#little customs that can make a player immerse themselves a bit more in the game

[auraxins]

controversial opinion incoming but i think the next mainline persona game should have a customisable mc

[gb-patch]

Ask Answers: January 28th, 2021 (Part 2)

Here we’ve got asks that aren’t to ask a question but are just really nice messages. Thank you all for sending us such kind comments ;v;. It’s seriously heartwarming to see so many people having good experiences with the game. I don’t even know what to say to such sweet responses.

We’ll keep doing our best and thank you again to each and every one of you for giving Our Life a chance ❤!

Hello! I've been following this account and have been following the development of 'Our Life' for a few months now, and I just wanted to say thank you for all your hard work and dedication you have put into the game. It astonishes me how much choice you have during the sequence of Our Life and am excited to play the full version now, I am downloading it as I write this message. I've had a great time seeing the demo transition into to the full game and just wanted to write two words. Thank you.

Anhhhhffbgdfbhujk!!! Congratulations on the release, I’m playing the game right now! Thank you all for your hard work and I can’t wait for the Step 3 DLC to come out, I’ll probably wait for the Step 3 DLC to come out to experience everything, but until then, I still have a lot to play. Thank you once again!

finished my first playthrough just now. it just felt so wholesome ??? 100/10 would do it again. i laughed. i cried. i got angry. i felt second-hand embrassment— i got so into it i was left in literal tears after getting my first ending. the art, the storyline, the music, and COVE HOLDEN– UGH IT WAS LITERAL PERFECTION ❤ THE WAIT WAS WORTH IT. THANK YOU FOR MAKING SUCH AN AMAZING GAME 🥺😭 this made my 2020 better, i can't wait for step 4 in 2021 ❤❤

So I was following you guys on itchio for years and uhh did I stay up til 6 am on a school night to finish the game? Yes. Did I sob my eyes out during step 3 as a 20 year old having doubts about life and adulthood? Absolutely. I can't form proper sentences right now due to lack of sleep but just wanted to say thank you for making it. I honestly feel lighter and I feel like it changed my views on future to be more optimistic... I can't wait to replay it! Thanks again!

I love how Our Life turned out!! I keep replaying it and can't stop squeaking and giggling!! Thank You for creating it ♥

okay i have actually fallen in love with cove and cannot WAIT to marry him 😭

Hi! I played through 'Our Life' yesterday and  I just wanna say how refreshing it was to be able to have Cove be 'high initiative' and also have so many opportunities to initiate affection from the player character! As a pretty flirtatious/affectionate person myself, I notice that a lot of VNs don't give players that agency, and affection can be kinda 'carrot on a stick' if that makes sense. You guys did an awesome job! I look forward to seeing if there are more of those moments in Step 3 & 4 :)

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the option to choose Cove's level of initiative in step 3! As much I love the option to choose I personally enjoy have the romanced character take the lead without my input so when I got to step 3 and had to option to make it so that Cove initiated affection without as much input from me I was really happy! You guys seriously added so much freedom in terms of choices, it's almost baffling that the only thing you have to pay for is optional DLC!

I absolutely loved everything about the game and I really want congratulate the team for making the game such a satisfying experience.

I look forward to step 4

❤️❤️❤️❤️

* and sorry for my bad English

Just finished my first play through and I loved it! I've been looking forward to the game and it definitely was worth the wait. Thank you all for your hard work and can't wait for the extra dlc!

Till then, hope you guys gets some well deserved rest🤗

Love you guys, thank you so much for your hard work. :)

Ok, so I just finished Our Life and, wow. I have never cried at a video game before, ever. Thank you so, so much! Its one of my favorites.

this isn't a question, but i just wanted to say how much i enjoyed our life 🥺 i've been patiently looking forward to the full game for a few months now, and i couldn't be happier with it! i've only played through it once so far but the outcomes of the choices i made were all so soft and wholesome 💗 i can tell that everyone who was involved really worked hard and you all did an incredible job! i can't wait to see what else is in store 👍

i’d just like to say how addictive our life is!!! i constantly played it during quarantine and now playing the full release is so amazing to me!! i love that i’m still discovering dialogue bits with different personalities and actions!!! i have to admit that i’ve been wishing the day to pass faster all day during school so i could go home and play again. mentally i’m not the healthiest and our life being released has boosted it up so much, thank you for creating such an amazing game!!!!!

Hey, I just wanna say I played our life two times and it still give me the same feelings. I was really looking forward to this game before it came out and I kept on replaying the demo. This game is such an amazing experience and I feel so happy playing it. I am not really a person good with words unfortunately but I do honestly love this more than anything in the world. Thank you for making it and I hope that you will continue to make more games like our life. This game really makes me happy and I can't thank you enough

Just wanted to say that Our Life really made me feel seen as an 18 year old trans man who's been struggling with change as of late and I can't thank you guys enough for it. I just finished the main story and currently released DLC's and gosh, I can really only say... woah. Just, woah. The messages are somehow exactly what I needed to hear right now, and they brought me a lot of comfort in this really weird and confusing time in my life. Can't wait to see what comes next in this lovely story <3

I am honestly in love with Our Life. The graphics, the soundtrack its just *chef's kiss* It was so worth the wait for it. I can't wait for step 4. Keep up the good work GB Patch!

good people i have just finished Our Life and let me say, it was beautiful. rarely have such non-fantastical moments (and even some fantastical moments) brought me to tears like this game has, and i don't even have the dlc (yet). i don't know how you did it but it felt like i was playing a slice of life anime. i had waited with baited breath to play this since i played the demo and my expectations were not just met but surpassed. from the bottom of my heart thank you for this game

I found the game by chance and I am so so glad I did. It’s so inclusive and made me feel so incredibly seen. Seeing that my gender identity and sexuality were possible just meant the absolute world to me. I’ve never seen something like this and it just made me so incredibly happy. Thank you for the absolutely amazing game and I can’t wait to see what’s next.

Hello! I downloaded Our life earlier this week and I'm only now getting the chance to play it (Very busy and stressful week) I'm so excited to play and I wanna say thank you for making this adorable game!

I just finished my first playthrough of Our Life and I can't even express how much I love it. Cove is absolutely precious and has killed me several times, and the art and soundtrack is beautiful. I love all the small different choices. I'm very interested in the Derek and Baxter DLCs and the rest, can't wait!!!!!!

thank you for "Our Life Beginnings & Always" it has to be one of the best visual novels i ever have played and i just dont want it to end (i know it will, but damn it! i want to have a wedding night, have children and die of old age with cole! XD) when i play it it always makes me tear up (in a good way) and i am most definetly going to buy all the dlc that you make! thank you for this lovely game and all the work that went into it! (ps: i also loved "lake of voices" )

You guys are incredibly talented and im very proud of you all! You've really outdone yourselves w/ OL and i cant wait to see whats next to come for you all :)

i really love that you can be trans in Our Life! not a lot of games do that so i just wanted to say thank you!

Guuyyss!! I just wanna say! Thank you sm for the headscarf option in the MC creator! I especially loved that little detail where MC quickly slips the headscarf on before greeting Cove, I've never felt so immersed :'D Not that the rest of the game wasn't immersive btw, but since I wear my hijab most of the time that little addition really felt like something I would do! So thank you for that <3

I've been watching "Our Life: Beginnings & Always" development for quite some time, and I gotta say its wild to see it finally release. Its so unique in the way relationships work- even character creation. I've cried multiple times over this game while playing. I can't thank y'all enough for a game with these kind of mechanics, and representation. its rare I get to feel im really playing as myself in games like these. Everyones outdone themselves. this'll certainly be one I keep coming back to.

I've been following the development of Our Life from way back when the first demo dropped and it still blows my mind how many choices and customizations there are (love that update for the MC's bedroom btw!) and the fact that the game remembers them - it really feels like your very own coming of age story! I was so immersed I cried at the end :') Can't believe I experienced this game for free lol. I can't wait for future DLCs and Step 4! Good luck with all your upcoming projects dev team!!

Just wanted to say I love Our Life and I'm thankful it exists. Thank you so much! I love the little world you created and all the people in it. Especially Cove! This game makes me so happy!

Just poping in to say hi and that ilu guys ^^, remember to take care of yourselves!

Hi!! I just wanna thank you for creating such an amazing game. Our Life is one of the few dating sims I’ve found that let’s me be a male mc, it’s really hard to find dating sims that let me be gay. Our Life is my new favorite dating sim to just sit down and playthrough whenever I’m having a bad day so I just wanted to let y’all know how much I appreciate all you’ve done. 🤍

Fan from australia here

Just wanted to reach out and let you know how important this game has been to me. I came across it at a really rough time ( that I’m still going through ) and it’s been one of the things that’s driven me to get up and out of bed sometimes.

This game and cove both hold a very special place in my heart and I can’t wait to see more of him in the DLC and Step 4

Much love ♥️

I know this isnt exactly the main focus of the game, but i really love how we can customise the mc personality wise! This is the first time i've played a game like this where the mc actually does and says exactly what I would do and say in certain situations and its such a breath of fresh air!! It's also so cool how the other characters can pick up on it!!

Cove Holden saved 2020 (my 2020 anyways) I would die for him

Sorry for this being out of the blue, but after playing through Our Life I wanted to thank you for the experience. I don’t know if I’ve ever played a game that has made me cry happy tears TWICE lol. It’s beautiful, scenic, inclusive, and absolutely amazing..have a great rest of 2020 and I honestly cannot wait for the rest of it :,) (ps. The ending song is stuck in my head)

I think you guys might've ruined visual novels for me forever. I'm not sure I'll be able to play another without comparing it to Our Life and I know if I do that I'll be disappointed every time because of how amazing it is. I bought the DLCs before playing the base game it's one of the best impulsive purchases I've ever made

Thank you so much for making our life! It's my favorite visual novel ever and I just can't articulate how much being able to just be honest with my responses instead of going for whatever would make the love interest happy means to me? I reccomended it to evry friend I have that plays visual novels because this is the best one I've ever played!

Just wanted to say that I absolutely adore this game! The childhood friends tropes is my favorite thing and this game delivers! Cove is the sweetest thing, infact all the boys are good boys. Super excited for all upcoming dlcs!

Hi, I just want to thank you for making such an amazing game like Our Life. Tbh, I was following the game’s development for a while, but me and my family moved away from my childhood town just a few days before release, so I really connected to this game. You all did amazing!

hey just wanted to know that i completely loved ol: b&a and it was so good and love cove more than i’ve liked any fictional character, it’s now my comfort media. thank you so much

hi i just wanna say i really enjoyed all of the representation in our life b&a! there were characters with a lot of different body shapes, pic characters, lgbtq+ characters, and you get to choose your own pronouns and sexuality!!! so tysm!!

This isn't a question, I just wanted to say that Our Life is incredible. Ever since I finished it, I've been looking for other visual novels to play so I don't play OL so often that I start memorizing the lines before all the DLC comes out, but I keep coming back to it. It's really one of a kind, I think you all ruined other visual novels for me because I haven't enjoyed another VN like I have this one since I read it ❤.

i think our life b&a is the first game where i felt like cove loved me, not the character i play as which is really nice for someone with kinda low self esteem so THANK YOU

I’ve been playing Our Life practically nonstop since yesterday. I just want everyone who worked on it to know how much the LGBTQ inclusivity means to me. As a closeted trans ace guy in an unsupportive household, I can’t emphasize how much of a comfort this game has been to me. Everything about it is so wholesome and heartfelt. I’m excited to see what other games you make in the future 💙

- A demibiromantic ace transgender man who may or may not have cried over the option to be myself in a game for the first time ever

Csn i just say i really appreciate how you handled MC deciding to use they/them at different stages. Mainly because alot of games don't pay much attention to the body the mc was assigned at birth if they player chooses nonbinary like it does with male/female. And it was just nice to be able to play an mc who just thought gender was kinda 'meh' for them but still felt good about the body they were born with (like myself). I guesd it boils down I'm really appreciative of the hard work it must've taken for you to make all those options possible & still have them matter.

I just wanted to thank you all for Our Life. My mental health hasn't been in a good place recently and it has become my favorite form of escapism/way to cheer up. It's idyllic setting and fantastic characters are such a good way to wind down, I love it. Also, I've been dreading 2021 due to classes starting and general stress, but the DLC and your next project have given me something to actually look forward to :). I'm so excited for them and now I actually have a reason to be happy that it's 2021. Sorry if this message is a bit weird, I just wanted to thank the team for their hard work and for creating something so incredible <3

I've gotta say this is one of the most repayable games I've ever played, if not the most. Usually after i do a playthrough or two of a game i have to wait awhile before playing again otherwise it feels stale. But i haven't had that problem with our life because of the sheer ammount of player agency. Everyone who works on tbe game should feel incredibly proud of themselves because you've created something amazing.

I just wanted to say thank you for Our Life. I'm sure you get this a lot, but it really pulled me out of a mentally tough spot in my life. So thank you.

who needs therapy when you have our life: beginnings and always? haha no but seriously this game is my comfort game, and even though i can’t join your patreon at the moment please know i am always supporting you and i am so excited to see everything you have in store! everyone who works on the games is so so talented

All DLCs have nice content. 😡😡

And I love them all!!💗💗💗💖💖💖💕💕💕

[curechocolattymilk]

I am in a sorta rambling Skyrim mood again so if you want lists of my mods i have/want to keep for Skyrim Extended Cut’s release/want to get for a fresh save under S:EC uhh here you go??

MOD LIST IN GENERAL/AS A WHOLE (might be a long one)

Immersive Citizens - AI Overhaul

USSEP

Alternate Start

Cutting Room Floor

The Paarthurnax Dilemma

Khajiit Speak (disabled atm, only on for a Khajiit character I plan on remaking)

Wet & Cold SE

Static Mesh Improvement Mod (SMIM)

BarenziahQuestMarkers SSE

Immersive Patrols SE

Apocalypse

Ordinator

Horns Are Forever SE

Wildcat

Inigo

DigitigradeKhajiit_ArgonianRaptor

Falskaar (disabled & prob gonna be uninstalled. Wasn’t satisfied w the mod so i went back to a save before installing it that wasn’t too far back)

Run For Your Lives

Enhanced Lights & FX

True Storms SE (+Compatibility patch for W&C)

Civil War Aftermath

Hearthfire Multiple Adoptions & Custom Home Support SE

Derkeethus Dual

New Beginnings- AS Extension

No More Stupid Dog

D13 Faster Get Up SSE

Amazing Follower Tweaks SE

DWC Player Werewolf Replacer

Diverse Werewolves Collection

Dominions More Argonians

Immersive Good Boy

Skyrim Sewers

Convenient Horses

Fast Travel Ambushes & Consequences

Interesting NPCS/3DNPC (& with it, Cyb’s Overhaul) SE  Patches/Hotfixes

BAT- Bigger Argonian Tails SE

BS: Bruma SE (and patches)

Vigilant SE + Voiced English Addon SE

Cinematic Dragon Soul Absorption (disabled)

Shout - Immersive & Dynamic Overhaul

SkyUI SE + Flashing Savegames Fix

Destructible Display Cases

Dragon Stalking Fix

TK Dodge SE

Immersive Movement

Hun Lovaas & the mod authors other music replacer mods

Hoth

More Tavern Idles

Ultimate Combat SE

Library of Paarthurnax SSE

Dawnguard as vampire (didn’t want to lose part of my sould for the DG quest lol, turned right back into a werewolf)

Real Bosses (Light File)

Immersive World Encounters SE

Better Jumping SE

Kaidan 2

Race Menu

Miraak DB Follower + Dialogue Plus

Monster race crash fix (for the Play as a Dragon mod)

Lucien Flavius

Racial Body Morphs SE - Diverse body types & height

CWN - Civil War Neutrality SSE

Alt Conversation Camera

Guard Dialogue Overhaul SE

Deadly Dragons

Werewolf Feral Run

Bigger Tails for Werewolves

Predators - Werewolf & Vampire role playing tool (Lite version currently disable)

3DNPC Talkative Followers

Masque of Argonian Vile SSE

Talkative Dragons + Enigma Series

My Little Hatchling SSE + Adoptable Argonian Hatchling

Play As a Dragon

Growl - Werebeasts of Skyrim (I definitely recommend this for werewolf playthroughs! It doesn’t have Moonlight Tales’ features but its still balanced/fun & barely buggy in my experience)

Death is Highly Overrated redone 2020

SKSE64

MODS IM FOR SURE KEEPING/MAYBE KEEPING

To keep the bulletpoint list hopefully short: Patch/QoL mods that fix vanilla issues (i.e. USSEP, D13, SMIM, the like), follower mods (save for Miraak since S:EC seems to have something planned for him), mods done to tweak the Werewolf experience, combat & boss difficulty mods, Mods that overhaul NPCs dialogue/AI (guards, citizens in general), weather mods, music mods, & mods that make Argonians & Khajiit look a bit more fun are for sure staying! Any civil war mods I have might be trimmed off, debating on how S:EC approaches reworking the secondary story quest. That being said:

BarenziahQM - For the sole fact it makes that quest soo much better

Paarthunax Dilemma - a solid maybe? S:EC is also gonna do something bout this part of the Blades quest if I read their reddit post correctly, so I might just leave it disabled & see what happens first

Hearthfire Multiple Adoptions - yes pls let me make Tei a papa to every Skyrim also I need it to make Kaidan’s home available for the kiddos

Derkeethus - makes him a more decent follower but eeeh idk i rarely take him out often so it might be snipped itsa maybe

Destructible Display Cases- sometimes i’m too lazy to lockpick

No more Stupid Dog/Immersive Good Boy- Meeko is a good boy I should be able to tell him & also my kids + housecarls shouldn’t call him stupid >:(

More Argonians- I just like these funky reptiles (used to have More Khajiits too but it always would CTD at a certain inn w it installed. F)

Alternate Start- Makes things more spicy

CH- Sorta QoL for the skyrim horses, for sure staying

FTA&C- Again, makes things more spicy, but in the event of some group jumping you while traveling

Vigilant- Maybe?? It’s fun as hell but not really in character for Jeer-Tei. Perhaps re-enabled later as an end game thing alongside BS: Atmora whenever that comes out?

Shout- makes cooldowns more bearable so itsa keep

DSF- also a QoL mod

Immersive Movement + More Tavern Idles + Better Jumping + Immersive Encounters

AFT- big traveling groups are always fun/it makes it easier to horde keep all of Skyrim’s dogs

Race Menu + Racial BM SE- falls under “makes Argonians more fun” like some other argonian focused mods I guess? RBM plays around w everyones height and RM just lets you go buck wild (in a sfw way! unless...yknow you got nsf/w mods i guess) doesn’t hurt to specify tho lol

Alternate Convo Camera- Really fun!! Despite it pointing out how short my LDB is

Deadly Dragons- Makes fighting the Dovah much more fun w all the (honestly not as canon) diversity in looks & abilities! Can recommend, not too harsh on older devices either from what I know

Death is Highly Overrated

Play as a Dragon + Monster Race Fix- another hard maybe because well...you turn into a dragon which isn’t too immersive I guess?? Probably another “end game” mod for Tei

MODS IM EYEING/WANT TO GET (this post is so long so far I’m sorry)

Survival Mods!! (iNeed is one I’m looking at & maaaybe Frostfall?? idk i’ll have to see about that one i heard its not too fun for the Argonian gang) P much looking for something that’ll make exploring the wilds of Skyrim less of a bore

Camping + Hunting based mods! I’ve been eyeing Campfire & Hunterborn specifically, but open to any other suggestions. Same reasoning as survival mods, makes it more fun to travel! Plus, I’m going for an in character experience, it would fit Tei!

Khash & Auri follower mods. I’ve been eyeing these two for a bit, but from my experience w adding Kaidan & Lucien late game, I miss a lot of fun stuff D: So I’m planning on nabbing them for a fresh playthrough under S:EC (or at least, Khash! I uh...don’t know how to download mods manually/always mess it up & Auri doesn’t have the option to let Vortex do all the work unfortunately, but we’ll see!)

Maybe some nice armor mods?? Again nothing too heavy to handle but just to add some flavor(tm)

Saw a mod that made Animal AI a bit more realistic, might nab that

long shot but a mod that lets everyone refer to your LDB via they/them pronouns would be cool too but idk feel like it’d be a nightmare to attempt modder wise. Honestly i’d love the idea of having a mod or two that’ll let me confirm that Tei is trans themselves in game (3DNPC has a quest where you can say your character is, but that’s about it to my knowledge)! Buuut I’m unsure to search for any cause: 1) I don’t want to deal w transphobes ruining my searches & my day on Nexus & 2) Any curious google/bing searches keep bringing up Lovers lab & mmmm no thank you.

and uh...so far that’s the base of it? idk im still looking around & I might have to add/drop some things depending on like...how much my current computer can handle, Not grabbing any fancy graphics mods, that’s for sure lol

[livegrow832]

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Where are the tables located when you play live roulette?

There are 2 main variants of live roulette. Most tables are located in a Studio owned by the live gaming company who is running the table you happen to be playing at. Evolution, for example, has 9 studios worldwide in Latvia, Malta, Georgia, Romania, Vancouver: Canada, Atlantic City: New Jersey, Philadelphi: Pennsylvania and Spa: Belgium. Many companies have also tied up with land-based casinos. They run the feed directly from the table at the casino (Authentic Gaming is the market leader here).

How many live roulette providers are there?

This is a growing area within the online casino industry. Players seem to like the authenticity you get playing on a live dealer table. There are over 20 main providers we can think of, and the number goes up if we are talking smaller players. The main companies include Evolution, Pragmatic Play, Authentic, Playtech, NetEnt, Microgaming, Amaya, Media Live, Vivo Gaming and Asia Live Tech. The industry is consolidating though. We expect this list to shorten!

Is live roulette rigged?

This is the age old conspiracy theory that does the rounds on the Internet: the idea that live roulette wheels are rigged in some kind of Al Capone fashion, with magnets under the wheel and so on. On the face of it, this would be pretty easy to pull off, wouldn’t it?, given that the players sit remotely from the wheel. The first point to make is that any reputable casino will be audited in order to get their licence to operate. You should avoid shoddy outfits, that goes without saying, but we are confident that the casinos that we feature are playing by the rules. The second point to make, is that the casinos already have a house edge on the roulette table. It is in their interest to make sure that their players come back and play and enjoy themselves. If an online casino is in it for the long term, they wouldn´t last long employing shady tactics. You can give yourself a measure of comfort by tracking the results on the wheel. Do they look statistically normal? The distribution of reds and blacks will tend to normalise to 47% / 47% (with the rest reserved for the green) over time. Play with small bets first and you will soon spot any obvious skews. The third point is that skewing the wheel is actually a pretty dangerous game for a casino. If you look at some of the characters who have taken the casinos to the cleaners on roulette over the years, most of them have spotted imperfections on the wheel. It works both ways!

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Cyberpunk 2077 non-spoiler review

Anyways here’s my writeup about my least favorite parts of 2077 for people who are interested in seeing if it’s for them. Both going to talk about content as well as gameplay. This is for PC version, too, because I know last gen consoles are suffering terribly rn and I wouldn’t recommend the game if you’re not going to be playing on PC. At least not until it’s on sale or the issues have been resolved. It really, really shouldn’t have been released on last gen consoles at all in my opinion - or at least should’ve been released on consoles LATER.

If you like Saints Row, GTA, Mass Effect, Shadowrun, or the Cyberpunk genre in general - I definitely think this is something you might want to take a peek at! I wasn’t anticipating the game until about a month or two before release - so maybe that’s why I’m having a blast - but It’s one of my favorite stories from the past decade as far as sci-fi goes. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, and It’s really impressed me. I can’t even go into detail about all the things I LOVE because I really want folks to experience it themselves. Just know there’s a very intricately detailed world, all the characters are memorable and insanely well realized and complex, and the story is great fun. Also made me cry like 5 times. It’s become one of my FAVORITE games very quickly.

I’d also recommend Neon Arcade if you want someone who’s been covering the game for quite a while, including the technical and game industry aspect. He does well to go into some detail and even though he’s a fan, I’ve found him to be largely unbiased. I’m not going to go into industry politics here because I feel that’s up for everyone to decide on their own terms.

No spoilers, things to keep in mind, content warnings, etc. below!

CONTENT WARNINGS and issues with plot/story

this setting is dark. very dark. if you struggle stomaching things like dystopian landscapes, body horror, physical, mental and sexual abuse, corporate and gang violence, abuse of children, harsh language, and concepts that mess with the perception of reality - this game might not be for you. It’s a very mature setting, and I don’t mean that in the Adult Swim kind of way. I mean it in the ‘oh shit, it went there’ way. In my opinion I haven’t run across anything in it that was handled distastefully when it dipped into the depressing, but dark and gritty isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and I wanted to give a disclaimer.

The game’s universe in advertising and working for the lower class also exploits sex/sex work quite a bit. This is part of the lore itself because in this universe everyone’s become desensitized to sex and violence to the point that marketing embraces it and makes it ridiculous. I feel it’s very obvious that it doesn’t condone this message and is instead a commentary on consumerism - but people still might be uncomfortable seeing a lot of suggestive stuff all over the place regardless. 

Women in game are naked more often than men - even though there is nudity for both. This is likely a mix of appealing to the Gamer Boy demographic (even though the story does NOT actually), or the fact that media is way more cool with seeing naked women than seeing full frontal nudity on men. They probably had to tone some of it down to avoid going above an M rating. 

The story is amazing, but sometimes it dumps a lot onto you at once. It’s one of those sci-fi stories that you have to really be following the names, faces, and concepts continually to get it all down. There’s a lot of betrayal, background players, etc. I think by the mid-way point I’d mostly had it, but It’s pretty dense. However it’s still amazing. You might just need two playthroughs before every tiny detail clicks - because there’s a LOT of details. 

Honestly I think it would help to read up on the lore first so you’re not going ‘what’ constantly. But people have seemed to manage fine without that also! Neon Arcade has a really nice series of videos (like 2 or 3) that get you up to speed with the universe. It also helps you decide if the tone is right for you. 

I think the main story should’ve been longer, also. I don’t mind a 20 hr story, especially in a massive RPG, but It feels like they really struggled to cram as much into that time frame as possible. It skirts the edge of being nice and concise, snappy, and tight - and needing just a few more moments to take a breath and wait a second. This is helped if you do a lot of side quests.

The straight male romance option, River, is INCREDIBLY well written but he doesn’t tie into the main plot in any way whatsoever. It’s very strange and feels like they either ran out of time with him, or slapped together a romance with him at the last second. All the other romances at least know what’s going on with V’s story - meanwhile River has no idea, and you can never tell him. He’s an amazing guy though and I highly recommend his questline. He appears in ACT 2.

In general I’d say not to bother with the romances. There are only 4 total, and while the romancible characters on their own are really well written, the romances themselves are just kinda meh. One romance you don’t even meet until act 3. I don’t think they should’ve been included in the game at all, because they definitely don’t feel as fleshed out as everything else. 

CDPR also sometimes forget that women players or gay men exist. Panam and Judy have a lot more content than River and Kerry for example. I don’t think this is intentional, they just have a large fanbase of dudebros. It only shows in the romance content and the nudity thing though.

Johnny, Takemura, and Claire should’ve been romances and I will fight to the death on that. 

There are gay and trans characters in the game and their stories don’t revolve around their sexualities. It’s very Fallout: New Vegas in it’s approach to characters: IE. you’re going to love them. All of them. 

V’s gender isn’t locked to their body type or their genitals- but to to their voice. I don’t think it’s the best solution they could’ve used but given how the game is heavily voice acted I assume that was what they had to work with. 

Some of the romances are locked to both cis voices AND body types (not genitals if I recall but body shapes). That’s disappointing but I assume it was because of scripted scene issues and/or ignorance on the dev’s part considering the LGBT NPCS are so AMAZINGLY done. There’s no homophobic or transphobic language in the game - though there are gendered curse words and insults if that bothers you. 

Some characters MAY suffer from ‘bilingual people don’t talk like that’ syndrome. But it can be hard to say for sure given that translators exist in this universe and the way they operate aren’t fully described. It’s only momentarily distracting, not enough to take away from how charming the NPCs are.

The endings are really good don’t get me wrong but I want fix it fic :(. All of the endings out of like 6 (?) in the game are bittersweet. 

Both gender V’s are very good but female V’s voice acting is out of this world. If you don’t know what voice to go with/are neutral I’d highly recommend female V. Male V is charming and good but he feels much more monotone compared to female V. 

V has their own personality. To some this won’t be a detractor - but a lot of people thought they’d be making absolutely everything from the ground up. V is more of a commander shepard or geralt than a skyrim or d&d pc, if that makes sense. You can customize and influence them to a HUGE degree, some aspects of V will always be the same.

Streetkid is the most boring background - at least for it’s introduction/prologue.

GAMEPLAY/TECHNICAL

If you can run your game on ultra, don’t. It actually looks best with a mix of high and medium settings. Unless you have a beast that has ray-tracing - then by all means use ray tracing and see how absolutely insanely good it looks.

There are color blind modes for the UI, but not for some of the AI/Netrunning segments in cutscenes. Idk how much this will effect folks with colorblindness but those segments are thankfully short. 

There was an issue with braindances being an epilepsy trigger because for some reason they decided to mirror the flashing pattern after real epilepsy tests - probably because it ‘looks cool’. I don’t have epilepsy but it even hurt my eyes and gave me a headache. Massive oversight and really goddamn weird. Thankfully this was fixed.

There is no driving AI. Like at all. If you leave your car in the street the traffic is just going to pile up behind it. It’s one of the very few immersion breaking things I’ve encountered.

Sometimes when an NPC is driving with you in the car, they’ll drive on the curb and/or run into people. It’s kind of funny but can occasionally result in something weird. Feels very GTA  - but nothing excruciating. 

The camera angle feels a little too low in first person mode when driving on cars. You get used to it though. 

The police in this game feel slapped on and I hope they improve it. Right now if you commit a crime, you can never tell what will actually trigger it. And if you just run away a few blocks the police forget about it. 

Bikes are just way more fun to ride than the cars are. 

You CANNOT respec your character after you make them. Ever. it sucks. Go in with an idea ahead of time what you wanna do - it’s better than being a jack of all trades.

as of now you also CANNOT change their appearance after you exit the character creator. This, also, sucks. Make sure you REALLY like your V or you’re gonna be replaying the openings over and over like I did. 

Photomode on PC is the N key. Had to look it up. The mode itself is great though

Shooting and Mele fighting feel pretty standard. I don’t have a lot of shooter experience besides Bethesda games so anything feels better than that to me. So far I’ve enjoyed stealth and mele the best, but that’s just my own taste! The combat and driving aren’t groundbreaking by any means, but they’re still very fun. I look forward to running at people with swords or mantis blades, and zipping around the city on a motorcycle to see the sights. The story, lore, and interesting quests and characters are the real draw here.

I haven’t encountered any game breaking bugs in 80-ish hours of play time. One or two T-poses, a few overlays not loading or floating objects - but nothing terrible. Again, my experience is with Bethesda games. This is all usually fixed by either opening your inventory and closing it again, or exiting out and reloading your save. 

The C button is mapped for crouching AND skipping dialogue by default. That’s terrible. Change it in the settings to be HOLDING C skips dialogue and you’ll be gucci.

There’s apparently a crafting system. I have never been inclined to touch it. But I also play on easy like a pleb so IDK how it all scales otherwise.

The mirror reflections can be a little bit weird, at least on my end. They always end up a teeny bit grainy despite my computer being able to run everything on Ultra Max. You can still get good screens out of it though!

So many people text me to sell me cars and I want them to stop. Please. also the texting menu is abysmal. The rest is ok tho

It’s pretty clear when you’re going to go into a ‘cutscene’. all cutscenes are rendered in-engine BUT you often will be talking to other characters at a specific angle or setting. The game locks you into this usually by having you sit down. It works for me - after all we do a lot of sitting- but it IS very obvious that it’s a way for the game to get you in the frame it wants to display.

That’s all I can think of rn! If you’re interested but wanted to get a slightly better idea of whats going on, I hope this helps. I’m really enjoying it and despite my issues it’s exceeding my expectations. I’m going to be thinking about and replaying this game for quite a while. 

[catflowerqueen]

Still not quite finished with Gates, but I’m nearing the finish line for the main game? I think? So I have some more structured thoughts below. 

(Apologies for the length, but... well, that’s part of why I’m putting it under the cut)

Most of the mechanics I think are an improvement on Explorers—and definitely on Rescue Team, since Explorers introduced a lot of improvements (like the way healing items are handled—in Rescue team you had to throw them at your allies, and only the hero could eat them directly from the bag). I like how Gates handles experience for allies left at home, and the way that you can level up individual moves and share them among everyone rather than using a ginseng on a single move for a single pokemon (that I don’t think retains that level up if you forget it but then go and remember it again? I can’t recall that part), and some of the team skills are useful… but the problem is that they are really luck-based in terms of actually acquiring them. I’ve only gotten two so far. Comparatively, IQ skills were very much based on the individual, but also a lot easier to get, allowing for a sort of customization aspect? It allowed more care and a better sense of victory, at least.

The V-wave thing is pretty cool, though, especially when paired with how exp works, even as annoying as I find Victini.

Getting rid of the hunger mechanic is I think positive overall? It does free up some inventory space, which is nice, but it also removes a bit of the puzzle and challenge for some of the longer dungeons—and I can’t help but wonder if the reason they did so is just because of how many dungeon layouts in Gates were comprised of many, many sprawling hallways with tons of intersections and small, unnecessary turns and corners, but only, like, three rooms—meaning that everyone would starve to death if the hunger system was involved. I know Explorers had some of those, too, but those were mainly for later stage dungeons, where bigger challenges were expected. It also makes a lot of the dungeons… really boring and repetitive? Like, the graphics are great, but there isn’t really too much variety of the non-plot dungeons beyond differences in color schemes? And while the puzzles involved are excellent, there aren’t really a lot of them, and so far Inflora Forest is the only one where the puzzle is still relevant after making it through the first time—the other ones seem to keep the bridges and stairs you make the first time around, leaving those sections rather superfluous.

And while I like how Companion mode lets me have more of a casual sort of playstyle, and I can build up Paradise and do mini-games without interference from the plot… It kind of makes Post Town really unnecessary beyond specified plot scenes? Like… I don’t have to wait to open any Treasure boxes. Once a dungeon ends I get instant gratification of finding out what’s in them (assuming I have enough money). Same thing with the gold bars. And since Quagsire operates as a shop as well, there is really no need for Kecleon (in Post Town—the ones in the dungeon are still extremely useful) beyond maybe him having some rarer items on occasion—but even then, getting certain shops in Paradise also makes him even more redundant.

 (Though, speaking of Paradise shops: Elite boutique—not worth it. Maybe if all shops operated that way—were only around for a specific period of time before inevitably closing—it would be less grating… but there was no warning that that shop would only be run for a few days before closing forever, in addition to the fact that I have to watch Gurdurr’s sad face and laments about destroying the place [after a big part of his backstory involved someone deliberately destroying his work, mind you!] when they could have easily solved it as running more like the travelling salesmon in post town—you never know who or when someone will show up, or how long they’ll stay, but the possibility is at least there that someone will show up again.)

I also don’t like how you can’t stack missions—it really takes the emphasis off of the actual “exploring dungeons” part of the game, and puts it more on trying to build up Paradise. Which is fine, but it just doesn’t feel like traditional gameplay for a PMD game, you know?

As far as characterizations goes… It’s honestly kind of a mixed bag for me in comparison with some of the other games? Like… I do think that, overall, your immediate team and allies had better characterization visible in story, following the plot. As in, they came right out and showed you in the cutscenes, and didn’t depend on you going and talking to them individually in town, reading their diaries, and playing special episodes. I don’t think that the partner is the absolute best-characterized one writing-wise, but they were very, very well-done and do show good growth throughout (Rescue Team is the worst, mostly because of how bland they actually are—especially in the Post Game, where they are completely optional, and no longer follow you around or really talk to you at all like an individual character, rather than just another pokemon you recruit from dungeons [and on that note—I’m kind of sad that Gates got rid of the feature that actually let you talk to your team in the dungeons themselves. Sure, most of what got said was the same ten or so bland lines for everyone, but… I still liked having that option to just turn around and discuss things, especially since at some points it was unique based on where in the plot you were!)

But at the same time… that does take a little mystery out of it? Like… it makes your own (the actual, physical player’s) relationship with them a bit… less rewarding? You aren’t actually working at forming them, this way, the way you would be if you were exploring the town, happened across someone from the guild, and then decided to talk with them. That way, learning all these cool little hints and quirks was almost like a puzzle itself, something you had to work for, something that really embraced the idea of exploring and immersion.

Which is also kind of why I’m of two minds about the fact that the hero does actually have scripted lines, beyond just their thoughts and the little “running motion” indicative of things being said, but not actually described. There aren’t as many dialogue trees, you don’t really get to make that many choices, and the lack of space left up to the imagination… well, it doesn’t make me resonate with the hero as much as in other cases? I don’t really feel like they’re “me,” or could be “me,” so while they do feel in-character for the “character” of the hero… it just doesn’t feel like I’m actually the hero. It doesn’t leave space for that option the way that the other games do.

As for other characters… honestly, it’s kind of hit and miss for them as far as characterization goes, and I think a lot of that has to do with my earlier remarks about how unnecessary Post Town feels most of the time. I feel like they were really over-ambitious with their ensemble cast? Because, sure, some of them like Leaveanny, Swadloon, Lillipup, and Herdier I thought were well done… most of the others were rather forgettable? There were some travelers like Trubbish, Mienfoo and Dwebble that I really like, but I think that most of the others just don’t get enough characterization. Sure, it’s nice that a lot of them care about the player and greet them as their own individual, clearly trying to convey that relationships are being formed… but I just don’t care that much for the town as a whole? The others don’t really grab me, or add that much to the plot at all? Especially since half the time bigger plot discussions only really happen with the group in Paradise?

Like… Explorers had a lot of people, but the fact that they did travel in and out of town, and would sometimes go missing for days, but clearly had their own little stories and plots they were following was really interesting! Same with Rescue Team—the Pokémon Square was small, but it actually felt like a lived-in town? And I’m pretty sure the main towns of PSMD that you were actually using as a hub had that too—Serene Village definitely did. But Gates… I just don’t really see it. They were too ambitious, and they fell flat. I feel like maybe they could have fixed this if you were allowed to visit it in Companion Mode, too—or if they just didn’t let you visit any non-Paradise shops and only allowed Quagsire to edit your party—or if they shrunk it down so that the only thing there was Swanna’s place and the hill, and had the individual characters visit on a basis similar to Explorers, but… yeah.

As far as plot/story goes… well, some of that is hard to determine, just because of how much is involved in a good story. Characterization, like I said, is fine overall, but the story does seem really… low stakes? For the most part? Especially when compared to Rescue Team or Explorers. I think it has good progression over all—especially when compared to the mess that was PSMD!—but there isn’t quite as much of an overall… driving force? I think?

Like… okay, I know I’ve said before that it is a little weird that the hero in Explorers—and I guess also in Rescue Team—spends so much time focusing on other stuff rather than figuring out exactly what happened to them, why they turned into a pokemon, why they have amnesia, etc. (especially since that is part of their stated reason for joining the Guild in Explorers), but in all fairness… what else are they really supposed to do? They have amnesia, they have no clues as to a starting place to even look, it makes sense that they would want and need a safe place and routine figured out so that they can even start looking. And there are some hints pretty early on about their backstory/the state of the world (in dreams and dimensional screams). But the Gates hero… well they actually do have something of a starting place, and they have far more reason to really care about figuring all that out. For one thing, they do not have amnesia. The game makes that pretty clear, and the partner even makes comments on that—asking about friends and family, etc.

So why aren’t they making more of an effort to figure out how to get back home so they can actually reunite with those loved ones?? Or at least commenting on why they might not be concerned about that?? And since the hero doesn’t have amnesia, they also clearly remember the fact that they were called to the pokemon world specifically because someone was asking them for help—and they had a visual description of who they assumed that someone to be. They have a starting point. Why are they not asking around about that?? Why did they wait for more dreams to happen first? And, while it did get brough up in game a little bit, with them commenting on how maybe it wasn’t the greatest idea for them to be taking one of the spots on that initial Great Glacier Expedition because they do, actually, have some responsibility they’re supposed to fulfill, and they don’t know if they’ll have more dreams on the way… they still go on that expedition! Without bringing any of that up verbally, or to the partner who has by that point already agreed that they will go with the hero to save that pokemon as soon as their dreams clear up more.

But… like… they shouldn’t just be being so passive about this??? There are things they could all be doing to prepare! And maybe that is getting into some different facets of the partner’s personality, and showing how really dependent they are on the player—like, having their reluctance to do more be because of how much they really don’t want them to leave after (which does get brought up a little bit)… but I don’t think that’s quite what the game was going for—and if it was, then that needed to be made clearer.

So I guess over all… I think that Explorers is a better game to play if you do want something more story/plot driven, and want to, well, explore things a bit, while Gates is better for a more casual sort of play. Like… the actual plot almost seems like the side story or Special Episode in the face of building up Paradise.

Though, that probably does say more about an individual’s playstyle over the game itself, huh?

I guess… if you’re more into direct characterization via cutscenes, Gates is better (though there are times I wish it showed more of the visuals—like for some of the party scenes, or the housebuilding scene). But if you want a more integrated plot, Explorers is better—or Rescue Team, but it doesn’t have as good of a post-game).

And PSMD… well, I still stand by my earlier statements that I think the first part of the game was great, and the partner was the best-explored/characterized of them all… but it quickly lost plot cohesion and most of the adult characters are terrible people who should not be allowed around children—and the player character really got screwed over by basically everyone and never got closure for any it.

(Also, I can’t actually say anything about DX, since I don’t have a Switch, but from what I’ve seen it’s basically just Rescue Team with some improvements to gameplay mechanics? The story seemed to be pretty much the same from what little I saw.

Oh, and also Ekans’ sprite looks very, very weird.)

...I think that’s everything I had to say for now.

[viridianstarlight]

Minecraft could be a great tool for running D&D

So I’ve played a little bit in a few D&D campaigns, and I’m hoping to run my own campaign in the future. I’ve been unsure though of how I want to run it.

If I do it in-person with local friends, then that’d probably mean me running combat on a grid (simply because I struggle with the imagination aspect without a visual representation of a scenario, let alone keeping my imaginary version consistent with those of the players). But that means there’s a bunch of online friends that I’d love to play with wouldn’t be able to join.

If I do it over Discord or Zoom or something like that, then that means far more potential for online friends to join, and means I’d be able to use tools like Roll20 for the visual stuff.

As an alternative though, I think Minecraft could be a great tool for the DM and the players in running sessions. It would mean first-person immersion for the players (and the DM, to a lesser extent), rather than top-down third-person immersion for a model-based setup for in-person play (if even that), or the 2D grid of something like Roll20.

There are a few limitations though, and even after thinking about this for a year or so (not the entire time), I’m not sure how to answer some of them.

1. What do you use to represent the player-characters, NPCs, and enemies?

The easy solutions to player-characters is their avatars, of course, but that means the players themselves can’t move around the scene much for strategizing and perspective on the situation. Armour stands would work well as an alternative, but are difficult to move around (especially precisely) without commands or entirely destroying and rebuilding them each move.

A similar case goes for NPCs and enemies. You could use mobs to represent them (summoned with no AI through commands), but without mods or resource packs, you’re really limited as to what mobs you could use to represent them. Villagers make sense for NPCs, but they look very different to a human, which could break immersion somewhat. Zombies and skeletons work great to represent undead enemies/NPCs (and spiders/cave spiders for spider enemies too), but for other enemies, there’s very little options.

And in the case of using armour stands for either of those, that also means much less freedom as to how the characters/enemies look. You’re basically limited to armour (including coloured leather armour), mob heads (helps a little if you’re able to use custom heads), elytra (would work great for any winged character, especially fae), and anything that can be held in the hands of the armour stands. That leaves very little room for conveying the appearance of a character/enemy.

You could instead go for colour-coding armour stands to represent race/class and different enemies NPCs instead, which gives the group much more freedom in figuring out combat and similar scenarios, but that also takes away from the immersion.

2. How do you represent smaller/larger characters/enemies, and those that aren’t ‘human-shaped’?

It’d be really difficult representing characters/enemies that aren’t the standard human size. If you’re using the armour stands datapack from vanillatweaks, you could use the small armour stands to represent small characters, but I’m not sure how you’d represent large (or bigger) characters/enemies. If you’re working with mobs, I’m pretty sure you can use commands to increase their size, but that starts getting into issues addressed in the first point.

And even more difficult, you’re gonna have a hard time representing some of the ‘less human’ races, like Dragonborn, and even more with non-humanoid characters/enemies that don’t have an easy mob look-alike. As mentioned earlier, you could do spiders just fine, but a lot of Minecraft’s mobs aren’t really suited to represent monsters from D&D, so without mods (or maybe resource packs, for cases like turning a guardian into a beholder). For really big stuff, you could just build them out of blocks, but that means they’re difficult to move. You could make them out of multiple armour stands, but that makes them even more difficult to move.

3. How much work is it to build for each session? What do you even build for each session?

Of course, you’re gonna build your planned combat scenarios in the game, considering how well the block-scale of the game would work for a grid-based board. But even that could be a lot of work (although it depends on how much time you have between sessions), let alone building the entire potential play area for the session.

The easy solution is just to build the planned combat scenes, and maybe a few important scenes (like things involving traps, and the all-important tavern). but the players are gonna be spending a lot of time between those scenes, which means one of three things.

- Your players are out of the game when they’re not in these scenes

- Your players are in the game in these scenes, but in an empty/unimportant area

- Your players are just in whatever scene you last used

And all three of those options are gonna break the immersion of the game, especially that last option. But the alternative to that is just to build for the entire session. If you’re working from a standard world (rather than a flat world), you don’t need to do much terraforming, but it does mean either finding a suitable seed/location for the session or adapting the session to fit the world. And even if you do have a suitable world that doesn’t need much terraforming, it still leaves a ton of work with building up stuff like towns and dungeons.

All that considered though, the potential for running D&D in Minecraft excites me. Y’all have any thoughts? Potentially ideas or solutions for the problems? Or any thoughts on other potential problems?

[gamename436]

What is the online gaming website

Career In Gaming

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If you do not have a large gaming group, you have probably noticed that two-player games are really hard to find, and definitely great ones that are just as terrific for two players are even more rare. I've wracked my memory (and pestered my friends) to come up with a bunch of tabletop games that are a blast for two— not just technically playable with no extra.

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This (Blog) is exactly where you can read every thing I know. Find out about the most effective board games for game nights in original critiques, get suggestions on every little thing from organizing to snack and drinks, and study up on inclusivity and diversity in gaming communities. There's stuff here for person players attempting to chip in on game evening, to hosts who want to (ahem) up their game, to companies interested in hosting normal board game nights.

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On the internet multiplayer shooters, like CS:GO, Fortnite, and PUBG, are at the moment dominating the gaming planet, thanks to professional gamers, eSports tournaments, Twitch streamers , and YouTube gaming channels Some games that have been released years ago are nonetheless well known currently, like League of Legends, Minecraft, World of Warcraft, Dota two, and Super Smash Bros. Melee. Other fantastic games trending now involve Overwatch, Rocket League, Super Mario Odyssey, and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege. Other folks have spawned sequels that out play and out carry out their original games.

Their mission is to be the initial choice for gamers globally, supplying the biggest range of digital games and access to a vibrant, entertaining, worldwide gaming neighborhood that rewards gamers when they connect, play and take pleasure in immersive gaming experiences. At Green Man Gaming they want to be trusted, respected and valued by their buyers and these in their neighborhood. They have put a popular set of values at the heart of how they do business. Their values are designed to capture what they do when they are at their most effective.

[peepsilvs]

Stardew Valley: A Charming Review

Warning: Very, very mild spoilers for the story, but otherwise quite spoiler free. Written 3.3.2020

I have always had a weak spot for video games that feel like home. Sometimes you just want to play a game without getting an adrenaline rush with every move you make. So, naturally, when I found a game a game that took inspiration from the Harvest Moon series, one of my childhood favorites, I was sold solely for the idea. What I got instead was even better than I had dreamed of, but in a different way.

Stardew Valley is a 16-bit pixel art RPG farming simulator game that was released in 2016 by its sole developer Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone, and published by Chucklefish. It has since been improved and gotten new features over the years, with the most recent big update being 1.4 that added several new interactions and gameplay elements in 2019. In-game, you take the role of a young farmer who has grown tired of their work in a big corporation in an even bigger city and decides to move to their grandfather's old farm to start a new life in Pelican Town, Stardew Valley.

Relaxing Gameplay

When you start a new save in Stardew Valley, you are offered a choice from 6 different farms. Each of these farms represents a certain gameplay element in the game, with some encouraging farming and ranching, while others show what other activities the player can immerse themselves in. Even though you are a farmer in the world of Stardew Valley, you do not need to limit yourself to watering crops every day, but instead you can spend your time honing your fishing skills for a relaxing waiting game, or if you are feeling more adventurous, exploring the deep abandoned mines crawling with monsters. No matter what you choose, you are sure to find it rewarding every time you find something you have not seen before.

The main skills the player have are farming, foraging, mining, fishing and combat. Each of them have a level meter going up to 10, that at certain intervals allows you to choose special effects for your character and unlock crafting recipes, either to customize your farm with nice structures like paths or fences, or items that help you in the areas of that specific skill, like special buff clothing for combat. Maxing out these skills is simple: you do the activity that the skill is for.

There is a certain kind of difficulty curve in all of these activities that keeps it interesting even after you have reached the maximum level. Stardew Valley keeps record of all the things you have found, making it oddly satisfying to browse through a complete collection of fishes or gems that you have managed to find during your play. Of course, obtaining all items will not be easy, as there are specific requirements for the rare items, like the legendary fish that only spawn in a specific location at a specific time of year, or gems that only spawn with extremely good luck and courage to go deep enough into the more dangerous mines. It is safe to say that even if the player is only playing Stardew Valley for its gameplay, it will  not immediately run out of content for a true completionist.

Since the game uses 16-bit pixel graphics, it runs smoothly but is also limited to a certain controls. Often it balances this, like in fishing, where there is an added mini game to make it a little less boring to wait for a fish to bite. However, the controls of said mini game have frustrated many players, and has been divisive among the players. Personally, I found it a bit clunky, but then again, the same could be said about combat that I did enjoy. An element from the Harvest Moon sister series Rune Factory, combat in 16-bit pixels is not very astonishing. It mainly consists of the player using different weapons to hit enemies while standing still. The different weapons have different effects, but using anything other than a sword due to its speed and strength defeats the purpose, as the other weapons do not compare or using them feels rather redundant. There is also some problems with time and settings that some players may find frustrating. A year in-game has four seasons, Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, each consisting of 28 days with 20 in-game hours.  To farmers and fishers, waiting for seasons to change in order to raise new crops or obtain new fish can be boring, but this can be balanced by the mechanic of going to sleep and skipping the day. The opposite problem though, the lack of time, is harder to fix. Unlike some Harvest Moon games, Stardew Valley forces the player to pass out after 2 A.M. While this is for the reason that the game can save the progress for that day, I often found myself annoyed by how little time I had to mine in a day. After reaching a certain level in mining, the more challenging mine becomes available only after 10 A.M, meaning the game leaves the player with twelve in-game hours to mine, and passing out in the mines would not be a problem, if the game did not actively punish the player for it. Every time the player passes out without getting to bed, they may lose money or some items the next morning. Understandably this adds difficulty, but more often than not it just feels like an unnecessary limitation.

Another, a more personal and a quality of life kind of aspect I hoped the game would have, is the changing of brightness. Stardew Valley has a fixed brightness in-game and it cannot be changed, so to people with sensitive eyes this can cause problems. Some have also complained about the lack of instructions the game has for its activities, but to an old Harvest Moon player like myself, this was not a problem as older games rarely gave any instructions to what to do. It very much depends on the player if they like to find out things via trial and error or if they prefer to think before they act.

The Charming Characters Bring Life to the Game

The most relaxing aspect I found in Stardew Valley was getting to know all the villagers of Pelican Town. There is something oddly human about these small pixel people and hearing their dreams, regrets and joys feels like you are truly helping someone. Stardew Valley is a dream for someone who wishes they could help everyone, as the player character tends to fix a lot of the problems the town is going through. The story is, in fact, all about getting invested in the little Pelican Town and its residents, helping them re-build their community center and restore the spirit they had before a big corporation market JojaMart came into town. Or, if the player so wishes, just to buy a JojaMart membership and buy their way through community updates.

Stardew Valley's main story is simple and does not get that much in the way of gameplay and the player is in no rush to play through it. The more rewarding story aspect is getting to know your neighbors, with each having their own story events to play through to find out about more of them. Among regular neighbors, there are also love 12 love interests, 6 men and 6 women. It does not matter which gender the player chooses, as Stardew Valley offers the option of same-sex marriage. Naturally, the love interests have more events than regular villagers, but even then, it is always nice to see events with characters you see as your friends. In the Harvest Moon series, I always felt sad about how the non-marriage candidate characters had almost no events to show your friendship with them. When I played Stardew Valley and noticed a pattern in the villagers actually interacting with you in events, I felt immense joy even over the platonic relationships in-game.

Unlike Harvest Moon, that hails from Japan, Stardew Valley sometimes resonates more with me due to its Western culture influence. It is surprisingly mature, with themes like alcoholism, depression and capitalism and their effects on people. Stardew Valley's characters feel alive due to their complex feelings on the issues going on in their life. Of course, getting to know them on the there hand might break this illusion of connection as the main way for the silent protagonist to bribe these people to love them is to give gifts and talking through the same dialogue. It feels superficial, but it is only a natural mechanic for the type of game that Stardew Valley is and it can hardly be held responsible for this.

The Aesthetic Feels Nostalgic

Even to a person who has not played Harvest Moon or older pixel games, Stardew Valley's art is very pleasing to the eye. The vibrant colors change through seasons and every seasons has its own unique feeling to it, brought to life with the nature's foliage and nicely composed music. To an old player who is familiar with Harvest Moon, it reminds me of the older games in the series and their innocence and relaxing flow, that some of the newer games lack.

As said, the music in Stardew Valley compliments the elements and feelings it is trying to get through during events, seasons or in specific areas like the mines. A casual player benefits largely from keeping the audio on while playing. Along with music, the sound design of Stardew Valley is good, though some of the SFX sound like odd squishy steps. Nevertheless, they do add a certain charm after the first few times of hearing them and the player comes to associate said sounds with the game, and I have to admit, I did laugh when I heard a pig make a noise for the first time.

What I love the most about Stardew Valley's aesthetics is its colors and the freedom it gives to the player. I have seen several players in the Stardew Valley community share their beautifully organized farms that the game allows the player to make, should they choose to spend their time on it. There is also a customization option for the avatar, with the player being able to choose and craft clothing for the protagonist and change their color as they will. This element allows the player to write their own story and to truly immerse into the beautiful world of Stardew Valley.

Co-op

There is also a co-op mode available for Stardew Valley. One of the farm types, The Four Corners, even encourages playing the game with your friends and while the gameplay doesn't differ that much from the single-player game, sharing the experience is fun as expected. It is to be noted however, that a single-player mode cannot be converted to a multiplayer server, so in every new multiplayer game, the player must start from a scratch again.

The other players live on the land of the host in smaller cabins that they can upgrade and get married in. Two players cannot get married to the same character, however, and there might be some amusing incidents where you are in the middle of a date with your sweetheart and you can see your best friends avatar running in the background hacking trees.

Two player can also get married to each other by crafting a wedding ring, but this hardly changes any gameplay. Still, it is a nice choice to have if someone chooses to share a Stardew Valley server with their real life partner.

Verdict

Stardew Valley is a beautiful, charming game, either for casual players or just people who enjoy relaxing while doing mindless collecting and helping others. It's fun, it's simple and it still manages to interest me after 150 hours of gameplay, due to its active community and ConcernedApe's passion for his project and improving it even after 4 years. To former Harvest Moon players, Stardew Valley is a must try at least once. It is defiantly not the same as Harvest Moon, but it does work as food for those waiting for western release dates, or as its own experience entirely. There is no denying that the love and passion put into this little game shines through it and manages to fill the heart of the player.

[asgardian--angels]

Calling All LOTR fans! Why aren’t you on LOTRO yet??

Hey everyone! It’s Molly here - aka, Sauron’s #1 fan lmao. 

Now, we’re a big fandom, between LOTR and the Hobbit and the Silm, there’s millions of us out there, and thousands on Tumblr! And we’re always looking for new ways to experience and interact with Tolkien’s legendarium. Plus, many of us have an overlapping interest in gaming, of any sort. But even if you don’t - read on, I implore you! 

There’s an incredibly awesome free MMORPG out there, one that I’ve been playing for years. It’s called LOTRO - Lord of the Rings Online - and it’s gotta be my absolute favorite interpretation of Middle-Earth ever. 

For those not aware, an MMORPG is a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game, basically an open world PC game that has thousands of other users you can interact with within the confines of the game’s universe. And in this case, that’s Middle-Earth! 

Everything you know and love about Tolkien’s world is brought to life in stunning thoughtful detail, from the rolling hills of the Shire to the eaves of Fangorn and beyond. You become an integral part of the story of Middle-Earth, assisting the Fellowship both directly and in the littler ways that count most of all - staving off the forces of darkness by doing good deeds and helping the folk of Eriador, Rhovanion, and Gondor. Everything you do ripples outwards to influence the fate of Arda itself! Without you, there would be no hope for the Fellowship to succeed in its dire quest. Traveling from land to land, you become beloved and treasured as a hero by all the free peoples of Middle-Earth, royal and common folk alike. While you may start out small, soon your path will bring you to the feet of great lords and kings, and onto the very doorstep of Mordor itself, where the Dark Lord awaits. Fight the fell beasts of Sauron, skip through the Old Forest with Tom Bombadil, and ride your warsteed across the vast open plains of Rohan - the world is yours to explore, and to save, if you can. Middle-Earth depends on you.

I truly can’t overstate how much I love LOTRO. I’ve been playing for five years now and I am just as much in love with it as the day I first started. It’s always a little dicey, as a Tolkien fan, especially if you’re a highly devoted one, trying to judge and decide if an interpretation of his work will enhance your experience or ruin it - you just want to see justice done by him and everything he stood for. Trust me, I’m like that too (there’s no need to talk about a certain upcoming Amazon series...). So believe me when I tell you that the spirit of Tolkien comes alive in this game. The creators, writers, and designers of LOTRO have put so much thought and care, and heart, into staying true to Tolkien’s vision and messages. Great attention and care is paid with respect to accuracy to the lore and languages Tolkien created as well, something that cements the authenticity of LOTRO for diehard fans. You just feel good playing it (and honestly, I feel like it’s helped my self-esteem?? Those little virtual hobbits are so grateful for everything you do). Warm fuzzies all around. With a fair helping of angst, can’t forget that. Not all stories can have happy endings, but with your help, a whole lot of them can. 

So... maybe you’ve read this far, and are a teensy bit interested? Or at least intrigued. This is a chance to expand the world of Tolkien to something you can actually immerse yourself in, be a part of, explore like never before! Wander the cobblestone streets of Bree, smell the pipe-smoke in the Prancing Pony, feel the chill winds of the icy wastes of Forochel upon your face. Do you have the guts to face the Witch-King himself? 

LOTRO has so much to offer! Whether you are interested from a gaming perspective, or a story perspective, it’s endless fun. Before LOTRO I’d never played an MMO, and I certainly would not consider myself a gamer. I came from a love of Middle-Earth, and came for a chance to see that story brought to life. So don’t count it out if you think you’re not up for some hardcore gaming lifestyle - this game has the pace that you set for it. Whether you join a social kinship and roleplay, a raid group to do skirmishes, or go it alone and fish the day away, the possibilities are endless. 

Plus, I feel like it’s worth stating that the scenery in LOTRO is astoundingly beautiful. It’s not uncommon for my friends and I to ride around just for the view. And you know what else? The music, guys. Just, the music. LOTRO has been blessed these many years with composer Chance Thomas, who has crafted some of the best soundtracks I’ve ever heard - comparable to those of the Lord of the Rings films themselves. He truly encapsulates the emotions, the grandeur, the coziness, the uneasiness, the dread and the joy, of every corner of Middle-Earth. (It’s so well-loved by players that TWO official soundtracks were even put out, and I play them in my car all the time, ngl. Check out one of the Rohan tracks here!)

So, for the nitty gritty that you may be wondering about! This is a great time to join LOTRO. Over the years, the game has grown tremendously, adding more regions of Middle-Earth to quest in, building more storylines, and expanding the characters you can have, the clothes you can wear, and the activities you can do! Currently, you can play several races - Man, Dwarf, Elf, High Elf, Hobbit, and Beorning - as well as a wide variety of classes - hunter, lore-master, rune-keeper, burglar, champion, minstrel, captain, guardian, and warden- each with their own unique stories and abilities. Multiple characters can be created for free on one account. There’s a wide customization capability for characters and cosmetic items, for housing, steeds, emotes, pets, and more. That’s part of what makes LOTRO so fun! Most expansions can be purchased in-game using points earned by completing deeds, making LOTRO affordable and FTP (free to play) for a large proportion of its content. Additionally, we have an incredibly thorough and comprehensive Wiki-style website for all LOTRO-related information. This is an incredibly knowledgeable and welcoming community.

...Did I add that there’s maiar in the game too? If you have a keen eye you’ll spot them.

Molly why are really you making this post?

Now, earlier I mentioned kinships. Traveling Middle-Earth can often be more fun with others, and having friends can help you learn the game and offer advice and insight. They can be roleplay partners, band members (yes, you can play instruments in the game!), or just buddies to talk to. Many LOTRO players are in kinships, and each is different, depending on what you want to get out of the experience. You can find a kinship within the game, or on social media - in fact, I found my kinship, the one I’ve been in all these years, right here on Tumblr! I want to extend that hand in friendship to potential new players that are in the position I was all those years ago. 

Our humble kinship is called Dwarrowdam. You may recall this is the name for a lady-dwarf! While many of our members are dwarrowdams, that is by no means a prerequisite. We welcome players of all races and classes. Dwarrowdam is a casual social kinship, where we enjoy helping others out, from learning the ropes to festival activities, deeding, raids, concerts, and much more. We host weekly kin nights, where we get together and have fun for a couple of hours. This kinship has been going almost since the start of LOTRO itself, and we are eager to meet new people! A few of our higher-ranking members have had to depart after many years, due to real life commitments, and we hope to build our ranks again. We all thoroughly enjoy mentoring new players, myself included. Dwarrowdam would be a great choice for kinship for any player just starting out, or a continuing player looking for a relaxed social atmosphere as part of their gameplay experience! We are located on the Landroval server, which itself is known for its friendliness and its roleplay opportunities. It is our hope that gaining a solid handful of new, active members will allow our kinship to return to its former glory. Kinships can fizzle out and dissolve if too many players leave, and that is the last thing we want to happen to Dwarrowdam. It’s been like a home for me and many others, and I believe we can restore it.

I am an officer in the Dwarrowdam kinship, along with Badari and Daerhovan. We strongly encourage you to contact us with any questions you might have, about the kinship or LOTRO itself, or if you would like to join Dwarrowdam. 

Anyone who loves Tolkien and Middle-Earth should give LOTRO a try. For me, finding it was like filling a hole in my life I never knew existed. It’s thrilling, peaceful, emotional, hopeful, all in one - basically, everything that the stories we know and love already are, but brought to life in front of us. I’d like to think that if you tried it, you’d love it as much as I do. And if you’re in need of a kinship, please consider Dwarrowdam. 

And besides, look at Gandalf and his bushy eyebrows. You can’t say no to that.

[dracula-in-purple-story]

Pride Month 2/3 [BONUS]

Pride Race is here!

Author’s Note : All of this is ENTIRELY NON-CANON. I’m still working on my writing skills. Thank You and Enjoy, hopefully.

It’s the second week of Pride Month, and the first day of Pride Race! People of all species are mixing their crowd to group up before twelve o’clock strike. Some are changing their colours constantly, some are stretching their bodies out, some are puzzling with excitement, some are waxing their spikes or tentacles and much more species are doing warm up or just talked around to ease their own tension.

The Pride Race are something to be excited as it is the only tournament that can be set and create by winners of the last Pride Race. It’s even more exciting since this is the first Pride Race that the underground citizens get to join. The stands and Audience Area is overfilled with both residents and visitors but they really didn’t mind as the games is starting.

Team CephaHook have the biggest noise around them as they consisted of two mega pop stars and half of the members in the strongest League Team. Hachi is too immersed into clips of some previous Pride Race, Huit is doing work outs with Tres while Off the Hook are just waiting for the race to began. “It’s great to have you guys in the team! Me and Pearlie can’t find other friends to substitute for Sashimori. They have to take care of Paul while cheering on the stands there.”

Huit grinned at Marina after Tres pulled her up, “Don’t worry, Marina. We are going to try our best!” Pearl snorted as she looked up the girl in the eye. “Try? Pfft, we are going to win! If we win, we get to choose some event for those try-hards!”

“But, we are going to have fun, right?”

“Yeah, but our main priority is to win, yo! It’s like the most challenging League that is custom made!”

“I agree with Pearl, sister.” Hachi looked up from his OctoPhone, “Those clips Fior downloaded for me are totally nuts! Not as crazy as the test but it’s crazy enough to know they are a one-time thing!”

“One... time?” Huit jaw-dropped as she tried to see if her brother is lying. “You mean, we only get to play those fancy games... once?”

He nodded. And the clock strikes to twelve.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Welcome to this year’s Pride Race! We were the winners from the previous Pride Race, the Squid Agents!” Callie shouted, “I see a lot of familiar faces that is ready to face their challenges again! But would they win this time? Because this year, we got a lot of visiting players from the underground!”

“It would make our games much more interesting, Cal.” Marie smirked, “In the meantime, we would state the usual good old rules for the newbies. One, respect your opponent. Two, don’t physically or mentally hurt people. Three, don’t glorify your sexuality or gender.”

“We also add a specific rule for people with spiky hair.” Sei added, “Especially Team Roadies, please don’t use your spike on chairs-related games, sincerely from the participants of the Musical Chairs from the previous Pride Race.” a group of Aromantic Urchins laugh uncontrollably as they high five at each other.

“Before we start the games, let us explain how the Race work. I would like some silence please, so the people without the speakers around could hear me.” Erek started as soon as the crowd quieten, “For the first day of the Race, we would have some elimination round to determine the sixteen groups that are going to be in the next round. As the days goes on, the system would tally the results for us to announce at the final day. The team with the most points wins and would be able to decide the games for the next Pride Race!”

Excitement cheers and roars are everywhere. Some people are doing their own battlecries, some are inkstagramming or doing live in their phones and some are being annoyed about the noises and wished it could start already. 

~~~~~~~~~~

The first game is Egg Hunt. People who found a coloured egg would proceed to the next game. At first, finding them is easy enough but-

“Sorry, Team Fruit Jam. Not the egg we wanted. DISQUALIFIED!”

Many groups were disqualified one after another. Some group who are lucky enough got into the next round. This game took quite long as the sun began to set.

“I knew this is too easy to proceed...” Marina pouted as she heard the announcement that another team are disqualified. Pearl and Tres grunted while the octoling twins are still analysing between the five eggs they have collected. They need to be quick because Fior just announced the fifteen group had just qualified, making the remaining teams to scatter around like crazy. Hachi thought for a while, “Tres?”

“Yes, Hachi?”

“Can you check those eggs that the qualified teams brought up to stage?”

Tres shrugged before running to the stage. She returned with a photo and she pass it to Hachi. He looked between the pictures and the five eggs they got. “PfftHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Hachi suddenly got up, “Why we didn’t think of that?” It’s just right in front of us!” He exclaimed as he quickly picked up the egg from the far right and before anyone could react, he ran to the stage and present to them.

“Wait, yo, Hachi!” Pearl shouted, “We don’t want to get disqualified. This is not what we are here f-”

“WE HAVE OUR LAST LUCKY TEAM WHO WILL ENTER THE NEXT ROUND! CONGRATULATION, TEAM CEPHAHOOK!” Fior shouted as she shook Hachi’s hand enthusiastically. All the remaining teams, including Hachi’s, were shocked. And scream and shout emerged quickly.

“What?! How?!”

“This is outrageous! What is this?!”

“I. Demand. Explanation.”

“Ryan, we talk about this. Don’t threaten with a chair.”

“YES! HACHI, OUR ONLY BOY! WE QUALIFIED! TAKE THAT, SUCKERS!”

“We can play more games now?”

“Yes, Huit dear. Let’s go to the stage to take our qualification letter, shall we?” Marina said gently as she hold Huit’s hand while carrying Pearl like a sack, who doesn’t mind. Tres followed behind with the remaining four eggs with intentions to give it to her younger siblings.

~~~~~~~~~~

New day, new game! All teams are gathered at the bottom of Mount Nantai with flying cameras all around. A big television was positioned at the side of the starting line.

“Okay, brother. You have to tell me about this! How do you found out that that’s our egg we have been searching?” Huit questioned him as she starting to do some stretches with Tres, who stopped to listen. Marina also stopped what she is doing while Pearl is busy making verse for their upcoming album. 

“It’s actually supposed to be easy but our girlfriend confused us.” Hachi smirked a little bit, “She said coloured eggs. Not any colour but specifically, Pride Colours.”

“Pride Colours?” Tres continued her stretching, “She never said to anything about it, didn’t she?” Hachi nodded before took out the SquidPhone his girlfriend used. He pointed at the very picture that portrayed all fifteen eggs, but with something that Hachi said, the three noticed something.

“Why, it is Pride Colours! Why didn’t we thought of that?”

“Knowing that sneaky dwarf, Marina, it’s to make everything much more confusing and time-consuming.” the bitter inkling grumbled as the television is switched on, a clip showing Erek.

“Welcome to Mount Nantai! Today, we are going to have Obstacle Relay Race. This game required 3 team players only. The rest could stay right in front of this television to view their teammates.” Erek grinned widely, “Before we start to teleported your place to the spawn point located at the checkpoints, few warnings would be told. Don’t use any shortcuts even if you venture this place well. Rely on your instinct as you dodged obstacles. Don’t trigger the traps. The fastest one to end up in the finish line would be awarded the most points!”

The clip was closed off. Team Cephahook sent out Tres, Huit and Marina as representatives. As the second and third representatives were teleported off to their checkpoints, the clip was opened again. Erek look apologetic, “Hehe... I forgot to tell you. Avoid getting splatted as you would be respawned to where you started. Good luck!”

~~~~~~~~~~

Screams of team players are displayed on the Audience Area as they got splatted on each direction, causing them to respawned from where they started. Only Tres and Ikkan are still alive and kept on dodging the obstacles.

“Are you sure they are going to be okay?” Erek peek through from his hands that he cover on his eyes. Fior and Marie are eating popcorns while Sei and Callie are so worried they sweat buckets.

“Oh, pwease!” Fior mumbled through her full mouth, “They arr goiee to be fwine!” 

“I hope so. Besides, Rekki add in some harmless stuff, right?” Sei gulped nervously as Tres doing backflips over and over. He know that Tres’ imaginary middle name is Acrobatics Danger but he can’t help feeling nauseous as she keep flipping back and forth.

Erek gasped, “Actually... there is one thing I added in because of my Grandmama’s suggestion...”

“What is it?” Callie fidgeted as Tres and Ikkan passed the baton, “What did you add in?”

“Well...”

~~~~~~~~~~

 “Oh god, Holy Mackerel! Why are these guys spitting bullets at us?!” Warabi shouted as they got pulled behind the tree by Marina. The OctoCommanders stopped as they couldn’t see them. They squinted around before going back into their position as they saw other players are coming. Splatting one after another, sending them back to their Checkpoint Spawn Point.

“Since you are not from the underground, I should tell you to start run quickly because those guys are fast at splatting their foes.” Marina explained as she analysed the situation before them. Three OctoCommanders, aligned in a row with large space between each of them. She looked around to see other Octoling and Octarian players shielded themselves and protecting their clueless friends after they got splatted once. “Luckily, the only sharp sense they have is sight. We need a decoy.”

“A decoy? Better not be me because I ain’t got those military lessons you had, Marina.” 

“I know,” Marina smiled dangerously, “that’s why we have to make a fake decoy for them to focus on.”

“Yeah, right. Let’s make a decoy out of dried grass and throw some stones in it.” they exclaimed sarcastically, “As if they are going to work.”

Warabi looked around and saw those Octolings and Octarians are tying some dried grass together and throw rocks in it. They looked in disbelief, “Are you guys freaking serious?”

~~~~~~~~~~

The teams are on the edge of their seats. 

“Well, well! Looks like they decided to cooperate together in order to get past the mighty OctoCommanders! And the Octarians are leading them with some sort of decoy!” Erek’s sound came through the speaker. Teams are either fidgeting around or praying nervously. Only Pearl is looking confident, after all, that’s her girlfriend who leads this operation. Nothing to worry about.

The participating players seems to scoot around trees to trees or bushes to bushes. Three of them got too close for comfort. Before the non-participant even came to their senses-

“Fire in the hole!” the closing three Octoling players suddenly emerged out from their bushes to throw some large packages highly on top of each of the OctoCommanders. After that, two of the Twintacle Octotroopers and Marina came out with their handmade slingshots. “Ready...” Marina commanded as the three of them put a sharp rocks in the slingshot, “Aim... Shoot!”

On the screen, the packages is on fire. It lands on top of each OctoCommanders perfectly on fire. They dropped their splatling gun as they took off their berets, patting aggressively on where the fire lands.

“I don’t want to believe this plan actually work... I refuse to believe it...” Warabi mumbled as they ran through the spaces with the rest. The OctoCommanders saw them as they finally get rid of the fire but before they got their guns ready, all of them had ran far away.

The members scooted closer to the television as they squirmed around. “Count on Mommy Marina to do such dangerous stunts like this...” Hachi grasped both his hands tightly that it looks like it hurt.

Pearl smirked. “Ha! That’s not even come close to what she had been inventing in her room!” she retorted, “You should really see that she turned her room to a mad scientist lab, literally.”

“Is that why she’s been sleeping with you?”

“We are lovers, Chi. Besides, she’s still cute with her pouts and dusts on her face.”

“Whatever you said, Mama.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“Please tell me that’s Lady Octivia’s idea, Erek...”

“Actually, that’s Kevin’s one.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“I told you already, you literal seaweed! All of us got teleported to the end of the cliff! What do you want me to do?”

The brawny Transgender Angel fish raised his voice as his teammate kept on telling him to go. He’s right though, there’s no more path for them to run forward. The sun is starting to set and they are starting to get very anxious but excited that they have such difficult challenge. 

Huit, on the other hand, seems to know something. After what happened to Marina and Tres, from what she heard, they got encountered a lot of traps. Somehow, she realized something. “Marina? Tres got lots of traps with ink, right? Are they Octarian technology?”

“Now you said it, they really look familiar. Like those traps for invasion...”

Huit quickly grabbed a handful of dirts and threw it towards the cliff. Most of the dirts fell out like normal but-

“Are those dirts... floating?!” a Skoliosexual Crab yelled in shock. All of them turned to where she pointed and immediately got freak out, except for the underground citizens. 

“Oh, invisible paths and walls... how I absolutely love them!”

“Remember how we always bumped into them? Screw this tech.”

“Good thing I took the second baton, am I right, Rockenberg?”

“Shut it, Etce.”

“Why did our ancestors invent this again?”

“Hello, invisible techs my old nemesis.”

As they get busied themselves into the conversation, Huit had gathered a bag of dirts. She throw it and make a conveniently visible path as she goes on, being very careful on not slipping down. As she get closer to the finish line, where Team Squid Agents are with a few flying camera drones, she heard rustling and shouting behind.

“Get out of the way, sea donkeys! Make way!”

“Don’t push, you seacow!”

“Let me get that guy! He pushed me and I need to avenge for myself!”

Crowds of the third baton players are squeezing themselves in and out. Some even fall and ended up getting splatted. Huit got frightened and hurried her process. She almost reached to the end and realised, she was out of dirt. As the crowd getting closer or a few of them filled one after another, she kneel down and use her baton to locate. She crawled and crawled, with a few missteps, until she finally reached the finish line.

“Are you alright, sweetheart? You look pale.” Sei comforted as he caress her face. She broke their intimate contact before snuggled right into his embrace. “I could tell you this is going to be fun, Sei.”

[level99games]

Player Archetypes - Deques, Shur, Cardine, and Morrey

Many of us are familiar with the classic Johnny/Timmy/Spike archetypes shared by Mark Rosewater in his now-famous article for Wizards of the Coast. While these archetypes work great for Magic, every company is a bit different. One of the exciting truths about being game designers is that we get to choose who we serve and who we build our games to attract.

Most of Level 99 Games’ fans fall into one of these archetypes, or are split across two of them. Aside from the three main archetypes, there is one additional meta-archetype, for a total of four. To describe them, I’ve used familiar characters from Millennium Blades, who were designed with these motivations in mind. Unlike the Rosewater archetypes, our archetypes are less about what players engage with in the games, and instead focus on why they engage with the games in the first place. And of course, we have a bit more ground to cover, since we’re designing entire game experiences and not just cards and expansions.

Our three major archetypes are based around our three-part philosophy of Design, Development, and Discovery. The fourth archetype is based on Community, which ties all the others together.

All of our archetypes have a few things in common. They’re all creative gamers who don’t want to just have a game, but to really own it and make it a part of their lifestyles. A game isn’t complete for them until they engage with it ‘off the table’. We’ve tailored our games specifically to be what they’re looking for–games with replayability, variety, and deep lore.

Take a look, and see where you fall on the spectrum!

Deques - Designer

Deques plays a game to make something. He plays to win, but winning isn’t the end goal. Instead, building a deck, piloting a character, or executing a combo that expresses his personality is his main goal. 

Deques channels his creativity to extend a game. Being able to build a scenario or a fighter to show friends is Deques’s favorite aspect of a game. He’s most at home in games where he can control the entire experience, and invite his friends to play in his “custom setup” or “homebrew mode.” These situations, where he can play the host and guide his friends through a ‘design’ of his own making stimulate his creativity and invite him to play the designer with a custom toolset. He may even create custom expansions or extra content for his favorite games and share them on the web for others to download and try for themselves.

To appeal to Deques, a game needs to have a wide variety of viable, playable options or setups. There need to be multiple ways to win, or at least, the possibility to go in heavily on some strategies and neglect others. Asymmetric sides, and especially modular parts to a game’s setup and rules, appeal to Deques’s aesthetics.

Within our line, Deques’s favorite games would be Millennium Blades and Argent. He’s the kind of player who might design his own BattleCON fighter or Argent scenario. He loves the extra modes in BattleCON (though not as much the core gameplay), and enjoys setting up the timeline in Temporal Odyssey, or building a cube in Pixel Tactics.

Shur - Developer

As a competitive player, Shur plays games to win, but winning isn’t her ultimate goal. For Shur, winning is the proof that she’s achieved her actual goal: Mastery. The developer player wants to dig into the systems and understand them completely in order to experience high-level competition. This competition isn’t a struggle for supremacy–it’s a testing of theory, understanding, and tactical skills.

Shur considers the game’s balance as a code to unravel, and she leverages her creativity to crack that code. She is the kind of player who prints her own reference cards for game content, writes long strategy articles, or analyzes matchups and card relationships. She may even create a database or spreadsheet to analyze cards statistically and study optimal plays. She isn’t afraid of sharing these things with others who seek mastery–she welcomes the challenge and hopes that more people will embrace the search.

To appeal to Shur, a game needs strong balance and a variety of viable play strategies. If mastery is achieved too easily, the game will bore her. If it is gated by random elements or other factors beyond her control, the game will lose her interest. A game needs simple systems that are easy to see and latch on to in order to pique her initial interest. It needs to keep revealing more depth under extended scrutiny to hold it. A game needs to continuously present content or challenges to test and expand her skills. Luckily in competitive games, the supply of challenges comes in the form of new rivals, which are effectively endless as long as the game boasts a strong community. However, Shur doesn’t really care if a game is competitive or cooperative as long as it challenges her to master and exploit its systems.

Within our line, Shur’s favorite games would be Exceed, BattleCON, Pixel Tactics, and Temporal Odyssey. In these games, players start with ‘fair’ fixed resources, and it is the choices they make, their skills, which determine the course of the game. It is possible to ‘get good’ at all of these games, and it requires her to acquire and improve her skills, not acquire more cards. 

Cardine - Discoverer

Cardine is fascinated to discover the worlds within games and unravel the secret stories that are contained in these worlds. Winning or losing is less important to Cardine than the other two types, because she plays a game to experience the world. When two fighters clash, she wants to know what circumstances must have brought them together. 

Cardine channels her creativity to dig deeper into the world. She speculates on lore, draws fan art, writes fiction, and delves into the scenarios and situations hinted at in the game’s lore. She wants to know about the world and its little details because the story draws her in and she wants to become even more immersed in that fantasy. That’s not to say that she isn’t interested in the games themselves–the gameplay is the original window to explore the world, and she keeps returning to it for inspiration.

To appeal to Cardine, a game needs to have a deep lore, but one that is not revealed too explicitly, and which includes room for interpretation and speculation. The game needs to give her the tools to play out that lore. It has to then support that journey with flavor text, art, and flexibility of choice and strategy. Ideally, playing through the game in this way should create for her a unique experience, and should reveal to her something new about the game’s world.

Being able to get into the character of the game when playing is important to Cardine. When she plays an aggressive faction in a game, she feels a need to play them aggressively–even when it’s not the smartest move. Conversely, she’ll be upset if the ‘right’ way to play a particular fighter, card, or faction is out of step with its expressed lore.

Cardine doesn’t have favorite games, but instead, favorite worlds. In our lineup, the World of Indines and its persistent story excites her. The expanding, whimsical world of Millennium Blades engages her. The prospect of a new, deep world in Seventh Cross fills her with anticipation. 

Morrey - Organizer

Morrey is a little different than the other archetypes in the way he interacts with games. As someone who is an experienced hand at games he has–in a sense–completed his own journey. Now, he is more concerned with bringing people together and enjoying their company and patronage. He enjoys watching other players improve their skills, explore their creativity, and delve into the lore of games. His passion is to bring a community together and enable others.

Morrey’s creativity is expressed in how he brings friends together. He may be the host of a game night, the owner of a store, the organizer of an event, or the judge of a tournament. In any case, he likes to see players come together and play. He experiences their triumphs, growth, and discovery vicariously. He’s excited to provide special rewards to those who participate, and endeavors to make each experience unique and rewarding. He may undertake it as his own task to create reference sheets for players, custom box inserts, player dashboards, or game organizers to enable easier play and better presentation.

To appeal to Morrey, a game needs to have qualities that inspire his players. When he organizes an event, players need to get interested in the game that they’re going to play. For this reason, the game needs to be exciting in its box, and inviting when set up on the table. It needs to be ergonomic–with clear, teachable rules and a simple setup and breakdown. A special promo or a new expansion are useful insofar as they excite his guests, but he would rather have organizer trays and a great unboxing experience than more content. And of course, anything that’s custom-made by the game’s creators for his event is a big win.

Morrey’s favorite games in our line are Millennium Blades and Argent, because he can turn these into a real event for his home game night. I suspect that he’s going to really enjoy Empyreal: Spells & Steam and Seventh Cross as well. 

From a business side, he appreciates Exceed, BattleCON, Pixel Tactics, and Temporal Odyssey because he can bring the competitive players in his circles together in his shop and get extra content from the organized play program. Exceed is especially nice, since he can give out free demo decks to invite new players directly into the event.

Missing Archetypes

There are plenty of ‘whys’ that aren’t expressed here. There are players that really play just to win. There are players that play to learn new skills or trivia. Some play just to meet people and engage in social activity. Some buy games more like art collectors than players. These motivations certainly exist–but they aren’t our targets. 

Our focus is on making games and creating a welcoming experience for the creative gamer, as expressed in these four archetypes. There are a lot of game publishers out there serving other archetypes, and it’s not necessary for us to be all things to all players. 

Likewise, many players outside of our four target archetypes will appreciate our games–when you design good games and good products, people will gravitate to them for a variety of reasons. This list just serves to give us a sense of direction when we need to make choices between two features or two products.

In Conclusion

In creating and sharing these personas, I hope to give our team better guidance to understand who they’re making games for, how to speak to these fans, and how to anticipate reactions to the decisions we make in design, development, content creation, and marketing. Hopefully they’ve also resonated with you to some degree. Who do you see yourself as when you sit down to the table?

[acloading322]

Best Pc Character Creation Games

Rpg Games With Character Creation

Best Pc Character Creation Games Unblocked

Character customization is an integral part of the MMORPG genre. Being able to create a character that fits a specific persona can help players immerse themselves in the game. Limited customization may not be a deal breaker for everyone, but I know many people who won't even play a game if classes are gender locked or if they can't customize their character in a certain way. Every MMORPG has a character creation menu with some customization, but some games take character creation a bit more seriously. I personally don't think character creation makes or breaks a game, but it can be incredibly fun fiddeling around on a game's character creation menu, especially when there are tons of sliders and customization options. https://acloading322.tumblr.com/post/656066514641977344/sri-venkateswara-songs-download. I personally spent over an hour creating the perfect Victoria Secret hottie in Black Desert Online and I have no regrets. Anyway, whether you're looking to fiddle around or genuinely interested in playing games with only the best character creation systems, check out the list below:

MMORPGs with Great Character Customization

Black Desert Online

Normally these lists save the best for the last, but I'm going to go ahead and start this list off strong with what I consider to be the MMORPG with the best character creation system in the world. Black Desert Online is a gorgeous fantasy action MMORPG by the South Korean developer Pearl Abyss. Its character creation system is incredibly in-depth and allows players to customize everything from hair strands to eyeliner in incredible detail. Simply put, Black Desert is the gold standard of character creators in MMOs. Just check out the video above, which starts by showing off the game's character creator. Even if you have no interest in playing Black Desert, the character creator alone makes it worth the download in my opinion. The only downside here is that classes are gender locked.

Best Character Creation Games (Good Character Customization) Have you ever wanted to create your very own anime hero/heroine? Well, Jump Force is the game for you, if so. The game’s character. Nonton drama korea couple or trouble subtitle indonesia. Browse the newest, top selling and discounted Προσαρμογή χαρακτήρα products on Steam. Blender is a free and open source character creator software for Windows. It is quite a popular and advanced software which is used in 3D Modeling, 3D animation, 2D animation, Simulation, VFX, Game Creation, Video Editing, Rendering, Scripting, etc.

Perfect World

Games which offer more limited customization might simply let players choose from a set number of variables (Tony Hawk's American Sk8Land, Halo 3 multiplayer or Lego Star Wars 2 for instance). Non-Player Character Creation This is where the player is creating a character with whom they will be interacting or meeting, rather than playing as.

Singleplayer games featuring character creation, allowing you to customize the physical appearance of your character(s). Recent Reviews Top Sellers New Releases Discounts Review Type All 0 Recommended Informational 51 Not Recommended 0. Filter to All 393 Action 26.

It may be odd to see such an old MMORPG make it to this list, but despite originally launching in 2005 (in China) and 2008 in the West, Perfect World has an in-depth character creation system that goes above and beyond what most games offer. While most games allow reasonable levels of customization, Perfect World allows players to create absurd looking characters, from tiny heads and huge bodies to characters with glowing pink skin. Obviously players don't NEED to make absurd looking characters, but the fact that the game allows this shows off the extent of the game's customization. Even if you're not looking to make a Frankenstein style character, Perfect World has A LOT of customization sliders for everything from eye size to arm length.

This one is a bit of an oldie, as it released back in 2004, but Eve Online still has some of the best customization in any MMO. Even though there are a ton of options, players never really get to see much of their customization, as the game takes place almost exclusively in your ship. Still, if you want to see an awesome character creator at work, check out Eve Online. Especially since it went free to play in November, 2016.

Aion

Aion originally launched as a buy to play subscription game by NCSoft, but later went free to play. Despite originally launching in 2008, Aion still looks quite beautiful even today and features some of the best character customization I've seen in an MMORPG. Just take a look at the video above to see what the game's character creator offers.

Despite never launching in the West officially, the Japanese version of the game is playable by anyone from the West without any IP restrictions. The sci-fi MMORPG from Sega features one of the most in depth character customization systems of any MMO. Interested in checking the game out? See our guide on how to install and play PSO2 in English.

Champions Online

Rpg Games With Character Creation

Champions Online is a unique game on this list because it's not another fantasy themed MMORPG. Instead, it's a superhero themed MMORPG, which means players get to create their very own superheroes. The game originally launched back in 2009 as the successor to City of Heroes and one of the game's most prominent features is its in-depth character customization system. Given the nature of superheroes, the developers wanted every player to have a truly 'unique' character. Not only do players get to customize their character's body, but they get to create their own unique costume as well.

Blade and Soul

Blade and Soul originally released in South Korea back in 2012 but didn't launch in the West until early 2016. While the game doesn't offer nearly as much character customization as Black Desert, the game has a lot of sliders to play with. Blade and Soul also has a unique art style, which makes character models stand out a bit more too.

APB Reloaded

Although not an MMORPG, APB Reloaded features a surprisingly in-depth character creation system. I mean, just take a look at the video above and see for yourself. For those that haven't heard of APB, the game originally launched as simply 'APB All Points Bulletin' with a buy to play model, but after bankruptcy it was acquired by GamersFirst and relaunched as a free to play game and was renamed APB Reloaded.

There are obviously many more MMORPGs out there with 'good' character customization, but am I missing any games with 'great' customization? If so, let me know in the comments below and I'll update this list!

Related

A massive part of gaming, especially in RPGs, is creating a custom avatar. Proteus 8 setup download.

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While not completely necessary - as games such as The Witcher 3, Horizon Zero Dawn and God of War have shown - having the ability to customise your playable character adds a whole new layer of immersion everything on-screen. By creating a protagonist to represent you, you enable a strong emotional connection between you and your character, enjoying the journey just that little bit more.

There are so many games out there that offer fantastically expansive character creation tools, but some stand head and shoulders above the rest. For the purposes of making things fair, we will not be counting customisation available through mods, so unfortunately for all you Skyrim enthusiasts, that one is out.

For those of us who just love to spend a solid couple of hours playing around in the character creation screen, these are the best that video games have to offer.

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10. Monster Hunter: World

Monster Hunter conquered the West in 2017 with its latest and greatest - Monster Hunter World. Take control of your hunter and together you will face gigantic dinosaurs, working together with your friends in a little posse of monster-killing-mayhem.

Being a game that you will no doubt play online and enjoy showing off your mad hunting skills, you’ll want your avatar to be as equally stunning as your bravery. Monster Hunter World’s character creator is absolutely gorgeous, and very detailed. There are dozens of hair styles to choose from, with colour, tone, and saturation options bringing infinite possibilities.

You can choose from tons of examples for voice, too, picking the exact right pitch of scream for when you inevitably fall to some of the game’s toughest beasties.

Best Pc Character Creation Games Unblocked

Not to mention, there are options to customise your cat-like Palico as well. It’s like 2 character creators rolled into one.

Stick that beautiful face into some of the beautiful armour sets available in the game and you’ve got levels of customisation the likes of which are rarely seen in such an action-focused game.

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[maydaymemer]

What’s Wrong with Hitman?

I love Hitman, to the point that for the past couple of years it’s been the only game I’ve really invested myself into. I’ve been playing some other games in the long wait for Hitman 3 and while I still prefer Hitman they’ve given me perspective and ideas for what I’d like to see in the new game. Specifically Dark Souls and Dishonored, while the former isn’t a stealth game I think its consistency and repetition appealed to me as a Hitman fanatic. Anyway here’s my list:

Target AI is the biggest gripe I have with the new trilogy. It’s simultaneously too easy and too difficult to deal with, in a weird way. Targets won’t react to coins by themselves but will pick up an electric insta-kill phone no matter what, for example. I think the first change I would make is to have it so targets can only tell guards to check out distractions, not other civilians, and will check them out themselves otherwise. This would have a couple of knock on effects especially with my other suggestions but I’d like it if the target will only ask a guard if there’s about the same room’s length of distance between the two, otherwise they will go for the distraction. This will encourage the sandbox approach with more opportunities to lure targets, and encourage players less and less to use more scripted solutions to isolate targets or just knocking tons of people out to get a specific strategy.

My second suggestion, related to the first, is for target-specific bodyguards to no longer call in other guards to deal with found weapons. Now this won’t all be suggestions to make the game easier, because I think to counterbalance this targets will notice after a while if you’ve knocked out a guard that they’re no longer been monitored and appoint one of the regular guards to follow them. This gives more ways to deal with pesky bodyguards but add a little dynamic enemy behaviour to the targets, and one that makes sense.

I just watched this review of Hitman 2016 on YouTube, that I highly recommend, called The Physicist’s Review. In it the reviewer mentions that they actually found the map for the game’s levels by accident, and that made me realise how weird the game’s menus really are. See, Hitman 1 & 2 have two pause menus: one which has the objectives, map, intel and challenges, and another which lets you save, load and adjust settings like subtitles and volume. It’s weird that these are separate menus something like San Andreas for example flows a lot better when just one menu that gives you all of these functions. I think it was done for immersion, but it doesn’t work when the map and intel screens pause the world anyway. For gameplay purposes I’d have everything one menu, with map and save/load at the furthest left as soon as you hit pause. Or for immersion I’d have the map, intel, etc. be in real time with the pause menu being the only thing that pauses the game. But this is a comparatively minor issue that I’ve added in last when I discovered this video.

Not all my suggestions are to make the game easier, luckily. My next suggestion is for more consequences for suspicious activity in the world. Whenever you do something like poison a drink or turn off a stove there’s one of two reactions from NPCs, either you stay there and they eventually altert guards to come and gun you down, or you run away with no consequences other than to rating. I think an inbetween to this would be if an NPC catches you doing something naughty and you escape, they will become an enforcer to whatever disguise they saw you in. Perhaps showing up as yellow in instinct, with the consequences of this being if they catch you again in this enforced state you become compromised and they alert guards immediately. I think this would factor into Hitman’s social stealth really well, and would plug up an annoying flaw in the otherwise well-constructed if not particularly smart AI.

More target-related problems I have with the AI in the new games. While targets have a consistent route they take whether you’re distracting them, manipulating them or just observing them the bodyguards don’t. They often speed up, slow down or even stop in their tracks depending on weird the thing they’re doing is. A big example is Mumbai with luring Vanya or Dawood out of their lairs. I think in a predctiable and slow paced game like Hitman having guards that can either outrun you or just do random shit, or predictable shit in a random way, messes with the consistency of strategising. This seems like something that’ll be potentially fixed in Hitman 3, as many interviews talk about this consistency being a big part of the series’ appeal, so I’m putting this here just in case this still isn’t fixed after three games

My last target related gripe is that some don’t targets don’t defend themselves when they should. Target AI is more like a modified civilian AI rather than its own thing, and since civillians don’t have that functionality it probably is a pain to try to modify specific targets to have the function of a completely different AI, since guards have their own complexities and might not be compatible with the type of detailed scripting a target typically has on top of having to defend civillians. But in a game series that’s given us some incredibly colourful and intimidating personalities it’s a bit weird that the AI is very one size fits all. The Maelstrom can’t shoot you despite being a modern day pirate, Tyson Williams can’t engage in a fist fight despite being a big burly man and Maya Parvati does the same “cower and crouch” animation despite shouting at you with insults like bitch-tits. It takes you out of the experience a little bit

And finally the last thing I’d want from Hitman 3 is a brand new Custom difficulty option. I thought this was a great addition in Dishonored 2, allowing me to tweak the game to for example make combat near-lethal but hiding in shadows more affective. An ability to pick and choose things like limiting the amount of saves and allowing running footsteps to be heard from Master difficulty but then disabling stuff from there that might be tedious like the extra cameras would really help players to tailor the game to their exact liking. The real difficulties should still be the only place you get rewards and place on the leaderboards but this would really solve any issues people have with wanting to play Master with the higher difficulty but not wanting to have limited saves. They can play master once for the suit and then custom for fun

Anyway that’s all my thoughts for now. The games seventeen days away as of posting this so if none of this is on the cards for the release I hope IO had some parallel thinking and implements it in a year’s time as a patch

[lawsonwq706-blog]

Is It Time To Talk A Lot More Regarding Cyberflixtv?

Mobile Application Download And Install and also Use Statistics

The simpleness of the makers, which can be a drawback in other markets, has shown a benefit to college districts by lowering training and also upkeep costs. All Chromebooks, other than the first three, boot with the aid of Coreboot, a fast-booting BIOS. Initial equipment partners for Chromebook advancement consisted of Acer, Adobe, Asus, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard (later on HP Inc.), Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Toshiba, Intel, Samsung, as well as Dell.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of mobile apps?

Some free apps generate revenue via in-app purchases or advertising, while others are purchased for a modest price. Even though some apps have made millionaires out of their creators, most app developers will not strike it rich, and the chances of making it big are depressingly small.

Target audience consisted of pupils and new computer system customers, along with homes searching for an additional computer. Chromebooks ship with Google Chrome OS, an operating system that utilizes the Linux kernel as well as the Google Chrome web-browser with an integrated media-player. Making it possible for programmer setting enables the setup of Linux distributions on Chromebooks.

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DoodleLens most likely isn't an Android application you'll use frequently, and we located it a bit hit and miss at identifying our doodles, but when it works it raises a smile, which is all you can actually request for at $1.99/ ₤ 1.89. There more than 100 effects in this Android application, as well as most of them are customizable, ensuring that your problems will not resemble any individual else's. Glitch Laboratory is an image editor packed full of electronic glitch effects.

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A mobile application is a software program that is designed to run on specific hardware, namely mobile handheld computing devices such as tablets and smartphones. They are the programs that execute when you press an icon on your mobile device, such as an iPad or Android phone.

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If you do not want to produce your own, there is an area and collection of various recipes to pick from and also establish. Tasker went stale a little bit in previous years, but considering that brand-new owner João Dias-- manufacturer of the AutoApps plugin suite as well as Tasker's many ardent fan-- took control of, the automation app has actually seen a UI overhaul and also significant updates. With TaskerNet and also boosted export/importing, it's never ever been much easier to share, modify, and produce remarkable profiles and also tasks for Android (as well as past). From Assistant Routines in Google Clock to the substantial expansion of Assistant-compatible clever home gadgets, to the overhaul of aesthetic feedbacks, it has been a hectic year for Google Aide. It seems like a century ago when Android Auto added Google Aide, however that basic enhancement made millions of chauffeurs safer, specifically during these long, frustrating vacation drives.

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How many times does someone check their phone a day 2019?

Just over half of children in the United States — 53 percent — now own a smartphone by the age of 11. And 84 percent of teenagers now have their own phones, immersing themselves in a rich and complex world of experiences that adults sometimes need a lot of decoding to understand.

Simulator testing is complimentary, yet setting up on a gadget needs a cost for a designer finalizing trick. AppCode - industrial licenses available.Since 2015, Apple enables mounting the app in your very own gadget without a developer paid membership. As an example, the Google Play Shop and also Amazon's Amazon Appstore are 2 locations where Android customers can download and install mobile applications.

Greet to Android 10.

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[sketchiedetails]

Nier: Minutiae [Diegetic Game Mechanics]

I finally played through both Nier and Nier: Automata this year, and I’ve been wanting to post my thoughts on them for a while. I think I’ll make this a series of posts so I can focus on particular themes and go in depth where I want to. Some of this might be really clumsy analysis, some of it might be me thinking about plot holes, and most of it might just be me gushing about little details sprinkled here and there throughout both games.

If you wanna read more of my rantings, I’m gonna assume you’ve played both games so spoilers after the jump.

Also, for clarity’s sake I’ll refer to the first game solely as Nier and the second game as Automata.

When people talk about Dead Space one of the things they remember about the series is how they integrated the HUD in the game to be part of the world. Because the games are set in deep space, everyone wears R.I.G.s on their backs that displays their well-being as a health bar on their spines. The game’s inventory menu is framed so that it looks like both you and the player character Isaac are looking at the same display. 

Dead Space made its HUD diegetic to the setting as a way to allow players to immerse themselves into the game. It’s an action-horror title and in order to ensure that the game evokes the desired sense of dread in the player, the visual noise you would expect from a game’s HUD has been absorbed into the player character and the game world itself. 

Automata also takes a similar approach, but for exactly the opposite reason. Where Dead Space tries to blur the line between the player and the character, Automata uses diegetic game mechanics as way to distance the player from the character.

The player characters in Automata are androids, and one of the core mechanics in the game is the ability to customize your androids via chipsets.

 These chips can affect your characters in several different ways - their base stats (damage output, running speed), passive and active abilities (Auto-Heal/Deadly Heal), and even what information their HUDs will display onscreen. You can remove the ability to see your own health bar or to see the minimap. To take the mechanic to its logical extreme, there is what’s called the OS Chip in every chipset. If you remove that chip, you will kill your character and prematurely end the game.

The point of all this is to ensure that the player never forgets that they are NOT playing human characters. Automata wants to put you into the mindset of an android. Almost every fantastical element in the game is grounded by a technological explanation. Automata adopts Nier’s control scheme almost down to the same button configurations, but reinterprets Nier’s magic as programs the player can equip on their Pods, the helper robots that accompany each android.

(Below: Magic)

(Below: Technology)

This grounding of common video game abstractions is present in every aspect of the game. After the game’s prologue, 9S performs calibrations on 2B at the YorHa Bunker - the game is basically going through the Options Menu with you. During the setpiece, 9S (the game) asks you to adjust the volume and doing so will affect whether or not you hear his voice. There are other ways to interact with 9S and yield interesting responses, and the part to take note is that he says this session will be recorded for future reference. Indeed, when going through Route B the game will playback the same calibration session, down to how long you spend on each option and which bits of interaction you engaged with 9S.

The diegetic mechanics do not end with the player characters; when you start Automata the game warns you that it DOES NOT AUTOSAVE and that you will have to play the game to learn how to save. I had said before that Automata has made saving your game an important mechanic and story element, and this is what I had meant. The very act of preserving your state is diegetic in Automata. There are savepoints peppered throughout the game world disguised as broken down vending machines. When you clear the surrounding area of hostile machines, the savepoints offer new map data and broadcast a signal that allows you to save your game. If you’re outside of the signal’s radius, you can’t save.

After a critical plot point, the savepoints serve a later purpose as fast travel nodes. The conceit behind fast travel is that your android transfers their consciousness over to another fast travel node and uses the android shell stored in that node. Saving your game and fast travel are common video game mechanics that are usually interpreted by the player as abstractions of character actions as opposed to being part of the setting. The player usually assumes that the character actually did travel to the destination and recorded their experiences between sessions and the player is merely picking up where the action begins again. Not so in Automata; the post-human qualities of the androids allows the game to ground those fantastical elements and integrate them into the world.

My favorite mechanic that Automata has integrated is taunting. Automata is a Platinum game, and offers the ability to taunt much like their other titles. It’s a mechanic that draws inspiration from Capcom’s Devil May Cry series and God Hand.  Like other game mechanics, it’s usually shown as an abstraction of what an angry enemy would look like and behave. Usually, these kinds of games show taunted enemies glowing bright red with some icons denoting their status as a way to alert players that they will either deal more damage, attack more often and/or faster, or both.

(Jump to 1:17 to see Sam taunt because I couldn’t set the video to start at that time. Sorry!)

The enemies in Automata are machines; when you taunt them they also do the same things taunted enemies in other games do, but the effects have been tweaked so that they blend with the setting. They don’t immediately flash red, but their faces gradually turn bright red as if their insides are overheating from anger and you hear an audible hiss to go along with the sense of a machine overheating.

(Taunt at 0:12)

It’s so cartoonish yet it still fits with the tone of the game, and I love it to death. I’m not joking when I say that I wrote all this just to gush about this feature!

I’ve read explanations about Automata’s themes and the one I think is the most important is that it asks what it means to be human from an inhuman perspective. Automata  goes out of its way to get the player to think about the world as an android. It uses the common language of video game interfaces as a worldbuilding tool to always remind the player that they aren’t assuming the role of a human being. It’s a deliberate layer of separation between the player and the protagonist so that the player can judge the actions of the protagonists separate from any personal bias players would usually invest in their own avatars.  This distancing effect makes the drama of the game all the more compelling. The androids initially look like they are everything humanity wishes it could be, but they’re just as vulnerable to their emotions as their creators.