#it's not intended to be an exact pull from gameplay but does work off most of the mechanics

[jadedragonsage]

Flux Affliction Lore Pt2

Healing Flux Poisoning

To anyone reading this seeking a cure for flux poisoning please keep in mind that most of these are theoretical methods and only a small number of cases were able to be “cured.” Full restoration of the patient has not been able to be achieved and a number of remaining physical mutations may linger. Predominantly, affected skin and eyes will retain a light purple coloration, skin appearing to have the look of staining or tattoos depending on original manifestation. Severe cases of flux poisoning may not be able to be removed and can only be contained via the methods listed. Proceed with caution and carefully observe your patient at all stages of treatment.

Methods of Curing Flux Poisoning

Ethereal Blooms

For all cases of flux poisoning the primary and easiest means of beginning curing and containing extreme cases is to use ethereal blooms. These alone will not be enough but they act as a base to provide a constant source of ordo and are naturally efficient at fighting taint and flux based manifestations and maladies. The infected should remain in contact with active blooms for as long as possible including either resting near planted ones or wearing strands of them. While ethereal blooms are able to live on longer than most plants after being plucked they are expensive to replace and shimmerleaf is often difficult to obtain outside of magic infused forests. Ethereal blooms combined with a steady intake of ordo infused healing potions often acts as a base for recovery or containing the spread of flux within the body.

Contact with infected skin appears to work best but remaining within close vicinity to the bloom will still help. For those who cannot obtain a large amount of these marvelous plants it is recommended to keep them in pots around the infected to prolong the flora’s life as long as possible. If the infected subject must remaining moving around then keeping the plants in areas most commonly inhabited is a potential solution. Remember, ethereal blooms are rather delicate so do not handle them roughly or make too many fast movements when worn.

Ordo Infused Healing Potions

NEVER POUR DIRECT ORDO ESSENTIA INTO YOUR POTIONS

Like ethereal blooms, these potions are one of the primary means of curing and containment of flux poisoning. The addition of ordo infused into the potion will help with moving the element more directly through the subject’s body and help dispel deeper flux within. The direct healing also helps to repair damaged and mutated flesh as much as possible, giving the body more to work with as the fluxed magic is metaphorically unwound from its chaotic messy state into a balanced natural form. This often has multiple side effects to the body and subjects who have experienced more severe mutations due to flux often find their bodies cannot function the same without the chaotic magic coursing through them. Healing potions help ease this and decease any potential pain caused. Keep in mind however that extreme cases of mutation and flux poisoning may not be able to be cured using these potions or ethereal blooms. The two combined do help greatly in the healing and/or containment process.

A careful thaumaturge with a basic understanding of essentia distillation and object infusion should be able to take standard healing potions and turn them into flux fighting elixirs. Using your choice of healing potion, usually glowstone infused is prefered for the added strength, place the potion upon the central pedestal. Using two order shards (generally found within infused stone underground) place them equal distance upon opposite pedestals surrounding your altar. Keep no less than a half full jar worth of ordo and sano essentia both on hand for the infusion to assure a safe ritual. Multiple potions may be placed upon the altar to infuse all at once but please keep in mind that this will increase your required supplies, two potions requiring four order shards and twice as much essentia and so on.

Depending on the level of infection the patient may need multiple potions a day or simply a single potion everyday to every other day. It’s important to keep a constant source of ordo active within their system and when using ethereal blooms this can mitigate the extensive use of healing potions in less severe cases. Never depend solely on one method alone to completely cure however. It has been proven that large amounts of ordo must be present to neutralize the flux. Potions are the most direct way to assure safe delivery of ordo to the inner most parts of those infected and will assure even someone who is internally flux poisoned will still receive ordo regardless of proximity to blooms.

NEVER DIRECTLY FEED YOUR PATIENTS ESSENTIA, I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH IT IS DEADLY

Self Infusion 

(Much of the title page has been scratched out with a note saying “Don’t make this one public knowledge, it’s far too dangerous.” The rest of the pages detailing the method are ripped out.)

Amputation

ONLY USE AS A LAST RESORT

As a last ditch resort amputation can be used on severely infected limbs as long as the majority of the flux has not traveled past the connection point of said limb. If the infection is beyond this point then do not attempt this method as it will have no helpful effect to the patient. This should always be performed by a trained doctor and never attempted on one’s self or by an amateur.

A prime case for using this method would be if a subject’s arm was beginning to display signs of taint such as a dark purple, crusting or tentacle like growths. Another case would be if the subject has been able to be cured of flux everywhere else in the body but the limb will not heal and threatens to infect the rest of their body. In this case the patient should be given the choice between using blooms and potions to prevent spreading or using this method to completely remove the severely infected limb.

Disposal of the infected limb is incredibly important, make sure to cure as much as possible via ethereal blooms before burning. Stay away from the fire as a small amount of flux gas may be released and will safely rise up and dissipate on its own in the atmosphere.

For theories regarding how flux afflictions work see part one.

[kyouxa]

Diabolik lovers Chaos Lineage: Shin Tsukinami (Story 12)

In terms of the gameplay: The black choices lead up to a bad ending, the white choices lead up to a good ending. Please no reposting onto other sites, ask me before translating this into another language too! If you enjoy these translations, please consider supporting me on ko-fi.

Place: Abandoned house — Outside

Yui: (Yesterday I was apparently the first one to fall asleep. Was I really that tired though?)

Kino: How nice. C’mon, it’s hot now.

It’s some food I’ve been stealing beforehand, so please eat it as carefully as you can.

Yui: Kino-kun, thank you.

Shin: Did you steal things like this before us knowing about it too?

Kino: I might’ve taken some while you two were resting a bit.

For once, I wasn’t just playing around as you see.

Shin: No, that’s an extension of playing around, don’t you think?

Kino: Meanie. I only brought it with me because I thought that girl might be hungry to begin with. 

Yui: Really? Thank you for your concern then.

Kino: Ah, yeah! I also found something really interesting while I was searching for food!

I want to show it to Shin, so wait here for a hot minute. I’ll go get it.

*Kino leaves*

Shin: What could be so interesting? Well, whatever. I shouldn’t be surprised about anything that guy pulls up anymore.

Go on, you can eat without holding back now. You’re hungry, aren’t you?

Yui: Yep, after everything that happened, I really am. Thanks for the food! 

Ah, it’s hot… ! 

(The meat is really hot because it was freshly roasted… !)

Shin: You’re not a child anymore, so eat more calmly than that. Nobody’s taking it away from you after all.

Yui: Yes, you’re right. 

...Nn, it hurts… it looks like I burnt my tongue

Shin: Haa. Your clumsiness is showing, seriously.

*Shin gets closer*

Shin: Alright, show me your tongue. I have to check on it before it might get even worse.

Yui: Eh!? I’m fine, really! It’s not that big of a deal.

Shin: If it gets worse you’ll suffer deterioration. It’s better to show me yourself before I’m forced to pull your tongue out myself, right?

Yui: (Uhh… it’s no use, but I still hate it… let’s see)

Fine, I get it. I’ll show you myself.

Shin: What? I would’ve been fine with pulling it out myself as well.

Yui: No, thanks… ! Alright, Nn…

*Yui shows tongue*

Shin: Ah, it’s getting really red.

Should I take care of it? It would heal way faster like that, don’t you think?

Yui: Eh!? No! You don’t have to go that far, I’m fine.

Shin: You shouldn’t decline. I would be glad to help you out for the sake of it healing faster. 

Yui: T-That’s not...

Shin: Perhaps you would rather want to be bitten by my fangs than simply being treated? Well, if that’s so you could’ve told me earlier.

Yui: That’s not what I asked for… ! 

Shin: Looks as if the third wheel’s about to come back. I’ll settle this now or never then.

Nn…

*Shin kisses Yui*

Yui: Nn…

Shin: Kuku, your face is bright red. You’re still shy even if it’s just kissing.

If you don’t get used to it, there might be some difficulties in the future.

Yui: It’s embarrassing to me, therefore I can’t help it, okay… !?

Kino: ...Ahem, Ahem! 

Yui: Ah, Kino-kun! You’re back!

Kino: Yep, I’m back. Ah, don’t worry about me, just keep going.

*Shin backs off*

Shin: We can’t easily continue now. There’s nothing more we’re gonna show you either.

Kino: How lewd. Well, whatever. Apart from that, I want you to look at this. 

*Kino gets closer*

Yui: Ah, talking about it, you wanted to show us something interesting, right… ? 

Kino: Hm, yep! Tada, look at this! It’s a caricature of Shin! 

Yui: Eh? Of Shin-kun?

Shin: Uwah! Where did you get this from!?

Kino: I found it when exploring the Orange mansion. I brought it reflexively with me because it was kinda an amazing sketch, in my opinion.

Hey, did you draw this? I found it in Shin-kun’s room, but...

Shin: T-That’s...

Yui: But it looks really good. Did Shin-kun draw this all by himself?

Shin: It’s not like that. Because I had no time to do it myself, I let a familiar draw it for me instead.

Kino: Hmm, so it’s a portrait? As expected from a founder, they really act differently.

But even so, do you really like yourself that much? This portrait is way prettier than you actually are though.

Shin: Shut up! I mean, you’re not beautifaction yourself in person either! I at least let them draw me faithfully.

I’m totally fine with how this turned out. We have to talk about way more important things than that anyway. 

Kino: Yep, Yep. Let’s talk seriously about this matter from now on. Does any of you got something?

Shin: I… I want to regain my brother’s memory.

After I first got to observe the situation, I immediately felt as if it’s an impossible task. We met each other face to face several times, yet I haven’t noticed any change in him.

Yui: Shin-kun…

Kino: Well, guess so. 

Shin: So I think it’s best to find a way to get out of here first, before trying anything with him again.

Kino: Don’t you think that this is also difficult? We’ve just been looking around the mansions for now, that’s it. And even there were no clues.

Shin: I know that. I just want to get out of this ridiculous place if possible. Maybe his memory would come back naturally then.

...I thought that if I can’t somehow shake his memory, they might be able to come back themselves by any chance.

Kino: By chance, huh? Does that mean you actually cared about what I said yesterday?

Shin: ...Not really.

Yui: Yesterday? 

(I wonder what happened while I was asleep?)

Shin: So, what’s it? Do you think it’s the opposite? 

Kino: No. As you said it yourself, I think it would be quicker to get out of here first.

Shin: Thought so. What do you think?

Choices

1) What about Carla-san then? (black)

2) I want to know how to escape (white)♡ ♡ ♡

— What about Carla-san then? 

Yui: What about Carla-san then? You’re the one who wants him to remember the most after all.

Shin: It can’t be helped. I’m worried about my brother, yes, but I can’t let this be a constant priority that weighs on my mind. 

Yui: You’re right. As long as Shin-kun’s fine, I think it would be better to find an escape route first too.

Kino: Aight, it’s unanimous.

— I want to know how to escape♡

Yui: I think it would be best to find a way to escape from here first as well. Maybe Carla-san’s memory will come back once we escape.

Shin: Right? It wouldn’t make sense if we meaninglessly return home without all of their memories coming back to them. We, Kino and everyone else.

Yes, that would be a reason to postpone my brother. This is what we should aim for in the future...

Yui: (He’s speaking to us as if he’s entirely trying to convince himself about this)

(Maybe Shin-kun really wants to go and actually see Carla-san as soon as possible)

(I can’t get this feeling of them wanting to desperately kill us off either though…)

It’ll be fine, Shin-kun. I’m sure this won’t last too long anymore.

Shin: Yes, it’ll be fine. I know that.

Alright, unanimity agreed to it then.

Yui: Yes.

Kino: Okey-doke.

end Choices

Shin: That’s settled then.

Kino: I guess he’ll be able to manage his memory somehow or another. If I could go back to my original house, Yuri would probably help me for sure.

Yui: Yuri-san?

Kino: He’s my loyal servant. As soon as I get home from here, I’ll let him do some research in order to restore your brother's memory.

Shin: Yes, that would help a lot.

Kino: But, y’know… Even if we’re looking for an escape route, we have to first of all figure out how we were brought to this place 

Shin: It’s worse, especially since we know nothing about this place. If there are at least any hints somewhere...

Yui: That’s true. It was also one of the reasons we went into each of the mansions...

Shin: Seriously, did you notice anything?

Yui: What I noticed—

*flashbacks*

Yui: Ah! Speaking of that—

Shin: What?

Yui: Each of the mansions had the exact amounts of chess pieces on their chess boards

Shin: Now that you mention it, I do think I noticed one standing in the living room of the Orange mansion once...

Kino: Ah, there was also one in Scarlet’s mansion.

Yui: I remember there was also one in the Violet mansion. Besides, the floor of the church also has a checkered pattern of black and white marble—

Kino: Like a chessboard.

Yui: Yes!

Shin: I see. But what exactly does this have to do with this? Both are probably just there as decorations.

Kino: No, I doubt that it’s just for decoration… I see now.

Yui: Kino-kun, did you figure something out?

Kino: I wouldn’t call it “figure”. It’s just that I thought of something...

We were forcibly dumbed off in this unknown place and also got a fake memory. In my opinion, this all seems as if it’s definitely someone’s work.

Shin: So you’re saying there’s a mastermind?

Kino: Exactly. If there’s an ongoing game, there also has to be a mastermind behind it.

Us, as the players, were given those hints to probably keep this as interesting as we can.

Shin: Hah? In other words— ...Nn!

Yui: Shin-kun? What’s wrong? Why did you suddenly stand up?

*Shin sniffs air*

Shin: Hnff

Damn it! We’re surrounded!

Yui: Eh… !?

Ayato: Guess we finally found you, traitors!

Kanato: You did terrible things to us, remember? There is no way we would let you kidnap Eve and then join hands with the enemy—

Yui: (Ayato-kun! Kanato-kun! And—)

Ruki: —Shin, I get it now…

I would’ve never expected for my most trusted person to end up betraying me as simple as that.

Shin: Ru… Brother…

Ruki: A traitor, such as yourself, has no right to call me his brother any longer!

Yui: ...Nn!

Shin: It’s useless even if I’ll try to explain. But I never intended to look as if I was about to betray you or anything, I swear.

I know you were a good brother, even if you’ve never been my real older brother in the end...

Ruki: I’ve got no idea about what strange things you’re blabbering, yet the confirmation of you being here is fact enough.

It doesn’t change the situation, even if you start coming up with excuses.

Ayato: Hey, Ruki! Let’s take these guys out quickly!

Kanato: That’s right. Let’s rightfully punish them. I’ll tear them into pieces once I get my hands around them.

Yui: (What should we do now? If we’re doing nothing, they’ll start a battle—! Am I really not able to somehow avoid this?)

Kino: Shin, what do we do?

Shin: The only ones with fighting skills are you and me. It would be 3 vs 2...

Kino: Besides, it would be a battle while we’d also have to try to protect the girl from being taken away from us.

Yui: (What should I do… I’m holding them back from what they have to do because I’m with them)

Shin: We have no choice, seems as if we really have to confront our problems head-on and fight them.

Kino: Eh? That’s not true. If you transform yourself into a wolf, you could carry her and easily run away.

Shin: Hah? I can’t just do that!

Kino: ...Why not? Do you really have to complain about my strategy now?

Shin: My back is limited to only giving one of you a ride! I don’t know if you’d be able to get away without me helping you!

Kino: ...Nn!! What… why would you say something like that…

*Kino mumbles*

Kino: Ahh… I guess I have no choice but to save you as a repayment now too. 

Yui: ….. ?

Shin: So instead of running away, I’d like to break through this in our own ways...

Kino: No, we’re gonna avoid confronting them head-on and not fight them. We’re changing strategies.

Shin: Hah? Why change them so late...

Kino: Ready? When I’ll give you the signal, you have to run.

Shin: Eh? What do you mean?

Kino: With this, we’ll easily be able to get away right in front of them… you guys, close your eyes and noses! 

*Kino throws something*

Ayato: What the!? What did he throw!?

Kanato: A pouch… ?

Ruki: ...Nn! That’s not just a mere pouch. Close your eyes and hold your breath!

*pouch explodes*

Kanato: Ahem, Ahem, Ahem

Ayato: Ngh! What’s going on here!? I can’t see shit anymore! Ahem, Ahem.

Ruki: Kch… Ayato, Kanato can you see the enemy? 

Ayato: Don’t bullshit me! I can’t see anything!

Shin: Damn, that guy’s really something. But he saved us! We only have to run away now!

Yui: (Shin-kun’s voice!)

Where? Where are you? I can’t see anything! 

Shin: Over here!

*Shin grabs Yui*

Yui: (The one holding my hand right now… it’s Shin-kun!)

Kino: Hurry, both of you! 

Yui: (I also heard Kino-kun’s voice. I’m sure I’ll be fine as long as I follow the sound of their voices— !)

Place: Outside — Forest

Yui: Haa… Haa… Haa—

Shin: Haa… Haa…

Kino: Haa, Haa…

Shin: Kino, what was that about?

Kino: It was a wheat bomb.

Yui: Huh!?

Kino: I secretly made it when we were in the Violet mansion back then. All I did was wrap the smoldering wheat in a cloth, get it?

Shin: And you really made that yourself? You’re an unexpectedly shrewd guy.

Yui: Thanks to that, we were saved! Thank you, Kino-kun!  

Kino: I have to admit… I’d love to hear you praise me more, but we have to worry about running away first! 

Yui: (Seriously, it’s all thanks to Kino-kun that we’re safe right now. He’s a really good person after all)

[radramblog]

Halo Through its Guns: Halo CE

I think this is a bit of an experiment, but one I intend to see all the way through. I’ve been thinking a lot about this series recently, not to mention playing a lot of it, so I’ve wanted to find a way to properly discuss it. Perhaps even analyse it.

If there’s one thing people gravitate towards talking about in a first person shooter game, especially a series so long-running as Halo, it’s going to be the guns. They’re taking up a significant portion of the screen a lot of the time, and a lot of development time is going to be spent making sure they all look and sound good and are satisfying to use. As a result, I think the weapons in Halo are a good lens through which to view each entry in the series.

So, I’m going to be using one gun per game as a means to discuss each one. At this point, I’ve lined most of my picks up already (and hoping to have actually played 5 by the time I get to it), so I’m confident most of them are going to provide an interesting discussion.

Therefore, this is: Halo: Combat Evolved, through its iconic gun. No, it’s not the Magnum, it’s the Plasma Pistol.

It’s kind of hard to talk about Halo: CE without talking about all of gaming of the era, because it was kind of a huge shift in the landscape as far as FPS games went. Unfortunately, I’m too young to have actually lived through all this, but the game is kind of to 2000s shooters as Doom was to 90s shooters, and kind of as Seinfeld is to sitcoms. That is, it defined them so utterly that all the future iterations of this kind of gameplay make Combat Evolved feel a little antiquated. I suppose being a 20-year-old game doesn’t help at this point.

Something Halo: CE owes to those 90s games is the concept of the weapon sandbox. It’s the multiplayer style that I believe pretty much just Halo (and Battle Royale games, kind of) has kept going with, where you start with a couple of default, standard equipment choices and have to scrounge together the rest on the map. The majority of engagements are still going to take place using those default pieces of equipment, but either map knowledge or luck can help give you more options and turn the tide in your favour, letting you pull a more powerful weapon out of your pocket as needed.

Part of Halo’s innovation on this design is, ironically, the limitation. Specifically, only carrying two guns at a time means you can’t just run around and grab everything you see- every gun is different, and choosing to pick one up means losing the benefits of one of your others. In Team games, it pays to have different people grab different weapons, such that you’re more versatile depending on game type or what direction and distance your enemies approach from.

The important thing that Halo: CE got right, and that many future entries would struggle with, is that every single weapon in it has a unique niche. There’s only one Sniper Rifle for extreme range, only one Shotgun for unparalleled close-range lethality. The Assault Rifle is a solid medium/close range bullet hose that’s effective against both shields and unshielded players, and the Magnum is, while maybe a little too good, perfect for picking off damaged enemies at medium to long range. And also, close range, because it’s a bit much.

But of course, this is all from the perspective of Multiplayer, and Halo: CE obviously has a Campaign as well. And with the Campaign comes weapons you need to design for your enemies to wield, which brings us to the Plasma Pistol. The most common weapon in the hands of the Covenant’s Grunts and Jackals (and later Drones and Skirmishers), and one of (I believe) only 5 guns to appear in every entry in the series. (The others being the Shotgun, Sniper Rifle, Rocket Launcher, and Needler. I guess you could count the FRG but it’s only kind of in CE, and also the grenades).

A deliberate part of the design for Halo: CE’s Campaign and Multiplayer was an emphasis on player movement. This is kind of interesting, because the Chief actually moves pretty slowly compared to previous Shoot Men, but part of the idea was that every Covenant weapon would shoot visible, slower moving projectiles such that the player would potentially be able to predict and dodge them, allowing for a higher skill cap at higher difficulties. This also helps add a consistent flavour to Covenant weaponry, as bright glowing colours are both easy to distinguish and substantially different enough from the gunmetal of the UNSC equipment to feel alien. There will never be a point where you confuse a Grunt holding a Plasma Pistol from one holding a Needler, or an Elite with an Energy Sword from one with a Plasma Rifle.

The Plasma Pistol is the bread and butter of Halo’s enemy engagement design. Most of the time in enemies’ hands it’s effectively a peashooter, bright and distracting, but not dealing too much damage, just enough to be annoying, and to supplement more dangerous weapons carried by other enemies. It does, however, have the Overcharge mode, which ensures that every one of these little Grunts and Jackals remains a threat, with the ability to entirely strip your shields (or deal significant damage to your health bar) if they wise up and go for it. An Overcharging Plasma Pistol is extremely obvious, though, with a big green glow and an iconic noise making the enemy most threatening you easy to find. It means the enemy fights are never quite the same, and adds a sense of urgency to them as well, especially on early difficulties.

The overcharge is also the core of how the Plasma Pistol functions in Multiplayer as well, as well as taking full advantage of other innovations in Halo’s game design. In Multiplayer, the Plasma Pistol is easily best known for its inclusion in the “noob combo”- that is, Overcharge the shields, kill them with the Magnum. This is a highlight of the specialisation in weapons in Halo: CE- the Plasma Pistol is great against the first half of their health, in the form of the Shields, but it’s practically useless against the actual, well, Health. Because of this, the Plasma Pistol is not a default weapon in Multiplayer like it is in Campaign, it’s niche necessitates a role as a pickup weapon. You’re never going to want it if you already have, say, a Shotgun or Sniper Rifle, since those are such similarly specific weapons that your backup being a Plasma Pistol is not a good idea.

But of course, guns are not your only combat option in Halo. One of the most innovative points of design in this game is the constant access to three attack options at a time. In previous FPS games, the options for Grenades and Melee were usually in the form of separate weapon slots, whereas in Halo you have access to all three at the same time on different buttons. This gives the whole game a more fluid feel, and there’s a reason it’s pretty much now the default for games of this style- it looks cool, it’s less awkward, and it feels slick as hell. The Plasma Pistol gets to lean into this versatility nicely as well, as Melee damage or either Grenade type at close enough range will kill next to an overcharge. You’re never left with no way of hitting people’s health after you dunk their shields, especially since the Pistol works best at close range.

In summation. Halo: Combat Evolved was genre-defining as a first-person shooter, capturing what would become the default for gaming to come for a while. The Plasma Pistol is an excellent example of this, leaning into all the innovations of the overall game’s design and producing an iconic piece of video game firepower. It’s slick, it’s effective, and it looks and sounds extremely cool.

The rest of the series would never quite capture the exact same balance as Halo: CE, but as the games changed and technology improved, so too did the guns. Join me next time, when everything gets a bit more Two.

[haikyuu-scenarios-drabbles]

Shower Friends (Miya Atsumu x F!reader)

The dorm you live in has co-ed bathrooms. Why that’s remotely a good idea is beyond you; and recently, your precious shower time is being interrupted by a certain blonde haired setter for the volleyball team. When he lies to his teammates that he has a girlfriend, somehow you get roped into his scheme.

genre(s): college!au, fake dating, angst, fluff, mutual pining, enemies to lovers (kinda), eventual smut  words: 2.2k

a/n: and here we are at the end, tbh im a little sad this fic is over, it was so fun to write and i am DEFINITELY more in love with Atsumu than i was before

one | two | three | four | five |

Epilogue 

Four years have passed since you and Atsumu finally got together, and this is the third year in a row he has an away game scheduled on your anniversary. It’s hard for you to actually be mad, he can’t control his schedule. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be disappointed.

And Atsumu hates that he’s let you down again. Wanting more than anything to finally spend your actual anniversary together instead of substituting for an early or late celebration. You’re a good sport, and he loves you for that, supporting him and his volleyball career without complaint despite his long absences and track record of missing important events.

Though the night before he’s set to leave, you’re sitting beside him on the couch, tucked under his arm while the two of you watch something on the TV. For the past few minutes, you’ve been fiddling with his shirt between your fingers and he knows you’re gathering the courage to say something. He’s pretty certain he can guess what it’ll be about too. And all he can do is brace himself when he hears you huff.

“What if you mysteriously came down with something?” You finally say.

He has to laugh at that. “That’s pretty diabolical of you.”

You shrug, already feeling silly you brought it up at all. It’s not really a big deal, but it’s been three years since either of you were even in the same country on the day you swallowed your pride and stormed into his dorm room to confess to him. Sue you for being a bit put out by it.

“Did you poison my dinner or something?” His heart lifts at the small chuckle he gets out of you from that.

“No, but don’t give me any ideas.”

He rests his cheek on the top of your head, eyes still on the TV as he jokes, “Besides, ya think they have any chance of winning without me?”

He feels your smile against his chest, then jolts at the jab you give him in the side. But still you say, “They’d be nothing without you.”

Pulling you into his lap, he cradles your face in his hands and looks at you seriously. And even after four years, you’ve never gotten tired of the way he looks at you—still like you’re the most beautiful person he’s ever laid eyes on.

“I’m sorry,” he says sincerely. “I know it sucks.”

“It does,” you pout.

Pressing his forehead to yours he murmurs, “I’d be with you if I could.”

You love these intimate moments with him, when you both let your teasing natures fall away and all that’s left is how much you love each other. Even after four years, it’s still abundant, and somehow still growing every day. So, you sink into his embrace and reply, “I know.” And you do. That’s what makes it bearable. Knowing that even though he’s off in some exciting country, playing the game he loves—there isn’t a minute that goes by that he doesn’t think about you.

“You gunna watch the game?”

It so happens that this year, his game landed on the exact date of your anniversary. When he’d found out, he’d vowed to make you proud; to make him being away so often worth it to you. And it makes his heart swell when you say without hesitation, “Of course.”

So, a couple days later as he’s about to leave for the airport, he tugs you to him, lowers his lips to yours and kisses you as if he’s going off to war or something. He knows it’s a bit overkill, but he doesn’t really care. He wants to do everything he can to make it up to you. And damn, is he slapped in the face with how much he loves you when you finally separate and you tease him, “Sheesh, you’ll be back in a couple days.”

His response is to kiss you again and again muttering between kisses, “Gotta get my fill now to tide me over.”

He only leaves when you’re practically shoving him out the door. “You’re going to be late!” He reluctantly let’s go of you, hefts his duffel over his shoulder, takes his suitcase in hand and heads down the hallway towards the elevator. On his way there, you shout, “Say hi to the boys for me!”

He smiles smugly, winking over his shoulder at you. “Will do.” Knowing full well his teammates are extremely jealous of him because of you. And why yes—he absolutely does love rubbing you in their faces.

Once he’s out of sight, your smile falters as you shut the door and turn to your now empty apartment. A sadness falls over your heart that’s familiar but unwelcome. You have to find something to distract yourself, otherwise you’ll just let yourself wallow, which you know Atsumu wouldn’t want.

On the night of your anniversary, you eat dinner at Osamu’s restaurant as you normally do on the nights of Atsumu’s away games. You sit at the bar alone, watching the game on the many TV’s around that Osamu always has on the sports channel when Atsumu is playing. Tonight, you notice Osamu chats with you more than he normally does, and you’re certain he’s picked up on your somber vibes.

He even sits at the bar next to you, talking with you about the game and doing an excellent job of distracting you from the hole Atsumu always leaves whenever he’s gone. Tonight, that hole feels even bigger than it usually does.

“He’s playing good tonight,” Osamu notes, his trained eyes fixated on the TV. No matter how many games you watch, or how often Atsumu talks about volleyball, you’ll never have the same understanding of the game that Osamu does.

Chin resting on your palm, you glance at him from the corner of your eye. “Is he?” To you, it always looks like Atsumu is playing well.

But you like listening to Osamu’s technical breakdown of his gameplay and aren’t opposed to helping his endeavor of distracting you. “He’s tuned in,” is all he says by way of explanation.

You watch the TV with newfound interest, noticing that Osamu seems to be right. Atsumu is normally pretty focused, but tonight whenever the camera shows a closeup of him, the look in his eyes is razor sharp. And yet, he’s still making those insane plays that catch his opponents completely off guard. You can feel your pride bubbling up in your chest like it does every time you watch him play, quirking your lips upward into a small smile.

You love how much Atsumu loves volleyball, and whenever you can you go to his games here in Japan because watching him on TV is nothing compared to in person. Plus, it’s way more fun getting swept up into his arms in the heat of the moment after a win than several days later when the excitement has died a little.

You watch Atsumu the rest of the game, noting how the closer they get to match point, the more tenacious he becomes. But unlike other times, when he gets too excited and starts making insane plays that might not work, he seems to be dialing in even further, pulling the best out of all of his hitters even when they’re at the end of their rope. You at least know enough about volleyball to appreciate just how amazing that is.

To your delight, the Black Jackals win, and as usual several of the players get interviewed afterwards. Somehow, Hinata and Bokuto are still full of energy despite playing a full match, speaking excitedly to the interviewer. The coverage switches to Atsumu’s interview, and you can’t help ogling him a little bit. He somehow manages to look good, his hair damp from sweat but eyes gleaming from the adrenaline of the match.

And as you suspect, like Hinata and Bokuto, he’s pretty amped after the game. Amped enough that he completely ignores the interviewer’s questions and looks right at the camera. Immediately, you’re struck by the feeling that he’s looking directly at you. “I’ve only got one thing to say and that’s happy anniversary to the lovely lady I got waiting for me at home.”

The interviewer flusters, changing gears quickly and trying to get Atsumu to comment more on his relationship, but all he does is give the camera his signature smile and a wink before turning his back to the screen and rejoining his celebrating teammates. You don’t hear what the interviewer says next. You’re pinned to your seat, stunned, until your natural reaction is to burst out laughing at his proclamation.

Osamu just eyes you curiously, a small smile splaying across his lips as you say, “Only Atsumu—I swear.”

He shrugs. “Hey, you picked him.”

“Yes,” you laugh. “Yes, I did.” And you really wouldn’t have it any other way, no matter how long or how many times he’s apart from you.  

You leave shortly after the coverage of the game has ended, bidding Osamu goodnight and thanking him for his company and hospitality. He waves you out, and once you’re on your way home, you’re suddenly overwhelmed by the loneliness you’ve successfully kept at bay until now. The thought of climbing into a cold bed that feels too big when Atsumu’s not there settles into the front of your mind and it’s hard not to spiral into the sadness that’s been looming over you all day.

You sigh, wrapping your coat tighter around you, trudging towards your apartment that you know is going to suffocate you with its silence. You know it’s pretty pathetic missing him so much, feeling sorry for yourself that you’re alone once again on this day, but you can’t help it. The hope that next year will be different is nearly gone by now, your determination to refuse to accept it finally broken.

Entering the dark apartment, you toss your keys onto the counter and make your way to the living room, fully intending on spending the rest of the night mindlessly watching some TV show until you fall asleep. Subconsciously, your thoughts wander to what Atsumu is doing right now. The team usually goes out after games, especially ones they win. And it’ll be a day or two until they leave wherever they’re at, so they have plenty of time.

Part of you aches at the thought of him out, having a good time with his team, while you’re here—alone, watching some lame TV show and feeling sorry for yourself.

What you don’t know, is that Atsumu has forgone the celebration tonight. In fact, he’s rushing to the airport to catch his late flight back to Japan. He booked this flight the day after he found out he was going to be gone again. He might not make it back in time to be there on the actual date, but he hopes the gesture is enough.

On the flight, he thinks about your reaction, imagining your laugh and beaming smile at the sight of him. Daydreaming about sweeping you up into his arms and kissing you until you’re both breathless and dizzy keeps him awake, though he doubts you’ll be when he arrives. That’s alright, he perfectly happy surprising you in the morning too.

He gets back to Japan in the early hours of the morning, and when he enters the apartment, he finds you fast asleep under a blanket on the couch, the TV casting a faint glow into the room. He smiles softly to himself, allowing himself a minute to appreciate how adorable you look. Leaning down, he finagles his arms beneath your shoulders and legs and hefts you into his arms to carry you to the bedroom. To his surprise, you don’t wake up. Instead, you mumble quietly, and his heart nearly bursts at how even in your sleep you press closer to him.

Tucking you in, he kisses you lightly on the forehead before climbing under the covers beside you. Pulling you into his arms, you fit nicely in his embrace, and he falls into an easy sleep.

~

In the morning, your eyes flutter open, blearily looking around and realizing you’re now in the bedroom. When did you move in here? Did you put yourself to bed last night without realizing it? It’s then that your eyes snap open at the realization that the apartment smells like breakfast. Heart thundering against your chest, you throw the covers off you and head towards the kitchen so fast you almost trip in the hallway.

Upon seeing Atsumu standing at the stove, his back to you, it’s hard to keep your feet under you. And without your permission, tears well up in your eyes so fast that a few drops are already sliding down your cheeks. You sniff to try and get a hold of yourself, which gets Atsumu’s attention.

He whips around to find you standing at the entryway of the hallway with tears streaking down your face and immediately his heart softens. “Happy anniversary, love,” he says by way of greeting.

You can’t stop yourself; your feet move before your brain can catch up with them, throwing yourself into his open arms. He squeezes you tight, and then your lips are on his, your fingers tangling into his hair pulling him closer as you slot your body against his. He can’t help chuckling at you, despite thoroughly enjoying this reaction to his surprise.

“I’m trying to cook breakfast,” he says between kisses.

You don’t think he’ll be very hard to convince to abandon the eggs on the stove. With one hand, you turn the burner off. “Don’t care,” you say, pushing him back towards the bedroom.

He happily obliges.

~

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[aion-rsa]

Returnal: Ending and Secret Ending Explained

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This article contains spoilers for Returnal.

In case you haven’t heard, Returnal is one of the best games of 2021, one of the PlayStation team’s most original supported projects in years, and one of the best reasons to be angry that you still can’t find a PlayStation 5.

Returnal is also the source of one of the most compelling and confusing video game stories in recent memory. Much like Hades, Returnal uses its roguelike gameplay as the basis for a complicated time loop narrative that leads to multiple endings that have so far left many scratching their heads.

So what exactly happens at the end of Returnal? While it seems like the game’s writers intended for the exact events and their implications to be left open for a healthy degree of interpretation, here’s a brief rundown of the major moments in Returnal‘s two endings as well as a couple of popular interpretations of what it all means:

Returnal Ending Explained

After you beat Ophion in Act 2, you’ll enter a crater and dive to the bottom of a large body of water. There, you’ll strangely encounter a car that looks like it’s been underwater for quite some time as well as what appears to be a globe that soon morphs into a kind of sea creature. 

Things soon get stranger as Selene flashes back to a time when a mother and a child were driving in the car you’ve just seen. The mother certainly looks like Selene. “Don’t Fear the Reaper” plays on the radio as the child asks if the mother sees the “White Shadow.” Soon thereafter, the radio starts to cut out, which distracts the mother long enough to ensure she doesn’t see a strange figure dressed in a vintage astronaut suit standing in the middle of the road. 

The mother swerves at the last minute to try to avoid the figure, but she crashes through the side of the bridge and into the water below. The mother is not able to pull the child from the wreckage and is soon pulled away (possibly by the creature). We see someone swimming away from the wreckage, but since it’s in first-person, we can’t quite tell who it is. In any case, fog soon fills the screen. The implication here seems to be that Selene is being pulled through the time loop once more.

One of the more popular early interpretations of this ending suggests that the events of Returnal are all a dream. The idea behind that explanation is that Selene was obsessed with her work, was in a terrible car accident partially caused by fatigue, and has essentially imagined her journey through Returnal as either a dream formed in her dying moments or some way to cope with what really happened by replacing the events of this accident in her mind with a grand adventure. 

There is some evidence to support that theory. We know that Selene was obsessed with her work and that her own mother was also consumed by her profession. We’ve also seen glimpses of that astronaut figure throughout the game, and the mysterious signal that inspired Selene to explore Atropos was simply known as the “White Shadow.” Put it all together, and you’ve certainly got a compelling case for some kind of dream scenario. 

However, aspects of that story don’t quite seem to add up. If this was all a dream, then how do you explain the other “false” endings we saw throughout the title which saw Selene return to Earth only to be thrown into the loop again? If she’s imagining all of this, then what was the trigger that eventually caused her to discover what “really” happened? Also, how do you explain the radio cutting out so strangely, the true identity of the figure in the road, and the timeline of when Selene is supposedly having this dream? 

Could it be that the accident threw Selene into a kind of purgatory where she is forced to confront her final moments as a form of punishment? That would certainly help to explain the theme of the game’s difficulty and cover up a couple of other loose ends. However, it turns out there’s another ending in Returnal which opens up some new possibilities…

How to Unlock Returnal’s Secret Ending

If you want to unlock Returnal’s secret (and possible “true”) ending, you’ll need to complete the following steps:

Beat Act 2 once and access the base ending.

Find the six Sunface Fragments spread across each Biome in the game. Their locations are somewhat randomized relative to when you’ll find them, but they do appear in specific rooms in each Biome you can eventually encounter. You also don’t need to collect them all in one run. 

Complete all “House Sequences” across Act 1 and Act 2. These must be completed in order, and you won’t be able to finish them if you don’t have all of the Sunface Fragments.

The final House Sequence should take you to a room where you find a Car Key. Take that item.

Complete Returnal’s second Act again, defeat Ophion, and use the Car Key on the sedan you find at the bottom of the crater. This will trigger the secret ending.

Returnal Secret Ending Explained

Returnal’s secret ending sees Selene confront a strange figure in a wheelchair. The figure soon jumps up and grabs Selene by the throat, but Selene is able to fight them off. It’s then that we see that the creature’s name is Theia: the name of Selene’s mother. From here, Selene is transported to another world. She soon finds herself standing in the middle of a bridge in her spacesuit as a car swerves to avoid her and crashes into the water below. 

After that, we move to the perspective of one of the car’s survivors as they swim to the surface. We don’t see them reach the surface, but we do hear Selene cry “Helios” (the name of her ship) just before the credits roll. 

Wow. Well, it’s obvious enough that this ending implies that Selene was transported back in time and was the astronaut that caused the car accident. This ending (and the house sequence events that precede it) also seem to confirm that Selene wasn’t the one driving the car in the original ending and that she was the child. The real driver was her mom, Theia. 

If that’s true, then it seems like we have to reinterpret the events of the other ending and the game itself. My theory is that Selene’s time paradox is both literal and metaphorical. Along with the idea that Selene was the figure that caused the car crash years ago, an earlier scene suggests that Selene paradoxically shot down her own ship. This would imply that Selene does have control over her situation (to a degree) and that not everything we’re seeing is a dream or metaphor.

Metaphorically speaking, though, the thematic implication is that Selene was caught in a time loop in her own life by trying to live out the dreams of space exploration that her mother couldn’t as a result of potentially being paralyzed after that car accident (although the wheelchair could again be a metaphor). We even see a letter during one of the house sequences that suggest her mother was rejected for such a program due to physical condition.

In fact, one of the biggest implications of those house sequences is that Selene became obsessed with the idea of exploring space at an early age partially because it was her own mother’s obsession and seemed to be a way that they could occasionally bond. It’s possible that obsession grew as Selene did and that she ignored other parts of her life (possibly her own child) in pursuit of her goal. It’s sometimes a little tough to tell whether or not the child we see in the flashbacks is Selene, Selene’s child, or a combination of both, but the fact it’s hard to always tell could strengthen the argument that Selene and her child lived similar lives.

I also believe the game’s secret ending is its “real” ending if for no other reason than most stories have more than two acts. The fact this ending is found in the third act seems to suggest it is the canonical conclusion. 

That being the case, it appears that this ending implies that Selene does eventually escape the time loop after mechanically finding the pieces required to break the cycle and escapes her own hereditary time loop by realizing the full implication of some of the events that led her here. There’s also the possibility that the person we see escape the car in this ending is young Selene who can now choose a different life from a young age, but hearing Selene shout “Helios” suggests to me that she has returned to her ship and can go back home. 

Speaking of Helios, there’s also the historical significance of all of the names in the game. Helios is the god of the sun in Greek mythology, Selene is the goddess of the moon, and Theia is the mother of Helios and Selene. There’s also the matter of the planet’s name: Atropos. In Greek mythology, Atropos was the oldest of the three fates of destiny and the one responsible for “cutting the thread” and ending mortal lives. Yes, Atropos kills Selene over and over, but given that a new thread is measured each time, is it possible that one of them avoided that fate or that Selene was paradoxically able to reshape her circumstances? Does the scene in which Selene grabs the car keys imply that she’s now in control?

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Basically, I’m willing to accept the purgatory explanation as it covers a lot of narrative ground and seems to be the simplest solution available, but it feels much more likely to me that whatever we’re seeing at the end of Returnal is designed to suggest that Selene has broken both a literal time loop and a more thematic one that was quietly haunting her life. Given how weird this whole thing is, though, be sure to share your interpretations and suggestions in the comments below. 

The post Returnal: Ending and Secret Ending Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[truecantaloupelove-blog]

The Underlying Christian Symbolism in Undertale: The Seven Deadly Soul Modes

Welcome to a theory series where I explore the latent religious symbolism in the 2015 video game Undertale. Now, I quick disclaimer before we begin: I don’t think that Undertale is at all intended to be a primarily or even secondarily religious game; like all video games, it was designed first to entertain. That being said, the more I look into the deeper mysteries and unanswered questioned of Undertale, the more I can’t help but shake the idea that the game content is drawing much more from religious elements than most people would expect. For Exhibit A: The 7 Soul Modes.

Throughout the game, the “Soul” is used to represent the avatar of the player whenever they enter battles. They are also used, as Flowey says, to symbolize the “culmination of a person’s very being”, both yours and the characters around you. Souls and the differences between human and monster souls play a pivotal role in the lore of Undertale. Human souls are represented as upright colored hearts while monster souls are inverted white hearts. The player soul is red, but in the course of the game we encounter 6 other human souls colored light blue, dark blue, green, orange, yellow, and purple. These colors are said to correspond with the seven human children who fell into the Underground before us (the first human child also possessed a red soul, similar to ours). Also, by digging into the gameplay a bit we find that the six colors correspond to six virtues: light blue for patience, dark blue for integrity, green for kindness, orange for bravery, yellow for justice and purple for perseverance. It’s unknown exactly what the red soul represents, though it’s theorized to be a combination of all the others, the embodiment of love, or determination.

So far, all of this is well known among the fandom. But what if I told you that the seven souls not only correspond to humans and virtues, but to monsters and the seven deadly sins?

The first part of this may not be a surprise; it’s pretty obvious that some soul are associated with the monsters who will activate them on you during battle. Interestingly, every major boss in the game WHO’S NOT A DREEMURR (Toriel, Asgore, and Asriel) uses at least one soul mode on you. Papyrus will turn your soul dark blue during a fight, Undyne green, during Mettaton’s fight you’ll be turned yellow, and purple during Muffet’s. Light blue and orange are not encountered as direct soul modes, but they are seen in bullet attacks; a light bullet requires you to remain motionless to avoid harm while orange requires you to do the exact opposite and run through it to avoid injury. Though these attacks are not directly linked to any particular monsters, for the purpose of my theory I believe light blue is linked to Sans while orange is linked to Alphys, as both of these characters are the ones who respectively explain their attacks. 

So now we have six soul colors coded to six monsters: dark blue for Papyrus, light blue for Sans, Green for Undyne, Orange for Alpyhs, Yellow for Mettaton, and Purple for Muffet. Here’s where it starts to get interesting.

Each of these characters exhibit one of the Seven Deadly Sins. For those of you who need a refresher theological course, the Seven Deadly Sins are Sloth, Greed, Envy, Wrath, Lust, Gluttony, and Pride. While all of these behaviors are at various points condemned in the Bible (Proverbs 6:9, 21:26, 27:4, 22:24,6:25, and 23:21, for those of you who really want to look it up) lumping them together as a group and elevating them to “The” Seven Deadly Sins is a product of the Catholic church; they are not distinguished from other sins in the Bible. Regardless, each character shows one of these traits.

We’ll start with the most obvious one: Undyne struggles with Wrath. I don’t really have to argue this one since her first, second, third, and fourth encounter with the player character involve repeatedly attempting to pincushion them with spears, regardless of whether or not the player has harmed anyone. Even after making friends with Undyne, she still shows many unsettling violent tendencies.

The next most obvious Sin correlation is Muffet, who clearly embodies Greed. Anyone who would try to charge you 9999 gold for a croissant roll clearly has an unhealthy love of money that goes beyond trying to raise cash for a good cause.

Papyrus is a bit tricky, because many would say that his character’s fatal flaw is Pride. He certainly does act conceited and narcissistic when you first get to know him, and his overly-inflated ego never quite goes away. However, the longer the character gets to know Papyrus, the less it seems that Pride is really his defining trait, and in any case, there’s another person on this list that deserves it more. Papyrus really seems to struggle with Envy more than pride; all of his bravado and self-touting big talk is really the result of longing to be more popular and prestigious. Papyrus envies Undyne’s position as captain of the Royal Guard, he envies the popularity of others, the massive amounts of friends, prestige, fame, and “showers of kisses” that he imagines his idols to have at their disposal. He envies the life of a celebrity and wants it for himself. For this reason I would say that Papyrus most strongly exhibits the sin of Envy.

Going next to the lovable skeleton’s brother, we find Sans, who’s Deadly Sin has to be gluttony. Now, many would argue that Sans should be associated with Sloth, since his character is repeatedly described as lazy and slacking off by Papyrus. Sans certainly makes an effort to come off as a lackadaisical goofball, with his lame puns and illegal hot dog stands, but a closer look reveals that this lazy joker routine is a ruse, at least in part, designed to throw unsuspecting players off guard should they wander down the wrong path. When we finally do get the chance to fight Sans, we find that quite the opposite from being lazy he’s easily the hardest fighting and most skilled opponent we ever face. More than that, we constantly get clues in the game that Sans is FAR more active than he seems: he can be seen constantly following us and keeping tabs on our location, he’s running multiple oddball jobs all while maintaining a position in the Royal Guard, taking care of brother Papyrus, and apparently, if the hidden room behind his house is to be trusted, doing scientific research on the side. Sans will even flat out admit to us that his brother is dead wrong about him being lazy, should we choose to insult Papyrus during the time we hang out with Sans at Grillby’s. Though he never bothers to correct his brother, it seems obvious that behind the scenes, this skeleton is working his tailbone off (Sans pun; I apologize)

On the other hand, there’s nothing feigned about San’s love of food. While many other characters in the game (Toriel, Undyne, Muffet, Mettaton, ) do show interest in cooking and food, Sans is repeatedly asking us to come out to eat with him. Half of his side jobs and side scams involve peddling food to people. He chugs an entire bottle of ketchup right in front of us at Grillby’s and stacks over twenty hot dogs on our head when we run out of room in our pockets. If that isn’t gluttony, I don’t know what is.

Sans may not deserve the label of Sloth, but Alphys does. Obviously, there’s her otaku anime binge-watching habits to out her into this category, but the issue of Sloth seems to go much deeper with her character: it’s less about pure laziness and more about trying to avoid responsibility. Certainly we see signs that Alphys can and does work incredibly hard at times; Mettaton’s body and the True Lab are proof of that. However, the True Lab journal entries reveal another side of Alphys: her refusal to own up to her mistakes. Alphys makes a habit of running from her problems instead of facing them; hiding from the angry letters of the amalgamates families, Asgore’s phone calls, and really anything that makes her feel bad. She lies to avoid others thinking poorly of her rather than doing the work to fix the problems she created. For that reason, this dinosaur scientist gets the label of Sloth.

It should come as no surprise that Mettaton is guilty of the deadliest sin, Pride. Unlike Papyrus, his massive ego DOES seem to be his defining trait; he has the flamboyance and charisma (sort of) to pull that off into appearing a successful television icon, but throughout the entire time we know him he really does seem to think that everything is all about him, and he’s more than a little willing to hurt others (Napstablook, Alphys, the player) to get the and glory he deserves. He may be humorous to watch, but arrogance really is a fatal flaw for Mettaton.

So this leaves us with one sin left: Lust. At first, I couldn’t find anyone who fit this trait; Undertale is more or less designed to be a kid friendly game, none of the characters are openly lewd or provocative. None of them seem to be particularly sex-driven either; aside from possibly Dogamy and Dogaressa, both of whom seem far too minor to fill this role. I tried squeezing random awkward choices to fill the category of “lust” within the game: Aaron, Tsundereplane, Moldsmal, even Toriel, but none of them came even close to fitting the pattern. It seemed my theory had finally fallen apart on this last point. And then I realized that the answer had been staring me right in the face the whole time.

In fact, there IS one character in Undertale who seems to be completely hormone driven, flirting with literally anything that dares to stumble across their path. And wouldn’t you know it; it’s the character associated with the final soul mode. You know who I’m talking about: it’s Frisk, the human child and the player character. 

There have already been plenty of jokes about how excessively Frisk likes to flirt with things, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HtHIYKJXh0) but the more I think about it, the more I have to agree with Toriel, something is not quite right with this kid. Frisk apparently has no compunctions flirting with a goat, a skeleton, a piece of sentient mold, a fish lady, a dinosaur, a volcano, an airplane, a robot, and a clinically depressed ghost. Maybe it’s all played off in a cutesy childish way, but that is some Jack Harkniss level of over the top flirtation. Yes, it may be a family friendly way to depict lust, but it’s lust nonetheless.

So their you have it. The Seven Soul modes in Undertale correspond not only to their respective virtues but also to their associated Sins; Green to Wrath, Purple to Greed, Light Blue to Gluttony, Dark Blue to Envy, Orange to Sloth, Yellow to Pride, and Red to Lust. This correlation seems to be at least partially intentional on the part of Toby Fox; it always bothered me how Muffet was the only mini-boss to get her own exclusive soul mode, but it makes sense if these there to fill out the number. It also helps explain why none of the Dreemurr family members have easy to pin down obvious flaw, unlike the other main characters; they’re the only bosses not to use soul modes, and each of them seems to have a more complex and deeply woven role into the history of monsters than the other characters. In fact, two of these characters in particular bear striking resemblances to two very prominent Biblical figures; but that’s the subject for another post. See you next time!

[alvis-the-theorist]

Wibbily Wobbly Timey Wimey: A Review of Quantum Break

In the truest tradition of mankind’s desire to conquer time and do impossible things comes Quantum Break, a third-person sci-fi shooter from Remedy about self-consistency, choice, apocalypse, desperation, and time manipulation.

Beware spoilers for the first hour of story.

Before we launch in, it’s important to address the elephant in the room: the game’s release. The game was released on Xbox One and Windows 10 at once, but it was painfully clear how little time was given to the PC port. Small details were wrong—for instance, there was no quit option on the main menu—and the game as a whole wasn’t always functional out-of-box. To their credit, Remedy worked hard to solve the problems and released a series of patches to clean up the issues. Unfortunately, even this didn’t fix everything, and in a news update, Remedy said the largest problems—such as frequent crashing on some machines—were largely to blame on the way Windows 10 allocated memory. This would require an OS update to fix and would be left to Microsoft. I don’t know how truthful this is nor how many of the problems were Remedy’s or Microsoft’s fault in the first place and so won’t comment on it. Although it’s important to note that Remedy has apparently popped open the game’s hood to tinker with the core of the engine; it came to Steam in mid-September 2016 on DirectX 11 instead of 12 like its original form and continued to be patched as they continued working with it. This aside, it’s easy to understand why the release left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth; a hyped game meant to be the flagship of Microsoft’s cross-platform implementation couldn’t even run consistently after initial download on PC.

Let’s put this aside and look at the game for only itself and see what it manages to do and what it doesn’t. Let’s jam!

Story and Characters

Jack Joyce comes home to Riverport at the request of his oldest and best friend Paul Serene. Paul has been leading a difficult and ambitious project of some kind at the university (Project Promenade), and their backers are pulling out. Paul is convinced if he can demonstrate that the science is sound and the project works he can save the project, but he has 48 hours and needs someone he can trust. So Jack flies into town to help out.

Turns out Paul and his team have been working on building a time machine based on science and technology invented by Jack’s older brother William Joyce. They have the machine built, and Paul’s proof-of-concept is to use it to travel through time. Jack agrees to help after almost no convincing, and they go through the machine’s start-up procedures. Paul sets it for two minutes into the past, and the ‘duplicate’ of himself exiting the machine is proof enough of machine functionality. He decides to test the other direction, steps inside, and Will runs in demanding they stop the experiment. There is a massive energy surge, bathing Paul and Jack in temporal energy, and suddenly paramilitary troops from corporation Monarch Solutions are there to take the time machine core. Paul can’t get out of the machine and decides to use it to travel to the future even though the surge means he could end up anywhere, and Jack and Will are forced to escape from Monarch. Will explains the experiment caused a Fracture in time that will lead to the End of Time, but he built something to stop it because he knew it was coming. A woman named Beth Wilder told him about the Fracture years ago, and if they can get off the campus in one piece, they can save time itself.

The Monarch troops chase them with nearly-impossible knowledge, and when forced to defend himself, Jack discovers he is suddenly developing time powers. That isn’t enough, and Will is captured. Jack goes to save him, and he is confronted by a version of Paul nearly two decades older than the one he watched run into the future. Paul is the leader of Monarch, and he has an agenda he will let no obstacle stop. Will is such an obstacle, and Paul collapses the building on him. Jack is taken into Monarch custody, escapes with Beth Wilder’s help, and decides to exact revenge on Paul for what happened at the university and prevent the End with whatever countermeasure Will built.

It is a journey that will force Jack to come to terms with the implications of self-consistency, the secrets Will kept from him for seventeen years, and how hopelessness can break a person.

A lot of the story is about choice and fate disguised as resistance against self-consistency. Much of the plot relies critically on the circularity of self-consistent time-travel from Beth’s involvement with the Joyce brothers to Monarch’s confidence in themselves. Naturally, this brings up the possibility that free will means nothing if the present and future are written in the past. This is not an uncommon conflict in time travel scenarios, and it is distinctly human. So the complexity and emotional power of the story have to be carried by the characters and their individual stories. The game knows it and spends nearly all of its story space to flesh out the characters. The four main characters Jack, Will, Beth, and Paul end up very well developed.

My one complaint with character development is with Jack; he seems to be become romantically interested in Beth, but it feels a bit out of left field and forced. This could have been fixed by the addition of a few more interactions between him and Beth to lead a bit more into it. But other than that, I feel like I know these characters on a personal level.

Gameplay

Like I said before, this is a third-person shooter. Combat focuses on using your series of time powers and strategic cover-shooting to take down squads of armed enemies. The cover-shooting is fine; it generally feels smooth, easy, and clearly designed for use in conjunction with your powers. The powers themselves are clearly designed for aiding combat, and once you learn when to use them and how to effectively chain them together, combat becomes a lot faster and easier as is obviously intended. It would have been nice to have a basic melee attack, but it’s not needed.

My biggest gripe with combat is mostly in the enemy AI. The AI itself is pretty good; it can be unpredictable and will make each firefight different from the last, even when you’re replaying a fight. The specialized enemy troops feel unique and will force adaptation when you meet them the first time. But I found on Normal and Easy difficulties, the AI is not the most adaptable. Each combat arena is designed to accommodate multiple combat styles from the player, but the AI does not adapt well to the player’s possible strategies. I did not encounter this problem on Hard difficulty though.

There is upgrade system for your powers, and it is about what you would expect. Upgrade points are earned by finding them in the environment, clearly to incentivize sticking around in a level and looking around. Sticking around is rather important because most of the characters’ individual stories are told through documents found scattered about the game world and audio diaries unlocked by either story progression or finding certain things in the environment. Less important information and flavor can also be found through documents. There is a lot to find if you look around. In a game so much about the characters and world, this is pretty important, and the story itself rewards you for loitering in a level and looking at everything. I really enjoyed that and found it helped deepen the experience.

In moving about the world there is simple platforming and ability puzzles. Not too difficult if you’ve played any 3D platformer in the last ten years, and that’s a bit of a shame. It clearly serves as a way to provide a more complicated path to hide collectables, but a path is all it really is. It never felt like I was ever in a situation where I absolutely had to have my powers to navigate, since a lot of it could be handled with simply a higher jump. There were some interesting ability triggers, but I wanted more of an excuse to see my powers in action outside of battle.

Let’s talk about the junctions. The ends of the first four acts are each marked by a junction, a critical story point that creates two branching paths. The player controls Paul Serene and makes a binary decision that will affect the entire cast and world. Both options have different effects on when, how, and what you learn about Monarch and the world. You are shown these effects in the broadest strokes before allowed to make the decision. The individual junctions are nearly completely independent of each other, and I wish that wasn’t the case. The junction decisions as they are are interesting but it would be really cool if the junctions were interdependent. Perhaps the options you’re given at a later junction are different if you choose Option A instead of B or vise versa at the first junction. It would also be cool if the decisions had a larger impact on the game’s set pieces. For the set pieces, a lot of the differences between options are in the details and contexts. This is interesting in and of itself and works, but something more severe would really add to the mechanic. Perhaps you have to fend off different enemy troops or you encounter different set pieces entirely. The junction mechanic could have been mind-blowing and have a tremendous effect on the world, but that’s a missed opportunity.

Speaking of set pieces; there are some very clever and unique set pieces and sequences. The game makes full use of the idea that time is broken, that it can stop or start at any time and move in either direction. It feels epic and cinematic, and not just for its own sake. The sequences largely grow organically from the story and mechanics of the world.

We also have to talk about the TV show. Quantum Break is unique in that it tries to hybridize two very different media. ‘Tries’ is the key word. It doesn’t quite work. The show tells the stories of three Monarch employees, and those stories are interesting. They’re about desperation and self-preservation in the face of probable apocalypse, and the three react uniquely to the situation. Their stories add a lot to the world and help humanize the majority of Monarch. The problem with the show is its presentation. Each episode is a bit over 20 minutes, given as a single brick after each junction, and traditional live action. The game’s storytelling is influenced by hallmarks of TV the way Alan Wake is, but the show isn’t influenced back. Making the show more interactive would have gone a long way to make the hybridization work. Imagine if the show was in engine, with controllable camera, and broken up so you get a bit of it at the end of each part of the act. It would become more of a series of long cutscenes with different characters, a pause in the action and flow instead of a grinding halt. I think it would make the media fuse together the way they’re meant to.

Graphics and Audio

The game is a beautiful one with fluid animations, good graphic design, and a high degree of realism. The pre-rendered sequences are breathtaking, and the actively-rendered sections are lovely. Graphically it feels like a follow-up to Alan Wake, an incredibly rendered game. Stand-out moments include a facial close up on Jack in the opening monologue and the Project Promenade lab when you explore it. The world is bright and colorful and dark and dirty, and the game uses cinematic tools to change the feel of each scene.

The soundtrack was composed by Petri Alanko, the same composer behind Alan Wake’s music. Unfortunately, he does not do an equal job here. The ambient music is subtle and easy to miss, but it does a very good job adding to the environment. The music in cut-scenes is more obvious and contributes to the feel of the scene. Unfortunately, there aren’t any stand-out or particularly notable original tracks. This soundtrack does not boast an equal to ‘Tom the Diver’ or ‘Departure,’ but I do have to say it is still emotional and sci-fi and does a good job complimenting the story and energy of the game.

The performances from the cast are very good, both in terms of live-action and voice acting. Shawn Ashmore proves more than capable of giving life to Jack; Dominic Monaghan gives an excellent performance as Will; and Courtney Hope shines as Beth. The most notable performance is from Aidan Gillen as Paul; he perfectly portrays a cold and dedicated man losing the fight for his sanity. The notable supporting cast members fill their roles wonderfully and help bring the world into nice relief. And very importantly, it doesn’t feel any of them missed a step switching between media.

In Summary, Overall, and Takeaway

Quantum Break is an extremely ambitious game between its mechanics, story, and presentation. And it manages to accomplish a lot, making it an incredibly unique experience.

The concept of self-consistent time travel is not dulled down and is used to create a complicated looping story with several beginnings. It starts in 1999 when Will performs the first time travel experiment, and in 2016 when Jack goes back to Riverport, and in 2010 when Project Promenade begins. It creates a mind-bending situation where things have yet to happen but already have, and knowledge creates itself from nothing. It is something few video games—if any—have worked with. On top of it is the junction system, making the time mechanics truly self-consistent multi-worlds, a time travel interpretation that doesn’t show up much in fiction, no matter the medium.

The other time mechanics are all derived from two simple assumptions: time is effectively a force, and it can be manipulated by hand by some individuals. So time has messenger particles to communicate how time flows and in what direction, and the manipulation of those particles give god-like abilities. Remedy has said that they worked with a quantum physicist in developing the mechanics, and I applaud it. It gives a consistent and coherent framework for all of the shenanigans that happen.

The show tells otherwise unlearnable stories, but it struggles with its own presentation in being too traditional. Hybridizing TV and video games is incredibly ambitious and can work; it just needs more time to develop. As a side note, Remedy has announced they’re going to continue working with the hybridization concept, and it will be interesting to see what happens with it. If handled right, they can probably get it to work, and I hope they do. It could open the door to an entirely new way of story-telling and thinking about stories.

This game had a very profound impact on me. The intertwined stories of the characters are surprisingly tragic and heart-wrenching, filled with complex emotion that isn’t watered down. There is pain, trauma, hope, and joy here all at once in ways that are immediate, understandable, and intense. It provides the grounding for the whole story and does most of the legwork in adding the realism and humanity this kind of story needs.

I personally have not seen a game that handles its story the way Quantum Break does, and it is extremely successful and compelling. I spent several late nights trying to find every last document so I could completely understand these characters and their motivations because those motivations dictate everything that happens.

The storytelling’s not perfect, but it’s very close, and the show’s issues are the only thing holding it back.

The gameplay is smooth, polished, well-balanced, and unlike most of what’s on the market today. The enemy AI needs some tweaking to make combat fall more in line with the adaptable cover-shooter it’s clearly supposed to be, and the platforming could be fine-tuned to be more interesting and complex.

It’s a shame the game had such a painful release. It doesn’t deserve it because on the whole, this is a wonderful game with a lot of passion and energy behind it. It’s extremely clear how much all of Remedy love this game and how much time they must have devoted to not only build but also polish the game. It falls short of fulfilling all of its ambitions, but it manages to accomplish a lot and in unique ways.

So after jury-rigging a time machine together, losing the only relationships that matter to me, agreeing to help a project I knew would lead to the End of Time, watching my brother accidentally cause the Fracture, and realizing I didn’t even get time powers out of the deal, I award this game an 8.5 out of 10 and a recommendation of Must Play.

[luminisvii]

So it’s pretty late right now and I’m liberally using the Bold function, but let’s talk about bad fanfiction.

Usually the first thing that springs to mind when it comes to bad fanfiction is My Immortal. Anyone who’s talked to me for more than five minutes knows that My Immortal is undoubtedly one of my favorite pieces of literature. And that’s not a joke, I think it’s an absolute masterpiece of bad. The misspellings, the reworkings of the characters to be goth/scene in an incredibly middle school way, to Marty McFly’s cameo to the chapter written by a self proclaimed troll--It’s a perfect storm of bad literature that makes for a hilarious read. I won’t get into a huge tangent but what makes My Immortal so funny is it has a certain level of naturalness to its writing where you’re never quite sure how serious the author is. The true joke is the mystery. We’ll never know who wrote the infamous fic and how serious they were when they did.

However, My Immortal is kind of scratching the surface. See, that’s a fic that’s actually funny bad. Most bad fanfiction is bad bad. Today, I intend to discuss the lesser known fanfic that I rank as being one of the most difficult reading experiences I ever had, and I only successfully pulled through after many years thanks to the love and support of my friends and us reading it out loud at 4 AM.

That fanfic is known as My Inner Life. Don’t let the title fool you, it was written well before our favorite goff showcase and it’s honestly a whole lot worse. This Legend of Zelda fic, written by one Jen and based on her dreams, features a young lady named Jenna who is a simple merchant traveling in Hyrule when one Link catches her eye and it goes downhill from there. The short version is that there’s a lot of overly dramatic sex, tedious clothes descriptions that include too many triforces, poor treatment of horses, Jenna getting praised and lavished with attention for no reason, and no research put into the lore.  After a while it straight up forgets about being an Ocarina of Time fanfic and launches off into some nonsense about griffins and an evil lord I can’t actually remember the name of (It was very late and I was very tired so I called him Lord Asshole after a while, it has the same effect) and also that The Griffins, who live just beyond the Black Mountains, do not trust easily.

If you wish to read it, you should probably quit now, but if you are too weak (which is honestly understandable) here’s my recounting of the story.

Where to start is a little bit hard, but a good place is the insane 2,000 word author’s note at the beginning. Jen, seemingly unaware of how thin skinned she’s being, goes on about how anyone who leaves her a negative review is being is immature and thin-skinned. Here’s a delightful excerpt that shows the author’s view on all of this!

“Also as a side note, I NEVER physically hurt ANYONE with this story. I got one reviewer that said. “Oh God please stop writing, your hurting everyone.” Now I want to know where I physically touched that person. I want to know how I’m twisting anyone’s arms to read this. I have never done anything of the sort in any way, shape or form and I DO NOT appreciate being accused of that! If you’re emotionally hurt over this, its your fault not mine.”

She spends quite a bit of time talking about how reviewers need to be more mature as she dedicates that much time to complaining about negative reviews and methodically rebuking everything they say from her poor grammar to Jenna being a Mary Sue. Now, props to the author for straight up saying that Jenna is the obvious author avatar that she is--Jenna is simply the dream persona of Jen, which okay, fine, that is not that bad. It’s what happens with Jenna that really makes me want to drink.

The other majorly telling factor is the first line of the story itself.

“Dreams come in many forms. Some good, some bad, some very realistic, even ones that feels very real.”

You may have noticed a redundancy there. That is only the beginning. If you get tired of hearing about the same things repeatedly, you will be VERY tired very quickly in here. Jen likes to constantly explain things to the point where she has footnotes in the story, and just after citing a footnote she explains what was cited in text anyway so now you have a double explanation.

“A tale of love, passion, despair and hope. I enjoyed my inner life. I looked forward to going to sleep to it every night. And I look forward to ones that will come, because LOVE WILL NEVER DIE.”

I love quoting that. I’m also not sleeping so I guess I don’t know the meaning of true love.

Anything beyond this point is where I start to die because I actually grew up playing Ocarina of Time and I’m quite well versed in its lore, so if you are too this is going to be about as pleasant as root canal.

Since me recounting everything in detail means we’d be here into the next year, I’m going to try to boil this down to its essence. TL;DR: Jenna meets Link and they fuck. Badly. A month later and they’re getting married so they can fuck more. This whole time you have King Hyrule who is treating a random merchant off the street better than Zelda, the Sages are just inexplicably back despite now residing in the Sacred Realm. Zelda also inherently gives up the throne because she will not marry and thus is no longer in the line of succession but this random guy from Kokiri Forest who married a random merchant is! Ruto is turned into a jealous harpy and the other sages hardly appear at all.

After they get married they go to the part where I quit the first time I started reading this fic which was the Bonding Ceremony. If getting married to a guy you met a month ago wasn’t enough, going to a monastery and getting telepathically bonded by drinking his piss sure is. Okay, it’s not JUST the piss drinking, but that was enough to make poor 2014 me stop trying and go lie down. They also fuck in front of the monks because that’s a thing straight people do, I guess.

Somewhere in there Jenna gets pregnant and has a child. She names the child Link Jr. I don’t have anything to say about that, I think it’s comedy in itself. On top of that Epona also gets pregnant so they get new horses named Midnight Star and Star Dancer. That’s not an important detail at all, my friend simply hates those horse names and I’m bringing them up on the off chance that she reads this.

Oh yeah, Dark Link is an antagonist at one point and he inexplicably talks exactly like a stereotypical villain and ties Link and Jenna up in a room and leaves them there for no reason like a small time crook leaving Batman in a cage with all his gizmos nearby. And turns out Jenna has magical powers and is from some ancient race of super people or whatever. They have to explain this over and over again in the same few paragraphs and I want to die.

Beyond all the bad sex that has tiger metaphors (Somehow Jen knows how tigers fuck) there’s the Original Material which had me crying more than the tragedy that was the remain of OoT’s story. Once we get tired of Link and Jenna’s love story and Tiger Sex, there’s suddenly an invasion from Lord Ariakas who is threatening the Griffins who live beyond the Black Mountains, just a day’s ride from Hyrule. He’s just some evil guy who threatens the Griffins, who do not trust easily, and who live near The Black Mountains. If you think redundancy is painful then prepare for the worst redundancy you’ve seen yet. I went insane when we were reading this and tallied all the times The Black Mountains are mentioned and turns out it was a whole lot less than I thought, but almost all of them happened in a short amount of time so it felt like an eternity of explaining The Black Fucking Mountains. Turns out I’m a masochist of sorts because this STILL didn’t shake me off. In order to repel Lord Arakias’ forces, Link and Jenna need to talk to the Griffins who like to make a big deal about how they don’t trust anyone as they instantly trust Jenna and let her into their royal court to give her support and magical gifts. It’s kind of incredible how Jenna does nothing and is constantly rewarded for it.

Sadly this ends in a cliffhanger, like all good terrible fanfics. But that’s a semi-coherent retelling of the actual plot. It takes way too long to explain any of these plot points in story. Characters constantly repeat themselves, there’s a bunch of small plot points I left out because we’d REALLY be here all year if we talked about this, there’s the original material where I have to give credit that she went and did this BUT ALSO DID YOU HAVE TO EXPLAIN THIS MANY TIMES WHAT THE BLACK FUCKING MOUNTAINS ARE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH

I’m not okay. Time for some deeper analysis of particularly notable parts.

The sex scenes are sadly some of the less entertaining sections. They’re pretty boring for the most part, but then you have shit like “I turned tigress” and my personal favorite, “when I took his nut sack and caressed it with my hand, it was his undoing.” That exact sentence shows up TWICE in the fic, same wording and everything. Remember this, ladies, next time you have sex with a man, caress his nut sack. It’ll be his undoing. It’s not just the silly wording, though, there’s some stupid stuff in there too about how having sex makes your children stronger and also exactly how much fluid Jenna is ejecting which is a little bit alarming to say the least. Otherwise they’re a bit bland and use the same flowery language that you’d expect from poorly written erotica. Also they fuck in front of a bunch of monks. It’s for the bonding.

If you’re into LoZ lore then you’re going to have a bad time, too. My favorite thing is showing people the segment where Jenna explains how the OoT timeskip works because it makes zero sense to everyone, OoT fan or not. Let’s take a quick history lesson for OoT if you’re not familiar with it. In Ocarina of Time, a major plot point and element of gameplay is that Link travels between past and future in a seven year gap. From Link’s point of view, the change is instantaneous, right down to the fact that his age changes from child to adult and vice versa. To everyone else, they’re living those seven years. Time continues without Link there to observe it, and in Link’s absence Hyrule collapses. Thus is the plot--trying to stop Ganondorf from destroying the future with a power that Link and Zelda accidentally gave him. The point is all Non-Link people experience time normally, and the world moves on.

Somehow Jenna missed something that I inherently understood when I was a wee child of 8, barely able to play Ocarina of Time due to poor reading comprehension and lack of Zelda Puzzle Solving Skills™.

“Gannondorf tricked the soon to be "Hero of Time" into unlocking the door to the Sacred Realm. I even noticed that Zelda was a little older then I. Last I saw her she was four years younger then me. It was told to me that when Gannondorf went into the Temple of Time and into the Scared Realm, time jumped ahead in Hyrule seven years. Yet only two years passed in my land. And in the rest of the world.

After the "Hero of Time" defeated the King of Evil, the hero was granted to either return to the past or to remain in the present time. Since he chose to remain in the present Zelda jumped ahead of me in age by four years.  It seems that everyone in Hyrule jumped in age from the rest of the world.”

I’m not sure I really understand still. I’ve read this so many times trying to comprehend and maybe I’m just stupid but this doesn’t scan. But when you time travel it should affect the whole world or else that’d be pretty fucked. Back To The Future would be pretty wack if only Hill Valley was sent back to the 50s but everywhere else was still 80s.

God, I spent too much time on this. It still hurts my brain.

I also just have to have a section where I metaphorically hand Zelda a box of chocolates and a check for 5,000 dollars for even being in this mess. The real MVP of the story is Zelda for tolerating all this bullshit. She has to watch her father treat Jenna better than her, she gives Jenna a bracelet from her mother who is dead for Jenna’s wedding, she has to passively accept that because she isn’t married she’s lost her claim to the throne and it’s being handed over to Link and Jenna because despite both of them being nobodies they’re more legitimate heirs to the throne than the king’s own daughter. She also has to be the one to help Jenna birth her baby and it’s maybe a little bit weird to have the princess of a nation be your personal midwife. Even if she is your so called best friend. Were I ever in the circumstances of giving birth, I wouldn’t make my friends help. Please get an actual nurse. Also for some reason Jenna won’t stop calling her baby a miracle and it’s done so frequently it’s a little off-putting. Even the chapter where the child is born is called “The Miracle” like idk I know life is mysterious and miraculous but I’m not sure giving birth, something a lot of cis woman can do, is a “miracle.” Me not sobbing while reading this is a miracle. Zelda, honey, you deserve so much better.

I’m running out of things that will actually last a paragraph or so tangent wise, so time to wrap things up with smaller notes:

-Jenna thinks that you boot horses in the knees to get them moving. You are probably not riding a horse right if you can kick it in the knees while sitting on its back. That’s not even getting into other horse related mishaps like the fact that kneecapping them isn’t a good idea either.

-Link Jr. is capable of math at like, four months or something. I wish I was that talented.

-Ruto is my wife and I will not stand for this slander against her. Yeah, call me a fish fucker if you want, Sidon is cute too don’t @ me

-Take a shot every time Jenna mentions triforces on her outfit (actually don’t)

-Jenna makes a big deal about how Link has to go off to war and how she’ll miss him and he’ll miss her and it’s all very emotional but he’s back literally the next chapter

-One of my favorite moments is Mido rightfully pointing out that Jenna isn’t a Kokiri and thus has no right to receive a fairy but everyone thinks he’s being super rude for actually having common sense. They barely gave LINK a fairy and he grew up there!

-I inflicted this on my friends and it went as well as you’d think it would. Quote supplied by Jen who is not THAT Jen but a far superior one

-Somewhere in the fic suddenly Link and Zelda’s eyes are capable of changing color based on mood, or maybe they could do this the whole time and my eyes were changing based on mood alright, they were glazing over and I missed it

-Jen always types “threw” instead of “through” and it’s just enough to throw me off every time. Also every time a character starts a new sentence she starts another set of quotations even if they were already talking and occasionally she misspells “huge” as “hugh” which leads to some hilarious circumstances

-THEY DRANK EACH OTHER’S PISS

-Apparently when you are telepathically bonded with your Husband/Wife you aren’t allowed to be in a room with someone of the opposite sex AT ALL. Personally I think that reeks of insecurity

-Also because a good pal loses her shit every time we mention it, Jen couldn’t come up with a marriage ceremony that wasn’t just a christian one for a universe where christianity doesn’t exist, but she sure likes to put world building into those DAMN GRIFFINS

All in All? My Inner Life is not for the weak willed. It is INCREDIBLY long and redundant and while it’s still pretty funny, it’s mostly plain terrible. I consider is a much better showcase of what bad fanfiction is actually like, and also since it’s of a more standard awful, it means people can’t badly parody it while missing the point as to why it’s funny. So at least there will only be one My Inner Life and no imitators.

Seriously, I hate My Immortal imitators. Write your own terrible fanfiction, damn you! If I had a shot for every time a fanfic was compared to My Immortal I would be dead six years ago. Getting compared to MI is not a good thing, but not for the reasons you’d think. At least My Inner Life only shares the basic premise of a self insert character and the rest is a ride of complete bullshit that’s par the course for terrible Mary Sue fiction. Everyone loves Jenna for no reason and those who voice the valid concerns against her are seen as unreasonable and stupid. Characters are bent backwards to serve the threadbare plot and apparently Jenna’s love life alone is enough to constitute half of the story before we just plain forget it’s a Legend of Zelda fanfic and it goes off into some generic high fantasy horse crap with dragons and Griffins and some evil guy like what even is his name and it all ends without any real closure.

However if you are strong enough or maybe just a masochist (me) I highly recommend this fic for just being a test of endurance and also for all the funny little moments sprinkled throughout. It’ll certainly be a waste of time and it’s a good thing to read with friends. While it’s an oldie, it’s a goodie, and no one comes out unscathed.

Also the author apparently is a good sport about it now, although who knows. It’s just a thing I heard. While I like making fun of Jen throughout reading the fic, she doesn’t seem awful. Just perhaps young and unaware.

Truly, the real treasure was the piss we drank along the way. I’m sorry I will never be over that

[ask-thebrothers-kaiba]

-- Help Them. --

{No, seriously. @ayayalahale This is essentially my retelling of the beginning of the series, incorporating Season 0′s aspects and… Yeah just, uhmm. Enjoy, I guess. I’m just gonna.. lie down now-}

It was all over the city. Every paper, every radio station, every news outlet; everywhere was buzzing with word that Seto Kaiba had ascended to his late step-father’s throne. In only a matter of months the thirteen-year-old magnate had torn down every weapons factory and testing facility the company previously owned, and upon their ashes new factories were built in order to mass-produce games, toys, and electronics for children and adults alike; leaving his peers, employees, and associates as a loss for words. Though they knew the boy was ambitious, no one was aware of just how seriously he would take his position. Just like his step-father before him, he ruled that company with an iron fist - like a King, with little tolerance for slowness and lazy work.

     Rumor quickly spread that Seto had become exactly what his father was. Media articles were shared on a number of social media sites, though the subject itself was never up for debate – Seto wouldn’t allow it. Every public event, every interview, designed to make him look exactly the way he wanted the public to see him. The cool tone of his voice and practiced smile were enough to fool most, but to Kaiba Corp.’s employees - and especially Mokuba - this serene facade was far from the truth. Some employees had taken to calling him “The little dictator” behind his back, though strangely enough, after a few familiar faces ended up on MISSING posters, the name-calling ceased, and production within the main KC branch had never been better. It became clear to anyone who knew or dealt with Seto on a regular basis that he had become, for lack of a better term, a tyrant, resorting even to using his little brother of only eight years to do his bidding.

     Mokuba noticed soon after Gozaburo’s death that something within Seto was very wrong. He soon came to fear his brother so much, however, that he was at first forced to pretend nothing had changed.

     He’s still my brother. He’s just a little different now, that’s all. Maybe he’s just stressed out, tired…

     And he “needed” as much of Mokuba’s help as he could get!

     Little did Mokuba realize, though, that he, too, was changing for the worse.

     As time went on, a year had finally passed. The brothers came to be known as the King and Prince of Domino City – they had already owned a fourth of the city, and staying true to the Kaiba Way, Seto sought to conquer it all. However, he could not do it alone. This meant conscripting Mokuba to the task of locating something for him; something very important. Mokuba, seeking only to please the King, his nii-sama, and gain even an ounce of his approval, was more than happy to oblige.

     “ — I’ll come back with it this afternoon, nii-sama. Just you watch!”

     “Don’t disappoint me, Mokuba. You would do well to remember what happens when I’m disappointed.”

     The boy’s head dropped respectfully. Seto had never been “disappointed” with Mokuba - not to the full extent. But Mokuba had seen the full extent.

    “Yes, nii-sama. I promise I won’t let you down.”

     A sentence he struggled not to stutter.

     He always left his brother looking over his shoulder, wishing he might say goodbye – but it never did happen. Not anymore.

    Though mokuba hadn’t lived up to his “this afternoon!” pledge - which Seto expected anyway - it was a week later the boy finally came back with results, although completely empty-handed, meaning his hands were completely devoid of the object he was looking for.

    “ — Nii-sama!” Mokuba cried excitedly, bounding toward him with his backpack strung around his right arm.

    “Nii-sama, be proud of me! I found it. I found the Blue-Eyes, just like you said!”

    Without a moment’s hesitation Seto stood from his desk, taking a good hard look at his brother below him.

    “And? Where is it?”

    Anger was apparent in the way his tone shifted. Mokuka gulped, continuing with a stammer he knew Seto couldn’t stand.

    “D-don’t be mad, n-nii-sama,” the boy pleaded.

    “I don’t have it with me, but I know who does..!”

    His confidence picked back up as he began rummaging through his backpack, pulling out a sheet of paper he had tucked away. It was a small file, briefing the identity of a high school student named Yugi Motou. After taking the page from Mokuba, Seto quickly studied the details, a small smirk creeping onto his face.

    “Well done, little brother. This may be the best thing you’ve ever done.”

    With his statement came a smile from the younger brother; a genuine smile with tears to match. If he hadn’t been so mindful respectful of Seto’s personal space, he would have hugged him and not let go. Now was not the time, however – Seto had a plan brewing in that head of his, and if Mokuba were to interrupt the flow of ideas, he would have hell to pay.  

    The very next day – on a Monday, no less – at the Domino City high school, none other than Seto Kaiba himself had arrived, limousine and all, clad in the school’s very blue uniform. Truthfully, Seto had tested out of a prestigious university two years before, but as he informed the school (and, naturally, the media), he “Wanted a real high school experience” to “help him connect with Domino’s youth”, as if he himself weren’t fourteen years old at the time. Regardless, this fact excited both the school’s faculty and its students – mostly the female students. But this wasn’t what he was there for. At 8 o’clock sharp, class began. The teacher introduced Seto to his small portion of the student body, Seto himself stating additionally that he was ecstatic to be there, claiming he hoped to make friends during the time he stayed. With a curt bow he left the front of the class, taking an available seat – one he reserved for himself – in a middle row to the back of the classroom, coincidentally near his target. 

           Class came to a close an hour and a half later, leaving students yawning and stretching before making their way to the next period. Seto fully intended on confronting Yugi before he left the room, but he had missed his chance by only a few seconds. It seemed the boy had friends.

    “This may prove troublesome – No matter. I will find a way around it.”

    Rest assured, he would. Seto was adamant about having Yugi’s exact schedule, so there was physically no way he could miss another opportunity. One way or another he would speak with him; even if it took following him all day long. Luckily enough for Seto, this did not come to pass. It was at noon, lunchtime, that he finally got his next chance. Yugi and one other blond were playing a mock-game of Duel Monsters in the back of the lunchroom. Taking no time at all to seize this opportunity, Seto calmly walked over, and interrupted the flow of gameplay.

    “—Duel Monsters, eh? I play, you know. World Champion.” He stated, his tone coolly upbeat. The taller blond was the one to respond first, much to Seto’s annoyance.

    “Hey, wait a minute – is that seriously you? The Seto Kaiba? I mean, I thought you looked like him, but yaknow, I just-“

    “Fantastic,” Seto replied all-too quickly, if only to get him to shut up for a few seconds. The blond was suddenly offended, and easily ignored.

    He inquired to Yugi once more.

    “I see you’re about to win.”

    Seto had looked down at Yugi’s hand after scanning the duel field. The blond’s emotions quickly switched again, now looking to Kaiba with complete disdain. So, what? Was his conversation not good enough or somethin’? And just how was he so sure Yugi was about to win? It was in that instant that he began to wonder what made Seto feel so off, but the game caught more of his interest than that did. Insistent on proving Kaiba wrong, he played a card he was sure would grant him victory – but luck was not on his side that day.

    “Ah, Jonouchi,” Yugi responded, feeling guilty about leading his friend on, “He wasn’t wrong.”

    He proceeded to play the one card in his hand that sealed his victory, and while Jonouchi steamed over another agonizing defeat, Yugi continued on with Seto.

    “So, you’re him then? I’ve seen you in all of my classes today. Pretty cool we got the same schedule, huh?”

    “In the flesh,” he shrugged, ignoring the other half of his inquiry, “but I’m more interested in you. I’ve heard you’re the best player in this school, Yugi Motou. Your reputation precedes you.”

    A lie.

    “I’m not here to play, however.”

    With one swift movement, Seto swung his briefcase up and over, setting it down on top of a nearby table, proceeding to open the case, showcasing its contents to a growing crowd.

    “I’m looking for something very specific, Yugi. It’s an extremely valuable, rare card, and as trade, I will give you the contents of this case for it, no questions asked.”

    The boy’s eyes had never widened so much. In fact, the whole crowd’s eyes never had. Seto’s vast collection had everyone pushing and shoving to see it, though they dared not get too close. Some students did speak up instead, insisting Yugi take them already. As great an offer that sounded, though…

    “—This is more than generous of you, Kaiba, but it really depends on the card. I can’t just give my possessions away like that. They mean something to me.”

    The crowd groaned, Jonouchi had asked if Kaiba wouldn’t mind giving it to him instead, and Seto’s eye twitched, his plastic smile and nice-guy façade ready to crumble. If this had been anyone else – anyone at all – Seto would have had them beaten. There was too much at stake here, however. The beating would have to come later.

    He kept his cool.

    “I understand,” he eventually said in a sigh, closing the briefcase gingerly.

    “In that case, would you mind simply showing it to me after school? I’m looking for the Blue-Eyes White Dragon; I hear it’s one of the most powerful cards in the game. I’m… Simply curious to see what it looks like up close.”

    Yugi blinked, pondered, and then nodded.

    “I’ll… See what I can do.”

    “Perfect.”

    Seto left that day feeling quite confident, though he hadn’t expected what might happen next. As soon as he was out of earshot, Jonouchi finally let Yugi in on his suspicions. He would have done so earlier, but with that guy’s reputation, he didn’t want to take any chances.

    “Yug. You know I trust ya – and I hope you trust me, too, because there’s somethin’ off about that Kaiba, and I don’t think showin’ him that card is a good idea. He’s a World Champion, remember? What would he even need a card like that for?”

    Yugi thought for a moment, his brows furrowed.

    “Well, he seemed to have quite the collection. Maybe he was looking to complete it.”

    “Tch – Yugi. I might not be the best at this game, but I’m not an idiot. I keep up with the circuits. He already has three of the four that exist. Yug, if you have it, buddy, I would keep that thing locked up tight.”

    Exactly a week passed before Seto heard word from Yugi. During that time Seto’s patience had worn thin. He had backed off quite a bit in school, only staying for half a day due to “urgent business”, and hadn’t shared a word with him since Monday. Needless to say, he was not happy, as evidenced by his treatment of Mokuba. During aggravating periods such as these, he tended to succumb to a deeply-rooted anger he’d never been able to let go of, and always took it out on the nearest thing – that thing, nine times out of ten, being his brother.

    “Don’t tell me you were wrong about this.” He stated, his arms crossed as he glanced at Mokuba from across the room. The boy’s posture tensed, his arms and legs close together submissively.

    “N-no, n-n-n-nii-sama!” He stuttered.

    “Spit. It. Out.”

    “I swear, that’s what I heard! My friends—“

    “Your friends are nothing but a group of little thugs who have no idea what they’re doing! Who did they hear this from, anyway, huh? Some squirrel on the street? Please.”

    Mokuba bit his lip, clasping his hands together in an attempt not to cry.

    “Here come the tears,” Seto mocked, his expression becoming more and more disgusted.

    “If you’re going to cry, then do it somewhere else. It’s annoying, and I don’t want to hear it.”

    Dutifully Mokuba nodded, silently, wiping his eyes before turning to leave the room. He debated for what felt like forever whether or not he should try to apologize, but he never got the chance. The phone rang, and as always, Seto was quick to answer.

    “What?”

    “There’s a… Miss Hale on line two. She’s been calling all day on and off. We’ve blocked one of her numbers already, but she keeps calling back. I’ve told her I can’t put it through without your say-so, but she insists she knows you. She threatened to come here herself if I didn’t put her through.”

     Damn, damn, damn. She must have heard the news.

    Mokuba, from a few feet away, only barely overheard the voice on the other end.

    Hale. Miss Hale. Where did he remember that name..?

    Seto knew. He knew full well.  He was tempted to tell his receptionist to keep blocking her calls, but with one extremely brave movement, Mokuba ran over and swiped the phone from his brother.

    “Skyler! Put her through!”

{Proceeds to sing “fuck this shit i’m out” while squiggling away into the dark recesses of my mind}

[retrospectre]

Playdead’s INSIDE

Inside is a puzzle platformer released in the summer of 2016 by Playdead, the studio behind the indie-darling, Limbo, similarly about a young boy in a menacing world who runs to the right. Inside was first announced back in E3 2014 during the Microsoft conference as part of its indie line-up. Since then, its been released to critical and commercial acclaim. Now that the dust has settled, lets see what the fuss was about. 

Inside immediately introduces us to the familiar minimalist UI, or lack thereof, many remember from Limbo, with the title screen revealing itself to be the opening scene of the game. Our protagonist slides into view, and we gain control. Right off the bat, we can sense that there is something seriously wrong as the boy sneaks past ominous patrols of cargo and pickup trucks in the forest setting. We can sense that the boy is possibly being hunted, and our suspicions are confirmed when he’s spotted, and a man comes chasing after him.

Here is where we run into our first issue, something that also comes up in Limbo. The player is quickly introduced to the trial-and-error style of gameplay that Playdead seems to rely on in many parts of the game. As the boy runs from the pursuer, he trips over a branch on the ground, runs out into the headlights of another truck, and trips over a log, resulting in death in all three situations.

The game, in my opinion, often does a poor job of telegraphing “puzzles” or obstacles, where it seems almost necessary to have to learn through dying due to the weakness of visual cues. These don’t result in an “A-ha!” moment that drives the core of most puzzle games, but in “oh, alright. I see” moments where you finally understand what it is the developers intend for you to do. These moments are not only unsatisfying when beaten, but often rip the player from the experience. Playdead is excellent in their mastery of setting the tone and creating an immersive atmosphere, but they undermine that by constantly throwing these trial-and-error puzzles at you. These types of puzzles evaporate any accumulated tension as the player needs to sit there and figure out exactly what it is the developers want them to do.

But lets return to what I mentioned about the atmosphere, because again, that is where the game shines. This game almost entirely carries itself on its tone, atmosphere, and setting. The washed out colors of a oppressive and horrifying world blend perfectly with the echoing soundtrack to create a world that is stressful to navigate, but mesmerizing to watch. The player is drawn to learn more about this world the boy inhabits, and that acts as the driving force for most of the game. Playdead truly understand how to create a world that entrances and pulls in its players. And while most would call inside a puzzle-platformer (myself included), I would argue its the environmental storytelling that is the true “meat” of the game.

And that’s both a good thing and a bad thing. The puzzles are the core of what you’ll be doing in the game, sure. But they aren’t innovative or compelling enough to carry the game on their own. To put it bluntly, they simply act as things for the player to do while they gaze with wonder and horror at the environments Playdead has created. In fact, it can be argued that the puzzles work to the detriment of the game.

Almost all puzzle games that take place in a physical world space need to have a certain suspension of disbelief. The idea that there just so happens to be puzzle after puzzle standing between the player and the end goal, and that these obstacles can be overcome with everything lying in near proximity. The exact suspension of disbelief needed depends on how well the game explains these puzzles. Inside... doesn’t exactly do this. Some of the puzzles do successfully masquerade as “That’s... just how the environment happens to be configured!” While others will make the player wonder “Who in their right mind would design a door to work like this?” And once again, this method of puzzle design breaks the immersion that the game so heavily relies upon.

Here we’ll be heading into spoiler territory, analyzing the game’s message and overall themes. If you haven’t played the game and don’t want the ending spoiled for you, then now would be a good time to tune out and return when you’ve finished the game. 

Its clear from the very beginning that Inside is about control. Early on we’re introduced to a core mechanic of the game, the mind control helmets. The boy puts these helmets on and are able to gain control of various zombie-like “drones” in the area. The boy also seems to have some sort of control over various animals throughout the game, being followed by baby chicks early in the game and then schools of fish later in the underwater sections. The game is very subtle in its exploration of the themes of control, but does well in keeping the player reminded of its ubiquity throughout the game. 

At one point it’s shown that the boy can use a helmet to control a drone who’s also wearing a helmet to control a third drone. This mechanic is extremely well done because it introduces the player to the idea that multiple layers of control are possible beyond the superficial aspects we’re familiar with. One might immediately wonder whether or not the boy is being controlled by an unknown entity, and even more meta, the player can become conscious of the fact that they themselves are controlling the boy. This is an amazing use of a mechanic to blur the lines of the game world and the real world and question if the game’s narrative adheres to this distinction. 

Finally, towards the end of the game, the boy reaches the end goal; a giant mass of humans melded together into a grotesque huddle. The boy frees the Huddle by removing the various restraints, which look suspiciously similar to the mind control helmets being used throughout the game. This scene seems to suggest that the Huddle itself was controlling the boy all along in an effort to free itself from its prison. And as the boy is absorbed into its mass, assimilating with the huddle, player control is shifted to the Huddle. After wreaking havoc on the facility behind these experiments, the Huddle lies peacefully on a beach, with a thin ray of sunlight shining optimistically on the beast. 

More observant players will notice, that during the Huddle’s rampage, it falls into a tank containing a diorama of a coastal setting fully identical to the beach at the ending, complete with an artificial ray of sunlight. Playdead seems to imply that the Huddle, despite its murderous rampage, was actually still somehow acting within the confines of the facility’s experiments. That its entirely possible that the beach itself was a staged setting, for reasons that are not entirely explained. 

This implication does, however, lend to the overall themes of control and shows that the game not only explores the idea of direct control, but also indirect forms. Did the facility “control” the Huddle and guide it towards this pre-ordained end goal? Perhaps it goes a step further, and says that even after breaking free, the player is still under the control of the game, continuing to head toward the right as they’ve been doing throughout the game. The questions of control and player agency once again blur the lines of just how deep a story is Playdead trying to tell.

And finally we have the alternate ending, unlocked to the player on a second playthrough if the boy manages to unplug all the various orbs of light throughout the game. The boy is able to enter a new area and finds a room with various monitors and computers. At the end of the room is a mind control helmet, and should the boy pull it, he slumps over into the same position as the other inactive drones littered through the game. The screen fades to black and the game ends.

This alternate ending can be seen as a commentary on player agency. Its often said that even in the most linear of gameplay experiences, the player always has a choice; to continue playing or to turn off the game and stop. This alternate ending seems to be an easier-to-swallow option, whereby the boy pulls the plug and the player loses control of him, implying that the narrative does recognize the player as the controlling force behind the boy. And the player makes the decision to pull that plug and end the game before its truly “over”, similar to the idea of putting a game down before completing it.

Playdead continue to prove that they are masters at creating worlds that simultaneously feel unwelcoming and captivating. Players of Inside will feel compelled to continue playing in hopes of learning more about the world. Playdead is vague with any real details though, leaving the true narrative of the game ambiguous. While many will see it as a beautiful method of storytelling, others may find it unsatisfying. Worse yet, some may feel cheated, having powered through many of the game’s mediocre puzzles in hopes of illuminating the secrets of Inside to minimal avail. Regardless, Playdead has managed to create a truly enrapturing world that is, at times, pulled down by its lackluster puzzle design, and in the end, creates a piece that, for better or worse, inspires more questions than it answers.

[pkgam]

The Evil Of Video Game Microtransactions And Patches

Yep, this is the post that the Zelda Season Pass inspired me to finish. It’s like the one about pay-to-download games, which is similar, but not the exact kind of topic. Also, my posts about Microtransactions on Nintendo’s Miitomo and Konami’s bologna and talk about Cow Clicker. aren’t super detailed or anything. So it’s truly time I finish this one because it’s more important than ever. In fact, if there’s anything that I utterly detect about the game industry right now it’s this.

Let’s paint a picture. Let’s go back... back to the past... *holds flashlight in front of face* OoooOoOoOOOOoOooooooo... Gaming once did not have DLC. When you got a game, you got it as-is with no DLC, patches, etc... So companies had to put everything they wanted or could get in it in that one cart’s release and polish it to boot. So they could not release a game unless it was actually finished-finished. Occasionally devs will knock off a few bugs in revisions, but that just meant there were two or more versions of games (the first version, then tweaked copies) on the market and not a game with intended content another one didn’t have. However, the thing about it was that the first version was still perfectly playable. Ocarina Of Time on the N64 had three for instance if you want a notable example. Heck, Pokemon Red/Blue/Green/Yellow were some of the glitchiest games ever but they are well loved. It’s not glitches that make a game bad, it’s gameplay-hindering glitches and bad design that make a game bad.

This of course led to a lot of notable delays in the production of the best titles of their time. Games that were rushed out to meet a deadline such as games based on a movie being released or something were often sucky, buggy or even completely broken because it was less about the quality as it was trying to meet demand. So a game that was released bad, stayed bad with no fixes or whatnot. While the concept of not fixing up a bad game may seem archaic to many modern day gamers, there were still great games to be played. See, you’d think that there would be better quality games on the market now than there were back then because if you released a stinker, you could at least patch it to a semi-good quality. But that sure isn’t the case is it? In fact, it’s not unheard of for a patch to break a solid game, lol! In those cases they’re usually rectified by a simple rollback or re-issuing a fixed patch fast of course, but what I’m saying is that patches aren’t really making the overall gaming experiences you can have better than just releasing them in a good state to begin with. Unless the game is broke to begin with of course. But that brings me to my next point...

Both Microtransactions and patches have been quite the sneaky little moneymakers. What a lot of people aren’t realizing is that they are often paying a lot more for less. Which is astounding since game price has gone up in itself from $50 to $60 (Not all games of course, but I mean the general price of console games) AND in order to get all you could for a game, you have to pay for their online and downloadable extras. Some do online for free like Nintendo, but that of course is about to change not because they can’t do online for free of course since they have been for years, but likely because it’s just more profitable. So what game publishers are doing when they pull that is selling incomplete games at a full price (often just to release games as fast as possible for maximum profits) and charging you more to get them complete and/or playable through online. Some “retail” games are actually not even physical in that they only contain a game code or only a small part of a game so you have to download the rest to play it too. So what’s even the point of retail in those cases other than to sucker in people who don’t otherwise buy digital that just so happened to not read the box?... That trick won’t work forever. Mind you that there are still games made out there that are great on their own without downloadables, but the thing about it is that game companies know that these sorts of things are highly profitable because people are oblivious to how much more they’re spending overall. Even just $5 per game, if you got just 12 DLC packs, that’s $60 or the price of another whole game (again, it varies. :P). They aren’t only $5 either as DLC varies greatly in price. Online services alone are usually START at $10. PS4′s is at $9.99/month, but you of course get discounts at longer terms. :P

The patch thing also has a funny way of making more “versions” of games than ever before as well because there are games that people have never patched or did any microtransactions for, there are games people have fully patched and paid for all the DLC. Plus everything in between and every combination. So there can be an awkward division of sorts as well in that people rating a game better with a patch and someone not being able to get a patch for some reason (no net connectivity, online patch services canceled/shut down, etc...) that will end up creating forever bad games in the process because they put out junk and games not patched get shut out. There’s also the inevitable end of online patch support for a game to tangle with in the future. Meaning if people get a game that is no longer supported and it’s a stinker that could be patched into something better, they are stuck with the stinker unless they sell it to someone who is not in the know of the need for a patch or they locate or create some sort of fan-made hack-patch out there.

This also has a way of making it so that games are becoming less and less your’s. See, certain sections of the game industry hate stuff like the used game market and game sharing because they don’t get sales from after-market stuff. If a retail disc is just a key to get a game’s full download that you can only use once, you basically can’t resell or let someone borrow a game. The Xbox One back in development was going to be just like that until massive backlash hit them over it. As a matter of fact, that happens with a lot of publishers who try to pull that because people of course don’t like the idea of not owning what they buy, for good reason. So instead they got a bit... sneakier with it. Games that you buy digital for instance are locked to that system and if your system goes, so does the game, well, when they stop supporting it online. Think DLC/patches are any different? Think again.

I’ve seen people argue that the microtransactions are only to extend the life of a game engine and whatnot, but that’s what SEQUELS are for! Instead though a great increase in patches and paid downloadables on the very first day of release happened. Star Wars Battlefront was probably one of the most notorious examples of this in that the game was made to be small and to get everything you’ve gotta pay upwards of $100 total. Compare it to a fully complete game such as Ocarina Of Time and you can tell that there’s issues. Speaking of Battlefront... EA did it again with the next Battlefront, only FAR worse than before as you need to play 4,528 hours to unlock everything or $2,100 to “conveniently” speed things up ON TOP of the retail price of the game. That’s ludicrous! Then there was a whole debacle after that they they were going to fix it and semi-did, but this has happened with so many of their games in the past that you can basically see it as a cycle by now. They release a game > people point out how much of a ripoff it is > they “apologize” and “fix” it > they do it again with the next game. Why people even buy into it after all these years of them doing it I have no idea as it’s illogical. Maybe it’s like... an addiction or masochistic tendency. But they take advantage of that sickness like predators. Even a good chunk of those who aren’t addicted to it may not make much of it because it never seems like a lot to pay  few bucks for some DLC but when so many do it, it adds up for their profits gained on basically lies.

Talking addiction of course means it’s time to cover these bad boys: LOOT BOXES! They can be cleverly disguised as anything from Pinata Llamas to Trash Cans. But when I say “loot box”, I mean “you pay for something and you don’t know what you’ll get”. They have been largely equated to gambling which I couldn’t agree more with because it’s like rolling a slot machine’s wheels: The adrenaline of whether you win or lose is what is addicting but most of the time you will lose as the items you are going for in these monstrosities often only have less than a 1% chance of showing. So people who get addicted like with gambling addiction often open up hundreds and hundreds of these boxes to no avail. People who do this, even if it’s just over a bunch of DLC and whatnot, game publishers have called “whales”. Yes, they actually have a term for it. Not only that, but they also have a “science” to getting people to pay for such things. Behold! The hold grail of all things bad in the industry. The original video I linked to was removed, but you can still see it at 3:42-4:37 of this video, though you may want to watch it all anyway as it’s pretty good:

“Turning players into payers” huh?... They aren’t the only ones to do it either. Activision actually patented their own little scheme in 2015 (which amazingly they claim they never used) and you can bet that many others also have sneaky little plans of their own.

There are some extra tricks I haven’t went over yet that may still sucker people. Like remember the extra levels/stages/areas/gear/etc... that could have been added to a game before release by just delaying the game like they used to do? They could just put it on multiple discs/cards like they used to as it wasn’t uncommon for games to have 2 or more discs. But they don’t. Why? Well at this point you can guess there’s something extra sneaky about this one because the extra data doesn’t go on the disc, it goes on the game system’s hard drive or some other storage space. As the MBs add up, you need to buy more space. Who then gets in the market to sell more space? Game makers of course. While people can get stuff like external /hard drives and SD cards from other sources, you can bet that game publishers will partner up with someone that makes them (I have a Sandisk SD Card for my Wii with “Nintendo Wii” on it for instance. :P But for game data backup, not downloads.) or make em’ themselves.

Even if the DLC or online service is free, chances are it’s not entirely “free” anyway as you often have to see a bunch of advertisements to tempt you to spend money on other stuff. For instance, Call Of Duty WWII has a mission where you watch others open loot crates... But if you have the willpower and time to sit through that junk, it’s officially free I spose’. Again though for all of this they know not everyone can resist the temptation. It all keeps rolling back to tempting people in these ways really:

How badly do you want to fix your game?

How quick do you want to make progress?

How much more content do you want for the game?

How unique do you want your character to look?

How much do you want to play with others online?

How much do you want to play the same game as others?

How close do you want to be to your friends progress-wise?

etc... to make games cost far more than ever by having you pay for it.

But free online gaming even though companies clearly can do it and free DLC is not how the industry has shaped has it? Instead they have you pay for it with a grin basically saying “see you there because we know you won’t resist!”. The temptation thing ended up screwing everyone over, even people who resisted, because they are losing out on the content. All at virtually no extra development cost because it’s often already made and they just held it back.

Yes, I know some is genuinely made after a game if they feel there is more they can add, but it’s such a common “business model” that you just never know who is doing it. Though some slip up like Capcom, lol! But in any case, why not at the very least release extra stuff for free? Not make you pay for the online on top of the DLC. I mean logically they “should” be getting profits from online service sales to support further development of games as it was proven they are able to do online for free. If not, they are doing a pretty bad job.

I don’t see those unethical business practices changing any time soon either because they have been remarkably successful. It’s giving companies a lot of bad PR, but they don’t care as long as they get more money than ever. Which is a really sad state because it means that you no longer have to make a good game to profit off of it, you just have to make something that hooks people enough to get them to pay into it. Many indy devs are guilty of this too of course (especially the shovelware makers that put their crappy ((often copied)) games with paid DLC on every platform they can), so don’t think I’m ignoring them. I’m just using some of the most prominent examples here.

Now for some common rebuttals I hear:

-“But you don’t have to pay for it! It’s optional!” You also don’t have to pay for the game. Companies should be honored and humbled that you are interested in buying a game so they should offer you the full package, not a watered-down version of something and taking you for granted.

-”It’s only appearance DLC like clothing. It doesn’t affect the game!” Oh, but it does. Not having them is actually taking away a whole section of a game that people find fun: Character customization. Maybe it’s not gameplay-related, but it’s certainly something that people love to do and thus affects their experience. Games used to have stuff like that hidden in them as unlocks (See Bomberman 64 Custom Parts as an example), not as paid DLC.

-”They NEED to make more money because games nowadays are more costly to make!” How do you know? Games like Cave Story and An Untitled Story (6th from the bottom) are free and extremely well designed. But I’m also seeing a ton of asset-flipped games in that companies are basically re-using engines and whatnot. In any case, assuming they are pricier, then it should be in the initial cost of the COMPLETE game, NOT made up in DLC. You tell me that all of Battlefront 2′s content is worth $2,100 and I’ll call you a liar or blind because there’s no way they put that much work into it and there’s no way anyone should have to pay that much for a SINGLE game.

-“But there’s just so much content they didn’t have time to put it in at release so they offer you the service!” Yet they are able to magically churn out other games at the same time along with said DLC. Funny how that works right? Again talking EA as an example because they are just do good at providing them, they create a “new” sports game yearly (Madden, FIFA, NBA, PGA Tour, NHL, etc...) with the usual DLC, oftentimes of stuff that was in past installments of the game with the same engine.

-”They are companies, so of course they are trying to make money.” Nothing wrong with making money, it’s “how” you make it that’s the issue. When there’s a whole “business” model built around lies and deceit, I’d argue it starts to lean towards the scam side of things.

Your thoughts? Thanks for reading and have a good one!