#-- and with how the mechanics are designed around it'

[qwiopty]

TAILS GIJINKA BREAKDOWN!

FINALLY!! i put together some tails gijinka/humanized stuff LOL!! see below for some goodies and an in depth (kind of indulgent) breakdown!!

[for the third image: sonic gijinka design belongs to @noka-exe !! i havent really come up with my own but i like theirs :-) ]

thisss gijinka is packed with headcanons LOL.. beware!! for starters...hes just a little guy!! i took visual inspo from markl (howls moving castle) and simon (gurrenn lagann)!! mostly simon bc i find a lot of similarities between him and tails.. short and unassuming shy boys who are also compassionate and brave!! (isn't it also awesome how simon and tails both have an older brother figure who encourages them to be brave.. 💥💥🤯 and they both have some sort of space opera and id go on but thats spoilers!!) i also went with a prosthetic leg to kind of represent his tail!! i think it could parallel to how tails' tails can act like a mobility aid, and he'd get the opportunity to tinker and repair them too!! it could also possibly correlate to how tails makes something he was picked on and bullied for, his tails, and uses it to his advantage! and again tying in his interest for mechanics and being able to customize and repair it is a concept that i find neat!! (maybe some inspo from fullmetal alchemist.. bahahaha..)

speaking of customization. i also love the idea of him covering them with stickers!! i've already added tails' own emblem on there but this has prompted me to look into adding some more!

(sorry that im singling you out again @tornado1992 LMAO i just loved your input!!) but i also love the hc that tails gets hand me downs from sonic!! for instance his gloves.. ik theyre not directly from sonic but it is such a sweet detail that tails has a rubber band around those oversized gloves to mimic sonic! and tails definitely has the means to make his own fitted gloves yet he still has those bands on in his modern models!! auhgh!! so yes.. lets say the hoodie is so oversized and oozing with swag cause it originally belonged to sonic! :-) maybe tails likes it so much that he designs the cyclone after it!! just some ideas... more depth into his clothes: i drew a lot of inspo from already existing tails-related designs!! the main outfit i draw him in is a large short-sleeve hoodie with some elements pulled from the cyclone and tails' racesuit design from sonic speed simulator! he also has his goggles and shoes from sonic riders, with some slight details added on!! see below for a better look at the outfit LOL

(the pins on his crossbody bag are a fly-type emblem, a mint, and a red star ring! theres also a sonic keychain that i keep forgetting to add/switch out with the fly type emblem LOL)

here's some more doodles from last year with this design!

yes i did make a classic design for him!! his younger hair is more of that nice vintage orange-yellow but as he gets older itll turn amber then maybe gold? i was also thinking he dons some red clothing to reflect his admiration for sonic but later starts implementing his own style with some grays and blues!!

i'll also point out that i lean into more of a space-pilot design instead of the usual aviator pilot!! tbf i was raised on sonic x season 3 which is just a huge space opera.. 😅😅 but i still do love the aviator pilot concept!!

this should be about everything i have to dump about my design!! im not usually this talkative in posts so im a little embarassed to be sharing this at all 💀 but if u read through all of this thank you so much LMFAO im so crazy about him!! if you have any questions or ideas youd like to share id love to hear them!! maybe draw them out too... i may even do a cosmo design update/breakdown!! for fun.. heres the first tails gijinka post i ever posted!!

also shoutout to @corvussio for the incredible detailed comment on my other tails design post!! i know its been ages but i still think about how you took the time to look into each and every detail!! thank you greatly pal!!

[psychhound]

announcing spiritkeep: a therapeutic ttrpg

howdy all! some big announcements!!!

first, im nearing the end of my master's program, studying rhetoric and writing, games, and educational psychology. im about halfway done with my thesis, and figured it was time to make an announcement …

my thesis, entitled "designing ​spiritkeep​: therapeutically applied RPGs as a discourse community" is … about what it says on the tin :) in it, I look at the practice of TA-RPGs, which are TTRPGs run for the express purpose of inducing therapeutic growth. TA-RPGs are usually run by a clinician, like a therapist or counselor, or a certified therapeutic game master. my thesis is looking at the needs of therapeutic game masters as a community and asking … what do they need from TTRPGs that isn't currently available?

the thesis takes concepts from rhetoric, linguistics, game studies, literature studies, psychology, and more to ask the question … what would a TTRPG specifically designed for therapeutic use look like? i examine concepts like bleed, close to home characters, dramatic rehearsal, performative speech acts, fixed vs growth mindsets, information processing theory, and more. i also look at criteria set forth by current TA-RPG practitioners for what makes a good TA-RPG, and examine five current games against those criteria. then, i put together the research into a foundation for spiritkeep, a dedicated TA-RPG

spiritkeep is designed around the goal of helping teens and adults heal from complex trauma

that said, its perfectly suitable for a homegame as well, as long as everyone is on the same page and approaches it with the mindset of collaborative growth. all in all, it's still going to be a fun game and a good TTRPG!!

in spiritkeep, you play as a smalltown taskforce with the shared goal of restoring your currently struggling community to a thriving state. you go out on missions like finding resources, diplomacy with neighboring cities, researching ecological problems, and more, while you slowly make your town a better place to live. spiritkeep includes collaborative worldbuilding, a large assortment of playbook options like the Wayfarer, the Knight, the Ghost, or the Shepherd (all designed to hit where it hurts, at least a little!), and a brand new system inspired by PBtA, FitD, BOB, WoD, and more. while the game is designed around grappling with identity and learning how to grow, it can also get a bit tactical and crunchy!! the new dice mechanic makes you think on your feet with every roll

this announcement is also to say that i am beginning the initial crowdfunding of the game through itch. right now, im trying to raise funds to pay the fee to my school to make my thesis open access, meaning anyone can read it. then, remaining funds will go towards things like resources, consultants, art for the kickstarter, and everything else i need to get this project off the ground. ideally, ill be able to team with a publisher to cover the logistics of business while i can focus on the game itself. once the game is finished, there will still be plenty of playtesting, consulting, and other work to do. but!!! this post marks my first steps towards what has been my dream for years now

this sale is how im starting the funding process. it includes the zine preview of my thesis, covering my chapter outline and big concepts, and also my first TA-RPG: with breath & sword, a solo game to help players calm down from anxiety. both items have community copies available: please feel free to grab one if you can't contribute !!

questions, comments, or partnership offers can be sent to psychhoundgames @ gmail(.)com

thanks y'all!!! wish me luck!!!! 🥰🥰🥰

[thestalkerbunny]

Stalky's Live Direct React

It's mainly regarding Pokemon Z-A cause that's all I DEEPLY AND CARNALLY CARE ABOUT but let's get French

New Trainer fits look cute; the male protag looks a LOT like Sycamore.

ALL THE CHIKORITA HATERS CAN FUCKING HUFF MY DUFF, MY GIRL IS BACK, NOBODY TOUCH ME, THIS FUNKY LITTLE MANDRAKE DINOSAUR IS HOME. EVERYONE SUCK IT HARD.

Why it look like he on an awkward lunch date?

Now a new game changing mechanic: PARKOUR AND FALL DAMAGE /j

Tf is you

TF is YOU?

Mega Evos are BACK Bay BEE

LOOK OUT ITS A WELL DRESSED FRENCH WHITE WOMAN (With insignia possible new team boss?)

I HAVE FOUND THE WEIRD OLD MAN I WILL BE HYPERFIXATING OVER, EVERYONE ELSE MAY LEAVE, ME AND THIS WEIRDO NEED TO BE ALONE.

Wait....Wait is that the fucking GIANT from the last game.....

Oh my God it fucking is, That's AZ.

Someone getcha dog off the damn roof.

Hottest take-I think the overall theme is going to be Progress Vs. Nature. Much like the Art movement of Art Deco Vs Art Nouveau; human design compared to natural design. As seen in the Z and A logo Straight rigid lines vs organic curves.

NOTHING LIKE CHATTING WITH YOUR HOLOGRAM SON.

Ah I love the scent of french trash in the air.

One of these things is not like the other-one of these things is ANCIENT.

Ah that's who you is.

GOD HE'S SO FREAKISHLY TALL-FUCKING CROTCH HEIGHT TO HIM. Also HIGHLY cool choice to show him with a knee brace and a cane because in recorded history and science-WE ARE NOT MEANT TO BE THAT TALL and people who do reach that height often need disability aids to help.

We gotta get her. She's a fucking CEO.

I love that he just....has a hotel now. He's got old classic hotel vibes. Honestly-I really like it because if there's one thing I DONT like in design is ultra modernism where it's minimal with no colors or patterns. It actually irks me the heck off-I get pissed off walking into an apple store.

Fucking gated communities.

Ah...I don't think we'll be exploring the rest of Kalos and be primarily centered within the city itself. A tad bit disappointing, I was looking forward to returning to Laverre City to see what happened to the charcoal remains I left when I went there in XY and BURNT EVERYTHING TO ASH

New game feature: YOU ARE NOW IN THE ATTACK RANGE, FUCKING BRACE YOURSELF IDIOT.

THIS. THIS IS WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT FUCKING COMPANIES WITH FUCKING MINIMALIST DESIGN AND LOGOS AND SHIT PISS ME THE HELL RIGHT OFF.

DETECTIVE? D--DETECTIVE?!??! -frantically climbs over chair- DETECTIVE??!?!?!?!?

GET YOUR CRINGE ASS WORM OFF THE ROOF

Ah I love when Pokemon comes out around my birthday. It makes me feel so SPECIAL like it's a unique little treat just for me.

I'm honestly rather excited, Having the entire game take place in a contained singular city is a new angle. We're very used to being thrown willy nilly out into the wild to rough it between god and sheer luck. But now it's Urban Exploration. Which I think can be a strong idea on how FAR Lumiose city has developed since we long last saw it.

[ametunns]

THIS CONCEPT IS SO FAMILIAR WITH THE CAGE. And this idea can't leaving me-

Below I'll discuss the character Keeper in the BATDR; some guesses about the role of this new character in the Cage. Enjoy reading!

# The Keepers. In the BATDR >>>

ofc in the ink world this versions of the Keepers are works because -

a giant gear in the spine is not bad for balance when picked up a weight stuff in forward;

the third hand is nice for supporting a thing or a person (not just for correcting its back lol/j);

ability to flying is actually about movement, way to make a painful high-speed strike by massive left hand / catching by right hand. Рerhaps "crawling" on appendages rather than legs makes it easier to walk around the ruins of the studio. And once again - they can fly.

Despite the fact that they have yellow inside, which indicates the presence of a soul, they do not react to the Signal Towers. I can only suggest that Wilson created "Yellow ink", and inside Keeper are not "Golden ink". Otherwise the Golden ink would have provided a link to Demon power, and metal octopus would have been against Wilson sooner or later.

...I personally think that it is easier to get the lost one's soul with the help of saws, and then start changing the soul in order to place it inside something. Like make a "soul semblance" - "Yellow ink" as I called it; get fairly similar minds, which is ideal for Keeper.

In case he's design looks silly, slowly moved, pretty blind because of the game mechanic-

but if you take them as those who can:

performs certain tasks,

move through space almost without interference,

catch the intruder,

conduct an experiment,

or even performing small construction work (for example, conducting power grids through a train tunnel)-

Within the framework of the lore of the world, these creatures, as they are, have done a lot.

# But what about the previous version of Keeper? Let's check out >>>

This creation is much more complex than would be seen...

Yes, we saw how Boris was turned into Brutal. That the mind can be partially rewritten. The sawing process also has a rewriting process. But-

A hybrid of a living mind and metal structures for the first experiments...it sounds like rewriting biology so that the body doesn't go crazy and start self-destructing because of unperfected souls and the realization of what they has become. And even Wilson can't make a perfect soul if he invited Audrey in the Cycle.

...Aaa-and also can tell about the REAL HUMAN in IT'S CREATION AND BLOOD...but a little later-

Attempts to create Wilson own being is unstable...and that is why we'll can meet them in a Cage!!! :D

# Details in the photos >>>

First thing - is another hoses behind;

Second - he had 3 hands, and maybe one of them (as possible 4 hand) is free from the lockers; you can also see that the lower hand is thinner and the plate on the outside of the palm glitters;

Last thing - a familiar detail.

Nothing more...

but a general similarity to the concept

# His role in the Cage. Theories and thoughts >>>

It's interesting things...Let's back to the thought that it can be a human. How much it will affect the story? Well-

Role #1 - He's a living proof about experiment of humans.

...the Gent corporation literally drowned people in ink ("Fade of Black");

And there is a temporary antidote to ink in the form of the chemical "iron oxide", which also resembles blood ("The Lost Ones");

It seems that through chemistry and past research, Wilson was able to create colored ink, a way to get back to the real world, and in collaboration with Alice, who lives in half of his house, and with Ink Machine, he was already beginning to think about creating a Keeper. About getting "the first good soul"...Pick out the right clothes, became anyone from Arch Gate Pictures, not just a humble cleaner. But after understood the difficulties (let's say, with blood) and maybe managed to update the methods for creating ink creatures...And my theory "Yellow ink" from Lost Ones.

Due to the details, a human being in the creature is doesn't't look like something unexpected, but it would definitely be intriguing.

Role #2 - If he's able to talk, new information about the corporation. Maybe even about Alan Gray. Maybe gives some hints of how getting away from the Cage idk just a thought-

A human being who was trapped into a monster for someone else's purposes it's pretty similar to Henry...ahem

Role #3 - Abilities of the blood. Perhaps we'll see hints of blood power in Lone Wolf. But in essence - there will definitely be something new...and something more powerful.

...What role will he play for the Henry.. it's unclear:

It's easy to say - this is the enemy who thoughtlessly wants to kill the hero.

It's easy to say - we can have a possible "free it" quest for game necessaries.

Possible to say - two points together 🤝

The last thing what I wanted to say:

‼️ I'm praying LIKE HELL he's not leaked FOR A COUPLE OF SECONDS like it was with all the new BATDR characters. Like Sammy-🥲

---

thank you for reading! If you have any ideas or thoughts, comments please! I'll be interested ⭐

☕ Have a good time!!

[wingylalkasartstuff]

Windrys' and Zephyr's kids, or, as they're more commonly known amongst House Light, The Critters. They form a pretty good crew and all have strong bonds, even tho their "missions" are mostly various amount of mischief.

Under readmore are their brief descriptions, because it's pretty long

Phaskas is de facto leader of the gang, who’s easily influenced into things actually, but is trying to be like “noo we wont do it (they do it anyway)”. Incredibly good at talking himself and the gang out of situations, will grow up to be a diplomat.

Sivrys is quiet and a voice of reason for the most part, very cautious. Is really interested in learning new things, gets influenced by Vigek a little (he loooves telling her stories), but is also easily spooked. Kinda shy.

Bevgris, who is the muscles of the gang, second tallest, and even tho has a big bark, usually doesn’t bite. Really looks up to Riiskas as their “big sis” and is very influenced by her.

Kelziks is a very curious kid who’s not afraid to actually investigate new things. Used as a scout by the gang, but for the most part hangs around skiffs (don’t tell his moms but he sneaks on missions sometimes (never into the field, just the ship), and Rekin (the dreg mechanic of the crew) knows about it and teaches him the inner workings of the skiff. It also really helps to have someone small who can fit into parts of the ship even dregs don’t reach).

Riiskas is eldest in the group, a little older than the other kids actually, the one who usually comes up with ideas and who gets punished the least for them, because she knows how to be smart about it. No one really knows who her parents were, she just appeared with a group of former Devils and quickly integrated into the gang and became part of the family. Surprisingly mature for her age. (the secret Taniks kid...)

Nalzar and Efrelvis were taken in by Zephyr because they’re egg-siblings and this causes a lot of health problems that their parents couldn’t keep up with. Don’t get into the hots of the situations and are usually on the lookout, smallest of the bunch but loved all the same. Usually play off of each other’s weaknesses. Quite smart.

Viika is not part of the gang yet, because she’s still in the bean phase (I drew her a bit older to get the general design across), but is here because is still their kid. Was saved by Zephyr from being nearly frozen to death, has weaker limb grip because of that. Is a very loud child, always chittering into the conversations and wants to be included into everything that happens around. Will definitely be the troublemaker when grows up.

[soundleer]

I have this in my head so-

*Shows Garnold an evil jellybean-sized version of himself (make him as angy and evil as you want)*

this little critter is so angy

garnold can't help but find this tiny evil him endearing

me rusty and evil >:(

[uncleasriel]

As the resident Reign/One Roll Engine fanatic, I cannot emphasize how awesome this would be for that sort of play, especially if you're partial to some elements of the NeoTrad style of play.

Reign sells itself as "a Game of Lords & Leaders",and by golly it delivers. In addition to having what Unseen Library delightfully calls "TWO Charismas" (Command and Charm, the Yelling and Politeness stats) , it also has a subsystem for organizations called Companies, which are essentially collectively owner player characters that everone at the table can have a stake in

Characters are very similar to how World of Darkness characters work. There are base Stats representing raw talent, and Skills representing trained experiences. Dice Resolution is a basically making a dice pool of Made of Stat + Skill dice, rolling them, and counting the matching sets that result.

What's interesting is how the game also has Companies, which can be both player-facing and NPC organizations. These can be of any scale from your moldering village backwater Dunny-on-the-wold where you're lucky if your stats is no greater than 2, to the massive Veklandian Empire where multiple stats are ranked at 6.

The Company scale things are slightly abstracted, and usually only about one can be made per in-game month, but this ultimately sidesteps some of the more insufferable micromanagement that such a game would imply, and instead leaves room for player characters to take actions to benefit their Company (or compromise a rival Company). Your assassin sneakily took out a sleeping enemy leader on the eve of an important battle? Enjoy a whopping +3 Bonus to that Company Attack roll when next it happens.

It also has wonderful rules for converting Company Abstractions into wealth, or hirelings,or using those hirelings in Mass Combat, all effortlessly translating one to another with a real elegance.

I think that's how I would describe Reign in a nutshell: elegant. Greg Stolze writes some of the most eminently readable prose in TTRPG writing in my opinion, and when I bought a print copy the Enchiridion at a Toronto comics shop for about the cost of a fancy coffee, I devoured it in an evening. You can randomly create characters on the fly, just as easily create Followers to traipse around after them, command those followers in mass combat (in a way which integrates with but never outshines Player Characters) and overall have a jolly old time. There are clean rules for how to handle one Company absorbing another, which makes everything from benevolent mergers to hostile conquests workable and comprehensible to anyone familiar with these rules. The system is designed to be modular, where there are varying degrees of complexity and tactical nuance you can introduce or remove at your player's leisure. If you're feeling spicy,you can even graft on powers from Wild Talents pretty easily, though I do warn that WT is a few degrees crunchier than Reign.

Back when Game of Thrones was on everyone's radar, I kept trying to tell people to run it with this. As much fun as the original Song of Fire and Ice TTRPG, Reign is so much cleaner in play.I found I absorbed the rules fairly easily - they are intricate but keep referring back to the same core mechanics in a way that feels comprehensible and coherent. Grok the core One Roll Engine concept of dice sets and how their timing works, and you've basically got the game on-lock. I also must reiterate the readability of the instructions and rulesets - it's way easier to grasp than Burning Wheel IMO.

Reign is probably my favorite traditional RPG and I wish more people would try it. There was a newly released Second Edition that has both the Base Rules all neatly organized, the base setting that Reign was designed for (and all it's deliciously weird magics, special talents and cultural lore that you should borrow for any game,and the Enchridion (a 1e basic rules summary that's completely compatible with 2e, but isn't as comprehensive). Greg Stolze also put up a lot of the optional rules on his website (this was before he consolidated them all into 2nd Edition), so you can pick and choose what you want here. As well, there are a smattering of alternate settings called Reign: Realities you can poach from, but they're not essential for the task at hand.

Please read and ideally play Reign. I want to have more people to know about it so I can play it with more people. Also Greg Stolze is the coolest and it'd make me family if he got money from you.

What ttrpgs would you recommend if you wanted to focus on kingdom-level politics?

Depending on the specific focus I could go for a few

If I wanted to mostly make the game about the interpersonal conflicts and rivalries of nobles in a king's court and have it be serious, mostly like a big character-driven drama, Burning Wheel, definitely. It has a lot of mechanical grit for running deeply passionate characters who probably want to get balls deep into intrigue. However, it's also a very heavy game and I would only play it with a group who actually cared about learning a somewhat complex game.

If I wanted the interpersonal dramas of nobles in a royal court played as a comedy of errors, I would go for Most Trusted Advisors. It's absolutely hilarious and I want to play it right now. Kind of like Black Adder as a TTRPG.

Now, both of those games still approach their drama via individual characters and their motivations instead of as something that has kingdom-wide consequences that reflect on the whole map. For that type of gameplay I would probably pick something like Free from the Yoke.

Honorary mention to Reign which I know is about controlling whole factions, but I don't know enough about it to be sure.

[russianyoshkinaneko]

while looking through games i've played (for the Game Challenge on bluesky) i have (re)discovered my now 12 year old video of my favorite thing to do in Assassin's Creed 1.

wanted to add a couple of other vids of me doing the same thing back in 2022, but tmblr doesn't allow more than 1 file in a post :(

so i compiled all the vids into one

(the old one had no audio so the first ~30sec is silent ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

[nomx33]

dude I'll like start talking about things that i findf horribly interesting but all of in depth and awesome analysis will come out "ohhhh hehehe grrr love them the sillies!!! :3 :3" like come on dude!

I could go on forever about how certain scenes in media make me feel and pick apart a ton of little details in character designs, speech, how a character reacts to things, etc etc but it my power is limited to flailing around like a fool and giggling to myself

lmao

[bitegore]

# oh??? that also sounds so cool!!!!!, Ik for a fact that I'd play the hell out of smth like that, even tho I'm awful at combat, actually I think that'd only elevate the experience with the helplessness, anyway!!#that sounds like it'd do such a good feeling of unease and terror before the switch, and that switch would bring such an interesting crash of absolute panic down on the player when they're already in such high alert, jdgftsgbjdgduv, yeah very interesting very horrifying!!! (tags modified slightly to be a little easier to read)

Grabbing you. Talk about evil game design with me. Hi. You get it.

This is ofc one of my awful evil very-bad-no-good ocs, so I obviously know what her deal is, but the thing about the.

Well actually let me start at the beginning.

(also GOD DAMN this got wordy, so here's a cut.)

In its purely joke-level form, this started as a sort of mean-spirited jab at the spectre of the "I wish this game was in an alpine village rescuing my neighbors' cats" school of thought, which I was kind of unfairly conflating with Stardew Valley, which i was also unfairly conflating with Animal Crossing. At the time I was so sick I thought animating would be easier than drawing, so we're clear. I know those are three different games with only some vague crossover and not one coherent concept when I'm not sick, I promise, and also I don't even have anything against either of the actual games lmao. But conceptually, the idea was that - well, Erica has the demure pretty girl thing down, that's part of her character concept, that she looks like a demure pretty girl exactly as long as it takes for you to write her off as "not a threat" and then she kills you. So I was thinking to myself that it would be really funny to put Erica in a game that looked like a cozy resource management sim, and then just let her start wreaking havoc 3/4ths of the way through the game.

(That has been its own idea since forever - that most of my OCs work pretty okay as deuteragonists or primary villains, but Erica would be incapable of not coming off like a very boring side character until a late-game twist where she suddenly reveals herself to have been orchestrating all manner of problems and nursing some awful grudges behind a pleasant facade.)

Anyway the construction I came up with first was: resource management & character-driven dating sim, but then at some point, Erica starts killing characters and then she kills you and skips town. The only kind of combat system I like playing is the soulsborne-style kind that requires you to pay a lot of close attention to timing and spacing, so that's the kind of combat I was imagining. And. Well, like you said, I sure thought that it would be fun to play, actually, too.

So I settled on some mechanics.

The first part of the game is riffing very closely off games like Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon, where you have a farm, and you grow your crops and raise some animals, and then you take them into town and trade them for money and maybe points with some of the NPCs you get to interact with. You have an enemy set up - Erica's dad, petty nobility and autocrat of the town who no one likes - who will send saboteurs your way and try to price you out, but you can scare them off. There's a tutorial character (tall redhead with red sunglasses who doesn't talk much and spends most of the game writing in a notebook or making graphs; if you know my OCs you might have an idea who that is but don't worry about it!) who gives you the farm and all but demands you get into some sort of conflict with this petty noble, helps you set things up, and then generally goes about ignoring everyone and reading books while sitting around so you can click on him for tooltips if you want reminders of how the controls work. There's also a weird monster in the forest you keep hearing about and sometimes see the eyes of. Most if not all of the NPCs are neutral-to-friendly outside your established enemies, i keep going back and forth on if there should be any explicit Not-Affiliated-I-Just-Don't-Like-Outsiders characters but like there's enough going on and I want the players to get to at least the middle.

That's because, at some point about halfway through the "growing season", Erica's brother disappears off the face of the earth. The bad guy sends his cronies to run about town for a while asking the NPCs if they know anything, but the NPCs openly love you and kind of hate him, so you hear about it basically when he sends someone to your door with an apology and a letter asking you to look into it, because he cares more about his son than he does about keeping his economic stranglehold over the town or whatever. You can, like, turn this down, but if you don't, you get access to a second part of the game: PUZZLES!

(This is because the entire game is a puzzle, but we haven't gotten there yet. Kind of thing you're supposed to solve on the second playthrough.)

Anyway, Erica's brother is the first to die, but not the last. Next up is the post officer, so news can't leave town. Very scary. Then NPCs start dropping like flies but in an order that doesn't matter because I'm not introducing all of my cast here. But what you get to do is go to the scene of their (either last sighting or grisly murder), and there you get to get two pieces of "information" (old notes, 'this looks like zyx's handwriting', footprints that don't match a certain kind of shoe, etc) spelled out for you by clicking on the right items, and one puzzle you have to solve - like a cryptogram or figuring out what the code to a safe is with a note written over it - to get a third piece of information. You also get a list of 20 scenarios that might have happened, or a list of live NPCs you could blame for the murder. You have to match the right scenario to the right murder, and if you get it wrong, you only lose access to that scenario but it doesn't tell you what the correct one was, only that you were wrong, because I want to force you to do the other thing instead. Which is - if you think you know who did it, you can confront them. It'll only hurt your relationship a little, unless you're right about who it is, in which case Erica goes and does what you see above and then she KILLS YOU!!!!!!!! >:3

Well, not necessarily.

It's the kind of game where you're supposed to want to build up a relationship with the characters (so you care about them turning up dead and want to stop it from happening and all) so Erica is another character you can have conversations with, and stuff. She's actually positioned to be relatively important - she'll give you insider information if she likes you on her dad's business ventures, and she's romanceable! (But watch out.) This means that it would only be fair if I added a secret option where like.

Okay. Erica's deal is that she wants to look defanged, so that when she starts killing people, no one thinks it could possibly be her. So she watches her words, and she watches her mannerisms. Underneath that, she is a seething bloodthirsty person who hates almost everyone around her, has a ledger of slights a million incidences long she intends to repay tenfold in blood for everyone around her, and she also has the means to carry it out. What she doesn't have is a way to get away with it without someone pointing out that she did all this and it following her around. Which means: she is absolutely playing a particular role. But if you encourage her to get mean and bloodthirsty, she'll decide you like her mean and bloodthirsty because you are mean and bloodthirsty, which means... well, maybe you can be an accomplice and not a total 100% murder victim or nothing. So like. If you went the "man Erica your dad kinda sucks I think I want to kill him" route and didn't try to romance her!!!!!!!!!!!! then she'll invite you to go kill everyone in town with her actually. That's a different thing, this is long enough so I won't get into the mechanics of that one but it's a crowd rush (obviously) and designed to be a lot less Extremely Fuckhard.

But like, normalstyle, first she goes "wow omg that's such a hurtful thing to say! what's your problem :( my fucking brother is dead and you said i did it? what's WRONG with you? LOL SIKE yeah i did that shit and it was awesome. and im going to gut you like a fucking fish now" and then she hard-cut drags ydou into soulsborne-style boss combat.

She's got three phases! Uh... let me just copy-paste from my working document for this, actually, it's easier than describing it all casual. Please ignore the all-caps.

PHASE I: SPEED She is INVARIABLY FASTER THAN YOU. She has a small handful of common melee attacks that involve darting and lunging toward you. She has two less-common melee attacks where she comes close and stabs at you multiple times for combo damage, but does not block or defend herself, opening herself up to attack and knockback, which she is susceptible to. She has one rare melee where she feints and then hits you with the stick of her cane, dealing a mild bludgeoning damage but inflicting knockback, and then following up with her knife while you are dazed, dealing combo damage again. She has a dodge that triggers randomly. This phase lasts until her health is at 50%, and then the animation and then second phase is triggered. PHASE-CHANGE ANIMATION: MUH EPIC KNIFETOSS ERICA stops to inform you that she's kind of impressed, actually, she thought you'd be mincemeat by now. She then throws her knife aside, and switches her grip on her cane so that she can swing it like a bat. She does not have I-frames during this time, so she can straight up just be whacked at here. PHASE II: HAMMERTIME ERICA uses her cane as a WAR HAMMER (large, slow, blunt weapon) to deal HEAVY DAMAGE and DEBUFFS slowly. She is about half as fast as you. She has a most common melee attack that is just whacking you with her hammer. This STUNLOCKS you after a KNOCKBACK. She has a less common melee of sweeping you with the butt of her hammer, which deals KNOCKBACK, and then bringing the hammer down on you while you're stumbling in a twofer. This STUNLOCKS you. She has a least-common ranged attack that only triggers like, once per every fifteen minutes or something, where she just straight up kicks something off the ground in your direction. This is homing and cannot be dodged. It deals some minor damage but is mostly just a random thing to bother you with if you're playing ridiculously cautious. She has no dodge here. This phase lasts until her health reaches zero. PHASE-CHANGE ANIMATION: WELL NOW YOU'VE DONE IT ERICA gets annoyed and flings her hammer down, but before you can react, she is shapeshifting into her fox form. This one DOES have I-frames for coding reasons.

PHASE III: HEY GUESS WHAT IDIOT IM NOT A VAMPIRE AFTER ALL! ERICA turns into her FOX FORM, the STRANGE FOREST BEAST! This comes with a SECOND HEALTH BAR about the same size as the first, but ERICA's RESILIENCE is higher! She uses her FOX FORM as her weapon (unarmed melee is the fastest kind of weapon and she has teeth. which are basically blades). She has multiple hand grapples. She has multiple swats that deal KNOCKBACK (no stunlock). If you're really bad at dodging, she can pounce on you with both hands, which deals DEVASTATING DAMAGE, STUNLOCK, and KNOCKDOWN (not KNOCKBACK, which is a stumbling); this comes with a short period where she holds still, laughing, and you can attack her if you want. She has a mouth grapple that allows you to cheese her by utilizing the last couple seconds you have mobility to stab her through the mouth; this is very hard. The grapple deals DEVASTATING DAMAGE and inflicts BLOOD LOSS, a mechanic that only appears for this boss fight and saps your health. She can bite normalstyle, which deal HEAVY DAMAGE. She moves VERY QUICKLY because she moves at the regular speed she walks at but she is now about 5x the size of her usual sprite, which means she covers ground much faster - and she's FAST in her first phase. You have to know WHERE she's going by LEARNING HER ATTACKS or you are just FUCKED fucked. At the end of this phase, if you beat her, Erica laughs, and then collapses to the ground. WINNING the fight on the first run triggers an ANIMATION: Erica, laying down, says "Wow. I really underestimated you. You and I, we must be more alike than I thought. Fair's fair, I guess. Should've done my homework." Then she coughs and slumps. As soon as the camera is pointed away from her, there's a rustling sound, her laugh sounds, and when you turn back, she's just gone. WINNING the fight AFTER the first run triggers a different ANIMATION: ERICA, laying down, says "Ah... you've - oh, you've beaten me. Woe is me... took you long enough, but truly, I have been bested," and then she more dramatically coughs and slumps. As soon as the camera is pointed away from her, a voice line plays - she says "Sike! You don't have it in you!" and when you turn around, she's just gone.

So you see. She's kind of mean once the jig is up. She's not like that before this. But also like, even if you win you don't win. On account of this isn't the end.

Also if you don't guess that she's killing people, or you just fully ignore the entire mystery (you can get involved after the first invitation!), there's a different thing that happens. One day you come into town and everything is just on fire, and also Erica is covered in blood (see: above LOL) and holding a knife. my girl is killing people. no longer up for debate. When she sees you, unless you were doing the secret pro-murder route (which means you have to succeed at a conversation first and if you answer the wrong way she does still try to kill you) she just goes to try and kill you pretty much instantly. If you win at the conversation you get to kill everyone with her again. But either way, at the end of this one, there's still nothing to do, really. Except go home.

So you go home. Your tutorial guy is still there. He's still not talking to you. Your farm is just on fucking fire though. If you click on him, the usual tips menu is replaced with text that says something along the lines of "Tips: LOL".

There's a-- it's not a cutscene because you CAN technically interrupt by attacking them if you want, it's just a terrible plan because you'll aggro them both at once. But Erica shows up and it's basically a cutscene. She and your fucking tutorial guy (he's 'the redheaded man' on account of he never tells you a name lmfao) have a conversation that makes it very clear they were working together this entire time. Like, here's a piece of that exchange:

ERICA: You were right about schemes, turns out. ERICA: They're so rewarding to finish. THE REDHEADED MAN: Nothing like knocking down the dominos, huh? ERICA: Mm... I don't think I'd say dominos. It's too juicy. ERICA: Bringing a real mean plan into fruition. THE REDHEADED MAN: Fruit, huh. ERICA: You nurture it, watch it grow, and then when you taste it... ERICA: ...It's the sweetest thing in the world. THE REDHEAEDED MAN: You're wasted on murder. You could be a poet. ERICA: I'm multifaceted. I can do both.

Then at the end of this they agree that you're like, a perfect patsy, and fuck off to go travel the world now that someone else is going to stand accused of all their murders, since you're a stranger from out of town who showed up, openly had a conflict with the guy who ran the town, and then there were ~all those murders~. Anyway, roll credits!

Then like. There's a second thing I was thinking about and... well, honestly, almost definitely want to keep because it would be a little miserable otherwise. Which is that you can just swing a weapon at anyone at any time, but the game won't like, prompt that basically ever unless someone starts it. That's because unless you swing it at Erica or one of the enemy characters, nothing happens and they just go "[player name], what was that for? ow!" or something.

With one other exception. Which is the tutorial character, our late-game turncoat.

If you swing on THE REDHEADED MAN, he dodges and takes off his glasses. This triggers one of the only directly-triggerable voice lines. THE REDHEADED MAN: I assume that that was an accident. If you swing on THE REDHEADED MAN a second time, he dodges again and throws his hair out of his face. This triggers another voice line. THE REDHEADED MAN: What are you doing, [PLAYER]? If you swing on THE REDHEADED MAN a third time, you can actually hit him, revealing the health bar. It is fucking ridiculously huge (actually, the same amount of health as ERICA, but visible all on one bar). THE REDHEADED MAN: Are you fucking stupid, or are you smarter than I think you are? THE REDHEADED MAN: I guess we'll find out, hm? This will trigger the SECRET HAVEN FIGHT.

yeah okay that tells you his name, this is my oc Haven. in the actual story with him and Erica they DO work together to kill everyone in Erica's hometown, starting with her family but certainly not ending there; they don't quite do it like this though. Also of note is that this is the only character in the entire game who swears, because I think it's funny to have a marker on the game for profanity but it's for a route that only happens if you do something that the game doesn't tell you to do.

Anyway I haven't ironed all the mechanics of this fight out yet because I'm not sure how to make the character work while also making the fight, like... theoretically beatable. me when i have a character who likes to use mind control to tell people to hold still so he can disembowel them and then i need to make you fight them and have some way to win:

But that's what I got.

And i can't even lie. If this was a game someone else made and I could get through the resource management part without getting horribly bored I'd have such a good time with the rest of it. As long as I get the combat system right anyway.

also of note is that there's wolves who will steal your livestock and troublemakers who will steal your crops on top of the saboteurs and you can get in scuffles with them all if you want, also that there are ghost stories you can collect that are all actually about erica in her guise as The Scary Forest Monster Fox or haven/tutorial guy in weird costumes breaking into people's houses at night, there's a polyam grocer couple that wants you to be their third super badly and will bribe you for it, there is an anachronous lesbian biker gang, and you can get 'chaos jobs' that you can pick up that occasionally include 'break a window in xyz's house and we'll give you twenty bucks'. also that our tutorial guy can't be prompted to speak but, if you spend a lot of time around certain characters, has rare voice lines that trigger *eventually* that are like. mild catty insults except for erica. who he likes so he says something complimentary instead. I have a lot of things going on here.

Dont worry about it!

Stardew Valley-inspired Erica animation, drawn sometime in January while I was sick as a dog. This took ages, and all because I wanted to animate the bloodstains moving properly. The framerate isn't even quite right lol.

[sysig]

A hero is only as good as his weapons, so make ‘em count (Patreon)

[ceramicbeetle]

i will say i think there’s a Minor exception for more ephemeral emotions where sonic Is willing to be open about them. that’s kind of two sided, bc on one hand it’s okay to be open about those Because they’re ephemeral and no one expects you to hold onto something like irritation over someone going slow, so if you forget about it people don’t consider it a big deal. i also think it works to make sonic Look like an expressive person so people don’t stop to wonder what he’s feeling on a deeper level, so it’s Defensive in that way as well

[fragmentedblade]

Boothill's presentation being entirely on the twitter post makes me think he will be irrelevant in the story in the long(ish) run, and that the game itself won't dwell on him almost at all

[pikachu-deluxe]

been thinking recently about how i play games (in general but also a bit on the competitive side on some)

turns out i don't particularly care about winning, i just want to have fun, but obviously i do like winning i just try to do win by doing very stupid stuff

it's way more fun for everyone involved when you do things against the meta or common sense and end up winning anyways bc it's so weird that it takes others by surprise

[pagesofkenna]

I finally played Firewatch the other day and it wasn't what I expected but I still enjoyed it, and I felt a little conflicted at the end but ultimately decided I liked what it was doing even if I think it didn't do it perfectly

and then when I was looking up an answer to a plot question I had I kept finding people whining and groaning about it being a bad game, and two things

why is it that when I don't like a short indie game for specific reasons I cannot find anyone who seems to share that opinion with me, but when I do enjoy a short indie game all the gamerbro reviewers are climbing out of the weeds to explain their specific reason for not enjoying it??

one of the negative comments I saw said something to the effect that it 'did not give [them] any reason to explore around' and i just-. i dont-. i need gamer bros to understand that if they're not naturally curious, if they're not naturally driven to explore the spaces around them, maybe stop playing games that use exploration and natural curiosity as one of the main driving mechanics

[sirfrogsworth]

How do you take a photo of time?

I've been watching the track events at the Olympics since I was a wee lad. It was a tradition in our family. We'd gather around our ancient low-definition 19 inch CRT television and watch tiny blobs compete against other tiny blobs and root for our country.

It was a bit like watching YouTube on your phone in 144p.

Several heroes emerged.

Jackie Joyner-Kersee was amazing.

You can't forget about Flo-Jo.

And then the Olympics decided NBA players were allowed in the competition.

Which formed... The Dream Team.

Was this fair?

Well... they won each game by an average of 44 points.

So... no. It was not fair.

Though it became more fair as time went on.

But, umm... yeah. The other teams looked like the Washington Generals and the US looked like the Harlem Globetrotters if they stopped screwing around half of the game.

But my absolute favorite Olympian was a runner named Michael Johnson.

He was cool as heck.

For one thing... gold shoes.

But he also had this crazy, upright, Tom Cruise-ish sprinting style that just made him look like a running robot on the track.

And in the 1996 Atlanta games he just trounced EVERYONE. I mean, it wasn't even close.

Yikes. Those losing blobs are probably really embarrassed.

Last night I decided to invigorate my nostalgia and watch the track events again. And I got to see one of the wildest races in history.

It didn't even last 10 seconds but it was one of the most exciting sporting events I've ever witnessed. Almost every runner won the race.

After I saw that initially, I was like... who the heck won???

Even in slow motion I wasn't sure.

This was one of the closest finishes in history. There has never been a race where all 8 runners were within this margin.

The arena was silent as the winner was being confirmed. The runners just kind of paced around waiting for official word. My best guess was the Jamaican runner, Kishane Thompson. But then the loudspeaker announced Noah Lyles.

The last tiny morsel of American pride burst out of me with a big "Wooooo!"

I forgot what it was like to be proud of my country. I wish it happened more often. But this young man, despite being last place in the first 3rd of the race, turned on the afterburners and won in a photo finish.

And that's when my inner nerd took over.

Because when they showed the photo finish image, it looked super weird.

Why is the track white?

Why do all of the runners look all warpy like that QWOP game?

So I went down a research rabbit hole to figure this out.

Photo finishes are actually fascinating. The first photo finish captured the end of a horse race in 1890. But that was mostly luck and timing. The actual photo finish mechanisms weren't used until 1937.

Originally they would film the finish line through a physical slit.

And the first horsie head that appeared in that slit would be the winner. This technology ended a huge aspect of corruption in horse race fixing almost overnight.

But we have come a long way since then. And I'd like to introduce you to the Omega Scan 'O' Vision Ultimate.

This slow motion camera sits fixed on the finish line of every race. The concept of the photo finish has remained remarkably similar to the 1930s approach. The camera sensor is specially designed to only record a vertical slit.

Only the finish line itself is actually captured.

And because it limits what it records to only that slit, it can capture 40,000 frames per second to get amazing temporal resolution.

So why don't the photo finishes just look like, well... this?

That is because the camera takes a picture of time more-so than dimensional space. I guess it would be more accurate to say it *assembles* a picture of time.

As the runners cross the finish line, the camera combines all of the little strips of pictures into a single image.

It's almost like if you tried to reassemble a piece of paper after it had been shredded.

Imagine each strip of paper is a picture of ONLY the finish line, just at a slightly different point in time.

What if someone stopped on the finish line and didn't move... what would that look like?

Once they got there, the same part of their body would just be repeated.

So the right side of the photo finish picture represents earlier in time and it just assembles the image strip by strip as time passes and you literally get a picture of time itself.

NEAT!

Okay, but how do they determine the winner from the photo finish?

I mean, that shoe looks like it is ahead of Noah Lyles!

Clavicles!

The IAFF rules state the foremost part of the torso must cross the finish line first. And the endpoint of the torso is the outer end of the clavicle.

So if you get this bone across the finish line first, you win the race.

Two more fun facts!

The start of the race is actually just as carefully timed as the end of the race. There are sensors in the starting blocks of each runner.

The starting gun also has an electronic sensor.

They have determined the fastest a human can react to the sound of a gun is roughly 100 milliseconds. So if you start running before 100 milliseconds they know you didn't actually hear the gun, you just got antsy and started running too early.

And the final fun fact...

Did you notice the Omega logo at the top of the photo finish?

That isn't superimposed or added after the fact. That is captured by the camera.

But if this image is composed only of tiny little slivers, how did they get the Omega logo to show up?

That is a little display. And it is synchronized with the Scan 'O' Vision Ultimate to show a little sliver of the Omega logo for each frame captured.

So when the final image is stitched together, it looks like a cohesive logo at the top of the photo.

Pretty clever, Omega!