#im just struggling to see how this has more gameplay and worth to it than the gamepacks so far

[vivalasthedas]

to be positive about the sims pack: I really like what they showed, it genuinely looks like a lot of fun, and it isn't promising a huge amount so hopefully isn't setting up expectations!

To be a bit less positive. It really is giving game pack. And I'm also not a fan of them seemingly putting stuff that's been a needed bug fix - private conversations - as well as features that have been base game in past sims - cuddling - behind an expansion packs priced paywall.

As always, I really hope to be wrong about the things that are giving me pause. I hope they're showing them off in the trailer the same way they highlighted infants a bit in the growing together one. I hope there's more gameplay than what they've shown, and they just focused on the funny flashy stuff.

[waywardsalt]

ok since tears of the kingdom is coming out like. insanely soon i figured i’ll just dump how i’ve been feeling abt it here. i wont tag for them and i dont intend to share any but because i have been actively seeking out spoilers i will vaguely reference them here so… idk really long musings on this game and my feelings abt it

(im just writing this out mostly for myself since i really kind of just. want to really figure out how i feel about this)

i… am not excited for totk?

i’ve figured out a bit ago that my severely waning interest in botw and general anxiety and discontent surrounding totk is just that… these games arent for me. i dont enjoy open world games with half a million things for you to do like it’s basically a sandbox. i struggle to really enjoy singleplayer minecraft. the space stage in spore gives me genuine anxiety, both when i played it as a kid and again when i reached it as an adult.

botw and totk are not games for me, and that’s cool. i’ve figured that out.

so why am i getting so damn anxious about this new game?

i am getting totk- not entirely of my own volition, i live with someone who is very genuinely excited for it, so it’s pre-ordered digitally on our switch. i am going to play it and complete it at least once.

the gameplay and world of botw never really got to me, and even what snippets of gameplay i see for totk dont really entice me. it just makes me anxious to think about the sheer amount of new stuff i’ll be dropped in the middle of and how i really dont care about this version of link or zelda or anyone else in botw’s hyrule

and some of the story spoiler stuff and general direction this game is going in has me just worried that the zelda series is moving away from what it used to be into an entirely new direction, that being a direction that it seems like i wont enjoy as much as everyone else seems to

so then i guess my main worry outside of totk is that i just end up struggling to really feel connected to the rest of the community about this? being a contrarian is fun until everyone is enjoying something you for some reason can’t get yourself to

i dont have a lot of hope in the story of totk to harken back to… ANYTHING of worth that past games have built up and made to be so important and interesting. hype is a dangerous thing for a not-yet-released game, and while i think the insane amount of speculation and theories and hype around totk will cause a lot of people to be disappointed with the final story, i dunno if i really wouldve liked it even if the story actually piqued my interest

maybe totk’s gameplay will really hook me. maybe i’ll enjoy the massive open world and gmod-ass gimmicks. but what ive seen of the story makes me less interested and the snippets of gameplay i see just make me remember how bored i now am with botw

at the end of the day this is just a video game with tags on this site i can blacklist and videos i can ignore and lore i can brush aside because at this point loz canon is a suggestion more than anything

i just cant shake the discomfort of once again being an outlier as everyone i see loses their mind about this new game while i just feel overwhelmed by it. i have played botw for a long time and have long since worn it out. i played age of calamity to completion and have not touched it or cared for it beyond the music since. i am not excited about totk and i feel like i am in the wrong due to my opinion

[hdawg1995]

Superliminal Dream Dictionary Translation.

Hi i’m not a professional on this topic and only “translate” dreams as a hobby, but i got bored and decided to plug as many of the objects and scenarios of the game “Superliminal” into a few of my dream dictionaries.

This will include spoilers for the game so read with caution. Also its less the gameplay (because everyone plays it differently) and more the objects themselves and the general scenarios the player can find themselves in.

Detour: at one point in the game, all players take a detour and get lost- the narrator losing the player. To see or take a detour in a dream signifies that the person is struggling with some sort of obstacle in their life, a obstacle they do not want to confront directly.

Lost: continuing off of the Detour, dreaming that you are lost says you are either trying to get used to a new scenario in life OR you are worried about your current path in life. 

Dice: Dice appear throughout the game as objects the players can interact with and use to navigate the dreams. seeing dice in a dream suggests the dreamer is “playing with fate”. in a general sense it also is just a representation of how unpredictable life can be.

Dimension: this is a stretch, but it could be safe to say the players all eventually enter another Dimension. doing so in dreams signifies great stress in the dreamer. But a fun note is that it could ALSO mean the dreamer needs to look at a situation in life from another perspective (much like many of the mechanics in the game!)

Chess: i couldn’t find anything on chess pieces and since the player never plays a game of chess but sees chess pieces and also a game of chess towards the end of the game, i’m including it. It means the dreamer needs to think carefully about a certain situation. or you’ve found your match in love or in work. 

Disapproval: only because of the robot voice that scolds the player for not waking up. this is reflective of the dreamer’s self-worth and can be a sign they are hiding/rejecting parts of themselves.

Rubber ducky: again, couldn’t get specifically a rubber duck, but ducks tend to represent the dreamer’s childishness or “spiritual freedom”. they can also mean that the dreamer is setting themselves up for harm as a “sitting duck”.

Dollhouse: dreaming of a dollhouse or playing with one means the dreamer is either trying to solve problems related to family via the dream, or the dreamer is in denial about any problems they are having.

Small: dreaming that something is smaller than it should be or if YOU are smaller than normal suggests the dreamer feels helpless in life.

Smiley: towards the end of the game i’ve noticed some times the crosshair turns into a smiley face and the dice will have smiley faces on them. seeing these in a dream means the dreamer is on the right path and their mind is trying to give them positive reinforcement.

Big: seeing something that is bigger than normal suggests the dreamer has a “inflated opinion” of themselves or something else.

Soda/pop: this is for drinking but not seeing- drinking soda/pop means you need to liven up OR you need to be refreshed. 

Blood: it is revealed to be red paint, but because the player and therefore the dreamer is made to think it is blood i am including it. blood in general means passion and disappointments. my dictionaries get specific but the scenarios they suggest don’t add up with those in the game.

Piano: seeing a piano (not playing because some people don’t play the piano when they find it) denotes positive and joyful times in the future.

Blue print: not every player finds these but most do so im including it- seeing a blue print in your dreams is similar to chess- you need to think carefully about your plans. you are also expanding your world view.

Door: the play sees many doors and doorways in the game. going though a door means there are new opportunities presenting themselves to the dreamer. if the door is open (like many of the doors in the game) means the dreamer is open to new ideas. to see a bricked up doorway represents denied opportunities and the dreamer shutting themselves out from the world.

Windows: seeing windows denotes bright hopes and new possibilities. Vanga says it means you are preparing your mind set for the future.

Cheese: Miller is super depressing and tends to go out into left field with his translations and i’m only mentioning him because his entry made me laugh. “cheese is generally a bad dream”. such a lactose mood. anyway, the other dictionaries agree cheese represents either profits or that the dreamer needs to smile more. 

Announcer: another stretch- hearing a announcer in your dream suggests you are being watched and aware of it, or it is your subconscious attempting to verbally communicate with you.

Apple: this is a bit weird. i can only find stuff about apples growing on trees but i’m including it cause the apples can be made to grow- the apple is a symbol of the dreamer’s wisdom. the bigger the apple the wiser the dream is.

Block: you tend to see blocks in your dreams when you need to make an effort to over come a obstacle in life.

Radio: kind of weird one. Radios represent “spiritual communication” and seeing one is a sign the dreamer needs to be aware of the subtler things in life.

Hotel: since it looks like most of the dream takes place in a hotel, i shall include the Hotel entry! they represent a new state of mind or shift in personality.

So far it seems the dreamer is experiencing a HUGE amount of stress and is struggling with this stress (which explains why they are trying to get some therapy). the fact that they are seeking this dream therapy makes sense since they see so many windows in the game and seem to have a open mind to new ideas. the stress might be related to their self esteem issues and honestly i just want to give this person a hug, they seem to be having a hard time.

Moon: kinda disappointed with this one- all it is is a representation of a “mysterious” side to the dreamer.

clock: seeing a clock means the dreamer is worried about time, specifically they are worried or even stressed out because of a time sensitive situation. 

Alarm: this just confirms the dreamer of the game is stressed about a time sensitive situation. hearing an alarm means you’re stressed about a scenario with a relationship that is causing you anxiety and stress.

[latibulesims]

Hello! Could you maybe tell what laptop/computer you use? The one I have can handle the sims 2 but there's some lag (probably because I have 8gb worth of cc lol) and my graphics card isn't the best, so I was wondering if you had any suggestions? :) thanks in advance!

Hii!

The laptop I use is pretty outdated, imo! But here are my specs <3. It’s a Samsung laptop, Windows 7, i3 2.50 GHZ, intel(R) HD Graphics 4000, with a 8.00 GB RAM and 500 GB of space divided between drives (C:) and (D:)

Despite some outdated specs, I think it works relatively well! It hardly ever lags, despite huge downloads folders. But, it does take hours to load, lol. figures. My old downloads folder was 50+ GB and would take 2.5 hours to load, while my newly restarted downloads folder is just about 30 GB and takes an 45 mins-hour. My gameplay downloads folder is also around 10 and takes 20 mins.

That’s it for specs! Hope it helps.

If you’re a sims 2 director who’s struggling to film, I shared some tips on how to avoid a lagging game, from a director’s perspective under the cut c:

OK. So here is a couple of things I do to avoid my game lagging while I try to film:

1 - The newest thing I’ve been doing that I’ve found helps A LOT is something that people have been doing since like the beginning of sims lol and it’s separating your downloads into folders, or, at the very least, body shop CC + buy/build mode CC. What I do is, after using that approach, I load the body shop with my body shop CC only, and make the sims I need for the episode. Then, I place the buy and build mode CC and take out the body shop CC, and package the sims I dressed up earlier in body shop. That way, I would load my game with all the buy/build CC i need, and the body shop CC I need for that specific episode (so, I’d end up with, let’s say, 8 hairs instead of 100). (P.S. don’t forget to include the accessories CC alongside the buy and build mode CC, tho, since they dont package with the sims!).

2 - I avoid heavily decorated neighborhoods!!! Whenever I try and decorate the a neighborhood to look all nice and pretty in the windows of sets while I film, the neighborhood doesnt survive a couple of scenes. Now, I just decorate one (1!) spot in the entire neighborhood and strategically place every lot i need in that same spot thats surrounded by building decorations and trees lol.

3 - Unless I absolutely need to, I always avoid having more than 8 sims in one lot. I feel like my game tends to lag/crash a lot when I do. Alternatives I use: If you need to make it look like the room is crowded (i.e. party), try and move the 5-6 sims you’re working with to fit in the angle you’re currently using. It may get hectic moving the sims from one angle to the other, but it beats your game crashing/lagging every 5 mins. :’) And you can always use deco sims, though I try my best to always avoid that because I don’t like how still they are vs. the sims that are being filmed

4 - I never use full sets. lol. that shit lags and crashes my game soooooo often, especially with how heavily decorated my lots usually are. Instead, I make every room I need a set independent from any other room. For example, if I have a scene in the main kitchen, that’ll be a lot by itself. When my sims move from the kitchen to the living room, I log them out from the “kitchen” lot, and into the “living room” lot. I know it sounds like a lot of work, but trust me, it has saved me from so much unnecessary lagging and crashing when you go from a 2-story heavily decorated home to one (maybe two, if im feeling dangerous) rooms. Back in 2017, I shared four sets that showcase how my sets usually look like in series (skip to 5:55). Think of the lots as....sets from tv shows. Where the actors go from one cluster of a room to another lol. P.S. I build the exterior as a separate lot as well, and shoot however many shots i need of it before I move on to the interior sets to start filming

5 - Don’t overwork your laptop/computer. Now, this has nothing to do with CC, but i’ve found that the game usually lags while I film (With Fraps, sometimes dropping the framerate to 2 frames per minute), because I have other programs on like Sony Vegas or Photoshop. Try and have the sims 2 and fraps being the only programs you have open when you film, and see if that helps. 

Hope you found any of these tips helpful!! <3 Good luck with your game!

[jesterkard]

Any advice on how to play dbd? I just got the game and I would appreciate anything to help me along my journey-Noob at Everything

oh this is gonna be a long one Im forced to put this under a readmore (sry mobile users)

ABOUT THE CHARACTER CHOICE/PERKS: 

about character advice u should level everyone up and try their perks out, your main wont depend on the perks (as u will unlock all perks for everyone else) but rather if u can rly “play well” in the characters model. I recommend nea and claudette for beginners as nea is a stealth-aligned character (specifically the perk “urban evasion” that lets you crouch faster) and claudette is one for teamwork but also can heal urself. (perk is called self care) but in the end you can choose whoever just looks good to u and learn theri perks. make sure to not get too dependant on one perk and learn to adjust to any situation

honestly u wont have a lot of perks at the beginning, mostly the one of ur character and the genreal ones available to all survivors. a very good perk is “spinechill”- a perk that will give u a lot of insight on when the killer is going into ur direction and a good way tosee if he is still following you when you Are running away.

DONT WEAR BRIGHT CLOTHES you get spotted easier and if youre not more advanced ur just gonna be a quick target

ABOUT THE ITEMS:

save up the purple colored items, like the purple flashlight. ESPECIALLY the purple flashlight. if you are a beginner and dont know how to deal with a flashlight yet its good to save them up and use the green and yellow flashlights instead to practice and by the time u become level 50 (and are about to prestige to prestige I) u will feel more secure and testing+playing around wtih the flashlight

honestly? I only use my purple flashlight wtih a white ward (an offering that prevents you from losing ur item PLUS addons when you die) I cant handle to get tunneled and lose a good item!! they rly are rare keep that in mind

ABOUT THE GAMEPLAY ITSELF: 

work on gens thats the main objective and what will get u out, if someone JUST got hooked and hasnt like lost half of the hooked bar (the yellow bar underneath the survivors name) theyre still in “stage 1″ and u can work on the gen/try to finish it up before they get to “stage 2″.lets say you get unhooked and u were on stage 1, then you get hooked again. you get just put on stage 2 and just have to struggle while your teammates come to save you.now lets say you get unhooked and you were on stage 2, if you get downed and hooked youre fully dead. so keep that in mind and dont let teammates come to stage 2.

feel the courage to run to the generators that are more in the middle- and think of it that way: by getting the gen done in the middle you basically make the killer take longer to go check all gens. by the time a killer is going to another gen, kicking it and coming back, you can already finish one gen at one side.

you dont have to crouch around if the killer isnt near you (heartbeat wise) you can run, gameplay changes when you playagainst a myers, pig or ghostface (or any killers wiht a tinier terror radius) bc you wont hear the heartbeat that shows that hteyre near. 

ABOUT LOOPING:

looping is when you make the killer follow you around one obstacle, dont throw the pallet down if the killer is A: not close enough and B: youre not injured. pallet efficiency will make your gameplay and the one of ur teammates easier.

when you get chased by the killer around like jungle gyms (multiple walls wiwth like one window and one pallet), always look behind you to seeif the killer is still after you and not already going to the other side so you walk right into him. 

when the killer actually breaks a pallet that you dropped, take the time and immedaitely book it to the next jungle gym/out of sight. if you were not injured and the killer no longer can see you, stop running and sneak somewhere to hide- wait for the killer to come by and look around and then leave: run to the other side then. 

ABOUT GETTING HOOKED:

when you get hooked, DONT attempt to escape. there is a 4% escape chance. as long as youre not cowsIAM (who is KNOWN for unhooking himself all the time somehow) you wont have much luck. you can attempt to escape if thers rly no other way though. 

ABOUT PLAYING AGAINST SPECIFIC KILLERS:

NURSE if she blinks and is about to teleport to you, run to her so she already teleports too far away 

HAGcrouch over her traps to not trigger them. if you get unhooked and the hag put traps around, immediately crouch the moment u get on the ground and sneak away.counter perk: urban evasion

THE SPIRITlets say the spirit suddenly stopped running after you- shes most likely in her phase power and about to teleport to you. if you are not injured immediately stop running and normally walk somewhere out of sight and hide. the spirit relies on scratch marks AND the grunts of paint the player gives.if you are in front of a pallet and the spirit is on the other side just standing still WALK AWAY dont walk over the pallet there are spirits who “fake phase” so they just stand there and grab you when you walk over.counter perk: iron will

MYERSrun away and always try to break line of sight so he cant stalk you. when you loop him just crouch when he tries to stalk you so he cant see your modelcounter perk: spinechill

HILLBILLYrun around obstacles so he more likely runs into the obstacles than you so you dont get immediately chainsawed downcounter perk: sprint burst

THE HUNTRESS IM STUPID. THIS IS NOT GHOSTFACEif you are looping her and are at the pallet, and you see her raise her arm to throw a hatchet- keep running. the pallet drop animation doesnt make u invincible and the animation is locked so she can easily hit you with the hatchet. KEEP RUNNNIIIING counter perk: not spinechill this rly does nothing for u

TRAPPERif the trapper is playing, always look around for traps. they are almost always at pallet spots etc. if you trigger a trap either to disarm it or u walk into it- the killer gets a notification and will most likely return to it. avoid the place in general.

PLAGUEdont cleanse, if you cleanse urself in one of teh devotional water..things Idk you basically “corrupt it” and when she gets to it, she can get insta down attacks. u dont want that. it sucks either way since you will have teh broken status effect (youre injured and cant be healed up) but ykno. 

WRAITHif you flashlight him (just point the flashlight at him) when hes using his invisible power- he will get stunned :) be careful doing this they get easily mad and facecamp u either that or Im just that hated

DEATHSLINGERdont run ina  straight line just do curves and keep an eye on him when hes chasing you so that when he starts aiming you start running “chaoitcally” so he has a harder time to aim & hit you 

DOCTORwhen you are shocked and on any madness level, there might come up “fake doctor visions” that are just the model of the doctor looking at you. its not the killer himself just an illusion- and you should always stay on the move bc the killer can also see the illusion, know that somewhere is there, and imediately go to check it out. counter perk: calm spirit

CANNIBALdisconnect its not worth it (jk u get a penalty if u do disconnect.)

FREDDYwake urself up always byusing the time clocks, waking eachother up will at one point take way too long.counter perk: object of obsession

LEGIONloop him and try to avoid getting hit. outrunning him with speed perks is always good so he cant hit you. this is the dumbest tip so far. dont drop pallets too soon as he is able to vault them like you are. try to stun them when dropping the pallet if theyre close enoughcounter perk: sprint burst, lithe 

THE PIGthe pig is most likely always trying to sneak up on you so always make sure to keep ur surroundings in check. the moment you hear a ..groan? u will know what I mean- immediately run as she was about to attack you and has a light sprint animation.counter perk: spinechill, sprint burst

[anniebattiebats]

hi im annie and today i’ll be gushing over the greatest game ever made

sonic adventure 2

THE CHARACTERS! OH MY GOD THE CHARACTERS!

everyone was so in-character in this game! Sonic was himself, and was perfectly cocky in this game. In later games, he says the most unnecessary shit nsjsnjdn but this Sonic feels genuinely witty and cocky.

Tails is bettering himself to become stronger and braver than before, which is BETTER THAN WHAT THE MAIN GAMES DO (COUGHCOUGHSONICFORCES) even Sonic Adventure did a better job at this!

Knuckles is all about the Master Emerald - THANK GOD - which is what I prefer instead of him leaving his island to do God knows what. And he sounds more level-headed and calm here, which I prefer too.

Rouge is amazing and I love how smooth she is and Shadow is so relatable when it comes to forgiving others. Not only that, he was brooding, but not too much. He was melodramatic and energetic, which is something I love about him. He just felt more lively than what we have now.

And Eggman. Omfg Eggman. I love Eggman in this game SO! MUCH! He has the perfect menacing voice and he has his mind of offing Sonic and the world. He held Amy at gun point TWICE! And, for once, he didn’t bring out some otherworldly entity on purpose this time. The Biolizard was an accident.

wait, Amy? She was just there, I’m not gonna lie. But she did help Shadow accept how good humans can be.

THE STORY

It’s straight ass :> but I love it so much. It’s so wild and energetic. It’s meme worthy. It really grabbed my attention as goofy and broken as it was. Eggman blew up a fucking MOON! And there was so much at stake besides that! The ARK was gonna crash into the Earth! A FUCKING ISLAND BLEW UP! it’s like michael bay directed it but it’s actually entertaining. to me at least.

i feel like the whole story focuses on forgiveness and learning from your mistakes, since shadow is the central character of this game. he grows from being a vengeful, hellbent hedgehog to an understanding, noble one, risking his life to protect humans, the one species he hated.

at the same time the way they tell this story is like sonic pointing a gun at you and going “live and learn, bitch” because shadow (supposedly) DIES after he stopped the ARK from crashing. it’s basically saying “learn from your mistakes or die”

or if I have to use it, die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain

it was worth it.

THE GAMEPLAY

it’s annoying as fuck BUT once you get used to it, things are alright... i guess. the game’s hard imo. i was STRUGGLING with the last story of this game. i keep getting an E on Final Rush! Crazy Gadget called me a slur!! MAD SPACE MADE ME DEAD INSIDE! Aside from that, I enjoy the way the characters work. You take your time as Tails, you quickly find emerald pieces by maneuvering around the map as Knuckles, and you have a high speed track to go through as Sonic. I enjoy all gameplay styles, I’m just not used to the difficulty curve the game puts you through. But, I did find the game surprisingly easier to play than something like Sonic Heroes. The characters are super slippery in that game.

There’s also this thing where each stage has it’s own gimmick. Metal Harbor’s gimmick for difficulty and challenge was beating the clock to get to the tip of the rocket. I pulled it off plenty of times and I was relaxed enough to do it, and it makes me wonder why someone would have a hard time with it. I GET WHY BECAUSE I DID TOO, but I practiced enough to understand how to maneuver Sonic around to get to the rocket. I know, I’m amazing uvu (Final Rush can kiss my ass though). The gimmicks kept me on my toes and I honestly appreciate that. it made each stage feel different, which is a really good thing!

OH YEAH, you can PLAY as Eggman this time. LEGENDARY! AND his stages are more relaxing to go through than Tails’... which makes no sense. Imo the hero story should be the easy mode while dark is the hard mode, but Eggman’s stages say otherwise. Oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ At least they’re fun. And the music is GREAT in his stages. I love Lost Colony’s music so much!

OH EYAH ABOUT THAT

THE MUSIC

I FUCKING LOVE ROCK! Besides some rap, I enjoy rock a LOT! While there may be TOO much rock in this game compared to Adventure where you had all kinds of genres fitting each setting, I enjoy every piece of music here. I sing to City Escape when I play it because it’s that much of a rush and it’s so catchy! And it matches the stage so well!

Knuckles’ SA2 version of his song is amazing because it sounds like hip hop, and the lyrics dive deeper into his character. I wish the other themes did this but sadly, they didn’t.

Is this the way? The path I chose? Then why am I living with my heart so cold?

Hunnid P just. Gets it.

At least Eggman’s theme is a MANIACAL BANGER!

VOICE ACTING

While some characters sound like they’re reading off a damn script (looking at you Tails and Amy) I prefer these voices over the other ones in later games. Mainly because, the way I see it, since the Sonic characters never age, their voices don’t need to change.

Ryan Drummond makes Sonic sound so young, free, and energetic! I like that about Sonic! And while he’s also the type to relax, his speed along with his wit just matches with his energetic side so well.

Jennifer’s voice (if I ignore that she sounds like she’s reading from a script) is actually pretty nice.

And I ADMIRE Scott Dreier’s work for Knuckles in this game SO MUCH! He still sounds like a teen yet he sounds mature and level-headed, it’s amazing!

Eggman’s voice by Deem Bristow is AMAZING. Every line oozes with creepy and unsettling! He’s EVIL, he’s SET ON RULING THE WORLD. Why shouldn’t he have this voice?

David Humphrey’s work for Shadow is too good for my ears and fits him so well. He was the perfect choice to capture Shadow’s melodramatic nature.

Rouge’s voice is surprisingly sweet to listen to. It makes her older voice in later games sound... exaggerated? Like they exaggerate how SMOOTH she is. Idk. This voice has a perfect balance of smooth and immature, and trust me, Rouge really is immature.

THE CHAO GARDEN

Y’all know this was coming. The chao garden instantly makes the game better. It just does. It’s a nice relaxing mode people can go to since the rest of the game is so CRAZY. Ever since I played SA2, I appreciate the chao so much and I think about them often. It cheers me up ;v; and it’s rewarding to be cuddled by the chao after you take care of them so much.

I will never get the “Hiiii” out of my head, not even if I died.

IN CONCLUSION

SEGA is ass for not making an Adventure 3 where these guys are playable again, but at least we have Adventure 2 to fall back on. The game really is dated, but I have so much fun with it, genuinely! It solidified my reason on why I’m a Sonic fan. SA2 keeps that Sonic charm that other games lack. It’s cool! It’s edgy! It’s energetic and wild! That’s how Sonic games should be imo, even if a game has multiple plot holes.

I used to talk shit about this game. And this was around the time I never even played it, and just watched some youtuber rant about it. Now? I can enjoy it despite someone who can’t. I KNOW I can get to the tip of the rocket in Metal Harbor! I KNOW I can hit King Boom Boo twice! I KNOW I can get through Eternal Engine without dying (but I haven’t... DON”T JUDGE ME) the game makes me wanna do better (kind of, one time I tried to get an A rank ona a stage and died then gave up, I had enough. I’m tired. I’M TIRED-) to get A ranks across the board. Since Knuckles’ gameplay is my favorite, getting A’s in his stages is super easy.

I can’t gush about this game enough. I love everything about it, even if some parts frustrate me to no end. I’m really happy I have a game to fall back on and appreciate whenever I play it. It’ll always mean a lot to me.

That being said, the game’s $9.99 on PC, Xbox One, and PS3 so feel free to try it out if you can! If you can’t enjoy it, I can’t blame you. There are many more sonic games to fall back on for you :>

if you read all of this... thank you??? omfg im surprised someone cared enough to finish this. why??? why did you finish this??? DO BETTER! jk, thank you ; v;

[ingloriousbi]

Long, drawn-out 80-hour experiences aren’t always a good thing. They can be incredibly frustrating.

Side quests become tedious, with no real rewards. They become fetch quests or grind quests or inconsequential rp quests. 100% requires all these little collectibles – like the ac feathers or solas’ orbs or what have you. Travel between locations can be difficult or stunted, and gameplay can become tedious – the fighting takes too long, or the cutscenes take too long, or the dialogue is unending. I usually find myself skipping through long dialogue when I can read the text, I don’t usually read everything on terminals, and I usually only ever 100% things out of compulsion.

For reference: my first dark souls 3 playthrough was 50 hours, but my second was less than 20. Even going by just the second play through I would consider dark souls 3 worth 60 bucks.

Because it isn’t *just* about hours. An 80 hour, long-ass drawn out low quality shit show isn’t better than a high-quality, well polished 20 hour game. But those 20 hours need to be *polished* and they need to serve the game. In a game like dark souls 3, that meant the atmosphere, combat, boss fights and environment needed to be polished and interesting. And they were! The atmosphere was amazing, there was good enemy variety, the boss fights were awesome, the lore was interesting enough to keep me on my toes, and the combat system had good depth to it.

But RPGs need roleplaying elements. Shooters need engaging gameplay. For 60 bucks, the outer worlds should have offered more time with its existing system or greatly enhance it.

The armor and weapons easily capped their max armor/damage, and with the tinkering ability and unending trash a-la fallout, I had a better weapon than any drop or quest item ever gave me. Instead, the constant armor and weapon drops exclusively became a means to money, and this translates into insane inventory management, because of course it does. I can’t speak too much to weapon/attack variety, because once I’ve got a gun I like I usually do a full playthrough with it (although the distinct lack of snipers annoyed me, especially for places like roseway and tartarus), but armor variety was shit. Armor offered little balance, bad mods, shitty stats, and all looked ugly as hell. I never used any medical items except for the standard heal, and never felt the need to (I was playing on regular difficulty). The difficulty curve was really weird; I struggled the first hour or so and soon after I was completely overpowered; but manti-queens were still always a tedious, semi-difficult bore, even when I one-shotted everything else.

The roleplaying elements started off really strong. Back in Edgewater, way at the start, someone even commented on my wearing marauder armor – which just happened to be the first thing I looted from some enemy. There was a lot of humor to balance how genuinely overwhelmed I felt with this new world (in a good way) that slowly gave way to more serious narrative, while never taking away your options for fun. As I found my bearings in the world, the narrative offered good themes and such (obviously; fuck capitalism!) but also had a good balance of “large save the colony!” vs “Im just a dude in space” and you can roleplay for either or in the middle of those two. There was never really a moment I felt it was weird that I was putting the main quest on “hold” to do side quests (with the exception of the fucking tailoring quest line which was really jarring lmao).

Questlines typically offered a healthy balance of options; it really allowed for different outcomes, different character motivations, etc. I didn’t feel shoe-horned into certain dialogue options in order to complete quests the way I wanted to complete them. There was nuance to your choices/dialogue options with characters and in questlines. Persuade, lie, or intimidate weren’t always a different button to the same outcome; oftentimes they actually led to different things happening in the quest. There were also different ways to complete your goals in-game, with different kinds of stealth, to murder or not to murder, talk your way through, guns-blazing, etc. Usually quests gave options I wasn’t really expecting and had a pretty good amount of interactivity between them (think the strike quest on Monarch, or the Sublight quests on Monarch). The only time I felt really shoe-horned was at the end of Lily Hagen’s questline and during the ending quest. Lily Hagen’s last quest is also the only time I felt like I got a significant choice where the consequences didn’t actually matter, which was really frustrating considering the ending of the fucking game.

The way skill points allowed for both in and out of dialogue improvements was really cool (e.g. persuasion isn’t just new dialogue options but affects enemy’s statuses, etc) and the combination of skills required during roleplay elements (i.e. you need persuasion AND science points to convince a scientist of X) felt really strong and did really well for my immersion. In the last mission this all went to shit though.

I liked a lot of the individual characters (I fucking love Phineas and ADA, Zora and Sanjar and even the Van Noys were really fun, a lot of characters were really sympathetic like Reed and Graham) and most of the companions have interesting enough personalities, but there’s a definite problem with the crew members and their implementation.

There was a huge difference in character quality between them; Felix has significantly less character depth to him than any of the other companions, even though his questline felt like it should have had a significantly larger impact on a person. Ellie and Nyoka are super interesting characters, but neither really allow for significant character growth after their respective missions or during companion dialogue.

Parvati and Max have significantly more depth than anyone else on the ship, and these are characters with the most growth and arguably most impactful side quests (measured by impact on the characters). They also have way more, and more in depth, companion dialogue. And still I’d argue the growth is too little. You run out of dialogue with your companions super quickly and they rarely have anything to say about your choices or whatever. Only Ellie really spoke up about some stuff I did/had questions for me about Phineas and even then it didn’t actually matter. Ellie’s lack of character growth was probably the most jarring, because she actively starts conversations that would/should lead to it but she remains unchanged until the epilogue informs you You Did Change Her Mind After All. Felix’s lack of anything was really disappointing especially since I didn’t really care for him, but he was really sympathetic to the captain and to the unification of the crew, especially near the end (his joining the crew was also the most random). I loved Nyoka but her alcoholism is a little much and casually overplayed for no reason, and it actively inhibits what could/should have been character development after her mission. I actually kind of feel like non-companion NPCS like Catherine Malin or Zora had more character development and relationship development with the captain than some of my companions. Parvati got the most personal and had the most growth, but it was *all* in relation to her dating life lmao.

This lack of depth or use for the companions is really bad when you think about the way they are positioned in relation to the factions and again, this is made worse during the last mission. I was kind of happy there were no romances when that was announced, because I thought it would allow for more independent character growth instead of development based on whether or not you’re fucking the player character, but what it really lead to was static characters and static interaction with them. The interactions between them are fun at the start but there aren’t many of them and they quickly end up repeating themselves. I wasn’t expecting fucking Mass effect or Dragon age companions, but I was expecting better than the fallout 4 fare.

The gameplay, skill division and choices/quest options really allow for interesting replayability for both different options/character motivations within an ending but even more so when you consider the fully pro-board playthrough (idk if I could stomach it though). But even with another playthrough I’d be looking at just 40 hours of gameplay (if I 100% it again, and I could probably do it in less than 20 now that I know where/what/how and how useless most loot is) and the companions would remain disappointing.

And the ending just throws it all in my face, especially the skill/stat division is just… terrible. I was level 30 and all side quests were done; I couldn’t milk more levels/exp if I WANTED to, and it was still bad. But I did get to walk back to my ship, re-spec my stats, and then walk all the way back to the end of the mission I’d already played which was super fucking funny.

It was a good game, and most of the game was genuinely good, but the things that let me down were the things that I really wanted, or are really impactful (IT’S A SHOOTER RPG, WHY DOES YOUR COMBAT SUCK). And it was so short. It was a eally well polished, quality experience, and I wouldn’t have liked to see it stretched out to 50 hours because it would have ultimately done it a disservice (and the story WAS genuinely really good and well-done, the world was well-crafted, and I would have hated to see it drone on and one when it’s better than that) , but I WOULD have liked to see an hour or two extra per companion and a price reduction to 40 bucks at launch.

Theme: 10/10 Narrative: 10/10 Atmosphere: 10/10 Environments: 9/10 Shooter-gameplay: 5/10 Character creation: 7/10 (shitty physical creator 3/10, very good stat creator 8/10) RPG Dialogue/Quest Gameplay: 8/10 Companions: 4/10 Inventory management: 1/10

[episodeshadow]

ok im still letting a lot of the game sink in and while i had a genuinely good time playing forces theres a couple things i just gotta get off my chest as criticisms.

spoilers under the cut

ok so gameplay wise, i liked it! especially custom hero and tag team stages. modern sonics stages were almost as good, but there were times when reactions wouldn’t happen, or trying to turn was less responsive, he just felt a little too loose and slippery, but still pretty good. the classic stages were alright but after playing some of mania they just felt kinda eh :/

ok

one thing that bothers me is how tails was written... he’s depicted as helpless and can’t fight back, completely ignoring how capable he is.  in sa2 when he thinks sonic is dead his reaction is to fight eggman more determined than ever because sonics not there so he has to act alone.  in forces.. well knuckles says that he lost it a little but its not really said what.. but he isnt helping the resistance.  tails would have been at the forefront of the war effort with knuckles amy and the rest but instead hes off doing god knows what because?? and i know if he really thought sonic was dead it would be a lot for him to handle but i dont think the way they portray him accurately represents that. he only comes back when he finds classic. and anytime he is approached by an enemy he only ever cowers away even though its established he is very capable of defending himself in a fight. i dont feel like this game did any favors for tails. :/

also.. why is classic there? like story wise it just didnt feel like his presence was a big point in the plot, overall tails and classics little side story felt like just that - a side story that didnt quite gel w the rest of the story.  he was added to appeal to the 2d sonic fans but i feel like that wasnt necessary.. we just got mania, and if they hadn’t tried to shoehorn him in the dev team couldve spent more time working on modern sonic and custom hero’s gameplay and really adding depth.  instead, we get classic gameplay that feels just a bit too lackluster and modern gameplay that, while enjoyable, felt a little too shallow.

and thats another point i wanna make, is time.  the whole game feels rushed, both plot-wise and game-play wise.  the game itself is not long, i cant remember how many hours it took but it was not many, the stages were all. pretty short. it would have been cool to see a few more locations maybe? and more variety of boss fights or at least showing up in the stage. like why add chaos in the game and then not use them at all.  shadow wasnt a boss fight but he got his dlc so. metal and zavoks fights were ok too. they just. couldve done more. theres only so much story/cutscenes, with the passage of time just shown as text.  it doesnt really let the player feel  the consequences.  oh sonic spent six months in prison? its fine tho here he is again five seconds and one cuscene later.  it wouldve been stronger if we got to see at least a little bit of what happened in those six months.  how battles were lost. its implied a lot of people died, and while they likely wouldnt have shown that, they could have depicted the struggle.  the heroes fighting against eggman but without sonic they find themselves outmatched and caught off guard for the first time, and they tell themselves its ok its just one battle.  But slowly, over time, they win less and less, they see more and more people in terror realizing that this man who they saw as just a ridiculous scientist whos always defeated is suddenly a much more real threat.  We are told that 99% of the world is conquered by Eggman, but I don’t know if it’s just me, but it’s kind of hard to see that.  I just think it would be easier to get emotionally invested and really feel the sense of danger and urgency if we could actually get to see what led up to the point they were at.  They were all inside one bunker.  How did the whole planet become under an iron grip of Eggman that there were hardly any safe places to group?  I also can’t help but feel like the world was “reclaimed” too quickly.. all you had to do was take out the base and the whole area was free again? was the base the only thing that eggman had there? sure you take out enemies in the area but somehow it doesnt feel quite so impactful.  Although i will admit they do acknowledge this during the end, how the effort isn’t over and theres still a lot or work to be done.

likewise, theres just a lot of elements in the game that seem like they are supposed to be dramatic but don’t carry a lot of weight because they were not given time to stew... sonic was thought to be dead for six months but we don’t see them struggle without him and he seems just fine when he comes out of the prison; he’s ready to jump right back into action.  you could have just said he went on a space vacation and the effect would be essentially the same.

then theres the episode shadow dlc, where infinites “backstory” comes up.  we are told that infinte is a mercenary and was working for eggman, as a part of his army?? he was defending eggmans base, the rest of his squad had already been taken out by shadow.  shadow beats up infinite, infinite gets pissy bc he lost and decides hes not gonna be weak anymore, wears a mask and has the ruby.  Why did he react like this? He yells out that he’s not weak, almost like a mantra, even though Shadow never specifically called him that, just worthless and pathetic (damn, Shadow, chill).  Had he been called weak before? A problem he was already dealing with and Shadow just drove him over the edge? We don’t know. Actually, there’s a lot of stuff we don’t know about Infinite. He’s a guy, he was weak but then he wasn’t, and ? That’s it, the game doesn’t divulge anything about the Jackal Squad, we don’t know where Infinite came from, and we don’t even get to see his face in-game.  Although it could be argued that they left his story vague on purpose so that we could all apply our own theories, but.. there’s just so little to go on.  It’s hard for me to come up with specific questions because there’s hardly anything there to ask about.  

that was the main issue with me, everything was rushed.  i think i was expecting the game to go a lot deeper than it did.  Forces seemed to just gloss over a lot of the kind of details that would have made the story so much more gripping and worth getting emotional over.  Instead it felt more like going over a bulleted list of events; the cover summary instead of the novel.  Maybe I was expecting too much but I do think that they had a lot of potential that just wasn’t used to the best it could have been.  The story was there, it just, needed to be fleshed out a lot more. I’m sure there’s some plot holes too but I can’t remember off the top of my head.  Basically, I was hoping there would be... more.

ok thats what i wanted to say, i know im forgetting things and i dont know that any of that made sense but i just wanted to express the things i felt could have been done better/ be improved... i enjoyed the game despite all these things though and now that i typed up this lil mini essay im free to focus on the positives! :)

[tumblunni]

Bunni continues to play Richard And Alice! Random thoughts and stuff!

* I’m really not good at point and click advantures, so i dunno if my opinion is very valuable, but this one just seems... not good, gameplay-wise. The sections are all different lengths and difficulty levels in each chapter, and not in a fitting way. Like so far the only one where I had to combine two items was the first chapter, it took me ages to figure out what the game wanted me to do with the bedsheets. And then the second chapter had like zero point and click at all, you just had to find one toy brick and stick it to block one hole, then it was just story cutscenes. And now in chapter three we have a suddenly huge snowfield to explore with your painfully slow walk speed, yet there’s only like one thing you need to find and just... I’m getting surprisingly anxious worrying if I missed something cos i only found that one thing! There was a whole section i didnt explore cos i didnt realise you couldnt go back outside after you managed to open the door. And what was with the misdirect of Alice saying ‘maybe i can reach this window if i have something to stand on’ and then instead she just shot off the lock on the door? Does that mean there were multiple solutions to this puzzle and thats why the place was so huge?

* Anyway, the story continues to be intriguingly good! I continue to be really engaged in poor Alice’s journey through this post apocolyptic snow world with her lil son, and I continue to be really worried what happened to that son, since this is a flashback and Alice met Richard alone... Also I like the continuity that Barney is continuing to talk about the close call they had last time with a monsterous bastard who kidnapped them. This poor lil 7 year old is struggling to keep up and struggling to keep smiling so his mum won’t be sad, and its just SO COLD and he doesnt understand why they left ‘the safe house’ because he doesnt understand they were prisoners there. And god, its so sad cos you can understand how Alice might be getting frustrated with him, and you can understand that she KNOWS she’s being irrational, but she’s just so scared that she sucks at keeping up a brave face for her kid. But I think she’s doing a great job, she’s way more of a badass survivor than anyone else would have been in this situation! And Barney is being incredibly good too, he’s being really patient and obedient to his mum and he’s a really considerate kid, he gave his mum his toy car cos she was getting sad remembering when her husband was alive and they used to ‘go on adventures’. (”But we’re on an adventure now, mummy!”)

* And MAN I am REALLY WORRIED for this poor kid, he’s been showing signs of getting sick as they were travelling the snowy wasteland and I hope they can at least get a break now they’ve found this abandoned house to sleep in. BUT NOPE! Alice finds mysterious scary notes with some sort of log of... people...? It definately doesnt feel like just someone recording visitors or survivors they met, its got a weird sort of... priorities, to what was written down. ‘Fem. caucasian. 20s. Compliant. 65lbs.’ And then what struck me as especially weird was that someone would classify a kid as ‘Female. age 7. 21 lbs’ instead of like.. actually writing that it was a kid. This is someone seeing these people as.. merchandise. You never really get an answer in this chapter but I think it’s someone who was offering survivors fake shelter and then cannibalising them T_T The chapter just ends with Alice finding an ambiguously scary room with a bloodstain, but this is the only shelter they have, so all she can do is lock the door again so her kid doesn’t see, and barricade the front door in case this cannibal cult comes back for their home base... *shudder*

* But also seriously, why did I collect like five other red herring letters as well as the cannibal one? And a rusty saw and ammo for a different gun. Was that JUST red herrings or did I miss an optional puzzle?

* Its actually a weird relief to get back out of the flashback and back to our slightly-less-horrible horrible situation in present times. Sure, Alice and Richard are locked in prison, but in this apocolyptic scenario its a relief to be somewhere where you get daily food and working electricity. There’s even a tv that only sometimes doesnt work! And they have each other, and they’re building up a nice friendship now, and it just feels quite optimistic. Richard’s even getting a bit of a crush on Alice, even though the attempts at flirting between the two of them are failing horribly cos they’re both total goobers. i dunno, if they do get together in the end, I totally wouldnt mind it! I dont think its really necessary though.

* Aww but the more we learn about everyone’s backstory, the more I really wanna hug em! We still dont know very much about Richard, but we’ve learned now that he had an ‘average childhood’, at least, by his definition. And he lived in some sort of small country town, and he joined the army in order to see more of the world. But it went really badly and he got sent to prison for rebelling against a superior officer who made a clearly immoral order. JUSTICE FOR RICHARD, GRARR!! And then Alice continues to be way more well developed and interesting, even though I do still feel sympathetic for richard, yknow. Just a lil frustrated that it took us so long to even hear that lil bit about him, when he’s supposed to be the ‘main character’. Seriously he seems like just a framing device for us to talk to alice and see her flashbacks! Anyway, now we’ve learned that Alice didn’t have much of a childhood, because she was hospitalized for a long time. And she talks about how she felt like a burden and felt suicidal and how she never even got to make any friends til she grew up and became a lil more healthy, and then she sorta ended up in an unplanned pregnancy with the first man she ever dated, and never had a chance to pursue her dream career and just... wow Alice dear god, someone up there in the heavens hates you! God, I hope this game has an actual happy ending, please! And also it makes me EVEN MORE WORRIED about what happened to her kid, now im starting to worry if maybe he inherited her childhood disease and like.. it only first started manifesting during the apocolypse and she wasnt able to find a doctor in time.. or something... MAN THIS GAME IS GIVING ME A MILLION WAYS THIS SWEET BOY COULD DIE

* Oh but one random complaint... much as I care about Barney, he kinda isnt a very well written character. They fall into a lot of super outdated ‘fake movieverse child’ cliches instead of like.. bothering to listen to what actual kids talk like. He’s always using that fake cutesy talk like ‘i made you a waffle but i eated it’. Its rather jarring! ...but still I WILL DEFEND MY VIRTUAL SON FOREVER dont you dare kill him off just because his dialogue is poorly informalized!

* The next chapter is kinda boring, its not really even a chapter but just an intermission to show us some more gameplay and nothing else. Richard and Alice do nothing but have an awkward fetch quest to find enough stuff to make a pole to reach the termostat outside the jail cell, and then after all that it ends up failing anyway. I guess at least we do get a bit of character development cos we get to see them both frustrated and having a bit of an argument, then making up again, and etc. But meh, bring on the next actual plot flashback!

* “Why does Daddy live in the ground?”

* thats it im done this is how bunni is slain fucking hell

* god, I dunno if I made the right choice but I chose to be honest with the kid and try and explain what death is. I got to hear the backstory of how the dad died, so i THINk that was the right choice? It seems he died back when barney was too young to even really know him. It was at the start of the apocolypse and the family was doing semi okay living in a shared shelter with a bunch of other people. But then it was the start of government aid breaking down and society crumbling, and a gang stole the last food ration pack from them and the dad thought he could reason with them. And its just so sad cos Alice is thinking of all the ways it could have been prevented! ‘We’ve gotten used to surviving with less now, what if we’d just let that food go? we could have lasted’ And what if they’d shot first and asked questions later, instead of trying to be diplomatic. And apparantly back then things were a little less abd so there actually was a trader they could have got more food from, but resources were limited so they decided it wasnt worth it at the time. And the after the gang killed the dad and some of the other leaders of the shelter group, it seems like things just collapsed in a power struggle and thats how Alice ended up alone... And you just have this sad sidequest to gather flowers for his grave and then Barney is all ‘i dont really know him and i dont understand so i feel bad that i cant cry’ and then he’s asking if dead people can hear you from down in the ground. And I picked being honest again, and Alice didnt say yes or no, she just admitted that nobody really knows what happens after you die, and you have to choose what you want to believe. So Barney chooses to try and tell his dad about how they’re having a good day playing in the snow on this adventure, and Alice tells him that Barney’s grown up so big and strong, and Barney says ‘Yeah! Strong like a lion! Or you, daddy!’ and BUNNI’S SOUL SHATTERS INTO A MILLION PIECES

* i am gone i am deceased at this deceaseness aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

* And there’s like an optional note you can find that tells the story about some unnamed kid who was living alone with their friend Lucy and they were trying to survive without any adults to help, and its all SCARILY VAGUE and I hope we get to learn more about them later cos it just says how the same gang who killed the dad was just.. ominously circling around the area and Lucy was acting weird and then dissappeared, with a letter saying she chose to leave for [insert name of far away settlement here] but it was really suspicious and the unnamed kid thinks that the gang was threatening lucy and they must have kidnapped her and faked this note and then the diary just ENDS it just ends with the kid talking about how much they love lucy and cant live without her and we dont know if they found her or if she even really was kidnapped?? ITS SO VAGUE! its so vague that honestly im only just assuming the diary writer was a kid too, i mean maybe they were lucy’s parent or sibling or something? or maybe both them and lucy are older? but the way it was written sounded like they were like early high schoolers or something (then again this game is bad at writing kid characters so maybe not) I MOURN FOR YOU, UNNAMED DIARY PERSON AND LUCY OF MYSTERY

* OH GOD DOOM when it went back to modern day, now its got all mysterious and weird and sad too, AAAARRRGH the heroes are still in prison, but the guards have stopped coming to their cell and theyre stuck here scared and worrying and you dont know if the obvious has actually happened... i mean maybe the prison has been abandoned or everyone died and now they’re stuck here locked in their cell and AAAA eventually the cold will start seeping in and kill them too and AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

* okay im gonna go get back to playing this game

[tumblunni]

aaaa im getting stupidly inspired to work again on my old Dating Sim Ghost Tragedy Game since I had that dumb idea today about a new Dating Sim Ghost Tragedy Game I’ve had like five separate ideas for different tragic undead datey games :P Lets talk about this particular one!! I’m pretty tired so I cant really write it a big post like i did with today’s new idea, but I’ll try my best ^_^

The idea is that it’d be sort of a traditional medieval fantasy setting but its more like a slice of life tale of the regular citizens in these sorts of worlds, rather than a big destined hero thing. Sorta like the appeal of the Atelier series? I’m thinking the protagonist could maybe be a blacksmith or a gardener or some other down-to-earth job? I just feel like he’s a hardworking chill sort of dude, sometimes kinda comes off as emotionless to others, kinda depressed but devoting himself to his work helps him smile again. He’s really passionate about whatever he does! And i think deciding his job would be a big step towards developing this idea, because having it as a minigame would help add structure to the plot and some relief from the sadness. I dont wanna make it too similar to Atelier though... So yeah, the protagonist is this cute mid-twenties relateable fella who’s just trying to do his job. I think I wanna give his outfit dungarees or something? I feel like he’d always look a bit work-uniform-style even when he’s off duty, he’s kinda too lazy to change clothes. A perpetually bored and disinterested guy. Or, at least that’s the impression he gives off to people who don’t know him, he only brightens up around the few friends he has. AND HE PUTS 100% INTO THAT SMILE, GODDAMMIT

And then his childhood friend is someone who actually was sort of a ‘standard rpg hero’, but a really sad subversion of it. At the moment he’s currently the main love interest, and he’s still sorta the catalyst for the plot and the mysteries and all, even if you don’t pick him. or I dunno, maybe I’ll just make it only one love interest but many multiple endings, but I think this character would be happy if his love interest was happy with somebody else in the endings where they dont get together. He’d be crying but happy. Anyway, my mental image for him now is this really weary chronically shy cinnamon roll who’s like a big ol tall beanpole knight with long rapunzel hair that he hides behind. Maybe white hair cos that’d fit thematically with his plot, but is that too sephirothy? When they were children, knight-guy used to be this bright and uplifting figure who always protected protagonist and had such great dreams of being a hero who could save everyone! And he went off to join the army at a young age, and then he just... shattered. He came back disgraced as a deserter, the decade of loyal service ignored by all his former neighbours just because he’d quit in the end. He had a complete breakdown and just couldnt take the violence anymore, now he’s barely 23 years old and already retired. And completely alone. No family, just trying in vain to take care of his fragile self as he locks himself away in his house and everybody gossips about him. And the thematic thing is that his biggest fear is spiders. The moment he snapped was when he was left injured on the battlefield unable to move for hours, trapped under a pile of bodies of his fellow soldiers, trying to play dead to survive. He just remembers seeing a spider crawling across the face of the man next to him, the man in pieces... So everyone horrid in the village likes to mock him by scaring him with spiders, and I havent decided on his name yet but he probably has a spider-based nickname. He’s unlucky enough to even look spidery :P

Ooooooohhhhhh and for extra irony, the village is next to a magic forest populated by demon spiders. WHOOPS, FATE HATES YOU! They’re kinda like both the gods and demons of this village, they’re seen as morally bankrupt dangerous trickster spirits that’ll do whatever they want regardless of good and evil. Everybody talks about how horrible they are and warns that anyone who does [insert sin according to our religion] will be cursed by them, but they also make offerings to them and consider them entirely responsible for the success of the harvest, etc. Its like if you knew your gods were unpredictable dicks but you still tried to placate them with gifts! (like most old european pantheons I guess) And even though this setting is indeed a magical one, the existance of the spider spirits is kind of an unknown mystery similar to real life gods. People very rarely see them in times of need, and nobody can ever prove it really happened. The forest is indeed the ‘forest of spiders’ but the only proven fact is that it has a lot of (as far as we know) completely ordinary spiders in it. Nobody knows why so many spiders cluster in this one area, so making up a legend about gods seems like a possible thing that could happen. or maybe this one area really is the centre of the world where the One True Spiders weave the webs that tell the future, and these are their mortal followers praying in worship much like the humans do... Anyway, its just a cool aesthetic thing of a cobweb-encrusted forest where entire trees get coccooned annually as the seasons come and go~ And a cool civilization that has a lot of trade in silk and weaving! Kinda based on the old ps1 game Jade Cocoon, though that revolved around magical spirit silkworms instead.

At the time the story starts, best friend knight guy has been back home for a fair few years now. Him and protagonist met again, and protagonist is goddamn determined to take care of his ill friend and somehow manage to convince the town to take him back! Its basically two depressed people holding on to each other as their lifeline, and helping each other compensate for the things they’ve each been robbed of. Protagonist struggles with expressing emotion and being a complete pushover who can never tell anyone what he really wants, so its helping him a lot that for once he’s determined and won’t just mindlessly obey his parents. You cant tell me to cast aside my best friend! Plus best friend just generally thinks the goddamn world of him and helps him be happy! And best friend suffers from seeing himself as worthless and being anxious about disaster at every turn, feeling that nobody loves him and nobody SHOULD love him. And not being capable of taking care of his more mundane day-to-day needs because he doesnt believe he deserves to like.. eat, sleep, leave the house, etc. Poor guy... I’m so glad I invented a protagonist character that can be there for him! And seriously they both just renew each other’s self worth and I’m getting so emotional about this pairing before I’ve even developed it... GAHHHH

SO YEAH LETS GET DOWN TO THE ACTUAL PLOT It was kinda necessary to establish the history leading up to it, because that’s why it’s so tragic :(

Last year, the protagonist’s best friend vanished overnight and never came back. Everyone says he just ran away again like a coward, nobody even looked for him except you. They say he was last seen walking into the forest, and nobody will listen when you say that’s IMPOSSIBLE! His biggest fear was the spiders! The protagonist frantically tried to find him.. tried to find his body... tried to at least investigate this murder mystery and find some closure... tried to at least convince people that it WAS a murder mystery.... With the loss of the person he cared about most, the protagonist has slunk back into his own shell again, and starts to give up hope on life. Facing the same pariah treatment they gave his spider-fearing friend, he eventually learns to stop asking questions, to stop searching, to just do whatever his parents said. And his parents said he has to have an arranged marriage, to restore their reputation, after his STUPID STUNT of causing so much FUSS over the death of some stupid deserter... Each day blends into the next, as life becomes once again just going through the motions of being a ‘proper man’. Then... One day... He comes back. The spider-haired best friend comes walking though your door like nothing had happened! But.. he isn’t quite right. Your joy starts fading to a growing dread. He doesn’t remember what happened? He walks straight past the people heckling him? He seems more peaceful than he’s ever been, he’s fearless again and he keeps answering your questions with exactly what you’re desperate to hear. Sometimes you swear you see him talking to spiders whenever you turn your back... So you have to adjust to having him back, and try and figure out the mystery of his dissappearance while worrying whether you can trust him or not. You even entertain irrational thoughts that the legends are true, and maybe you’ve invited a forest spirit into your home because it mimicked the voice of the man you loved. And... what will you do about that love? For the first time ever he’s recipricating your feelings, he knows all those words that went unspoken, as if he could hear you every night as you wished you’d confessed while you had the chance. Is this really him holding you close, or is it a cruel trick to offer you everything you wanted, so the forest can claim you just like it claimed him?

So yeah, gameplay would be like exploring around each day searching for clues, doing a certain job-based minigame, and having chances to either go down the dating sim path or mistrust this man that may or may not be the one you knew. Even options perhaps to develop a romance with other characters instead? But will there be consequences for instilling jealousy in something otherworldly...? I think maybe if you just jump right into romancing possibly-friend-possibly-doppelganger, then you get a bit of a bad ending. Agreeing with him 100% and never solving the mystery is bad, regardless of whether he’s actually trustworthy or not. Either way it ends tragically, but there might be possibly a way to get a true romance ending with him if you actually do keep on top of resolving the main plot as well as just smooching. I... won’t say whether his romance is good or bad though :P And there’d be one not-romance route, where its kinda like you have to work hard to avoid romance! The protagonist’s arranged marriage is a big problem, he’d resigned himself to that fate but now he’s starting to hope he can confess to the one he really loves instead. But he’s gotta go against the whole damn world trying to force him into this ‘destiny’... Oh and I wanna make the most of the spider aesthetic! I was thinking that ‘fate threads’ could be a big gameplay element, with the possibility of getting these out-of-context flashforwards and clues that can help you avoid a bad ending. (Like in Until Dawn!) And romance meters would be a silk thread connecting the two of you, because pretty interface elements are awesome :)

POINTLESS RANDOM DEVELOPMENT TRIVIA This is actually a super old idea that’s remained undeveloped for many years! Back when i was a lil teen I originally imagined sort of a similar thing but with mermaids/water spirits instead of spider ones. And a lake instead of a forest, naturally. Also it kept flip-flopping on the genders of the characters. Ultimately i decided delicate spider aesthetic would fit better with a m/m couple and terrifying swamp creatures of fierceness would be better as sapphic. And the het idea died quickly cos it was based on dumb gender roles that the shy one has to be the girl, blablabla :P Oh and for some reason the whole spider idea came from reading one particular case in the manga adaptation of Ace Attourney. Weird, huh?