#but the story is great and the gameplay loop is just *off*

[fandom-geek]

is it just me or are the seasonal activities for revenant weirdly quiet??? i haven't had any dialogue for the major fieldwork outside of the first one, which is weird given the 160 second timer, and the most i get for onslaught is a single line of completion dialogue after the loot chest is opened

i know we've apparently got another one or two seasonal activities upcoming but it makes revenant feel so... barren. like seriously, this is a major event with fikrul turning living eliksni in scorn, and you're telling me that crow, mithrax, eramis, and eido have nothing to say to each other abt it outside of what they've said in the missions for act 1? add in the lack of eavesdropping radio conversations, and it just feels bizarre.

[cephalofrog]

been playing rain world and thinking about saint again recently

full rain world spoilers below

I hate the "saint is the triple affirmative" interpretation. hate even more how it appears to have become the accepted truth in the fandom

first off, my dislike for this interpretation is not logical. it isn't something I can be convinced out of using canon evidence, because my reason for not interpreting the story this way is not evidence-based, it's because I don't find it to be a satisfying conclusion to the entire story of rain world.

but here's some rambling about logical reasons why it doesn't make sense anyway

if saint was created as the triple affirmative by sliver, that makes them extremely old - they came into existence LONG before spearmaster's campaign even started. if they came into existence with the purpose of ascending iterators, they sure took a long time to ascend any iterators - like okay, travel time and whatever, but you'd think they'd get at least one or two more before all the iterator comms break down entirely post-spearmaster. SM and hunter managed to get from SRS and NSH to the pebbs/moon area pretty quickly.

they also have fur, which seems to be an adaptation for the cold judging by the lizards in the campaign, despite the world not being cold at the point at which they were created. this could be easily explained by sliver just being very forward-thinking, but...

if sliver created saint, their entire triple affirmative thing comes across as incredibly thoughtless, which imo contrasts with sliver being forward-thinking enough to make saint immune to cold. like they finally created the magical rat that will ascend them all but didn't even think to send out a message beforehand like "hey guys I'm trying something new if I send out the triple affirmative and die right after this it worked and you should be visited by a flying green dude with an ascension beam at some point in the future"

there's also the thing of... wait so how does this whole iterator ascension work again? cause saint's timeline loops. after they ascend, they end up back in sky islands, with the iterators back where they were. this could be explained by "later playthrough loops aren't canon and pebbs and moon are ascended if you got em" but there's literally a specific gameplay mechanic - carrying stuff in your stomach between campaigns - meant to make it clear that the campaign is a loop.

anyway. the real reason I hate the theory isn't related to any of this - it's that it absolutely destroys pebbles and moon's story, thematically speaking.

sliver of straw's triple affirmative/death is a random event that could mean basically anything. the futility pebbles felt around trying to solve the great problem caused him to assign meaning to sliver's death that wasn't necessarily there - they found the solution, and it was self-destruction. that's what they were trying to tell everyone. it wasn't a random event, the triple affirmative was real. one of the bugs in the maze found the way out, and he's going to prove it to everyone by following them and escaping.

and that's what leads to the events of the main story. this random event - this horrible tragedy, the death of someone who seemed to mean so much to so many people - was assigned meaning by someone desperate to prove that his entire existence, and the existences of everyone around him, are not futile. the ancients created the iterators without knowing whether the answer to the great problem could ever be found, and this is the result of that.

a nihilistic, hopeless person, abandoned by his creators to work forever on an unsolvable problem, assigns meaning to a random tragedy, and tunnel visions on what he has to believe is what he's been looking for - because it is an unimaginable understatement to say that the alternative would be worse than death. and then, in his self-destructive desperation, he kills his sibling* and dooms himself to the slowest, most painful death imaginable. this is the legacy of the ancients' dead society, the result of all of their stupid ideals and obsession with karmic perfection. (*as far as he knows)

but saint being the triple affirmative undermines all of that. not only does it make sliver's death less of a tragedy and more of a noble sacrifice - like yeah, sure, they were loved, but solving the great problem was far more important - but it also makes pebbles look less desperate and more just kinda stupid. like you thought that the solution was self-destruction? nah, it's a magical flying rat. in this version of the story, pebbles wasn't striving for something that didn't exist, he was just not smart enough to figure out the real solution.

even outside of canon evidence, that sucks. it causes pebbles' story to go from being about how you should value the people around you over the impossible striving that life always seems to expect from you or you're gonna end up hurting them and yourself to how you should just be smarter to find the right solution to all of your problems.

anyway as for my own interpretation of saint, I think that the campaign is just a representation of what it's like to be an echo. reliving the moments that led up to your failed ascension over and over, reaching maximum karma and gaining superpowers because you're just that karmically pure - you are a saint, after all - and then letting your ego consume you at the crucial moment of ascension, over and over again, cycling into infinity. (I don't think they actually had superpowers prior to ascending, I just think that they kinda thought of themselves so highly that they thought they should have those powers.) then contrast this with the world as the age of the iterators and the rain finally ends, and you have an unchanging echo reliving the same few cycles over and over contrasted with a world that is, at last, changing and moving on.

yeah it doesn't make sense with the joint iterator dialogue in rubicon (at least, the final line doesn't make sense). I don't care. it's what makes me happy as an interpretation. you can pry my morally dubious hypocritical ego-driven saint from my cold dead hands

[alexissara]

What A Year For Games! Top 10 Games of 2023 For Little Lesbians Like me!

I am on and off again with video games often switching between years where I am really into games and years where I am snoozing but I started to dedicate myself to finding and sharing more sapphic art so people can stop saying it doesn't exist lead me to playing tons more games and wow I played so many fucking amazing games this year it was an extremally hard year to pick a top 10 games. Now these aren't a top 10 sapphic games, it's just the best 10 games of the year, on an objective scale because I am the goddess of this world and there for right. Not all of these games will have come out in 2023, it's games I played in 2023 why limit ones self?

These games are roughly in order by how confident I am to put them on this list but each of these games did something different than me so I wouldn't say that a game is "better" rather than what I got out of it at the end of playing felt biggest.

Stray Gods

It's a musical, it's a video game, it's Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical. This game is a really fun little Greek myth story telling experience with an neat interoperation of myth and the characters to provide a fun experience to people with or without attachment to the stories. The dynamic music changing to your choices is a really cool concept although I wish more of the songs were a bop. I also wish the game explored the idea of polyamory like the Greek gods were not monogamous and I see no reason I can't kiss Freddie and Persephone in the same playthrough. What is there though is still compelling, fun, and engaging with a great set of characters across the board romanceable and not.

Pokémon Emerald Rouge

Pokabbie's amazing Pokemon Rom Hack that shows the utterly wild shit possible for Pokemon experiences we could get. It's amazingly fun to do runs of Pokemon where you catch new pokemon, fight trainers and get to then recatch that species to use in later runs. It's a really great gameplay loop that really just uses what's fun about pokemon and allows for a lot of different run customization which leads to the loop not getting stale and makes it easier to find particular pokemon you want. This was my favorite Pokémon experience this year.

Street Fighter 6

Street Fighter 6 has some of the worst monetization to date in fighting games. However, despite that it provided a lot of fun to me this year playing the base game's amazing World Tour mode and in enjoying the greatly designed new characters who I hope become Street Fighter staples. All while making my favorite SF character Juri even better with new interactions, a little bit of progress to her story and more. I hope that World Tour mode encourages a lot of other fighting game devs to step up the single player experiences in Fighting games and I also hope [as seems to be the industry trend] that "modern" controls take over. It was so nice to be able to do all the special moves consistently and more easily feel like I was in control of the game rather than feeling light I was fighting my hands to move out an input.

Drums Of War

I sure do wish a Fire Emblem game came out in 2023, it's been so long since Three Houses and Hopes is amazing but not the SRPG gameplay I came to love. Well if there was a Fire Emblem game I am sure it would have ENGAGED me, wait, there was the amazing Fire Emblem rom hack Drums Of War. Parrhesia utterly killed it with this take on Fire Emblem. The heart of the story being an emotionally damaged lesbian and the dancer with a big secret who fell for her makes for an utterly captivating romance paired with a real "war is hell" story that really does it's best to show you how fucked all sides of this conflict are until the player finally gets to forge their own path forward. Roxelana and Calista would be among my most favorite Fire Emblem lords if I was ranking them alongside all the lords of the series with both characters being utterly delightful and some charming side characters too like Estrelle. The gameplay itself aired a bit on the harder side to what I like but regardless I had a great time with the majority of maps and by the end of it I think I finally managed to get with the curve of the difficulty even if I wish there was an easier mode.

Cassette Beasts

The soundtrack alone would put this game on this list but luckily it has even more than a soundtrack. The whole cast are really charming, I totally fell for Viola and the other characters all have their own special charms. The game has plenty of faults I talked about in my review of it but despite the flaws of the game basically right until the very end where it massively declined for me this was one of the best games in all of monster tamers for me. The DLC was sadly not so great that came out later in the year but I didn't mind giving the extra money to the devs when the core game was so good. The monster taming is fun, the gameplay feels flexible enough for you to find the niche you like to play in and become really good at that niche, it allows for a lot of flexibility from folks who wanna swap partners all the time to people who will find their favorite characters and monsters and stick with them. I really hope the developers keep moving forward with Cassette Beasts and making new strives forward with their concepts because of all the indie monster tamers I've played this is leaps and strides above the rest.

En Garde!

This extremally short little romp is a compelling experience that is just a little bit longer than your average modern block buster. It's a simple and sweet swash buckling game where you play as a bisexual vigilante woman with a big crush on a sexy pirate woman trying to stop the oppressor of the people's evil schemes. Each chapter is like another adventure of Zoro short and puppy, fun and with ever so slight tension but you know the hero will come up on top. It's a really good experience and it has some great accessibility features for folks with reflex issues like me to still be able to enjoy it. The music is staller, the voice acting is fantastic, it's a great package that instead of padding itself out fills every second with greatness.

Luxaren Allure

I am a massive fan of turn based RPGs, I love getting to look at menus and think about my actions, being able to multitask while I play, enjoy a big juicy narrative and so I was very happy to play a JRPG style experience that's all about lesbians. An amazingly fun concept for a JRPG plot where one woman's beloved whom she chickened out of confessing too gets corrupted by an evil power and she is tasked with being the hero to take her out. This gives the interactions and the end goal a sense of uncertainty, will this be a sad case of tragic yuri, will she find joy with someone else, will she be able to save the woman she loves from this evil power, will she submit to the evil herself to be by her side? Everything feels uncertain with just this little angle added to a fairly typical JRPG formula. All while on the side having an adorable romance between a naga and a human girl giving us the good good lesbian sweetness between the dramatic tension.

Baldur's Gate 3

I am so often the contain, the noted hater but not on this day, nay I say, it was pretty fucking fun. The game is flawed, pretty flawed, like it's got a lot or fantasy racism shit I hate, it's tied to an IP I hate, it's got so many bugs that happened on my own run but if there is one game from this list I will probably think of the most and play the most in 2024 and beyond from this year it's probably this game. The games depth of interactivity, the wide breath of options, and the mods, oh the mods, the many many many mods, this game has so much to do and will for a very long time. It's rare to get a truly great multiplayer game and this game also provides that, this is a fantastic experience for playing online with others and makes for really great runs. Then there is the romances, oh the romances are really great, the girls are all fantastic and the side queers are super brilliant too. It's just a really fun video game and it does a good job exploring trauma and different takes on abusive relationships and overcoming [or succumbing] to them.

Thirsty Suitors

What a fucking great game, while the gameplay is mostly quick time events it does an amazing job of making each aspect of the game feel distinct from each other. While skateboarding in general kinda sucks in this game the combat and cooking all feels really great. Then there is the vocal performances and writing which are all fucking stellar. It's really great to see a fully fleshed out and fully real feeling queer woman who has had messy exes of all genders and has done a lot of fucked up things in her time. Jala's road to redemption with her family and exes all feels really great and this is a special story and I realized sometime after there is some level of variance too that I could have seen if I made some different choices. It's really great and even if it's not a dating sim like I thought it might be it's still a really great little thing. Then you factor in all the cool queer brown people in this game and wow, like I felt so scene by this game like the angry mess Tyler is speaks to my little transbian heart, the high fem lesbian struggle with family that Diya has I could feel echoed in my own life, I just, wow, it was great. I am so happy this game exists and I will likely always see this among the best narratives in all video games.

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood

My game of the year, The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood fucking blew me away. In a shocking twist of fate while I complained about a lot of endings this year I didn't like my original ending for The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood either but then that drove me to go from liking the game to loving it as I ran the game again in spite of it, fueled by spite alone I felt a sense of determination, I would change my fate! This thematic fortune telling game where you make your own cards, help people or end up seeing a fate that only hurts them, I knew how to play it, I knew the systems now, I understood how the cards worked, the truth of my powers and the price I agreed to pay and I'd use all of that to make the happiest fucking story possible for Fortuna aka ME. So I dart through the game, I help the trans woman be herself and happy, I get my hot butch girlfriend, I help everyone out with their life problems crafting only the best cards possible to make sure I can give the best fates possible and then I hit the end point, the time to pay the price. I say no, the game says, you have to, I keep saying no, and then I draw my cards again and shape fate and in that I defied fate, made an ending I could be happy with, a better world for all my fellow witches, and so my story ends with my friends back by my side [probably gonna be a polycule] and a whole lot to look forward to. What a fucking experience, what a cool fucking game.

If you want to help me enjoy more art then consider checking out my Patreon or Ko-fi .and giving me a little bit of cash so I can do more of this kind of writing but also like make lots of my own art, art is hard to make and costs money and like maintain my chronically ill and trans body also takes money so anything helps, thank you.

[hedychrum-rutilans]

Would a Bugsnax Sequel be Possible?

!!Spoilers Ahead!!

Everyone's abandoned the island, and having their own lives and things. But we do have *some* stuff that could point to the possibility of a sequel game (Clumby, the Strabby off the boat)

Here's the thing though. What would it even look like..? Like the game loop. Bugsnax, while it has a great story never relied fully on the story either and also on the very fun mechanic of catching and collecting bugsnax, and the problem solving that came with that. Would the sequel have to force us back to the island for some semblance of gameplay, or would we be in the city with all the grumpus things that come with it? Or would the island come to us, with the escaped Strabby? I mean. I wouldn't mind a more dialogue heavy game (Especially if it's all voice acted like in the first!! That'd be so amazing!!) But I feel like I might miss catching the little bug friends if the sequel mostly involved Clumby/Grumpinati drama :(( idk maybe I'm just too much of an entomologist to go without snack themed bug catching. I really enjoyed that part LOL- maybe I lack imagination

[greetings-inferiors]

Currently sighing and looking off wistfully into the distance because of the potential a days remake had/still has.

So obviously the story is, in my opinion, the best in the franchise, and having a proper (no the cutscene collection doesn't count) modern way of experiencing it would be invaluable, but the gameplay being touched up (I'm not just clamouring for a remaster, I'm clamouring for a REMAKE.) would help the game MASSIVELY.

It's got so much going for it - every weapon having a unique combo is such a cool idea. The mission based game loop is incredibly immersive into the experience of being an organisation member. Every individual organisation has a completely unique moveset. It essentially has a battle mode. The grid system for abilities, spells, and items, is FANTASTIC. Genuinely one of the best ability delegating systems the series has.

It just has so much potential, what with the already laid groundwork of a great story, and the building blocks for great gameplay. It was just held back by being their first attempt at a ds game. Re:coded, while having a lot worse of a story sure, has some of the best combat in the series outside of the numbered titles (I am not making this up).

If days was a later ds game, or hell even if it was for a better console to begin with, it very well could be the greatest kingdom hearts game. I'm Not kidding, there's just do much here that works, if given more time, resources, and processing power.

And that's also true for a remake!

It is THE most needed remake imo - 1 and 2 still hold up so well. CoM and Coded already got remakes. BBS and dream drop are too recent, they just don't need it. The mobile games could use a way to officially experience their story, but legitimising damo279's fandub would honestly be the best way to do it, I just don't think a remake of those games would work.

It's also the only game never to get an updated rerelease except for 0.2, a bundled in tech demo, and melody of memory, the most recent released game. Even 3 got remind.

AND NO THE CUTSCENE COLLECTION DOES NOT COUNT. IT IS NOT A GAME. IT ISN'T EVEN A GOOD WAY TO EXPERIENCE THE STORY I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL.

And for those who say "but recoded also only has a cutscene collection!" Shut up, recoded IS the rerelease, what do you think the RE MEANS

Days is one of my favourite kingdom hearts games and it breaks my heart that newcomers statistically just won't experience it. I was only able to because on my second replay of the series I decided to dig out my old ds and buy the game from cex.

Actually, while we're at the end I want to try something:

I'm the second option btw.

[macgyvertape]

Thoughts on TFS Campaign

please note spoilers for everything

Gameplay:

It only lasted for less than a day but the launch errors were so bad. Not just Battleye disconnects during fights, but Prismatic unlock being bugged, and completely missing cutscenes after missions. It was enough to ruin the experience so waiting to play it was absolutely worth it. I guess it's a sign of there being a lot more moving pieces on the backend than is apparent when things go smoothly.

I’m amazed at the shifting environment inside the Traveler and the dev work it took to do that. Not just creating new paths, but the environment terraforming as you run. The map design is amazing: it's a hill and it's a statue of a cat, its a tree but its also person shaped. Thrilled by how many creepy faces there are in the map, and how the horror and faces just ramp up as the zone continues. The highway where the underside was just hands was one of the more fucked up ones for me

I like that the game warns you if you leave the campaign to the Tower. Plus the “End Draws Near” buff was appropriately ominous

Also if there is “social” Tower what about “Legend” Tower, or “Grandmaster” Tower lol

Mission 3 where you’re locked in with a room of sword arm guys took some adjusting to. Really like how the shooty eye blast Orge fight was set up in mission 3. Good intro of mechanics, how it will absolutely fuck you up, then it comes together in the final fight where the different types of ads help the combat loop. I’m getting a lot of use from “gain armor charge from breaking shields”

The Dissent mission was the point where I couldn’t solo Legend campaign anymore. The Ogres were fine, but I don’t do great in small rooms with little cover and enemies that rush at you. It's noticeable where earlier missions have a much shorter repeat run back section when you die than this mission. 

Final mission was rough due to a lot of mechanics and a long final fight with little room for error. I’m glad the random cool person I found for the previous mission was such a good sport since it took about an hour.

This is the most mechanics heavy expansion so far, they introduced each mechanic through earlier missions: blights, VotD style symbols tracking, VoG relic shield, RoN shoot the darkness seeds, kill 3 giant hive knights on a time limit like Shattered Throne. That’s just a lot of mechanics to juggle while dealing with prismatic shields and aggressive Dread enemies

Overall I enjoyed Legendary Campaign on my Warlock, haven’t finished it on the other classes. Outbreak Perfected fucking shredded especially combined with Chromatic Fire

The new Suspectrum Heavy LFR is way too visually similar to Taipan. Wish the icon was at least a different color. I do like the art on the new craftable campaign weapons. 

I appreciate that with Ghost as the vendor I can easily swap ghost shells to see what the damage looks like on different ones. Like Sagira’s Shell (for the angst) or Last City Shell (Damaged).

There were so many post campaign story missions, I appreciate how they filled out narrative threads that didn’t fit in the base campaign but also all quests now can be right clicked to be launched

The post raid 12 person activity was great. I've been wanting a 12 player activity to be introduced ever since the time of 12 person raid bug, and it felt an appropriately “epic” scale with no raid context needed

It would be cool to see a flowchart of all the musical callbacks in TFS, I’m recognizing a lot even if I don’t know the track names

This expansion really felt cinematic, a grand finale. I love how many cutscenes both artistic and pre-rendered there were, capped off with the final post raid cutscene. My favorites were of course the ending cutscene but also the opening hawk covered in goo cutscene to set the tone

Story Thoughts under cut

Love the hawk being back and notes of Journey from the D2 base campaign

The guardian taking critical damage when Ghost gets possessed in Temptation really added to the feel. Glad to get one more story beat of Crow angst

Crow and Cayde going back and forth with banter makes it a lot more tolerable than just Cayde the funnyman. Also a fun bit of “3 sharpest hunters” when I played Hunter

Ikora’s reaction/processing of Cayde being “alive” had a lot more emotional impact for me than the Guardian reuniting with him. Of course Cayde did it in the most dramatic way possible

TARGE!!!! Excited to hear him in game. Love the visuals of the Witness smoke coming from the family house

I’m glad that Zavala’s character got so developed over the seasonal storylines, it makes the pathos of his encounter here so much stronger. He’s one of the big emotional anchors of the story and while Keith David does a great job filling in as Zavala it feels awkward considering out of game context to hear Zavala talk about dying and not making it back

The cynical part of me thought; ok narratively there’s been a moment to be sad about Cayde 6, sad about Zavala’s dead family, sad about Amanda. Are we going to get narratively sad about Rasputin? (edit: nope)

That Cayde came back from Crow’s wish was something I thought had been heavily hinted at?? Like it wasn’t a surprise to me. 

It would be cool to see a flowchart of all the musical callbacks in TFS, I’m recognizing a lot even if I don’t know the track names

Holy shit mean Zavala, but I like how the Guardian then gets called out for listening on the radio unlike any other time they snoop in this or last expansions on deeply personal conversations

I’d like to wish a very happy Luzaku to all Hive/Guardian shippers

“I’m yours, and you’re mine” I love Ghost this expansion and how it really touches on the long partnership. Ghost is really only a character in the expansions and this expansion was great for that emotional arc

Liminality Strike crossed the line from Zavala reacting poorly in a moment of stress/grief to “Out of Character is serious business”. It was heavily foreshadowed before that Zavala isn’t doing well and something will happen to Zavala, by the end of the season I hope he gets some ending that has him at peace

“They’ll speak up if they have something to say, that’s what I do” Targe has been lore only so long, he’s even better than I thought with voice acting how he speaks with a kinda decisiveness.

Damn RIP Targe the game got me to fall in love with him in such a short time. Deeply hilarious IMO that then we got a lore page from Immaru

The statues that look like a sheet-ghost were always kinda creepy, but the ceremony where they were falling down dead and it looked much more like funeral shrouds for living beings made them soooooo much creepier

Keeping with the theme of OOC is Serious Business, it was noticeable when The Witness lost its cool and anger/aggravation was clear in its tone

The Iron Lord sigil and the axe in Temptation was the first reference to Crow being the last Iron Lord in a long time, very cool to then see him summon a flaming axe at the end. 

Ikora was a supporting character this expansion, but the writing really showed how she is a necessary part of the Vanguard fireteam

Postgame:

Excited to see Micah-10 another favorite previously lore only character

Queens Part 1: Very in character of Savathun show up uninvited, to have her hostile forces with their own agenda at the precipice and almost end of all things. “My Guardian. My Friend” Transactional relationship for now until she decides she no longer owes us, the style of Hive violence as love. Fits right in with the Star Jasmine lore. I love her.

Queens Part 2: I was really smiling listening to Savathun and Mara go back and forth sniping at each other and being catty. I love when Mara isn’t nice! 

Can’t believe the Mithrax missions introduced “escort NPCs and keep them alive” style missions. In aggravating tradition, player healing mechanisms do nothing. Just like the meme of “aren’t you tired of being nice” exciting seeing him lose his shit, yell ANSWER ME, then avenge his mother by dropping a Brig on the enemy guy

Caiatl quests: love when she fights alongside us, really enjoyed the furthering of her and Zavala’s relationship as leaders. Incredibly gallows humor that Zavala’s dead family farm is just a permanent part of the Pale Heart.

I really liked the Crow/Cayde camping quest, it felt very much like the Guardian was living through investigating and being with these characters vs drop in, fight, and leave. Sort of like how FF14 Shadowbringers had your character narratively go to the inn to rest.

SCUR-V and Halsiks my friends in the final mission!!! Loved seeing all of our allies fight alongside us, then seeing so many cameos from characters in the cutscenes

Guess the vanguard does make people shave their head lol, I will miss his old look as I loved the bird chaperon style hood with cape

Great way to end the expansion and this storyline of Destiny; Ghost and Guardian sitting together peacefully staring at the Traveler with riffs from Deep Stone Lullaby playing

[oddygaul]

Spiritfarer

This game was a weird experience for me. I wanna say that a story like this is more about the journey than the destination - and that’s copacetic narratively, as the unfolding stories of each of the passengers are far stronger than the capital p Plot the game builds towards - but from a gameplay standpoint, the journey itself largely felt like a tedious timesuck, and I kept finding myself wishing we could get straight to the point.

Let’s do a compliment sandwich here.

The overall vibes are immaculate, and the world of Spiritfarer is incredibly cozy. The dialogue is delightful - and not only with the main characters! Even the random villagers always have something charming going on. I think the last time I was actually this enthused to talk to minor NPCs was A Short Hike.

They’re not always cheery, either; the game has a lot of that old-school Animal Crossing edge that got sanded away over the years, where characters are actually allowed to be abrasive or even straight up dislike you. Spiritfarer has multiple passengers that, upon meeting you, are anything from fully disinterested to straight-up jerks. Some of them will warm to you over time, as in the OG Animal Crossing, but some will just never really like Stella all that much… and they will loudly, vocally share that fact with you. Even some of the friendliest, most open characters sometimes need their space. This wider spectrum of interactions goes a long way toward making the characters feel real and engaging, and it’s something I’ve missed in this space for a while.

The art and especially the animation work is absolutely stellar, too. Each of the characters have strong silhouettes, and the animators really make the most of each design’s unique attributes: Stella’s big wide-brimmed hat puffing up when you use it to glide, the Everlight’s infinite transformations into whatever’s handy for the current situation, Bruce and Mickey’s big guy little guy dynamic*, Gustav mightily leaping from floor to floor. A 3D game with this concept would likely stick to a handful of rigs for the characters and keep their movement simple, so I give a lot of credit to the Spiritfarer team for going the extra mile and putting such care into making the passenger animations lively and creative.

*Well, this one is only fun until you find out the why behind the dynamic

Daffodil is the cutest fucking name for a cat btw

Unfortunately, despite how fun they’ve made the basic movement, the actual gameplay bits get pretty tiresome. It turns out that much of the moment-to-moment gameplay is actually doing chores on your boat, and they start to feel like chores remarkably quickly; while running, jumping and ziplining all feel great, most of the production minigames, like watering plants or smelting, are tedious and time-consuming. 

For the first third of the game or so, you’re unlocking new building minigames regularly, so they all feel somewhat novel. Plus, the density of the early game lends itself to a constant multitasking that feels satisfying. You’ll set your boat’s navigation system off to a location, then decide what form of crafting or farming will be the best use of your time; the result is a great “just one more turn” loop that's pretty engaging. The thing is, due to the length of the game, the pacing simply doesn’t stay that tightly engineered. You’ll run out of new buildings and minigames to unlock, start to get tired of the ones you’ve done dozens of times, and have to return to the same islands to farm materials over and over again. 

I will say, I quite liked the cooking system. There was something satisfying about guessing what different ingredients would pop out a new dish, and the illustrations for all of them are cute enough to make the experimentation feel worthwhile.

And unfortunately, this pacing inconsistency applies to the story as well. At first, you’re running into new faces constantly, and at any given moment will have half a dozen passengers on your ship, making it feel like a lively community. The rate of new passengers slows down dramatically, though, and for much of the back half of the game I had only 2 or 3 passengers aboard, leaving the game feeling empty and rote. 

This is not an easy problem to solve - it’s gotta be near impossible to keep the pacing curated if your game is this long - but maybe Spiritfarer didn’t need to be this long? 30 hours is fuckin HEFTY for this kind of game. I dunno, it’s certainly possible other people found the management sim side of things engaging and equally as worthwhile as the character interaction, but to me it mostly felt like busywork keeping me from the story bits, so my patience for it grew thinner and thinner.

For the first half of the game or so, I had a running theory that Stella didn’t actually know any of the passengers, and these people were being enchanted by some sort of Spiritfarer glamour that presents you as someone they’re comfortable / familiar with. The game makes the truth clear as it goes, but a part of me really likes that idea of the ferryman taking the form of someone that can put the departed’s minds at ease. I think that’s how the reapers in Dead Like Me work..?

Now, the reason my frustration with those elements was intense was because boy I got invested in these characters. A few missed the mark for me (I’m sure everyone who plays this game has a different group of passengers that really pushed their buttons and those that didn’t), but so many of them were memorable and heartbreaking.

Gustav, with his desperate hope that the transcendence of art can outlive any individual, really speaks to some existential crises I’ve gone through myself

Alice, who in her old age finally has the means to travel and go on the adventures she always wanted to, only to be betrayed by her failing body... I literally watched this happen to someone close to me weeks before playing this, so the moment was a gut punch. And then that development is tied into the gameplay, by making you move Alice's house to the ground floor because she can't use the ladders anymore, and you have to walk her out to the deck and back every day... inspired, and soul-crushing.

The reveal that the reason Bruce does all the talking and initiates all the pair's movements is because Mickey's been in a coma the whole time... broke me. And then Bruce decides to end his own life because he can't bear to go on alone anymore? Jesus, man.

Okay, I get that I'm a mark for any story touching on Alzheimer's, but Beverly's depiction of the disease was particularly brutal. The Alzheimer's I've dealt with was a very language-based version, so Beverly getting halfway through a sentence and realizing it wasn't right, saying things like "Just give me a moment" or "Let me just take a little break and I'll finish" then giving up in resignation... fucking hell. Too real.

In general, the amount of spirits whose arcs aren’t resolved when they go out is rough. Despite being a work that’s clearly focused on death from the start, Spiritfarer initially feels like it’s going to be a somewhat sanitized look at the topic. You’re going to take these spirits to the door of oblivion, sure, but we’re going to get complete character arcs, we’re going to work through trauma, and people are going to go through the door when they’re good and ready. And for the first few passengers, that’s true… but things get dark quick. Bruce’s tale, as previously mentioned, ends with him killing himself. Atul, one of your most easygoing, dependable passengers, simply disappears one night, never to be seen again. Jackie, who embarks rather late to start a journey of self-improvement, gives up halfway and straight-up tells you he can’t find anything about himself worth living for and suicide is all he deserves. Spiritfarer even twists the knife by letting us read some of his journals afterwards, showing he feels a deep regret and self-loathing for his past actions… he just can’t find any way to live with them.

This is what I respect the most about Spiritfarer’s musings on death, I think. Rather than dressing everything up in neat metaphors and giving you emotional catharsis, it’s not afraid to show death as sudden, as unsatisfying, as desolate, as lonely. By presenting itself so whimsically, it gets the audience to let their guard down so the hard moments hit them with full force. I wish they could’ve had the confidence to lean on those moments without feeling the need to pad the time in between with monotonous crafting systems.

[crystalelemental]

Thinking back about that poll about video games with good story/bad gameplay or bad story/good gameplay, it makes me look back on the games I ever played, and the ones that stay in my mind for a long time tend to be the ones that are either big-name franchise like Pokemon or games that have good story but SIMPLE gameplay. I won't say bad, but simple.

It's the opposite for me. When I was younger, I liked playing games that had a minimal story but great gameplay. But as I grow older I tend to prefer games with engaging stories. Great gameplay is preferable, but if it's simplistic or even not my preference I don't mind as long as the story compensates what's missing. Visual Novels barely had gameplay, relying solely on the story, voice acting (if any), and art, but I had fun and played some of them even when I was young. And that's why there's a lot of it out there, with varying genres and target players.

Though sometimes it's not always either or? Sometimes there are games that I know have great stories but I can't stand the gameplay since it's beyond my capability or the game is just a mess (ScarVi comes to my mind but there are others too). I dunno, determining a gameplay is difficult for me, since I'm just a player. I can only say the gameplay is "simple" or "not my preference".

In the end, I guess that's why there are plenty of games with different types because people look for different things in video games that they consider as "fun". They either look for story, or for gameplay. It's an interesting poll, though.

I think that's a fair assessment, and personal opinion on what good or bad is on either side of the scale is going to be subjective. Moreover, I think that most people stick primarily to the big name titles, and when you have a lot of polish, you can be derivative, but you're rarely bad. So it can be hard to conceptualize of bad gameplay and bad story beyond some big name flops that are serviceable but not great.

The way I look at the question really comes down to maximizing either end. When you consider bad story, there is a point where it loops. Story can be presented in such a way that it hits "so bad it's good," where the entertainment is how it gets so ridiculous or poorly constructed that if you vibe with what it's presenting, you can laugh it off and still have a good time. As a teenager, my friend group loved shitting B-movies, so we were well acquainted with this phenomenon.

Gameplay doesn't have that parabolic effect. It's strictly linear, and there's no point at this mechanics become bad enough that they become endearing. Eventually, that line goes under what is serviceable, and you get the real disasters. I never really engaged with it, but a few years ago there was some Gollum game that got a ton of publicity for being a truly awful game. That's the kind of experience I think of, the kind where it's just so bad that everyone agrees there is no value in playing it.

"Serviceable" is usually what we encounter. To give examples on both ends:

Unicorn Overlord, a fairly recently released tactics game, has some of the most engaging gameplay I've experienced, but the most basic uninspired story imaginable. It is excellent, because I love playing it, and the story content is serviceable. It's also skippable.

Nexomon 1 is the other direction. It's a surprisingly fun and engaging story with quite a bit going on, but the gameplay is fairly...messy. The eccentricities don't make it inaccessible, just odd and ultimately serviceable for the total experience. I really like that one too.

Every now and then you'll get something that's masterful in both directions, but that's not necessarily going to land with everyone. From a distance, I do understand that Final Fantasy 6 is both an incredibly intuitive and developed combat system and a strong story that, for me, did absolutely nothing. It's like a middle of the road game for me, despite the quality I can identify. There's no guarantee something good in both directions lands for everyone, just as there's no guarantee that something that sucks in both directions will be universally despised. After all, there's an entire group of people out there who will willingly argue that Triangle Strategy was really good actually and better than Three Houses, and they're wrong, but it goes to show that this stuff is all up to preference, and most of it winds up being just fine.

I kinda lost my train of thought here, but it goes something like this:

When it comes to preferring gameplay or story, I think everyone has a different opinion on which sticks out more. When it comes to assessment of bad story or gameplay, I think bad story hurts more because we generally know what we're looking for, and when it doesn't resonate we feel it. A story can be as excellently crafted as it wants, but when we don't connect with it, it's hard to feel like it's not a disappointment, especially in an otherwise fun experience. But for me at least, nothing hurts worse than having something I do connect with, but being unable to engage with it because of poor controls or awful minigames or whatever.

[zydrateacademy]

First Impressions/Review - Horizon: Forbidden West

First, a tech issue. I had to apparently set the game to compatibility mode for Windows 8 in order for this game to function without crashing between ten minutes to an hour (or sometimes instantly) due to some memory leak error issue. Just wanted to mention that in case my review catches some Google searches.

Once again my review is roughly three years late, given I am playing the PC release. Some grander spoilers may already be known just through cultural osmosis, but I won't spend too much time talking about the story. It takes place somewhat immediately after the first game, within a few months. Aloy takes off almost immediately during the victory party from the first game as she's become privy to new information in short order: The terraforming system of the planet has gone haywire and the environment is becoming as deranged as the machines from the first game. It is Aloy's job to figure out why.

To wit, this game is very heavy on the "As You Know" ways of storytelling. "As you know' is in quoted verbatim by a character shortly after the prologue sequence. There's a lot of that as you explore dialog trees with your companions. I urge any players to just go ahead and play the first game. The general gameplay loop is very similar and beyond some janky face animations, Zero Dawn is a fine game on its own.

Meanwhile its sequel improves upon many aspects. Everything that worked, still works. The game is largely stealth-reliant as you hide in tall grass and snipe out some machine parts before they begin to notice you. Though many outfits in this game heavily rely on "lower health" statuses, a lot of them based around having half to thirty percent health which caters to folks that prefer the hack and slash melee. They'll do well here, with the right armor you will get a hefty dose of damage reduction. Frankly, I prefer to sneak around in the shadows and have half a machine's health half gone before they're even fully alerted. There's tricks for that as well, as the outfits in FW are significantly more nuanced. There's a late-game armor that adds more than one bonus to Concentration (slowing down time to give you a proper aim) and I have great joy sniping parts from the distance before a machine can turn towards me properly.

Speaking of equipment, that is expanded on greatly here. For good and for ill. It runs into the Sniper Elite issue of some sequels adding all manner of tools but other than laying down mines against vehicles, nothing really beats just sniping someone through a window. The same problem presents itself here. I still utilize the tripwire weapons to essentially protect myself from patrols as I begin my sniping spree, but the game introduces too many weapons that I haven't wasted much time trying to learn. We have some melee slicers that require timing to function. We get something that's essentially a machinegun (the projectiles are just wood instead), with a power move that lets you lay down the entire set of 30 shots within just a couple of seconds. In theory it's great damage but a large majority of machines seem to be far too agile for it to have been any use. Even the human enemies come with helmets you must snipe off first, making it impossible to go full stealth archer and pick off sentries before moving into the camps.

All these extra tools and nothing really compares to my trusty Hunter's Bow. Ammunition is cheap to produce, it aims quickly, has an ever-useful 2-3 arrow knock power, and does sufficient damage even on Hard difficulty. All in all, it just does what I need it to do and rarely find myself switching to any other weapon except to lay down some tripwires, and occasionally switching to the Sharpshooter bow for the very rare exception. Yet, I don't feel that it bloats the game too much as I'm sure many players will find some joy in trying to master the more fickle weaponry. And hey, they gave us six slots instead of four to encourage that very thing. So, kudos.

I needn't waste too much time on this fact but the game continues to be gorgeous. I'm an absolute sucker for weather conditions so all the rain, snow, and sandstorms throughout the game's various biomes just gives me a sense of comfort and immersion that I usually have to mod into my other open world games.

The map being dotted with icons is not the typical and tired Ubi-like fare. Most of the map icons are just sites for machines to assist you in your hunts when upgrading your gear, and generally just give you something to run into as you're traversing the world. You run into the occasional collection quest, like black boxes from Old World jets. They tend to lead to something tangible, like a new weapon, outfit, or some cosmetic face paint. It's usually something more concrete than "here's seven more old world watches to sell to a vendor".

Speaking of vendoring. There's a couple of aspects that I don't care fore, which kind of ties into the gear expansion. There's more on the ground to grab as there's a whole food mechanic I've yet to bother engaging with because I can't be bothered. I've picked up more peppers and basil than I care to say. Maybe it'll all be there for me in a NG+.

Secondly I'm getting rather tired of picking up watches and gold ingots out of treasure chests. It turns into something akin to busywork. Imagine if they just replaced all junk items with the game's main currency (metal shards), literally nothing would be lost in translation. It's just several extra buttons to press in a menu when you visit a town.

Still, I find the gameplay loop here comforting. I like running around and finding the Tallnecks to open my map up. I enjoy the very well paced power creep over time. I have eventually noticed that machines I used to be scared of in the first few hours, become barely a challenge at all a few hours later as their health drops halfway just because I shot off a couple of their tusks. So even with a goal in mind, I like veering off the path when I see a new machine icon because it inevitably has something I need to upgrade my weapon or outfit proper. Meeting new machines is intimidating but with the game's new 'job' system, you can make a custom quest and help you track where specific machines are, go get the items, and upgrade. It's a useful tool so you don't spend any time alt-tabbing, wondering where the hell a Clawstrider is. The game itself has a function to just tell you!

Sometimes I write reviews where it's two paragraphs of good followed by seven of bad with me just stating "the game is good though, trust me". That problem is not present here. I nitpick a bit about equipment I'm not familiar with and don't use and the ever-present annoyance of menu busywork when selling trash items. That's almost completely it in terms of nitpicks, as I continue to enjoy every other aspect of the game.

And if you liked the first, you will like this one as well.

[emotionalhotdog]

Why the Little Nightmares 2 ending is (kinda) flawed

Opinion. but the Little Nightmares two story was not as good as the first one.

Like, don’t get me wrong. It’s a phenomenal game, with great gameplay mechanics and a fantastic score. The design is eye melting and Tarsier Studios really weaved care and love into the game. The story isn’t even that bad - it’s just the ending I have a problem with.

Why did Six drop Mono?

Like, genuinely. What was her motive? This kid just risked his life many times just to get this? I guess there are a few theories, with Six being aggravated that Mono destroyed her music box, the one thing that brought her comfort in the darkest of places and situations. It could also be that it was the Black/Signal tower manipulated her, or she lost a bit of her soul when captured by the Thin Man and thus her compassion and empathy with it that would drive her to make such a decision. Maybe she would even realise that Mono, her seeing his face fully now, eclipsed by no hat, was the Thin Man. Any, all, or none of these reasons could be true.

But the action itself is confusing - if Six really is as cold and calculated as the fandom perceived her to be, wouldn’t she just use Mono as a means of survival, ditching him only when she had no other use for him or was unable to save him from a monster? Why does she, with the opportunity to lift him up, while they’re in crazy danger (with the Black Tower collapsing and such) decide to leave him behind? And not only that, but look him in the eyes while she dangles him above a yawning abyss?

The thing is, there’s no real answer to what Six’s motives were. It feels more like it’s meant for shock value, and not to serve as an ending.

And then it gets worse.

Mono survives the fall. You, reeling from betrayal and with nowhere else to go, find a chair within the Tower. And, slowly, you grow up from a child to a teenager, to an adult, then, finally, the best age, Thin Man.

This opens another can of worms, introducing the time loop theory (which frankly, I don’t like very much) and the idea that Mono was chasing… himself…

This could explain why Mono and the Thin Man’s powers are alike, and that the Thin Man was trying to ‘save’ his younger version of himself from being betrayed by his best (and probably only) friend. But that begs the question, how did the Thin Man escape the Black Tower? I thought the whole point was that he was trapped there, with the Tower feeding off his soul of whatever.

Honestly, the best part of the ending is the music. End Of The Hall perfectly captures not only Mono’s feelings, but the rising tension and the passage of time. It’s one of my utmost favourite tracks of all time.

But, back to the ending, and my final thoughts about it. When I think about it a bit more, it just seems like the Devs ran out of ideas when it came to the story, and decided to write a shock ending, to keep people speculating. Personally, I don’t like it when stuff like this happens.

So, let me propose an alternative ending.

Say the two get closer and closer to the exit, with Mono ahead, and the Tower crumbling around them. Mono reaches out his hand for Six to take, and she accepts the invitation. As they make it to the exit, a particularly large piece of debris falls on Mono, trapping him in the Tower. Six wants to help him, but he sort of signals to her to keep going. She reluctantly leaves, and thus, he dies, watching as she leaves while he cannot.

Is it anticlimactic? Sure. This ending doesn’t really explain a lot of in-game events, such as the nightmare at the beginning, the existence of the Thin Man, and Mono’s powers. But this ending was kind of fun to write, even if it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I could never make a game like Little Nightmares one or two, and really, the story of both games are both intricately made and packed with details and genuine love for what was being made. One ‘bad’ ending won’t change how much I love this franchise.

Anyway, this post is way too long. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk

[light-wolf]

Now that I've had some time to process yesterday's trailer and all the new info, let's talk about Monster Hunter Wilds!

Ok, so right from the start the game seems much more "cinematic" than usual. I was actually surprised to see them spotlight the story/cutscenes/characters so soon since they usually wait until later trailers for that. We might get a bigger focus on the story this time. The tone seemed a bit too... serious? dramatic? I don't know, it felt a bit off for MH, but it's still far too early to jump to conclusions. To be fair, the trailer debuted in a PlayStation event so maybe they wanted to cater to that audience. I'm sure there will be plenty of the campy humor we're used to, so I'm not concerned.

What I'm not so sure about is our hunter and Palico talking. Sure, our hunter had (optional) voice lines in Rise, but they were limited to gameplay. Having the hunter actually engage in conversation with other characters worries me a little, because I've always felt that MH is one of those games where the player character works best as a blank state. Even some of Rise's voice lines felt wrong to me because they implied a certain personality for my hunter, one that wasn't necessarily the one I imagined. The other reason I'm concerned about this, is that it will very likely further reduce the amount of voice options for both hunters and Palicoes (if we even get options at all) and that makes me sad (I'm not a huge fan of the voices from the trailer), but I'll reserve judgement until we have more details. It's up to Capcom to prove me wrong.

About the other characters, I know Gemma is getting lots of attention (understandably), but I just want to say that I love Alma's design, she's so pretty! Also having MH4 characters (possibly?) returning is great. Cool stuff all around!

I'm very curious about the supposed seamless integration of story and gameplay. Breaking the traditional hub>quest>hub loop that we've always had makes me nervous, but it could be interesting. I wonder what it means for multiplayer, though. How will it even work? The way World implemented it was very criticized, so I hope Capcom has a better solution now.

The dynamic climate/seasons/whatever looks very cool, and I love the amount of small monsters and how they all interact. Large monster herds are also interesting, but I need to see how that works in actual gameplay.

Speaking of large monsters, I don't really have much to say about the two they showed. Probably early game monsters, so not the most interesting (and not the most memorable designs ever either), but they're not bad. Doshaguma has a very fucked up skrunkly face but it's growing on me. Chatacabra looks pretty fun and is my favorite of the two so far. Always cool to see more Amphibians.

We finally have a name for the raptor mount! Seikret! I LOVE these guys and I hope we're able to customize them. They seem like a natural evolution of the Palamutes (RIP) and I love them so much and I need to pet them and cherish them forever. Also them letting us bring two weapons to a hunt has interesting implications, but I need to know how it works exactly before getting hyped.

Other gameplay thoughts: I kinda hated the slinger in World so I groaned when I saw it was back, but we'll see how it works this time. Not sure what to think about Focus Mode and the wounding system, I really need to see actual gameplay before judging. Honestly I feel that way about almost everything, it's all too unclear still.

Overall, the trailer left me with a lot of questions, but I'm still incredibly hyped! Luckily we know we'll get more info during Summer Games Fest next week (including a new monster!), so it'll be a short wait this time!

The biggest question (for me) remains if this thing will be on the Switch 2, which would be the ideal scenario for me. Please Capcom I'm begging you. If that's not the case, I'll probably get a PS5 (there are a few other games I wouldn't mind having access to). I'll have to get a new console either way, but I have some money saved just for that.

That's it for now! Looking forward to next week!

[wildknightblaze]

people i want to get to know better

tagged by @ubejamjar, ty :3 don't know who else to tag in response so if you see this and feel like it, consider this an open invitation.

Last Song: A Risky Bet from the recent FFXIV Dawntrail raids. a little weird because my group hasn't even gotten to that part of the fight yet, but it's awesome to have in the background while I'm compiling the strategies and shit for the rest of the group. the drum & bass remixed into the song that was already burrowing into my mind bc it's essentially a Crush 40 3D Sonic theme from my adolescence is just 🤌

Favorite Color: an easy one, right? bet it's soooo hard to guess that the person whose OC has red hair and is always wearing red to the point that she looks weird in anything not red, her favorite color is red, right? trick question. my favorite color is blue. my car is blue, i'd like to paint my walls blue when i have the energy, i just find a deep naval blue to be really soothing, and probably the color i myself look best in. (turns out Ellie has her own tastes. :V)

Currently Watching: rewatching the first season of Gravity Falls because a friend mentioned it, and I never actually watched season 2, so hoping to move into that. After that I'm thinking of rolling a die to pull up something random from the backlog that's been around for years. Or maybe Arcane, idk. Or The Bear. friends have been singing the praises of The Bear.

Last Movie: The MST3k episode of Space Mutiny. A really fun time except, uh, Mike and Crow did a pretty transphobic-stereotype sketch in the middle of it. :/ Stuff made in the 90s sure was made in the 90s. At least the rest of it was pretty funny.

Sweet/Spicy/Savory: I am such a spice baby that I got an accidental order of spicy chicken nuggets a couple of days ago and they actually made me sick. >.> Sweetness is nice, but I have way less of a sweet tooth than I do for something like a homemade chicken sandwich.

Relationship Status: single

Current Obsessions: if i am not logging into FFXIV even when i have literally run out of stuff to do, i am dead. part of it is also probably how i'm - not exactly leading my raid static, but I'm the one compiling the strats and teaching them to everyone else (and then executing them wrongly to lead by bad example lmfao). Other than FFXIV though, I've been having a lot of fun with a couple of indies I picked up to delve into while recovering from surgery. Tactical Breach Wizards has a really compelling and satisfying gameplay loop and a fun story; the characters are very snarky so like if the MCU has ruined that for you that can be off-putting, but it's still better-written on average lol. I haven't delved too much into Fields of Mistria but I really want to, it's cute af. I'm also thinking it's about time for another Ace Attorney, but I'm not sure if I want to do Investigations 2 IN HD IN ENGLISH OFFICIALLY or finish Great Ace Attorney 2 ALSO IN HD IN ENGLISH OFFICIALLY... ALSO, friends have started a weekly Civilization VI night in discord in the wake of the announcement of Civ VII, and I reallllly want to deep dive into that. Many fond memories of getting lost in the easy loop of V. also missed opportunity that they didn't call it CiVIlization, or CiVIIlization.

Last Thing in My Search History: "surface pro flex keyboard deals." there are none. absolutely insane how much microsoft is charging for something like this. >:( (the "flex" is important, because turns out the normal surface pro keyboard that is already ridiculously expensive doesn't have bluetooth connectivity, which idk if your thing's approaching two hundred fucking us dollars it doesn't seem like an unreasonable expectation for it to be wireless-capable!!) i gotta stop this before i get really mad about capitalism and the tech industry

[breadknight-likes-things]

Bread's Game Of The Year #2: Resident Evil 4

What do I even say about Resident Evil 4 Remake? The fact RE4 isn't my number one game this year is nothing short or a miracle of quality for the #1 game, but that's not what we're talking about right now. Right now we're talking about Capcom pulling off the gaming equivalent of the called shot home run. Pointing directly at a level of quality I feel most thought was unattainable, and slamming the final product out of the park to such a degree that no remake may ever feel this way ever again. Capcom didn't have to do much to make the RE4 remake a good product. Hell, they didn't have to do much to make it a great product. Making a gussied up remake of the game that transformed action shooters way back in 2005 was probably enough to garner high reviews and player goodwill. Capcom didn't do that. Capcom went deep into the bones of RE4, the very core of that experience, and built from the ground up, a new experience, based on the one we all love, that twists, turns and polishes every little possible thing you could imagine. The basic story, of course remains the same. The core gameplay is very similar to what we've all grown accustomed to, albeit morphed and changed in key areas to update the game to modern sensibilities while losing nothing of the original charm. Even the characters are largely similar, but in this one lies I think one of the most important triumphs. The number one thing I was worried this remake would forget, is how funny Resident Evil 4 is, it didn't. Sure, things are indeed a little darker, the times are different, intentional cheese is not quite as welcome. Every character in this game is so damn charming, though. Leon is still a hyper competent super-spy dork who can't tell a good joke to save his life. Ashley has been expanded upon and is no longer a shrieking damsel in distress, but the original fish out of water energy she always had remains and works wonders in the new tone, her plucky energy a highlight of the whole story. Luis, with a new found obsession with Don Quixote, gets the best update of them all. Featuring a much clearer character arc, genuine pathos, and still keeping his cigarette smoking, dirt covered, cagey information doling charm. I say all of this before I even get into the core of the gameplay loop, which is immaculate. RE4 Remake may have an entirely different feel to the general gameplay, much weightier and with better movement options, but it fits like a glove. Even if you've never played this remake, if you've played the original game even once, this remake has a remarkable ability to feel like you've just stepped back into home after years away. Getting that first stagger headshot and seeing Leon give a good weighty kick to a Gando is an unbeatable goofball feeling in gaming, I cannot stress how incredible an experience Resident Evil 4 Remake is. Hell, I didn't even get into Separate Ways, probably the best DLC of the year. That anything beats this out for my GOTY is a testament to the astounding quality of video games we got this year, but if you know me, and the very specific niche of thing I am obsessed with, you probably already know what that'll be.

[retphienix]

You know, they weren't kidding on the random gamefaq thread.

Dragonlord is a huge pushover compared to the color orb quest boss.

Kinda wish I could easily just go rematch that guy with this team instead since it'd be a more fitting send off, but hey, there's still some very real appeal to this being the closing chapter in my Caravan Heart playthrough :)

The Dragonlord is like The guy for DQ, so it has that appeal for sure.

I do think it's funny how pathetic he is here when the color orb boss was properly scaled to be a real heavy hitter :P

I'd ALMOST go so far as to assume they realize they messed that up what with the entire preamble being that he's reawakening "too early"; Like in universe you can say that's why he's weak, but if I were to be sincere here I'd wager that's just meant to be meta meant to write off that he's here at all- not an explanation for his strength.

Though it could be Meta Meta and it was the devs saying "We didn't have enough time to rework the DL to be a challenge, our bads" but I really doubt that lol

Anywho, Caravan Hearts is Mid.

Early game is far too slow for no good reason.

Innovations on the formula often fail to positively impact the gameplay loop, instead slowing things down or being CONCEPTUALLY (caravan party) positive but PHYSICALLY lacking (no real options in main game, too much RNG to stay invested post game- not to mention their impact is lacking compared to the monsters themselves).

Base story game is overall "fine"- to me personally it was very "Basic RPG going through the motions" overall, it had some nice moments like collecting beautiful things being rather non-linear (aside from the ending) but overall it was "Here's your small sandbox, play in it then beat this tower/dungeon/boss to get to the next sandbox" which is Fine but it's also kind of the vibe I feel DQ usually presents itself as- and then surprises you by doing things Exceptionally well or by surprising you with a twist that beats your expectations- not here. It's JUST the paint by numbers RPG stuff.

Color quest is much more fun! It's also majorly flawed lol it feels designed from the bottom up to be a drawn out lengthy grind for max/min players in terms of mechanics (caravan members mostly) but gameplay wise it's thankfully not so harsh in what it demands of you, no "2 billion damage" boss fights or anything- even the final boss, while strong, is SUPER reasonable despite the mechanics of the post game implying "This is where you grind forever to get maxed stats and true recruits".

The color quest is way more fun than base game because the little dungeons are entertaining, the frequency of mini-bosses is a big plus on the gameplay, and you're pretty much just fighting nonstop. Mostly.

Because the main flaw of the color quest is the backtracking - it's just not fun or well handled. The quest does not burn you on it if you just want to win, but if you want to max stuff- oh buddy. You better get a true sage ASAP. But if you just want to win it's annoying but "fine", still the biggest flaw because you really do spend like 30% of your time in ports and then 70% having actual fun in dungeons, that's still not a great ratio.

Dragonlord was fun. EZPZ but I had fun- the dungeon has relatively fun fights in it and while it is actually VERY tiny if you go the right way, there are a couple wrong directions that trick you back to the entrance, it's simple and TINY but it's nice.

Beyond this there are from what I gather spirit fights for unique hearts and I can continue the color orbs forever I think. So if I was enjoying the grind for recruits (No thank you) I have endless content to smash into for stats I suppose. Kinda neat :)

Hmm. Already did more lengthy closing thoughts in prior posts.

Have a random thought instead:

Did you know that some people consider features being REMOVED from the prior releases to be a positive feature in this game?

Like they listed "Removed Personalities" as a POSITIVE feature in this game versus the prior two, because they emphasized "Having complete and direct control" as a positive- some people just don't get the appeal of the DWM personality + order passive combat system :P

Overall, I had fun. I don't know if I expressed that well in my random posts but I wasn't exactly keeping the most in-depth tabs on my playthrough so it probably slipped through the cracks.

The game is Not one I'd ever recommend since it doesn't fit my tastes on the formula- DWM and DWM 2 fucking rule and this is a GBA RPG I'll probably never touch again so go figure- but this was very neat, I guess is the word for it.

It was neat playing the black sheep of the series- one mostly known that way for its lack of a translation than for its quality- but one I'd wager probably deserves it on quality >:)

But it's neat!

It's different, it's trying to mash some mainline DQ ideas into the side series, it gave DQM an entirely new framing device- one "similar" (traveler gates and dressers are involved) but WAY different than the prior 2, and way different than Joker 1 (and probably the other Jokers). You're still from a different world, but it's not a watabou waraubou story- it's just- you go to the monster world and help out, also the monster world is DISTINCTLY the dragon quest world instead of being a weird dragon quest monsters island "world" with "Great" kingdoms duking it out and training in traveler gates-

This Is Different And That's Kinda Neat! :)

Not a fan or anything, but I don't hate it, it's neat :)

[sneakyscarab]

hello! it's been a while since ive written out my thoughts about touhou! part of the reason why is that i've been working on a website of my own, which now hosts all my grimoire of nina entries with enhanced bonus features! plus a lot of other things on other pages but this is the relevant part to this post. i'm not sure whether i want to continue making tumblr versions of the posts now that i've set this up, but for now im gonna do both a tumblr edition and a neocities edition. with that out of the way lets get started on...

Touhou 1-5 PC98 Extravaganza!

after finishing the main series (and taking a probably needed break from bullet hells for a bit) I went back to the beginning and checked out the first wave of Touhou, the 5 PC98 games!

putting this up front, while i absolutely respect what these games did to kick off the series and get things going, i cant say i was very fond of them, so the overall tone of this writing is on the neutral to negative side. just something i feel i should note. with that said, let’s get started.

Touhou 1 - Highly Responsive to Prayers

Highly Responsive to Prayers is a weird game. contrary to what one would expect, the First Touhou Game is not a vertical scrolling shooter like others. HRtP is instead a sort of breakout/arkanoid type game, where you control a miko-shaped paddle named Reimu running back and forth bouncing a giant yin-yang orb that clears up tiles, beating a stage once you’ve cleared the screen. it does actually have whispers of the series’ future though, with turrets in levels that shoot bullets towards you, Reimu having a amulet-shooting ability (influence the orb's movement), screen-clearing bombs, and menacing boss fights.

you heard me right, this breakout clone has boss fights, and theyre kinda wild. every 5th stage is a boss, which have big hitboxes and shoot out tons of bullets and other attacks which you have to simultaneously avoid while also manipulating your orb in order to hit the boss (because only the orb does damage). After beating the first boss youre given a branching path between Makai or Hell, and either choice gives you 15 more stages for a total of 20.

overall HRtP is a very bizarre and not particularly great game, but its uniqueness makes it really stand out, and if you're in the market to play a weird breakout/bullet hell game for whatever reason you should try it out.

Touhou 2 - Story of Eastern Wonderland

now This is a Touhou game! released alongside HRtP at Comiket 52, Story of Eastern Wonderland is what i would say is the true first Touhou game, being a vertical scrolling shooter with 6 stages, fancy boss fights, and ridiculous characters.

right out of the gate SoEW shows off how wacky the PC98 era lore is, with the first stage containing not one but two military tanks as boss fights. the third stage's boss as well is a weird metallic wall with 5 "eyes" and innumerable laser cannons. its wild. as for gameplay, it's pretty much what you would consider Standard Touhou, although with some features missing that havent been invented yet, notably the movement-slowing Focus mechanic.

one interesting thing about this game is the colour choice: likely due to palette restrictions pretty much the entire game is a combo of red+purple, with the occasional blue+green sprites. even marisa is not immune, having bright red hair only in this game alongside a purple robe+hat.

its very surprising how close SoEW already is to the modern gameplay loop, although i guess it shouldnt be Too surprising considering scrolling shooters are like one of the first game genres ever made. its a pretty fun time, but also pretty rough around the edges.

Touhou 3 - Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream

if you thought we would stablize into the regular style now that we've seen SoEW, you'd be off the mark. Phantasmagoria of Dim Dream is actually a VS game in the same style as the later PoFV and UDoALG titles! it was really surprising to me seeing just how much experimentation was going on with the series this early in its lifespan, but I suppose that happened a lot back then.

in terms of gameplay PoDD plays surprisingly similar to PoFV, with the same enemy combos, sending spells at each other through a charge meter, and summoning yourself as a boss fight on the other guy's screen as an ultimate move. it even has the same insane boss summon rebound mechanic and the same cheating bastard final boss ai!

one funny difference is that, since faeries hadnt yet been established as go-to mooks, the enemies during duels are a variety of random things. besides ghosts you just have star, moon, or heart shapes with ' ' and ^^ faces. theyre so abstract I kinda love it lol.

like SoEW its surprisingly functional for its age, although also like that game it still lacks features like focus, leaving it being unpolished in comparison to newer variations of this formula. unless youre a PC98 enthusiast id recommend playing PoFV or UDoALG instead, especially since the multiplayer on this one is local-only.

Touhou 4 - Lotus Land Story

now things are starting to standardize. Lotus Land Story is another vertical scrolling shooter and adds in a bunch of features not in SoEW that would go on to be series mainstays: focus, boss phases, boss item drops, and most notably having Marisa as a deuteragonist! if SoEW was a standard touhou missing some features, LLS is taking steps to a full on touhou game, missing just a few mechanics from EoSD, notably the spell card system and point-of-collection line.

LLS is also notable for a few other reasons, one being the character Yuuka who is one of the few PC98 characters to get remade in the windows games, and the other being the origin of the iconic song Bad Apple!! which got remixed by nomico and memed half to death.

Its pretty good, albeit still rough around the edges and missing the sort of spark thats found in later entries.

Touhou 5 - Mystic Square

Mystic Square is where we settle in, playing identical to LLS, which means theres not much to talk about. there are 2 more playable characters than LLS, with both Mima and Yuuka. Mystic Square also includes the 4th and final PC98 character to get remade later in the Windows canon, Alice Margatroid. besides the name and the blonde hair though theres pretty much nothing connecting the two Alices together. if you liked Lotus Land Story you'll probably like this too, i dunno.

alrighty with all those games out of the way its time to talk about the characters of note. and of course if theres one name thats synonymous with PC98 its...

Mima! appearing in four of the five games of this era, Mima is the most consistent character besides Reimu and Marisa, and yet she has never been seen since Mystic Square. this may be a hot take, but i think Mima is emblematic of a lot of the qualities of this era that make it hard to get into from a story perspective. for starters, Mima is incredibly inconsistent. She shows up 4 times and is basically a different character each time; being a random Hell boss in HRtP, a vengeful spirit bent on destroying all humanity (except Marisa i guess?) in SoEW, a woman of few words and a short temper in PoDD, and a snarky bully who tells blatant lies just to see how people react in MS. she also has a weird conceptual design and wack power scaling, being a ghost who was never alive, always been a ghost, who also for some reason has like dragon wings but only when she gets angry (Marisa also has these in PoDD which is really bizarre) and shes able to simply escape being magically sealed away as if she was cracking the seal on a pickle jar and casually beats up everyone in Mystic Square without even blinking. While i do like elements of her character (her lying bastard personality from MS is pretty funny and I see why people would want that back) i think its for the best that she stays in the PC98 era, the one seal she cannot break free of. If she were to come back, so much would have to be rewritten either of the world around her or Mima herself that she would basically be a different character entirely, which i think would cause way more drama than her return is worth.

moving on, lets talk about Genjii! this old fart is basically Reimu's grandpa who is also a magical flying turtle. since Reimu doesnt know how to fly in these games, her pops Genjii gives her a ride whenever she needs to go solve an incident. He also acts as a straight-man to Reimu's comedy in her storylines, often questioning the bizarre things that she says or weird noises she makes. he's just a funny turtle grandpa and i'm here for it. while Genjii has never officially appeared in a game in the Windows era, ZUN has stated that the reason is that he's just enjoying his retirement. Reimu can fly on her own now, so he's just resting in the pond out behind the shrine, doing whatever it is grandpa turtles do in their free time. good for him :>

the last character spotlight is for Meira! she's a cool samurai lady from stage 2 of SoEW who was also Reimu's gay awakening :P (for context, Meira and Reimu's pre-battle conversation is a bit where Meira claims to seek the Hakurei Maiden [for her power] but Reimu assumes that Meira's hitting on her. After clarifying that Meira wants to fight Reimu and take her power after winning, Reimu counter-offers by implying that she'll take Meira as her girlfriend if she wins.) this was almost certainly just intended as a joke, but considering that Touhou Project is basically a yuri wonderland its very funny to see gay implications in literally the second spoken conversation in the entire series. besides that, Meira also has cool attacks utilizing her sword where she makes huge slashes in the air that explode into bullets after a second, which were probably inspiration for Youmu's sick swordplay five games later.

and thats the PC98 era! with these games under my belt ive now played each whole-numbered entry in the series, woo~! so having played them all, what are my thoughts on the origins of Touhou?

i'll start by clarifying that i am generally not a 'Retro Gamer'. while i acknowledge the importance of early entries into series, they are very frequently rough, unpolished, or just straight up unfun because the devs are still working out the kinks on how they want the series to go. this is doubly so for games from this pre-2000s era, where game design in general was still a new concept and most games were working off arcade standards of high difficulty to steal quarters. early Touhou is not exempt from this, these games are missing a lot of features added later that make the games more fun, and the difficulty is much higher with a lot more 'bullshit' design like bullets that spawn on your character or a lack of proper resources given on respawn leading to a cycle of death.

all said, i cant say i really enjoyed my time with the PC98 titles. you may have noticed that i didn't mention 1cc runs so far in this article, and the reason for that is i couldnt find the motivation to keep trying for more runs like i did with the future games. mix that in with the bizarre, nonsensical, and often self-contradictory writing and you have a recipe for mediocrity. PoDD in particular is an absolute dearth of writing and worldbuilding. most character interactoins are like one sentence long, and the plot involves two scientists on a "Probability Space Hypervessel" who somehow invited in the characters from Gensokyo to the real world so that they could capture them and steal their magic for clout. In Marisa's route after she beats them up they give her a weapon as a reward which is a ICBM with a smiley face that Marisa names Mimi-chan and rides around instead of her broom. like its all so ridiculous you can just tell that these were like student projects done by a dude in his free time and not a serious attempt at making a world or story.

overall i just really have trouble finding passion for these titles compared to the later entries, to the point that i had to shove all 5 of these games into a single article and its about as much writing as Subterranean Animism alone. im sorry if youre a big PC98 and/or Mima enjoyer but theyre not for me, and i have to say im glad that Touhou moved on and evolved past this point.

thank you for reading, and i'll see you next time, whenever that is!

[manonamora-if]

ive been looking at the ifcomp and i think im gonna do it. any advice for a firsttimer? what should i expect? what was your experience?

Hi Anon!

First of all, congrats on taking the leap! I know it can be quite daunting to participate in one of the biggest and oldest IF Competition there is currently. Takes quite a bit of guts to do it! Yay, you!

Suuuper long ask answer because you asked questions requiring long answers, where I probably repeated myself multiple times.

IFComp Advice

What to expect?

What was my experience?

TLDR: it's hard but also fun. Def recommend at one point (unless ranking makes you go blerg... then do the SpringThing or an unranked game jam).

IFComp Advice

I do have some advice for you, especially if you are planning on submitting a game to the IFComp this year, which is less than a month away:

Be Ready for your work to be judged and reviewed by people. Some will be harsh, some will be kind, most will be fair. If you are not fully open to criticism, especially negative one, the voting period will sting like hell. It is also fine not to read any review or comment about your entry, but a head's up is important.

Be prepared to rank low. If you follow the advice below, you probably won't end up last place. But the competition is stiff. Authors often spend a year or two on their entries before they submit. If you know you can't handle rankings, go for the SpringThing instead. More chill.

Submit your intent to participate NOW! The deadline is Sept 1st, but it's easy to put it off and forget. And intent to participate doesn't mean you have to submit something. You can back out at any moment (even during the voting period).

Check the rules and timeline of the comp (@ifcomp). You don't want to disqualify yourself by mistake...

Keep it short: 15 to 30 min of gameplay. There is less than one month left, and you want plenty of time to make sure your entry is as polish as possible! I took 3 months last time and it was a buggy mess on Day 1 of the voting period.

Use a program you know, or a simple one with good documentation or guides. You might have time in a month to learn how to use a complex program, but I wouldn't recommend it. List at the end.

Create something simple but airtight. You are racing against time. Shooting for the moon with something complex could work, or it could land you in the bottom. Usually, it is best to create a game which is doing little, but doing it very well, than submitting a behemoth that can't even do its core gameplay loop right every time (dissing myself, yes). Sam Ashwell has some good article for choice-based, Emily Short for parser puzzles.

Your prose should have as little grammar mistakes as possible. Pass your text through as many grammar checkers, and maybe some human testers (beta). The more eyes you have on it, the better. Hate to say it but, avoid word crimes there...

Have some impactful interactivity, that makes sense with the story. Puzzle, branching of variation, etc... Even if all of it is fake, and you are pushing the player through a linear story, the player shouldn't feel like they are just flipping pages of a book. I am not talking about the quantity, but the quality of the interactivity. Emily Short has some great article about that stuff.

Don't have bugs. Should be obvious, but you know... I didn't follow that one and got (rightly) roasted for it in the reviews. Test your game (and have people test your game) A LOT.

Style your project a little bit (if possible). It doesn't have to be fancy, but as simple as changing the colour of the background and the text, maybe the font of the text as well (!!! it should still be readable) can go a long way. Also appreciated but never mandatory: different formatting for different bits of text, some animation in the text, having images, having audio, having accessibility settings (theme, font, visual, audio)... Again, those are pointers. Leave this for last.

Credit where credit is due. Code, assets, beta-tester, etc... anything you did not make from scratch, or anyone helping you along the way, should be added in a credit page. Also credit yourself for what you did :P you deserve to show off your efforts!

Test your game relentlessly. Yes it bares repeating, I've done that mistake. Don't be me. Test your stuff again. Have people break your game.

Edit your submission page with care. Have a grabbing hook for your synopsis, an eye catching image, and any relevant documents the players would need (i.e. walkthrough). DON'T FORGET TO ADD A WAY FOR PLAYER REACH YOU FOR BUGS!

MOST IMPORTANTLY: Have fun! If you have fun making your entry, it will show in the writing and how the game is constructed.

Hypertext/Choice-based: Twine (Harlowe, SugarCube), Ink/Inklewriter, Moiki, ChoiceScript Parser: Adventuron

Oh... and good luck. You'll need it :P

If you are thinking of next year instead, most of these advice applies. You can just rule out the intent submission for now, the length of the game (1h gameplay is usually the sweet spot), and the program to use (though take one you understand). The rest could work for any comp honestly.

What to Expect?

The IFComp period in an exciting time where many people gather to play games and talk about them. Many people submit stuff yearly, sometimes with good results, sometimes it's atrocious. Sometimes, authors who haven't been seen in a while reappear to show off their labour of love or review other people's games. It can be very intense and overwhelming if you are participating (author or player).

As an author, you should expect (not exhaustive):

deadline (intent/game/voting),

potentially getting comments for bugs (and having to update, which you are allowed to),

seeing reviews and discussions about your entry (mainly on the IntFiction Forum, but sometimes on blogs too): good stuff, negative stuff, and people missing the point entirely or having bad take, or takes you didn't think about.

seeing people rating your entry on the IFDB (rating =/= vote, but can be a flawed indicator)

feelings galore (good, bad, ugly, anxious), especially stressing about the results

having to remind yourself that no one can judge everything completely objectively (expect when it comes to bugs, it is or it isn't), and that people vote for what they like.

following the rules on the IFComp website

a special private group on the IntFiction forum to discuss with other authors when the voting period starts, as well as posting reviews,

maybe get a prize at the end? (depends on your placement)

Honestly, it can be pretty rough. This is not an easy competition. Most people have been working on those projects for months or years. Some have for just a few weeks, but their pieces can be out of this world. Only the organisers have an idea of who is competing ahead of time, and how competitive it could be from year to year (i.e. did big names come out or not).

While reviews and ratings can give you an indication of how your game is faring with players, you will not be able to know until the votes are actually out (case and point: me, thought I did much better than reality). Either way, it will be a surprise, good, bad, disappointing...

Speaking of reviewers, most will try to be as partial as possible and going into every entry with an open mind. But, there are harsh reviewers out there, as well as kind ones. It is not unusual to see blunt reviews, especially if something ticked the player (bugs usually).

But also, it's loads of fun! You have a bunch of very serious people debating on minor things, newcomers trying out the comp and sometimes even reaching the stars, oldcomers popping by for a cup promising they will review ever game and then disappearing after three, a lot of very very very good games to play, so many different perspectives on what if IF, and feeling like you have a voice in what should be crowned the best of the competition!

It's weird, it's serious, it's goofy...

Prepare for the worst, hope for the best... but most importantly, have some fun. And do what's best for your mental health!

What was my experience?

I think I've talked about it quite extensively in my Post-Mortem for The Thick Table Tavern. Read that before the end of this, for context.

And almost a year after this experience (on this day, I was frantically writing), I think my feelings have changed quite a bit. I went into the competition guns-blazing without understanding the importance of things (bugs/grammar especially) and thinking I had done the absolute most and breaking the genre, believed I did sooooo much better than any other entry, got very dramatic when the first non-positive reviews came in, and was about to throw my shit when I saw the 1s in the voting curve. I am only a bit over-exaggerating here.

I definitely deserved the placement I got. Don't misunderstand, I am incredibly proud of what I achieved there! But... there were major issues for sure. And I've come around to recognise those.

Those 1s-2s were warranted, those negative comments were warranted: the first version was buggy as hell (which I think was the version in the mass downloadable packet? and I updated the game like 20 times), there are still a bunch of issues with the prose (I learned my em dash lesson!), the pacing is aaaalll the way off (I thought I was being cheeky, but didn't always land)... This was something way different for the comp, maybe more experimental than people expected (I mean, who does a click-only bar for a text-based comp...)? But most importantly, while it looked polished, you just needed to play a few minutes to see the varnish crack...

To say the least, I got slapped back to reality. HARD. This was a mediocre good-looking game. Real pretty, big flaws. And that's ok (not putting myself down). Not every game can be winners (unless it's La Petite Mort or DOL-OS :P), not every game will work as intended. You can rack all the trophies all the times. Sometimes you're just at the bottom.

All this might sound hella negative, but I am incredibly grateful for this experience. I have learned so much about game creation, coding, writing, what to do and avoid... There are things I probably wouldn't have learned had I not participated (or not as early). I have created friendships (and rivalries /jk) and found a community where I feel comfortable being this experimental with my work (hey, it worked for DOL-OS!) and continuing breaking the codes. It's renewed my drive to create and do more: games, experiments, trying new program, but also for the community, helping out, creating guides and templates, giving advice...

And I've found a bit of love for reviewing stuff it turns out.

I've made my peace.

And I have plans for a new pretty weird game for a future IFComp ;) I will make people cringe again :P Hopefully not because of bugs!

Final sidenote: I am still not taking my advice. No one tested DOL-OS before it was submitted, and it won. But also, other games placed poorly... I am still speed-running through competitions (not the IFComp this time), and tripping all over all the time. I still submit thing thinking I'm the hottest stuff and that no one else will be better than me. Completely delusional here. Be better than me, for your sake.