#Landfall

[huntercannonstone]

[SELL YOUR SOUL FOR THE HOLLYWOOD DREAM]

[theluckcatlord]

A game called content warning. And a bunch of idiots playing it.

.m. ._. .o. ;)

[myx-on-earth]

Content Warning: Landfall Game's April Fools Triumph

For the Content!

It would seem that an April Fools joke of a game has resulted in overnight indie success. Landfall Games, a beloved indie game studio, has a yearly April Fools tradition they call “Landfall Day”, where their devs put together essentially a parody of whatever game is popular at the time. They’ve parodied everything from DayZ to battle royales (Twice, with Totally Accurate Battlegrounds and Knightfall), and this year it would seem it’s Lethal Company’s turn.

Lethal Company is a game known for silly co-op shenanigans that seem to instantly translate into YouTube content- and Content Warning takes that idea and turns it up to 11, making being an influencer a part of the game mechanics. You and a group of friends take a diving bell to “The Old World”, a spooky map filled with monsters and traps entirely for the sake of internet entertainment value. With a single camera and 90 seconds of film, your group has to make the spookiest, funniest video possible- because your only source of income is Spooktube, and that revenue doesn’t come easily.

It's such a brilliant parody of both the horror genre Lethal Company tapped into and the loop of content creation in the internet age that it, somehow, wraps around to being an excellent game in of itself, though Landfall is no stranger to finding gold through satire. Previously, their first battle royale parody (Totally Accurate Battlegrounds, a riff on PUBG) found some success, enough that Landfall turned it into a full venture. It’s not as popular nowadays, but it IS legitimately good- and Content Warning seems to be turning out the same way with its initial popularity and engaging premise.

Typical Content Warning video result, featuring myself, @thatpocketninja, @squiddskipp, and a third friend who requested to remain anonymous

In the space of video game development, April Fools seems to be not so much a “joke” day, but a day that allows ideas to be thrown around that might not otherwise have been considered, which can lead to majorly creative leaps of faith. With examples like the Yakuza series’ pivot to turn-based combat, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon’s continued success in the midst of a floundering Ubisoft, and even Lilith Walther’s upcoming definitely-not-Bloodborne Kart (now known as Nightmare Kart), the idea of “joke turned legitimate gamedev venture” isn’t exactly new.

I actually had the pleasure of exchanging emails with Hanna Fogelberg (@thebirdmountain on Twitter), Landfall's Head of Community, who provided some insight into Content Warning’s development and the overwhelming response in the interview below.

1. What's it like to go to bed seeing some success, then waking up to find your joke game is a viral hit? Did you expect this at all, given the surprising amount of polish it has?

"We couldn't sleep to tell you the truth! Even if the team said good night at about 2am we kept texting the player numbers to each other throughout the night, we were very wired! We always knew there was the potential of the game going really well, there's something about the design and shareability of the videos you make that we knew could hit it big but it's still surprising it went THIS well."

2. How long did it take to develop Content Warning?

"Content Warning was made in about six weeks of active game development, but the idea came to us back in December!"

3. What were your main inspirations for the game? (Beyond Lethal Company, of course)

“Lethal Company and similar games were an obvious reference for the gameplay loop, we love that game! That said, what was most interesting to us was the core of the game - the filming and video creation. We were inspired by YouTubers and influencer culture, there's something interesting in people risking life and limb for content that we wanted to play off of. 

Other than that, the vibes of The Older World were inspired by Junji Ito and a specific H.R Giger painting while The Over World references the Swedish children's book Pettson och Findus.”

4. How experienced was the dev team?

“We're pretty experienced, the Landfall team has been making games for over 10 years with previous releases being Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, Stick Fight: The Game, Clustertruck and Rounds to mention a few.”

5. How does this experience compare to the last semi-viral success Landfall had with a Landfall Day game? (TABG)

“This game outdid TABG in player numbers several times over! So it's hard to compare, this is by far our most viral hit to date.” 6. Any plans for the future of the game? Or just basic bug fixes and some more content? 

“We will see! Currently, we're focusing on fixing bigger bugs and other issues but we already have some new content planned. We're kind of playing it by ear at this point, it all depends on how things go in the coming weeks.”

Some may attribute Content Warning’s success to multiple factors- the 24 hour free period, how it riffs on Lethal Company and the tropes it already employs, or even that it was “designed to go viral”- but you can’t deny that, even as an iterative piece, it still manages to find its own identity and already seems to have captured the content creation hearts of everyone who gives it a chance. Games like this, that aren’t reliant on micro transactions and are buoyed by the PEOPLE you play with, rather than the money that one must spend on it, are the hope- and, hopefully, the future- of the video games industry. You can find Content Warning (No longer free, but still very cheap!) at the link below: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2881650/Content_Warning/

[elliott6669]

Scenery: Landfall/San Francisco

[halopedia]

Trivia Tuesday - Brute Costumes

Did You Know that while filming the Landfall live-action trailers, Weta Workshop built several Brute costumes for actors to wear that were later used as a basis for CGI? The Brute costumes had a port in the neck for actors to see through.

[goonempress]

Second found footage clip, our foolish endeavors

[dunebrainrotmtg]

Magic the Gathering cards reimagined with Frank Herbert's Dune novels and movie adaptations.

[dragmirc]

First Arc: Landfall

Something did not feel quite right as the border between Hyrule Field and Gerudo was reached.

It wasn't inherently noticeable, a quick dart of the eyes along the low scrubland that separated harsh desert from temperate grasslands showed nothing in the real had changed. But there was still an invisible barrier here, one that caused Ganondorf to rein in his stallion to a stop right before it.

A physical search proved nothing amiss, just wind rustling sand over the meager brush at the border between his apocalyptic territories and the fertile lands further in. But it was there. A bristling in the hairs on the nape of his neck, something had changed in the very energy of the neighboring kingdom. It was unfamiliar enough that he could recognize it and the surprise of it managed to stop him in his tracks. His lips thinned at the thought that there was something he had yet to push through.

"Everything alright?"

He was pulled from his inner musings by a voice to one side, looking side-eye to the tall Gerudo woman part of his entourage. She looked a little concerned at the sight of her king's sudden unease, but the twist of his features was brief and evened out just enough. The energy dissipated into his hands instead and the leather of the reins creaked in his tightening grip.

"Everything's fine." he replied, sure and even-toned. As though to hide that she had seen anything amiss, he offered a small crooked smile. "I thought I smelled something rotting, wanted to make sure there weren't any scavengers nearby. Let's carry on."

It seemed to settle his four companions to know whatever had stopped them wasn't inherently hostile and with a click of the tongue and a small toss of the head, the sturdy stallion moved forward again. The group of five left the shifting sand wastes behind to follow a dust-choked road through the borderlands, feeling the intense heat off the desert wane as they entered the beginnings of the temperate grassland that was Hyrule Field.

Stubborn scrub was replaced by a carpet of billowing green, the wind that blew over it fair and cool. A few scutting clouds covered the sun and cast playful faint shadows over the rolling hills that bordered the winding road on all sides. A truly peaceful land, quiet in a much different capacity from the desolate isolation of Gerudo.

By comparison, Ganondorf and his companions were as a blight against the roiling greens and clear blue of the open sky above. Dark and foreboding in their neutral colors, astride dark-colored horses built to master shifting terrain. In the deeper reaches of his mind, he was envious of Hyrule's fertile, cool lands. In the fore, he was delighted in the idea that before the week was out, he would own it. It wasn't long before everything he had put into action would culminate into the final straw.

The King of Hyrule would fall to him, and that incessantly obnoxious little princess of his would follow. He would enact the final step in gaining access to the Sacred Realm once he tore the last piece of the puzzle from her little majesty's cold de--

A pressure against the back of his neck made him pause again, cutting into his musings once more. It felt like there were eyes on him, boring into his back. While he merely slowed the stallion's pace this time, he looked to both sides of the road.

The beginnings of Hyrule's farmlands stretched out in both directions. The budding crops of rye were being tended by farmers and their hands and while they stopped to regard the passing Gerudo delegation warily, that wasn't what he was feeling. A rustle in the adolescent grain further out made him stare at the point, but the tall ears of a hare betrayed the interloper for what it was and he opted to ignore it before resuming pace for Castle Town.

Maybe, with his plans coming so soon to fruition, he was feeling paranoid. Like some got jitters or stage-fright before a performance, he felt like there was someone watching him. It wasn't an unfounded fear, he'd had the sense that the princess' bodyguard was capable of seeing right through his facade. Ah yes, the Sheikah. She would prove to be a challenge. He could admire her for at least that without having to see the woman in action, especially in comparison to the lax ineptitude of the royal guardsmen otherwise.

What he mistook for paranoia, he realized on reaching the limits of Castle Town turned out to be apprehension instead. But it wasn't his own emotion. It felt somehow disjointed from him when he reached the market square that connected to the road leading to the castle on the mount above, like it was implanted artificially to create dissonance. But while it didn't affect him in the same way, he did notice out of the corner of one eye that now his entourage could feel it as well. His eyes narrowed as he saw them, heads lowered and glancing uneasily back and forth, any further expression once more relegated to his hands and the creak of leather reins in them.

Something was indeed different. Something was not quite right.

After a quick scan of his surroundings at the detestable denizens of Castle Town milling about in their tedious haze of day-to-day life, he caught it and it made him halt. Golden eyes laid on the shadowed silhouette of something standing next to the road leading to the castle. He cursed himself for not seeing the thing before, as it had been plainly standing there. Tall, lithe, with pinpricks of reflective white for eyes on its shadowed head.

A shade, perhaps? A ghost, maybe. Or neither, as it made eye contact with him for a moment enough to blink when it knew he was watching it and turned to dart up the road. It carried too much weight to be anything but alive, a flash of light off its form giving credence to its existence.

It wasn't that the thing existed in any capacity that made Ganondorf's attention snap up toward the castle. He was looking for the signs of a change, any indication that something had happened in the space of the last time he had been here. Nothing seemed off from where he was now, the banners flying as they always did to show the castle was open to visitors. But he couldn't deny that on the eve of his resolutions, the appearance of embedding emotions that were not his and strange sentinel shadows of things he didn't recognize made him worry.

He didn't show it in his face, the quiver that took his core and changed the budding paranoia into ripples of panic. The final machinations could wait until he had made sure the foundation of his years of planning and scheming was still stable. Ignoring his entourage imploring his actions, he spurred the stallion into a quick canter up the road, hearing the others following along behind as best they could. A gallop might have been faster, but he was keenly aware that such speed would be a detriment to the winding road hemmed in by rocky outcrops on both sides. This way, he would make good time and still remain alert to the terrain in case an attempted ambush was in play.

It wasn't long before he realized something had indeed happened on the castle mount. There was no predicted ambush, but the smell of spilled blood was unmistakable the closer he came to the castle and the lack of guards on the wall calling him to slow down or halt altogether made him glance upward. The standards he had seen flying were not the same. Down in Castle Town they hadn't seemed out of the ordinary, but up close, they were very different. Yellow-orange in color, the familiar emblem of Hylia's Wings had been replaced by an organized cluster of four-point star-forms. He couldn't catch any of them in full, flapping in the breeze, to count them all.

The sight of someone running up the road on the last bend caught his attention and in the full sunlight, he realized it was a person. A scout maybe for whatever force had settled here now, hardly different from a ghost if they were good enough. The fact that anyone had overtaken the castle without the rest of Castle Town even being aware spoke of an inside job so thorough, even he could be impressed.

The tang of battle mingled with the coppery overtone of bloodshed flooded his nose the closer he came to the bridge that lead into the castle walls, so strong that he could taste it in the back of his throat. An acrid terrible taste he knew as well as he recognized the glimmer of liquid seeped between the stones of the bridge before the first portal of the walls.

Ganondorf reined the stallion back to a slow careful walk over the bridge to the yawning tunnel through the walls, joined not long after by the rest of his entourage. The slumped weighty sacks of bodies tucked into the shadowed sides were all dressed in stained mail and tunics bearing the royal sigil, earning mutterings of surprise and harrow from the other Gerudo.

The front gardens and courtyards had been nothing short of a bloodbath, clearly where much of the action had happened. Lines of stained sheets covering suspicious lumps rested between walls and hedges, an impromptu graveyard for those yet to be sent off in some way. A quick but careful look around showed no one other than the dead and their current visitors currently rested in what would have greeted guests not too long before.

"I guess you smelled something rotting, after all." one of his companions pointed out before she continued, "These are all soldiers though."

"This strike was calculated, but messy." He hissed his observations, listening to his own voice say the words out loud as though he could barely believe what he was staring in its sheet-covered face. "This wasn't planned, just executed. There are likely more dead inside, but they aren't the only ones still here. Stay on guard."

He stared at the front doors into the main castle building as he dismounted. It was becoming more and more apparent to him that he had lost years of hard work in as little as what looked to be a few hours, perhaps the last day. What little flutters of panic remained had evolved into anger, settling into his chest as the thought hit him. A quick look around continued to assure him that for now, the Gerudo were the only ones alive in the front courtyards. It was enough that he strode purposefully toward the front doors, remaining alert to his surroundings as he entertained further plans.

Maybe, if he could still locate the ocarina, he would be allowed to continue his ambitions. That would be the ideal outcome, and only if the ones who had wrested charge were amicable enough to allow it long enough to see his rise to power. And only if they weren't after the Sacred Realm and by extension, the Triforce, as well. That was a factor he had to consider. Ganondorf considered it, and landed on the decision that if they were, they would have to be destroyed immediately. It wasn't something he was particularly remorseful about.

Now, as he pushed one of the doors open, all he had to do was find the one in charge.

@sanguinesorcery

[contentwarningcrew]

joel? are you ok???

[soisaidfine]

Hurricane Milton approaching landfall. Weather front with lightning just ahead. Gulf of Mexico, near Florida.

'Brothers against the wind' - No Surrender, Bruce Springsteen & Brian Fallon (The Gaslight Anthem)

'I want to sleep beneath Peaceful skies in my lover's bed With a wide open country in my eyes And these romantic dreams in my head'

'Brothers against the wind Well maybe we could cut some place of our own With these drums and these guitars.'

[augustaugustaugustgibmonster]

8 scute swarms to 512 scute swarms in one turn

[mr-christmas1]

Content Warning, heck YEAHHH!

Don't know what they're chatting 'bout. If you want you can comment what they are saying, for fun. Also, the guy who made the model is:

BAM!

[theluckcatlord]

Content warning!

.o. ._. .m. ;)

[feivelynart]

Allinall Manni

Manni has a new hat

Moonimarco

Moooo

WHERE IS THE AMULET OF KINGS!?!?

Manni finally got the ruby

[elliott6669]

Scenery: Landfall

[tcupfroyo]

This is a dumb video I made about the new lethal company type game called Content warning.