#because i want to sell people on this game and i wanna help them have the best experience possible

[trident-dragion]

Sometimes I wanna make Over the Nexus posts that aren't deck profiles. Like, the tutorial page includes suggestions for key cards and support cards. It'd be fun to go through those and rate them, as well as providing my own suggestions for cards that aren't mentioned

[insertdisc5]

🎮 HEY I WANNA MAKE A GAME! 🎮

Yeah I getcha. I was once like you. Pure and naive. Great news. I AM STILL PURE AND NAIVE, GAME DEV IS FUN! But where to start?

To start, here are a couple of entry level softwares you can use! source: I just made a game called In Stars and Time and people are asking me how to start making vidy gaems. Now, without further ado:

SOFTWARES AND ENGINES FOR PEOPLE WHO DON'T KNOW HOW TO CODE!!!

Ren'py (and also a link to it if you click here do it): THE visual novel software. Comic artists, look no further ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It has great documentation! It has a bunch of plugins and UI stuff and assets for you to buy! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! (You'll just need to read the doc a bunch) You can also port your game to a BUNCH of consoles! ✨Cons: None really <3 Some games to look at: Doki Doki Literature Club, Bad End Theater, Butterfly Soup

Twine: Great for text-based games! GREAT FOR WRITERS WHO DONT WANNA DRAW!!!!!!!!! (but you can draw if you want) ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It's versatile! It has great documentation! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! (You'll just need to read the doc a bunch) ✨Cons: You can add pictures, but it's a pain. Some games to look at: The Uncle Who Works For Nintendo, Queers In love At The End of The World, Escape Velocity

Bitsy: Little topdown games! ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It's (somewhat) intuitive! It has great documentation! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! You can make everything in it, from text to sprites to code! Those games sure are small! ✨Cons: Those games sure are small. This is to make THE simplest game. Barely any animation for your sprites, can barely fit a line of text in there. But honestly, the restrictions are refreshing! Some games to look at: honestly I haven't played that many bitsy games because i am a fake gamer. The picture above is from Under A Star Called Sun though and that looks so pretty

RPGMaker: To make RPGs! LIKE ME!!!!! NOTE: I recommend getting the latest version if you can, but all have their pros and cons. You can get a better idea by looking at this post. ✨Pros: Literally everything you need to make an RPG. Has a tutorial inside the software itself that will teach you the basics. Pretty simple to understand, even if you have no coding experience! Also I made a post helping you out with RPGMaker right here! ✨Cons: Some stuff can be hard to figure out. Also, the latest version is expensive. Get it on sale! Some games to look at: Yume Nikki, Hylics, In Stars and Time (hehe. I made it)

engine.lol: collage worlds! it is relatively new so I don't know much about it, but it seems fascinating. picture is from Garden! NOTE: There's a bunch of smaller engines to find out there. Just yesterday I found out there's an Idle Game Maker made by the Cookie Clicker creator. Isn't life wonderful?

✨more advice under the cut. this is Long ok✨

ENGINES I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT AND THEY SEEM HARD BUT ALSO GIVE IT A TRY I GUESS!!!! :

Unity and Unreal: I don't know anything about those! That looks hard to learn! But indie devs use them! It seems expensive! Follow your dreams though! Don't ask me how!

GameMaker: Wuh I just don't know anything about it either! I just know it's now free if your game is non-commercial (aka, you're not selling it), and Undertale was made on it! It seems good! You probably need some coding experience though!!!

Godot: Man I know even less about this one. Heard good things though!

BUNCHA RANDOM ADVICE!!!!

-Make something small first! Try making simple: a character is in a room, and exits the room. The character can look around, decide to take an item with them, can leave, and maybe the door is locked and you have to find the key. Figuring out how to code something like that, whether it is as a fully text-based game or as an RPGMaker map, should be a good start to figure out how your software of choice works!

-After that, if you have an idea, try first to make the simplest version of that idea. For my timeloop RPG, my simplest version was two rooms: first room you can walk in, second room with the King, where a cutscene automatically plays and the battle starts, you immediately die, and loop back to the first room, with the text from this point on reflecting this change. I think I also added a loop counter. This helped me figure out the most important thing: Can This Game Be Made? After that, the rest is just fun stuff. So if you want to make a dating sim, try and figure out how to add choices, and how to have affection points go up and down depending on your choices! If you want to make a platformer, figure out how to make your character move and jump and how to create a simple level! If you just want to make a kinetic visual novel with no choices, figure out how to add text, and how to add portraits! You'll be surprised at how powerful you'll feel after having figured even those simple things out.

-If you have a programming problem or just get confused, never underestimate the power of asking Google! You most likely won't be the only person asking this question, and you will learn some useful tips! If you are powerful enough, you can even… Ask people??? On forums??? Not me though.

-Yeah I know you probably want to make Your Big Idea RIGHT NOW but please. Make a smaller prototype first. You need to get that experience. Trust me.

-If you are not a womanthing of many skills like me, you might realize you need help. Maybe you need an artist, or a programmer. So! Game jams on itch.io are a great way to get to work and meet other game devs that have different strengths! Or ask around! Maybe your artist friend secretly always wanted to draw for a game. Ask! Collaborate! Have fun!!!

I hope that was useful! If it was. Maybe. You'd like to buy me a coffee. Or maybe you could check out my comics and games. Or just my new critically acclaimed game In Stars and Time. If you want. Ok bye

[lowkeyrobin]

hi pookie can I get an mcyt with reader that bakes?? Like they'll just come in on stream and give mcyts a fucking platter of baked goods lol

-🎀 anon

oooo yes omg!! thank you 🎀 anon! <3 got the whole gang in here for this one LOL

MCYT ; "in my baker era"

includes ; tommyinnit, ranboo, badlinu, nihachu, quackity, foolish gamers, slimecicle, & cellbit

warnings ; language, mentions of drugs

masterlist

TOMMYINNIT

"Hi y/n- oh, thank you, darling!'

literally has the widest smile on his face

shows off the goods to the stream

"do these have any drugs in them? me n charlie are trying to sell drugs, y/n. we need more stock"

you hear charlie screaming through tommys headphones, "we need the grain, y/n! we need THE GRAIN"

bro is munching away on those cookies holy shit

he feeds chat as well dw

RANBOO

"Hey babe! Oh, thank you!"

does a whole 360 of the plate for chat 💀💀💀💀

"Oh my God, these are so fucking good"

"guys, y/ns in their baking era. can you write an album about that? please become Taylor swift for us"

"BAHHAHAHAH"

literally takes a picture as per usual and posts it to Twitter LMAO

he gets some fans to send you recipes you should try for a serious baking stream LMAO

BADLINU

"Hey love- oh, hi!"

all smiles and shit, he swears you have a sixth sense to know when people are hungry

"guys, y/n made me some bisexuality cake!" He giggles, showing off the tri-colored cake on the plate

he was making a video with harry, tubbo & tommy so everyone had their facecams on

it was like a three tier cake you made and cut out a slice for him

the inside was just the bi flag and the outside was plain white with some fun icing piper testing

he tries it and it's SO MOIST AND SOFT IT IS PERFECT.

there's just 5 raw minutes of him telling you how amazing this fucking cake is LMAO

QUACKITY

"Hey, I'm streaming ba- ohmyfuckinggodthankyou!!"

does a 360 of the plate for the camera

"Holy shit these look so fucking good, thank you so much, y/n"

he's literally just streaming on the qsmp with roeir and fit and he like games and eats the damn cookies at the same time LMFAO

"Dude I feel like I'm high, these are so good, what's in this shit?"

"cocaine"

"WHAT!? DID YOU JUST DRUG ME? GUYS, MY PARTNER DRUGGED ME, HELP"

you're just playing into the bit dw

best red velvet cookies he's ever eaten

CELLBIT

"Hey darling, what's up?"

you hand him the little strawberry shortcake and he just looks at you like 😍😍

turns to his stream and shoves the plate up to the camera all happy like "Oh my God look what they made for me!"

he eats the entirety of it on stream and asks you a bunch of questions

like how you made it, where you found the recipe, etc

he shares it with you too 💔🫶

NIHACHU

"Hi honey! Ooo, what's this called?"

"Chocolate mousse. it's a little thick because it's my first time making it but let me know if it's good"

she holds that little glass like it's her child

she tries it with a tiny spoon you gave her and she's like "oh my God this is amazing, y/n/n"

shows it off to the friends she's streaming with too

"send them more recipes guys, I wanna be spoiled with sweets!"

"thank you nikis viewers!! love you all"

FOOLISH GAMERS

when I tell you this man's face LIGHTS UP.

"you made me fudge? oh my God! I love you"

literally spends the next 15 minutes talking to you and gobbling the fudge down

"since when do you make fudge??"

"since I wanted to try" you shrug

"you should totally make some more... when you're not busy and if you want to!"

"Thank you y/n! everyone say thank you!"

SLIMECICLE

"Oh, hi y/n! thank you so much"

does a 360 for stream

"when did you find time to make this? I thought you were at work????"

"special treat" you shrug

you watch him run across the qsmp and go to ems bakery to sit inside and eat it 😭

he keeps you on stream for a while cause chat loves you n stuff 🫶🫶

[woodlandscab1n]

Guys... guys lets go back in time. Guys guys guys please.e..

I can't wait 'till I can get all the other RE games that I haven't played, get hyperfixiated on the whole franchise and literally never stop talking about dumb small details that I saw in a game and talk about that small detail a lot also go on a rampage of finding all the info I can of certain character.

[thankssteveditko]

Sony's PlayStation 5 Presents Insomniac's Marvel's Spider-Man 2 (the third game in the series)

I beat the main story and have enjoyed my time with the game overall! I want to talk about spoilers and things that I liked and disliked in the story, so here's a post with some scattered thoughts.

(Hello! I haven't forgotten that this blog exists! Like I said, no update schedule, I will read more of the Lee/Ditko comics whenever I make time for it. I've actually been sitting on a mostly-complete version of this post since I beat the game in October, thinking that I'd finish the rest of the side quests so I could throw in thoughts on those. But... eh, I'll do that whenever the inevitable DLC rolls around. I just wanna get these thoughts posted.)

Spider-Cop No More

First off: they downplayed the cop shit!!! This was the first thing that really struck me about the game, and I'm stunned that they actually listened to criticism on this. I thought we'd just be stuck with it forever.

It'll never be completely gone, of course. Spider-Man is always going to leave criminals webbed up for the police to take to prison, hoping that they'll do their time and come out the other side as Productive Members of Society. That's just a thing I begrudgingly accept as part of the genre that will probably never go away. But Spider-Man is no longer repairing police surveillance networks. You're no longer beating the shit out of random drug dealers. Gangs of escaped convicts still wearing their orange jumpsuits are no longer terrorizing the streets of New York.

Instead, Peter and Miles are played more as firefighters. Sometimes very literally! They work with firefighters, they rescue people from collapsing buildings, they rush injured people to the hospital. In general there's a huge increase in the number of random onlookers present during the big action setpieces, and the Spider-Men frequently have to save them from harm. One of the major side quest lines is even literally about a cult of arsonists, and you'll routinely find burning fuel tanker trucks you have to extinguish with your webs. It's great! Love this for them.

I also generally liked the side missions in this. There's a lot of good stuff with the Spider-Men being neighborhood heroes willing to help out anyone in need, no matter the problem. Some of them can get corny, sure, but that street level stuff has always been the real heart of Spider-Man to me.

Gameplay

The gameplay's as fun as ever. That probably goes without saying. I will not be spending a thousand words explaining that swinging is fun.

In particular, I really liked the changes to the Focus mechanic. I never loved the way Miles' game made you choose between healing and doing your special attacks, but here your four specials have their own cooldowns, and the Focus meter is spent on either healing or finishers. It still offers that risk/reward element, but those vicious cycles where you can't do any real damage because you keep needing to heal aren't nearly as bad as they were before.

Personally I didn't turn off the swing assist or turn on fall damage, because the streamlined swinging never bothered me in these games, but I'm glad the options are there for people who want them.

Kraven

I liked Kraven in this! I liked the way they leaned into his Hunters being this weird death cult, and him wanting to go down in a blaze of glory against a worthy foe, to the point that he's actually disappointed anytime a foe can't kill him. It riffs on things people liked in Kraven's Last Hunt without being the exact same story. I like that Kraven's gang is renting out this manor or whatever and just being a complete terror to the wait staff. I liked the way Kraven hunting Peter's rogues' gallery clashed with Peter's belief in giving his villains second chances. I liked that they were willing to have Kraven kill off a couple of the minor villains from the first game to sell how dangerous he is. (I know some people hated this, but like, come on. We already fought the Sinister Six. They don't need to do that again.) I like the way Kraven pushed Peter to the absolute brink, turning him more and more aggressive with the Black Suit. Good stuff all around, even if the Hunter enemy types did wear out their welcome a little bit by the end.

The Black Suit arc

I think I liked the way Insomniac handled Peter's Black Suit arc overall, but there's a tradeoff here.

They REALLY lean into the body horror tentacle stuff, with Black Suit Peter basically just being a skinny Venom by the end. The sequence where you play as Mary Jane while the symbiote puppets an unconscious Peter's body around and goes on a rampage against the Hunters was REALLY great at selling how scary Peter is becoming, and it made me completely change my tune on the inclusion of the MJ stealth missions in the sequel. Having to beat an out-of-control Peter as Miles immediately after Peter beats Kraven was also really good. This is all cool!

BUT, the thing is... with the symbiote powers being so freaky from the start, it really pushes my suspension of disbelief when Peter and co. take so long to become wary of it. I guess when you've been bitten by a radioactive spider and given superpowers, and when you live in the same universe as the Avengers and the X-Men, your perception of what's "normal" is going to be pretty warped. But they buy the whole "organic exosuit created to treat Harry's illness" story WAY too easily lmao. How do the self-aware slime tentacles help with his illness, exactly?

And I'm not sure how I feel about giving Peter Anti-Venom powers in the last act. It feels like it's primarily a concession so that they can give players that branch of their skill tree back, but honestly, the designer in me thinks it would be really cool (if risky) to just permanently lock players out of Peter's most powerful skills past a certain point. Yeah, it'd definitely piss people off, but it drives home the idea that Peter's given up greater power because it's the right thing to do. It'd put you in his shoes! Instead he just gets the symbiote powers back, but it's fine because the Venom voice in his head is gone and also the slime tendrils that explode out of his body are white now, which means they're good.

I have to say it. I'm sorry. The glistening white goo... they turned Peter into the Amazing Cum-Man. I changed back to the Classic Suit after rolling the credits and forgot I still had the Anti-Venom skills equipped, so I just saw regular old Spider-Man exploding his white goo everywhere. Terrible.

Assuming Peter is just stepping into more of a supporting role to Miles and not fully retiring after the events of this game, I really hope the Anti-Venom stuff is gone. I get that he needed it to counter Venom, but that's not what I want for Peter Parker.

Miles

Miles is good in this, and I really like his arc where he struggles with whether or not he should avenge his dad by killing Martin Li. I like how all that plays out. Unfortunately, they don't quite stick the landing when it comes to making him and Peter feel like equals in terms of narrative focus. His arc is definitely the B-plot to Peter's for the middle chunk of the story, which I guess was kind of inevitable since they decided to do the Black Suit arc. But Miles does at least get a lot of moments to shine, and by the end he's very much taking the lead as the main Spider-Man.

Becoming the main Spider-Man also gets Miles a new, wholly original suit that ended up being super controversial, and honestly... I kinda like it? Or at least I like what it's going for, even if the actual design could still use some work. It's something totally unique for Miles, and I like spandex/streetwear combo suits like what the Spider-Verse movies have popularized. But showing his hair is really pushing the limits of his secret identity. He hangs around Brooklyn Visions WAY too much for his classmates to not recognize his voice and haircut. And I understand why people would be wary about it becoming his "canon" look moving forward. But I think it's got potential.

On the subject of Miles, though, I will say that while I liked Miles' side missions, it feels like he's often saddled with the game's broad, kinda touristy, kinda token attempts at Showcasing The Diversity Of New York, in a way that Peter isn't.

I like that Miles has a deaf graffiti artist girlfriend that he and Ganke sign with, and I like that there's a series of side missions that explore some local jazz history, and I like that there's a mission where Miles helps a gay classmate ask his crush to prom. I like all these things! I like Spider-Man being involved with his community, and that said community includes such a wide variety of people! I like that this game slows down to savor these types of moments instead of just being all action all the time! But when I step back, I notice some patterns.

Hailey doesn't have a big role in the main plot, especially when compared to MJ, but Miles gets a side mission where you briefly play as her with muffled audio to teach you what being deaf is like. There are no major queer characters in the story - unless you count Felicia showing up for exactly one mission to mention she has an unseen, unnamed girlfriend in Paris now - but you get a side mission where Miles helps out a gay couple at his school, who then never come up again. To put it very uncharitably, they can feel like Very Special Episode missions. It's like the devs going: we're going to give Miles a Gay Mission, and an Impaired Hearing Mission, and a Cultural History Mission, so that we can say we touched on these things, but we're gonna make them all optional and keep them far away from the full-blown Superhero Stuff like fighting costumed villains. Those flavors cannot mix. Meanwhile, Peter gets to have a whole elaborate subplot about teaming up with Wraith to track down fucking Cletus Kasady. There's an imbalance here, and I think it's part of the reason why Peter still feels like the "main" Spider-Man for so much of the story.

I think this was all written with admirable intentions, but as others have pointed out, you can kinda tell that this game was mainly written by some white guys based in California. These attempts at depicting various marginalized groups can feel kind of detached in the same way that Insomniac's map of New York doesn't quite line up with the real thing. But I dunno. I'm not really the one to dig deep into some of this stuff as a white woman from Florida. I would be curious to read others' takes on this.

Maybe I'm just being overly cynical about the writers' well-meaning but corny and kinda out of touch liberal politics because of the podcasts.

The podcasters

I wish Jameson was in this more! They psyched us out by giving him a full character model for, like, two scenes. I like him being MJ's boss, but I wish we saw inside the Daily Bugle offices to get more Jameson.

At least his podcasts are better than the ones in the Miles game, though. Him completely trusting in Roxxon was just too much for me. Here he condemns Oscorp for the symbiote shit, and he also gets some moments where he takes the ongoing crises seriously and isn't just ranting about the Spider-Men. He isn't just a conspiracy theorist crackpot here. Shit like his "fuck Spider-Man, we have a justice system for a reason" speech makes him feel more like a human being with a point of view, rather than just a caricature. Definitely an improvement.

Unfortunately, I still find The Danikast grating. I'm sorry, Ashly Burch. It's not your fault. The quirky heckin' wholesome millennial podcaster lady who catches you up on current events and then reminds you to drink 64 ounces of water a day in the same breath is just too much for me. At least she doesn't have any lines as bad as her throwing in a "damn" and then going (direct quote here) "That's right - no censoring! That's how REAL I'm being right now!" like in Miles' game. Instead they give her this, like, almost psychic insight into the main plot to try and make her the angel on Peter's shoulder. The second Peter gets the symbiote she's like "Wow, y'all. Have you seen Spider-Man's new black suit? Something's different about him. He's been giving me such bad vibes lately. #NotMySpiderMan" Also she's supposed to be this, like, underdog independent podcaster who started her show on a whim and has become the voice of the people... but she's got billboards plastered all over the fucking city. Which makes her feel like an industry plant lmao

Again, there's a detachment with the writing. This is, like, some middle aged white liberal game dev guys' idea of what a modern leftist teenager would think is a Cool Activism Podcast. Unfortunately, because Insomniac thinks Danika's a hero, Mary Jane's triumphant ending is that she quits her job at the Bugle to become a podcaster, too, delivering a thinly veiled monologue about the pandemic to kick off her new podcast literally titled "The New Normal." She's going to save the world with podcasting, because that's the highest form of activism, I guess.

Venom

So! Venom! Venom was... okay.

Surprising no one, Harry Osborn is Venom. Harry's okay both as himself and as Venom, but I'm not sure his arc is a smooth one. He starts out as Peter's comically perfect best friend who returns to reminisce about the good ol' days and hand him his dream job on a silver platter, and then later he becomes a little ball of rage over the fact that Peter gets his symbiote and can't/won't give it back. I'm not sure that pivot is handled the most convincingly. You kind of have to write it off as the symbiote messing with their heads, I guess.

When he actually becomes Venom, I'm... mixed on the execution. On the one hand, the cool factor is absolutely there. He's a very cool big monster, and Tony Todd is great in the role. But he also wants to take over the world and make everyone a symbiote, and aside from any lingering resentment towards Peter, that's really all there is to him. It makes for a good video game to have a bunch of symbiote enemies and creepy symbiote nests and symbiote tentacles climbing up the sides of buildings in the last act... but is that really what I want out of Venom? Probably not. But he sure does look cool as a big monster guy to fight, and I was happy he was briefly playable.

Suits

Part of me feels like there's something lacking about the suit selection here, but almost every suit I liked in the previous games is back, and also I'm the type of person to give Peter the Classic Suit the second I unlock it and use that for most of the game. So does it really matter for me?

Peter's selection feels dominated by the various live action movie suits, but I get that those are going to be some of the suits people want to wear the most. I wish he had the Peter B. Parker skin to go with Miles' Spider-Verse alts, though. No idea why it's missing. Really I think I mainly just want more of the Spider-Verse designs.

Also I've complained about how most of the original suits designed for these games make Peter and Miles look like they were bitten by radioactive Alienware products, but I can just, you know. Wear other suits.

Misc thoughts

Everyone's already made this joke, but it's extremely funny that the Avengers didn't help with the symbiote invasion. Took one look at that and decided it wasn't their problem

On the subject of other superheroes, I do wish these games would acknowledge the Fantastic Four more. Peter's close relationship with that team feels woefully underutilized in his various adaptations

I like the trope of a boss fight that's a heightened version of a personal conflict between two people who are close, where throughout the fight the boss is airing out their grievances while the hero tries to get through to them emotionally. That especially works for Spider-Man! But WOW has Insomniac played that card a lot of times by the end of Spider-Man 2 lol

They're teasing the addition of Silk, I guess? I'm gonna be honest, I don't know shit about Silk, but I guess it was inevitable that they'd give us some form of Spider-Woman at some point. Gotta work all those costumes in somehow, and they're not brave enough to let one of the boys cosplay as Spider-Gwen.

They WERE, however, brave enough to let Harry say he loves Peter. I liked that little moment. They presumably meant it platonically, but clearly ol' Yaoi Lowenthal knows what's up

Post-leak addendum

So, obviously, by the time I got around to finishing this post the big Insomniac leak happened. I wish the game industry wasn't so secretive that it took a massive, dangerous data breach just to get our hands on some very basic info that would be public knowledge if Insomniac was a film studio, but here we are.

We now know that Insomniac spent somewhere around $315 million making Spider-Man 2 - triple what the first Spider-Man game cost to make. A quote about this from a leaked presentation has been stuck in my head ever since I first saw it on Twitter. “Is 3x the investment in [Spider-Man 2] evident to anyone who plays the game?”

To be honest, I'm not sure it is.

I liked Spider-Man 2, but I'd probably say that overall I liked it about as much as the first game. It's certainly a somewhat bigger game, with marginally more realistic looking graphics thanks to the power of the PS5. But I think I could do without ray tracing and more realistic hair rendering and whatnot if it meant that these games didn't take like five years and hundreds of millions of dollars to make. I could not give less of a shit if the swinging animations were recycled between games. I'd be fine with them being shorter, too.

I like these games, but as we look at that leaked project lineup and realize that Insomniac is turning into The Marvel Game Studio, I think about how many smaller, more original games that those resources could go towards if they scaled back the Marvel stuff just a bit. How many Ape Escapes or Patapons or Gravity Rushes could get made for the budget of just one of these massive AAA tentpole games of Sony's, which are apparently barely even breaking even? How many could be made for the budget of the "smaller, cheaper" Miles Morales game, which somehow cost $156 million to make despite using an updated version of the same Manhattan map from the first game? Hell, how many smaller games could have been made with the $39 million that went into remastering the first Spider-Man game for PS5 a mere two years after launch? How many people will lose their jobs if any one of Insomniac's upcoming Marvel games underperforms - which, in this case, could mean selling "only" 5 million copies? And would hardcore PlayStation fans even accept those smaller games at this point, now that they've been trained to only appreciate mega-budget Prestige Games with cutting edge graphics and treat everything else with disdain? How much worse will this get as the graphical arms race continues?

I think I just miss Japan Studio. Fuck Sony. Uhh but anyway the Spider-Man game this post was supposed to be about was good, some writing complaints aside. 8/10

[srhunt]

Resident Evil 4: Who is the Merchant?

One of my favorite characters in Resident Evil 4 is the Merchant. From his shady design to him asking “what’re ya buyin?”, he’s just a fun and interesting character. He’s not very fleshed out, we hardly know anything about him. But seeing that blue/purple flame is always a comfort knowing that the Merchant will offer me a safe space to catch my breath.

As with any character shrouded in mystery, lots of people like to theorize about who the Merchant is. Some of these theories are better than others, so I wanna do a quick speed run of a few I’ve heard and then offer my own.

He’s Luis’ Grandfather: Probably the most outlandish one I’ve heard. No matter which version of RE4 you look at, both state that Luis’ grandfather is dead. Unless y’all are suggesting that he’s the ghost of Luis’ grandfather which would explain how he moves so quickly from spot to spot.

He’s a Ganado: This one I sort of believe a bit more than the first one. Evidence that he might be a Ganado is that at different points of OG RE4, his eyes randomly start glowing red. It’s really creepy if you don’t expect it. At night, the Ganados eyes also glow red. But I feel like the remake disproves this idea with the use of the blue flames. The blue flames have the power to freeze plaga, as seen with the Armadura (the Knights). The Merchant has always had a blue flame near him. The remake changes his main flames to purple, but he still has a blue flame lantern on his table. I feel like he uses that as protection from las Plagas.

Now onto my own theory;

The Merchant is a rebel against Los Illuminados.

Not in the sense that he’s gonna sneak in to kill Saddler himself, but in the sense that he only deals weapons to people who are also against the Illuminados.

The Merchant, though very knowledgeable on weapons, is not much of a fighter. If you bring any enemies near him, he will throw his hands up in a defensive position and won’t talk to you until they’re gone. Why doesn’t he pull out one of his various guns to help Leon? Because that’s not how he rolls. He’s more like the Q to Leon’s Bond.

The remake doesn’t offer a ton of new info on the Merchant, but it does give us some insight on how he feels about the Illuminados through his requests.

In his request fliers, he describes Los Illuminados as “religious lunatics”, an “evil” and “blasted cult”. He calls the blue medallions “wretched things” and wants them gone. He deems anyone who joins the cult as “traitors”.

More evidence that he’s against the Illuminados comes from something he says right before you fight the final boss.

“I can hardly contain myself! You're really gonna do it, stranger!”

He’s giddy over the fact you’re about to go kill Saddler and destroy the cult once and for all.

Even going back to the original, his shooting gallery featured Ganados as targets. It’s not that strong of evidence, but it’s worth noting.

He specifically has a hatred for Ramón, the one who single handedly ruined the efforts of generations of Salazars to keep las Plagas sealed underground. In his request called “The Disgrace of the Salazar Family”, he calls Ramón “detestable” and wants the portrait of him in the throne room defaced. You can’t damage this portrait with any weapons, so you chuck an egg at it. It’s a very small act of petty revenge, but it’s one that hits Ramón where it hurts. Ramón has a very fragile ego, getting violent towards anyone who mocks him. So someone coming in and smashing an egg onto his portrait is bound to make him furious. This hatred is even present in the original game as the Merchant has a target of Ramón in his shooting gallery, and you get the most points for destroying it.

Some people say that the Merchant is only looking out for himself and will sell to anyone, hinting that he might’ve sold the Illuminados RPGs and other weapons towards the end of the game. But I think it’s safe to say that based on how he talks about them in his requests that he would not do business with anyone associated with the Illuminados. (It’s probably why we never see him do business with Luis. Even though he no longer works for the Illuminados, he did at one point and the Merchant can’t trust him.)

In fact, I believe that they didn’t get the weapons from him, but that he got the weapons from them. What better way to fight the Illuminados than to steal their weapons and sell them to people willing to use those weapons against them?

“Why doesn’t he just give you the weapons for free then?” He’s still a merchant. Man’s gotta make a living. When 99% of the folks around you work for the enemy, it doesn’t leave a ton of people to do business with. Leon and Ada are probably the only sane customers he’s seen in a long time.

Another thing we can pick up on is that the Merchant might not be working alone. A few of his lines include the words, “we” and “our”.

"We've been saving that one for the right customer!"

"We're starting to get an idea of your tastes, friend."

“You've exhausted our normal range of services for this weapon.”

I don’t believe he’s using it in the royal way, because he uses those words sparingly. He still uses “I” and “me” when talking about himself. So it’s possible that he does have other people working with him. Maybe they’re the ones who take the weapons from the Illuminados. If the Merchant isn’t much of a fighter, he’d be the wrong person to send into the lion’s den to steal weapons. What if he got caught? So it’s possible that he has a network of spies who confiscate weapons from the Illuminados and bring them back to the Merchant to sell to other rebels.

In the Grave Robber request, the Merchant calls the twins “traitors” for joining the cult. Is it possible that these twins were once part of the Merchant’s network of rebels but then either got caught and infected with the plaga or converted of their own free will?

Another piece of evidence that the Merchant isn’t working alone comes from Resident Evil Village. The Duke, the merchant of that game, quotes the RE4 Merchant;

“What're ya buyin?—Haha, just something an old friend of mine used to say."

An “old friend”, he says. Could it be that the Duke and the Merchant worked together to undermine the Illuminados, eventually parting ways after Saddler’s defeat?

So the TL;DR is that I believe the Merchant is a part of a resistance against Los Illuminados. He has a burning hatred for the cult and anyone associated with it. He is not much of a fighter, so he does what he’s best at; BUSINESS!! He gets his wares from allies who steal from the Illuminados’ supply, which is how he met the Duke. Once he has the merchandise, he sells them to people who are also against the Illuminados. He even sets up a free shooting gallery so that his customers can practice their aim. What good is it to sell guns to folks with terrible aim, right? After Saddler’s defeat, the resistance disbanded, and the Merchant returns home.

But hey, that’s just a theory. 😉

[voltronisanobsession]

Ok I know I’ve been gone for over a month BUT HEAR ME OUT GUYS‼️

I’ve been going through this phrase where I’m reading a lot of yandere content rn (I gobble that shit UP), and idk the toxicity of it all is giving me a lot of inspo lowkey💀

Like imagine a manipulative reader. HEAR ME OUUUTT

No one knows it but reader is a secret spy at camp half blood (love this trope) and grows super close to Percy. Like they grow close really quickly, you show him your deepest secrets and whatnot to gain his trust and he doesn’t even know it.

Percy shares his own secrets and experiences with you because he feels so connected to you!! It’s on a whole different level and he can’t help but slowly fall for you. And you know this. As much as it hurts you (or doesn’t) to gain the trust of this boy who’s obviously fallen for you, you know you gotta do your job.

You begin to know him on such a deep level and you use it to your advantage. You sway and manipulate any choices he has to make.

Im still on the first few chapters of heroes of Olympus so I still don’t know the plot to it sorry💀 so let’s just say reader is manipulating Percy for their own personal gain, or like planning to sell any information they gain from him to monsters, who knows.

Percy has no clue what’s so ever, but Annabeth can sense something’s off with you. The way you cling to Percy, almost like a leech, as her suspicious.

And when she confronts you, tears. Tears EVERYWHERE. And Percy falls for them. He falls for your crocodile tears because it physically HURTS him to see you crying.

He would console you, quickly muttering sweet nothings as he rubs your arms in order to ‘calm’ you down, hugging you, not knowing the dark look in your eyes as you stare down Annabeth.

Lowkey you would start pitting him against everyone around camp. Lying to him by saying how there’s nasty rumors going around about you made by some of the campers. You’re basically the devil on his shoulder, whispering into his ears exaggerated lies and deception.

And Percy believes everything you say! Why? Because he’s too down bad. This dude practically worships the ground you walk on, so when you slowly start influencing the decisions he makes, he doesn’t question it.

He believes that youre only trying to help him😭 that you only want what’s best for him so he blindly trusts your judgement.

He trusts you sm that he tells you everything you ask about. And if it’s after he went into the Styx river, he’ll even tell you where his weakness. his WEAKNESS

Like bro. You even start to realize that you’ve dragged yourself too deep into what you thought was a game. People and monsters would kill to have this information, you could get killed if anyone found out you knew.

You start feeling guilty for taking advantage of Percy. I mean, he willingly told you the one thing that can kill him, it’s such a big weight on your shoulders now that you can’t help the shame from creeping on you.

Idk, this reader seems like the type to run from their problems, so they most likely do. Over the course of a night, you disappear, cutting all contact with Percy, the camp, everything. You would leave nothing but a short and curt note to him and maybe even Annabeth.

‘Percy, I’m so sorry for lying to you. You didn’t see it but Annabeth did. I’m sorry. -y/n’

And that’s it. Percy would be so hurt and confused, betrayed when he finds out everything. He wants to believe that it’s some sick joke but this is his reality.

He gave you all of him and you just threw it on the ground and crushed it beneath your feet. You quite literally ripped this poor dudes heart straight of his chest with zero remorse, how could you do that to him bro?💀💀💀

He definitely holds some kind of grudge against you. If y’all ever cross paths again, MAJOORR yikes.😬😬 after you leave, Percy grows way more guarded and defensive when meeting new people.

Homeboy does not wanna be taken advantage of again after you💀

[psychhound]

psychhound games 2 year anniversary

wow ... i cant believe its already been two years since i started publishing games on itch but so much has happened in that time. i got promoted at my job, quit that job, started a master's program, became a teacher, decided to continue on to a phd, got published (twice), found meds that helped, made a lot of new friends, learned to cook, played in a good number of campaigns and short shots, and somehow, through all of that, i managed to publish (checks notes) 24 games, 2 zines, and an srd

in that time ive gotten over 20k views and almost 5000 downloads, as well as shout outs in video essays and podcasts. i've run two successful kickstarters and one that made it a far way but ended up teaching me more from its failure than i wouldve hoped

my goal when i started making ttrpgs was just to get a little bit of practice before i made my Big Dream Game. get my feet wet a little to learn the ropes and then design what i had actually set out to do in the first place - make a game designed specifically for therapeutic practice. and then i realized that i actually just really enjoy making games and kept making more and more and more of them until ... here we are

the first ttrpg i ever made literally came to me in a dream. my little sister was working for his college paper at the time and i dreamt that when he came to visit we played a silly comedy interviewing game i had made for her. so i woke up and made it. and then she visited and we played and it was a lot of fun!! and i was like. oh wait i can make games to make very specific people happy ... baller. so i kept doing that. made a game for my best friend where they could play as their cat and cause mischief and playing it for their birthday is such a cherished memory. my by far best selling game was made for a dear friend who's a photographer and lives in a big city and i wanted to blend city exploration, photography, and his love of a well-designed tarot deck into something fun he could do when he got out of the house. my most recent game was made because i wanted a tiny game i could print and send with my friends' holiday cards, and i know how much we all love writing and making crazy blorbo playlists so i made a playlist-driven writing game

over these two years its just become more and more obvious to me that my creativity that was once fueled so wholly by grief and trying to process it has now flipped around to being powered by joy and just overwhelming love. so many people in my life now who i love so wholeheartedly i found or got close to through playing ttrpgs, or being in the ttrpg community, and channeling that energy and that joy into making more of them to put out into the world has made my life so much better a million times over. i dont know where the future will take me but i hope to have such a long career of this - making through joy, engaging through play, growing through community - and i cant thank everyone whos supported me in getting here enough. im feeling very touched and very overwhelmed but just know that if youve ever bought one of my games, posted about playing it, left a nice review, or recommended it to a friend, you have my whole heart and i hope you have such a sweet new year

if you wanna check out my games you can find them on psychhound on itch or check out my portfolio and such on my website :) thanks everyone. happy new year

[sequencefairy]

the bad takes i have seen today! like never mind the like, fully racist garbage, but like, just the idea that for some reason the fandom? is owed? this content? for free?

that watcher should what? just fuckin' go under and leave 30+ people unemployed because your sorry ass who probably only watches Ghost Files and hasn't ever given them one fucking red cent because you've bitched about the cost of tickets to the tours and the cost of merch and the cost of shipping and everything fucking else under the sun is mad that now you will have to cough up six whole american dollars to get access to every single Watcher video at any time?

(also i am going to continue to repeat this ad nauseum, but like, i dunno man, make a fucking friend and share an account. if six bucks is too much, then three is probably more manageable, or even less, if you share it with more people. this is not hard.)

so you wanna watch Ghost Files? you subscribe during the month(s) that GF is coming out, watch what you want, catch up on stuff you missed, and then you fuckin' dip. no one at watcher is forcing you to sign up for an annual subscription.

so you think buying merch supports them more? firstly, merch costs money to make. then it costs money to fulfill. then it costs money to host a site from which your fans can purchase it. this is not even considering paying the artist who designed the merch in the first place. all of those costs? money not going into watcher's pocket, keeping them from being able to afford to make more fuckin' videos.

so you think the patreon would solve this? the patreon doesn't keep the lights on. it never did. it was a stopgap and a way to create a bit of community that would help drive the adoption of the new channel. patreon skims a percentage off the top of what they on every month, as well. same as youtube. same as anything else.

you lot talk a big game about how mad you are about watcher selling out and being previously anti-capitalist but like, seizing the means of video production for themselves is actually like, vigorously saying fuck you to the system they have been forced to work within. they are going to make the content they want to make, and they will no longer have to whittle it down to being fucking palatable for whatever youtube advertiser or fucking nonsense product agrees to sponsor the video.

[joykai]

Maxley Fanfic idea

Okay so people are actually interested in my ideas it seems lol so I'm gonna write it here for any writers who wanna use it as a plot <3 (plz credit me if you write this and if you have any questions about the plot DM me <3)

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Okay so It's a Spy/Agent x Assasin story

Bradley comes from a line of assassins and Max became a spy because he worked his ass off after his mom was killed in a gang altercation (she was just around the area and got caught in the crossfire). Max wanted to become a cop or something in law enforcement to help people so this wouldn't happen to anyone else and to bring the fuckers who killed his mom down. He ended up getting noticed by the ICA (Yes from the game Hitman) and got recruited.

Bradley's dad is a leader of a network of assassins but works as a CEO for some big company that sells security (that's how he breaks into stuff because basically everyone buys from him and he can disable stuff). Max get's put on the uppercrust case and he finds this one personal because he is investigating if they have any ties to the gang that killed his mom.

Important to note that Max's has a strict no killing rule, he doesn't want to be as bad as the guys he takes down. His job is to take the guys and bring them back to the ICA to get punished accordingly.

He decides that his best bet is to tail the son of Mr Uppercrust himself...Bradley. He goes undercover as an intern for Mr Uppercrust and becomes very close to Bradley. He is certain that Bradley has nothing to do with it so now he's in a situation that he is an Agent to sent to take down the father of the guy he's friends with (the guy he loves). He hides his identity from Bradley and Bradley hides his from Max. Max ends up on another case unrelated meanwhile to raid a gang hide out and he gets cornered and is in a bit of a pickle when one of the guys falls down clutching his neck. Something moves in the shadows and suddenly a figure comes out and takes down the men. It's bradley, Bradley explains everything to Max and they have a "I have to take you in" moment. Bradley explains how he can't let that happen and how he was forced into this role, how he never wanted this life for himself and just wanted to be normal. Max opens up about how his mother died and how the ICA believe that Bradley's dad is working with the gang and he has to take down everyone. Bradley has a moment of clarity and promises to help Max take down his father by being an inside man.

Bradley turns himself in and is working for the ICA (If he helps take down the gang he gets full immunity and a possible spot on the team but if he betrays them he gets either a bullet in the head or a longer sentence than everyone else involved).

Eventually Bradley's dad catches wiff of what's going on (Someone from the ICA was actually working for the uppercrust family to add some angst make it someone Max trusted or somone that bradley had a bad feeling about since day one but couldn't put his finger on it). Mr Uppercrust kidnaps Max and Bradley and as punishment forces Max to watch as he beats the ever loving shit out of Bradley and throws him off a cliff before knocking Max out and Leaving him there.

Max is found by some ICA members and turns out they imprisoned the traitor and kept him in a safe house for interrogation but he's not talking yet. Max get's taken off the case and sent back home to his apartment.

He ends up going rogue and vows to kill every member of the gang including Bradley's dad. He goes to the safe house and tortures the traitor for info before leaving him dead on the floor.

He is now wanted for manslaughter and has to hide out at his dad's place (He doesn't have the best relationship with his dad because his dad remarried too quick for his liking and it seems like he was already trying to replace his mom, he knows it's unrational but he can't let it go). ICA workers come to Goofies door and ask him about Max but Goofy being the good dad he is lies through his teeth to protect his son and Max hears all this from the top of the stairs and breaks down into his step moms arms about everything and how he wishes Bradley was here and how he could say sorry to his dad. Goofy ends up coming in and they have a bittersweet moment and hug.

Max's next stop is the gang hide out and he's been training so he's bulked up significantly and he's gotten better with his pistol and shit. He takes down a few guys but once again is outnumbered and cornered. One more time a figure in the shadows takes down a few guys before a figure steps out and fights hands on, It's Bradley (Turns out when his dad threw him off he landed on a ledge a little further down and once he woke up he dragged his barely working body to a friend of his who nursed his wounds, he saw on TV that Max was wanted and he tracked him down.

They fight together and re unite. They go back to Goofies and you know how that goes, he is gushing and taking about how happy he is and Max is embarrassed. They make a plan and decide to attack right at the source, they're gonna take down the uppercrust empire.

Max get's help from the few people he knows he can trust (P.J, bobby and bean scene girl. He also enlists the help of Roxanne who is a God on a keyboard the best hacker he knows, There is a sort of cute jealous scene that ends with Max telling Bradley he's the only one he wants.) Bradley also asks for the help of Tank <3

Bradley, Max, Tank, Bobby and P.J all storm the upper crust mansion and take down a few guards, Bradley is hit and Max runs back to help but Bradley tells him to go on and he can hold his own. Max ends up face to face with Mr Uppercrust and to make a long story short cuts off his head and places it at Bradley's feet almost like an offering to a god.

It ends with the gang running away and on a private island never to be bothered by the ICA or any remaining gangs (can have a part two that I will give the idea for of can be a stand alone fic)

[modmamono]

Getting people into Puyo Puyo. A lesson in etiquette.

[Edit: The video adaptation with updated script:

]

(Some tips on how to get people into Puyo Puyo and where to get them to start.)

Introduction.

First and foremost. My Tumblr post here is (perhaps counter-productively) for people who may want to get their friends and newbies into Puyo Puyo and not for said friends and newbies themselves. (Though you’ll no doubt get something out of this too.)

I just wanna instill some etiquette into people. Because way too often in Discord servers I see a group of people shout at a newbie to play their favorite Puyo Puyo game instead of trying to actually considering what the best Puyo game to get started with is for that newbie.

My goal is to try and help you get people into this series you like.

This is by no means a guaranteed method and should not be seen as such.

What’s Puyo Puyo’s appeal?

Generally speaking these are the one people cite when I ask them:

The characters.

The Artstyle.

Stories/Lore.

A puzzle game with personality. Similar to those of fighting games.

It's funny and charming.

Simple-to-learn, hard-to-master gameplay.

Keep these in mind.

Do you know the person?

This is very important.

- If it’s a friend that shows interest in the colorful cast and the wacky words they shout  as the jellies disappear on screen in a pleasing rhythm, then don’t be shy encouraging them to try a Puyo Puyo game out.

Not all friends have everything in common. But if you’re friends and know enough about each other, that alone should do a lot of heavy lifting.

- If it’s a stranger or someone online you barely know then its best to play it safe.

You can ask a few questions what they look for in a game and maybe consult the bottom of this blogpost what game to recommend to them.

- A tip for both: If they show no interest, then just accept it might not be their thing. It’s disheartening, not getting someone into the thing you love, but that’s just life sometimes. Doesn’t mean you have failed, it just means you’ve been pitching to the wrong people.

Dos & Don’ts.

- This is a series where you come for the story/gameplay and stay for the gameplay/story.

You can sell the game on both as well. But if the person is inclined toward one over the other then sell them on story, gameplay, or even the aestatics or the characters and chances are they’ll grow attached to all the other things. No need to rush things.

-  Reign in your passion a little.

I’m not saying to not be passionate. But it’s possible you can turn people off to Puyo Puyo because you never shut up about it and keep trying to sell it to them.

This goes for anything really. Sometimes people just get sick of hearing a thing, and instead of checking it out, they’ll disassociate and distance themselves from it.

- Don’t oversell how tough the gameplay is.

Unless the newbie like to be challenged don’t tell them Puyo is hard. That can be discouraging.

You won’t believe how many people I see trying to get someone into Puyo Puyo and do this. You want them to get them into this series, right?

Most Puyo Puyo games have difficulty settings in the options menu anyway. Tell them there’s no shame to adjust it to their liking and switch it to another setting when ready.

- Be supportive and encouraging.

If they struggle with the game. Be kind and offer them some advice. Teach them some basic stuff to get through if needed.

Beating WakuWaku is already a huge accomplishment, don’t make that victory invalidated by saying it doesn’t count because they didn’t do HaraHara if you know what I mean.

There’s no shame in lowering the difficulty. They’ll get better eventually.

- Don’t force them advanced tactics right away or funnel them into competitive.

Let. Them. Have. Fun. First.

Don’t breathe down a newbie’s neck for not using GTR or whatever else stacking method. Let them learn and experience the game however they want to. And if they wanna ask for help, then provide that. Try not to preemptively answer EVERYTHING if they didn’t even ask in the first place.

When they’re ready for GTR, competitive, and the like, then they are ready. But they gotta make that call on their own.

- When you play multi-player with your newbie friend(s) try not to do this:

You wanna invite them into the series, right? Why turn them off like that? You don’t wanna chance and encourage them to try again.  Losing to a player is way more demoralizing then losing to the game’s AI will ever be, they’re just two different things.

But if you do play with your less experienced friends the games have handicaps. If you’re good at the game put your board on Spicy, and let your friend choose whatever they want.

- Soooo, uh, about the lore...

Generally speaking, don’t entice a newbie in with that unless they’re a lore nut (and even then I have my reservations).

I know most Puyo fans love that Puyo Puyo has lore and that’s a big appeal to the series, but hear me out:

I think that’s a terrible way to entice a newbie. It’s fun lore for sure, and ideally, they get into it eventually. But have you ever thought about how much lore there actually is per game?

Puyo 1, Tsu, and Sun don’t have much of anything.

Puyo~n has Doppel and her intrigue and amazing vibe. But when you peel off the layer there is nothing but fanon.

Box and Minna have nothing much of note.

Fever 1 is a new world but otherwise is just another Puyo 1, Tsu, and Sun.

Fever 2 and 15th Anni are actually the exception to the rule. And I will go into why later.

And the rest while they do provide lore. It’s all contained within a single game for the most part.

Most of the interesting stuff are from Novels, Drama CDs, old dungeon crawling games. Which is cool and all. But, for now, you’re only just pitching the game(s) to the newbie. That’s quite a bit away.

I just don’t think it’s wise to hype up the lore when they’re barely ever gonna see any of it. I’ve been around too. A lot of the lore goes over a lot of people’s heads.

That and I think it’s just more rewarding to let newbies piece things together themselves. It releases a really nice feeling in the brain that SEGA’s run actually has a solid continuity.

I hope I’ve made my case? This is probably my most controversial stance here. But I think it’s for the best. Puyo Puyo is a series with lore, but it’s not a lore focused series. (I feel the same about Kirby.)

Entice newbies with surface level things first. Like the funny characters or the surface level stories. They’ll get to the deeper stuff eventually when they’re hooked. Trust me.

Unless you know they’re the type of person that likes lore for lore’s sake. But in that case do please let them know most games aren’t upfront about it and they have to put in the effort to dig. And digging for the obscure can be fun.

- Don’t push your favorite Puyo Puyo games onto a newbie without a good reason.

Sometimes your favorite game isn’t the best to start with. And while I believe you could give a newbie any game and if it clicks BOOM they’re a Puyo fan now. I do believe some games are better introductions to get someone into the games.

I’ll get into what I believe are the best options later on in this post.

- Don’t overload them on things to keep in mind.

Give them no more then 2 things to keep in mind. Things like “PPT1 will have a nasty difficulty spike, so be careful” and “I wonder what your thoughts are on a certain moment”.

If you give someone too many things to keep in mind they might get distracted from the game to remember everything you’ve told them.

And I believe that covers it all.

Which games should you recommend to newbies?

I’ll give you a bunch of options. But I’ll let you know which ones I think are the best for a newbie along with my reasoning.

Best:

Puyo Puyo Tetris 1 & 2

No contest. These are just the best ones to start off with. Either one of these will do.

You may disagree for whatever reason, but the fact it’s a crossover with Tetris is its biggest point in its favor. If they don’t like Puyo Puyo they will have Tetris as a safety net. By default that’s the best.

That and it’s been proven that it has been a surprisingly good entry. Over half of the current fanbase started of with PPT1. Like that guy who makes those Puyo Puyo in a Nutshell videos. You know, that guy.

Also you can buy PPT2 on all current consoles, most other games are only accessible through emulation if you want them in English. That’s important because some people are just against emulation or just plain don’t know how to emulate things.

And if they like either of these games maybe they’re willing to try emulation to play more Puyo Puyo.

Also who knows, if they use the Tetris as a safety net maybe they’ll bounce back and later enjoy Puyo Puyo after all.

Good options:

Puyo Puyo Tsu/Puyo Puyo 2 (Most versions)

Puyo Puyo Tsu introduced the standard ruleset most other rules are based off. And that’s the ONLY rule it has. Which I think works to its benefit for a newbie.

While the game lacks much in the way character interactions (maybe recommend them the Super Famicom translation patch which does have those) it does have a goal reaching the top of the tower and beating Satan.

I think the tower is an excellent motivator to get good at the game. If they can beat Satan at the top I’d say they’re ready for any Puyo Puyo game to come.

My preferred version is the Super Famicom version called “Super Puyo Puyo Tsu” but I don’t think you can’t really go wrong with any version besides the Neo Geo Pocket Color one.

For the emulator averse they can buy the game on SEGA 3D Classics Collection on 3DS or the SEGA AGES version on Nintendo Switch.

Super Puyo Puyo Tsu is also available on Nintendo Switch Online’s SNES app. So if you have the basic package, you already have that game at your disposal.

All versions except the NGPC one are in Japanese, but I don’t think that’s much of a hindrance with this game specifically. Any version without the cutscenes is sorta alingual. Sure there’s Japanese text in the game, but of all the games, I think you can enjoy this one the most without having to understand it.

Puyo Puyo!! 20th Anniversary (DS) (Precise Museum patch)

(Note, a Wii patch with a revised script is on its way.)

I think this game is a good introduction to the current day cast and has a ton of modes. So if basic rules don’t do it a newbie may find a mode that slowly eases them into more basic rules.

If you wanna 100% the game you gotta win 200 story mode matches. That’s a lot of Puyo, and that’s plenty of time to learn.

Do refrain from telling newbies that though. 200 is big number. Playing 200 without realizing it is more palatable then telling them you have to do 200 to beat the game. One’s fun, the other sounds like a chore.

Direct their focus on the cast, there’s a lot to chew on this game.

I would recommend, but...:

Puyo Puyo Fever 2 & Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary

These are the actual lore games. These games practically give you lore as a reward at every turn. These two games are the exceptions to my rule that you shouldn’t sell the games with lore to a newbie. And soaking all that lore in is a great motivator to play these games.

But we have no patches yet beside some out-of-date ones from Puyo Nexus. Which is the main problem (for Fever 2 especially).

Also, while these two games are a bit holy grail, their praises are rightfully sung. I’m a bit apprehensive calling them great entry points.

Fever 2 relies on the Fever rule. Which not everyone’s a fan of. I’ve been around and not everyone enjoys that rule (and anecdotally it overstimulates me). The Fever Rule has a ton of rules to it. But a lot of people were introduced to Fever 1 and became life-long fans so I don’t know, take my claim with a grain of salt. I’ve been told it’s an easier game then Fever 1 at least. Fever 1 does not play nice.

And 15th’s story mode relies on a roulette. Which doesn’t have to be a negative, but it is a game with a with a ton of gimmick rules. And while 20th is that too it gives you more freedom in that regard, which I think might be more beneficial to a newbie.

But any of the games above here are good places to start. One dishonorable mention to recommend to a newbie:

Puyo Puyo Champions

I’ve historically been nice to this game. But I don’t recommend it to a newbie.

It’s just Puyo 2 and Fever Rules at an admittingly cheap price. Not much to it.

You could argue that I gave Puyo Puyo Tsu slack in that regard. But my counter argument would always be: “What is the goal of Champions?”

This game is so competitive focused it hurts. No charming animations, the characters count instead of escalating their spells. Only good single-player content is hidden behind too many boring tutorials, which is watered down from the Nazo Puyo games.

Puyo Puyo Tsu you scale a tower and get an ending. Reaching the top and beating Satan is the goal.

Champions has nothing to offer besides online rankings. And as I’ve said before, don’t funnel a newbie into being competitive. They’ll do it when they’re ready. Let them enjoy the jelly game on their own pace first. Let them enjoy the characters.

And that’s all I wanted to say.

[true-blue-sonic]

The fandom doesn’t want a Year of Silver cause they don’t think it’ll perform well. I don’t want a Year of Silver because I have absolutely no faith in the current writer’s characterisation of him and do not wanna sit through an entire fucking year of that. We are not the same

Yeah, I understand fully what you mean. My thoughts on it are three-fold: firstly I indeed wonder if a year for Silver will really work out, because he's not as popular as others. The Year of Shadow worked because Shadow is hugely beloved, to the point there was a time he was more popular than Sonic himself. It's no surprise to me that a game with a storymode in which he plays a central role would sell well! But Silver does not have that popularity by far. On Tumblr people seem moderately fond of him, but I have no clue how he's seen on other websites. It might be quite risky to dedicate a whole year to him; I fear he might not be able to carry it. (And then of course there's also the issue that Shadow just plays like Sonic + Chaos Spear + extra gimmicks that are still very fast-paced, whereas for Silver's PK they'd really have to make changes compared to how he played (and ran lol) in '06, in my opinion. It might take some time for Sonic Team to work out what to do with Silver and in what playstyle, perhaps more than Shadow. That could make them hesitant to try, but that's just pure guesswork on my part.)

And then secondly, there's a lot of characters who are more popular than Silver, yet who don't really get much attention either. Sure, Amy, Knuckles and Tails became playable in Frontiers, but they got no year for themselves despite Knux and Tails starring in the second movie. I don't even want to imagine the fandom implosion if Silver got a full year starring him in a central role before any of these characters XD And I would understand it! To me, Silver deserves getting more spotlight, but that's because he's my favourite and we don't get much content on him. If your favourite is Tails or Knuckles or Amy or Eggman or Metal Sonic, and they'd get snubbed by a far less popular character, I can imagine very well that'll leave you feeling bitter (and also, it doesn't help that Silver is already scorned for '06 presenting him as the Third Male And Thus Very Important Hedgehog™️ at the expense of other characters, or at least so I've heard before). Perhaps after more attention has been paid to others in the cast could a Year of Silver fly over better, but as things in the fandom are now, I think it'd cause utter mayhem.

And thirdly, I agree with your point that Silver is not well-written in a lot of supplementary material. I have as extra point that I really don't like Bryce's voice for him; nothing against the guy, but in TSR Silver sounds like a cockier Sonic half the time and vaguely like a Silver the other half, and compared to what we used to have before with Quinton's Silver I consider it a huge downgrade. On the other hand, I adore Kirk's Shadow in SXSG and Kirk is quite a contested voice actor for him, so maybe with better directions the same can happen for Bryce? But in general on the topic of Silver's characterisation, I've been seeing more posts on Tumblr describing how Silver is highly OOC in e.g. the IDW comics, and then if you also count stuff like the most recent takeover's incredibly random "Silver is kinda like my little brother! :D" statement that has zero basis in canon... I guess overall we don't know what the future holds here, haha! But I think Sonic Team could be wary about making a whole Year of Silver, when keeping my first two points in mind. Though on the other hand, the more time goes on, the more chance there is SoJ pays more attention to Silver's characterisation in the West and implements changes there to keep him more in line with his game- and Sonic Channel personality, maybe?

Overall, we just can't know, but I wouldn't worry about it too much either: in SXSG I'd say Shadow was written really well in the way he talked and moved and just existed in the game, and I greatly enjoyed his storymode in no small part due to the fact he felt very authentic to the character to me. I think if SoJ is on the case (because they are probably the ones making a Silver game in the end), there'll be much more quality control around Silver's character than e.g. for the IDW comics or a takeover. But I think it might be years before we get a Year of Silver or even a game that has Silver in any way playable in a main role, to be honest. We'll just have to wait and see! In 2018 Takashii Iizuka said a Silver game could be a possibility, and Shun Nakamura is also still fond of his creation, or so I've heard. I'm curious to see what the future will turn out to hold🍀

[mttcafe]

I’m back!!!!!! do you have any UT or DR merch you wanna show off? :3

YES!!! sooo much. i'll attach everything and then yap under the cut about them. long post incoming! sorry!!!

okay so starting out! i have my plushie collection. i have sans, papyrus, flowey, lancer, and two chapter two ralseis that my bf got me the second he released. one of them is wearing the butler outfit. i got one for free because my first one had stains on arrival. so now i have a second to wear the costume! i also have bootleg sans and papyrus and bootleg asriel.

i have all of the nendoroids sans spamton. the undertale cast is displayed on one shelf and ralsei on another. undyne broke into toriel's house and took the pie that's why she's not on her mountain.

i have the fangamer undertale vinyl boxset! i have the first run boxart with gaster on it [picture included]. he is not in any prints you can get now. i own the fangamer deltarune chapter one and two vinyls as well.

for one of my holy grail pieces of merch, i own the iam8bit undertale vinyls! they stopped making them a long time ago. you can find them average between the 100-200+ range. but the real holy grail is the 7" vinyl. it's in the first picture and then there's a picture of the vinyl attached. it has dogsong on it. it was a preorder bonus for the original vinyl and there were NOT many made because the vinyl went up for preorder in 2015 or 16 iirc. i have only seen like four listings for the dogsong vinyl ever and most sit in the several hundred dollar range. i bought a bundle of the original soundtrack AND the dogsong vinyl for one hundred and fourty dollars. AN INSANE COP. i won. I WON!!!! i had been looking for a good listing for YEARS.

i have quite a few pins although i would like more. i have the flowey fanclub pin, the lancer bike pin. the fanmade ones i own are both mettaton + a ralsei button that i made. on this backpack i also have the mewmew keychain. they stopped selling her a while ago so i had to find her second hand. it was also EXTREMELY difficult to find a listing for her!! but i found one for 15. only two over retail. yay!

i have the cyber city desk mat. i love it very much. i have the nubert beanie that my friend bought me. thanks casper. i have the undertale collectors edition for the switch, and the undertale art book. i have an eshop card that was never active i'm not gonna lie to y'all i just swiped that thing one day. no harm done it's just a piece of cardboard. i own the game on pc, switch, and my xbox. if i owned a ps4 you best believe i'd own it there too. i plan on getting one someday and 60% of the reason is for the ps4 dynamic theme and so i can play all versions of undertale. also i have a lot of undertale stickers and tags, mostly the bonuses from fangamer and such. plus a few art cards from there. oh! and my bf made me that cup + coaster. i love it. when the cup is set down it squishes ralsei.

now for the clothes that i have! i own two sans jackets from fangamer [not pictured i forgor]. i got one in a size too big so had to get a second. i have the shirt showtime, disruption, your best nightmare [it has a little flowey on the back!], the fifth anniversary shirt [it has a bunch of quotes from the game on the back. i love it.], the deltarune hoodie, and the flowey scarf.

as for unofficial clothing, i have two hoodies from etsy. one of them is a chara hoodie, and the other one is a lancer inspired hoodie with a spade that comes down over your face! it's so cool despite the fact i can't see out of it.

i also have a few kandi bracelets that i made and a golden flower headband i made for a cosplay. and with that.. i think that may be it..! i have a few pieces of merch that i really want but that could go into a seperate post. thank you so much for asking! i could talk about this forever haha. if i forgot anything i'll mention it. i'm very forgetful.

shoutout to all the people that have helped me cultivate this collection. a lot of these are gifts or things i've made myself broke buying.

[genderqueerdykes]

hey, i was wondering if you had any advice on starting a shop as a crippled artist? i'm mainly thinking of making digital designs but redbubble kind of sucks lol. although it would be cool to sell jewelry too (your jewelry inspires me a lot!), i just don't know how to go about it.

sorry for the delayed reply! thanks for sending an ask! i love your blog!

it's challenging, but worth it if you can find a niche. selling physical goods can be taxing at times, but there are some free resources. UPS and USPS give free mailing supplies in the United States. Etsy is tricky to sell on. they charge you 0.20 USD for every listing you make, every 3 months, iirc. they have better organic foot traffic so you have to do less advertising, but they also take a bigger cut out of every sale. that's why things are so obscenely expensive on there. ko-fi is good for physical goods , but you have to generate your own labels and shipping prices. eBay is really nice for selling collectables, old clothing items that are no longer wanted, video games, etc. and honestly is my favorite to use out of all of them. generates its own foot traffic as well and if its something like a video game it can auto generate most of the info for you

selling IRL is really hard. its really physically taxing because you have to lug stuff around everywhere. you need a license or permit to be able to sell things IRL anywhere most of the time, and also permission from a business, and usually they want to charge you a fee for selling on their property. i did IRL markets for a while and they weren't worth it. the organizers are generally bad at advertising, which shouldn't be your #1 concern. it only really works if the organizers do a good job of advertising

selling digital goods like art and zines is a bit easier. ko-fi makes this extremely simple. i use medibang as my image editing software currently. typesetting can be a pain, and some people may find it monotonous, but i find that bundling my writing into zines helps me focus and stay on track. i like digital zines the best. handwriting makes my hand cramp up within moments of grabbing a pen or pencil. typing is really where it's at for me. but digital arts and goods are much easier to sell by far than physical ones

redbubble and cafepress are snitches for things like royalty free art and clip art, so if you plan on selling through them, sometimes you can't even use stock fonts or they'll nuke your entire store. also they take *massive* and i mean MASSIVE cuts from every sale. dropshipping sites are difficult to work with. if you wanna make buttons, pins, shirts, etc. this is the cheapest way to do so but both of these sites absolutely gouge you. and refuse to pay out until you get absurdly high amounts of sales. its why i don't promote my cafepress much even though i like my designs. i do NOT see anything from those sales. i see under $1 from every sale.

i hope that can be of some help to you! take care of yourself, glad you stopped by! feel free to ask any more questions you may have! appreciate you and your blog!

[anonymousbeefriendfanfics]

My Thoughts on Touchstarved

So, I've finished the demo! Let me start off by saying that I love the story! The concept is awesome, I adore that you can choose your own background, I love how immersive the setting is, everything is just... amazing. I can't wait for the full game to come out! Especially with all the special treats we're getting from the Kickstarter goals, it's going to be fantastic! And now, my friends, I shall share with you my thoughts & Headcannons for each of our lovely love interests, in order of appearance. If you'd like to see more, my requests are open!! I haven't gotten any for Touchstarved yet but I'm itching to write for them, I just... need some inspiration, so the more the merrier!

Kuras

First of all: pretty. I love his design, it's wonderful. He looks so ethereal! And very doctor-y, which was the point.

Can we talk about the hair, though???? How cool is that?? I love it. It looks very soft and fluffy. And so long... Could you imagine sleeping next to him? You wake up and you're drowning in floof.

He's very kind and gentle, but is obviously holding back. He distances himself from people, and like everybody else on this list, he needs to find someone he can really trust to open up and be himself with.

And he stays so busy, like... when does he ever take the time to relax? I know the city needs him and his clinic, but he deserves some time off, too.

To be honest Kuras gives me kinda like.... asexual vibes? Maybe demisexual? Idk, maybe I'm reading too much into him being reserved, but. I just feel like he either wouldn't be interested or he'd want to fall in love with someone before taking them to bed.

Leander

I love him, he's incredible. So talented, so kind!! I love the respect the Bloodhounds have for him, and how willing he is to go out of his way to help a stranger.

Also he blushes very easily and I love it, he's absolutely adorable

I am very very curious how he got so much skill with magic, because that doesn't seem to be normal. I bet it has something to do with his secret.

He very clearly has some serious trauma in his past, too. I wonder how he got that scar, if it has anything to do with his magic, if it is indeed the same scar running from his face to his arm....

Seems like he drowns his trauma in alcohol, his gang, and keeping himself very busy. Poor thing clearly doesn't get as much sleep as he should.

I think he just wants to be loved, but he's afraid to let himself be too vulnerable.

Vere

Foxboy Foxboy Foxboy Foxboy Fox-

Can I just say that I'm a little bit in love with his design. I mean I am with all of them but. Especially Vere. I love foxes and it's just. *Chef's kiss*

He's a cocky lil son of a biscuit tho. That tongue of his is quite sharp... as are his teeth~

I feel like he'd flirt with a Soulless to get what he wanted. In actuality he'd just murder it, but... you get my point. You're never sure if he's gonna seduce you or slit your neck.

Literally if Sage and Rime from Last Legacy had a child.

He's absolutely not trustworthy but I wanna get to the bottom of things and form that trust with him.

Romancing him would be very interesting. He's always three seconds away from eating you, but the question is... will he eat your soul, or your [redacted]?

Ais

He reminds me far too much of my friend's OC, and for that, I am the sliiiightest bit obsessed with him. At least that gives me a headstart on his characterization.

Would sell you to Satan for one cornchip, but fortunately MC interests him enough to keep them around

And Princess???? Oh my god. My heart. I adore her, I adore him, yes please

And he calls the MC "Sparrow"!!! That's absolutely precious. I love how he has nicknames for people, it's wonderful

Ais seems like the person who will tell you he doesn't care what happens to you and you can go get yourself killed for all he cares, then move heaven and earth to save you once you're even slightly in danger.

Mhin

Baby needs a hug. Enough said.

l absolutely adore them. They have stolen my heart.

And yes, maybe I do have the slightest bit of a savior complex, shut up. I'm just addicted to the hurt/comfort angst of it all, okay?

Literally hates everyone and everyone hates them (Except for, y'know, Kuras) because they're such a grumpy little loner and dear god just let me love you, let me teach you what love is.

They definitely fit into the whole "stronger than they appear" archetype because they're specifically mentioned to be pretty scrawny, but they have an impressive amount of strength and holy hells they're good with that dagger. That's incredible skill

I just. I want to break down those walls and earn their trust and teach them they have someone they can rely on who won't betray them, no matter what happens or how dark things get.

I just want to cuddle them and reassure them that everything's gonna be alright, is that a crime?

[duxfemina]

Not the original anon but reading your answer to the safety on road ask was so fun!

If you have time, could you please rank the following ancient Romans based on how good of a podcast they could produce?

Cicero, Julius Caesar, Brutus, Mark Antony, Cassius, Octavian, Agrippa, Catullus

Cicero would be the first century Joe Rogan, if you define a "good" podcast by it's popularity then definitely he's successful. If you want accuracy and quality maybe look elsewhere but regardless it will be considered entertaining usually

Julius Caesar - Some people listen just for entertainment like it's a good novel, some people religiously follow his pod and swear everything he claims is true. He's often flagged for fake news but he maintains he's absolutely done all the things he claimed to, up to and including the frequent allusions to his many love affairs with married women. His casual fans are fine, that hard core contingent that takes him at his word is toxic as hell and often makes people avoid his podcast but the casual fans are just there for the fun. Sorta like Star Wars fandom vibes

Brutus - his podcast is the opposite of Cicero's it's good, it's really good, it's also only got an audience of a couple hundred and a lot of those are his relatives or family friends, but he perseveres in sharing his deep insightful takes even if most of the people are just listening out of politeness

Mark Antony is podcast god. Everyone loves his show, unlike Caesar he really doesn't care if you believe his escapades are real or not. It's basically like drunk history without the history it's just him cracking up with some friends over drinks and taking the piss out of whatever the weeks topic is. It only gets serious when someone mentions Cicero and then Antony will get upset and either go on a tirade, which will make for a popular episode (some guests will deliberately trigger his Cicerophobia just for this reason) or he will drink too much (even by Antonian standards) and sulk and then the episode will have to abruptly end there

Cassius - I feel is the most likely to have like the life coaching, how to have confidence and succeed kind of podcast. He's relatively popular but never top of the charts and he doesn't mind. He feels he's helping people, he does resent that Caesar's hyperbolic tripe is consistently ranked higher than his thoughtful insights about how to make a better life for yourself

Octavian - he has listeners only because people wanna know if they're on his good side or if they should start selling their stuff and leaving Italy before it's too late. All his other listeners are either bootlickers, trying to casually bring up topics he discussed to make him feel validated and save their necks, or they listen because they're afraid he can somehow see the lists of names of who listens and if they're not on it he might add them to that OTHER list ie. The Proscriptions. Exactly two people willingly listens to three podcast and that's Agrippa, Octavia, and Attia and even Agrippa usually just has it in the background and is only half paying attention and Octavia is the only person to ever give him even a mild critique of his presentation

Agrippa - he only got a podcast because Octavian told him he should have one too. But while no one willingly listens to Octavian's Agrippa's smaller fan base is much more loyal and love listening to him give insights on military tactics and history and it's absolutely a fan favorite moment when he's at home to record his episodes and he has his sons on for a small segment where he lets them explain whatever strategy they employed in their games that day and he'll always find a way to adapt their child's play to a real life battle principle.

Catullus... I am sleep deprived and tired and my mind has blanked on who Catullus was

So instead I'll give you Cato. The Alex Jones of his day. He will rage daily and just keep getting more rabid, he is the king of the conspiracy theory contingent of podcasts. He will warn you about threats that 90% of which are invented and the other 10% somewhat accurate but wildly misrepresented.

*my comparisons to modern podcasters are based off of vibes not inferring that this person was the same in any real way