#FPS shooters were more my thing

[dream-of-kingz]

I finished Sonic x Shadow by some miracle

[reclinepilled]

needy, e.w.

cw: fluff!!! little angst, pet names (baby, beautiful, sweetheart, princess, gorgeous) like one curse word, reader yells at ellie, reader cries a teeny tiny bit, no masc/fem roles are established

desc: gamer!ellie is glued to her game while your patience runs short. also soft!ellie🙏.

a/n: happy march 1st guys! i wanted to share something i wrote while procrastinating some work. thanks for all the support on my last two posts. also the anon that sent in the request, im working on it <3 thank you for reading and reblogs are welcomed and greatly appreciateddd !

wc: 801 (i think)

PLEASE READ HERE ON INFORMATION ABOUT AND HOW TO HELP PALESTINE!!!

you try not to be so needy, you really do. however, your heart can't help but get a little heavy watching ellie completely ignore your presence on one of your days off. and she's not even ignoring you to study or work, it's to play her stupid games.

sure, you played your fair share of video games, as you had an undying love for that one genre. however, you didn't come over under the impression that you'd be getting lonely in her bed, angry, while occasionally letting out a frustrated sigh. she didn't pay attention to those, too busy yelling at her friends on whatever fps shooter she was glued to.

you got angrier and angrier thinking about it and listening to her mash the buttons on her keyboard and throw insults out into her mic. you swear you can feel the annoyance in your bloodstream. you just wanted to do skincare and facemasks, watch some movies, and maybe even bake with your girlfriend. you decide to put your anger aside and give her the benefit of the doubt. you get up from her bed to remind her of what you two had planned. maybe she forgot?

"ellie, baby?" you say as you grab her shoulder softly to get her attention. she glances up at you then moves her headset off one of her ears, "yea- jesse, what the hell! he was literally one hp!" she yells. "anyways, sorry, what's up?" ellie finally gives you two scoops of her attention. "el, i thought we were gonna spend time together..," you say, shifting your weight to one leg as you cross your arms. "yea, yea, of course. just give me five more minutes," ellie says as she turns back to her game. "you literally said that 30 minutes ago, el," you sigh. "i mean it this time," ellie turns to you, doing a puppy face jokingly.

any other time you would burst into a fit of laughter, however right now, you were genuinely pissed off. you stare at her for a few seconds in silence, she stares back. her face slowly drops as she realizes you're pretty upset. next thing you know, you've reached over and put her pc into sleep mode. "y/n! why!??" she whines like a teenage boy going through puberty. "because, i came over on my day off to spend time with you, i could be getting a manicure or something.. but i've spent nearly an hour and a half watching you play this shitty game!" you yell then you walk out of her room, fed up. you grab your bag next to the couch and start to put your belongings away.

"sweetheart! i'm sorry, i really am!" she says as she follows you out of the room. you ignore her, now putting your bag on your shoulder. "look," ellie comes in front of you and softly slides the bag off of your shoulder, she notices how you're still looking down. she gently grabs your shoulders while looking down at you with an apologetic look on her face, "i am so sorry, i just got caught up in the game. i enjoy you being here, and i find your presence so comforting, beautiful. i never meant to make you feel unappreciated, i'm sorry once again." she takes her hand and lifts your face up, and notices your tear stained cheeks.

ellie's heart quite honestly shattered into a million pieces, she didn't know she made you feel so bad but she understands now. "baby, we can do whatever you want," she pulls you into a meaningful embrace while rubbing your back. "els, i love you, sorry for yelling and overreacting-" she cuts you off, "no don't apologize, it was pretty justified, i was being dumb," she lets out an airy laugh, "i love you back, princess."

she could feel you smile against her chest and it felt like 10 tons were lifted off of her back. she pulls away to place a soft kiss on your forehead, then your nose, one on your cheek, and long one on your lips.

you straddle her on her bed while softly chuckling at the cute fuzzy animal headband you placed on ellie's head. you roll the jade roller all over her face, working in the serum you applied before. you can't help but admire how pretty she is. her constellations of freckles, each one so unique, her breathtaking deep eyes, and her long lashes you were so jealous of. little did you know, she was doing the same. you looked like a goddess from this angle, the light cascading down on your perfect figure emphasizing it. "hey baby?" ellie grabs your wrist. "yea, gorgeous?" you slightly lean back from her face, raising a brow.

"it's really hot when you yell at me."

reclinepilled

please do not plagiarize any of my works or post them on other websites without given permission !

[hellsite-yano]

STEAM NEXT FEST DEMOS I PLAYED:

>500 CALIBER CONTRACTZ Highlight of this list. Literally Super Mario 64 x Cruelty Squad with a Suda51 coat of paint. Highly recommend.

>Antishoot / Morn FPS games that feel terrible to play. Avoid.

>SAEKO: Giantess Dating Sim Title says it all. Pretty solid and unnerving writing.

>Mother Hub Like if the abandoned vaults in Fallout 3/NV were the whole game. Your enjoyment of this depends entirely on your tolerance for slavjank. I liked it tho.

>Year Unknown Good so far - if you've played games like Manifold Garden and NaissanceE you know what you're getting here. Combine that with the terminals from The Talos Principle and you get this game.

>Elation For The WonderBox 6000™ This is SHORT (less than 5mins) but I've had my eye on this for ages. The writing is very online but in a good way.

>Skyward Dream Kinda boring first-person platformer.

>THRESHOLD Another short one. Kinda reminds me of Pathologic but on the PS1. The grimy aesthetic is nailed down perfectly. If you liked Paratopic check this one out.

>Galaia Dev describes it as TUNIC x Enter the Gungeon but it's not really. Gameplay reminded more of Geometry Wars if anything. Was kinda fun but don't think I'll get this.

>BRUTAL JOHN Been seeing this around on twitter and avoided it due to it seeming bland. And I was right!

>Kitsune Tails SMB3 with a traditional japanese aesthetic. Solid and the characters are cute.

>Sparedevil A 'shooter' where you're in a bowling arena and need to knock down as many pins as possible. Couldn't really get the hang of this.

>I Am Your Beast SUPERHOT / Hotline Miami fans will want to check this one. I liked it but the story is presented pretty obnoxiously.

>Bloodless Beat 'em up where you play as an old samurai who doesn't use a sword (anymore). Gameplay takes a bit of getting used to but it's fun and the story's intriguing.

>Poke ALL Toads Puzzle game structured like Baba is You with really good and expressive art. Liked this one a lot.

>Caravan SandWitch One of those slow exploration-focused games like Sable. Liked the aesthetic and music but dialogue was a bit long-winded.

>ODDADA You play with toys to make music (and you can even save your creations offline). Very nice.

>B.C. Piezophile Control a weighty mech looking for a lost ship or something like that, the encyclopedia (yes, there's an encyclopedia) is written pretty esoterically so it's hard to figure some things out. Requires patience but got my eyes on the full release.

>Old School Rally PS1 styled racing game, takes a bit of getting used to the feel of the car, PROTIP: it's better to pump the brakes instead of holding them.

>Goblin Cleanup Viscera Cleanup Detail except you're a sexy goblin maid cleaning up a dungeon. Was pretty fun, especially online.

>Scarmonde Final Fantasy 1 but it's a dungeon crawler. Not my sort of game but if you're into this genre you'd probably like this.

>Bedrotting You're stuck in bed and got to keep yourself sane by eating, smoking, and not looking at the horrific abominations. Good stuff.

>Blue Prince You inherit a mansion and need to find the secret 46th room. Won't say too much about this because it's best discovered by yourself. Was very good though.

>Stardust Demon Didn't like the physics on this. Pass.

[savyir-genesizz-the-wizard]

gotta ask abt cogito & the cane, if you don't mind. even as a (phys) disabled person I have a hard time thinking of circumstances with D2 where disabilities wouldn't just be either a. healed by light or b. negligible with abilities or c. too much of risk on the field. hadn't given much thought to exos in regards to all that- I know pretty much nothing about exo anatomy either. I know we see some stuff with banshee's memory impairment, but that's not physical. au thing or did you find a way that the rep makes sense? /gen

Hello! So I think I've talked about it a few times in various Discord servers but didn't make a post so here are all my thoughts on this topic (as examplified by my oc(s))

Case A. Cogito is disabled because he was disabled before he died and it did not cause his death. His exo model is highly custom and a leg he kitbashed from a dead exo (when he was lightless) is very faulty (causes pain when he walks too much or runs, and sometimes doesn't bend).

This could also happen with human/awoken guardians (especially if they were born disabled). As Speaker said: "Devotion inspires bravery, bravery inspires sacrifice, sacrifice leads to death" - it would be fucked up if disabled people were somewhat except from that. If a guardian can be rezzed old (like Osiris) then it probably means that they get rezzed as they were at the point when they died so case closed.

Back to Cogito though - yes, light can help him as a mobility aid (he's a Warlock, he can fly pretty well) but obliviously can't always work (light restriction zones for example). And also yeah, it's very much a problem in the field sometimes. It's a big reason why he does solitary reaserch work and only raids with a big group.

Another example of this would be Kobzar-13 with his poor eyesight (this one is for me. I have very bad eyesight too tho it's not as bad, yet). His optics were damaged some time before he died so now it's like this. He could probably get them fixed but he just rolls with this. His ghost audio describes everything to him in his head which I think would be very cool.

Case B. Wawrzyniec is disabled (amputee) because his arm got cut of by Crota. Aka "various light restricting devices and light restricted zones". In this case soulfire. Cogito's scratch (on his head, I don't always draw them) also goes under this category.

This one is more of a stretch but I think that it's plausible. I guess that guardians more often die in these situations than escape disabled. There is also the fact that ghosts might be not able (or want) to heal certain injuries. You can say that Sloane is a lore example of this.

Another oc example of this would be Enebish who got burn scars and lost an eye during the Red War when the Traveler was caged. I don't really remember if anything was said about it at the time.

Bonus case C. I know that some people headcanon guardians getting disabled because of extended light usage. I personally don't think it makes sense and goes kinda against the healing power of light stuff. Case closed.

And about the non-guardians - multiple characters have these sci-fi prosthetics (Camrin's is super advanced and Variks'es is pretty shabby) that I imagine can depend of how much cash or girlfriend in STEM you have. Eramis even has ones for her both feet so the field must be pretty advanced. There is also brother Vance who is blind and clearly did pretty well (before he jumped into piramid zone and vanished forever (John Bungie, if you heal his eyesight I'll kill you)).

Bungie seems to be generally very indirect when it comes to showing disability. Except for PTSD. Which is to be expected from an fps shooter. Everyone wants a cool robot arm but no one wants to talk about the attitude to disability in different cultures.

Speaking of which - humanity is probably not much different then it's now. There are probably a lot of disabled veterans. I wonder if insulin is expensive in the Last City. Awoken and Cabal are probably weird about it. Neomuni, well, we've seen Maya Sundaresh. Eliksni are the most normal.

So yeah, that's all from me. Thanks for the ask!

[milkyruins]

## kim gyuvin x reader, TROPHY WIFE

warning, i've never played pubg in my life *puts on sunglasses*

summary: kim gyuvin might have an embarrassing amount of hours on pubg, but can he really beat his partner, the deadly streamer @/not.an_aimbot?

genre: fluff

content warnings: light cursing, fps/shooter games (violence/death/guns)

wc: ~0.8k

as soon as the webcam feed populated the screen, your comment section explodes. his eyes widen like a deer as he tries to catch whatever was being spammed in the chatbox.

"baby, say hi." regaining a bit of composure, gyuvin's normal cheery self comes back. he flashes your viewers that giant smile of his and waves at the webcam.

"woah, staring into this tiny camera is weird. anyways, i'm gyuvin, yn's-- or i guess you all know them as @/not.an_aimbot on here-- partner."

he pauses to stare at you, deadpanning hard. "have i ever told you how stupid your username is?"

you give his shoulder a light smack, which helps his grin return to his face. "hey! i'm just kidding! kind of!" to which he receives another smack.

"how dare you?! you've only been on stream for what... eight seconds and you're already trying to drag my username?" you puff your cheeks a bit in frustration.

"yeah. and?" he grabs your puffed cheeks and smushes them. hard. as you bark whine at him to stop, he decides to deal more damage. "it's like what a 11 year old boy who thinks they're good would name themselves."

after enduring his sweet gesture torturing for what felt like an eternity, he backs off. finally having your cheeks back in your custody, you continue trekking on. "i'm going to ignore that and move on then." you face the webcam again, eyes carefully trained on the lens. "gyu's here so i can deflate his massive ego via kicking his ass in pubg."

gyuvin huffs. "in your dreams."

"my user isn't just like that for show, y'know. i am pretty damn good."

he gives your hair a light ruffle, breaking character a bit. "i know you are, bubs. you're the best. but i have an embarrassing amount of hours on this game and i will not go down without fight." he proceeds to enter a fighting stance, fists up against the webcam.

and suddenly you're giggling like crazy because holy shit, your boyfriend was a dork. it seemed like your chat had the same idea. "ok loser, stop trying to fight the camera and enter the lobby."

-

"'aimbot's carrying as usual. gyuvin... he's trying.' @/not.a_luvbot, well said."

"hey!!" gyuvin grumbles, hands frantically smashing the keyboard for some avail. unfortunately, from the glimpses you took at his pov, it didn't seem to help. meanwhile, you were picking up kill after kill, but somehow couldn't find your partner, who you deeply desired to shoot dead.

"baby, where are you? i have a gift for you." you smile brighter than you have this entire stream when gyuvin shrieks at you to quote, "no!!!! take that gift and shove it up your a-".

since you were doing so well, you decide to take a hard-earned break to admire you boy. his little quirks when concentrating, like his eyebrow furrowing comically and him nibbling on his lower lip, were just so endearing. even the obnoxious rgb lighting of his headset highlighted his features breathtakingly. you give yourself a mental pat on the back for pulling this specimen of a partner.

but you had the gift of death to bestow on the egotist next to you, so you had to get to work. you move a bit so you're on some high ground and watch as your boyfriend, god bless his soul, hobbles into view. he was badly injured already, the poor thing.

oh well.

with a click of your finger, he's dead and gone. i mean, there was a reason you had to clarify you weren't an aimbot, no? the match is called and the username he so abhorred sprawls across your screen (next to the iconic "winner winner chicken dinner" of course) triumphantly.

"i wasn't on my game! babe!!"

you shrug, watching as "gg"s flooded the comments. "yep, good game y'all. bad game to you gyu."

"one more match."

"that's what you've been saying for the past three rounds. i hate to break it to you, but you've been absolutely trashed by a prepubescent boy with no naming sense. three times in a row."

"babyyy..." you don't miss the pout that starts to tug on his lips. it makes you scoff and melt at the same time.

patting his shoulder in mock sympathy, you reply. "it's okay gyu, you can be my trophy wife or something." he snorts at that, minor tantrum seemingly forgotten. he gets up from his stream, giving your cheek a quick peck before exiting from the camera's view. "sure, fine, whatever. what do you want for dinner then?"

[monosanimegenericzone]

Hunter x Hunter: Black Voice

i have specific headcanons for this hatsu and how it is applied and i will be going out on extremely far limbs.

so we know that black voice is capable of controlling people but no one really talks about *how*

well im here to solve that. the local shalnark brainrotter.

what we know is canon:

so manipulators are fairly limited in their quality of control over intelligent beings. animals and inanimate objects are easier to control and of course the further away the manipulated object, the harder or weaker the control becomes. its a little better than conjured objects wandering away since manipulator is a neighbor of emitter but still. you get my point.

so shalnark has some fuckin busted skill if he can use up to two at a time with complex commands *and* autopilot. we know he has at least 3 modes on his phone, one where he controls the person's actions like an fps shooter, one where he speaks into the receiver to issue specific commands, and then autopilot. and autopilot is the most complex since it relies on the skills of the person he's controlling. so he is pouring a lot of aura into a limited amount of things- which is probably helped by the rarity of the item he's choosing to use as a transceiver.

on top of all that. he can use autopilot on himself and essentially tap into all aura all at once, which puts a strain on his physical body and possibly more if the mode lasts too long.

moving into headcanon territory

talking about restrictions: i dont think he has to keep his phone in his hand when using autopilot. it would be an interesting restriction but i dont know if holding it or keeping it in a certain location is better for a 'restriction.' When he's controlling other people, sure yeah he has to be the one holding it and the further away it gets from him the harder it is for him to stay in control of his antennae'd targets.

i believe he has a manual override in the rare event that he wishes to go into autopilot but wants someone else to make a call to cancel it so that he doesn't kill himself using it. so maybe it will weaken autopilot shal a little bit but it will allow him to not become overburdened with a nen debt and curse himself. I think he uses the battery icon on the phone to indicate this limit to whoever is looking at his screen. And he can go over, but if he goes over the phone will continuously flash the empty battery icon or warning signs.

as for the actual securing of a target, i believe their memory stops 'recording' the instant a needle goes in and their actions immediately cease unless shal is fast enough on the autopilot command, in which they will just continue as they were until they receive a different command.

if no command is given they will just stand there like a zombie.

that and he has to be within receiver range to control his targets. so if he is controlling someone from far away and goes into a train tunnel and loses contact, any further commands will be lost until he gets his signal back. or the control will be severed completely and the puppet will regain awareness.

i think he has to choose one of the first two modes to put the target into. some modes are exclusive, some are adaptive.

so for example: he sticks someone and sets them in game mode, where he will drive them with controls on his phone, they will be stuck in game mode until they die or he frees them.

that being said, if he gives them a command through voice or text (i think he can do both) he can later put them into either game mode or autopilot.

and then finally, if he puts them in autopilot, he can deactivate this mode at any time to put them back in either game or command mode.

while in game mode, if he bags a target with a number of physical skills, he is given a brief tutorial screen explaining keybinds for certain abilities. so if he manages to puppeteer a nen user, he is given a comprehensive UI on how to use their abilities. if the target is armed then he's given a button to strike with the weapon etc etc.

so what can he actually 'command' the puppet to do. it has to be within that puppet's capacity so i think language could be a problem. but then again, knowing shal he could learn several languages and translate them into commands.

but he can only command the puppet to do something they are capable of doing. so for example, he can't ask them to answer a question that they don't know the answer to.

"tell me this person's name" [puppet does not know the answer] will not result in any effect. so kind of similar to shinso from bnha, but there are exceptions.

if shalnark is after information that he doesn't know the specifics of, say he wants to know the name of a person that his puppet knows: he can command them to "talk about the last ten people you've had a conversation with" or "make conversation about your classes."

he can't dig for information using vague descriptors or questioning the puppet directly but he can make them 'behave normally' meaning he has indirect access to their memories and knowledge. he just has to be creative with how he asks for it.

remote controlling people through commands can also lead to some cool stuff like speaking through his puppets. if he is controlling someone he can type or speak commands into the phone to make them do certain actions, but i theorize that he has a speaker button- probably literally holding down the speakerphone button- that he can use to speak through the puppet, or put words into their mouths.

which is just very cool. i enjoy it greatly

this technique isn't so good for actual manipulation jobs, it's much safer to just let the puppet go on autopilot. however he can use it in hostage situations or negotiations using a dummy.

and then for the actual antennae i do think that they are physical objects, and i do believe they are conjured or teleported but that condition is boosted by a prolonged period of lack of use. so basically: he can conjure/teleport the needles back to him if he leaves them where they are for a certain amount of time.

probably with a specification like: if nothing living touches the antenna for [certain amount of time], it will return to its compartment in my phone. so the caveat is that he can leave the antenna but if someone finds the body that the antenna is stabbed in, if they touch it the timer resets and he has to wait until they drop it or leave it alone for [time] until it gets recalled. which is another good reason to have 2 antenna, that way if he loses one he doesn't have to go back and get it to use his ability again.

that being said it is probably an emitted technique since he has 80% efficiency in it. so that means he teleports them back to him.

and i think thats about it.

yaaaaaaay

my brainrot spreadssss

[robloxstruggles]

royale high blackwood manor (shooter minigame) tips

hi everyone, idk how much the Greater Royale High Community (tm) knows this stuff or how much people have figured it out, but i know a few friends haven't so im making a guide full of tips some of my friends have found useful.

blackwood manor is, with a little aim, EASILY the fastest way to farm candy (and for me the most fun). i've written this guide assuming that the player doesn't have much experience with the shooter genre at all just so i can cover all my bases.

THIS IS NOT A CANDIES GUIDE. it's a gameplay guide + analysis that may result in you getting more candies. all screenshots in this guide were taken on graphics setting 9.

this post includes:

what i consider the best FPS setup

how to see

some thoughts i have about how projectiles/enemies work

cosmetic tips

a tl;dr because it's too long

LASTLY, A DISCLAIMER: this is helpful for ME!!!!! if you have another system that works for you, feel free to share! this is not an attack on how anyone else plays the game or a presumption that i am the best royale high blackwood manor gamer, it's just a bunch of things i've found that my friends think is helpful.

how to play as an FPS the easiest way + visibility tips

DON'T PLAY ON MOBILE. i mean someone out there is gonna prove me wrong by being awesome at this game on mobile but i've heard nothing but complaints from mobile users playing this game. i have no clue how it handles on xbox. i play on PC with mouse and keyboard because it's how i play most shooters.

royale high has the shift button mapped to sprint, so playing as a TPS, you'll be right clicking and dragging a lot *or* toggling shiftlock all the time. FPS is the way to go.

when you zoom in, you may be met with your gun blocking your screen like this:

the surest way i've found to get rid of this is to use the "ninja" or "crawl" walkpack. it's under animations -> walk packs. if you're unfamiliar with RH, note that you have to jump or walk to reset the walk pack. here's the FPS view for ninja, then crawl, both idle and when fighting at a standstill:

the main benefit to using crawl is that the gun is basically never visible, even when running and shooting, because it's below the HUD. this means you're never gonna have it blocking your vision. but when you look down, you're gonna see your RH nickname, since it's in front of your first person view sometimes. you can get rid of that by resetting your RH nickname to display your normal roblox display name, but the RH nickname is such a big social part of RH that idk if that's a benefit unless you really, REALLY can't handle seeing the gun shake.

that said, with ninja equipped, your gun WILL be in view when running and not shooting... so it depends on your preferences.

(i also suspect that you may have slightly less range with crawl. but i also suspect that is not actually an advantage in this minigame. more on that later.)

the elder animation is also pretty solid, but the takes up a lot of the screen when shooting. here's that for comparison.

lighting tips

now you have to worry about seeing. it could be my monitor settings, but i see better WITHOUT the night vision goggles. (you can turn them off if you have them equipped in case you want them just for the looks.)

when i first wrote this i swore by the headlamp - but i turned my graphics settings down and noticed the effectiveness of the headlamp entirely depends on your graphics settings. to summarize:

on settings 1 and 2, it's so muted i can only tell it does something looking at my avatar. it hardly projects onto the environment at all.

on 3, its brightness is slightly more noticeable, but still pretty terrible.

on 4 and above, the spotlight is much clearer and it has a noticeable effect on the environment around it.

luckily, there's another way to make the environment glow that's fairly effective at all graphics settings: items designed to emit a nondirectional glow. this includes things like candles, lanterns, etc. a lot of wings i thought would do this don't; dewdrop mist does for some reason but it only helps a little. the items i listed will be the most effective, and they're best with the light source set to white. this will largely just help you with your immediate surroundings (i.e. running into a wall) but it does help. on graphics settings 1 thru 3, this is your most powerful option.

if you don't have any, there's a new item this royaloween that emits a good glow: the pumpkin wand. equip this and change the colors however you want, but make the light itself white. if you don't have the item, google a guide for royaloween 2023 chests and it'll be in there.

two warnings: 1) it'll look in third person mode on your avatar that stacking tons of glowing items adds more glow, but in first person mode i don't know if they help much. 2) not every item that has a bloom glow effect will emit an actual light source anywhere near your avatar.

top: just the headlamp. middle: headlamp + Nightmare Cavern Lantern item. bottom: headlamp + Nightmare Cavern Lantern + Pumpkin Wand.

the game is always gonna be super dark appearance-wise, which is actually one of my least favorite things in a shooter. most of my navigation is done by just knowing the map, which is kinda unfortunate.

some combat thoughts i've had

the game is definitely designed to encourage you to seek out the ghosts. they can lose you by moving through walls, but they move at roughly your own walking pace. and while you can't go through walls, your bullets can. this means when they go through a wall, you can sprint to find them in a reasonable time frame, all while shooting at them.

your gun shoots a projectile which travels a short distance in front of you in an arc. i THINK the projectile is actually dealing damage to the ghosts, because shooting something out of range will miss if the projectile goes below it but your cursor is on the ghost. it also feels like the damage isn't dealt until the projectile lands on the ghost, so there's no invisible instantaneous damage arc.

this means you can arc your shots by firing them higher. if you haven't played a game where this is important, this means taking advantage of how the arc from the gun is shaped. if you aim slightly higher than the target, you can hit a target further away. if you've played a game with a bow and arrow, like botw/totk, you've probably done this. the same thing applies to this game.

that would be really useful, BUT!!! the ghost-sucking mechanic also encourages you to follow them. it can be REALLY tempting to stand around getting arc-snipes on the ghosts, but that means when it's time to capture them, you're across the map from them fighting your way thru dark walls trying to close the distance and someone else will get the ghost! you'll still collect candies for shooting the ghost, but you can collect even more if you suck them. plus, the timer means for some ghosts, you REALLY won't capture them alone unless you start immediately.

so when is arcing shots useful? simple: the biggest ghosts. the ghosts all hover about the same distance from the ground, and the ghosts with the highest XP are the tallest. these ghosts are going to attract a lot of players. if you want to get the most candy out of them, you NEED to be pumping damage into them. so if you can't pursue it and maneuver thru the map at the same time, it can be beneficial to hang back and aim at it from far away, THEN close the distance once it's almost time to capture it.

i think this is clever not only because "big ghost = more HP" makes a lot of sense if you've literally ever played a game before, but because their height encourages players to arc their shots anyways. the highest HP ghosts are the easiest to aim at from a distance. the tall skinny ones take a little more aim, but they're still easier to hit at a distance not just from the bigger hitbox, but because it encourages you to aim in a way that maximizes your range. pretty cool, huh?

just remember, if you've never played a shooter before: at range you need to aim ahead of the target with slower projectiles like the ones in this game.

also: the distance your gun travels is DEFINITELY dependent on how high it is from the ground. your range feels like it's HALVED when using crawl compared to ninja. this means the ideal way to play the game seems to be to equip super high heels and then use an animation that keeps the gun away from your vision.

cosmetic tips

save an outfit with the goggles and/or headlamp and you'll be able to use them year-round. i've been using the goggles all year this way. here i am wearing an outfit in royale high with them. second pic is to show you that the headlamp still works!

you can change the colors of the headlamp and night vision goggles. the night vision goggles even support patterns on the metal part. adding a pattern to the glowing eyes will make them stop glowing.

the headlamp will equip an average color if you try to use a pattern with the band. using a pattern or a dark color will cause the glow effect on the item to stop working, but the light emitted to the environment doesn't appear to depend on the color you select for the headlamp at all. ugly combination of the two for demonstration:

if the headlamp doesn't go with your outfit, the skull crown layers really fantastically over it. it'll look like the skull is glowing.

and, of course, combining that with the ability to change the colors of the lamp/goggles, you basically get custom glowing skull this way:

my favorite combination for the night vis goggles is the breathe me mask. this is a super unpopular outfit item, but it works really well with the halloween gear. when it glows, it blocks the bulkiness of both items and only the lights show through. equipping a dark color or pattern will let all the details show through. both effects are super cool for a sci fi vibe.

but honestly, i will put these goggles over ANYTHING.

in conclusion:

FPS is the best way to play the minigame. it gives you the most aim control while moving. if RH could map sprint to anything else TPS might be viable. but right now it's not. to play FPS, make sure you've got an animation equipped where the gun isn't in your face.

SAVE AN OUTFIT WITH THE EVENT ITEMS SO YOU CAN USE THEM ALL YEAR. THEY ARE FREE and if you play sunset they are SUPER HELPFUL IN SPACE/SCI FI THEMES.

equip a glowing item with white light to help you see.

happy hunting!

[drjoneslabratory]

The Splatoon rant The franchise that won't leave my brain alone: 1 the biggest nitpick/issue I have with this franchise.

(Before you read, this is my opinion and this is just me rambling. Don't take it too seriously, I didn't as there are probably typos and grammar issues but ill fix it later as its lunchtime here and I am hungry.)

Anyways...

Splatoon is one of those franchises where it has something so strong that I can't stop thinking about it/draw ocs/write AU lore for it. I haven't touched it in ages as Its still in a box and I have drift. But I still think about it/listen to music, consume fancontent and still read the lore and think of the gameplay.

For years I had this Splatoon fps game I always wanted to play. I have thought about it, and drawn ocs/enemies/bosses/factions/guns for over seven years. (I am soon to show this wacky fandom one day)

Ever since playing Splatoon 2, the squid-to-kid ink mechanic has fascinated me. It's on the same level as the gravity gun/portal gun and the grappling hook/titans from Titanfall in terms of creative innovation in the shooter genre. Despite me having issues with the campaign and story etc. There is nothing like it (foam stars don't count) The multiplayer (of all games), is the most fun I had with a multiplayer pvp game since Titanfall 2 and I think one of the few multiplayer PVP shooter games that is casual and non-competitive focused. And more importantly not a gritty tactical mil-sim/cod clone or generic "not overwatch/Fortnite clone number 10000" It's its own thing, and it does it really well.

Everything is unlockable in the game, there are no microtransactions. No season passes and once in a while simple updates keep it fresh. and not make it repetitive for a concept that seems it be a trap for boring repetitive gameplay.

There are DLCS, but they are worth the price for the content you get. Octo Expansion/Side orders are full-on expansion packs.

Splatoon brings me back to a time when shooter games were focused on simple fun and had a gameplay loop that people wanted to spend hours on.

Splatoon Proved to me (personally) that those games are still possible. And maybe the issue with modern AAA gaming is that Gamers have unrealistic expectations and developers and publishers trying to find new ways of laundering money/investment to appease stockholders.

(seriously am I the only one who is concerned with hearing new articles about the alleged "Most expensive game ever produced every once and awhile, there is no way that is sustainable, especially with these live service games that keep popping up like fruit flies and then die, or showing signs of decay)

The thing, I think bothers me most about Splatoon, is that, I really, I mean this, don't like the single-player campaigns, more particularly the Main Octo-trooper enemies you fight in every goddamn game. Because they are just so... boring and not fun (To me at least). It pains me, really fucking does as Splatoon is capable of having fun Enimies (the Octoling soldiers (though I think have issues, but they are a solid starting point I wish they expanded on) and Salmonoids (god they are so fucking awesome) and whatever the robo fish bots are called in side order)

My main issue with the octo-troopers is that

Boring that most Octo troopers just kinda stand there and then move around. acting more like turrets than soldiers

not really threatening/poor readability of what you are fighting, I am not saying their being goofy is bad, in fact, the weirdness of Splatoon enemies (all of them) is what I think makes it unique, and what it is, but I feel like there comes A point where they are just "Too Goofy" and I think it can hinder combat encounters and can confuse the player on what enemy you are fighting. An example of Good/bad execution of this is

The Octosniper and Commander are my examples of "Goofy done right" and "threatening enemy you need to pay attention to" They fire their guns out of their mouth and have "out there" proportions and designs, One has cool sunglasses the other a peeping eye. but I also get the idea, that these are trained soldiers who were trained to shoot to kill and won't hold back. So I have to be careful around them or I am a goner.

For goofy done wrong, I think I can make the argument that I think the Octobomber and rocket Octotrooper enemies are A prime example.

I fucking hate these assholes, I moved them around Poorly to prove a point that, I can't tell which one is which from afar and often mistake one for another. doesn't help one has a more powerful attack and takes up more hitpoints. The only thing that separates them is easily missable and I think lazily done addition to their helicopter helmet.

Now back to the examples.

Most don't really use the main gimmick of the games (squid-to-kid ink mechanic The Octostamps and Squee-Gs don't count) What I mean is how the ink mechanic can affect combat encounters and I think (As far as I remember) only a few really "take advantage" of Splatoon gimmicks, I really like the shielded octo-troopers as they capture gimmick you are using ink as your main projectile type. you can blind them and have them freak out giving you an easy shot. The octopods glitch out and fly back causing an explosion of your own ink if defeated, creating huge ink puddles. Octodivers try to flank you by hiding in their own ink.

Most feel like obstacles then actual enemies The Tentakooks are a good example, mostly just item holders and nothing really else. Same with octo ballers. Most just try to cover large areas of ink with their own, which isn't bad, but feels like most enemies, most don't really do much.

Don't feel like A real army or "Bad guys" (I get its lore point, but from a gameplay view, They feel so incompetent compared to the Octoling soldiers and bosses heck I question why Mr Grizz would choose them over the Salmonoids (I, am glad I am not alone with being disappointed with Splatoon 3 campaign)

(this one is gonna rustle some jimmies, but don't take this the wrong way) The fact is all the Octoling soldiers you fight, use the same model and they all look the same and have no differences. I get it everyone loves the lesbian child soldiers but I think it wouldn't hurt if there was a male model (and there was a male model originally) or at least had different skin tones. (at first, I thought they were all clones, but apparently, they are all different people, I am sorry but I find it hard to believe Marina, agent 8, and Acht were in the same army when they all look the same no matter what rank, including 8 if you make yours a guy and not white) But the fact some have different weapons with different combat styles the elite's only difference is their black hair with seaweed.

I am sorry but when I am shooting trying not to die, I don't know which Octoling is holding which, and the fact it's third person really handicaps my focus. At least the elites have glowing green seaweed but if you removed that, you couldn't tell which one is the elite. I am trying my best to not come across as "There needs to be more boys, girls are icky" but I wish there was more diversity/readability for the Octoling soldiers, I really wish they were the main enemies you fought. If I were to do it. Id make them a mesh between the elites from halo or HECU from black mesa and Zombie Marines from doom the Gunners from fallout 4. There is this mod I have for Black Mesa that adds female/more diverse HECU soldiers. its random every time, but it makes combat/readability so much better. If I am in a combat section with them, I can now easily tell witch ones witch, who is holding witch weapon, witch one is coming to get me and how do I respond.

The elites and Marines from Doom are the perfect example of a "Readability" Zombie marines have a rifle and are slow firing meant to pepper you, the Sargent/shotgun zombies are the upper class meant to keep you aware as one shot at low health and your dead, The chain gunners are the beefy "wake up call" as they have a repeating hit scan attack causing players to be aware of how they move in a area and giving them a target to kill before the other demons. For the new ones "The shock troopers" in the recent expansion "Legacy of Rust" are An upgrade from regular Marines having a plasma rifle attack that they can spam blocking areas and keeping people focused. The gunners from Fallout 4 are not really that special they are just reskinned raiders with a military gimmick, but they provide a good example of the thing Fallout 4 I Like, make every human enemy you fight have a rank/variation, and each gunner though having a template/variation, you feel like you are fighting a skilled solider of that rank and they are unique/different enough, you feel like you're not fighting the same enemy over and over again.

The elites are so barebones and simple, but so effective, in CE, the upper-ranked elites are just a color swap with a weapon change at the top.

This a good video on the topic as it does it better than I can ever do I know these are not the types of games, I assume most splat fans play (I'll provide links and context later on if anyone is interested)

I know that this is a Nintendo game and demographics blah blah blah I'll I'm asking for is little more creativity and I wish that the single-player campaign was given more attention and life as the multiplayer I really think the default campaigns are just not really fun to be honest.

I don't wanna say it's bad or mediocre, as when they have their high points and when you fight the bosses the campaigns start to shine. I say this as a Galaxy fan, but I don't like how they're just islands and feel more like tutorials than actual levels and feel more like cut levels from Mario Galaxy than its own thing.

I am not trying to bring up lore or anything as this is going on long enough and I have a lot to say about the lore.

If you read this far, thank you, know, this is my opinion, and you're not invalid for thinking otherwise, I am just a nerd who likes shooter games and I really like Splatoon, and I feel like it can be even better than it is!

[kittycatblast]

the idea of a basketball fps has been plaguing my mind the past few days

the main ideas behind it are a few things typical of team-based shooters, but the primary mode is about taking a bomb to the other team's base by utilizing the movement and weapons unique to each playable character; chart with more detail here

i was told the idea was very similar to team fortress 2's passtime, but i have actually never played that particular gamemode before, and i don't really plan to play it unless i want a good idea of what not to do with this game (i can easily tell a massive don't is having anything like engineer given his area control is extremely cheap to use in anything derivative of a ball game)

the main idea i've got for the visual style is mainly rooted in this urban counter-culture street sports vibe, mixed in with the vibrance of a lot of japanese games and anime, easiest way i can put it is the type of thing you'd see paired with loud phonk music

it's somewhat demonstrated in this character i designed last night, whom i'm naming Jenny Death cause i listened to that album again today as i was thinking about her

my first thought for a playable character for this game is one functionally similar to scout tf2, wielding a shotgun and offering great mobility, her shoes were fun as fuck to draw

also made this entire moodboard to gather my thoughts on its identity

oh yeah and thought of name/logo i'm def touching it up later cause i wanna learn how to draw graffiti tags

i don't often share this much of my gamedev ideas, but i suppose i'm just more comfortable sharing my thoughts at this level compared to Sorceress Story because the idea for this game is entirely multiplayer pvp, not really anything to spoil there

[eziojensenthe3rd]

Midnight Gaming: Serious Squidding

So last night I played some Serious Sam past midnight, checked socials later to find... Nintendo takes down Splatoon 3 video for mentioning sex.

So during a time when Half-life and Halo have led fps games away from one-liner spouting, 90s fps games to ones that focused on a narrative, Serious Sam was a series that stood in defiance of the changing tides with hordes of screaming headless mobs running towards you the player.

The hordes arent really an exaggeration as for the time, croteams first game featuring the tshirt wearing warrior, The First Encounter, was notable in pc gaming for having tons of enemies swarming you on screen, across various arenas and an array of explosions.

My first entry though was infact The Next Encounter on the gamecube before I eventually grabbed the HD remasters as well as 2 and bfe on steam. Beaten First Encounter on normal difficulty and sometimes play the other games from time to time. 2 was the one that repelled me the most due to how cartoony it looked. It was presented like a saturday morning cartoon with corny jokes and all whiched clashed with the bloody carnage. It just didnt mesh well and neither did Before First Encounter and that was for opposite reasons.

BFE from what I heard from rumours was originally meant to be just another military shooter that croteam was working on before it got canned and they repurposed a lot of the enviroment assets for a Serious Sam game instead. Its just a rumor but it does explain why it was all in modern Egypt. But yeah that game felt a bit too grounded at times with the story and graphics being a bit drab. Also it has glory kills? You could melee some enemies with a prompt and just kill them outright, without the need to use your guns, just press the melee when your close enough and you'll blink towards an enemy, kill them outright and move on. Also BFE seems badly optimised for Switch since i've seen a lot of graphics pop in whenever I turn around a corner.

So early parts of First and Second encounter? Fine enough, you go through arenas, face several enemies, you run backwards at times, its serious sam... maybe I dont like Serious sam that much? I like it enough and there are times when it becomes tense and yet.. I often just lose interest nowadays. Could be that I often play on Normal since to me it feels.... fair. You want to play Serious Sam in a way that makes you dread every healing item and ammo pickyp you come across? Play them on Serious difficulty, the highest difficulty thats unlocked from the start, and you will definatly develop some new phobias. I tried playing on Serious for TFE and, there is, never a time where you can reliably let your guard down. Every corner, every hallway, EVERY ITEM, there will be a chance of enemies being spawned. Sometimes right in your face. Go watch a playthrough on Serious difficulty or play it yourself and you'll understand why.

Actually, the games story at first was going back in time in order to find and stop Mental right? Thats what the early games before BFE were about, travelling through the timelock to try and stop an alien overlord who is trying to destroy humanity right? Right? Because I dont think time travel is really utilised much as a narrative device in this series. All the time periods you could potentially visit and fight enemies in. The first encounter only had Egypt. The second encounter had some time periods to go through. The next encounter also had that but that wasnt really made by croteam. 2 didnt had time travel instead going by multiple worlds and BFE onwards was just in modern times on earth. Seems like only croteam only did 2 games that barely scratched the surface on time travel and then just dropped it. Isnt that strange.

Just to wrap this segment up, I will say one more thing. I also went and played the two serious sam ports on steam, Classics Revolution and Serious Sam Fusion... beta.

CR seemed to be focused on the classic versions of TFE and TSE while Fusion is based on the HD remasters and BFE, both of course have workshop support. And you know what, its nice to play Serious Sam with mods, playing through a remastered version of TFE's maps with Overwatch weapons was neat.

So moving on to news, Nintendo. That company has garnered a mixed opinion nowadays. On one hand making great games and on the other hand striking down any form of appreciation shown by their fans. This however does come off as a bit silly though in my opinion, A video by Splatoon youtuber Liora Channel was struck down for "Sexual Content"? So Liora did a video called Splatoon Girls which focused on women who played Splatoon and talked about themselves and their personal lives. Some of these women have admitted they dated some high-profile splatoon players and engaged in casual initimacy. Nintendo didnt like that so they struck the video down.

Now, I'm aware the series is rated around 3+, its very much marketed towards kids but, to be honest I dont think the playerbase is mostly just kids. I guess it was more around late teens to early 20's maybe and with the lobbies allowing for miiverse style picture posts allowing anyone to post any drawn image, I wouldnt think the fanbase is that prudish. Then again I dont play Splatoon so I could be very wrong and Nintendo could be right but if this video that Liora made was to interact with women splatoon players and they admit to having initimate relations, is it really right to strike it down because it clashes with intended marketing. I dont know but i'll leave you the article from gonintendo.com and you can decide for yourself.

Thank you all reading, feel free to leave some feedback and game suggestions. Anons are currently on.

[turtlemagnum]

made 2 more threads on bluesky about Myself, here's one of them! warning, long!

q: first video game a: pirated spore on my dad's lap

q: favorite character a: undyne… how i love undyne…..

q: a game that is underrated a: the turok games on N64 and yugioh dark duel stories on GBC, the best yugioh video game adaptation because it doesnt follow the real rules at all

q: guilty pleasure game a: i don't feel guilty for having pleasure because i'm not fucking catholic

q: game character you feel most like (or wish you were) a: every day that passes is a day that takes me closer to becoming harry du bois from the hit game disco elysium the final cut

q: most annoying character a: i've never played the games but there's a little white haired boy from i think danganronpa(?) who always attracts the most insufferable people to choose him as a profile picture, so probably that guy

q: favorite game couple a: alphyne

q: best OST a: UTDR & PMD

q: saddest scene a: papyrus fight during a no mercy run

q: best gameplay a: celeste

q: gaming system of choice a: PC and switch because switch emulation isn't there yet

q: game everyone should play a: no good game is gonna be for everyone, so i can't really meaningfully answer this question

q: game you've played more than 5 times a: i'd assume this means like, start to finish, and the closest i can think of is that i've beaten skyrim and oblivion's main quests a few times each? i dunno i'm bad at finishing games (ADHD)

q: current (or most recent) video game wallpaper a: when i was a lot younger i had my ipod touch background as art of the hylian crest that was all like, cyan and burning and such, and i think that's the last time i remember having a dedicated gaming background on any device i had

q: post a screenshot from a game you're playing now a:

q: game with the best cutscenes a: i play games to play games, not watch movies

q: favorite antagonist a: flowey UTDR

q: favorite protagonist a: meeee =D

q: post a picture of a game setting you wished you'd live in a: i don't feel like posting any more pictures but i think the best game series to live in would probably be pokemon? mostly because it operates on logic where you're probably not gonna die from shit like hugging a slug that's the temperature of the surface of the sun or getting a million volts run through you by a magical electric rat, and if you know what you're doing even a 10 year old can become the most powerful person alive. imagine being an adult with a real world degree of intellect! i'd build a champion tier pokemon team easily, make a living off of that AND i'd meet people & make friends through it. plus, have you seen all the women? i'm gonna professor oak some milfs, i swear

q: favorite genre a: i'm not sure i have a favorite, but i probably spend most of my time in open world games and RPGs

q: best story a: undertale & fallout: new vegas. both appeared in my life at a deeply young, formative age and i've never been the same since

q: sequel that disappointed you a: honestly? totk. i think a big part of it is just how similar the overworld is, and at this point in my life i'm not really that big of a fan of the whole "create your own fun" thing that it took basically wholecloth from gmod and such. i probably would've loved it to death when i was a kid, though

q: best art style a: probably botw/totk

q: favorite classic title a: majora's mask babey!!! probably my favorite zelda game, and i fuckin love zelda

q: a game on your list to play a: pathologic classic HD

q: best voice acting a: oblivion

q: most epic scene a: hashtag epic hashtag awesomesauce…

q: favorite game developer a: probably a tie between nintendo and valve

q: game you were surprised you liked a: the first FPS game i ever played was CoD, and i fucking hate that style of shooter but since it was my first shooter i thought i just hated shooters, but then i played tf2 and hl1 and iliked both and was surprised about that so yeah, turns out that i don't dislike shooters, i just dislike mediocre military propaganda

q: favorite game of all time a: peggle 3 for nintendo gamecube (i can't reduce complex pieces of art to something as simple as "favorite")

[phightinghottakes]

I don't know if ur lying or not about not knowing what an fps means but it definitely activated my desire to answer questions either way. If you were lying it's gonna be a bit of info then for those who didn't know. FPS stands for First Person Shooter which are usually just a lot of gun games out there (some examples are Cs:go, Overwatch, and my personal fave, Team Fortress 2. Fortnite is a popular shooter game, but it ain't in first person, hence it's not an fps), closest you can get to a first person in Phighting is zooming in btw, Phighting is a third person shooter(? I mean it's. Kinda like that??? I might need more for confirmation but it could def be classified as such) a lot of fps games tend to attract "sweaty" (or try-hards as another term for it) players, 🛹 anon probably encountered too much try-hard Slingshot mains hence their ask

Ah, I see. Got confused because I’m pretty sure fps is an abbreviation for multiple things.

[retphienix]

HELL YEAH!!!!!!!

I've officially beaten a game from my childhood- and on a respectable difficulty all the way through :)

So, the fuckin' golden gun mission, I remember seeing my cousin mess around in this one as a kid but I had no idea it'd be such a pain lol

Samedi gets tougher each revive, and on the final one I straight up just couldn't unload enough ammo into him to win since ammo is a pain to get on this difficulty as is- but I'd unload like 150 rounds into him and then get swarmed by dudes.

Unless I'm getting the billion retries mixed up, I killed him ONCE on his final phase and then I just couldn't figure out how to get the golden gun.

Though that might have been on my research run? (shown below with cheats going)

Because that's right- after mashing my head in for so long I realized I didn't know how to get the golden gun in the first place- I FOUND it- but I kept triggering the trap.

So this mod comes with a save that's done everything already, so I threw on cheats on that profile and messed with the golden gun room for a while until I found out how to get it.

After figuring it out for myself I swapped back over to my profile and did it!

With the golden gun in hand this map is miles less stressful lol

I'm glad I was able to do it without looking it up- though I did cheat to speed up my "Run to the room, trigger alarm, rinse repeat" nonsense "slightly".

Goldeneye is... well it's goldeneye.

Do you expect some grandiose new take on an N64 classic FPS?

Because I have opinions just not grandiose lol.

Goldeneye surprised me in how different it feels from most FPS I've played.

It's the objectives.

Some maps feel like a modern FPS "A to B with landmarks / setpieces along the way" but with objectives that often meant going on detours or tackling rooms differently than usual.

Some other maps felt like older FPS "dropped into a sandbox with no real direction" but with objectives- which made it play out kind of like a modern hitman game where you can do things however and in whatever order and then you get to the exit.

This was surprising, because I THOUGHT I knew how goldeneye felt to play, but then it confronted me with gameplay I didn't think it had. Or rather, I didn't comprehend it had, I guess? Because I've watched speedruns, but it kind of melted into the background when they already knew what to do. In my mind this was a bog standard shooty game, but the objectives really define the entire experience, it's neat.

Basically, I was surprised at how well goldeneye holds it's own gameplay identity. I mean, I played this a lot as a kid but pretty much just multiplayer or with cheats my cousin unlocked for me, but I thought I knew what the game was like because of that. I did not.

It's actually pretty different than most FPS I've played- AND it holds up as a really fun time/challenge today which I definitely didn't expect lol

Now goldeneye without any adjustments I would argue still holds up, but I probably wouldn't have had the patience to do what I've done here if I was playing on that version.

This was a mouse injector version with some minor QOL 60FPS adjustments, this is not how the game originally felt to play as far as controls are concerned- but man.

The thing is, if you just slapped mouse controls onto a mediocre old shooter it'd be "okay".

Putting mouse controls into goldeneye makes me Feel like I'm playing it the way it Felt as a kid, before I knew what good controls were etc.

It Feels Right, despite not being how the game was originally envisioned.

Because of that, and just because I had a fucking blast, I can't recommend mouse control goldeneye enough!

This was so much fun and just a solid damn time :) Some of the design decisions made in order to make an FPS on the N64 feel fair- like the 9 billion different ways enemies react to being shot / stagger, feel fantastic and make you wish more modern shooters would increase the time to kill and allow such interactions to happen.

Anyways, this concludes my unscheduled Goldeneye but with mouse controls intermission lol.

[marron121]

Quick announcement thingie 8: Life be like that sometimes

>Quick announcement thingie 7

More than a year since the previous quick announcement! Let's shoot for 2+ years next time lads.

Anyhow, life is hectic. The tl;dr is...

I don't have a job anymore lmao.

@lauraqwerty and I released A story told by the stars, which is a very nice game that you can play for free! If you like visual novels, give it a try.

Alongside friends, we organized the second edition of the Aaron's Awesome (Games Festival)! You can watch it on Youtube (although it's in Spanish).

In there I also released T.E.L, a free FPS which is quite decent, but I'm not really proud of.

Anyhow, that's the short gist of it. For the long explanation, read below... if you dare...

Okay, so I guess I should start with the 1st one. For the past two and half years-ish, I was working on a company that I cannot name for NDA reasons, as the main UI programmer for the game they were developing, and now I do NOT work there. Let's just say events happened and, ngl, I could be in a way worse position. For now I'll be taking some rest and, if everything goes fine, I'll be with a new job soon.

In the quick announcement 7, I mentioned we were working on a game called TWOgether. We tried to make it we the smallest scope possible, but even so the game became a bit too big and we were in a very busy situation, so we cancelled it.

Instead, we decided to go even smaller, and I had the chance to direct our 1st official project. It was an honor and alongside the amazing help of Lau, my friend and second half of our "studio", we ended up releasing A Story Told By The Stars, an hour long visual novel about two pals. I'm very proud of what we accomplished, and if you think you would enjoy it please give it a try. You can even play it on browser!

PS: When you finish the game, consider reading the postmortem, where we talked about the development process and challenges, among other things. Around 1k people have read it so far, so I must assume they enjoyed it.

On July 2022 I made the A3 (or Aaron's Awesome Festival), a quite cheap-looking direct where I displayed games from mainly friends, like a Nintendo Direct. And this year, with the help of a bunch more of my friends, including Lau, we made the second edition, the A3²!

I can confidently say that the event was a success, and I'm very happy that my friends and I were able to create something so cool. Since he's also on here, @narvalian did all the backgrounds and its animations you can see on the video.

And in that same event, I revealed AND made available T.E.L, which you can see the trailer above (a good one, if I may add). It's an FPS where you play as a young programmer stuck inside is own computer, where things happen. And, well...

...I'm not really proud of the game.

I do think it's a decent game, and I'm very happy that I managed to make some of the things that happen ingame, but T.E.L was going to be a game based around a joke with my friends that I have, and basically because I was lazy I wasn't able to make that and instead ended up making this effective, yet basic, first person shooter.

I had a lot, and I mean A LOT of ideas working into this game that I wasn't able to accomplish going into it, and instead of just saying "hey, this isn't what I want to do, so let's just stop." I just kept pushing and pushing, and I think the game reflects that.

Actually working on something I ACTUALLY want to do is something I want to become better at. Let's hope next time I write one of these I've actually improved on that.

[anushkaa-practice1]

Live brief 1.1

What the brief is:

For our live brief with VOID Interactive, we are expected to come up with 3 designs - Environment/Level, Objective or Environmental prop and Hostile design. Inspired by VOID's Ready or not (2023), a tactical first-person shooter game, we can push the boundaries of aesthetics, creativity and concepts.

My research:

To understand the game more and find things to get inspired from, I went directly to Youtube to watch a bunch of gameplay videos of Ready or Not. There were a few levels that stood out the most to me, namely Ends of the Earth, Nightmare at Neon nightclub and Elephant. These levels had a terrifying level of environmental storytelling, moving through a place that is heavy with clues that hint at what has happened in the location before the marine team comes in. The sense of dread and bleakness is something that was evident in almost every level, subverting from the power fantasies that most FPS games entail, instead forcing the player to think about their responsibility as part of the team.

Initially after hearing the brief, I was going to go the route of something stylized and silly, for example a humanoid axolotl army fighting against militarian frogs in an underwater ship ruin. But as soon as I watched the gameplay, I couldn't help but be drawn to the desolate atmosphere of the game. I have always been the type of person to prioritise the impact of a concept, how it will affect the viewer and from where it pulls its inspiration from.

For my ideation stage, I decided to come up with an original idea of what the attacker and defender groups are going to be, keeping in mind that I want the level to have the subtext of morality, and to not make it completely black and white. There should be points when the player would have to hesitate to take an action, instead of being a straight forward kill-all-enemies type of objective.

Reference

CasualGuyy (2024). Ready or Not: Redefining Horror. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ti8dG91gRc

Gamer Max Channel (2023). Ready or Not - FULL GAME (4K 60FPS) Campaign Walkthrough Gameplay No Commentary. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UGGWsnsUFQ

[galactipunks]

Anyone here remember Noobs vs Zombies Tycoon 2?

Well, most likely you have no idea what I'm even talking about. NvZT2 was a niche incomplete Roblox game with a playerbase that only hovered around or under 100 people (from what I remember). It wasn't great, had quite a few flaws and was too ambitious to ever succeed on a platform like Roblox. But despite that, I think about it more often than most good games I played from my decade on the platform. Which is largely thanks to how it utilized one of the most criminally underused genre concepts in gaming.

NvZT2 was a RTS/Team shooter fusion. Each team consisted of around two dozen people with one playing as the RTS leader and the rest playing a pretty standard, slightly MOBA-esque, team shooter. On paper, this is a fantastic concept. One of the biggest problems I find the RTS genre to have is lack of replayability and onboarding due to how competitively focused it can feel. Having the RTS aspect be combined with a regular shooter could nullify that issue entirely. Players could end up not feeling as pressured to do everything right since their team can correct mistakes, there's a greater sense of reward from playing well thanks to the multiplayer aspect and the inherent unbalance of a 24v24 game encourages you to not take the game as competitively as you would otherwise.

Here's the big problem though: Designing a game with this genre in mind is extremely tricky. Not only are you effectively designing and balancing two games at once, but you're also designing and balancing them to work together in a way that's largely unprecedented. This is where NvZT2 messed up most, as its design and balancing resulted in the team shooter aspect being much more fun and engaging than the RTS aspect. As a result, playing RTS felt like drawing the short straw for the rest of the team. Which in Roblox terms equated to the RTS player often leaving mid-round or being too inexperienced, dooming the round. The best solution to this problem would likely only come after rigurous playtesting and experimentation, so I won't act like I know the solution here.

NvZT2 didn't end up being a big success. So how about we try to make another game like it (that's also not on Roblox)? I think the best place to start conceptually would be to take a classic RTS game like C&C or AoE, add team shooter multiplayer into it and then work out the rest through a lot of experimentation. Obviously plenty of things would have to be changed immediately to make it work, but there's also plenty of stuff that would work immediately thanks to the RTS aspect. The trickiest part would be to make the two halves work together simultaneously. Both sides would need to support and rely on each other without becoming too self-functional or dependent. There should also be ways for the two halves to intersect, maybe by letting players on the shooter aspect recruit their own units or letting the RTS player directly influence other players as if they were units. Most important of all however, it needs to be fun. RTS and team shooters don't exactly have much of an overlapping audience, so a lot of work would have to be done to make sure both halves appeal to both audiences. The RTS aspect needs to be meaty enough to satisfy a regular RTS player but simple enough for a non-RTS player to enjoy it. While the shooting aspect needs to complement the RTS aspect but still be fun enough on its own that a regular FPS player would want to play it.

NvZT2 is not the only game I've seen that has taken a crack at this genre (and broader multiplayer Strategy/Shooter fusions as a whole). But it's the closest game I've seen to pulling off a multiplayer RTS/Shooter fusion well. The gaming industry right now is in big need of some groundbreaking experimental genres and this is a good pick for that. So I wish everything could align for something like this to be realized in its full potential.