#its fun to experiment with a simpler style

[copepods]

messing around with shapes a little

[deesblanketfort]

My favorite regression games ☆´ˎ˗ ︶︶︶

Nintendo DS edition!

Videogames have always been one of my favorite regression activities. And I've always gravitated towards old and accessible videogames, since it's pretty easy to find emulators and ROMs for old consoles, I compiled a list of my favorite DS games to play when regressed!

This link has ROMs for all of the following games, but for easier access I'll put a direct download link in each title

🐾: Nintendogs: Best Friends (2005)

Nintendogs a classic virtual pet game, I could even say it's the virtual pet game for the DS. Here you adopt puppies and get to raise, train and play with them. One of my favorite mechanics is calling my puppy by its name and having it understand it and come to me!

Aside from being absolutely adorable theres so much to do with your puppies! From basic care like walking, brushing or bathing them to training them and participating in competitons, which can be a little difficult but add a lot of flavor to the game! Plus the dog competition elements are really cool as someone who likes dog competitions!!

👠: Style Savvy (2009)

Not gonna lie, I made this whole post to talk about this game. I love style savvy!!! We desperately need to end the conception that dress up games are only for little girls!

In Style Savvy, you run your own fashion boutique and help clients pick their outfits, in which all clients have their own styles. The game requires you to pay attention to your client's preferences and store a variety of outfits in your boutique.

Speaking! Of! Outfits!!! Style Savvy includes so many fashion subcultures from the 00's, like gyaru, gothic lolita, sweet lolita, decora, it's so fun and I never get bored of checking on my boutique daily.

🫧: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Time/Darkness (2008)

Mystery Dungeon is one of my favorite Pokemon spin-offs! It's a super fun roguelike RPG where you play as a pokemon and their team going through dungeons and fighting other pokemon, it's a perfect blend between mainline pokemon gameplay and unique mechanics, plus you get to play as a pokemon!!

And this game has such a charming story!! I'm always on my feet when I play this game, and just a warning, it can get a little emotional sometimes.

💚: MySims (2007)

MySims is a life simulator town creator from the likes of Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing, and even though it's simpler than the aforementioned, it still lives in my heart rent free!

Here you do several tasks and minigames to raise the town level and with every level the town gets bigger, more tourists come visit it and more people move in. From all the minigames, the conversation one is my favorite, since it's so simple yet fun!

And the characters, oh, the characters! Although most of the iconic characters come from later instalments, this game doesn't lack memorable characters, specially the shopkeepers! My favorite is Olivia :3

🖌️: Kirby Canvas Curse (2005)

This game is usually overlooked for being very different from the usual Kirby games but it's so cool nonetheless!

It's not a traditional platformer where you control Kirby's movements, but instead you interact with the environment (tapping Kirby, enemies and objects) and draw lines that work as platforms, so, instead of playing as Kirby you play with the environment to help Kirby get through the levels.

This game was made specifically for the stylus, and although it can be played with a mouse just fine it works very well with a drawing tablet!

🍳: Cooking Mama (2006)

I love cooking and I love motherly figures, so Cooking Mama is right up my alley! This game makes me feel like a clumsy kid (who is trying their best) cooking with their mom.

Here you cook a variety of recipes and every step of the recipe is it's own self contained microgame. Plus, the controls translate well from stylus to mouse for the emulator, and if you have a drawing tablet it simulates the DS experience perfectly!

And although this is the first Cooking Mama game, it's timeless and a good introduction to the series.

🎮: Honorable Mentions!

Cookie Shop DS: I may be a sucker for resource management games but cookie shop is soooo fun and adorable! You get to befriend cute critters while running a dessert shop!

Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver: This one is a classic, and good for beginners due to the fewer pokemon and mechanics while still being a little challenging.

Kirby Squeak Squad: Although I recommend Canvas Curse more, Squeak Squad is more of a traditional Kirby game, and unlike Super Star Ultra, it's not awfully difficult nor cosmic horror themed.

Animal Crossing Wild World: Another classic, and even if later games from this franchise are more popular and have more features, sometimes less is more.

[littlepikmins]

Hi hi!! What’re some of your Timber hcs? It can be just in general, related to your idea of Bernard having been experimented or ect~! Also, feel free to do SFW or NSFW hcs, too, if you wanna! I just love those boys to pieces 🤧💖💖

I'm not sure where to start I have so many headcanons and different story ideas I like to think about for them.

I've posted a lot of them on here previously as like singular post rambles but I'll try and think of some of the top of my head (sorry if a lot these are mainly about Bernard. He lives in my head rent free)

I headcanon that Tim started dating Bern because he knew he had feelings for him and wanted to explore them more, but he hadn't fallen head over heels yet. Because of this, he falls for Bernard very hard overtime, slowly learning more little things about him and loving him more and more as they get closer.

A headcanon I personally like is that Bernard has naturally curly hair. This is one of the many things Tim discovers about Bernard because, after their first time together, he wakes up and Bernard's hair is messy and not nearly as straight as it usually is. He is fascinated by this and likes to brush his fingers through his hair when it's curly. Bernard explains to him that he wanted to look like his Dad in high school so he started straightening his hair and it just kinda became a habit. Tim tells him he loves his hair no matter the style but he does like that he gets to see his hair curly as well.

Another headcanon is that Bernard still has a complicated relationship with pain and its something Tim and Bern's therapist are trying to help him work on. When Bernard spirals or dissociates he often stress cooks and/or hurts himself unintentionally. He'll dig his nails into his arm hard enough to bleed or bite his finger nails down to the skin, stuff like that. He's even nicked himself with a knife while stress cooking before and Tim had to insist he stop and patch it up for him.

And one more! Tim tends to bottle things up when somethings really bothering him, but Bernard can tell somethings up because Tim doesn't talk to him like he usually does - he responds to questions or hums to show he's listening, but it's like Tim's trying to keep up the appearance that everything's fine. This happens a lot after Tim's nightly Robin work and Bernard has gotten into the habit of leaving a late night meal out for Tim. If he can't stay up late that night he'll also leave a note out for Tim that he makes sure will be extra cheesy for him writing stuff like "Good evening, handsome ;)" and then jotting down one of his silly random thoughts whether it's a fun conspiracy idea or him remembering a joke someone told him that day. In general he enjoys giving Tim little notes if he also packs a lunch for him and stuff. In high school when he was more pushy about wanting attention from his peers, he would leave notes in Tim's locker all the time (later realizing this was because he was very much in love with Tim and wanted his attention most out of everyone)

Tim fondly remembers reading Bears notes in high school and having them to read in his life again helps him feel better when his brain is being too loud as it reminds him of simpler times before so he lost so many people in his life

Also a quick one to add onto that is that Tim can often be overprotective when he's with Bernard. He knows Bear can defend himself in a fight but there are days where Tim's PTSD flares up bad and he's so scared he's going to lose Bernard like he lost Steph for a time and Kon and his Dad, etc.

[sycamorality]

You've made me think about the dragon tooth necklace lore and now I can't get it out of my head so here are some of my personal headcanons for some runners.

With his background in graphic design, it's no surprise that Couriway could carve intricate patterns on his tooth. The tiny wings on it sprouted around the time he began his Icarus runs. No idea how, the Universe works in mysterious ways, does it not? As he does his 100k runs, he adds a new marking for every 100 runs he does, a reminder of everything he's experienced.

When it comes to Fulham, his necklace is on the simpler side of things. He takes pride in the things he creates and he prefers his dragon's tooth to stay as he wants it. However, the interesting part comes with its cord. It's a slight mismatch of colors but yet still blends together beautifully. When you look closer, you can see that it's a combination of cords which came from those he holds dear.

For Raddles, her necklace is decorated with obsidians and amethysts, suiting her aesthetic truly. The carvings are highlighted with purple dye, which came from a spontaneous night of hanging out with the rest of HBG. Fun fact, the amethysts sitting prettily on her necklace came from the same cluster Couriway's amethyst does.

Rekrap's a newer face in the speedrunning scene, especially compared to his peers. When he first started running, he had heard of the tradition but hadn't exactly bothered to decorate the necklace. At most he'd all charms to the chain but nothing permanent on the tooth. It was only when he joined HBG officially did the tooth get decorated and carved. Once he got a hang of the carving, he enjoys doing it on spare teeth's when he's not on runs. Keeps the hands busy and mind active, right?

Carving President Poundcake's necklace was a fun experience for all those involved. At first, the only carving the necklace had was a slightly messy eye, the same one he has on his clothing. But the night was young and Poundy had thought that it'd be a fun task to ask his friends for designs to add. Naturally, as speedrunners are, they got competitive with it.

That's all for now, hope you liked it!

ok HERE WE GO i finally finished this. i have not stopped thinking about this concept since i saw the original post and neither have i stopped thinking about this ask since it was sent.

im SO GLAD that someone noticed the wings i draw with couri's tooth!!! they are 100% a reference to the icarus runs and i originally thought them to just be an extra accessory or charm, but the thought they grew out of nowhere during the icarus runs is so much cooler

fulham's carvings are really simple, he seems like a rather simple guy. the cord colors all match the colors that his close friends have on theirs. rek's has a heart carving and charm to honor lifesteal, and a watermelon charm to reference the watermelon farming. poundy's has the eye and then some carvings i thought would match the style. raddles has a sort of abstract paw print, and as is iconic to hbg, the purple circle! :]

[pluralthey]

As far as I remember, or like years ago, you’ve used sai right? Sai or sai2(man the brush engines better and Binary brushes feel smoother..) but I also saw you used procreate at some point for that one Jessie draw- which digital programs have you used that you enjoy the most for different things, or which kind of traditional medium for example also, is interesting and/or satisfying? Have been doing lots of ref and tutorial searching and looking at art inspiration for the direction I wanna take my stuff and I was curious about your preferred setup; I just like to hear people’s workflow and what they use to create what they do. I think it’s neat. Also if this is too long sorry 😅

I use sai 2. I switched to sai once oekaki became more and more inoperable. The binary style aspect ended up sticking. Oekaki has limited layer capabilities and this rewarded a simpler pixel style that was more easily edited. I still miss the ease of using pixelated screen tones in oekaki. There are other programs that can make them, but not how oekaki did. But I prefer sai 2 most now.

I use clip studio for larger scale images like print pages for its more versatile and expensive selection of brushes. It has unique settings that still allow me to turn these brushes into pixelated work without anti-aliasing artifacts. There is a setting for level of anti-aliasing, but this is often not enough for more complex brushes using spraying patterns. Using the "replace alpha" blending mode forces many brushes into a binary color mode because drawn on top of a solid color the brush's color can only be 100% opaque. The binary layer color mode also allows you to do this. Both of the latter options often only let you do this with black and white. I usually do this to be able to transfer it back to sai 2 where it's more comfortable to work in. I also use it for its ability to produce text in multiple sizes without anti-aliasing. Sai 2's text tool is fairly primitive.

I use Aseprite for animating. It is mostly for pixel art. It reminds me of an animation program I used to use a long time ago called easytoon due to its simplicity though...

For traditional I prefer paint pens (I mostly use poscas). Gel pens are okay but very small and cheaply made. I really wish someone would make paint pen versions of gel pens. I also had a big black and white plain ink and hatching phase a long time ago. Generally I gravitate towards opaque materials that make the process feel straightforward. The ability to "erase" or white out mistakes for correction is one of the most important qualities in a medium to me.

Less opaque, more time-consuming layered media yield more textured and nuanced results, but I hate few things as much as ruining a piece of art irrecoverably over a relatively small mistake be that accidentally pilling the paper or drawing a line wrong or splashing watercolor the wrong way. Mixed media was fun, but I just prefer having more purpose to what I'm doing. When I'm too preoccupied with the aesthetics I waste a ton of time on useless tweaking or experimenting that never goes anywhere.

[light-of-delphi]

1. how do you veil

2. how does it honour your deities? how do you know they want you to

3. what does it mean to veil

have a lovely day

Hello!! This question actually reminded me that I should get back into veiling, ha! I'm more than happy to answer your questions, though!

How do you veil?

Veiling is far simpler than most people make it out to be. All you need to do in order to veil is cover your head. That's it! Covering one's head was typically seen as a way to protect the crown chakra. But before that, it was also seen as a way to remain healthy and keep your spirit and your energy safe. I veil because I find it comforting. I used to be a very emotional person. I was very in tune with other people's emotions, what people were feeling, and energy. Veiling helped me feel more safe and secure, so I typically veiled when I had a busy or very social day ahead of me.

To veil, you can do a few things:

Wearing a beanie counts as veiling, if you do it with the intention of honoring your Gods and being humble. It is a subtle way to veil without outing yourself or being too out of the broom closet!

Wearing a bandana! Bandanas are in style, especially during the spring and summer. Wearing a bandana tied around the head, usually covering the entire top of your head with a bit hanging off the back is how people tend to wear their bandanas. If you search "Bandana hairstyles" on Google, you may find some examples!

Wearing a scarf. If you want more coverage, you can loosely wrap it over your head and around your shoulders and neck. This creates a high coverage veil, which can help with overstimulation and feel a lot more secure than other styles. ChaoticWitchAunt has an amazing video on veils and veiling styles, and they cover it on their Instagram of the same name sometimes!

Himation veiling. This is the full body veil that you typically see when you look at sculptures from ancient Greece, or recreations/copies you may find from ancient Rome. They are full body coverings that cover the head and wrap around the body and drape down to the ankles. In modern times, you still see veils like this that are more secure or full coverage and may even cover the face. In some cultures, this is typically expected of women to wear. I do want to stress that, if you are in a safe enough space to have this choice, veiling should always be a personal choice.

Just have fun with it, experiment, and find something comfortable for you!

How does it honor your deities?

Veiling was a common practice in ancient Greece to show humility and modesty for the Gods. It was frequently done to honor specific deities, like a Virgin Goddess (Hestia, Athena, Artemis, etc), or to show respect when praying and going about the day. Nowadays, I personally veil for similar reasons. I show grace to Apollo by veiling in honor of his mother Leto and his twin sister, Artemis. Sometimes I veil to honor Hestia, especially when I am cleaning or having a rough day.

Veiling is always going to be specific to your practice, however. I have a friend who veils simply because they like how it feels and it's easier for them to focus when doing divination.

A deity may approach you and ask you to veil. This could look like a sudden urge or want to veil or experiment with veiling paired with signs from this deity, or finding cloths in colors they are associated with. It could be asked via tarot cards, pendulums, intuition, or meditation. It is very dependent on your relationship with your deities.

What does it mean to Veil?

This ties back to something I mentioned earlier - the bit about veiling for modesty and humility. People across different cultures and religions veil for different reasons. People in Abrahamic faiths that worship God and the bible may veil to honor and reflect the Virgin Mary, whose very well known for her blue himation-style veil. In Islamic faith, its expected of people to veil depending on the circumstance. In paganism, it is entirely dependent on the culture you elect to follow (so long as its open!) and the rules surrounding vieling.

In Hellenic Paganism, I've found that it is very customary to veil when praying. During prayer, it is seen as a sign of respect to veil and approach as modestly as possible (unless the prayer consists of something sexual or intentionally un-modest), to wash your hands, and to approach clean. I veil when doing tarot readings or pendulum sessions because it protects my energy and makes me feel safer. I get less tired afterward. I also veil in social situations, and on the holidays that I celebrate. It is very dependent on you and your practice.

I hope this helps! Feel free to add on in the comments, and give me little corrections if you think/feel they're needed. We're a community that teaches each other!! Khaire!

~Robyn <3

[helido24]

Well... i finished both snootgame and volcano high, i needed to talk a bit about them

First of all: I LOVE THESE CHARACTERS SOO MUCH, FANG I LOVE YOU I HOPE TO YOUR HAPINNESS

2:. . .jeez, it's so difficult talk about both games without making parallels or comparing them

SG is a very simpler visual novel with a... very questionable reason to exist to begin with, but even with that it surprises you with a very beutiful story of self development and young love in the modern times. The multiples endings all of them are EMOTIONAL DESTROYERS, even the obvious joke-shouting-super edgy ending 1, but just 'cause all the care and love you have for the characters, you feel it in a more deeply way and you suffer watching them like this, giving you strenght to do the best ending possible and. . .oof, that destroys you too, but in a different way

I love Fang an Anon soo much, i wish them nothing but hapinnes

And talking about the elephant in the room? Well... i don't think snoot game is anti-LGBT propaganda

"B-but it's about fang doing destransicion"

That's the take talking about SG in GVH wiki and i'm not with that

Yes, anon is openly an ashole about lgbt themes and always talked shit about it

And the game treat the whole fang(they/them) with humor. . .both of those things happens between the first hour and the bad ending

As the game progress and anon makes the RIGHT choises you can see him at least try to comprenhend the pronouns thing, and perhaps he makes mistakes about it,but he get that is something important to fang

And yes, there's an ending where fang simply leaves behind all that identity and becomes a generic femenine wife? That's not the true ending

The true ending actually respect that side of fang, with her still liking that style,style being like that, still being fang, the only thing she doesn't keep is the pronouns

To me at least, fang's story isn't just about being no-binary. But being a young person trying multipples sides of their persona and life to try and found itself, with the help of the ones who cares about them to grow as a person

Fang could be a She,a he or them, and i would be perfectly fine with any of those

But if at the end she found herself more happy in this new version. What's the problem? If precisely that's the goal with this theme right?

BUT.... snootgame have a very heavy sin to carry and is. . .it's a 4chan game, and is a parody made to make fun about an openly pro-LGBT+ game

Even with how good the story is, with how NG never attacks directly the community and the movement, it's very hard to believe there's no bit of bath fait in the people behind

We still have all this early shit-talking about this theme after all

But having all in mind. . .i just can't hate snootgame, with it short experience it turned those characters in a very big part of my life (at least for this month lol), and the story touched me in various levels 'cause personal reasons (let's just say i had a "trish" in my life)

And well. . .thank you cavemanon for this very beutiful experience, i'm hoping your next project can shine your talent even more without so much controversy around it

And talking about conteoversy....

*sigh*

Goodbye volcano high. . .with you i have less things to say but still they're important i think

First of all: its FUCKING UNFAIR what happened to this game. An openly pro-LGBT+ visual novel with "tumblr aesthetic" being the first fucking thing they show about the fucking ps5??

What the fuck

It was throwed to one of the most savage and closed-minded fandoms in all the internet: """hardcore gamers"""

And just when they're waiting to some assasins creed, GOW or any other super big HD IP with muscles in the muscles of the characters

I can't think about this choise as nothing but an homicide, forgive for the comparation but. . .this shit was taking your 8yo cousin of color to a place you KNOW is full of neo-nazis with guns and criminal precedents. You know what you're doing or you are extremely stupid

And then internet folks started all this controversy and harassement and hate to the game and the studio by a lot of sides and themes and. . .i feel so sorry for the studio and the people working in volcano high, as a snootgame fan i'm truly sorry for what you passed trought, im hope with all my heart this doesn't make you to give up this style of game, and i'll be waiting to see your next project with heart ^^

And now talking about the game. . .fuck

Fuck fuck fuck

I'm sorry,i know what i said but. . .volcano high is broken by so much sides

I really wanted to enjoy it, i really wanted to love this version of the characters and the story but. . .fuck, i can't

Almost all the characters are soo flat (personality i mean)

All and everyone of them talk about ona (1) thing that they like and never shut up about it, you can be talking about anything else and- OH here's comes trish to talk about her worm. . .again, or sage and their cooking, or fang and their band. . .i get it, they're character traits and you need to use them but... i don't know these people, i don't know at all these characters at all.

In the first hald of the game you need to at least try to tell me something about them, their relationships, their past and problems, give me a reason to give 2 and a half shit about them... and they try, but everytime they talk and seems to be about to give some context they start to just talk about that one and only thing they like, leaving me with nothing to work with

And that's the problem of volcano high in general to me. Is obvious there's a story, there's a background to these characters and there's real context to almost every conversation they have. . .but we don't know it, we can't see it, we don't KNOW these people and is frustrating. After the 2 hours i just shuted down my brain and every time this happend i just go "oh yeah,some cute experience we don't know about them)

The two musical montages (there's 2 right?) With photos of the group living their lives and interacting with each other. . .they're very cute and seems to be fun, but we don't live any of this. Fuck sake i WANTED TO BE SAD in the ending, i wanted to feel the characters and their lives sliping away at the end

See al these beutiful and impactful moments? Well. . .i'd love to see them, to live them with them

But we don't. They're just a bunch of PNGs passing by at the end as the music continues. And that upset me a lot...

And what upset's me the most. . .you know why i care so much about the characters? Why i need to know their lives and feel something in this story?

BECAUSE OF FUCKING SNOOT GAME

They made me to care about fang and the gang, abour nazer, about naomi, about stella and rosa, i cared about this characters soo much that. . .i feel attatched to the GVH ones too. Even if volcano high do close to nothing to make me care for them at this level

It's to sad and so unfair, volcano high obviously was made with a lot of heart and they OBVIOUSLY cares about the characters a lot more than almost anyone in both fandoms, just the "memories" from above show it. But with the game story and characters as they are right now. . .i don't want to compare them so much, but honestly without NG being so important i wouldn't finished volcano high

And about the story itself? Well... is very rushed to say at least

As i said earlier they spent too much time trying to made us meet the characters (but without letting us know them)

To sudenly introduce the meteorite plot and. . .it feels zero important. Yeah it drives the characters to the harsh decisions they're making and how they interact with each other, but for half the game the meteorite is just there in the background and just mentioned over here and there as a reminder. Just to sudenly be the most important thing in the world at the last hour and half of the game.

Before that all the plot is about fang,the band and the battle of the bands (wich i hardly care about at this point)

But. . .fang and the band? Here they made it a very good work

Yeah, fang talk almost exclusively about the band as is their (1) personality trait, but still they manage to make me feel and understand how important is this to them, and. . .wow, i really felt how fang was feeling reed and specially trish leaving them behind and not taking the band seriously (and still having fang at the edge with promises of being a team but without helping them AT ALL)

I mean, there's no problem with reed and trish don't seeing the band as something more than some fun friends time after school and wanting to make something else for their life. The problem is they seeing fang talking 24/7 aboud the band their future together and openly taking life decisions about it and never saying "hey pal, i think you should focus more in a solos career, we don't want to live with the music but we're still friends" or something like that. . .and they do

Trish says this to fang. . .in the battle night, just in the most important night in fang's life, just to say that she's leaving the band in this very important moment and taking choises she never discussed with fang (as fang did talk with trish about theirs)

And the story insist on pointing out fang as the bad person here, who makes all the bad choises and burn all the bridges with everyone. . .but they doesn't

Even at the end with everyone crying and yelling each other, is fang who talk to everyone and says they're a horrible person and you can blame everything on fang because. . .reasons? Idk because with all the choises and talking options we taked at this point, we clearly made fang a very patient and caring person, but still there's one and only way the story was made and was with fang being constantly a bitch with everyone, so it doesn't matter if you take the bad or good options to talk about 6 hours, the dialogues are all about the bad ones almost constantly. And that's fucked and unfair for my dude fang the pterodolphin, i love them so much

But. . .not everything is bad with volcano high

The background arts are beautiful and very colorful, a lot of cute dettails and i love them

The characters? Well. . .it's weird, i love them a lot and they're very unique, in the special images and animations they look soo good

But in the normal gameplay...

They look kinda derpy all the time, and the few animations they constantly use for everything get repetitive after a short while (take a shot everytime trish does the eyebrow rise grin animation, tell me how you died)

((Btw perrito tacita epic cameo))

The art style in general of the game is very cute and i love it, but for the in-game animations they needed some more time to make them. . .feel alive and les akward

And the music?

Hell yeah this is good shit, i love fang's voice and definitely i'm gonna check more of their music soon

In conclusion...

I can see where all of this came from, if that leaked script is real it just makes soo much sence about how the final product ended,i can see every original plot being planted as seeds in the final game but never having the chance to grow or even blossom, just a little sapling in the dirt, and that make me so sad. . .

Even with all of that,they managed to launch the game,and leaving out all the controversy i think the game got very descent sales and everything was kinda worth, i really hope they don't give up again with this type of story

But Ko_On and cavemanon are full of talented people and they deserve a chance to grow and shine by themselves

Both without being a perhaps-bad-faith parody, or without so massive backlash from the wrong people who's not are even interested in the quality but the politics in the games

I don't make this kinde or post so often,but i had to speak my mind about something so important to me

Thank you very much if you readed it 'til here and sorry for the mess,i was typing things as they apeared in my mind lmao

Check it out my art, i just recently made this piece of fang and i really loved the result ^^

[centrally-unplanned]

👀 are you interested in fire emblem and would you tell us your opinions of the franchise, I’d be very interested

I do like Fire Emblem! I have played FE6-8, smatterings of 9-10 (never owned them, played with friends), and all the games past Awakening/13. I did also play a bit of FE1, no shade on the limitations of the time of course but it sucks, not worth playing. So I am not a grand FE master but I have a lot of exposure to it.

I admire Fire Emblem for its simplicity of design & stakes - the combat system is "hit enemy, deal damage based on attack power - defense" kind of stuff, how everything works is super clear. All the complexity emerges on top of that. Your army is all individual people, permadeath means you need to pursue strategies with a lot of care such that difficulty doesn't get trivialized even if it is still easy (there is a big gap between "my odds of losing are 5% - exciting, I'm doing well!" and "my odds of losing are 0% - boring, why can't I skip this"). When it is doing its best you have a squad of guys with clear stakes and challenges that are overcome via smart kiting and tanking, it is rarely "did you equip the White Hooded Cat Ears to a unit with the Lapis Pendant to double proc a high initiative archer with Glacial Rain for opening gambit AOE freeze spam to prevent Featherknight Magic Guard from activating?" Which to be clear can also be a ton of fun, each game should just be its own thing - FE is just often best-in-class at its niche.

Fire Emblem also has great aesthetics, it aims for that "classy" style of fantasy typically and everyone authentically buys into all that nobility medieval stuff, which for a video game story can be fun vibes. I love their character designs, normally it is a game series with the right level of fanservice (Camilia -_-), and as someone who enjoys romance sideplots in video games FE typically gives you fun sidequests along those lines that sometimes has gameplay implications to boot - I loved the "eugenics simulator" of FE Awakening, as the fans affectionately called its system of child units inheriting traits from parent units. Tharja you are gonna torture Gaius for eternity via marriage because your faildaughter Noire needs Galeforce, I don't wanna hear any god damn objections okay?

As a series it is far from perfect, as anything running this long must be. The plots are normally "meh", in particular the series just doesn't care about logic that much? People do dumb shit alllll the time; FE7's plot is an absolute mess, Three House's story is hung together by macguffins and asspulls, and so on. It is better when it is simpler - in FE6, our boy Roy has gotta beat a bad guy, he conquering the world with dragons, oh no - great, no notes. More modern games need more involved plots due to market demand, but FE has not yet mastered it imo.

More modern games have also stacked complexity on the combat system - skills that proc, squads that attach to units, most recently "Engage rings" that buff and give spells. These can be good! The thing is the simplicity of say FE6 gets boring over so many hours, what works for a 10 hour game gets stale over 40, you need to grow. Sometimes they do that well - I thought Three Houses generally was smart on this front, the skills are more passive, the squads and gambits were (generally, they fucked up on movement buffs) flexible and didn't break things while giving you toys to play with. But Engage, while a good game, did get too complicated by half with many of its systems, and Awakening literally broke itself with pair-up & stacked skill procs, you can easily trivialize the whole game. And meanwhile to spike difficulty they would give every random enemy fighter different lethal skill procs that you would have to triple check every turn, a problems-beget-problems moment. But! I like that they are experimenting. Would have been real easy to capitalize on the success of Three Houses and just repeat it with Engage, but they didn't.

Also while permadeath is conceptually good, restarting a whole map because of a cheese crit is fucking awful, and I am glad modern games have time reset systems to obviate that. I do not play the older games without an emulator that can save state.

Tier listing the games I have played, lets see:

S Tier: Sacred Stones, Shadows of Valentia

A Tier: Three Houses, Blazing Sword

B Tier: Awakening, Engage, Binding Blade

C Tier: Fates

Edelgard best girl, and I think that covers it!

[novlr]

Hey! I'm a non native English speaker and i find it very hard to use wide variety of vocabulary in my writing. Any tips??

Just as a painter needs a rich palette of colours to make their art, writers need a diverse vocabulary to craft deep and engaging story worlds.

Your vocabulary as a writer is much like a paint box, with each word adding depth, contrast, and colour to your creation. So what techniques can you use to improve your vocabulary and give yourself more linguistic colours to choose from?

Read a lot

Reading is the best way to improve your vocabulary. It’s immersive, enjoyable, and will introduce you to more varied words. Make it a habit to read often, and try to read widely. Don’t limit yourself to one genre, age range, or style. Whether fiction, non-fiction, articles, or instruction manuals, reading as widely as you can opens your mind to words and styles you might never encounter naturally in your day-to-day life.

Write a lot

Write as often as you can. The more you write, the more often you’ll find yourself reaching for varying words and phrases to accurately convey your thoughts. Every written piece is an opportunity to experiment with new words. As with anything, practice is crucial—regular writing will naturally enhance your vocabulary and make your word usage more instinctive and fluid.

Use a thesaurus

A thesaurus introduces you to a variety of synonyms for the words you’re using and can help you express your thoughts with a bit more flair. However, using a thesaurus does come with a caveat: avoid using complex words just for the sake of appearing more sophisticated. Always choose words that best fit the context and effectively convey what you’re trying to say.

Join a writing group

Beyond being a place to talk about words, writing groups let you test your understanding of words in real time. Writing groups provide valuable insight into whether your word choices effectively convey your intended meaning. Seeing how other writers use their own vocabularies to share their own meanings is a great way to see how word choice can make your writing richer and more nuanced

Play word games

Playing word games is not only fun but is also an effective way to expand your vocabulary. For instance, games like Scrabble challenge you to form varying words from a set of letters, crossword puzzles can improve your understanding and recall of words, and games like Boggle can stimulate quick thinking around word formation.

Keep a word journal

Every time you encounter a new and intriguing word, whether through reading, conversation, or even during a TV show, jot it down in your word journal. Follow it up by researching its meaning, synonyms, and usage in sentences. Revisit these entries frequently, and try to incorporate these words into your writing somehow, even if it’s only during practice sessions. Over time, you’ll notice these new words naturally creeping into your vocabulary.

Sometimes simple is best

While having a broad vocabulary is an asset for any writer, it’s also important to remember that effective communication is what it’s all about, and sometimes, simpler words serve this purpose best. Not every situation calls for intricate or sophisticated language; in fact, often, using simpler, more direct language can make your message clearer and more accessible to a wider audience. More important than a wide vocabulary is an understanding of your readers and the message you want to convey in your text.

[lovetogether]

here i will send an ask to inquire because perhaps you would like to share a bit about them on your blog .... what oc's have you been workshopping!!! i would like to know the secrets. what has tumblr user lovetogether been cooking

Hello hello our dear friend allister! Rubs hands together… eheheh, since T:MLs (last big oc story we did) we’ve been mostly working on tiny oc “drabbles”? I guess you could call them. We have bursts of scenes and whatnot but that’s about it. They mostly exist to . Have fun . We’re a writer at heart though so they do have a bit of narrative set up - anyhow! Come with us down here into this wine cellar,

First one is this ^

This is “Humanity”, a man made passion project of sorts. It’s mostly based off glados, portal two in general, and our own alienation from people and tendency for “escape” but not in a manner close to usual “fandomites” (Is that a word..? I just made it up…) Humanity’s deal is it was maybe a “human” (used loosely as you know we draw most people as kemono) at one point but was then wiped and given many mechanical enhancements. Its essentially and a i trained off only human made media like films and tv shows, it’s connected to tons of TVs in its main sorta “lab” (shown in the tiny drawing) nd these screens will reflect snippets of movies and tv shows which coincide with whatever emotion Humanity is mimicking at the moment. Despite the heavy media training though Humanity remains mostly emotionless, only mimicking what it’s been fed. It’s never actually been given field training. And it never will. The lab in a portal two type situation was abandoned for one reason or another, the place only inhabits machines now, including Humanity. The place is overgrown and lonely. We have this idea that a girl ends up there, maybe Chell style (can you tell we like portal lolol) but she’s like, a child. This child is Humanity’s first like experience with a real person and it’s confused by her lack of - what was on the screen. It learns from here, we think at first it rejects the truth of humans, opting to believe what it was trained on, but it eventually learns.

Next is Persimmon :-) !! Or Persi (per-see) for short ! He’s a young chipper business man who died and ended up in the afterlife, he’s kinda comparable to a zombie? His premise is sorta dark humor-ish, apologies to viewers out there-! He was a very upbeat businessman and then one day a slight inconvenience happened at work and so he went home and offed himself in the tub. He resides in the afterlife now and is pretty chill with this. He often greets new comers and whatnot, his excited energy towards everything is sorta welcoming..? He’s extremely open about the fact he ended his life and is very chill about this, when questioned about his life and he goes on to say it was fine which then spawns the question “why’d you do it?” He sorta just smiles and shrugs. Admittedly a very dark humor type concept but we just wanted to make something which made harder topics like that a bit easier to stomach as those kinds of things have always left us numb rather than offended. We’d want people to feel okay with themselves, nd in a weird way his optimism is sorta a..? “It could happen to anyone” type thing, through the dark humor we create something earnest. As always.

Finally here’s Donut! She’s a coworker alongside our other workshopped oc Delilah “Dell” Coordinates . They’re “fbi agents” cause well they’re based off twin peaks characters. We don’t really care about fbi type junk though so they’ll just be defunct detectives or something funny like that. Donut is chill for the most part, bringing the sorta straight man edge to a case but with a kind demeanor. She waves off supernatural but in no way undermines believers. But don’t let her lax attitude fool you! She’s extremely skilled. She doesn’t linger but she also doesn’t rush yknow? She’s maybe a lowkey daydreamer but a realistic one, she enjoys the simpler things…

Oh my god we forgot to say, Persi is a stoat and Donut is a white tailed mongoose. Yus 👍 oh and, Persi + Humanity are sorta “us-based” ocs which means we don’t reeally? Have set pronouns? They’re agender. Yuuup. You can use he or she for them . We defaulted to it for Humanity cause it felt right. And he for Persi cause of the businessman title. But really we don’t care. Thank youu ~!

[wooyoungisbaby]

@starhwa-1117 : Do you have any tips for me?:D

Art tips with Isak ✨

I won't sit here and pretend i'm some kind of amazing artist, but here are some of the things that have really helped me:

Avoid tangents This possibly sounds weird if you've never heard of the concept before, but it's the closest thing I've ever found to an actual art hack. It was a pretty easy way for me to understand something that had always bothered me about my art. I won't waste time explaining it here, because there are several great youtube videos about it. Take your pick! :) I think I watched all of them when i was figuring this all out, because i was so fascinated and happy that I finally understood what had been bothering me.

Use reference! As much as you can! Find reference for the poses, the character, objects, lighting, colour palettes, anything you can think to look up. Using reference is never cheating, unless you like... Trace someone else's work, or it veers into plagiarism in some other way. And even if it does, that's okay if you're just practicing.

Think of art as communication When you've finished a sketch, take a step back and look at it. Think to yourself, - What did I want to communicate with this piece? - Did I accomplish that so far? - If not: What can I do to communicate what I want to convey more clearly? What you wanted to communicate might be something really simple like, say, Character A is sleepy. Look at what you did to communicate that. If you want it to be even clearer still, look up reference of sleepy characters in the same art style you're drawing in, see what other artists have done to communicate sleepiness, and then steal their techniques lol<3 (but like fr)

Avoid overcomplication Of course some pieces are meant to be super complicated with teeny details, and if that's your thing, go for it! However, I find that especially with character design, it's often a good idea to try to go as simple as possible. And I don't mean boring!! Let me make an example,

See how 2 gets across the same idea, but a lot simpler, easier to read? In picture 2, each item is bigger and has its purpose, whereas in picture 1, some of the items are very small and can drown out when the viewer is trying to take it all in at once. This is not to say that 1 is bad or wrong, not at all! If you're drawing a close up portrait of someone with that style of 984343 hair accessories, by all means draw all of them! But if for example you're designing a character that's going to be shown in a full- or half body shot, or even landscape shots, it can be really helpful to think about how you can easily get the design across as simply as possible, without sacrificing your character's uniqueness.

Doodle :) Draw little sillies that are just for fun, and aren't meant to be good. In tandem with reference, find out what works for you, how you can most easily - and enjoyably - get your drawings to express what you want them to. Experiment with materials or different brushes and programs, see what feels good to use :)

Drawfee Just a little plug here at the end, Drawfee is a youtube channel where the hosts do art, talk, and have fun. They do patreon art lesson streams with a WIDE variety of topics, and they upload the lessons afterwards on youtube for free! This is one of my favourite ones, just two one of them doodling and chilling :) They have a lesson on making fonts, perspective, several on anatomy and character design, effective ways to practice, composition, animation, and the list goes on. This is hashtag not sponsored lol, i just really love them and their content :)

[talenlee]

Dev Pile 2025-22 — Sharkuterie

Rapid prototyping is the practice of taking a game idea and then, within a fixed timeframe, doing what you can to create a workable version of that game. It’s game jam stuff. Except we call it ‘rapid prototyping’ in the academic space because game jams sound far too fun.

Rapid prototyping is a practice I love doing and I recommend you do it because it lets you mess around with pens and paper. You get to break from rules about how things are or aren’t meant to be used: you aren’t supposed to draw on game components. You aren’t supposed to rip up things and make them into new things. The prototype I expect to make with this game, in this post, is going to be playable in a deck of cards that I’m going to draw all over with a pair of permanent markers, you know?

However. I guess we’ll do it as a content warning.

Content Warning: This is going to discuss and show the work of generative media tools, specifically Microsoft Copilot. I am not paying for Copilot; it is being paid for by my work. I am using it as a tool and trying to give an honest assessment of what it does and as a designer, the things that it can do. This should not be considered as a recommendation for these tools. I want to talk to you about the things they do not do well, and the things you can use them for.

Also, I’m writing all of this. I’m writing about the experience of using Copilot, not using Copilot to write about it. After all, surely Copilot would never say anything nepotistically self-praising since it is after all such a good program that does not do anything you will complain about later.

What Did I Do With Copilot?

The idea was that if Copilot (and other tools of its type) present themselves as everythingamajigs. They can do everything in every part of a process. I booted it up, and told it that I wanted to make a card game. I had an idea; I wanted a game about mermaids making charcuterie boards, with the threat of a shark taking food. I called it sharkuterie, and I told Copilot I wanted it to help me make it. It offered to present sample rules, and I said sure.

It then proceeded to give me completely dogshit rules that needed around 100 cards to be interesting, multiple types of tokens and counters, and a board. Simply put, it sucked.

I told it those rules were bad and instead I suggested a game about a set of 9 small decks, and each stack had a shark in them. You had to be careful about how far you could go in any stack without getting a shark to bother you. This is from my game design Camp Osum. I actually really liked this idea in hindsight, with the idea that once a shark has left a stack, you want to plunder that stack, which means players wind up with valuable boards… that are then in danger now they have to work on other stacks.

Gunna use that idea somewhere else.

Anyway, I didn’t like this idea for this set collector. I didn’t really get a good feel for it, but also, this wound up consuming a lot of card space, and meant for a 50ish card deck, in 9 stacks, with a shark in each, that’s 41 cards and each stack would be pretty small. That kind of sucks, I don’t like that. Plus, there’s nothing spatial in it. If there’s a grid of cards, and the stacks are slowly shrinking, it should mean something, like are you hiding behind these stacks as they wear down or something?

I told Copilot to ditch that idea, and instead I wanted a simpler version of a more blackjack style, flip-from-the-top game. I told it the mechanics I wanted, I realised that this meant I could put in an ‘attracts the shark’ stat, and then all I needed was a way to make the cards you collect meaningfully different, and for them to represent charcuterie. I asked Copilot to list to me what goes into a Charcuterie, and it suggested a list, then asked me if I wanted it to produce some thematically appropriate card examples.

And… I told it okay.

It produced then a list of perfectly reasonable but not great card names, with things like ‘kelp cheese,’ or ‘jellyfish wine,’ and then offered to use its image generator to make some proxy cards. Which, again, testing the device, I said okay.

I’m not hosting the image here because it sucked and it sucked so bad that I didn’t bother to save it. It wasn’t an image of a proxy card; it was angled, it showed a bunch of cards, partially, and unclearly, with no meaningful text on them. It was not producing what it described, it was producing, well, the slop picture for a news story about those things.

Then I asked Copilot to compile a summary of this I could share with my students, and I put that in a document for them.

The Actual Game Though

Anyway, this meant that I had a ‘game’ I made, and spent the next day just making the card images and finding stock art to make a version of the game that looked like non-ass.

This is an example of what I think of as a ‘deck’ game. It’s 52 cards, held in a single box. No tokens, no counters. You remove exactly one card, you shuffle the deck, and then the game starts.

1 Shark Card

51 Ingredient Cards. Each card has a name, a type, three stack values, a blood value, and rules text.

5 Bread Cards (Bread Type, Stack Value: 1, 0 Blood. Rules Text: +1 if your board is full!)

4 Red Windsor Cards (Cheese Type, Stack Values: 1-2, 3 Blood. Rules Text: Can’t be next to meat!)

5 Swiss Cards (Cheese Type, Stack Values: 1-2-4, 2 Blood. Rules Text: Can’t be next to fruit!)

6 Parmesan Cards (Cheese Type, Stack Values: 1-2-3, 1 Blood. Rules Text: +1 if it’s a corner!)

4 Blood Orange Cards (Fruit Type, Stack Values: 1-2, 3 Blood. Rules Text: Can’t be next to cheese!)

5 Kiwi Fruit Cards (Fruit Type, Stack Values: 1-2-4, 1 Blood. Rules Text: +1 if it’s the middle!)

6 Grapes Cards (Fruit Type, Stack Values: 1-2-3, 2 Blood. Rules Text: Can’t be next to meat!)

4 Blood Clam Cards (Meat Type, Stack Values: 1-2, 3 Blood. Rules Text: Can’t be next to fruit!)

5 Salami Cards (Meat Type, Stack Values: 1-2-4, 2 Blood. Rules Text: Can’t be next to cheese!)

6 Seared Seitan Cards (Meat Type, Stack Values: 1-2-3, 1 Blood. Rules Text: Sharks Don’t Want This!)

1 Salt Cards (Seasoning Type, 0 Blood. Rules Text: Add to Any Stack!)

This description is a little tightly packed. To unpack it a little more; there are meat, cheese, and fruit card types. There’s also a type of bread card, and there’s a single seasoning card. These indicate how they relate to one another; you get a point for each type on your board at the end of the game, encouraging you to get everything.

Cards have blood values. This indicates how likely it is to get the attention of a shark. Things with high values are likely to get attention to a shark.

And on those high values, stacks can be worth 1 point, 2 points, or 3 points; but to get 3 points, you need to have the number of cards in your stack minimum to get there. So if you have 3 Salami cards in your stack of Salami, it’s worth 3 points. This follows for

Each card has a score value, a rule for how it relates to other cards in your tray, and a number of blood drops on it that indicate if it pulls the shark’s attention. If while you’re flipping cards, you reveal a total of 5 or more blood, a shark shows up. Your turn ends, you put the cards you’ve drawn onto your board, and then a shark eats the biggest stack you have. If there’s a draw between those, it’ll eat the stack of the thing with the most blood. If there’s a draw between those you can choose one to throw to the shark. Stick the eaten cards in a discard pile. They’re out of the game, face-up.

When you get stuff eaten by a shark, you get the Shark card. That Shark then signals who last got the shark, and on your turn if you still have the shark, the next time a shark comes to bother you, you can ignore it the first time; add the flipped cards to your board, and then start flipping again like it’s the start of a new turn.

You only ever wind up with six slots on your charcuterie board. When a player gets six items, that player drops out. This continues until every player has six cards.

Once you’ve done your turn, you hand the deck to the next player and they go.

Copilot Final Notes

The game, as designed, is entirely my own product at this point. Using Copilot sped me through some processes, and it gave me some good lists of material information I could build out, then change as I checked my art assets. And, in that summary of the document I told it to do…? It dropped the version of the game with the stacks of cards. It just didn’t put that whole section of the conversation in. Which I guess makes sense, because it’s summarising the end product and working backwards, but that is itself part of the problem, because that summary doesn’t include an explanation of what I did and why I didn’t do it that way. It doesn’t show the failures and the reasons they’re failures.

Look, Copilot did some really cool things in this process. It did do some things that were very convenient for me, and I think it was useful for me specifically because I am a smug, superior asshole who looks at the writing output of others and occasionally consider how this should be better written. When it showed me a set of cards with names like ‘kelp crackers’ I immediately went: That sucks, you stupid machine.

The mechanics in this game didn’t come from Copilot. When I explained my idea, it wrote up a version of the game rule and a game loop that was both indescribably generic and very bad. It will punch out a standard set of templated rules mechanics, which look more or less like a generic family game, and notably, it won’t do a good job of expressing any kind of conclusion. Games that it pops out don’t have a distinct, clear end-game, and tend to be conflict averse. They’ll list numerous features, but not how they interact or, importantly, why people should want to do them.

Given that games are fundamentally an interface and incentives, a tool that isn’t good for showing why people want to do things and isn’t good at showing how things interact is a tool that has some limited ability to draw conclusions.

But the thing is, that’s still a really useful tool? Because the things it can do is stuff that is hard and tedious to do in game design. I don’t know what goes into a charcuterie board. Having someone else read two dozen recipe blogs with terrible stories written by mommy blogger foodies (the meat version of a LLM), and then explain to me the generalities of what should go into a charcuterie board. I wound up ignoring one of the categories (‘sweet’), because I didn’t have infinite card space, and wanted the decisions to be reasonably parsed out. It can do basic distributions, semi-random number things, things that computers are good at and it used to be hard to ask them for it.

And like.

Thing is.

For ‘give me standardised distributions of cards that I can use to create variety in gameplay experiences,’ that’s something that I know friends of mine can do. They know the math. Or they can write the simple python code to do it. Or they know the right person to look up for it. That’s good, and that’s not a thing you need to go out of your own way for if you already know how to do it. What these tools offer you is an interface you can use to get through things in game making you’re not good at.

I’ve been an advocate for some time in making your games so you don’t have to do the things you don’t want to do. If you don’t want to write dialogue, don’t make a game that features dialogue. If you don’t want to do elaborate resource management, if that doesn’t appeal to you, don’t design a game with that.

I don’t think this is a good tool for making a game. I think it’s a good tool for making parts of games. If you struggle with clear rules and readability, this is good for tidying up your wording. If you struggle with things like arrays, where you need to have something to keep a large number of cards or pieces straight, and you’re not a big spreadsheet dork like me? This is a useful tool.

But if you ask it to make something, what it makes will suck, and it will drop things that it shouldn’t drop in the name of convenience.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[miloscat]

[Review] The Wonderful End of the World (PC)

"We have Katamari at home."

While playing the latest two Katamari games, I remembered playing the demo for this many years ago on my family computer, when Steam was new to us and free gaming experiences were precious. Dejobaan Games is a small American studio led by Ichiro Lambe who later would join Valve himself, but this is one of their earliest games, and it doesn't really try to hide that it's a Katamari clone. But that's ok!

The game itself has no explanation of the premise (or a credits sequence for that matter), but the store description lays out that the end of the world is imminent, and your task as a kind of magical puppet is to absorb objects in order to save them before disaster strikes. We can also gather from the title and menu screens and their vocal theme song that there's some girl with a knowing smirk who is controlling the puppet. That's about it. To be fair you don't need much of an excuse, and honestly I was sick of the King of All Cosmos's long rambling monologues anyway…

As this homunculus, you run around small levels picking up things and growing larger. It's all very familiar, except without the unique and tricky control scheme that Katamari is known for. It still works with a simple movement method though, and the core gameplay remains inherently satisfying. The 12 levels are simpler and shorter than most Katamari stages, but they have an interesting variety to them. For example, in addition to more standard locations like a library, a neighbourhood, and a mall, you get more abstract stages: a mashup of classic arcade games, an assortment of word blocks, a garden made of sweets, or one where the objects to gather are in a 2D clip art style. There's also two secret levels that uniquely give you the ability to jump [space bar]; both are made of stacked cube blocks but one of them themes said blocks after Portal's companion cube, complete with a cover of Still Alive!

The objects that you gather are more detailed than Katamari's intentionally low-poly style, but with a sort of amateurish, homebrew feel to the modelling. I found it difficult at times to judge whether I'd be big enough to absorb them or not, as their relative volumes aren't as clearly communicated as in TWEotW's inspiration. You're also scored on number of objects collected rather than your total size, and I couldn't tell if there was a weighting factor to my growth or if that was also based on a simple quantity. Progression is gated by getting A ranks in levels, which require you to reach a hidden size/object goal within the short time limit, but you can replay levels without a time restriction.

Judged strictly against Katamari games, this feels like a low-rent knockoff. But in its context it was a part of the exciting 2000s indie boom, a new studio finding its feet with a proven formula, a cheaper computer-based homage to a console-exclusive franchise, and for me a fun few hours on my Steam Deck while sick in bed. For a game made by six people it's a decent Katamari clone and I'm glad it exists. The demo is still available so try it out why not!

[doorplays]

Door Reviews: A Bunch of Games, Quickly!

I realize I haven’t reviewed some games, and rather than make a separate review post for each of them, I decided to make a big post with short reviews for each of them! Let’s get to it:

Door Reviews: Frog Detective 1: The Haunted Island

This game is a cute little detective game. You control the game’s eponymous Frog Detective, called on to solve a mystery in an island. The art is very cute, and the vibes are just as cute. The mystery itself doesn’t have much mystery to it, but I like how cute it is. It’s a short and sweet experience!

Door Rates Frog Detective 1: The Haunted Island: 3/5!

—

Door Reviews: Lethal Company

This game is about cooperation: get into a facility, take all of the scrap, and leave. Make sure you get enough scrap to pay all your expenses. And make sure you and your friends survive! In each facility are dangerous creatures that are ready to kill everyone. You all have to be careful and decide how much to take and when to leave.

It’s a nice game, but I wasn’t drawn in enough to it to play it consistently. I found it Pretty Okay overall. I’d play it more if I had more time!

Door Rates Lethal Company: 3.5/5!

—

Door Reviews: Content Warning

This game is similar to Lethal Company, but I prefer it due to the simpler style and simpler interactions. Instead of getting scrap, you have to get footage of your friends and the monsters in the game. More unique footage means more views. Each level, you have a view count you have to meet.

I like it more than Lethal Company. I enjoyed memeing with my friends! The only issue I have really is my own schedule haha, same as Lethal Company. But I enjoyed my time with it.

Door Rates Content Warning: 3.5/5!

—

Door Reviews: Final Fantasy 9

I started playing this mid 2024 or so. It’s a mix of turn-based and real-time combat, where your characters get to act in a set time. Typical Final Fantasy fare at the time. The story is grand. Starts with a thieving ploy and gets brought to wild places. Character design and art is great! I love Vivi, Quina, Freya. But the game felt like such a slog. It felt too long for me. I still haven’t finished it, but someday I will. For now, I paused it and am rating it as below.

Door Rates Final Fantasy 9: 4/5!

—

Door Reviews: Rabbit and Steel (Demo)

Rabbit & Steel is kind of a scary game for me! It feels like a sort of bullet hell. It has similar vibes to FFXIV raid mechanics, transplanted to 2d space. It feels intense. I like the classes and the attacks. I feel like I can have fun with it the more I play it. It does its job as a demo! I’m not inclined to buy it yet, though, but maybe someday.

Door Rates Rabbit and Steel (Demo): 3.5/5!

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Door Reviews: The Rise of the Golden Idol (Demo)

This game is the sequel to The Case of the Golden Idol, released in 2022. So far, it feels like it’s the same vibe but a bit more streamlined. I don’t quite know how to feel yet about the UI. It does feel like it needs a bit more polish. Nonetheless, the cases I played are still gripping, and has the combination of gameplay and story I love. I bought the game soon after playing the demo, so expect a review of the actual game soon!

Door Rates The Rise of the Golden Idol (Demo): 4/5!

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And that’s that! Tune in for More Reviews soon!

[agentnico]

Late Night with the Devil (2024) review

Nothing beats retro 70’s demonic haunting. It was a simpler time…

Plot: Johnny Carson rival Jack Delroy hosts a syndicated talk show ‘Night Owls’ that has long been a trusted companion to insomniacs around the country. However, ratings for the show have plummeted since the tragic death of Jack's beloved wife. Desperate to turn his fortunes around, on October 31st, 1977, Jack plans a Halloween special like no other- unaware he is about to unleash evil into the living rooms of America.

Ladies and gentlemen, please do not adjust your television sets, for there is a new found-footage horror film in town from the indy circuit, and it might just breath the right amount of fresh air into an oversaturated genre. Personally I’ve never been a major fan of found-footage. I hear folks raving about the original Blair Witch Project yet all I watched was a bunch of guys running around the woods screaming endlessly for no reason. Additionally the shaky-cam element can be so dizzying and sickly that I truly end up questioning the entertainment value of it all. There are exceptions to the rule of course. 2008’s science fiction invasion popcorn flick Cloverfield was tons of fun, as it provided a genuine experience of what it would be like if you were thrown right into the middle of monster attack in the millennial age. There are also some genuine scares and the found footage format worked really well with the film’s themes. I too enjoyed the 2020 black comedy Spree, where Joe Keery’s driver goes on a murder spree whilst constantly filming himself in hopes of becoming a viral sensation. It may not be a five-star ride, but it earns its tip for being a well crafted and inspired effort. To be fair, The Visit from M. Night Shyamalamadingdong was enjoyable piece of horror involving creepy grandparents. Okay, maybe I do enjoy found-footage flicks, but as long as they are decently made and that format style supports the narrative in a cohesive and advantageous way.

With Late Night with the Devil, ideologies of faith and the paranormal are challenged through the lens of the late-night TV format. Think how the 1976 Network analysed the corruption of the television industry, and how the camera can influence the politics and beliefs of those watching, Late Night with the Devil does the same but with the supernatural. Presented as a rediscovered master tape of a notorious Halloween late night special, it feels like we’re watching an actual talk show in real time, and the 70’s inspiration is in full display here from the grainy monitor display to the costumers to the special effects. It truly feels like we’re looking into a time capsule of the past, and that this all really happened. Again, found-footage as a filmmaking style works when it serves the purpose of the narrative, which in this case it does. It is a shame then that the movie in its finale loses the found-footage element and instead opts for the shock value by showcasing a dream-like vision of one of the characters. Granted at the time of watching the ending it did give me a “what the fuck” reaction that the movie was going for, but looking back this sequence did hinder what otherwise was a fantastic piece of creepy unique horror.

Performances across the entire cast were great and really dedicated. Wonderful to see David Dastmalchian finally get a leading role, as he’s always been a stand-out supporting performer, whether he was polka-dotting in The Suicide Squad, or stealing the comedic limelight from Paul Rudd in the Ant-Man movies, or being a haunting presence in every Denis Villeneuve epic. Dastmalchian is a true scene stealer, and at age 48 it is shocking that only now he finally gets a lead role. Regardless he is fantastic as Jack Delroy, as he balances the charming charisma of a late-night talk show host whilst also showcases the inner demons of this character, still mourning the recent death of his wife, as well as his eagerness to become relevant again after consistently losing ratings. From the quivers in his voice to the fear in his eyes, this is a really juicy showcasing role for Dastmalchian and one that is sure to be a memorable one when looking back on the actor’s rich filmography. Ingrid Torelli as Lilly the possessed survivor of a Satanic cult was truly creepy and unnerving. From her voice changes to her awkward movements, she truly felt unnatural, or dare I say supernatural, and her strangeness was at times even comical, but also really uncomfortable. Ian Bliss as Carmichael Hunt, a paranormal sceptic, too gave a powerhouse performance, delivering lines with prowess and was a truly commanding presence. Rhys Auteri rounds up the cast as Gus the announcer of Jack’s late night show, acting very befit of, say, a Higgins for Jimmy Fallon or a Guillermo for Jimmy Kimmel. He very much embraced the role as Dastmalchian’s side-kick and provided some solid light-hearted comedy to the proceedings.

Late Night with the Devil is a true delight for horror enthusiasts, with some great use of old-school practical effects evidently inspired by 1982’s The Thing, solid sound design that harkened back to that era of television, and enough unsettling moments of suspense to entertain and shock. Minus a couple of cheap electrical sparks there isn’t any CGI used which is refreshing, and overall visually the retro element was truly delightful. Again, the ending does scratch some heads, but overall this is a refreshing piece of campy horror, with a showcasing performance from Dastmalchian. In this you can truly put your faith on.

Overall score: 7/10

[ogradyfilm]

Recently Viewed: River (2023)

[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]

In many ways, River is less artistically ambitious than Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes, its spiritual predecessor (with which it shares the same writer and director, as well as several actors).

For one thing, the mechanics governing the temporal paradox around which its plot revolves are much more conventional. Unlike the earlier movie’s bold, novel, innovative experimentation with “the Droste effect/mise en abyme,” River features a relatively traditional time loop; every few minutes, the characters are abruptly teleported back to the beginning of the cycle—a phenomenon akin to rewinding a VHS tape or reloading a save file in a video game. Consequently, its visual style is comparatively modest. Whereas the previous film is presented in a single, seamless, uninterrupted shot (or rather a reasonable facsimile thereof), for example, the anachronic structural framework here allows the editors to dispense with such elaborate illusions; whenever the action “resets,” the transition between each repetition is easily “hidden” in plain sight via a blatant match cut—an obvious yet elegant solution to an inherently challenging (and extremely popular) gimmick.

Despite these superficial differences, River manages to rival its companion piece where it really matters—in sheer unpredictability. As the narrative unfolds, the initially comedic conflict gradually evolves, veering into delightfully unexpected dramatic territory. Indeed, the story eventually develops into a genuinely compelling meditation on the self-destructive nature of anticipatory anxiety—how an irrational fear of the future can halt a person in their tracks, preventing them from moving forward, making progress, pursuing their dreams, living—with the eponymous body of water (constant, ceaseless, relentlessly flowing) serving as a brilliant central metaphor.

While River owes its greatest emotional resonance to its imaginative premise, deft tonal shifts, and rich thematic subtext, however, its true appeal lies in its simpler moment-to-moment pleasures—ultimately, it excels because it’s just cute, charming, and a whole lot of fun. What more could you ask for from a cinematic experience?