#is worth the time and money to design and implement

[oflgtfol]

“Other shortcomings [in communicating science] are evident in television science fiction programming. Star Trek, for example, despite its charm and strong international and interspecies perspective, often ignores the most elementary scientific facts. The idea that Mr. Spock could be a cross between a human being and a life-form independently evolved on the planet Vulcan is genetically far less probable than a successful cross of a man and an artichoke… There must be dozens of alien species on various Star Trek TV series and movies. Almost all we spend any time with are minor variants of humans. This is driven by economic necessity, costing only an actor and a latex mask, but it flies in the face of the stochastic nature of the evolutionary process. If there are aliens, almost all of them I think will look devastatingly less human than Klingons and Romulans.”

- Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

[etheries1015]

In memory of the Apology Mug Story (and because I walked past a super old building recently; guess what it had on the facade)

Reader who knows how to carve rocks into specific forms and is very skilled in it makes Malleus a gargoyle for his birthday. He's so happy he ends up accidentally confessing his love to them.

Bonus points if that was Lilia's idea because he got tired of seeing them dance around each other and wanted things to happen already

This is really cute <3 for those who aren't certain what the apology mug story is; the link to that is Here!

A special birthday present for our favorite draconic prince <3

Being in Ramshackle with a limited amount of entertainment (being unable to afford many electronics) you had to resort to other forms of entertainment. Reading, cooking, sewing, board games, long walks outside, musical instruments, and your most recent of endeavors; rock carving. You had learned a few things here and there from Malleus, he was an avid crafter of gargoyles within his club and was more than happy to teach you a thing or two. Although most of your attempts seemed to fail in his eyes, you were actually secretly incredibly skilled at this. You were leaving your skills to set up a surprise present for the fae for his birthday; January 18th.

It wasn't hard to figure out what you were planning on doing for his birthday, Malleus was incredibly easy to read. Although money was scarce for you, using your skills to handmake something would be much more worth receiving than any amount of money could pay for. At least, that's what Malleus had said when you inquired what he would like at his celebration.

"A present is not necessary," He told you with a graceful smile, "Bring yourself, and your smile. That is enough for me." ...you were not going to take that as the final verdict, thus began your journey to create a gift he was surely going to enjoy.

His birthday came upon you, and your gift was finally completed. You did not hesitate to rush over to Diasomnia for the celebration, bringing over two things; A homemade ice cream cake, and your gift box. The cake was pretty much the start of Malleus's excitement, ice cream cakes exist?! It wasn't common in Twisted Wonderland much to your surprise, so sharing your handmade cake with his enjoyment of icecream implemented already sent him over the moon. The joy that was written all over his face was the easiest text to read, soon pouring out of his mouth in a theatric novel after unwrapping his second gift from you- two gargoyles. They were miniature and made for décor less than actual function, however, his excitement seemed to explode off the tip of his tongue.

His bright green eyes were sparkling, his mouth ajar, and a blush painted across his pale cheeks.

"It's us! See, one has your horns and the other-" Malleus immediately wrapped you into his embrace, much to the protest of Sebek nearby, yet the smiles of amusement of Silver and Lilia quickly hushed the student. It seemingly seemed the words held inside had burst at the seams, and Malleus had begun setting free the things he had been eager to share for some time now.

"I am in pure infatuation with you," Malleus blurted out, "I have not received a gift so heartfelt and beautiful," it almost sounded like he was holding back tears of happiness.

"Two gargoyles representing you and I, shall I take this as a declaration that you wish to be my pair?" He did not await your response, the tall fae was already shooting off at the mouth. "I reciprocate. Your beautiful craftmanship will forever be my treasure, next to you, of course." You could not hide the clear redness from your face, and the dumb smile that planted permanently at his sudden confession.

"it's about time!" Lilia laughed, "Now, let us celebrate not only our prince's birthday but also the union between these two lovebirds!" Malleus pulled away from the hug and smiled again at the gargoyles you intricately designed, turning to face his dormmates.

"Yes, let us resume the festivities. We shall celebrate all night long, this will be a birthday well worth remembering. Come now, my dearest." Setting down the Gargoyles in a safe place, he grabbed hold of your hand dragging you into the joyful celebration <3

Happy birthday, Malleus!!

[blissfullyecho]

how to start living in your “it girl” era | 2023 🍸 pt. 1

this is just a fun, random list. feel free to start implementing these ideas into your life to make you feel more like you’re in your “it girl” era 🤍 again: this is meant to be fun. no negativity please.

i. when at lounges, casinos, cocktail bars, nice restaurants, etc.

if you’re of age, try ordering more “upscale” beverages at the bar like classic cocktails (the manhattan, negroni, martini, etc.), wine, or champagne.

it’s also more fun to go during the downtime, late night hours on the weeknight (monday-thursday… even though thursday might start getting busy). unless you want to be in a louder environment where everyone and their mom is on top of each other, ordering over your shoulder because the bar is packed, then go at more quieter times. dressing up nicely, going to a nice establishment, and ordering a nice drink when it’s dimly lit, upscale, and there’s only a few people in there is such a vibe.

if you can, try ordering an uber luxe/premium to the restaurant or valet your car. ***make sure to tip***

ii. when at home

lounge in nice quality pj’s. silk/satin shorts and a sleepy shirt work very well. if it’s cold, opt for longer sleeves and pant legs.

drink water or any beverage you have in a glass, not the bottle or the can it came in.

of course, keep your place smelling good and clean. burn a high quality candle (i find that the expensive candles are definitely worth the money). for a home fragrance, lean less towards scents like vanilla, and more towards scents that are more perfume-like.

if you’re in the process of adding decor to your place, a lot of luxe interior designers like to add those random “art” pieces like sculptures, bowls, paintings, and other random decor around. but they like to keep the furniture minimal. the ambience is almost always natural sunlight during the day, and dark, dim, moody lighting during the evening.

iii. your social media

remain mysterious— posting several times a day, everyday is a bit much. unless you’re an influencer, limit posting to a few times a week, if that. “oh she posted again” doesn’t necessarily scream that you have a life.

keep your photos of similar quality with one another. using the same filter or preset keeps everything uniform if social media matters to you.

refrain from posting when you’re not at your best. refrain from posting you venting about something. be mindful of what you post. does it represent you as a person?

iv. your attitude (to others and yourself)

don’t be a rude person. don’t be bitter. don’t be resentful. don’t be negative. don’t gossip about others. don’t participate in the weird trend of self-deprecating “humor”. you should know you’re that girl, and you should move like her too. you should act in a way that you won’t accept nothing but the best, but still remain humble enough to know that it might take a bit of work on your part. raise your standards with men, raise your standards with friends, raise your standards with yourself. don’t compare your journey or yourself to others, even if they’re on a similar journey. be kind, be loving, and keep it moving on a positive note at all times

again, this was just a FUN post. if you wanna implement some of these ideas, perfect. if not, that’s fine too. love you lots xoxo

[cyle]

Honestly my big concern when it comes to the redesign is the sunk cost fallacy.

Even if the majority of users would prefer a toggle or a full rollback, Tumblr will cling to the mistake they spent a lot of time and money making, and frustrate those users by trying to fix something users didn't want to begin with. A toggle would probably be best, but if Tumblr's in financial trouble I can't see them supporting two separate layouts. And as you said, people who use extensions to get their preferred layout back will be outliers.

It boggles me that researching, funding, and implementing this change was greenlit with no public input from regular users at the start; one post on changes or WIP with a *mockup* of the new layout would've given you a preview of the backlash. But now that money has been spent on it, it feels like we're all stuck. :/

that's my fear as well, to be honest, and it's what we spend a lot of time internally fighting against. for what it's worth, that's exactly why we run A/B tests and experiments: to understand if we need to roll the whole thing back. we spent over a year building group chat and we rolled that entire feature back because it wasn't working, so that's never off the table as an option.

and while we certainly could've done a preview on @wip, we kinda sorta already knew what the reaction would be. we use the site ourselves every day, too. tumblr staff itself is a mix of casual and power users. my reaction to the layout change wasn't happy at first either, as someone who's been using this site daily for 10+ years.

so please don't assume we're stuck here! we've already been working through the feedback and have a lot of ideas brewing on how to iterate on the design, including the option to roll it all back and instead iterate on the top-based navigation.

[k1rameki]

THE TIME HAS COME EVERYONE. ITS TIME TO TALK ABOUT MY EXTENSIVE LIST OF TABI HEADCANONS (hcs are under the cut plus this also counts as a little debrief of his human design bc jesus christ i put so much effort into making this man's design it went through a LOT of trial and error before settling on what i got now considering ive gradually made him less and less "human")

also quick thing b4 i proceed – please please PLEASE ask before making things w my tabi design bc ive seen a rlly cool papercraft made w/o my knowledge and that was kinda sucky so ya thats around it (other than the basics of no nsfw and such)

APPEARANCE HCS

first and foremost — hes half japanese because i remember his aside counterpart being japanese iirc and i thought that was really cool and wanted to implement that into my own little hc (also he speaks like a dozen languages bc of another thing i'll go into detail with in a bit

so many different facial features, scarring (theres a very elaborate reason for this tbh), moles, freckles, etc all bc why not?? (freckles is primarily bc of my bestie crow and now im obsessed)

lashes bc why not, give every man a pair of lashes i think theyre pretty

PIERCINGS. so many piercings. this is primarily because i am a very firm believer that tabi gets piercings done because he wants to feel human again so he finds comfort in decorating himself as much as possible for that reason and also the aesthetic

broken horn bc of the mod events, damage beyond repair and whatnot

HE HAS LONG HAIR BC I SAID SO ‼️‼️ i figured considering he's been invisible for so long he never really knew what to do when it came to cutting his hair, so eventually it grew out to around his waist, and he kept that hairstyle ever since (he prefers wearing his hair in a ponytail or smth bc sensory issues when it comes to hair touching his skin)

a lot of tater's hcs infected my brain hehehehehe especially the tail and his hands still being what they were when they were cursed (also. paw beans. /vpos)

HES TRANS ‼️‼️ hes also very dumb and has very little regard for his health and forgets to take his binder off a lot (trust me he gets scolded a lot for that)

GENERAL HCS

hes autistic and has adhd — the autism hc i lowkey stole from crow but the adhd hc ive had for a long long while now — one of his lifelong special interests is performing arts and musicals

chronic insomniac — sleep? never heard of her

plays like 5 different instruments but primarily specialises in piano and guitar

safe food is anything sweet or chocolatey — he has a massive sweet tooth and is obsessed w cookies and pastries in particular which ayana baked for him a lot (ill prolly make a whole other post for her in the near future but guys. pastry chef aya. hear me out)

an absolute boss at board games, especially monopoly, and he constantly loves screwing everyone over

extremely hyperfixated on pokemon and owns a bajillion folders filled with cards worth a buttload of money, and a dozen plushies + figurines (projecting bc pokemon is one of my hyperfixes dont judge me) his fav gen is absolutely johto

his eyesight is pretty bad but like. not bad enough for him to be needing glasses (unlike a certain someone cough cough agoti)

speaking of said certain someone, he and agoti do each other's hair a lot simply because its really fun and provides some stimulation, and also because it helps tabi practice with self care and such

VERY SENSITIVE TO SOUND AND TEXTURES, often times he will probably start crying if something sounds or feels wrong

sometimes he forgets certain words in english and has to resort to using what theyre called in russian

has the goofiest sounding laugh ever and i will die on this hill. when you get tabi cackling he will start rolling on the floor and making the most UNGODLY sounds

can speak like 6 languages fluently and a dozen others in simple conversation (NERD ALERT)

he sucks so hard at writing essays but is (for some reason) really good at maths

despite being the more serious one among his group of friends, tabis a dumbass and does a lot more stupid things than one would expect

[bts-polls]

hi. i know this blog is just for fun, and i don't want to be a downer, but jk rowling is a terf. she actively does not want trans people to exist. as a trans army, it makes me wildly uncomfortable when people who aren't fans are called 'muggles' or when people Sort the members. again, i know it's all supposed to be fun, but. i don't feel at all safe anymore whenever hp stuff is brought up. i hope you have a good day though <3

Hi anon,

First, before I get into the rest of my response I want to say that I while i can't truly empathize on this specific issue, I do sympathize with not feeling safe due to a marginalization from 'the mainstream'. I do apologize for any part my posts played into this for you and anyone else that may have seen them. I'm going to put the rest of my thoughts on this topic below a cut for anyone that isn't up for a discussion-type post from this blog.

HP was my first real fandom and as someone who was raised in an extremely conservative rural area, I'm unfortunately very familiar with this mindset and viewpoint.

I also had to do a hefty amount of soul-searching when deciding how much of hp-fandom I would continue to engage in. I've never been a merch-focused person (which honestly gave me some heartache getting into kpop..there are legit ppl out there that try to make you feel like a fake fan if you don't spend serious money on this interest... but that's a discussion for another day). Anyway, back to HP, I'm not into merch and I didn't like the movies, (I've still only seen the first two and a handful of clips from some of the others) so I'm personally not contributing anymore to the money channeling in but money isn't the only thing that fuels this massive engine.

Again, I had to have a very frank heart-to-heart with myself to see where I personally feel comfortable continuing to engage. For me, being involved in the Fandom to any degree and even having casual conversations about the themes and meanings was an essential part of learning to be curious enough to see more lifestyles different from the one I was raised in. And my story is not dissimilar from many that I knew in situations similar to mine. So I know that this body of work has actually had cases where it fosters discussions and mindsets for minority groups more than anything else of its time. I really cannot overstate how significant the HP books and fandom were in creating the first space where we were able to even explore the idea of being different from those around us, let alone feeling comfortable or even celebrating it. To us, HP was less about the magic of being able to move items without touching them but more about the magic of finding your own worth when everyone around you said otherwise. This concept takes different forms each generation, for some it's superheroes or musicians; for my generation, it was HP.

Do the unveiled viewpoints of the original creator now undo all of the progress that was triggered by her work? And should we all attempt to bury it as if it never happened? Another point of discussion, especially where I now live in the southern US with many entrenched systems of racial discrimination. (Again, another tangent but we're not here to talk about tearing down ugly statues that don't add any value to the current population).

There's also the literal logistical issue of deciding that I can't engage in anything because I don't agree with the views of the ppl in charge, then there will literally be no viable method to exist. My professional expertise is in systems design, implementation, and maintenance; and let me assure you, the world is legitimately run by people who have despicable beliefs. From entertainment, food manufacturing and distribution, to health care and politics; there are scummy mindsets infecting it all. The biggest lie in our society is that good ppl do good things and bad ppl do bad things. No. People with awful motivations do good things continuously. And the inverse is true as well. There is remarkably little black and white in the world, everything is on a spectrum.

Attempting to cut myself off from ALL of it is not possible, nor do I want to engage with ALL of it. So again, I need to decide where that line is. And it needs to be re-evaluated frequently as both myself and the world around me grows and changes.

But this really comes to my main point of this whole post. I had to do my own personal soul-searching to decide where my own boundary is with this issue. And each person should do so as well. We are all so beautifully different in our life experiences and thoughts and mindset. I would NEVER want to claim my personal boundary on any issue should be upheld for ANYONE else. That's where we must empower ourselves to understand our own sovereignty. I have complete control of how I choose to respond to a push of my boundary but not to dictate that others must place their own boundaries.

This is where we are right now. I recognize that my past actions have induced some harm, intentional or not. Again, I apologize for that. I've shared a few reasons why we have different viewpoints and may continue to create similar polls in the future. So, to move forward, I will be more diligent in tagging any polls so that anyone trying to avoid such content may do so. You will have to decide if that is sufficient for you or if you will need to also disengage here.

Whatever you choose, I do wish you the absolute best and thankyou for bringing this lapse to my attention. Like you said, this is intended to be a fun place where we can vote in meaningless tumblr polls about a group of guys in Korea that make music. I would never want to compromise someone's peace with something so trivial but I am just another stranger on the internet. The one thing I can do is try to give you the tools so that you can make informed decisions about what type of content you may encounter in my space.

I'm not looking to turn this blog into a discussion one, so if anyone wants/needs to chat further, please reach out in DMs or through my main blog @curio-queries . This blog will continue to focus on BTS polls.

BORAHAE 💜

[lunarsilkscreen]

Mobile Game design overview

A personal Journal Entry and pre-development path.

R&D Still Required based on style of game; touch screen and gyro controls. --preliminary research complete.

Design Overview;

Other Mobile games, no matter how well designed, have extremely cluttered interfaces. Some of this is because there are multiple games, mini-games, and events packaged into the game at any one time.

Some games have an coin based (energy use) version of their main game, and a sub-game that does not require energy.

Consider using this style for offline and online modes. It seems popular to use energy for the online. Portion, this way the player can enjoy the game as they wish without overloading the servers offline.

Other games have several Quest, Achievement, and Event menus that can be consolidated into a single main menu.

The reason they don't do this is still unclear to me; but is probably similar to the big flashy tags and sales sign at in-person retailers, and in the Sears magazine.

If so, they don't serve the purpose they're intended to.

However; it's probably more that the development team is inexperienced and using a framework or game template that they then reuse for added areas. Creating a package which is a copy of the template over and over again.

I had previously considered implementing an old-style arcade "life" system like Mario, but perhaps a more simplified energy system, perhaps one that tracks step through the accelerometer (or other apps) to refresh would be good.

Energy refreshments shouldn't be purchaseables except for in specific circumstances; Similar to Hearthstone's Arena Tavern Brawls that happen periodically.

Players seem to enjoy "Season Packs" to purchase, and dislike an RMT (Real-money Trade) currency.

It also reduces clutter and increases understandability by reducing the options that a player has for a single game.

"Gacha Summons" shouldn't be purchaseables. meaning Gacha, or loot boxes, if used should be separated from the RMT purchase portion.

Rewards for skill shown in the online portion should be considered and given to players that perform well in whatever the online portion might be

Minor connectivity for offline achievements should be included for verification, but more or less separated from the online game entirely.

Some specific achievements may reward Skins and other abilities for the online portion.

A small game studio shouldn't really go whale fishing like happens in many games today. (Packs valued by studios worth $100+ are common and give little. Seems more like a wishful thinking menu item)

Entry into a crypto-based achievement system, whichever company is able to make a stable one; is key in future development. Releasing of items and achievements into a startup ecosystem will help the game to grow.

Without going into depth on any specific game mechanics; this covers everything about the interface design research.

The question still remains how to address monetization and store based items. Aside from releasing things into a gaming ecosystem where they can be displayed and reused in other places; I'm not sure what to sell.

Gacha games are a dime a dozen and have seemingly all the same pricing scheme. Without a reason to have seasons, theres no reason a player might want to purchase one.

Here's what I think;

Hosting Price and monthly expenses need to be taken into account, but $1-10 depending on what % the hosting service might take, for a "Premium Account" badge, either a one-time, yearly or monthly seems key.

Re-curring costs may be implemented for "seasonal" reasons based on when the majority of players tend to be actively interacting with the game.

Lastly; Data needs to be reduced to a minimum. Part of these sizes are voiced lines, raster graphics for the dozens of different menus, CGI cutscenes, and music.

All of this will help to make a game that will be able to make it into anybody's pocket.

[postgamecontent]

Nintendo Switch Weekly Round-Up for the Week Ending October 5th, 2024

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the Nintendo Switch Weekly Round-Up for the week ending October 5th, 2024. A little quieter this week than the last couple, at least in terms of things worth paying attention to. Plenty of garbage, but I don't feel like giving any of that oxygen. Still, any week with a new Q-Games release is one worth writing about. Let's check out this week in the world of Switch!

Select New Releases

Sword Art Online Fractured Dream ($59.99)

This is an action game that is mainly designed for online play, where up to twenty players are supported. It features a whole bunch of Sword Art Online characters, and the buzz from people who played the game via Steam Early Access is solid. Provided this Switch port has been handled well and the community is there for it, this could be a fun diversion. Those are some big provisos, though.

All You Need is Help ($19.99)

Okay, so first up and very importantly: this game is four players only. You can play local multiplayer, or you can play online multiplayer. But if you don't have four, you don't play. No single-player. None. Anyway, each player controls a different fluffy puzzle piece, and you have to work together to solve each stage. It's from Q-Games, so you can count on a certain degree of quality here. If you have the people to play it with, I'm sure you'll have a good time.

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Patrick Star Game ($39.99)

Another effort from Outright Games, specifically the team behind the rather good Justice League: Cosmic Chaos. This appears to be a Patrick Star-flavored take on Human: Fall Flat, and if that's the case then I suspect SpongeBob fans are going to have a really good time with it. You've got an open world to play around in, and plenty of activities to do in it. What's the main goal? I have no idea. We'll have to see how this one plays out.

I*CHU: Chibi Edition ($29.99)

If you want to play this particular free-to-play mobile game at a premium price with the money squeeze removed, here you go. It's a rhythm game with some story bits in between the action, focused around an academy for idols in training. Unfortunately, with the gatcha-dependent progression and rather spotty localization, this isn't an overly pleasant experience. You get all of the grind, you just can't buy your way through it. I imagine this might appeal to fans of the mobile game anyway.

Picross Records of The Shield Hero ($10.99)

Another Picross game, this time themed around the manga/anime Rise of the Shield Hero. An episode mode has been implemented here to tell some of the story as you solve puzzles. You get a bit over two hundred puzzles in total, all related to Shield Hero in some form or another. More Picross for those who need it, or those who are piling up Picross games for a rainy day.

Skautfold: Into the Fray ($14.99)

Here's a third game in the Skautfold series ported to the Nintendo Switch. This one is a top-down action game with plenty of gore and lot of ways to dispatch your foes. While it's not exactly the same kind of game as the previous ones (or the ones that will follow it should the whole series get ported), I'm sure if you enjoyed those you won't have a bad time of it here.

Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel ($5.99)

So, first up: despite that screenshot, Zero's sprite hasn't been edited in the actual game. He is still sporting the rising sun headband, and the symbol is all over the place. I'll leave it to you as to how you feel about that. As for the game, this is the Aero the Acro-Bat spin-off featuring Aero's rival Zero, and it's a very challenging game thanks to its reliance on the player mastering Zero's rather unusual move set. It's in that nicer emulation wrapper that Aero 2 released in, so that's good. For those wondering, this is also the Super NES version of the game. I'll review it soon.

Kill Knight ($14.99)

If you're hunting for your next great isometric twin-stick shooter fix, Kill Knight is a good choice. It's a tough game and it has a lot of interlocking systems that you'll have to learn before you'll make any progress, but if you stick with it I think you'll find that this is a rather rewarding game.

Circus of TimTim ($9.99)

Another horror game that relies on people being creeped out by mascots, this time with an added circus twist for that clown phobia spice. Explore a ruined carnival and watch out for things who won't be kind to unwelcome visitors. Use a metal detector to find items, but be careful as its beeping will attract attention. Not my kind of thing. Maybe yours.

Planetiles ($12.99)

Another one of those games where you place tiles strategically in a landscape to try to produce the best results, this time planet-themed. I've been into this kind of thing since around a year ago, and this is another solid one. I wouldn't recommend it over Dorfromantik or anything, but if you're looking for another game that offers a similar experience then you might want to check this out.

Macho Shot ($5.00)

This new SAT-BOX release is essentially another spin on the ol' Suika Game concept, but with macho dudes instead of fruit. Merge your machos into bigger machos, but be careful not to overflow the field. Nothing new under the Sun, but the choice of theme was so odd I had to include it here.

Dawngrown ($5.99)

Is this top-down 2D PowerWash? Not really, but it is a game about cleaning up a messed-up world. It's cute, it takes about an hour and change to run through, and while the whole thing feels like it could have used a little more everything, it's an amusing enough ride while it lasts.

Arcade Archives Moon Shuttle ($7.99)

Nichibutsu scored its first big hit in 1980 with Moon Cresta, and for a good while after that it was all about the Moon. Here's 1981's Moon Shuttle, a very simple side-view shooter. I can't call it side-scrolling, because it doesn't. You alternate between two types of stages. The first sees you trying to shoot a path through a field of debris as your shuttle approaches. The second has you fending of waves of enemy attackers while dodging their attacks. Nothing special, but for its era it does its job. Not available in the North American eShops, for some reason.

EGGCONSOLE Silver Ghost PC-8801mkIISR ($6.49)

Yes, I'm still imagining the world where D4 Enterprise puts the extra resources into localizing all of these amazing Japanese computer classics it's tossing out onto the global eShop. Silver Ghost is a beloved strategy RPG for many Japanese gaming enthusiasts, and has been cited by one of the Shining series creators as a source of inspiration for those games. It would be really nice if fans outside of Japan could more easily enjoy this, but you're again dealing with a lot of Japanese text if you choose to tackle it.

Damikira ($7.99)

Sure, this is a pretty standard-looking run and gun platforming game, but it has a grappling hook! A grappling hook! The rules say that grappling hooks and/or web-shooters add an extra point to a game's score. That's a rule. That probably brings this up to a good three-and-a-half out of five.

Rolling Football Player ($3.20)

This is a goofy little thing. You have to roll your football player through five stages, trying to land him in a cup. It's a very short game, but it's more of a weird physics toy than anything else. For the price, that's probably fine.

That's all for this week, friends. We'll be back next Saturday with another Round-Up as we continue into October and the many games that will come with it. As ever, I will plug both my Patreon (where you can find lots of cool exclusive articles) and my Ko-Fi (tips help me run this blog). There, plugged. I hope you have a super Saturday, and as always, thanks for reading!

[exeggcute]

your blog is cool and youre the only person on tumblr i really follow on tech stuff. is the transition to manifest v3 really worth all the hubbub?

first of all thank you! and second of all, lol. to be honest I haven't had a major eye on the v2 > v3 transition but you may be unsurprised to learn that I'm not taking hard sides here and am both slightly suspicious of the changeover and also less than convinced by some of the "this is the worst shit ever" blowback. not to suck google's dick either (unless any recruiters are reading this...?) (jk my least favorite person on r/technicalwriting works at google so unless you can guarantee that I will not come into contact with that man, it's gonna be a hard no) but to some extent I think this is one of those things where google, as the de facto governing entity for how internet browsers are designed[1] is, for better or worse, in the seat to steer the ship right now and inevitably has to make design choices that will shape the future of (how people will access) the web.[2]

[1] insert comment about firefox here but considering firefox is almost singlehandedly bankrolled by google it works out the same in the end. hence my perpetual dislike of the way-oversimplified "maverick underdog mozilla singlehandedly holding the line again google" narrative... go tell me where the money is coming from!!!

[2] also I know the W3C is the actual governing entity for internet protocol design and has influenced browser design on a more abstract level but that's still a degree of separation away and tbh I'm not super familiar with W3C drama. although I can only assume there's drama lol.

and google being google has both real and imagined interests in shaping the web by virtue of their other business ventures (e.g. but not exclusively e.g., advertising) and so I think some amount of blowback is gonna be inevitable when they propose Big Fundamental Changes. which, like, I'm the last person who's gonna say "no we should definitely drop our defenses and approach this without an ounce of skepticism" lol so I think the knee-jerk Uh Oh impulse is totally fair and maybe even warranted. but after the initial jerk I also think it's worth hearing shit out and, you know, on the face of it I can see why the changes outlined in the v3 manifest bring positive changes to the table. security and performance and shit. but security and performance are relatively boring selling points, and when google has earned a poor public reputation thanks to the other shit they've pulled I think it's understandable that even well-meaning changes will be met with general suspicion.

buuuut I still get irritated by the verging-on-clickbait headlines where literally every change about v3 is framed as "google is finally killing ad blockers" and then you read the article and ad blockers aren't mentioned directly a single time. like it'll literally just be about v3 lol. arguably I'm just being naive/willfully ignorant because of course it's all really about ad blockers since google is an advertising business and the other benefits are a smokescreen and blah blah blah but I do kinda feel like that borders on conspiratorial thinking, especially since ad blockers will work in v3, albeit differently, and google is actively working with/taking feedback from extension developers (including ad block extension developers). a lot of it genuinely just seems like "major version change will require significant technical work to implement, more at 11".

who knows though, I could eat my words :shrug:

kind of related but I was always kind of surprised by the amount of pushback against the web integrity API thing because I read the proposal behind it and it seemed pretty well-intentioned to me. granted there were some fair/serious concerns that even the proposal pointed out and a lot unanswered implementation details (and tbf it was a proposal/WIP) but I got Why they were proposing it, invalid traffic being the bogeyman it is. and like I am not a cryptography guy in the slightest but as I understand it the WEI was basically just an SSL certificate in reverse?

a lot of it makes me think about the web3 article from a few years back where a guy talked about designing an NFT that looked cool on various storefronts but looked like a poop emoji in your actual wallet after you bought it, which, in the process of trying to google it to link here, led me to this substack post where someone summarized it as "NFTs are centralized and no one cares." which is pretty much exactly what I was getting at (and why I thought about it in this context) with how even ostensibly open protocols can devolve into walled gardens built around those protocols with bonus features tacked on, if the protocols themselves don't offer those features out the gates (and enough people want them). idk. food for thought I guess. I really am just rambling here though so let me humble myself by reminding us all that I have a B.A. in english and love to speculate lolol. not an expert!

[emmersreads]

A Psalm for the Wild-Built - Review

4.5/5 stars

The best part of A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers isn’t the robot.

Allow me to explain.

Shortly before Christmas I went to my local independent bookstore to attempt to find a gift for my hard to shop for brother and inevitably ended up not doing that and instead buying myself a little treat. That little treat was A Prayer for the Crown-Shy (in my defence I had a lot of store credit). As I paid I got to talking with the bookstore’s owner (who knows me on account of building up all that store credit) about A Psalm for the Wild-Built.

I told him I’d bought the first book because of its beautiful cover design but it ended up being a lot more meaningful to me than I’d expected.

He replied, “I know! The way a robot teaches a human about life!”

“Oh,” I said. Then, trying not to pause so long it would be irredeemably rude to the man from whom I would be pre-ordering Alecto the Ninth, “That’s not what I took from it at all.”

Look, I’ve read a lot of scifi; I’ve watched Blade Runner. The idea that a robot might be used to explore humanity is not a new idea for me. It’s like telling a French chef that sauce tastes good with cream in it. No shit Sherlock.

The thing that was so great about A Psalm for the Wild-Built, that took it from a neat if dull little worldbuilding exercise about the post-scarcity future to one of my favourite books of the year (in the unenviable 7th place overall), was its exploration of ennui. To me the core of this novel is not the idea that a robot might be more human than humans. APWB has a different philosophical core: the question ‘if we have everything we need, and we are still existentially unsatisfied, what do we do about it?’ What happens to people who still feel unfulfilled in the post-scarcity future?

Protagonist Dex has nothing to feel bad about. Humanity has emerged into the bright light of the future and is doing pretty great actually. What resources are essential for survival and comfort are managed sustainable and the rest are returned to nature. Without competition, humanity lives in peace and happiness, reorienting society to prioritize comfort and quality of life over money and success. Dex has a loving family and friends and every opportunity for self-fulfilment that this utopia could offer and none of them help. Dex wakes up wondering why they can’t seem to stop feeling this nebulous sense of ennui.

The emotional aspect of this premise hits close to home for me. In 2022 I was living with my mum, who subsidized my rent in an otherwise very expensive city and also made me dinner. I had a part time job with an understanding boss and nice coworkers. I felt like I should be living my best your-unemployed-friend-on-a-tuesday-morning life. I felt like shit warmed over.

The existential need that Dex is trying to fulfil throughout the novella is something I can grok on a really intimate level. Like Dex, I got an awkwardly large vehicle and set a course for a location in the mountains that invoked distant memories of happiness, in pursuit of some sort of meaning.

This is, in my opinion, the most novel element of the story. I don’t really care about worldbuilding for its own sake because I’m a hater who is allergic to fun, which sets me at odds with a lot of the solarpunk genre. Here’s the rub: even intentionally low stakes stories ought to have more to say than ‘wouldn’t it be nice if things were just nice.’ A Psalm for the Wild-Built does. It does an admirable job of exploring what our problems would be once we solve all the big ones, and that philosophical question gives the story a depth that makes the worldbuilding worth exploring.

Of course, a nice philosophical idea doesn’t mean a whole lot unless it is implemented well, and that’s where I think A Psalm for the Wild-Built shines the most. In order to tackle the question of why we want when we have everything we need, the novella needs to develop the sense of nebulous and inarticulable emptiness. That’s a tough emotion to convey. I tend to find characters who are unaware of their emotions annoying and frustration (see above: I am a hater who is allergic to fun), but I really loved the way Chambers went about developing Dex here. The idea of setting new goals and doing hard things in the hope of feeling better resonates much more with me than wallowing in endless self-reflection. It’s not more effective either, for those worried about a conflictless story. Instead, Chambers is more interested in what you do when the thing you expect to work doesn’t. It makes for one of the most quietly touching climactic scenes I read in 2023. The depiction of the inarticulable depth of true person to person understanding is really beautiful.

The fact that one of those persons is a robot doesn’t really matter.

[austin-in-taiwan]

July 16 - Taipei - National Palace Museum, Mongolian BBQ, Chiang Kai-Shek residence

Today we had chartered a bus to take us around the city where we were going today! If you're reading this and don't know, it's consistently over 95 degrees here in Taipei. So, having to walk less around this city and being able to take a break in a nice air-conditioned bus is exceptionally nice.

Our first visit was to the National Palace Museum here in Taipei. There were so many super old artifacts throughout Chinese and Taiwanese history from the Qing dynasty. Throughout my travels here in Taiwan, I have appreciated how old Chinese history is, especially compared to the United States (our history is 248 years old, while Chinese history is over 5000 years old). See more about what I learned in the academic reflection below!

Afterward, we had a group lunch at an all-you-can-eat Mongolian BBQ restaurant. When I go to an all-you-can-eat restaurant, I always have the same tactic: eat enough to the point where the restaurant loses money. I asked Peter how much it usually costs to eat there since this lunch was already paid for by the program, and he said it was only 15 USD for lunch! I thought this was wild for such a good restaurant. I have attached a video of the BBQ station, but in summary, you can fill your plate with vegetables and a selection of beef, chicken, pork, and/or lamb and give it to the chefs to cook for about 2 minutes or so. It was so delicious I had 3 bowls. There also was a selection of dumplings and other hot foods. Overall, I ate enough for several people, which was excellent!

Finally, we went to Chiang Kai-Shek and Madame Chiang's residence in Taiwan, where they lived for over 20 years, according to Peter (their longest home together). There was an audio guide, and I enjoyed walking through their residence and learning more about Madame Chiang, her home design, and what they did in the various rooms there.

Academic Reflection

I learned a lot about various Chinese and Taiwanese history today. Peter taught me several things throughout the museum tour. One of the most interesting things was looking at the porcelain teacups and bowls worth 10's of millions of dollars. For an example read the article below this paragraph. I was shocked not only about how expensive and valuable this china was but also how pristine its condition was for being roughly a  thousand years old. Another idea that stuck with me was when Peter explained what he learned about Buddhism while at Buddhist temples with some of his previous clients. He told us that to be enlightened, you have to get rid of all attachments, desires, and personal property, and to do that, you have to realize and accept that everything before us is an illusion. This rough explanation still doesn't entirely make sense to me. Still, I imagine that's what Buddhist monks and people who commit their lives to Buddhism are committed to deciphering and figuring out. Overall, in the future, I will definitely be more interested in learning about Buddhism when I visit temples and other religious sites.

Furthermore, I found Chiang Kai-Shek and Madame Chiang's residence particularly interesting. I spent lots of time listening to the audio logs provided by the museum, as I was even one of the last people to leave. Mainly, I was intrigued by how Madame Chiang had lived and studied in the USA and influenced Chiang Kai-Shek to be involved and friendly with the United States. I found that she had learned at Wellesley and found that very cool, as I have a friend who studies there today! The intricacy of the design of the house and the artwork that Madame Chiang implemented was stunning and impressive. The tour also explained how Madame Chiang was always there with Chaing Kai-Shek when important guests were over (like President Eisenhower) and helped him in meaningful political conversations. Overall, I learned about the influence Madame Chiang had as Chiang Kai-Shek's wife.

[utilitycaster]

it was hard to discern genuine issues with the potential new ogl through all the chaos since that article about the leak dropped, so thanks for your misconceptions post. mind if i ask what concerns you about it?

Sure! All of this is about a document that hasn't come out yet, but these are the things I personally have my eye on:

I've seen differing statements on how the royalties on crowdfunding kick in. Some sources seemed to indicate that they are based on money raised, rather than profits (ie, if you raise 800k, even if that was the cost of production, you'd still owe on the 50k excess). If that's the case, that would give preferential treatment to groups that have access to existing money vs. those that need to rely on crowdfunding, and that's bad. However, if it's based on profits, that will not be a concern. So this is a wait and see sort of situation.

I suspect actual play will, as discussed, be given a pass unless they are using WoTC IP for their settings, because it's essentially free advertising*, but I would like to see the final wording or official statements for the case of Dimension 20's paywalled content.

The biggest one for me is that it sounds like everyone, or possibly everyone making in excess of $50k, will need to register, even if they are not going to owe royalties. This honestly just sounds super tedious and like a waste of time; I suspect it's so that they can handle the case of a company that suddenly puts out something major and makes a ton of money, but it just seems unrealistic.

While the currently active OGL 1.0a reserves the right to change the nature of the license, it is in fact unclear how this will affect previously published materials under the OGL 1.0a, and that does need to be clarified. Like...I should note that I do not actually feel bad for Paizo even a little bit, and it's weird that people seem to be making it out to be some tiny unproblematic mom and pop startup rather than the company that was, during the D&D 4e era, the publisher of the most popular TTRPG of the time. But they did in fact follow the OGL 1.0a (granted, it's kind of impossible to breach), and so while I have no particularly strong feelings about updating the OGL and cracking down for future works, I would be uncomfortable with the precedent set by making changes retroactive. In other words, existing published materials made under the OGL 1.0a should be permitted to continue as is, and 1.1 should apply to any new material. This, incidentally, is what the letter from Paizo's lawyers is covering; they are not saying that 1.1 cannot be implemented, but are rather asking for clarification on what will happen to material put out per 1.0a.

*This is worth keeping an eye on. I've seen some really wild replies to my posts as well as what I hope is misinformation but suspect in some cases is disinformation spamming the CR tag that do not seem to understand that it is in WOTC's best interests not to like, clamp down entirely on VTTs and actual play, because multiplayer TTRPGs by design require there be a significant community with an exchange of ideas. I mean, I'm not going to pretend like capitalist ventures haven't killed any number of golden geese, but the smart move if they want ongoing subscribers is to make their material available through a large number of platforms, and to encourage actual play.

[xb-squaredx]

The Avengers Game: The Surefire Hit That Misfired

With the stronghold that the Marvel Cinematic Universe had on pop culture for the past decade, it was all the more puzzling that they didn’t capitalize on that in the realm of video games. Superhero video games have been a thing since the medium began, but for the longest time Marvel’s gaming efforts were few and far between, outside of the rare Spider-Man title. But in 2017 a collaboration between Square Enix and Marvel was announced, with a variety of game products teased, among them being a project centered on Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. On paper, this seemed like a complete slam dunk. A prolific AAA game developer, a hot IP that hadn’t had a lot of game action in a while, and it would be landing right when the MCU hype was at its peak with the back-to-back hits of Infinity War and Endgame. But that wasn’t what happened. Something went wrong, and the surefire hit….misfired. Just before the game’s delisting at the end of September 2023, I ended up purchasing the game on a deep discount, curious at what all the fuss was about. So let’s talk about how this game ended up the way it did.

A FALSE START

Marvel’s Avengers launched in September of 2020, and to say the launch was rough would be an understatement. Broken matchmaking, a litany of bugs and performance issues, and a deeply unsatisfied fanbase. While it’s clear the pandemic had played a huge part in the game’s lackluster release state, the fact it was allowed to release like this at all was worrying. Only a month later player numbers on PC had dropped significantly and the game seemingly was in its death throes. In March of 2021 the next-gen console versions of the game released, and with it a multitude of fixes and additional content. It was clear this was an attempted re-launch of the game, but you know what they say about first impressions…

Now, to give the developers some credit, there were legitimate attempts to improve the game and add more worthwhile content. They didn’t just cut and run and leave players holding the bag. Effort was put in to making the game better and trying to right the ship, though the damage had already been done with the game’s reputation. Even as someone who got the game far after every patch and fix went out, I still encountered a ton of issues and on my last-gen PS4 console the overall experience was still rough. It feels like a game that really should have been next-gen only, but was pushed out to the last-gen systems to get as much profit as possible, in a manner similar to the ill-fated launch of Cyberpunk 2077. The sad truth here is that regardless of patches and additions to the game, no matter how many bugs they fixed and feedback they implemented, there were problems with the very core of the game, and in order to properly address these issues…they would have been better off making a new game from scratch.

THE GEAR SCORE MAKES THE HERO

One of the most hotly debated aspects of Marvel’s Avengers was its status as a live-service game. At a time when the “games as a service” bubble was about to burst, fans had largely grown intolerant of more games coming out competing for their time and money, and if you are going to market yourself as a “forever game” with tons of ways to spend money and get players to log in every day, you have to make it worth it for them and…well, I think the game’s overall reception and failure speaks for itself.

So much of Marvel’s Avengers is grinding for grinding’s sake. Everything takes longer to unlock and build up than it should, clearly designed in such a way to squeeze money out of the playerbase. After a certain point, the goal is no longer to make a satisfying game for players and instead to make it into an infinite revenue machine. At the game’s launch you had TONS of cosmetics that could only be gotten through a tedious grind of in-game currency….or you just pay up with real money. At one point the developers even tried to market an experience boosting item for players, before it was removed due to protest. Keep in mind this was a full-price game. Just a few years prior we had Marvel’s Spider-Man as a solid single-player game that had NO microtransactions at all, and a TON of costumes you could unlock by…playing the game. How novel! Speaking of Spider-Man, let’s not forget that one of the most popular superheroes of all time was made into a PlayStation exclusive for no other reason than greed. Now, I’ve played the game long after the final update just unlocked all cosmetics for players to enjoy for free, and what few things I have to unlock from in-game vendors shows me that this grind must have been awful to live through, and it must be even worse if you HAD paid for stuff without knowing that one day it would be made free with the flip of a switch.

On top of all of this, there was also artificial bloat inserted into the game’s progression systems with the focus on loot and raising your player’s Power Level. Over the last few years I’ve seen a lot of games worship at the altar of “gear score” and I hate it every time. They completely miss the forest for the trees regarding what makes loot and loadouts work in other games. Often times your own abilities as a player are downplayed in favor of forcing you to micromanage your gear, and it unfortunately infects the Avengers experience. Despite the fact that you’re playing as Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, you don’t feel all that powerful unless you have the right arbitrary number attached to the endless loot you sift through during missions. Hulk Smash….but only if you put on the wrist guards that give him plus 5% damage when it’s raining outside. Remember how in Spiderman: Homecoming Peter has to grapple with being a hero despite Tony taking away his fancy suit with all those gadgets? Or how this game’s own campaign is constantly touting the platitude that “Good isn’t a thing you are, it’s a thing you do?” Yeah well actually the gear makes the hero, so get to grinding if you want to actually embody these characters!

You constantly have to deal with gear you get from enemy drops, finding them in strong boxes, or completing missions. While you do on occasion find some gear with some tangible effects that you can tuck away for a specific mission, the bulk of gear is garbage and exists almost purely just to sell off to get a pittance of currency in exchange, or later on to feed existing gear and make it stronger. But with each mission you’ll get better and better gear, constantly having to replace what you already had, so don’t get attached. So many of the modifiers and stat bonuses to gear are so minor they don’t even feel noticeable, and what’s more, it’s all there to keep up the illusion of progression.

There’s no actual progression from the gear system; the game automatically scales to whatever your Power Level is when selecting most missions. There are SOME missions that have a higher Power Level by default that you can’t take on until you’re at that level, but they didn’t feel noticeably more challenging than other missions. Now, I never hit the Power Level cap with any character, and I’ve seen evidence that some missions are hidden from view unless your Power Level is high enough, so I can’t quite speak for the pure endgame content, but the bulk of the game showcases just how horrible the gear system is as a progression system. It’s worth noting that there’s also individual levels for each character, which actually works FAR better as a real progression system. Each level up gets you a skill point that can be put towards multiple skill tress that further expand each character’s moveset and allows for experimentation to suit different playstyles and strategies. Gear systems CAN be down well, but it doesn’t work in this game, and I can say with confidence the entire experience would have been better without its inclusion. Getting off of my soapbox then, we should probably discuss the actual contents of the game itself, starting with what many touted as the best part of the whole game….the single-player campaign.

AN INHUMAN CAMPAIGN

A fair bit of the pre-release coverage of this game was focused around the story. Well before we saw any gameplay or even know what type of game Marvel’s Avengers was going to be, they were hyping up the voice cast as if it was a movie. Despite all of that focus, the single-player campaign didn’t exactly live up to my expectations for more than a few reasons, despite a decent start.

The premise is an interesting one for starters. The Avengers are blamed for a tragic accident and forcefully disbanded but years later a superhero fangirl, Kamala Khan, sets out on a journey to help clear their names and get the gang back together. Kamala is one of a few newer Marvel characters that has gotten a fair amount of buzz, similar to the likes of Miles Morales, and it’s undoubtedly great to see her take on a major role in a game like this. The early bits of the game put you in her shoes as she struggles to come to grips with her new found super powers, and the dynamic she has with the Avengers is endearing. That said, over time it started to feel like the story was being stretched thinner and thinner, and more problems started to emerge that sadly weren’t solved by the ending.

For starters, Kamala takes up the bulk of screen time. I don’t mind her being the main focus of the narrative, but for a game named after the Avengers…the team itself actually doesn’t do as much as you’d think. While we get to Hulk and Iron Man early enough, and Black Widow has a decent behind-the-scenes impact on the plot, I really feel like the narrative didn’t know what to do for Thor or Captain America. By the time the whole team is back together the game is about over, and any fun banter or moments they could have had together was mostly relegated to how they all feel about Kamala. There are times when the game’s narrative almost feels like it was written like Kamala’s fan fiction, where she is the center of everything and the other Avengers seem far too trusting and supportive of her right away, not to mention she faces little to no consequences for her actions at times. I want to stress I DO like Kamala and I think Sandra Saad does a good job portraying her, but the game gets awfully close to being a game about Ms. Marvel, featuring the Avengers, and that’s not exactly how the game was advertised.

Outside of that, I take issue with the game’s focus on the Inhumans, or rather, the lack of focus. In the comics, Inhumans are descendants of humans experimented on by the alien race known as the Kree. When exposed to “Terrigen Mist” they develop superhuman abilities, and there’s also a lot of political stuff with a royal family of Inhumans that live on the moon. In this game however, the alien aspects of Inhumans are severely downplayed, and the event that ends up releasing the Terrigen Mist and creating Inhumans here is more or less implied to be completely manmade, with no mentions of the royal family either. While it’s possible the game would have delved into the Inhuman’s alien origins later on (as certain missions do tease the Kree quite a bit in the postgame), all we’re left with in the base game is…effectively bootleg X-Men. There’s this guy, Theo, who can teleport people here and there, and he’s also bright blue…and he kind of just comes across as a less-cool Nightcrawler in every way. When you meet the Inhuman resistance later in the game, they end up being led by…Ant-Man? Because I guess they couldn’t think of or use any other prominent Inhuman character aside from Kamala. For the last few years, as Marvel began really pushing the Inhumans in the comics, TV shows and now games, it was largely as a response to not having the X-Men film rights and not wanting to promote them once the MCU took off. Many fans likewise dislike the Inhumans and view them as poor replacements for the X-Men .While I think both could have their place in the Marvel world and the premise does have potential, this particular game doesn’t really do ANYTHING of note with them.

Then there’s the lack of notable villains. While on the one hand I appreciate that the developers weren’t just reusing villains already seen in the MCU like Loki, Ultron or Thanos, their use of A.I.M. and M.O.D.O.K. leaves a lot to be desired. I’m sorry, but M.O.D.O.K. isn’t a strong enough villain to carry the rest of the game, and while there are a FEW other notable Marvel villains in here, I find they’re not used well. Taskmaster is a tutorial boss fight, and Abomination is fought early on…and then that’s about it in the base game. With both of them copy and pasted into post-game missions with a vague “oh, they’re just clones” justification. It wouldn’t be until the other story expansions that we’d get a few more villains like Maestro, an evil version of the Hulk from the future, or Ulysses Klaue, a notable Black Panther villain, but at that point it felt like too little too late. And that’s not to mention that most of the basic enemies in the game are just robots with no real personality or designs that really pop, or else fighting waves and waves of “guy with gun.” What a notable roster we’re working with here.

For all of the potential that the early hours of the campaign showcased, the cracks started to form quickly and my opinion of the story only went down with time. We started with nice cinematics and character banter, some intrigue with how it was all going to come together…but steadily it became apparent that most of the Avengers were being sidelined, the villains were weak, and the emphasis on hand-crafted single-player levels and setpieces would dwindle with time, revealing the game’s true colors.

AVENGERS: AGE OF REPETITON

For as negative as I’ve been so far, I do want to stress that I DID enjoy the moment-to-moment playing of the game and it’s clear a lot of time and effort was put into making a fun action game with Marvel characters. Now, there IS a certain level of balance here to make sure everyone is equally viable, which leads to some characters not quite living up to the power fantasy. Black Widow can take on enemies just as effectively as Hulk can, while Thor and Iron Man’s flight is slow to keep them from leaving everyone in the dust. Despite that, every character has enough tools to make them pop. Hulk can grab minor enemies and use them as weapons. Kamala’s stretchy attacks let her be a menace from any range. Smacking enemies with Thor’s hammer, or flinging Captain America’s shield at multiple opponents never got old. Even the non-powered characters like both of the Hawkeyes or Black Widow were plenty fun to use, armed with a lot of tools to take on enemies and get around the giant levels. From the intricate takedown animations for each character (Thor having a penchant for wrestling, while Kate Bishop uses teleporting to take out enemies in style) to the heavy amount of customization with everyone’s skill trees, there was a lot to like about the combat…but that can’t save a game that is so dull and repetitive elsewhere.

After the first few hours of the campaign I was suddenly forced to start selecting missions on the War Table and saw the game for what it truly was; the same handful of maps, enemies and objectives repeated over and over and over again. Compared to the curated single-player levels, the main missions, designed around multiplayer, are filled with massive maps that honestly felt way too big for their own good. You have to wander about as you look for small enemy outposts dotted here and there, fighting a pretty pathetic roster of enemies along the way. Not only are most enemies rather uninspired robots, but so many of them are just annoying to fight. Snipers that teleport away from you the instant you get close, endless turrets and drones that are always picking at you from far away, and more “elite” enemies that have tons of health to chew through in lieu of being more challenging to fight most of the time. Bosses are especially bad about this; most are huge damage sponges and play similarly to each other, completely shrugging off any attacks you land and taking forever to take out. I understand they’re balanced around four players but even so they would take so long to defeat and required barely any real engagement. Just dodge the big telegraphed attacks, sneak a few hits in and run, then rinse and repeat for several minutes.

Outside of just fighting enemies, your main mission objectives rarely change up in a meaningful way and just a few hours in I had seen most of what the game had to offer with objectives. Save some Inhuman hostages by opening up their cages, or defend some allies from waves of enemies. Maybe you need to use JARVIS to hack into A.I.M.’s database, so defend those computers from enemy hackers! There is on occasion some “puzzles” that would require a BIT of coordination, hitting switches or stepping on pressure plates to open doors for more loot but ultimately that was about as advanced as it got. Most level design would vary from gigantic open environments to linear corridors that are repeated so often I knew them like the back of my hand after just a handful of missions. Now, again, maybe that endgame stuff does change things up, but I’d rather not wade through so much of the same content over and over to see for myself.

And that’s the real shame here…for all the potential I see in this game, it gets exhausting quickly. It takes so long to actually flesh out your character movesets and try everyone out, but by that point you’ll have done the same handful of missions to the point of getting sick of them. Even with the expansions there just isn’t enough meat here to justify the grind. Sad as it is to say, it was painfully clear just why this game failed after just a few hours of playing.

AN UNENVIABLE LEGACY

The domino effect of Marvel’s Avengers’ failure is arguably just as interesting as the game itself. The poor showing for the game cost Square Enix a LOT of money, and was likely a factor in their decision to sell off their Western developers, including the developers of this game, Crystal Dynamics. The year after this game’s launch, Eidos Montreal’s Guardians of the Galaxy game ended up getting the cold shoulder from fans…despite the fact that it was exactly what many fans had wanted; a solid single-player experience with a great story that had a lot of love for the source material. But fans saw a Marvel game with Square Enix publishing it and assumed it would follow in Avengers’ footsteps. Elsewhere, the frosty reception to DC’s live-service superhero efforts with Gotham Knights and the yet-to-be-released Suicide Squad game can be at least partially attributed to this game’s poor performance. While Gotham Knight’s full release was devoid of microtransactions, the grindy nature of player progression and multiple in-game currencies to juggle points to it possibly being removed later in development. Meanwhile, the instant the word “gear score” was uttered at the gameplay reveal for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League the game was attacked by fans and the game has suffered multiple delays and as of now, it’s not clear what state that game will release in. All due to one poorly-received game!

(One screenshot was all it took for people to turn on this game)

It’s clear that the live service bubble has burst; you can only get so many people to sign up for so many “forever games” before something gives. While your mega hits like Fortnite might continue on, it’s clear by now that you can’t quite compete with that and I wouldn’t be shocked if major game releases start to pivot away from this model. It’s also been argued that the superhero bubble might have burst in mainstream pop culture. Several superhero films over the last few years have not done particularly well with fans OR at the box office. From MCU misses like the third Ant-Man movie, or the latest Thor release, to DC’s extremely costly failure with The Flash, it’s possible that superhero games might also be on the way out. That being said, Marvel does still have SEVERAL other games in the pipeline, such as the next game from Insomniac, Spider-Man 2, so it’s possible this game’s failure wasn’t enough to scare them off.

It’s sad to see how poorly this game performed in the end, even if it’s easy to see why things went this way. In another world, this game could have been a smash hit, creating a platform filled with fun things to do and multiple Marvel heroes added over a very long life. I can only imagine how they might have made certain characters work if they had only gotten the chance. Had the game launched in a better state, or hadn’t gone the live-service route, things might have been very different, but regardless the damage has been done. With Square selling off Crystal Dynamics and Eidos to Embracer, and mass layoffs hitting multiple Embracer entities, Crystal Dynamics included, there’s no hope of a second chance with this title. I can only hope the best for the people involved that they can use their talents on a better game down the line

With Marvel’s Avengers officially delisted from all major storefronts and the future of the game’s online services somewhat uncertain, I thought it important to talk about this game before it is lost to the annals of history. For all the problems I had with the game, I was happy to at least play it before it was too late. I can see that this was far from a cheap cash-in title, and a lot of talented people gave their all on a game that just didn’t work out for a multitude of reasons. I can only hope that someday we can get a more successful spin on Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, and game developers can look at this game as a cautionary tale for how to somehow ruin what should have been a guaranteed success.

Excelsior!

-B

[shadowcrash10]

GAMES PLAYED IN 2022 - RANKED

11) Knack 2

Boring, standard gameplay, visual presentation, music and story. Not much here, but a kid may be into it, especially with the co op carrying a lot of the weight.

10) The King of Fighters XV

More King of Fighters, it's solid but lacks innovation and single player content, while also being very expensive as of now. The visual presentation is a stark improvement from XIV, and the roster is very strong.

9) Chibi-Robo!

Cute and unique, provides a lot of cool ideas coupled with genius sound design, a surprisingly cool story and memorable characters. Could have done with a more focused second act, but it never stops being fun.

8) Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3

The peak of the series to me, with amazing art direction and great combat led by a simplified control system that still gives all the depth you want. Mechanically engaging all around, with a great roster to boot. Online isn't so hot though.

7) Final Fantasy VII

The glowing reception paints an accurate picture of a touchstone of the medium, with one of my favorites storylines in an RPG, alongside a dynamic, customizable fighting system, great music and a fun world to indulge. Only criticism comes from the lack of a few quality of life implementations, omissions that were common at the time.

6) SoulCalibur II

A great showcase of a single player-focused fighter, with fun controls and mechanics, a cool roster and great music, with lots of content to explore. Weird and funny mission design is coupled with light RPG elements to provide some extended playtime, and it very much works.

5) No More Heroes

A very funny game, maybe the most funny I've played in a while. It has simple combat controls that shine through in the focused, challenging boss fights, pitting the protagonist against a great roster of characters. Everything is punctuated by banger music and stylish visual direction. The loop of doing part jobs in a hub world for money to enter in new levels might turn some off, but it helped me further connect with the story. The ending is also great, a complete left turn.

4) Sonic Frontiers

Sonic's next 3D formula kicks off to a great start, with controls and level design that complement each other to create open stages that are just fun to move around. The combat is also surprisingly varied, carrying along some of my favorite boss fights in any game. An emotional, fascinating storyline and amazing score complete the package. There's a noticeable lack of polish, and the latter half of the game feels rushed, but the strong pacing and base gameplay manage to hold the game and carry it to the finish line, which - while controversial - absolutely satisfied me. Looking forward to what else they can do with this take on Sonic.

3) Resident Evil (2002)

Couldn't ask for a better introduction to survival horror. While the creepy atmosphere and jump scares are absolutely on point, the strength of the game is on its replay value, making sure it has a shelf life long after it stops being scary to the player. The puzzle design is smart and the story is fun to figure out. An absolute masterclass.

2) Doom (2016)

Provides old school design sensibilities with a modern touch, making a game with the best of the past and present. Everyone already knows about the soundtrack, but it's still worth noting what a classic on its own it became. The gameplay loop is extremely well calibrated, leading to an aggressive play style fitting of the story and main character. Everything in the presentation helps solidify the core feelings of the work, in what feels like a very focused, hand crafted piece. A joy from beginning to end.

1) Rayman Legends

Everything I could have asked for and more. My expectations were quite high and I came out as satisfied as I wanted to be. No bad levels, no lesser moments, a game that left no aspect of it without oozing polish and creativity. Absolutely recommend it.

[waxsealsyou]

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[rajubhadra]

AIStaffs Review & Bonuses (Abhi Dwivedi)

Introduction

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Thanks,

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