#I have not been very good at making this dev blogging a regular thing

[qwertyprophecy]

Update on The Dark Queen of Mortholme!

Phase one is now essentially completed for art, code and dialogue. Onwards to phase two; because every good boss fight needs that part where the boss gets unhinged and gains a whole new set of attacks.

I too have chosen to be unhinged and made a design for the Queen's final form that gobbles up animation work hours like nothing I've done before with pixel art.

Concept sketches under the cut:

Initially I didn't have any ideas beyond doing a more monstrous design that amps up the Queen's features and takes cues from the shapes and colours of her original spell animations. However after writing the dialogue leading up to the transformation I immediately landed on a specific concept.

The transformation is an outburst. It's a manifestation of the Queen's terror and defiance towards her approaching death. She's unraveling, and in doing so she's channeling more of her innate violent power that she doesn't usually let out. She's essentially been having a long argument with the Hero about who they believe they are. Thus far she's gotten by being all smug and detached, but now she's losing and forced to reveal more of her true self to continue.

So her final form's design should convey 1. an outburst, and 2. the unraveling of a false front. Her base design's spikes, hair and skirt all erupt out into the wilder shape language of her shadowy spell-tendrils. They can handily be used to draw the eye from all directions towards the center of her chest, where I wanted to have this cracking pattern, like something hidden inside her is coming out. It's bright as if blindingly powerful, yet the cracks make her seem more damaged and vulnerable than her base form.

Continuing with the theme of an inner self showing through, the skirt's interior is also more visible than before. The flared jellyfish-esque shape connects with the deep sea vibe of the tentacles and contributes to the drama of a nonhuman silhouette.

A big thing for the silhouette is of course the massive hands. What's the thematic explanation for those? Absolutely nothing, I just think they look cool and dangerous.

Finally, lot of asymmetry was also introduced, both to increase the visual interest of such a large sprite, and to make her look like she's really losing it.

---

A note on animating this monstrosity: I've been trying to come up with a whole lot of cheats to keep a complex sprite like this as animated as possible without spending the rest of my life making this game. Early on I decided she should float, just so her idle animation can also be a moving one.

Secondly, the sprite is cut up to pieces so that I can keep reusing the loop of the writhing tentacles while moving her hands, for example. This is not something I like doing because in believable animation, motion in one part of the body always affects the other parts of the body. Treating a character as one entire whole when animating will make them feel more tangible, but alas, it's a compromise to avoid spending a hundred years in pixel-pushing jail. Like, I would love to see those tendrils flutter around behind her as she swoops across the room for her attacks, but... it'll be a lot more reasonable to move her as little as possible and instead add oomph to her attacks with some effects animations.

Anyways thank you for reading about monstrosity, she might be a pain in the butt to move but she brings me joy

[school-sanctioned-movie-bullying]

Since the new live action Avatar is apparently out on netflix, I figured now is an excellent time to remember the last attempt at a live action this series got.

Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of the most beloved TV shows of all time, with amazing writing, world-building, and characters. Conversely, The Last Airbender (no avatar in this title) is one of the most detested and worst movies of all time. I doubt that I have anything new to say about it because it has been getting dragged since it was released 14 years ago, but that won't stop me from dragging it some more.

As is the trend with many live action reboots, this movie hates fun. The original show was colorful, funny, and charming; the movie is none of those things. The color palette seems to have been taken directly from a Saw movie, with not a warm tone to be found. For comparisons sake, here's a side by side of the gaang from the movie and from the original:

Isn't it incredible how they managed to sap all the color out of the original character designs?

One of my favorite things about the original cartoon was the expressive animation. I don't expect a live action movie to have expressive animation, but I do expect expressive acting, or even just regular acting. Unfortunately for myself and the world at large, the main actors did not get the memo that they were supposed to do that, so instead they delivered their dialogue stone faced with weird pacing. I don't want to hate on the actors too much, as many of them were children when this movie was released, and who knows what sort of direction M. Night Shyamalan gave them. However, I will say that with maybe the exception of Dev Patel, who played an okay Zuko, the cast did an awful job of capturing the magic of the original characters. I am willing to give a pass to Seychelle Gabriel, because she voiced Asami in The Legend of Korra, and I am nothing if not an Asami supporter. But the rest of the cast is on very thin ice. 

Another fun thing about this god-forsaken movie is the way it manages to make the viewer feel incredibly uncomfortable. It has an aura about it that I can only describe as constipated. The feeling I got watching is reminiscent of the time I was roped into listening a coworker at McDonalds talk about his crypto scheme, except that only lasted about 15 minutes, and the movie is 103 minutes long.

Truly the only good quality of the movie is its ability to bring together so many people in hatred. There aren’t too many things we can all form a near-universal opinion on, but we can all agree that this movie is a dumpster fire. 

Unlike some of the other movies I have hated on this blog, I don’t think it is controversial for me to hate this one. It has already been so thoroughly hated on that all the points I make here are hardly likely to be original. Regardless, I felt it necessary to kick this dead horse, both for the opportunity to complain (one of my favorite activities), and because I need to choose one movie to hate per week for the class this blog is for, and this one is so so hateable. I didn't even list everything wrong with it and this post is already so long.

I haven't watched the new live action show yet, and I don't really have high hopes, but given how low the bar is, it would have to limbo into hell to disappoint me.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Pining John Pt. 2

Please if you have any pining!John fics (like Sherlock accidentally hurts him like he did molly with the Christmas gift) I would absolutely love that!! Thank you so much😊(submitted by @thediamondwoman)

Anonymous said to inevitably-johnlocked: hi! New Johnlocker here, this is a fic rec ask, but do you have any fics where John is pining/suppressing/ignoring his feelings for Sherlock? Preferably after TRF, and without Mary in the way, and a slow burn one (sorry for all the preferences just one with pining John would be fine) and thank you for being a blog currently reading all your metas and they are amazing <3333

@i-love-books-and-so-do-you asked: hullo!! *waves* i’m in the mood for some pining john, so i was wondering if you have any good ones? preferably with a happy ending

and may i just say your blog is GORGEOUS like all your fic recs *chef’s kiss* thank you for the literal best johnlock content <33

——-

Hi Lovelies!!!

First of all, thank you for your love for my lists! LOL! These asks just keep coming in, so it looks like I’m overdue for another pining John list!!

That said I do actually have pining John fics, and enough to start a second list! As I re-read fics, I’m able to keep adding all the old ones I didn’t tag ages ago to lists, so that’s fun, hahah. Hope you guys don’t mind me just combining all the pining into one list, hahaah. I get more fics that way LOL!

Enjoy, and feel free to add your own, friends!

See also:

Pining John

Pining Sherlock || [MOBILE FRIENDLY VERSION]

Mutual Pining

Mutual Pining Pt 2

John’s Away (and Sherlock’s Not Okay)

Caffeine and Adaptive Programming by DemonicSymphony (E, 5,540 w., 1 Ch. || Androids AU / Bond Fusion || Android Sherlock, Coffee Shop AU, Pining John Hinted Bond / Q, Toplock) – Sherlock is a coffee shop android slowly falling for a regular customer. But he's not supposed to be able to feel emotions.

London Gods by a_different_equation (E, 11,092 w., 5 Ch. || American Gods Fusion || Magical Realism, Sex Magic, True Love, PTSD John, First Kiss/Time, Marathon Sex, Sensuality, Genie Sherlock, Human John, Internalized Homophobia, Star-Crossed Lovers, Soul Mates) – Sherlock Holmes is a jinn who does not grant wishes. However, when Dr. John H. Watson, recently returned from the war in Afghanistan, gets into his cab by "accident", it might not even need magic to grant both men their deepest wish: love.

There's So Much Labour Just in Breathing Lately by Susan (E, 12,708 w., 1 Ch. || Post-TRF / Mentions of S3 Events, Romance, Angst, Grief/Mourning, Grieving John, Mutual Pining, Meddling Mycroft, Therapy, Ambiguous Hopeful Ending, Infidelity) – The dreams he hated most – the ones that left him a sweating, shaking mess when he woke – were the ones in which Sherlock was just Sherlock. Laughing or drinking tea. Sitting across the table from him at Angelo’s eating pasta. Trailing his open hand behind him on the way to the bedroom. “C’mon, John. I’m about to have my way with you.”

On The Fence by BeautifulFiction (T, 13,770 w., 1 Ch. || Fencing, Case Fic, First Kiss, Insecure John, Pining John, Hug, Greg Finds Out) – The murder of the King's College fencing champion leads to revelations about Sherlock's past. Will it be the point that tips them from friends to lovers, or will they remain on the fence?

The Invocation of Saint Margaret by Ewebie (E, 15,831 w., 1 Ch. || POV John,  Crossing Timelines, Light Angst, Fluff, Series 3 John / Series 1 Sherlock, The Matchbox, Mushy Romance, First Time, Bisexual John, Pining John, Bottomlock, Love Confessions, Sensuality, Emotional Love Making, Snippets of Time) – When Sherlock Holmes opens the matchbox from The Sign of Three and John finds himself years in the past, back to that first dinner at Angelo's with a much younger Sherlock Holmes. Is he dreaming?

Division by MrsNoggin (E, 19,542 w., 11 Ch. || Coffee Shop AU || First Kiss/Time, Fluff, Barista Sherlock, Clingy Sherlock, POV John, John’s Limp, Bed Sharing, Fluff, Sleepy Cuddles, Sensuality, Touching, Virgin Sherlock, Insecure John) – John likes mysteries. And every morning he dips into the local independent coffee bar with his newspaper and ponders another... one Sherlock Holmes.

Insanity in the Middle by DotyTakeThisDown (E, 28,010 w., 8 Ch. || Equestrian Sports AU || Alternate First Meeting, POV John, Pining John, Bottomlock, Clueless Sherlock, First Kiss/Time, Passionate Kisses, Hand Holding, Caught Making Out, Bed Sharing, Spooning, Blow Job) – John is a world-class eventing rider with a gold medal and several four-star wins to his credit, but he's never won at Rolex. Sherlock is an up-and-coming rider taking the sport by storm.

Deck the Halls by itsalwaysyou_jw (T, 31,018 w., 24 Ch. || Advent Fic / Multiple One-Shots, Assorted Tags) – One Johnlock ficlet for every day leading up to Christmas. Who is ready for pining, first kisses, established Johnlock, and everything in between? This collection of stand-alone ficlets will have it all.

The Case of the Vanishing Pants by SwissMiss (E, 44,025 w., 6 Ch. || Five and Ones, Post-TRF, Case Fic, UST, Homophobia, Friends to Lovers, Pining John, Showering Together, Couple for a Case, Sherlock’s Bum, Fantasies, Jealous Sherlock) – Five times John and Sherlock lost their pants in the course of a case.

Only To Be With You by SinceWhenDoYouCallMe_John (M, 40,768 w., 4 Ch. || Black Mirror / Future AU || Character Death, Future Technology, Sickness/Cancer/Illness, Heavy Angst with Happy Ending, First Person POV John, Pining John, Heart-Wrenching Angst) – I tell myself that next time I’ll come near this same place again. Wait around for the mysterious stranger in his coat to dash past me, hot on the heels of a new criminal in black. I think this all the way back to my Exit, planning where I’ll wait and what I’ll say when I see him. Scheming on how to get his name. It’s only once I reach the Exit Point door that I realize two hours and forty-five minutes have passed, and I realize that this won’t be the last time I Visit. It won’t be the last time at all.

Inscrutable to the Last by DiscordantWords (M, 48,842 w., 6 Ch. || Post-TRF, Alternate S3, John’s Blog/S3 is a Story By John, Divorce, Marital Difficulties, John is a Mess, Emotional Reunion, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Grief / Mourning, Pining John, First Kiss, Adorably Clueless Sherlock, Nostalgia, Love Confessions, Eventual Happy Ending) – He wasn't Sherlock, he couldn't work miracles. All he'd ever been able to do was write about them.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by SilentAuror (E, 50,635 w., 1 Ch. || Post-S4/S4 Divergence, Case Fic, For a Case / Reverse Fake-Relationship, Conferences, Marriage Equality, Travelling / New York, Pride, Homophobia, Bottomlock, Marriage Proposal, John POV, Sexuality, Love Confessions, Emotional Love Making, Public Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, Passionate Kissing, Needy/Clingy Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Touching / Hand Holding, Bed Sharing, Little Spoon Sherlock, Intense Orgasms) – John and Sherlock go to New York to attend a conference run by the National Defence of Traditional Marriage Coalition in order to investigate the potential bombing of the annual Manhattan Pride parade. As the conference unfolds, John finds himself repulsed by the toxic ideology being presented, which becomes relevent to his own unacknowledged issues and his friendship with Sherlock...

Isosceles by SilentAuror (E, 56,609 w., 7 Ch. || Post-S4, POV John, Original Male Character / Sherlock Dates Another Man, Love Triangle, Jealous John, Virgin Sherlock, Sexual Coaching, Angst, Romance, Domesticity, Unrequited Feelings, Miscommunication, First Kiss/Time, For a Case, Friends With Benefits, Bottomlock, Love Confessions, Spooning) – After solving a case for a major celebrity, Sherlock gets himself asked out. When John asks, he discovers that Sherlock has no intention of going, at least not until John agrees to coach him through whatever he might need to know for his date...

White Knight by DiscordantWords (M, 69,840 w., 13 Ch. || S4 Compliant/Post S4, Marriage For a Case, Jealous John, Pining John, Janine / Sherlock Fake Relationship, Serial Killers, Case Fic, Undercover as a Couple, Weddings, John is a Mess, Misunderstandings, Wedding Planning, Jealousy, Drunkenness, Love Confessions, Angst with Happy Ending) – Green. The word green was used to convey a great many things. Illness. Envy. Inexperience. Standing there amidst Janine's chattering bridesmaids, watching Sherlock furrow his brow and study fabric swatches, watching him smile and simper and flirt, John thought it a remarkably apt colour choice. Because he felt quite sick to his stomach, he feared the source of said sickness might very well be jealousy, and he had absolutely no idea at all what to do about it. Or: Sherlock needs to fake a relationship for a case. He doesn't ask John.

Thermocline by J_Baillier (M, 83,557 w., 14 Ch. || Scuba Diving AU || Adventure, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Marine Archaeology, Asexual Sherlock, Horny John, Relationship Drama, Technical/Scuba/Wreck Diving, Slow Burn, Underwater /  Medical Peril, Doctor John, Hurt Sherlock, Anxious Sherlock, John POV, Protective John, Body Appreciation) – John "Five Oceans" Watson — technical dive instructor, dive accident analyst and weapon of mass seduction — meets recluse professor of maritime archaeology Holmes. As they head out to a remote archipelago off the coast of Guatemala to study and film its shipwrecks for a documentary, will sparks fly or fizzle out?

The Bang and the Clatter by earlgreytea68 (M, 137,049 w., 37 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Baseball AU || Slow Burn / Dev. Rel., Possessive/Obsessive Sherlock, Jealous Sherlock, Mutual Pining, Body Appreciation, Depression, Closeted Sexuality, Family, Sherlock’s Mind Palace, Ogling Each Other, Anxious Sherlock, Panic Attack, Drunkenness, Talk of Forever, Big Feelings™) – Sherlock Holmes is a pitcher and John Watson is a catcher. No, no, no, it's a baseball AU. Part 1 of Baseball

Proving A Point by elldotsee & J_Baillier (E, 186,270 w., 28 Ch. || Me Before You Fusion || Medical Realism, Insecure John, Depression, Romance, Angst, POV John, Sherlock Whump, Serious Illness, Doctor John, Injury Recovery, Assisted Suicide, Sherlock’s Violin, Awkward Sexual Situations, Alcoholism, Drugs, Idiots in Love, Slow Burn, Body Image, Friends to Lovers, Hurt / Comfort, Pain, Big Brother Mycroft, Intimacy, Anxiety, PTSD, Family Issues, Psychological Trauma, John Whump, Case Fics, Loneliness, Pain) – Invalided home from Afghanistan, running out of funds and convinced that his surgical career is over, John Watson accepts a mysterious job offer to provide care and companionship for a disabled person. Little does he know how much hangs in the balance of his performance as he settles into his new life at Musgrave Court.

[thesims4blogger]

The Sims 4 Paranormal Stuff: Developer Blog (Part 1)

SimGuruConnor has released part 1 of the Sims 4 Paranormal Developer Blog series.

Hello Simmers! Welcome to a small 2-part Dev Blog about our newest Stuff Pack, Paranormal Stuff! This pack has been an absolute blast to work on, and I’m excited to share what this pack is all about!

I’ll try not to reveal too many spoilers for the pack either, so I’ll keep things somewhat brief. Our topics for today are the new Scared Mood and the Haunted House Lot Type, plus an interview with our Audio Artist too!

Get Scared

Sims can now relish in the mortal dread of the Scared Mood! The Scared Mood affects Sims in a variety of ways, with my personal favorite, the new Scream Incoherently interaction, where a Scared Sim runs up to another Sim to scream their lungs out. This can result in the other Sim calming down the Scared Sim, or resulting in both Sims becoming Scared. This can create a Scared Mood wildfire if you’re not careful!

Whoa, whoa, whoa, it's okay!

Sims afflicted with the Scared Mood also have trouble communicating with others, the urge to panic-run everywhere, and are slightly more prone to accidents. If no other Sims are around to help calm down a Scared Sim, they might just have to Hide Under The Covers for a while.

But if being Scared just isn’t your Sims style, consider purchasing the new Brave Trait. This Satisfaction Reward Store Trait will rapidly reduce the incoming fear a Sim feels and help Sims regain their composure faster. While no Sim is totally fearless, this trait should help mitigate some of those creepy feelings.

The Scared Mood and the Brave Reward Trait are all base game features coming with the Paranormal Stuff patch on January 21st. Tons of previous Uncomfortable Buffs are now becoming Scared Buffs, such as the “Startled By Ghost” Buff or the “Thalassophobia” Buff from Island Living.

While being Scared might not be a common occurrence in your everyday Sims life, living in a Haunted House is a whole different story…

Happy Haunts

Introducing the Haunted House Lot Type!

The Duplantier Dwelling, created by Doctor Ashley! This “canon” Haunted House will be available in the gallery!

They’re like regular houses, only haunted! Although unassuming during the day, at night, these places get super weird. Your Sims may notice things like flickering lights, pipes rattling, or even creepy dolls staring at them in the corner. All are totally normal occurrences in a Haunted House, but it may take some time for your Sims to adjust to their new surroundings.

Sims living in a Haunted House will also be introduced to floating apparitions known as Specters. They’re cute little critters, but their motives aren’t entirely clear. You can try talking to them, or even offer them presents in hopes of establishing a good rapport. If they like you, they’ll drop special loot for you and your family. If they don’t like you, well, you’ve been warned.

o o o (> ‘ u ‘ )>

Learning to get along with your new ghostly inhabitants is crucial in a Haunted House. Things like botching seances, neglecting Specters, or letting accursed objects invade your house will have a negative impact on its spiritual serenity. There is a delicate art to co-existing with the entities of the house, and thankfully you’ll have an expert on the matter to assist you!

Meet Guidry

Claude René Duplantier Guidry was a seasoned Paranormal Investigator in his previous life, but now he exists to help anyone brave enough to live in a Haunted House! You’ll probably run into him eventually living in a Haunted House, but don’t worry, he’s a nice ghost!

Guidry will gladly offer his wisdom to those who seek it. If you’re confused, alarmed, or slightly uncomfortable by your new haunted surroundings, give Guidry a holler and he might be able to help. He can also offer valuable objects to help your Sims, too; all you need is to reach out!

Still got it.

All Guidry wants in return is to crash at your place for the time being. Sounds like a fair deal, right? But if you’d prefer to fly it solo, you can always disable his nightly visits—he won’t be too upset, maybe.

As mentioned before, Guidry was a Paranormal Investigator before his untimely demise. If he sees potential in you, he can certify you with a Paranormal Investigation License, granting access to the Paranormal Investigation Freelancer Gigs. Only those who are qualified enough can join the ranks of Paranormal Investigators, but more on that next time!

Be Brave!

Living in a Haunted House adds a layer of risk and reward for your Sims, and each successful night yields Reward Store Satisfaction Points for everyone in the Household. Specters can also drop treasure that can also be collected, consumed, or sold to an Oddity Collector. So although your Sims might go through a bit of peril, they’ll thankfully be compensated.

One of my favorite pieces of haunted treasure is the new Sacred Candle. Not only do they look cool, but they also help protect Sims from paranormal influences. Place them around your house to make sure Sims are properly shielded!

A properly protected Sim.

Things like Sacred Candles and performing ceremonies at the Séance Table are integral to keeping your Sims happy in a Haunted House. Without using these paranormal tools, the entities of the house might get a little bossy.

And while it might be in your Sims’ best interest to keep the spirits of the house in check, watching things go horribly wrong in a Haunted House can be just as fun too. So whatever works for you!

Like Tiny Homes, this Lot Type can be toggled on or off at any time. So whether you’re a casual thrillseeker who wants to spend a couple of nights in a Haunted House, or a seasoned Paranormal Expert who wants to take on a new challenge, this Lot Type should offer something for you!

Crosspack Stuff!

Pets get to share the fun too! They especially love the accursed objects that show up!

I think they’re gonna get along great.

As mentioned before, a ton of old Buffs from multiple packs are now being converted to the Scared Mood. I think 70 something Moodlets were converted? Honestly, I lost count. Anything that seemed more appropriate for the Scared Mood was transferred over.

Oh, and you might remember an old Lot Trait from City Living called Haunted. For clarity’s sake, it needed a name change, so now it’s the Spooky Lot Trait. It also benefits from being combined with the new Haunted House Lot Type and will have an increased chance of spawning Ghosts at night. So use both for maximum haunted-ness!

Audibly Frightened

Last but not least, I’d love to turn it over to our Audio Artist for this pack, Briana Billups! She did a killer job bringing Haunted Houses to life! Trust me!

Conor: Can you tell us what an Audio Artist does on The Sims 4?

Briana: Big, broad picture: an audio artist decides what everything in The Sims 4 sounds like. We record, create, and edit sounds to the art and animation of the game. Little, very detailed picture: creating the actual sounds is usually one of the smaller aspects of our job. We are meeting with other departments, like design, animation, and VFX, to understand the overall vision of new game features and how we can fit in sonically. We are meeting with each other to make sure all our new content still keeps the very fun and quirky vibe of the Sims. We come up with new tools and implementation where necessary.

Conor: What sort of things go into the creative process for creating audio?

Briana: Every audio artist/sound designer has their own creative process, but I like to make a “sonic mood board” of sorts. I typically like to have a good idea of what I want something to sound like in my head before I record or edit it, so it’s nice to have sound effects or music to refer to that represents my original inspiration or ideas. When I was in college, I would make Spotify playlists for whatever I was working on. I would listen to them once a day, adding and editing as necessary, so when I actually got to work, I was in the right headspace. Now I’m usually less formal about this sort of stuff, but for this pack, I would refer back to things like Vincent Price’s demonic laugh from Thriller or Casper the Friendly Ghost Cartoons and the looping soundtrack from the queue of a horror ride at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk (Ghost Blasters)

Conor: What were you most excited to work on for this pack?

Briana: Definitely all the haunted house sounds! Good sound design is the crux of so many horror movies and video games, so even if we were keeping things more “Casper” and less “Poltergeist,” I still wanted to give a good scare here and there. I actually scared myself one day while playtesting another feature in the game!

Conor: If you had to choose, what is your favorite audio clip you’ve ever added to The Sims 4?

Briana: I would say my favorite SFX were the sports arena loops in EP08: Discover University. When you visit the arena for the soccer/esports match or graduation, you can actually listen to the whole game or ceremony. It was great to craft a whole story from start to finish using just sound. I also snuck in a lot of developer names when writing the scripts for our voice actors.

Thanks, Briana!

More To Come!

That about covers this first foray into the Paranormal Stuff Pack! This pack has been a ton of fun to work on, and watching my Sims flee in terror has been more enjoyable than I’d like to admit.

Next blog, we’ll focus on the Séance Table and developing your Medium skill, as well as the new active freelance career Paranormal Investigator.

Big thanks to the Stuff Pack team for helping this pack come to life, and thank you, Doctor Ashley, for building our featured Haunted House!

Until next time, SimGuruConor

[spencers-renaissance]

Writing Masterlist

All of my writing is available on AO3, but I’ve put together a masterlist of all my work so far for everyone who gets their fic fill on tumblr and will keep it updated! Keep your eyes peeled for new fics on the regular <3

⭐️= indicates my personal faves

If you’re looking for smut, you need to head to my smut masterlist on my nsfw blog!

Current Fic Count: 30

Aaron x Spencer

⭐️turns out that I need you now (much more than you need me)

Spencer is suffering in silence and it’s only made worse when the team messes up and makes him feel even more hurt and insecure. When Hotch goes to check on him, though, things start to look up.

3.5k, angst, hurt/comfort, protective hotch, happy ending

⭐️Vivaldi on Full Volume

Spencer’s done enough pining, so he decides to write a letter for Aaron telling him exactly how he feels and gives it to him on the jet. He cannot be held responsible for what happens when they land.

5.2k, fluff, love confessions, shy spencer, insecurity

Living the Same Lie

Aaron breaks up with Spencer, but when an attempt to move on goes horribly wrong they get a second chance.

5k, hurt/comfort, angst with a happy ending, fluff, breaking up and making up, implied/mentioned physical assault, implied/mentioned sexual assault

East Coast

Spencer and Aaron happen to sit opposite one another on a busy train, and when Spencer spots a breakthrough in the legal case Aaron is stuck on, they strike up an innocuous conversation that quickly stirs up feelings.

2.1k, fluff, meet-cute, train carriage au, lawyer!aaron, academic!spencer, shy spencer, firsts 

All Roads Lead Home

Spencer’s working the Christmas Eve shift when a young boy with a hurt arm comes into the ER. Nothing out of the ordinary, except his rather flirty dad and leaving later with an extra phone number in his contacts list…

2.1k, fluff, hospital au, getting together, first date, gentleman!aaron, soft spencer

To Look on Tempests and Not Be Shaken

In the wake of a blazing row and an empty apartment, Aaron finds Spencer’s well-thumbed copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets and recalls the morning after their wedding, when Spencer sat on his lap and read Sonnet 116 to him. Suddenly, everything makes sense.

2.6k, angst with a happy ending, fighting and making up, married hotchreid, relationship dynamics, introspection, fluff

Derek x Spencer

Even More Beautiful 

The BAU is stuck in Michigan with no case and no way home, so naturally, Spencer and Derek confess their love for one another. (Based on the prompt ‘You look even more beautiful covered in snow.’)

3.5k, fluff, love confessions, shy spencer, insecurity, hurt/comfort

⭐️Hear it in the Silence

A short, fluffy chronicle of Spencer realising in increments how in love with Derek he is, and navigating a real, beautifully sweet relationship that's not always smooth sailing, especially since he's been hurt before. (Based on Taylor Swift’s You are in Love.)

3.7k, angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, dev relationship, tw past abuse, domesticity

⭐️Still Left With the River

Derek wakes up to find his boyfriend crying on the sofa. Cue the hurt, the comfort, and the fluff. 

1.6k, hurt/comfort, fluff, caretaker!derek, autistic spencer, crying, sad spencer

100

Spencer's an academic researcher who spends every morning at his local library. Derek just happens to drop by one Tuesday and ask the pretty boy in the classics section if he can help him find a book. Sparks fly.

2.1k, library au, fluff, meet-cute, pining, shy spencer, coming out

when I fall asleep (it is your eyes that I close)

Spencer’s not been sleeping, and as much as Derek adores his sleepy clinginess and physical affection, as soon as they get home he’s determined to get to the bottom of it. 

1.9k, fluff, hurt/comfort, sleep-deprivation, clingy!spencer, physical affection, anxiety, cuddling

⭐️Trees and Seas Have Flown Away, I Call it Loving You

Derek says something hurtful, but it happens to lead to just about the best thing that’s ever happened to Spencer.

3.2k, hurt/comfort, fluff, angst, fighting/making up, angst with a happy ending, autistic spencer, coming out, getting together

⭐️A Christmas Like This

Spencer has a very specific plan for their first Christmas in their new house, and it has to be absolutely perfect. Derek’s going to do everything in his power to make his boyfriend as happy as possible, even if that means a house covered in garlands and a tree covered in animal skeletons…

2.9k, fluff, christmas fic, est relationship, neurodivergence, romance, domesticity, day in the life

Secret Santa

Penelope rigs the BAU’s Secret Santa game to finally get Derek and Spencer together with extraordinary success, and they have her to thank for their future first date. Oh, and a sprig of mistletoe nearly throws the whole thing out the window. 

2.8k, fluff, getting together, insecurity/anxiety, christmas fic, first kiss, misunderstandings, friendship

⭐️A Chronicle of Loss

5 people Spencer Reid lost and 1 person he gained. A look at the traumas Spencer faces over the series, and giving him the happy ending he deserves.

3.6k, grief, loss, abandonment issues, insecurity, depression, hurt/comfort, angst with a happy ending, getting together, ‘didn’t know they were dating’, protective derek, autistic spencer

Mayhem

Imagine that scene in S4E1 when Derek is driving the ambulance loaded with a bomb about to explode, except it’s Spencer on the other end of the phone and they finally get their shit together. 

4.2k, canon divergence, spencer is the tech analyst, getting together, mutual pining, insecure spencer, angst with a happy ending, fluff, declarations of love

⭐️my heart talks about nothing but you

Derek finds Spencer staring longingly at dancing newlyweds while on a case and once he gets to the bottom of why he’s tasked with making a proposal to a man who knows it’s coming special somehow. (He pulls it off.)

2.5k, established relationship, hurt/comfort, minor angst, fluff, relationship discussions, proposal, protective derek

I told the stars about you

Derek and Spencer have their first date. They dance to Frank Sinatra and cuddle in an ice cream parlour, before kissing the hell out of each other at Spencer's front door. That's pretty much it. (Prequel to above fic.)

2.1k, first date, first kiss, pure tooth-rotting fluff, dancing, flirting, protective derek

⭐️I can’t hold enough of you in my hands

Derek and Spencer are finally getting married and the rest of the BAU are there to help them through every step of the day. Including a little surprise that Derek has up his sleeve for their first dance. (Third part to the above two fics.)

3.1k, tooth-rotting fluff, marriage/wedding day, team as family, team dynamics, domesticity, paternal hotch, maternal alex, just a whole lotta love man

⭐️ dry me off and hold me close

Derek has finally relented and is bringing his boyfriend Spencer to meet the rest of the team. That means, though, he has to finally tell them about his boyfriend's disability. Terrified that they'll react badly, he puts it off until he can't anymore. Turns out he was worried for nothing

5.7k, so much fluff, protective derek, disabled spencer, caretaker derek, spencer is not in the bau, team as family, hurt/comfort, light angst, est. rel, chronic illness, slice of life: disabled edition

Honeysuckle

The BAU decide to head out for a picnic one summer afternoon, but they’re soon rudely interrupted by a bee sting and anaphylactic shock. Seeing Spencer carted off in an ambulance is not exactly how they expected the day to go.

2.3k, whump, angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, hurt spencer, friendship, medical conditions, severe allergic reactions

⭐️The Noiseless Crash of Crumbling Walls

After Derek and Spencer are paired up on a science project in their senior year of high school, they become the closest, most unlikely friends possible. But what happens when Derek finally finds out what Spencer's dealing with at home? Inspired by the prompt “where did you get those bruises?”

4.5k, high school au, hurt/comfort, fluff, angst, hurt spencer, protective derek, abuse, friendship, pre-slash, spencer just turned 16, derek is almost 18

Luke x Spencer

Start With This

Luke accidentally hurts Spencer because they are both hopelessly stupid, but when Spencer’s faced with a dangerous situation there’s nothing he wants more than Luke. Calling him turns out to be a very good decision.

3.9k, hurt/comfort, angst w a happy ending, fluff, getting together, misunderstandings

⭐️Foolishly, Completely Falling

Spencer declines to spend the night with Luke, but there’s a reason for that, and things start to click into place when Spencer shows back up at his doorstep at 2am, hours after being dropped home.

2.5k, hurt/comfort, fluff, angst, past toxic relationship, nightmares, est/dev relationship

You Said You’d Never Smile Again

“At one point, we had a conversation about how hard Spencer was finding life after prison and he told me that he didn’t think he’d ever smile again. And so, I made it my mission to prove Dr Spencer Reid wrong for the first time in his life.”

1.4k, weddings, tooth-rotting fluff, implied/referenced depression, post-prison spencer, insecure luke, found family 

Emily x JJ

Don’t Be Scared, I Love You

JJ is shot and Emily's world stops spinning.

1.7k, whump, hurt/comfort, angst with a happy ending, fluff, protective emily

⭐️my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand

Emily leaves. Her heart is breaking. JJ follows. Hers is waking up.

1.3k, angst with a happy ending, fluff, mutual pining, crying, first kiss

Emily x Reader

⭐️Night In/Night Out

Emily Prentiss is your girlfriend and she finally asks you to meet her family (the BAU): cue the fluff.

3.2k, fluff, flirting, cuddling, domesticity, protective emily, slight shy!reader

baby, you’re my new years’ eve

You and Emily are hosting a New Years' Eve party for all of your friends, but she's acting a little weird. You finally find out why when the clock strikes midnight.

3.6k, fluff, nye fic, proposal, getting engaged, domesticity, romance, flirting, day in the life 

Gen

Pull Me Out of the Glowing Stream

Spencer develops bacterial meningitis and Hotch sort of forgets how to breathe. 

3.8k, paternal!hotch, hurt/comfort, sickness, whump, fluff, happy ending

I found my way home

After Spencer tells Hotch about his recent autism diagnosis, he expects that to be the end of it. Somehow, though, it keeps coming up, and Hotch keeps proving himself to be the best father figure he could have asked for. 

4.1k, autistic spencer, protective hotch, hurt/comfort, fluff, paternal hotch, team as family

⭐️The Colour of Waiting is Purple

Spencer's just trying to get home as quickly as possible when a bad decision to take a shortcut down a back alley leaves him broken and bleeding into the night. // Hotch thinks it's a new case when his phone rings at 3 in the morning. It isn't.

3.7k, whump, hurt/comfort, physical assault, major character injury, hospitals, dad hotch, hurt spencer, angst with a happy ending, eventual fluff

[the-space-lady]

I think it is time to say Goodbye.

Hello! Mod here, Tataia. I’ve come to make an announcement about the-space-lady and edgy-frenchman.

From this day on, I will not be updating these blogs anymore. I will be closing the inbox and delete all unanswered asks.

Don’t worry! They will still be up, you can come back to look through everything as many times as you’d like, but don’t expect any new posts in either blogs.

Now, we all know already that these blogs have been on an never ending hiatus, and it showed no signs of updating regularly like back in the day. So, let’s have a little (okay, kind of long) chat, about how this blog came to life, and how I am happy and thankful with everything that came from it.

Feel free to not read this at all, because it is kind of a long read.

If you have any questions, please send an ask to my main blog, @tataiafurquim​, and follow my twitter where I’m the most active, also going by the same username.

Three years ago, 2017, for the first time in the Brawlhalla history, there was a new legend leak! It was a picture taken with a phone of a monitor screen which showed the character selection screen in Brawlhalla, of the next legend in the default pose (the one that every legend has before getting their signature poses once they’re released); that was the first time everyone saw Artemis. BMG didn’t even announce her on dev streams by that point. The picture was shared in the r/Brawlhalla discord server, and, Calamari-Pop herself had tagged me to see it in one of the text channels, saying, ‘look! female Orion!’. Since I started playing the game, I’ve always been an Orion main, and once I saw Artemis for the first time, I felt like it was love at first sight.

I was instantly hyped for the character, while most people were complaining that ‘BMG had run out of ideas for new legends’, I couldn’t wait for her release, she was so beautiful, I never felt so hyped for something like I did for Artemis. I was probably the first person to make fanart for her and post it on r/Brawlhalla. People’s opinions on Artemis were very 50/50. People didn’t like her because ‘it’s just female Orion’, others genuinely liked her, and were excited to play with the next scythe legend.

I didn’t have many friends at the time who were into Brawlhalla, so for me the hype was kept mainly to myself, and of course, through my art. The picture we had of Artemis was very poor quality, so a lot of early art was missing a lot of details, but I didn’t care; I just kept drawing the only thing that was bringing me happiness.

I was a 14 year old when all of this happened, school was being very rough on me, back in the day I used to struggle so much to study, it was a pain to focus and learn, I’d always give up and go back to video games and art. My grades were horrible, I felt like my personal friendships were kind of faling apart, and so with my family. The only light at the end of the tunnel I had at the time, was the idea of making an ask blog for Artemis.

At first, I was skeptical. What if it flops? The Brawlhalla community wasn’t very active in other social medias, it was small, but everyone was close and if something big was announced, the word would spread fast. I mean, it was worth a short. Worse comes to worse, I delete the blog and move on. Ask blogs weren’t as popular as they were either.

I had claimed the URL even before Artemis was announced in a dev stream, so the blog was ready to go. I remember waiting a little more than a month when the patch of her release was finally online, and I did my move of announcing the blog in every social media I could, and so I waited for the community to show up.

And they didn’t stop coming! It was ask after ask, I was so happy, this little blog was my escape from the real world. Answering people as Artemis was honestly the most fun I was having during that year. And I could also draw her as much as I’d like! The blog was growing, and so was my audience of people who was genuinely following me for my regular art. Even when I was grounded because I did bad on a test, I still answered people with drawings made on paper.

Needless to say, this blog was definitely, a start for me in the Brawlhalla community. “Are you the person who draws a lot of Artemis?” “Yep! That’s me!” It was great, I felt like I was finally becoming someone somewhat important in a community like I always wished to, drawing what I loved, and people loved it. I even met my soon-to-be boyfriend through it!

But of course, that didn’t stop what was happening outside of the computer screen. Things were going even more downhill the more I focused on the internet and forgot about real life. It was helpless; there was no way I was passing that school year, I’d have to repeat it. My parents had decided that maybe one of the issues was that, my old school, was one of those schools that go really hard on the students, and that was not my place. So, the next year, 2018, I changed schools for the first time.

I’ve always had really bad anxiety. On the first day in the new school, you know what I did? I drew Artemis. What a surprise to nobody, but for me, this was my moment of realization, that this space lady from a fighting game, was my comfort character. This possibly canonically evil woman who wants to kill my main because of some fucked up shit he did in the past, was my comfort character. I was depressed? I drew Artemis. I was happy? I drew Artemis. I was extremely pissed off?? You guessed it! I drew Artemis! It is likely that a lot of pieces I made of her that I’ve posted online, were created from strong emotions I had while I drew it. There’s a lot that I didn’t even post either.

In 2018 I was still updating the blog, but I was also focusing a lot more on school. I was managing to get good grades, I made new friends, had new experiences, and my relationship with my family was getting better. Of course every year has its ups and downs, but overall, the important part, was finally being taken care of; I passed the school year, and then I passed again, and I passed again! I have just one more year to go, and hopefully, in 2021 I’ll be done.

Setting that aside, as the blog grew, my audience online did so too. My art improved, I’ve become, for the lack of a better word, an important member in the community. A lot of people have seen my art, and some of them probably don’t even follow me!

Today, I am a Brawlhalla Partner, I have a wonderful boyfriend, incredible friends, an amazing relationship with my family, and I am now hoping for a bright future of work ahead of me, and it was all thanks to this ask blog of a fictional character who I deeply loved. I would have never made it where I am today without Artemis, without Brawlhalla, without all of you. I could ever be thankful, and all I can give you all is more fanart of this amazing game that has completely changed my life, and with how Brawlhalla has been growing? Keep an eye on this one, it’s gonna get big.

Thank you so much everyone who has supported me over the years, and followed me more than just Artemis content. The updates on the blog have stopped because I’ve been focusing on other things. trying out new stuff and focusing on myself to become a better person and artist, creating my own stories with original characters, which I’m excited to share with all of you.

Anyway, take care, whoever read this far <3 Hopefully 2021 will be a better year for everyone.

[phoenotopia]

2020 July Update

Things have gone slowly... again.

The good news is that the game is now submitted to the console "authority" and it's entirely off my hands. Once it gets through the console "checking" process, it can get a release date and we can sprint towards release. Until then, it'd be at least a month's wait or more until I hear anything. Understandably, their checking process is impacted by Corona, so wait times are increased.

On my end, I was also slow to submit the game. I submitted it late late June, since I ended up spending 7 weeks fixing bugs (and not 2-3 weeks like I estimated in the last blog post). There were just SO many bugs - now squished, thankfully. Since this is a blog post, I'll talk about what kind of bugs I've been fixing.

The other thing that slowed down the submission process was simply due to unfamiliarity with how these submissions proceed. There were pages and pages of stuff to read, guidelines to follow, and legalese to wade through. It really made me wish I had a publisher to guide me through the process. But I was able to clear it with a couple days work. I had an impression that the submission process went like A->B->C->D, with no room for concurrency. Turns out I could have done steps B & C at the same time and sped things up by 2 weeks... So that's that. I'm taking that as a lesson for next time.

The Console Revealed

What is this console that I talk about so stealthily? So that this blog update isn't completely unexciting, I'll reveal which console I've been working on until now. Drumroll please!

It's Switch!

We actually got the Switch dev kit in late 2017. From my understanding, around this time in the USA, the Switch kit was quite hard to get for indies as it was just starting out and high in demand. So I was surprised that my application got approved. I didn't know it then, but the game would still need a few more years of development...

Tweaking performance and fixing bugs

Here you can see my "expert" playtest setup. Since the Switch is more powerful while docked, I needed to playtest it in handheld mode, so I could catch and profile any problem areas where the framerate was unsteady. The most common thing that caused framerate drops were areas that went overboard with lighting. For these areas, I'd tweak or swap out the lights with alternatives that looked similar while also being less computationally intensive. Maintaining 60 FPS is a must!

An old camera (Nikon D3100) trained at the screen recorded my playthrough and would let me rewind to any moment a bug occurred. It could only record in 10 minute chunks, so I'd have to repeatedly repress the record button. On the plus side, because it's so old the movie file sizes were small and convenient.

The number one bug that I tracked and fixed in the past two months was what I dub the "Gear Ring De-equip" bug. The Gear Ring functions as customizable shortcut keys for the player to map items and tools (see an old video demonstration HERE). Through regular use of the inventory, somehow the equipped items on the Gear Ring would be de-equipped. It was an elusive bug since the de-equip event would happen very quietly and you would only suspect something had gone wrong much later. By then, the trail had gone cold and you weren't sure if a de-equip had actually occurred or if the player had simply de-equipped the item themselves. Two other playtesters noted that something left the Gear Ring in their playthrough, but I dismissed them. "Are you sure you didn't just de-equip it yourself?" It was a bug that bred mistrust and discord. I didn't truly believe it until it happened to me...

Luckily, with the camera setup, I was finally able to track it. In the literal 67th video, I caught a live instance of the bug occurring. After which, it was all too easy to recreate the exact same inventory and gear ring setup and replicate it.

(With this exact item layout, combine the 2nd item with the 14th item... and viola! Gear Ring de-equip!)

After fixing this bug, I then proceeded to fix it 5 more times. Every time I fixed it, it would later reappear through a different mechanism. 

Why do bugs like this happen? Underneath, there are two lists of items. Tools on the right and items on the left. Items can occur multiple times because they're consumable. Both lists start counting their indexes with the value 0. However, both items and tools co-exist on the gear ring. So to uniquely identify an entry you need both the item ID and the data index. Failure to check both data types resulted in bugs like the Gear Ring de-equip. Now throw in a bunch of item operations that can confuse the system. You can split items, combine items, swap items, or discard items. The more freedom you allow, the more ways there are for the system to trip up.

If you didn't get all that, that's alright. It was needlessly complicated. Imagine doing more and better and with less code and less bugs! Such a thing is possible if you start with the right design. I'm definitely taking notes here on how to design inventory systems for next time. In the meanwhile, I'm very confident I've squished all inventory related bugs.

Other bugs squashed and features implemented in the past 2 months include the end game arts not unlocking properly, collection percentages climbing beyond 100, stray doors floating in the sky, low HP sfx blaring when loading different files, balance tweaks on bosses, a max HP display when the menu is open - too many to count really! It was only after I fixed them all that I was confident enough to move forward with submitting the game. I apologize for the delay this will cause!

PC version back in progress

You may recall in the March 2020 update I talk about how in pursuing the Switch version, I unwittingly ruined the PC version. Well, since the game is "done" now and I'm waiting for it to go through the checking process, I've started working to reclaim the PC version.

And there is some good news to report. The PC version can compile again! Of course, it will need to have some work done, since it was late 2017 when I last had a functioning PC build. 

The opening menu is broken, the underlying save file system needs to be updated, and the controls... oh Lord, the controls. Controls were probably the #1 factor in pushing me to pursue a console version first. There are just so many controller options. Even just the usual suspects are numerous: Xbox, Nintendo, Sony, Logitech, Hori, 8Bitdo, Steam...

One of the number one complaints received regarding the flash game (which was keyboard primarily) was that I didn't allow controller rebinding to start. It was then that I learned of the vast array of different keyboard types.

(Ever heard of an Azerty keyboard?)

I shan't make the same mistake twice! One of the things I'll definitely tackle is the Right/Left face button feud when it comes to which should one should be 'confirm' and which one is 'cancel'. I want to allow the player to choose which is their "YES" and "NO" preference and allow that to overlap other actions like Attack or Jump.

Even after control bindings are taken care of, some things just won't translate well. The right control stick is currently used to access the gear ring and for fishing. Keyboards have no right stick. Aiming the crossbow with a full 360 degrees of range is done with the left control stick - if keyboard only, would the crossbow simply be locked to the 8 cardinal directions? What about those tutorial prompts with button graphics (e.g. "Press 'B' to Jump"). If using the playstation controller, it'd need to be the CROSS symbol. How many button graphics are we gonna load into the text module? What if the player, mid-playthrough, decides to swap out controllers? Indeed, there are many issues to tackle where controls are concerned...

Perhaps I'm overthinking it because even some AAA games get this wrong (Dark Souls has 'B' as 'Yes' on Switch, and it's not remappable, which I find quite annoying). I've seen games on consoles where the controls wouldn't mention the console's controller at all but instead mention a mouse and keyboard. Or, if you remapped the controls, the tutorial prompts still showed the old control bindings, making for a confusing experience. I definitely want to do the controls justice, so this will take some time.

Phoenotopia DISCORD Channels

Ryan and Firana have been running a Phoenotopia discord since late 2017, which I promoted on this blog once. It's been a couple years and it turns out that the old discord link I promoted expired. It's long overdue, but their channel could use another shoutout. Here's their channel : https://discord.gg/cnjrYST

Also, Khalid recently reached out to me about creating a Phoenotopia discord as well. I see no reason why we can't have 2 or more discords, so he has created that one with my blessing as well. You can find his discord here : https://discord.gg/cfnsCwy

I personally don't use Discords, since I'm very busy and there's too much new tech to keep up with. I hear there's a Tik Tok now? Should I create a Tik Tok for Phoenotopia? Hmmm...

Anyway, if you'd like to chat with other people who are similarly enthused for Phoenotopia, do check them out!

Fan Arts

We have five new fanart submissions this time around from regulars and new alike.

Cody G. returns with this pair of sketches of Gail. One seeks to answer the question, "how is Gail so strong?" Cody's answer is that under her sleeves she's actually really buff! This might be the most ripped rendition of Gail yet. Also, in the right drawing, the letter 'E' kinda melds with her bat, making it look like a keyblade!

What if Gale was a Shrek character? A new artist, Samu Kajin, from tumblr answers that question with a rendition of Gail sporting ogre style antennae. Samu Kajin says she can be called "Gaek" or "Shrale". I like the poncho!

Shafiyahh returns with a pretty portrait of Gail. Unlike their previous digital pieces, this one was made with color pencils! I like how her hair blends pink and purple colors together, and this pattern is also present in the eyes. Reminds me of a certain character. And the eyes are so sparkly despite using color pencils! Major props!

Negativus Core also returns with this relevant image of Gail, masked and running, presumably from Corona. It gave me quite a chuckle! I like the angle and tilt of this run pose because you can see the sole of her foot - that's how you know she's at full sprint! A skillful blur localized to her left foot show's just the right amount of motion. Gotta love the robot's expression too!

A rare 3D art has emerged. Dany Q crafted this adorable figure of Gail that is as cute as a button! I like how well it translates the pixel character over to 3D, capturing the 3 stitches on her shirt and even catching her stray strand of hair. It kinda reminds me of a Wallace and Gromit character, so I can picture it moving and animating in that unique claymation style.

Next Time

I'm ~80% confident we can clear the Switch console checking process and drop the trailer with a release date before the next blog post. But once again, if things go slowly, you'll hear from us in 2 months...

[swordwizardofdoom]

Steam Key Giveaway!

I have a bunch of extra game keys from purchasing the Humble Conquer Covid-19 bundle the other day, and after giving away a few to some friends, I have a bunch more I would love to offer to you folks here. c:

The only conditions are it’d be nice if you’re already following my blog, and if you’re not, that’s okay too, but preference is given if you already are. Otherwise you just need to PM me with which key you want, and promise me you will play it at some point and enjoy it!!

There are a few PRETTY DANG NICE games on this list, SERIOUSLY, so just let me know what ya want, and have fun.

Edited to show what’s left, and what’s already been claimed:

*UNDERTALE* ... most folks know what this is of course, and really if you haven’t played it yourself, it’s so good. Ignore the fandom (or don’t) and enjoy this one, it’s such a fun and investing game.

KILLING FLOOR 2 ... I literally don’t know what this game is, Jessie apparently already has it and it’s got shockingly high reviews, so? ?? If you want a gory, violent solo or co-op FPS this may be the game for you! Description of gameplay reminds me of Black Ops zombies, or something. Waves of enemies, currency to upgrade stuff, things like that. If that’s your jam, this could be a entertaining! Edit: I’ve now watched some friends play this extensively, it’s a lot of fun in co-op, not sure of the single player. It’s very fast paced and FUN though, check this one out if that sounds up your alley!

LOSTWINDS ... Looking this one up ’cause I don’t know much about it, seems like a super cute and friendly platformer. Was originally a wiiware game, but folks say the port is nice. It seems like a relatively short one, but it could be a relaxing and fun game to finish in an afternoon. c:

ALIEN SPIDY ... Not sure what to say about this one! Seems really goofy and family-friendly, and it has a spider which is always great! It’s a bit older, 2013, and seems to suffer from unforgiving difficulty progression and imprecise controls, but it could be a fun game to putter around in, and it is kinda cute.

STEALTH INC 2 : A GAME OF CLONES ... A sequel to a game called ‘Stealth Bastard : Tactical Espionage Arsehole,’ to give you an idea of what kind of a game this probably is. Nothing guaranteed though, this game originally came out for the Wii U (remember that?? We have one of those. It was honestly super fun!! So underrated! But I have no idea how well a port of a Wii U game will fare) and I’m not sure what to make of it.

ZOMBOTRON ... This one looks pretty cool!! Graphics are neat, and this dev was apparently pretty well known on a lot of those old flash game websites, like newgrounds and such. The style does feel pretty familiar, and this game has VERY high reviews and seems like a really fun one. Check it out and let me know if this would be something you’d enjoy.

Already Claimed:

**HOLLOW KNIGHT** ... I WILL BE SELECTIVE WITH WHO GETS THIS KEY. Seriously this game is so fucking amazing. One of my favorite games of all time. If we didn’t already have a copy I’d never part with it. This game has it all. Incredible story, unique, BUGS, immersive worldbuilding, BUGS, gorgeous art, BUGSSS, solid gameplay, and did I mention everyone is a frickin’ invertebrate? It’s amazing. It’s such a good game. Please someone who already knows what this is and has wished for it, lemme know, your time has come.

*THE WITNESS* ... I haven’t played this but Jessie says it’s a really fun puzzle-y kind of game. It’s VERY pretty and seems relaxing. By the same folks who made Braid, which I’ve also heard is quite good. This is $40 regular price on Steam and has 9/10 ratings. If you’re looking for a pretty, immersive, relaxing walk-around puzzler in these trying times, then this one might be for you.

*BROKEN AGE* ... Okay, I remember when this game first came out and it was a BIG FRICKIN’ DEAL. This was Tim Schafer’s first return to games like this since Grim Fandango, which is also an EXCELLENT game that I highly recommend. This is a very family-friendly, beautiful (it’s all hand animated 2D) point-and-click style game that reminds me of a lot of Double Fine’s classic stuff. The characters are very cute and charming, the story is nice, and I remember getting pretty invested in it. Without spoiling much I remember the ending being very disappointing, but if you take it all with a grain of salt it’s such a nice game. 

A MORTICIAN'S TALE ... This one seems too sad for me right now, but it could be nice for someone looking for a brief, cathartic emotion-cleanser who isn’t as nervous about preparing stylized 2D dead folks. It seems to be very death-positive/neutral and probably a really nice game, but it’s a little much for me right now. It does look very pretty though and people say it’s a good game. If you’d like to play through this one and tell me what you think, lemme know!

DARKSIDERS WARMASTERED EDITION + DARKSIDERS II DEATHINITIVE EDITION ... The first and second Darksiders games, with ALL DLC, prefer they go together but I guess if you only want one that’s cool too!! I don’t know much about these even though Steam shoves them in my face all the time. Edgy third person hack-and-slash with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as the focus. Published 2010 and 2012 respectively so I expect these to be a little wonky/unpolished but they look pretty cool. And even if they aren’t I mean come on I’m literally giving these away for free, why not try them out, or give the keys to someone you think might like them?

MAGICKA ... I recall this was a pretty nifty game, reminds me of MMO style combat, it has Very high reviews for such an old game, and the trailer made me chuckle. It’s also single player OR co-op, and you get to be a wizard! And that’s always a good thing.

REBUILD 3 : GANGS OF DEADSVILLE ... Sort of a top-down management-style game, which is one of my favorite genres. It’s a strategy sim game with zombies and dark humor, and if no one wants this game I’ll just keep it myself!

SO THAT’S WHAT I GOT. I’ll update this post as folks claim them, just PM me if you’re interested and I’ll send you the steam key. Check the notes first to make sure I haven’t already given it away first!! Have fun, and stay safe folks. <3

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE: 5 WEBTOON Series We’d Love to See Animated!

  With Tower of God over and The God of High School hitting the midway point, it’s pretty obvious that WEBTOON Series adaptations are a hit, but what will come after Noblesse later this year? While we don’t have any real answers to that question, we do have five titles we think would be fantastic adaptations to see animated on our screens. The WEBTOON library is frankly huge and filled with tons of great possibilities, so we decided to try and narrow it down to five different genre titles we think would really shake things up on the “big screen!” If you want to learn about even more WEBTOON Series we think are great (some of which definitely deserve an anime), check out our previous article here.

    When deciding what would make a good anime, though, there’s more to it than just, “Wow, I really love this series, so it should totally get an anime!” It’s also worth asking the question: “Would this benefit from being animated?” What would they be able to do with it that they couldn’t do as a WEBTOON Series? What sort of changes might they have to make? As we’ve seen with Tower of God and The God of High School, action series benefit from animation greatly, but that doesn’t mean only action series deserve some lovin’. So with that in mind, I tried to grab a few different genres and styles of WEBTOON Series. But, of course, this is by no means an exhaustive list, and we highly recommend you go check out the WEBTOON website or app (available on Google Play and on the App Store) and see what types of amazing series you can find! 

  Love Advice from the Great Duke of Hell

    I’m a huge comedy fan, some of my favorite series of all time are comedies. So when I started reading WEBTOON Series, I really wanted to find something that would make me laugh. I didn’t have to look too hard, but perhaps no series has been as funny so consistently than Love Advice from the Great Duke of Hell. The main character, Paul, just can’t seem to get the attention of the woman he thinks he loves. So he chooses the best possible course of action: learning black magic and summoning Astaroth, one of the Great Dukes of Hell!

  The comic routinely features amazing, understated visual gags and humor while building an interesting and deep storyline over the course of its run. In fact, I really didn’t expect the characters and world that Duke of Hell creates to really suck me in as much as it did, but that just lends to its overall strengths. As far as an adaptation goes, I could see this as a fantastic comedy hit that either focuses on extensive, gorgeous animation for gags like HINAMATSURI, or a muted and simplistic animation style like Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san that lets the art and jokes combine without getting too big. Either way, just thinking about voice actors for the various characters, especially Astaroth, is perhaps one of the most fun fantasies to have—after all, it would need to be someone with enough gravity to play such an amazing Duke of Hell! 

  Purple Hyacinth

    Purple Hyacinth has long been on my read list and was actually one of the series that got me started on the idea of seeing WEBTOON Series animated. Unlike other series, Purple Hyacinth routinely asks readers to turn their audio on, playing ambient and specific music throughout the series to create a multimedia experience. Of course, that isn’t the only reason for it being on this list. No, Purple Hyacinth is here because it’s a type of story that, frankly, isn’t told very often in anime lately: a gritty crime mystery thriller!

  Lauren, the protagonist, has dedicated her life to avenging the death of her childhood friend and the elimination of Phantom Scythe, a terrorist organization responsible for the events that would alter her life forever. Lauren meets the assassin “Purple Hyacinth,” who just so happens to share similar goals as her. This series really just gets how to build a complex and deep mystery and the fact that you need excellent character drama to make people care about what happens next, especially when big twists and turns come! Lauren possesses the ability to detect lies, “seeing” them in red whenever people tell them. Just imagining the creative ways this could be animated alone makes me giddy at the idea of a Purple Hyacinth adaptation. But beyond that, the character drama and intrigue of the twisting mysteries here would turn this into a killer multi-season anime. I can just imagine the gleeful frustration waiting for the next season after the first one ends on a cliffhanger! If any of these series were worthy of being dubbed “binge-worthy” as an anime, I’m convinced it would be Purple Hyacinth. 

  Lookism

    Readers of our first article on WEBTOON Series pointed out Lookism as a favorite of theirs, and with good reason. This long-running ugly-duckling story packs a lot of punch, both literally and figuratively, as the story threads of school bullying, the ugly side of society, delinquent fights, and more together into a fascinating tapestry. Daniel is poor, overweight, and bullied to such a degree that his mother scrapes all the money together that she can to send him to a new school. However, his life takes a huge change upon arrival to his new school home when he wakes up in a different body: gorgeous, tall, and super-strong! The “new” Daniel gives him the ability to pursue the life he thought he wanted, but it comes with a lot more than he bargained for!

  One thing about Lookism that caught me off-guard is that it seems, at first, to be a sort of traditional ugly-duckling story where Daniel learns to love his original self while teaching those around him to be better people. But it also features heavy delinquent style fights and action. While this might sound a little dissonant, it’s fair to say that Lookism would provide tons of great material for high school delinquent action and social drama—and the fight scenes in later storylines are truly amazing to behold on the page. Lookism also features an amazing supporting cast of unique and weird characters that tend to steal the spotlight from Daniel as they get introduced, meaning there are tons of characters to fall in love with here (I’m a big Vasco and Jay fan, myself!). With a unique mix of action, comedy, and heavy drama, Lookism really has a lot to bring to the table, and when animated, would surely take advantage of its mixed genre-typing to be a big hit.

  Let’s Play

    While many of the series we’ve talked about have a tinge of supernatural action or combat to them, Let’s Play is quite a bit different—just regular people here! Of course, these regular people are involved in all sorts of turmoil and romantic drama, but that’s to be expected. Let’s Play follows game dev Samara “Sam” Young, creator of the game Ruminate, and the trouble she runs into when her game’s biggest critic, Marshall Law, becomes her neighbor. Let’s Play is a fairly interesting drama due to the combination of game dev discussion—which veers into similar territory as shows like Shirobako that delve into making things—and the personal drama of the main cast.

  Although it is indeed a romance, the most striking part of the series is Sam’s struggles with anxiety; her internal monologues and issues make her an incredibly relatable and fresh character. Let’s Play would make an amazing romantic comedy with a woman lead, which we really need more of these days! The video game elements of the story add that extra touch that, in all honesty, feel like they would be amazing to see animated and played with using various graphical touches, allowing animators to play with the adaptation in ways that don’t rely solely on action sequences. 

  unOrdinary

    If you’re an avid WEBTOON Series reader, then it’s very likely you came to this list expecting to see this exact series, so don’t worry: we agree! UnOrdinary would be an amazing anime adaptation, likely to find a huge audience of new fans who would gobble up the series premise: a world in which some people are born with powers, or Abilities, and those who don’t find themselves treated as lessers and outcasts. John, unfortunately for him, is the latter, and as a result, he is relentlessly bullied by his classmates for his powerless nature.

  In a lot of ways, unOrdinary is almost like a darker My Hero Academia, except instead of a world of superheroes and villains, it's a world of the “haves” and “have nots,” where people without abilities are treated extremely poorly. Like quite a few WEBTOON Series, social class, status, and bullying are a big part of unOrdinary, which gives it a sharp, dark edge to its narrative at times. Similarly, John is a fairly interesting protagonist and, without spoiling things, certainly makes unOrdinary, well, unordinary! Given the popularity of My Hero Academia and Tower of God, unOrdinary would probably be the best possible candidate to get the anime treatment next, likely becoming a smash hit in no time—especially once the superpowers start showing up!

    With the continued success of shows like The God of High School and Tower of God, it’s only a matter of time before we see more and more WEBTOON Series adapted to anime. Of course, there’s no real plans or releases yet, but we think our list is pretty solid. No matter what, it seems like an exciting time to get into WEBTOON Series and keep an eye out for the next big hit title that might be showing up on your screens in animated form!  

  Which WEBTOON Series titles do you want to see animated? Do you agree with our list? Let us know what series you like and what you think in the comments!

  ➡️ Watch The God of High School today! ⬅️  

    Nicole is a frequent wordsmith for Crunchyroll. Known for punching dudes in Yakuza games on her Twitch channel while professing her love for Majima. She also has a blog, Figuratively Speaking. Follow her on Twitter: @ellyberries

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[the-colony-roleplay]

OCS, SKELETONS & AN ALL NEW NWRF EXTRAVAGANZA

Okay guys! We come to you with another really exciting announcement! 

As you probably know, Lottie and I are always working hard behind the scenes coming up with ideas for future plots, and potential changes/expansions that will help ensure the longevity of the Colony’s life. And we have lots in store for you guys, things that we hope to release or expand over the next year, but our current project and focus, especially since we’re not able to get into the next Games Live Play until Game season is back upon us in the verse, is to do with helping to foster an actively played, NWRF presence at the Colony. 

After some discussion about the current environment of the game, and the kinds of things that might help to make it continue to prosper as well as it has been these past couple years, we’d like to help strengthen the active conflict dynamic within the RP. As of now, the verse has plenty to work with, which has helped us immensely in the last three years, since the drop of the NWRF plot. However, we’ve been thinking that since we’re all one big happy family just trying to play a cool game, what kinds of tools can we introduce to help make the game even better and more accessible for everyone? So....

Introducing ‘Plot Device’ Skeleton bios! 

Starting now, we’re going to start working on and rolling out skeleton bios specifically designed for characters that will help move the plot forward, and open doors for new and exciting tension and content! For the time being, since this is essentially an NWRF themed promotional festival (lol, the irony is obscene), all of these skeletons will be NWRF, with potential for other roles and bio types in the future. 

These skeletons, however, will come with their own parameters for activity and play, which will hopefully help make filling these roles more feasible, and make the gameplay more exciting and fun for the whole group! The parameters will be as follows: 

Skeletons (or ‘skeles’ as I’ve taken to calling them) will be designed in such a way that they can be temporary, if need be.  That is to say, if we’re in need of someone on a temporary basis to help make a certain plot more interesting or dynamic, these characters can be played on a temporary basis. Of course, hanging onto them is always encouraged too! If you fall in love, who are we to take them away from you! :) 

Picking up a skeleton will not count towards your character count. 

Muns will not be specifically required to write paras on skeletons, UNLESS it’s for a big/action heavy plot, etc.  Essentially, we will always encourage paras, especially since half of y’alls chats are basically long enough to be paras—but with these skeles, you will not be expected to para in the same way you are with regular bios. The exception to this will be applied when you’re participating in a plot where the content sort of demands para format anyway. 

Skeleton bios will have an extended activity limit of TEN days.  We know that NWRF type characters can be a heavier load sometimes, in terms of muse, and the weightiness of threads. But these skeletons are designed more to be sort of part-time characters, whose appearances on the dash will really help shake things up, but don’t necessarily have to be as present. That being said, goodness gracious, if you can be as active on them as your other characters please do so. We are not suggesting you can’t dedicate as much time to these guys. Just that they are designed to be more flexible, so more people feel they have the time to pick them up, which will help add cool versatility to the active player plotting opportunities. 

Similarly, Skeles will not be expected to have as many on going interactions at one given time.  So, yes, we still want people to RP with a variety of characters and members, and try to experience plotting and threading with everyone eventually. But you will not be under the same expectations to have that many threads going at one given time, or to reply to as many starters, etc. We still hope for diversity, but as ‘plot-device’ characters, our goal for them is to add range to the dash that will be beneficial to the plot and for people’s muse, while not bogging down our muns or be quite as large of a commitment.  (We may set a minimum number of 3, but these rules will be solidified in the future). 

Skeles will only have suggested FCs (some requirements accordingly, like POC, etc) age ranges, +/- traits, and general summaries.  Like most skeletons, these will be character guides that we would like the muns to get creative with and flesh out in their own way. We will provide character labels, (rather than full names), job titles, a small summary of the character, and some general aesthetic/moods. From there, you will be free to do the rest. This also means that the application will be different for these bios, and that will be released at a later date. 

Skeletons that are dropped will be handled on a case by case basis much like any other bio. They’ll either be closed and written out of the story, reopened to be played again in the future, or potentially reopened as a full bio, if the mun decides to release it as such. 

Skeleton bios will only be available to current members.  This is strictly because if you are going to be a member of this RP, you should start with a fully committed character, with regular activity requirements and participation. We want new members to get the most out of their time here and to really be a part of this community, and these particular skeletons are fashioned in such a way that the requirements wouldn’t be beneficial to you as a new member. However, if you are a new member and you’re interested in NWRF roles, keep in mind there will always be the full NWRF bios, as found on on our open masterlist, as well as the possibility of writing OCs! And finally, if you’ve absolutely fallen in love with a skeleton, and want to apply for it as a full character with normal activity requirements, that’s certainly something that could be discussed, and we encourage you to come to us about that if you’d like! 

NWRF OOC Blog

One of the challenging things about playing NWRF characters is their connection to the main plot, which is largely executed and controlled by the admins, so communication is essential, and across so many players in so many different timezones, it can sometimes be confusing. So, starting this week, we’re going to be introducing a secondary OOC, that will be specifically reserved for plotting and sharing information between NWRF reps, guards, lab techs, etc etc etc, with regards to the goings on in the Colony. It will be where you can easily plot and drop notes and ideas, so you all have one place to communicate together where timezones won’t be an issue, and things won’t get too cluttered like they might in a group chat. 

The separation of this is only to be able to retain a bit of fun and mystery when it comes to Lottie and I not wanting to spoil event ideas and plot drops for everyone, but needing to loop in some of the NWRF for their own character dev or what have you, etc. This OOC, however, will never be for socializing, because we have no intention of splitting up the family in anyway.  It’ll exclusively be for plotting and the sharing of NWRF related info, etc. We’re hoping this method will help facilitate an easier and more cohesive system to playing an NWRF character. 

 Opening NWRF OCs

We’ve been on OC ban for some time now, and we had planned to do another stint of opening them up for a limited time. We have decided, however, to simply fully open NWRF OCs. (Not to worry, there will be more opportunities to apply for non-NWRF OCs in the future, but if anyone is interested in that, come chat with us about it off anon!) For now, however, since our current goal is to focus on getting more NWRF up and running in the game play, and we didn’t necessarily want to go on an NWRF exclusive ban, we figured this was a great alternative! 

The NWRF Incentive! (Better than it sounds!!) 

So, in the interest of boosting our NWRF presence here at Col22, we’re sort of rolling out a Bay-Day-Sale type promotion (haha). So, for a limited time only, anyone who applies for a FULL NWRF OPEN BIO (as in not a skeleton) will get to enjoy an extended activity limit of 9 DAYS for the first 3 MONTHS after their application. This is purely promotional, and will not be offered forever, but for the time being, it’s a little extra incentive for you guys to get your bums in gear! We also figured since the Skeleton bios will have a more lax activity limit, we may as well boost our full NWRF bios as well! The more the merrier, right!?

In Closing...

Obviously, the roll out of the skeletons themselves will take some time, and will be gradual. Lottie is about to go on a hiatus for about a week, and obviously I’m working stupid film hours, but hopefully we’ll get some posted for you next weekend! We just really wanted to give everyone the news now, so people can start thinking about it. 

If you have any ideas of things you’d like to see as skeletons, definitely let us know, and feel free to pitch us your ideas! And as always, if you have any questions at all or things you want clarified about this, don’t be afraid to hit us up here on the main blog! Please refer to the Ask Box so we can reply publicly and benefit everyone! 

Okay, that’s all for now folks! So much love to you all from the both of us,  and so very proud!!!

xoxo

Col!Mods

[riddlerosehearts]

okay, i’m on my way home from AWA and i’ve finally had time to actually look into overwatch 2 and collect my thoughts, so here goes... this is gonna get far too long and essentially be a big essay that i know most people won’t care about, but i just really wanna get my thoughts out so i’ll drop it under a readmore! also be warned that if you‘re super into the new character designs you won’t be into part of this post, lol. but anyway:

first off, i think a lot of the discourse i’ve seen about it seems... overblown and based on inaccurate info?? (don’t worry i am not talking about hong kong here, people are absolutely justified in hating blizzard for that and so do i). people keep acting like they’re gonna charge $60 just for new maps or something but for one thing no price or release date has been announced (in fact, the dev team doesn’t even know when it will release and it’s been said that we may have to wait until 2020 for a date, because it’s still early in development), and for another thing overwatch 1 wasn’t even $60 on pc at launch?? yes on console it was which sucks but most of the playerbase is on pc, and the base game was $40 at launch for us. blizzard cannot be so colossally stupid that they’d charge more for this than for the base game, and if they do i’ll absolutely be complaining about it, but for now we literally have no clue how much the cost for OW2 will be.

and on top of that, it’s... not just new maps? it’s new maps, yes, but also multiple new heroes at launch, a whole new PvP mode, a PvE story mode which is something people have begging for to move the lore forward, a new updated engine, and the PvE will have its own maps and brand new abilities and skill trees—with the abilities and skill trees being unlike anything overwatch has done before, and uniquely exclusive to OW2 and not affecting the PvP so you’re not unfairly disadvantaged if you don’t have OW2—and i also feel the need to reiterate that it’s still in early development so i highly doubt we already know all there is to know. blizzard hasn’t been entirely clear on what overwatch 2 even is tbh but it’s certainly not just new maps and if you think it is then i’m actually begging you to spend at least 30 seconds on google because 30 seconds is really all you need to click on one article and see that that’s far from the truth.

also if you’re not interested in the lore then from what i’m gathering you don’t even need to buy it because apparently OW1 is getting all the same stuff except for that? like, people are saying blizzard should just release it all as free content, but apparently they almost are since the new “push” game mode, plus the map that comes with it (and any future ones) is coming to OW1 and it’s gonna keep getting all the hero updates and everything that isn’t exclusive to the PvE mode and players will be put into the same PvP lobbies across games?? correct me if i’m wrong on that but it sounds like if you already own OW1 and don’t want the story mode stuff you literally don’t need to buy OW2 at all—so if you do then you’re just buying the story mode/PvE stuff, that’s it. and if you do, every cosmetic item you already own will transfer over! it’s also not like OW1 is done updating, as we know we can still expect new heroes in it before OW2 releases.

don’t get me wrong, i am a bit worried that the amount of new content won’t be enough to justify the price, i do still hate blizzard for the entire hong kong controversy and desperately wish they would do better, and as a massive lore enthusiast and someone whose primary reason for loving overwatch is based in its characters and world i am very frustrated that this is what it takes for the story to actually move forward, but i’m also really excited to see where this all goes and i honestly think people are largely just complaining without actually looking into what they’re complaining about. i also literally don’t understand the idea that “lol overwatch already had this for like a week before they took it out” about the PvE stuff and would like someone to explain that to me if possible because i’ve been playing this game since very shortly after launch and i’m confused asjdjdnfkd

that all being said i do have what i’m guessing is a pretty unpopular opinion though, and it’s that i... i don’t like most of the character redesigns we’ve seen, and the ones i do like i mostly just kinda like, i don’t love them or feel excited about them, while the rest i’m neutral toward or hate, and that actually really upsets me because the ones i hate most are for two of my most favorite characters and it makes me worried for what they might’ve done to redesign and potentially mess up my other faves—but i guess these will be the designs going forward, and everybody’s pretty fanart is gonna have these designs, so i’ll just have to get used to them.

to be more specific on that last point: i absolutely hate lucio and mercy’s hair and i’m honestly really sad about that, especially since i run a mercy appreciation blog and i don’t wanna celebrate her new design on it because i hate it so that would be very insincere of me but i don’t wanna say negative things and complain on it either, but i just think her hair looks so strange now. and i like lucio’s outfit tbh but his weird neon glowstick hair just... ruins it, it looks so bad to me i can’t stand it and i want his regular hair back. i would honestly prefer not to even acknowledge these 2 designs (well, mostly the hair i guess) exist if i could help it. i also don’t like reinhardt’s beard or bun although i am glad to see his face exposed and like the lion on his armor, and i can see his new hair possibly growing on me eventually. and while mei’s design is mostly okay i loved her old hairpin, it was distinctive and cute and i’m sad it’s gone because i dislike whatever it is that’s in her hair now sjdjdkgkd. also before seeing a side by side comparison i legit had to ask a friend if anything was even different about winston or if i was just blind—which i guess, considering how i feel about the others, is a good thing for me lol. but if you like all these designs that’s valid and i’m happy for you!! just don’t expect to see me praising them, but i’m also not gonna be super negative like this too often either.

for kinda-positives: i actually do really enjoy one single new design though, and it’s genji’s, but not for any specific reason other than i’m excited that he’s finally wearing clothes lol. i don’t feel strongly either way about the design of the clothes themselves (...though i do lowkey agree with the people saying they’re boring looking, but hey, my man is finally done running around naked everywhere, so i’ll take it). and i like tracer’s new glasses and the fact that she ditched the crocs finally!! i’d also like to talk a bit more about mei’s design—a friend of mine is saying people are complaining they slimmed her down, and i haven’t seen any of that for myself but if they really are then i uh... don’t get that? she still looks just as fat to me?? i’ll just let this comment i made in discord as soon i saw the new designs speak for itself:

so yeah, if she is any skinner it’s because of the newly normal-sized coat, because when i look at the models side by side she legit looks the same size to me or maybe a little bit smaller—but hey, who knows, maybe i truly am just blind! but anyway, if you gave her old hairpin back then i’d honestly have no issue with her new design.

i truly hope the new designs will grow on me more though, especially mercy’s because the feeling of having an appreciation blog for a character you love a lot and not being able to celebrate something like this is a feeling that really sucks, but i... feel very alone in disliking them as much as i do and while i’m glad everyone else is happy i’m sad about that?? at least all the old skins will still be there though, so ultimately i suppose it isn’t that big a deal, i just really really hope i don’t hate symmetra or hanzo’s redesigns too whenever we see them, assuming that every character is getting these design overhauls.

i’ve also had the time to finally watch the gameplay trailer and the cinematic, and you know what’s one of the things i’ve always loved about overwatch? the maps have always been gorgeous, and the ones shown in the OW2 trailer are no exception and i can’t wait to fully see them and explore them. the gameplay itself looks solid too imo and i am very excited to see sojourn will be added to the game, she’s gorgeous and i love her. and the cinematic!! it had so many cute little details, like the ana & baby pharah photo and the birthday photo, and tracer having that picture of emily. and the winston-tracer-mei friendship, getting to see genji and rein being badasses... seeing brigitte and then echo both show up, mercy and mei having that cute little moment, everybody working together and being amazing. the scene between brigitte and tracer that was adorable, the fact that rein made a terrible “ice to meet you” joke the second he was introduced to mei. seeing winston so happy to be able to say that overwatch is back. just... it was cute and cool and fun and i liked it a lot, it reminded me of what made me fall in love with this game in the first place and it made me really excited! i also think that the story should’ve moved forward like this much sooner and that we should’ve been getting much more shorts and comics in between, and i also wish that we didn’t have to wait until overwatch 2 to get sojourn because we still don’t actually have a black woman that we can play as and that really really sucks, but i’m still looking forward to everything as well.

so, in conclusion: i uh... may have mixed feelings about some things but i have to confess that i’ve loved overwatch for years, many of the characters are very special to me, and i’m genuinely excited about overwatch 2. i fully intend to start looking into charities that support hong kong as soon as i can because i want to actually do something for them and show that i’m not ignoring what’s going on over there, but i also wanna buy overwatch 2 whenever it’s released and i feel excited to play it. unfollow or block me for that if you have to but nothing good would come from me being ashamed to say it and i won’t hide it, i definitely hate blizzard but it doesn’t remove my love for the world they created. i‘m going to donate to hong kong charities and i‘m also going to buy overwatch 2 (which probably won’t even come out until 2021 or something), and i feel like giving more to them than i give to blizzard instead of just not doing anything at all is a fair enough way to deal with this issue especially since i am doing my best to boycott them otherwise. and if i play the new OW2 content and it sucks and/or just isn’t worth whatever the price is i’ll complain about it then, and if/when we see other redesigned characters i’ll probably complain about some of them too, but for now i really am excited for the most part!

[somethingwittyandweird]

DevBlog Post 1: I’m Making A Game

So yeah, this is a thing!  It took me long enough to find my way to it, but I got into an introductory game design class here at college, and I’ve been really enjoying it! The software is really nice to work in, and the class has been sort of making small prototypes every week to learn its features. However, the final project is a full game we’re each making from scratch, with essentially complete creative freedom on how we build it. Needless to say, this excites me quite a lot, and I’ve already put a fair bit of work into it. I’m hoping it won’t be the last game I have the chance to put together, now that I’m familiar with the software to do so. Regardless, it occurred to me that it might be cool if I sort of dev-blogged the experience of making this game, for anyone interested in seeing the process, or for myself to look back on later. I’ll be keeping most of the stuff under a cut for brevity’s sake, but if you’re interested, do read on.

So here’s a recap of what I have so far!

The main concept of the game is basically just to make my own recreation of the original NES Legend of Zelda, albeit scaled down to match with the scope of a first-timer’s class project. I figure that if I can emulate the mechanics and design principles of an established classic like that, then I’ll have a good foundation to go off of for any future work. (It also saves me a lot of work on designing art assets, and I’d like to sincerely apologize to Mr. Miyamoto and thank Spriters-Resource in the same breath.)

The current plan is to have an overworld that’s about 1/6 the size of the original (~15 screens), with two dungeons and two bosses. I’m custom-designing my maps using the same tileset, since I’d still like to try and be original in some design aspects. The goal is to feel like the original without actually being a carbon copy of any location. I’m also going to throw in some nice secrets, because it’s my game and I get to reward exploration and secret-hunting if I want.

The first thing I’ve implemented so far has been Link himself. It was a fair bit of work to get the walkcycle going properly at first, but I’m happy with how it feels, and also satisfied that basically no combination of key mashing should get it to behave unintentionally (knock on wood there). He moves, he attacks, he goes up and down stairs- what more could you really ask for in a protagonist?

Next, I went to work on the environments. As of this writing, I have the entire overworld done, with every screen properly connected to its neighbors. It’s currently barren of anything other than scenery, so there’s nothing to do with it but walk around. But it is definitely a world, and you can most certainly walk around in it. Progress comes in many forms.

Here’s some screenshots!!

So that’s about it for this first post! Up next is making the maps for the two dungeons I’m going to implement (including those pesky locked doors) and then adding another nice new toy for Link to play with. 

Hopefully this has been enjoyable to read through! It’s the first time I’ve done something like this, so it’ll be another case of figuring it out as I go. I won’t promise regular updates, but I’ll probably crank another one out whenever I pass a big progress milestone. At the very least, given this project’s due by the end of the semester, I won’t be filling up your feed for too extended a period.

PS: some other fun trivia facts-

The software I’m using is GameMaker Studio 2, which is the birthplace of a fair number of quality indie titles, such as Hyper Light Drifter, Nuclear Throne, and a personal favorite, Momodora: Reverie Under The Moonlight. More recognizably, it was also the environment used by a certain dog to create a certain friendly RPG...

Getting to this point has taken me about 16 hours of time, just over half of which so far has been coding/tiling the rooms and setting up connections between them.

Current working subtitle for the game is “Fragments of Hyrule.” Again, I’m kind of trying to invoke the sense of a sort of bite-sized Zelda adventure.

That’s all for now!

[theonyxpath]

Friends, this has been a tough week.

So we’re going to actually provide you with all the usual material that comes after the Blurbs!, but this upper part of the blog where I try and ramble through some useful stuff; I’m keeping this short.

In fact, the topic I’m really writing about this week is on another blog post that I’m going to link to. The post concerns Matt McFarland and why we are no longer working with him, and further connected issues:

http://theonyxpath.com/?p=11633

Why? Because the topic is an ugly one. It’s not what I normally post about, and it’s not what you probably expect from your weekly MMN blog. But it is an important one, and it needs to be written.

But after discussing it during our monthly meeting, we decided on this method of delivering it to you. This way, the topic isn’t just sitting on top of wacky Blurbs! and business as usual, because that would be inappropriate to the subject matter.

At the same time, we think it is important for our community to read this even while it might run counter to the expectations of some of our folks who come here specifically because this is a relief from real-life issues, or even more importantly, for some of those people who are actually affected by the matter in question.

We really do not wish to minimize what they have gone through in any way.

Along the same line of thought, I’m not including any art up here, just this message. We’ll have lots of art next time. Finally, I’m putting some space between this and our usual tagline. Not because it is no longer appropriate, but because it represents what we can all achieve together in a cheerleading sort of way that is important, and we’ll get back to, but which isn’t right at this time.

Many Worlds, One Path!

BLURBS!

KICKSTARTER:

A week into our Kickstarter for the Deluxe version of EX3‘s Lunars (that funded in less than 40 minutes) and we are almost at 300% funded and have over 1500 backers! Multiple Stretch Goals have already been achieved, and we’ve just gotten started. So c’mon and get your beast-form on and join the fun!

The Story Told Podcast has a wonderful interview about Lunars: Fangs at the Gate: https://thestorytold.libsyn.com/bonus-episode-5-exalted-lunar-ks-interview-with-eric-minton

ONYX PATH MEDIA

Illustration by Michael Gaydos

This Friday’s Onyx Pathcast is an in-depth interview with Eric Zawadzki, writer and a developer on Deviant: The Renegades. I’m told it’s just chock full of spoilers. https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

And Here’s More Media About Our Worlds:

If YOU have a podcast, YouTube or Twitch channel, or talk about games on a blog or other website, and want to perform actual plays or make reviews of our games, please reach out to the Gentleman Gamer on the Onyx Path forum. From there we’ll share emails and get you started, so when you do start producing content we’ll be able to promote it on our blog and YouTube channel!

Lots of media today!

First up, we have Caffeinated Conquest‘s Scion actual play, which has proven very popular and entertaining: https://youtu.be/MqCNQq6a7gs

High Level Games continues their actual play of Pugmire! For those of you who love adventurous tales of dogs and cars, check out their video: https://www.highlevelgames.ca/podcastingnetwork/pugmire-actual-play-episode-3

Matthew Dawkins and Red Moon Roleplaying continue with their actual play of They Came from Beneath the Sea! both on our channel and their website: https://youtu.be/FL_v0OfJ3n4

The Story Told Podcast has a wonderful interview about Lunars: Fangs at the Gate: https://thestorytold.libsyn.com/bonus-episode-5-exalted-lunar-ks-interview-with-eric-minton

Travis Legge continues with his superb Myths and Matchmakers Scarred Lands actual play too: https://youtu.be/W-_szpegJpc

Please check any of these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games!

ELECTRONIC GAMING:

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is now live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is both rolling and rocking!

ON AMAZON AND BARNES & NOBLE:

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue you bought it from. Reviews really, really help us with getting folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these fiction books:

OUR SALES PARTNERS:

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the Screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can now order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=296

And available this week! Deluxe Changeling: The Dreaming and Deluxe Beckett’s Jyhad Diary! The additional books we have after the Kickstarter ship-outs are done are now at IPR!

DRIVETHRURPG.COM:

This Wednesday, we’re releasing PDF and PoD versions of the new Map of Stygia for Wraith20 on DTRPG, as well as Changeling: The Lost 2e T-Shirts on our Onyx Path Redbubble store!

Also we will be adding two new Art Packs to the Slarecian Vault community content site for the Scarred Lands!

CONVENTIONS

UK Games Expo: May 31st – June 2nd Gen Con: August 1st – August 4th Save Against Fear: Oct 12-14 GameHoleCon: October 31st – November 3rd We’ll also be back at PAX Unplugged later this year. n!

And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM FAST EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

Geist2e Fiction Anthology (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Distant Worlds (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #1 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

Chicago Folio/Dossier (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Let The Streets Run Red (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

TC: Aeon Ready Made Characters (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum Core)

TC: Aeon Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Heroic Land Dwellers (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

Redlines

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Creatures of the World Bestiary (Scion 2nd Edition)

Second Draft

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Scion Ready Made Characters (Scion 2nd Edition)

Witch-Queen of the Shadowed Citadel (Cavaliers of Mars)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)

Memento Mori: the GtSE 2e Companion (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Pirates of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)

M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Development

Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Oak, Ash, and Thorn: Changeling: The Lost 2nd Companion (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)

CofD Dark Eras 2 (Chronicles of Darkness)

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

Manuscript Approval:

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

CofD Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Editing:

Aeon Aexpansion (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Dystopia Rising: Evolution (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Tales of Excellent Cats (Monarchies of Mau)

V5 Chicago By Night (Vampire: The Masquerade)

V5 Chicago By Night Screen (Vampire: The Masquerade)

Spilled Blood (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)

Wr20 Book of Oblivion (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)

C20 Novel: Cup of Dreams (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

Scion Jumpstart (Scion 2nd Edition)

Post-Editing Development:

Signs of Sorcery (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

Night Horrors: Shunned by the Moon (Werewolf: The Forsaken 2nd Edition)

Indexing:

Ex3 Dragon Blooded (Exalted 3rd Edition)

ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:

In Art Direction

The Realm – More sketches in. Some finals finalized.

Ex3 Monthly Stuff –

Chicago By Night – Notes and contracts going out.

Aeon Aexpansion

They Came From Beneath the Sea!

EX3 Lunars – KS going.

Signs of Sorcery

Hunter: The Vigil 2

Shunned By the Moon – All artists contracted and then one bailed.

Book of Oblivion – Sketches coming in slowly but surely- some finals.

Contagion Chronicle – AD’d for KS.

Marketing Stuff

In Layout

Dystopia Rising: Evolution

In Media Res

Proofing

M20: Gods and Monsters – Finishing backer errata.

Pugmire Roll of Good Dogs and Cats – Gathering backer errata.

Adventures for Curious Cats – First proof corrections in.

Trinity Core – Inputting Errata. Cross referencing with TC: Aeon.

Trinity Aeon – Inputting Errata. Cross referencing with TC: Core.

Ex3 Dragon Blooded – Indexing.

Geist 2e

C20 Player’s Guide

False Images – EX3 novel – Finishing and inputting backer errata.

At Press

Wraith 20th – Shipping to KS backers.

Wraith 20 Screen – Shipping to KS backers.

Scion Hero – To press.

Scion Origin – To press.

Scion Dice – At Studio2.

Scion Screen – At Studio2.

Fetch Quest – Shipping to US.

Wraith 20th Stygian Map – PoD and PDF versions on sale this week.

Slarecian Vault Art Pack 01 and 02 – Available this week.

TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE: 

And another US holiday: boom, on top of last week. Presidents’ Day! Well, we’ve had a mixed bag with these guys, but some actually made a difference and set us on better paths because they were in office. And in this world…that’s worth a celebration!

[greyias]

I figure you have already talked about it, but who do you think Valss was, exactly? Do you think he was a Jedi, a Sith, a renegade Zakuul Knight, a member of the Cult of Zildrog or something else?

Ah, Valss. My mysterious little Valss… I was just thinking about him the other day, and once again was puzzling over the great mysteries he left behind, including:

Exactly where the heck does he fall on the lovely scale above???

And the reason I ask that, is it was still a little unclear to me after re-examining the canon, and playing through Copero and the final boss fight several times, what were Valss’s true motivations.

Thanks to 5.9, we do now have a slightly clearer picture of the order of events and who the true mastermind is (spoiler: it’s GEMINI 16 aka, our little explorer bot we got a mail about after KotFE Chapter 16), and as far as I can tell, the Chiss explicitly became involved in the Order’s plans after Umbara, after they got their Adegan crystals for… yeah, I still haven’t parsed that one. There’s a lot of dangling plot threads I’m still trying to puzzle out.

But in the short story on the dev blogs, Chasing Copero, Theron meets with a contact in an alley who got her info on the location of Valky’s starmap from her spy girlfriend who’s grandad was part of the team that did a little raid on Sith assets for a little insurance.

(As an aside, I love that in the KotFE+ stuff they are taking such care to try and fill the galaxy with LGBT folks ♥ even with the background characters. It’s a subtle, but nice touch.)

There’s a bunch of Chiss politics going on:

“Works for me. Files say the Mitth family runs things on Copero. Is that right?”

Pova shook her head again. “Their shipbuilding business has hit some hard times. House Inrokini bailed them out with a huge investment, so they’re the real power these days. Not that Mitth advertises the fact, of course.”

“Sounds like I need to make some friends from Inrokini, then.”

Most of what I know of the Chiss politics and the cultural structure comes from @andveryginger​, so feel free to take what I say with a grain of salt because I’ve probably misunderstood a few things here and there and could be wiiiildly off-base.

There are several ruling houses in the Ascendancy, and Mitth I think was supposed to be one of the more powerful ones in this time. They’re big on chess games and maintaining appearances, so it’s possible there’s always something just a little more than meets the eye initially when it comes to dealing with the Chiss society (I think?).

But the gist is, Theron decides he needs to make some friends within House Inrokini, and so he sells some “Alliance secrets” (which I bet was some intel that looked interesting on the surface but was mostly harmless) to Zenta, the Syndic of House Inrokini. Ambient dialogue from Saganu (that you hear during one of the bonus missions) indicates she’s been collecting both Alliance and Ascendancy secrets for “some time”, something Theron likely knew about and exploited to get in. This also indicates Zenta’s power play and rogue status within the Ascendancy is not a new thing, it just finally caught up to her here. Which also brings us to Valss.

Valss:

Aristocra Saganu - Commander, I must warn you: years ago, Zenta risked her status to adopt a powerful Force-sensitive into her family.

Aristocra Saganu - The Chiss consider Force-users to be contaminated, impure. Without Zenta’s support, Valss would be banished–or worse.

Player - You know how to make me feel welcome. / Player - So he’ll protect her to the end.

Aristocra Saganu - You’re an exception, Commander. You’ve made the Chiss proud. But Valss is dangerous–expect a formidable enemy. / Aristocra Saganu - Valss is unstable, and fights to the death for what he believes in. Expect a formidable enemy.

It looked like Valss was originally written as Zenta’s biological brother, but at launch this was changed for Valss to be a merit adoptive. So, the question of Valss’s birth origin, as well as how Saganu knows just how unstable and fanatical he is is an interesting question, which I’ll float an interesting theory @andveryginger came up with in a bit.

But it looks like the gist is, once Valss’s Force Sensitivity was discovered, he was about to be banished or killed, when Zenta swooped in to bring him into her fold. Considering all of her actions so far have been shown to be a clever calculation and part of some larger chess game to “protect her people and keep House Inrokini safe”, indicates she saw some use in him (and is probably less driven out of a sense of compassion for someone who is on the verge of losing everything).

He clearly has very advanced Force training, and is extremely strong in the Force, and seems to also have Force visions which I’m guessing lends into his fanaticism. My best guess is that Zenta earns Valss’s fanatical loyalty by taking him in and giving him a place when he feels like he’s been cast out, and then likely finds a way to get him trained so he can use his natural talents for her when the time comes. 

I suspect that whatever training Valss went through it was not through the normal channels of Jedi/Sith, or even Zakuul. He demonstrates a lot of raw power and mastery in his fight, but not necessarily a lot of discipline, and swaps between Force powers and regular weapons throughout the fight. It’s also indicated that Zenta’s top people put a great amount of stock in whatever vision Valss had, which indicates to me that even as Chiss they had some amount of trust in him despite him being an ickle impure Force Sensitive.

So what the heck was up with Valss’s “vision” anyway? Like, I was confused when the Copero flashpoint first dropped, because the more I looked at everything, the more vague everything was. Valss’s vision is never actually stated outright. Zenta says that he had a vision of “Shan’s victory”, and this is what Valss himself has to say:

So on the surface this seems to indicate that Valss and Theron are total bros and are saving the galaxy together, right? That Valss is just wanting to stop the apocalypse as well? Except… Theron’s body language and facial expressions during the first scene seem to indicate otherwise.

He breaks character when Valss can’t see his face, his expression drops, and he looks torn and scared. But exactly what about? Failing and the vision not being true? Or the visions coming true? Because whatever it is, he doesn’t want to share that with Valss. His tr8r mask slides back in place before he turns back to face our Force!Chiss and he makes a vague statement that he hopes Valss’s vision is true “for all our sakes”. I mean, that could seriously be taken either way.

Theron stated in Nathema Conspiracy that he’s trying to stall the Order’s plan and get the Alliance intel at this point, and it’s also heavily implied that his every word and move is being monitored by GEMINI 16. Does her surveillance powers extend to the Chiss Ascendancy? 

If they do, then she’s listening to every word being said, and he’s not going to risk his ability to get intel back to the Alliance by going “YEAH FUCK ZILDROG LET’S TAKE HIM DOWN” if Valss’s vision was about Theron’s success in saving the galaxy from Zildrog. If that’s the case, then that would mean that Valss is pro-apocalypse and his fanaticism is about striking back at something, possibly the Ascendancy for casting him out. This means Theron’s “I hope that’s true” is part of his tr8r schtick.

However if GEMINI 16 isn’t monitoring Theron while he’s on Copero, does that mean Valss got this intense Force vision of Theron saving the galaxy and he’s ultimately a good guy who’s just like really intense and maybe vaguely creepy/flirty in the way he stares at his fellow galactic saviors? Then it means he’s actually not vaguely double-speaking here and is truly hoping that Valss’s vision of victory means that everyone doesn’t die horribly.

Like seriously WHAT IS THIS VISION and how does Valss explain it to everyone around him so they’re all “yeah, let’s just leave Zenta to rot, sounds awesome! Escape!helicopter tiiiiiime!”

Look I know it’s a shuttle but I need someone in Star Wars at some point to say “GET TO THE CHOPPA NOW!” let me have this plz

But, there’s some cut dialogue that wasn’t used (meaning it’s technically not canon), that honestly clears absolutely nothing up:

Like seriously, I read it once and I’m like “Oh, that indicates Valss is coo coo for cocoa puffs” and wants to set everything ablaze, but then I read it again and I’m like “Wait, Zenta indicates that Valss doesn’t understand the danger they’re in”, but then Valss is like “Why are you hesitating Shaaaaan?” and we know Theron is on the anti-apocalypse end of the spectrum so why would he be hesitating in front of someone that fanatically believes in him because a Force vision said that everything would be hunky dory?

(I mean, beyond Theron’s “who needs the Force?” hangups.)

His boss barks too are something of note (the white text I’m less sure of is in the game… but hey, I’ll share anyway), and while they are still ambiguous “he”, “we”, I’m taking this to mean someone’s drunk the Zildrog Culty Kool-Aid:

(”He” could be Theron – but it could also be Zildrog.)

Like, honestly, you could pick just about any headcanon for Valss’s motivations and there’s enough canonical evidence we have in hand at the moment to back it up. In other words:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Personally, I’m going to take Saganu at his word that Valss is completely unhinged, and I suspect that he lies closer to the Zildrog end of the apocalypse spectrum. Saganu’s dialogue seems to indicate that Valss is fanatical about causes, not people, which explains his kind of creepy lingering stares at Theron during the holomap scene are motivated more by his glee at seeing his plans realized – and less because he wants to get into Theron’s pants because jfc fandom not everything is about sex

And for what it’s worth, Wookieepedia seems to think he’s part of the Order of Zildrog too. 

Feel free to pick your own motivation and interpretation of him, because unless Charles Boyd, Timothy Zahn, or any of the other writers clarify, it’s going to remain a mystery.

Oh, and speaking of that… ;)

Valss’s Origins

Let’s circle back to the mystery of Valss’s origins, because it seemed fairly straight-forward, that is, until the livestream with the devs and Zahn from earlier this year. Now again, I’m not really all that hip to the nuance of Chiss stuff, but even I got a little confused that when the question came up about Zenta, Valss, and Saganu’s full names, they declined to answer that question on the grounds that their complete names could be revealed in the future.

I was chatting with @andveryginger​ at the time, and she’s a big Saganu fan and was like “Wait… we know Saganu’s name!” and when I asked if it was stated in canon (because again, I still need to finish the IA storyline), she said no, but that it should have been easily inferred from his background revealed in the Vanilla!IA storyline and the composition of Chiss names.

So in theory, Saganu’s full Chiss name should be: Miurani'saga'nuruodo – but why is that a mystery? Why is Zenta’s a mystery? And why is Valss’s one?

There’s apparently this obscure concept that’s been used maybe once or twice in Legends regarding Chiss society, and that’s the concept of a Shadow Child. An extra child or heir born into important families as a “spare” to keep family bloodlines from being wiped out by rivals. That means there’s a small possibility that revealing the full name of Valss (and Zenta by extension) would reveal that he might be a blood relation of Saganu’s. Because remember Saganu’s description of him?

Sure that intel could have come from intel of spying on rival families or just ordinary Chiss prejudice against Force users, but man, that almost sounds like personal knowledge/experience speaking to me. 

If Valss was Saganu’s biological relative (possibly brother), considering all of the twisty and entangled web of Chiss politics that I can barely begin to really comprehend, their society’s disdain for the “impurity” of Force Sensitives (to the point of exiling or “worse”), and the fact that Zenta goes out of her way to bring him into her fold for mysterious, likely political reasons – it would be a recipe for political disaster – especially if this rogue family member went off and did something stupid like join an Apocalypse cult and risk all of the Ascendancy dying in flames.

However, the livestream indicated that there might be more Chiss-centric stuff coming in the future. My best guess is likely not in the upcoming expansion, since they’ve stated over and over the focus is Republic vs Empire (and not focused on a third party, ie: the Chiss), and after the events of of Copero no matter what happens, the Chiss political arena gets a little heated and they have to withdraw from Alliance stuff. 

So it’s likely the mystery of Valss, his stupid vague vision, and his origins will not be answered for some time.

[xseedgames]

2017 End-of-the-Year Q&A Extravaganza Blog! #2

Our second 2017 End-of-the-Year Q&A Extravaganza is here! There will be more next week, but for now, we have some answers from:

Ken Berry, Executive Vice President / Team Leader John Wheeler, Assistant Localization Manager Nick Colucci, Localization Editor Brittany Avery, Localization Producer Thomas Lipschultz, Localization Producer

Question: Have you ever considered selling the music CDs for your licenses stateside? - @LimitTimeGamer

Ken: That's not really a business we're looking to get into, with the exception being when we've already printed soundtracks as part of a limited edition release and have some leftover. Music licenses are always tricky, and even if the publisher we licensed the game from completely owns their own music rights, they can self-publish digitally on iTunes worldwide so no need for us to get involved.

Question: If possible, would you please consider researching and localizing classic Korean-made PC xRPGs? & Do you have any interest in pursuing the localization of any of the large, beautiful Chinese RPGs that have been hitting Steam? Or are you focused exclusively on Japanese titles? - @DragEnRegalia & @TheDanaAddams

Brittany: The main reason we focus on JP > EN is because we're mainly an office of Japanese to English speakers, and we can verify the quality. We haven't completely ruled out the idea of other languages in the future, but we can't do anything to guarantee these games will be accurate yet. If we hired a person to localize games into a specific language, there's no checks-and-balances system in place for us to know we're investing in a project people will be happy to play because it's the best quality we can offer. Personally, I would hesitate to expand outside of JP > EN localization regularly until we've gained more experience as a company.

We've done a few instances of EN > FIGS, but since our games usually are very text heavy, even this is difficult. I would want to experiment with smaller games first. Hopefully, there will come a time when we can expand beyond JP > EN on a regular basis, since I’ve noticed some badass-looking games outside of the EN/JP languages. I also like the Korean developer Cheritz, who did Mystic Messenger. Jaehee will always be the love of my life.

Ken: We are definitely looking to expand where we source games from in the future and not just limiting ourselves to Japan. Definitely lots of good stuff coming out of China, Korea, and other parts of Southeast Asia these days, and we're big fans of Western indie games too. You will be seeing a lot more variety of games from us in the future, but that doesn't mean that we'll be giving up on our staple of games from Japan - they will be in addition to those.

Nick: I figured I’d field these not because I have any special ability to get XSEED to license a game (we’re all free to suggest games for consideration, which is pretty cool), but because prior to working at XSEED, I actually did localization for Korean and Chinese F2P MMOs.

There’s a lot of game dev talent in places like China, Korea, and Taiwan that we in the west are only tangentially aware of due to their games market being significantly different from ours. To generalize a bit, outside of Japan, Asia doesn’t have a strong lineage of console development, as existing consoles haven’t been widely available in most of those countries. Rather, PCs are where people in Asia play their games – online games in particular, with net cafes being popular places to log in and play.

One of the first bits of localization work I ever did in my career was for the F2P MMO Dream of Mirror Online, for which I handled seasonal quests and ongoing localization (the base game had already been localized before I got there). The developer of that game, Softstar, has a cool, long-running Wuxia fantasy RPG series in China known as Xuan Yuan Jian, one installment of which is available on Steam right now. Wouldn’t it be cool to release an anime-style wuxia adventure RPG here? As a fan of drama, martial arts, and sweet swordfights, it would be pretty rad.

Personally, I’m totally up for dipping our toes into games like this as a company, but there are some extra challenges to taking on Chinese or Korean games that we haven’t had to contend with during our work on Japanese titles.

Perhaps most important is establishing audience interest in these titles. Even if we find cool Chinese or Korean games (and I’m sure we could), if we don’t sense a market demand for those games, it doesn’t make sense to expend the effort to publish them. That’s not a statement on their quality; it’s an issue of market awareness. Japanese gaming has an advantage for us, in a sense, in that it’s been pervasive in Western culture long enough that the names, language, and even history of Japan seem less strange and foreign to Westerners now than they were 20-30 years ago. We’ve come to have a taste for Japanese games and culture, one could say. That sort of natural predilection doesn’t currently exist for games from elsewhere in Asia. I think that a good game’s quality will be self-evident enough that it can become well known, but it would take considerably more work to make people aware of and interested in a cool game from China, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, or elsewhere than it would if that game were from Japan. And given that XSEED’s marketing and advertising resources are admittedly smaller than we wish they were, licensing and localizing a cool Asian game for a Steam release could prove difficult if we couldn’t connect the game with enough of an audience that would appreciate it. Before you nay-say me, look around at the amount of Chinese or Korean games currently available in the Western market that aren’t MMOs or mobile games. It’s...not very many, is it?

Not to say we’re not interested, of course! There’s a huge amount of potential in games from Asian developers, and an ocean of possibilities to explore. But I think, before that happens, we have to either find a game we think would be a pretty sure thing our fans would enjoy, or see that there’s a demand here for these games. If you’re interested in seeing XSEED work on Chinese or Korean games, do feel free to write us, especially if you have suggestions of titles you think are particularly worth checking out or that you think are very “on-brand” for XSEED.

Question: What inspired you all to do this kind of work in the first place? Also, what is the story behind the company name XSEED? How did you all come up with it? - @TBlock_02

Ken: The company was founded by former members of Square Enix USA, including its president at the time, Jun Iwasaki. Other smaller Japanese companies would often ask him to publish their games in the West, and even though we came extremely close to starting a separate "Square Selections" publishing brand to distinguish our own titles from third-party titles, we were always just too busy working on Square Enix titles to have the resources to work on anybody else's. Once the new company was formed and the name finalized (we wanted our new business to grow and foster from an initial small "seed"), it was only natural to reach back out to the publishers in Japan who needed a way to release their games in the West.

Question: What was everyone's favorite game(s) to work on this year? - @ArtistofLegacy

Brittany: Trails in the Sky the 3rd. I was very emotionally connected to that game, and its text is something I think I'll be proud of for years to come.

Tom: Zwei: The Arges Adventure, hands down. Most fun I've ever had translating anything.

John: I had a lot of fun with the PR-side of STORY OF SEASONS: Trio of Towns (the Capy comics and marriage candidate intros), though significantly less fun with QA for the DLC.

Question: What's everyone's favorite song from the Falcom games you've released so far? - @Crippeh

Brittany: Can’t choose a legit favorite, but it took me, like, twelve hours to beat the Finale dungeon in Trails of Cold Steel II and I still listen to Phantasmal Blaze regularly.

Tom: I'm actually not a big fan of the Trails games (blasphemy, I know!), but I absolutely adore "Cry For Me, Cry For You" from Trails 3rd. One of my favorite Falcom vocal themes of all time. As far as non-vocal themes go, I've always had a soft spot for "The Depth Napishtim" from Ys VI, "Harlech" from Xanadu Next, "Casino" from Brandish: The Dark Revenant, and basically the whole soundtrack to Zwei: The Arges Adventure.

That’s it for now! Next week, we’ll be answering questions like:

- Ever consider making a podcast/commentary for one of your games? My favorite Twitch stream from XSEED was the Trails in the Sky the 3rd stream followed by Xanadu Next. - The PC port diary thing from CS PC was fantastic. I really liked a kind of…behind the curtain look at what goes into a PC port. (I'd be similarly curious for the localization process overall.) Do you plan on doing more of those for future games? - What are the requirements/makes it likely to get hired as a translator? Would self-taught people stand a chance? - Are there any games you've worked on in the past that you wish you could go back to and do differently a second time around? - What does the first day of a new project look like? What kinds of things are done right off the bat?

See you guys next time!

[phoenotopia]

2019 October Update

Woops, I slipped by my stated blog date since I thought September had 31 days for some reason. So here's the end of September update, 1 day late.

--------------------------

Writing... And more writing.

That captures the majority of what transpired the last 2 months. The biggest cutscenes have been scripted as well as most towns, so we're really close... I estimate that the writing will conclude within the next 3 *weeks* and we will actually have a game that can be played from start to finish... Don't get too excited though, because then begins the game's vigorous playtesting phase and more polish. And since I've never launched a commercial game before, the next steps (PR, marketing, lot checking, ESRP rating application, trailers recutting, release date finding, etc) are uncharted territory. The only experience I have is launching a flash game 5 years ago, and that was a lot quicker and a lot less complicated... And so, I can't gauge how long it'd take nor give an accurate release date yet. However, as soon as I do know, it'll be sure to post it here first!

--- COMPUTER BROKE DOWN ---

Among the events that transpired in the last 2 months, my computer actually broke down. It would manifest as the computer shutting off about 10 minutes after turn on. And this was really worrisome because if my computer croaked, it would be a huge blow to the game's development. The time it would take to restore the specific dev environment I had set up would be considerable...

Luckily, it was repaired after 4 days of intense troubleshooting. I'll spare you the long list of events that transpired, but eventually my brother and I were able to narrow the problem down to non-spinning fans on the graphics card. I was able to zippo-tie two chassis fans together, and insert them below the Gfx Card's heat sink. Much cheaper than replacing the whole graphics card!

(please hold until the game's done)

--- MORE PLAYTESTING CHANGES ---

I'll discuss here some additional fixes/changes to the game based on my brother's previous playthrough (still going through that list, heh...)

F. Remember you can climb roots

I remember from a public demo I attempted (3 years ago?), that a lot of people got stuck at these roots, not realizing they could be climbed. Since then, we did a few things to ensure that the first encountered roots would be climbed. The roots' colors were brightened so they would stand out. A character, Ernest, comments that others have climbed the roots. And finally, standing in front of the roots will cause the "Press UP" tutorial prompt to appear.

So how did my brother fare when I did the playtest 2 months ago? He climbed the roots, thankfully. He climbed the next few sets as well. However, later on, in a dungeon, he forgot that climbable roots were a thing. Back to square one. So there's a lesson here... Even if you teach a player something, there's no guarantee that it'll stick.

So in the picture above, you can see my next attempt at an invisible hand to remind the player. In the red circle, notice there are 4 blue dots. These blue dots pulsate wherever there are climbable roots (They're a lot more visible in motion). The idea is to tie an unusual image to an action. I anticipate when the player sees 4 pulsating dots, they'll react by attempting a variety of actions, before eventually concluding that you can only climb them. And that this experience will be more memorable for it - to be conjured up whenever the player sees 4 blue dots. I look forward to observing what happens with the next blind playtester. (Btw, in reading this blog, you have disqualified yourself from playtesting :P)

G. Instant Food Eating

As stated in a previous blog post, the player can't eat from the menu. Food must be eaten in real-time. It's up to the player to find a safe spot to eat, away from interruptions. Some foods can be eaten more quickly, proving more valuable in a fight.

However, what about on the world map?

You can't use tools or items on the world map, which means no healing at all! I saw my brother opening the menu and tinkering around, confident that it could be done. Because why couldn't you?

Indeed... he didn't say anything, but I wrote it down as a feature to be added. And after adding it, found that eating from the menu was  fun! After years of using the new system, to have the old flash system's implementation of healing again was refreshing.

And so I decided to add it as a possible new characteristic of food. There's now a special class of food, "candy", that actually can be used from the menu (world map or no). Rest assured, candy items will be balanced - costing more than regular food, and their healing effects will tend to be less than other more timely items.

(the “eat” subcommand appears for "candy" class items. The candy icon on the bottom-right denotes a candy class item)

H. Fishing Hud finally updated

This wasn't something discovered through playtesting, more of an unfinished task that sat around for far too long. 

(Old fishing hud on left. New fishing hud on the right)

In the old fishing hud (perhaps an example of minimalism taken too far), the fish's health is represented by 10 white dots. In the new fishing hud, the fish's health lines up and mirrors the player's own stamina. Whoever outlasts the other wins!

I had actually been sitting on the finalized graphics for over a year. For some reason, the last 10% implementation of a feature tends to be the most boring. In game development, I find myself jumping around often, working on whatever can catch my interest. That's good for ensuring that the game's development is always moving forward in *some* capacity. But now at the tail end of development, only the most boring tasks are left...

--- WRITING ---

So I mentioned writing. One of the things written in the last 2 months was the entirety of the "monster" village's NPCs. This time I also roped in Pirate (formerly artist, now also writer), since she's quite familiar with their lore having drawn them and their town.

When I wrote trolls, I wanted to give them a unique speech, not unlike the Mr. Saturns from Earthbound. My idea was to capitalize all words and then strip away as many unnecessary words as I could, while keeping the meaning identical.

Pirate then took the result and improved upon it, establishing rules their language could follow to be consistent:

Simplified negatives (no instead of not/don’t/can’t/etc);

Object pronouns replace subject, possessive and reflexive pronouns (me/name instead of I/my/mine/myself). 

No ‘be’ verb or it’s conjugations (am, is, are).

No verb conjugation.

No articles.

(A sample of troll language. Harpy language is similar, but no caps, and a few other variations.)

Another neat thing that happened naturally over the past two months was a construction of a "timeline". The timeline takes the form of a 2D chart, with the major players lined up on the left, and the years up top. There are new characters this time around, and having the timeline as a reference, helps to make sure the lore is on point.

(the timeline, blurred. An internal tool to aid writing)

--- FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY ---

Speaking of which, it was the game's 5 year anniversary this past August 20th. Thank you to Firana for reminding me!

Five years... Five Years... T_T (I thought I'd be done by now)

It'd be neat to do a longer in-depth retrospective on this game's long development, but I'll wait for the game to be properly finished first.

--- FAN ART ---

We have 3 lovely fan arts that came in the past 2 months.

(Art by Amaury Lorin)

I like how this picture selectively colors the night sky, comet, and fire. Very artistic! Amaury also submitted a poem (in French). Here it is!

Parmi cette clarté que la nuit seule émet, Au-dessus des radis géants qui s'épanouissent, Nonobstant sans souci les herbes qui frémissent, Sous un ciel calme et sombre, un village dormait.

Éprise de liberté, une puki part Là-bas, quelque part où des prés plus verts la tenant. "Oh, s'écrie un enfant, une étoile filante!" Veille, enfant : pour tes grands yeux curieux seuls, ce soir,

Indifférente au sol précipité sur elle, L'étoile tombe... Écoute, enfant, elle t'appelle; L'étoile : "Suis-je un ange, un messager du ciel?

Avec mes feux, suis-je augure, ou suis-je étincelle? Gloire d'un monde haut, d'une nuit éternelle... Et j'arrive!" --Dors, enfant, tes yeux ont sommeil...

                                                         ...mais demain...

(Art by LittleLys Owo)

Gale smiling and flashing the peace sign. Nice! I like the skillful use of vectors to draw the lineart.

(Art by Shafiyahh)

Shafiyahh, who also drew fanarts in the last update, returns with this cool picture of Gale sporting the katana, a hidden weapon that... JK. I Love the composition of characters, and the flashy background - very anime-esque!

That's all for now. Next update will come at the end of November!