#it’s just unfortunate reused assets

[ehaydon]

[weirdmarioenemies]

Ah... ze humble pill bug. Shy, innocent, never wished anything against anybody, and never will. You would never hurt Pill Bug, would you? I hope not. That would be horrible. You should pick on someone your own size! An isopod the size of a human! That might hurt if it was brave enough to walk on you with its pointy feet. Actually, Pill Bug is SO sweet, that wouldn't be enough. Anyone who would wrong Pill Bug should pick on someone many times their size...

(Unless you are, for example, a woodlouse spider. In that case, I am sorry for my earlier apprehension. Please continue to hunt and eat pill bugs. It is what you are meant to do, and what you do best.)

Name: Megonta

Debut: Kid Icarus: Uprising

Imagine a world in which pill bugs are called "enormous sphere bugs". In this world, the following sentence would make perfect sense: Megonta really puts the "enormous sphere" in "enormous sphere bug"! It's probably around 15 feet in height and diameter, far, far larger than the largest isopods we have on Earth (unfortunately).

Megonta is a very neat stylization of a pill bug! Even when its legs are out, its body is already spherical, reflecting the pill bugs' most iconic ability at all times. It's immediately recognizable as a pill bug, and the sphericality also makes it much taller and more imposing. You just know this could roll at you at a moment's notice! And I personally would not survive that.

Megonta's shell, of course, protects it from all attacks! But it CAN be knocked over, exposing its soft underbelly. Sigh. It's always the soft underbelly. You know how video games work, that is its weak point. But look at its face area! We can see the hole that its face and legs tuck into when it fully conglobates (curls up)! Speaking of its face, I like how weird it is. Those appendages look very leg-like, and arhropod mouthparts (as well as antennae) did indeed evolve from legs! Some legs became better and better at moving food inside. Imagine if your teeth could all wiggle around independently, and had Leg ancestry. That's how bugs feel!

Back in the day, I felt like Smash Run in Super Smash Bros. for 3DS had too many Kid Icarus: Uprising enemies. Now, though, I realize that asset reuse is a cool and good thing, and also, of course, that Uprising enemies kind of deserve it for being so awesome and epic. Megonta is in Smash! Not playable, but it appears physically, and attacks, and is fought. I am technically not lying when I say "a pill bug is a fighter in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS".

Did you know that "pill bug" refers to a specific family of land isopods? It's called Armadillidiidae! Armadillidiidae are the best at conglobating, able to even get their antennae enclosed within the shell. They are not to be confused with another family that is a bit less good at conglobation. This family is called... Armadillidae! So be careful. Don't mix up Armadillidae and Armadillidiidae at the isopod family reunion! That would be embarrassing.

It's so silly that they're named after armadillos. Isopods were here and conglobating first! It should be the other way around, if anything! But here we are, and it is so funny. There's a genus within Armadillidae just called Armadillo. So now actual armadillos can't use their ideal genus name, because a bug got to it first. If you reading this ever get to decide the name of an armadillo genus, please consider Isopod. It would be so funny. Keep this in mind in case that happens.

[project-sekai-facts]

Since you uploaded that MMJ Miku beta design, do you know if there are other beta designs of the characters?? I'm curious since there's a little bit of concept art of project sekai.

Ah well project sekai featured in this one issue of a Japanese magazine called CG WORLD which is where I got that art from. That magazine is more focused on the costume designs though but it does have some concept art, but aside from WIP costume designs using the final character designs, all of it is blurred out unfortunately.

You can find some WxS beta designs, a Shiho beta design and some low quality MMJ beta designs out there (not entirely sure how people found these, I think they were left in a beta release and got datamined), but that’s all the unblurred stuff you can find.

And there are no VBS beta designs available. There’s some WIP costumes for Akito, Kohane, Miku and MEIKO (i posted her one ages ago), but there’s no actual concept art of them available anywhere.

I can go through what we do have though because they’re probably too low quality for me to post as an actual fact.

So these three images were in the CG WORLD magazine. You can tell who the members of Leo/need are based on the instruments (L->R: Saki, Honami, Ichika, Shiho, Miku), and MORE MORE JUMP! (L->R: Miku, Haruka, Airi, Minori, Shizuku) isn’t too different from the final designs aside from Shizuku, who’s blonde (probably because Shiho is). Niigo is harder to identify outside of Kanade and Miku. This art was also uploaded on TCRF and whoever put it there said that Mizuki is the brunette, Mafuyu is the one sitting next to Kanade and Ena is the one in the purple cardigan. It's not stated who is who in the magazine.

And here’s some actual beta assets. You’ve got WxS and Miku (there's two people in the back) here. Emu didn’t really change much aside from the eyes, but other than her...? (I edited this since it was posted don't mind the change)

We have the leader, who is literally just a palette swap of Rui's initial 2* with Tsukasa's face (excl the eye color which was given to Rui) and hairstyle. Possibly Tsukasa bc leader, possibly Rui bc design, possibly a scrapped character who was split in two

There's someone in the back behind leader boy and blonde girl wearing a pink-purple shirt and white jacket with a yellow tie. Clearly their color palette was used on Rui later down the line. Other than that there's nothing we can tell about this character, not even their gender. Possibly Rui, possibly Miku, possibly a third character who was scrapped/reworked

We have blonde girl, who's hair color and eyes seem to have been reused for final Tsukasa. Usually this is assumed to be Nene due to not resembling any finalised designs for the most part. I think she was probably scrapped, or heavily reworked and became Nene with some design elements passed onto Tsukasa (or Tsukasa was a girl?)

And in the back behind Emu is a girl in a green blazer and grey skirt that looks like a school uniform. Maybe this is Miku because the costume doesn't really match with the others? She doesn't have pigtails though, but no one here has pigtails. There's literally nothing identifiable about her.

Whoever these people are there were clearly a lot of changes made to WxS and these might not even be Nene/Rui/Tsukasa. That's definitely Emu though.

And here's a gacha bg and live bg demo for MMJ. The screen on the first image seems to be displaying a less-blurred version of their concept art. For the record, the illustrations in the second screenshot are from idolm@ster, they are not MMJ concept designs, but part of Shizuku can be seen to the right of the pink haired girl.

Possibly might've been named RE:START given the neon lights in the second image. Has some backing: their first event was called RE:START from Here!, and NaytalieN said in an interview that there was extremely little development on MMJ outside of character illustrations when he was commissioned for that event (and a couple statements imply the game was still in fairly early development too). Or it might've just been a catchphrase for the group or something.

And this. High quality beta-Shiho. This was used as a placeholder card art (surprisingly finished for a placeholder) for MMJ!Miku’s initial card, which by the way, looks exactly the same as the final version only it hasn't been finished yet. I’m pretty sure this is Shiho and not Shizuku because of the side ponytail and image color. But Miku is wearing a similar costume to the one in the MMJ concept art. I mean it was marked as placeholder and was not intended for use, it doesn’t really have to make sense. Also what seems to be a costume for Miku based on this card was left in the game and is on TCRF I added the screenshot below.

I haven't finished translating the CG WORLD article yet, but there's not a huge amount dedicated to character design, as I said earlier it's mainly about costumes. What I can tell you though is that VBS and WxS apparently took longest to finalise, specifically Akito and Tsukasa.

TCRF page for anyone interested

[rallamajoop]

Lab Photos and Documents from Resident Evils 7 & 8

Near the end of both Resis 7 and 8, the player character gets to explore a laboratory full of significant documents and interesting photos, textured and angled such that it’s very hard to get a good screencap. So here’s a huge dump of all the relevant image assets I could find to extract from both game files (plus some rambling about everything that got recycled between them, because spot-the-reused-asset is still my favourite game right now).

Photos from Lucas' lab in Resident Evil 7

The photo of Mia with Eveline in front of the tanker can be found at the end of the Mia video tape, though it also shows up again in Lucas' other lab in the Not A Hero DLC. That DLC also throws in a few new photos of Lucas' creations.

And moving on a game...

Photos from Miranda's Lab in Resident Evil 8

(Apologies for the long post above the cut, but tumblr doesn't seem to let you tile images below a 'Read more', unfortunately.)

What’s interesting is that most do seem to be legitimate photos of the characters’ real-life face models, not just renders of their 3D game models. Whether the human models themselves posed for these or whether their likeness was simply photoshopped onto scenes composed without them I haven’t been able to find out (though the latter seems more likely to me, given that most face models don't even seem to have known what character their likeness would be used for). Either way, there’s an eerie realism to these that doesn’t occur in many other parts of the game, and it’s effective in its own uncanny way.

Since both games refer to the same research at the same lab, it's probably reasonable that some of RE8 photos are just slightly-adjusted copies of those from RE7 ‒ those two shots of Eveline in the lab most obviously. And we're probably just supposed to politely ignore how obviously Miranda's just been selectively edited into that original pic of Eveline with the scientists. *cough*

In fact, if you look closely, even that big group photo of Eveline with the research team and transport operatives has actually patched in both Mia and Eveline from that earlier photo of them standing in front of the tanker. In fact, Alan (Mia's partner in RE7) isn't even from a photo at all: that's a drawing from a piece concept art (no wonder they've got him standing at the back!) As a minor role who appeared in no photos in RE7, I assume they just didn't have any good shots of his face model available.

I'm a little suspicious even Miranda's face in the group shot has been edited in from one of her other photos, but the match isn't quite perfect enough for me to be sure.

Even that photo of the needle going into the egg and the developing foetus isn't new: you can see the same needle shot in some of the RE7 documents, and even the foetus development series gets an angled scan-over in the RE7 ending sequence.

Mind you, some of those "photos of Eveline" may actually not be Eveline herself ‒ text on them in the lab itself suggests they're photos of other members of the E-series, sacrificed during necrotoxin tests. Which makes it rather odd that the figure in the second photo is an adult man who looks nothing like Eveline, so I can only assume some wires got crossed somewhere in the dev team.

(Also odd: the suggestion that there were multiple E-series subjects, some of whom were put down for experimental purposes, even though Eveline herself is labeled E-001. But let's not pretend RE lore has ever been super-consistent at the best of times.)

RE8's "lab photos" also include a couple of shots of a man in snow gear who's apparently Spencer of Umbrella-fame, presumably for all those fans who don't feel it's a proper Resident Evil game if there's not an Umbrella in it somewhere. They're both about as rough as that one piece of concept art of Alan, so I'm guessing whoever created them was about as invested in that topic as I am.

Somewhat more interesting to me are the two shots of Miranda with babies. The second obvious Eveline, but the first is presumably of Miranda with Eva, way back in 1920 or so ‒ demonstrating nothing so much much as that in a full 100 years, Miranda hasn't even slightly changed how she does her eyebrows. /s

[atomarium]

Wawa!

Now for real tho, how did You manage the iterator cube in the first place, I think My computer would explode just being near half the polygons

Have a 3d scug as a treat tho

Waw!

The question can be interpreted in three ways.

Technical:

just... Pain...I have an old 7th gen Intel i7, 16 gigs of ram, and RTX 3060. The thing is. When It comes to meshes, or hard surfaces (the polygons) blender is actually very good at handling a lot of them. But guess what blender does NOT like. Clouds, textures and displacments. I did the details in the cube first, and then sufferd through the pain and lag of clouds and textures.

Render times don't increase with polygons. This many poligons render a 1080p image in 40 seconds. You just have to be smart about hiding stuff you don't need when editing.

I can send you the model. It's really not a huge problem.

Creating detail kind of technical:

well it is indeed hand made. It doesn't take long if you blender very aggressively with energetic music. The first wall took me, ~30-40 hours. The second is barely visible so just a copy of that with modifications. I premade greebles and assets that I have later scatterd. You can see I reused a lot of stuff. In the project I am currently working on it will be different. But in this one, I tried to follow the doctrine of hiding the flatness of the cube. So it doesn't look like a cube with stuff on it, with fairly decent results. Made some holes some structures etc.. The plugins that I used mostly are discombulator, blenders inbuilt panel gen. And we'll uh. That's Pretty much it. Made a geonodes modifier, for the pipes. So it's easier, so that's a thing.

And the rest is just me trying to be creative and stuff.

The "how do I come up where goes what"

I domnt funkin know.

I'm an engineer. And that means I solve pracital problems. Such as, will this pipe going from here to here make sense? Or does it make sense to make this thing here if there is another nearby? I can barely be called an artist, or creative for that matter. I can't draw like at all,I just get anxiety when I try, I can't make anything that is alive in blender. Like genuenly anything.(including scugs :<). I am pretty darn new to blender with barely even 1 k hours. I looked at references of Cappins (the creator of the original 3d model found in OE.) Model, I got some inspiration from there.

Here is his model.

And here is mine ( low quality because I don't have the original on my phone)

You can defenetly see the similarities. I took inspiration from a lot of the stuff on Cappins model. Unfortunately I for some reason never figured out that iterator cube is not a cube. It's a uh... Pancake shaped cube. What I also like a lot about Cappins model, is that it's very very well balanced. Perhaps some technical details are questionable but at that scale that can be ignored. I later talked with him. And he explained me the meaning of primary secondary and tertiary detail. Wich is actually very useful. Go google it if you draw or model. As for my model. I'm happy that people like it but I'm not happy how not canon it is compared to other iterators. Perhaps, it's an older model of an iterator. It took me nearly a third of the time cappin took to make his, that explains the quality difference. And we'll he had to start from scratch.

I hope that answers all the questions, otherwise ask again. It's not like I'm gonna go anywhere.

(also pls gimme de scug model if it's okay)

[katyspersonal]

(More elaborate under cut)

It is really interesting to think of what might have been a particular reason, if any at all! Both putting one's special skill they've worked hard to master to a great use OR not having much under one's belt but finding the way with passion and open-mind offer for a compelling character! But Bloodborne is also full of various gods (or people) using others and who knows if the results are handy in some way? Caryll could've been chosen, or someone (Willem? Laurence? idk?) could have offered them. Like 'yeah it will shorten your lifespan by like 50 years but you will serve the humanity well!'. And knowing madness of Byrgenwerth scholars, Caryll could actually volunteer for something like this!

But also Hunter rune/mark has been shown to exist since Pthumerian civilizations AND Byrgenwerth used to be a place of studying history and archeology; Caryll might have rediscovered and improved lost knowledge for that matter! But also Runes Workshop Tool is found on Hemwick on some unfortunate normie hunter victim tied up and surrounded by many pages, and the statue behind Memory Altar (also found all over Chalice Dungeons) has a surgical stitch on the forehead and AAAAAAAA-

Personally my first thought about the character was a mix of things - an artist guy that also had synesthesia and partially deaf. Then I fell into a rabbit hole of Hemwick implications and had Caryll be the long-missing third head witch of Hemwick (there are at least three statues in the game implying the 'triad', and one IS in Hemwick Mansion!). ......then I found out as far as Japanese original is concerned Caryll has a male name (Karel) with that mother-teresa-looking-motherfucker statue also being a reused asset in dungeons- My current compromise is to have two characters - a scholar in Byrgenwerth that deciphered the alphabet, and the witch that found a way to burn it into a brain for hunters' aid! So why she is the one revered by Old Hunters and Church Prospectors, whereas Caryll is otherwise a hiding figure closer to Byrgenwerth.

And what are your stories about Caryll guys?

[purseowner4thequalityanimation]

Shin Megami Tensei NINE's demon roster consists of new designs, returning designs and REPEATED designs. And no demon demonstrates this better than Harpy, whose model appears in NINE's roster no less than 5 times. Rather than just post 5 gifs and be done with it like I normally do, I have decided to curate a short overview of the BEST Harpy appearances in MegaTen! Hit "Keep reading" (after viewing this post in my blog because the formatting gets fucked up if you don't) NOW!!!!

Harpy and Furiae appear in Shin Megami Tensei 1 but they don't share assets yet so who gives a crap. Siren is a blue harpy, I guess.

Furiae returns in Shin Megami Tensei II with a new sprite, joined by

Ocypete, Celaeno and Aello! There's some slight asset resharing among them as Aello and Furiae share the same base sprite, but the others share with non-harpy demons so as far as this post is concerned they're original. Combined with artist Kazuma Kaneko's tendency to embellish demon designs in artwork and you'd never expect that all these birds were destined to be textureswaps for an underperforming 2002 XBOX JRPG.

But they were! Now we're cooking! In Shin Megami Tensei NINE the 5 bird-ladies return in one fabulous package. If you love Harpy then you'll love Harpy being given a haircut and a dyejob and reappearing four times. You'll love how they appear alongside themselves for hours of gameplay because they're within the same 10-28 level range. As an added bonus for the asset-reuse lover, said gameplay takes place in looping CG render backgrounds arranged into dungeons so just imagine leaving the town square in Ocarina of Time and arriving in that exact town square except mirrored. By the end of NINE you will love asset reuse, because you will not make it to the end of NINE otherwise. (The harpies are also in Shin Megami Tensei IMAGINE but without the looping backgrounds it just isn't the same.)

Honorable mention to Persona 1 which squeezed in the named furies Megaera, Tisiphone and Alecto by using the same upperbody sprite as the three named harpies. Unfortunately Atlus were too afraid to include the named harpy Podarge for a total of 7 unique birdladies, so Persona 1 will only be commemorated by an opacity-reduced overlay of the six they bothered including.

Only regular Harpy survived to the DS-3DS era, using her Soul Hackers design where her head kind of looks like a pinecone. After gracing us with her presence in Strange Journey (+ Redux) and Shin Megami Tensei IV(+ Apocalypse), the Harpy disappeared from the pages of SMT history never to be seen again. As for actual history, I think Harpies were evil birds in Greek mythology but don't quote me on that.

Special thanks to @veskscans for the SMT1/2 art of Harpy, Furiae, Ocypete, Celaeno and Aello, and @eirikrjs for the Soul Hackers Harpy scan. NINE gifs by me, other sprites from the MegaTen wiki.

[kihakugato-art]

The Harriet Pinup Art Project

Session 1- 3Dification & Sketchification

I initially got a little stressed when using the 3D posing in CSP so to give myself a breather I did some traditional art sketches of Harriet! I played around with a few expressions as well as experimented with her having a ponytail (another hat tip towards Mordred Fate, plus I think Harriet just looks good in a ponytail!) which I think I’ll have for her for the planned bigger art piece.

But to answer question from session 0- “how well can I mess with the 3D model to the pose(s) I need”? Doable, but a lil rough; It’s very easy to misclick during the process and mess things up.

[WEEEEEE- those are some broken-ass limbs there!]

It’s also a bit of a learning curve to try to remember which controls affect the 3D model in certain ways. Not to mention controlling/posing the limbs to how you wish can be quite fickle depending on the limb;

Say you want to turn the leg calf horizontally cause its turned a lil weird, it will only let you move it up-down from the calf direction controls, so you’ll need to control the thigh as well as the foot/ankle, which can be a bit unintuitive.

The fact you can save poses (both for fullbody and just hands) was quite handy though to ensure I could reuse or fall back onto a pose or reuse a pose if I needed to.

In the end I tried two different sitting variants; one with one of the legs up, and another where both legs are hanging down. While the latter could give a powerful image if used by a clever enough artist, I couldn’t really nail it, so in the end I chose the former.

["It looks identical"- it's because the changes are pretty subtle without overlaying the two versions over each other. There's a difference between them I assure you!]

Not sure if the Manga toggle is quite the best choice for this piece either since the change isn’t hugely dramatic for this specific piece (it’d probably be better for a piece that’s more action-packed), but I chose it anyways. Now let’s get to sketching!

Not Bad, but it felt off. Some of it is because at the end of the day I did just trace/follow over the 3D image which feels a little unsettling for me in this context- but I gotta remember I posed/positioned the 3D model myself It's not from default poses available in the CSP library. I may redraw over the sketch later without the 3D model to try to maybe try to break any stiffness that may have bled through from tracing which could contribute tot he oddness. Even with that though, something still felt off.

“Where do the wings connect to the back?” was the question one friend gave to me once I showed this WIP with my concerns. She was right; the wings were placed too high, they look like they are directly to the shoulders, which just feels *wrong*.

A little fiddling and the wings were shifted so that they are implied be connecting *below* the shoulder blades. Much better. Now to the setting/background!

[Image source 1, Image source 2]

Among my background inspo folder the retaining coastal wall seemed the most doable. Not to mention my brain was craving it a little bit from back when I got to visit near one of the Great Lakes this year.

Not bad! If I kept the background relatively simple/plain and did contrast between Harriet and the wall it could look pretty good. However- as my one friend pointed out- the pitch for this project I more or less said/implied she’d be on her ship. Which I unfortunately I have to agree.

I’m not super keen on figuring out the deck layout for Harriet’s ship though, since I’m far from done designing her ship. It’d also be different if I had a 3D asset of a schooner ship, but with the work it took to get the posed 3D model in place as well as the fact I’d likely have to pay for such a 3D asset, that route ain’t happening, that ship has sailed (lol punny).

Maybe we can avoid those details by having her sit high up on one of the masts? People go up on masts right??? Alright then- Time to update the inspo/reference folder for backgrounds/settings!

[Image source 1, image source 2- uhhh hoping the licenses for some of these ref images doesn't apply here for the first image or I'm gonna have to remove these images from here- which fair enough, my bad to only realize this now]

The first ref I depended on for a little bit- but then for whatever reason my brain began to REALLY struggle. The beams were easy to set up with the ref but nothing else. I think the image ref just had too much going on in such ways that I couldn’t make a “shape” out of it in my brain, I can’t even tell what some of the parts are on the mast! So after a lotta artist malding I decided to grab the second ref to make things simpler and more clear to visually understand.

[There were far more breaks when drawing this background/setting than I'd like to admit]

And boom! Although I like the retaining wall version, I think the mast is definitely the way to go for the final piece. Some of the rope placement was vaguely bullshitted but it’ll suffice. The cooked fish on a skewer in Harriet’s hand kind of blends in a bit through the background mess though, so I’ll probably resize the fish to be MUCH bigger to make it pop out a little better.

From here I’ll be turning the sketch lines all into one colour (I did different colours to help my brain keep track of the different components in the setting), and we’ll see where I go from there!

[Session 0]

[aparticularbandit]

The Illusion of Choice: Junko Enoshima and Conjunction Junction

Summary: The imminent frustration of having to teach every single one of these characters what a fucking joke is sets Junko on edge.  Did their creator not program them to understand jokes?  Did the player character not make jokes?  What sort of game doesn’t involve a good ribbing between club members every now and again?

Ugh.

Chapter Rating: T. Fic Rating: M because, as has been stated, this is a Danganronpa/Doki Doki Literature Club crossover, and given the content of both, this is inevitable.

AO3

previous chapter | next chapter

“I was told there would be cupcakes.”  Junko crosses her arms as Sayori leads her into an empty room.  “And a club.  You’re not just making all this shit up to get more alone time with me, right?  Because you don’t have to make up an entire club just to—”

“I’m not!”  Sayori waves her hands between them and backs up, an awkward grin on her face.  “I didn’t make anything up!  I—”

Junko clocks out of whatever Sayori says next.  It was a joke.  She knows Sayori isn’t making the whole club up, not after that conversation with Monika two days ago.  Or one day ago, if the repetition of Sayori’s lines says anything about the day when she met Monika.  It might as well have been erased from everyone else’s memories.  The game must lock Junko into a single day loop until she finally joins the club – or at least tells Sayori that she will, apparently.

How unfortunate for Monika.  An entire conversation.  Gone.

(Yeah, right.  Something tells her Monika remembers everything that happens.  Even if no one else does.  Equally unfortunate.)

Regardless, the fact that Sayo-chan doesn’t realize that her bestest friend forever is joking maybe says something about the quality of their relationship.

Or about the relationship the game expects them to have had before it began.

Either way, ick.

So instead of focusing on the continued rambling of her game-assigned bestie, Junko lets her gaze scan the room around them.  It looks just like the classroom she’d been in before.  Someone must have decided to just reuse art assets instead of making each area look different.  Lazy.  There’s not really much detail to the room; sure, the player is supposed to be paying attention to the characters and not the general atmosphere, but why not put in fun easter eggs or potential cheat codes?  Some people live for that sort of thing.

How boring.

As she scans the room, the door to the classroom slams open, and a girl with short actually bubblegum pink hair and eyes the same color as her hair parades in.  (It surprises Junko that she’d though Sayori’s hair was the right color, when this girl’s is – like maybe she hadn’t seen the right shade of pink in so long that she’d forgotten.  But how could she forget the color her hair was supposed to be?  (Easily enough.  Bitch, thy name is Chiaki.))  The girl carries a tray covered with an opaque plastic top and carefully sets it on the teacher’s desk as Monika follows her through the door.

“Natsuki!” Sayori squeals out.  “Don’t slam the door open—”

“I kicked it.  My hands were full!  What was I supposed to—”

“I could have opened it for you,” Monika interrupts, the only one of them to actually complete her sentence.  “When you kick the door open like that, you could break something.”

The new girl – Natsuki – rolls her eyes. “But I didn’t.  So it’s fine.”  Then her gaze lands on Junko.  “You’re the new girl?”  She smiles, and a fang peeks out of one corner.  “At least you’re not a boy.”

Sayori holds her hands up in front of her and bounces a few times as she says, “Did you think Ryo-chan was a—”

“Junko.”

“—boy?”

“Well, duh.” Natsuki crosses her arms.  “Ryo­-chan.  Sounds like a dude to me.”

“It’s Junko,” Junko repeats again, her teeth gritting together.

Natsuki turns to her.  “What is?”

Junko’s eyes grow dark.  “My name.  It’s Junko.  Enoshima Junko.  NOT Ryo-chan.  So quit fucking calling me that.”  She turns to Sayori and glares at her.  “Got. it?”

Sayori quivers under her heavy gaze.  “Sorry, Jun-chan!  I just….  I forgot!”  She taps her head with her hand and offers up an awkward smile.  “I…I don’t remember when you changed it—”

“I have never been….”  Junko takes a deep breath.  “That.  I’ve only ever been me.”  She pinches the bridge of her nose again.  “You would think,” she mutters under her breath, “that my bestest friend ever would know that.  But no.  No.  You have to call me—”

A hand lands on Junko’s shoulder and gives it a little squeeze.  She glances up to see—

Nothing.  There’s no one there.  Just the feeling of someone trying to be comforting but continuing to do absolutely nothing to fix the situation.

Chiaki, you fucking bitch, you did this on purpose.  I know you did this on purpose.

“Jun-chan,” Sayori murmurs.  “I’m sorry.  I won’t forget again.”  She tries to offer her another, just as awkward smile.  “Okay?”

“Whatever.”  Junko sighs.  She moves away from Sayori, who keeps trying to meet her eyes, and leans up against the wall just next to one of the windows.  Then she crosses her arms and tilts her head back as she focuses on the new girl.  “You’re Natsuki?”

Natsuki nods.  “Tsumiki Natsuki.”  Her eyes narrow.  “Don’t call me cute.”

Junko raises an eyebrow.  “Or what?”

“Or I call you Ryo-chan.”

The very idea sends rankles up Junko’s back, but she can’t fault it.  Game recognizes – well, not game, because none of these characters are going to be on her level, but she can at least recognize equal pettiness.  “Fair.”  She shrugs.  “You’re not all that cute anyway.”

Natsuki stares at her, as though trying to decide if Junko’s being serious or just joking.

The imminent frustration of having to teach every single one of these characters what a fucking joke is sets Junko on edge.  Did their creator not program them to understand jokes?  Did the player character not make jokes?  What sort of game doesn’t involve a good ribbing between club members every now and again?

Ugh.

It’s fine.  She’ll learn the in-jokes and whatever humor their creator seems to run on – everyone has some sense of humor, even if it’s incredibly dry, even if someone else might consider it humorless – and in a game that focuses on character interaction and club dynamics, there has to be one somewhere.  She just has to find it.

Or, you know, make them adjust to hers.  Whichever bends the game to her will more easily.  (You’d think that would be adjusting the characters’ sense of humor to her own, but often playing within the bounds of the game will be much more effective than demanding it cater to her.)

“Well, Enoshima-san.”  Monika moves over to her with an outstretched hand, endlessly formal.  “I know we’ve already met, but I’m Ikusaba Monika.”

If Junko didn’t internally flinch when Natsuki introduced herself as Tsumiki, then she does now.  Her eyes narrow.  “You’re kidding me.”

Monika’s brow furrows.  “Is there something wrong?”

“No.  Nothing.”  Junko lies through her teeth, knows that it’s easy to tell that she is, and grits her teeth before her eyes flick not so subtly upward.  Then, she relaxes, grins.  “Moni-kun.”

Monika’s eyes widen.  “Wait—”

But Sayori interrupts, clapping her hands together so loud that it might as well be a thunderclap in the silence surrounding them.  “Moni-kun!  That’s amazing!”  She turns to Natsuki.  “Don’t you think that’s cool?”

“I could have thought of that.”

But as Natsuki pouts, Junko’s lips curve into a much more smug expression.  She slaps her hand into Monika’s and squeezes tight, then leans in and whispers, “Mono-kun.”

The change in the nickname doesn’t seem to shake Monika as much as the first version did.  Of course.  There’s nothing about Monokuma or Ultimate Despair in this game; she doesn’t have to go through its entire code to know that.  Even if there was, Chiaki would have scrubbed it clean before putting Junko in here.  But it’s still fun to force it into the space.  It might just be for her own personal benefit – a reminder of something that shouldn’t exist – but it’s there all the same.

(Or she could drop it entirely.  Give herself that little booster shot of despair every time she has to remember.  Chiaki might not be right about the game being made for her, or whatever, but the constant drip of despair might be.)

Then, while Monika squeezes Junko’s hand just as tight (but still isn’t nearly as painful because Monika doesn’t know how to use her shorn nails), the door to the clubroom opens again, a fourth girl walks in, and whatever petty fascination Junko has with Monika disappears.  She can’t see much through Monika, who stands directly in front of her, but she knows that height, and she knows that hair.

Mikan?

As Junko drops her hand, Monika turns.  “Yuri!  You’re running a bit late today.”

“O-oh, no.”  The girl with deep purple hair moves into better view as she carries a tray of tea over to the teacher’s desk and sets it just next to the tray Natsuki set there.  “I was here early, b-but you said….  Sayori said we would have a…a new member today, so I just thought….”  She blushes a bright, bright red and gestures to the tea before hiding behind one of her long strands of hair.

Not Mikan.

Seeing her now – her hair not disheveled and uneven, the darker saturation of its color (and that of her eyes as well) – Junko is surprised she ever mistook her for the woman she—

“Enoshima Junko,” she says by way of introduction, pushing herself past Monika with her hand outstretched.  “Moni-kun called you Yuri?”

“Y-yes.”  Yuri blushes an even brighter red.  “Matsuda Yuri.”  She takes Junko’s hand, then glances up and meets her eyes.  “It’s a…a pleasure to meet you, Enoshima-san.”

Ah.

Junko smiles – soft – and says, “You don’t need to be so formal.  Call me Junko.”

Yuri’s blush remains as she averts her eyes.  Her hand is soft, gentle, and warm from carrying the tea.  For a moment, just a moment, Junko is sure that Yuri rubs her thumb along the back of her hand.

That moment is lost when Natsuki slams the top of the table behind them, and Yuri jumps away, dropping Junko’s hand as she does.  “Great,” Natsuki says.  “You’ve met everyone.”  She grins, that canine poking out over her lips.  “I made cupcakes.”

Behind them, Sayori squees.  She comes to the front, accidentally separating Junko and Yuri even more as she does.  “Cupcakes!”  She turns to Junko with a huge grin.  “Natsuki makes the best cupcakes, Jun-chan!  You’re going to love them!”

“I won’t be eating—”

“You should eat one,” Monika murmurs, sidling up on her other side.  “To be polite.”

Natsuki glares at both of them.  “Don’t eat it to be polite!  If you don’t want one, don’t eat it!  But you’re missing out!”  She crosses her arms and grins.  “I’m a master chef, and this is a once in a lifetime opportunity!”

“Once in a lifetime when you make cupcakes for every special occasion,” Mikan Yuri mutters under her breath.

Immediately, Natsuki’s glare moves to her.  “What did you say?”

“N-n-nothing.”

“Good.”  Natsuki takes the opaque plastic top from her tray with a bright smile.  “Look!”

But Junko isn’t looking at the cupcakes.  (They’re cute, and they look like kittens.  Natsuki’s a good cupcake artist, sure, but that doesn’t mean the cupcakes will taste good.  It doesn’t matter.  She’s not eating one.)  Instead, she’s focused on Yuri, who moves to one side of the table to start pouring the tea.  She walks over to join her.  “How do you take yours?”

“A little cream, no sugar.”  Yuri doesn’t glance up.  “Sugar can enhance the natural flavor, but I find it makes the tea far too sweet for me, especially when paired with Natsuki’s cupcakes.  Having something a little bitter makes the whole so much better, don’t you think?”  Then she flinches.  “S-s-sorry.  I don’t know what came over me—”

“It’s fine,” Junko murmurs, smiling as Yuri blushes again.  “I like mine the same way.  All that sugar makes my teeth ache.”

Yuri nods to the cupcakes.  “They are very good, though.  Natsuki…she puts a lot of thought into them.”  But her eyes darken as they drop.  “They’re very…cute.”

“I heard that!”

~

The rest of the meeting goes…easily.  Not poor, not well, just easy.  Like the introductory phase of a—

“Did you put me in a fucking dating sim?” Junko rails at her empty bedroom when she returns.  It’s the spot of silence in a day that feels as though it’s been full of people, and she’s tired – so tired.  She hates this.  They aren’t even real people, and they’re wearing the names of people she loves, even if they don’t know it.  The worst part is that their names don’t even match!  Monika is nothing like Mukuro, Natsuki is nothing like Mikan, and Yuri is nothing like—

Junko’s eyes narrow.

“How much scraping did you do to pull all of that out, huh?”

Chiaki sighs behind her.  “I didn’t modify the game, Jun-chan.”

At her words, Junko whirls to her, eyes narrowing.  “It’s not fair that of the two of us, you’re the one who can appear and disappear at will.  You said you put us both here, and you aren’t even playing.”  She leans forward.  “You and Sayori would be such good friends.”

“We would be, I think,” Chiaki admits with a nod, “but the girls all like whoever joins the club.  It’s a function of the game.”

“Yeah.  Because it’s a dating sim.”  Junko glares at Chiaki, who first leans back against and then finally sits on Junko’s bed, tucking her feet underneath her.  “You think getting boned down is going to fix me?  Me?”  She laughs.  “Spoiler Alert: It doesn’t.  You’d know that if you paid attention to any of those memories you mined from me.”

“I didn’t mine any of your—”

“Don’t fucking lie to me.”

Chiaki shrugs.  “I won’t if you don’t.”  She glances around the room.  “I didn’t do anything to you that I wasn’t programmed to do, other than putting you in a different game, and even that is programming.  This one suits you better than the island and gathering hope fragments; that’s all.”  Then she pats the bed next to her.  “Do you want to talk, or just to yell at me?”

“Yell.  Glare.  Call bad names.  Give you shit for—”  Junko yawns and covers her mouth with one hand.  “Nope.  That’s all getting pretty boring.”  She sighs.  “Even being petty loses it’s charm after a while.  I could think of a hundred thousand ways to kill you, but the moment the execution happens, I’ve already thought it out, and it loses its appeal.  The shock value’s there for a viewer, sure, but I don’t need the real thing.”

“Sure, you do.”  Chiaki meets her eyes levelly.  “If you don’t really kill me, how do you feel any despair from my death?”  She pushes herself from the bed and brushes her skirt.  “Are you enjoying the game, at least?”

“No.”

Chiaki smiles.  “You are, I think.  Or you wouldn’t be so mad about it.”  She glances up.  “I need to go.”

Junko rolls her eyes.  “Of course, you do.  Can’t stay and have a good chat with your friend, Jun-chan, who you’ve locked into—”  As she continues, Chiaki disappears again, fading completely from view.  To be honest, she isn’t surprised, and if she’s even more honest with herself, she’s glad she’s gone.  She flops back onto her bed and stares up at the Rocky Horror Picture Show poster tacked to her ceiling.  “Oh, Frank-N-Furter,” she sighs.  “We’re really in it now.”

Except she knows that this, being just the beginning, isn’t in it at all.

This is coming in during the Time Warp sequence.  This isn’t even the arrival of Frank-N-Furter himself.  This is all lead up.

Everything after this is the real game.

(She hates it here.)

POLL HERE

[loveislandthegame]

to think I thought S7 was going to be different because the first 3 vol were different. I feel like a freaking 🤡.

Also, can you tell me about your "Eddie is Alex" theory?

you & me both, anon. clowns unite ! 😭

yes, ofc. obviously this is just a theory, not facts, but hear me out :

back in july, FB made a poll on their socials, asking players if they wanted eddie to return as a love interest in a future season. idk how they could've possibly redeemed him, but that doesn't matter because the answer ended up being hell no . of course, FB must've been shocked by that. me too. i mean, who wouldn't want to romance this ... dreamboat 😐

while we’ve never had a returning islander as an LI, we’ve had returning islanders . they’ve always been redrawn to fit the new season’s style (at least before FB decided to throw ivy & hamish as is into s7's sea of clashing art styles lol)

don’t have receipts for this, but i wouldn’t be surprised if FB already started redesigning him in anticipation of the poll result being a Yes . the majority of players didn't want him back, so anything like that would've had to be scrapped...unless they change up some things, make him a new character 👀

so basically my theory is they had a scrapped returning eddie design laying around, turned him into alex, it's more about their appearance than their personalities, but apparently eddie was gonna undergo a personality transplant anyways

returning islanders haven't been 100% faithful to their OG design, we've all unfortunately seen s5 bobby, but regardless i’ll point out the differences (that aren't caused by alex being drawn at a different angle)

their chins, eddie has a cleft chin

their lips, they’re actually pretty similar in shape, but eddie has a wider cupids bow

noses. again, similar shape, but alex's nose bridge is wider

hair colour ! clearly alex is brunette, but more on that later

not a similarity, but something i thought was interesting . alex is the only s7 guy that never had reused assets from youcef, because his body is from suresh

now the actual similarities:

face structure. jawline, ear shape, cheekbones. same facial proportions as well, like the distance between their mouth and chin

blue hooded eyes. eyebags too, it's just that alex's dont have any lineart

eyebrows. same thickness and very similar shape, same brow spacing as well . look at the glabella (distance between eyebrows) shading on both of them

their hairstyles . both have a side part, a bunch of spiky bits on the (viewer’s) left side, and hair swooping behind their head on the right side

those could all just be coincidences, but there's a mystery afoot, alex’s original eyebrow colour. it caused quite the uproar when he was revealed (it kinda grew on me, i think it's cute lol) so FB gave him a brow tint when the first volume dropped . not everyone's eyebrows and hair matches 100% irl, but in the (starting from s3) LITG universe, islanders' eyebrows correlate with their natural hair colour . we haven't had a bleached brow baddie yet, and imo, this was way too noticeable to just be a simple oversight . then i realised...his original eyebrows are the same colour as eddie's

[equipment-manifest]

This post is part of a series on Rain World's architecture.

Depths Civilization Style

The architecture in the Depths is distinct from that found anywhere else in game. The structures here employ a unique style of masonry internally referred to as "temple stone," and are held up by pillars decorated by a pattern that resembles many eyes arranged in a diagonal grid. Lighting is provided by the endlessly burning flames that appear atop poles scattered throughout the area. Several unique types of statue appear throughout the area, all emblazoned with the top karma symbol or employing other X-shaped motifs.

It seems likely that this architecture is the product of one of the "forgotten civilizations" the Subterranean echo describes drilling through. This would explain the absence of both Depths-like architecture and the glyphs which appear in the Guardians' projections in all other regions of the game.

In that case, Depths is undoubtedly the oldest artificial structure seen in game, and it likely was not always so deep underground. Looks to the Moon claims that all land is slowly dissolving into the Void Sea at just the same rate at which it is buried by dust from above. So, Depths may have been built on the surface and only sank to its current depth over the eons. However, that isn’t necessarily the case. Five Pebbles refers to the fissures containing Depths as "where the ancients built their temples and danced their silly rituals." This indicates that the civilization that built Depths was not so old that nothing is known of their cultural practices, and suggests that it might have been constructed in the fissures in the first place.

Unfortunately, the theory that Depths was built by an older civilization is complicated by the fact that a few of its elements appear in the architecture of the Iterators’ creators. The so-called "Bigger Head" statues seen in Depths also appear in Industrial Complex, Farm Arrays, and Garbage Wastes, while in the sparse temple stone ruins located in upper Subterranean these "Bigger Heads" appear alongside freestanding structures composed of a tangle of small pipes capped by a "Big Head". Identical structures can be found on the surface in Outskirts and Farm Arrays. This is likely just a result of ill-considered asset reuse. However, if an in-universe explanation is desired, I believe I can provide one.

The temple stone ruins below the collapsed portion of the main train tunnel are in considerably worse condition than the temple stone ruins located in Depths proper. Drill heads appear in the background of these ruins, but are absent from Depths. If the ruins were discovered accidentally in the course of the Subterranean drilling projects, it's not hard to believe that some of their statues were excavated and moved to the surface as archaeological curiosities or rare decorations, particularly if the drilling compromised the structural integrity of the surrounding caves and the statues were likely to be destroyed if they remained in place. Once the Iterators were built, their rains could have rapidly weathered the upper Subterranean ruins down to their current state. By contrast, the cave containing the Depths ruins appears to have only been penetrated in a single place, is untouched by the rain, and contains statues seen nowhere on the surface. Perhaps the interest generated by the initial discovery of the ruins prompted further drilling to proceed more cautiously, with an eye towards preserving the ancient structures for study or worship.

[lunarsilkscreen]

How to Run a Game Development Company

Notice I'm talking about this from a perspective that "I need to start from scratch" so I'm not trying to criticize any established company.

If it *sounds* like a criticism; then that's on the reader.

A company needs a few departments for its own protection after hitting a certain size; including a Lawyer, Human Resources, and a Treasurer.

That's only after you're able to grow a certain size; unfortunately you'll need to pay retainer to a lawyer until you reach that size.

As a small business owner; Id need to understand H.R., Budgeting, Investment, and since my preferred job is Game Developer/Designer, I also need rudimentary knowledge of music, art, writing, audio recording, and marketing.

Many Hats.

If you have enough revenue/budget; somebody in this position will start researching workflows. And probably settle on "Scrum" because it seems pretty good.

With a tiny budget; instead of hiring people to work under me, I'd be trying to hire somebody who *knows* better than me in the software department and the art department.

(that is a criticism)

That's were it would start getting unwieldy, because how would you be able to guarantee they knew what they were doing and aren't just good at answering the quote "Google Interview Questions"?

Fortunately, I really am an expert with most of those hats. So what I can do instead;

Is take the "Lead Programmer" hat. What does the lead programmer need to do?

Well, one advantage I have is knowing UML and software design. So I can put together the blue prints, and hire on programmer-interns to do the rudimentary programming to follow the blueprint.

And then I can review the code with them to see where issues might lay, give on-the-fly criticism, and help them get on my level.

This same system is the same for the "art" department. One entry level Modeler is enough. We just need to keep the assets minimal.

A requirement at this level between employees would be to step in where the project is falling behind it there isn't anything to do for your assigned hat.

My hat being all the hats, I step in where needed.

As one product is finished, we hopefully start getting more revenue. And now we can afford a marketer and somebody to do a lot of the footwork that I'd otherwise be doing.

Provided these employees wish to stay here; they become section leaders. They take on a lot of the responsibilities I was taking in *all* departments.

And so the company can keep growing. Provided the revenue supports it.

You only need one person that knows everything on your wish list and just need to sit in and give input after that.

If that starts affording me extra free time; I can work on side projects, starting from scratch essentially, but with the support of the full company around me.

What I don't know; is the dangers that come from a company that grows past that point. I don't really want a company that is bigger than that. So I don't know how to protect the company as a whole after that.

I just know how to use the resources to support growth.

The next department to be created is the core quality control; common frameworks and libraries for reuse. Which will help streamline development and supporting small projects and small intern-ish groups (strike forces) that don't need to start from scratch.

And thus I can offer those strike forces their IP at a cost of some of the short-term profits and allowing them to start their own companies.

Which would allows us to keep operating, and keeping the company smallish and prevent growing to big that it's hard to protect to level I want.

Plus it won't be the same as just *firing* employees.

As they would have their own established resources revenue, and IP. That the "heart company" wouldn't have rights or control over.

Thus, giving us reputation and other opportunities in consulting.

The next problem we might face after that is in over-saturation of the market, and also funding our own competition.

Well, worst case scenario, I would have enough cash at that point to start over if I want, since all I really wanna do is tinker around with software.

[deusexlachina]

Wannabe Warden Part 21: Learn horrifying Grey Warden secrets (like how Janeka stole my sister's body)

In which I once again have to choose between two versions of the same shitty plan.

We venture deeper into the mountain to stop Corypheus and his evil minions. Unfortunately, we're immediately trapped because Corypheus' prison is designed to keep things in but not out, a minor design flaw because any number of living things wander in and get Cask of Darkspawnilladoed. You can wander in from either the Vimmark Mountains or from the Deep Roads, as numerous dwarves found out before dying.

At no point did the Grey Wardens, who have a base in the Free Marches and routinely use the Deep Roads to fight darkspawn, ever think to issue any kind of warning about this inescapable Grey Warden death trap. There's not even a little sign on the entrance. They might have warned Emo Warden Bethany, but, in fairness, the last time anyone came out of here was in the distant past. By distant past, I mean all of 35 years ago, when they hired Bethany's dad to fix the inescapable death trap because it wasn't inescapable enough.

We encounter another Grey Warden who got trapped here, Larius, a former Warden Commander with advanced stages of the taint. He's okay but he died.

Larius reveals that Corypheus is a powerful wizard that can mind control people. On a probably unrelated note, Larius' plan to keep Corypheus from escaping is to completely destroy all the security mechanisms keeping Corypheus inside.

But Larius has an enemy - Warden Janeka, who plans to stop the darkspawn by releasing their leader, Corypheus, and then mind controlling him. I have to choose between these two factions, even though they're both planning to release an ancient evil. I decide to vote blue no matter who, picking the brown-haired one with the blue stripes.

Did you notice that Janeka's heavier than usual? I initially attributed this to her being an older woman before I remembered that there are no fat people of any age in Thedas. (With the sole exception of Lloyd the bartender in Redcliffe). This body type does not exist outside of the mod I'm using for Emo Warden Bethany...which means that Janeka, an older woman, not only has the exact same body as my 26-year-old sister but has an exact copy of her body. I can only assume this is because Janeka and Bethany are the only two female Grey Wardens in DA2, so when they went to all the hard work of making Bethany's torso - which has the clothes stuck on - they just decided to code Janeka's body with "just do Bethany's body again, nobody will notice." I know there's a lot of reused assets, but that's a little unsettling.

Between the brown-haired Grey Wardens who are currently being mind-controlled by Corypheus, I went with Larius. The other Grey Wardens leave with Janeka. If I'd sided with Janeka, the other Grey Wardens would have left with Larius. This does nothing to dampen my suspicion that the Grey Wardens just really don't like me or my family. There is only one substantial difference between Larius and Janeka. It's not the fact that Janeka is piss-evil, because that has no impact besides adding to her milf appeal. It's that they have different dungeons. If you side with Larius, you go with him to Riannon's Floor, where you fight four undead, who are tough. If you side with Janeka, you go to Daneken's Floor, where you fight a trio of rocky bastards, who are so tough I am convinced that nobody ever playtested this fight.

It looks like I'm winning here, doesn't it? I was, but the third one can regenerate both its own health and the health of the other two. Fast. So you'd want to focus fire the healy one, except only two of them are up at any given time, so sometimes the healy one just decides he'd rather not be fought, so then you switch to fighting one of the other two, and you've nearly got that one, but now the healy one's back online, so you switch back to fighting him but then the other two are healed up and now he's gone again. Did I mention that one of them is highly resistant to physical attacks, such as Bianca? And another is completely immune to all elemental attacks, such as most staves and all my best weapons? I don't know if this is the hardest fight in the game, but it is, without doubt, the most breathtakingly unfun.

After beating the boss that cannot decide to suddenly not be targetable whenever I start winning, I reach the top of the prison, only to find that Janeka and her soldiers got there first. I don't know how she did, considering that she went to Daneken's Floor with its ridiculous damage sponge monsters. Janeka reveals that Larius recruited my dad by threatening to murder my mom. Larius excuses himself by saying that he didn't murder my mom because his threat to murder her was successful in coercing my dad to work for him, so he didn't end up having to murder her after all.

I turn on Larius, so Janeka instantly kills him. She...she what? She just instantly kills her main enemy? Why didn't she do that before?

If I had tried to stop Janeka, I'd have had to fight her and her soldiers. Since I'm not doing that, I don't have to kill them, meaning I have maximized the number of Grey Wardens in this world. Having three seasoned Grey Wardens at her side, Janeka uses them by ordering them to uh guard a bridge or something. With nobody left to stop her, Janeka tries to mind control Corypheus. This does not work.

Corypheus rambles on about his personal life...blah blah blah, seeking the god Dumat...blah blah blah, went into heaven but found it corrupted...anyway, he needs to kill me to get out of his prison, so we fight to the death. He attacks by smacking people and, when that doesn't work, he shoots jets of flame in an excruciatingly slow-moving circle. My companions give me numerous pieces of advice in this fight, such as that we should try to stay ahead of the deadly wall of slow-moving fire. I have no idea why this group decided to give me advice here and not in the Ancient Rock Wraith fight back in Act 1, which was far less intuitive and harder than anything else (except possibly the preposterous damage sponges in the other route).

Corypheus talks almost as much as my friends. He says "the maze closes in" on us "little rats," which as you can see is not true, but the allusion to rats in mazes suggests that the dark magical experiments of the ancient Magisters apparently included modern-day animal psychology studies.

Varric begs me not to die, because then he'd have to tell the story of how we got splattered in another boss fight, and if he has to narrate one more TPK Cassandra will gut him like a fish. I oblige Varric by only dying horribly once, when the walls of flame didn't appear so I got killed by invisible fire while I was wondering what happened.

Bugs aside, this is the single easiest boss. You can outrun his physical attacks, you can outrun his fire walls, you can simply walk around his ice or lightning, and when he's using the fire walls you can take as long as you like in these balconies with statues, which are also his weakness. If you have Anders, he can just wait out his cooldowns, revive everyone, heal everyone, and then go back to the rest of the fight at your leisure.

Anders eventually realizes that Corypheus's weakness is the statues around the room, a conclusion based on intuition, Grey Warden senses, and the fact that by that point we have already hit the statues numerous times by now and each time it's worked against him.

I then finally kill Corypheus. Warden Janeka apologizes to me for foolishly thinking she could ever control the powerful and, dare I say it, sexy Corypheus. But now she feels like a whole new person. There's evil music over this scene, which is a subtle reference to the fact that Corypheus is still alive. Or he died but he's okay. Nobody in my party seems to notice something's up, which I can only attribute to some kind of subtle mind control making us miss obvious villainy.

As a reward for slaying the most powerful darkspawn who ever lived, my reward is a piece of armour that's slightly less powerful than my current one. Yet again my reward for doing vital Grey Warden missions is highly suboptimal equipment, and...wait...is that...GREY WARDEN ARMOUR???

FUCK YEEAAAHHHH

[choices-binglebonkus]

Ranking of "obligatory best friend for the MC" characters (like Bree from HFTH, Jenny from TNA, Malorie from Surrender, Faith from KOD, and any others I missed. From best (or least terrible) to worst. Go.

Sorry this took so long, I finally got around to making the list (which is actually going to be worst to best sorry anon).

So before we actually get into the list, there are a couple of (loose) criteria I had for determining who would be included in the list. One, no love interest best friends are allowed, so no Zoey, Jaime, Lily, etc. Two, it had to be CLEAR that the character in question was the MC's best friend. For instance, the OPH MC doesn't have a clearly defined best friend, so I avoided including any of the roommates on the list, same with Zeph from TE because it's not totally clear who the MC's best friend is.

22. Jenny (The Nanny Affair). I hate Jenny. I hate her I hate her I hate her. She is my enemy. She's boring, uncool, unfunny, and serves no real purpose in the story. She's useless. And worse, the MC enables Jenny and Aditya's affair. Boo. Boooooooooo.

21. Malorie (Surrender). Malorie isn't as awful as Jenny, but my god, she has no filter. And that's coming from an autistic person. Malorie spews the creepiest, grossest, out of pocket shit, AT HER WORKPLACE NONETHELESS. The writers try to play it off as funny but it's not. It's really creepy. If I were her coworker I would feel incredibly uncomfortable around her every day.

20. Bree (Home For the Holidays). Undoubtedly the most forgettable "best friend" on this list. I'm going to bet no one remembers her because she did nothing and was a Nothing Character.

19. Mandy (Untameable). Boring, bland, does nothing of note in the story except fall for our misogynistic brother. Blech.

18. Eddie (Rising Tides). Another Nothing Character, but helps the MC in a small way. He's a reused asset.

17. Nigel (A Very Scandalous Proposal). Another Nothing Character, but helps the MC in a slightly bigger way. He's also a reused asset.

16. Nadia (Perfect Match). Definitely my most controversial ranking on this list. Nadia always got on my nerves and I never cared about her as a character. She just...consistently annoyed me.

15. Chazz (Red Carpet Diaries). Chazz also annoyed the hell out of me, but slightly less than Nadia. I found nothing about him compelling.

14. Layla (Wolf Bride). She didn't serve a purpose in the story, and wasn't terribly interesting. She is the very definition of the Obligatory Best Friend because there was no one else in the pack who would've befriended the MC. Also, I'm severely tokophobic and every time she appeared in the story I got really lightheaded and sometimes had to put the app down for a few minutes.

13. Riya (Ride or Die: A Bad Boy Romance). Riya didn't do much in the story either, and the most interesting part of her character was her relationship troubles with Darius, which really wasn't interesting at all.

12. Faith (Kiss of Death). I am tentatively ranking Faith at number 12 because I haven't played much of KOD (non-VIP) but she's not terrible from what I've seen so far.

11. Faye (The Princess Swap). A lot of people strongly disliked Faye, but I honestly didn't mind her. She's kind of ditzy and absent-minded, but she's not actively harmful, nor is she bland on the same level as most of the others on the list. However, she's far from perfect.

10. Amy (With Every Heartbeat). Amy isn't a terrible character. She helps the MC and Dakota and wishes them the best even though Dakota is her ex. She's not super present in the story, though, but I liked her well enough.

9. Aveline (The Princess Swap). Aveline is honestly so goated for keeping the MC and her sister's secret throughout the story. She's kind and very loyal and is someone I'd love as a real friend. Unfortunately, she isn't really her own person and doesn't have a lot background-wise.

8. Maggie (Ms. Match). Props to Maggie for being one of three characters in Ms. Match I actually liked. She was a competent assistant and was really sweet without falling all over the MC.

7. Poppy (Hero). Poppy Patel is the only valid Poppy in Choices. She's got a killer sense of style, is funny, sweet, and is immensely loyal to your character. I hated the unnecessary drama between her and Dax, but I really liked seeing them actually get together because they just work.

6. Vivian (The Phantom Agent). Vivian and Rowan were the only two characters in TPA I could actually stomach. Vivian is smart as hell, brave as hell (she helps GAIA even though she was initially terrified), and let's be honest. She was the REAL hero. Vivian probably has back problems now because she CARRIED that team.

5. Briar (Desire & Decorum). Briar is kind of chaotic and I love that. Her best friend moves away to a noble estate and she's immediately like "sounds fly as hell, I'm down" and becomes her lady's maid. Honestly though, that's also kind of my biggest complaint about her. Her life is so MC-centric. I mean, she even names her baby after the MC. Nonetheless, she's otherwise really likable to have around and serves as the MC's closest confidant throughout the series.

4. Dionne (Foreign Affairs). Dionne is really sweet, kind of goofy at times, smart, and generous. IIRC it's stated that she volunteers at an animal orphanage. It's too bad FA was such a flop because I really liked Dionne (AND MURPHY!!!)

3. Alma (Mother of the Year). Alma is really kind but also flips a switch and becomes kind of a hard ass in like an instant. It's hilarious and I love it, and I love her. Alma truly was the backbone of MOTY and she helped the MC so many times.

2. Zack (The Freshman). Zack is the only one of the MC's friends who deserved the title of best friend, which is a title he thankfully actually got otherwise he wouldn't be on this list. He was always there for her even when the others were absorbed in their own drama and though he wasn't perfect, he was definitely the least problematic of the bunch.

1. Diego (Endless Summer). Who else could I put at number 1 other than Diego? No one, that's who. Diego was so gentle and kind and even though he'd had a rough time making friends, had a homophobic family, and later on in the series gets stuck with the Vaanti for six months, he never let his bad experiences make him a bitter person. He was friendly to absolutely everyone in the group and there was no drama to be spoken of with him. Diego was such a loyal best friend to not just the MC, but to everyone around him. And his catalyst idol reflects that: he was Canis, and the Endless even refers to him as "my loyal Diego" as they're remembering all their friends just moments away from death. Diego truly is one best friend to rule them all.

[moldwood]

would you mind sharing which courses youre getting? ive been wanting to get into modeling 3d environments for a while but never know where to start & theres sooo many options (a lot of which seem to overlap in a lot of ways) that i get real bad choice paralysis lmao. like i currently have five different courses on Basically The Same Thing in my cart bc i cant decide which one to get. just having some sort of "yeah i thought this one looked good" from someone else is such a huge help lmao.

(also do you by chance know if udemy does these kinds of sales often? ive never used it before so idk if this kind of opportunity will come up again or if i should just drop a bunch of money on these Right Now)

(also also if for some reason youd prefer i come off anon i can, im just shy lmao)

thank you!!

to answer your question out of order, i don't think they do sales like this often (but i can't say for sure). right now, many sites focused on this type of thing are celebrating blender's 10th birthday, so that is why i imagine the discount is so steep. on that note, blendermarket is giving away a free plugin a day (you can't claim previous drops, unfortunately), so keep an eye out for that this week too! (today's sucked tbh.) i would say yeah go ahead and get the courses you want now since i really doubt there will be an 80+% discount again. i think it expires today?? so for anyone else reading this who might be interested, it is worth looking through their courses now. there are more than just blender courses, so you can really take advantage of this sale.

this got long the rest can go under a cut. sorry for the wall of text 😭

ultimately, it depends on what your end goals are for the environments. are you learning to make them to block out 2d art backgrounds, for 3d stills, for animations, for games? photorealistic or stylized? will you be reusing the assets you make or going for unique scenes each time? there will be a few different branching paths when it comes to implementing what you've made at the end of the courses, so if you're wanting to just get one or two, go with the ones that most align with what you're trying to learn right now and with what you'd like to get out of it by the end. i prefer making textures and uv mapping to procedural textures, so my choices tended to focus more on those and compositing vs making them for usable environments.

now for the meat of the question, here are the environment + room focused ones i got. it's a lot, sorry, it was most of the purchase. i am not the best example mostly because i know i tend to fail with taking what i've learnt and applying it to my own work, so repetition helps with that :'] and because i am discovering i am really liking 3d art and wanting to delve into this aspect of it (maybe since it is so neglected in my 2d art LOL) - Blender Environment Artist: Create 3D Worlds - i've followed grant's tutorials before, so i trusted this one to get me comfortable with environments since i haven't many any yet. this is focused on modular building, though (but you can still apply the principles to a solid model) Blender 4: The Ultimate Environment Artist's Guide - whole buildings, bringing them together in a scene, props Stylized 3D Environments with Blender 4 Geometry Nodes - nodes... they elude me Blender 4 Modeling and Geometry Node Workshop - environment sculpting, nodes, **curved surfaces, which i struggle with Blender to Unreal Engine Become a Dungeon Prop Artist - props The Ultimate Environment Art Bundle - 4 Courses in 1 - interiors, exteriors, urban setting Create a Victorian Room with Blender and Substance Painter - this one was another one i had to get since there were not many that focused on interiors like this Blender to Unreal Engine 3D Plants and Vegetation - texture painting vegetation (as opposed to procedural generation for the textures) Learn to Make Stylized Environments in Blender & UE5 - modular buildings, bringing them together in a scene, props, lighting in UE5 as opposed to fighting cycles. also uses zbrush, which is free and which i am scared of. (i will probably swap that part of this tutorial out for sculpting in blender as best i can.) this is one i wanted to get but ultimately did not. but i will probably change my mind by lunch tomorrow lol: Creating 3D environments in Blender - realistic environments, water physics, photoscan models??

there is a lot of overlap, especially with how they mostly start from the very beginning assuming you haven't opened blender before, but they each do something different, either with particle systems or geometry nodes or focusing on interiors vs exteriors vs environments. i don't have substance painter (yet 🦴🏴‍☠️🦜), and i probably won't be putting the things i make in unreal engine with the intention of having them be walkable, but the modeling and rendering parts of the courses are very applicable still to what i want to learn. and who knows! maybe i fall in love with making areas you can move in.

there was one other course that i bought a bit ago on sale that is not on udemy or on sale anymore, but that i recommend checking out since it opens up a lot of possibilities, especially if you're wanting to avoid substance painter/adobe (though quixel mixer is an alright +free! alternative i have heard): Revitalize paintings in 3d with Blender. omar's work is easily the biggest reason i got into 3d modeling in the first place. flippednormals does have sales from time to time, so you can wait until one happens and buy it then if it interests you. check out omar's youtube (craftreaper iirc?) his pinned comment on the course video will have a discount when there is one

so yeah TLDR; if you have a bit of an idea of what you want to make in the future already and how you prefer to do it, focus on courses that teach those. if they cover the same thing, that's fine, practice helps with making sure you remember the techniques, especially since in classes sometimes you're just following along and not absorbing. at least i am guilty of that. you know your learning style and what you're wanting to achieve with 3d modeling best! if they're covering the exact same techniques, maybe try one or two that use a different method just to have that tool in your pocket. keep in mind how much time you are willing/able to take out of the day to sit down and follow the courses and how easily you are able to take what you learn and apply it to your own work. if you can do that sooner, you'll need less courses since you can just look up specific problems and questions as you encounter them.

TLDR TLDR; imo, i would say just buy all 5. maybe look to swap some out if they're all about the exact same thing. they're on sale for so cheap compared to the normal prices. worse comes to worst, you don't end up using it and you have put money in an artist's pocket. my friend is yelling at me for still being up goodnight

[crusherthedoctor]

💫 favorite Sonic game(s) in terms of aesthetic <3

I guess The Aesthetic Guy has become one of my calling cards next to The Green Horsie Guy and The Eggman Guy That Hates Eggdad, huh? Well, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Unfortunately and/or fortunately, there's a lot of Sonic games with top tier aesthetics, which makes it very hard for me to narrow them down. Most games in the series have at least a winner or two: SA2 has the pyramid and A.R.K. levels. Unleashed has Eggmanland and Jungle Joyride. '06 has Kingdom Valley. Black Knight has Misty Lake. Secret Rings has Sand Oasis and Night Palace. Rush has Water Palace and Mirage Road. Rush Adventure has Coral Cave, Sky Babylon, and Pirates' Island. 3D Blast has Rusty Ruin and Volcano Valley. ShtH has more than you'd expect for a game like it, such as Digital Circuit and Circus Park. Even the Rivals duology has a couple of good ones. But if I must decide on a personal top ten for which games I consider to have the most consistently strong aesthetics, then in chronological order...

The Genesis games. They started things off, so they had to establish Sonic's world as a fascinating one. Well it worked for me when I played them on Mega Collection back in '03. Despite playing Advance 2 first, I never thought these ones were uncool by comparison. I loved Marble Zone's juxtaposition of the grassy outdoors with the lava temple. I loved how opulent Casino Night's lights were to offset the night. I loved how funky and quasi-Arabic in architecture Launch Base was. I loved how the already ominous background in Death Egg Act 1 doesn't even move, subtly emphasizing just how massive the spaceship truly is. Even when they had to reuse assets to cobble together a zone, it still looked great!

Sonic CD. I already love the visual storytelling in the game as is, and its aesthetics make me love it even more. My favourites tend to be the Pasts for how they get away with being no less pleasing in spite of their intentionally murkier palettes (I too adore the sunset canyon of Wacky Workbench), and the Good Futures for how unashamedly loud and proud they are, including the way they show nature and technology working together. They're all so good. (Also, shout out to Chaotix for having a similar vibe, even if it can sometimes be hard to tell what you're looking at cause of how trippy it is lol. It's like the physical manifestation of the 90's.)

Sonic R. The neanderthal "I wish Sonic R had more than five courses so the game was longer" VS the intellectual "I wish Sonic R had more than five courses so there were more for me to stop and gawk at".

SA1. Lost World is so pretty. Twinkle Park is so pretty. The At Dawn section of Speed Highway is so pretty. The cave in Ice Cap is so pretty. Beta Windy Valley is so pretty. Red Mountain is pretty from a certain point of view. SA1 may have started the focus on "realism", but it never felt anywhere near as in-your-face as some of the later games that indulged in it. Not just because there were plenty of more whimsical environments to balance it out, but also because even the grounded ones still had an equal amount of colours and fancy Dreamcast lighting trickery. Hell, Final Egg is meant to be a gritty, grungy kind of Eggman base, and it is, yet it still manages to be as visually interesting to look at as the other stages. I can't really say that about Crisis City, or the islands in Frontiers.

The Advance trilogy. C'mon, you know I love me some good pixel art, so I'm never going to stop gushing over how gorgeous Ice Mountain and Twinkle Snow are, or how cool Techno Base is, or how upbeat Music Plant is, or how striking Chaos Angel is, or how-

Heroes. People always say this game had some of the most Genesis-style environments in a 3D installment, and I definitely don't disagree with that. Because of this, it has a very similar appeal to SA1, with levels like Grand Metropolis, Frog Forest, and Hang Castle most likely managing to fit in with the SA1 group without sticking out like a sore thumb. And it's a small detail, but I love how in Egg Fleet, the upper part of the skybox is completely clear. All the clouds are down below. It's a subtle thing, but it really goes a long way to emphasizing just how high up in the atmosphere you really are.

The Riders trilogy. Metal City has one of my favourite city aesthetics in the series. Gigan Rocks is like a more vibrant Dragon Road, and Gigan Device has a beautiful nighttime palette. Dark Desert's eclipse-induced darkness contrasts with the colorful circuitry during the indoor sections. Aquatic Capital is like a high-tech water park, with Tempest Waterway being the sort-of-Bad-Future equivalent that's still pretty in its own way. Digital Dimension is Digital Dimension. Even Crimson Crater, despite mostly consisting of greys and silvers, remains compelling due to how alien the landscape is. There were even some visual highlights in Free Riders despite being Free Riders, like the very first course, Dolphin Resort.

Colours. After Heroes, this game's environments are among the most Genesis, which you know at this point is always a plus in my book. Each of them have their own thing to say about Eggman's theme park and the man himself by extension, with the public announcements giving them even more personality. Aquarium Park is undisputedly my favourite of the lot, doubled by the catching red and blue contrast (and also because underwater tubes is one of those video game tropes that always captivates me; thank Roo's Tubes from CTR for starting that fascination).

Generations. This one's sort of cheating since it's just Old Levels DX: Director's Cut, but it deserves to be mentioned for its version of Sky Sanctuary alone. I really like Generations Sky Sanctuary...

Mania. The older levels have been remixed so heavily that they feel new regardless, and the twists it spins on the actual environment side of things is no exception, like the cavern in Green Hill, or the machinery in Lava Reef. But of course, the new levels are S-tier eye candy as well. I particularly love how Titanic Monarch manages to be dark and spooky while also having every colour under the rainbow at the same time, and the snowy forest backdrop of Press Garden is just... wonderful. <3

And although the game isn't out yet, Superstars looks like it'll be another consistent winner for me. While another Mania-esque pixel art game would have been really nice, I can accept the Sonic 4 But Better approach if it's like what we've seen so far.

You'll notice some running themes with my favourites. The obvious one is a generous amount of vibrancy and character, because no matter how bright or dark, good or evil, hopeful or hopeless the environment is meant to convey, it should never be boring. I also apparently get excited by technicolor stuff, because I never stopped being six years old. And if realism is a thing, I prefer it to be something that compliments an otherwise whimsical land, rather than be at the forefront and eclipsing all other attributes.

But I also like it when they get a bit ethereal, especially if it can provide a contrast with Eggman's handiwork. That's why I marvel at levels like Radiant Emerald, Night Palace, and basically everything in CD. As such, when writing for Stellar, I wanted to emphasize this aspect as a way to help Viridonia stand out as a setting compared to the likes of Station Square. (This was true for the original Beyond the Stars as well, but naturally I wanted to go even further with it after the transition.)