#fun factor

[sorenblr]

What was it like when games had "Replay Value" and "Fun Factor"? Why are games today designed to have "'Neverending Play'" and "Salt Factor"?

Games have been pretty much dogshit since they stopped prioritizing "Fun Factor"...

But yeah, it just wasn't as viable to try and hold players in years-long compulsion loops before widespread online functionality and the design/business practices that this enabled: patching, microtransactions, GaaS/Gatcha structures etc. It's not that this wasn't always the desired outcome- the industry even in its nascency attempted to monetize "Neverending Play" with arcades and the design philosophies that formed around coin-based play- only the overhead cost was far greater and the potential for direct profit piddling compared to modern practices. Even MMOs required a relatively large investment in digital infrastructure that ensured only a few could achieve long-term sustainability- Gatcha games similarly come and go every quarter, but the buy-in is a fraction of whatever it took to get The Matrix Online off the ground.

"Replay Value" meanwhile found joint expression with "Neverending Play" in the Roguelike genre. This is critically one of the few pathways to commercial success for indies that lack access to massive digital infrastructures or lucrative IPs- a way of suggesting hundreds of hours of compulsive play (notice how often the phrase "gameplay loop" is deployed to describe specifically player compulsion cycles) with a relatively modest asset base. The same ethos of variety-within-scarcity underlines the popularity of deck-building mechanics and makes their inclusion attractive to developers forced to appease arbitrary ideas of hour-to-dollar value, to slip past the refund window on Steam etc.

Sorry if this was a more serious reply then was merited, but the gaming industry is just a constellation of profoundly evil business practices and the modern notion of the "forever game" (i.e. a single piece of software that extracts attention and capital from an audience in perpetuity) is one of its supreme expressions. It would be good if the earth opened her mouth and swallowed the entire Embracer Group executive suite tomorrow.

[gloriawriteshere]

Judge a Book by its Cover – #TuesdayBookBlog

Kelsea Jones is like a lot of girls at the University of Northern Minnesota. She has a boyfriend, she works at a coffee shop, and she’s on the swim team. But she’s not a girl. She’s a mermaid. #TuesdayBookBlog #Books

How often do you judge a book by its cover? Is it the first thing you’re drawing to, or is it the title that first grabs your attention? Here’s why I started Judge a Book by its Cover! Here are three indie book covers that grabbed my attention this week. Continue reading Judge a Book by its Cover – #TuesdayBookBlog

[cadere-art]

Commission for @sophia-sol of our understanding and depictions of Oviraptor through time.

[art-is-kayos]

Checking up on his commission

[cordycepspog]

There’s something horrifyingly beautiful about Tess’s final moments. In the midst of the most dire chaos, as she waits for her death to come rushing past so she can blow it sky high and give cordyceps a big fuck you one last time, one of the infected stops. It looks at her, really looks. Her own mortality is personified in this infected. It’s death that’s looking at her, and it sees her. She looks her own death in the eye, and the suspense is so high as it approaches. But then, it doesn’t bite her throat out like we all expect it to.

It kisses her. What’s more, it kisses her gently. And I think it was a brilliant choice on the writers part, because it reminded me that the infected aren’t supposed to be evil. Sure, they’re scary as hell, but really, they’re just trying to survive. They’re connected to one another, they can feel each other from miles away. They seek out and want to be close to their own kind, just like the human survivors do. And when they do find each other, they kiss hello.

And after so long apart from a loved one, someone you know and trust with every instinct in your body, wouldn’t you want to kiss them too?

[bacchuschucklefuck]

doing chibi is a good design exercise bc it forces u to think on shapes n essential details, essentially thumbnailing ur designs. its also a terrible design exercise bc it ends up looking cute no matter what

[nicollekidman]

Why are people mad at the barbie promo?

it's not a standard promotional cycle for a film that happens to involve mattel's famous toy. it is a massive brand push to revitalize a product for a new age, and the movie is the commercial. it is not normal to have promotion that includes collaborations with: airbnb, hair tools, many makeup companies, rollerskates, forever21, canned lemonade, ruggable, toothburshes, skincare, shoe lines, gap, pacsun, OPI etc etc etc............... like i'm going to go see the movie! it will in all likelihood be fun and enjoyable. but this rollout is explicitly mattel's first phase in what they hope is a HUGE endeavor to make "cinema" out of every one of their products, as a way to get more people to buy these products. regardless of how the barbie movie turns out, it is not actually good for anyone to have a failing film industry turn to self-cannibalizing commercial products for story. i hope everyone has a good time! i don't give a fuck if you want to buy a hot pink dress and go with your girlfriends and revel in your #womanhood or whatever. but the degree to which mattel has already had input in the actual movie + made people think that their massive push of product is some sort of cool innovative trendy Promotion (while having plans to do this to. 45 other producuts) is like. lol oh boy.

[cosmicdreamgrl]

rap line x mic drop performances for @epiphanytear

[hyolks]

idiot who doesnt realize how much theyre gonna have to draw cowboy hats: uhmmmm scifi western fma au

[chirrups]

omg!!! Dog au

I always head canoned jimmy to be a golden retriever and joel to be a tiny feral dogo

but they are clearly not here and I wonder what breed you drew them as and why you choose them to be that in the au

golden retriever was actually one of the breeds that i was considering in the brainstorming stages (along with some terrier breeds) but i eventually settled on the good old beagle for jimmy.

to me personally, beagle fits because they and their hound cousins are just a little more plucky and scrappy than "himbo-soft" golden retrievers are stereotyped as. jimmy is brash and foolhearted to an hilarious degree so i wanted to give him a more "goofy but still a hunting dog" feeling if that makes any sense at all.

also beagles are known for baying and i think it could function as a fun parallel symbol to the canary stuff he has going on.

and lastly, scott is a sheltie (and martyn and tango are medium-small sized breeds as well), so i wanted jimmy to fit in those size ranges and dynamics. he also just doesn't read big or small dog to me so medium size he is!

and good ole joel is a jack russel because that breed is terror on tiny legs. joel has a truly potent amount of small dog energy with the ferocity and gaul to back it up, so he gets the jack russ because those guys are as if a rabid animal and also 200 live grenades was packed into 10-pounds worth of dog.

it was a debate on whether to give grian, bdubs, or joel the jack russel terrier as they are all (just a little) napoleon-complex personalities to me but jack russel fit joel best design-wise and i ended up finding breeds that work with the other two better

[beneathsilverstars]

anyway related to my "gullible" post i do think bonnie didn't really have a lot of friends / any good friends. i'm taking a watsonian approach to "some of the things bonnie does seem more like age 5-8 than 10-12", and a doylist approach to "everyone in this party grew up kinda lonely and feels disconnected from their peer group"

[heybiji]

dandelion's hair is more of an art than a science

[jazz-kitty]

may i request a diana ztd

i finished ztd recently... what a RIDE!!!!

[leonardcohenofficial]

the thing that really did send me down the rabbit hole of spiraling was going onto this subreddit and seeing discourse about hating “autism pride” and apparently finding any joy in viewing autism as part of one’s identity because by definition it is a disability / disorder shaped around a deficit etc. etc. which. i have my own personal feelings about but seems to also very much ignore decades of disability scholarship that discusses what innovations and new ways of being and thinking can open up when viewing things through a disabled lens; “autism is a superpower” discourse is incredibly harmful and is not the point of my work but i do think that as disability and crip studies scholars have traced there are ways in which disability does lead to innovation like???????

[butwhatifidothis]

I guess the ultimate thing that kills CF for me - or at least nudges it away from me saying I definitively like it - is just how much Edelgard is clearly written with the player in mind before she's written with her character in mind.

Because on all of the other routes, there's a power to Edelgard's presence. Even on BE, there's a sense that for as lonely as Edelgard might be, she still ultimately will do whatever it takes for her to get what she wants. Be that be killing her citizens (or otherwise letting them be killed), endangering her friends, assisting in kidnapping people, allowing Byleth to support her only when they have the Sword of the Creator, covering for TWS - no bar is too low for her to limbo under if doing so means she's even a step closer to her goals.

She's manipulative! She's deceitful! She doesn't care for the lives of her people! Even her friends are forfeit if they try to stand in her way! And this happens no matter how close you, the player, get to her, in the case of BE - C+ ain't stoppin' Remire, and going to the coronation ain't stopping the Holy Tomb.

And in the war phase, she is dominating the field. She has the Kingdom completely on the ropes, down to a few houses standing against Imperial rule, and the Alliance is stuck in neutrality - she may not be able to do much to it, but neither can they do anything to her (to say nothing of the Alliance houses who stand with her). She's far from the underdog in this race, and she shows off how threatening she can be.

CF? Her route?

She scweams at scawy rats. She gets embawwassed when you find her dwawings. She's just so wonewy, and she's just so gwad that you chose her. She somehow fails to capture Rhea, or frame Dimitri for regicide, and so now has to deal with that on the Kingdom's side of the war. But that doesn't stop Elly Welly-kins fwom twying to find her pwecious teacher, because you're just so important to her. She cwies and hugs you when you meet her in the Goddess Tower!! Because she missed you so much!!

It's like... Dimitri and Claude certainly show different sides of themselves on their respective routes. It's the whole point! You grow closer to them and thus see how they treat those close to them, as opposed to being the Kinda Neat Teacher they see run along every now and then. But, like... Claude doesn't become a blushing maiden whenever Byleth speaks with him on VW. Dimitri doesn't scream at scary rats and get called cute for it on AM. They don't get Basic Bitch Gap Moe Traits slapped onto them that are only ever shown to the player and only on their routes. Unlike Edelgard.

Dimitri's endearing trait is that he's this big huge dude who can bench-press forests and arm-wrestle god who still wants to learn to sew and who teaches kids to protect themselves and who buys candies for his friends. Claude's endearing trait is that he's this mastermind planner who has contingency and lie and obfuscation as three separate legal government names who still wants everyone to be safe and happy and hold hands and be friends.

Edelgard is strong, confident, and willing to do some of the shittiest things known to man for her goals. Her endearing trait is that her screams are cute. She's shy about her drawings of the player character. She blushes over the player potentially joking about having sex with her per her JPN version of her C support; you know, the one about how Byleth walks in on Edelgard muttering in her sleep from a nightmare about her tortured family? Perfect time to joke about fucking her! Dimitri and Claude's endearments are, well, endearing; Edelgard's are all straight up embarrassing for her.

Hell, even the smaller stuff is affected! Claude's passion for poisons and mushrooms are things he has no qualms about having others know about, despite how weird they are. Dimitri laughing at shitty jokes brings him no personal discomfort or embarrassment, despite just how loudly he laughs at them. They have traits to them that can easily be uwu worthy, and they don't care! Of the lords, only Edelgard does! Because, it feels like, the only way for a strong, resolute female character to come off as approachable is if she's knocked down a few pegs for specifically and only you, the player.

And that sucks ass! I'm sorry, but when I'm playing Edelgard's route I don't want to deal with her hiding herself away in her room for a month IN THE MIDDLE OF HER FUCKING WAR because she's just so embawwassed! It is so fucking insensitive that Edelgard is literally the only lord of the three who can have her trauma openly belittled at any point in the story by Byleth, all to have some cheap cutesy uwu moment about her fear of rats (calling her screaming in fear cute and INSISTING that it's really cute which is just. Fucking ew man)! Why can we fucking mock Edelgard's manner of speech during the MASSACRE OF REMIRE?

This shit doesn't happen to Claude or Dimitri! And saying "oh just don't pick those options then" is bullshit because no equivalent options exist for the male lords! It's piss-boilingly annoying that the second you choose to see things from the strong confident villainous ambitious female lord's perspective you can reduce her down to this bumbling moeblob just for you (sometimes unavoidably!) like!! Dude!

[lgbtlunaverse]

Thinking of the Nie disciple that told Nie Mingjue it was Meng Yao who stayed behind to clean up corpses on the battlefield today.

Nie Mingjue didn't just randomly stumble upon poor lil meowyao eating bread in the novel, he was already looking for him to thank and reward him for his work.

That's what makes it so fun that nieyao's first conflict will end up being about someone else taking credit for Meng Yao's work.

And I'm sure that Nie Mingjue's actual opinions on plagiarism are a lot more nuanced, all we really get from him in this scene is "well you shouldn't kill someone over it!" which leaves a lot of room for what punishments he thinks are appropiate. But I bet that it isn't occuring to him in this moment that the only reason he knows Meng Yao at all, the only reason he got such a capable deputy, is that he noticed someone was taking care of the dead and cared enough to want to know their name. And then the Nie disciples didn't lie to him. The disciple he asked could have said "it was me, Zongzhu" to rise in the ranks himself, but he didn't. He went and asked others, who all also could have taken the credit, but they didn't. Someone saw Meng Yao working and decided to be honest about it and that simple decision is the catalyst for Meng Yao becoming Nie Mingjue's deputy.

Meng Yao can't just work hard to get results, others have to acknowledge that work. If they don't, it's as if he didn't do anything at all.