paramnesiagirl

[paramnesiagirl]

On Rimworld: The Best 'Warcrime Simulator' of Our Time

A story in how a community can make or break a game.

Randy Random, anyone?

I wrote 'warcrime simulator' in little, innocent, apostrophies. However, whoever plays Rimworld knows that this is one bold faced lie.

It's, by all accounts, a brutal game featuring round, generally featureless, game-of-life looking pawns. With murder, organ harvesting, and suspicious relations all being a part of it.

Yet, by all accounts, it's also one of the most welcoming, helpful, and caring communities that can be found online. It's modding scene is vibrant, and new mods come out all the time, even years from release. Aside from a few unhappy incidents of drama a couple years prior, most internal drama resolves itself swiftly, efficiently, and with the proper amount of conduct.

A far cry from other communities of similar games. Stardew Valley's ConcernedApe regularly receives hate mail for his long-awaited mobile releases, and the community constantly argues over characters to the point of groups forming to hate them specifically.

~

Part 2 coming soon

[paramnesiagirl]

What Exactly Makes a 'Tumblr Sexyman'?

Or, diving into the deep intricacies of what people find attractive, and don't.

Neil Gaiman once said that there can only exist two types of people: tedious, and charming. No good, no evil, no grey, only compelling. And his word has become gospel in writing, but the same can hold true, for marketing.

Part 1: Measuring Success in Bones

I call upon the Apollyon class Tumblr Sexyman, Sans Undertale himself. The skeleton without any of the usual parts, that managed to capture the hearts of far too many people. Despite Toby Fox's Undertale releasing in 2015, I swear I still catch glimpse of at least one new soundtrack remix— featuring Sans, of course— everyday, on BiliBili's hot new song releases chart.

Undertale's success, while mostly due to its unique mechanics and meta-gameplay, can also be significantly attributed to this singular, titular, character. Polygon declared him one of the best video game characters of his decade, with his amazing boss fight and dialogue also being ranked highly by IGN. He's been added into Nintendo's official roster of Mii fighters in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, his soundtrack 'Megalovania' was played in front of the pope, and of course, he was declared the "Ultimate Tumblr Sexyman" in the year of our lord, 2022.

What exactly is a 'Tumblr Sexyman'?

If you're new to this hellsite, it's to describe fictional characters that have captured the hearts— or other parts— of a large fanbase, despite not being conventionally attractive. They often range from understandable, like Mob Psycho's Arataka Reigen, to insane, like the floating triangle, BIll Cipher, from Gravity Falls.

Other than the Onceler (from the Lorax movie, and a cursed topic for another day), Sans is the only one on the wiki to have ever achieved 'Apolloyon' status. Which is described as, per the site itself, as a:

"Once-in-a-generation phenomena. The characters that you couldn't escape, no matter if you cared about (or even knew about) the media they're from. The characters who not only transcended their fandom, but created their own."

A media icon, a darling of the internet. This generation's Michael Jackson or Elvis Presely, albeit in skeletal form.

But unlike those two, there shouldn't be any reason why people would love Sans so much. Surely, even if a large swath of the internet are freaks, there shouldn't be this many weirdos, right?

Well, you're not entirely wrong.

The dear friends of mine that introduced me to their Undertale obsessions in the first place, probably wouldn't lay their hands on just any kind of bone, but I know that they'd make a special exception, just for him.

See, Sans is indicative of a larger trend. An evolution of the old school, and still widely utilised, marketing strategy of 'sex appeal'. Sexypedia (the Tumblr Sexyman wiki) attempts to categorise these characters based on a wide variety of tropes and standard features such as 'Perpetual Smiler', 'Distinctive Voice', 'Well-Dressed', and 'Egotistical', just to name a few. However, even they hold the opinion that there isn't any one thing that makes a character so interesting.

For example, other than 'Duality', Sans and the Onceler do not share any other matching tropes on their listed wikis. Odd, considering their near equal levels of success. They're from different franchises entirely, different media types, very different designs, etc. etc.

So... what gives?

~

Part 2 coming soon

[paramnesiagirl]

BG3: The Power of Player Narrative

In my most recent multiplayer run of Baldur's Gate 3, the game on everyone's minds, I found myself playing the role of a companion.

I don't mean simply piloting one of those already given to you at the start of the game, no, what I managed to land myself into, was roleplaying a fully fleshed out 'custom companion', Hestia. A blue-haired, somewhat crass, Tempest Cleric of Mysta's domain.

-- She does seem a bit mean, doesn't she? --

Now, while many of us can say that we're used to making up stories for our intrepid adventurers, and designing whole narratives for them, I was surprised by the ability of BG3 to allow me to do so.

It was amazingly easy to craft an inspiring quest of a cleric now wanting revenge on a variety of former suitors from her time as a noble. Easy to invent up bits of dialogue for her (based on the tremendous amount of soft storytelling already present). Other companions 'interacted' with her based on their own traits, such as hers and Gale's mutual love for Mystra and the Weave.

It was even easy to make her her own companion tent!

-- What a bookworm! --

A bit too easy. As after hours of me interjecting with 'Hestia disapproves!' at various choice selections, the host finally decided to listen to me for once. To our extreme regret.

At around 20 hours, we had found Rugan, the Zhentarim you can 'accidentally' choose to get into trouble. Seeing as it was our own faults, Hestia wished to help him. She cut his binds herself. Unfortunately, she decided to do this in front of his enemies.

Our party might have ended in all of our deaths, that save, but it was unforgettable.

BG3 has done what few RPGs have been able to accomplish: allow players the ability to write their own stories.

I didn't feel like a player, I felt like a true working component of the game. Often times, when talking about player experience, you'll hear the words 'it felt real'. Hestia was real. The freedom and ability of me to choose details as small as the colour of her armour (gold and blue, as befitting a cleric), to selecting the little bits and bobs she'd put around her camp; all of it felt like a true release of control. A gift from the developers to myself, and every other player.

It's so damn hard to create a game these days. Everything is predetermined, hard-baked into lines upon lines of code. Yet, developers are expected to create a system that allows players to move around freely. A contradictory task.

What Larian has done, is expand upon the traditional 'box' forumula that you must place players in. They've taken the power of narrative, and put it completely into the hands of the player to design the flow of the story for. You can choose where to go, you can choose who lives and dies, you choose the state of your world.

Perhaps, that's why I'll remember BG3 till my end days.

It wasn't a pre-written story that brought me to tears because of its Oscar-winning quality, but one that we gripped the reins of hard and steered ourselves towards outcomes that only we have ourselves to blame for. It's engaged me like no other game has, except perhaps since the early days of modding Skyrim to curate our perfect and unique experiences based on over 200 mods.

So, what now?

Now, we can only hope that other companies expand upon this. Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, from the long Dragon Age RPG lineage, is slated to be released in the next few years. It, amongst many other games, will need to hold themselves up to this higher standard. One that, unlike other RPG titles released in the last three years, did not rely on DLCs or large patches in order to appeal to players.

The power of player narrative, its potential, and the manner of which game developers can go about utilising it, has now been put into full view. Now, more than ever, companies must reconsider the amount of priority they want to put onto marketing their games, verus actually making them. With the current player numbers and profits made from BG3, perhaps, they will finally be convinced.