#one which I think games still need to do more to diversify their characters

[lezzerlee]

Gale can be fat, fit, skinny, or whatever you want him to be.

I want to caveat this first by saying that I both like chubby Gale, and support fans who think a wizard like him would not be fit at all. That's absolutely an acceptable head-canon and an enjoyable one! I just take a little bit of issue with declarative statements I've seen that "Gale would never" have the body they gave him in the game.

I have a different perspective (based on personal experiences).

Something that happens to some people when they are injured or faced with severe health issues is to try to shore up their body. They go into the extreme of making the body they have the "healthiest" it can be to try to buy more time, or counter the injury.

I have a friend that went vegan and "clean" eating with all organic food in the face of cancer. I myself threw myself into fixing diet, sleep, & exercise (in that order) when I pinched a nerve from sitting too much and my entire lower body went numb/pins & needles numb for months (technically synesthesia). My point is, people often seek some level of control when something bad happens to them.

I can wholly believe that Gale, in the face of feeling like he is dying from magic he doesn't understand (with no cure in sight), might use some of his time to make sure his body has the best chance it can to last long enough to find a cure for himself.

I can see strength, musculature, etc being a sign of health in the world of Baldur's Gate. Physical strength has been a signifier of health, vitality, virility etc. across human history. While it's true that plumpness was a sign of health and wealth at times, being a strong athlete,/knight/fighter/worker has always been desired. There's something primitively attractive to many people about stamina and athleticism. Of course you don't have to look like model to signify that. Sumo wrestlers were revered for their strength and athleticism. The strongest men competitions often feature men with absolute bear builds with a healthy amount of fat.

But a book nerd, wizard focusing on making his body as strong as possible? To me, he's probably doing pushups and sit-ups and calisthenics because that's what's available to him. It's what he might know and be able to take on without specific training. It's what he can do locking himself away, or between researching a cure. In my mind, he's likely to aim for runner-fit, or skinny-fit if his perception of getting "healthy" is changing what might be a former dad-bod. Or maybe he was just a skinny kid with a crazy metabolism, and no athleticism and just builds muscle. It does not really matter. The point is, I can absolutely see Gale getting fit as a reaction to dying.

For me, personally, my reaction to a scary injury has been about being strong. My ultimate goal is to make sure my core can support myself into my 80s, that i have the hip flexibility, that I'm stretching and building muscle. Hell I'm into diet because I think pooping well is important because hemorrhoids and acid reflux are awful. Sleep has been one of the biggest things to help me feel better. Lack of sleep creates constant stress, which fucks your muscles and your stomach and your brain.

And Gale, in a state of dying might not be able to calm his anxiety or brain (he needs to focus on finding a cure). But he sure could try to do something about his body.

Anyway, there's lots of fun that can be had playing around with the idea of what "healthy" means to people like Gale, or Karlach, who both have traumatic, life-altering issues that can be metaphors for terminal illness. It's just as interesting exploring Gale as fat as it is wasting away, or fit. Exploring his idea of eating healthy while on the road is amazing especially with him as the camp cook.

I recognized that modern social ideas would have you believe health is leanness. I'm not here to argue what "health" really means because I absolutely do not buy in that skinniness = health, or that fat = unhealthy. I've used quotes around words like health and clean and etc. because people have vastly different ideas of what that may mean. I've only written all the above to say any body that Gale has is "correct" because you can justify it as characterization.

Which circles me back to my caveat. Maybe healthy means eating your fill instead of stressing out. Maybe it means not pushing your body too hard with exercise and strain (which can also have downsides). It's why chubby Gale is fun. I especially like the idea of post-nether brain Gale relinquishing tight control over his body because he isn't dying anymore. But it's not the only option that makes sense. Saying Gale "wouldn't be fit" isn't true. The same as saying he "wouldn't be fat" would also not be true.

[kob131]

Lily Orchard and Pokemon: Gen 3

Okay I'm gonna try to keep these shorter. But to be fair- Lily is going to start belly aching in Gen 4 beyond so I might have more to cover.

"Brendan misogynyist because he assume Gym Leader kid guy!"

Lily's, he's fucking ten. I don't even think you CAN be sexist at that age because I don't think your brain is developed enough to form complex thoughts or beliefs. Also that is LITERALLY the one time he mentions it.

"I like Brendan because he's not trying super hard to be friend or be rude!"

Again, Lily. You misread Blue who does nothing but slag you off and throw tantrums. Your view on story elements is so thoroughly tainted they can't be taken seriously.

"Brendan's salty when he loses!"

Huh, he actually kind of is. I never noticed that. I guess Brendan has about a quarter of a character. ... What, more than what May or anyone in Gen 6 got.

Still doesn't raise him above 'one of the worst rivals in Pokemon.' Also, good job Lily. You actually showed me something new. Took you only...50 minutes...

*Another captialism dig*

We get it Lily- You long to be locked into a gulag and then shot by a firing squad. Move on.

"What is it about Rock that makes it good for a first time Gym?"

That's the kind of thing a retrospective is supposed to SOLVE, Lily. You're supposed to be asking yourself 'Why did the developers choose to do this at this point instead of something else?' But so far, your video has been nothing but you either belly aching or you making half baked jokes.

Anyway- Rock is chosen to encourage the player to diversify their moveset as Rock resists Normal, the most common attacking type in the early game, as well as all of them being physically defensive, which counters most attacks in the early game as Physical Normal moves. It's also weak to Grass and Water, encouraging the player to experiment and understand type matchups better. The Fire problem is solved by either slapping the Fighting type onto the starter or giving it a Steel move in the case of FR/LG.

"Match Call is stupid! Before you could refuse everyone's numbers but now they get forcibly added and they bother you all the time!"

It's called 'world building' Lily. They call to make them feel like real people.

"The Macho Brace is dumb in the main game because you can't control what you fight in the main game so all your Pokemon become worse faster!"

... What?

First off- Wouldn't that make the Macho Brace a competitive focused item? Thus there being no real reason to bring it up?

Second- Yes, you can control what you fight. Go fight wild Pokemon with the Macho Brace. They'll give you the proper EVs if you care THAT much.

Third- EVs...can't make your Pokemon worse. They can be wasted but they are only ever buffs. And you don't need perfect EVs for the main game. Try proofreading.

"Team Magma/Aqua are good because you don't encounter them that often so they can concoct their plans!"

Lily, you just got done explaining why Maxie (and by extension, Archie in Sapphire) is a fucking moron for trying to erupt a volcano which would kill INNUMERABLE PEOPLE just to make land (or water) for Pokemon. (She says it's for people.)

By definition, they are not good just because there is less of them and thus they can make plans. It just means they have less time to fail those stupid plans.

"The Lavaridge Gym sucks because you have to navigate mud titles and which ones transport you and which ones are trainers are up to fate to decide!"

... Lily. If there are two titles right next to each other that seem to be blocking off more, distant titles that correspond to ones from above- they're probably trainers. Its very obvious which ones are trainers.

I found this out when I was EIGHT.

"Flannery stammers her intro which is dumb!"

Her character is that she's a newbie Gym Leader uncertain of what to do.

Story telling, Lily. A key feature of RPGs. Engage with it.

"Gardevoir broken because Special bulk and Calm Mind!"

A. This is a game for children Lily. Numerous Pokemon can sweep Gym Leaders.

And B. Fun Fact Lily- Most offensive Pokemon prefer high Speed over high bulk since cries are a thing. So if a bulky Psychic is broken, guess how monstrous a Psychic with say...10 extra Sp.ATK, 20 SP.Def and a HUGE increase in Speed would be.

... Oh right, that's GEN 1 ALAKAZAM. The same Pokemon you mocked as 'not being that strong'. Contradicting yourself AGAIN Lily.

"Hoenn has too many water routes, which are boring and annoying-"

Hub, I actually agree-

"-but everyone mock IGN!"

And there it is.

Lily, people mocked IGN both as a joke abd because they gave Ruby and Sapphire, objectively worse games, a 9.5.

"No one ever talks about how Pokemon uses music! They use good themes for the legendaries causing peoples in Ruby and Sapphire but not Emerald! Certainly not BW where N is fucking stupid or Zinna's theme is intense but not battle! The remakes ruined them!"

A- People bring up how Pokemon uses music all the damn time. The Area Zero theme was dissected for giving an atmosphere of entering a new world, unknown and dangerous waters and something completely foreign to everywhere else you went.

B-Lily, the remakes simply had cleaner OSTs. They sound very much the same. You even admit this as you call Omega Ruby's OST for Groudon 'like trying to escape a star going supernova'. A supernova. A term synomous with IMMENSE, INCONCIEVABLE HEAT.

and C-Ignoring N where you just go 'N bad!'- Zinnia's theme is intense because you're facing a Dragon Specialist, using a VERY dangerous Type of Pokemon, before rocketing into space to destroy a meteor threatening to kill everyone.

"Team Aqua and Magma aged well because they're charming! Not like other villains who just spout off philosophy!"

We get it, Lily. You don't pay attention.

Doesn't change the fact that you admitted that these one-note caricatures are so fucking stupid they didn't know fucking with primordial gods would cause issues. Or that exploding a volcano is BAD. That's bad writing Lily. You are praising bad writing.

"Why did you change Wally's Gardevoir to a Gallade? YOU MADEIT EASIER, SEXISTS!"

... Because they wanted to promote Mega Gallade. And they both represent Wally growing from a shy, insecure kid to a confident ACTUAL rival.

Gallade was made because it's a fucking knight guarding a lady, moving on.

"I was pleasantly surprised by Gen 3-"

Not surprised one of the blandest Gens got your approval, Lily. Considering your response to any game that tries to have any kind of ambition is to get pissy.

Well, let's go check Sinnoh.

[astramachina]

For those of you who've been following me for a while now, there's a good chance you got to experience my journey reading the Remembrance of Earth's Past series last year. I loved Three-Body Problem, but The Dark Forest and Death's End were like pulling teeth. Both books had their very very good moments, but getting through them was a tedious experience I considered giving up on on multiple occasions. I will give it to Cixin Liu tho, I needed to know how the series ended and that alone was the sole reason I pushed towards the finish line. Any author that can make me tough out bad writing for the sake of seeing the end deserves some kind of award (and he won a ton anyway, so).

I approached the Netflix series with zero expectations given their propensity for shitty adaptations (One Piece notwithstanding), but after watching the first episode I was left cautiously optimistic.

Having watched all 8 episode I'm still unsure how to feel about it. I spent most of the series hitting pause to rant at my roommate about it, both positively and negatively.

I had many issues with the books, but some of the more obvious ones came from a writing standpoint. I love hard sci-fi. I could not excuse the sheer length of those final two books. The atrocious treatment of women as objects to romance and use as bartering for the main character. The abysmal MCs (specifically Luo Ji) that made me want to yell to the high heavens due to annoying they were. The lack of human connection between characters.

For books so steeped in sociopolitical and ethical commentaries, the flagrant misogyny and homophobia was eye-rolling. And not even in a "This is Bad" sort of way, just in a "This is So Fucking Boring" kind of way. I cannot speak for the author's biases, because the contents of a book in no way reflects the views of an author or their character.

Where the books shone the brightest were during the battle scenes, the looming dread, genuinely horrific thought experiments.

And, surprisingly? It feels like the people at Netflix thought the same.

I've never watched Game of Thrones but I understood why people were against it from the get-go. That, along with the whole "whitewashing" thing which I consider to be interesting. For starters, you're using whitewashed wrong. Yes, they moved the central story from China to England which was... a fascinating choice, but of the core five (that quickly became the core four), only two of them are white. I'm not saying it was okay for a western adaptation to take a cast and further diversify it, I'm just saying that that's not whitewashing.

That aside, I did like some of the choices that were made from a narrative standpoint. Reshuffling and streamlining events, for one. Removing the whole plot line about Luo Ji hunting down a woman who he invented in his head in order to marry her? I'm not entirely sold on the idea of taking core events and divvying them up between four different people, but I do understand what they're trying to do.

The book series failed at crafting believable and impactful relationships between its human characters, which made the narrative feel hollow and one-dimensional. This adaptation aimed to change this by slapping a band-aid over the issue. Like I said, I'm still unsure of how I feel about this.

A lot of unnecessary stuffing was removed to make a suitable run time, and I say unnecessary because there's really no scenes that are making me go "oh, I wish this had been included". Was some stuff rushed? Yes. The passage of time could have been outlined a little better, but that's a small nitpick on my end.

The scale of things was toned down, and I don't think Netflix has the capability (or budget) to tackle space battles.

Honestly? I don't really see this getting a second season for a variety of reasons, and I'd be okay with that.

It was an "okay" watch, in the end.

Tho, I'm still flabbergasted by the random "gory scary jumpscare" scenes????? Where did those come from??? I don't remember anything like that being in the books but, you know. I've read a lot more books since finishing these, so.

[doingherbestbutnot]

One of the most important things Nightow did to develop his plot (read: psychologically fuck up the twins) was create isolation between Kni and Vash with the rest of humankind early in their lives. Specifically talking about how in Stampede and the manga the vast majority of humanity appear frozen.

We see in both how Vash clearly wants connection (Stampede he's literally naming them [using their real names?? unsure] and talking to them) but Kni's full background wasn't explored with as much depth in Stampede (read: not a criticism of Stampede, she's only 12 eps long 🤣🤣 and I love herrrrrr she can do no wrong in my eyes).

But looking at Kni's background, especially in the manga?? Like damn bro lol Kni is basing his entire world view off of like four people for 100+ years essentially (confirmation bias is a powerful drug my friends) meanwhile I can’t help but think of all the people I know IRL that - even the non-anime watchers - who would meet someone like Kni and be like "you’re under our protection now; our rate is one hug per hour. Would you like to pay up front or create a payment plan? Also, here’s a list of recommended local mental health professionals. No shame in the game; we’re all mad here.”

Both as a joke and partially serious like… I just imagine the girlies on TikTok telling Kni he's fucking awesome, he just needs to meet more people, diversify his experiences, and check in with the squad/friendship-board of directors before acting when he gets upset 🤣🤣

I think the brilliance and horror behind Kni's character portrayal is how he forces you to question what is true "evil" and the juxtaposition with Legato and other characters is amazingggg. Like, reasonable people can conclude Kni's not truly evil and the most controversial part of him (and, conversely, Vash's pacifism) is how you can see and know people like Kni IRL and still love/defend them just as Vash does, but the moment you see another do the same you see the morally grey spots and flaws in your own actions. Kni's actions may be perceived as evil but the moment you divorce his actions from his mental processes he’s really just misguided, afraid, and so deep in a hole of his own making he can't see anything else.

Y’all have already (correctly imo) pointed out Kni isn’t Vash’s true foil in Trigun (he's more of a mirror), I just think it bears emphasizing that Kni and Vash are both so intolerably human in so many ways while both thinking themselves so different from humans. Which, I get is the entire point of fiction here but 🤣🤣

I just think it's real neat, okay?!?! I love that the twins aren't real foils to each other but one is a mass murderer for a cause and the other is so starkly pacifistic that he refuses to be "logical" and kill the killer.

This started as a small thought... and got out of hand. OH WELL LOL might expand more on it later but that's all for now ✌️✌️

[jamesshawgames]

Next Project Reveal Time...

Hello, I’m still not dead!

So I might as well let you all in on the project I’m concocting now that the Relics trilogy is finished. It’s going to be long and difficult, but I’m really excited to see where it goes. This could get long, so I’ll put the details under the jump for those who are interested, but I’ll put the title and a few basics up here for all of y’all to see.

SHADOWRUN: NEON FIRE

Yeah, it’s cyber-elf time!

It’s a fan-game, which will be freely available in full to everyone on Dashingdon (I’m not trying to make a buck off someone else’s IP, I’m just trying to craft a tribute to one of my all-time favorite fictional universes!) The aim is to combine some of the best elements of IFs with some of the best elements of tabletop RPGs. It’ll be more statty that most IFs, and will make use of dice rolls and a simplified version of the Shadowrun 5th edition tabletop rules, but it will also make telling a great story with great characters and choice and consequence a high priority, thus hitting some of the more usual IF beats. 

Don’t get too excited: it will still be a long time before anything gets posted (I want to make a particular point in the story before I unveil anything), but I’ll do my very best to make this thing actually happen!

More details below!

About the Project

For the uninitiated, Shadowrun is a beloved fantasy-cyberpunk tabletop roleplaying setting which has spawned six editions of the tabletop game, a huge number of novels, and multiple well-regarded video games going right back to the 90s. I flipping love Shadowrun. I love it so much that I’ll take on the ill-advised burden of trying to write a lengthy Choicescript story that uses actual Shadowrun RPG mechanics. It’s a famously dice-heavy game. That’ll be a lot of *rand variables, then.

Received wisdom seems to be that, in interactive fiction, detailed RPG mechanics and great stories with choice and consequence are mutually exclusive. I think that the received wisdom is wrong. This project is where I prove it, or go down in flames trying.

About the Shadowrun Universe

In the world of Shadowrun, human history is much longer than we currently believe. The earth projects a field of natural mana, which is the source of magic, and which waxes and wanes over very long periods of time. Every five thousand years, the earth's manasphere reawakens, and magic emerges into the mundane world, bringing with it dragons, spirits, creatures of legend and fantasy races. Then, five thousand years later, mana mysteriously recedes again, leading to the beginning of another mundane age. Every time magic either reappears or disappears, it produces tremendous civilization-level traumas leading to the collapse of human society and the need to rebuild from scratch. Until 2011, when magic reemerged in a technologically advanced world, ending the Fifth World and inaugurating the Sixth. For the first time, human society was robust enough to withstand the shock, and it (just about) held together. For the first time, magic and advanced technology needed to coexist.

The return of magic at the beginning of the twenty-first century had profound consequences. The old United States and Canada fragmented into multiple successor states, while wars and magically-awakened natural disasters racked much of the rest of the world. Animals began to mutate rapidly into magically-awakened versions of themselves: now hellhounds, devil rats, harpies and many other paracritters stalk the wilds. Babies started to be born who resembled the elves and dwarves of legend; as they grew and time passed, elven and dwarven culture developed along distinctive lines. Metahumanity diversified further with the phenomenon known officially as Unexplained Genetic Expression (UGE), and unofficially as "Goblinization", when, for unclear reasons, some people began to grow tusks and horns and thick green skin, undergoing dramatic and often agonizing transformations into orks and trolls. The majority of the Sixth World's inhabitants are still human, and a high proportion of humans are prejudiced against other metatypes, aligning themselves with human supremacist organizations like the notorious Humanis Policlub. Human supremacism has in turn spawned a violent response, in the form of militant metahuman supremacist groups across the globe. Different countries and regions have responded differently to the challenges of metadiversity, but everywhere tensions between metatypes are never far from the surface.

When magic reappeared, the great dragons reawakened. Impossibly majestic creatures who have lived through all the previous cycles of the world but who hibernate deep in the earth during mundane cycles, dragons rapidly established themselves as major power players in Sixth World society. Unimaginably subtle and intelligent, every dragon is a force to be reckoned with. Some have become heads of state, others CEOs or board members of megacorporations. You never truly know where you stand with them, hence one of the most common pieces of advice you'll hear in the shadows: "Never deal with a dragon".

Alongside the dragons, the real powers of the Sixth World are the corporations, and above all the Big Ten triple-A megacorporations: Ares Macrotechnology, Aztechnology, Evo, Horizon, Mitsuhama Computer Technologies (MCT), NeoNET, Renraku Computer Systems, Saeder-Krupp, Shiawase, and Wuxing. Any one of these corps could field a private military which would vastly overpower that of any nation state. Since 1999, the megas have enjoyed extraterritoriality, meaning that, on their own corporate property, they are exempt from local laws and responsible for their own policing and protection. Making every product and providing every service you could possibly imagine, these beasts often own lesser A- or AA-rated corps and seem unshakable in their global dominance.

In the cracks between the shining corporate enclaves you'll find the shadows, sprawling slums dominated by feral street-gangs and organized crime, inhabited by the desperate and the SINless (those who do not possess a System Identification Number, and are not considered productive citizens). The shadows are the natural home of shadowrunners, guns for hire, highly-skilled deniable mercenary criminals, often hired by corps or wealthy private clients to undertake shady acts of espionage and sabotage. And you will be one of them!

About Neon Fire

I’ll be posting more game-specific info in a future post, so I’ll just give you the basics now. In Neon Fire, you will create and play as an experienced shadowrunner in the Seattle Sprawl in the late 21st century. After a Seattle-based prologue mission designed to introduce the world and the rules, you’ll receive a puzzling message from a figure from your childhood, calling you away to the far side of the world. For the bulk of the game, you’ll be living in the Neo-Tokyo megasprawl, running the shadows with an all-new crew of (romanceable) fellow runners, while also investigating a mystery which will uncover secrets about your own past as well as a sinister conspiracy that threatens Neo-Tokyo’s future!

More details to follow soon. In the meantime, if you want to learn more about this setting, maybe try the video games Shadowrun: Dragonfall and Shadowrun: Hong Kong. If you like fantastic RPGs with great writing, you’ll thank me - and you’ll get suitably psyched for Neon Fire!

[quasm]

with you on the smosh main channel. i'm a channel member so i can watch the bts because it's more interesting and funny to me than the actual sketches half the time. i'm happy they're doing what they like and am happy to support them while i have this extra windfall but the comedy is very hit or miss with me. they very likely will diversify what they're putting on main at some point but if they do i don't think it'll be this year. i hope they let the cast write again as it's really a good showcase of their skills - those sketches they did on the pod should be made real imo. additional: games is my favourite channel at the minute, i love what spencer and alex are doing over there! very excited for love is blind in the next few weeks. ian is gonna crush (imo he is better at acting than writing and is one of the best actors on smosh - absolutely transforms when in character). pit is beginning to feel stale and they need another new show to revitalise the channel.

love hearing about everybody's opinions on this!

I think I would enjoy main more if I were a member tbh. the member exclusives do seem worth it so maybe I'll try that out.

I like that you mentioned the sketches they've brought up on the pod bc even though they do have writers I'd love more from the cast. courtnesy especially is so talented but we know they are involved with creative which is lovely.

pit does feel a bit stale at times but they do seem to be getting guests on which is nice and pits views are still the highest and most stable rn so maybe it's just an us thing having been watching for so long.

and as always loving games. I've said it before but they're really leaning into what smosh is for me which is friends having fun :)

[milesconure]

Sonic Frontiers Review

Hello I finished Sonic Frontiers and now I'm crying. So I think it's the perfect time for me to reviewe this god damn game. Let's just start with one thing I wanted to do from the beginning since I started playing this game. Like I said, so far, my favourite sonic game was Sonic Generations. And I was wondering if this game would ever beat it. So what's the answer to that question? Yes, it absolutely beats Sonic Generations. Sonic Frontiers is officialy my favourite sonic game. Not only, because it has something that I always wanted, which is open world, but because it's really well made game that entertains for hours! Of course, it's not perfect, but I'll get to that later. Let's list positive sides of this game. 1. GAMEPLAY It's honestly really fun, especially with open world formula. Many fans were worried about it, but they did such a great job with it. We have 5 islands where we can run freely and do what we want, stunts, challanges, stages, SO MUCH THINGS. So it never gets boring. And let's be real, who never wanted to run around big fields with Sonic's speed. I did, that's for sure! What I also like is that the open world feels like and actual world. We have days, we have nights and even different weathers! It makes those islands more 'alive'.

2. STAGES Like I said, many fans were worried about open world, but we got stages too, which is great! And let's be real when it comes to stages in Frontiers. They're not as good as stages in Sonic Generations for example. But in this case, I understand. Because this game is not just stages. There's more they needed to work on. And stages, even if quite short and easy when it comes to red rings, are still fun! And it's fun to fully complete them. 3. MINIGAMES Aside from this normal gameplay where we just run around and complete stages, there are also minigames we can find on our way! Like for example pinball unlocking our way to third Titan, or this weird hacking game or FISHING! Those minigames are simple, but super fun and can really diversify the gameplay. I fell in love with fishing game, because it made me relax when story made me sad :'> Also I love Big.

4. CHARACTERS The characters were actually fixed!! Are you tired of Amy being only a sonic fangirl? Or Knuckles being a dumb comic relief? Or Tails being a coward? This game fixed that for you. Amy is still crushing on Sonic, but she's this sweet girl that wants to help others and will be stubborn if you're not willing to help. Knuckles is the responsible Guardian of the Master Emerald, but he still likes to crack jokes and just have fun. And Tails is the smart fox he always was, who wants to be truly independent and be his own hero. Eggman is not just a joke anymore, but truly an evil scientist that wants Sonic dead. And Sonic. Sonic is still this chill dude that loves joking around. But he still knows when to stop and get serious. Especially seeing his friends in distress. The moment when he saw that Knuckles is upset and at first wanted to just start with jokes, BUT he stopped himself and listened to him. This was brilliant. The same with Tails. Seeing him as this big older brother cheering up Tails made me really emotional. That's how it's supposed to be. There should be time for fun moments, but also serious things.

5. SAGE Sage is the new villain. And seeing the previous villain from Sonic Forces, really made me worry. But God, Sage is just so.... so amazing. She was so hostile and cold towards Sonic, trying to just murder him with those giants. But then she started to understand him more and more while the story progressed. And another great thing about her? Her relationship with Eggman. Seeing her call him father and Eggman call her his daughter... We've never seen something like this. We've never seen this side of Eggman. And when she sacrificed herself in the end, I actually wanted to cry. Especially seeing Eggman look into the sky, visibly upset. I never thought I would feel so bad for him. WHY DO YOU HAVE TO HURT ME SO MUCH.

6. PLOT

It's been a while since Sonic had some interesting plot. Discovering the backstory of the Ancients. Titans. And the Koko. It was so exciting to see more and more of it. Also, why do Ancients look like Chaos? :0

7. MUSIC

The music in this game is just so good! From the peaceful soundtrack you can hear while running around the islands to exciting soundtracks you can hear while battling Guardians TO EVEN MORE EXCITING SONGS IN TITAN BATTLES. COME ON THOSE ARE MINDBLOWING! Shout out to my favourites: 'Undefeatable', 'Break Throught It All', 'Find Your Flame' <3

8. FIGHTING MECHANICS Sonic was never a fighting game, but this concept works in Sonic Frontiers and it's honestly really great. All the cool moves Sonic can make while battling enemies (of course if you unlock them). It just makes me want to fight those enemies more and more.

9. SUPER SONIC AND TITANS The last one is the best thing in Sonic Frontiers. Super Sonic, something that the previous game DIDN'T EVEN HAVE. But he returned and absolutely destroyed all fans. Usually Super Sonic was only in final battles in the end of the games, but here, we have 5 super battles! That's just- IT'S A LOT. Not to mention every battle is unique. While fighting Giganto we have so much freedom while flying around and hitting him and doing crazy combos. With Wyvern, we need to be more careful and actually understand this boss to defeat him. With Knight, we also have a lot of freedom, but in the middle, we also need to think a bit to land a hit on him. Overall Super Sonic in Sonic Frontiers is actually portrayed as this powerful being that will literally beat the living shit out of you and slam you into the cliff if you keep messing with his friends.

So that's all when it comes to positive things (I hope I didn't forget about something). So now the negative things. Like I said, this game is not perfect. 1. THE END The final boss disappointed me and I wanted to make a rant about how it's not even a boss fight, but I've actually read that it's like that only in normal mode. If you have a hard mode, there's going to be a real battle, but a really hard one that will get you an achievement. I- don't know what to say about this. Why delete the whole thing from this one mode? It's the final battle! It should be there, no matter what mode you're playing on. If I didn't read that just now, I would have thought that there's no battle at all and it just ends so fast! ESPECIALLY that beating up Supreme was so easy and fast that even Sonic said 'That's it?'. So I really thought there's more. But I'm gonna say more about it, after I actually play this fight. Maybe my opinion about it will change I dunno. 2. WEIRD CONTROLS OR SOMETHING Overall playing is super fun, but on stages, controlling Sonic is just so weird and hard to control, because he ends up all over the place. I even saw some mods already that fix the issues. 3. 2D SECTIONS Oh my God here we go I've never been a huge fan of 2D sections in modern games even tho there are exceptions where they do work. In Sonic Frontiers we can see 2D sections on some stages or some part of open world. I honestly don't really like them in open world, since we're supposed to feel free there, but if you found yourself in 2D section you need to either turn back or complete it (or fall somehow). I personally sometimes felt trapped when I got into them. But 2D sections in stages is the worst thing. I'm just gonna say it right now. I don't have anything against 2D sections if they work. In Sonic Frontiers... they don't. For some reason Sonic feels just so much slower in them. And it's just... not really fun and I don't understand why it is that way.

4. LACK OF SOME SONIC'S ABILITIES Why did they get rid of drift? I know they added it on this one stage (or maybe more of them, idk), but drift should be something that Sonic always has, especially since some stages really need this ability. Ok, maybe I get it, there's just not enough buttons yikes- This is also something minor, but what really bugged me is that Sonic can't run on water while boosting. Which makes me sad, because I loved doing that in Generations.

5. CAN'T BATTLE WITH TITANS AGAIN Why, just- WHYYY. Battling with Titans is one of the most exciting things to do in this game! I don't want to play the whole game again just to fight Knight for example. This option should be here, since you could do that in previous sonic games. And yeah, there are saves. You can just save the game before the battle with Titans starts and then just make a new one. But there's only 4 saves. One is autosave. So you only have 3. That's how I ended up with saves with Giganto's fight, Wyvern's fight and also Supreme's fight. But I can't fight again with Knight- I've heard something that they will probably add this feature, but I'm not sure-

There are probably things I forgot about or they were just so small they don't bug me that much. Overall, positives of this game are much more stronger than the negatives! Sonic Frontiers is definitely one of the best sonic games that ever came out. And personally, it's my favourite from all of them. This game is beautiful and made me so emotional it's not even funny. I wish I could forget it and play it again, because that was truly an experience! Although I'm definitely going to still play it and unlock more and more achievements. And we're actually going to get 3 DLCs so there's still more ahead of us! I really recommend this game to everyone who loves Sonic and recently had a lot of doubts when it comes to his future in modern games. Thank you for reading my review and remember that a lot of things said are very opinionated! You do not have to agree with everything I'm saying! And now....

Time to watch Sonic Prime now :')

[sunshinemoonrx]

Starhound: April Devlog

I've mentioned the RPGmaker game I'm working on a bit before, and since that's always gonna be pretty slow with me working full-time, I thought it'd be good to keep track of my pace with end-of-the-month progress posts. So! Here's what I've done in April.

(For the record, at the moment I'm actually planning on calling the game "Star Hound Vega", as the [Thing] [Descriptor] [Name] pattern is venerable among tokusatsu and mecha type heroes, but "Starhound" is my name for the setting and stories generally.)

Finished the first dungeon! It took more passes than I thought it would, as it always does, and I'm sure there'll be more tweaks in future, but I have now got to the point where I'm able to play through it and go "wow! that functions as intended without breaking! no notes"

2. Updated some sprites! Previously Vega's and Nemea's were just placeholders, but I've arrived at some that I feel pretty good about and represent them much better. Placeholders on the left, final sprites on the right:

I ended up using the "male" creator for Vega, which I think works great for creating butch women. (I have hemmed and hawed a bit over if I'm being Problematic by doing this as she is also the main trans character, however: I am a trans girl and I can do what I want. In seriousness, it is a bit of wish-fulfilment for me--I wish I could be more butch and masc-styled and be read as "a handsome woman" and not "a man", so Vega's living that dream for me. She's a hunk you get it)

I will definitely still need some kind of custom visuals for Vega's henshin hero suit, and Nemea (and her boss, Princess Ascella) when she appears as an enemy.

3. Diversified the music! So a fun thing about RPGMaker is you think you know the small selection of default assets it gives you, but if you dig around in the installed files there's actually a lot more free assets you can transfer in--from walk sprites and portraits from older versions of RPGMaker, to a whole bunch of extra enemy graphics, to a lot more music. In particular, I found some pretty sweet battle themes so now each boss can have its own! (This all mixed in with something I already grabbed right when I started making this--a pack of specifically old toku style music, which is really great for making it feel appropriately flavoured.)

4. Added a town area! The overworld is pretty limited in this, it's not so much travel as using a small consistent hub/base to rest between dungeons (if sequels happen they'll probably be bigger but I'm trying to keep a lid on the minimum viable product scope ykno), but there are a couple additional areas, so...now we have that!

Got to have some fun populating it with cute characters, which was nice.

5. Started the second dungeon! My main goal this month was to finish the first one, so it's nice to be ahead of schedule.

I've also figured out some really fun gimmicks for this one, so the first dungeon will serve mostly as a backdrop while you're introduced to the game's core mechanics, then this one will step it up and be more showy in its own right. Figuring out stuff like "oh you can have specific enemy encounters only happen on certain regions of the map" and "oh you can totally hide one-off boss fights inside random encounters" has got me to a concept I'm real happy with.

So yeah, that's where the game's at right now! For May, my main goal is just to finish the second dungeon, but we'll see where that goes. I plan on making a prototype build to toss at some friends once I've done a pass on the third dungeon (the total plan is for five, plus a final area after), but the third one is very short so I might even be able to do that in May too. But no pressure if the second is all I manage, that's the goal.

[onemorestepinduskvol]

The 7 Tiers of Ascendency Part 1. The Map

I like to think if you looked at the above and had a guess of what it might mean you would be close to the sentiment of the idea. It is simply a way of abstracting the kind of goals a crew may have at each tier. But to expand on that point... There's something about BitD that to me feels, inexplicably, like an old arcade game where crossed with a competitive virtual reality environment (if you have ever seen the 2001 polish film, Avalon, by Mamoru Oshii, you'll have a better sense of what I mean). The challenge, the enemy, is the environment, the world. The city is trying to kill you. Your goal is to survive. In this world, the only way to survive is to thrive; you stand on the necks of your opponents to climb higher or you don't. BitD already has Tiers which vaguely reflect groups' relative power but that is not quite the same as the kind of schlocky 'level 1' and 'level 2' progress structure that I am outlining here.

Also, one complaint I have heard levelled against BitD is that the character can become more powerful than their environment too quickly and too easily. I'm not commenting on that but I will say my taste is that a game is more satisfying when you have to work to beat level 1 and when eventually succeed at Level 3 after being beaten by it many times.

In the next post, I'm going to talk about '7 Tiers of Ascendency', what each might mean and what each might look like and how you might use it in your games to give give players a kind of direction for their ambitions and to give GM's an abstracted sense of what a crew may be aiming to achieve. But first...

Blades in the Spire

The savant amongst you will have noticed the picture is adapted from Slay the Spire, another excellent game about climbing higher, and I use it to capture a few ideas;

Giving crews 2 or 3 scores per level.

Discrete bands of challenge can justify an exponential increase in difficulty between them (Tier 2 twice as difficult as Tier 1, Tier 3 twice as difficult as Tier 2 etc.)

I like goal being not to 'win' but to see how high you can go. Remember this is a game about making stories. Ime, characters comfortably retiring is as close as you can really come to failure.

Giving crews several discrete options for their scores. Some will find this helpful, some won't.

Connected points on the map help players form and see narrative arcs. If we do take the Heist job to rob the Marimon's caravan, then it may mean next we need to silence his security chief. These arcs can be done projectively and/or retroactively.

Each point on this map could be a kind of score (or even a non-score objective or event), and so the players might enjoy picking a path between 'assassination', then 'heist', then completing/disrupting a ritual.

This creates an opportunity to compel diversity in the kinds of score the crew takes, pushing Crews out of their comfort zones and mastered skills after Tier 1 or 2. Smugglers needing to steal, Thieves needing to protect... this can be very useful for encouraging crews to diversify their skills and hence and/or keeping the challenge level high.

Similarly, it can be the case that there is no path to Tier 3 that doesn't go through at least one of many different kinds of heist.

It can be fun to make and share this map ahead of time or conversely leave it blank and players to fill it in as they go though I would say leaving some record of the missions and scores they didn't take can be deliciously juicy for story building later on.

Perhaps the most important thing to bear in mind is that the crew still decided what each of these scores are. I think it's fine to say 'At some stage you will need to complete a Heist/Theft' but make sure that where, when, and what is stolen remains firmly up to them. A little structure, not too much.

[carlyraejepsans]

since sans is of another world, is papyrus from another world too? are they from different worlds but just so happened to end up in the same one, or does papyrus belong to the world of undertale while sans doesn't?

things we know about sans in deltarune:

he has a younger brother, presumably kris' age or not much older considering he's very protective of him and acts like leaving them to hang out alone "in his house" would be irresponsible

that or he's just weird about his adult brother for no discernible reason. which I sincerely hope isn't the case because come on

ironically, while the skelebros house sprite in undertale is named sans' house, the one in deltarune is named "paphouse".

the game value that checks whether you've already talked to sans about his brother in ch1 when you see him again in ch2 is called "paptalk". it's not his full name, but i believe it's safe to assume that sans' as of yet unnamed brother in deltarune is still papyrus.

naming yourself or the vessel after papyrus in the goner maker sequence will get the prompt "an interesting coincidence" and the steam page (i think?) for deltarune says he's "busy" so it's highly lilely he'll play a role in the story.

still, like you said, part of the evidence that sans comes from deltarune is that he dies in a way that's different from every other character in undertale. papyrus included.

something else weird about his death: he's the only character who has color (red blood) in his sprite in the battle screen, which is strictly black and white. this is very obscure and likely means nothing, but there's a weird comment in the undertale crosstitch book about how you can color the battle sprites if you want to diversify things but they "won't be canon". what an interesting thing to say, why would they feel the need to specify that...

thing is, papyrus' death remains much more similar to ye average undertale monster death. so... what's up with that?

papyrus and sans showed up to snowdin one day out of the blue, though it's not explicitly stated, they most definitely got there together.

"where do skeletons come from" is a question posed more than one time, if jokingly, such as by the baby bunny in deltarune

the snowdin residents had never seen them around before. which can also mean absolutely nothing, because they didn't even recognize us as humans lmao

undertale papyrus appears to have never seen the sun before

there's always the "forgettable" check description in the genocide run that haunts my every waking hour.

which is a theme that recurs both in deltarune (the song "don't forget") and in undertale through sans' workshop and the hidden drawing with "don't forget" scribbled on it.

sans has an attack called "gaster blaster". in one of undertale's patches, a bit of dialogue was added when checking the box of attacks in his room if you abort your geno run with his fight about how with his special attack "you surely would've been BLASTED to..." with blasted highlighted in yellow. yeah. safe to assume he has those too.

his paper with Toby's original concept art/details about him had a bit about him having a [REDACTED] named [REDACTED], right under another line that read "has a brother named comic sans". if we take this mysterious presumed relative to be gaster, then his connection to him becomes even stronger

papyrus has a negative reaction to the CORE specifically (he gets inexplicably sad when we call him and he can see it in the distance) but also hotland in general.

Gaster created the CORE and "fell into his own creation". from the way it's phrased, it's highly likely it WAS in fact the CORE, even if it's just vague enough i have my doubts

i really have no idea! I'm heavily inclined to think that the papyrus we meet in undertale is NOT from deltarune/the papyrus we'll meet there, while sans is the same person. this opens some pretty complicated questions to answer, especially from lack of evidence as we're still in chapter 2 out of 7 and we haven't met papyrus yet.

what happens to deltarune papyrus by the end of the game?

if papyrus is from undertale, what happened to UNDERTALE'S sans when deltarune's version got isekaid

exactly how long ago did all of this go down?

sans likely worked with gaster at some point after arriving in undertale, where they found out about the anomaly "our analysis" (which is mostly flowey's work after being resuscitated ie: not in deltarune. the "our" also couldn't have been alphys instead because she gives no indication of being aware of the SAVE powers, the anomaly or time manipulation—though she DID study alternate universes! and she knows sans! interesting coincidence). if so, how is gaster involved with the fate of deltarune NOW, when sans is still there? sure, he was shattered through TIME and space, but wouldn't that constitute a paradox? of course, unless we take "another Him" literally and this isn't the same gaster as the one from undertale

if we go "papyrus is gaster" instead, why does he respond to "papyrus" in deltarune too, why isn't he just gaster (and why does the name "gaster" still crash the game)?

all in all, i DON'T think we have enough material to work with, especially with papyrus. sans had his arc, his lore you could find and piece together with a satisfying conclusion ingame (think of the narrative payback that's finally reaching the workshop behind their house) while papyrus', while still being as much if not even More befuddling, was... all over the place. unexplained. incomplete. you can't piece back much of anything about his past. which is why i have SUPER high expectations for him in deltarune. he's clearly being built up for SomeThing,and i think it's going to be a lore arc just like sans had in undertale, all to himself, while his brother is off having his hotgirl customer service summer with the local goats and... presumably getting sucked into another universe. whoops!

here's a link to the crosstitch page comment, courtesy of @undertale-encyclopedia (you're a godsend to theorists everywhere, thank you so much)

if you're interested in the otherworld/deltarune sans theory, then i cannot recommend @megaderping 's two videos enough, which showcase both its proof AND the contradictions and issues it brings up (HERE'S the original, and HERE's an addendum after some discussion on the previous video). she gathers and mentions pretty much EVERYTHING that made me believe in it in the first place, AND the bits that make me doubt my interpretation of it, though surprisingly i DON'T think they touch on the blood business, which is curious because it's such a big controversy even now. i also owe them and their discord friends credit for the "papvalues" discoveries in deltarune's code, as my hacking and cracking skills are non-existent.

[brilliantdisguises]

Hello again. I decided to write another post on Sabine with additional points as well as taking into consideration people’s replies. My original post is here. Since this is a bit of a long one here is an outline of this post and I'll put the rest of it under a readmore:

Personal response to previous post

Sabine

Update on her scar

SSO is diversifying all their characters

Various "what ifs"

Sexualisation of Sabine by fandom

Dark riders

Redesigns of Katja and Jessica (Jay)

Released image of the new Dark Riders

First, I’d like to address why I’m bringing this up. I’ve had it proposed to me that, as a white person, it’s not my place to talk about this as I’m talking over people of colour. As said in my last point this isn’t my intention at all. I’ve spoken with people of colour about the points in these posts. (Thank you to them for taking time to do so) However none of the points in my posts are new ideas by me and have been brought up by people of colour as being harmful stereotypes. I think it should also be noted that I wasn’t copying another post I’d seen by a POC about Sabine and ignored theirs, I wrote the post because I had not seen anyone speak about it. I do also think that putting the burden on people of colour for calling out racism/harmful stereotyping and such is completely unfair and unjust. White people have a responsibility to tackle this. This is not the same as speaking over people of colour, but amplifying their points and their right to exist without discrimination. I don’t feel like I should have to put this disclaimer but I’d also like to make it clear that not every POC/masculine woman/disabled person will agree with my statements. This is just my opinion that I’ve done my best to fact check with various academic sources and speaking with people affected by these issues.

Her scar

A correction on my last post, the reason behind her scar was discussed in the Star Stable book “The Legend Awakens” (thank you @mudpuddlenll ) Her scar is from falling headfirst off a bridge. However the passage raises more points by saying Sabine isn’t even human which is why she survived the fall. I’ll go into detail later about why saying Sabine and the other Dark riders aren’t human could potentially be harmful. But for now to focus on her scar, if Sabine isn’t human and therefore has the physical capability to survive such a fall – how come her face can scar? Is it just to help signal that she’s a villain? I’m aware Star Stable has weak logic behind a lot of things so I’m not particularly interested in trying to justify her scar being there – the point still stands that is it there.

An additional point brought up in the discussion of my first post is that Anne’s scar, the other character in the game with a facial scar, is a lot more feminine as well as being unrealistic.

Oh but SSO’s diversifying ALL their characters! Sabine isn’t a problem!

If this was the case and also the be-all and end-all of my argument: where are all the “good” brown butch women in SSO? Why aren’t they redesigning “good” female characters to be muscular? Why don’t they have non-violent butch women? Diversity in characters is a good thing, but you still need to make sure those characters aren’t negative stereotypes.

“What if she’s just tan!”

Then Star Stable is trying to make it seem like they’re increasing diversity by redesigning characters as ethnically ambiguous/darkening their skintones and not putting actual meaningful representations of people of colour into their video game. I don’t think I need to explain why this is a bad thing. Additionally if this is the case, then many of my points about female characters of colour still apply to Jay’s redesign which I further discuss below.

“But she’s going to become a good character/have a redemption arc!”

I do not care for hypotheticals. Even if she does redeem herself, the point still stands that SSO has a villain that looks and acts like her and no “good” characters that look like her. The game portrays her as a villain.

The continual sexualisation of Sabine by fandom

It is in bad taste to brush off the issues people have with the Sabine redesign by saying things along the lines of “but she’s hot though”. Even more than that, it adds to the over sexualisation of women of colour in media. I am not saying SSO is sexualising Sabine, let me make that clear. I am merely commenting on the reactions of many players of the game which I have seen online. There is an abundance of people thirsting over Sabine. I am not saying this itself is an issue. I’m a lesbian, women are great. But I think that is important to be careful of the ways we talk about female characters of colour, especially compared to how the same people talk about white female characters. If all you can take away from a character design, especially when pointed out potential issues in it, is that the character is sexually attractive – are you simply treating that character as a sexual object? And how does that reflect your treatment of real people with these characteristics? An additional sub point to this is comments similar to “Sabine can step on me”, “I wish Sabine would crush me” which is also prevalent in fandoms when aimed at women of colour and butch women. This enforces the idea that WOC and/or GNC women are inherently violent, are incapable of non-violent romantic actions, and also serves to masculinise them further.

Dark riders

I’ve been told that since Sabine is only one of the villains/Dark Riders so therefore my points don’t stand since there’s a diverse range of villains. So I shall discuss all of them.

While it’s true Sabine is the only redesigned Dark Rider released in game, SSE has released the new designs of 3 other Dark Riders on their development blog here. They are:

Katja, who has appeared in SSO and earlier games before. She has always been a white woman.

Jay, who has appeared in SSO and earlier games before. However this was under the name of Jessica and appearing as a white woman.

Chiyo, a new character to Star Stable. She appears to be a young East Asian character. This post by @yasminewestbank goes over some of the issues people have with her character, which I agree with.

While I have less to say about Katja, I find it interesting that the only white woman of the group is portrayed (as a general rule) as the most polite/self-controlled /”well-behaved”.

Jay’s redesign shares many of the same points as I have with Sabine. She is now darker skinned, has an androgynous name, and dresses more masculine. Again, I am not saying these are bad things or that a villain can’t have these traits.

SSE also released this group image of them on the same development blog post.

It makes me uncomfortable for several reasons. It reinforces the idea that Sabine is violent and brutal – literally holding Chiyo up by the neck – even towards the characters that are meant to be her allies. It shows that she is much larger and physically intimidating than the others, which as I stated before isn’t really a great thing having the most masculine woman being the most violent.

It additionally reinforces the stereotypes outlined in @yasminewestbanks post about Chiyo’s character as an East Asian woman. She appears much more childlike and infantilised than the other characters in being much smaller and picked up in that way by another character. My points about Chiyo are less concrete as we know little about her character – she may in fact be a child (which is then a point to be said about having the game’s main East Asian character be a young “cutesy” girl), but something just seems “off” about it all to me.

Of course I agree it is a good thing that Star Stable is creating more diverse characters. But I think there is a need to be careful when redesigning characters that were originally three white women into two more masculine women of colour and a white woman, and then adding an additional woman of colour that you do not fall into using negative stereotypes for them. Especially when you add in the fact that they are the major villains to the game – the antithesis of the player character(s) – and are not even human. As mentioned before in this post and my previous, it is common rhetoric from bigots that certain minorities are “lesser” than them, often to the point of them not being deemed human.  Therefore it should be taken into consideration when designing villains that look human but aren’t, who are also minorities.

To summarise, I am not accusing Star Stable of doing or even intending everything I said in my posts. I simply wished to highlight issues I found with some of their character redesigns, and then, with how fandom tended to brush off things like this or ignore them. This post is long enough as it is so I shall post my sources in an additional post, but if anyone’s wanting specific reading/resources on a point feel free to ask. Thank you.

[vilkalizer]

So a slightly less sleep deprived take:

Three Hopes was fun.

Warriors gameplay isn't super complicated, but it is satisfying to chop up mooks by the hundreds and obliterate their bosses with giant flashy special moves. There's also some more elaborate options where you can order characters you aren't controlling to attack or defend specific areas or units. The weapon triangle encourages, but does not force, you to diversify your cast and try different characters.

Not only is Shez a cool and good character, but Byleth is also a lot better now that they're allowed to have the character the last game kept informing us they did but never showing off! Yeah their role is smaller here but they still get more personality in that smaller space than we're ever shown in Houses. Huge upgrade and may we never see another fucking mute player insert in a fe game ever again.

I like that the recruitments make some sense, basically everyone had a good reason to defect besides kissing Byleth's ass, and the ones who didn't… didn't. (Look, if Sylvain isn't willing to betray his county for tits this time around, that's on him, not me.)

Support conversations not existing for a decent chunk of the supports is a shame, but the ones we do get were pretty good so i'm more than willing to accept the tradeoff if it means we don't have to see the same shit repeated over and over.

All in all very solid button-mashy action, would recommend.

There are several annoyances, however. Why is the facility that sells upgrade materials separate from the one that uses them? Why can you switch classes from the camp menu, but not upgrade them? Both of these just create obnoxious busywork that didn't need to be there.

The camp, much like the monastery, wears out its welcome after a while. It is smaller, however, and takes less time to go through.

It sucks that they doubled down on gender locked classes, and it sucks even more now that they're all weapon locked too. Punchsithea has literally one option now, the shitty starting fighter one which for some reason is the only class that can use multiple weapon types - which isn't a huge deal since the stat changes are fairly minor, but it still sucks a lot!

Some characters who should really have been playable are not, and it annoys me mightily. Would it fucking kill you to give me Hanneman, game? Manuela is in, why is he not? If he and war clergy are held back to be dlc, i'm going to fucking scream.

Meanwhile, the "secret" characters you can unlock on a second+ run can only be used on replays of maps you've already beaten, not in the story mode, which makes them entirely pointless! Would if fucking kill them to let me just play the fucking game?

Also, from this one path, there are several things i wish they'd gone into more depth with, but they… don't. (Maybe on the other routes? But you'd think bird route would be the place for moleman info…) Way more seems to be left hanging than in Houses, and not in the way that og beagles did (where the campaign against the molemen postgame wasn't going to involve Fire Emblem style gameplay anyway).

But none of that makes it not a solid button-mashy action game, so.

[interact-if]

I’m sending this in because it seems like I could get good opinions from not only you but also the people who follow you. I have an idea for an IF, and I’m very excited for the story. My question is, would people be offended if I made the playable MC physically female that identifies as female and all the ROs physically male that identify as male? I have seen some out there that are strictly M/M or F/F, and I’m so happy they exist because I feel that population is underserved. I just feel, not having the experience, I could bring justice to writing LGBTQ+ (and I don’t want to offend anyone in that community by writing something incorrect), mostly when it comes to sex (which I plan on including in my game). I support games that have those relationships in them and admire them, even play those games, and I don’t care who plays my game. The more the merrier! I still want the characters to be diverse. One of them will be of a descent that is based on Japanese culture and many others, based on Persian culture. I also want the playable MC to have any skin tone/features the player wants. I just want to know if this…will have people coming after me? I want to tell my story, but I don’t want to be attacked for it, if that makes sense?

I really don’t mean to offend anyone. I just don’t want to cause trouble, and I just want to respectfully ask for people’s opinions on this.

Hello! So, before diving into our response, we’d like to emphasize that we are but five individuals running a blog devoted to interactive fiction. We are neither the end-all-be-all voice on this matter nor necessarily a representative mouthpiece for the community.

First off, you can write whatever you would like to write; as the author, you have absolute control over what you produce, so nobody is going to stop you from writing what you want to write. It’s also important to write what you enjoy.

That said, the community is, in our experience, very inclusive, and largely devoted to providing a space for the queer community. We can understand the desire to have an appropriately inclusive and diverse game, and why you particularly want to turn to characters of color to bridge the gap; however, substituting characters of color for queer characters to claim diversity in a project is possibly something that will receive the wrong kind of attention. Furthermore, assuming that writing characters of color well is any less complex than writing queer characters potentially suggests that said characters could end up underdeveloped or tokenized. (See Nines' and Roast’s response below for more context)

All of that doesn’t mean you can’t make a game that’s genderlocked and restricted to M/F romance, and I don’t think anyone will be offended by such a game, but it might limit your audience. At the same time, there are (many) other visual novels that have this format, so it’s not something unheard of. As far as CoGs and text-based games go, as far as we’ve seen, they are rarely genderlocked unless for plot reasons, etc.

There is also a chance that you may receive feedback requesting that the MC be un-gender locked, or for additional ROs to be added of different gender, or for the ROs to be made gender selectable. These requests may be gentle, insistent, kind, or aggressive, and they may only occur at the beginning of your work, or may occur throughout your game development. Maybe they’ll never happen at all. It’s impossible to predict the future, but in our experience, we have often seen this occur to games in the past with RO gender imbalances, locks, etc.

As for searching for feedback, if you’re looking for feedback but you’re not pursuing the CoG format, may we suggest the Reddit subforum? It’s a little difficult for you to get the feedback/dialogue going here that you’d likely like to get, so Reddit’s format may be more conducive to your needs.

In the meanwhile, those who would like to provide their thoughts are encouraged to respond in the comments of this post. Please remember to be polite with your discussion!

— — —

The above is our general mod response; a few of us wanted to offer some individual thoughts as well, and those can be found below. These are personal opinions and reflect each individual mod’s thoughts, rather than a collective response.

While it can be a little daunting to write about something you’re not familiar with, writing often broaches topics with which we don’t personally have first-hand experience. Additionally, queer relationships are ultimately still relationships between people—they’re not all that different from heterosexual relationships. If you’re worried about the way you’re portraying your content, that’s something well-curated beta readers/testers (from the population you’re trying to represent) can help test for, and give feedback on. And on top of all of the above, that’s not to mention the potential issues associated with substituting in POC to replace queer people, which is perhaps not what your intention is, but is what it feels like your intention is (see Roast and Nines for all the ins and outs on why this is an issue). Ultimately, I stand by the opinion that on the most basic level, most will not be offended by a game that’s about a straight, cisgender female MC—yet some, or even many, may be off-put by such a game. I know I, personally, am. (P. S. Also consider that the MC has to interact with the other ROs that she isn’t romancing, as friends, enemies, acquaintances, what have you—having selectable ROs, for example, also allows the player to “diversify” their acquaintance group, if they so wish.) — Dani

I understand that this ask is coming from well-meaning intent but I would just like to state that writing characters of color is not easier than writing queer characters. One of them isn't a substitute for the other. Writing characters of color and writing queer characters are separate matters entirely, and both come with its own difficulties. Wanting your characters to be diverse, while admittedly lacking the perspective to back such identities, is still a murky water to navigate.

Personally speaking, and I really do have to be transparent about this, the way certain sentences were phrased in this ask rubbed me the wrong way. Still, I understand that this isn't malicious, just someone who is asking for guidance, which is something I can't fault. We all have to start somewhere, you know? That being said, if you really want to write diverse characters, my general advice is to do research. Lots and lots and lots of research. No author is exempt from that, honestly.

Find helpful articles, journals, studies, video essays, etc. to aid you in writing your characters. If you still feel like that's lacking in some way, which is a valid concern, being open to feedback from the appropriate people is also a good way to improve. The integrity of a project is important, but so is reasonable criticism against, for, or about it. Keep an open mind, educate yourself, and don't be afraid to ask for help or clarification should it be needed. — Nines

Nines says it well that queer people and poc are not interchangeable nor any 'easier' than the other. The fact that you're willing to do research and include characters of color yet not include queer characters tells me that you're afraid yet misconstruing how much effort actually gets put into cultural research.

There is a 'purity culture' that goes around tumblr that claims that diverse characters have to be perfect, have to have no flaws, cannot die, cannot have trauma, cannot face adversity, they must be perfect and good and happy.

I think this is bullshit.

I also think the backlash from this 'purity culture' community is what is creating so much fear in authors (including queer authors!!) in making characters with different backgrounds and identities than their own. In making queer characters with flaws and tragedy and negative characteristics.

If we only ever wrote what we knew, what we've personally experienced, fiction would be a very boring world.

Being afraid of representing a community wrong is a valid fear, but it shouldn't stop you from trying. You can write what you want to write, but it shouldn't be limited by fear.

Do your research. Get sensitivity readers. Be open to feedback. Be willing to be afraid, but do it anyway.

If, in the end, you decide to gender lock, make it an informed decision at the very least, and if you are including characters of color, know that that is a heavy amount of research too, and should be handled with the same care as what we've said on queer characters.

And like we've said before, we are not the voice of the community, we cannot give you permission or our blessing or flawless feedback, we are just five people running a blog. — Roast

Alright this was already mentioned a bit before but I wish to add my two cents: M/F relationships are the norm anywhere else in real life, and if you feel like there's no space for you and your relationships in a mostly-queer community then you might want to recheck if this is the community you wish to have as your target audience.

No one's going to be offended if your story is cishet, as we said, but you are extremely reducing your audience by doing such. The appeal of interactive fiction is that a good bunch of us have played female-mc-straight-love-interest visual novels in the past, having to endure being misgendered or romancing people we might not be attracted to.

The current interactive fiction community we're trying to promote has opened a million doors for everyone to explore themselves, so don't be surprised if your story, no matter how good, is ignored due to this aspect. Most of us have no interest in being forced to play as something we're not.

Again, we cannot tell you what you can or cannot do. We don't speak for the community, we speak for ourselves and for this blog. Maybe every comment we've made was incorrect and your game turns out to be successful, really, but it's what we believe you should keep in mind. — Cruz

Honestly, I don’t have much to add since everyone here mentioned and discussed important facets of this ask! At the end of the day, we are not a group who can or will ever dictate what you can or cannot write. That is not the purpose of the blog or the reason why we’re working as hard as we are. 

There have always been games with this specific set of characteristics: gender locked MCs and/or ROs. Some people may enjoy it, others may not, for whatever reason. 

Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee anything in terms of how people will respond to a game, because people will react to content differently. All we can do is offer our perspective and the potential things that may happen in the future based on the experience the lovely devs above have had. (fellow interact-if mods, my beloved ❤️)

It’s always admirable for people to reach out when they’re unsure, and I’m sure there are infinitely more opinions that vary or are similar to the ones in this response. But there you have it, some of our thoughts! 

Goodluck with your project! — Mars

[antiloreolympus]

10 Anti LO Asks

1. there's a part of me that wants to laugh at posts like that "body diversity" in LO, but at the same time i just pity them. its very clear to me LO fans are becoming a bit more aware it's not living up to its progressive and feminist claims and they're just resorting to crumbs or just making stuff up to try and make it seem deeper than it actually is. they didnt need to hype it up a something its not, and now they're double down and making themselves look foolish in trying to make up for it.

2. i dont think webtoons knows what a graphic novel is either if theyre called the print version of LO that, bc GNs require a storyline and arcs to be done in one book, not hacked up into pieces like rachel is doing (for that sweet $$$). like hooky's print version is a graphic novel because it's self contained story, LO is not that.

3. yeah itd be one thing if pysche was depicted with textured hair from the beginning, but she wasnt. so now rachel giving her textured hair (i swear does she know there are actual natural hair and braid brushes for her to use?) just looks like her realizing nearly 4 years in she made an all white, straight cast and is trying to diversify it now for brownie points. its like jkr claiming her//mione could have been black despite her being called white in the text. it's just virtue signaling.

4. ngl its kinda a bad look all the LO merch and stuff webtoons uses for ads are at best only from the first 25 ish episodes, but more so only the first THREE episodes. like why arent you guys using more recent art? surely they should showcase what the comic is currently like, right? seems a bit weird to not show how much its degraded since early 2018 ...

5. the thing with comics and esp webtoons is like sure yeah on some panels you can get more cartoony with the anatomy for like a comedic moment or w/e, but rachel and the art team literally cannot keep the characters looking even in the same style from panel to panel, which isnt good. the characters cant suddenly change body types and whole facial features in the span of a few seconds, that's not a good style, thats laziness and a lack of consistency on everyone's part.

6. hades in the hades game is literally the antagonist and even he makes sure everyone is paid, gets time off, benefits, and even throughout the game gets them perks like a more entertainment and leisure options, hes literally the barely minimum to be better than and lo hades is a thousand times worse.

7. I feel like RS is trying to pull the whole "Three brothers! Two are crazy and wacky and the third is the straight man!" Trope with Hades, Zeus, and Poseidon. Except, for whatever reason, it's REALLY not working???

8. is lo artemis supposed to be british or is that anon just joking? bc if not does rachel know claiming greek mythology and making them a bunch of british people is heavily connected to really racist and white washing ideals? especially with the british colonizing and looting greece of their stories, culture, and artifacts as their own? then again rachel's ancestors were english ppl who even england couldnt stand so i guess we cant be surprised the colonizer gene is still in there 💀

From OP, not Anon: Honestly, I'm not sure since that could just be that anon's interpretation. From her dream cast, she picked a black woman to be Artemis so I think that counts for something. Although, I feel like RS might change it if she were to redo her dream cast because that would also mean Apollo (and most likely Leto) would be black and that's not a good look imo. Especially since Persephone would be played by white/fair-skinned actors.

9. its weird how LO fans go "according to the myths" when trying to justify anything in the comic because like what myth(s) is it even going off of? theres no myth persephone goes willingly, or of her on trial of mass murder, or apollo r//ping her, or her being involved with daphne, or hades and hera having an affair, or all these other made up plots. they cant go "according to the myths" when maybe 1% of any of it being myth accurate, with the rest just being rachel's nonsense fanfic.

10. i already have a problem with how rachel depicts the gods, but her idea that zeus isnt really that powerful, respected, or important compared to someone like hades and persephone is an insult. im not saying you have to like zeus, but he was and still seen as a major important religious and cultural figure, and to remove all his importance to prop up "her faves" isn't just bad writing, it spits in the face of centuries of his cultural and religious significance. it's not honoring, it's insulting.

[masivechaos]

16, 31 and 39 for the ask game love xx

just realized i talk so much i'm sorry

16. If you only could write one pairing for the rest of your life, which pairing would it be?

i would say sirius, i feel like there are more possibilities with him, i mostly have ideas with him because he's my comfort character as someone who doesn't necessarily have a good relationship with their parents.

and i can see more angst fic with him so it's more diversified. and i also see a lot of cute fluff fic with him where he goes from cocky to flustered.

and if we talk about a ship, wolfstar. do i really need to say why?

31. Do you take liberties with canon or are you very strict about your fic being canon compliant?

it depends on what, for ships obviously not, i take every liberty possible (as long as it's legal obv!!). but for timeline, name and objects etc, i like to match canon.

for example, i realised boys can't go to the girls' dorms in Gryffindor and i felt all the inaccuracies in my fics but for the sake of the fics i will not care and ignore this information.

and i also try to be as canon as possible so the readers are not coming out of the story (it's late i don't know how to say that in English sorry) and are not disturbed by any inaccuracy.

39. Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them?

i did once and cried lol. i think what hurt most was that they were right. i mean my grammar was shit but the way they said it when i put it everywhere i try my best as someone whose English is not their mother language.

and i also barely had 40 followers so in my head the more followers i'd have, the most haters i'd get. which is false for me because i didn't get any hate since this.

But if we want to be positive, since then I've been using Grammarly because i can't see every mistake (i still try to verify everything) and the more i use it the less i need it, so it's good ig.

[whythehellnaut]

The secret brilliance behind Nickelodeon All Star Brawl‘s marketing

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the Nickelodeon fighting game after it was announced, progressing from mild interest to ironic excitement to unironic excitement for it.  So many jokes and memes have been made about it that they’re almost impossible to avoid.  But when I thought about it, I realized that that’s exactly what the marketing team for this game wanted.  The idea of the game is so absurd that no one would expect it to exist, but they figured out a way to make absolutely sure that it would create just the right buzz to get people like me to take serious interest in it.

Watching the trailer again, I figured out that every character they picked to showcase in that minute and a half trailer were carefully and strategically chosen to cater to as many people as they could.  Even the order of their appearance had deliberation behind it.  Here are my thoughts:

Michelangelo comes first, establishing that the game is combat focused.  After all, who better to show off first for a fighting game than a character that has already appeared as a playable character in at least two of them?  Plus, the Ninja Turtles are the oldest characters in Nickelodeon’s library when you consider that they first aired in the 80′s, before Nickelodeon even started making cartoons.  This is a character that everyone recognizes, parents included.

Lincoln Loud comes next, a more modern character that adults might not know but kids will.  This is to quickly lure the kids, who have less patience than adults, into watching the rest of the trailer, assuring them that it won’t just be older characters like the turtles that show up.

Powdered Toast Man comes next to snatch up the other side of the equation, the adults/90′s kids who remember him from the original Ren and Stimpy show from 1991.  I’m not sure if it’s still airing as reruns on Nick today, but considering I hear very little about the show online, I’m guessing not.  This is a bit of a surprise to the adults who thought it’d be a kids’ game, so it lures those folks into staying for the rest of the trailer as well.

Sandy is important to show off early for a number of reasons.  Spongebob is popular among kids and Millenials, and is arguably the only property here as well known as Ninja Turtles, so they’re luring in more fans.  It also serves to imply that other Spongebob characters will join, as, even though Sandy’s passion for karate makes total sense for her to appear in a fighting game, you still can’t leave out Spongebob himself.  Showing her first implies more possibilities of characters to come, proving it won’t just be a festival of protagonists like Jump Force was.  It also shows off their female representation to keep women interested.

Patrick is just a fan favorite to get out of the way before the sponge shows up, so he’s only here to confirm that the game is going to be full of characters that people actually want to see.

Oblina was personally a shocker to me, as I barely remember Ahh Real Monsters from my own childhood, but I remember enough to know that she wasn’t the protagonist, necessarily.  I also know it’s relatively obscure in comparison to Spongebob or Ren and Stimpy, so they proved that they are willing to take characters from more obscure shows that the young kids won’t remember.  This solidified my interest as I could tell that they are doing more to cater to the 90s generation than just confirming Powdered Toast Man.

Nigel Thornberry is arguably their most important addition at the halfway point.  Outside of Spongebob characters and maybe Stu Pickles, I would say Nigel is the internet’s favorite Nickelodeon character to use for memes.  The marketing team had to have known this.  After getting some of the core audiences hooked, they now have the memer crowd invested, ready to spread the word about the insanity of this game’s premise across the internet.  This is exactly what happened, and why the trailer has 2 million views on Youtube right now.

Lucy Loud is shown off quickly to remind the younger crowd to keep watching, and to add a little bit more female representation.

Spongebob is shown off a little bit late, but since we were expecting him to show up, it’s just to make sure the casual fans who only know the big names stay watching.

Helga is an older character, but I recently saw a young kid wearing a Hey Arnold tee shirt at the supermarket, so I’m positive it’s being shown as reruns on Nick today, so most Nick fans of all ages will be excited about her.  Moreover, since she came immediately after Spongebob, who is a protagonist that was introduced after Sandy, a side character from his show, it gives an implication that Arnold will also appear.  Although he is not introduced in this trailer, it allows the fans to speculate that he will soon be showcased, perhaps in the next trailer.  Also, she’s the fourth female character shown, confirming that the game is being fair and inclusive to both sexes and not simply catering to male gamers, like say, Jump Force or Dragonball Fighter Z.

Reptar is another shocker, because although Rugrats is very popular and well known throughout the generations, he is a very, very minor character in the show.  He is literally a fictional character within a separate fictional universe.  The marketing team threw him in to show off that just about any character from any Nick property, no matter how minor or obscure, has a chance of making it into this game.  Again, this forces the fans to speculate about future announcements with even more creative thinking, as we now know that it won’t just be major characters joining the fray.

Zim is a well thought out choice because he caters to a specific crowd that I’d describe as the alternative niche.  That is to say, there are people who are fans of Invader Zim who don’t watch other Nick shows, so they are luring in the folks you’d expect to see at Hot Topic and the like.  It was an edgy show with a feel and fanbase unlike other shows of its era, so it’s important to use him to diversify the roster.  They also showed off Gir as his assist, and although that may deconfirm him as playable, it still pleases the fans, who often prefer Gir over Zim.

Danny Phantom is the only character that comes strictly from the 2000s era, so they are making sure to maintain the attention of the teenagers who watched that show as kids.

Leonardo seems like an odd choice to end on, maybe even anticlimactic, since they started with Michelangelo, but it makes sense when you think about it.  They couldn’t show just 1 turtle, or else it might imply that the game’s roster was small.  But if they showed all 4 turtles, they would have needed to leave two other characters out of the trailer to make room for them, and they didn’t want to make it look like a Turtles fighting game with guest characters.  So having exactly 2 turtles allows them to show off enough characters from other properties, while also confirming unofficially that the other turtles would appear later, since you can’t just have 2 of the 4 turtles in the game.  By leaving it open like that, they’re giving an implication that the roster is going to be huge.  So big that the turtles were just a small portion of it.  They end the trailer this way to leave the crowd speculating again: how many characters will appear in total?

The only characters that curiously don’t show up in the trailer are the cast of the Avatar franchise, who are quite popular.  However, one of the stages shown is clearly the Air Temple with Aang’s glider in plain sight, implying that Avatar characters will be announced later.  Another smart move to instill hope in the fans.

Finally, the Rollback Netcode announcement that came afterward solidified a very important group- the serious/competitive gamers.  For those who don’t know, rollback netcode is relatively new technology that speeds up online gameplay to cut down on input lag, which is super important for fighting games in particular, as they rely on strict timing more than other game genres.  It’s so new, however, that not all competitive fighting games use it.  Popular tournament fighters like Super Smash Bros, Tekken, and Dragonball Fighter Z have not implemented rollback netcode for their games yet, so of all games, Nickelodeon All Star Brawl beating them to the punch is causing a stir.  This is a sign that the devs are putting serious effort into making the game enjoyable online, which could potentially help its chances to be taken seriously in competitive settings.  Only time will tell if that truly happens, but it’s a sign of quality, nonetheless.

So ultimately, this short trailer and announcement manage to cater to dang near every crowd that may want to play it: Kids, teenagers, young adults in their 20s and 30s, parents in their 40s, men, women, memers, casual fans, alternative fans, and serious gamers, and opens up a ton of potential for speculation regarding new announcements.  That’s a fantastic way to start off and explains why this game, which for all intents and purposes should have been nothing more than a thought experiment that people joke about in the car with friends, has been trending so much for the past two weeks.  Congrats to the marketing team for what they put together.