#i guess? like i'm not developing the game but i'm doing the map and all the scripting involved

[peribirb]

Average Tgirl Bedroom tbh

[alexanderwales]

My early impression of Factorio: Space Age are extremely positive, though it's much more geared toward veterans than I would have expected. I guess sushi belts aren't entirely mandatory, but I don't know how you would get by without them. They are easier now, but there are other mechanics that take things up a notch.

Mild spoilers follow, but it's not really a spoiler kind of game, and the UI seems very ready to give you all kinds of information about places you haven't been and things you haven't seen.

It's got a ton of content, the game design is overall fantastic on several levels, the music has been great, and in general I'm just a huge fan of it.

I am curious how well it holds up on repeat play, since a lot of doing a blind playthrough is figuring things out, and after you've figured them out, a lot of the gameplay is gone.

One slightly negative note, at least for me, is that the early game felt much too longer when I just wanted to get to space, and I kind of wanted … I don't know, an accelerated start option, not necessarily something like Faster Start, but a few technologies researched and maybe a tiny starter base or something. Setting up a furnace stack by hand is not something that I feel like I really need to do again, but I did it for the first SA playthrough, because I wanted the default expansion experience. I did kind of regret it in the end though.

I made it to deep space science in SE, so that's the point of comparison for me, and this is far far less of a grind, along with far more interesting challenges. The cheap rockets that can't carry a lot really incentivize building up a proper base on each planet, one that can make its own buildings and infrastructure, which is neat, and thankfully on all but Gleba (and Nauvis) you don't really have to set up permanent defenses against enemies, which can be a bit of a pain if you want to get on to the next thing. I set up defenses on Nauvis, and that was a time sink, but with the enemy expansion mechanics it was very very necessary. I think next time, rail world setting might be better, but I don't know how that would change the other worlds.

I think the thing that I admire most about it is that they really worked hard on making sure that each planet was very very distinctly different from the others, that each planet had some kind of new threat that was very different from the others, that each planet had gameplay mechanics that were very different from the others ... and it all works wonderfully, at least so far.

There are a few things that I wish were in the expansion, which aren't (at least as far as I know), and some of those are a matter of creative vision, some are a matter of development time taking forever, and others are just engine limitations. The spaceships are ... I mean, they're fine, but it's very clear that they're using the "surface" class, which is what I would have expected, but still means that there's none of the cool space stuff like docking procedures and ships that split apart and spinning up for artificial gravity. It's another interesting challenge in terms of game mechanics, but it's definitely aesthetically the worst of the new things.

The spaceships do not particularly look like spaceships, an issue which I think could have been partially solved by having new spaceship wall sprites and requiring the spaceship to be enclosed. The rocket engines look incredibly cool when they fire up, but then you look up at the gun turrets just sort of clinging onto this platform, and it seems a bit jank. But it's also the thing you probably spend the least amount of time on overall, since the ships get built a few times and then never looked at again, moving between planets without much intervention once the design works well.

(The space map is also a bit of a disappointment. I wasn't expecting orbital mechanics, but ... actually, I think I would have liked some kind of simulation of it. Launch windows for shortest time between planets would have been cool. Some circuit-readable calculation of how much thrust/time it will take, which rises and falls with the motion of the planets?)

But yes, overall, very positive on the expansion. I think there are a few kinks that aren't quite worked out, but in my opinion they're nothing major, just some features and mechanics that aren't signposted or a few wonky UI elements.

[infinitebrians]

Favorite Games of 2023 Part 4: Pseudoregalia

I knew Pseudoregalia was going to be good the minute I started the game and did the input for the Mario 64 side flip jump and the game’s main character Sybil did her own version of that satisfying jump. One of my all time favorite things to do in a Mario game (or any game) is that side flip, a jump that is as practical as it is just simply satisfying to do. Sybil being able to do that jump without needing any of the power ups found in the game told me that the developers of this game knew the importance to making character feel good jumping around in a 3D world. Her movement only gets better from there with a bunch of new platforming abilities that makes her capable of getting what feels like anywhere in that game world if desired. The pure control you have over Sybil's platforming capabilities gave me so many great moments of pure curiosity to experiment with what could work. What's better is watching friends and others play the game and figure out their own solutions to the game's open ended platforming design. There are no wrong answers in the world of Pseudoregalia, just results.

This game was a complete surprise in just about every way, just the best feeling platformer I’ve played in a long while in this small, cleaned up former game jam game. I’ve followed the main dev rittzler on twitter for a few years because the gameplay clips of their work have all looked fun and impressive and they always shared other really cool indie dev work as well. So, I was excited to finally play Pseudoregalia when it was announced to be released. It's super low price (6 dollars USD) and being something I was able to finish in the span of one day alone was a huge breath of fresh air in this current gaming environment. It’s something I’ve been personally thinking a lot about recently is the appeal of a simpler, lower priced game. It’s appeal to me coming from playing something that never needs to be some sort of omnipresent, super game. Instead, Pseudoregalia presents itself in a humble statement of, ‘here, enjoy a few hours jumping around this wacky maze like castle as a goat bunny lady!’.

I'm not a person who typically ever has a desire to replay a game right after finishing it, I usually prefer to immediately move on to another game that I've been wishing to play for for a while. Pseudoregalia is a game I've played four or so times now from start to finish, I even started another playthrough in preparation for this drawing/writing and found myself wanting to play it all the way through again. Its the first time I found myself actually physically seeing the appeal of speedrunning, a hobby I always just enjoyed as a spectator. Pseudoregalia just lends itself so neatly to that part of me that loves routing out a path for stuff. How quickly can you find all the vital movement abilities for Sybil? What's unnecessary, what can be improved, what can be gathered while on the path of gathering something else. From at least my perspective of not actually investigating the proper speedrunner's routing, the options feel immense. From these handful of times replaying the game I've gotten a good handle of finding my way around the map and a good idea of how to get a lot of the really important movement abilities almost immediately. It also made the game feel quite different from how it felt to me with my first playthrough, what was once mysterious and labyrinthine was now a familiar playground.

That is one thing I will miss when doing those repeat playthroughs is that sense of discovery that occurred with that initial run. Soon before Pseudoregalia came out, I watched a lot of Videochess and spaghoner's exploration and documentation of the incredible Mario 64 hack, B3313 ( https://youtu.be/pLKB0SG0i8c ). I found that hack incredible at creating a sense of uneasiness and wonder from simply keeping you constantly guessing what was next behind each door something even those two expressed while streaming. During my first playthrough of Pseudoregalia, I was completely lost in that castle and was constantly finding paths that led to new zones or ones circled me back to old ones from hours ago. It was a pretty incredible feeling of discovery that only wore out it's welcome at the end when I just needed one more big key necessary for progression. What helped make exploration in both of these games engaging the whole time is that aspect of having a really fun character to move around as while being lost. It was okay with being completely lost because I could still just keep doing these long jumps into wall kicks that just make Sybil go fuckin' fast in an immensely satisfying way.

I think in the time it's taken me to think about this game again, and briefly revisit it in preparation for this art/writing I've come to decide that this is probably my favorite new game of 2023. In a year full of fantastic platformers to pick from, this one was just a class above in terms of movement design and movement application.

[eggbert9000-blog]

My Thoughts on Persona 2: Innocent Sin (PSX)

I Think my introduction to the Persona series is quite unique compared to other people. Like many I heard about the series from the modern trilogy (3, 4, 5), The first Persona game I had tried was 4 when Golden was released on Steam, but I never completed it at the time.

(I since have completed 4 by the way, I thought it was fantastic!)

However for whatever reason Persona came back onto my radar around early this year right off the heels of me completing Final Fantasy VIII for the first time, gaining a new appreciation for underrated JRPG's. That's when I thought to myself "why does everyone talk about Persona's 3, 4 and 5, But not 1 or 2?" So I did a little digging and found that the Persona 2 Duology had developed a sort of "cult classic" feel to it and that it had one of the best stories in the whole Megaten franchise. (I can't attest to that as I have only delved into the Persona side of the series as of now, but the rest of the series is now on my list of things to complete). I also learnt that the PSP version of Innocent Sin botched the difficulty of the original PSX version, so that's why I decided to play through the PSX version as my first Persona game.

So what did I think?

Overall I thought it was fantastic! However I have some problems with it. So let's start with that.

Demon Negotiation

This was one of the things I was most excited about going into the game, and I think it does a good job at showcasing the characters personality. However the amount of options that the game gives you is overwhelming and makes you feel like you are just guessing when you are not using a guide for contacts, which is what I ended up doing because I got too frustrated with contacting.

(4 options per character, including pairing them up... oh man...)

However I found ways of working around it. If I ever wanted Tarot cards I would end up going to the Abandoned Factory, making a contract with a demon, and then farm Free Tarot from them to use them on whatever personas I wanted. I also ended up using the Prime and Ultimate personas often as they were pretty good while not requiring any fusing.

Overall Slowness

There were many times in the game when I thought that the game felt sluggish. One of them involves the encounter rate. Now listen, I'm a little crazy and I would say I love random encounters in JRPG's and I don't even care about high encounter rates, which this game notoriously has (even though I don't think its that bad), but in the PSX version there is this noticeable pause between getting the encounter and the game putting you into the transition, which threw me off a couple times, but I got used to it. What really bothered me was the lack of a minimap in the PSX version, which as a first time Megaten-er, gave me a sort of hard time. Very often I would have to pull up the map, which took a second or so, but it got annoying quick. What I find particularly confusing in hindsight was that the previous game, Revelations: Persona, had a minimap, so I think its a bit strange that they decided that they didn't need one for the sequel.

(This was also one of those things that was fixed in the PSP version, but I think the PSX version is still worth playing over it, but thats a discussion for another time).

There are also moments in the game that I felt dragged a little bit. Like around the middle of the game after Aoba Park where you go to defuse the bombs around Sumaru in places like Smile Hirasaka and GOLD that I didn't find super interesting. Or places like Xibalba where it just feels like its going on forever. It felt like I was just going through the motions.

Aaaand thats about all the problems I had with it.

"Wait that's all that you had problems with?"

Yup! I think this is one of my favorite RPG's that I have played in recent memory. It's time to talk about what I loved.

The Setting

This is something I think the original Persona trilogy does extremely well, These games have some of my favorite dungeons in any RPG i've ever played, especially the Persona 2 Duology. It reminds me a lot of the MOTHER series in the way that the dungeons are (mostly) grounded in reality with the obvious exceptions. Like one moment you are running around the club and the next you are trying to save kids in an Aerospace Museum. Then you are running up Mt. Katasumuri in the deep forest. Or you are exploring the aforementioned Abandoned Factory with some of the most kickass music ever heard in a video game. Sumaru City as a whole is one of my favorite settings in a videogame.

The Music and Tone

The music in this game is incredible, 'nuff said. Every dungeon I entered I was excited to hear what banger was about to come on and I was treated almost every single time. Sometimes the music is a jamfest like with the Abandoned Factory or Smile Hirasaka. Or sometimes is melancholic and sombre like Mt. Iwato or Aoba Park.

I think the music represents the tone/atmosphere of the game incredibly well. Dark, but with plenty of cool or humorous moments to not make it completely depressing.

Now I don't think that the story of Innocent Sin is the "darkest best story in the whole francise" as many try and sell it to be. But they would be correct in the fact that Innocent Sin definitely has Dark or Sad undertones that make it one of the most emotionally investing stories. Oh I should probably talk about what I thought of the story...

The Story

It's really good, like it was one of the main driving forces as to why I wanted to complete the game. I won't go into spoilers here but all I will say is that I loved the way the game balanced out the serious stuff with a lot of humorous things. The concept of rumors becoming real is such a cool idea and I think they knocked it out of the park, starting with relatively small stuff like "I heard this ramen shop sells weapons", and having it escalate to something being a whole threat to the world, made it really investing.

The characters too, are fantastic. They all feel like family and I couldn't help but care about each and every single one of them. They all have such great chemistry and I loved having them as the party.

One character I really fell in love with was Tatsuya himself, because unlike other silent protagonists like him, he feels like an actual persona and not someone you are just supposed to self-insert yourself into. He has his own personality and past, you learn throughout the story how much he cares about his friends and his determination to protect them all, evident through how he carries his zippo lighter everywhere, which I wont mention the lore significance of. And all of this is not even including his involment in Eternal Punishment where he really gets his time to shine, but this review isn't about Eternal Punishment so lets leave it at that.

Eikichi is a lovable guy and I love his personality (and his weapon is badass too), same with Lisa where I felt her whole romance with Tatsuya was done very well in that it dosen't get in the way of her main personality, I really liked her chemistry with Eikichi.

Maya is a person who I really ended up caring for and I love how she acted as the big sister or leader of the group often, Without going into too much detail, this group really loves Maya and that connection is something I really enjoyed and it made me care about Maya a lot as well.

I also want to use this opportunity to talk about something that I think the Original Persona Trilogy does that's cool in hindsight. They all feel really connected, it's really cool how Yukino from Persona 1 is just a party member again and you get to see how she grew, and just being able to see the P1 cast around Sumaru and how they are doing in life. It makes the world feel lived in, and like every game and the stories in them matter. And that world building is something that I feel like is sadly lacking in the later entries.

Overall this game is worth playing for the characters and story alone.

CUSTOMIZATION!!!!

This will be the last thing I talk about to keep things a little short but I'm just going to say that the customization in this game is some of the most fun things about it.

The fact that everybody can change their personas is MASSIVE and SO MUCH FUN.

I often found myself thinking "OH! If i fuse that guy I could do THAT fusion spell, or I could get THAT spell that would be really good"

And the fact that they can swap personas ON THE FLY gives me a customization rush that I haven't felt since playing with Final Fantasy VI's Espers or Final Fantasy V's Jobs.

I could swap a character from being a healer to damage dealer or debuffer and there was no limit to how I could do it. It was fantastic.

And Im gonna use this oppertunity to talk about the combat because in the PSX version I find that it's really smooth and fun to do once you get the hang of it.

And Fusion Spells are such a cool mechanic, it reminds me a lot of the Dual and Triple Tech's in Chrono Trigger and I was all for it!

And of course, shoutouts to Nova Kaiser being one of the coolest spells in and RPG, its so satisfying to use.

Conclusions

I love this game, and I couldn't think of a better way to be introduced to the series. After I beat Innocent Sin I immediatley went and beat Eternal Punishment, and then Persona 1 right after that.

The Original Trilogy is something that I think deserves to be remembered and praised, as they are magnificent games that I think unfortunatley are not as accessable to a general audience.

But I implore to whoever cared enough to read this to give it a shot.

I do think that the PSX version of Innocent Sin is the best because the PSP's botched difficulty is not the only problem I have with the port. The menus feel awful to go through, and I feel like Atlus knew that too and fixed it with Eternal Punishment PSP and made it more like the PSX menus. But at the end of the day IS PSP has a better translation, more quality of life, new bonus content and remastered music which is also pretty good, so whatever version you prefer is the best version.

So Please give Persona 2: Innocent Sin, and the rest of the Original Trilogy a shot, you might find a gem and a new incredible JRPG that you never knew you would like just like I have.

[mirandaputsherbestbuttforward]

Anyway, I finished Dragon Age: The Veilguard just over 85 hours for the whole thing (definitely missed some puzzles and a bit of loot here and there), but here are a collection of my thoughts before going to bed.

Spoilers below!

Genuinely, I think it was a solid game. The writing and themes throughout are really potent. I think the dialogue in some places was a little 80s cheesy or a BIT out of place in the DA setting but I definitely laughed at a lot of it.

I think the companions were great, though I found myself not really caring for Lucanis (and I'm not torn up that I accidentally got him killed in the endgame).

Neve, on the other hand, was a sniper shot directly at my forehead; she is carrying out the legacy of the Emotionally Distant Usuallly Hetero BioWare Brunette™ that I have always fallen for, but thankfully not straight this time (bless).

I think the environments were amazing and had so much depth even if the maps were more 'linear' in terms of areas to explore but I loved not having fetch quests. I loved being able to use companion abilities to unlock more parts of the map as we went along.

I do think there was a lot of content - which is good - but it did feel like a bit of a slow go to start.

I felt that the romance wasn't necssarily lacking in terms of BioWare's standard style of romances with casual flirting -> serious flirting -> kiss scene -> romance scene just prior to endgame, BUT because there was so much to do in Act 2, it felt like I wasn't getting anywhere fast and so spacing it out that way felt like there could've been a few more little things in between (e.g. kiss animations like BG3, or something) to hold us over.

In terms of story, I think for the most part it really fit into the series well enough; I don't think the lack of worldstate mattered too much in order to tell the story they wanted to tell with Solas. A few mentioned and call backs are all we would've gotten and I'm okay with that (e.g. like who you picked for Divine or who is ruling Fereldan, etc).

I like that we got to explore more Dwarf lore again, I think this fandom needs to be more into dwarves because holy shit.... the whole reason they can't dream???????? insane.

Also in terms of gameplay, the combat was fun and refreshing, and very mass effect-y and I loved it. I was a warrior and just had fun smashing the shit out of everything. I do wish we had more loot / options to work with (lowkey missed the crafting system in DAI to make our own stuff) but I get why they did it like that.

I loved Rook, and I know that you can't be a super aggressive asshole but tbh this doesn't call for it. They were brought in as someone who could help the team and work together.

As someone on tiktok said, they are friends with fully developed prefrontal cortexes and act like it; DA2 companions are not found family, they are only friends with Hawke and only tolerate each other because of that mutual friendship. Inquisitor is like the manager of a bunch of coworkers.

ANYWAY, I think Rook was a fine protag, and I LOVED the CC aside from a few things like why do some of the more detailed complexions get a 5 o clock shadow embedded into it? No age slider??? no grey hair slider???

Fat slider good but should've had more. Also the boob/ass slider lacking like I get it that it helps keep armours intact but they should've let the sliders go more for better shapes.

All in all, I'm giving it a solid 8.5/10, and well worth the 10 year wait.

I just hope that they get to make a DA5 with that hint they dropped on us in the post-credit scene. I was really hoping for DA Absolution to have a tie in because what the fuck has Meredith Stannard been doing beefing w tevinter to get a circlet to bring someone back from the dead, and what plot point is that gonna be????? but anyway I guess I can hope for a season 2 of DA Absolution next

[lutethebodies]

Random Observations on My Own Characterization Choices

I don't read or write BG3 fanfic (or any fanfic) so I don't really have A Take on The Discourse, but the analyses about characterization choice (or rather who writes about whom) particularly @mikuchan's ongoing infographic/spreadsheet study, have been a fascinating topic for me to follow—perhaps precisely because of my own laughable ignorance on the subject.

So I thought it might be self-beneficial to publicly interrogate my own characterization choices when creating 5e/BG3 characters. TL;DR: nobody asked for this—it's just something I've been thinking about after dipping my toes into the BG3 fandom for a year, and I have no idea how cringe or performative or problematic or whatever it might be—so I'll refer folks to my pin and leave everything else below the cut.

Anyway, fanfic as a phenomenon is a fairly large cultural knowledge gap for me, despite being Too Online for most of this century. It might be due to my "cover songs" allergy (developed over way too many years playing in bands) of "writing my own songs because I wasn't good enough to cover others' songs."

It's also maybe due to my age (almost 48), but it's more likely because of my gender (male). My wife, for example, is only two years my junior and doesn't have this gap; she is/was an avid multifandom fic reader for years. So when she said, a few years back, something like "I think it's cool that you play as both male and female characters in your D&D sessions" it made me really consider what, and how much, I self-insert into each of these characters—because while I didn't feel like gender was something I'd worried overmuch about here, I probably couldn't be objective about that.

I'm sure this knowledge gap is also due to my other self-reported demographic data points; while I don't enjoy being reduced to any of those in a judgmental sense (I assume no one does), I do appreciate that being a straight cis white male Californian is hobbled with plenty of blind spots and biases and whatnot. All of that feels like a very long and overly-disclaimerish way to say that characterization and the choices or ramifications involved are certainly a big deal to me as someone who likes to worldbuild, via storytelling or maps or song lyrics, and always based on characterization first.

So I guess I'll just jump in now. My IRL D&D group doesn't go for romance-y gameplay, but as people, my characters definitely have preferences, and in my own BG3 sessions I tend to self-insert by playing male characters who pursue m/f relationships. Not always, but it's probably safe to say that that's the reason my cis male bard is the one whom I've played repeatedly (and romanced the same female character repeatedly), as well as why my other male characters (monk, ranger, cleric) also pursue m/f relationships.

I do enjoy playing female characters, and I love my three faves (rogue, ranger, druid), but invariably they also always romance the female companions (Minthara, Shadowheart, Karlach, Lae'zel). I've explored most of the f/f and f/m BG3 romances to see what happens, plot-wise, but I didn't identify with the f/m romances (female Tav with Astarion, Gale, Wyll, or Halsin) and didn't repeat them after doing each once. I'm just…not interested in romancing men, and never have been, and I guess for better and worse that bleeds into how I do things like play video games.

My characters are also all cis. It feels…performatively disrespectful?…to play trans characters when I don't know anything first-hand about being trans. I don't know why that's different than playing characters of a different ethnicity to mine (fictional though they may be), especially when (superficially at least) both ethnicity and gender are only one aspect of anyone's personality and reducing anyone to that feels too simplistic and thus unfair.

Speaking of ethnicity, observers will also likely notice that yes, the character I play the most is a "white" male. It's not necessarily as simple as "because that's who I am IRL," because that character is a fictional person from a fictional world, but I've noticed that what people see superfically is what they judge, especially online and especially these days. My other most-played characters (regardless of gender) are "white"- or "brown"-looking because that's who they are in the world I've built. I do have one "black"-looking character, but haven't yet developed her enough to be her own person, so she hasn't shown up on this blog yet (though I do hope to give her the glory she richly deserves soon). I can go into exhausting detail about the whys and wherefores for each of them, but that's probably best done in another post.

I feel like even breaking all of them down this way is detrimentally reductive, like I'm checking boxes for a quota or something, or out of nebulous cultural/social pressure to be "representative" of the galaxy of humanity that likely most of us don't experience enough of on a daily basis (not to mention that these fantasy folks I play are all humans/elves/half-elves, which is another silly bias that's not relevant here). That pressure is countered by another, equally nebulous cultural edict to "stay in my lane" and not be appropriative of anything anytime for any reason. Both feel legit and so I try to respect both, but honestly both will be jettisoned immediately if adhering to their vagaries feels too performative or (and I hate this word) "inauthentic".

All of this feels suddenly ridiculous and solipsistic, so I maybe shouldn't post it at all or maybe should delete it later, but I feel like it's important to show others that their work fosters reflection in some way. I should also say that I'm most interested in creating characters as compelling people and not necessarily ciphers or avatars for my beliefs or background or attraction preferences or headcanon representation metrics or whatever. They exist to serve purposes in their particular stories or settings. All of these folks are amalgamations of my own original ideas plus bits of other characters from disparate stories/media/etc. that I've loved over decades of absorbing stories, songs, films, and other works of creativity.

And I think that one of the best ways to respond to a work of creativity is with your own creativity. To follow the muse, as it were. Thanks for your patient indulgence.

[blarrghe]

so far veilguard has not really hooked me, which is very new for me with a dragon age game. I'd say it's because I'm growing up and developing less obsessive habits, but I played the sims for like 6 hours straight the other day. I'm not very far in so this crit will be very minor and I'm still giving it the whole game (probably twice) before I actually put down Opinions, but I think I'm getting the vague sense of that "shallowness" that I am trying to avoid actually seeing people complain about already...

The biggest thing for me right now is something I'm going to throw to "pacing" or maybe "narrative buy-in" because, while it starts pretty much exactly like Inquisition, it somehow does even less to grip me and make me believe the threat. Inquisition already had the weakest plot so far imo, but the big bang at the beginning put a very visible mark on the sky from everywhere you went, and there was a lot of urgency in the makeshift refugee camp that was Haven. There's no urgency at the lighthouse. There's not even really urgency at the Arlathan forest camp. There's definitely no urgency in the cities, even though Treviso is under occupation and Tevinter just suffered a demon attack. Again, maybe that will change, but even though the maps are smaller I feel like the few beginning areas are still giving me that hinterlands effect where I can just get stuck wandering about doing minor sidequests and chatting with my companions and the TWO ALL POWERFUL ELVHEN GODS are just like. somewhere. chillin. I guess. Every time someone in my party casually says "the gods must have promised them something" or "the gods must be involved in this" I'm like. Oh right. That's what this game's villain is. Ok. At least in Haven we met Corypheus and he said a sick ass line?

So the big bang at the start is kind of anticlimactic. Solas is fine, just stuck in my head. Varric is fucking fine?? Like it's nice that he's not dead, I guess, I had real suspicions he'd die in that opening scene from the trailer and while I would have been sad it would have been a very good gut punch to get me motivated. By the time I was playing I did not really believe he'd be killed there, but he's just... idk. Sitting on a bed making little comments when I walk by (which I never really do because he's like, over in a room you don't need to go into unless you want to change your appearance). It's. Fine. Again, I'm sure story stuff will pick up and he'll have something important to say at some point. But right now it's. well it's boring. sorry.

I am enjoying the companions, but other than Harding whom I liked already they do not have their claws in me yet. I am the biggest defender of "quirky" female characters but Bellara's couple of personal dialogue scenes so far have fallen so flat for me. She's cute, don't get me wrong, but something in her scene being starstruck by Neve felt very unnatural, as did her emotional outburst and then reveal about her brother. It's a fine character backstory, it's not her voice actor or writer's fault (ok, I think actually maybe it is a little her voice actor, for me. sorry again.) but I just. Meh. And I mean, I might come to really love her. I came to love several other DA characters I did not like the first time around (including some polarizing fan favourites like Anders, Zevran, and Leliana, and some more universally disliked characters like Wynne and Vivienne)

I'm really... not loving the Crow content so far. Why are they good? Why is it portrayed like a cool, good underdog thing that they "rule Antiva"? I don't mind playing with Crow pride as I'm playing a Crow, but last I checked they're literally the mafia. And I enjoy the telenovella style family drama, I do, but it does seem a little... well. it's very telenovella, which is a fucking stereotype, yknow? idk. It feels, and here's that word, shallow. Also Lucanis' cousin is so obviously in cahoots I might just stab him before we figure it out.

And a lot of this actually goes back to Rook. I have seen the complaint that you are shoehorned into plucky hero, and I had this complaint about Inquisition with Responsible Hero and made it work by building a very Responsible character and I am invested in him, so that can work. Hawke also was distinctively Hawke and that's a fan favourite (although you can play a red hawke and it is notably different from purple and blue, but you can't exactly be whoever you want). Anyway, I made a pretty sassy Crow Rook, because I tend to like a sassy rogue (they're a mage, but, you know, spellblade) the first time through a game anyway, but the lack of control over tone is real and I think it's half of why Bellara is not hitting. Like why would she tell me any of this stuff I'm literally just some cool kid with tattoos and a criminal past she met the other day. I honestly miss the heavy mantle that Wardens and Inquisitors have with their companions. Rook's just some guy in the least just some guy way and it's weird.

Anyway. I don't know. There are things I really like. The combat is obviously very fun, and I like the definite missions and kind of streamlined quest approach. I like Varric's foreshadowy narrations that let me know things might actually pick up in the later acts. I like the more definite "act" structure, which was of course the most well-reviewed part of DA2. I see the potential for a cool story, especially with these trips into Solas' past, and I'm sure there will be new lore revelations for dwarves, too. But overall it's just. I don't know. I can put it down. I can put it down for days and days, and I'm 12 hours in to a game that probably has like a 30-40 hour playtime depending on how much you sidequest. I should be more hooked. I am also only 12 hours in. It will probably get better. But also. 12 hours! I've been home alone with it for almost a month!

[sunflowersandcherryblossoms]

Ask game: 10, 13, 22

10. ls there a fic that got a different response than you were expecting?

Some have, and mostly because they were better accepted than what I expected.

The very first one I wrote (which actually was a continuation from an abandoned fic, whose original author I contacted for permission and credited, of course) was for Star Wars.

I wrote Hidden Fantasies back in 2016 (I was not in fandoms before that... Portugal was... An outlier in this, I guess. Not much attention to fandoms.) and I was actually expecting nothing. I just knew I had to write it a post it. And then I had a first comment and I just went like "Wait? People actually READ my stuff?"

Another one I wasn't expecting to have the acceptance it had was Talking Is Hard from the VLD/Klance fandom.

It's currently on second place Hits wise, after My Dream Has Your Eyes...

I had a comment that said that for them, that fanfic was their season 8 and I cried. I actually cried of happiness.

On the disappointed side I have pretty much all I wrote for the Legend Of The Galactic Heroes fandom. It might be because it's a small fandom, but some of those fics have 20 hits...

The Bleach fandom has always surprised me for the positive!

I had one that was kinda falling behind, but that's my fault because I tagged it wrong. It picked up after correcting that.

Still, I wrote an OC only story, Brothers By Death, that I was counting on getting nothing at all!

It has 48 hits which for what it is, I think it's really good! And I have comments there!

So, yeah... The Bleach fandom had been treating me really nice. I love writing my Byaichi stories.

13. How much planning do you do before writing?

Whenever some new idea crosses my mind, I always brainstorm with my older son and start developing some initial lore and worldbuilding with his help.

Depending on what the plot is, I'll go researching for the initial idea to come together in a manner that seems logical.

Afterwards I just get to write and I keep my son as a "soundboard" for how I'm developing my stories.

I will research stuff like maps of the locations. Things that happened in that place on the year I'm setting my story in. Names and their meanings. The language of the characters and places where the action occurs, etc...

22. Do you know how your fic will end before you start writing?

Yes.

Most of the times I have a very definite idea of how the story is supposed to end.

Rarely I've made radical changes to it. Sometimes I change more easily middle parts, (In my Sunflowers And Cherry Blossoms series, Byakuya and Ichigo were supposed to re-encounter only after five years. I changed it to two years.) than the actual ending.

I might change the place where the ending takes place, but not the ending per se. (My Dream Has Your Eyes was supposed to end at the Kuchiki Manor, instead of their Karakura home, but the content of that chapter would have been the exact same.)

My To Other Shores fanfic already has the final scene written down, I just need to decided exactly how to get there... And I have twenty years of supposed plot points and slice of life stuff to write to get there. (Wish me luck!)

[tennybird]

I have opinions about TotK. This is your spoiler warning if you haven't played/finished it yet. Also all of this is, once again, just my opinion on it and not a decisive fact! I will probably misremember things!

Anyway.

Okay so basically as someone who got it on release and beat it within a week, I'm a little underwhelmed by the game now that I'm looking back over half a year later.

It's not a terrible game! I'll say that first and foremost. But after waiting so long for it, and trying so hard to not hype myself up for it (failing horribly at that), it feels just a bit... same-y. The story is nice, and it's different. The boss fights and abilities you gain during your travels are nice. Everything else, though...

I like the map having stayed similar, with enough changes that I have to relearn some areas. The Depths are really fucking cool, and figuring out on my own that they're a negative of the overworld was incredible! But the sky islands were a little disappointing, I think. When we were told we'd be in the sky a lot, I thought there'd be more large islands like the tutorial one that you could walk around on. More references to Skyward Sword, too. It feels to me that they put more love into the Depths than the sky, in a way.

I like the main story. Figuring out Zelda was the Light Dragon (but not really believing it until the final Tears), and that she'd essentially spent thousands and thousands of years trapped inside herself, was AWESOME. Every cutscene involving her as the Light Dragon hit me hard, and I felt genuine sorrow everytime I saw her floating around the sky.

...That being said, I DO wish we could have a game where you get to actually travel with her. I WANT her to tell me about the minor lore of the world! I want to know about the various flora and fauna, and I want her to talk about Hyrule's history! Zelda is part of the royal family, and I'd imagine that part of her studies pre-BotW she'd have to learn about the history of her family (especially because of the importance of the Goddess' blood...). With how pre-BotW went between her and her powers, and her and her father, I'd imagine she'd make it a point to learn more about their history that ISN'T just the prophecy.

I, personally, did not like most of the temple boss fights. I can't really explain much of why- except for Queen Gibdo. I HATED Queen Gibdo because of all the smaller Gibdo chasing you, trying to chase down Riju for her power... It was a lot of things stacked on each other, and simply not my thing. Colgera was an absolute favorite however! The boss theme is AWESOME, the mechanics of being in the air and having to watch for projectiles, as well as crashing through the ice sheets to take it down? VERY, VERY FUN. Climbing through the sky just to get to the temple itself was one of my favorite experiences. Going up and up and up, and finally reaching the top where you break out above the storm clouds and see clear skies...

A thing that bothers me about the temples is that the cutscene at the end, where the ancient Sages gifts their powers to the new ones... I feel like they could've spent a little more time making them different, even if that meant more time in development. I would be okay with that! I think games should be in development longer in order to produce a good, finished product! Anyway.

The fight with Ganondorf was fun for me. I get SUPER immersed in it, so it was a fearful moment when I thought I'd beaten him, only to see his health bar fill again... and then go offscreen. And the DEMON DRAGON FIGHT? Holy SHIT.

I just wish there was more... substance to the game, I guess? It feels weird saying that. There are more things to do, but it's missing something I can't name. Something BotW had, but is now gone. I like TotK, like I said. It's clearly had love put into it, and I'm glad the developers spent more time on getting it as close to the perfect image they wanted as they could. Maybe it's just cause I've spent more time with BotW (over 300 hours), but I think I'm a little biased towards it. Maybe I'm just getting older and grumpier about vidya games, too. Who knows!

If you read all this, cool! I will reiterate that this is simply my view on it! If your view is different, good!! I'm happy to know there are people out there who enjoy it more than I did. Or if you hate it more than I do, maybe you have other things you want to point out about it that I missed.

[blueskittlesart]

do you have any thoughts for the future of zelda? do you prefer the open world of botw and totk, or wish they’d lean back into the traditional dungeon/explore/dungeon linear structure?

this is a hard question to answer. I think botw was incredibly successful as an open-world zelda game. In many ways it redefined the modern standard for game development. years after its release we're still seeing hundreds of botw-like open-world games being released, using their large maps and nonlinearity as marketing draws. But the thing is, I've honestly yet to see another game capture what really made botw's open map GREAT. Botw's gigantic world was cool, yes. very few other games of that scale existed at the time it was released. but what really drew ME to botw and its world was the way in which the story of the game was woven into the open-world gameplay. The open world was not a marketing draw for botw, it was a complete, thought-out facet of its story. It allowed the player to experience the narrative firsthand through exploration, and the games' central themes reinforced that mechanic of discovery. A big reason I find myself drawn to loz as a franchise, as someone intensely interested in game design as an art form, is the way in which these games consistently find new and unique ways to utilize their medium to tell their stories. the linearity of earlier titles was a strategic use of the medium to tell their stories in an interactive manner which always puts the player first. Botw was a departure from that standard, but it was a departure in a way that still held true to loz's standard of player-centered storytelling and utilization of all elements of gameplay. botw's world was cool because it was huge and open, yes, but it was REALLY cool because it was first and foremost a storytelling vessel.

anyway. to answer your actual question, what im trying to say is that linearity vs open world matters much less to me than HOW the story is interwoven into the world and mechanics of the game. i'd be fine with another linear game if the story was written with linearity in mind, and the same goes for open-world. In terms of game development, I would like to see the devs continue to push the boundaries of what's possible in order to tell their stories. open world was cool with botw, but with the intense popularity that game garnered it's going to be difficult to create a new open-world zelda that doesn't end up feeling like a botw remake. imo the way that the franchise SHOULD go from here is to focus on the ways they can innovate on the open-world concept as introduced in botw in order to tell a new cohesive story. how that will play out is anyone's guess, but with the amazing successes that the last few games have been, I'm definitely looking forward to the future of the franchise!

[tarotcard0]

So, I have now officially beaten every NES Dragon Quest (Dragon Warrior) game. I'm currently playing Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, and I'm almost at the end, but I have to wait for the switch to recharge before tackling Chapter 8.

In the meantime, I want to write down some of my thoughts on Dragon Quest here.

Dragon Warrior 1 (NES) - Dear lord, just play one of the Remakes, the original is so tedious. There's a remake for Gameboy, there's a remake for Mobile, there's a remake for SNES, there's even a fan made RPG Maker Remake. Any one of those is a better choice than the original. Only play the original if your curious, or for studying purposes. Oh, on that note, the SNES version is Japan Exclusive, so you'll have to get a patch to translate it to English.

Dragon Warrior 2 (NES) - Not only is this the best game of the NES Quadrilogy, it's just the best Dragon Quest game I've played. How did they do so well on their second try!? It's so hard to describe the feeling I got playing this and realizing "Oh! This is the game all those other RPGs are referencing!" Now, I'm biased. I liked drawing my own maps and taking my time with that, so if you don't I also recommend going to the remakes. Again, they're available for Gameboy, SNES, and Mobile. Again, the SNES version is JP exclusive and has an English translation patch.

Dragon Warrior 3 (NES) - It's hard to describe why I felt a little disappointment with this one... Dragon Warrior 2 was just... So good! Like, how do you follow that? For some reason, everything in 3 felt... slower. Despite several quality of life changes, things like re-organizing my inventories felt more tedious than it did before, and when the story reached the Second Act (I'm not sure I used that phrase right) I fell into that same emotion that I had while playing persona 5 where the game just felt like it was dragging on. And because I can probably beat Dragon Warrior 3 4 times over in the time it took me to beat Persona 5 once, I have reason to believe this has to do more with the context of the plot, than the runtime of the game itself. I guess I'll go ahead and recommend playing he GBC or SNES remakes again, they certainly sped things up.

Dragon Warrior 4 - This game SUCKS! It's easily the worst of the NES quadrilogy. It's not the worst Dragon Quest game (Dear god it's not the worst), 9 takes that dishonor (At least, of the ones I've played so far), but the baffling decision to have all party members except for the Hero controlled by AI once you gain control of said Hero, makes it a very close second. I can't even recommend the remake, because I can't get very far in it. Once we enter the Remake dimension for this game, we exit Dragon Warrior and enter Dragon Quest, where the development team thought it would be a great Idea to transcribe everyone's accent to a ludicrous (and sometimes racist) degree. And, surprising no one, RPGs are just slightly impossible when you can't read.

---

I can't do another "Keep Reading" break, so those 3 dashes will have to do.

Well, now that I've beaten all 4 of the OG Dragon Warrior games, I'm wondering what I should do next (After beating TTYD of course)

Should I keep on with the series and go to Dragon Quest 5, or should I start on the NES Final Fantasy games (Of which, I've only beaten FF2)?

I'll end this post with a Poll.

Of course, I'm biased in favor of Dragon Warrior 2, but I'd like to hear what reasons others have for liking the ones they do.

Oh, and just to make sure this gets a decent sample size; the remakes count. If you've played Dragon Warrior GB, but not Dragon Warrior NES, then you've played Dragon Warrior.

[aid-worker-sya]

Secrets of the Quality or the Schedule Release; or, Secrets of the Go Do Random Events; or, Secrets of The Commander's Really Weird Couple Of Months; or, Secrets of Is Peitha Still Hot Or Boring Now (or something like that)

hi i'm not too active in gw2 tumblr (i gotta fix that i just gotta follow more of you on main) but y'know i've been playing gw2 since beta with a few years-long breaks and this is the first time i was playing an expansion on launch so i thought i at least wanted to share my thoughts.

my tl;dr is that there was some good and some bad but i think i'd prefer an entire expansion up front or it in like two updates and then an epilogue like WLB was for Cantha despite my extraordinarily negative feelings feelings on Gyala Delve and that all of this should've been like Part 1 of a new Wizard Saga.

i don't think we'll ever have a very complete consensus, because GW2's fanbase has been historically divided on almost everything since launch. the dragons, Dragon's Watch, BRAHAM, almost everything on this game has been a love-or-hate since that fateful day back in 2012. and from what i've noticed throughout the years, tumblr is usually more positive of GW2's story updates more than other websites, so i'm pretty curious about what went right and also wrong too. so i really wanted to give as a long time player my feelings on all this, bc it was... interesting. both for good and bad.

and perhaps biggest of all: a common criticism countless GW2 players have had since: the idea the Commander is not really the main protagonist because they're always serving as the champion or second-in-command to someone else, something i've historically disagreed even before Traehearne's rewrite but now i'm a bit more "hmm" about. also why the fuck wasn't this like a Wizard Saga of like 2-3 expansions.

it was certainly a mixed bag, i don't agree with people saying it was the worst thing ever, as far as i'm concerned What Lies Beneath was this game's absolute fucking rock bottom in recent memory and SOTO was nowhere near as bad as that and i want to punch something every time any daily or weekly even mentions Gyala Delve (although i'm still going to appreciate WLB as an epilogue and talk about that later). think i'm gonna start with the good immediate thoughts first

i think the initial release was very good. the new maps and metas were fun, as were the maps being larger than most of the previous expansion maps to make up. the new characters were interesting: although there wasn't really enough time to develop them the same way Dragon's Watch had been for years. it was especially great seeing Zojja as a major character which is why i'm so sad she stopped being relevant after the initial release. i think it would've been better if they wanted this expansion to be like... idk, the Wizard Saga to be built up over a period of like three expansions. it would've been nice to see these characters actually build up over a period of time. make Eparch the final confrontation over a period of three years

like, at first, i fully expected this to be like this. they refer to everything before 2023 as the Dragon Saga. i thought this was going to be a shorter saga of like, 2-3 expansions with a much more concrete goal and narrative direction. we fight alongside the Wizards for a few expansions until Eparch's final defeat and then onto the next grand adventure that would take several years to complete

but ultimately, we just kinda accidentally fell into a big adventure bored out of our skulls after our crystal dragon jesus daughter went into hibernation. we stumbled into something, kicked some ass, and now it's over and we're probably getting another expansion in a couple of months. so i guess... that's the future of GW2. after the grand Dragon Saga, the Commander gets into all sorts of weird little shenanigans that determines Tyria's future and then fucks off to do the next thing no more sagas, just these like, weird singular adventures the Commander has.

the end result is that everyone is severely underdeveloped. there are some fun characters, and i've been joking with my gw2 friends "WE FINALLY HAVE AN INTERRACIAL RELATIONSHIP AFTER THEY BAILED ON BRAHAM AND ROX!!!" but like. i liked them. they were cool. i actually really like the Wizards. which is why i'm so bummed it's just over and the epilogue of SOTO it seems set up we're not really gonna do anything for it. i love Frode having a very complicated relationship with the Spirits and how Worm appears to be like... borderline actively malicious compared to most Spirits. i fucking love R'tchikk and Gladium's entire interaction and an unconventional relationship between species and really want to see more interactions. Dagda as one of the last Jotun that truly remember their glory days. so it's so sad to me that like, all these really interesting characters just have their story ended with this. i hope i'm wrong and i see them, but fuck. it's like. i started caring about them, then the next three updates came out and now it's over. dammit.

i also agree the demons are like. they're human society. they're just Regular People no different than Kryta specifically. now i love playing humans in games where you can play multiple races: but like, something that i love about gw2 is how each race has it's own feel, y'know? the humans are a traditional european-style monarchy. the asura are literally an entire race of mad scientists that have a Council so they don't just immediately nuke themselves in a science experiment and their society revolves around research. the charr are an outright stratocracy where the military and government is one and the same and this was explored in IBS where this allowed an insane fascist to rally immense power before IBS went to shit. and the sylvari are literally a new race figuring out WHAT their deal is and haven't quite nailed it down yet

i do not mind at all the kryptis are like not just a hive mind or blue and orange mentality. but i do agree that it is... disappointing that they don't have their own... let's say flavor of society. they're basically just humans but they look weird and live in a weird place. Nayos doesn't appear to be a realm literally made of dreams: it's just the name. the plot of this expansion was mostly like LWS3 but this time we're helping the guerilla rebels instead of fighting them.

idk how to feel about Peitha. it was really fun in the initial release when she was this weird voice in our head we weren't sure if we could trust her or not but she was the enemy of our enemy so she was our friend (for now). but like the demons, she wasn't... complex. she was a very normal stock character for this kind of story. maybe not as heroic or nice as most, but the true good ruler that things will be better if we put on the throne. she' snot bad, but like. she's a dime in a dozen character ultimately. she's the generic good guy we gotta put on the throne and eparch is the generic bad guy we gotta dethrone.

also it was really dicky of them to intentional try to sell the idea of expanded weapon proficiencies and the elite skill weapon unlock for all as like. being part of the base game. you know they worded it like it was part of the base game but you can't do it without SOTO. it's a little bit of a moot point, but it's frustrating.

and i don't know what to ultimately feel now that it's over. because it's over when it feels like it should be beginning. i feel like this episode should have ended with Eparch like... consuming the entirety of Nayos before fleeing deeper into the Mists and the beginning of the journey to find him and defeat him. the kingdom that Peitha wanted to save completely annihilated and the looming concern that much like Kralkatorrik he might become a multiverse destroying threat. i feel like The Midnight King shouldn't have ben the end of the conflict: it should have been the ending of Part 1 of the conflict. like...........

idk. if it was just meant to be this singular adventure: i think i would've liked the entire expansion up front and then an epilogue of WLB to put the final nails on the coffins, and also give time to flesh out everyone else in epilogue stuff and side stories too. but as much as i would've preferred that over this release schedule i feel like. this should have been Part 1. all of this should have been Part 1 of a Saga with this being our first battle against the Midnight King before we after a series of Wizard adventures, tracking him down, and growing stronger finally confront him.

you know there's always been, since GW2's launch, this complaint a lot of people have had with GW2. a lot of people feel like they're never really "the main character" like in GW1. i think at least part of this was rooted in how deeply unpopular Traehearne was in the initial release before they revoiced and rewrote like all of his dialogue. people felt like after the Order Arc that the Commander was kind of relegated to being the support for the actual protagonist. while i feel this opinion has died down since release, i've seen it a lot throughout the years too. a lot of people felt this way when we learned Aurene was basically crystal dragon jesus christ and we were her champion to set the world right. IBS was pretty clear from early on that this conflict would ultimately be resolved by Braham, the norn of prophecy: and it was. the Commander has a tendency to help other people reach their prophesized destinies while they themselves are a person born without particular grand destiny, just someone who was in the right place in the right time and went on to do truly spectacular things (there is a single dialogue in the Hall of Monuments that implies it might be possible the GW1 protagonist was reincarnated as the Commander, but this has never been touched on) and i've... actually come to like it. but this time.

i feel like this time was the only time i've felt it. like. we didn't need to be here. this could have even been Zojja's sidestory. Zojja's big chance to be the hero. we didn't really do that much beyond more of the heavy lifting. we barely did anything substantial beyond hitting things. hell, during the very last battle, we don't even get to speak to Eparch at all. Peitha does 100% of the talking. why was i here? i would've preferred watching like... a netflix cartoon special series about Zojja doing this. why was i here other than the fact i just sorta fell into it??? speaking of which, disappointed Zojja lost all relevance after the initial release. i really wish she was like, fighting by our side the entire time. maybe she doesn't become a Wizard until the very end after doubting it the whole time... like, she's an asura. she's an inventor and innovator. imagine her helping weaken Eparch using a groundbreaking new development in the Wizard's unchanging magic using asuran technology that destroys Eparch's seemingly invincible shield or something and opening the way for the Commander to finish him off.

idk.

i really felt like a side character this time. i didn't see a good reason the Commander is the one saving the day other than awkwardly falling into the plot, and i feel like it could've been resolved by others. and i feel like this could've been resolved by this being just the first part of a grand new adventure, and just like that fateful day over 12 years ago in-universe the Commander was just in the right place at the right time which lead to them saving the world once more. this time... idk. we didn't even get a chance to talk to Eparch. we're just called Wayfinder and Peitha's Champ and do some musclework. hell, we're not even really the Wizard's champion, they basically treat us as a glorified initiate.

idk... it's just. weird, y'know?

i had a lot of fun in the first release, not so much the rest. now i'm thinking of just... what could've been. anyone else feel the same?

(i was gonna go on a larger tangent but i'm tired so "do x events to advance the plot" fuck you fuck you fuck you i HATE this so much)

[amaiguri]

Worldbuilding My Magic System FOR REAL

So Yssaia has HAD a pretty developed magic system for a while. And to recap it for you... I'm going to paste my half of me raving about this on Discord (thank you to @zebee-nyx and @galacticsand and @reaperofcrows for being so cool and letting me be an unhinged worldbuilding mad lad XD):

"What is Ysse?"

So the way Ysse works is its basically invisible dust floating in the air. And if it hits itself at certain velocities and in certain volumes, "spontaneous effects" happen -- like water materializing out of "nowhere" or fire exploding or wind gusts. You're limited a little by Avatar Last Airbender bending logic (you can't summon fully sapient creatures, you can't teleport, you can't control people's minds unless you're like... touching their nervous system, etc.)

So Mages invented the first writing as a way to record what patterns of movement did what. And eventually, used them to communicate these patterns as a shorthand for more generalized concepts...

So writing also got invented sometimes BEFORE agriculture...

"How precise do these movements/velocities need to be?"

It needs to be PRETTY precise. And this is why the average person CAN'T learn magic -- because Ysse in low amounts is invisible to the average person

But mages can see Ysse, which helps a lot. And they can see these shapes OCCURING in the natural world too -- when the wind blows, its because Ysse particles FORMED the Wind Rune/Sigil in the sky BUT this still doesn't guarantee that they cast any spells if they don't have the physical discipline too

So, in theory, "anyone" COULD move their hands PERFECTLY to spontaneously start a fire. But they PROBABLY won't

"How does this impact the natural world?"

This is also how animals and plants can do magic too. Tree roots in the north have roots that have specific patterns that warm up the soil, so snow can actually MELT and give them water and the tree doesn't die

And this is also my excuse for why so many things have bunny ears -- normally, long ears in colder-than-average climates (i.e. All of Yssaia) would be bad. But in Yssaia, these long ears are convergently evolving to channel Ysse. What they channel, exactly, I haven't decided (probably heat lol or something to increase air density so sound travels farther???)

AND all this is ALSO why the Demons are such an abomination -- because their Blood Magic doesn't obey particle physics, they just fucking do whatever they want

"Why do you need to know all this?"

The question at this point, I guess, is basically "How do I make fantasy technology that looks whimsical but also looks at least hypothetically functional under closer scrutiny?"

Yeah, and the full Answer TM to that right now is just <insert the entire design philosophy I haven't discovered yet here>

"So how IS magic going to shape technology, when you design it for the Untitled Yssaia Video Game?"

...Yeah, okay, after brainstorming all this, I think here's my strategy for how I'm going to tackle technology:

Step 2) Create a master list of technologies I will worry about/actually visualize in the game I will want to keep an OPEN LIST so I can add more things to it as I do research/find really specific use cases (such as scrollcases or chopstick holders)

Step 1) Establish symbols for a handful of common things in both the North and the South that at least vaguely make sense with the concept of the particles. So things like: - Fire/Heat - Water/Melt - Ice/Slow - Wind/Quicken - Earth/Apply Force - Sun/Light - Moon/Closing/Locking (Thanks to @zebee-nyx for this one!)

Step 3) Design simple sprites for things that can later be shrunk down and used as set-dressing for maps BUT at a little bigger in scale so they can be shown to other people sensibly (maybe on the same sheet at the walking animations for scale?)

AND WITH THAT, after 5 years of only vaguely imagining all this, this is what I designed, using a combination of symbols I had already designed and dice that I pushed around on my desk to see what kind of patterns they'd make:

Are some of these a little funky and don't really work with real particle physics? Yeah, fair. I'll take notes, if you got 'em. I'm open to critique, if you wanna lol

Last comment that didn't make it into the big discussion with my buds tonight: Ysse particles are how temperature is distributed. So, hot areas have fewer, cold areas have more. I know that isn't how thermodynamics work but does anyone else really?

(Something something eldritch horror thermodynamics post... And my magic-god is an eldritch horror! See? It's perfect!)

Thank you for coming to my #WorldbuildingWednesday post! If you liked this, don't forget to REBLOG and follow the #Yssaia tag or something🥰 (Are calls-to-action cringe? Publicly shame me, if so)

[miyakuli]

Digimon Survive

Digimon Survive is a visual novel with tactical rpg part that breathes new life into the franchise, and may be a good way for newcomers to discover this universe and its bestiary. Personally, I only had distant childhood memories of the first animated adaptation I watched, but despite this I was able to immerse myself easily in this new story, which is much darker in tone. However, while the visual novel is pretty good, I wasn't totally convinced by the other aspects of the game.

❤ A mix between the naive, childlike side of the original series and a much darker, more violent tone that works quite well. ❤ The visual novel part is not based on static images, but on high-quality animated sprites, which liven up each dialogue scene. The scenery is equally well done. ❤ Rather endearing characters with good development (even the most unbearable ones become likeable). ❤ On the dubbing side, the actors do a very good job, and on the Japanese side, the original seiyuus are even used for the digimon voices - a nice touch! ❤ I liked the fact that the affinity between the characters was linked to the evolution of their digimons, which encouraged me to talk to each of them and get to know them so I could make the right dialogue choices. So it played on my attachment to the characters and also to my desire to unlock each evolution x)

+/- Significant replayability (3 "normal" endings, 1 bad ending and the true ending). These endings are attained through a system of auras (virtue/harmony/wrath) that are increased according to our dialogue choices....but they will always be placed in exactly the same place (for example, the answer to increase the harmony statute will always be in the bottom right-hand corner). This makes our work easier (==)" For my first game, I personally like to make choices based on my mentality, without knowing which dialogue will influence which stat, so I discover the ending I've set myself. Here, the fact of knowing indirectly influenced me, and I'd have preferred them to save that for the New game+. +/- The musical themes are pretty (especially the main theme), a little redundant because there aren't many of them, but they never bore. On the other hand, I found that some scenes had music that didn't quite fit in with the atmosphere and action going on, it was a bit weird. +/- The true ending provides real redemption for certain characters who were really annoying to begin with. On the other hand, I found it a lot of length with constant back and forth (probably to stretch the story, but it doesn't add anything) and the ending is nice, but nothing more. I found the "virtue" ending more impactful.

✖ The tactical combat system is laborious and almost boring. The tactical side is bland; we're presented with a strength/weakness system based on elemental abilities (water/air etc…) but in the end it doesn't really matter as brute force will win out almost all the time...also, the fights are SLOW!!!! you can speed them up via the menu (I set them to x2 because I couldn't take it anymore). ✖ The method for recruiting digimons is really not that great; you're given a sort of quiz with the digimon you want to get, and unless you know the universe really well, you just guess at the answers and hope it works, but sometimes the solutions are really lunar (or maybe it's the translation that doesn't sound right). ✖ The Skip function, which allows you to skip through the text you've already read if you want to complete the various endings, is far too slow, and you can't even skip through the evolution animations. This discouraged me from finishing all the endings in a row. ✖ The map during exploration phases is ugly and not very practical, I find, and the constant change of music as the map opens is annoying.

Digimon Survive is bound to be a divisive game, as the balance between visual novel and combat is clearly not equitable (70/30% in my opinion). Personally, this wasn't a problem for me, as I'm used to this genre, but it's true that the tactical combat phases are this title's major weakness. At least it gave me a pleasant nostalgic feeling at the side of these little digimons (🎶are the champions!🎶).

➡ My personal VN ranking (in french) ➡ My Steam page

[hypersomniagame]

HYPERSOMNIA MAY DEV LOG : “COOKIN' IN THE KITCHEN”

Hi! For all of you who follow HYPERSOMNIA, you should already know what the gist is here yada yada yada,

if you don't know what this is or are confused on what hypersomnia is read the other dev logs i've said this like every time lol

Hey! Hi! Hello! Welcome to the dev log!

I'd like to apologize about last month, I was going through a big block on development and I got practically nothing done. I've also been focusing on real life stuff which has been strange!

OK! So, first things first. Some of you might've seen on our Twitter, the new trailer is DONE! It's been "finished" for a few weeks now but I went back and made some small edits and now I can fully say it's complete!

I'm insanely happy with how this one came out. I went all out on it and I think you guys will agree when it releases that it just completely blows all our other trailers right out of the water. From music, to editing, to visuals, presentation, everything.

I'm more than excited to show you guys this trailer, and hopefully you all will be able to see it soon! It'll be premiering in this years MOTHER DIRECT (as always lol), so be ready for that! Tons of great fangames and indies are gonna be shown off, along with other MOTHER projects, so if you're interested I highly suggest you keep up with M4E.

Now, onto a more direct game update!

As of right now, the demo is about 50% playable!

This month has been almost exclusively eventing and scripting for the game. That 50% doesn't mean the demo is halfway finished, but it means that we're halfway there to getting the demo playable from start to finish. There's still a lot I gotta do, but eventing is the biggest hurdle for me currently, so it should only be up from here.

Also,

Pigeonville got a bit of a makeover recently! I wanted to make the town look a bit more lively and urban, so I took the time to redo and add a few different buildings. I'm really happy with how it changed the look of the town, and I hope to use this as a base for other areas going forward.

This didn't come without some challenge though. Both the game's prologue and first chapter take place in Pigeonville, and because so many different events are used between the 2 sections, I've had PV split between 2 maps, one for the prologue and the other for chapter 1.

I initially did these edits on the CH1 version of the map, but while porting them to the PL version, I managed to completely screw up almost all the events in the prologue. So while it didn't have to be completely rescripted, I did have to do some playtesting for like a week just to make sure I caught everything that broke.

-

Speaking of bugs, there's been a bit of bug-squashing going on this month. My friend Muffins (Who helps write for the game) and I both sat down and tried to just play through what we have so far, and it was an experience to say the least. The game was NOT this broken in March, so playing through it just showed me so much stuff that broke, and some of it was absolutely hilarious.

I didn't record any of it though! Which is a shame! I'd totally post a montage or something of just the absolute funniest glitches we encountered but I guess it's for another time.

And that's all for this month! Sorry it's not much, but I figured it'd be better to give some sort of update then just oddly go silent. Things will most likely pick up during the mid-summer months, I'll have more stuff to talk about, these logs will be longer like they were back in January and we'll all be home on time for Jay Leno.

It's a bit hard to talk about scripting stuff out for the game since I only can talk about so much before I start spoiling stuff. Will June be better? Will there even be a log in June? Will I survive the summer heat? Only time can tell. And the weather man.

If this is your first log you're reading, or even your first time seeing ANYTHING relating to HYPERSOMNIA, I got a whole bunch of links for you to check out if you wanna know more about me and my stupid little game.

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[hellspawnmotel]

have you tried playing ffix? i genuinely think you'd like that better over ffvi (understandable if you don't want to play other ff titles tho!)

uhhh yeah I played it for a bit a while back! I ended up putting it down bc I got frustrated that dagger didnt know anything useful apart from summons that she didnt have enough mp for anyway. felt like I was carrying around dead weight for four hours, one of those things I wouldve been able to deal with if she wasnt the only girl at that point, lol. (I know you acquire other girls, I'm fairly certain I was even close to getting one, it was more of an issue with the game design than anything.) I do wanna go back to it at some point, it's a really impressive game and I know it's got that good FF worldbuilding and character development waiting for me.

all that said, I've actually revisited ffvi a little since I made my judgement on it, and I think I was too harsh. I mean, I was only 18, I hadn't familiarized myself with the genre nearly as much, and my main comparison point was chrono trigger, any other jrpg is gonna look mediocre in comparison to that. I still have my issues with the writing, but it's not nearly as bad as I made it out to be. like I still think edgar is a skeez, locke is annoying, and terra's character development is kinda all over the map, but there's so much good there too and I just didnt give it much of a chance. it's an amazing game for its time, upon giving it a second look I was really really impressed by how much life the world has and how many things you can do, as well as some genuinely clever visual gags. it stumbles in areas that I personally value, but I can appreciate why it's considered one of the best. I definitely want to try playing it again someday (with a walkthrough handy this time- I'm experienced enough now to know that old jrpgs tend to just not tell you critical things in the game itself. product of the age I guess).

(also, ffvi didn't totally sour my opinion of the whole series- I played ffvii and loved it!)