And the writing--dear god the writing. The writers don’t know the phrase “show, don’t tell.” So frequently would Alex monologue about nothing. Upon coming back from seeing a woman get taken by supernatural creatures, he goes home and reflects--only to go on a tangent about his mother. Immediately after that, he goes on a rant about p/o/r/n/ when sent an email and how girls that he used to go to school with wouldn’t be doing “particularly unladylike” things. And the entire game is like this. Alex will go on pseudo-philosophical rants to himself, and they reveal nothing about his character except that he thinks he’s better than everyone else. He’ll also frequently describe things as though talking to someone--while this does get explained later, it still is completely frustrating when the narrative says “I said this and she said that” instead of just having dialogue or actions between characters. A lot of the dialogue doesn’t exactly... sound like anything a human would say. It’s stilted and unnatural.

Graphics:

The graphics are... bad. Really bad. The style is supposed to be a throwback to old-school, very polygonal games, but environments lack any and all actual texture, making them incredibly flat and uninteresting at best and painful for the eyes at worst. Everything is extremely colorful, but in the sense of neon colors. Everything is so bright and vibrant, and there is barely a place where someone’s eyes can rest--it’s balance in art. Brightness like this needs to be contrasted with darker, more muted shades, or else it just hurts to look at. The viewer’s eyes need places to rest, and the muted shades allow them that reprieve. You don’t get that with YIIK. It’s just a constant bombardment of colors and lights, to the point where if you are sensitive to these kinds of things, you may not want to look even at game footage unless you’re prepared. The character portraits are fine, even if some expressions are odd, but the in-game chibi-esque models are... bad. Really bad. They’re so uncanny and unsettling, and their expressions almost never change. (Also Alex has detailed teeth and it’s just as horrifying as you might think.)

Music/Audio:

The music is. Awful? It’s awful. It’s genuinely really bad. Case in point: one of the boss battle themes. You can hear this poor guy trying so hard to put power behind his voice, but it just sounds unnatural and strained. (Also he clips the mic at some points, and the balancing in general is. Bad.) He’s out-of-tune and occasionally off-beat, and it just makes for a very unpleasant listening experience. And a lot of the music is like this, being just an assault on the ears. The one real exception to this is the track “Into the Mind” made by one Toby Fox, presumably before he made Undertale and was doing freelance work. (He has since deleted his tweet promoting it. Screenshot of the tweet here, courtesy of @GameTheoryRejects.) The audio in general is poor, with irritating sound effects, occasional distorted audio that’s supposed to be scary but is so poorly done that it just hurts to listen to, and voice acting that’s lackluster at best and utterly emotionless at worst.

Gameplay:

Full disclosure: I did not personally play the game. But just looking at it shows how irritating, slow, clunky, and repetitive it is. Each character has a minigame that you play in order to attack, defend, use special attacks, and even run away. These minigames, unlike in something like the Mario & Luigi series, are slow, drawn-out, and completely break up the flow of the fight. And none of the other characters matter then anyway, because turns out if you max out your LUK stat, you can use a particular move that hits all enemies and completely one-shot them from critical damage. (And this move can even glitch out the game in some cases!) The menus are crowded and visually uninteresting, making everything sort of meld together. (Another minor criticism: YIIK has a tendency to put the player in unwinnable fights. You are never aware of what fights are winnable and which fights are designed to kill you. More on this later.)

Speaking of gameplay, the leveling system is... bizarre and tedious. You get EXP, but you don’t gain the ability to level up (yes that is an ability you have to gain) until a couple hours into the game. Leveling up is done in the Mind Dungeon, which you access from save points, and you have to go through doors that increase the stats you assign it. There are four doors per floor, and when you go to the next floor, you and all of your teammates (even if you haven’t met them in-game) level up. Sounds simple, right? Well. It’s slow and repetitive, and NOTHING HAPPENS. You walk in a door. You walk out the door. Rinse and repeat for 70 floors. (280 doors, by the way.) Here’s GrandmaParty doing this for an hour to get an idea of the tedium that this induces. You get to play a minigame when you banish certain enemies, but that serves less as ‘spicing up the gameplay’ and more of ‘adding more steps to this already-boring section.’

So to recap: Flat characters, word-salad plot, painful prose flat-out ugly graphics, backwards gameplay and leveling system.

Tl;dr: Game bad. Don’t buy it.

... This ends the non-spoiler portion of the review. And also the section where we start to talk about some... sensitive topics.

As such, I am going to issue a legitimate trigger warning: the following pieces talk about suicide/depression in detail, as well as physical & domestic abuse situations.

And a small content warning for those who aren’t legitimately triggered by these subjects but still feel uncomfortable reading about the following: homophobia/transphobia; sexism; racism; and the actual use of a real-life woman’s death as a plot device. No I am not fucking kidding about that last one.

So. Let’s get into the real shit about YIIK.

Spoiler Review

Plot:

Let’s start with the plot. There isn’t really a driving force for this plot; initially, it’s finding Semi “Sammy” Pak (well, everyone except Rory says “Park,” even though all of the written lines say “Pak,” so that’s great) after she is taken by mysterious figures. However, as the game progresses, the search becomes less about finding Sammy until she’s just a footnote, and becomes more about... meandering around the world going from one goal to another while fighting things. (The game points this out, but self-awareness doesn’t excuse the fact that it happens. Especially considering the upcoming plot points...)

Then the metaphysics start--people have been trying to decipher this world’s rules for a while with little success, so bear with me, I’m going to try to make as much sense of what we’re given as possible.

There exists a “place between places“ known as the Soul Space. It exists between parallel realities. A person can actually will themself into the Soul Space via... depression? One character, Vella, says that another character, Rory, left his body when he “surrendered himself to his misery” following the death of his younger sister, and explained herself that she fell into a deep depression as well before entering the Soul Space... but it’s not dying? Or it can be? Here Rory asks The Essentia 2000 oh we’ll get to her don’t you worry if dying means you enter the Soul Space. She says that it’s complicated. Her explanation boils down to, “if you care only about material goods and not about your bonds, when you die, you will cease to exist. If you don’t care about materialistic goods when you die, then ehhhhh???”

Also, if your reality is destroyed but you go into the Soul Space, you can become a Soul Survivor (aka the not-Starmen, seen in the cutscene with Vella and Rory linked above) and get stuck in other’s realities as you try to find a physical body. Also, people share a Soul across parallel realities--meaning, parallel versions of yourself would share the same Soul. But they’re not the same people. They have different lives, races, genders, names, but they share the same “Soul.” Only one person with that “Soul” can exist in a reality at a time, hence the form that the Soul Survivors take if they enter a reality where another person with that “Soul” lives. If, however, that person with your “Soul” is no longer in that reality, you can retake physical form and essentially take their place--though not as them, but as you.

And if you go into the Soul Space you apparently understand the secrets of the universe and are beyond normal human follies.

Confused yet? Me too, and I wrote this damn thing. The worldbuilding is so vague, and the players aren’t given set rules that the world plays by. Even when the more surrealist elements of the game start to appear, there should still be rules. Perhaps nonsensical rules, but rules nonetheless. Instead we get talk about Souls and parallel realities, scenes of bright colors and strange imagery that never gets explained or really acknowledged (other than a mention of them being “breaks in reality” like, once), and some plot twists that imply... a lot.

Let’s talk about the characters before we get to the ending.

Characters

Besides Alex, there are five major characters in YIIK:

Michael, who is Alex’s childhood friend and who doesn’t really have much relevance between the beginning and the end of the game. No, really, for the middle portion of the game, he doesn’t really do anything. He hangs around, that’s about it. He gains relevance again during the end of the game where he goes into the Soul Space and becomes Proto-Michael, and that... happens, I guess. I think it contributes to the revelation later on about reality breaking.

Vella is... a strange character. A strange character forced to contradict herself because the plot demands it. She’s shown to be a character who takes no shit, but also bends at the first flimsy apology Alex gives her. She is compassionate to someone like Rory, but spends most of her time calling out Alex. (And yet, somehow, they fall in love???) These notes I took previously on Vella’s first appearance show how what kind of walking contradiction that Vella is as a character:

”Stop creeping on me while i’m at work”

”Okay I’ll go to the house of two strangers who i just accused of perving on me, in the middle of my work shift, to look at these pictures of me on this website i’ve never heard of that can’t go wrong”

”So let me tell you about this traumatizing experience i had with a supernatural creature, saying how emotional and painful it was without any emotion in my voice”

”also i’m not going to tell you how I got to where the supernatural creature was because it’s very personal and I don’t know you and revealing that would make me vulnerable”

”By the way I’m going to give you my number as well as this other number for a training dungeon basically because I like you two”

... yeah,

Rory is probably my favorite character out of this dreck, and he deserves so, so much better than being in this shit. He’s a quiet scene kid who initially gets roped into the plot with the disappearance of his 12-year-old sister--turns out, however, that she killed herself, and Rory struggles with the resulting grief, trauma, and depression that follows. He’s a sweet kid who’s a pacifist, is teaching himself how to make games, knows a lot of random bits of information about many things, and overall deserves so much better than this game. Sorry Allansons you’ve lost your Rory privileges he is My son now

Claudio and Chondra... are just kind of there? Claudio’s a stereotypical weeb. Chondra is the “sassy black girl”/little sister type (which is later revealed to be even stranger, because she’s apparently a graduate student). They don’t have much outside of that, and that’s a shame, since they had a lot of potential to be really good. However, they also seem a bit... tacked on and included for diversity’s sake, as both of them mention racism at some point, and... yeah. The game isn’t very graceful with that topic, as I’ll soon get into.

There is also the character of Panda, who appears out of nowhere in the factory/hotel and is never questioned. It becomes very clear that he’s a figment of Alex’s imagination, and is Alex personifying him as his sort of “conscious“ when he is, in reality, only a stuffed bear. He only talks when Alex is alone. A lot of people really don’t like him, but I will admit that I got mildly emotional when he drifted away in space near the end--but only because I myself make stuffed animals and dolls, so nearly any stuffed animal holds a place in my heart. However, I can very much see why people wouldn’t like him at all.

Anyway.

The Fucking Ending:

So everyone just kind of meanders around for the middle portion of the game until surprise! On New Years’ Eve the world is going to be destroyed. Not just the world--the entire reality. And it’s going to be Alex’s fault, somehow. Also Sammy--who Alex becomes obsessed with--Vella--who is an explicit love interest for Alex--and an android--the previously-mentioned The Essentia 2000, who Alex has a dream about and immediately becomes infatuated--with all turn out to be the same person! Why pick between love interests when they can all just turn out to be the same person?! Also, Sammy was taken by apparent demons because her Soul was in the process of going into the Soul Space, and the creatures the took her were actually the other 2/3rds of her Soul that had already gone into the Soul Space and they were just collecting the last piece. I think.

The game turns into a watered-down version of Persona 3, where you have about a month--from Thanksgiving until New Years’ Eve--to train and get strong enough to stop whatever is going to destroy reality. (The actual Y2K thing is mentioned about halfway through and serves little relevance other than to mark when the end of the world is, since Y2K isn’t actually the cause of the world ending). Then there are some weird plot twists about how reality has been breaking for a long while (this was briefly foreshadowed in Alex going to Michael’s house only to be told that Michael doesn’t live there, and then going to another house where Michael is) and it makes a lot of things really confusing?? And then New Years’ Eve comes where everything is really breaking. Turns out the end of this reality is caused by a meteor with Alex’s face on it a la the moon from Majora’s Mask, no I am not fucking kidding. And it moves around like an inflatable arm-flailing tube man, no I am not fucking kidding.

And then everyone dies. No, really, this is an unwinnable fight. You die. Your entire party dies. Their reality is destroyed.

Alex wanders around the Soul Space for a while until he finds other versions of himself, and various “dark versions” merge together to create the Proto-Comet (’proto’ being the suffix to describe the end product of parallel selves merging together to form one entity). Alex follows the comet around as it destroys reality after reality until...

He finds one that hasn’t been attacked.

And gueeeeeeess what?

You, the player, are a parallel version of Alex. So he enlists you and another party of parallels (using the names you were supposed to input in the beginning) to destroy Proto-Alex. Here, you meet a spectre who is very obviously Sammy Pak, and she says that she’s sorry that Essentia “used her to get to you,” and you hug her.

Eventually you do get to Proto-Alex, as well as a different form of Essentia. Turns out that Essentia lied to you about Sammy and Vella--turns out, Essentia IS you. Well, Essentia is part of Alex, and she tricked Alex into destroying Proto-Alex in order to free herself from the “Soul” that they share. So you can choose to fight Proto-Alex, and if you do, you lose. Again. The boss fight in unwinnable.

And then this... really weird section happens with the character of Roy from Two Brothers, Ackk Studios’ previous game that got pulled from Steam due to bugginess and crashing. Roy basically says that people were “trying to stop his quest” (aka critics) and that Alex shouldn’t give up. (Note that this is a complete non-sequitur to anyone who doesn’t know who Roy is, where he came from, or the story behind the game being pulled.)

After that, you control both the player avatar given and Alex in order to “unplug” Proto-Alex and Essentia, which will make them “whole”? It basically means that all the versions of Alex will merge together into you, the player.

Then the game ends.

At least. Kind of. There’s more than one ending.

But... we’ll get back to that in a bit.

There are many questions the game raises without answers. Why was Sammy bleeding and screaming for the Soul Survivors not to take her because “you promised you wouldn’t move me again!”? Who actually is Vella? Why did no one question Essentia and Vella being in the same space if it was already said that they couldn’t be? Who actually is Sammy? Why is she a ghost and not a Soul Survivor? Why were Proto-Alex and the other “dark Alex”-es trying to destroy realities? Why does Proto-Alex look different than the other Alex-es, who look relatively similar? Who actually was the voice on the phone--it was implied to be Proto-Michael, but he didn’t exist when those phone calls were made? Is Claudio and Chondra’s missing younger brother actually a version of Alex, as this clip implies (esp. w/ the anime shirt)?

Good luck getting answers, because we sure as hell don’t get any.

Also--glad to know that the entire month of training that you spent the latter half of the game doing was all for naught, since the last two major fights you’re in are unwinnable. There are four minibosses to fight, so it isn’t all for nothing, but still. You don’t even get the satisfaction of killing the final boss. You pull a lever and he and Essentia get weirdly electrocuted.

One more thing: the twist of “Essentia lied to you” made a metric fuckton of exposition in her Mind Dungeon utterly pointless, and also feels like a flimsy excuse to absolve Alex of blame for the shitty actions of his parallel selves--more on that later.

So let’s touch on some controversy now that we have gone over the rest of this incoherent mess of a plot.

Elisa Lam

One of the most famous controversies of YIIK is the use of Elisa Lam’s death to propel the story. This is true--the creator admits that he “was very moved” by Lam’s death.

For those not in the know, let me give you a brief summary of the case of Elisa Lam. (Yes this is going to be primarily from Wikipedia but it also has news sources cited for it.) Elisa Lam was a 21-year-old Chinese-Canadian student who was reported missing at the beginning of February 2013. On February 17th, the workers at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles (where Lam was visiting) discovered her nude body in one of the hotel’s water tanks after guests complained about the taste of the water. The police released footage of Lam, from the day of her disappearance, acting strangely in an elevator, appearing to be hiding from something, pressing elevator buttons, and gesturing and talking to no one. There was controversy surrounding her death, as people wondered how she could have locked herself in the water tank, and how the police could rule her death as accidental. People have suspected that it was due to paranormal activity that she was acting like that, or others said that she could have been having hallucinations (as Lam was diagnosed with bipolar and depression). Her death was quickly spread through internet circles as some paranormal myth.

YIIK incorporates this as a huge part of its starting plot.

Semi “Sammy” Pak is very clearly inspired by Elisa Lam. The two bear striking resemblance to one another, being young Asian women in their early twenties with straight black hair (even parted in the same place)--and this photo from the LA Times shows that Lam wore rounded glasses, like the ones Sammy wears. (Lam is Chinese-Canadian, while Sammy is stated to be Koren-American. Sammy is also 23 when Lam was 21.)

This photoset from JamJamJamJamuel shows the biggest criticism of YIIK: the recreation of the elevator video. It’s obvious by the angle and some of Sammy’s movements that this was, in fact, meant to emulate the elevator video of Lam. The game also shows that people are less concerned about Sammy as a person and more about the mystery of the elevator, like the internet stopped caring about Lam as a person and more of a supernatural myth.

However, there’s more than just this.

There’s a weird... almost fetishistic nature when the in-game protagonist talks about Sammy. Alex describes his meeting with her as “intimate” (they met for like. an hour), calls her “my Sammy” when comparing his story to the story of the news, says that he “misse[s] her. I didn’t know her really, but I felt like I did.” And the very next line is uh. “In the unreal twilight hours, in-between sleep and waking, she slipped into my dreams, got tangled in my thoughts, like the blankets tangled between my legs, her brain melting with mine.”

... Gross, to say the least.

And yes, by the way, Sammy basically becomes a love interest. That’s not completely disrespectful and disgusting to the actual human woman that the devs never met or anything at aaaaaaaall.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE.

Rory basically goes on to describe a “creepy urban myth” about the water tower near his town. You can imagine what that leads to. It’s a beat-by-beat retelling of the finding of Elisa Lam’s body, except they make it a “nameless girl,” and the writers basically insert their opinions of how it was definitely a murder and the police called it an accident.

More tasteless than a fucking saltine.

OH BUT WAIT THERE’S EVEN MORE.

Near the end of the game, you find the ghost of Sammy Pak. Since she’s not a part of Essentia, it seems that Essentia used her form to get to Alex. She says that she’s sorry and that she’s going to go back ‘home’ now, and you hug her.

But that’s not even the worst of it.

Allow me to tell you about the second ending.

Second Ending:

YIIK has more than one ending--both are considered canon. Ending 1 is the one described above.

Ending 2, however...

Just before leaving the house for the last time, in order to get this second ending, you have to look at the computer in Alex’s house and read this post. It implies that you need to go find Sammy. (It also has some things to say about postmodernism but that’s for another day.)

You go outside... and she’s hiding behind a tree outside your house. No I’m not kidding. (Granted, this is the part of the game where reality is beginning to break apart, so.) She also says “I love you” which, given her “inspiration” by Elisa Lam... yeah. That’s not creepy and tasteless at all. And it also doesn’t make any FUCKING SENSE BECAUSE ALEX KNEW HER FOR AN HOUR AND NEVER SAW HER AGAIN.

Okay, okay, anyway, if you go back into the house and leave through the back entrance, you’ll be taken to the world map. Your destination is the KNN--the Korean News Network, where Sammy had been employed before she vanished. The faceless NPCs only refer to Alex as the name you put in at the beginning of the game, so presumably, everyone from this point forward is now talking to you, the player. (Also everything is pink. Really pink. For no real reason unless it’s “””symbolic””” of something?) You wander around for a bit, doing menial tasks, until you finally get to a pink version of the room you first met Sammy in. She calls you on a phone and tells you that she’s sorry for dragging you into this mess (because Alex/the player went looking for Sammy in the first place), and that she “has a solution” to prevent Essentia from using Alex any more.

You find yourself in front of an elevator, the same elevator that you rode with Sammy when she disappeared. She calls you on the phone again and says that if you go through the elevator doors, there’s no turning back. If you step through, you see the spectre of Sammy again, and she wants to show you where she’s been. You hug her, and she says that she’s so glad that she met you, “even if it was just a game. We’ll be together in your waking reality one day, I’m sure of it. For all I know, we may already be.”

... Roll credits!

No. Seriously. That’s the second ending. You, the player, (presumably) go into the Soul Space with Sammy for eternity, and Sammy basically gives you a love confession (after all she says “I love you” before anyway).

Need I remind you all that she is based off of a REAL-LIFE WOMAN WHO DIED THAT NEITHER OF THE ALLANSONS KNEW?!

Hi, yes, sorry, I’m fucking livid about this. Not just because of the disgusting use of a real-life woman’s death in your game, not just because they fetishized her and turned her into a love interest, not just one of the endings--which is a canon ending--had her telling you she loves you and having you go off with her...

... but because this game has been in development since 2013.

Elisa Lam wasn’t even dead for a fucking year.

Yes, other media has cropped up about Lam’s death, and I think it’s just as tacky and tasteless as this. But these guys had so much time to change it, to have someone say “hey maybe you shouldn’t do that,” and it happened anyway. The sheer lack of respect that the Allansons have for not just Lam but also her still-grieving family is astonishing, and it genuinely makes me sick. My thoughts and condolences to the family of Elisa Lam, having to deal with the press, internet conspirators, and people like this. I hope that they all can still find some sense of peace, even with all of this going on.

Racism:

So this game can be really, really fucking racist sometimes. Let’s start with the more explicit dialogue.

In the very beginning, Sammy calls Alex a ginger, and he says “that’s our word.” He’s equating “ginger” to a derogatory slur.

Here’s the next instance, with Alex referring to Vella--an Asian woman--as “vaguely ethnic” and “exotic.” (He doesn’t face consequences for this, either. Just a slap on the wrist of “don’t talk about race.”)

Later on, Chondra talks about race in an actually not that bad rant about how “I bet if [my brother] had been a beautiful white woman, everyone would have cared that he vanished.” This actually is somewhat insightful, as... well, it’s rather true. POC, when it comes to investigations, are often pushed aside, ignored, or given the least amount of effort. And then Chondra also calls out Alex’s lowkey racist fantasy of “being the white knight swooping in and saving the exotic Korean girl.” However... that’s it. Alex doesn’t get any insight from that, or rethink his reasons on why he wants to save Sammy.

And that’s where we get into Claudio and Chondra and the more implicit racism in the game. Neither of them have much in terms of personality--Claudio likes anime, Chondra is there for quips. Neither of them have any significant arcs, nor do they serve much story purpose beyond being extra party members and talking about race--which feels racist in and of itself, just to have characters of color there to talk about race. (Claudio even goes into an extensive rant about how it’d be racist to think that he knows how to pick locks, but he does know how to pick locks, just not the type that they need open. It comes out of nowhere, is utterly unwarranted, and is completely against the rather chill persona that Claudio has had up until then.) Their characters had a lot of potential to be good! However, much like every other character, they’re very underdeveloped.

(Also, if you have either Claudio or Chondra in your party when you get attacked by cop enemies, they will only shoot at either of them, you know, the only black characters in the main party, and my god I wish I was kidding.)

And then... the love interests.

Sammy is a Korean woman. Vella is an Asian woman of unknown descent. The Essentia 2000 has shown that many of her parallel lives are women of color. All of them are love interests for Alex, the white hero. Yeah. And the game calls it out, but no actual repercussions are given!

Speaking of these ladies...

Sexism

This game is really fucking sexist. Like, genuinely, it’s really sexist.

I think a lot of Vella’s contradictory character comes from this sexism and seeing her as a love interest rather than a character. Though she calls out Alex and is upset with him most of the time, she still accepts his weak apologies very easily--apologies that seem very manipulative and insincere when almost immediately after, Alex tries to convince her to let him into her Mind Dungeon, and if you take that as a metaphor than it gets even worse.

As well, Vella’s backstory includes her being used by a much-older man. What can you do after she tells this traumatic story about her being used by a man? Kiss her. And she doesn’t even get upset or angry with you; she just blushes and says to head back to the others. Because that’s not gross and manipulative or anything. That’s not taking advantage of a vulnerable woman at ALL.

The only female characters of importance that aren’t lusting after Alex are his mom and Chondra--I’ve already mentioned that Chondra has little story importance and personality, and Alex sees his mom as nagging for asking him to get groceries, gets angry at her when she says that she lost her job and asks him to get one to support the house (please note that she paid for his and his sister’s college educations in full, including semesters she didn’t plan for), and gets annoyed with her freaking out when he went missing for five days.

So yeah. The game doesn’t have the highest view of women.

But let’s talk specifically about Essentia. Essentia mentions that Alex has hurt her in parallel realities--but it’s okay, because they’re parallel versions, not actually him! And Essentia reveals that Alex’s parallel was the person who hurt Vella! But it’s okay, because she’ll love him unconditionally no matter how much he hurts her. It’s... really reminiscent of domestic abuse. And it frankly doesn’t matter that Essentia turns out to be a part of Alex and that any of the story of Vella or Sammy isn’t true; the game frames it as perfectly okay that it might have happened. It’s okay that parallel versions of Alex have hurt parallel versions of Essentia, because she loves him. It’s incredibly twisted, and it’s honestly a dangerous message to be sending.

(Also, in a very weird instance of sexism against men, out of all of the parallel selves that Essentia shows Alex, the only man is extremely hostile and violent towards Alex. It’s... kind of weird, honestly.)

Depression/Suicide:

Oh boy. Oh fucking boy.

A little background on myself.

I’m two years into my undergrad for a Psychology/Criminology double major. Classes I have taken include classes about pathologies of the mind and mental health (Psychopathology of Childhood, Developmental Psychology, Personality Psychology, Seminar on Positive Psychology, and of course Basic Psychology to be specific). I have also been clinically diagnosed with anxiety/depression, and both of these are genetically based, meaning that I have lived with them my whole life and will continue to live with them. (I am medicated, for anyone wondering. The meds are the only way I can function at a normal level.) I have felt suicidal before, I have had friends who have been suicidal before, and I have talked others down from self-harm or suicide. I’m not an expert, but I know a thing or two about mental health, depression, and suicide.

This game... this game doesn’t fucking get it at all.

(Just a quick thing: the game makes an OCD joke. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder jokes aren’t funny, folks, since people who have it are affected by it all the time to the point of it often being debilitating. Just wanted to mention it a) to give you an idea on how the game handles mental health and b) because it really doesn’t fit anywhere else.)

Most of this surrounds the character of Rory, as he clearly suffers from depression and suicidal thoughts, as well as feeling grief surrounding his sister’s own suicide. When this is revealed, you know what Vella says to “comfort” him? “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. I understand what you were feeling. 'This depression is unbearable.' 'I can't take it anymore.' The 'depression/pain' part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can overcome it is up to you. You decide if you're going to keep going. Your sister is dead. Nothing can change that. [...] You can't help but feel the pain, but you can get through the suffering. That will go away. Look, I understand that it's easy for me to say. I'm not the one whose sister is dead. But you have to understand that I am telling you the true reality of the situation. You're playing with some otherworldly dangers here!“

Let me break this down to show you why this is not something to say to someone who is traumatized and in a deep depression due to the loss of a loved one.

“[W]hether or not you can overcome it is up to you.” This puts full responsibility of overcoming grief and depression onto the person suffering from it, which is not okay, and not true. Rory lost his 12-year-old sister to suicide! Very recently in the game’s timeline, as well!

Vella is basically telling him “it’s your job to get over your grief and depression.” Putting full responsibility on someone for feeling depression and grief is disgusting. If someone is grieving, what they should do is reach out. If they aren’t, reach out to them. Don’t let them suffer alone. Suffering like this is not a choice. People don’t choose to suffer.

By saying that suffering is “optional,” it subtly blames the person suffering for their own suffering, which makes their chances of getting better plummet. So frequently will people suffering from mental disorders put the blame on themselves for “not trying hard enough” or “being broken” or “not being good enough” because they think that this is all their own fault, and they won’t seek help, because “it’s all my fault.”

Now, when someone is in recovery? Yes, they should definitely try--even if it’s in small bits at a time--to to learn to cope with their disorders in healthy ways. However, when in recovery, the person is assisted by therapists, friends, family, and possibly medications. They aren’t alone. They aren’t alone, and are often guided by those who know how to help them and want to help them. The responsibility isn’t pushed solely onto them. One doesn’t “get over” being depressed. They learn to cope. They learn to accept it as a part of them, rather than all of them, and learn that they are more than their depression. The suffering never truly goes away; it can lessen, though, and a person can learn to live with it.

Some people may defend this by saying that the Allansons lost their mother very recently, and this is how they handle their grief. I lost my father in February of last year. I know this type of grief. And just because that’s how they handle their grief, that doesn’t mean it’s a healthy way of coping, nor the type of coping mechanism you should promote in your game. (I will admit that my own methods of coping weren’t great, and that I’m trying to improve on that now.) There’s a quote that I heard somewhere that goes something like, “grief never really goes away. We just learn to live with it.” That suffering doesn’t ‘go away.’ It ebbs and flows, some days being bearable, and other days not.

But that’s not the end, friends. Oh, far from it.

At one point, you can flat-out tell Rory to “stop being depressed. Being depressed is a choice.” It is noted to be the “wrong” choice, however, Rory barely reacts to it, making it not seem like the wrong decision. I don’t feel like I need to explain why “depression is a choice” is a take colder than the depths of space. Depression’s not a choice, folks. Hell, I would love it if it was, I would love to stop the fatigue, the emptiness, the lethargy, the lack of motivation, the irritability, the messed-up appetite, the fucked-up sleep patterns, the fits of crying. That would be fucking great. But I can’t. BECAUSE IT’S NOT A CHOICE, YOU WALNUT.

Okay, okay, sorry, back on topic. So let’s say you’re mean to Rory. You wanna know what happens?

He kills himself. And according to this user, the story doesn’t change and barely acknowledges Rory after his death. (Obviously there’s not footage out there of the characters mentioning that Rory committed suicide. However, the developers themselves commented on the previously-linked Steam forum post confirming its legitimacy. This is so unbelievably fucked up. Suicide is already a topic that should be handled with care, but having a main character commit suicide and have that death have no impact on the story? I don’t even have words for how deplorable that is. (Doesn’t help that the game basically pushes whether Rory lives or dies onto the player, which is also disgusting, because I don’t think the developers had the insight into suicidal ideation to know that it’s a multitude of factors that lead to suicide, and not just one person being )

(Sidenote: here are the links to the National Suicide Prevention Line and the Crisis Text Line in case anyone needs them. Please take care, friends. <3)

[Addendum: as I was working on this review and listened to the podcast linked a little further down, Andrew Allanson had this to say at 2:08:47: "When you make an unlikable character, people expect Sherlock Holmes or Dr. House. They want flawed heroes, but only to the extent that they’re beautiful and intelligent and slightly Asperger-y."

Thank you for basically saying that having Asperger’s Syndrome is an unlikable trait or makes people unlikable.]

Anti-LGBTQ+

So let’s talk about the prejudice against non-straight and non-cis people!

Andrew Allanson has been rather fucking clear about his prejudice against trans people and non-straight people. In the “The Dick Show” podcast, starting at 1:45:45, Andrew Allanson was interviewed by the commentators. I will be providing timestamps of quotes since I can’t directly link to them.

(Sidenote: I was listening to this podcast and waiting for Andrew’s pa rt to start, and one of the commentators was talking about Women’s History Month, and saying “If a woman doesn’t have a man, she’s going to expect the government to be her man. That’s just the way they’re wired.” [1:44:24 - 1:44:31]. Yeah. That tells you the type of people who run this podcast and the type of people that Andrew decides to associate himself with.)

[1:52:15 - 1:52:] “... we made the mistake of asking the player, ‘what name did your parents give you?’ And it turns out that that is a very offensive question. Because some people, um, are trans, and don’t use the name their parents gave them. So immediately the game is targeted as being transphobic. [...] So we wanted to basically create a character off of the player in the game, the first thing we ask you ‘are you a boy or a girl,’ ‘what’s your name’, and people were so bent out of shape over this. Look, I’m sympathetic to trans people, I understand why it upset them. But the problem was when we apologized, that wasn’t good enough. People then took it and said ‘what else can we find in this game to prove that it’s offensive?’”

So here’s the thing: that... is lowkey transphobic? Because it’s like you said, these people don’t use the names that their parents gave them. You’re asking them, intentionally or not, to deadname themselves. There’s a reason they call it a “deadname.”

Later on they ask, “which of these do you identify with?” and show a male figure and a female figure. Which frankly, is alright.

And then they changed it in an update to “what do you look like?” which feels like a very direct jab at trans people, especially the ones who were upset by the initial question relating to names.

Oh, and then there’s this part (I only know DIck and Andrew’s voices, I’m afraid I don’t know the third, sorry m8).

[1:54:35 - 1:55:10]

Andrew: So you play as this guy, Alex, you just come home from [college, audio cut out here], you’re an entitled asshole--

Dick: You get points for stomping queers, as I understand it, that’s the game, right? You go around and--

Andrew: The goal is to establish the white ethnostate.

[unintelligible as others laugh and talk over each other]

Dick: --you have a little ‘gaydar’ in the corner and it points you to the nearest homosexual, and then you go, y‘know, “Hammer [X]”

Andrew: It’s - it’s - yeah, it’s a hack-and-slash.

Dick: If you buy the game they send you a special overlay you can put on your controller that turns all the buttons into ‘K.’ So it’s not ‘A’--

Andrew: Yes!

Dick: --Just ‘K,’ ‘K,’ and ‘K.’

Andrew: Just ‘K,’ ‘K’--yeah, exactly, exactly.

So we not only have the mockery of gay folk, but also mention of murdering them (whether in a joking fashion or not, this still isn’t fucking funny and not something to joke about, especially if you are not LGBTQ+ yourself. And to my knowledge, none of these men are).

And that’s just from the creator himself, as well as the first few minutes of the game.

Let’s talk bout The Scene.

What is The Scene? Well, it’s the scene where Alex and Rory talk, where you can tell Rory that “depression is a choice.” Should you be kind and supportive to him, you know what you can do? “Try to kiss [him.]” And there’s art for it. There is literally no reason for this to be here other than “haha it’s a guy trying to kiss another guy, gay people are funny!” It seems to be an attempt at humor, but it fails... rather miserably.

The Legendary Third Ending

I call it “legendary” because no one knows if it actually exists or not, because people can’t find it, regardless of the hints given by the developers.

Andrew, while doing “The Dick Show” interview, mentions that he put DIck Masterson (the host of the show) into the game in the third update [1:45:56] , and that you have to give Dick a pair of aviator glasses, where he will give you a red pill [1:47:15 - 1:47:33]. Dick is also found in Chapter 4 of the game [1:47:40].

The devs also tease it on Twitter, saying that it’s “sad and challenging to complete”, and they give vague and unclear hints that don’t seem to help even the fans of the game--after all, no one has found it, apparently. Even the YIIK Discord (though this is just hearsay) has been losing steam in trying to find this ending.

I think it’s a testament to the quality of the game when one of your major three endings is nigh-impossible to find. (For the record, I feel the same way about how PT went about its ending, and how arbitrary it felt to do these very specific things that the game barely tells you about.)

Miscellaneous Other Things That Don’t Fit In The Above

There are a couple other things that irk me about this game, so time for a rapid-fire round!

You can kiss Rory, who’s implied to be a senior in high school (due to this talk of college). So he’s, at best, 18. Alex had 5 and a half years of college (the game says “five and a quarter” but unless I’m mistaken colleges work in semesters not quarters,), so he’s probably 23-24. Yeah. (There’s also the issue of consent--when you kiss Vella she just blushes and acts more docile, while with Rory, he rather vehemently rejects it. So women just accept an unwanted kiss? Hm.)

You fight a flasher as a miniboss. Because sexual harassment is hilarious. (And if neither Michael nor Rory are 18 yet, then there’s the possibility of minors being involved. YEAH.)

The title card is intentionally glitchy af and it hurts the eyes, honestly.

If you go through New Game+ and go to the 70th floor of the Mind Dungeon, Alex will basically talk to himself about some things:

It mentions that “crows are ugly.” You fool. You absolute buffoon. Crows? Excellent. Very intelligent birbs.

This is basically “hey we suck, but so does everyone around us, it’s fine”

This game unironically uses Wonderwall lyrics in an emotional scene, like I know it was popular and not a meme in the 90s but my guy, you gotta think about the connotations with the audience you’re releasing this for,

“I sighed as the elevator began to shake, vibrating with motion.” Thank you for using three words to describe the elevator shaking,

The One Thing That I Liked

Surprisingly, there is something I liked about this game. Not solely in concept, not in its potential, but in its actual execution.

It starts on the day of New Years’ Eve. It’s dark outside and inside. Alex suddenly starts getting many random calls, some from people he knows, others he doesn’t. Some voices are distorted, some aren’t. Some are talking to him, some aren’t. And they’re quick little calls before they hang up, and Alex barely says a word. He can’t leave the house, and keeps getting phone calls that get more and more distorted as time goes on.

That? I think that actually really works.

It’s a more subtle way of showing reality breaking: getting calls from people, both friends and strangers, that are slowly getting more and more broken, and you can’t do anything. You’re trapped in your house, you can’t see outside, you don’t know what’s going on. You can’t help your friends, even when Michael screams for your help. The slowly deteriorating stability of the calls are your only indication of what’s going on outside.

And for me, that works. It was the one section of the game that I felt legitimately invested in. So, kudos to the devs for that one.

Conclusion

YIIK isn’t just bad. It’s offensive. It’s ignorant, it handles serious topics incredibly clumsily, and the worst of it is that Andrew Allanson considers it to be ‘art.’ (If you’re wondering why I didn’t talk about the “video games aren’t art” quote, don’t worry. That’s going to be its own essay.)

YIIK fails on every level, from technical to storytelling. Please, I beg of you, don’t give this game money. Just go watch the LP.

You may have noticed that I didn’t talk much about the “postmodern” aspect of the game, nor much about Alex as a protagonist.

Both of those are going to be their own separate essays.

This wild ride still ain’t over, folks. Hang on.

#yiik a postmodern rpg #yiik: a postmodern rpg #yiik #andrew allanson #yeehaw #holy shit this one is SO LONG but im so proud of it

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fire-toolz · 4 years

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Infinity and “I”: An interview with Fire-Toolz

Sometimes you encounter music that opens your ears to new possibilities in such a way that your subconscious burns the moment of impact into your memory. For me, the most potent of these include an early adolescent exposure to the cyclic, minimalist bliss of Miles Davis’ In a Silent Way as in-between-set music at a neighborhood basement show, doubling over laughing with my sister on our drive to school at the vocal-sourced percussion of Björk’s “Where is the Line?”, and having my 19-year-old shit permanently rocked amid my (still) daily breakfast of eggs and oatmeal by the opening few tracks of Fire-Toolz’ Drip Mental.

At least to my ears at that time, the breakneck transitions between Mego-style avant-pop glitches, digitized metal skree, snapshots of vapor memories and scream-led dance pop offered up a vision of shape-shifting music that felt wholly new, almost sacred in its profane blend of styles and sound. “To me, that constantly shifting atmosphere and mood is the ebb and flow you perceive,” says Angel Marcloid, the face behind the Fire-Toolz moniker. “Lots of waves and conditions to pass through, but they all make sense to me … Ideas flow out of me with absolutely no effort made, my body records as many of them as it can and the song gets built in little bits at a time.” The idea of musical “sense” might seem at-odds with the free-wheeling, genre-agnostic sounds of a Fire-Toolz album, but sustained exposure breeds familiarity: By the time I rolled around to my third or fourth listen through Drip Mental, the chaos began to cohere into a logical world of its own.

If my ears grown more accustomed to the utter uniqueness of Marcloid’s art, so too does it seem that “Fire-Toolz” is becoming a musical language of its own. Every new release brings the euphoria of Marcloid’s music toward higher and more mind-bending plans, and nowhere is this more true than on Rainbow Bridge, Marcloid’s new album for Hausu Mountain. The music is distinctly Marcloid, taking the same hallmarks I found on Drip Mental and refining them into sharp gems. A monophonic hymn drives “⌈Mego⌉ ≜ Maitrī,” making for one of the most patient and profound Fire-Toolz composition to date. At the other end, “Rainbow ∞ Bridge” hurls in with synthesized black metal fervor before it combusts into a grooving, tuneful section of electronics. A soaring electronic guitar solo dominates the middle third, and the track eventually loops around on itself into the ear-splitting pulses and crashes of the opening. “It’s less stitching sounds together, and more like inventing gigantic puzzles made of both large and tiny pieces dancing around and overlapping each other, interacting with each other,” Marcloid says of this segmented composition process.

A standout sonic quality of Fire-Toolz’ music—on Rainbow Bridge and all its older siblings—is its embrace of the sounds, chord structures of new age, jazz fusion, prog and a host of other styles based around extreme musicianship, and exacting production. Born in 1984, Marcloid finds that many of these sounds are inseparable from the nostalgia of her childhood. “I wasn’t raised on jazz or electro-pop or adult contemporary or electronic music, but in the distance, there it all was—in waiting rooms, in the background of movies, at the mall, in TV shows, in educational films, in video games, in my friends’ parents’ vans,” she says. These musical encounters all share a sense of accidents. From muzak to soundtracks to chance encounters, Marcloid never supposed to take this stuff in.

 Though that’s precisely the path she took, and Fire-Toolz takes a magnifying glass to these background sounds and exposes their inherent beauty and strangeness. “Because of the internet, and having the privilege of being able to access those sounds and use them creatively, I am living out my second childhood in a heartfelt, authentic way,” she says. This “second childhood” is an apt analogy for the giddiness that Fire-Toolz music exudes. These sounds and harmonies are familiar—some would argue overused and tired—but Marcloid approaches them with a renewed sense of optimism. At their core, these styles hunt for religious ecstasy and otherworldly piece, cosmic qualities that Marcloid’s art exudes with boundless glee.

These ideals of grandiosity that run rampant through Marcloid’s music also appear in the conceptual and philisophical framework surrounding the Fire-Toolz project. The track titles alone convey this sense of out-of-body msyticism. Through a combination of between cheeky, internet-based puns, dense transcendental philosophy and creative linguistic construction through the use of atypical spellings, punctuation and word structuring, Marcloid constructs a verbal world inside which her singular music lives. “Infinity and wholeness is a constant theme, but it is by default. It is a framework from which I operate,” she says. “I’m on a journey; steadily growing every day, until my body no longer works. I’m not even saying I’m getting better and better, but I’m always changing. I’m constantly falling, and there is no ground.”

Stand out examples of these constructions from the past include the warm, nostalgic hum of Skinless X-1‘s “In The Computer Room @ Dusk ☕” or the scattered sonic metamorphosis of “Fluids Come Together & The ‘I Am’ Appears.” On Rainbow Bridge, one of the most stunning realizations comes on “dEcRePiT φ PhOeNiX,” a track which Marcloid says “is a direct reference to myself and evolution. A decrepit phoenix is kind of how I see my body-mind and personality. Always escaping from the ashes, sore and tired … But, a phoenix nonetheless.” With its wobbling chromatic synthesizer melodies and arena-ready drum slaps, the music presents a colorful foundation atop which Marcloid’s screamed vocals delve head first into this beautiful crisis of change: “Melted and melded and molding crashes / Illusion of self reduced to ashes,” she sings, highlighting the twin agents of destruction and rebirth that accompany any process of change.

While these ideas might traverse the breadth of Fire-Toolz’ discography, the new album places the themes in a more specific context. “For Rainbow Bridge, I felt like I had an enormous amount I needed to say and express; so many questions to ask, and expressions of energy I needed to release. I just make music with that in mind,” says Marcloid. Specifically, “the title references the pathway that our pets take when they leave us. My cat Breakfast, who passed away in December of 2018, is the talking point of the album. A lot of it is about her, or speaking to her.” Breakfast also appears on the album (as she has on a number of previous Fire-Toolz releases), creating a sort of living/lasting artistic tribute to the lost friend. In this light, the epic constructions feel even more special, as if the explosions of colorful sounds on Rainbow Bridge are paeans to Breakfast. The songs build towers that stretch toward the bridge in search of communication.

 “Fire-Toolz has always been sincere,” Marcloid says. “Melodramatically sincere.” It’s this sincerity that’s kept me coming back time and time again after that fateful February morning encounter. Especially at its most bombastic and indulgent (see: the sing-along chorus of Rainbow Bridge‘s “It’s Now Safe to Turn Off Your Computer,” the neon, fusion-drenched guitar outro “Clear Light” off 2019’s Field Whispers (Into the Crystal Palace)), Marcloid’s music teethes with a sense of purpose and meaning. What might illicit chuckles of disbelief upon first encounter transforms into a beautiful sonic odyssey that offers more intruige and magic over time.

Like each and every Fire-Toolz album, Rainbow Bridge is a mind-bending excursion that blows up music into a cosmic, surreal land, and it’s only the tip of the iceberg: In the last year or so alone, Marcloid has put out equally incredible music through her Mindspring Memories, Angelwings Marmalade, Nonlocal Forecast and Path to Lobster Believers projects, as well as a number of mastering jobs (some personal favorites include The Car? and w i n t e r q u i l t 愛が止ま). A number of these projects (including Fire-Toolz) have future releases already in progress, and there’s a high chance I’ve even left of a name or two in this list. If this seems like this stretches the limits of what one entity can perform and produce, Marcloid suggests that there’s other energy at play: “Something tells me it’s not me doing it. ‘Me’ in the individuated sense,” she says. “It feels more like something I am a part of is doing it through me.” What form this ancillary force might take is unbeknownst to anyone save Marcloid, but let’s hope their fruitful collaborations continue for years into the future. We’ll always need more rapturous shock; we’ll always need more Fire-Toolz, ad infinitum.

-Audrey Lockie/Slug Mag

https://www.slugmag.com/music/interviews/music-interviews/infinity-and-i-an-interview-with-fire-toolz/

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junoscrybeofshadows · 2 years

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Connection (SG!VerseBone lord and Juno Headcanon)

(So for time now I have made mentions on Juno and the Bone Lord having some connections because of her exposure to the OLD_DATA. And in this post I'mma explain the timeline/connection between these two. With that said let's begin!--- Misty)

This bond started long ago before the events of the game; while practicing her "Shadow Walking" Ability Juno stumbled into a place where she should have not have been able to go. The OLD_DATA Files. She herself has no idea how or why she ended up there but when she did she learned everything. And it was too much for her to bear. The Bone Lord however, managed to bring her back to the surface level of Inscryption and comforted her the best it could.

After being consoled Juno headed back to her shadow realm however her troubles have only gotten worse. Everywhere she went, no matter where she went she could see the Old Data flickering in the corner of her eyes; creeping in the shadows she calls home. Every day for weeks on end this went on. She could see it everywhere and hear it growing clearer and clear each day slowly driving her mad until she ripped out her own eye in order to make it stop. This was done so forcefully that it ripped part of Juno's code out of her. And sensing the glitch within the files the Bone Lord grew worried. It was only a few days after that incident that it learned about what she did.

Feeling guilty of the burdens and sacrifices Juno had taken on with keeping the OLD_DATA secret they decided to provide her with some help in the form of Eira. Eira was designed to help juno in hiding the old data, but also to protect the scrybe of shadows as best as she could and to help her with whatever she needed.

But that is not where the connection between them and Juno ends. Do to them having to save Juno, and bring her back to the surface levels of the game a part of their code melded together creating a more physical connection between them. So much so that the two can talk to each other without ever being near the other. This can be considered a telepathic link in a way. When needed the two can connect to each other mentally in order to discuss any topics related to the OLD_DATA or anything that needs to be addressed.

When this connection is made it will sound as though two people are talking through Juno, their voices echoing and distorting whenever she talks. Its almost as if she is talking to herself when in truth she is talking to the Bone Lord. At times if permitted the Bone Lord can even take possession of Juno's form but only temporarily and their voice will become more prominent, this transformation/possession is noticed when a red glow starts to emit itself from Juno's eye without her eye being red itself and a few flowing red marks will appear on her face. This connection alongside the communication is used only for emergencies as it can be only maintained for 3 minutes at at time.Any time past the 3 minute mark will begin to drain Juno of her energy. She will grow tired, experience headaches and can even pass out and remain unconscious from a few hours to several if the connection last for too long.

Since the day the connection was formed they have always tried to keep this power a secret from most other Scrybes and minibosses's. And have succeeded rather well as only a very small few know about the truth of their connection but they'll never admit to who knows. It's better that way.

#misttalks #juno scrybe of shadows #juno #scrybe of shadows #scrybe oc #inscryption oc #juno headcanon #shadows of the game #SG!verse #Sg!versebonelord #inscryption bone lord #inscryption

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mdwatchestv · 6 years

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Westworld 2x04- Death: What Is It Even?

Hiiiii sorry this is so late, I have been clobbered at work to the point where I considered skipping this week all together. But NO I rose early, looked at all the Royal Wedding fashion, and am now sitting down to bring you full Westworld coverage. “Why exert such an effort?” you may justifiably ponder to yourself. Well, because Westworld actually turned out a pretty succinct, thematically coherent episode of television last week. I have had many conversations about whether or not Westworld is actually a “good” show. Sure, it’s entertaining to watch the result of millions of dollars plastered on screen, every frame looks incredible, and it boasts blockbuster level production value and some of the best working actors. And maybe that’s enough to qualify as “good”, because do we not keep coming back week after week? Are we not entertained? However I have always felt that Westworld could, and probably should, be more than the sum of its expensive parts. Emotional connectivity to characters is low, and while complicated themes are introduced, we barely scratch their surface. What is Westworld really about? Often it seems to merely be about trying to trick the audience with buzz-worthy tricks and twists, about who can deliver the most enigmatic monologue, or put together the flashiest scene of Old West violence. I bring all this up because this episode felt more in tune with what I always wanted this show to be: a solid sci-fi story that had more to offer than just expensive window-dressing. This episode had a strong thematic through-line, and told a compelling vignette story that would have been worthy of its own Black Mirror episode. Instead of a series of seemingly unrelated events for us to try and make sense of, this episode had a natural inter-connectivity that will make it much easier to write about. So thanks for that at least!

We begin with seeing Peter Mullan (what a great episode for him, I bet this is how they pitched him the role) in a futuristic studio space, where he goes about his. Eventually visited by Jimmi Simpson, and they have an affable conversation. It’s unclear at first if Mullan is a prisoner, a patient, or something else entirely, however we soon find out that Peter Mullan is not Peter Mullan at all. Now we understand that Jimmi Simpson’s grand plan, and perhaps Delos’ endgame, is to create a way to let human beings live forever - as hosts. Mullan’s failing health was foreshadowed in previous episodes, and it’s revealed his contingency plan was to abandon his dying body for a new and improved host life. As Jimmi and Mullan converse, everything seems fine, until Mullan begins ‘glitching’ out. The hybrid human/host mind failing to adapt to reality, and turning in on itself.

At the end of the conversation, we see Jimmi exit the room, which is really a glass observation tank in the middle of a lab, and order a redo of the experiment. This is an experiment that has been run many times before, with many different Mullan hosts, but always ending in failure. Apparently a redo involves burning everything down, including host Peter Mullan AND HIS PET FISH! I just don’t understand why the fish had to be burned to death every time. It seems needlessly cruel. Anyway we return to this scene, this conversation between Mullan and his son-in-law again, and again through the episode. As time passes, Jimmi delivers bleaker and bleaker reports from the outside world. First that Mullan’s wife had died, and then later his children as well (RIP Ben Barnes). Although the technology to keep Mullan’s consciousness in tact continues to develop, his connections to the outside world, to his “real” life, continue to fall away.

In the final series of scenes, Mullan is visited by the Man in Black, the man Jimmi Simpson has eventually become. The Man in Black has become introspective about Mullan’s quest for immortality. It seems to him to now to be pointless, why go on living just to live? Mullan’s family is gone, his company forever out his control, what is left for him in the waking world? The Man in Black also tells Mullan that people prefer the memory of the man, to the man himself, and maybe it’s better that way. The Man in Black has lost faith that this project, the melding of humans with hosts, is a good idea. That perhaps human life is better left finite, living forever only brings pain and loss, which the Man in Black knows personally from his wife’s suicide. The Man in Black abandons the host Mullan to his cell, and instead of terminating the project he simply leaves the Mullan host to its own devices. Allowing it to occupy a purgatory space between man and machine.

The Man in Black’s storyline in the present day complements his past interactions with Mullan in an interesting way. The Man in Black and Clifton Collins, Jr find themselves in CC Jr’s character’s hometown, where his storyline is complete with a wife and young child. However the homecoming is cut short when MiB and CCJ are ambushed by Jonathan Tucker and his surviving Confederados. Tucker’s crew is after the guns and nitro hidden in the town, which MiB mercilessly gives up in exchange for showing Tucker’s men the way to the mythical ‘Glory’. Thankfully Tucker gets to grandstand a little bit in these scenes, but still feel like this whole enterprise was a waste of Jonathan Tucker. Interestingly CCJ mentions MiB’s deceased daughter to him, a conversation the two of them had had in a storyline that should have been wiped from CCJ’s memory. Curious.

MiB is at first apathetic to Tucker’s torture and killing of the town’s residents. He has seen worse things happen to the denizens of Westworld, and these are just hosts after all. However as Tucker goes after CCJ, having his own wife bring him a shot of nitro, MiB has a change of heart, seemingly related to a flashback about his own life. MiB slaughters Tucker and his men, and saves CCJ’s life, at great personal risk to himself. This is a surprising about face from MiB, who ever since his youthful experience with Dolores, has regarded the hosts as little more than objects. Could he be feeling affection for his companion, or for the host population at large? Perhaps feeling regrets about a past life he failed to save. MiB’s relationship with CCJ has been one of the most consistent of his life, journeying miles and undertaking countless adventures with his host sidekick. After saving the day, MiB is confronted by CCJ’s daughter who speaks to him with Ford’s words. She tells him that one good deed doesn’t erase his past, to which MiB retorts “who said anything about a good deed?” His wry rejoinder suggests he only saved the town because he believed it’s what Ford would have wanted him to do as part of the game. However I am not so sure this is the truth. The little girl replies that he shouldn’t look toward the future, suggesting the key to this game lies somewhere in MiB’s past. There could be a number of answers to that riddle including Dolores, and a family he all but abandoned in the real world. Although what stock Ford has in that remains to be seen.

Elsewhere in the park, we follow up with Katja Herbers who has been taken prisoner by the Ghost Nation tribe. One of her fellow prisoners is Luke Hemsworth, answering the question of what happened to him when he was ambushed by the same warriors at the end of season one. Katja is surprisingly resourceful, she speaks the language of the Ghost Nation, and she tells Luke she has no desire to leave the park. They are brought before the Ghost Nation leader, Zahn McClarnon who we previously saw wining and dining Ben Barnes in flashback. Zahn whispers to Luke that “You live only as long as the last person who remembers you,” before he and his fellows mysteriously disappear. This behavior, coupled with the fact the tribe was killing captured hosts while sparing guests, suggests that something is definitely up with this faction. Zahn’s words though also tie into the larger themes of the episode. What is true immortality? Is it the imitation of life, or what we pass down to those after us. How will MiB be remembered? How does he want to be remembered? What is he passing down? The answer to at least some of that shortly.

Finally in the episode’s last major storyline Bernard is dragged by Clementine to the outside of a cave. Within the cave he finds Shannon Woodward, who he didn’t kill at the end of last season but rather imprisoned, as well as the entrance to a mysterious lab. I was at first happy to have Shannon Woodward back, but she soon began acting like the worst video game sidekick in the world. “What is that? What’s wrong with you? Where does that go? What’s happening?” Shannon, you KNOW what’s wrong with him! Jeez o pete. Anyway the lab is a place that Bernard seems to remember, and within it they find another scene of slaughter and bloodshed - both of scary blank hosts and human engineers alike.

Eventually the two of them uncover the purpose of the lab, which is, you guessed it, to fuse humans and hosts and is consequently the home of host Peter Mullan. Mullan is now a horrific figure, vaulting between personalities as well as the terms of his own reality. After a tense fight, Shannon and Bernard decide to put him out his misery, terminating the project once and for all in a fiery burst which makes the dying Mullan appear to be the devil in Hell itself. And was he in Hell? Tormented in a state of consciousness that wasn’t quite life? Is there something worse than being dead? Was he even alive to begin with?

During this sequence Bernard has flashbacks to his previous experiences in the lab. We also come to learn that Bernard is seeing memories out of order. Even the discovery of the lab with Shannon is a memory he is having from a future, present date, meaning everything we are seeing has already happened in the Westworld timeline. More importantly he remembers coming to the lab to create a red ball that holds the human “code” to create another host/human hybrid (ala the doomed Peter Mullan). After taking the red ball he then orders the blank hosts to kill the human engineers, before topping themselves, putting an end to the lab’s operations. Presumably he was acting under Ford’s orders, which raises a very important question - WHO is the human/host the red ball was made to create? Who would Ford (if it is Ford) choose to bring back? I have thoughts.

In the episode’s final scene we see MiB’s party meet up with Katja Herbers who turns out to be...HIS DAUGHTER. Like her father, she too is well-versed in the parks, and approaches them with his same domineering attitude. However she is also currently my best candidate for the secret human/host, here is why. During MiB’s crisis of conscious that ends in his coming to CCJ’s rescue, we see flashbacks to a scene of suicide. We know that MiB’s wife (Peter Mullan’s daughter) killed herself, but were always told that she overdosed (with contention over whether or not it was accidental). However the flashbacks we saw were of blood in an overflowing bathtub, suggesting a much more violent death. Now it’s possible that his wife’s suicide was much different than reported, but I think this is not the death of his wife, but rather that of his daughter. If Ford is pulling the strings of this game, and it was he that ordered Bernard to create the human/host, it would make sense to bring back the daughter MiB failed as part of looking to the past. But again, what’s it to Ford to get such extravagant vengeance on MiB?

All these storylines wove together to ask and play with the same thematic questions, what is death? What is a life worth living? And finally the question asked by the title of the episode “The Riddle of the Sphinx”: what is man? Westworld this week was coherent, engaging, and thoughtful. And it still got to have all the expensive violence it so dearly loves. Even though Jonathan Tucker didn’t stick around long, at least he got to explode. And that’s the kind of shit actors love.

Lastly I would like to point out the dialogue exchange of “I’m not in California anymore am I?” “No, you’re not.” Just another little exchange referencing the general location of the park, which I still believe will be a major reveal of the season! This is the hill I am ready to die on.

Peter Mullan forever,

Martha

#westworld #martha writes #westworld theories #westworld recap #tv review #tv recap #westworld spoilers #westworld gifs #tv gifs #peter mullan #man in black #jimmi simpson

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archonreviews · 7 years

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The Archon’s Review of King Arthur: A Roleplaying Wargame

King Arthur: A Rolplaying Wargame is a grand strategy game designed by NeocoreGames and published by Paradox Interactive. It is a dark time in Britannia. The king, Uther Pendragon, has died, leaving no apparent heir. In the wake of this power vacuum, all the petty kings of the realm have taken up arms against their neighbors in a bid for power and land. Then, Merlin appears with the sword, Excalibur, lodged in a stone in the abbey at Glastonbury. He says his piece, and then Arthur appears out of nowhere to do his thing. Except, when Arthur extricates the sword from the stone, magic returns to Britannia, Merlin disappears, and the Sidhe, the ancient fae, assert themselves, carving out a territory in the Bedegraine forest, just south of Hadrain’s Wall. Britannia is now on the brink of grandiose conflict, and you, as Arthur, the Once and Future King, must decide its fate.

I picked up KAaRPWG mostly on a whim, but I must say that, for the most part, it paid off.There is a lot to like here; although my expectations were not all that high, I was pleasantly surprised.

Let’s start with the lore. If you’re a purist when it comes to Arthurian legends, you may be a bit disappointed. KAaRPWG melds Arthurian legends with a healthy does of Celtic and Irish mythology. You’ve got the sword in the stone (Excalibur in this version, not Caliburn), the Green Knight, all the Knights of the Round Table, the Holy Grail, etc. You’ve also got the Sidhe, the distinction between Seelie and Unseelie fae, the Old Faith of the druids, and a belief in magic, all of which is inspired by old Celtic and Irish myths. The two mythoi actually blend quite well; this is probably the result of a singular aesthetic acting as a very effective backdrop for both sets of myths. There’s a sense here of a blending of time and space, wherein armored knights on horseback seem natural next to the mystical and strange Sidhe. References to the ancient Roman colonies that used to be on Britannia help complete the blend, creating a sense of a far distant past brought temporally forward to scrunch it up against the medieval knights and kingdoms of Britannia. But the Roman stuff works because the ancient, “Old Faith” aesthetic helps place us there temporally. Basically, what I’m trying, and probably failing to say, is that each element of the aesthetic and lore helps hold the others up so that when blended, they fit together perfectly.

^(The Once and Future King, just before everything goes downhill)^

The overworld map is very pretty, although a bit monotone. As we are in Britannia, we can expect mostly forests and grass lands, with rolling hills and a mountain here and there. I had a similar complaint about Eador. Genesis, but this game breaks up the monotony with a quartet of seasons, which pass one by one each turn. I really like the seasons system, and not merely because it adds snow during winter. See, each season actually does something. It’s not just cosmetic, and it’s details like this that really makes me appreciate a game. Dominions 4 and Endless Legend do something similar, but it’s not quite as strategic as it is in this. The year begins in Spring, which is when random quests and disasters appear on the campaign map, which you can then react to by sending your armies to deal with them. During Summer, armies are able to move much farther on the campaign map. The game says that Autumn is when your food comes in, but I don’t think that’s actually the case. Winter does a number of things. First, Winter forces all armies on the overworld to stop and set up camp. No armies can move during Winter. Second, Winter is when your taxes come in, and this is also when your food comes in, possibly because of a bug. Lastly, Winter is when you can interact with your stronghold(s), building new districts, researching new improvements for your kingdom, and managing your economy via the Chancellory, where you enact new laws, set decrees, and trade food for gold and vice versa. Then Spring rolls back around and new random quests appear. The seasons system is a really great way of marrying form and function, and I think it’s pretty neato.

Now, this is a strategy game, and strategy games tend to have playable battles where you can exercise that big ol’ brain of yours. And the combat in this game, well... it’s basically Total War. NOW THIS SENTENCE RIGHT HERE IS FOR ANY LAWYERS THAT HAPPEN TO BE READING; DO NOT TAKE THIS PARAGRAPH OR THIS REVIEW AND USE IT AS A MEANS FOR LITIGATION. I WILL BE VERY CROSS WITH YOU IF I HAPPEN TO FIND OUT THAT ANYONE WAS SUCCESSFULLY SUED BECAUSE OF WHAT I JUST WROTE HERE. LAWYERS, DO NOT USE OR MENTION THIS REVIEW. Right, now that that’s over with; yeah, the gameplay is basically magical Medieval:Total War. You take battalions of troops, march them around the field of battle, and use strategy and tactics to win. Hero characters, such as the Knights of the Round Table, have magical abilities you can call upon to turn the tide of battle, which is a neat addition. Also, individual units don’t have morale, unlike in a Total War game; instead, each side has a morale bar that increases or decreases depending on which side controls victory locations. These locations are things like monuments, stone circles, villages, keeps, ect. Another departure from Total War that I like is that once you’ve won a battle, the enemy army goes away entirely, even if you won via morale rather than extermination. This makes it so that you needn’t chase enemies down across the map after each battle like roaches in a kitchen

^(The first battle in the game. My troops are the ones in armor. Winning!)^

In between battles are quests. As mentioned, some are random, appearing during the spring season. The important ones, however, are related to the plot of the game. These are things like finding and hiring on a Knight of the Round Table, or determining whether the Old Faith or Christianity gains more power, or finding special artifacts. All quests, random and plot-relevant, are carried out via text-based decision trees. Some choices use one or more of a hero’s stats. In these cases, the text will be green if it’s a certain success, blue if the outcome is uncertain, or red if it’s a certain failure. This incentivizes you to have a variety of heroes on hand. It’s a bit of a problem if you need a mageknight and all you have are fightknights. The outcome of quests has various effects, such as gaining you artifacts, changing your morality, giving you more troops, or provoking a battle.

^(One of the early quests. Sir Kay here did a bang-up job of it.)^

I alluded to a morality system in the above paragraph, and this game has not a binary moral choice system, but a quaternary moral choice system. See, in the wake of Arthur pulling Excalibur from the stone, magic returns to Britannia, leading to a resurgence of what they call the “Old Faith”, which is worship of the Tuatha de Danaan, the old Irish deities. This causes friction between the believers in this Old Faith, and the followers of the still-new Christianity. Interesting sidenote: In the game, the Welsh are followers of the Old Faith, while the Saxons are the Christian invaders. But in real life, the Welsh had already been Christianized by Saint Joseph of Arimathea and the Irish by Saint Patrick, while the Saxons were so incredibly pagan that Charlemagne felt the need to deliver them the Cross via the sword. In addition to the religious conflict, there’s a virtue axis, each end of which is labeled “Rightful” and “Tyrant”. The game makes a point of stating that Rightful isn’t necessarily good and Tyrant isn’t necessarily evil, and that the axis is meant to measure your commitment to the ideals of chivalry. Although, in practice, benevolent acts increase your Rightful gauge, while malevolent acts do the opposite. Going toward one combination of religion and virtue is advised, as you get new spells, bonuses, and unit choices for doing so, and I also imagine it affects what ending you get.

^(The morality chart. Fun fact, the terms the game uses for Rightful-Old Faith and Tyrant-Old Faith are Seelie and Unseelie respectively. This means that from a religious standpoint, there’s actually three sides you can choose from, Christian, Seelie, and Unseelie. I guess Christianity doesn’t care whether you’re a moral person...?)^

Now, the things I talked about are all very effective and fun, and I like them a lot. But here comes the problems are there are a few. First off, the game is hilariously unstable, especially the further you are into it. The most common bug I found was the game giving me a “Runtime error” during loading screens and crashing to desktop. Sometimes the game even just cuts out after the loading screen, but just after I unpause the game to start a battle, dumping me straight to the desktop. I even encountered a really weird bug where, when I reloaded a save, there was snow on the ground even though it was autumn, and after I hit the “next turn” button, I was prevented from opening the menu to save or quit, and I couldn’t end the turn again. I was stuck in perpetual winter. I mean, I know the Starks were all like “Winter is coming” but I didn’t think it’d stay forever. In fact, these glitches came up so often that I actually did make a print screen and paste it into paint; you remember, the thing I said I wasn’t gonna do in my Fallout 2 review.

^(Fun fact: when I inserted this image, it kept flickering for a second or two before it settled. Hopefully it’s not cursed.)^

Also, the AI isn’t particularly engaging. With a little bit of strategy and good judgement, it’s possible to win a battle with a force half as powerful as your enemy’s. This isn’t to say that the battles aren’t fun or that there isn’t any risk involved, but just that the AI isn’t as amazing as one might desire out of their grand strategy experience.

The game is really bad at telling you how to get plot quests to appear. You get hand-held through the first set of plot quests; the first book, as the game calls it. But then, things just sort of happen. And eventually, you start coming up on quests from books three and four just because... enough time has passed? That would be my guess anyway. Eventually, I did figure out how to get the quests to appear, but it didn’t feel like a natural story progression. A few pro-tips in the plot quest department: First, conquering territory gets the quests from book two to appear. I’d suggest trying to take the Mercias (There are two, East Mercia and West Mercia), and any small kingdoms you may have left. Second, do not conquer Wales or the Saxons; they’re quest-important. Lastly, around turn 150, something really important happens, so get the quest “The Vision” finished up by then.

One last thing that really bugged me. There’s no way to tell what your income is until winter time, so you have to make absolutely sure that everything in your economy is squared away by then or else you might find yourself up a creek.

ለማገባደድ, despite the bugs, I would absolutely recommend King Arthur: A Roleplaying Wargame to anyone who’s into fantasy, Arthurian legend, grand strategy, or swords and sorcery type stories. It’s got a lot to like, and a lot of really neat ideas and aesthetics. I am probably totally going to keep playing it, at least to the regular campaign’s conclusion. Now, this being a game taking place in the early Middle Ages, there are instances of arranged marriages, with you deciding which maidens marry which knights. There is something to be said about how doing so improves the knights’ abilities, basically turning them into stat boosting objects, but this is justified somewhat in that the attributes that boost stats are personality traits, and it would make sense for a person to be influenced by a person they spend a lot of time with. What is perhaps more disturbing when one gets into fridge logic, is that these maidens can be bartered to certain groups on the map, such as rebels or mercenary groups. The game wants you to believe that you’re arranging marriages between the rebel leaders and your maidens, but because doing so makes use of the same interface as bartering artifacts or gold, it really presents the unfortunate implication that you may be selling these women into slavery. Is that what’s really going on? Prrrobably not, but once the whole “slavery” possibility occurred to me, it wouldn’t be shaken. Really, the sexism problems this game has are the same ones that plague any game that takes place in Medieval times, and the same ones that plagued Medieval times (the time period, not the restaurant). Although, it is weird that each of the female heroes have an ability that gives them a stat boost in return for being prohibited from riding horses... Yeah, I thought that was weird.

^(One of the Sihde, on the right, compared to a group of puny mortals on the left. Like, dang. Why haven’t those guys taken over Britannia on their own?)^

#archon reviews #review #video games #king arthur: a roleplaying wargame #king arthur #fantasy #grand strategy

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bharatiyamedia-blog · 5 years

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Stranger Issues season 3: How and when to observe and plot rumors

http://tinyurl.com/y38zs9bc Stranger Issues Netflix Welcome again to Stranger Things, welcome again to the Upside Down. Stranger Issues returns to Netflix July 4. If that you must play catch-up, we have a recap of seasons 1 and 2 here. For our full review, head here. However now for the largest query of all… When can I watch? Netflix is releasing all episodes on July 4. However you most likely know that already. You wish to know precisely when. We have the exact occasions proper right here! 12:01 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) 3:01 a.m. Japanese Daylight Time (EDT) 4:01 a.m. Brasilia Time (BRT) 7:01 a.m. Coordinated Common Time (UTC) 8:01 a.m. British Summer season Time (BST) 12:31 p.m. India Commonplace Time (IST) 3:01 p.m. Central Commonplace Time (CST) 4:01 p.m. Korea Commonplace Time (KST) For these of you residing in Australia, Netflix made a close to little diagram (because you all have so many bizarre timezones). In case you possibly can’t see the above tweet, we have additionally listed the occasions under… 3:01 p.m. Australian Western Commonplace Time (AWST) 4:31 p.m. Australian Central Commonplace Time (ACST) 5:01 p.m. Australian Japanese Commonplace Time (AEST) Tips on how to watch Get your self a Netflix subscription. Stranger Issues is a jewel within the service’s crown of authentic collection, and it is one of the simplest ways to make sure you get all the brand new episodes plus entry to the primary two seasons. Unsure Netflix is value it to you? The service presents a free one-month trial, so in the event you enroll near the brand new season’s premiere you possibly can take in the brand new season and each earlier years, then cancel your membership with out price. However we’re anticipating two extra seasons of the present, so that you may need to enroll once more in a while (or discover a Netflix-subscribing good friend who’ll invite you over) Opinions are promising And in accordance those that’ve lucked out and seen it early, you may wish to neglect the native gathering and keep house and watch a special form of fireworks from your individual TV. CNET’s own Jennifer Bisset provided excessive reward for season 3, dubbing it, “a tighter, faster-paced barely shorter run of eight episodes that manages to faucet each emotional vein of childhood (even for many who did not develop up within the ’80s).” Bisset is not alone. MTVNews tradition director Crystal Bell tweeted that season Three is the present’s “greatest season but.” CNET sister website ComicBook.com also approves, noting that the brand new season works to “not solely ship followers every thing they beloved about earlier seasons, but additionally elevate parts to new heights.” Trailers and teases When you await the total episodes, Netflix dropped a final trailer. Issues in Hawkins look fairly grim this summer time — er, we imply, in the summertime of 1985. Take a look at the present’s newest poster, too. Sure, Eleven is carrying a scrunchie, and yikes, these are plenty of lifeless rats. And is {that a} new hideous monster rising up from the Upside Down? In Might, the present teased a bit in regards to the scorching occasions coming to the Hawkins, Indiana, Neighborhood Pool. Trace: The center-aged mothers love them some bad-boy Billy the lifeguard. Again in March, the present delivered a preview dripping with 1980s nostalgia. Now taking part in: Watch this: Netflix teases Stranger Issues season Three in new trailer 2:50 The trailer has its enjoyable retro moments — Dustin sprays Lucas within the face with Farrah Fawcett hair spray when the chums sneak up on him — but it surely’s apparent that hazard nonetheless dwells in Hawkins. Hopper tries to reassure Joyce he desires her to really feel protected, however who can when there is a new horrific monster lurking, plus a man with a gun? And it is actually a disgrace that Mews, Dustin’s household cat, met such a tragic finish, as a result of it seems rats have invaded the town. (Learn: Stranger Things temporada 3 en español.) Again on New Yr’s Eve 2018, Netflix launched the July Four launch date with a cute retro video mixing clips from Dick Clark’s New Yr’s Rockin’ Eve, the precise 1984-turns-into-1985 version, with typical Stranger Issues doom and gloom. The video was lower by with bizarre pc glitches, and revealed a hidden message that learn, “When blue and yellow meet within the west.” What’s all of it about? Why is Stranger Issues so surprisingly compelling? The present seemingly got here out of nowhere in July 2016, with a 1980s setting and wealthy popular culture particulars. Younger Will Byers disappears one evening after taking part in D&D together with his buddies in Hawkins, Indiana. The unfolding plot features a secret authorities laboratory, a younger lady referred to as Eleven, with psychokinetic powers, a creepy Upside Down dimension full of monsters and goo, and Christmas lights that blink an unnerving message. It boosted the sales of Eggo waffles, Eleven’s favourite snack, and created a complete motion, Justice for Barb, after a beloved character disappeared from a pool and despatched followers off the deep finish. The third season is about to blow up, and co-creators Matt and Ross Duffer say a fourth and fifth season are seemingly. And in an interview with CNET Journal , David Harbour (Hopper himself) additionally confirmed that tidbit in regards to the present: We will expect Stranger Things to stick around for an additional few years and push into 5 seasons. He additionally mentioned he is aware of “considerably plenty of Hopper’s place in that story as a result of the extra you possibly can know in regards to the finish of your story, the extra you possibly can arrange,” and that followers should not worry unfastened ends (cough — Game of Thrones — cough) irrespective of when the present lastly ends. “I really feel very happy with that … we’re not going to get form of misplaced in our story and go away these strands,” he mentioned. “We’ll tie issues up.” Meet the solid Returning faces Who will we add to the core group in season 3? Courtesy Netflix New faces Maya Hawke: Hawke, daughter of actors Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, will be part of the solid as Robin, Variety reports. Robin is described as “an ‘different lady’ bored along with her mundane day job. She seeks pleasure in her life and will get greater than she bargained for when she uncovers a darkish secret.” Cary Elwes: Elwes, without end recognized to many as Westley in The Princess Bride, is coming to Hawkins, the place he’ll play the city’s mayor. “Good-looking, slick and sleazy, Mayor Kline is your basic ’80s politician — extra involved together with his personal picture than with the folks of the small city he governs,” Netflix says. Jake Busey: Busey, son of acclaimed actor Gary Busey, will play Bruce, described by Netflix as “a journalist for The Hawkins Submit with questionable morals and a sick humorousness.” What we all know in regards to the plot Bros without end: One of the crucial endearing options of the present to date got here when Dustin and Steve developed a likable little bro-big bro relationship. “You undoubtedly see extra of that,” actor Gaten Matarazzo, who performs Dustin, told Entertainment Weekly. “That is what I actually like about (showrunners) Matt and Ross (Duffer): They know what followers like and so they roll with it.” Millie and Eleven: Millie Bobby Brown recently revealed that she and her character are melding much more this season. “Eleven undoubtedly turns into extra like me this season,” Brown mentioned in a press roundtable. “She’s very susceptible, very highly effective and robust. I can relate to her energy principally.” The actress additionally mentioned she had a hand in her character turning into extra fashionable, even “(exhibiting) just a little leg.” Billy, do not be a hero: The ultimate trailer suggests Max’s bullying brother Billy might be possessed by no matter evil remains to be lurking exterior the Upside Down. The mothers of Hawkins might imagine he is scorching stuff on the native pool, however the summer time appears unhealthy for ol’ Invoice. Freeze, police! In October 2018 a casting notice looked for extras with military and police experience to movie with the present in Atlanta. Each women and men, aged 18-50, of any ethnicity, are wanted. Hmm, what Stranger Issues plot might name for a big navy or police presence? May Chief Hopper be calling in a bigger drive to assist management the supernatural facet of Hawkins? Strike up the band: In September 2018, casting notices had been posted seeking people with marching band experience to look in a Stranger Issues episode. As with the police/navy casting discover above, there is not a ton of information to go along with this information: Will or not it’s a college band? A neighborhood group? Are they to look in a parade? And, after all, we do not know if any of the principle solid members might be a part of the band, which would appear to imply it might play a bigger position in an episode, or if the band is simply background noise. Life’s a seaside: Celeb website Simply Jared published a photo of Millie Bobby Brown filming what seems to be a fairly dramatic scene on the seaside in Malibu, California. Stranger Issues, after all, is about in landlocked Indiana, so possibly the Pacific Ocean is standing in for an Indiana lake or river. Or maybe Eleven is taking a West Coast journey within the new season. A couple of week later, extra snaps of the solid taken in Georgia had been revealed, this time, that includes most of Eleven’s associates, however she wasn’t seen. It is unclear what scene the youngsters had been filming, and most of them had been wrapped in robes, both to maintain heat or to cover no matter they had been carrying. Eleven’s backstory revealed: Viewers have already met Eleven’s mother, troubled Terry Ives, however a brand new young-adult novel revealed in February 2019 will dig into her mom’s previous much more. Entertainment Weekly published an excerpt from Gwenda Bond’s e-book, referred to as Suspicious Minds, and it follows Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine on the present) as he tries to assemble a bunch of younger take a look at topics, presumably together with Terry. 5-year-old Eight, who Eleven meets when she’s fairly a bit older, additionally seems. Netflix Love is within the air: The romantic duos of Eleven/Mike and Max/Lucas are nonetheless collectively in Season 3, however for the way lengthy? “They’re like 13- or 14-year-old youngsters, so what does romance imply at that stage of life?” executive producer Shawn Levy said. However in July 2018, Finn Wolfhard, who performs Mike, famous that the present might be set in the summertime of 1985, and referred to as it “the summer time of affection.” Wolfhard wasn’t round for the primary summer time of affection in 1967, and he wasn’t born till after the summer time of 1985. However his quote appears to trace that love and relationships might be part of season 3, for good or for ailing. Not everybody’s romance might be all hearts and flowers, although. David Harbour, who performs police chief Jim Hopper, mentioned his character will “take extra dangers with these new languages of intimacy and vulnerability,” however is “going to flail and be horrible at it.” Father determine as martyr: Additionally in summer time 2018, Harbour told the Tampa Bay Comic-Con audience that he is aware of how he’d like his character to bow out. “I wish to take a bullet for Eleven,” he mentioned. And when followers cheered the selfless response, he replied, “Now you are all pleased about me dying!” No fears, although. I believe Hopper will stick round till the present’s eventual finish. We’ll have to attend and see whether or not he lives fortunately ever after (with Joyce?) or heroically exchanges his life for Eleven’s. New faces: Finn Wolfhard appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in August 2018 and hinted at some new additions. “We’re in the course of (filming the season),” Wolfhard mentioned. “We acquired some new solid members, some unbelievable folks.” However that was about all he would spill, and Fallon rapidly modified the topic to joke about how he ought to seem on the present as a “bizarre uncle or one thing.” New characters aren’t any shock, and in the event that they play main roles, as Max and Billy did in season 2, absolutely particulars will leak out quickly. Extra D&D: The primary season began with the principle boys taking part in Dungeons & Dragons, which actually helped endear the present to all of us nerds on the market. Count on extra of the fantasy role-playing recreation in Season 3. As Comicbook.com identified, artist Jared Flaming shared on Instagram in April that he is instructing the present’s prop grasp in regards to the recreation. Jackson Davis/Netflix Dad Steve is again: Older teen character Steve Harrington (Joe Keery), who turned out to be an enormous brother determine for Dustin in season 2, will sustain that position. “I am going to simply say we cannot be abandoning the Dad-Steve magic,” Levy told THR. Again in time: Ghostbusters was an vital theme in season 2, and Michael J. Fox’s 1985 film Back to the Future might be a key aspect this season. Chasing Chase: Again to the Future is not the one 1980s film that can play a job. David Harbour instructed Selection that Chevy Chase’s 1985 motion comedy Fletch will also inspire season 3. “Fletch is one film we get to mess around and have some enjoyable with this season, which you would not anticipate from Stranger Issues. and also you would not anticipate from the Spielberg universe and also you actually would not anticipate from a darker season,” he mentioned. Hopper’s historical past: Harbour also told Variety that he hopes the present investigates his character’s historical past as each a New York cop and a Vietnam vet. “I am curious as to how his excursions in Vietnam may need formed him to be who he’s and if a few of that stuff does not nonetheless linger or hang-out him in varied methods,” Harbour mentioned. Sing it, sister: Lucas’ vigorous youthful sister Erica (Priah Ferguson) may have an expanded position this season, and deservedly so. “There will certainly be extra Erica in season 3,” present co-creator Ross Duffer instructed Yahoo Entertainment. “http://www.cnet.com/”We acquired to make use of extra Erica’ — that was one of many first issues we mentioned within the writers’ room.” Maintaining with the Byerses: Millie Bobby Brown, who performs Eleven, did her greatest to begin a loopy rumor in regards to the new season. While being interviewed by E! in mid-Might, Brown requested co-star Noah Schnapp (Will Byers) if he’d like to see reality-show star Kim Kardashian on Stranger Issues. A confused Schnapp thought the casting was actuality, and Brown led him on by claiming Kardashian was set to play a personality named 10. Kardashian herself gave the impression to be onboard, tweeting an enthused response. (Fan opinion: NOOOOO PLEASE NOOOO!) Be aware: This piece was first revealed Might 3, 2018 and is steadily up to date as we get nearer to the Upside Down. Source link

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vgblast-blog · 6 years

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We Happy Few: Immersion, intrigue, and melancholy

https://videogameblast.com/?p=1694

To say that playing We Happy Few is an experience is a gross understatement.

I believe the highly anticipated title by Compulsion Games is one that truly seeks to break new ground in the genre the world will likely categorize it as. The overall presentation of the game is astounding, along with its premise, and the way it handles gameplay makes giving We Happy Few a label such as “First-person stealth action horror survival” seem almost like a slight to the overall vision. I would prefer to call this game a “paranoia simulator”. Why you may ask? Well, the game truly feels alive and comes together when you feel as though you are being watched, looking over your shoulder while trying to keep a pace to your next objective, only to run into someone else who questions your very existence the second you turn around to come back from your previous direction in their drug-induced haze whilst coexisting in the "Utopia" known as Wellington Wells. The game has a real sense of progression and does a lot for “Survival” style gameplay, though, some may argue the changes to the standard formula may trivialize the experience. With multiple characters, a compelling narrative, incredible aesthetic, fun gameplay with welcome twists on the original “craft, survive, explore” formula, what’s not to love? Unfortunately; there’s quite a bit I’m afraid.

The overall presentation of We Happy Few is the most polarizing part of the experience.

From dreary gardens to areas that shift perspective depending on your element of sobriety (read: on or off drugs.) The visual style, character aesthetic, sense of progression, and atmospheric presence of Compulsion’s title is fantastic. However, despite what it excels in, it all falls apart under arguably the worst downfall the game suffers from: a lack of overall polish and optimization. I played the game on the Playstation 4 and I experienced crashes, save file corruptions, visual bugs, collision detection errors, AI inconsistencies, frame rate inconsistencies, pop-in graphics, and just an overall air of incompleteness. Not just once or twice, but so often while playing We Happy Few, whether I was streaming this game or not, gave me these bugs, glitches, and crashes. We Happy Few had a vision that, when attempted, crushed itself mercilessly in the absolute worst possible way. When its formula works, when the graphics stop popping in, when the game doesn’t crash, when everything melds together in the way it was intended; the experience is like no other. It is truly a unique game; more so than any other of the sort, as the survival elements mixed not with an immediate need to fight back against an enemy but conform to their standard. It is truly a different and intriguing train of thought that needs to be played to be believed. As new types of villagers are introduced, and behaviors and equipment of already existing ones change or become more apparent, you will feel much more of an inclination to be prepared as opposed to improvising on the fly while walking the streets of Wellington Wells. It also requires you to be aware of your actions as to not overemphasize your non-conformity. Though sometimes you will be unable to avoid the necessary evil of becoming drug-induced; altered states of perception allow you to get through certain checkpoints that you will undoubtedly find; unless, you for some reason, want to make the game as hard as you can.

The element of drug use in the game (and most of the rewards that come from exploring its crafting system) unfortunately falls flat.

The populace controlling drug “Joy” is plentiful in the city and with other items to keep hunger, thirst, and even sleep in check in gross abundance, you may find the overall challenge of We Happy Few to be lacking where it should seem incredibly apparent. While you may find that every sprint down the rainbow streets of Wellington Wells may not end in your death, conforming to society and walking everywhere all the time may not be such a bad idea, especially with a good plan in mind. The constant and random load times, crashes, and AI idiocy also serve to crush the immersion and leaves the game horribly disfigured over basic problem-solving skills in the long run. While it is easy to get surrounded, backed into a corner, and overtaken by an angry mob, you may find it just as easy to corral all of them up and duck into an alley to hide, then watch them simply ignore the trashcan you take refuge in and go on their merry way. It is these problems that make the game a mess more than anything else, as the innovation and unique twists on common elements unfortunately get overshadowed by the sloppy optimization beyond glitches and frame drops, leading to a true break in the main selling point of the game.

Disappointingly, as a game that relies on immersion, We Happy Few’s lack of polish makes the compelling narrative not worth the effort to those used to a usual “Triple-A”, 60$ title.

While the stories of Arthur Hastings, Sally Boyle, and Ollie Starkey are all compelling and the characters are genuinely likable, the random load times while simply walking down the street and constant sights of randomly floating or misplaced NPCs make the world feel more silly and tedious rather than paranoid and suspenseful. For every street you walk down that makes you feel like you just survived judgement akin to a crooked jury, you will encounter one with an NPC floating away from his bench while still in a sitting animation. It is wholeheartedly unfortunate to bear witness to the fact that the game can not keep the same tone as its melancholy narrative of intrigue, deception, and soul-searching initially led consumers and players to believe. For if it could, this game would have been nothing short of a triumph. The visuals, voice acting, writing, and overall presentation of the world make it feel alive and worth visiting, which makes exploring Wellington Wells feel like a genuinely rewarding experience when it all works. Regrettably, those times are few and far between as the longer you play, the more the game seems to work against you, giving you even more random load times and crashes. All in all, it kills the experience the game is built upon, as without it the atmosphere, tension, and immersion factor of the game is completely gone and it’s unfortunately left to be viewed as a different-but-unpolished first-person survival action game.

We Happy Few is a game that stands alone in its incredible ideas and presentation, but is undermined by glitches and hiccups that can't be ignored.

As the game stands now, We Happy Few is an important game to make note of. A great aesthetic with a fantastic narrative and genuinely great twists on the normal formula only shine when they work, which is a disastrous, never consistent amount of time. The story of the main protagonist, Arthur Hastings, is the only thing that pushed me to complete it, honestly only to dread the next character’s stories as I knew they would be plagued by the same issues as Arthur's decently long narrative. I could not, on any good authority recommend purchasing We Happy Few to anyone in its current state, but if you absolutely must play it and can work with all of the aforementioned optimization flaws, there is a gem of a game and truly an amazing experience buried deep within, that, when functional, is beautiful.

Only when it works, though.

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tinymixtapes · 6 years

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Music Review: Daniel Saylor - Spring Rain

Daniel Saylor Spring Rain [Bedlam Tapes; 2017] Rating: 3/5 The Encyclopedia Dramatica, which may or may not be a legitimate source of contrarian knowledge in the face of the “unbiased” approach of Wikipedia, approaches vaporwave as any pre-internet institution would: warily, never making direct eye contact. Of the subculture, it says: “Vaporwave may or may not exist as an established art form or means of expression. Vaporwave works against itself to provide entertainment; the boundaries of irony are irrelevant here.” And then, of course, there’s vaporwave’s younger, beefier cousin, hardvapor, with its hypercorporate mindmelt of postmodernism and Netscape utopia mixed with meme-influenced imagery playing as both self-referential and tongue-maybe-in-cheek. It all feels so ethereal and fleeting. So, how do you attempt to deal with music that thrives in a contextless ether? What music could bridge the anarchic void of internet ephemera and the physical world, where industry, technicality, and social constructs are still veritable gatekeepers? At some threshold, the source material ends and the artist begins, which is where Daniel Saylor’s debut Spring Rain comes in. In an attempt to make the vapor ａｅｓｔｈｅｔｉｃ “tangible,” Saylor approaches consonance through pop culture sampling, live jazz instrumentation, and references to hardvapor’s distant ancestors in breakbeat and glitch music. This album goes beyond the work that Saylor released previously as Windows 98の and currently on his label, Bedlam Tapes; it’s a simple answer to the progression of a style of music that he and others have worked to legitimize, shedding the material constraints of the genre and using live-tracked instruments to meld jazz with various electronic styles. Spring Rain by Daniel Saylor Pioneers from many electronic narratives are given cameos: for example, Dan Deacon, the father of frenetic, circuit-breaking rave anthems, is sampled on “Crossing Paths.” It’s a moment when Saylor’s ideas really click together, and the composition is exciting and seamless. The track then transitions into one of the album’s many interludes, which also happens to contain some of the album’s most impactful moments. Imogen Heap, who inadvertently sang the blueprint for a sub genre of ghostly hip-hop when her voice was sampled by Clams Casino for “I’m God,” appears on “Breathe.” Saylor also samples George Clinton, Hirokazu Tanaka (the composer behind many classic Nintendo titles), mathcore savants Dillinger Escape Plan, and even Kanye West, all with some sort of purpose in mind, no doubt. Saylor is a bit like of a foil to Venetian Snares. He clearly has a deep fundamental and technical musical knowledge, and like Aaron Funk, he has a quixotic online presence and questionable sense of humor that gleefully undermines the seriousness of his music. They are also both reflections of the state of the internet during their respective heydays, which is also what makes them extremely different. Venetian Snares was all about chaos, filth, and grimly chauvinistic imagery, adopting a kidult machismo that long predated meme/trolling culture’s preoccupation with juvenile in-jokes, homoerotic jabs, and cartoonish violence. Saylor takes an opposite approach: Spring Rain is like a spa day away from whatever circle of hell society has wound up in, one where the Western standard of living is higher and comfort more accessible than ever, paid for by constant exposure to advertisements, aggravating fictions, and the ceremonial beating of the dead culture horse. Spring Rain definitely isn’t subtle on the dramatics. In fact, things get silly on “Forward Junction” and “Downtown,” two songs that seem like they’re meant to be a crest in the album’s narrative, but are ultimately overstuffed with content, like the stereotypical teenage gamer’s bedroom. While this NES influence leads him to craft some questionable melodies (like on the second part of “Ashes into Rivers”), Saylor also manages to do what the best video game soundtracks do on “Unstill Waters”: create a sense of narrative place — in this case, the album’s danceable finale. And by understanding the nuances of live instrumentation and the tropes of today’s most popular and exciting electronic music, Saylor wisely places himself in both camps: a technocrat and a subversive, and also, in his own words, a composer and “savant.” http://j.mp/2hFhAw6

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bharatiyamedia-blog · 5 years

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Stranger Issues season 3: How and when to observe and plot rumors

http://tinyurl.com/y4r3senm Stranger Issues Netflix Welcome again to Stranger Things, welcome again to the Upside Down As we speak Stranger Issues returns to Netflix. If it is advisable play catch-up we have a recap of Season 1 and 2 here. For our full review head here. However now for the largest query of all… When can I watch? Netflix is releasing all episodes on July 4. However you in all probability know that already. You wish to know precisely when. We have got the exact timings proper right here! 12:01 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) 3:01 a.m. Japanese Daylight Time (EDT) 4:01 a.m. Brasilia Time (BRT) 7:01 a.m. Coordinated Common Time (UTC) 8:01 a.m. British Summer time Time (BST) 12:31 p.m. India Customary Time (IST) 3:01 p.m. Central Customary Time (CST) 4:01 p.m. Korea Customary Time (KST) For these of you dwelling in Australia, Netflix made a close to little diagram (because you all have so many bizarre timezones.) In case you may’t see the above tweet, we have additionally listed the instances under… 3.01 pm Australian Western Customary Time (AWST) 4.31 pm Australian Central Customary Time (ACST) 5.01 pm Australian Japanese Customary Time (AEST) The best way to watch Get your self a Netflix subscription. Stranger Issues is a jewel within the service’s crown of authentic sequence, and it is one of the best ways to make sure you get all the brand new episodes plus entry to the primary two seasons. Undecided Netflix is price it to you? The service gives a free one-month trial, so for those who enroll near the brand new season’s premiere you may take in the brand new season and each earlier years, then cancel your membership with out value. However we’re anticipating two extra seasons of the present, so that you may need to enroll once more afterward (or discover a Netflix-subscribing buddy who’ll invite you over) Critiques are promising And in accordance those that’ve lucked out and seen it early, you may wish to overlook the native gathering and keep residence and watch a distinct form of fireworks from your individual TV. CNET’s own Jennifer Bisset supplied excessive reward for season 3, dubbing it, “a tighter, faster-paced barely shorter run of eight episodes that manages to faucet each emotional vein of childhood (even for individuals who did not develop up within the ’80s).” Bisset is not alone. MTVNews tradition director Crystal Bell tweeted that season Three is the present’s “finest season but.” CNET sister website ComicBook.com also approves, noting that the brand new season works to “not solely ship followers all the things they cherished about earlier seasons, but additionally elevate components to new heights.” Trailers and teases Whilst you await the complete episodes, Netflix dropped a final trailer. Issues in Hawkins look fairly grim this summer season — er, we imply, in the summertime of 1985. Take a look at the present’s newest poster, too. Sure, Eleven is sporting a scrunchie, and yikes, these are plenty of lifeless rats. And is {that a} new hideous monster rising up from the Upside Down? In Could, the present teased a bit concerning the sizzling instances coming to the Hawkins, Indiana, Group Pool. Trace: The center-aged mothers love them some bad-boy Billy the lifeguard. To accompany the brand new video clip, Netflix additionally launched some new character posters. It is OK to chortle at Steve Harrington in his sailor-boy Scoops Ahoy ice-cream store uniform. Again in March, the present delivered a preview dripping with 1980s nostalgia. Now taking part in: Watch this: Netflix teases Stranger Issues season Three in new trailer 2:50 The trailer has its enjoyable retro moments — Dustin sprays Lucas within the face with Farrah Fawcett hair spray when the chums sneak up on him — however it’s apparent that hazard nonetheless dwells in Hawkins. Hopper tries to reassure Joyce he needs her to really feel secure, however who can when there is a new horrific monster lurking, plus a man with a gun? And it is actually a disgrace that Mews, Dustin’s household cat, met such a tragic finish, as a result of it seems rats have invaded the town. (Learn: Stranger Things temporada 3 en español.) Again on New Yr’s Eve 2018, Netflix launched the July Four launch date with a cute retro video mixing clips from Dick Clark’s New Yr’s Rockin’ Eve, the precise 1984-turns-into-1985 version, with typical Stranger Issues doom and gloom. The video was reduce via with bizarre pc glitches, and revealed a hidden message that learn, “When blue and yellow meet within the west.” Netflix additionally tweeted a picture of the forged celebrating July Four underneath fireworks-dotted skies. What’s all of it about? Why is Stranger Issues so surprisingly compelling? The present seemingly got here out of nowhere in July 2016, with a 1980s setting and wealthy popular culture particulars. Younger Will Byers disappears one evening after taking part in D&D along with his buddies in Hawkins, Indiana. The unfolding plot features a secret authorities laboratory, a younger woman referred to as Eleven, with psychokinetic powers, a creepy Upside Down dimension full of monsters and goo, and Christmas lights that blink an unnerving message. It boosted the sales of Eggo waffles, Eleven’s favourite snack, and created a complete motion, Justice for Barb, after a beloved character disappeared from a pool and despatched followers off the deep finish. The third season is about to blow up, and co-creators Matt and Ross Duffer say a fourth and fifth season are possible. And in an interview with CNET Journal , David Harbour (Hopper himself) additionally confirmed that tidbit concerning the present: We will expect Stranger Things to stick around for an additional few years and push into 5 seasons. He additionally stated he is aware of “considerably plenty of Hopper’s place in that story as a result of the extra you may know concerning the finish of your story, the extra you may arrange,” and that followers should not concern free ends (cough — Game of Thrones — cough) regardless of when the present lastly ends. “I really feel very pleased with that … we’re not going to get type of misplaced in our story and depart these strands,” he stated. “We’ll tie issues up.” However till then, here is a sneak peek at what unusual issues await. Meet the forged Returning faces Who will we add to the core group in season 3? Courtesy Netflix New faces Maya Hawke: Hawke, the daughter of actors Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, will be part of the forged as Robin, Variety reports. Robin is described as “an ‘different woman’ bored along with her mundane day job. She seeks pleasure in her life and will get greater than she bargained for when she uncovers a darkish secret.” Cary Elwes: Elwes, perpetually recognized to many as Westley in The Princess Bride, is coming to Hawkins, the place he’ll play the city’s mayor. “Good-looking, slick and sleazy, Mayor Kline is your traditional ’80s politician — extra involved along with his personal picture than with the folks of the small city he governs,” Netflix says. Jake Busey: Busey, son of acclaimed actor Gary Busey, will play Bruce, described by Netflix as “a journalist for The Hawkins Submit with questionable morals and a sick humorousness.” What we all know concerning the plot Bros perpetually: One of the crucial endearing options of the present up to now got here when Dustin and Steve developed a likable little bro-big bro relationship. “You positively see extra of that,” actor Gaten Matarazzo, who performs Dustin, told Entertainment Weekly. “That is what I actually like about (showrunners) Matt and Ross (Duffer): They know what followers like and so they roll with it.” Millie and Eleven: Millie Bobby Brown recently revealed that she and her character are melding much more this season. “Eleven turns into rather more like me… She positively turns into extra like me this season,” Brown stated in a press roundtable. “She’s very weak, very highly effective and powerful. I can relate to her power principally.” The actress additionally stated she had a hand in her character turning into extra trendy, even “(displaying) a bit of leg.” Billy, do not be a hero: The ultimate trailer means that Max’s bullying brother Billy will probably be possessed by no matter evil continues to be lurking outdoors the Upside Down. The mothers of Hawkins might imagine he is sizzling stuff on the native pool, however the summer season appears dangerous for ol’ Invoice. Freeze, police! In October 2018 a casting notice looked for extras with military and police experience to movie with the present in Atlanta. Each women and men, aged 18-50, of any ethnicity, are wanted. Hmm, what Stranger Issues plot may name for a big navy or police presence? Might Chief Hopper be calling in a bigger pressure to assist management the supernatural facet of Hawkins? Strike up the band: In September 2018, casting notices had been posted seeking people with marching band experience to seem in a Stranger Issues episode. As with the police/navy casting discover above, there is not a ton of information to go together with this information: Will or not it’s a college band? A group group? Are they to seem in a parade? And, after all, we do not know if any of the principle forged members will probably be a part of the band, which would appear to imply it may play a bigger position in an episode, or if the band is simply background noise. Life’s a seaside: Celeb website Simply Jared published a photo of Millie Bobby Brown filming what seems to be a reasonably dramatic scene on the seaside in Malibu, California. Stranger Issues, after all, is about in landlocked Indiana, so perhaps the Pacific Ocean is standing in for an Indiana lake or river. Or maybe Eleven is taking a West Coast journey within the new season. A few week later, extra snaps of the forged taken in Georgia had been revealed, this time, that includes most of Eleven’s mates, however she wasn’t seen. It is unclear what scene the youngsters had been filming, and most of them had been wrapped in robes, both to maintain heat or to cover no matter they had been sporting. Eleven’s backstory revealed: Viewers have already met Eleven’s mother, troubled Terry Ives, however a brand new young-adult novel printed in February 2019 will dig into her mom’s previous much more. Entertainment Weekly published an excerpt from Gwenda Bond’s guide, referred to as Suspicious Minds, and it follows Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine on the present) as he tries to assemble a gaggle of younger check topics, presumably together with Terry. 5-year-old Eight, who Eleven meets when she’s fairly a bit older, additionally seems. Courtesy Netflix Love is within the air: The romantic duos of Eleven/Mike and Max/Lucas are nonetheless collectively in Season 3, however for the way lengthy? “They’re like 13- or 14-year-old youngsters, so what does romance imply at that stage of life?” executive producer Shawn Levy said. However in July 2018, Finn Wolfhard, who performs Mike, famous that the present will probably be set in the summertime of 1985, and referred to as it “the summer season of affection.” Wolfhard wasn’t round for the primary summer season of affection in 1967, and he wasn’t born till after the summer season of 1985. However his quote appears to trace that love and relationships will probably be part of season 3, for good or for sick. Not everybody’s romance will probably be all hearts and flowers, although. David Harbour, who performs police chief Jim Hopper, stated his character will “take extra dangers with these new languages of intimacy and vulnerability,” however is “going to flail and be horrible at it.” Father determine as martyr: Additionally in summer season 2018, Harbour told the Tampa Bay Comic-Con audience that he is aware of how he’d like his character to bow out. “I wish to take a bullet for Eleven,” he stated. And when followers cheered the selfless response, he replied, “Now you are all comfortable about me dying!” No fears, although. I feel Hopper will stick round till the present’s eventual finish. We’ll have to attend and see whether or not he lives fortunately ever after (with Joyce?) or heroically exchanges his life for Eleven’s. New faces: Finn Wolfhard appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in August 2018 and hinted at some new additions. “We’re in the course of (filming the season),” Wolfhard stated. “We acquired some new forged members, some unbelievable folks.” However that was about all he would spill, and Fallon shortly modified the topic to joke about how he ought to seem on the present as a “bizarre uncle or one thing.” New characters aren’t any shock, and in the event that they play main roles, as Max and Billy did in season 2, certainly particulars will leak out quickly. Extra D&D: The primary season began with the principle boys taking part in Dungeons & Dragons, which actually helped endear the present to all of us nerds on the market. Anticipate extra of the fantasy role-playing sport in Season 3. As Comicbook.com identified, artist Jared Flaming shared on Instagram in April that he is educating the present’s prop grasp concerning the sport. Jackson Davis/Netflix Dad Steve is again: Older teen character Steve Harrington (Joe Keery), who turned out to be an enormous brother determine for Dustin in season 2, will sustain that position. “I will simply say we cannot be abandoning the Dad-Steve magic,” Levy told THR. Again in time: Ghostbusters was an essential theme in season 2, and Michael J. Fox’s 1985 film Back to the Future will probably be a key ingredient this season. Chasing Chase: Again to the Future is not the one 1980s film that can play a job. David Harbour instructed Selection that Chevy Chase’s 1985 motion comedy Fletch will also inspire season 3. “Fletch is one film we get to mess around and have some enjoyable with this season, which you would not count on from Stranger Issues. and also you would not count on from the Spielberg universe and also you actually would not count on from a darker season,” he stated. Hopper’s historical past: Harbour also told Variety that he hopes the present investigates his character’s historical past as each a New York cop and a Vietnam vet. “I am curious as to how his excursions in Vietnam may need formed him to be who he’s and if a few of that stuff does not nonetheless linger or hang-out him in varied methods,” Harbour stated. Sing it, sister: Lucas’ full of life youthful sister Erica (Priah Ferguson) may have an expanded position this season, and deservedly so. “There will certainly be extra Erica in season 3,” present co-creator Ross Duffer instructed Yahoo Entertainment. “http://www.cnet.com/”We acquired to make use of extra Erica’ — that was one of many first issues we stated within the writers’ room.” Maintaining with the Byerses: Millie Bobby Brown, who performs Eleven, did her finest to begin a loopy rumor concerning the new season. While being interviewed by E! in mid-Could, Brown requested co-star Noah Schnapp (Will Byers) if he’d like to see reality-show star Kim Kardashian on Stranger Issues. A confused Schnapp thought the casting was actuality, and Brown led him on by claiming Kardashian was set to play a personality named 10. Kardashian herself gave the impression to be onboard, tweeting an enthused response. (Fan opinion: NOOOOO PLEASE NOOOO!) Notice: This piece was first printed Could 3, 2018 and is ceaselessly up to date as we get nearer to the Upside Down. Source link

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