#but maybe i should just replay some of it its like super simple compared to rebirth omggg

[deathberi]

haha i stopped making gifs some years ago but i still have the gif maker mindset and have to get them out of my head so im glad you are open to suggestions ✨

I got one more for ya, I was reminded today of the dialogue in remake where tifa asks cloud how he knows aerith (it's if you go to tifa instead of aerith in the sewer after don corneo's) and he's like "i saved her, she saved me, round and round it goes" nice little dialogue moment about their relationship. could be a bigger gifset with relevant instances of said saving but also is just a nice on its own

stopped??? whyyy omg why dont you join me in filling our tag!! 😠

haha please we (do you?) i love a savage choosing outcome 😂 like how consistent that theres always aerith content outside of favoring her 😂 but no no i cant possibly do the simple version im not keen on putting 🍵’s mug up close if its not a bigger party set 😂 the bigger version it is for me however im still on a bad case of i cant find my remake clips on my drives with me so theyre most probably left on my pc thats in a different place ;_;

[macgyvertape]

thoughts on season of splicer ending

warning: spoilers for the entire season, general discussion of leaks, and absolutely being Bungie critical. Basically trying to write this out and figure out my own thoughts in the writing

I guess my first thoughts are what everyone's talking about: Osiris.

All the wild theories about if he's been replaced, controlled, playing 5d chess, etc. tldr: leaks say that from season of the Hunt it hasn't been Osiris but Savathun. Yeah I've read people's compilations of proof until I rapidly got bored with them. I'll be bluntly honest, if Bungie is going for some sort of imposter story-line then they're doing a fucking awful job at telling it.

a) A good imposter story-line needs to establish to the audience that there is the possibility or replacement/control

b) characters in the story themselves should be aware of point A and be actively considering it in their decision making

c) if the imposter is doing something the original didn't than clearly show audience the imposter is there.

I would say Bungie didn't do any of these, no the lore page of Savathun's human disguise falling apart around her doesn't count, because Bungie has long had a problem of putting story relevant plot details in lore pages and then not referencing them ingame. Lore should accentuate story, not provide key details to the story.

If you want to see a good imposter story-line look at Forsaken, and how they worked to make it obvious to someone who didn't know who Mara Sov was that something was up.

Most of the proof people cite is either cherry picking ambiguous things Osiris has said, or pointing out inconsistencies in writing. IMO not much of the evidence holds up because multiple characters this season (Saint, Lakshmi, Mithrax) have been written inconsistently with past appearances and without nuance; because their character has to carry the plot in a certain way or there are limits on recording dialogue for override/expunge.

My point in recapping the Osiris thing, is that from a thematic view at the end of the season Osiris is Osiris and I'm judging the story from the view of the season not how will the story be in the future.

very cynical take that as much praise as Bungie wants for working to make a high profile gay relationship be shown in game after a writer confirmed it on twitter

if leaks are right: if  Osiris hasn't been Osiris for the past 3 seasons then none of the scenes with Saint are real or matter, and it invalidates all the emotional grief of Sagira being dead. It's 3 seasons of character development and effort wasted

or: they took the first chance they could to make one of them an unsympathetic villain and write him out of the story.

(yeah destiny has other queer character but how many of them are alive and matter to the story? When was the last time Ana's girlfriend was mentioned?)

The game is clear that for all the talk about "vex tech influence" Lakshmi's views and choices were her own, so the same for Osiris: he is responsible for helping Lakshmi and is responsible for all the civilian deaths, he's the 2ndary Human villain of the season.

Which brings me to my point (that I've seen others say) is that Bungie should have given a second thought to having their all of their human antagonists be PoC characters this expansion. Osiris, Lakshmi, and Saladin last season. For Lakshmi and Saladin they weren't just antagonists, they were written to be bigots for the community to dislike. Yes Destiny has a lot of PoC characters and anyone can be a villain, but IMO its a bad look from a company who talks so much about social justice. It wouldn't matter except Bungie wanted the message of the season to be anti-racism, and I'm comparing it within the context of how often minorities are the villains in games/US media. I don't think it was deliberately done, I just think it is something that like last season's issues with proving grounds and antisemitism they didn't care or bother with a sensitivity reader.

It's obvious this season they were going for a very obvious reference to Trump and modern day fears about refugees with Lakshmi, and it's a bad look that they did with a Indian female character and refugees are the enemy crab aliens. I'm also not saying that female characters can't be villains, but did the Bungie writers not think about just how nasty gamers would get in either slurs, insults, or expressing wishes for violence, and how pervasive and visible it would be?

I'm genuinely curious why the writers went for such a heavy handed analogy, and a story-line that feels like it comes from an afterschool special. The Eliksni have been enemies in atleast 4 expansions now, there could have been a more nuanced story other than "House of Light is good keep on killing all other Fallen". At the end of the season the game treated the attack on the City being Lakshmi and Osiris' fault, and all the people who don't like the Eliksni (say the people doing hate crimes in the lore) left with the factions so "problem resolved" . Lakshmi gets a simple karmatic death, in an area where multiple reddit threads express how they love tbagging the corpse. The ending cutscene didn't feel super inspiring to me it just felt unrealistic not just in real life where things aren't that simple but also within Destiny's story; the "you are my family" line felt cringe to me, probably because it felt unearned.

That's kind of the problem of the season isn't it, that the earliest planned game based decisions like having a Vex seasonal enemy and getting rid of the Factions determined the cast of characters with ties to the Vex and factions. So you just fight x many Vex bosses until you defeat Quria, then there's a break for Solstace, but on Reset-Tuesday with no warning things escalate because its epilogue time.

Sadly I forget who said that "it felt like the plot needed to hit one beat a week" meaning one issue had to get resolved enough for the community to talk about (except for when we take 3 weeks off for solstice). Each week there has to be some sort of hook to avoid the overblown "content drought". So multiple times you will have characters change their mind or their deep held beliefs after one counter argument is presented. (big example is Saint changing his mind not over the season but after one cutscene). City politics and factions don't matter aside from dialogue in a few different weeks because they'll be gone at the end of the season but in the meantime characters needed to talk about something to prompt fandom engagement. example: the fandom argues about governance of the last city for a while before the argument burn out since the relevant lore wasn't designed to hold up to close scrutiny.

just, I'm a politically active leftist in a red conservative state so maybe i just find this exhausting since I deal with similar issues irl and am more prone to thinking this season was tone deaf.

tldr: that wow this turned out really negative. Which I didn't really expect considering how much I enjoyed the first few weeks of the season. I enjoyed a lot of the gameplay this season (I really enjoy fun gambit aka Overrides and VoG). But as for replaying the story on my other characters, I don't think I'll bother.

[rigelmejo]

me discovering japanese musicals and plays:

well i guess i really DO need to learn well now ToT

---

some april notes as the month is getting closer to the end:

i have read 2 full graded readers (butterfly lovers pleco reader, chinese short stories ebook). i’ve read also part of the 500 word Sinolingua book (and looked through the vocab index and know every word in it). And part of Journey to the Center of the Earth Mandarin Companion (I should finish it today as I know all the words in it ToT its one of those cases where its so simple its almost boring). 

i watched through the about 2 hour japanese Dracula Musical - no subtitles, and the first time i’ve ever braved either japanese nonstop that long OR japanese audio with zero subtitles in any language to rely on. i feel really ;-; accomplished compared to what i’ve done before aha

i watched 20 minutes of a japanese Persona 2 Innocent Sin last night (japanese subs). i do actually think with lets plays combined with subs and my chinese hanzi recognition, i could pick up some new words if i just did it More Often. Anyway this is just notable since the Dracula Musical made me brave enough TO try this with a game i have no context for lol.

i watched 25 episodes of a show in chinese this month (Two Souls in One). Depending on when it ends i might have watched 30 by the end of the month, since its about to finish.

i’ve read a bit over 20 chinese chapters this month - i probably won’t get where i wanted with hanshe, but i’m doing a good amount and that’s what matters. i got distracted with graded readers (which i do think are helping me).

i studied about 350 common words in the nukemarine memrise course this deck, along with the grammar and kanji i already had done. i’m hoping i’ll get this number up a bit more before my japanese games come in ToT (my ideal would be at 1000 words but... i’m trying to be realistic and my motivation just is NOT there to cram that many right now probably). Still, 350 in a month is pretty good progress!

just in general both chinese and japanese are doing better than expected right now. chinese has been doing how i’d like it - the show i’m watching never requires me to lookup words to follow or enjoy the plot, just some replaying scenes to catch more details sometimes. reading wise: reading these graded readers is giving me a REAL sense of accomplishment - seeing what was once super hard for me take only 30 minutes to read, seeing a book full of unknown words now be full of words i completely know, seeing myself speed read over a book that i used to have to slowly glance through and re-read to grasp. i HAVE made progress in the year since i last tried to read these and it shows. i am super excited to see what reading the little prince will be like since i have memories of struggling through it before (and when i watched the youtube video reading recently it i realized i knew all the words in those videos). also - i am reading Guardian right now. I am reading my print novel of Guardian! that’s been a goal since i started! And as of now it IS something I can do right now, no dictionary (as long as i’ve read the english translation at some point prior). The reason i’m not doing it more right now is my reading speed for it is SO slow. So hopefully a bit more practice will speed it up. I’m seeing now with graded readers how much my reading of THEM has sped up, so there’s hope. 

I also read a info page for the bilingual Dracula today and it mentioned a 26-29 hour reading time and that makes me feel a lot less bad about my reading speed? Last time I calculated how long it would take me to read hanshe at my current speed (roughly 15 minutes per chapter), 55 chapters left was going to take me 26 hours to read. Now... unfortunately the chinese novels i read tend to be 100-150 chapter long beasts. But - to see that a french/english book of about 800 pages would take me about as long makes me feel like i’m not reading so slow as it feels. i think i am reading chinese slower than english, but not dramatically slower. I need to actually MEASURE my reading speed sometime soon. But I’m pretty sure its like ‘slow speaking speed’ to ‘normal speaking speed.’ it unfortunately is not faster than speaking speed, but i do think for the most part its usually at least that fast. 

update read 2 japanese graded readers (but they are Very Easy) - Tadoku Graded Readers: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1yr867g4mSoMJ0WKXVRdZf07tSyC7LMB1 . Level 0, Volume 1, on book 3 now.

update: just l r method chapters 1 and 2 of A Brief History of Human Kind. Will maybe do chapter 3 tomorrow. I have the files all emailed to myself so its super convienient to do. I think what helped? Its actually paragraph by paragraph, lots of numbers in text about years so I can catch my place if I get lost, and the audio file is very gratefully split into chapters that actually COINCIDE WITH THE ACTUAL CHAPTER START AND ENDS. so many chinese audiobook chapters just end whenever and do NOT correspond to text start/ends so this is fantastic. also its all history and i’m a nerd, and i don’t have to think too hard about it.

[teddy-bear-surprise]

Chapter 7: Groundhog Day–Ophelia

|| Chapter 1 || Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Chapter 6 || Chapter 7 Part 1 || Chapter 7 Part 2 || Chapter 8 || Almost The End || Chapter 9 ||

WARNING: Mentions of bodily harm, blood, manipulation, drugs (not super directly, but it is implied), etc.

Note: For all purposes of my plot, Spencer was neither arrested nor imprisoned at any point. I just chose Season 13-14 because of Cat and because Spence looked good ;) Also, this is part one of chapter 7. It is exclusively from Ophelia’s POV and part two will be from Spencer’s POV.

I laid back on the soft cushions of my couch, wondering what I could do to break Spencer. He trusted me now, after our extended catch-up session yesterday, I had the upper hand. I could make his mind my playground, manipulate every twist, turn, and dead-end. Maybe it was wrong to mess with a flimsy FBI agent’s mind when they’re already being held captive and have minor brain damage, but it was just so fun.

Spencer was incredibly vulnerable. He had no means of escaping, he had less physical strength than me, and he had more unresolved and internalized trauma than anyone I had ever met… well, Cat might be a strong contender. Nonetheless, I would break him, today, tomorrow, or next week.

My first idea was to make him re-live yesterday, as many times as it took for him to go crazy. In some respects, my plan was rudimentary, possibly so basic that it would not even dent the psyche of a hardened criminal, but Spencer was nowhere near hardened nor a criminal and his defenses were weak.

I grabbed a quick breakfast consisting of yogurt and granola from my barren kitchen before heading down to the basement. Those were quite literally the only things in the house besides some leftover pizza from last night and I made a mental note to buy some more groceries later. Taking advantage of the fact that I was still in the kitchen, I grabbed another pan and took it with me. While I pranced down the steps, I reviewed my plan once more.

All I had to do was mess with his perceptions of reality. He might be a criminal profiler, but he had never had his own mind examined by a criminal. I was so incredibly excited to test out my plan, that I nearly forgot to make it in the first place. So, here it is, in all of its crude glory:

Wake Spencer up, aggressively if possible.

Be meaner, maybe some more personal insults would do well.

Cuff him to the table again.

Let him freeze again… or I could turn up the AC, that might be fun to watch.

Pretend like I don’t know him, violent interrogation will be my friend.

Have him introduce himself and act like I’ve missed him!

Rinse and repeat.

It seemed simple enough, all I had to do was go through a total replay of yesterday’s occurrences but turn up the intensity by a notch. I flipped the pan over in my hand a few times before gathering enough momentum to slam it harshly against the cell’s thick metal door. The sound rang through the basement, its vibrations bouncing off of every inch of exposed surface area and enveloping my ears. I thanked my own beautiful mind for soundproofing the walls. If I had not, my neighbors almost certainly would have heard the racket I was stirring up.

After a few more loud bangs on the door, I heard Spencer waking up, “WHAT THE HELL?! I THOUGHT WE WERE PAST THIS!���

I chuckled to myself, reveling in the innocence of his thoughts. I dropped the pan again, exactly as I had the day before, and greeted Spencer curtly from the doorway. “You should be kinder to your host. After all, I am the one paying for the bed you’re sleeping in and could easily throw you out to dry up in the desert. You wouldn’t last a day, moron.”

“I– What are you talking about? I just thought that after yesterday, you would be less aggressive,” he seemed genuinely confused.

I spoke confidently and firmly, “I haven’t the slightest idea as to what you’re talking about. Stop talking nonsense and get out of bed so we can get started. We have a long day ahead of us.”

Spencer knit his eyebrows together tightly, seemingly recalling something from his extensive memory bank, “You said you would go easy, we caught up last night. I thought we were on good terms again.”

“Did you hit your head? What the fuck are you talking about, you fucking worm?” I finally entered the room and bent down to pick up Spencer by his shirt collar. Internally I was about to burst out in laughter, I had no idea why I called him a worm, but I had to remain composed so he would not see through my façade.

“Stop fucking around and let’s go.”

“F–fine. Fine. I’m going, just let me put on my socks again.” His hands trembled as he pulled his socks on. One was a dark grey and the other a light blue.

“How the hell did you manage to mix up your sock colors? I literally gave you matching pairs of socks, fucking dumbass.”

Reid looked up from his socks innocently, “I just switched them around, it’s good luck.”

“Yeah? Well, you’re definitely gonna be needing that luck.” I let out a slightly maniacal chuckle, hoping to scare Spencer a bit and intimidate him.

Once he finally got his socks on, I pulled out the handcuffs from my pockets and leaned my knee against his chest, reenacting yesterday’s event’s to a tee. “Give me your hands.”

He offered his wrists to me reluctantly and slowly. Without even thinking, I reached down and yanked his arms up to my level. I could have sworn that I heard a pop when I pulled his hands, but I ignored it as I tightened the metal restraints. Once again he was wincing as the metal created deep, red marks on his wrists. I laughed at his reaction, “Man up, Mr. FBI, stop being such a wimp. My three-year-old neighbor could handle more pain than you.”

He huffed, defeated by the power of my position and the neverending stream of subtle insults I was delivering, “Sorry, I’m ready to go now.”

“Come on, princess, I’m gonna have a lot of fun with you today,” I yanked him up by the metal chain that connected his hands and his body lurched forwards. He moved like a dried up worm on the sidewalk, maybe my worm insult was not that misplaced after all.

When we got to the interrogation room today, it was perfectly arranged as if it had never been occupied before. I could see the confusion stirring up in his mind. I had decided to add to his confusion even further by replacing the chair he sat on the day before with one that was an inch and a half shorter. To most people, that height difference would not make much of a difference, but Spencer’s long legs and boney arms would feel it.

After cuffing him to the table in the center of the room, I lingered around a bit. I was not quite sure why I chose to do so, yet every move I made felt like it had been planned out so I went along with it. My back rested against the one-way glass on the wall across from him and my eyes were intently focused on the way his lips parted ever so slightly as he breathed.

I had never felt any sort of attraction to Spencer before, but now something about him entranced me. I figured it might just be some kind of psychological phenomenon, we went on a six-hour road trip– though he went against his will–, I had seen him semi-nude multiple times, and I planned every move of mine around Spencer. Something was bound to spark eventually.

Even now, so vulnerable and distressed, Spencer looked beautiful. From the way that his messy, brown hair curled to the rapid fidgeting of his fingers, I was mesmerized. I feared that he would sense the lust in my gaze and break through the front I was putting up so I averted my eyes, instead choosing to focus on the clean floor beneath my feet.

I stole a glance in his direction and saw him staring intently at me, could it be possible that he felt the same way about me? The thought escaped my mind just as quickly as it entered when he spoke timidly, “So, what are we doing today? You said I would need my luck, I’m waiting.”

“Did you really think I’d just jump to the chase like that? No, it’s all a game, darling. You wait your turn, play your angle, and then maybe you’ll win.” The timing was perfect for me to leave.

I walked towards the door and slowed for a moment when I passed Spencer, holding my breath. I rested my hand on his shoulder lightly and squeezed, letting my touch linger warmly on his covered skin. His shuddering breath shook through his body and into my fingertips which soon fell away from him. I left the room, stopping to catch my breath and recover from how different his skin felt today compared to the days before.

Aggressively, I shook my head to get rid of those thoughts and walked up the stairs and into the control room again. I was supposed to be the one in his head, but somehow I accidentally let him into mine and he did not even know it. I threw myself onto the office chair inside and watched him fiddle with his fingers. He shifted around in his seat uncomfortably, trying to stretch out his legs and prop his arms onto the tall tabletop.

Eventually, I started turning the temperature up, degree by degree, until I could see the sweat glimmering above his furrowed brow. His shirt began growing darker as sweat accumulated in the fabric’s threads. I saw him try to stand up in an attempt to save his sweatpant-clad legs from dripping in sweat. But the table prevented him from standing up straight and his back curved awkwardly as his hands lay stuck to the table. It became obvious that his plan had failed when I saw the dark patches of black taking over his grey shirt. Spencer flopped down onto the seat, defeated, and threw his head back panting. Not too long after, he started removing his socks. First the blue one, then the grey one. His luck had ended and it was time to make my move.

I returned to the interrogation room and peeked my head inside, “It seems that your luck has ended, handsome.”

“Wha–” He turned to me and I saw fear and confusion running rampant in every crease of his face.

“Don’t worry, you’ll see soon enough. Just sit tight and I’ll be right back.” I winked at him and slammed the door shut.

Hot damn, it really was unbearably hot in there. Luckily, he had not seen what I was wearing and I still had a chance to change. I ran upstairs to my room and quickly threw on a pair of running shorts and a skimpy tank top. If the heat did not get to him, maybe the low neckline would.

I returned to the basement and grabbed a few handy interrogation items. A little dagger, blindfold, and a simple contraption of her own creation. The dagger was small and silver, handcrafted by a colleague of mine at MIT as a graduation gift. Its handle was light and carefully engraved with some of my favorite quotes:

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”

“Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.”

“I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here.”

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”

And so on… these are the quotes that got me through school and life unscathed. I owe everything to the scientists who came before me, though they may have disagreed with my choice of employment, they would have understood why it was so important to me.

The blindfold, on the other hand, was just plain, black cotton. My specialty tool, however, was just as intricate as the dagger.

It looked like a simple collar from afar, but upon closer examination, it was a metal collar that featured blunt metal rods. The rods each pinpointed a specific area of the neck, disturbing circulation, interfering with the wearer’s airways, or provoking a relatively painful and debilitating area of the spine. I did not like to use the ‘spine spike’ very often though, it was much too risky and occasionally left the user with mild paralysis or persistent nerve damage. Because of its temperamental nature, I removed the spike, not wanting to accidentally leave Spencer with any long-lasting injuries if I opted to use the collar.

I placed the three items inside of a black leather briefcase, which I found to look quite intimidating, and entered the interrogation room where Spencer was still waiting and sweating. I knew my outfit did not look cohesive in the slightest, especially with the briefcase, but I had to make do with what I had. I ruffled my hand in his hair playfully when I passed him and slammed the briefcase on the metal table.

Spencer jumped back at the sudden noise, “Uhhhh, Ophelia, what is that?”

His voice trembled and his eyes were open wide. He was already broken and I had barely even started, this was going to be too easy.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” I smirked at him evilly and turned the briefcase so it faced me on the other side of the table. I unlatched the closures slowly, creating such tantalizing suspense that I could hear every breath that Spencer took.

My hand first reached towards the blindfold, playing with it in my hands as Spencer watched. He gulped loudly, his throat dry from the heat and fear. “Don’t worry, I won’t kill you, that wouldn’t be any fun.”

“K– kill me?” He spoke in a shaking, high-pitched voice.

I walked slowly until I was standing behind him and he was looking at us both in the mirror, “Why are you so worried? I said I wouldn’t kill you.”

My hands were perched on his shoulders as I said this and I laughed briefly when I saw him tense up. I pulled the blindfold around his head, carefully tying it behind his soft, brown hair. Spencer’s breath stopped momentarily as he tried to cope with his loss of vision.

My right hand drifted down his arm slowly and his head moved around frantically as if he wanted to know where I was. When my hand reached his, I gave it a quick squeeze and let go so I could retrieve my other supplies from my briefcase. I debated between using the dagger or the collar first and opted for the dagger, it was much more fun to be close to Spencer.

I picked it up and twirled it as I walked over to where Spencer sat. The back of my legs rested on the table while I spoke. “So, how’d ya find me, Mr. FBI?”

“I– I don’t know, I don’t think I can answer that question.” Sweat fell from his hairline and soaked the blindfold, he was growing more and more uncomfortable by the second.

I brought the dagger up to his shirt and cut open a few inches until his chest was slightly exposed and he shivered under my touch. “You sure about that?”

Spencer nodded his head rapidly, but I knew he was lying, after all, he had told me all about Hotch and Garcia yesterday. So I wondered why he would lie to me today. I lowered the dagger to his skin, tracing the sharp edge against his shiny skin. He froze, not moving or even breathing when he felt the blade draw its first drops of blood. The once pristine blade was now coated in a thin coat of the metallic-smelling, deep red liquid that flowed from his skin.

I smiled at my success, “Would you like to reconsider?”

He paused as a tear ran down his cheek, “I don’t know. I swear I don’t know.”

“Why are you lying to me? I know you’re lying and your tears aren’t going to deter me.”

His words came our quiet, jumbled, and quickly as he shook in his seat. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Gosh, he really was easy to break. I did not even have to use the collar to reduce him to tears and despair. He was too unstable to continue with step five so I moved onto six, “Okay, fine, I get it. You don’t know. Is there anything you do know? Like your name maybe? Anything?”

The corners of his lips turned up and he grinned, “Spencer Reid!”

“Wait? As in Spencer Reid from Las Vegas, Nevada?” I feigned disbelief and surprise.

His words glimmered with hope, “Yeah! Ophelia, it’s me, we’re friends, remember?”

“Oh my gosh, it’s little ‘Germs’! Holy shit, I haven’t seen you in ages, kid. You changed so much that I didn’t even recognize you.”

“I know, it’s been over twenty years, I was too scared to say anything, but it’s me.”

I pulled the blindfold off of his head, moving my hand to caress his cheek but he flinched slightly. My voice changed to reflect sincerity and reprehension, “Spencer, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know it was you. If I had known… you should have said something.”

“It’s okay, you didn’t know. I trust you, Ophelia, you would never hurt me.”

He was being very irrational compared to his usual, logical self, but I appreciated it. I buried my head in my hands, pretending to be in distress. Soon, I felt Spencer’s hand struggling to reach my arm. It was clear that he wanted to comfort me, but the handcuffs impaired his range of movement.

“I’m so sorry. I–I never meant for this to happen.” I modified my breathing temporarily so that it sounded as though I was about to cry.

“It’s okay…”

I wiped away my imaginary tears which were concealed by the sweat that also covered my face and took a deep breath in before standing up. “Here, let me take those handcuffs off.”

He rubbed his wrists as soon as they were freed and thanked me. I glanced down at him and saw that his chest was still bleeding lightly. “Oh shit, I forgot about the cut. I’ll be right back to take care of that.”

I put all of my ‘supplies’ back into the briefcase before locking it and running out of the room, trying to remember where I had left my first-aid kit. I eventually found it in the upstairs bathroom and stopped to catch my breath. The whole time that I was pretending to reconcile with Spencer, I barely breathed. He was already weak and slightly delusional, but I always was a bit paranoid about getting caught.

My hands gripped the kit firmly as I returned to the room where Spencer was waiting for me and prayed that he would still be as gentle as he had been when I left. I opened the door slowly and saw him sitting in his chair, right where I had left him. The briefcase was still closed and the coast was clear, Spencer was still docile.

“Hey, Spence, I’m back.” I held up the first-aid kit and smiled at him, he returned an equally goofy grin.

“Ophelia! That was quick.”

“Yep, I’m pretty efficient.”

I set down the first aid kit on the ground and kneeled between his knees while gathering what I would need to patch him up. Iodine, gauze, tape, cotton balls, and a small piece of plastic. It was a shallow cut, but I wanted him to feel cared for, vulnerable.

I threw a little bit of iodine onto the cut, spreading it with a small piece of cotton, and waited for it to dry. He looked down to see what I was doing and his nose was only inches away from mine. Keeping my cool, I continued working, placing the gauze and plastic over his cut before securing them with plastic and lightly smoothing it over with my fingers.

“Hi…” Spence whispered down to me and his hot breath fanned over my face.

I turned my head up and looked into his eyes, seeing nothing but lust. He craned his neck down even further, closing the space between us. His lips were soft and his movements slow. I felt us getting closer with every moment that passed, our lips moving in perfect sync with each other. The intoxicating smell of his skin filled my nose, taking me by surprise, but I knew I had to keep my mind clear.

My hand moved around blindly looking for a short syringe inside the kit. Eventually, I found it, using the tips of my fingers to roll it closer to me until I could grab it. I did my best to make sure that Spencer could not feel me moving around as he kissed me. As wonderful as it felt to finally kiss him, I could not let myself lose sight of the bigger picture. I popped off the cap, quietly letting it drop to the floor. His right hand snaked around my back, moving to my waist and pulling me closer. This was my chance.

I jammed the needle into his thigh, pushing down on the plunger as Spencer pulled back in shock. His eyes opened wide, his face covered in confusion once more, and then he was out like a light. His body fell forward onto me and I pushed him back so I could stand up. Grabbing his arms, I carried him back to his room.

I needed to continue my plan again tomorrow, so I grabbed a pack of body wipes and a clean pair of the exact clothes he had worn today. Carefully, I undressed him, leaving him in only his boxers, and bathed him with the wipes. After I had dressed him once more, I tucked him into the bed and placed another pair of mismatched socks beside his bed in the same spot they had been this morning.

Pleased with my work today, I locked his door and returned upstairs to my kitchen to prepare for the next day. I was writing in my notebook when I called my in-town friend on the landline, asking asked him to bring me some groceries and liquor. Since I was going to relive the same day every day, I might as well make the most of it and treat myself to a drink after. And if all went well, I would have a loyal, pliable boyfriend and possibly a new partner in crime. There was nothing more that I could ask for.

[pixelrender]

My 5 genres of video games

I used to spend my time on a variety of games from AAA open world titles to small flash tower defense games. I’m still quite fond of many of these games and Kingdom Rush in particular has a special place in my heart as the smoothest tower defense game I’ve ever played. I got obsessed over niche genres from time to time too. I had a short period, in which I read many articles on hg101. Naturally, I got super interested in shmups back then. I still like to play a simple free shmup from time to time, but I avoid more difficult entries these days and I can’t call myself a hardcore fan of the genre.

For the longest time I was big on RPGs and Boiware in particular. I loved Dragon Age and I still plan getting my hands on Inquisition one day. I need to replay Mass Effect 2 and finally finish the trilogy. Baldur’s Gate is still on my shortlist of games to finish and Jade Empire is one of my favourite underrated games to recommend. There were other RPGs than those from Bioware too. Gothic 3 probably qualifies for the game I spent most time with as completing it took me half a year. I still like low fiction of Gothic series and admire compact worlds of the first two games and Risen. Oblivion is my favourite roaming game. The best part about it was bumping into a small settlement in the middle of nature and just be there. The last not least I should mention RPG Maker.  I developed few small games in it and I still sometimes work on three more. 2 of them are actual RPGs. I played and enjoyed many RM games, some of them epic fantasies. So, why is this genre only a honorable mention? I don’t find myself as attracted to it and its power fantasies as I used to. I don’t have time for sprawling epic and there are certain strategy games fulfilling my lust for medieval and characters better. The two basic premises of RPGs aren’t as interesting for me as they used to be. I don’t really care about hero’s journey narrative and I’m little bored with basic mechanics. For example leveling up can be such a chore.

Now my choices are way narrower than they used to be. I still play other games and especially hobbyist and micro RPGs, which might enter my top 5 one day. These are the five genres I purposely follow, build up libraries or knowledge of their game design and talk about on Discord the most.

1. Non-linear platformers

I enjoy myself a good metroidvania. There’s only one thing, which makes a foggy, rainy better. It’s not alcohol. Also, I used term non-linear platformers on purpose. I enjoy sideview platforming and not every metroidvania’s that. There are many different movements and some of them are less fun and there are 3d games, which use Metroid inspired progression. Also, I haven’t played a single Metroid or Castlevania proper. I don’t have any excuse for the travesty. Ok, not being a console guy might give you an explanation of my situation. And with so many likes and clones on steam, I have enough to eat through without touching emulators.

I enjoy the genre’s level design in particular. I think that adding multiple layers and making souls inspired timing based combat or adding too many rpg elements rarely helps. Movement’s still the core. Upgrades/progression is at its best, when focused on obtaining new ways of movement and not stronger weapons. Clever boss fights are always important, but I prefer them to be a puzzle rather than an endurance competition. I have a huge, almost endless list of metroidvanias to play and to base my own one on.

2. Walking simulators

Sometimes I just need to turn off. Games in general are a good resting activity, walking sims and ambient games take it little further. And I usually feel enriched by playing them. I don’t feel like an overgrown child. Walking around studying original aesthetic of their creators. It’s a dialogue, in which I confront and reflect their approach to architecture and aesthetics They are definitely better enjoyed on a big screen with proper audio and smooth performance. They’re quite power hungry as even low poly ones are usually 3d. That’s a problem with my current hardware and software. In general I enjoy low poly and minimalist walking sims the most. They tend to focus more on composition.

Almost walking sims present you with a sense of wonder. You explore unknown and often massive lands. They should let you find your own way, but some of there are more focused and lead. Even if the land’s strange, it’s for the better when it rings a sense of familiar. Going cheap surreal isn’t the way. Landscapes in walking sims can be way weirder than Dali, but they should have their own nature. Walking sims are usually very slow. There’s no activity besides walking, maybe you can pick up an item. Sometimes, you follow a story. It’s hard to define a hard border, where walking sims end and other genres start. Gone Home is about something completely else than pure walking sims, but I still enjoy it for its pacing and ambiance. That brings it very close. Curtain certainly isn’t a walking sim, but the way you move around the apartment and then walk through a corridor to bend time is very much close to timeless scenes of walking sims.

3. Art games - game art

This is a difficult category to define. Art games are usually aiming for more than entertainment. They’re deeper with references to other media or filled with social critique. Having fun sometimes feels bad in them. Game art is even more difficult to define. To put it simply, it’s usually a piece of art using games as its medium. It can have a form of an interactive executable or weird modification of an existing game but the artistic concept is more important than it being a working game. In terms of mechanics, this is a diverse group and vague one, when it comes to game design. Here I can learn from areas more relevant in the real world. They often take on philosophy, ethics, politics, aesthetics and other fields I’m interested in more than in violence and loot.

Some game are clear art games. An easy example is Kentucky Route Zero, which despite it’s artsy nature is clearly defined by its mechanics and sense of progress. The other example from my favourite games would be Little Party. This one’s lighter on mechanics, but it tells a very subtle and civil story and it uses art and creativity more than being a product of it. Proteus would be my personal borderline example. The game’s about complementing and its island are small art pieces. This is actually very close to an ambient video installation and could be considered game art. 

4. Turn based strategy games 

Games my brain enjoys the most. I get satisfaction from solving. Solving concrete situations of strategy games is closer to me than abstract puzzles and logic games in general. Into the Breach is close to the latter in terms of mechanics but I love it, because it’s not cold, it makes me feel and every time I fail and an enemy hits one of the cities, I stop breathing for a moment. It makes me feel heroic to put one of my mechs in front of houses and almost sacrifice its pilot to save those lives.

There’s a huge influence of Heroes of Might and Magic. That game has many flaws, but its pace is perfect. Battles are usually either swift of epic. Heroes were my first love and I still fondly return to them from time to time. They’re not as challenging or complex as most tactics/strategy games, but they’re perfect rewarding fun. I only left them as my default turn based strategy to branch out. Series like Civilization and Warlock are building more consistent worlds. Especially in Civ its super fast turns and ties to the real world’s history make it a captivating game, in which you need to strategize on several fronts at once. Tactics are the second path I currently follow. There are closer to RPGs, but for reason your characters becoming stronger makes more sense here. It’s often because you can lose them and losing a level 10 character hurts more. I enjoy the small scale of tactics games too. The smaller the better. Again it’s a game design challenge of going further without sacrificing complexity.

5. Grand strategy games

I wonder how longer this one sticks. I love engrossing myself in Paradox games, losing track of real for weeks and becoming weirdo obsessed with my own history of the world. But it’s weird and disconnecting and you can’t talk about it with your friends, because explaining it is impossible. You can share some stories with fellow grand strategy players, but it’s not difficult to realize the weird nerdness of the company.

So, what’s so good about them? They simulate politics on a world-wide level with an amount of realism, which just feels right. You can change history, but only within borders set up by Paradox. For example you can conquer France as an Aztec, but it stays France. Shapes are the same, systems too. This shade of reality makes fiction in Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis, Victoria and other games much more easy to engage with. That’s also why I find Stellaris boring. Leaving reality, there’s nothing to compare your fiction with. It renders my choices irrelevant and different developments have same impact on me. Multiplayer probably changes this.

Civilization is far less complex than grand strategy games. It’s simple and easy to explain and to change. Yet it keeps certain connection to the real world and it has great modding scene. There isn’t an infinite number of expansions for it, which would make it bloated with features. And one run lasts a lot less. Civ isn’t a simulation, it’s still a very long puzzle. One day, I will only stick with one of the two. Now It looks better for Sid Mayer than Paradox.

Pictures are from following games: Caged Bird Dont Fly Caught in a Wire Sing Like a Good Canary Come When Called, Gunmetal Arcadia, Mura Toka (1 and 2), Morphblade, Victoria 2

[temporalduality-blog]

VIDEO GAMES: Sonic Riders

SUUPERRR SAAAWNIIKKKKK SPPPPEEEIIIIIIIIIIIIIDDDDD!!!!!!

I don’t know about you guys, but it seems to me that whenever I hear someone talking about a Sonic racing game, they always refer to it as “SEGA’s version of Mario Kart”.

Okay, so maybe the more recent games HAVE been blatant knock-offs...

I mean, Mario Kart is a tremendously popular kart racer that has spawned dozens of clones, so who wouldn’t see Sonic racing games in that light?

The fact is that Mario Kart took the racing genre and flipped it on its head, basically defining the current state of the “casually unrealistic yet fiercely competitive” racing game. Items, for example, have appeared in just about every non-arcade/non-sim racing title since Super Mario Kart first hit SNES back in the early 90s.

But that’s not really what we’re talking about here.

Before I start sounding like a triggered fanboy...

Sonic Riders, released in 2006 for GameCube, PS2, Xbox, and PC, is quite different than your typical Mario Kart: Bootleg Edition. Capitalizing on the “extreme” lifestyle being pushed onto Sonic in recent games, Sonic Riders places Sonic and friends (including a few sub-series newcomers) onto Air Boards, which the game labels as Extreme Gear. There is a story behind the game, and it’s your standard Eggman’s-evil-plot-revolves-around-whatever-the-game-is-about. We’ve seen him create a Pinball Defense System before for Sonic Spinball, and, heck, this isn’t even the series’ first Eggman-hosted “World Grand Prix” (Sonic R gets that honor), so we’re used to this garbage by now. Regardless, the characters take things seriously and fall into his obvious traps. In the plot’s defense, one of the best parts of the Sonic series is watching Sonic accept any challenge thrown his way with full confidence, and then easily coming out with the victory, seeing through traps laid out for him as if he were Bugs Bunny (see the animated Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog TV series). So at least there’s some classic Sonic fun to it.

Also, I have to say that there are few games in which I enjoy the game-engine-rendered cutscenes more than the pre-rendered CGI cutscenes, and this is one of them. It doesn’t help that the CGI animation is just weird looking (especially when Shadow, released just a few months before, had first-rate animation), but what really helps is that the character models and animation in the real-time cutscenes are some of the best the series has ever seen. Characters are very expressive, making them enjoyable at times. It’s too bad that the voice acting and dialogue is so terrible. I mean, Jet the Hawk’s voice literally makes my ears want to bleed. Have a listen:

The other two newcomers, Storm and Wave, actually sound decent. Wow!

Plot and story nonsense out the way, let’s get to the actual game, which for the most part involves pretty standard fare: three lap races, multiple Sonic characters to choose from, tons of gear that can be purchased (some that even mod the game a little!), and, unfortunately, as seems to be the trend in Sonic-based racing games, only a handful of tracks and play modes, although the variety is FAR better than Sonic R’s!

In terms of control and gameplay mechanics, the game itself is actually fairly complex and takes a lot of time to master. Players advance automatically, and every single action they perform requires air, whether that be basic acceleration, boosting, power-sliding, etc. Boards can only hold air in limited supply, so a core part of the game is moderating your air usage so that you can maintain good speed, never letting the board run out of air, in which case the player will begin running on-foot. Throughout the race, players can pick up items, use gimmicks, or successfully perform tricks off of ramps to not refill their air gauge, but also gain speed, and if players get desperate, they can make a pit stop at one of the many refueling locations scattered around any given race course to refill their air tank. Players can also collect rings scattered around the course to upgrade their boards mid-race, refilling the air supply, allowing players to take in more air, and increasing players’ speeds. It’s just another thing for players to do during a race, keeping things action-packed and busy.

There’s far more to this game than I mentioned above. When introdcuing the game to new players, I reccommend going to the game’s “Extras” menu and showing them this video. They’re going to need it...

Adding to the variety of the game is the fact is each character has one of three “types”: Speed, Fly, or Power, like in Sonic Heroes. Character type determines special moves available to you as a player: Speed characters can grind, Fly characters can fly through boost rings, and Power characters can smash obstacles. Each type gets access to unique shortcuts, and performing their special action replenishes some of their air supply, so it’s important to take advantage of those gimmicks when you can. 

The part of the game that’s going to keep players busy the most is probably just learning how to master everything. Finding hidden routes and items in races, perfecting missions, getting perfect scores in the Grand Prix mode, and playing as characters of different types to try all of the game’s various shortcuts. The Story Mode is essentially nothing more than an introduction to the game, while the Mission Mode is a great way to hone your skills and learn how to actually perform tricks properly, which is probably the most difficult part of the game, since it involves numerous factors like your speed when approaching the ramp, how much you’ve charged your jump, when on the ramp you release the jump, and even the direction of the joystick determines whether you go further or jump higher: it’s really complex and part of the fun of mastering the game, although, since every ramp seems to be a little different in terms of what speed you need, what direction you need to press, and where to let go of the jump button to get an X-Ranking and land on the higher part of the course, it can take a lot of time and be really frustrating when you have no idea what you’re doing wrong. Make no mistake, the game is pretty picky about things and isn’t simple.

Smaller screens = more fun, right?

Unfortunately, this is also the game’s biggest problem. As unique and fresh as it is, not everybody will be willing to give the game’s steep learning curve a solid chance, meaning that most of your time playing this game will be spent in single-player. The game is fun, so definitely pick it up (I tested it on GameCube, but I haven’t heard of significant problems with the other versions of the game), and if you do, try to get your friends into it, because that will add a lot of replay value to the game. Just don’t be disappointed when your friends say they’d rather play something else.

If you want to compare it Mario Kart, here are the facts: Mario Kart is a simpler game, and it’s easier to hook people into it. This game, however, has far more variety than Mario Kart, keeping players busier and more engaged, even though it sacrifices simplicity to achieve that.

And yes, the game has battle modes, but I’ve never touched them due to nobody wanting to play the game with me. I should try introducing the game to more people...

Overall, I give the game 4 out of 5 stars. It’s fun! If you have a GameCube, PS2, Xbox, or PC and are looking for a fresh, yet challenging experience, give this one a try.

[noahcopeland-blog]

I have feelings for a game no one cares about: Legend of Kay Anniversary

I just finished playing The Legend of Kay: Anniversary. 

So basically, this was a game from 2005 that I would have played that crap out of as a kid, expect it was PS2 only (I was a Gamecube kid).

So about a year ago, they remastered it and released it on Wii U. Saw it at GameStop, got serious Ty the Tasmanian Tiger vibes from the box art, and bought it instantly. I had literally no knowledge of this game before then. Never even heard of it, and I don’t think most people have either. But I’m happy to say that I have enjoyed it!

So here comes the part where I needlessly analyze this game that only 6 people have played. 

TONE/WRITING:

The game is about a cat named Kay whose land gets invaded by these nasty rats and gorillas who plan to enslave everyone. Kay, of course, takes it upon himself to stop it. The whole game takes place in a very Asian inspired world of martial arts and Buddhist temples.

But one thing that is striking is that this game is completely tone-deaf with it’s narrative direction. I get the vibe that they are three different departments with three different interpretations of what the story should feel like.

Voice Director/Casting Director: “This is for little kids, so that’s get an 8-year-old to voice our lead hero, and make all the other voices really goofy and cartoony!”

Script Writer: “Let’s go super edgey with this and make our characters swear and make brutal threats of murder and decapitation! Also, add in alcohol.” 

Game Director/Story Director: “Let’s go for a good, balanced tone. One that’s kid friendly, but not goofy and soft. Think 4Kids Ninja Turtles maybe.”

Really though, it seems like no one was one the same page here. You get the feeling that the game wanted to be right-in-the-center tonally, but the voice acting got pulled in the extreme kiddy direction and the dialogue got pulled in the opposite direction.

Seriously, the titular hero, Kay, is voiced but what sounds like a very young child and it’s kinda embarrassing. Then, out of a nowhere, Kay starts swearing (in a very cringey edge-lord way, too) and it’s couldn’t feel more juxtaposed. 

Who thought this was a good idea? Were these guys just riding off the Jak II hype wave? “Jak II was a platformer with swearing and it was successful!”

Maybe Jak II’s darker, humanoid world found a way to get away with it, but the world of Legend Of Kay, with its fuzzy fur-ball characters, just can’t pull it off.

GAMEPLAY

This game really feels straight out of 2005. Definitely from a bygone era. And you know what? It’s an era that I miss. Legend of Kay has what I would expect, and want. It’s a third-person mascot platformer with action and adventure elements. Platforming, powerups, puzzles, combat, combos, exploration, hidden goodies, and a bunch of other things that were standard tropes of the genre in the 2000′s before 3D platformers faded into unjust obscurity (only to be replaced by a tiring barrage of first-person shooters).

The final boss feels exactly the way a final boss should. It’s big, epic, and you feel the that whole game is leading up to it. It’s great sense of excitement when you’re fighting the last boss, and great sense of accomplishment when you beat it. Not saying that modern games don’t do this ever, but it seemed so much more like an unspoken rule back then. It was expected and you were disappointed if it wasn’t there. Over time, I feel like developers tried doing different things for their final boss, perhaps solely for the sake of “avoiding cliches.” 

Let’s talk about combat. I think you can judge a game’s combat system on a “pre-Arkham” and “post-Arkham” scale. This game, of course, is pre-Arkham, and the combat system is pretty unique. 

Basically, if you get some combos going, you enter a new state of combat, where you zip around freely from one foe to the next, simply to how Arkham would do it four years later (and get ridiculous amounts of praise for it). It’s hard to put into words, but there’s definitely an “aha!” moment when you get a feel for the combat. There’s certain flow to it that is almost zen. 

While the combat does get repetitive and is unfair at times, it’s still a neat system that I’d like to see another game try to perfect.

You start with a sword, but you get two other weapons throughout the game: a big fat hammer and a set of Wolverine-esque claws. You be able to upgrade these weapons too, making them stronger which is a nice sense of progression. However, the claws are pretty useless, despite looking really cool. Immediately after you get them, you’ll use them to cut some bamboo and then will likely never see them again. They suck in battle and are less powerful than your standard sword. Why?

Moving on, there are definitely some weird gameplay moments of clunkyness that would have been unacceptable even at the time. For example: If you pull yourself up from a ledge grab on a moving platform, the platform will just move on without you and you’ll “pull” yourself up onto nothing and just fall through thin air. 

There’s also these weird colored diamonds that you can collect to increase your score. But to my knowledge, your score does absolutely nothing. You get no bonus for having a high score. It is literally just a number. Why?

As mentioned earlier, the voice acting is just terrible, and it really hurts how long winded some of the characters can be. At times, they talk just to talk. They don’t say anything of real value. Almost every time you run into enemies, the game stops to give you a “cutscene.” And by “cutscene,” I mean you sit and watch the enemies stand still in a defensive stance while they say five or six lines about how they want to hurt/beat/kill you. 

But in an odd way, part of me likes that. It gets too long and repetitive because it happens nearly every fight, but I like the attempt to make your enemies feel like characters with personalities. 

Speaking of making enemies feel more real, Legend of Kay has an interesting obsession with perma-death. Seriously, if you kill an enemy, his corpse will lay there infinitely. You can leave an area, turn off the game, load back up the save, go back to the area, and his body will still be lying right where you killed it. It’s feels more grim that way. In other platformers of the time, you’d kill an enemy and their body would fade out or disappear in smoke. But in Legend of Kay, the perma-death makes you start to feel the weight of your actions. You can’t just kill something and sweep the body away to instantly forget about. Nope, that body will always be there. Dang, that is some heavy stuff for a 2005 platformer.

One last thing. Legend of Kay does something that I hate in video games.  After you beat the game, loading your save file puts you right before the final boss forever. I hate that. I’ve always appreciated it when game will load you back to the hub-world and let you see the world in peace. At the very least, give me a level select list and let me replay levels I didn’t 100%. That brings me to my next point of discussion.

REMASTER:

I get the vibe that this 2015 remaster version had almost zero budget. Seriously, look at the back cover of the box. It looks like it was made in Photoshop in 10 mins. I’m not exaggerating. 

It’s doesn’t look terrible, it just looks like it cost almost nothing to make. This is not the work of a graphic designer. This is one of the programmers making it the day before the game ships.

Look at the text! It’s a plain as it gets.

Compare it to the original 2005 box art.

I didn’t play the original, but I get the vibe that almost no changes were made to the gameplay. Certainly not any big ones. Aside from some up-res’d textures, this the original 2005 Legend of Kay, warts and all. There were a lot of little things here and there that would go a long way into improving the game. Simple things that I’d imagine would be easy fixes. But this ain’t Majora’s Mask on 3DS. This is a graphical fix only.

OVERALL

Overall, I really enjoyed my time with Legend of Kay: Anniversary. It’s not going to happen, but I would love to see a new Ledgend of Kay game in 2017 or sometime in the future. This is a relatively forgotten franchise that I think could use new life. In fact, you could use it’s obscurity to your advantage. The world and characters are already built, but there are hardly any preconceived notions to worry about. 

As much as I hate this word, this experience was “nostalgic” for me in a special way. It’s a game I didn’t play as a kid, but feels 100% like a game I would have played as kid. It was great to take a trip back to 2000′s era gaming without re-playing through a game that I’ve already seen a hundred times. It’s a new experience from an old era. And boy, I do miss that era.

You’re alright, Legend of Kay. You’re alright. 

(Now bring on Yooka-Laylee)

[canttalktumbling]

New Post has been published on Can't Talk

New Post has been published on http://www.cant-talk.com/2017/01/death-sprues-dead-winter/

Death to Sprues: Dead of Winter

We are so thrilled to welcome back guest writer Anton and his board game review series Death to Sprues! Hooray!

It has come to the point when a zombie theme in a product is actually a negative. Zombies have become an ironic trope of self-reflection on consumer culture, yet the banal writing and theme keep on shambling. All that being said, I really think the Dead of Winter board games by Plaid Hat Games are worth your time.

The first game in the series is titled Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game. Plaid Hat apparently intends to have more Crossroads games in the future with varying themes and perhaps game types. At this point the only other Crossroads game is Dead of Winter: The Long Night. The Long Night is a standalone expansion, meaning it can be combined with the original game to give it more content but everything needed to play is included if you don’t have the first game on hand. I’ll compare the two games later, but know that the core mechanics are identical.

Players take on the roles of survivor bands, usually controlling one to four unique people throughout the course of the game. At the start of the game you set the colony’s mission (some kind of game-long objective you’re all working towards). This usually involves pooling resources of one kind or another a small scenario such as how many rounds you have to complete it, and how the morale of the camp is at the outset. You will use your small cadre to cooperatively collect supplies, construct fortifications, keep the colony clean, and of course, kill zombies. Each playable survivor has a few simple statistics, but the focus is on one unique ability that they do much better than anyone else. Some survivors can move around easily, some are good at killing zombies without risk, and others are good at searching for loot, or helping others achieve their tasks faster. The survivors are easy to keep track of, and having to control more than one does not lead to keeping track of oodles of numbers and traits.

The gameplay area is dominated by the survivor colony and six main locations in the surrounding town. These areas represent resource hubs such as the school, the hospital, the police station, etc. Each location offers varying amounts of game resources, but logically tends to contain more of thematically linked items. The grocery store, for example, is a pretty good place to get food for the colony or yourself, whereas the police station has guns, the gas station has fuel, and so on. Each location has four to five resource types, but tends to offer one more abundantly than any other location. Players will likely spend the majority of the game sifting through the item decks for much needed supplies.

The game plays out in rounds, starting with introducing a crisis demanding the colony’s immediate attention. This can be something like a cold snap requiring extra fuel to keep the colony warm or medicine to cure food poisoning. The result is some kind of resource demand and the potential for all players to contribute. Helping the crisis requires players to submit their contribution by playing resource cards face down so no one else can see what’s going into the pile. Playing the appropriate resource helps the cause, while playing unrelated or junk cards into this pile can disastrously sabotage the effort as each unrelated card is a -1 to the total, negating a helpful card in the process. This means players often have to help, say they can’t help and hope their mitt full of cards isn’t suspicious, or maybe wrecking the team effort is what they want?

On top of the colony’s mission, each player is dealt their own secret objective. This is a win condition that is unique to the player, and is in addition to the successful completion of the mission. This means you want to help the colony, but you’ve got your own agenda to fulfill as well and you can’t tell anyone else what it is! Usually the secret objectives are to have a small supply of a resource hoarded to yourself, or it might be to have every survivor you control armed with a weapon. The variety here is quite broad, so the replay value is great. It also leads to some seriously tough decisions for players. Should you help the current crisis by delving into your personal cache of fuel that you need to win? Is it acceptable to fail the crisis this round and suffer the penalty, knowing you might not be able to replace the fuel if you contribute? The secret objectives inject a bit of suspicion and quirky behavior into the game—and then you have betrayers.

The betrayer is the player who was dealt a specific secret objective that labels them as a hidden villain. Their win condition always involves having the colony fail its mission, while they fulfill some hidden requirements of their own. Like regular secret objectives, betrayers usually have to hoard a resource, but often at a larger scale since they likely don’t have to care about some of the crises failing. The main challenge of a betrayer is staying hidden. Everyone has their own secret objective, and may be prone to questionable choices that hamper team efforts, but you’ve got to avoid being labeled as outright sabotaging the team. If you’re too obvious and flippant with your subterfuge, you’ll likely be exiled from the colony and forced to scavenge for supplies without any helpful teammates. There are a few really nasty tricks players can do to each other that I’ll leave you to discover on your own but, needless to say, once you don’t care about another player’s survival you can really throw them to the wolves.

Just moving around the town proves to be one of the more dangerous actions in the game, as it introduces one of the game’s main components: the exposure die. This die represents the risk of coming in contact with zombies, and is absolutely merciless. The best outcome from this die is for “nothing” to happen; otherwise, you find yourself getting wounded, catching frostbite, or straight-up dying instantly. Getting the fatal “bite” result on the die sets off a cascade of tension. If a survivor is bitten, they put every other survivor in their location at risk. The next survivor in their location must then make a choice: kill themselves to prevent further infection, or take their own chance with the exposure die. When rolling the die to resolve infection spreading, any result other than a blank side is instant death and passes the torch on to yet another survivor at the same location.

Fighting zombies also causes players to roll the exposure die to see if the alternatively dead person caused any return harm when attacked. The ghouls are naturally attracted to where humans are but are also drawn by the noises generated when you thoroughly search the resource deck at a town location. You can take the top card when searching or noisily sift through additional cards at the price of possibly attracting hostile attention.

The last important mechanic of Dead of Winter is the Crossroads deck. This is a pile of narrative cards drawn on every player’s turn. Each Crossroads card has a trigger condition such as, “If the player searches at the School this turn” that then leads to a scenario playing out, and a decision for the players to make. Most of the Crossroads cards are bad, and you’re forced to choose the lesser of two evils, but some yield positive results depending on how you look at them. The active player is never privy to the triggering conditions for their Crossroads card, so tension is often the result. Some cards are very easy to trigger, while others call upon very specific circumstances yet are thematically linked to specific survivors and often provide an interesting flavor. If the card is not triggered, it’s simply discarded and the next turn progresses.

Dead of Winter, if nothing else, provides players with a variety of decisions that are meaningful. The game is all about resource management, and worker placement. With the limited actions I could take each turn, I never felt like any turn was a ”dead turn” with nothing to play, or minute choices that didn’t matter. Dead of Winter seems to revel in giving players enough freedom to do a multitude of actions, yet not enough time to do them all. You often find yourself with two to three things that need immediate attention, and you’re only able to do half of one. That’s where the teamwork and smart movement of your survivors comes in. Dead of Winter is a tense and challenging experience but is enjoyable the whole way through.

One of the best strengths of the Dead of Winter games is how modular they are. When your play group decides on the mission your colony will go after, it gives you an approximate game length of short/medium/long allowing you to tailor your time commitment. If having a betrayer in the colony doesn’t suit you, just don’t play with those objectives shuffled into the deck. You can even remove the secret objectives entirely and play a purely cooperative game where everyone is working towards the mission undistracted.

The Long Night expansion adds even more modular options to extend gameplay variety. You can add in the Raxxon pharmaceuticals lab where scientific experiments have gone awry and spawned super zombies. The Raxxon lab also offers some really powerful weapons to those who rummage through its resource deck, and you could even find mysterious pills that offer powerful bonuses or crippling detriments. You can also add in bandits coming from a competing colony. The bandits will attack just like zombies, but also steal resources from the town and hoard them in their own depot. Will you wage war on the bandits and steal resources back, or will you be exiled and become their leader?

The versatility of Dead of Winter really has to be applauded, and that’s why I mentioned the theme at the outset. If you aren’t a fan of zombies, Dead of Winter may still interest you for its smart narrative elements that come from secret objectives and Crossroads cards. If you are a huge zombie fan, Dead of Winter can really spark your imagination with its risk-reward dynamic of racing against the game rounds as zombies pile up against the colony doors and need to be culled here and there.

The best part about Dead of Winter is that the survivors and their struggle is what the game is all about; the zombies are in the background. This makes for a game where the survival and teamwork is center stage, and the necro-challenged are a MacGuffin. The alt-blight movement could just as easily be a sandstorm, rising flood waters, or a pack of rampaging space ibex. They simply fill the role of a hostile environment that the humans must work around.

I highly recommend either Dead of Winter or The Long Night standalone expansion. If you have both, you can really expand the experience. The Long Night adds resource cards that are a little more versatile than the original game, you’ll often have cards that can do two or more actions instead of acting as a single resource. The supply decks of each location are locked at 20 cards though. Do you want to replace them, mix them and get 20 random cards from the pool of 40 for each location knowing you might get the junk from both halves? The Long Night also has tighter thematic elements. As you add or subtract modules to the game, there are Crossroads cards and even specific survivors that come into play at the same time. A couple of Crossroads cards are only in play if the bandits are, for example, and one survivor’s unique power is tied to the Raxxon lab. The Long Night also replaces some components in the original game with more sturdy cardboard pieces.

Between the two games, I’d favor The Long Night. It has better components, and more modules to add to the game on top of the basic experience. The resources in The Long Night tend to serve multiple purposes, and the survivor powers are a bit more unique. The smaller Crossroads deck in The Long Night is also a bit more heavy on theme, and there is even a small 9 card envelope of particularly horrific Crossroads cards that Plaid Hat warns will explore the darker side of humanity in crisis. The thicker Crossroads deck from the original game is a good selling point, but the fact that it costs as much as the whole game to get it makes it an inefficient purchase if you get The Long Night first. Both are excellent games, just be aware that the expansion makes going back to the original a bit thin on a few fronts.

[suzannemcappsca]

Of Superheroes, Mere Mortals and Saving the World (with and by Josiah Lau)

Joel Lee

National University of Singapore, Faculty of Law

I have a confession to make. I generally do my best to be positive and optimistic. In part because it’s good for my physical and mental health but also because I know that my outlook affects the people around me; my family, my friends and my students. But it is not always easy. Some days, I don’t feel like being positive. Sometimes, it feels like the world around you is so overwhelming in its negativity that one’s small drop of positiveness in that ocean of negativity is insignificant. Sometimes, it feels like that world is taking your positive energy but giving nothing back, leaving one’s soul empty and in despair. And the end of 2016 felt like one of those times.

And from time to time, something happens or something you read restores and recharges you. John Sturrock’s entry for this month is an example of this (and if you haven’t read it, what are you waiting for?). I want to devote this month’s entry to another piece I recently read which too was restorative. This was published on Facebook and written by a former student of mine, Josiah Lau, who took a conflict resolution workshop with me at the Faculty of Law.

In his piece, his thoughts resonated with the sentiments I had expressed in my entry for December 2016 “Peacing Things Together“. I considered using this month’s entry to comment on his piece but it quickly became clear that there was no way I could improve upon his message. Further, not everyone would be able to access his note on Facebook to read. So, I decided to reproduce his note (with his permission) in its entirety in the hope that readers would be similarly inspired.

I give you Josiah Lau’s “Of Superheroes, Mere Mortals and Saving the World”

Ever wondered why superpowers in popular media are almost always simple and somewhat “one-dimensional”?

Super strength. STRONK. LAIK RASHAN BEAR. Super speed. Wheeeeeeeeeeee Flight. Wheeeeeeeeeeee Time manipulation. FF. FR. STOP. PLAY. REPLAY Precognition. 4sightFTW. Mind-reading/control. (*insert Yuri voiceover*) Your thoughts… are mine. Regeneration. “Death is my bitch.” Fire manipulation. WE DIDN’T START THE FIRE Ice manipulation. Let it go, let it go…

Ever wondered why we don’t see superheroes with the following superpowers?

1. Emotional management/mastery 2. Conflict resolution 3. Analysis, problem-solving 4. Listening & empathy 5. Balance & decision-making

WAIT WHAT!? THESE POWERS ARE TOO COMPLICATED.

Who in the world would pay money to watch a movie about people peaceably resolving conflicts to the mutual satisfaction of hostile parties? (I wager the only reason people watch 12 Angry Men today is because they’re MADE to, usually in school curriculum).

Everybody wants drama, action, cool CGI. (“The Incredible Hulk”, for example, was a smashing movie.)

Super strength sells. Conscious exercise of intelligence, keen observation, analytical skills and critical thinking doesn’t. (Unless it’s Benedict Cumberbatch, apparently.) Keeping your cool and responding patiently to emotional outbursts, injustice, abuse, or unreasonable demands doesn’t sell. Ice manipulation does.

Maybe we think of superpowers the way we do because such abilities are considered impossible or beyond human limits. Or perhaps, because such abilities are desired in order to solve problems in life. Super strength, super speed, time manipulation.

Think about it for a moment, then. Aren’t the “perfect iterations” of emotional mastery, conflict resolution, critical thinking etc equally unattainable? None of us can claim to be complete masters of ourselves. Nobody can claim to be the perfect peacemaker. And yet, compared to adamantium-lined skeletons and amplified regeneration, these powers (that we so admire in great leaders, thinkers and influencers) are far more attainable for us mere mortals.

We would rather deify impossible/unattainable abilities than abilities attainable only through great effort.

Here’s an excerpt of an interview with Emotionalmasterman: “Oh you have a superpower? What’s your superpower?” “I’m very good at managing my emotions.” “That’s not a very useful superpower, is it?” “Well, I’m at peace within myself, I don’t inflict my emotional problems upon others, people are always comfortable around me and come to me with problems which I try to help them work through.” “Isn’t that very complicated and hard to do? Most can only dream of it.” “Well, it’s my superpower. I was born with it. It just comes naturally to me.” “I don’t suppose you could write a self-help book about it, could you?” “I can’t. You can’t ask Superman to write a book teaching people how to fly, right?”

Years ago, I made a survey for fun, asking friends what superpower they thought I would choose if I was able to pick one. The most common (and expected) answers were super speed and time manipulation.

One, however, was mind-reading/telepathy, which struck me as a rather strange answer. Moreover, it came from a good friend, who provided this quote with it:

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” ― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

It was only after many years and through many personal struggles that I began to understand the significance of the quote.

Today, I wish for only two superpowers.

1. Empathy

No, not just being able to put oneself in another’s shoes and feel what they feel. (In any case, one can never fully do that.) I also don’t want to simply read someone’s mind. I do, however, want the ability to be able to sense that things aren’t what they seem or what the person says they are. I want the ability to know if I should ask questions or talk, and if so, what is the most beneficial thing to ask or say at any point in time. I want the ability to be able to engage wisely yet warmly. I want to understand them and their circumstances better, that my ‘empathy’ may be closer to complete, closer to actually putting myself in their shoes, seeing more of what they see and feeling more of what they feel. I want to be approachable so people are comfortable with opening up to me. I want the ability to talk to people on both sides of a conflict and understand their concerns, their interests and motivations, their inner struggles and hurt, and yet not let that colour my perceptions against the other side.

2. Decision-making

I’ve preached the importance of context for a long time. I strongly believe there are differing actions appropriate to different circumstances. Empathy and understanding is the start but decision and action must be built on this foundation. Give me the ability to make wise decisions. Whether to intervene, and whether to do it now, or later; whether, knowing certain things, to choose action A or B; whether, feeling someone’s pain, to give time to let the pain pass or to support the person in moving beyond it. To be creative about solutions and resolutions, to see past false dichotomies and closed options. To take in the full range of contextual factors and yet not be overwhelmed; to be disciplined and thorough in thinking matters through, to weigh options; to dare to decide and act even if the decision is painful and the course of action intimidating.

The superhero narrative almost invariably comes with the attempt to ‘save the world’. In the vast majority of stories, heroes find that they are constrained by limitations both external and internal, no matter how extraordinary or legion their superpowers (hello Peter Petrelli). No, superheroes aren’t perfect. They’re just like the rest of us. They have emotions like we do, and are just as susceptible to temptations and errors of judgment (except maybe Dr. Manhattan, who nevertheless has his own problems). The narrative usually follows how the hero deals with or surmounts these challenges.

We just love superhero stories. I’m no stranger to them.

And yet, I cannot but think that among the greatest of superheroes was one Guido Orefice, whose superpower was an impregnable cheerfulness and resoluteness in a concentration camp, who hid and kept his son alive – achieving his glorious victory (posthumously) when his son ecstatically found himself face to face with a tank – his promised reward. How about five kids, all superheroes: a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal, who awakened their superpowers together one day in detention and transcended their community-given identities?

Superheroes… they walk among us, invisible, unbeknownst to most. The young child who treks ten miles of dirt road to school every day and back. The single mom who moonlights to make ends meet, for her children’s sake. The man suffering from depression who wears a funny face every day to make others laugh. The lady juggling her taxing work and taking care of her parents and yet excelling at both. The teenager who forces herself out of bed in the morning despite anxiety, menstrual cramps and harassment, because things need doing. The father who puts on a suit every morning to take his daughter to school (even though he later does all sorts of manual labour) to preserve her self-value and dignity. This list has no end.

No superhero has “saved the world”. But they made (or tried to make) a difference wherever they are – nation, city, family, self – and that’s all it takes.

What superpower(s) do you wield? How can you wield it/them better? How can you gain or exercise more superpowers? Forget saving ‘the world’. What/whose world have you saved today?

More from our authors:

Essays on Mediation: Dealing with Disputes in the 21st Century by Ian Macduff (ed.) € 160

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