#genaspeaks

[genaleah]

It's probably beating a dead pig at this point, but I haven't seen anybody else mention this enemy in the game.

(Under a read more for antisemitism)

This enemy type called "Mr. Pinch" can be found in one of the later levels of the game, in the slum section. He hides in the upper portion of the screen to grab the player and fling them upward. He also pulls a coin out of their back pocket.

I don't think I need to pull up the direct references images, but this guy looks like an extremely antisemitic caricature. I've also seen the same said about the merchant npc "Mr. Sticks", but I think that design is a bit less egregious.

Its just that when you have TWO character designs that look this much like antisemitic cartoons, and their gameplay behavior is about money/greed, there's absolutely no way to wave that off as an accident or fluke. And especially after seeing so many of the creator's racist, misogynistic, ableist, and transphobic comments; I'm not willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on anything.

This whole thing is a huge bummer. I don't think that this situation is quite that same as Hogwarts Legacy, most people didn't go into it knowing anything about this guy's views, and the game had just come out about a month ago. A lot of folks were having fun and enjoying the positive aspects of the game like it's animation, gameplay and music. And aside from this enemy and the racist cheese slime, there isn't much within the game itself that comes across as negative. It's also really easy to miss how bad those enemies are when you're playing, I talked to some other people who had played and none of them had noticed Mr. Pinch's stealing animation. But, once you know about them, it can sour the whole experience.

I've seen a few different reactions to this situation, some people have talked about pirating the game and modding out/replacing the nasty elements, and I've seen other people who are going to stay away from anything remotely related to this game because the entire thing gives them a bad feeling now. I think those are both totally reasonable. But I'd say the barest minimum should probably be to not financially support this game anymore. Avoid buying the soundtrack, plushies, etc, and don't buy it on Steam if you hadn't yet.

[genaleah]

im not totally sure about mr pinch tbh, to me he looks more like mr burns or scrooge cause of the top hat

I saw that mentioned as potential design inspiration on the fan-pedia page.

When it comes to cartoon designs, I am usually willing to give an artist the benefit of the doubt and assume that it wasn't intentional. A lot of times people don't know about the bigoted origins of a design trend that had been perpetuated over time. And cartoons generally exaggerate things, anyway.

But as I said in my post, there are just too many 'little' things in this game, and big things that have been said outside of it, that have added up in a bad way. I can't assume that he didn't do it on purpose and think it was funny. Or heck, maybe it was subconscious, but that could still mean that these harmful concepts are not being considered or treated seriously.

[genaleah]

After many a year........ I'm changing my username!

[genaleah]

You should give Hi-Fi Rush a look, just finished the main part and it was amazing, 9/10 game, story, characters and music were great and I think you'll love the designs. Solid rhythm based hack and slash game with some QTEs.

I’ve been hearing about that one!! I shall add it to my steam list 🫡

[genaleah]

Hey Gena, what do you think about the new Pizza Tower game?

I just started it, but I’m really enjoying it so far!! The amount of unique animation in it is really impressive, it’s got such a lively style. I also really like the fangame, Sugary Spire! I played a little bit of that before Pizza Tower came out.

[genaleah]

[genaleah]

The “edible nft” thing was bugging me. But aside from the usual crypto nonsense, something about it seemed... confused

Looking at the info on the site, it’s actually a lot closer to a standard giveaway, for the most part. The “bonecoin” is just a roundabout proof of purchase by taking pictures of your food scraps, the “coins” are just raffle tickets to the actual grand prize... an nft 😑 (And a statue of a winged Buffalo???)

So the crypto bullshit is there, but rather than being a long-term pivot into making their own currency, it’s a one-time event to give out an NFT to whoever buys the most wings.

Anyway, it looks like this whole scheme is backfiring a bit. Look at how quickly their posts about it on Twitter had to clarify that real crypto wasn’t involved.

Which isn’t true, because once somebody gets the NFT at the end, it can be traded and so on and so forth. If not for that, this would’ve just been a dumb raffle giveaway.

Anyway, keep hating on it, I think the public backlash is a good thing. Big corporations are trying to cash in on the current trends and buzzwords, and the best result is if it backfires hard on them. If they see that no one is engaging with the giveaway itself, and people are actively against it in their comments (and talking about how they’ll switch to other brands instead), it’ll keep them from doing any ad campaigns like this in the future.

[genaleah]

Our channel is here! I stream every Monday at 6:30pm PST. My sisters stream at the same time on Thursdays and Saturdays! 👍

I'm hoping to get through all of the Monkey Island games in time for the new one that's coming out next year, Return to Monkey Island!

[genaleah]

Also fun fact about my last post is that i literally drew it on a post-it note at work

[genaleah]

Burning questions! (Mostly because of your CU hyperfixation): Are Sam & Max not even allowed to know about George & Harold (considering Max) or are they specifically chosen to take care of the prankster duo in case they go a bit too crazy with their hypnosis powers (considering their immunity to hypnosis)? Also, why are George and Harold crossed out on the Whispering Rock list? Did they get kicked out (honestly knowing them that’s very much possible)?

You either have a great memory, or you had to dig deep to find those posts about psychic George and Harold!

I feel like Sam and Max would be the most likely to interact with those kids - both because of that hypno-immunity that you mentioned, and because the brand of strange goings-on that seems to happen around them would be right up S&M's wheelhouse to handle. (Also, they're all comic characters! I feel like that might be another reason they feel like a good tonal match-up.)

As for the list of Whispering Rock campers, the only reason they were crossed out was because I try to not "cross the streams" too much into the wildcard au! It's already got 6 different stories crossing over, with little cameo appearances from the related game studios/animations/comics/etc....but I don't want to overload the "main plot" too much. The limits on accepted canons are mostly to give myself some parameters to stick to. I don't want to jam my wandering interests into it all the time, it'd get muddled. 😅

So while I'm still very into the idea of a Psychonauts/CU crossover, I don't "technically" consider it part off the Wildcard AU? It's like it's own lil thing.

[genaleah]

Bad news gang, our first Monkey Island stream failed to run today. It was super laggy and kept restarting for viewers! 😥 I’m not sure if it’s an Internet problem on our end or what, but we’re gonna try again next week!

[genaleah]

Me, desperately holding an old/new hyper fixation at arms length: sir now its NOT THE TIME

Also me:

[genaleah]

Me listening to the Sweeney Todd soundtrack two months ago: I hope this doesn't awaken anything in me. I hope I can enjoy this thing a normal amount.

Me now:

[genaleah]

Regarding the animatic, I unlisted the original video on Youtube, so apparently the original posts’s Youtube link is broken. But both of the tumblr posts should have the correct links now! Unfortunately my updates don’t affect reblogs, which means lots of folks are gonna have to delete/reblog again if they don’t want the broken versions.

[genaleah]

Me: listens to the same songs on repeat daily

Spotify:

[genaleah]

Me, making the fanmix: Is this enough metal? Enough pirate music? I want to make sure there's an even amount of music styles for all of the characters...

Also me: