#design beast review

[autoassembly]

Episode Review: Beast Wars S01 Ep13 "Dark Designs"

It’s been a while since I looked back at Beast Wars, my all-time favourite of all the Transformers shows. So picking up from where I left off last time, it’s back to the first season and Episode 13 as I take a closer look at “Dark Designs”… Dark Designs – Synopsis Dark Designs, written by Ian Weir, starts off with a typical beginning for an episode of the series. The Maximals are off searching…

[once-delight]

Daniel, my love, wake up!

I have discovered the most magnificent online storefront named "Bad Dragon"!

No, it is in fact not a monger of wares related to terrible flying beasts, but a purveyor of various exotic sex toys.

See, they have made a selection based on creatures from fantasy and myth.

And look here Daniel, the dragon penis even comes with artificial semen and a pump! We must try it out immediately!

Don't fret my love, I have already ordered one of each design, and I look forward to hear a detailed review of their length, girth and texture.

[e-vay]

My In-Depth Review of Sonic X Shadow Generations (Spoilers!)

I completed Sonic X Shadow Generations so I'm ready to talk about it! Remember, these are just my personal opinions about the game, so don't take this review as me saying that my opinion is "right." I'd hate to accidentally spoil the game for you, so all my thoughts are below the cut:

Did you mean to click "Keep Reading"? I warned you, there's gonna be spoilers here! One last chance to back out...

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Okay here we go!

THE SHADOW PORTION

Let's start with what we've all been hyped about: the Shadow portion of Sonic X Shadow Generations. If you single out the Shadow story of this game, I think it is an absolute masterpiece! Everyone who worked on it gave it their all, and it clearly shows. I'd give it a 9.75/10.

THE GRAPHICS

The visuals of this game are STUNNING. These new models for Maria and Gerald Robotnik are perfection! I am so glad they went with the more 'cartoon' style for the human models, similar to what we saw in Sonic Unleashed. They feel like they belong in this world among these peculiar looking anthropomorphic animals, but they aren't so odd looking that they feel goofy. They found a perfect balance and I couldn't be happier with them. Speaking of character models, to see all the bosses throughout the years in this new high definition was a sight to behold! Though I do feel nostalgia for the lower-poly version of the Biolizard, it was great to see it as the creators originally envisioned. It went from this loveable (and admittedly silly-looking) salamander to a truly intimidating and disturbing looking beast. The animation is superb. The characters move so fluidly and the poses are dynamic and striking! The frame rate makes everything look and feel fast and smooth which is exactly what you'd hope for in a Sonic game. I also appreciated the variety of poses/animations even just for the different stage ranks. I found myself purposely replaying stages to get different ranks just so I could see the different animations Shadow had regarding his "performance" evaluation. That really adds to the replay value! I am a graphic designer for a living, so of course I have to gush about the design, too! The graphic elements that appear before, during, and after each stage are straight up BADASS! I love the 2D animated flame that appears along the stage name and the color scheme and sharp lines are so appropriate to Shadow, and are a very strong contrast to Sonic's graphic elements that are colorful and round in shape. These are small details that most people might not outright notice, but it really enhances the overall aesthetic of the game.

THE STORY

LOOOOORE! Sweet nectar of the gods, we were given so much more lore with this game! Even though the Shadow portion of this game was fairly short, they jam-packed a ton of information and I am forever thankful for it! If you didn't do so while playing, I highly recommend playing again and talking to the NPCs regularly for little nuggets of lore. I was initially worried that this was going to be a rehash of the same 'origin' story we've heard a dozen times already, but that was not the case! Instead of focusing entirely on the tragedy that happened on the ARK, we got to learn what life was like on the ARK while times were still good! Learning that Shadow didn't used to be confident at all, to the point where Maria basically doesn't recognize this confident version of him that we've all known him as. And that Shadow never did his homework??? HA! I loved the confirmation that yes, Maria WAS INDEED the person who gave Shadow his name, and the meaning behind it was EVERYTHING TO ME! (Also works so well for my my AU. IYKYK hehehe) Plus all the Robotnik family history?! MARIA HAD A LITTLE SISTER?!?! She'd be old now, if she's even alive, but will we ever meet her? Will Shadow ever meet her (and would he even want to, or does he feel like that chapter of his life is closed now)? What was she like, and how did Maria's death impact her and her parents??? I hope we'll find out some day! Plus getting to learn a little bit more about Gerald's sons was exciting too. Will more Robotnik family members make appearances down the line? What do they think of Eggman's misdeeds? I'm so curious for more! It was heartbreaking in the best way for Shadow to get to interact with Maria and Gerald again, especially knowing he can't do anything to change what will inevitably happen to them. His sense of desperation paired with the growing affects that Doom's powers were having on him really had me worried about what was going to happen to Shadow's state of mind and overall well-being. It was amazing to see the toll it was taking on his body and his mind. In particular, I'm thinking of the scene where Shadow goes to fight Sonic and you see him having to actually restrain himself and go easy on Sonic. I thought it a great scene to demonstrate how easy it would have been for Shadow to just give in to the rage and take Sonic out without hesitation, but his willpower was able to win in the end. I have heard some people saying they're disappointed that Shadow lost his Doom abilities by the end of the story, but I think it made complete sense for the story. Black Doom is insistent that Shadow isn't 'complete' yet and he has to be more like him in order to be 'perfect.' But that isn't true! Shadow is already the ultimate life form, especially because there's more to him than his Black Doom DNA. By rejecting Doom's influence in the end, that was Shadow's true evolution. He's perfect as he is. Obviously I could gush forever and ever about all the Shadow and Maria scenes, but words aren't going to do it justice. It was just so moving to see how different he is when he's with her. In fact, at the end of this game I believe this is the first instance we ever see a true, genuine, heartwarming smile from Shadow and it DEVASTATED ME! We are used to his smirks, but when he's trying to reassure Maria that everything's going to be okay, we get to see him truly smile and we aren't seeing Shadow the Ultimate Lifeform or Shadow the Destroyer/Weapon, we are seeing Shadow the Brother and it felt like the warm embrace of a security blanket. God bless the writing in this game.

THE ACTING

The acting in this game is incredible from a visual and auditory performance. The animators really pushed the acting of the character models and you can feel Shadow's transformations throughout the game and the toll it's taking on his body. The emotions are cranked up to the max and they didn't pull any punches. In the past, Shadow was often limited in his portrayal of emotions, but that wasn't the case in this game at all. We saw anger, we saw resentment, we saw panic and sadness, and affection. There was so much thought put into the shaking of his hands, the gritting of his teeth, the shrinking and dilating of his pupils, all to show what's going on in his head without even resorting to words. SO MUCH ATTENTION was put into how these characters moved and interacted with each other and it truly tugged at my heart strings. There were too many wonderful moments for me to break down, so I will just single out one for now and applaud the creative direction and the animators for these scenes as a whole. There's this moment right near the end of the story, when Shadow is trying to stop Gerald and Maria from disappearing for good. His gestures are wild and panicked, his pupils and irises are small due to fear, but then Maria simply frames his face and rests her forehead against his. It's subtle, but Shadow's eyes widen and then return to their regular size and everything from his stance to how his shoulders fall show what a calming presence Maria has and how she helped (and will continue to help) him find his inner piece. Those performances are going to stick with me forever! Mike Pollock as Gerald Robotnik was truly *chef's kiss* MP is such a fantastic actor with great range. Though his voice is easily recognizable, the manner in which he speaks as Gerald is so different compared to Eggman, that you couldn't mistake the two characters even just by listening. We have been so used to only hearing from the angry, driven-insane-by-grief Gerald that it was so refreshing to get to see and hear the calm, brilliant, caring genius that created The Ultimate Life Form. P.S. I'm going to be crying over hearing Gerald call Shadow "son" for the rest of my life, thank you very much. I don't care about the future crimes he commits, we got to witness Shadow's father in this game and I'm weeping. Kirk Thornton is not my favorite Shadow. That being said, he really gave it his all and I was pleasantly surprised by what he accomplished. One of the performances that surprised me the most was Mephiles! This is a credit to the writers as well as the voice actor. The sense of wild desperation in his voice as he fights to even 'exist' in this timeline was so visceral and terrifying. Sure the other villains had their "I'm the best, this world belongs to me" lines, but Mephiles' voice lines were on a completely different level to me. What a treat! Lastly, if you can, please replay the game in Japanese! Kōji Yusa's performance is STUNNING. Ooh I'm getting shivers just recalling his voice lines while you're playing through the stages. I don't mean to discredit the English voice actors, but I think this game is even better when listening in Japanese. Give it a try yourself!

THE MUSIC

This is a Sonic game we're talking about, of course the music is going to be fantastic! The score did not disappoint one bit. It was great to hear all the callbacks to songs in the past as well as new tracks that were catchy and enjoyable even after playing the stages several times. "All Hail Shadow" has always been one of my favorites, but the new instrumental version used for majority of this game was so haunting and eerie. It was a delight to my ears as well as my emotions.

THE BOSSES

I loved the chosen bosses for Shadow's story. It was great fun to revisit some of the more iconic baddies throughout Shadow's history, and even though some of the gameplay was the same, the battle would then shift and offer the player something new. However, it's actually the boss fights where I dock the game a few fractions of a point. The boss battles were far too easy to defeat, and I actually found them easier and easier as the game progressed. I beat Mephiles and Devil Doom so quickly that I didn't realize their fights were over already. One could argue this was intentional by design. After all, throughout the story Shadow is evolving more and more into the 'perfect' killing machine. It would make sense that the more Doom Abilities he acquires, the weaker these bosses would seem. Still, as a life-long gamer, I appreciate when I have to actually work to achieve the ending of a game. I would have liked more of a challenge.

OVERALL GAMEPLAY

Whether you're roaming about White Space or you're actually playing through stages, the Shadow portion of this game is an absolute blast. Even having played the Shadow the Hedgehog game (which I'm a fan of, btw), I feel like this game really gave you a better feeling of what it's like to be Shadow. I LOVED that I got to use Chaos Control way more than ever before in previous games. If you had the ability to stop time, wouldn't you take advantage of it every chance you could??? The opportunity to use Chaos (and Doom) Spear as frequently as you wanted and Chaos Control almost constantly really shows how formidable of a character Shadow is and just how different it is to play as him compared to playing as Sonic. I loved the 'free-roam' aspect of White Space compared to the 2D version in Sonic's story. Hunting for rocket parts or figuring out how to unlock collectibles was a lot of fun and let the player really explore these new Doom abilities to the fullest. I'll admit that I struggled with navigating some of the Doom abilities, but even so I still had a ton of fun. I already mentioned replay value, but before you even have to go about replaying the game, there is SO MUCH to this portion of the game! The amount of stages, challenges, collectibles within stages, FINDING the unlockables USING the collectibles you obtained from stages, even the mini challenges available AFTER you've completed the key challenges (I'm talking about the bell that's located above the challenge portal), all of it made for a ton of opportunities for play. I found myself wanting to take on every quest instead of begrudgingly going through it just because I'm a completionist.

My biggest gripe is that the game was too short. Am I greedy for wanting more? Probably, but I can't help it. The developers gave us a ton of content in the Shadow story, but I still would have loved to have a full length game of just this gameplay. I managed to complete the Shadow portion in a few hours, and that was even with me leisurely taking my time to get collectibles and get S ranks for stages before progressing through the story. I miss the days where games took much longer to complete. But hey, I'm a nostalgia-prone 33 year old, so I guess that's to be expected of me haha.

THE SONIC PORTION

Here is where Sonic X Shadow Generations loses more points for me, which is a shame because I think it's a great game overall. Admittedly, I was disappointed when I first learned that the Sonic portion of the game was just a remaster of Generations. I had really hoped we were going to receive something new to help elevate SXS Gens as an entirely new game, instead of just "Sonic Gens + Shadow DLC".

Don't get me wrong, the stages in Sonic Generations are fun to play. However, when you go from playing Shadow's story to Sonic's story, Sonic's side drastically pales in comparison in my opinion.

My other complaint is that for a remaster, they really didn't improve Sonic's portion of the game significantly (at least from what I can recall, as I haven't played the original Sonic Generations since it first came out in 2011). This was a missed opportunity to correct more of the drawbacks of the original game. However, I will admit there are some minor changes that were made that I was thankful for. Let's start with the positive before I point out some of the negatives.

THE STORY

As mentioned earlier, I acknowledge that Sonic Generations is just a remaster so it makes sense that the story didn't change much. That being said, there were some small changes that I did really appreciate and helped improve the story. One of the things that always bothered me about the original Sonic Generations was how indifferent/annoyed Sonic was regarding his friends. I mean, the story is about time being erased! His friends and home are literally getting removed from the fabric of time and Sonic seemed more inconvenienced than concerned. In more recent games, the writing has really focused on the value Sonic finds in his friendships and found family. He always has his signature cool, aloof attitude, but I think the writers in recent years have successfully showed just how much he cares about his group, whether the games were serious (Sonic Frontiers) or silly (The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog). The story wasn't drastically changed for Sonic X Shadow Generations, but some altered dialogue and blink-and-you-miss-it edits helped to cut that jackass attitude from the original and gave him more realistic reactions. Especially by having him respond when he rescues everybody this time! It never seemed right when Tails was first rescued and he's trauma dumping on Sonic about how awful the experience was and Sonic just sits there in silence haha. At least in the new version, Sonic reassures Tails that he's safe now. Also, huge kudos to whoever decided to alter that scene where Sonic is shoving Amy away by the face. I always hated that. Ship or not, you don't treat your friends like that when they're throwing you a bday party!

This is me getting nitpicky, but there were a few things I had really hoped they were going to improve, but remained untouched:

THE GRAPHICS

I was never happy with the visuals of this game outside of the stages (the visuals within the stages are great!). The colors are extremely oversaturated and the characters are way too intense and some are even off model (ex: Amy is so blindingly vivid magenta in this game instead of her signature blush pink. What the heck?!). What's worse, the cutscenes during the birthday party scenes are SO GREEN. The light bounces off the neon green landscape and reflects onto the already oversaturated characters, giving them an unappealing green glow. I get that the Sonic world is not realistic, but it felt like the scenery in these cutscenes made it look like we were watching a bunch of toys interacting on a playset instead of characters living in their world. Sure the visuals during the levels are great, but it's a real disappointment when I'm specifically not looking forward to the cutscenes in a game. I wish they would have tweaked that.

THE ANIMATION/GAMEPLAY

I have zero complaints when it comes to Act 1 (the "Classic" version) of the different stages. These look great, play great, and if you've played classic Sonic games then you can appreciate how identical the map of the level is compared to the originals. The issue for me lies in Act 2, aka Modern Sonic's gameplay. For the most part these levels are good, but there were a couple of small things that always bothered me that I was sincerely hoping they'd fix (and they did not). There are portions of Modern Sonic's gameplay that is SO. SLOW. I'm referring to when you are jumping from one Grind Rail to another, or when you are sliding under an obstacle. These animations are so bizarrely slow and make absolutely no sense when your character is running blindingly fast. I don't understand why they didn't use this opportunity to fix those animations. When you're playing the Shadow side of the story, his animations are constantly fast moving and appropriately paced. Why wouldn't they apply these physics to the Sonic side?

As a whole, the Sonic portion of Sonic X Shadow Generations is still a fun game, but I think it could have used a little more attention to help it feel more balanced compared to the Shadow portion.

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This game also has some notably fun DLC and the promise of more DLC in the future! I have my Sonic side of the story set to the Sonic Adventure Legacy skin and Sonic Jam Legacy skin and they are so CUTE! They win all the nostalgia points! I'll be honest with you, I have never been a fan of Terios' design hahaha. BUT! I love that they made a Terios skin for this game so players have the chance to play as him if you choose and we get to see how he was intended outside of the initial sketches we've all seen. (Still, y'all can keep your Terios skin. I won't touch it LOL!). And I am OVER THE MOON ECSTATIC for the upcoming Movie Shadow addition to the game! I still can't believe they got Keanu Reeves to voice lines for it! I'm sure it will be a small thing, but I am on the edge of my seat to see what that will be like.

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Overall, I'm super happy with the game as a whole and I enjoyed every minute I played of it!

If you read all of this, thank you for reading! Again, my opinion isn't fact and if you disagree with what I had to say, that's totally fair. And if you haven't played the game yourself, please go play it and see what you think for yourself!

[mythaura-blog]

Development Update - December 2023

Hi folks, a very Happy New Year to you!

In the spirit of new beginnings, Mythaura has entered a new chapter in its development, which we detail in our December development update. We also take time to review what was accomplished in 2023 (our first full calendar year with Mythaura!).

We've also got our color contest winners, the winning Fighter companion, and much, much more. And of course: our demo is now live! We're so excited for you to traverse the Wild Area, a procedurally generated map with monsters for your team of three Beasts to defeat.

Demo Trailer

Message From The Developers

We're thrilled to share this pivotal update about Mythaura’s development journey, which showcases many of the core features we have planned for this game. Today marks a significant transition: we're shifting from the intricate and challenging phase of game engine development to the exciting realm of feature development.

Since beginning this project, our focus has been on scoping and then crafting robust and core components. Features such as wild areas, battle, and multiplayer systems, not to mention the complex breeding system, passive effect management, player inventory system, and the beast image engine. We've also been diligently integrating these elements with complex user interfaces and ensuring they will work on most devices (an ever ongoing battle). It's been a journey of overcoming unknowns and technical challenges, and we're proud of what we've achieved.

Now, we're entering a new chapter. Our attention turns to fleshing out the game's features, with a special focus on developing an immersive questing and dialogue system, towns & shops, skill trees & progression, and tools for content development among other needed feature development. The hardest challenges have by and large been solved at this stage and our focus can now be how to best deliver an amazing gaming experience by bringing them together. This shift doesn't mean the work is done—far from it. But it's a major milestone that brings us closer to realizing our vision for the game.

We want to express our heartfelt gratitude for your unwavering support and enthusiasm, and look forward to a jam packed 2024.

Year In Review

This year has been marked by numerous milestones. Below is a recap of our key accomplishments, excluding the latest updates which have been a major focus of our efforts for the past several months.

1. Introduction of 'Supers': Enhanced breeding complexity by introducing 'Supers' as a new mechanic, making well-structured breeding projects more valuable. We started with the debut of our first Super: Tegu.

2. Special Additions: Welcomed the special Panda to our list of Specials.

3. Expressions for Beasts: Implemented expressions for beasts, a significant and ongoing undertaking that gives life to your beasts as they interact with NPCs.

4. Elements System: Introduced the Elements system, assigning each beast a pair of inherent elements. An element page was added that delves into the lore of each element.

5. Beast Sizes: Standardized beast sizes, assigning each beast a unique size within its species' range.

6. Beast Classes: Initial build of beast classes, providing each beast with a class-based playstyle and initial items.

7: Radiant Companions: Unveiled Radiant companions, rare alternate colorations for companions that are bound to be highly sought-after.

8: Deep Dive into Seasons: Explored the planned feature 'Seasons', designed to reward ongoing gameplay.

9: The Weekend Traveler: Designed the Kobold NPC known as the Weekend Traveler, who deals in ultra-rare goods, along with the Kobold non-player species.

10. New Colors on the Wheel: Established a sustainable method to introduce new colors to our color palette, allowing us to add 16 new colors this year (including the 3 contest winners).

11. Ephemeral Inks: Introduced Ephemeral Inks, a way to alter the colors of a beast.

12. Color Wheel Page: Created a dedicated page listing colors and corresponding inks.

13. PvP Battle Demo: Rolled out a demo showcasing our multiplayer technology in PvP battles.

14. Mutations Feature: Added Mutations as a rare breeding-only feature, beginning with our first Mutation: Piebald.

15. Items By You: Crafted 11 sponsored companions (excluding recolors), 5 sponsored apparel pieces, and 2 sponsored items.

16. New Game Engine: Designed a render pipeline that can create the 2.5D effects used in Wild Areas during exploration. Including, but not limited to, dynamic shadows, volumetric fog, real-time lighting, collision detection, special & particle effects, and gravity simulation, all accelerated by your GPU.

17. Granular Settings: Created a UI to manage game settings, graphics settings, audio settings, etc as well as added gamepad support with keybind remapping to Wild Areas.

18. Procedural Map Generation: Developed technology to procedurally generate bespoke Wild Areas.

19. Ongoing Production: Work on ongoing behind-the-scenes features such as worldbuilding, map design, systems design, and the exploration features we showcased on this update!

UI Update

You may notice the UI has received an update. This redesign focuses on being accessible for players using controllers, which is something we are working towards supporting on all screens and not just the Wild Area demo. The about page has also been updated. All the links to informational pages you would have found in the left-side menu of the previous design can be found on the about page with the exception of the /species page, whose contents has been moved to the about page.

We have also added an install button to the homepage that will display for users who have browsers which support Progressive Web Apps. This will add Mythaura to your taskbar/home screen for easy full-screen access.

Mobile and tablet users may enable gyroscope to interact with the parallax graphics if they would like.

Feature Spotlight: Wild Area

Wild Areas are a key pillar of Mythaura’s gameplay, and will be where you can expect to spend a lot of your time.

At A Glance

Procedurally Generated Levels

Traverse through uniquely generated levels with your trio of beasts. Control your adventure with WASD for movement and Space for jumps and shift for sprint. This can be remapped in the settings.

Each Wild Area boasts a series of floors. Your goal? Reach the top (or bottom)!

Your Safe Havens: Checkpoint Floors

Leave the Wild Area without any penalties

Choose to start from any previously reached checkpoint.

Encounter formidable bosses or minibosses at many of these checkpoints.

Prepare for the Journey: The Adventure Bag

Your Adventure Bag is your lifeline. Pack it with essential items for survival and success.

Provision Wisely: Stock up and get ready to face the unknown.

Limited inventory space for both what you bring with you and what you find along the way.

Keep Your Energy Up

Your team's energy is key. Keep it replenished with food from your Adventure Bag or found on your journey.

Running out of energy or facing defeat? You’ll black out, dropping your Adventure Bag's contents. But don't worry, you can retrieve them by returning to your last stand.

Encounter the Unexpected

From unlocking treasure chests with lockpicks to aiding NPCs, each exploration offers unique surprises.

Day and Night Dynamics: Encounter different enemies and events. A full day/night cycle completes every 12 real hours.

Wild Areas have natural water bodies, perfect for a fishing escapade.

Escalating Challenges

Increase difficulty with each New Game+ cycle and encounter new enemies and challenging secret bosses.

Multiplayer Co-Op

Up to 3 players can group up to take on a Wild Area together.

Take on enemies as a group with co-op battles.

See your friends jump and move in realtime, split up to make the most of your exploration while keeping tabs on your team-mates through the text chat and the minimap.

Fledgeling’s Forest Demo

The demo features a single floor of the Fledgeling's Forest Wild Area, with unlimited energy.

Day/Night Slider: Experience any time of day at your convenience. (Note: Creatures that spawn remain the same in the demo)

Currently Disabled: Fishing, lockpicking, loot & foraging, multiplayer, and other events are not available in this demo.

NG+ Cycle Update

In last month's update we revealed our plans for Mythaura's New Game+ system. Originally, our plan allowed players from NG+2 and beyond to create any Tier 1-Tier 3 Beast.

We have since changed it so that at the beginning of a player's NG+2 cycle they may make a Tier 1-Tier 3 Beast with up to three Specials, but NG+3 and beyond will not feature any custom Beast creation. The player will instead have access to a pool of NG+3-exclusive items that they will receive items from.

Thank you to our Discord members for all their input, it provided us with a much better direction to move forward with!

Winter Quarter (2024) Concepts

It’s the first day of Winter Quarter 2024, which means we’ve got new Quarterly Rewards for Sponsors to vote on on our Ko-fi page!

Which concepts would you like to see made into official site items? Sponsors of Bronze level or higher have a vote in deciding. Please check out the Companion post and the Glamour post on Ko-fi to cast your vote for the winning concepts!

Votes must be posted by January 29, 2024 at 11:59pm PDT in order to be considered.

All Fall 2023 Rewards are now listed in our Ko-fi Shop for individual purchase for all Sponsor levels at $5 USD flat rate per unit. As a reminder, please remember that no more than 3 units of any given item can be purchased. If you purchase more than 3 units of any given item, your entire purchase will be refunded and you will need to place your order again, this time with no more than 3 units of any given item.

Fall 2023 Glamour: Ghastly Grin

Fall 2023 Companion: Saddleback Rattlecat

Fall 2023 Solid Gold Glamour: Ryu

Custom Color Contest Winners

Last month we revealed the names of the winning colors of our first ever Custom Color Contest--now they've made their official debut in the Beast Creator!

Congratulations again to:

Xander's "Moonstone"

Rhahatl's "Wintergrass"

Andydrarch's "Trench"

We were so impressed by all the amazing entries you all submitted. We'll definitely be running more contests like this in the future, so please stay tuned for them in future updates. Thank you all for participating!

Fighter Class Companion Winner

The brutish Domestic Wolverine will be the starting Companion for the Fighter Class! These brave and hardy creatures are perfectly suited to aiding new Fighters. Next month, we will vote on the next class companion: Rogue.

Meet the Team

We've gotten to learn so much about our supporters over the past year and a half, we thought it was time to share a little bit about ourselves as well! On our About page you can find short bios on each of the devs, including their favorite Mythaura species, color from our color wheel, and other fun and (very miscellaneous) facts.

Safari & iOS Problems

At this time, iOS devices like iPad and iPhone are only partially supported. These are the issues that the dev team is aware of and actively working on:

On iOs, Safari forces a refresh if the memory usage spikes, forcing you back to the demo start page. This happens at different times on different devices dependent on its RAM usage.

Sometimes when starting a battle, battlers start shifted down, then snap to the correct position after interacting with a button.

The zoom in on a beast image is pixelated (Safari bug: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=27684).

On Mac Safari, battle animations showing with a black background. iOS is fine. Solution is to disable battle animations in the settings.

You will need to be running at least iOS 15 and Safari version 15 or greater in order to use Mythaura.

Mythaura v0.25.1

Improvements to AI Behavior: Improved target selection and behavior profiles for AI enemies.

Class Infrastructure Addition: Added new class infrastructure.

Stat Effects from Classes: Implemented functionality where classes affect stats.

Glamour CMS Process and Fixes: Updated and fixed issues related to the glamour content management system process.

Ability Usage Tracking: Implemented increments in the 'ability times used' counter, enhancing tracking of abilities' usage.

Policy Code Refactor: Conducted a significant refactor of policy-related code, improving efficiency and maintainability.

Item Actions Refactoring and Rename Feature: Refactored item actions and added a new feature to rename items, allowing users to name their companions.

Book Item Type Addition: Introduced a new item type - books, adding to the game's content.

Encounter and Description Fixes: Fixed issues with encounter metadata and corrected miss descriptions.

Shadow Maps Generation: Added tools that allow the system to generate shadow assets.

PHP 8.3 Compatibility Updates: Made updates to ensure compatibility with PHP 8.3.

Queue Configuration and Fixes: Improved the configuration of job queues and fixed related issues.

Fixes and Updates for Battler State: Addressed issues in practical testing and refined the battler state management.

Refactor of Current Effects: Refactored how current effects are stored and managed. Moved current effects to state and resolved turn resolution issues.

Map Generation and Space Management: Improved the map generator to add empty spaces when out of view.

Behavior Selection and Shadow Rendering Fixes: Fixed issues with behavior selection and shadow rendering in battle states.

Party Leader Management Updates: Implemented changes for setting new party leaders upon defeat.

Stat Resolution Enhancements: Updated the resolution of stats, improving the mechanics of stat calculations.

PvP and Demo Battle Fixes: Made fixes specifically for arena PvP and demo battles.

State Management and Pruning: Improved state management, including pruning data when no longer needed by the system.

Species Data Addition: Added species data to the about page.

Rest & Defend Action Health Gain: Resting no longer increases health but does recover more stamina. Defending no longer recovers stamina.

Remade Companion Page: Used the new scene component to improve usability and performance of companion page.

Adjusted Radiant Overlay: This fixes an issue Firefox users had with viewing radiant companions.

Updated Tooltips: Tooltips have been replaced with a more modern library.

Gyroscope Support: The game can use a devices gyroscope to move parallax scenes around.

Websocket Connection Updates: Ensures websockets get cleanly disconnected at the end of every battle.

Improved Hitboxes and Rendering: Objects no longer appear to "float" regardless of their size and their hitboxes have been refined.

Added Global Sound - App can now maintain music across different pages and the settings control master, sound effects, and music seperately.

Enhanced Settings - Greatly improved the number of modular settings a user can use in both graphics and gamepad.

Wild Area Game Pad Support - Wild areas now support game pag usage. Full game pad support is in progress.

Virtual Joystick - Touch screen devices can control movement with a virtual joystick.

General Cleanups and Tweaks: Conducted cleanups and minor tweaks across various parts of the system.

Thank You!

Our first full calendar year with Mythaura has been one primarily focused on foundation-building. We're so excited to use these systems that we have built to create the content that players will engage with as they travel throughout Mythaura. Again, a heartfelt thanks to those who have supported us through all of this--we really couldn't have done it without you. We hope to deliver an experience that you'll want to revisit again and again.

As always: we'll see you around the Discord!

[atlaculture]

Live-Action Promo Pics - Katara

I’ve been hesitant to comment much on the the live-action series, as most of the discourse has revolved around the casting. I’ve already made my ideal ATLA fancast pretty well-known and I don’t feel comfortable harshly critiquing children/teens for not looking like my favorite cartoon characters. At the end of the day, it’s the casting directors that we should hold responsible, not working actors trying to make a living.

However, I have no problem reviewing the costumes--- which I presume were made by industry professionals of adult age. In fact, I’d say the goals of this blog obligate me to give my two cents. So, enjoy my completely subjective take on the promotional costumes:

Katara

What I Liked

Braided hair loopies! This has been fanon for years now, so it’s nice to finally see it done in an official adaption.

They did a good job of translating the wave pattern on Katara’s coat into something more elaborate.

The fur trim is good, although I wish the fluff around her hood was a bit fuller and thicker.

I like her hair beads.

What I Didn’t Care For

It feels like cosplay. Mind you, I love cosplay, but it’s a very different beast from movie costuming. Cosplay is about imitating the 2D designs as closely as possible; movie costuming is about taking the 2D designs and making them functional.

The blue color-coding in the show works for a cartoon, but less so in real life. A coat for a live-action Katara should look like it was made from real animal furs, and synthetic blue fur is just never going to give that effect.

The coat looks too new. It should look more worn, considering this is everyday wear for her.

In general, the coat looks nice but cheaply made. Like it could be a costume you’d buy for Halloween called “Arctic Water Girl”.

Overall, I give it 5 water whips out of 10.

Like what I’m doing? Tips always appreciated, never expected. ^_^

https://ko-fi.com/atlaculture

Click below for links to how I wish her coat looked.

I had a feeling this would be the direction they would take with the Water Tribe, but I still can’t help but feel disappointed. I’ve been spoiled by the better realized interpretations I’ve seen in fanart, with more realistic fur parkas and blue detailing. This is all personal preference, of course, but just take a look at all of the beautiful interpretations of Water Tribe clothing out there:

https://www.tumblr.com/ash-and-starlight/704817804388548608?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/ash-and-starlight/693847558563430400?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/chiptrillino/717611956655325184?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/chiptrillino/698450671239921664?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/chiptrillino/692656226353463296?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/chiptrillino/642057819823243264?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/atlaculture/719418204708061184?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/bernard-the-rabbit/705601232213049344?source=share

[theresattrpgforthat]

Hi! You have a really cool blog and have been getting me into indie RPGs, so firstly just thanks :) But anyway, any RPGs that could work well in a play-by-post format, even if you'd need to homebrew or hack it a little? Online friends on the other side of the world are a beast.

THEME: Play-by-Post.

Hello friend! So I haven’t done a lot of play-by-post games, but I’ve tried it out once or twice. I think in many cases, you might not even need a ttrpg in order to do online roleplay; I’ve played in Star Wars pbp that used the FFG system, but I’ve also seen Star Wars forums that are completely text-based and host their own wikis on information that’s been established in their world to keep track of what's happened so far.

That being said, I can understand having a framework to help guide you, especially if you enjoy the structure of traditional ttrpgs. The possibilities of playing these games by post are vast, although I'm noticing that most of the old forums have migrated over to Discord these days - and Discord makes things like rolling dice so easy, so it makes sense!'

If you're converting a ttrpg that uses dice into something that is play-by-post, you'll have a dice-bot, while if you're using a game that has no dice, or is a little more free-form, then that's one less mechanical piece that you'll need to worry about. Other considerations will likely be things like where you put character sheets, whether the game will be organized in a West Marches format or more like a traditional story, and how often players will be expected to write up what they're doing.

All of this is to say that the following recommendations are just the tip of the iceberg, really. Some of these are designed for play-by-post, while others are just games that I've seen out in the wild before.

Lords of Creation, by Five Points Games.

Lords of Creation is a rules-lite cooperative world building game with a focus on the Divine. Players create Divinities and populate a fresh, open world with a focus on myth telling and lore. The game is intended to be played via Play by Post, allowing players to run multiple societies, factions and elements at once.

Five Points Games clarifies in the game text that this game isn’t really their brainchild, but rather the culmination of play-by-post roleplaying on old WOTC forums. It’s a game about divinity and world creation, and each “turn” of the game takes place over the course of a real-time week. I think this gives a lot of time for each player to be involved in each step of the game, as well as providing in-universe ways to manage players who no longer participate, or who need to stop playing for one reason or another. Lords of Creation is also GM-less, allowing everyone to participate in a partial player, partial GM-style role.

Yowl! What A Strange Hotel, by Zargo Games.

Yowl! is a reviewing service that allows customers to rate establishments from 1 to 6 stars and tell the important details of their stay in a handful of paragraphs. This game is about telling the story of a particular establishment, in this case a hotel, through a series of Yowl! reviews. Reviews are from a different perspective each time, and should reveal something interesting and unusual about the hotel. Is there a dark secret that the hotel is hiding, or is something even stranger going on?

Yowl! looks to be designed for a shorter length of play. Together you will create a strange hotel, and then take turns leaving reviews, letting little pieces of information contribute to a larger story-line as you go. I think this is a relatively simple way of playing by post, although it relies mostly on each player’s creativity, as the game doesn’t come with any prompts.

World /Chronicles of Darkness Games (currently published by Onyx Path).

The World of Darkness franchise is a beast, and has been fuelling play-by-post form play for decades. There’s a number of reasons this collection of settings has been so popular.

It’s focused on factions and politics, which means that a large number of people can join in and fill out various political groups and start plenty of drama with each-other. Because the drama is so juicy, dice rolls can fade into the background. (I don’t think that stops you from being able to use it in a small group though!)

It’s got oodles and oodles of lore, but it’s set within the real world, so players can use something like Google Maps to create a fantasy version of a real-life city, and it provides a solid frame of reference.

It’s been around for a long time, which means that there is so much in terms of resources and advice that you can look at, such as the Onyx Path forums, or the WoD Discord Server.

The Chronicles of Darkness games are specifically designed to be cross-compatible. Changelings, Hunters, Vampires, Werewolves and more can all interact in the same universe - as long as the GM is on board with it. Most of the base rules are the same, with some tweaks for each splat, so if you have some players that really want to play a werewolf, while others are more interested in becoming mages, you can combine the two no problem!

Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine, by @jennamoran.

The Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine RPG is a dice-less RPG from Jenna Katerin Moran, author of the well-regarded Nobilis and an important contributor to Eos’ Weapons of the Gods and White Wolf’s Exalted RPG.

Pursue fabulous quests. Progress through Issues. And find a place for yourself in a world of breathtaking beauty.

Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine doesn’t require dice, but rather asks you to role-play through scenes and spend points in line with your character quests. You gain XP for the experiences your character has, the way they interact with other characters, and the steps they take to move towards completing their quest. Because character advancement is dependant on role-play, I think Chuubo’s is a great way to prompt interactions in a play-by-post setting, and character advancement is both a compelling reason for folks to participate and an engine that feeds the storytelling machine.

The rulebook for this game can be a bit of a big read, but there’s a starter adventure included, with pre-built characters to help you get going.

Kids on Brooms and Teens in Space, by Hunters Entertainment.

Kids on Brooms is a collaborative role-playing game about taking on the life of a witch or wizard at a magical school you all attend that uses the “Powered by Kids on Bikes” system, first used in the award winning Kids on Bikes. Kids on Brooms is a rules-light storytelling system that takes you on magical adventures.

Teens in Space is a space opera RPG that uses the “Powered by Kids on Bikes” system. Teens in Space is a rules-light storytelling system that takes you into the cosmos for adventure and profit.

Both of these games use the teen-horror inspired game Kids on Bikes. Since these games rely heavily on polyhedral dice, I think setting up a discord server that also has a dice bot is the way to go with this one. You can choose a character from archetypes provided in the books, or create your own piece-by-piece. Different locations could be represented by different Discord channels, and since these games seem to work really well in regards to mysteries, I think a GM could focus on putting clues in different locations for characters to find, allowing the characters to slowly piece together a mystery over time.

I think Kids on Bikes is a kind of game that is going to require a lot more work to replicate as a play-by-post game than some of the other games on this list, because characters will need to roll dice in order to get things done, and it's best used in a small group. However, one thing I think really works well for these systems is the relationship questions that you roll on to determine how your characters relate to each-other. It gives you a connection right from the get go, and it can give the players something to work with while they're finding their feet.

Belonging Outside Belonging Games.

As a rule, Belonging Outside Belonging games don’t require dice, and as a common feature, BoB games don’t usually require GMs either. Characters are typically organized into playbooks; tropes or classes or collections of abilities that both define characters and make it easier for new players to find their rhythm. These playbooks will come with three categories of abilities: things that you can always do, things that require a token to activate, and things that reward you with a token when you do them. These games also usually include the setting itself as a playbook, or a divided series of responsibilities handed out to each player.

I can imagine a play-by-post form of game moving between descriptive scenes and active scenes, with players alternating between introducing elements of the setting / narrative obstacles; and describing how their characters react to these new events. (I've also seen this kind of thing happen on a Wanderhome server.)

Some Belonging Outside Belonging games that sound interesting to me are Lunar Echoes (a solar punk hack of Wanderhome), Geese at the Beach (chaotic water fowl looking for shines), and Capitalites (urban Asian young people trying to figure out who they are).

I hope you found this useful!

[its-yours-truly]

Predicting Lunchly's downfall and why.

There's a lot of reasons why Lunchly's downfall will happen. From the 'beef' between the creators and reviewers, to the controversies, and to the ridiculous advertising, I'll lead you through all of that today.

So what I'm first going to talk about is the 'beef' going on between the creators of Lunchly -KSI, Logan Paul, and Mr. Beast- and other big YouTubers -Dan TDM, Tommyinnit-. A lot of people have ruled out buying Lunchly because of how KSI was treating Dan TDM over valid criticism, saying this is like a money grab. KSI then posted to X -formerly Twitter- a YouTooz of Dan TDM as if to say he's 'money grabbing' as well. KSI as well has a YouTooz made. A video of Dan was also linked onto X of him reviewing snacks as if to say he was a hypocrite. It was revealed the video was sponsored and he never told his audience to go and try these foods. A lot of fans thought that it was bullshit that KSI was trying to find ways to 'call out' Dan TDM because he made a valid point. The three stooges made a product that child fans can buy and buy again, which is something you can't do with merch.

A few weeks or so after the KSI vs. Dan TDM drama, Tommyinnit had mocked Lunchly, and Logan Paul was not having it. So he began to pull out screenshots from past conversations, and tried to find things on him people would 'hate' Tommy for. The internet sided with Tommy in this, including Jacksfilms.

I also think this product will eventually flop because of the controversies surrounding Mr. Beast. Parents and adults are not blind to what's going on. If you don't know, Mr. Beast is facing multiple allegations, from having child predators hired onto his team, from treating people's safety on the set of 'Beast Games' horribly. A YouTuber by the name of DogPack404 has been covering this drama along with 2 other platform creators, Rosanna Pansino and Jake Weddle. They've come out with their experiences, as well as reviewed videos, proving parts are faked. Mr. Beast not responding to these allegations is not smart because it shows he must be guilty of some -if not all- of these allegations, or are trying to make them go away.

Lastly, the design and creativity is horrible. It's an exact knockoff of Lunchables, with little to no difference besides a Prime and a Feastable. They have no new or fun products, the designs on the packaging are bland, and the colors contrast too much. If you look at the Lunchables packaging, they have warm and bright colors, and sometimes have characters on the packaging, like Transformers One characters. Lunchly has red and blue packaging with big text. Nothing cool. And they only have 3 products while Lunchables have at least 4, with multiple pizza, nacho, and stack'em variations. They also have other products, like dip'ems, kababels, and even grilled cheese and sub sandwiches. I will admit, having 'actual cheese' rather than a cheese product is great, but the marketing is awful. Mr. Beast, KSI, and Logan Paul did not know what they were getting into when they started to make this product. No amount of 'Thick Of It', marketing, or 'Lotteries' will get me, and many others to buy this product.

[keepmeinmind-01]

random modern!AU professions for fantastic beasts characters

newt - zookeeper, researcher, and children’s book illustrator

tina - currently a community fundraising coordinator but used to work as a night shift security guard

theseus - depressed but high-flying human rights lawyer (irritated by the lack of human rights)

leta - white hat hacker with a part time jewellery business

queenie - hairdresser who studied pharmacy and wanted to have more fun

jacob - still a baker ofc

grindelwald - popular rock star who’s made a dodgy political bid in three elections

albus - ancient history professor specialising in queer studies

vinda - editor for a well known right wing newspaper, position handed down by her mother, a tycoon

credence - journalist. he wanted to collab with that shaw after all! writes meta-analyses and film reviews

aberforth - sells organic goat milk. has a pop up for hipsters and a special van painted with goat puns

yusuf - textiles designer for high-end costuming

lally - secondary school chemistry teacher, but she also helps tina run charity events and DJs at them

nagini - helps aberforth run his organic farm, part time model for a gothic clothing store but has a PHD in hydroponic engineering

percival - probably something very similar. FBI dude

[ratbagdc]

Current keyring designs, they may change slightly after i've reviewed the prototypes. For this batch the designs are based on the characters '97 designs.

I have two character spaces free so if you're interested please vote for the character you'd most like a keychain for, I'll pick the top two most popular options.

[haupkmn]

Any Alola Gang headcanons?

Sun & Moon are twins who are both poke american from Unova

Their dad moved to Kanto for work and their mom lives in Alola researching Meowth. They're still together, they just work apart 99% of the time.

Sun is the older twin, Moon is the evil twin. Both of them attended the pokemon school for a bit before going into different child-carrers Moon doesn't have a gender. Sun is a cis guy. Maybe. They're both bi. Moon is Not Normal about Lillie. Sun has a weird crush on Kiawe. Moon can be smart if she feels like it, Sun is dumb as bricks and only knows book smarts over street smarts. Moon could probably steal anyone's wallet.

Ash Ketchum is a very distant cousin. He visits on occasion (Kukui has weird partial custody with Burnett) and after the championship travels the world with a group of his past companions.

Gladion & Lillie are Poke-French and are from Kalos. Gladion is 2-3 years older than Lillie and is a trans guy who's in denial about liking Hau and Moon. He's a horse girl who loves Type Null more than most people, but he has a soft spot and tries to be cool. Tries.

Lillie doesn't really have time to worry about gender since she has to work on her Lusamine Trauma™ she's some flavor of her gender being "i like girls but im not one". After game canon she gets into fashion design and travels to Kanto and Johto to do research with Vulpix. Nebby is usually with her (whether she knows it or not) and she wants to explode Bean Island™ one day.

Mallow is transfem and wanted a name like her mom's. Post game she, Lana and Kiawe all work in a silly little strip mall selling mostly food. (Plants, fish and dairy) and she's Just Roommates with Lana. She's a lesbian.

Lana being the little gaslighting fuck decides to catch water types with her not-wife and realizes that gender is fluid. Like water. She's genderfluid. Dresses exactly the same but Kiawe will look at her and say "Boy day?" and he goes "yup. B )". Lana grows up to be an Entity who most of the gang hopes she's joking about things like seeing ghosts or catching Kyrogre again but nobody can really tell.

Kiawe is in a relationship with Ash, he usually watches over Torracat and Rowlet when Ash is traveling the world. He has the option to go, but prefers the quiet of the farm and the peace of knowing the CANON FUCKING COLONIZER is dead. (Lana killed him)

Harper, Sarah and Mimo all attend the pokemon school when they're not playing with Lei (the Kukui breeder baby) or trying to catch their starters. They hang out with Bonnie on occasion.

Sophocles is ace/aro and is pretty chill with that. Togedemaru is his emotional support animal when he has to work at the lab with Big Mo and if Lillie is in Alola, he researches ultra beasts and ultra wormholes. Sometimes he films videos for a food review channel with Mallow.

Acerola & Hapu are business partners in a sense, Acerola scares equine pokemon and Hapu tries to corral them. Acerola spends most of her time traumatizing Guzma and Team Rocket. They're lesbians, Harold.

Hau is cousins with Raihan & Iris. His parents work in Paldea most of the time as chefs, he's genderfluid and just likes everyone. He got the alola champion when Ash got to be the pokemon master.

[legok9]

The Saga of K9

1977: Bob Baker and Dave Martin create K9 for the Doctor Who story The Invisible Enemy. He was only supposed to be in that serial, but production made him a companion as he would be popular with kids.

After four seasons as a companion, K9 became an icon of classic Doctor Who. Due to a quirk of character rights at the time, Bob Baker and Dave Martin owned K9 as a character. This spawned decades of attempts to make a spin-off featuring K9...

1979: The Adventures of K9 and Other Mechanical Creatures:

1980: The Adventures of K9 books are published. K9 fights the Time Lord "Omegon" in one:

1981: A pilot episode is made for K9 and Company. The BBC does not pick it up for a full season:

1982: The K9 Annual 1983 is published:

1997-98: DWM 253 announces a four-part pilot for a K9 series is being developed. DWM 269 reveals concept art made by Rory McLeish:

2006: K9 returns to Doctor Who in School Reunion:

2007: K9 is relegated to small cameos in The Sarah Jane Adventures as Bob Baker is still developing his own K9 spin-off:

2007: Dave Martin passes away.

2009-10: A K9 spin-off series is finally made in Australia, independently from the BBC. K9 had to be redesigned because the BBC owns his original design. The series has mixed reviews at best and lasts one season:

2015: The Essential Book of K9 is published. It features another redesign of K9 in the comic Short Circuit.

2015: A film titled K9: TimeQuake is announced and slated for a theatrical release in 2017. It will feature K9 fighting the Time Lord Omega.

2017 comes and goes with no news.

2018: A multi-million dollar K9 TV series is being developed to lead into K9: TimeQuake:

2020: The anthology book K9: Megabytes is released and promoted as a prequel to TimeQuake.

2021: Bob Baker passes away. His obituary mentions he has written scripts for a K9 film and TV series:

2023: Concept art for K9: Omega Rises is shown at the conversion Invasion Blackpool. The concept art shows K9, a new male character, Omega, Matter Beasts, and Dinodragons. The status of this project is unknown.

[anim-ttrpgs]

Songs for Eureka Sessions: Monster Rampage

Masterpost of Eureka song lists & how to choose good music for any TTRPG session.

The Man Who Made a Monster - Dance With The Dead

Red Dread

Nightmare in the Battlefield - Parasite Eve II

She Swallowed Burning Coals – Hotline Miami 2

Cleric Beast – Bloodborne

Future Club – Perturbator

Screaming Target – Resident Evil 2

Final Battle – Resident Evil 1 Remake

Fifth Generation – Resident Evil 2 Remake

Night Prowler – Carpenter Brut

Crimson Bat – Dark Souls 3

Complete Domination – Perturbator

Psyborg – Chaos Vector

A Day – The Guest

Boss 1 – Nightmare Creatures

Boss 3 – Nightmare Creatures

Elegantly designed and thoroughly playtested, Eureka represents the culmination of three years of near-daily work from our team, as well as a lot of our own money. If you’re just now reading this and learning about Eureka for the first time, you missed the crowdfunding window unfortunately, but you can still check out the public beta on itch.io to learn more about what Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy actually is, as that is where we have all the fancy art assets, the animated trailer, links to video reviews by podcasts and youtubers, etc.!

You can also follow updates on our Kickstarter page where we post regular updates on the status of our progress finishing the game and getting it ready for final release.

Beta Copies through the Patreon

If you want more, you can download regularly updated playable beta versions of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy earlier, plus extra content such as adventure modules by subscribing to our Patreon at the $5 tier or higher. Subscribing to our patreon also grants you access to our patreon discord server where you can talk to us directly and offer valuable feedback on our progress and projects.

The A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club

If you would like to meet the A.N.I.M. team and even have a chance to play Eureka with us, you can join the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club discord server. It’s also just a great place to talk and discuss TTRPGs, so there is no schedule obligation, but the main purpose of it is to nominate, vote on, then read, discuss, and play different indie TTRPGs. We put playgroups together based on scheduling compatibility, so it’s all extremely flexible. This is a free discord server, separate from our patreon exclusive one. https://discord.gg/7jdP8FBPes

Other Stuff

We also have a ko-fi and merchandise if you just wanna give us more money for any reason.

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

[youkaiyume]

So, Rise of the Beasts!!

I saw it twice of the weekend, and I want to put down my honest thoughts.

Overall, I had a great time and I definitely think it's worth watching. Ignore the critic reviews for some reason they are offended that a Transformers movie exists to sell toys. You know, their sole purpose since the very beginning of inception. But OF COURSE I have THOUGHTS so...

Spoilers under the cut!

I liked the human characters for the most part. Noah's sudden onboard motives for going with the autobots to Peru was not as convincing but adventure needs to happen so I gave it a pass.

Mirage is like, DTF with Noah. Like he is SO ready for that tiny bf bff. It's obvious that Bee spoke so much about Charlie (cuz it seemed he was the only one who did talk positively about humans in their group) that Mirage was just. HIS BODY WAS READY.

CHARLIE WAS MENTIONED!!! AHHHHH!!! That was the one tiny smidgeon of a crumb that I wanted and they gave it to me. Granted it was implied when Optimus says "I know one was good to you, Bee" But I was told that the Latin America dub had him say Charlie's actual name. There was a SCENE that was cut out according to the Hollywood Reporter--that Bumblebee had also pulled out a polaroid pic that Charlie took of them together from the first movie here to show OP. HE'S BEEN CARRYING AROUND HER PICTURE ALL THESE YEARS I DIE WHY DID YOU CUT THIS OUT!!!

Mirage's abilities seem very arbitrary. And I do not like this. He can turn into several alt modes which seems to be only a thing that he can do... he can mass shift--which I know mass shifting is a thing but when he turns into a truck to sneak past the museum security I was like??? I was always under the impression that the bots could turn into a vehicle relative to their own actual size so this just confuses me. There is supposedly an earlier cut of the film where it was more clear that the trailer was another illusion. which I wish they kept in. Also when he becomes Noah's symbiote suit at the end?? Like, as a shipper and rule of cool I am into it, but as a person who wants rules to ground my science fiction I don't like how Mirage is just a swiss army knife for the writer's convenience. It feels lazy instead of taking the time to actually worldbuild. Nobody else can do these things.

The arbitrary mass shifting of him being as big or as small as he wants (like when he becomes Noah's exosuit) really falls apart when they keep insisting that they need the humans because only they can fit into small spaces. Well, clearly not cuz you can just do it yourself. AGAIN, PLEASE BE CONSISTENT WITH YOUR RULES.

Airazor x Elena. Anyone else????

speaking of which, I am very upset about what happens to Airazor. And we never even got to see her transform. tragic.

Optimus sure was a negative nancy which--I understand why but I hope they ease up on edgy "i will rip everyone's faces off" Optimus because it feels disingenuous to his character to keep it going for too long. Like I get it, they killed your fave child so I will forgive you but also I want more of "Be strong enough to be gentle" Optimus. Not the edgelord Bayverse Optimus that they are clearly going for cuz the know certain :ahem: fans like that.

Beeeee. They put him out of commission which again, according to interviews they did just so they could make sure he doesn't steal the spotlight and give a chance for the other characters to shine lmao. He is too powerful. But also because we shots of him in the trailers, I was not too worried about Bee staying out of commission. But goddamn when if I still wasn't hyped as hell when he made his comeback. 10/10 he proves he's still the GOAT.

I hate Pablo/Wheeljack. No, after seeing the movie my opinion of him did not improve in fact it got so much worse. His design was the LEAST of his problems. Every moment he was on screen was deeply cringe. And he barely did anything!! He could have not been in the movie at all and it wouldn't have made a difference and I genuinely believe it would have been a better film. All this hullaballoo over Pablo and this is what we got. Wheeljack fans lost hard after all that defense I'm sorry this ain't it.

Hey speaking of bots that barely got any lines or screentime, wtf was up with Rhinox and Cheetor? My boys got shafted :(

There was a moment where OP is asking the bots if they detected the terrorcons and Arcee WHO IS SITTING in the pablo van was like "lol nope" and I was like GURL how could you, you're in a van. And it made no sense because don't you also have an altmode??? Shouldn't you be scouting outside to cover more ground???

I firmly believe the only had Arcee sitting in there like a dumb duck because they wanted Wheeljack to make a dumb joke in the original cut about how it was a long time since she was inside him. UGHUGHUGH.

Did I mention how glad I am that they cut the majority of Wheeljack's screentime since it was so awful especially his and Arcee's implied romance? Especially since they killed off the other femmes so the only one we got now has to have a mandatory romance. No thanks. Glad that nonsense is gone.

The Maximals' robot modes were very minimal. and they went by so fast I never got a good look at their designs.

I loved how the Maximals were harmoniously living with the native tribe--and speaking their language!

Scourge's face reveal seemed to be treated like it was a big deal but when we saw him it was just... guy without his wig on. Literally the surprise is that he is bald.

Noah x Mirage is very strong good. I have no doubt the fandom will be all over it since they seem to eat up BL romance much more readily and I am all for it. They also have all the great ingredients for it--flirting, drift compatibility, self sacrifice for the other. Another human x transformer ship for the books.

I'm sure there are some ppl who like the ending. but I.... did not. I do not want to see G.I.Joes in my transformers I'm sorry. I don't want the return of military propaganda or more introductions to several human characters that take away from the transformers. I don't want to see them exploited or used for our own human affairs--even if it's a fictional cult-- when they could be literally fighting Decepticons or Unicron or whatever. People might have wanted them in Bayverse cuz it was heavily skewed Military in those films but I don't want to see it again. It was a terrible, dark time. the Joes might be presented as good guys but I don't trust the military in general and I don't see their motives as altruistic--especially if their goal is to use them for their own purposes. Why would they help them get home? They wouldn't, if just to keep their best weapons--and Noah is bait. He is bait and he will fall for it hook line and sinker because they are bribing him with his brother's healthcare and the fact that he is struggling to find work elsewhere.I hope if they are to be involved at all it will be relegated to characters here and there but they stay in their own movies if they have to ride on Transformers coattails to revive an irrelevant struggling franchise.

There was minimal human injuries/death and I appreciate that. They did the DBZ thing where they took their fight to remote locations. This probably won't keep up if they introduce the Joes :/

Overall, 8/10. I had a fun time. I didn't love it as much as Bumblebee but it was definitely miles better than Bayverse (a low bar I know). The action was clear, the characters likable, the CGI mostly stellar. I have hope that they will bring back Charlie maybe. But hey, I took my parents to it the second time around and my Mom liked Mirage and my Dad did not fall asleep so I will consider that a stamp of approval.

[neoclassic-sonic]

Personal Vehicles in (Neo) Classic Sonic Part 1: Fang

First off... The Marvelous Queen!

Fang's vehicle of choice which made its debut in Triple Trouble and reappearance in Sonic Drift! It's got a redesign for Sonic Superstars that was expanded upon in the Fang the unter miniseries (with the side carts made for Bean and Bark)

Although Mauro Fonseca, Lineartist for Fang the Hunter Issue #1 and artist for the Retail Incentive cover for all 4 issues, admits that he thought he had to use the latest design.

Because of this let's say that they're both the same in terms of functionality.

The sidecarts are easily detachable and launchable.

Features its spring from Triple Trouble (I assume he has a Drill as well)

And an Emerald Detector added by Aaron Hammerstrom in Seasons of Chaos...

... that eventually made its way to the Superstars redesign! Speaking of, in addition to all the new features it got for the game...

It seems like it's self charging, probably solar since she hasn't fully charged due to the night and rain.

It's also seen being responsive to whistles.

Which is.... quite similar to another vehicle they've shown off before... Hocke-wulfe's Bike.

It's interesting that, not only does it share visual similarities with Fang's Marvelous Queen, but his bike is noted to be different from Bearanger's and Carrotia's vehicles... I'm not sure if this was intentional from Ian Flynn's part on writing them to be whistle-commandable or Aaron Hammerstrom's part who (I assume?) updated the vehicle designs

Could Fang and Hocke-wulf share the same car mechanic? (LOL)

Anyway, I'll go review the Witchcarter's vehicles another day, back to the Marvelous Queen. While whistling does control the vehicle, it seems she /can/ get commands from far away but her speed is limited when not being controlled as the gang have to meet her half way.

By the end of the series, the vehicle is seen upgraded with the Warp Topaz

Which can teleport it and its riders anywhere the rider wants.

Although it loses its side-carts, taken by Bean and Bark as they ditch Fang. (Interestingly it seems like they're controllable?)

That's it for the Marvelous Queen! Arguably the most popular vehicle from the Classic Era second to the Tornado. A sexy beast of vehicle with a name that matches Fang's pang for riches.

Sonic | Tails | Amy | Knuckles | Fang | Witchcarters

[bluecheeseinmyoffwhites]

RWBY SIMIN'S ALLUSION

To celebrate the exciting news of RWBY finding a new home, I want to celebrate the fans who kept moving forward & never gave up on our beloved franchise. And what better way than to review the most popular RWBY OC Team? SLVR is a fanmade project by Mark Zhang. These fanmade trailers blew the internet away with just how CLOSE he replicated Monty’s style with the RWBY trailers. Music, settings, weapons, moon shot, everything. One thing he does the best, however, is his incorporation of fairy tales & mythology. Today I want to honor his characters beginning with the one who started it all, Simin Megistus (video linked below if you haven’t watched his Silver Trailer).

Simin Megistus is based on Hermes Trismegistus from Greek mythology. Hermes’s Roman counterpart is Mercury, who has a reference character in RWBY proper with Mercury Black. This explains the similarities between the two characters. Luckily, Simin fights for justice. His name means “silver” which is why it is spelled that way. This can be a nod to mercury also being known as “quicksilver”. His last name, Megistus, means “greatest”, and is derived from Hermes’ last name, Trismegistus.

Hermes was a famous author who wrote several pieces of historic text. His most famous work was Kore Kosmou, detailing several ideals & cosmetology (moon, stars, etc,). The book continuously references the 4 elements (Fire, Water, Air, Earth). Simin’s weapon is named Kore Kosmou & can conjure weapons made from the 4 elements. Hermes is often depicted with a traveler’s cloak said to have magic abilities. This is why Simin’s weapon is a jacket.

Hermes practiced alchemy, which is basically the foundation of chemistry. It is the study of changing the characteristics of matter. This is done by extracting, merging, or manipulating elements like metal, fire, gold, etc. Simin’s weapon allows for him to manipulate dust & form different elemental weapons, allowing for various fighting styles.

All of Team SLVR has a moon/lunar theme, but it is the most present with Simin’s character. He represents the element of the moon, silver. He has a moonshot in the trailer (standard). His symbol is a moon & it's different craters. His weapon has 4 different “moon phases” where each of the craters hold a different types of dust. The song used in his trailer is “Paper Moon” from Soul Eater. Also, Hermes & his counterparts are said to be deities of the moon.

Hermes is the protector of thieves, merchants, & orators. This translates to Simin fighting the White Fang in his trailer, thieves who are trying to smuggle dust (merchants) & spread the word for social justice as Faunus activists (orators).

Hermes was also known as the “Argus-slayer” for defeating Argus, the 100 eyed giant, with his mighty sword. This is referenced with the final boss in Simin’s Trailer, Banesaw 2.0. His White Fang mask is significantly more detailed than the others, having emphasis on circles & dots in its design, resembling several eyes.

The white fang is smuggling dust, as they do in Volumes 1-2 of RWBY. Simin in a way represents the dust “fighting back”. Simin can also represent the full moon itself, causing the beasts of the night (White Fang) to ravage. Notice the trailer takes place at night & stars are surrounding him.

Simin has become more than a simple fan character over the years. He is the symbol of the RWBY Fandom, & his creation shows how inspiring & beloved the show is to its audience. Mark Zhang has said that he was deeply motivated by Monty Oum's work, & this led to the creation of the Silver Trailer. Everyday I hope Monty could somehow see the impact he had on others. Rest In Piece❤️

Here is the Silver Trailer for those who haven't see it or just want to look back on it :) love you Mark & keep moving forward.

[theresattrpgforthat]

Review Two, Electric Boogaloo: Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy

This is my second review for Eureka, as the document has been majorly updated, and the designers are gearing up to fund it on Kickstarter from April 10 to May 10.

This game is an investigative game meant for mysteries that incorporate a large amount of action and horror. I’m going to break down some of the interesting things Eureka does, and talk about who I think would be a good audience for it.

Graded Success

Eureka uses 2d6 for pretty much every roll, with the possibility of ending up with a failure, a partial success, or a full success. You can add modifiers from various different places, such as your skills, your fear, and your player Truth. The breadth of this game and the game philosophy behind it means that it is not a Powered by the Apocalypse style game - Eureka is its own beast.

Investigation

There are two kinds of rolls in Eureka - investigative and non-investigative. When you are not investigating, success and failure will mostly be determined by what makes sense in the fiction. For investigative rolls, regardless of success or failure, your character will receive investigation points.

I really like this mechanic because even if you fail, your character makes progress - and in fact, since you gain more investigation points when you fail, this plays as if your character is able to use their failures to arrive at a conclusion later in the story.

This is a great time to talk about the Investigation Bar, which is the central focus of the game. When you fill the Investigation Bar, you get a Eureka! This could be a chance to get a vital piece of information, or to tip the narrative scales into your character’s favor.

Precious Information - Secretive Play

Secrets are important in Eureka. The Narrator has secrets of course - the answers to the mystery, the motives of the NPCs, the supernatural that is hiding around the corner - but the players do to. If you are a vampire, a werewolf, a psychic, etc., you are encouraged to wait until a dramatically appropriate moment in the game to reveal this information.

This presents a very specific style of play. Eureka is an ideal game for folks who want to procedurally uncover information, and game masters who like using pre-determined, pre-written mysteries, with motives, clues and events mapped out. How these mysteries are solved still depends on what happens in play, but as a GM, you’ll have plenty of sources to draw on when the characters ask questions.

Eureka also prepares players for messy relationships between their characters. If you want your characters to misunderstand each-other, compete with each-other, or even betray each-other, that is an option in this game. These complicated relationships might even give birth to a secondary plot line for the characters to follow as they try to solve the mystery, especially if they want to find the answers for different reasons. I think it has the potential to make Eureka a multi-layered storytelling experience.

Procedurals

This multi-layered experience is possible only if you have one or more members of the group who are dedicated to taking notes. Because the information being relayed to the characters is so important, it’s crucial that the players remember that information.

In some ways, this reminds me of games where players are expected to get inventive with the tools they have. Players are given pieces of information, and then asked to put the pieces together while in character. The handing out of this information is similar to what I’ve heard described in GUMSHOE - obvious clues will not require a roll - but what is done with that information is up to the players.

I think this might be why playing in longer games or campaigns might be a really good format for Eureka, because it allows characters to piece together a big mystery over a long period of time. This is a game that requires a large amount of investment from both players and game-master alike; this is procedural play in which the narrative emerges from the procedure.

Horror

Eureka thrives with horror, and while the game is meant to be compatible with adventures with various systems, that doesn’t mean that it is genre-agnostic. There are dark things in the corners of this world, whatever it may be, and those things will scare and stress out your characters. There are a number of mechanics that tie Eureka to horror really well.

First is Composure, which is a replacement for sanity mechanics of games like Call of Cthulhu. Your character can only take so much emotional stress before it starts to inhibit their ability to perform certain tasks. If you lose enough Composure, you’ll find yourself hindered in the amount of positive modifiers you can apply to any given action. I like how this replicates how stressors can inhibit it personal performance - and the fact that Composure can be regained means that you can moderate how gruelling the gameplay is.

There’s also character Truths, which aren’t necessarily horrific, but can give you a reason to take the less-than-optimal path in any given situation. Similar to Vice in World of Darkness, you can gain a modifier to a situation in which your character chooses to act in a way that is in line with their Truth, even if there is another option available. This is a mechanical reward for playing true to your character, flaws and all.

The game also asks you to personalize the fears associated with your character. These fears may trigger Composure Rolls, or apply modifiers to them to make them harder to pass. These fears may also be cues to give to your Narrator, indicating what kinds of things you want to inhibit your character, and what kinds of things you want your character to be able to face with little difficulty.

Toolbox

There are elements of Eureka that are optional, which are there to help tailor your game experience. For example, you can include a Ticking Clock to give your players a dead-line or heighten the suspense, which can focus the game and also make it feel more like a thriller.

You can also tailor the skills to make the game fit a certain setting, such as prioritizing horseback riding or driving cars - or perhaps increasing the medical skills to make this a mystery much more focused on biology and medical practises.

The game also has many nods to various forms of detective fiction, as well as supernatural mysteries, action pulp films, and film noir. You can see this primarily in character abilities, which come as a big list of things you can pick and choose and pair together for a unique character.

All in all, if you want a game where Columbo, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Indiana Jones can all be in the same adventuring party, you might want to check out Eureka.

You can find a free download version of Eureka here, and keep an eye out for the Kickstarter here!