#but also its not technically meant to be so

[ere-the-sun-rises]

Okay, I'm sorry again Medieval and Biblical Latinists, but this post popped up in my notifs again and the more I look at it, the more revolted I become. Wheelock's love for Republican and legible Latin is possessing me from beyond the grave, so let's go.

"Pro Jupiter, puer, ecce bibendum!" Where the fuck do I even start. The sentence is straight up an incoherent collection of words. The literal translation is "Before Jupiter, boy, lo! about to be drank." What the fuck were you even trying to type??? Were YOU drunk doing this? I thought the Vatican was supposed to be full of monks with nothing better to do. You're shaming your 9th century copyist predecessors.

"Pro" is used wrong. It usually takes an ablative, because "before" is temporal, not spacial - it doesn't usually mean "in front of [object]" so much it means "[in the period of time] before [event]". If you're looking to say something like "by god", then a more natural invocation would in vocative or ablative of agent - "O Jupiter" or ""Ab Jove".

"Ecce" is bizarrely out of place. It should be at the beginning of a sentence because it's not actually a word, it's an exclamation. You wouldn't place "behold!" or "huzzah!" in the middle of a sentence, you heathen.

"Bibendum"? Bibendum??? You can't have a participle in a complete sentence without a normal verb. Participles can't ever stand on their own. If you're using this as a substantive ... why??? Just use the word for whatever this liquid is. Even as a substantive it barely makes sense. It's the equivalent of holding out a cup and saying "liquid" with no further context. Why are you making this so hard and ugly to read???

I don't think the sentence is even salvagable because I cannot figure out what the fuck it was even trying to say. If I had a gun with one bullet in it, I would use it to shoot this sentence. Hang the translator by the nipples unless they're into that.

I can't read most of the second panel, but the last phrase "dubito quin sciat" is clearly meant to stand on its own by the way the punctuation is placed. And that is a damn shame because it's horrific. It reads "I doubt why he would know."

Students, please note that "quin" is an interrogative adverb meaning "why?" The question mark is non-optional. It's literally only a question word - why is it in a passage that does not contain a question???

"Sciat" is weird here. Subjunctives can be used as a clause verb, but scio in particular usually takes an accusative noun to make sense. The word means "to perceive with the senses" but can also be used as shorthand for "to see/to know/to understand".

The sentence would read better as "dubito ut illum sciret" or "I doubt that [he] would see this [thing]."

0/10, broke ass original construction. Lock the translator in a basement with Wheelock's textbook until one or the other breaks.

"Heu, Timothee, mater tua delapsa est ob cutem arienae et P. S. mortua est." Fine, this one isn't technically wrong, but it is brutally literal in a frankly uninspired way.

"Delapsa est"?? Have you no imagination? No creativity? No sense of good Latin prose? Delabor does mean "to fall/to descend" but it also means "to fall to ruin/to be destroyed". A much better (and funnier) word would have been "cado", which means "to fall [down]" too, but crucially also means "to be cut down/to be slaughtered/to die". It would be a way better play on words with the "mortua est" following after.

His name needs to be Romanized. Do you think the Romans had names like Vergilius for fun?? No! It was so the fucking thing could be declined. Fix Timothee's name.

I don't like "ob". It feels wrong, like a skinwalker. It's not meant to be here. It can technically mean "on account of", but it's more prominent meaning is "toward". It should probably be replaced by a dative or ablative of agent/means here instead.

"Cutem" should be cuto, to be dat./abl. of agent/means. An accusative doesn't look right when the sentence's main verbs are passive, since passives are reflexive.

"et P. S. mortua est." Ugly, disfiguring little addendum. Why is it in the same past tense as delapsa? Repetitio is only fashionable in poetry. This is prose - you need variatio. Cicero and I hate it here.

It would read better as "Tua mater, Timotheius, cuto arienae casura est, cepitque morti." - "Your mother, Timothee, fell [by means of] the skin of a banana, and [she] was seized by death."

These panels only get more offensive to the Latin language the longer I look at them. This translator would get roasted alive by any ancient or Medieval scholiast who read this and they would deserve it. Even poets would vomit.

today i found out that if you have library access through ur school, you almost definitely have a copy of the vatican’s latin translation of diary of a wimpy kid and i am currently reading Commentarii de Inepto Puero thank you

[altcvnningham]

so i was reading this post and started yapping in the tags before deciding i actually just needed to make a separate post because i have brainworms. long unedited ramble sorry this doesn't make sense at all

adlerbell & co-dependency;

the sick irony lies in the fact that the co-dependency that exists within their relationship, most of the time, isn't even of their own volition, and yet they are the constant cause of their own entrapment. they NEED one another as much as they hate one another because they ARE each other. to their core.

bell is everything adler hates and opposes and wars against yet he NEEDS them to catch perseus no matter the cost; adler is bound to bell in a way where he is ironically beholden to them, his fate in their hands, even when he's technically the one in control, with the power and rank over them, the one holding the leash. yet without bell adler has little to nothing. powerless entirely. in that way, bell has power over him, that his whole world rests upon the pinprick that is their loyalty to him, which is a hairswidth away from being shattered the second they piece together who they are, what he's done to them.

and bell is obviously only who they are because of adler. warped god wrenching hands into their head and rearranging it all until they suit whatever he deems his perfect image when he needs it. friend, ally, team member. dog, prey, victim. whatever he needs them to be, they are.

and bell's entire personhood is adler. bell's entire world is adler. half himself, a mirror image, their head a scrambled soup of his memories and fears, of vietnam, of things that didn't happen to bell but did happen to adler, a point in time that existed but they were not a part of, not until adler dragged their body off that tarmac and forced them to be. without adler, bell is dead in trabzon, or nothing. and that kind of co-dependency is indescribable- to believe that this man is one who went through the horrors of war with you, your friend for over a decade, is one thing. but even when bell breaks free of their conditioning- to know that they are possibly only alive because he found them? to know that mk ultra, despite being the very thing that destroyed them, was the only thing that stood between them and an unmarked grave??

bell wants adler. but adler needs bell. and mf wants to stand at that fucking clifftop and claim that none of it was personal?? he created a home for bell within himself, how they trust him, rely on him, believe that he'll always pick them up- because even if not in vietnam, he did, once, in trabzon. and bell is a home to all the worst parts of himself, scraped out of him and put into the empty pit he carves out of them- his weaknesses, his fears, his trauma, his ruthlessness. (i could talk about how adler's hatred of bell might even be a reflection not only of them being the very culmination of everything he opposes, but that they're also an amalgam of every worst thing he hates about himself, but that's another post entirely.)

i just. it wasn't meant to be personal. bell was a tool for adler, and adler was just this figure meant to be imprinted on. all means to an end. but against their own volition, they rely on each other. they need each other. they are dead without each other. i think adler needs bell to make himself feel powerful. but god, if they aren't the very thing he has to tiptoe around and revere because without them he has nothing. no team, no perseus. and to bell, adler is not too far removed from a god, whether they know it or not. he made them. and i doubt the lamb wants to stray much too far from its shepherd. ugh. whatever.

don't even get me started on how their fates are inevitably intertwined. how even the narrative itself demands them be slave to each other's will. fuck everything

[cherrybomb107]

After making that essay about all my gripes with act three, I wanna delve into what rubbed me the wrong way about episode seven. Now, don’t get me wrong, it is my second favorite episode of the season (right behind episode four) but everything just felt off, and now I’m able to explain why.

It felt fake. Artificial. Too good to be true. Too polished. Everyone in Zaun was basically a Piltie lite and I hated to see it. I know Zaun doesn’t even technically exist, as it never did officially get its freedom, but Piltover and Zaun are known as twin cities for a reason. They are intertwined, yes, but also completely different. Zaun has its own vibe. It’s punk, patchwork, unpolished, mismatched. But also vibrant, brilliant, thoughtfully crafted and beautiful in its own way. It’s unique. It feels so real, and for the au to strip all that away and make Zaun feel like a shell of its former self was not it.

Zaun has such a rich culture. Not without its own host of flaws ofc, but what culture is perfect? And obviously there are political reasons for why Zaunites do things the way they do (it’s because Piltover’s oppressions forces them to get creative). While I resent the reasons as to why Zaunites have to be so resourceful and creative, I adore the things they were able to build in spite of their hardships. Makes me identify with Zaun even more. The au took all that away. Everything that made Zaun what it is wasn’t there, and I didn’t care for it.

Furthermore, the whole au falls apart if you stop and think about it. Why would Vi’s death be anything more than a drop in the bucket to Piltover? They had been oppressing Zaun for centuries? Vi is not only a Zaunite, but she was also a teenager. There’s a lot to be said about how teenagers aren’t really seen as kids by a lot of folks, and are “less innocent” and their lives are seen as “less important” (though ofc no one would admit that have that kind of bias). Plus when you consider that by virtue of being a Zaunite, Vi would already be considered “less than”, her life would not matter to Piltover WHATSOEVER. Best case, and I do mean best case scenario, they give Vander some financial compensation so he could afford to give Vi the proper funeral she deserves. But I’d bet money they never would’ve even considered doing that if I’m being realistic.

Also, that’s just a horrible message to send. Vi, the parentified child, who spent her whole life fighting like hell to protect her loved ones, had to die in order for not just her family, but her city to flourish. HUH??? That’s an awful thing to imply! Vi dying would NOT have lead to everyone else being fine. It would not have led Vander and Silco to forgive each other. It would NOT led to Zaun prospering economically. It would not have led to Zaun becoming just like Piltover in the worst of ways. That doesn’t even make any sense! Correlation does not equal causation, but those two things have no correlation to begin with! Obviously I know that’s not the message the writers meant to convey, but that’s what they ended up doing imo, and I don’t like that.

Lastly, why are we acting like Hextech is the problem? The oppressive system of Piltover existed way before Hextech came along, so why would its lack of being there affect things that much? Cause if not Hextech, some other revolutionary technology would’ve been invented that somehow only benefits some and hurts everyone else who isn’t as privileged. And yes, ofc I know Hextech only exists precisely BECAUSE of the systemic inequalities between Piltover and Zaun, but it is by no means wholly responsible for these inequalities. Responsible for widening the gap between Piltover and Zaun? Yes! Responsible for the existence of the gap in the first place? Hell no! And it felt like it was framed that way.

Anyways TL;DR I wasn’t a fan of the au episode because I felt like it unintentionally sent a horrible message and didn’t stay true to what makes Zaun, Zaun. It ripped out all its best parts and functionally turned it into Piltover Jr. and a fan of that I am NOT

[weavingthestorm-lh]

ITS DONE* FUCK THIS ART ITS TAKEN ME 5 AND HALF HOURS

Edit: After taking some time to breathe. I've decided.

...

MY POSITION REMAINS FIRM THIS SUCKED TO DO. YOURE NEVER SEEING TWINE IN THEIR OTHER FORM EVER AGAIN UNLESS I SIMPLIFYA FUCK TON I HATED THIS

*AND ITS STILL NOT EVEN DONE ACTUALLY

[papanowo]

i think dan should get to be a little weird too. as a treat

[starry-bi-sky]

mmm throwaway conversation between Dan and Danny that popped into my head that I had to write out:

"You spent ten years being a one-man mass extinction event, then went back in time and fought me, and lost." Danny snarls, arms crossed and throat tight. His mouth pulls back to bare dagger-sharp teeth, and his eyes burn with the familiar thrum of ectoplasm heating up behind his eyes. "If I didn't believe you were half of Vlad before, I do now."

His other self -- and really, can he even call him that? He's half of Vlad too. Two halves severed from each other and welded together to make a new whole, -- snaps his head over to him. Wild-eyed and furious, he looks unlike the man Danny fought before, the one unruffled and untouched, unbothered by the world around him. It's familiar, but not like the way a reflection is.

"What's that supposed to mean." The Other hisses, matching Danny's scowl one-for-one with fangs much bigger and sharper than his.

But there's a reason lions fear hyenas. Danny matches the rumble in The Other's chest with one of his own, and shoves his face close to his. "I don't lose."

[dizzybizz]

some doodles

[paragonrobits]

It was an honest question, and not meant in mean-ness or disrespect. So Auxillary Arch-Sciencewretch Bongo paused, a cup of tea up to his mandibles.

He gently put the cup down and folded several of his arms together, contemplating how to proceed. First he wondered if it was important to correct the ambassador on the mistake of referring to him as human. He decided to dismiss it; there was generally a growing period for species new to the galactic community where they were prone to thinking of broad, species-based groups. The error of species-as-society. In time, they'd adjust to the idea of a society being bigger than a single species, of forms of identity on a shared cultural basis in a way different than they might be used to.

He was not human in a technical sense, but as the humans had begun what was generally called the Pansolar Coalition, an interplanetary governing body and representative democracy of many species, it was pretty common to conflate humans with the group as a whole.

And to be fair, his own species had been made on Earth; uplifted arachnids, and he was among those who had chosen to go about piloted a humanoid robotic chassis to interact with larger beings, which also looked like a big humanoid spider-thing because he had an aesthetic and by God he was going to STICK TO IT.

The ambassador was a robot; not an organic being using a chassis or a voluntary cyborg, nor was he a sapient artificial intelligence installed into a robotic platform. His kind were naturally occurring robots; Bongo wasn't sure how that happened, but there they were.

Bongo said, carefully, "That question is more delicate than you may realize."

"How so?" The ambassador's optics flickered in a way conveying genuine puzzlement, so Bongo chose to take things easy on him.

"Well, is not terraforming something done by your people?"

"Ah. Yes, but not as much as you; we don't need to adapt a planet to suit ourselves to it, we just adapt ourselves."

"Indeed. Well, I am afraid the majority of my... well, not my species exactly, but my kind, or rather the fellow kin among the Coalition, we can't adapt as easily as you. And there's ethical concerns."

"Ethics? In what, exactly?"

"Tell me. What do you know about the religious concept of stewardship?"

"Hrm. I think I had a briefing about it. Isn't the idea of sapient beings given a charge by divinity to protect and care for the world as they know it?"

"Quite so."

The ambassador hesitated. Bongo gave off the impression that it was self explainatory, but it seemed a mystery to him. "I'm not sure I follow?"

"As being with the ability and power to do so, we feel it is an obligation to care for our worlds; we have hundreds, yes, and that is because we are prepared to spend so much time and resources caring for a single world, and we apply that to all our worlds. Great damage has been done in the past, during a more thoughtless age. Now we are wiser, and we understand that it is our duty to care for the worlds."

The ambassador was quiet.

Eventually he said, "So its like gardening, I think?"

"Yes, that's a way of looking at it. We're not seperate from the garden; we're a part of it. We're all part of a vast and flowing network of life and death, birth and rebirth. We cannot be seperated from it, and so it is bad, to us, to exert power over it. If we spend many resources to do just that, it is simply our way."

The ambassador was quiet, again, this time for a while.

"I think," he said carefully. "I still don't quite understand, but I think I would like to."

There were some who disputed that the ambassador's people were ready to join the galactic community. But in the ambassador's words, Bongo saw hope for the future yet.

"You humans have hundreds of planets under your control, so why do you waste so many resources trying to make that Earth planet habital? I genuinely don't understand."

[moeblob]

Sorry I forgot Hanneman suggested Byleth undress after they show up with a different hair color. And I miss Hanneman. And also while swapping between Houses and Hopes and seeing Hanneman pop up to help in a Hopes paralogue is just devastating since he doesn't ever actually join you at all and I am denied my old man rights.

So I had to draw this. Thank you for understanding.

[captn3]

until next time.... stay fresh [plain text: until next time.... stay fresh]

[kingbob2-0]

Back to assassins creed inspired fakemon, these where inspired by Desmond miles! Immolamb, (immolation and lamb) who is meant to look like a will o whisp,

Bansheep (banshee, sheep) who is inspired by the deer in spookys haunted mansion/ house of jumpscares and has 2 forms - wooled and sheared- that change stats and power up fire type or ghost type moves respectively,

and the third evo, who still doesn’t have a official name, but I’m thinking Fenwool (Fenrir, Wool, also fen is another word for a swamp or bog, where will o’ whisps were commonly found) and is inspired by the saying “wolf in sheeps clothing”

all 3 are fire/ghost types

also big thanks to @teecupangel for helping me flesh out this guy a little more,( he’s actually the first fakemon I’ve made) there’s more art in the ask I sent. I’ll try to link it later, maybe.

[bookworm-2692]

Life Tracker updated for Episode 7! This one is much quicker than Episode 6 on account of not being on holiday at the time, even though there were two thirds more deaths this time. Previous posts: Session 6, Session 5, Session 4. Also Session 8 (finale) post!

As usual, close ups and commentary below the cut. I’ve also added another graph for the average time of each team, which will also be below the cut.

There was so much carnage! 45 whole deaths in a single session! Not all deaths were awarded time during the session, but Scott’s video advised that it would be added by next session, so I have taken the liberty to add all the time as I see fit, hence why Scott is back to 7.5 hours. I haven’t seen every episode yet (in fact, other than Scott, I’ve only seen those that have perma-died), so I’m not sure if anyone else’s time is a mismatch, but if so I’m happy to explain where I’m getting my time additions and subtractions from!

Now for some close ups.

First, there was enough chaos that I decided to take a close up of Session 6 and 7 together so we can properly appreciate it:

And a close up of Session 7 by itself:

So many people lost major time, so it’s interesting to see Scott’s uptick of time at the end - he ended on only 30 minutes less than he would have been if he hadn’t died at all this session. Pearl didn’t die at all, and got the kill credit for Martyn blowing himself up in a trap, so she actually ended the session 30 minutes better than she started it. Grian also did very well for himself - he killed and died so many times, but somehow ended on the exact time he would have been on if he had experienced a peaceful deathless session.

BigB, Cleo, and Martyn all ended the session 1 hour poorer than they started, and Bdubs and Scar ended 1.5 hours below where they would have been. Nosy Neighbours are thus doing super well, with Mean Gills and Clockers not too far behind, in terms of maintaining position from the start of the session.

TIES had an awful time this session, with Impulse and Tango both losing a net 2 hours, and Etho and Skizz losing a net 2.5 hours - and obviously Skizz entirely died.

Joel possibly had the worst time, losing a net 3.5 hours this session - though it didn’t help that 5 of his 7 deaths were all caused by the one person. Technically Jimmy didn’t do too badly, given he only lost a net 1.5 hours... but given that he was out of the series only an hour into the session, and also the first out entirely... it really didn’t go well for him either

I also find it interesting the sheer number of vertical lines this graph, the ones representing a death immediately followed by a kill or vice versa. I would love to figure out a way to show only one line at a time on the graph, so we can more easily see someone’s journey, but I haven’t had time to look into it yet.

Now onto the graph of the average times per team.

This one is super interesting to me, especially TIES’s line - they had the lowest average life right from the start, but somehow by Session 4, through Session 5, and for most of Session 6, they were the team with the highest average time, and then it quite literally went downhill from there. The only thing saving them from being last now is the fact that the Bad Boys are down to only a single living player, and even then Grian is doing far better than most of TIES.

It’s also interesting to me how Mean Gills had a significant time uptick at the end of both Session 6 and Session 7 (the first due to Martyn and the second due to Scott). Scott’s time was so high that it kept Mean Gills’ average time as yellow for all of Session 6 despite Martyn being red for most of it... and Martyn then got enough kills to keep it there. Mean Gills is also the only team in the entire graph to anywhere gain such consistent significant time.

These averages also coincide with the comments I made above about the time offset difference for each player from the start to end of the session. Mean Gills are doing well, but they’ve been doing well for so long that I’m sure most players are aware that they need to be a target. Nosy Neighbours are also doing well but I feel like they’ve flown under the radar, and are not a significant target right now.

Here is a close up of this graph with Sessions 1-4:

And the close up for Session 5-7:

And the Session 7 only close up:

I kept the dead players in the teams’ averages, since I think it is a better reflection of the teams’ strength as a whole, but I also created a version that excluded dead players. In those screenshots you can really see Bad Boys’ and TIES’ time jumping up at a death, instead of falling as it did here.

Here are the alternate averages graph:

And close ups:

This makes Bad Boys look a lot better, because Grian does have a lot of time... but he is also alone. And there is definitely strength in numbers. Two players at an hour and a half each can fend off an attacker more easily than a single player at three hours can... unless nerves and panic get to them, as we definitely saw this session.

Wow and I almost forgot to include the raw data for this session!

The first hour of the session:

The second hour of the session:

There is just so much death! Look at all the box outlines!! I could barely fit this data on two screens on the zoom I was on, and I did not want to zoom out further.

I also obviously have data for the averages, but it was too far away from the column with the times on it that I wasn’t sure if it would still be useful on its own? Let me know if you want to see it!

This has once again been fascinating to see, and I cannot wait to see how Session 8 will go. Will it be the last session? Will they go until everyone is dead? Will they somehow have enough people with enough time to get to Session 9? Will Mean Gills be the final two and get to play fun relaxing games like Scott was suggesting? 

Only time will tell.

[spearxwind]

Dragonfang cannot speak in words, she just injects feelings and emotions directly into Adam's spine to communicate (This also means he's the only one who can "hear" her)

I thought of a way to represent that in comics is to have her speak with emojis :]

[the-valiant-valkyrie]

ok one person liked that post so you're all getting my in-depth puzzle analysis based off of jesse schell's metric of what makes a good puzzle, exclusively for the puzzles in ieytd1 because those are the only ones i've had the time to dissect.

First thing's first, before we talk about how well IEYTD1's puzzles have upheld the puzzle principles, we must understand what the puzzle principles are. In total, there are ten of them, some more self-explanatory than others:

 Make the Goal Easily Understood (Without a hunch as to how to even begin, a player will be hard pressed to spend the time solving your puzzle)

Make It Easy to Get Started (Even if you know what your goal is in the grand scheme, if you don't know the first steps to get there, you'll be at a roadblock the second you start)

Give a Sense of Progress (Your player may be on the right track, but without knowing that for certain, there's a risk of abandoning the path forward)

Give a Sense of Solvability (A puzzle should never be obtuse to the point of being obsolete. You're here to play a game with your player, not to stump them. You both want them to have fun)

Increase Difficulty Gradually (If you throw players into the deep end too quickly, they may end up backing out. Coax them gradually, build their confidence, and show them they can do this)

Parallelism Lets the Player Rest (If a player gets stuck on one puzzle, let them work on something else for a little while... If they have other things to do, they won't hit a roadblock as quickly)

Pyramid Structure Extends Interest (What's better than a linear narrative of puzzles? One, two, or even three solutions from prior puzzles coming together to solve one big finale!)

Hints Extend Interest (If a player can't solve a puzzle, don't expect them to keep ramming their head into a brick wall. Make sure they're being steered in the right direction)

Give the Answer! (Contrary to popular belief, it's not a bad idea to allow your player to have the answer- so long as you do it properly. They function similarly to clues, and can be important. Sometimes, the player may not know they have the answer at all up until they finally need it)

Perceptual Shifts Are a Double-Edged Sword (Consider any riddle that forces you to think outside the box. Where it may be satisfying to either solve or receive the answer, you either get it, or you don't. There is no chain of reason rather than a rule you must break to see the puzzle from the correct perspective. While fun in certain contexts, it is a huge gamble for a potential player)

Right. Now with our method of judgement out of the way (with our biases leaning towards Schell, considering he was the one to create the rules our puzzles must follow), lets get onto the missions themselves, and see which ones adequately follow and embrace the rules of the principles:

Friendly Skies

Easily understood goal

Easy to get started

Sense of solvability

Hints

Friendly Skies really is a great tutorial mission, if not a rather short one. But what’s probably its best attribute is its setting, believe it or not. Not being in a plane, but being in a car. Right off the bat, it hits not only one, but two of the 10 puzzle principles: It’s easily understood, and easy to start, and the two complement one another rather nicely. 

It’s highly unlikely that a player would have never set foot in a car before. It’s a familiar environment, and partnering that up with their objective (that being to steal the car without becoming a fatality), the gears begin turning in the player’s head before half a minute’s even passed. You have to steal the car. Okay. Key’s not in the ignition, so you have to find a way to turn it on. There’s only so many places you can look, and you- familiar with cars, of course- know exactly what each of those places are…

One of my favorite parts about this puzzle from a tutorial standpoint is not only the fact that it teaches the player the ideal thought process for engaging with puzzles in the series, but the actual location of the key is probably one of the last places you would be searching for one. Meaning that it’s likely the player is going to find all the clues they’re going to need later in the level before they actually progress to those sections of gameplay.

I have to say the same with the bomb manual hint- it doesn’t just allude to a future puzzle, but also to the sort of thought process that you’re going to have to use for the entire rest of the game. The game’s not just going to hand everything over to you for free. You have to really pay attention, make your own deductions, and if you don’t, you’re not always going to get the proper leeway to recover from it.

Another thing to note- on the subject of hints- is that the game goes out of their way to show you exactly what button you need to push to activate the grenade canons. What it doesn’t do is give you any way of figuring out what each of the other buttons do. In this level in particular, that’s not much of an issue, but in future missions I’ll touch on it more. 

As an introductory level, Friendly Skies is pretty smooth. Of course, though, there’s one notable gripe that I don’t even think I need to mention. That being the game prohibiting you from using the knife as a screwdriver. A conscious choice on the developers’ behalf- and if the handler’s lines didn’t make that obvious, they’ve mentioned it themselves on a few occasions. They were aware players would want to use the knife as a multipurpose tool, and directly disallowed it.

While I have no confirmation on the matter, I have to assume that they did this because they wanted the player to experience the toxic gas- either to teach them to take risks, or to show them that some hazards are less immediately lethal than others. Whatever the case, though, it comes at the consequence of teaching the player something that isn’t true: that levels have one concrete ‘solution’ that the player must stick with.  One of the things IEYTD is known for is their leniency with puzzles. Their speedruns and achievements encourage the player to experiment and find different methods of solving the same puzzles. So, while it’s not the worst decision in the world, I find it odd that they would choose to send such a misleading message about their gameplay mechanics in the tutorial level, of all stages. Beyond that, however, Friendly Skies is a great stage for easing new players into the gameplay, if not a bit flat in comparison to future missions.

Squeaky Clean

Sense of progress

Hints

Easily understood

Easy to get started

Sense of solvability

Difficulty of scaling

Squeaky Clean is certainly a bold jump forward from the tutorial, going from one of the shortest missions to one of the longest in the entire game. Out of all of Schell’s principles, its strongest one is the player’s sense of progress.

Nearly every time the player accomplishes something, the environment changes around them. And while it may not exactly correlate to what it is the player’s done, there’s still an innate sense of progression through the new obstacles. Broke the glass to the lab? Now you’ve got to deal with security systems. Got access to a new chemical? Better hope you can blend in, because you’ve been noticed by an operative. Even if the player isn’t certain on what their next course of action is, they still know they’ve made progress in some form or another.

I also have to say that the hints- while occasionally a little too indirect for some players- encourage thought and memorization. Especially by the means of giving the player one of the chemical reactions (the purple and green smoke bombs) before they’ve even touched anything. They can observe the compound, and if they mishandle it enough, see what the reaction is. If they cross compare it to their cheat sheets, it doesn’t take long to identify what each specific chemical is, and how to match up the ones on the periodic table to the formulas to create their own.

I will confess, though, that in many ways, Squeaky Clean is quite poorly constructed- especially for a second level. As aforementioned, the jump from Friendly Skies to here is quite immense; to the point where even spawning into the level might give the player some whiplash.

Squeaky Clean is neither easy to understand, nor easy to start, as opposed to its predecessor. Of course, no matter how well the player performed in high school chemistry, they’re not even going to know where to begin disarming a chemical bioweapon. It isn’t always bad game design for a player not to know how to solve a problem presented (more often than not, figuring that out is what the puzzle is supposed to be). But in a circumstance like this one, it can quickly become rather overwhelming.

What’s more, the player has gone from a closed off car with all the tools at their disposal, to a packed laboratory that’s completely unfamiliar to them. Even if, hypothetically, they were aware of how to make an antivirus, with so many new tools introduced at once, it’s hard to know which ones are relevant. Will they need to freeze chemicals? Will they need to burn them? How would they know which chemicals are safe to burn? Are there any other tools they need to uncover before they start? And what does that red button do? It’s good to get your player asking questions, but less so when they’re asking them all at once.

By far what has to be the biggest hurdle in this mission is its difficulty scaling. Both in regards to the level itself, and its position as the second level in the game. The lead up to the final puzzle is slow, cautious, methodical- and it has to be when you’re working with chemicals you haven’t even heard of before. But the climax of the mission throws all of that out the window when it introduces the player’s first timed puzzle.

There are many issues with this. There’s no build up to prepare the player for an encounter of that nature. On a first playthrough, there’s zero indication you’ll be remaking (or that you should be premaking) chemicals that you’ve already made until the timer’s already begun. And even beyond that, time trials introduce frantic behavior, which a level such as this one doesn’t benefit from. 

The player, in their haste to complete the objective, may accidentally put the wrong combination of chemicals into the mixer and blow themself up. They may create the wrong chemical compound, making a canister they don’t actually need. They may properly make the chemicals, but may destroy the vial on their way to use it. Not to mention, since you’re several stories in the air, if you accidentally drop it with that new telekinesis mechanic you’re getting used to, you’re not getting that thing back. And worst part of all, it’s at the very end of a mission. If you die- for whatever reason- it’s back to the very start. As great as it feels to actually succeed at the mission, players may never get that satisfaction if they build up too much tension from the trial and error. Even if- to a particular extent- trial and error is what the series is known for, it’s different when you know what to do, but circumstances beyond your control make that objective more difficult.

Deep Dive

Parallelism

Hints

Answer

Easily understood

Difficulty scaling

Deep Dive is notorious for being a cramped and uncompromising level, and those with claustrophobia tend not to rate it very highly. However, in regards to its puzzles, there are a variety of things it does very well. 

One of the highlights of this level in regards to the puzzle principles is its use of parallelism- and it’s the first puzzle in the game to actually employ it. Though it’s only relevant for about the first quarter-to-half of the mission (depending on how quickly you can make it through everything else), the player is given free reign to handle a myriad of small tasks, complete with a checklist so they’re not left in the dark on what’s left to do. Much like the act of finding the key in Friendly Skies, this also acts to introduce the player to the shape and feel of the level, and the resources held within.

This is also one of the earliest examples of the player receiving an answer to a puzzle- granted, it’s in a roundabout way of needing to piece it together themself. While the grenade hint is far more ambiguous, relying on resourcefulness and not moving too hastily, the self-destruct code serves to test the player’s competency under pressure. Despite presenting the player with the answer, the puzzle itself isn’t made much easier. 

Though speaking of competency under pressure, it’s what the entire level is known for. And despite that being the theme for that particular mission as a whole, it doesn’t change the fact that its difficulty scaling is less than desirable. Ironically enough, it suffers the exact opposite issue that Squeaky Clean did. Whereas the previous mission was slow and steady up until the last possible moment, Deep Dive keeps a brutal tempo pretty much all the way through, with no chance to breathe until the mission’s over. 

The game takes some initiative to alleviate the actual input the player needs to do (for instance, implying that the player specifically needs a pin to neutralize Zor’s grenade, thereby making the fire extinguisher unlocked and primed by the time it needs to be used), but- same as the last level- it can very easily lead to trial and error as the player hacks away at each individual malfunction, having reacted too slowly to understand what to do in the time they were provided. The challenge of the mission comes from being quick on your feet, but there’s only so many things a player can keep in their head all at once.

Also, while it’s not necessarily the biggest issue to be found in the stage, I find myself fascinated with the way that it’s presented in the introductory briefing. Certainly it was meant to tie back in with the motif of unexpected change of plans, but it’s the first time a mission briefing doesn’t at all aid with the puzzle the player will be facing. The escape pods are mentioned by your handler, true, but very briefly, and with nothing good to say about them. So when the player enters the mission only to find themself exactly where they were told not to be, chances are they’re already at a loss as to how to handle the situation. To reference a specific principle on the list, players’ ease of understanding is likely to be low.

Thankfully, the game does a good job at combating this potential paralysis spot by specifically giving the player a list of tasks to complete. And while this helps, the player is doing them because they have no other plan of attack, instead of in accordance to (or in spite of) a potential strategy. I would even argue that the wording of the briefing could have made the onboarding a little easier to understand. Say, if the player was warned that the escape pods are often tampered with, or that one wrong course of action could lead to a mouthful of saltwater. It still communicates the same feeling of dread, but now the player has things to look out for. I should make sure there aren’t any traps in here. I need to make sure I’m ready for any leaks. Instead, the player is left at the bottom of the ocean with the pre-instilled knowledge that they’re going to die any second. And while that’s probably true, it doesn’t make puzzle solving (or puzzle identifying) any more intuitive.

Winter Break

Sense of progress

Parallelism

Pyramid structure

Hints

In regards to well crafted and engaging levels, Winter Break just about knocks it out of the park. Ironically enough for being just about halfway in the game, it’s probably one of the most methodical levels sans the tutorial itself. But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t still exciting, or any less well constructed than the others. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Similar to Deep Dive, Winter Break has a heavy emphasis on parallelism. However, unlike the previous level, the amount of tasks that the player is able to complete at one time is vastly increased. This greatly helps with the pacing of the level; the more things the player is able to do at any given time, the less likely it is they’ll be sitting around, butting their head against one specific thing.

This specific puzzle format also introduces an elusive principle yet to be discussed: pyramid structure. The climax of the mission can only be unveiled once the player has found the security chip, and the Zoraxis orb, a process comprising of four separate puzzles the player can tackle at their leisure. Though a casual player may not even realize the leeway they’re given, there’s a greater sense of reward that comes from all of their actions leading to one high stakes encounter.

The hints in this level come in a wide variety, from diagrams on sheets of paper, to clues hidden within picture frames, to secrets unveiled through the classic art of bookshelf scouring. An important thing to note though, beyond the ways in which the hints are given to the player, is the order. More specifically, all hints that focus around the final objective are locked in the same location as those two key items. Even if the player doesn’t understand their importance initially, by the time they actually need to put that knowledge to use, they’ve already primed their minds with the information they need.

The ebb and flow of the difficulty is to be greatly admired as well. Working in tandem with the parallel puzzle solving, it keeps the player at a comfortable pace the whole time, riding the line between peaceful downtime and engaging action moments. Winter Break’s traps are also noticeably more readable than some of the prior missions’.

The bear archer’s method of attacking leaves plenty of room for the player to identify the hazard and react accordingly, and in regards to the final act’s lasers, the player is given ample time to study their speed and direction before it becomes an immediate threat. Not to mention the lasers only activate upon destabilizing the first crystal, ensuring the player knows what’s expected of them before the situation gets dicey. Even the deer gas feels more like a puzzle to solve than a hazard to evade, seeing as a player would only recognize it as a key to a lock after a thorough examination of its diagram.

Overall, Winter Break manages to be cohesive, readable, engaging, and exciting, without sacrificing player experience in the same way some prior levels did. As it stands, it’s probably one of- if not the best constructed level in the entire first game.

First Class

Difficulty scaling

Easily understood

Answer

Hints

Sense of solvability

First Class was Schell’s first level post IEYTD1’s official release, and the team intended to go in a far more experimental direction than their previous missions. Though they accomplished the task on numerous levels, their puzzle implementation was equally as unusual, and not always in the best of ways.

If there’s anything the mission can be commended on, it’s the difficulty scaling. By this point in the game, players are well equipped to handle most threats that come their way. While the mission doesn’t pull any punches, it has a pretty comfortable flow, working its way up from slow and experimental deduction to pushing the limits of the player’s reaction times. While a surprising number of the puzzles in this stage have lethal consequences for failure, most of them still remain feasible and fair.

… Except for the birthday puzzle, anyways. It’s potentially the weakest puzzle in the entire series, all due to its surprising complexity. The game asks the player to keep track of three variables- the day of the week, the date of the month, and the number of the month itself. On top of that, they’re given nothing to help them keep track of the information they’re given. There’s no method of writing it down, and with a headset strapped to their face, counting on their fingers isn’t even an option at their disposal. The player only has three attempts to punch in the number correctly. And what’s worse, there’s no indication on whether the date needs to be arranged month-to-day, or vice versa.

It has the potential to be quite the frustrating roadblock, and certainly puts the game’s sense of solvability into question. The variety of feedback the player receives is far too slim for all the tasks they’re expected to perform. Even if the panels behind the numbers lit up for each unsuccessful attempt (yellow, perhaps, for a correct number in the wrong spot, and green for a correct guess) would at least take some strain off of the player’s shoulders. But by the time it takes to return to the puzzle, should the player have failed it before, they may have forgotten what combinations they previously tried.

This mission is also one of the slim few examples of an answer being presented in a way that isn’t exactly intuitive. Though phrased in a way that would imply it a clue, when the handler contacts you over intercom, he straight up gives you your first objective. Find clues to light up certain buttons in the panel on the wall. Seems simple enough on the face of it. But its usefulness as an answer can only get the player so far, if only because of one specific reason: it’s a spoken answer. 

In a perfect world, a player may find and open all four panels as soon as possible at their handler’s request. But what’s most likely the case is that a player will be quick to enter the most obvious code- the one etched into the phone casing, before promptly forgetting about the instructions all together. Which poses a significant issue as far as the defector’s request is concerned. At best, it takes stumbling into a new hint for the wall for the player to recall the buttons’ existence. At worst, they may tear the entire train car apart, seeking for the clue that they don’t even know they’re missing.

We must also take the opposite into consideration- what if the player is too obedient to the handler’s command. After all, he specifies four total doors… But two of the four possible hints could have been literally flung out the window by the player, with no indication of it being a bad course of action. It’s a strange case of revealing a little more than necessary- even for the standards of the answer- and the player may end up relying upon the advice, even to their own detriment. 

There’s also the context of the mission itself to touch upon, and the ease of understanding (or lack thereof) that comes with it. In a way, it’s similar to Deep Dive’s briefing; the context you’re given contrasts with the actual scenario at hand. While it becomes obvious rather quickly that you’re not on vacation, and while it doesn’t take too long for your handler to explain what he’d like you to do, halfway through the mission you end up… completing the objective. The remainder of the level is a gauntlet of Zoraxis operatives (and one spear wielding man), steadily ramping up in intensity. 

Though it’s not exactly a detriment to the level, there’s a heavy sense of sporadicness throughout the latter half of it. It feels less as though you’re playing the level, and more as if you’re outlasting it. It proves a fun challenge, though there leaves a strange sort of “Now what?” feeling in between obstacles that can make the pacing feel a little stilted. While it can be exhilarating to perfect after a bit of practice, an initial playthrough takes a bit of bobbing and weaving through the occasional pocket of confusion.

Seat of Power

Sense of progress

Hints

Difficulty scaling

For as late as it appears in the game, Seat of Power is one of the quicker missions the game has to offer, when it comes to repeated attempts. This doesn’t make it easy by any means- quite the contrary, most of the speed of a second playthrough comes from a thorough understanding of the mission’s mechanics.

The mission’s strongest puzzle principle would have to be its sense of progress. While future IEYTD titles would really push the boundaries of evolving setpieces, Seat of Power was a pretty good starting point. The world around you is snappily responsive to your meddling, and the further you probe at Zor’s head controls, more tools and mechanics reveal themselves to you.

And that isn’t even mentioning the way that the level’s NPCs react to your actions. While they serve as lethal puzzles in their own right, they also convey that the player is doing something right (or if not exactly right, then on the right track).

In many ways, this particular mission has some excellent hints. Between learning about Professor X-Ray, to being steered towards the conclusion that there’s one placard too many for the number of seats at the table, the reveal of the goggles sparks a sense of excitement as the pieces click together. Even if the player stumbles across the solution, the recollection of the hints gives them the same feeling of satisfaction, despite the fact that a puzzle wasn’t exactly ‘solved’, per say. 

However, in other ways, the hint system in Seat of Power is deeply flawed. The control panel you unveil rather early on in the level is a great example of this.

In order to solve the second wave of puzzles, the player is expected to experiment with the buttons at their disposal. While experimentation is hardly foreign to the series by this point, hidden within the control panel is one button that kills the player instantly, unless certain conditions are met. And what's more, there’s nothing in the level that would even vaguely point the player to that conclusion.

It’s made even more frustrating by the fact that the tools you need to avoid that death can only be found if you push the button to the right of it. I Expect You To Die was originally an English exclusive title. With that audience in mind, it seems rather obvious that players who would read text from left to right would also push buttons in the same order. For how much care the game seems to take to warn the players of the threats around them, this one being so haphazardly strewn in feels almost like an intentional kill.

Unlabeled buttons- if you can recall- had a similar presence in Friendly Skies. However, at least in that mission, buttons the player needed to know about were labeled, and optional buttons were left undisclosed. It would have been quite easy for the same premise to apply here, with the button that unlocks the gas mask being referenced in some sort of note floating about the office, or some text scratched on the side of the button panel, with the poison gas button left the same. Or vice versa, where the trap was clearly labeled, but the resource to defend oneself against it was up to the player to decide. 

In a level that hinges on the player pushing all the buttons at their disposal, it seems suboptimal to ‘train’ them into being wary of doing exactly what they’ve been asked to do. Oh, I probably shouldn’t push buttons when I don’t know what they do, the player might think. Which, while very true, doesn’t help much when they’re left with little other choice.

Of course, I don’t believe I can talk about Seat of Power without referencing the Madrid puzzle, either. While your handler states very bluntly in your briefing that you’re going to Madrid, expecting your player to hold onto key information for a level they haven’t even entered yet is quite a tall ask for any player. But even beyond that, the developers admitted that no one listens to the handler anyways.

To aid with this, they attempted to sprinkle in some Spanish themes in the set dressing to better set the tone. While this certainly helps to a certain extent, the people who it helps are those who can identify the culture they’re being presented with. In that regard, the puzzle becomes more akin to a trivia game, or a riddle, where a player needs context derived from outside of the experience in order to solve it. Generally not a very good practice in escape rooms, both in the real world, as well as virtual ones.

However, the other- perhaps far more pressing complication with the Madrid puzzle is assuming that the average person knows where Madrid is on a map. For the geographically uninclined, this is a very bold assumption to make. Thankfully, it’s not a mistake they repeat in their future installments.

Seat of Power is generally a very engaging level, once one can finally wrap their minds around the little quirks about it. It has a unique pacing system, and finally introduces the player to the concept of an overarching plot. It’s just that some of its decisions on puzzle mechanics seem a little half baked- especially this late into the game.

Death Engine

Easy to get started

Sense of progress

Hints

Answers

Easily understood

Death Engine was originally set to be the game’s final send off, and as a result, the developers didn’t want to pull any punches. It was players' final trial, and they would have to put all the skills they learned in their prior missions to the test. As a result, this particular mission throws threats at the player almost as quickly as it possibly can. But that doesn’t mean that the difficulty scaling is completely unfair. It scales at a rate proportional to most of the other missions; it simply starts a few degrees higher.

Deaths in Death Engine normally come quickly. There’s little room for the player to revert any errors that they make. The agent can’t just shake off an electrocution, or being bathed in radioactive waste. However, the very first threat they encounter (a setpiece threat, rather than something caused by the player’s actions) gives the player enough time to process what the issue is, and to react accordingly. It’s the most lenient hazard in the entire mission, but still sets the tone for the level going forward: dangers will be quick and uncompromising, and going forward, a lot more unforgiving.

Death Engine also waits until the player is well accustomed to their location and the tools at their disposal before they throw the next, far more lethal timed encounter at the player, in the form of Solaris’ direct radioactive assault. Though they also have the decency to warn the player ahead of time with vocal cues. Though the puzzles are meant to test the full extent of what the player’s learned, it doesn’t feel as though the game is throwing impossible odds at them.

Though, what may seem impossible to the player is the mechanisms of their space shuttle. At a passing glance, it seems incredibly overwhelming to have all of these tools at their disposal. However, the mission actually tackles the easy to start principle in a pretty ingenious way- one that Schell would take with them into their future installments.

Yes, the player has several dials and buttons and resources at their disposal, but after the laser’s backlash ripples through your shuttle, only some of them are actually functional. While this seems to only introduce problems to the player, it actually does them a great service: 

The player can only engage with one to two portions of the ship at a time- typically just one, as far as a first playthrough is concerned. True, the shuttle has a rather extensive list of information about all of its components and how they operate (a rather useful aid, and quite a good example of the answers principle coming into play again). But the hands-on experience of swapping power and seeing what new tools are unlocked is a far more effective method of communicating the rules of the stage to the player.

This use of fuse swapping also serves as another principle, in a roundabout sort of way. It communicates steady progression with each ‘fuse-specific’ puzzle solved. The gravity adjusting puzzle feels rewarding to complete in its own right, but there’s an extra sense of satisfaction that comes from ripping the fuse out of that section of the fusebox. I’m done with that, the player thinks to themself, onto something else, now.

Even Solaris aids in the player’s sense of progression to an extent, hurtling canisters of radioactive waste at them only after they’ve made a significant amount of progress. While it’s jarring to be given a new obstacle to face, a villain turning from cocky to antsy is just about the clearest tell there is that the player is making a good amount of progress. Not to mention the entire encounter turns into a (admittedly incredibly lethal) tutorial on how to actually use the shuttle’s external arm- something that will be critical to actually finishing the level. 

Death Engine was meant to serve as the player’s final hurdle; the ultimatum of their career as a field operative. While it’s by no means a cake walk on a first playthrough, its puzzles remain understandable and fair. While it’s unlikely the player will make it through the level completely unscathed, the difficulty doesn’t rest at a point where it overrides the sense of satisfaction they feel by the end of the mission, as well as the end of the entire game as a whole. For a grand finale, Death Engine serves its purpose rather expertly, setting the standard for the series’ subsequent final acts.

[thtupidity]

recently heard the "bunny cult" frank theory, im leaning on ehhh but it does make a couple things a little funnier which i live for

i love when things are a little funnier

[echo-s-land]

broke: Betas' sense of smell is the weakest among the dynamics/Betas are normies like us in the real world and are not sensitive to smell like Omegas and Alphas are

woke: Betas' sense of smell is actually the strongest

bespoke: Betas' nose do not have a broad sense of smell and are weaker than Omegas' and Alphas BUT they do have the strongest sense of smell still - because they can smell with their tongues (like snakes do) and have more smell receptors there than any other dynamics'. As such, they can decide of the intensity with which to scent something (not much with their nose; a lot with their tongue); are able to read the room better than the other dynamics and are still not as affected by scents as the other dynamics are