#madness project nexus gestalt

[no-higher-thought]

gessie is fun as hell to draw, actually

[n1ckelpistol]

Hasta el aaamaneceeeer (Será - Las Pelotas)

[sealed-valkyria]

"Has anyone seen Project Gestalt?" "He's on vacation in the Caribbean" "What?! What do you mean in the Caribbean?! Where in the Caribbean?!"

[winglesscup1d]

I can’t ignore you, do anything for you.

phobos is purposefully drawn weirdly, also those are gestalts hands :) his eye being a darker purple is also intentional.

[green--y]

(Bonus Textless Version!)

HAPPY MADNESS DAY!!! THIS HAS BEEN BURNING A HOLE IN MY TABLET I WAS SO EXCITED TO POST THIS!!! I owe a lot to this series it's been helping me get through a bunch of things lately! As well as the friends I made because of it! I put everything I had into this and it encapsulates so much of my improvements over the years and I owe that to Madcom as well! I hope ya like it Krinkles! Here's to another year!!!

Give it attention on NewGrounds!

[deernozone]

Day 12: Explosives

Ouch, no more eye

[sewer-sermon]

EHMM. WHAT THE FLIP?

[jelly-dweller]

CAN WE GET A GESTALT PICTURE MAYHAPS? 🫰

hjgnhngn a attempt i need better reference images for gestalt but their head is a weird thing to tempt to draw but i think they're very neat

[madnessself-indulgence]

Nexus probably had a space program before scrapping it in favor for gestalt after not getting enough results.

i mean........ here's MY take on it

i feel like we WOULD have heard of some sort of space program by now if any organization had figured out it was possible

so although i wouldn't rule out that they've probably tried...... i feel like if anything it'd just be well-known generally accepted knowledge that such a thing Cannot happen for reasons unbeknownst to us (it'd probably be related to limitations of the machine)

but that's ALSO if we're just talking realistically because hypothetically if the nexus core DID have a space program it'd be really funny for no reason because if anyone were to do it it would be phobos and his ego

[aegagrusscholarship]

familiarity, the lack thereof, and the only way it could have ended.

the thing is, ultrakill is a very diegetic game. near everything, from the style meter to the bottomless arsenal to the shitass graphics themselves, are explained in some way by some in-universe fact.

so, what with violence and the implication that V1 was designed to counter earthmovers

what with 7-4 and the fact that it is a culmination of this implication

i wonder. when V1 looked up at that earthmover, did it know, with whatever passes for instinct in a machine, exactly what to do? and if it did, then, how is this conveyed to the player?

diegetic as the game is, how does it engineer a situation in which the player, themselves, knows exactly what they have to do?

the biggest factor, i think, is the fact that the earthmover's health bar appears the moment you lay eyes (or camera, or whatever) on it, and it does not leave until you have finally killed this colossus.

but this factor is much more subtle than it appears at first glance. yes, big honkin' boss healthbar on screen for the entire level, what more to it. there's a good deal more, it turns out.

first off- this is the shortest leadup by far to any bossfight in the game. you slide through a single vent, and you are greeted with benjamin right out in the open. even P-1, devoid of any other hazards as it is, gives you a long trek down the spinal staircase before you reach the flesh prison. 7-4 has none of it. you enter the level, you enter the stage, and there you have it. you know exactly what you are up against right from the outset, and it's not quite a feeling of familiarity but it tells you exactly what you have to do. which is the point of this all, isn't it?

7-4 is also... not a bossfight! it is a full level! it is a full level framed as a bossfight. the health bar frames this full complete level as a bossfight.

and on one hand, this is not new news. on the other hand, i think this is the crux of it. the thing is, most bossfights are near-to-entirely new. you do not know how the boss acts. you do not know their attack patterns. you do not know their capabilities. you are learning something new. levels, though, you have done a thousand times over and so the player knows how they need to play through this bossfight in a way that is not quite present with any other boss in the game.

the content of the level is new, of course, because that's how it goes. but you know the motions. you have done this for two acts prior, you know the motions. you know exactly what to do.

also! this level does not exist in a vacuum. what i am saying is this: the rest of violence layer shifts its storytelling and its tone and even its graphics. it is something completely new in contrast to the rest of the game. 7-4, though, returns to environments and graphics more akin to what you have experienced before, bringing you back to familiarity and again knowing what to do here in a way the rest of violence hasn't let the player experience.

one more thing about this level: it plays directly into expectations. which is something that the rest of the game actually does not tend to do.

the game, at base, is just not a typical FPS. it gives you movement like a roguelite or a platformer, it takes guns you expect to know the mechanics of and goes utterly wild with how far the archetype can be changed.

in a smaller scope, here is a comparison of the earthmover and the corpse of king minos as two separate colossal bosses foreshadowed in similar ways. and i mean, minos's bossfight isn't unprecedented in other works. but i think the thing that matters here is that you are not, in fact, the underdog as is the case with so many other bosses of its ilk. riven of many voices, destiny 2, similar bossfight similar scale. you are hiding from her you are a fireteam of many you are triumphing over a dragon larger than life. project gestalt, madness project nexus, you are pulling out every stop you can to take down something so far over your head (both literally and metaphorically). corpse of king minos- V1 looks up, stands its ground, and parries his god damn fist.

and the thing is, the earthmover plays into a different expectation, but it's playing into an expectation nonetheless. you look at this thing and you climb it and you dismantle it from within, like you have done in many games prior. you know what your goal is from the moment you see that healthbar and you hook onto the conspicuously placed hookpoints that tell you- you will climb this machine; you will fight your way up to whatever its core is and you will kill it. you play through the entire level with this expectation and you get exactly this expectation. you destroy its core and it begins a countdown, and so very many games have countdowns before the collapse of whatever level you have just beaten, and you know exactly what you have to do.

i don't know. i love diegetic storytelling. i love this level.

it's just familiarity, i think. this level runs off familiarity. it gives you, the player, things and tropes and designs you are familiar with. it signals to you that you should know what to do, and it lets you do exactly what you expect to do.

if i were any more cheesy i could absolutely end this by restating something about the only way it could've ended, but uh. i am not that cheesy. this time.

aw crud now i don't know how to end this oh well goodbye then

[fluffydeoxys]

Oughhh I love the idea for your ex-cultist guy so much. It's such an interesting concept to have a cult that tries to create its own higher power to worship. Nexus scientists in particular have access to a lot of research regarding dissonance and The Other Place, so it makes sense that after the fall of the Nexus Core, a bunch of rouge scientists took whatever was left of Phobos "Ascension to Godhood" plan and made their own kinda DIY Gestalt to worship. Also them still being around preying on whatever Nevadeans they can get their hands on is so ominous, gives very much "cult who feeds people to their god" vibe, I love it.

I can only imagine how much guilt your guy has, knowing very well what the cult is still doing and what he helped create. And if I'm reading into this correctly, him knowing that those he helped sacrifice are still suffering in that conglomerated mass of s3lfs... agghhhh it's all very lovecraftian and I love that shit so much! Plus him having been corrupted by dissonance is so good...like his research forever changed him, like a price for knowledge kind of thing. I'd love to see more whenever you do figure out his design, I love stuff with eldritch themes!

EEEE it's hard to articulate/state how much this means to me, thank you for showing an interest in my concept/thoughts even when it was just. tags in your post LMFAO I genuinely appreciate it so much. It's so lovely and kind for you to reach out!

I think there's so much fun potential for the aftermath of Phobos' death and then further still when the sun dies and 'madness' sets in from MC3. Nevada becomes even more unsafe and splintered, filled to the brim with roaming gangs of bandits, cultists, scavengers, you name it. It's survival of the fittest, but so many of them have lost their way, a purpose, meaning, and stability in their life. Not to mention if you're alone, you're probably easy pickings for your shit being stolen, or for you being beaten.

I can easily see these 'false religions' popping up (ie, cults) to try and get people to band under one banner, one purpose. It's easy to manipulate, too if you're powerful enough and have a compelling enough reason. The AAHW is just another one of these dubious groups who have enough collective power to compel people to join the fold so they have a place to sleep and eat. Even if their cause is a literal death sentence.

Project Gestalt would be eye-opening to what you could "do" with the S3LF. Have enough of it in a suitable host and you can basically construct a higher being, arguably a god. Could you do the same in a person? What's the limit? Could you make a hivemind out of bodies and souls all melded together?

No one's gonna miss those people. Surely they're happy to be part of a greater cause? Never mind all those S3LFs writhing together, no voice to cry out for their suffering as they're forever stuck in service of this cultist endeavour. It's very Undertale Amalgamates (one of my favourite things from Undertale tbh).

And if they're suitable enough to be a competent or intelligent proponent of their designs, then they get to help make the project, rather than be fed to it.

So yeah, he really wanted to die for all that. But in the in-between of life and death, the Maker steps in and gives him another chance. I can imagine him asking the Maker why he doesn't stop the cult itself, this blasphemy of existence, but the Maker just regards him silently. Could think of it that he wants this guy to do something about it, rather than him just waving the matter out of existence.

He's actually the guy who restored Rory, and he's assisting Jane with her endeavour to find Medea. Many of this guy's victims were AAHW, by the way. You could think of this as his attempts to repent, although he's really not directly addressing the ongoing problem of the cult...

Again, thank you so much for asking me about my little goobers. It means the world to me, and I treasure every opportunity and kindness extended to me to talk about them, hehe!

Edit: Oops I forgot I got too excited to post, I really love your work and its a pleasure to see your art! Thank you for all the lovely ideas that you share. I think Chickaboo is adorable!

[madness-combat-confessions]

Can someone explain to me the madness combat lore

Sure thing!

I introduce:

Madness combat lore explained by a dumbass who doesn't actually know the lore!!

Who also doesn't know how to explain shit!

From what I understood:

Project Nexus is given to Phobos by the Employers who are god-like being and "guardians" of Nevada

3 important scientists by the names of Dr Jebediah Christoff , Dr Hofnarr and Dr Crackpot work for him

Crackpot introduces the zed plan (which is basically reviving someone who died by giving a S-3LF, that are madcom version of souls, to a corpse turning them to zombies)

Christoff dislikes the idea so he suggests a different plan the sleepwalker program

Phobos agrees to the idea but doesn't take down the zed plan

PN: Classic arena mode happens where Subject 1v02P 6 is made to go through a time loop of fighting and dying to improve his combat skills which would be later used for the sleepwalker program

During that I think they also discovered the other place (which is basically the afterlife/hell) somehow? I don't remember how bro

Hofnarr was made to investigate the other place and he discovered dissonance energy

Hofnarr and Crackpot smoked dissonance energy like it was weed and that begun to fuck up their sanities, which is important later

Sometime after that Christoff realises how messed up this shit really is so he decides to put end to it. He takes the Keystone Fragment (the halo)

With the help of Hofnarr and Sheriff he takes down Phobos and project nexus daming nexus city in the process

Hofnarr fucking loses it and becomes Tricky some time after that

Then the events of the series begin and Hank becomes a problem

The AAHW either already existed and was changed to the AAHW or was formed after Hank became a problem idk, it is lead by the Auditor who's one of the employers

Eh Sheriff who lead over the AAHW temporary activates the improbability drive and fucking dies lol

Then everything goes to hell, basically

And uh oh turns out some scientists and agents from project nexus had survived and they try to restart the Project

One of them being Crackpot who fled after the city fall and started a clut

And it also turns out Phobos had a backup plan to dying: Project Gestalt which is basically he used Gestalt as a vessel to absorb S-3LFs to reach godhood

So eh Christoff teams up with Hank, Sanford and Deimos to stop Phobos, again.

Oh and it turns out Sheriff was somehow revived and now leads a faction called MERC cool

Anyway the events of the game happen I'm lazy to explain it watch a play through

Yippe they defeat Phobos!! Whoooo! Not so yippe Hank decides to fucking betray them and try to kill San and Dei. It's okay tho they kill them, and Doc probably revived them after

Goddamnit Hank

And then the events of the series continue

I'm not sure when exactly MPN:2 takes place but If I had to guess I'd say sometime between MC:7 and MC:8 because my instinct tells me that

[yamperzzz]

Drew a meme at 1 in the morning.

Heavily inspired by this post here by @sealed-valkyria which won't tag for some reason... halp

https://sealed-valkyria.tumblr.com/post/678301442824634368/madness-project-nexus-spoilers​

[sealed-valkyria]

(Madness Project Nexus spoilers!)

Maybe losing your created vessel is one.

[clownkillsyou]

pspsps

[nunchucksnun]

Just run!