#My gameplay sims do be looking bland but do you really expect me to make custom skins for all random townies...?

[grimothy-cc]

I made over townie from Hidden Springs because my sim thought he's attractive. 😅

[echoweaver]

Intro to Echo in Time

Warning: This post is Big and Wordy, now with 75% more words.

Inspired by The Aldbergs by @cloudberry-sims​, I'm trying out a Sims 3 twist on Morbid's Ultimate Decades Challenge. This starts in the 14th Century (anywhere, I assume, but I'm going with the white American default of medieval England) and progresses through time with a strict ratio of sim days to the year. Gameplay changes to fit historic events. The beginning is going to suck because life expectancy in the 1300s was ass, particularly infant mortality. And whoever survives will get to roll again to die in the Black Plague. This is a game where you need a hierarchy of heirs.

I hate telling stories where everything is bland and nobody faces any challenges. After 13 years, I have the mechanics of The Sims down, and I can mitigate almost anything the game throws at me. I have to make bad things happen on my own, and I'm terrible at that because I get too attached to my characters. So I shall hand over responsibility for tragedy to a very cruel 20-sided die and a whole bunch of probability calculations.

Modifications from Morbid's Challenge

Lifespan and Survival

I was compelled to do my own research in to medieval life expectancy, and my probabilities came out different from Morbid's. I also am going to trim the sim day to real year ratio to 3days/year instead of 4 days/year. That leaves me with:

1. Childbirth

Chance of mother's death in childbirth: 5% (1 in 20) Chance of newborn death: 20% (3 in 20)

2. Baby: 4 days to age 16 months, chance of death at age-up 25% (4 in 20)

3. Toddler: 14 days to age 6, chance of death at age-up 15% (5 in 20)

4. Child: 18 days to age 12, chance of death at age-up 10% (2 in 20)

5. Teen: 18 days to age 18, chance of death at age-up 10% (2 in 20)

6. YA: 36 days to age 30, chance of death at age-up 20% (4 in 20)

7. Adult: 45 days to age 45, death chance 20% (4 in 20)

8. Elder: 30 days to age 55, at which point death is handed off to the game's randomizer.

The reasoning here is that my research indicates that infant mortality was 48%, or roughly half. Of the people who survived to childhood, half of them made it to age 55. In my games, it's not uncommon for sims to live 10 days after their official end-of-lifespan, so I think that should get us a close enough simulation. I think we're unlikely to get the long-tail of people who lived to be really comparatively old like 75.

Also, I moved the Elder transition to age 45 because sims can have babies in their Adult stage, so it seemed reasonable to put the transition at menopause. This means that Elderhood starts in mid-life, and I AM AN Elder. I comfort myself that I’m using the Aging mod, and my Elders are not going to hunch over their canes immediately.

What's really disturbing is that those numbers are KINDER than Morbid's rolls. EEK. Also, Morbid’s lifespan is longer than mine, so it may even out a bit.

Racism

Look, I know that miscegenation was a big deal until close to modern days, but I just don't want to deal, ok? I don't want to screw with making all my sims white or creating castes of different skintones who are allowed to marry each other and are only allowed in certain careers. I can deal with 25% of my sims surviving to a really-young lifespan target. I'm using mechanics for sexism and heterosexism and economic castes. But encoding racism into my mechanics just makes me feel queasy. This is just going to be a multicolored version of medieval England. All simulations give something up.

Lifestyle

I'm a huge agriculture simulation nerd. (You should see me play Minecraft.) I've already looked up what foods were available in medieval England. I'm using Cooking Overhaul and Ani's Hunting Mod. Unfortunately, the only grain available in the game is corn, and I haven't found a mod that adds any other plantable grains. So we'll just pretend corn is oats or rye, and I can use Ani's food processor as a millstone to grind corn into flour.

I'm not sure how much of subsistence will be much of a story in between births and deaths, but I'll have plenty of fun playing it :).

Inheritance and Location

I was done with sticking to one lot in Sims challenges since back in the Pinstar days. I just don't know why the community got so attached to, "Buy a 64x64 lot and stay there for 10 generations," as the foundation for so many challenges. I've never been willing to stick to one lot or one world. I play my games too in-depth, and I suck at building.

More importantly, I've done enough of defining a family line by the last name. In Morbid's challenge, male inheritance means that the heir must be male and the girls will be married off with dowries. If the heir dies, a male cousin can inherit and so on. This all makes perfect sense. I just don't think I need to define the heir of my story as the literal heir of the household wealth. I intend to pick whatever surviving child I want. When that child is female, the story will move into a new active household when she marries. After over a decade of Samples and Wonderlands, I'm interested in telling stories about those who leave, not just those who stay behind.

The Foundress

Last but not least, meet Emmaline Weaver.

Since she's a woman, her surname won't last very long.

Her traits are random rolled to be: Coward, Hydrophobic, Proper, Gatherer, and Light Sleeper

Those traits naturally resolved into a backstory for me, and I've had a lot of fun with her so far.

I want you to know that this is the first game I've ever played where the Proper trait was so big a deal. That curtsy greeting is the CUTEST THING EVAR.

[faerietalesims]

The Sims 4: Nifty Knitting 🧶  

okay I know this post looks so bland but tbh that’s just a reflection of the pack ☕ 

Honestly, I really don’t have many thoughts about this pack. Is it worth it? In my opinion, no. 

There are maybe 3 items I see myself using regularly & the only item I am particularly excited about is that fact that we finally received a normal looking pair of male jeans (which also double up as female jeans lmao shocked face). The rest of CAS is forgettable & honestly kinda ugly in my opinion. Same goes for the Build/Buy content. There are a few items I could see myself reaching for now and then, but definitely not enough to qualify making the pack worth it. 

Gameplay wise, there’s about as much as you would expect. Knitting. 

For me, this pack falls towards the bottom of my list of stuff packs that I find myself using. I’m happy to finally have an activity for my elderly sims to do, and rocking chairs for them to sit in, but do i honestly think this stuff pack is worth the price? Absolutely not. I would recommend almost any other stuff pack over this one in all honesty. 

So yeah, that’s the extent of my thoughts on Nifty Knitting. Hope it was somewhat helpful but sorry I can’t make content if the pack in question barely has any itself. 🤷‍♀️  

disclaimer: this early access content is made possible by the EA Game Changers programme!

[boonchies-sims-blog]

I Got Realm of Magic and made Tom Riddle all-powerful

The first thing I wanted to do with RoM was recreate Harry Potter. I started with Voldy in his youth and moved into a lot in Glimmerbrook.

I made a tiny home (I’m so ready for the next stuff pack) with all the new stuff from the RoM pack and dabbled with terrain editing for the first time. I didn’t really like the final version of this house, but it does look quite nice from the outside.

I had Tom casting spells and experimenting with potions right away. The first order of business was to begin the spellcaster’s journey and collect those motes. It took less than five minutes to become an occult sim, which to me is too easy. I was expecting more of a challenge, like Strangerville. I felt lost in that pack every now and then, and I loved it. (I played through Strangerville as Lara Croft—now that was fun!)

I also got a wand, broom, and familiar right away; they’re the necessities of this experience.

You can set the broom as the default transportation method, but I found that once I’d learned all the spells, I preferred “apparating” 😉 to flying around. The animation of the spell cast is cool and the brooms are kind of lame—your sim flies upward and magically appears at the next location, so you don’t get to watch them fly around. That was kind of disappointing. And if this is not the case, then great, but I was never able to get Tom to just ride his broom around. He’d always walk unless it was far away, and then he’d do the zooming upward and reappearing thing.

One of the best things to come from this pack is potion brewing. If you’re like me and enjoy collecting, planting, and crafting, potions add a whole new layer of depth to this experience. Now you have motivation to not only learn new potions, but to scour the worlds for the ingredients. This challenges you to perhaps grow plants in a greenhouse (I also have Seasons) or, if you like torture, growing them outside in the elements and having to use the weather system to garden. I always build greenhouses because I don’t want to waste time waiting for the seasons to change just to harvest potatoes.

You can brew Mac and Cheese in the cauldron—and it works off the grid!

The most fun I had was with mischief spells. I loved learning new ones and immediately casting them on nearby sims. I could control L. Faba (an NPC cleverly named after Elphaba from Wicked) by commanding her to do things, however there were only a few options such as clean and cook, and nothing mischief related. I would have loved to have her fight other sims or play her own mischief pranks but alas these were not options unfortunately. However, I did have a ton of fun casting spells to make sims dazed or depressed.

Either way, Tom is an evil sim and lives for the chaos. I realized during my time spent with Tom that I do not enjoy being evil. I like to create a perfect world with good sims who treat each other well. Lesson learned, I don’t like mean, evil sims!

A lot of the novelties of this pack wear off quickly, and I soon realized that you should not buy this pack to get another world, like I did, because Glimmerbrook is very bland with not much to do compared to the plethoras of grills, fishing spots, and other activities in Willow Creek or Oasis Springs. Rather, Glimmerbrook is more of a mountainous, tree-filled world that is nice to look at, and that’s it. The Magic Realm is also limited, but its set dressings are quite impressive. Especially the crumbled buildings of Casters Alley, with levitating abandoned furniture and wooden planks. Casters Alley is the best spot to kill time in. And it’s where you get your brooms, ingredients, and wands!

You’ll also find somewhere a secluded graveyard with ghoulish white swirls emanating from the tombstones. Of course, this is also set dressing and is not interactive.

Most of your time will be spent practicing magic and experimenting with cauldrons. I found this to be very monotonous after a while, but it was satisfying to finally be a top-ranked wizard with all spells unlocked. It’s like beating a career at level 10. There’s a lot of grunt work but it is a satisfying payoff.

As for my recommendation, I would definitely get RoM if it’s your thing, but just be aware that most of the new content will wear off quickly, and once you’ve seen the Magic Realm, you’ve seen it all. There’s nothing hidden to find. And once you’ve got everything you need to become a spellcaster or potion brewer, your need to revisit the Realm only gets smaller. It soon becomes just another location to visit. However, with all that in mind, I love the addition of Magic to the base game. I can have a sim who hates to cook learn the Delicioso spell and whip up a satisfying meal out of thin air. I can teleport all over the place, which is especially great when living in a big house. No more waiting five minutes for your sim to get to the other side of the house! Do keep in mind this isn’t a pack you buy for the fancy new build mode objects or the new world to live in. The center of this pack is the added gameplay. I would only buy this pack if you really want Magic in your sims’ lives. RoM excels at that.

[the-crippled-god]

Steam Next Fest, October 2021

Here’s a few sentences on the demos I’ve played thus far. We’ll see if I get to more...

A=B: Of the genre of 'Esolang programming games' (of which there are many), this might be one of the easiest to get into. However, nearly all the fun is going to come out of weird tricks you can pull off with the new instructions added in each section, which kinda defeats the premise. That being said, I was pleasantly surprised at how clever the game let me be with the the base 'one instruction'. It's not really programming, it's pattern matching and replacing (that being said, folks are starting to work out that well implemented pattern matching is one of the most powerful tools a programming language can have), and a condition that if a rule matches, the instructions start over, rather than continue. I wonder if there's any real world langs that behave like this, but support regex patterns (including capture groups), it might actually be a neat way of building things like custom file renaming rules... Games like this always feel like I'm doing work while not at work, but the simplicity of the base instruction makes this feel more like a puzzle game than something like TIS-100 or Shenzen IO, so provided the extra instructions don't make it feel more like programming (avoid adding branching, don't let me loop beyond the base loop, etc.), I'll probably enjoy this. Verdict: interesting, I'll probably buy it if it's cheap.

Galaxy's Extreme: This is another "Nintendo won't make a new F-Zero game so we'll do it ourselves", and it's... fine. Momentum feels good, and the controls feel good, it's just, too simplistic. I really feel like a spiritual successor to F-Zero needs the strafe and slide turning of GX (or some equivalent), without absurd goofy snaking, it's just, not the same, let alone an escalation of the style. You also only seem to leave the ground and prescribed points, rather than behaving like a hover craft, which doesn't quite feel right. Verdict: I'll probably pass on this one, if it gets rave reviews on release, and has online multiplayer, I could see grabbing it to play casually with friends.

Rayze: There's a good idea here, this isn't a good implementation of it. Momentum feels weird, and the game doesn't use raw mouse input, for some reason. An 'Aim racer' feels like a good idea, but this is more of a puzzle game where you're trying to work out how the level designer wants you to click things. Verdict: pass, absolutely not for me.

Dread Delusion: Open world immersive sim, focused on being weird. Seems alright, demo is a little too limited to tell, and I allocated my stats wrong to be able to see all of it (you seem to need high Lore to get to a few areas), but I enjoyed what was here, and will probably pick it up as just a weird thing to explore. Verdict: neat, be interested to see how the full version is.

Titanium Hound: This one looked cool, but it's really not good. Sounds in the menus are ear piercing, control scheme makes no sense on either the keyboard or controller. None of the attacks feel like they have impact. Controls are floaty and weird, like everything is on ice. Enemy sounds are muted, music is boring. Verdict: Really disappointed in this one, hard pass.

Transiruby: C...Cute... This seems like a fun light hearted metroidvania. Dialogue is witty, Siruby and pals are cute. Music is charming. Controls are tight. Graphics lean a little to simple for my tastes, but otherwise no complaints. Verdict: I'll probably buy this, seems like a good coping game for me.

Gastova: The Witches of Arkana: Meh. Some of the cutscene and character detail art is cute. Writing feels like it has a good premise, but could use an editor to punch up the jokes and quips a bit, since they don't quite land. It's almost like English isn't the writers first language, they have a good grasp of how to put words together so they're coherent, but they're not great at pacing dialogue so it feels natural. Gameplay is, bland? This feels aggressively like a 3rd party SNES platformer, like a Super Adventure Island or something. This is in all respects. It eats inputs randomly, attacks have no impact, enemies take too many hits, basic platoforming requires you stand on the very edge of the platforms, etc. I'm sure there are people who will get a kick out of this, but it's not for me. Verdict: pass.

Ex-Zodiac: It's a Starfox clone! Kinda halfway between SNES and 64. It's pretty good, not really doing anything original, but it plays well. Only weird issue I noticed is that enemies behind you can shoot at you, and there's not really a way to avoid it. Other than that my main complaint is the camera feels a little tight, definitely more like Starfox SNES, and it's a bit annoying. Verdict: I'll wishlist it, purchase is going to depend on the length and price of the full game.

Exo One: Interesting, likely not for me. I dig the movement scheme, though certain aspects of it suffer from the minimal UI/HUD. Manoeuvring through big wide open Unity terrain maps is not really compelling to me, I think I'd really like this if it was a more concentrated experience. Verdict: Pass, but I'll keep an eye on it.

POSTAL Brain Damaged: Hell yeah, this seems good. Think I like it more than Postal 4, at least in its current state. Writing is very Postal, except weirdly more subtle than usual? Dunno, this I like it more than Postal's usual crassness. Weapons are all versatile and cool (in the demo the rocket launcher weirdly feels the worst), and level design and aesthetics are on point. Didn't finish the demo cause I'd kinda rather play this on release, but really liked what I played. Verdict: Wishlisted, to pick up next time I'm in the mood for a boomer shooter.

Hypnagogia: Boundless Dreams: I was expecting something different. This seems to be a mostly linear 1st person platformer set in a childish dreamscape. It's fine for what it is, but at least as a demo, it didn't grab me. I think Anodyne 2 did this aesthetic better, this kinda feels like someone looked at Spyro the Dragon, and decided that's what dreams looked like. Maybe it gets weirder later, but I'm not sure I want to wait around to find out. Verdict: Pass for now, but I'll check the reviews when it comes out.

Cleo: A Pirate's Tale: It's alright, for a one person game, it seems pretty dang good. But, I don't think I'll play it. Everything about it is just a little off. Writing isn't quite funny, voice acting has weird intonation and direction, controls don't quite work intuitively, art style feels a touch unrealized, etc. Definitely give this one a try, especially if you liked old LucasArts games, you might love this, but I didn't. Verdict: Pass, but I have a few friends I'll probably recommend this to.

Hunt the Night: There's a good (potentially great) game here, but it leans just a little too into being difficult/punishing for my taste. You can animation cancel into a dash, except when there's hit stun from contacting an enemy with your sword, so you can't dodge ranged attacks while you're engaged in melee? Sometimes enemies are hit stunned by your attacks, sometimes the same enemies can attack through your hits? There's no stamina bar, but there's like 4 different meters to manage, and they work pretty well at forcing you to use all the options available to you. The weapons I found seemed to only differ in attack speed, melee combos did not change meaningfully, which is disappointing, but I didn't experiment much. Otherwise, for a 'bloodborne but as top-down zelda' it seems pretty great. Story seems interesting enough, if predictable, gameplay has a lot of good ideas, but it maybe needs another round of polish. A range indicator on the dash, and a solid explanation of if I'm suppose to be using it to dodge (and when I can cancel into a dodge and when I can't), along with a clear timer on how long I need to hold the heal button, would go a long way into making the game feel more fair. Verdict: On wishlist for now, because the trailer makes it look really fun, but I'll likely take a look at the reviews on release.

Anuchard: I swear I've seen this main character design before, I think they were a cameo design in CrossCode? Oh wow is English not the writer's first language, grammar issues all over the place. Thankfully, not so bad as to be incomprehensible, but I really hope they get an editor fluent in English before release. Gameplay wise, this seems a little too simple? Combat is satisfying, but you can stun lock the boss? And while the shield/heavy attack system seems like a good idea, it doesn't add much depth. Puzzle solving by bouncing the gems around feels bad. You can't aim in more than the 8 cardinal directions, and even that's inconsistent, and hit detection requires you to be really precise. Art is cute, writing seems like it has potential, if it gets a good proof read, music was interesting to good. Verdict: I think I'll pass, but I'll look into it after release.

Marmoreal: Can you tell this game wanted to be a Touhou fangame, but the art was worse than even ZUNs so they couldn't get the license? Joking aside, ignoring every art asset in this game (except the animation, but we'll get to that), this game is great. Gameplay feels really good, though I feel I need to re-map the abilities buttons a bit, I kept hitting them at inopportune times. And, the animation in cutscenes, along with the writing, make this a stupid ridiculous romp that nearly had me falling off my chair in laughter. This game knows exactly what it is, and I'm here for it. Verdict: Wishlisted, and I'll probably play more of the demo, since it's pretty substantial.

Transmute: A very clearly inspired by Axiom Verge (and maybe Environmental Station Alpha) metroidvania. My biggest complaint is the writing falls flat. Crazy shit is happening to and around the protag, and she hardly reacts (the writing puts more emphasis on her being 'anti-colonialist' than it does on the fact that she'd been in stasis for several years). Game plays well, though not being able to shoot at an angle, or downwards feels weird. Has an augment and retrieval system like Hollow Knight. the augment system even let me combine 2 things I didn't think it would allow me to. Difficulty spikes up after the 2nd boss, so I peaked my head into the 2 areas that open up, but wasn't really interested in banging my head against them when I know I'll have to start over when the game comes out. Verdict: Seems pretty well put together for a metroidvania, I'll wishlist it.

Tunic: This seems so close to brilliance, but it's just not there. The game looks adorable, but here's the issue: There's a massive amount of latency to the controls, you constantly feel like you're manoeuvring through muck. Even the most basic enemy can react to you faster than you can to it, enemies do a lot of damage, healing is very limited, and it has retrieval mechanics on death. This game feels really difficult for no reason. It's clearly trying to look like zelda, why does it play like a wannabe took-all-the-wrong-lessons-from-dark-souls game? If this game played closer to a 2d zelda game, it'd be a lot of fun, but as it plays right now, I have no interest. Verdict: Pass.

[tweakerwolf]

Doki Doki Literature Club

Played the game and my thoughts about it are below the cut because I go on a bit of a rant...

TL;DR version: I love the true aspect of the game but it isn’t really my style and over all I was disappointed by the ‘psychological horror’ and ‘gore’ parts of it. (relatively spoiler free, I don’t mention any of the major twists or story plotlines, just the general ‘extra-ness’ of what makes the game intriguing)

So... I got the game on Steam and played it because a lot of people were talking about it and how awesome of a game it was...

I hate to say it but, I was disappointed in it...

I get why people are raving about it, I do think the reveals and secrets in the games are amazing! I can honestly say that I’m blown away by what the creators were able to do with the game. Without going into spoiler territory, all the hidden/surprise aspects of the game, are really awesome! I have read all about the intricate details and hints that people were able to find- SO MUCH information... I wouldn’t have had any idea of where to start with that kind of game. I don’t know anything about game files and translating text... I love complicated storylines but I’m very simple when it comes to *gameplay*... if it isn’t blatantly obvious then odds are, I won’t know what to do... If I was left to my own devices, I wouldn’t know about a majority of DDLC’s secrets... because they have to do with things that are outside of normal gameplay... I guarantee that I would’ve missed about 90% of the point, all the underlying DDLC elements, swoosh, right over my head. But when I looked up the game and I learned about all the ‘extra’ elements, again, I am SOOOOO impressed with what they were able to achieve! But lmao, if you were expecting me to understand it and delve into that on my own???? You’ll be waiting a long time for that... I suck at that kind of meta stuff, truly. I wouldn’t’ve even /thought/ to look into the things people were finding secrets in!

That being said... I saw the tags for DDLC and I saw all the warnings that appeared in the game... and that’s where I was disappointed. Psychological horror? After playing games like BTD and TDDUP... that game wasn’t that ‘edgy’ at all imo. Now, that’s not to say that the trigger warnings aren’t needed! Indeed, pay attention to the trigger warnings and play the game with caution, I’m not saying that they lied... just that /I/ had higher expectations for what was going to happen when I got to the ‘shocking’ part of the game. I was so bored... For the average gamer and especially for someone that generally plays ‘regular’ dating sims, I’m sure the triggering scenes were very /shocking/, I can understand that... but for all the hype I was seeing, I was expecting more. There was nothing to the characters that made me invested in them (Okay, I’ll admit, I was invested in Sayori and I do think they did her storyline right), there was no history... Things go from cutesy to chaotic in just a moment but that doesn’t make it psychological horror... I wasn’t twisted around psychologically by the reveals we were given... they were just /shock value/ (hence my earlier wording...). OMG look at this surprise scene that you’d never expect to see in a ‘dating sim’ game!!! Gasp! What surprise! Even the ‘extra’ part of the game, the fun secret stuff... that isn’t what I’d categorize as psychological horror... I’d categorize it as a mind fuck but ‘mind fuck’ and ‘psychological horror’ don’t mean the same thing. They often go hand-in-hand but pft, that doesn’t make them synonymous with each other, that’s all I’m saying. Like I’ve said, the scenes themselves should be approached with caution, they aren’t ‘silly’ by any means but... when I think of games that are psychological horror, I think of the part in the Resident Evil 7 DLC, 21. How your POV is a character that’s strapped to a chair, forced to play a game of 21 with another innocent victim and each time you lose, a finger gets chopped off. At the end of the game, you’re praying that you don’t lose another finger but in order to keep your fingers, you have to pray that the other INNOCENT player has a worse hand than you... you get to hear that player scream in terror and then in pain, you hear them beg and there isn’t anything to do because it’s you or them. You want to win because you don’t want to die but winning means you’re forced to watch/listen to someone else get fucked up. That’s deeply psychological. Even with BTD and TDDUP... those games weren’t overly graphic (in terms of *video graphics/frames*, they were mostly static scenes that depended on the /dialogue/ to get the point across, not a visual ‘movie’ with sound effects)... we didn’t *see* a lot of horrible violence unlike in RE7 but it was still psychological because there were visceral reactions that we read the character going through, the descriptions did the scenes justice and there were scenarios that just... they were designed to make you go “if I was in this situation... could I really survive this??? Would this break me???” That’s the point of psychological horror to me. This game completely missed the mark and it just felt like shock value with a lack of depth. Period.

I’ll even say that the ‘dating sim’ aspect of the game was bland... (I know that wasn’t even the point but, hear me out)... I was SPOILED by BTD and even TDDUP... I was expecting choices! I was expecting things to be at least a little broader... I was expecting more than 2 (3 depending on what you count as an ending) endings... I was expecting my choices to matter in the end game. And they don’t... The story is horribly bland and I was in agony as I tried to play through and get to the interesting parts!!! And even after I did get to the interesting parts... I was still SO BORED! It wasn’t because I knew what was coming either, I can know how a game ends and still be excited and enthralled when I’m playing it if it has a great story or good gameplay. I don’t play a lot of dating sims, but I realize that the dialogue isn’t always the greatest... some of them are just blah blah blah and let me see animated boobies (not all of them, I know but the ones with ‘boring’ dialogue can be described like that I think).... but it should at least be a little engaging... Daddy Dating Simulator at least had the ‘horrible dad puns’ kind of humor to make players laugh and groan as they went out and about. I dunno... I was let down... if I had come across this game cold turkey with no background knowledge... I never would’ve made it to the ‘interesting’ part because I would’ve stopped playing... and like I said, even *knowing* that the game was going to get ‘interesting’... it was still so hard to play and it still fell flat... When we replay the first day, even with the quirks, it’s too bland to hold my attention, I just didn’t care.

I can write a guide of the general gameplay aspects if people really want me to but... there are only 3 endings so.... is that really what you want? A lot of the game is pretty random so there’s only so much I can help you with.... If you’re looking for help with the ‘extra’ aspects of the game, I cannot help you with that, I’m sorry... Check the wiki and the reddit pages because I have no clue where to even start with that stuff.

[5ro4]

Activity summary - December 2016

#1SE December 2016 pic.twitter.com/JlS0qH2zGU

— Alva Majo (@5ro4) December 31, 2016

· I had to go to Mallorca, then to Marbella to spend the holidays there. Working on my laptop is far from ideal, so productivity has been low this past weeks.

· We bought some Joylent to test it out. Seems good so far. Takes one minute to prepare and tastes like flour with a mild tone of the flavor it says on the package, which is good to avoid getting tired of it.

· We made the first Alva vs Kony. Kony and I made individual streams of The Sims 2 for 2 hours, then hold a poll on twitter to decide who made the best house. It was really fun.

~Game dev~

· Equilateral selected Majotori as one of the 100 best games of 2016!

· I’m animating the big bulk of Majotori’s illustrations. The end near.

~Vidya~

· I played The Last Guardian, and sadly, it was disappointing. The game is way too long for what little gameplay it can offer. It feels like you are doing mostly the same for about 8 hours, some of those hours consisting of climbing on Trico and waiting for him to traverse a long chunk of the way. Controls are clunky and dealing with Trico is often confusing, sometimes irritating, as you can’t tell if you are asking for something he can’t do or he’s just taking his sweet time to do it.

On the good side, the visuals look gorgeous, especially the animations, for the most part Trico feels real, and the action sequences are breathtaking.

· I started playing the 150+ indie games I got in a good bundle. Most of them are bad enough to close and uninstall two minutes in. The only one I’ve finished so far is Lieve Oma, which I only did because I knew it was very short and wanted to see if something of interest happened at the ending (it didn’t).

While I appreciate the tribute to supportive grandmas, I find the game not worth playing. It has like 2 minutes of dialog stretched out for around 20 minutes walking down a path.

~Shows~

· I watched Westworld. It has a really interesting plot with some really clever twists. My biggest problem with it is that the final chapter was presented in the most idiotic and confusing manner possible, the way an ending that makes absolutely no sense would be presented in order to trick viewers into thinking that it does make sense but it’s too deep to be understood easily. The twist does make sense, so why did they resort to this? Also, the whole thing leaves plenty of plot holes behind and looking back it sort of feels like most of what happened between the first and the last chapter was irrelevant, but overall it was good. [7/10]

· Someone told Kony that Sense 8 was great, so we watched the first chapter, and it was awful. Nothing made sense and it was trying so hard to be mysterious and suspenseful it was laughable.

~Cinema~

· After watching the show, I was curious to see how similar the original Westworld movie the show is based on was. The similarities end at the premise of the park, which as a concept has merit, especially for a 1973 movie. The rest of it, though, is badly produced, slow moving trash. [4/10]

· Deadpool: Tries to be a different, parody version of hero movies but ends up being as formulaic and bland as any other hero movie. [6/10]

· Ant-Man: The premise is ridiculous and from there it’s uninteresting and boring. [4/10]

· Warcraft: I had read about how terrible it was, but it seemed like the average blockbuster to me. Human characters are pretty bad and the plot is not always clear, especially at the ending, but it was entertaining overall, and the orcs’ story was interesting. [6/10]

·  Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: The animation was better than I expected; very well done. The plot is pretty good for the most part, but as usual, the third act of the movie is a stretched action mess. [7/10]

· Surviving Indie: The film is an OK documentary about its creator,  Richard James Cook, with some intersected bits about other devs, and I’m OK with that. What I’m not OK with is that it’s sold as if R.J.Cook was just one more among several other indies featured, when that’s not the case. It even has Journey on the logo, a game that’s not indie by any sensible definition and isn’t even talked about on the documentary. Kelle Santiago only shows up for about 2 minutes total to say some words about indie development/games in general.

As a documentary itself, people talk a lot without saying much and actual interesting things are not explained, but it’s OK overall, and I enjoy these things even if they are not great. So, while I don’t regret watching it or paying for it, it was disappointing, as it’s not what I was told I was buying. The sympathy I got for R.J.Cook from the film was sort of blown away by the clearly misleading marketing tactics to sell his documentary.

[shimmysims]

time for an unpopular opinion

Okay, so, don't get me wrong, I love the cats and dogs expansion pack. I appluade the sims team, they did amazing on them, and the vet career, but I'm a bit disapointed, honestly. First off, the CAS part is amazing. Animals look great, and I love the fur textures. The clothing is such a COOL thing to add, BUT I feel that we're lacking in gameplay. After playing it for a bit, I'm bored. I had a great time messing around in CAS and playing with pets, but I'm bored. I was really excited over the world, but we can't go in the lighthouse, and there are only a few families in it. For there only being cats and dogs, and no horses, I was expecting more. I was hoping to have more to play with. They really focused on CAS, and that's great, but I want gameplay. Maybe people that are into CAS like this, but I love CAS and I don't like paint mode. My favorite expansion pack so far is City Living, I'm still finding new things to do with it and having fun with it. Sure, the animals are cute, but I wanted more obejects that pets could interact with and different gameplay options. Idk, maybe I was expecting too much. Pros Vet career! Being able to sell puppies Neutoring Adoption Evaluations Animals running away All of the breeds to choose from Customization in CAS Build Mode Pet Clothes Dog Training Making puppies in CAS Cons Not being able to control pets No pet family tree No interactions between animals (atleast not very many, unless you tell them to) Very little gameplay Few Townies Haven't seen many strays (non in San Myshuno so far) in other worlds No horses Only one starter house, and that house is very bland and boring. I'd rather it be tinier with cuter furniture. They don't really do anything when my sims go to work, even though they "have a mind of their own"

[ghost-recon-wildlands]

Hello! I have recently gotten BACK into Wildlands due to the new tier 1 system. While I have some gripes about that it is not the subject of this post. I haven't posted here in a long time but I got to thinking after playing with multiple groups online and running around in single player. Did the name tom Clancy and furthermore ghost recon hurt this game? What I mean by this is that I think Ubisoft did too much to make this game feel like a tom Clancy ghost recon game but not enough to achieve that goal. For clarity, it's not enough like ghost recon to warrant the name but it feels like some elements that would have made it great were cut or never considered BECAUSE they wanted to make it a valid ghost recon game. Some examples: Of the groups of 4(including me) that I played with online it was usually at a minimum of 2 players in the group of 4 wearing what came closet to full military gear to the point that if they had put BDUs into the game they would be wearing them. Sure there was one exception were everyone was dressed as a "covert undercover operative" but the main consensus I got was that most everyone wanted to look like a fully kitted out soldier, not an undercover agent of any kind. This is the first thing I feel that didn't get considered as much because of the name "Ghost Recon". More militant and tactical cosmetics.My next point being the gameplay and setting in amalgam. While this bit is more personal I've always wanted an open world WAR game that was no more complicated than GTA. It seems that most people consider this a ridiculous or scary idea since most games that come close to this never truly embrace the concept and opt for a gimmick, usually stealth. I feel this happened at Ubisoft during conception of ghost recon Wildlands. Instead of making an open world game based around open conflict between different factions they took the quickly becoming cliche route of the lone faction in an entirely hostile world with steal being a big mechanic. There's a reason the comparisons between Wildlands and Metal Gear were thrown around so rampantly because the two games have basically the same gameplay with different stories. "Player controls character to accomplish somewhat bland objectives with a random and mainly pointless context behind it. You CAN openly engage but the it is not in the interest of the player because the enemy swarms you so stealth is mainly the thing you do until you've whittled down the enemy count enough to the point you're reasonably confident you can survive the onslaught of going loud." This description could easily be put on the disk case of either game. And not to say that this gameplay format isn't fun but there could be more! For once I'd like to have a full platoon, regiment, army behind me. I would like to be able to loudly assault a base with more than three other barely decent ai on my side. I would like to be able to call backup, I would like to have a base, overall I would like to feel powerful in a game through the immersive world and not JUST my ability to sneak through a camp or snipe an npc from 300 meters away. Now, don't worry, I get it. If I want to assault compounds or raid camps in grand fashion I should just pick up call of duty, or Arma, or Battlefield and you'd be right! I totally could! But that's not why I'm writing this. I'm well aware of what I could be playing but also what could be. Henry Ford once said that if he had asked what people wanted they would have just asked for faster horses. I know Ubisoft is the company known for innovation or creating a new genre of gaming but Wildlands easily could have been just that, if they hadn't mooched off the Ghost Recon name to get sales. See the reason I don't just go pickup Call of Duty or Arma is because they don't give the experience I actually want. I would like to see an encampment and raid it, but not from some linear angle EVERY SINGLE TIME like in call of duty, going through the same rooms and the same set pieces every time but I don't want the war sim feeling of Arma either. It pains me to see that the engine and mechanics of Wildlands would have worked perfectly for this "dream game" of mine and I would have liked it much more as a standalone "Wildlands" that didn't bring the Ghost Recon name along like mommy Ubisoft told it to do. The game falls on it's face when played "tactically" with the psychic enemies. And with so many large open spaces, I would have leagues more fun in a myriad of more places on the map if I could wage all out battles with the npcs, but frankly, I abhor fields and flats in Ghost Recon Wildlands because they can't be fought in without you dying after a minute(seconds on extreme). I think this comes down to the underlying unnecessarity of an OPEN WORLD in a predominantly STEALTH focused game, because just as they said with Metal Gear, it would simply be more fun with denser areas, buildings, corridors and whatnot. But if I had a veritable assault force of NPCs with me fields might actually become fun and an open world would feel less useless. And again, I think none of this was ever even considered because all the developers were thinking on the lines of "tom Clancy" and "ghost recon". Is Ubisoft the best studio to put in charge of and expect revolutionary gameplay or games in general? No not really. But I feel like the same way no one thought there could be a good western game until Red Dead, an open world war game that doesn't follow in Arma's war sim footsteps could be great. I could go on about features and such that this fantasy title would include but I shall end my post here.Tell me your thoughts. Just please don't give me the amazingly intellectual answer of "that's stupid" via /r/GhostRecon