#it made me super happy to see the owner use that humanoid design as an AU design aaaah

[marinakaefer]

[Art/Design Minigames] Characters belong to (1) FriskiesFan on TH, and (2) smol_guppy_ on TH

[furinana]

Megaten Furbait compilation

A list of myth characters that were depicted as animals or animals with anthropomorphic features in the Megami Tensei series that have some level of appeal to furries.

Birds, reptiles and other species included.

Now let’s start!

Garuda

Kaneko designed very, very few humanoid birds (even less featuring actual beaks) so Garuda is a big win to me. I love his playful pose from the first artwork combined with the big thigh exposition.

Anzu

The curly beard and the shining brown skin really give him an extra attractiveness.

Kabuso

I fell in love with this little fellow at first sight. The way he just looks down and has a “tch!” expression like he’s mocking you.

Anubis

I don’t pay much attention to Anubis since he’s depicted in essentially the same way in a lot of other media. His slender and sophisticated figure is still mesmerizing to stare regardless.

Quetzalcoatl

I tend to prefer his human form but Quetz’s dragon form isn’t half-bad. His pissed face like he’s mad at you for eating the last piece of ham from the fridge.

Baphomet

This goat has his horn on fire and has something sticking out of his crotch! He’s up to no good! Now that I think about it, the sword and the shield must symbolize his hermaphroditism.

Behemoth

He looks at you the same way a pregnant mother would do to her lover.

Gagyson

I’m not fond of demons with a lot of random features all over them. I forgive Gagyson because he’s bird-like and is cackling maniacally.

Neko Shogun

Is he a demon or a toy? SO FRIGGIN’ CUTE! I LOVE YOU, DAMNIT!

Hanuman

A dignified old man doing yoga. Check out the little golden monkey in his armor.

Heqet

This froggie looks so happy to see you! She’s like a character that came straight from Animal Crossing.

Dormath

Not very furry-like but at least she’s worth more than Nekomata. She looks comfy to hug. Be careful or she’ll hit you with a Macca Beam though.

Ose

There it is... the most insane furbait of the list. This fucker tricks you into thinking he’s covering himself but as soon as you look at him from behind you find out he’s been walking around with his ass completely bare. It’s like he’s tainting you to look at it. Don’t even get me started at his Hallel form.

Chironnupu

BABY YOU’RE SO CUTE!!! His tongue imitating perfectly the way a dog pants cheerfully when its owner is close!!!

Hecate

A personal favorite. As soon as you summon her, she gets ready to push you onto the bed and peg your ass.

Shesha

Shesha’s battles aren’t something exciting to remember about but I truly do like his enormous snake body. Too bad you couldn’t summon him in this state.

Fomorian

If you are into hunks, Fomorian is just your dude. Remind him not to skip leg day though.

Amon

This guy definitely fucks. Beware of his ridiculously long arms.

Ganesha

I wanna touch his fat nipples and his bellybutton.

Basilisk

Such a jolly little creature! It’s like a Pokémon! 

Jambavan

He seems way less scary once you realize he’s a bear.

Gryphon

I wanna pull his big tail and see him screaming agonishingly. Apparently his meat is quite tasty.

Azumi

Azumi might be JUST YOUR THING if you liked The Shape of Water. I wonder if her mouth is too rough to kiss.

Pazuzu

There’s something that awakens in me when I stare at his happy trail.

Kuda, Inugami and Makami

L     O    N    G

O

N

G

BOIS

Wu Kong

I like his personality in the games a lot. A troublesome kid that speaks brashly.

Girimehkala

I wanna touch his fat nipples and bel-oh wait, I already said this to Ganesha.

Cait Sith

Look at his stupidass huge boots. I love this guy.

Nalagiri

I’m not enthusiastic about elephants in general but Kaneko sure draws them in a way that makes me captivated. I like how this one feels gritty and muscular contrasting the chubby ones.

Suparna

The pre-evolution of Garuda. Very majestic. I love the extension thingies from his crown.

Mushussu

The little snark with his tongue while looking at the viewer. It’s the little details that count.

Mezuki

I hate horses. I truly truly hate horses. I’m fond of this one for some reason however. Maybe it’s the fanged teeth? Or the cute braids?

Tao Tie

You don’t wanna get on this fluffy fella’s bad side.

Kobold

I like how this Kobold has quite some feminine figure. Small hips and big boobs.

Illuyanka

A body of water shaped into a masked dragon. Kaneko really nailed on the execution of this one.

Orias

I truly don’t care about Orias but his old artwork is funny. He’s tied to his horse as if both were a present.

Hachidaiou

A rare one! And it’s a turtle! Does his shell only cover his back?

Seth

Despite his major villain profile in the lore, his personality in the negotiations sums up as “big moe beast that loves lettuce”.

Mithra

"Bro” “What is it, bro” “I tied myself all over you bro” “B-bro...”

Chi You

I know it’s just his spear but the shadow makes it seems he’s wearing high heels.

Tangata Manu

Tangata Manu is so cartoonishly weird to the point it’s adorable. Look how shitty his wings are. Poor guy. 

Senri

Furry milfs stretching? Furry milfs stretching, anyone?

Makara

Makara in Dx2 is friggin adorable. I often forget it’s supposed to be from the Dragon race because of its little Bambi head.

Heavenly Generals

Kaneko the absolute madman designed the twelve chinese zodiac animals as boss enemies. THEY ALL HAVE THE SAME HAIRSTYLE.

Kikimora

I love chickens but she doesn’t resemble one enough to be endearing on this aspect to me. I like the ‘creepy creature in domestic clothes’ image though. She even helps you with housework if she feels you’re hard-working enough!

Vasuki

This one knows he’s a bastard and is fully delighted with it.

Hresvelgr

His cute expression sure makes bird lovers like myself fall to our knees.

Cerberus

Everyone’s favorite doggie! Regardless of how generic Cerberus ends up becoming in later games, his role as Nakajima’s loyal partner or our lovely Pascal the dog makes me quite fond of him.

Kamapua’a

A pig with a cape! A PIG WITH A CAPE!

Fafnir

I keep thinking of that mission in Strange Journey where you had to casually ask Fafnir for a piece of his body. Since he’s all made of metal, I guess letting someone else borrow your leg wouldn’t hurt you.

Samael

I never got to properly use one yet in the games but I'm super fond of his design. The color palette is one of my favorites.

Yatagarasu

no talk with me im angy

[talenlee]

Okay, so straight up, Sam and Max Hit The Road is one of my favourite games. It’s a point-and-click adventure game with some frustratingly obtuse puzzles. I don’t know if I can even recommend it as a game per se because the times I struggled with the solutions to its ridiculously obtuse view of the world are all so far in the past that I can’t imagine how anyone would solve them. Some of the puzzle solutions are positively arcane.

When you boil down a lot of point-and-click adventure games, they have one problem: Use key on door. In fact, sometimes games that tried to do something different (like Future War and Full Throttle) were criticised for the involvement of those other elements. In Sam and Max Hit The Road, there’s a handful of, y’know, bits and stuff designed to introduce other puzzles and problems, but none of the game is too hard once you grasp the thread of the game’s weird poke-it-and-see methodology.

So, right, as a game: It’s good, but it’s of its time. The GOG release brings automatic saves and windowed play and those are nice modern conveniences. Okay? Play it with a walkthrough nearby but don’t follow the walkthrough directly. Just use it when you’ve poked everything to laugh at the responses you find, but not to remain stranded in a narrative point for a while. I like it, I think it’s good, it’s cheap and it’s really funny.

And hey.

Now.

Let’s do the heck out of talking about Sam and Max Hit The Road.

Culture

Sam and Max Hit the Road is a game that really couldn’t be made today, and we know that because when Sam and Max got episodic content that content worked more or less at odds with the way the game felt, but more about that later when I talk about the sequels. Everything in the game had going for it was one of those lightning-in-a-bottle moments for its genre, for the gaming culture, and even for the company that made it.

It was made by Lucasarts, the only people who could comfortably make fun of Star Wars in the gaming sphere, who had access to some top-notch graphic assets (in the form of artists) and an engine that they knew inside and out. What’s more, that engine was really good at this one specific type of game and didn’t try to get weird or cute with it. They had the tools and the skills and the people and they had an idea for an intellectual property that was very much being built on the creative mind and work of one of the people working on the game rather than chasing a marketable franchise. Basicaly, Lucasarts had enough money and clout to make something nobody cared about before they started, and made it excellently enough that it endures even now some twenty-three years on.

While games like Day of the Tentacle and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis sought to represent a location or a single movie’s adventure narrative, Sam and Max Hit The Road wanted to make its whole story about a ridiculous road trip across an enormous country and show a resting state of considerable, constant weirdness. This meant that the game was about showing off a culture, and that meant that most of the game, for all that it’s about following an interruption to the status quo, is about representing a status quo that somehow all fits together – a default state. And that means you can look at Sam and Max as a little time capsule of the childhoods of the people who made it reflecting on the America they knew released into an America that was.

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Sam and Max represents a world that is pre-cellphone. It’s 1994. There are phone booths – and one factors into a puzzle. It’s pre-internet, too, and the world it depicts is the Weird America of that pre-internet life. If you journey across Sam and Max’s America, you’ll be treated to a series of roadside weirdnesses. Their starting point, a office in the big city, is crime-riddled and surrounded by degeneracy. There are gunfights at random, a store selling GUNS, LIQUOR, BABY NEEDS (which still makes me laugh) is on the corner, and violence ensues at almost all opportunities.

It’s when they’re pulled out of this needless depiction of 1990s inner-city crime and poverty that they streak across the country looking at this compulsively weird culture, and that culture is something that’s sort of faded. It’s a given in Sam and Max that there are UFOs and Bigfoots and roadside attractions with strange dark fates to them and tourist traps that are themselves, actually real things. There’s Jesse James’ severed hand in a jar and it’s just, y’know, there, in a carnival. There’s even a puzzle about finding a location on the map that lies between other, extremely ludicrous magical locations.

It’s this particular view of America’s middles and betweens as being populated by the unnatural simply forgotten by the cities that has faded in recent years. The era of the cellphone and the universal camera means that a lot of the things that Sam and Max jokes about existing are kind of past beliefs, with new, much more dark and hateful conspiracy theories replacing them.

There’s something childish about it, too. There’s something lovely about how you play with paper cutout dolls, or a diner placemat map, or that you can play Travel Carbomb (and that’s a name that aged poorly, fast). It’s a game that remembers being on these journeys as a passenger.

Values

There’s a lot of subversion in the oddness here as well. There are some locations that are literally interchangeable with one another – functionally identical spaces but for some minor, superficial changes. The Snuckeys are all the exact same locations, with the exact same key items and dialogue and puzzle solutions, a little subtle poke at the very nature of American tourist trap franchising.

Yet at the same time, this little corner of capitalist culture features a little glimpse of one of the other values that runs throughout Sam and Max Hit The Road: Happiness.

Whenever you meet people, broadly speaking they are doing okay. The story represents a whole range of people across the United States, mostly people who are working in touristed areas, doing menial jobs or thankless tasks… and they’re okay.

Most people aren’t happy, not wildly so, but they’re okay. There’s the Snuckeys employees, who are all identical and talk about having to comply with the brand’s standards, but they’re okay. They take pride in their work. They enjoy things in their work. There’s a man whose business flooded and he devised a solution. There’s food servers and store owners, there are tourists and hobbyists and yes, some bigfoots and people solving their day-to-day problems with rebranding efforts, and mostly, people are okay living their lives in their weird ways. There’s no apocalyptic sadness or unhappiness – there’s a certain joy for all these people who are just enjoying what they enjoy, doing what they do.

The thing that’s really interesting to me is the story only really represents a small number of people as being unhappy. In fact, specifically, there’s only one major character who both starts and ends the game unhappy, and that’s Conroy Bumpus, who is also depicted as being vain, self-obsessed, cruel and rich. Conroy built a monument to himself in his ranch and he spends much of the game disappointed and unhappy because he can’t have what he wants – a non-human humanoid to torture. The one other probably-wealthy person you see in the game is Evelynn Moriss, who is depicted as being a bit spacey but also using her wealth and position to benefit the bigfoots – who are her guests.

Narrative

Hell, let’s talk about story structure because, inexplicably, Sam and Max Hit the Road has a good one. I’ve spoken about how good stories that want to feel rooted to the real world are ones where there’s a single instigating event, like in Stranger Things.  There’s a single instigatory event in the narrative, but without that instigating event, the other things in the story exist and would have existed in a sort of stasis. The Bigfoot party was going to happen whether or not Bruno showed up; Conroy Bumpus was always fooling around looking for a Bigfoot to add to his collection; and Sam and Max weren’t even going to do anything different with their day unless the instigatory event happened.

That event is Trixie, the Giraffe-necked girl, conscripting the Fire-breather to free Bruno, with whom she’d believed she was in love. Trixie is a lot of things (it’s kind of weird she’s white but I’m also super relieved she isn’t black), and her story is silly, but she’s still someone who wanted something, made a plan, and took action to make it happen. It’s kind of hard to hold her up too high because she is ultimately a silly character in a silly story where almost every character you encounter is an incompetent boob, but she’s not worse than anyone else?

That’s another thing, too! Hit The Road has like, women in it? After replaying Space Quest games it’s kind of dizzying to realise that Sam and Max, with its four women with speaking roles, is a lot better about women than some other games of its era. Because holy hell that’s so depressing. FIVE! And none of them suffer anything randomly terrible – though I suppose Trixie does get kidnapped at one point, which sucks. There’s also a woman in the introduction who is herself not a character, but does exist to show up the awfulness of the self-styled Nice Guy archetype.

Still, in this era of Oh Yeah Women Exist?? it’s amazing to see this game treats them in a way that’s Definitely Not Good Enough, but still is so much better than many of its peers. It has a better plot and better character representation than many games of its generation – and this is a game where you play a talking dog who’s friends with a lagamorph!

Verdict

You can get Sam And Max Hit The Road on GOG, and that’s all for now.

Verdict

Get it if:

You already own it in some other format

You know you like point-and-click games and want a large one

You want a game that’s funny and want to marinate in it

Avoid it if:

You’re looking for a game that’s mature in its problem solving

You’re really not into the use-thing-on-thing school of problem solving

You want all your puzzles to be very key-on-door solutions

[continuity category=8]

Game Pile: Sam & Max Hit The Road Okay, so straight up, Sam and Max Hit The Road is one of my favourite games. It's a point-and-click adventure game with some frustratingly obtuse puzzles.

[tumblunni]

More progress on unnamed monster petshop game idea! Woo! Very long post and some drawings below!

* OKAY! NAME IDEAS! Monster Meadow? Monster Market? Beast Boutique? or is alliteration too lame and cheesy? how about FIEND ORCHARD that just sounds catchy even though you arent actually growing pets on trees, i just started off looking for rhyming synonyms for farm and somehow got carried away

* WAIT NO WHAT IF YOU GROW PETS ON TREES i mean, how you get the monsters isnt really a big detail after all. I was just gonna assume they breed normally like pokemon. But this game idea is vaguely inspired by monster rancher, and in that one monsters were summoned from magical tablets that get dug up like fossils. So hey! why NOT have pet trees! or at least something similar that would kinda justify the title THEN AGAIN, I mean, final fantasy doesnt have a reason to be called final fantasy, lol

* We’ve got some other names down, too! I still dont have a design for the protagonist, but they’re gonna be called Lieven. (Or possibly Lieve, which is the gender neutral equivelant) Its a german name that means ‘beloved friend’, so I think it’d fit well with our big ol hug-in-a-mug protag! And then the assistant girl is gonna be called Justine, or Justy for short. I think it fits her cos its a kinda badass superhero sidekick name, and then the full name is a rather fancy and serious one. Fits with her being lil miss grumpypants, and also the true brains behind the operation!

* We also have more of a concrete idea for the gameplay! It might work better if its not totally the same premise as monster rancher, where your only goal with breeding these pets is to make one strong enough to win a bunch of tournements. The new idea is... instead of just a farm, a pet store! Selling your monsters is more of a big thing in this game. It would give a lot more reason to raise monsters of different types, instead of just going for the highest stats. We’re thinking having multiple ‘job classes’ of customer, similar to how it works in Recettear. So, for example, a family with a young child might be looking for a monster that isnt very strong but has high obedience and a friendly personality. And you could actually lose reputation by selling them a high stats monster, cos they decide it’s too dangerous for their child and want a refund. And you might find people wanting a monster to help out in different jobs that require different stats, or a foppish rich twat who just wants something rare and doesnt care about stats at all. And people requesting specific sub-breeds of monster fusion, to give you an incentive to fill up the full list of them! (Also possibly rewards from Justy for when you hit certain total amounts of monsters?) Oh, and maybe there’d also be an aspect of having to judge whether your monsters would actually be happy at their new home. Sometimes refusing a customer is the right choice! Or you can disregard morality and sell them to the shady guy offering a higher price, who’ll probably sell them on to a butcher... But also you can keep some of your raised monsters for yourself! Its just hard to raise a really big farm without making some income to support it. We’re thinking maybe a party of max three monsters in battle would be a good balanced number.

* We also now have a rather in-depth backstory for Justy, thanks to @summon-daze! Her basic story concept is that monster raising is a sport only for the wealthy, and she’s a kid from a poor family who’s working as assistant to these wealthy toffs in order to work her way up the ladder and get her own monster career someday. But Daze gave me some more ideas of her grandma being like her secret mentor from beyond the grave! Justy always loved monsters and wanted to own one someday, but the big moment that made her determined to tear the world apart to achieve that dream was the day her grandma died. She had to see the debt collectors taking her grandma’s house, cos the family couldnt afford to keep it. And while she was desperately trying to steal as much as she could carry so she’d at least have some memories left, she stumbled upon her grandma’s secret collection of monster raising books. The thought that her grandma had also lived and died without ever being able to achieve her dreams was painful enough to fill her with righteous fury! So, now she has her grandma’s homemade diary of monster raising tips, and she’ll be able to add her own experiences to it as you play through the game. An actual incentive to get 100% completion, cos it means helping her finally finish a beloved relative’s life’s work! Oh, and I think this could also be an excuse for some extra cuteness in tutorials and stuff. Like, they’re presented in the form of pages from textbooks, with Justy’s grandma’s corrections scribbled in the margin, and lil pictures of her as a young girl used as bookmarks. By the end of the game you might be mourning grandma too! And it’d also be nice to see Justy showing you more of her work as you become closer with her, and you might even end up seeing your protagonist adding comments in the margins too. It’s our family heirloom, and you’re becoming part of the family too! :3

* I’ve already shown my idea for the Dark type ghost bunnies, but my friend @summon-daze helped me think up a cool idea for an npc member of that species! (Also theyre named Geists now) Your assistant Justy would have a big ornery scruffy sabertooth eldeerly geist with a bad temper, who’s like the grumpliest tutorial ever. This was her grandma’s secret beloved monster pet, and it vowed to protect Justy after its owner passed away. So she’s kind to the lil girl but hates everything and everyone else. She’s more of a wild monster that just happens to help out every now and again, so you cant cheat and take her to contests instead of raising your own. But maybe she could be a bonus boss! Also, Justy continues to be The Most Badass Sidekick Ever, cos she can actually carry around this massive hellbeast! I’m imagining poor protagonist being crushed cos it fell asleep on their foot, and then Justy just casually deadlifts it like a marshmallow. And probably also bench presses the sofa on the way out.

* The Light type would be little floating halos with wings. A very nonhumanoid type of angel monster! And I have a bunch of ideas about cool animations for the halos interlocking and rotating like gears! Each monster would be two halos, one with the wings and one with eyes, and then a glowy sphere in the middle thats like their heart. And they could fight by throwing their own independant parts at enemies and grinding them between the gears, and also I think maybe they can open portals in the centre and do some limited teleportation and/or shoot lazers...? MANY IDEAS!

I was also thinking that they can summon a pure light hologram silhouette thing from out of their portals, and they choose to make this spirit look humanoid as a sign of admiration for their owners. The halo form would be their default form tho, the spirit would only pop out during some attack animations and when it’s being cute on the farm. Look, mama! Just like you!

* I’m still working on a kind of ambiguous idea right now. it was originally intended to be a rock type cat, but the crystals looked more like ice and it somehow turned into a grandpa dragon along the way...

* Another idea i had was that the Fire type monster could be a small humanoid fairy with a sword for a tail. Spirits of the forge! They’d have a big lock around their neck and the flavour text would be that they’re primordial flame spirits who were sealed into this cute form by the gods for their mischief. So they’d most commonly have grumpy grandpa type personalities, and be all warriorlike, and get super pissed that everyone just finds it adorable!

And maybe there could be a secret sidequest to unchain them and get a new monster type? But they’re shy about their master maybe not liking them anymore now they’ve stopped being cute. YOU ARE STILL CUTE, LIL BUDDY!!! :( I’m not sure yet what the unsealed super form would be, maybe a more typical super buff lizardman genie thing? or maybe just a completely nonhumanoid dragon of doom

* I’m thinking of a whole bunch of names for them but really I cant decide! First impulse is just to call them Pixies or something, but that makes me think of the weird sexy monsters in Monster Rancher, lol Then I was thinking maybe just name them to reference a fire god- Maybe Vulcanus, Agni or Ogun? i know its kind of a trope in rpgs to have random enemies named after everyone from every mythology, even when its just a random shout out and they dont even look similar. But I don’t know if people from these religions find it insensitive? Then another thought was maybe ‘Maohs’. Like, a comically overblown evil overlord name for these adorable lil things! And maoh just literally is the japanese word for that story archetype, its not any specific mythological character. So it could be a cute reference to real life mythos without turning any actual major deity into a monster design.

* Another idea that summon-daze helped me with was a strange dog thingie that might be either water or grass? The idea is that its just a big goofy nose and tongue attatched to a giant puff of either grass or seaweed. (Depending on what element I decide to go for.) So its ambiguous whether this actually is a dog thats just covered in heavy fur, or if its a sentient hedge that just happens to have a doglike face. Either way, its huggable!

* Also i wanna have a mantis monster of some sort!! or another monster with mantis style arms. Mantises are just unfairly underappreciated cuties!