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moviemunchies · 3 years

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Alright I love this movie so I don’t know how objective of a review I can write. I have fond memories of this movie--we went and saw it as a class trip in middle school, and ever since it’s been one of my favorite fantasy films. I mean, yes, it totally came out when it did and padded its battle scenes out more because it was cashing in on the crowd of kids what like Lord of the Rings but that doesn’t make it bad, does it?

So, first things first-- no, The Chronicles of Narnia is NOT an allegory. Stop saying that.

Anyhow I imagine most people who read this blog know the story, but if you don’t: during World War II the four Pevensie children, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy are sent to the countryside manor of Professor Kirk. While exploring the house, Lucy comes across a wardrobe, and within the wardrobe she enters another world called Narnia. Soon enough, they all make it there, but it turns out that there’s a prophecy about them, and the tyrant that’s taken hold of Narnia and cursed it with eternal winter, the White Witch, wants to kill them.

Also, one of them betrays them to the White Witch for the promise of supremacy over the lot of them. To be fair to poor Edmund, he was magically drugged, and he didn’t know she wanted to murder anyone.

So our siblings must seek out Aslan, the Great Lion and true king of Narnia (who is totes Jesus, still not an allegory) and end the reign of the White Witch!

Like I said, I have seen accusations that this was Disney’s cynical attempt to cash in on Lord of the Rings but aimed at children. And I don’t know that it’s wrong to say that, but it’s also short-selling this movie. I mean yes, a lot of this movie was filmed in New Zealand, and WETA Workshop did the effects for this movie.

But you guys know that WETA will work the shiz out of the effects and props, right? The level of detail on the design in this movie (and the sequels) is INSANE and look, I didn’t think that they’d go this hard on designing a story that many people think of as a souped-up children’s fairy tale, but they did and it is GLORIOUS. There are plenty of little details that you may have missed the first time watching that you pick up if you’re paying attention. Like you know that in the final battle Jadis is wearing Aslan’s mane on her collar?

[I have some of the concept art saved on my computer, btw.]

The character arcs are also great developments/additions? They’re not all true to the books, and I do kind of miss that. But I do understand WHY those changes were made. For example, in the novel Edmund’s dickishness is mentioned to be a result of the terrible school experiences he had (Lewis didn’t much like the English education system). Here, to tie it into the other characters his acting out is in large part because his father’s been absent during the war, and butting heads with Peter.

Skandar Keyes is a fantastic Edmund. He gets better in the next movie, but in this one he conveys a lot of the conflict within Edmund, so that he’s sympathetic as the movie goes on, even if he does a lot of things that are pretty terrible (for a child, for the record--it’s not that he really gets into a lot of grade-A evil).

Peter’s characterization is made much more explicit as the older brother who is sometimes a little too hard on his siblings. I think William Mosely does a fairly good job. He gets annoying as an older brother sometimes, but that’s the point, and it makes sense how he and Edmund would be butting heads.

Probably to act as foreshadowing for what happens to her later in the series, Susan is the skeptical one, the logical one, the one asking questions about what the heck is going on and trying to make sense of it all. I think they lean a little too hard into this at times--she starts telling Peter to put down his sword when they’re surrounded by wolves. Otherwise I like that she has a much stronger character arc than in the novel, and Anna Popplewell does well with it. I mean, she’s still pretty likable, and you can see that she is someone trying to achieve the best for her family.

Georgia Henley’s a great Lucy. It would be very easy for this role to be annoying and it’s not, it’s quite lovable. Lucy’s very young and innocent, and in some stories this would play against her, but in this story (both book and movie) it’s kind of her strength? She’s endearing, she’s lovable, and that’s what you need in Lucy Pevensie.

Also we should probably talk about how the child characters are aged up a bit. Of course, this being Hollywood and trying to do action scenes with a twelve-year-old would be… unwise, I get it. But it is a bit weird that Peter and Susan are being sent off to the countryside when, even allowing for Dawson Casting, they’re old enough to stick around their family. They’re not really children. I don’t mind, but it is a case against it as an adaptation, and it works a bit against the logic of the film.

Also Tilda Swinton is having a ball as Jadis, the White Witch. She doesn’t really look like the character description, but she’s fantastic as a cruel and haughty queen, and really, no one does weird ethereal and near inhuman beauty like Tilda Swinton. She apparently had so much fun with the role and the people at Walden Media liked her so much that they put her in the next two movies with whatever scrap of justification they could grab.

Liam Neeson voices Aslan and does a good job. Don’t know if there’s that much that makes him stand out other than needing a serious actor to do the voice. It’s good, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t know if there’s anything in this film that makes Neeson a better choice than any other particularly famous actor.

[Apparently for one of these movies, Neeson took his family on safari to “prepare for the role” which is silly but hey if you can take your family on safari and excuse it as a work trip, why not?]

Final word before the sendoff: the CGI in this movie is still pretty good? It’s not perfect--watching it this past time made me think how something about the Beavers still looks noticeably artificial. But they still look fairly realistic. And I know it’s been said before, but the animal characters in this movie are incredibly expressive despite also looking like real animals, a trick that seemed impressive then, but after _The Lion King_ remake came out a couple years back, one of the defenses of the lack of expressive characters in that film was “Well we wanted them to look realistic!”

And DISNEY, the studio that released both movies, did THIS one FIFTEEN YEARS EARLIER, and also WITH A LION, and managed to make Aslan convey facial expressions and emotions through impressive CGI! WHAT THE FUDGE!

If you like the fantasy works of C.S. Lewis, I imagine you will like this film, unless you’re very strict about adaptations being close to the works they’re inspired by. Even then, I think it’s a pretty good adaptation, and that the changes made are those that make for a better cinematic viewing experience. If you’re not as familiar with the source material but you like fantasy, and children’s stories, you’ll probably like this movie.

Like I said, I have seen some people accuse this movie of being a lower-tier Lord of the Rings cash-in. I don’t think that’s the case, but if you’re very interested in serious fantasy and war stories, this movie’s not going to work for you. I don’t think there’s any blood at all in the film; if there is, it’s very little. Which considering the amount of action and the battle sequence in the climax is maybe a bit egregious.

I think it’s a good movie and a pretty solid adaptation of one of the foundational texts of the modern fantasy genre. Take a watch.

#Chronicles of Narnia #Movie Munchies #The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe #Walden Media #Disney

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lvminae · 5 years

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SwSh Opinions

Actually fuck it I'll make an in depth post on swsh since I'm sick and it is 2:30 am and I can't sleep.

Keep in mind that these are my opinions and I’m not out here to argue with anyone, I just want to share what I think. And there is a lot. Since I wrote this in the middle of the night and edited the next day, I probably forgot some things, but it is long enough as is.

I don’t think I actually went into anything spoiler like.

Things I like

- Characters: I adore the variety in the characters and a lot of them are loveable. Some stick out as ones I don't particularly like, and some are silly, but that variety is good and it isn't so common that it becomes irritating.

And I have reasons to care about characters I initially disliked (like Bede; his development is JUST enough for me to not hate him). Some I still don't care about, and some characters deserve more development, but it isn't bad to the point where I am not happy with it (and I will address this more later).

- Pokemon (Variety): I'll talk about pokemon later on the neutral list, but I do really appreciate just how varied and even wild the pokemon are. Design wise, anyways - I don't know jack about competitive stats and don't care.

- Wild Area: The wild area has the silly mechanic of sudden weather changes depending on the areas, and the pokemon who pop up can be repetitive when you are dex filling. But other than that, I LOVE it. It is huge, and immersive, and I much prefer running around there than on routes.

And the pokemon popping up and approaching? Amazing. Can be annoying sometimes when pokemon you don't care about chase you (looking at Tyrouge and Electrike seriously Leave Me Alone), and hunting water types that hop around is frustrating (but makes sense), but it's still a wonderful addition.

- Exp. Share: I know a lot of people are pissed off it can't be turned off, but as someone who cannot get into old games because of not having it/how long it takes to get it, I appreciate it.

Some people think it makes it too easy, but now that you can box pokemon at p much anytime, you can (mostly) avoid the effect by boxing pokemon. I say mostly cause not all situations work with it, but I don't think it is common enough to say it is bad.

- Improvements of life: To add to my point above, I enjoy things that makes the games easier. I'm not a hardcore gamer. I want to have fun and actually be able to reasonably beat a game. Difficult games aren't bad, but these are for all ages. And it is easier to make things difficult than it is to make them easier if they were made difficult, yknow?

Things like showing the effectiveness of moves is one of those things- which I am glad they kept from SuMo- because I have memory problems. Lots of fans do, or are young, or just can't remember Every Single Type Matchup. I prefer having that than having to google type advantages constantly so I don't get a 1 hit ko on either my pokemon or a pokemon I want to catch.

It isn't quite as hand holdy as SuMo was (love ya rotomdex, but pls give me a break), but it is accessible to a range of players. That is how it feels to me, anyways.

- Side quests: Having little quests that give incentive to explore the region and just give a little spice of life to the region. And they aren't super confusing to do.

- General aesthetic: I love how the region looks. It hits so many aesthetic points for me. It is a pretty game with pretty locations, and the graphics are far better than anything I would have expected for pokemon.

Seriously, I've seen people comparing it to BotW and.... That is not the style Pokemon i or ever has been going for. It's an unfair comparison. Also BotW graphics are :/ in my opinion. Beautiful locations, but I don't like how people look. Pokemon? It looks nice, all fit together well. Feels like POKEMON. Not like other games that people compare it to.

There are some graphics that need fixing, like the berry trees and the whole mess they are when you shake them. But it isn't nearly as bad as people pre release were saying. And the battle locations are fine too. Seriously pre release thoughts were a mess.

- Performance: It runs well. I haven't had issues. Frame rate is fine, very rare drops, graphics work fine. I've only had a crash once, and that's because I was chaining max raids and the vibration was too intense for my machine. I took a break, turned vibration off, and everything was fine.

Note: I know that there have been some issues with glitches and stuff, and those are an issue. I haven't experienced any myself so I can't complain. And I'm not any sort of expert.

- Regional variants: I love regional variants in general. It is just So Good. And there are more than just gen 1 variants in these games! Thank god! Obviously many are still gen 1 but they aren't Exclusively gen 1.

I'll talk about that pandering later.

- Gyms: I love how the gyms works. I love the entry trials. I love the feel of the gyms and the competition, and the cheering and the music!!! It is just a great time!

- Character customization: Not quite as extensive as I was anticipating, but still super expansive and I love it.

Things I am neutral on

- Post game: It isn't that bad, but it isn't super interesting either. And I hate the sword based dude. His hair looks like a dick. Yes this is a genuine complaint. Both his and his brother's designs are... silly, and kinda uncreative, and I don't like it.

But they do pose a challenge, and it gives an interesting look at lore and the concept of people believing their assumed ancestry gives them certain rights and just how far these people will go.

- Pokemon: I think we have a good amount of new pokemon, but overall I am... eh on the designs of some. In my experience, regions have either a good amount of good looking pokemon, or a good amount of bad looking/boring pokemon. Obviously this is purely subjective, but this region has me drawn down the middle. I have pokemon I adore and are new favorites, but also quite a few where I just.... Don't like them at all. I've never been this split on them, so while I appreciate their variety like I noted above, I don't necessarily like all of them (especially the fossils. Their story makes sense, yes, but I can't fucking stand them.)

- Dynamax/Gigantamax: I get it's ties into the story, and I love that tie. And it is the gimmick of this region, which I absolutely am ok with. But in use... yeah, having a large pokemon is fun! But I don't really... Care about it? And I only use it in gym battles where I know the leader is gonna Gigantamax (even though generally I didn't need to), or max raids.

I like it more than Z moves, but it does make me miss Mega Evolution. At least it gives people something fun to design. And some of the gifantamax designs are great (and some are.... Basically dynamax. Pikachu and Eevee especially.) The raid make for good leveling though so I do like that.

- Story: I like pokemon for the stories. I actually don't like the style of the games gameplay wise. Pokemon I can handle and enjoy because it is simple compared to other games in the genre, at least enough so where I can be pretty clueless but still have fun and drive to play/grind somewhat. Bur ultimately for me, I enjoy pokemon for the story and characters.

Story... is lacking in this game. I love what we get! It is super interesting! But it is so much on the back burner compared to other games in order to focus on the gyms that it feels... I dunno. I miss a larger, more involved story. The focus on specific characters like Hop do still give me something to focus on, at least.

But the story could have been improved overall had it not been shoved to the side so much. A different, less involved story could have worked better, or something that involved the league and gym leaders more since the gyms were the focus.

Or find a way to involve the player more! It really comes down to the goal of the game, which was the improvements for competitive play. As a non competitive player, this isn't anything I care about or want. But some do, and with that being the focus, I understand the story being a bit lackluster compared to previous games.

Doesn't mean I have to like it, though :P

- Dexit: I don't... care about dexit. Having to play only with the pokemon from the gen isn't bad, and you can still use some. Yeah, a lot of pokemon I like are missing, but that gave me incentive to use pokemon from this gen. I think people making a huge fit over it also made me just Not Care. I'll miss my old pokemon, but maybe I cam actually complete the dex for this gen.

Things I dislike

- The trading system/y link: The fact you have to have nintendo online for this is awful. It is alienating to all those players who can't afford the subscription. All you should need is an internet connection just like the other games. It's a cash grab and I hate it.

The trading system is also irritating to use in general. I know the gts was not the best, but being able to search was nice. And one on one trading was so much easier. Using these codes is problematic because people you don't know can use the same code and you might not know! It fucks up trades! It sucks. It just sucks.

- Gen 1 pandering: Leon's key pokemon is a Charizard. Charizard got a gigantamax pokemon. Most gigantamax not from Galar are gen 1. Most regional variants are gen 1. I Do Not Fucking Care About Gen 1. Meowth has both an alolan AND galarian form AND gigantamax! It's annoying! Give the other regions some light. Please. I am so, so fucking tired of pandering to gen 1. The pandering makes me hate the gen, not want to go back to it.

- Version exclusive gym leaders: This one doesn't irritate me like the other things, I just think it is dumb. Especially since they didn't change the towns to make sense for the exclusive leaders.

- Cost: I am not made of money and I really do believe it should have been the normal $40. But it is a main series game with a lot and switch games seem to generally run at that $60 mark - main ones anyways - so I'm not surprised. Just disappointed.

#anna.txt #pokemon #long post

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tumblunni · 6 years

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Okay I know that kingdom hearts has a bad reputation for sticking crucial plot information on obscure spinoff games but HOLY SHIT I just finally watched a lets play of the fuckin digimon tcg game and found out it ACTUALLY HAS A GODDAMN CONCLUSION TO ANALOGMAN FROM DIGIMON WORLD 1

like 90% of the damn game has no plot whatsoever let alone indicating its a digimon world sequel! and then suddenly in the last battle without being foreshadowed whatsoever analogman returns and gets possibly the best boss battle ever IN A GODDAMN TCG GAME

holy shit his whole fight is framed as ‘this is literally the same guy from digimon world 1, hacking another game’, the interface wigs out and a bunch of fake command windows pop up with rapidly scrolling code of the game supposedly falling apart. And then his boss battle flips the entire gameplay system on its head by giving him fourth wall breaking special moves that pull overpowered effects by “hacking the engine”, with cool animations to fit. Fuckin badasssss!!

and it also fuckin FINALLY EXPLAINS THE DAMN PLOT LIKE GEEZ

digimon world’s conclusion was so rushed, you never even meet the villain until the final battle and it ends all weird with just “something” going wrong that causes him to get sucked into a portal or something while screaming dramatically in weirdly high resolution terror faces??? the tcg game confirms that this was him attempting to flee back to the human world after you defeated him, but one of the stray attacks from the battle damaged his machine and it caused him to essentially commit accidental suicide when he turned it on.

and HOLY SHIT MY FUCKIN OBSCURE HEADCANON IS TRUE????

the game had some sequel bait hints that maybe analogman is somehow still around and that the portal explosion just turned him into “corrupted data” so he can never return to the human world. and i always thought it would be super ironic if he actually got turned into a digimon aka the thing he hates more than anything

WELL OKAY I GUESS CRITICAL LORE IN A TCG GAME IS OKAY WHEN ITS A BIG YES BUNNI U THEORY BE CORRECT

he appears in this game as a malomyotismon who does a damn good vexen face during the fight, lol. And he’s all “gahh that stupid kid ruined my plans but this accursed body at least improved my hacking abilities!” Tho its implied that his corrupted state is more like a bodyless cloud of data that can possess/copy different digimon, which would be REALLY FUCKIN CRITICAL to explaining the goddamn plot of Digimon World Next Order!

Seriously wtf is up with this series? Digimon World 2 is not the sequel to Digimon World 1, all the numbered games are entirely separate individual stories with wildly different genres from pet sim to roguelike strategy. The real sequel is fucking DIGIMON THE CARD GAME THE GAME and then Digimon World Next Order a bazillion years later for the ps4. In which i am STILL REALLY SALTY that they have a FUCKIN RAD remix of analogman’s boss theme yet he doesn’t appear in the game. The added context of this damn tcg game confirms once and for all that the Ambiguous As Fuck Ending actually WAS him appearing in the game, this unexplained “oh wait the villain was good all along and he was just possessed by an evil virus” was supposed to be corrupted-digi-analogman and seriously WHY DONT THEY JUST FUCKIN EXPLAIN IT!!! this tcg game wasnt even released in europe!! and even american fans probably had no clue it was linked to this entirely separate subseries! You have to friggin piece it together with context clues like the battle music and the fact analogman’s signature mon was machinedramon. I mean vjesus christ Next Order is a litera; sequel with the grown up version of Digimon World’s protagonist as a badass home ec teacher who still defends the digital world in his free time yet you couldnt spare ONE LINE OF DIALOGUE mentioning the name of the villain?? and summarizing the fuckin tcg game everyone missed??? AND CONFIRMING THAT THE VILLAIN IS INDEED MAKING A REAPPEARANCE POSSESSING THIS GUY??? oh god everything makes SENSE, thank you terrible card game adaptation. ehh but i do still love Next Order for making Hiro/Mameo’s canon partner Mamemon, he’s even more badass as this big tough bishie version of himself with a tiny adorable pal that can shoot rocket fists through space and time. (its funny tho cos the DW1 intro movie showed metalmamemon and metalgreymon and the american boxart flipped a coin and decided metalgreymon must have been the one the protagonist was using in that scene. Whoops!)

anyway even with the added context that IT WAS INDEED GODDAMN ANALOGMAN, the final boss fight in Next Order was as terrible as the rest of the plot. So I’m glad trash gramps got a suitably badass boss fight after all, even if it was a CARD GAME VERSION! lets all celebrate the awesomeness of this obscure fuckin spinoff game’s obscure fuckin intercontinuity cameo with the boss fight music that other game wasted

youtube

seriously fuckin hell the biggest challenge in that final boss was that i was so distracted by SHEER OFFENDEDNESS at the cool music not matching it that it was hard to keep focused

its not just a great boss theme for a terrible boss, its a really fuckin EMOTIONAL song for anyone whose childhood was fuckin defined by the first game!!!

and look you had a PERFECT FUCKIN EXCUSE for a REALLY GOOD boss battle against MY MAN GRUMPY GRANDPA OF THE COOL DAMN NAME. Seriously guys analogman was THE FIRST digimon villain! digimon world came out before the anime, digimon world was the BETA FOR THE ANIME! this was the first place they had the ideas for file island, so much of the areas in the game are awkwardly mistranslated versions of stuff that would later appear in the anime in a different form. before this digimon had never been anything more than a fuckin 2-bit graphics tamagotchi and this was (after the manga) only the second goddamn time these monsters had an actual full colour character design! all of those charmingly janky 90s gross out show styled tcg illustrations? that was concept art that this game was working from! fuckin hell this game thought up the idea for metalgreymon’s changed design that ended up becoming the iconic partner of tai in the anime. (you can also see beta tai in the manga with a beta veemon as a partner instead! o_O)

SO LIKE...

JUST....

I HAVE FEELINGS ABOUT ANALOGMAN OKAY!!! he’s a badly written guy with only like five sentences across all the videogames but fuckin hell he was such an Iconique part of the development of this series that they named him fucking ANALOGMAN

like dude you could have SO EASILY made me scream at my tv in a more positive way by bringing him out as the surprise villain and showing us wtf his deisgn is even supposed to look like cos god all we have is a blurry faceless early ps1 model buried under the glow filters of Mt Infinity’s funky background effects.

AND FUCKING

IF IT IS CANON

THAT MY FUCKIN

STUPID THEORY

IS CANON

slap a fuckin O on this man and LITERALLY LET ME BEAT HIM UP

like dont even give him a team or anything, just let me fight THE MAN HIMSELF

you canonically fuckin said he’s a digital ghost now and basically the same as a digimon

let me beat the shit out of a regular businessman in a suit and tie while he pulls his badass ‘i’m hacking the game i’m in’ bullshit from the GODDAMN TCG GAME THAT WAS MORE CLIMACTIC THAN YOUR SHITTY CASH GRAB FAKE SEQUEL

man god i didnt expect a fuckin TCG GAME to revive my righteous fury from back when i first played that piece of shit. i hate it cos Next order is so pretty and its gameplay is so good and i really loved my twin digis but there were SO MANY bugs and cut corners and missing content and really bad writing and GOD it made me so sad that the dub team really really tried, they tried so hard that they got fuckin renamon’s original voice actress back even though the renamon in this game has nothing to do with the anime one. THE DUB WAS REALLY GOOD BUT IT COULDNT SALVAGE THAT SCRIPT!! THE MUSIC WAS REALLY GOOD AND THE ART WAS REALLY GOOD AND THE DIGIMON THEMSELVES WERE MY BEST DAMN FRIENDS FOR THAT MONTH OF MY LIFE BUT THE GODDAMN FUCKIN SCRIPT!!! the postgame was MORE FUN because FINALLY everything opened up like the sandbox of the first game and you could just fuckin hug u digis without being distracted by constant cutscenes butchering your childhood nostalgia

man i wanted to write a fic/draw a comic about my headcanons on how to fix it but i never managed to do it cos holy shit it was basically “throw everything out and make a different game geez” I COULD RAMBLE FOR HOURS ABOUT THE ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SEQUEL THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN!! and a fuckin!! tcg game!! was closer to that sequel!!!

and fuckin MY THEORY WAS RIGHT AND MY BETTER GAME IDEA ACTUALLY WOULD WORK IN CANON

fuck it im gonna do draw myself decking business gramps in the face

oh! and the female protagonist design! thats another rare good part of that thing! i loved the pixellization effect on her ponytal, way better than the male equivelant having a very ordinary costume design just with a pixel corner taken out of his jacket. also why did the plot never actually make a thing out of that? like you’d think that ‘unlike every other digimon tamer i’ve got this scar of my digitization’ would be a plot point. like they didnt give everyone else a cool pixel squares mark! they could have at least used it as an excuse why the protagonist is the Only Chosen One who can do all this plot shit. or if it was me i would have made it early foreshadowing for the Return Of Business Gramps, like you were partially infected by the Oooo Mysterious Unexplained Digi Virus (seriously why did they not just have ONE SENTENCE explaining its the fuckin original villain returning????) during the prologue and i dunno somehow that gives you powers to break analogman’s control on the digimon he possesses. or maybe the pixel thing is like a tracking device he put on you? or just give that cool design trait to the protagonist of digimon cyber sleuth instead, whose entire plot is that theyre a digimon human hybrid with literaly the power to pixellize themself into computers.

ALSO!!! actually do something!!! with mameo!!!

they really fuckin hyped up in all the prelease materials that the digimon world 1 protagonist was gonna be in this game and he’s all grown up now. and then he does NOTHING in the plot except babble exposition and stand around your home base. and has one line about how he’s a badass teacher now and his partner is mamemon but hey we made a bullshit excuse for why his digimon is sealed away and he never gets to fight :<

give me an actual cool teamup of new protag girl and her cool teacher dude beating the shit out of business trash with their bare fists and also their digimon’s bare fists while THE BEST DAMN MUSIC GOES UNWASTED

...fuck i sure do Feel Intensely about nostalgic games lol. i wonder if i’ll be so rambley when i play kh3? maybe itd be a really shitty lp, aaagh...

#no gramps shall go unappreciated in the bunni house

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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How The Boys Pulled Off Its Wildest Episode

https://ift.tt/3yOwx0I

Director Sarah Boyd had a lot to unpack in The Boys’ standout episode “The Bloody Doors Off”. The season 2 installment kicks off with a disturbing sex romp between a turned-on Stormfront (Aya Cash) and Homelander (Antony Starr), but only after he crushed a man’s face in with his hand.

Meanwhile, Butcher (Karl Urban), Hughie (Jack Quaid), Annie a.k.a. Starlight (Erin Moriarty), Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso), Frenchie (Tomer Capon) and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) take a road trip to the Sage Grove Center, a facility Annie stumbled across on Stormfront’s laptop. They discover the institution serves as a testing ground, where reluctant subjects are being injected with Compound-V… to varying results. To further complicate matters, former Seven member Lamplighter (Shawn Ashmore) had been recruited to keep the patients in line – or roast the unruly alive with his fiery powers. And, as it turns out, Frenchie and Lamplighter shared a shocking history together.

Boyd spent years as an editor on such high-profile shows as Lost, The Killing, and Bates Motel before successfully pivoting to directing on Bates Motel, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., The Flash, This is Us, and The Boys. Currently in pre-production on The Boys’ final two episodes of season 3, Boyd spoke to Den of Geek about season 2’s wildest episode, the series sex and violence, and what’s in store for season 3.

Den of Geek: When you received the script for “The Bloody Doors Off”, what was it about this episode that spoke to you?

Sarah Boyd: I’m not sure it spoke to me, but I got excited about the Sage Grove craziness, and the tension and action in there, and then the reveal of Lamplighter. I was really looking forward to introducing and creating a new character that the audience hadn’t seen before. I didn’t know who they were thinking of casting at first. Then I saw Shawn Ashmore’s audition tape. That’s when I first got super-excited.

How comfortable were you with the episode being so special effects-heavy?

Special effects and VFX, I’ve done both. And as a longtime editor, I’ve worked on lots of shows with visual effects and special effects. The action stuff was pretty comfortable for me. It involved a lot of prep. It takes a lot of time and forethought to orchestrate how you are going to shoot it, how you are going to make it look real. Of course, it’s not real, so how are you going to make it real? And when the stunts are happening, how are they going to be done faithfully? What’s the best angle to film them from? This show has a lot of gore, a lot of action and a lot of sex. These are all things that need to be carefully orchestrated and done to make sure everyone is comfortable and safe. Sage Grove was one example of where we knew we had a lot to do, so we had very jam-packed days at the Sage Grove Institution.

Taking into consideration the action and sex, were there any particular sequences that required extra discussion with the cast or producers?

We always have meetings with actors, individually and then together, when there’s going to be an intimate scene. For example, the scene with Homelander and Stormfront in the alley at the beginning of the episode… It’s not particularly graphic in terms of how much of their bodies you see, but anytime there’s enough people insinuating sex, you have a discussion with each person. Then there’s practical things like, “When you wear the super-suit, it’s hard enough to take off your pants if you don’t take off your boots.” It’s like, “OK, we have to think about this.” There’s a certain amount of conversation that goes into that. But we talk not only about logistics, but about the characters’ emotions. I wanted to make it clear that it was a scene where they were really having a connection and that it was an emotional thing. It wasn’t just graphic, and it wasn’t just empty sex or empty violence. It was all part of their commonality that brings these characters together.

The Boys is known for its extremes. How did you approach the bloody component with Homelander crushing a man’s face in?

The Boys: Antony Starr Believes Homelander is Misunderstood

By Alec Bojalad

We always have prep conversations about how we are going to shoot something. Is he going to smoosh a dummy or a prosthetic imitation of a person? Is he going to start pushing into a real person’s face and then we cut, and then VFX takes over? You go over different angles. In that particular scene, we were prepared to do a prosthetic, but we decided it would be better and more effective to what we needed to get done if we put a whole bunch of dots on the actor and then let VFX take over. Also, the actor had to get smooshed and then fall. When a dummy falls, it looks like a dummy falling. Whereas, when an actor falls, even if he’s missing a head, everything else about him would be himself. It was more effective for the actor and for us to change his head in postproduction.

For the Sage Grove segment, production took place in an abandoned asylum. In what ways did filming on location create an atmosphere and vibe for the episode?

It was an amazing, but also disturbing, location. It really did have the vestiges of what it used to be. It used to be a hospital for the criminally insane. It had a very musky old smell to it. We had to air a lot of those hallways, just so we could tolerate being in them. Then, of course, the production designer and team had to create a lot of specific things in those rooms. Those rooms were empty, and we had to fill them up. But the location was inherently right for what we were looking for. It had a labyrinthian layout. There were different looks in each hallway, in terms of the color scheme or whether it had carpeting on the floor. It was large, but it felt even larger.

And there was so much extra stuff we had to film for the security cameras. We ended up having a second unit working one of the days of that same week, just to get those extra bits. They weren’t just random. We carefully planned them. There’s little bits of people running and screaming and going down the hallways, running down the hallways and getting attacked. There’s even a little Easter egg with Love Sausage grabbing someone and pulling them by the leg down the hall. Each of those take a while to set up.

There’s a brief scene outside where Butcher has Starlight in his line of fire. There’s a certain look in his eyes. In your mind, how close was he to killing her?

There’s always that tension between Butcher and Starlight. There’s no love lost there. It’s interesting because it puts Butcher in a position. Hughie likes Starlight so much. Butcher is conflicted there. I love that moment and the payoff as soon as Starlight gets back to the van, when they have it out and she’s like, “What’s your problem with me?” It’s an example of Butcher’s pickle. He needs Starlight, but doesn’t like her.

You mentioned Lamplighter earlier. What were some of the challenges of establishing the aesthetic of his fiery powers and how they would manifest?

Shawn and I had a bunch of Facetime conversations, where he would try different things. He got a Zippo lighter and practiced and became really comfortable with that. That was a big aspect to his character. It had to become second nature. There are over 50 ways to light a Zippo lighter. There are all these tricks. There’s actually a lot of videos about tricky ways to light your Zippo lighter. There were a few we loved, and we were like, “This is great. Let’s show it to Eric (Kripke).” Eric was like, “It can’t be too tricky.” At the end of the day, we had a couple of pitches that were more complicated. We wanted to make it different from other flame-throwing characters, which he is, but we wanted to make it wildly different, and Eric wanted it to be more grounded. We came to a happy medium.

We had concept art from visual effects. They present lots of drawings and options. Is it going to look like a plume? Is it going to be a straight shot? Is it going to be similar to a laser? We had lots and lots of conversations and choices there.

Cindy knows how to make an entrance. The telekinetic Sage Grove patient made an orderly explode. Take us behind the scenes of pulling that off…

In terms of the splat and the crunches, again, it was a conversation and an evolution of ideas pitched and then coming to an agreement of what it should be. The idea is she doesn’t have to do much with her own body. She just has to bend her fingers in to make multiple metal doors crunch and fall. The smaller little things are more chilling than some giant movement on her body. That was an example of multiple layers. There was an element of her, an element of green screen and an element of gore.

What was it like for you to get to explore Frenchie’s backstory and his friction with Lamplighter?

It was great. Tomer took it really seriously and we dug in together. It was excellent. I enjoy those flashback scenes. I like, in any story, when you learn about the past, as long as the flashbacks aren’t too early. There’s a sweet spot for when you want to introduce a flashback and it has to be when you are curious. It can’t be when you don’t care. The show waited just the right amount of time. “What’s the deal? What happened? What made Frenchie so haunted?” To get a glimpse of the good old days, when Frenchie was robbing banks and killing Supes… And, then when everything took a turn for the worse in regard to their drug use and Frenchie getting caught and joining forces with Mallory, just finding out how those things happened is very satisfying for an audience.

Was there anything in the script that didn’t make it to the small screen?

The only thing I can think of is this tiny scene, which was at the end. Annie is in a car, having left Hughie and Butcher at the hospital. What she is doing is driving to see her mom, I guess, but you don’t know that. So, she’s driving and looking conflicted about having left and where she’s going and how she feels about what she’s becoming. It was a lovely little scene and Erin did a great job with it.

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You are currently in post-production for the final two episodes in season 3. What drew you in about the script for the finale?

It’s always exciting to get the actual script you are going to be working on. But, in order to understand my script, I had to get all the scripts before it. I got all the scripts in a big clump and just tore through them. I was so excited. It’s always amazing when a season that you already like, such as season 2, was as good if not better than the first season. And now, the same thing has happened again with season 3. How do they keep doing it? How do they keep finding the stories that are exciting and surprising you with unexpected things and irreverent moments and smart political satire?

In what way do you approach directing a finale differently than a regular episode?

No matter what episode you are directing, you try to tell that story as captivatingly as you can. The stakes are high for the finale, so generally they pull out all the stops. There’s just more work to do. I don’t know if it’s any different than any other episode, because you try to make every episode you work on as good as it can be.

Maybe one thing that’s different about the finale is these are going to be the images you leave fans with, and for quite some time. So, you want to do right by each character and leave them in a place where you understand where they are at, whether that’s a good place or a bad place, depending on what’s happening. It’s just making sure everyone has their moments.

Jensen Ackles joined the cast as Soldier Boy. What’s impressed you about the Supernatural actor?

Jensen is fantastic. I’ve already met with him a couple of times, just to talk about his character, and get to know each other. He seems extremely kind and hardworking and thoughtful and is having a great time with his character. That kind of enthusiasm is contagious and I’m looking forward to working with him.

The Boys seasons 1 and 2 are available to stream on Amazon Prime now.

The post How The Boys Pulled Off Its Wildest Episode appeared first on Den of Geek.

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duhragonball · 7 years

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One interesting thing about DBZ is that while it has some very emotional scenes, they're all about relationships a child could understand. Goku's sacrifice is all about father-son, Piccolo's sacrifice is all about a mix of father-son, student-mentor and older brother-younger brother, and Vegeta's sacrifice is of course all about father-son. Which is why it's kinda funny when people point to these scenes as examples of how DBZ was meant for older people than DBS...

I haven’t actually seen anyone try to make that case. It wouldn’t surprise me, though, since fans always try to suggest that the older material was more mature than the newer stuff.

Way back in 1997, all these old farts on the comics newsgroups would piss and moan about how comics aren’t as good as they used to be. This is why I’ve been reading old X-Men comics, because I never read them much at the time, but I was genuinely curious to see how the 80′s stuff held up compared to the 90′s stuff. Turns out, the dinos were exaggerating, at least as far as I can tell. The Claremont run (1975-1991) was groundbreaking, but it was also wordy and tedious, especially after the dust settled and the “All-New, All-Different X-Men” stopped being new and different. Whenever a new writer would take over, I found I was always thrown off by how much more human the dialogue sounded. Louise Simonson made the teenage girls on the New Mutants talk like actual teenage girls. Scott Lobdell had Iceman tell a joke in one issue, and it was like finding water in a desert. The 90′s comics have problems of their own, but a lot of the things people whined about on Usenet were things Claremont practically invented: constant plot danglers, excessive angst in place of character development, characters randomly switching allegiances, and everyone being snippy and self-righteous to one another. The post-Claremont X-Men writers were just taking the ball and running with it.

None of this surprised me, since I knew the Usenet dinos were full of it all along. Because I was reading Superman comics in the 90′s, and so whenever they’d complain about Superman I’d know if they had a legitimate beef. This one time someone waxed nostalgic for the days when Superman used to use his head and think out a problem instead of just relying on brute force. And I pointed out that he just did that in Adventures of Superman #554. In that issue, Superman was trying to stop this sewer-dwelling monster called “Ripper”, because the monster would sign its name whenever it killed people. By the end of the story, Superman deduced that the creature was actually trying to communicate. What everyone thought was the word “Ripper” was actually a pictogram that everyone had tragically misinterpreted. And the guy I told this to was like “Oh, sorry, I misspoke.”

That issue has stuck with me for a long time, and I’ve tried to be mindful of that lesson as I’ve gotten older. Because these days I don’t know what the hell is going on in Superman comics. I dropped them in 2009 because of a terrible storyline where Superman stopped appearing in most of his books, and then when he came back I realized that I wasn’t nearly interested enough to dive back in. The reality was that I lost interest in Superman some time around 2004, but I just kept buying all his comics out of intertia. So my knowledge of Superman continuity is about 14-years behind. What this means is that I have no business lecturing any current Superman readers about what’s wrong with the books they’re reading. I wish Superman would read the red underwear again, but it’d be foolish of me to say “Well, Superman should have the Fortress of Solitude in Antarctica like he used to.” Because for all I know the modern comics have put it back there already. And even if it’s someplace else, how do I know that isn’t better? If the current audience likes it, and I don’t keep up with it, what does it matter if I approve or not?

That’s the bullshit older people like to peddle. It’s just egocentrism disguised as “elderly wisdom” or “tradition”. The only reason I liked the Fortress of Solitude in Antarctica is because I think Antarctica is cooler than the Arctic Ocean. The Fortress used to be at the North Pole, which always bugged me because the South Pole has a continent underneath it. Also, Antarctica is much colder and more remote, so it just makes more sense to me as a place for Superman to go when he wants to be alone. But it’s purely a matter of opinion, and there’s no factual basis for one location being better than the other. For a while, Superman had his Fortress inside a tessarect, like Doctor Who’s police box, so he could literally put it anywhere he liked. For a while he had it stowed in the globe on top of the Daily Planet building.

Now, I could try to suggest that’s a more “adult” way to approach the lore, but it’s not. A tessarect is just as immature as Superman living next door to Santa Claus. But I could try to play the age card and say “Well, I’m a mature adult, so if I think this then it must be the more mature approach.” That’s crap, because in the 1940′s Superman didn’t even have a Fortress of Solitude. If the oldest solutions are best, the whole idea of a Fortress is dumb. The whole idea of Superman is dumb, since in the 1920′s he didn’t even exist. By this line of reasoning we should be talking about the Rover Boys instead. But when old people try to play that game, they’re not thinking about things older than their own experience. They’re just trying to put their own experiences on a moral high ground.

I think there’s a similar thing playing out with Dragon Ball this decade. DBS is hit or miss, and fans are struggling to accept that their faves aren’t always going to be presented in the best manner possible. I suppose I have seen people argue that DBS is nothing more than a cash-grab, a way for Toei to sell merchandise and toys, which would suggest that DBS is written in an overly childish way to appeal to the most impressionable demographics. But that ignores the fact that the original Dragon Ball was a for-profit enterprise. It’s not like Akira Toriyama was solely concerned with quality storytelling. He was trying to sell comics to make a living, and a lot of what he did was designed to cater to his audience, just as DBS is trying to do now.

It does sort of amuse me to think that DBZ is the more mature show, after years of hearing people complain that it’s too goofy or brainless. Is it better than Dragon Ball Super? Yeah, easily. But it’s silly to try to reduce that comparison to a quick soundbyte. The worst parts of Dragon Ball Super were boring, or had low production values, or the story just didn’t make a lot of sense. Call it out for what it is. Don’t try to turn it into some grand generalization about how they jest don’t make annie-may’s like they used ta.

But a lot of people just can’t handle that concept. I remember this conversation at work years ago when Harry Potter-mania was at its height, about reactionaries who thought the HP books promoted occult practices. And I’m like, why can’t people just complain that they’re really badly written? Not everything has to be about the corruption of the youth, or the decline of civilization. Sometimes a piece of art is just a stinker, and nothing else needs to be said.

#ask duhragon ball #i kind of lost my train of thought there but that's nothing new #Anonymous

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destiny-smasher · 7 years

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Life is Strange: Before the Storm (Episode 1)

I’ve spent so much time discussing this prequel over the past few months, it’s a bit tricky to try and sum up things into something readable. As lengthy as this post is, there’s plenty of details I have to let go of. I’d like to lay out my biggest pros, cons, and a bit of commentary on how I feel about its very conception and potential intent, along with some casual predictions.

I was very critical of this project from the moment it was leaked, but I quickly grew to support Deck Nine, the studio developing the game, because it was easy to see how passionate and thoughtful they were being. Makes sense, right? The sort of dev team who would want to take on a Life is Strange story would probably be the sort to be mindful of just how delicate such an undertaking is. Square-Enix, however, gradually frustrated me more and more, and their choices and actions with this entire project kept me on my guard all summer. With the first episode released, I can confirm my feelings about both companies’ involvement haven’t changed -- I’m still very supportive of Deck Nine, and I’m still rather frustrated and confused with Square-Enix. This first episode helped prove to me to that the developer definitely does have their heart in the right place, and has the ability to realize the same kind of potential one might expect from a follow up to such a special game. I have my concerns, but to be honest, most of them have arisen from Square-Enix's questionable setup to this project and the premise of the game itself bothering me on a core level.

With most video game releases, the way a game is marketed or how it's conceived is rarely important to me. However, Life is Strange was a special indie game that doesn’t come along often. Before I discuss the actual game itself, I feel compelled to bring up the reveal and marketing of this project. We of course don't know the full story, but what we do know has unfortunately colored the whole project with a weird shade. Setting aside the interpersonal experiences I've run into with fellow fansm I will say that at the heart of my concerns is the unshakable feeling that DontNod did not want this game to get made. The feeling that DontNod, who created these characters and this world, wanted those characters to be left alone. That's just speculation at this time, but everything I've seen and heard seems to point in this direction, and while that's not the developer's problem, it is the publisher's. When an indie team creates such an earnest indie game with a strong emphasis on narrative and themes about regret and not being able to fix the past, goes on to say the story is done and they're going to leave it alone, it's pretty damn odd to me to proceed with producing a prequel about the past, ditching the protagonist of the original story, and focusing on two women who we know meet unfortunate fates. Oh, and the actual creators of the characters aren't involved. Oh, and neither are the actors. AND it's not gonna connect its story to the original game because it's “stand-alone” (why make a prequel, then?). AND it's going to cost more but have fewer episodes. AND the fourth episode is conveyed as a thinly veiled cash grab to get fans of the first game to ante up for the Deluxe Edition right away. When a pre-existing narrative has been around for years, and its creators have had ample time to consider how they might expand upon their own story and are ready to let it go, then I'm much more understanding of giving the reigns to someone new who might have that interest. It must've been barely a year since Life is Strange was finished, however, before Square set this prequel into motion. That's way too soon to hand those keys off to someone else entirely, especially if those who created the keys weren't happy about it. The fact that it has taken all summer for DontNod to even acknowledge the game's existence is suspicious, and at this point, even a positively spun statement would come across as legally obligatory pleasantries. I have confidence that both dev teams have mutual respect for one another, but the seeming lack of communication between them with regards to such a delicate story is unfortunate, and I just hope that whatever Deck Nine is doing, the core concept of it was approved by DontNod as a team – or that they at least end up happy with it. Now, let me take a step back from this and point out that Square has made steps to try and correct and reassure concerns folks have had, and that's good. But a lot of it has come across as damage control for fires that shouldn't have even started. All right. There's my frustration with Square-Enix out of the way. Let's move on to the actual episode that has been released. I went into this game feeling very wary, worried, and concerned. I walked away from it feeling...pretty OK, and even pleasantly surprised by parts of it. I will be discussing the game freely, so if you have not experienced the story and don't want to know about any details beforehand, you should stop reading this now and come back when you're ready.

Partway through this I stop referring to Deck Nine in the third person and begin addressing them directly, partly because I'm honestly writing this as a personal expression to them, specifically, because I really do think they have a lot of skills being put to work, and I want to provide useful criticism, support, and feedback, which they've personally expressed an interest in. So, Madeleine, Felice, and anyone else at Deck Nine who might be reading this, I just want to express that it really means a lot to see your team interacting with us fans so directly and openly. I can say that I feel like Deck Nine “gets it” when it comes to what made Life is Strange special, how it connected to people, and what kind of overall aesthetic and tone it has. It's a shame that the concept of the story itself places things in such a bizarre, trapped kind of position, though. I've had so many conversations about this game in the past few months, I'm not even really sure what I would like for it to do as a game or as a prequel. Most angles I've approached it with just end up leaving me feeling worried and dissatisfied. Some things are better left alone. I honestly still feel like this story was one of those things – but, to be fair, that story still hasn't been fully told yet. And this first episode has certainly illustrated that there is intent at work here. This doesn't feel like a cash grab or something purely being made for fanservice. And yet, I still can't see where it could go within the bounds that they've laid out and still coalesce with its source material in a way that is fulfilling and meaningful. I've been vocal in the past that for as much as I love Life is Strange, I found its climax to be unfulfilling, illogical, and self-defeating. If Before the Storm can manage to somehow lead things into the original game's story in a way that can make sense of things (ex. the titular 'Storm'), my feelings about the nature of the overarcing story itself could change drastically. From where I'm standing right now, though, this story still feels pointless and unnecessary. And I really hope that by the end, that changes. When it comes to Chloe, Rachel, and essentially everything relating to them, we don't really learn anything new in this episode. Nothing mind-blowing or revelatory is given to us. On the upside, it means that things basically line up with pre-existing canon, makes fine sense, and even reaffirms things that were implied in Life is Strange. On the downside, the narrative feels like it's spinning its tires here in terms of plot, shoving these two characters together in a way that feels rushed and forced while simultaneously not going anywhere with them. If you look at the actual plot of this episode, and compare it to Max's, the stakes are so much lower, the trajectory of the protagonists so much more unclear, and the character development itself much more shallow. This is not a knock on Deck Nine's abilities so much as the choice of content. Chloe Price was already in such a bad place at age 19. Go back three years and...she doesn't exactly have much room to grow, and even if she does, what's the point when we already know where she ends up? When we already know where Rachel ends up? (and if this all some alternate universe thing, given that AU's are already established as a canonical aspect of this lore, it's gonna be super tricky to make that concept not feel hamfisted if it's gonna be a big plot reveal later) There's clearly more compelling stuff going on with Rachel if only because we don't truly know Rachel, and I do like that this episode sets up some dramatic things for her, but I'm still left feeling like I don't really get a sense of what her arc is supposed to be here. When you're telling a story with only three episodes, it can go a long way to make clear – by showing, not telling – what is at stake for the characters, and what their goals are. I get that this is a story about teenage drama, but even Max, who was such an uncertain character, had an opening act that established very clearly what her goals were, and what internal and external obstacles she was going to have to confront. With this story, that clear sense of direction is missing. To be fair, that very well could be intentional, given the emphasis on mystery, trickery, and such. And part of the problem is that there's sort of a 'ceiling' for where this narrative can feasibly go, and thus how these characters could be developed. Again – the very premise itself is, in a lot of ways, holding the story back, and that's a shame. It's a shame because on a technical level, there is a lot of good stuff going on here. The overall aesthetic, the themes, the writing, it all does feel in-line with the source material. While the painterly vibes of the original game are replaced with a bit more flat of a visual design, seeing the character's faces actually emote in a noticeably more detailed way is a technical improvement over the original, and was actually something I was very excited to see. In a way the first game couldn't really achieve, there are even moments here that let the visual expressions alone tell story beats. The music is good, but I actually felt like a lot of the episode was too quiet on this front. While this does heighten the impact of the music later on, the actual story beats didn't quite match the intensity of the music for me. Even the montage at the end felt a little off, like it was trying to replicate the ending of the first episode of Life is Strange but rushed through things too quickly. The subtle addition of more detailed sound effects was great, though. Like the expressions on the faces, those additional sound details put another layer of depth to the setting. The camera angles in particular were another noticeably upgrade from the presentation of the original game. On the downside, some scenes felt very awkward – controlling Chloe through the world in general felt particularly clunkier and harder to do than moving Max around; certain moments that expect you to control the camera in order to pick options, like the clothing bit, were also weird and unclear at first, in a way that didn't occur in the first game, maybe because they usually kept the camera behind Max's back? On the upside, there were a lot of cinematic choices I really liked that fleshed out the presentation, from Chloe grabbing her phone in the bathroom to the neat stuff during the 'Smash' scene in the junkyard to the angles during the tabletop game...just a lot of more dynamic and intriguing camera angles. I honestly wish there were even more “reflection” moments, like Max would often have. The moment with Chloe smoking was a great parallel between the characters while capturing that same reflective vibe. The writing isn't exactly going to turn heads, and there's still a fair amount of corny dialogue (mostly when characters are trying too hard to be 'edgy' or 'sassy'), but the original game had this, too, and usually, it just ends up feeling like that same kind of honest cheesiness you might expect. Some moments, however, the writing gets distractably bad – mainly, the Backtalk sequences, and a couple of clunky dialogue sequences like Chloe's chat with Joyce (which can feel unbalanced and off). The Backtalk is a fine idea on paper, but in practice it's just...taking something away, rather than adding to things. The timer puts unneeded pressure on the player, and lends these segments to be more about random guessing or shallow word play than any kind of legitimate, thoughtful intimidation. I do like the idea of Chloe being an asshole to intimidate people, but it, erh, does kind of feel odd to be encouraged to be an unnecessary dickhead to people who usually don't really deserve it because they're just trying to do their jobs. This is Chloe's character, though, and she is the opposite of Max, especially at this point in their lives, so I get the intent. But the dialogue here is at its weakest, its mechanically unclear and ultimately feels kind of pointless. My recommendation for making it more engaging would be to make it more like what it feels inspired by: the sword fighting in Monkey Island. Let the player use info they've previously obtained to give them more options during an 'encounter' without making it obvious when those options are useful (like finding those bits of things to bring up to Joyce at the house). Give them time to consider their choices, and in turn make the actual dialogue that ensues feel less like hamfisted schoolyard playground disses and more like actual intimidation. I think there's some potential to this mechanic but it needs work. Hopefully, by episode 3, we'll be in for some legitimately intense Backtalk sequences in circumstances that actually warrant threats and intimidation. Noteworthy moment – the wine-theft scene was...just...yeesh. Given the tone of most of this episode, that scene in particular just felt weird, like we were transported from an indie teen drama and into a Nickelodeon cartoon. I've seen the argument made that this scene was intentionally goofy in order to lower the player's guard so the junkyard scene hit us with more 'oomph,' but...yea, I'd recommend tackling the humor in the more organic way you were able to with most of this episode, like the D&D scene. Speaking of which – wow, what a pleasant surprise that was! That scene in particular, I think, really showed what you guys are capable of. Even the Backtalk mechanic's finickiness was less noticeable here because of the less serious context. Getting to meet new characters who were adorable and realisticwas such a treat – much more interesting and engaging to me than the somewhat predictable interaction with Victoria, which felt kind of tacked on for fanservice. The D&D scene felt organic, original, and charming. I especially loved the detail where if Chloe has read Joyce's self-help book earlier, she whips out the phrase she read if the player chooses to encourage Mikey. This was my favorite scene in the episode, and it had nothing to do with Chloe Price being present, or even being tied to Life is Strange in any way. I admit in my own interpretation of the characters for All Wounds, I've written Chloe making D&D references due to a history of playing it with Max – so there's some personal bias that helps elevate this scene for me, but still, I think this was a great scene. Likewise, the 'two truths and a lie' scene was also a game played via dialogue choices, and it, too, felt organic and fresh, using the players' element of choice to more readily establish a connection to the world and what its characters were doing (as opposed to just grilling someone for information or to just move the plot along). In terms of the overall tone and emotion of this episode, the dream sequences were an intriguing callback to Max's Nightmare. There were many interesting details there which made it feel genuinely connected to future events in this forboding way, so I hope there's something intentional there. On that note, I found the imagery of Max hanging to death on a tree branch to be...a bit too much. This is coming from someone who relishes that darker kind of imagery, but usually that's when the character being attacked is actually present within the narrative. The frequency and intensity of Max-bashing going on in this episode made me uncomfortable and that 'hangman' imagery even felt kind of disrespectful to Max's character. I'm not going to do what others have done and jump to conclusions about 'ohhh they're portraying Max as an asshole' or what-not. In truth, I felt what you've expressed with those letters was so intense and angry that it has an intent. After all, the original game had a strength in showing one side of a character to set up a broad expectation, only to subvert it later to remind us that real life human beings are three-dimensional. The implication I pick up from all of this Max-hating is that it's there to show us just how special Max was to Chloe, just how painful it is for her to face their disconnection, and thus just how meaningful it is for Chloe, three years later, when Max finally reappears (which, I mean, simultaneously has me questioning exactly what your plan is with Rachel, given the layers of context here). I really hope the story you're telling will somehow end up somewhere that subverts all of this Max-hating toward what the original game ultimately does with Max and Chloe. From where I'm standing right now, just one episode in, it feels over the top and unnecessary, but again, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that there's a purpose there. The fact that Max is even dressed how she is three years in the future, and the fact that her text states she's see Chloe when she dies – which is, literally, how things play out – combined with the overt 'All Seeing Eye,' and how Chloe's dream even foretold how Rachel would start the fire, all of this feels thought out and intentional, rather than mere coincidence. I certainly hope that's the case, as a story precursing one about time travel could certainly incorporate supernatural foresight in interesting ways. This brings me into the aspect of the supernatural. I was a little offput by how interviews and PR stuff tried to tell us there'd be no supernatural elements at play when it seems apparent that there will be. When a story lies to its audience, that's fine, but when the physical, real-life people are lying about it, that's dodgy. I'm honestly more intrigued by the supernatural stuff here than I ever thought I'd be, and I think it's because between the foresight element of the dreams, the spirit animal implications, and the unnatural wind projected onto Rachel's fire, it tickles my imagination with the possibility of “Oh shit, could this story actually end up implying an explanation behind Life is Strange's biggest plot hole?” The title, 'Before the Storm,' the name of the Platinum trophy, 'Bring on the Storm,' and the premise of the fourth episode focusing on Max and Chloe all further adds to this gut feeling for me that you might actually be trying to fill in some blanks with the origin of the tornado. Because, frankly, the tornado in Max's story is my saltiest issue with everything in those five episodes, so the idea of some kind of explanation tying it together with Rachel and Chloe's past is actually very intriguing to me.

Here's the thing, though: no matter what your team has planned, no matter what big plot twist you might have in store, someone out here in the fandom has already predicted it, and for others it might not even feel too surprising by the time we get there. Either way, surprise and shock value are an exciting but fleeting emotion. I genuinely hope that whatever climax this story is leading up to, you focus more on the execution and establishing a rational resolution rather than just trying to grab “the feels.” I can already tell from this first episode that you've thought ahead with this stuff. From way back when your game was unfortunately leaked, a single question on a marker board has kept me intrigued by what this story will hopefully explore: “Is Rachel good?” I think that question has already been implicitly brought up in this episode, and while the technical plot hasn't moved much of anywhere yet, the prospect of this question, the different themes it could entail, and how it could ultimately flesh out Chloe's background and this world, are all things that have me more interested than I expected. While I think the core relationship of this prequel has been pushed too quickly and illogically, it's true that teens can make decisions irrationally and have sudden bursts of intense emotion – Rachel's angry fits were an example of this I didn't actually expect from her, but now feel almost like I should have, and I also feel a sense of intent with that. Part of me feels like I should talk more about Rachel and Chloe's relationship here, but honestly, I'm just having a hard time feeling invested. I don't think it's because anything is “wrong,” I mean...it makes enough sense for them, given all we learned about them in the original game. I guess it's just that knowing how things turn out – and Rachel's evident role in that – is disconcerting to just how quickly Chloe is diving into this, and how too eagerly Rachel is to pull her in. It makes me feel just as wary about Rachel as would've expected to, and maybe that's the point. Of special note are the very interesting parallels you've drawn between characters from Shakespeare's The Tempest and Rachel, Chloe, and Nathan. Very fascinating implications, I adore the intertextuality here, and the literal 'storm' imagery makes it such a great fit to be drawing from. I'm expecting to see some kind of meaningful payoff here, as well. You might notice that a lot of what I'm saying at this point is basically me seeing seeds you've planted, and expecting those to germinate and grow by the end here. Three episodes is a very short storytelling space, though. I'm worried about just how fulfilling these threads can be resolved, and I admit that how this story ultimately concludes will probably play a huge part in how I ultimately feel about it. But, at the very least, I hope this helps you get a grasp on what kinds of thoughts your story has put into the head of someone who is very invested in this world. I'll confess that I'm maybe not as hyped to see more as I was with the original game. And so much of this prequel makes me feel...just, weird, in a bad way. But, I will just as readily confess that most of what I am worried about or am taking issue with doesn't really have to do with your efforts as a creative team, but rather, the very nature of what this story is in relation to the source material, and the creators of these characters not really being present. I think that for a first software release for a new dev team, this is some great stuff, and to be blunt, I am actually more excited for whatever your team will be working on a year from now – hopefully something entirely your own? – than for this prequel. I'm certainly curious to see what Before the Storm does, and how you continue to build off of this start, but I just want your team to know that I'm already more excited to see what you come up with down the road when you've established yourselves and don't have these unnecessary weights to be contending with. I think this episode's strongest moments don't actually rely on its connections to Life is Strange at all, they just happen to inhabit Arcadia Bay – which you have been able to recapture well, at the same time. There are some discrepancies, a couple questionable details that don't seem to line up, and the incessant Max-bashing feels super weird, but as someone else who's written fan-made content with this world, I can understand the delicate nature of trying to set up dominoes someone else made and trying to line them up in a way where they’ll topple in an elegant fashion. With everyone shouting in your ears that can’t make it easier, but I see such attention to detail in your work that I have much more faith than I did a month ago that as long as the story culminates into something meaningful and satisfying, I think a lot of those 'weird' things some fans are feeling right now will be easier to let go of. And even if things go south with this project, I think you’ve already established the potential your team has. Good luck with the next three episodes. I went into this feeling so much anxiety, fear, and doubt, and while not all of that has been resolved, I'm at least relieved that the team working on this seems to be capable, passionate, and up to the task.

#Life is Strange #Before the Storm #LiS BtS #Life is Strange Before the Storm

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scurvgirl · 8 years

Text

Recovery Fluff

for lovely @feynites

100% fluffy happy goodness

“Alright, Dirthamen, we have an important decision to make,” Marassal says.

Dirthamen blows a spit bubble from his spot in the car seat.

“Excellent, I knew you’d understand. Now,” he pulls out three pictures from the file he’s been collecting over the last few months.

“House number one, the Orlesian colonial. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, big backyard, original floors and plaster detail work. Completely restored. What do you think?” He holds the picture up. Dirthamen makes a popping noise with his lips and Marassal nods.

“I totally agree, no basement and no designated play area for you, deal breaker.” He set the picture down and pulls up the second picture.

“House number two, the Fereldan tudor. I really like this one, it’s got that big bonus room at the top, three bedrooms again, a screened in porch, three bathrooms this time, one on each level!”

Dirthamen shakes his fist and gets distracted by a spot on his carrier.

“Hmm, the kitchen does need updating and an open concept is just not happening in that house. Plus the basement isn’t even finished and the yard is on this horrible slope. Next.”

He shuffles the pictures again and pulls out the third, “House number three. Two bedrooms this time, so it’s a little smaller, but completely open concept, finished basement, a nice sized yard, fenced. Two bathrooms...oh but it’s a new build. Hmm. We need something with some character to it, don’t we? Yeaah. House number four is a mansion built by a Marcher who wanted to be closer to his daughter after she married Ferelden nobility. The historical preservation societies keep it regulated to the max, so really, renovation and customization isn’t going to happen.”

Dirthamen burbles and Marassal sighs.

“It is too big, isn’t it? And we want something we customize to our needs over time. Alright, house number five, now I really like this one. It’s a mid-century modern, so you know, I’m older than it, but it is just so architecturally interesting and oh! There is a water feature in the backyard, a very soothing little waterfall. Four bedrooms, all on the same level, three bathrooms including the master bathroom. You will have your own bathroom! And a little free room since it’s a Jack and Jill set up. It’s a good neighborhood, with good schools, all mage friendly. The basement needs some more finishing, I think, but it is livable right now. There’s a courtyard and a large fenced in backyard.”

Dirthamen giggles and kicks and Marassal smiles in response, “Mid-century modern it is! Now, what color do you want your bedroom to be?”

Marassal loves TV, he does, but he hates commercials. One of the many banes of his existence, commercials are. But alas it is something he must deal with if he wants to watch his shows debut live.

He is watching the latest of Say Yes to the Dress when a most decidedly offensive commercial comes on air. It’s this woman talking about how she thinks that her birth mother is the only one who will understand her and that she’s adopted and never felt wanted. Marassal blinks and then narrows his eyes.

It’s just marketing, Desire says but Marassal doesn’t care. Is this how Dirthamen is going to feel? Is he going to feel some sort of automatic pull towards investigating his biologically family just because of blood? Marassal supposes he can’t really blame him if he does, he never got over his own bio family, though those were considerably different circumstances.

Dirthamen sits on the plush rug in their great room, making what looks to be a booming metropolis with his blocks.

Marassal climbs down to the floor and asks Dirthamen for a hug.

“Okay,” he says and crawls into Marassal’s lap. Marassal coos and holds Dirthamen close, snuggling his nose into Dirthamen’s hair.

He supposes that it doesn’t really matter, in the end. He loves Dirthamen and he is going to raise this boy with that love and the resulting support. And if Dirthamen finds any of it lacking...he gets what we wants. His desires are valid and should be listened to.

Dirthamen is his son, always will be at the end of the day. But for now he can hold Dirthamen close and revel in the fact that he is all that Dirthamen knows right now. That he doesn’t see any oddities in how he doesn’t really look like his father. So in the meantime, Marassal plans to hold his son and to love and cherish him as he deserves.

Dirthamen wriggles and pulls back a little bit, wanting to get back to his blocks.

“Play wit’ me?” He asks and how can Marassal say no to that?

“Of course, sweetheart.”

“I’ll catch you! I promise!” Marassal calls from inside the pool that was completed at the beginning of summer. Dirthamen shuffles to the edge of the pool and looks at it with great suspicion.

“Are you sure?” The four-year-old asks. Marassal nods.

“Yes! I am a very good Dirthamen catcher!”

Dirthamen doesn’t look convinced but he takes a deep breath and wiggles, his water wings swishing with him. But then he takes a deep breath and looks back at Marassal with his serious face.

“Okay!” He backs up a bit and does a little run before jumping off the edge.

Desire catches the moment like a snapshot for Marassal’s memory, Dirthamen flying in the air, scared but determined and flying before actually knowing how to fly.

He jumps right into Marassal’s arms, warm and safe and comforting.

“Yaay! You did it! Oh you were spectacular! I am so proud of you!” Marassal coos and praises while Dirthamen giggles with the adrenaline rushing through his little body.

The doorbell rings just as Marassal is walking by, which means something he thinks. He opens it up to find a little girl with a wagon full of brightly colored boxes.

“Hello,” he says.

“Good afternoon, good ser! My name is Velari and I’m with the Girl Scouts and I was wondering if you’d like to buy some cookies? We’re a very good organization that promotes leadership skills and good citizenship in young girls all over Thedas!” Her two front teeth are missing and her glasses are bright purple cat-eyes that make his heart soar.

“Just one moment!” He says and runs inside, grabbing his wallet and rushing back out.

He rifles through the wallet and pulls out a wad of cash, counting it quickly in his head, “How much will...three hundred twenty six and thirty two cents buy me?” Her eyes go wide at seeing that much cash and she stutters.

“Uh I have twenty boxes and sixteen of them are three-fifty but the other four are six dollars.”

Marassal quickly does the math in his head, “That’s only ninety-four dollars! Uh, here, have...two hundred, buy yourself something nice. Can I have all the cookies? Or do you need to sell them to different houses?”

“I-I don’t think there’s a rule about that.”

“Excellent! I’ll take the lot!” Marassal waves his hand and floats the boxes into the house much to Velari’s amazement.

“Woow!”

“Have you never seen a mage, da’len? We’re quite the treat, you know.” He winks at her and floats all the boxes into the house.

“Thank you, ser!” Velari says, holding her two hundred dollars in hand.

“Of course, darling! Now go! Have fun, it’s a lovely day, tell your mamae I say hello and thank you.” He waves goodbye and closes the door.

“Dirthamen!” He calls, “we have cookies!”

#my writing #recovery fluff for you #marassal #dirthamen #fic #everyone is an abom au #feynites

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pantmonger · 7 years

Text

The Witch Cult Kickstarter Postmortem

With my Kickstarter wrapping up and only reaching five percent of its funding target I think we can safely say that it failed to achieve its goal. So now is the time to learn from this, and just as the entirety of the project up to this point has been public, I will also make this post-mortem public, in the hope others can learn from my mistakes. Below the cut is a lengthy read. Time to own some mistakes.

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What do I think were the failings of the project.

Audience: The limited size of my reach / audience

This I feel was the largest issue contributing to the Kickstarter failing to get funded. In some of these areas I personally needed to do better. While others areas were down to the vagaries of fortune. However it was such a big one that I will break it into several sub categories.

Audience: My existing fan base was not large enough to support the funding needed.

A year ago when I quit my job to commence work on this project I understood that if it was going to get funded, I needed an audience. With that in mind I read books on expanding your audience and implemented as many of the tips as I was able.

Daily updates, free content, tutorials, engaging with audience etc. Some of these I was doing anyway, but others embraced and implemented. Some others I lacked the money and /or free time to implement, such as competitions. This may have been an effort to reward miscalculation.

But there was always going to be an uncontrollable element here. By and large people who see my work like it. It is, without being immodest, of professional quality. It has after all been my profession for quite some time. Of those that see and like my work a percentage hang around to see more. But I have never gone viral, I have never had the fortune of cracking the number of fans that snowballs into a solid, interested, financially supporting, fan base of size. That is one nut I just don’t know how to crack. But I kept plugging away in to hope of it happening.

By the end of the year I had approximately doubled my reach with 500+ followers both on Facebook and Tumblr and another 300+ on Twitter.

But 1300 followers was just not enough for a project with such a low product price per unit but high overall needed funding to succeed. Even if everyone had financially engaged (a big ask there) at $15 each I was going to need 4500 to hit the funding goal. That number would now require a sizable uptake from previously not engaged people. Too much as it would turn out.

Audience: Advertising and paid reach.

Which brings me to the second way to get interested eyes on your project, advertising and promotion. Here my failures were two fold. I do not possess skills in this area, and I did not have the funds to cover realistic advertising costs nor to hire someone who would know what they were doing in this regard.

I do not personally know what advertisements work best, what are the best money to return strategies or the best places to target. I went in totally blind, and that hurt the project. I have seen many posts about this very topic and how foolish it is to go in without a publicist but I had little choice due to the no funds problem.

In the end I spent a small amount, a couple of hundred dollars, on things like Facebook targeted advertising and similar, but only really gained a handful of likes and followers for the money. A very low return on investment as it were.

If I had more money to throw at advertising, I may have gotten more interested people, but even so I probably would have wanted to pour it into the project instead as I do not know where the threshold for more return then investment sits in this regard.

Audience: Journalists and third party coverage.

Another mix of bad lack and poor effort combined here I'm afraid.

Talking to a few journalist friends, few of them if any are interested in covering generic Kickstarters anymore. That hurt my chances. But ultimately it was I who really dropped the ball here.

I have a knee jerk hate of self-promotion. Of spinning my message (even when it requires very little spin). Thus my efforts in contacting people were token at best. And I ignored other avenues as I did not want to 'trade' off hot button topics.

My game features a main character who is a POC with no assigned gender. Yet I failed to reach out to those that might want to cover such things.

My game is about a group of refugees fleeing oppression. Yet I failed to reach out to those that might want to cover such things.

My game is a solo project by a Brisbane local and once again I failed to reach out to those that cover these things.

If there was a ball I dropped, it was this one, all because I feel uncomfortable with that kind of promotion.

Lack of a demo

This is pretty straight forward. I should have had a demo, a vertical slice. And I did not. While I was working on my own dime, I wanted to focus on things that would matter, that I enjoyed, even if the project was to fail.

So I focused on art, on reusable in game assets, and on design. I ignored all but the most surface level code, as I viewed it as a chore. A necessary and completable chore, but one that could be done when I was getting 'paid' for the project.

This was a mistake.

By the time I realised it, it was too late to correct. I feel that it affected peoples understanding of the project, and their faith that it could be completed by me, an artist.

And I missed out on the promotion a fun playable demo would have garnered.

Take home - Make a demo, preferably playable.

Lack of novelty / gimmick / stunning original gameplay

Everyone loves a gimmick, some novelty or a truly original gameplay break through.

My game little in the way of these things and those it had I did not highlight.

I felt that the structured and later emergent gameplay of solving platform puzzles and challenges through the manipulation of a personal light source and sound in an oblique view dungeon crawl was interesting in its own right. But I did a terrible job of drawing attention to this.

A demo would have helped, as would have more concrete examples.

But this was another dropped ball and a bad one to drop when the market is saturated with cookie cutter clones and cash -ins, I needed to stand out, but I failed to do so.

Saturation of the market.

This is obviously beyond my control but I would be remiss not to mention it.

At the moment every person and their dog is pumping out indie titles. Some are solid passion projects, others shameless 2 month re-skin cash ins. Consumers are both spoiled for choice and risk adverse and that's just in regards to products already on the market, not ones that require a chancy investment.

This made the challenge of getting my project funded greater, and unfortunately I failed to meet that challenge.

The little things

There are also a few minor things that I felt hurt my chances.

Not detailing my costs.

I got some general feedback from people who felt I was asking for too much funding at 70k for a solo project. It probably would have helped to do a break down that showed how once you took out the fees (10%) and the GST (10%) it dropped the amount of funding to $56k Australian over 1.5 years and that funding would also attract income tax. Meaning for that development period I would be working at a substantial pay cut. But without making that info clear and public people saw 70k and some thought it was an excessive money grab.

No physical assets

I went digital assets for simple reasons: cost control and available time.

I could not afford the time needed to deal with having physical products made, sent out, dealing with refunds, damages and returns, faulty products, overseas postage estimates and blowouts. I have no experience with any of these things and the financial margins were already so narrow that they could have collapsed the project. The risk seemed too great and I gave it a pass.

But people do love physical rewards, so it most likely cost me backers, but I cannot accurately predict how much.

Going it alone.

Yeah, this hurt me. Given the one bit of journalism about my project highlighted this as a major risk, it would be silly in retrospect to not accept that it would of influenced people faith in the project.

I was blinded by the desire to make my project. I did not want to have to convince someone else to shoulder the risk of my passion project and work on it for a year with me on that basis. I certainly did not have the money to pay someone. So I went it alone, and this hurt the project. I still think overall it was the right choice, but it was a factor the projects funding failure.

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What do I think were the success of the project.

Quality of the promotional art

Having a year is which to work on a lot of illustration and concept probably gave me the biggest skill jump I have had since I was studying it back in 2003. This showed in the quality of the promotional work for 'The Witch Cult' which was some of the best work I have ever done.

I felt it was effective at communicating the mood and tone of the game. As well as some of the novelty of the setting, such as the chicken huts striding over a Victorian London type setting.

The art did its job as well as I could of hoped, and was a definite successful part of the project.

Volume of Existing Assets

I felt the volume of assets I was able to create prior to the Kickstarter going live and throughout its existence helped foster faith in the project.

I felt it showed that the scope and detail that the project would encapsulate. That it was indicative of and communicated the expected final quality of the project. And that it was within my ability to deliver.

In retrospect, as mentioned above, the project should of cut back a bit in this area and added more on the code front. But I am still placing the effect of having these assets going in as something that affected the Kickstarter in a positive way.

The volume and scope of concept work.

Similar to above, having a large catalogue of concept art assets helped communicate the themes, tone and feel of the game.

They were also instrumental is generating interest, especially via the drip feed over time in the year leading up to the launch. They are probably primarily responsible for the increase in my audience size over the time leading up to the launch.

Thus they served the dual process of providing me with necessary concept and served a second promotional function. I count this as one of the projects most successful parts.

Personal discipline

Over the duration of this project, while working from home and living off my own savings I managed to put in a solid 8 hours per day, 5 days a week for almost the entire year.

And beyond this being a point of personal pride, I felt that helped build backer faith that I would be able to deliver the project; that it would not fail through lack of effort or due to my depression (an illness that I have always been public about). That this was communicated through the number and quality of existing assets being produced by a me as solo developer. I feel this helped the project immensely and was a definite win.

The Kickstarter video and pitch itself

I researched a number of successful Kickstarters, especially around projects I personally loved like 'Sunless Sea' and took on board their basic structure.

I invested time into making little visual assets such a subject headers to give the entire pitch a polished feel.

I tested with my existing audience the kind of rewards that they liked and ones they were not so keen on and price points for them.

I made the pitch video the same way as I intended to do in game cut scenes, to communicate to backers the setting and its themes. Bought licences for music and at the risk of blowing my own horn, my own experiences with performance helped me with the quality of the overall video and its voice over narrative.

I feel all of this went as well as I could have hoped

Within a few days I was endorsed as a 'Project we Love' by Kickstarter.

Over 25 percent of backers pledged enough to get the 'art of' book, the comic or both’.

15% of people who watched the video, watched it to completion all 3.5min of it.

This area was in my opinion one of the successful ones.

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Conclusions

In the end the Kickstarter failed to achieve is funding goal. Although I personally had faith in the product, I failed to inspire others to the necessary levels through some promotional failing on my behalf and due to some elements beyond my direct control.

If I was to hit one big take home from this: You need an audience!

I still don't know how to get one. Good product, advertising, luck with journalists, luck with something going viral a mixture of all these things or something I have not yet considered. It is a hurdle, in my opinion, the biggest.

But much good that came out of this, despite its failure to get funded. I made some new contacts with other games makers and indie peers.

I gained new audience and extended my reach.

I felt part of the games industry again, in a way I had not since the big Australian crash.

I got to experience a year in which I was my own boss and got to make my own creative decisions. An entire year to work on my art: that was pretty amazing.

I also leave the Kickstarter with general good feelings about the attempt. People were willing to back my project, to pay for my art. Being a solo artist, you can often feel the yoke of impostor syndrome. But a bunch of folk, the majority of them strangers, put money forward saying 'I like your work, your project.'

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Where to now

In the short term I will need to take a step away from the project proper. My self-funding has come to an end and through necessity I must again seek employment. Preferably back in the games and general art industries, as creating things is the only satisfying path for me.

I would still like to see the game itself become a reality. It will most likely happen by me working on it part time as my hobby project. But thought of pitching it at a publisher or existing game company may be other paths I could try.

I would also still like to tell the story of the cult, and always intended to make a comic about it, so that’s probably the next step for it. Who knows, maybe through comics, further art and demos I might gain that elusive beast called Audience and Kickstarter the whole thing over again, successfully this time.

To those who came on this journey with me, especially those that backed the project. Thank you. It’s been an absolute pleasure.

Michael Fitzhywel and The Witch Cult.

#Michael Fitzhywel #Pantmonger #Kickstarter fail #Postmortem #indie game development

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graphicpolicy · 8 years

Text

WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD

“JENNIFER WALTERS has survived the Civil War…barely…and having risen from the rubble, she re-enters the world a different kind of hero. Fueled by a quiet rage, she is determined to move forward, to go on with her life, but the pain of the past and all she’s lost is always there – an undercurrent, a pulse, waiting to quicken and trigger Jen’s transformation into the one thing she doesn’t have control over…”

–From the Marvel Comics website

Ah, Hulk. I’ve been waiting for this one. Strange to say since my general attitude toward Marvel and DC comics is mostly derision. Can you blame me? One company protects a serial sexual harasser while firing women who dare speak out. The other is run by a Trump lover, making Hydra something of an all too poignant allegory for the company. I don’t care for the majority of their comics, especially their world events that operate as a way to temporarily spike sales, ultimately crashing and burning while receiving the hissing, clawing displeasure of both fans and critics. With Marvel, the recent blunder is Civil War II, a gimmicky cash grab for an enjoyable movie based on terrible source material that got delayed so many times that the books taking place after the event came out before it even concluded.

Just like the original Civil War, the sequel is guilty of character assassination, unnecessary conflict, unnecessary death, and ruining a whole bunch of comics people were enjoying. NEVER FORGIVE THEM FOR WHAT THEY DID TO CAROL DANVER! I mean, I don’t care about her, but turning her into a fascist ruined her relationship with Ms. Marvel, by far the best, most relatable Marvel character to come out since the Runaways. She was my generation’s Peter Parker, and now she’s lost both her idol and her friends as a result. Marvel ruined her. RUINED HER, I SAY!

Also, why was Tony Stark against Danver’s Minority Report shtick? I mean, this was a man who in the original series OK’d a metahuman registration program that probably made Trump cream his pants. Tony is practically a fascist himself. God, even Captain America is a Nazi now! I mean, so many of the heroes have turned into villains themselves and…

Aw, forget it. I could go all day long about everything wrong with Civil War II, but naw. I avoided that garbage and I don’t want to waste time talking about it either.

So, why in the world would I be reviewing Hulk, a comic that happened as a direct result of this nonsense? I should be angry given Bruce Banner, one of my favorite Marvel characters, died. I should be with the Marvel Zombies grabbing their axes and lead pipes smashing windows and burning cars over it. However, after reading about the series from Mariko Tamaki and Nico Leon, I had to check it out.

Oh, I know. There are those that don’t want Jennifer Walters to be angry, traumatized Hulk. They love her as She-Hulk! Big green lawyer lady that breaks the fourth wall, cracks jokes, and goes on crazed hijinks with Patsy Walker. Now, I haven’t been a lifelong fan of She-Hulk. The first thing I read starring her was the short-lived series by Charles Soule and Javier Pulido. That comic was fun! Like watching your favorite Saturday morning cartoon show while listening to your favorite indie rock band. I can see why people are so attached to happy Jen. She’s a blast.

However, I must defend this new, darker approach to her. As much as I love ladies having fun, I prefer when they’re angry monsters. In fact, it seems recently that a new breed of female lead comics that center on women being some kind of monstrosity has risen: Monstress, Insexts, She Wolf, Cry Havoc, and even the mass murderer Gertrude from I Hate Fairyland. These women are angry, broken by whatever is afflicting them, and they’re ready to let it out in a wave of unprecedented carnage. The best part about this trend is how subversive these monstrous women are. Their monstrosities might at first seem like afflictions, but they slowly develop into a form of empowerment.

Happy is good, but monstrous is better.

So, how does this route go for Jennifer Walters? Well, I’m happy to say that Hulk is a bold new take on the character that will draw readers in not with endless action, but atmospheric art, character-focused drama, and a unique horror tone tackling trauma head on.

The covers of Jeff Dekal take a unique approach in conveying monstrous rage. Instead of showing actual destruction, as was Banner Hulk’s trademark, Cover #1 shows Jen grasping the logo tightly, seemingly on the cusp of crumbling it to pieces. Yes, it’s a violent image, but not in the sense of catastrophic physical violence, but poignant emotional violence. Jen is trying to hold back her rage, resisting the urge to destroy. After all, that’s what Bruce did, a man who couldn’t control the beast within. Jen is supposed to be different, supposed to be healthy and balanced. However, given the trauma she suffered in Civil War II, Jen’s on the breaking point. This is what Dekal masterfully conveys. Also, have to give huge props for coloring Jen gray. I suspect it’s a callback to Gray Hulk, a version of the character that I sometimes prefer over the Emerald Giant.

Cover #2 also takes a unique approach to violence in showing its aftermath. The punch-cracked window, Jen’s hands clawing upward, indicates how she momentarily lost control and there was a negative consequence. She’s trying to hold it back again. Slip-ups happen, right? However, when you’re a gamma-radiant monster, slip-ups tend to end up sucking for everyone around you. The coloring of Jen is quite interesting. I don’t understand why her skin is pink (call back to the Red Hulks, maybe?), but I love how there is a creeping network of gray veins slowly covering her body. To me, this symbolizes the Hulk inside of Jen, the one she’s trying to hold back. It’s also symbolic of the negative emotions she feels: anger, depression, and helplessness.

I think it is important to note how green has more prominence than Cover #1. The glow is notably on the walls. It seems to mean Jen’s control is slipping. Again, so much about the conflict of the comic, the overriding theme of struggling with anger and trauma is masterfully conveyed on the covers. I’ve recently talked about the importance of covers conveying a story’s theme and hooking a reader at the same time. For the covers of Hulk, Jeff Dekal hits a bullseye twice.

So, how does the interior art hold up in comparison? Nico Leon’s style creates a deceptively quiet atmosphere that aches with tension. Matt Milla’s coloring adds to this with a soft color palette. In issue #1’s opening scene, Jen’s apartment has a gray tone to it. It’s a huge space, some objects built to accommodate She-Hulk’s size. However, now that Jen is in human mode, the objects are hilariously oversized. In this empty apartment, with its many objects, Jen seems tiny and isolated. It’s strange because it is both calm and tense at the same time. It has to do with how Jen’s inner monologue, full of polarizing emotion, turns the plainness of the apartment into a mask. Leon’s depiction of Jen’s mute expression further pushes this idea of plainness as a mask for turmoil. Reading the comic is the same as visiting the hospital for an urgent report. You’re sitting in the waiting room, made as nice and homely as possible, but you’re still tapping your foot because once the doctor enters, it could be life or death. This is the atmosphere of the comic. Sometimes, it’s suffocating, but always poignant.

Leon and Milla also shine in their portrayal of New York City. Instead of trying to recreate it as the grim concrete jungle it no longer is, they showcase the city in its present decorum of bright colors, modernized architecture, and streets full of yuppies in designer clothing. These are also the scenes where letterer Cory Petit gets creative. A scene in a subway has big letters crowded with the sea of bodies, demonstrating the overpopulated, noisy experience of living in New York. Just like with the apartment, Jen’s isolation is noticeable and just as emotionally complex, simultaneously calm and tumultuous.

Although the art team certainly excels in environmental atmosphere, they fall a little short with character design. They’re not bad, but not memorable either. It might have to do with the lack of detail. Leon’s faces are simplistic, most of them eerily similar. I noticed this when contrasted with the art of Dalibor Talajic in issue #2, pages 4-6. Talajic adds more details that make faces distinguishable. Also, ages are recognizable. I couldn’t nail Jen’s age with Leon, but Talajic easily places her from late 20s to 30s. Another thing that I don’t like about Leon’s characters are the eyes. When closed, they look like a cutesy style anime character. Leon might be influenced by anime and manga to a certain extent, but this element of the art clashes with the tone of the comic.

However, there are exceptions, most notably the amazing designs of metahumans. They are creative, unique, and diverse. Already, one of these metahumans, Miss Brewn, has become an important side character. In fact, just like Soule and Pulido’s run, I hope Jen ends up representing a number of crazy characters and exploring their back-stories.

The hallmark of Hulk is Mariko Tamaki’s writing. I was interested to see how a writer well known for her indie drama work like This One Summer and Skim would do with a mainstream cape comic. Can she bring the same complex, emotional drama? The answer is almost. There is still the limitation of a 20-21 page-count that prevents extensive development, not to mention some campy elements, such as a sketchy landlord character that acts like a Sopranos extra.

The rest of Tamaki’s writing pulls off an astonishing feat of taking the concept of Hulk and bringing it down to reality. Now, this isn’t impossible and has been done before as evidence by Bruce Jones’ amazing run. Here, however, it is even more so because instead of starting off with a tale of espionage, it’s one of recovery. I will admit to having been trepidatious about trauma as a central theme, not because I doubted in Tamaki’s writing abilities, but worried that funneling it through a cape comic would make depictions over the top or offensive. Thankfully, that’s not the case. There are no gross scenes of Jen crying in a shower naked while chugging bottles of whiskey, and moaning about how she can’t go on without Bruce! Oh Woe is a world so cruel and unfair! HAWTHRONE HEIGHTS RULEZ!!!

That nonsense is absent. Instead, trauma is depicted accurately. Jen gets up each day and tries to live a normal life. She goes to work, eat bagels at a café, and have a coffee while watching children ice-skating in the park. She doesn’t interact much with people. Currently, Jen feels the need to be alone. This will probably be disappointing to folks that love Jen as a snappy joker with lots of friends, but it’s relatable to some people that have experienced trauma. It is important to reach out and let people aid you, but it’s also helps to be alone sometimes. Being alone is a time to be at peace, to clear your mind and experience life instead of over-thinking it.

The few interactions Jen has with people are still supportive. There is Patsy who sends positive text messages, and Bradley, Jen’s gay secretary, who keeps her busy and provides her a packet of nuts after a bad spell of rage. There is also Miss Brewn, Jen’s client, who brings out the best part of the character: her heroism. Even if Jen’s no longer fighting along with super folks, she still dedicates herself as a lawyer, protecting clients from harm and making sure their justice. This is important again in approaching trauma from a mature, complex angle. Tamaki shows that there is room for positivity, to be able to function and be happy, even while in the midst of coping. There is even humor, both laughs and heroism balance out the darker parts of the comic.

As for trauma, the core of the story, Tamaki & Co. explores it in a unique way. Jen’s trauma is triggered when mentions of Bruce and the Hulk are made. It reminds her of the pain she has been through, of the fact her own Hulk form is now uncontrollable, something welling up and ready to burst. In these scenes, green becomes a dominant color. At their worst, Jen’s eyes turn green, the veins around them glow, and she glares and grits her teeth. The Hulk is trying to claw out, but unlike Bruce who always lost control automatically, Jen is able to force it back down. Unfortunately, this resistance clearly causes her pain. This pain symbolizes the agony of trauma itself, how it takes it toll on both the mind and body. Also, how long can Jen’s efforts last? It seems to be only a matter of time before her control slips completely.

The way these scenes are depicted is best described as atmospheric horror. The darkness, the intensity of glowing green, Jen’s contorting face of anger, are images that make the reader feel uneasy, ready to jump out of their seat as they prepare for the worst. This is how the best horror scares its audience, not through jump scares or extreme violence, but the dread of anticipation. It’s the feeling of walking alone in a street at night and there are either footsteps or strange noises trailing behind. You keep walking. You don’t dare turn around out of fear that it will be the moment the stalker strikes, yet at the same time its agonizing not knowing who or what it is. The creative team nails this type of horror down, with the added emotional resonance of knowing these scenes symbolize Jen’s trauma. It agonizes the reader into caring for Jen, if that makes sense. They know how much pain she is, and now want to see her persevere and survive. It’s similar to the final girl trope from slasher films.

The comic manages to balance out both the light and dark parts of Jen’s story. Seeing her both in pain and triumphant when the time comes is a satisfying emotional wheel for those that like protagonists to go through a personal trial before getting a happy ending. Sometimes, it can feel a little over the top, but never exploitative. Best of all, the story is told without the overuse of action that’s prevalent in modern superhero comics. Each issue unfolds like the chapter of a book, focusing on character development and dialogue. This approach reminds me of the masterful Vision series by Tom King and Gabriel Hernandez Walta. Both series read more like literary horror than superhero adventure. This style is not for everyone, and there will still be people that don’t enjoy this type of story, especially those who don’t want it happening to Jen. However, I have to take a stand and say it is executed expertly. Tamaki, Leon, and everyone else involved obviously understand people’s concerns for the character, and from what I have seen so far are giving her the respect she deserves.

One last thing I want to comment on is both the title of the series and that of the current story arc. It’s called “Deconstruction.” Why? My theory based on the content is that this arc, and the series as a whole, is attempting to deconstruct the character. Hulk, in relation to Bruce Banner, has always been associated with pain, destruction, and mental illness. His death can be seen as the finality of those negative attributes. It is something seen in stories time and time again. The monster, symbolic of the things that bother humanity, must die. Jen was different. Yes, she started off just as savage, but eventually attained control of her other self, even going so far as live daily as She-Hulk. That gift was taken away from her with the death of Bruce, and now her Hulk form afflicts her just as much as it did him.

Perhaps this is necessary. Now that Hulk is dead, and Jen claims the name, it’s almost saying that she has to be stuck with the original meaning of the name, not empowerment but destruction. It should be noted how the events that caused the scenario were mandated by a mostly male creative team. So, while it is easy to give praise for titling the series Hulk instead of She-Hulk to erase gender labels, it could also be said that the old male meaning behind Hulk is now inflicted upon a woman. As I mentioned before, monsters are often symbolic of everything that is wrong with the world, and anyone or anything labeled as such tends to be set up for elimination. After all, society can’t have an ugly manifestation of its dark side stalking about.

However, there is an opportunity for the monstrosity to become a form of empowerment. In the female monster titles I mentioned, monstrous women are immediately put in the box of wrong and afflicted by (mostly male) society’s perceptions of monsters. Jen is similarly afflicted, dealing with her cousin’s legacy, one of contempt from the world at large. But she’s not letting this legacy hold her down. Jen is still being Jen. Furthermore, the series would be smart in showing a transition of Jen reclaiming control of her hulk form and, on a larger scale, breaking down the old concept of Hulk and reconstructing it as something positive. Being a monster can become empowering rather than afflicting.

Only two issues in, Hulk is full of potential. If it lasts long enough and the creative team grows Jen in the right path, it may become an engaging tale of trauma, monstrosity, and reclaiming one’s identity. With atmospheric art, an emotionally complex story, and unique horror tone, I would recommend this title to anyone that loves the character. She might not be the She-Hulk of old, but she is no less fun to read.

Story: Mariko Tamaki Art: Nico Leon, Matt Milla, Cory Petit, Dalibor Talajic Story: 9.5 Art: 8.5 Overall: 9 Recommendation: Buy

Make Me Angry: Hulk #1-2 Review #comics #marvel #hulk WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD “JENNIFER WALTERS has survived the Civil War…barely…and having risen from the rubble, she re-enters the world a different kind of hero.

#comic books #Comics #cory petit #dalibor talajic #featured #mariko tamaki #marvel #matt milla #nico leon

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operationrainfall · 4 years

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I’m still not entirely sure what to make of DEAD OR SCHOOL. At first glance, it appeared to be the love child of Senran Kagura, Resident Evil and Parasite Eve. After playing it for several hours, it’d be more accurate to call it a mixture of Senran Kagura, The House of the Dead series and any Metroidvania. In short, it’s a very ambitious game. Though I didn’t know this about it initially, it’s actually a crowdfunded darling by Studio Nanafushi, and it got published by the fine folks at Marvelous. (They probably appreciated the similarities to Senran Kagura.) It’s also a game that combines fan service, hideous mutants, and complex yet immersive combat in one package. The question then is were all those elements able to shine through the layers of awkward design choices?

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At first blush, it’s easy to believe DEAD OR SCHOOL will be a poorly written, derivative mess. And it’s true, there are a fair share of grammatical errors, as well as some very odd choices of punctuation. Despite all that, there’s actually a really compelling story here. It takes the zombie apocalypse genre and mixes it together with Sukeban elements. (I hope I’m using that term correctly.) Basically, a game that shows women can be strong and independent, and not reliant on society or men to save them. And since this is a game inspired by Japanese popular culture, there’s also a good deal of fan service in DEAD OR SCHOOL, such as main character Hisako wearing a sexy school uniform that, when torn, magically increases her power in proportion to the amount of exposed skin. I know some of you are getting turned off already, but bear with me. Despite the silly and over-the-top elements in the game, and despite the aforementioned design problems, there’s a diamond in the rough here.

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The plot of DEAD OR SCHOOL revolves around a cataclysmic war between humanity and horrible humans turned mutants, and the aftermath of that climactic war. Humans have been pushed completely underground, living in sewers and train stations, pretty much any large abandoned space. Things are calm until some silly young girls discover an elevator to the surface, and are attacked by mutants. They’re only saved thanks to the sudden and dramatic intervention of Hisako, who despite her unremarkable appearance is apparently a mutant killing machine. She rips through a horde of them bare handed like a little red-haired Hulk. While I suspect there’s perhaps a reason for her abilities, three levels into the game it hasn’t been explained. Regardless, Hisako is a total bad ass. Filled with her grandmother’s stories of the surface world and the paradise of the institution of schools, she ventures forth to discover the truth and establish a school of her own. Which might sound silly, but in a dystopian nightmare like, say, a pandemic, one starts to appreciate the stability a school represents.

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With the basic concept out of the way, let’s move onto where DEAD OR SCHOOL is strongest: the gameplay. Though it definitely qualifies as a 2D beat ’em up, it’s also very much a Metroidvania. Each area you explore features a series of interconnected rooms, complete with a mini map display. Better yet, as you fight you level up, growing stronger incrementally. You also increase your parameters by fulfilling sidequests and rescuing survivors. Basic stuff like HP or stamina will get increased, but one of the more important categories is weight. Every weapon you have equipped (You can alternate between three different weapons at a time.) contributes to your overall weight. That weight is increased by modifying the weapons with gears, adding new abilities and even randomly changing the weapon’s inherent ability. Just keep in mind, if your overall weight ever exceeds the upper limit, you’ll be rendered unable to attack, so you’ll have to work within your capacity.

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I love how easy it is to alternate between your three equipped weapons with a press of the shoulder button, and it makes combat fast and furious. The only limiting factor is your stamina. Most of the time I didn’t notice this at all, but when things got hot and heavy, I definitely did. When your stamina is depleted, it takes longer to recover. This is problematic, since stamina lets you do things like attack, jump, dodge, etc. When my stamina was depleted, I’d usually take a hit while trying to dodge, but not have enough stamina to do so. To help counter this, Hisako can crouch. While crouched her stamina recovers rather quickly, so you’ll need to balance your time between rushing, attacking, dodging and crouching. Again, normally not a problem, but when you’re facing hordes of mutants or one of the game’s intense bosses, you’ll need to moderate your actions efficiently.

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If it all sounds stuffy so far, fear not. The combat in DEAD OR SCHOOL is actually really fun. All the weapons you use have ammo (even the melee weapons like swords, for some reason). Once out of ammo, your ranged weapons, such as flamethrowers, grenade launchers and machine guns, cannot be used at all. The saving grace is that once you reach a save point, all the ammo for your equipped arsenal is replenished. But sometimes it’s a long trek between save points, and the game loves to throw large groups of mutants at you. Often you’ll even be locked in a room until you’ve cleared them out. I worried I’d run out of ammo, and that does indeed happen. Thankfully, your bladed weapons can still be used once out of “ammo”. They just deal half as much damage as they normally would. As a result, I really came to rely on my katanas and axes more than my ranged weapons, though those can also help you in a pinch. Every time you level up, you’ll get a skill point, which can be allocated to a skill tree for each type of weapon. You can bet I poured a lot into my katana, making it deal more critical hits, inflict backstab damage to foes, and even unlocking a powerful whirlwind slash. That said, it’s important to deposit skill points in each tree, since you never know what passive abilities you’ll find there, such as increased stamina or extra durability for your weapons.

More School on Page 2! ->

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Like I said earlier, DEAD OR SCHOOL has lots of Metroidvania elements, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a proper example of the genre. You don’t really get new abilities to help you explore. Instead, you’ll find key cards and such to unlock new areas, and you can use Hisako’s nimble acrobatics to get around. She can run pretty fast, double jump, and even cling to and swing from certain structures. You’re able to explore as much as you want to, and you are free to ignore optional sidequests. That said, it’s good to try a few, since each one will reward you with experience, and you’ll need to keep your level about even with the foes in your area. For example, when I got to the third level of the game, I quickly encountered a lot of foes at level 18, while I was only at 14. I was able to do okay initially, but then I wandered too far afield and found some level 21 foes. Suffice to say, they walloped me. Thankfully, the game is generous, and you don’t lose any experience or progress when you die (and I died a lot). The only downside is you do lose some cash, which isn’t that big a deal. All you use cash for is to buy parts and weapons, which are randomly populated in the shop you can access through the save points. Usually there’s a lot of items you can totally ignore. That said, I strongly recommend you either buy a weapon with a drone, or equip a part that provides a drone. Those little bastards saved my ass more than once, since they hover around you hitting foes with lasers. They’re not fast or super powerful, but they can hit foes from a distance, and they have unlimited ammo. Whenever I found an irritating section in DEAD OR SCHOOL, I would usually camp where a foe couldn’t hit me, and let my drone whittle their health away. Sure it’s cheap, but sometimes you need to be a bastard to get through this game.

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Overall, I do feel the balance in DEAD OR SCHOOL is mostly fair. Generally you’ll only be losing to a boss because you’re not paying attention to their attacks and avoiding them properly. Or maybe you’re not timing those dodges well, and missing out on the enemy being temporarily slowed down. But every once in a while you’ll find something that might be frustrating in this game. A good example is in Harajuku. One area had me fight wave after wave of foes and then get to two rotating gears I had to navigate. Problem was, I was instantly locked into a fight room, which was tricky since it involved moving gear teeth. Adding insult to injury, once I survived that, I stumbled upon another fight room, and once past that, it was punctuated by a terrifying slasher mini boss fight. This goes to show that though most of the combat mechanics are well balanced, sometimes the developers didn’t have a fair and balanced approach to stage layouts. It’s nothing that is game breaking, but having more save points or even less continuous stretches of mutant hordes would have definitely helped, especially considering I’m only a few levels into the game, and I can tell there’s plenty more. I can only imagine how difficult things will become later in the experience.

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It’s no secret by now that I exclusively play my Switch in handheld mode. And yes, I’m aware that doing so often means the games run less optimally or that the sound is especially muted. That’s very much not the case in DEAD OR SCHOOL. The game runs very smoothly, even with large groups of foes, and the music is catchy and does a great job of motivating you. Even the sound effects are really dynamic and attention grabbing, from the rat-a-tat of your gunfire to the shrieks of rage or pain from Hisako to the groans of filthy mutant scum. It does a great job of drawing you into the experience, and kept me entertained.

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Now that I’ve talked about the good, it’s time to unveil what DEAD OR SCHOOL did wrong. Earlier I touched upon the translation of the game, and how it has odd grammatical choices and bad punctuation. Frankly, most of the dialogue is forgettable. It doesn’t do a good job of showcasing the personalities of the characters, maybe with the exception of Yurika. She very much comes across as the mature woman trying to look professional yet being a total spaz. A bigger problem I have is understanding all the menus. Some things the game does a good job of explaining, such as the many tutorials for combat. Much as I appreciate that, I still don’t understand all the ins and outs of weapon customization, just as one example. Plus they can just be tricky to navigate, such as the parts menu. Having a way to organize or filter them all would be amazing. And while visually I like a lot here, such as the comic book illustrations, the way enemies jump in combat from the background and the various mutant designs, the models during gameplay felt constrained and small. Plus it’s just disconcerting how each foe has a wide red outline. Oh and much as I love the save points, it’s annoying how every time you use one, all surrounding foes respawn, including fight rooms that lock you in. Perhaps the wonkiest is the physics in DEAD OR SCHOOL. If you’re on anything other than a flat surface, things go to hell. Hisako slides down diagonal slants and even gets caught in stage geometry surprisingly frequently. On the plus side, the same also happens with foes, so more than once I dealt with a nasty mutant by trapping it in stage geometry then murdering it with my drone.

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All things said, I did really enjoy what I’ve played thus far in DEAD OR SCHOOL. I just worry it’ll be a challenge to beat the game given the issues I’ve covered, as well as some others, such as the game seemingly forgetting settings I input when I started the game. But despite all those rough spots, I feel there’s a really promising adventure here. Sure, it still needs work and polish, but if you can look past that, it’s a really unique title that many will enjoy. Just get ready for when Hisako has to kill a tank…

IMPRESSIONS: DEAD OR SCHOOL I'm still not entirely sure what to make of DEAD OR SCHOOL. At first glance, it appeared to be the love child of…

#DEAD or SCHOOL #fan service #fun #glitchy #Marvelous #Metroidvania #mutants #nintendo switch #PC #PS4 #RPG #Studio Nanafushi

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danielstolz · 6 years

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Danny’s Best Games of 2018

Here we go again. 2018 was a very transformative year for me, taking new turns, exploring new areas, and finding the new me. It was a year full of beautiful human-constructed chaos, which left everyone of us wanting to escape the real world. And we all know that the best possible way of escape is: dru... Eh, I mean video games!

2018 was a weird year for gaming. It seemed like everyone was sleeping and secretly working on something big while releasing just filler-titles. AAA-games were either non-existent or more of the same action-openworld shtick we’ve seen a hundred times. I was rather disappointed by the big players this year.

But the Indie scene flourished. It’s like someone opened the floodgates and all the creative small gems suddenly started rushing in. I’ve played around 20 games this year and I still have 30 games left that I want to check out, mainly indies of course. So as always: If your favorite game isn’t on the list, probably I didn’t play it, or I played it and it just sucks. As easy as that. Here we go:

10. Bad North

The RTS. A long forgotten genre that seemed to be dead for the last few years. It used to be one of the biggest genres back in the days and then suddenly publishers decided that Its just a niche-thing. But it’s slowly being resurrected by MOBAs and bite-sized strategy games like Bad North. This little Gem is polished to perfection. Bad North is a randomly generated RTS in which you try to defend tiny but gorgeous islands from incoming boats of enemies. The beauty of this game comes in its simplicity. There’s only 3 types of units and the only thing you have to do is positions them accordingly. Sounds simple, but it gets nerve-wrecking really fast, especially when you only have 2 units left and 5 boats are approaching. Bad North gives you a few tools and you need to improvise strategies on the spot often having to compromise. Tightly designed and visually striking, Bad North is the finest indie-RTS I’ve played.

9. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Smash Bros used to be a fun party game where you could beat your friends up, but over the years it turned into something much bigger. Not only is Smash celebrating the history and legacy of Nintendo, it also celebrates the entire medium itself. It shows us the best of videogames, having a blast with your friends, or honing your skills online for the next big tournament. Everybody can enjoy this game and when creator Masahiro Sakurai said “Everyone is here!” not only did he mean the characters from franchises across the entire medium, he also meant people from all different kinds of backgrounds. This is a game where a professional veteran can have a great time with someone who never even held a controller in his hand. The best Smash to this date where “Ultimate” isn’t just a marketing term, but an understatement.

8. Artifact

Artifact is 2 of my favorite things combined: Dota and digital card games. When they first announced it I was skeptical. It seemed like Valve wanted to simply jump on the Hearthstone hypetrain to grab some additional cash. Then I heard that Richard Garfield was going to design it and I was sure that this is going to be something special: and it truly is. Not only is Artifact juiced out the max it’s also one of the best designed card games I’ve played in recent memory. Every decision you make is crucial, and the randomized board and item pool keeps you on your toes even when you seem to have the upper hand. I’ve never felt like I’ve had worse cards than my opponent, which Hearthstone made me feel constantly. Let’s talk about the controversy surrounding Artifact: its cost. You need to pay 20 bucks to play the game which will give a few starter decks and 120 random cards. Additional cards cost you extra. This sounds crazy, but I think this business model helps the game stay competitive, while just being the regular business models for every other non digital card game. People aren’t used anymore to pay for stuff. But hey: they just miss out on the best cardgame of the year.

7. Minit

In an age where games need to be 100+ hours long and have to have a billion dialogue options and a massive storyline with thousands of quests, it’s refreshing to see a game that just oozes simplicity, charm and only takes you a few hours to complete. Minit is that wonderfully delightful game. Every playsession takes you exactly 1min before a curse kills you. Minit takes this little concept and blows it up into a full game, filled with incredibly clever interactions that play with the medium and make up for a wonderful time. Like the old man who takes forever to tell his story... far longer than a minute. Minit not only makes you think, but it makes you think in ways not explored by previous titles. It’s refreshing, lovely and a beautiful contrast to the current trends in gaming.

6. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon

This is just a Kickstarter bonus game for another Bloodstained coming out in 2019, and it was one of the best games I’ve played this year. Somehow whenever developers take an old NES game-concept and make a modern reimagining of it, it never disappoints. This time it’s Castlevania and it’s the best Castlevania ever made. I’m not kidding, this hidden gem is better than Castlevania 4 and Symphony of the Night. The levels are tightly designed, the difficulty is just right, the game has multiple paths for different playthroughs, the bosses are incredible, the visuals are stunningly beautiful, the sound is crisp, the music is catchy and all that while just being a sideproject for a bigger game. This is a classic Castlevania like it come out back in the 80s and nails everything right on the head. You can play this through in just one sitting and you won’t be disappointed. Sometimes the only thing you need is a blast from the past.

5. Dead Cells

This action-roguelike finally came out this year and it devoured me. Dead Cells is a loot based 2D-dungeon-crawler that picks you up the beginning and won’t let you go till the end. The gameplay is hypnotizing, running, rolling, fighting your way through hordes of enemies, collecting gear and trying to get closer and closer to the end. A journey filled with failure, triumph and the occasional rage-quit. And after a few hours you realize that you didn’t look at the time and wasted your whole afternoon. Dead Cells captures you with this unbelievable sense of flow, which you can’t escape. Everything feels natural and you really start losing yourself in the combat trying the be faster every run, trying to get an even more ridiculous combo. Dead Cells is a game of flow, a game of mastery, a beautiful exercise for your fingers. And after all those hours you realize that none of it was time wasted.

4. The Messenger

While Bloodstained:Curse of the Moon brought back classic Castlevania, The Messenger seems to reimagine classic Ninja Gaiden. Or does it? The Messenger hides itself under the skin of the recent trend of revivals and throws a curveball at the player. Or should I say a barrage of curveballs, The Messenger is a Metagame a cleverly selfaware exercise in how often you can break the rules, twist the plot, and change the whole game itself. I think this is the game that breaks the 4th wall more often than anything else I’ve ever seen You could even say that there is no 4th wall. The Messenger is all that and in addition it’s a wonderful Ninja Gaiden game. The gameplay is smooth and the Metagame aspects of it make you lose yourself in a game that doesn’t really want to be a game. Sometimes it just wants to be clever, or funny, or it just wants to screw you over and throw another new thing at you that breaks all the rules all over again. I don’t wanna give away too much because this is something you need to experience on your own. What a whacky, weird and gorgeous experience.

3. Yakuza 6

Over 6 games and this is the long awaited and dreaded finale. Yakuza 6 is an example of how to end a show with the most over the top way. I said show because essentially that’s what Yakuza is. The great thing about this show however is that you get to play it, and that you probably will get off track while doing so. I spent hours showing off my skills at the mahjongg parlor, after beating a street gang that tried to harass a girl and his boyfriend, afterwards I flirted with a bunch of hostesses, created a clan and then got dragged in a big Yakuza conspiracy while trying to defend my baby from being murdered. I didn’t make that up. That just happened. Yakuza 6 turns it down a notch, however, there are less playable characters, less minigames, less plot-twists, less of everything to be honest, all this in order to serve the main story which is the star of this show. One character means more focus and more finesse. While Yakuza 0 was all about the twists, Yakuza 6 offers a thrilling, heart gripping story that resolves the whole narrative in such an epic and iconic way that It’s hard to stop playing. Yakuza 6 is a masterclass in building up tension and never letting it go. You’ll get sidetracked but you don’t want to get sidetracked, you wanna know how the story continues and trust me you have to know.

2. Celeste

Celeste is a game about depression, a game about atmosphere, and a game of mastery and finally overcoming your own personal problems. Most games tell a story and then there’s gameplay. Celeste tells a story through its gameplay. It’s an example of how to use the medium as a compelling and unique way to tell a story. Not only does Celeste tell a story through its mechanics, but it also invokes an unforgetable atmosphere through the beautiful pixel aesthetic and the ear melting music by Lena Raine. All if this is accompanied by the best designed levels I’ve seen this year, pushing the boundaries of clever level design. Celeste is challenging, but that’s what it wants to be. Showing you how hard it is to deal with personal drama. It certainly helped me a lot and shows how videogames can be much more than entertainment. Celeste is a game I won’t forget.

1. Into the Breach

This game... is a designers wet dream. If you’d asked me if there’s a perfectly designed game, then my answer would be Into the Breach. We started off the list with bite sized strategy and we’ll end with that. Into the Breach is a randomly generated turn-based-puzzlegame, which shines with perfection. What makes it special is that this game has perfect information, meaning that the player knows everything. Every move in Into the Breach has to be perfect and if you make a mistake you cannot blame the game, because you knew everything. You just need to make the right decisions and that is incredibly difficult. Into the Breach may not look like much, but it’s the most tightly designed I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t boast with flashy visuals or a gripping story, Into the Breach knows exactly what it is, and it’s nothing more. A minimalistic yet perfect game that can entertain for hours on end. This is the new golden standard when it comes to gamedesign.

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wilheminacastleb-blog · 6 years

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Epic Characters And Storylines Were Once Concept Art Too!

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wbwest · 7 years

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New Post has been published on WilliamBruceWest.com

New Post has been published on http://www.williambrucewest.com/2017/04/12/comical-thoughts-one-our-hero-read-30-marvel-comics-one-night/

Comical Thoughts - The One Where Our Hero Read 30 Marvel Comics In One Night

So, a lot of people have thoughts on the recent remarks that Marvel Editor in Chief Axel Alonso made regarding diversity. Ultimately, he said that retailers and consumers didn’t seem to flock to the diversity push that Marvel was doing in their books. Fans came out in droves to dispute this, saying that there are other reasons that Marvel’s losing sales. Well, I’m not gonna contribute to that conversation – at least, not directly. You see, I’m about 6 months behind on Marvel books, so I’ve missed a lot of this diversity push. I mean, I go to the shop every Wednesday, and I’m buying a TON of books, but there are only so many hours in the week, so I just haven’t had the chance to read all of them. Oddly enough, I’m fairly current with a lot of the DC books I buy, mainly because they seemed to serve as better jumping-on points. I know everything happening in the Superman books and Teen Titans, but I only just read Civil War II, like, two weeks ago. Usually my Friday nights are consumed with me going on toy runs or napping, but the other day I said to myself, “Will, it’s time to read some Marvel.” I had a few thoughts on what I read, so I thought I’d share them here for anyone who’s curious.

First up, I read the full run of The Unbelievable Gwenpool to date. I read #1 when it came out, and then the book just went to the bottom of a large stack. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy that first issue. I mean, it’s written by Christopher Hastings of the hilarious The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, so I already knew that I loved his style. The Gwenpool concept, on the surface, just sounds like a cash grab. Creating a Deadpool series used to be the equivalent of printing money (not so much anymore, looking at the sales for Deadpool and the Mercs for Money). Meanwhile, everyone and their mom seemed to love the idea of Spider-Gwen when she spun out of Spider-Verse. So, it was natural to put peanut butter in your chocolate by mixing the two.

Gwen Poole actually hails from our world, where all of the Marvel characters are just characters in comics books. By some mysterious means, she transports herself into the Marvel Universe, with her wealth of comic knowledge at her disposal. So, she knows everyone’s identities, all their power sets, etc. This is similar to the Deadpool thing where he thinks of himself as a character in a comic book. Once she gets to the MU, she sets herself up as a mercenary even though she’s not necessarily good at killing. She has limited hand to hand skills, and she’s not a great shot. But she’s pretty good at blowing shit up, which is what she does. The funny thing, though, is that they’ve never really explained why she’s a killer. Maybe it’s because she knows none of it is “real”, so it doesn’t matter if she kills somebody or not. After all, they’re just fictional characters to her. Anyway, after a botched mission, she finds herself working for M.O.D.O.K (Mental Organism Designed Only For Killing) and his gang of mercenaries, which includes Captain America foe Batroc The Leaper.

Anyway, I LOVE THIS BOOK! I’m quick to talk about things I don’t like, so I have to give equal credit to the things that I do like. I love the Gwenpool character, who’s really just a perky teenage girl who likes blowing stuff up. It’s kind of refreshing to meet a female character with an encyclopedic knowledge of comic book trivia, and it’s cool to see how she employs that in her series. I’ve been a big fan of Dr McNinja for years, so I knew Hastings wouldn’t disappoint and he surely didn’t! It’s a fun comic that really gives credence to the slang term “funnybook”. If you’re looking for fun in your comic reading, then definitely check this out. The sales on it aren’t so hot, making it seem like she should’ve been left to do cameos for a while before getting her own series. That said, she’s had 13 issues by now which, sadly, is an achievement in today’s comic landscape. Don’t let them cancel my Gwenpool! Buy this book today!

Next up, I finished the whatever volume it is for Invincible Iron Man. Ya know, the Bendis one, but the one before Civil War II. This series was kind of a waste, as it went nowhere. I’m not sure if plans got derailed because of CWII or what, but it’s odd that so many issues were devoted to one story that just dead ends. Madame Masque is caught stealing items from various Stark facilities, and when Tony goes after her, he finds she’s being chased by a group of cyber ninjas. That’s pretty much it. In the end, he never finds her and never solves that mystery. They do introduce a new cyberhacker Inhuman, though. Yay. Meanwhile, there’s a B-story of Stark trying to convince Mary Jane Watson to be his assistant/life coach. I’ve had my issues with Bendis, but I’ve got to say that this is him at his worst. Sure, there’s snappy dialogue, but not much else.

So, knowing that I needed to plod through my Iron Man backlog, I begrudgingly jumped into International Iron Man. This series made up for everything that was wrong with Invincible Iron Man. My only quibble is that, at 7 issues, it should have been an arc in Invincible Iron Man instead of its own standalone series. In the previous Iron Man series (the one after Superior Iron Man, but before the Bendis Invincible Iron Man), Tony discovered that Howard and Maria Stark were not his birth parents. In this series, Tony sets out to find his real parents, interspersed with flashbacks to the story of his first love, Cassandra, who was the daughter of arms dealers who were also business rivals of his father. Cassandra was in Tony’s life around the time that Howard died, so he finds it odd that she resurfaces, now an arms dealer herself, at the same time he’s searching for his birth parents. He thinks she knows something, but she’s not talking. In the end, Tony finds his mom, Amanda Armstrong, who’s basically Annie Lenox. No, I swear Maleev used Lenox as the model for Armstrong. The last two issues tell the story of Tony’s parents’ love affair, and it’s some damn good writing. This is Bendis at his best. I want an Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. arc of just this story (it’s good, but it’s not summer theatrical blockbuster good), but there’s no way they’d cover Stark stuff on TV. At the end, it says that the story will be continued in the next volume of Invincible Iron Man – ya know, the one starring Riri/Ironheart. So, I’m not quite sure how that’s gonna work. Is Amanda Armstrong going to be a supporting character in the book while her son spoiler alert is in a coma in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody? I haven’t read the Riri series yet (it’s in the pile), so don’t tell me what happens. Where Invincible left me disappointed, International proved to me that Bendis understands Tony Stark.

The interesting takeaway I had from the series, however, is that Tony Stark is a result of Nurture and not Nature. I mean, it was always assumed he was a genius because his father was a genius, and it was in his blood. Now that we know his real parents were just undercover S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, it becomes clear that Tony was a product of his environment and upbringing, rather than possessing some inherited genius. I’m curious to see if they’ll do anything with that going forward. Ya know, when he “wakes up”.

Ya can’t love everything, though, and that’s where America comes in. I HATED that comic. I hate the character. I don’t really know where she came from, as I wasn’t reading Young Avengers at that point, but I find her obnoxious to no end. If you’re not familiar, Miss America, AKA America Chavez, is from another dimension where she had two moms who sacrificed themselves to save creation. She has the power to punch star-shaped portals between dimensions, and she’s strong, and fast, and can fly. Basically, she can do everything but project energy. Oh, and she’s a bad ass motherfucker. She can do ALL the things, and that’s kinda why I hate her. This is about to get dicey, so strap in. Ya see, a lot of people are going to say that I don’t like her just because she’s queer. There aren’t a lot of prominent queer characters in comics, so I understand her importance to representation. That said, she’s guilty of what I call the “Queer Eye-ification of Pop Culture”.

Let’s take a trip back to 2003, shall we? Bravo introduced the reality show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, where 5 queer men (don’t say “gay”, because a couple of them were bi) gave schlubs makeovers. Carson changed their clothes, Kyan changed their hair, Ted changed their food, Tom changed their furnishings, and Jay…well, Jay taught them how to open CDs. No, that really happed. The principal underlying theme, however, was basically “Look, queer people are better than you in every single way! They dress better, they cook better, they have better hair, and better décor. What’s wrong with you, straight people? Why do you suck so much?“ For a while, that approach kinda worked. The show was a hit. Then I think folks got tired of the formula. We got it. They were all great at shit, but they stopped being relatable. After all, they were experts, and not just regular guys.

That’s my problem with America. She’s too good. She does it all. What are her weaknesses, her faults, her fears? I didn’t get that from her. Instead, she seems to have this false bravado of being the baddest bitch on the block, and that just doesn’t appeal to me. Is that what queer readers want? Do they want a character who seems to suffer from doing-too-much-itis? Or do they want a relatable character, like a queer Peter Parker who’s an amazing hero, but still has everyday problems? As a cis, straight male, I can’t answer that. I know what I think I would want, and this ain’t it. The market will dictate whether or not I’m wrong. Instead of the whole “Queer people are the awesomest”, maybe the more realistic approach is “Queer people are just like everyone.” I know I’m veering dangerously close to the camp of folks who say things like “Well, why isn’t there a White History Month?” I’m not trying to take anything from queer identity, but the way it’s expressed here contributes to why I don’t like that character. I fear this overcompensation is a trope commonly used as a “foot in the door” technique to get some folks to accept uncomfortable ideas, but I feel it does the queer community a disservice by reinforcing stereotypes/setting up unreal expectations.

Following this thinking leads me to the new Champions comic, which is downright irresponsible in its storytelling. Back during Civil War II, the young members of the Avengers became disenchanted with the elder members because they didn’t feel the team was doing enough to really change the world, instead spending more time in-fighting in the hero community. So, they quit the team before that story even wrapped up. As Champions picks up, Ms. Marvel reaches out to Nova (Sam Alexander – gotta specify, since there are two now) and Spider-Man (Miles Morales – gotta specify since there are two now) to convince them that they should be out doing the stuff that the Avengers refuse to do. They go on a mini recruitment drive, which results in the Hulk (Amadeus Cho – gotta specify since…you get it by now), and Viv Vision joining the team.

Champions is the wrong name for this book. Honestly, it should be the New Warriors, because they are TOTAL social justice warriors. I normally don’t even dip my toe into those labeled waters, but that’s exactly what this book is about. Ms. Marvel has created a team of other teens who do nothing but seek social justice. When older Marvel fans say that they’re tired of the diversity push, I have to believe that this is the book they’re talking about.

I say they’re irresponsible because they tackle concepts that can’t be solved by punching, yet that’s exactly how they try to solve them. They went to the Middle East to stop an extremist Muslim group from killing women who were just trying to learn. They went to a small town to face off against a racist sheriff who bombed the local mosque. Instead of facing villains, all of their “foes” are systemic issues that aren’t easy fixes. Somehow, though, they manage to “fix” things in 22 pages. To use old slang, these kids are cruising for a bruising. There’s a reason the Avengers don’t handle these sorts of things, mainly because they’re old and wise enough to know there are no easy fixes. Racism ain’t Galactus. There’s nothing to punch. The only reason I would stick with the book is that there’s GOT to be a reckoning coming to teach them a lesson. The last time a team of teens was this irresponsible resulted in the destruction of the town of Stamford, Connecticut. I HAVE to believe the Champions exist only to set up some post-Secret Empire event.

The sad thing about all of this is that I like these characters. I’ve been a Miles Morales booster since day one, and I loved Sam Alexander’s Nova from the outset. I was late to the Kamala Khan party, but she’s cool, too. I don’t like how Amadeus Cho’s Hulk is painted as a green Bro in the book, but I’m really behind on his title, so maybe that’s who he is now. And I haven’t read The Visions yet, so I don’t know anything about Viv. All that said, I’d hate to see anything bad happen to any of these guys, but that seems to be the path they’re on. It just seems like such mishandling of some great concepts. From when I was reading Captain America: Sam Wilson, the big takeaway was that there are some things you can’t fight head-on, but it seems like the Champions are gonna have to learn that the hard way.

So, I guess I did have thoughts about Marvel’s diversity after all. Is it killing books? Not necessarily. It’s just not being done well. Feels tokeny. There are a lot of great female-led books right now, like the afore-mentioned Gwenpool and Jessica Jones (which I’ll talk about another time since this has already gotten way longer than I initially expected). But the minority portrayals aren’t that strong. I’ve still got a LOT more to read, though, so maybe it gets better? We’ll just have to see.

#Comical Thoughts #Comics #DC #Marvel #Music #Politics #Pop #Race #Television

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