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tachvintlogic · 11 months

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Some Author's Commentary on A Fishing Rod in Hand is Worth 2 in System Memory

This was in my drafts for two years when I finally posted chapter 6 of A Fishing Rod in Hand is Worth 2 in System Memory, and since it ain't gettin' any younger, might as well post it.

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I have thoughts about chapter 6 of my System Memory fic and figured to just put them in a post.

I'm so happy I got to the part where I traumatize Twilight. The best part about basing the Links not just on their games, but on a specific speedrun is that I get to write angst unique to that particular run. The story is supposed to be a mix of humor and angst, and I got the humor down if the feedback is any indication, so it was nice to turn up the angst.

This section was really helped by the fact I had access to an actual copy of Twilight Princess to explore the world and find things, like that the postman hangs out in the goat barn in Ordon. (Which sucks because that's not going to be the case for most of the other eras.)

I've played at least a little of one game for each Link except Four, and I think he suffers because of it. I have basic mechanics knowledge from first hand experience for everyone but him. All the glitches come from research and I have to research games I've never played or finished, but for him everything has to be researched.

I remember seeing a post that complained that Hyrule was rarely being given opportunities in fics to be badass or something along those line. So I thought, "okay, I'll give Hyrule an ability so overpowered that most of the other Links can't handle it."

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It's been a while since chapter 6 was posted, hasn't it?

I'm very satisfied with finally completing the second arc of System Memory, where I tortured Wind after torturing Twilight (emotionally). The arcs followed a similar progression, though I only noticed it in the middle of writing. Both went hometown → Zelda → Gerudo settlement → dungeon → portal. Both also had a battle where Hyrule was a total badass using an overpowered quirk of his games' controls. The 3rd era will probably not follow this progression (but Hyrule will still be a badass).

At first, the hardest part of that arc was the conversation between Grandma and Wind. I literally wrote the entire chapter with the Savage Labyrinth because I was avoiding that conversation just as much as Wind was.

But once it was done, the hardest part was definitely the naval battle. Which isn't good from a writing perspective because the navel battle was 1.5 chapters long.

From writing those chapters, I've found that the thing that really gets me in a writing mood is being a passenger on a plane or a long car ride with no internet and only my laptop with an open fic document for company. After 2 five hour car rides, the arc was "done" and I started updating it again.

Another thing that helps is having research notes from the actual game. They were very helpful for getting a sense for the Forsaken Fortress and Wind Temple layout, the sunrise scene, and visualizing where the pirate ship was supposed to do in relation to the islands.

(For the 3rd arc/era, I fortunately own a game set in that era for easy reference.)

...But having a first draft with all the necessary scenes present doesn't mean it's done, now does it? So, the battles in particular had lots of revisions because the story beats were happening too quickly and it was just too barebones.

I never meant for the time between chapter 6 and 7 to be as long as it did. I was kind of in denial about hiatus for a while, thinking "I'm only a month at most away from posting chapter 7!" for a lot of 2021 and 2022.

What basically happened was that I didn't want to post a chapter before the next chapter is fully written with all the necessary scenes. This is because I figured I wouldn't have anymore major edits to make to a chapter once the one after it is complete. But then chapter 8 was split into 8 and 9, and posting 7 without finishing 9 would be cheating, and then 10, 11, and 12 still needed to be written...

And that simple rule ballooned into a requirement that chapter 7 can only be posted once the entire arc has a complete draft.

(Arc 3 will probably follow the same rule, so there's aren't long waits between chapters in the same arc. Chapters between arcs is another story.)

I don't think this arc would've turned out the way it did if I hadn't taken that hiatus. For one, back when I finished chapter 6 I hadn't started reading Moby Dick, which definitely influenced Wind's narration. (I searched up crossovers between Moby Dick and Wind Waker and found nothing. Kinda disappointing.)

The chapters of the second arc are shorter than the first. I had felt the chapters were getting too long and wanted to cut them up (chapter 8 and 9 used to be the same chapter), but they all ballooned to be longer than I had initially expected. I guess that's just how it is.

All the comments on each chapter are very appreciated, even if I don't reply to them. They do a lot to boost my motivation to overcome writer's block. For those who commented, thank you.

#linked universe #system memory fic #tach's commentary #(also if you find typos in system memory just send me an ask so it doesn't have to remain there)

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wolfisblank · 2 years

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Slime Rancher 2 First Impressions

These are just my thoughts. I'm not a reviewer or anything. But if you want to use this to influence you to buy or not buy the game, go right ahead!

Shorter, spoiler-free thoughts: The game is everything I'd hoped it would be and more. There was built hype within my friend group as we all waited until it dropped to check it out, so I was a little worried I'd be heading in with overbuilt hype. It's early access after all, so my expectations shouldn't be too high. But the hype was not overbuilt in the slightest. It's Slime Rancher 2 alright! Same vibe and energy as the first game, with more content, some quality of life, and some more intrigue in the story and lore of the game.

The progression of certain aspects from the first game, such as Slime Science and upgrades, are very altered, but in a way I felt was much better and well-integrated, making the progression feel more natural. Towards the later part of the first game, the progression felt more like just going from area to area instead of upgrading along the way. I felt this was fixed by this new game.

Slime Rancher 2 is beautiful even on low settings, and just overall a good time. I had some minor issues while playing, like slimes and chickens getting stuck, or at one point I somehow managed to launch myself into the air, but those are to be expected of early access. I had no major glitches or bugs for my entire several hour play session.

If you loved Slime Rancher 1, you will love Slime Rancher 2. Simple as that.

More detailed thoughts below

Upon launching the game, I switched all my graphics settings to the lowest possible option in almost every category and capped my FPS at 60. I'm playing this game on a Macbook through a virtual machine, so naturally I'm not going to have any ambient occlusion or anything like that. But even on the lowest settings, with crappy texture quality, no bloom, and no impressive lighting settings, the game is gorgeous. The lighting is beautiful, and even just sitting still and staring at the menu screen, or the spawning area, the game is just absolutely stunning. 10/10 visuals. I have a bit of lag. The game runs at maybe 30-40 fps when playing normally. But my eyes adjusted to the lower fps and it isn't that big of a deal to me. You probably won't be able to run it if you have a potato computer, but most computers with decent graphics cards will probably run it on low settings no problem. I can't imagine how gorgeous it would look if you had a good graphics card.

Instantly there are some small changes that I feel add to the game very nicely. It feels as though the run speed is a bit quicker in this game than it was previously. My partner pointed it out while they were playing and I noticed it once I started too. The vac pack slots also have a little popup that tells you what item you're holding when you switch to them, which is both nice and aesthetically pleasing.

Slime Science is integrated immediately. You don't need to purchase the area that will contain the lab; the lab is right under your feet once you spawn in. This is great, of course, as one of my minor problems with the first game is that I felt Slime Science was poorly integrated with the overall progression. This makes it a natural part of progress. The resource nodes are gathered by vac instead of through harvesters, which is also a huge plus. Those harvesters always felt tedious to me, and I never got too deep into Slime Science because of them.

However, this comes with one big change: your upgrades, such as your jetpack or energy core upgrades, are part of slime science now. They need resources to craft instead of only requiring Newbucks. This change is a good one, I felt. Not only does it encourage more use of Slime Science, but it also alters your progression. In the first game I found myself buying upgrades almost instantly after unlocking them. By around the halfway point, I had them all, and I hadn't really done much to earn them beyond throwing a few plorts into the market. This makes them feel much more integrated and much more earned. I felt incredibly satisfied when I got an upgrade I'd been looking for. Some of them feel a tad expensive on the resources end, like the water tank, but if you go out of your way to get them it shouldn't take you more than fifteen minutes once you've unlocked the islands you need to make them.

The areas and level design impressed me. The area you call home is visually stunning, and the surrounding areas inspired a lot of exploration and travel. I'd often depart from my ranch with an objective in mind, then find myself in a completely different part of the map, getting distracted with feeding a gordo or gathering resources for Slime Science. The way the game is structured makes it so that it's much harder to skip over parts of progression. Instead of locked gates, you travel to new areas through portals. Gone are the days of climbing over every locked door with my jetpack.

Speaking of, the jetpack feels more like an intended part of the game than a fun gadget you can occasionally use to skip progression. Some areas require or encourage its use, while major progression is kept away from its abuse. Overall the levels feel built around using the jetpack rather than built around only running, making it feel much more like a part of the game and not an exploit.

I don't think this needs to be said, but the new slime designs are adorable. I've noticed they seem to be overwhelmingly based off animals, though. There are bunnies, angler fish, bats, butterflies... I love the animal-like slimes from the first game, with saber and hunter being my favorites, but that's my only real complaint about the designs. I feel like they could take from a wider range of inspirations. But I don't mind, really. All the slimes could be based off animals and I wouldn't mind too much! They're all adorable and make some really cute largos!

As with the first, this game is incredibly relaxing. I could see this becoming my go-to game when I need to cool off and wind down after a stressful day. It's slow-paced, with no rush to your objectives. The only real spikes in heartrate come with tarr outbreaks or nearly tripping and falling into the ocean. It's a quick gasp, then back down to calm. I'd definitely recommend this as a relaxing game if you like slower games for that, like Stardew Valley or Minecraft.

I could definitely see myself getting a bit carried away with long sessions, though. Maybe set a timer if you only want to relax for a little bit, otherwise it'll suck you right in!

Despite the early access nature of the game, I only had a few minor issues, as said before. There are some little nooks where smaller slimes or chickens can get stuck. At the start of the game you spawn in with 5 pink slimes on your ranch. I thought they lowered it to 4, but it turned out my pink slime was stuck in a corner of the ranch, along with the starting roostro. It's a quick fix though, just a vac and firing it off into the sea or wherever I want it to go. At some point, while running around my ranch, I launched myself upwards like 50 feet into the air. I don't know how it happened, and I couldn't recreate it, but that's as far as bugs and glitches go for me. Nothing too extreme. No severe lag, no frame drops, no falling through the map, no crashes, nothing. It's quite polished for an early access game. I don't know if my experiences line up with others', but from watching my friends play or talking to them about it generally, I found that to be a common experience!

This is a bit of a messy post, just a dump of my thoughts, but overall I would definitely recommend if you like cute slimes and slower-paced games. Not going to give it an out-of-ten rating, as it is still in early access, and I don't believe that's a terribly good metric. But I thoroughly enjoyed it!

#caw.txt #long post #slime rancher #slime rancher 2 #review #not really a review but whatever #would recommend #needed to dump my thoughts #it's the tism #this is definitely going to become a hyperfixation lmao

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askmerriauthor · 1 year

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Pokemon Violet - Initial Thoughts

Just started playing Pokemon Violet; I was always planning on picking it up in the first place despite not pre-ordering. All the talk of its apparently glitchy nature was disheartening, but I wanted to give it a fair shake all the same. A lot of the time such reports get overblown, after all. I've seen people shriek about a game being unplayable if it drops from 60 frames per second to 59 in a heavy load zone, after all.

That said? After going in with simultaneously low expectations and a giving it a lot of slack?

I'd consider what I've seen so far to be a genuinely impressive feat for an amateur game dev's tech demo. But for a full release? Let alone from a major studio with as much weight behind it as the Pokemon franchise carries? This game is embarrassingly bad.

Literally the very first second of game play and there's a major graphical glitch. The game opens showing off the fancy academy your character will be attending, but it loads in a low-rez stand-in model that snaps into the high-rez version full on screen. During the opening cut scene, characters blink into T-Poses as they load in and out.

As I walked my character out of their bedroom at the very beginning of actual controllable gameplay, the camera glitched and got stuck inside a wall, resulting in a total black-out screen that made me think my system had crashed. The colors of your character's hair, skin, and make-up don't match between the menu screen where you select them and how they're displayed in the overworld's lighting. Said lighting also flickers around or changes entirely full on-screen with no transitions, jolting from one lighting set to another before the scene it's required for actually loads in. Textures out in the world - signs, terrain, the environment in general - are pixelated and blurry to the point of being distorted blobs. The frame rate is absolutely appalling, dropping and lagging down wildly for seemingly no reason, sometimes going as low as less than 10 frames per second. As I have my character walking around in their homeroom, the seated classmates and the books on their desk flicker rapidly into the floor and back up again. NPCs blink in and out of existence where they stand, or walk in jerky 3 frames per second flip book animations. Even as my own Player model is moving smoothly and without any visual issues in the same rendered scene. I'm honestly not even sure how the code could even make that happen; it'd be one thing if everyone in the room was moving in the same jarring, jerky way, but two or three characters are moving normally while the rest are jittering around.

When you go into shops to try on various clothing items, it takes about 10 seconds for your character model to load in and several more seconds to switch between clothing item previews. Even if the only difference is just a color swap. Keep in mind that this was instantaneous in previous games, including games back on the 3DS. If your hair style isn't compatible with hats, your character model just won't show up at all and you can't preview the item whatsoever. As you leave the shop, the character model is loaded in off the ground and jitter-pops into existence with a short drop.

Out in the overworld, different models load in at different distances from the Player and animate at different frame rates. For example, as I walk down the road just outside my house, NPCs load in (a low-poly stand-in version first that snaps into a higher-rez version with no smooth transition) after bushes do, but before trees (which also have the same jerky low-poly to high-poly snap transition). As I walk around, the game chugs down to a crawl at random, often requiring me to reset it entirely. I speak to a NPC out in the field and my game freezes, only to not freeze a second time after I restart the game and talk to them again. When you call out your partner Pokemon into the field to act solo (a core selling point of this game), there's no summoning animation or effects; they just abruptly pop into existence, which is doubly weird because there is both an animation and effect for when they return to their Pokeball or if you call them over from a distance. When I get into battles and there's a third character on the sidelines, the game camera gets stuck on them as it swings to and fro, resulting in the view spiraling wildly out of control for a few seconds. The camera glitches into the terrain seemingly at random or gets caught at weird angles, resulting in constant screen-blocking closeups of my Pokemon's back, or ignoring Player inputs to try and move the camera around.

This game is atrociously bad. I mean, holy shit, the problems it has are basic, fundamental flaws that NEVER should have made it past quality control in the first place. Things that are just basics in regards to coding and design. Especially when considering that earlier Pokemon titles on the Switch hardware (Sword/Shield and Pokemon Arceus) ran just fine by comparison. Previous generations on the 3DS are more stable and better performing than this.

And this is just the basic mechanics in the immediate starting area of the game. I haven't even gotten into design part of the game play experience. That's a whole other kettle of fish and its own post.

#pokemon #pokemon violet #scarlet and violet #nintendo #game freak #seriously game freak - get your shit together this is embarrassing

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toprealisticsims · 1 year

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Best Realistic Racing Sims

WRC 10

WRC 10 has a comprehensive damage model. The rights of KT Racing to the WRC series will be transferred to Codemasters in 2023. The 50th anniversary sets the high points of this full-featured package, with fresh stages providing a neat tour through the series' rich history. Other than that, it is excellent. WRC 10 combines some lightweight management techniques (I. Loading times are reasonable, and you're seldom more than a few steps from the options screen for customizing gameplay, sound, or graphics to your liking. 0 is sometimes more attractive to view. You've got me. Some welcomed improvements don't turn out well in the future with negative side effects, like the potential of deciding on how long each rally will undoubtedly be.

They wrote, "If you simply have the Switch and you truly love rally racing and have a great tolerance for technical problems, you might be interested in submitting this opportunity." 18. It could be just to spoil another event, with Codemasters taking over the WRC license in 2023; however, I'll let it go for oddity, as it has produced a scrumptious feast of a rally video game. It seems to me that it's in the early stages of development. Technical glitches were rare, but the visual damage to vehicles was a bit more, as bonnets fell into the engine bay and doors slid off their hinges. There is the inclusion of Belgium and the more modern Greek stages, and a tidy-up in the corners to make this quite easily the top-level rally game available on modern hardware. There are at least two-time constraints that I have experienced in this mode so far that have been extremely tough, definitely enough for less experienced racers to fall off the mode entirely. It's still an enjoyable driving experience, with better feedback from the controller. Dirt Rally 2 engaging and robust career mode; Amazing special stages, more varied than ever before due to the addition of historic rallies; Driving stays a pure pleasure, especially in 4WD automobiles on gravel. That's simply because the ninth installment in Nacon's (formerly Bigben's) series was planned to become an Epic Games Store exclusive for a year. Cars still feel a bit too edgy, though we'll give KT Racing credit for creating distinctive designs for front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive, and all-wheel drive models. When you have beaten all the challenges in the 50th-anniversary mode, you can test a new challenge in WRC 10. Because it stands today, it's not enough to be perceived as a significant improvement, regardless of how harsh it may seem, most likely because its Anniversary Mode is only a little frivolous. Enjoying the luxury of arguing over two great rally video game titles is an excellent issue to face.

In all, I give this video game 8 out of 10. If you reap the benefits of it, please join and follow me on Twitter. You can find many different methods to participate in WRC 10. Career Mode is where the majority of people will be spending their time, though there is a complete multiplayer suite that includes online championships, co-op, or even local split-screen multiplayer. The 50th season of the WRC is in 2022. Indeed, as one would expect of a race as gently iterative as this, how much you'll get for free from WRC 10 depends largely on exactly how much you've contributed to this series previously.

Dirt Rally 2.0

The engine sounds are awe-inspiring as they roar over the stunning backgrounds, as Codemasters has actually always carried out an extraordinary job at replicating engine sounds within the gameplay. Each auto sounds unique, and utilizing a headset honestly places you in the driver's chair. The navigator's voice comes across as clear and calm, and he isn't muffled by the sound from the motor. The background music is similar to that in a golf game, as it helps produce a calming environment anytime you are navigating over the options.

There are actually several gripes I have with the overall game, excluding certain visual issues on replays. The game does feature its own FIA Rallycross World Championship as well as eight paths; the standard race is just an imitation of real-world spots. Therefore, if you're seeking authentic Pikes Peak lessons, they aren't available. Added to that, there's just one hill located in Argentina. It appears that the Monte Carlo Rally is going to be added soon, but it will be part of the Season One DLC. While the environment has an essential element, the overall game presently doesn't have compacted snow, but it is expected to get incorporated once Season One DLC starts arriving. DLC seems to be distributed over the course of fresh competitions and vehicle launches. However, you'll have to pay for this.

Whenever Dirt Rally came out, it was a hit with many long-time racers. One dilemma anyway constantly came up: "Is it any better than the Richard Burns Rally?" Naturally, the same question is going to be asked of Dirt Rally 2.0. 15 years and numerous modifications later, it's hard to compare RBR with its predecessors without bias. The classic IL-2 is an example of the flight sim genre and will forever hold an important place in people's minds. It's probably time to end the interrogation. You can feel that both of them are really amazing in their own way. There is no doubt that DiRT Rally 2.0 is an outstanding recreation that has taken all the good things about the first and built on them. You'll find not many gaming titles that I would consider a need to go for, but DiRT Rally 2.0 definitely is one of them.

Here you can buy cheap ps5 games, from all categories whether we are talking about action adventure, racing, sports, strategy, or shooters.

MudRunner

Although the main objective of the whole video game is to deliver logs, you're not only restricted to installing log-hauling accessories on your current truck. There are many other applications for your vehicles. You can find fueling stations along each game map. You can recharge your vehicle at them, so if you run out of fuel, you'll be able to return to the garage where you have an entirely new vehicle, attach a fuel-holding attachment to it, descend to the point where your vehicle is out of fuel, and refill it. It is also possible to attach trailers that resemble smartphone homes, and you can therefore transport those to another garage(s) in the game map to open it to be used in the future. Back again to logging, those who are truly adventurous can connect log cranes to their vehicles, pick up logs on their own, and then put them in the bed of a truck or onto the trailer.

The vehicles are principal in this game, as you will have a rather limited yet diverse selection of trucks to implement. Many are lighter and not as solid; however, others are huge beasts with the power to go to war with all of them. Of course, being bigger and more highly effective isn't always the best option, since you could get stuck in a situation where you most likely won't. Learn what kinds of trucks are perfect for exactly what, such as, for example, those that can carry modest logs and those that can handle medium logs and even two or more (e.g., from the sofa belonging to the truck or on the trailer), and of course you'll find those who can carry larger logs. Also, be aware that your vehicle can be damaged from driving over large obstacles at too high a speed or from driving over an incline and hitting the ground hard. Even though you can have "repair points" with trucks, you could be required to return to your garage for repairs before continuing.

It truly is amazing how addictive this game can be when played in single-player mode. This isn't a game that makes you sweaty, but it can be somewhat pleasant when you navigate across the many terrains that lie in front of you. Enjoying your truck, and even your trailer when loaded, as it makes its way across the rugged terrain is strangely mesmerizing. I found out that when I played the game, I wanted to do my perfect experience and take the ideal road, and when elements started getting difficult, I wanted to stay the course and complete my current task no matter what, but I didn't feel annoyed since there were plenty of possibilities to do with the unusual automobiles.

Best place to buy cheap games.

The physics of Spintires and Mudrunner are superior. The vehicle bounces around with enthusiasm over rocks, ruts, and slews, then glides over the aspects of gullies effectively. Mud and other roadblocks all react to the weight and motion of your automobile. People can watch the mud sway and slide around in a slithering manner as multi-ton trucks plow through. Camera control can be unusual until you become familiar with it. It isn't able to zoom as much as I'd like, but it is workable for many jobs. The actions, like hitting trailers or making use of the crane, could get boring. Reversing or trying to park the trailer could be a trial via the restricted camera; however, the overall game is more lenient and doesn't need a perfect alignment. My name is taking a look at anyone, European Truck Simulator. The inclusion of a camera drone or another perspective like a birdseye or helicopter would have been a huge plus.

#Dirt Rally 2.0 #ps4 mudrunner game #wrc 10 review ps5 #sim racing

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oodlyenough · 3 years

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life is strange true colours review

the non spoilery part: i LOVED this game, my personal fave game this year and the first franchise entry since the original that has really resonated with or moved me.

it's a life is strange game through and through, so if you don't like slice of life episodes or bonding with NPCs, it's not gonna be for you. but if you like the franchise, or even if you liked the first game but haven't been interested in/liked the other two instalments, i recommend giving this one a chance. i think it got closer to figuring out the formula while still doing something new and interesting.

more detailed spoilers and opinions:

alex

holy shit i love alex? bisexual chad... my darling... i'm gonna be real, a lot of the trailers and promo for this game made me worried she'd be kind of a dull wallflower Soft Girl character, but she's not! she's so funny, and even parts of her characterization i initially thought were maybe a bit of a stretch ended up making sense as i learned more about her. she stole the show. i straight up forgot how much loving the protag helps enjoyment of these kinds of games lmao ... finally a reason to click on everything in the room: to hear what alex will say about it.

i thought her backstory exploration in ep 5 especially was wonderful and emotive and great. broke my heart and explained so much about her :( baby girl

plot/choices

i loved the mystery. i don't think it was quite as Mysterious as the mystery in lis1, but that was okay, i was still invested in solving it. i also got invested enough in the NPCs around the town to make all the exploration bits really fun. i loved eavesdropping on the sagas of the random NPCs like bald man and ice cream couple... just fun little touches and narratives to follow that i enjoyed.

i really appreciated this script not being afraid to shy away from some messier emotions, even if in some cases i wish we spent more time on them. for example: alex feeling a bit jealous of the other people in town that got to know gabe better than her/spend more time with him than she did. or charlotte hating ethan!!! my jaw dropped, i thought that was so good, what a messy but realistic response.

I'm not entirely sure what all the ramifications of different choices are at this point, fresh off my first play. i ended up getting only part of the council to stand with me (eleanor & duckie) while losing pike and charlotte.

i do wish we saw a bit more fallout or exploration of what taking away emotion DOES. i took charlotte's anger, and obviously it meant she didn't stand up for me in the council meeting, but where does she go from there? does she like... ever return to feeling emotions lmao... I also think we probably should've had the opportunity to do that another time, instead of just 2 isolated events -- I think Diane would've been a good candidate.

the romance

i romanced steph, ofc, but i was surprised during the game how drawn i was to ryan too -- i really liked that Drama of him being the one who cut Gabe free, as well as later the drama of him being Jed's son. UNTIL HE DIDN'T BELIEVE ME... that made me mad lmfao, i have to learn what to do to make him believe me before i play a Ryan route bc i'll kill him lmfao.

the steph/alex romance was sweet... it didn't really, like, Consume Me as a ship, but by the end of the game I was still "aww"ing at their moments in the flashforward. steph was more rounded and flawed than i thought she might be, which i really appreciated! i was worried they'd just make her perfect idealized gf, but she has a bit of a temper and is kind of tempestuous and stuff... liked it. loved her standing up for alex so fiercely and immediately at the council meeting <3 and my main reservation about her in ep 4 was that i wanted alex to stay in haven, so when she offered to stay i was thrilled LOL

one semi-complaint i had was that something i loved so much about lis1 was how max and chloe's relationship was central to the entire game and story, it wasn't some extra thing on the side, it WAS the game... whereas here, the romance routes, especially steph's, felt like sidequests. I wish they'd found a way to incorporate those relationships a bit more into the main goings-on. I also wanted to spend more time with either romance option to feel like I knew them better -- splitting the time between Steph and Ryan means that I came away feeling like I didn't get quite as much of either of them as I would've liked, vs spending almost the entire game with Chloe lol.

however, this ended up not really bothering me too much because I DID really like the core mystery and themes, the exploration of grief and Emotion, etc.

other characters

considering everyone knew going into the game that gabe was going to die, i was impressed with how they did it, and how they managed to get me attached to gabe in a mere single episode. it's a tall order to introduce a character designed to die, who your audience KNOWS is going to die, and still make them work.

i thought this supporting cast was ... maybe the strongest in the franchise? or at least, they created scenarios where i felt invested in multiple people in the town, and was genuinely trying to build decent relationships with most of them. duckie cracked me tf up, i liked eleanor and riley, even diane and jeb were good for their roles. (fuck pike. i signed ur stupid thing and left your emotions alone and you still won't do shit? ACAB!!!) the choice to stay in haven or leave was a little harder than i expected honestly, considering how quickly i let arcadia bay burn to the ground lmfao.

gameplay/etc

also i know the whole internet has been dunking on "empathy" as a super power since the game was announced, and i get that it sounds corny and looks corny in the trailers, but i thought how they did it was really cool. i wish they'd branded it "Mindreading" more than empathy tbh because a lot of the cooler elements of it are more along those lines... using her power to manipulate people, potentially taking people's emotions away and what that does to them... very interesting imo!

i really liked the memory feature!!! cool way to give us character exposition and inform the story while encouraging exploration. finally a collectible that like, expands the story, instead of chloe drawing butts on the wall and sean taking 10 years to draw something.

it's definitely the most evolved-feeling LIS game, which it should be, given it's the newest. graphics looked really nice, loved getting to see the characters actually emote, even if there are still some scenes that were a lil comically blank-faced -- usually NPCs. i actually noticed this with Jed the most, which in retrospect maybe was somewhat intentional?

i had a number of visual glitches, nothing major but a little silly, like T-posing Alex, npcs t-posing in the windows, etc. i'm sure they'll get patched out soon.

anyway... i rly liked this game, i'm excited for the steph dlc and finally feel like i have reason to be optimistic about future LIS instalments. hooray!

#life is strange #true colors #listc spoilers #lis spoilers #secrets of haven

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cheekbites-moved · 3 years

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ok i still havent gotten the secret ending but farming for it might take me a bit so im gonna make a thoughts post for age of calamity now:

Major spoilers obvs so ill put it under a read more

things i enjoyed:

revali beatdown simulator

the controls for the divine beasts are a bit clunky, but i think the angles they used for them did an excellent job at really making the player feel like we were actually controlling a divine beast. so i think it was done well.

link’s personality really gets to shine full force in this game with the amount of cut scenes and it was wonderful to see

every character clearly had a lot of love put into how they operate. they truly all feel unique, & all of their play styles fit them really well in my opinion

the game does a really good job of making you understand what a real threat the monsters are. like in botw they’re intimidating at first, but once you’re far enough into the game they become just an inconvenience to work around if anything. this game managed to actually make certain monsters intimidating for me again, and i think that’s a real accomplishment

the blight battles are actually somewhat challenging in this game and that is truly a commendable achievement lol i think all the bosses are good tbh. i didnt rly dislike or not enjoy any of them.

the way daruk and link’s friendship & urbosa’s motherly relationship towards zelda got to shine was. so good. it’s all i could’ve ever wanted

seeing the descendants again was really nice & it was awesome to see the champions interacting with them!! especially sidon and mipha omggggg. that was. really fucking good shit

kohga. just. kohga in general. getting to see more of him was really rad, he’s such a fun guy! and his english va was Excellent. you could really tell he was having a lot of fun playing him, and it was lovely to see! :)

zelda getting to really shine in this game was also lovely to see. and her being so assertive and badass by the end? omg. it was so wonderful especially after botw. man.

the combat is done very well imo. im rly glad that they took so many elements from botw, but also added their own flares to make it feel fresh. it was rad.

sidon’s tagline is “winning smile” and his power is “boundless optimism” and i think that’s beautiful

the music in this game is SOOOOO good oh my god. multiple times during playing i had to pause to just appreciate it. it’s pretty much all remixes of botw with a few originals for the new characters, but they all slap. there was not a single song in this game i didn’t like. it is definitely one of my favorite video game soundtracks officially. maybe one of my favorite overall soundtracks in general tbh.

the visuals obviously look just like botw, but it still looked fucking gorgeous at some points. like. man. they really went off to make it look not only faithful to botw as far as appearance goes, but also as far as capturing botw’s beauty and it was. excellent to see!

if anything is true to botw’s backstory, it’s definitely how op link is. cause he was established to be op in botw, & when u finish botw he is also op as hell. he is so fun to play as the higher leveled he gets. he absolutely kicks ass. especially with a two-handed weapon??? daaaaammmmnnn. thats my badass baby boy!!!!

link eating rocks not once, but TWICE. just showing PEAK gremlin energy. 10/10 for those scenes they were great

the ending was really beautiful actually and i did cry like a little baby for it what about it

things i didn’t like:

obviously first and foremost.. this is not the game we were advertised. and no matter how much i overall enjoyed the game, it will always have some layer of being tainted attached to it due to the false advertising. this is not the prequel we thought we’d be getting. & not using “prequel” specifically doesn’t matter when all the advertising, including the box art talks about this being the story of what happened 100 years ago. with no indication it wasn’t the story of what happened 100 years ago in the botw timeline, but a separate universe/timeline entirely. i do hope we get dlc for the game at some point giving us what we were advertised, but at the same time... rly wish that the story that’s in the final game was dlc, & the story we were promised was the original :/ or just having the game have two separate storylines originally would’ve been cool. i just wish it wasn’t falsely advertised.

fort hateno can fucking eat my whole entire shit WHY is that part so needlessly obnoxious compared to everything else oh my god

being forced to fulfill revali’s power fantasy TWICE hurt my soul

fuck any mission where you have to protect the useless hylian guards. i hate them. they suck.

the ai for player characters when you aren’t playing as them can also be pretty useless. it was really frustrating failing missions because my fellow party members weren’t helping me, and i was basically expected to be in two places at once to get shit done myself. :/ ik you can just switch between characters to make it easier, but like. i like playing as link the most. he’s my favorite character, & ofc since he’s mandatorily played for most of the story, he’s gonna be the most leveled up character regardless so he’s just the best to play as in general especially for harder missions. it was annoying to be forced to play as other people Solely cause the ai was so useless.

king rhoam’s attempt at a redemption arc. i’m not sorry that i just fucking hate this man. i don’t mind him entirely in botw bc you can see clear, genuine remorse during the cut scene at the end of the great plateau. but the redemption arc he gets in this game? after all the fucking shit he does in this game? especially when after his ~redemption arc~ i had to sit through a cut scene of him being an absolute fucking asshole to baby zelda after her mother just died????? absolutely fuck that shit. i don’t appreciate that crap at fucking all. he’s a verbally abusive piece of shit and i hate his guts.

obviously there was gonna be some retconning of how certain things worked in botw in order to make this kinda game work but the way sheikah technology works in this game is so goddamn confusing i do not get it. the works of botw are never outright said or explained completely, but it’s straightforward enough that it doesn’t really matter. this game does try to explain certain things and it just becomes. really clunky and confusing very quickly.

the story is alright, i guess, but..... really confusing/convoluted as hell at times to a point that it’s. really fucking distracting. especially in comparison to how straightforward botw’s story is. like..... cannot help but be annoyed that such a problem wouldn’t have been a thing if they stuck to botw’s story.

i was sad when the egg thing died but i dont like the egg thing.... it is the MAIN reason shit was retconned so much & i just. dont get its purpose. but i did really like the reveal that zelda made it herself. that was good shit!

also the egg glitched out like. a LOT. idk what the fuck was going on with the poor thing but there was multiple times during a cut scene or when i was just sitting there that it was freaking out in the background and it was rly weird

elemental overworld boss monsters................. obnoxious. especially elemental guardians like goddamn bro what the fuck

i know warriors’ games aren’t about exploring anyway but the limitations for exploring was really sad/frustrating. this is still somewhat the world of hyrule before the calamity, which is something we’ve always wanted to see. not being able to explore even the immediate area at certain points because of shit like timed missions was really upsetting, man. :( i just wanted to see hyrule castle Before the calamity why was did they have to rob us like that.....

creepy corrupted egg’s transformation. why. what was that. what the fuck

even though i did enjoy the boss fights, it did get. incredibly taxing eventually to have to fight the SAME bastards so many times. like yeah botw is also guilty of this with the blights, but goddamn.... at least i have a choice to avoid certain encounters with them? this game has you fighting the same bitches like upwards of 3-4 times. it was. really annoying tbh. like the fights themselves are enjoyable, but damn we added new characters and it still inevitably lacked variety in boss fights.

no playable kass >:( if he’s available later in dlc then fine but i wish he was playable in the original game. so many random choices you’d never expect are. why couldn’t he also be there >:(

overall:

it will forever have that sour taste for the false advertising attached to it unfortunately, but that aside, i overall did enjoy the game! i think it has a lot to love in spite of the issues i encountered. as someone who has this as their first warriors game as well, it did lend itself to letting me see the appeal of them. idk if i’ll get more, but i do get why they’re so beloved/popular now. it was an alright time, with some amazing highlights that i’m gonna think back on very fondly for a very, very long time. if i had to rate it..... 7/10

#hw #aoc #hw aoc #hyrule warriors #age of calamity #legend of zelda #botw #danni plays hw aoc #mine #long post #v long post sorry lol i have so many thoughts/feelings

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svtskneecaps · 4 years

Text

i’ve been enabled

here’s the sitch on the goddamn harry potter hogwarts mystery app game

it fucking sucks

here’s my main issues in a handy list i’ll go down later:

the gameplay

energy

art / visuals

the story

the writing

the choose your own adventure like elements (technically gameplay since there isn’t much else l m a o)

and i have receipts for most of this stuff. fun fact, i’ve been taking videos of all plot relevant events since year 1.

some context:

i’ve played up to year 3 myself. i have watched up until the very beginning of year 5 in someone’s youtube series (will bits? that was his main character [henceforth referred to as MC]’s name, however that was a year ago and it was in the background like a podcast so the details are sort of fuzzy. i have not played the game since march (it’s september, ish), but i’m loading it up as i type this just to get a feel for it

idk whether to assume my audience has or hasn’t played the game. i’ll keep my complaints as clear as possible.

i’m mainly an author so the storytelling sections are where i’m really going to pop off, since that’s something i have the most experience with and passion in, but i’ll be touching on everything else because compounded it’s all pissing me off lmao

[a couple hints at spoilers for maybe an event in year 1, and year 3, but nothing major]

let’s start with: THE GAMEPLAY

there isn’t any

literally. there’s like. zero gameplay.

you tap some highlighted figures, and then sometimes you get to trace a little shape, and sometimes you get to play rock paper scissors to fight somebody (they did manage to make duelling slightly better but it’s still not good by any standard)

sometimes you get to choose between three dialogue options, but those have barely any impact on the story or on your character. any impact they have is limited to a couple stat points, or maybe some house points, or like. some event at the end of the year. but like barely any make any real serious difference (but i’ll touch on that more later)

and then there’s the factor of stat points (and this gets kind of mathy, so feel free to skip to the bolded sentence)

for those who haven’t played the game, you have three stats (empathy, courage, and knowledge) that you can level up by taking classes, 1, 3, or 8 hours, for various rewards

back when i stopped playing, i had gained 8914 points in courage. if i recall correctly i was only about halfway to leveling up that stat. if you take an 8 hour class, you receive consistently 200 stat points, with a possibility of extra rewards that i can’t count for since those are randomly generated.

to get those 8914 points, i would have had to take 44.57 8 hour classes (while 8 hour they only take about 7, counting for the 2 hours it takes my energy to recharge to full). with 44.57 classes taking 7 hours each, to get halfway to level 24, i would have had to have done:

THIRTEEN STRAIGHT DAYS OF GRINDING, ASSUMING THAT ALL I HAD BEEN DOING WAS CHECKING ON THE HARRY POTTER HOGWARTS MYSTERY APP

and again, I WAS ONLY LIKE HALFWAY TO LEVELLING UP

I AM BARELY BEGINNING FOURTH YEAR. I AM NOT EVEN HALFWAY THROUGH THIS GAME.

i think they’ve fixed this now; it said i had 8914/1550 courage and when i got stat points it fixed itself and jumped me from level 23 to 28, so thanks for that jam city.

but it doesn’t change the fact that the grinding is fucking horrible and i’ve done my fair share of hours, and who knows what it’s going to look like when i get to a higher level again

the energy

yes, i know it’s an app game. i know they want my money. but holy FUCK the energy recharges disgustingly slowly, and every bit they expand my energy bar is an insult

“here, have another energy capacity!” they say, and then add to the amount of energy it takes to complete a task at the same time, so now shit just takes me even damn longer

it’s an insult. don’t think i didn’t fuckin notice jam city.

since it’s an app game, naturally, energy requires paying real world money or the (semi) rare in-game currency to get more if you blow through your bar. they want your money. i know they want my money, but it doesn’t make me any less disappointed by how damn blatant they’re being. app games like bakery story probably also want my money, but at least those are still fun to play.

the art / visuals

now i’m not an artist. nor am i a 3-d modeller. but if solo indie devs and 10 men teams can make video games that have to have models with a much fuller range of motion (since there’s ACTUAL GAMEPLAY and not just little cutscenes of characters moving around) and that don’t make me sick to watch, then jam city working on a HARRY POTTER GAME should be able to (jk rowling fucking sucks but her books have brought in so much goddamn money that they can afford to pay their devs enough to make the game look good; in this case i’m not entirely sure where the blame lies)

there’s like. 10 motions characters can use while in the cutscenes and talking. like 10. and i can recognize every one of them, and there is not a single motion unique to a character. the characters are something i’ll touch on later in the storytelling sections, though. just, please god give them SOMETHING even SLIGHTLY different. like make two versions of a couple of the crowd animations at LEAST, so that when people celebrate at the end of the year there’s not twenty people in the shot doing the same “pump my fists in the air in celebration” motion at the exact same time. PLEASE.

sometimes animations in story events and classes sync up too, which is. beyond distracting. like it’s completely immersion breaking and i mean please, please jam city, if you haven’t fixed that please fix it. please.

the animations that roll in flying class are fun, ONCE. when you’ve seen them eight hundred thousand times because you’re grinding up your courage stat, they get hella boring. all of the classes are like this to some extent but flying is the biggest offender since those were the longest animations. if they haven’t implemented a skip button since i last played it, they should. they fuckin should.

also the fertilizer animation in the greenhouse scenes is gross. you pick up a deformed cone of dirt with your shovel like a slice of cake and then shove it clipping through the edges of a pot, where it disappears without a trace. i hate it. jam city please make the game look good.

if you still play the game please tell me it looks better; i’ll be playing through a couple things after i post this but it’s hphm. it’s gonna take me a goddamn long time to hit all the points and confirm whether what i complained about has been fixed or not

also also, wearing dresses is so distracting, especially while dueling. the way the dress flexes around your legs is like you’re wearing clothing made from jello and when my character does the idle animation her hands clip through her skirt, and there’s all kids of glitches with hair where it clips through outfits (and why in the fuck do the necklaces float a full foot from the character’s body)

the storytelling

alright there’s a lot to cover so strap in

i’m not mad about the story having some of the same beats as harry potter. whatever, right? if it worked, it worked. having a big climax at the end of the year just works well for storytelling. having a school bully antagonist also works well for easy storytelling (it’s kinda cheap, but whatever works, right?) it’s what you DO with the archetypes you use that makes or breaks your story

jam city broke it

i don’t know how to organize my thoughts so here’s a bulleted list

it is very clearly obvious they wrote this as they went along (ex. a previously unseen character pops up in year 3 and was supposedly the best friend of your greatest enemy in previous years) and didn’t think to fix the plot holes

there’s too many goddamn characters (i love them, but with a big cast comes a whole host of problems [I WRITE FOR A KPOP GROUP WITH 13 MEMBERS, I HAVE A LOT OF EXPERIENCE WITH THAT], and we’ll get there)

there’s too much goddamn filler for the sake of forcing us to spend time and in-game energy (yes i KNOW it’s an app game and they want our money but THEY COULD BE A LITTLE MORE SUBTLE ABOUT IT)

what honestly pisses me off the most about it is that IT COULD BE GOOD

IF THE STORY WERE GOOD, I WOULD FUCKIN IGNORE ALL OF THAT OTHER SHIT

but it’s not, and here’s the biggest gripe i have:

none of the choices you make matter. none of them. to the point where it’s immersion breaking at BEST

for example, while my MC is a hufflepuff, i know a lot of people play in slytherin. scenes where snape gets upset with your character and takes away house points no longer make sense for a slytherin MC, because snape would be infinitely more likely to give you three years of nightly detentions, or pitch you off the astronomy tower, than he would be to take house points from slytherin

honestly, they should have waited. if they wanted to put choose your own adventure elements into the game, they should have planned out every single one of those story arcs in detail, and THEN released the game. they could leave some of the more basic choices in and those choices only mattering for short term effects wouldn’t irk me as much as it does right now because THERE WOULD BE CHOICES THAT MADE A DIFFERENCE.

your very first choice over how you felt about your brother’s disappearance only matters for what wand you get (which i immediately forgot which really says something about the impact of that choice :)))) ). no matter what you pick, you still end up chasing after him for the rest of the game, so who cares?

story beats don’t land different based on your house. you could absolutely play it that merula hates you regardless of your house, that’s fine. just remember that if your MC is slytherin and lives in the female dorms, she probably shares a room with merula. which makes things fucky for all kinds of reasons, none of which jam city addresses in the current game, as far as i’m aware

also, there’s the deal with rowan

rowan is a character that goes into your mc’s chosen house no matter what (and as rowan changes pronouns with your player, i’ll be using “they” [or “she” as my player is a she and that’s what i’m used to; i’ll try to refrain but i might slip up occasionally] ). as far as i can tell, rowan’s personality remains the same no matter what house you’re in. they don’t try to play up the traits that match the house, rowan is just usually a sweet bookworm. why would the hat have put them in gryffindor? rowan khanna for me has never seemed to display any gryffindorish traits; or at the very least, no traits that should be prioritized over, say, the ravenclaw traits they have VERY STRONGLY (since rowan fills a sort of hermione role; rowan knows things about things and is your go to for research)

can we just put rowan in ravenclaw? sure, it would make it hard for fans in different houses to communicate between each other about the story for a time since certain sequences of events would play out differently, but here’s the thing:

if events play out differently based on your choices, people will want to play your game multiple times to get every ending

that’s the fun of a choose your own adventure game. if events play out distinctly differently if you’re a hufflepuff or a ravenclaw or a slytherin or a gryffindor, then people will want to play through the game four times at LEAST, once for each house, to get all the fun pieces of story (WHICH MEANS, they’ll be spending more and more time and using more and more energy, so you can make the same amount of money off people buying energy and watching the ads and maybe MORE while being able to cut out some of the more shitty pieces of filler)

in the current version, your house is just, what color are your robes and who is your prefect. i haven’t watched anyone who wasn’t a hufflepuff, but i’m sure that certain scenes and conflicts play out the exact same no matter what house you’re in

as an example, your house should affect how the duelling confrontation in year one should have gone. snape and flitwick should have different dialogue based on whether you’re a slytherin, or a ravenclaw, or a gryffindor, or a hufflepuff. snape fucking hates gryffindors, so he should be far less lenient against gryffindors, and on the flip side he should be battling between himself with how strict to be if you’re a slytherin; maybe he hates your guts because of a grudge against your brother, but you’re still in his house and we all know snape plays favorites. flitwick should be more disappointed if you’re a ravenclaw, because that’s his house and he had higher expectations for you. neither of them have many ties to hufflepuff that would skew the confrontation in a drastic direction, but had this been the first version of the game, then the confrontation that plays out in the current version we have would work fine for hufflepuff; you’re one of flitwick’s favorite charms students and he taught you this skill, and he’s disappointed to see you use it in this way, but not nearly as much as if you were one of his own

AND NOW PEOPLE WANT TO PLAY THE GAME MULTIPLE TIMES TO GET ALL THE DIALOGUE, WHICH MEANS MORE TIME, MORE ENERGY, AND MORE MONEY, JAM CITY, ARE YOU HEARING THIS??? MORE MONEY!!!!! IT’S A WIN WIN FOR EVERYONE

while we’re at it, change jacob to match his house. if you’re still gonna make him have the same house as the MC, make him match it. from how all the characters describe him that bitch is as slytherin as they come, if you’re gonna make him a hufflepuff with me then give him a clear, hufflepuff motive god damnit

finally,

the characters

there’s too many.

the problem with a big cast is no one gets enough screen time and some characters end up getting shunted to the side. that’s just what happens. you HAVE to zero in on four or five side friends and let the rest of them slip to the side. looking at my friends menu there are 17 characters you can befriend, not including hagrid, the quidditch crew, dobby, talbott, and chiara (since those are, as far as i know, unlocked via side quests, which are... fine. i don’t have any particular gripes about the side quests except for the thing with lupin being twice the size of tonks which, if you’ve read the seventh book i don’t need to explain how weird that is to you)

and BECAUSE there are so many, a lot of them have to be defined by one trait. ben is a coward, rowan’s clever and booksmart, penny has her hand on the school’s pulse and makes potions, liz likes creatures, charlie fuckin loves dragons, tonks likes pranks (seriously that’s her whole personality), andre likes clothes, barnaby is a dumb jock that likes creatures

like, traits are fun. but if that’s ALL THEY HAVE, that’s when things get a little fucky

how many of these characters have dimensions? i’m in year 4 chapter 4. the first screen recording of the game i took was on december 5 of 2019, and assuming i played about a minimum of 8 hours a day (”““played”““) until the final screen recording [may 20, 2020] before i dropped the game for about six months (i know for certain it was more than that, since i had some kind of activity going on at just about all times for at least a month of that, but i’ll take the generous estimate), at bare minimum that makes 1344 hours i spent playing this game, or about 56 days (keep in mind, this is a LOW estimate)

in those 56 days of gameplay, i don’t know ANYTHING about the characters other than their utility in my quest. i don’t know penny’s favorite color or even her favorite potion to brew, or how and why she started and when [there’s a reveal in third year that i watched someone play through, but i don’t know if i ever played through it myself; i don’t have any screen recordings of the event]. i don’t know anything about ben or his family aside from the fact that he’s muggleborn. i know some basic facts about barnaby’s family, and that he’s tough and likes creatures. rowan grew up on a tree farm and i have a vague recollection of her mentioning siblings. do we know anything about them?? do i know anything about how the characters interact with each other?? are barnaby and liz friends? they both like creatures. do they talk to charlie?? do ben and penny hang out while we’re not there? are ben and jae friends?? are jae and charlie??? DO THESE CHARACTERS EXIST WHEN THEY AREN’T NEEDED FOR THE CURSED VAULTS???

why in the fuck don’t i know these characters?? why don’t we know anything about tonks other than her affinity for pranking?? there’s a sharp bias in who the writer’s favorites are (they like the characters with angsty pasts they can twist around; what do we know about ben aside from his blood status? and he’s been around since first year; he’s the second friend you unlock. i know more about barnaby and i’ve known him for a much shorter time)

if you separate the routes, you get a chance to zero in on certain characters and actually develop them. if you’re a gryffindor, you befriend ben, charlie, and jae much more quickly and they make up the closest of your friends, along with rowan, if jam city is determined to keep their tutorial character constant across all plotlines (i still think rowan should be solely a ravenclaw, but i’ll allow rowan’s house to change so long as their personality shifts to emphasize certain qualities in order to match the change in house; your house should not just determine the color your robes are)

if you’re in slytherin, maybe you befriend barnaby in place of ben in the original game, or maybe there’s an arc where you clash heads with merula (who can still be an enemy even if you’re both in slytherin; merula doesn’t like competition and the MC is exactly that) and the rest of the slytherins in your year find themselves caught in the middle; maybe there’s an arc where your MC finds themself totally alone without allies due to the conflict between them and merula (might i suggest year two, while coming up on the climax of the year?)

hufflepuffs get to focus on tonks and penny much closer. ben can also be in this plotline, but he shouldn’t take center stage (characters should cross over plotlines, but only take center stage in one, aside from perhaps rowan if rowan remains constant). maybe chiara can get implemented into the main plotline to fill out the roster, and if not, diego caplan can get implemented earlier (i haven’t met him yet and know nothing about his character)

and ravenclaws get the ravenclaw characters BUT YOU GET THE POINT, i don’t want to bore anyone by repeating myself; this is long enough as is

what i’m saying is, these characters all have a different enough base that each route will be different just by focusing on different characters; ben and jae will respond to a situation much differently than penny and tonks might, which would ALREADY shake up the storyline of each house based on which house you choose in the beginning, and then characters overlap plotlines so you could leave hints in each route to the other characters’ unique backstories and motivations that leaves the player wanting to get to know the rest of your WELL DEVELOPED CAST (((MAKE SURE THEY’RE WELL DEVELOPED OR THIS WILL NOT WORK)))

WHAT I’M SAYING IS, THIS GAME COULD HAVE BEEN SO GOOD

if they put more effort into the story then maybe i would have gunned through the hufflepuff route so quickly and then restarted to go through all the rest of them. if you want people playing your game for longer then THAT is the way to go

yes, it will take time. yes, it will take effort. but you know what?

IT’LL ALSO MAKE YOU A FUCKTON OF MONEY FROM PLAYERS PLAYING EACH ROUTE IN FULL AND THEN PLAYING THEIR FAVORITE ROUTES AGAIN SO WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU WAITING FOR

anyway, what i’m saying is, i hate this game so much because of the potential it had to succeed, and the potential it had to be a really good game. even if they didn’t change the gameplay much, even if they didn’t change the models, i could get past ALL OF THAT if the story was interesting

so uh. jam city, if you’re reading this, please. i will let you take away all of my days of playing this. i will let you render all of my progress obsolete and send me plummeting back into my first year at hogwarts to go through the game again, if you JUST, MAKE, MULTIPLE, ROUTES!!! MAKE MY CHOICES MATTER DAMN YOU!!!!!!!!

i’m also willing to let you use the ideas i posited here without credit or payment. because that sounds like a legal hassle and i am far too lazy to deal with that sort of thing, i just want to play a good game. please. please give me a good game to play.

also, make energy take 3 minutes to recharge. please.

so uh

TL;DR : i hate this game. and i wish i didn’t hate this game.

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samrosemodblog · 4 years

Photo

Looking back at my art from the 2010s. I went through and picked 1 piece I drew/wrote from each year that I felt either showed off my best art, my most iconic art, my best improvement, or was simply a personal favorite of mine.

There were a lot of possible choices and it was kind of difficult to narrow it down to 1 per year, since each piece tends to encapsulate so much more than just a single moment per year. Especially with stuff like Motherly Scootaloo or Aria’s Archives encapsulating so much history in a single picture. But under the Read More are my choices at the end of the decade:

1.) My Old Drawn Blog # 53

Man, the years before MLP existed were really weird for me. I knew I liked drawing and telling stories, but I had no consistent direction on what I wanted to do with my art. I was still jumping between different comics and ideas, and in 2010 I was going through some of the worst depression I’d ever felt in my entire life. I hadn’t even had the experience of being kicked out of the first place I tried to move out of home to yet. It was wild.

As for the ‘joke’ that seems ‘so obvious’ in this post, I had a running gag back then of the face the Flower makes, known as the ‘screaming window’ face. I drew it whenever I needed to draw something screaming in pain or fear for maximum comedic effect. Maybe I’ll bring it back some day lol

2.) Silent Ponyville

I couldn’t NOT put Silent Ponyville on this list. I was gonna have both 1 and 2 as different spots, but I wrote them both in the same year. That seems insane to me now?? Like WOW, I just WROTE those fics and then they became fandom-wide phenomenons. To the point where even in 2019 I’m still getting people drawing fanart of it, or people telling me “Yeah, I got into Fanfiction because I read Silent Ponyville”.

I don’t know if I’ll ever make a creative piece as universally known in a fandom as Silent Ponyville again, but I sure would love to make an original piece of art that is as beloved as Silent Ponyville one day, if not more so. It’s a testament to the fact that if I put my mind to it, I can create a really amazing horror experience, and I know I do plan to do so again some day.

3.) Pirate Dash x Dead Rainbow Dash

Who doesn’t love shipping wars that get large numbers of people involved? This is probably the second most involved in the ‘community’ I got, though it was certainly the better experience of the two. And it was all just for silly fun at the end of the day.

And funnily enough I never ACTUALLY shipped these two, I just thought the reactions from the creators seeing them be shipped was hilarious, so it just kind of grew from there. It was all fun and games at the end of the day, and made for a good memory, and a pretty dang ambitiously drawn pic for the time!

4.) If Twilight Wasn’t a Princess

2013 was surprisingly sparse as far as ambitious projects or art pieces go. I was in full swing with Motherly Scootaloo, and nothing really ‘amazing’ happened in 2013 for the blog. Which was surprising. But Season 4 of MLP DID happen! And it started with the Princesses going missing, and authority over Equestria being transferred to Twilight as the next closest Princess around. And with Cadance ruling the Crystal Empire, I thought, who did that leave to rule if Twilight HADN’T been able to temporarily take the role?

And judging by the length of the comments section on DA, a lot of people found the idea hilarious as well lol. Blue Blood NEVER showed up again for the entire run of the show, and it’s a shame because there was a lot of hilarious joke potential they could’ve done with him. But ya know, the show is what it is is, and this joke still makes me laugh.

5.) My Time

My first original music video, with a song I had commissioned and everything! While it wasn’t my first video involving music and MLP, it was the first time everything was mine in one way or another. I wish I could write music, but the ambitiously talented AllLevelsAtOnce and Queen Mickey the Sass Master made this project well worth the time and effort put into making it!

And of course, it encapsulates the kind of futures I wish the CMC had acquired, with Sweetie Belle finally achieving her foreshadowed talent of singing. Apple Bloom built the stage, and Scootaloo likely would’ve ended up the choreographer if not for her baby. Sadly we shall only ever have fanon for that.

6.) Demonloo

Love or hate the wedding arc of Motherly Scootaloo, this will always be one of, if not my top, favorite panel from the entire arc. Scootaloo looks just so appropriately menacing, and the effects placed on her are glorious. And then of course, I love the little twist of “That’s not just an audience visual effect, she actually looked that way in the comic” rofl

Motherly Scootaloo was a trip that got weird with my inclusion of magic and magical beings from the show, so much so to the point that if I were to ever remake the whole thing one day, a LOT of that would be toned down. Probably to the point Chronus wouldn’t exist. But hey, things are the way they are, but I will forever love the art of this arc.

7.) A Motherly Scootaloo Christmas

If there ever was a picture that basically summarized the entirety of Motherly Scootaloo, it was this picture. Pretty much ever major character of the stories over the years was in the picture (minus Starlight) and showing their relations to everyone pretty much. I remember this picture basically killing me when I was drawing it, but was really proud at the time of how it came out. Of course, I could see how to improve it now, but I’m not gonna lol

It’s still crazy to me how many years Motherly went on for, and how much time and effort was put into it. But I’m still glad I did all of it over those years. It taught me so much about art, and about myself, and in the end, taught me the skills I needed to make art a true career for myself. And I’ll always love it for that. And introducing me to the best friends I’ve ever had, of course.

8.) Twilight-Midnight is PISSED

Look. I recognize the Aero crossover had some convoluted issues with it, but god DAMN if I didn’t enjoy drawing that fight scene! I GENUINELY loved every panel of it! I can only hope that in the future the fight scenes I draw will be just as fun to draw as these were. And as visually impressive!

That’s ultimately why this won my pic over say, the time-glitch arc with her Mom. The explosions, the action lines, the visual foreshortening, I’ve never seen such visual improvements in a single update from me quite like I have these entire scenes. When I push myself to be amazing, I can pull off some fantastic art, and I need to do it more!

9.) A StarTrix Christmas

2018 had a LOT of really good choices. Like. Too many choices. So many art pieces I was super proud of, so many pieces that showed growth as an artist, was a personal favorite, that people loved... So in the end, I went with the piece from the end of the year that is still a piece I hold up as truly a cultivation of how much effort I can put in to a picture.

Also it’s Christmas related. I LOVE Christmas. Never enough Christmas.

And as much as I hate FriendLight Glimmer, I still ADORE StarTrix content. It’s the good food for me, one of the rare things that the later era of G4 got right for me. And since I can make them be however I want in fanon, making them a GOOD loving couple was top priority for me, and I just adore them together. I truly do. And this picture is beautiful because of the love I put into it.

10.) Fate of the Lost Princess

I couldn’t NOT put Fate of the Lost Princess on this list. It’s too important to me, means too much to me, and shows my growth as an artist the most. And of the pages of Fate of the Lost Princess I have done so far, the piece of Tina and Noah on a bus stands out the most for me because, I ACTUALLY managed to make it look and feel like they were on a bus! I was so worried about this page and I spent so long working on making it look right, and in the end, I succeeded in a way I never thought I could!

It feels good to end the decade on my original webcomic, showing just how much I’ve grown as an artist. Going from a successful fanartist, to a successful original artist, that still does fanart on the side, but I’ve grown into my own person now.

I’ve lost track of how many times I tried to start an original comic, only to stop working on it and let it fade into obscurity. Fate of the Lost Princess is the most effort and work I’ve put into an original comic before, and I’m so proud of myself for not only getting as far as I have, but proud of how much effort I plan to put into it in the future, and how much effort I’ll put into the comics beyond Fate of the Lost Princess.

It represents everything that is me from the last 10 years, and I hope it’ll be the fantastic start of the 2010s I want it to be. And I couldn’t have picked something to be more proud of to wrap this decade up with.

#Personal Art #Looking back at the decade #Art of the 2010s #Silent Ponyville #Motherly Scootaloo #Tumblrpon #Friendship is Magic #StarTrix #Fate of the Lost Princess

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tymime · 4 years

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I generally consider Gen IV the last good generation of the Pokémon franchise, but really only up to a certain point. I’ve played a bit of Platinum, and it’s... okay. Doesn’t inspire me with wonder like Gens I and II do. And I pretty much gave up entirely on the anime after the Battle Frontier arc.

And looking at the Pokémon introduced then, I really only like Bidoof/Bibarel, Buizel/Floatzel and Riolu/Lucario. Buneary/Lopunny is pretty good, and Gible etc. is okay, but almost all of the rest of them I can’t stand their designs at all.

Of course, I really like HeartGold and SoulSilver, but I guess I’m biased.

Back when I was growing up, the anime was the most important to me, and it still is. I hardly ever played the TCG, as I was more of a collector, and I didn’t even play the games that much because I was so bad at it (although I did complete Silver). I remember that when it came to Pokémon, the online fandom in the early 2000s was mostly concerned with the anime as well, whereas you mostly heard about the glitches and rumors in the games and schools banning the cards. The main reason I preferred the anime was because of the characters. Ash, Brock, and Misty made a great trio, and Jesse, James, and Meowth are among the greatest sympathetic villain characters of all time, imo. Nowadays you hardly ever hear anybody discuss the anime.

But ultimately the reason anybody becomes a fan of Pokémon is because of the cool monsters. I think sometimes fans forget this, incredibly- too much focus is given to gameplay mechanics and metagaming and competitive gaming, which I really couldn’t care less about. I remember one of my first interactions with a Pokémon fan, way back in 1999 or so, was when somebody asked what my favorite Pokémon was. I told him it was Charmander. And why not? He’s a cute, fire-breathing dragon-lizard thing! His reaction was “But Charmander is weak!”, and all I could do was stare at him incredulously. I didn’t care if he was “weak”, which is an exaggeration anyway. Must I quote Karen?

That’s actually the entire point of Pokémon. Lots of PETA-types didn’t understand this: We’re not forcing them to fight as slaves, we’re making friends with all these creatures. The early episodes of the anime especially emphasized this, culminating in the movie Mewtwo Strikes Back, and it’s message of peace, sacrifice, and love still makes me misty-eyed to this day.

The anime started going downhill as soon as Ash left Kanto for the Orange Islands. We all remember how incredibly dull and pointless Tracy was, and how repetitive and formulaic the Johto episodes were. This was despite how amazingly good the G/S/C games were. It was around this time that the fandom was diminishing, and people who weren’t all that in love with it in the first place started sneering at it and saying it was “for little kids” and “uncool”. I remember Digimon fans were especially obnoxious about it. Here’s the thing: It might sound a bit shallow, but I don’t think I would’ve become interested in Pokémon if the monsters didn’t look cute or cool. I’m very keenly aware of what kind of character designs I like, and if I don’t like the way a cartoon looks, there’s absolutely no way I can get into it. Lots of people are gonna hate me for this, but I find the vast majority of Digimon to be downright butt-ugly. They’re mostly wrinkled and lumpy and look as though they’re made up of leftover puppet parts. There’s a tiny amount of them that I actually think look decent, but not nearly enough to make me want to watch the show.

But that ties into what happened next- when the Gen III games were coming out, I was looking forward to it, but I was disappointed in how unappealing some of the Pokémon designs were, especially the legendaries. I thought they looked more like Digimon. I don’t see anybody else who has this view. Sure, occasionally I see someone complain “They don’t look like Pokémon anymore!” but they’re always shot down with the rationalization “Who says what Pokémon look like is set in stone?” It’s not a good idea to slowly drift the art direction of an ongoing franchise with an established look and continuity. It’s what makes for a TV series suffer from Early Installment Weirdness and Seasonal Rot, among other things. Things like Mickey Mouse and Looney Tunes can get away with this because they don’t have an established canon, but a series like Pokémon shouldn’t start looking weirder and weirder. I remember having high hopes for the Hoenn episodes of the anime, hoping that the fresher, more sophisticated animation would bring the series out of its doldrums and return to the more heartwarming, personality-driven stories of it’s golden age. For a while it seemed like this would be the case- Ash seemed wiser and more experienced at first and the Pokémon were showing more personality. But it slowly but surely entered a long string of indistinguishable contests for May to compete in. Another thing I wish there was more of in the anime is the Pokémon themselves having more personality. Too often they’re just used as battling tools and have few chances to show emotion or interact with the other characters. The Hoenn episodes also made one thing clear: Ash was going to replace his battling team pretty much every region from now on.

This trend flies in the face of the early franchise’s message of friendship. Ash’s Pokémon from yesteryear are hardly ever seen again once they get sent to Prof. Oak or to some other place.

I suspect this new attitude towards the Pokémon is why they’re becoming uglier and uglier. It doesn’t matter what they look like, you just want to train something NEW, right? Something with good stats and EVs?

I've never seen anybody who shares my view about the Pokémon designs from Gen IV and onward. There was a brief period when older fans were saying the new Pokémon were dumb ideas- ice cream cones and garbage bags and key rings aren’t my idea of a cool concept. But then came the whole “Genwunner” backlash. “But Gen I has inanimate objects too! Dont’cha think Voltorb and Grimer are dumb??” people would say. My answer is this: A living Pokéball and a pile of toxic sludge are cooler than keys and garbage. And just because Gen I had a dumb idea like a bunch of eggs doesn’t mean you should repeat it. And of course there’s an excess of foxes, cats, bats, small electric rodents, and cutesy legendaries that look vaguely like Mew. When the Pokémon aren’t stupid or ugly, they’re redundant. And now it seems like older fans are almost entirely silent about their opinions.

I don’t understand why this isn’t a more common opinion. A Pokémon’s visual appeal is absolutely crucial and yet they still continue to look inorganic, cluttered, and awkward looking with every new generation. There’s only a handful of recent Pokémon that ever get fanart, and 100% of the time the fanart is better drawn than the official version.

This seemingly coincided with the American dubbers having the brilliant idea of replacing the entire voice cast of the anime to “celebrate” the tenth anniversary. It was difficult watching the anime after that, and I only stuck around because they were revisiting Kanto. After that, I stopped watching it entirely. It got worse, of course- Ash was redesigned and looked almost entirely different. The eyes are the windows to the soul- if you ask me, by changing Ash’s windows, they changed his soul.

The Pokémon franchise was dead to me by then. As far as I’m concerned the whole series is a shambling zombie, a shell of its former self. And with the anime using retconning flashbacks and remaking the first episode and Mewtwo Strikes Back, the anime has split into two different continuities anyhow. And yet people still try to defend it, even older fans, which boggles my mind.

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pixie-mage · 6 years

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For anyone paying attention in the Jacksepticeye Community, today’s video - Transference - was a hell of a firestarter as far as Blazing Fandom Infernos go.

After startling everyone with a constantly-changing, zalgo-text-including video title (all six of which are shown above), community theorists were able to pick this video apart frame by frame to find all the hidden goodies our lovely Team Septic hid there for us. There were a lot of super sneaky single-frame Easter Eggs (kudos to Robin) and they require a bit of frame-by-frame searching to find, or some major digging through the Transference tag here on Tumblr...so to make things a little easier, I’ve created a Master Post detailing what the community found between the pixels.

For starters, The Title™. At first, we all believed that YouTube had goofed again and the video had simply been posted with its original file title - as it has happened before. But no, this turned out not to be the case, because shortly after the video went up the title...changed. Only slightly. The text had begun to glitch, and it wasn’t too long after that when the glitching words “HAVE YOU SEEN HIM” appeared alongside the video in its place. Next came something a little closer to an actual episode title, along with an official thumbnail (shown below)...then we got a jumbled, zalgo’d title, the capital letters of which spelled out “HELP”. It was an entire hour after the original upload time that Episode 2 of Transference was in a normal state of upload, complete with thumbnail, free of any zalgo and (seemingly) back to normal.

Except it wasn’t. It still isn’t. Just look at the thumbnail:

I don’t know about you, but there’s something eerily familiar about this image.

Want a hint?

Red lights and glitching eyes. As in most videos that appeared during the Egopocalypse back in May, red lights can be seen glowing in the background...and if you look closely at Jack’s right (our left) eye, it’s green, glitching, distorted.

And we haven’t even begun to touch the contents of the video.

04:05 - “Crystals”

Hidden behind a natural glitch within the game, a familiar face can be seen. It’s not clear whether it’s Anti or Jack, because while the person is wearing the same shirt as Jack is in the corner, the coloration is iconic. It’s interesting to note too, that while the glitches don’t always move between frames, the eyes do. Watching eyes, staring straight at the camera, that don’t stay still when everything else is.

14:10 & 14:11 - “Red Hallway”

This pair of appearances both came at a moment that put most viewers on the edge of their seats, whether they caught the hidden images or not. In Jack’s words from this same segment of the game:

“I do not like that...standing at the end of a fuckin’ - red hallway, silhouetted like that? Big fear.”

This is a clear reference to the red hallway scene with Chase at the end of “Dark Silence” and the images Robin snuck into Transference are from that same moment.

Perhaps this is a clue that it’s Chase, not Jack, who is playing this game? After all, the reason so many people were excited for Sean to play it is because of the parallels to the Egos, specifically Anti and Chase. Glitches, digital distortions, a red hallway...a broken family, a mother trying to leave a father and taking the child with her. While the story is different from Chase’s, the parallels are evident, and it wouldn’t be a big surprise if Jack had noticed it too and had planned accordingly. Though I suppose we’ll have to wait and see...

14:52 - “Harmonies”

This one lasted for only a few seconds, and it was more subtle and undertoned than the others. Jack, leaning his head to the side - the “Neck Thing” - and a visual lag. We’ve seen this effect before, and every time it shows up, all signs point to Anti.

20:12 - “Eyes”

Another familiar scene, hidden behind another glitch. (Kudos again to Robin, because holy shit this one’s good.) In game, Jack was being run down by the same distorted monster that has been appearing again and again throughout the game...and its approach was very similar to how Anti approached Chase in that infamous Red Hallway scene. So of course, after a few frames, the Glitch Bitch himself makes an appearance right behind the in-game distortion. You can see the shadow of his nose, the dark shapes of his eyes, and in the bottom-right corner the shoulder of his shirt can be seen. Just like here, in “Dark Silence”:

45:42 - “Still Here”

Did you think Anti would leave without saying goodbye? :3c Of course not!

In the single frame between Jack’s outro and Sam’s tank showing up, our glitchy boy makes one final appearance in the form of a final, sinister side-profile that supersedes the little window Jack has been playing from this whole time.

So what can we take from all this?

As far as I’m concerned, we don’t have nearly enough of the pieces to put this little puzzle together...but I have two ideas, one of which feels much more likely than the other.

1) This is Jack. Clearly, Anti hasn’t finished playing with our favorite boy, and he’s making it quite apparent that he’s in control. Jack may be the one on the screen, but Anti’s the one pulling the strings. Shameless and comedic HDWGH tour plugs, that same familiar sense of humor, plus jokes about “I thought speed was key?” from the previous video, and a lot of signs point to this being the same old irish bean we know and love...but (unknowingly) under Anti’s command.

2) The person we see in this video is Chase. Last we saw of our favorite trickshot master, Chase was being ambushed by Anti himself...and we haven’t exactly heard from him since. There are blatant parallels between this game and Chase’s life, though the story being told in the game is a much darker one, painting the father is the clear villain and a madman. (I would go so far as to say the game is a nightmare version of what Chase has been going through in his own life.) Sean mentions a fear of red hallways, of silhouetted faceless people standing at the end...and that’s what Chase went through at the end of “Dark Silence”. There was also a line in the game where Benjamin says: “I just wish we could go back.” Sean automatically say this in response:

“I just wish we could go back...to the way thing were before.”

Now, where have we heard that before? Chase, in the video for “Tie”. While one could also make the argument that Chase has been talking to Jack throughout his coma (and has probably said that same phrase at Jack’s bedside), and it’s possible that Jack’s automatic response could have been just a connection of a familiar phrase to something he’s heard before, it’s much more likely that it’s Chase. The way it was said, the absolute sadness and loss in his voice...that felt more genuine than on offhand comment.

Other things Sean said that raised a red flag for Chase:

“What’s wrong with this dad? Is he an alcoholic…?”

“Your wife, the dog… what about me? No one seems to care about me…”

“He was just focused on his work so she wanted to leave…” [A pause, where he looks rather forlorn]

All quotes found thanks to @steffid101‘s post

Plus the lighting in the facecam? It’s not red. It’s. Not. Red. One of the key differences between Chase videos and Coma!Jack videos back in May was the lighting...specifically red lighting. Chase is a new player in this Nightmare World that Anti has created, so clearly isn’t as deep into the nightmare state that Jack is.

Again, there’s not enough evidence for us to come to a clear conclusion on any of this...so I suppose we’ll have to wait and see what else Jack and Robin are planning on sending our way. After all, October is just around the corner...

...who knows? A̰nything c̣óuld̠ happ̋e͇n~

#Jacksepticeye #Transference #Antisepticeye #JSE Theories #JSe Egos #Chase Brody #Pixiemage Theories #JSE Ego Theories #Antisepticeye Theories #Anti

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glassrain · 5 years

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Bumblebee:

So, at the recommendation of @timelordsoftherings I decided to watch Bumblebee, despite my previous - and rather disappointing - experience with the Transformers franchise. And I’m very glad I did, because I really enjoyed this movie (thanks Aaron)! And now I have Thoughts on the movie (naturally) and I need to talk about them. So, here we go.

(WARNING: Spoilers abound)

* Bumblebee is all kinds of adorable. I love him. He’s this superpowered weapon that could take on the entire army if he really wanted to, but instead he just wants to, like, watch movies and play games and adopt this fragile, pink human girl. And he’s so shy and naive and sweet and earnest. He’s so child-like. And I love that dichotomy, how he’s both at the same time.

* Why do the Decepticons/Autobots have Lips?! WHY? It makes no sense? They’re made of machinery? They hardly need lips to speak, so why do they have lips!

* It’s all so retro and I’m in love with it. Cassette tapes! VCR’s! Overalls! Vintage cars! All the oldie music! *swoons*

* Also, why do the Decepticons and Autobots get into fisticuffs? They are impossibly advanced, sentient, alien war machines. Surely they have a more ... what’s the word I’m looking for? Practical. Surely they have a more practical way to fight each other? I don’t know - throwing punches just seems kinda juvenile and inefficient when both players are armed to the teeth with blades and guns and who even knows what else.

* Okay, but honestly the scene where Bumblebee gets his vocal unit ripped out was devastating. It’s shot in such a brutal manner, flipping from the omniscient perspective of the Decepticon viciously tearing at B-127′s throat, to B’s perspective, with everything glitching in and out, panicky and fading, trying desperately to focus on everything at once. Excellent camera work.

* Speaking of Bee’s perspective - I don’t know how Autobots are created. However, I know for a fact that whoever/whatever created B-127 has at least visited Earth before, because he definitely has a theme going on (heck, Charlie called it within like 5 minutes of meeting the guy). The name, the coloring, the hornet-shaped war helmet - the hexagon pattern of his POV visuals was a nice touch. I approve.

* I appreciated the bit with Charlie’s alarm. Not only indicating the passage of time, but also showcasing Charlie’s depression - because that’s what depression does, it saps your motivation to do much of anything, makes you wonder why you should even get up out of bed at all. But then Bee shows up, and Charlie scrambles out of bed right away - a nice way to show her beginning of recovery, without spelling the situation out for the audience.

* Oh. While we’re on the subject of Charlie’s depression ....

* Can I just say that her mom sorta/really bugged me? Like, her daughter’s clearly struggling with the loss of her father. But instead of making an effort to reach out and actually help, she just comments semi-accusingly on how Charlie always locks herself in the garage; throws movie nights without inviting her daughter; gets a new boyfriend; does little to nothing on order to make Charlie’s first birthday without her dad a good, special one; I’m pretty sure she even blames Charlie for her depression at one point, insisting that everyone else is trying to be happy, and couldn’t Charlie at least make an effort? I know all this makes her sound awful - she wasn’t, not terribly. In many ways, Charlie was enabling her own grief. But depression is hard, and no one does it perfectly, and a little effort on the mom’s part was in order, I think, since she was clearly in a much healthier place than her teenage daughter. I don’t know - she just kinda rubbed me wrong. I didn’t like her much.

* I was genuinely upset on Charlie’s behalf when the boyfriend gave her that book on smiling more. Like, the girl is grieving? And depressed? I would have been mad at him too, if he weren’t clearly such an (well-intentioned) idiot.

* Otis was virtually useless. He should have been removed from the story, or at least utilized better.

* Speaking of poorly utilized characters: Memo. I think he was a super important character to include, since a big part of Charlie’s characterization focused on how she’d isolated herself since her father’s death - Bumblebee helping her open up again and start making new friends was a BIG part of her character development, and I genuinely enjoyed it. I don’t think he was a bad character by any means. I don’t even mind the mini-romance going on between the two. What I did mind is the fact that Charlie’s relationship with Memo took away time I think should have been given to Charlie patching up her relationship with her family. The movie takes the time to highlight the fact that Charlie’s relationship with her family - particularly her mom - has been strained since her dad’s death, but the resolution was virtually glossed over, without any real apologies or conversations from either person. It wasn’t bad, per se, but a bit sub-par. I think the movie should have shifted its focus from “Charlie makes a friend and also fixes things with her family” to “Charlie fixes things with her family and also makes a friend.” That’s all.

* .... I lied. That’s not all. There’s also the fact that Memo is kinda reduced to cheap comedy in the third act; I didn’t like that either. Memo was a good kid, and didn’t deserve that.

* Charlie being like, “I will literally sell you my soul if you’ll give me that Bug”? Honestly Charlie, same. That Bug is adorable - I wouldn’t mind it myself, Autobot or no.

* (Okay but seriously, the Bug is so cute! All the fun-yet-classic lines of the body of the car, the light upholstery - [even if it is a bit frayed on the passenger’s side, I think that just gives it character] - and the vintage center control are all just so cute! I want that car, okay?)

* (I mean, honestly Charlie. You like the Camaro over the Volkswagen? What is wrong with you?)

* THIS scene was so sweet and tender. Charlie’s wonder and kindness quickly winning out over her fear, Bee being so confused and frightened - flinching back over everything, because he’s been hurt before, please stop breaking my heart I didn’t ask for that - but shyly choosing to trust Charlie. Both of them are alone and lost, and find a kindred spirit in each other, with this gentle and almost reverent music in the background. This scene is so soft and good.

* (Also, do you see lips on this Autobot? No. As it should be.)

* Look at how cute he is though!

* The scene where Charlie teaches Bumblebee to hide is too precious for words.

* “I have a good explanation for this .... Okay, no, I don’t have a good explanation for this. But if you tell anyone about this I’ll have to run you over with my car.”

* Charlie’s smile is gorgeous. Just saying.

* Alright. I know this movie is a fictional action flick and all, but seriously. In what universe would the American government just hand their satellites and all their intelligence over to an alien race they just met that day? I mean, I know this took place before 9-11, but that still surpasses my suspension of belief by a fair margin.

* Bumblebee, you can’t just spit out her tapes. That’s rude.

* I couldn’t really get behind the general’s plotline. Which is understandable, because the writers are already juggling so much in terms of development - Bee’s development, Charlie’s development on multiple fronts and backstory, the actual plot - so they really didn’t have time to delve into his story too deeply. They couldn’t really afford to make him much more that two-dementional for much of the film, since he was one of the driving antagonists who never really got much more that a minute of screen time per scene he was in (if that) - and so his about-face in the climax felt slapped on and convenient rather than earned. Plus, his interaction with Bee in the beginning of the movie could have been completely excluded with no major changes to his character. For these reasons, I think they shouldn’t have included him as a Character at all. He was just kinda flat and unnecessary.

* I do think his salute to Bumblebee, and the returning Victory Fist, was super cute though.

* I just lost it when Bee started going to town on the mean girl’s car. It’s been a good while since I’ve laughed that hard at a movie. Maybe it was just how late the hour was, but I thought it was hilarious.

* I love parallels, and the ones going on with Bee/Charlie’s dad were so good.

1) She was working the car in her garage as a way to connect with her lost father, a way to keep him alive, so to speak. “If I could just just fix it,” she tells Bee at one point, “it’s like ... he’ll hear me.” All of these desperate hopes, tied up in fixing her car to save her father. Later, after the Decepticons have left Bumblebee (who also happens to be Charlie’s car) for dead, Charlie is scrambling over him , trying to find what’s wrong, sobbing and chanting, “I can fix this, I can fix this,” as she desperately tries to bring back another dead loved one.

2) In passing, Charlie mentions that her father died of a heart attack. When she’s trying to bring Bee back, she shocks him with the electric guns - they act in a manner that’s extremely reminiscent of electric paddles. Precisely the way one would try to bring back someone who had suffered a heart attack. Whether Charlie witnessed and remembered that and was desperately hoping, Let it work. This time, please let it work, or whether this was simply meant for the audience, it’s still a delightful parallel.

3) The diving, of course. The last time she’d dived was the day her father died. That changes when Bee is under the water, and she once again dives, this time in order to save his life.

4) After Charlie has saved Bee’s life, and then let him go willingly because her place is here, with her family, and not out there with Bumblebee, that’s when she’s able to finally fix her car.

* In so many ways, Charlie gets her father back - or at least overcomes the losses she suffered with her father - through Bumblebee. It’s so beautiful, and touching, and I’m so in love with it.

* Oh, and don’t get me started on their goodbye scene. Bittersweet in such a good way.

* Even without the incentive of connecting with her dad, I can’t blame Charlie for slaving away for so long over that car, because oh. *fans self* That car is a dream.

Okay, this got very, very long and I applaud anyone who made it all the way through. Thanks for sticking around to hear all my rambling thoughts!

#bumblebee #random thoughts #if you're thinking about reading this brace yourself #it is VERY long #sorry for oversharing

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steve0discusses · 5 years

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Yugioh S2 Ep 47: How Exactly Can Any of This Get Resolved In 2 Episodes?

Ah, it’s 4AM, and these people decided it was finally time to pass out after a day of getting tied to bandsaws, getting tied to anchors, getting abducted, getting possessed, getting tied to various types of chairs, building box forts to escape your abductors, falling off of the box forts you built, beating up like 8 people, falling madly in love with Serenity, throwing lots of dice at people, falling out of love with Serenity, learning to see for the first time after a very major operation, having a fistfight on the roof of a 4000 ft in the air blimp, eating a mountain of tacos at a buffet, falling into the ocean, driving a helicopter into a shipping crane, drowning, telling your school bully that you are a reincarnated Pharaoh, learning that your favorite playing card is your one true love who died 5000 years ago, getting dangled off of a 20ft rope tied to a flying helicopter, deciding that your favorite playing card is in fact NOT your one true love who died 5000 years ago, telling a bunch of strangers about that one time your baby brother killed your Dad after seeing a single motorcycle, and getting trapped in the Shadow Realm in a giant hourglass.

They’re pooped. And, we get a nice montage of all of Kaiba’s itty bitty luxury beds that were really only built for Yugi and Mokuba and have been just super inconvenient for everyone else.

And Joey is not dreaming about donuts, instead he’s having guilt dreams.

and then, yes, she in fact did chain herself up to a wall and he watched her drift away.

CONGRATS, GIRL!

Man, by Yugioh standards she just got engaged, right? Good thing everyone else thinks Bakura’s in a plot coma because that is going to be the most unexpected walk of shame.

Also in this montage, Kaiba is not sleeping, and is instead staying up on his computer researching dragons. Yeah. Sounds about right. I honestly can’t picture Seto asleep. I don’t think he does that. I think occasionally Seto kind of pauses wherever he’s sitting like a fish, does a quick Rem cycle, and then he’s back to furiously typing on whatever computer he’s sitting at 10 minutes later.

(read more under the cut)

Meanwhile, these two are duking it out on the roof. I reallllllly wish they were actually punching each other like Tristan and Duke showed us a few episodes back but, nah, it’s cards.

Again, no matter who wins this fight, it will be a very good outcome for our protagonists, so it’s really a fight between which of the evil dudes do you like more? Do you like the Local Nasty Boy Next Door who cannot go to card prom with you because he’s too busy stabbing himself in the arm and murdering? Or, do you prefer the New Cargo Pants obsessed boy in town who seems completely unaware of which century it is, what a blimp is, and what clothes are supposed to be worn with what clothes. Or, is your fave Oldstyle Cargo Pants, who committed atrocious acts of blasphemy, violence and murder just so he could drive a motorcycle around at a moderate speed while wearing a sensible helmet and senseless pink crop hoodie?

All of them really want to destroy/rule the world, all of them really want to kill god (well, Yami, so basically the laziest godform I’ve ever seen in an anime) and all of them probably smell like super bad. Make your bets, they’re all three gonna have a card fight.

And to make this duel somewhat more confusing, Marik likes to sort of take over Bakura’s body and shout at himself. It’s...there’s a lot of psychological stuff going on right now. Anyways, this is when we find out officially that Odion decided not to tell Marik that he killed his own Dad, and instead blamed it on Shadi.

So I guess that’s why Shadi’s been hiding this whole tourney? I mean, Shadi...just kind of peaced out...and like other than being an exposition dump I’m not sure why he ever bothered to come here today?

But because Marik was in Tea’s brain without me knowing, he overheard the true story for the first time, and he was like “ah yeah I’ve killed a loooot of people, this makes sense.”

Bakura has taken almost an entire season, but he’s decided that now he’s playing cards anyway, he wants the good kind. Bear in mind, Bakura was passed out during the other duels where we found out that God Cards are ass.

And I will say that like, in caps there’s some things I can’t really show you since they’re meant to move--but Bakura and Marik turning into pieces as they duel was visually a pretty fun idea. It felt like the animation team was really enjoying it. Like this was their duel to cap the season and so they made it as much a ridiculous spectacle as you can a paper card game. (and the animators probably welcomed a change of place, they’re running out of weird ways to place cards down on a very large watch)

And then we revisit a familiar locale.

So like...this place is different.

First off, my favorite giant green bowling pin is just...gone...and then second off, either Yugi is just getting older, or Yami is just taking up that much more space. But this room definitely wasn’t brick lined before, which is...that kind of says a lot about what Yugi’s been sacrificing to have this puzzle installed into his brain.

Also, apparently Yugi drew a fish once and he was so proud of it, that it got immortalized in here.

The red tomagachi is exactly like the one I had in Middle School. I killed it so many times. I also like how they dodged Nintendo copyright but still gave us a little nod that yes, Yugi is a Nintendo nerd but legally cannot say so. I actually went and looked up handheld systems, and this one looks a lot like the Gameboy Advance. I cannot imagine the spooky stories that happened involving this particular Gameboy Advance, and if maybe that’s why Yugi no longer plays the thing.

Like I’ve been catching up on some GDQ and with Yugi’s curse, do you think he CAN just casually play a video game? Or, do you think he’s just always speedrunning and breaking games whenever he sits down to them? Like he’s just naturally doing TAS runs every time he picks up a controller, glitching through walls and going to the final boss when he’s only at like level 2? Like when he picks up Pokemon he probably almost never has encounters, and then when he finally does it’s just MissingNo and he’s like “Man, I have like 20 of these, and they all look like ass! I just want a freakin rattata.”

Anyways, Yugi was feeling kind of bored here so he went across the hall to visit his friendly neighborhood parasite.

And so, much like how Marik has decided to have a heart to heart with himself on a very tall ledge, so has Yugi and Pharaoh. Except, they’re not having a chat about who killed their own Dad, because we have never seen that guy and he may as well not exist, it would make no difference on the show.

Unless there’s a twist coming up that Yugi killed his own Dad, which, even with this show, I think we can safely assume he has not.

I’m pretty sure.

Just angsting out in my mind labrynth with my 5000 year old emo ghost, wearing lots of guyliner and belts around both our necks. Staring into the abyss made of the convoluted maze of unused stairs and unopened doorways of my unraveling mind. Don’t mind me.

I can’t believe they brought up Shadi only to completely change the subject because even these two are like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Bro brings up that between the two of them, Pharaoh is a lot more hesitant about looking into his past. Something about people being stored underground for 5000 years and the murdering and all that extra stuff makes him maybe consider that maybe this power ain’t so great. So he’s just...decided not to open doors anymore. Yugi’s going to do it anyway, and Pharaoh will support him in that search, but Pharaoh alone is just fine not knowing if he was an evil asshole 5000 years ago. He doesn’t want to know or really see the point in finding out if it’s fact or not. There’s enough evidence already there. Ignorance is bliss and all that.

But it seems like if one is doubting the other has to not doubt just out of necessity. I don’t know what happens to this brain if both Yami and Yugi become depressed.

I mean like...

...

It was on the wall in the museum, right?

And like, Ishizu is down the hall and you could just ask her, right?

Shadi is around, he probably knows, or at least can go invisible and check.

The short term memory on all the children on this show, I swear. It’s almost as bad as real life children.

Anyway, the very last episode of the season is next and like...we made no steps towards resolving any of these plot strings so next episode is either going to be 4 hours long or it will just be a title card at the end of the episode that says “And then they all died! The end!” just like my very first stop motion animation feature when I was a wee tot, which honestly would probably make more sense than how they will probably end up tying all these lose ends. If they...ever do it.

Not holding out.

Anyway, if you just got here, this is a link to read all these recaps in chrono order from S1 Ep1, knock yourself out http://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

#yugioh #yugioh recap #photo recap #S2 Ep47 #Yugi muto #marik ishtar #Bakura #tea gardner #tristan taylor #joey wheeler #return of Toy Chamber #tbh nothing really happened this episode

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cwtwheely · 5 years

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Pokémon Let's Go Review

Well... this has been a contentious Pokémon game, hasn't it?

While fans were excited that Pokémon was going to be released on the Switch (even if some were disappointed that there would be no more main series games on the 3DS), knowing that the first would include Go elements put some off entirely. Which is understandable; it took about two years for the app to fully form, and its "gameplay" is rudimentary.

But I like Go regardless, and I was looking forward to Let's Go, especially after learning that it was a remake of Yellow (which desperately needed a remake, as the original is incredibly dated).

As for this? I love it. I've been playing it as much as I can since it was released, and I've been having so much fun.

First off, let's talk about the Go aspect. Yes, you no longer battle most of the Pokémon you encounter, but they make sure you have enough of an incentive to catch them other than filling the Pokédex. And it all comes down to catch combos.

Catch combos are earned by catching one species of Pokémon over and over again (you can encounter another Pokémon, run from it and not break the combo). The higher the combo, the more candy and berries you earn.

Candy, which can also be earned by transferring Pokémon to the professor, replace the God awful medical based boosters from the other games which were so expensive and scarce to find in the wild. There are 6 different candy you can earn:

Health - raises HP

Mighty - raises Attack

Tough - raises Defence

Smart - raises Special Attack

Courage - raises Special Defence

Quick - raises Speed

These candy come in normal size (can be used on any Pokémon), large (only work on Pokémon above level 30) and extra large (only work on Pokémon above level 60). There are also Pokémon-specific candy (like Go) which raise every stat of that Pokémon and its evolutionary line (eg: Charmander candy works on Charizard), and the rare candy retains its main series effect of raising the level of a Pokémon.

With these, it's never been easier to unleash the true potential of your Pokémon. It's gotten me into competitive battling a lot more than I thought. And if any system needs to bleed into the main series, it's the candy system.

That said, if it does become a mainstay, it needs a tweak. While I'm not too fussed about grinding for the candy, using them can be incredibly tedious and unnecessarily time consuming. It takes, at most, 10 minutes to fully raise a Pokémon, and that's if you have enough candy to get it that far.

In Go these days, if you have more than one rare candy, and you want to give them all to one Pokémon, you can do so in seconds. It would be nice if that was possible with the Let's Go candy system too, especially with the Pokémon specific candy.

Catch combos offer more benefits than just candy. The further along a chain you get, the more likely you are to find one with the best base stats. You can check these with the Judge feature, which is given to you once you catch 30 different species and talk to an aide on the eastern building out of Fuschia City (heading to Lavender Town). It's another feature that makes it so much easier to invest in getting the best out of your favourite Pokémon (and another feature that needs to be kept).

And, yes, chain combos make things easier to find shiny Pokémon. With a combo over 30, odds are slashed from 1 in just over 4,000 to one in 341. And these odds are made better if you set a lure off and (once you've registered every Pokémon in the Pokédex) the shiny charm.

Also, the higher the combo, the more experience your Pokémon get. While that's great, as is the even distribution of EXP for every Pokémon in your team, it's not ideal. Say you've built a team that you're not entirely happy with. You find a Pokémon you want to include, but realise it's at a much lower level. The only way to build that Pokémon up is to remove all of your current team and grind it up, which is the only major flaw with the catching mechanic. Fortunately, this could only be an issue with any future Let's Go games (if they make more of them).

Yes, some will say "just send it out first in trainer battles!"

You need your stronger Pokémon to support that weaker one, so all the EXP your weak Pokémon gets, your stronger one gets, too (actually, the higher level one gets more, I think). Y

Your team still shares EXP from trainer battles, so you have the same problem.

There aren't as many Trainers as there are wild Pokémon.

Whether they stick with Go catching mechanics, revert to normal, allow players to battle, beat then catch Pokémon (like they do with Snorlax, the Electrode in the Power Plant or the Legendaries) or allow players to choose the best option for them, chain combos should be kept, especially if they're wanting to double down on the competitive scene and allowing everyone a chance to get involved in it.

The catching itself is... alright. While I do like using the Poké Ball Plus, the gyroscope technology in handheld mode is also really good. That said, in a game made to be as accessible as possible, disabled people are abandoned by them.

As someone who is disabled, I'm incredibly fortunate to have little issue using them... for now. One wrong move, however, and I could probably never play the game again. Granted, that's a worst case scenario, but with my condition, that is also a possibility. For a full report on this, I'll refer you to this Kotaku article:

Seriously Nintendo, stop forcing us to accept motion controls! They utterly destroyed Star Fox Zero and they are restrictive as all hell for a series that's meant to be universal! Make them an option if you must, but for God's sake, motion controls should never be the only way to play on a home console!

With all of that out of the way, the story is... well, pretty much the same as the original Yellow version. There are some tweaks; your rival is friendlier than Blue was, Lorelei helps you with Team Rocket on route 10, you see the Cubone try and interact with its dead mother (the most heartbreaking scene in media since Up), you see Blue take over the Viridian City Gym after you beat Giovanni (explaining why you faced him in Gold, Silver and Crystal).

But on the whole, it's simple yet effective. Frankly, it's a better story than Black and White because it doesn't reek of hypocrisy (they're using Pokémon to try and push a message to not abuse animals) and never takes itself too seriously. Besides which, the twist of Giovanni being the Viridian Gym Leader as a means to boost his operation is so unexpected and well handled that it's never been matched.

But on the whole, you beat the Gyms, catch the Pokémon and be the best. It's a formula that works.

Where the game truly shines, however, is the graphics. By the end of the game, I was thinking "why hasn't Pokémon been on a home console before now?" Sure, they wanted people to come together, which was more likely with handheld consoles. But frankly? It held the visual storytelling back so much. And this game is proof of that.

I've mentioned the Cubone moment before, but that whole subplot is the best, most heartbreaking storytelling the franchise has ever had to offer. But the only time that actually worked, and was properly felt, was in this game.

The Gyms also got an upgrade. Most of them were slight updates, but two (Saffron and Cinnabar) have similar mechanics, but a much different feel. Cinnabar especially is so over the top with its quiz theme is just brilliant. I loved it. Saffron's, however, was just breathtakingly beautiful. It was also TARDIS-like in that it's much bigger on the inside. But it's another example of why the Switch makes the game look so much better.

That said, there were a couple of times where I experienced significant frame rate drops in handheld mode (I can't say if it's the same in docked mode as I don't play it that way). It mainly happens at the start of Viridian Forest when there are a lot of Pokémon on screen (be careful when setting a lure off there). I didn't experience any major bugs or glitches other than that, though.

And yes, your Pokémon can (finally) follow you around again. Some (Arcanine, Persian) you can ride on to traverse the world faster. And you can fly over the overworld on a Charizard or Dragonite once you beat the Elite Four (it's tougher to enter buildings though, so you have to spend a couple of seconds trying to land).

Hopefully this means that this feature will be a mainstay. Not only is it fun to interact with your buddy, but they also help you find hidden items in flowers or rocks.

The only Pokémon you can fully interact with is your starter: Pikachu or Eevee. It's similar to Pokémon Amie from X, Y, Sun and Moon, and... well, it's so charming. I often went in just to see her reactions and I wasn't disappointed. She danced, she got excited, she even gave me presents. It's just adorable! Hopefully this stays as well, only for every Pokémon that follows you around.

The menus are fine as well. But in handheld mode, it is rather cumbersome to use the buttons to navigate through them. The touchscreen can be used to interact with your partner Pokémon, so why it couldn't be used to navigate the menus I don't know. Maybe this is one of the aspects they intentionally stripped back? Either way, all us handheld players to use the touchscreen more for the next game please, Game Freak.

Also, the move selection boxes in battle seem... a tad small. It would be nice if they, and the font in them, were made a bit bigger in future games for those with poor eyesight. It's not like they're working with a small 3DS screen any more.

Overall though, I love this game. Yes, it is a stripped back game compared to Sun and Moon (no abilities, less moves). Yes, it has levelling issues. Yes, it has accessibility issues. But the things the game adds make them a fantastic entry point to the series, and competitive battling as a whole.

Plus, it was nice to experience Yellow with a fresh coat of paint. The hardware really helped to enhance the story (again, the Cubone subplot is heartbreaking), the return of travelling partners was great, seeing the Pokémon in the wild made the world feel more alive than it's ever felt.

I'm really looking forward to what they do with the franchise for generation 8. But to tide people over, this was a great instalment. I'd honestly go as far as to say it's one of my favourite Pokémon games ever, just behind HeartGold, SoulSilver, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.

Is Let's Go perfect? Absolutely not. But I've had more fun with this than I have with a Pokémon game since ORAS. It just puts you in the world and explore everything it has to offer. And for a Pokémon game, that's all I really want. It's a lot more fun than sitting through nearly an hour of cutscenes to actually do anything, only to do it again in "follow up" games that could easily have been sold as DLC rather than another full price release.

#pokemon #gaymer #gay gamer #gay nerd #nerd #gay geek #geek #gamer #video games #nintendo #pikachu #game freak #gaming #nintendo switch #pokemon lets go

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sarcastic-pasta-games · 6 years

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Any motivation or advice for one man team developers? Sorry if this has been asked already

Hey! I’ve been working on a solo fangame project for too long almost 3 years, while working on The BOSS & Glitch In The System. I have no clue if this’ll help or if this is the type of advice you wanted, but here you go. The things written here can apply to non-fangame projects, too!

(Warning: lots of text ahead - and take this with a grain of salt; I’m not an expert.)

General:

You are going to have to plan in advance and organize absolutely every single thing about your project. Don’t just make an outline for your story. Create concept art for your characters, figure out what makes your game story unique, figure out the mapping and game mechanics early.

Make sure you know your options. If you’re really good at one thing (writing,art,music,code) and everything else is a bit new to you, there are free and paid resources out there. Don’t feel bad for using them.

If you’re a perfectionist, make sure the tools you use are quick. Do not spend a week on one room design, or a month on one song. You will never finish your game, even if it’s super short.

Kinda joykill advice, but I don’t recommend making your dream project first unless you fully KNOW how to start making your project on your own (which even then, you’ll need to organize everything for it to work). Make something silly, or try joining game jams.

External feedback is even more important when working on your game. Get playtesters or people willing to help give feedback to you early on, or midway through development.

Figure out how much energy you can devote to your project. If you want to be ambitious, that’s great! But overworking yourself is a horrible idea.

If you want to change something fairly major about your game, you should probably only do it if you’re below the 30-40% mark. Otherwise you’ll forever drive yourself insane by changing anything when you’ve made that much progress on your project. You can always improve on certain aspects for future games.

Especially for fangames: don’t take everything you make seriously.

Games can still be considered solo projects, even if the developers got help for stuff like art, music, and code. You don’t have to do every single thing by yourself. But if you’re stubborn like me about this and still want to do everything, that’s cool too.

Back up your game or forever suffer in developer hell. Yes, I’m serious. I’ve seen projects get cancelled because they couldn’t afford to get a backup drive (or even a USB key) and it’s miserable.

Don’t act like you’re above other game developers. This applies for anyone, really. Support the other people around you, too!

Visuals:

If you have absolutely no passion or desire to do your own art assets, premade resources are your friends. However, you need to really focus on your other game aspects in other for your games to stand out. To The Moon used a lot of pre-made RPG Maker XP resources but had a phenomenal soundtrack and used that + its visuals to make the game feel more cinematic than most RPG Maker games.

If you feel like you suck at art or don’t have money for expensive drawing tools, but want to make all of the game assets, then do it! Even with simple/free-to-use tools, your can make game art that’ll be unique and memorable. example / example / example

Keep backups of every single one of your original art asset files.

If you want to do pixel art for your game, 1: Always avoid coloring with pure black. Your game will look disgusting. 2: Programs like Asesprite are useful for animations. 3: Make sure it’s proper pixel art. Using AA brushes, the blur tool (etc) will completely ruin that.

Video cutscenes aren’t 100% necessary. Certain game devs make it a goal to never include cutscenes to create a certain atmosphere, or for the game to feel more interactive for the player. (ex: Night In The Woods)

Pretend the player can’t listen to game audio while playing. Keep the visuals interesting and make your game feel alive! Whether it’s through tiny animations, window animations, etc.

For 3D Games: motion blur =/= super cool polished game. >:(

It depends on your game’s style, of course, but usually it’s not a good sign if you can tell your project is made by someone with default assets and doesn’t try to work beyond that (for any engine, 2D or 3D).

If you want to do regular art for your game: make sure you know what resolution your game is going to be at its absolute highest, and always work with bigger than that.

Keep your visuals consistent! If an early area looks unpolished/different from the final maps, then fix it.

I’m going to skip music advice because I 100% suck at composing and don’t know what I’m doing yet. Just make sure your audio files are lossless, even if it adds a bit to your game’s file size.

Audio:

Use the same logic like in one of the points for visuals: Pretend like the player can’t see any of your cool visuals or fancy animations, and is just left with blocks for character sprites and very shapes for maps. Make your game convey emotion through audio, even if it’s through tiny sounds, or really quiet environment sounds.

Voice acting: Don’t even bother if you can’t find people who have good microphones or can’t afford/know how to properly remove background noise. You’ll just be left with really bad quality audio that won’t help immerse the player at all.

There can be a theme to your audio, much like there can be a theme to your visuals. Whether or not you decide to contrast the visuals with your audio or pair them up is up to you. It can give the game a whole new tone, depending on how you approach sound design.

Audio cues are good for puzzles, but again, don’t just rely on that only to indicate to the player that an objective has been completed. If they have the game on mute, they’re just going to be left wandering around.

Binaural audio can be cool, if you want to try doing that.

Writing:

Don’t write game dialogue at 4 am. It never works.

Game writing is VERY different from what you might be used to. Keep in mind that for the most part players want to interact with an environment, not just only hear what characters have to say about a certain event or area. Forcing them to go through giant dialogue cutscenes every time is not a smart move to make. (Obviously, visual novels and text adventure games are an exception to this)

Not that you only need to have 4 words in your entire game! But there is a chance someone will download your game and just not enjoy the writing. Think ahead of time if you really feel like every game puzzle, every important cutscene needs to happen after giant walls of text.

If you have the ability to make visuals that can be paired with writing, you don’t really have an excuse for avoiding that. Especially if the cutscene

Proofread every single thing, or get someone else to do it. If you can export all your game dialogue into text files, that could be helpful.

If you’re trying to write a serious game (with lighthearted moments or not), chances are that adding that one dumb inside joke with your friends in-game could ruin the immersion for the player.

Only time I think the developer should focus more on their own opinion than the players: create as much atmosphere as you can. Figure out the things YOU like about a game world, and focus on that as much as you can. Don’t worry about making it appeal to all/certain audiences.

Don’t act like every single player in the world will like all of your characters. Even if they’re nice, someone could absolutely despise your main characters, or find themselves liking the antagonist more.

Dumb character ticks and speech mannerisms can still work.

Not everything about a Serious Game™ has to be gritty and all that. Me and Katie wouldn’t recommend making a completely serious fangame anyway, but that’s another topic.

You’re probably not going to ever write a game that has absolutely no tropes in it whatsoever, so give up on that.

You can make a character dislikeable but still charming. The other way around works too. Not everything has to be clear-cut right and wrong.

Game design / Programming:

If you ever use shortened names for certain switches, variables, etc - or have a complex system for one game feature, write down what all of it does somewhere. You don’t want to screw yourself over months after you implemented something because you forgot what one button does, or what another variable is for.

Bite the bullet. If there’s an area you restrict access to for the player purely for the sake of not having to deal with coding it, that’s no fun.

You can never make a game with endless options/possibilities.

If there’s something buggy in your absolute basic gameplay mechanics (movement, UI) just change it and don’t focus on anything else before it’s fixed. There’s no excuse not to.

Make sure your game UI is bearable to look at. Please.

You don’t have to add 50 game options or features for your game to stand out. Unless you know it’ll encourage the player to keep playing or will help the player enjoy the game, then there’s no real use for it.

If you can ever optimize your game (frame rate, controls, etc) do that too. Having a simple 2D game running at 15fps one second and 60 the other won’t make your players happy.

Personally, I’d rather play a working puzzle even if it’s a bit boring, over something that’s super creative but buggy as hell.

Color puzzles aren’t going to work for colorblind players, and if you have an aesthetic (super tiny) game font, people with bad eyesight won’t be able to play. Give people options!

“Choices in this game matter” if you know they don’t matter whatsoever for the ending or for a majority of the game, then don’t say that. This also ties into the branding section.

Making band-aid fixes for every single one of your game bugs is a really bad idea. If you can take some time to fix one bug fully rather than relying on workarounds, do that.

Back. Up. Your. Code. Files. Especially if you’re planning on making major changes to it. It can be very useful to have old pieces of code to fall back on if your changes don’t work as planned.

Figure out what you can and can’t do with an engine. There’s a section in The Beginner’s Guide that talks about the limitations certain engines can pose to developers, and how certain engines are just better fit for certain tasks than others. You won’t be able to include or make everything for one project. (Chances are, that wouldn’t work well anyways).

Don’t expect the player to only behave one way to your game’s design, puzzles, or mapping. Again, give people options. There can be some fun in giving the player different results for different puzzle solutions.

Presentation:

You don’t have to reveal every single thing about your project online- but on the other hand, keeping everything to only vague/abstract teaser posts isn’t very helpful to people, either.

Social media is your friend. Twitter, tumblr, youtube, etc- Find different audiences through your games there!

Figure out what sites you want to put your game on. There are tons of options: Itch.io is my favorite. But sites like Gamejolt, indiedb, rmn.net, Steam (more for commercial games), etc can work for you. You can always just upload it for yourself online (mediafire, google drive, dropbox) too, if you dislike all of those sites or prefer doing it through direct download links.

Don’t self promote your game on other people’s games or accounts…

Even if someone is hoping to see something really specific in your game, your project will get out of hand if you just add in what every single person wants. Convince people that your game will be worthwhile even if a feature or a character doesn’t appear in it.

Remaining transparent with your audience will help you a lot.

Keep things easy to access and read/look at for potential players. Make sure people can find something about the game quick. Things like FAQs, “About this game”, external links, etc are very helpful.

Apologies in advance for any embarrassing typos that I may have missed.

One last thing: Focus on making something that you ultimately like. It’ll be much easier to handle any sort of obstacles during/after development that way.

There is so much more I want to cover on this, but this should give you some basic things to work with. Hope this helps!

#mod makorie #SPG advice #text #ask #anon #anonymous

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