calvincell

[calvincell]

Though I’ve yet to actually get a physical journal specifically for Blue Prince thanks to starting it up while in the hospital, hours in I’ve defaulted to the Steam Deck’s screenshot shortcut more than I think many other users have done in earnest. My Screenshot Folder in my Deck is essentially 50+ Blue Prince pics & 1 pic I took years ago by accident during MGS5 😂

Obviously, this is another thinly-veiled game recommendation post for the absolutely incredible game Blue Prince. It’s a stylish fusion of roguelike/deckbuilding mechanics with a full on Escape Room moment to moment loop. Your “deck” is a series of rooms you’ll draw from your draft pool (ie. your deck) with rooms ranging from neutral new paths & annexes to rooms with significant positive and/or negative traits capable of heavily affecting your path through the house in some manner. Following that you must place said rooms to navigate through an eccentric uncle’s bequeathed legacy villa secretly containing a hidden room which, though never mentioned throughout his ownership of the constantly shifting property, is now the requirement for the player to succeed in providing himself worthy of his uncle’s inheritance.

Though sensible navigation is key due to limited steps per day, several of the rooms have bespoke puzzles & many of the mansion’s rooms meld into one massive puzzle that expands the many secrets of the house & handful of meta progression elements that make the journey through the house as much of a worthwhile & valuable goal as the final room is for players.

(BTW, despite my mention of limited steps, strict beelining is NOT a necessity since the game doesn’t have a hard lock of limited days until a game over. There is no “find Room X by Day 30 or you lose” scenario. No spoilers but you can absolutely leisurely get through this game at your own speed without worries of having “wasted a day” or whatnot. )

Honestly, IMO Blue Prince more than qualifies to stand in the ranks of Lorelei & The Laser Eyes as Escape Room games from the last decade that happen to be not just excellent on their own but true evolutions in the puzzle game genre.

I desperately am begging people even halfway intrigued to try the game out. Hell, I personally balked back when people were posting about putting 40-100+ hours into Blue Prince’s Demo alone but no that was all true & highlights just how dense the game is. An absolute treasure trove of Escape Room-style puzzles for genre fans & just average puzzle fans and/or fans of roguelike deckbuilders truly looking for a true innovator in the genre.

SIDE NOTE:

Despite being on the pulse of the recent Switch 2 Chaos & aching to play DK Bananza at one point or another; it’s releases like Blue Prince that make me absolutely satisfied sitting on the outside of Nintendo’s Walled Garden this generation alongside both Sony & Microsoft’s Consoles, abandoning both after the launch of the Xbox 360. The Steam Deck has simply added so much value & access to my gaming life that the very existence of Nintendo Exclusives is not enough justification to make the upgrade from my current Switch to Switch 2. The triple whammy of S2’s game prices, rotten Online Services monetization plots (ie game chat button, Virtual Console etc.) & an overall executive-level disregard for the living costs of those making up the category of “Average Gamers” - those who happily buoyed a slightly dire Nintendo back around the era of the Wii & Iwata’s general company reign (RIP); all aggregate into a Red Flag Ratking too grotesque & imposing for me to ignore. I’ve genuinely gone from loving what I saw during the Switch 2 Direct to despising every post-announcement blunder to just being bluntly & plainly disinterested in any & all things Switch 2, a state very familiar to me when both the PS4 & Xbox One were the new hotness and I simply decided I couldn’t do the standard console mambo each generation anymore. The Steam Deck’s actual hardware & software versatility & overall game catalog simply makes it the best gaming hardware purchase I’ve made since the era of the 3DS.

Not only is Blue Prince the type of gaming innovation & quality that makes it deserve as much attention & financial compensation as Nintendo’s flagships (Metroid, DK, Mario Kart etc.), but also between my backlog & whishlisted games, the wealth of indie & AA-level games at my fingertips via PC & at regular/regularly massive sales & sale prices collectively dwarfs my need and/or desire for the Switch 2.

[calvincell]

Life Story

[calvincell]

From a distant sea town

[calvincell]

Though I don’t bring it up often, I’m a huge fan of Joel G’s wacked out cyber-surrealist YT indie animated series ENA! All of their shorts & the unique madman’s 90’s PC/internet fever dream setting & characters are extremely charming & a sandbox ripe for derivative fanworks from fiction to art.

The series’ heavy video game influence has come full circle and “ENA: Dream BBQ”, a long awaited First-Person Adventure game set in the world of ENA & spearheaded by Joel G themselves has released the game as a 1st chapter for free on Steam. As such, I absolutely cannot recommend the game enough to anyone & everyone with a Steam account, ENA fans or otherwise.

Similar to the series itself, ENA: Dream BBQ is an absolute triumph of style with excellent animation of a myriad of styles that bolster & define the unique surreal setting & characters. It is also a marvel in terms of voice acting too with the protagonist ENA continuing to be a purposefully dual-voiced role & the multitude of wacky multilingual characters earnestly delivering the Seussian near-nonsense dialogue that the series is also well known for and all with distinct flair & personalities that make certain nearly everyone will find at least one favorite within the madcap cast.

Though (as of this post) I’m not too far in the game yet myself, by the end of my first 30 minute play session via my Steam Deck (works excellently btw), I’d already purchased the game’s Support Pack Upgrade DLC. The DLC is not only an avenue to simply financially compensate the development team & their efforts but it also unlocks a unique collectible element which, upon finding the Hourglass Dog easter eggs, grants game extras like concept art, dev commentary, pre-production assets etc.

Honestly, even if one has zero plans to actually play the game themselves, I genuinely hope that people will still reward a frankly bafflingly free, high quality indie game that IMO exemplifies why the indie scene is such a necessity as well as a boon for gaming at the levels of industry & medium alike.

[calvincell]

This would be an amazing twist on the series honestly 😄

I really love the idea of Zoro & Kuina being an infamous bounty hunting duo. Hell, you could still include Zoro’s internment under Morgan; while Kuina is elsewhere Zoro still saves the mother & child and Kuina returns then plots to break him out right around the time Luffy & Koby arrive. Though Luffy scuffs her plan at first they still succeed with freeing Zoro with his help, defeat Morgan and Hellmeppo & mutually agree to join Luffy on his quest as his first mates

Kuina lived Au! love these mfs

did this in one sitting so i'll probably dislike it later

[calvincell]

Honestly? I’m also sadly 50/50 on this outcome from the finale of the series.

I absolutely want an Everyone Lives ending where the Strawhats continue on their adventures into old age but I can absolutely also see Oda delivering a last nuclear gut punch in the form of Luffy either performing a noble sacrifice or possibly going the way of Roger. Not through execution though because I kind of see the state of a post-saved OP world being one that abolishes the death penalty for pirates; rather the consequences of Luffy’s frequent pushing himself to the limit with the various life essence-draining abilities he’s used in the series catching up to him & leading him to be the first of the Strawhat crew to pass on via natural consequence - the final chapters likely being a deluge of emotional reminiscing at his grave by the possibly retired & aged Strawhats (and their allies) similar to Rayleigh’s own nostalgic reflections on Gold Roger.

No matter the scenario though, the chances are 100% that the finale will undoubtedly open a floodgate of tears from myself & other fans. And if the anime episode plays either “I Am Becoming The King Of Pirates” or the “We Are - Reprise Version” on top of it all, then I’ll personally probably cry forever. 😭😢🥲

If any shonen series were to end with killing off the MC it's One Piece. I fucking hate that this rings true to me, but it does. Luffy is too beloved for a series about inherited will and the sentiment of people only dying when their memory is forgotten for him to make it out alive. I've already started trying to prepare myself in case Luffy saves humanity by sacrificing his life & like turning into the sun from the teletubbies or something.

[calvincell]

As a kid, I absolutely wore out my VHS copy of this movie so this moment & the Million Dollar Chocolate scene are core memories for me 🤣

Digimon The Movie also sports one of the most gripping “Exact Time To Failure/Last Possible Second” moments in cinema and no I won’t be taking questions on that

When I saw this first time when I was 9 year old this made me laugh so hard and to this day this still stuck in my head.

[calvincell]

I’ve just finished my 4th watch of the Argentine horror film Terrified (2017) by Demián Rugna and it continues to be just so damn good & one of my personal favorite horror movies of the previous decade & obviously highly recommend to those who haven’t seen it. The film revolves around the discovery and investigation of several unusual & dangerous paranormal occurrences that take place in the homes of a quaint Buenos Aires neighborhood. It is a genuinely well-crafted horror story but I’ve also enjoyed how several scenes in the latter half are as funny as they are frightening mainly due to the antics of the character Detective Funes added to the ensemble about 1/3 of the way through.

Detective Funes has the look & attitude of a character that would be the hard-boiled protagonist in a police procedural, and yet he’s plucked from that genre and placed smack dab in the center of a paranormal horror thriller where his criminal expertise is useless & his poor health issues end up being potentially fatal. During just one night of investigation, Funes legitimately has like 4 minor yet still debilitating heart attacks due to encountering the exact same surprising & overwhelming scares that the audience does and I personally just find it very funny how blatantly unfit he is for supernatural investigation & his repeated urges and requests to flee make him very relatable on top of being totally justified. The actor does an incredible job of making Funes look like he’s completely out of his element at all times & his fear and panic always feel genuine. Not to mention he can also absolutely sell a sudden crippling heart attack too.

[calvincell]

fishman island

[calvincell]

I was watching a great Star Wars critique that brought up how lightly the franchise treats the institution of slavery as the dire, inhumane act it is & due to some extremely lame comments I’m reminded how thoroughly I despise the platitude that “not all forms of slavery were/are torturous/some slave owners treated their slaves fairly”. Whenever I hear it I always have the urge to ask if those making such an argument would honestly & deliberately choose life as a slave as long as it was under the thumb of a “kind slavemaster”? Because from my perspective, enslavement always comes with the sacrifice of one’s dignity & free will, overt abuse or not.

It doesn’t matter how “kindly” you might be treated as a slave, you would still be considered property at the end of the day and any of your supposed freedom under the yoke will always only extend as far as what your master would consider most convenient and beneficial for them. If your owner wants you on call 24/7 then travel would be out of the question no matter how much you might want it. If you meet the love of your life and want to start a family, if your owner has no interest in letting you be “distracted” by granting your loved ones attention nor any interest in providing for a few more mouths to feed especially if they belong to an infant who wouldn’t be able to pay for such luxuries with their own labor then building a family would be out of the question for a slave with the troubling possibility of your partner and/or child being sold off at your owner’s discretion.

People don’t seem to understand that the institution of slavery isn’t reviled only because of its documented history of involving abuse, flesh trading, assault & grueling, dangerous & uncompensated labor. It’s inhumane because it’s explicitly about establishing a system where certain people are considered closer to property than actual human beings. It’s just prima facie an institution of inhumanity and one that is perpetually ripe for abuse because just because one slave is treated well, doesn’t mean every slave even potentially under the same owner would receive equal treatment. When you rob people of their humanity & personhood, you open the door to people who will use that opportunity to justify any and every act they might inflict to their “property” from the mundane like denying them true freedom to the vile such as assault & slaughter. So to frame those who critique slavery as not factoring in that “not all enslavement is inhuman” are being fundamentally disingenuous by pretending that such is the sole reason it’s distasteful. Never mind the fact that those who make such an argument would likely never choose to be enslaved themselves.

[calvincell]

For no reason, here is Art Spiegelman's 1991 graphic novel Maus, for free on the Internet Archive.

[calvincell]

Purchased & been thoroughly enjoying Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2 on my Steam Deck. Since the PS Vita is the last Sony console I have ever bought, I was completely left out of the hype around the first game & the death of my gaming PC ensured I wouldn’t even be able to try out the Remaster and was stuck simply experiencing the game vicariously through YT Let’s Plays. Though I did subscribe to PS Plus for half a year & completed Spider-Man Miles Morales via cloud streaming which I had a lot of fun with.

Thankfully with the advent of the Steam Deck & PlayStation’s porting of their popular exclusives to Steam, all I had to do was wait patiently to get my hands on Spider-Man 2; fully avoiding spoilers this time around too. 3+ hours in and I can honestly say that the wait was worth it so far. Much of the graphical fidelity options needed to be dragged down to the low & lowest settings for the Steam Deck to tolerate the game but considering I’m personally fine with reduced graphics for a smooth gameplay experience the game performs very well IMO.

Though I haven’t 100%’d the game, all of Insomniac’s Marvel Game output has made me extremely optimistic about & excited for not just their Wolverine game but Arcane’s Blade & Skydance’s Marvel 1943 as well! The Marvel IP has just lately been much better served in the hands of game devs than Film & TV crews sadly.

[calvincell]

LOL You absolutely aren’t alone! I suck at RAM but highly technical combo-heavy spectacle fighting style game mechanics are always my jam; so I’ll gladly hit my head against the wall that is the game.

It’s exactly the kind of roguelike experience that I love where I always get the tools to pull off badassery & nearly every loss feels less like bad luck & more about my failure to utilize those tools competently even in hectic situations.

man ram is so fucking good but i'm so fucking bad at it

[calvincell]

It’s frankly hilarious how anti woke chodes are just so blinded by their bigotry & rage against diversity that they fail to acknowledge or just straight up ignore things such as the fact that one of the 3 protagonists’ in the 1ST FILM OF THE FRANCHISE was Dr. Lora Baines, the woman who was an expert computer programmer & engineer who was fundamental in creating the very digitization laser tech which is the critical catalyst for the entire foundational premise of the franchise overall.

It’s also just one more blatant display of the complete disingenuous nature of anti woke tools who delude themselves into believing they are the only “real gamers/fans” - collectively complaining about how pronouns, minority representation and usage of diversity & inclusion consultants are all “blights” on the entire game industry; all the while explicitly ignoring massive obvious industry issues such as: worker exploitation and abuse at the hands of overpaid c-suite executives, mentally & physically debilitating levels of crunch, the degradation of game preservation, completely untenable development & release schedules on grossly bloated AAA game budgets, anti-consumer pricing & monetization tactics, efforts to rob customers of ownership rights of their game purchases, the draining & callous discarding of industry talent (individuals & studios alike) by major publishers, poor optimization & performance of supposedly complete full price releases, rabid trend chasing as seen with NFTs & live service games, etc.

New Tron game looks dope, I'm definitely looking forward to it. That being said it is extremely funny to me that the trailer dropped this afternoon and is already bringing the anti-woke crowd out to complain that Tron has "gone woke" because of the skin tone and supposed genitals of a fucking computer program.

[calvincell]

After months on months of eager anticipation, I’ve finally purchased & put a few hours into Empire of the Ants on my Steam Deck and been hooked.

The game is an exploration RTS blend that honestly reminds me of a mix of Pikmin & Brutal Legend with their shared active strategy mechanics infused with a gorgeous nature documentary aesthetic that seeps into the art style, graphics and gameplay at a foundational level which genuinely make you feel like you’re playing through the insect kingdom segments you’d see in nature docs like Planet Earth or Monster Bug Wars. All that’s missing is the running commentary of David Attenborough, Morgan Freeman or Werner Herzog; an inclusion that honestly I’d happily pay for DLC of 😄

The Xenofictional perspective of the ants does do a terrific job at immersing you in the mindset of an ant whose personal & colonial survival depends on clashing with a massive world where insects and bugs barely the size of a human thumb, rainstorms & hungry birds are all daunting threats for you & your Sister ants.

And speaking of Brutal Legend & Pikmin, the exploration aspect like them is similarly fun but to play the game means also earnestly engaging with the real-time strategy gameplay all share. Like those games, getting through EotA means getting adept with the plate-spinning style gameplay of building & strengthening units and bases while getting your Warriors or Gunners to battle encroaching hoards of enemies and using your personal skills to bolster said units & keep them alive lest you have to call for reinforcements and possibly fail altogether.

If you feel that sort of RTS gameplay is the type you love like I personally do or at least tolerate/feel you can comfortably handle, then I earnestly recommend giving Empire of the Ants of shot; particularly since the devs also put out a Roadmap outlining a deluge of major content additions in the near future, much of which is aimed towards expanding the strategic side of the game.

And Side Note: Though a lot of the early marketing pushed the angle of the game’s graphical fidelity heavily, the game IMO has been beautiful & still runs easily and fluidly on my Steam Deck assuaging my previous fears that it’d be extremely taxing for my system.

[calvincell]

Completed what must collectively be my 15th or so full rewatch of Cowboy Bebop since the days when it first aired on Adult Swim & just getting to those final episodes reminds me of why I consider the Bebop Crew to stand alongside the likes of the Strawhat Pirates in One Piece & Guts’ Party in BERSERK as one of the all time best Found Families in fiction.

Similar to what the creators accomplished again in Samurai Champloo, the creators of Cowboy Bebop have a fantastic knack for convincingly splitting up a wayward cast of misfits while simultaneously still making it an emotional gut punch seeing a family in the purest sense of the word, a group of people whose faults and talents enrich & complement each other so beautifully and naturally that their eventual mutual love is a matter of course (even if they don’t admit as much), split into their own separate lives to possibly never see each other again. It’s such a bittersweet feeling that never fails to make me teary eyed during those last handful of Bebop episodes.

[calvincell]

I was already optimistic about Gunn’s vision for the Live Action DC Universe but the fact that he’s including Hawk Girl, Krypto & Mr. Terrific in his foundational Superman movie has me even more hype than I expected to be