#animal adventures

[xochilexart]

Finally got some good pics of Toby! This piece is also a bit of a memorial to a real life pomeranian named Toby, may he rest in peace.

Because of this, I wanted to make him a sort of display case. I experimented with a dice box and some foam. I wanted him to also be a playable mini, so you can still remove him from the base. I think the design of the display could use some tweaks, but it worked better than expected!

I also want to make him a better label, but for now the simple one serves it's purpose.

The figure is from one of the doggy sets of Animal Adventures

More pics after the break!

[agentnico]

Flow (2024) review

Dogs and cats living together… MASS HYSTERIA!!

Plot: Cat is a solitary animal, but as its home is devastated by a great flood, he finds refuge on a boat populated by various species, and will have to team up with them despite their differences.

I find it quite demeaning for a movie to be compared to a video game, however Flow invoked so much from that medium in the best possible way. From its non-photoreal aesthetics with remarkably accurate animal movement, to the rendered woodlands and flooded landscapes very reminiscent of the open world games such as Journey and Submerged: Hidden Depth. The latter in particular kept coming to my mind as I watched Flow, for the game featured this brother-sister duo on a boat traversing the sunken ruins of a beautiful word in a “relaxploration” adventure, with magical occurrences happening here and there. Flow works in a similar narrative style, only its animals instead of humans. There is no combat or fail state to deal with, just light platforming and discovering a way forward, as if it was a walking (or should I say floating) simulator. The video game resemblance is hard to miss, but I do think it works in the movie’s benefit, for it allows to tell its story through minimalistic simplicity, without relying on any exposition or dialogue.

That’s right, Flow is an entirely dialogue-free experience, relying sorely on environmental storytelling. The animals don’t talk, yet convey so much character and emotion regardless though their mannerisms and expressions. The animation of the eyes, though cartoony, was the most impressive, as with a simple squint or a shrink of a pupil you knew if the cat was scared, peed-off, curious etc. And again in regard to characters, no explanation is given but you already know who’s who through their basic behaviours. The main character of the black cat is skittish and untrusting, but happens to be a natural born leader with a great sense of judgment….and zero balance. Like seriously, this cat falls off the boat into the water like 50 times!! There’s the cool and reserved capybara, who doesn’t panic no matter how crazy the situation gets - always good to have a friend like that in a group. There’s a klepto self-absorbed lemur that honestly just wants to do its own thang, but everyone keeps getting in its way. But naturally it learns to be part of a team. We just know if this movie had dialogue the lemur would be voiced by Sasha Baron Cohen. And so on forth with the other animals - they all play a role and create this very watchable dysfunctional rag-tag group of survivors.

It’s the Robot Dreams of 2024, and in my eyes deserves the Oscar for Best Animated Feature - it’s easily my favourite of the contenders. It’s a wonderful, beautiful and immersive experience - a true vibe of a movie. Should also add that this is perfect viewing for kids - some great life lessons and themes on empathy and friendship, and the easy-to-digest narrative of animals going from point A to point B. In terms of complaints I’d say even though the movie is a short 90 minute one, it did overstay it’s welcome a little, and also there are a couple of narrative threads I wish had more explanation - the end of the character journey of the bird is a real out-of-place head scratcher that slightly pulled me out of the movie as it felt like it belonged elsewhere, and then there is the fact that all of the animals somehow understand how to drive a boat. Ah heck, let’s just assume they all went to boat school.

Overall score: 7/10

[bigkittybanquet]

The best boys

[dungeonofthedragon]

Ttrpg Recs: my bookshelf!

I don't have that many games in physical form. But inspired by the lovely Dael Kingsmill's recent video, I want to do a little post about the ones I do own.

Animal Adventures by Steamforged Games

Animal Adventures is a third party setting for 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons. I picked up Secrets of Gullet Cove on clearance, and it's full of fun adventure hooks for a younger audience than usual for 5E. However, a member of my dnd group wants to run this at some stage, so it has a wider appeal among fans of cute critter rpgs too.

It's fairly easy to incorporate ideas from this book into your home games. A guest in my Strixhaven campaign wanted to play a character who had been transformed into a cat. The cat stats from this book fit right in with the other characters, who were all created using official 5E materials.

Fate Accelerated by Evil Hat

The first rpg I ever purchased! It's simple, streamlined, and flexible enough to run in any setting you can imagine. We'd planned to play 'card games in space' at one stage (after watching too much yu-gi-oh), and the system works as well for that as it does for urban fantasy, pirates, or magic schools. You can access the rules of this game for free at the link in the heading.

The main issue I ran into with Fate is that it uses a specialised set of dice called Fudge dice- but as long as you have a device that can download a dice app, you're good to go!

Girl By Moonlight by Evil Hat

I backed this one on Kickstarter. It's not the easiest book to navigate but, gosh, it's just so beautiful and the game is a great time once you get the hang of it! I ended up ordering five copies, because a bunch of my friends wanted the game too and Expensive International Shipping is more manageable if you split it. Tragic magical girls from the creators of Thirsty Sword Lesbians? It is just as excellent as I'd hoped.

Just the other week we played At the Brink of the Abyss using the core book and relevant one-session playkit. Transcendence is a great mechanic- players get to describe their character's unique transformation and feel powerful with the addition of new abilities! Our Midnight Quill was running around invisible for half the game. Raven's mother was knocked out with a well-flung shoe. It was very fun and very silly.

Girl By Moonlight is a Forged in the Dark game. If you're familiar with Blades in the Dark, Brinkwood, Court of Blades, or my own simplified fitd game Voidwalkers, the system is easily picked up.

Lex Arcana by Quality Games

Lex Arcana is an interesting one. It has a fascinating premise: a Roman empire that never fell, in a low-magic setting. I had a lot of fun running this as a short adventure for my classics-buff brother's birthday last year. However, the group agreed that it would be difficult to play this one long term.

This has nothing to do with the rules system, which has an enjoyable amount of crunch for those who like their games that way, but enough abstraction that running it was not a complete nightmare for a more narratively inclined GM such as myself. Rather, it was difficult for us to get past the fact that so many of its adventure modules involve you preventing indigenous populations from breaking away from the empire, often casting their spiritual views in a negative light.

I had an idea for a campaign called 'Enemies of the Empire', which involves the party having to go up against it, but we'll see if it ever comes to fruition.

Tales of Xadia by Fandom Tabletop

I love the Cortex system. I love systems that use dice pools, and my first experience with that was the Tales of Xadia playtest. I couldn't afford the full version when it released, and so I was very excited when I received it for my birthday last year in glorious hardcover!

Tales of Xadia is set in the world of the Dragon Prince (even if you're not into ttrpgs, the book is excellent for additional lore nuggets. For a year or more it was our best resource for what earthblood elves might look like.) It's a world of high magic, mages and assassins and bold warriors, imperious dragons and reclusive elves. And it's totally classless- score one for the fans of classless systems!

[sophiasartandgaming]

[ur-daily-inspiration]

[sanguinifex]

You gotta read and watch some old books and films that aren’t 100% modern politically correct. I’m not saying you should agree with everything in them but you need to learn where genres came from to understand what those genres are doing today and where media deconstructing old tropes is coming from.

Also, more often than you might think, they’re not actually promoting bigotry so much as “didn’t consider all the implications of something” or just used words that were polite then but considered offensive now.

Kill the censor in your head.

[stilettochat]

DELIGHTFUL!

Pirlouit experienced unimaginable torment at breakfast this morning.

The worst kind of bullying a donkey can go through. Someone tried to steal his hay.

(It's hard to take photos of Pan mid-crime because he is so fast. He's a shadow. A dream.)

(Or rather, a donkey's worst nightmare.)

To be fair, Pandolf clearly wasn't trying to steal anyone's hay. He wanted to kiss Pirlouit's cheek (he learnt this from Poldine), and was only going to do it once, but then Pirlouit freaked out at this blatant attempt to steal his mouthful of hay, and Pandolf thought Pirlouit's reaction was very funny, so he did it again five hundred times. (It gets funnier every time)

Are we having fun, Pirlouit?

If Pirou looks dirty it's because he rolled around in the mud first thing this morning. It was soft and refreshing and lovely, he thought this Tuesday was starting in a most auspicious manner.

But then Pandolf tried to steal his hay.

Eventually, Pampelune the Llamatriarch intervened, full of majestic authority.

I took Pandolf with me to lock him in the barn for a bit and let his friends eat in peace—but when I turned around I saw Pampe spit on Pirlouit to ban him from the communal pile of hay!

Pirlouit looked simply crushed under this avalanche of injustice.

[landsccape]

[natureell]

[caats]

[xochilexart]

Some mini painting wips!

[kardrath]

This was literally last Tuesday's D&D game.

[only-cat-memes]

[cansu-m]