#more people should play this game cause it's super fun and cool

[dawnthefluffyduck]

That cactus had it coming

[thetangibleghost]

I gotta confess it is so much more fun talking to Sal as if he is a separate person like he wants and not a member of the system. He's super creative like. Its just fun.

[eepywriters]

dating younger quackity? like 2018-2019

.✦°. • Dating younger Quackity ( ´∀｀)

warnings: none^^

a/n: thank u so much for the request! This was super fun to write, took me back to 2019 when I started watching him :D either way hope you enjoy! (Sorry it took so long 😭 life’s been busy)

I feel like he’d be the type to fall in love with his best friend, or generally someone that he knows fairly well

Expect nights spent talking on the phone with him, laughing your asses off at memes and stupid games instead of doing homework

Or endless bike rides around the city, as if you didn’t do that one route million of times

Maybe even little lessons on the basics of boxing (he isn’t a very good teacher though, he’s too afraid to hurt you)

It comes naturally, his heartbeat starts to pick up every time he hears your voice, your laugh, you saying his name ugh

And you won’t stop leaving his mind, you’re always there, in every each one of his thoughts (might as well pay rent at this point)

Have you always sound this pretty?

Have you always been this pretty?

Before he knows it, he’s noticing all the little details that make you, well, YOU

He’s in love.

Fuck.

He wouldn’t know what to do about his feelings, either he ignores them and buries this secret deep into his heart, or, after a scary amount of convincing from his friends, he confronts you with the shyest demeanor you’ve ever seen him wear

Assuming this is one of his first experiences, if not the first, he would be very cautious in his actions, not sure yet about how to handle a relationship, especially if it gets more serious

He wouldn’t talk about being in a romantic relationship for a while, mostly cause he doesn’t like to share his personal life too much, especially when it comes to romance

But is there a teenage boy that doesn’t like to brag about being in a relationship?

Would mention it once, casually, you know, to be cool and all

Like “yeah I have a partner” a little smile to top it off, nothing big, just a bit of something to feel swag

Nobody believed him.

The loud boy who screamed about the president 24/7 having a partner? Yeah nice try kiddo, go back to play your stupid videogames

At some point in his young carrier he got tired about the running joke of you being an illusion

“This is what too much screen time does to a person KEKW” chat would say, haha how funny (if you hadn’t notice, he’s being sarcastic)

As frustrating as it was to battle against hundreds of people on whether HE was in a relationship or not, he’d never ask you to do anything you are uncomfortable in doing

So, even if showing up on stream would probably help with this little problem of his, he’d encourage you to actually think carefully if you want to make an appearance or not

“I do have a partner!” Alex says for what feels like the fiftieth time that evening. He should probably give up, after all who cares if chat doesn’t believe him. He knows the truth and that’s enough. Right?

WRONG.

His credibility, and his pride, are in the way. Plus is he even that bad of a catch for people to think he can’t pull?

His head falls onto his hand, resting there as he lets his thoughts run while the fast stream chat on his monitor lights up his face in various dull colors.

You were sitting on a little chair, not too far away from him, staring at something in your phone. He did feel bad for inviting you over just for him to stream an hour later, but you had always said that you didn’t mind watching him since you liked seeing him do something he enjoyed. As if he didn’t enjoy spending time with you, but fine.

So he put his insecurities aside, most of them being about you possibly not liking his streams, and provided you a chair to at least sit comfortably as he robbed you of your time by going live yet again.

It had been going fairly well: he was checking out some horrible games in Roblox, or rather he had been screaming his lungs out for an hour straight, and of course, when a random kid on Roblox asked him to be his girlfriend, chat got back on their “no relationship, you are a loser” (he knows it’s a long name, he couldn’t come up with anything better okay??) agenda.

Your hand waving in his peripheral vision brought him back from his mind: he hadn’t realized he had zoned out.

He looked at you briefly, almost feeling bad for the worried stare you were giving him. He usually doesn’t feel this defeated after an unserious bickering with chat, but to say that this all situation wasn’t playing with his self-doubts would be lying. He’s fine though, he just feels a little gloomy today.

You turn your head to the side and give him a thumps up, voicelessly asking whether he was fine or not. And he just nods, giving you a little, forced, smile before going back to the bright monitor. He doesn’t like the thought of you being concerned about this. While, admittedly, it does feel nice to have someone worried about him, Alex never quite liked to be a bother to anyone. He could handle this alone.

Then why is his head so heavy? And why does he feel without energy all of a sudden? He just needs to do what he does best: push the pain away and walk forward. But even something as easy as that sounds impossible right now.

Maybe he should end stream.

He’s too lost in his own thoughts to realize you had stood from your chair, steadily approaching his setup. When he realizes what’s going on, it’s too late.

“You don’t-“ before the frantic words can leave his mouth, you were already behind him. You cross your arms down his chest, whilst your head, resting on the top of his beanie, being high enough to not get seen by the webcam.

Many things were going trough Alex’s mind, a lot of them being about how nice it felt being hold by you, but only two words left his lips:

“Who’s got no game now, huh?”.

At that point it would go from chat not believing him to chat teasing him endlessly about him being a simp

You two could do nothing and he would still be accused of it, just because you were there

Is it true? Yeah, but it was nonetheless a bit annoying

He WOULD bully you on stream when the secret is out

Chat: “do you like (Name) or Thanos more? Don’t lie”

“Well…” he’d say, scratching his neck in faux uneasiness.

“Don’t think about it what the fuck!”.

His chat took your relationship quite well, after all the time he wasn’t famous enough to have fans being jealous and obsessing over him

Actually you became kind of an icon of his channel

And he did milk this for content but it’s not like you didn’t encourage him, quite the contrary, so expect videos like “playing Roblox with my partner” or “The best Habbo raid ever w/(Name)”

As sweet as this all can be, we haven’t forgot about his light teasing (borderline bullying) on stream, have we?

Don’t worry, you got back at him with the help of Aksel countless of time, he’d be your partner in crime when it came to bullying Alex

You were watching meme compilations with them on stream, occasionally sharing some little laughs and snarky comments, and, one way or another, you somehow ended up talking about shampoos. Yes, shampoos.

“Honestly, I think 2 in 1 are gross” Alex says, spinning around in his chair while still keeping an eye on the running chat. You were sitting next to him in your usual simple wooden chair that he usually stole from his kitchen. It wasn’t much, and you could feel your thighs getting painted with the hard design of your seat, but it feels very homy, heart warming in its simplicity.

Yet, as comfortable and happy as you felt, you really couldn’t help spatting out the comment that had been dancing dangerously on the tip of your tongue, begging to be freed.

“And what would you know about it you bald fuck”.

Silence filled the room.

.

.

.

You start to grow worried you stepped over the line as you shoot guilty side-glances at him, trying to evaluate whether he was or wasn’t okay with your stupid joke. His spinning was getting gradually slower, and his eyes wide and open jaw came to view.

You’re able to let out a silent sigh of relief as Alex’s face sinks into a, clearly exaggerated, offended pout.

“Have you heard them?? Defend me Aksel what the hell” he cries dramatically, his mindless spinning coming at a halt to stare into the soul of his screen, specifically at the man that is lightly grinning right back at him.

“I mean.. they’re kinda right man..” he mutters in his typical monotone voice, barely holding back an amused snicker.

Alex’s look of betrayal was probably the funniest shit you had seen in a while.

“Why are you two ganging up on a Mexican guy huh??”

“Awww the Mexican card? No better come back??” you laugh smugly, your face screaming “triumph” as he gawks at you.

“You truly found your match” Aksel laughs, adjusting his bucket hat as he leaned down on his office chair.

“Shut the fuck up” he mumbles before looking away from you with a huff.

Oh God does he love you.

Moving on though, these were harsh years for him, so he needs lots of love and support from his partner

I think it’d be too soon to have full on cuddling sessions, but i see him loving your touch, especially if it’s something domestic like a simple hug or a little caress down his back

Not really into PDA either, but he would find comfort in holding your hand whenever he’s tense or even just cold

It’s a reminder you are still by his side despite all of his flaws and insecurities, you chose him

(Ended up being way longer than I intended but had fun :D sorry for the long wait :( I had two very stressing weeks in the middle of writing this)

[lazilybeinglassie]

It's flawed, and I hate it (Beast Yeast Ep 7&8)

I think it's fair to say when it comes to the writing of Cookie Run Kingdom, it is not perfect. Nothing in life is. However, it's definitely been discussed in the circles I'm in that the best way to enjoy the story of the game is to just not think about it too hard and watch the fun and colorful commentary just sweep you off your feet.

Bless you localization people.

When the Third Anniversary introduced the beasts, there was quite a lot of hype around it. Especially around Shadow Milk. No surprise there though, considering this is the Discord/Bill Cipher of the cookie run franchise. Everyone loves those characters. And having him get his update on the Fourth Anniversary, before we met the rest of the beasts, was by all means really cool to have happen.

Yet this post I make here is not to discourage people from playing the game or saying they can't like this update. It's still a fun time. But the story in the latest episodes sadly left a bitter taste in my mouth, and I wanna at least touch on why it did. So be warned, this is probably gonna be the biggest hot take in recent days of the fandom.

Part 1: Manipulation 101

Mind games are difficult to write in general. Especially when you are writing a story that meant for a younger audience. Not only do you have to make sure the kids are following along with the tricks and lies, it also has to be entertaining enough that they can keep watching.

Cookie Run Kingdom definitely has had some decent moments of proper manipulation in it's previous stories before. Mozzarella in the Golden Cheese arc stands out the most right now. But it definitely did not shine for whoever wrote the Shadow Milk arc here. And it mainly has to do with how they made the characters stupid for no logical reason.

Like, White Lily literally follows the gang all the way to the front doors of the Spire, just to decide to turn back and not be in the rest of the episode because she felt like it. If you didn't want her in this adventure, you should have just had them give goodbyes back at the Faerie Kingdom at the start of the journey. It's nothing more than just pointless padding that could have been cut out. I'm honestly not sure why she was added here, it feels super pointless. And you can't call this Shdaow Milk tricking them into departing, cause there was barely an effort of manipulation that actually could be credited to him in that whole exchange with the old man.

I should be fair though, cause the rest of the main characters are just as stupid as she is when they start their journey. And yes, that is a proper complaint to make when it's established in story they know who they are facing. They verbalize many times that they know Shadow Milk is gonna be there, and they are well aware he is a manipulative bitch. They are aware. But they are all written to just . . . fall for the simplest of tricks. Inviting strangers to journey with them. Splitting up the party. SLEEPING IN ENEMY TERRITORY!

The issue remains that a lot of the manipulation doesn't feel rewarding because our heroes have been reduced unnaturally to fall for these tricks. Instead it gives off this artificial villain victory where it's never earned but handed on a silver platter. And it carries on into episode 8 as well, not just 7. And that episode is just a dragged on series of how many times can Shadow Milk use the same threat over and over again on Pure Vanilla Cookie.

Speaking of which-

Part 2: Dragging On Pointlessly

While episode 7 was a poor set up, episode 8 was like an unfinished draft they never completed. The pieces are there, and I adore what they did, but they each fell short in their respective areas.

I think I would specifically describe it all as anticlimactic.

The river being the prime example of this. Looking at how it was designed to be used to force Pure Vanilla to become Shadow Milk's servant/deciple, it really is shocking that it doesn't hold any importance to the story at all. Perhaps if PV's transformation into Truthless Recluse was tied into it, then it would have more weight, but that's just one idea I thought of.

They make it sound like it's this big event when it really doesn't change anything. PV doesn't even appear to be more loyal to Shadow Milk, he just still remains passively annoyed and resistant. Which is disappointing how they could have had more stakes to it to feel more intense.

Chess was a bit more satisfying with how it concludes itself with forcing Pure Vanilla to cheat the game and rely on tricks to beat Shadow Milk. It's a fine moment, golf clap.

That being said, it does start to wear thin that we have to watch Shadow Milk repeat his threats over and over again. By the time the final ultimatum is offered, the weight of it is no longer there. You can't expect different results from the same action like this. It's just not at all motivating or engaging as you keep doing it.

However, that wasn't really the lowest point for the whole update. I can forgive most of that. I can live with it. Cause out of everything I disliked in this update, there was one thing I hated more than all of that.

Part 3: . . . Friend? NEVER!

I had to sit with this one the most. Cause I understand it is there for a reason. Pure Vanilla Cookie's most famous character defining line is after all "any conflict can be resolved through conversation". For him to reach out to Shadow Milk is fully understandable and in character for him.

HOWEVER!

I do not like how the scene played out, even if it ended with Shadow Milk not redeemed.

Yes, I can agree on the idea he wanted to have someone suffer with him. I'm fine with that concept. Honestly, I like that angle. It's fun!

Yet as I look at the scene everytime, all I see is a moment of Devsis telling me "hey, he could be redeemed later on"

And I fucking hate it.

Redemption for a villain for me has two rules to it. First, it must make sense either in theme, character, or story. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it at least needs to feel fitting from what's been established so far. And of it contradicts any of those, then it will stick out like an uneven puzzle piece.

The second being that the chatacter being redeemed must express these traits-

1. Recognizing their wrong doings as bad.

2. Regret doing those wrong doings.

3. Desire a change within themselves.

Each of these are essential in that redemption arc. If they don't, then they are either still a villain, or just pacified (example Red Son from Lego Monkie Kid).

Shadow Milk Cookie fails these two rules. His character is a creature who finds enjoyment in the suffering of others. There's never been exceptions to his rules other than the other beasts. Even amongst his own minions, he is willing to harm them to ensure they won't fail again.

The conversation between Pure Vanilla and Shadow Milk, while sweet, is the most jarring moment ever. Not once does it at all feel built up to it, and most of it is designed for you to feel bad about this jester. In which I feel like the steps they took to get to this point were the wrong steps to take.

Granted, he does reject his proposal, but now that seed has been planted into the audience, and if they choose to nurture it, they will not have time to make it work. Because once they get to the last beast member, we will be seeing their arc ending in 2026. We won't get another year to flesh them out, there will be no more beast focused story telling.

I will not pretend to know what the end goal is. No one can. But I am all the more concerned if I will enjoy it. And it may be that I won't. Still, I know I will still give it a shot. Even as I sit in my corner and make my fanfics of what if scenarios. Cause I do still enjoy the spectacle of it all. And it's still always fun to see how the characters get even more quirky than before.

And with that, I end this hot take on a mid outro. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.

[carlyraejepsans]

If you are going to make a game here’s some things that might be helpful!

Game engines:

Godot: very new dev friendly and it’s free. Has its own programming language (GDscript) but also supports C#. It’s best for 2D games but it can do 3D also.

Unity: I don’t even know if I should be recommending Unity. It has caused me much pain and the suffering. But Unity has an incredible amount of guides and tutorials. And once you get the hang of something it’s hard to get caught on the same thing again. It also has a great Visual Studio integration and uses C#. I will warn you the unity animator is where all dreams go to die. It’s a tedious process but you can probably get some plugins to help with that.

Unreal: Don’t use it unless you’re building a very large or very detailed 3D game. It also uses C++ which is hell.

Renpy: Made for visual novels but has support for small mini games. It only supports Python iirc. Basically if you’re making a VN it’s renpy all the way otherwise you should look elsewhere.

What to learn: Game design and how to act as your own game designer. As a designer you need to know if a part of your game isn’t meshing with the rest of it and be willing to give up that part if needed. Also sound design is very important as well. If you want to make your own sounds audacity is perfect for recording and cutting up your clips. If you want to find sound effects I recommend freesound.org and the YouTube royalty free music database.

Sadly I can’t recommend a lot of places to learn this stuff because I’m taking Game Development in Uni. So most of my info comes from my lectures and stuff. One of my game design textbooks is pretty good but it’s around $40 CAD. It’s called the game designers playbook by Samantha Stahlke and Pejman Mirza-Babaei if you’re interested (fun fact there’s a photo of Toriel in there)

Anyway sorry for dumping this large ask on you I’m just really passionate about game design and I like to see other people get into it.

please do not apologize I'd never heard half of this stuff so this is super useful!! I've seen some godot tutorials on YouTube although so far I've played around with RPG maker MV (it was on sale. very very fiddly interface, i had trouble getting around it) and gamemaker, which recently became free for non-commercial use (a lot more approachable on first impact but like i said, haven't really done anything substantial in either yet).

mostly, I'm still in the super vague stage. I've got an idea for the main story conflict, the protagonist and their foil, the general aesthetic i want to go for (likely 2D graphics, but it would be cool to make like. small cutscenes in low-poly 3D) but not much else. haven't exactly decided on the gameplay either! it's gonna necessarily be rpg-esque, but I'm not much of a fan of classic turn-based combat so. I'm gonna check out other games and see if i can frankenstein anything cooler :P

[sleepyjaneart]

WWE!Epic the Musical headcanon

Ever since I found this musical out back in July and Jorge's inspiration on fighting games, I've been nursing this idea for WWE headcanons and I need somewhere to vomit all my thoughts out. I have a couple of sketches and references and I'm putting it all under a readmore cause it might be long.

So this all started with Ruthlessness being an absolute BANGER and I love all the animatics that came of it! But I noticed that, in all of them, their Poseidon was always so ANGRY (which, duh) but I also interpreted that Poseidon was also having some vicious fun in a "watch this, I'm about to make this guy's life miserable lol" kinda way. Also, the chorus right at the start chanting Poseidon's name felt so much like one of those super dramatic, fireworks and crowd yelling, WWE entrances that my mind couldn't help but run with the idea.

(this is where I should clarify that I have never watched WWE or wrestling in any form in my life, though it has always looked fascinating to me. I am only going by what I know from cultural osmosis and it would be so cool if people more savvy could add in their ideas to this)

And as much as I wish I could say "I'll just make my own animatic ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ" the fact is that those are incredibly hard to do and I barely draw nowadays so... long text post it is!

So, I'm still playing around with Poseidon's design but I would like to keep it pretty simple. He's one of the major gods with some pretty straightforward domains, so he doesn't need a whole lot to show that he's lord of the seas and earthshaker. I like the idea that the lower in the god ladder it goes, the more work the godlings have to put to make their domain idea come across. Also, with this being WWE inspired, the outfits will look a bit more modern (picking Jorge's idea of more modern = more magical/god-like) but I also don't want them to look too out of place when facing mortals.

Taking inspiration from wrestlers like Mark Henry or athletes like Eddie Hall (especially the latter), I'm imagining a thickset, heavyweight fighter that looks like he could tap earth or water and it would send everything shaking.

The entire song is him talking shit at Odysseus so we need some Randy Savage vibes in there; maybe a big flashy coat and sunglasses to start when he first calls out Odysseus. Also, this immediately comes to mind at that part:

OHH-DYSSEUS OF ITHACAAA!

Do you know who I am?

And thinking of backgrounds and chorus; this is when the laestrygonians gather too so we would put them up as the audience to watch and cheer for their favourite champion and Poseidon is just constantly rilling them up.

He hurt MY SON! And what do we do to those who disrespect us!? (crowd boos)

(Polyphemus would be there with a "Poseidon is my dad" shirt, of course)

During the "POSEIDON!" chorus at the start, it would also be when the stage would be set: giant pillars raising from the water, connecting together to form a fighting ring, the crowd all gathered around it on the bay. A path also shaping towards the ring from where Poseidon stands as he struts through, waving his arms and hyping the crowd, listening in to the noise.

He doesn't even enter the ring right away, he just saunters around it. The first part is a one sided conversation that he's putting up more for the crowd than to Odysseus, him and his crew small and trapped in the middle of this bewildering scene. Eventually he enters and just knocks them around. These mortals are pathetic but they need to be made an example of and the crowd is eating it up.

And then at the "The line between naivete and hopefullness..." is when Poseidon allows some seriousness in as he's climbing up to one of the posts to then jump off for an elbow drop as he whispers "DIE".

And just when he thinks he's saving the best for last, he gets blown back against the chords, and sees Odysseus speeding out of the arena and out of sight. He leans back on the chords, anger and frustration through a smile.

Remember me...

Anyway it's 2am and while I have other characters I'd like to headcanon here, I'm tired and for all I know people think i'm insane for this. This idea bug wouldn't leave me alone and I hope putting it out there will help put it to rest. So If you read all this, thank you!!

[inventors-fair]

And So it Begins: Intro Commentary

I'm finally awake! Criminy, what a week. And we're doing it all again next week, too! Hm. Look, I'll level with y'all: the way my work schedule is right now, commentary's gonna be consistently pretty late unless we figure out some other way to do this. I can attempt cutting to one paragraph or lingering in the workshop at night, which I do enjoy doing after work from time to time! I just want to make sure that everyone gets a timely response to their cards, 'cause that's what we're all looking for when we submit.

In the generic sense, though: positive notes include the massive amount of subtle and pleasant storytelling that went into cards this week! Whenever someone submits a card that has a strong mechanical bend with flavor implications, that's where my heart shines. I really appreciate the effort that people put it to make the blend work together, and it's a tough talent.

In things to watch out for, there were a lot of mechanical blends this week. It's super cool to see, and there are also a lot of wording interactions to keep in mind for how things should appear on card with new precedent, reminder text, etc. to keep the card smooth. It's always worth double-checking to ensure your presentation matters.

JUDGE PICKS are cards that I'm terrified of choosing because there were so many good ones this week. How many after the fact? 22? I'll select... I guess five, but there's more. Y'all brought your a-game fr fr. Read on.

@bergdg — Livio, People's Champion

There's the inherent timing question that this card asks: can I cast this without flash? And yes, on that technicality you can do that but I don't feel that ambush groks as well without that minor addendum—an easy fix, though, so that's not too bad. Where it gets tricky is what ambushing means in a format. There are combat-like mechanics such as ninjutsu that, when known about, make combat more complicated. The fact that ambush is castable during an opponent's turn, I feel, disincentivises attacking into a known trick in a way that's harder to play around than just having combat tricks in a set. I feel that it needs some tweaking to avoid being a "Gotcha!" mechanic.

As for Livio itself, though, I can also read this as just being a flash creature for combat, and on that note it's a perfectly fine card. Disregarding the ambush side of things, flashing in a a lord/anthem is a great piece of strategy at rare and can turn that tide of combat quite effectively. I'm curious about the juxtaposition of "rebel" and "knight," though that's more a questioning of in-world fealty. Looking back on precedent, I guess Knight of the Holy Nimbus and its ilk are reasonable comparisons, but that's from a set that's not the greatest for precedent. Hey, maybe there's some worldbuilding to check up on for me. I'm sure there's an in-world explanation to expound upon here—or it's just "knight because protector, rebel because people's protector." That's not quite as compelling but it's understandable.

~

@bread-into-toast — Young Telepath (JUDGE PICK)

I like the classroom perspective that you've provided here. This student's bored in class, delving into the minds of their classmates and mouthing off, and the early-Jace comparisons are in full force. It's a great way to tie together simple trope-based worldbuilding in a slice-of-life manner. Why are we looking at random? Because the student's just poking around the minds in class, unstimulated but talented. All of your strengths are sincerely on display here, and I could write out an art description based on this illustration quite easily with the same impact. Good stuff.

I will say that this is a fun support card for limited, and that's the extent to which its power would show up anywhere—and that's totally fine. Double-draw is a great archetype, or at least it was in the couple places where I've played it the most (FDN and BRO). Perhaps there's something to be said for slowing down the game when choosing randomly at higher levels; I doubt that's an actual concern, but timers are timers. I think this card could've easily been a 2/3 because of the supporting role that its supposed to have, maybe to be a better blocker as needed, but that's small potatoes. This card was really great to see among the mix, and I'm looking forward to some wild and worldly choices from you.

~

@brookeuwo — Malamet Cairn (JUDGE PICK)

First things first: great flavor text here, short and simple worldbuilding. Secondly, the design sensibilities are pretty neat! Ixalan's ability to boost with exploration, equipment, and/or auras is a fine reason to play this card and even more so to want it on-curve. Even if you don't have as many things to boost its power, the strong lifelinking blocker can be a real savior in the later parts of the game. Green and white weren't the easiest colors to draft in LCI, I'll say that for sure. Whether or not this card would've saved the archetype, I dunno, but I enjoy the little twist on a defender that pairs well with the world in question.

I also like how it's a good topdeck because of those defensive capabilities. Maybe it doesn't necessarily get around the evasive creatures, but that hardly matters when you're using it mostly to get around full swings and the lot. That's the gist, and there's not a whole lot I feel I need to add that the card doesn't already say. It awakens when you put the power into it, and it's still a staunch defender even without that. I feel the will of Ixalan's world coming into play here as a quiet and ancient force to be reckoned with. So yeah, not bad!

~

@corporalotherbear — Kami of Togetherness

Oh, affinity, how we love thee... It's pretty fun how this card plays with itself, in the same way that a lot of the best affinity cards do. Getting bigger and better means that you're gonna pop off effectively just as much as you need to in limited, and there's the encouragement of multiples and/or spirit-based synergy that makes it pretty awesome. Honestly, I'm reminded a little bit of the MHX cards, although I understand that it's reasonable to have affinity as a one-off mechanic; there was a pseudo-affinity in NEO, I remember that one quite well.

Fair choice of PT also, because I can imagine the earliest you could get this card would be... Well, depends on the other cards in the set, but if there's some kind of other Spirit token generation then turn four or five would be reasonable, yeah? And with that you can have a solid body down. Good choice of the statline. It's definitely playing to my Kamigawa love, and I do appreciate that, even if the name feels just a touch less ethereal than I'd expect. Sensible, but maybe a little too grounded. I think that what I'm really curious about is whether or not the AD would be totally gorgeous or totally horrific. All depends on your relationship with the spirit world, I suppose?

~

@cthulhusaurusrex — Fetid Lurker (JUDGE PICK)

The first comparison that comes to mind is that of Tireless Tracker, whose first line is effectively the same. That said, I'd still want to play both of them in the deck that's asking for it, because they play into somewhat different spaces. Sacrificing your clues to the Tracker is a way to get your card advantage and beef on the board because of it, whereas this fish just wants to eat them up, a trade in resources. I like that choice of differences. Sometimes you want to just get your power up and swing in, and sometimes you need the draw—perhaps into the next land for the next clue.

Regardless, I can imagine this card as a multi-archetypal card that can still stand on its own in a draft. UB evasion, UG ramp, UR artifacts, UW card-advantage-control... Yeah! Don't fix what isn't broken. There's this general trope as well, flavor-wise, of river monsters living in sewers and marshes and swamps. Where does this one come from, I wonder? Probably a place with lots of artifacts to spare (a cousin of Gearseeker Serpent? Or a resident of Capenna?). That's a minor inquiry, though, because this card's definitely focused on power above other things. Slam dunk and/or hatedraft this card in limited, that's for sure.

~

@deg99 — Mishra's Agglomerate

In the submission, you mentioned niches and the fulfillment of a niche for a card like TSP's legendary Mishra. The questions that follow are a) whether or not that's a niche that necessarily needs to be filled, and b) whether or not this is the best application of the necessary mechanics. The obvious one is the "relentless" aspect, having any number with that name. Is the remainder of the plan just to beat down with Assembly-Workers, then? Besides Mishra having random complicated combos in EDH already, I'm not sold on a rare card as the best place for "relentless" in general. This is more of a meta issue with distribution, honestly, but I hope it's fairly evident why it's a little bit of a limited feelsbad to open a rare that plays best when you have multiple copies.

I also feel that, regardless of Mishra's possibilities, there are some easier ways to word this card for a similar effect and/or ways to make it less wordy. The middle two can be combined into a single activation that's similar to the Enduring cycle from DSK, e.g. "UBR, Exile another artifact card from your graveyard: Return this card from your graveyard to the battlefield. It's an artifact. (It's not a creature.)" As it stands, though, for this niche I think having a common/uncommon artifact could've helped with the start of this idea. It's a solid beater if you're going for Assembly jank, and I don't fault it there at all. Execution is the name of the game.

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@dimestoretajic — Sythis' Presence

I'll start with the positive parts of this card's intentions, namely that it's a strong aura for limited and deserves its legendary potential. My second thought is me wanting to make a token copy of it somehow, and the kinds of awesome shenanigans that you can get away with because of it. The weird thing is that there are only a handful of legendary auras that have been printed...ever? It's actually kinda weird! This would be fun for Yenna, though, and other loops that you can do with multiple copies. I keep thinking that this card gives it lifelink, and maybe that could've usurped the first strike, but hey, that's minor tinkering.

The major and minor wording issues are the other part. When an Aura gives both a PT boost and abilities, the PT boost use "gets" and the abilities use "has." And with the return, I think modern templating could say "this card" instead of the name in the last ability, but I'm not entirely sure. It's the middle trigger that's egregious, though, because you gotta say "another Aura you control" and also specify where it's going into the graveyard from. Is this from anywhere? From the battlefield? Specificity really does matter here because otherwise, well, the rules just don't work with it, and also I can't totally guess the intention. Also, the "instead" is only necessary on replacement effects, "if an Aura would" etc.

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@feyd-rautha-apologist — Dawn of Faceless Days

I'm almost positive that the draw trigger goes first, so let's shift that around. Let's follow that up with the question of what this card does, exactly. Right now, I know that there are the various creature-shifting combos that you can use with Arcane Adaptation and Leyline of Transformation, all that jazz. So why play this card over those, besides the cost and the draw, to transform a number of other cards? I'm wondering what kind of limited environment could use this, and I'm thinking about Lorwyn. There are a few funny cast triggers there, that's for sure, although the effect of the cards remains the same and might usually care about the creatures types of that archetype as-is.

In a limited format with an abundance of creature types, I can imagine that this card could serve as a glue between shenanigans. It's also asking a massive amount from the format in question to be able to have that amount of kindred cards. I think it just kind of hit me that this card effectively acts as a noncreature type-changer for the usual creature-only type-changing cards, and I can sense the niche there. Is that either too powerful or too narrow for what these effects are supposed to do? Why not change the creatures that you're probably gonna have more of to match the kindred stuff rather than this? But there are certainly combos I know I'm not seeing and interactions yet to exist. This card might be a little too ahead of the curve for me, if I'm being honest, and ultimately I say that positively. BTW, the name is a 10/10.

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@helloijustreadyourpost — Greel, Genteel Goblin

I think that we can all agree on how this card works and how neat it is overall. I really appreciate this week's efforts, with this card and others, to have more succinct and slice-of-life storytelling. This goblin has a hat, other goblins take the hat, and he gets mad when his hat becomes taken. Boom, easy enough and funky enough that he could easily be someone's favorite card from limited and/or become someone's pet commander deck. Pass the hat around, everyone!

A limited deck that runs this card has the minor issue of needing at least one other goblin around in order to give Greel trample for the turn and/or to use this equipment at all if Greel leaves the battlefield. I think that's the inherent flaw, honestly, because without at least one other piece of equipment and/or another goblin, a lot falls apart here. But perhaps that's just something that's inherent to this card with the deckbuilding that you'd want for it, y'know? Limited is really the only place that it would be the most likely to not work. Sometimes a 3/3 with haste is worth it. The other small note is that the second line should definitely be a trigger. Feels really weird that it doesn't use the stack.

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@horsecrash — Seven Earth-Shattering Strikes

Starting with the amazing name, I'm more confused than anything as to whether there's no flavor text to go with it. This seems like the perfect place, where I want to know so much more about the card than I do in this moment. Still, regardless of that, there's the push and the question of whether or not this card is at the kind of limited power level that's acceptable for multicolor. And the honest answer is that I don't know, but I don't think so. Not necessarily. The difference between this and a Dreadbore is pretty narrow. Is this the amount of damage that's needed in a specific imagined format? Is this the kind of multicolor power that you'd want?

I'm thinking of the top end right now for two mana, things like Scorching Shot. Unholy Heat has limitations, others have color restrictions on what they can hit... This feels like it goes too far into destructive territory, even with the way that the name leads us to understand it. I'm really torn here, because as much as I want this card to work with its presentation, I feel that it's just...off, numerically. Red burn's efficiency needs to have limitations even in multicolor, and black wants to do other things for this mana. This is quite a difficult card to talk about, but a welcome challenge still.

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@hyde-the-toad-bard — Serial Driller

The weird thing is that I think this card would be better at home in EDH than limited or standard constructed. Maybe that's me just thinking of how impulse draws work, and/or the question of what Gruul-stompy wants for the longer games. Don't wanna hit something too big, don't wanna hit something you're not able to use in the moment. Hm! I think from a pure design perspective that this card's a real pain in the butt to have to deal with on the other side of the table but not so much that it's an insta-remove. I'd definitely play this in my Xenagos deck after a little bit of ramp, just so I'm guaranteed to hit the big drops.

There are a few shouts and murmurs with the name and the flavor, and I'm kinda on board there. I think that the flavor text is leaning into the faux-dramatic a little more than necessary, and "You never know where they'll strike next" does the job well enough with the implication that they're an aggressive miner. The "killer" to "driller" name feels like it could be a lot more gruesome than the mechanics are presenting here, in the sense that I would be expecting the drilling to be even worse than murderous plans—but no, we're just digging away. The tension/surprise is difficult to do on MTG cards; it's possible I'm posting my expectations on top of what's ostensibly a card that knows just how fun it is and I should stop being a spoilsport. All I know is that I'd slot this card in, so heck, the rest is opinion.

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@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes — Magic-Intrigued Corvid

Now, as a morally bankrupt Brago player on occasion, this card's an absolute delight with enough blinking effects, especially if you can make them happen more in your favor. The fact that you get to cast the cards that you exile even if they're not yours is pretty baller. There are always strange rules cases that come to mind, such as whether or not doubling the effect with Panharmonicon that somehow exiles multiple spells would make the LTB trigger cast one or two spells, but there are contingencies for that, I'm sure. We've been through Spell Quelling before, after all.

It's a really fun EDH card and a really fun limited top-end card. I think a five-mana 3/3 body would've been fine for modern power levels, considering the stage of the game in which that would be relevant, but that's a minor push and it's okay to err on the side of lower power rather than higher power. Design-wise, I think this is one of the coolest ones I've seen from you, well thought-out and quite cute. The name could use a little bit more mysticism, or at lease some other kind of adjective. Even "Curious" could do some work here, y'know? But names are sometimes the hardest parts of these things. Just like exiling an opponent's one-sided boardwipe...

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@lanabutnotdelray — Excruciating Interrogation

When thinking about limited formats in which -1/-1 counters appear, there's the question of how they're going to be used, what they combo with, how they affect your side vs. an opponent's side. The ability to put a -1/-1 counter on whatever your want every turn can be beneficial for wearing something down. It's also worth considering the cards that have -1/-1 counters that they want to get rid of, like Grim Poppet or Channeler Initiate. I'm curious if the intent was more to put it on your own stuff or to put it on your opponent's cards and get the benefit? It's a real pain with defenders and the like, but all the same. I'm really curious about that part.

Flavorfully, though, it would make more sense to put it on something that you don't control. Extra card advantage is the side benefit, and I suppose that uncommon can get the extra push from this card. Could encourage some chump-blocking, definitely speeds up the game. I wonder what the environment would be to allow for such a card, because there are times and places where the draw is just advantage on top of advantage, and others where it's a slow burn down. There were some murmurings about this card, and I think I'm curious enough about it to give it a thumbs-up overall. The flavor text certainly scans well, although I'm not sold on what it actually means? Why wouldn't the prisoner just keep screaming, I suppose. I might just not be parsing.

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@melancholia-ennui — Channel the Scarlands

The thing that stands out to me first and foremost is the use of the UB property as a mechanical name here. It feels strange to me, but perhaps not to the people who enjoyed that sort of thing. Perhaps. If this set isn't a callback to Fallout itself, then that deliberate choice lands more awkwardly than not, all things considered, and IIRC this is meant to be a different U-within world. So... I don't know, I'm not sure about this concept in a standard set in general. Milling works well in Commander because of the 99 cards; in a draftable format where practically all of your cards matter, having a milling mechanic as a main aspect of the set doesn't seem like the best choice.

Conceptually, for Commander, I would've removed all the ability-things you put on here and just gone with the whole rad counter shenanigans as-is. Without that, I don't personally believe that this is the best place for rad counters in general. Multiplayer mechanics are often overpowered in 1v1 formats, see Monarch and Undercity. Having a set with a major theme of rad counters could be relatively balanced if the entire set was worked like the sets that used poison/toxic. Big 'if' there. Even then, rad counters are majorly more difficult to remember rules-wise than poison. There are just too many caveats to make this work in the way it needs to, I'm afraid.

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@piccadilly-blue — Pontiff's Alms

—205.4i Any permanent with the supertype "link" is a link permanent. Any link permanents are subject to the rules regarding link permanents (see rule 704.5z). —704.5z If a player controls a link permanent, any player may choose another permanent they control and link it to that permanent as a sorcery. This is a special action and does not use the stack. A player may unlink a permanent they control from a link permanent as a sorcery. This is a special action and does not use the stack. The link and unlink actions may only be performed once per turn per link permanent. A permanent can only be linked to one link permanent at a time, and a link permanent can only be linked to one permanent per player at a time. A permanent cannot be linked to itself. If, somehow, a permanent would become linked to itself, the link fails to form. —704.5aa A link permanent is considered "fully linked" when each player controls a permanent linked to it. —704.5ab Link permanents linked to each other form a chain. A chain has a number of links equal to the number of link permanents in that chain. Multiple separate chains may exist.

You are a mad person and I highly respect that. Firstly, unlinking should probably be something you add as reminder text. Secondly... I think that this card is garnering a lot of respect from me, but what the heck do I actually do with this? Maybe I can just leave this card on a miniature pedestal as a reminder of what MTG's future could be, but maybe I'll do a little bit of theorizing.

Battle representation. Multiple link enchantments can be really strange if there are different links on the battlefield, but that's fine. As a visual representation, what about when a permanent has auras and equipment attached to it, but that aren't linked to an enchantment, or vice-versa? There are some pragmatic weirdnesses, but I'm imagining on a digital client you could have little red strings of energy that chain them together. Having "Link" as a supertype is pretty neat, too, although I've been hanging around too many YGO players not to have an unconscious connection. All the same, though: three life for the alms, that's a real clock. Not the wildest clock in the world, but a clock all the same. I think this might last one turn, honestly. You link something up probably as soon as you play it, and  an opponent sacrifices a permanent (basically) to not have that happen again. I... Huh. Sounding it out, that doesn't sound that powerful all things considered. I think I'd like to have seen a more perpetual linkage, perhaps? The thing that I'm imagining the most of, as a last thought, are links on links on links, giant chains of cards. What a nightmare, but what a visual into the world of possibility.

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@real-aspen-hours — Gnaw from Within

With the modern wording, "this" should at least be "this enchantment" or "this permanent," right? Nine Lives Familiar and all. Feels weird without that stuff... Anyway. I think the art direction is pretty great, and I saw it got some attention by word of mouth. Totally reasonable there, it's a nasty time for everyone involved. Mechanically AND flavorfully, though, why is this an enchantment? Something like Stab Wound represents the grievous injury, bleeding out over time, and it's the wound that's causing the life loss. This card feels like it should've been conceived as a removal spell similar to Stolen by the Fae, as a similar example. It works best as a kill spell and I can't see a pragmatic reason for it being an enchantment.

I'd definitely play with it as either, though, although I'd only use it as a kill spell if it was released as an enchantment. Getting to kill something and get a bunch of tokens is usually a safe place to be if you're going to remove what you want to remove. In a rat-themed strategy, or any wide black one where you're going to want fodder and/or to go wide, the late-game benefits of this card can't be overstated. Maybe having guys that can't block is a little bit of a rough spot, but what're you gonna do, right? It's the next turn that's gonna blow them out of the water, and into a dark alleyway. 

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@reaperfromtheabyss — Shapeling Artisan (JUDGE PICK)

I can say for sure that some interesting choices were made here. Having checked for precedent, I don't believe that "changing" counters is something that the rules really allow as such. I think this could be an activated ability you can do at sorcery speed once a turn, removing a counter as a cost to put a counter on something else. That said, it's more about the weird notions that this card allows for. The absolute floor is that you have a 4/4 that can graft itself onto other creatures you control as they enter, but shifting things around to give your current hand extra abilities when the creatures enter is a really neat idea.

Playing into the UG +1/+1 counter space allows for some strange things to happen, and while I'd argue that Evolve was the best iteration of Simic's mechanics as it plays in that space, this is a breath of fresh, squiddy air. I like the way that this card works conceptually a lot, even if that upkeep trigger isn't something that's currently supported to the best of my knowledge. You know how the humble octopus will sometimes remove its arms in various circumstances? I can imagine this creature taking a limb and just hucking it at an ally as it transforms into a grafted addendum to their body. Huh! I wonder how the 200X Simic would feel about ability counters these days. I'm actually really glad that you're tapping into that, assuming this is a Simic-themed design at all. If not, it's evolved into one.

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@sparkyyoungupstart — Salvaging Phalange

This card feels like it's trying to tap into some Horizons-y territory, and I'm really trying to meet it halfway here. Foraging feels a little odd here when there's no specific Food feeling here, and I wouldn't expect this thing to necessarily be a squirrel skeleton, but... Is the Swarm here from the Golgari? I assume so, because my other consideration would be Grist's swarm, and that's a whole other kettle of bugs. My point about the flavor is that it doesn't mesh with the presentation, and foraging with Food wouldn't actually do anything to beef the power and toughness, so the question is why not have a direct mechanical tie-in with something like Escape?

Even though the mechanical aspect is powerful as well, I get the sense that it's looking to turn the exile zone into essentially a second graveyard as far as the numbers go. No matter what plane you're on, the intended gameplay/flavor intersection of these sorts of cards should be tied to the graveyard for play balance reasons. The exile zone has pragmatically no interaction, and I don't feel that that's a gameplay style (especially for these colors) that should be pursued. Caring about the graveyard as a resource matters for gameplay balance. The intent is noble, but the establishment of BG graveyard resources is established for a reason.

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@tanknspank — Ovalchase Mechanic & Reliable Roadster

In general, unless it's specifically asked for we do ask that you submit only one card for the purposes of intent/balance. That said, this was an open-ended contest, so I get the appeal, and I also get the general story that's taking place here—the mechanic beefs the dragster, the dragster swings in. Colorless partners does open up a few possibilities for limited, but that said I never drafted Battlebond, so what would I know about that specifically? The independence of each piece makes the individual possibilities open, which is a fair thing to keep in mind, while also begging the question: why partner?

The inherent problem is that partnering these cards doesn't actually add anything to the synergy that would inherently be found in a limited environment. Playing these cards together would be awesome! So, you just hope to draft both of them, and that's that. All that partner does is tutor up that synergy and make limited slightly less randomized. Is that necessarily fun? Is that what a standard limited environment necessarily needs? I'd argue: absolutely not. Partners in Battlebond were designed with a hyper-specific draft strategy in mind that could reward a number of cross-color interactions between players on a team. And otherwise... I'm just not sold yet, honestly.

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@xenobladexfan — Gesserith, Master of Shields

MSE is great for a number of things. One of the things that it's not necessarily good for is reminder text stacking. Things got a wee bit hard to parse in there, eh? I'm teasing a little bit because otherwise, well... Actually, jeez, looking more, there's a lot of text on this one; I feel the flavor text could've been sacrificed for legibility. That's just what happens when you combine abilities like this, right? I feel I'm being harsh: to be clear, I like the card overall. It's a decent one with some strong limited capabilities, definitely a snap-up for the archetype and a card you'd hope to draw in basically any situation.

There's a little futzing to make it absolutely perfect, though. The wording in the trigger feels a little off, but that's just because of the wording of bolster. Imagine if the attack/block (maybe when it enters as well?) gave the bolster, and there was another line that whenever you put a +1/+1 counter on a creature you control, if it doesn't have a shield counter, it gets a shield counter? I did a mockup and it's about the same amount of text. What I'm trying to say is that there are a couple minor tweaks to get yourself really up to a great legend, and the choice to give shield counters makes this a limited bomb for sure. Those things were a real pain in SNC... But hey, it's a flavor fit, and good stuff overall.

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@yd12k — Nifah, Skysurfing Amateur (JUDGE PICK)

It feels good and probably plays great, so that's a good start. I feel that there were a few cards this week that blended lots of counter types—is that where we're at now as designers? I'm not complaining, I'm just more fascinated that there's that space. I was NOT a fan of ability counters when they premiered, but I've come around on them as a complex tool. Nifah certainly likes them, and I think this space wants to play into some synergies that are...different? Very different. I'd love to see Ride the Horizon cast after I make a Spider Spawning play in limited, for example. Really gross but in the fun way.

What world is Nifah soaring through, too? Let's put the mechanics on the back seat for just a second, because there's a bit of joyous worldbuilding that makes me want to know more about this character and where they're coming from. The simplicity feels nice. Again, that seems to be a running theme through a lot of these cards, but it goes to show the power of consistency. Exploration and exuberance is a combination that creates uplifting intrigue. Back to mechanics! The support for exploration might be a little tight here, but in all the Ixalan sets where it was prevalent it also had some weird buildy-aroundy feels, so I'll give that a bit of a pass. I do love exploration as a mechanic, too, and I like how this card gives that evasive necessity to the grounded feel of UG explore as a draft archetype that often felt missing.

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@yourrightfulking — Fungus-Feeder Ants

I do distinctly remember helping you out with this one in the workshop, your highness. And how am I to judge it now that I helped sculpt each of these six golden legs? I dunno. I mean, obviously I can't be 100% impartial here. Yeah? Let's talk instead about the general polish and overall stuffitude with this card. It's...a weird set that has a double-pip common with no generic mana attached to it, but it's not impossible, I suppose. There were power concerns, I remember that... Eh, 1G could've been fine on second thought. 

What if you were able to get back any land card, not just one that been milled this way? Maybe that would necessitate a bigger cycling cost, or maybe a rarity up because it's a generic way to get some mana fixing, but whatever, there are lots of minor things. This card plays into the archetype well enough and there's nothing inherently wrong with it that a number couldn't fix. If you're not gonna add cycling reminder text, though, you might as well add some flavor text; right now the card's about as dry as the sawdust that the ants just ate through. Heyo! But in all seriousness, it's got this jungle-potential that could've been upped just a teensy bit.

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Time to go back to sleep <3 Be well, nerds one and all. @abelzumi

[the-lornacorn]

So, I play Magic: the Gathering and primarily (much like most people) commander. I've been playing the game since '07 on and off and I love the way commander plays. Goofy combos and weird interactions and cards you haven't heard of or thought about in years.

Commander isn't really a space for spikes, you wanna play hyper efficient and super linear games move to CEDH or legacy (very pro-proxying for that) or modern. There's been a theme to games recently and that theme is one player having 2-3x as much Mana as everyone else early in the game and winning as a result. The main ways this happens is with cards like Mana Crypt, Jeweled Lotus and Dockside Extortionist. They're "staples" for a certain brand of player that I don't personally like to play with (people who are playing borderline CEDH and claim their decks are a 7/10 power level). On Sol Ring, sure ban it, I don't care. I don't put it in every deck cause honestly it's not that fun. It used to be, back in the early days of commander. Ooo, Sol Ring, the restricted and banned card in vintage and legacy card, how fun to see it here. Now it's just like... Oh, turn 1 Sol Ring, cool, 👉 archenemy.

Now, the cost of that list of cards is about £350 for one of each. There's tons of them in games stores, there are people holding piles of them for financial speculation (I will return to this). This has led to the banning of these cards having a big financial ramification for local gaming stores, which SUCKS. Like genuinely, that sucks and people should be aware of that but also, this happens in modern, legacy, and standard regularly so, commander (which has bannings very rarely) having a banning of 3 cards is not the end of the world.

Returning to the speculators, the magic finance bros who are currently screaming, threatening people on the commander rules committee and going "oh no, all my apes, gone". Now, I have a sizeable collection of cards, some of those cards used to be worth tons (A Grim Tutor from the starter set for example) that then get reprinted and lose 90% of that value. I am honestly happy when that happens. I own reserved list and actively want it reprinted. This is a game; not stocks, not a bank bond, there is no financial regulatory body. The nature of the game comes first not the money. Stop treating card games like stocks, cause people doing game design and management want the game to play well, they shouldn't care about your portfolio. If we can't ban expensive things the game will get unhealthy.

Now, the argument that the cards chosen change the game too much, cause people to have to edit all their decks too much is kinda bollocks. Add in different ramp, pop a fellwar stone in, pop a worn powerstone in, try out some new stuff. This isn't going to change the deck itself, no one builds around these cards, they just make things fast and hard to manage.

In my opinion the only people that are struggling that need an apology are games stores. Wizards can very, very easily help this by sending out some products or promos to help alleviate this. I think that the loudness of some finance bros is causing a storm in a teacup. As is always the case the bourgeois will scream that the world is collapsing when they lose something. Most people do not own these damn cards, they cost more than a weekly food shop, more than a month's petrol, more than a bottomed out heating bill in the UK. This is a discussion about whether the game should be made less fun to pander to a class of people who spend thousands on a card game at a time.

This too shall pass, magic isn't dying. Don't let the finance bros and CEDH players at your game store determine the health of this game as a thing to play by arguing that their financial investment in a card game got undermined.

Ps. CEDH folks, just branch off into your own ban list. It's been done a thousand times, there's 1v1 EDH ban lists that are different on MTGO so, yeah, do that.

[the-sky-queen]

You have my full attention

KAY BUCKLE UP. INFO DUMP TIME LET'S GOOOOOO!!!

We'll go in the order that I listed the spinoffs, even if that isn't the order we came up with them. (Spectrophobia was probably the first one I think.)

Dementophobia is the fear of going insane and it's the Psychonauts one. I hadn't heard of Psychonauts before this, so I'm still working my way towards watching the game cutscenes. I think I'm in the middle of Psychonauts 2 right now and then I'll be all caught up. If you're unaware, Psychonauts is a videogame where this kid named Raz has psychic powers and wants to become a Psychonaut, who are basically spies I think and also use their mind powers to help people get therapy.

So during Dementophobia, Niko accidentally comes into contact with the Warp Topaz (a common theme you'll see in a lot of these) and gets sent to the world of Psychonauts. He comes into contact with Raz who figures out something's up and decides to help him out. Raz goes into Niko's mind and very quickly realizes something is VERY WRONG HERE. (Also, Lily and I along with Lily's more Psychonauts knowledgeable friends have done a TON of worldbuilding around Niko's mind world and what happens there. It's so in depth and interesting and I LOVE IT SO MUCH) Anyway, Raz realizes that he's gonna need some backup here because Niko's mind is unlike pretty much anything he's ever seen before. It's that messed up. He takes Niko to his Psychonauts friends for help and that's when things really get going. Also Maple shows up at some point.

I could go on and on about what we have planned for Niko's mind world, but that might be a bit too spoiler-y. BUT TRUST ME WHEN I SAY IT'S SUPER COOL. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-

Alright, next up is Phobophobia which in all honesty is a silly joke AU that is really just here to have fun with. Here's what's up: Starline and Maple are married. Niko is their actual child. (Also Surge and Kit show up at some point, also being Starline's kids)

It sounds CRAZY (and it is) but it's really fun!! Niko's like 7 I think and there's not really a set plot to this one. It's just a collection of scenarios that this wacky family gets into. Also, there's like a subplot where Starline learns to be more caring and gets closer to Niko and it's kinda cute. This one got started before the Trauma Siblings became a thing, so they're not included, and I'm still wondering if I should put them in. That would put Starline and Maple at SIX kids though and I don't know if their marriage can handle that. XD

(ALSO EGGMAN AND STARLINE ARE CO-WORKERS AND EGGMAN'S DAUGHTERS ARE 6 YEAR OLD SAGE AND BELLE.)

Next up is Decidiophobia, Fear of Decision making. This is the Stanley Parable crossover, another game that I hadn't heard of before this, but I'm now OBSESSED WITH. Quick rundown of The Stanley Parable: You play as Stanley, an ordinary guy with a job pressing buttons on a keyboard all day. Then one day, his co-workers all go missing and he sets out to try to find them and figure out what's up. The entire game is narrated by the Narrator, who even narrates your actions! However, what he says you're going to do isn't set in stone and you can go against what he says whenever you want. All this leads to different paths and storylines you can take, causing multiple different endings. After each one, the game resets and you start all over again.

SO HERE'S THE THING ABOUT THIS ONE. Instead of doing another dimensional yeet via the warp topaz, we decided that The Stanley Parable exists within the regular Sonic universe. How? Uhhh, I probably can't explain that because of spoilers, but let's just say . . .

The Narrator is vaguely connected to the Time Eater and also the Phantom Ruby is here. And GUN got involved too.

So Niko shows up in side The Parable™ and confuses the Narrator, because he's not Stanley. The Narrator tries to continue on as normal, but after a particularly disastrous ending, he realizes that Niko is AN ACTUAL CHILD and resolves to help him escape The Parable™. :D

Next: Autophobia, Fear of being Alone, otherwise known as the Miraculous Ladybug one. You know the drill by now. Warp Topaz, dimensional yeet, and it's all fun and games until Hawkmoth gets to Niko literally IMMEDIATELY. (Not gonna explain Miraculous because it's a lot. If you don't know about it already, just go watch the show.) So Niko gets akumatized into THE MOST TERRIFYING AND OVERPOWERED AKUMA IN EXISTENCE, OTHERWISE KNOWN AS LITTLE ANGEL. He can make people fall (platonically) in love with him just by looking at him and it even works across BROADCAST. So like. Anyone who comes into contact with him is instantly obsessed with him. There's a bit more too it, but that's probably spoilers. :P

Anyway, Ladybug is compromised pretty much INSTANTLY. And shortly afterwards, the entire school falls to Little Angel's spell. Due to spoiler reasons, Chat Noir, Chloe, and Kagami, manage to escape his influence and start trying to find a way to fight back. (Oh also Little Angel is not a hedgehog, but he was turned into a small human child with animal ears, a halo, and wings. Yeah, he's called Angel for a reason.)

This is the only crossover we have where Niko very much does NOT get therapy. He's usually better off by the end of one of the crossovers but NOT THIS ONE. In fact, he actually gets WORSE because of this one. :D

AND FINALLY WE HAVE SPECTROPHOBIA, Fear of mirrors/your reflection. AKA THE ONE I ACTUALLY CAME UP WITH BY MYSELF. XD This one is interesting because SONIC shows up. Like, regular Sonic, untainted by Starline's influence, shows up in the facility. How? Let's just say that the 900th Adventure special didn't quite go as planned. >:) So he's able to find Starline and Niko in the facility right in the middle of a session. Sonic's like 'nah this is stopping right now,' rescues Niko, and escapes the facility! It's not as easy as it seems though because Niko freaks out as soon as he realizes Sonic's here and he took him away from Starline. I REALLY WANNA START POSTING THIS ONE. I PROBABLY COULD BUT I'VE BEEN PUTTING IT OFF. Also the Warp Topaz shenanigans are fun in this one and I've got an art I need to finish for it that no one but Lily will understand but will come up later on in the story. >:)

Kay, that's all the ones I mentioned in that post, but there's a few more. I won't talk about them though, because most of them are more Lily's expertise.

But aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa can you tell why I'm going insane now?

[quidfree]

now, to the questions:

what was your favorite fight to write, if you have any?

what shouto meant when he said “Clearly I miscalculated in thinking I could adjust well enough. Won’t happen again.”? (what adjustment has to do with it?)

also: He thinks they will all be holding their breaths until this child hits adulthood. (... why adulthood?)

👀 would you ever divulge what hawks was keeping from shouto AKA what dabi/touya told him? i have theories!

why, what, endeavor did wrong when he arrested kajiya's father? shouto talks about the "sins of his father" and feels guilty because of how (he thinks) that relates to him, but i don't understand what endeavor actually did wrong there? he arrested a person who commited a crime, didn't he? kajiya elder's quirk was taken from him in prison like it seems to be the case with every prisoner and his family was left without assistance. but the lack of assistance is more the fault of the government and hero society as a whole, i don't understand how that is endeavor's fault individually. like, don't get me wrong, i don't like endeavor at all, fuck that guy, and he is somewhat at fault for upholding the wrongness of the hero society, but then most pro heroes are too, so i don't understand why shouto internalized that what happened to kajiya and her family is actually endeavor's fault specifically when what he did was arrest a person who had commited a crime.

and i'm not a l*o*v* apologist either, really (not trying to start anything but although they are fictional characters, i believe they should be held accountable within the story, just like endeavor should have been for how he abused his family), but why shouto seems to be more understanding of kajiya than he is of dabi/touya? i'm sorry but can't shake off that impression. and i mean, the two of them are quite similar: fueled by their anger at endeavor for what he did to them; act out by murdering innocent people just so they can execute a plan to get revenge on endeavor. what is the difference between them to shouto? like, both of them are murderers, with disregard for the lives of others and seemingly unrepentant; kajiya seems to directly have killed two people, but she is responsible for the deaths caused by the prison break as well. wouldn't it make sense for shouto to see more of himself/a mirror in his brother, because of the connection of them living with/around/through the same people in the same family?

oh boy okay let's take these in turn

despite the logistical headache, i really enjoy writing fights in general. i think i can give you a top two though. i remember just having fun with the godzilla fight, like just playing around with moves that were cool to imagine. and then the big quirk swap fight was a core conceit i had early in planning the fic so it took me ages to choreograph to get certain plot and character beats to happen, but i found it super satisfying once i had it down and i remember it being quite exhilarating to write because it's so dramatic and brutal.

this is hard to remember exactly!! i think given shouto's inner monologue right before this dialogue, he's talking about the fact that katsuki is angry that shouto got injured pulling a self-sacrificing manoeuver to (amongst other things) save katsuki from harm in the previous ch. katsuki of course is reacting poorly to this and sort of makes it sound like shouto's off his game because he's trying to be more protective of him (which he obviously resents) now they're seeing each other. shouto is understandably irked by this reaction because he would probably have pulled the same move regardless of circumstances, and in actual fact the reason he's being more protective is mainly that he feels guilty katsuki's not at 100% because of the quirk swap thing. but it is all sort of tied up in their unexpected relationship upgrade and the fact that katsuki from shouto's pov is acting really inconsistently towards him. all that to say when he tells katsuki he was adjusting, he's saying: "i don't have a problem/i'm not acting up/there's nothing wrong with me, i'm just adjusting to this us thing (on and off field)'. and then when katsuki (always insecure) immediately takes this as some kind of repudiation and respond like he's lying, it makes shouto double down and just be like 'my mistake for caring if you don't, i'll make sure not to do that going forward (asshole)'.

adulthood because they have not historically had a good track record with child abuse in the family. of course that continues into adulthood, but shouto remembers the worst of it all from his childhood, so he's sort of arbitrarily thinking he hopes no one fucks up his nephew/niece too badly in their infancy.

you know, the hawks thing was never something i set in stone, i just had multiple vague thoughts as to what they might have secretly discussed. feel free to share your theories and i can confirm what was closest.

yeah, the kajiya thing is absolutely just a systemic failure that she's kind of arbitrarily fixated on endeavor as the key culprit of because he's the face she can easily put to it. shouto is aware of this (and it gets discussed throughout the fic that the justice system was/is fucked) but 1) as a person he is very empathetic and finds it hard not to take this villain's personal anguish / vendetta to heart because in general he assumes a lot of responsibility for the victims of his family's actions, either direct or indirect and 2) a lot of his own frustrations with his father are tied up into how endeavor benefits from and exploits the hero system (can make it to number one *hero* while objectively being a terrible person who in his personal life is explicitly villainous for years, etc) and (this is more me extrapolating/theorising at the time than canon) was more focused on his statistics and numbers than the actual people involved in his defeats and rescues, which makes kajiya's point resonate for shouto because he really resents his dad's (previous) attitude towards the impact his actions had even on the field. it's not exactly rational, which is what other characters like bakugou rail against when shouto takes it so heavily upon himself.

this one was the hardest to answer because i can't remember all of my thinking here. but overall this is down to a couple of things, starting with the simplest one: i didn't know as much touya backstory / plot then as we do now! i think we knew for sure dabi was touya, but that was sort of it. and bnha has been a lot more forgiving/interested in enji and touya getting a lot of screentime to garner sympathy and justify their actions than i would necessarily have been if i was writing it, so back then i didn't expect shouto to be so staunch about healing the family/welcoming touya back into the fold- the canon i had in mind was that the touya/dabi thing would get revealed during the leadup for a sort of big final battle and then lead to enji self-sacrificing in some way to stop him from doing fatal damage to something/himself, which i guess isn't too far off, but i also saw touya as being very set on completing his vengeance and so causing serious harm to other 1-a kids in this final confrontation for maximum effect to shouto etc. the personal harm to people shouto loves would have been part of what kept shouto so cautious/relatively cold around his brother. after some unspecified but more morally grey touya redemption arc shouto and enji would have kept him from the death penalty, because as you say on principle i was always sure he would have a lot of empathy for his brother, but in this setting shouto would have found it very hard to rebuild anything with him after everything, and still be slowly deciding how to work with this relationship in the future. and then the second main point is that, with kajiya, he absolutely sees himself and touya in her (him and touya even discuss this a little at some point i think), someone consumed by revenge, which informs his empathy for her- but i think in a way it's easier for him because she's a stranger, not someone he has years of complicated history with and who tormented and harmed the people closest to him at a formative age. it's a subconscious thing, not a logical one. i think where the fic leaves off shouto would be motivated by the whole situation to go slowly revisit his brother.

hope that satisfies.

[anonzentimes]

LONG ASS ASK INKOMING ZEN so its super cold in brazil today so typing is a little hard and there might be weird typos fkshdkjd but

when i was like 14 i had online friends that were also 14 and were into danganronpa but all they talked abt was the flaws of the series and how much they hated the more problematic aspects of it, it was a constant wave of gender discourse and sexuality discourse and nagito is a bad portrayal of mental illnesses and miu iruma is too sexual and this character is bad cause of xyz and that character is bad because of this and that and honestly whatever the fuck else you can argue about this series about, whenever i mentioned that danganronpa seemed fun and id like to get into it my friends would tell me that its not worth it, that the series is fucking horrid that i should run the other way and be glad i never entered the hellhole that is being a danganronpa fan

so thanks to this and like constant fucking weird shit coming out of the hell hole that is the fucking dr fandom on Twitter for like, four whole years I straight up didn't touch the series. a series that I was so fully aware that I would love btw, because i was always into gorey art and i found the art of dr so pretty and the characters had such intresting designs and the pink blood was so cool and i love the killing game genre and the mystery solving aspect, of danganronpa seemed so cool, i did not go near this series with a fucking 10-ft Pole

until literally maybe some months ago at 18 years old a streamer I like said on stream something like "oh yeah danganronpa is fucking awesome im so glad i played it" and I was like fuck it, this guy has high standards, if he likes it it cant be that bad. and so I downloaded trigger happy havoc and i was so pleasantly surprised by it, sure case 2 is a case that exists but like other than that i immediately fell in love with this franchise, i loved almost everything about the game, then i started sdr2 and nagito took over every single part of my brain within 0.2 seconds of gameplay AND DR2 IS SO PEAK JUST IN GENERAL udg was super fucking fun i love touko and komarus relationship and the warriors of hope so much, dr3 was awsome even if i didnt really care for future arc despair hope and 2.5 were awasome the end of drv3 hit me like a truck and it genuenly took me a couple hours to understand that my beloved class 77b wasnt just retconned out of existence and currently im trying to kill executive dysfunction and procrastination and read dr0 and again want to replay dr2 cause my hyperfixated ass would rather play the game when she should be alseep to know what happens next than play it when she isn't too tired to understand whats happening lmao

and after i was done with the series i sat down and thought about how i let 14 year olds on the internet who im not even friends with anymore keep me away from something that now i hold so dear and close to my heart, and i wonder how many people who would love danganronpa will never give the series a chance because not only does the wider interner find it cringe but the fandom constantly tell potential new fans to stay away and act like its the worst midea ever written, the way some people are unable to enjoy what they love without guilt is so sad because not only does it affect them but also others

and this is super personal but i wonder how danganronpa would have impacted me if i got into it back when i found out about it at 14, how much different having danganronpa to hang on to would have made my life when i was burning out at school because i was trying to survive neurodivergency hell with undiagnosed autism and possible adhd

dangabronpa is awsome i love it so so much

YOU JUST MADE ME FEEL SO UNBELIEVABLY YOUNG OH MY GOD. I HEARD ABOUT DANGANRONPA WHEN I WAS 11 I'M PRETTY SURE AHHHH HAHA!!! Overall I think this raises a good lesson that we should trust our guts and from our own opinions on media. Look into things you're curious about, learn if it's worth it yourself, and come to your own conclusions! I feel bad for those who never get to understand Nagito Komaeda, let alone know he exists. This franchise has some negatives but the positives outweigh the issues entirely to me and I wish people gave it more of a chance. dangabronpa is awsome INDEED lmfao.

[apothe-cary]

So I have had this thought in my mind as I am replaying all the games again. I am someone who started with veilguard and worked backwards so do forgive me if I don’t get all the lore I’m still learnin and since BioWare probably won’t give us another ima do this. I really really wish I was able to play as a character that has a buddy. Like Justice or Spite or even play as a creature like Cole who gradually becames more human or spirit. Can you tell I also loved the head canon of rook being a spirit >.>

Please forgive my English! Not my first language so I hope it all makes sense!

Main Character & Backstory:

My idea for this is MC (Might turn into a story later honestly maybe even an interactive one you guys can help me with) Is either from the fade or possessed by one. Cause I want a buddy to talk to to! They may not like me or they maybe do! I feel like we had a lot of protagonists, warden, Hawke, Inquisitor, And Rook all of them had their things ya know? I want this ones to be Either creature of the fade which woah crazy why would a fade creature save the world or a possession maybe from demon, spirit or even a god kinda like how mythal and Morrigan work. (Still just ideas flowing as they come in)

Companions:

I feel like it would be a cool narrative. And then thinking things like companions. Maybe there were non-romancable characters that you really wanted to romance. Or companions that didn’t get more love in other games. Who would you bring back? What new ones would you want to see?

Personally with the idea of it being a fade creature or possessed person (abomination) I’d probably want to bring back Cole as a mentor like what Varric was for rook in a sense? Would old protagonists come back? Their offspring’s?Feel like that makes sense for at least Cole to show up but you guys tell me who you’d want.

If I think of new companion idea I’ll either add to this post or make a new one depending if people actually want to hear it lol.

Locations:

Where would you guys want to go? What places would you want to expand on and explore more?

Honestly I’m a huge huge sucker for Treviso. It reminds me a lot of home so I’d Probably want more Antiva especially since at least at the end of my game they found liberation. I’d want to see what they do in the future with their freedom.

And as much as we get stuck in the fade, I just want to able to explore more of it. I feel like there’s just a lot more ground to cover in the fade. Idk I could be crazy for that thought. Again feel free to put in your two cents.

Villains:

Honestly I got nothing about who I’d cast as a villain here. Or what type of character I would create or if we turned another beloved character into a villain, honestly dunno dunno what they want.

Pets!

It was a crime to not give Rook a cat or dog in Veilguard. Because inquisitor literally had a horse, Hawke had a dog, and So did the warden. Sorry but my baby here gets a cat. I’m giving this child a cat or maybe you’re able to choose. Cat, dog bird, griffon? Take it here.

End Credits

Anyway, this was just an idea I have no idea if I’ll make it into a story or if people are actually interested in it I’ll turn it into something interactive that all my buddies and you, if you’re interested too. Like a story board and that the end of the post there’s a poll for what choice we should make idk. It’s just kinda an idea I had and wanted to share. Thought it would be fun to share.

Also big shout out to everyone who’s interacted with me. I appreciate the follows. I’ve had nothing but positive experiences in this community especially for being very new to it. I’ve got more recognition that I ever thought I would and that makes me incredibly happy. I’m super grateful. Thank you and please have a wonderful day.

[prettyflyshyguy]

Happy April 1st, I have no new joke but here's a really good old one.

Buckle up.

Alright. Can't remember if I posted much about this before, but at my old job I produced this videogame. It was pretty cool!! It was set in the future, you're a super soldier who piloted remote robot drones called Espire.

(Violent little robot Sooty, my beloved. The shotgun pump in the trailer is still my favorite bit.)

I had my fingers in just about every pie that made up this game, and it was extremely cool getting to work with the team. April fools rolled around, game hadn't released just yet, we were finalising into the certification phase.

Every friday we had something called 'demo friday' where the team would show off something they worked on that week and we'd celebrate. It was charming to let everyone have a chance to show off their contributions, from every department in the company. I never really showed off anything because the spreadsheets I worked with, everyone already saw cause I would run around showing people every day as part of my job.

So on this fatefull, April 1st Friday, I asked to show the team something special. I pulled up a powerpoint presentation and add-libbed a new game concept pitch.

I pitched Espire to Love, a robot dating simulator, to a room full of 25 odd videogame developers.

Now as you may or may not have noticed, I don't often dabble in romance as a genre. I've barely touched dating sims and I'd never mentioned them before at work.

"From Dreamy daddies to anime girls, KFC's the colonel and even dinosaurs, there's an incredible range of options in the dating sim genre" I said with a straight face infront of a room full of people who were crying with laughter. I was barely holding myself together.

No one was prepared for the fake screenshots.

Still remember how hard some of them laughed when I pulled these slides up. I packed a lot of in-jokes into these that I won't explain - I wanted this to hit hard and hit home for the people I'd spent two + years working with.

People loved it, I made my friends laugh, it was good. And then upon being told "Hey you should send this to the publisher!"

That's exactly what I did.

The response from our assigned reps at Tripwire (YES, THAT TRIPWIRE) said they loved it, and they too were asking themselves the question "why not!" the whole way through.

But this story doesn't end there, oh no.

Fast forward a year. The game is released, we're hectic busy working on post release content, I'm cooking up the next stage of the joke.

Unfortunately, it never came to fruition due to time and stress. But here's what it was going to be:

We'd had our community clammoring for merch - so I wanted to pitch something bold, new and exciting, and the kind of thing that'd make us stand out.

Body pillows.

Would have been incredible. Might've made someone faint.

The robots were called Bean and Sooty during development so yes. I was going to deadass say "The bean bag and the sooty sack" (I mean what I say)

Unfortunately I didn't make it in time, and then double unfortunately, I lost my job when the studio had to significantly downsize.

But that never stops me from posting a good bit. You all know I'm a committed freak.

Fast forward a bit more and I'm trying to learn how to make my own games! So I download RenPy since it's a good starting point. It's designed more for VN's, so to find my feet I figured I should make as VN right?

I didn't want to make to make new assets, as the point was me learning to code. What to do..... what to do....

Full circle babeeeeyyyyy

And that's where we're at today! Long post I know, but I'm real proud of this joke. I love a good laugh that hits you at home, that's just honest fun. Huge shoutout to my old co-workers for listening to my original presentation, their laughter filled my heart and I was fucking terrified at the time, it was worth the joke.

It became a running gag in the office - we were playing Jackbox for a work party and it was one of those question and submitted answer games, and without any input from me the team had made the question "What would the for the sequel to Espire to Love be?"

and the options were "Espire to Live" and "Espire to death"

Anyway, I hope you only have charming and well considered April fools jokes today - designed for you to laugh at as much as the person making the joke. That's the best joke. Peace out.

[styrmwb]

Favorite Final Fantasy Music (FFVIII)

eight

VIII is a weird game. Everything about it is weird. The plot is weird, the gameplay is weird, the world is weird, the characters are weird, and of course, the sounds are weird. They're unique! Like VII, VIII has a very distinct sound, and I love it. I love VIII for all of its strangeness. I think out of the 3 PS1 games, it's not my Favorite soundtrack, but it's fucking Final Fantasy. There's literally not a bad soundtrack in this entire goddamn series. This shit is B tier AT WORST. Let me tell you about my favorite songs, as I love to do, and you can judge me silently in your transparent gray textboxes if you so wish.

5. Silence and Motion This is a silly song; I love how silly it is. It's perfect for a silly future city ruled by a very silly man. This starts by feeling very strange and cautious, probably like how you would feel if you entered a random futuristic city in the middle of an icy wasteland - and then the circus music starts? and it makes you feel like, oh actually this place is good? Then it speeds up. You feel a sense of rush. A silly sense of rush, but a sense of rush regardless. And Boom, the fuckin super speedy xylophone kicks in, and this song sounds like a busy city, with people running around, it SOUNDS like what a busy news station would sound like. That's my favorite part right there.

4. Blue Fields bum bum BUM BUM bum bum bum bum BUM BUM. Going from a silly song into a fun song. Fun, yet also calming. Blue Fields is the perfect name for this song, because to me, the main instrument in the melody reminds me of water? This might be an insane person take but like it sounds like a pool looks to me. But not like a community pool I mean like a classic backyard pool with the good blue siding. I'm rambling worse than I usually do. I do not get sick of listening to this song while walking across the overworld, and it is very important for an overworld song to be something you are not going to get sick of, cause you're going to be ALWAYS listening to it.

3. Balamb GARDEN This song sounds like a school. This is a song of LEARNING. And like sure it's a school where you're learning to be a child soldier but like who cares this is an AMAZING song for where it plays. It feels like school, but it also feels like home (it is home!). I love the strange piano sound it has (again, FFVIII has a very unique sound and I love it for that) and then you get the odd flute/wind instruments as well. As I was starting this list, I was expecting me to put a lot more battle themes, but it turns out I love the overworld themes a lot more than I thought??? Anyways, let's immediately throw that thought away and go into:

2. The Extreme Here's the battle music. The final battle music even. This song starts out so cool, giving you the same FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC "motif" that has been spread through a few points throughout the game, and a somber piano opening before going full into the actual meat of the song, which is INCREDIBLY COOL SOUNDING. It's all like, awesome fuckin synth instruments and a high energy melody and backing that pumps you up as a final boss theme should. I love the part where the synth goes ham up and down the scale towards the middle of the song, and then of course there's the part where it slows down and brings in the choir reminding you of almost like, the core of what this encounter is, against a magic wielding sorceress (who I swear the translation should have been witch but whatever!!!). Banger song.

1. Force Your Way Honest to god contender for best normal boss theme in the whole series (VI might have it beaten out by a slight margin). I LOVE the intro so much; the organ and the heavy string hits building up the atmosphere with the little bwoodooloodooloodoo in the back going into the sickest synth melody you've ever heard in your goddamn life. Throw in a little heavy MIDI guitar and you've got the hypest moment of your life. I can imagine Uematsu had a LOT of fun crafting this one for the game, this is easily the pinnacle of how unique FFVIII's sound is and I hope I've beaten you over the head with this fact that I've made enough. This song should make you feel like you should pick up that Yamaha keyboard your family has sitting in the basement and you should fiddle with it for At Least Like 2 Hours.

Honorable mentions this time go to The Man With The Machine Gun, Maybe I'm a Lion, Fisherman's Horizon, The Castle, and water and water and water water (Don't Be Afraid)

[alltimefail-sims]

📩 Simblr question of the day: Would you prefer more realism in the game, like funerals? @simblr-question-of-the-day

Given what you've said in the past about realism, I think I know you're answer to this one, but I'd love to hear what sort of thing you'd like!

I actually always struggle with this question a bit because while I do like realism, I don't always like the unnecessary complexities that can come with implementing that. For example, I don't need like...banking, real-estate, or healthcare systems that are extremely specific and challenging to navigate in the way they are in the real world: I've tried out some fantastic, well-executed mods that simulate these concepts proficiently and I personally found them to be a little overwhelming in the grand scheme of things. Some things are better as a rabbithole/bare-bones concept than a fully-fledged-out feature. Time already moves quickly in the sims, so some aspects of "realism" just don't translate well, unless you're adjusting in-game time and all that with mods... and non-PC simmers can't fully do that, so I think implementing these features would be more of a hinderance to the average player's overall gaming experience.

Most of the time I'm personally complaining about realism, it's regarding occults or lore...which is truthfully rather ironic considering that vampires and werewolves do not exist. However, if they did, I don't imagine everyone would be super quick to just embrace them and live amongst them - some people, like Celene for example, would be knowledgable about occults and maybe even live among them... but some people definitely would NOT (imagine Nancy Langraab finding out there are werewolves... her snooty sensibilities would not make her too keen about them, in my opinion).

That being said, I like a good balance of fun and realism, and I think the game tends to manage that pretty well. Some of the non-realism things are just personal preference, and I am comfortable electing to ignore those things and play a little pretend. But overall I love the idea of realistic, playable features that are experience-driven such as funerals (a cemetery lot type to go along with this would be aces). Occasional medical emergencies would be nice beyond just "Uh-oh randomly have stripes I need medicine." I think they should bring back robbers and bring back more "consequences" like when a teen would run away or sneak out and possibly be arrested in the Sims 2, or the ability to lose aspiration points/cause your sims distress if you do things they don't want to do or you don't make steady progress in their lifetime wants and aspirations (I remember the social bunny from TS2 fondly haha). Life isn't all sunshine and roses, and I'd like the game to reflect that beyond an occasional housefire and accompanying incompetent fireman to dilly-dally about uselessly while the kitchen is destroyed 🙄.

I'd also like if they would build upon fears a little better and maybe even add in some universal mental health struggles along the way (we have the emotions system so the foundation is really already there). More hobbies, more variety of jobs (our current selection is kind of abysmal imo, and adding one job per new pack is not cutting it - I don't need every career to be active careers, in fact I am fine with more rabbithole jobs than active jobs). We need more personality traits, more things for our sims to experience (a place they could go to get a "haircut" and receive a moodlet, or a tattoo parlor would be cool, bands, public transit and cars between locations - even if that is just a rabbithole and loading screen that is more experiential and realistically immersive than sims walking off lot when they're going from Newcrest to Tartosa lmao). I simply want more "milestone-esque" stuff in general that simulates the living human experience, but I don't need it to be overly convoluted (and I wouldn't trust the sims team to perfectly execute every facet of real life anyway, so I'm okay with a little whimsy so long as it doesn't break the immersion).

[cbedfordart]

Ahh I just played the demo and its super duper cool! It's definitely a genre I would not normally touch, but I'm such a fan of your art that I felt compelled to try it out all the same. Gotta thank you for being the tipping point that makes me actually broaden my horizons a little!

I expected to go in and just look around to admire your work but as a pleasant surprise the gameplay was quite pleasing as well! (That's not meant to be a slight like "oh surprisingly not shit," again its just the kind of game I would probably never touch otherwise). Strikes a cool balance where you don't feel helpless but combat still feels like something to not take lightly.

Idk. Idk there are only so many ways I can really think of to say that your art and your work on this game is really exciting and every time I see it I feel slightly foolish for not buying massive prints to hang up in my room. Argh I love it you're such a rockstar!

Haha thank you so much for trying out SWC!! Honestly I had the feeling that there would be a quite a few non horror game playing people trying it out, partly because of how my style generally is!

But also I think it's partially cause it's not just the scary horror variety, we're more on that scooby doo type vibe lol. Which I love! Like, there's a couple scary and gross things, but really we're all in it to have a good time (I think?). Scarier horror games are also really fun too though so you should def give them a shot if you ever get the chance!

P.S. I am also equally surprised people like the combat lmao! Like, we worked really hard to make it great and still had no idea if people would get it - so glad you fucked with it!