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mamthew · 2 years ago

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When Harvestella was first announced, I was surprised by how excited I was for it. I don't even play farming sims, and I've had more criticism than praise for Square Enix side projects like Bravely Default and ESPECIALLY Octopath Traveler, but the trailer was so reminscient of Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles that I couldn't help but eagerly anticipate it. The idea of a fifth season of death that kills crops, forcing adventurers to venture outside in search of a way to stop it had the potential to give this farming sim as potent a sense of urgent melancholy as miasma had done for FFCC, and I've yearned for some kind of aesthetic successor to that game for nearly as long as I've been playing video games, with little luck. The game's action combat and use of huge crystals as setpieces further cemented in my mind that the two games were alike.

Harvestella isn't like Crystal Chronicles. It's not like Bravely Default, or Octopath Traveler. Hell, it's not even developed by Square Enix. The developers, Live Wire Inc, cut their teeth on shoot 'em up ports until 2021, when they released a sidescrolling Dark Fantasy action RPG they co-developed under a small publisher. Harvestella might be published by Square, then, but it is not to my mind A Square Game. It doesn't feel like it's trying to be the contemporary version of an old Square property the way much of Square's smaller output does. It feels like an indie game. Harvestella is best thought of as a passion project by some folks who didn't really have the budget to make something as lavish as their ideas deserved but did have some really talented artists who were able to smooth over some of the rough edges with some absolutely gorgeous visual art, one of the best RPG soundtracks in years, and a thoughtful and complex story.

Harvestella is an overly-simple action-RPG and also an overly-simple farming sim with an absolutely bonkers story that has absolutely nothing to do with farming. It's missing a lot of features that are expected in its genres. Its tutorials in some areas are close to useless, there's no way to see how much money a product will sell for until it's been sold - which is uhhhhhhh not great in a genre about simulating mercantilism, its combat never reaches a point where it feels complex or even good, its farm customization options are too basic for your farm to ever really feel like your own, and it has no romance options. None of these are dealbreakers for me - obviously, as I put over 90 hours into the game - but they're not great issues to have, either. Also, the game simultaneously has too much voice acting and not enough. Almost none of the dialogue is voiced, but characters have lines in battle and while you're farming, and the delivery for those lines ranges from just good enough to abysmal. A voice line kicks in every single time you perform any farming action, and for some reason all those lines are done in a really grating falsetto stage whisper that makes the game actively embarrassing to play. Frankly, I don't think the game is worth $60. It clearly wasn't budgeted like a AAA game. Lots of love and talent went into it, but that's true of plenty of $30-$40 games. I came away from Harvestella feeling like I'd played an indie game that industry giant Square Enix pretended was something else. But that's not the fault of Harvestella or its devs - that's Square's fault.

I want to get into story spoilers next, because the themes and philosophies of Harvestella are unique enough that I was baffled by most of the game's story decisions for over half the game, before they made it clear what they were getting at, exactly. Honestly, what Harvestella is trying to say is probably the most interesting thing about it, in a way that reminds me of Legend of Mana, which is high praise. Harvestella is a game about cultural constructs and societal collapse. For a time, I was describing the game as "post-truth," and I still think that's accurate, but not exactly in a conservative way. The first two-thirds of the story felt impenetrable for this reason. It kept making story decisions that were directly counter to the decisions that I'm used to RPGs making.

For example, one party member is a high-ranking church official, but when she joins the party, she learns that the church leader, who adopted her as a child and took her into the church, is a literal monster who has been using his position in the church to eat adherents. Pretty standard RPG fare. In the party member's side story, she learns that the church's doctrine itself was created by an AI. A robot was tasked with keeping humans from fighting each other too much and decided the most effective way of doing so was to procedurally generate a holy book using texts like the Bible and the Koran as inspirations. In most games of this kind, when the characters learn that a church's foundational history is entirely fabricated and its clergy has been engaging in murdering innocents, the characters then fight to dismantle the church. Here, though, the character decides that the good of the church, even if it is based on lies, outweighs the harm it has inflicted, and places herself as the church's leader and central figure so she can better control it as a force for good. She says she does this to "fight the status quo."

In another character quest, a character learns that his memories about the royal family he serves are all fabricated, as the family doesn't actually exist. When he confronts the robot who created his memories, the robot tells him that the species that created it had gone extinct before it was ever given consciousness, and it decided that carrying out orders for a fake master you vividly remember is better than the hell of doing the same for a real master that you have never met and never will meet. with this in mind, the character decides to keep and cherish his false memories. Moments like these gave me whiplash, and I talked to anyone who would listen about how strange the game's decisions were.

It's only in the last third of the game that these themes about pushing back against what's true and inconvenient in favor of what's imagined but comforting begin to coalesce into something interesting and worth engaging with. I won't get into all the details, but like most RPGs, Harvestella is a game about the coming climate crisis. It is revealed partway in that Harvestella takes place two millennia in the future, after humanity went extinct and new humans evolved to take their place through sci-fi means that don't really matter. The people of our time had tried desperately to flatten the differences between humans and drive cooperation in the face of climate disaster. When the internet failed, they developed technology to push the continents back together into a Pangaea, hoping that proximity would foster understanding. When that failed, scientists created a telepathic machine that could read the thought patterns of the entire population - essentially an artificial collective unconscious - so they could discover some kind of consensus they could build on. The only consensus the machine could find, in the face of seemingly inescapable societal and environmental collapse, was a belief that there was no chance of a future. People feared the existence of human diversity, fell back on nostalgia for an idealized past, and in doing so had unintentionally formed a death cult - essentially, they had embraced fascism.

Quietus, the season of death, was created by this artificial collective unconscious to grant humanity's shared wish for an apocalypse. The game uses its theme of illusions versus the truth to argue that while the logical course of action in the face of dire news and statistics is to accept that the odds of surviving and building a better world are infinitesimally small, we have to ignore the facts and push on to survive and build that better world regardless, because there's no chance of it happening if we give up at the starting gate. It's remarkably similar to FFXIV Endwalker's dichotomy of despair versus hope and message that forcing ourselves to feel a false hope just to stave off despair is better than allowing ourselves to despair and therefore not even trying to fix things. Even Harvestella's final boss is very reminiscent of FFXIV's Endsinger boss in theming and design. Which I don't mind and don't really think is a case of one developer copying the other; this stuff is just on everyone's minds lately.

When I first began describing Harvestella as "post-truth," I did so entirely as a comparison to the rise in political lies spread and accepted by the right-wing that has been widely discussed since the beginning of the Trump era. As the game justified its theming, however, I found myself beginning to want to embrace "post-truth" as a much broader and even somewhat positive characteristic of our era. We're quickly reaching a point where believing that there can be a future at all is a lie we knowingly tell ourselves, which was the point Harvestella makes. But in a time where we are becoming increasingly aware of the presence of hegemonic narratives influencing our perceptions of reality, just pushing back against those narratives can be, to an extent, post-truth. Harvestella has almost no character creation options, but it does allow the player to choose body type, voice, and pronouns entirely independently of each other. I'd originally seen this as a nice little addition to a game in a genre that often does embrace queerness, but now I'm starting to view it as an opening manifesto. From a certain point of view, queerness is a sort of engagement in post-truth. We all are who we say we are, hegemonic narratives be damned.

The secret class you earn in Harvestella for building up your farm enough is the Aristotle, a kind of mage that can fight using the four classical - or Aristotelian - elements, fire, water, wind, and earth, which pop up throughout the game. One character from our own time finds everyone's acceptance of the classical elements frustrating when she knows about the existence of the periodic table. But because she's in a world where people only know of four elements, those elements function as the philosopher Aristotle had theorized they had. Even after your protagonist learns that there is a far greater range to science than their society has learned, they are an Aristotle anyway, drawing energy from only four elements and using that energy to cast powerful magic. Our hegemonic narratives may limit our scope, but as a bloc, we have the power to shape those narratives and change the scope. Our collective imagination can construct Truth, which is an incomprehensible amount of power that's mostly been used to oppress and harm, but we could, in theory, turn around and use for good.

I'm not sure where the line is - if there is one at all - where postmodernity ends and this post-truth begins, but I'm starting to begin to think of things in those terms. I think there's some real potential in exploring the limits and capacity of this framework, and I guess I have a simple farming sim and a simple RPG to thank.

So, Harvestella. It's an overpriced, low-budget but pretty little game with some cringeworthy voice lines, some fun farming, and a story that's possibly impacted how I think about the world from here on out. 7/10.

#harvestella #square enix

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earlgraytay · 2 years ago

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some of this is due to the Nature Of Games As They Are in general, and some of this is due to The Current Market and specifically the market around licensed games.

so, the first one:

the thing about video games is that they run on progression and Getting Stronger, usually by getting better at killing more things.

the thing about Tolkien's legendarium in general, and LOTR in particular, is that it's a story about the weakness of people in the face of evil, about mercy and grace, and about how friends and joy are better than war and power.

these are fundamentally opposed to each other. you Cannot make an action game, a grand strategy game, or a wargame set in Tolkien's legendarium that feels good to play and is faithful to the themes of his work as a whole. unless you're doing the Drakkengard thing where combat is intentionally shitty and awful to make your point, you're going to have a game that feels amazing to play... and is going against the core of what its source is about.

at best, you have a fun and compelling experience that doesn't have much to do with the source material and could have been set in any Fantasy World without issue. at worst, you have a game that's actually weakened by being set in Middle-Earth, that does violence to the source material or that is just so thematically wrong that it feels blasphemous.

a hobbit farming/dating sim or a Horse Game set in Rohan during the Fourth Age could work, 110%. but those? are basically unviable in the current Entertainment Climate.

see, any Tolkien games are licensed games. they are usually licensed through Warner Brothers, who have very... specific requirements for their Popular Franchise (TM). you could not make a LOTR game that draws from the art of Alan Lee, or the pastel-watercolour vibes that were common in Tolkien art in the 70s and 80s, or even the Rankin-Bass LOTR cartoon. because that Damages The Brand, you see.

The Tolkien Brand, as it stands right now, has to line up with the Peter Jackson movies, aesthetically and in terms of gameplay experience. And while the movies are okay at conveying The Themes Of LOTR, a lot of their appeal comes from fun and flashy battle scenes. an audience playing a Tolkien game with the aesthetic of the PJ movies is going to expect to have a similar experience, and will be disappointed if they don't. furthermore, the suits will expect you to create a similar experience, and will be disappointed if you don't.

furthermore, licensed games are often under constraints that non-licensed games aren't. time constraints. budget constraints. The Suits' Demands, which can knock you back weeks or months if you don't like what they're doing. Patent constraints. the list goes on and on. you've usually got a time crunch that other devs don't have, whether it's in the form of The Suits wanting your game out for Christmas or an angry hostile fanbase who expects your game to be out yesterday.

and uh. how do I put this. in the case of certain games. having to adhere to the PJ movies' aesthetic actively hurts the experience, whether because you could make something more suited for your game's world, or because the PJ movies made an aesthetic decision that Does Not Work for your story.

the Gollum game is a good example. Andy Serkis's Gollum design is fantastic-- for his role in the PJ LOTR movies, where he's as much a comic relief Butt Monkey as he is a tragic character. he's expressive, in ways that are meant to be funny as well as scary. almost cartoon-like. but for the Gollum game, where you're meant to see him as a tragic character and the hero of his own story? that cartoonish design gets in the way of empathising with him. every still from that game looks like it was designed to be a meme, because you're playing as the Comic Relief Butt Monkey design.

a less cartoonish Gollum-- or, ironically, a more monstrous and inhuman one-- would probably be easier to empathize with. but Gollum Looking Different Hurts The Brand, so you can't do that.

this was long and rambly and I'm not sure where i'm going with it, but like, I don't think it's possible to make a good LOTR game right now. you definitely can't make a good LOTR action/wargame, ever, and making a good game focused on something else isn't viable.

i'm beginning to think that it's impossible to make a good video game set in the Tolkien legendarium

don't get me wrong: i'm not saying you can't craft an immersive and enjoyable experience set in Middle-Earth (there are plenty!), and i'm not saying it's UNADAPTABLE or anything like that

but I'm beginning to think that any game set in Middle-Earth is actually doing itself a disservice, and that setting a video game (especially a conventional action game) there actively weakens your game rather than strengthening it

#lotr #tolkien #video games #the earl speaks #the earl has an opinion

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pinezcreatez · 2 years ago

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Random Sims Challenge ideas :

Note* I'm so new to the Sims community I have no idea if these exist already sorry ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

1. Work-Life balance

Choose your career but you are unable to build the skill needed for it while at home until you have reached level 5 in three other skills. This will push you to work your Sims outside of just their work life.

2. The Stomach of Steel

Have a character with the glutton trait essentially live only off spoiled foods and crappy microwaved meals. No real cooking is allowed for this sim until they have read all the cook books available (ie: baking, cooking, gourmet, etc.)

3. Agoraphobia

Your Sim doesn't have access to the outside world. No housemates or neighbors can interact. Penpal via e-mails allowed. One pet may be allowed but it is also not allowed to go outside. They have all their essentials indoors with no windows on site unless they are boarded or curtained. Food delivery is not an option either. Artist career paths must use digital art only as selling easel paintings means going to the post office irl. Authors won't work either because you'd have to publish via a mailbox and that's not allowed either, remember your Sims is petrified of going outside. Is there a fire? Put it out yourself. No firefighters and no finding an escape route outside.

Note* I've had times in my own life where I've been unable to leave my home for months due to this, I am not romanticizing agoraphobia I just think it'd be an interesting way to play in the Sims.

4. From the ground up.

Buy a plot of land, and with only 25,000 or less simoleons you should lay down a basic shelter. This first place will be yours until you've saved up to go elsewhere. No adding rooms. Upgrading & repairing broken things is fine. Live off the grid for this first home. And sustain yourself via gardening and farm animals until you have saved up 50,000 simoleons to purchase a new home. Repeat the process of no remodeling with the new home until you've saved 100,000 to move/reconstruct your home all over again.

5. Monkey see Monkey do

Have a few Sims in a household and have your main sim copy anything their roommates are doing. Did one roommate flirt with another? Go flirt with them too. Did they just go take a shower? You should do that too. Have this sim only build up their skills and relationships via copying what they see others doing.

6. Opposites Attract

Make two vastly different Sims in all : Looks, Style, likes/dislikes, career paths, personality, etc. Get them together and see if they can learn to love each other's differences or if a break up/divorce is inevitable.

7. Color Scheme Build

Your new home should have the following : entryway, living room, kitchen, dining room, study, bedroom, guestroom, bathroom, guest bath, & basement. Each room can only have one color aesthetic with no repeats. Aka: A green room with only green objects, a pink room etc. You can use different hues of the color of course but putting something like a yellow rug on a blue carpet is not.

8. Never enough plants

For the green thumb and gardeners out there, this challenge is to have more green than home. Whether it be a small house with a large gardened yard or a regular home with plants absolutely filling all the shelves and tabletops. Have the plants be everywhere. Bonus points if your Sims clothes have flower patterns and such as well.

9. Four Story Home

I'm not a person who likes switching from up and down the stairs all the time to find my Sims but having it as a challenge could get me more used to it. It's as simple as making a home with four floors but you can make it more like an apartment or something by having bathrooms, bedrooms, kitchens, etc on every level.

10. Do you actually live here?

It's easy to want your sim to have a similar looking household. But what if you had a goth living in a kawaii/bright colored aesthetic home, or a minimalistic sim living in a home full of clutter? However you make your sim out to be, the house has to be the complete opposite.

#pinezcreatez #simblr #sims #sims community #new simblr #thesims4 #ts4 #sims 4 #sims challenge

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tainbocuailnge · 4 years ago

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fgo criticisms have been flaring up in the wake of dw’s sakura wars mobile game quitting after only half a year but I have a disease that makes me get defensive when people try to rip fgo apart as this uniquely terrible game with uniquely terrible devs so i’m going to complain about people who are complaining for a bit.

i hadn’t heard of the sakura wars game before it shut down but from what i’ve been able to find it suffered from a lot of the same problems as (launch) fgo, terrible gacha rates with no pity, slow ap recovery rates, barebones repetitive gameplay. so i guess seeing how fast sakura wars was shut down people feel like it’s only the fate name holding up fgo and in the early launch days of barely playable fgo that was definitely the case but I don’t think it’s fair to fgo to act like people only continue to play it because it’s fate, and “being like fgo” wasn’t the only problem with sakura wars either. sakura wars is a vn/dating sim series that attempted to revive the series with a mobile game that featured none of the original cast that fans cared about while fate was already a series with new characters and a new setting every instalment and the thing that stood out in this new game was actually that it DID have characters from previous fates available. hell, it’s not fair to sakura wars to claim that its series name is simply weaker than fate’s when there were other factors involved in its failure beyond “being a delightworks game”

fgo DOES improve, launch fgo is unrecognisable compared to current fgo in a good way. events have become more streamlined (events have mid- to lategame enemy hp scaling but feature damage ce’s to let newer players keep up, mission events are set up so that they basically clear themselves just by farming the most recently unlocked node), they experiment with new game modes and gameplay mechanics on the regular, they’re taking more care to make viable permanent servants and buff the older ones, and the past few months there’s also been a noticeable effort to throw out random banners for minor things as an excuse to rerun old limited servants more often. I’ll admit the bar is on the low side (strengthening quests are a ridiculous model, there shouldn’t be this many limiteds to need reruns in the first place, etc) and progress is slower than many people are willing to put up with, and I’m not saying anyone Has to put up with it or they’re a fake fan or whatever, but like, granblue fantasy is seven years old and still doesn’t have the ability to uncap a weapon multiple stages at a time when its entire gameplay loop centers around farming and uncapping weapons and they’ve buffed heles like 7 times but she’s still shit, none of fgo’s problems are exclusive to fgo.

i LIKE playing fgo. i like tapping the cards and watching my little guys go and coming up with different teams to make them go harder or just look good together or even lean into the Themes. and this is going a little bit on a tangent but i have this post window open anyway i was talking with friends earlier that one problem that a lot of mobile games seem to have is that they use “making the game play itself” as substitute for “making the game fun to play”. the only game with autobattle functionality (out of the ones I play, i don’t know everything that’s out there of course) that I feel DOESN’T do this is arknights, where you solve the puzzle that the stage presents in order to earn the right to not have to solve the puzzle every single time you play the stage and coming up with different efficient or perhaps ridiculous ways to solve the puzzle is part of playing the game. the worst case I know is dragalia lost which upon realizing that playing it sucks implemented an item to just let you skip playing stages altogether. “this game is good because you don’t have to play it” is not the selling point some people (and devs) think it is, and fgo refuses to fall into that trap - something I believe is an intentional decision because of their explicit refusal to implement NP skip.

one big advantage that fgo has over the other mobile games i’ve played is that it’s entirely turn based with no real time elements beyond start and end times of events. fgo doesn’t NEED to continue playing itself when you look away because looking away has no bearing whatsoever on your ability to clear the quest, fgo doesn’t give a shit if you look away for six hours and then close the game and only reopen it another ten hours later, you can continue right where you left off. the problem is not that you have to manually play the quest, because as far as the system is concerned you can take as much time as you like to clear that quest, it’s that the greater structure of the game wants you to repeatedly manually clear the same low-stakes quest for disproportionately small rewards. this one’s easy enough to solve by just increasing material droprates across the board. repeat clearing a low level quest is much less frustrating if you actually get drops every other clear.

but that’s a bandaid solution, because related to the issue of having to manually farm low-stakes quests is the lack of high-stakes quests to do when you want to do something a little more engaging than routine farming. outside of event challenge quests with their time limited availability, certain main story chapters that you can’t replay, and recently on JP the permanently available kiara challenge quest in the main interlude, there simply isn’t any difficult content to play. you could argue about fgo’s merit as strategy rpg in the first place i suppose but if you ask me it does have that merit and there is a clear effort from dw’s part to improve the depth of fgo’s strategy elements, the issue is that there is simply not that much content available to unleash those strategies on. of course you’re gonna get bored if all there is to do is either brainlessly repeat the same quest for minimal rewards or play the specific challenge quest that the game hands you right this moment regardless of whether that’s the kind of challenge you feel like facing right now. the solution to this one, although it’s likely going to take some significant effort on dw’s side to implement, is to make main story quests replayable.

you want to flex your brain muscles but there’s no challenge event right now? you stomped on a boss by using overpowered servants the first time but want to challenge yourself with some 3* this time? or the other way around, you beat a boss by the skin of your teeth the first time but want to stomp all over them now that you rolled some bitching 5*? you rolled a servant that’s not that suitable for day to day farming but would really shine in more difficult content and you want to try them out? you have a silly strategy in mind that would only work against certain story enemies? you’re like me and just really crave the shimosa duels? all of this involves content that already exists and is available in the game, dw would just have to figure out a way to let you access it again after clearing the chapter. and of course ideally this extends to event story quests once they’re added to the main interlude

i guess another way to put it is that i think the reason a lot of people say fgo has bad gameplay is not that its gameplay system is actually bad, in fact it has the potential to be very engaging, but rather that it’s a system that is set up to respect your time through the ability to put down the game absolutely whenever you want without being penalised, only for the game around it to go and penalise you for putting it down anyway. if you don’t diligently spend all your ap farming this quest you won’t get single damn material drop, and if you don’t play the event while it‘s happening you’re going to miss out because you can’t be sure when if ever it’ll return. so the number one way to solve the problem of fgo’s “bad gameplay” is not to make the game play itself whenever it tells you to play, but rather to make content more easily available so you don’t have to play if you don’t want to and CAN play if you do want to. thank you for coming to my ted talk i suppose

#anyway i love cuchulainn

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anxiousgaming · 3 years ago

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I’ve spent the past few days with anxiety. Thankfully this isn’t something I have to battle on a day-to-day basis, but when it hits me it hits and it takes a while to get over it. Sometimes weeks.

I’ve been playing games since I got my Sinclair Spectrum 48k as a kid. I played Monty Mole and Jet Set Willy and a game where all you did was bomb a city as thoroughly as you could. I’ve had periods in my life where I didn’t play much, and other periods when I’ve played a lot.

Years ago when I went through the worst anxiety phase of my life I played a lot of Rayman Legends (great game!) with my kid and noticed that it aggravated my anxiety severely. I had to put the controller down. And if you can’t play Rayman, then what CAN you play?

So, since then I’ve been mentally ranking games from the anxiety perspective and I figured that today was the perfect day to start something new with that.

I’ll be talking about games here. The games I play. The games I’ve played. The games I’ve seen others play. The games I want to play.

I’m playing Pokémon Snap at the moment. This is the perfect game for the anxious. And so what better than to name a list of games that I’d recommend to you if you’re like me and have times when shooting things that are trying to kill you is just out of the question. If you have anxiety and need something calming to play that doesn’t aggravate your anxiety and maybe help ease your mind, and not get that blood pumping.

Later we’ll get to the blood pumping lists! ;)

Best Games to Play while Anxious

(No combat, no necessary timed occurrences, no stress)

Eastshade - You play a painter traveling through a foreign (magical) country. You meet the inhabitants, find out about your history and paint the perfect paintings. It’s a beautiful game, short and sweet. (PC/PS4/XBOX)

Animal Crossing - You make a character, move to a deserted island, help built it up the way you like it, get cute/fun/strange villagers, fish, chase butterflies, find seashells or just laze by the ocean, listening to the waves. The only aggravating thing about this game are the menus, which I decided were a part of the zen, as you sometimes go through dialogue again and again your mind relaxes at the repetition (unless this annoys you quite severely) and actually served to calm my mind. (Nintendo Switch)

Sims 4 - The popular life simulator is one of my go to games when I have anxiety. You can do like I do and just sit there building and furnishing houses. Or you can make sims, make them as anxious as you are, or make sure they have the perfect life. You can play the collector, or if you would rather decorate homes? Be what you like, but be ready to pay for a lot of extra content as the base game is rather skimpish. (PC/PS4/Xbox)

Pokémon Snap - Nintendo is good at tranquility games and this has to be one of the better games I’ve played to put my mind at ease. All you do is sit and take photographs of beautiful Pokémon’s that dance and run and fly and swim around you. The game is stunningly beautiful and again, as Nintendo is very fond of clunky menus, for me they serve as a way to slow down. I pick off every notification after every shoot, even the online one that ALWAYS changes and then I’m ready for the next shoot. I have a few things I’d like to see done better, but those are small things and beside the point here. (Nintendo Switch)

Stardew Valley - Games like Stardew Valley are a treasure for the anxious. You basically play someone who has inherited a farm and suddenly has to rebuilt it. You grow crops, talk to townies, take care of animals and collect things. There is a mine where you take out a sword, but the combat there is easy, made even more easy on the mind by the games pixilation, and though I’m sure it’s necessary for advancement in the game it’s not something you need to focus on too much and would only aggravate my anxiety when I would be almost unable to play because my mind was just too unfocused. And you can play with others, if thats your jam, keep a farm with your friends. Have them go down the mines. (Though I’m not sure how that works). It helped make me calm. (Nintendo Switch/PC/PS4/XBOX)

This will be a growing list. Those were the first games that came to mind. And of course they are easy going games, collectors, farming and fishing often in beautiful environment with cutesy beings mucking about. I can't think of many fighting games that keep the mind calm.

So, what can you expect from this space? Games. I’ll try to focus on the anxiety aspect as I think it’s great to find something that might ease the mind, calm the red-zoned brain. I’m not an expert, just someone who suffers from it from time to time. But I’ll also talk about other games - maybe even review a few - I’ll give them an anxiety score and maybe a general score, or maybe not. We’ll see where this leads us.

What are your favourite mind-calming games? I'd love to hear about them.

#Games #gaming #gamer #anxiety #anxious #anxious gaming #stardew valley #pokemon snap #animal crossing #sims 4 #eastshade #anxiously

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gaming · 6 years ago

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Indie Game Spotlight: Frontier Story

Ready to fulfill your farming dreams? This week’s Indie Game Spotlight, Frontier Story, created by @jmw327, has captured our hearts this week with their latest farming sim. Frontier Story is about exploring a new world and its mysteries, while befriending the townsfolk, building your farm, and raising some adorable animals!

@jmw327, the solo developer handling the code, art, and game design of Frontier Story, took a moment to speak about the indie game scene and how to start getting into it!

What are some major influences to the game?

Harvest Moon 64 (my first Harvest Moon game) is an obvious one, but also the many worlds of the Legend of Zelda series, and the quirkiness of Earthbound, amongst other things. But not just video games! I read a lot as a child, so I think that had a huge influence on my preference for storytelling in games! And of course there are a lot of amazing people in my life who inspired me creatively and in other ways!

How do the farming mechanics work in Frontier Story?

The mechanics will have a lot of similarities of course to the Harvest Moon series, but with some twists of my own! I especially want animals to play a large role in the game, aside from just being tools to make money. So in addition to having them feeling more alive, hopefully almost like a virtual pet, some of them will have unique abilities which will help you in managing your farm if you treat them well! An example of this is a slime-like creature called a Droplet, which produces water!

How did you get into developing games?

It was something I had a desire to do for a while, and then last year I guess I just figured it was time to stop just thinking about doing it, and do it! I already had some programming experience, so I started learning art and trying to pick up the basics of game development just through trial and error.

What does your day-to-day look like for creating Frontier Story?

After all other life obligations are taken care of, I generally put most of my free time towards working on some aspect of the game. A nice part about doing both art and coding is I can create a more relaxing pace I think by switching between the two roles often.

What's some advice you could give to anyone looking to get into the indie game scene?

Just start creating whatever it is that you want to create! There is a lot of advice on the internet on how to go about creating a game, but I think experimenting is essential when starting anything new. There are a lot of ways to do things, but I think it's most important to find the one that works for you and your goals. Understanding what you want to get out of making your game is essential!

Want to know when Frontier Story is ready for release? Make sure to follow @jmw327 for game dev updates and more BTS content!

#Frontier Story #Indie Game Spotlight

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thesims4blogger · 4 years ago

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The Sims 4 Star Wars Journey to Batuu: Community’s First Impressions

When EA revealed The Sims 4 Star Wars: Journey to Batuu during today’s Gamescom Opening Night Live, players in the community took to social media to let their opinion on the game be known. The Fansite Simsvip ask players on Twitter what their initial thoughts were, so here is a collection of thoughts from players around the community…

It’s basically Strangerville but with a super niche audience. No one will get most of the references unless they’re a Star Wars fan. It’ll probably provide an hour of gameplay and that’s it. Ngl though it looks well made

— Sugar G (@appIause) August 27, 2020

I personally don't see a place for it in the Sims franchise as an actual in-world location. The Sims is supposed to be a life simulation at heart with fantasy thrown in. Not a badly disquised advert for a completely different I.P. If I wanted to play a Star Wars game I'd buy one.

— Alistair Stuart (@Alistu_Sims) August 27, 2020

It's a cool idea. For some reason I love shameless branding like this. It will probably be a nice change of pace at the very least.

— Paul (@ThePJBentley) August 27, 2020

It's not my favorite theme. But since it's here.. I'm going to take full advantage of it 😊

— Mimy S Flores (@mimysf1111) August 27, 2020

Definitely not a pack I would enjoy. Either for the game content. Storyline or the build and buy it all looked very uninteresting, I may still enter in some giveaways for the pack but this will be the 2nd pack including bowling I will never purchase. Just not enough in it:)

— JoJo🕵️‍♀️ (@JoJoPandaX) August 27, 2020

I’m not a fan of the movie series but this pack actually interests me

— Akane (@Aka_RoseGaming) August 27, 2020

Its unexpected but i think it'll be fun. And it also means i can make my swtor characters in sims so thats honestly what I'm looking forward to most with this.

— Shey (@Shey_Shen) August 27, 2020

I’m excited! I love the idea of missions to influence which side wins. I do think it will be fun to play with still might wait for a sale 😅

— Sophie is not Social (@SophienotSocial) August 27, 2020

I've sat idly by while knitting and laundry and university packs rolled around. They weren't my cup of tea or first choice, but I never tore down and ostracized those who were excited because the DLCs didn't fit my own personal expectations. I'm really excited for this pack! 😊

— LanceChristophr (@lancechristophr) August 27, 2020

Literally the first pack I have absolutely no interest in buying. I am very disappointed. It's fine for those who are fans and all, but I feel like this pack is so specific. I usually can find SOMETHING I like even in the packs that really aren't my gameplay style but this? NO :(

— Louise Laursen (@PurpleMio) August 27, 2020

Feel like we already had enough star wars content in the game. I feel like a into the future pack mightve been more well received. At least there are people who enjoy it though so can’t say no one’s getting anything good!

— bag of bones (@savantavocado) August 27, 2020

I hoped it wasn't going to be star wars when I heard. I don't have anything against the franchise, it's the fact that it' so highly specific and caters to a different audience is what baffles me. It's obvious that it's something that was pushed by EA to advertise their new game.

— 🍞𝙇𝙀𝙀💕 (@imCement) August 27, 2020

My thoughts were "Where is my Harry Potter pack?" Like boarding school for children sims, werewolves, fairies, etc.

— 🌈Jordan aka Snow🌈 (@Bookfangirl742) August 27, 2020

I 100% didn't need it right now. I feel like this was more an EA/Disney move rather than the core Sims team. Mainly because we need so much more in terms of gameplay, representation and playability. I could've got behind it if it was released sometime next year instead of now.

— Camille (@CraftyGamer89) August 27, 2020

I think the reason everyone has such an issue is that there are so many things the sims 4 is missing as a life simulation game and then they choose to put the time and effort into a star wars pack..i happy for those who want it but i get why everyone else is so upset

— Lauren Attwood (@LaurenAttwood69) August 27, 2020

We wanted more realistic gameplay and the gave us Starwars?!?! Why??!?!

— willemijn kroon (@williekr2000) August 27, 2020

im just... wow, at least I wasn't mad but rather sad how EA is so disconnected to the Sims fanbase desires and pleas for our favorite game

— I build anything and I stan OT9, OT4, & OT7! (@J_Lanz16) August 27, 2020

im just... wow, at least I wasn't mad but rather sad how EA is so disconnected to the Sims fanbase desires and pleas for our favorite game

— I build anything and I stan OT9, OT4, & OT7! (@J_Lanz16) August 27, 2020

Not feeling optimistic about it at all tbh, looks like it may have about as much replay value as Strangerville buuuuut at the same time it opens up the option to lightsaber duel Judith Ward so I guess I’ll give it a shot

— Dex (@Theyhrite) August 27, 2020

Excited for the droids and lightsabers. Seem like they can be fun and I image there will be a mod out soon for a lightsaber death since the sims will probably not give us one

— 🐁 ғᴇᴀɴᴏʀ ⟴🐀 (@_neonheart_) August 27, 2020

maybe if the game was more complete then sure but, the sims feels very empty and is lacking a lot. the last thing we need is a star wars pack right now

— heather (@heathermk_) August 27, 2020

i think it could be cool if your sims could actually live on batuu (maybe after completing the story or smth idk) but if it just turns out like a vacation world you go to once and then forget about it's gonna be disappointing

— cali (@caligumu) August 27, 2020

baffled, honestly. like. why is this a thing?! I have zero interest in farming or "better babies" but this just feels *really* out of place?? Strangerville has its appeal and Eco Lifestyle was just a very very bad case of "poor marketing", but this is just. 🤔🤔🤔

— Fae (@fae_of_the_rose) August 27, 2020

I said this before but... They are going to add light sabers before inclusive skin tones... let that sink in.

— Lil Ass Kicker (@Firelillx) August 27, 2020

THE SIMS 4 IS NOT IMMERSIVE ENOUGH FOR THIS TYPE OF NICHE GAME PACK!! They have refused to fix some of the most basic features (skin tones & babies) but they have the time and resources for these new special aliens??????? Make it make sense.

— whatamievendoin (@whatamievendo14) August 27, 2020

We already have Sixam which is not exploiting. Why take a franchise that does not reach the players. pic.twitter.com/aPhd1QBmZs

— The Queen alien -🛸 sims - (@The_Queen_Alien) August 27, 2020

Not at all interested.

— Sunshine (@sunshine0375) August 27, 2020

I was a little worried how this would combine with the Sims. It seemed so alien (no pun intended) to the rest of the gameplay. But after seeing the trailer I can’t help with being excited. It looks beautiful and definitely different. The build and buy objects look great so far

— Chantal Noordeloos (@C_Noordeloos) August 27, 2020

I’m still wtf’ing. It’s too niche for a game that is supposed to be a LIFE simulation game, too specific-to-star-wars-fans to appeal to a wider audience. It also makes me sad thinking about the future of the franchise when they seem so disconnected in what the community wants.

— Hayley Marie (@countrystrongau) August 27, 2020

What are your initial thoughts on the The Sims 4 Star Wars: Journey to Batuu Game Pack? Let us know in the comments below!

#news #ts4 #sims 4 #the sims 4 #game pack

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zydrateacademy · 4 years ago

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Current Activities in Sims 4 #6

So here, I’m going to do a sort of character spotlight. After a little blurb, and a Read More break because there’s a LOT of images in this.

Around the time the Star Wars patch came out and killed several mods, I decided to create a new world. My first and original one after ~90 hours was becoming a bit cramped (I had about 12 custom households spread around. Still plenty of lots to move into but still). The ‘big’ ones updated quick and I just took it as a sign to start anew, with some makeovers. My first world also had sims and families that didn’t have the luxury of all the clothing options I do now, so there’s also that.

So my first madeover family is Relmyna and Ameel.

Their narrative is that they are two artists helping each other out. Relmyna is a magic’d bloodline but mostly human artist who funds most of the household. She has a legit job as a painter. Ameel is... an alien. She’s all about the music, and so far has remained unemployed as she builds up her fame by DJing at certain hotspots. She avoids her disguise because she thinks that helps her get famous faster. On a narrative basis, she’s right. Mechanically, this means nothing. Just gotta deal with that “embarassed” moodlet every so often. Their main gameplay loop is Relmyna getting a shitton of money and upgrading their household. Which right now is about two or three satellite buildings.

They barely enter the main house, by the way. Anyway, Ameel spends most of her time practicing instruments. She’s maxed out on DJing and Guitar, and pretty high in singing. Like 9 or something. She’ll work on Violin next, and maybe Piano. I’m not sure what any of that will really do for her, it just suits her narrative. Here’s some proper headshots. I won’t be following this same format with every Sim, just kind of figuring this out as I go.

So here’s one of my newest concepts, Kassandra Sun. She was originally darker skinned. She started as a Dark Elf/Dunmer from TES like thing but that ashy black skintone doesn’t really ‘work’ with the animations. They look a bit blobby, and that’s probably why the community is complaining about some of the darker skintones in the game. I made her more human-dark and realized she looked like three of my other characters (very close to Relmyna with different hair) so I just Caucasian’d her up.

She’s my first foray into the acting career and so far I’m enjoying it, though it’s hard to tell how much fame I’m actually getting out of it. She’s a B-lister right now and that’s a pretty good place to be, some of the 3 star perks are very useful. Like how you can skip auditions and costuming and go straight to the role. So that’s cool. I’ve also clearly given her some elven/magical descent because I’m a slut for those Plentiful needs potions. Her current house is an upgrade from a starter but is mostly just a full prefab with an extension to put her relevant stuff. She paints on the side because I’m a slut for that painter money. She adopted a kitten named Kelly, whom I will manually age up in a season or two (I have aging disabled because some of my technically immortal character concepts were becoming elders without me noticing).

Now here comes my self insert, a trans girl named Livia Jones. I’ve talked about her in previous posts but nothing has really changed except her wardrobe. Even her default outfit has remained the same because I LOVE it and want it in real life. Pretty sure I have the pants at least.

She has a pet cat named Jailbird.

Interestingly, she does not have the “mischievous” trait... that I can remember. I just liked the outfit. I will say this version of Livia slightly differs from my first world’s Livia, but probably not for very long. Right now she’s a writer and with a writer’s job. In the previous world, writing was a side gig (like it is IRL) but was a professional gamer as her actual job. I might actually be going back to that eventually but I’ll go down the Author career for a small while. Her royalties are up to ~3500 right now and that’s not bad, but I also liked the idea of streaming and I want to get back to that. It’d be closer to RL, but without all the money, fame, and success. Which is why I love this game. This is Malia Tilo.

My attempt at an islander and mermaid, and eventually I want to delve into the eco mechanic of the island. She has a cat named Moana. I’ve tried a couple different things with her, like living off the grid but there’s something generating 2 units of power and I can’t fucking find it. I also experimented with the Naturalist thing from Wicked Whims but they tend to keep dressed when you’re on other Sims so it doesn’t really amount to much beyond some basic level titillation. I dress her fairly skimpily (given that the island is naturally hot) so she gets some Naturist skill over time anyway. I haven’t played her much, even in my first world, because there’s not a lot going for her to interest me. Healing the island is a slow endeavor, and being a mermaid means I can’t farm up all those Plentiful Needs potions unless I get a spellcaster to move in with her, so in turn it makes running around the whole island an irritating affair. She has 583$ to her name and an easel at the ready but... Just not really in the mood to play her. So here comes The Matriarch.

She should have a cat named Lazarus as well, which is an oversight on my part. I’ll work on it. Lorewise, she’s one of my oldest and most complex characters. Not much has changed for her in World 2, so I’ll just take some screenshots I already have:

She’s much nicer than she looks. She has -some- extra outfits and accessories now but that’s her main look in general. I also found a lighting-type tattoo over her body which simulates part of her curse. The idea is that she was overcharged with some chaos magic a long time ago in her plotline, thus the fucked up face and bad teeth. The stuff you see on her face (typically a vampire thing) also goes through her entire body. I couldn’t find anything that does quite what I have in my head but... it’ll do.

I haven’t done much on her in World 2 yet, but I plan on downloading some type of black magic job mod so she can get to work proper. None of the odd jobs or anything suit her concept so I need something reclusive...

...like painting. Don’t judge me. That’s all for now. I still want to make a university student and engineer. I’ll get there eventually.

#The Sims #Sims 4 #The Sims 4 #Sims #Electronic Arts #EA Games #PC Gaming #Gaming

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tessatechaitea · 4 years ago

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Cerebus #13 (1979)

This cover reminds me of at least three different nights in college.

One time in college, a drunk friend of mine fell UP the stairs and injured himself. One time in college, a guy down the hall invited me to drink with him and he was telling me about all the dead cockroaches he found under his dresser when he suddenly just vomited all over the front of his shirt. One time in college, I snuck into the top level of a factory in Los Banos which was really just a bunch of creaky catwalks in the dark and I stole their fire extinguisher (I did not go to college in Los Banos. Do they even have a college?!). One time in college, a girl in my Steinbeck class told me all about this cartoon she was watching called Sailor Moon and I desperately fell in love with her (and I also started watching the cartoon and super fell in love with that). One time in college, my friend Soy Rakelson looked at me confused after leaving our Lit Theory class and he blurted out, "Why doesn't he just tell us what is true?!" One time in college, my teacher wrote on one of my homework assignments "Please speak up in class more!" because it was a humanities course focusing on American History, Art, and Literature and all the dolts who did speak up in class were business majors and idiots. One time in college, I...no, you know what. I'm not telling that story. Never mind. One time in college, I went with a friend to a meeting where they were starting a new fraternity and everybody who was starting it automatically was in but my friend just missed that cut off and when they held the vote, he didn't make the cut. He left hurt and angry and pleaded with me to stay after he left to maybe find out more information about why he didn't make it. When they asked me if I were interested in joining, I laughed and said, "Fuck that," and left. One time in college, I had to describe my Halloween costume to my creative writing teacher because she was blind (I was Alice Cooper in Wonderland). That same day in college, my Children's Lit professor just laughed when she saw me and said, "Great costume." I wish I had a picture of it. Basically I wore the Alice blue dress and smock deal and Alice Cooper's make-up while carrying the decapitated and bloody head of the white rabbit. One time in college, I got wasted on Long Island Iced Teas at the Portland Rose Festival with my thirty-something year old coworker and we wound up running around the deck of a battleship when one of the Navy guys invited us on. One time in college, I sat next to my lesbian professor of 19th Century American Literature at the movies where we laughed and joked the whole way through Demi Moore's The Scarlet Letter. One time in college, I read my version of a scene from Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest in the style of Shakespeare and everybody after felt too intimidated to read theirs. Man, some of these stories are really sad! And I've purposefully left out the thousand or so stories that would have begun "One time in college during our Warhammer campaign...". Look, I really agonized about the punctuation at the end of that sentence but it wouldn't have been true to the punctuation's job performance to put all four periods within the quotes! I just realized I forgot to discuss the Aardvark Comments at the end of the last issue. It seems the expansion to two pages has stuck. The only part I remember was Dave Sim explaining that because of his nervous breakdown, he actually spent four days in a psyche ward. So I guess he went way past just shitting himself. Dave's Swords of Cerebus essay reveals one important fact: Necross the Mad was based on Exidor from Mork & Mindy. The issue begins with a bird shitting on Cerebus' snout. That's a portent I should use more often in my roller playing campaigns. Roller Playing Games should also have a simple rage statistic. Sort of like a saving throw but it gets harder and harder to save against every time some minor annoyance aggravates the player until they simply explode, becoming so careless from rage that it reflects in all of their dice roles. Or is that simply what going berserk is for Berserkers or Barbarians? Plus, there are so many Roller Playing Games, I'm sure one of them uses those rules in their system. Cerebus is captured by some farmers and taken to a Priest of Tarim to determine what sort of sorcerous monstrosity he is.

Cerebus pleads future violence.

The priest decides to dump Cerebus in the foyer of the castle of Necross the Mad, a sorcerer who has been plaguing the villagers of Lower Felda. His plan is that they'll simply kill each other and he won't have to deal with them anymore. Praise Tarim! Sometimes I wish I had become a priest but I don't think I would have made it through Divinity School. I'm fairly certain everybody would frown on my constantly yelling "Pshaw!" after every few passages from The Bible. I probably don't have to admit this because nobody was around to witness it but I just hopped up to turn on the light and then danced around humming the theme song from I Dream of Jeannie. One time in college, I went to see Ken Kesey speak after which he and his (new?) Merry Pranksters performed a sort of The Wizard of Oz play but about climate change. It was such a train wreck that halfway through, my friend Aaron Voorhees streaked across the stage. Or kind of duck waddled across the stage since he didn't take his pants off, he just dropped them around his ankles. The priest of Tarim has a lackey take Cerebus into the lair of Necross and it doesn't go too well.

Yikes. I'm more evil than this guy.

Sometimes I run outside in the morning to throw out garbage or something and I won't put my pants on. I figure it doesn't matter too much because I wear boxers and those are pretty much shorts. But today in the early morning hours, I was outside with my cat Gravy (on a leash) and I was up on the little hill in the backyard under the tree which enables me to see over all the backyard fences and two houses down, I caught sight of the woman there running back inside in her red panties. It was pretty awesome. I told that story because this guy's confession of looking down women's dresses reminded me of the moment and also because I wanted to tell people that I saw a woman in her underwear. This guy also confesses to having "impure thoughts about farm animals" which I totally have never done except in a rhetorical or theoretical or maybe even philosophical conversation. What I mean is I've never thought "I wonder what it would be like to fuck a goat?" but I have said to friends "You would probably fuck a goat, right?" Necross the Mad materializes so that he can speak with Cerebus (after disintegrating the guy who wants to fuck goats or sheep or chickens). Necross, being mad, decides to prove to Cerebus that he isn't mad. But his proof that he isn't mad is just more evidence that he is. That's what happens when you're mad; you're not the best advocate for yourself. Necross introduces Cerebus to Thrunk, a sixteen foot tall stone golem which Necross intends to bring to life at some point. That some point is soon and not in the way Necross intended because in a few pages, Necross is going to be killed and do an emergency transfer of his spirit into Thrunk.

Okay, less of an emergency transfer and more like an accident.

The priest's mob rushes into the tower where Thrunk begins to smash them all into jelly. While that's happening, Cerebus decides it's time to leave. As he wanders away to more sane territories, Necross the Mad realizes he's trapped in the only reinforced room of his tower. But if you think that's the end of Thrunk, you haven't read Church & State yet! Aardvark Comments just proves that a lot of people were discovering that Cerebus was one of the best comics on the market in 1979. Reading the Cerebus phone book in one sitting never allowed me to realize just how quickly this comic book finds itself and begins gaining momentum. It's truly inspired that Dave Sim, by issue thirteen, has created so many wonderful characters and written so many gags that stuck for decades inside my head. And I'm not a quote person at all! I'm more the type who thinks saying something new and unique and true to myself is dozens of times better than puking out some pop culture reference that everybody will recognize. Sure, I do it sometimes! But when I do, I do it all M. Night Shyamacock style! Cerebus #13 Rating: B+. I've given a lot of issues A grades so I thought I would change it up. This one is actually probably an A as well. I especially loved how Thrunk complains about the bottoms of his feet being sticky after stomping all of the farmers to death. We all how annoying that is, right?

#Cerebus #Dave Sim

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ashcraftscrap · 5 years ago

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Digging a Little Deeper

In my last post I made a list of all the topics that I enjoy enough to feel they have a shot at becoming my brand, so to speak. I talked a little bit about Writing and why I think it’s going to end up being my primary focus...

Writing has been a long term passion of mine, probably the longest lasting with the exception of animals and nature. I also think it would be the best outlet for all the various things that I enjoy, because then I can work on individual books that cover the topics I love even if I don’t love them enough to make a career of them. Writing gives me the freedom to jump around a bit, to dabble in a little bit of everything without losing focus.

...but I neglected to talk about anything else in the same kind of depth. Why do these other topics have a shot at being my brand? What about them do I like, and more specifically if they did become my brand, what kind of content would I be making? These are rather general topics, so let’s go over them one by one the same way I did with writing:

Art (in various forms)

I’ve done all sorts of art from drawing and painting, sculpting, and photography all the way to glass blowing, jewelry making, and woodworking. I have basic sewing knowledge, I’ve played with resin a little, and I’m up for a DIY project pretty much anytime be it to improve my wardrobe or the space I live. I’ve discovered through my many years of trying different types of art here or there that as fun as two-dimensional art (drawing, painting, photography) is and can be, I prefer working with three-dimensional creations. Something I’ve wanted for years (about a decade now) to do is create dolls of my characters to use in photography that can act as the illustrations in books I write. If I were to make art my brand, it would be an adventure of trying new things and sharing my various creations, probably with a focus on these dolls and making art for my books, the secondary focus being on DIY projects for my wardrobe and home.

Animals

I love pretty much all animals (’cept wasps lolz) and I really love learning about them and sharing what I know. I think it would be a meaningful thing to get educated and share that knowledge, and I would be very humbled to get the opportunity to do something important and help animals however I can. One thing I’ve always wanted to do, but simply have not had the time nor means to do so, is volunteer at a wolf-dog shelter about an hour or so away from where I live. Another direction that I feel I could easily go is getting into betta fish and/or ball python breeding. I’ve often had bettas present in my life, and I’ve almost always wanted a snake, particularly a ball python, so both creatures are something I’ve on-off considered breeding as a hobby, if I ever had the opportunity. I don’t know if I’d make a career out of it, I’ve never looked into it as anything more than a hobbyist, but I would definitely not be mad if it went that way.

Reviews (Books, Shows, and/or Movies)

My favorite genre, my bread and butter, is high fantasy, but second to that I probably read philosophy and supernatural fiction the most. When it comes to movies, I’m a big Disney fan, but my favorite types of movies are stop motion, hand-drawn animation such as Studio Ghibli or older animated movies, and I’m not sure what I’d call them, but films that implement puppetry and less CGI and such, films like The Neverending Story, the Dark Crystal, etc. Shows I enjoy range from drama and romance to comedy and horror, and I’m not ashamed to admit there are some really great cartoons and anime out there. I’m a theater geek and was a techie in high school, so I get nerdy over set design and ambiance and soundtracks, and would undoubtedly talk about that background stuff too. I don’t think I’d make a very good reviewer, but I think it sounds like a lot of fun, and I’d like to do it for the sake of the fun alone whether it becomes what I’m known for or not.

Video Games

I strongly doubt that this would become my brand/focus, but I really love video games and think no matter what direction I end up going in, I’ll likely still make Let’s Play videos and maybe even video game reviews just because it’s something enjoyable and fun to do. I strongly prefer playing games with my fiance and friends like Don’t Starve Together and Minecraft, but I also like playing games on my own too. I particularly like medieval-style RPGs, slice of life games like The Sims or those silly dating simulator games, and Nintendo, most particularly the Legend of Zelda series and Pokemon.

Gothic Subculture & Fashion

If I had the luxury of having enough money to truly express myself with complete and utter vanity, I would do a huge wardrobe rehaul and deck myself out as badass as It’s Black Friday. Everything would be black on black on black, and I’d live in my dark little black on black on black world with minimal if any color. However, my wardrobe currently is nothing spectacular and my fiance could not stand to live in all black the way I could, so I don’t think I’m in a position to dive into this world all in the way I’d like to. I strongly doubt it’ll become my brand, but rather it’ll be the primary aesthetic I strive for and will likely slowly develop over time.

Philosophy (Neo-Paganism) | Gender Studies (minus feminism)

Both of these topics are things that I have learned a great deal about and have personal, life-changing experiences within. They are also highly personal, controversial things to talk about, and don’t always jive well with people. There’s a particular crowd that these things get discussed with, and while I am a part of that crowd and am not afraid to talk about these things, I’m probably just going to leave my opinions about these things in places where they are more appropriate to discuss them, like Quora. Because I’m so passionate about them, I will likely talk about them in time, but I just don’t know if I’m comfortable attempting to make a career out of either thing. If I do, I think I’d be a lot more inclined to talk about philosophy and spirituality than I would about Gender. Even though I don’t know if I want it to be my main point of focus, I do think it’s important to share my opinions and perspective on these very personal things, perhaps by writing books about them at some point. I guess we’ll just see how much people hate me sharing more about this side of me haha

Music

As much as I love music, I know it won’t be my brand. The most I do regarding music is post good music to my instagram. I don’t play any instruments, and I’m not tone-deaf or anything, but regardless of that, at my very best my voice is simply average, so it’s not like I ever imagined I’d be making music. I might write some songs if I think I can even do that, but one this is for sure - I will talk about good music here and there, especially since my favorite genre (gothic metal) is fairly niche and deserves a little bit of a shout out.

The Furry Fandom

In my previous post I said that my prediction for the topics that are most likely going to be my brand are Writing, Animals, and Art. Well the furry fandom is pretty much made up of animal-loving artists of all kinds and sorts, writers included. So needless to say, I could very easily end up becoming a furry influencer, since it encompasses a good portion of the things I love doing, and is the fandom I’m most involved with as well. I wouldn’t be mad in the slightest if this ended up happening, and I have a hard time believing that my followers won’t end up being made of majority furs anyway. If I had continued my list beyond the top 3 predictions, the furry fandom would have been the fourth listed for this reason.

Hunting | Gardening | Food & Cooking

I’ve learned a lot about the food industry, and I’d like to learn a lot more and be more proactive in changing my lifestyle for the better in order to get away from all the processed, typical American diet shit out there that’s tainting our food. So basically for years now I’ve had this vision and goal for my lifestyle. I want to be a hunter, then I want to go vegetarian (may even vegan idk) with the only source of meat I consume being my own personally hunted game, or I guess maybe locally sourced meat from ethical farmers and such. I’d also like to learn a lot of skills that a good for a hunter to know, like leather-working, taxidermy, and skeletal articulation so that I can utilize all of the resources, not just the meat. I’d ideally like to have my own goats for milk, otherwise only drinking nut milk (preferably homemade), and my own chickens for eggs. I’d like to have a small farm where I grow as many of my own fresh ingredients as I reasonably can, and with all those good and healthy resources, I’d like to become a better at home chef. I’ve just never had the land or money to do all this with, so I’ve kinda put that goal on the back-burner while I focus on my career and finances first. Undoubtedly, however, I will learn more and talk more about this stuff as I get closer to accomplishing these goals, cook more, and hopefully get the money and means to learn more about it and actually become a hunter.

#ashcraftblog #blog #ramble #about me

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littlemisssquiggles · 6 years ago

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RWBY Musings #72: A Farm Boy and his Bot. What if…Oscar gains his very own robot companion for the Atlas Arc?

So lately, I’m beginning to adore the concept of Oscar eventually gaining some kind of magical or rather unusual companion inspired by another known character from the Wizard of Oz. In my last musing post, I mentioned Oscar assuming control of Salem’s winged Beringels so that he may control them as the RWBY-verse’s equivalent of the Golden Cap.

Now I’m here to present another Oz-inspired possibility. What if…while in Atlas, Oscar either builds and/or gains the friendship of an Atlesian robot and this character will draw reference from the Oz character: Jack Pumpkinhead.

Oscar’s Robot

For those of you who might not know:

According to Wikipedia, in the second Oz book, the Marvellous Land of Oz, Jack Pumpkinhead is an animated homunculus. Jack is described as being incredibly tall with a skinny figure made from tree limbs and jointed with wooden pegs. He has a large carved jack-o’-lantern for a head which is where his name is derived from. Although, unlike most jack-o-lanterns, the seeds and other pumpkin guts were not removed from Jack so it substitutes for his brain.

Jack was originally made by a little boy named Tip (the male persona of Princess Ozma before she ultimately regained her true form) to scare his guardian, an old witch named Mombi. When Mombi saw Jack, she nearly smashed him to pieces but instead, decided to test out her new Powder of Life on him. The powder worked and made Jack come to life.

Jack has been noted to not be known for his intelligence which varies depending on the quality and number of seeds in his pumpkin-head at the time. Despite this, Jack manages to come up with random bits of wisdom and common sense often. That is the character of Jack Pumpkinhead.

As we know, Oscar Pine is alluded to Princess Ozma. Since Ozma is the original creator and parent of Jack Pumpkinhead, what if…Oscar will build his own Pumpkinhead in reference to how Tip made Jack Pumpkinhead or…perhaps Pumpkinhead is an Atlas Academy practice droid designed by Atlas for its students to gain hands on training during their combat simulation drills by fighting sentient machines

Perhaps…Pumpkinhead was an out-dated model that the school failed to maintain over the years. The bot had taken so many hits that it was due for decommissioning before being sent on its way to the junkyard scrap heap to be salvaged for it parts along with the others in its outdated series since Atlas was due to upgrade to newer, more efficient models in coming time.

Or…at least that was the plan before Oscar more or less rescues (technically steals) the machine---keeping it stored away where he and the other heroes were housed in Atlas---a full house suite organized for them courtesy of Winter Schnee and the General and overseen by Weiss who basically acts as landlady making sure nobody wrecks the place her sister generously helped organize for them. So Oscar keeps Pumpkinhead secured in his room while doing his best to repair the bot piece by piece with as limited resources as he had on his own time.

At first the former farm hand kept Pumpkinhead a secret away from the other heroes. But ultimately Oscar had no choice but to come clean about the tall, pumpkin-headed secret he’s been hoarding in his bedroom.

I’m kind of amused at the idea of Oscar being the type to pick up a stray robot without question. I think if done in the canon it could be a reference to Oz while providing a call back to Fullmetal Alchemist. After all, in FMA, Oscar’s VA--Aaron Dismuke played Alphonse Elricand us ole school FMA fans know how Alphonse was notorious for picking up stray cats.

Picture…Oscar pulling an Alphonse just with picking up a stray sentient robot he was trying to patch-up. One of my favourite Pinehead headcanons is that Oscar has a natural born talent for mechanical engineering as a testament to his upbringing back on his family farm.

In the V6 opening, Oscar could be spotted reading an Atlas Mechanics magazine during his shot with JNR and Qrow. A throwaway detail or conceivably a foreshadowing nod to what’s to be seen of this farm boy’s hidden talents during the Atlas Arc?

I’d absolutely love it if Oscar is good at repairing machinery with robots being no exception. I think that could be a really interesting skill for him to have. Plus picture the look on everyone’s faces to learn that our veteran farm boy’s got a knack for tinkering with them mechanical thingamabobbles and gadgets.

Remember how back in V2, Ruby snuck Zwei onto Team RWBY’s off-campus field trip to Mountain Glenn with Oobleck and we got that funny bit where Oobleck calls Ruby out only for Zwei to unceremoniously pop out of Ruby’s backpack; barking defiantly at her when she hisses for him to get back in the bag.

RWBY Squiggle Script #016: Pumpkinhead

Picture it. A similar scenario like that with Oscar where an online, Pumpkinhead is unceremoniously uncovered in Oscar’s bedroom closet and the farm boy is awkwardly put on the spot to explain himself; all the while standing between his profoundly stupefied comrades and teammates (at least Jaune, Nora, Ruby and Weiss for the sake of this scene. Let’s say the others were away on other errands or something) and a spooked Pumpkinhead who sat curled up in a ball behind Oscar, frightened by the unfamiliar non-Oscar faces.

Jaune: ….Oscar, is that a… 8ft robot standing in your bedroom?

Oscar: Actually he’s 7ft 11 inches tall to be exact. But…yeah…it’s---it’s a robot.

Jaune: Okay, let me try asking again. Oscar, why is there a 7ft 11 inches tall robot in your bedroom?

Oscar: *chuckling nervously with a shrug* Would you believe me if I said he followed me home?

Weiss: *incredulously* Oscar, be serious. Did you steal that Atlesian Practice droid?

Oscar: *awkward laughing intensifies* Psssh no, of course not. I told you. He followed me...sort of. Look I’ll explain everything just promise me you won’t freak out if I tell you.

Despite their equally doubting expressions, the others settled down to listen to Oscar’s explanation.

Oscar: It started a while back. It was the first Battle Sim class for us first years and our professor wanted us to practice combat against a moving target. For that class we were each paired up with a practice droid to spar with. I got this fella. *pats Pumpkinhead* For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to…hurt him. The minute I raised my weapon, he just looked at me and curled up all frightened and shaken. I know that sounds really, really crazy but… it did happen. Even my teacher took notice and started yelling at me to take it down. Show no mercy against the enemy, he said. Even if that enemy is a defenceless practice droid who was more scared of you and…refused to fight. So naturally, I refused to fight too.

I won’t attack an opponent who isn’t trying to harm me. So I ended up not fighting at all and…as you’d expect, the teacher sent me straight to Ironwood.

Jaune: *incredulously* So that’s why you were in trouble before? For refusing to beat up one practice droid?

Oscar: *nods* Yeah. Turns out you can get a full month’s detention for anything at Atlas Academy. As punishment, I was put in charge of helping with droid maintenance. The robo-tech guy supervising me is a real piece of work, to say the least, but other than that, it wasn’t half bad. I didn’t mind looking after the droids. From there, I noticed this guy following me around a lot. Even when he was supposed to be offline, everywhere I turned, he was there just…staring at me. I guess you could say he took a weird shine to me after our forfeit fight. It was really weird and really uncomfortable, at first.

But after a while I got use to the stares and actually started to appreciate the company. *chuckles* You can say he’s been my fateful companion during the more boring detention days and he’s a surprisingly good listener. Doesn’t say much…or…do much except stare but I think we became friends.

Weiss: *dubiously*…You befriended…a robot?

Oscar: *defensively* It can happen.

Ruby: He’s right. It can.

Weiss: *exasperated* Please don’t encourage him.

Nora: Can you guys quit interrupting? I wanna know what happens next? Go on Oscar.

Oscar: *frowning* Well…what happened next is actually the worst part. One detention, I didn’t find him with the other bods. Some first years from my class had rented him out for some extracurricular target practice.

Ruby: What… happened?

Oscar: *exasperated; fist clenching* What’d you think? They broke him! Wrecked him up really bad. Students are allowed to fight the droids after school but these students overdid it. And what’s worst is that after they were done, they just…left him. The robo-tech will clean up the mess for us, they said. They didn’t even bother returning him. Just left him in pieces. I tried to tell them off but I was useless. They just pushed me aside.

Nora: *annoyed* Please tell me you reported those jerks!

Ruby: Did you tell someone? Ironwood? The robo-tech?

Oscar: I tried but…it just made things worse. I told the robo-tech about what happened but… he didn’t care. I asked him if he could repair him but he said… *scoffs* He said fixing damaged goods isn’t in his payroll. It’s not in his job requirements to fix the bots, he’s just supposed to polish them up and make them look pretty. Who cares if a couple of them get ruined in a few rough sparring matches? Atlas’ got the funds so why bother fixing the broken bots when they could just as easily replace them with newer models. If I had left him as is, he would’ve been scrapped! I…couldn't just…leave him like that. I had to do something so…

Ruby: …So…you saved him?

Weiss: He stole it!

Oscar: I…*head handing guiltily* Yeah, I stole him, yes.

Weiss: I can’t believe it. We’ve been hoarding a felon.

Ruby: Weiss, quit being so overdramatic.

Weiss: I am not!

Nora: So…exactly how long have you been hiding this bot here under our noses?

Oscar: Let’s see, one…two weeks so probably…about a month.

Groans all around, the most audible being Weiss’. Ruby being Ruby appeared more sympathetic.

Ruby: Well… he seems to be up and running now. Why didn’t you try taking him back to the school again?

Oscar: He’s not completely fixed yet. There’s still more work to be done but I can only do some much with such little tools and with such a little workspace. Besides I already tried that but...he won't let me. I think he's too scared to go back there after what those kids did to him.

Weiss: He’s scared? He's a machine!

Ruby: Weiss, even machines can have feelings too.

Weiss: But---

Oscar: *wearily* Do you guys mind lowering your voices please? He doesn't like it when you yell. He hates loud noises.

At this, Oscar gently pats the tall robot behind him.

Oscar: It's okay big guy. We won't yell anymore. It's okay, Pumpkin.

Ruby: *snorts* Pumpkin?

Oscar:*embarassed* Uhh…yeah. It’s short for Pumpkinhead.

Nora: Aww. That's kind of sweet.

Weiss: *arms crossed with an incredulous expression* You named it!

Jaune: *reasonably* Oscar, I understand you want to help this bot but you do realize he's Atlas Academy property. You can't just keep him in the house. He's not a pet.

Oscar: *pouting* I know I can’t keep him but he's still pretty messed up. If I take him back to the school as he is now, they'll throw him away for sure. At least let me try and fix him first. Please.

Jaune: Oscar...

Oscar: *imploringly* Please.

Jaune and Nora exchanged unsure looks. Weiss huffed but in the end it was Ruby who spoke up.

Ruby: Okay.

Weiss: What! Ruby you're not serious!

Ruby: It's like Oscar said, we can’t send him back to the school broken. The least we can do is let him finish fixing him.

Weiss: Unbelievable.

Ruby: Weiss...

Ruby plants a firm hand on Weiss’ shoulder, looking at her squarely so she’s certain the Schnee girl could see her serious expression.

Ruby: Please.

Weiss stares at Ruby blankly for a few beats before finally sighing, admitting defeat.

Weiss: Fine. But it's not staying in here. *indicates to the bedroom* There’s an empty storage room downstairs in the basement. It's not much but it’s definitely more appropriate to house your...Pumpkin friend than a small bedroom closet. It’s yours till the bot is fixed and…I’ll see if I can get you some better tools to speed up the process. While I detest lying to my sister and the General, I guess I could always say it’s for a school project or something. Not making any promises.

Oscar beams.

Oscar: Thank you Weiss-cream.

Weiss: *eye twitching* Call me that again and you and your bot will be sleeping in the streets tonight.

Oscar: *nervously* Y---Yes ma’am. I promise I’ll move Pumpkin as soon as the storage room opens up.

Weiss: Good. Just…hurry up and fix it. The last thing we need is trouble with Atlas Academy.

---

As promised, Oscar moved Pumpkinhead immediately into the storage room after Weiss gave him access. In this next concocted scene, Pumpkin is safely secured with Oscar now standing behind him on a chair for added height while he worked diligently on repairing some of the remaining damages done to its head.

Oscar: Alright big guy. You’ll only feel a slight tickle but I promise it won’t hurt.

Pumpkinhead voices his disapproval with incoherent robot noises but otherwise stays trustingly cooperative while Oscar patches him. When Oscar was done, he patted the top of Pumpkinhead’s head with a proud grin, happy with his handiwork.

Oscar: There you go. Now that part’s all done for today. See. Not as bad as you thought, right bud? Nothing to be scared about.

Ruby: Didn't realize you were such a robot whisperer.

Oscar nearly falls off his chair as he zips around to find Ruby standing at the top of the staircase leading down into the storage room. She wore an amused smile; arms crossed as she came down.

Oscar: *embarrassed* Ru---Ruby? How---How long have you been standing there?

Ruby: *giggling* Not too long but long enough to see you sweet talk, Mr. Pumpkinhead over there. Are you sure you don’t need any help fixing him? Yang’s pretty handy; no pun intended and…I might know a thing or two that could help out too just so you know. I did built my weapon from scratch after all.

Oscar: Thanks but…as much as I’d love the extra hands, I don’t want to distress Pumpkin too much. He’s not really open to new people right now. Besides I used to help my uncle fix the machinery back on the farm. Fixing a giant robot, surprisingly not that different from fixing a tractor. I mean it is different but my Uncle Henry was the best mechanic I know. Taught me everything he knew and I've always loved a good pet project.

Wiping his grease stained hands on a handkerchief he kept in his back pocket, Oscar smiled broadly as he patted the top of Pumpkinhead’s exposed top once life time before closing it shut. After that, the young boy jumped down from his perch to stand next to Ruby, admiring the work he was able to get done that evening.

Oscar: *smiles at Ruby* It's a slow hurdle but at least we’re getting somewhere, y’know?

Ruby: *nods; smiling back* Well uh...you seem to be doing a pretty great job so far on your own. I'm actually really impressed.

Oscar: *blushing* For real?

Oscar tried leaning against a small table that was next to him; absently neglecting the table had wheels. Immediately Oscar scrambled to regain his balance and make sure the tools on top the table didn’t clatter to the floor and startle Pumpkinhead. While he was victorious in keeping the giant bot at ease, that didn’t stop him from momentarily making a spectacle of himself in front of Ruby who eyed him closely, hand covering her mouth to supress another giggle.

Oscar: *cheekily* I meant to do that.

For the sake of Oscar’s pride, Ruby ignored his last blunder as she slowly approached Pumpkinhead. Instantly, the bots beady white eyes swivelled around inside their socket to focus in on Ruby.

Ruby: He's looking a lot better from earlier.

Oscar: *rubbing the back of his neck bashfully; cheeks slightly flushed* Thanks. I owe Weiss big time for letting me use the storage room. It’s amazing how much more work I can get done when I’m not trying to hide a giant robot in my closet anymore.

Ruby nods wordlessly as she slowly edged closer to Pumpkinhead, eyes wide with curious wonder. Now Ruby was standing close to the robot’s legs. The instant she made an attempt to move further, that’s when the uproar started. Incoherent static mechanical noises echoed throughout the garage as Pumpkinhead made a fuss trying to move as far away from Ruby as possible.

Immediately, Oscar pulled Ruby back making sure to gently move her as far away from the robot as possible. After he did that, he ran to the robot’s side, doing his best to silence its distressed signals.

Oscar: Whoa! WHOA! Easy Pumpkin. She's a friend. She’s not going to hurt you. Easy bud, easy.

A few gentle words and reassuring pats later, Oscar managed to tame the robot yet again and Pumpkinhead settled silent once more. However its optical eye never left Ruby who now stood far, a bit shaken herself. Now it was her turn to be comforted by Oscar who returned to her side with a reassuring smile.

Oscar: … I should have warned you. Pumpkin doesn’t really like anyone coming near him except me. Sorry about that.

Ruby: No it’s….okay. Is he better now?

Oscar: Yeah, he should be good so long as you stay over here.

Ruby nodded. Rubbing her shoulder nervously, she made an attempt to break the awkwardness of her blunder.

Ruby: …So ......Pumpkinhead, huh?

Oscar: *chuckling* Name of the year, right?

Ruby: *smirking wryly* I guess. Why that name though?

Oscar: It’s an old boring farm boy story you probably wouldn’t want to here.

Ruby: *smiling* Oh yeah? Try me.

Her answer made Oscar smile.

Oscar: Well; when I was a little kid growing up on the farm, we had this old neighbour. I never learned what her real name was. I just used to call her Ms. M for mean because she was the meanest old lady in the world, at least to 10-year-old Oscar. Although she had her own farm with her own cornfields, she’d always let her pigs and her weird four horned cow wander onto our side of the land and destroy our crops before they could harvest.

Ruby: *disbelievingly* I’m sorry. A four-horned cow?

Oscar: *nods* Yep. And each time my family complained, she’d just laugh at us and still leave her animals to mess up our crops while hers remained perfectly fine. Not that it helped much. She was actually a really bad farmer and all her former farmhands couldn’t stand working for her.

Ruby: She sounds like quite the handful.

Oscar: She was. I hated that old lady. Aunt Em taught me that it’s not good to hate people but that lady was a real witch. She was never nice to me and she was even worst to my aunt. Reminds me a lot of that Mombi kid from school actually. Both are a bunch of bullies.

Anyways, one harvest, 10 year old me figured he had enough of Ms M and wanted to teach her a lesson. So I picked the biggest pumpkin I can carry and built this giant scare---er---pumpkin hoping he would scare Ms M and her animals off our land. You can probably guess what I named him.

Ruby: *drumming her finger against her chin, pretending to ponder* Hmm, think, think, think. *snaps fingers and grins* Pumpkinhead?

Oscar: *laughs* You've been paying attention.

Ruby: *giggles* So what happened? Did the OG Pumpkinhead scare away the old wicked witch next door?

Oscar: Nope. Didn't even phase her at all. Actually it was the ten shot gun bullets through the window from Aunt Em that did the trick. Never dared bother us again after that.

Ruby: *jaw hanging in a mix of shock and amusement* No way!

Oscar: *grinning wide* Yes way! I can still hear my Aunt Em now. Oscar, fetch me my gun! No, not that one! The bigger one with the bigger bullets.

At this point, Ruby was in stitches, hardly able to contain her laughter and Oscar joined her.

Ruby: *though laughter* I'm sorry. I'm having a hard time picturing your dainty old aunt firing a gun.

Oscar: *chuckling* There's an old Mistralian saying back home. You don’t mess with the west and if it hails from the south, get out. West and South Anima are mostly farming lands. If there are two things you don't play with in my neck of the woods, it's family and produce and that old witch had it coming big time.

I'd never forget the look on her face when my aunt marched straight up to her house and blew out all her windows. All ten of them on all sides. Not a single piece of glass was spared that day. Em even took out Ms. M’s glass eye. But for that she used a teeny, tiny pistol.

Ruby: *wheezing* You are making this up!

Oscar: *sarcastically* Would I lie?

Ruby gave Oscar a knowing look, punching him playfully in the shoulder.

Oscar: *chuckling* Okay, okay, you got me. That last part about the glass eye is made up but everything else is full proof. Farm boy's honour on my uncle’s grave.

Oscar grinned cheekily and Ruby only shook her head in amusement at the former farm hand.

Ruby: Wow. And I guess this Pumpkinhead reminds you of home.

Oscar: Yeah. Y'know he's not too different from the one on the farm. He's bright orange. Got two beady eyes and a crooked moon smile. Big ole pumpkin-sized head and skinny arms and legs---

At Oscar’s comments, Pumpkinhead made a noise from behind as if to show his displeasure of Oscar’s remarks about its physique. Oscar backpedals, turning to flash the robot a kind-hearted smile.

Oscar: *chuckles* I don't mean that in a bad way Pumpkin. You're a good boy. Yes you are, Whose the best Pumpkinhead in the world? You are!

At Oscar’s affectionate comments, the colour on Pumpkinhead’s eyes turned neon pink as if to reflect its delight of being coddled by Oscar and its robot legs even wiggled, as if mimicking a dog wagging its tails happily at its owner. It is a unexpectedly adorable moment that even makes Ruby gush. So much so that she forgets herself.

Ruby: *cooing; heart-eyes; clapping her hands excitedly* Awww, he is a sweet guy!

This time, Pumpkinhead sprung up suddenly; bursting through the cables that Oscar was partially using before in his current stage of repairing the bot as it shuffled behind whatever giant piece of infrastructure within the storage room was big enough to shield the bot from Ruby. From there Pumpkinhead remained.

Oscar groaned, rubbing his forehead. Ruby, in turn, looked to him guiltily.

Ruby: *apologetically* I am so, sorry. Things were getting so cheery, I forgot about…before. I’m really sorry Oscar. I guess Pumpkin really doesn’t like me now, huh?

Oscar: *exasperated but assuring* Don't…*sighs*…Don’t take it personally. It's not really you. Pumpkin’s scared of everyone. He's alright with me because I think I'm the first person who hasn't tried to hurt him before. Kind of a bad thing to say, isn’t it?

Ruby: Well...isn't he a practice droid? Aren't they built specifically for combat? To take a hit whenever on the battlefield?

Oscar: Yeah but...that doesn't necessarily mean he liked being used that way. What if all the other practice droids are like Pumpkin?

Ruby: I think your guy is a special case, Oscar.

Oscar: You’re probably right. But it makes you wonder doesn't it? I know you guys must think I'm being silly for caring about something that's technically not alive but...he feels alive to me. When he's scared...I feel his fear. I understand it as if it's my own. It's not his fault he was born to be this. He never asked to be made into a practice droid for others to beat up on him whenever they liked. It wasn't his choice. He just had to accept the role he was dealt with but just because this is his life now doesn’t mean he has to like it. He's free to feel scared and not be okay with everything.

Ruby eyed Oscar weirdly. Even though she knew he was speaking from the heart in defence of Pumpkinhead, she couldn’t help but get the impression that his words felt oddly off. As if there was more to them between the lines.

Ruby: *concernedly* Oscar, is everything...okay? With you?

Now it was Oscar’s turn to eye Ruby strangely.

Oscar: *surprised* Yeah I'm good. Why wouldn't I be?

Ruby: I---

Ruby opens her mouth to continue but instead decides against it; claiming it wasn’t the right time to pry.

Ruby: Nevermind.

Oscar looks over Ruby once more, waiting to see if she might say something else but when she doesn’t, he shrugs casually.

Oscar: I'm...going to go check up on Pumpkin. Did you need me for something?

Just like that, Ruby remembers why she came down to the storage room in the first place. She blushes, a bit embarrassed that she had gotten so distracted before.

Ruby: *awkwardly* Oh right! No, no, I just...came down to let you know dinner's almost ready.

Oscar: *smiles* Ooh good I'm starving actually. Let me just clean up here and I’ll join you up upstairs.

Ruby nods. As Oscar makes a move to tidy up to leave, that’s when Pumpkinhead peep its head out, eyes fixed on Oscar.

Oscar: Hey buddy, I'm going up to eat now. I won’t be gone for long but I need you to be on your best behaviour, okay?

Oscar had meant to sound more assuring but his attempt was met with distressed robotic chatter. At the noise, Oscar’s expressed dropped shamefacedly.

Oscar: …Look, I know you don't like it when I leave but…I’ll just be upstairs. I’ll only be gone for like four minutes. Three if I eat really fast.

The robotic distressed signals only intensified and Oscar slumps, face in hand.

Ruby: What's wrong?

Oscar: *sighing* He's…in one of his clingy moods, tonight. Must've been all the excitement from today. When he's stressed like this he doesn't like me to leave. Doesn't want to be left alone. *groans loudly* Guess I'm missing dinner.

Ruby: No you don't. I'll bring your plate down for you. I'll just let the others know we'll be having dinner in the garage tonight.

Oscar: Wait… we?

Ruby: Yeah. You, Pumpkinhead and me. *smiles brightly* You can keep Pumpkin company so he doesn’t stress out and I can keep you company. But…that's only if you---y’know, want my---

Oscar: No, no it’s cool. I---Pumpkin's not much of a talker anyways and...

Oscar flashes Ruby a smile.

Oscar: I'd like your company.

Ruby: *beaming* Great! I promise I won't overstep again this time. Besides…

Ruby turns her attention on Pumpkinhead who was still peeping out at them.

Ruby: *perkily*We may have had a rough start but don't worry Pumpkin, you and I will be bestest of friends in no time too.

Ruby flashes Pumpkinhead a big toothy smile, hitting him with a big ole Ruby Rose thumbs up only for Pumpkin to jolt and zip his head right back behind his hiding spot.

Oscar: *sweatdrops* Sorry.

Ruby: Playing hard to get I see. Not to worry, I've befriended your type before. You're not getting me to give up that easy.

With a determined huff that earns a chuckle from Oscar, Ruby turns on her heals to head back upstairs.

Oscar: Hey Ruby?

Ruby looks back.

Oscar: Thank you. From me and Pumpkin. *cheeks reddening* Mostly me.

Ruby says nothing. Instead she just smiles brightly, pleased with herself to see her friend smiling at her. With that, she leaves to go grab their food.

And scene.

What do you guys think? Now this squiggle meister has shared quite a bit of Oscar- themed theories and Pinehead headcanons before but I think this one has become one of my personal favourites especially as we’re going into the Atlas Arc.

I already got my wish last season with the introduction of flying monkey Grimm in the series. Now what I’d love to see next is Oscar awakening his inner mechanic and creating Pumpkinhead. And after Pumpkinhead, perhaps even Sawhorse will be integrated into RWBY as well as both characters were signature in Princess Ozma’s side of the story.

Words cannot fathom how much I really, really dig this idea. I really want Pumpkinhead to become a canon character in Oscar’s story now because I think it could be pretty cute for Oscar to have his very own robotic companion who he becomes attached to. Ruby had Penny but unlike Oscar, Penny wasn’t canonically invented by Ruby. Pinocchio wasn’t made by either Little Red Riding Hood or Dorothy Gale.

However Princess Ozma did create Jack Pumpkinhead and eventually Sawhorse.

Who knows? If my Pinehead theory comes true, perhaps Oscar will invent his own Pumpkinhead while in Atlas. Atlas is the most technologically advanced kingdom in Remnant so it is a huge possibility. Plus as I’ll point out again, this fits into the Wizard of Oz. If Oscar becomes an inventor on top of being a great and powerful wizard, I don’t think anyone can really complain because it comes with the source material he was influenced by.

Plus Oscar becoming an inventor could be something worth exploring as part of his individual story outside of his story with Ozpin. The whole Ozma reincarnation cycle and magic and longstanding battle with Salem to protect humanity became part of Oscar’s story via his connection with Ozpin who is essentially the Wizard of Oz.

But Oscar inventing Pumpkinhead is more connected to Princess Ozma who he draws reference from. So therefore, this is an opportunity to develop Oscar as his own character outside of Ozpin. Right now, most of Oscar’s story has primary been focused the part he shares with Ozpin.

That’s fine but… ya’ll know how much I have been advocating for Oscar to get his own fair share of development, right? And I think this is an idea on how RWBY can do that while drawing reference from the fairy-tale character Oscar was based off of. This is something the CRWBY Writers can do with Oscar while in Atlas as a means of fleshing him out. I’m just saying.

But y’know. For now, it’s only just another theory to add to the rest as always.

More Squiggles’ RWBY Content

~LittleMissSquiggles (2019)

#rwby #oscar pine #rwby theories #rwby volume 7 theories #ruby rose #rwby musings #rwby volume 7 #rwby v7 theories #squiggles scripts: rwby

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theethird · 6 years ago

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My Episode By Episode Review of LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS (SPOILERS, OBV)

SONNIE'S EDGE : What's better than Mecha? Flesh-Mecha. Loved the protagonist and the twist was delivered pretty well, although the ending was more abrupt than I would've liked. I'd watch more of this though. 8/10

BEYOND THE AQUILA RIFT : It's like Dead Space had a baby with Aliens. I liked everything about the ships, the interpersonal relations were a bit meh though. The punchline was a little too much for me as a 15 minute short, probably would've worked better as a prequel to a video game.

THREE ROBOTS : This is comedy gold. I could watch these guys tour the wreckage of our failed world for an entire season, maybe two. If you thought Wall-E would've been better as a PG-13 movie or ever wondered what R2-D2 would sound like in Basic, this is your short. 9/10

SUITS : Old Mac Donald had a farm, *plasma rifle sounds* Art style was great, character dynamics was very good for something so short, appreciated the implied interracial couple and the ending only made me love the entire thing more. I need a mini series of this please.

THE WITNESS: Timeloops and Nudity, I mean if you're Rian Johnson or Joss Whedon, you probably love this entire premise, bonus points for the Asian woman lead. Also worthy of note that it's designed very similarly to Into the Spiderverse. Unfortunately for me, looking like an Oscar winner isn't enough. it wasn't what I wanted, and while I loved the moments of sex positivity, there wasn't a story, just a pseudo trippy chase sequence with no substance. 5/10, skip if you can.

GOOD HUNTING : I loved everything about this story and could easily watch an entire series built from it. The interactions made sense, there were very real stakes and also growth. The payoff didn't take me out of my immersion, and despite the racial and sexual violence triggers present, I think it's one of the stronger entries in this anthology. 9/10

THE DUMP : Grumpy Old Men at a landfill. You've seen this before, you didn't need to see it in CGI. Save yourself the trouble. It's not bad, it's just not good. Honestly doesn't belong next to some of these other shorts on a good day. 6/10, probably skip.

SHAPE-SHIFTERS : This one's a personal favourite, as ive roleplayed plenty of scenarios like this one on message boards back in the day. Upfront, if you hate soldier narratives, this isn't your episode and you should skip it. It's set in the Middle East during what very much appears to be the so- called War on Terror. I liked the camaraderie between the "dog- soldiers" and felt like what I was shown of their relationship to the humans around them matched what ive heard about prejudices in the military. I'd give it an 8, mostly because there wasn't enough world building to justify some of the emotions shown in a short window.

FISH NIGHT: Visually stunning, kinda bored me to be honest though. Didn't much care for either character and didn't really feel a need to rewatch it. That's not to say it's a throw away. If you want to watch a painting and a dream sequence put together, this is your moment. As for me, not enough umph. 6/10

WHEN THE YOGURT TOOK OVER: Straight up 7.5 out of 10 and MOSTLY because it's so short. I was laughing my ass off watching this, it's quirky, it's satirical, it's great. Fuck it. 8.5 out of 10 and fight me on it. I'd watch 10 more episodes about the future that sentient Yogurt built.

ZIMA BLUE : Breathtaking. Lovingly put together and so well presented. It's trippy in a good way and I teared up throughout. It's really an art piece for artists and not in a condescending way. It really speaks to the search that creators go through both within themselves and around them for meaning. 10/10, don't need a sequel but would love more content like it.

SUCKER OF SOULS : I mean it's a fun take on Dracula but then again, Castlevania was already a masterpiece, idk if I needed the 2000s animated version of Team Fortress goes to Transylvania. 7/10 but only because I laughed alot. It's skippable.

LUCKY 13 : Give Samira Wiley ALL the awards. Cast her in every sci fi project you can find because she NAILS everything about this short. I love pilot stories and she really captures the love a pilot has for their ship as well as their unit. 10/10, give me more damnit.

THE SECRET WAR : It's a great war meets the supernatural story. Too short honestly but I enjoyed it fully. It's been done before but I'd still recommend it because it's got alot of heart in it. I'd only allow a skip if you just aren't into WW2/ Cold War era stories about Russian soldiers. 7/10

ALTERNATE HISTORIES : Started off fun, went left and stayed left. I'm kinda over the Hitler jokes by now. 6/10.

BLINDSPOT : It's Borderlands meets Fast and Furious but with ROBOTS. I'd play the hell out of a video game about this crew, would watch a season's worth about them, honestly my only gripe with it is that it didn't blow me away like i was led to believe. It's fun, it's not revolutionary, but please give me more. 8/10

ICE AGE : If you've ever wanted to watch a world grow at your fingertips, if you're a fan of Civ and The Sims but don't know what to do when the game finally ends, this is your story. It's the only live action entry but it's worth the watch. Kinda missed watching Topher Grace in things. 9/10

HELPING HAND : It's gravity but with more blood and a fiery red head. Nothing new to see here folks, totally skip if you aren't down to watch someone lose an arm to the vacuum of space. 6/10

#love death and robots #love death + robots #love #death #robots #Netflix #aquila rift #Dracula #sucker of souls #ice age #lucky 13 #shape shifters #space time #animated shorts #the witness #good hunting #three robots #mecha #yogurt

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freakplayspokemon · 7 years ago

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Harvest Moon (or Stardew)-like Pokemon game?

I decided that I’m doing this rather the government takes my open internet away to the point where it’s basically unusable or not since my fiance showed a great interest in what I described to him. Of course, this wouldn’t play like a Harvest Moon game. It would play like a Pokemon game. (The concept would be similar though which is why I’m making the comparison) The idea of a casual dating sim Pokemon game is still fun though. (I already started on the graphics because I’m still going to be making this.)

At this point, I think I want to start development of this game since Accourt Academy’s story is done, and there hasn’t been any bugs reported for a while.

If this post does fairly well (in favorites or people flat out saying “I want this”) I’ll probably just make a separate Tumblr account for this game.

So while I was making Accourt Academy my fiance downloaded Stardew Valley for the PS4 and started playing it like his life depended on it. And then I remember a post on here that I read a while ago asking for a Harvest Moon-like Pokemon game. And then I was up all night thinking about a Pokemon game that’s like Harvest Moon. I seriously couldn’t sleep because my mind was reeling with ideas.

It would be really different from Distrust, Sanguine, and even Accourt Academy, which is suppose to start out as a casual Pokemon school game where you can date people. Start out. This one would be completely casual if you want it to be, and no teenagers murdering each other. (And I don’t think I’m going to have the date-able people have horrid backstories in this.)

Also, I wouldn’t have some collect-a-thon task thing before you can get married. I was always pretty annoyed by those when Harvest Moon started doing them. So instead I’ll just have marriage be a thing you have to work towards emotionally, instead of having it be a tedious chore.

The development would start a bit slow for a few months for... Reasons. =3

The goal here, instead of progressing through a story, is to... Do whatever. You wanna get married? Great! You wanna become a millionaire? Good luck! Wanna become champion? I’ll root for you! Wanna do all of these things and more? 100% possible!

Oh, and one more thing: I have no doubt in my mind that I’ll get tired of making this at most rated T game (if it were to have a rating) so I would probably start making something else on the side, but that’s nothing anybody has to worry about until I’m done with either this or that... If I know what “that” is eventually.

At this point I already got at 100+ hours into Stardew Valley. Any bold - are ideas that I either took from or was inspired by Stardew in one way or another.

Ideas so far:

-Instead of veggies, you would be in charge of a berry farm. (Since that’s already a canon thing that has a code, so I don’t have to make a new one.)

-Eleven bachelor/ettes. Probably 5 girls and 6 guys. (Eleven so nobody is alone in the end.) All bisexual so you it won’t matter what gender you are... Because I hate myself apparently. (It would mean twice the work for me.)

-“Rivals,” as in you can walk into an event between two people... Probably three times before they get married. (It would probably be easy to avoid though.)

-House upgrades

-Town upgrades. Like, if you do so much, or donate enough money, or whatever, abandoned buildings will be filled with.. I dunno, EV training building, TM/HM buying building? Stones? ...Things like that?

-Pokemon that can help you on your land by giving you stuff. (Like Miltank giving you Moo Moo Milk.) And instead of a bike, you would ride a Pokemon maybe. (Taurus)

-Gyms and an Elite 4 that aren’t technically required, but you can’t use certain HMs without the badges. The gyms and Elite 4 are probably going to be run by Accourt/Distrust/Sanguine characters so I can just reuse assets instead of making new ones. (They would probably have slightly different personalities. Think “Accourt Academy AU where shit doesn’t hit the fan.” Maybe I’ll make this the “Not Mega Stone universe.)

(The marriageable characters would be 100% new, though. I already have designs thought up for them.) (Also, it’s possible that I’ll reuse adult characters from Accourt Academy for smaller roles. It would take forever for me to make this if I don’t.)

-Probably two islands to go to. One with nine cities, including the one connected to your berry farm, and one that has a city. Or maybe one big one with a bunch of little towns and then one maybe medium size with just one huge town. Ooor One small island with your farm and the “main” town, and then one big island with the rest of the cities... I’ll decide later.

-Babuus, of course... Maybe up to two? Maybe the possibility of having twins? Who knows? ‘Probably will have them grow into adults, maybe... Possibly... At least kids. Probably teenagers. I’ll try to find a way to name both of them, but it’s possible that you would only be able to name one of them, and the other your spouse will name. (Maybe they’ll give you a choice of three or four names to choose from.) (Of course you can just adopt one, or have one out of surrogate if you choose to marry someone as the same gender as you are.)

-Also other married couples can have babuus too. And will. They’ll probably look pretty similar to each other, at least to start. (Less sprite work for me.)

-Two starters, technically. Like, you would have one Pokemon already (I’m thinking Tauros, so you can have your “bike” Pokemon immediately. Also I wouldn’t have to change the Pokemon since it never evolves) and an “everybody who lives in this town/island has one of these Pokemon” Pokemon.

--What would they be? The BETA Pokemon Gold Starters! I’ve been “revamping” some of the BETA sprites to look more like they belong in gen 3 and/or beyond. (Well, I’ve been doing my best anyway) and I really want to have the “starter” Pokemon the BETA starters. (I dunno if I want to make Chikorita look like the BETA art work since they changed it to how it is now in the demo anyway.)

---Wild revamp BETA Pokemon, just because I can. Though I think I’m going to at least start with only the cut Pokemon, but in the future I may decide to replace the final sprites with revamped BETA sprites, just because.

-Instead of just giving people gifts to make them like you like in Harvest Moon, you have to actually talk to them and say the right things if they ask you a question. Kind of like a typical Newgrounds dating sim game, but without the porn.

---Which means that you would have to have them like you so much before they’ll go on a date with you. (They’ll probably ask you to go on the date so you don’t have to worry about timing it just right before asking them.)

-I think I want to add a cave where you can either find rarer and rarer things the deeper you go, or rarer and more powerful Pokemon the deeper you go. (This will also probably be the place where you can dig for fossils and what-not.) Or both.

-I’ll most likely keep the player silent. In AADS I’m trying to tell a story with characters. In this though it’s supposed to be whatever you choose to do, so I want it to feel more immersive by uh... Not assigning a personality to your character. Of course this means awkward “Oh so you’re \PN and you moved here from blah blah blah” dialogue, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take! (\PN is the placeholder for the character’s name in the game.)

-Portraits... I mean this is a dating sim game after all. You’d probably want to know how the person looks.

-Holidays, of course. It would be too monotonous without them.

---Though I would only have one Valentine’s day instead of two to make it easier on me. In Harvest Moon... And Japan, they have both “White Day” as well as “Valentines Day.” One day is for men to give chocolate to women, and the other is for women to give chocolate to men. Also, this will make it easier for people to get/give gifts to the same gender. If I had both “White” and “Valentines” day, and you were to choose to date a person of the same gender, you would be excluded from one of the two days, rather it’s gift giving or receiving.

-Polygamy, but only up to two spouses. Half of the fun of dating sims I think is finding the person who you want to be with. It wouldn’t be that fun if you could just marry everybody in the same file. Buuuut I had this moment when I thought “damn. I really wish I could marry both Leah and Elliot in the same file without having to get a divorce.” So... That.

--I would want to have you have to get the two to like each other enough for that first, I think. How would depend on the couple. If they don’t like each other, you would have to work harder than if the two do like each other quite a bit.

-28 days in a month. I wondered why that’s the case in Stardew before realizing that it was so the weekdays can just recycle and not have to be in an infinite loop. The “1st″ is always a Monday, and the “28th” is always a Sunday.

“Maybe” section

Technically all of the ideas are “maybe” idea right now. (Besides the main ideas.) These are just more “maybe” than the others.

-I’d like to have character customization, but I think I can only go up to eight different playable characters, so it would have to be very limited.

--I think I would have the player customize their character from inside of their room so they can go back and change their looks if they change their mind. Also because I may want to add some things midway through development. This way you wouldn’t have to destroy your file just to look different. Also this would be one of the last things I put into the game. Or middle, or... Just not one of the first.

-Replaced Potions and other medicine with food at an inflated price. But food that you can make. Like, say Oran Berry juice would be... 2,000 bucks or so, OR you can make some with 20 Oran Berries.

-Gifts. It may become way too tedious or even impossible for me to try to implement gift giving, unless I really limit it. Though I will most likely give you the opportunity to give one of four-or-so gift on a date. And I’ll probably (most likely) make it possible for you to give roses and/or chocolates on Valentines Day.

-Weekdays. The calendar will have months. How many months? I dunno. In Harvest Moon it’s four, one for each season, so probably four. But I can’t actually think of how having week days would be annoying. I could have certain small events on certain days of the week. (Like a traveling sales person.) But I could just as easily make those same events a month thing... I’m not making any sense. (Each month will have thirty days.)

-Maybe a “pet” Pokemon or two? (Meowth, Growlithe, Chatot... One of those.)

-More than two files? Pokemon Insurgence was able to do this so it would be nice if I could in a game like this. I can at least show you how to save save files into a different folder, maybe.

Things I (probably) won’t do.

-Roaming NPCs. I don’t think I can do this for reasons that you kind of need one of the RPG Makers to understand. I can’t have the NPCs walking around like in a Harvest Moon game. (Or Majora’s Mask, or Yandere Sim I guess.) I can, however, have them go to different areas depending on the time of day, so expect people to disappear suddenly during different times of the day. I guess there is a way to program a path finding script in RPG Maker XP, but hell if I can actually figure it out.

-An in-game clock, since the maker (or Essentials) makes the game automatically work on your computer’s clock.

--I WILL make sure that the day “resets” whenever you sleep, meaning that you don’t have to literally wait days for berries, or to talk to somebody. There won’t be a clock but there will be “days” that you can move forward by “sleeping.” It’s kind of confusing, but this way nobody will have to feel obligated to go back home whenever the actual clock strikes a certain time. This game will have like, at least nine different cities, so it would be pretty annoying both ways if you were forced to go back home.

---Closing hours. Because the clock would just be your own clock, it wouldn’t be very fair for night owls to play this only to have the stores closed. The people running the stores will just be generic NPCs. I may have some eligible bachelor/lettes “working” part time though.

-Seasons. It would be really annoying to try to do different seasons, if not impossible. I’ll have to just make this a “tropical, never not summer” island.

--I could possibly have a winter though.

-Divorce. Or if I do, it would be at the end of development as though it’s an afterthought. (It would make for interesting dialogue if you have at least one child.)

-Different farm types. I think I’ll instead just make thee farm have everything on it, or close by it. (Like a pond for fishing, the ocean to the south of it, a forest to the west of it, et cetera.)

#pokemon #pokemon fan game #Pokemon Fan Games #harvest moon #stardew valley #pokemon farming

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ivi-gw2 · 3 years ago

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Bell curve of skill and “medium content” in Guild Wars 2

(long post)

So, I want to talk a bit more about the medium content and importance of it.

First off, let’s say something about two other types of content: easy and hard.

Easy content is something everyone can do. It can vary in difficulty, but overall there is not much skill, time investment, knowledge or even other players needed to successfully enjoy it. And it’s very, very needed - as a slow tutorial of basics for teaching players and for any other player who, out of any reason, wants to play it at the moment - because they are tired, burnt out, waiting, don’t have time, just want to chill a bit, want spend some time taking it easy, want to play the game how they feel at the moment or for any reason can’t play content of other difficulties. In Guild Wars 2 there is a lot of content that would fit this category.

Hard content is opposite of easy - it’s not for everyone, nor something everyone can or will be able to do. For playing it there is a need for a fair amount of skill, knowledge, often a lot of time investment and other people on whose skill your own success depends. Said things make it also really stressful. Unfortunately, because of said things, it's the studio's resource investment into something most players won’t be able to experience - and because of that I think it wasn’t a priority at all for ArenaNet. But its existence is needed in GW2 as much as the easy content: it challenges players, gives them a level of skill to strive for, gives immense satisfaction upon beating it and generates some kind of prestige and respect in the community for the most successful players. And GW2 has a very intricate gameplay that shines the most in that content. In GW2 there is a lack of hard content - but I won’t focus on that now.

I love both easy and hard content. Many days I logged into GW2 just to relax a bit, listen to a podcast while just running around the maps doing nothing. I spent days just going around world boss trains or mindlessly farming. I also think most of the main story has to stay in the “easy” content so it would be accessible for everyone who wants to experience it. Many other days I got up early with a mission in my mind: that today’s is the day I finally manage to kill some boss or to simply do my best and win a lot in wvw.

Now what about medium content? It’s somewhere in-between - easy, but no hand holding, you have to know what you’re doing, you have to concentrate, know how to react in certain situations and pull your own weight. Many times different amounts of player cooperation are needed. Sometimes it is a bit harder and you fail and die a lot and have to try a lot of times, sometimes it’s a bit easier, borderline with easy content - but you still have to do your job and not mash random buttons on the keyboard. Also it can be some kind of content you still don’t know how to do or don’t have skill for but since it is not as punishing as hard content, small amounts of players can be carried by the more experienced. Because of all that it is playable and can be successfully completed by most of the players, but it requires more than just basic knowledge of the game. Many times it is not something you can play completely your own way, but it doesn’t require absolute perfection.

And I think there’s an unhealthy lack of it in Guild Wars 2. I want to be clear: on release there was a lot of medium content. Also when expansions came, with each and with next LS updates, Anet added more medium content. Added medium content - in times when added - was always proportional to community skill and power. But with time, months and years after it was added it became trivial because of the uncontrolled power creep. Medium content wasn’t updated to match new levels of power and skill players had and so it transitioned into “easy” content. And so, today, there is not much of it left. Hollythame said it very well. What’s left are DRMs, strikes, T3 and T4 level fractals, Triple Trouble and now Marionette. I would also put WvW into here because of how many people there are - big zerg players even in hardest fights can be carried. I would also say that newer story missions are kind of in the lower medium content - people have to respect some mechanics and work the skills more.

What’s more of a problem: all of the content requires some level of skill, from 0 to 100. Easy is up to, let’s say 15; hard is from 85 to 100. Last couple of years there was almost no medium content. And most of the players miss the steps needed to bite through from easy to hard content. That would be the purpose of medium content.

I believe in bell curves. A lot of stuff about people is easily displayed by bell curves. They kinda work - we’re all kinda the same, but vary around some golden middle. There are always people left and right of us, but the vast majority is in “the middle”. 2 takes from me:

Guild Wars 2 players, the community - are in a somewhat perfect bell curve by the potential of their skill. That potential is the skill they could develop easily and how quickly they would succeed in a task of certain difficulty.

Guild Wars 2 content - the amount of it, as it is today - when rated by skill needed is definitely not a bell curve. It kind of was when the game was released, but with power creep, advancement of mechanics and gameplay many of it was pushed into “easy” where it is now.

And with that being said, next thing is:

Content added into the game has to be more proportional than it is now to the amount of players with the skill level needed for it. Because then most of the players can engage in a bigger variety of content that will satisfy them. And the vast majority of players are by bell curve - in the middle, so I would assume - most of the content in the game that is “for all kinds of players” should be some kind of “medium difficulty content range”.

(graph above: Guild Wars 2 situation - tumblr lowered the quality... RED - current game content distribution / BLACK - players by skill level potential / CYAN goal game content distribution // x - player skill level potential / content difficulty // y - amount of players / amount of game content)

It’s all about what’s promised and what’s delivered. Hard games like Dark Souls get marketed as such and therefore attract the kind of audience that is willing to invest a lot of time, patience and skill in it. Some more chill games, like The Sims or Animal Crossing get marketed as such and therefore attract an audience that is more concentrated in the “taking it easy” part of the graph. All of said games then deliver on that marketing promise - they have most (or all) of the content in a specific difficulty that corresponds to their players’ “skill potential”. Guild Wars 2 may have made a mistake of attracting a wider range of players. At launch it could sustain that promise, but now has more and more problems.

So there it is, the new forming of medium content in Guild Wars 2 could resolve this issue. Players that can clear a raid will be able to play medium content and it won’t be too braindead for them. Vast majority of players will be able to play it - on start or after trying - and will be pretty happy with the amount of challenge. And it is still not impossible to reach for players that struggle with some levels of easy content, like raids or FotM CMs are.

Important bits about adding more medium content are:

it makes the player learn and improve their skill without much effort

gives the player bigger amounts of satisfaction upon completion because some level of investment was needed

in many cases - it has a need for player organisation and socialisation - which is always the best thing in MMOs.

GGs, smiles and cheering in chat at the end of difficult content is why I play MMO games. Both low-skilled player and anti-social player problems - gone (I wrote about them in one of my previous essays).

What would I suggest is needed? More in upcoming posts!

#gw2 #guild wars 2 #guildwars2 #analysis #graph

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