#also spelunky is a real game

[rad-rat-with-a-tophat]

If you still happen to be taking prompts, 46 for richjake or boyf riends?

i will be taking prompts for as long as this blog remains my friend

sorry if this sucks by the way.

Jeremy was fine. He was just fucking peachy in fact. He totally wasn't panicking over his huge gay crush on his best friend, Michael Mell.

It was the middle of winter break and as per usual, Jeremy and Michael were him the latter's basement playing video games and being stupid teenage boys.

Being stupid teenage boys largely meant Jeremy looking after his slightly high best friend. Jeremy had tried weed once but since he had week-ass lungs and asthma that did not end up well for him. At all. Seriously, he had an asthma attack. It sucked.

So now Jeremy was trying to pick up the trash off the basement floor while Michael dozed on a bean bag.

"Jeeeeeremyyyyy," He whined, face smushed into the bean bag, "You don't have to pick the trash up, my moms' don't care,"

Jeremy started carrying empty soda bottles to the recycling bin upstairs, "Yeah but your moms' are super cool and I don't want to inconvenience and if I didn't pick the trash up and I'm pretty sure they'd hate me." He said, halfway up the stairs.

He quickly went to the kitchen and dumped the bottles into the recycling bin. Michael's moms may be super cool but Jeremy is still an anxious mess so he'd rather not talk to anyone who isn't Michael or any of their assorted friends.

When he got back to the basement, Michael is still lying on the bean bag.

In Jeremy's humble, very bisexual, and heavily biased opinion Michael looked absolutely adorable right now. His dark hair was messed around, his glasses slightly skewed, and he looked so huggable.

Yes, yes, Jeremy did know he was pathetic, but in his defense Michael was literally perfect in every single way. He was his longest and closest friend, he cared so fucking much, and the fact that he was arguably the moat cuddle-able person on the planet helped.

And he was looking straight at Jeremy. Great.

"You have been standing there for like an hour," He stated.

Jeremy was panicking but when wasn't he panicking?

"It actually was like thirty seconds... So, um, you're wrong?" He said uncertainly.

Michael mulled this over for a second.

"Yeah, no, but whatever. Wanna deathmatch in Spelunky?" He asked, beckoning to the second beanbag.

Jeremy snorted, "You're setting yourself up for failure. I spent the time when you were in the Philippines over the summer fucking mastering this game."

Spelunky was a simple 2d video game where you'd choose a character and explore abandoned caves. Spelunky also had a deathmatch option where you could fight other players, whic is what the pair tended to prefer.

It was the one thing Michael was bad at and Jeremy basked in his superiority at a random video-game.

"What the fuck. What the actual fuck. This is stupid and I hate it. I fucking quit." Michael had announced after Jeremy had beaten him the tenth time in a row.

Jeremy had just laughed and stuck his tongue at him.

Michael shot him a glare. "Don't you fucking dare gloat. You know what, switch to adventure mode, by yourself. From the beginning. Let's see how braggy you are then."

Jeremy smiled at Michael, switching the game mode and satisfied knowing that he had already beaten the game just in case something like this happened.

Jeremy was half-way through the third stage when something heavy plopped into his lap.

It was Michael.

Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. This isn't a big deal. You guys have had physical contact many times. This is normal, Jeremy thought to himself.

So why does this feel different?

Just then, his tiny little 2d figure died on screen.

Michael turned his head to Jeremy.

And, Oh my goodness. His freckles. His fucking freckles!

Michael was close enough that you could see the freckles that dusted his light brown skin. His hair was soft, fluffy, and perfect. His warm brown eyes peered up at Jeremy through his dirty glass lenses.

"Dude, you just died." Michael stated.

While trying (and failing) to fight back his blush, Jeremy answered, "I did- I did in fact, um, die. Yup!"

Michael narrowed his eyes at him, scanning Jeremy's face. This only made his blush grow, climbing from his neck to his cheeks.

Great. More blusing.

"Yeah well, don't do it again." Michael said.

Jeremy awkwardly grinned, "I won't dude,"

"Good," Michael huffed, dragging his entire body onto Jeremy''s bean bag until he was basically lying on top of him, his head pressed into Jeremy's chest.

His blushing dialed from fifty to five-thousand real quick, as well as his heart beat speeding up drastically.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, can he hear my heartbeat? Oh my go what of he can? What if he can? Would he be able to realize I like him? And if he did how-

"Dude, chill," Muttered Michael, breaking Jeremy's nervous inner monologue.

Yeah okay, he could do that? Right?

Michael started shuffling, trying to get more comfortable and ended up placing his head on left shoulder, breath tickling Jeremy's neck.

Yeah he could absolutely not be chill about this. When your crush of almost a year starts cuddling on you you're not gonna be fucking chill! Who would?!

Before Jeremy could organize his thoughts, his instincts took over and placed a soft kiss on the top of Michael's head.

What the fuck?! Why did I do that?! Why did I think that was a good idea! Hell, did I even think?!

Before Jeremy could stammer out an apology, Michael made a content little sigh, looked up at Jeremy and nodded, as if something just clicked in head and Jeremy's heart melted before a fragment of a sound could leave his mouth.

Michael pulled himself up and sits criss-cross on Jeremy's lap.

He stared into Jeremy's eyes, and Jeremy could feel himself heating up and his heart about to beat through his chest.

Michael swallows, "Hey, Jeremy?" He asked.

Jeremy stares back, the video game completely forgotten.

"Yeah, Michael?" He asked, his breath coming out quick and short, his heart feeling like a hummingbird, pounding in his rib cage.

"What happens if I do this?" Michael asked before softly placing his lips into Jeremy's.

Jeremy froze. No thoughts, no rambling, no nothing.

Though he's frozen in shock he notices when Michael starts to tense up and his brain lets him actually talk.

"Apparently, I get really flustered and freeze up."

Michael looked at Jeremy, scanning his face for rejection and disgust.

"Not I mind or anything," Jeremy continued, "Just unexpected, you know?"

Michael grinned, "It would suck ass if my crush since seventh grade hated me for kissing him so..."

Jeremy look at Michael, bewildered, "Seventh grade? That's like, a long time. I've barely been able to survive a year!"

Michael laughed, "Yeah you learn to get used to it you know. Now, are you ever gonna finish this stage?" He looked at Jeremy, smirking a stupid, endearing, little smirk.

Jeremy glared at him, "You know what? Fuck you," He said, pushing Michael off the beanbag. At that both of them started laughing, finding themselves unable to stop.

@gay-stranger-things don't know if this what you meant by wanting me to tag you in "more" but you weren't clear so that's kinda on you.

[firesourcegames]

Dev Blog 2 – The Deck-Building-Rogue-like-Auto-Battler-Tower-Defense

When we started working on Bad Hand: Rise of the Discarded, it was a very different idea from what it is now. It even had another name: Back then, it was called Nunaq Errani and the idea was to create a rogue-lite action-RPG with an intriguing spooky story. Style-Wise, it was supposed to be a pixel-art game, both out of choice and out of necessity: With no artist on the team, buying in pixel art is both easier and cheaper than having someone external designing a full game in high definition. But it was a choice, too, since all of us genuinely liked pixel art. (We still do – that’s perhaps the only part of the game that didn’t change).

We were making good progress on the fundamentals of the game, when one day, as we were discussing the way forward, we suddenly came to a very sudden and unexpected conclusion:

What we were building right now wasn’t very new.

Sure, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a rogue-lite dungeon crawler. We all played and loved Hades and Dead Cells and Binding of Isaac and Crypt of the Necrodancer and Spelunky and of course Rogue Legacy and …

Yeah.

So, the concept wasn’t very new. There are plenty of great games out there to compete (take Hades for example: If you haven’t, you should grab a copy immediately and play it!) and although we had some mildly unusual spins in our idea, and, of course, a pretty original story, at the end of the day players had a lot of titles to compare our game to.

Well. The head is round so the thoughts can change course, right? After a short bit of brainstorming, we came up with a wonderful idea! Why not turn the concept around? Stop being the hero that invades someone else’s property – become the owner of said property! A property that is, to your never-ending annoyance, overrun by countless “heroes” ultimately trying to kill a boss – yourself.

Of course, turning the premise around like this also invalidates the genre of the game. If the “hero” is not being controlled by you anymore and you are the property owner, then the game gets a way more strategic aspect to it. Some kind of management or base building game comes to mind, where you try to design a maze that gets rid of the attacking hero. Perhaps with some sort of tower…

Congratulations! We just invented Tower Defense! Not quite where we wanted to end up. But the thought of a game akin to Dungeon Keeper stuck, even if we didn’t want to go full Tower Defense. We just had to move a bit away from real time strategy, away from defense against hordes and towards a more unique way of building and managing a dungeon as an evil overlord.

Cards! Managing your dungeon by playing magical cards. That was an idea you didn’t see too often. It was a budget-friendly for the needed graphics assets and offered a lot of opportunity to integrate an evil sense of humor as well as a deep story the player could uncover. Since hero after hero would try to infiltrate your dungeon, we even had the rogue-lite aspect to it, even though it was no longer an action RPG.

The best part about this change of course was that it came at the exact right time. Our game world would still be pixel style (unlike our cards), so nothing we had built was lost.

The idea was refined in countless iterations after that, but to our surprise, we found that despite the difficulties to name the game’s genre, the cogs fit together extremely well. Being the big bad overlord defending against hero invasions, building up your dungeon using cards – it just clicked. There was – and is still – a lot of work in front of us, but we firmly believe that the foundation for every great game is an innovative idea. And that we have with Bad Hand: Rise of the Discarded.

In the next dev blogs, I will dive a bit deeper into the game mechanics. Until then: Stay awesome!

-Michael

[themovieblogonline]

New York Comic Con Unveils Tim Miller’s "Secret Level"

During this year's New York Comic Con (NYCC), fans were treated to a sneak peek of Tim Miller’s Secret Level, and it’s safe to say, things just got a whole lot more interesting. Miller, known for his bold and innovative storytelling (he brought us Deadpool, after all), didn’t hold back during the panel. The NYCC audience was buzzing with excitement, and Secret Level is poised to deliver a wild ride of video game crossovers, mind-blowing animation, and immersive storytelling. https://youtu.be/gPaufFhSYdc Tim Miller’s Epic Return to Animation Miller, ever the boundary-pusher, gave fans a behind-the-scenes look at Secret Level, explaining how the show brings beloved video game worlds to life. “It’s like a love letter to gaming,” Miller said, “but with a twist you’ll never see coming.” Fans of Love, Death & Robots will recognize the style, but Miller promised that Secret Level will stand on its own as a blend of action, nostalgia, and humor. And, of course, there are Easter eggs for the die-hards. As Miller put it, “If I told you where they were, they wouldn’t be Easter eggs now, would they?” Classic Miller. Video Games Meet Animation – A Perfect Match The panel wasn’t just about teasing the show but also about discussing the creative process. Tim Miller and his team talked about how they selected the video game worlds that will be part of the Secret Level anthology. From Warhammer to Spelunky, each episode is a unique adventure into a beloved game universe. As Miller pointed out, “It wasn’t easy getting everyone on board, but we knew gamers would love what we’re doing.” The entire concept of Secret Level is to merge the best parts of video games with cinematic storytelling, creating a blend of experiences that’s hard to find anywhere else. And while it appeals to gamers, Miller emphasized that you don’t need to have played the games to enjoy the show. “We’ve crafted stories with real emotional cores. Whether you’re into father-son relationships or mother-daughter dynamics, there’s something for everyone in Secret Level,” Miller said. Fan Excitement – What We Can’t Wait to See One of the most exciting moments of the panel came when fans were asked what games they’d love to see featured in future episodes. Miller teased that they have a “giant list�� of potential games, and with so many directions to go in, the possibilities are endless. “We’re just getting started,” he said with a grin. “And I think we have enough material for multiple seasons if the fans show up.” Tim Miller also hinted at the possibility of more interactive elements down the line, saying, “Who knows? Maybe we’ll have audience-voted episodes in the future.” For fans of gaming and animation alike, Secret Level is shaping up to be one of the most exciting projects to hit the screen. Conclusion Secret Level is a show that blends video game culture with cinematic storytelling, offering fans a truly unique experience. With Tim Miller at the helm, you can bet it will push boundaries, excite fans, and maybe even break the internet (again). Be sure to tune in when Secret Level drops—because you won’t want to miss the Easter eggs, the action, or the pure fun that only Miller can deliver. Read the full article

[finalmjorproject]

Games Research!

5. Dead Cells

USP- I personally think that the mere endless point as to why people enjoy and play this game is because of it's 'Playthrough Differentially' as the player navigates through the wonders of roguelike-Metroidvania they must fight there way through a diseased island in order to slay the king and find a cure to the disease. This game is a real 'Challenge' due to the time limit factor where you have to collect as many points within a certain time and this also helps the replayability of the game and gives the player competition to get a better score each time or to complete something faster.

I am looking at this game because of the creativity side of the game inbuilt with the storyline as I find the story very fascinating with how the mechanics fit in and helps the players connect with the characters. Furthermore, the art style is much more unique in comparison to 'Spelunky' or 'Terraria' as the use of colours has a much wider range of textures and much higher resolution.

I find the gameplay very flexible and rewarding while also being a great challenge for players who want to push their skills, the game also has great values with great familiarities when it comes down to memorizing the patterns within the gameplay and how the story goes.

The only downside in my opinion is the repetitiveness as the game may get a bit stale with having to complete the same pathways each time you come across the 'King' or another 'MPC'

This game has given me plenty of ideas to have within my designs for my character and for enemies as I want to have my designs filled with a mix of colours while giving off a certain vibe towards the player/viewer to allow people to feel powerful emotions from my designs. This is my ultimate goal for all of my designs to build emotions and relationships with the characters and enemies.

[thetoxicgamer]

Get ready for Hades 2 with Steam sale on Supergiant’s unmissable past

Few video games can make me shiver with anticipation like Hades 2 does; I nearly still can't believe we're going to get a sequel to one of the best roguelike games ever. However, Supergiant Games' prior work served as the foundation for Hades, and a huge Steam discount currently allows you to catch up on that history in preparation for Hades 2 without having to spend a fortune. First up, of course, is the original Hades itself. With a wealth of awards and accolades under its belt, Supergiant’s latest should likely need no introduction. If you haven’t played the tale of Zagreus attempting to escape his dull life in the house of his father Hades by fighting his way through the hordes of the Underworld with the help of the Greek pantheon’s most famous faces, I can’t recommend it enough. Hades takes the repeatable progression of other excellent roguelikes such as the Binding of Isaac, Dead Cells, and Spelunky, and enhances it with both a more approachable ramp that lets you control your level of challenge, and a constant sprinkling of story that reassures you that you’re never wasting your time, even when a run goes badly. It broke out of its established genre boundaries for good reason, and at half price now’s a great time to find out exactly why so many people have fallen in love with its charms. Supergiant Games Steam sale - Bastion: The Kid fights a Windbag that's wielding a large axeIf the combat of Hades is what excites you most, then see where it all began with Bastion. I replayed Supergiant’s debut game just a few months ago and, while it’s certainly not quite as smooth and flowing as Hades is, the core feel of its fighting holds up well. The lush environments you traverse, meanwhile, absolutely do stand side-by-side with everything else Supergiant has made since, and its soundtrack is a perfect accompaniment. Playing Bastion, you’ll quickly realise that Supergiant’s penchant for a wealth of weird and wonderful weapons has been there right from the get-go, with all manner of different tools at your disposal, each with their own range of special abilities to choose from. It’s also a fantastic opportunity to hear the first outing of regular Supergiant narrator Logan Cunningham, who takes up similar roles in Transistor and Pyre, and voices the eponymous big man himself alongside several other characters in Hades. Supergiant Steam sale - Pyre: three characters, Hedwyn, Rukey, and Jodariel, look expectantly at the camera, inviting the Reader to sit with themPerhaps the thing you love most about Hades is its intricate web of characters, each clearly defined on their own yet constantly intermingling with one another in all manner of cleverly designed interactions. If that’s the case, let me present Pyre. Supergiant’s third game tells the tale of a ragtag bunch of outcasts attempting to win their freedom from the Downside by travelling the land and competing in matches of 3-on-3 fantasy basketball. That’s right: half narrative adventure, half sports game, Pyre effortlessly blends the two together to tell a branching story that can pan out in a multitude of ways. Losing a match doesn’t mean game over; it simply changes what happens next. The complex relationships you build in Pyre will make you care about every outcome, however, and they’ll also leave you genuinely agonising whether you should tell your dog pal Rukey to shave off that distinctive moustache. Supergiant Games Steam sale - Transistor: Red, a lady with vibrant red hair in a gold and black dress, pulls the glowing turquoise Transistor from a lifeless bodyFor those of you who crave interweaving systems that let you combine abilities in all manner of fun permutations much the way Hades boons do, there’s an easy choice. Transistor tells the beautiful, haunting tale of Red, a singer on the run through a high-rise sci-fi city who is accompanied by a talking sword, the titular Transistor. Its real hook, however, is its skill system. The Functions you get in Transistor are skills that offer three different… well, functions. You can use them as an active ability, you can use them to upgrade the effects of another Function, or you can apply them to Red for a passive effect. This turns the sixteen Functions you’ll gain over the course of the game into thousands of possible build combinations, and you’re encouraged to experiment as using a Function in different roles will unlock additional story snippets about the world and its inhabitants. As a simple example, Ping’s active ability fires rapid shots in one direction. Alternatively, you can apply Ping to another Function to lower its cost and speed up its execution, or you can fit Ping as a passive, where it’ll grant you vastly more movement in Transistor’s ‘Turn’ mode, which allows you to freeze time and plan out a rapid-fire sequence of actions that Red will execute in quick succession upon unpausing. While Hades is certainly the pinnacle of Supergiant’s catalogue to date, Transistor still holds a very special place in my heart. Supergiant Steam sale - Hades: Zagreus faces off against the Lernaean Bone HydraAlongside all the games, there are also discounts on each of the official soundtracks – led by composer Darren Korb, who also voices Zagreus, these are some of the most finely crafted accompaniments to their respective games, and absolutely worth picking up on their own merits. Supergiant Games Steam sale prices Here are all the deals in the Supergiant Games Steam sale: - Hades – $12.49 / £10.49 (50% off) - Hades + Soundtrack – $15.73 / £13.27 (55% off) - Pyre – $3.99 / £3.35 (80% off) - Pyre Soundtrack – $2.49 / £2.12 (75% off) - Transistor – $3.99 / £3.35 (80% off) - Transistor Soundtrack – $2.49 / £2.12 (75% off) - Bastion – $2.99 / £2.55 (80% off) - Bastion Soundtrack – $2.49 / £2.12 (75% off) - Supergiant Collection – $34.77 / £29.41 (73% off) The Supergiant Games Steam sale ends on April 27, so move fast if you don’t want to miss out on the bargains. If that’s not enough for you, then why not take a look at the best free PC games for even more excellent options to keep you busy while you wait for the biggest upcoming games in 2023? Alternatively, we’ve picked out the best indie games on PC if you’re looking for some amazing experiences from smaller developers. Read the full article

[sexhaver]

Rogue is/was a hugely influential 1980 computer game that has inspired several other developers to make their own "rogue-likes" over the years. these games were/are defined by several key traits:

top-down ASCII graphics (or tilesets if you're feeling really fancy)

grid-based movement

turn-based combat (other entities can only move/act when you do)

randomly generated levels such that no two playthroughs will be the same

extreme difficulty (instant kills are not only fair game but common)

permadeath (when you die you lose that character forever and have to start a new run)

the two most prominent modern examples of true roguelikes are NetHack (1987) and Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (2006), both of which are still played to this day.

then in september 2011, Edmund McMillen released The Binding of Isaac. at the time everyone called it a roguelike, but in retrospect it was definitely the beginning of the "roguelike"/roguelite" distinction. it departed from the formula listed above on several key points:

actual graphics

regular granular movement

real-time combat (this is the big one)

it kept the randomly generated levels, permadeath, and extreme difficulty, but added a new twist: "meta progression". earning achievements and hitting progress milestones in one run would unlock new items, areas, and enemies for all future runs. this was significantly different from roguelikes, where everything is unlocked from the start and you might as well be starting from a fresh install with each new run.

the main benefit and the main drawback of this change was that it made beating the game less about skill and more about unlocks. for the average player, this setup gives them a natural sense of progress and will result in the average run getting more and more powerful even before accounting for the player getting mechanically better at the game.

it also allowed devs to incentivize players to do otherwise boring or pointless tasks or win with a specific character with the promise of a powerful unlock, increasing replay value a LOT. for example, TBOI has a character called The Lost which has 0 health and can never get any. you start with flying and an item that blocks the first damage you take in every room, which helps a little, but with very few exceptions you're never more than 2 hits away from losing your entire run. this sounds awful, right? why would anyone ever play that character? because if you beat every boss with him on hard mode, you unlock one of the strongest items in the game. stuff like that.

over the next decade, the genre of "roguelite" became kind of gameplay-agnostic; as long as the levels were randomly generated and there was permadeath, the core gameplay could be whatever the dev felt like. this led to more isometric roguelites like TBOI (Enter the Gungeon, Cult of the Lamb, Hades), but also FPS roguelites (Immortal Redneck, Gunfire Reborn, Ziggurat), 2D platformer roguelites (Rogue Legacy, Spelunky, Risk of Rain, Dead Cells), and of course the dreaded deckbuilding roguelite (Slay the Spire, Cobalt Core, Astrea: Six-Sided Oracles)

in december 2021, Luca Galante released Vampire Survivors, inspired by the mobile game Magic Survival. you control a character in a (usually) endless field from a top down view as endless waves of enemies spawn offscreen, automatically attacking them with weapons as they come off cooldown. every so often you level up and get to pick between three weapons, either entirely new ones or upgrades to ones you've already picked up. to this day, after years of updates, there are still no vampires in the game.

this was kind of a roguelite if you squinted: it had permadeath and randomized loot pulled from a pool, after all. however, it made two huge changes to the formula:

instead of winning by progressing through a dungeon to defeat a boss at the end, you won by surviving waves of increasingly powerful enemies for some predetermined amount of time

meta progression went from helpful to mandatory. because there was very little actual skill involved in the gameplay itself (i have lost multiple runs by literally falling asleep at my computer), progression came from unlocking powerful new weapons and buying busted permanent passive bonuses

Luca Galante used to work on slot machine graphics and used that experience to make the gameplay loop as addicting as possible, and he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. in the last two years, his formula has spread through Steam like wildfire. just looking over at my list of games, i see 20 Minutes Till Dawn, Boneraiser Minions, Brotato, Death Must Die, Halls of Torment, Neophyte (this one lets you attack manually at least), Soulstone Survivors, and Swarm Grinder. and those are just the ones i personally own! the appeal from a dev perspective is obvious (way less work to make), which is probably why it feels like there are millions of these games despite the subgenre not even being 3 years old.

works cited:

etymologically speaking, most games on Steam under the "roguelite" tag released since 2022 should really be billed as "Vampire-Survivors-likes"

[ryunumber]

Ken Masters

Ken Masters has a Ryu Number of 50.

(clarification below)

First things first; yes, obviously, Ken Masters has an actual Ryu Number of 1.

This April Fools’ post is primarily inspired by this tweet from the Twitter account, where Ken’s Ryu Number was maximized to 21 under the limitation of one character per franchise to avoid trivial extensions.

So, naturally, when @jenni-e-doodles sent in the above tongue-in-cheek ask also in August of 2021, I decided to take a stab at it myself with the justification of April Fools’ and the additional limitation of one link per franchise, partially to avoid bouncing back and forth between entries of crossover series and partially just to see if I could.

Admittedly, I did stretch the definition of "franchise", especially with regard to real life people. I generally interpreted that as "sphere of relevance", and even then by far the dodgiest is probably not counting Brock Lesnar and Masahiro Chono under one category of professional wrestling. (In my defense, they had exactly one match together, even if said match was a three-way for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship that Lesnar won as his debut, and Lesnar's brief but notable stint in UFC makes him relevant in the MMA sphere, which cannot be said for Chono, even when that actually was true for some of his NJPW colleagues.)

I also tried to use links that had no noteworthy caveats at all, and came real close: Code Shifter's a bit iffy since all the characters in question are technically data for an in-universe game called Colorful Fighters. The ruling per the Twitter account FAQ is that the eligibility of in-universe media depictions is answered by the question “How lazy is it?”, which probably falls in Code Shifter’s favor since, past the part where it’s explicitly an ArcSys crossover first and foremost, you can outright play Colorful Fighters in Code Shifter.

Still, had I caught this earlier, I probably would have rerouted the whole thing to avoid it. (As it happened, I worked out it that it would probably require rerouting past at least Reimu, which was more effort than I was willing to put in at that point. Oops.)

All in all, I’m quite surprised that I not only hit my initial ambitious goal of 50, but probably had room for a few more. (You might notice a few blog staples are conspicuously missing.) This took an unconscionable amount of effort to plan and put together, but I’m glad it’s resonated as well as it has.

And while it wasn’t my intention in the slightest, I apparently did manage to actually fool at least one person.

So that’s neat, I guess.

In order, the characters used are:

Ken Masters (Street Fighter)

Strider Hiryu (Strider)

Iron Man (Iron Man/Marvel Comics)

Darth Vader (Star Wars)

Taki (Soulcalibur/Soul)

Morrigan Aensland (Darkstalkers)

Etna (Disgaea)

Toro Inoue (Doko Demo Issyo/Sony Interactive Entertainment)

Kratos (God of War)

Shovel Knight (Shovel Knight)

Dust (Dust: An Elysian Tail)

Guy Spelunky (Spelunky)

Meat Boy (Meat Boy)

Sash Lilac (Freedom Planet)

Gunvolt (Gunvolt)

Shantae (Shantae)

Abe (Oddworld)

Cthulhu (Lovecraftian/Cthulhu Mythos)

Hercules (Greek/Roman/Classical mythology)

Baba Yaga (Slavic folklore)

King Graham (King's Quest)

Leonardo (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)

Garfield (Garfield)

Nyan Cat (Internet memes)

Link (The Legend of Zelda)

Sonic the Hedgehog (Sonic the Hedgehog)

Vyse (Skies of Arcadia)

Selvaria Bles (Valkyria Chronicles)

Akira Yuki (Virtua Fighter)

Ryu Hayabusa (Ninja Gaiden)

Joan of Arc (French history)

Mario (Mario)

Shaquille O'Neal (NBA/basketball)

Brock Lesnar (WWE/US professional wrestling/UFC/mixed martial arts)

Masahiro Chono (NJPW/Japanese professional wrestling)

Kazuma Kiryu (Yakuza)

Lucina (Fire Emblem)

Abraham Lincoln (US history)

Batman (Batman/DC Comics)

Hellboy (Hellboy)

Negan Smith (The Walking Dead)

Heihachi Mishima (Tekken)

Don-chan (Taiko no Tatsujin)

Reimu Hakurei (Touhou)

Louise de La Vallière (The Familiar of Zero)

Super Sonico (Nitroplus)

Heart Aino (Arcana Heart)

Ragna the Bloodedge (BlazBlue)

Baiken (Guilty Gear)

Haohmaru (Samurai Shodown)

Ryu (Street Fighter, again)

and the links used are:

Street Fighter Alpha 2 (Street Fighter)

Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (Marvel vs. Capcom)

Disney Infinity 3.0 (Disney Infinity/Disney)

Soulcalibur IV (Soulcalibur/Soul)

Namco × Capcom (Namco, Capcom)

Cross Edge

Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days (Disgaea)

PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale (Sony Interactive Entertainment)

Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope (Shovel Knight)

Cook, Serve, Delicious!

Dust: An Elysian Tail

Super Meat Boy (Meat Boy)

Indie Pogo

Runbow

Blaster Master Zero (Blaster Master)

Mutant Mudds Super Challenge (Mutant Mudds)

#IDARB

SMITE

Rock of Ages II: Bigger & Boulder (Rock of Ages)

Hoyle's Official Book of Games: Volume 3 (Hoyle's Official Book of Games)

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 (Tony Hawk)

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl (Nickelodeon/Nicktoons)

Scribblenauts Unlimited (Scribblenauts)

Sonic Lost World (Sonic the Hedgehog)

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed (Sega All-Stars/Sega)

Valkyria Chronicles

Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax (Dengeki Bunko)

Dead or Alive 5 (Dead or Alive)

Warriors Orochi 3 (Warriors Orochi)

Mario's Time Machine (Mario)

NBA Street V3 (NBA)

UFC Undisputed 2010 (UFC)

Wrestle Kingdom (Japanese professional wrestling)

Yakuza Kiwami 2 (Yakuza)

Project X Zone 2 (Project X Zone)

Code Name: S.T.E.A.M.

The LEGO Movie Videogame (LEGO)

Injustice 2 (Injustice/DC Comics)

Brawlhalla

Tekken 7 (Tekken)

Family Tennis Advance (Family Tennis/Family Sports)

Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythmic Adventure 2 (Taiko no Tatsujin)

Nendoroid Generation (Nendoroids)

Super Heroine Chronicle

Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel (Nitroplus)

BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle (BlazBlue, others)

Code Shifter (Arc System Works)

Samurai Shodown (2019) (Samurai Shodown)

Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001 (Capcom vs. SNK/Capcom, SNK)

[anactualfuckingnerd]

you're just gonna say you made sonic oc's and not share them with us??? /lh /nm /np

YES SOMEONE TOOK THE BAIT

ok so this is rocky the rabbit. hes based on early concept art of sonic that depicted him as a bunny with a 90's cartoon art style. his pronouns are he/him and he is bisexual :)

he lives on the lost hex from sonic lost world and is the only anthropomorphic animal on it, with everything else either being genesis style critters, real life animals that have some sort of twist like the manta rays who spit fire, and the zeti. my interpretation of zeti can be a whole other post.

hes the most isolated out of my ocs, and lacks the most social skills. hes very blunt and swears a lot, something he learned from the zeti growing up. he very rarely takes things seriously, much to the chagrin of the other two.

his favorite food is apples and hes basically the sonic out of my ocs, ie hes the fastest. not as fast as sonic himself but god damn close. he can use the super peel out from sonic cd and he can homing attack and rail grind. the former has an arch to it like in lost world, as opposed to every other sonic game where his homing attack literally straightforward.

he basically treats the entire hex as his neighborhood, frequently visiting all the different environments and ecosystems just for fun. my friend @sappys-art-blog actually drew a couple sketches

onto the next one

so this is ruth the wolf, who was supposed to be a rival to rocky in the same vein as metal sonic. it was also supposed to be a play on the predator/prey dynamic wolfs and bunnies are often depicted with. her pronouns are she/her and shes panromantic asexual

she lives in "the city" from sonic forces (lets just say the actual name is sunset heights) and was part of the resistance against eggman empire. she grew up around other anthro animals, so shes a lot better with social stuff than rocky. however, she also never met another human until eggman took over most of the world.

she was drafted into the resistance in her mid teens and stayed even after eggman was defeated, as the resistance became part of sunset heights defenses, just in case something like that happens again. this makes her the most skilled fighter out of the three, and is actually able to harness the power of wisps/wispons such as drill and burst.

shes definitely the straightman in the trio, usually to balance out whatever bullshit rocky pulls off. also, it took a little while before i realized that her design in this picrew is extremely similar to shadow, which was not intended but is still welcome.

finally, this is randall the horned lizard. he's based off the little guy from spelunky 2 (below) and takes the place of knuckles. his pronouns are he/him and he is pansexual

thanks to the picrew, he looks more like knuckles himself than id like. the design is supposed to look more like mighty the armadillo, hence the black skin. just imagine if he had a shell, like mighty, that had yellowish spikes.

his backstory is interesting because hes the only one who interacted with humans at a young age. he was adopted by a man named trevor (iykyk) who took randall with him to explore what mobius had to offer. they were like father and sun, until they came across angel island.

there, they meet a tribe of echidnas who believe that randall is prophecised to be the guardian of the master emerald. the tribe forcefully seperated the two, as randall was dragged deep into the island, where the massive emerald awaited. the last thing he ever heard from trevor was "ill come and get you, okay? i just need to explain the misunderstanding!"

randall doesnt know what happened to him after that. trevor never actually came back, and randall simply sat there, guarding the emerald and waiting to be found. and then eggman crashes onto the island or something.

unlike knuckles, randall isnt convinced by eggmans story that rocky and ruth are the evil ones who are looking to steal the emerald. but randall senses them entering the island, and pretty much runs off to deal with them.

randall almost kicks the shit out of the two before eggman sets a good chunk of the island on fire. from then on, randall's juggling between stopping eggman from fucking up angel island, and kicking the other two out entirely.

im actually running out of steam so im gonna go over his Powers and Abilities before going to bed.

he can somewhat control the position of his spikes like a porccupine, and can either flatten them or make them puff them out as defense. he can also camoflauge like some irl horned lizards.

after years of exposure to the master emerald, hes able to subconsciously make himself far stronger than he looks, basically using the power of belief or whatever. im getting tired.

finally, his last ability is based off of the werehog gimmick from sonic unleashed. its also based off of ths wereskunk episode of regular show. basically if hes panicking or just insanely pissed, he grows quite a bit bigger and becomes a lot more feral. his arms cant stretch like the werehog but his boosted speed and strength more than makes up fod that. hes about the same size as the death egg robot from sonic 2, but usually moves around on all fours like an actual lizard.

ill maybe reblog this tomorrow with more info but rn im pooped. gnight

[c-53]

I played some of that game when I got home from work and here's what I wrote down:

So before even launching the game, there's something weird. There's steam achievements, so they put some effort into the game. But there's only five of them, so this'll be a very short game.

Game boots up and instantly starts playing the shitty 8-bit theme at full volume.

There's no tutorial, no cutscene, nothing to tell you how to play

I ran up against a wall that was too high to jump over and wasn't told that I could wall jump

This game wants to think it's spelunky, but the controls are too floaty and slipery for any real platforming

The character does a lil "zzz" when I tab out for two seconds to write these notes so that's the kind of

rather than having multiple hearts, you have one heart and just lose quarters at a time.

There's a ghost of your last attempt, i assume so that you can have some kind of guide of what to do. But that's not the problem. I know what I have to do, it's just that the jumping in this game is so awful that I can't manage that. If anything I just get confused which one is my character.

This game has about ten assets and keeps recycling them over and over

I'm to the point where I've given up on playing well and trying to brute force my way through this

I played better flash games than this when I was 12

the falling lights are still on even when they're on the roof

you can't short hop and there is this one jump I can't make clean where there's spikes above and below and the game is not made for that kind of precise platforming

I don't know what determines if you get the replay ghost or not

I do not know what I am supposed to do about the bats that fly right at you except just accept it I am not looking forward to playing more of this

Demuxor was given Hollywood Hero

DAMN THAT SOUNDS LIKE DOGSHIT IM SO SORRY THAT HAPPENED TO YOU STAY SAFE (also you’re not obligated to beat it for me dw)

Theres a running theme of these games not having a tutorial at all OR. Having a russian only tutorial.

[chongoblog]

Are there any videogames that you love but noone else has heard about?

Get your Steam Accounts ready, because a lot of these are cheap

Reky

This is a fun little minimalist puzzle game with the aesthetic of an IKEA Manual (and I mean that in the most genuinely positive of ways). I only started playing it yesterday as a part of the Racial Equality Bundle, and I’m already in love.

N++

I feel like I talk about this one all the time (and even showed it off on Snapcube), but N++ is probably the PERFECT 2D platformer. Its level design is impeccable, playing it is ridiculously satisfying, and while it gets tough as nails throughout its OVER 4000 LEVELS, the skill ceiling is virtually nonexistent, allowing for an INSANE amount of replay value for anyone brave enough to master it. I adore this game, and if you like 2D platformers, you need to get this game.

Just Get Through

Another 2D platformer that is all about getting as far as you possibly can. It’s a roguelike, and is very clearly a lot less deliberate in its designs than your Spelunky’s or Rogue Legacy’s, but it guarantees a different set of circumstances each time, and finding interesting ways to approach different situations is always fun. It’s not as much a game you sit down and play all the way through, since there is no ending, but it’s definitely one of my favorite “popcorn games” and I have never heard a WORD about it from anyone but myself.

Any Rhythm Game By Rayark

This company’s a little more well-known, ESPECIALLY for Cytus (which ironically I love the least of the three), but I see Deemo fly well under the radar far too often and I see virtually NOTHING about Voez. Deemo’s good for a more piano-based tone and some story elements while Voez is an incredibly dynamic rhythm game experience where the lanes move and change colors in accordance to the music. I firmly believe that Rayark is making the best rhythm games in the market by a landslide (until Rhythm Heaven Switch comes out......please.)

Mibibli’s Quest

A retro-like platformer that takes a lot of beats from Mega Man. It includes some CRAZY creative concepts that are a blast to play through, but then becomes Fucked Up And Evil Mega Man (so be careful if you’re averse to more frightening imagery). It’s all over the place, bouncing from corner to corner with ideas, and can get REAL hard. Worth checking out for the Rave level alone.

Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine

I don’t know how many units this pushed, but it’s still criminally (lol) underrated. It’s a Top-Down Heist game where you pick between different kinds of criminals, break into a place, steal some stuff, and then get out. The mechanics are a blast to play around with, the story is pretty dang superb (with a couple CRAZY twists), but the best part is the co-op. I played this game on stream with Alfred once, and it was amazing, but the co-op play is fantastic.

100% Orange Juice

Ngl this one’s just Weeb Mario Party. Also I gave a character a Red Kraken-themed skin, so it wins bonus points for me.

Jokes aside though, it is very much a party game, although it also has a surprising amount of depth to its gameplay from its battle system to each character’s individual stats, passives, and hypers. Ain’t gonna win an Oscar for its story mode, but that don’t matter. It’s a fun one.

In case you can’t tell, I usually prioritize games with fun gameplay over any story, with the only entry with a decent story being Monaco, but those are a few games that I really enjoy that I’d love to see more people checking out!

[blazehedgehog]

Merry (albeit belated) Christmas, Blaze! You get anything special?

At least as far as what was under the tree for Christmas morning goes, I got about $75 in Amazon Gift Cards from my brother and in-laws, some Kid Robot Sonic vinyl figures (Eggman and Metal Sonic) also from the in-laws, a Sonic 25th Anniversary coffee mug from my Mom, a new hat from my Mom, a new set of inking pens (since my old ones were drying out despite being so rarely used), and Dead Cells for the Switch.

Oh, and a bunch of candy (not pictured). Including a tray of baklava? I've never had baklava. Haven't opened it yet.

I also got Dusk on Steam, which is good. It's nice to finally own that game after dancing around it for so long, wondering if I should just suck it up and stop waiting for a deeper discount. Sadly, despite the retro visuals, it doesn't run like a retro game. I'd blame Unity, but I got Wrath: Aeon of Ruin through Humble Bundle a month or two ago, and that game just straight up runs on the Quake 1 Engine and still struggles to hit even 20fps. This is just an old laptop. They'll be waiting for me when I come home.

All things considered, it was about as close to a normal Christmas as things could feel, given the circumstances. I would've liked to wake up Christmas morning in my own home, but this was nice.

I feel like I've already put 7 or 8 hours in to Dead Cells. I haven't actually played Spelunky 2 for myself, but I've heard enough about it to know I don't know if I'd like it. On the other hand, Dead Cells feels a little closer to what I'd want out of a Spelunky 2. Not necessarily in the art direction department, but I just mean that like...

Dead Cells is really, really good at pacing. It's all procedurally generated, but the way the pieces fit together feels almost hand-crafted. Whereas each new area even in Spelunky 1 feels like a huge spike in difficulty with lots of new instant-kill traps to learn about, Dead Cells feels a lot smoother. There are definitely difficulty bottlenecks, but it feels like once you get over the hump, you can comfortably see 4-6 different zones in a single run.

It feels way more like a real video game and less like survival is a matter of 60% luck versus 40% skill (as per Spelunky). Like, I can see a day where I might fight the final boss in Dead Cells. In Spelunky, I've only ever even seen Olmec two or three times total. The punishment for making a stupid mistake in Spelunky is extreme, and my interest always drifts away before I can polish my up play enough to make it to the end.

So Dead Cells is good. I've actually forced myself to stop playing it because I worry I'll get burned out on it.

Also, if it sounds like I'm using this post to complain about Spelunky, like if someone out there thinks I hate it or whatever...

I don't. I'm just stuck in a state of being a sloppy player because I never stick with it long enough to beat the game. But I have played a lot, and I own it on multiple platforms. Spelunky is great too!

[themovieblogonline]

New York Comic Con Unveils Tim Miller’s "Secret Level"

During this year's New York Comic Con (NYCC), fans were treated to a sneak peek of Tim Miller’s Secret Level, and it’s safe to say, things just got a whole lot more interesting. Miller, known for his bold and innovative storytelling (he brought us Deadpool, after all), didn’t hold back during the panel. The NYCC audience was buzzing with excitement, and Secret Level is poised to deliver a wild ride of video game crossovers, mind-blowing animation, and immersive storytelling. https://youtu.be/gPaufFhSYdc Tim Miller’s Epic Return to Animation Miller, ever the boundary-pusher, gave fans a behind-the-scenes look at Secret Level, explaining how the show brings beloved video game worlds to life. “It’s like a love letter to gaming,” Miller said, “but with a twist you’ll never see coming.” Fans of Love, Death & Robots will recognize the style, but Miller promised that Secret Level will stand on its own as a blend of action, nostalgia, and humor. And, of course, there are Easter eggs for the die-hards. As Miller put it, “If I told you where they were, they wouldn’t be Easter eggs now, would they?” Classic Miller. Video Games Meet Animation – A Perfect Match The panel wasn’t just about teasing the show but also about discussing the creative process. Tim Miller and his team talked about how they selected the video game worlds that will be part of the Secret Level anthology. From Warhammer to Spelunky, each episode is a unique adventure into a beloved game universe. As Miller pointed out, “It wasn’t easy getting everyone on board, but we knew gamers would love what we’re doing.” The entire concept of Secret Level is to merge the best parts of video games with cinematic storytelling, creating a blend of experiences that’s hard to find anywhere else. And while it appeals to gamers, Miller emphasized that you don’t need to have played the games to enjoy the show. “We’ve crafted stories with real emotional cores. Whether you’re into father-son relationships or mother-daughter dynamics, there’s something for everyone in Secret Level,” Miller said. Fan Excitement – What We Can’t Wait to See One of the most exciting moments of the panel came when fans were asked what games they’d love to see featured in future episodes. Miller teased that they have a “giant list” of potential games, and with so many directions to go in, the possibilities are endless. “We’re just getting started,” he said with a grin. “And I think we have enough material for multiple seasons if the fans show up.” Tim Miller also hinted at the possibility of more interactive elements down the line, saying, “Who knows? Maybe we’ll have audience-voted episodes in the future.” For fans of gaming and animation alike, Secret Level is shaping up to be one of the most exciting projects to hit the screen. Conclusion Secret Level is a show that blends video game culture with cinematic storytelling, offering fans a truly unique experience. With Tim Miller at the helm, you can bet it will push boundaries, excite fans, and maybe even break the internet (again). Be sure to tune in when Secret Level drops—because you won’t want to miss the Easter eggs, the action, or the pure fun that only Miller can deliver. Read the full article

[pretty-pink-seaslug]

Comfort list!

As to why? Lol I felt like it idk

✨Comfort Shows✨

-Lupin the 3rd (any season tbh I love that show with every fiber of my being)

-Ojamajo Doremi (just— thE AESTHETIC! THE CHARACTERS!! THE DESIGNS!!! LORD YES GOD SEND—)

-Super Gals! (Fashion based episodic anime oh my g o d yes)

-jjba: DIU (Hi I love the 90s and anything episodic—)

-Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt (Is that not the best artstyle of all time, also COLORS!!!!)

-Lucky Star (Moe blob cute asf AND episodic slice of life? Yes fucking please—)

-Class of 3000 (NA NA NANANA NAAA—)

-sgt. frog (The frogs are so cute Tamama is babie)

-Sally Bollywood (Hi I t h r i v e for anything with a Mediterranean aesthetic and also the intro is fire— + fuck yeah detective shows)

-Mlp:fim (Yeah I’ll be real I’ll watch the show sometimes if I’m feeling down or head not ok lol)

-Miffy (Look at her,,, cute lil rabbit,,, babie,,,)

-Kirby, Right Back At Ya! (Idk there’s just something about the cheesiness and episodic shows that just— 💗🌸🌼🌟✨💕🌷😍)

-Parappa the Rapper anime (It’s so goofy I fucking love it to death 🥺💕)

🎮Comfort games🎮

-Splatoon2 (If you’ve been on my blog you KNOW this is my shit)

-Bee Swarm Simulator (this game fucking viiiibes)

-Royale High (Any game where I get to dress up and be NOT me is just 👌👌)

-Love Nikki (I was debating on putting this game in here because it such a money grabber it’s fucking annoying— but again I love dressing up so 💦)

-Animal Crossing: New Leaf (I don’t have ACNH it’s too expensive 😢)

-Anime City 3D (It used to be called Shoujo City btw— Anyways it’s just a chill animecore game where you get to be an anime girl and work at a maid cafe for money and go to an anime school full of anime girls, no biggie)

-Minecraft (Sometimes you wanna make a modded survival world and set a goal that you know is hard to reach so you don’t get bored—)

-Snipper Clips (You get to be cute paper and do cute puzzles with cute music :] )

-Mount Of The Gods (HHHHAAH YES I LOVE THE AZTEC AND AFRICAN MASKS—)

-CHKN (I cant play it because no computer but it just,, looks so fun,,, you can make a giant chicken and be friends,,,)

-Sneak Thief + A Very Organized Thief (what is it with me and thievery games??)

-Nuclear Throne (You’d be suprised how I don’t get mad at this game— idk I guess it’s just fun to shoot things with over the top weapons and be a cute mutant)

-Spelunky HD (fuck YES I LOVE THIS GAME WITH EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING ITS SO FUN—)

-Parappa the Rapper 1&2 (THE AESTHETIC THE MUSIC THE DESIGNS FUCK Y E S I NEED THIS FOR MY MENTAL HEALTH—)

-Katamari Damaci (what do you even call this aesthetic?? Weirdcore? Kidcore?? Idfk but it’s so funky in every aspect I love it so much)

-Noby Noby Boy (What is going on???? I have no idea but I love it and his lil :O face)

-Jet Set Radio (Hi I’m literally on the aesthetic and concept like a moth on a lamp)

-Ninjala (I have yet to play it because I’m waiting on getting new joycons but it’s giving me h u g e Splatoon vibes and I’m already loving it)

-Work At A Pizza Place (The music, the fact I grew up with this game,when there’s like 80 pizzas to make, f u c k y e s)

-Monument Valley 1&2 (I’ve only played 2 but good fucking GOD the aesthetic and how cute the characters are)

-eg (sometimes you just wanna be a smiling egg with legs and walk around y’know)

-sno day (snow :) exactly what it sounds like)

-Cookie Run: OvenBreak (It’s cute it has good music and it’s sweets based— what is there not to love bby)

-Overwatch (I can already tell the game would make me mad but aside from 1 character that gives me extreme paranoia I just l o v e these characters— Zenyatta,,,, Genji,,,, Orisa,,,, Mccree,,, Mei you sweet thing,,,,)

-Kirby and the Amazing Mirror (I know id get bored playing alone but y’all if you play with a friend or more— godsend)

-Kitty [Roblox] (ITS SO FUCKING CARTOONY AND ITS LITERALLY BASED OFF TOM AND JERRY AND OTHER CLASSIC KIDS CARTOONS OMG)

xxxxx

K thats all srry for annoying you n clogging your dashes lol l8r—

[blubberquark]

Different Aesthetics of Procedural Death Labyrinths

Mike Rose asked on Twitter:

Here's a question: How do you feel about the word "roguelike"?

There was a point a few years ago where it was a huge selling point! I feel like these days, people sigh at the term a fair amount

Would a game being sold as a roguelike make you excited now?

There’s an obvious explanation, but I think it’s wrong: There are just too many rogue-like games now. The novelty has worn off. People are fatigued by all the roguelikes, and those who aren’t fatigued have all their rogue-like needs met by twenty roguelikes in their Steam libraries that they haven’t played yet. Let’s call this the “saturation” theory.

I much prefer this idea: The people who wanted the word “roguelike” to only refer to roguelike games according to the Berlin Interpretation were actually on to something. Nowadays, there are roguelike shooters (Heavy Bullets, Tower of Guns, Receiver), roguelike platformers (Spelunky, Flinthook), roguelike twin-stick shooters (Isaac, Our Darker Purpose, A Wizard’s Lizard, Nuclear Throne, Enter The Gungeon), and roguelike space battle strategy games (FTL: Faster Than Light). So the term “roguelike“ doesn’t just refer to Cogmind, Dredmor, and Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup any more. The Steam tag “roguelike“ is near useless. Let’s call this the “ambiguity” theory.

I’m not sure if roguelikes would be doing better on Steam if we stuck to the Berlin Interpretation though. For one thing, then we would be looking at a completely different set of games, led by Cogmind, ToME, Caves of Qud, Dredmor, and ADOM. I’m not sure if these games are doing better or worse than in 2013, and that question is a different one from the one Mike Rose asked.

If we just assume for the sake of argument, that roguelikes in the spirit of the Berlin Interpretation are selling as well now as they did then, it could also be the case that literally nothing has changed, but over time, the term “roguelike“ started to encompass games that were less and less successful, commercially. Maybe there is no effect to explain causally, and the perception is only created by definitions changing over time. It’s basically the Will Rogers phenomenon.

But maybe the ambiguity and broadness of the word “roguelike“ is about aesthetics, not mechanics. Old-school roguelikes have a hunger clock, a trade-off between exploration and moving on, dozens of items and interactions, procedural generation, secrets and traps, unidentified potions, and similar things. But a hunger clock is not by itself important. It is not even part of the Berlin Interpretation. The ambiguity actually applies to the aesthetics of play, not to the mechanics.

To demonstrate the idea of aesthetic ambiguity by example, I am grouping games that are dynamically and aesthetically similar, but mechanically different:

Spelunky, Noita, Streets of Rogue, and FTL are not turn-based, but they are all very much in the roguelike spirit, the *hack-like spirit even. There is a trade-off between exploration and safety, items can be picked up and dropped, and a single overpowered item early on can start a positive feedback loop that will win your run. There is always a trade-off between risk and reward, and things can get out of hand quickly if you run into the wrong interaction between mobs, level geometry, traps and items. You can to some extent decide whether you play aggressively or peacefully. A hunger clock or similar mechanic is sometimes needed to curb stalling and excessive exploration or exploitation of game mechanics.

Cardinal Quest and Hack Slash Loot were coffebreak roguelikes. They were about roguelike turn-based combat, not about interactions between items or exploration and finding clever solutions. All runs in the first Cardinal Quest are pretty much the same after a while.

Red Rogue, Dungeons of Dredmor, and Cogmind borrow heavily from old-school roguelikes like NetHack. The game mechanics are intricate, there are lots of numbers, and monsters can pick and use items in Red Rogue. There is no alternative to combat in Dredmor. It’s bore of a *band than a *hack. You have to kill monsters to level up - but there are many ways to do that. Dredmor is designed for people who played Diablo and want something more demanding, not for people who played Nethack and want something more casual.

Rogue Legacy, Flinthook, Monolith, Enter The Gungeon, Nuclear Throne, and Heavy Bullets are completely different beasts. They are real-time, and use execution skill/twitch skill. Two runs of Enter The Gungeon are more similar to each other than two runs of Streets of Rogue. There is no diplomacy or stealth in these games.

In none of these games - in none of these categories - is the procedural level design responsible for most of the variety in gameplay. The procedural generation is essential so every run feels different, with different monsters, different loot, different rooms, but these don’t need to be unique to the run, or particularly creatively generated. You can re-use the same rooms, the same loot, the same monsters every run, as long as the player doesn’t know which room is behind a door, which monsters are lurking behind the corner, which piece of loot is hidden where.

Skills and loot are making runs different from each other, and the interaction between your character build/loadout and the procedural generation makes an individual run exciting and unpredictable.

Picking up Mom‘s knife in Isaac is a run-transforming moment. Two Noita runs with the same wands will feel pretty much the same. The high-level biome structure in Noita is fixed. The secrets are always in the same place. The procedural generation in Noita forces the player to always explore each biome to find every wand and health-up item. It forces the player to ration limited-use spells like bombs, rather than saving them first and then dumping them on the big monsters in known places.

Spelunky is perhaps the game where the level generation is most important: There are so few items, and in a single run one could probably acquire most of them. Then again, a single missed jump can mean certain death. Bad level generation can be bypassed by bombs, which are a limited resource. Health is even more limited, and you almost never use it as a resource, never intentionally trade it for anything else.

In FTL and Streets of Rogue, there are different play styles enabled by different items/weapons or mutations/systems. With the right loadout, you can try stealth, and with the right alignment (in FTL, with the right crew), you can use diplomacy instead of violence. And you can always decide to flee or skip an optional quest. FTL, Spelunky and Noita do not require you to clear challenges or fight bosses in order to advance to the next level.

In Isaac, you eventually spiral out of control, you barely scrape by, or you die. If your initial conditions are favourable, you can afford to explore everything, you don’t need to spend money on heart containers, and you can spend heart containers on devil deal items. In Gungeon, your run is all set when you pick up a good gun. These games have three dynamics: Losing trajectory, winning trajectory, and winning hard. If you’re on a losing trajectory, you need to economise and preserve your health. If you’re on a winning trajectory, you need to clear every normal room, play reasonably well, and think twice about optional challenges. Most of the time, your success depends on your moment-to-moment play, twitch skill, dodging and shooting, unless you become so powerful you can kill every enemy in the room before one of them gets to shoot.

Nuclear Throne is on the other extreme: You must kill every enemy in the level to advance. Each level is open, connected, and samey. There is some strategy to picking up weapons and choosing mutations, but the game is a twin-stick shooter with randomised levels, and you will never avoid a fight or get powerful enough not to care about dodging attacks.

There is a spectrum of emergent-ness (I know “emergent” and “emergence” are words, but this is meant to be a quantity you can compare between systems), with Nuclear Throne on one end and Spelunky or Streets of Rogue on the other. Isaac has a lot of variety based on the different items, but that variety is not emergent from interactions between items and the procedurally generated levels.

Games with more emergentness have more complex interactions between items and mobs/ememies, more general mob/enemy AI, and more complex environmental interactions. In Isaac and Nuclear Throne, everything tries to kill you and that’s it.

Minecraft, Proteus, No Man’s Sky, and MirrorMoon EP are procedurally generated, but not roguelikes, roguelike-likes, or rogue-lite games. Unlike roguelikes, they can actually do interesting things with their procedural generation. Minecraft can have unique mountain ranges like you have never seen before, and complex interactions between blocks. MirrorMoon EP has complex procedurally generated puzzle planets. Over several days. but within one playthrough, you will be able to craft every tool, see every biome, and mine every block in Minecraft. You can make totally novel contraptions out of honey, pistons, and redstone, or you can find interesting landscape, but never both in one. You will never find naturally occurring redstone machines. Minecraft doesn’t go for unique interactions between your build and the level generation.

Although Minecraft is full of deep and complex systems, they will only come into play when the user engages with them. Any chain reactions are set up and then set off by the player. Minecraft and No Man’s Sky are sandboxes. The mechanics are broad and complex, the procedural generation is intricate, and there are many ways to play and things to do.

Rogue Legacy is a fun game, but it doesn’t do a particularly good job at evoking the aesthetics of rogue, or the aesthetics of metroidvanias, for that matter.

Most new procedurally generated death labyrinths described as “roguelike“ are neither mechanically or aesthetically like Rogue or Nethack. They don’t need to be. Nethack already exists.

More and more games on Steam are aesthetically coffeebreak roguelikes, or designed tightly around moment-to-moment execution skill. If there are pre-defined, pre-designed rooms balanced for enemies with certain attack patterns, there is no room for emergent interactions between mobs and the environment.

Mechanically, Hack Slash Loot, Powder, Cogmind, Cardinal Quest I, Dredmor, and Nethack are “real” roguelikes. Aesthetically, Nethack, Spelunky, Streets of Rogue, Dredmor, and FTL are “real” roguelikes.

Now imagine somebody bought a “roguelike” on Steam, and that “roguelike” was Rogue Legacy. It even has “rogue“ in the name! Will Cogmind make this player happy?

[captainfawful]

 With the year coming to a close, that means it’s time for me to do my “Nobody Cares Awards” thing I like to do! Check under the cut for some hot takes I may or may not have!

Hello, hello! It’s me again! Third year in a row I decided to jot my thoughts down on the years various game. I decided to change things up more from last year, kind of eliminating most of the categories in favor of writing more about the games I enjoyed. I tried to write at least something about every game in the Top 10 this time, even if it’s the bare minimum. Let’s see how it goes!

BEST MUSIC

This entire thing was first created because I wanted to write about how good Death Road To Canada’s soundtrack was. So no matter what changes with my format on this, there will always be a Best Music category. I’ll be honest though, there weren’t a whole lot of games this year with amazing soundtracks. The only real contender for most of the year was Celeste, which OST is very good, and fits perfectly with the games tone and style, but it’s not... The Best music. They aren’t songs I’ll put on loop and listen to multiple times throughout the day. They’re not the hard hitting tracks I would typically put at the top of this category, despite how great the music is. That’s how I felt until about August, when The Messenger came out. Messenger is not a game that will be in my Top 10 by any means, but it’s a pretty good game nonetheless with a couple of really weird twists. But the OST is phenomenal. Easily my number 1 favorite of this year. Just about every track in the game is a total banger. But don’t take it from me, take a listen yourself! A little later in the year I played through Just Shapes & Beats. I have a personal stigma against saying a thing with licensed music should qualify for Best Music, which is why JS&B did not make it into my top 3, but rest assured that it is sitting comfortably in the 4th place spot. Almost immediately after I played JS&B, Deltarune suddenly came out. I don’t think I have to tell you why that’s on here, right? Toby Fox cannot make bad music.

SPECIAL MENTIONS

THE MISSING:J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories

It’s hard for me to talk about what makes The Missing so special without diving deep into spoilers. There’s a reason it’s in the special mentions, and not the Top 10: And that reason is because the gameplay isn’t great. The Missing is a side-scrolling puzzle game, in the same vein as Limbo or Inside. Unlike those two, however, the puzzles you have to solve are not that hard, and most of the difficulty around it revolves around how slowly and janky the movement is. However, the overall story and twist is what makes this game great. There’s not a whole lot for me to say about the themes this game presents, so if you want to play The Missing, play it. If you don’t want to play it, then maybe take a look at some writings from actual queer women who could talk about its subject matter in a way I never possibly could.

The Quiet Man

The Quiet Man is a terrible game. When I first saw the trailer during Suare Enix's E3 presentation, I was super interested. I've always wanted a game that transitions from FMV to gameplay with as few seams as possible, and The Quiet Man promised that. Not only that, it promised a compelling story told from the perspective of its' deaf protagonist. The way I saw it, this game would either accomplish what it set out to do, or fail miserably. Either way, it was a win/win scenario for me! Little did I know just HOW miserably it would fail.... Oooooh, how miserably it failed... The gameplay is absolute trash, the graphics leave much to be desired which makes the "seamless" transitions from FMV look unconvincing and bad, the story is needlessly complicated despite how generic it is, the acting ranges from decent to awful, and it requires you to play it twice in order to actually understand what's happening. And all of those problems are the LEAST offensive parts of the game. It's racist, misogynistic, somehow ableist against more than just deaf people, semi-incestual, and also kind of pro-abuse??? I mean, it doesn't take a stance to be anti-abuse, and certainly doesn't condemn abuse, so does that make it pro? Maybe? Probably? I have a headache. I've watched this entire 2-4 hour game be played 10 or 11 times, and I still don't understand how this exists. Square-Enix published this. They dropped Hitman and IO Interactive not even one year ago, yet threw money at this horrible abomination of a video game! Oh by the way, you might be wondering why I said you have to play it twice to understand, and that's because the first playthrough doesn't give you any sound. Yup, aside from the intro cutscene and the credits song, the entire games' audio is just muffled ambiance. This includes all of it's cutscenes, of which there are MANY, and they are LONG. Entire MINUTES of dialogue happening at a time that the game just doesn't want you to hear or have subtitles for. The only way to get audio is to beat the game once and replay it. Not only that, but the New Game + with sound and subtitles didn't even get patched in until a week after it's release!!! Who does that!!!!! And the version with audio has some ATROCIOUS writing. Just about every scene has at least one line of dialogue that makes no sense, almost as if the writers were only told about how humans speak, but never actually heard one themselves. I’ve heard a lot of people saying it’s The Room of video games, and I sort of agree. Much like The Room, it’s not the absolute worst of it’s form of media, the game is playable start-to-finish, extremely straight forward so you can’t get lost, no bizarre puzzles to figure out, the FMV cutscenes are at decently produced. Hell, I wouldn’t even say The Quiet Man is the worst game to come out THIS YEAR. Crying Is Not Enough released in June, and boy oh boy is that game a trash fire. But it’s just BAFFLING that this game exists. That’s the perfect word to summarize my feelings on The Quiet Man. Every single thing about it is just, baffling. I need to stop writing about this game. This whole paragraph is probably going to be longer than anything from my Top 10, which feature a few games I ADORE, but no. All my writing energy is going to how terrible this fucking video game is. Don't play The Quiet Man. Or do, fuck if I care. Maybe watch someone else play it, I don't know. I don't know anything anymore.

Ori and the Blind Forest

Back on the topic of good games, I finally got around to playing Ori and the Blind Forest! I played it for a little while after it originally came out around 2015, but it just didn’t stick with me at the time. There wasn’t any real reason why it didn’t stick, I just got bored and stopped playing, which isn’t that uncommon for me to do. But for whatever reason I decided to go back to it super late last year. It may have been the excitement for all the cool looking Metroidvanias slated to release throughout the year, I don’t know. But I played through it, and it’s fantastic! Most Metroidvanias tend to go with around a 60-40 split between platforming and combat. Different games have different splits, sure, but most of them tend to keep those somewhat even. Ori is like an 85-15, greatly favoring tight platforming over fighting enemies. Your main attack automatically locks on to nearest enemies, and boss fights are replaced with autoscrolling or stealth segments. The traversal is also super smooth and fun, making that 85-15 split much more favorable than others in its’ genre. Great controls combined with some amazing visuals and music, Ori is definitely a game I regret not playing earlier.

2019′S COMING IN HOT

Spelunky 2, Wargroove, Indivisible, Hypnospace Outlaw, Ooblets, UFO 50, Kingdom Hearts 3, Overland, Sea of Solitude, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, and  Get in the Car, Loser!. These are all great looking games that are supposed to be coming out in 2019. I remember last December when I last did this, I couldn't think of THAT many games I was really excited for, and despite that I ended up with a pretty damn good list of games for 2018. So who knows what next year will be like?!

And now... The Top 10!

#10: Spider-Man

It’s been a great year for Spider-Man. His best buddy Venom had a pretty good movie, his new video game is good, and he has a new movie that’s fantastic! Yep, it’s been such a good year for Spider-Man in which nothing bad has happened to him or the people who created him.

#9: Megaman 11

2 > 4 > 3 > 8 > 11 > 7 > 5 > 6 > 9 > 10 > 1. Don’t @ me.

#8: Iconoclasts

Iconoclasts has been in development for a very long time. Officially, development for it began in around 2010, but there is a seemingly earlier game by Konjak that shares many similarities. Basically, Iconoclasts began development at least 8 years ago, and it shows, for better or worse. On one hand, the game is gorgeous. Grade A sprite work all around. The characters are interesting and well written with their own morales and arcs, and the story is surprisingly deep and compelling considering the type of game it is. On the other hand, the gameplay feels very outdated now. The combat is super simplistic, the puzzles aren't terribly challenging or rewarding, and the weapon/ability upgrades are very limited. The traversal can be sluggish and boring, which is a red flag for a game where you have to backtrack a decent amount. If Iconoclasts came out 4 or 5 years ago, I feel like it would've been at least a cult classic. But in 2018, it's a decent Metroidvania in a year of great Metroidvanias. Overall, I'm glad Iconoclasts finally came out. I just wish it either came out sooner, or got more updated for modern game design.

#7: Slay the Spire

For all intents and purposes, I shouldn't like Slay the Spire. I always hated card-based RPGs, and always hated RPGs with only one party member. And for the most part, the issues I have with both of those are still very much present in Spire. So why have I sunk 50 hours into it so far? Beats me! If I had to guess, I’d say it’s the similarities it shares to Darkest Dungeon, one of my favorite games, that ultimately drives me to it. Now, you might be asking why Slay the Spire, a game that came out in 2017, and won’t be in 1.0 until probably 2019, is in my top 10 for this year, but Ori & the Blind Forest isn’t? Well, I started Ori last year, and didn’t start Spire until the middle of this year! Also, they’re my awards, and I can do whatever I want!

#6: Just Shapes & Beats

Just Shapes & Beats’ concept is simple: A rhythm bullet hell. Certainly not the first of it’s kind, and not even the first one to use simplistic shapes as the obstacles/characters. But there’s a bit more to it than that. JS&B has some good personality to go with it. It has some fun characters, all of the levels are demonstrative of the areas you’re in on the world map, it even has a couple lightly emotional moments! It’s much more than you’d expect from a game about Just Shapes & Beats. When I was younger and had vague dreams to make games, I always imagined making one that was basically “What if a Windows Visualizer was trying to kill you?” and also be themed around a world and a story, and JS&B is basically that.

#5: Pipe Push Paradise

What happens when you take Pipe Dream, an iconic puzzler which has given inspiration to countless others, and mix it with Stephen's Sausage Roll, arguably one of the greatest puzzle games of all time? You get Pipe Push Paradise, of course! That’s all I really have to say, and all I NEED to say.

#4: Dead Cells

Go play Dead Cells. Really, it’s the closest thing to a perfect Rogue-like (that isn’t Spelunky) out there right now. It’s a game so good, Filip Miucin couldn’t look away from it long enough to write his own review!

#3: Subnautica

If I had the opportunity to become a Fishman and live underwater, I’d probably take it. As long as you take out the jellyfish that can kill you .0001 seconds after stinging you, I have no qualms with open water. In fact, the isolated feeling from it is really relaxing to me. That’s what initially drew me to Subnautica. Survival games are usually hit or miss for me, but the ones I like I really dive deep into (Heh heh), and Subnautica is one of those. Also, I was rewatching the Super Mario Bros. Super Show on Netflix as I played this, so now I’ll have those two permanently linked in my mind from now on.

#2: Into The Breach

I love tactics games, especially Advance Wars. While I do still love others in the genre like Fire Emblem or X-COM, there are some intricacies of the AW series that most of the others don't have. When I first heard about Into The Breach, I thought it would be exactly what I wanted, a true successor to the series I'd been waiting for. And it was not! But it's still pretty damn good. It's not so much a tactics game as it is a puzzle game, described by Waypoint's own Austin Walker as a "tactical dance". You know at the start of each turn where each enemy is going to attack, and it's your job to navigate and attack with your 3 mech units in the exact right way to minimize or even straight up prevent any damage that would befall you or the cities you're protecting. You aren't trying to advance a map during combat, or conquer any enemy bases. You are merely trying to avoid damage for a certain amount of turns and move on to the next level. And it's all super fun! I've let the game sit for 10, 20 minutes while I try and figure out every possible option I have after being backed into a corner, and coming up with the absolute perfect solution and getting through to the other side is super satisfying. The biggest gripe I have with Into The Breach is the same one I had for FTL, the developer's last game, which is I don't think the unlockable mechs/mech teams are as fun as the default ones. I played most of them once or twice and went "Yeah, that's a thing" and migrate back to the first mech team. All in all, Into The Breach is a fantastic game, it just doesn't scratch that Advance Wars itch I've been feeling. Oh well, at least there's still Wargroove!

#1: Celeste

Celeste is a game I got 100% completion in. For those of you who might not know me well enough to know how I play games, that’s something that never happens. I think the last time I purposely got 100% on a game was in Uncharted 2, and even that was only to get a skin for multiplayer. Despite that, it’s been really difficult for me to write up a whole thing about why I love Celeste so much. It’s just a compilation of everything. I love the look of it, both the sprite work and the character portraits. The music, as mentioned before, is fantastic and perfectly fitting for all of the levels themes which deal in different forms of anxiety or self-doubt. The levels are hard, but not too hard. The secrets hidden throughout the game are so satisfying to figure out and find, very reminiscent of Braid. I feel confident in saying that Celeste has cemented itself as one of my favorite games of all time.

Well, that’s all I can handle writing for this year. Thanks to the few of you who skimmed through all this, and extra thanks to the fewer of you who read all of it! I’m not 100% sure if I’ll do this whole shpeel next year or not; maybe if 2019 turns out to be an incredible year for games, and definitely not if I have to move to Twitter in the off-chance Tumblr dies out completely. Hope you all had a fun holiday season, and have a great 2019! 

[mykria]

Got the bones for combat started today. I try to take screenshots before things look good so I can remember what a cluster it aways is in the beginning.

This particular iteration combines ‘card’ game mechanics except turns are real-time, so we’ll see how it plays. Doing multiplayer/online/network stuff from the beginning really adds to the prototype time cost.

It occurred to me today that most (all?) games that have combat really circle around what I would call power fantasy. For this reason, I’ve hesitated to pull the trigger on combat at all for Mykria, but I find the pull too intoxicating given the games I really love.

It’s easy to see the power fantasy play out in world domination games like civ or sword fighting stuff like shadows of mordor where you keep getting stronger and stronger and that’s the main loop (which supports the other, softer things like strategy, mastery, etc.).

I find it more interesting that some of my favorite roguelikes like spelunky and slay the spire are also about this, although it’s less obvious. In these, you really are still chasing power (remember that great run or that awesome synergy?), it’s just on a different timescale. Perhaps the only difference between these two broad categories are: 1) the power is more temporary and 2) you’re willing to work harder to obtain power. 1 and 2 seem like they’d conflict (after all, you’re spending MORE time to feel LESS powerful) but maybe it means that it simply shifts the audience from “I will trade time to feel powerful” to “I want power that takes more than mere time to obtain (I feel more skilled & special & worthy & etc)”. After all, these games are brutal and probably less popular as a result.

Anywho, trying to think through ways to get the feel of my favorite roguelikes inside of a persistent world is an interesting challenge that I’m always thinking about. 🤔