#it really is difficult for me to play such a narrative heavy game with no idea of the end

[blushouyo]

the conversations w voss and elminster were... interesting. to say the least.

[nipuni]

Alright, time to share my opinions about Veilguard!! I have both criticism and praise so bear with me as I jump from one extreme to the other 😆 spoilers ahead of course!

The game has a very rough start with the dialogue being formulaic and rushed and the characters overexposing. It feels like a heavy handed attempt at summarizing all of previous games' lore for newcomers or in case you forgot but it's so overdone it feels coddling and trivializes a lot of previous events. Luckily this gets better once all of the introductions are out of the way, though the excessive hints and clarifications continue until the end sadly.

The locations are absolutely incredible and very diverse!! This is a highlight of the game for me. There is so much detail and care in every map and there are so many of them. My pc is struggling to reach medium settings and yet everything looks stunning. The verticality of the maps is so imposing and the graphics have a very dreamy quality that I love. I also enjoy the maze-like structure to the maps, it's more linear but makes everything look a bit more intentional. The color and light direction was amazing, all the visual development really!! it has to be one of the prettiest games I've ever played.

When I started I have to admit it did not feel like I was in Thedas and it all felt a bit theme-parky, if that makes sense. A lot of previously important and established world elements that made Thedas what it is were overlooked or made irrelevant. But the more I played the more it started to feel a bit more similar to Inquisition, for better or worse depending on what you feel about Inquisition. But!! this also feels like a selectively sanitized version of Thedas compared to previous games. In it's attempt to stay safe and uncontroversial in some aspects it loses a lot of substance and it changes the tone. The surface level politics, ignoring previously established major societal issues and a tell-don't-show approach makes the world seem more simple and shallow with no grey areas to explore. ( the humor also falls flat and out of place often too, and WHY is everyone always smirking, enough!! godlike beings are destroying the planet please this is not the time for Marvel banter aaaa )

The pacing at the start is a bit of a mess. It is so fast it felt like jumping from one world shattering discovery to the next with no time to process. The characters also seem to underreact to important information and major developments. It felt like the game was rushing me through all this to get to the part of the story it wanted to tell me while I was still wrapped in my shock blanket trying to catch my breath lmao. I really like all the key story points they touched upon, I just wish they dwelled more on them to give them more narrative weight. ( though blaming every bad thing to ever happen on the Elves was certainly..a choice )

I think the writing could have used more subtlety in the first half and more boldness in the second 😆 but I loved the thematic parallels between Rook and Solas and how every quest informs the main storyline. I do wish Rook was given more impossible choices and put in more difficult situations that forced them to lie or betray their own to better drive the point home though ( listen I just love a Trolley problem!! we need more of those, I'm the Trolley problem's number one fan!! ) I feel like they missed the chance to put Rook in Solas' role and be as vilified and hated for it as Solas was despite their best intentions which would make Rook's regrets stronger and in turn make their escape from the fade all the more impressive and give them a better understanding of Solas to either use against him or earn his respect. The line 'they called me the Dread Wolf, what will they call you when this is over' from the trailers was so good I was waiting for this!! But everyone just loves Rook no matter what!!

But I feel like I stated too many negative aspects in a row so moving on to some things I enjoyed!

The characters were very lovable to me. The romances weren't as long or impactful as I would have liked but I enjoyed all the companion quests. Emmrich is a delight and his quest is so wild and fun. I loved learning about Nevarra and I was awestruck by the Grand Necropolis. The mourn watch was so interesting, it showed a whole new side of Thedas' lore I knew nothing about! and I loved Manfred! Davrin is so charming, he became a favorite. I loved his quest too and learning more bits and pieces about the Dalish was great, I wish we got more. Seeing the Wardens through his quest also made me enjoy them a lot. Assan was very cute too and I'm glad he was treated as an animal and not turned into a goofy Disney sidekick too much lmao 😭 Lucanis is hilarious. The fantasy Spain/Italy was a bit silly and off at times but he is very sweet! and I love the Spite possession, that was so fun I'm glad they kept him that way! Bellara is adorable, her first backstory quest made me cry and I just love a nerd! I wish the second part of her story was written better however, and she sort of devolves into 'it's hard, I wish it was easy but it's hard' dialogues too often sadly. Anaris and the Forgotten Ones' portrayal was underwhelming and anticlimactic which was disappointing. Harding is also very cute and her Titan plotline was the most interesting to me, I bawled my eyes out in her quest!! I love the dwarven lore of this universe I'm so happy we got more of it!! ( she also fucking died in my playthrough?! I was devastated what the hell 😭 'whatever it takes' WEUEUGHHHG I'M SO SORRY) Neve was a slow burn for me because of my choices in game slowing that relationship down ( saving Treviso I mean, perdón amor 🙏 ) but I love detective novels and she is such a badass I ended up loving her. Taash was unexpected, I didn't think they would be so young. The coming of age story was sweet, though I found myself cringing a lot too at the handling of it I have to admit ( and the Lords of Fortune in general, and the Antaam...and que Qun..listen- kajshfgf ) but I also enjoyed learning more about the first expedition and the Qunari in general despite the messy writing and choices. I also loved Antoine and Evka! and Strife! And I haven't even read any of the novels they are in 😆 also Mila!!!! and her dad oh my god and Felassan haunting the narrative!! speaking of haunting, I would have loved for Cole to be in the lighthouse too I think it would have worked well 🤔 especially with the whole 'reading Solas' secret diary' thing the game had going on lmao

Everyone seems to get along except for a bit of friction that is quickly resolved at the start, which is hmm missed potential? I would have preferred more tension personally. I enjoy the drama! gives me more to work with and gives you a better grasp on everyone's personality by contrasting values. I think they wanted to speed run a found family trope for the new hero to establish some emotional stakes early on but it ended up making everyone seem like a group therapy session instead. The group meetings also have everyone either state the obvious or repeat the same opinion or conclusion to each other, I would have loved these meetings to have more bickering, have people get mad and storm out and also get to listen to different takes on a situation. Make Rook struggle more to take the reins and keep the team functional, learning how to be a leader.

Speaking of Rook! ( who in my case has a northern British accent that I loved so much 🥺) They seem to have a very established personality. I was expecting more of a blank slate but I'm lucky that the personality they went for kind of matches what I would normally choose in a first playthrough. Though the lack of range in the choices is irritating and takes away some replayability and role playing potential. Rook is very supportive and selfless, I wasn't expecting this tbh! But it all made my Rook turn into the team's weird supportive necromancer mom so it worked out in the end I guess lmao. I can't wait to draw her!!

I was so overwhelmed by the amount of information we got about Solas and his past!! I was expecting answers but not these many and not for them to be such an integral part of the plot!! The game feels like it's about him more than anything else. His arc is the best written out of all. He is mentioned in every conversation, he's the main advisor and the narrative foil, you get to talk to him often, you work for him and with him and go into his memories it all feels so surreal to me lmao I love him so I'm delighted ngl! but also making the other Evanuris so cartoonishly evil makes Solas into such an obvious choice of an ally, god of trickery or not, that it sort of takes the decision out of your hands and makes some dialogue options and companions' opinions seem almost nonsensical. I have no idea how this game would feel to someone who absolutely hates Solas' guts honestly. I suppose I will find out soon enough 😆

About Solas' story, I loved it! I somehow also feel that I knew it already, all the speculation and theories that Solavellan fans were crafting for years were so accurate that it was all very validating. Even the wildest ones! Solas as the Maker, the elves spirit origin, Mythal giving him a body, the war with the Titans, the origin of the Blight, Solas being on your side as advisor, I can go on, we knew!! Also I have to mention this I'm sorry but they made him look so hot!! unbelievable. And the bloodied teary eyed pathetic look in the end ouurghhh I'm cheering and clapping!!

The romance conclusion was so lovely 😭 the Loki and Sigyn ending we deserved to such a mythological epic!! and open ended enough for all of us to cook!! and we got to see him fight and transform into the Dread Wolf!! and whimper and cry!! and bleed and love!! that's all I ever wanted, incredible we were really spoiled what the hell I still can't believe it 😭 GDL acting was brilliant as usual! the visuals were also incredible and exactly what I had in mind when I imagined where the story may go, the eclipse, the giant wolf, the glowing eyes, the Elvhenan ruins, the statues, even the hair lmao it all aligned exactly to what I've been painting all these years but better I was thrilled 😭

Solas backstory with Mythal also offers players that didn't romance him a chance to see him act out of love and show a side they wouldn't be able to reach otherwise and I think it was smart! also very tragic and sheds more light into all of his choices and words and his relationship with Lavellan too and the parallels and reversals and uughh thoroughly enjoying the emotional distress 👌

Pleasing both the Solas lovers and haters at the same time was always going to be hard with him being such a polarizing character by design and the world states being so different but I think they did a good job! at least from my side of things.

I think my favorite part besides the Solas related stuff was the Blight. I loved how horrific and gross and threatening it was! I've always loved the concept of the Blights and I'm glad it was such a huge part of the story in this game. I also loved Treviso!! has to be the most beautiful city in Thedas ahhh and the Necropolis!! the gardens!! Vorgoth!!! Kal-Sharok!!! I can't believe we got to see it!! and a Titan!!! the giant floating face of Ghilan'nain in the clouds??? and the huge archdemons and dragons!! oh and that warden dragon trap in the shape of a griffon?? and the giant blight tendrils!! the siege at Weisshaupt was outstanding!! and the floating panopticon castle situation in Minrathous uughh there is so much I loved.

OH I also enjoyed the Varric arc even though I saw it coming since the trailer it was still played well and it was touching 🥺

The ending felt a bit jarring to me in tone though, a bit too cheerful considering...the horrors. Over half the continent destroyed and most of the problems Thedas had before the game are still there. Veil in place and all 😆

But I had fun!! I'm nitpicking really, the conclusion to Solas' story feels very satisfying to me which was my main worry so I'm happy. It is a good game!! with a sort of soft reboot feel to it and aimed at a younger audience which is probably what they were going for? You can sort of feel the struggle the team went through during production in the way the target audience seems unclear sadly. I also can't help feeling like this is an ending, so much was revealed and resolved!! but maybe I feel that way because that is what I felt after Shadowbringers / Endwalker in FFXIV once my favorite part of the story was wrapped? They can always pivot to a new continent and expand on the world and cultures we know almost nothing about, but that is always harder to sell so I have no clue where they will go from here 😵‍💫

Anyway I'm still processing a lot of stuff that I will probably talk (and draw) about later, this is already long enough!! for now I'll look up how to get the artbook because the art direction of this game is fantastic!! I would love to hear your thoughts too really, I'm curious about the experiences of players who made different choices and with different tastes to mine!!

[artbyblastweave]

As a person that knows a lot more about capeshit than me, what’s the meta-textual significance of the Superpowers in The Power Fantasy abstaining from establishing secret identities?

Principally it's to signal that the characters, while informed by the traditional superhero paradigm, exist largely outside of it.

Contemporary superhero fiction has a complicated relationship with the concept of The Secret Identity. When you come at the premise fresh without years of ossified genre convention, you get hit with the double whammy that a civilian identity is increasingly difficult to keep secret and that even if you buy into the idea of doing vigilante shit in secret to avoid going to jail, it's still going to take some extra work to get to the finish line of grown men calling themselves "Batman" or "Ant Man" and expecting to be taken seriously.

So, retellings will often go out of their way justify how these characters could develop these public identities semi-organically. "Superman" is usually not Clark Kent's idea in modern retellings- the media names him that, Lois names him that, and he runs with it. The Batman has the fantastic recurring gag that Bruce appears to actually self-identify as the comically overwrought "Vengeance," but the bat motif led to everyone just calling him Batman instead. The X-Men have advanced the idea, in a couple different forms, that "Mutant names" are a sub-cultural thing brushing up against a cult thing, a ceremonial way of setting yourself above and apart from baseline humanity. And you've got military callsigns, obviously. I think that's where "Ant-Man" and "Hawkeye" come from in the MCU.

In The Power Fantasy, none of the superpowers have a dual identity because they've all got extremely specific political (or artistic) projects that don't mesh well with that. To a degree I think this is playing in the same space as X-Men, where a lot of the cast have shifted over the years from being public ciphers to being public activists whose real names are on the news alongside their code names when they blow something up. But even if they don't have dual identities, the superpowers do have identities, personas, nicknames; there's a mix of deliberate image-building and outside-designation-by-society occurring. "Heavy" Harris is a thing an activist or cult leader who controls gravity could plausibly come to be called in the course of Moving and Shaking. Masumi is mentioned, in passing, to also go by the name of "Deconstructa," which reads like either a pretentious artist thing or a common-parlance nickname she picked up after the Kaiju thing. Eliza Hellbound is clearly not that woman's real name, but also, it is- and it's descriptive, and she's certainly powerful enough that that's what she gets to be called if she wants. "Jacky Magus" is really really really obviously not what's on that guys birth certificate, but it's also the only name he has that actually matters. Ettiene gets a whole monologue about the necessity of constructing himself as a figurehead that human governments can work with. He wears bright yellow, he gives interviews, and I will eat my hat if his actual last name is Lux. These people are similar to traditional superheroes in that they are constructing larger-than-life identities, they're playing a game, they're selling the world on specific narratives about themselves. But the truth that they're covering for is never that they've got some kind of secret civilian life waiting for them when they clock out. By choice or otherwise, all six of them are simply well past that.

[sprintingowl]

GEMS A Game Of Heists

When you look at a slim, sub thirty pages rpg system, you usually have some expectations. Rules light, story heavy, an emphasis on vibes to guide the spirit of play.

And then there's GEMS A Game Of Heists.

GEMS takes place in a world where evil meteoric precious gemstones have asserted dominance over pockets of society, and the only way to free those pockets is to steal the gems. People who do this are called jewelers.

And that's nearly it for what you get about the lore. The rest of GEMS is a dense, precise, GMless heist board/card game where you use a deck of playing cards to construct an extremely dynamic dungeon layout, where cards flip as players cross them and these flips can have wide ramifications across the board.

You can bypass cards or neutralize them. You can activate class-based powers to wriggle out of difficult skill checks or effects or send them at the other players. You can play competitively or cooperatively, and there's a *great* short designer's section about making your own cards and heists.

Throughout it all, the writing is really concise and clear, and the layout is highly organized. This is an easy book to use.

So, all of this is to say that GEMS A Game Of Heists surprised me. I was hoping for a narrative game, which it is extremely not, but it's equally good at being what it is---a really fun, energetic, customizable board game with some emergent narrative elements that you can whip up in a few minutes.

If you like the mechanics-y side of ttrpgs, you should 100% check it out.

[swordfright]

https://www.tumblr.com/swordfright/756502816281018368/what-do-you-think-is-your-most-controversial-dsmp?source=share

I remember sending this to a bunch of dsmp blogs (starting with elmhat I think ?) bc I like when people share ideas/opinions who diverge from the main consensus because I find it the most efficient way for people to stick to canon and not fanon since people can have different interpretations of event

And it was super interesting to see the one about the experimentation being after prison rather than before (loved the two LN and Q ones too but as you said they were a bit more common. Would love to see your take on c!slime though now)

(And I wouldn't have a problem with you giving unpopular opinion about the fandom either but to be clear I was not trying to start anything with my first question, I just like seeing uncommon takes)

Don't worry lol I didn't assume you were trying to start shit. Ok, so c!Slime is pretty interesting in that he's the closest thing we have to an NPC in what is otherwise a roleplay, which implies certain things about how he can be used in the narrative.

A little bit of quick background: I spent a LOT of time as a kid doing RP online (it was an original story set in the Death Note universe and it happened on a website that went bankrupt in like 2017 and no longer exists lmfao don't worry about it) and idk what RP etiquette is like in other communities, but in the community I was a part of, it was sort of frowned upon for players to outsource heavy plot/character development material to NPCs. It was allowed and people did it, but it was seen as sort of a cop-out. The underlying idea being that if you're gonna bother to do RP, your character's most important interactions should be with other PCs, in part because it helps build/strengthen the RP community and in part because it better entrenches your character's storyline in the storylines of other PCs, which in turn encourages other players to keep RPing and keeps the story going. Again, creating NPCs was very common, but players were discouraged from having entire arcs or character trajectories be highly dependent on NPCs. It was seen as sort of a cheap, low-effort way of progressing your character's development without having to coordinate plot beats with other players, and doing it too often was seen as sort of antithetical to what RP is trying to achieve as a form of gaming-storytelling. To me, c!Slime is a classic example of when an RPer outsources a little too much narrative weight onto an NPC.

First of all, I wanna clarify that it's kinda difficult to define what an NPC is or isn't on this server, but I'd say c!Slime is more of an NPC because even though he's played by a CC with some degree of improv, we know that cc!Quackity specifically wrote c!Slime's character to fulfill a narrative role and asked cc!Slime to play that character - as opposed to alternate characters played by CCs of their own accord (Sam Nook, Dream XD, Sam Bucket, Mexican Dream, etc.) So, for example, I don't see Sam Bucket as an NPC but I do see c!Slime as an NPC. c!Slime wasn't an original creation on the part of the player, he's a narrative tool (which is fine, but it does mean that what he can and can't do in the story is limited to what cc!Q needed him to do.)

There are some things I think the addition of c!Slime did accomplish. For one, Q's interactions with him provide a platform for more introspective character work on Q's part. And while I that character work could've been done by having Q interact with a PC instead, I do think Slime is better positioned to act as an apprentice figure because he had almost no lore prior to Las Nevadas and didn't enter the story with baggage or ties to any other major characters. He's a blank slate, which makes him really easy to use as a narrative device. Q voices thoughts and ideas to Slime that he can't voice to other characters (usually because it would be OOC for him to do so, or wouldn't make sense in context), which means that Slime is sort of a vehicle for delivering Q characterization to the audience.

This is all fine and I think a lot of it was done fairly well. I like cc!Slime's acting and I think the character is a fun addition to the LN crew. That said, I don't think the payoff was great. Slime being an NPC really undermined what I assume cc!Q was going for with End of Las Nevadas, in large part because he doesn't have well-established relationships with other characters. Aside from Q, Slime basically only ever interacts with Tommy, Foolish and Ranboo, and even those interactions are limited to a really tiny handful of streams. Punz capturing and manipulating him, Slime helping c!Dream confront Quackity...all that stuff could have been a lot more interesting if it had more time to marinate. Like, I love the IDEA of Slime and c!Dream interacting, but we don't really get any meaningful interactions between them outside of Slime's function as a storytelling tool. He's there when he needs to be, and only ever when he needs to be.

For instance, I would've loved to see what Slime thinks about Q's slime army. It's really weird to model your mindlessly obedient slave army after your friend. That was a weird ass thing for Q to do, and it would've been cool to see Slime react to that. But because he's more NPC than PC, and because highly scripted lore like the LN series doesn't really encourage deviation, we never get to find that out. Slime doesn't ever really get to be his own character, which in the end kinda undermines a lot of the character development he triggers for c!Quackity because at the end of the day, it's really transparent that Slime only exists to be a prop. It's a kind of one-sided relationship that's unique to RP.

I think End of Las Nevadas was weak for other reasons too, but uhhhh yeah the Slime stuff bothered me a bit. Would've liked to see him do more. And he disappears after pushing Q off the ledge and, to my knowledge, we never see him again! If he had been more PC and less storytelling tool, presumably other characters would've had opportunities to react to Slime's role in the events of that stream, or notice that he's missing/back again/missing. But instead, he's able to just vanish from the story after he's fulfilled his role because that's all he was ever supposed to do.

[theresattrpgforthat]

Mint Plays Games: The Wildsea

I spent the month of April (and a little bit of May) playing a game of The Wildsea as part of our Planedawn Orphans meta-campaign series. The Wildsea is the brainchild of Felix Isaacs, and published under Myth-Works, and it’s had such a successful crowdfunding experience that it’s got a number of special scenarios, expansions and game accessories for the dedicated collector. I have access to the original game, as well as the Storm & Root expansion, but most of what we used was just from the original game.

The Wildsea was chosen to represent the “Earth” element from the checklist in Planedawn Orphans, this time targeting a relic titled “The Titan’s Throne.” Once again, we had a few folks who signed up to play as their Planedawn Orphans characters, and a few people who just signed up to play The Wildsea.

Once again, the setting and character creation was very very fun, and in this case, I think it might have been my favourite part of the game, especially when we got to ship creation. I’ve often referenced Forged in the Dark games as a cornerstone for The Wildsea in the past, but the character and ship creation process is, in my opinion, much more time-intensive than many other typical Forged in the Dark games. When you sit down to make a ship, each player has a number of stakes they can spend to ensure that the ship has a component or two that they really want. Our crew decided to build our ship out of the body of a giant lamprey eel, covered with copper scales and complete with a lightning spear built into the tail. We all agreed it would likely be horrifying to look at; and we embraced that horror whole-heartedly.

The rules are very similar to Forged in the Dark, with the added mechanic of a Twist, which makes the generally larger dice pool more interesting; roll two of any number and apart from success or failure, you’re going to have something else interesting happened. However, I feel like the twist mechanic kind of threw my play group off their rhythm, since the narrative kind of had to stop in order to give them time to think of something that they could add to the narrative. This might just be a table issue, as some groups of players might be jumping to add details to the narrative, while others might be more used to looking to the Game Master for guidance.

The game has a lot of interesting set pieces and hints of lore built into its setting, but there’s more prep that I think might be required than I originally thought. There were moments where the freedom of the setting led players down paths that I hadn’t anticipated, and I had to quickly invent NPC’s and setting descriptions that I wasn’t prepared for. I’ve heard about this kind of problem described before about the family of improv-heavy games, of which PbtA and FitD are definitely members, but this was the first time that my sparse notes in terms of locations and NPCs felt like they really bit me in the behind.

Overall my experience with Wildsea was a bit more stilted than I would have liked, but I don’t think I need to lay all of our problems at the game’s feet. Our game group had a big lull in between sessions, and we had to meet in a format that meant that communication was sometimes slowed down or difficult. I definitely want to give this game another go in the future, hopefully with a group that can all meet in the same place, and hopefully with less gaps in between sessions. The biggest takeaway that I have from this game is that Game Masters should definitely look through all of their players’ character sheets and take note of what each character is geared up for and what the players have indicated is interesting to their character arc, because I think the game will connect with your players more if you have designed threats or set-pieces that speak to those abilities.

[blueskittlesart]

hi! im really curious about your thoughts on oot, i'm trying really hard to like it and i wanna see what you enjoy about it

Hi!!! I'm going to do my best to explain exactly why I like oot but there is a TON of ground to cover. i have already written a bit about the story and my thoughts on it in this document, but this is a much more in-depth analysis of the symbolism and implied narrative which i think may be more helpful to you if you're struggling to get into the story and gameplay!

oot is my favorite zelda game of all time and was what made me fall in love with the series, but I will concede that it shows its age, especially with the insane advancements that video games have made over the past 2 decades or so since its release. Try to remember when playing it that it came out in 1998, when a game with any sort of 3d graphics at all was still new and exciting. some of its gameplay is going to be a bit dated, unfortunately, and it's totally reasonable to dislike that aspect of it i think! If you really find yourself struggling with gameplay, i recommend zeldadungeon.net for dungeon walkthroughs. they have very concise and easy-to-follow walkthroughs for the entire game which make the gameplay MUCH smoother for first-time players! there's no shame in needing walkthrough help in these dungeons, ESPECIALLY some of the later ones which get notoriously convoluted and difficult. that being said, even if you use walkthroughs, I'd encourage you to still pay attention to the dungeon's designs and details as a lot of thought was put into these designs and I think they're still some of the strongest in the series! gameplay-wise I'd also say that there are a lot of little collectibles that will seem like they're way more important than they are to new players. you don't need the skulltulas (they get you a bigger wallet), you don't need to complete any trading sequences, you don't even REALLY need to go out of your way to collect any of the extra heart pieces, the game is perfectly beatable with just the hearts you'll get from dungeons. Knowing all these things going in will really streamline your gaming experience and make things easier for you if you're getting put off by the 90s-style game design.

As for what i really love about the series, it's the story. And i understand that if you're not someone who makes a habit of analyzing media to an obsessive degree, at first glance oot doesn't seem to have a lot of story. A simple fact of old game design is that more dialog and cutscenes meant more storage space was needed, and the biggest constraint in game design at the time was the limited amount of storage a disc or cartridge could hold. What this means is that storytelling in older games like oot takes a very different form than the cutscene and dialog-heavy storytelling that games tend to use nowadays. the storage restrictions on the game meant that a lot of oot's story had to be told implicitly, via details and worldbuilding and actions carried out by the player. I know this can make it difficult to grasp at first glance! that's why i love to analyze it and talk about it, because I want people to understand how rich and well-told oot's narrative actually is and i know that most people aren't as willing to put in the work as i am, lol. with that being said, this is where the spoilers are gonna start! i'm gonna recap and analyze most of oot's story here, so if you're not looking for spoilers scroll away now and experience the game for yourself!!

oot is at its roots a story about adults failing children. i will elaborate on this point a bit more later, but for now let's look at our opening segment. We are introduced to our link, the youngest link in the franchise, at nine years old. From the get-go, we as the player are told that link's hylian parents died in a conflict very shortly after he was born, leaving him in kokiri forest to be raised by the deku tree, among the kokiri.

The kokiri are a race of eternal children. what this means, essentially, is that we begin the story with a link wearing rose-tinted glasses. the kokiri live forever without aging or dying, and they never leave the forest. Link has grown up isolated and without any concept of aging or death. he has been told by the deku tree, his father-figure, that he IS a kokiri and therefore will never age or die. Despite this, link does have a crucial difference from the rest of the kokiri that even he is aware of--he has no fairy. If you talk to the kokiri in the initial kokiri forest segment of the game, many of them will talk down to you or make remarks about you finally getting a fairy, reminding the player that link knows SOMETHING is wrong with him, that he's different from the other kids somehow, but he's not yet been able to pinpoint what.

we come to our first dungeon segment, where the deku tree summons link and tells him that he's dying and that link must defeat a monster to save him. when the player completes this objective, the deku tree dies anyway, revealing that he knew all along he couldn't be saved and lied to link about it in order to get him to do the dungeon. with his dying breath, he tells link to leave the forest and find princess zelda. (worth noting that up until this point, link has been told that leaving the forest will KILL HIM.) this is the first major failure of an adult we see, and as the inciting incident of the game it sets the tone very nicely for the rest of the shitshow. The deku tree lies to link his entire life about who he is, and then spends his dying moments lying to link AGAIN, specifically in service of a greater plan to turn link into the savior of hyrule by sending him to help princess zelda. this point is crucial--the deku tree has clear-cut, understandable reasons behind acting the way he does. It would have been much easier on link to allow him to grow up isolated among the kokiri, and it removes a lot of the potential danger he would have faced as an orphan in hyrule in the aftermath of the war which killed his parents. (we will later see that hyrule is in no way a safe place for a child on their own.) Explaining all the magical-destiny lore to a nine year old had the potential to scare him away from the task ahead, as did admitting to him that there was no way to save the deku tree. But lying to him about it all still ultimately deeply hurt him. this is the stage upon which the rest of the game will build.

Link, freshly traumatized by the death of his tree dad, leaves kokiri forest. he goes to castle town and meets princess zelda, a girl no older than him. Princess zelda tells him that she fears for the safety of her kingdom, but that no one will listen to her when she tries to warn them of the danger. this is our second adult failing--the entire conflict around which this game centers could have been prevented if only any adult was willing to listen to zelda's concerns about ganondorf. But because she is a child she is dismissed over and over again until she finally turns to ANOTHER child for help. her plan for link involves him retrieving objects needed to open the gateway to the sacred realm within the temple of time, which i know sounds like a bunch of confusing lore shit but all you really need to understand is that there's a gateway to what is essentially godlike power inside this temple, and zelda wants link to open the gateway and claim the power before ganondorf can. link already has one of the 3 keys he needs--it was the reward for killing the deku tree beating the first dungeon in kokiri forest, and zelda takes this as proof enough that he will be able to find the other two.

in these first three dungeon segments, link is confined to his nine-year-old form. His sword is wooden and deals considerably less damage than it will later in the game, and in each of the dungeon segments there are reminders of the way being a child affects his autonomy in hyrule--the guard at the gates of death mountain won't let him pass, the zora princess berates him for not being enough of a man, several collectibles are clearly visible but impossible to reach with his current size & ability, etc etc. this section of the game is deliberately juxtaposed against the initial segment in kokiri forest, in which everything was built for someone of link's size and strength and no part of the map was unexplorable or all that challenging. What you're supposed to realize here is that being a kid in hyrule is HARD. you have very little autonomy and are constantly condescended to. One of the few hylian npcs your age, Malon, is a good example of this--in her mini-quest she vents to link about how her father can't see that his stablehand resents him and she's constantly having to look after him without being listened to. She is being given adult responsibilities (looking after her father & the animals on their farm) without adult social status. Her situation is a deliberate parallel to both link and zelda's, though during this 3-dungeon segment of the game it's not immediately clear yet just how much adult responsibility link is actually shouldering. in any case, this is our third example of adults failing children, and the theme begins to be echoed in the worldbuilding of hyrule during this stage as well.

now we come to the initial confrontation, the scene which alters the trajectory of the game and divides what i consider the first and second halves of the gameplay (although the second half is probably much longer lol). Link, having found all 3 keys to the sacred realm, returns to hyrule castle, only to find that ganondorf has attacked, forcing princess zelda to flee with her attendant. He catches one final glimpse of her where she throws him the final key needed to unlock the temple of time: the ocarina. although no words are exchanged between them, it's clear that she's asking link to carry out the rest of her plan on his own and claim the power sealed in the temple before ganondorf can. and so link goes to the temple of time and opens the gateway, but link is nine years old and so link doesn't notice that ganondorf, a trained thief, is following him. When he opens the temple, ganon siezes the power zelda was trying so hard to keep him from finding.

we then pan down to link again, but different. he's changed, he's older. notably, he isn't an adult. he is sixteen years old, physically, but mentally, for both link and the player, no time has passed at all. this is important to keep in mind for the rest of the game--no matter how link may look, he is mentally still nine years old. he wakes up to essentially a lecture from the world's biggest dickhead, the sage rauru. Rauru places the blame for ganondorf's rise to power squarely on link and zelda's shoulders, noting that if link hadn't opened the temple of time in the first place, ganondorf would have never been able to sieze power. he tells link that he placed him into a deep sleep for the past seven years because, at nine years old, he wasn't strong enough physically to take on ganondorf and win. But now, he says, link is old enough to be a real asset. it's time for link to defeat ganondorf.

Once again, we have a clear-cut case of adults failing children. Link and zelda took matters into their own hands BECAUSE of the adults in their lives. for link, it was the deku tree (HIS FATHER)'s dying wish that he help zelda. for zelda, her plan was a last resort after begging every adult in her life to see what was coming and being constantly ignored. now that what she predicted has come to pass, she and link take all the blame for it, for being kids in a difficult position doing the best they could with NO ADULT HELP WHATSOEVER. you can't place the fate of an entire kingdom on the shoulders of two nine year olds and expect it not to fall. but that's what hyrule's adult leaders did, and when the kingdom fell they let the nine-year olds take the blame for it. zelda hasn't been seen for years. she's either dead or in hiding out of shame for her mistake. meanwhile, Link has once again become a pawn in someone else's game. The sage rauru decides for him, without ever consulting him, that he can't be trusted to remain conscious for the seven years between gameplay segments. that he will be safer and happier to remain asleep. anyone who stops for a moment to consider what this might do to link's mental state would have not done this, but rauru sees link as a child, which in hyrule is synonymous with an object to be controlled, with no feelings of his own. he needs to be protected and hidden, regardless of what effect it has on him when he wakes up. nothing else matters as long as he can be kept alive and unharmed. this is a deliberate parallel to the way the deku tree treated link while under his care in kokiri forest--he doesn't need to know the truth, because it's easier and more convenient for everyone else if he doesn't. its effect on his mental state doesn't matter. what matters is that he is kept in a position which is convenient for the adults in his life. this is another reminder of the way in which being so young hurts link, and if I can diverge into real-world relevance for a second, it's an obvious metaphor for the way trauma steals one's childhood. Link was never allowed to grow up normally. he went from being a kid one day to an adult the next, with no time in between to figure anything out. his childhood, his coming-of-age, was stolen from him by greedy adults who needed him to be a pawn in their war.

the dungeons in the adult segment of the game can technically be completed in multiple different orders, but the usual order (and what i think is probably the way the narrative is intended to progress) is to get to the forest temple first, which requires you to reenter kokiri forest, all grown up. it's important to note that up until this point in your gameplay, link still has plausible deniability about his race. sure, he didn't die when he left the forest, but maybe that was a lie told to ALL kokiri. maybe he's still a kokiri and he won't grow up. but now he's got solid proof that he was lied to, and that the safe, beautiful sanctuary he's spent the majority of his life in was never actually meant to be his home. When you return to kokiri forest as an adult, you find that it's nothing like the safe-haven you remember. it's been overrun with monsters that are taller than you now, as an adult. This is a metaphor, obviously, for returning to someplace changed. link goes back to his home and it doesn't feel like his home anymore with all that he knows now. And if the monsters weren't enough, if link talks to the kokiri, cowering in their little kid-sized houses, not a single one of them recognizes him. they address him as an adult they've never met before. to them, it's been seven years, and they've never known a kid to grow into an adult before. but to link, it's been a few days at most, and inside he's still the little boy they knew.

the dungeons in this segment of the game are mostly straightforward training exercises to give link the necessary skills and assets he needs to fight ganondorf. I'll skip over most of them, but there are three things i DO want to highlight about this section of the game: malon, sheik, and the water temple.

Malon is introduced in the first half of the game as an example of another child with very little agency and power. Seven years later, if link visits her again, he will find the ranch in an even worse state, with the stablehand having taken over and kicked out malon's father. Malon stays purely out of fear of what will happen to her horses if she leaves them in his hands. She is an adult now, as you are, and yet she has even less power than before. So much of the first half of oot is framed in such a way that the player wishes link was older. It wants you to think, wouldn't this whole thing be easier if I was an adult? Wouldn't I have more power, more agency? but now that you ARE an adult, you're confronted with the fact that nothing has changed. you are still a pawn in a war against ganondorf. Malon is still trapped at the ranch, forced to endure daily abuse or leave her animal friends to die. however, this segment is also the first time you as the player are given the option to fight back. If you, as a child, have taken the necessary steps to befriend malon and epona, one of her horses, you are able to use the bonds you forged in childhood to run the stablehand off the ranch and return power to malon. this mini-arc with malon is a teaser for the overarching arc of the game--having no power in childhood, believing that adulthood will be your savior, but finding the same powerlessness in adulthood, and ultimately returning to pieces of your childhood in order to finally reclaim your power.

next up is sheik, who is deliberately a mystery for the majority of this segment, but. well. we all know he's zelda, so i'm not going to beat around the bush. Sheik is what has become of zelda in the years since ganondorf took power--where zelda was once strong-willed and refused to stand down in the face of danger, sheik now moves among the shadows, darting in to offer link a bit of help or advice but never getting too close. My reading of this is that zelda, after growing up in the aftermath of her failed plan, was afraid of what she'd done to link. She saw her influence as the thing that brought hyrule to ruin--after all, link never would have opened the door in the temple of time if not for her. The way she sees it, her choice to use him back when they were nine destroyed his life and her kingdom. This is why she's largely absent in this segment of the game, only stepping in for brief moments and disappearing the second link tries to reach out for her. Her character at this point is essentially representative of self-isolation as a coping mechanism.

finally the water temple, which I promise i didn't single out just because it sucks, but i will warn any potential players that it sucks. it's the most convoluted ass design in the world and even with a walkthrough it gets confusing and hard to navigate at times. this is not the point of this paragraph, though. the point of this paragraph is that there is a miniboss in this dungeon that is INCREDIBLY important to link's character and to this day is one of the most well-done and impactful battles i've ever had the pleasure of playing. (side note, why the hell did the himekawa manga make this battle happen at the bottom of the fucking well?? ive believed for years that he was a shadow temple boss because of that. whatever. anyways)

about halfway through this dungeon, you come upon a room that looks like an endless sea of water, with bits of ruins and a single rotting tree in the middle. when you walk into the room, you'll be attacked by a mini-boss that takes the form of link's reflection, black and translucent with glowing red eyes. the miniboss dark link will mimic your attacks and block when you swing, requiring players to be crafty and strategic in order to beat him instead of just swinging with the right weapon at the right time. from a purely gameplay-based standpoint, this fight is sick as hell. it rewards you for thinking on your feet and forces you to come up with real time strategy to beat a foe who genuinely seems to think the same way you do, which is REALLY cool, especially for a game released in nineteen fucking ninety eight. narratively, though, there are symbols upon symbols upon symbols to be picked apart in this fight alone. there's the obvious metaphor of fighting onesself--representative of an internal struggle of some kind. pair that with the set dressing for this arena and the information we already know about link, and things start to fall into place. Link was raised in a lush forest, surrounded on all sides by walls of trees that kept him safe and isolated from the world at large. the minute he left that forest, bits and pieces of his worldview started to fall apart--he learned his identity as a kokiri was a lie, experienced the hardships of being a child in hyrule, and now he's grown up and become a pawn in the fight against ganondorf, losing what little agency he had along with the ability to return to his home in kokiri forest. He finds himself in this illusion room, with a shadow version of himself waiting to attack him, clearly indicating that this room is representative of his state of mind. an endless, desolate landscape stretching out into infinity. no walls to keep him safe, no cover at all save for that one single, ROTTING TREE in the middle. This tree is a symbol of link's mental state. (my evidence for this one spans across a couple games but just trust me when i say this interpretation is grounded in reality it would just take too long to explain) and the tree is not looking good. it is dying. and from this dying tree springs a reflection of himself that link must fight to progress. I think there's an obvious message that's being conveyed here: link regrets leaving kokiri forest. he regrets the way he's been used, the hard truths he has had to learn about the world since he left. He is still mentally nine years old, and as a child he still yearns to return to that safety he was promised in kokiri forest despite knowing that it's no longer there for him to return to. Dark link is representative of all link's fear and regret and turmoil surrounding his destiny and what has been done to him over the last seven years. Because this is a video game, he is able to physically fight those feelings, to defeat the reflection of himself that torments him and walk out of that room at peace, having faced his fears and confronted his true feelings. Narratively, this battle is representative of the ongoing internal struggle link is grappling with over the course of this segment of gameplay, and shows the player how link must overcome those feelings of fear and inadequacy in order to gain the power to defeat ganon.

now we finally come to the ending segment of the game. this is where the lore gets a little bit convoluted and trips some people up. if you're not a lore slave you can basically ignore the triforce thing. the only affect it has on the narrative is that it gives ganondorf a reason to need both link and zelda, since they have the other two pieces of the powerful relic he's after. this is why he kidnaps zelda and taunts link to come rescue her instead of just like. hunting them both for sport in the wilds of hyrule.

the final battle with ganon is the culmination of all your efforts throughout the game. in the leadup to it, the final dungeon reminds you of this by having each of its rooms be a mini-version of one of the previous six temples you completed in the second half of the game. once you finish this final dungeon, you're able to get into the castle. I have to mention one of my favorite design choices in this whole game here, which is the fact that the background music in the castle gets louder the closer you get to the final room, and when you finally get there it's revealed that ganondorf was playing it the whole time. the details in this game make me crazy they're all so well-done. anyways. to discuss this battle we first need to discuss a crucial character who i realize i've forgotten to mention this ENTIRE time somehow: navi.

I love navi. i hate the way she became a joke among fans. this is not the point of this post. the point is that narratively, navi is one of the only GOOD adult figures we see in the entire game. (one could argue that she isn't an adult, but she takes on a guiding and mentor-like role for link so i consider her one despite some of her more childish mannerisms.) Navi is the one character who has been at link's side since the very beginning, the only consistent good influence on his life. the only adult mentor who hasn't somehow tried to fuck him over or manipulate him somehow. She is INTEGRAL to his survival through all the crazy bullshit he gets caught up in. the game makes her importance clear to the player in two ways: the first, obviously, is that she's the tutorial character--she tells you where to go, what to do, explains mechanics and puzzles, etc. The second, and the detail that's gonna be super important in our discussion of the final battle, is that she's tied to the game's targeting mechanic. It's subtle enough that I actually didn't notice it my first time around UNTIL this final battle, but every time you target an enemy to attack them (which with the way the camera movement is designed in this game is basically a required element of combat) navi flies to their weak spot and hovers there, which is the in-game explanation for what targeting is--navi is showing link the monsters' weak spots. in the first phase of the final battle with ganondorf, he erects a forcefield which prevents navi from entering the battlefield, removing the player's ability to target completely.

i absolutely LOVE this battle in terms of both gameplay and narrative. removing the targeting mechanic is a genuine handicap that makes the battle genuinely difficult for the player, and narratively it serves to remind you of the importance of navi, a positive adult influence, in link's life. without her, dealing damage is so much more difficult, but as soon as you have her back the battle becomes super intuitive and you're able to strategize much more effectively. Eventually, you deal enough damage to get navi back and flee the castle with the princess, before making one final stand against Ganon, a mutated beast-form of ganondorf. with navi by your side, his massive weakness becomes easily targetable, and you're able to defeat and seal him for good.

the end-credits scene of the game shows link time-traveling back to his nine-year-old self, before any of the events of the game have come to pass, and re-entering hyrule castle to warn nine-year-old zelda about what is to come. this is a time paradox, i know, but i LOVE this ending thematically. As I mentioned extensively earlier, link and zelda's stories are both representative of the way trauma robs you of childhood. they were both stripped of their chance to be children and grow up and come of age due to what happened with ganondorf. Allowing link to go back and prevent those events from ever occurring is a promise of healing. it's a promise that he and zelda will be able to reclaim the childhoods that were stolen from them by war and by adults who wanted to use them as pawns in it. it's a reclamation of the agency that these characters have been consistently denied throughout their stories. it's. a good ending. it's a really good ending. I like it a lot.

So uhhh wow that was a lot! what it comes down to is that i think oot is a story a ton of people can relate to. being a kid with responsibility but no agency and longing to be an adult, but then growing up and wanting nothing more than to return to the childhood you lost... that's something that really resonates with me, at least. and yeah oot has a lot of quirks and convoluted story and stuff but at its core it's a really beautiful coming-of-age that deals REALLY well with trauma and childhood and growing up!! tldr it's just. a genuinely incredible story and it means a LOT to me lol

[tokyopewpew]

Part whatever of Veilguard Breakdown!

Themes, gameplay, Overall Plot, and ruminations on the Production behind the game aka wild speculation.

Spoilers abound as well as some disclaimers under the cut. Buckle up this is going to be a LONG ONE.

Ok I am going to try and organize this so it isn’t just a ramble. I also don’t meant this to come across as a defense or shilling for Bioware or EA, if it sounds defensive or you think I’m giving a lot of grace, please know it is for the actual real, physical people who had to make this game. The writers, the game designers and directors, who I think had an incredibly difficult job to pull off with this game. ( and if you couldn’t tell already, i really liked it so I think they did a great job!)

My credentials to talk out of my ass are: I work in *vague general gesture* entertainment. I studied anthropology, writing, film and tv (specifically animation) both seriously in college and in my free time. I write and draw comics, I animate, and do general writing/editing for novels and scripts. I am not saying i am right in any way shape or form, but I have some extra insight maybe, which I think puts me more sympathetic towards to rough spots in this game.

I’m also a Solavellan Truther so be warned.

That being said here we go:

Gameplay:

Overall I really enjoyed the game! Like most action games it took my a bit to get a grasp of all the buttons (oh my god so many buttons). I played the new God of War games and enjoyed that gameplay quite a bit, ergo I liked this gameplay. GoW was much more of a power fantasy than this though, where you felt monstrously strong from the jump. Playing as a mage, and only starting with Mage and Rogue companions did have me feel a little squishy, but by the end I was ripping enemies apart left and right. I think I beat Elgar’nan in like 6 minutes? It did not feel like I was fighting a god lmao.

I’m kind of weak on the critique for the gameplay. I’m glad there’s no crouch or stealth option thank christ. Like most action-y rpg’s there’s a light and heavy attack, a dodge, a jump, a sprint. The lines kind of blur for me on “how dare you copy these controls wholesale” and “these controls are generally linked to these actions, for ease of use for the player we’re staying consistent with other games for an easier onboarding.”

Also I have never played a dragon age game for the combat. I’m happy to have encounters and do fights but I could/did pretty much play Origins and 2 with a cocktail in one hand because it wasn’t that involved. Inquisition too just being kind of like eh, don’t keep tension in your finger, you’ll keep attacking don’t worry about it. I’m playing for the story and the plot, not the buttons I have to press to get to that. That being said, because of the total difference in game play, from past DA games, i do think this one is the most fun to play/fight in.

One of my very few combat gripes was that, given what a difference damage type makes in a fight, I wish I could change my weapon in the middle of combat. I don't want to have to leave a combat area, cool off, and then swap out my orb. Just let me change it mid combat please.

THAT ALL BEING SAID LETS TALK ABOUT THE PLOT AND PACING!

I do think this game has some recency bias against it. The other games have 10+ years of us rolling them around in the Fandom Rock Tumbler to shine them into perfect glowing beloved, well understood in totality creations. It’s been two fucking weeks with this game, of course it feels shallow in comparison. Give it some time and we’re gonna chew on it more.

That being said: I do agree that it feels softer than other games, but I can identify why that might be.

I think this game is a lot tighter on its narrative than any other DA game. By which I mean the main narrative is always very focused on defeating the gods. The companion quests feel very brief, sometimes just being conversations, and even though their personal quests are meant to in some way link back to the Evanuris, they feel like such small fish in comparison. Taking down any or all of the personal villains for each of the companions does not feel like I’ve made a tangible blow against the Evanuris the way destroying Corypheus’ lyrium mines and Samson’s armor did in Inquisition or the way recruiting the different factions did for Origins.

But here’s where I append my little caveats. (I'm gonna harp that DIFFERENT doesn't mean bad to me). I do like the breakneck pace of this plot. They did start off as cartoon-ish new villains being thrown in, like they do in every Marvel movie. But I think they did a good job of ramping up how terrifying they were pretty quickly and actually making them feel threatening. The odds felt forever stacked against us, and it matched the streamlined, focused main quest line. And hey, let’s be honest, the fetch quests and padded content was a big complaint against Inquisition (or many open world games).

Which is what makes me see a lot of the complaints against VG are ones where I don’t think people connect that Bioware is damned if they do, damned if they don’t. Do you want a streamlined, focused game without a lot of cruft, a complaint lobbed at many open world games? Ok you won’t get as many little side quests that feel like they add weeks to the plot.

I do think the companion quests are the things that actually make the plot slow down. But we love and want as much companion content as possible? Again, I think this could have helped if the companion personal villain quests felt more essential/woven into the Evanuris that would have helped. I think some more friction between the companions could have helped, in like banter where we saw that they're personal issues are bleeding into making problems with the team. HOWEVER: that's an easy criticism to make if it weren't a game where you can do many things in many different orders. Maybe there was more Davrin and Lucanis bickering, I just missed it because I didn't take them out in the field together, or I resolved more of their quests before I had them both in my party again.

Some Ranting about the SETTING

Seeing a lot of people throwing out that this game is a Soft-Retcon/Tonally Light compared to other DA games. Yes and no. I think it’s through some narrative necessity. I do wish Bioware would trust the audience more with some heavy shit but lets be fr media literacy is on the decline. I don't like that they're dumbing stuff down but has the public at large not proven they can't fucking comprehend a lot of what is thrown at them?

A major comment circulating is about the Crows being turned into Good Guys and Tevinter not going into the class system and slavery enough. I also experienced ZERO racism against my elf character or suspicion of me as a mage. Which, yes, is tonally different from the other games. And I would have liked the depth, I'm not gonna lie.

But given The Real World: I'm ok with not having slurs thrown at me in a game right now.

I also see that as a narrative choice. These are supposed to be your allies that are integral to making it through the game if you want everyone alive. I think they wanted all the antagonism and focus set on the Evanuris and Solas and didn't want to distract or give players the option to kind of question the factions they're petitioning support from.

It's in line with this game having far fewer consequences to your choices. They are more railroading with the plot/important decisions you make which I get isn't going to be to everyone's taste (again, more God of War feeling than DA Origins).

But I also think previous games had a really easy time talking shit and building up off-screen monsters. And now, narratively, they need to bring those off-screen monsters in and humanize them so you won't refuse to work with them outright.

Par example: Playing Origins and loving Zevran. Oh my god his horror stories about the Crows?? How can you support the Crows at ALL hearing what he’s said about them or how many times they try to kill him?!

Psst it's because Origin's goal was to humanize and make him likable as an individual and the narrative tool they used to do that was giving him a tragic backstory of poverty and abuse. Which is not unique to many assassin guild characters. But that kind of shoots them in the foot if they want to have any other Crow companion or involvement because they poisoned the well themselves. So what do they do? Just never include the Crows in a main story on the side of the hero ever? Do they introduce another assassin's guild and say no don't worry, they train their professional killers totally ethically and cool, you've just never heard of them? Or do they kind of work around what they've already got?

Meanwhile, the ones I haven't seen nearly as much critique on is the Lords of Fortune!! Oh my GOD were they sanitized to be Unproblematic! I was cringing so hard when they talked about being treasure hunters but they had Taash EXPLICITLY SPECIFICALLY clarify they don’t steal and they are careful with culturally sensitive materials, sending them to the appropriate people.

This is some Indiana Jones "it belongs in a museum" RetCon. But that's FINE because it matches our real world sensibilities.

Like I don't want to complain that the Crows can't have grown and evolved as a group (forcibly or of their own volition) and not also joke that Isabela really learns her lesson after DA2 to not fuck with culturally significant artifacts and turned the Lords of Fortune into the "pirates never steal another person's property" meme.

Complaining that the ASSASSIN'S GUILD isn't operating ethically is an oxymoron. We need some fantasy elements, some suspension of disbelief. Otherwise we're filing a million OSHA violations against Treviso too for the lack of railings in the Casino and Rook should go to jail for murder.

Like I said, it's not bad, it's just Different.

It's the change in landscape of 10-15 years of game/narrative. development. Of them listening. Sorry it can't go both ways. Gotta read up on the Ludonarrative dissonance again which I think is a huge struggle in making more realistic worlds and still having it be a fighting/action game.

For those that don't know: Ludonarrative dissonance is when the narrative and gameplay are at odds with each other. Kind of noted in games like Uncharted, where Nathan Drake is supposed to be a kind of every man, but the gameplay has you be a fucking action hero.

Or, since everyone loves to compare this to BG3 here is my own experience of it when playing that: I listened to the narrative the first time I played which said ANY SECOND NOW: YOU WILL BECOME A MINDFLAYER. DO NOT SLEEP DO NOT REST HOLY SHIT YOU’LL DIE.

So I only long rested like twice for all of act 1 and was confused when I didn’t get any cut scenes, plot, or dialogue people were talking about. And looking it up, I was not the only one who made that mistake. I listened to the narrative so damn good, that I was going to die any second, I didn't get the cut scene that told me it was ok to take a break, this artifact is going to protect you. So i reloaded an earlier save and re-played a good chunk of act 1 and rested often. Lo and behold: I got all the cut scenes that had previously eluded me! That to me was a big annoyance that the GAMEPLAY and the NARRATIVE were at odds like that.

Veilguard and Dragon Age suffer a bit from this in how they are trying to present a fleshed out, intricate, geo-political world, but you still need enemies to fight in the game. But not demonize entire cultures.

It doesn't help that Origins started off with kind a weak fantasy basis that doesn't hold up as well today. Europe but upside down, cultures are real world stand ins etc etc. And then add 15 years of not just games culture changing but culture culture changing and things that passed in the first game can't and shouldn't be carried over to the newest iteration. Or even mentioned above, where earlier games build up groups or areas as evil, which shoots themselves in the foot when they want to re-examine that later.

Like they have gotten a lot of flack for some of the elven and qunari depictions because they made the direct parallels to native americans and Muslim cultures. They have clearly learned their lesson to not demonize and ENTIRE culture and every person from that culture.

But then how do you have diverse enemies in games but also make it clear you aren't fighting an entire country/culture? We get the kind of weak so uh uh we have a separate faction now! the antaam are the BAD qunari like the venatori are the BAD Tevinters! We need enemies for you to kill and NOT FEEL BAD ABOUT IT but you have to know THESE are the cult ones which makes it ok! Which is something most video games do nowadays.

So when the comment is that previous games were darker, I believe the previous games were more grim because you were up against the world. It was a more brutal land of prejudice and strife and every faction you could join abused and indoctrinated kids in some way. Like that was of the time period to say "Look how Real and Serious our game is? Look how terrible everyone is, everyone is greedy and out for themselves and shitty, but you'll bend them to your will with your awesome might."

But that is not the tone of Veilguard. Which I would almost guess IS a real world reaction to purposefully NOT HAVE a lot of built in bigoted content for the sake of "realism." Both for it to be a fun, escapist game, and a power fantasy.

With the narrative of this game you need to be involved in all the factions which, I would guess, they decided to go more friction-less and have them all be groups you felt like deserved to be saved and that you care about rather than make you begrudgingly help someone you hate.

ANOTHER FOR EXAMPLE: The discourse ALREADY HAPPENING about the choice between Minrathous and Treviso. Like both options are TERRIBLE but saying that because Tevinter has slavery, it deserves the dragon attack? Wild!

Can ya maybe see why they chose to omit some stuff or not pack in anything that would make you doubt your allies? Or be ok with dooming them in the end game as some sort of catholic retribution for their Sins?

Another way to put it is that while I'm disappointed by maybe the lack of exploration on some of the deeper Geo-poltical topics, 1. I don't think that was the goal of the game. And 2. I would rather they recognize that they wouldn't be able to do it justice or go to the depth they would need to so it's better to cut it rather than deliver something they aren't proud of. Like the game shouldn't have to tell you that slavery is bad to know it's bad, even in the fantasy world. The goal of the game is also not to dismantle slavery in Tevinter.

So I ask the room: do we want to see slavery in our fun after work game? Do we want to be called knife ear and not be able to shop at merchant's if we're an elf? I'm kind of cool with not having that.

Disclaimer though: I am white as hell! I've seen black creators express frustration with the lack of conversation on these subjects and how that feels like Bioware pulling punches and it is totally fair to want more meaningful discussion of the topic in the game.

Seeing the bones through it's skin: thoughts on the production of the game:

It's a weird line to walk when Bioware is clearly wanting to make an inclusive, fun, first person game, but have depth and realism in a world that does include that from its shaky foundation. Has Thedas improved in the 10-20 in game years to be more inclusive?

The narrative design for a game is also super different from books or comics and why we generally want happier endings in games. One of the major criticisms against The Last of Us 2 was how fucking bleak it was. How do you get people to keep holding the controller when it's a tragedy? When it's a slog to get through? So I can see the decision to water down or sanitize areas to avoid turning off or downright triggering players.

Which also, same problem mentioned again. I don't think this is anyone here who's gotten this far into my rambling lol, but game design and writing having to be for BOTH new and old players makes it a much different writing experience. I think people have been trying to apply Book Continuity Rules to Dragon Age rather than Movie continuity. What do I mean by that?

Did you know that for comics, you should prepare for your second issue sales to drop by half? Because presumably, a lot of people will try your first issue but won't necessarily want to stick with it, and who in their right mind is going to pick up the second issue and not the first? And every subsequent issue sees a similar decline in order numbers BECAUSE it's a linear story where if you pick up the fourth one you won't know what the hell is happening and the payoff won't work. Video Games can't work like that, the same way movies try REALLY HARD to make sequels as easy as possible for someone to come in completely unfamiliar.

This has been the fault of Dragon Age and Mass Effect Andromeda overall. Trying to be a high fantasy series, but also anthology so you don't have to start from the beginning, with writers coming and going makes it a weird collaborative continuity that is BOUND to change OVER THE COURSE OF 15 YEARS.

Storylines and plots have been picked up and dropped and told they'll matter and quickly wrapped up across the course of every game. Because they have to make way for this to be someone's FIRST Dragon Age game. Inquisition was my first one and I think I made it 15 minutes before I had to stop and google Chantry, Templars, why the fuck do they hate elves? IT WAS A STEEP INTRO is what I'm saying. I've now since played all of the games and adore them all for their own reasons. And I'm sorry but I don't get why its so hard to grasp that the games are not being made to entirely be fanservice to existing players.

I get the frustration over only 3 choices carrying over but like... There cannot be a google survey at the beginning of the game.

"But what about the keep?" You may very well ask. I already commented on this in the tags of another post but I need y'all to really think and remember that the things brought over from the Keep are pretty much just as light, and most often only result in mild flavor text.

Given the development hell this game has gone through and what feels to me like a desperate attempt to limit scope and streamline the game, I can be disappointed but recognize it is realistic that those cameos are nice icing but not essential to a good story. Use your imagination. I think Mary Kirby said she gets the desire to see characters again, but you should not want them back for the Plot. If they're In The Plot, that usually isn't good for them. Varric. That is what fanfiction is for, so they don't invalidate people's headcanons or how they imagine the world to be.

Which I think they handled what they could well enough. Referring to Divine Victoria is a clean crisp way to let you yourself fill in the blanks. They just have to say Orlais, they don't have to specify whether it's one of 5 potential ruling situations. The more branching possibilities, the more chances for a game to break and I'm sorry it is a fucking MIRACLE this game ran smoothly and perfectly for me from day 1. I'd rather have that than a bug report that if you have a timeline with Old God Keiran, and Gaspard as ruler of Orlais and Divine Vivienne the game crashes and is unplayable.

I'm ok with Utada Hikaru, Simple and Clean writing that covers a lot of bases and lets YOU fill in the gaps yourself so that your world is not invalidated!

I think a lot of people are looking at it saying Bioware has endless EA money and this game had 10 years why couldn't it do Everything AND MORE. When that is not an accurate timeline. This game had 3-4 years of development built on two corpses that also had 2-4 years of development. And you can absolutely feel it sometimes. In that sense, the plot of being a core group of weirdos, trying their best, beset by development hell, met with huge expectations and criticized for it's divergence or lack of inclusion of past game decisions WELCOME DRAGON AGE 2: 2 THE VEILGUARD.

Ok whew I think that's going to be it. I love you goodbye.

[explodingchantry]

there's something a bit difficult when it comes to RPGs, in the freedom of choice you give players. there's statistics out there from bioware themselves actually lol that I've seen used a few times, about how the majority of mass effect players play paragon and only a few have ever touched renegade. The numbers for dragon age and its more "evil" options are likely similar. so the question that is thus raised is: do we allow our players to be evil? wrong? Or just... less than a perfect protagonist? Do we allow them to make morally grey choices, if the effort we put into this part of the game isn't seen by the vast majority of players?

i find that question stupid as fuck, personally. it's not a storyfocused, choice-heavy rpg if you don't allow your players to be absolute cunts. the player doesn't truly have a choice if the only options presented to them is "be a hero" and "be a hero but kinda rude about it".

Not only that, but really the very simple dichotomy of good vs evil itself is so .... reductive. this character is a hero, so they would not dabble in this morally reprehensible act. really? I find that the hero of ferelden is so much more fascinating if they had to make very difficult choices to save ferelden. i find it interesting when they carry the hurt from their origin and don't react to it in a poetic, or rightful way. i like when they're angry, when they're selfish, but most of all when they're scared.

i like when hawke is immensely flawed, because they're just some guy - a drop in an ocean, at the end of the day. a drop in the ocean who went through immense hardship and grief. why would they be rightful?

the quizzie has always felt to me like the most boring milquetoast pc to me theyre soooo boring their origin means nothing the dialogue choices don't mean anything and have no personality to it. it's like insane just how hollow the quizzie is -- and it's partly because you don't get those nuanced choices. really the most nuanced choice you get in dai is at the winter palace. even later when you get to decide who will be the literal fuckin divine, it all means so little. you're not engaged with the rammifications of your choices properly. even the winter palace only slightly passes that bar. and into the abyss is a fucking joke - akin to the writers admitting themselves that the only way to give you an engaging choice is to pit two beloved characters against one another and hold a gun to both their heads (or hold ONE beloved character against another you might vaguely remember from like one and a half cutscenes in dragon age 2).

in dao, a lot of the major choices you make aren't actually... easy. that boy in redcliffe -- do you rid him of the desire demon inside of him, and pass on incredible power (blood magic)? One demon, one abomination is nothing compared to something that might give you an edge against the blight, especially considering you're two very new grey wardens, begging the whole nation for aid they only mildly agree to offer. that choice has punch. it's interesting. it's not evil, but it's not good, either. it's nuanced.

da2 lacks it a little bit but with how much the mages' plight and blood magic is a part of the narrative, the very act of choosing to specialise as blood mage is significant. when the entire narrative, and especially characters whom you're meant to build strong bonds with, condemn this specialisation... do you even dare to look at its spells? Do you even dare to spend a point to unlock the blood magic mode? Do you engage with the slow build up of hawke's blood magic -- from simply using their blood to power their usual spells, to stealing their allies' lifeforce, to puppeting their enemies, and finally to stabbing themselves with their own staff to do devastating damage to the enemies?

blood magic is just such a fascinating specialisation, a fascinating gameplay choice. it has so many rammifications in terms of gameplay, storytelling, and characterisation. it's unique in its position, and serves as such an effective way to put the narrative into question through gameplay. it's genuinely such a shame to see this depth being flattened.

[kayayeteae]

A maybe a too thorough review of lies of p from a person who has 0 soulslike experience and went blindly into the game:

Firstly, the games fantastic and I’ve loved my whole experience with it. I usually am disinclined to play soulslike due to characteristics in games I don’t like: open world, difficulty, and—most importantly—how the story is provided. What drove me towards playing the lies of p, however, was hearsay about how the narrative was provided as far as world building. I’ve never read Pinocchio and I will be honest, my memory of the story lies in Kingdom hearts (which I haven’t played in like 20 years lol). A side note: I also HATE character builders. I don’t want to make a character, I want to play a character already made. God bless, P.

The game came in clutch after playing a ton of dissatisfying and unpolished games. FFXVI had a great narrative, but game was too easy. Bayonetta 3 was just bad overall. Lollipop chainsaw repop was poorly remastered to the near point of unplayability. However—lies of p? Provided the exact thing I was looking for: a beautifully polished game that was difficult but fun.

The environment was just so beautiful and pandered to my love of all things pretty. It doesn’t help that Pieta was a heavy reference in the game—arguably my favorite marble statue (always grateful I got to see it in person).

The gameplay? Addicting. I’m horrendous at this game. Absolutely awful. Fuoco took me two days to beat. Nameless puppet? A day and a half. But it felt good to beat them. The pattern memorization was something I truly loved. The satisfaction of beating a boss (no specter, no items) was so satisfying after holding your breath for moments at a time.

In a game full of open worlds, lies of p, you remain something special in my heart. I LOVE THE LEVEL DESIGN. IM SO ANTI OPEN WORLD YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE. I don’t like driving sometimes, you really believe I’d travel to some minor location for random bullshit? FOH.

Going in very very blind, I had no clue there was a hidden mechanic. Let alone 3 endings. I got the middle(?) ending in which geppetto dies and calls p useless which made me so mad that I started a new game immediately. I hate geppetto and I refuse to let him have the last word on P’s self worth LMAO. Although the ending was bad, I’m happy I got it based on my choices—which I played authentically me as opposed to having a preconceived idea of what could potentially happen.

However, several thing I wish there was more of:

Cutscenes

Insight on characters

This is personal, but I wish P SPOKE HIS LINES. But I get it

I’m a FF/MGS girly through and through. So I’m a bit spoiled with cutscenes and immense detail to things.

Again, MGS/FF girly, I like characters and am interested in learning more about them to the point where I know their favorite food lol. FOR EXAMPLE the black rabbit brotherhood? I know they overran the town, but who are they truly? ROMEO. ROMEO? WHERE FOR ART THOU ROMEO??? Clearly he was important to Carlo. AND CARLO??? HELLO?????? I’ve grown attached to these enemy characters BUT THE INSIGHT ARE CRUMBS. GIMME MORRRRREEEEEE.

also, I’m just saying, the exposition for every character gets dry really fast to the point I’m borderline dissociating. It’s infinitely better than HZD. But part of the reason I like character interaction is that you can learn so much about who people are by how they talk to people in their environment. And given P is a robot, it would’ve been absolutely amazing to hear him speak like pucinella (very choppy. Static-y) to something more fluid filled with something that is very humanizing (sarcasm). I also just wanted p to talk to Romeo, that shit is a wholeass miscommunication fic.

Anyway. This game is a solid 9/10 and I’m happy. It’s fun. I loved it.

[leonardoeatscarrots]

So i don't really know much about your fandoms or interests so... idk, would you mind giving me the rundown maybe? Like a little description about the games you like, or some info about your different comics? I want to chat more with you but I'm not sure where to start since I'm not familiar with your fandoms

Haha, that makes sense, my Fandoms can be considered a little niche.

First off, I'm super glad to finally meet you, lol. I've sorta been watching you and Pringles from afar, and you two seem like good friends.

But yeah, I'll happily give you a rundown, thanks for asking ^^

Pathologic/Мор: Утопия is a Russian videogame developed by Icepick Lodge. You play as one of three healers in a bo-hum steppe town, and your goal is to try and save the population from the outbreaking plague. The game has a lot of heavy theatrical influences and is well known for being extremely difficult and cruel. Which means the writing is perfectly catered to my tragedy-loving gay-theater-kid ass.

Karamora/Карамора is a show I got into a while ago. Basically, it's a fictional retelling of the Russian revolution (one of my special interests, lmao), except all the nobles are vampires. It's dumb but it's unironically so well made. Plus it has that twinky ginger guy, Evgeny Schwartz, in it. This show is also what got me on the Russian media pipeline to begin with XD

Lost Splendor was a memoir written by Felix Yusupov (aka the guy who killed rasputin, aka an important figure in the Russian revolution), and it's just incredibly funny for no reason. Man killed Rasputin, but all he could think to write about was how gay and ADHD he was.

Comics. I'm just very normal about them. I have a collection of around 80 different comics, single issues and graphic novels included. My favorites are queer and indie graphic novels, but im also a huge sucker for some of the classics like V for Vendetta. I have yet to purchase The Sandman comics, but they're on my list.

As for webcomics, I'm addicted to those too. I'm probably the biggest fan 5-ever of The Peculiar Compendium of Victor Van Wolfe on webtoons, and I've written a few fanfics and made fanart aplenty, as well as made custom stuffies of the characters. But I have a wide list of recommendations across a lot if genres XD

As for comics that IVE written, I currently have two open to the public on webtoons and tapas.

The first is Spaceships and Vodka, which is my primary comic. It's an anachronistic sci-fi surrounding a band of space pirates. It's a monster of the week style story with a lot of extra narrative told through backstories. It's currently still in the exposition stage and on hiatus.

The other is Gentle Hands, which is technically an AU of S&V. It's a gay romance following a disabled WWI soldier in a shellshock home and one of the nurses he has a crush on. This one is, alas, also still in the exposition stage, but is currently updating one page every other week.

As for like individual OCs, I mostly obsess over my comic characters. I don't typically make Fandom OCs.

My absolute pride and joy is Craig. He's also the fan favorite thus far.

I don't even know where to begin with him.

I have a bio for him and some other OCs I think, but I have yet to actually fill out any more >>_>> executive dysfunction my beloathed.

The full main cast list includes

Craig

Mirium

Derick

Terric

Carl

As well as Erasmus, Rusty, Cipher, Jadyn, and Jesper as some other extras.

So long as I'm here I may as well finish all the bios and make a master post lol...

[weemietime]

Play some Weemie games!

El Malei

This game is a prequel to Disciples of the Gun and introduces players to the world, lore and narrative style featured within. Both games are based in gritty, hard sci-fi. Disciples will feature  mechanics ranging from simple linear storytelling to relationships, combat, map navigation, puzzle solving, codices, dice-rolling, stats/levels, linguistics and math.  If you're looking to casually drop-in to the setting of DOTG, El Malei is a good starting point. It should take about 5-10 minutes to complete and is largely a short story - gameplay mechanics are much more limited. Be warned that El Malei deals with mature and difficult subject matter such as human trafficking, child abuse, domestic violence and drug addiction. If this type of content is upsetting to you, you should skip El Malei.

We Stand in the Meadows

We Stand in the Meadows is a side project set in the Disciples 'verse that details the chronicles of a Timazi alien named Jacran Toreel, from his time in the Timay Defense Forces, to his attending an educational institute on Earth.  This one contains a codex as well, elucidating more on the terminology used throughout the 'verse and expands on more of the hard sci-fi concepts at play. As a "game," this is more-or-less just a short story to click through.  It should take about 2-5 minutes to complete.  Deals with very heavy subject matter. Gang violence, genocide, children in combat, etc. Please heed the warnings. 

Disciples of the Gun

Disciples is a space opera, interactive visual novel, choose-your-own-adventure ... adventure! about the life and times of Ashki Valis. Every choice you make has the potential to branch off into dozens of directions; every species and class offers a profoundly different tale. The dialogue choices lead to legitimate impact on your journey. There are consequences for many decisions made that cannot be undone. This game also features skills, classes, dice rolling, a very bare-bones "level-progression" oriented feel - your character automatically will accumulate levels according to the panels you discover. This game is set 10,000 years into our Earth's future, in a distant star system. You are Ashki Valis - as one of 5 starting classes and species - and you have been abducted by the IMV Vayei, an Interceptor-class frigate tasked with obtaining, training, and deploying slaves into the Iro Provisional Militia. The IPM is the horrifying armada of the Iro Corporate Congress, headquartered on Aven Station in the Satiz-Irath sector of the Milky Way. The CACSI protocols (the Cessation of Armed Conflict in Satiz-Irath) have rendered the IPM illegal occupiers, but Iro's official leadership is simply in no state to govern a dying world.  The IPM is notorious for using an EMOTIONAL CALIBRATION CHIP to remove a person's free will. Ashki may end up chipped, which will put you at the mercy of your captors with no capacity to stop it. Or, you can try to escape. You can try to reason. You can escape and discover a completely unique outcome. Explore a deep-seeded world with original lore and new alien cultures, recruit party members, form bonds and relationships with others (including romance and combat) and delve into each panel with point-and-click aspects.  And for my fellow linguistics nerds, sink your teeth into 2 fully-fledged constructed languages and many bare-bones references to several more. Includes a codex with profiles, alien species, planets, classification systems, and more.  There's no sugar-coating it: this game is heavy. It deals with very mature subject matter that may be triggering to those who struggle with these concepts. For me, the struggle resulted in Disciples. It's not a fantastic game, it's not even a very game-y game, but I have put a ton of heart into it and I really hope as the product matures and comes to fruition that others can enjoy the world I've built. 

Disciples is a work-in-progress! You can play up until level 2, and some of it is still wonky.

Farmlands of Aresh

The conflict on Laile was cruel.  Ratan Polis - the belligerent leader of the Laile Resistance - was a brutal slave-taker, amassed of a blue-eyed orphan army. Five years of it. You fought and you suffered and you stayed in the aftermath. Driving stakes into unforgiving cracked-clay. You forged bonds with the survivors - the ones who made it home. Their community afraid of them, but you were their interlocuter. The one who helped them return. You stayed, and when it was done, you left. Barely an adult yourself, cast out into the inky expanse of Sol without tether, you turn to what is familiar. You reach Lariyan - a town in the Laira-dominated Aresh - a star-system away. Distance equals time, and the arrow moves forward.  A farming simulation set in the Disciples 'verse, with a focus on healing and recovery. Resource management, day/night cycles, and relationship/dating mechanics included. You can buy and sell items, plant and water crops, mine for ore and chop wood - all while unraveling the stories of each inhabitant - including your own. The war is over. It is.

Farmlands is a work-in-progress, some mechanics work and some do not. There is no mobile support for any of these games! But check 'em out, I've been fiddling around.

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Having both De Gaulle's and Churchill's account (this was one of my grandpa's most prized possessions and I got it after he died) of WWII around is pretty interesting.

On one hand, because De Gaulle is a much more pleasant and engaging storyteller. Mind you, that doesn't mean he's more accurate or anything like that, but he works the concept of a memoir as "the things that happened as I remember them, and the impressions I got from them". Churchill is doing a heavy, heavy chronicle, full of transcripts of telegrams and letters and communications and maps every 2 paragraphs or so, which might be very useful to the amateur historian, but that makes the experience of reading it as a narrative akin to chewing drywall (hence why I have never really read it before; just read a bit here and there about specific events).

The fun part here is the contrast when the perspectives collide.

In early June 1940, De Gaulle is made secretary of the Ministry of Defense in France and sent by the president on a mission to London, where he meets Churchill for the first time:

"Mr. Churchill received me at Downing Street. It was the first time I had a meeting with him. The impression I got of him reaffirmed my conviction that, led by such a fighter, Great Britain would never bend. Mr. Churchill seemed to be prepared for the most difficult enterprises, as long as they also were grandiose ones. The certainty of his judgement, his vast culture, the knowledge he had of most of the matter regarding the countries and men he dealt with, and at last, his passion for the specific problems relating to war unfolded with ease and pleasure. Above all he was made, by virtue of his character, to act, risk, and play his role decidedly and without hesitation. In one word, I found him decided in his position as guide and chief. Such were my first impressions. What followed did nothing but confirm them, revealing to me as well his eloquence and the profit he derived from it. Whatever his audience was -multitude, assembly, council, even a single listener-, whatever the spot -in front of the microphone, at the tribune, at table, or at his desk-, the original, poetic, and moving torrent of his ideas, arguments, and feelings gave him an almost infallible ascendancy within the dramatic environment in which the poor world panted. Able politician that he was, he used that angelic and diabolical gift to stir the passivity of the English character, as much as to impress the spirit of the foreigners. Even the humor with which he seasoned his gestures and phrases, and the way in which he sometimes used politeness and sometimes anger, showed to which point he dominated the terrible game in which he was immersed. The harsh and painful incidents that happened several times between us, caused by the friction of tempers, the opposition of certain interests of our respective countries, and of the abuses that England committed to the detriment of a wounded France, influenced afterwards my attitudes towards the Prime Minister, but in no way did they affect my opinion of his qualities. Winston Churchill always appeared to me, from the beginning to the end of this big drama, as the great champion of a great enterprise, and the great maker of a great History.

Churchill does not record this meeting at all. He cannot have just "forgotten" or dismissed it. You don't forget meeting a 6'5 dude of extremely idiosyncratic posture and manner, specially if you had to deal with him on a regular basis afterwards. The painfully slow and detailed telling of his memoirs don't allow for "it was insignificant enough".

The first mention we get from Churchill is something the like of "I went to Paris to see Reynaud, and there was a very tall fellow walking the gardens".

The fourth time Churchill visited France in 1940 is at a meeting and dinner they both attended. De Gaulle recalls an encouraging comment Churchill directed at Petain, then this:

"Mr. Churchill showed himself imperturbable, full of drive, but keeping a polite reserve in front of the cornered french; he was already overcome -and perhaps not without a certain secret satisfaction- by the terrible and magnificent prospect of an England abandoned to its fate at the island, England that he was to guide to salvation through effort... After three hours of discussion that led nowhere, we sat to dinner. I was by the side of Mr. Churchill. Our conversation strengthened the trust I had in his will. And him, in turn, I am certain, drew the conclusion that De Gaulle, though without material resources, was not a less resolute man."

Meanwhile, Churchill:

"After an interval, we were led to the castle, where we found Reynaud, mariscal Pétain, general Weygand, air general Vuillemin and some others, including the relatively young general De Gaulle, who had just been made sub-secretary of the Ministry of National Defense... Around ten o'clock everyone took their places at table. I sat by the right of Reynaud; by my right was general De Gaulle."

That's it. That's all he had to say.

Don't get me wrong, De Gaulle's text is full of elegant darts at Churchill's manipulative, petty and sly doings and sayings, he's not like, The VictimTM here. It's just very funny that De Gaulle goes "Churchill was a great chief of war, because he was determined and master of himself and also a manipulative backstabber", and then Churchill goes "De Gaulle who? I have no idea who this tall and not very young person whom I needed and used and tried to get rid of and couldn't and who irritated me and annoyed me to no end is".

*All quotes are my translation from the Spanish translations I'm reading from, sorry.

[shoechoe]

Hello. I was thinking of writing a video essay on cookie clicker, and the things we as humans find important. I was wondering; what does cookie clicker mean to you? And could I include your response in said video? Thanks.

Yeah, sure thing.

To me, Cookie Clicker is about a sense of completion. There are 622 regular achievements to unlock (of which I have 568 of so far), 17 shadow achievements (I have 13), and 716 upgrades to unlock at this time of writing. I am a big completionist when it comes to games, and I think it's such a strong urge because it's satisfying to fully "finish" something as well as progress and feel yourself improve. I'd compare it to the urge to collect things or complete a catalogue.

Personally, I appreciate gameplay depth, but I also dislike games that induce too much stress (like combat-heavy and full-on horror games). Cookie Clicker appeals to me because it strikes a balance of being low-stress while also being somewhat challenging, interesting to progress through and having a lot to complete. Most of my favorite things to play share this quality (like my favorite Minecraft modpacks and Realm Grinder, one of my other most played idle games).

Cookie Clicker is very good at keeping the main goal simple while branching off into a lot of varied things to do and features to unlock- like its four minigames, holiday special events, sugar lumps, dragon auras, the Grandmapocalypse event, and ascension system (which is not unique to Cookie Clicker, but has a very fun upgrade tree where you can toggle even more things and switch up your playstyle). There's an achievement for just about every facet in the game, too, which encourages you to explore all of it (even the stock market).

The achievements in Cookie Clicker range from simple (like shrinking the actual window itself so the big cookie "dunks" into the milk) to challenging (like Eldeer- clicking a Christmas reindeer within the 6-second timeframe of Elder Frenzy, a rare buff) to very challenging (like a lot of the shadow achievements, if they aren't just based on luck) to something that just takes a lot of time to get (like upgrading every building to level 10). It's a nice variety, and as much as the difficult/time-consuming achievements make me complain sometimes, it just motivates me to play more to get it.

It also has a very comedic style and a sort of quasi-narrative as you progress through, which makes it fun to talk about. The absurd satire of the idea of "infinite growth" and corporate monopolies is pretty apparent. Though, I would say my motive for finishing it doesn't really have much to do with the actual "gaining more cookies" part, because if there were no achievements or other things to do like minigames and such, I would get bored and stop playing. You could still say that the game asks just what you/your character would do to complete "everything", even if it means wrecking the world to do so (biggest example being the infamous Grandmapocalypse).

Overall, I like Cookie Clicker's sense of progression and many achievements to acquire with lots of different facets of gameplay. Though the early-game is slow (one of my major criticisms of it), if you stick through, there's a lot to do and you get a lot of fun out of it.

[foibles-fables]

What's that? Random asks? Don't mind if I do!

How did you hear about Horizon that made you want to play it, and how was that first time?

Howdy hello and HECK YES! I love this question.

So--summer 2020. I'd just come back from a decade-long hiatus from fandom in general, and was starting to learn the new ropes and spaces (this former livejournal clown breaking into discord and twitter, etc.). One night, I was scrolling through my twitter timeline and happened to stumble upon the freshly-posted E3 announcement trailer for HFW. And even though I hadn't really played a narrative video game since the PS2 era, I decided to watch it. And, huh! I remember saying, "Badass freckly redheaded archer...seems relevant to my interests." The graphics were absolutely gorgeous and what little hints of the story were present in that trailer (especially for someone who knew nothing of the narrative background presented so far) were compelling.

So I looked up some info and found out that it was a sequel to a 2017 game. Cool. Filed that away for later, deciding to get a PS5 when they released later that year.

Jump-cut to late December. I managed to get my hands on a PS5, and it was delivered a couple days before Christmas. Which was awesome, because life was not going super well and I needed a heavy-duty distraction. At this point I had kind of pushed Horizon to the backburner and was instead excited to play AC Valhalla as my first game! But when I booted up, I learned that my mother had bought me the disc version as a Christmas gift. I was left with a couple of days to try other stuff out before I could dive in to ACV.

So, I shrugged and downloaded HZD instead. And the rest is kind of history.

Went into it kind of ambivalent and really hoping I would like it. I had tried to play BotW and was completely overwhelmed by the open-world aspects, and not in a pleasant way, and I hoped that wouldn't be the case here. I'd also never really been into a ton of action games before, as most of my old faves were turn-based. The gameplay itself wouldn't be the clincher for me--that would be the story.

WELL, good news is, I was hooked from the prologue. I would equate playing HZD to not just watching a narrative masterwork unfold, but being in the driver's seat of one. Each discovery Aloy and I made was enthralling and exhilarating, and I legitimately could not stop playing. Could not stop exploring. Every side quest, every collectible, every corner of the map (besides the hunting grounds after earning my Suns at the Nora one, SORRY TALANAH). The entirety of "Deep Secrets of the Earth" had me staring into the darkness of my gaming room in a mix of existential horror and pure amazement. I wept at the ending. The HZD cast left an indelible mark on my heart, and it really reminded me of just how powerful game stories can be. Still trapped in hyperfixation hell (affectionate) over it.

The fun didn't stop there, though. By the time I finished the game (I took my time!), it was early February 2021. I feel very lucky to have sauntered in when I did, because it really seems like it was the perfect time to join the fandom. Folks were coming out of hibernation from both 2017 and the 2020 PC release, hyped with excitement and theories for HFW. Within those first months I met some of the most fabulous and now-lifelong friends (and more <3) I've ever had.

Bottom line: after playing HZD, Horizon and the fandom pulled me through a very very very difficult time in my life. I'm eternally grateful to this series and the meaning I derive from it. Especially from the first game--its vibrant narrative, and its absolutely fantastic characters. Lightning in a bottle, man.

And no, I still haven't finished AC Valhalla. lmao.

[laurarolla]

And that's Unreal Gold completed, with the help of a patch developed a few years ago, and playing on Steam where the game is no longer available for purchase. I've heard it's abandonware now, so nobody would blame you for taking a free tour of Na Pali, I suspect. As for me, my next game is Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. Some thoughts on my time with Unreal are below the read more thing. X3

Overall, Unreal definitely feels like a game that dropped right before Half-Life in terms of storytelling. With impressive graphics for the era and an engine that would go on to shape the whole games industry around it, Unreal is a very pretty game for its time. However, narratively it leaves a bit to be desired. It does actually try to tell a story, using various books and messages littered across the landscape and some effective moments of environmental storytelling to put together a pretty basic story that wasn't really trying to be much more. The Return to Na Pali mission pack includes voice acting and creates entire maps as functional cutscenes, and even puts a cutscene in the middle of one stage with some fun side effects. It's definitely an FPS with a story that is, rather appropriately, between Goldeneye and Half-Life in terms of narrative presentation and quality. Considering it was released between those games, that ends up being appropriate.

Gameplay wise, Unreal is very fun. A mix of consumable items and a variety of weapons, each with two firing modes, gives you a lot of leeway in terms of the challenges you're expected to spend resources on. The game's biggest gameplay weakness is that you basically fight every major enemy the game can throw at you before even being a third of the way in. This leads to the second biggest weakness being the solution for this. Enemies possess wildly varying health pools, or maybe it just seemed that way because of the heavy focus on projectile weapons leading to me missing a lot of shots. Exploration only really struggles in two situations: underwater puzzles and that one specific stage I already complained about. Nearly everything else can be solved by turning the brightness up, being patient, and exploring thoroughly. Quick save and quick load is a godsend in this game not because battles are difficult, but because it lets you experiment and take risks to find secrets and alternate routes without having to totally commit if it isn't worth it.

Put simply, Unreal is very much a late 90s FPS with much of the DNA of earlier decade offerings like Duke Nukem and Doom, while having one foot in the next generation that Half-Life was ushering in. And, again, worth mentioning, most of the games you have probably played wouldn't exist as they do (or even at all) without it.