#2) he has a powerful platform which he could use to make a huge splash so it'd be really really nice if he did something

[2000sscribbles]

guys don't engage with terfs over very clear bait posts just block and don't give them the attention

[spmcomic]

Theia and Gaia

Cover

Chapter 1: (part 1 | part 2)   Chapter 2: (part 1 | part 2)

Chapter 3: (part 1 | part 2)   Chapter 4: (part 1 | part 2)

Satriya considered the uneven chain mail in front of him, hung on the rack, dripping wet. He rolled a topaz between the fingers of his gloved paw. Now, where exactly did the Den Mother expect him to find a place for a gem of this size? Perhaps it could fit on the chest, with the proper setting.

“Apprentice,” he barked, his ears high and severe. He should at least look the part of the strict mentor. The kid poked his nose around the corner, whiskers quivering.

“Get that empty necklace with the triangle settings. I’m going to show you how to modify damaged armor while you repair it.”

“Here is your map,” something said in the distance. A colored sheet appeared in front of the space. “We’ve loaded it into your processor. You can access it the same way you would move your leg. Just reach for it.”

“Yes, sir.”

A shift in weight. Some kind of belt went over its back.

The creature pointed ahead. Rolling hills stretched past the hand. “Arborville is that way- houses built into the trees. If you get lost, use your life-form radar. It’s not hard.”

“Yes, sir.”

Exene touched a paw to the enormous footprint and rubbed the damp clay between her fingers, letting the earthy scent fill her nose. Her eyes narrowed. An unfamiliar predator lurked nearby, and she was very, very far from home. Then… Just the most hushed breath. Just the slightest change in the air. Her grip tightened on her bow and she bounded away as the monster dropped from the dense, dead trees above, leaving a crater in the clay where she had stood.

The rocky outcropping nearby gave her enough cover to scramble into a crack where the monster couldn’t reach. She took a rattled breath, grasping at the quiver on her back. Looking out through the tiny sliver of daylight, she could see the monster’s sharp triangle ears twisting this way and that. It raised its nose to the air. She shrank back out of sight before it could turn her way.

But the monster had heard her. With two huge leaps, it landed on the boulders, further settling the pile. Exene cried out as her arm and bow caught between two of the shifting rocks. The monster hissed, rocking back and forth on the pile to crush her. She curled up, gasping at the pain in her twisting arm, and put her feet against the boulder above. Even with all the might in her legs and feet, she could hardly keep the boulder from rolling off its support, and she grunted with the effort.

Then she heard the quick whistle of an arrow leaving its bow, and another soon after. The monster screamed and fell back, its shadow crossing the narrow opening above. The others made short work of it while Exene panted and held the rock off herself. They had better not leave her-

Finally, the weight lifted, and her brethren freed her mangled arm.

“I think we can make a home here,” she hissed through gritted teeth. One of her sisters laughed and handed her the aloa leaf, which she snatched away to wrap her arm in.

“You’ve got a pebble stuck in your joint, hold on,” a voice murmured. The space stopped moving. At the creature’s touch, its elbow strained under some pressure, and then loosened with a vague relief and freedom.

There were trees.

Tiny fingers struggled to reach the rough valves of the trumpet. Its bleating filled the empty nest in the moonlight.

Then, there were no trees. There was a ravine.

“We move out at dawn,” the Warlord snarled, cowing his advisors. “You can go one night without sleep.”

Then there were the walls of a ravine stretching overhead, and hard ground.

Fu bumbled with his quill, struggling to keep the stack of skins in a straight pile in his arm. How the Mayor expected him to write and walk at the same time, he had no idea. He shuffled forward, poking his feet out one at a time while he kept his eyes on the skin on top, his quill dripping.

As the Mayor spoke, Fu’s attention drifted to the view from the top of their little fort. An entire town coming together like this… The Mayor was truly an inspiration. As strange as the social structure was… Maybe, just maybe, this could work.

“Did you get all that?”

Fu nearly dropped his stack as the Mayor turned toward him.

“Did you hear about Head Merlock?”

“Ha. What did she do this time?”

“She’s shut herself in her study again and won’t let anyone in the fusion chamber. No one in her department’s going to finish their studies at this rate.”

“Ha! I’m glad I’m not her apprentice…”

Well, this was a fine predicament. Their quest wouldn’t be a very long one if they couldn’t even cross the mighty Yangtze river winding across the wide, wet fields a few miles outside of town. Ishani thumped the ground a few times and hopped back toward the shrubs obscuring their resting spot. The other five members of the party had clustered close in the thin shade.

“It’s dry season,” their leader offered. “If we head upstream for a few days, we should find a place to cross. Even the plains here aren’t flooded.”

“A dry season in a dry year,” the oldest member of the group tutted. “Predators will be hungry.”

“They would have moved downstream by now.” Ishani poked her ears above the shrub. The breeze cooled the tips, and she heard no whispers in the wind.

“But we would lose several days of travel,” their guard piped up.

Ishani frowned. “No. That will take us up into the mountains… The Yangtze curves west through the range. It’s a little out of the way, but not more than a day or two.”

The eldest only twitched her whiskers.

Ishani snapped her fingers. “Oh, wait, this could work to our advantage! The paths there will save us a trek through the Eagle Pillars. That’s slow and careful work anyhow.”

The leader raised her eyebrows. The breeze played with her mane.

Ishani swept her foot through the grass, digging out a little trail in the light dust. “See, if this line is the river, and we move this way…” She dragged her finger through the dust across it. “We skip out on that entire eagle nest. That cuts the danger of our journey in half.”

The eldest blinked. “But only half.”

She shrugged. “We’ll take care of the second nest when we get there. Maybe we can find another shortcut.”

A porcelain monster walked alongside the space. The space tingled at a familiar shriek that echoed across the ravine and cut off with shattering glass. The monster next to it flinched, falling a step behind, before it hustled to catch up.

“Oh. You’re not awake, are you?”

No response.

“… What assignment have you got?”

The information came easily. “Apprentice Merisis has instructed this unit to deliver the filled globes to the Scrying center in Optym.”

They walked in silence for a moment.

The porcelain creature leaned to the side, head tilted. “Which route are you taking, Lazarus?”

“The provided map gives directions across the overworld.”

A harsh, static noise. “I know a faster way. More efficient.”

“More efficient.”

“Yeah, follow me.”

Ajith smirked, clapping his paws together. “Listen. Someday I’m going to play Tempest. Just watch.”

His brother let his head fall back over the side of their nest of skins and cushions. “You’ll never make it. You’ve got no grit, brother.”

“Grit!?”

The memory cut off as the porcelain creature gently rapped on the armored side with several clinks. “Don’t drift too far off. We’re here.”

In front of the two of them stood a row of tall, colorful doors set into a vast wall. From one end of the platform to the other, there were seven, each metal slate splashed with a different color.

The other creature hopped between its four feet. It stepped forward to pat the wall energetically. “Karchner’s perfecting something called Dimensional Doors. Travel between cities is instant, when they’re running properly.”

The space waited for the path to open so it could continue forward.

“The Sentry over there gave me their power schedule, when I worked there a few weeks ago.”

The porcelain creature continued talking, but…

Deven leaned on his spear, watching the other soldiers play their card game.

One of his companions turned their head up to him. “Pouting because you lost?”

Deven sighed. “No, I’m keeping a lookout. My constant vigilance is the only thing keeping you sorry morons alive.”

Another barked out a laugh and tossed down her cards. “That’s a pouting face, if I ever saw one!”

“One of us has to watch!” Deven’s voice cracked as he threw his free hand in the air.

“Sure, but only because you lost.”

Next round, he would kick their tails to the horizon.

The surface. Tall grass, trees on the horizon. Then, the ravine. Then, the surface.

Bugs speckled the inside of the ancient amber. Jing turned it this way and that in her paw, letting the torch light glitter off its surface. This would make a perfect talisman for the Gauntlets of Healing.

Two voices from above, sitting in the trees, while the space waited for its load:

“Meret told me something interesting. You want some city gossip?”

“Hit me.”

“Underside’s slowed its robot production rate way down. Head Merletaph is furious. Meret caught her chewing out Head Merlock big-time on the roof of his apartment, he said he just had the window open and they didn’t even try to keep it down.”

“The most important thing, when you’re brewing tea…” Masala began to her crowd of wide-eyed youngsters. She couldn’t help but grin at how their ears perked. “Is to set the right environment.”

The stars twinkled above. The space’s head lights cast long dim beams across the grassy hill. It turned its head upward to follow the slope, and noticed the moonlight glinting off its fingers.

The moonlight…

Something was wrong. What was it?

There should be three moons, the voices whispered together.

Neima hunched over her stone in the dead of night, pausing every few moments to turn her head up and examine the moons. Their light played off each other: sturdy bronze, icy blue-white, and airy reflective gray between the two. She jabbed her quill against the rock, crumpling the tip. With a snarl she tossed it away, grabbing yet another out of her cup. She dunked the end of it in her ink and very nearly chewed on the tip while she contemplated the three heavenly bodies. Ink dripped off her nose, leaving her whiskers quivering in the multicolored light.

How could you translate such a sight into music? The moons hung serenely in the sky, blotting out even the stars in such a wide circle. The way the colors lit up the long strands of dead grass, bounced off her slate, twinkled at the end of the quill… Neima’s brow furrowed and her ears drew back. She shuffled her stiff feet, trying to force some feeling back into them. They would be out of phase again soon. The next collection like this wouldn’t come around for another two years. She had to make her decision. Bronze, and white, and blue, and gray… The cold and the stillness and the crisp smell of the dew collecting on the rough stones. What notes brought them to mind? What might another instrument accomplish that her trumpet could not?

The song was meant to be her magnum opus, but upon facing the reality of the sight, how could she ever do it justice?

Lazarus paused. I guess I never will, the voices mused together. It stood, on the hill, for a long moment. The packages on its back pushed its knife-legs into the soft ground, so much softer than it was at home.

It could never get home, could it? From the very beginning… the Artificers had total control over Lazarus’ fate, and had ensured it was trapped forever. The voices never had a chance. Even if Lazarus did get home, the voices had been gathered from across time, from across the countries and tribes and regions. Where could Ishani fit, in this new world? Where would Timur? Bryagh? Kai? They had never heard of some of the ideas the other voices shared- the Mayors- the quills- the games- the armored mounts-

Was there even any way home? How did they get pulled into this world? What could Lazarus do on this world, if it did disappear into the wilderness between settlements? Were there other robots out there somewhere?

Lazarus turned its head away from the strange, foreign moonlight and stared at its wrist protrusions, dug into the ground. Before it acted, this time, it needed answers.

-

Previous | Next

[platonicone]

Devotion - Story of the Oracle and her Shield

Chapter 27 - When need becomes want

What is a cure for longing? I wonder…

The Sun was beating down brightly, peeking through the curtains. All the birds, who wakes people up with their melodies, had retreated to their nest. Aranea impatiently knocked at the door to Squall’s room.

A relentless banging on the door finally woke up Squall from his slumber.

He groggily got up and made his way towards the door to stop the annoying banging. He opened the door, still half asleep.

“Come on, wake up sleepyhead. It’s way past noon,” she announced, irritated.

“Already?” he whined, rubbing his eyes.

“You know, it's not nice to keep a lady waiting. We had a date this morning,” Aranea teased, leaning against the door.

“Sorry, I overslept,” he confessed, sheepishly.

“It’s alright. I have an errand to run, but I’ll be back in a couple of hours. We can go sightseeing then,” she suggested.

“No. He does not step outside of this manor until our medics have checked him,” Luna contested, approaching from behind. “Squall, are you sure you are okay? It is unlike you to sleep so much.”

“I am fine,” he reassured.

“I am worried about you. I know what kind of toll it takes to heal someone,” she raised her concern.

“How did you know?”

“I can sense when Oracle’s powers are used,” she lied, and he bought it. “I’ll have our best medics check on you immediately,” she spoke with urgency, still not making eye contact with Squall.

“I am okay,” he tried to reassure. “I was just tired, that’s all.”

“And you were unconscious for a long time before that. You are getting checked by our medics and that’s final. No more argument.” Her authoritative voice which left no room for disagreement.

“You are not even married and she scolds you like a wife,” Aranea added in a mischievous voice.

“Whatever,” Squall remarked, getting annoyed.

“Squall, you should go freshen up. I’ll have Maria set up the lunch and our medics will come to check on you after that,” Luna proposed.

“Fine,” he resigned.

“I guess we’ll take our tour in the evening,” Aranea said with a shrug.

Squall nodded and retreated to his room.

After getting ready, he went straight to the dining room and found Luna waiting on the table. He looked at the huge standing clock in the room it showed 2 p.m.

“You should have eaten already. It’s 2 p.m., you didn’t have to wait,” he noted, sitting down on the chair.

“I was busy, I just got free,” she spoke, staring at her empty dish.

The retainer quickly brought out food and served them. Maria brought out a special soup for Squall and served him.

After taking just one spoon of it, Squall immediately recognized that taste. He asked, “Did you make it?”

Even though Luna was not looking at Squall, she knew this question was intended for her. Luna glared at Maria, and she responded, “I-I m-made it, Master Squall. Is it not to your liking?”

“It is perfect,” he admitted.

The the corners of her eyes crinkled, and a tiny smile of satisfaction formed on Luna’s lips, which she tried to conceal quickly. Noticing that, Squall said, looking at Luna, “Thank you, Maria.”

“Y-You are most welcome master Squall,” Maria replied nervously.

The rest of the lunch was quiet and uneventful. As soon as the lunch was over, Luna quickly left, giving no chance to Squall to strike any conversation.

Squall retreated to his room where medics were waiting for him.

His medical checkup lasted a lot longer than he would have liked. By the time they were finished, Aranea was already waiting for him.

“Ready to go scar-face?”

“Yeah, can’t get out of this manor soon enough,” he complained.

“Lucky for you, Aranea is here for your rescue,” she declared, giving a thumbs up. “We really need to get you some new clothes. You’ve been wearing that ever since Fociaugh Hollow and it’s starting to stink.” She said jokingly, pinching her nose.

“Whatever,” he shook his head, brushing off her criticism.

Together they made their way out of the manor and into the streets. Upon closer inspection, he found that what appeared to be a floating island were mostly supporting by a column of naturally formed rocks. This whole structure seemed to defy gravity as the top of the column was wide enough to support an entire town, and it got narrower as it reached the ground. This oddity alone made for a spectacular view. The entire town was connected via bridges.

The town looked even more beautiful than what he saw from the balcony of his room. The streets were full of street vendors selling a variety of products such as household items, food, clothes, and herbal medicines. Like rivers merge into the sea, all the bridges converged at the center square.

It was a huge open area with a gigantic fountain in the center and lush green grass surrounding it. The kids played around the fountain, splashing each other with water. The teenager played various games in whatever open space they found. Youth can be seen strolled around with hand in hand. Families huddled together in a picnic. The spectrum of whole life was visible in this area.

There was one bridge to the north which leads to a temple. Hymns from there could be heard in the center square, in spite of all the ambient noise. All these elements combined to create a serene environment.

“To think that war could destroy all this peace,” he commented with a heavy heart.

“A few people’s lust for power can destroy so many lives. War promises the everlasting peace for the victor, but in reality, the only thing war leaves behind is chaos.”

“How ironic that we destroy peace with the promise to create more peace in the future,” he summed up his thoughts, as they moved through the crowd.

He noticed an elevated platform at the far end of the fountain, which he figured must be used to address the congruent mass.

As they moved through the town, Squall couldn’t help but notice the intimidating presence of the Empire soldiers on every juncture.

“Do you normally have so many Neiflhem troops here?”

“Tenebrae is a sacred ground where pilgrims from all over the world get together. The Empire had agreed to have minimum surveillance and occupation here. However, under the pretense of protecting the Oracle due to recent events, the Empire has deployed a whole regiment here. As long as they can keep the Oracle confined to Tenebrae, she is not a threat to them.”

“But Luna’s next covenant is in Altissia. If they block off all the points of exit, that might be a problem.”

“Yes, we are aware of it and we are trying to find a solution for it,” she revealed, getting in a line at one of the food stalls.

Squall gave her a quizzical look.

“This right here is the best street food in Tenebrae.”

They grabbed a bite and then proceeded to an apparel store to get a new wardrobe for Squall.

After sightseeing the town, they finally returned to the manor.

“So....should we?” she asked with a playful wink.

“W-What?”

“You know. I picked you up from your home. I took you on this wonderful date. And now that we are back, do I get a kiss? Or do we go straight to your room? I am sure Luna won’t mind,” she teased.

Squall was shell-shocked to hear that. His face turned beet red in an instant. Looking at his reaction, Aranea broke into a burst of uncontrollable laughter.

“Oh God! You should have seen your face,” she managed to say that between her laughs. “If I knew that’s all it takes to embarrass you, I would have done it sooner.”

Squall was enraged, but he masked his emotions. He stepped forward and took both of her hands in his hand gently. He looked straight into her eyes and said, “Aranea, I have a confession to make.”

Aranea’s laughter disappeared in an instance.

“Ever since I saw the first time, I knew you were special.”

“Oh no,” she mumbled, as dread filled her eyes, but Squall was reluctant to let go of her hands.

“The way you look, the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you smile, and your sense of humor, it all,” he paused for dramatic effect as he saw the color drain from Aranea’s face. “It all makes my blood boil and I hate you so much.”

“Oh, thank God!” she exhaled loudly. “Hate is good. For a while, I thought you were going to say something stupid. It scared the crap out of me.”

“Revenge is a dish best served cold,” he replied with a smirk.

“You son of a--,” instead of finishing her sentence, she kicked him hard in his shins.

“Ouch! What was that for?”

“I don’t know, but it felt like you deserved it.”

“What kind of logic is that?” he complained, hobbling on one leg.

“Whatever!”

“Hey, that’s my line,” he protested.

“Whatever,” she repeated slowly.

Once Squall and Aranea parted ways, he went inside the castle. He took a peek at the chamber room and Luna was busy dealing with various delegates. She looked tired. Their eyes briefly meet and she smiled before quickly attending the guests.

He got changed into new cloth, which for the most part was very similar to what he already had. There was still some time till dinner, so Squall decided to explore the manor.

He could oversee a huge garden in the back of the manor, but the door leading to it was locked. That garden looked very familiar to him.

He ventured further into the manor and eventually discovered the royal library. He decided to take a look inside. From the looks of it, half of the library seems to be renovated, perhaps from the fire 12 years ago, he thought. The royal library seemed to contain every book imaginable. Perhaps the only book Squall could use right now was ‘how to understand women.’ Even since waking up on the train, Luna had been avoiding him, and he did not have the slightest idea why. He spends the rest of his evening browsing through various books.

One of the retainers came looking for him when it was time for dinner. Upon entering the dining room, he saw that there were many people already sitting at the table.

‘Great, another awkward dinner.’ He thought.

As expected, the dinner was rather dull with the royals talking among themselves about topics he was least interested in. Without Luna to talk to, he was starting to feel like an outsider. 'No wonder Aranea never stays here.'

As soon as he finished the meal, the medic from earlier came over and gave him two pills. Not wanting to make a scene, he took the medicine and quickly exited the room.

He stood on the balcony of his room, looking around absentmindedly. In matter of a few days he went from being an integral part of Luna's life to an observer. He felt that Luna needed him before, but now he was not sure if she even want him around. They were drifting apart and he wanted to know why. He needed to know why she was distancing herself from him. His mind was confused and his heart was in pain.

The surrounding temperature dropped suddenly as Gentiana walked from behind him and joined him in the stargazing.

“What are you doing here?” Squall asked, surprised to see her.

“I felt your loneliness, so I came to be with you.”

“How did you know?”

“Squall, I am always with you,” she chuckled. “Since I am still junctioned to you, a form of me lives in your mind. I feel all your pain, joy, sadness, and love. I experience it all with you.”

“When you say it like that it sounds very creepy,” he remarked.

“Such is the nature of junctioning. We get to experience what it is like to be human and in return, you get to use our powers,” she spoke with her eyes closed.

“Hmm.”

There was silence once again.

“Squall, I was worried about you.”

“Why?”

“After a very long time, I experienced what fear felt like. When you were suffering at the hands of Ramuh, I was afraid that you might die. I felt your pain and anguish. I wanted to help, I did. But I couldn’t. My duty is to observe and guide humanity and not to interfere with it directly,” she confessed, her internal turmoil was evident in her voice.

“Unable to act on your feelings because you are bound by your duty, I think I can relate to that.”

“How do you find courage when facing your own mortality? You knew that you could have died, so why go through it? Are you not afraid of death?”

“I am afraid of death, just like everyone else. But sometimes you have to ask yourself, is my cause worth dying for?” He stated.

“I do not understand.”

“The thing with mortality is that there is no escaping it. You know someday you are going to die, but you try to make the best out of the limited time you have. You try to give some meaning to your life. Some people find meaning in wealth, accomplishments, friends and family, spirituality, or helping others. At that moment I just had to find my own calling.”

“And what was yours?”

“We all live for ourselves but to live for the betterment of others is a noble cause. One small sacrifice to the betterment of the world. That was my calling.”

“For you, it was more than just that, was it not?” she probed.

“When you care for someone deeply, you find the courage to overcome your fears.”

“You have changed, Squall. You have changed so much. Last time you said, ‘the hell with the world. If she is not with me then what does the world mean to me?’ And now you are willing to sacrifice yourself for the same world. That is admirable.”

“Speaking of that, what exactly happened 'last time’? Why do Astrals want me dead? Who is Arydran, and why does he think we fought together? Why did Ramuh say that I escaped from Bahamut’s exile? What is going on here?” He had asked all these questions before, but Gentiana had avoided answering them every time. He was hoping it would be different this time.

“What is with humans and their fascination with the past?” she wondered.

“I don’t know much about humanity, but if someone is out there to kill me, I'd like to know why.”

“The ‘last time’ as you call it, we refer to it as the Omen,” Gentiana revealed. “Omen was a failed timeline where the prophecy failed and the world was plunged into the darkness.”

“And the Astrals thinks that the prophecy failed because of me?” he questioned.

“You played a key role, one could say.”

“The hell with the world. If she is not with me then what does the world mean to me?” he repeated her line from earlier. “Who is she?”

“She is someone with whom your destiny has been intertwined for eons.”

“That still does not answer who is it?”

“That is for you to figure out,” she replied with slight hostility in her voice. Her tone took Squall by surprised, and he decided not to push this topic any further.

“From what I can gather, Astrals assigned me a mission, and I failed, which plunged the world into the darkness. So now they want revenge. That much makes sense. But you are an Astral too, how come you don’t want to hurt me?”

“Because I,” she seemed to at a loss of words. “Because I am different,” she said, looking at him.

“How? Why?”

“Why the sudden interest in me? I thought we were talking about you?” she tactfully dodged the question.

They must have chatted for at least half an hour before Squall said, “Hey, thanks for coming. It felt great to just let it all out.”

“Anything to put your heart at ease,” she replied with a smile.

“We should do this often,” he proposed.

“I've waited millennia to hear that,” she replied joyfully.

“You are very cryptic and strange sometimes,” he noted, shaking his head.

She smiled and disappeared, leaving behind spectral ice particles suspended in the air.

Squall went back inside the room and lay flat on his bed. “Why can’t anything ever be simple in my life,” he thought as he stared at the ceiling. He fell asleep shortly after.

The next day, he met up with Aranea at their designated training ground. He was still recovering from Ramuh’s attack, but he figured the best way to get back in shape would be by training.

“Don’t expect me to go easy on you,” Aranea warned as she readied her spear.

“I wouldn’t expect anything else,” he replied, drawing out his gunblade.

She embodies the classic Dragoon class, able to fight airborne, uses jump attacks, wears black armor and wields a lance.

As their duel began, he quickly realized that she was very agile and powerful. Her signature attack is Highwind.

“Did you know that your girlfriend is setting up a healing camp?” she informed him during sparring.

“No way, she is not fit enough for that,” he remarked, as their weapons clashed.

“Tell that to her. We all tried, but she wouldn’t listen. She gave us the same long speech about looking to ease the suffering of others rather than protecting ourselves,” she spoke, deflecting Squall’s attack.

“She can be so unreasonable sometimes,” he stated, blocking her attack.

“You should talk to her,” she suggested.

“I would if she let me. She would do anything to avoid me, it seems,” he revealed.

“What did you do?” she asked, as their weapons clashed again.

“I wish I knew,” he admitted. “I saved her life, and now she is mad at me. I don’t understand women.”

“Ha ha ha,” she laughed mockingly before launching another volley of attacks.

Once his training was done, he returned to the castle around noon. Their meals were quickly becoming a public affair as dignitaries from many provinces joined them frequently. Luna seemed preoccupied with arranging everything for the healing camp.

Squall was once again alone in his room. With nothing to do and no one to hang out with, he was bored out of his mind. Luckily, the atmosphere suddenly got cold around him.

“Gentiana,” he uttered. “I was starting to think that you would not come.”

“I did not know you were waiting for me,” she remarked as a small smile played on her lips.

“Do you want to go for a walk? I feel like a prisoner in this castle,” he proposed.

“Sure, anything to ease your heart.”

Their walk was a perfect calibration of silently accompanying someone and infrequent chat. Even though they did not speak much, they both seemed to enjoy each other’s company.

The next day was the start of a week-long healing camp. He’d hoped that he could talk some sense into her as blessings can take a severe toll on her health, but she had avoided him successfully.

Pilgrims from all over the world flocked to get her blessings. Her day started early with a healing session followed by rest to recover her strength. She would have her lunch at the campsite, and it was followed by another healing session and rest. Their dinner was followed by the same pattern. She only came back to the castle to sleep at night.

At least he used to see Luna at their meals, but even that had stopped now. Even since he woke up, not once did he have a proper conversation with Luna. He needed to know why she was avoiding him, but he would have to wait for the right moment as they were constantly surrounded by people.

Since Luna was always busy, Leon’s day was divided into two halves. Training with Aranea in morning and evening strolls with Gentiana.

His conversation with Gentiana was often very philosophical in nature. Gentiana would often talk about topics such as immortality, karma, spirituality, morality, the meaning of life, etc. While Squall would often talk about duty, dedication, seeking happiness, processing emotions, etc.

One day while returning from their evening stroll, Gentiana suddenly said, “Thank you, for being such a great teacher.”

“What did I teach you?” he asked confused.

“I find it very difficult to understand human emotions. When I try to follow other humans, I get overwhelmed by their emotions. With you, it’s easier to follow since you suppress your emotions so much. It’s like you only process one emotion at a time, which makes it easier for me to learn.”

“Hey! I am more complicated than that,” he protested.

“I believe an appropriate response to that is,” she paused. “Whatever,” she said, imitating Squall.

Squall gave out a sigh, “Looks like I did teach you something after all.”

Gentiana couldn’t help but laugh at his reaction. This was the first time he had heard her laugh. Her divine laugh was nothing short of a melody.

He just shook his head, and they continued their evening stroll.

It was morning. The Sun peeked through the sky provided gentle warmth. The sky was different shades of orange. The birds were singing their melodies. A distant hymn echoed through Tenebrae. It was a serene morning, but it was ruined by the frequent clanging of metal.

Squall and Aranea were sparring as per their morning routine.

Aranea had knocked down Squall, which infuriated him. He launched a volley of relentless attacks, forcing Aranea to go on defense.

“Good. Looks like you are recovering your strength,” she praised, blocking his attack.

“Still a long way to go,” he admitted, thrusting his gunblade forward.

“There are still two more days left for the healing camp. How about we take a field trip tomorrow,” she asked, deflecting his attack.

His eyes lit up upon hearing that.

“I am rather bored here, let’s do it,” he affirmed, as their weapons clashed again. “Where are we going?”

“We’ll go treasure hunting for Frozen Tear of Shiva. Tomorrow at 7 a.m.,” she stated, pushing him back.

“Can’t wait.”

During his evening stroll with Genitana he asked her about something Aranea had mentioned in the morning. “Gentiana, what is Frozen tear?”

“Where did you hear that?” she asked, with her eyes closed.

“Aranea told me about it.”

She chuckled in response. “When Shiva’s heart was filled with pain, she cried. Human calls her tears Frozen tear.”

“I did not know that Astrals cried,” he stated bluntly.

“Although we don’t experience the range of emotions that humans do, we do feel some basic emotions like love, hate, anger and kindness to name a few.”

“Why would you cry? You are an Astral,” he asked, still not grasping the concept of mighty Astrals crying like humans.

“Just as humans, when the pain becomes unbearable, tears escape from my eyes,” she said looking at him.

“When were you in such pain?”

“First was when I saw Hyne die in front of my eyes. Next, was when Niflheim attacked me.”

“I wonder how does it—” he was about to say something when Gentiana raised her hand, indicating him to stop.

“We are being watched,” she proclaimed. Her eyes were scanning their surroundings.

“We are in the center square, surrounded by hundreds of pilgrims. Of course, we are being watched,” Squall dismissed her caution.

“No, its him. He is here, I can sense him.”

“Who?”

“The Usurper is watching us.”

Author's notes:

So, what do you think about this chapter? Let me know in your comments below. If you don't have much to say then at least say 'Hi' so I know someone is reading this. It would really brighten my day. Thanks :)

PS: I was wondering if someone can make me an image of Squall x Luna for this story. I would be very grateful for that. Thanks in advance.

[thefinalcinderella]

DIVE!! Book 1 Chapter 7-WHAT DO I HAVE?

Hey this was supposed to be up earlier but I was busy sorry

On the bright side I’ll probably put up two chapters this week (in anticipation for ‘’’’that scene’’’’’ next week OMG)

Also I kind of have mixed feelings about some of the changes about the rivals’ characterizations in the anime, but at least they’re still kinda pathetic like they are in the book

List of translations here.

Previously on DIVE!!: Foreshadowing. Oh, and that Beijing thing that takes up like two chapters in Book 2.

The Asian Joint Training Camp in August. Their goal was to try to be able to participate in it by any means, and the practice of Tomoki and the others suddenly heated up, with the drive and tension in each dive being entirely different. Everyone aiming for the qualifying trials at the end of July had begun a fierce spurt towards it.

Youichi’s resolve to abandon all of this summer’s three biggest competitions was especially amazing. He had already possessed abilities far above ordinary people, and if he continued to do the extraordinary practice like he was doing now, his dream and being awarded the first prize at the qualifying trials will not be unlikely, not to mention being chosen as one of the training camp participants.

Tomoki, Reiji and Ryou were presently struggling with the degree of difficulties of their entry dives, which were all on the same level as each other’s. Although, their level was considerably below the bar as to whether or not they would be one of the chosen six at the qualifying trials. From this unfavorable position, Tomoki was undergoing special training to turn the tables around with his forward 3½ somersaults in tuck position. Judging from its degree of difficulty of 2.7, it wasn’t a very complicated move to dive with. However, the impact of a middle schooler taking on the 3½ was great, and when they learned that Tomoki was striving for that event, Reiji and Ryou immediately went to talk with Kayoko.

“Please teach us the 3½.”

Kayoko, surprisingly, easily agreed.

“Of course. If you are motivated, I will teach you. But, 3½ is a huge challenge in every way, and I think the possibility of being ready to perform it in time for the qualifying trials is low, so you should just properly polish your current skills.”

They joined the 3½ practice with joy.

When tackling a new event, before divers perform it in the pool, they must first of all thoroughly grasp the intuition of the performance on land. For that, they use a special equipment called spotting equipment. (1)

Imagine that there was a four- or five-meter-high iron bar crossed over a trampoline. A rope is passed through the bar, and is tied to a round metal fitting secured to the waist of the athlete on the trampoline. There were two coaches on both sides of the bar, and they hold both ends of the rope. Every time the coaches jerk on the rope, the body of the athlete is pulled up into the air with great force. By rotating in the air, they could get tips for movement and timing. This teaches the sense of rotation to the body.

This exercise synchronises your breathing exactly with the coaches who are pulling on the ropes for this practice, and if you mess up the timing, the metal fittings attached to your waist will bite into your stomach and cause you great pain. Usually, Tomoki and the others avoided it, but this was the only time that no one complained about it.

Youichi, Tomoki, Reiji, and Ryou. While they made the MDC flourish in this way, it was always the new member Shibuki who raised a louder voice than anyone else.

Okitsu Shibuki. Until now, he had his own way of diving, and he flared up at anything from the MDC coaching methods, which were the standard methods and didn’t feel right in his skin at all.

“Saves (2) are unneeded. That’s what Gramps said. I won’t do it.”

Every time he quarreled with Kayoko, Shibuki always quoted the words of his grandfather Okitsu Shiraha, the phantom genius diver.

“Saves are one of the most important techniques for divers. When you dive from the platform, if you enter the water perpendicular to the surface, there would be no water going up. A beautiful rip entry will be settled upon. However, in reality, the angle will be too shallow or too deep, and a deviation will occur, to a greater or lesser degree. Saves will help you control that deviation in the water.”

“So, you’re saying it’s a cheater’s technique. Gramps taught me thoroughly on how to enter the water upright, rather than that cheap trick.”

“That’s an outdated way of thinking. In order to decrease the burden on the body that is the cause of injury, it’s essential for today’s divers to learn saves.”

“I don’t need it. First, I don’t know you like rip entry dives so much. Diving was always about competing with beautiful and powerful aerial performances. When did it become a contest for counting splashes?”

“From the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. An American athlete performed a flawless rip entry dive and got into the limelight. Since then, that technique spread rapidly.”

“Did I come here to dive so that I get too scared to make splashes? This is ridiculous.”

“There are ridiculous people in the world who watch a soccer match and wonder why the players don’t use their hands. Sports have been like that from the start. Getting into rules and values made by people you don’t know, and seizing anything sublimated (3).”

“The quality of the judges has fallen. Because they don’t have the power to observe aerial performances, they only focus on the splashes that are easier for them to understand.”

Losing the argument, Shibuki became sulky and started to blame the judges for being petty. Since he had never been in a competition, he had no way of knowing about the quality of the judges, so that must have also been second-hand knowledge from Shiraha.

Kayoko was again reminded of just how much influence of Shiraha’s shadow had over Shibuki. In order to build up trust with him, that shadow must be removed. However, that would require considerably drastic measures. Thinking about this, Kayoko was feeling increasingly anxious about the future.

Because usually, the living could not easily defeat the deceased.

                                      Death of the Genius Diver

“August 29, 1991. A small fishing boat fishing off of the coast of Aomori Prefecture was hit by a large wave caused by Typhoon No.19, and capsized. The passengers onboard were Okitsu Shiraha-san and his eldest son, Hiromi-san*, who both died…”

Seeing this article appearing in a corner of a newspaper at the end of last month, it seemed that I was not the only one that suddenly had the memories of bygone days come and go.

Okitsu Shiraha. Once you have heard this name, you will never forget it. It had a great meaning for us who knew the Japanese diving world in the 1940s.

He was the darling of that era who created a huge sensation in the Japanese diving world at that time. If everything went smoothly, he definitely would have been the top diver of the world. I only saw him dive once—at a Takarazuka pool after World War II—but his grandiose, almost ghastly performance was still burned into the back of my eyes. I have never seen an overwhelming dive like that since then. Of the blessed people who were able to see Okitsu Shiraha’s performance even once, didn’t they all harbour those same feelings?

Nevertheless, despite having such power, Okitsu Shiraha was also a diver from a tragedy.

He gave up on the 1940 Tokyo Olympics. He didn’t participate in the 1948 London Olympics. Due to the aftermath of World War II, at that time Japan had been away from the Olympics for sixteen years. In the era where Okitsu had peaked both physically and technically, it wasn’t just the Olympics, but also the Japanese sports world who were in total self-restraint mode, so it was hardly a situation where they could participate in competitions.

If Okitsu was in an environment where he could fully demonstrate his abilities in that era…even now my heart still aches thinking about a natural talent aging and leaving his abilities unused, and the regrets of this genius going home uncrowned. In 1952, when Japan finally returned to the Olympics, Okitsu was already over thirty. What were his thoughts beneath the sky of his hometown as he gazed at this grand occasion that came too late?

Fortune and misfortune shadow a person for their entire life. This was all the more true for athletes. However, Okitsu’s bad luck wasn’t just limited to himself, but it seems to have been bad luck for the entire Japanese diving world.

If Okitsu at his peak was given the door to the world in that era, he would have opened it and spread his wings to the farthest reaches. However, that door remained tightly closed. And even after more than fifty years, the Japanese diving world is still unable to spread its wings out into the world.

Now, the door is given to all athletes. But, there is no one with the power to open it.

The spirit of the former genius diver sleeping in the sea of Tsugaru might never rest in peace, no matter how much we pray for him.

--Iwamoto Shouzou, director of the Japanese Swimming Federation

“Wow. This is a good find.”

Tomoki said in admiration as he raised his eyes from the booklet spread out on the table.

“My mom helped out with some JASF work. She was in charge of all the bulletins like that. When Dad was talking about Okitsu before, she pulled this out.”

Youichi said, then sucked at his unmuddied iced coffee through a straw.

They were at the Mizuki Sports Club after dryland training. The two of them went to the coffee shop Top on the first floor. Only housewives and office workers who went to the gym went there, so there were no faces from the MDC there. Because they tended towards cheap fast food, this place was more favorable for confidential talks.

“So, what do you think about that article?”

“What do I…well, anyways, I was surprised. Okitsu-kun’s father and grandfather both died at sea.”

Grandfather and father. How would I feel if I lost them both at the same time? That happened eight years ago. Tomoki couldn’t imagine what the then-eight-years-old Shibuki felt.

But, Youichi seemed to be more interested in something else.

“Do you feel a grudge?”

“A grudge? From who?”

“Okitsu Shiraha, of course.”

“Why?”

“You really are too good-natured.”

Looking like he thought this wasn’t even worth talking about, Youichi leaned back in his chair.

“You see, according to this article, Okitsu Shiraha had his best years as a diver stolen from him by the war. He couldn’t go to enough competitions, so he grew old without being able to compete against divers from overseas. How would you feel if that was you?”

“Well, I guess frustrated, but…”

“Okay. Watching Okitsu Shibuki, Okitsu Shiraha seemed to have hated diving. Okitsu’s diving is certainly incredible, the scale is huge and daring, it’s rough, but his power makes up for it. But, I can’t help but feel that power seems to have come from something like hatred and anger. It’s the anger of a diver who had talent but died without ever being rewarded for it.”

“But…the reason he was not rewarded was because of the war, so you can’t really blame diving for that.”

“It’s not that simple. Okitsu Shiraha only had some half-baked talent, and ended up having to sacrifice everything for diving. He had to endure many things, dedicate himself to diving, and what’s the result? Diving gave him nothing at all. The only thing diving did was to steal everything away from him.”

“Aren’t…”

Aren’t you reading too much into it, Tomoki wanted to say, but he hesitated, since it seemed like Youichi’s words were directed at himself. He might have also been living at the expense of everything just because of a half-baked talent.

Friends. Studies. Girlfriend. Having fun. The caramel on pudding. Even for the not-very-talented Tomoki, the amount of sacrifices he had to make were not insignificant.

“Of course, sometimes I think that I don’t want to do diving. And when I’m in a really bad mood, I really regret it, but…”

Tomoki trailed off. He thought back to when he first met Youichi six years ago, and the mysterious words that he had told him bluntly. You’ll regret it.

You’ll regret it, and become stronger.

Every time he failed at trying a new event, Tomoki remembered those words.

Looking at the unexpectedly silent Tomoki, Youichi grinned and raised an eyebrow.

“It seems like you’re struggling with the 3½.”

He was as perceptive as ever.

“Don’t give up. And don’t forget, it isn’t just Asaki Kayoko who’s expecting something from you, you know.”

“Eh?”

“My dad was saying that Okitsu Shibuki’s diving is certainly incredible, but as a diver, he has a fatal flaw. On the contrary, Tomo has the strongest weapon.”

“Weapon?”

“Asaki Kayoko noticed it. That’s why she had her eye on you.”

Tomoki took in a deep breath and looked down at his hands. Of course, there was no weapon hidden in his hands clasped on the table. Compared to Youichi, his body was embarrassingly scrawny and unreliable, so why on earth would it have any kind of power?

“Most of what my dad says is like gas from a senile fossil, but I think there’s some truth to it with regards to you. It’s probably that there’s something in you. I don’t what it is yet, but when I watch you dive, I get drawn in by something. I’ve been drawn in for a long time, which is why I’ve been watching you.”

“Watching me?”

“Don’t get careless. I’m looking out for you like this, but maybe I’ll trip you up one day as a consequence of that.”

With a straight face, Youichi left words that were neither joking nor serious, and stood up to leave the dumfounded Tomoki.

Towards that beautiful profile and body which were headed for the cash register with a sales slip in hand, the women in the shop glanced at him repeatedly with rosy gazes.

Okitsu Shibuki had a fatal flaw as a diver.

Conversely, Tomoki had the strongest weapon as a diver.

The words that Coach Fujitani had told Youichi didn’t leave Tomoki’s head for a long time afterwards.

What is the strongest weapon?

Why on earth would he say that when I can’t even do the 3½?

There was Youichi, who was the model of a precise and beautiful performance, and there was Shibuki, who had an unconventional personality in a powerful performance.

Tomoki wanted to know what he had.

He didn’t want to just aim for succeeding at a technique. He wanted to be like Youichi and Shibuki, and grasp the kind of diving that only he himself could do. This was the first time that he had ever thought this.

Translation Notes

1. Spotting equipment: you can see some examples of it here.

2. Entry saves are a technique that helps the diver look like they’re entering the water vertically for a rip entry, since it’s impossible to make the body perfectly vertical. Read about it here.

3. Sublimation is that phase change where solid turns to gas. Not sure what that was doing in this sentence

4. Remember when I mentioned in Chapter 4 that the Okitsu family have sea-themed names? Here’s more: Shiraha (白波) means “white wave” and Hiromi (大海) means “great sea”.

Next time on DIVE!!: My favorite chapter!!

[hissyfitprincess]

My Thoughts On The First Semi Final of Eurovision 2017

1. The hosts this year are definitely not as entertaining as Måns and Petra (the hosts last year)

2. The stage this year is beautiful!

3. I have mixed feelings about the opening performance this year. The song wasn't my favorite and I still think the best opening performance was in Eurovision 2015, but there was a certain part of the song that the stage did this cool effect, and I thought that was awesome to watch.

4. Jamala (the winner last year) performed twice in the show. Her first song was a redone version of her winning song, "1944", and the only changes made to it was that the song was made to sound more dramatic. Her second song, "Zamanyly" was...different. The background effects were strange, and the song was something you don't hear every day. However, I will admit, her voice was amazing.

5. Sweden: Robin Bengtsson - I Can't Go On The performance was nearly identical to the National Final performance. The song itself is fun to listen to, and reminds me a bit of Justin Timberlake. The stage effects were great, and the fact that he and the background dancers spent most of the song dancing on treadmills were fun to watch.

6. Georgia: Tamara Gachechiladze - Keep The Faith I don't like this song. I never did. It was a fairly nice, stong ballad, but it wasn't a song for Eurovision. I will say, the stage effects were pretty, and her voice is pretty. BUT...that outfit was not flattering. It was similar to that Britney Spears bodysuit that made her look like she was naked, but covered with diamonds. Think of that outfit, but replace the diamonds with sparkly ketchup. That was Tamara's outfit.

7. Australia: Isaiah - Don't Come Easy I'm slightly disappointed with this one. I LOVE the song, but his vocals weren't up to my expectations. He tried to sound better by adding extra flair to his voice, but it didn't work out for him. At one point, he tried to hit a high note. Ugh....no. That was not a good choice. I know I sound biased, but this performance was nothing compared to Dami Im's "Sound of Silence" from last year's Eurovision. And yes, I'm still highly upset about that.

8. Albania: Lindita - World Again, I have mixed feelings. She has a great voice, but the song just didn't do it for me. I liked the stage, though! For the first half, the stage looked like a giant clock, and then transitioned to having a bunch of clouds and flying ships. I don't know how I feel about her costume though. She looked like a disco ball with a wedding veil on.

9. Belgium: Blance - City Lights I'm worried for her. I don't like the song, but after watching her perform, I want to see her do well. She was so nervous. You could see the fear in her eyes and towards the end of the song, her voice was shaky and sounded like she was about to start crying.

10. Montenegro: Slavko Kalezić - Space I was disappointed. He wasn't terrible, but it wasn't on par with my expectations. The song is super fun to listen to and the stage was awesome, but his voice wasn't that great. However, I could not get enough of what he looked like. Picture a flamboyant, muscular, bearded white dude wearing a transparent shirt, black sparkly pants, and his hair tied in a braid the length of Rapunzel's hair. Oh, and that braid? He was swinging it around! This would've been a perfect performance, and was one of the main acts I was looking forward to, but his voice just wasn't there.

11. Finland: Norma John - Blackbird Absolutely amazing. Loved it. It was a depressing ballad with barely a beat, but her voice was powerful and sent a chill up my spine. During the song, all you could see was her singing and the guy on the piano, surrounded by fog. It may not be the kind of song for Eurovision, but it was still a beautiful. Its the kind of song that'll make you start thinking about exes you don't even have.

12. Azerbaijan: Dihaj - Skeletons This. Song. Holy crap. Her voice was powerful, and the props on the stage were interesting as hell. You have her surrounded by giant chalkboards that she was writing on at one point, and later on in the song, the chalkboards became platforms that she sang on top of. Also, there was also a guy standing on top of a ladder wearing a horse mask.

13. Portugal: Salvador Sobral - Amar Pelos Dois This song wasn't my favorite, but I can see why everyone loved it. This guy sings a song in Portuguese in a high pitched, hushed tone, which sounded absolutely adorable. It reminded me of old school Disney movies.

14. Greece: Demy - This Is Love Again, mixed feelings. I find this song bland as hell. It's just a boring, unchallenging love song with an EDM beat to it. She didn't hit a lot of the high notes of the song (which weren't even that high in the first place), and overall I just wasn't feeling it. I will say, the performance was indeed better than a lot of the other ones. Not to mention, who wouldn't like seeing two shirtless guys splashing around in a kiddie pool while a woman sang about love?

15. Poland: Kasia Moś - Flashlight I don't have a lot of things to say about this one. I didn't like the song, and I missed a lot of it due to real life things happening that forced me to leave my computer for a few minutes. I will say, her dress was alright and the stage was pretty.

16. Moldova: Sunstroke Project - Hey Mamma Here we go...for all of you who remember the "Epic Sax Guy" meme, he's back for round two. The band consists of four guys who were all dressed in tuxedos, then you have three female backup singers wearing white dresses. Yes. They had a wedding on stage. Plus, the women's dresses started off as short white dresses with black bottoms, but at one point the singers did a little twirl, and the outfits transformed into wedding dresses. Definitely, one of the best performances today.

17. Iceland: Svala - Paper I wasn't a HUGE fan of this song during the months leading up to the contest, but it grew on me at the last minute. It's slow, powerful, and the artist says the song is about Anxiety. The performance, however, had me a bit worried. It was elegant, but simple. She wore a white pantsuit with a cape that blew in the wind. Not amazing, but I like it.

18. Czech Republic: Martina Bárta - My Turn It didn't do it for me. The song was nice, but boring. The stage was a pretty purple color, and her outfit was a pantsuit made out of a material that looked like bronze tin foil.

19. Cyprus: Hovig - Gravity It was...alright. Wasn't a huge fan of his outfit, which was black pants, a black shirt, and a black jacket that looked like it was decorated with pearls. The song wasn't amazing, but the stage effects were interesting.

20. Armenia: Artsvik - Fly With Me SHE CAME THROUGH! I'M SO GLAD! The song was great, her voice was AMAZING, the stage was gorgeous, and the choreography was cool! They did a lot of those moves that you see in Indian dancing, where it looks like she had six arms. And the end of the song blew me away! The only thing I don't understand is why her outfit looked like the top part of it was made of chain mail.

21. Slovenia: Omar Naber - On My Way I liked the song. It was dated, but still interesting. A power ballad with strong vocals and a bunch of key changes. He wore a sparkly black tux, and the stage had a bunch of spinning spotlights on him. I also like how the song is about someone running away.

22. Latvia: Triana Park - Line What the hell was she wearing? Her hair was a lavender color with two golden pigtails on top. Her outfit looked like it was decorated with a bunch of giant zipper, and the stage made you think you were at a rave...on acid.

COUNTRIES THAT QUALIFIED FOR THE FINALS 1. Moldova 2. Azerbaijan 3. Greece 4. Sweden 5. Portugal 6. Poland 7. Armenia 8. Australia 9. Cyprus 10. Belgium

COUNTRIES THAT DID NOT QUALIFY 1. Albania 2. Czech Republic 3. Finland 4. Georgia 5. Iceland 6. Latvia 7. Montenegro 8. Slovenia

23. I was really hoping Finland, Iceland, and Montenegro would've made it, so I was furious when they didn't.

I wanted Finland to qualify because the song was beautiful. However, like i said before, it wasn't a song for Eurovision. Because of that, I'm not surprised.

I felt Iceland truly deserved to go to the Grand Final. I guess people in Europe don't agree with me.

Montenegro not making it pissed me off! His song was one of the most fun songs this year! But as I watched the performance a second and third time while I was writing this post, I can understand why the performance wasn't good enough.

25. With the first Semi Final out of the way, I'm looking forward to the second one on Thursday. I'm expecting Anja (Denmark's singer) to blow me away. Please don't let us down!

[actutrends]

The DeanBeat: My favorite games of 2019

Games grew to a $148.8 billion market in 2019, up 9.6% from 2018 and reaching over 2.5 billion people across the globe. Console games, the lion’s share of the industry a decade earlier, were smaller than mobile games in 2019, a continuation of a multi-year trend, according to research firm Newzoo.

We watched the further growth of esports and game watching expand this year, and we saw the introduction of subscription gaming for Apple Arcade, Google Play, and Google Stadia’s cloud gaming service. Hyper-casual mobile games that last 30 seconds emerged, but big mobile titles like Call of Duty: Mobile emerged to hold their own against the nanosecond attention spans.

I didn’t think we could match last year’s brilliant titles such as Red Dead Redemption 2, God of War, and Marvel’s Spider-Man. For me, last year was the triumph of traditional narrative triple-A games that blended open worlds with deep narratives.

But the highest end of the industry didn’t rest on its laurels in 2019. As usual, I didn’t have enough time to play it all. But I enjoyed everything across the board, from Sandbox VR’s Star Trek: Discovery — Away Mission virtual reality experience to episodic games like Life is Strange 2 to mobile titles like Call of Duty: Mobile and Apple Arcade’s Where Cards Fall. I re-engaged with favorite maps from years past in Call of Duty: Mobile and plunged into battle royale maps with squadmates in the multiplayer action of Apex Legends. And I was scared out of my wits playing titles like The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan.

It felt like I had less time to explore indie experiences that my peers played, so I wasn’t the first to stumble on titles like Untitled Goose Game. But I enjoyed delving into my own passions, such as the World War II real-time strategy game Steel Battalion 2 from Eugen Systems, where I could zoom in on a single tank in a battle or pan out to see an entire division marching across the Russian landscapes. Toward the end of the year, I rushed to finish titles such as Remedy’s Control and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.

For the sake of comparison, here are my favorites from 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, and 2011. In each story below, the links go to our full reviews or major stories about the games. And be sure to check out the GamesBeat staff’s own votes for Game of the Year and the best individual favorites of the staff soon.

Check out our Reviews Vault for past game reviews.

10) Sayonara Wild Hearts

Above: Sayonara Wild Hearts takes you on an impossibly fast ride.

Image Credit: Annapurna

Developer: Simogo Publisher: Annapuana Interactive, iam8bit Platforms: Apple Arcade/iOS, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Windows, MacOS, tvOS

I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this dream-like game, as music games don’t usually get me dancing. But Sayonara Wild Hearts has an artsy combination of dance-fighting, pop music, and high-speed motorcycle chases that clicked for me. I played it on an iPhone with Apple Arcade‘s $5 a month subscription platform, and I used a Rotor Riot wired game controller to play it rather than brave the untrustworthy touchscreen. You can also play it on an iPad or Apple TV.

It’s a high-adrenaline game where you tap, jump, and maneuver to collect little hearts in a beautiful neon-and-black landscape. And it isn’t that long with 23 levels. The neon-on-black art is beautiful. It’s hard to believe a small game studio put it together, because the art is so well-crafted. There isn’t much of a story, but the developers tell you what you need to know.

In Sayonara Wild Hearts, you play as a young woman who suffers a heartbreak. A tarot card pops up and dubs her The Fool, transporting her into an alternate universe. She sets out to restore the harmony of the universe hidden away in the hearts of her enemies. As you take control of The Fool, you speed along on a motorcycle within a tunnel-like view of the horizon.

The fusion of music and gameplay reminds me of music games like Rez from 2001 or that wacky and artistic “Take On Me” music video by A-Ha in 1985. The gameplay in Sayonara Wild Hearts seems impossible, and it takes a lot of skill to avoid crashing. But it’s whimsical and forgiving at the same time, as you can start up right where you crashed to try again. I thought songs like Begin Again were catchy and hard to get out of my head. I’m not going to say that this was far better than many of the triple-A games that debuted this year, but this is my nod in the direction of creativity, fun, and the indie spirit on mobile devices.

9) Rage 2

Above: Rage 2 couldn’t fight the dying of the light.

Image Credit: Bethesda

Developer: Avalanche Studios and id Software Publisher: Bethesda Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows

When id Software’s Tim Willits visited Avalanche Studios in Stockholm, he told his new compadres to ignore constraints. “When I met with the team in Stockholm on the whiteboard, “More crazy than Rage” That was the first pillar of this game,” Willits said.

And he got what he asked for. Rage 2 didn’t get the best reviews, but I thought it was underrated, as I played it through the end of the single-player campaign and played a lot of silly side missions as well. Rage 2 had a lot of environments, ranging from the Mad Max-style desert to jungles and cities. The script was a bit weak, but the enemies were tough and the weapons were glorious. The “nanotrite” capabilities that you discovered along the way are critical to defeating the biggest bosses. The art style was absolutely wild, with plenty of bright pink and yellow colors splashed across the punk habitats. And I enjoyed reuniting with my old friend, the Wingstick, which is like a boomerang that could slice an enemy’s head off.

If it had flaws, it was that it wasn’t Red Dead Redemption 2. It often littered the landscape with side missions and enemies to kill, to no purpose. You could get damaged on your way to an important mission, and then have to figure out a way to recover. It’s good if you stayed on track, built your capabilities up, and stuck to the good stuff.

The final part of the game lasted a lot longer for me because I had trouble taking down General Cross, the bad guy, and his pet monster. But to me, it was a thrill when I finally succeeded.

8) Days Gone

Above: A horde of Freakers chases Deacon St. John in Days Gone.

Image Credit: Sony

Developer: Sony Bend Studio Publisher: Sony Platforms: PlayStation 4

The amazing success of its first Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) hampered this game, as did a couple of years of delays. By the time it came out, many were sick of it, and it suffered from having some of the worst bugs I’ve ever seen in a triple-A game. Others wrong wrote it off as a copycat of The Walking Dead, World War Z, and The Last of Us.

But I admired Sony’s guts in standing by Bend Studio, and I stuck by it too as my colleagues ragged on it. I played it for perhaps 50 hours over several weeks, and I was quite possibly the last critic to review the game. I rated it only as a 75, because of the bugs. But without them, it would have been more like a 90, based on the quality of its story and the thrill of fighting the hordes of zombies, or Freakers.

I was drawn to the story of Deacon St. John, a bounty hunter in the Oregon woods and a broken man in a fallen world. He had a death wish and could ride a motorcycle through a horde of zombies just to get them to chase him. But Bend Studio delivered on the big scene where a few hundred zombies chased the biker through an abandoned lumber mill. It was a thrill to figure out how to beat that challenge, and I was hooked on the story of how Deacon was haunted by the memory of his lost love Sarah.

The adventure took me across the beautiful Oregon landscape into horrifying creature battles, motorcycle chases, infected crows, memorable horde battles, stealth missions tracking the secretive government agency, and just plain-old surviving in the wilderness. It was kind of an art to orchestrate your escape from several hundred Freakers. And it was good to see Deacon change and become the person that Sarah would have wanted him to be.

7) Steel Division 2

Above: Your forces appear as icons when you zoom out in Steel Division 2.

Image Credit: Eugen Systems

Developer: Eugen Systems Publisher: Eugen Systems Platforms: Windows 

There are no Metacritic reviews for Steel Battalion 2. I may have been the only one who played it. But I saw the game being played on YouTube by some dedicated influencers with tiny audiences. And I was fascinated. I’ve been playing the Total War series of real-time strategy games since they first debuted more than 15 years ago, and I played Total War: Attila for hundreds of hours in 2015.

And I was glad to pour scores of hours into it this summer into Eugen Systems’ real-time strategy World War II games, which are a niche within a niche. It dwells on a bit of war history I didn’t know much about, Operation Bagration. It was the Soviet Union’s huge summer offensive in Belarus to take back big chunks of Eastern Europe from the Nazis, as the Allied invasion of Normandy was gathering steam in 1944. It was a massive set of tank, infantry, and air battles that left the German Wehrmacht in full retreat on the Eastern Front.

It has a steep learning curve. The game has more than 600 historically accurate units, 18 divisions, and an astounding level of detail in its graphics. You can focus in on an individual scene, such as above, or zoom out to get a birds’ eye view of an entire battle with thousands of soldiers. Your job as general is to constantly feed the right kind of troops into the fray to make the enemy’s forces melt away from you. This is easier said than done, as you can dislodge well-trained enemy squads from a forest trench, even if you’ve got superior armor. The enemy AI is smart, taking out your anti-tank guns on a hill with artillery or air power.

I lost dozens of skirmish matches against the AI before I figured out how to win. On top of the tactical battles, I also got hooked on the Army General mode, where you moved around divisions like chess pieces on a map. But you can still choose to play those huge campaigns, one tactical battle at a time. That’s what is amazing about the title.

6) Gears of War 5

Above: Kait gets here close-up.

Image Credit: Microsoft

Developer: The Coalition Publisher: Microsoft Platforms: Windows, Xbox One

Coalition head Rod Fergusson humbly said that Gears 5 was the best entry yet in the Gears saga. And he wasn’t making that up. I was gratified to see the developer get the balance right when it came to creating a wild action game with an emotional story with strong characters such as the hero, Kait Diaz.

Gears 4 got pretty goofy at certain points in its narrative about the human race losing its battle for survival against the Swarm in a world gone mad. But this story balanced that goofiness that brought us chainsaw bayonets with the moments where you mourn the death of a lost friend. These are tough moments because the cast of characters has survived some very tough times, and they’re a close-knit group. When you rip a character out of that group, it leaves deep wounds.

The campaign’s longer than usual, and it features cool features such as a skiff that sails across both the desert and ice. shoot out the ice under the feet of the Scions, the heavy tank bosses that carry a heavy weapon and are often shielded from attack by flying drones. This was very different from past Gears games. I remember spending an hour battling a blind boss, slowly figuring out a kind of choreography to stay out of its way, replenish my ammo, grab new weapons, and spray it with the frosty freeze guns. The title also had some cool additions to multiplayer and co-op play.

Gears 5 delivers a sense that you’re losing a big war at the same time it delivers the blow of a personal loss. And it generates a resolve to hit back. I like how this team outgrew its urges to be goofy and shocking and instead opted for something closer to fine art.

The post The DeanBeat: My favorite games of 2019 appeared first on Actu Trends.

[connecticut-seo-adwords]

6 CRO and SEO Lessons from Top Speakers at MozCon and Conversion Jam

I just got back from speaking at MozCon the top SEO conference in the US and ConversionJam, the largest CRO conference in the world, and wow did I learn a lot. Both MozCon and ConversionJam were jam packed with inspiring speakers, extremely interesting sessions, actionable content and powerful takeaways I just couldn’t let fly by without sharing them with you guys. Below is a summary of some my favorite sessions, the top CRO and SEO lessons that included powerful tips and resources about conversion optimization, UX and SEO.

Link Building’s Tipping Point / by Rand Fishkin

It comes as no surprise that Rand’s session was a great one. As someone who isn’t a full time SEO peep, I found his tips to be incredibly helpful, actionable, simple to execute for and very profound. Rand gave us a deeper look at the link building world, rather than thinking of it as tactics, he introduced 5 long-term link strategies that work for the most successful companies in the world. In fact, Rand says these strategies are adopted by the vast majority of companies in the world and those using them correctly see great results. These are the strategies he mentioned that gave me some amazing ideas for my own site and for Banana Splash’s strategy:

The community path

The press and media path

The embed path

The partnership/alliance path

The content marketing path

Rand went on to sharing his top 10 hacks for link building, and as he should, made a point of reminding us that the best way to utilize these hacks is by connecting them to larger strategy. There are my favorite hacks that he shared:

Republishing Content – One of the most used tactics for promoting content and getting links is republishing content on platforms such as Medium and Linkedin. The key to success here, isn’t simply copying and pasting your content on these platforms (which is what most marketers do) but re-writing or editing the article and only then publishing it on these platforms.  

Anchor Text in Bio Links – Use anchor text links in your bio to promote certain links. Anchor links still work really well for rankings as Rand showed us how he promoted his wife’s blog in his own bio and got ranked for new search terms.

Using Local Links– This is an awesome way to find new sites you want to get a link at according to location. First find your two most popular competitors in your region, then combine their names with your region as a search query and discover new relevant websites that could recommend you too.

Giving Testimonials & Case studies – another awesome way to get links is with testimonials and case studies. Usually we just ask our partners and clients to write something for our site, however, by writing a testimonial, review or case study for their site, you get a direct link to yours.

Get the full slides and examples here.

29 Advanced Google Tag Manager Tips Every Marketer Should Know / by Mike Arnesen

In probably the most actionable session I’ve seen in ages, Mike Arnesen blew us away with some amazing tips about Google Tag Manager. Mike basically covered 29 ways we can up level our GTM usage, track better and become smarter marketers. Some of my favorite tips included:

Mike started off by helping us make sure that GTM is present on all the most important pages of our site. To do so he used ScreamingFrog which is a great tool all marketers should check out.

One of my personal favorite tips he shared (#3) was a way to track the most valuable clicks on our site (the ones we care about) without involving a development team/person. This to me is one of the most important tips as there is nothing more frustrating than waiting on someone else such a developer to get things done. It’s frustrating and makes it even harder to launch tests which is why we built Banana Splash the way we did – designers and developers free.

Mike went on to show us how to track file downloads, outbound clicks, merge GA and CRM data and most importantly how to configure cross-domain & subdomain tracking all in one session!  Check out Mike’s incredible list of tips, links, screenshots, videos and tutorials here.

How to Be Specific: From-The-Trenches Lessons in High-Converting Copy / by Joanna Wiebe

Another great session that came as no surprise was by Joanna Wiebe of CopyHackers. In her session Joanna gave us some great actionable tips on how to grab our customer’s attention in email marketing and get them to perform an action rather than closing our email and never opening it again.

The first rule is simple yet extremely important – Make it obviously about me. This is also one of the main pillars of the emotional targeting and persuasive design course and probably why I connect with it so well. It’s easier to pay attention when it’s obviously about me. Walking us through an entire case study with Wistia, Joanna showed us how they optimized Wisita’s email campaigns for higher conversions by feeding their customer’s ego, connecting the email to their life, empowering the customer and using a call to action button in first person.

The second rule was “connect the dots for “ME” and tell ME exactly what and HOW to do it”.

The third rule focused on it being easier to pay attention to what customers can visualize. This is where Joanna made it clear for all those who doubt – people read copy whether long or short if it helps them. If it doesn’t they won’t even read your short copy.

Get the full presentation to see the play-by-play of how Wistia increased their conversion rates here.

The Secrets of how Amazon Crushes the Competition / by Bryan Eisenberg

While most people analyze the tactics Amazon uses to increase their sales, Bryan who did the opening keynote for Conversion Jam focused on the strategies Amazon uses and how all marketers can and should use them. My favorite tips and strategies include:

Obsess about customers – Apparently, everyone at Amazon has to spend 2 days a year working with the customer success team answering emails, phone calls and helping customers out. This is one of the ways Amazon ensures that everyone within the company talks to customers and optimizes their specific work according to their needs and feedback. Whether you’re in marketing or maintenance, talking to customers matters.

Continuous optimization – every year Amazon runs over 1,900 experiments. They don’t test variations for the sake of testing, instead they test big ideas addressing the little things that change processes within the company, for example “the ready to buy area”. The key to testing at Amazon is that they don’t just test for design, they test to change their business. Each test tells them more about their customers and helps them optimize their tactical operations such as shipping, packaging and much more.

Culture of innovation – Amazon spend a LOT on research, investing in new categories and ideas. As my favorite saying goes, Conversion optimization is not about your website, it’s about every part of the experience – finance, returns, customer success and more. Everything needs to be optimized in the company, from the cleaning process to marketing and robots that deliver the products. It’s all about customer experience and Amazon is nailing it.

Top 7 ways to sabotage your Google Analytics data / by Annie Cushing

Annie gave us the ins and outs of Google Analytics. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen her on stage and I absolutely love how nerdy she gets about data. She LOVES it and has a great way of teaching marketers on all levels how to take their GA skills to the next level. My favorite tips from this session include:

You know that annoying feeling you get when you check Google Analytics for traffic sources and just just “direct” or “other”? Well there’s a quick fix to reducing the amount in these channels by tagging all links you publish on social sites and email with campaign tags. It’s an awesome and simple solution that will prevent email traffic for example from showing up as direct traffic without these tags.

Another great tip for the channels issue and for finding misstagged campaigns is checking your (Other) channel in the Channels report by switching primary dimension to medium.

A last great tip from Annie that is true not only for Google Analytics data is simple: Don’t send your visitors away to do what you want them to do most (check out, sign up for an event, book a hotel, etc.). They take their most critical data with them!

Annie has a huge amount of , online courses and templates for rocking Google Analytics. Be sure to check them out.

One Click & Nothing to Purchase; Redefining News Media CRO / by Unn Swanström

Watching Unn on stage was a lot of fun. As a UX designer, she shared her experience working for some major publishers in Sweden and gave us a look into what she’s been testing to optimize content sites and blogs. Her most relevant tips discussed metrics you should follow and behavior to look out for:

How to give relevant recommendations:  It’s about understanding who your reader is and how you can create a better experience for them with relevant recommendations. To do that, Unn suggests to look at your data and start asking your customers questions that will start identify different segments and categories of readers that use your service in similar ways. Once you know what they’re doing and reading on your site, you can highlight those behaviors and encourage them even more.

Check: Are visitors really reading? Another important aspect for content sites and blogs is understanding not just what people are reading but how far they scroll, the time the spend on the site and how fast or slow they scroll. Don’t just look at one metric (time on site), get the whole picture of how people read and then optimize those sections in need.

Retention – The key to a better reading experience is giving readers a good experience in and to do that you have to combine the two most important parts of research: Quantitative data and qualitative data.

So, those were my top CRO and SEO lessons from these great conference I’ve spoken at. The last session I’ll share with you is my own.

The Mobile CRO Equation – How to turn more mobile visitors into customers

During this session I dug into the importance of understanding that mobile visitors are not mini desktop visitors. Because most marketers design for desktop and adapt to mobile, there’s a 270% gap in conversions. Which is why we have to start optimizing for a dedicated mobile experience.

My main points covered the psychological and behavioral differences between someone on their phone and someone on desktop, why we must create a personalized experience for mobile visitors and how to do so with the mobile web equation:

Mapping out the 4 most critical stages of a mobile journey, I showed how to address key pain points within your mobile funnel and how to optimize for them.

My next stop is at Google’s LCS Conversions event where I’ll be meeting the talented web psychologist Nathalie Nahai and the brilliant optimizer Craig Sullivan for 2 full days of mobile web and cross device optimization.

Stay tuned for some additional tips and sessions from my next conferences.

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https://getuplift.co/6-cro-and-seo-lessons-from-top-speakers-at-mozcon-and-conversion-jam/

[jesusraphael43-blog]

7 TOP CRYPTOCURRENCY To speculate Moreover BITCOIN 2018-18

$168 million USD. This success translated into market exercise once the coin acquired listed on exchanges. Hackers have gained unauthorized entry to digital wallets and best cryptocurrency exchange cryptocompare exchanges. Most on-line wallets are very safe. December is also the month that many are extremely busy on their works, household and holidays. They think credit score cards are cumbersome. $5,000 in components and, whereas not originally designed for bitcoin mining, it uses two high-powered graphics playing cards which are well suited to solving cryptographic puzzles. Monitor the progress of your ether funding and other cryptocurrency investments - together with bitcoin and fiat - all in one place. Computers meshed together by digital networks have transcended the system that built them becoming a brand new actuality, a place where duplicating and shifting info has near zero marginal value. Another danger would be if banks choose not to utilize Ripple's digital assets (which means the XRP coins), while merely using the Ripple protocol/fee system. Banks, nonetheless, appear to like Ripple. Nevertheless, the day governments will start controlling Bitcoin, the worth of bitcoins could get adversely affected. Anybody can examine the public log of Nakamoto’s Bitcoin deal with, which exhibits roughly 1 million Bitcoins. But what makes this "second-tier" blockchain completely different from bitcoin?

Learn level 2 for a clearer picture of blockchain transactions. Lee essentially aimed to chop the amount of time required to verify new transactions. The miner will get a reward of a particular amount of cryptocurrency. Bitmain's new Antminer A3 may muscle in on the Siacoin mining market earlier than Obelisk can ship it's flagship SC1 miner. With a race to unleash Bitcoin futures and Bitcoin-primarily based ETF's, we are able to anticipate their appearance by 2018. Up until now, institutional buyers have avoided the cryptocurrency market as a consequence of its comparatively small size, the structure of mandates and volatility. No one owns the Bitcoin community, it owns itself. One of many keynote speakers of Blockchain & Bitcoin Conference will be the main blockchain and cryptocurrency lobbyist in the Swedish Parliament Mathias Sundin. But as the blockchain concept integrates further into our everyday lives, look for NEM to potentially make an enormous splash. The venture devteam says that Ethereum users will receive about 116 million ETZ tokens, where 1 ETZ is equal to one ETH. He admits he didn’t have any expertise in the field, but nobody really did, because it was the brand new business motion. 2 Cryptocurrency Supported by Ledger wallet2.Zero.1 Bitcoin cash: Bitcoin cash One of the golden alternative for investors.

At the beginning, the Australian government has introduced they may change the way GST on Bitcoin is calculated, as they need to keep away from double taxation sooner or later. I'll update this listing in Future. FxWirePro sees a risk for the pair to achieve 5.Thirteen (Might 27th 2016 excessive), while on the lower facet assist is round 4 and break below will target 3.50/3. Total trend stays positive. The market did not appear to be terrified of the Bitcoin Cash break up, and in reality the worth rose to an all time excessive simply prior to August 1st, as everyone wished to obtain their "free coins". On August 11, a leading manager of gold-related investment funds filed for a bitcoin-related exchange-traded fund with the U.S. With Ethereum, a piece of code could mechanically transfer the home possession to the purchaser and the funds to the vendor after a deal is agreed upon with out needing a third party to execute on their behalf. Bitcoinist: How do you be sure that the vendor will ship you bitcoin and how do you confirm traders? Virtually all people heard by now about Bitcoin you hear about it in the information, on the road and even in films or Television series.

Even then, THERE Are not any Ensures! However, they don't seem to be limited to Ethereum solely as miners additionally dig for different cryptocoins. Just like depositing cash in the bank or buying a stock, you retain your cryptocoins in a digital account often called a wallet ( bank account ), which helps you to store, obtain, and ship them. Massive thinkers like Patrick Lin, Fritz Alhoff and Neil C. Rowe have coauthored several articles, such as Is It Attainable to Wage a Just Cyber Conflict? Trading and investing in cryptocurrency could have the potential for an enormous payday. Forex and CryptoCurrency Alerts. 6. A-J can vote annually on important choices that have an effect on the distribution of healthcare services. Ultimately, folks might be ready to make use of their mobile units to register a plot of land with GPS accuracy, file a declare, register a dispute, promote or buy land. BC will stand for "Before Crypto" and AC will stand for "After Crypto". This market cap is just on the 39% of the obtainable Sprint! This is higher than any developed nation, where on average money utilization rates are solely 30 percent.

For example in this simplified example that X and Y are not reimbursed for his or her companies, but by A-J's health outcomes (in ancient China, physicians were paid when their patients have been wholesome, not when they were sick). For extra information concerning the Pre-sale, please go to this complete eMunie Pre-sale FAQ thread. If all of this stuff take place, the IMF authors believe that banks may integrate cryptocurrencies efficiently. Their privateness protection is just not only solid in securing your funds, but in all of the things that you do on an escrow platform. It is usually Tor and Tails OS suitable for additional privacy. However, the huge world attain of CoinMama is probably the most important purpose for its success. Nevertheless, the same aspect has been rising as the key concern of many governments. We consider that if you don't get it, it sounds shady. 3. Complete Two-issue Authentication. You'd pay a dollar.

[thecloudlight-blog]

New Post has been published on Cloudlight

New Post has been published on https://cloudlight.biz/facebook-announces-updates-to-instant-games/

Facebook announces updates to Instant games

At its F8 conference today, Facebook announced a slew of updates aimed in the direction of making the chores concerned at the game developers give up, less difficult. The business enterprise also introduced a collection of APIs so that it will together assist power sharing & linked gameplay on the platform.

Gaming has slowly grown to occupy a critical role at Facebook. With the massive audience Facebook has at its command, nearly whatever it launches becomes a success. This is in particular genuine whilst that something is games. The organization first introduced games past due to the last yr and says that they have got been an instantaneous hit. Indeed, in accordance tot eh enterprise, over 1.5B video games had been played on Instant Games across Messenger and Facebook News Feed within the final ninety days.

In a bid to capitalize on this boom, Facebook has released a group of brand new capabilities. First up is something it calls Rich gameplay features, which aims to present developers more control of the gaming reports being created via them. Now, developers can select and customize their personal begin and stop displays. They cal also combine a whole bunch of new APIs which could assist pressure percentage & linked gameplay.

The enterprise is probably planning to go beyond lightweight gaming soon as properly. As in keeping with Facebook:

Rich gameplay capabilities are laying the basis to support a wider variety of games that extend past the light-weight, score-primarily based games presently presented at the platform.

There are other updates as well. For instance, Zynga will now allow gamers to share exquisite in-game wordplay moments at once within their Messenger threads. Sharing in-game wordplay moments! Who would have thought the sort of factor possible?

Facebook is also developing with a brand new games tab, to be able to allow gamers to effortlessly and fast discover new video games. Finally, bots will make sure that gamers can stay related with their games even when they’re now not playing via messenger.

Introduction to Facebook Live

When it involves a way to put it up for sale on Facebook, we are used to the plain strategies with Facebook Ads and the usage of pixels. If you have not heard of live streaming yet, then you definitely need to were residing under a rock.

This lets you talk with that audience in a live fashion or even respond to remarks and that in flip makes this shape of conversation especially attractive and intimate.

For an internet marketer, this is the closest you will ever come to being able to knock on a person’s door and tell them exactly why they can buy your product.

If you are constructing a private logo, then it’s an extremely good manner to build accept as true with and familiarity. And if you’re innovative, then you may do all varieties of high-quality things like taking your target market with you on hikes or bringing them to stay events.

Imagine being capable of making a seminar in your sales funnel where your students ought to simply ask questions? And wherein they knew you that you had been talking to them directly at that very moment! One extra aspect that makes a live video so interesting for entrepreneurs is the easy reality that it is so new and so exciting.

If you are a marketer trying to make a massive splash on-line

Then this tool can help to offer you a big head start. People need stay content and they’re especially excited for it.

For an internet marketer, this is the nearest you may ever come to being able to knock on someone’s door and inform them exactly why they can buy your product. If you are constructing a non-public emblem, then it is a top notch manner to construct consider and familiarity.

If you’re a marketer looking to make a huge splash on-line, then this tool can assist to provide you a huge head start. People want to stay content and they’re enormously excited for it.

After all, there are tons of coverage of stay content inside the media and everybody is talking approximately it. But right now, now not that many marketers or bloggers are growing a stay video.

How to Get Instant and Harder Erections Naturally

Do you get susceptible or gentle erections?

If so, you aren’t alone. ED is immensely common amongst men. Weak or soft erections can make it nearly not possible for you to have wonderful intercourse with your girl. The erectile disorder can stem from lots of factors and problems that may be extensively divided into physical and mental factors.

However, it’s far possible to get a rock solid erection even without the use of capsules like Viagra and Cialis. The trouble with such drugs is that they will have loads of side results. They aren’t suitable for all men and ought to no longer be taken without consulting a doctor.

Listed under are a few simple methods to reinforce your sexual efficiency so you can experience immediately and tougher erections:

1. Workout Regularly

First and principal, start operating out often so that a good amount of blood flows at some stage in your frame. Good blood circulate is the key to getting a rock strong erection as well as a strong libido. Lack of exercising tends to sluggish down blood drift to your frame. Not simply this, plaque built up in the arteries influences each your coronary heart and penis situation.

Anything that affects your heart impacts your penis too. There’s a deep connection between your coronary heart situation and penis fitness. Moreover, excess fats constructed up lowers testosterone stages in your body by using changing it into estrogen.

Begin your day with a fitness center exercising. Strength education is the first-rate approaches to boost each blood glide and testosterone in your body. Join a gymnasium and try to frequent it for at least 4-five days every week. Trust me, inside some days you’ll be able to observe a massive difference in your erection hardness.

2. Just Relax

A lot of men go through ED because of mental motives along with strain and tension. Performance tension is greater, not unusual amongst younger men and it could cause them to a whole failure and an unmarried failure can place you beneath a number of stress which can make matters worse.

So, when you have failed to carry out once, just relax and it’s quite feasible that you won’t have a trouble acting the subsequent time. Try a few test strategies together with yoga and meditation to help get higher manage over your nerves. Yoga, specifically, can help enhance blood glide as well as assist you to increase better breath manipulate which is available in handy while seeking to remaining longer at some stage in sex.

3. Try Nitric Oxide Boosting Foods

Nitric oxide acts as a catalyst and facilitates improve blood flow to the penis with the aid of dilating blood vessels. Nitric oxide secretion to your body declines with age resulting in erectile disease. There are a few foods which could help raise the manufacturing of this intercourse chemical. Some of such foods include the following:

darkish cocoa pomegranates watermelon spinach oranges beets etc. Pomegranate juice is a tremendous libido booster and erection enhancer. Try to have a pitcher of this juice with your breakfast and see what it may do for your erections, within some days.

4. Try Natural Male Enhancement Pills

Last, however not the least, you may strive herbal or herbal male enhancement capsules. Such capsules are your safest bet while trying to recover from ED. However, you need to pick the proper one in view that the selection is overwhelming. Pills that incorporates powerful and strong herbs and other natural elements like Bioperine make sure faster and better outcomes.

Such drugs can boost your intercourse force and help you get immediately and rock solid erections, They can also increase your staying electricity with time. However, such drugs aren’t magical healing procedures. They construct your frame’s reserves slowly and accurately. Thus, you should have them for at least 6-twelve months to get the pleasant outcomes.

Effects of Mobile Games On Human Life

There is a distinction among the mentioning of the kids these days and the way their dad and mom have been raised by way of their dad and mom. The major purpose of this distinction is the new scientific innovations. One of those innovations is the smartphone, the cell phones with huge screens of approximately six to 10 inches which have the capability of entertaining one on every occasion and however one desires it. As the hammer is to Thor, a cell telephone is to its owner. A person feels paralyzed whilst he’s faraway from his cell telephone.

Video games are and always had been the pinnacle-of-the-list supply of entertainment because of their invention.

If your appearance lower back, no longer far, but just a decade in the past, human beings used to play the video games at the bulky PCs. Next, play stations and X-boxes took over the video gaming international. Now cell phones, in absolutely everyone’s hands, are in the lead.

We can look at the ways the cellular video games are influencing human lives.

The tough estimate of the age organization this is more liable to play the video games is 10-25. They have a bit understanding of the realities of the world. That is the age while someone may have quite a few experience about how the things are inside the international, through journeying round and by way of interacting with the alternative contributors of the society. The video games have affected their peer relationships. They spend maximum in their time gambling on monitors They hardly take part in solving social troubles which affect their intercommunication talents.

[symbianosgames]

It might be called a grapple, or it might be called a hookshot. It might be bouncily elastic or responsively taut. It might launch you into a lazy swing or fling you towards the grapple point. There are many ways to express the concept of throwing out a line from a player character that attaches to a surface, something that’s familiar to many first- and third person 3D games, from Ocarina of Time to Spider-Man 2. 

But the hookshot is curiously underused in 2D platformers. Tribute Games’ new action-platformer, Flinthook, might give some pointers as to why. Not because Flinthook isn’t good. Quite the opposite, in fact. 

This Rogue-like about boarding procedurally generated spaceships and stealing their booty is built around the concept of hookshotting around its arena-like rooms. It seamlessly augments the standard platformer moveset of running and jumping; fluid and accessible, it’s also powerful, able to launch the player at speed across the room. But Flinthook’s hookshot is the result of months of design work, solving problems from controller mapping and aim-assist to the role it takes in the game. 

Tribute’s focus, after all, was for players to be able to focus entirely on the moment-to-moment action, dodging bullets and defeating enemies, not carefully aiming the hookshot. And the first challenge was designing the game’s controls, which took Tribute on something of a journey.

The Montreal-based studio had previously made Mercenary Kings, Wizorb, Ninja Senki DX and Curses ’N Chaos, all games with a decidedly console sensibility. So they naturally designed Flinthook first for controller. “The first prototypes we tested were a no-brainer,” says programmer and co-designer Jean-Francois Major. “Twin-stick, so you move around with the left stick and aim with the right.” 

But they immediately ran into issues. Prime among them was that the design ruled out the use of the face buttons, because players’ thumbs had to be kept on the right stick. 

The thing with Flinthook is that your little buccaneer has many different tools and abilities. You’re armed with a gun and the hookshot, and you can slow time as well as use consumable items. You can interact with objects, whether to buy items, pick them up or talk to NPCs, and, of course, you can jump. Flinthook needs a lot of buttons.

“So we were limiting ourselves to the bumper and triggers, and they’re tricky,” says Major. “Not a lot of people are able to use both a bumper and trigger at once; people tend to swap from one to the other with their finger and it felt awkward.”

Moreover, he found that playtesters would tend to aim and move with the sticks in the same direction, rather than use them independently. “So that’s when we decided to try to put both on the left stick, which would free up the face buttons and make the triggers available.” 

This is how Flinthook controls today, so you shoot and hookshot toward the direction you’re headed. While on paper it might sound limiting, even frustrating, that you can’t move and aim independently, in practice it feels natural. In fact, it helps reinforce the sense that this is a game about constant movement.

But Major wasn’t completely comfortable, worried that players used to twin-stick games would bring expectations to Flinthook. “We knew we needed to explain to people coming from The Binding of Isaac that it doesn’t play that way,” he says. The issue was compounded when, towards the end of production, they started to think about mouse and keyboard controls. 

They found themselves inescapably drawn towards using the mouse to aim, separating aim from movement again. They tried free aiming with the mouse cursor (but it relied too heavily on the player having to keep track of where it was) and locking the cursor to the player (it felt better but still required the player to look at it too much), and eventually settled on a final scheme in which you aim by simply swiping in that direction. 

“But by going that way we’re telling people it’s possible to have twin-sticks in our game, and now some people are asking why they can’t have it on the controller,” says Major. “People have expectations, and it’s hard to convince them that yeah, this is how you play this game. We see on forums people saying, ‘Oh, you should design your controls like this,’ but they don’t take into account that we already tried those things. There’s probably a way to squeeze it on a twin-stick controller but we’d have to sacrifice some things. With our button mapping we’re not sacrificing anything.”

Part of Flinthook’s fluidity is down to its animation, in which the rope loops out towards a ring and then put pulls the character to it as it latches on. And a lot is down to its auto-aim. “It’s not really that crazy,” says Major of how it works, but it looks in a 30-degree arc from the point the player is aiming at and then works out what hook-able elements are closest, which is most meaningful, and directly latches your hookshot onto it. Clean and reliable, it allows you to simply trust in it as you focus on the action.

In play it feels as if there are many things you can hook on to, but in fact there are only two types: rings scattered in every room, and enemies encased in a bubbles, which you need to pop by hooking before you can defeat them. This functional restraint smoothes out the logic behind what the game auto-aims at. In the case of a ring and a bubbled enemy being nearby, it’s most likely that’ll be the player’s priority. “Because if there’s a ring you don’t want them to hook onto it because it’ll pull them towards the enemy,” says Major.

That simplicity, once again, was down to exploring lots of different avenues for what the hookshot would be used. At one point it could collect coins and other drops (a feature that Tribute found slowed down the platforming). At another point it was a weapon that allowed the player to hookshot an enemy, grapple towards it and then melee attack it. It also took the form of a projectile that would deal damage without grappling the player towards the target. 

As they explored each, one idea that Tribute liked was having the hookshot take a leading part in a combo system in which you could chain together actions while in mid-air: you’d hookshot an enemy, staying frozen in position while you shot another, or took an extra jump, or grappled a ring to move somewhere new. 

“But what we found out was that it was better to have two separate abilities,” says Major. And so in the released game, the player’s weapon is a rapid-firing gun, and you can hookshot at the same time. The hookshot itself is almost instantaneous, extending fully in two frames. “That was really important in getting a good feel; it had to be really fast and decisive. Initially it was more physics-based and it didn’t feel as satisfying.”

And while that separation meant gutting the combo system, in its place is something more organic and momentum-based. Early on, players would stop moving once they reached the ring, but Tribute realized it felt good when their retained their impulse, and that they could add a splash of extra nuance by allowing them to cancel the hookshot mid-flight, keeping the impulse they’d collected so far.

That momentum supports the sense when playing Flinthook that you can – and should – be flying all the time. Its hookshot’s success lies in the way it feels so simple to use, folding smoothly into play, but it’s the result of hundreds of decisions, from small ones to huge, made across months and months of development. The hookshot is a familiar concept, but as Tribute found, there’s lots of design potential in it.

[universeinform-blog]

This Enterprise Software Unicorn Just Filed to Go Public

New Post has been published on https://universeinform.com/2017/03/15/this-enterprise-software-unicorn-just-filed-to-go-public/

This Enterprise Software Unicorn Just Filed to Go Public

Snap isn’t the most effective startup that thinks now is the time to move public. Corporation software program organization Okta officially filed for an IPO on Monday and plans to change on NASDAQ beneath the stock ticker “OKTA.”

Okta focuses on an identification management software program that facilitates groups maintain tune of which of their employees are gaining access to various apps and offerings. The startup is a member of Fortune’s Unicorn Listing of startups with stated valuations of over $1 billion. The business enterprise raised $seventy-five million in its most recent round of investment in Sep. 2015. Although identification management software program has long existed for IT directors, the upward thrust of cloud computing and diverse cloud software program services like Salesforce (CRM, -zero.12%) has made it tougher for companies to accurately tune of all that software and who’s using the diverse offerings. Get Facts Sheet, Fortune’s generation publication. Okta earned in $111.5 million in sales at some point of a 9-month term that ended on Oct. 31, 2016. That makes for a nearly 90% bounce in income from the $58.8 million it said in 2015 for the duration of the same term. However, the enterprise additionally reported a net loss of $65.three million throughout that 2016 nine-month duration, which was a 13.5% growth from the previous year.

Okta stated in its filings that its offerings were built on the pinnacle of Amazon’s (AMZN, -0.24%) cloud computing platform, Amazon Net offerings. businesses like Okta have essentially constructed cutting-edge-day variations of the identity management software program that paintings with numerous cloud apps and offerings and not just the software in an organization’s internal Records centers. Its closest competition areOneLogin and Ping identity, which non-public equity company Vista equity Companions said it would gather in June

Regions of Company in Leatherwork

Leatherwork as a subject of the visual arts has numerous viable organizations. Those corporations provide several career opportunities to many human beings within the Ghanaian community. College students of leatherwork with their practical expertise can set up their very own small-scale industries to cater for themselves and their families and more importantly even employ different humans. Those Areas of organizations in leatherwork do not require big capital for one to establish an Organization. In fact, a man or woman can begin the business right from his residence with a small table and a few hand gear and substances. Let us use this unit to highlight some of These Regions of businesses in leatherwork.

A number of the Regions of corporations in leatherwork are: 1. Tanning 2. Upholstering 3. Designing and making leather gadgets four . Buying and selling leather gadgets

Tanning-

This location of Organisation deals with the manufacturing of leather-based as a fabric. It’s far answerable for the processing of hides and skins into leather-based. The leather-based artist can set up his personal tannery as a Corporation in which he would perform. Putting in place a tannery even though pretty disturbing, generates quite a few income. The artist must assume seriously approximately the vicinity, capital, and hard workforce in view that Those factors will largely affect the success or failure of his tannery Corporation.

Upholstering–

This zone of leatherwork issues itself with the production of appropriate furnishes for houses, places of work, and more especially vehicles. It is a completely huge vicinity that offers numerous process avenues for leather-based craftsmen. They produce furniture, foot and arm rest, table mats, car seating, floral vases for decoration and so forth. With cautious making plans, this Business enterprise booms a number of profits for the leather craftsman.

Designing And Making Of leather items-

This region of Employer deals with the production of products in leather. It embraces its designing as well as actual productions of the gadgets. This duo-Corporation is large earnings generating mission. The leather craftsman may even pick out to perform in one among them for each of them guarantees economic prosperity.

The development in a generation has opened a brand new form of designing of merchandise in leather-based at the laptop using art software program programs along with CorelDraw, Adobe Photoshop, Rhino, etc. A leather-based craftsman who’s professional inside the use of any of those applications could make a residing from it. Before merchandise together with baggage, footwear, slippers, furniture and others are produced, the preliminary designs are made by experts in this location of Enterprise. The actual producers of this merchandise additionally earn loads of profits. There are even specialties inside the manufacturing of those objects inclusive of shoe manufacturers, bag producers, furniture manufacturers, belt producers etc.

Trading In leather items-

This factor of leatherwork offers employment to several humans whether or not or not they realize a good deal approximately leatherwork. They trade or provide leather-based merchandise on the market. Most of the leather investors sell the leather-based items locally, mainly in ‘warm’ or thriving market facilities within the united states of America whilst others export the leather-based products out of doors u . S . to earn overseas currencies.

To be powerful on this Corporation, the dealer in leatherwork must be versed in costing, pricing, and advertising. He has to be capable of recognizing which leather merchandise to sell, in which to promote them, a way to promote them and while to promote them. Armed with this information, he is set on the street to achievement on this Enterprise.

Unfastened Software program – Or Perhaps Now not

So, I, in the end, decided to splash out on some new Film Maker or Video Enhancing Software. Like the general public probably might I opted to do a niche of studies earlier than I devoted. I would as an alternative have right Unfastened Software program if I’m able to get it but I am also prepared to pay for it if required.

Everybody having gone thru this painful exercising earlier than will appreciate how time eating it’s far. First off you have to beware of all the ones helpful folk who creatively provide an explanation for how notable this or that Software program is – normally underneath a title inclusive of “Pinnacle Free Video Editors” or “First-class Unfastened Film Editing Programs” or comparable engaging titles which in the end turn out to be a bias write up and a referral link to the provider via their fee account URL.

From time to time it will become quite clear that the writer has No longer even bothered to download and use the Software program. Once they have used the Software program the prejudice is frequently continually toward their Satisfactory commission provider. This does not trouble me an excessive amount of.

What does trouble me is the blatant advertising of merchandise below the banner of “Loose Software program” that you either need to download to discover that 1/2 the functions do No longer work unless you choose the overall improve or After they mean “Loose” they have been regarding the 30-day trial.

Suffice to mention that all of us become downloading heaps of vain Software handiest to should uninstall all of it again. I have made an aware choice to no longer take a look at the Unfastened Software unless it comes via recommendation. It virtually isn’t really worth all of the hassle, deceit and damaged promises.

Legends of the Unicorn – Symbolism, and Meaning

Unicorn is one of the most popular mythical creatures that seem to exist in lots of subcultures. In the West, the unicorn is usually portrayed as a slim, white lovely horse with a spiraling horn on its forehead. Unicorns appear best to the pure at heart in step with a few legend, this is perhaps why so few folks have seen one. Although the behavior and appearance of the unicorn differ depending on the vicinity, it became normally considered untamable and wild Inside the Western world, even as Within the Orient it turned into gentle, peaceful, meek and stated to be the bringer of right good fortune.

Within the West the unicorn turned into first mentioned by way of a Greek physician and historian of Persia and India, Ctesias, in 398 BC. in step with him, unicorns lived in India. Ctesias described the creatures as “wild asses which can be as massive as a horse, or even larger. Their heads are dark red, they are our bodies are white and their eyes are deep blue. The horn on their brow is quite lengthy, approximately 1/2-a-meter lengthy”. The horn became additionally described as white at the base, dark brown or black In the middle and with a crimson, sharp tip. Humans believed that the horn possesses healing abilities. It became quite elegant amongst royalty and the Aristocracy Within the middle A while to personal and ingesting cup manufactured from the horn of unicorn since it was imagined to discover poison. The animal appears to be a combination of a Himalayan antelope, Indian rhinoceros, and the wild ass.

In China, their unicorn is called as Qilin or Chili/ Klein. The Chinese language unicorn seems as one of the 4 sacred beasts: Qilin, Phoenix, Dragon and the Tortoise. Qilin is likewise considered as a creature of extremely good energy and knowledge. Its look turned into usually considered a sign of right success. The Chinese language considers that Qilin can handiest appear at some point of the time while there is a sensible and type ruler or during the time when these tremendous leaders are about to die or being born.

In the West, a unicorn is an image of electricity, agility, patience, know-how, perseverance and playfulness. It also represents desire, purity, grace and love. even as in China, this sacred creature is an image of accurate luck, protection and wisdom.

[symbianosgames]

It might be called a grapple, or it might be called a hookshot. It might be bouncily elastic or responsively taut. It might launch you into a lazy swing or fling you towards the grapple point. There are many ways to express the concept of throwing out a line from a player character that attaches to a surface, something that’s familiar to many first- and third person 3D games, from Ocarina of Time to Spider-Man 2. 

But the hookshot is curiously underused in 2D platformers. Tribute Games’ new action-platformer, Flinthook, might give some pointers as to why. Not because Flinthook isn’t good. Quite the opposite, in fact. 

This Rogue-like about boarding procedurally generated spaceships and stealing their booty is built around the concept of hookshotting around its arena-like rooms. It seamlessly augments the standard platformer moveset of running and jumping; fluid and accessible, it’s also powerful, able to launch the player at speed across the room. But Flinthook’s hookshot is the result of months of design work, solving problems from controller mapping and aim-assist to the role it takes in the game. 

Tribute’s focus, after all, was for players to be able to focus entirely on the moment-to-moment action, dodging bullets and defeating enemies, not carefully aiming the hookshot. And the first challenge was designing the game’s controls, which took Tribute on something of a journey.

The Montreal-based studio had previously made Mercenary Kings, Wizorb, Ninja Senki DX and Curses ’N Chaos, all games with a decidedly console sensibility. So they naturally designed Flinthook first for controller. “The first prototypes we tested were a no-brainer,” says programmer and co-designer Jean-Francois Major. “Twin-stick, so you move around with the left stick and aim with the right.” 

But they immediately ran into issues. Prime among them was that the design ruled out the use of the face buttons, because players’ thumbs had to be kept on the right stick. 

The thing with Flinthook is that your little buccaneer has many different tools and abilities. You’re armed with a gun and the hookshot, and you can slow time as well as use consumable items. You can interact with objects, whether to buy items, pick them up or talk to NPCs, and, of course, you can jump. Flinthook needs a lot of buttons.

“So we were limiting ourselves to the bumper and triggers, and they’re tricky,” says Major. “Not a lot of people are able to use both a bumper and trigger at once; people tend to swap from one to the other with their finger and it felt awkward.”

Moreover, he found that playtesters would tend to aim and move with the sticks in the same direction, rather than use them independently. “So that’s when we decided to try to put both on the left stick, which would free up the face buttons and make the triggers available.” 

This is how Flinthook controls today, so you shoot and hookshot toward the direction you’re headed. While on paper it might sound limiting, even frustrating, that you can’t move and aim independently, in practice it feels natural. In fact, it helps reinforce the sense that this is a game about constant movement.

But Major wasn’t completely comfortable, worried that players used to twin-stick games would bring expectations to Flinthook. “We knew we needed to explain to people coming from The Binding of Isaac that it doesn’t play that way,” he says. The issue was compounded when, towards the end of production, they started to think about mouse and keyboard controls. 

They found themselves inescapably drawn towards using the mouse to aim, separating aim from movement again. They tried free aiming with the mouse cursor (but it relied too heavily on the player having to keep track of where it was) and locking the cursor to the player (it felt better but still required the player to look at it too much), and eventually settled on a final scheme in which you aim by simply swiping in that direction. 

“But by going that way we’re telling people it’s possible to have twin-sticks in our game, and now some people are asking why they can’t have it on the controller,” says Major. “People have expectations, and it’s hard to convince them that yeah, this is how you play this game. We see on forums people saying, ‘Oh, you should design your controls like this,’ but they don’t take into account that we already tried those things. There’s probably a way to squeeze it on a twin-stick controller but we’d have to sacrifice some things. With our button mapping we’re not sacrificing anything.”

Part of Flinthook’s fluidity is down to its animation, in which the rope loops out towards a ring and then put pulls the character to it as it latches on. And a lot is down to its auto-aim. “It’s not really that crazy,” says Major of how it works, but it looks in a 30-degree arc from the point the player is aiming at and then works out what hook-able elements are closest, which is most meaningful, and directly latches your hookshot onto it. Clean and reliable, it allows you to simply trust in it as you focus on the action.

In play it feels as if there are many things you can hook on to, but in fact there are only two types: rings scattered in every room, and enemies encased in a bubbles, which you need to pop by hooking before you can defeat them. This functional restraint smoothes out the logic behind what the game auto-aims at. In the case of a ring and a bubbled enemy being nearby, it’s most likely that’ll be the player’s priority. “Because if there’s a ring you don’t want them to hook onto it because it’ll pull them towards the enemy,” says Major.

That simplicity, once again, was down to exploring lots of different avenues for what the hookshot would be used. At one point it could collect coins and other drops (a feature that Tribute found slowed down the platforming). At another point it was a weapon that allowed the player to hookshot an enemy, grapple towards it and then melee attack it. It also took the form of a projectile that would deal damage without grappling the player towards the target. 

As they explored each, one idea that Tribute liked was having the hookshot take a leading part in a combo system in which you could chain together actions while in mid-air: you’d hookshot an enemy, staying frozen in position while you shot another, or took an extra jump, or grappled a ring to move somewhere new. 

“But what we found out was that it was better to have two separate abilities,” says Major. And so in the released game, the player’s weapon is a rapid-firing gun, and you can hookshot at the same time. The hookshot itself is almost instantaneous, extending fully in two frames. “That was really important in getting a good feel; it had to be really fast and decisive. Initially it was more physics-based and it didn’t feel as satisfying.”

And while that separation meant gutting the combo system, in its place is something more organic and momentum-based. Early on, players would stop moving once they reached the ring, but Tribute realized it felt good when their retained their impulse, and that they could add a splash of extra nuance by allowing them to cancel the hookshot mid-flight, keeping the impulse they’d collected so far.

That momentum supports the sense when playing Flinthook that you can – and should – be flying all the time. Its hookshot’s success lies in the way it feels so simple to use, folding smoothly into play, but it’s the result of hundreds of decisions, from small ones to huge, made across months and months of development. The hookshot is a familiar concept, but as Tribute found, there’s lots of design potential in it.