#between this and horror game gameplay I hope it won’t take me too long

[yoohyeon]

It was 4am about to go to sleep, but I had to chase away a moth that got into my room 😭

[jcmarchi]

Crow Country Review - Comfort Food Horror - Game Informer

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/crow-country-review-comfort-food-horror-game-informer/

Crow Country Review - Comfort Food Horror - Game Informer

The Resident Evil series has redefined and refined survival horror in recent years, arguably single-handedly. However, as the venerable series continues to push the genre forward, a growing number of indie games are looking back to survival horror’s late ‘90s heyday for inspiration. Crow Country joins those ranks, offering a respectable nostalgic homage to the past. Veterans won’t encounter anything they haven’t seen, but the experience is comforting in its spooky familiarity.  

Developer SFB Games clearly understood its self-imposed assignment. Crow Country’s grainy, low-polygonal presentation faithfully evokes the PS1/N64 era while still establishing a unique charm, thanks to its doll-esque character designs. Thankfully, the studio stops short of replicating more archaic elements like the static camera angles of the time, opting for a much preferred 360-degree camera and free movement instead of tank controls. The presentation adds a nostalgic sinisterness to the game’s setting, a derelict amusement park called Crow Country. 

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As agent Mara Forest, you arrive in search of the park’s missing owner, Edward Crow, and quickly find it overrun by grotesque monsters of an unknown origin. Despite the game’s eerie vibes, scaredy cats shouldn’t fret; Crow Country isn’t anywhere near as terrifying as its Silent Hill/Resident Evil influences. That may be disappointing to horror aficionados – I count myself among them – but I didn’t mind. Outside of a few decent jump scares, the game is more about establishing an intriguing, oppressive mood, and that’s enough for me. The creatures look appropriately gross and unsettling despite having a strange cutesy charm due to the art direction. The writing has a good sense of humor that contrasts nicely with an otherwise dark and generally enjoyable mystery highlighted by a cool story twist. 

Blasting monsters with various firearms, such as a pistol, shotgun, and, if you search well enough, a magnum, feels adequate, and attachable laser sights add a contemporary assist. Evading enemies to conserve ammo is relatively easy, and the game is generous about keeping your clips full. This speaks to Crow Country’s wide approachability. It’s not challenging in regards to combat and inventory management, making it a great introduction to the genre for newcomers or a good option those wanting a lighter take on a typically tough gameplay style.

Another aspect in which SFB Games commits to Crow Country’s old-school approach is exploration and puzzle-solving. The game’s elaborate puzzles are generally clever and well-designed, but the real challenge is keeping track of over two dozen notes containing hints or solutions. That’s because you can only view these messages in save rooms, which creates a lot of backtracking to double-check an employee memo. The game’s condensed level design means a save room usually isn’t too far away, but running around did feel less convenient as my notebook expanded. To mitigate this, expect to jot down notes or take photos of clues with your phone. 

Additionally, intentionally cluttered environments easily hide useful items and clues, meaning it’s easy to miss things. Expect to hug the walls of every room to thoroughly comb them of their interactable elements (though the game does track how many secrets you find). As a long-time fan of the genre, I didn’t mind this nostalgic approach, and it never became a true hindrance. Consider this less a critique and more of a PSA to those hoping for a streamlined experience. 

Speaking of save rooms, the game’s intentional lack of autosaves means dying results in losing progress between your last visits. I was burned by this initially, having died before reaching the first save room and replaying the first 20 minutes. Again, your tolerance will vary; losing chunks of progress rarely becomes an issue if you’re diligent about saving. But if you’d rather not deal with that, Crow Country may be too faithfully retro for you. 

As reductive as it sounds, when it comes to delivering a classic survival horror experience, Crow Country is a good “one of those.” Familiar elements and tropes are well executed, and the succinct runtime of five to six hours is perfect for its smaller scope. I had fun reliving the genre’s golden years through Crow Country’s eyes; playing it feels like relaxing under a warm, blood-stained blanket. 

[alexis-dot-com]

Template nicked from someone else who didn’t give credit to OP

Quick reasons for each pick: Persona 3 is the perfect mix of JRPG, visual novel, hope and despair. It's my favourite game in a fantastic series. The story, characters, music and gameplay are all top-notch. You gotta play this game. Yakuza 0 is probably my favourite game in the series from a story stand-point. There's drama, intrigue highs and lows. One of the best stories in gaming. Muramasa The Demon Blade's art is just gorgeous. All hand painted with some vibrant colours that bring the Edo period of Japan to life. Atlus has a killer music team. Everything they touch is gold. Their soundtracks for the SMT series, Persona, Catherine, are all incredible. From jazz, to rock, rap to pop, it's all amazing. Castlevania is a difficult series at the best of times, but the third game on the NES is rough. The platforming, enemy placement, and stiff controls make for a frustrating mix. Definitely worth a play, though. The Jackbox games are all fantastic ways to spend an evening with friends. Whiplash, Drawful, Tee KO are personal highlights. Resident Evil 6 wasn't too well received by many, but I loved every second of it. Main issues people had with it were the focus on action over horror, and the over-use of Quick-TIme-Events, but it's a big, dumb action game that's a ton of fun to play. I don't have the energy to rant about Fortnite. It's just so mediocre. The World Ends With You is easily one of the best DS games. The story, music, gameplay are all fantastic. Absolutely underrated, and I can't wait for the sequel. Mortal Kombat is just okay. The amount of praised lumped on it is just not justified. Warner Bros. spent so much money on the latest entry and it does not show. The animations are stiff, which leads to limp feeling attacks. I highly recommend a series by SugarPunchDesignWorks on Youtube that go in depth on all the issues surrounding the bad animation in that series. The Last of Us is my pick for Best Voice acting for this one scene alone - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Csw8G6yruE And while Resident Evil 1 has some absolute stinkers looking back, It's amazing to see (or hear) just how far acting in gaming has come. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjbNvS1LYD8 Zagreus from Hades is such a great protagonist. The way he speaks to people is so chummy, calling everyone "mate". His voice lines also act as tutorials for the game, and with thousands of unique lines of dialogue, you really get to know his personality over the hours. Juri Han is a bastard but she's my bastard. She's one of the villains from Super Street Fighter IV, and she just chews the scenery. Her gameplay reflects her toying personality, with counters and a keepaway play style. Link is a silent protagonist so you might be wondering how he's my favourite one? His animations are top-notch. He's a complete dumb-ass, from happily eating rocks, to punching treasure chests open, he's an absolute idiot, but he's also the saviour of Hyrule. Sephiroth is similar to Juri in that he likes to toy with the heroes. He crops up everywhere through Final Fantasy VII just to mess with Cloud. He's menacing when he needs to be though, and terrifying as the story goes on. Ellie (from the Last of Us Part 2 specifically) suuucks. She went from my favourite character in the first game to the one character I couldn't stand in the sequel. She's so hell-bent on revenge that she's blind to everything else. She just makes the most idiotic decisions throughout the entire run-time. I remember playing Super Mario World at a cousin's house when I was around 4? It was a ton of fun and it really opened my eyes to a whole new medium of entertainment. Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, the developer of the Yakuza franchise deserve more recognition, and I'm happy to see them get it in recent years. The Yakuza series is (mostly) focused on one character, Kiryu, who was a member of the Yakuza (Japanese Mafia), but just wants a quiet life. Needless to say things don't go his way as he's roped back in with every new game. Rockstar games make highly produced games, sure, but I feel their attention to detail takes away from other aspects (like if the game's even fun to play). Red Dead Redemption's horses have balls that shrink in cold areas! But the game's an absolute chore to get through, with slow animations for everything from picking up ammunition to looting enemy bodies. I'd love to see them focus their attention to actual fun gameplay than horse nuts. The Walking Dead is depressing. The visual novels, the TV series, and the game. The latter is probably the most depressing however, as you control characters who are forced to make decisions nobody should ever have to. I've not even finished all of the series because I need to take a year-or-two break between them. There are a million horror games that could have taken the place of "creepy" but Bioshock has such a unique environment that it has to be here. The world of Rapture, being at the bottom of the ocean is terrifying because you can't exactly escape. It's oddly beautiful at times, however, with whales swimming by among the skyline, and schools of fish visible through apartment windows. Katamari Damacy is always there to liven things up though! In Katamari, you play as the Prince of All Cosmos who needs to roll up objects to make an even bigger ball to create stars for the universe. It's an odd, funny, and addictive game that never ceases to cheer me up. I don't spoil the ending to Metal Gear Solid 3, but I will say it was pretty cool to see one of the final frames of the game be used as its box-art. Kojima's Metal Gear series is too long to summarise here so I won't even try. The salute Big Boss gives at the end of the game, though was the perfect send off to a hugely enjoyable game. This is how you make a game packed with details and fun gameplay, Rockstar. If you read all of this, jesus, get a life.

[blindrapture]

a union-mandated break post

(okay, let’s see if I can type this all over again after losing the post. gotta remember how it all went.)

Hey there, the few mutuals who Like all of my posts, the lurkers who occasionally make their presence known, the lurkers who I also hope are there, and all you folks who come across this post naturally before scrolling on (that’s fine too, please have a nice day! remember to take a deep breath and unclench!). I wanted to make a post giving a casual update.

Things have been going. You know how it is. Time proceeds onwards at a pace that is a crawl to some and fleeting to others, depending on relative perspective. The average of all these observations may be Objective Truth, a hazy mythical and abstract prospect which to this day no living human has ever known (due to the nature of perspective). We still try to know it for some reason, an endeavour which may be “a good thing” or “a condemnation of our species,” but that’s relative too. See above. Still, it is possible to take an approximation of what we figure this average to be and find ourselves (mis)balanced on a knife-edge in between all perspectives. This narrow path, the knife-edge between fast and slow, between good and bad, between ecstasy and despair, seems precarious at times, yet at other times is like a garden, wide and spacious enough to sit awhile. Our perspectives cover this garden from us with the shrubbery of Can’ts and Shouldn’ts, and the way to the garden is fraught with the misty cloud of Look-Like. And yet, ultimately, these shrubs and mists are but prismatic scenery colouring our time on this Earth, a perspective which is easy to see from within the garden. The Earth is brown and grey and immortal, though wearing an impermanent coat of blue and green. One day, we will slip out of our perspectives and return to the Earth, join her mounding’s mass, and that will be death.

So that’s the weather. Sometimes cold, sometimes mild, sometimes wet, sometimes dry, sometimes bothersome and sometimes the only backdrop I could ever want. I’ve been up to the usual, cycling between interests like a bat between haunts.

- The other day I got around to playing Smile For Me, an experience which took me about three hours to more-or-less complete 100%. Really cute game, I fell in love with all the characters, and the budding horror elements made me excited to see where it’d go.

- Currently I’m playing A Monster’s Expedition Through Puzzling Exhibitions, a game often cited in the same breath as Baba Is You and Stephen’s Sausage Roll. I think those two games are puzzle masterpieces, and A Monster’s Expedition is hitting me in the right spot. It frequently fills me with awe, which is impressive considering the game is just a long series of oblong block-pushing puzzles. It has scope, though, and it has the guts to hide that scope from you until you’re able to discover it for yourself. I’ve played for about 10 hours so far, beaten over 200 islands, and yet I feel I’m only getting further away from the end goal. Hard to describe. It’s a good game.

- When I’m done with that game, next I’ll be checking out Spelunky 2. I’ve wanted to try the original for a long time but never got around to it; I picked up the sequel. I know very little about the games (with a rough idea of what gameplay is like), and I intend to keep it that way for as long as I can. I like games that rely on discovery.

- Book-wise, I’m, y’know, reading Finnegans Wake as I fall asleep, occasionally inching through other books too, but my main reading focus at the moment is The Familiar. I went and picked up a new copy of Volume 5, and I found the Volume 3 I had kinda lost for a while, so now I have the full Season 1 again. And it’s been long enough since I read any of them that it’s finally time to reread them. As a unit this time. I am... so happy to be in their headspace. I’m currently in the second act of Volume 1, taking in a lot more details this time (and I do still remember a sense of where the whole plot goes), really cherishing the commitment to physicality and aesthetic. There’s not many authors out there like Danielewski. House of Leaves kickstarted my book obsession, y’know. And The Familiar is about as grand as a project can be. It’s supposed to be 27 volumes, each one 900 pages long, and the design of these books is goddamn sublime. The publisher only let him do the first 5 volumes, which is sad, but luckily those 5 volumes make up a “Season,” so they’re still a whole thing, a complete story arc for each of the nine protagonists, and plenty of secrets and details that give a good sense of the true scope. And did I mention the series is fucking scary? Profoundly so, each new volume weaving you deeper into its conspiratorial web of eldritch coincidences and patterns. The story is full of cats, immortal cats, God-cats. There’s a scientist who keeps a freaky magic orb and is known as Wizard. There’s an Armenian taxi driver who’s one of my favourite characters. And you can probably get all the volumes Used for fairly cheap on Amazon now. ........please, somebody join me in loving this series.

- Creative-wise, I’m working on music as always, putting notes next to each other until I get a result I can do something with. There is one piece that’s definitely done, a collaboration between Lindsay and I, but it’s going into Nine Is God so you won’t hear it just yet. Speaking of, that’s coming along. I haven’t even started making any codes or cool connections yet; I want to finish the... Core of this update first. Let’s be deceptive and call it the Main Blog. I have proven to myself that I definitely can do this; I keep stumbling on new mechanisms I can add, and I have a pretty vivid idea of what the whole thing will look like. It’s gonna be maybe a decent size for a Blog, all told, but it’s the form of the thing that mandates a lot of care. Luckily I have made Viceking’s Graab, so this isn’t the first time I’ve done something this mechanically ambitious. ...look, just. Of course I’m excited to Actually Talk about this thing, but like with the Graab, its nature requires me to keep it secret until players finally discover it for themselves. I like making that kind of thing, I want the sense of discovery, of climbing up a hill only to reach the summit and see an even bigger mountain looming over you that you hadn’t realized was there. Like Frog Fractions, or its sequel, even if you know there will be more than meets the eye you still get surprised and filled with delight. This concept fits neatly into an ARG format.

- Oh, also, I’m super excited for the Braid remake. It’s gonna have a comically thorough amount of developer commentary, and that’s all I want from this world. It’s even coming to Switch!

Media can be used as a tool to assist with the experience of life, and that is the way I want to approach things. I have spent time adapting myself to feel comfortable in these boring aesthetics (of understated puzzle games, thoughtful pretty books, blogs as art) because this means I am less susceptible to getting burned out during contemplation and self-examination. It may seem like a matter of taste, but taste is relative too; it’s not hard-wired, it can be adjusted, it does adjust all the time under the hood. ...I don’t know where to go with this one, other than that I should be careful not to condescend. I am not above anyone, I am confused too. I just.. like confusion and mazes, and I try to speak these aesthetics in an approximation of how I see others talk about theirs.

Right. I think that’s the bulk of it, that’s what I wanted to say today. I hope you are holding on, reader. It’s a wild and lonely world out there, and it’s our world; it’s yours just as much as it’s anyone else’s. You are important to it.

I leave you, mysteriously, with an old Genesis song. It’s called “Can-Utility and the Coastliners,” which is a silly way of saying it’s a song about the myth of King Canute. Sick of flatterers claiming he was equal to God, he went to the sea shore and said “If I truly am equal to God, then let the waves halt at my feet!” They didn’t. An astute demonstration, but it just prompted his flatterers to praise his ingenuity. “But he forced a smile, even though his hopes lay dashed where offerings fell.” I’m not really sure how the story ends. But it’s a wonderful song, starts off very folks-y but quickly takes a left turn down Mystery and Beauty. And it’s freaking Genesis.

See ya.

[catchweightstudio]

The big Conscript accessibility + options update!

Hello everyone, hope you are all doing well. I’ve been hard at work getting a new demo revision ready for mid-October. 

MAIN MENU

Here’s a look at the initial main menu for Conscript. I find it quite atmospheric and have found myself just keeping it on in the background while I work. The last menu for the previous demo was quite rushed so I’m happy with how this one has turned out. 

ACCESSIBILITY

Recently, the topic of accessibility has been on my mind. As a developer it’s easy to find yourself resisting against a player’s ability to alter your “vision” of the game. I can understand this sentiment - as I’m somebody who holds my project VERY close to my heart. This topic was inspired by a conversation on the Conscript Discord where I was asked how accessible the game would be. My immediate internal reaction to any questions relating to adding a new unplanned feature is generally “isn’t my damn Trello board already big enough??”

After some reflection and research however, this is a silly way to look at things. Yes, any new feature takes hours or even days to implement - but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing. For example, as a developer I end up putting in many extra days and weeks trying to get the game on different online storefronts or even other consoles, all in hopes of trying to expose the game to more people but I would never question this time as anything but time well spent. 

Accessibility is the same thing really. There are extra hours of work I can put in to ensure that MORE people can be exposed to the game and enjoy it.  So that’s what I’ve been doing, even if it has meant putting extra work hours in every day for the past few weeks.

PAUSE

First, you can now visit the options menu at any time without having to go through the inventory.  A tiny change, but it was requested quite a few times.

VISUAL OPTIONS

 Something I wanted to solve was text readability. There are now a variety of settings to adjust different properties of the text in-game.

You can now choose between HD and pixelated fonts. Even though low-res pixel font is coherent with the general art style, it is not the most legible typeface to read. Now you can have the option to “HD-ify” the font, which makes for greater readability. 

For those with dyslexia who may have trouble discerning between serif style characters, you can now opt for a simple sans-serif font style. This can also be toggled between HD or pixelated. 

Text colour can also be changed between white, yellow, green, red or blue.

This is applied to all standard text throughout the game! 

And finally, the background opacity of the standard textbox can be customised from 0 to 100. If you are struggling to discern between the text and background it may be easier to have this on 100 so the text stands more.

I feel like all these extra little options will solve the text readability issue for the majority of players. Any colour specific elements will also have non-colour related visual indicators. They are small changes but hopefully go a long way for some.

There are also some extra little visual accessibility options for those who may have trouble focusing on certain elements of the game’s artstyle. You can now zoom the camera in up close to our protagonist, and also alter cursor, crosshair and interaction icon properties such as size and colour. HUD opacity can also be lowered, but it is set to 100 by default. 

The screen blood that appears when you take damage can also be turned off now, as can any bright flashes in the game for those who are photosensitive or epileptic. For those who don’t enjoy screenshake, that can be turned off too. 

It hasn’t been implemented yet, but I am working on having brightness and contrast settings too in the future. Even though the game won’t feature much voice acting, I am going to work on having subtitles available not just for voices but also for any kind of hard-to-read environmental text. 

AUDIO OPTIONS

Nothing too fancy, but you can now adjust SFX, music and master volume all independently. This required a rework of the audio system so it was actually quite challenging, but happy to have it completed and working.

BLOOD TOGGLE

Blood and gore effects can now be toned down substantially, although it will be left on by default. The reason I decided to include this is because there may be some who are more interested in exploring the history of Conscript without the intense and bloody combat . In my opinion, Conscript is equal parts a history game and a survival horror game, so there will be cross pollination between those two demographics. Most of you will probably leave this on but it’s nice to have it there anyway. 

DIFFICULTY MODES

During the Kickstarter campaign, we reached the stretch goal for two difficulty modes but I am going to include some extra ones in the final game. There will now be six difficulty modes in total.

Training (Assist Mode)

This mode will feature checkpoints, increased health capacity and player damage will be increased. 

Recruit / Soldier / Veteran

These three will be the standard easy/normal/hard sort of thing from every other game in existence. Enemy damage and item quantity variables will be the main differences between these modes.

War Hero

This will feature more “realistic” elements from modes like Resident Evil Remake’s “Real Survival” difficulty. Item boxes will be unlinked from each other and limited saves will be mandatory. It will contain the same gameplay modifiers as Veteran mode.

Grognard (French for “old soldier”)

This ultimate challenge will include all the features of War Hero mode but with PERMADEATH. Yep, you heard right. 

LIMITED SAVE TOGGLE

Limited saving has always been controversial. The reason I opted for this old-school survival horror mechanic is because it introduces a risk/reward style of gameplay where players generally try and squeeze in one extra “task” before the next save, leading to extra hard decisions being made during gameplay. Understandably, not everyone wants to deal with this though. Despite this being the intended way to play, it will an optional toggle at the start of any Conscript playthrough. Note that on the very hardest difficulties it will be mandatory however. 

Here’s a look at the game parameter screen before you start a new save:

You will also have the ability to toggle off Kickstarter backer easter eggs if you so wish. 

CONTROL SETTINGS

Any action that requires you to hold a button - such as aiming and running - can now be toggled with one button press instead.

Also, I’m going to implement both a quick melee and quick heal feature so that you don’t have to go into the inventory just to break some barrels or use a healing item.

You can also turn off mouse support to play the game with a keyboard only. 

CONTROLLER REMAPPING

Full control remapping is now available for both keyboard and gamepad control schemes. This was a complicated and time consuming thing for me to implement but I’m glad to finally have it available. 

Hang on a second… did the inventory just change? 

BAG STYLES

By far the biggest feature in Conscript history....

This was a fun little extra I decided to make when I was testing out the flexibility of the new options menu. Admittedly it has nothing to do with accessibility, but it is related to the options menu! You can now change the colour of the inventory background. You will be spending a lot of time there so I figured it would be cool to give some small level of customization... there may even be some extra unlockable styles in the full game! Any ideas for patterns or designs? 

So that’s what I’ve been working on the past two weeks! What do you think? I know menu heavy things aren't exactly the most marketable features, but I felt it was important to share. Are there any other reasonably in-scope accessibility options you all would like to see?

[tothestanders]

Trading Places

Summary:

"Why’d you harass me about wanting to play video games instead of talking to my friend? You don’t care about that sort of thing.”

Remus’s grin widened.

“Now Thomas, maybe Remus is turning over a new leaf. In that case, we should celebrate! How about we throw a bunch of Babybel cheese at people’s cars so the wax stains them red in pretty polka dots!

”Thomas stared at Patton. “…That’s vandalism. You want me to vandalize people’s cars?"

Or, Patton and Remus swap roles. It goes about as well as you’d expect.

Warnings: canon-typical Remus language

Read on AO3 here

Thomas’s back ached from being hunched over so long, fingers half numb from hours of button pressing. Thomas hardly noticed. He was only one level away from meeting the final Boss. Weeks of gameplay had been leading up to this moment. All the lost sleep and forgotten meals were about to pay off in the greatest, grandest, most magnificent battle of all time –

Something ringing cut through Thomas’s laser focus, jolting him back to the real world. He frantically groped for the ‘pause’ button before tearing his eyes away to read the caller ID on his phone. A friend from community theater. Thomas was disappointed for a moment that it wasn’t just ignorable spam, then immediately felt guilty. He quickly accepted the call.

“Hey man, what’s up?” he spoke into the phone. “Oh! Free to talk right now?” Thomas glanced longingly at the paused video game. “Um, well…”

“Are you really gonna hang up on your friend for a video game? Wow, Thomas, I didn’t realize you were even more evil than I am.”

Thomas nearly threw his phone in surprise. Next to him on the sofa suddenly sat the Duke, his face shifting between maudlin disappointment and a suppressed grin.

“What the heck, man! Why you gotta pop up in my blind spot like that?” Thomas yelled, putting the phone on mute while noises of confusion came through the speaker.

“Why you gotta be a shitty friend?” Remus replied without missing a beat. “What if they’re in crisis? What if their family just disowned them? What if they lost their job and can’t afford rent or food and have nowhere to go and you were their last option for help and now they’re going to spend the night on the streets and get mugged and then murdered and so eviscerated that they won’t be able to identify the body and he’ll be tossed into a mass grave where he’ll get devoured by worms at age thirty…”

“Oh my God, stop!” Thomas tried to command, to no avail.

“…and then he’ll turn into a zombie with his mind trapped in his rotting brain and forced to watch as his body kills people…”

“I hope your friend is doing all right!” Thomas whirled around to see Patton sitting on his other side, expression sympathetic. He didn’t seem to notice that Remus was there or still talking. Or maybe he was just ignoring him.

“Oh, thank God, Patton. Do you think it’s okay for me to play my video game instead of talking? I’m just so close to the boss battle and I really wanna finish it.”

“Well, I think your pal sounded fine, but better safe than sorry. How about you can finish your game, but first we say something to cheer him up just in case?”

“…and once all his loved ones have been eaten alive his zombie brain will come back to life and have to live with the horror of what he’s done…”

Desperate to get the Duke’s morbid monologue to stop, Thomas rushed to agree. “Yeah, sure. Any ideas?”

“Oh, you know I’ve always got something up my sleeve. A dad joke is never a bad joke!” He paused a second to think. “What has two butts and kills people? An assassin!”

Without a second thought, Thomas lifted the phone back to his face, unmuted it, and repeated the joke. He snorted at his own punchline, mentally congratulating himself on the pun. Then realization set in. Patton seemed to have the same realization, judging by the look of self-directed horror on his face.

The sound of laughter came through the phone. “Sorry, that was kind of a silly one. But glad you liked it,” Thomas said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Listen, I was kinda in the middle of something when you called, but I’d love to catch up later tonight if that works for you?” His friend assured him it was no problem, and after setting up a time to chat later, they hung up.

“What the heck was that?” Thomas said.

“Great teamwork!” Remus chimed, raising a hand to high-five Patton across Thomas’s body. Patton eyed it nervously, then lightly tapped the palm. Then not so subtly wiped his hand on his pants.

“Sorry, kiddo. I didn’t mean to use potty language,” Patton said, shaking his head. “A dad’s gotta set a good example for his kids! Not my best work, huh?”

“Yeah, that was weird,” Thomas said. “But mostly I meant Remus. Why’d you harass me about wanting to play video games instead of talking to my friend? You don’t care about that sort of thing.”

Remus’s grin widened.

“Now Thomas, maybe Remus is turning over a new leaf. In that case, we should celebrate! How about we throw a bunch of Babybel cheese at people’s cars so the wax stains them red in pretty polka dots!”

Thomas stared at Patton. “…That’s vandalism. You want me to vandalize people’s cars? And wouldn’t that probably make dents and break the windows?”

Patton’s face fell into a look of consternation. “Oh, yes, sorry. That would be very inconsiderate. Definitely don’t do that, Thomas. Okay, instead, we can celebrate with food! I think we’ve got eggs, pickles, maple syrup, and coffee in the kitchen. Sounds like the ingredients for a yummy soup.”

“Soup?” Thomas repeated in disbelief.

Patton tilted his head. “Yeah, soup. You know, a liquid you can eat! We could add cinnamon too if you want.”

“I love it, Patton! Look who’s finally not being such a fuddy-daddy,” Remus said, drumming his fingers against his cheek.

Thomas looked rapidly between the two of them. “Okay, is someone going to explain what’s going on here or am I just gonna stay confused?”

“You could’ve skipped all the confusion in the first place if you’d just listened to me earlier. I knew you liked boys by age 6!” Remus answered, and Thomas groaned. But then the Duke let out a long, dramatic sigh and stood, spreading his arms wide. “All right, killjoy. I swapped us, of course!”

“What? You can’t do that!” Patton reprimanded. “You switch back with Thomas right now, mister! This is Thomas Sanders Sides, not Remus Sanders Sides.”

Remus blinked. “Uh, right. No. I swapped our roles, Patton.”

Patton’s eyes widened with realization. “Ohhh. Well that’s much better.” He nodded to himself. Then, “Hey! You switch us back right now, mister!”

“Oopsie doodles, no can doozies. This is way too much fun! Now, Thomas, about your content.” Remus turned to face Thomas, a manic gleam in his eyes. “You really love to coddle your viewers, huh? Do you think they can tell? Do you think they click on your channel and get whacked in the face with the patronizing ooey gooey BS you sprinkle over their dainty little heads? They’re probably devastated you don’t trust them to be able to handle anything more meaningful and substantial than the trite twaddle you call videos.”

Remus pushed up his cheeks with his fists, lower lip jutting out in an exaggerated pout. “Aw, poor babies. Their favorite Youtube star thinks nothing of them. That’s gotta cut like a machete to the heart.”

“Okay! Got it,” Thomas said. “So what I’m hearing is you’re my morality now?” Horror rose in his throat. “And Patton is my bad creativity?” Remus nodded excitedly. Patton looked nauseous. “Why would you do that?” Thomas asked, desperate.

“Oh, it’s simple. Dear Virgie didn’t like the bloody death threat I left on his wall earlier. Talk about not being able to take a joke, amirite?” Patton grimaced at that idea of a ‘joke.’ “Anyway, then he went off about how I’ll” – Remus adopted a mocking, bored tone to accompany his air quotes – “‘never be an important Side’ because I ‘don’t know the difference between right and wrong.’ Blah, blah, blah. But that was just too good of a challenge to pass up!”

“Too good of a challenge…so you’re trying to prove Virgil wrong? By being my morality? ” Thomas clarified in dismay.

“Yep! And proving that I could gain a whole lotta influence real quick if I wanted. Good little Thomas would never repress his moral drive.” Remus smiled sweetly at him.

“Sure, okay. This is not happening.” Thomas turned to Patton. “You’re my real morality. Can’t you, like, take your job back? Please?”

“Afraid not,” the Duke answered for him in a voice dripping with fake sympathy. “Where do you think your Sides comes from, Thomas? We’re figments of your imagination, after all.”

Thomas rested his face in his hand, exhausted by the whole situation. “I’m not following.”

“It’s easy. Imagination is part of creativity.” He did a mirror of Roman’s typical arm flourish at the mention of his function. “Therefore, your creativity created your Sides and is the only thing that can change them as it pleases. As I please.”

“Hold on, does that mean you and Roman are, like, literally everyone else’s dads?” Thomas asked.

“Hey now, kiddo. Don’t go stealing my kids out from under me,” Patton said, pointing a stern finger.

“Don’t worry, I’m a deadbeat dad!” Remus replied. Then his expression turned thoughtful. It was the most terrifying thing Thomas had ever seen. “Huh, isn’t it interesting that we’re figments of your imagination but also kinda not? I mean, we’ve got thoughts and feelings of our own. Yet our whole existence revolves around you.” Thomas braced, not sure where this was going but sure it wasn’t anywhere good. “You call all the shots about what we do, and if one of us wants to do something? Well, better pimp yourself out to get on the Big Daddy’s good side –”

“What?!”

“– and hope he graciously agrees. No autonomy for us. Just wasting away in your brain while you fuck around with the body. Male privilege? Please, let’s talk corporeal privilege, Thomas.”

Remus’s tone stayed casual, gaze idly wandering as he thought aloud. But the wave of guilt that came with his words was enough to nearly knock Thomas over, and made his eyes sting with tears. The Duke actually had a point. Was Thomas a terrible person? Oh, God. Was he abusing his Sides?

“Okay, kiddo.” Patton said, holding out his hands in a pacifying gesture. “That’s some pretty heavy stuff. Let’s not get carried away, all right? Don’t worry Thomas, we love being part of your amazing head!”

“Did someone say amazing head? I was wondering when you’d ask –”

Thomas closed his eyes. He could not deal with this. His Morality was suggesting crime, his Bad Creativity was giving him intrusive guilt, except all that was actually the other way around, now. Too much chaos, too many moral crises jam packed into ten minutes, too much Remus. Frankly, at this point he was just surprised Virgil hadn’t popped up to yell at him yet. Thomas was considering just getting up and walking away, irrationally hoping that no one would follow, when he remembered something.

“Wait a second. You said only Creativity could switch you guys back, right?”

“Yeppers! And don’t bother calling Roman, he’s still black and blue from reading Youtube comments earlier,” Remus replied cheerfully. Thomas made a mental note to check on Roman once all this was done.

“But you switched roles with Patton,” he continued, frown sliding into a sly smile. “Which means that Patton is now my Creativity – well, part of it, anyway. Which means he can switch you back!” Thomas turned eagerly to his father figure figment.

“Ah, I’m not so sure about that, kiddo.” Patton’s eyes were wide as saucers. “What if tapping into a” – his voice fell to a whisper – “dark power turns me evil. Like Ursula from A Little Mermaid.”

“Is that Ursula’s backstory?” Thomas asked curiously.

“No, actually! The real one is much better,” Remus said. “She almost got burned alive when her village figured out she was part octopus. Good thing her dear brother rescued her. Oh, except he thought she was a monster too, so he banished her to the cesspit of the sea.” Remus’s enthusiastic tone only made his darkened expression the more unnerving.

Thomas shifted uneasily. Once again, he was reminded just how much he didn’t know about what went on in his own head. But then again, Remus had told him, hadn’t he?

The unloved brother from the Genesis.

He began to spiral back down Remus’s guilt trip about responsibility to his Sides. Thankfully his thoughts were interrupted by Patton. “Aw, poor thing! People can be meaner than a bully burning a baby bunny in a Satanic ritual.” What? “Uh, I mean! A stuffed bunny. Anyway, I hope Ursula is okay now.”

“Nope, she died,” Remus informed him. Patton’s lip started to wobble.

“So that’s good news!” Thomas butted in before things could get any more derailed. He’d have time later to worry about sibling rivalry and possible injustice among figments of his imagination. “I mean, Ursula didn’t turn evil from using dark magic. So Patton has nothing to worry about. I’m sure everything will be fine.”

“I don’t know…”

“Please, I need my good old morality back. No one else can beat the top pop.” Thomas smiled at the giggle that got.

“Oh, all right. I’ll give it the old college try.”

Thomas sighed in relief and watched as Patton squeezed his eyes and fists tight, brow furrowing in intense concentration. A moment later he cracked an eye open. “Did it work?”

“I don’t know, tell a joke!” Thomas urged.

“Um…oh! Why can’t a nose be twelve inches long? Because then it’d be a foot!”

Thomas groaned, but he was smiling. Finally, his Sides were back to normal.

“Or my dick!” Remus chirped.

Yeah, normal. The thought was far fonder than it had any right to be.

“See, Patton? There was nothing to worry about. No spooky magical corruption – hey what’s up with your logo?” Thomas pointed at the heart on Patton’s shirt. It had turned upside down, its shape now looking a lot like…well.

Remus gasped in delight. “Awesome! Taking style inspiration from your favorite Creativity, I see.”

“You’re not my favorite Creativity,” Patton said, and Thomas couldn’t help his flinch. But then, “I can’t play favorites with my kids! You’re all perfect just the way you are.”

The side-eye Remus gave Patton was truly impressive. “Perfect, huh? Even when I do this?” Suddenly he was holding what looked kinda like a bouquet of pale, bloody flowers. Then Thomas spotted the fingernails. He watched as the entire handful of severed fingers slid down Remus’s throat and disappeared with a loud slurp.

“Of course!” Patton replied, seemingly unfazed. “No matter what you do, you’re still famILY.”

Okay, that was weird. Patton, not bothered by that sickening gesture? But wait a second – was it sickening? Strangely enough, Thomas found he wasn’t all that bothered by it either. Like some of his aversion to Remus had faded.

The suspicious look didn’t leave Remus’s face, but something about him seemed…calmer, than it had a minute ago. Softer.

Patton looked back at his shirt with a puzzled expression. “That’s funny, I could’ve sworn the heart was right-side up. Maybe I need new glasses!”

“I wouldn’t call that a heart anymore. It’s totally a pair of dingle-dangles.”

“A what?” Thomas said, unable to believe the Duke had actually used a euphemism. And a downright cutesy one, at that. His gaze fell to Remus’s belt.

“My eyes are up here, you saucy minx. And here,” Remus added, pointing to the eyeball on his shoulder.

“No, look,” Thomas said, pointing to the logo on the belt buckle. The crescent moon at the top seemed to have morphed into a smiley face.

Thomas head swiveled between the smiley face and the – uh, inverted heart – several times. He thought back to what Patton had been worried about. Lasting effects of the role reversal. Oh no.

Patton and Remus, both still engrossed by their changed logos, seemed to have the same thought. In voices heavy with resignation, all three of them spoke at the same time.

“Aw, butts.”

[callunavulgari]

“Listen to the sound of my heart beat slow Yeah, my heart's like yours, my heart's like yours Listen to the sound, oh it feels like home When our hearts beat slow together.”

Heather’s Top 50 Songs of 2019!

dark night — philip sheppard // curse of the i-5 corridor — neko case // way down we go — kaleo // almost — hozier // dancing in a room — ezi // epic (pt ii) — anais mitchell & justin vernon // spanish sahara — foals // obstacles — syd matters // tom thumb — bitter ruin // wolves of the revolution — the arcadian wild // epic (pt iii) — anais mitchell, justin vernon // the spine — darren korb & ashley barrett // don’t think twice — hikaru utada // face my fears — hikaru utada // waves — chloe moriondo // ashes — bear mccreary // wake up, moving on — kevin penkin // paper boats — darren korb & ashley barrett // call off your ghost — dessa // power over me — dermot kennedy // a future for the krogan — christopher lennertz // mine — bazzi // bite — charlie cunningham // wait for me — andre de shields // birds — imagine dragons & elisa // crazy — patsy cline //  bury a friend — billie eilish // the seed — aurora // eleventh dimension — julian casablancas // sunflower — post malone // what’s up danger — blackway, black caviar // bad guy — billie eilish // elevate — dj khalil // must’ve been — chromeo // dark matter — les friction // lark of my heart — eliza rickman // dancing on my own — robyn //  hungover in the city of dust — autoheart // season of the witch — lana del rey // bird song — juniper vale // paradise valley — honey & the sting // my hallelujah — autoheart // furthest star — dirt poor robins // play dirty — kevin mcallister // it’s quiet uptown — kelly clarkson // pas de deux — michael abels // i got 5 on it — michael abels, luniz, mi // one day more — les mis cast // into the unknown — idina menzel, aurora // show yourself — idina menzel & evan rachel wood

short version | long version | youtube | spotify unwrapped

long version will lead you to the 165 song, 10 hour and 34 minute playlist which i’ve been slowly adding to since january. short version will lead you to what you see here. youtube will lead you to the playlist you see here but... wait for it... on youtube. mostly because i know not everyone has spotify. spotify unwrapped will lead you to a mixture of the long and the short version, which is pretty bloated with austin wintory songs because those are what i listen to when i write or read usually.

the long version is much improved in length from last year, which was 261 songs and 17 hours, but that’s mostly because august through december i was pretty bad at keeping track of the music that caught my attention. whoops.

and under the cut is me ranting about music, like usual. enjoy!

i. dark night || philip sheppard *instrumental*

This was my absolute favorite from the Detroit: Become Human soundtrack. I tended to prefer Kara’s songs most because they were gorgeous and haunting and just plain fantastic. Connor’s songs were mostly listened to while writing for the fandom, but Kara’s songs were what I kept coming back to. ii. curse of the i-5 corridor || neko case So I left home and faked my ID I fucked every man that I wanted to be

Sometime in January, I fell in love with eighteen wheels on an uphill climb, which was a 91k hank/connor wip by blackeyedblonde. Hank’s a trucker. Connor occasionally dabbles in sex work to keep himself alive and moving. But like, it’s so much more than that? Anyway, at some point the author linked to this song. I think it may have been on tumblr, but I fell in love with it and neko case.

iii. way down we go || kaleo Oh, 'cause they will run you down, down 'til the dark Yes and they will run you down, down 'til you fall And they will run you down, down 'til you go Yeah, so you can't crawl no more

Speaking of Detroit: Become Human (sensing a theme?), this fanvideo is one of my favorite things in the world. I had it and a couple other fantastic videos like it playing in the background while writing for the fandom. This video, in fact, is what finally made me go in search of the game. iv. almost (sweet music) || hozier The same kind of music haunts her bedroom I'm almost me again, she's almost you Wasteland, Baby was a thing that happened to me. Which would have already been enough to get it on this list, but I also listened to it on repeat while writing my first DBH fic. v. dancing in a room || ezi I know you notice, notice me I might be broken but it's not showing It's how I'm copin', copin' I don’t actually remember where this one came from. I know that sometime when March is still a bit cold, I listened to a playlist on spotify that I can’t find for the life of me. It had a lot of the songs that are about to come up on it, and before I started exclusively listening to audiobooks while I got ready for work in the morning, I listened to random fantastic playlists. vi. epic (pt ii) || anais mitchell & justin vernon And suddenly Hades was only a man with a taste of nectar upon his lips

Hadestown was also a thing that happened to me. This song makes me fucking weak. All of the lyrics are great, the whole song is gorgeous and haunting and so perfect it hurts, but those lyrics above are just *chefs kiss* vii. spanish sahara || foals Forget the horror here Leave it all down here It's future rust and it's future dust

Sometime during the spring, I played Life Is Strange and had a million and one feelings. I played both options for the ending and each one was gut wrenching in its own way. I think I still prefer the one where Chloe lives, but this song has literally haunted me ever since.

viii. obstacles || syd matters Someday we will foresee obstacles Through the blizzard, through the blizzard And this is the song that plays if you make the other choice. Again, SUPER TRAGIC, but also you know. You get to keep your girlfriend. ix. tom thumb || bitter ruin And I know I'll be burnt, but I can stand a flame or two to catch you

This was one of the songs that I discovered on the mysterious spotify playlist! Something I’d forgotten: I discovered Hadestown off of that playlist. Thanks, mystery playlist. You gave me all the ear worms. x. wolves of the revolution || the arcadian wild You're trapped inside of your own heart It's a spectators sport, just play your part You guessed it - from the mystery playlist. They’re all very reminiscent of the Hadestown soundtrack. Vaguely eerie, kind of haunting, a lot beautiful. Makes you feel like you’re a forest creature living on the edge of the swamp. You know: the aesthetic. xi. epic (pt iii) || anais mitchell & justin vernon Where is the treasure inside your chest? Where is your pleasure? Where is your youth? Where is the man with his hat in his hands? Who stands in the garden with nothing to lose I thought about only including this one instead of including part 2, but in the end I loved both too much to choose. Hadestown, man. I hope it comes to Ohio at some point in the near future. xii.  the spine || darren korb & ashley barrett Fingers tied themselves in knots around the heart It beats in time I see the spine of the world

I have never actually played Transistor, which is fucking tragic because I listened to basically the entire soundtrack over and over again for the entire year. There’s at least one more song from the game on this list, but it is really wonderful. Haunting vocals, perfect for writing or reading or driving.  xiii. don’t think twice || hikaru utada I'm only crying 'cause I never dreamed It'd take this long, it'd take this long Hi, I played Kingdom Hearts 3 this year. And I cried so fucking much. I had some issues with the game, namely how the ending was such a clusterfuck of boss fight after boss fight and emotional character arc resolutions so it all felt kind of rushed? But the gameplay was superb, the selfie thing was ingenious, and I did cry at least six different times while I was stressing my way through fighting boss fights with blurry eyes. xiv. face my fears || hikaru utada Oh, let me face, let me face, let me face my fears Won't be long, won't be long, I'm almost here Watch me cry all my tears

So like, if you care at all you’ve probably already seen it, but the opening cutscene of KH3 was to Face My Fears, and I’m gonna be real honest here - I didn’t like it at first. I moaned and groaned about Skrillex and how it was nothing like Simple and Clean or Passion/Sanctuary. But it grew on me to the point that it was actually my most listened to song this year. Watch me cry all my tears, indeed. xv. waves || chloe moriondo Make me into more than a goner Perhaps a little bit stronger Thicker skin, less needy, And maybe to not bruise so damn easily, but you can't

I don’t remember where I found this song either? Maybe mystery playlist but probably not. Either way, it’s pretty and uh, I too want to slow the world down. xvi. ashes || bear mccreary -instrumental- Man, oh man, let’s talk about how good of a game God of War was. It was so good, guys. The game play was excellent, the world was gorgeous, and the storyline was interesting. And the music went so, so hard. Between Horizon Zero Dawn and the new God of War, I have basically been ruined for all other games. Also, dad protagonists, am I right? xvii. wake up, moving on || kevin penkin -instrumental-

Did not actually realize this was part of a soundtrack to a game? But it’s very lilty. Has that French quirky romcom vibe to it and I listened to the crap out of it in early summer. xviii. paper boats || darren korb & ashley barrett The river always finds the sea So helplessly Like you find me

Another Transistor song. I really love Ashley Barrett’s voice. I should probably at some point play the game. xix. call off your ghost || dessa I hope she makes you happy It's just a lot to ask to watch your future walking past me

This song played during one of the weather segments of Welcome to Night Vale and made me remember how much I absolutely adore Dessa. Her voice is fantastic and I love the way that her songs flow. Also, this song gives me personal feels. xx. power over me || dermot kennedy I wanna be king in your story I wanna know who you are I want your heart to beat for me I have absolutely no idea where I heard this one. It might have been playing on the radio while I was driving somewhere? I played it a lot during the summer.  xxi. a future for the krogan || christopher lennertz -instrumental- It’s been a while since I played Mass Effect, but this song came up on a writing playlist and I have been listening to it ever since.

xxii. mine || bazzi Running circles 'round my mind Even when it's rainy all you ever do is shine

Shrug emoji. 

xxiii. bite || charlie cunningham Stone cold faces let you keep you poisoning your blood Cut you open then you'll see poison in your blood

Also shrug emoji? Most of the time when I’m doing these there’s fandom connatations to half the songs, but these year I wasn’t heavily invested in a whole lot of fandoms so these are mostly just songs I listened to while I was a) driving, b) in the shower, or c) while reading.

xxiv. wait for me || andre de shields Ain't no compass, brother, there ain't no map Just a telephone wire and the railroad track Keep on walking and you don't look back

And here’s the last Hadestown song on the list. It’s just... really good, okay. Really, really good. xxv. birds || imagine dragons & elisa Seasons, they will change Life will make you grow Dreams will make you cry, cry, cry

I think there’s been an Imagine Dragons song on here every year since they came out with Radioactive. This is the only song of theirs I heard this year, but pairing their voice with Elisa’s was fucking genius because this song makes me feel the chorus in my soul. xxvi. crazy || patsy cline You'd love me as long as you wanted And then some day You'd leave me for somebody new I was at a bar, and my friend has just announced that he was getting married to his girlfriend of ten years in Vegas, on a ferris wheel, by an Elvis impersonator. We started listening to Elvis songs to figure out what he’d play, and then we got distracted listening to a bunch of old love songs. This one is more heartbreak than love, but I’ve always loved Patsy’s voice. xxvii. bury a friend || billie eilish Bury a friend, try to wake up

I was really slow to the Billie Eilish train. One of my friends recommended her music and it’s just so chaotic and fantastic that I can’t believe I didn’t fall for it earlier. This song in particular was a Billy Hargrove song for a while.

xxviii. the seed || aurora Feed me sunlight, feed me air In a place where nothing matters Feed me truth and feed me prayer Aurora’s got one of those truly lovely voices. Also I like songs about how the earth should eat humanity.

xxix.  eleventh dimension || julian casablancas 'Cause no one really cares or wonders why anymore Oh, I got music, coming out of my hands and feet and kisses

Back in 2011, when I was still watching Doctor Who, someone made this video which blew my little heart away. I rediscovered this song while we were driving back to Ohio from our annual beach trip and managed to get everyone in the car hooked on it for weeks afterwards.

xxx. sunflower || post malone You're a sunflower I think your love would be too much

Into the Spiderverse! Was so! Good! 

xxxi. what’s up danger || blackway, black caviar I like it all on the edge just like you, ayy I like tall buildings so I can leap off of 'em

So like, that scene, right? The one that had everyone losing their collective shit? I saw gifs before I watched the movie, and goddamn, it lived up to every single expectation I ever had. I made Nick watch it with me, and he groaned a lot because honestly he is not the biggest fan of super hero movies, but even he admitted that it was the best damn Spiderman movie we’d ever seen. It was powerful and clever and heartwarming and funny and the music and animation were both fan-freaking-tastic.

xxxii. bad guy || billie eilish I'm the bad guy, duh Can you believe that I actually didn’t know about this video until @nijuukoo did art? I mean, I’d definitely heard it and liked it before hand, but the fucking video, man. That pic of Vanitas showering Ven in hearts is still the background of my desktop.(It would have been the one of him sitting on Ansem while he’s doing push ups, but it didn’t work with my screen)

xxxiii. elevate || dj khalil I jump off this building to save these civilians My strength and my honor is trusted by children I'm ready and willing to fight all these villains No chaos or killings, my style is so brilliant I really, really liked the music to Into the Spiderverse.

xxxiv. must’ve been || chromeo I must've been high when I met you Out of my mind when I decided to love you

There was a Harringrove fic that I read during the summer that made the connection between this song and modern AU Billy and Steve. I thought it was @lymricks but maybe not. Either way - I listened to this for like three weeks straight while reading about Billy and Steve flirting at the pool. Ha! Found it - you, through half-shut eyes by @brawlite.

xxxv. dark matter || les friction Bring me your soul, bring me your hate In my name you will create Bring me your fear, bring me your pain You will destroy in my name

There was an Outsider fanvid. I tripped over it.

xxxvi. lark of my heart || eliza rickman Lark of my heart - dance in the dark and say you love me Lark of my heart - right from the start and say you love me

This one was another that I found on a random playlist while I was reading and I just love the rhythm of the song. I sat right up and favorited that sucker before I lost it.

xxxvii. dancing on my own — robyn I'm just gonna dance all night I'm all messed up, I'm so outta line Stilettos on broken bottles I'm spinning around in circles Okay. Okay, okay, okay. So there was that tumblr post that went around a while back where a bunch of subway riders who just got back from a Robyn concert started singing while waiting for the train and I just. It makes me so fucking happy. Like, I remember the night I clicked on that video. I’d never heard the song before, but I didn’t need to because the level of fucking joy and unity in that video literally brought tears to my eyes. Sometimes, humans are fucking beautiful.

xxxviii. hungover in the city of dust || autoheart We’re hungover in the city of dust So let our minds run round in circles While we figure it all out

I really adore autoheart. They did Sailor Song, which was on my Top Songs post last year and honestly, according to the plays on spotify, probably should have still been on my list this year, but alas - this is the abridged version. Every song I’ve heard from them I’ve loved. The entire bridge makes me shiver, it’s just so wonderfully executed.

xxxix. season of the witch || lana del rey You've got to pick up every stitch, The rabbits running in the ditch, Oh no, must be the season of the witch In October I watched Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and it was super spooky and really great and probably one of the best movies I saw this year? But like, also this cover by Lana del Rey was the best damn thing about it. Someone made a witchy video that was great too but I can’t find it now. xl. bird song || juniper vale Listen to the sound of my heart beat slow Yeah, my heart's like yours, my heart's like yours Listen to the sound, oh it feels like home When our hearts beat slow together

I really like Juniper Vale. I found them last year when I stumbled across their cover of Singing In The Rain, and they churn out some really quality music.

xli. paradise valley || honey & the sting So you'll have to hold me down Could you just hold me down build the levees higher This song was always going to make it to 2019′s list too. It’s just too damn good. Thank you, Wolf 359. You’ve given me a gift that is still giving three years later.

xlii. my hallelujah || autoheart Thought I found a new religion In you who was I kidding There's nowhere to go Except for under quarantine

More Autoheart! Just listen to that melody! That flow! 

xliii. furthest star || dirt poor robins We'll find our hiding place Clear across the Milky Way Beyond the galaxy On the furthest star that we see

This song reminds me a lot of Muse back in their early days. I was half-napping on the couch listening to, you guessed it, a random playlist on spotify, and I liked this song enough to surface from the edges of slumber to favorite it so I could find it again.

xliv. play dirty || kevin mcallister Would you get the Devil this dance? Would you be a part of his plans? Now you got some blood on your hands

There was a fanvid. It was good and basically caught me up on Preacher. The song is also really catchy.

xlv. it’s quiet uptown || kelly clarkson Look at where we are Look at where we started Last year, this was on my list because of an EOS 10 playlist. This year it’s on my list because I still fucking love it. Also I saw Hamilton this year and it was really phenomenal. I cannot get over how good it was.

xlvi. pas de deux || michael abels -instrumental- I watched Us in late October/early November and this entire sequence was really lovely and eerie and just all around fantastic. I loved the mirroring throughout the movie, and it all came together in this stunning confrontation.

xlvii. i got 5 on it || michael abels, luniz, mi I got five on it

Us had a really good soundtrack.

xlviii. one day more || les mis cast One more dawn One more day One day more!

About a month ago I got to see Les Mis in theater and I cried like six or seven times. That is not an exaggeration I was a fucking mess. As much as I’ve adored every musical I have seen up until this point, I have never had a musical affect me the way this one did. It was incredibly powerful and the experience was worth every damn cent.

xlix. into the unknown || idina menzel, aurora Everyone I've ever loved is here within these walls I'm sorry, secret siren, but I'm blocking out your calls

Like, I know it’s cool to hate on Frozen because it got so popular, but Idina Menzel is a queen with the voice of an angel and I’m sorry, but the movies were good. Also, Elsa is very, very pretty and this shit was very, very gay. 

l. show yourself || idina menzel & evan rachel wood Come to me now Open your door Don't make me wait One moment more

Sorry, I don’t make the rules. Elsa gets all the best numbers. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, folks. Happy listening.

[365daysoftododeku]

3rd July 2019

Author: Kenyoda

Admin’s Note: Hallo! If you’ve been following the Candid Shoutos series by @ebonyphd, here is a new update! The idea is inspired by @crzangel‘s headcanon here.

Warning: Mild mention of suicide attempt

________________________________________________________________

Suffering for S(omeone)ubscribers

Shouto found Izuku to be one of the most amazing people he had ever met. He still had a hard time believing that Izuku was so enamored with him. He was far from social, had enough baggage to fill a moving van, and far more practical than romantic. But Izuku still told him he loved him every morning, still whispered about how beautiful and sweet Shouto was when they were alone. Still mumbled about how lucky he was.

Honestly, Shouto often felt like he was the lucky one in the relationship. On top of all of Shouto’s internal flaws, he had plenty of external ones as well. He had a huge scar that took up a quarter of his face, and dripped down his chest, throat and back. On top of those, he had gained plenty more scars from training and fighting villains through his time in UA. The stress from everything often left him drained, pale… and his weight was dropping again. He hoped no one noticed. 

Izuku though, thrived on the action. He was at his best when he was saving people. Whether it was from a villain, a natural disaster, or simply the fear brought on by a nightmare, Izuku shined. The boy was born to be a hero. Shouto was not. He could admit that now. It wore on him in the worst way. But his boyfriend lived for it. 

Izuku’s usual nature made the present situation all the more confusing. 

They were currently sitting on Shouto’s futon, the laptop in front of them. A game was pulled up, which they had downloaded for a specific purpose. In the aftermath of their accidental relationship reveal, Shouto figured things would go downhill. But things just kind of continued. Sure there were those that had plenty of negative things to say, his father being the worse, but for the most part it was old news within two weeks. The most surprising thing was the outpouring of support. It was really humbling. There were so many people that were happy for them and wanted to see their relationship succeed.  He held that close to his heart for those days that were especially difficult, right next to his love for Izuku. 

In order to celebrate the candid_shoutos page getting 5,000 followers, they had polled their subscribers on what they would like to see more of. Videos was the top choice. So, they naturally asked what they would like their first video to be on. And naturally, they wanted him and Izuku to play a horror game together. Shouto had not felt one way or the other about it, and Izuku was always happy that their followers were happy. So, they began looking. 

They couldn’t do a long one because PlusInsta only allowed short videos. Finding short games was kind of difficult. However, Kaminari suggested a short one that he claimed was not too scary. It was all of a minute long and not too complicated to play. 

So here they were sitting and staring at a black screen with the words Death Trips printed in white block letters. Izuku was staring at the screen like it was going to bite him. They were capturing their gameplay using a game recorder, again thanks to Kaminari, so, Shouto was watching the camera which was showing Izuku’s pale face. He had never seen his boyfriend look so unsettled.

“You know… we can do something else.” Shouto suggested. 

“No, no… this is fine.” Izuku said. Though he made no move to start the game. Shouto sighed. 

“Clearly it is not fine,” Shouto argued. “You are pale, love, I can see the freckles by your collar.” Izuku finally turned to look at him. His eyes held a little fear, but Shouto also noted the hunched posture. It was not saying afraid so much as frustrated. 

“I just— it’s so stupid. It’s nothing, let’s just get this over with,”  Izuku said with a huff. Shouto flinched at his gruff manner. It was unusual. Izuku was normally happy to open up to him about anything. So, Shouto was really worried. What should he do? How can he help? 

“But, you’re upset?” Shouto tried again. Izuku’s shoulders slumped in defeat.

“This so stupid! I’m supposed to be a hero and I am scared of a game. There is nothing that can actually hurt me and yet… I don’t want to do it,” he moaned. Tears were gathering in the corners of his eyes. Shouto blinked. He thought this was out of the blue, but then he remembered that Izuku usually skipped out on the class movie nights when people brought out horror movies. The one time he had been humiliated into staying, he cried through the whole thing. 

As Izuku continued to wallow in his self recrimination, Shouto was struggling to find a way to make him feel better. Izuku just always seemed to know what to do or say. Shouto was more likely to make an unintentional joke or make something awkward. He fell back on old habits and decided to be blunt. 

“So? You’re a human being, just like everyone else… and everybody is afraid of something.” he said as he wrapped an arm around his boyfriend, pulling him close. Izuku did not push him away, thankfully, instead hugging him back. 

“I mean, I know… it’s just so unjustified.” he sighed. Shouto looked back at the screen, thinking back to the movies he had seen with some of his other classmates. In all honesty, Shouto did not get the point of horror movies. A part of him felt disgusted that people paid to see people frightened, distressed, sometimes murdered ruthlessly, or frightened into insanity. Shouto did not find it entertaining, he hardly even remembered them once they were over. The SAW movies had been the final straw for him. It had been exaggerated, sure, but it had hit a nerve for Shouto. 

Jigsaw had claimed that he was trying to show people that they really wanted to live, by torturing them until they either had to murder someone else or endure horrific actions to leave. It sounded too close to Endeavor’s  reasoning about his “training”. All the pain, scars, phobias, and complexes Shouto had to contend with on a practically daily basis was seen as necessary at best and imagined at worse. Shouto shuddered at the thought. His back burned at the reminder of the lengths his father would go to. 

“Fear doesn’t have to be, it just is. Besides anyone can bullshit justification. We both know that,” Shouto darkly. Izuku’s glance went from frustrated to concerned. 

“Your dad’s not hurting you again, is he?” Izuku asked, becoming more alarmed by the second. 

“Not yet,” he huffed. There was no use in pretending. Both of the people in this room knew about Endeavor. His father had been blowing up his phone. Back to back phone calls when he was not in classes, most of which were left unreturned. This usually ended up with Shouto having to endure an hour long verbal lashing session when he finally was weary enough to answer the phone. The results of said session would last for weeks, resolving itself just in time for him to start up again. But Shouto would take the man’s vitriolic tongue over his flames and fists. 

“The bastard better not,” his boyfriend snarled. His face contorting into an angry grimace.

“Calm down, Izuku, he hasn’t been near Musutafu in months. I’m fine,” he insisted. Liar… his brain accused. Izuku gave him an exasperated look. Apparently, Izuku knew it, too. 

“Uh huh, but your PTSD is worlds away from my childish monster phobia…” Izuku lamented. Shouto felt himself relax at Izuku’s willingness to move to another topic. This was swiftly followed by frustration and guilt. Even now, Izuku was calming him down, when Shouto was the one that was supposed to helping Izuku!

“Didn’t you hear what I said? Fear is not rational. It just does its job. It’s not like you are freezing up during an attack. You are in the safety of your own room. You can be human here… heaven knows I won’t judge you. I lack Bakugou’s gall, you see.” Shouto joked weakly. Izuku spluttered and dissolved into a fit of laughter. Maybe Kaminari was not joking when he said Shouto was funny. 

“I guess… I just… All Might is counting on me to look after Japan in his place and I just don’t know if I’m doing this right…” Izuku sighed, dropping his face into the pillow. Shouto felt for his boyfriend. He understood that kind of pressure too well. That pressure had been sitting on Shouto’s shoulders since the manifestation of his Quirk.  While Shouto knew that All Might and Izuku had a relationship that was completely unlike the one between him and his sire, the whole protege thing did not sit well with him at all. 

Basically, their meeting was a simple accident. A man who had run into a wall and out of time and a child desperate for a chance. All MIght had basically offered Izuku his dream in exchange for the ability to live his own life. Shouto found himself wondering if Izuku really knew what he had done that day. Even if he didn’t, Shouto knew his boyfriend would not change his decision. Because Izuku was loyal like that. His relationship with Bakugou was telling enough. His father would easily call Izuku foolish for it. 

If Shouto were honest, he was only upset for one reason. At some point, whether either of them wanted to or not, Izuku was going to have to choose between Japan or him. There was just no feasible way to do both, at least in Shouto’s mind. It hurt to think about. What made it particularly rankling was that if Izuku had remained Quirkless… few of those people that Izuku would give him up for would have even cared what happened to him. Shouto himself never would have met him, either. He may not have even made it out of his first year. 

He had never mentioned to his boyfriend just how low he had been then. He had hit some pretty low points since his first year but he now had friends and Izuku to keep him steady. He had not fallen back to that point in a while. Back then Shouto had hurt from the inside out. He had stopped caring. Yes he sniped and snarled at his father, but they both knew it was impotent… his father had found it irritatingly amusing some of the time. After all, the man had ripped out any real teeth or claws Shouto had a long time ago.  

Shouto had been planning to overwhelm his opponents with his ice and take 1st place, then go home and hang himself with the medal. It was a last, desperate ‘fuck you’. Shouto was not stupid, deep down he knew he would never be able to replace All Might… not with ice alone. After all, most people despise winter and pray for spring or summer. Winter and all it brought was constantly used to personify all the things that humanity despised and feared. The sun, Shouto was not. He would have never replaced Japan’s Shining Sun, All Might.  

But then, he met his own personal sun in the form of Midoriya Izuku, a boy that would cry at the drop of a hat, his heart too big for his body. Though lately, it had been doing its best to catch up. Shouto loved and hated it. He loved the feeling of being wrapped in Izuku’s strong arms, sheltered from the world and his worries. He hated it for pretty much the same reason. He had grown soft since they had been together. Shouto had stopped seeking safety or kindness long ago. But since Izuku, he had changed, so much so that Shouto could no longer bare to sleep alone. 

Another heavy sigh drew Shouto’s attention back to Izuku. Right, he can wallow in his own issues later. 

“Look, I know I am no expert, but honestly… there was a reason I singled you out as being related to All Might,” he started. Izuku groaned.

“No! Shouto we have talked about this... “ he complained, a hint of an unwilling smile in his voice. A smile pulled at his own lips in response. 

“Let me finish. You constantly remind me of him… you are always smiling. You always leave a room better than when you found it. When you are present, I feel safer… like everything will be ok. You are so genuine in everything that you do, trust me… that is a rarity. And you care… so much…” Shouto said, letting all the words of praise out that he had often left behind his lips out of fear of being seen as insincere. Izuku lifted his head up from the pillow, eyes wide glistening with tears. 

“Shouto…” Izuku whispered, his name sounding like a prayer. 

“I am sure you are doing just fine.” Shouto said. “You saved Iida… you rescued Bakugou… you saved All Might at the USJ. You have saved countless lives including mine. If that does not qualify as making you a good future hero and symbol of peace… then… I fear for the rest of us,” Shouto said thickly, a lump growing in his throat. Izuku sat up and pulled Shouto into his arms, squeezing him. The warmth of his hug melted the lump in his throat, and it escaped him in the form of tears.  He didn’t even know why he was crying. A wave of misery had just rolled over him and he was helpless to stop it. 

For a long moment, the two clung to one another and cried. Once his sobs died down to sniffles, Shouto pulled away.

“Sorry, Izu, I don’t know what came over me,” he apologized roughly. Izuku wiped at his own eyes with his wrist. 

“I think we both needed that. The accidental reveal… the Sports Festival… training… you and your sperm donor and just stress up to our eyeballs. Something was going to have to give,” Izuku sighed. But he did look better, Shouto’s chest had certainly felt lighter. 

“Yeah,” Shouto conceded. They settled back into each other’s arms. After a while, Izuku let him go. 

“Thank you for helping me through that, Shouto. It still floors me that you think so much of me,” he said with a chuckle. A small but genuine smile on his face. 

“Same,” said Shouto feelingly. Izuku’s smile grew along with a blush on his face. 

“Let’s get this over with,” he said. Shouto noticed that his boyfriend was still apprehensive but he was no longer pale. Shouto nodded. Izuku gets into a better position and finally clicks

play

. A block of text shows up explaining that the player is a detective hunting a serial killer named Lady Death. The detective has tracked her down to a motel. 

The screen lights up to show a simple motel lobby. There were a few paintings to look at but nothing to really interact with, not even a person behind the reception desk. Izuku commented on how strange it was. He mentioned that horror games were usually about the atmosphere, at least according to Kaminari. Shouto snarked about trusting Kaminari as an expert on something. Izuku insisted that Bakugou agreed with him. After that, Shouto did not say anything else.

Izuku finally got tired of stalling and approached the elevator, hunching his shoulders. Shouto realized that he expected to be jump scared. He wrapped his arms around his boyfriend’s midsection, offering reassurance. Izuku turned to him and smiled. Then he pressed the button to go up and waited. The elevator dinged. Izuku stepped on it and squeaked as the doors closed. Shouto squeezed him and Izuku’s unoccupied hand came to rest on Shouto’s. 

The doors finally opened to a dark and empty hallway. Izuku whimpered. Instead of moving forward, he sat back both hands squeezing Shouto’s now. Shouto sighed and freed on of his hands from under Izuku’s and continued the game. The moment the character steps out of the elevator the lights in the hallway come one by one, buzzing in a creepy manner. Shouto was more concerned about the fact that Izuku’s hand was squeezing tighter and tighter with each light. 

“Uh… Izu, I really mean no offense… but I need my hand,” Shouto finally said. Izuku immediately let go, eking out a weak apology. Thankfully, the final light takes a beat to turn on. When it does it is accompanied by a loud horn riff and the villain at the end of the hallway is illuminated. Izuku shrieked. 

“OhnoOhnoOhnoOhnoOhno..! Nonononononononononno!!!!” he cried in terror as the villain, an unfinished model, comes tearing down the hallway towards them. Shouto was pretty much clueless about what to do given the game gave few instructions. Izuku’s panic was starting to rile up his own.

“I don’t know… can we go back…?” he asked, voice trembling vaguely. The model was getting closer and closer. 

“I DON’T KNOW!” Izuku squealed, voice shrill with panic. Shouto was preparing to watch the character get slaughtered...

Then the villain tripped. 

“Wha…?”

“Huh?” Shouto blinked at the screen as the villain continued to lay still, a vase and the table it had been sitting on the floor next to them. He then turned and blinked at his equally bewildered boyfriend. Izuku blinked back. Shouto looked back at the screen in time to watch it transition to the credits. After the credits, there was a single phrase:

Yeah that was it.

Then it went back to the start screen. Then it hit Shouto. 

“Death trips!!!” Shouto howled before dissolving into uncontrollable laughter, snorting and squealing all the while. He hated his laugh no matter how many times Izuku said it was adorable. But there were two things that never failed to get a laugh out of him: puns and slapstick. They were often so unexpected that Shouto almost always laughed. Thus, he became conditioned to laughing at them which only made it worse. This game did both.

“S-shouto… I don’t… wait— pfft!” Izuku snorted before falling into a hysterical heap next to him. They laughed and laughed. Shouto clung to Izuku, moaning in pain but he couldn’t stop. Finally, their giggling faded into breathless wheezing. Once they got a hold of themselves, they turned back to the camera and thanked their followers before promising to do another non-horror related video soon.  They saved the video and Izuku promised to edit it soon and post it. They stretched out on Shouto’s futon and happily basked in the peace that had settled over them. 

They ended up falling asleep that way.        

________________________________________________________________

Would you like your work to be featured in the 365 Days of TodoDeku Project? Apply here! (≧∇≦)/

[familiaralien]

Decided for this Halloween season to make a TOP 10 HORROR GAMES TO PLAY list to share with all of you.

This isn’t a list of the “best” games but more so games that left a lasting impact on me. They won’t be numbered because I kinda go back and forth on which one I feel deserves the most recommendation of the bunch. So yeah that said let’s get going!

Soma

Developed by the same folks that brought us Amnesia the Dark Descent this game chooses not to play into more primal fears and instead is an intense journey of existential horror. Its not a game that will scare you silly but will make you think deeply about what makes you human and the preservation of self through digital data.

I would elaborate more on this entry but this is one of those game that definitely should be played blind to best consume all its twists and turns.

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Sister Location

Hey don’t fucking scroll away this isn’t a troll I promise! Unlike well... every other entry in the series which is pretty mediocre horror Sister Location is legitimately well written and crafted. It tone is somewhere between System Shock 2 and Portal if you’re wondering what to expect. The only bad thing i have to say about the game is it does have 1 unavoidable jumpscare, its otherwise a wonderful bite sized sci fi horror game.

PS: If you’re wondering no you don’t have to play any other FNAF game to understand the plot of this one. Its very self contained like that.

Ib

While there’s way too many RPG maker horror games out there I always felt this one stood out a lot. Its far from the prettiest RPG maker game but its atmosphere is fantastic regardless of the limitation of the software used. You truly feel like you’ve enter a world where art has come to life. Its also a game with a bunch of endings so it has a lot of replayability as well.

PS: This is a free to play game so no investment besides you time is needed to try it out.

Spooky’s House of Jumpscares

Don’t let the silly title fool you this game isn’t just a simple joke game meant to poke fun at horror game trends. While it does seem like that for the first few minutes the game quickly turns into a full on homage to a huge variety of horror media from games to animation to even a creepypasta.

PS: The original version of this game is free to play so its certainly worth your time.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

I’m probably committing some type of sin by putting this on my list instead of P.T. but P.T. is too hard to obtain now due to Komani being arse.

Anyway I’ve spoken about this game before but its worth repeating this is arguably the only good (non P.T.) Silent Hill game produced post Team Silent involvement. The game is the truest psychological horror game ever produced as it LITERALLY evaluates how you behave in the game to determine everything to how NPCs are dress, how conversations go and ultimately how the game will end. The only real downside to the game is the chase scenes which are often more far annoying than scary.

The Count Lucanor

I know some people have biases against games that use more simplistic pixel art but the style works in the favor of the narrative imo so please don’t hold that against it. The Count Lucanor takes a lot of inspiration from fairy tales of ol’ but with gameplay you’d expect from any modern horror games: Ya know lots of hiding, lots of puzzles, lots of moral choices, lots of secrets, multiple endings, being largely defenseless. Though with the latter point its far more justified as your playing as a prepubescent boy.

While the game itself isn’t horribly original in its gameplay its execution gives it a unique almost Disney tone though with a bit more edge.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard

I was actually originally not planning to add this entry because I thought everyone had already played this game but apparently a lot of people skipped it? I imagine that may be part of the stigma of the series going downhill for a while but I assure you this is probably the best and most terrifying entry in the series to date!

Taking a lot of inspiration for the first game in the series but changing its perspective to 1st person RE7 is an unnerving experience that will keep you on your toes. I only hope Capcom keeps this trend up in the future.

The Cat Lady

This is “kinda cheating” entry because this game is more a side scrolling adventure game with horror elements but hey the game is listed as “psychological horror” on Wikipedia so I will count it!

The Cat Lady is probably the entry I would consider the most “artsy” if that makes sense. Its plot doesn’t serve to frighten but more to make one think about death, depression and dealing with loss. While many of the line deliveries in the game are stiff and some of the language is dated the game is extremely unique experience I can’t recommend enough.

DreadOut

While there’s crapload of games out starring Japanese horror there’s not so much for other Asian countries. DreadOut fills that niche wonderfully as a sorta Indonesian Fatal Frame as your sole weapon through the game is a camera. That said it stands out as its own thing as it focuses more on exploration (at least in act 1) and has what I would consider a fun sense of humor you don’t often see in games of this nature. Its not a flawless games as for example there are scripted deaths/jumpscares but its ghost designs are very unique and the world is very lush and detailed.

Little Nightmares

This was a huge toss up between this and Inside since both are side scrolling puzzle platformers with a dark atmosphere but in the end I chose this one for its aesthetics alone. Little Nightmares is a legitimately beautiful yet creepy game, it almost reminds of a dark and edgy Miyazaki film which is fitting as Spirited Away seems to have been a big inspiration behind it. While the game is very short its DLC adds just about an entire second game onto it base narrative giving you plenty more time to take in the messed up gluttonous universe of the story. 

Honestly it feels like we got but a mere taste its setting so this is definitely a game I feel desperately needs a followup.

BONUS JOKE ENTRY!: 

Deadly Premonition

This is one of the worst yet most entertaining horror games I’ve experience in my life. When introduced to this game I was given the description of it being basically “The Room” of horror games and in essence that’s pretty accurate. The gameplay is a mess of bad decisions with graphic so bad people often think the game is much older than it is. While the story has moments of actual good writing those moments are sandwiched between long periods or jaw dropping stupidity. Its clear the writers were aiming for a Twin Peaks like gaming experience while... failing spectacularly to understand what made Twin Peaks actually good.

If you’re looking for something that’s equivalent to a corny haunted house attraction this Halloween season this is the game for you.

[virtualhavenmag-blog]

E3 Impressions - Electronic Arts

Publisher Electronic Arts held their E3 conference today, and unfortunately, it was a disappointing start to the weeks journey. With only a few high points, the hour long presentation was padded out with redundant arrangements.

Battlefield V

From EA DICE, an action packed multiplayer trailer was unveiled for Battlefield V. Similar to previous titles in the franchise, the game looks absolutely gorgeous, perfectly emulating the horrors of war. For many players, there's a lot to look forward to in its campaign, revamped Operations, and insane destructible maps.

While the game seems fun, it's not interesting when everything shown in the trailer is incredibly cinematic. The best part about Battlefield multiplayer is its unscripted insanity. It would've been nice to see a natural multiplayer trailer, one that feels more akin to what the franchise is known for.

On the other hand, an interaction at the end of the trailer beckons some questions. Is it a hint at the game's campaign? Perhaps there will be a narrative driven multiplayer mode? I'm not sure, but I'm pretty excited to see what EA DICE reveals.

Additionally, EA once again wastes the audiences time with five minutes of discussion preceding a two minute trailer. Unfortunately, this happens with every announcement at the conference, so it's redundant to keep repeating myself.

The Sports Games

EA dedicated a huge chunk of the conference to their sports games. FIFA, NBA Live, and Madden were shown and discussed, but unfortunately, the trailers for some of these games were underwhelming.

When Madden 18's E3 trailer previewed a more personal and story-driven campaign, many believed that would be the intention of future titles. However, Madden 19's reveal trailer showcased a simple football game, narrated by a man with a very deep voice. Although dedicated fans are gonna purchase the title either way, nothing seemed different about this latest installment, and there's no reason for new players to care. 

However, it's pretty cool to see that Madden is coming to PC for the first time in over ten years.

On the other hand, NBA Live 19's trailer was significantly better. By showing many different stages, various ways to customize your character, and a hint at some kind of a story, there's reason for newer fans to play.

FIFA 19's reveal trailer was generic, clearly directed at fans of the series. It didn't showcase anything significantly different, but it was cinematic enough to keep my attention. With attempts at inspiring narration and back to back clips of excited players, the game's trailer wasn't bad.

Regardless, all three of these trailers are made worse by awkward discussions and interviews. EA has a talent at making even the most intriguing games seem tedious with obnoxious exposition taking up 80% of their conference.

Unravel Two

Thankfully, EA's bland conference was made bearable with an adorable trailer for Unravel Two. The franchises newly added multiplayer seems wonderful, as it seems to strikes a lovely balance between cute and difficult. Creative platforming along with the enchanting music got me excited for the game's release. However, EA blew the audience away, revealing that Unravel Two had already been released. This was without a doubt the best part of their conference, as it revealed a promising title and immediately put it in our hands.

Additionally, it's the only time where the preceding discussion was entertaining. This has a lot to do with the presenters genuine love for his game. By the end of his talk, he seemed so thankful for his opportunity to work on the title, and it was quite heartwarming.

Sea of Solitude

EA's second indie title, Sea of Solitude, seems like an intriguing attempt at a visually stimulating adventure game. It puts the player in the shoes of a woman searching for her humanity, and the trailer takes the audience through the many environments and entities she'll encounter.

Even though an incredibly nervous developer presented the trailer, the game itself seems promising. It certainly has the potential to be an impactful experience, as it looks absolutely gorgeous. Besides from its visuals, I'm curious what the game will play like. It could be anywhere from a platformer to an exploration game, only time will tell.

Anthem

With Anthem's announcement at last years E3, lots of excitement has been surrounding it. As BioWare showed a lot more gameplay, Anthem proves itself to be as gorgeous as possible. It's hard to match the incredible world design that the title has to offer, but the gameplay seems as underwhelming as it did last year.

This has a lot to do with its simple structure, as it seems to revolve around the bullet sponge gameplay we see in Destiny and The Division. These two titles had similar excitement surrounding them, both with gorgeous visuals and a promise of an incredible experience. However, these two titles weren't received particularly well, and Anthem exudes a similar aura. Trailers made these game's seem incredible, but once people played them, they were underwhelmed.

I'm worried that Anthem will feature a gorgeous but hollow world with a disappointing combat system. A lot of what we've seen of Anthem seems promising, but I'm certainly staying cautious until its release.

Command and Conquer: Rivals

Perhaps the worst part of the conference, Command and Conquer: Rivals was shown on stage by two professional real-time strategy game players. While this may sound exciting, Rivals is a very simple phone game. Seeing this made me realize how much I want a full Command and Conquer game, and I hope that Rivals' announcement is a hint at this possibility.

Origin Access Premier

EA announced a subscription service that would allow PC players access to every new title they release. Additionally, the service will provide players with a catalog of many of their previous games. Players can also stream these games on their phones and other devices, which seems too good to be true, but we'll see. Overall, this announcement is pretty exciting, as it's a good way to access a number of games.

Verdict

Overall, EA's conference sets the bar low for the rest of E3. It won't be hard for any other presentation to top this one, as it felt like a gigantic waste of time for everyone involved. What could've been a 15 minute presentation was padded out to be over an hour long with pointless interviews and repetitive speeches.

[pinkuboa]

How would you suggest promoting a game... That you want to keep under wraps? I have a game that sadly, as an artist, I can only work on visuals and some music... So the game's progress is VERY slow at the moment. I want to share info about it, but because so little progress happens, I don't want someone else more "equipped" than me to snatch up the idea.. If that makes sense? I can introduce characters, but I struggle to even write a Synopsys... 💦💦

Send an ask or direct message privately to people you’re interested in and ask if they’d like to help you work on your game.  That’s the best way to keep it a secret if you’re that worried.  

Otherwise, I’d do my best to give a vague summary and go from there.  Here’s what I’ve come up with based on previous games. 

My game is an rpg set in a surreal, minimalistic world.  It’s going to be 4-6 hours long to play, with a heavy focus on the story and setting. I want the tone of the game to bounce back and forth between humor and horror, with the final act focusing on horror.  The combat won’t be too challenging, but I want the boss battles to be on the harder side.  When the player’s not battling, they’ll either be talking with people or solving puzzles to progress.  Since I’m a one person team, I’m looking for someone to do the programming and assist with balancing out the combat system. I can do the art and music myself, although I’d like some help with the music if anyone’s interested. Here’s my character, the Batter. (OFF)

Hey there!  I’m trying to make an RPG Horror game set in the 1800s.  It’ll be a puzzle adventure that players would have to figure out the true plot of through dialogue, symbolism, and books and papers they can find throughout the game.  It’s based on other RPG Horrors like Ib & Alice Mare, and a few of my favorite games and anime, and will have a room you can unlock via collectibles at the end.  I’m having trouble figuring out how to program puzzles and certain events going on throughout the game, so if someone out there can either help me program or take on the job of programmer I’d really appreciate it!  Oh, here’s my main character by the way!  (Pocket Mirror)

The game I’m working on is a cute adventure game set in a small north eastern USA town.  It'll be a short game 40min to an hour long depending on how the player plays the game, and the main focus of the game will be character and world building.  Since it’s my first time, I’d like to ask for someone to help me out with programming: I got some of the basics down, but some of the more complicated stuff I’m not sure how to do.  I’m also hoping to find someone to help me out with music, since I have a few free to use tracks but I’d really dig having some original tracks as well.  Here’s a picture of my main character, Theo. (that’s my WIP game)

With the synopsis I gave above I gave an approximation of the game’s genre, art, & tone, how long the game is going to be, a brief overview of the gameplay, and what the main focus of the game would be, which hopefully gives people an idea of the game without actually talking about the plot itself.  I also said what parts of the game I’d need help with & how people could help.  Always leave proper contact information and such when you ask these things of course. :P

If you can’t find a programmer, try and find someone who can be your programming mentor you can share your code with. And if you can’t find that, you’re SOL.  It’s hard to find programmers, so good luck with that.

Hope this answers your question c,:

[theredherb]

Review: Resident Evil 7

[Originally posted on When Nerds Attack.]

“You’re about to see something wonderful.” Jack’s freshly charred skin is peeling off his body. But he’s still alive, and strong. He’s clutching your wrist, pulling it to his face. He wraps his mouth around the handgun you just plucked from the desiccated cop now lying dead on the floor. With a resounding pop, a chasm erupts from the top of his skull. His body falls limply to the ground. You survived, but you didn’t win. Jack will be back. He deliberately ate a bullet just to prove a point.

It’s been a long time since Resident Evil has scared me. For the better part of a decade, Capcom remodeled the franchise that coined “Survival Horror” into gun-centric action games meant to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. Familiar draws were included to bait fans that remember the fixed perspective, tank controlled days of yesteryear — whether it was tangential ties to the sinister Umbrella Corporation, hulking bio-weapons, or the franchise synonymous living dead. More often than not, though, these nostalgic additions felt like window dressing. While latter day sequels like Resident Evil 6 coated their levels in shadows and foreboding atmosphere, at their core, they were third-person shooters. True horror, the kind that the original trilogy is lauded for to this day, was left behind.

With Resident Evil 7, Capcom has finally returned to the franchise’s roots. It takes inspiration not only from its own past but from other stand-out horror experiences in order to rework and revitalize the genre they helped inform. The result is an expertly paced, incredibly tense hell-ride through a literal madhouse — and it’s actually pretty goddamn scary. Long-time fans have been yearning to hear this for years: Resident Evil 7 is pure survival horror.

SWEET HOME

Eschewing the tradition of military trained, boulder boxing heroes, you assume the role of prototypical everyman Ethan Winters, whose wife, Mia, disappeared three years before the story’s start. Beckoned by an ominous email from his estranged love, Ethan travels to an abandoned homestead located in a forgotten slice of southern Americana called Dulvey, Louisiana.

The Dulvey estate is a decaying wreck slowly being digested by the thick marsh that surrounds it. Inside, what’s truly unnerving isn’t how empty the house is, but how lived in it feels. Family portraits and hand-scribbled notes lie side by side with festering trash bags and dirtied pots filled with putrid meat. Somehow, people live here, and your surroundings do a fantastic job of letting you know that there’s something very, very wrong with them.

The new first-person perspective (rather than the third-person view in previous entries) introduces a newfound sense of dread since you’re vision is narrowed and you can’t see what’s behind you. It serves to make the experience eerily intimate and allows you to soak in every meticulously rendered inch of house. Passageways are splashed in pervasive darkness (some of the best shadow effects I’ve seen in a game) while the sound design pummels you with constant creaks, groans, and distant footsteps. Walking through the house is gloriously nerve-wracking.

I won’t spoil the first thirty minutes or so, but I will say the proceeding goes from Zero-to-Evil Dead fast enough to blow a gasket. It’s a joyfully malicious intro that perfectly sets the tone for the game to come — one that’ll have you laughing and recoiling in disgust in equal measure.

ALL IN THE FAMILY

Before long you’ll encounter the main villains of the show: the Baker clan. There’s Jack Baker, the stern head of the household; his wife Marguerite, whose disposition flashes between motherly and vitriolic in a heartbeat; and their son Lucas, the only one of his kin that could pass for normal until you see the bottomless pit of insanity swirling in his eyes. There’s a certain level of camp to the Bakers that the game is unafraid to play with. Only horror aficionados would get this reference, but they call to mind the maniacal Sawyer family specifically from Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (just one of many cinemacabre influences found in the game).

It’s apparent there’s more affecting the Bakers than a simple case of the batshit crazies. They’re inhumanly strong, can regenerate severed body parts, and worship the notion of ‘family’ with a murderous zeal. Figuring out what’s wrong with them, and how it pertains to your missing wife, reintroduces a story component absent from the series since the very first game: an engrossing mystery.

Each Baker is tethered to specific areas of the plantation — castellans of their hillbilly castle. But they serve a more dynamic role than just the inevitable boss fight earmarking a section. Jack, for instance, will patrol parts of the house, and if he spots you, will relentlessly chase you down until you he buries a shovel into your soft dome. There’s a sick thrill to tangling with Jack. He’s a walking bullet-sponge and difficult to shake-off until you learn to out maneuver him by running serpentine patterns all around the house.

Marguerite will also guard her part of the residence with a lantern in hand in case an intruder is hiding in the shadows, and when she finds you… well, I hope bugs don’t freak you out. Unlike the horror games these segments are derived from (namely Outlast and Amnesia), RE7 has little interest in being a hide and seek simulator, and uses these encounters sparingly. That restraint goes a long way, making an appearance from “Daddy” feel more surprising and random, keeping players constantly off-kilter as they trek through the house.

BACK TO BASICS

Given the change of perspective and overhauled, backwoods-y tone, you might wonder why Capcom bothered to slap a number on this seeming reboot. Despite its modern influences, the gameplay is most reminiscent of the original Resident Evil. Just like the granddaddy of survival horror, there’s a huge emphasis on exploring your environment, managing inventory, and picking which battles to fight or take flight from.

You’ll navigate the Baker house in search of keys that unlock new parts of the homestead and its surrounding areas. Arcane puzzles will block your progress, but they can typically be solved using simple order-of-operation: find Item A, combine it with Item B, slot Item C into hole. Not exactly Witness level headscratchers by any means, but they serve to break up the tension. And they’re just so quintessentially Resident Evil— a kooky house filled with inexplicably placed puzzles.

Apropos to the genre, the amount of items you can hold at once is limited. Thusly, item boxes — the bottomless chests that are magically linked to each other — return along with the save rooms that harbor them. Whereas completing some puzzles will condemn you to do battle with some unholy aberration, save rooms are the one true respite that allow you to breathe and collect yourself. (Special shout out goes to the calming, ambient melody that plays whenever you reach one of these bastions — that shit is lit).

There’s also an extra meta to how you organize and use items you find. You can find healing herbs and use them raw (I guess… I guess Ethan chews them?) but they become much more potent if you combine them with a Chem Fluid. If you hang on to the very same Chem Fluid until you found some loose gunpowder, on the other hand, you can craft your very own handgun bullets instead of having to forage for them. Combining items also frees up inventory slots which in turn can be filled up with more ammo, health, or key items. It all cleverly underlines the “Survival” in “Survival Horror,” rewarding savvy mixologists with a longer lease on life.

You’ll attain weapons to beat back the creatures of the night, and the UI lets you organize them within your inventory so that they’re mapped to the D-Pad. It’s a useful appropriation of one of Resident Evil 5’s better ideas especially given the fact that digging into your inventory doesn’t pause the action (you’ve been warned).

FIGHT NIGHT

It wouldn’t be a Resident Evil game without monsters. Enter the Molded — humanoid tarman formed from a viscous black goo. They’re mostly slow but they have wolverine claws, their faces are roughly eighty-percent teeth, and they’re dangerous in numbers. Helpfully, they haven’t mastered the art of opening doors, so they’re easy to trap, and you can also block incoming attacks to soak up the brunt of their damage. Eventually, though, you’ll have to go on the offensive.

You’re equipped with a pocket knife early on, but that’s only a rung more effective than harsh language– it’s the handgun and shotgun you’ll be relying on. It’s important to note that, despite the viewpoint, this isn’t a first-person shooter. Aiming down the sights slows your movement to a crawl and can actually put you in harm’s way which means placement is as paramount as precision — a concept not altogether foreign if you played the original games. There’s a value play to using weapons, too: if you mow down every single critter that jumps at you in the dark, you’ll find your clip empty the next time you’re truly up shit’s creek.

Ammo scarcity forces you to plan and act accordingly. Do you feed your last few bullets into a Molded so you can search an area in peace? Or can you evade long enough to save those shots? There’s few things more satisfying than the pus geyser that erupts whenever you relocate a Molded’s head, but I was more thankful to have those shots whenever Jack would burst through a wall like a redneck Kool-Aid Man. It’s the kind of on-the-fly strategizing that has been sorely missing from Resident Evil.

True to genre form, you’ll be tasked to engage in boss fights. Unfortunately, not every battle is a memorable showdown of wits and brawn. I’ll keep it vague, but there’s one sore thumb in the bunch, early on, that forces you to rely on the game’s clunky melee mechanics. Thankfully, the bar raises as you contend with the Bakers. Again, I’m being purposely vague, but one cool bit has you hopping between levels of a decrepit greenhouse as you hunt down a baddie, expertly making use of space, and another is such a wickedly good callback to Resident Evil 4, it’d bring a tear to Leon Kennedy’s dreamy eye.

FOUND FOOTAGE

When you’re not juggling items or tip-toeing in the dark, the game has you watching VHS tapes. Playing tapes isn’t as passive as that, however, since you’ll be tasked to play as the character within the video. It’s a really ingenious narrative tool that not only gives you insight to what the hell happened before Ethan arrived, but also spotlights crucial clues in your current environment. One tape stands out in particular — “Happy Birthday.” In it, you play as an ill-fated cameraman that has to solve an intricate puzzle to escape from a sealed room. The Saw inspired conundrum is by far one of most impressively realized pieces of design the game owns — it had my jaw to the floor by its conclusion.

AMERICAN HORROR STORY

Biological terrorism, global domination plots, superhuman villains… Resident Evil’s stories have arguably degraded into over-the-top comic book fare as the years have gone on. RE7 wisely reigns in its scope to tell the most grounded story in the series since the original. It follows the beats of a low-budget horror movie, and it’s a great direction. Like a lot of micro-budgeted horror movies, this is a plot driven vehicle.

Subsequently, character work is on the thin side, especially in regards to Ethan. His few spoken lines keep him from being a silent protagonist but it’s obvious he’s meant to be a blank slate for players to project onto — sort of in the vein of Half-Life’s Gordon Freeman or mute soldiers from early Call of Duty games. Mia, his wife, fares a little better — and she should; she has five times the amount of lines as Ethan — but at no point would you even think her and Ethan are married if it wasn’t explicitly stated. But it’s a double-edged sword: much of the momentum of the plot is owed to the fact that it doesn’t linger on personal details.

Whereas the first two-thirds of the game are brilliantly crafted and paced, RE7 loses a lot of steam on its march to the endgame. Again, in an attempt to not spoil any surprises, I won’t name the location you reach in the third-act. I will say that it like feels by-the-numbers horror fare — a disappointing contrast to everything the game so confidently builds beforehand. Disappointing, but nowhere enough to derail the experience.

It’s right around here that the game decides to increase the amount of Molded you fight by tenfold, totally inoculating players of any fear the bizarre tarmen might’ve wrought. We’re talking a small island nation’s worth of Molded. While there’s three distinct types of Molded to contend with — including a spider-y leaper who I hate so much — more enemy variety would have spiced up this last stretch considerably. If you can get through this gauntlet of pus-bloods, you’re treated to a Big Reveal, and get to find out what the hell’s really going on in Dulvey. As a fan, I was pleasantly surprised that they found a way to tie these seemingly discrete events back into the greater whole of what Resident Evil is about (while also leaving us with plenty of questions).

HAIL TO THE KING

After one of my very first sessions with the game, I took a break (game manuals used to suggest you do this often when game manuals were still a thing). Naturally, it was night and, of course, I was alone. I absorb a ridiculous amount of horror media, games and otherwise. They don’t get to me very often. Yet, my skin was crawling. I started jumping at small noises. I was watching shadows. I was still bugged out from my time inside the Baker house. The last time a horror game lingered with me like that was when I first played Resident Evil 2 on the Nintendo 64– I was 10.

Resident Evil 7 is phenomenal course correction for the franchise. It’s unashamed of celebrating established cliches but, like any great horror movie, knows how to subvert them. Capcom’s crafted a legitimately harrowing ride that also manages to never sacrifice its playability. While other games of its ilk will try to depower the player as much as possible to instill a sense of vulnerability, Resident Evil 7 smartly balances its challenge with fun gameplay mechanics. I wanted to get right back into it even as the credits rolled (and I did… four times since).

The game feels fresh, yet it builds on time-tested conventions of the genre. Capcom has proven they understand why we loved the original games, and have found a means to modernize that formula. I can’t see the series going back to the over-the-shoulder, co-op shoot-fests. This is the path to stay on. Not just because Resident Evil 7 is one of the best games in the series, but because it’s one of the best survival horror games ever made.

[If you purchase the PS4 edition of the game, you can enjoy/endure the entirety of Resident Evil 7 in PlayStation VR. I’ve yet to make the $400 plunge into Sony’s virtual space, but I did get to play the Beginning Hour demo in VR at Capcom’s booth during last December’s PSX. Though my time with the VR version of the game was brief, I was thoroughly impressed. Anecdotally, I’ve heard it’s the scariest and most immersive way to experience RE7. Apologies for not having more extensive impressions!]

[aurelliocheek]

A Year of Rain: Writing Strategies

How to build a new world for an RTS Game.

So, you wanna write this? A question I’ve been waiting for. When Nick, the captain of our daring endeavor, approached me, A Year Of Rain was supposed to become a Fantasy RTS based on a well-known IP; and to be honest, I was more than fine with that. See, I like that IP, I am very familiar with it and just from a cerebral logistics standpoint, I’ve always been comfortable settling in an established system and give it my own spin. All I’d have to do was looking for one of the more ­obscure places and events of that world, work with that foundation, and tell an interesting tale.

Which I did. Vigorously.

Then we had to discard that approach. The world for our game would not be an established one. We needed to build it from scratch, every nook and cranny. And here’s how we did that, or rather, my first-time experiences with RTS narrative design and maybe some survival tips on how to navigate that minefield.

Super rough worldbuilding draft.

A new IP. Well… We took that turn of events in stride. After all, even if existing worldbuilding provides you with nomenclature, systems, a fan base and many more convenient tools in your box, it’s all double-edged: you can’t slip on lore, the systems restrain you, while gameplay and game design boundaries are sneaking up from behind. You also owe the fans maximum accuracy anyway to avoid alienation. Put like this, building your own world from scratch sounds a lot more appealing, doesn’t it? It’s a gorgeous blooming field of nearly endless possibilities and free of any veto you wouldn’t give yourself.

Right…?

The whole world in your hands I’ve done this for plenty tabletops and homebrew Pen & Paper systems. It’s important to have an interesting world for an interesting tale you want to tell. Doing this for a very specifically tagged game is a different beast altogether. To keep the field analogy going, when first thinking about a world for a Fantasy RTS game, I felt like I arrived a week after the harvest.

Staring into the abyss of fantasy intertextuality made me uncomfortable right from the start, when I was asking myself: ‘What kind of world is this going to be?’

Creating a new, compelling world for an RTS game is a challenge.

Standard globe, massive Midlandia continent where all the people hang out and fight each other or whatever? It’s been done – ad nauseam and to death.

A shattered world, with drifting pieces and… Shit, this has been done. Pocket dimension? Done. Flat, you could say, a disc-like world? Yeah, good luck.

Okay, but what if it has layers like an onion… Septerra Core? Who even remembers that?! I do, it was a very charming game, actually. Anyway, a world needs people. People are easy! Species, races, cultures, there are so many cool fantasy folks… which… have all been utilized to exhaustion.

Even as I am writing this, a game cropped up that is so eerily similar to the core ideas I eventually developed for my world and story that it snaps the credibility of parallel evolution and makes me reconsider my general stance on psychic spies. I came to terms with the notion long before that announcement, but it confirmed my take on worldbuilding I had to adapt if I wanted to keep my sanity: There are many, many worlds out there and chances are high you won’t reinvent the wheel. Take solace in the fact that you can craft a very efficient, aesthetically pleasing wheel!

For here comes the twist: Intertextuality is a good thing. Since I’m throwing that word around like I think I know what it means, here’s what it is… “The relationship between texts, especially literary ones.”

It’s the reason why references work. For example, why Pride & Prejudice & Zombies exists, and you still get what that title implies. It’s why Banner Saga doesn’t need to explain the language, cultural setting, or apparel of the world they created because we have read about or seen media featuring Vikings. Darkest Dungeon draws a lot of its appeal from weird fiction, gothic and cosmic horror and you understand that connection. It’s why many people love it when fictional characters or worlds reference the real world, or pop culture or even quote from other ­movies and works of literature. ­Because we get what that means. Because it’s a nod to what we, and probably the creator of that fiction, love (the latter being strictly speaking an allusion, but it fits under the same umbrella, bear with me here). In broad strokes, it means that people understand connections and baselines without your explanation, because someone, at some point, did a very similar thing and established a widely known convention with it.

Yes, we’ve made a papercraft map.

It seems like the bane of innovation You may feel like everything has been done already, or even get conflicted because a line you wrote is similar or identical to something that already exists. However, just like tropes, archetypes, and cliché, it’s a boon for your world’s foundation if you swing it with precision. Best case, whatever you decide: On a very basic level, your audience will have a fond connotation to many of the things you do. There’s a catch, of course. You’ll need a lot of lipstick for your intertextual pig. The real work for me started after laying the foundation when I decided what type of world I wanted and who populated it. Both choices, at a glance, weren’t too special, admittedly.

What I hoped made them special was thoroughly fleshing out every race, species, and culture, applying some twists here and there… I tried generating credible systems and all the bones and beams that not only support the worldbuilding but also telegraph and highlight what made this world compelling, comfortably familiar, yet also refreshing.

You can do a lot if you stick to some fantasy guns and bolster them with nuances. In A Year Of Rain, for example, dwarves are the most competent spellcasters and considering how this world is designed, it even makes sense, though it’s not something you see very often. And it escalated pretty easily from there: What are the consequences for other species? What is their strategy? And how would that other adjacent fantasy race act or evolve and so on? I did that for, I think, 16 species concepts and there was a point when there were more connections and ideas than I actually wanted.

After fleshing out all the cultural dynamics, historical angles, rules of magic, justifying dwarven rune-powered railguns, establishing how many terabytes of memories a sentient fungus could store compared to divine lichen and what kind of weed lizardfolk prefer to smoke, I was finally ready to apply all this to the game itself.

Or not.

Strategic Writing Turns out, an RTS has comparatively limited narrative space. I would go as far as to call it claustrophobic. Design and format of an RTS tend to isolate the parts of the world you build. You have one single map at a time to establish whatever you want to transport narratively. And you only get one shot, because there usually is, by design, no backtracking.

It’s fair to assume that’s one reason why this genre often struggles with thorough worldbuilding and story in its campaign and multiplayer. Everything you can show, tell and narrate has to fit in roughly 15-30 minutes of tiny people murdering each other in real time. Then, you move on to the next area where, you guessed it, you train tiny people and have them murder each other for 15-30 minutes.

There is little room to breathe, or significantly manipulate the game flow, or show the inhabitants of your world doing anything other than fighting and killing to do more fighting and killing. That’s where the majority of anything you’ll write will be focused on. The units you command have no narrative agenda, almost no space to reflect on what they’re doing or want to do; they fight and die and obey the great cursor.

“But Blizzard!” you say?

Campaign is a different horse. It’s easier there. You can, to a certain degree, pace what happens, insert cutscenes and design a fantasy, a goal, and establish what drives this narrative… And at least your characters get to talk and express opinions, motivation, broader personality and all that, so: Yes, Blizzard cracked the code in most of their campaigns and will probably remain on that throne till the flippin’ sun burns out. But looking at virtually all other RTS games, there’s a trend to keep the world simple, the greater worldbuilding or story potential unexplored (Warlords RTS, Grey Goo) or exaggerate other aspects enough that they tilt from ludicrous to awesome and thus make for a satisfying campy story (looking at you, Command & Conquer). There’s a reason why even master craftsmen like the folks at Blizzard preach the mantra: Gameplay first in RTS.

All that doesn’t mean you can’t tell a compelling story, it doesn’t mean you can’t build a fantastic world, but it means that it may feel awkward at first. It’s a much greater challenge than in an RPG, an adventure or something similar where you can weave both things easier into a nice colorful ­tapestry. For our game, there is no after-mission hub to talk to characters, no codex to look up things like history and lore, no audio logs, books or scrolls, no close-up first- or third-person perspective to do advanced intrinsic storytelling. RTS has a fast, relentless pace. Your opponent, be it a human or AI, won’t wait for you to absorb subjects declared second priority like a narrative or worldbuilding details. So, whatever you tell is ideally right there when you play.

Some rules and tools you know still apply accordingly. For example, each of our units has 17 standard response lines. You better believe I tried to cram as much character as I could in there, tried my best to give them personality you can relate to in a few clicks and with allusions to the world around them.

Daedalic’s development team is building the A Year Of Rain world.

Then there are our phenomenal art, design, sound and SFX people Worldbuilding is, of course, not only writing. How characters look, what gear they carry, how their magic or tools of trade manifest and interact, their body language, animation, and voice work… all that blasts open a welcome breach into the walls you run into with an RTS, just like with any other game. Though the world is delivered in chunks in this genre, you can still do plenty of environmental storytelling, be it through biomes, architecture, weather, or ambient sounds and how the whole palette interconnects through the game. The tools are there; they just need lots of attention. The more you have prepared, the better. Whatever you came up with, whatever your vision is, don’t use a crowbar. Listen to the other departments and let them work their magic, even, or especially when that means letting go of your brainchild because they came up with a cooler solution. I’m a writer. What the hell do I know about shapes and the right visual impact, or the finer points of ability synergies and level design? Try to trust people as they trust you.

This is a good time to point out that 50% of all my conceptual resources won’t make it directly into the game. Some things are just too intricate/niche and have no business being there considering the very tight space that’s rightfully conceded to the gameplay. Adjust that percentage further north, actually, since some visual ideas don’t make good silhouettes for in-game models, because they’d be too small, too noisy or just a pain to animate you could never justify. It’s fine, though. Compare it to an actor who’s told to come up with a backstory for a bunch of tiny props on their costume. They’ll never get any big reference in the movie, but they help the actor getting into the role.

As I’ve mentioned, the characters’ role is basically to fight and die, above all else. It creates a dissonance, intuitively. Telling war stories is no hard sell, but it adds a new layer to the worldbuilding itself. Is this a new conflict? Where will you locate it? Is it a flashpoint or a global affair, and how much sense does that make? How do you plan for the future, i.e., at the end of your campaign, is your world fixed or broken, and where does it go from there? Or is it even beyond fixing and stays in a constant, vicious cycle of warfare?

The one luxury I had here was that I got to have my cake and eat it too: I made a world that’s broken, and I elected to focus on one conflict on a very specific piece of land. It leaves enough breathing room to tease a much bigger playground around the elaborate nice sandbox we’ll ship with this game.

Narrative Design for an RTS is a wild ride. And despite the pinch of salt in the lines above I definitely enjoy the chance I’ve been given with this. This article is honestly a slapdash work of professional opinion, advise, and direct dirty development experience. It’s a rough field guide for those treading these grounds for the first time, informative entertainment, or a good foundation for discussion.

See you in that world we’ve built, if you’re so inclined!

Ben Kuhn

Ben Kuhn is a writer and narrative designer at Daedalic Entertainment. Seven years sailing for Daedalic, mostly as a translator, dialogue writer, and voice director, packing a Master of Arts in English literature and creative writing acquired at the University of Bremen and Maynooth. Signed up due to his love of the medium and good stories and continues to be happy about that choice.

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[actutrends]

Blizzard is pushing World of Warcraft into the future with Visions of N’Zoth update

World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth is about to drop its last major update of the expansion. Visions of N’Zoth (aka patch 8.3) releases on January 14.

This update is adding a lot, such as the new Ny’alotha raid. This has players teaming up to battle the Old God N’Zoth and bring an end to the story of Battle for Azeroth. It also introduces two new allied races, the fox-like Vulpera and half-machine Mechagnomes. On top of all that, players can battle through corrupted versions of the major cities Stormwind and Orgrimmar in the new Horrific Visions, which support one to five players.

Visions of N’Zoth presents a tempting update for bringing back WoW fans who have been spending most of their time in Classic. World of Warcraft Classic launched back in August, enabling folks to revisit the MMORPG’s earlier days. But 8.3 is all about the future, and I chatted with senior game producer Mike Bybee and lead narrative designer Steve Danuser about this massive update.

Back from the past

GamesBeat: For someone who’s been playing WoW Classic since launch — like me — what’s your pitch to come back and check out Visions of N’Zoth when it launches?

Mike Bybee: For me personally, I would say that one of the things modern WoW has that’s fun and exciting is a lot of compelling story tied in with systems that are very specific. For example, the Visions of N’Zoth update has a great narrative arc that you can play right from the get-go when you log into the patch as a max level character. There’s a bunch of great gameplay systems that tie into N’Zoth and the corruption of the old gods, including items that are corrupted, and corrupted scenarios that you can run by yourself or with your friends, or dungeons that have been corrupted by N’Zoth. All of these things tie together in a really interesting way that makes the entire update feel fresh and new.

Steve Danuser: As you explore Classic, a lot of the dungeons in Classic were actually themed around stuff that was under the influence of the Old Gods. Things like Ahn’Qiraj. The Old Gods were one of the big threats from that original world. We’ve addressed that throughout the years. Things like Ulduar during Wrath of the Lich King. But this is the chance to really face off against the last of those four original Old Gods that threatened the world. In a way, Visions of N’Zoth pulls in threats where we laid the first foundation during the timeline of Classic. It’s cool to pay off a lot of those storylines with this big villain that’s threatening the world.

Above: Azeroth becomes corrupted by the Old Gods.

Image Credit: Blizzard

GamesBeat: N’Zoth is a big villain. Why not make the expansion a straight up N’Zoth expansion, instead of only teasing him early on?

Bybee: One of the interesting things about working on WoW is that we get to play with the long stories. Battle for Azeroth was more than just the N’Zoth expansion. There was a ton of narrative about the Horde and the Alliance sides, tons of great stories that we got to share with players, that people were really excited about. And also it’s an old gods expansion. It was fun to be able to — instead of just one and done, here’s the story, we could stretch that over time and bring people along with us and get people excited and wondering and engaged. Hopefully, they’re now very satisfied with the end of that story.

Danuser: We discussed different ways and different ideas about how to tell the N’Zoth story, but one of the things we really feel that — for a villain like N’Zoth, this update feels like a horror story, in a way. There’s a monster theme to it. Sometimes monsters are scariest when you get them in small, concentrated doses, rather than a storyline that drags out over a much longer experience. In this way, we feel like giving you a full on version of N’Zoth, where you see his influence, his tendrils, literally and figuratively weaving through the world and changing places that mean a lot to our heroes, that’s a great and compelling way to tell his story and make it feel like the stakes are very high.

When you do finally get to Ny’alotha and see what madness lurks within him and what he wants to change the world to be, that’s a powerful thing to see. That might not have been as cool and awesome if it were diluted over a longer experience. We feel this is a great way to tell his story.

GamesBeat: Now that the war campaign is over, are we going to see the two factions cooperate with each other more?

Danuser: The Battle for Azeroth was about these two sides fighting over the fate of the world and really shaping what its future would be. Even though we’ve seen them have together to take on Azshara’s threat, in Rise of Azshara, and now the Visions of N’Zoth manifesting and threatening Azeroth as a whole — out of necessity they’ve had to put that truce on the table and set the fighting aside. But a lot of those things that have played out over the last couple of years, and in the years before, in terms of the conflict between the Horde and Alliance, those won’t just go away.

War is something that affects cultures deeply. We’ll see the themes and the repercussions of what happened in Battle for Azeroth play out on both a character level, through these legendary characters that inhabit our world, and the cultures and regions and factions that inhabit it. There’s going to be a lot of long term dealing with the events that happened in Battle for Azeroth and some of the choices that were made. It’s not going to be an easy road for a lot of these characters.

GamesBeat: One of the more interesting criticisms of the story that I’ve seen is that the Horde is getting off a little too easy for some of the atrocities they’ve committed, especially earlier in the war. Is there going to be more of a reckoning down the road?

Danuser: I don’t want to go into too much spoiler territory, but you will see, in the later stages of Visions of N’Zoth, later in the storyline for it — you’ll see the perspectives of the leaders of the world and how they’re coming together. At first it may seem like the Horde under Sylvanas’s leadership did some very terrible things, and why aren’t they being held accountable now? Well, you’ll see some different perspectives on that from the Alliance side. You might see Anduin, someone who’s strived for peace throughout his life, have one view on that, whereas someone like Tyrande, whose culture was ravaged by what Sylvanas did, she’s going to have a much harder time accepting some of these things. That’s definitely — those differences in how the various Alliance leaders, and some of the Horde leaders, view what happened, is going to be key to some of the storylines going forward.

Above: Sylvannas has been a major focus of World of Warcraft’s story for years.

GamesBeat: What’s the bigger goal for this patch? Is it about ending a story, or is it about transitioning the narrative into Shadowlands? 

Bybee: I think there’s a lot of goals with this content update. In terms of the old gods story, there is definitely — we’re bringing everything happened in the war campaign behind the scenes, giving players what we hope is a really satisfying conclusion to that element, while always looking toward the future. One of the great things about this game is that the story continues on. There are new characters that you see impacted, but we’re always trying to make sure players understand that the world is bigger than one moment or one person. There’s always stuff that continues on beyond that.

Danuser: One thing we’ve tried to do is evolve our storytelling with WoW. The earlier expansions were very much self-contained experiences. Burning Crusade started and concluded. It felt like we closed that book and then we opened the next one for Wrath of the Lich King. In more recent expansions, we’ve deliberately laid threads that carry through. Events in Pandaria led to Warlords of Draenor. Warlords very much led into Legion. That’s a trend we want to continue.

While Visions of N’Zoth does bring to a close a lot of the major themes from Battle for Azeroth, there’s still many threads we’re carrying out from this expansion that will lead forward. We feel that’s a compelling way to tell the story of this living, breathing world that has these very relatable characters that so many players have come to love and care about. This is a great opportunity to tell their story and share their perspectives on the world of Azeroth and the realms beyond it.

New allies

GamesBeat: We’re getting the Vulpera as an allied race, which is a new kind of character race that you guys introduced before Battle for Azeroth launched. Did you plan for them to be one all along?

Bybee: I think the best way to describe it is an ongoing conversation. As we went into Battle for Azeroth, we knew we wanted to do the concept of allied races, and we talked a lot about the different races that made sense. As we built one allied race after another, we learned things that worked well and didn’t work well. We also started to get feedback from players about what they wanted to see. It was a combination of all those factors as we were putting these together. I can tell you that the Vulpera as an allied race was something that the team really wanted very early on, and were very passionate about. We’re super excited to see it out in the wild. Personally, I’m very excited to play vulpera. I’ve been playing Alliance mostly recently, but I’ve been trying to convince my friends to switch to Horde so I can play vulpera. I haven’t succeeded yet, but that’s the plan.

Danuser: To see the way that fans latched on to the Vulpera so early on — there was a lot of love for them and their caravans and alpacas and all that stuff. The aesthetic of the Vulpera was something that people loved from day one. To be able to bring that to them as a playable option is something that the team is super excited about. So many of them wanted this as an option, and we figured this is a great time to do that.

Above: The Vulpera.

Image Credit: Blizzard

GamesBeat: A lot of the other allied races are variants on an existing race we’re familiar with, like Dark Iron Dwarves, Void Elves, stuff like that. Was it more challenging to create a more unique race?

Bybee: There are definitely some challenges. Maybe a minor issue, but the boots, for example — did you know that we have to fit every single pair of boots that has ever been made to make sure they fit on all the Vulpera feet? With the quads and the way their feet work, we had to make sure that worked for all of them, and that was a little challenging. But again, that’s part of the things we learned how to do better as we went through all of these allied races. There were some challenges, and there were some things that we did that weren’t as challenging as we maybe had thought.

Danuser: We also considered when was the right time to introduce some of these races. When you had something like the Mag’har Orcs, for example, they’re a warrior race. The Horde was looking to bolster its numbers for this war, so it made sense to go and get them early on and make them a core part of — hey, we need bodies out there on the front lines, and these folks would make awesome soldiers, so let’s do that. Whereas something the Vulpera wouldn’t have made as much sense to do early on, because as awesome as they are, they probably aren’t what you’d think of first when you think of front line soldiers for this effort.

But in the wake of a world that’s changed and seen the repercussions of war and is bringing something new to the table, the Visions of N’Zoth update made a lot of sense to introduce them at this time. The Mechagnomes are a similar thing. They weren’t core to the battle part of BfA, but they really stood out in Mechagon, and people loved their storyline and their look and feel. It was a great twist on gnome culture and allowed us to explore that more fully. It was a great time to make them a playable option as an allied race.

GamesBeat: Before this expansion, you’d see players complain about certain racial leaders not being a prominent enough part of the story. With all these allied races, you’ve just about doubled the amount of leaders and races that need to be represented in the story. Is that daunting?

Danuser: The way we look at it, we like to give each of these races and characters the right moment to shine. We don’t like to shoehorn them into storylines if they don’t feel like they should be part of it. We like to give stories that feel like we play to these characters’ strengths. One of the great joys of working on WoW is that we have this huge palette, this huge roster of characters and cultures to draw upon to tell stories with. Some of those stories, it makes sense to use the big brutish races, or to tell stories related to the elves and their many descendants. It’s really about picking the right time and the right situation to use each of these heroes and these cultures and make that a part of the world. The Vulpera, the Mechagnomes, they just give us more tools to play with and more opportunities to tell different kinds of stories than we might have been able to in the past.

Above: The Mechagnomes.

Image Credit: Blizzard

GamesBeat: The Vulpera get a lot of attention, but what would you say are some of the more interesting things about the Mechagnomes?

Bybee: The Mechagnomes are fun. Just straight out, the way they look, the story, their background, their interest in modifying their bodies but still maintaining the core of who they are, I think they’re super interesting. One thing in terms of the way they look that’s just different, when you put on armor as a Mechagnome, there are certain parts of the armor that aren’t going to display, because you’ve still go the mechanical parts that it’s going to work around, and that changes the way the character looks compared to any other character out there. That’s interesting. For people who like the quirky sense of fun that the Mechagnomes bring to the table, it’s a great option.

Danuser: They stand on their own really well and have their own look and feel, but they’re also tied into some of the core storylines that have been in WoW for a long time. Their background ties into the curse of flesh, which is something that’s relevant to the Old Gods storyline, certainly. But it’s something that changed a lot of the cultures on Azeroth and altered its history in many tangible ways. To see that storyline brought into this very local father and son struggle against each other — this idea of, what does perfecting oneself mean? How can that be interpreted, in good ways and bad ways? That’s a cool fundamental story to tell, and to be able to do it through this new culture that’s been brought in has been a lot of fun. It gives us a perspective where, if we had tackled it through a different race, an existing one, it wouldn’t have come out the same way. It might not have been as much fun.

Raiding the Old God

GamesBeat: The 8.3 update will have the new raid with Ny’Alotha. Is it challenging to design the last raid of an expansion?

Bybee: It’s definitely different. I was involved a bit in the raid development for the last raid in Legion, and then I also worked on this one with Ny’Alotha. What I can tell you is that the team really cares a lot about delivering on the promise of the expansion. A lot of times, when people get together to talk about these end of expansion raids, the words I hear are — this has to be the most epic. It has deliver on everything we’ve been telling. It has to deliver on the story. I’m blown away again and again by how well these guys do at everything from the art to the bosses to the design of the actual encounters. Ny’Alotha has this amazing skybox of the rest of the Black Empire off in the distance, with tentacles and ziggurats and all sorts of ominous things. You really feel like you’re off in another world. And then the boss fights themselves are just absolutely incredible. They’re super fun to play and the art is great. The team does a phenomenal job. Yes, it’s a challenge, and I’m impressed by how we’ll it’s come together.

Danuser: Every raid is special for us. We choose those locations. We debate them. We talk about the bosses. The number of hours spent talking through these things and planning them and iterating on the art and the experience and what the fights are going to be, we couldn’t calculate that number for you. It’s a tremendous amount of caring and passion that goes into each and every one of them. But it’s true that the end of expansion raid tends to tie a lot of threads together and close out a lot of the stories that have built up over time. That was certainly true of Legion, and it’s very true of Battle for Azeroth.

People have been waiting a long time to see what Ny’Alotha is and what N’Zoth really wants and what threat he represents. To be able to pull it all together in this amazing place that looks so phenomenal — it looks like the chronicle book opened that’s sprang to life all around you and just sucked you into that. It’s truly amazing, what our artists have been able to pull off here. To see that come to life and see how much passion everyone has poured into it across the team is just something that energizes us. We can’t wait for fans to be able to play it.

GamesBeat: What’s something that makes this raid stand out from some of the other raids?

Bybee: There are a few things generally. One thing is the structure of the raid. We’ve gone back to the option where you can choose different paths. Another thing is the themes of the raid having to do with people who have been your allies, who have been corrupted. That’s an interesting thing that we haven’t been able to explore as much in past raids. And then I think the finale of the raid hearkens back to Cataclysm and the fight with Deathwing, where you actually fight N’Zoth twice, in a very real way, because he’s too big, too threatening, too ominous to be something you can just punch in the face a few times and defeat. There are many dimensions to that encounter, and I love that we were able to explore that in different ways. So there’s actually two different disparate encounters with N’Zoth in the raid. And honestly, to hit it again, I think the art is phenomenal. Every person I’ve seen walk into that raid the first time, the first thing they say is, wow. It just looks great.

Danuser: A lot of times with our bad guys, for these raids, we’re infiltrating their lair. We’ve figured out where they are and we’re trying to take out their base of power or whatever it is. Ny’Alotha is a very different kind of concept. N’Zoth is pretty much inviting us in. He wants to show us what he thinks is a better future for our world, a better structure to build on, a better pattern by which we, the champions of Azeroth, should be carrying forward. It’s not like a typical bad guy who’s trying to drive us out. Everything about this is us proving our value to N’Zoth as this maniacal entity who wants to reshape reality. Instead of the players being an impediment to that, they’re actually a part of his scheme. To see that play out in this really trippy, mind warping way, it’s something that makes it stand out from other raids that have come before.

Above: Players will have to fight the monsters of Ny’alotha.

Image Credit: Blizzard

GamesBeat: There are a lot of other features in this expansion. Outside of what we talked about, can you tell me about the one new thing you’re most excited about?

Bybee: I’ll just say, the Horrific Visions, it’s so interesting what we’ve done with it. I’ve been able to watch this come together. They’ve been working on it for a long time, and it’s really just gotten to a point where it feels very refined, very polished, very fun. It’s one of these pieces of content — a lot of elements of WoW are things you do on a regular basis. You do world quests. You do dungeons on a regular basis. One thing that’s interesting about horrific visions is you can do it yourself, or you can do it with friends. You can do it with five or two or three of you. It allows you to have that flexibility, so you’re not stuck in a specific group size. At the same time, every time you do it, it changes. You can go further. You can unlock different abilities. You can even get to a point where you can put on masks and make the experience even harder, for better rewards. It’s been built from the ground up as a repeatable piece of content. More than anything else in this update, I’m super excited to run through the horrific visions and do them again and again and have a lot of fun with my friends.

Danuser: Finally seeing Ny’Alotha come to life is a huge part of it for me. That’s something that I’ve thought about and written about and planted seeds around for a very long time. In a lot of ways, these content updates are about seeing things come to fruition, things we’ve hinted at or planned or envisioned. Seeing them come to life as something players can experience is super rewarding. That’s a lot of fun. Just seeing N’Zoth as a character, he’s been such a memorable influence on our world for such a long time. To see him manifest through these familiar places to threaten the Stormlands and Orgrimmar and the Vale and all this influence reshaping this world and what that could mean, and the impact that him boring into the minds of these characters we care about and want to fight for — seeing what the repercussions are of all that, it’s going to be a lot of fun from a story perspective. Whatever the outcome for Visions of N’Zoth itself, the threads are going to carry forward for a long time. It gives us some great stories to tell in the future.

The post Blizzard is pushing World of Warcraft into the future with Visions of N’Zoth update appeared first on Actu Trends.

[omnigeekempire]

Well, this truly is the last day and blog of the decade huh? Man, I can’t even remember where all the years went to to be honest, but I guess that just means I’m getting old, or maybe I spent most of my time playing video games and didn’t realize. Either way, in the last decade I have played some remarkable games of that period, many of which have left a lasting impact on my psyche. So today, I wanted to commemorate those games in this blog today. My Top 30 games of the last decade!

Now, I know many have done this kind of thing already, some even rounding it up to just ten games, however, when I look back at the times and all the games I’ve played I couldn’t leave certain games behind or out of the list. So what I’ve decided to do is break them down into the ten year period in groups and give a line or two as to why I enjoyed the game. This way the blog won’t be a chore to read. Hopefully!

2010’s

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood & Darksiders

Let me start with Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood. I got into the series in AC2 and I was immediately engrossed with the concept of the Creed and the Assassins. So when AC:B came out, I was more than ecstatic to jump back into the world of Ezio and I was not disappointed. The combat and stealth abilities was amazing for it’s time and being able  explore 16th-century Rome as a history fan was unreal.

Darksiders was a game based on religious background, mainly the Christian belief that dealt with a post-apocalyptic Earth, where mankind has become extinct and angels and demons battle for the world’s control. Among them are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the last of the Nephilim who are tasked to bring balance to the universe. It’s I’ve always been interested in concept of angel vs demons, so seeing this take was unique. The story was great and the game had the right balance of combat, puzzling and everything in-between.

2011’s

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim & Sonic Generations

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was probably the first proper open world rpg game that I can say I’ve sunk so many hours into. I honestly remember how everyone was hyping this game up, making it seem like the ultimate game that lets you do whatever you wanted. Naturally, I was drawn to that idea and what I got was an amazing adventure that has made me a fan of the Elder Scrolls series.

After Sonic Unleashed (a criminally underrated game imo) I was starting to get excited for the future of Sonic games. I won’t lie that I am a fanboy of the blue blur as he has, and still is, one of my all time favorite video game character of all time. So when I so Sonic Generation, a game that celebrated 20 years of Sonic, I was hyped. I can happily say I was not disappointed. They finally got the gameplay right and every stage was a blast to play. To this day, many still hold this game as a standard for future modern sonic gameplay. If only they’d take inspiration from Unleashed level stages, now that would be a dream.

2012’s

Guild Wars 2, Journey & Gravity Rush

One of the main core reason why I have a PC today was all thanks to Guild Wars 2. After Champion’s Online had gotten boring, I needed another MMO to dive into and I came across this game that talked about all this features such as dynamic events and the likes. At that time, it looked amazing so I knew I needed to build a PC for it. After that, I sunk more that 500 hours into the game and I still play it occasionally from time to time.

Journey was one of those games that I just came across randomly, I had no idea what to expect but that part of why I enjoyed it so such. From its stunningly beautiful graphics to it’s simply gameplay, there was something that made me comeback to the game. The journey was something I still think about to this day, and the way they implemented the multiplayer was genius.

Just like Journey, Gravity Rush was a came I picked up when I first got the PS Vita. It’s a game that in we players take the role of Kat, a young woman who can manipulate how gravity affects her, allowing her to walk on walls and fly through the air. It was a very unique ide at the time and was one of the first PS Vita game that I enjoyed.

2013’s

Tomb Raider & Injustice: Gods Among Us

The reboot of Tomb Raider was one that of those games that I felt has always been criminally underrated considering she came before Nathan Drake’s Uncharted. I was an action-adventure video game that operated as a reboot that reconstructs the origins of Lara Croft. And that it did very well, establishing the character really well, keeping her exposition ground in a plausible world. One of my favorite aspect of the game was was seeing how the world of Yamatai, a fictional lost island in the Dragon’s Triangle off the coast of Japan unfolded as you progress through the story.

Man, Injustice: Gods Among Us gave me exactly the storyline I’d hoped for in DC story. The idea of Superman crossing the line and becoming this overbearing ruler actually made for a more compelling story in a fighting game and a DC story. Combat was great for its time but it was the storyline that captivated me.

2014’s

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor & Dark Souls 2

Shadow of Mordor was I believe the first game that did the nemesis feature right. It was the first game that I genuinely felt a passion of hatred for a NPC that shit talked me after beating me in a fight. Forcing me to post-pone my main mission to hunt that bastard down. I enjoyed every moment of it and the story was very good from what I can remember.

Dark Souls exposes a lot of games when it first came out. And even though I’ve played the first game, the reason why I put this on the list was simply because it improved on a lot of the feature of the previous game and its the one were I played co-op with my brothers that showed no mercy in exposing me and calling me trash for dying a lot. I plan to finish the games on my own some day (i’m actually quite far into it) but it made an impact to me so it’s here.

2015’s

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain personally wasn’t my first exposure to the MGS universe, but it was the first game I became engrossed with. I never thought an open world stealth game could work, but my goodness did it work. From the story, the characters, the visuals, everything was amazing. This was the game that made me actually take the MGS series, more seriously and go back to playing the other games.

Dying light in my humble opinion did the zombie genre right. I’ve never felt scared of a slow moving zombie, but one that can run and climb building. Yep, that will do. Not only that but the traversing and free-running mechanics in the game was amazing, probably the best of it’s time.

When it comes to Until Dawn, it was one of those games that I got from the PlayStation Plus deal. I read the description about an interactive drama survival horror video game where your choices affects the story, got it and didn’t regret a second I spent with the game. The story was compelling and interesting and over time the characters started to grow on me. But man, knowing that your characters can die and you have the abilities to save them really added the tension because I wanted everyone to survive. I managed to only lose one person but shit I never liked that fucker anyones.

Dragon Ball Xenoverse did something I never thought we’d get from a dragon ball game. A brand new story that lets you be the main character. The story was OK if I’m being honest but it was the multiplayer that proved to be the most fun, before hacking became the norm.

2016’s

Final Fantasy XV & The Last Guardian

Now, despite what many will say, Final Fantasy 15 was still a great game to me. It could be that this was my first Final Fantasy game, so I didn’t have much expectations going into it but I really did enjoy my time with the game. The story of Noctics and how it all ended hit me harder than I actually expected. The gameplay was fun too and exploring the world felt rewarding. Yeah, I know they sold pieces of the story in dlc (which I did not buy) but at it’s core, I had fun playing the game.

Last Guardian was another game that I never played the original and jump right in. The game lets you clim structures, carry objects such as barrels, and operate mechanisms such as levers. It was innovative and unique, especially using Trico’s to reach areas that the boy can’t reach alone. It created this unique dynamic in which you couldn’t directly control Trico but had to tell him what to do hand hope he did it. Aside from that I really enjoyed the way the game told the story, making Trico seem almost alive in the process.

2017’s

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Assassin’s Creed: Origins, Little Nightmares, Nier: Automata, For Honor & Sonic Mania

I was never a fan of Zelda, I tried in the past and couldn’t get into it. So when the Breath of The Wild version for the Switch came out, I figured why not! I’ll give it one last chance and oh boy was I hooked. The amount of freedom this game gave you to solve all the puzzles and how you wanted to approach the world was insane. This is when I learned how open world games should be handled.

For a long ass time, after the Ezio/Desmond had concluded, the Assassin’s Creed story had been all over the place. No other came afterwards was able to capture the vibe I got from playing the game. That was until Assassin’s Creed Origins came out and introduced a strong character by the name of Bayek. The gameplay was solid and actually made me appreciate the changes but there was two reasons why I both this game. The first was that it was telling the origins of the Assassin’s, so that means we would be going back in time where it’s less industrialized and more ancient. Secondly, it was based in Ancient Egypt, an African civilization featuring a black assassin that didn’t start out as a slave but as a Medjay. The did both very well and the game shot up to two spot in my ac list.

Little Nightmare was a simple puzzle-platformer horror adventure game that I found enjoyable. There was something about the atmosphere of the game that kept me coming back, making me want to learn more about the world.

Nier Automata was perhaps one of the best action role-playing hack and slash video game to come in recent memories. It’s best feature was the story hands down, but not only that, the gameplay was challenging and there was a lot or lore to explore that your leisure. And jeez, don’t even get me started on the music, S-tier materials right there.

With For Honor, I’ll keep it real with you guys, I did not play the story mode. All I played was multiplayer and it was glorious. Yeah the game had some issues at the beginning but that was mostly ironed out over time. But man, I’ve never raged in a game so much yet enjoyed every moment of it. The tactical combat system, known as “Art of Battle”, was a very interesting take on a sword-based fighting game and proved successful if you ask me.

Sonic Mania, the most rated game in Sonic’s history. I enjoyed my time with it. Yeah, I’ll admit I’m not a fan of 2D Sonic, simply because I started with the 3D era, but of course I can appreciate a solid game when I play one.

2018’s

Red Dead Redemption 2, Spider-Man PS4, Dragon Ball FighterZ, Detroit: Become Human, God of War PS4, Super Smash Bros Ultimate

Red Dead Redemption 2 was an experience that I won’t be forgetting anytime soon. Yeah, so will say it was a slow burner but to me, the pacing was perfect. It took its time to tell the story of Arthur Morgan and his crew and how their world around them was changing. Seeing Arthur go through his change was amazing and if you got the good ending, then you’d understand .

Spider-man was the game all spidey fans have always wanted. A game where you feel like Spider-Man. The controls for the swinging mechanics is the best it’s ever been and following a Peter Parker that was all grown up, dealing with adult life stuff while doing the Spidey gig was a fun experience.

There’s not much to say when it comes to Dragon Ball FighterZ. Its hands down THE best looking Dragon Ball game ever. To the point where now everyone in the anime community is begging Arc System works to make a game based on other anime IP’s’.

Detroit: Become Human is another interactive game that I really enjoyed. This time I was anticipating the game after playing Until Dawn. I really liked how the told the story from three different perspective. Yes, the game had a real life narrative but I really liked how it was executed.

God of War was one of those games that will linger in people minds for years to come. The compelling story of how Kratos went from a raging spartan to a man trying to be the best father he could be was touching to say the least. Combat and the boss fights in the game wasn’t as crazy but still it was a great experience nonetheless.

Once again, not much to say about Super Smash Bros Ultimate. It is the ultimate version of the Smash series and one that will probably go down in history as the greatest crossovers in gaming history.

2019’s

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, The Outer Worlds, Astral Chain & Fire Emblem

Sekiro well deserved to win Game of The Year. I was a game that challenged you and made you get better by learning from your failures. Amazing combat and an interesting story, this game was also my game of the year pick.

The Outer Worlds was perhaps the best open rpg to come out in 2019, which was why it got nominated. The world may be small in comparison to other open world games, but what it lacked in size, it more than made up on it with quality. Side quest feel like main quest, companions are actually interesting, dialogue has depth and gameplay was great. Can’t complain really.

Astral Chains lest player take the role of a detective from the “Neuron” special police task force, who are tasked with solving cases and investigating incidents. It had exploring, questioning characters and examining evidence but the main take from the game was the insane combat in which you take control of another character called Legions. Once you had leveled up your legions, there was almost a crazy amount of combos you could pull off in game. It was also the game that got PS4 fans to actually complain to Platinum Games about not brining the game to PS4. Good game.

Last but certainly not least is Fire Emblems: Three Houses. Probably my favorite tactical role-playing game on the Switch. I really enjoyed the Harry Potter like house gimmick of you being the teacher guiding your students and building a bond with them, only to have watch as you mercilessly kill them on the battlefield years later. Aside from the great 80 plus hour story, the tactical aspect of the game as been well refined and would make even the most elite Fire Emblem fans happy.

Well that’s it from me. Man, hope this list ain’t too long for ya. I tried to keep it short and concise for you guys but I didn’t want to leave any game that made an impact on me. Please, do share your list in the comments below.

Top 30 Games Of The Decade (2010 -2019) That Made An Ever-Lasting Impact! Well, this truly is the last day and blog of the decade huh? Man, I can't even remember where all the years went to to be honest, but I guess that just means I'm getting old, or maybe I spent most of my time playing video games and didn't realize.

[thomasroach]

Night Call Preview – A Gritty Noir Murder Mystery

The post Night Call Preview – A Gritty Noir Murder Mystery appeared first on Fextralife.

A dark past. Hidden Agendas. The cops want you to find a killer, the killer wants you dead. How will this story end? Will you be able to go back to being a simple taxi driver, or will you meet a different fate? Night Call is noir tale of a Paris taxi cab driver with a dark past that simply wants to start his life over. Fate, and more importantly the police, have other things in mind as you are the only survivor of a serial killer. Balance paying the bills with helping the cops find the killer, before the killer decides to finish what they started. The demo we were given is but a small taste of the full game, but what is there is more than enough to get fans of noir excited. So pour that cup of black coffee and get ready for a long night of detective work.

Night Call Preview – A Gritty Noir Murder Mystery

Genre:  Noir, investigative simulator, murder mystery Developed by: Monkey Moon, Black Muffin Published by:  Raw Fury Release date:  Summer 2019 Platforms:  PC (preview), Console Website: http://nightcall-game.com/

The Setup

A quick note on the genre, as it is not the most common of genres out there, a Noir tale is a close relative of the hard-boiled detective story. It’s dark, gritty, realistic and often quite cynical, the main difference between noir and detective stories is that the protagonist is not a detective by trade, but forced by circumstances to become one. Night Call is a quintessential noir tale. You start off seemingly a simple taxi driver.  You go to investigate a sound after picking up a client, and the next thing you know, you’re waking up in a hospital. The serial killer stalking Paris struck your passenger, and you survived by luck.

You’d love nothing more than to go back to quietly eeking by as a taxi driver, but the police have other ideas. They are desperate and they want an arrest. You’re the closest thing they have to a lead, and the cops have figured out your dark past. The deal is simple – help them, or they’ll let slip to the public who you really are. Then of course there’s also the thought that maybe the killer doesn’t like that there’s a lose end. Of course your assistance is all ‘unofficial’ and comes with no support, leaving you to figure out how to keep a roof over your head while trying to find someone who’s already tried to kill you once.

Gameplay

The demo only gave a small taste of the mechanics, but there’s a lot here that’s interesting. There’s also some points that are really aggravating, but hopefully those items can be tweaked a bit before the game launches. The core of the game revolves around the conversations (or lack thereof) you have with the passengers in your cab. For the most part you get three choices several times during the ride, and you need to figure out what to say. From the limited conversations I was able to play, this system works really well. I had little trouble figuring out what path to take to keep customers happy with you, which is rather important in getting good tips.

The demo barely touches on the investigation portion, but I imagine there will be times that you’ll need to get passengers angry in order to get them to reveal information. This of course will cut into your profits which leads to another major gameplay point – being a taxi driver. You get a very nice interface showing a map of Paris, the location of gas stations, where you are, and where potential clients are. You click on a point of interest, such as a client, and you automatically drive over.

Time does pass, but only when you are driving. From what I can tell, you can study the map at your leisure to decide where to go. Once you get to a client, you are told where they want to go. This will determine how far away it is, how long it will take and how much they will pay you. You can refuse (though in the context of the demo I can’t see why you would) or accept which triggers the aforementioned conversations.

At the end of the trip you get paid the stated fair, plus a tip. From what I can tell, the tip is based on how much the passenger enjoyed your company, but I could be wrong on that. Once the passenger is gone, you can refer back to the map to choose your next action if there is enough time.

At a certain point you are forced to return home, though I’m not really sure when that point is. Perhaps I’m just missing the info in the HUD, but it came as a total surprise to me when it happened. It could be a limitation of the demo, since it always seems to happen after two passengers. Time will tell. Once you are done with passengers you get a report on your finances.

I have to admit I was a little taken back by just how little money I was allowed to keep, especially my first (unfortunately unrecorded, darn you technical gremlins!) play-through. While I understand that this is a noir game, which means hard circumstances and harder choices, it did feel a little punishing to see so much of the fare go poof. I was left with little time to wallow in my grief, for the next major mechanic came into play – detective work.

Playing Detective

While I feel I got a very good feel for how the taxi cab part will work, I feel a little less certain about the detective work. A single night is not enough time to get a good feel for it but for what was shown, was relatively straight forward.

There’s folder and pictures that you can spend time reviewing, doing so apparently unlocks new investigation areas and places new clues on the board. Once you run out of time, that’s it, you go to bed and the next day starts.

Now how important is sleep? I have no idea. The dialog you get when switching to your apartment seems to suggest that sleep is important, and that you might not want to investigate until the game forces you to stop, but I just don’t know. Once you complete the first night, the demo ends. This is something the final game must do a better job of conveying to the player. If there’s a cost to staying up too late that’s fine, but this needs to be clearly communicated to the player. I’m OK with there not being a penalty because time is already a limited resource that must be spent well, but the uncertainty bugs me.

This uncertainty also applies a bit to the taxi portion as well. How much is gas? How much will this route really cost me? Are the fares different or fixed based on time and distance? I hope the devs add a bit more in the way of mechanics information to the game before launch. It’s never good game design if players feel compelled to read a wiki for basic mechanics.

Final Thoughts

With such a tiny taste of the full game, it’s difficult to draw broad conclusions on it. I do know one thing for certain, and that is when this game launches I will be there day one playing it. I’m not a die-hard mystery fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I do enjoy a good whodunit. This looks like it will have a good story, interesting characters to analyze, random elements (murderer won’t be the same every time) and it has a pitch-perfect aesthetic. Based on this demo I’d say if you have any interest at all in detective stories or mysteries, then you need to place this game on your wish list.

If you enjoyed story-driven titles with a detective element you should check out next The Darkside Detective Review: Occult Fun For All Ages and for a darker horror narrative Call Of Cthulhu Review – A Tumultuous Tentacle Experience.

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