#and god especially the vh devs

[hwasang]

At work so I can't watch it yet but go watch keralis' video and then leave a POSITIVE comment that has to do with the video. Say how much you like that he's back or that he's playing with xb! Lots of people are leaving harassment and spam in his comments abt the iskall shit. Report those comments as spam and move on.

[sezez]

Okay, so I just finish watching SuperHorrorBro's and Dawko's playthrough and I absolutely LOVE this chapter!

God, it was also pretty traumatizing (especially the scene with Dogday, dear lord). But, the most important and best thing is the LOOOORREEE!!!

The devs really gave us a lot of good meals to dig in.

And I am currently making theories for three characters in particular; The Protagonist, Elliot Ludwig, and Exp. 1006, the Prototype.

Since those three have gained a lot of new info, and I am planning on to make a post about ALL (not really all, the more important ones to be exact) of the VHS tapes from Chapter 1-3.

[innuendostudios]

Thoughts on... some funny games

[no spoilers to speak of]

Thoughts on Lair of the Clockwork God

The wisdom of the gaming cognoscenti insists that comedy is hard to do in video games. Having grown up with Monkey Island and Zork, I've never found this convincing. But one true thing is this: it's hard to write about comedic games. The ineffability of humor is hard enough to describe in less-interactive media; I can't even explain to my partner why Gretchen saying "I met January Jones once!" on You're the Worst busted me up, and they were sitting right next to me when she said it. Throw in the "you had to be there" nature of the player's active participation and I lose myself in a cornfield. The thing I found hilarious might come a beat to early for you, or not at all, or not be funny in text like it is in gameplay.

Why did I like Lair of the Clockwork God? It made me laugh.

The premise and particulars are a lot of "that could go either way." Ben and Dan - stars of Ben There, Dan That and Time Gentleman, Please! - have returned. Ben is still an adventure game star, but Dan has adopted platforming mechanics in an attempt to get with the times. So playing the game involves switching back and forth between a character who can leap across canyons but can't pick up items or talk to people, and one who can combine inventory but can't climb over a 3-pixel rock.

Does that sound potentially funny? Potentially grating? Yes to both!

The plot centers around our heroes trying to save the world from several simultaneous apocalypses and having to teach human emotions to a supercomputer in order to do so. (Don't ask.) These means, rather like Ben There, Dan That, traipsing through a number of fantasy worlds (read: computer simulations) until the correct emotion is provoked. This requires cross-genre cooperation: finding ways to get Ben to areas only Dan can access, getting Dan new power ups by combining objects in Ben's inventory (an act Dan insists on calling "crafting").

The best bits are at these intersections, when Dan's platforming is the puzzliest and Ben's puzzles take advantage of Dan's skills. Periodically the game gives you a Dan-centric platforming gauntlet the controls are NOT precise nor pleasant enough for, or a Ben-only moon logic puzzle that leaves you googling the walkthrough.

But I liked it! A lot. The genre-hopping seems to have invigorated the developers, Ben Ward and Dan Marshall. I discussed my favorite joke in Ben There, Dan That (in what is probably the least popular video I've ever made that wasn't asking for money), but was also dismayed that the game was never that clever again. But this one is, several times over! Progression here involves cheating your way to a better respawn zone, goofing around in game menus, exploiting "glitches," exiting out and loading up entirely other games. There is a lot of poking and prodding at what a game of this nature can or should be.

But, honestly? The only real selling point is... it was funny. The humor is as anarchic and metatextual as in previous titles, but it feels good-natured in a way BT,DT didn't. And there are, here and there, little bits of meat on its bones - the characters wondering if, as a couple thirtysomething white guys, the world hasn't left them behind, no longer comfortable with the juvenile humor of their youth but not really understanding the youth of today, but having not yet fully escaped the mentalities they used to hold. (There's an unspoken humor to Dan's idea of "modern" gameplay being 2D platforming mechanics, especially at a time when adventure games are significantly more popular than on his last outing; this is a good joke whether or not it's intentional.)

Also: this game contains the most poignant urinating-on-a-grave puzzle in gaming history, and you may quote me on that.

Having finished it months ago, I can't even remember what all the gags were that tickled me at the time. Comedy fades from memory faster than drama or frustration. Mostly I just remember having a good time.

Thoughts on The Darkside Detective

Here's a hook: sometime after the mayhem ends in Ghostbusters, The Exorcist, Evil Dead 2, or some other paranormal blockbuster that you watched over and over in the 90's until the VHS wore out, some overworked detective has to come into your town and piece together what the hell happened.

This is his story.

It's a good gag, and the devs wring every drop from it. Existing in a world where these things are commonplace and you have to fit them into some notion of "police procedure" is just funny. Like, it's one thing to have a running gag where you keep observing the moon in outdoor scenes, commenting, with increasing hostility, that its behavior is suspicious (it has been present at multiple crime scenes); it's a slightly different thing when, given the things you've encountered, the moon being the Big Bad is actually somewhat possible.

The game is divided into six main cases and three bonus DLC missions (which come included in the base game now, and the third of which is the proper ending/setup for the sequel). You are the cop tasked to deal with The Other Side - and, when The Other Side bleeds into our own world, its cops have to deal with you. You have a sidekick with a mental maturity of about 6, which I guess makes you the straight man. (You have to grade on a curve to find a straight man in this game.) And you solve tasks like rounding up escaped gremlins or finding an AWOL lake monster all juxtaposed with mundane problems like inter-office squabbles and having not bought your Christmas presents early enough. It's (pleasantly) lo-res and sparsely isolated, so the dialogue and premise do most of the work, but they are ably up to the task.

The gameplay... not so much. I'm an adventure game lifer, so I can put up with a lot of nonsense. It's mostly straightforward inventory puzzles and occasional minigames. Most of the puzzles are fine enough. As the cases progress, things get more involved, and the DLCs especially involve some awful moon logic. And the minigames are not above using that same jumping peg puzzle you've solved in a dozen other games already. So gameplay ranges from serviceable to irritating, but it mostly exists to string together funny lines and silly images. (Christmas mall elves being secretly in service to Krampus - that's the kind of thing we're talking about here.) You won't feel much guilt for opening up a walkthrough; the puzzles aren't why you're here.

The sequel has just been released, and both games are cheap, so check them out if you feel like smiling.

Thoughts on The Procession to Calvary

It's rare for a game to be hilarious to look at.

The Procession to Calvary takes its name from the Bruegel painting. It also takes all it's graphics from Renaissance oil paintings, and the designer delights in making famously rendered heroes and religious icons steal, stab, fart, and swear.

A strong Terry-Gilliam-with-After-Effects vibe is what we're describing.

You play as a lady knight from a war that's just ended, which sucks for you because, in this age of peace, you're no longer authorized to kill. And killing's, like, you're whole thing. But the one person your new, pacifist king wouldn't stop you from killing is the warlord you just deposed, who fled to the South. So you embark on a nonsensical journey to seek out the one human on Earth you are authorized to kill, because killing is just The. Best. Ever.

Of the three games we're discussing, this is the most overtly cheeky, and, at times, the most scatological. I could've done with a bit less scatology, if I'm being honest, but the cheekiness is very winning. As with Lair of the Clockwork God, a lot of jokes could go either way - a field of people being tortured and a woman on a blanket selling commemorative torture merch could be painfully try-hard. But something about the victims being seemingly everyone ever crucified or broken on the wheel in a famous painting, and having them writhe on their crosses in a way that is both gruesome and goofy, and having a cacophonous soundtrack of their screams and moans that you will now imagine every time you look at one of those elegantly elegiac paintings from now on... it works. That the music score is being played by an extremely jaunty piper who dances behind you just out of sword's reach as you traverse the field pushes it over the top.

Oh, and the puzzles, while never hair-pullingly obtuse, will leave you stumped at times. Push past that to get the proper ending, but, if you're sick of trying, you can, at any point, just start stabbing your way through problems. Which, again: it takes a very deft touch to make "protagonist resorts to violence" actually funny rather than lazy and obvious. And maybe, in another game, the perfect timing of every animation, the clever quips, the careful contrast of cathedrals and high-society music halls with gleeful sword-swinging wouldn't be enough. But something about it being frickin' Renaissance paintings carries it the last mile.

This is probably the basest game of the three, but it's also the one that made me giggle the most. Having a BFA that required several art history classes may have something to do with it. But check this thing out.

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

Fl4k Fl4k Fl4k Fl4k Fl-

i didn’t die i just fell in love with that skill tree creator and have done nothing for the past few days but make skill trees and sleep for 3 hour intervals. im very excited for the gameplay on Wednesday but oh man oh me oh my i gotta catch up on a lot of posts lol

tl;dr: Fl4k is a badass. Stop misgendering them or I’ll show up at your home at 3am local time every time and then eat your spine. Bonus: Mr. Chew being an ‘Eridian skag’ is probably due to some funky mutation from eridium/slag/eridian stuff. Kinda like how Threshers have the ability to make singularities because they are native to Elpis, which is a big ol’ Eridian base (which i totally addressed in this post lol). I also gave my opinion on Fl4k’s skills in general, if you’re interested in that. Overall, a very awesome trailer! Definitely lived up to the hype.

i said it before, this trailer was one of the best ones. definitely #2 for me, Zane is still at #1 because i actually laughed during it. the music in this one is definitely the best out of all 4 tho. seems like they’re all variations of the same song, i like this one best. I need this soundtrack sooo bad.

also i know probably no one else following this blog watches one piece but like

that first footstep with the studded boot and the sound effect immediately flung me back to katakuri. god katakuri was a badass. i was so excited to see that fight animated.

mr chew spinning around is my favorite thing ever. i love that you can tell the personality of the pets just from watching the intro. 

i know fl4k is like a real badass in this trailer, but i get the feeling they’re going to end up being at least a little soft for their pets. i mean... they have stuffed animals of them ffs.

so... we’re near Sanctuary-III in this trailer? I gotta keep my eye out then. i also want to see if that one claptrap area guess i had is correct or not... this looks like an entryway for the garage so im guessing i wasn’t, but let’s seeeee

there is a raised bit up and to the left

also im wondering if this means we’re going to have to rescue ellie from the CoV.

hmmmmmmmm

hmmmmm i don’t think the signs match up.

mr chew is the goodest boy. im so glad we can pet/interact with him!! i want to know what the names of the other pets are

also, a bit off topic but

i could have sworn fl4k’s jabber was cryo/shock. it was blue, wasn’t it? i wonder if they changed it or if it’s skill upgrades change its color. i thought the upgrades just gave it better guns.

yeah it was! i guess possibly upgrading it with the guns gives it a new color scheme? maybe? this could be the gunslinger upgrade!

it looks like their jabber went through the most design changes out of all of the pets. that or this is yet another upgrade (since each pet has 3 states). maybe this is the beefcake version.

‘bitch’. i love how expressive fl4k is with just the eye. very well done.

ohhh you know what that building is in the back?

[we’re near the intro to the game!]*

and tbh i don’t think this place has the building for Ellie’s Scrap in it... i don’t see it anywhere. maybe this is the actual scrapyard and the building is on the other side?

not quite sure tbh. but at least we know this place may also be near sanc-iii, just maybe not the same area as the actual Ellie’s Scrap.

i mean... there IS a shitload of cars everywhere. i wouldn’t surprised if it’s near her garage cause it looks like a scrapyard.

but also where in the fuck are all these ‘normal’ looking cars coming from?? it’s not like we see them being used on pandora. all the ones we see in bl1/2 are clearly dilapidated and rusting. big thonk. at least the vans/busses kinda make sense.

oh yeah that is definitely the same building. [it’s the recruitment center!]*

this scene with the rakk is my favorite out of all the trailers. so fuckin cool

i do hope the jabber goes back to being blue at some point. i like the red design too, don’t get me wrong, but i much prefer the glowy blue. it’s my favorite color and you guys know i love glowing things 👀

<Huge Selection!!!> lol

cat/doggo/monkey. mr chew is my favorite pet but i love the jabber panting like a dog lol

i never knew this is where spiderant mouths were

i always assumed they were below that... f r e a k y

“he likes to chase cars”

fl4k probably took them to the scrapyard for this exact reason ngl. fl4k being a big softie to their pets confirmed

(also, notice how fl4k uses ‘he’ for mr chew. it’s almost as if they understand the concept of gender, chose their own pronouns, and your argument that they only are nonbinary only because they “don’t understand yet” is invalid! Fl4k is canonically nonbinary and uses they/them/theirs pronouns as confirmed by both SungWon Cho and their in-game skills. 

Now that you know, use they/them/theirs for Fl4k or get off my blog. Because by not doing so, you are disrespecting the devs’ wishes for this character AND the nonbinary people who find representation in them and I won’t support that. if you feel like arguing your reasons to purposefully misgender them even after knowing this, please DM me so I can block you. thanks! 

For those of you out there actually making an effort: mistakes happen, especially if Fl4k is the first NB person you’ve learned about. Just make sure to correct yourself then move on, and we’re okay. Everyone has to learn sometime and it’s better to put in the effort than not care at all. It will become second nature.)

Fl4k is such a badass, they really are way different than i expected (personality-wise), but i am not complaining. gearbox knows me better than i know myself, so i know i’m going to end up loving Fl4k anyway. ProZD did such a fantastic job, i honestly did not recognize him at first! i can tell with certain words now, but wow i am blown away. 

i hope we’re able to climb that bird’s nest lookin’ thing in the back. it would be perfect for sniping and/or placing ur clone for maximum coverage.

seriously, what a badass.

idk i feel obligated to give my opinions of Fl4k over here since they were recently released. I am digging them 100%, tho i was kinda surprised (not in a bad way) they’re not as... i guess soft as i was expecting from their character design with the plushes and the face on the backpack and the smiley face pin, but i imagine that’s different when they’re interacting with their pets. im super curious to see how this VH group’s dynamic is going to go. 

mechanically, their skills seem perfect for people who loved sniper Zer0 and in general Mordecai, with a splash of Salvador tossed in for good luck. I am a dirty melee Zer0 main and i prefered Phasewalking over Bloodwing (altho i still play mordy bc he’s best bl1 VH) so, while I am definitely going to give Fl4k a go, they’re not my main bl3 Vault Hunter, that’s reserved for Zane and his lovely ability to befuddle enemies and run around. Funnily enough, I’m not even a fan of pet classes, so Fl4k being second in my play order is pretty funny. Tho, yeah, Amara being last is also pretty weird. I guess I don’t necessarily enjoy melee, I just enjoy messing with the bad guys lol

ohh, also, I am most interested in the upgrade for mr. chew that gives him the ability to create singularities and is called ‘Eridian Skag’. 

so I’m not saying my theory that the threshers on the moon were connected to Eridians was right, I’m just saying they’re the only form of wildlife we know that has a singularity ability (outside of Mr. Chew, apparently). 

im just saying gearbox, you should hire me to write your deep lore for you cause i’d do it for free

im wondering if we’ll be seeing skags with wormhole abilities in bl3. maybe the constant exposure to slag is starting to mutate them further beyond just elemental bonuses (on badass skags). We know Maya’s phaselock has a singularity ability (so does Amara’s phasegrasp), and that is sorta ‘occurring naturally’ (you know, as natural as siren powers can get) unlike the singularity grenades we encounter which use our known technology. plus, uh, whatever happened to the destroyer’s eye in TPS that made it create a singularity/wormhole by injecting it with a fuckload of slag. that probably has something to do with this as well.

but geez i really hope mr. chew is okay with being all slag/eridium-ed up. i guess being badass elemental skags doesn’t appear to hurt them, just make them more powerful, unlike humans. maybe that has something to do with sentience, if slag/eridium/eridian stuff actually is driving bandits crazy. could explain why/if the jabber doesn’t get an element like the skag (eridian skag) and spiderant (fire) do, since they’re described as semi-sentient...

anyway.

Fl4k is cool. Definitely a neat trailer- my second favorite for sure- and the skill tree drop blew me away because i was not expecting it. im expecting a lot of Fl4k mains in the first few weeks of gameplay because they look like a lot of fun!

EDIT: i was wrong, in the newest IGN vid, it turns out we ARE near the recruitment center, because that IS the recruitment center

they gave them little orange flags! good to know!!

[comicsinkcorporated-blog]

Interview with Screaming Villains, developer of Night Trap 25th anniversary.

CI: So how did development for Night Trap 25th anniversary first come about?

SV: It honestly started out as sort of a joke. Sometime after the failed Kickstarter, hardcore fans started attempting to recreate their own remake of Night Trap and some gaming sites were writing articles about it which I found kind of odd especially since they either didn't work or barely worked. I was already messing around with FMV stuff as a hobby and a friend of mine came up with the idea of myself making a working version running on a phone.

I threw it together in about 3-4 days, posted a video of myself playing it on Youtube and sort of remained anonymous about it. I got a local arcade owner that I know to post the video on his Facebook account since he was friends with an absurd amount of retro gamers and it started to spread and got about 5000 views within the first 24 hours.

The website fmvworld.com found it too and decided to contact Rob Fulop (one of the creators of Night Trap) to get his opinion on it. Another website called segabits.com also contacted Tom Zito (producer of Night Trap) to find out if he had any involvement so that sort of put me on their radar. After that I figured "what the hell?" and sent an email to Tom at about 3am and got a response in about 15 minutes. He just asked a couple of questions about it and asked for my phone number. The next day, he called me and 20 minutes into the conversation he asked if I would like to do an official version and I said yes.

CI: Limited Run Games PS4 version of Night Trap remains their fastest selling game, while the Nintendo Switch version may end up being their best selling game. Were you surprised by the popularity of this remaster?

SV: I don't think anyone was expecting that. It just came out of nowhere which I think helped a lot so thank god my friends were able to keep their mouth shut while I was working on it. Originally, there was only going to be 5000 copies of the game available. Once the announcement was made Josh Fairhurst from Limited Run Games and myself were pretty much stuck on Twitter the entire day so we definitely wasn't expecting the reaction it got.

After that, Josh said something like "We might need to increase the quantity" which at the time I don't think they ever exceeded 5000 on a game so it got bumped up to 6000. After that, he came back again and said "Maybe we should add a collectors edition" so now we're at 8000 for PS4. Then it was "Let's release a big box version for PC" so now there's another 2000. It just kept growing and growing and still didn't meet demand. What's funny is the guy that made the announcement trailer and myself was constantly googling Night Trap that day just to see what was being said but then we went to the trending section on Youtube and we're like "Oh my god! The trailer is trending higher than Gucci Mane!" For a brief moment a game that a lot of people considered terrible was all of a sudden popular and I think that's rad.

CI: What do you think it is about Night Trap that has made it so beloved amongst fans?

SV: It has a b-movie feel to it and doesn't take itself seriously. A lot of hate that it gets is sort of undeserving. The popular ones are usually "this is barely a game" or "this has bad acting". NT was made 5 years before it was finally released and intended for a console that used VHS tapes and the acting is very similar to 80's horror/thriller films. Unfortunately, it was the wrong time period when it was finally released in 1992 and at that point nobody was really reminiscing about the 80's like they do today. The fans that are super hardcore about Night Trap are usually gamers that have a great interest in movies in general. What surprised me was the number of people that I've talked to that said Digital Pictures influenced them to pursue a career in the film or tv industry.

CI: Were there any notable, unforeseen difficulties during development?

SV: Engine restrictions was the biggest issue. I figured out pretty quickly that a lot of the gaming engines available weren't really designed with FMV in mind so because of this I think the video quality suffered more than I would've liked. Luckily, this is no longer an issue with future releases.

CI: How did the Limited Run Games physical release come about?

SV: The dudes from My Life In Gaming actually brought it up. One of those guys lives down the street from me and very early in the development process I told him I was working on Night Trap and wanted a documentary to go along with it since it has a crazy history and I thought it'd be a cool promotional tool. He immediately suggested that I work with Limited Run Games. Over the next several months I kept telling him that I'd think about it whenever he brought it up.

About a month before the game was announced, Coury came to my house to film my interview for the documentary. After we were finished he brought up Limited Run again so I told him to go ahead and tell them what I was working on. Ten minutes later, I got an email from Josh Fairhurst. Limited Run is super rad and I honestly can't imagine doing any game without their involvement so I'll most likely harrass them with each release that I do. They actually ported Night Trap to Nintendo Switch. I can't say anything bad about those dudes. They've helped me tremendously.

CI: So the Nintendo Switch version of the game comes with Japanese & French audio, was this something Screaming Villains commissioned themselves? Did Night Trap have an original Japanese and French release? And what was the reasoning behind including the new audio?

SV: The Japanese and French audio actually came from previous releases. I got ahold of copies of the game that were originally released in Europe and Japan and just ripped the audio from the disks. Before it was released I started getting messages and emails asking for additional language options so that's where that idea came from.

CI: So Night Trap as a copious history with Nintendo, when the company called out the game out in court, vowing it would never appear on a Nintendo system, which lead to some bad blood between the original Devs and Nintendo. How did it feel to finally put Night Trap on a Nintendo System?

SV: I think it's cool. Digital Pictures always released their games on Sega consoles and 3DO so it's super rad that one of them finally ended up on a Nintendo console. Definitely long overdue. With Night Trap getting released on there with a Teen rating without cutting any content might hopefully stop people from claiming that the game uses violence against women to move the story further which is absolultely ridiculous along with everything else that people claim is in there that doesn't even exist.

CI: What was the decision to go with Double Switch as the next FMV game to remaster?

SV: Double Switch just seemed like the obvious choice since it's the same type of game as Night Trap but everything is improved on. You could I guess call it the spiritual successor to Night Trap. It's also my favorite game from Digital Pictures. I think it was expected too. Back in February, I met a lot of the people that worked on Friday The 13th The Game. When I was introduced to the Executive Director Randy Greenback the first thing he said to me was "Are you doing Double Switch next?!" Josh from Limited Run was campaigning for it pretty hard too since his aunt is a childhood friend of Debbie Harry who appears in the game. A very short teaser for it was showng during the Limited Run E3 conference. While watching the conference there were people leaving comments like "Just announce Double Switch already!"

CI: Night Trap special editions in the past have come with cassette tapes, patches, and even a VHS tape. Can you tell us if Double Switch special edition will come with anything like that?

SV: It most likely will but I have no idea what since I haven't really talked to Limited Run about those options yet. Usually what happens is they throw an idea at me and I pretty much agree to all of them. They're huge Sega nerds like I am so I trust them with their ideas. The idea of pogs came up for Night Trap but we ran out of time so it wouldn't surprise me if that happened with Double Switch.

I'm sure it'll come in a Sega CD jewel case too since Limited Run ordered about 15,000 of those. I will say that it's getting a completely new cover since the original ones are kind of lame and don't really fit with the type of game that it is.

It looks super rad! DS also has a super rad soundtrack that was done by Thomas Dolby, who wrote and performed the hit song "She Blinded Me With Science" so I was hoping that a stereo version of the soundtrack existed so we could release that but sadly it's all mono.

CI: There was some rumors that Screaming Villains have been working on bringing, Marky Mark: Make My Video to the PS4. Can you confirm this?

SV: Oh dear....that was a joke that went too far. What happened was Josh Fairhurst and I kept getting our tweets captured and used as news articles for very minor stuff. I hated it because I wasn't used to this sort of thing since Night Trap was my first console release and Josh was beyond frustrated with it because of a random person making a negative comment about Nintendo, which led to a gaming site writing an article claiming that Josh spoke negatively about Nintendo when it wasn't even him or even anyone affiliated with LR.

They were forced to update the article and admit that they were wrong. After that, we started tweeting each other about a re-release of Marky Mark but making it sound official like it was an actual thing that was happening just to see if anyone would start turning that into articles.

One night, I took it a step further and made a working version of the game running on a PS4 in about an hour and then the next day we both posted a link to a video showing it. That got yanked from Youtube within the first 20 minutes. We used to talk about it all the time trying to figure out how to make it happen since the idea is too ridiculous to ignore but no. No remake of Marky Mark Make My Video.CI: What other FMV games do you want to bring to modern consoles?

CI: What other FMV games do you want to bring to modern consoles?

SV: My original goal was to get as many games from Digital Pictures as I can which is pretty much happening now. Night Trap and Double Switch aren't the only ones coming. Outside of DP releases the goal is D which was originally released back in 1995. I feel like there's a ton of different things you can do with that one.

CI: Lastly is there anything you would like to say to the readers?

The obvious thing would be thank you to everyone that played NT25. It was a stressful process so it made me happy to see that people that were fans of the original enjoyed it. Also, if you're a fan of Digital Pictures releases then stick around because some super rad stuff is coming!