#i played a lot of them in pikmin 3

[ellenent]

Wait people don't like the dandori battles and challenges in pikmin 4?

[autisticlilith]

i start pikmin 4 tonight and it's gonna be the first pikmin game i ever play without looking anything up... i am so scared

[not-the-conversation-starter]

The Death Of A Website.

tl;dr click source to see an AU of my blog.

As many of you may not have heard, Cohost has gone read only. The website infamous for "Zero Discoverability" and its users "Not Being Funny." Servers will close down at the end of 2024, if not earlier, being backed up on the Internet Archive before that. Since their user counts were still low after 2 years (about half of all sign ups ever were from people evacuating twitter, which then didn't know how to use the site so most left almost immediately. Kind of hilarious) they didn't feel like anymore money bleeding OR the fact that a staff of only four people being on call 24/7 was worth it anymore.

However,

the people who DID use the site loved it. And they did some genuinely cool things on it, far cooler than anything I ever saw even in the glory days of Tumblr. You know, like Finn and Jake hi-fiving between 2 posts. Stuff like a playable maze, or a fully navigable 3d room you move around in with your mouse entirely within a post. They really did some cool stuff.

There were also a ton of really talented people, people like the composer Lena Raine(Celeste/Minecraft) who loved the site because you could just. Actually talk to people on it! Without an algorithm to boost their posts, the only people who saw it were genuinely looking for it.

Also some of them were just good posters, we did get Pikmin 18 billion and eleven from Cohost after all.

The point is, I think if anyone outside of Cohost actually knew what was being done on Cohost, it would of succeeded. There would of been enough active users for them to invest more. If I knew about all of this I would of been there way more!

But rather than just you blindly believing me, I decided to spend (almost) every hour I would of on Tumblr, on Cohost instead. Clicking that link, or the source, or the link on the source above in the tl;dr, will take you to my Cohost blog. At least while it's still read-only.

You should check it out. I reblogged a lot, but the first page or 2 (every 20 posts, I kept trying to stop but I got sentimental and reblogged more) is pretty much just people's last posts. I'd say give it 3 pages to see if you're interested or not in exploring more of what the website has to offer.

If you've ever wondered what people would post on a dying website,

If you ever wondered what some of the best posts people were making on Cohost that got shared again in its last dying moments were,

If you want some reference for what inside jokes would look like to an outsider,

If you're just bored and need something to scroll through,

if you ever wondered what I would of reblogged on that website if I remembered my password easily enough to log back in easily...

You could think of my blog as a small encapsulation of a small website. There's only 60 pages, including the ones from before the announcement from me just rarely using the site!

I reblogged all kinds of posts. Goodbyes, sarcastic hellos, mourning, long speeches about the spirit of Cohost set to sad music, nothing burgers, inside jokes I didn't understand, The New Garfield, posts I flat out didn't read past the title because they were too long and I just wanted to move on really there's a lot of posts to archive, CSS crimes, stuff I found funny, "Where to find me" and webrings and website posts for people I never knew, Love Honk, reviews for movies and games I never intend to play or watch, 88x31 buttons, music recommendations and history, entire games, signing up for RSS feeds, asks and answers related to other stuff I didn't share on accident, regular memes, Intern Secretary Eggbug, a post that's just an image hosted off-site so it'll update even after readonly, and so on.

(Nothing overtly NSFW. Tag search still works if you want that)

One that I, personally, am sad is gone. That I'm glad I got to see at least in its dying days. That I genuinely hope someone makes another attempt at creating.

[puppy--boy]

pinned post // about me

-⃝⃤

hi! welcome to my blog.

twoshotsoflesbianism->boob-gremlin-> joespookyregardinghappenings -> puppy--boy

basic thingies:

I AM A MINOR (not disclosing actual age)

U can call me Alias, Elias, Mycelium, or Keres

it/he/they/any neos

I have a system side blog (@puppy--boys)

I’m a therian (my side blog is @cr33pycr1tt3r

ao3 (READ MY FANFICTION READ IT PLEASEEEE)

I’m taken by my beautiful partner :3 <33 (they don’t have tumblr tho ;-;)

I use crystals and believe in ghosts

I’m neurodivergent

I’m physically disabled (chronic pain) and struggle with chronic fatigue

Pisces/chaotic good

tone tags are helpful and preferred, but not required

there might be occasional suggestive posts, be warned. nothing super explicit, but still

for my queer identity stuff n’ things, check out my pronouns page!

Fandoms (the ones with a star are special interests/hyperfixations):

Sherlock and Co✰

TLoZ✰

The Magnus Archives/The Magnus Protocol✰

Animal Crossing

Phineas and Ferb

Helluva Boss/Hazbin Hotel✰

Invader Zim

The Owl House

Gravity Falls

Pikmin✰

Morel Orel

Malevolent

Arcane✰

plus a lot of others that I’m not gonna bother to list lmao

Interests

Music (playing and listening)✰

Knitting✰

Sewing

Drawing

Beading/kandi✰

Paper crafts✰

Baking/cooking

Crocheting (occasionally)

Writing (fanfic specifically)

Animals

Reading

Gardening

Favorite musicians (there’s so many I can’t list them all ;-;):

Rainbow Kitten Surprise

Mother Mother

Hozier

Glass Animals

Bo Burnham

Mitski

TV Girl

Weezer

Mommy Long Legs

Cannibal Corpse

Sorry Mom

Will Wood/WWATT

Chappell Roan

Femtanyl

This is MY BLOG and I will do what I want with it. Bitch. also if you’re lucky, maybe i’ll post some art! You can ask me to draw or write stuffs, too (pleasepleasepleaseplease)! If someone 18+/ageless follows me I won’t follow back. Just a personal thing sorry. My beautiful mutuals are not included in that though (if someone turns 18 I’m not unfollowing them lmao)

If you want me to tag triggers, let me know, but I’ll only do it if we’re following each other.

if you’re a dick i won’t hesitate to block you :)

tags:

“suggestive” - suggestive posts

other than that I js kinda gave up on tags lmao

MUTUALS :D <33 !!!

@be-gentle-with-littluns-2 @edwardallenpoe @mybedroomceilingsbored @nyyx-xoxx @ch3rry-t0mat0

important things:

ACAB

BLACK LIVES MATTER

STOP ASIAN HATE

LANDBACK

QUEER RIGHTS

STOP THE GENOCIDES

NOBODY IS FREE UNTIL EVERYONE IS FREE

ANTIFA

user boxes below the cut :>

(Click for better quality!)

[citruscrisp]

Hello, all! I've gotten a lot of these questions in the past two months! And I never really thought about it. So, I played Pikmin 3 Deluxe for the first time in February of 2021. I was into Ace Attorney at the time, so I drew a few images of Alph, hyperfixated on him, and then kinda just went back to pure Ace Attorney. Then I play it again in May of 2022 and the hyperfixation manifests itself into my brain.

So I decide to finally kind of step into the fandom by posting on twitter. I didn't have an idea of who I shipped Alph with, but Charlie was def an option since he seemed to have an obviously big crush on him.

But as I look around at art on Twitter, I see this artist whose work I absolutely adored and they shipped Louie and Alph. they were very shy with each other and that sprouted something in my mind. Unfortunately I don't think they draw Pikmin stuff anymore, but the seed was indeed planted.

Then my sister tells me things like "they're colors go so well together - the light blue and the dark blue." And that really made me love them more. In Pikmin 3, Alph and Louie literally are not shown to directly interact with each other.

So my ship comes from the idea, Louie is tied up on the ship, the Koppaites are angry at him for stealing their juice, but Alph has a soft spot and crush growing on him as time progresses. Depicted in this comic. He's the one who checks up on Louie at night, maybe shares his portion of juice with him, and falls in love that way. But he's also defensive about when Louie is. Hence this comic.

So it grew into: they're both gay, not sure how to express themselves in front of each other. Tsundere Louie and shy af Alph.

Gaha!!!! That's honestly it! I hope they have more interactions in the future though I wouldn't count on it... Honestly, this ship is def a crack ship given canon LouAlph content.

[dogs-leading-dogs]

PapyrusPikmin1997 replied on Chapter 5: Now, this is an amazing fic, but like… how the hell is Olimar and the President dying in like sublevels 1-3 of the dream den? They aren't even that hard, and canonically the Pikmin leaders cannot die by pure damage, as in Pikmin 2 if both leaders "die" the ship just beams them up back to the surface and the day ends. (Unless however, you don't do it like this and instead make their life support damaged or something, which would be a very intelligent workaround)

Anonymous asked a question on my main blog: I know this sounds random, but for DLD, what... "game mechanics" have been changed? Because, so far it seems like the ""game"" is much harder and ruthless. I can infer that no longer does losing both captains just result in the hocotate ship beaming them up, ending the day and causing all the pikmin to die, but what else?

I received this comment reply and anonymous ask a few days ago, and considering that they're talking about very similar things, I figured I'd respond to them both at the same time. The long and short of it is that both of these questions are making a series of aggressive assumptions about how DLD "works" and kinda getting sidetracked as a result. There are also a few misconceptions that I feel are important to correct, because even if you are thinking of things in vague game mechanics terms (and you shouldn't be), they make it much easier to swallow what's going on if you properly account for them.

Fundamentally, DLD is a grounded story with a strong emphasis on how things would play out in a more or less real-world scenario while factoring known series lore; this groundedness is meant to make the emotional conflicts at the core of the story stand out all the better. For more details, let's continue below the cut, starting with correcting the assumptions.

Number one: The President hasn't been accompanying Olimar on any of his trips to attempt to find Louie. He may be physically present on PNF-404, yes, but he's more or less functioning as a middle-manager type or rubber-stamp than doing anything actually useful. This is demonstrated during the first scene of XVI and compounded via the President's noted absence during every other scene in the chapter. The long and short of it is that he's not relevant to the story that needed to be told here, as this story is very much about Olimar, the Pikmin, and their relationship; having the President be present as anything more than a nod to canon would have made things unnecessarily complicated here in a section that already had too much to say.

Next up: Olimar being alone in the Dream Den (aside from the ship's pod and the Pikmin he brought with him) also solves that "difficulty" issue more or less. I also never said that they specifically died on the first three sublevels — the Dream Den obviously has fourteen, and the only important part of the whereabouts everyone died is that the maximum sublevel they could have reached would be sublevel 13. It's important for the mainline sequels that neither Olimar nor the Pikmin encounter the Titan Dweevil here, so they must have all died before getting to that point; other than that, the exact details of their demise are up to the reader's interpretation, with the most likely scenario being a gradual decline in Pikmin numbers until Olimar fucks up in an encounter with any enemy, gets squashed by any kind of boulder or caught in a bomb rock explosion, or takes too great a blow to anywhere near his head such that his already-compromised helmet shatters and leaves him to slowly succumb to the caustic oxygen in the air.

Another thing is that considering what's "canonical" from the game's perspective is kinda the wrong question to ask in a lot of ways. HP bars or stamina wheels or any other kinds of video game abstractions like that work perfectly fine when you're playing a video game, but the second you're not they become really weird to work with and place very awkward limits on things. From a narrative perspective, working with this video game logic — where Olimar can get thrown around willy-nilly for 12-16 hours taking hard falls or getting crushed by boulders or god knows what else, end the day, and come back the next morning like nothing happened — makes things very awkward, because there aren't any consequences for fucking up. None of the Pikmin games have any kinds of systems to account for major injuries, such as Olimar's dislocated shoulder or Louie's implied concussion both from chapter 4; much less do they have any kinds of energy or stamina system to account for Olimar gradually starving in Chapter 1. Some games have systems like these — take the Fallout series as only one of many examples — but limiting what you can write to what is Explicitly Possible in a game just isn't conducive to writing a good story.

Having the day end when both leaders go down but letting the player try again tomorrow with no consequences other than losing a day is a good choice for a game, because it gives the player a chance to correct their mistakes; however, it's a bad choice for a story, because it removes all of the stakes. On the contrary, part of the reason that Pikmin doesn't have a lot of these systems for longer-term consequences and instead handwaves why some of these things aren't happening — such as PNF-404's relative lower gravity being the reason why none of the characters take fall damage — are because adding those systems would be bad for gameplay. In a game that is very fundamentally about doing things quickly and efficiently, it wouldn't just be annoying if e.g. Louie broke his leg and couldn't move and throw Pikmin at the same time due to needing crutches for a realistic length of healing time, it would be bad game design because it would be far too punishing to be fun. In writing, where the goal is to be fun by having higher stakes, the opposite would be the case.

That's a bit of an oversimplification — not every story benefits from higher stakes, even if DLD itself does — but one could easily write an academic paper about storytelling in interactive vs non-interactive mediums and how they function differently, and I don't have ten billion years to come up with definitions for all of these things to explain everything wrong with applying the rules of a certain medium universally especially when those rules are intended as abstractions. Either way, it comes down to the same thesis statement: "Applying the rules of a very dynamic and choice-based medium to an entirely predefined and non-interactive medium generally does not work well unless you're having your story be about applying those rules and all of the myriad problems or conveniences that it results in." DLD is not about applying Pikmin's video game logic to a non-interactive medium because it has far more important and deliberate things to be about, like communication, trust, personhood, fate, and perhaps most of all, dogs. Therefore, it does not benefit from having simplified video game logic that allows for infinite tries, and would in fact be made infinitely worse if everything that happened so far had no consequences beyond the end results of the immediate day. Olimar needs to die in the Dream Den because this is essential for his character arc; having him just "go down" and "get rescued" to "try again tomorrow" removes all stakes from this, because if he throws himself at the problem enough he'd eventually luck out and be able to save Louie. (Olimar is already very fond of throwing himself at problems until they get fixed; as we'll see, he doesn't need a "get out of jail free" card or a "get out of a bad situation without dying" card to continue with this behavior.)

So if we're not working off of video game logic, how does DLD generally work? More or less real life logic strongly informed by canon material. To some extent it's a vibes thing — I have definitely picked and chosen what works or doesn't depending on my own personal preference, and I've taken liberties with things that happen in the games as necessary to tell the story that I have in mind. For instance, as I've alluded to before, a lot of the rules about Onions and Pikmin work much more similarly to how they do in Pikmin 4 (with the exception of the three-type limit because it's purely a gameplay limitation put in place to not frustrate noobs). Some things, such as the exact symptoms of Olimar's leaflingism, are a blend of various ideas taking inspiration from canon, from other artists, as well as just what works better thematically. (Olimar growing a tail and "fur" certainly emphasizes the fact that he's a dog, not to mention the fact that it's that perfect combination of "cool" and "utterly horrifying", and the fact that his face remains uncovered by leaves has another thematic reading that we'll get to much, much later.)

But a lot of the minor day-to-day stuff is grounded pretty solidly in reality and an understanding of "if you were an inch tall, how would you approach this situation", which is much more effective for conveying the level of Absolute Deep Shit and general danger PNF-404 presents almost the entire time. You would not survive if a boulder three times as wide as you were tall rolled over you; Olimar and the other captains only do because Pikmin doesn't have permadeath, since that would be a very frustrating gameplay experience. You can cheat your way out of things like that hurting as much as they would for you, a Normal Human, especially when you factor in the fact that they are an inch tall, but past a point there's only so much handwaving you can do before you have to accept that half of the things that you only take "major damage" for in Pikmin would just be nearly instakills in real life. Allowing for more realistic damage creates more story, not less; you can't take damage from cornering too tightly in any of the games, but allowing it to jar Olimar's shoulder like that in Chapter 4 gives reasonable stakes that add to the situation rather than detract, as it makes it feel even more like the water wraith is a real threat.

As for other "game mechanics" that have been changed… thinking of DLD as a "game" in general is the wrong question. My philosophy with DLD so far has been to create a relatively grounded story about people and choices using Pikmin as a scaffold. (Not that DLD or any of its side material could ever be divorced from Pikmin itself — they're far too intertwined — but being faithful to game mechanics is literally the last priority that will only ever be nodded at in things such as the occasional mention of the max 100 squad size.) For everything else, I've tried to flesh the setting out using "speculative realism" where possible: by examining how things actually work in real life and applying those same principles to this setting.

For instance, while a lot of the medical science is simplified for a variety of reasons, such as ease of research and reduced scene complexity, almost all of it so far has actually had at least a little bit of research put into it. (Maybe don't orally ingest a topical eye medication, but tetrahydrozoline hydrochloride is a common active ingredient in eye drops or nasal sprays that reduces mucus membrane irritation; Omnicillin Z3 uses the naming convention of antibiotics in the penicillin family, implying that their medical science has progressed beyond ours; and demethoxycurcumin, one of the "active ingredients" in turmeric, is a yellow-orange compound that has anticancer effects among many other health benefits.) I've put a similar level of pseudorealism into the flight scenes as well; I've mentioned Olimar using various kinds of checklists multiple times (Wikipedia only has a page on preflight checklists, but here's a full list of checklists for a 747), and implied that Olimar has been acting as captain and pilot flying while the Hocotate Ship is effectively first officer and pilot monitoring via both of them effectively employing cockpit resource management principles. I even had Olimar do a walk-around on Day 30, though that was admittedly less of an intentional choice than being simply what the scene required for proper pacing. Even a lot of the specifics around how Olimar has been able to live as a leafling up to (and beyond) this point have had a lot of consideration put into them with vague real-life-adjacent explanations — it is admittedly more vibes-based than some of the rest of what I've listed out here, but most of that is because leaflingism in and of itself is a rather hefty lift away from grounded reality.

The long and short of it is: If something is actually important to be thinking about, the story will tell you that. If it's not, it won't. It should be easy enough to figure out what the actual differences are from there, but a lot of those differences simply aren't relevant on any grand scale.

In fact, the only "game mechanic" I can think of that's even vaguely relevant (and isn't essentially rolled into "baseline lore", such as the mechanics of Pikmin and Onions that I mentioned earlier) is Pikmin 1's ending requirements. DLD has simplified these requirements, in that there's no longer a strict two-tiered system with some specific parts being required while others are optional, but the general outline for part count has already been referenced in Chapter 1's title. In these relaxed requirements, you get the bad ending with 24 parts or fewer; the neutral ending with 25-29 parts; and the true ending with 30 parts. (I.E., the only change is that it's any 25 parts being required to get the neutral ending or greater rather than 25 specific parts.) Chapter 1 splits the difference as the exact dividing line between two wildly divergent outcomes of the bad or neutral endings, and thus the chapter title references 24.5, or the numeric dividing line between those endings.

Other than that, the exact game mechanics of all games in the series are for the most part entirely irrelevant. DLD is a story about people, and critically, one of the most important things that a person can do is die. Robbing Olimar and the Pikmin of their ability to end is a choice that must be made very deliberately, with great intent on the part of the story being told, and shouldn't be done merely out of faithfulness to the source material. …And that's about all I can say to avoid unnecessary spoilers.

[astrorabby]

I beat Pikmin 4 with no upgrades

Over the past couple weeks or so I've been playing Pikmin 4 again. First a normal playthrough, which reminded me of how much Oatchi invalidates what the game throws at you.

So I figured, what if I didn't upgrade Oatchi at all? Then I took it a step further and decided not to upgrade my explorer, whomst I named Terri, either. [I DID have to buy the scorch guards to enter Frozen Inferno but I unequipped it right after I entered] I hardly bought any items, just a few bombs for some concrete walls, and, admittedly i had bombs to kill the Empress Bulblax in the Cavern for a King. I can't kill her properly even WITH an fully powered dog, I'll admit.

The results were disappointing. I knew the early game wouldn't be much different, but later wasn't much harder either. The only treasure past a pup tunnel is early on and only has a weight of 3, Oatchi's default strength. I was legitimately looking forward to, say, spending twenty minutes rushing into a 4 weight treasure over and over again to push it off a ledge, but alas no such obstacle occured.

The only parts to give me trouble were later dandori chllanges, the later night missions, and the Ancient Sirehound.

The dandori challenges were interesting, the early ones were easy sure, I platinumed the first one at least. Some, like Hefty Haulway proved quite difficult; not being able to use Oatchi to pick up some slack on that crimson banquet makes it hard to even get a bronze. Cliff-Hanger's Hold requires a lot of Oatchi's abilities to smoothly take on the upper level. Even a midly upgraded Oatchi comes in handy in Oasis of Order to immediately move the love nugget behind the start to get some extra whites, or to get the poison bulborb and/or the foolish fruit across that small creek, freeing up the wingeds to get the materials ASAP.

Speaking of whites, I actually used White Pikmin in more than one spot. I typically buy the poison armor for Oatchi ASAP, making whites very redundant, and with the onion confined to a special challenge unlocked after beating another special challenge, I often don't want to risk my white min. Since I never got the poison armor, I had no choice but to use the whities liberally; I was still very careful with them. Often restarting a whole floor upon losing just one.

The Night Missions weren't too kind. The early ones were fine and really no different, but the two in the Primordial Thicket were tough. Particularly the very final one, Autumnal Gully. Oatchi cannot glowmob, and with no upgrades, his rush doesn't stun. And you can't leave Oatchi alone for long, he will still autoattack, and with no armor or HP upgrades he dies near instantly upon a lumiknoll attack. Plus, one of the progg eggs seems to be inaccessible so I'd have to take on that progg no matter what. I resolved to collecting as many pellets as I could, getting to about 70 glow pikmin, leaving Oatchi on the blue lumiknoll and Terri on the orange. Terri being on the orange was imperitive to stun the baldy long-legs that approaches it. With plenty of spicy-spray it turned out not so bad, but it took way more concious planning than any night mission did with upgrades.

Then came the Ancient Sirehound. As I always do, I abused glow pikmin for this fight; glowies for the hazards, purps for the tail. The ice phase always give me trouble, trying to run to his tail with those snowballs rolling is a pain. But the breath wasn't a problem, until now. Get rolled into the breath and your pikmin are frozen, Oatchi is frozen, you're…not frozen. It does enough damage to kill an unupgraded explorer in one hit. Oatchi just barely survives.

The electric phase is a lot tougher, you can't just mosey on through the beams, you gotta dodge and jump them while making sure your glow pikmin go where you want, which with targeting isn't usually a problem until it randomly auto-targets the Sirehound, but many people have [rightfully] griped about the auto-target in this game so I'll spare you.

Fire phase was pretty normal. Even with the scorch guard i'd instinctively jump over the waves of fire…only this time it matters if I miss. But that didn't happen much.

Progg phase is always frustrating. The lack of HP and armor upgrades doesn't make a difference, sure you die in fewer hits but touching that stuff always kills so many pikmin its basically always a reset, anyway.

I didn't platinum the dandori challenges. I may attempt to but it may not be possible for some. Oatchi throating the banquet in Hefty Haulway seemed imperative for that one when I platinumed it, for instance. I didn't do the Sage Leaf because it's impossible to avoid Moss upgrades in the shipwreck tale, though I may do it for the sake of it. Who knows, maybe I'll find a way to do the shipwreck tale without even discovering Moss.

[cookieeevee]

Hello Yellow and Welcome People!!

Most people tend to call me Cookie or Cookieeevee because of my blog name, but call me Alice! I use the pronouns She/Her and They/Them (I don't mind which one you use)

I am Aroace and a Minor! ! !

I am into Rain World, OneShot, Pokemon, Warrior Cats, Kirby, Sonic, Pikmin, Ori, Chicory: a colorful tale, Steven universe, MHA, Epic Mickey, and many more

You can ask me anything, I'd love to chat with you all (Ask about ADH au or ask Lily if u want too)

Art requests are always welcomed :D

My designs of the slugcats and Iterators My Rain world OCs My other OCs

Side blogs of mine

ISAT AU: @three-multiverse-shooting-stars

Cookie: @ask-cookieeevee03

Madge: rainworld-starsandclouds023

Droplet (Old, should probably reboot at some point): rainworld-ask-the-medic

SOES: rainworld-lifeisendless230

Slugcat's: rainworld-cycle-of-slugcats

just doodle/art blog: mossy-doodles85

Silly adventurers of my plush's (feel free to send me art in Messages of the sillys if you want, I will post it and credit u, if u want :3)

you can draw for me if ya want

Amazing Friends Of Mine!: @rainworld-obsessed-cat-reborn (One of my first tumblr friends! Probably one of my closes friends here! They are really silly and has great art! I thought I'd never see them again once their main blog got deleted... I'm very glad they're back now. I care for them with the might of a 1000 suns and always wish for the best of them! I'll always have their back, no matter what <3) @stargazer0001 (A great friend, who I really care for! One of the first people I go to talk to about silly ideas and aus of mine. They're art is a joy to see and our silly chats we had before were really fun! Thanks for being there for me <3)

@southparkau00 (MY FIRST TUMBLR FRIEND! They helped me a lot when I was new to Tumblr, lots of love to them! They have been off for so long I thought they left, they didn't and I'm so glad.) @critter2 (Super silly bud that I met because of Star! Their art is amazing and its always a blast to be around them! Sadly they aren't on often so that kinda sucks... ALSO THEY ARE WHOLESOME WHEREVER THEY THINK/KNOW THAT OR NOT!!!!) @lanternlightsovercloudyskies (I've actually never checked if we're friends or not, but see her as one! Cute silly art that a joy to see, and shes super wholesome in my opinion! I always hope for the best for her!) @bananacat76 (My silly great friend! They're super cool and wholesome, all things I wish to be. They've let me add their RW persona, Banana cat, to my RW AU and even let me make Banana Cat Enot's sibling! Lots of hugs to them! A joy see and a gift to be around ^^) @rcranger (THIS SUPER AMAZING AND COOL PERSON IS MY FRIEND!!! Hes made super cute and silly art that is a joy to see and always puts a smile on my face! Cherry has been a super great person and he need MORE LOVE so go check him out and give him some love!!)

@puffstarss (I'm pretty sure we're friends, at least to me she is! Puffs is probably one of the most kind people here! She's a big UT and UTY fan and is the owner of The Undertale Yellow Runaway Route AU! If your a fan of UTY aus and stuff be sure you check out her blog! also I will die for them like all friends of mine)

Random things about me: My favorite colors are mint green and lavender I want to write but am too scared to put it online and I get writers block a lot... I wish people would ask me more things (on any of my blogs)... My IRL friend group and I do a lot of dark humour I draw all the time, in class, at lunch, at home, in the car, and many other places Cream is my favorite Sonic character I my 3rd favorite Sonic character is Chris from Sonic X, FIGHT ME ON IT I have four brothers and no sisters... I have many AUs which I will probably never tell anyone about because I am scared of doing that Rain world brain rot I REALLY want to play SA2 just because of the chao garden Undertale Yellow fan! I'VE DODGED DEATH!!!! If you want to be friends with me, just ask. Cuz I'm probably not gonna ask you that and I'm always happy to have more friends I need help

[capncococharms]

Games I Enjoyed in 2024

It's that time of year again where I write about my favorite games I played in 2024!

Normally, I keep track of all this stuff on a Notepad app on my PC, but sadly, during the last bit of 2024, I had to hard reset my PC, and all of the old notes from previous years were lost.

Broke my heart a bit to lose a part of me to remember the games I played in previous years. It was like a personal journal entry of where I was in life. I do have the previous year's blog posts of SOME of the games that were highlights which is better than NOTHING, but man... (Rest in peace little file: 2018-2024)

Thankfully I could tally up all of the games I finished this year despite the loss.

I finished about 26 games in 2024 (two games were back-to-back replays so technically I finished 28 games but to keep it simple... 26). This is far LESS than last year, but far MORE than 2022.

I will keep most of these thoughts short since I did a stream on Radio PSI with Nightshade about my "favorite games in 2024." Here's a brief write-up.

Pikmin 4- (Nintendo Switch)

I'm sad I didn't get to play this at launch. I never finished 1, 2, or, 3 but once I was told that this game could be played as is without needing to play the other games, I decided to dive in, and I finally understood the appeal of the series. It's a comforting game to play and it's beginner-friendly so I don't have to feel too bad if I'm messing up.

From collecting the ship parts, exploring dungeons, collecting glow Pikmin, and upgrading myself and Oatchi... it was a treat and much more (especially with the post-game content). This is a game I'm glad I 100%'d. I hope to play the other Pikmin games in the future. It won't be the same as 4, but I love these little guys so much. The purple Pikmin are my favorite.

Incredible Crisis- (Playstation 1)

I was suggested to play this because a friend told me that my comic/ game idea had the same vibe as this game so I decided to try it out and... wow. They got me...

Take the wacky antics of Wario Ware and Bishi Bashi and slam them into a blender... you get Incredible Crisis. Some mini-games can be hard, but once you get the rhythm down it's not THAT bad. This game has SO many ideas and goofy things it tries to do that it is a personal gold mine of goofy ideas and things I want to try in my own projects so if you want something fun and unserious please check out this insane concoction of stuff that made me laugh and smile.

Also that OST by Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra. Perfection.

Chulip- (Playstation 2)

I played a LOT of Chulip-like games this year. Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland, Dropsy, Starstruck, and even For Whom The Frog Bell Tolls. Out of all of them... I loved them all equally. I couldn't rank them so technically they are all here in this spot. This is my list I do whatever the heck I want. Chulip is an insane game to pitch and market for a US audience, but I love games that break the norm. Simple premise, but you are thrown into so many moments, characters, and situations JUST to be able to kiss the girl of your dreams. It's stupid and obtuse, but that's the kind of game I want to play. It's all about the journey rather than the destination and Chulip makes sure that you remember this experience (especially at the end where the game THROWS a whole quiz on you to see if you remember everything you experienced). I want more games like this (Stray Children just came out in Japan and I am STOKED for a US release in 2025).

Splatoon 2- Octo Expansion- (Nintendo Switch)

I have NEVER finished a single-player campaign in Splatoon until 2024. Everyone told me that if there was ONE single-player mode to play it was Octo Expansion. I got around to it and I feel the best way to explain this campaign without saying much is that this is Nintendo's Portal 2.

Octo Expansion was awesome! The OST, the art, and the characters were a HUGE highlight personally. It's another game that inspired me creatively and that finale really put my skills to the test and left me VERY satisfied that I got to experience something like Portal 2 again. Good job, Nintendo.

Metroid Dread- (Nintendo Switch)

Before I could REALLY dive into this game I played all of Zero Mission and Fusion just to get myself ready and MAN. This game rules. I loved Super Metroid and I am SO GLAD I got to play this. I don't have much to say other than if you want to play a GOOD Metroid game and you haven't played Dread yet? PLEASE play Dread. Samus is the coolest lady in the galaxy... (this game prompted me to read the Metroid manga and now I am all about playing Metroid Prime 2 and 3 before Prime 4 is released so I am like on a huge Metroid fixation atm).

Before I talk about my personal GOTY I am gonna highlight some other games I enjoyed playing and finishing this year, but it will just be the titles (bringing the ones I already mentioned in passing here so it's not forgotten since I know not EVERYONE reads my silly ramblings):

Starstruck (PC)

Egg Squeeze (PC)

Corn Kidz 64 (PC)

P5 Strikers (PS4)

Metroid Zero Mission (GBA)

Metroid Fusion (GBA)

For Whom The Frog Bell Tolls (GB)

Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland (DS)

Dropsy (PC)

Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (Switch)

Ok it's time to talk about my favorite game I played this year that came out of nowhere and made me the happiest dude in the world...

Emio The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club- (Nintendo Switch)

This is one of Nintendo's most ambitious games to come out of the company in a LONG time. I NEVER thought I would see a new entry to this series EVER again. I had hope that MAYBE a remake of the Satellaview game would be in the works, but that was about it.

Nope!

When they first teased about "Emio" and left the internet stumped for about a week to figure out who the heck Emio is... I was like "ok this is a new approach of Nintendo that's cool". After the week passed and I woke up to see it was for Famicom Detective Club... I was probably one of the ONLY people who was VERY excited to see the news that Nintendo is giving me another entry to one of the most overlooked series in Nintendo's history.

I totally understand why a lot of people WOULD be disappointed when it wasn't a "real horror game", but I feel a lot of the promotion and pushing for this game means that Nintendo REALLY believed in this game and I was eager to see what the heck Yoshio Sakamoto wanted to share with this new entry.

To prepare myself I ended up replaying the older games and saw that they were doing chapter releases (sorta similar to Satallaview in a way hmmmm....) before the game was released. I basically sat down and marathoned it on Twitch.

I WISH I could talk about my ENTIRE thoughts of this game, but I feel that everyone should do themselves a favor and actually pick up and buy this game. There will NEVER be another Nintendo game like this again. Nintendo took a RISK to make this game and the story they wanted to tell is something I would never expect from Nintendo.

Never has a game broken my heart this much. There were many moments that caught me off guard that I will have a hard time forgetting about for the rest of my life. I can understand why Yoshio Sakamoto said that the ending will be very divisive. Even some reviews that came out afterward really showed who loved and who hated what this game was trying to do.

I feel this is the first time in a long time that Nintendo went out of its way to put so much money into telling a very human story that while not many people will see it for what it is, I'm putting Emio on my list as one of my favorite video games of all time. Unfortunately, the reception wasn't as big as it should have been and it may mean this series may be dormant once again, but there was a recent interview from Yoshio Sakamoto that FDC isn't QUITE done yet so I pray that means this IP has more moments to shine. This was a big surprise for me in 2024 and I truly believe that it's more important than ever going forward that people need to take time to enjoy something rather than trying to treat it like it's fast food or the flavor of the month. Emio proved that to me with its story, visuals, writing, and OST. I ended up playing this game TWICE and it's possible I may end up playing it a third time. The amount of new dialogue and new things you can find in Emio was surprising and it just made me love what Nintendo did for this game and I wish more people would give it a chance.

THANKFULLY you don't need to have played the other games in the series to play Emio. Yes, it DOES mention parts from the previous games in Emio, but they are more like little snippets that will lure you into wanting to play those games which I REALLY appreciate Nintendo doing. I'm happy that this new entry to the series is similar to how Pikmin 4 is a good intro game to the Pikmin series for newer players. I feel as time goes on that will be a game I gift to friends in hopes that everyone gives Famicom Detective Club another chance.

Welp... it's a new year with many more games to play and look forward to. Thanks to everyone who bothers reading these. Until 2026 when I'll post this again!

[dr-spectre]

not sure if this has been asked already, but what started your interest in Splatoon? i'm always curious to know people's reasonings for how they got into something.

Oh man...... It goes ALLLLL the way back to the very first announcement trailer for me.

You gotta understand, I've been a Nintendo fan since i was a wee lad when i got a Wii and DS for Christmas, i played through most of the heavy hitters and i had so much fun with that small white box and clamshell handheld.

During the mid 2010s i was all about keeping up with the latest gaming news and watching youtubers like Etika (rest in peace....) and so, when i watched the 2014 e3, and i see this orange goop and a squid swimming around, i go "oh is this Mario Sunshine 2?!?" And then this squid becomes a human like creature and it starts firing a gun, i go "what the heck is this?"

And then i saw people say how it's a brand new Nintendo IP and the last one they did was Pikmin, i go "OH! NOW YOU HAVE MY ATTENTION!"

However i didn't have a Wii U when it was the latest console so i couldn't play the game.... But i did watch youtube videos about it and i talked to my friend about it at school who was really into Nintendo like me. I missed out on all of Splatfests and i really didn't care about the Squid Sisters either.

But.... come 2017 and my dad comes home on Christmas with a Nintendo Switch... And then on my birthday a while later, i finally got Splatoon 2 and.... i couldn't stop playing it. It was so DAMN FUN! I played through the hero mode on a trip and that was a blast too! Playing Octo Expansion on release night and beating it is something i will never forget.

And then i started to look more at the characters, and sure my teenage brain saw them in a..... ahem.... different light.... compared to how i see them now but. I really did fall in love with these characters and i adored the music. I was there for the Final Fest and i chose Team Chaos because fucking Etika was gonna pick it lmao..... If only he was still around to see what the series would become.....

And then Splatoon 3 was announced and i kept thinking "man why are they making a Splatoon 3? It's way too soon." But then those thoughts were quickly destroyed by playing the world premiere and ROTM, and i thought "Yeah.... this is peak."

However.... my Splatoon brainrot got REALL intense and what it is today when in September of last year, i went in Alterna to activate the Sheldon drone and.... i just looked at Callie. Something in that moment sparked a fire in my brain and now.... i fucking ramble about her in nearly every post i make and defending her LOL! I became so fixated on her and the rest of the characters, it became so bad that sometimes i would get a tightness in my chest if people mentioned her in Splatoon 2. IT GOT THAT BAD! I spent so much money on plushies and amiibo too...... I nearly got teary eyed when i held my Callie plushie once it finally arrived.....

I'm sorry if this was a lot to read but, i just really adore this series and my obsession with it is multi-parted. I FUCKING LOVE SPLATOON!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE THE SQUID SISTERS!!!! OFF THE HOOK! DEEP CUT!!!!!! ALL OF THOSE BASTARDS!!!!!!! THEY'VE RUINED MY BRAIN CHEMISTRY! Callie is a gremlin living in my brain and she refuses to leave! SHE WON'T GET OUT!!!!!!!

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 26/03/2024

Chance's Return to Dreamland

Season 1 Featured on: GilvaSunner's Highest Quality Video Game Rips: Volume 3 & Knigra Also on: Kirby Rip Attack

Ripped by digboye

Requested by fezaki! (Request Form)

You wouldn't BELIEVE how happy I was to see this rip get requested man!! Chance's Return to Dreamland isn't part of the surprisingly many Season 1 rips to have exploded in popularity - think My Dr. Eggman Can't Be This Evil!, Dr. Soulja, Pikmin Park, you get the picture - but its a rip I've had sitting proudly in my playlists for years and a verified banger. And to see that I'm not the only one who knows it exists!!! That warmed my heart for some reason. Fuck yeah.

There's a lot of parallels you can draw between this rip and Door into a Hundred Summers, another one of my Season 1 favorites. Of course there's the obvious one - both are rap mashups utilizing rap music that isn't really commonly featured on the channel, with Chance's Return to Dreamland to date still being the only rip on the channel to use Chance the Rapper's Angels. But beyond that, they have a really similar, enchanting way of grabbing your attention - you click on the rip waiting for the mashup to start, only for the music to dramatically cut away before the song used in the mashup "introduces" it back, at a lower pitch. I'm certain this way of starting a mashup has been used in more than these two rips, yet its a huge part of what's kept them stuck in my mind for so long - it reminds me of Be Cool, Be Wild, and Be My Girl in how, even as early as Season 1 they were finding ways to subvert what you were expecting a SiIvaGunner rip to be by cutting the playback so abruptly rather than having the mashup or melody swap simply start playing more subtly.

But the real reason I associate the two rips with one another so closely, and perhaps the real reason they both employ the aforementioned technique of pausing the track used, is what they do with said track in the mashup - pitching it down to create a quite different experience. This is more exaggerated in Door into a Hundred Summers of course, which takes a tune otherwise radiating the energy of a crisp spring morning and gives it a far more reflective, slow, nostalgic feel. What's done in Chance's Return to Dreamland feels almost like the complete inverse - the tune of Kirby's Return to Dreamland's title screen theme is infectiously jolly, and the slight pitch-down is primarily just done to allow it to play harmoniously alongside Angels, a song already infectiously feel-good in its own right. The two thus compliment each other beautifully, sort of similarly to something like World Out There, where the two sources used in isolation already feel harmonious in emotional intent, yet elevate each other to new heights in the mashup.

It's just a damn good rip, yknow? Chance the Rapper is (perhaps unsurprisingly) not an artist I've listened to much at all, yet his and featured artist Saba's vocals in Angels are just filled with such sincerely feel-good whimsy, such sheer joy and happiness in being alive, a feel that Kirby has ALWAYS been top-tier at pushing - the experience of listening to Chance's Return to Dreamland feels like like frolicking in endlessly warm, sunny grassy fields with those you cherish. A pill of pure happiness of shocking quality and attention to detail for a rip made so early on in Season 1's life. And knowing that digboye is still around today, 8 years later, helping bring rips like the immaculate One-Winged DJ to life, just puts a big dumb smile on my face.

[miloscat]

[Review] Sonic Superstars (PS5)

Classic style Sonic that’s not a one-off event, not a rehash… and not perfect.

After the success of Sonic Mania, Sega has greenlit more projects set in Sonic's "Classic" era (along with an annoying insistence on segregating certain characters and elements to either Classic or Modern), such as comics and this game. Sonic Superstars sees Sonic's original character designer Naoto Ohshima reunite with the series via his new company Arzest. Now Arzest (and their predecessor Artoon) are known for games popularly thought of as mediocre, including the recent Balan Wonderworld. Personally I'll defend Yoshi's Island DS and Hey Pikmin, but is Superstars their best game yet? Eh, maybe.

Unlike Mania which directly aped the Mega Drive games, Superstars is built in a 2.5D engine. The graphics are 3D models and high definition, and they're delightfully colourful and chunky. Also unlike Mania, the levels are all new and original, although several are takes on existing ideas. There's some great new concepts in here though, like an El Dorado-inspired stage, a neon cyberspace zone, or a time-reversing collapsing base. One stage even puts you into a brief but fully-fledged Fantasy Zone homage, with two shmup-style bosses!

The big new gimmick is up to four-player simultaneous co-op, expanding on the Sonic & Tails gameplay of Sonic 2, 3, and 4 Episode 2. Of course Knuckles is along for the ride, and unlike Mania, Amy is finally—finally—given her due as a full playable part of the core cast (I guess they added her to the classic games in a rerelease of Origins too). You can choose any of the four in story mode; Tails is recommended for beginners but his flight is a little stilted and requires mashing. Knuckles has the powerful climbing and gliding abilities but they also feel slow, with sluggish animations between states. Sonic has the drop dash and that's it, while Amy was far and away my favourite to play as with a snappy double jump that gives you some quick height without losing momentum, with the added benefit of her hammer bypassing some enemy protections. She's great, especially in this classic design... also there's no dialogue so there's no opportunity for them to ruin her character with poor writing choices.

The plot, such as it is, involves Robotnik searching a new archipelago for ancient power, bringing along Fang from off of Triple Trouble, Drift 2, and The Fighters in a long-awaited return. These nefarious nasties have drafted the clumsy armour-clad Trip, a local who turns out to be an adorable and good-hearted lizard who becomes playable in her own mode after you clear the main story. This functions as a hard mode with remixed versions of the same levels, while you make use of Trip's abilities: an Amy-like double jump, and a more powerful form of Knuckles' climbing.

Another feature with a lot of promise is Chaos Emerald powers; this time around, after nabbing one from a special stage (a 3D grapple-chase affair) they bestow activated abilities specific to each gem. Some are cool and widely useful for letting you gain height or cross gaps, like becoming an air-dashing fireball or growing a vine to climb. Others are narrowly context sensitive, like revealing hidden platforms or letting you swim in water. There is at least a prompt for when one is particularly suited to a situation; otherwise they're a bit fiddly to activate. On the whole I don't feel like these abilities live up to their potential, but I applaud the effort at introducing new mechanics, and making the Emeralds useful beyond unlocking a true ending.

You do get a super form of a sort when you have them all, but only Sonic goes truly Super. The others just glow a bit, a copout on the level of the spheres for Tails and Knuckles in Heroes. Trip on the other hand gets the coolest effect of all, turning into an invincible dragon who can fly freely! This really helps on some of her more difficult levels. When both stories are cleared, we get a Last Story much like Adventure or Rush, where Super Sonic alone has to fight a big dumb-looking dragon. It's fine.

Now that I've set up what the game is, time to tear into it a little. I found even on single player the screen feels scrunched in; you would think the benefit of this graphics engine would let them scale out a fast-paced game for better visibility but I guess not. Sometimes you jump into the background and it briefly feels much better, but these segments don't last long. The problem is even worse in co-op; I played a short local 2P session and we were both constantly leaving each other behind, and when a character goes off-screen they have to respawn next to the leader. At least this goes for deaths too, with your punishment only a short delay before you can pop back in. Also, no life system! Thank you Arzest!

In addition to special stages accessed through hidden giant rings, you get Sonic 1-style bonus rounds when you pass a checkpoint with 50 rings. They're ok I guess, but optional. Then there's similar-looking warp portals that appear sometimes for some reason, which take you through a brief autoscroller and plop you out somewhere else in the level. I wasn't sure why these existed frankly. On top of this, in stages you can sometimes get fruits that you can exchange for access to another minigame in the hub screen, an autoscrolling collect-em-up. All these sub-games and such can feel like they break the flow, unless you ignore them. Only you can't ignore the Emerald stages, in fact you have to remember which zones you already got an Emerald from if you're going for them all.

The reward for most minigames (and hidden in stages) is medals, which you can use in the shop to buy parts to customise a robot avatar. I was intrigued to see a Sonic game revisit Forces' dress-up system, but the medal costs are steep and the part selection limited, with unlocks trickling out slowly. At least Amy now has a metal counterpart like the boys, and one boss memorably takes on the form of your custom bot. But you can't play as them in story mode, only in the battle mode. Unlike the base game, this has online support and up to eight players, and you duke it out in randomly-selected competitive rounds. Against AI players it's a bit brain dead but may be fun with other people. Who knows? It wasn't super appealing to me, which made the whole medal and shop mechanic (and some of the DLC) feel a bit superfluous to my experience. [The DLC otherwise is just skins for story mode, and I didn't use them...]

While I liked the look of the game, especially the backgrounds which have a lot of depth, you do occasionally see some seams. Level geometry joined inelegantly together, curved boss arenas that don't display important active elements in their backgrounds, the occasional broken graphical effect. You can play the campaign going directly from one level to another, but the loading transition is very stuttery. Once the level music failed to start after a powerup theme ended, so I was playing in silence. The game leaves a sloppy impression at these times. I also found the soundtrack to be unmemorable, with some tracks like the hub theme being way too short a loop.

I've left it as late as I possibly can to talk about this: the bosses. These are universally slow and painfully boring. You're often just waiting for them to begin their designated vulnerability period, landing a single hit, and then waiting through the next long, long attack pattern. Sometimes Amy or Trip with their double jump—or a well chosen Emerald power—can get an extra or early hit on them, but it's not enough. You can sometimes spend as long in a boss fight as you do playing a level, and there's a lot of them. Some zones only have one act, and several act 1s in two-act zones also have a boss! Other acts have chase sequences, such as Fang following you on his hoverbike, and these are even worse.

And then there's the final boss of each story, the biggest offender of all, where each near-successful attempt took me nearly ten minutes and it's easy to die to various instant-kill attacks and hazards. The big dumb dragon is also boring, with the added stress of managing a very limited ring count lest you restart the whole fight again. The bosses are a common criticism for this game and it's easy to see why: the best of them is merely fine, while the worst are crimes against game design. They drag the whole experience down substantially. It’s a real shame.

Honestly I’m playing it up a little, they’re easily the worst part and the final boss literally took me hours of frustrating attempts, but because I was bracing from being warned just how noxious they are, I found them to be slightly more tolerable than what I expected. But that’s not saying much. They suck.

Now of course Superstars intentionally evokes Classic style design and game control. I find this heavy feel and high-inertia gameplay not to my taste, and it's no different here. But I managed to have a good enough time despite this, and despite the screen crunch and minor technical flaws, etc.; double jump really helps. Well, a good enough time apart from the boss fights, obviously. Woof. I’ll remember Superstars for some of its levels, for Amy and Trip, for the Emerald powers. But it’s still an Arzest game, a clumsy mixed bag. Oh well, I’m sure they’ll keep getting more chances. And so will Sonic.

[hall0wedwyrm]

intro post remake smile

HI! I'm Wyrm!!!

they/she/he - aroace - 20

I like to make loooong posts about things and I also reblog a lot of stuff lol. I love writing but also rarely do art. I consider myself a little bit of a theorist but also sometimes my ideas are wild.

Talking Tag = # wyrms can talk

my Ao3... I'm working on things all of the time i hope to start posting more,, (Please read Void Crew its my passion project basically but its on hiatus rn..)

My unhinged fankids who i need to do more with,,

My new years resolution (as of rn) is to make more fanfiction. I genuinely have so many ideas and i need to get into the habit of just writing stuff :(

I wanna also make... just craaazy OCs... like do a whole thing with them and stuff... That's something I work on sometimes maybe I'll eventually post them.

Main interests that I talk about a lot and frequently:

Sonic the Hedgehog! He is my top tag on here and idk if he'll ever be over taken. I am another annoying Sonadow enjoyer but I also like a lot of other ships too :)

Minecraft but also just Herobrine... I'm very normal about him

Five Nights at Freddy's - I'm in the minority but i love the Sci-fi elements introduced in the Novel trilogy... FuhNaff my beloved

Undertale & Deltarune (UTDR) are always rotating in my brain. I am a "Gaster is everywhere" defender.

Doki Doki Literature Club altered my brain chemistry forever

Hollow Knight is phenomenal

The Bendy Franchise is very important to me and I hold it dear to me

Gravity Falls is living in my head forever and ever now. I love everything about the show it caters to me so perfectly,,

Other Things I love a lot: (This also updates when i find something cool lol)

Godzilla and The Monsterverse is something i got into very quickly and suddenly. Godzilla vs Kong is my favourite <3

Terraria,,, Its so important to me <3

Super Mario is a place i like to visit sometimes but im not like... in the fandom??? I enjoy the characters alot (I got infected by the Bowuigi disease)

Resident Evil - I got into it with Village, and have since watched 7, 4 and 2. I hope to either see or play more in the future!!!

Welcome Home!!!!! I love the concept so much, and all of the passion going into it is amazing! I love Wally <3

The Amazing Digital Circus!!! I'm so invested and i can't wait to see where it goes next!! I literally love all of the cast but Caine might have to catch these hands if he pulls anything again iykyk

Lots of Indie Horror series. I'll list some of them here: The Walten Files, Generation Loss, Catastrophe Crow/Crow 64, KinitoPET, The Mandela Catalogue, Cooking Companions

I have a general interest in lots of like... cosmic horror themes and horror with interesting or unique ideas, for example SCPs and the like.

I also love supernatural and mythological beings because some of them are craazy. Favourites are definitely demons and vampires

Pokemon! I've been playing a lot of the old DS games over the past year or two and its so wonderful

But Yokai Watch is my childhood so its very important to me too

I played Pikmin 4 for Christmas 2023 and it was AMAZING and I hope to oneday play more!!

[axofixations]

literally just realized i havent posted my other EPIC and COOL and EPIC art here so

these two are actually related but only because of the creature on the left of the image [the one where they're playing uno].

i like giant weaponry. i also like giant weaponry on short characters.

i am a short character. [also related to above images]

redb pikmin!!! [yellow is actually my fav but red looked goofier]

i made these edgy images earlier in the year so they're not as good (art progession and all.). Someone said they looked like cards, so i put them into a card format lol

card :3

i also got into rainworld earlier in the year, though i'm not uber proud of a lot of the art, so I'll just show one I really liked

this is long enough of a post for me so i'll do another one in a second for the other stuff,,, but i hope you enjoyed my art [even tho it's non-twa...]

[blueeyedrat]

Games I played in 2024.

Man, fuck this year. Here are some video games I felt like talking about, I guess.

(2023 ⇐ 2024)

ABZÛ

There are a few different throughlines to the games I played this year. One is that I delved deep into my backlog; games I picked up in a bundle or a Steam sale some 6 or 7 years ago but never found the time or the hardware for. There are a lot of them. Most of them were worth the wait. I've long since given up on the idea of playing every single game in my libraries to completion, but it's nice to have options.

Another throughline was seeking out shorter games. I've… had some trouble focusing on longer projects this year, so games that I could play in short bursts (like The Solitaire Conspiracy), complete in a few sessions (like What Remains of Edith Finch), or even a single sitting (like Dépanneur Nocturne) were useful for filling in the time. ABZÛ was the first, and ended up being one of the best. Simple but effective gameplay, immaculate visuals and music, and a lot of fish. It was only a couple hours long, but it was the best couple hours I played all year.

Pikmin 4

I played though Pikmin 2 several years ago and had a good time. Last year I picked up a used copy of Pikmin 3 at a convention on a lark, played through it, and had a good time. This year my brother got me Pikmin 4 as a gift, I played though it, and had an excellent time. There's a certain charm these games have that keeps bringing me back, and the most recent game showcases the best of all of them.

Splatoon 3: Side Order

Ahh, time sinks. I still play Sky on the regular, return to Animal Crossing every now and then, and even threw a bit of Eastward: Octopia into the mix. I completed many more loops of Cobalt Core, and more races in F-Zero 99. Over the summer I even found time for some long sessions of Civilization 6.

Splatoon 3 was another mainstay, but this year it reached the proverbial end of the line. The game is still around and I still play it, but like with Animal Crossing before it, the game has been "finished" in that peculiar way live service games are. What exists now will continue to exist, but everything they wanted to do with it is done. Thanks for playing, enjoy the reruns, see y'all in the sequel.

But if it had to end, the one-two punch of Side Order and the Grand Fest made for a good capstone — a well-crafted single-player challenge, and a spectacular you-had-to-be-there finale for the multiplayer side. I can say I was there at the beginning and there at the end, and I'm glad I was along for the ride.

Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers

Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart and its antecedents are a thing I've been vaguely aware of for a long time but never followed too closely, so the sequel was a welcome surprise. It offered an abundance of content and a robust single-player mode, and it's a free fan-made project, so I figured "why not" and gave it a try, and was subsequently hooked for a good month or so. Not everything clicked with me — it's way more mechanically complex than any other kart racer I've seen (I'm told that's part of the appeal, but I've never had the dexterity for it), and it can get frustrating very fast whether you're racing against the CPU or against other players. All the same I can't help but admire it. Ring Racers is a passion project that's as much a love letter to itself as anything that came before, and apologizes for none of it.

Patrick's Parabox

I'll always make room for puzzle games, and this was the standout of this year's lot. Sokoban games can range from "okay" to "clicks with me immediately and is an instant favorite" (Baba Is You et al). Parabox landed squarely in the latter category, occupying my brain for a good few weeks until I'd solved every last level. The different ways it layers puzzles on top of each other were fun to figure out, especially when it starts introducing new ways to "break" them, which it turn become additional layers of the puzzle. Highly recommended.

(Honorable puzzle mentions: The Pedestrian, Linelith, Arranger, Bonfire Peaks, 7 Billion Humans)

Epigraph

While Patrick's Parabox was the best puzzle game I played this year, Epigraph was the most unique. It's another game about deciphering a fictional language à la Chants of Sennaar or Heaven's Vault (which is to say, one that appeals to me specifically), but in a much more compressed form. The entire game consists of a single, very complex puzzle. You're given seven artifacts with undeciphered writing, and a couple paragraphs of notes to start you off, and that's all you get. From there, you have to unravel the language piece by piece, isolating individual words and phrases and meanings until you understand the bigger picture. That such a leap is possible at all is a testament to how well designed the puzzle is. Like I said last year, I want more games like this to exist.

One caveat: only being a single puzzle means there's functionally no feedback unless you've solved the whole thing, so if you've almost solved it, it can be difficult to figure out which part of your solution you need to fix. It's only a minor gripe that didn't detract from the experience overall; as it turns out, I felt the same way about the final puzzle of…

TUNIC

I've been sitting on this one for a while. It's consistently been at the top of my wishlist ever since it was announced all those years ago. I bought the soundtrack the day it came out, but I never delved into the game itself until this summer. Something about TUNIC always drew me back towards it. I knew it was a game I wanted to experience blind, and now that I've done so, it'll be a game that occupies my thoughts for a long time.

TUNIC, the adventure game, is good! A charming little title in the vein of the old Zeldas. Exploring the game world is fun and gives a very satisfying sense of progression, whether though finding new tools and weapons, opening new paths, or discovering hidden paths that were there all along. Fighting enemies and bosses is challenging, but not insurmountable. It does get kinda frustrating in the back half, especially the last boss. The built-in accessibility options make it much more tolerable.

All of this is tied together by TUNIC's central gimmick, an in-game manual pieced together page by page. Most of it is written in a script you cannot read, and it leaves you just enough information to intuit what needs to be done, but forces you to dig deeper if you want to learn the truth: TUNIC, the puzzle game, is a masterstroke. Much like all of those hidden paths and shortcuts, all of the information you need is placed in front of you even if you don't realize it. Decoding the cipher text, and understanding the meaning of the Holy Cross and the Golden Path (not even solving the puzzle, just realizing what the puzzle actually is), was the most satisfying thing I've done in a game in years.

TOEM

Some games are memorable for a particularly hard challenge, or a compelling narrative, or a perfectly crafted setpiece level. Some games are memorable because they're just really pleasant. No stress, no time limits, just vibes. Everything about this game puts a huge grin on my face — the music, the characters, all the places to explore and secrets to find and puzzles to solve. A week, a month, a year from now, I'll have a stray thought about TOEM, and my day will be a little brighter because of it.

I like this game a lot, y'all. Very much looking forward to the sequel whenever that comes out. Take a picture, it'll last longer.

(Honorable mentions from the archives: Storyteller, A Little to the Left, Freshly Frosted, Wavetale, Islets, Arranger)

Here Comes Niko!

While we're on the subject of pleasant games, this is another one I've been meaning to play for a while, and another one I enjoyed a fair amount. Looking back, TOEM and Niko! have a lot in common — vibe-centric games with 2D characters running around in a carefully crafted 3D world, carried by a charming aesthetic and cast of characters, with a core loop of travelling from town to town and doing various small tasks to make friends and help people out. The biggest differences are the genres (photography puzzle versus collect-a-thon platformer), the color scheme (minimalist and monochrome versus bright pastel)… and one more key detail.

I knew most of what to expect when I started, the soundtrack and the aesthetic and the platforming, but knew next to nothing about the story, which caught me off guard. Early on it hits you with a moment of "…oh," that lingers throughout the game as you learn more about what the protagonist is actually trying to accomplish. (At some point I want to write up a comparison of the narratives of Niko! and A Short Hike, but it'd be an entire essay in itself so I'll spare you the details.) I didn't go into Here Comes Niko! looking for pathos, but that's what it gave me and I think it was a better experience because of that. Kudos.

(Honorable mentions from the "I'll get around to this one eventually" list, that I got around to eventually: Going Under, Creature in the Well, Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap, Sonic Mania, What Remains of Edith Finch, RiME)

Anthology of the Killer

The best game of 2024. Like, unironically.

This comes from another developer (thecatamites) that I've been vaguely aware of as someone who makes interesting niche art projects, but only really knew about secondhand from other people, which was still enough to put it on my radar. And now, I cannot get this goddamn thing out of my head. It burrowed in months ago and has lived there rent-free ever since. At some point I need to introduce my siblings to this game because I just need to talk to somebody about it.

Anthology of the Killer is a lot of things. It's a collection of nine short narrative games that have been released over the past few years. It's surrealist horror comedy, and dances between all of those aspects whenever it pleases. It's a satirical take on history and modernity and art. It's a story about death cults and pop music fads. It's about just trying to get by even as the world around you gets stranger and more violent, or as you realize that maybe it already was. It's crude and bloody, and gets away with it by looking like it was drawn in MS Paint. It's a game where I can say something like "Heart is probably the best overall, but Flesh is underrated" and not sound like I'm losing my mind. It's the most well-written game I've experienced this year, and possibly any year.

"Aren't the stars pretty? Isn't it a nice night? Do you think the world is basically good or basically bad?" "Man, I just work here."

Who knows. Maybe 2025 will be better. Just gonna keep spinning the wheels for a while, see if it gets me anywhere. See y'all next year.

[citruscrisp]

Hello all, I have a quick question.

So basically, I’ve played Pikmin 3 Deluxe a LOT (wow! Big shock!) But there is one thing that has bugged me after all my time playing and that is the confusing ending of Pikmin 3.

So, first, you play the main story. You unite with the Hocotatians and offer to give them a ride back. But the last voyage log that Alph writes states that Louie is not in the Drake on the way home.

So, maybe he couldn’t find him?? Maybe the writers forgot that this log existed before incorporating the side missions? Because at the start of the “Olimar’s Comeback” side mission, Louie ventures back to PNF-404 with him as if he did make it to Hocotate with Olimar.

It’s just… I think too hard, lmao. If you have any thoughts, feel free to share them!