#also in the previous games the air on the surface was super toxic and you were required to use gas masks and carefully conserve air filters

[munch-mumbles]

while im here i have more exodus thoughts im SO CONFLICTED ON IT. more in tags as per use

[far-off-flower-fields]

Weird Questions that say a lot

1. coffee mugs, teacups, wine glasses, water bottles, or soda cans? Teacups!

2. chocolate bars or lollipops? Lollipops

3. bubblegum or cotton candy? Cotton candy

4. how did your elementary school teachers describe you? We call elementary school primary school. It depended which teachers you asked, my favourites always said I was “conscientious, kind, and a pleasure to have in class”.

5. do you prefer to drink soda from soda cans, soda bottles, plastic cups or glass cups? Glass cups or bottles.

6. pastel, boho, tomboy, preppy, goth, grunge, formal or sportswear? I have like 4 looks, pastel, boho, and goth/witchy/grunge, also vintage-inspired which wasn’t mentioned but I love it.

7. earbuds or headphones? Depends on the shape, I love my Razr headset because it doesn’t squash my ears, and I like galaxy bud shaped earbuds, the ones with the little rubber doo-dads that fit actually in your ear. Apple or a lot of older flat earbuds cause me a lot of pain.

8. movies or tv shows? TV shows. Movies are getting longer and longer and my focus is getting shorter and shorter

9. favorite smell in the summer? Rainy days!

10. game you were best at in p.e.? The game of queue-ducking (where you go to the back of the queue to avoid your turn), or dance, or the less strength intensive parts of gymnastics. Or crying, always been great at that xD

11. what you have for breakfast on an average day? Muesli, or nothing.

12. name of your favorite playlist? I prefer to listen to full albums rather than playlists, but I have a few favourites on Spotify. Born to Run 150BPM, Infinite Indie Folk, Irish Folk: Jigs and Reels, All Out 80s/90s/00s. I also love scene/pop-punk playlists.

13. lanyard or key ring? Key Ring

14. favorite non-chocolate candy? Message Hearts (or anything with that texture), the red pack of starbursts (the UK version is vegan). Does Turkish Delight count because if so then that is my fave. I also like gummies if they’re vegan.

15. favorite book you read as a school assignment? To Kill a Mockingbird (high school), or The Bloody Chamber (uni), or Hamlet (uni)

16. most comfortable position to sit in? One foot under me, the other foot out to the other side, but both in the same position (if the surface is flat), or knees up.

17. most frequently worn pair of shoes? I own a lot of shoes so there isn’t really a single pair I wear the most. Recently my Air Force 1s, I’m trying to wear them in because the previous owner didn’t so the cause blisters.

18. ideal weather? Cold, overcast, rainy, still. Or without the rain. or snow (as long as I’m not going in the car and I can go crunch my shoes in it xD

19. sleeping position? Either side, but my body is kinda rotated towards the bed so it’s like half way between on my stomach and on my side. 

20. preferred place to write (i.e., in a note book, on your laptop, sketchpad, post-it notes, etc.)? Notebooks

21. obsession from childhood? Animals, dinosaurs, goddesses, magic, crystals, neopets, sims. I still love all of these things, I am a rotating door of obsessions, usually a bunch of the same obsessions on repeat.

22. role model? I don’t have one particular role model, I do have tons of people that I love and respect.

23. strange habits? I have so many strange habits that I have become one myself. Nothing actually stands out though because 99% of it is because of my brain.

24. favorite crystal? rose quartz or moonstone.

25. first song you remember hearing? Maybe Dancing Queen by ABBA, definitely the first I remember dancing to, but my dad loves music so I grew up with a constant stream of it.

26. favorite activity to do in warm weather? Suffer xD when I’m able to do so comfortably I’d love to go out looking for pretty stones, and nice sticks with my fiance, also would like to go on picnics with him, or a friend if I had one.

27. favorite activity to do in cold weather? Baking, drawing, crafts, standing in the rain. Everything.

28. five songs to describe you? 6/10 - Dodie Robert Frost - Mal Blum Caught in the Middle - Paramore Side Effects - Jade Bird Snitches Get Stitches - Onsind  Bonus track: The Seed - Aurora I wish I still had the playlist I made of songs I relate to, several of these were on it though.

29. best way to bond with you? Oversharing, or telling me about things you’re into.

30. places that you find sacred? Nature. My favourite spots are little creeks/rivers in wooded areas, but just like, all of it is special and should be treated as such. Also bedrooms.

31. what outfit do you wear to kick ass and take names? I think maybe I’m not gutsy or whatever enough, but also unpredictable. I wear whatever I like, and I’m just as likely to cry in all of them as I am to accidentally get in a fight.

32. top favorite vines? I feel so basic because I never really did the vine thing.  There was one that nearly killed me because I literally started to choke that was in some kind of office and the bit like can you run this past me again, and they just fucking legged it past them holding a folder up, Saw it once, never saw it again. Road work ahead. Why you can’t lift a house (might be a tok?) Brass dad and oven kid Look at this graaaaph Never learned how to read I can’t sit I have hemorrhoids The one with the people in blankets bobbing the nana nanana song Fr esh avo ca do Look at all these chickens

33. most used phrase in your phone? I love you - if I had to guess

34. advertisements you have stuck in your head? right now, nothing. I often get the old Super Liquor jingle lodged in there though.

35. average time you fall asleep? 6am?

36. what is the first meme you remember ever seeing? Charlie the unicorn or that one Noodles video by Cyanide and Happiness. Are those even memes?

37. suitcase or duffel bag? Depends. I mostly use a bag though since I never go anywhere for long.

38. lemonade or tea? Tea? Usually if you ask for lemonade here you get Sprite which is not lemonade.

39. lemon cake or lemon meringue pie? I had a vegan lemon meringue pie once, so good. Cake is easier to make though, and I can eat more in one sitting without getting sick xD

40. weirdest thing to ever happen at your school? Um, the principal in my last year of school got caught for being a peeping tom a few years after I left.

41. last person you texted? My Fiance.

42. jacket pockets or pants pockets? Jacket pockets

43. hoodie, leather jacket, cardigan, jean jacket or bomber jacket? Depends on the rest of the outfit and the weather. I wear Jean jackets most though.

44. favorite scent for soap? I love lavender, or vanilla/candy/fruity/baked goods type scents. I still have a bottle of Sugar Fairy spray from lush from a year ago and I love the smell of that.

45. which genre: sci-fi, fantasy or superhero? Fantasy I think.

46. most comfortable outfit to sleep in? Nekkid?

47. favorite type of cheese? As a kid it was feta. Now I only eat vegan cheese. I was never a huge cheese fan tbh.

48. if you were a fruit, what kind would you be? Rotten xD um probably a cranberry or something because I’m small, and I’m not a fan of cranberry.

49. what saying or quote do you live by? An it harm none do what you will. Or treat others as you wish to be treated.

50. what made you laugh the hardest you ever have? Probably one of the vines I listed above, either “run it past” or “can’t lift a house” because both of those resulted in crying and choking.

51. current stresses? My cat has been throwing up and having diarrhoea the past week or so, she’s been to the vet, it got better for a bit, but tonight suddenly got worse. Living with my parents who I have a very toxic relationship with. Living in a single very overfilled room. Trying to not spend money so that I can save up to move next year. Nightmares about my trauma. Either the house is haunted or there’s a build up of negative energy (probably that).

52. favorite font? I always liked the look of all of the script style fonts (freestyle, french, lucida, lucida calligraphy, Edwardian, Palace) but they’re not accessible so for anything people will actually see (which is literally nothing) I always go with arial.

53. what is the current state of your hands? Slight rash on one finger because I’m sensitive to what is in a lot of hand washing products apparently (never an issue until the pandemic), one broken finger nail that is a bit shorter than the rest. Not painted nails because energy. I always wear my engagement ring, usually I wear several other rings but with how my skin is being I thought I’d better not for a while.

54. what did you learn from your first job? Bakeries are hell, my circadian rhythm will not adjust to anything besides its natural state for longer than a couple of days at a time no matter how long or hard I try. I can absolutely fall asleep standing up.

55. favorite fairy tale? Ugly Duckling

56. favorite tradition? I don’t have anyway... Yet? Hopefully when I move this can become a thing.

57. the three biggest struggles you’ve overcome? I’m interpretting overcome loosely here, meaning “I have not died from this” - Suicide of my first love - Bullying - 3 different jobs that all nearly killed me

58. four talents you’re proud of having? Literally can’t think of one. I’m not talented. I’m passable at a couple of things, but I worked for those things and I’m still not good enough for anyone to confuse me for being talented xD Those things I care about that I’ve worked on a lot are singing, art, languages, crafts? I still struggled to come up with 4. My bad.

59. if you were a video game character, what would your catchphrase be? Aw jeez xD

60. if you were a character in an anime, what kind of anime would you want it to be? Magical Girl! This is an easy one, give me the powers and the clothes yessss.

61. favorite line you heard from a book/movie/tv show/etc.? Literally sitting here drawing a blank, so instead of favourite here is the first one that came into my head “eyes are the genitals of the head” (may have that wrong, I’m watching the Office for the first time rn)

62. seven characters you relate to? Clementine from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Amelie from Amelie Matilda from Matilda Quasimodo from the Hunchback of Notredame (also my favourite plush as a kid) Iris - The Holiday Jess - New Girl Amelia Shepherd - Grey’s Anatomy Struggled with this because suddenly I drew a blank and also couldn’t remember who my Fiance was talking about every time he’s watched a character and said “that’s you” repeatedly.

63. five songs that would play in your club? Starlight - Superman Lovers Pump It - Black Eyed Peas I Bet that You Look Good on the Dancefloor - Arctic Monkeys All the Things She Said - tATu Doctor Jones - Aqua Bonus: Push Up - Freestylers These are ones  I have memories of dancing to when I was younger so that’s how I picked, but I’d absolutely be a themed night club with different music on different nights.

64. favorite website from your childhood? Neopets, which I still play daily. The first I played was MaMaMedia, then Bubblegum Club.

65. any permanent scars? That’s a SORE subject heh get it heh

66. favorite flower(s)? Lavender, rose, peony

67. good luck charms? I usually carry gemstones if I’m needing to be particularly lucky, or sigils.

68. worst flavor of any food or drink you’ve ever tried? I hate anything spicy. I had rootbeer candy that tasted like literal dirt. I can’t eat banana stuff without gagging and getting a headache. I hate anything that is artificial blackberry or blackcurrant, tastes like shitty cough syrup.

69. a fun fact that you don’t know how you learned? Sea Monkeys breathe through their feet, but I remember where I learned that.

70. left or right handed? right

71. least favorite pattern? depends entirely on the colours, I like patterns. but certain stripes do make my eyes feel funny.

72. worst subject? If PE counts, then that. If not, math.

73. favorite weird flavor combo? I love pineapple on pizza but that’s not weird. Iused to eat cheese and jam sandwiches as a kid though.

74. at what pain level out of ten (1 through 10) do you have to be at before you take an advil or ibuprofen? I operate on how long it has lasted instead of how bad it is, essentially I get so desperate so I’ll try it even though it probably won’t help. I have the resistance of a rhino to most meds.

75. when did you lose your first tooth? No idea, like 4 I think? I did keep them in a weird little box for no reason though because they never got taken away from under my pillow.

76. what’s your favorite potato food (i.e. tater tots, baked potatoes, fries, chips, etc.)? I’m a fan of a good mash if it has lots of flavour (like gravy). Otherwise, crisps or fries.

77. best plant to grow on a windowsill? I grew a radish once! Something cat safe though these days, also maybe something heavy, and hard to knock over?

78. coffee from a gas station or sushi from a grocery store? Grocery Store sushi, if it’s just veg.

79. which looks better, your school id photo or your driver’s license photo? My only ID is my passport, and it is BAD.

80. earth tones or jewel tones? Both.

81. fireflies or lightning bugs? Fireflies (ten million of them to be precise)

82. pc or console? Grew up with PC. Now play my switch mostly.

83. writing or drawing? Both. Wrote more as a kid, draw more now.

84. podcasts or talk radio? Podcasts.

84. barbie or polly pocket? Both. But I prefered pollies as a kid

85. fairy tales or mythology? mythology

86. cookies or cupcakes? cupcakes

87. your greatest fear? Based on my nightmares, stairs.

88. your greatest wish? To live in a comfy house, in the country, with my Fiance, I have travelled the world, we have pets, I can function, we are free.

89. who would you put before everyone else? My Fiance and out animals.

90. luckiest mistake? Can’t think of any, most of my mistakes have been more like bad choices, also never turned out well for me.

91. boxes or bags? Depends what it’s for?

92. lamps, overhead lights, sunlight or fairy lights? lamps, or fairy lights. Unless I’m particularly anxious, then overheads.

93. nicknames? None.

94. favorite season? Winter

95. favorite app on your phone? LINE, it has my fiance, and animated stickers.

96. desktop background? Little Twin Stars

97. how many phone numbers do you have memorized? My own.

I never get asks and needed to distract myself so I’m going to just answer these anyway, like a survey or something. Original post by tr33-g1rl 

[pickcpodcast]

16 Show Notes - Which would be the worst horseman of the apocalypse?

Welcome to the end of the year and, more importantly, the end of WIDPC’s first season! To celebrate, we decided to wrap Season One by talking about the biggest end—the End, capital E. (Episode here if you haven’t listened to it yet.) We know it’s coming—we’re millennials, after all—and clearly the best way to cope with times like ours is to spend an hour discussing what would be the absolute worst way to go. (Again, millennials.)

Our answer choices are:

A.      Pestilence

B.       War

C.       Famine

D.      Death

First, let’s knock this out of the way—yes, we know the first horseman is technically Conquest, not Pestilence. At least according to the King James version of Revelation 6:2, wherein the first horseman has a bow and crown and explicitly “went forth conquering, and to conquer.” But (1) Pestilence makes for a more diverse selection of end-time scenarios, and (2) we figure you can interpret this horseman as disease, since disease strikes people like arrows and can affect or “conquer” pretty much anyone.

Now that we’ve got that bit of pedantry out of the way, let’s dig into it!

Option A: Pestilence

In the episode, we discussed a lot of different ways disease could bring about an end-times scenario. In an attempt to minimize alarm, we’re just going to link the sources we drew on while talking about how likely it is that human civilization as we know it will go out via disease.

Check out this article for more on how climate change and good ole human curiosity may be defrosting old diseases from the (not so) permafrost.

Also, don’t forget that measles and polio are back, even in OECD countries, due to the anti-vaccination movement.

Old diseases could also come back as a tool of biological warfare! There are still samples of the world’s deadliest diseases in labs all over the world, kept mostly for science purposes. But we’ve all seen Jurassic Park. We know.

And lest you are a non-human reading this and thinking you are safe, remember that disease does not affect humans alone. Plant and animal diseases like the so-called “olive tree leprosy” exist and pose a serious threat to your habitats and food supplies!

…Oh did we say minimize alarm? We meant maximize. Merry Christmas!

Option B: War

This horseman, dear friends, is already upon us, and has been to Earth more times in history than we could possibly count. Since you can find way more than we could ever tell you in the History/Military History section of your local bookstore, we thought it’d be more interesting to focus on some aspects of warfare that you might not have considered.

Specifically, we were interested in unconventional tactics of warfare, such as cyber-attacks on important systems. As sci-fi as that sounds, Ukraine’s power grid was hacked in 2016, leaving about 230,000 people without power in the dead of winter. The hackers disabled not only the distribution stations and substations but also backups and fail-safes, crippling the people normally in charge of responding to such emergencies. We don’t know about you, but we think that’s pretty scary stuff. You can read more about infrastructure hacking here, here, and here.

Another aspect that’s super interesting (and super terrifying) is the relationship between warfare and the natural environment. Environmental damage is both a weapon of warfare and a major fallout. One of the best-known cases is World War I, which was the first war to cause such  drastic  environmental  destruction. We’re still learning about the impact of the deforestation and toxic materials left behind in Europe, but there are also bright spots: nature does seem able to bounce back, as it has in vacated areas such as France’s Zone Rouge. You can go here and here to read more.

Option C: Famine

Like War, Famine is already out among us. A major famine that’s currently in the news a lot is the one in Yemen, where they’re facing such a severe shortage of clean water and food that citizens were apparently thrilled to get a plague of locusts in October, because those things pack a lot of protein.

One major thing that we think a lot of people miss about famine, and that we discuss in the episode, is that it’s just as much a human phenomenon as a natural or environmental one. Sure, things like natural disasters, crop failures, and plant/animal disease can create conditions of scarcity, but it tends to be human actions—habitat destruction, warfare, and willful neglect of the vulnerable—that causes people to starve to death. For an in-depth historical example of how that works, we recommend William Rosen’s The Third Horseman: Climate Change and the Great Famine of the 14th Century, which looks at one of the worse famines in English history. For more recent history, you can look at the Bengal Famine of 1943, wherein Britain killed millions of Indians by refusing to stop exporting Indian rice or provide relief. You can also look at the very recent water crises in Flint and Newark, which will have ramifications for years to come.

Further reading for some of the stuff we mentioned in the episode:

You can read more about the fallout of the California power shutoffs here, here, and here. While it’s true that PG&E shut off power due to safety concerns—they didn’t want their equipment causing or exacerbating wildfires—we think you’ll agree that you shouldn’t have to choose between having electricity and not dying/losing your family and property to wildfires. Not in a day and age when underground power lines and other safety measures exist.

We also touch on the awesome R&D coming out of Africa that is changing the game for water acquisition and purification. These include a device that pulls water from the air and new formulas for carbon water filters. You can also get more of a bird’s-eye view here and here.

Option D: Death

Obviously, we’ve covered Bad Ways to Die in all the previous answer choices, so for Death itself we thought we’d look at it the way Revelations’s author probably meant it: the big stuff, mass extinctions and such. The kind of calamities covered by the “Acts of God” clause buried in your insurance paperwork.

It’s probably not so hard to believe in these things when climate change is a thing. In addition to being generally terrifying, climate change may also lead to mass extinction by destabilizing our water supply (and thus our food supply), killing or displacing millions of people currently living in coastal cities, and also by acidifying the oceans, which will quite literally cause a massive amount of marine species to go extinct. As we discuss in the episode, one of the most important of these species is phytoplankton, which accounts for anywhere between 50 to 85% of the oxygen in our atmosphere and is also one of the major reasons our CO2 problem isn’t as bad as it could be. If they die, though…  

Furthermore, we couldn’t possibly talk about mass extinction events without talking about meteorites. (Meteorites? In my atmosphere? It’s more likely than you think!) These can, in fact, cause mass extinction; just look at the Cretaceous-Tertiary meteor of dinosaur-eradicating fame. A Tulane University study estimated that, based on the geological record, over 50% of all species existing on earth at the time were wiped out by the impact of that crash. Even when they don’t touch Earth’s surface, meteor explosions can have the force of a nuclear or atomic bomb. And even when they don’t get quite that close, they are perfectly capable of causing massive damage and injuring/terrifying thousands of Russians. So they’re nothing to be sneezed at, no matter how far-fetched it might seem.

To read more about the efforts currently underway to defend Earth from meteor impacts, you can go here, here, and here.

[ciathyzareposts]

Rex Nebular – Bouncing Betty

Written by TBD.

Rex Nebular’s Log: Stardate – Tuesday morning.4: After being shot out of space I’ve crash landed on a planet populated only by women. Am I dreaming? Or do the indigenous creatures who keep wanting to rip off my head make it a nightmare?

We join our hero just after the opening cutscene, during which his ship was shot down and sunk into the water near the coast.

After getting up, the first thing I do is look at the viewscreen. On it I see a topless woman coming out of the water before the screen shorts out, upsetting Rex immensely. Is a pixellated topless woman the extent of naughtiness we’re going to see in this game? I expect so.

I quickly discover that the descriptions in this game are rather verbose and there’s a lot of hotspots I can look at in the first few screens. So much so that before fully exploring the ship I just wanted to go outside despite my usual strategy of looking at absolutely everything.

The descriptions are also amusing, so reading them is fun, but again, after a while, I just wanted to move on.

As I said, verbose but funny

This description doesn’t contain a joke, so it must contain important information.

I open the shield access panel and pull on the shield modulator to take it. Now I have an item in my inventory apart from my log, and it contains a special verb, disassemble.

What kind of game gives me a new verb and won’t let me use it immediately? This game’s inventory system is just a tease!

If I leave the cockpit, I end up in a living area with a bed, medicine cabinet (containing nothing I can take) and refrigerator, among other things.

As a stereotypical cartoon bachelor, my fridge contains some extremely old food.

The living area also has a ladder leading to the airlock. Rather than use the ladder now, I explore the rest of the ship.

The third (and final?) section of the ship is the engineering section. In there I find a rebreather, which will be useful for breathing underwater, and a timer module.

I also find that the life support is being kept active by the auxiliary power module.

Thank you Binky, for the air I breathe.

Having explored the ship thoroughly enough that I’m sick of the long descriptions, I go back to the living room and climb the ladder to the airlock, automatically wearing my rebreather as I exit.

The ship seems to be trying to destroy us by bombing the water. I suppose spaceships are equipped with depth charges now.

On the next screen I find a weed patch that, according to the description, looks like the infamous Venus Man Trap. That sounds dangerous, so I take a closer look.

Having my head ripped off is a rather violent way to die.

On the next screen I find some medical waste, that I don’t seem to be able to take. I try a few things with it.

Much funnier than, “That doesn’t work.”

On the same screen is a mine. I take a closer look…

Having died a few times I notice an interface convenience I really appreciate. On dying, I don’t have to reload a save game, the game automatically returns me to the point just before my death, with my inventory intact. It doesn’t sound like much but it’s a major convenience considering the amount of times I’m likely to die in the game. And as the Fourth Law of Adventure Gaming states, the chances of you randomly dying increases exponentially with the length of time played since you last saved the game.

On another screen I find a tunnel surrounded by holes. A fish swims toward the tunnel, but a purple tentacle comes out of one of the holes and eats it.  I try throwing both a dead fish (which I found on a previous screen) and my burger at the hole, but the tentacle just eats the fish and ignores the burger.

I at some point try putting the burger in the dead fish, and that works.

I also take the binoculars that are hanging by a poster of a naked woman.

I go back outside and throw my stuffed fish at the tentacle. The toxicity of my old burger is obviously not terribly palatable, even to a tentacle monster, because it kills him.

Again, funnier than the usual, “Nothing happens.”

After swimming through the now-safe hole, I come to the surface in a small pool in a cave. I exit the cave and find myself in a land of grassy fields. I explore the fields until I die.

Now I know how Super Mario’s enemies feel.

So far, all the creatures in this place seem obsessed with removing my head. With Bouncing Betty blocking the way north, I try a different direction.

To the west I find a witch doctor’s hut, which contains a few interesting items. I take some poison darts, which Rex assumes contain head-shrinking poison due to the shrunken heads the witch doctor seems to be collecting. There is also a cage containing a creature, but I don’t seem to be able to do anything with it for now.

I’ll note that all inventory objects have distinct verbs associated with them. I’m sure many of them are useful, but some are probably just there for comedic purposes.

Here I am, channeling my inner Larry Laffer, or is it Roger Wilco?

Moving further to the west, I hear some noises from the top of a palm tree, but pushing or talking to the tree doesn’t do anything useful.

Attempting to pass into the next screen has the noisy creature (similar to a monkey) throw something at me and steal one of my items.

Because the monkey ran in the direction I’ve already explored, I ignore him for now and continue west. On the next screen, I find what appears to be a human woman and I get to have my first conversation.

She doesn’t believe I’m a real man, so gives me a test to… test my manhood, I suppose.

I had to guess this one. But I guessed correctly. Does that mean I’m a real man or not?

After I show my manly knowledge, she invites me into her hut. After entering the door, we go to a new scene with people watching a security camera. I assume they have security cameras in every hut. Big Sister is real, people.

The bump under the bear rug moves in a way that reminds me of The Sims Woohoo animation. Welcome to ‘Naughty Mode’, ladies and gentlemen.

The women looking on wonder if they can use me so that Gyrain doesn’t have to go through the Gender Bender. I feel like I’ve got enough evidence to give me a solid idea of what the society of this planet is. Like the mythical Amazons, it’s an all female society that uses men for reproductive purposes. The difference being this society has invented a device that turns women into men. What this doesn’t explain though, is why they tried to kill me by blowing up my ship if they prefer to use me for reproduction? Of course it’s also possible I’m significantly wrong with my interpretation of their society.

After the security room cutscene, I’m now alone in the hut and look around. The only seemingly useful item is a twinkifruit, an obvious combination of a twinkie and fruit. I take it.

Outside, I find a clothesline containing bras made from animal hides and hotpants made from straw.

An obvious setup to me being mistaken for a woman many times in this game.

Moving further into the village, I find another woman. This lady doesn’t like me as much and kicks me in the… well, this is a game with naughty humour, where do you think she kicks me?

Good guess

I end up back outside the village. Exploring the land again, I find some leaves next to a bush.

I also find out where the monkey went after stealing my binoculars.

At this point, I decided to restart the game to see if there was a noticeable difference between the Nice/Naughty and Easy/Hard modes.

And on restarting the game I come across the game’s copy protection.

I wonder what happens if I get this wrong…

This game really really hates Rex Nebular’s head.

Trying again and correctly answering the copy protection question, I restarted the game in Nice and Easy Mode, and immediately found a difference – when the topless woman comes up out of the water in view of my probe’s camera, the camera cuts out much earlier.

This is where the camera cuts out in Nice Mode

Naughty Mode’s probe continues working for longer before cutting out

Weirdly, the topless woman poster in Rex’s living quarters is exactly the same in Nice and Naughty Mode. The most noticeable difference between Nice and Naughty Mode ended up being the death sequences. Like the previous example, Nice Mode cuts the death sequences much earlier. Using the example of the weed patch I first died in, I don’t get to see Rex’s head get ripped off and blood slowly dissolving into the water in this mode. I found this interesting, as I thought Nice/Naughty would only be in relation to sex or nudity. I liked that it included violence as well – it makes it seem less like a gimmick.

Playing further on Easy Mode, I noticed a single difference in the puzzle difficulty while underwater. I didn’t have to combine the burger with the dead fish to kill the tentacle monster, as I could just swim through the hole without the monster coming out and killing me. 

But then I came to a puzzle that had been solved in Easy Mode but I hadn’t solved myself in Hard Mode yet.

Oops. I spoiled myself by playing in Easy Mode.

Now, I really should have anticipated this. I’m an idiot. That leaf-covered pit I found in Easy Mode is just an uncovered pit in Hard Mode. Easy Mode also hinted that I’d need some bait. Having screwed up by playing Easy Mode for too long, I sheepishly went back to my Hard Mode playthrough.

Now, whether I’d have worked this solution out myself in Hard Mode is a question I can’t answer. I like to think I’d have worked it out, and even if not, my try everything on everything technique would have worked eventually, but in my defense, I think the game tried to trick me.

Now, tell me I’m just stupid and unobservant, but this picture and description had me thinking these leaves would be best used as food rather than covering a large pit.

Anyway, I used my spinach leaves (which I admit had been found on the same screen as the pit) on the pit, and now I had my leaf-covered pit.

How 3 big spinach leaves covers this pit completely without falling in is beyond me, but thanks for the help, Easy Mode.

I tried putting my twinkifruit on the leaves, which worked. As I stand behind a bush (Rex clearly not even attempting to hide), the large big-mouthed woman who jumped on me and ate my head earlier came bouncing towards my pit trap. She fell in head-first and all I could see were her legs wiggling above the pit.

Well, technically Rex shouldn’t know about the ‘large hungry one’ because the only times I met her earlier I died and the game restored me to before I saw her. Seems the game’s fallen in a spinach-covered plot hole of its own.

I wondered if perhaps saving her might get her to help me, but the game had different ideas.

Oh well, if the game wants me to leave her in the pit I’m not going to argue. And now that I can move beyond the place I first saw the large lady, I continue on and find another screen with a hut – this time with a ladder I can climb.

I take this as a clue I’ll need to get my binoculars back from the monkey thief.

After picking up a few bones I go north, and find another unfriendly woman. This time she doesn’t just kick me, she shoots me with a ray gun.

I may have a big hole in my chest, but at least I have my head this time.

I go back to the palm tree the monkey is hanging out on and try everything I can think of with the monkey and the tree. After a while I discover something I hadn’t noticed earlier – though I couldn’t do anything with the bamboo bush, one of the stalks was laying on the ground next to it. I take it.

Having made a blowgun out of a hollow reed and poison recently in Amazon: Guardians of Eden, I took a guess at what I should do next.

I use my head-shrinking poison darts on the plant stalk and have the option to shoot or hose down with my blowgun. I assumed the hose down option would just involve me spitting through the blowgun, but it turned out hosing down meant shooting darts at him.

I take my binoculars from the ground and go back north to the screen with the ladder. I use my binoculars to look at the area that the woman with the ray gun was patrolling. Rex comments on what she’s doing, and when she enters a machine, I see a closeup of a glove pushing buttons.

After seeing the woman teleport away, Rex falls down, breaking the ladder (purely so I can’t use it again I expect).

Now that Zatox the Raygunner has left I can safely go north, so I do. I also note that the binoculars are likely only useful in very specific places.

Maybe I’m looking through the wrong end of the binoculars this time.

I use the teleporter, typing in the code I saw with my binoculars, and end up in an area that’s already occupied.

Xina: Warrior Princess?

And with that, we’ll end for now. Tune in next time when I attempt to escape from  the Leather Goddesse… the Amazon priestesses… the women of this alien complex. Sorry – I keep playing games where I’m captured by a purely female society – it gets confusing.

I’m enjoying this game so far. The humour’s still working for me and the puzzles are challenging enough. I’m still disappointed I didn’t get to solve the spinach pit puzzle by myself but I have nobody but myself to blame for that one. See you next week.

Session Time: 2 hours Total Time: 2 hours

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please…try not to spoil any part of the game for me…unless I really obviously need the help…or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I’ve not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/rex-nebular-bouncing-betty/