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SAM & MERCEDES

GLEE | 3.08

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i should be kissing girls……………..

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the most annoying stage of burnout is when i want to write, and i have the urge to write, and somewhere in my skull are the words that want to be written, but they have to get through the cursed minotaur maze first and nobody remembered to bring string

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many of the ppl who are good at something have practiced copiously. practice copiously!!! you do not have to be naturally talented at something to do it well!!!!

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dear universe give me ten billion dollars and infinite free time and indestructible hands so i can do every hobby ever

say hi to knuckles everyone

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stuff they actually let happen on Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Godzilla tried to eat Chancellor Palpatine

Darth Maul came back from the dead as a crime boss with robot legs and had a giant angry brother named Savage

Jabba the Hutt’s uncle was an offensive gay stereotype

Palpatine had a gigantic forehead for literally no reason

Zombie episode

They named a Jedi “I’m Gonna Die” and then killed him

Some senator had a sex robot

All the Twi’leks had French accents

Ahsoka got hunted for sport

Anakin had to do elaborate BDSM roleplay with an evil cat lady

Dooku was almost murdered by the Macbeth witches

Hondo Ohnaka

Yoda made contact with Qui-Gon Jinn’s ghost but the other Jedi just thought he had dementia

0.07 seconds after leaving the Jedi Order, Ahsoka crashed her motorcycle, got a girlfriend, and ended up smuggling drugs for the mob

Anakin and Obi-Wan met the physical incarnations of the Dark and Light Sides of the Force and they looked like a goth drama queen and his cottagecore sister and both of them were furries

Ahsoka got bit by an evil rat which made her evil for awhile

Jar Jar killed a guy

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Mass Effect 2 released 15 years ago today!

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nothing sadder to me than when an online artist posts a side by side of the same picture from 5 years ago / redrawn this year, and the first one is fluid and energetic and full of character, and the second one is flat and static and clean to the point of sterility

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"fandom isnt activism" means that shipping destiel isnt the same thing as fighting for queer liberation and posting about a brown character doesnt make it impossible for you to be racist. "fandom isnt activism" does not mean that anything done in fandom spaces says nothing about you as a person and is beyond reproach. some of you spend all day showing your whole ass and then get all shocked pikachu dot jpeg when someone says you might have some biases to work through

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I’m planning out my bedroom when i live on my own next year

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Do not quit alcohol cold turkey

Do not suddenly stop drinking alcohol as a new years resolution if you have been consistently using alcohol most days

Your body gets used to the presence of the alcohol as a sedative in your system

Suddenly removing the sedative you are chemically accustomed to is like suddenly removing the wall you are leaning on - you will topple over

You brain electricity gets overexcited

This causes seizures

This causes sudden onset dementia (Wernicke's encephalopathy)

This causes brain damage

If you use alcohol often (even in moderate amounts)

Or in large amounts

Or you have ever noticed you get shakey tremors and anxious when you stop drinking

Then your body is chemically dependant and you need to be very careful coming off alcohol otherwise you will cause brain damage

Slowly wean down the amount you drink over days or weeks

Talk to a doctor about your goals to quit and ask about support options

Medically supported withdrawal is a lot safer

If alcohol withdrawal goes badly there is a 15% chance it will kill you.

Do not go this alone

You deserve to be safe

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General question to reblog and tell me in the tags;

You go into a used bookstore - what are the two sections you head to first?

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I've noticed that when I play open world games I can have wildly different emotional reactions to exploration. Like, a new quest hub opens up and sometimes I go "Oh nice, there's so much to do" and sometimes I go "oh no, there's so much to do". Why does this happen and what design choices make the difference?

In cognitive psychology, there’s this concept called “Cognitive Load”. It refers to the maximum number of things a person can easily remember and recall at once. Beyond that maximum, you start forgetting things and need to be reminded. Your brain is full, so finding space for the new thing becomes a little harder.

When you’re playing a game and your cognitive load is too light, you’re at the risk of feeling a little aimless and bored. Your brain just isn’t super engaged because it doesn’t have to be, so you start to tune out to varying degrees. In such situations, getting a bunch of new tasks will usually engage you more because it gives you more to think about, anticipate, plan for, remember, etc. This causes the “Oh nice, there’s so much to do!” sensation, because you’ve become more engaged. You’re looking forward to seeing where these new things will take you and what sort of fun new things you’ll be doing.

When you’re already near your cognitive load limit, this sensation turns to overwhelming instead. You already have all of these things you’re thinking about already - this quest for this NPC, that collection for the thing you wanted to craft, how to defeat these particular monsters, etc. When you’re near maximum capacity and you suddenly are thrust into even more things to think about, your brain rebels. Humans are very loss averse - we feel worse if we have to put something back than if we never got it in the first place. Seeing all of those things you have to pass over makes you feel bad. This is why you say “Oh no, there’s so much to do!” Your brain is upset because you’ve given it things to think about and now it has to put them back because it’s too full.

Generally, the way to handle this situation as a designer is to work carefully on the game’s pacing. We want the player to stay in that sweet spot of cognitive load, where they have enough tasks to keep them from getting bored and tuning out, but not so many that they feel overwhelmed and anxious about leaving something behind. 

For an open world game like you mention, this means careful placement of quest givers and quest goals relative to each other in the world. Have you ever played a game where you felt frustrated because the quest you were on had you running back and forth to places you just came from without anything else to do? This is usually because you’re at minimal cognitive load - you are spending all this time to do this one task and tuning out because it doesn’t bring anything else new along the way, so you’re starting to get bored and disengage from the game. If you had other quests you wanted to do along the way each direction, this would not happen.

In order to ensure a good flow for the player, you want each set of quest goals (e.g. where the bears spawn for me to collect bear claws) to overlap with the next planned set of quest givers (there’s a small hunter’s camp visible just beyond with some more quests). This way, the player’s brain can process through its cognitive load by finishing the older quests/tasks as we introduce new ones. Optimally, this keeps the player loaded up but not overwhelmed by adding new tasks as old ones complete. We want the player to continue doing these quests without sliding into the frustration zone, as well as gradually ramping up their power level, drops, difficulty, etc. to account for players learning to play the game better. In a lot of ways, our ability to keep everything flowing nicely for the player tends to be a factor of our maximum cognitive load as designers.

The FANTa Project is currently on hiatus while I am crunching at work too busy.

[What is the FANTa project?] [Git the FANTa Project]

Got a burning question you want answered?

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Long questions: Ask a Game Dev on Tumblr

Frequent Questions: The FAQ

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AERITH GAINSBOROUGH & CLOUD STRIFE FINAL FANTASY REMAKE INTERGRADE (2020) dev. Square Enix

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The Bee Box

by Lowell Parker

In this small box, my love, you’ll not find a ring, but instead, a brave little bee. He’ll be dead by morn, having given his life defending his flowers against me. I felt his sting while picking the small purple pansies growing wild along the roadside, in hopes of an afternoon bouquet for you. And I grieved the sting, more for him than me, knowing full well the price he paid for my small pain. And I allowed him his victory, leaving his flowers as a memory, and brought you instead this brave little bee, who proves there is love even in the smallest of things.

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