#but why are you watching a 22 minute gameplay reveal and expecting it to be entirely context-free???

[silverhalla]

when I was little I used to play clue with my sister and when I won by being like “okay YOU don’t have the candlestick and I don’t have the candlestick and there are no more cards, so it’s gotta be the candlestick” she would get really mad and tell me I was cheating because I wasn’t supposed to be making assumptions like that and she didn’t understand where I was getting the info from, so I was ruining the game for her

anyways I don’t rly get why people on twt are THAT mad about veilguard spoilers because they do not seem that deep

[currentbdnews]

http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png‘Madden’ shooter killed gamers seeking money for college, familyhttps://ift.tt/eA8V8J ‘Madden’ shooter killed gamers seeking money for college, family For update news visit All Bd Newspaper

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A California man who played video games to earn money for college and a West Virginian whose e-sports winnings helped support his young family were slain at a Florida tournament where a gunman specifically targeted fellow gamers, authorities said Monday.

David Katz, 24, of Baltimore fatally shot himself after killing the two men and wounding 10 others Sunday inside a pizzeria and bar that were hosting a Madden NFL 19 tournament. Katz was among about 130 gamers attending the competition at a mall in Jacksonville.

What we know about video game tournament shooting suspect David Katz https://t.co/SnTdCh8i8i pic.twitter.com/gZSuJYg7fq

— WISN 12 NEWS (@WISN12News) August 28, 2018

Court records in Maryland reviewed by The Associated Press show Katz had previously been hospitalized for mental illness. Divorce filings from his parents say that as an adolescent he was twice hospitalized in psychiatric facilities and was prescribed antipsychotic and antidepressant medications.

Katz carried two handguns, including one equipped with a laser sight, into the tournament venue but only fired one of them, Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams told a news conference Monday. He said surveillance video revealed Katz was the only shooter, but his motive remains unknown.

“The suspect clearly targeted other gamers who were in the back room” of the pizzeria, Williams said. “The suspect walked past patrons who were in other parts of the business and focused his attention on the gamers.”

Suspect in shooting at 'Madden NFL 19' tourney had history of mental illness

'No one deserves to die over playing a video game': Competitor after Jacksonville shooting

Gunman kills 2, himself at Jacksonville video game tournament

Investigators determined Katz bought both guns in Baltimore within the past month. But Williams said there’s no indication he planned the shooting before Sunday.

In a statement Monday evening EA CEO Andrew Wilson said he is cancelling the remaining qualifier events to focus on safety.

“We have made a decision to cancel our three remaining Madden Classic qualifier events while we run a comprehensive review of safety protocols for competitors and spectators.”

The sheriff had previously said nine people were wounded by gunfire, but told reporters Monday the total was 10. All of them, he said, were expected to recover.

The sheriff’s office identified the dead as 22-year-old Elijah Clayton of Woodland Hills, California, and 28-year-old Taylor Robertson of Giles, West Virginia.

Clayton’s parents and other relatives gathered outside police headquarters Monday in Jacksonville to give a brief statement. A cousin, Brandi Pettijohn, said the family was “devastated by yet another senseless act of gun violence.” She said Clayton was a good, peaceful man who never had a fistfight.

“He loved football, and out of all the videogames he could play, he settled on and mastered ’Madden,”’ Pettijohn said. “He made a good living gaming, and he saved his earnings so he could afford to go to college to continue his education.”

Robertson, who used the gamer tag “Spotmeplzzz,” won the Madden Classic tournament in 2016. In a YouTube interview published by EA Sports, Robertson said he had played Madden NFL since he was 10 and started playing competitively a few years ago.

“It’s certainly possible for any player to do this,” Robertson said in the video. “You’ve just got to put in the time. You’ve got to grind. You’ve got to play a lot of games and just working on getting better.”

Fellow gamers described Robertson as a family man dedicated to his wife and children.

Gamer Derek Jones, who lost to Robertson in the 2016 tournament, said his onetime rival was “one of the nicest people I ever met.”

“There’s no way that guy did anything to deserve to get shot,” said Jones, who travelled to the Florida tournament from Santa Fe, New Mexico. “He’s got a family at home, and he just came out here to try to win some money for this family.”

Gamer Shay Kivlen of Seattle said he met Clayton, whose gamer tag was Trueboy, about five years ago. They bonded because both of them played games on a PlayStation 4 — which put them at odds with many gamers who prefer Microsoft’s Xbox.

The two friends would chat daily online and see each other about six times a year at gaming tournaments. About a week before the Florida shootings, Kivlen said, he was visiting San Diego and Clayton drove 2 1/2 hours in rush hour traffic to meet him.

“He was one of the kindest people, most genuine guys I’ve ever met,” said Kivlen, 21. “He was super real, and that’s what I loved about him. If he was happy, you knew he was happy. He wore his emotions on his sleeve.”

Kivlen and Jones said they barely knew Katz, who seemed to avoid conversation with fellow players during tournaments. Katz’s gameplay was often erratic, Kivlen said.

“He would do kind of weird stuff online that other people wouldn’t do. He would catch a ball and just start jumping out of bounds and stuff when he could have gotten more yards, just hurting himself,” Kivlen said. “I don’t know what he was doing.”

Kivlen, who said he had once beaten Katz for a coveted spot in a tournament, heard secondhand from a friend that Katz was asking for his whereabouts shortly before the shooting.

After losing his single-elimination game Sunday, Kivlen said, he left to take a nap at his hotel about 20 minutes before the attack. He was watching a live stream of the tournament online when the gunfire erupted.

A friend hiding in a bathroom at the venue answered his phone. When he said Kivlen may have been a target, Kivlen called police and an officer was sent to his hotel room for about 90 minutes until they received word that the gunman was dead.

“It just doesn’t make sense why he would do it,” Kivlen said. “In ’Madden,’ you never get so mad at a loss that you would want to do that.”

// from https://ift.tt/2BRWHXP https://ift.tt/2MXPXMy

[investmart007]

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. | Shooting killed gamers seeking money for college, family

New Post has been published on https://is.gd/kzRFMZ

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. | Shooting killed gamers seeking money for college, family

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A California man who played video games to earn money for college and a West Virginian whose e-sports winnings helped support his young family were slain at a Florida tournament where a gunman specifically targeted fellow gamers, authorities said Monday.

David Katz, 24, of Baltimore fatally shot himself after killing the two men and wounding 10 others Sunday inside a pizzeria and bar that were hosting a “Madden NFL 19” tournament. Katz was among about 130 gamers attending the competition at a mall in Jacksonville.

Court records in Maryland reviewed by The Associated Press show Katz had previously been hospitalized for mental illness. Divorce filings from his parents say that as an adolescent he was twice hospitalized in psychiatric facilities and was prescribed antipsychotic and antidepressant medications.

Katz carried two handguns, including one equipped with a laser sight, into the tournament venue but only fired one of them, Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams told a news conference Monday. He said surveillance video revealed Katz was the only shooter, but his motive remains unknown.

“The suspect clearly targeted other gamers who were in the back room” of the pizzeria, Williams said. “The suspect walked past patrons who were in other parts of the business and focused his attention on the gamers.”

Investigators determined Katz bought both guns in Baltimore within the past month. But Williams said there’s no indication he planned the shooting before Sunday.

In a statement Monday evening EA CEO Andrew Wilson said he is canceling the remaining qualifier events to focus on safety.

“We have made a decision to cancel our three remaining Madden Classic qualifier events while we run a comprehensive review of safety protocols for competitors and spectators.”

The sheriff had previously said nine people were wounded by gunfire, but told reporters Monday the total was 10. All of them, he said, were expected to recover.

The sheriff’s office identified the dead as 22-year-old Elijah Clayton of Woodland Hills, California, and 28-year-old Taylor Robertson of Giles, West Virginia.

Clayton’s parents and other relatives gathered outside police headquarters Monday in Jacksonville to give a brief statement. A cousin, Brandi Pettijohn, said the family was “devastated by yet another senseless act of gun violence.” She said Clayton was a good, peaceful man who never had a fistfight.

“He loved football, and out of all the videogames he could play, he settled on and mastered ‘Madden,'” Pettijohn said. “He made a good living gaming, and he saved his earnings so he could afford to go to college to continue his education.”

Robertson, who used the gamer tag “Spotmeplzzz,” won the Madden Classic tournament in 2016. In a YouTube interview published by EA Sports, Robertson said he had played Madden NFL since he was 10 and started playing competitively a few years ago.

“It’s certainly possible for any player to do this,” Robertson said in the video. “You’ve just got to put in the time. You’ve got to grind. You’ve got to play a lot of games and just working on getting better.” Fellow gamers described Robertson as a family man dedicated to his wife and children.

Gamer Derek Jones, who lost to Robertson in the 2016 tournament, said his onetime rival was “one of the nicest people I ever met.” “There’s no way that guy did anything to deserve to get shot,” said Jones, who traveled to the Florida tournament from Santa Fe, New Mexico. “He’s got a family at home, and he just came out here to try to win some money for this family.”

Gamer Shay Kivlen of Seattle said he met Clayton, whose gamer tag was Trueboy, about five years ago. They bonded because both of them played games on a PlayStation 4 — which put them at odds with many gamers who prefer Microsoft’s Xbox.

The two friends would chat daily online and see each other about six times a year at gaming tournaments. About a week before the Florida shootings, Kivlen said, he was visiting San Diego and Clayton drove 2 ½ hours in rush hour traffic to meet him.

“He was one of the kindest people, most genuine guys I’ve ever met,” said Kivlen, 21. “He was super real, and that’s what I loved about him. If he was happy, you knew he was happy. He wore his emotions on his sleeve.”

Kivlen and Jones said they barely knew Katz, who seemed to avoid conversation with fellow players during tournaments. Katz’s gameplay was often erratic, Kivlen said.

“He would do kind of weird stuff online that other people wouldn’t do. He would catch a ball and just start jumping out of bounds and stuff when he could have gotten more yards, just hurting himself,” Kivlen said. “I don’t know what he was doing.”

Kivlen, who said he had once beaten Katz for a coveted spot in a tournament, heard secondhand from a friend that Katz was asking for his whereabouts shortly before the shooting.

After losing his single-elimination game Sunday, Kivlen said, he left to take a nap at his hotel about 20 minutes before the attack. He was watching a live stream of the tournament online when the gunfire erupted.

A friend hiding in a bathroom at the venue answered his phone. When he said Kivlen may have been a target, Kivlen called police and an officer was sent to his hotel room for about 90 minutes until they received word that the gunman was dead.

“It just doesn’t make sense why he would do it,” Kivlen said. “In ‘Madden,’ you never get so mad at a loss that you would want to do that.”

By RUSS BYNUM ,Associated Press

[periodicreviews]

Orchestras and Backing Tracks

Last week, at the very last minute I learned that an orchestra would be playing songs from Final Fantasy XV at PAX East in Boston on that upcoming Friday. So I did what any sane person would do. I paid too much for a plane ticket, left work at 12pm and made it into a seat in the auditorium at 8pm. The orchestra was great and not just because I feel obligated to say that due to the amount of money it cost.

But, it reminded me of a post I started to write but never finished about the use of backing tracks during orchestral performances. Everyone uses them, but when do they start to hurt rather than help?

Specifically, this is going to reference the Video Games Live on 5/18/2014 versus 3/23/18, “Star Trek The Ultimate Voyage” 50th Anniversary concert on 1/22/2016, and the Video Game Orchestra performance at PAX East 2018 on 4/6/18.

Video Games Live

After seeing Video Games Live for the first time in May 2014, it started my “obsession” with these concerts featuring music from movies/video games. I had an amazing time at that show, not just because I had wanted to see Video Games Live for quite some time, but also because of the energy of the crowd and the quality of the orchestra which if I remember correctly was the Orlando Philharmonic. The general format of all of these concerts is that the orchestra plays the main theme or a medley of themes while video of gameplay or cutscenes plays along on a screen. After this show I went on to see the Star Trek, Pixar, Pokemon, Final Fantasy, and Zelda themed concerts, but whenever the topic of orchestra concerts would come up, I would always tell people “The others are good, but Video Games Live is the best.”

3 years passed and I’d sufficiently hyped myself up for a repeat of the same level of greatness for the 2018 show. But unfortunately, it fell very short. When the orchestra walked on stage, I could immediately tell there was a problem. The stage wasn’t filled with a full orchestra like last time and there were probably on 20-25 players. The number of players isn’t necessarily the issue, but the fact that it was different got me wondering what had happened. Later on, Tommy Tallarico, the guy who runs it all/plays guitar in the shows, introduced them generically as fantastic players from Central Florida. Maybe scheduling prevented them from getting a full orchestra like the Orlando Philharmonic again.

This isn’t necessarily an attack on freelance musicians since I’ve seen orchestras where there has been a great ensemble of non-related musicians. But it did seem like a few of the players weren’t masters of their craft since I swear that I heard a few incorrect notes during the night. Not that that also doesn’t happen in large orchestras, but at least with a larger number of players, it’s harder to hear those mistakes.

Another issue was the fact that on the screens, in between showing gameplay footage, they showed closeups of various instruments being played. At first, I assumed there were multiple cameras but then I realized that the lighting in the videos didn’t match what I was seeing in real life. This footage was from a completely different performance in another time and place. I’m assuming this footage was being used to create the feeling of a larger orchestra, but the result was that it highlighted just how empty the stage in front of me was. I couldn’t shake this feeling that I was being actively deceived and at that point I couldn’t care less about the rest of the performance.

I said the point of this post was about backing tracks, so let me finally get around to discussing that too. I’m aware that just about everyone uses backing tracks. It’s physically impossible for someone like Michael Jackson to dance all night long and *still* have enough lung capacity/composure to hit every note perfectly like you hear it on the album. They’re also helpful when it’s hard to reproduce an array of sound effects and post production effects, such as the intro to Metallica’s “Blackened” which features a recording of a guitar being played in reverse or “One” which features bombs/gunshots. In the case of the Video Games Live 2018 performance, it felt like just another layer of the deception.

Either on accident or on purpose, the backing track was so prominent in the mix, that it was not accurate to call it backing but rather leading.  For some tracks, like the Metal Gear Solid 2 theme, the lack of synthesizers on stage required them to be played through the use of the backing track. But for other pieces, it felt like the orchestra on stage wasn’t even playing and that I was just listening to the .mp3 file. It felt like they were playing this backing track so loud to make up for the lack of musicians on stage. At that point, what honestly is the point of seeing the orchestra live? I can listen to the mp3 file any time I want to, but I’m paying extra money to experience it played live.

It wasn’t all terrible though. The truly standout moment of the night was the accordion player they brought on stage to play various covers, seemingly from memory. It felt like I was seeing something original and not being deceived at all. He also took requests from the fans to play something from Suidoken which had the most requests on the Facebook event page.

I want to note as a disclaimer that I attended this with a group of friends and everyone else seemed to thoroughly enjoy the experience, since they were all seeing it for the first time. The guy in the row behind me seemed to have the time of his life as he was screaming the whole night.

 Star Trek Orchestra

Video Games Live 2018 wasn’t my first experience with the feeling of being deceived. That honor goes to the “Star Trek: The Ultimate Voyage” concert.

Given my experience at previous concerts, I expected 6 segments with one for each crew. Although there was indeed a segment for each, they were interspersed between themed segments. There was a montage of Klingons, from TOS to Into Darkness. There was a montage of all the alien races, from TOS to Into Darkness. Followed by others about family, risk, love, etc. These themed segments would’ve been fine, but I felt the editing could’ve been better. I wish I had noted a specific example at the time but I’ve since forgotten it.

Another problem with these Star Trek montage segments, was that the music they used was the main theme from each series. So when I saw the theme for Voyager playing with clips from TOS and Enterprise, it felt very jarring. Depending on how you watched the series, you may or may not have sat through the opening theme for every episode. But let's say you did. I would argue that the opening theme for each series has a dual role. To begin with, it's composed with the crew and the direction of the series in mind. Then over time, you began to associate the story of the series with that particular music. It’s hard to associate the music with anything else after watching 50+ episodes.

I do respect that for the segments dedicated to each particular series, they would just let the scene play out in full while the orchestra accompanied it. There was a scene with Janeway on Voyager from the “Year of Hell” and another where Picard played his flute solo. I also respect that for these series specific pieces, they went in chronological order from TOS to Enterprise.

If I were doing this show, I would've kept the chronological ordering. But before showing a scene in full I would use an extended form of the main theme over a montage of clips from that specific series laying out the premise and the characters, perhaps with dialogue from the various characters. At the end of the show, maybe I would do a big montage with clips from all the shows and movies.

Again, I digress because this post is supposed to be about backing tracks and not why I regretted my purchases. When the orchestra first started playing, I thought it sounded weird for some reason but I couldn’t pinpoint what was weird about it. I’d been to Dr. Phillips Center for other orchestras and it sounded different from those other times. At one point, the audio and video stuttered for a second and you could hear the backing track drop out.

I realized that the backing track was making the orchestra sound fuller than it actually was and with the secret revealed, I couldn’t shake the feeling of deception. My assumption was that the backing track was being used because of the massive “bridge” set on stage that limited the number of performers they could fit. Personally, I could care less about set decoration. It looked nice, but wasn’t worth the cost of a degraded performance. And especially for a series that doesn’t require strange synthesizers or sound effects, the backing track felt unnecessary.

 FFXV Video Games Orchestra

Before the various fixes to the story/DLC, I had told many people my favorite parts of Final Fantasy XV were the music and the combat (things which had been refined over 10 years, unlike the story which only came together at the end). The soundtrack has some great battle themes and some great emotional themes that really enhance the game as a whole. Previously, a live performance of FFXV songs from Abbey Road Studios had been streamed by Square Enix. They also later performed two piano concerts in Japan which I have yet to hear. I also attended Final Fantasy: A New World and Distant Worlds, each of which played only a single track from the games, “Safe Haven” and “Apocalpysis Noctis”. But I needed more.

The XV concert featured a small 10-15 orchestra with a band composed of keyboard, drums, guitar, bass, synthesizers, and 4 vocalists. The performance was great not just because of the quality of the musicians, but because of the energy of the performers. I enjoyed they all got their chance for a small solo either within the tracks or during the “solo” segment. There was a good energy between the performers as they joked with each other and seemed to be having a great time. The orchestra itself seemed to be nothing formal, but just a collection of various players and that didn’t seem to affect the quality of the performance. That’s not to say Tommy Tallarico didn’t joke around with everyone during Video Games Live, but I think I was just hating it all at that point and no joke could bring it back.

“But Andrew, what about the backing track?” Right. So there indeed was a backing track, most prevalent during the intro to Veiled in Black. I was a little confused why the orchestra just didn’t play this intro part since they were all there just kind of sitting, but I guess they just made that decision for some reason. But besides that, the backing track remained in the background where it should be. The musicians on stage always seemed to be louder in the mix and it allowed them all to shine through. For some tracks like “Home Sweet Home”, it appeared they didn’t play a backing track at all, or it was just so quiet I couldn’t hear it. That track in particular is an emotional piece and the extra layer of originality/uniqueness from the live performance makes it just incredible. The other standout tracks were an original arrangement of Luna’s theme, an original arrangement of Noctis’s theme with vocals, and a super extended Chocobo theme with the incredible leader guitarist.

 In conclusion, if I’m paying to see it live, I want the backing track in the background and don’t try to deceive me. You’ll probably get away with it for 90% of the audience, but for that other 10% that has been to enough shows, they’re going to hate it.

[animeindoblog-blog]

The Red Strings Club - PC/Steam [Game Review]

New Post has been published on https://animeindo.org/blog/2018/01/24/the-red-strings-club-pc-steam-game-review/

The Red Strings Club - PC/Steam [Game Review]

Rob “NualphaJPN” B.

No strings are pulled here. This game points out the many truths that most people are totally blind to. Exceptional.

Game Info

System: Steam/PC

Publisher: Devolver Digital

Developer: Deconstructeam

Release Date: January 22, 2018

The Red Strings Club – Reveal Trailer

It’s quite apparent that at this very moment, the world in which we inhabit is in a crisis. This isn’t just a crisis pertaining to war or poverty but more so on the psychological battlefield. Much of this issue is attributed to the fact that we’re now living in the information era, one in which there’s just too much to absorb and our brains become oversaturated with unnecessary data. We become blind to the truth and often find ourselves entangled in the many traps corporations set for us to walk in. Can we truly blame them? Or perhaps it is the individual who should be accounted for? The Red Strings Club is a game that questions your moral intent, your belief system and overall awareness of what’s actually happening in society. In a way, The Red Strings Club is a visual novel that’s compelling in that, it’s telling us a story which in fact is a direct representation of our current social climate, and the psychological issues that we all deal with on a daily basis. It’s nevertheless a game but it strikes a chord in your mind as you play through the story, picking apart every investigation and having to determine whether the information given to you is of clout, or just another scheme to further deter you from the truth.

The Red Strings Club speaks about mature themes, but these very themes are the ones in which many of us grow fearful of the minute they reach our lips. Politics, corruption, and prejudice among many others. This all takes place in a cyberpunk world perhaps not too far from the current situation we all live in and places heavy emphasis on a strong narrative that pokes fun at the ignorance of society, and how many seem to follow the sheep mentality in order to avoid breaking the status quo.

What to expect? Expect there to be a lot of thought provoking scenarios where you’ll need to determine whether the person you’re investigating is a total fraud, or if they’re truly holding up to their word. You play as bartender Donovan as he systematically breaks down the mind of the individual using persuasive tactics to generate pivotal information about a corporate conspiracy, which will help to bring justice to a world filled with deceit and brainwashing. Let’s dive deeper into the gameplay and emphasize just why The Red Strings Club is such an incredible title, and why you definitely need to play it many times to see the underlying truths that are presented to you.

Right off the bat, you’re thrown into a world that feels all too real. A society burdened by corrupt corporate politics and the majority are reeled in by its deceitful ways, which only creates a mountain of issues. Donovan, his android assistant along with his freelance hacker partner are pitted against this big corporation known as Supercontinent Ltd., who are on the verge of releasing a product that is supposed to eradicate feelings of depression, anger and fear from society altogether. What this essentially means is that the company is planning to create some form of utopia in which everybody behaves the same, and in the end, creates a peaceful environment. However Donovan thinks that it’s all rubbish and this scheme is just another corporate tactic to undermine the human psyche and brainwash society into believing that such an environment would prove worthy. Much of the gameplay revolves around you reading dialogue between Donovan and those surrounding him, using his bartending tactics to reveal flaws in clients explanations and generating more clarity as to what’s really happening within Supercontinent Ltd.

Every dialogue provides you with an eerie reminder of just how cruel our society can be, and why we need to extremely mindful of the information we take in. It speaks about the impurities of the human agenda and how big corporations try to paint a pretty picture to generate a form of security, when in reality it’s all just a plot to steal your freedom and manipulate the mind into conformity. Many people in our society wear a mask and can never truly tell whether they’re actually who they think they are, of if they’re just a mould that society created for them. This is where things get weird and is where Red Strings Club tries to dig into, not to scare you but rather to inform you that not everything that the eyes can see is truly real. As you serve certain beverages to clients and obtain a great deal of information, your android partner plays a small mini game with you to see just how well you were paying attention to the details, and if you managed to score high, she provides you with rewards to help gather information more accurately. Some of these gifts include a short-term capsule which essentially erases the mind of the client to a certain time, allowing you to dig deeper into their psyche without generating a negative response from questions earlier.

It’s very interesting and becomes a somewhat strategic approach because overusing your rewards can often generate little leads, so it becomes a balancing act of knowing when to administer the drugs and when to just keep the conversation flowing. You also get to know each character exceptionally well and can see their own flaws as well, for example Diana Neves, one of the clients you work with, is very adamant that the Social Psyche Welfare system will prove worthy, noting that if everyone’s at peace then there’ll be less concern in the world. Donovan is more of the pessimist in this regard as he feels that emotions play a very big role in the evolution of humanity, and that jeopardizing that natural tendency would only invoke more problems than solutions. This back and forth of philosophical dialogue is what truly makes The Red Strings Club such a thrilling ordeal, because it provides you with two sides of the same coin and it creates a beautiful synchronicity in a way.

“Reminds us of the movie Ghost”

Shakespeare had said that there’s no such thing as good or bad, only thinking makes it so and yet, Donovan claims that without duality in the world, there would be no balance. So while you constantly play through the game, it really stimulates your brain and makes you question a lot of things not just about the game, but the overall integrity of those ruling our society. Are what they’re feeding us really benefitting, or is it just another tactic to desensitize us even further and create this need for social acceptance? Our emotions are not toys and yet for most corporations, most notably Supercontinent Ltd., their mission is to toy with the minds of the people and create implants that will restrict certain natural human behaviors. The subject-matter is certainly a controversial one, but is it really? Perhaps what we think is controversial is actually pointing us in the right direction but because we allow the powers that be to dictate our emotional state of mind, we grow fearful of change and instead, we alienate the truth. The deeper you continue to dive into The Red Strings Club, the more thought provoking things become and the plot thickens heavily, unveiling some pretty surprising details that even made us scratch our heads.

Ultimately, The Red Strings Club focuses on issues that many of us would avoid and that’s what makes playing it so endearing. The relationships you create with clients and the ways in which you use persuasion to lead them into spilling the beans is quite fascinating and perhaps a bit over the top, but in the end, it paints a very vivid picture of just what can happen if we aren’t careful. Information can be vital but it can also be a detriment depending on where you look, and so being extremely careful about the directions you take is just as important as the information itself. The visual novel approach to the gameplay creates a nice relaxing pace, allowing you to really think through your decisions and decipher clues more effectively. The lack of voice acting surprisingly doesn’t take away from the experience. In fact, it provides more to it because as you read the dialogue, you can create your own flow in the mind. You learn about human expression, dealing with depression and anxiety among other things, and piece these all together to create a remarkably enthralling experience.

We had an absolute blast with The Red Strings Club and truly wish more titles like this would release more often. Often times, we allow ourselves to get to caught up in the social media landscape and create this pitfall of despair. Perhaps it’s nice every once in a while to just take a break from it all, sit back and meditate for a minute and really think about what’s actually happening around us. Like Diana stated in her conversation with Donovan:

“Art is emotion through the filter of calm focus.”

Perhaps we all need to just filter out all the nonsense and start questioning things around us so that our minds can create a clearer picture of just what’s happening in the world. Maybe then will we be able to truly express ourselves artistically without the need of a mask.

As always, for all things sweet, with news straight from Japan, be sure to keep it locked here on Honey’s Anime.

Editor/Writer

Author: Rob “NualphaJPN” B.

A passionate fan of gaming, writing, journalism, anime, and philosophy. I’ve lived in Japan for many years and consider this place to be my permanent home. I love to travel around Japan and learn about the history and culture! Leave a comment if you enjoy my articles and watch me play on twitch.tv/honeysgaming ! Take care!

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