madhogthymaster

[madhogthymaster]

Master Recs: Webcomics (Vol. 4)

Oh? Did I forget to feed you? Did I leave you to rot in your dirty little cage for months? Sorry, my bad. Here's a belated helping of webcomics. Hopefully, these will satiate you for the next untold number of weeks.

Oren's Forge by Teagan Gavet

The world is cruel. The laws of nature control every facet of it. Predators eat Prey, Prey eat Smaller Prey. This notion had gone unchallenged for countless moons... or so most critters thought. At some point, someone asked themselves if there were more to existing than to be a cog in this heartless Food Chain. In a land ruled by violence, where survival of the fittest is the mantra by which "Animal Society" abides, what does it truly mean to live?

Oren's Forge invites you to question the supposed immutability of what we have come to accept as The "Truth" of This World, wherein the central premise works as a metaphor for our social hierarchies, stratifications and the many constructs that exist to divide us, to keep us down. To go against these monolithic beliefs would be comparable to defy Nature itself - it would be seen as "unnatural." This a story about fighting the Status Quo, daring to hope for a better future, seeking Change for the betterment of all. However, it is also a cautionary tale about Oppression, those who would monopolize Progress as a means to reinforce the old values - thus underlining how very mutable the laws are and always have been. Ultimately, this is a parable of Hope and Kindness in a time of normalized cruelty. It's a professionally illustrated, carefully crafted, Punk in spirit, furry webcomic and I think it's neat!

Octopus Pie by Meredith Gran

I have already professed my many, swirling thoughts and feelings on this work in my Mega-Thread. The extremely succinct version of that entire tirade is: Meredith Gran, published writer and acclaimed videogame developer, spent ten years working on a webcomic. It's a masterpiece and you will enjoy reading it.

Nerd and Jock by Marco Raassìna

A wholesome comic about friendship, guys being pals, pals being bros, bros being buddies, and so forth. Take some time off your busy schedule of spiraling depression and replenish your serotonin with some fun-filled shenanigans featuring a cast of loveable goofballs.

DOGHAUS by Annabelle Olendzki

An eclectic bunch of college students (most of whom Queer) stumble across the fine line of adulthood and societal expectations, dealing with related anxieties, dread, various deeply personal hang ups, family issues and unflinching depictions of clinical depression. The comic takes the shape of a 3 to 4 panels gag strip but it often refuses to tell a joke, choosing instead to portray the raw feelings of its characters going through a moment of crisis or life in general.

It cleverly, subtly plays on audience expectations, the meta-textual conceit of the medium, to counterbalance the comical farce with the emotional realness behind these "silly yet relatable" cartoon dogs. That is not to say DOGHAUS isn't funny when it wants to be.

It still has comedic setups and resolutions but it's not forcing them upon itself at the expense of an effective gut punch. You will laugh, you might cry, you may feel second-hand discomfort at social events... It's a good read!

Out-of-Placers: A Story of Inconvenient Changes by Valsalia

To put it bluntly: a human man gets TF'd and force-femmed. She becomes a rat-like, bird-limbed creature called Yinglet and with this sudden alteration comes a subsequent, fundamental shift in the way she interacts with society, losing the self-assured tether to her personal, physical, racial and gender identity. Her place in the world has been stripped away from her due to events outside of her control and now she has to deal with the ensuing, traumatic journey to adapt to the unwanted change - similarly to how The War took away her nationality. There is a metaphor here, somewhere...

Out-of-Placers is a comic that explores (in seriously enormous detail) what it's like to exist in a place unsuited to your needs, to be thrust upon a situation that appends not just your livelihood but your own ego, the dysphoria, dysmorphia and quite literal dehumanization resulting from all of it.

Please note that when I say 'in enormous detail', I well and truly mean it. You will learn way more about the Yinglet's physiognomy, biology, anatomy, gender politics, sexual dimorphisms and mating habits than you would have ever dared to ask.

In fact, a good chunk of this comic's run is dedicated to building its world with plenty of meticulously crafted "journal entries" and "scientific papers" in place of actual pages.

Whilst this may seem a rather clunky, flow-disrupting way to establish the setting and its races, I do believe it works here. There is a Terry Pratchett-esque school of wit in how the information, the history, the occasional anecdotes are delivered, which elevate a simple fantasy location to a fully lived-in society.

That too is for the benefit of the overall theming as it is through the support of a community, or a found family, that one can hope to get by in a time of... Inconvenient Changes! If you have the stomach for the, again, greatly detailed subject matter then I absolutely recommend this. Happy reading.

---

[VOLUME 1] [VOLUME 2] [VOLUME 3]

Follow Madhog on:

YouTube

Twitter

Bluesky

Blogger

Also, here’s a helpful website: https://arab.org/

[madhogthymaster]

She Digs Giant Robots (a little too much)

Just Lin from Xenoblade Chronicles X being normal about mechs, and in general: https://bsky.app/profile/madhogthymaster.bsky.social/post/3ll4uool3o22k --- Find out how you can help Palestine: https://arab.org/

[madhogthymaster]

G-Virus Dog Versus BDSM Wolf - Surviving Digimon, feat. Melody Dickens and Sushi_Witch [5]

Who let the dogs out? --- Find out how you can help Palestine: https://arab.org/

[madhogthymaster]

Be Confidently Wrong! | YOU WANT “THOSE GAMES”, RIGHT!?

The joke's on them. --- Find out how you can help Palestine: https://arab.org/

[madhogthymaster]

MADPlay: "Toonstruck" [FULL 2019 PLAYTHROUGH]

That time Christopher Lloyd was Isekai'd into Cool World, teamed up with Homer Simpson to fight Tim Curry and his Romani cat girlfriend. There might be a clown too. --- Find out how you can help Palestine: https://arab.org/

[madhogthymaster]

Octopus Pie: The Mega-Thread

"I have made the decision to slowly and methodically re-post every single tweet I ever made on this website. All the comments, analysis and silly memes. All of it."

Read the full thread here.

[madhogthymaster]

50 Minutes of YT Shorts To Bless/Curse Your Timeline

Almost every short-form video uploaded on the YouTube channel in one beefy compilation.

[madhogthymaster]

Brain Bubble: The Plot of Ocean's 14 Gets Ambitious!

A fourth film in the acclaimed(?) Ocean's 11 series is apparently getting made. It just so happens that I have come in possession of a leaked screenplay detailing the supposed plot for the next entry in the ubiquitous(??) franchise. Allow me to summarize it for you all.

The first half will be presented as a return to form: Clooney, Pitt and crew planning to steal a boatload of money from a casino. Now, the owner of said casino is an elusive man who goes by the name of "James Bowens." Not much is known about him.

So, the heist begins and everything appears to go according plan. They placed men on the inside, wired up the location, had some guy perform cool acrobatics and everything else that might have happened in Ocean's 11... However, as the second half begins, it all goes awry.

Our would-be casino heisters get caught by a small army of individuals dressed up as card jokers. Bowens, the mystery man, shows up from behind the curtain to confront them. He then proceeds to rip his own face off, revealing his true visage to be that of a jester. He re-introduces himself as Jimbo!

Jimbo is an Eldritch horror from beyond time and space who feasts upon human souls. He traps the crew in the Shadow Realm and forces them to play a new version of poker with its own made up rules. Should they win, he'll let them go but, should they lose, he shall devour them.

Finally, Jimbo breaks the fourth wall to address the audience in the room, welcoming them to the real feature presentation: "This. Is. Balatro!" He yells as he gifts bananas to everyone.

To Be Continued. Credits roll. Don't miss the sequel, Ocean's 15 X 1000=You Lose!

[madhogthymaster]

The Audacious Wit of In Heat: Honeymoon!

Should I write about this subject or should I not? Should I let the prose bust outside of my mental hymen or should I stay my hand and exercise self restraint like a pre-marital celibate? If the title of this article is to be believed, a decision has already been made. I chose Evil.

I find myself in a creative rut, slumped and unable to climb over the wall of Writer's Block. I figured that a good way to overcome such an obstacle would be to search for inspiration within a less travelled path. As it happens, I haven't written about pornography since 2012. So here we are. The time is right for me to exit the zone of comfort and dive headfirst into the area of... slightly less comfort. Take my hand, o brave reader, and I shall gently drag you along on this journey. You can trust me.

Someone, somewhere, at some point during the course of history, managed to crack the code of Storytelling. Their cerebrum vibrated in ecstatic titillation as The Greatest Idea Ever Conceived leaked out of their nostrils, manifesting itself unto Reality. Hear me out: what if you were to take the premise from H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau, turn it on its head and make it sexy/profitable?

What if the island were to be a vacation spot for obscenely wealthy furries and the animal people living in it had been created for the purpose of satisfying certain desires? What if you were to visit such a place and meet said creatures?

...

.......

............

What if Jurassic Park let you f*ck the dinosaurs?

Anyway, some horny people made a FNAF porn parody titled In Heat: Lustful Nights which is about anthropomorphic sex workers being very "heated" about you, all of the time. Actually, I might be selling this game short. From what I gathered, it's a spiffy-looking, ambitiously designed and lovingly crafted entry in an otherwise oversaturated genre and definitely worthy of its own analysis... That analysis will have to be postponed indefinitely because this article is about a slightly different topic. Bear with me, o kind reader, for I am almost done with prosaic preambles.

The leading animator for said smexy romp worked on a side-project during their spare time. They made a visual novel. They made a funny visual novel. They made a witty, well-written, high-quality visual novel and I wish to espouse its merits.

In Heat: Honeymoon! is the brainchild of solo-developer Aquapaulo and a spin-off to Lustful Nights - enjoying the latter does not require extensive knowledge of the former. You play as a hapless loser who had just received a golden ticket to Paradise after the previous holder (your boss) was caught by his wife. You are now enjoying a fully paid, three days vacation at the Diamond Straits island resort complete with entertainment, beautiful beaches and massive monster gals who could crush you simply by looking at your general direction. Your goal? To get crushed. Or not. It's up to you, really. You could literally spend the entire trip sleeping in the most comfortable bed in the universe, for that matter.

Upfront, I must draw your attention to the production value showcased here. The characters appearing on screen are 3D models. These enormous babes have a plethora of motions, quirks, poses that complement their personalities and appearances. Most likely, Aquapaulo reused the models already made in The Other Game and went through the effort of cel-shading them. The end result is a 'toony aesthetic which complements the darkly comedic tone on display. However, do not mistake my words of praise for deception, Honeymoon! remains pornographic in nature. On that note, the aforementioned babes look very nice while doing The Business.

The promise of a fulfilling fantasy might be what entices you to read this visual novel but it is the writing that shall keep you invested. To put it simply, it's hilarious. There were many a moment when I found myself laughing out loud, caught off guard by such unexpected levels of wit.

It is the sort of madcap causticity that plays off of genre conventions, delivering some genuine gems in the process. It's inherently aware of the humorous potential tied to the premise and its risqué scenarios. Of course, the prospect of a 400kg mega-fauna performing a sexy back massage will result in a Bad End! It is common knowledge that a hot date with a lagomorph woman can only lead to a fireworks heist and arson! Three thirds of this dating simulator are about you fumbling your chances at courting these beastly ladies in a manner only comparable to Leisure Suit Larry. All the while, it still manages to be the horny game that it is.

It's surprisingly arduous to find a good balance between comedy and explicit copulation. It is even more difficult to nail the timing between setup and punchline in a medium paced to the beat of a mouse click but this game accomplishes both tasks wonderfully, in my opinion. In fact, beyond the funny dialogues, the game occasionally flaunts a cinematic quality to its presentation that enhances the experience. That is to say, it uses well-established filmmaking techniques to punctuate its funny scenes, such as hard cuts, a shift in musical cues, Dutch angle shots and more. Speaking of Cinema, the H-scenes come equipped with a juicy, extra layer of psychology wherein characters' feelings are explored just as deeply as their bodies.

Threesomes are neat, sure, but threesomes as a pretext to work out the psycho-physical hang ups of a tiger/bunny couple with you as their "therapist" are next level!

Obviously, Honeymoon! is not for everybody. Not so much due to its status as a furry fetish bait (and I mean that in the most neutral way possible) but because a baseline appeal of the In Heat universe is the concept of being overpowered by someone twice your size. To that effect, you should be warned one of the bad endings might be pushing some unpleasant boundaries, suddenly veering into a much darker situation that ill-fits the overall tone of the game. I was not bothered by it, personally, but my experiences are not universal. Still, one must always keep in mind that sexual fantasies are just that, Fantasies. Art that aims to explore or cater to certain desires may be worth engaging at its own terms. You'll never know if you stumbled across your new preferred kink if you seldom leave the comfort of your own bubble, after all.

Aquapaulo's In Heat: Honeymoon! is not the kind of art I usually, comfortably peruse but the leap of faith allowed me to discover a pleasant reading experience. There were funny jokes, goofy gags, sweet emotional moments, and the sex was good too!

If you feel sufficiently convinced, you can buy the game on Itch.io. It's not properly finished as of yet but all the available routes can be played to completion. Once again, you should be aware of what you are getting into and reframe your expectations accordingly.

I must leave now, my planet needs me. And by that I mean my bed. My bed is my planet. I'm not going to use it for love-making, though. I'm just very tired. Sex is nice but have you ever had a nap? Anyway, review is over.

--- Follow Madhog on:

YouTube

Bluesky

Blogger

Also, here’s a helpful website: https://arab.org/

[madhogthymaster]

BCW's Best Videogame Music Tournament: Team Battle!!!

A twist on the old single-elimination tournament formula wherein the participants pit their favoured tracks against each other's.

[madhogthymaster]

Madhog Falls Into The Void

"For the longest time, Slay the Spire was the gold standard of this otherwise niche category, uncontested in its supremacy, undeniable in its influence. Then little old Balatro came along, broke outside the niche and became the biggest indie game in the process. How did that happen?"

Read the full thread here.

[madhogthymaster]

You Will Never Guess What I Found at a Local Store

A phone app store in my area was selling "vintage" videogames and related merchandise. One such item was... surprising, to say the least.

[madhogthymaster]

Be Confidently Wrong! | It's Joker Night, Baby!!!

Contrary to what was promised, this will not, in fact, be a normal episode.

[madhogthymaster]

Be Confidently Wrong! | Twinsanity Two: The 2nd One

The Twins have once again usurped the throne.

[madhogthymaster]

Brok the InvestiGator - Embracing the Flaws of Unrestrained Artistic Expression

I wish to express my ponderance over Brok the InvestiGator, a truly wondrous videoludic experience. A many-faced entity upon which I cannot stop gawking in bewilderment.

This reptilian bonanza is the second game developed by French Auteur Fabrice 'COWCAT' Breton after Demetrios: The Big Cynical Adventure. On paper, it's about a croco-gator (actual species unknown) who's an investigator, as the title suggests. He solves mysteries, beats up the bad guys, makes a few wisecracks and all that jazz. He's got a nerdy sidekick, a teenage son and a dark past. You would be forgiven to marinate in the false belief that anything about such a vague premise would imply any level of conventionality... but do not be fooled! Beyond its approachable yet unassuming Disney Afternoon aesthetics lies a much deeper truth.

This work is unlike anything you have ever seen and, at the same time, it is exactly like every other game you might have played before. As in, it's all of the games, all at once! It's a Point & Click Adventure, a classic Arcade Beat 'Em Up, a Action RPG with a multiple choice system and relationship mechanics, and an Ace Attorney style VN collectively rolled into one particularly twisted pretzel! There is also an Escape Room smack-dabbed in the middle of it, because why not? Streets of Rage meets Deus Ex meets Disco Elysium meets Professor Layton meets Chrono Trigger (inexplicably) and they all get drunk together in a world that looks like an episode of TaleSpin after The Bombs from Fallout dropped. Yes, you should be confused. Yes, you should also be afraid.

It's a funny, furry animal comedy but also a raw family drama. It's a Neo-Noir mystery but also Post-Apocalyptic and Post-Humanity. It's a colourful cartoon but also a dire Cyberpunk setting. It's Saturday morning's Sonic the Hedgehog but also Redwall - and that includes some of the more problematic aspects.

This is the sort of fiction that will have its main character, who looks like a buff Wally Gator, go through episodes of depression and trauma. It's also the kind of interactive diegesis that lets you jump on a corpse, repeatedly, while sleuthing a murder case. You do get an achievement for it.

You might have noticed how I failed to provide any manner of basic plot synopsis, choosing instead to wildly gyrate around the topic like a crashing helicopter, and that's exactly because The Ideal Brok Journey should not be tainted by the burden of foreknowledge. I daresay, by typing all of this I might have accidentally created expectations that were not there before. On the other hand, I am too fascinated by it and I wish to further expand my thoughts on the matter. Moving forward, there will be mild gameplay spoilers.

When you vivisect the body, pick it apart piece by piece, you might come to appreciate the work that went into its many moving parts. The sections classified as 'Point & Click' present well-designed puzzles with different solutions to keep them fresh whilst the brawling parts work as a smooth alternative to the puzzling that are fun and accessible. The real problem arises when everything else comes up to clog up its digestive tract. For example: the aforementioned Escape Room portion is fine on its own right but antithetic to the rest of the game's ethos because it can only be solved in a specific way (or, alternatively, skipped) whereas most of the other scenarios present multiple solutions to the same riddle. Bizarrely, there is only one murder investigation in this supposed title about a detective, and it's actually quite good. So much so that I would have wished it was a central feature rather than a gimmicky deviation from the confused plotline(s).

It's made worse by the notion that you can actually point to the wrong culprit and continue the game normally, only to have the solution spoilt afterwards. Again, that happens because Brok has a multiple choices system, which is good for replay value but bad for storytelling.

The scrambled nature of its mechanical inner workings is reflected in the erratic composition of its narrative. On that note, to say that there is too much meat on the grill would be embarrassingly euphemistic: it's wild that this game exists as it is, as the unfiltered, unrestrained, overly ambitious "first draft" of a genre-bending Epic that's ultimately too big for its own britches. A story that, within its limited means, attempts to comment on Social Inequality, Pollution, Eugenics, Capitalism, Racial Profiling, the Surveillance State, Technological Intrusion, the Human Condition, even Gender Politics, and comically fumbles all over these subjects with the grace of an inebriated hippopotamus.

It shoots for the Moon and hits the Sun with a rocket fueled by convoluted writing, a dissonant tone, an uneven structure and bizarre pacing. Furthermore, the brightly coloured aesthetics and child-friendly, rounded character designs don't complement the tone and ambition for which Brok is aiming. In order for any of this to work, some major cuts and rewrites would have been necessary. Yet, at the same time, I don't think I would want this game to be any different than the baffling creature that it is, charming in its many shortcomings. I simply respect it too much for that.

Brok the Investigator is a labour of love, well and truly. A Magnum Opus birthed upon this world through the sheer persistence and uncompromising will of its author, who categorically refused to cut corners or change anything to make it more "digestible." It might be flawed in its execution (severely flawed, in fact) and the way certain characters from a perceived, in-universe minority are portrayed should definitely be put under scrutiny, but I still admire the effort on display.

'Tis a beast of true innovation that comes together in a weirdly malformed way. You could theoretically slash it into several different genre pieces and they would be decent yet forgettable on their own, but it's by containing all of them at once that this game achieves Artistic Immortality! In essence, this game feels like a Life's Work that was released in such a weirdly condensed state specifically because it would have been financially unrealistic to publish it as a long-term franchise.

As previously mentioned, Brok the Investigator is simply too much of everything for its own good - did I mention it has 11 endings? It will never be heralded as a masterpiece akin to a Disco Elysium but, at the same time, I cannot recommend it enough for the unbelievable experience.

I guarantee you that if you try Brok the InvestiGator, you will never forget about it. It shall stay with you and occupy a room in the backside of your brain in a manner far more meaningful than your average, competently made Point & Click or Beat 'Em Up or Undertale knock-off ever could. It is, without a hint of exaggeration, a game that needs to be played to be believed. I loved it, not so much in spite of its flaws but because of them, and I wish I could engage with it forever, uncovering its many secrets, bask in its maddening glow and so on. In conclusion, give this French guy your money so he can make more weird furry art.

--- Follow Madhog on:

YouTube

Twitter

Bluesky

Blogger

Also, here’s a helpful website: https://arab.org/

[madhogthymaster]

Is it Pizza Time Yet? - Surviving Digimon, feat. Melody Dickens and Sushi_Witch [Ep. 4]

Madhog celebrates his Italian culture by being unnecessarily pedantic about pizza, Melody bemoans the concept of regional dialects, Jessica reveals her "Digimon" watch history. Meanwhile, a granpa becomes the floor.

[madhogthymaster]

Madhog's "Ethically Sourced" Top 10 Videogames of 2024

"I shall be offering you a rather unorthodox Top 10 videosgame list, in the sense that I will be including a few titles who are yet to be properly finished merely because I enjoyed them too much to pretend they shouldn't count."

Read the full list here.