#magicraft

[unmyeoung]

@magicraft​  responded for a starter  

        she doesn’t think it’ll surprise him, but she tries coming up behind him anyways, arms wrapping around his waist as she tucks her head against his back. she uses a silly voice, noting deeply: “guess who?” 

[rewrittn]

@magicraft​​ gets a one-liner/short starter ( 02/04 ).

❝ Sorry about my older brother, he hates everyone almost as much as he hates me. ❞ There’s a chuckle that spills past his lips but the way he said those words does not sound like a lie or a joke. ❝ I’m the angel of the family, Thalien Blueglade, how do you do ? ❞ Hand is not held out for a shake but this is not meant in a disrespectful manner, he’s not wearing his gloves. 

[noxcomnia-a]

@magicraft​ asked: ❛ do you think even the worst person can change…? That everybody can be a good person, if they just try? ❜ lobelia to alice

" OH BUT OF COURSE! "

WHAT A STRANGE THING TO BE ASKING YOU OF ALL PEOPLE! The concept of someone changing for the better is one that is sought after rather often by people, isn't it? Though some people simply claim to be better people, while other people fail where they have tried and simply fall back into the habits of old. Others are all written in story books- Books of wonder, of healing and growing as you learn to be a good person... Such things are truly idealistic, aren't they? You also know that being a good person is a bit subjective. To be a good person ... you have to do good things, but if someone is foolish enough, they could think that an act of murder was a good thing. They could also believe an act of mercy were a good thing when it isn't. 

NOTHING IS EVER SO CUT AND DRY.

" BUT YOU KNOW, MY OPINION IS ONLY ONE... And, I don't think you would want to try and be a good person, would you? " Was it wrong to say something like that? You can't help but laugh a bit as you say it even. You've become a rather good judge of character in your long life- or rather... many lives? This man is so giddy and friendly seeming- His smile is so warm... If you were as you were original, you would have trusted him. Who knows if that would have resulted in you death, but you can sense a darkness in his heart! You aren't scared though " That's okay! I don't expect people to change if they don't want to. Anyone can change, but you have to want to change~ " 

You take a sip of the tea that you poured yourself with a hum as you think.

" Do you think I'm a good person? I've never really asked someone that! "

[casuallyyoa]

STEAM NEXT FEST OCTOBER 2023 ROGUE EDITION

It’s another edition of Steam Next Fest, with a whole deluge of demos for people to try on the platform. As a rogue-genre self-proclaimed connoisseur, October 2023 sees me diving into the literal hundreds of Coming Soon titles to pick out at random something that vaguely interests me. As such, this selection is entirely subjective to my own taste and I’ll clarify what each vague category means. 

I tried to spend at least 30 minutes per title to see if their demo slice is able to ‘hook’ as it were.

Let’s go!

FEATURED GAMES IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

Below the Stone: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1170230/Below_the_Stone/

Break the Loop: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1331340/Break_the_Loop/

CD 2: Trap Master: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2330870/CD_2_Trap_Master/

Chrysalis: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1594210/Chrysalis/

Corlero: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1991350/Corlero/

Cursorblade: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2449040/Cursorblade/

Destroy the Monoliths: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2352000/Destroy_The_Monoliths/

Dethroned: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2326050/Dethroned/

Earthless: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2058960/Earthless/

Ending Tau: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2087880/Ending_Tau

Froguelike: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2315020/Froguelike/

Go Mecha Ball: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2008510/Go_Mecha_Ball/

Heroes of Eternal Quest: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2234200/Heroes_of_Eternal_Quest/

Lucky Hero: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2404510/Lucky_Hero/

Magicraft: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2103140/Magicraft/

Phantom Rose 2 Sapphire: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1964200/Phantom_Rose_2_Sapphire/

Sandwalkers: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1639080/Sandwalkers/

Scarlet Record: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2365920/Scarlet_Record/ 

Shambles: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2289630/Shambles/

SpellRogue: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1990110/SpellRogue/

Voice of Belldona: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2223420/Voice_of_Belldona/

NEEDS MORE TO STAND OUT

While simple isn’t necessarily bad, I consider these games either being too derivative or not having some ‘spark’ to draw in people who may have already played similar games. 

Cursorblade

Cursorblade is a really cute game where you play the titular cursor which acts like a blade. Genius. You get the upgrades for your cursor and move your mouse around the screen wildly to slash at the creatures. It’s not quite as ‘free’ as that though, as the monsters will retaliate with bullets or on contact. You’ll see them flashing before you get hit so watch out. If cute and simple ticks your boxes, then by all means, get this.

Froguelike

A frog roguelite? Sign me up! That said, besides the various upgrades that are certainly froggy-themed, Froguelike is one of the closest Vampire Survivors clones you can get out there. Of course, Vampire Survivors is hardly the first of its kind, but as the one probably freshest in most minds, the demo doesn’t convince me people would get this over the other.

INTERESTING CONCEPTUALLY

These are titles that have things that draw me or I can acknowledge seem quite fun, but it’s not quite for me.

Break the Loop

It’s got style, it’s got a way to reduce the RNG a little bit by letting you set events in an order you want to encounter them and is similar to games I like. That’s why I’m incredibly perplexed as to why I bounced off Break the Loop’s demo so hard. I’ve currently chalked it down to balance issues as it feels like I’m meant to play aggressively to get the permanent unlock currency but because skills seem to cost so much I can’t hit the, well, balance. Don’t let my skill issues discourage you from checking out this game yourself.

CD 2: Trap Master

I’m a tower defense enjoyer so this should have been a dead ringer for me. In practice, the demo for CD 2: Trap Master felt clunky, not helped by the tooltips not entirely implemented for this initial build. I screwed myself over by an English Second Language moment not understanding my ‘energy’ to summon the traps would be ‘capped’ as in ‘its upper limit reduced’, so my shiny new card could never be played. It’s a little unfortunate, but the basic mechanics should all be in place and just needs more polish.

Corlero

Do you want even more randomness in your games of auto team battlers? Corlero has got you, with a story of random presumably divine entities also potentially ruining your life. There ARE some mechanics to try reduce the RNG - like if you did mess up with positioning - by allowing you to reroll the result of a battle, at gradually increasing cost. Still, there’s still the fact you need 3 copies of a unit to upgrade it, and more than once I’ve encountered enemy formations with more upgraded units than I have, and rerolling doesn’t get me any closer to a tiered up unit. I feel like they need more ways to ‘tighten’ the mechanics as it were before the randomness becomes more frustrating than fun.

Destroy the Monoliths

Destroy the Monoliths feels ripe for early game hell. Getting the materials feels slow without any upgrades while enemies come knocking on your door whether you look for them or not. You want the structures to destroy the enemy monoliths while fending them off but getting the resources you need before they end your miserable little ball’s life might need to be streamlined a bit more. The terrain also affects your movement which would make for some challenge; it just wasn’t all that nice to get that as a start before I’ve really gotten to know the game’s workings.

Lucky Hero

The slot machine in Lucky Hero is kind of novel as you spin to hopefully win. The slots will be really empty to start of course, until you get more energy to make worthwhile actions. Depending on the positioning of items, you could buff your actions, have empty vials be filled with gunk monsters put into your slots, or just have things get locked up by enemies and you get really unhappy. I feel it’s less clunky than a similar slot machine mechanic in Lucky Island in that there’s less to micromanage, at least, even if it’s not hitting it for me.

Phantom Rose 2 Sapphire

I had the feeling I’d already seen this game before, and yes, that would be Phantom Rose Scarlet. Phantom Rose 2 Sapphire has the same distinctive artstyle and mechanics of its predecessor, to its detriment I feel. The demo didn’t seem to have anything that made it stand out from Scarlet in my mind apart from the protagonist, so maybe I need to be more invested in the story before I consider Sapphire.

Magicraft

Someone’s static is gonna have to look for a new BLM I think. Magicraft’s opening riffs on fantasy tropes and certain player expectations which would make for fun character interactions. You have your wand and your MP, with the wand not only having their own stats, but also slots in which you can modify your attacks. While I understand the MP cost is a necessary evil to balance some of the fancy effects, I guess it does also cramp the style when you’re not allowed to have as much fun with some insane combos if you don’t get the wand slots you want. It be like that in roguelites.

Voice of Belldona

On its own, Voice of Belldona isn’t anything too special. 

There is a certain focus on story and mechanically, you have both your character’s own deck of skills and also can summon uncontrollable units to aid you in battle. There’s a lot of positioning you can play around with regards to your skill effects which should make for some fun. Also, just look at those placeholder assets. If nothing else, having them as an alternative skin for the full release can elevate this game to a grand ol’ shitpost.

TO LOOK OUT FOR

Games that I don’t always click with but there’s more things that interest me here.

Below the Stone

Where Destroy the Monoliths didn’t hit it for me, Below the Stone does. You make your little dwarf to embark on an adventure to dig real deep and perhaps revitalize your dwarven kingdom. You need to upgrade your tools as you go along of course, to work at those veins that sparkle at you from the darkness. There’s some flexibility where you can select low risk missions to take on on your expedition as you need to complete at least one before you can leave the current level. The resources to allow you to keep exploring feel generous enough, so you could just take on riskier, more rewarding missions as you fill up your bags. 

I’m not the biggest fan of pseudo (or otherwise) resource management as I love to just fire away mindlessly, but I think this can be really appealing.

Chrysalis

With your posse of animal friends, rid the world of corruption in Chrysalis. Well, I suppose they aren’t all animals. Go around possessing creatures to use their skills to aid you against the monsters, and hope to find some seeds for the home defense. Since you can always teleport back almost instantaneously to your base, you could absolutely risk exploring till the other edge of the map in hope for resources or better creature companions to be worthwhile investing into. You do get refunded some of the resources spent on completing a level, so you don’t start from zero as you continue.

Dethroned

Traipse around the map with your little squaddie and activate the altars and save the world and stuff! I’m not very good at it, but Dethroned intrigued me. Your hero character isn’t part of the actual squad, but they have skills to support your creatures over time. If you position it right, you can just avoid combat with hostiles in your way by simply slipping by. It does mean you probably won’t have the resources to beef up your army, as the threat level gradually increases to buff all other enemies across the map. Once all your monsters die it’s game over, so the risk reward learning curve is gonna be something.

Heroes of Eternal Quest

Round and round we go. Heroes of Eternal Quest involves placing buildings on the map and you occasionally using active skills to help your hero should the going get tougher. I do like influencing the course by being more strategic with my placements, less on getting some god drops for a god build and more to a relatively consistent power grind. Resources obtained from your merry-go-round will be used to unlock more buildings and gradually open up your options to mow down the unfortunates that stand in your way, further adding to that feeling of incremental growth that I enjoy.

Shambles

It’s like a mix of your typical deckbuilder roguelike with a dash of roleplaying and D&D-esque elements. Shambles places you in a post-apocalyptic world where you become the trailblazer from your bunker home into the new old world now that the radiation is back to safe levels. There are stat checks every now and again for story choices that can grant you a variety of cards, changing based on your decisions. You move along a skill tree to get yourself more equipment to provide different stat bonuses which you don’t need to equip immediately. However, you can only swap it out at certain points, like end of chapter moments. I feel like there’s potential here since story isn’t necessarily the focal point for a majority of roguelikes, so keep an eye out.

SpellRogue

There’s so much dice in SpellRogue! Depending on the die faces, you can cast certain spells a certain amount of times. You can see the value range these spells require to cast, so if you just so happen to have a 4 value die and your only remaining spell wants 1 to 3, then it’s unusable. Getting more die and ability to reroll is no doubt going to be key to success. It’s pretty easy to grasp and I managed to get to the end of the demo on my first go despite almost bungling a battle when I didn’t watch my HP, so I’d be interested to see where it goes. 

PERSONAL PICKS

The ones I’d prioritize to purchase.

Earthless

I’m a sucker for sci-fi, I admit. Earthless sees you captain a ship through the cosmos, managing your engine’s heat as you navigate through asteroids, juggling cards to destroy obstacles or hostile aliens wanting a bite out of your crew, and making calls that could affect your crew’s morale and the rewards from certain events. I just really like how all these pretty simple mechanics play together, like a version of FTL that is more to my pace.

Ending Tau

With Dead Cells and Children of Morta in mind, if you liked those games, I think you’d like Ending Tau. Your Hunter has four main ‘curses’ to bear to affect your mobility and abilities, which then get upgraded further by aspects, thematically minor curses, I suppose. It’s faster paced than the stuff I usually like for sure, but it’s mechanically quite satisfying. My gripe from the demo is that the indicator around the character wigs me out slightly. I understand it’s to help indicate your range but it felt more awkward than helpful for me, personally.

Go Mecha Ball

Speaking of fast paced, Go Mecha Ball can be one dizzying bounce all over the field as you crash into enemies. You do have guns to supplement your wrecking ball self but if you don’t bounce off enough enemies, you will run out of ammo pretty quickly. There’s two abilities you can get too, at least. Still, the crashing is the name of the game: you can interrupt flashing enemies when you slam into them besides destroying them outright which can only be good. I’m going to need more practice…

Sandwalkers

Here’s one I’m not good at once again! That won’t stop me from admiring and enjoying what there is of Sandwalkers though. With your merry band, you need to manage your resources as you travel across the world to trailblaze for those who will follow in your footsteps. Different ‘factions’, as it were, will find certain items more worthwhile to trade for so that they’d agree to barter for that thing you really want. I’m sure this will also partly play into them trusting you so that you can have additional options when you find more of their encampments. 

You don’t lose outright when you don’t have supplies to continue your travels, but your units do lose HP the further you go. This can make battles dicey despite your starting shields since you probably don’t have a good way to recover your health. At least when you break enemy shields, they can get momentarily stunned so you can slam ‘em when they’re down. 

CONCLUSION

Once again, these are all my personal opinions, and there were so, so many demos as usual to try out. With that, that’s it for my run in Steam Next Fest October 2023. A number of these games are planning for early access, or even launching very soon, so do wishlist all the things you’re looking forward to. 

Until next time. Thanks for watching.

[vcsabiadisso]

Top 10 Animes mais assistidos no momento!

[majesticmulti]

@magicraft​ sent an ask: WEARY for saori from toshiyuki

WEARY :  for one muse to wake up after falling asleep on the other. // ask meme

            saori wasn’t quite sure when he had fallen asleep, but she knew that she wouldn’t dare wake him up. she had invited him over to watch a movie that she had been meaning to watch for a while. doing stuff like this was always more fun when you had friends around. and she had decided that since she was starting to become friends with toshiyuki, this was the best way to bond. what she hadn’t expected though was him falling asleep. let alone on her shoulder.

          saori didn’t know what to do. she didn’t want to wake him up but this made her nervous. she was looking at his sleeping figure. trying to think of a way to not wake him up. she had decided to just stay seated and try and find something else to watch. she was anxious. an attractive man had fallen asleep on her shoulder. her cheeks were painted bright pink as she tried to make subtle movements, in an attempt to not awaken him. 

           but it seems the attempt has failed. he began to stir beside her, causing her to turn practically red. “  i’m so sorry for waking you... i... i was trying to not move..  ” 

[akaitsugi]

@magicraft / sc.

" interesting . . . i've yet to see something like this , " deft fingers reach to pick up the object gingerly , turning it over in the light to inspect it , " what is it ?? " their curious gaze turns to their companion .

[sassysnowperson]

I vote: attach it to the cordless drill for high-speed skeleton ballet....Skellet!

(sassysnowperson assumes no responsibility for injuries resulting from Skellet)

Konmari day 17 it’s cold I’m sleeping in

[rev-pirate]

Pixlriffs announcing ZloyXP has been added to the server! (decidedly vanilla s2e6)

I always love moments like these so much. I'm always left with a profound sense of awe whenever i witness clips like these in hindsight. Or even think back on stuff like this in my own life. Like Man this guy has No Idea the sort of long-lasting friendship this moment is about to lead to.

Transcript:

We have a new member of Decidedly Vanilla playing on the server at last! It's not like we wanted to replace Logan but we definitely wanted to have somebody else in the lineup pretty soon. And we have a new member in the form of ZloyXP who is somebody we were aware of kind of peripherally but we didn't necessarily run in the same circles except he's on Magicraft with bRanN and Ovi and a few of our other friends and bRanN liked him and thought we should give him a chance and the rest of us very much agreed! He's an excellent builder, he's a very very funny guy, has his own kind of like roleplay stuff going on which we think is cool cuz we've been doing a bit of roleplay on the server recently and we think he's a good fit for that. So welcome Zloy to the server! You've probably heard of him before and his videos are definitely going to be around. He's already made one from the server, I think, when he arrived and he's got a couple of other things coming up, so pay attention to this guy.

[puellamagiholyquintet]

Tomoe Mami, as seen in: New MagiReco Memoria by the artist of Tomoe Mami's Daily life to celebrate the 10th volume release, & new magicraft art!

[unmyeoung]

@magicraft​  responded for a starter

       “i heard there’s a new crepe cafe that opened nearby, are you busy? do you have some time to go?” she gathered all her courage to ask him out first-! surely after all this time, he would have told her if he thought she was annoying. 

[nrcbookclub]

caesar salad if u can please

atamaiiiiiii im boreed(and still stuck in the infirmary vern wont let me out AND wont let me use my magic ù^ú)

SO-

whats ur opinion on me :3

-Trystia, @nrcbookclub

Hmhm... Why, youre quite kind... youve got issues with taking care of yourself but we're working on it....

I could name the tiniest aspects of your personality if i wanted to, but i reckon that would take much too long.

Overall, youre an awesome person and i cherish our friendship

[rewrittn]

*  ―  𝑨𝑵𝑮𝑺𝑻𝒀 𝑸𝑼𝑬𝑺𝑻𝑰𝑶𝑵 𝑷𝑹𝑶𝑴𝑷𝑻𝑺. | @magicraft​ asked: ❛  are you sure you’re gonna be okay on your own?  ❜ kuma to three

She gives a slow nod to the other bot, also letting a gentle and reassuring smile overtake her features. She wasn’t sure if she was going to have a glitch at any point in the near future but she was use to such a situation if it were to happen, she was use to picking up the broken pieces after a random glitch.

❝ Absolutely! My siblings should return before long. One and Two usually do not like me to be all alone for long after all. ❞ It was true, Two was more gentle about it and tried to approach it in a way that didn’t make her feel bad from her observations. One was just as busted as she was in his own ways so he approached it in a different way from Two but she understood he meant well even if he sounded mean. 

❝ Thank you for your .... Is this worry ? If so, thank you for that. ❞

[noxcomnia-a]

▷ Modern AU roleplay starter ◁ ▷ @magicraft​ kioko && owen ! ◁  

" YOU ARE ALWAYS WALKING HOME FROM SCHOOL ALONE " It was just a casual observation you made. She was rather popular- Often had kids talking to her throughout the day and asking her for help or to hang out, yet she almost always walks home alone. Isn't that a little sad? A little lonely? It must be a rather lonely thing! And you plan to poke and prod at such a fact and see what happens. To you, it seems that no one actually likes her (something that is untrue because you like it, but you could never admit that out loud). Why would your friends just make you walk home alone every day? Why wouldn't they invite you out or walk with you part-way? Clearly, they don't care!

" That must be pretty lonely, huh~ None of your "friends" even want to walk home with you. "

[styxhealthnsafety]

can you rate which overblots from night raven college are the hottest.

Do we look like magicraft youtubers to you

[void-botanist]

WIP Romance Week Day 1

The first prompt for WIP Romance Week is just to introduce my chosen pairing. I don't have many excerpts for these two, but I do have a nice intro for you:

Marcus and Nemoru Asalun are relative newcomers to Tobarsha. They've been living on the upper east side for five years, in a spacious house that Marcus has filled with magicraft paintings and knitting and Nemoru has filled with the smells of strange local spices and a collection of dresses and parasols. Like half of Tobarsha they speak with accents from a faraway locality, but like no one else in Tobarsha, they're royalty back home, and it's critical that no one ever knows that.

Marcus Asalun (he/him), aka the Heir of Iecunem, Anchesh Pabat, is a black cyoran (grey fox gijinka person) with close-cut curls usually dyed a bright color. His wardrobe is all flowing shapes with patterns that look like real-world teacups or dishtowels or linoleum floors, but that a Tobarshan would probably compare to a parasol. He's a pigment magician with a particular knack for making paintings that move, and he takes commissions, such as the sign outside Horatio's Flowers. He's also unfailingly polite, and five years has given him a decent sense of Tobarshan manners, but underneath that he is full of anxiety and dread. To be honest, he's glad that Nemoru was the one who came with him, since their steadfast presence is so calming.

Nemoru Asalun (they/them), aka Heir-Magister Umedes Ores-Pabat, is a silver ferasca (dragon person) with bright pink eyes and mica-like plating. In the palace, they wore almost exclusively robes and other draped looks, but since that would stand out more in Tobarsha they've switched to dresses cut with a similar silhouette. They work in the registrar's department at Tobarsha Community College, mostly answering calls and emails about the arcane rituals of registration. They were the only one of Marcus's five spouses who both wanted and was able to accompany him on his escape. People often comment on how quiet they are, but don't always notice how gentle they are, in words and actions.

Iecunem taglist: @vacantgodling @kk7-rbs