#but i kinda want to speedrun my way to the worst ending for fun

[lilac-lemonade]

Someone who knows something about computers quickly tell me if my Intel Core i7-1165G7 and GeForce MX450 can handle DBH or if I’m going to make my laptop explode

[randomsufff]

This is REALLY FUCKING LONG so hope y’all enjoy lmao. (Sorry if formatting looks weird- blame tumblr)

OK HERE WE GO PEOPLE- I will start by saying I don’t hate The Quarry. I like it very very much, but I think that it could be BETTER. Speedrun what I find lacking in the game.

1. There’s literally no ending

2. Some characters having no personality (looks at Abi and Nick)

3. Honestly they don’t feel like friends/ people who’ve worked with kids for a summer

4. They move from area to area with little reward/ purpose in the end. (Looks at Junkyard scene- like wtf was that for)

5. Also- some choices just- don’t make sense (looks at Dylan cutting off his whole ass hand with a old ass chainsaw/ fucking gun and doesn’t immediately die from blood loss/ has no worry about possible infection afterwards.)

Listen- I get that it’s supposed to be like a cheesy slasher film (“that what the VCR box covers are for” I KNOW) but I really did not get that feeling AT ALL when playing. It just felt like bad writing at times.

SO! Here’s my version: The Quarry starts off like a cheesy slasher film (beginning of the game is mostly the same- Max and Laura’s little horror movie moment, wanting to stay a day longer bc of Emma, cheesy fire pit scene…)- with all the characters playing up a certain archetype ( Emma- “popular girl”, Jacob- “stupid jock”, Nick- “try hard nice guy”, Abi- “quite nerd”. Kaitlyn- “headstrong leader”, Dylan- “comic relief”, Ryan- “brooding loner”) to 1000%, to the point where it’s almost cringe worthy. (If you can’t predict whatever stupid ass line they’re gonna say next- I don’t want it.) BUT THEN- as the night goes on they gain more depth and shit. Idk this can tie into a parallel/metaphor of the werewolf where these teens are changing into people they’re not- becoming a monstrous version of themselves in their eyes??? Idk I’m spitballing, don’t think about it too deeply.

The Hag of Hacketts Quarry will play a bigger part in the actual story- wanting revenge against the Hacketts and supernaturally influencing the teens and the wolves to try and kill all the Hacketts. The Hacketts ARE NOT ASSHOLES FOR NO REASON- they are a normal family (who treats Ryan like family too) who are trying their best to fix the mess they made, in the worst way possible. This way- the player can morally struggle if they decide to end the Hackett family bloodline.

(Beware- it is truly so long beneath this read more- I sincerely thought about just putting a link to somewhere you can read this but thought that was too much effort for everyone involved. Have fun :D)

I went really in-depth in my jumbled notes, including what different choices would look like, but I’ll follow my “Best Ending” Route bc it’s the one that gives everyone a chance to shine.

DA CHARACTERS AND THEIR ARCS:

- Dylans pretty fine as is. Add that he feels like a liar to Ryan and can’t truly date him cause he’s been putting on a persona all summer. Overcompensates with humor

- Kaitlyn- very confident in who she is (anyone who’s that good with a gun automatically is lol)- but also has bad anxiety attacks or something. Like she’s very go with the flow and know what she’s about but if she thinks about her life and future too long that’s when she starts to spiral. A true “try to casually dismiss all the problems in my life” kinda gal. (Same bestie)

- Jacob: similar to original but needs to play up his heart more, shows he really cares for his friends. Have him be very sacrificial. He’ll act like a stereotypical bro jock at first but he’ll reveal his true himbo nature later on. He acts goofy bc it makes people/the kids laugh the most but feels like maybe he’s too annoying at times/ pushes it too far.

- Emma: A pretty big influencer, convincing Hackett that a “day to day” vlog about the camp and councilors will help bring popularity/ positively impact reputation. Have her constantly blogging and preforming for the camera. Arc will be her hating that and wanting to quit but not wanting to let people down.

- Abi: Needs more personality in general. Have her go from reserved and walk overy to self confident and brave. Have her be crafty and smart (picking locks, putting together the truth?, getting out of situations cleverly).

- Fucking Nick: needs the most work of all. Why tf is he British? That’s his only personality bro. He feels like he needs to conform, his accent makes him feel like he stands out too much and people secretly make fun of him. All the other councilors have been working together for years, but he’s just joined the team this summer so he feels extra out of place. He’s a try hard, sucking up to Jacob a lot- he doesn’t need to tho, Jacob likes him as a friend/ as he is.

- Ryan just needs to either get over denial faster or make it very obvious he’s in denial and have others call him out. Main problem people had with him was he was kinda on Chris’ side, was defending them/he looked sus as hell. Highlight his relationship with the Hacketts more. Show that he’s like family to them. Also should show people look to him as their natural leader- have the others respect him more. Have him seem aloof because he didn’t really know how to interact with others, and sometimes the feelings don’t feelings so he can’t communicate/ emote his emotions that well. Would rather be seen as brooding and mysterious then incompetent at emotion.

Ok Major Backstory changes that the story revolves around-

- THE HAG HAS A BIGGER INVOLVEMENT. Basically everything’s gone to shit cause of her/ her want of revenge. Thought tonight is the perfect opportunity (all the teens there- scare them into killing Hacketts/ send Turned wolfs after Hacketts)

- Chris’ kids were being kept in the electric cages in the basement (for reasons explained later). The Hag caused a power outage that night so that’s how they escaped into the wild.

- Play up an unexplained anger towards the Hacketts/ Chris when things go to shit (it’s the Hags influence in an effort to make them kill the Hacketts)

- Only the brothers (cousins? I forgot what they were) go after the councilors, and there’s not a single thought behind those eyes so thought it was best to kidnap and hide the teens until dangers over to not risk them knowing the Truth TM.

- Ryan can only romance Dylan- sorry Kaitlyn but there was 0 chemistry/ scenes in the original so… (Also that stupid “thing” between Lauren and Ryan doesn’t exist cause it’s so pointless.)

Story lets go:

Beginning will stay mostly the same- again, play up archetypes and makes super cheesy. Jacob will take the car piece/ cut fuel line because he wants to ��hang with Emma one more night” (Or so he says). Have Ryan step up after Chris leaves and be more instant that they stay in the cabin and the player can choose wether they do or don’t. (If they stay inside no one can get bit.)

Sine we’re going best ending- everyone stays inside. Just move fire pit scene to a fireplace setting. Emma and Jacob still get snacks/ gun after approval from Ryan and a promise to stick together. Have everyone play up their respective archetypes more/ longer and establish relationship dynamics. The power goes out (cause of the Hag) and the campers decide to crowd around the fireplace.

Fire place is where real personalities start to show. HIGHLIGHT HOW THEY ARE ALL FRIENDS. I mean ffs they worked with kids with each other for a whole summer (and have worked with each other previous summers), they should interact more comfortably with each other. They can talk about their summer with the campers and stupid horror stories of working with little kids during summer. Can acknowledge how they self censor themselves unconsciously etc. Have that be a set up for whatever ridiculous swears they say.

Etc etc, truth or dare- Kiss Dylan/ Kaitlyn will impact how much Ryan like Dylan back (along with how many flirty dialogue was picked). Emma and Nick- both will look hesitant but will both go through with the kiss dare (Emma being super showy about it and filming it while Nick doesn’t want to be called a coward). No one runs off cause that stupid and who tf runs off into the dark forest bc your crush kissed someone else 💀. Just show Jacob being sad and Abi also being sad but also kinda accepting her fate cause she didn’t think she was good enough for Nick anyways. Cue Awkward Tension that Dylan breaks with a joke. Emma then dare Abi to, idk, move everything in Hacketts office over by an inch. Nick volunteers to help (cause he saw how sad/ understanding she looked and wanted to talk) and they head off. Jacob says he’s gonna take a breather but Emma knows what’s up and follows him eventually.

Nick and Abi have conversation/ interaction similar to original game in Hacketts office. (“Ha, so are we actually gonna move everything?” “Let’s just move his stapler and wait for a few minutes ha, I’m not moving everything.” *Then they talk or whatever*)

Meanwhile Emma meets up with Jacob- she complains a bit or whatever and asks why Jacobs so bothered since they’re not together anymore. Reveal that Jacob never got a straight answer as to why, other then a vague “long distance won’t work”, and asks if she even truly liked him in the first place or if he actually was some summer fling. Emma will look hesitant but then BOOM GUNSHOTS ARE HEARD NEARBY (it’s the brothers trying to tranc at a werwolf trying to get in the cabin).

Everyone obviously gets concerned. They can hear scratching, whatever, more gunshot, essentially near their window. The brothers come knocking on the door, and that’s when shit goes down, everyone has to hide and run away. Would be a hold breath situation that you can fail or win as they break into the cabin. If win, Jacob will decide to eventually self sacrifice cause the brothers were close to Dylan and Abi or something. Shouts and runs out causing the brothers to follow him. After they leave Dylan says they should get help via the radio shack. Emma, Abi and Nick go to find Jacob (Nick has the gun) Dylan, Kaitlyn and Ryan go to shack after taking Chris gun.

Emma, Nick and Abi find Jacob caught in a trap yelling, the brothers putting blood on face. If Jacob took the car piece, it’ll be lost as he’s trashing around. They can eavesdrop to what they are saying into walkie talkie to gain some context early on or attack straight out. Attack sequence. Abi and Nick will team up against two hunters while Emma gets Jacob out. The hunters aren’t trying to kill them so they’re like, trying to knock the teens out at best. Cue Abi and Nick fighting for their lives lmao. Emma will get Jacob out, and you can fail the fight resulting in Nick and Abi getting captured. However, best case scenario, you pass the quick time events and everyone will run as soon as Jacobs free. Will head to the radio shack.

Jacob and Emma will hang back and try to pick up the convo they started in the cabin on way to radio shack. Maybe start to dive into the problem of Emma’s want to not disappoint her fans and how that’s affected how she acts with Jacob. Abi and Nick will also talking. Idk maybe they’ll try to compare themselves to Emma and Jacob. Like the Nick will feel like how he doesn’t fit in/ not as outgoing as Jacob, Abi feeling the same about Emma. Everyone will eventually group together together to speculate wtf is happening.

Meanwhile- Kaitlyn will hover a good distance ahead of Dylan and Ryan cause she knows what’s up with them. Says it’s to protect their sorry asses since she’s the best with a gun but is really wingmaning for Dylan lol. The conversation bw Ryan and Dylan being the same as in game cause that was cute. At shacks, everything’s mostly same with Kaitlyn hanging by the door to be on watch (she will also provide biting commentary when Dylan does his famous SOS speech etc.

K- “Wow I can’t believe I’m the only one in possession of a brain cell here.”

D-“Hey- You we’re supposed to hand over custody of it hours ago”

K-“well clearly you’ve failed to pick it up at the specified time so I’m keeping it for the weeken-“

R-“Holy shit guys can we focus on not dying rn please”)

Dylan won’t ask to amputate arm bc that so stupid and unrealistic without proper medical equipment. He will be bit if opened door in first chapter with Abi, no choice to cut off arm/ stop effects. But in Best RouteTM Abi doesn’t opens the door. Continue as usual with the second group arriving, hiding in the cabin and attracting the wolf, and Dylan chasing it away with radio frequency. The group meets up, (Could include Emma’s air freshener/mace scene with Dylan when he opens the cabin door bc that shit was funny) and hears Lauren injuring the daughter. (Ok I thought long an hard about it but I think the player should have the opportunity to save all the Hacketts. I can’t make it possible to save everyone but one- it’s not very rewarding. SO INSTEAD- she only injured the daughter but thinks she killed Chris because 1) she couldn’t get close to the body to verify with all the councilors immediately rushing onto the scene and 2) thought that just shooting a silver bullet would do the trick and didn’t think much about aiming for the head/ heart- so she just got her in like the leg). The teens will see this Thing passed out by the water- that’s clearly not a bear- and freak tf out. The immediately hide in the swimming pool area. The daughter wolf will be heard retreating bc she’s got this bullet scorching her from the inside in her leg and is weak from the water puddles near the pool.

Ok here Jacob will confess to messing with the car. Bc that didn’t get talk about at all in game. Everyone will be outraged of course. Emma will be like wtf are you serious rn. Jacob defends himself like “I just wanted to talk- I felt like we wouldn’t get another chance- I just wanted tonight to be fun I literally had no idea this was gonna happen.” Admit he lost the piece if he took it. Eventually Ryan says he forgives him. Some people (Emma? Abi?) can be like wtf but Kaitlyn will chime in and agree like- “it’s in the past, there’s literally nothing we can do. If werwolves weren’t a thing this probably would have been the best night ever, just hanging with you all one last time.” Everyone will reflect on that- Jacob will look grateful. Ryan will agree like, “we need to keep our heads on straight anyways- Kaitlyn is 100% right- it’s in the past. Lets focus on what to do next/ how to survive”

(If either Abi, Nick got bit - here would be a transformation/ shooting scene, similar to the original, but since this is the Best Route and no one’s bit we shall move on)

Nervous breakdowns time (yay) especially from Ryan. He keeps trying to keep the situation under control and downplay/ logic his way out through increasingly ludicrous excuses. Dylan will call him out/ calm him down (though this can be done by Kaitlyn if Dylan’s romance points are low). Big Time will pass with them trying to think of what to do and passing back and forth information/ evidence player has collected when Laura knocks. They’ll move to main room to crowd around door. Continue as game. Have Ryan act more leader-ly with the others huddling together behind Jacob, and Kaitlyn (who still have both guns bc it’s stupid how one of them gets lost in the original game) who are on either side of Ryan. Continue as usual as Laura explains where she’s been.

Everything there’s the same. Backstory wasn’t wasn’t awful in my opinion. Travis asks for help, she agrees yadda yadda. HOWEVER- I think his reasoning for her helping him was a bit shit tho. So- he’s kept her there to watch her boyfriend turn to convince her that helping him will save Max (Bigger chance of finding them, if only slightly though he’ll take any help at this point). She’ll agree bc it’s canon she’ll do anything to save Max. Hell, LET TRAVIS ACTUALLY BRING HER HIS FINDINGS AND PLAN SHIT WITH HER (but he doesn’t tell her everything- just enough info to plan to kill Silas). They’ll work as a ACTUAL TEAM and wait till the next full moon. Time skip a month, plan is Laura and Travis will split up trying to find the wolf in the woods. Laura brings Max cause she doesn’t want him locked up alone/ doesn’t fully trust Travis to not pull some shit. Understands Silas has an attachment to that burnt circus and focuses there before spreading out. Boom power outage happens, Travis gets called to house. Laura goes on to “kill” the daughter thinking it’s Chris, yadda yadda, visit island, etc. She’ll note Max escaped (because be fr no way a werwolf is bested by a fucking locked trapped door when he can just burst through the roof or something) and gets chased off the island similar to Emma in the original (QTE and all). NOTE: There will be another wolf who joins the chase near the end (Spoiler alert- it’s Chris cause he knew he wouldn’t be able to make it to the cages in time) If she fails enough QTE she has her werewolf bite, but again- Perfect Route so that doesn’t exist and her eye will forever be fucked (Kinda cheep for them to give her this gruesome injury only to magic it away :/).

Present day. Cue pissed off everyone about how Chris/ the Hacketts willingly put them and LITTLE KIDS in danger. Play up that unexplained anger in everyone, though Ryan’s is a bit more low-key. Laura learns of the power outage, that the thing she shot wasn’t dead - and says “welp I don’t have time for this I’m off to hunt Chris’s ass down for real this time.” Have Ryan intervene and convinces her to let him talk to the Hacketts to properly explain what tf is happening. Again, the Hacketts are not assholes cause that’s cheap. Really have Ryan drive home that he thinks of them like family and Vice versa. (Cause like Chris cares for him, he’s on good standing with his kids, if the parents/brothers lives on campus why isn’t he good with them too???) Have Ryan pled with her to not harm the Hacketts. That he’ll help her hunt down Silas (They all will- everyone volunteers) and their best bet is gathering all the info from the source. Offers to take her to the Hacketts residence so they can hear the explanation together (half because he doesn’t trust her not to go off by herself and kill Chris). Laura agrees cause they might also have an idea where Chis is, but is willing to at least hear what they have to say. Meanwhile Emma, Jacob, Abi and Nick will head back to camp while Dylan and Kat go to find a car part to replace. Kaitlyn will say only her and Dylan will go bc it has less a chance of someone else getting hurt and really what’s one more person gonna help against a friking werwolf. Ryan agrees and everyone splits off, each group having a gun for protection.

IN THE CABIN:

The gang will hole up in Chris’s office bc staying in the cellar is useless and scary.

Nick and Abi will hang by the bedroom/ be elsewhere while Emma and Jacob finally get the the root of their problems in the main room. Similar to Abi and Emma’s convo in the original, perhaps Emma is trying and failing to maintain her persona as she’s record everything for evidence/ diary log sake. Jacob will ask why she’s still pandering to an audience. He says that he felt like he rarely spent time with the real her. Emma has her heart to heart where she feels like it’s all she has- how she understands it’s why their relationship was so strained in the first place but couldn’t break free from her following that easily. She broke up with him not cause of lack of wanting to make long distance work or lack of love but because she felt like he didn’t deserve to date someone like her: their entire relationship being founded and so tightly integrated with this fake personality she’s created. Like said before- she hates it and what it’s done to her life but it feels like a switch she can’t turn off sometimes and the guilt of letting down people who constantly praise her for being a source of happiness and entertainment is enough to stop her from attempting to fix that. Jacob listens and understands- he felt at times he was putting on a tough/goffy act like she does. Cause it makes people smile the most. That he’s not sure if his everyone even likes him all that much or if he’s too annoying. Plus he feels responsible and super guilty for everyone being stuck here.

Abi and Nick will then interrupt saying they’ve heard enough - having eavesdropped on the whole convo.

Abi and Nick will say theirs heart to hearts to those two. Abi starts by saying that Emma has no reason to fear everyone being disappointed in her because she’s awesome the way she is. Emma never really played up the part around Abi that much since she doesn’t like the camera/is camera shy so she know how Emma really acts (which isn’t that different from the persona she plays. Her friendliness and her kindness of reaching out to anyone not included is very much there) . Claims that the true followers don’t like her for the drama she creates but the kindness and affection she has towards her friends and the kids. Goes on to complement her and her people skills. She understands her following is important to her but tells her that she really has no reason to be afraid to reveal her true self since she’s already so great, that the people who really love her content will stick around.

Nick could bring up the kiss dare between him and Emma- how unhappy she looked after. Say that he held his tongue bc he felt like he didn’t have the right to say anything since he’s not THAT close with her- but now says that he see how taxing performing all the time is on her- and how she deserves to be able to do whatever she wants.

THEN he rears to Jacob to say AND YOU WDYM YOURE TOO ANNOYING??? YOU LITERALLY SACRIFICED YOURSELF FOR EVERYONE WDYM YOU THINK EVERYONE HATES YOU? He reassures that while he was really PISSED at him for messing with the car- before everything turned to shit it WAS a fun night and it honestly Chris’s fault for hosting a fucking kids camp while being a werwolf/ near werwolf ground. He goes on to say his insecurities- that Jacob is the only guy to make him feel included. That he was the one who constantly reached out to Nick when Nick felt outcasted because he’s a new counselor and his accent (idk kids would probably mildly make fun of that shit and he’s been mocked in the past so not good combo ig) Jacobs his roll model- and perhaps he’s been trying a little too hard to fit in but he wants to be liked in the same way everyone likes Jacob.

Abi agrees and says how Jacob would always reach out to her and Ryan (two of the more shyer members of the group) whenever they did something. It pushed her out of her comfort zone but it was honestly what she needed- otherwise she wouldn’t have been as close with/ even talked to the others now. Goes on to say he was a good person who helped whoever needed it- counseled or kid.

THEN A WERWOLF HOWLES IN THE DISTANCE (or wherever the fuck they do). They’re safe but that spurs them to try and piece together everything so far. Mayhaps depending on how many clues the player finds affects if they can piece together the Hag’s revenge / can actually come up with a plan or not?

MEANWHILE- Dylan and Kaitlyn go to the junkyard to look for the part. They ALSO have a good heart to heart. Kaitlyn sees Dylan STRUGGLING IN THE TRENCHES with Ryan. Dylan thinks Kaitlyn likes Ryan cause of her little “dark brooding and mysterious joke” and tries to ask her opinion on the other councilors (But he really wants to know about her opinion on Ryan). She sees right through that shit but still messes with him- (this can 100% be a player choice to either keep going to another camper or just say “like Ryan?” lmao) like “Oh Emma? She funny as fuck and always so kind despite her popular bitch online persona. Jacob? a himbo (he’s trying), I’m jealous of Abis drawing talent like wtf, Nicks super chill and he was a riot with the kids (lmao do you know how many kids had crushes on him?)”.

Eventually Dylan will be like “don’t make me say it”- Bla bla banter- “so……. do you like Ryan??? Plz stop laughing I need to know, Kaitlyn this isn’t funny” and Kaitlyn just laughing her ass off like “boi im aroace” (ok maybe this is me projecting) but she can just say “I was JOKING LMAO IM NOT INTO HIM” and Dylan will be like“……..ok- but like what about that Laura girl do you think he’s into her? He’s probably into her right? I mean she’s so badass and she very competent which I am totally NOT so-“ and Kaitlyn will turn to him and dead-pan say “ you dumb bitch first of all she’s taken- she’s literally hunting down werewolf’s BECAUSE of her boyfriend what makes you think she’ll let Ryan’s skinny ass make a move on her?”

Romance point level will effect Kaitlyns advice. With a high amount she’ll say “plus he’s totally into you.” Cue spluttering from Dylan and lame excuses (wow this is really rom-comy) and she’s like upupupup. Now if Ryan kissed Dylan she can bring that up but if he kissed Kaitlyn then she can comment how disappointed he looked at himself. She’ll be like- “he’s so into you- I mean, I overheard you telling him about your nerdy alter ego back when we were heading for the radio. You had a total Rom-Com moment“ *cue more spluttering from Dylan* Kaitlyn will laugh but then she’ll be like “ok but seriously- that guy is really into you man. He talks more around you then anyone else- he seems interested whenever you talk- hell! You even told him about you’re nerdy science side and he was not fazed.“

“Yeah but what if he was only pretending? What if he was only interested in DJ Dylan *cue stupid hand gesture* ? I really don’t think I could handle a rejection like that for… no that’s it. I can’t handle rejection full stop.” (Insert more self deprecating things here about a feeling of fake confidence and such whenever he interact with Ryan because he can’t handle him not liking how he truly is)

“well fuck that man- I mean we’re still teens right? Listen- I know what it’s like, to be afraid of the future ok?” Kaitlyn will then go on to say how she used to meticulously worry about her future, whether she’d be able to survive the “adult world” on her own. Was constantly trying to plan for the future that she didn’t realize she was wasting her present. And it didn’t even matter anyways because it’s impossible to plan for the future. She was only supposed to be a sub councilor to cover for Jacob for a few weeks but seeing how carefree and happy Dylan, the kids, just everyone was made her realize how uptight she was about being constantly prepared for anything. She’s still afraid of what the future will hold of cause but she won’t superficial things stop what she wants to do now,- “just like I won’t let your fear of possible rejection stop you from AT LEAST shooting your shot. Like being rejected right now, would not even be close to the top worse things that have happened tonight. We’ve quite literally almost died like three times and counting and found out that werewolves are real.“ She then goes on to complement Dylan’s smarts and humor, his instinct to cheer up anyone who needs it. (“Would you honestly want to date someone you can’t be yourself around? If he doesn’t like “Dylan Dylan” that’s on HIM not YOU.”) Goes on to say that Ryan should be so LUCKY as to date a dude like him and-

“In fact… I want you to promise me. Pinky promise me you’ll ask him out at the end of this nightmare.” And Dylan will be like “lol if we survive” she’ll be like *dead pan stare* “all the more reason to survive right?” And Dylan’s like. Fuck she’s right- and Is lowkey inspired to go ask him out rn- but there is a time and a place and when better to drop a bombshell like a crush then at the end of a traumatic experience such as this- the movies always do it… so he promises- yay. (Can actually choose wether or not to confess to Ryan at the end) They continue looking for the car piece and can actually acquire it if they survive all QuickTime events and Dylan’s not bit. (Cause them not getting anything is stupid af.)

MEANWHILE MEANWHILE Ryan and Laura. Same as usual- except he will actually say something about Dylan and not his stupid ass dismissive response. No flirting bw the two of them, that was also stupid af. Ryan could quickly confess how he’s not been the best with emotions/ has never been in a relationship so he has no idea what to feel/do with Dylan. Laura can give him some advice and tell him how she feels when she’s around Max (He makes me laugh, we support each other through tough times, I tell him my fears and he understands and makes me feel safe/valid, etc.) Little oh moment for Ryan there. They show up in the room and the Hackets are merely mildly arguing about Chris and the kids running around. Travis notices Ryan and Lauren and is like tf????? Why? How tf did you get here? Ryan’s like- we fell through a hole 😔. Anyways Ryan asks for clarification- lowkey breaking down about the situation. The Hacketts are like fuckkkkk- yeah sorry man and comfort him.

EXPLANATION TIME. Travis would turn to Laura and be like- I didn’t tell you everything bc I didn’t fully trust you wouldn’t just kill my brother and she’s like “😬 yeah… I understand man” Anyways. So backstory’s mainly the same. Daughter and son free Silas-etc. THE HAG HAUNTS THEM. She wants them DEAD. Eventually learned of how to end it all - gotta kill Salis. Hunt begins with everyone gathering on full moon to try and find them. Chris and kids were kept at jail with silver painted walls at first to contain them. However couldn’t be a permanent since they were slowly building a tolerance to the silver paint and could break out. Planning to use the island, but needed to prepare it to make it totally isolated. Months ago- Travis suddenly suggested they store the others in the electric cages- in case the bars fail them now. (really he kidnapped Max and Lauren and we’re keeping them in the cells so he needed an excuse to place Chris and co. elsewhere) Says more people can keep an eye on them- they can tranq em or whatever if they get too rowdy- etc. they agree- it works and the werewolves seem to almost recognize the Hacketts- inspiring them to hold them in the cages again the next full moon (aka today). However- power outage happened and they escaped while everyone else was preparing/hunting. Mother and Father can’t leave the house (cause they old and be in the most in danger) called back Travis to protect them- sent the brothers after the kids. Again- there’s not a single though behind those eyes and they though that just kidnapping them/ covering them in blood without telling them what’s actually happening will protect them from idk the government? Preventing the information that werewolf’s exists from escaping and their involvement? They were arguing about fully telling the councilors or not since Travis already told Laura stuff and where Chris could be cause he’s not there.

Ok so NOW- Laura becomes like- progressively upset? Like tell me why tf would you endanger kids like that- why would you endanger US LIKE THAT? and like she be pointing the gun and shit- and maybe the Hag can be seen in like the corner just- lurking. And as Ryan you can intervene or not. If does he takes the gun from her and no one dies. The lights flicker (implied the hag is mad they didn’t kill a Hackett ). They then hear werewolves enter/attack the house. Travis mentions there are powerful tranqs/tranq guns in this storage esc room- tells them to get em and don’t kill any wolf that isn’t white cause that’ll be someone they know. Tranqs won’t last long so Travis will try to get the parents out of the house, suggests they do the same after they get the tranqs. They all split up. Depending on how many people turned will determine how many wolves are in the house. In this Route- it’s only Silas, the daughter and the son.

Cue quick time events, getting to the room, getting the gun, the daughter chasing them halfway through. Laura will get attacked, Ryan will pick up her shotgun and aim it- do the aim thing, make it like super quick- supposed to not do anything and he’ll be like- oh shit wrong gun and get out the tranq, and quick time events to shoot? After Ryan and Laura get the gun they go can head back in to save the others or leave.

Leaving will kill the Hacketts/ led to Ryan heading back to the cabin to wait it out with everyone else while Laura goes off to kill Chris (she figures he’s the second wolf on the island- will quickly add this route leads to the of shooting one of the two werewolves, Wolf!Max or Wolf!Chris Al la DBH style, being able to tell who to shoot via wolf’s body language/ one of the wolves recognizing her and seemingly holding back).

Travis and the brothers will be mildly injured, point the kids to other room where last saw parents, son is about to attack the mom, quick aim thing where have to shoot tranq before dad kills the son. SALIS STALKS OUT THE SHADOWS. He’s 1 v 7 so he tries to make a break for it, Laura shoots and hits his leg before it leaps out the window. Boom all Hackets saved, Hag is PISSED next time you see her.

Decide it’s best to stick together bc horror movies always get that wrong. Travis tells kids he’ll escort them back to cabin where they will hunker down till morning- it’s too dangerous to go hunting for Salis now with this many loose wolfs. Laura’s like fuck that I’m not abandoning my boyfriend- we’re killing this mf tonight or I go after Chris myself. (Present same island logic as other route). Mans is like ok- well- if we’re gonna do this we’ll need to involve everyone then- more manpower the better. So go off to cabin to plan, driving everyone in Travis’ car to get there fast.

Back at cabin they realize the connection bw Hag and Salis and how she prolly wants revenge. Cue someone being like, “yeah I was like unnaturally murderous towards Chris all night, for some reason.” And everyone’s like “you too?” Travis and co. arrive. Dylan will hug Ryan in relief- cue Kaitlyn and Laura winking it up. Talking bla bla, planning bla bla. Cabin group says their Hag/ Silas theory- Travis tells them about the daughter and sons involvement in the fire, Abi puts together maybe she wants revenge, Ryan chimes in saying they literally got attacked by all the wolves like 5 minutes ago. Decide to use Hacketts in open area as bait in to lure Salis out. Everyone else will try to tranquilize the other wolfs like last time/ lure them away in time to get Sailis alone and kill him. If got the car piece the car will be available to assist.

Boom- huge fighting/ hiding sequence. Takes place in a huge clearing surrounded by woods. Starts with Travis and parents calling out and mocking the Hag and Salis. (If councilors turned they appear here in wolf form along with Silas). Silas, the daughter and the son appear. Normal wolves appear as like allies/ backup💀. Pairs attracts attention and gets chased by regular wolfs while Laura and Kaitlyn try to kill Silas/ deal with the family. (cause they’re the best shots)

Three tranq guns- one for each other pair. The pairs being Emma/Dylan, Abi/Jacob, Ryan/Nick. ??? Idk we need the others interacting with each other.

(Emma Dylan have a sassy duo vibe. Abi exasperated by Jacobs simpleness but still appreciate his confidence and presence. Ryan and Nick are unusual besties. Know about others respective crushes and talk about them. Dylan’s romance point changes Ryan’s dialogue (“Yeah he’s so *dies in vague flailing hand gestures* ”- or “idk after tonight idt I can handle dating someone rn”))

BOOM shit goes down, the wolves appear. Starting from one duo- after running and fighting, go to next duo and switch to their pov. Lots of QTE. Have everyone interacting together as a group/ with others. Idk at least helping each other off ground/ protecting them in battle as group grows.

Meanwhile- Kaitlyn and Laura fighting for their lives against son, daughter and Silas. Travis police car will be used here to help protect the Hacketts from danger, while fixed van is used to drive out of range from attacks/ provides extra protection. Epic battle, saving Travis and parents from attacks. Brothers and parents in charge of tranqing the son and daughter. Travis body slams Silas with the fixed car, Laura shoots to immobilize him and Kaitlyn makes the final shot. Boom everyone’s saved.

Ends with everyone making it to the clearing as Kaitlyn makes final shot, Hag screams etc. Group hug with councilors, all crying with relief night is over

Actual Ending scene yay. Begins with Laura and Travis finding Max and Travis in the island. Emotional reunion with Laura and Max, her fretting over his appearance and health, Vice versa while Travis and Chris do that sibling nod. Though once Travis mentions it’s over- like truly, fully over, they hug too. Honestly, include something acknowledging the shit Travis has done/ gone through to cover his family’s asses. After they part sees Laura staring him down. Chris will then recognize Lauren and Max and start profusely apologizing, saying how he truly never meant for any of this to happen and how sorry he is for knowingly putting a lot of people in danger. Laura says she can’t speak for everyone but she won’t/can’t forgive or forget but she understands his desperation to fix things to make his loved ones back to normal. They all head back to the cabin .

Everyone else/ survivors waiting on cabin porch as sun comes up.

Dylan and Ryan pair off (Kaitlyn and Nick giving thumbs up then looking at each other like YOU??! Knew too????) Cue confession scene from Dylan- could ask for number properly (haha rule of threes). Ryan will then confess his character thing about not properly knowing what he’s feeling towards Dylan, has never really been in a relationship before, isn’t the best at showing or processing his emotions etc etc. but likes the idea of being in one with Dylan (aw- cut to Dylan being flustered as fuck as he really didn’t expect this lmao). Interaction end with Ryan offering to share his earbuds with Dylan. (“So… I’m surprised you’ve managed to keep your earbuds all night. Been listening to that podcast all night?” “Ha ha. Actually, I kinda forgot these were here. … … want to listen to the Hag episode with me and laugh at what they got wrong?” “Fuck yeah”)

Something bw Nick and Abi? Show with banter that shows a more self confident Abi and Nick. Could either stay friends or pursue the romantic relationship (honestly I can see either being good). Emma and Jacob discuss how they won’t get back together for now but will rebuild their relationship without that block of trying to impress others.

Laura and Max joins the others as Chris is seen talking with his kids and family a ways away. End with all councilors bantering with each other similar to beginning, except dynamics have changed. (Laura introduces Max properly- him and Dylan immediately hit it off- cut to Laura and Ryan rolling their eyes at their shitty puns. Kaitlyn complementing Laura’s gun skills and asking where she’s learned. Jacob congratulating Ryan, was rooting for them the whole time. Nick discussing science shit with Dylan??? Idk really- can make it feel cheesy lol, just make them interact outside of usual pairs) Eventually they all sit down- the exhaustion hitting as the sun starts peaking over the horizon. Someone ( Abi?) goes like “were all going to be traumatized for life from this night… aren’t we.” “Oh for sure” “Cant wait for the nightmares” “at least we have humor to unhealthy cope” as cop cars roll in.

Podcast bit went on too long- was good concept but way too long. Shorten that a lot + better visuals then just a screen. Maybe show the campers all listening to it in various places? Can show a bit about how/where they are outside of camp.

Yayayayayya finished! Holy hell that was a lot hope you enjoyed reading.

[orphic-exe-archived]

(dream, nagito)

before we begin

only a small percentage of viewers are subscribed to the channel

so please consider hitting that button if you end up enjoying this battle

enough of the prattle

you and me in a 1v1

i dont see much challenge, but it still seems fun

it's no pet war, but ill beat you in one verse

and leave you like your dog: hit 'n speedrun

count em up, my WR w's are more plentiful than the wounds that you cut in your arm

you dont really set a high bar talkin bout your fine art

my avatar's drawn more consistent than your sprites are

you hopeless loner, glad you know your own worth

dont need to dig down to know this stepping stone's below dirt

i know you wanna get hinata, but your luck's not so grand

if you cant even boost the odds of you huntin your man

howd you not hit byakua's imposter even with the pounds that that dude sports? (george!)

guess this rapid fan is only catchin hands with transplants corpse (george!)

grab a bow and arrow for this ghost white barebones

you could grow a forrest with that bonemeal hair, bro

check all the careers im settin the stage for

while your lymphoma's set in the stage four!

what a grand display!

with all the wars you struggle to bear

im mere trash in the way when compared to the ultimate square

but when it comes to despair?

i have none left to spare

so make like that disc pair

give it up in this pair

i went through with one goal: exposing the traitor

while you got exposed exploiting the traitors

pursuing that dough, then toy with your players

tom's suicide note is your kinda paper

and paired with your stan audience?

ive inhaled gas less toxic

he labels himself spotless

but ive got it!

let me break it down:

not a perfect roster your team crafted (huh?)

ultimate imposter of Team Crafted (huh?)

then it met the same end cuz then schlatt won (huh?)

and turned l'manburg to l'manhunt!

and "normal"s the only way to describe your catalogue of bland songs

tell that plastic cg ragdoll

"it's best to keep the mask on"

oh, c'mon i thought you toted bombs

with just a glance at your chances, your fans went "no that's wrong!"

ironic clay lacks foundation with all the arguments he's built

and you're only blessed with fortune when it's from your parents will!

you started your wooden arc sailing on a ship

that explains why, on the microphone, you failed to land a hit

you're numb as it gets; your luck must've gun to your head

but you're only firing blanks like it's russian roulette!

your franchise took the stage, and it ignited some flames

but ill be snuffin you all out like a fire grenade

call my fans creepy, stanning every student around

but your only friends now are like george, not found!

your hopes are shining through, but it's just a matter of time

'fore the net treats you like tommy and wilbur:

"it's banishing time" (monokuma says this bit)

you couldn't kill tracks, but you still lack a clean record

congrats, youre not the blackened!

so what's your excuse for the n-word?

every time drama comes up

you dont respond and let it be!

all you can speedrun from

is your responsibility!

luck's an awful talent

but you don't even share it

you're gaming's worst cheater on the scene since pro jared!

so here's my statement:

how fitting that dream's your name

as you're to be quickly forgotten once your crowd of teens awaken

your hopes for world renown and loving fans got to see the day, but

we all know the dark path your DreamWasTaken.

that’s pretty impressive that you memorized all that ngl

if you want an essay of useless information about the mystery flesh pit national park, the mandela catalogue, or the hit roblox horror game doors, i’m your guy 😔

[coolgreatwebsite]

Cool Games I Finished In 2020 (In No Real Order)

Oh, hey! Right! I have a website! I’m like a week late on writing this, but what’s a week on top of an entire year of not writing, right? 2020 was... well, we all know what 2020 was. For me personally, it was simultaneously the best and worst year of my life. The worst in both ways you can probably assume and ways you definitely can’t (neither of which I’ll be getting into), and the best in ways I absolutely never would have guessed. That uncertain job I mentioned last year got very suddenly much more certain, at a much bigger company, for a much larger amount of money. That allowed me to get my own place, making my weird living situation much less weird. Still haven’t gotten the majority of my belongings off of the east coast, but if the entire world wasn’t currently fucked up by a global pandemic I’d have sorted all that out too. What I’m saying is that, for the third year in a row, my life has been a complete whirlwind that has left me very little time to get comfortable with any aspect of it. But I did manage to play more video games than I did last year! Which is perfect, because it’s once again time for another one of these. Here’s a bunch of cool games I experienced for the first time in 2020.

Astro’s Playroom (PlayStation 5, 2020)

My one word description of Astro's Playroom is "delightful". It's just an absolute goddamn delight. A total surprise too! Included with every PlayStation 5, Astro's Playroom is, in my opinion, one of the best pack-in games of all time.

First off, it's an incredible tech demo for the PS5's new DualSense controller. It was easy to brush off Sony's talk about the controller's haptic feedback and triggers as some Nintendo-style HD Rumble bullshit, but it really is incredibly cool once you get your hands on it. The game is obviously more than a tech demo though, or else it wouldn't be on here. It also just so happens to be an extremely solid and fun platformer on top of that. Astro controls exceptionally well and the levels are all well-designed and fun, even the gimmick vehicle ones designed to show off different features of the controller. It also has an oddly compelling speedrun mode, made all the more compelling by the PS5 notifying you when your friends beat your times and the ability to load into it within two seconds from anywhere on the console. But the biggest thing for me and, call me a mark, because I am, is that the game is an honestly incredible love letter to PlayStation history.

For the first time ever, Sony has pulled off a nostalgia piece without it ending up as embarrassing garbage in the vein of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. There's a Nintendo-like joyful reverence for all things PlayStation oozing out of every single corner of this game. There are so many nods and references and gags for literally every PlayStation thing of note throughout the the last 25 years, and then on top of that there's a whole heap more for the things that AREN'T of note that only hyperdorks like me would get! A sly reference to the ill-fated boomerang controller? Yep. A goof on the fat PS3's Spider-Man font? You betcha. A trophy you can earn by repeatedly punching a Sony Interactive Entertainment sign until it breaks and reveals the Sony Computer Entertainment sign it was slapped on top of? Yeah buddy. It's deep cuts all the way down, even up until the final boss which had me grinning like a total dipshit the entire time. The game is endlessly, effortlessly charming.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo Switch, 2020)

Animal Crossing: New Horizons was the perfect game at the perfect time. That doesn't mean it's a perfect game, I actually have some issues with it, but it could not have released at a better time than when it did. It came out at the very very beginning of everyone going into lockdown due to the pandemic, and it was the biggest game in the world for a couple of months as a result. I played like 300 hours and that pales in comparison to the amount of time many others put into it.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the most different Animal Crossing game there's ever been, and I'm of two minds on it. Like, I loved the game, I played a ton of it, but it's lacking so much of the stuff that made me love Animal Crossing in the first place. The series has been slowly trending in this direction for a bit now, but it's not really a game that happens around you anymore. It's all about total player control. You select where everything goes, you customize every detail of everything to your liking, hell, you can even terraform the landmass to be exactly what you want. Your neighbors take a backseat in focus and end up as little more than decorations with limited dialogue and next to no quests associated with them. Series staples like Gyroids are missing in action. Facilities and services that have been around since Wild World aren't implemented. It's similar to past Animal Crossing games in a lot of ways, but on the whole it feels like a different thing.

But like I said, two minds. New Horizons strays from what I truly want from an Animal Crossing game, but I can't deny that the game as it is is a hell of a lot of fun. There's SO much you can do and SO many options, it's super addictive. Plus it implemented my long-requested feature of letting you effortlessly send mail to friends online! Too bad the actual online play is as cumbersome as ever.

In conclusion, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a land of contrasts. I'm kidding. It's good, but definitely missing something in a way where I can understand some people being disappointed in it. I had a ton of fun though, and I'm probably going to get back into it later in 2021.

Trials of Mana (Nintendo Switch, 2019)

Late in 2019, with the physical release of Collection of Mana for the Switch, I decided I was going to play through each game on it for the first time and finally find out what this whole Mana thing was about. I went into Final Fantasy Adventure (the first game in the Mana series, because every RPG had to be Final Fantasy back then) with zero expectations and found a totally serviceable little Zelda-like with light RPG elements. I enjoyed my time with it. I went into Secret of Mana with the expectation of it being a beloved classic and found the worst game I beat that year, hands down. That game fucking sucks. I get why it made an impression on people at the time, but it's just so so SO awful to play. Needless to say I was pretty disappointed. Honestly, I would have been disappointed even if I hadn't heard it was one of "the best games" for so long. It would have been a disappointing follow-up to Final Fantasy Adventure, a game that in and of itself isn't anything incredible. Secret of Mana is just that rotten.

I braced myself for more disappointment when (after a much needed vacation from the series) I started up Trials of Mana. This game had a reputation too, as a long-lost classic that never made it stateside. One of the best games on the Super Nintendo, criminally never released for western audiences! Like Secret of Mana before it, I'd heard nothing but effusive praise. Unlike Secret of Mana, however, I was very pleased to find out that Trials of Mana mostly lives up to the hype. From a gameplay standpoint, Trials is an improvement on Secret in almost every single way. It's not perfect. The menus are still kinda clunky, animations for things like magic and items are still frequently disruptive. But the main thing is it actually plays like a sensible video game designed by humans with brains. Attacking is responsive! Hitboxes aren't complete nonsense! You don't constantly get stunlocked to death! There are more answers to combat than casting the same spell for five straight minutes to kill your enemies before they get a chance to move! It's great!

On top of being an enjoyable video game to actually play, the presentation is top notch. Secret of Mana could be a pretty game with decent music in some spots, but Trials is consistently gorgeous and the soundtrack is across the board great instead of randomly having songs that sound like clown vomit. And while Trials of Mana doesn't have the deepest story in the world, it manages to avoid being completely paper-thin like Secret. The story actually kind of has a reason for being a bit straightforward, and the reason is that it has a really cool system where you pick your three playable characters from a pool of six. Each character has their own goals and storyline, some of which line up with other potential party members, some of which don't, and you'll even run into the characters you didn't choose as NPCs along the way. This and the relatively brisk pace of the game make it highly replayable.

I'm really glad that Trials of Mana made it over here in an official capacity, even if it was like 25 years late. It's as good as I expected Secret of Mana to be and singlehandedly saved my interest in seeing any more of the series. I'm aware the quality of what came after is very spotty, but I'll get to the rest eventually!

Final Fantasy VII Remake (PlayStation 4, 2020)

They (almost) did it. They (basically) pulled it off. They remade (a chunk of) Final Fantasy VII and (for the most part) didn't fuck it up. Ok, funny parentheticals aside, Final Fantasy VII Remake is astoundingly good coming off of over two decades of just absolutely dreadful post-FF7 sequels, side games, and movies.

Final Fantasy VII has been historically misremembered as this kind of miserable, angsty, brooding thing, both by fans and by the company that made it. FF7-branded media after FF7 itself is a minefield of changed personalities, embarrassing original characters, and monumentally lame stories. Final Fantasy VII Remake is the first post-FF7 anything that actually remembers the characters, setting, and plot of Final Fantasy VII and what made them memorable and special to people in the first place. Which isn't to say it's a slavish recreation! There's a ton of changes and additions, and I actually like almost all of them! Except for some really big stuff I'll touch on in a bit!

The combat in Final Fantasy VII Remake is great. I was super skeptical about it when the game was first announced, but they actually managed to make the blend of real-time action and turn-based RPG menuing fun and engaging. The characters all play super differently from each other too, which is a huge and welcome difference from the original game. The Materia system fits like a glove in this revamped combat system as well. The remixed music is good as hell, and the visuals are beautiful (outside of a couple of very specific spots that I'm kinda of surprised they haven't fixed in a patch yet). It's a well-executed package all around.

But alas, as always, there are negatives. For starters, this is only part one of the overall Final Fantasy VII Remake project. It goes up to the party leaving Midgar which, as you may or may not recall, is the first six hours of the original game. They compensated for this by fleshing the hell out of the Midgar section the game, ballooning the overall playtime to total of about 30-ish hours. The game feeling padded is a common complaint but for what it's worth, I didn't really feel it until the unnecessarily long final dungeon, There's also the previously mentioned and funny parenthetical'd changes and additions I don't like.

This is big time spoilers for this game so if you don't want that jump ahead to the next game on the list. The Whispers suck ass. Final Fantasy VII Remake should have been brave enough to be different without having to constantly derail everything in the most ham-fisted and intrusive way possible. You can have Jessie twist her ankle without making a spooky plot ghost trip her. I don't want to fight the physical manifestation of the game everyone thought they were getting as an end boss. If you're not doing a straight remake, that's fine, but have the fucking guts to stand by your artistic decisions without feeling the need to invent the lamest deus ex machina I've ever fucking seen. The last couple of hours of this game are 100% about the Whispers and are awful for it. It's a true testament to the strength of the rest of Final Fantasy VII Remake that this aspect didn't completely sour me on it. I can only hope that they stay dead and gone for good in the games yet to come and the remake can be different while standing on its own two feet.

I truly cannot wait for the next entry in the Final Fantasy VII Remake project. I'm excited for Final Fantasy VII in a way I haven't been since the late 90s. I have a bit of trepidation that they could royally screw it up. I mean, they already got kinda close, as I said in my last paragraph. But they got so much right in this entry that, for the first time in decades, I'm willing to believe in Square Enix when it comes to Final Fantasy VII.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim (PlayStation 4, 2020)

My one word description of 13 Sentinels is "fucking crazy". I realize that's two words, but shut up. A bizarre hybrid of visual novel, adventure game, and strategy RPG, 13 Sentinels not only makes that work, but makes it work incredibly well. 

The story is fucking bonkers. It's told entirely non-linearly and is purposefully dense and confusing, but it does an amazing job of hooking you with a cast of likable characters and some impressively well-paced twists, made all the more impressive by the fact that you can tackle the story in basically whatever order you want. I'll say it again for those in the back, the story is Fucking Bonkers. Wherever you think it's going, it's not going. Where it is going is PLACES. Seriously, if you want a wild goddamn ride, this is the game for you. The presentation is also stunning. It's a drop dead gorgeous game with a really nice soundtrack. Easily Vanillaware's best looking game, which is saying something seeing as looking good is Vanillaware's whole deal.

If I had to levy one criticism against the game, it's that the strategy RPG portion is just kind of ok. It's enjoyable enough, it doesn't get in the way and there's not too much of it, but once it starts introducing armored versions of previous enemy types it's kind of done doing anything different. It is really good at getting people to out themselves as having no idea what tower defense is as a genre though!

Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition (Nintendo Switch, 2018)

I haven't really historically been a "Musou Guy". Not to say I've actively disliked them, they're just not something I've seeked out very often or played very much of. Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition kinda turned me into a "Musou Guy" a little bit? It's good, surprisingly-less-mindless-than-you'd-think fun.

I actually super don't care about the Zelda branding. I think all the fanservice stuff is meh at best. What I do care about is that there's a ton of character variety and a metric shitload of content. There's so many different characters and weapons for those characters that all play differently from one another and SOOOOOO many levels to play. Like the story mode is, again, kinda meh, the real meat of the game is the Adventure mode and there's a ton of it. It's 8 different world maps, each based off a different Zelda game, with each square of the map containing a little mini-scenario with unique objectives and rewards. There has to be at least 1000 scenarios between all the maps. There's so much. And that's not even getting into some of the other side stuff like the challenge modes and the fairy raising. It's a crazy amount of game in this game.

And again, it's not as mindless as it'd seem. It's not really a game ABOUT destroying 5000 guys, it's an area control and resource management game where the 5000 guys are one of those resources. Knowing who to send where and when to fight who is way more important than pressing the XXX YYY XXX YYY on the more than one million troops.

I'd say that if you're even cursorily potentially maybe interested in a musou game, this is the one to try. And if you like it, it could literally be your forever game. A sequel came out recently too, and I'm looking forward to trying that out soon.

Phantasy Star Online 2 (Xbox One, 2020)

Phantasy Star Online 2 finally came stateside in the year 2020, eight years after its initial Japanese release and initial American cancellation. It's no Phantasy Star Online 1, but it is a really fun game in its own right provided you can find the willpower to break through its clunkiness and eight years of confusing poorly tutorialized free-to-play MMO cruft.

The main thing going for PSO2, and this is a major improvement from PSO1, is that the act of engaging in its combat is fun. The combat is just feels really really good. There's a bunch of different weapon types and classes, and once you find the ones that really click with you you're in for a good time, whether you're izuna dropping dudes with wire claws or literally doing air juggles and rainstorm from Devil May Cry with the dual machine guns.

The other stuff around that combat is weird. I generally like it, but it's weird. The story mode is one of the most bizarrely presented things I've ever seen. It apparently used to be something you'd seek out in the levels themselves, but presently it's just a list of scenes you pick from a menu and watch with next to no context until it makes you fight a boss sometimes. There's some weird moments in there that MIGHT have been cool if it were presented in literally any other way?

The systems and presentation are also way more... I dunno, pinball? Pachislot? In very stark contrast to how chill original Phantasy Star Online was, everything in PSO2 is designed in a way to maximize that flashy light bing bing wahoo you got ~*~RARE DROP CHANCE UP~*~  feeling. Which isn't to say I don't like flashy light bing bing wahoo, but it's a weird different thing.

Was it worth the wait? Yeah, sure! For me! This is another one that I played like 300 hours of! I haven't even seen half of it, I fell off right before Episode 4 released because it coincided with my move! I'm gonna go back and see all that shit! PSO2's fun! A different flavor of fun than the original, sure, but fun all the same. Another one that I'm glad finally made it over here.

Riichi Mahjong (A Table, 1924)

Holy shit I fucking did it I finally learned how to play Mahjong and it rules.

It started when I picked up Clubhouse Games for the Switch. I saw that it had Riichi Mahjong and something in my brain snapped. For whatever reason, I decided that this was the time I was going to rip the band-aid off and figure this shit out. It wasn't too dissimilar to the first time I decided to try eggs, but that's a different and much stupider story for a different time. I did the tutorial in Clubhouse Games, looked up some more basics and advice because the tutorial wasn't super amazing, and I kept playing while being aided by the game's nice helper features like the button that pulls up recommended hands. I kept playing and... sorta got it. I learned the basic rules, but none of the strategy. And then I stopped playing for a few months.

In that few months, for whatever reason, a decent amount of people I know had their brains snap the same way? Like a more-than-two amount of people I'm either friends with or following online also decided to learn Mahjong. I decided to get back on the horse and downloaded Mahjong Soul and I don't know whether it was perseverance or the power of anime babes, but this time I got it. I still refer to a sheet with all the hands and whether they work open or closed, and I'm by no means a master player, but I actually honest to god understand what I'm doing and it's an incredible feeling.

Mahjong has such a huge amount of what I like to call "Get That Ass" energy. It is the energy you feel when you get someone's ass. In Mahjong you are either constantly getting someone's ass or getting your ass gotten. Someone puts down the wrong tile and you fucking GET THEIR ASS DUDE! They're got!! They're a fucking idiot that put down the wrong thing and now you have their points!!! Or you draw what you need yourself and you're a brain genius all according to plan and everyone gives you points because you're so wise!!!! It's great!!!!!

Mahjong has long been one of those games where I'd say "I'll learn this someday" and never reeeeally actually try to learn, and I'm so glad I finally took the effort to because it's good as hell. And, truth be told, it wasn't THAT hard to learn? Like you can get to the point where I was where I didn't know the strategy fairly easily in my opinion, and once you do that It's just a matter of continuing to play to understand the rest. I highly recommended that you also go out and learn it if you similarly revel in getting that ass, it's so satisfying once you do.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon (PlayStation 4, 2020)

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio took a big gamble with Yakuza: Like a Dragon. After seven games (more if you take spinoffs and remakes into consideration) they decided to focus on a new main character and, even more unexpectedly, they decided to change things up by turning the series into a turn-based JRPG. Their gamble paid off in spades. This is easily in my top 3 favorite Yakuza games.

The JRPG gameplay is surprisingly solid. There's definite room for improvement, but they nailed a bunch of it right out of the gate. Some mechanics are a little janky and I wish the job system was more fleshed out or just worked more like Final Fantasy V's, but they nailed one of the most important things and made the battles brisk and fun. It's a great foundation, especially for a team that's never attempted anything like this, and it's way more fun than the combat's been in any of the previous Dragon Engine games. I can't wait to see them iterate on it.

Everything else is top fuckin' notch. The music is great, the side content is fully fleshed out in a way it hasn't been since before they switched to the Dragon Engine, and I love the characters and story so much. Yakuza has a new main character in Ichiban Kasuga, and he's my son and I love him. Kiryu was great, and I love him too, but he was a bit of a passive protagonist. Stuff happened around him and he mostly just stoically reacted to it. Ichi is a much more active lead and it's great. He's a big lovable dope, and his tendency to keep an upbeat attitude and eagerness to leap into action is such a breath of fresh air. And it's not only Ichiban, since this is an RPG you have a whole party of characters and they're all great! Having them with you at all times bantering with each other and reacting to things is another great change of narrative pace, too. 

Yakuza: Like a Dragon just straight up rules. As someone who has historically not been too much of a fan of the Dragon Engine games, it's simultaneously a refreshing new take on the series and a fantastic return to form. I can't wait for what comes next. Wherever Ichiban goes, I go.

Moon: Remix RPG Adventure (Nintendo Switch, 2020)

After 23 years of Japanese PS1 exclusivity, Moon: Remix RPG Adventure finally got an English release this year for Nintendo Switch. I'm glad it did, because Moon isn't just the very definition of A Sebmal Game. It's the Sebmal Game missing link. In addition to being just a great video game, it helped me make a mental throughline for a bunch of games I love and a large part of my taste in video games.

To keep a long story short (seriously, I have a much much longer version of this saved in my drafts that I'll maybe finish someday), Moon turned out to be not the JRPG I assumed it was, given the title and basic story pitch, but a secret prequel to a game I love named Chulip. Moon's developer, Love-de-Lic, was formed by a handful of ex-Squaresoft employees, many of which worked on an extremely formative game I love named Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. Love-de-Lic broke up in the year 2000 and its staff went on to form a bunch of different studios that ended up making a BUNCH of different games I love like Chibi-Robo, Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland, Dandy Dungeon, and the aforementioned Chulip. These games, when you make the connection and line them up, all have a very distinct weirdness in common that makes perfect sense once you've realized many of the same people worked on them. Figuring this all out felt like snapping a piece of my brain back in place, and it was really crazy to come to understand exactly how much this studio that formed and disbanded decades before I'd even heard of them had impacted my tastes and, hell, my life.

So what is Moon, for those who don't innately understand what I mean by "a secret prequel to Chulip"? Moon is an adventure game where you explore a world with a day/night cycle, learn about that world's inhabitants, and eventually solve their problems. Think of it kind of like The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, but if the sidequests were the entirety of the focus with no Groundhog Day time reset mechanic and none of the Zelda stuff like combat and dungeons. You play as a young boy who, after a late night JRPG binge session, is sucked into the world of the game he was just playing. Everything is off from the way it was portrayed while the boy was playing the game, though. The hero he had previously controlled is actually a silent menace, raiding peoples' houses for treasure and slaughtering every innocent animal that crosses his path in an endless quest for EXP. The townspeople seem more concerned with problems in their day-to-day lives than the supposed world threatening crisis outlined in the game's intro. It's up to you as the boy to investigate this world's mysteries, help the townsfolk, mend the damage the hero has done, and eventually restore love to a loveless world.

Speaking of love, I fucking loved Moon. I loved the story, I loved the characters, I loved the music, I loved the way it looks (even though the Switch port is a little crusty in that basic emulator-y kinda way), I loved how constantly bizarre and surprising and funny it was. Like I said earlier, it's the very definition of a game made for me. It was essentially the progenitor of a long line of games made for me, and of games potentially made for me but I don't know yet because I haven't played them due to not understanding Japanese (UFO: A Day in the Life translation next please? Anyone from Onion Games reading this??). For as similar as Moon and Chulip are in their systems and pacing, I think I might actually like Moon better despite it coming earlier? It's not as full force maximum impact absurd as Chulip is, but it is a lot more playable and less obtuse once you get a grip on the time limit mechanic. You don't need a full strategy guide included in the instruction manual for Moon, and you don't need to exchange business cards with every single character to get information vital to finishing the game either.

I truly cannot recommend Moon enough if your taste in games ventures anywhere off the beaten path. Maybe this is a little conceited of me, but I assume if you're reading this article, let alone this far down into it, you relate to my video game opinions at least a little bit? You should play Moon. Everyone reading this sentence should play Moon. Moon: Remix RPG Adventure is my game of the year for the year 2020.

These games were also cool, I just had less to say about them:

Death Stranding (PlayStation 4, 2019): Death Stranding, much like Metal Gear Solid V, was a game I enjoyed for the gameplay and not much else. The story, characters, and writing were a huge disappointment for me, but man if I didn't enjoy lugging those boxes around and setting up my hellish cross-continental goon summer camp lookin' zipline network. Mr. Driller Drill Land (Nintendo Switch, 2020): I am a known Mr. Driller Enjoyer, and I enjoyed this Mr. Driller. Originally released for the Gamecube, Mr. Driller Drill Land is another long-time Japanese exclusive that finally came stateside this year and it's packed with new and novel twists on the Mr. Driller format. It looks super sharp, the music's great (also the credits music is the most impossibly out of place and extra as hell shit in the world and it's hilarious), and it's just a good ass time. The main campaign is pretty damn short, but if you're a post-game content kinda guy it has that and it's all super hard. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 (PlayStation 4, 2020): They finally made another good new Tony Hawk game, and all it took was perfectly remaking two of the best old Tony Hawk games! Plays exactly like you remember it with the added benefit of the best mechanics from up to THUG1, looks great, packed full of content, even has most of the music alongside some mostly crappy new stuff. It's the full package as is, but I do hope they end up adding THPS3 to it eventually. Mad Rat Dead (Nintendo Switch, 2020): Mad Rat Dead was a pleasant surprise that I only picked up because I saw a couple of people on my Twitter timeline constantly talking about it. A fun and inventive platformer where all your actions need to be on beat with the music. The gameplay feels great (aside from some not so great performance issues on Switch), the soundtrack is fun, and it's got a real good style to it. Demon's Souls (PlayStation 5, 2020): I love Demon's Souls and this is Demon's Souls. It plays exactly the same with some minor quality of life changes. I don't agree with many of the artistic changes, but there's no denying it looks incredible on a technical level. If you want to play Demon's Souls again or for the first time, this is a perfectly valid and fun way to do so. Groove Coaster: Wai Wai Party!!!! (Nintendo Switch, 2019): Groove Coaster is one of my favorite rhythm games, and they finally made an acceptable at-home version with Wai Wai Party. It's not a perfect replication of the arcade game control-wise, I have some issues with the song choices, and the pricing is frankly fucking ridiculous if you're not a Groove Coaster maniac like I am, but the same ultra satisfying gameplay is all there. You can even play it vertically in handheld mode! Flip Griiiiiiiip!

And we're done! Phew! Honestly didn't realize I played that many good games until I typed all this out. Thanks as always for reading this far. I'm gonna try and get back to regularly posting Breviews this year at the very least. Honestly don't know if I'll get anything else up on here, but we'll see. Here's to hoping 2021 is a little bit less of a nightmare!

[spirit-shroud]

i replayed kz again tonight and managed to beat it in 4 hrs instead of 11 !!! which is rly cool imo, i think i got a max of like 50 deaths or less for the full run ??? i was just playing regularly but usin the prism blade for the cool blood effects, not in speedrun mode for the counter, and i managed 2 drag my friend into hyperfixation hell with me :} but also i have some thoughts and opinions im not rly sure how to compile in a meaningful way, so here’s the like. pure brain-down-on-blog post version under the cut. if this gets auto-tagged into the real actual tag for this game im very sorry for my hubris im just. thinking emoji

so id like to start this with the final boss makes me SO sad :( like yeah she doesnt have much dialogue but idk she just makes me so sad. she’s so desperate and she Knows shes going to lose and im just like. no!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you’re so cool!!!!!!! Please Be My Friend We Can Work Together. I Know A Guy :c like usually final bosses are like weirdly emotional for me but she was just SO COOL and realizing like WAIT THIS BOSS OPERATES UNDER THE SAME RULES I DO was just like WOW even if as i kept dying (and i think i spent like... 3 hrs on the final boss alone lmao the first time, i killed her on my third attempt this run which was very cool of me) i finally realized that she IS pretty repetitive and got all her patterns n variables down super easy, but like, fighting another null who Should for all intents and purposes be just as absurd and powerful as i am, and eventually being able to down her effortlessly, and then the withdrawal affects of the chronos kicking in as well, and its just like. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

dont even get me STARTED on that ‘to be continued’ like yeah there’s a dlc comin but the game mentions repeatedly that its just the first act which has me like OKAY. SPECULATION TIME (what am i speculating on? literally no idea im not even rly at the speculation phase im still in the WOW COOL VIDEO GAME phase) 

and i rly like the dragon/fifteen but the first time i saw him i was just like. who’s this f*llmetal alchemist looking bitch ??? what’s he doin here?? go HOME and controlling him is AWFUL i hate the dragon tape so MUCH >:C but also he’s like. cool. i want to know more about him n his plot 2 take down Juncture n the government n whatever. 

but also i was listen 2 Full Confession bc it’s just. what the heart wants rn. i need to be sad and caffeinated in order to get into the Writing Zone rn and then i was THINKIN like my friend mentioned while we were playing the dragon tape that the song that plays is very similar to Full Confession (which i had sent him earlier while i was losing my mind over the final boss) and then i was like. Hm. these are very similar but have such wildly different moods -- Breath of the Serpent is much more like. ‘you’re going to be afraid of me’ while Full Confession is like ‘i’m afraid of you’ and i think that the different Vibes from these two soundtrack bits about important Null characters is just like. WOW and i wonder how a version of it that was purely Zero’s might be. would it be more triumphant? more flat? what desperation or emptiness is in there that could be drawn out by this melody??? i dont KNOW and i can’t write music unfortunately but im just like AAAAAAAAAA

i also rly wanna know what snow has going on ??? like. shes clearly important. she is a vital npc. but Why. she didnt even rly do anything except Show Up???

fuck V. all my homies hate V. the motorcycle fight was a lot of fun tho i rly liked that section even if my therapist was mad at me afterwards

also i think elizabeth/the little girl is rly cute and the fact zero was just like. ‘hm. well guess i have a daughter now’ so fast w/ her (at least, with the dialogue trees me n my pal kept going down) and im just. So Hoping we can rescue her in the dlc :( i miss her so much and im so like. worried abt that like pls give me back my daughter you dumbasses i cant even read ur dialogue without my brain being like ‘yeah these r just squiggly lines, boss. gl’ 

i also want to believe that the masked men arent real (bc idk, it’s just easier for me to process that they’re the result of chronos withdrawal) but the problem w/ that is like. they definitely kidnapped elizabeth, and i want so desperately to believe that elizabeth IS real n that zero genuinely wants to protect her (and by extension, the part of himself that is still human) 

ALSO THE PSYCHIATRIST i was just like. Okay. I Must Get A Good Grade In Therapy. n kept being nice n cooperative and helpful to this clown ass and then THAT ENDING ??? like i didnt even get the Bad Therapist Ending i was just like. fucka you! attacka you with a rock! (i do however want to try the therapist boss it sounds like a lot of fun) but i just. i hate him! he sucks! find a better therapist zero u rly need one im sorry for ur problems disorder :( like hes clearly a guy who just works for the government n wants 2 keep a leash on our man 

n the contradictions, hes like. yeah ur killing everyone related to chronos so it can no longer be produced ♥ but dw ur special we totally wont just withhold chronos from you as soon as u finish ur tasks dw about it ♥ and its like. Hm. I Dont Think Thats Right !!!! 

also i wanna learn more about what Juncture has going on??? what are they like. Doing besides poisoning water n making lighters ?????? it’s clearly a lot 

also the art for this game is just so GOOD,,, like. i didnt rly notice a lot of the backgrounds my first playthrough bc i was just losing my mind the whole time trying to solve each puzzle but the second playthrough im just like. AAAAA. and the soundtrack? effervescent. groundbreaking. perfect. So Good 

and the GAMEPLAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! oh my GOD i was SO vibing with it, the difficulty curve was kinda extreme imo but as soon as i started like. Getting It? and started looking at each room less like combat/fighting and more like a puzzle that needed to be solved it made it so much easier 2 get into the headphase of ‘okay how do i clear this’ and it was just like. YOOOOOOOO

and zero is just a lot of fun 2 play as. legitimately everything about him is just so ridiculous. his dialogue options? ridiculous. his design? absurd. the implications that hes like. 22 and just having the worst 10 days of his life? mood, buddy. this guy likes samurai movies and card games and mushroom pizza and has worn the same outfit every single day for who knows how long and hes also a war veteran, an emotionless serial killer and a drug addict. and hes 22 and 5′10. literally NOTHING about those traits make sense together but here he is, just Vibing. 

i love him so much. im going to make a self insert oc that’s just giving him a friend who knows how to cook n is just like ‘oh wow, that’s rough buddy’ when hes like ‘i only feel alive when i kill people’ and conveniently knows how 2 get bloodstains out of things bc i think he needs that kind of person in his life since his like. therapist is conspiring against him n he keeps having 2 kill his friends 

also, unfortunately, i want to get every achievement, which i feel like is going to become hld....2!! where i get all but 1 of them and am stuck at 96% for 2+ years >:T

[sometipsygnostalgic]

Hiveswap  Review (Spoiler)

We’ve been waiting an awfully long time for the Homestuck Adventure Game. First kickstarted in 2012, it’s gone through a troubled development cycle between 3 studios and.... yeah, you get the drift. Even in its final form, Hiveswap has gone through numerous unexplained delays (most infamously the last minute January Launch Month delay), and the development team for it had been very tight-hush until the end of August when a final release date of September 14th was announced. 

Now that Hiveswap is out, we’re able to see for ourselves what the development team has been working on. Does it hold up to expectations? Does it make up for the hard delays and extremely concerning lack of communication? 

Those are answers you can only decide for yourselves. What I will say, however, is this: Hiveswap is a charming and visually stunning introduction to the Homestuck world, that combines only the best of Homestuck’s humor with a new calmer, more curious and coherent setting.

It’s a shame, then, that the content of Act 1 isn’t a little bit longer. However, the gimmick of combining any item with each other and getting a new description will draw out the length for any lore completionists.

Before I start gushing about my feelings on Hiveswap, I’d like to point out something that REALLY soured the game for me: The cutscenes have a processing power so high that most laptops - including my own -  aren’t able to handle them. I don’t understand this, because a 2.20ghz processor can handle the game like a breeze. I’ve had no trouble running Hiveswap. But as soon as a cutscene plays, it ends up taking a processing power that would burn a computer which can play Overwatch. What’s going on here? Why are cutscenes like this? Is it something to do with the Unity engine? Surely another user has figured out how to compress scenes without losing their quality!

So, I had to watch the game be played in its entirety by @neproxrezi, only returning to my own game to test out as many combinations as possible. 

To make this easier for myself, I’m going to split off Hiveswap into a few categories:

Story and Characters - Hiveswap Act 1 is extreeeemely short, like 27 minutes long if you do an ameteur speedrun. On the surface, not a lot happens, but it serves as a compelling introduction to the Hiveswap world. You start off as Joey Claire, a young dancer of multiple schools with a hatred for pogs, Bubsy, and her entire life circumstances. Joey works with her brother to hide from a bunch of monsters that have invaded their home. Shenanigans ensue, mostly pigeon-related, and using Jude’s cryptic advice Joey figures out how to retrieve the attic key. Once in the attic she uses a precious heirloom key, which looks suspiciously Cherub-like, to open a SNAKE PORTAL..... Joey is transported to the world of Alternia where she meets a self-loathing rustblood of the bottom rung of society called Xefros, and explores the house of his controlling and paranoid Revolutionary moirail Dammek. Then Joey gives Xefros some words of encouragement and saves him with the help of Dammek’s lusus, then they ride into the distance while dodgy heiress Trizza Tethis takes a selfie over the burning neighbourhood. It’s all pretty basic, but a natural stopping point and setup for act 2 that makes me devastated I can’t go and play it immediately.

When you dive deeper into the game, usually by clicking on everything you see and combining as many items as possible, you can learn a lot more about these 4 characters. Joey in particular gives the audience plenty to think about once you start messing around with her; combining the green Cherub key with items will often leave her reminiscing about her absent mother, and clicking on Jake’s items strewn all over the place will show how she resents his constant absence fom her and Jude’s lives. There’s plenty of information about Rose’s mom, too, who’s their drunken babysitter and.... even now, not the best stand-in for proper parenting. I’ll talk about these two more later but it makes me curious about their circumstances in Homestuck. Meanwhile Joey and her brother Jude aren’t as close as they could be. Joey’s alarmed by how cryptic and secretive Jude is, wrapped up in his conspiracy capers, and she has great difficulty undertstanding him or having a normal conversation. This is highlighted when she assumes he wouldn’t have any care for his mother’s heirlooms if they didn’t have anything to do with aliens, and when she unlocks the Cherub portal despite his warnings because he never told her of its dangers. Joey does think about this distance between her and Jude, especially when locked on the new world. 

Xefros, meanwhile... everything you click while in Alternia - whether as Joey or as Xefros - will usually have information about Dammek. Xefros is clearly used to being messed with by Dammek’s "tests” and revolutionary spiel , which seem to be a more extreme and warped version of Jude’s conspiracy capers.  Inspection of his house will paint a picture of Dammek as having a very cluttered mind, hyperfocused on his goal without seeing any of the world around him or understanding the needs of his puppydog moirail Xefros. Now, Xefros himself is extremely passive and will do whatever other people tell him, which is kinda Tavros-like but more extreme. He doesn’t have any care for what happens to himself so long as he’s impressed those around him, and it’s not until Joey tells him how cruddy this is that he gets slightly relaxed and more optimistic. It’s ironic to see how Dammek and the Alternian revolutionaries end up falling into the same heirarchy that they strongly oppose. It shows the Revolution might be a joke, one of many others the Highbloods have quashed before.

As for Jude..... I wonder what’s going through that boy’s head? We barely saw him and yet he made a strong impression of his personality.

Gameplay - Hiveswap doesn’t have any “gameplay” in the traditional sense, unless you count the snake game. Instead it has a series of puzzles. They aren’t very difficult, but it’s more the funny dialogue you can read while playing. I’m gonna talk more about the humor in a few seconds, but the way you can combine any item with any other item must have taken soooooo much time from the writers, especially Cohen Edenfield. I wonder if this was always going to be the case in the original game too? 

There’s not really any failstates for hiveswap. You can get eaten by monsters if you dick around on your way to the attic after the big fight, but you’ll just respawn where you were before. It’s not a game I’d choose to “play”, exactly. It’s more of a visual novel. 

Humor - Oh boy. This is where Hiveswap wanted to nail it so, so bad. And its effort was valient to say the least. Joey’s dancing was some visual feel-good humor, all the 90s gimmicks in her room (especially the not-so-subtle videogame posters) had me clicking on them with every item i could find in the house, xefros in his entirety was a well of dark humor that pushed the game’s atmosphere back to its homestuck roots, and Byers - so true, so brave - he is the best item in the game. The funniest scenes for me were the Pigeon sequence with Jude, and Joey’s acrobatic pirouhettes away from Dammek’s terrifying lusus :P

I do have some criticisms for the humor. While combining everything with everything is a lot of fun, it’s not necessarily... funny. Like I didn’t get a lot of laugh-out-loud moments with the combinations. Often I found jokes were either too long-winded beyond their expiration or the punchline was just very awkward. This is a small criticism considering no other games bother to do this, but considering hiveswap act 1 is just an hour long if you DON’T do this, the game’s padding could have been more entertaining to say the least. counting on this gimmick when the humor isnt the best in the world, it’s a veeery risky move. 

Graphics - okay, let’s put this out there: hiveswap without a doubt is one of the most visually stunning indie games out there. It recruited the help of many artists from the fandom itself, like adrienne garcia, angela sham, dammek the tumblr user, rah-bop, shelby cragg... For the most part the game looks great. The drawings on the short panel-based animations look wonky sometimes especially when compared to the beautiful opening animation, but it’s a small criticism. 

This has convinced me that the move from 3d to 2d has seriously benefitted Hiveswap. I mean, look at this:

then look at this: 

it’s a whole WORLD of difference. I seriously do not think Hiveswap would have made a good impression if it had released in the crappy-looking state the 3D studio had produced it in. The game would have not looked like homestuck, and not been able to pull off any of the animated feats in the final product. Why were they going with that art style in the first place??? It was a waste of time money and effort. I guess that the 2D team was slowly constructed over years of producing homestuck flashes and paradox space content? Many people key to the current team were in high school in 2012.

Music - Led by James Roach, he worked closely with Toby Fox to really nail Hiveswap’s soundtrack. It’s short and loops an awful lot but I never found it boring or annoying to hear. It’s quieter and more subtle than Homestuck’s loud, rambunctious music, but each character has their own theme and leitmotif. The music changes to create a good atmosphere for each room. It’s not the best work from either artist, but it’s very good as a videogame soundtrack.

Dedication to the source material - While Hiveswap has adapted away from Homestuck’s crude humor, I feel it keeps the best and throws away the worst. Hiveswap being E10 rated made some people suspicious because of how sweary and dark Homestuck is, but Hiveswap has already shown its guts and some very effective dark humor. I wonder if Act 2 will have the same rating?

While the atmosphere in Half-Harley Mansion isn’t the most Homestuck in the world, Joey’s introduction is a nice homage to how all homestuck characters are introduced.  And.... you can’t ignore the insight it gives into Jake and Roxy. More specifically, Grandpa and Mom. 

So, it’s revealed in Hiveswap that Jade’s Grandpa had a wife and two kids before encountering her. What does this say for Jude and Joey’s situation post-hiveswap? Did he lose his two kids, and decide to build a new life in the pacific with Jade? Did he see her as his second chance?   It sort of puts a damper on John’s comment that Jade’s ‘pa seemed happy living alone, and Dave’s comment that Jade’s ‘pa was a clearly loving father. As it turned out, ‘pa severely neglected his own kids after the death of his wife, probably because they reminded him of her. But maybe Jake lost his two children and decided not to make the same mistakes with Jade? That’s why he took her to the island with him instead of siccing her on Roxy again, although Roxy had her own hands full.  Yeah, talking of B1 Roxy, it’s quite interesting to see how she had changed between Hiveswap and Homestuck. Joey saw Roxy in a very different light to Rose; she saw Roxy as very kid-like and sincere, but extremely negligible due to her drinking. Most notable difference is how Roxy here obviously hates cleaning, but by the time she mothers Rose, she takes perfect care of their house. I wonder if this is another effect of Jude and Joey’s theoretical departure from the mansion? If, like Jake, she saw Rose as a sort of second chance? It’s a shame how that turned out.  Yknow, im gonna laugh and cry if it turned out Jude or Joey killed Ana Claire with guns as a baby, like Jade and Jake before them

As for Alternia it was chocablocked with references to Homestuck, from the hierarchy to the Condesce to Doc Scratch to FLARP. Yeah, this is when Hiveswap went from an adventure game to a Homestuck game. I haven’t got much else to say here other than that I’m excited to see how Alternia differs from our impressions of it, and how the infrastructure of the peter pan society works.

and, of course, it had the best possible refrance:

CONCLUSION: Hiveswap has shown its guts to the world, and made a positive impression. I’m disappointed by how short it is, but that’s only because I want more. 

Idk what’s going on with all the bugs such as the resolution glitch or the cutscene processing, especially cos Hiveswap went through an extra 9 months of “bug testing”.... wouldnt most people have gotten this bug the first time they launched the game??? wouldnt they have noticed the cutscene fuckery?  these glitches have resulted in  many people getting refunds. the only reason i didnt do the same is because i want to support this game, and i want to play it again in the future when the bugs are fixed or i have better hardware.

hopefully hiveswap act 2 won’t be followed around by the same issues, same lack of communication, same lengthy development that act 1 has suffered. if it comes swiftly, and if hiveswap act 2 makes as good an impression as act 1, then I feel we’ll have something truly special on our hands. 

Story and characters: 4 hats outta 5 - short but sweet

Gameplay: 2.5 hats outta 5 - glitchy and contentless with no fail state, but this isnt necessarily a bad thing Humor : 4 hats outta 5 - sometimes missed the mark but a great chuckle for any player, fan or noob Graphics: 5 hats outta 5 - e c s t a s y Music: 4 hats outta 5 - does the job, does it well Dedication to source material: 4 hats outta 5 - best of the old, best of the new. 

FINAL SCORE: 8/10. All it needs is to finish, then it’s already better than Homestuck... 

[onychaos]

New updates

Let’s talk about what is going on. I shall go into “great detail” with these topics.

Oh boy, can’t wait to make the internet mad with my silly reasons.

You can CTRL + F to find the topic you wish to view if, things get too long to read. :P

Table of contents

Inactive Twitter

speedrunning

Streaming

Sonic Hack

New things

Inactive twitter

Ok, so, I’m sure 4 or 6 people noticed but my old twitter account @Soniksama is now inactive. I mean, it’s in the bio but people don’t read bios, that’s silly. Back on topic.

What does this mean for me? Well I’m fine and well. I feel pretty happy about doing this and making a new account. But I shall give my reasons for why I did this.

I wanted a new start

I wanted to start over on Twitter. I was not happy with the current account SonikSama. I wanted to have a do over and make a new name for myself, and distance myself from speedrunners and some people and toxic users

While I did have “friends” on the other account. My twitter was full of friends who left Twitter or couldn’t get back in. And the other side was people that followed me cause I was friends with someone else.

I like being followed, but if, it means being followed by people who are there, just to add a number to your follower count. I am the kind of guy where if, a friendship is not mutual in any way, it’s not worth having in my eyes. This is why I followed mutuals on my new account.

And I wanted to make new friends, my old friends, I have outgrew them

And I rather not be “known” as a speedrunner on my new account. I’m not too fond of speed running to begin with. I will talk about this, later on.

I wanted to re-brand myself as something else, using Sonik has got pretty old and it needs to be a change. And my Girlfriend gave me the best name.

I followed all the people who I have a mutual friendship with, and made one exception to someone who is not a mutual.

These are reasons that you will disagree with, but they are my reasons and hope you understand, if, not, oh well. I’m not gonna worry.

You might be asking “what’s the new Twitter account, Sonik?” Well, chances are, I’m following you. I am following people I trust, and are mutual friends.

There is a chance, I might have missed some friends. As long as you are still following @SonikSama on Twitter, I will be able to find you, If, you unfollow Soniksama, I’m not going to bother to look for you.

2. Speedrunning

I have been more off then on with speedrunning games. I do see the point. Yes, you speedrun to test yourself, and see if, you can improve your skills and beat your time, and maybe beat someone else time.

I can understand the drive to be better, and that’s great. But this hobby is a mixed bag. Speedrunning can bring the very best out of people, and it can bring the worst out of people. A double edge sword

I been “speedrunning” for far too long, and I reached my peak in speedrunning, and as such, I made a list of 10 games I have speedrun. You can view said list here. https://www.twitch.tv/collections/UoJnnnOx-xSHUw

While I no longer care for speedrunning, that much, and their community, ugh, I will still do SRL races, and Individual Levels of games. Who knows, I may add speedrunning to my future games, but who knows

But I have to see what the future holds, If I do any speedruns, I will upload them to Twitch but I won’t put them on SRC, at least, the sonic speedruns anyway.

You thought I was gonna say something bad about speedrunning. Didn’t you?

3. Streaming

Ah, this is something I lost interest in. I used to enjoy streaming to entertain viewers and chat with viewers, and other streamers. But as streaming gets more advanced on twitch, the harder it becomes to entertain viewers, let alone get any viewers.

I will give my reasons why I lost interest in streaming.

Shitty ISP or Twitch messing up.

There no one to really entertain anymore

I’m a small channel, I have no way of getting noticed or entertaining people

No one really watches, as most of the stuff I have done was done better by someone else.

I don’t enjoy streaming as much (After 5 years of streaming.. Damn, it has been that long), going from entertaining viewers to no one is a bummer.

“You should not worry about views, stream for fun” That used to work back in the old days of Twitch. Today, viewers seem to watch people speedruns, people rage at games, like fools, Social eating streams, IRL streams, and new game streams.

And the most common thing is Donation streams where people pay the streamer to watch freak out from bits or to donate for their “charity” Ugh.

*Streamer drama

It seems to be a common trend. Some shit is always going down. Twitch is full of nice people, but more than often, you meet the bastard who is nice but will stab you in the back later.

People assuming that other streamers are copying them, when they themselves copy others.

Or disgusting is, people ganging up on those who were done wrong.

Why should I bother to stream when no one shows up? I can’t really compete with other streamers or have anything to offer that hasn’t already been done.

With the way Twitch is now, it’s hard for small channels like me to get anywhere. You have to stay relevant, in order to keep up on Twitch’s rat race. Yes, Twitch gives us the power to host to give small or big channels time in the light but it’s kinda worthless as it gets used on “bigger” streamers

So, to end this part, I will be doing 5 streams, assuming things go well.

Dec 5th, Dec 10th, Dec 15th, Dec 20th, Dec 25th And 31st as one bonus stream to end the last stream on new years

Game list below

Sonic Colors (if it works, and I can find it.)

Mario Kart Wii

crypt of the necrodancer

mighty switch force

Super Meat Boy

Bonus stream

Once this happens, Any future streams will be for SRL races. But only time will tell how I will feel about streaming later in the future.

EDIT: I think I will take a break from streaming for a long while. :P

Sonic Hack

Boy. So I made a post about this topic. The main art for the hack is gone and level layout for Green hill Act one is, but it seems that levels that are edited will be wiped by some odd bug. So this hack is dead. It might just be a Special stage hack.

But it’s safe to say, this project is not gonna happen.

New things

I been getting back into recording Let’s plays

Working on game dev stuff.

I have plans on making a Youtube let’s play Discord server.

Been making reviews, and having fun

Been making new friends

Life has been pretty sweet. ‘v’

[beardycarrot]

Freedom Planet is pretty rad

I have something to confess. Despite having played video games my entire life, and being a big fan of several Sega franchises... I have never actually played a Sonic the Hedgehog game. I watched my friend Charles play the original games on the Genesis as a kid, but I was never really interested in playing them myself. That’s why I can say, with no doubt in my mind, that Freedom Planet is the best Sonic game I’ve ever played.

First of all, Freedom Planet is a very pretty game... I’m not sure why Tumblr is blurring my images, but it’s very crisp-looking in person. The pixel art is exactly what you would expect for an original IP based on the Genesis Sonic games, and works perfectly for this kind of game. The rest of the presentation, however, it a bit lacking.

It’s entirely possible that this game has good music, but in the hour or so I’ve played, the music’s made absolutely no impression on me. I know that there was music playing, but I couldn’t tell you what it sounded like. The voice acting is kinda all over the place, wildly ranging in both the quality of the voice acting and the quality of the audio itself. It’s never distractingly bad, but sometimes a character will randomly be too quiet, or give a somewhat flat delivery. There’s also a weird issue with dialog boxes, due to how it’s programmed: the text scrolls letter-by-letter, as with most games, but the system is designed to only move a word down to the next line if it’s too long for the current one. Because of this, you’ll occasionally see a word start to spell out at the end of a line, only for it to jump down to the start of the next line halfway through. Couldn’t they have played through the script, then inserted line breaks whenever this happens?

The worst part of the presentation is probably the HUD, because of its impact on gameplay. It should keep you informed of anything important, but... it doesn’t do it that well. The meter in the top-left is stamina (or something similar), and is expended when you use your dash move. The little... golden leaves with red centers (?) growing out of it is your health, but they’re integrated just a bit too well with the meter. In a situation in which knowing how much health you have is important, such as a boss battle, you have to take your eyes off the action and look directly at the health bar; there’s just no picking out how  much health you have with your peripheral vision.

I prefer games that just let you immediately retry without bothering with lives (Bit.Trip Runner 2 and Super Meat Boy are fantastic examples), but since this game is so heavily inspired by classic Sonic, I’ll give it a pass. I’m not sure why it needs to display your lives at all times though, since it just clutters up the interface with how close it is to the counter for diamonds. They really should’ve limited showing your lives to whenever you die, or at least spaced things out a bit more.

SPEAKING OF DIAMONDS, gameplay. This game... is pretty fun! The levels are big and open, with a lot of area to explore. Like the classic Sonic games, there seem to be multiple paths through levels, but from what I’ve seen nothing prevents you from going all the way back to the beginning and exploring the others. That said, sometimes the path will to all the way to the right, only for it to then give you platforms allowing you to move to the left on the different path, so it’s entirely possible that what I took for an alternate route is actually just a later part of a linear path, that you’re able to gain access to due to your character’s honestly-kinda-broken moveset.

I haven’t played as any of the other characters yet, but Lilac has what is essentially Sonic’s spin dash move... but after a second of charging, you can aim it in any direction you’d like, allowing you to pinball your way out of the path presented to you. This was probably intentional, to give speedrunners more options. I happen to like exploring everything (note the twenty-five-minute level time in the screenshot above), so for me the levels just became “randomly run around finding things to collect”.

SPEAKING OF DIAMONDS... It actually took me quite a while to figure out what they’re for. The health drops in this game looks the same as your life bar, so I thought they must be more like coins in Mario than rings in Sonic. As it turns out, your diamond counter starts out at two hundred, and counts down as you collect them. Once it reaches zero, you get an extra life. I can only assume that it was done like this purely to be different. You can also collect colored orbs, but I have absolutely no idea what they do. You only find two or three of them at a time, but there’s no counter for them, and the game hasn’t done anything to make reference to them. At first I thought they were related to the shield power-ups you can get (which, as far as I can tell, are pretty much 100% feature-for-feature identical to the shields from Sonic 3), but as far as I can tell, they do nothing and are never acknowledged. You can also collect hidden cards and little yin-yang symbols, both of which I believe unlock stuff in the gallery.

So, what’s this game actually about? Well... it’s complicated. First and foremost, you play as Lilac, who is a dragon. Apparently. I guess she has horns, but nothing else about her design or abilities is at all dragon-like. You also have the option to play as Carol the green motorcycle-riding wildcat in story mode, and Milla the... dog who struggle-jumps like Yoshi, in the speedrun mode.

The story of the game is about an evil alien conqueror who has come down to their planet, looking for something called the Kingdom Stone. He kills a king who I think might have been a panda, and has a robot squid pump the king’s son full of... mind-altering robot squid juice. Lilac and friends get involved in the plot, and the king’s other, significantly more Shadow the Hedgehog-inspired son steals the Kingdom Stone and gives it to the mayor of some city... or something.

The story takes place in surprisingly long, fully voice-acted cutscenes between levels, but it’s one of those situations where all the characters already know each other (for the most part). Since Lilac already knows who General Gong and Spade are, the game doesn’t bother introducing them, and just hopes that you’re able to keep everything clear in your mind. It’s really unfortunate, because the game does introduce a character new to this world right at the beginning, who could’ve been used as an audience surrogate. I would assume that the developers wanted to keep the pace up... buuut, in one of the five or six cutscenes that take place between levels two and three, the characters are actually lying around bored, and decide to watch a movie.

One thing I really like about the cutscenes is that when something is destroyed, diamonds pop out, and when characters touch them, they’re collected. That’s a pretty funny touch.

While the story is just on the “oh, okay, I think I get it” side of incomprehensible, the writing is... well, it ain’t Shakespeare. At one point, a fire truck train thing (possibly the aforementioned vehicle-with-robot-arm) goes barreling through an outpost or something similar, and the general says something like, “It’s an ambush!”... which is a good-sounding line, but I don’t think the writer knows what an ambush is. I can’t tell if the speech in the screenshot above is poorly-written, or if the prince is supposed to sound awkward because he’s being mind controlled. Thankfully, most of the dialog and exposition in the game is comparatively normal so far.

Due to having written this over the course of about five hours (hurray for constant interruptions), I feel like I’ve lost track of what I wanted to say when I started writing... Ah well. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it after I’ve finished the game, especially if I decide to play through with the other characters.

[onychaos]

Twitch rant

BEFORE READING.

THIS IS A RANT, WHAT I SAY HERE IS NOT FACT. TAKE IT WITH A GRAIN OF SALT. THANK YOU!

EXTRA WARNING: DON'T TAKE THIS RANT TOO SERIOUS! NEEDED TO VENT OFF SOME STEAM! IF YOU DON'T LIKE RANTS, TURN BACK NOW!

More of a serious Topic/rant and something that has been REALLY bugging me and I will say this. This is a rant and I want to say how I feel about some streamers but I'm gonna be vague, though.

A lot of streamers I watch seem to lose their way or let their ego go unchecked and that becomes a problem and it is an annoying problem.

Look I have no problem when people want to be famous or they want to be "cool" or whatever. but I do have a problem with it when it turns to an issue.

If someone has a question like "So.. What is the problem here?"

As you all know streamers and people when they get on social media, this can vary. They are friendly and will respond to everyone indirectly or be a asshole.

Again like I said. When people join, mostly, they are new and will most likely be friendly and will want to talk to you indirectly or directly or they are cunts about it. 50 / 50 Really.

When people hit 800 to 1000 follower milestone on any social media,  things go downhill or start to go downhill which is the latter most of the time.

Then next to follow suit is them not being as easy to talk to. Almost like you are not there sometimes and it can be rather annoying.

Now let's add in the ego, shall we? The ego and fame come into play when said person goes to events and gets "World Record" in games and again it fine, so long as you don't treat others different.

So when you add.

1000 + or 2000+ followers milestone

An ego that is left unchecked

And some fame in the spotlight

A less friendly user and more closed off user

And on a team as well?

You got a twitch monster but what kind is there?

I kinda want to rip on streamers anyway.

There is the streamer type I dislike

1 They are too cool to respond to normal people

They act cool but they will be willing to talk to you

2 They feel like they will look bad if, they are not talking to a bigger streamer or speedrunner or talking to anyone in their circle.

Let me go into more detail. This is an opinion but oh well.

It seems the streamers with a big ego want to keep an image of being cool when they joined a team so, I'm assuming only knowing people who do things for them is a way to keep that image.

Speedrunners and big streamers like to have this Idea image of them being this guy who gets world records, speedrun as a very cool and well-known person

And that's fine but don't be those guys who think they are better in some way, you come off as an asshole, to be honest.

3 They are glad when people do things for them

When you buy them games or means to buy games

Make them channel emotions

Come to their stream and watch them play a game you MAY not care for

Hosting them when they are live

Donating money or other things

Wishing them a happy birthday

Making them anything in general

And they tell you, thank you and such and that is nice and all but when you want something in return. You get nothing at all.

I guess I shouldn't say nothing. Disappointment is something.

The best gift you can get is Disappointment.

4 Playing favorites in chat is the worst thing that these type of streamers.

Streamers do have favorite mods and viewers and that is fine. But some streamers have let others, know that they're the favorites and like I said before, I have no problem with streamers playing favorites in their chat. But IF you do it in the way where it's clear.

Or to sum it up in a better way. Giving favorite mods and viewers Special treatment and some people will feel annoyed cause, you are having a better time with the favorites than with the viewers and this can make the viewers feel unwanted or just up and leave.

I'm not going to name the streamers who fall into this trap.

Hey, if you enjoy doing nice stuff for streamers than more power to you and that is fine

I stopped doing things for some streamers as it was a waste of time and effort for me.

I will say this right now. I no longer have the will to support these streamers until things change.

What's funny is that I always wanted to be there for them if, they let the fame and ego start to change them for the worst.

But I am done. No point of trying, but hey, they are doing fine I suppose. They didn't fuck up and doing ok.

One extra nail would be, that these streamers are not my friends, just associates at that point. I do have streamers who are my friends but that's for a different post, maybe.

I mean, you can say we are friends but we don't really talk outside of Twitch, so "Friend" is a loose term

And we have the streamer type

Who likes to ask and beg for things

And they like to be your "friend" to see what they can get from you.

Normally this can go two ways.

1 If they can't get anything from you then they will backstab you and ditch you and just act like nothing happened. One user is good for doing that shit but I ain't going to get into that.

2 They can end up being your "friend" and it can be either good or bad. well, being the friend that likes to take but never give.

These streamers tend to burn a few bridges and It won't help them in the long run

I guess in a way by ranting about streamers indirectly, I know how to avoid letting my ego get out of control and know how to not be a streamer who is a piece of shit to some users

I do try my best to give back to those who give me things

I don't play favorites and while there are streamers I Dislike o how they changed for the worst, I will notice you in my chat room

Hell, I am not perfect but I do work on it. I may not be the best at times with streaming and social media but again, I work on it and I'm getting better with it.

Talking to more users and being more active

But this is all thanks to my great friends and the better streamers and me wanting to not be a fame whore.

Even on the twitters, I am being more active and talking to people I never talk to. I have stopped ignoring them and so far, it is fun to be social and not Anti-social.

But that ends my rant on twitch.tv streamers. They used to be great before they got a big head and changed for the worst, IMHO(In my honest opinion)

I used to support them, wanted to be there for them and hell, I respected them at a point in time but I can't anymore. It's all about being edgy and cool.

If the streamers I watch, change in the future, I will be more than glad to support them and watch again but I will see what the future holds.

And before I see "LOL, because you stop watching them, you are not going to have an effect on these streamers."

And I would, I don't care. It will be like I'm there. Not there. When I watch these streamers, it's like I was not there to them, So, me being there or not really doesn't matter in any way, shape, or form.

Simple. I don't like how things are going on Twitch.tv channel. I just don't watch.

But this is here my Long Twitch TV rant comes to an end. This has been on my chest for months and I been wanting to say something about this.

So, till next time. You will see another post. Not sure when, though.

BYE.

Sonik~