#its fun to put in game mechanics into a backstory

[ralofofriverwoods]

For the ask game: Pinewatch and Cistern

Pinewatch: If you could rewrite the backstory of any character, who would it be? What would it be?

Hmmm this is a hard one! Usually I don't mess much with existing character backstories, but it would have been nice to be expanded upon would be Irileth+ balgruuf's, and how they became friends, as well as whatever the fuck ulfric was doing before he shouted the high king to bits. I have a feeling I wouldn't actually change much of those though

One that id actually change would be gelebor and his brother's story. It seems weird that his brother would become a vampire, assuming they never left the forgotten vale. The only thing that the entire region has to do with vampires is that auriel's bow is there, and that's practically an antithesis to a vampire's existence! And it also doesn't make sense that gelebor and his bro are the ONLY live snow elves left, and the rest became falmer.

So id change pretty much everything about the forgotten vale, inhabitant wise.

Firstly, id alter what areas have falmer. The caves and stuff could definitely still have em and be believable, since iirc they're connected to Skyrim(or at least close enough), but the open areas(like the place with the dragons) should still have 'uncorrupted' snow elves. Sure it may not be a metropolis, but it would be like a small town in Skyrim at least. Like rorikstead and karthwasten combined, perhaps.

Second, I'd have to connect how vampires happen. As we know there's really only one way in canon to get vampirism straight from the source, which is molag bal, but I think that's stupid and I don't like him so I added sanguine as another way. That being said I think it would actually come from some vampire travelers. Gelebor welcomes you to the forgotten vale pretty easily, even if you've collected daedric artifacts like pokemon cards, so it would be safe to assume they either don't check very far for daedric influence, or they kind of just don't give a shit. Either way, I think this is how vampirism was introduced.

Some adventurers made a journey to the forgotten vale, possibly hearing about some ancient treasure or boon from auriel, and met a knight paladin that welcomed them, and didn't notice a vampire in the group(or that they were all vampires, either works). From there everything was normal, but a vampire decided to have a snack one night, and accidentally(or on purpose) infected someone with vampirism.

This could lead to either a split between vampire Snow elves+non vamp snow elves, or a small circle that simply collect power under everyone's noses. This could go on for generations, until gelebor and his brother eventually became fully fledged knight paladins, at which point they would be split just like in the base game, but with more people backing them up on either side.

Of course you could then choose between these mini factions as the dragonborn, depending on what side of the quest you are playing. If playing on the vamp hunting side, you'd be able to turn a few vampires back, who would then become followers, and vice versa. If you wanted you could even have the brothers be convinced to join the other side with persuasion or intimidation, depending if you wanted to be more or less angsty. You'd need a high score in either to do that though, at least lvl 80 speech.

This would also fix the sad reality in the game, that the only snow elf that yet lives(and isn't falmer) was gelebor, who killed his own brother for somehow becoming a vampire. I think it would be much more narratively appealing to have both 'uncorrupted' snow elves and 'corrupted' falmer exist at the same time, in big enough numbers to each have their own societies. It would open up a good opportunity for the falmer+snow elves to make an allied debut back into the world at large in a future game as well!tes6

Cistern: Which Guild Hall is your favorite? Why?

Unmodded id have to say sky haven temple. It has very pretty architecture, and though I haven't seen it past where you're supposed to kill paarthurnax(because I'm not killing peepaw partysnax >:( ) it's still very pretty. This may change when I actually progress that story line, but ATM it's not half bad. The finished thieves guild and dark brotherhood aren't too shabby either, though the tortured people in the dark brotherhood take a solid 3 points away from the atmosphere.

Overall I like all of them so it's hard to pick favorites, but as I'm still not used to seeing sky haven much, they've deffo got my vote.

Modded would have to be the thieves guild with the opulent thieves guild mod. From just the screenshots alone that shit is killer in the best way. Much warmer and more welcoming(at least for a cistern)

[nitrowyverine]

Finally played the TOUCHSTARVED Demo! Still thinking about it over a week later.

(Above: Steam banner image for TOUCHSTARVED from Red Spring Studios)

I love it SO MUCH. and i have QUESTIONS. my extended thoughts below the cut [Demo spoilers included]

General thoughts:

this game is SO up my alley that it's insane. local goth gaming nerd is kicking their feet and giggling

the music? and sound design? It's honestly incredible, even beyond the infamous Every Time We Touch cover (Which is how I found this game). We all have to be giving more props to the music/sound work, it absolutely punches the experience up so many notches. When a soundtrack is released I'm immediately keeping it on hand for all my tabletop needs

absolutely enamored with the backstory mechanic. It adds so much individual depth to the character. you can feel attached to your MC without them being a complete blank slate. I absolutely love that different MC backstories have you pick up different details about the characters. (My favorite is The Hound immediately picking out who the leaders are amongst the group, in contrast to the other MC backgrounds)

I wanna eat the backgrounds. I wanna eat them whole. They're so detailed and colorful and have a great sense of depth. 100000/10

Specific character thoughts/theories:

(Images courtesy of the Touchstarved character Lore posts from the Red Spring Studio socials. I'll be linking them in each of the character's names)

Ais:

Thank you, Red Spring studios, for blessing the players with the ability to bite him if you're an ass to him the entire demo. You truly know what we want

Lore seems to indicate that Ais came over from the demon realm for some unknown reason, and was possibly some kind of demon king or leader? Fascinated to learn what happens there

Ngl the Seaspring looks like it would taste good. My favorite raspberry/rhubarb tea looks just like the Seaspring water. Gimme the group juice.

Question: If Ais gets infected with MC's madness....does that mean. the WHOLE groupmind gets infected? Humans and soulless alike? That's a city-destroying disaster waiting to happen

CONCLUSION: Most likely to adopt 6 dogs instead of picking up the groceries. Least likely to let you have the car aux cable.

Kuras:

I do believe Kuras is the actual best shot at a cure/treatment of all candidates. Assuming the curse is some level of demonic, an angel's touch is probably the best bet.

Let me be clear here though, I do think he might just go "Well you can just like. not have arms" and take them. That is a possibility

Most of the other characters I can get a rough idea of what they want and why. Kuras? I have NO idea what his goal is, which is very frightening.

Twitter bio image does say "Repentant Angel", and that his fatal flaw is "his sins can only be repaid through suffering". Possible linkage to Lovent's fall? Or another major disaster?

its okay sweaty we all get The Guilt (tm)

If Kuras somehow gets MC's maddness (I have a feeling it may not effect him? but if it did) that would just. end the world right there.

CONCLUSION: Most likely to be the one guy you might be able to bring home to your parents. Least likely to put on oven mitts to take a frozen pizza out of the oven.

Vere:

I love Vere for being the character I thought I could trust the least, turning into a character I actually trust allot. I trust him to be extremely dangerous. He probably wasn't lying when he said his heart is on his sleeve.

Also, big props for having him just kill you in one of the demo endings. What a guy, I love him, no notes

Wait what he's over 100 according to his birthday post. thats, allot? older? than I thought?. okay yeah the lore posts mention he's a possible deity figure. not comforting

Vere is very fae-logic coded. Like, the words he says can be true and false at the same time. Don't tell him your name, he will cannibalize you for fun, etc etc ya know fae stuff.

i will protect him always

CONCLUSION: Most likely to fuck your dad. Least likely to be your new stepdad.

Mihn:

Mihn is much dodgier than the rest, but I think that makes them more trustworthy. They're not as interested as playing games.

I nominate Mihn as a secondary protagonist, since Leander, Ais, and Kuras seem to be interested in them quite a bit. Even Vere has a rivalmance kinda thing going for Mihn. If MC didn't show up, that would be the dating sim right there

I'm excited by the lore post and the implications that Mihn is from Lovent (or has traveled there? and survived?) and potentially getting greater lore expansion about the world surrounding Eridia

I think it's interesting that their strength stat is relatively low compared to the others, yet they're one of the characters that actually uses their strength in the demo.

Also, I think we see the least of their "monstrous form" of everyone in the demo (minus their ability to dodge in and out of shadows). I'm thrilled to see what their monstrous form actually entails.

Mihn would survive bloodborne. That's it thats the entire thought

CONCLUSION: Most likely to do all the work in a group project. Least likely to be chill during Mario Party.

Leander:

OKAY ALL OF MY QUESTIONS ARE HERE. I AM DEEPLY AFRAID. Something is absolutely wrong but we have no current ability to pinpoint what it is.

I've seen theories Leander is dead. However, in Vere's route, he mentions that Leander smells like aftershave. While this could be part of an extra-elaborate ruse, hair doesn't grow after death (Minus the appearance of it happening due to natural decay processes) so he wouldn't need to shave. However, I am betting on him being involved in some sort of un-death cycle.

actually I can guarantee his story is all about cycles. Has anyone else mentioned how his belt is the triple goddess symbol.

you know. the symbol of maiden/mother/crone. birth/life/death. beginning/middle/end. like

Moving on, the vast majority of his smiles are forced (Mouth is smiling, but there's no eye movement/crinkle that would indicate it's genuine). That is enough of a red flag but honey I am so much more worried about my next point:

WHERE DOES HE GET HIS MONEY. He's constantly buying rounds of drinks for a packed bar. It's briefly mentioned his clothes are nice. He pays for anything MC needs. However, says Bloodhound rates are "Free". Where does he GET HIS MONEY for all of this. Twitter posts from Red Spring point out he doesn't accept bribes (at least overtly).

WAIT I'M REREADING THIS POST WHAT THE FUCK ARE THE SILENT CRYPTS.

Looking again at Leander's stat post. The Ouroboros in the background is. Not comforting. Also, "Forbidden Magic"? yeah I have a feeling we know why he's not in the Senobium

Theory, potentially Leander is currently being paid by the Senobium to maintain lowtown/Silent Crypts order? I think there's still a connection between them. Like the Senobuim can remain detached while having ties to whatever horrible things Leander is doing.

Okay, in the twitter relationship charts it says that Kuras has looked out for Leander "Since he was young". Kuras probably knows. SO much we don't.

When Mihn scolds Leander for not telling MC to be off the streets past dark. I think Leander intentionally "Forgot" to mention that. I think he wanted the MC to see how dangerous Eridia was so MC would stay closer to Leander for safety. I think it was a very intentional manipulation tactic.

(Furthermore, did he actually cast a spell of luck on MC when he gave them the lilies from his introduction magic trick? Then bet on the MC living through the day?)

I do think Leander's surprise at MC going out to the Seaspring was genuine, since his spit-take clashes so starkly with his cool-guy demeanor.

I also have a feeling that Leander has been past the veil/shroud. he's doing something fucky and the veil is prime fuckery territory.

(Are we...going to get a timeloop story????)

CONCLUSION: Most likely to dramatically use himself as a human bridge over a small puddle (as an excuse to get walked on). Least likely to remember to go to bed after playing Stardew Valley for 13 hours straight.

Touchstarved game things I'm concerned about:

(I feel like I wouldn't be doing my game designer duties if I didn't point out my concerns as well. To be fair, there aren't many.)

I hope the bad endings get fucked up, story-wise. Since it's a horror game, I know it might turn some people off to have things go super wrong, but I really hope they do. I want to see some endless pain vortexes, some real Juniji Ito-style suffering. But I would also understand if the devs want to softball some of the worst outcomes for the sake of widespread appeal.

We all have countless examples of kickstarter games looking strong out the gate, but then falling flat upon release. While I have high hopes for Touchstarved, I do know the reality and intense difficulty of kickstarter games. I'm really hoping the demo isn't the best the studio will have to offer.

OVERALL: I am rooting for the Touchstarved team/Red Spring Studio all the way! I'm thrilled to see where this game goes. I am poised on this purchase button and ready to buy when it releases.

[jq37]

FH Junior Year Post-Season Thoughts

With another season of Fantasy High in the books and my recaps all finished, I wanted to do an overview of my thoughts on the season as a whole. Even though I feel generally positive about my experience with the season, there are a few things I think maybe could have been done differently narratively or mechanically. This isn't to criticize the way the season went down or to backseat DM/Play. More my combined ten years of college for textual analysis and storytelling bleeding through, haha. 

I first want to start with the things I thought worked really well.

Fantasy High has "High" right in its title but, in past seasons (and especially Sophomore Year), not as much time as you'd think was spent actually at school and even if it was spent at school, there wasn't much time spent in class or engaging with the realities of being a student. This season really dug into the academic consequences of skipping your classes all the time and the realities of needing to do a ton of extra stuff to try for a scholarship and I think that was a refreshing thing to highlight for a change. Being more scared at flunking out than the dragon that's trying to eat you feels very emotionally resonant. Real "High School Is Killing Me" vibes for anyone who's a fan of NPMD. 

Even though Fantasy High is a show that has some deep emotional beats and strong character arcs, it's first and foremost a comedy show. From the jump, everyone was generating bit after bit that had me cracking up as usual. "Little girly dog collar" is one of the funniest combinations of words I can think of. I think it was Siobhan who said that this was the goofy season and, having seen it, I'd have to agree with her. It never failed to make me laugh and it was always a highlight of my week.  The cast just has great table chemistry that I love to watch no matter what they're doing. 

Watching some of these high level combat encounters is as close as I'll get to understanding people watching sports. Even though combat is generally my least fave part of D&D, I think the cast really killed it this season with how cleverly they played and Brennan came up with some really great combat encounters. Special shout outs to Baron's Game and The Last Stand for their unique mechanics.  

This is going to be one that's on the other list as well because my feelings are mixed, but I genuinely do like the downtime mechanic and how it forces hard choices. I think it's an interesting way to connect a mechanic to the story and cultivate stressful atmosphere for the season.

I have problems with the execution but I love the Rat Grinders in concept. I think as early as season 1 I was hoping that we'd meet a party that was like the Bizarro Bad Kids and the idea of a party that's farming XP instead of going on crazy adventures is a strong concept. Likewise, I think a character that's jealous because of your "cool" (read: tragic) backstory is also a fun trait for an unhinged antagonist in this kind of setting.

This is me absolutely showing my bias but I adored the Abernant Sisters content this season. I dunno if Siobhan specifically asked Brennan to not put her on a bus with the other beloved NPCs or what but I'm so glad she stuck around and we got the development we did. It was almost entirely ancillary to the plot but there was this clear pattern of Aelwyn getting softer and sweeter towards Adaine over the course of the season, from the guarded, "Enjoy the nemesis ward," to, full I love you's and, "I'd take them to get you." It was way more focus than I expected considering that Aelwyn completed the bulk of her arc last season and a lot of the time, a redemption arc basically ends after the big gesture (in this case, Aelwyn taking a magic blast for Adaine in Sophomore Year). So the fact that we got to see all of these sweet moments of them reestablishing their relationship outside of do or die moments was such a pleasant surprise. Again, I fully admit I am extremely biased, but this was my top wishlist item and the season overdelivered so there's a baseline happy I'm always gonna be with Junior Year. 

OK, so moving on to things I things I think could have been tweaked.

Even though I liked the downtime system and the pressures it created, it also squeezed out the chance for more casual PC to NPC interactions that would usually be more common because they were semi-locked behind the relationship track and there wasn't an obvious benefit to roll for Relationships (as opposed to something like Academics which was crucial for not flunking out). Making the mechanical benefit more clear would have helped that (even if it meant Brennan didn't get his reveal--which he ended up just telling them anyway so might as well do it early). The other thing is that the consequence of a rage token was so bad that of course they spent all season avoiding getting one. Things might have gone differently if the consequences had been a bit more obscured, like in Neverafter. And it could have been a nice parallel to the Rat Grinders to take this unknown resource that makes things easier for you but is also having this negative effect. Then it could be like dang we did the same thing they did unknowingly. 

I mentioned this in my recap but I'll talk about it again. It is a little confusing to me that we did the Ankarna subplot right after we did the very similar Cassandra subplot. It took up so much time this season which I don't think is an issue in and of itself, it's just that we literally just went through some extremely similar beats last season. Why double up on this same storyline when there's so much new ground to cover? Or if we're going to raise a god, why not make it a different kind of god? One theory I had early on was that the Rat Grinders were trying to raise their own god to one-up the Bad Kids but instead of raising a chill, misunderstood Cass type, they accidentally raised a god who was erased for a good reason and got in over their heads. 

It's fun for there to be connections between seasons but sometimes it's like, OK that's a *lot* of coincidences. Like the god who your rivals is trying to raise *happens* to be the wife of your cleric's god and also *happens* to be the god of the fiend trapped in your friend's mom's chest and that fiend *happens* to be the relative on your bard's dad's side which is *also* the reason she is randomly cursed? That's a LOT of red string connecting plot points. As unhinged as Kipperlilly is about coveting Riz's backstory if I saw that go down I'd be like you have *got* to be kidding me.  

The mystery elements didn't feel like they clicked as well as they did in other seasons. I think that's partially because Porter's plan was so convoluted (seriously, I made another post about how haphazard his plan was) and had all these moving parts and we didn't get clear answers for a lot of mechanical things like how the rage crystals actually work and when they were implanted and stuff. You had stuff like Devil's Honey which I think is super cool as a thing that exists in the world but ended up being an element that just led the players down the wrong path and had a relatively small payoff (that Porter was using it to lie to Ankarna). I think it's plausible that a forgotten god would be willing to listen to anyone saying the right things without introducing this element. (As opposed to, for instance, Ambrosia which has a very clear connection to what's going on and is a solid clue that someone is flirting with aspirations of godhood.) 

The Porter reveal came so late in the season that even though it was a fun/challenging fight, there wasn't a lot of emotional weight behind killing him. It was basically just dunking on a teacher Fig has always hated who was also mean to Gorgug so screw him. Which, valid of course. But the Bad Kids were never going to react as strongly to Porter as they were to the Rat Grinders so putting Porter in the prime villain spot isn't necessarily what I would have done if I wanted the fight to be more than just a brawl--especially since we've done "School admin with student minions" already in S1. I don't mind the full circle callback but it would have been nice to pick something else for the sake of variety. We haven't had a child mastermind yet and I think Kipperlilly could have been a great candidate for that. My friend suggested that it would have been fun if Kipperlilly was trying to become a god instead of just being Porter's underling and I agree. "I'm not anyone's chosen one so I'll choose myself," is still within her established jealousy and Type A tendencies. If we want to keep Porter involved since that was Brennan's gift to Emily, maybe have it be that instead of Kipperlilly working for him, he's working for her. Like Artemis Fowl vibes! And the Rat Grinders can be varying levels of on board--from true believe to redeemable. I don't think Brennan planned for the Bad Kids to ever redeem her so might as well go full megalomaniacal mastermind with her and make her The Villain if she's not gonna be nuanced anyway. If My Little Pony can do it and send a literal child to Tartarus for pony treason (or whatever Cozy Glow did), Fantasy High can too. 

Continuing from the above, if we have the Porter fight in place of the Grix fight (a la Daybreak) and don't use Ankarna, that gives way more time for the Bad Kids to investigate the Rat Grinders throughout the season and it would mean that they would have their personalities developed a lot more. With the limited downtime, they Bad Kids didn't have a lot of time to spend on these kids who were just hating on them for no good reason (valid). But if you cleared their plate of the god hunt stuff, they'd have more time for this. And if they weren't all rage zombies to varying degrees, it would be easier to see them as characters. Besides Kipperlilly (and, funnily enough, Mary Ann) we don't really have a good read on what these kids are actually like. The little time we spent with them all season was kind of a wash if them breaking out of rage means their personalities got laundered too. Anyway, regardless of how their loyalties ended up shaking out, it would have been fun for them to be more than the minions that they were in canon. As funny as it is for them to just kinda be XP farming losers, they did have the potential to be more interesting in their own right if they weren't just Porter's minions. And again, we've done adults forcing or coercing children into being minions in Freshman and Sophomore Year already. Lemme see some self-created child maniacs! (Or, peer pressured child maniacs. That's cool too. The Lucy/Kipperlilly dynamic is way more interesting to me if it's like girl, I would take a bullet for you but I CANNOT walk this path with you any further in response to *I* will be a god and you can be *MY* champion.)

Anyway, those are my thoughts! Like I said, I have my points that I think could have been tightened, but overall an enjoyable season and I will be glued to my screen if they decide to close out with Senior Year! 

[strawberryshortcake1495]

The Mabill Lore in my Crushed Little Stars AU 💫

(art is by the silly @millenianthemums)

So Bill has the same backstory as in canon. He could see the third dimension, he tried to show the Euclydians “the stars” and ending up destroying everything. But instead of wandering space and time for eternity, Bill summons the Axolotl and asks them if they could resurrect Euclydia. The Axolotl told him that what’s done is done, but that he is capable of redemption. With nowhere else to go, Bill is brought to the Theraprism. Instead of tweaking, Bill actually tries to redeem himself by being civil with the other patients and following the rules. 1 trillion years later, Bill has become a charming and suave dream demon. Although he’s satisfied with his new identity, Bill is still haunted by the Euclydia massacre but chooses to bury it deep down. He decides to travel to different dimensions to explore and have fun, and that’s when he comes across Dimension 46.

The year is 2004, and a 12-year old Mabel Pines is playing at the beach with her twin brother, Dipper. They were having a family vacation alongside Uncle Filbrick and Auntie Caryn, who brought their 3-month old babies along for the trip. Mabel was ecstatic over the little ones. Their flabby cheeks, their puppy dog eyes, their squishy heads…it’d make anyone squeal with delight! On this particular day, Mabel and Dipper had decided to build the tallest sandcastle ever! Dipper told his sister the castle needed structure so she looked around and saw a pile of beautiful sticks lying on the wet sand. She ran over there and knelt down, her face almost inches away from the sand. Unfortunately, a large wave had come in and hit her right in the face. Dipper watched as his sister was swept off to sea. He screamed and cried and tried to save her, but she was already gone. The beach was closed off as security sent boats out into the ocean to find the missing girl. Mabel was whisked far away from the shore. She flailed her arms as she tried to keep her head above water, but she found herself caught in a staring contest with a fish. She desperately tried to breathe, but that only caused water to fill her lungs. God, it burned so bad. Eventually, Mabel closed her eyes and allowed the dark depths to take her into its cold embrace.

She felt a tiny but powerful hand grabbing onto her fingers and pulling her back up to the surface. At least, that’s what she told the paramedics as she was rolled away in a stretcher. Dipper was hysterical, squeezing her hands and apologizing over and over again. As Mabel was brought to the hospital, she drifted into a deep and peaceful slumber. When she opened her arms, she found herself in a vibrant pink place with floating toys and flowers. She saw a strange yellow triangle resting in a chair wearing a silly turquoise hat with yellow stars on it. She walked over to the creature and gently woke it up. His name was Bill Cipher, certified dream demon. He explained that this pink realm was her mindscape, which is where her consciousness goes when she sleeps. Mabel held his tiny black hands and realized he was the person who saved her from drowning. She thanked him and they spent their time playing with the toys and chatting about life.

When she awoke from her slumber, she told her family all about Bill and how nice he was. For 2 whole months, Dipper and her parents thought Bill was an imaginary friend who she came up with as a coping mechanism to her near-death situation. During this time, Bill and Mabel grew closer, and Bill started dropping the “sugar sweet” persona and got more comfortable as he spent more time with her. He’d make dark jokes that she’d laugh at, they’d come up with the best games, and Mabel wasn’t afraid of Bill’s morbid ideas. He even had a cute nickname for her: “Shooting Star”. She was like his own daughter. On Halloween, Bill came up with a fun little prank that he would pull on Mabel. That night, the little girl had finished putting on her costume. She was wondering where her 3-sided friend was when suddenly, she felt as if she were weightless. She looked down to find herself floating like a ghost. She looked at the mirror and to her surprise, she saw herself staring at the glass. But something was different. Her eyes were yellow with slit cat-like pupils, and she was pretty sure her skin was a full shade paler. Bill explained that he was possessing her, and that he thought this would be the funniest prank to pull on his fleshy friend. But for the first time since they’ve met, Mabel was upset. She didn’t want to be possessed. This year would be her last Halloween before she turned into a teenager and it was robbed from her. By her own friend! Plus, the feeling of being a ghost made her want to throw up. She was so light, her legs swung back and forth, as if she were drowning all the way back in that cold dark sea.

But Bill wanted to experience trick-or-treating for himself and he sincerely apologized to her. Mabel started to get hysterical, flying around in circles and begging Bill to give her body back. But Bill went outside that room, pretended to be Mabel, and went trick-or-treating. Mabel couldn’t believe it. Her new friend had betrayed her. As Bill walked from door to door with Dipper, he tried to focus on the boy’s voice cracks and not the eerie screaming coming from next to him. It reminded him too much of Euclydia. But 30 minutes in, Dipper started noticing that Mabel wasn’t acting herself. When “Mabel” drank her bottle water because she was thirsty, he saw something in the reflection that made his heart stop. Creepy cat eyes that made his lovely sister look like a monster wanting to eat him. Dipper ran far away from her and to the local church. When the pastor brought some candy, “Mabel” came running up behind Dipper and tackled him to the ground. The kids fought in front of the other trick-or-treaters and the pastor was able to perform an exorcism that expelled Bill from Mabel’s body and her mind as well. Mabel was brought inside the church and the nuns looked after her for 2 hours as she sobbed into Dipper’s arms and told him everything.

Mabel never saw Bill again and from that day on, she started handing out candy instead of trick-or-treating.

[tabletopgayventures]

My TTRPG Lexicon

A list of common tabletop role-playing game terms:

Arc:  Adventures, chapters, seasons, story arcs, all terms to describe different sections of the overall campaign.  Things like “Training Arc”, “The Harbor Adventure”,  “Blood War”.  Whatever you decided to use to describe a specific section of your campaign.  These would only last a few sessions of a larger campaign.  

Campaign:  Speaking of campaigns, these are a series of adventures and sessions that cover a multi-arc story.  These can last for a few months or even multiple years.  Whether you start the campaign with a designated endpoint in mind or just want to play until the game fizzles is fun either way.  Most of my games have just fizzled out due to numerous external factors but I still had a great time.  

Character Sheet:  This is the paper or packet of papers that players use to track their character’s information.  Some ttrpgs have multiple pages of information you need to keep track of.  Some have only one page.  Some don’t even have character sheets; you just write the basic information in an index card or scrap paper. 

Core Rules:  Core rules are basic or generic game mechanics that developers can build a game around.  Some examples of Core Systems are D20, GURPS, and Powered by the Apocalypse.  Most of the time a game gets made and its system is so unique or interesting that it gets replicated into other games.  For example, Apocalypse World created the Powered by the Apocalypse or PBTA system.  Whereas Generic Universal Role Playing System or GURPS was built from the ground up to be a core system for games and settings to be built onto it.  

Crits:  Most systems have some kind of superior success when you roll a specific number on the dice.  Usually the highest or lowest numbers on one of the die.  Crits either give you a special bonus or penalty based on the rules of the game.  Some even let the player take control of the narrative in a limited way.  Not all games use crits but the ones that do make it special.

Dice:  One of the most common tools in TTRPGs.  Dice can have any number of sides, the most common being six sided dice, sometimes called monopoly or yahtzee dice.  These are abbreviated as d6.  If you see a number followed by a dice number that tells you how many dice of that type you need.  For example 3d6 says you need to roll 3 six sided dice.  Dice come in numerous shapes and sizes.  A standard 7 piece set of polyhedral dice will include a d4, d6, d8, two d10, d12, and d20.  Goodman games dice sets will also include D3 (which is just a d6), D5, D7, D14, D16, D24, and D30.  There’s also a d100 which is the size of a golf ball and impossible to read.  Most of the time if you need to roll a d100 or d% you roll two d10s with one designated as the 10s and the other the 1s.  The Denary Dice Set from Curiosity Box includes dice from each number 1 through 10.

Game System:  Game systems are different from core rules because they use the rules to make their system work.  Multiple games can use the same system but will make modifications to make each game unique.  For example:  Glitter Hearts, Root, and The Warren are all different game systems that use the same core rules of Powered by the Apocalypse.  

Homebrew:  Is when you modify the rules, setting, or just add something new.  Campaigns, games, and settings are almost never run as written.  You change the rules to make them work better for your table.  You change the setting to work with your story or the PC’s backstories.  You reorder a campaign to make it flow in a way that works for you.  Just making a character and putting it into a pre-established setting is technically homebrew because you’re going to make changes to the world in game.  

Module:  A general term for a prewritten adventure or campaign.  These can be for one-shots or multi-year campaigns.  These are great for Refs who don’t have the time to build a full homebrew adventure.  

Non-Player Character:  NPCs are the characters portrayed by the Ref and run all kinds of personalities.  Don’t expect them to have special voices for all of them though.

One-Shot:  Single session adventures.  Sometimes these can run 2 or 3 sessions, two-shot or three-shot respectively.  Any longer than that it’s just a campaign.  

Players:  The players, the PCs, the heroes, however you want to call it.  They make the character and interact with the game world within the rules of the game system.  Just remember, even though the Ref doesn’t have a single character sheet, they are still players at the table and are there to have fun too. 

Rules as Written:  Or RAW, is when you take the rules directly from the book without making any changes.  You read and interpret the written rules as literally as possible.  I tend to have a homebrew spin on everything so RAW is a rarity for me.

Referee:  The person who facilitates the game.  Sometimes called the Game Master or Storyteller.  Some games, like D&D or Call of Cthulhu, have specific titles for their games, Dungeon Master and Keeper of Arcane Lore respectively.  The job of the Ref is to set the scenes, adjudicate rules, plan the session, and ensure that everyone at the table is having a safe and good time. Including the referee!

Safety Tools:  Boundaries, check-ins, surveys, x-cards, and more.  These are the tools you use to make sure you and your players are having a safe and fun time.  It’s important for every player, including the referee, to establish hard and soft limits so no one gets hurt or stressed during the game.  I’ll explain more on these in another post.   

Setting:  The genre and story of your game.  Is it set in ancient Greece?  A dark and disturbing fantasy world?  A hopeful spaceport?  Whether it’s homebrew or pre-established by the developers, you and your players will inhabit and affect the setting in a variety of ways with your games.  

Session Zero:  Think of this as your game prep.  The ref and the players will go over the campaign, the characters, themes, safety, and so on.  

Sessions:  The time you set aside to play.  Sessions can be anywhere from a half hour to half a day, or even longer.  I used to run sessions that went from noon to midnight.  I’ve even heard of people playing a game session for multiple days.  I don’t recommend ever doing this, it’s very tiring.  2-4 hours is enough for a game session.

Stats:  AKA ability scores, attributes, skill points.  Whatever the game calls it these are the numbers defining the power of your character and are typically added to your rolls.  

TTRPG:  Tabletop Roleplaying Game!  The thing we’re talking about.  Somes games will be called TRPGs.  Fabula Ultima calls itself a TTJRPG since it takes inspiration from classic JRPGs.  

West Marches:  These are a specific style of sandbox campaign.  You choose a setting and genre, for example:  Fantasy and Middle Earth.  Then you just run games in the world.  They’re meant to run multiple games, systems, and stories that don’t directly interact with each other.  So you could have an adventuring party using Pathfinder, a fellowship using One Ring, and a group of Orcs causing chaos with Ork! all in the same game world but not directly interacting with each other because the game systems aren’t compatible.  This is great if you want to run multiple games/campaigns without having to come up with a new game world or story every time.

[theresattrpgforthat]

Any RPGs (/settings / supplements) that you know of that have a set of mechanics based on harvesting parts of slain monsters for various effects? I just think that would be a neat system to throw into an OSR type game :)

THEME: Monster Recycling

Hello friend! I had a lot of fun putting together game recommendations for this, I've seen a few games inspired by Monster Hunter and I definitely see the appeal!

Monster Guts, by Wheels Within Wheels Publishing.

Welcome to MONSTER GUTS, a tabletop roleplaying game, Illuminated by LUMEN, that draws from your favorite monster-hunting video games.

This book has rules to build your scavenger, pick a starting weapon and friendly companion critter, and then go out hunting giant monsters!

Set in a post-capitalism world where monsters bio-engineered to extract resources have destroyed much of the world, you must hunt these creatures to sustain your village, one of the few settlements in the Pacific Northwest to have survived. You'll also harvest tags that you can slot into your weapons and garb to power up your scavenger.

Monster Guts is LUMEN, so expect cinematic action with effective moves that feel more and more powerful as you level up. It’s made a bit of a splash on Itch.io due to its ability to replicate the feeling of the Monster Hunter video game. Your character classes take the form of weapons, with different stats and special abilities. There are also tags that can be added on to them as you slay monsters for their parts. When it comes to the backstory, the lore focuses on a small village, trying to survive in a world of monsters that they once created. Once again, the enemy is capitalism.

Butchers & Beasties, by Kerobuki.

A Monster Hunter-like TTRPG hacked from a mixture of Emiel Boven's DURF  and the creator’s own projects.

Butchers & Beasties is a bare-bones, rules-only draft of a monster-hunting game. It uses dice pools of d6’s and staggered successes for basic conflict resolution. Inventory is important in this game - you have limited inventory slots and you also have to choose where you’re going to store your equipment - will you keep your lantern in your pack, and have to dig it out every time you use it, or will you store it on your belt for easy access? You also choose a role for your character, which grants you with base items. There’s rules for traps. weapons, ailments and elements, which gives the play group a broad set of possible combinations to factor in when hunting beasts. Overall, if you’re looking for an OSR-friendly game this is probably a great place to start, as everything in here looks like a tool set that you’ll need to pick up with an play around with a bit to see just how much it can do.

After the Great Beast, by Harper Jay.

You are a Hunter, and great beasts are threatening your village. Gather your weapon and your friends, and defend your home. Along the way, you will gather materials, craft traps and potions, and maintain your weapon, all while following the great beast's tracks.

After The Great Beast is a Breathless game inspired by the Monster Hunter franchise. 

I am so so excited about this game. After the Great Beast is Breathless, which means that it provides you with a limited number of resources, which deplete as you play. You can stop to refresh your resources, but in the process you let time get away from you - and that means your problems get bigger. I think it has a lot of potential for a satisfying loop of play, and I’m impressed at the size of this game. A lot of the Breathless games I’ve looked at in the past are under 10 pages, but After The Great Beast is over 20! This is because of the extra tools differentiating weapons, special effects, world details and beast rules. There’s even a little bestiary and advice on how to set up an adventure for this kind of game. If you want lots of different pieces to play with and a setting that’s already laid out for you a little bit, then I’d recommend checking out After The Great Beast.

Wilderfeast, by Horrible Guild.

Wilderfeast is an RPG about becoming part of the natural world by making it part of you.

Players assume the role of “wilders”: monster hunters/chefs who wield gargantuan kitchen implements and gain powerful mutations from each monster they eat. Using those powers, they seek harmony between humanity and the wild.

All creatures, be they humans or monsters, obey the One Law of the One Land…

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT.

Wilderfeast is a game about hunting and cooking monsters, with tactical game mechanics for the hunting portion of the game, and narrative prompts for the cooking portions. This is a game in which an eldritch virus has made kaiju-like monsters frenzied and dangerous. Your characters have discovered that killing and feeding on these monsters gives them interesting mutations. I think this game has a lot of promise, because it gives you both the chance to puzzle through combat and feel competent when you fight, while also giving you tools that give the in-between scenes narrative weight - you even partake in a ritual before eating that allows you to thank the monster for its gift!

If you want to take a deeper look at Wilderfeast, you can check out their Quickstart for free, and listen to Dave Thaumvore’s review.

[thedragonagelesbian]

For the companion tav asks for Cyrus:

7 for general

12 for Story

11, 12 for romance

💞

thank you 💕💕💕

companion tav asks

7. (General) Do they have their own personal quest that spans the course of the game?  Can it take different branching paths depending on the choices the Player Character makes?

Yes!!!! This is going to be needlessly long & detailed 👍

Act 1 (The Austringer)

Like for Shadowheart & Astarion, Cyrus' Act 1 quest is less about accomplishing anything in particular and more about being a nosy bitch. The player learns in his recruitment that he is the Champion of Iriaebor and the sworn sword of its ruler, Lady Meredith Stannard (the shared tadpole vision is him swearing fealty to her for the first time). Despite being keen to return to her, Cyrus initially hides the extent of their relationship, his feelings on the matter complicated by the recent life transference spell.

There are a couple of ways to learn more from him, including some insight/persuasion checks when asking him about his life in Iriaebor. If the player gets his approval high enough, they'll get a cutscene in which they find him studying his reflection in the Chionthar. He admits that he's still adjusting to this changed body, as he gave away a century of his life to prolong Meredith's and is still quite young for an elf (~175). Taking Cyrus to the Zhentarim hideout will also prompt some unique, hostile dialogue as the player learns that Cyrus and Meredith crusaded violently against the Zhentarim in Iriaebor-- and this branch of the organization is even holding one of Meredith's couriers, who was sent to look for Cyrus, prisoner.

If the courier is freed, they will explain that Meredith has devoted countless resources to finding Cyrus again and bringing him home, but Cyrus says that he cannot leave until the parasite problem is resolved-- no matter how badly he wants to return to her side.

At the tiefling party, Cyrus accidentally gets shitfaced drunk and is exuberantly enjoying himself, seeming much happier & more carefree than he has at any other point in the game so far, and he admits that he hasn't had this much fun in a very long time. The player also has the chance to spend the night with him, keeping him company as the intoxication slowly wears off

(I think you can convince Cyrus to stay if you go the goblin route, but only if you know about his relationship with Meredith already and threaten him with the fact that he'll never find his way back to her if he leaves the party [DC 20 Intimidation check].)

Act 2 (subquest: The Champion of Iriaebor)

In a long rest cutscene sometime after entering the Shadowlands, while the party is leaving to set up camp, Cyrus is ambushed by an unknown figure who tries to drag him back into the Shadowlands. They cross the barrier of the Shadow Curse, but Cyrus fights them off and crosses back over before the curse can affect him, wounding the assailant in the process and stranding them to succumb to the curse. Despite being injured himself, Cyrus insists on returning to save them, which the player can either permit or discourage (DC 15 persuasion check; succeed, and the information that follows has to be gleaned through Speak with Dead). If Cyrus saves them, it costs him (some unknown mechanical penalty I haven't thought of yet) but allows him and the player to interrogate the attacker.

The attacker reveals herself to be a half-elf from Iriaebor (let's call her Merrill because my default for putting characters in Cyrus' bg3 backstories is to steal from DA2) who watched Cyrus slaughter her parents as Meredith was consolidating power after her initial campaign to reclaim the city from the Zhentarim. Cyrus protests, insisting that he only ever attacked Meredith's enemies, but as Merrill reveals the despotic conditions under which residents beyond the High Tower live, he has to come to terms with her brutality-- a brutality he enabled and participated in.

The player can dismiss Merrill's claims, or try to convince Cyrus that what he did was right and just anyway (deception/persuasion checks respectively), but given the choice of how to respond to this, Cyrus believes Merrill and is disgusted with himself for the blindness of his devotion. Pronouncing this, Cyrus suddenly spasms and clutches his chest, and though he tries to pass off the pain as nothing, the player can discover (if they are themselves a paladin, pass a religion/insight check, or persuade him to explain what happened) that he has broken his oath.

At the next long rest, the player discovers that Cyrus has been visited by the Oathbreaker Knight and is arguing with him, insisting that he still believes in the tenets of his oath, just not who he vested that oath in. The player can suggest he try to substitute his oath to Meredith with an oath to something/someone else, and if the player has high enough approval, Cyrus--desperate in the face of the emptiness in his soul--suggests that he pledge himself to them. The player can either accept this offer, encourage him to commit to their cause of destroying the Absolute, or suggest it might be helpful to sit with his broken oath for a bit before rushing into another vow (DC 25/30 persuasion check depending on approval; if failed, he will pledge himself to protecting Faerun from the Absolute).

While these options map on to his endings, they don't determine them, as the player has the option to push him in a different direction at the end of his Act 3 personal quest.

Act 3 (subquest: The Sworn Sword)

Meredith is a diplomatic guest at Gortash's coronation! If Cyrus isn't in the party, she will approach the PC and demand to know where his, and will later appear in camp. Otherwise, the reunion happens then and there, and (provided he learned everything from Merrill & the player didn't convince him to disregard this) it's as uncomfortable and painful as every other companion-major backstory npc encounter that happens in that chamber is. Cyrus freezes up seeing her again, overwhelmed with rage and disgust when she touches him but not wanting to make a scene and not ready to confront her about everything she did to him/Iriaebor. Indeed, an insight check reveals that mostly what he's feeling is fear.

The player can intervene, though if they're too aggressive about it, a Steel Watcher will step in, and Meredith regards them coolly in any case, reticent to allow Cyrus to stay with the party (especially if he's romanced) and relenting only because Cyrus/the player insists he has to to keep him safe from the parasite.

Beyond the interpersonal stuff, Meredith mentions that she's come to Baldur's Gate to discuss the future of the city's diplomatic relations east of the Sword Coast and expresses admiration for Gortash, and the Steel Watch in particular. Finally, she mentions that the patriar who is hosting her will have a small ball to honor her visit, to which she invites Cyrus though explicitly not the rest of the party. Despite his own discomfort with the idea, when they talk about it in camp afterward, Cyrus suggests he play along and try to learn more about what Meredith is doing here, as she's rarely ever made diplomatic appearances beyond Iriaebor.

Adamant that he not go alone, the party puts together disguises and we get an Upper City masquerade quest! Shenanigans and sleuthing ensue, with chances to discover more about Baldur's Gate's wealthier residents (including the life and death of Duke Stelmane), the Flaming Fist, rumors about Cazador Szarr, gossip about the Stone Lord/Zhentarim/Thieves' Guild etc. The party also has plenty of opportunities to just be Sera-esque pranking shits, subtly disrupting festivities to distract its hosts and guest of honor and give Cyrus some reprieve. If they do all the pranks, the player (whether romanced or not) will even have the chance to lure Meredith away for long enough to dance with Cyrus, which he appreciates immensely. He admits it makes him nervous to have to rely so much on someone, but says the player is much worthier of that trust than Meredith.

As the end of the ball draws near, the party hatches a plan to find Meredith's (previously undiscovered) room by having Cyrus request to retire there for the evening. There, they find correspondence with Gortash revealing that Meredith seeks to replicate the Steel Watch in Iriaebor as part of the Absolute's future campaign against Elturgard. While previously expressing hope that Meredith might change her ways, Cyrus is convinced that she cannot return to Iriaebor and goes to confront her. Combat ensues, with a heavy mechanical focus on Meredith's court mage, Elsiee, trying to use enchantment magic to turn Cyrus against the party.

Like Viconia, Meredith is knocked out automatically, and when Cyrus goes to finish her, she laughs at him, telling him he is still little more than a very pretty sword best wielded in someone else's hands. His divine fury and grief are palpable as he smites her, sobbing, before quickly once more excusing himself from the party (though the player can hug him before he goes).

When all is said and done, the player finds Cyrus reflecting on the docks. Calmer now, he explains that he used to work these docks, a lifetime ago, after being orphaned on the boat back from Evermeet and falling into the dubious care of an orphanage headmaster. Though Cyrus knew he was being taken advantage of, made to look after the children and contracted to the docks as a source of income for the orphanage/headmaster, he never thought of leaving because if someone didn't make that sacrifice, who would?

This leads him to reflect that his issues with devotion might've begun long before meeting Meredith, that there is something about him that might've left him uniquely vulnerable to her, that has made him easy to abuse, and if he had previously sworn himself to the player in Act 2, he expresses doubt now. The player can either encourage that doubt or insist that their circumstances are different. If he had sworn to protect the realm from the Absolute, he'll wonder what he should do after it's defeated, and the player can encourage him to stay in Baldur's Gate to make it better than it was when he was young, return to Iriaebor to finish what they started by killing Meredith, or take some time to figure out for himself who he is without a cause or person to devote himself to. If the choice is left to him, Cyrus opts to return to Iriaebor.

Endings are complicated, because I am not bound by development time restrictions and can do whatever tf I want. They vary both on what Cyrus does post-game and how the player has handled the depth of his devotion, either encouraging him to find another commitment/duty after Meredith or encouraging him to discover what it means to live for himself. Also, I'm just personally not a fan of the good/bad ending dichotomy (even though I obviously think some of these endings are worse than others), so I use the distinction between devoted (I am defined by what I offer others) and undevoted (I am more than what I can offer others).

With one exception...

UNEQUIVOCAL BAD ENDING: Encouraging Cyrus to return with Meredith in his Act 3 personal quest; his equivalent of handing Shadowheart over to Mother Viconia. He leaves the party, though he and Meredith can be summoned as allies in the final stretch of the game. Talking to Cyrus in the tower before beginning the final assault will find him quiet and sullen, with Meredith largely talking on his behalf, and a letter from her at the epilogue party reveals that Cyrus has struggled to return to life in Iriaebor. She ends on an ominous note suggesting that her court mage has been investigating magical means of making him happier there.

Stays in Baldur's Gate, devoted: Cyrus joins the Flaming Fist. His service to the patriars is flawless and unquestioning.

Stays in Baldur's Gate, undevoted: Cyrus joins the Harpers, and while he's still working on the 'discretion' part of spy work, he's fallen in love with the Harpers' dual commitment to the natural world.

Follows the player, devoted: The player, whether romanced or not, has become Cyrus' new object of service, and he goes where they go, whether to the Hells with Karlach and/or Wyll or to assist in the player and Minthara's campaign against Menzoberranzan. A player who romanced ascended!Astarion will even have the option to make Cyrus his spawn too. If the player decides to stay in Baldur's Gate, this ending is distinct from the ending where Cyrus himself decides to stay.

Travels Faerun, undevoted: Cyrus wanders the Sword Coast for a time, visiting everyone after they've gone their separate ways and enjoying his freedom. If the Shadow Curse was lifted, he mentions particularly enjoying Reithwin and seeing the hard work Halsin has put into building it up. Otherwise, he's thinking about helping to rebuild Waukeenan's Rest and provide a safe, cozy outpost for travelers in that area.

Returns to Iriaebor, devoted: Cyrus reclaims his title of Champion of Iriaebor, no longer the right hand of its tyrant but of its people, yet the title continues to weigh on him.

Returns to Iriaebor, undevoted: Working under the existing resistance movement, Cyrus' knowledge helps to quickly dismantle and replace Meredith's loyalists and guards, though he stays out of the spotlight himself. Come the epilogue, he feels confident that six months of hard work have put the city on a better path and that it would be best to leave its future in the hands of others, severing as many ties with Meredith's rule as possible.

In both the Baldur's Gate and the Iriaebor devoted endings, a romanced player will find that Cyrus seems more committed to his duty than to them.

12 (Story). Is it possible for your Tav to be kidnapped and replaced by Orin?  How is Orin's deception revealed?  How do they react to the PC rescuing them in the Temple of Bhaal?

Yes! "Cyrus" becomes convinced that the PC is Orin in disguise and attacks them for the good of the party. "Cyrus" either overpowers the player, realizes his error, and turns his blade on himself, or the player overpowers him, he realizes his error, and insists the player kill him for his mistake, at which point Orin reveals herself.

The first thing Cyrus gasps when he's freed is "Meredith." Realizing who has rescued him, he quickly follows up with an apology, disappointed with himself for being kidnapped and forcing the party to put so much blood and sweat into rescuing him. In the follow up convo in camp, he mentions previously being held hostage by the Zhentarim in the early days of his and Meredith's fight against them. Back then, he had no doubt that she would come to rescue him, but now, the idea of that kind of dependence--of not being enough to keep himself safe--makes him uneasy.

11 (Romance). What are Tav’s plans for the future?  Do they propose to the PC, or is marriage not something they’re interested in?

Devoted to PC: He proposes during the docks scene and follows the PC wherever they go next.

Devoted to city: He proposes in the post-final battle cutscene, declaring that he wants to make Baldur's Gate/Iriaebor their home, if the player will stay with him.

Undevoted: This may be the only version of Cyrus who doesn't want to rush right into marriage. He cares for a romanced PC deeply, of course, but he's just gotten out of an abusive relationship that eroded his sense of self rediscovering that sense is his priority, worrying that running head-first into another deeply committed relationship will make that difficult. In his Act 3 romance scene, he says he's okay with the PC not wanting to wait for him to figure this out, allowing the PC to affirm their willingness to be patient & stick with him. Cyrus is surprised, admitting he's all too used to being the one who has to compromise what he wants in a relationship, and tells the PC how much he loves them.

(And, in fact, the player can propose to him at the epilogue party, and he is overjoyed to say yes)

12 (Romance). Free space! Share anything from your companion!Tav au!

If the PC lets Volo icepick them & gets the ersatz eye, after the interaction with the courier in Act 1, they get a special long rest cutscene where they catch a glimpse of a scrying sensor floating above Cyrus. If they mention this to him, he identifies this as the magic of Meredith's court mage, Elsiee, and though he tries to brush its presence off as Meredith being worried about his safety, he's visibly uncomfortable with the discovery.

[shepherds-of-haven]

For the writing ask meme:

What is your writing ritual and why is it cursed?

What is your deepest joy about writing?

Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end. Spicy addition: Questioner provides the passage. (i’m not picking one, just grab something that was fun to write!)

Thoughts on the Oxford comma, Go:

-emeraldgreaves

What is your writing ritual and why is it cursed?

My writing ritual, up until around May, was like a little bit cursed: I'd typically write from 10 PM to around 4 or 5 AM, which is obviously not great. I'd also put on a show that was guaranteed to not distract me on extremely low volume (like 1 out of 100) in the background, so a show I'd seen a million times before, like the Office or Bob's Burgers.

Since coming back from a trip to Europe, though, I saw an opportunity to reset a schedule I'd kept to for the last 12 years and have now been rising and writing at a more appropriate time! Nowadays my writing ritual is going to the library, putting on fantasy or TTRPG orchestral music (particularly by Ivan Duch, who is composing the music for the game) in my earbuds, and clacking away! This ritual is only cursed in that some really weird shit happens sometimes at the library, but sometimes I get around that by reserving a study room for myself or me and my partner. 😌

What is your deepest joy about writing?

Hmmm, it seems cheap to say all of it! I think the satisfaction of completing a story that you've not only mapped out and plotted through, but actually executed, and then elicited strong emotional responses from others (hopefully as according to plan) as a result of all of that hard work is a truly joyful thing to experience. But just writing about the characters, exploring their psychology, and especially building their relationships to each other is also a huge part of it, and it's also a joy to explore and flesh out and create an entire new world for them to exist in... I just love all of it!

Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end. Spicy addition: Questioner provides the passage. (i’m not picking one, just grab something that was fun to write!)

Around him, Scythia stirred to life beneath the skin-soaking warmth of early morning. It was just past dawn, so the heat of the day was not yet beating down on the city like a hammer against an anvil; but in an hour or two, it would edge close to brutal. Herald tipped his head back and let himself absorb the sights and sounds of the city while he still could. Long-necked white herons—called sword-birds for their vicious beaks—dueled together in lazy displays in the streets. Charcoal-eyed concurs beckoned him from curtained doorways, then caught sight of his own brand of ownership and looked away. There was the heavy, acrid scent of fuel and machine oil as he passed the Metal District, where mechanics in their garages toiled away on the racers and war rigs that crisscrossed the Badlands in choking clouds of dust. Underneath a shabby awning, a suntouched fortune-teller gave advice to a lean, restless merc with scarred shoulders and a face studded with fearsome metal rings.

This is from my current novel manuscript, which I keep telling people is like a cross between Mad Max and X-Men, but it's really evolved to become this more magical and intricate science fantasy, because I can't stay away from magic and humanoid/alien races and disparate cultures and, like, oppression and persecution, I guess. I really thought it was going to be a gritty dieselpunk adventure with machine guns and monster trucks and things, which it still has, but I think this passage (from the first chapter) kind of showcases its latest vibe, which is a bit more mystical and fantastical, as well. I've rewritten the first chapter at least five or six times, with this particular passage only being appended in the fourth or so iteration, so I think it's a good way of seeing (to me, the only one who read the first few drafts) how far the world has come, when the city and its environs weren't really described at all! I also just like the rhythm of the passage: there's something about it that feels satisfying. :)

Thoughts on the Oxford comma, Go:

It's an absolute vital necessity to me. It actively bothers me when I see the Oxford comma not being used... I will always use the Oxford comma. You could pry it from my cold, dead hands and I'd still be using it on my gravestone!

[elwenyere]

for the wip game: any that hasn't been asked yet, or if they all have, an idea that has caught your attention that you might explore in the future!

Hello Serie!!! Thank you very much for the ask!!! I'm going to take the chance to share a little bit from the Stony North and South AU.

This fic is a very overdue MTH story for some very lovely friends, and though my progress has been glacial, it IS happening!!! It's a multi-chapter fic inspired by the Elizabeth Gaskell novel North and South, which is set in the north of industrializing England in the 19th century. The original novel is a tale of cultural misunderstandings and class struggle and the mechanical grind of global capitalism and PINING. There's also a BBC adaptation featuring a brooding Richard Armitage and a lot of atmospheric cotton.

For the AU I've played around with the character backstories a bit to try to get more Marvel-esque texture into the mix. Here's a little snip from the opening scene:

.....

Steve had told himself he would adjust to the city, with its narrow streets and ill-swept gutters and thick, coal-heavy fog. But each successive day had seemed to confirm his initial impression that Milton was cold and cramped, and so were its people.

It certainly didn’t help that the only landlord willing to rent to an Irish family on a small income was, well…not particularly attentive.

“I think the room could be improved with some new paper,” his mother suggested as he joined her on the sofa, setting their saucers and cups down on the low walnut table. “Something a little simpler, like the pattern in the sitting room at home.”

They could hardly do worse than what was already there, Steve thought - privately, of course. He really was determined not to load his mother with his troubles as well as her own.

“Here where you receive guests, certainly, you should have whatever paper you please,” he told her. 

“Speaking of guests,” she said, inclining her head in a way that let Steve know he should brace for the continuation, “Dr. Banner is going to call this afternoon to see how we’re settling in. And he’s bringing one of his friends, a Mr. Stark, who owns the paper mill, and who can offer us an introduction to some of the families in town.”

“Mother,” Steve started, and he then stopped himself, swallowing yet another word about "notions" with a scalding sip of his tea. 

They’d had this conversation many times since the possibility of emigration had been raised. But Steve had kept his own back-alley encounters with the extent of English prejudices too careful a secret to introduce them as evidence now. And though he knew Bucky’s name had to be at the forefront of both their minds, he never could bring himself to reopen the wound by invoking it out loud. 

It was unreasonable, after all, to expect his mother to forego society entirely in their new home.

“Of course, any friend of Dr. Banner’s is welcome here,” Steve finished, after what he hoped hadn’t been too obvious a delay.

His mother smiled at him.

“You’re a good son, Steve,” she said. “And a good man, too, though Lord knows you’ve got a stubborn streak wider than a ballybetagh.”

“And who do you think put that there?” Steve asked, a real smile stretching across his face as he took in his mother’s posture: firm and tall after all the past month’s griefs. 

Yes, he thought to himself firmly. For her sake he could put aside his wariness of this dim city, with its dense air and shuttered windows. He could be friendly to this Mr. Stark for one afternoon.

.....

Thank you very much for the ask, my dear!!! It was fun to finally share some of this. <3<3<3

[yata776]

Fire Emblem Engage - Review

I try to keep game comparisons to a minimum when writing a review because I think it’s only fair to judge art by its own merits, but there was only one thing on my mind while playing Engage. That it was just Fates again.

Gameplay wise this is a fantastic experience. Not only is the map design quite solid but the Emblem Rings provide some of the craziest and fun tools the series has ever offered. The flexibility at play is almost unmatched, and the good news is that they did not sacrifice a challenging experience this time around, because the difficulty modes cover the wide spectrum of player skill very well. What I really admire about Engage is how easy it is to customize your own experience without sacrificing a healthy dose of challenge. The game is (mostly) balanced around you having the crazy Emblems powers, and will frequently match you against those same powers in a way many other developers wouldn’t dare. The beauty of it is that you don’t have to engage with this mechanic if you don’t want to. Emblem Rings are stashed into it’s own little menu and the player is given full freedom to use the mechanic as much or as little as they want to. “If you don’t like, don’t use it” is a tired argument point for any game balance topic but I am always happy to see developers actually giving the player a chance not to use their overpowered mechanics.

The story is complete garbage in a way where sadly I don’t have too much to say on it. This game will test you on your belief that gameplay rules above all, if you are one of those types, and your real opinions on that issue will probably color your entire experience.

Bad story aside, Engage is without a doubt a really fun and well-designed game. It strikes well the balance between giving you crazy and powerful tools while providing interesting challenging obstacles that are consistently fun to overcome. It is up there as one of the best gameplay experiences of the entire series that makes it worth a playthrough. It also looks and sounds really good, that helps too. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I am an avid Conquest defender and Engage is cut from the same exact cloth, but there are sadly some points that clearly put the former above the latter in terms of quality for me.

-Both Fates and Engage have some of the worst stories in the medium, but Fates actually tried telling a story. Engage feels like it's not even trying for the first half, with the barest justifications to actually having a plot, only to fall completely into the worst overdone cliches of the genre during the last few hours. In my opinion, this is the worst of both worlds, the premise and initial setup is fucking boring, if not downright rotten, so there is nothing to chew on in terms of potential. But when the stakes are actually raised it falls into the same writing pitfalls as the rest of the series. Fates had an interesting premise with a lot of potential, only to become a complete trainwreck on execution. Engage's story is a complete bunch of nothing, only to fall into the same exact problems that made Fates that much of a trainwreck. I think it only doesn't hurt as much for most people because NO ONE expected anything out of Engage after the initial trailers. For this reason I consider Engage has an even worse story than Fates, Conquest in particular, but your mileage will vary.

-Engage sadly has one of the blandest casts in the entire series. Every FE has been able to squeeze a reasonable amount of likeable or interesting characters to follow but Engage is such a complete nothing in the characterization front. This is partly fault of the complete lack of world building, characters spawn with almost no backstory or context behind them and the few supports that explore anything behind them are buried under the inmense amount of supports that just add NOTHING to the table. There are still enough decently charming characters to fill out your team, I have a particularly soft spot for the Brodian royals, but the overall quality of this cast is fucking dire. I think this is the worst cast since Binding Blade. Fates, especially Conquest, wasn't this bad either. But the fact every support conversation is now voiced might be the reason why the bad nothingburguer support conversations this team really loves writing stand out so much more now.

-The most damming thing about the game is that not even the amazing gameplay is flawless. Conquest stands high and above with the best map design the series has ever seen, with few maps I would state were outright bad. Engage, while having really solid maps overall, and in my opinion, the best earlygame of the entire series, has full stretches of mediocre ones during the Solm arc and parts of the endgame that water down the entire experience. The game balance is also nowhere near as solid. Are the Emblems astoundingly well balanced for what they are? Absolutely, and I think their contribution to how fun they make Engage cannot be overstated. But we are talking about full map healing (which is rechargeable!) as early as Chapter 6 among the dozens of tools the game gives you. I think it’s impossible to fully account for all the possibilities they created here and that shows in the game balance. I can see the argument this makes Conquest better designed too, but they are pretty even for me.

Hopefully IS hires some fucking writers next time because it is seriously getting embarrassing how bad the storytelling of their recent games is.

3.5/5

[over-the-time-flow]

Hey! I’m Hanbei, and this is the start of Over the Time Flow, my Super Robot Wars R screenshot let’s play!

I’ve always wanted to do a SRW screenshot let’s play, having read the LPArchive Alpha Gaiden let’s play during my formative years, and the more i’ve thought about it, the more i think Tumblr’s format might actually be conducive for an attempt!

With SRW R being untranslated, I will be translating the plot. For the most part though, this won’t be an exhaustive line by line translation except for particularly impactful lines or exchanges. Think less Tobias Grant’s Alpha Gaiden Let’s Play, and more Brunom1’s LPs.

Much like the LPs I'm taking inspiration from, I'll also be doing pilot and unit analysis as I acquire them, where I’ll briefly cover their lore/backstory, and then appraise them in the context of SRW R itself.

On my blog’s sidebar, you can click START to read the whole blog in chronological order so you can follow along from the beginning, and ABOUT to hear some more about my reasons for doing this.

On update days, I'll schedule my posts to start from 1PM PST and post once every 10 minutes until i’m out of content for that day. I can’t promise anything as consistent as posting every day, especially not once my summer break from uni is through, but I'll do my best to at least not go longer than a full week without an update day. I’ll do my best to make announcement posts in advance to let people know when an update day is coming up!

Posts that have translated content in them will be tagged with “#translation”, so if you’re only here for the plot translation/summary, you can filter for that specifically. Posts dedicated to analyzing pilots/units will have the “#rollcall” tag; posts where i explain SRW R’s (or the SRW franchise’s) system mechanics in-depth will be tagged “#mechanics”; if i have any thoughts i’d like to share on a plot point that deviates from its source, or how they adapted a scene or episode, i might make a post that’s just my thoughts on it, and it’ll be tagged “#srwramblings” so you can filter it out if you don’t want to see them. Finally, if i need to make any sort of announcement, be it to say in advance that such and such day will be an update day, or that i’ll need to take a break, or anything of the sort, i’ll tag it with “#announcements”.

Of course, the funnest part of doing a screenshot LP (and of doing it on Tumblr!) is the prospect of audience participation! And here’s the first of many opportunities to participate, and perhaps the most fun one:

The final stage of this game allows you to deploy 14 units (besides the main character, who will be deployed by default). As such, I'd like to leave it up to the audience as to who will be in our endgame squad!

Simply follow along and send in a request for someone when we meet a character who you really like (be it because you like them from their source material, or because you like what you see of them in-game), alongside their machine, if applicable (the characters who can switch machines are, as a general rule, Universal Century pilots, After War pilots, and Mazinger pilots, plus two specific characters from Nadesico who arrive fairly late) by clicking the ASK button on the sidebar. If you’re a very impatient person, you can also just send in a request ahead of time if you know the character is in the game or if you just happen to like a character like Amuro, Kamille or Koji, who you just know will likely be in any given SRW game without even asking, but if you do so, put a spoiler on the character you’re requesting somehow (such as by running it through rot13) so that i can respond to it, confirm to you the character will be in the roster, and then unscramble the character’s name on the list when they get formally introduced.

Do note that some characters won’t stick with you the whole way through, but if they truly don’t stick with you to the end in any shape or form, I'll point it out when I do their character analysis, so that nobody gets TOO excited about them.

If you send a character request through the ASK button, make sure not to do it anonymously, as I don't want to risk anybody double dipping. One character per person, please!

I don’t know how much (if any!) attention this LP will get, so i have no clue if i’ll have a full 14-character roster loaded by like chapter 5 or if i’ll get to the final stage with like 3 units in tow, but if against all odds this blows up and our roster caps out, you can still ask for a specific unit you want to see more of and i’ll do my best to show them off if only for a stage or two!

With all that out of the way, here’s the roster as it stands:

1. Judau - Full Armor ZZ Gundam (by @shoudesuka-mechadork)

2. Kamille - Mass-Produced v Gundam (by @tearsoftime0086)

3. Nxvgb - Uvtu Zbovyvgl Oynpx Fnenan (by @baldiosenjoyer) (spoilered)

4. Qbzba - Tbq Thaqnz (by @silentally) (spoilered)

5. Urreb - Thaqnz Jvat Mreb Phfgbz (by @mattman324) (spoilered)

6. Tnv Qnvtbhwv - Nrfgvinyvf (by @xgameoverx) (spoilered)

7. Garrod - Thaqnz Qbhoyr K (by @fire-bomber) (spoilered)

8. Arb Trggre Grnz - Fuva Trggre Ebob (by @accept-the-multiverse) (spoilered)

9. Sbhe - Mrgn Thaqnz (by @dayswhenibelieved) (spoilered)

10. Xvat fvoyvatf - Grknf Znpx (by anonymous)  (spoilered)

11.

12.

13.

14.

And i think that just about covers everything! I hope you’ll follow along and enjoy the LP! I should set up the MC gender decision poll roughly half an hour after this post goes live, so i hope people join in! Who knows, if this somehow takes off maybe i’ll do other games in the future. I’d love to be able to help other SRW fans understand games despite the language barrier.

[professionallyunprofessional]

The 7th Guest VR

If you've been following me for any length of time, you know that The 7th Guest is one of my most favorite games ever. I have talked about pretty much every iteration of it on here, except for things like the mobile 'Infection' game and the T7G board game (which, sadly, I don't own). It is time for me to talk about it again. :D

This past year, a VR remake of The 7th Guest was created by Vertigo Games. It was teased both on its own Facebook page and on Trilobyte's pages as well. The game was released on October 19th, 2023. I would be lying if I said that I didn't want a VR headset just for that game. I got both a headset and the game for Christmas.

As always, spoilers below the cut. But the TL;DR version of this review is thus- This game is very good. 4/5 stars. From the moment I first started it up, it already had the gloriously spooky vibes of the original. For this review, I'm going to break it down into parts, wherein I'll be talking about both the good and bad of each.

The Gameplay

When I first heard that a VR remake of T7G was being made, I was excited. I had such fond memories of the original, and it was an absolute treat to revisit the Stauf Mansion. Experiencing it now is a whole new level of amazing. Not only are the graphics much sharper, of course, but you can see so much more of the house. Instead of a still frame backdrop like the original, you’re able to freely wander around the rooms and interact with objects. A few rooms were scrapped (the art gallery and laboratory were removed entirely, and the maze/catacombs were reworked into a storage room and basement), but I feel like it doesn’t take anything away from the game. If anything, the removal/revamping of certain areas streamlined things.

A new mechanic added to the remake is the lantern your character walks around with. With the lantern, you can spawn in items, see hidden messages on the walls, and get hints for some of the puzzles. It took some getting used to, but I thought it was fun. The original game was point-and-click, so it was cool to see something new added to it.

Slightly less successful, at least for me, were some of the spooky effects in the remake. The original game had the occasional cutscene that wasn’t necessarily plot relevant, but they were still fun. Hands coming out of a picture, floating table settings, a clown ghost appearing in the game room, the Woman in White beckoning you to follow her, etc. The remake's spooky effects come in two ways- One is blink-and-you'll-miss-it moments of shadowy figures appearing in rooms and hallways. Another is paintings that change when you shine your lantern on them.

The Story

Both the original 7th Guest and the VR remake tell the story of one fateful, bloody night at the mansion of the disgraced toymaker Henry Stauf. Six guests were purposely invited, and a seventh was very much in the wrong place at the wrong time. The original game had an opening blurb about the events leading up to the story of the game, but the VR remake takes it a step further. Not only does the story of Stauf’s childhood slowly unfold throughout the game, but each guest’s room has little lore bits sprinkled throughout that give deeper insight to the characters' histories. Pictures, newspaper clippings, etc. Frankly, I love this. Those pieces of backstory were what was missing from the original game.

The Characters

The six guests from the original game make their glorious return in the VR remake. In the weeks leading up to the game’s release, Vertigo Games put out various teaser images and video from the game. At first, I was skeptical (a few of the characters seemed not quite right for their parts), but I think most of the actors did a fantastic job. In particular, I adored both Temple and Elinor. The game's narrator wasn't my favorite, though. There was a certain oomph that was lacking.

The Music

The soundtrack for 7th Guest VR was composed by Jonathan van den Wijngaarden, and I think he did a fantastic job. His score has the same delightfully spooky, but still strangely beautiful quality to it, especially with several of the tracks including familiar tunes from the original. George ‘The Fat Man’ Sanger himself even contributed to the piece of music that plays when you enter the chapel. I honestly have no complaints about the music. It was my favorite thing in the original and it might be one of my favorite things about the remake.

The Puzzles

I was very curious as to what the puzzles would be like in the remake. I have to say, I’m impressed. They have been reworked entirely, with each puzzle now being distinctly themed to whatever room it’s in. Temple’s puzzles all have to do with stage magic tricks, Julia’s puzzles are about either drinking or her fear of getting old, the kitchen puzzles involve things like finding ingredients for soup, etc. The only one that hasn’t changed is the puzzle with the 8 queens in the game room. If I had to nitpick something, it would be that it’s not always easy to spot the puzzles. Unlike the original game, there is no pulsing brain icon to show you what’s a puzzle and what isn’t.

The Easter Eggs

The 7th Guest VR is full of delightful nods to the original 7th Guest. The achievements you can unlock are all named for bits of dialogue from the original game, the dining room has a few glorious nods to the original dining room scene, and there was one particularly delightful music-based Easter egg I stumbled upon purely by accident (pro-tip: Explore every wardrobe, cabinet, and closet).

The Ending

I have thoughts on the ending. The 'final game' was a very weird choice, IMO. For the entirety of the game, the puzzles either relied on strategy or had very clear steps to how to solve them. The finale, however, throws you into an RNG based game against Stauf, where you roll a die, move pieces across the board, and the first to collect three souls wins. Switching up the formula like that honestly pulled me out of the game for a sec. On top of that, there were no actual consequences to losing. If Stauf beat you, the final game just started over from the beginning. It would have been nice for there to be a bad ending, especially since the original game was supposed to have multiple endings as well.

I do love the final cutscene, though. In the original game, a combination of budget and technology constraints kept Trilobyte from fully carrying out the vision they had, so it wasn't entirely clear what happened to Stauf. The remake's ending, though, there was no mistaking how Stauf meets his end. The last bit of dialogue/narration in the game strongly hints at the possibility of a sequel, though, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. If anyone from Vertigo Games happens to read this: if you *are* planning a sequel, I would implore/encourage you not to draw too much inspiration from 11th Hour. That game was not good.

All in all, this game is fantastic. Not quite perfect, but almost. If you have a VR headset and you like puzzle games and spooky atmosphere, I highly recommend you get this one.

[purplekoop]

Alright gonna make a bit of a format for the individual heroes, starting with one of the first "requeues" I thought of:

Mei

New Role: Tank. Health: 500 (100 of which is armor)

Part of an Antarctic research team lost to a freak snowstorm, Mei-Ling Zhou was the sole survivor out of her crew due to a malfunction in the cryo-stasis chambers they hid in to weather their dire situation. However, Mei was not totally unharmed by incident. The malfunction in her pod, while miraculously sparing her life, left her body in a severely weakened state, barely able to survive outside of her stasis pod's life support systems. With the help of the base's survey drone, Snowball, she managed to get a signal out to the recently recalled Overwatch. In critical condition, she was found resting in her pod by the rescue team finally sent to recover her. While stabilized thanks to Tracer's time-rewinding healing powers, Mei was left in a troubled situation in an even more troubled world. With threats like Talon and Null Sector on the rise, and the environmental anomaly that was her original mission still unsolved, she could hardly stand sitting by idly while the world remained in turmoil. With this in mind, Mei approached Winston with an interesting proposition...

Now, Mei has taken to the fight inside an armored cryo-suit, keeping herself safe while also allowing her to defend her allies and those in need, all while Snowball has her back as ever.

Mei's Cryo Suit increases her size significantly compared to her normal appearance, standing at about 6'8" instead of her usual 5'3". Her health has been increased to compensate, and her abilities retain their defensive nature to keep herself and teammates alive.

Her primary fire, now upgraded to Endothermic Cannon, acts very similarly to its current in-game iteration, but now has a bit more of a conical area of effect, making it more effective at slowing down multiple enemies at once. Her secondary fire however is receiving a small damage nerf, from 75 to 60, as to make it less lethal at longer ranges. It retains its critical hit capabilities, as well as the recently added Snap Freeze mechanic to increase its damage in tandem with her primary fire, but this makes it less of a sudden burst of damage on its own while not totally neutering her ranged effectiveness.

Her first ability Cryo-Freeze is now replaced with a slightly different self-defense tool: Cryo Shielding. Putting her arms in a defensive position and covering her entire suit in a layer of dense ice, Mei gains 200 overhealth and immunity to debuffs, cleanses any debuffs she had on activation, and slowly heals while the ability is active, but can't attack and has greatly reduced movement speed for the duration. The ability can be manually cancelled early just like Cryo-Freeze, but if the overhealth is depleted, then the ice armor breaks and the ability ends early.

Her second ability is still Ice Wall, and it's largely the same as before, but to ease some of the frustrations and reinforce its role as a defensive ability, the wall is now much more thin, to the point where it can't be used as a walkable surface when placed underfoot. It still acts as a physical object, but now there's only three wall segments with increased health instead of five.

Finally, her ultimate, Blizzard, is... unchanged. Yeah to be honest, it's already kind of a perfect Tank ultimate. It's a big area denial/crowd control/team setup ult, which is what most Tank ults are anyways. Shame about the name though...

So yeah, that's Mei. The fun part of her rework is the visual overhaul to make her "tank-sized", her abilities are already largely fitting for a tank, but uh. Yeah 5'3" ain't gonna cut it. Actually was surprised to learn the other day she's one of the shortest heroes, that caught me off guard a little. Maybe a little tacky that my solution was just to make her basically Mr. Freeze, but it felt like a logical twist on her backstory like what I had with Reaper... who I turned into basically Venom, okay there might be a pattern here.

Also Mei here is one of the designs I actually want to design the most, the cryo-suit is one of those things I think would make more sense with a visual rather than just an explanation. Again, just saying "it's like Mr. Freeze" gets the gist across, but I'd add a bit more nuance. Mei's a very "cutesy" character with a distinct look to her tech and outfit, so keeping that thematic identity intact while also making her enough a sizeable presence to fit as a tank is something that I think would make for a fun visual.

So yeah, that's Mei's role requeue! Next up on the agenda is the first "new" Damage hero, which... honestly isn't gonna be much of a change of pace for him, outside of the ability to walk.

[mitzirockerextendeduniverse]

[Hi! For... god, years now, I've had this massive Spreadsheet (yes, it requires a capital letter) of retro JRPGs I've wanted to (1) play my way through and (2) blog about. (1) was fairly easy after I stopped trying to play on original hardware, but I found it surprisingly hard to do (2) without it devouring all my free time. So instead of a dedicated blog, I'm just gonna do these short summary posts here whenever I beat a game. There's two in the backlog right now, starting with...]

What it is: The Tower of Druaga (ドルアーガの塔 Druaga no Tō) for Famicom, released on the 6th of August, 1985, developed and published by Namco. Based on the arcade game of the same name from June 1984, also published by Namco and chiefly designed by Masanobu Endō, creator of early scrolling shmup Xevious, it's the first game in - the Spreadsheet as a whole, yes, but also the Babylonian Castle Saga, a collection of (for the most part) vaguely RPG-like action games that tell the story of a prince named Gil, his lover, the priestess Ki, and their quest to restore peace to their loosely-Babylonian fantasy world.

What it's about:

I think the attract screen puts it pretty well! There's some more wrinkles to the backstory, which I mostly got from a strategy guide released at the time - an invading empire, the goddess Ishtar, the precise mechanics behind why, exactly, this is our heroes' last chance to save their kingdom - quite a lot for a mid-80s arcade game. It's pretty thin by RPG standards, but as a setup, it works, and I found it surprisingly engrossing.

How it plays: How do you make an RPG work in the arcade? Apparently, you turn it into a Pac-Man clone. Okay, that's a little flippant; Druaga may be a maze chase game, but there's a lot more going on in it than in most arcade games of its day. On the surface, it's a game about running around mazes, killing monsters, and grabbing keys to get to the next floor, until you defeat Druaga and rescue Ki on the top of the tower. All you have to do is fight your way to the sixtieth floor, right?

In any other arcade game of its era, maybe, but not here. Almost every floor of the tower also contains a hidden treasure that can only be revealed by performing a specific action unique to that floor. The higher Gil gets up the tower, the more he'll need them, from books to reveal the layout of darkened floors to a series of items that turn the increasingly common dragons from the most dangerous enemies in the game to an easily ignored afterthought. Pretty much every useful item in the game (there's several duds and a few traps) is needed to defeat Druaga, so knowing where they are and how to reveal them is absolutely key to beating the game.

The catch - because of course there's a catch - is that neither the treasures' locations nor their revealing methods are signposted at all. Every single one has to be trial-and-error brute-forced out, and they can get pretty arcane - entering a fairly long cheat code, defeating several enemies in a specific order, walking over a particular tile in a particular direction... The intent was for arcade-goers to 'solve' the game together, figuring out all its secrets over the course of weeks or months, but when you don't have a friendly mid-80s Japanese arcade crowd to help you out all you're left with is a mountain of guesswork. Or a walkthrough, which has been a standard bonus feature on its Namco Museum rereleases since the mid-90s.

What I thought: I had a lot of fun with this game! Admittedly I was using a walkthrough (in Japanese, because part of the purpose of the Spreadsheet is to practice my language skills) to bypass about half of the Intended Experience™, but the other half, the straightforward arcade action Pac-Man-with-a-sword gameplay loop, was engaging enough in its own right. Gil controls really well, you never feel like you're fighting the programming instead of the monsters, you can always tell why you died even if the game took a cheap shot, and its insanely generous continue system lets you jump right back to the level you were on with all your items intact when you run out of lives. It's still tough, but it's tough in a fair way, breaking up its fast-paced action into discrete digestible chunks with a chance to breathe between every floor. And frankly, though it is 1980s quarter-muncher hard, I've played indie puzzle platformers that were much worse.

And I do think it succeeds at distilling the RPG into an arcade format, though the result is only an RPG by the loosest possible definition. Despite the lack of numbers and exploration (well, in a sense) there's a distinct feeling of progression to Gil's journey up the tower, a kind of character growth uncommon to - basically any genre outside the RPG in 1984. As Gil collects treasures, he grows faster, stronger, better at navigating the labyrinths, to the point that, despite the increasingly tougher challenges the game throws at you, it almost gets easier the further along you get. With the continue system I mentioned, you can even jump back to floors you've already cleared (mostly to replace a particular item that occasionally breaks) and breeze through the monsters that once gave you so much trouble. It's this kind of thoughtful design that makes me really appreciate Druaga, more than I honestly expected to when I first booted it up. Give it a try, it's pretty good!

[death2you]

VINCENT... hiiii smoochies what's dbd abt? i always see u posting abt it i am now intrigued if u dont mind sharing

HIII JOS !!! ^____^ oh boy youre going to regret this

dbd, or dead by daylight, is a 4v1 asymmetrical horror game !! there are four survivors versus one killer, and a survivor's job is to power 5 of the 7 available generators located around the map, avoid getting caught by the killer and hooked (they literally put you on a meat hook (hehe) & its the classic three strikes and youre out) once five generators are powered, you have to escape through the exit gates and/or escape through the hatch (literally a hatch that spawns on the ground independent of the gates) if you're the last survivor standing. it's very simple on paper, but it's made really fun by the variety of killers and abilities (called perks) that's available on both sides. ^__^

since i don't play dbd (yet?), i don't really focus too much on the mechanical aspects of the game and i mainly focus on the lore. every killer and survivor in the game comes with a backstory and if they get a tome (it's a challenge thing ingame, but the reward is basically more lore), they get more backstory!!! the concept of a huge, ancient, spider god (called the entity <3) feasting on emotion is so delicious to me <3 i recently made a tierlist of my favorite survivors/killers (lol) but the main ones i really really like are claudette (MY BELOVED!!), yun-jin, elodie, renato & thalita, ace, felix, and the killers are legion (they're the Most rotated in my head (especially their leader, frank morrison) i love them, love thinking about them), plague, trickster, deathslinger, and wraith :3

BUT UMMM… yeah thats the basic jist of dbd (& why i like it sm even w/o playing the game) i just love thinking about the interactions between survivors, killers, and how they would interact with each other. i love thinking about the logistics of the fog (something that the entity's realm is called due to the… fog /mist lol) and i just. i like giving more depth to the characters i really like and how they would behave and what not…

[analyzingadventure]

Btw since you like Piemon and some non-partnered digi... Is it okay to ask if you ever thought how would've been their prior forms?

I mean I have and I'm sure I've gone off about that at least once before in the 7+(?) years of me running this blog, but god knows finding those posts is more effort than it's worth

If this is about like the Digimon in general not any specific character, personally, I'm a strong believer in the "any Digimon can evolve into any other Digimon (of the next level)", I don't like strict evolution lines (or trees for that matter) nor the idea that every Digimon A always evolves into Digimon B etc. Because if we are to believe that Digimon are their own inviduals with their own hopes and dreams and wishes, then it only makes sense for them to grow and change (literally) in different ways because no two people are the same (or not change that much, if their evolution is "linear"). So one Piemon having evolved from like IDK MetalGreymon works just as fine for me as another having evolved from Jokermon, if anything I kinda want to know the story behind the former more lmao So in general, anything is fine

But if you meant some specific Piemon character, ummm... My weird take is like... 1) What makes sense in the context of the story and 2) What makes sense for the character

That is to say, if the story/setting has its own unique take on evolution then whatever the Piemon evolved from should make sense within that setting first and foremost. Say, V-Tamer's Piemon technically should be a Jogress (just like Omegamon) due to the v-pets from the early 2000s being what they were. Meanwhile if I wanted to speculate on what Digimon the Dark Masters evolved from, while it'd be fun to throw Jokermon in there it wouldn't make like canon-compliant sense since Jokermon wasn't an option in 1999. Like if we got an Adventure Part 6 and they made Jokermon the canon Perfect that's fine by me but if I had to speculate on what's the most likely Digimon he might've evolved from (like what the writer's might've chosen back in the day when they were making Adventure) I'd pick a pre-2000 Digimon

But then there's like GG and Survive and with those I don't think there's anything within the setting of the story that might limit what Digimon could/couldn't be used*, so really all that matters is that the Digimon really fits with the specific character. Like what makes sense for this person, their backstory, why they are the way they are (and since we know so little I don't think I could even form any strong headcanons)

*(Survive's game limitations aside (like sure I could choose from Survive's small pool of Digimon if I wanted to Be A Lil Extra but I'm not sure if the game's mechanics and limitations should apply (like if the staff had unlimited time and money I'm sure they would've put every Digimon in the game, but that wasn't an option)))