#in my mind it would be the type of pack that has a base game update too

[sunsoak]

Not to give EA another $20 idea but they need to stop making this bullshit dlc no one cares about and make a music game pack and add more instruments, the ability to jam with other sims that will take into account their skill level, and to create a band, put on shows, a musician career for any instrument/singing with the rock star or symphonic path (sims 3 has this 🙄), add more genres/songs to instruments, overhaul the songwriting process, add more songs to the radio and the ability to hear your own song on the radio (I think hearing your own song on the radio might already be in get famous for music mixing??) etc

[n30n-l1ghts]

Tokyo revengers basic NSFW headcannons pt. 1

characters- Mikey, Draken, Mitsuya, Baji, Kazutora, Chifuyu, Hakkai, Nahoya, Souya, Hanma, Kisaki

Read the second part here

Proofread by my lovely partner @nxll-n4m3

Mikey-

Packing a respectable 5.8 inches, with a light pink tip and a couple of small bluish purple vains that aren't really noticeable unless he's painfully hard, he doesn't really curve to one side or the other, but he has a subtle upward curve. He doesn't strike me as the type who tries too hard with grooming, but he at least tries every now and again. But the hairs down there are the same pretty strawberry blonde as his hair, pretty thin and a little wispy with a slight curl towards the end.

Draken-

PUH-LEASE. This boy is fucking HUNG and he knows how to use it too. Curves hard left as well. He doesn't have the most experience as I can't imagine him sleeping around much, but he's heard the girls at the brothel complain enough that he generally knows what to do and what not to do. 7.9 inches holy GAWD. I think he stays pretty on top of grooming, manscapes at least once every other week. Also blonde, but I think he's got more curls than Mikey. Definitely a lot thicker. Also, completely random, but I feel like he'd totally fuck with coconut body wash and shampoo.

Mitsuya-

Another man who's got a rather mid-sized length, I'd say probably like 5.4. The prettiest pinkish lavender tip, and oh my god I mean it when I say this man's cock is beautiful. It deserves to be worshipped. Not all that big, BUT he makes up for it by knowing all the sweet spots. Not to mention he's the KING of foreplay and aftercare. He for sure stays on top of his grooming game, he can't stand feeling like he looks sloppy. He's got a pretty tuft of curly white hair right at the base of his dick, very well maintained and usually actually smells pretty good. Again, this man is on top of his hiegene and he wants all of him to smell good and look good at all times. (Not that he could ever look bad)

Baji-

I'd guess about 6.3 in size for him, and his tip is red and angry like his face (I'm joking. Mostly, but he does get painfully hard very quickly) there's a thick ass pinkish vein that runs from base to tip, and he will full body shiver if you lick the whole thing. I'm sorry, but I cannot for the life of me imagine that this man gives a singular fuck about grooming down under. He might trim a little or shave on occasion, but that's only if it gets annoying. However, his hair is effortlessly shiny and beautiful no matter where it is on his body. I have no idea how he does it. But, if it bugs you, he would (begrudgingly) start manscaping more often.

Kazutora-

LITTLE DICK SUPREMACY

Okay- little known fact, but I kind of have a thing for subby guys with little dicks, that and I want to give some variety so I'm not making them all unrealistically huge. So I'm gonna say this man sits at about 4.2. Not rediculously small, but definitely not big either. But it's okay, because he'd much rather be under you anyways. Slightly unrelated but this boy has trust issues so please be kind to him, hold his hand and tell him how good he's being, he will absolutely start crying. Never really even thought about his hair down there, never paid any mind to it, and probably wouldn't unless you brought it up. But I see him being super understanding and chill with it if you want him to groom more often.

Chifuyu-

Another one on the slightly smaller side, probably only around 4.5 to 4.6 with a sort of muted pink tip. He's actually kind of self conscious about it, so he's a bit sensitive if you make fun of him for it, but he'll fold instantly if you praise him in any way, shape, or form. I feel like he's the type to get all embarrassed and blushy super easily despite trying to play it cool. Would not admit he's a bottom out loud but everyone can pretty much tell anyways. Honestly pretty clean, I feel like pubes might bug him. He might try to keep a small tuft down there just because he feels it's more masculine, but I'd reckon he'd prefer it clean shaven. Less of a hassle and it doesn't get on his nerves that way.

Hakkai-

Oh, this poor sweet boy. So much dick that he has no idea how to use 🥺 I can't imagine him topping for the life of me, so it's almost adorable how his monstrous 8.3 inches just hangs there uselessly hanging as he gets pounded into his next life, squealing like a little bitch, whimpering and whining and pleading and- *AHEM* anyways. I imagine he's pretty alright with grooming, mostly because he super looks up to Mitsuya, who had told him at some point or another that it was important to look clean everywhere. But I don't think he's quite that good at manscaping though to his credit, he does at least try. He's got a decent sized tuft of thick, curly black hair that he trims maybe once a month or so when he remembers. But he'd get better about it in a heartbeat if you asked him to and gave him some basic block of instruction. Smells like vanilla though, so there's that.

Nahoya-

Nahoya's got a relatively solid 6.2, with a slight curve to the left and a pale tip. I feel like he'd probably be more experienced with it than his brother, even though his twin is a little bigger. He just strikes me as much more of the playboy type. (Probably gets hard after a good fight, I don't make the rules) super duper curly hair down there, ginger just like the hair on his head. Probably keeps it moderately well groomed. Enough to be presentable for the ladies (and the lads-)

Souya-

Similar to his brother (no shit they're identical twins) but with slight differences. For starters, he's ever so slightly bigger, measuring up to about 6.6, and he curves pretty hard right instead of slight left. He's not too experienced, but he strikes me as a rather quick learner. He doesn't normally care to groom all that much, but after getting into a relationship, especially if you guys are sexually active, he will actually start to manscape on occasion. Also super duper curly hair, but it's light blue instead of ginger, again matching his hair.

Hanma-

(Definitely gets INSTANTLY rock hard after a good fight, I don't make the rules) 7.9, same as Draken, difference is that Hanma has less girth. A tall, skinny dick for a tall, skinny boy. But he knows how to break you and he will go hard when he's domming. Or alternatively, when he's in the mood to sub, he gets a little bratty (just give his cock a rough squeeze and he'll shut right up) dark brown almost black hair, thick and curly. Contrary to popular belief I feel like he would put at least some effort into grooming, though he does forget sometimes.

Kisaki-

Oh, this boy. Solid middle of the road (just like his height- jk this boy short asf) but I think he'd have maybe around a 5.3 or 5.4 length wise. Pretty average around too, not particularly skinny but not particularly girthy either. Would absolutely fight you for dominance every time, and lose every time. This boy would rather die than ever admit he's a bottom, and he's 100% a brat until you edge him to the point he's sobbing. DEFINITELY clean. Well kept, grooms just about every day to every other day, and I feel like there's a fifty fifty chance he also dyes his pubes blonde. I can see him doing that. But this man hates being dirty at all. And tell me why I feel like his hipster ass smells like pumpkin spice all year round? All in all, a well kept, bratty little bitch.

[fantasyandshit]

I hate you

Type: One shot

Pairing:Eris x Night court reader

Based off of this request

Smut- MDNI

I can feel the heir of Autumns breath mixing with mine as we stand panting, his body leaning over mine as he has me shoved against a tree, his hands locking mine above my head.

———

*earlier*

“Yn!”

“Oh- yes Rhys?”

“I’m so sorry to spring this on you so last minute but is there any chance you could go around the autumn borders? We’ve been getting reports of possible disruption. Eris should already know that someone would be coming.” His face is pulled into a half frown of sorts, his eyebrows pinched and eyes filled with apology. He knew just how much I hated Eris.

“Sure. I can do that for you.” I knew things were stressful for everyone after the war and Rhysand was no exception, I could put up with the prince for a little bit if it meant making his load even a little bit lighter. The high lord visibly relaxes, his shoulders slumping and his face showing nothing but appreciation.

“Great, thank you so much, I will tell him you will be there tomorrow morning?”

“Yes, yes. Let me go get my things packed.” With a nod of my head, I turn to leave making my way up the stairs and to my room. I quickly slip from my leathers, pulling my hair down from its up-do and walk towards the bathroom. The bathtub is already nearly full as I wash my face and brush my hair. I sink into the warm water, letting it sooth my muscles as I relax, a long breathe leaving my lips.

After finishing in the bath, and changing, I start to pack, taking the time to mentally prepare my self for my visit to Autumn.

‘It will be ok Yn. It’s only for a day, then you can come back and relax and spend some time with your family.

———

As I move across the borders, I spot the fiery hair of the heir. “Eris.” His name comes out a near hiss, the word leaving a bad taste in my tongue.

His signature smirk spreads across his face. “Yn.” And how are you in this fine day.

“Worse now that I’ve had to see your face.”

“Oh you love my face.”

A scoff passes my lips, “Yeah, and humans can fly.”

“What was that darling?”

“One- don’t call me that. Two- I thought we were telling lies?”

“Nope, no lies here princess.”

“Ugh.” An exasperated sigh leaves me as I begin walking through the woods of Autumn, looking at all the colors in the trees.

“Hey! I wasn’t done with you princess.” Eris winnows in front of me, blocking my path.

“Move out of my way Eris.”

“Make me.” The smirk is back, his eyes darkening as he moves forward causing me to take a step back.

“I-I’m serious Eris. Leave me alone.” I back up again, and again, and again. The cat and mouse game goes in for a moment before my back inevitably hits a tree. I look around the empty forest, my breath picking up.

“Oh, I don’t think I want to do that Princess.” His voice is a whisper in my ear as his hands roam down my sides, heat pooling in my panties. “And,” a nip to my ear lobe, “I don’t think you want that either.”

“G-get a-away from me.” But the truth is, I don’t want that, I don’t want him to leave. I can feel his natural heat radiating from his body as his lips slowly come to my neck. Kissing slowly up the side, to my jaw, the corner of my lips. He pauses.

“Tell me you want this princess.”

“I-I want this Eris. I want you.” Fuck, what did I just say! What demon has crawled in me and made me say these things, my mind is in a frenzy as his lips finally meet mine but I can’t help but kiss back. Our mouths molding together. A small moan leaves me as his fingers dance at the hem of my pants.

‘Stop it! Stop this right now! You hate him! I hate him!’ A voice screams at the back of my mind but I can’t find the ability to voice it, to actually make him stop. I know he would, I knew the truth. Eris was respectful, if I told him to stop, he would. I know he would. But I just can’t tell him too.

Eris’ hands find my own, sliding up my arms, pulling them above my head and locking them there.

‘Come on! Tell him to stop!’

‘I can’t. I can’t, feels to good. I like this.’

An inner war rages in my head as he sucks a mark just above the collar of my shirt, one hand leaving there place holding mine to find the hem of my pants, ripping them and my panties with a growl. I gasp as he does this, earning a chuckle from the fox.

“Stop.” I finally find my voice, it’s shaky but there.

“Oh? You want me to stop princess, his hand continues to trail to my dripping core.

“Stop. I hate this. I hate you!”

Another chuckle passed his lips as his fingers finally meet my clit. “Oh? It doesn’t seem like it?” Before I have time to even think of a response, his fingers are delving into my heat. I’m embarrassed of the moan that leaves me, nearly a scream. “All this for me princess?” His fingers leave me, my whole clenching around nothing. I pant as he brings them in between our faces. Marveling at the sight of my juices coating his fingers. “Open.”

And for some fucked up reason.

I listen.

My mouth drops open, tongue sticking out as he places his fingers in, I suck them in, my tongue swirling across them, greedily taking everything I can.

“Now that’s enough. Don’t be greedy now princess.” It’s like he reads my fucking mind. I hate it. But at the same time. I love it. Love this. He takes a moment to quickly shed off his layers, I do the same, taking off my shirt and bra, seeing as my pants had already been stripped from me.

My mouth waters at the sight of his pulsing cock, a drop of precum falling from its tip. I’m flipped around, my bare breasts scraping across the bark of the tree as I feel him like up with my entrance, teasingly sliding through my folds as a whine of protest leaves me. He chuckles as he shoves in to the hilt with one strong thrust.

“Fuck!” He sets a strong pace, pulling out to the tip and pushing in till his pelvis meets mine. “Eris, eris. Ah fuck Eris.” His name leaves me like a chant as he continues his brutal pace, grunts and groans from him mixing with my moans and whimpers.

“You feel so good around my cock princess, so tight, sucking me in so good. Ugh you sound so beautiful to, chanting my name.” His pace gets more rapid as he pulls my hair, forcing my head up, eyes meeting mine.

“I’m close.” I can barely hear it myself, surprised when he responds.

“Me too princess, me too.” His thrusts get sloppy as I feel the spring tighten before snapping, white blurring my vision as hot waves of pleasure roll over me. “Good girl.” And with one final thrust, he cums, filling my dummy walls with his seed, a growl leaving him.

A whine leaves me as he pulls out, “Rhys is gonna kill me.” He chuckles at my words before pulling his clothes on, magicing my clothes back together and on my body. “Can we just like, say we looked around.”

“Oh princess, I made those fake reports. I just wanted to see you.”

“Oh? And what if Az or Cass had come. Would they be up against a tree, getting fucked by the price of Autumn?” I turn around, shirt falling over my head, “it’s ok, I support.” I smirk as he shakes his head.

“I knew he’d send you. Now you’d better get home before we get in trouble.” I nod, turning to leave before he stops me, his hand coming to my chin, pulling my face to look into his eyes. He leans forward, his lips meeting mine for another kiss, this one slow and tender, loving and soft.

———

As I finally arrive home, I walk to the dining room to find my family. All trying to hide laughs, Cassian failing miserably. “What? What is it?”

“You reek of Eris. Not to mention the uh.. marks of claim.” He snickers as Nesta slaps him, smiling as well.

“Well I think he smells lovely.” I can’t think of any other retort as I sit down, piling food onto my plate.

—————

Thank you anon for the request! This was very fun to write and I hope it meets your standards and hopes! Love y’all and thank you for alllll the requests I’m getting, I haven’t done it before so I didn’t realize it posted all the responses and now I can only link them. That will be different in the future I promise!

[tilthedayidice]

hey! i know you said you would be up for doing some more bg3 mod recs, and im having trouble finding what cool outfits i want to put my gang in. do you have any armour/outfit mods?

in return i offer my current favourite mod: Boring Dyes by HeartsWires 💗

Yes, Yes I do. And that's actually one of my favorite dye mods too!!!!!!!! (editing Lacey here, I forgot to add a title to this)

While I have your attention, here's a cool site to help Palestine, all you gotta do is click it daily.

Dressing my crew up in silly little outfits is like 60% of my game playtime. 10% of it is spent making us all the same color scheme.

I do wanna give you a heads up and let you know a lot of outfit mods are made with Bodies 1 and 2 of the Elven/Human/Tiefling races in mind. I will have it listed which Body types are supported if the mod author also lists it. If the list is too long I'll direct you to the page.

Welcome to my Baldur's Gate 3 Mod list on How to Dress for Success (or in my case, for bed most of the time)

Gonna start with Mods made for individual characters, then move on to outfit packs. Any Mods that feature NSFW option will have a little disclaimer at the end in.......... lets say purple this time. And if it can be found in the tutorial chest mod it'll be listed in orange, for contrast... ya its all comin up milhouse

Alot of these outfit mods can either be purchased from vendors found around Faerun, or can be found in the Tutorial Chest Summoning. This Mod allows you to summon the Cartilaginous chest found in the tutorial level, and mods that support this will be available in said chest during the tutorial, or can be summoned later in game.

Individual Character Outfit Packs:

These Mods were made with a specific character in mind and are themed around them.

Astarion's Gear

Vampire and Rogue themed gear made for Astarion so it's only avaibnle for Male Body 2. Features both Armor and Camp Clothing. Can be found in the Tutorial Chest.

Gale Concept Art Armor

From the mod page "Adds Gale an armor set based on one of his concepts from the official art book. Visuals work only for default body type 2.". This mod features a flashier Suit jacket armor set and camp clothing for Gale. I also want to recommend Unique Starter Robes for Gale and Camp Robes for Gale, they're far less flashy and more in line with his original armor, but offer a nice change. Can be found in the Tutorial Chest

Halsin Barer Clothes

I'm just gonna put the description here... "Custom made armor/camp clothes specifically made for Halsin and his body type to show his gifts from Nature. Comes in Autumn colors too."Main mod is only made to fit halsin, so Body Type 4 will work. Camp Clothing option. This mod is made to fit the main 4 Body Types. Can be found in the Tutorial Chest.

Bundle Packs:

This Mods feature a large variety of outfits either made for a specific body type or for a variety of body type.

Basket Full of Equipment

This Mod contains a huge variety of in game outfits and some edited one. When I say Huge variety, it has over 800 pieces of armor and equipment in it. Has options for every Body Type, some options are race/gender/size restricted. Comes with NSFW, Underwear to Underwear Slot converter, and Camp Clothing Converter. NSFW options, can be found in the tutorial Chest. Features Cheat Items.

Scantily Camp Outfit

This mod features a variety of edited outfits to make themore... revealing. I like pairing this one with one of the modular outfit mods. I'm not here for cheeks out, but i do like some of the cool variants. This mod is mostly available for Femme Body Types but does come with some Male Body 2 options. Heads up, I do infarct fuckin hate the shoes. They're High Heels and not even sturdy lookin ones. But puttin Shadowheart in the withers outfit is worth imo. NSFW options, Can be found in the Tutorial Chest

Proof it works on men (I'll never do an ID again):

This was a happy accident (I laughed really hard when i saw him at camp)

Vsetments of the Faithful (Bane Bhaal Myrkul Ilmater Leira Milil Mystra Raven Queen Selune Shar Silvanus)

This mod pack contains armor from the Vanilla assets of the game, giving you access to all Deity based equipment. Suitable for most body type, each set has its own exception. Youi can download this as a mega set of all deities, or pick and choose. Can be found in the Tutorial chest.

Citizens Outfits as Camp Clothes

This mod features outfits you see NPCs wearing in Baldur's Gate (uh the city) and is compatible with All Body Types. Can be found in the Tutorial Chest

Fancy Camp Clothes

This Mod is mostly for Body type 1 with a few options also fitting Body Type 2 and features custom outfits with more of a noble vibe to them. The night song outfit in the pack is super nice looking and is so good for Shadowheart. Can be found in the Tutorial Chest.

Extra Gear

This Mod features a wide variety of armor and clothing (for armor slot) for a variety of Body Types, I recommend checking out the mod page for what goes where. Themes available for all classes.This creator has a Camp Clothing Converter, made the Fancy Camp Clothes mod, and has Paladin and Cleric Gear and More Mage Gear available as well. Can be found in the Tutorial Chest. Features Cheat Items.

Witcher Gear

This is actually going to be a collection of mods based on the Witcher series outfits. I don't play these games, but I love the outfits. Witcher 3 Armor (Keira Ciri Yennefer Margarita) features gear from the listed characters only for Body 1 NSFW Options, can be found in the Tutorial Chest. Yennefer's Wardrobe outfits from the mentioned character for all Body Types. Can be found in the Tutorial Chest. Triss's Wardrobe Outfits based on the mentioned character for all Body Types, can be found in the Tutorial Chest.

Once again here's Astarion in a silly outfit, I treat him like a princess, leave me alone. (I'll be listing my outfit in the misc section see Nymph Outfit)

Mystical Fashions

12 Outfits for bodytype2 Elf/Drow/Half-Elf/Tiefling/Human. Armor and camp clothes abailable, these are Vanilla outfits edited to have a more Roguish appearence. Featuring fur trims and feathers. Can be found in the Tutorial Chest.

Modular Pieces:

These are Mods that feature outfit pieces that can be equipped in the head/cloak/shoe slots to create a different look. Some of these mods will result in clipping.

Modular Equipment

This Mod provides pieces of armor to layer over your outfits.It only supports Body 1 Humans, Elves, Drow, and Half-Elves/ Tieflings are partially supported. Most items come with Both armor and camp clothing options. Can be found in the Tutorial Chest

Modular Skirts

This mod comes with a variety of skirts clipped from other outfits made to layer over yours. Each skirt currently supports different Body Types so be sure to check the mod page to see what works for who. I personally use the Jaheira skirt a lot. Can be found in the Tutorial Chest

Modular Pants and Skirts

This Mod features 14 Pants and Skirts ripped from in game outfits for you to layer over existing sets. Compatible with Most Body Types. Comes with a backpack for both Cloak and Head slots. Can be found in the Tutorial Chest.

Accessory Mods!

These Mods add in small accessories to finish off your outfits like; Necklaces, Hats, Cloaks, Glasses, and more. Many of these mods are placed in the Head or Cloak slots.

Box of Necklaces

Exactly what it sounds like. Adds a little extra sparkle to your characters! Available in both Head and Cloaks Slots. Works for everyone. Not dyable. Can be found in the Tutorial Chest.

Tav's Hairpin Box

Adds a variety of small hair pins for the Head slot. Has slight clipping with some hairstyles, it was made to pair with Bruenor Braids. Mostly for Body 1 compatible with some Githyanki. Can be found in the Tutorial Box.

Faerunian Carnival

A collection of Carnival Masks to your game. These maks are mostly made for Humanoid characters, some Githyanki work has been done but there is some positioning issues. Can be found in the Tutorial Chest.

Miscellaneous Mods

These mods only add a single outfit, item, or accessory to the game.

Trilli Bumbleroot 's backpack

This mod features a set of armor, accessories, and camp clothing strictly for gnomes Body type 1. The set is nature elements and comes with 2 dyes. Can be found in the Tutorial Chest.

Nymph's Outfit

Long Flowy Robes suitable for all Bodies and Races. Comes in Both Camp Clothing and Armor. Can be found in the Tutorial Chest. NSFW-ish?

Mushroom Hat

Its a hat! And it looks like a mushroom! And it glows! I have it right now but I don't have a character I think it'll suit..... Thinkin about puttin it on Minthara. Its is a blue mushroom ripped stright from the underdark's assets. It comes in Pink and Blue glow. Can be found in the Tutorial Chest.

Triss Dlc Gown for Mystra

It's the previous Mod from the Witcher section, but slapped it on Mystra. Her outfit sucks, she sucks, this is better lmao

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII think I should go ahead and post this for now before it get... too long, but i will be updating this post if any of these mods have updates, or I find something new and interesting!

If you have any specifics you'd like me to find and add on let me know!

Dividers made by @saradika-graphics !!

[petalruesimblr]

Download Link: Sim File Share | MTS Name: Pinecrest Acres Campsite Description: Nestled amidst the whispering pines and overlooking the serene lake, Pinecrest Acres Campsite welcomes nature enthusiasts and weary travelers alike. Established decades ago, this idyllic spot has evolved into a haven for campers seeking solace in the embrace of the great outdoors. Offering free limited tents for an authentic camping experience, a well-stocked lake for fishing enthusiasts, outdoor chess for strategic minds, a crackling fire pit to gather around during chilly evenings and a small kitchen area with grills for communal feasts, Pinecrest Acres Campsite invites you to unwind and connect with nature. Escape the hustle and bustle and discover the tranquility of this timeless retreat! Price: 33,493 Lot Size: 30x30 Version: 1.42 Store Content: None CC Used: 2 (Coffee Machine and the base needed for the Coffee Machine by ATS3) Packs Needed: The Sims 3, World Adventures File Type: Package

I created this campsite so my Sims can experience camping in their home world and catch a few fish/beetles/butterflies from the World Adventures expansion pack without the need to travel to vacation destinations. I have set this lot as a Small Park to avoid an influx of Sims visiting and placed only three Sim Scouts' Classic Camper tents ready to be used. The tents are spread out so that Sims can relax privately but I did place an outdoor fire pit as well as create a communal kitchen area for Sims to mingle with fellow campers.

This lot has been play-tested and I've used it in all my saved games. Let me know if you experience any problems on your end. Click on the link below for more information on this lot.

I made this exclusively for the World Adventures expansion pack and it is required for the tents to show up. Only 2 CCs were used on this lot, both of which are Donators’ gifts, exclusive downloads for ATS3 donors/Patreons. These are not included on the download but if you are interested, you can visit ATS3 site here.

You can set this lot as a Big Park if you'd like to populate it with Sims but the space is limited to 30x30 and there is only a limited number of tents so only a few sims can use it.

📣Please be aware that there are spawners used on this lot thus I would advise to not rotate the Small Park Lot to avoid duplicate spawners and remove spawners when the lot is deleted due to them remaining on the empty lot. To check and remove spawners, enable “testingcheatsenabled true” and “buydebug on” after.

Spawners:

Butterfly: China (Mix), Egypt (Mix), France (Glowy)

Beetle: Rainbow, Trilobite, Spotted, China (Assassin)

Seed: Rare 1 and 3

Fish: China Uncommon, Egypt River Common

Outside:

Community Picnic Table

Small Lake

3 Sim Scouts' Classic Camper tents

2 Outdoor Chess Table

Community Fire Pit

2 Public Sounds Stereo

Inside/In Roof area:

2 Public Bathrooms

2 Park 'n Grille

3 Hefty Recycle Me! Bins

Small kitchen area - Refrigerator and counters

ATS Coffee Machine

[jellieclogs]

the underground: masterpost ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

the underground is a sims 4 build i have been working on for over 3 months! it is a huge residential rental lot with many recreationally areas for sims to hangout. it is a no-cc build. more details below the cut!

general info:

EA ID: sakurasaes

This build took me about …. 4 months? It was wholly inspired by Arcane, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Borderlands, and Stray!! I’ve always wanted to make a sort of city on one lot because I feel that the world is too big/not busy enough. This took me so long because I expanded it from 40x30 -> 50x50. I wanted to keep it small for easier gameplay, but unfortunately I am weak willed and big lot make me happy. you can find my inspo board here!

lot size is 50x50

my lot is placed in oasis springs on the park lot.

pack & kit list

12 units, over 15+ beds

ALL units are furnished except one!

built using betterbuildbuy & t.o.o.l, by twistedmexi

lot is NOT play-tested sorry!

notable spaces ⋆˚✿˖°

basement nightclub

tavern

library

“bubbletron area”

night market

factory

basketball court

rooftop pool

community kitchen

outdoor dj booth

creator notes ୧ ‧₊˚ 🍓 ⋅ ☆

come meet the 32 townies i made for this build!! teens | young adults | main eight | adults

this lot was designed in mind for many sims. even though the unit number is only twelve, I’ve included lots of space around the city for “homeless” sims to live in. plenty of public toilets, kitchens/grills, beds, and showers.

the factory is meant to be an abandoned space for squatters. It has a gym also, so sims can work out!

the basement underneath the tavern is directly inspired by arcane. it has 4 bunk beds (8 beds total) for teenagers to live in. the apartment above The Tavern is where I imagined their caretaker (my sim version of Vander) would live.

this lot is NOT designed for children, toddlers, or infants. however, feel free to rework the lot for your needs!

i forgot to put fire alarms in almost every unit (legit remembered as i am typing this) be wary of fire!!

sorry, I used so many packs! I understand not everyone has access to the packs, I actually ended up buying several more packs on CDKeys to complete this build. as you can see, ‘Journey to Batuu’ was crucial to this build for the grungy tech aspect. Same with ‘Eco Lifestyle’. in the future I’ll hope to do a really nice base game build.

recommended gameplay mods ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡

Wonderful OR Wicked Whims - TURBODRIVER

NoBlu Lighting - Luumia

Basemental Drugs - Basemental

Less or No Dirty Surroundings Buff - DrChillgood (crucial so the sims will not pick up the trash and ruin the atmosphere lol)

MC Command Center (turn OFF some of the more randoms deaths if you wanna be safe, this lot is a death trap LOL) - Deaderpool

Dimmed Inactive Rentals - TwistedMexi

Labeled Rental Units - TwistedMexi

Reshade or GShade (i use reshade)

please message me about any questions!! enjoy <3

[pixelle401]

BOO Legacy Challenge

Do you wanna play with occults in a way you never have before? Do you want a challenge while also fully experiencing everything each occult has to offer? Do you like the idea of occults but hate the execution of them? Well then this challenge is for you!!! We give each occult depth and personality outside of their occult type! We have eco friendly werewolves, OCD vampires, paranormal scientists and SO MUCH MORE!!! Info-Mercial aside I put alot of love and hard work into this challenge so I really hope you enjoy playing as much as I enjoyed making it and playing it.

DISCLAIMER!!!!!

-This challenge uses ALOT of pack specific features seeing as occults are not base game and there are alot of skills and traits that come from other packs in order to complete the challenges.

-Reminder that this is your game and if you do not have some of the packs for a specific gen feel free to switch it up and add a different skill or trait this challenge was made for everyone to have as much fun with occults as I do!! (because I know they are a huge hit or miss in the sims community) 

-If you make any changes to my challenge please credit me if you re-upload it, do not claim it as your own and any videos or streams made from the challenge please link the challenge.

-And lastly just enjoy yourself!! Occults are fun and wacky especially when you give them jobs and goals and families it gets super super fun!!!

Overall Rules

-No cheats- money cheats allowed (only if building can’t be used for gameplay unless stated otherwise in gen rules)

-You can live wherever you want unless gen rules state otherwise.

-Gen 1 must be a Vampire.

-CC is allowed

-Must have children with the same partner until the next heir is the proper occult

-Deadly vampires mod NOT required but encouraged!

GEN 1- Gothic Brainiac- Vampire 

-You are the first born Vampire of your family so you want to learn everything you can about being a vampire for your future descendants. You also really enjoy gardening.

Traits:

Family oriented

Genius

Overachiever 

Aspiration:

Master Vampire

-Must master Secret agent career and Master Vampire aspiration.

-Must max out Vampire lore, Gardening and pipe organ skills.

-Must marry and have the next heir with a spellcaster.

-Must have Sleep of the undead weakness point.

 GEN 2- Cute but Deadly- Spellcaster

-You put on the sweetest front to hide your true intentions, not even your parents know of your darkside, with your charismatic ways and your super cute front no one would ever guess you are the apprentice to the most twisted spellcaster in all of glimmerbrook. I mean you’re just a baker right?? No harm there right??

Traits:

Evil

Outgoing

Foodie

Aspiration:

Spellcraft and Sorcery 

-Must master the Spellcraft and sorcery aspiration

-Must own a Bakery

-Must master baking, charisma, and mischief skills

-Must master all Mischief Magic spells

-Must train under the Mischief Magic sage in the magic realm

-Must have next heir with a Mermaid

-Must live in glimmerbrook

GEN 3- Sulani’s Pearl- Mermaid 

-No one saw your parents' wicked ways except for you. Growing up you swore you would never be like them and would only bring light to this world not darkness. You strive to keep your mind, body, and the planet around you clear and healthy, while also keeping in touch with the island spirits and nature around you.

Traits:

Child of the islands

Child of the ocean

Good

Aspiration:

Inner Peace

-Must master Inner Peace aspiration and Conservationist Career

-Must master Wellness, Fitness, and Flower arranging skills

-Must live in Sulani 

-Must be good friends with a dolphin

-Must be good friends with the island spirits

-Must have next Heir with a werewolf

GEN 4- Rustic to Riches- Werewolf

-With your super humble upbringing you have wanted to live off the land and survive off of nature and what it provides for you, since you were a child. You have always been super interested in Humans and have always wanted to be one, truthfully you are ashamed of being a Werewolf because of the negative assumptions that come with it. You devote your life to building a bridge between Humans and Werewolves and even end up falling in love with a Human.

Traits:

Loves outdoors

Maker

Green fiend 

Aspiration:

The Curator (does not have to be completed)

-Must start on a bare lot with 0 Simeoleons (use cheats to set money to 0 after buying lot)

-Never get a job, forage for your earnings

-Make neighborhood have a green eco footprint

-Must master Fabrication, Handiness and Gardening skills

-Must become alpha of The Moonwood Collective

-Must live in Evergreen Harbor

-Must fall in love and have next Heir with a Human

-No money cheats allowed for building

GEN 5- Serene Scientist- Human

-While you are human and the rest of your family are of supernatural descent, you still have a connection to things more supernatural… or rather paranormal. While getting in touch with your spiritual side and strengthening connection to the “otherside” you pursue your other passion, Science!!! 

Traits:

Geek

Music Lover

Loner

Aspiration:

Soulmate (does not have to be completed)

-Must live in a haunted house

-Must master Medium, Violin, and Painting skills

-Must fall in love with only Guidry and marry him

-Get abducted as a scientist and only have that child/children

-Quit scientist career as an adult to become a fulltime paranormal investigator.

-Must Unlock “Brave” reward trait

GEN 6- Strangerville Superhero- Alien

-You always knew you were different from your family, I mean besides your colorful skin and the fact that your father is a ghost, you always felt like something was missing. Turns out when you age into a young adult you’re an alien… what?? Your parents always just told you that you felt different because of the spiritual connection your family had, who knew you were from a whole other world. After you find out where you belong you dedicate your life to finding your home planet. And in the process uncover something much bigger than intended.

Traits:

Goofball

Adventurous

Family Orientated 

Aspiration:

Strangerville Mystery

-Master astronaut career and Strangerville Mystery aspiration

-Visit Sixam and reconnect with your birth parent

-Master Rocket science, fitness, and Parenting skills

-Must live in Strangerville

-Must uncover Strangerville Mystery 

-Next heir must be conceived with a spellcaster in the Sylvan Glade 

GEN 7- Sylvan Sorcerer- Fairy (technically spellcaster shhh use ur imagination)

-Growing up your parents were always super honest with you about where you came from.. Maybe a little too honest, as a child your parents would take you to the Sylvan Glade every weekend and have you practice your powers along with helping you pursue your interests in gardening and making bouquets for your friends and family.

Traits:

Cheerful

Loyal

Loves outdoors

Aspiration:

Freelance botanist 

-Must Master Gardener career and Freelance botanist aspiration

-Must master Gardening, Flower arranging, and knitting skills

-Must be good friends with Your parents, siblings, spouse and child/children

-Must Master all practical magic spells

-Must have a well maintained garden in the Sylvan glade

-Must have next Heir with a Spellcaster

GEN 8- Master? of potions- Spellcaster

-Being surrounded by all kinds of plants and ingredients growing up sparked an interest in you to make things. Everything you could get your hands on you would start to combine and cross all your limbs hoping that it didn't explode in your face. Eventually you got super good at actually identifying the plants and herbs going into your potions and spells.

Traits:

Clumsy 

Vegetarian

Childish

Aspiration:

 Purveyor of Potions

-Must complete Purveyor of Potions aspiration

-Must Own a Potions shop

-Must master Herbalism, Cooking, and photography skills

-Must master all Untamed magic spells 

-Must master all potion recipes 

-Must have next Heir with a Vampire 

GEN 9- Supernatural Clean Freak-Vampire

 -You never cared about sims or other supernaturals, they’re all filthy creatures that deserve to have their life forces drained from them in order to cleanse them, or better yet they all deserve to be Changed, changed into the only form that can keep the pristine lifestyle that you upkeep.. Vampires. Draining the life from sim after sim not caring about the changes being made until…. You meet them.

Traits:

Materialistic 

Neat

Snob

Aspiration:

Vampire Family

-Must complete Vampire Family aspiration and Business career

-(if deadly vampires mod is in use) Must kill 5 sims 

-(if deadly vampires mod is in use) Must turn 2 sims into cattle before meeting spouse

-Must master Logic, Violin and Charisma skills

-Must never have a positive relationship with anyone besides family until you meet your spouse and change

-Must have 5 declared enemies 

-Once you meet your spouse You must repair all bad relationships you have

-Must become grand master Vampire 

-Must have Power of creation powerpoint and Eternal Sadness Weakness point

-Must Marry and Have next Heir with a Werewolf

GEN 10- Wild Fangs -Werewolf

-You have heard all kinds of stories from before your parent met their spouse, what kind of vampire they were, you want to be just like them! You want to be a wild werewolf and do things as you want, not as the world wants. You strive for Chaos and Wreckage and you think being a werewolf is the greatest gift your parents ever gave you.

Traits:

Slob

Active

Mean

Aspiration:

Extreme Sports Enthusiasts(does not have to be completed) 

-Must Master Criminal Career

-Must master Fitness, Rock climbing and Guitar skills

-Must become Alpha of the Wild Fangs

-Must Marry a Werewolf in the Wild Fangs pack

-Must Have a one time affair with a Mermaid resulting in next heir (if heir is not a mermaid have another affair with same mermaid)

-Must live in Moonwood Mill

GEN 11- Siren of the Seas- Mermaid

-You never got the chance to know who one of your birth parents were but you knew you weren't like the parents you had, their animalistic tendencies disgusted you and you didn't have the best relationship with them growing up, instead you bonded with the sea and you quickly found that with the melodic tone in your voice you can convince anyone to do what you wished, When you aged into a teen and sprouted a tail everything made sense to you.

Traits:

Romantic

Evil

Kleptomaniac 

Aspiration:

Villainous Valentine 

-Must run away as a teenager to Sulani and never look back (drop all contact with family no get togethers no visits)

-Never get a job steal all earnings

-Must Complete Villainous Valentine aspiration

-Must master Charisma, Singing and Mischief skills

-Must never marry or have any serious relationships 

-Next heir results from a siren seduction gone too far with a Vampire

GEN 12- Guilty- Vampire

-You Grew up to a single parent that refused to talk about their family and history so you did some digging yourself and what you found made you eternally guilty for your existence. You come from a long line of… monsters…. Even though you never actually harmed anyone yourself you have seen what your parent did to all the innocent sailors that passed by, and what your Ancestors did to all the sims of the past, absolutely insufferable, out of all your research into the past you find one ancestor who can help you rid of this curse.

Traits:

Gloomy

Good

Bookworm

Aspiration:

Good Vampire

-Must master Good Vampire aspiration and Law Career

-Must Move in with Gen 1 when you age into a young adult

-Must Master Writing, Vampire lore and Piano skills 

-Must Have Eternal sadness, and guilty drinker weakness points

-Must never have Natural children only adopt

-Must only marry a human after being cured

-At the end of the challenge take Vampire Cure and become human.

[lutiaslayton]

« Introduction || Masterlist || Next (coming soon!) »

Hello everybody! This playthrough is finally starting, and with it goes my sanity. I am playing on DS (French version but you will probably never see photos of it), mobile (UK version, I might sometimes give screenshots), and emulator for the Japanese “Friendly” version, of which I will provide the most footage.

The “Friendly” version is a re-release of the first DS games which added the furigana to the text, made all weekly puzzles available from the start instead of locking them out as downloadable content, and perhaps had a few other features I am not aware of. I only realised once I reached the title screen that this was not technically the original, but oh well. When I compared the DS, non-“Friendly” version of London Holiday with its mobile re-release version, the differences were completely anecdotic (the kanji 言 replaced with its hiragana spelling twice, and hint coins being renamed from ヒントメダル to ひらめきコイン, their current name); so I hope that the differences will be just as minor, because I unfortunately do not have the means currently to check them.

Major disclaimer:

I DO NOT SPEAK JAPANESE. KEEP THAT IN MIND. All my conclusions are based on what little stuff I know here and there about the language, but I am not at all a reliable reference in the subject. If you can speak Japanese, then please do feel free to correct me anytime, add details I forgot, etc. Thank you!

Important Note:

In the Japanese version, puzzles are consistently referred to as 「ナゾ」 (pronounced “nazo”), while 「ナゾトキ」 (pronounced “nazotoki”) will usually refer to the act of solving such a puzzle. Both expressions are written in katakana, which is in Japanese a way to emphasise words (kind of like italics, if you will). Normally, you would expect to find both expressions written as 「謎」 and 「謎解き」, but the fact that they are written in katakana instead will be interpreted here as “the characters are talking about something similar, but distinct from the original meaning of these expressions.” In other words, not all puzzles are the same, and a distinction must be made between simple riddles or mysteries, and 𝓹𝓾𝔃𝔃���𝓮𝓼™.

I will try to consistently translate 「ナゾ」 as “puzzle” all throughout, and will use any other word if the Japanese version did not use this specific magic word (e.g. if the Japanese version uses the regular spelling 「謎」 instead of the katakana spelling). Therefore, when characters use the word 「ナゾ」, I will consider that they are talking about something far more specific than simply a “mystery.”

Why do I emphasise on such a nitpick? Because a big part of this lore analysis… is to try to define what a “puzzle” even is to begin with.

In this post and the future ones, if you find screenshots which have coloured text, the rule is basically this: red if it’s a “puzzle”, blue if it has a similar meaning but is not the same type of “puzzle” as the one we are most interested in.

Anyway. Digression aside, let’s get started!

HD Version only: The Extra Cutscene

I don’t have all that many things to say about it, since you can watch it on Youtube just fine and the Japanese version doesn’t have much to say that the English translations don’t say as well. Still, just a few things:

Layton has packed a very small suitcase, while Luke has filled the trunk of the Laytonmobile to the brim. Could it be that after Last Specter, Miracle Mask and especially Azran Legacy, Luke is expecting to have yet another long journey? After all, it is just around the very beginning of August, so he’s probably on summer vacations (and that is assuming he isn’t homeschooled anyway during the rest of the time; he definitely was during the time they were travelling around the world in the Bostonius).

Layton, on the other hand, does not seem to expect to stay in St. Mystere for long; but then again, we are talking about the man who, about three years earlier, went off to Misthallery without even packing anything and ended up having to stay there for a few days. (Speaking of… neither did Emmy, for that matter.)

Also, I could analyse the fact that in order to reach St. Mystere, they crossed the Thames, and that thanks to Diabolical Box, we know the approximate location of Gressenheller within London (~9 Earlham St., Westminster); however, I will not do that, because DearestHershel already made a video entirely dedicated to locating St. Mystere using these exact points and others, and I do not disagree with his conclusions.

Letter from Luke to the Player

🇯🇵 親愛なる友人｛プレーヤー｝　へ 🗺️ To my dear friend, {Player}, 🇺🇸/🇬🇧 To my dear friend, {Player},

🇯🇵 ボクたちが、あの日、あの町��体験したことは、誰にもいえない秘密になってしまったんだ。なぜなら、これは… 🗺️ What we experienced that day in that town has become a secret that we can’t tell anyone. This is because… 🇺🇸/🇬🇧 The things we saw that day in the village became a secret we would have to keep from everyone for the rest of our lives. Because, you see…

Nerd talk aside, I would personally consider this letter to not be canon in-universe, notably because Luke specifically states that he will never divulge the secret of St. Mystere… only to proceed to do exactly that in his letter. Also because of the fact that this letter being canon would imply that someone sharing the Player’s name exists in the Laytonverse and that Luke knows them well enough to want to share details of his cases to them, including this one.

Whether you decide to make your personal self-insert character canon or not, this still raises the question of just how many people are aware of what transpired in St. Mystere. Layton and Luke seemingly decided to not tell anything to anyone at all in order to protect Flora; Bruno and the inhabitants of St. Mystere have been aware of pretty much everything for years (perhaps less so in the case of the robots) and will keep doing their thing; and Don Paolo is quite unlikely to tell anyone either due to the fact that pretty much every plan he had for the town, its treasure, and its robots, ended in failure (and also, depending on how we interpret his character, he would also keep the secret for Flora’s sake).

And yet, there is something that has been bothering me for many years…

親愛なるレイトン教授へ

あれから数か月になりますが、教授、お元気ですか？ 一緒に仕事をしている仲間からレイトン教授が遺産相続騒動を解決したという話を耳にして思わず手紙を書いてしまいました。

タージェントから世界を救ったあのレイトン教授が単なる遺産相続のナゾトキの依頼を 引き受けるなんて。 まさか…と思いましたが、ナゾには目がない教授ですし、きっと知的好奇心を刺激される不思議な出来事だったんでしょうね。

Dear Professor Layton,

It’s already been months since then, hasn’t it? I hope you’re well. When I heard from my colleagues that Professor Layton had resolved an inheritance dispute, I couldn’t help but write a letter.

I couldn’t believe that the same Professor Layton who saved the world from Targent accepted the simple request of solving an inheritance puzzle! But since you always have a penchant for puzzles, it must have been a curious case and quite the intellectual workout.

This letter was written by Emmy Altava and was revealed in the Japan-exclusive Azran Legacy art book (For the translation, I borrowed the one made by @the-azran-legacies​ for the general style, but took the liberty of altering a few words when I felt like their translation was deviating a bit too much from the original text). Needless to say… If only at first glance, this is an issue. Not only did Emmy hear of the case, but she also heard of it from her journalist coworkers? Well, then again: perhaps what should be said here was that Layton did indeed talk about the case to the media (reluctantly so), but left it at “We solved an inheritance dispute in a remote village, it was boring, nothing to see here.” And perhaps the reason Emmy heard of it from her coworkers was either because Layton had not solved a single case between AL and CV, or because this case was simply a “really, there is nothing to see here, I promise” and some journalists are not buying it.

PS: Wild ass theory. In the original trilogy, Luke isn’t writing his letters to “the player.” He’s writing them to Emmy. And in the case of Curious Village, Emmy received Luke’s letter some time after she sent Layton her own. After all, did you know that while CV, DB and UF all start with Luke writing a letter to someone, there is not a single letter to the player in the prequel trilogy games? In fact, perhaps we could even theorise that Luke only got Emmy’s address thanks precisely to the letter she sent to Layton? And he decided to write her a letter explaining her the whole story after he finally got news from her?

Cutscene #01

There is not much to say about the cutscene itself, apart from the fact that the country road they are taking leads to absolutely nowhere else (which is precisely what Puzzle #001 is about), and that aside from said narrow country road, there is not a single human-made element around them for miles. My 2018 past self had already emphasised on that, but St. Mystere is consistently described as being particularly isolated and secluded (due to the fact that it has only one exit, and that the crank being stolen later will close that only exit).

The Car Scene

Phew! We finally made it past the, um… first two lines of dialogue in the game after the mobile cutscene. Wow. This is going to be a long ride, isn’t it.

I will not give the entirety of the dialogue, but I will show the parts that caught my attention:

🇯🇵 …２ヶ月前��資産家、アレン・ラインフォード氏が亡くなった。 🗺️ …Two months ago, the wealthy Allen Rhineford passed away. 🇺🇸/🇬🇧 Two months ago, Baron Augustus Reinhold passed away. 🇯🇵 その後、彼の遺言状が開示されたが、そこには、実に興味深い内容が記されていた。 🗺️ Later, his will was disclosed, and it contained some really interesting details. 🇺🇸/🇬🇧 Shortly after his death, his will was disclosed. The contents of it were fascinating, to say the least.

Baron Augustus Reinhold is actually named Allen Rhineford in the Japanese version, according to the romanised version of アレン・ラインフォード. Also, it is to be noted that the Japanese version does not seem to refer to him as a baron, at least not yet.

(EDIT: I mistakenly wrote it as Lineford, thinking that there was no official romanised version; however, there actually is one, and it is indeed Rhineford, not Lineford. The source is this Japanese wikipedia page, which gives the romanised names of the characters according to the Japanese version. My bad!)

He died two months earlier; or rather, his death was publicly announced two months earlier, as we will learn much later. Either case, the event Layton refers to took place more or less two months before the day they arrive in St. Mystere, which means that this would have happened around the end of May/beginning of June 1963.

🇯🇵 …我が一族の家宝、「黄金の果実」をこの町のどこかに隠してある。 🗺️ …My family's heirloom, the "Golden Fruit," is hidden somewhere in this town. 🇺🇸/🇬🇧 "The Reinhold family treasure, the Golden Apple, is hidden somewhere within this village. 🇯🇵 「黄金の果実」を探しあてた者に、私が所有するすべての遺産を相続させる… 🗺️ Whoever finds the "Golden Fruit" will inherit all of my property… 🇺🇸/🇬🇧 To whomever successfully locates this treasure, I offer the whole of my estate."

Fun fact: the original Japanese version refers to the Golden Apple as 「黄金の果実」, meaning Golden Fruit, rather than specifically an apple.

🇯🇵 遺言の内容を知った一族の者たちは、その「黄金の果実」を、先を争うように探した。 🗺️ The members of the family, who knew the contents of the will, scrambled to find the "golden fruit". 🇺🇸/🇬🇧 Naturally, those who attended the reading of the will immediately set out in search of the Golden Apple. 🇯🇵 しかし、結局、誰も見つけることはできなかった。 🗺️ However, in the end, no one was able to find it. 🇺🇸/🇬🇧 But in the end, everybody came back empty handed. 🇯🇵 そもそも、そんな家宝があったなんてことを誰ひとり聞いたことがなかったという。 🗺️ In the first place, no one had ever heard of such a family heirloom. 🇺🇸/🇬🇧 It turns out that no one had even heard of such a treasure existing until its mention in the will.

The Japanese version specifies “family members,” while the English translation is more general—which could have implied that other unrelated people might have been present during the reading of the will (or at least, that is how I have interpreted it for years). It is a nitpick, since we are probably few to imagine that people from outside St. Mystere would have actually been present during the reading, if you think about it hard enough. But it is interesting to note that Layton is thus more or less saying here that the only people who bothered searching for the Golden Apple were the family members themselves, and that there is no clear mention of other outsiders coming to look for it.

If no outsider aside from Layton was warned, then this raises the question of just how Don Paolo came to hear about it in the first place… Current hypothesis is that he is stalking Layton and perhaps even reading his mail, simply put. There are dubious ways to read letters without opening them.

Did you notice that the scenery changes after Layton is finished explaining the basics of the case? It seems like the country road led them to go through a forest dense enough to block some of the sunlight. After Luke solves the puzzle, the background goes back to the brighter scenery.

🇯🇵 ああ。彼は莫大な財産をかけて、生涯最後のナゾを仕掛けたというわけだ。一体、何が目的なのかもわからない。 🗺️ Yes. He set up the last puzzle of his life with his vast fortune. I don't even know what the purpose is. 🇺🇸/🇬🇧 Quite. Augustus Reinhold staked his entire fortune just to create one more puzzle before his death.

Hey, would you look at that! ナゾ has been said in a dubious context, you know what this means. Take a shot everybody (I’m joking. Please don’t. Tea is amazing but there are health issues related to drinking too much of it).

Joke aside, there is something else to note: depending on how the sentence is read (I do hope someone who can speak Japanese could help clarify), Layton might be either saying that the baron staked his fortune on that “last puzzle,” or that he used said fortune to set up the puzzle in question—or, most likely, both, given the fact that we have another case of “ok perhaps this isn’t magic but you literally have to be the richest person on Earth to pull this off” on our hands.

Additionally, in the Japanese version exclusively, Layton has this additional line: “I don’t even know what the purpose [behind the treasure hunt] is.” This line was most likely removed from the translations due to the lack of space.

In fact, there was another instance in which the translations had no choice but to add another dialogue box and split Luke’s dialogue in two! This happened in this case:

🇯🇵 確かに先生とは気が合いそうですね。ところで、「黄金の果実」っていったい何なのでしょうか？ 🗺️ I’m sure he would have gotten along with you. By the way, what exactly is the “golden fruit”? [1|2] 🇺🇸/🇬🇧 It certainly sounds like you two would’ve gotten along, Professor! [2|2] 🇺🇸/🇬🇧 By the way, just what is this Golden Apple anyhow?

To be honest, I believe that splitting this dialogue into two different dialogue boxes makes more sense, since they are two vastly different sentences and lack a clear transition.

🇯🇵 宝石なのか、骨董品なのか、それもまたナゾだよ。実に興味深い。 🗺️ Is it a jewel or an antique, that is also a puzzle. Really interesting. 🇺🇸/🇬🇧 Some speculate it's a rare antique, while others say it could be a gem, yet its identity remains elusive. 🇯🇵 だけど、ルーク、私はこの一件に、他にも何かとてつもない秘密が隠されているような気がしてならないんだ。 🗺️ But, Luke, I can't help but feel that there are some other great secrets hidden in this case. 🇺🇸/🇬🇧 But, Luke, I can't shake the feeling that this matter is linked to some larger mystery. Something huge.

So, have you noticed? The English translations have failed to account for the fact that Layton used the magic word in order to describe the nature of the Golden Apple. Just thought I would let you know, it would be a shame to forget to take a shot :p

Oh, and speaking of removing an important “puzzle” magic word through the translation, we have another one just a bit ahead:

🇯🇵 このナゾトキをラインフォード夫人に依頼されただけさ。 🗺️ I was commissionned by Mrs. Rhineford to do this puzzle solving. 🇺🇸/🇬🇧 Augustus Reinhold's wife, Lady Dahlia, has asked me to investigate the situation.

Anyway. Layton “can’t shake the feeling” that there is a lot more to the Golden Apple puzzle than a simple treasure hunt. But what could possibly lead him to this feeling? Well… the fact that St. Mystere is so isolated, that the Golden Apple would be an heirloom whose existence is unknown to the members of the family which is supposed to own it, even the fact that Lady Dahlia Reinhold would contact him specifically, perhaps… are some ever so slightly peculiar details, I suppose. Not to mention, perhaps, one thing related to the map puzzle, depending on how the puzzle lore goes. All this is not necessarily enough to truly raise the red flags just yet, but enough to spark some curiosity and suspicion.

🇯🇵 先生、なんだかはりきってますね。考古学者でありながら、どんなナゾでも解決する名探偵、 🗺️ Professor, I'm kind of excited. The great detective who can solve any puzzle while being an archaeologist, 🇺🇸/🇬🇧 This is all so exciting! 🇯🇵 エルシャール・レイトン、さっそく現場へ急行ってわけですね！ 🗺️ Hershel Layton, rushed to the scene immediately! 🇺🇸 I hope St. Mystere is ready for the famous archeologist and puzzle-solving detective, Hershel Layton! 🇬🇧 I hope St Mystere is ready for the famous archaeologist and puzzle-solving detective, Hershel Layton!

Come on, Luke, you have seen much harder puzzles than this. Though, if I were to open a map and see this blatantly not-to-scale drawing instead, I too would have at least a little moment of surprise.

So… This is when the crazy talk really starts getting in. What are your thoughts? Luke is evidently shocked just at the mere sight of it, so I fear that the Doylist explanation “Luke actually is holding a regular map, it’s just that the players are shown the puzzle instead” seems out of the table. Somehow, Luke is able to take this paper, solve the puzzle on it, and deduce from this drawing real life directions for what is for him, currently, the middle of nowhere.

Strange, really strange… It is almost as if the drawing itself were less the key to figuring out the real life directions to take, and rather a gatekeep preventing whoever looks at it from accessing the true map until the puzzle is solved.

Hm? Ah, don’t mind me, I was just rambling. I have not seen enough evidence in this particular instance yet, so the hypothesis that Luke would be surprised less by the fact of seeing a puzzle, and more by the fact that he would find a puzzle that would do Lady Dahlia’s bidding, is at this stage baseless conjecture. I will just keep this little bit of speculation in the back of my mind and see if more evidence to confirm it shows up later, under similar but different circumstances. (Spoiler alert: it does happen regarding the puzzle lore, and it is even crazier than I expected.)

🇯🇵 その地図を解読しないと町には着けないらしい。 🗺️ It seems that you can't get to the town without deciphering this map. 🇺🇸/🇬🇧 Lady Dahlia seems to have given us a test. We'll need to decipher this map in order to find the village. 🇯🇵 どうやら夫人は、私を試すつもりのようだ。 🗺️ It seems that she is going to test me. 🇺🇸/🇬🇧 She wants to see if we're capable of cracking the mystery surrounding the Reinhold fortune. 🇯🇵 私が遺産の謎を解ける人物かどうか…君はどう思う？　ルーク。 🗺️ I wonder if I'm the one who can solve the mystery of the inheritance... What do you think, Luke? 🇺🇸/🇬🇧 Care to give it a go, Luke?

Um. Ahem. Excuse me? That last sentence is quite intriguing, all the more so since it could have used the puzzle magic word, but decided to go with the regular kanji spelling instead. Funny how it was not translated at all in the English versions… I can imagine why, but that is still surprising. This sort of reminds me of the cryptic sentences Layton will sometimes say in the prequel trilogy for no reason other than to sound cool and cryptic.

Anyway. We FINALLY reached the first puzzle! Yayyyyy… oh, dear.

So, uh… You know what? I think I will leave the actual puzzle for another time. This post has already been WAY longer than I anticipated and I am exhausted x’D I would rather go back to it with a clearer mind rather than rush it.

And that is all! Just getting to the first puzzle has been quite the adventure, and trying to keep track of so many languages at once made things even worse. To be honest, in the future I will probably drop all languages other than Japanese and US + UK, including dropping French despite the fact that it is my mother language, because searching through the files is not a short task… and because I did not even get to show them here at all anyway, so this was pretty much extra work for nothing.

I guess I will go back to them one day if I ever make my archiving work public, but that will be the question for another time. For now, the website I made for CV is for local use only, because uploading it and its assets would be quite the hassle (not to mention “arguably illegal…?” I have no idea here).

In either case, the Italian, Spanish and German versions are certain to be dropped when I will move to other games. The European version of Curious Village contains the data for all languages at once, but starting from Diabolical Box onwards, this will no longer be the case; so unless I were to get the roms for all EU languages each time, I wouldn’t be able to do the datamining if I wanted to.

Still, speaking of languages! There is one last thing I would like to share, and that is a thorough comparison between the US and UK versions. Here goes!

The differences are either nonexistent or subtle most of the time, but as we can see, there are a few differences still. So… Should I refer to the US and UK versions as two different languages? One language and a half? Eh. Who knows. I have been treating them as two entirely separate languages so far, just to be thorough.

« Introduction || Masterlist || Next (coming soon!) »

[raexsims]

Calling all bombshells!🐚

hi friends! like majority of people i have been obsessed with watching Love Island lately, and now that the season is sadly over i thought why not have my own version in the Sims. i have been hard at work preparing and i couldn't be more excited!

while i have my OGs already and a few bombshells up my sleeve, i want this story to be as interactive as the show and i would love to include some of your islanders! more info on submitting below↓

Submission guidelines:

human sims only

any gender

young adult/adult

cc encouraged! maxis match/mix preferably (though i will add a few details that all my sims have to make them cohesive with my game, hopefully that's okay! i will not make MAJOR changes)

please try to have at least one negative trait, people are flawed and that's okay!

on the same note, try to refrain from stacking multiple romantic traits that would give a major advantage to finding love

please include a bit of backstory, likes and dislikes, (i'm not sure if ww attraction likes/dislikes transfer so if they do great, if not feel free to lmk them and ill add manually), turn ons/off, usual type, etc.

aspirations don't matter but if it adds to their story, cool! also feel free to have them have skills or not, but some challenges may be skill based so ;)

make as many outfits as you want to, just keep in mind that in the villa it's a lot of swimwear and club-ish/party fits as well as some formal outfits for recoupling, (for example, with sims i've made, i have in the cold category like a hoodie and shorts and slippers for like lounging around at night) I will be adding outfits as we go and to fit certain challenges/parties, but I will try to match your sims aesthetic as best as possible.

bombshells and casa amor sims requested so if you have a preference of which you'd like your sim to be feel free to say so and ill try to honor that!

please @ me with @raexsims and/or use the tag #loveislandusrae for me to see your submission! don't hesitate to reach out with any questions/concerns/thoughts!

feel free to be as detailed with it or not. the more detail included the better i feel i can portray your sim, of course i will have to take liberties with them as i am not in your brain lol but i hope you will not mind. also i will be doing polls and having you all vote similarly to the show, please do not be offended if you sim is voted out or not loved amongst the public (every season has a villain, or multiple villains, and its all in fun!)

i am finishing up preparing now and i am on the fence about using the new pack with this, if you have any thoughts on that lmk as i have not bought it yet and will not update my game until all my mods are updated lol, i hope that this interests some of you and cannot wait to meet your islanders!

(ps i have never done anything like this though i have wanted to for awhile so i do ask that you give me some grace as i am sure there will be flaws<3)

[lasabarcassims]

Hello and welcome to my blog! I love building and creating stories in the Sims 4, so I've been working on a few Save Files to try and share all my creations with people who might appreciate them. I'll be releasing a couple of them pretty soon, and the first will be my Base Game Save, pictured in these screenshots!

My goal with this save was to make it feel super alive for anyone player. Each of the worlds should feel very distinct and offer lots of different things for Sims of all types to do no matter how many packs you have. Each lot was built with Base Game only, but many were built with other packs in mind (there are Base Game restaurants, retail spaces, a cafe, a yoga studio, a boba shop/thrift store, a high school, and so on) to open up the worlds a little more. I did this hoping that it would feel like you had multiple packs even if you only have the Base Game and so that that you could easily convert the lots to other lot types if you do have more packs.

I also packed the save with lore - some is pulled from established Sims lore (you will see some iconic households from The Sims 1-4, for example, or recognize some names on the gravestones in the church lot) and some is my own invention. Each world has a unique personality (I'll dive into this more in later posts!), each family has a distinct story, and many of the lots even have their own descriptions that help to deepen the story of the towns they are placed in.

My plan is to get this Base Game Save File polished up and released in the next couple weeks, and I really hope it manages to find some people who enjoy it as much as I do!

I will also later be releasing a Limited Packs Save, as well as a No Limits Save (well, mostly no limits - I don't have all the packs, but I do have a lot of them).

Many of the lots (or at least an earlier version of the lots) that will be included in these Save Files are already available on the gallery under my ID, lasAbarcas, if you want a sneak peek!

Thanks!!

[greatwyrmgold]

Alright, more Factorio. For the first time since I ran out of stone and iron, my factory is working fine, with no immediate supply issues.

The Problems (as I've taken to calling them) are also contained for now; my strategy of throwing more laser turrets at any areas that take damage from their attacks has paid off. But I'm seeing substantial numbers of big spitters, and would see similar numbers of big biters if there were more biter spawners around, so I shouldn't just sit around and wait around.

It's been a while since I've addressed the overall state of my base, because not much has changed since the first or second post I made on the subject. So let's have a quick composite screenshot* of my whole starter base, with commentary from present me on why it's just a starter base.

*I assembled this before catarialacertilia suggested a console command.

Most of my comments are focused around expandability. Resource demands for late-game science packs are going to keep going up, and I'm already having trouble getting enough iron down the belt. Upgrading everything in that lane to fast belts would help, but that won't be enough to squeeze a decent amount of production or utility science.

And of course, the number of science packs required per technology is going to increase, too. Chemical-science-tier technologies tend to need a couple hundred science packs to research; endgame techs can require thousands. At the moment, I'm producing roughly 60 science packs of each type per minute (60 spm); that's a decent amount, but it means unlocking new technologies will be pretty slow.

Anyways, the point is I need a new base. A prettier base! And that prettier base will need copper. I've got every other basic resource on trains (except uranium, if you can call that "basic"), but copper needs to be shipped to the new base somehow.

So let's take a look at the area around my starter base and consider locations!

I've circled copper ore patches for obvious reasons, and coal patches because I've got a bunch of steel furnaces I want to use (and also I'd rather not just use the same designs everywhere). There are some copper patches to the south of my base, but none that look more appealing than the ones to the east.

There are three places where I note copper ore and coal in some kind of proximity. From south to north:

The copper patch due west of my coal station is due west of a coal patch. However, I'm already using that coal, and would rather not deplete it faster than I have to.

The next pair of patches is reasonably close to my starter base and are completely unoccupied. However, between the small lake between them and the cliffs around them, finding a spot to put furnace stacks might be tricky.

Finally, we have a good-sized coal patch between two copper patches. The problem is that it's beyond the edge of my pollution cloud, well within biter territory.

I think I'll go with the middle option. Defending the coal mines and getting it to the copper is going to be a bit of a pain, but I think I can manage. With that in mind, my plan for the New Base looks something like:

A "main bus" is a pretty standard kind of Factorio base. Basically, it's a line of belts which resources flow down, with branches of assemblers and stuff branching off the side. I don't see any seas or other obvious obstacles to making the bus longer any time soon, and the start of the bus is pretty much in the middle of my current resource patches.

You'll notice that I don't have any arrows pointing from the oil station to the main bus. That's because I'm not quite sure what I want to do there. My current thought is shipping oil to a chemical processing area near but separate from the main bus, but I'm nowhere near needing to make a decision. I need to start the bus first.

And before I start the bus, I need to do two things:

Set up that copper station.

Make sure Problems don't bother me.

With regard to the latter, please consult this extremely scientific diagram:

(The circles are centered on areas I reckon are or will be serious sources of pollution. Their radius is determined by the technical method of "picking a round number that looks right.")

As I've mentioned before, the Annoying Problems will run around the lake to attack my iron outpost. However, to get to them, I would also need to run around the lake. If they or the Future Problems become an immediate problem, I'll set up some kind of fortified outpost in their path, with lasers and flamethrowers and walls.

But for now, I'll deal with the immediate problems so they don't interrupt my new mines. No pictures; I basically just run at nests and slap down a stack or two of gun turrets. It ain't elegant, but it works.

Speaking of things that aren't elegant: I realized that my iron unloading station was ultimately limited by the belts at the unloading station. Especially since, for all the balancing stuff I did later, I was only unloading onto half of the belt. So I ordered my construction bots to do a quick and dirty fix:

I'll want something better when I get to the real base, but this is fine for the starter base.

This is more of a reminder to myself than anything, but another thing that happened while I was out wiping out the Immediate Problems:

Okay, there's one interesting thing I wanted to mention about the biter-fighting: When approaching a base that was obviously gathering an attack group, I tried to wait for the attack group to depart before attacking. I photographed one group to explain why.

Obviously the base also has worms (five, I can't tell their sizes), but the attack group obviously adds a lot to the danger of this base.

(Also, from these statistics, I'm guessing I'm somewhere around 56% pollution?)

I also saw a spitter attacking a rock that got in its way. I didn't think to snap a picture of that, but I did screenshot a different spitter attack on my actual base.

Anyways, then I spent a while blueprinting out just about the entire new outpost. Coal mines, copper mines, steel furnaces, and the belts connecting everything.

That's:

Two stacks of steel furnaces

Two and a half stacks of electric mining drills

Four stacks of inserters

Fractional stacks of all power poles

A half-stack each of splitters and underground belts. (Note that half-stacks cannot be combined.)

26 stacks of belts

And that's not including the laser turrets I'll need for defense, or the big power poles to bring power here from the main base, or the train station. Or anything I might forget to include in the blueprint. Like the red belts I needed to add in at one point to keep throughput consistent.

(Maybe I should've set up a local train between the coal patch and the smelter stack. Maybe another for the copper. Oh well.)

Luckily, at this point I have 120 inventory slots, so I can carry the 40+ stacks of items needed to build the outposts in one trip. I just need to produce and stock up on enough ahead of time, I assumed.

Turns out that solar-powered personal roboports are super limited in how much construction they can do at once, especially once night falls. Which feels obvious now that I'm writing it out. Which means I wound up taking several trips back to the base while the roboports charged, just so I had something to do.

(Mostly ripping out the old science production and babysitting the labs as they consumed what science had been produced. And a little hand-crafted science.)

Sure, I could build some of this by hand, but A. that's tedious and B. I'd like to get the achievement for placing more buildings with robots than by hand. At the start of this project I was over 11,000 by hand and less than 2,800 by bot; placing the rest of those belts is going to change those numbers significantly, one way or the other.

While I was calmly watching my bots set up belts, I heard the alert noises of a bunch of stuff getting broken. Please enjoy one hasty screenshot of the attack and a more carefully-composed screenshot of what the area looked like once I'd killed the biters and bots fixed some of the damage.

I'd left behind all of my personal construction bots in the rush, and let them catch up while I made some replacement power bits and considered how the Problems had gotten so far into my base.

The problem was simple! I'd deconstructed some old gun turrets that I wrongly assumed were irrelevant. The solution was also simple! Set up some new laser turrets to cover the gaps.

Anyways. Back to construction. And thanks to advice from the aforementioned @catarialacertilia, I've got a big, clean screenshot of the whole copper-smelting place!

Plus or minus some laser turrets. And some missing splitters and misaligned belts and stuff. Whatever.

I throw on a standard train station at the bottom, complete with train, but absent the traditional "place for a train to go". That place hasn't been built yet, after all! Remember what I said at the start of this post? The copper outpost is meant to fuel my main bus, aka The Real Base.

But this is a good place to stop. See you next time, once I've finalized the plans I have...

[katatty]

Sims Tag

I was tagged by @charmandersims​! I might have been tagged earlier by other people too but can’t remember for the life of me. Thank you, tho!

What’s your favourite sims death? I’ve always thought death by flies is fun, although I don’t think I’ve ever had it happen in normal gameplay!

Alpha CC or Maxis Match? Maxis match, I guess. Although I guess I do use “alpha” hairs, alpha doesn’t really mean anything with TS2...

Do you cheat when your sims gain weight? Nope, I don’t think my Sims really do gain weight all that often, it’s hard to over-feed them in vanilla gameplay! Unless they’re doing a lot of gardening and eating the sparkly foods. I usually welcome weight gain since it’s rare to have “fat” sims :D

Do you use move objects? Yes, decorating without it is a pain in the ass lol!

Favorite mod? At the moment I’d have to say Story Progression for how much it changes the game! But my real favourite is probably the Sim Blender. So simple but useful :D

First expansion/game/stuff pack you got? I think I got Nightlife and University together with the base game when I first played? I like University the most :D

Do you pronounce “live mode” like aLIVE or LIVing? aLIVE. I think of live mode as being like TV, like “we’re live!” That said I don’t think I even say “live mode” all that often, I always refer to it as having the game paused/unpaused 

Who’s your favorite sim that you’ve made? Ever???????? Gosh, maybe Duncan Huckleberry or Emmie Aisling? Neither of them are even that interesting facially, I just find them both really fun to write. In terms of face, maybe Lin Mori from Nekojima?

Have you made a simself? Yes, a few years ago! I remember doing quite a ute photoshoot with her, though I haven’t ever played with one in years

What sim traits do you give yourself? Excitable, cat-lover, slob, lucky, loves the outdoors

Which is your favorite EA hair color? I dunno, brown I guess?

Favorite EA hair? I like the one Nina and Bella use, especially all the dyed variants you can get in the mirror! I also really like the one that’s like half up and quite messy (that Lin Mori & Grace Linguine wear), apparently it’s called updo?

Favorite life stage? Young adults! I just love getting all that extra time with them. College is sooooo fun to me

Are you a builder or are you in it for the gameplay? Haha, I would say I am a builder but ultimately I am in it for the gameplay! Every build I make is with actually playing it in mind, and even if my building stuff “does better” on here I'm more invested in my gameplay and devote a lot more time to it :D

Are you a CC creator? I guess! Builds are kind of a type of CC, and I share those fairly regularly

Do you have any simblr friends/a sim squad? I don’t know, haha. I have a few simblr friends! But not really a “squad”. I find the idea a bit offputting lol

What’s your favorite game? (1, 2, 3, or 4) 2, of course!

Do you have any sims merch? Nah

Do you have a YouTube for sims? No, but I have considered it. Maybe when I get a new computer so I can actually do screen recording without my PC crapping out lol

How has your “sim style” changed throughout your years of playing? I don’t know if it’s really changed that much, haha, I’m a creature of habbit! My gameplay style is quite different between each save/hood, but my visual style hasn’t really changed since 2015, haha!

What’s your Origin ID? I don’t have Origin, lol!

Who’s your favorite CC creator? Ooooof, whenever I get asked this I opt not to pick one, haha!

How long have you had a simblr? Since 2014, apparently! So nearly 10 years, yikes!

How do you edit your pictures? I usually don’t edit them at all, but when I do I use an old photoshop action by @sterina-sims

What expansion/game/stuff pack do you want next? hahahahahaha

What expansion/game/stuff pack is your favorite so far? I dunno, I think all of them add some value! But I do really love seasons, it adds so much beauty to the game and I love the gardening mecchanics! :D

I feel like I’m pretty late to the party on this one and I’ve seen everyone do it already... feel free to consider yourself tagged if you want to!

[yukihime242]

Honkai Star Rail (HSR) is the latest Mihoyo game released within 2023, and players are immensely enjoying both the game, and the new game experience. However, like everything in life, HSR does has its pros and cons.

To explore those areas, I will be comparing HSR with its sister game, Genshin Impact (Genshin). The reason is because the game mechanics are similar to that of Genshin, hence comparing them seems reasonable. However, I will only be touching on the features lightly since HSR is still an infant at this point. Comparing a toddler to a teenager does not seem fair.

I also have to preface that in no way is this post meant to discriminate either games. This post is just to explore what are the game features and mechanics present in HSR and Genshin.

1️⃣ Movement features

(Picture Source: GameWith thru’ Google Image Search)

Okay, this is the most obvious and the first thing that will definitely come to everybody’s minds. 

First of all, I understand why HSR does not have a gliding feature in the game (for now) as the game is set in space. And even if there is, it most likely will be redundant to copy exactly as Genshin. HSR is set in a futuristic/cyberish setting. If there were to be gliders, I think jet packs strapped to the body, or boots enhancement to make the characters fly like Iron Man would make more sense.

Secondly, climbing. I have to admit, I don’t really see any potential need to climb in HSR... Imagine climbing inside Herta’s Space Station. Like, where on earth would you climb to? 

Thirdly, HSR characters can’t jump. This is very hilarious. HSR characters can’t jump. That is the most basic movement feature that should be included in every game. I don’t really understand why the developers did not let HSR characters jump. Players who experienced this started poking fun of HSR by making short videos of Genshin characters being able to jump.

And finally, sprinting. I have to say that HSR sprint is a lot better than Genshin. There is no stamina bar that limits your sprinting in HSR. You can sprint as long as you want in the game.

2️⃣ Battle Mechanics

(Picture Source: Hoyoverse thru’ Google Image Search)

This is another obvious difference between the two games. HSR provides a new battle experience by introducing turn-based battle. In a turn-based battle, characters each take turns to deliver an action (attack, defend, withdraw etc.) and receive damage from the enemies. The good news about turn-based games is that they are generally one of the easiest strategy and attack games. The bad news... well, it’s Mihoyo.

Both game battle types has its good and bad. In Genshin, players may struggle during battles if they do not build and use the politically correct team composition. However, it is still possible to overcome the battle with the “wrong” team composition as the battle mechanics does not restrict you to waiting for a turn. In other words, you can attack with a fire element, and quickly follow up with an electric element, apply healing effects to your character, and apply a shield afterwards. Those actions continuously applies damage to your enemies. And all of this could happen within a few seconds.

(Picture Source: PC Invasion thru’ Google Image Search)

On the other hand, turn-based games requires you to think strategically on how you should attack and/or defend, and even consider withdrawing from the battles. Think of it like a game of chess. Both players take turns to move their pieces, but at the same time, they have to ponder quickly and wisely on what their next move should be so that they could win the game.

In most of the turn-based games I have played, the sequence you place your characters in the team usually isn’t the biggest issue; it is the attack power your team has. The same can be said for HSR. The attack power of your characters in the team makes a difference to whether you can survive the battle. In my experience (with other turn-based games), my strongest characters would always be able to carry me through majority of the game.

As mentioned earlier, the sequence in which your characters are placed in the team for turn-based games isn’t usually an issue. However, in HSR, it is. 

(Picture Source: Polygon thru’ Google Image Search)

The reason is because in each battle, whoever is placed on the extreme left end of your team will be the first to attack, followed by the second, third, and the fourth. If we use the picture above as an example, it means that when a HSR battle begins, Bronya will be the first attacker, followed by March, then yourself (Kiwi), and finally Serval. After one round, the sequence repeats.

During a HSR battle, there is no way for you to switch your other characters in the team. Meaning if it is Bronya’s turn to attack, but you want to switch straight to Serval, you cannot do it. The only time you are allowed to “skip” to Serval is if you use Serval’s ultimate skill. Afterwards, it goes back to Bronya, or March, depending if you have already used Bronya’s attack prior to utilizing Serval’s ultimate skill.

3️⃣ Healing

(Picture Source: Prima Games thru’ Google Image Search)

There are a couple of ways to heal in Genshin. The first is to visit a Statue of the Seven. The second way is to use your healing characters. The third way is to stuff your dying characters with healing food.

Visiting the Statue of the Seven during a battle is possible, it disrupts the battle and when the player returns, they will have to start from the beginning again. This is why many players in Genshin tend to stock up on healing food and place a healing character in the team. If one of their characters is dying during the battle, the players can use either the healing food midway through the battle, or just apply their healing characters’ healing skill to heal their dying characters.

In HSR, while we do have a healing character, it can be difficult to receive heals from her during the battle. As mentioned in the previous point, each action in a turn-based battle is considered as an action. Once that action has been taken, the game will move on to the next character or enemy. Hence, letting Natasha, the only healer in the game, to help provide healing during the battle is something that all players has to consider.

(Picture Source: Dot Esports thru’ Google Image Search)

Now, I am not saying that players should not equip healers into their team; healers are great assets to teams especially when encountering tough battles. But players should make wise decisions when equipping healers. Not only do they take up a slot in your team’s 4 character space, they most likely do not provide much damage.

Moreover, the high damage dealers may perish earlier before the healer could heal in turn-based games. While they are great assets, my personal recommendation is to focus on making your team as strong as possible. Healers should be considered the last resort to add into the team.

4️⃣ The system features

(Picture Source: Item Level thru’ Google Image Search)

Players who has played Genshin will have an easier time navigating their way through most of the system features in HSR. Most of it is very similar to Genshin’s system layout.

Given that Genshin is not HSR, it is understandable for HSR to adopt other monikers for their respective system features. But I feel that some of the names are quite confusing.

(Picture Source: Silicorne thru’ Google Image Search)

One of those confusing names is the cooking. In Genshin, it’s simply called cooking. In HSR, it’s called Synthesizing. 

I hope as time goes by I will get more used to HSR’s system features. But I also hope that the developers of HSR make it as simple as Genshin.

-------------------------------------------------------

Alright, that is it for now. I can see that I am running out of brain juice towards the end of my post 😂

I would like to remind once again that the post is not meant to discriminate one game against the other, but just an overview of the comparison between the two game features.

[aurum-k-chatters]

So because of recent events in the TTRPG space regarding a certain dragon game and a certain OGL, a lot of people have been looking into new and different systems.

One that I stumbled upon in these quests for new TTRPG game is Fabula Ultima TTJRPG, and it absolutely looks like something worth checking out if you enjoy the story telling and more video-gamey aspects of D&D. As well as potential for home-brewing and world building.

Fabula Ultima borrows a lot from JRPGs like Final Fantasy, Tales of, and Persona. It's got turn based combat, stats, action checks, a character bond system (Yosuke will now die for you), and an EXTREMELY hefty character class tree system.

It's similar enough to D&D that someone coming off that system probably wouldn't feel too terribly lost. I remember my first TTRPG coming off of D&D was Monster of the Week. And while that game is very good, I definitely struggled with it as my first foray into other games. Fabula Ultima, because it's based off of JRPG Video games, feels like it would not have that problem for people exiting the D&D space. And if you enjoy Actual Plays like Critical Role or Dimension 20, where the players put a lot into their characters and their interactions, and the DMs put a lot into their world building, then you will be pleased to know that Fabula Ultima has mechanics that encourage that type of play.

It's also extremely customizable. The way items and enemies are designed make home-brew easy, and the class tree system is so flexible and immense that you can easily get the flavor for that specific character idea you had in mind.

It's packed with content. But it's also simple enough to pick up quickly. And I know I personally would love to see people play it should anyone use it in their actual plays.

I'm personally hoping I'll be able to play it soon myself!

[leam1983]

On Necessary Evils

Caught Bricky's condensed Warhammer 40000 exposé last night, while waiting for the ice pack to do its thing on my two injection sites - yay, Updated Boosters Season - and I was sort of amused by how Games Workshop took the exact opposite approach to my earlier post on perfunctory evil in fiction (simply put, thinking that your protagonist acting like an ass is "in their nature") and somehow made it work.

It's never obvious if you're focusing on the top-down perspective, and a 40K fan could spend whole decades making grenade noises with their mouth while moving minifigs around without knowing the ins and outs of the battles they're laying out. The fact is that 40K's envisioned future for Humanity would make the local Prescriptivists on the Hellsite run for the hills, shrieking about how "problematic" everything is.

To make a long story short; imagine a far-flung version of Humanity that's soared from Golden Age to Golden Age and who's effectively gone past being a Type IV civilization. We've colonized entire galaxies, we're so completely in a post-scarcity mindset that it starts negatively impacting our culture as we excuse the worst excesses of our nature as a result of an unending bounty of riches - until the Luddites among us stamp their foot down and attack the fundaments of our culture.

We fall from dizzying heights and enter a second Dark Age, emerging from it as a religiously technophobic, xenophobic and exclusionary monoculture, forged into a machine of relentless hate by a combination of necessity, fear and pure unfettered greed. There's no division between Humanity's races anymore, and our culture is effectively singular, now - all of us worship the Emperor of Man, his myth and accomplishments; and we mythologize the Crusades that saw his stolen sons - genetically-engineered eidolons of perfection - return to the fore as Chapter leaders for the boldest of us, the Space Marines.

The problem is what unites us is hatred, hatred for anything that isn't human. The universe is vast and is teeming with life, with untold amounts of sapient lifeforms asking for nothing but peace - but we come to it with our swords drawn, in the name of a religiously-mandated hegemony.

We, incontrovertibly, are the bad guys.

The setting is quick to suggest that most other races are driven to similar excesses out of fear and the base need for survival and gives plenty of examples as to how the elf-like Eldar or the machine-like Necron are just as monstrous, but we effectively are the Devil we Know - in all facets including disturbingly familiar military imagery. What drives us to these excesses is the merciless nature of our rivals, which feeds on our own cruelty to excuse itself in a recursive loop that makes diplomacy difficult - and the implacable nature of the Warp, a sort of netherworld that weaponizes all sentient minds' fears and desires while also enabling faster-than-light travel. There's beings in the Warp that feed off of and enable our worst fears and our greatest hopes, and they exist in this fittingly Lovecraftian status where people have an idea of Nurgle, God of Pestilence, as a singular entity - but he typically manifests as physical corruption, disease and madness - but also as miraculous healing and the sudden onset of lucidity.

Simply put, everyone loses. Everyone is equally despicable and every single named character has plenty of reasons to incite disgust and disapproval from the perspective of humans like us who predate the Emperor of Man's emergence by millennia and exist in an entirely different set of circumstances. The setting effectively says that our striving for Progressive policies is the result of our ease of living as of the late twentieth century, and that we have every single social and technological foundation that's needed to allow for acceptance and representation. If the scales fell differently, if billions among us went hungry every day and resources were tight, we might sing a different tune.

When everything about a setting is problematic, when there isn't a single shred of redeemable design lying in wait somewhere, you can either accept the concept for what it is or disregard it entirely.

What's interesting is that Games Workshop are mature enough to assume that players and content-consumers will make that choice on their own. If you draw the line at pickelhaube designs and Iron Crosses and if the idea of a civilization wholly embracing technocratic Fascism rankles your worldbuilding hairs, the door's right over there. Still, in a world of hyper-optimistic tentpole settings like Star Trek, it's nice to have something that evens out the scales by being determined to consciously represent the worst of our tendencies. I've always thought it reminded me of the fact that tolerance and kindness are surprisingly hard-fought - which so many people tend to forget.

Being kind isn't easy. It involves foregoing your own nature. Being Progressive doesn't come naturally; it involves consciously choosing the Collective over yourself. Reminding ourselves that some people will consciously choose our darker half out of some semblance of security or some perceived lucidity is important, because it frames people who enable Right-wing policies as being motivated not by evil or base pettiness, but out of something that feels necessary to them. What we see as the accession to the better angels of our nature, they see as a backslide into decadence. They're wrong, of course, but History packs several civilizations who did indeed lose their way. What if the Fall of Rome happened to the Western world as we know it, for instance?

Plus, if all else fails, if the idea of playing as a xenophobic and would-be omnicidal monster dressed in the garb of detestable righteousness is a bridge too far for you, you can always play as the Orks. These green palookas fight for the sheer fun of it and have zero hangups as to how morally justifiable they may or may not be. They'll kill you on sight but don't hate you outright - it's just that, well, you're a Humie and they're Orks! You're supposed to fight, aren't you? They don't have nearly enough brain cells to figure out that you could technically nurture an Imperium-era human back into the twenty-first century's tolerant ideals, and you couldn't convince them of that fact, either. So, well... Mutual aggression is all that's on the menu, even if some deserting Humans short-circuit it by painting themselves green and yelling at everything and everything.

As yes, Orks are dumb enough that a human could pass for an Ork if they just happened to look literally green. Slap on some body paint, pick your best or worst Stereotypical Cockney accent, make sure you sound like wanton violence is about on par with a Spring Break kegger with the boys, and you'll basically have buddies for life and proportionally tolerant comrades that are probably stupefyingly kind, in comparison to the Imperium of Man's institutionalized hatred. The franchise also contains the Tau - effectively Space Communists made up of a confederation of survivor species banding against the Imperium of Man as a bid for survival - and even they sometimes veer closer to Stalin's concept than Marx's or Lenin's. Like I've been saying - no good guys on offer, here.

So, yeah. I like a setting where the best guys on offer are assholes in the face of the actual Bad Guys being worse assholes, mostly because it feels like a breath of fresh air in a wider Geek culture where shades of grey are increasingly seen as narrative failings. You can count me amongst those armchair theorists who think, for instance, that Joseph Campbell's narratological theories did more harm to Genre fiction than it ever did good, and that it's possible to embody Progressive values in fiction without joining the ranks of concern trolls or virtue-signalling moral crusaders. I'm old enough that a story's protagonists being free of any criticism or objections strikes me as being unrealistic, and in such a way that mustache-twirlers who offer an uncomplicated form of evil to oppose are honestly boring. I'm starting to like protagonists that require some mileage on the reader's part, and antagonists that you could almost agree with, under certain lights.

It really is no surprise, then, that actual bigots and unhinged idiots see 40K as a vector for self-expression. We've seen Stephen Colbert in Space Marine power armor, and there's also fanart of... Donald Fucking Trump as the God-Emperor of Man.

Deep breaths - I know. It's cringe and it's vile. I agree. The same company that cribs from Nazi Germany's uniform designs for its Very Obviously Not Good Guys is also the first one to openly state that Alt-Right fans of the property aren't actually welcome in its associated spaces.

It's fiction. Extreme fiction, yes - but still fiction. You might roleplay as a xenophobe, it doesn't excuse you being one IRL.

I don't know, settings like this just feel... necessary, to me, in this day and age. Imagine how Israeli fans of the property feel, as they're bombarded with justifications for the IDF pelting refugee corridors with rockets, or how German fans of the property feel when they see some idiot hick from the American heartlands wave swastikas around. It's important to recognize when your own culture can enable someone else's worst tendencies. We can all be someone else's bad guy, even as we wall ourselves in Purity Culture discourse at the worst of times.

[300iqprower]

So apparently if all you need to do is show up at type-moon’s door with a crew and idea,

What kind of fun new Fate game would you want to make if you could?

It's like you're TRYING to short circuit my brain with idea overload, huh

That said I've said before FGO could be one of the greatest games ever if it was an episodic collecting/mon-style RPG instead of the abomination gacha that it is. I mean what are my HRU's if not RPG skillsets, ya know? Especially now that I do things like passives and treating each skill as basically it's own entire kit, and using more choice or trait based effects that are designed with team composition in mind rather than individual use, etc etc etc.

Stiiiiiiilll waiting for my copy of Samurai Remnant to even ship let alone arrive but from what i've seen of the gameplay there's honestly a decent chance another answer of mine could be "Just make Samurai Remnant but with content updates and character packs that go with those updates" a la the aforementioned episodic collectable RPG. Failing that, Extella Link not having any character dlc was fcking sinful, even if unlike Samurai Remnant a proper musou doesnt really lend itself to in depth storytelling.

Point is, my answer isn't really indicative of what I think works best but rather what kind of game I like the most (mechanically in depth hack n slashers, and stylish RPGs that balance strategy and stats/teambuilding) because FGO is a lot like Warhammer in that the issue isn't finding a genre that works for it, the issue is finding people who actually give a shit about making a good game, because the series is so vast and detailed that you can make it work with all kinds of concepts. The series from its inception takes inspiration from TTRPGs so it's not surprising that the best fit seems to be RPGs. It has a heavy emphasis on individual characterization, so musou's and other "hero-based" genres are naturally good fits as well. There's so much potential to work with, it's just an issue of most people in charge of the series clearly only care about the "potential" money to be made.