#queue will go on a journey without rest.

[itoshiierae]

INARIZAKI BOYS CAFÉ AU ☕️ ༘⋆

──★ ˙🧷 ̟ !!

ᡣ𐭩 ft: atsumu miya, osamu miya, suna rintarou, aran ojiro, kita shinsuke

ᡣ𐭩 notes: this one was highkey inspired by my bllk rin one that i did a while back. not the full team & just my fav inarizaki boys for this one, i’m allowed to be biased okay 🥹

ᡣ𐭩 cw: overall just fluff & the boys being absolutely silly (not proofread) <33

𝜗ৎ ATSUMU MIYA ᰋ the head barista who flirts more than he works

𖥔 at this point, he’s the face of the café; always smirking at customers and handing them their drink with a wink, like it’s part of the service

𖥔 lovesss writing cheesy puns on the cups like “you’re brew-tiful” or “don’t go matcha-less today.”

𖥔 tries to upsell pastries by saying “they taste better when you eat ’em with me,” and then proceeds to slide in a, “and lucky for you, my shift ends at 8.”

𖥔 constantly gets told off by aran for ‘flirting too much’ at the counter but honestly??? the customers love him for it and he’s the main reason why they keep coming back

𖥔 always messes up suna’s drink order on purpose just to get on his nerves — it’s his favourite form of entertainment during slow hours

──★

𝜗ৎ OSAMU MIYA ᰋ the café's baker (who wins everyone over with his pastries & bakes)

𖥔 runs the kitchen like a pro but still gets shyyy whenever customers compliment his bakes <33

𖥔 makes special edition mochi muffins and onigiri toasties that sell out before lunch

𖥔 lowkey flirty, just not as obvious as his twin brother… if you blush while ordering, he’ll lean in slightly and say, “relax… didn’t mean to make you nervous, sweetheart.”

𖥔 constantly has flour on his sleeves, and no one pulls off the ‘hot baker in a messy apron’ look like he does

𖥔 teases atsumu 24/7 but still makes his fav treats to keep him from crashing out mid-shift, especially after dealing with ‘rough’ customers

──★

𝜗ৎ SUNA RINTAROU ᰋ the sleepy barista who somehow ends up being everyone’s favourite

𖥔 always ends up doing closing shifts — doesn’t complain though, he actually enjoys the chill journey home at night after a long shift

𖥔 if a customer asks for something off-menu, he’ll still make it even if he’s technically not supposed to. now he has his own regulars who come in just to ask for “whatever he feels like making.”

𖥔 acts indifferent, but somehow still makes half the café swoon with just one look

𖥔 his uniform’s always slightly loose, sleeves rolled up, and the silver necklace he wears?? it always catches the café lights when he leans over the counter

𖥔 secretly runs an ‘aesthetic’ insta page filled with pastry and drink pics — each post somehow racking up over a thousand likes. he has a VERY specific filter he uses every single time before posting

──★

𝜗ৎ ARAN OJIRO ᰋ the dependable manager who's always cleaning up everyone's mess

𖥔 actually runs the café while the rest of the team is flirting, spacing out, or making “experimental” lattes. he does the schedules, takes stock, handles complaints — all without breaking a sweat

𖥔 greets customers with a smile, checks if the ac’s too cold, and always makes sure there’s a spare seat near the window for elderly patrons

𖥔 stays composed through the rush, remembers regulars by name, and casually carries 3 trays at once like it’s nothing

𖥔 has one playlist he always queues up when the café opens — r&b classics, soft indie, and a little bit of jazz. the rest of the team teases him, but they all secretly vibe to it

𖥔 once gave up his only break that day just to cover for atsumu, who needed air after a rough customer. he didn’t complain and just said, “go breathe… i got this.”

──★

𝜗ৎ KITA SHINSUKE ᰋ the responsible shift supervisor who quietly keeps everyone in line

𖥔 always arrives early to prep the espresso machine. leaves neat handwritten checklists and reminders for the team

𖥔 quietly corrects orders without ever making a fuss. never blames the customers, just smiles softly and remakes it like it’s no big deal

𖥔 keeps the counter stocked with fresh flowers and occasionally slips handwritten thank-you notes or small discounts to familiar faces

𖥔 has a calming presence that diffuses tension almost instantly. atsumu’s yelling?? osamu’s panicking about burnt muffins?? suna’s zoning out at the counter again?? and all it takes is one “boys…” from him — and they’re immediately back in line

𖥔 never raises his voice & never takes credit for holding the whole café together, but everyone knows he’s the reason it runs smoothly

© itoshiierae 2025 𐙚 ‧₊˚ ⋅ please do not modify or repost my content onto any other platforms.

[pixel-stranger]

Shang Simla, day 1

Alice: Hi, friends! Today is a special day because we’re going to a country with an entirely different culture.

Catherine: In other words, we’re starting our journey to China! We’ll spend three days in a place called Shang Simla. So, let’s go!

Alice: In our world, Shang Simla is the heart of Asian traditions. Here tourists can learn discipline, peace of soul, and some martial arts skills. The town is placed high in the mountains, far away from civilization. It means that nothing can distract you from your spiritual practices and new impressions.

Catherine: But first, we should reach our first destination – the base camp. Here we can leave our luggage and take a little rest. And before that we have to climb to that building by a long stair. And this is our first trial for today.

Alice: Finally, we are at the top of this rock. What a beautiful view from here!

Catherine: Yes, the scenery is lovely. So, let’s go into our camp. Interesting, why do they have a door, although there are a few arches here?

Alice: Haha, I don’t know. Maybe just for aesthetics? Then, let’s use the door as intended!

Catherine: Well, we are inside. Now we can start a review of our guesthouse. The first room we see it the lounge zone for new arrivals. There are some chairs and tables here, there is also a small library.

Alice: The interior is simple but cozy. Actually, this is a miracle that somebody could build anything in the highlands!

Catherine: The next room is another one lounge zone. It’s a bit more comfortable. There’s even a chess table and a music player here.

Alice: As usual, the camp also has a spacious kitchen and dining area for all the tourists.

Catherine: The side wing of the building is completely dedicated to bedrooms. Almost all the accommodations are minimalistic and without frills. We found only one comfortable apartment on the second floor. It’s spacious and has a personal bathroom. But there is also only one double bed, which doesn’t suit us. That’s why we chose one of the standard rooms.

Alice: All the standard rooms have one common shower area. It's scary to imagine, how long the queue is here in the morning! But I think, we won’t be here at night as usual. Probably, we’ll meet the morning somewhere else during our trip!

Catherine: So, we had a little time to go to the top floor of the house. There was an observation deck where we found a gorgeous view of the local nature, waterfalls, and the Great Wall of China.

Alice: After that, we came down and continued our introduction to Shang Simla. We headed to the center of the town. It’s called the Forbidden City.

Catherine: It’s a huge complex of buildings, surrounded by a fortress wall and a moat. In earlier times, all of Shang Simla was placed within this fortress. It’s well preserved, including four watchtowers facing the four cardinal directions.

Alice: We had to go a considerable distance to reach the Forbidden City. We followed a few steep bridges, gates and turns before we found ourselves in the center of the complex. It was not simple because it’s customary here to ride bicycles. People avoid using mopeds here to save ecology and atmosphere of this town.

Catherine: Finally, we arrived at the main square – the Emperor’s Plaza. There’s a nice garden with traditional sculptures, dwarf trees, stones, and a fountain with a dragon.

Alice: Another place of rest includes a beautiful pond with flower-shaped lamps, a spacious alcove, and a chess playing zone.

Catherine: After inspecting the Plaza, we headed to the Shang Simla Market. There’s a lot of interesting stuff there, but the most of the shops are very small. It becomes cramped when more than two buyers go inside!

Alice: But anyway, we didn’t plan to walk there right now. We stayed only to buy some food in a local café. I decided to taste the Firecracker Shrimp.

Catherine: And I ordered a dish called Dim Sum. It’s sort of dumplings, and it was really delicious.

Alice: My dish was very tasty too, but in turned out to be so spicy! I felt like steam came out of my ears! But after our meal, one Chinese boy came to me. He said I’m very brave because not every tourist dares to taste that dish! Well, I know about my bravery, but nevertheless, it was very pleasant to hear about it from a local!

Catherine: The last place we visited in the Forbidden City was the Halls of the Lost Army. It’s a big museum of ancient Chinese culture. Even the building itself is an object of cultural heritage.

Alice: Okay, we’re indoors. I can say the exhibition space is much smaller than the house area. And I wonder, why the bench is placed on a passage, exactly between the arch and the exhibits?

Catherine: Honestly, I don’t know. But I think the bench is always a good idea! It’s so comfortable to sit here and survey the space!

Alice: Well, let’s take a look at what else is interesting here. Oh, I like this ancient vase!

Catherine: Yes, it’s really graceful. And I also like this bonsai.

Alice: We walked in the museum a little more – and then we went to another district of Shang Simla. Our director decided that today we should also visit an area for learning eastern disciplines.

Catherine: We headed to the complex of three spaces. The first is the Phoenix Martial Arts Academy, the second is the Scholar’s Garden, and the third is the Resolute Fist Retreat.

Alice: For a start, we visited the Scholar’s Garden. It’s a place where you can practice your meditation or just relax among dense vegetation.

Catherine: There’s also a picturesque pond in the garden. We admired the clear water and some koi fish there. We can confirm, this place promotes tranquility and a feeling of Zen. After that, we really cleared our minds and were ready for the next step.

Alice: So, we went to the Phoenix Martial Arts Academy to strengthen not only the spirit but also the body.

Catherine: We found everything for this in the house. For example, there is a gym and a library with spiritual literature here.

Alice: But of course, we were both more interested in Sim Fu practice. We wanted to study some fighting techniques and have a sparring. And we found a teacher outdoors who agreed to help us.

Alice: Lee Yao, our teacher, decided that we should first practice our hits on training dummies. There were also some board breakers in the yard, but Lee said that they are intended for skilled people. That’s why he showed us some techniques for beginners.

Catherine: It’s pretty hard to work with the training dummy. This thing spins all the time and can suddenly hit you. It feels almost like a sparring with a real partner!

Alice: We trained until the late evening. Finally, we managed the basic fighting techniques. The teacher awarded us the uniform of first-level students. After that, he said that we should have a rest and come back tomorrow for our first real sparring.

Catherine: After that, we arrived at the local overnight place - the Resolute Fist Retreat. The interior of the house is minimalistic. There’s only one common space for all the essentials. The room includes a small kitchen, a couple of armchairs, a bookshelf and a big space for group training.

Alice: Also, there’s only one restroom here. Visitors have to take a bath and to relieve themselves in turn. So, the conditions for the guests of the Academy are harsh. It’s necessary to teach them endurance and concentration.

Catherine: As you can guess, the bedrooms here are simple and minimalistic too. Every room is single cause solitude is important for calm and spiritual practice. So, we took our beds and went to sleep to be prepared for the next day.

Alice: We hope that our tomorrow’s sparring and other activities will go well. Wish us good luck! And good night, dear viewers!

[titancores]

Journey's end (human reader meets Sabre, ~4.1k words)

This was a request from @ren-chan082. The original prompt was:

I was wondering if I could request one involving Energized Tv Man a.k.a Saber with the reader… I mean, imagine if the group of humans that Camerawoman found reunited with Saber and Poly to be taken to a more safe place but one of them ends developing a tiny crush for Saber The main problem could be that apparently Saber distrusts humans and doesn't like to have any nearby so there would be a lot of tension between them? I think that could make for a pretty interesting plot about both of them… ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I beefed the prompt slightly! Ren-chan mentioned the group of humans we see at the end of episode 73, but my brain parsed 'Camerawoman' as 'TV Woman' - because of course it did. We haven't yet seen TV Woman encounter unskibbed humans, so I made up some. If I had written about the humans from episode 73, I would have made them more militaristic. I hope it's still to your satisfaction!

I wanted to make this a 'Y/N' fic, but I find that abbreviation looks unattractive (and I keep parsing it as 'yeah, no'), so I named the reader-character 'November'. Because of N for name, and N is November in the NATO alphabet.

Request queue

Hosted versions of this fic: skibzone (my site), AO3

---

You take the opportunity to check the contents of your pack to review what you and McPiss managed to grab today, while they keep vigil out of the window, scanning the streets for approaching skibidis.

You'd met Tranter McPiss a couple of months ago, a fellow scavenger in the ruins of the skibidi plague's aftermath. Not the most fun or charming person you'd ever met, but competent and sensible enough. Naturally, you'd stayed together for safety in numbers and for companionship (such as it was).

Some toothpaste to add to the cache. You start picking off the cardboard boxes so you can pack the tubes in more neatly and make a bit more space in the pack. Few jars of peanut butter, probably the most calorie-dense food you're likely to find. Just about every veggie seed packet you could stuff into the pack's many pockets. You and McPiss plant those in available bits of ground as you go, in the hope they'll spread.

"Stop rustling for a bit," says McPiss quietly. (You silently take your hands out of the pack and let it down to the floor slowly.) "I hear something," McPiss whispers.

You strain to listen… it's footsteps. You don't know whether to feel panicked or hopeful - is it fellow human survivors, or some of those sinister hardware-headed robots? Or, worst of all, it might be some of those body-snatcher skibidis that have grafted fallen robot's bodies to their toilet bowls.

You're relieved that you can't hear any of that 'skibidi skibidi skibidi' chant that signals the arrival of the blood-crazed biting toilet-people. Might you dare to hope you've found another band of humans?

As the footsteps get closer, your hopes are dashed by hearing some garbled robot speech. Shit. Your guts feel as though someone's dumped a bowl of cold acid in them. Can you and McPiss escape through the window? It's a hell of a drop - could you climb down somehow? Are you better off staying put and trying to talk your way past the robots?

You frantically try to come up with a sensible plan and share it with McPiss, whom you can sense getting tense and frantic alongside you, as though something is saturating the air between you.

The footsteps stop for several seconds. If you stay quiet and still, will they go away again? …Despite the lack of footsteps, something enters the room nevertheless. You can't parse what you're looking at. The sight resolves itself as the head of one of the television-robots, its screen glowing… but without the rest of the robot. It's… hovering on little rockets, you realise. Ohh shit, it's seen you.

The hovering rocket-television displays a cutesy emoticon on its screen… then its screen background goes from a soft purple to a hot sugar-pink, as the hovering monitor smoothly advances towards you. A suggestion hangs heavily in your mind: "Don't worry". You feel you should be appalled at being manipulated like this - you know that thought didn't come from you! But the gesture feels so kind, so considerate, as though the hover-television is letting you borrow some of its courage. Just as the ethical implications of this sink in, a headless robot body walks in, flanked by two more TV-headed robots. The headless one confidently steps forward to meet the hovering TV-head, which must be its own. The two parts of the robot elegantly re-capitate with what looks like practised ease.

One of the flanking robots (they look like Floaty-Head's bodyguards, you reckon) says something - you can't work out what language it spoke. Human-made televisions were invented in Scotland… might they be speaking Scots Gaelic?

The two bodyguard-type robots step forwards, one coming towards you and the other towards McPiss. 'Your' robot says something you can't parse, its screen changing colour from a green-tinted mid-grey to a pale cyan. The screen glows bright, making you flinch, then fades back to its former grey, along with a benignly smiling emoticon. Did the robot just… scan you? Mark you? Whatever it did, it seems pleased with the result.

The other robot appears to have reached much the same conclusion as McPiss. Both bodyguards rejoin their comrade with the detachable head, who has the aura of one who's in charge. Hover-Head's screen fades out from pink back to purple, releasing its mental hold on you - you feel like yourself again, but a little more afraid without the constant reassurance being beamed into your brain.

"We're fucked, aren't we?" McPiss whisper-hisses to you.

You're not so sure. The robots outnumber you, and they could have killed you by now - but they haven't. And the floaty-headed one used its screen-power to soothe you and encourage you. If they'd wanted to kill you, wouldn't they have paralysed you with fear?

You're about to say something to McPiss, then something occurs to you as one of the 'bodyguard' robots speaks - the sound of their speech sounds like a recording being played backwards. (This robot has what looks like an LED torch mounted to its head-casing, you notice just now. Their compatriot has a noticeable trait of their own: some hot pink socks, in stark contrast to the rest of their sombre black get-up. What if… you called them Pinky and Perky. What if you did that.)

You notice Floaty-Head display a cheery emoticon, then turn the dials on their head-casing. Their speakers click and buzz until the robot is apparently satisfied with what they hear.

"Calibration," says the robot. "Humans, do you comprehend?" Its voice is like a flock of metal birds of various sizes speaking together in perfect synchronicity, with the slightest reverb.

McPiss looks to you, apparently for support. Should you say yes to the robot? …Do you have anything to gain by pretending that you can't understand them? Probably not.

"Yes," you say. "Yes, we comprehend you."

"Imperator to squadron," says Hover-Head. So their name or title is 'Imperator'? You file that away in your brain-meats. "Unskibbed humans found. Duplicate communication parameters."

"Copied," says Perky. …You need to mentally assign these two some different nicknames.

"You're far from Sector Carina-Seven," says the TV-robot with the detachable head - the Imperator. (Maybe they can all detach their heads and this is the only one you've seen doing it? Or maybe not - Pinky and Perky don't have the head-rockets. Argh. You can't keep calling those two that.)

"…Sorry?" ventures McPiss.

The Imperator displays an amused emoticon on their screen. "This sector isn't safe for D-class personnel and below. Given how unprepared you seem for combat or recon, and how easily we were able to approach you, I am assuming you are lone operants acting without orders or backup."

"We're not with the skibidis, if that's what you mean," you say. "Or whatever you call the toilet people."

"Yes, we call them skibidis too," says the Imperator. (Didn't they call you and McPiss 'unskibbed'? You've just worked out what that must have meant.) "…If you're not affiliated with the Alliance, you won't know the sector names. Carina-Seven is the current safe zone for unaffected humans."

"Can you… tell us how to get there?" you ask.

McPiss seems displeased by your question - they probably think you're being too eager to trust these robots. You'd agreed with McPiss that the faceless, slightly weirdly-proportioned robots were creepy… but now you're rethinking that stance. At close range, they're almost cute!

"We can do you one better," says the Imperator, displaying a delighted emoticon. "My colleague can take us there."

"One moment, please, while I confer with my colleague," you say to the Imperator, then gesture your head to McPiss to get into a huddle with you. Well, two people isn't really enough for a huddle. It's half a huddle. A hud.

"We don't know their motivations," says McPiss quietly once you've moved away from the robots. "I think we should part ways with them while we still can. We know what we're dealing with out in the wilderness - these robots are an unknown."

"I'm inclined to go with them," you say. "You have a point, but… if they wanted to kill us, they could have done that many times over. And we know the robots are enemies of the skibs too-"

"Don't give me that 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'," interrupts McPiss. "The enemy of my enemy can smooch my hoop as well."

"I just think if we don't go with them, we'll regret it later," you say. "I'm tired of running and hiding and not having a safe base to call my home."

"I exert no hold on you," says the Imperator. (How much of your conversation did they hear?) "I cannot force you to come with us." (Well… physically they can. The Imperator is probably speaking of ethics rather than capability.) "But I advise you to choose quickly-"

On cue, you hear the sound of approaching skibidi activity…

"Let's regroup with my colleagues for now," says the Imperator, "And you can decide where to go from there. Grab your bag." You do so, and the Imperator and their two guards converge smartly on you. You're unnerved but you hold firm as the Imperator claps a hand on your shoulder - you're aware of one of the two guards doing the same to McPiss.

Your surroundings suddenly become very dark and close, as though walls of black fog swept in and converged on you, until all you can see is the Imperator… The walls of fog fall away just as suddenly as they materialised… and your surroundings are different. What just happened? Did you just go down a wormhole?

"You could have warned us that was going to happen!" shouts McPiss. You agree a little - that was a bit scary and you would have appreciated the heads-up.

"Skill issue," remarks someone. You jerk your head to the source of the sound and realise there's another TV-headed robot here, of a different model from the Imperator and their two guards. You thought the Imperator looked elegant, but this unit… "They made it in a rizz factory and didn't know when to stop," you hear yourself thinking. Gah! Get it together!

"Be gentler," chides the Imperator. "These humans have had a frightening day."

"These skibidis-in-waiting, you mean?" the new robot says, idly drawing and flexing some magenta-purple blades installed on its forearms, in a casual display of power. "You do them no kindness prolonging their misery, Imperator. Only a matter of time before their brains rot."

The Imperator displays a glaring displeased emoticon, apparently not impressed by the bladed robot's rudeness. The two of them 'stare' silently at each other for a couple of seconds - are they communicating on a wavelength you can't hear?

"They're clean," says one of the guards (the one with the torch on its head). "Both scanned."

Purple Blades nods silently to the Imperator, apparently concluding their imperceptible conversation. "I take it back," they say, approaching you and McPiss. (McPiss bristles and stands their ground, but you try to stay relaxed - you'd be far better off with these TVs as allies rather than enemies.) "Had a dicksplash of a day. Frustrated. Took it out on you." The robot makes a show of deliberately tucking away its blades, then presents its gloved fist to you. What does this gesture mean? Should you… copy it?

You raise your own fist and bring it in, mirroring the TV-unit. It completes the gesture - and you realise it was going for a fist-bump all along. You happily push your knuckles into place - what excitement!

"What should we call you?" you ask.

"Sabre," replies the blade-armed TV.

"I'm November, and my companion is Tranter McPiss," you say.

"Why would you tell them that?" protests McPiss angrily.

"What are they going to do; get in touch with our bank?" you point out. You continue to Sabre: "…You smell of burning. Did you run into skibidis too?"

"You can tell?" asks Sabre. You guess robots can't smell. "Blew a fuse. Don't know which one. Diagnostic system failed. Takes forever to check all fuses systematically. Grumpy about it."

"I can smell that on you," you say. There's a definite burnt metal tang, with the unpleasant sour back notes of burnt rubber. "May I… examine you a bit more closely? I might be able to find it."

"If you must."

You move your head closer and sniff at Sabre's torso while walking around them. Sabre seems mildly alarmed, and their head moves on a swivel to track you, even as you walk behind them. Evidently they can spin their head like an owl. (The Imperator and their two guards seem to keeping their eyes - well, their screens - on you too. McPiss is keeping their distance - they don't seem eager to help out.)

"Mind how you go, meatbag," warns Sabre. "I'm pointy."

"The smell is strongest here," you say, pointing to a spot on one of Sabre's shoulders. "I would guess your blown fuse is under here."

The two bodyguards move in, as Sabre takes off their coat. "Hold that for me," instructs Sabre, handing it to you. …Oh, it's nicely warm. The two guards set to work with what you assume is a robot first-aid kit, containing several small specialised-looking tools. Sabre undoes their jacket and shirt, revealing a glimpse of sleek and slightly angular plating. You realise you're clutching the coat quite hard…

The guards are evidently trained in field repairs, as they remove a panel of Sabre's plating, exposing a bank of fuses. One of the guards pulls out the blown fuse (while Sabre appears to be trying not to flinch) and the other replaces it with a fresh one from the kit. You remember what Sabre said about having to check all their fuses systematically - you guess it would be hard for them to remove their own body panels because of the awkward angles, especially with their blades in the way.

"You'd better appreciate this," says the Imperator warmly. "I don't share my spare fuses with just anyone."

"Thank you, Imperator," says Sabre, then: "…Thank you, November. That saved a lot of time." They take their coat back from you. "Are you cold, human?"

"I am a bit," you concede. You'd had to leave your coat behind earlier that week and you hadn't found a suitable replacement yet. (You guess it was this week. Keeping track of time has fallen a bit by the wayside these days.)

Sabre moves to put their coat on you before you can object. They hold the sleeve out for you to insert your arm, and you do so without really thinking about it. It's hard to not take something that someone is handing right to you. The cuffs snap closed with magnetic clasps as you put the sleeves on - they have large slots in them for Sabre's arm-blades.

You shiver in delight inside the coat. Its warm weight feels nice, and you rather appreciate the view of Sabre in just their jacket. "See, McPiss," you say, "We were wrong; robots are nice."

"For your knowledge," says one of the guards (the one sans torch), "We prefer to be called 'techfolk' rather than 'robots'. It's true, we are robots, but so is a mindless factory assembler."

"Understood," you reply. You suppose calling them 'robots' is like calling a fellow human an 'ape' - it's correct, but can be wielded offensively. "Well, what do you think?" you ask McPiss. "I reckon our best chance of survival is to head to… Carina-Seven, was it? Join the other humans there. I'm so happy to know there are still more of us out there!"

"I can see there's no dissuading you," says McPiss. They move in close to you so they can whisper. "I think you're being too trusting."

"I think you're not being trusting enough," you say. "This would be a stupid amount of effort to go to for a trap. I'm going with the techfolk. I really hope you'll come too." You address the Imperator: "What happens now?"

"My colleague Polycephaly will take us the rest of the way," says the Imperator. "We'll need their teleportation ability to get us all the way to Sector Carina-Seven from here." The Imperator addresses McPiss: "Consider this the warning I didn't give you last time. Are you ready to depart?"

"I know I am," you say.

Sabre steps near you and offers their hand. You guess they're initiating a teleport, and you take it. Your world is swirling black fog for a moment, and then you are somewhere else. Next to you, the Imperator spawns in with McPiss, followed by the two bodyguards.

Your body surges with terror at the unmistakeable sound of a skibidi chant rapidly getting closer-

"Doctor Polycephaly diagnoses you with being annoying. Here's your prescription."

The skibidi song rapidly takes on a panicked tone as the approaching skibidi gets lifted into the air and thrown away, explosively shattering its porcelain on impact. You can't work out what you just saw… until you realise there's yet another TV-headed techfolk here - you actually hadn't noticed them at first because their sheer size made your brain not register them as an entity. This unit's colossal!

"Some fresh meatbags," observes the huge TV - Polycephaly, you think the Imperator said. You're startled to see four more TV-screens suddenly unfurl on stems from behind the big unit's back. Polycephaly kneels and cranes their subscreens inwards, apparently getting a better look at you and McPiss. "Bound for Carina-Seven?"

"Just so," replies the Imperator.

"You know the drill," says the giant TV. "Fog tax." Polycephaly's main screen turns void-black - not the black of a switched-off screen, but black like a hole cut in reality. Clouds of void-blackness spill out of Sabre's, the Imperator's and the guards' screens and fly towards Polycephaly, as if the big TV is vacuuming up their energy. The four smaller TVs jokingly protest at this treatment, to Polycephaly's amusement.

Polycephaly stands up again, and takes a few steps to a nearby shipping container. They pull open its doors and then pat the roof. "Get your arses in my box, mammals, unless you'd rather take your chances with the skibs," says Polycephaly.

You get inside the shipping container, a little hesitantly - how is this going to work? You feel braver once the Imperator, the guards and Sabre follow you in. If they're getting in, it's clearly the right thing to do. McPiss brings up the rear. You can see their point about preferring to face an known evil than an unknown one, but you're daring to hope that going with the TVs won't turn out to be an 'evil' at all. You feel a pang of guilt that you ever thought of the robots - the techfolk - as creepy.

Polycephaly closes the doors of the shipping container, shutting you all into near-darkness. The only light comes from the four TV's screens - the Imperator and the two guards with their green-tinted grey, and Sabre's richer royal purple.

"Feeling okay?" Sabre asks quietly. They pat your hand. Oh! Before you can say anything, all of you are plunged into swirling blackness. This feels the same as when you were transported earlier. Did Polycephaly teleport the entire shipping container?

That question is answered when the doors re-open. McPiss immediately hops out, reminding you of re-wilded tigers dashing to freedom from their transport crates. The Imperator glances behind them to make sure you're following, giving you a reassuring smiling emoticon, then steps out accompanied by their two guards.

"Out you get," says Polycephaly, slapping the container roof. You obey, Sabre walking alongside you.

"Ni hao, Imperator. Wo happen so?" A human voice!

"Buono estente, Gladys," replies the Imperator to the human. "Beaucoup skibidis, but two newbies."

"Skibidis, quelle fuckery. Oho!" says the human - Gladys? - noticing you and McPiss. They wave hello to you, and you wave back. So does McPiss - they seem happy to have found more humans instead of robots.

You take in your surroundings. Is this the Sector Carina-Seven that the Imperator mentioned? There are many humans here, some at work and some at leisure. You notice a few of the Camera-headed robots - techfolk - here too, talking in a sign language with some humans.

McPiss introduces themself to Gladys. "McPiss - Tranter McPiss," they say, holding out a hand.

Gladys shakes hands. "Dailyo, McPiss. Gladys, je suis. Welcome a Sector Carina-Siete."

"November," you introduce yourself with a handshake. You get an idea - you'll probably score points if you contribute supplies to the group. You open your pack and start bringing out toothpaste and peanut butter.

"Zahnpasta avec karanga squishy? Bonus est!" Gladys clearly approves. You guess a mix of people from around the world live here and have fallen into using a pidgin blend of their own languages. Gladys calls over a couple more people to help unload. "Sprechen a beth?" Gladys asks you.

"…Not sure what that means, sorry," you reply.

Gladys tilts their head slightly, apparently taking in what you said. "Oho," they say. "Macaroon!"

Someone else approaches. "Parler zum newbies," Gladys tells them.

"Ey up," says the new person. "My name's Macaroon - Chris P. Macaroon." (Gladys must have summoned someone who speaks the same language as you.)

"Ey up, Macaroon. I'm November and this is my colleague McPiss," you explain. "We ran into some skibs but luckily the Imperator ran into us first."

"And I didn't want to come with because I assumed it was a trap," says McPiss. "For once, I'm glad to be proven wrong."

"Nice coat," says Macaroon to you.

"I should give it back," you say. "I borrowed it from Sabre - have you met them?" You begin taking it off so you can give it back to its owner.

"Sabre, lending your coat to a human?" says Macaroon. "I didn't think you liked us that much."

"Skibidi-headed, but not as stupid as you look," concedes Sabre. It seems McPiss isn't the only person glad to have been proven wrong today.

"That's high praise, coming from Sabre. Gladys and I will get you another coat from somewhere," Macaroon says to you. "And we'll give you a tour. You and McPiss should both get settled in for today - tomorrow we can talk about adding you to the duty rota and get you some Alliance tablets. These things, I mean, not medicine tablets." Macaroon flashes their digital device.

"Thank you," you say. "I can't believe my luck! Earlier today I was scrabbling in the wilderness running from skibs, and now this!" Life will be so much easier with a home and some friends.

The Imperator approaches you and McPiss, having been talking to a small group of humans and Cams. "I must take my leave," they say.

"Imperator, I'm so glad we met you," you say sincerely. To your surprise, the Imperator extends their arms to offer a hug. You gladly step forward to accept. You've been on the run and on edge for so long, it feels overwhelming to stand on safe ground and enjoy the simple pleasure of a hug. Your eyes prickle pleasantly with the beginnings of happy-tears. And the Imperator gives great hugs, warm and firm, no shyness or limpness. The Imperator gives you a final little squeeze, then ends the hug.

The Imperator offers a hug to McPiss. "Have you got over your dislike of robots?" the Imperator asks cheerfully, displaying a happy emoticon.

"I have," says McPiss, then accepts the hug readily. "Thank you, Imperator."

You seize your chance. You don't know when you'll see Sabre again. "Sabre… could I hug you?"

There's a pause. Have you offended them? Then: "If you must."

You'll take it! You hug Sabre, noting how carefully they move to not injure you with their blades. Their coat smells of your warmth, as if you've known them a long time and their scent is familiar to you. You delightedly snuggle into them as much as you dare.

"Sabre, cwtsh?" Gladys says with amused surprise.

"Mind your own business," says Sabre. They deliver a final squeeze to signal the end of the hug - did they pick up that habit from the Imperator?

"Will I see you again?" you ask Sabre as you disengage.

"Possibly," says Sabre non-committally, as they press something into your hand. They vanish in a column of black mist, to your surprise. …Is that what teleportation looks like from the outside?

You notice the Imperator and their two guards stepping back into the shipping container, which Polycephaly slaps their hand on and teleports away, in a big cloud of smoky black fog. Dang - you'd wanted to thank and say goodbye properly to Polycephaly. Hopefully you'll see them again, if the robots - no, the techfolk - find some more humans.

You check what Sabre gave you. It's a business card of sorts, with some contact details on it. Well, you know what you'll be doing when you get your tablet tomorrow…

[canmom]

Das Abenteuer der Canmom in Köln (zur Gamescom)

It's time for canmom to have another adventure! What will that wacky lil porygon do next?

[you may be wondering, whatever happened to the plan to transfer l'aventure de canmom à Annecy to the main site for easier reading? that's still planned to happen, hopefully pretty soon! I've just been very busy.]

So: I work for a small VR games company called Holonautic. I've been working for them for around four months now (time flies)! This week some of us were in Cologne, Germany, attending Gamescom. Until this trip I hadn't met any of them in person, and indeed only had a vague idea what they looked like, because the modern world is wacky that way.

What's Gamescom? It's a major industry expo where game devs show off their games to the public and journalists, and otherwise have various industrial sorts of chats. The event fills a massive convention centre (the Kölnmesse), similar to the Excel Centre in London. Thousands and thousands of gamers enter in massive queues, and once inside, they queue up some more to get a chance to play some work in progress games at massive display booths.

Or maybe they go to the indie room, where there are hundreds of tiny desks just wide enough for a dev to set up a computer with a demo... or the retro games area, where various old consoles were set up for people to play... or one of the zones set up for laser tag or something like that. There was a lot going on!

Even Cthulhu came down to check out the games.

My own experience of Gamescom involved very little of that. With my Trade Visitor badge I could skip the queues, but most of my time was spent in a corner of the Business Area demoing our game to influencers, other devs and members of Meta and Unity, and then heading out to restaurants to have dinner with other VR devs in the evening. I had a good time though! It was great to meet the rest of Holonautic in person, and get to see the sights of Köln a tiny bit. And it was a very rewarding feeling to see other people enjoy the game I'd been working so hard on.

So in this post I'm going to talk about my trip, do a bit of amateur sociology, think about the place of videogames in the world and all that - and also talk a little about how the game sausage gets made - at least as far as I can without breaking NDA. Sadly, the game I spent most of the weekend demonstrating remains under wraps, so I'll have to tell you about that another day. I didn't get to see a ton of games but I'll also talk about the handful of indies I did see!

This time I travelled by train (non-transport nerds, feel free to skip this paragraph), taking the Eurostar from St. Pancras to Brussels, and then the ICE 19 to Cologne. Although it was slower and a bit more expensive than flying, once you factor in the time it takes to travel out to the airport, and the security generally being much more straightforward, I think I much prefer the trains. I spent my journeys drawing other passengers (coming soon to @canmom-art) and reading Osamu Tezuka's manga Ayako (which will be its own post). It was all told very straightforward and comfortable.

[minutiae: I thought I was clever by getting an Interrail pass instead of just buying tickets the usual way, but I didn't realise that you also have to pay for seat reservations, so in the end the Interrail probably cost about as much for a 'there and back again' type of trip.]

By far the most expensive part of the trip was the hotel room. We stayed in a hotel pretty close to the centre of Cologne, but it turned out that its proximity to be about 15 minutes walk from public transport, so we didn't end up saving that much travel time. Since I ultimately spent almost no time in my hotel room, I think if I go next year, the call will be to stay at a hostel. But anyway, let's talk games.

How a game gets released on the Quest

So, Holonautic specialises in VR games. I wrote about our previous games in this very nerdy post, but in brief, there are broadly two major types of VR game: PC VR and standalone VR. For PC VR, the game runs on a computer, and the headset just contains a screen and something that can be tracked. For standalone VR, the headset is essentially a powerful Android smartphone with a custom OS; it uses the headset's cameras for tracking and does all the computing on the headset.

With the success of the Oculus/Meta Quest series, standalone VR became really, really popular - much more so than PCVR ever was. It makes sense: for native games you don't need a powerful gaming PC and there are no cables to trip over or expensive base stations, but you can still play PCVR games if you want to. Almost all of Holonautic's games are Quest-native.

For PCVR games, you can use one of various APIs, such as OpenXR, to wire up your game to VR tracking and input. Moreover, Valve built pretty good VR support into Steam, and since Steam is pretty much anything-goes, it's pretty easy to release a PCVR game in a way people can get it - but marketing is all on you, as with any Steam game.

The Quest is a different story. Compared to other consoles, Meta (which absorbed Oculus a few years ago) occupies a bit of a strange position in this industry, simultaneously the hardware manufacturer, the only publisher, and also a developer of first-party titles.

I don't have any good pictures for this part so here's me in a massive cathedral. Metaphors? No no. It's just a holiday photo...

There are two ways that games can get released on the Quest. There's the store, which is heavily curated: here, Meta acts as a publisher, releasing only games they think will sell, but they also put games through months of QA and handle all the marketing for you (i.e. putting it in front of people when they boot up the Quest). To get on the store, you basically need to have an in at Meta - there's a whole process, I'll talk about that in a moment. There's also 'App Lab', which is much less heavily vetted - but also it's a lot harder to get an audience on App Lab. If a game is particularly successful on App Lab, Meta may end up promoting it to the store. But a lot of games just languish there.

Of course, just because you have a liaison at Meta does not mean you have a free pass onto the store. There's a whole series of stages you have to go through: first you write up a detailed pitch, then if approved (based on what else may be in the works, Meta won't approve two overly similar games), you have a few months to make a 'Minimum Viable Product' prototype of your game and show it to Meta. I joined the company about a month before the MVP was due on our game.

Assuming your contact at Meta likes the MVP, you get a few more months to make a 'Vertical Slice', which is essentially a small portion of your game that's more or less complete. (For example, a single level.) Then, you show this to Meta again. If you make a good impression, they'll give you the go-ahead to finish the game and release it on the store.

Here's another random picture of Köln from the famous Hohenzollern Bridge. Are you saying this wall covered in padlocks is symbolic of something? Overactive imagination, I tell you.

So if yo uwere wondering, the last few weeks of intense work were all about making that vertical slice be as good as possible (and it got pretty clutch at the end). Since we were all going to be at Gamescom, we agreed with our guy at Meta that we'd demo the game in person.

The upshot of all this is that selling a VR game is heavily heavily shaped by Meta, and specifically the individual at Meta who makes the call. Holonautic has a longstanding contact with a laid-back American guy I'll call W.; he has in the past championed some of our games like Hand Physics Lab that left other Meta staff unconvinced. (As it turns out, W. was right and Hand Physics Lab was successful.) But he's not shy about saying that a game doesn't make the cut and should go to AppLab instead. Our game would live or die based on W.'s opinion.

But not just W.; Meta itself as an organisation is also looking for certain things, shaped by its internal politics. They have new features they want to tout - so if you can come up with a game that uses mixed reality, hand tracking and shared anchors that's probably going to count in your favour. And they have certain directions they are keen to push: sporty exercise games are in favour at the moment.

What does this mean for the evolution of the medium? Well, of course people will make the games they want to make, and just because Meta likes an idea doesn't mean it will sell. But Meta does have a lot of power to dictate the general direction of VR games - and if the Apple Vision Pro takes off in a few years, Apple will no doubt end up with a similar role.

It's been interesting to see the forces that shape a game up close: our ideological desire to make things that are new and different and meet our personal tastes, balanced against the need to have successful games to keep the company afloat (good old M-C-M'), and the need to satisfy Meta; all of this leaves its fingerprints on the game.

To not keep you in suspense, I think the demo to W. went pretty well; I can't really say more than that. It was also a good chance to tell the Meta guys about the parts of their APIs that are jank and hard to use - and to their credit they were apparently rather desperate to get feedback and I feel hopeful that they'll make it better.

It's hard to talk about Meta, because it's just such a massive organisation. We can talk about massive erosion of privacy, enabling genocide in Myanmar, and so on - but we're dealing with a small sub-corner of this huge beast, which is less a social media company and more of a games publisher and console manufacturer. But I definitely understand why someone wouldn't want to let a Facebook device loaded with cameras into their house! I could go more into privacy and the Quest 2 but it would be way too long a tangent. Ultimately this is probably a 'no ethical consumption'/'we live in a society' type of deal - one day Meta's domination will erode and we'll have to deal with a different superpower.

Whatever happens, we can continue to explore what's possible in this medium! I think of all the ethical bargains that must be made with the tech industry, I have done OK.

What Cologne is like

On Tuesday, I arrived in Cologne Central Station (Köln Hauptbahnhof) and walked over to my hotel, where I met my colleagues. Most of them looked fairly similar to how they'd set up their VR avatars... but none of them had realised I'm super tall. surprise, bitches ;p

We went out to an Indian restaurant where we all ended up ordering biryani. This being Germany, the portions were massive, so I asked for mine to be in a box to finish later, forgetting that my hotel room had no fridge or microwave and I'd have zero time to eat it (rip). Overall I think I hit it off pretty well, and we chatted for a while about games we liked, the mess that happened at Za/um, movies and the like - it was good to get a chance to interact more casually in person instead of only ever talking about work stuff. Everyone was exhausted from travel so we turned in pretty early, though probably not as early as the restaurant would have liked...

The thing that surprised me most about Cologne is how much it didn't feel strange or unfamiliar. If not for all the signs in German and cars driving on the right, you could drop me in an area of Cologne and tell me it's an unfamiliar part of London and I'd easily believe you. The parts of the city that are filled with business parks and glass-fronted chain stores could exist almost anywhere on Earth.

That said, there are some ways the Germans do things differently! One is restaurants. I visited three different restaurants and two of them worked on a 'self-service' model. Essentially, you order your food at the bar, and they give you a little buzzer device. When it buzzes, you go back up to the bar and collect your food. Nobody would wait tables, there would just be one person behind the bar taking orders and such (though someone would still have to clean your table).

Restaurants also close very early in Cologne. I think a couple of times we put staff in an awkward position of wanting to go home but having to sit around until our party was done. That said, at one point I walked through a riverside area with a few dozen steakhouses, and that seemed to stay open a lot later.

Köln has a decent amount of graffiti, a surprisingly large portion of it in English. Under most bridges there's usually a good number of tags. I didn't manage to get any good photos but shout out to the person who wrote something like 'this world is too damn loud', which is a big mood for autistic girl walking away from a convention centre lmao.

Wednesday: in which our heroine finds out what an influencer is

The next morning we all went down to a German bakery (pictured above). According to my colleagues, the thing to get is a Bienenstich, or 'Bee Sting', a kind of cake with crispy honeyed almond flakes on top and cream in the middle. Here's a really bad photo:

It was pretty tasty!

We scooted over to the convention centre on the metro, and made our way in. I started getting used to navigating the Messe. Our company didn't get our own booth this year, but XR game devs are pretty tight-knit, and Niantic, creators of Ingress and Pokémon Go, there to promote their new phone-based AR Monster Hunter game - lent us some space in their booth to do a demo to the popular VR influencers Cas and Chary.

We headed over to Hall 8 and none of us could find the Niantic booth. Eventually we figured out why: the Niantic booth was outdoors. On a very bright summer day.

The Quest 2 has a bit of a finicky relationship to light. If it's too dark, the cameras can't pick up anything and tracking can fail - hand tracking is especially susceptible. But bright sunlight is also a problem. Essentially, the controllers on the Quest 2 contain small infrared LEDs, which are tracked by the headset's cameras. This works very well, in general - but in the sun, the background infrared radiation can completely overwhelm these LEDs and the controllers become essentially unusable. You also have to be very careful never to let the sun shine through the lenses inside the headset when you take it off, or the focused sunlight can destroy the screen.

So, an outdoor demo was a problem. Luckily, Niantic had an air-conditioned tent in their little zone. We all filed into the tent and started testing the headsets. Even inside a tent, it was too bright for the Quest 2 hand tracking... but we managed to figure out the Quest Pro still worked (since it uses cameras in the controllers for tracking), and rushed to test everything would work. Before long, Cas and Chary arrived, and we demoed the game. Look mum, I'm in a tweet:

Before this convention I had very little knowledge of the whole world of VR influencers, and honestly I still don't, but it seems to be a big thing - a good word from an influencer is a massive boost to a game's chances. I'm still not entirely sure what the difference is between an influencer and a journalist; both are in the business of reviewing new tech and games and rely on a reputation of unbiased analysis for credibility, and both are courted by devs hoping to promote their games. I guess an influencer is like a fully independent journalist? In any case, Cas and Chary were really sweet in our extremely brief meeting, and it was amazing to see the first people from outside the company having fun with our game.

We got word that bHaptics, a Korean company which makes haptic suits and gloves for use with VR devices, had some space in their booth and were willing to let us do some demos there. So we set off back down the entire length of the convention centre to go into the secret Business Area.

Wednesday at Gamescom is restricted to trade visitors, meaning it's much less crowded than the later days. On those later days, that restriction only applies to the three halls designated as the Business Area. Like regular Gamescom, these halls are divided into flashy booths trying to sell you stuff, but in this case it's mostly companies trying to sell services and tools to developers: backend services, special 3D pens, anti-cheat... also a bunch of stands selling merch and figurines for some reason (maybe because they want to manufacture tie-in merch for your game), as well a bunch of national organisations promoting the game development scene in xyz country.

The Belgian stand functioned as a meeting spot, and they were also handing out vouchers for free beer. A strategy that seemed to be quite effective, judging by how crowded their booth became that evening.

We tested our headsets in the bHaptics zone, and discovered DOTS Netcode's prediction/rollback is good enough to make the game feel smooth even on public convention centre wifi, which was rather satisfying - so you know, good job Unity! Unfortunately the Shared Anchors continued to be a pain. We briefly ran into the head of DOTS at Unity and arranged a demo, scooted off to meet W. from Meta who bought us drinks, scooted over to Niantic again to meet some members of XR Bootcamp (a training course in XR game dev, whose cofounders Ferhan and Rahel seem to be the glue that holds the whole XR dev scene together), and at last wandered back to the Belgian zone...

...and then I went back to bHaptics to have a go at their gear. I didn't take a photo (rip) so here's a photo by CNet showing the full bHaptics getup, which in combination looks... kind of like you're the member of the SWAT team on washing up detail...

(source: Scott Stein/CNet)

I had never gotten to try any sort of haptic suit before this, so it was quite novel. Essentially the vest contains 40 (or 16) vibration motors; the gloves contain further motors on the tips of each finger, and there's another motorised ring between you and the headset. There are also motorised wrist bands, motorised ankle bands...

The first demo was designed to showcase the features of the suit and wristbands, so you could try out various actions like shooting guns or putting stuff in a backpack with and without haptics. A second demo focused on manipulating objects: no wristbands, just the glove and hand tracking.

Of the various devices, the most convincing was probably shooting with the haptic suit. Vibration motors are well-suited for brief, intense pulses, and firing guns definitely felt more impactful with the suit on - not a perfect simulation of impact, but a strong effect. The backpack demo was especially impressive: it really felt like dropping heavy objects into a backpack. You also got to shoot at your own mirror image and feel the bullet/laser impacts, which felt like a rather roundabout way to give myself a back massage, but I could see it being effective in the right game.

The hand demo convinced me less. The problem is that vibration is a poor simulacrum of pressing against a solid surface, so it just felt distracting to have a vibration pulse when i grabbed an object - and you still had the usual physics jank associated with manipulating objects in VR using hand tracking. The final section of the hand tracking demo was social interaction: you were faced with rotated clone avatar, and you could shake your hand, punch or slap yourself, or give yourself a hug. As someone who lives half a world away from most people I love, I think giving someone a hug in VR would be a fantastic use of the technology, but sadly this hug was... not entirely convincing. It is very hard to simulate a steady touch with vibration motors.

Ultimately I think the best use for this haptic gear may not be simulation fidelity, but more abstract: similar to the haptic suit used in certain public demos of Rez Infinite, pulsing in time to music. Such uses are mentioned on the bHaptics site, and I'd love to have been able to try that kind of demo. (And yeah, I'm sure you could hook it up to the other kind of remote-controlled vibrating devices if you so desired, though you'd probably have to do a bit of work to wire everything up.)

It was really cool to finally get to experience haptics, and I was very grateful to the bHaptics members for taking the time to show me their gear.

After I'd satisfied myself, I caught up with the gang; we went out to dinner with other XR devs at a Turkish restaurant called Bona'me near the river. (The food was tasty and had a decent amount of vege options, once again in huge portions but this time we split them between the table. ...and once again we were the last table to leave by a long way, and I feel bad for the staff who had to sit around waiting for us.)

There, I met a solo dev called Ben Outram, who's spent the last three years working on a game called Squingle, a fascinating psychedelic game about manipulating bubbles in a world of DMT-core abstract visuals. (Honestly, check this game out, it's nuts. Meta are sleeping on it, it should absolutely have a full store release.)

Thursday: chaos reigns

On Thursday it somehow ended up that in the space of an hour, we would be demoing our game to the head of DOTS development at Unity (whose name I somehow never managed to catch), demoing our other game Cybrix to Cas and Chary, and then doing the big important demo for meta. Then it turned out that our metro line was blocked by an accident up ahead. We hurried out to get an Uber, and our driver gave us a rather... exciting ride; he rolled down the window to argue with another driver and dropped us off in the middle of the road while we waited in traffic. Rather harried, we arrived back at the bHaptics corner and set up for the demos in an unused area of floor nearby.

I'm not sure if I can say too much about how our demos went, but unfortunately we ran into some versioning issues and were not able to show Cybrix to Cas and Chary before they had to rush off (we weren't the only one to face transport issues that morning). Lesson learned: test everything, not just the part you're worried about. It's not the end of the world, though, and we all headed over to W.'s hotel, into a swanky suite with a nicely laid table for the most important demo of the week. We had the room for maybe 20 minutes, then we were out the door again to the lobby of another hotel to talk it over.

After that... suddenly the afternoon was free, ish. We went back into Gamescom and ate some very expensive ramen. Then, word came that some more influencers wanted to try out our games, so it was back to bHaptics and well, the story gets a little repetitive at this point :p I can't say much more than that without talking about our game, so I will just have to say that the demos went well.

This was my view for most of Gamescom.

At the end of the day, I had a couple of free hours to scoot over to the indie games area and try out some games before everyone went home. At this point my social batteries had run very dry indeed so I was glad to get some time to just play games.

The indie zone was divided into lots and lots of small booths, typically just wide enough for one computer. And even late in the evening, it was very, very busy...

This is just one small corner of the indie area.

Not really knowing almost any of these games, my 1337 MLG Pro Gamescom strat was to wander around until I spotted an empty chair and then play whatever game was going and chat with the dev if they were around. This worked out pretty well! I'll write up the games I played in a moment, but first I'm overdue to wax philosophical.

What was really striking about walking around the indie area is just how many games there are. Wandering around you can pretty quickly spot patterns and influences just by glimpsing at screens (here's a combat tutorial, there's a crafting/survival game, and yonder a narrative game that's borrowed the entire interface of Disco Elysium).

I've seen, up close and personal now, just how much fiddly effort and dedication it takes to make a game. There's something kind of strange and alienating to me about encountering all this creative output in a massive aggregate, where you can only give it maybe half an hour in a noisy room, surrounded by a dozen more or less similar games, in a way that kind of demands you rapidly assign it into a broad, combinatoric category: x art style, y core mechanic, z emotional register. Presenting this game this way really seems to file them all down to Content, which can be boxed and tagged and matched to a consumer with the appropriate set of subculture flags.

One thing that is distinctive about games as a medium to me is the very strong separation between 'mechanics' and 'presentation'. To produce a game you don't just need a system to manipulate, but also associate it with a narrative to make it comprehensible and lend it some sort of affective impact.

So you could theoretically make a game with the exact same mechanics as, say, Half-Life 2 - the same movement, the same enemy hitboxes, the same collision geometry and shooting mechanics and progression - but a completely different presentation style and telling a completely different story. Indeed, a typical early stage of game development has placeholder 'programmer art' and 'greybox' levels.

Equally, you could lift the iconography of a game and drape it over a completely different mechanical substrate - and indeed, it isn't at all uncommon for major franchises to launch spinoffs in different genres.

So games as a medium consist of all these different pieces which you can attach in various ways to define a game which you can name. And once this is done, that game becomes in a sense 'concrete': we act as if Half-Life 2 is an object with a distinct existence. It's a powerful social construct. Then, a successful game is then one which manages to unify all these disparate elements into some sort of whole that feels coherent. Game development sees all the possible elements of a game gradually collapse into whatever gets released. It's highly stochastic: an arbitrary decision by a tired dev, or even a glitch, might later become fixed as one of the core icons of the great 'Franchise'.

When there were less games around, and it was a lot harder for people to get their hands on dev tools, it made sense to think of games as solid, discrete things. Whatever you got on the cartridge or disc was pretty much immutable. Now, though, most major games operate as a 'service' that is constantly modified, and it is not uncommon either for players to mod a game, on a continuum from small changes like injecting shaders or changing music, to total conversion mods that are a 'whole new game'.

And indie games, then... you've got a subculture which heavily emphasise sharing techniques, and it's just as beholden to genre as AAA games. The existence of all these games side by side, even though each one has its own name and identity, seems to further break up "games" into combinations of pieces. When I encounter a new third-person action game, it's as a variation on a kind of broader, abstracted super-game. My first task is to discover the particular quirks of this manifestation of the third person action game. The days when we had a shared culture of 'games everyone has played' are basically already gone, but we still have a certain degree of shared context, because each game is a probe into that constantly evolving game-space, which someone has gone to the trouble to fish out and decorate...

I suppose this is all coming back around to the otaku database thing, isn't it? Or just semiotics in general...

Anyway, here's what I found on Thursday:

I played an FPS called Serum, in which the core conceit is that you inject big syringes into your arm to give yourself powerups. Otherwise, it seems to be a game about gathering and crafting. Sadly the demo computer didn't have headphones, so I was missing sound, and seemed to be a bit underpowered for the game. Nevertheless, I walked around a bit, manufactured a healing serum, and shot some wolf and rabbit monsters with a bow and arrow.

I feel like I was rather ruder than I intended to be, because in talking to the dev afterwards, the first thing I mentioned was the performance issues and he had to apologise like, yeah, we're running it on a laptop (it sounded like he said with a 3070? but I must have misheard him, unless he has very high standards for underpowered), it does run better on a proper computer. The environment design in this game was definitely really strong. Not quite sure how the serum mechanic would work in practice - it sounds quite like Bioshock's plasmids, but the demo didn't really give the opportunity to try out the different options.

I played Dead Pets Unleashed, an adventure game about a demon girl in a struggling punk band. One of the devs was hanging out with this one and generally had a great vibe, joking about how almost nobody picked a certain option and suggesting the route that would get the most out of the demo.

The game uses a sidescrolling perspective with hand-drawn sprites. The art style is very consciously flat, its population of monster people allowing an impressive variety of colours. It broadly alternates between conversations with choices that adjust stats (e.g. +punk, -social) and a variety of minigames - there was a music minigame of course (the conceit being chasing away intrusive thoughts), but I also washed a dildo, constructed a hot dog, and waited tables. Generally it oozed style, absolutely nailing the punk vibe, and had a bunch of cute features like changing your character's outfit. You can play the same demo on Steam. I think this is one I might well get when the full release comes.

And then I played... a game I can't even find now! I really should have made a note or taken a picture or something. It was a kind of Amanita-like point and click game in which you play a tin can person, manipulating objects as you try to rescue your can dog, descending into a city made of cardboard boxes. The puzzles were occasionally a bit obtuse, but the cute style really carried it. The devs weren't on hand for this one, but they did have a wall where you could leave postit notes with your comments on the game, including one with a fairly essential hint for the first puzzle. It was called something like 'can world' or 'box world', but at this point, I can't find it anywhere. It's a shame because I thought it was neat.

That was all I had time for on Thursday: I zoomed off to another restaurant by the river to eat some more falafels. Someone let off some fireworks for some reason.

We started to make our way back, across the famous Hohenzollern Bridge, which is one of those bridges with a tradition that lovers will attach a padlock to the fence to symbolise how long their relationship will last.

At this point the padlocks have started to resemble kudzu, hanging down in strands of linked padlocks, or even growing up onto the superstructure of the bridge on chains. Questionable symbolism or not, it all makes for a fantastic textural effect, especially since it maintains the sheer density of padlocks for the entire length of the bridge.

While we were crossing, a boat passed under the bridge carrying some kind of a party. From a distance, all you could really see was a mass of glowsticks, and all you could hear was the ghost of the beat. It was a cool sight.

At this point I was pretty much completely exhausted so while there was some kind of industry party I definitely could not handle the crowds and walked home past the cathedral for an early night, eager to head in early to Gamescom tomorrow with a good night's sleep...

Friday: just like in my Bloodbornes, amirite gamers?

Predictably I overslept. Since I'd only get a few hours at Gamescom, I decided to visit the famous cathedral. I took that photo that I posted earlier, where somehow my little phone camera absolutely nailed the lighting, even if the cathedral is severely out of focus...

I headed inside the building too.

Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom) is a bit of an oddball, historically. While it wasn't uncommon for cathedral-building projects to last a century, after working on this thing from 1248–1560 they downed tools, leaving the city with a half-finished cathedral for about 300 years.

They had the front and back of a cathedral, with a big crane on the front part.

In the 1800s, the middle ages were in and the state decided it would be a good idea to have a big cathedral - both to make their new Catholic subjects happy and a symbol of THE NATION. After raising a stonking amount of money with one of the world's first NGOs, they built the rest of this thing, which briefly became the tallest building in the world. Hooray, said Emperor Wilhelm I. I love being a big strong nation with a big cathedral dick.

The cathedral survived the first world war, but got hit by a lot of bombs in the second - though the towers remained standing. After the war, they put it back up again. Now, it's a tourist attraction. Transsexual atheists can walk in and turn their phone to funny angles to try and capture the ceiling...

You can call this a Deutsch angle, because... ok whatever guys they can't all be winners.

They've got some old school Christian-style guro in here.

The interior is pretty cool: huge vaulted ceiling, massive stained glass. The stained glass unfortunately photographs really poorly on a phone, the colours washed out pretty much no matter what. They did have this funky ladder contraption, which I assume is probably used for maintaining/washing the windows...

After a little while in there I decided this was pretty neat but I'd go to Gamescom, to say goodbye to everyone and maybe get a glance at some of the mainstream game zones. As it turned out we had another demo lined up, so we went back to The Corner Near BHaptics and did the routine. This time the audience was mostly other VR devs so I got to have some nice technical discussion.

At last, I had about an hour before my train. I thought about exploring the indie game zone some more, but decided I should really at least take a glance through the other halls. What I discovered was... queues! Many many queues. And various elaborate dioramas.

Sometimes they had actors to go with them. I decided to include the people taking the photo because... I don't even know what I was going for with this one to be honest, it seems kind of banal.

Here's a queue of people waiting to play Rogue Trader, which boldly tells you it's the first(!) CRPG in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, hopefully not also the last. 'Warhammer CRPG' is a concept that 16-year-old Bryn would have gone completely insane about. 31-year-old Bryn was still a bit curious, but not enough to wait for a sitting down queue with less than an hour left at the con.

I didn't take a lot of photos of the Extremely Gamer Shit, but for a taster, this lady was DJing a set on something called the 'Leet Desk', which appears to be a desk with built in RGB lighting, billed as 'the desk for gamers', because we can no longer contain the rainbow puke. When I walked past, she was playing an EDM remix of a tune that I vaguely recognised from a movie or a game but couldn't place specifically, which felt about right. Maybe it was Skyrim?

A lot of people walked around with the Hoyoverse bag, Hoyoverse being the collective term for the games of Chinese developer miHoYo such as Genshin Impact and Honkai Impact. Their slogan was 'tech otakus save the world', which thanks to their cunning move of handing out large bags, was soon paraded all over the convention. I feel like the jury is still out on the impact (ha ha) of tech otakus on the world...

In the end, the last hour was spent briefly walking around to see the halls and then I left to say my goodbyes and hop back on the train. The journey back was totally straightforward. I finished reading my manga and drew some more train passengers, who were generally pretty happy to be drawn.

Cosplay

It's a con, there's gotta be cosplayers right? Sure enough, the crowd was peppered with stormtroopers, kitsune, army men, luffies and various spooky skull guys... I didn't get many photos but here's a couple.

Obligatory stormtroopers. Luckily, the inside of the con was airconditioned, those suits look toasty.

These three kindly stopped to pose for me. I don't know what game they're doing, Dead by Daylight maybe? DbD girls, tell me ^^'

This robot-girl cosplayer's costume is neat: when you look close you see it's made of old PC parts. Or at least the casings of them. I spotted a graphics card and an old VR headset. She also has built-in stilts so she towered over everyone, big respect. She was hanging out in the hall on Wednesday, so she might have been there in an official capacity, but I didn't get a chance to talk to her.

Observations of demographics and stuff

It's been a good long while since I've been to any sort of nerd convention. Mostly I've been to scifi/media fandom cons like Nine Worlds and Worldcon, or general nerd-shit cons like MCM Expo, and in the old old days, Warhammer cons like Game Day. But this event being specifically a gaming expo was pretty new to me.

Predictably the demographics skewed male (but not overwhelmingly) and white/East Asian (almost without exception). The various national organisations present were primarily European (which tracks for an event in Germany) but there were large stands e.g. promoting Korean game dev or the Guangzhao region of China. In the indie zone, there were a good handful of Japanese devs, and I spotted one game that was fully in JP. Here and there, you'd spot banners promoted other gaming expos - a lot in Europe, but also there is apparently a Gamescom Asia in Singapore, and a Tokyo Indie Games Summit which sounds pretty fun. By contrast, while I don't have any real stats to substantiate, I would say I saw very few organisations were promoting game devs from South America, Africa or Oceania.

Beyond that... this is very definitely a place for nerds, but there's a lot of different varieties of nerd you can be now. So sure, T-shirts with slogans and cargo shorts for many, but equally you could dress super goth, you could show off all your tattoos, you could go in your colourful coordinated kitsune cosplay or just wear some bright hair die. I'm confident I saw a few other girls from the isle of 🏳️‍⚧️, but 'hello I clocked you let's be friends' is not the best introduction even from another trans girl lmao - in general I didn't really talk to people besides the group I had arrived with. I think if I'd gone alone, it would not be the sort of con where you make a lot of friends, but who knows?

All in all, a solid adventure. I'll probably go again next year, if I can find somewhere cheaper to stay. I never did get to see the chocolate museum.

ok, story over - thanks for reading, nerd ;p

[bikepackinguk]

Day Fifty-six

Eight weeks in!

After a very rainy night and morning, my tossing and turning in the tent allowed aome water to ingress, so it was a damp start to the day. After waiting out the morning's rains, a few bits were strapped onto the bike to allow them to dry over the day, then we're off once more.

Out from the trees and back onto the road, it's a bumpy ride mostly downhill to see the sun shining over Holy Loch by Sandbank, followed by a nice easy cruise along the waterside to the ferry terminal at Dunoon.

Perfectly timed to buy a ticket and roll straight onto the ferry, it's the last one I'll be taking in a while, and I'm granted a lovely sunny sky to enjoy the short journey over to Gourock.

Onto the coast west of Glasgow, I get something I haven't had in weeks - long, long stretch of gloriously flat coastal riding. Now the day truly begins!

Here is also a salient lesson in not relying too heavily on GPS navigation when cycling. Google continually suggested I turn off the A78 and head up some steep hills to avoid the traffic, as it was unaware of the frequent off-traffic cycle paths alongside the road.

Onwards! The cycle paths continue until a little past Inverkip, where the road is rejoined for a while. Whilst the traffic is quite heavy, the flatter terrain means good speed is made, and the views over the water to my right make for a good backdrop.

Past Wemyss Bay there's a big traffic jam queueing for the ferry over to Bute, which I can sail past on the pavement and following this the road traffic lightens significantly.

It's some nice miles along the water's edge from here and I set an easy pace for myself. After weeks of punishing hills, this is a great payoff for me.

Rolling into Largs around lunchtime, I enjoy a good rest and coffee by the Pencil Monument, along another great stretch of trails off the roads and around the sea.

There's aome great trails here that even when close to to busy major road are nice and peaceful due to the treelines around, but eventually we head back up and are riding back alongside the traffic. The path surfacing is a bit sketchy in places, and I rejoin the road at times without any stress to enjoy the speed.

Further south, I swing west to roll around the coastline past Hunterston nuclear power plant, and take in a short stretch of offroad trail past the hills to see Portencross Castle and enjoy a nice sit by the water's edge.

Back up to the road we go, and it's more glorious flat-ish riding down past Saltcoats, with Arran just visible in the distance as the skies get greyer and greyer and the winds begin to pick up once more.

The cycle paths continue around the south side of Kilwinning, with some lovely rides through parks and forested areas around the banks of the River Garnock.

It's hitting evening here and a nicely sheltered patch of forest is an opportune spot to rustle up some dinner. I'm back in more populated areas now with more plentiful opportunities to resupply, so I have less need to keep bigger stocks of food on me. Eating up the weight being carried is no bad thing.

The rains have been starting to spray a little by now, and a check of the forecast shows heavy rains imminently on their way and continuing well into the small hours, so it's probably a good idea to shelter up. And the patch of woodland by the river I've just had dinner at is absolutely ideal.

So, tent is up, a good lie down with a full belly is being had to the background of the rains coming down.

An earlier finish today than many, but this has been an excellent day for both the legs and morale. It's not only been a long time since I had a good break from the climbs, but also many weeks since I had some good riding without having to deal with traffic, which is always far more enjoyable.

Roll on tomorrow for more!

[gtscarr]

Dehradun to Delhi Taxi – Your Ultimate Travel Companion for a Seamless Journey

Travel Stress-Free with a Dehradun to Delhi Taxi Service

Looking to travel from the picturesque hills of Dehradun to Delhi? Be it a business meeting, family vacation, or flight out of IGI Airport, hiring a Dehradun to Delhi taxi is certainly the wisest and hassle-free decision.

Rather than fighting for space on crowded buses or dealing with restricted train timetables, why not indulge in the flexibility of private, door-to-door convenience that works around your time and comfort?

Why Opt for a Dehradun to Delhi Taxi Over Any Other Mode?

1. Unmatched Comfort & Privacy

When you opt for a Dehradun to Delhi taxi, you enjoy the luxury of your own car without having to worry about driving. Stretch your legs, sit back in comfort AC, and watch the highway and hillscapes unbroken — all from your preferred seat.

2. Convenient Departure Timings

Unlike trains and buses with set routes and strict timings, a taxi provides flexible scheduling. Want an early morning pickup or a late evening drop? You're in charge.

3. Safer, Smarter Travel

With trained drivers, sanitized cars, and GPS-tracking, you can travel worry-free. Whether you're traveling alone, with your family, or on an emergency journey, safety and timeliness are assured.

4. Variety of Vehicle Options

From economical hatchbacks to premium SUVs and sedans, Dehradun to Delhi taxi services offer cars that suit all budgets and group sizes. Need a ride for corporate clients or extra luggage? There’s a cab for every requirement. 

Dehradun to Delhi Taxi Fare – What to Expect?

Pricing for a taxi from Dehradun to Delhi typically starts at ₹2500 for a one-way trip in a basic hatchback. Rates may vary depending on:·         Car type chosen ·         One-way or return trip ·         Seasonal demand ·         Toll & parking fees

·         Seasonal demand, however, is offered by many reliable service providers without any hidden charges, making it fully transparent.

Tip: Booking your ride in advance can assist you in securing better rates, particularly on weekends and holidays.

Duration and Route – What Does the Trip Look Like?

The drive between Dehradun and Delhi is about 250–270 km, depending on the route. On average, the taxi ride takes 5.5 to 6.5 hours through NH334.

The road is scenic, smooth, and punctuated by clean rest stops and food stalls — just ideal for a short stop or meal along the drive and for that Dehradun to Delhi taxi is one of the best .

Who Should Book a Dehradun to Delhi Taxi?

·         Business travellers who appreciate punctuality and professionalism

·         Families seeking a comfortable, private travel experience

·         Travelers who want to go hotel-to-hotel directly

·         Air travellers with early or late flight schedules

·         Senior citizens who want hassle-free, door-to-door transportation

How to Book Your Dehradun to Delhi Taxi?

With a few clicks, you can book a trusted cab online from reputed platforms or travel agencies. Check for:Instant booking confirmation

Clean, well-maintained cars

Verified drivers with local knowledge

24/7 customer support

You may also arrange for pickups from certain places such as hotels, residences, or railway stations in Dehradun.

Travel Smart with GTS Car Rental

If you need a reliable travel companion, GTS Car Rental is here with the best taxi services from Dehradun to Delhi to make your trip safe, timely, and comfortable. With a robust fleet of vehicles and professionally trained chauffeurs, GTS ensures an unparalleled travel experience at affordable rates.

Book now! Your next comfortable ride waits.

Website: www.gtscab.com

Phone no: +91-819-100-8191

App link : https://gtscab.com/ap

“So why stand in queues or sacrifice your comfort? Book your taxi now and take the scenic highway ride from the hills to the centre of the capital city — safely, smoothly, and stylishly.”

 Read also ---

Safe and Budget-Friendly Taxi Service from Haridwar to Delhi

Delhi to Dehradun Cab: Your Guide to a Hassle-Free Journey

Haridwar to Delhi Cab Service: A Convenient and Affordable Journey

Best Cab Service in Dehradun: Low Prices with GTS Car Rental

[dataqueue]

Data Queue: Where Data-Driven Insights Meet Lead Generation Excellence

In the digital-first era, where businesses are saturated with data but often starved of actionable insights, the ability to harness data effectively has become the cornerstone of competitive advantage. This is particularly true in the field of lead generation, where organizations must not only find leads but understand them deeply to convert them efficiently. Enter Data Queue—a strategic approach or platform where data-driven insights converge with lead generation excellence, reshaping how businesses attract, nurture, and convert prospects.

The Evolution of Lead Generation in the Data Age

Traditional lead generation relied heavily on broad-based marketing techniques—cold calling, generic email campaigns, and wide-net advertising. These tactics, while once effective, no longer meet the expectations of today’s informed and digitally savvy consumers. The modern customer expects personalization, relevance, and value from the very first interaction.

That’s where data becomes a game-changer. With the explosion of digital touchpoints—social media, websites, email interactions, search behaviors, CRM systems—businesses now have access to unprecedented amounts of data. However, raw data alone holds little power. The magic lies in organizing, analyzing, and activating this data to derive insights that drive smarter, faster, and more effective decisions.

What Is Data Queue?

Data Queue is more than just a repository or processing pipeline. It’s a dynamic concept (and increasingly, a category of tools or platforms) that represents the intermediate state where raw data is transformed into strategic intelligence, ready to be deployed in high-precision lead generation campaigns.

Think of it as a processing line—data comes in from various sources, gets cleansed, enriched, analyzed, and queued up for action. Whether the goal is to prioritize leads, customize messaging, or identify new market opportunities, the data queue ensures that insights are timely, relevant, and aligned with business objectives.

The Pillars of a Strong Data Queue Framework

To fully grasp the impact of Data Queue in driving lead generation excellence, it’s essential to understand the pillars on which it rests:

Data Collection and Integration

The journey begins with collecting data from multiple sources—CRM platforms, website analytics, customer interactions, social media engagements, and third-party data providers. Integration is key here. Without seamless integration, data lives in silos, making it difficult to gain a unified view of the customer.

A robust Data Queue system integrates all data points into a centralized environment, creating a 360-degree customer profile that serves as the foundation for all lead generation activities.

Data Cleansing and Enrichment

Raw data is often messy, incomplete, or outdated. Data Queue frameworks apply cleansing algorithms to eliminate errors, remove duplicates, and validate information. This ensures that businesses aren’t making decisions based on faulty data.

Enrichment, on the other hand, involves adding layers of valuable information—demographics, firmographics, behavioral data—to make lead profiles more actionable. Enriched data empowers marketers and sales teams to segment audiences more effectively and tailor outreach strategies with precision.

Data Analysis and Insight Generation

This is where the real value lies. Sophisticated algorithms and AI models analyze data to uncover trends, patterns, and correlations that might otherwise go unnoticed. Are there common characteristics among high-converting leads? Which channels yield the highest-quality prospects? What behaviors predict buyer intent?

By queuing up these insights, businesses can focus their efforts on leads that matter most, increasing efficiency and ROI across the board.

Actionable Intelligence for Lead Scoring and Prioritization

Lead scoring is no longer guesswork. With the help of predictive analytics within the Data Queue, businesses can assign scores based on a lead’s likelihood to convert. This allows sales teams to prioritize outreach efforts and allocate resources effectively.

Moreover, real-time data keeps these scores dynamic. As a lead interacts with content, visits a website, or opens an email, the Data Queue updates their score, ensuring that the latest behavior is always factored into decision-making.

Personalized Engagement and Automation

With the intelligence derived from the Data Queue, marketing automation platforms can execute hyper-personalized campaigns. Instead of sending the same email to every lead, businesses can craft content tailored to specific industries, job roles, pain points, and behaviors.

This kind of personalization dramatically improves engagement rates and builds trust early in the customer journey. Data-driven campaigns are 40% more effective, on average, than non-personalized counterparts.

How Data Queue Transforms Lead Generation

The integration of a Data Queue system within a lead generation strategy leads to transformative results:Improved Lead Quality: By filtering and prioritizing leads based on data, businesses can focus on those most likely to convert. Faster Conversion Cycles: Targeted engagement accelerates the decision-making process for leads. Lower Customer Acquisition Costs: Efficient targeting reduces wasted ad spend and outreach effort. Higher ROI: With better leads and smarter campaigns, marketing budgets stretch further and deliver more value.

Real-World Applications and Case Studies

Many companies have already adopted Data Queue frameworks, whether explicitly or implicitly. For example:A B2B SaaS provider used behavioral data and third-party enrichment to identify which prospects were actively searching for similar solutions. This allowed them to prioritize leads and send timely, highly relevant content, resulting in a 35% increase in demo bookings. A digital marketing agency integrated a Data Queue platform with their CRM and ad platforms. By using predictive analytics, they identified leads who were most likely to respond to paid ads and retargeted them with precision, lowering acquisition costs by 25%. A healthcare technology company leveraged real-time data queues to monitor engagement on webinars and downloads. Leads showing high engagement were flagged for immediate sales follow-up, shortening their sales cycle by nearly 50%.

Building a Data Queue for Your Business

Implementing a Data Queue doesn’t necessarily require building complex infrastructure from scratch. Many tools and platforms today offer modular solutions that support data queuing, including:Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) like Segment or Tealium Marketing Automation Tools such as HubSpot, Marketo, and Pardot Lead Enrichment Services like Clearbit and ZoomInfo AI Analytics Platforms like Salesforce Einstein or Google Cloud AI

The key is to build a workflow where data is continuously collected, enriched, analyzed, and queued for action—whether for lead scoring, segmentation, campaign targeting, or sales enablement.

The Future: AI and Predictive Lead Generation

The future of Data Queue lies in deeper AI integration. As models grow more sophisticated, they’ll be able to predict not just lead quality but buyer intent and timing. This allows businesses to act before the lead even reaches out—creating a proactive, not reactive, lead generation model.

Imagine a system where your Data Queue detects a spike in interest from a specific industry, flags high-potential accounts, and automatically launches a tailored outreach campaign—all without human intervention. This isn’t science fiction—it’s fast becoming reality.

Conclusion

In a world where every interaction matters and competition is fierce, Data Queue is the bridge between raw information and lead generation success. It empowers businesses to move from guesswork to precision, from broad messaging to personalized engagement, and from passive data collection to proactive market action.

As data continues to shape the future of marketing and sales, organizations that embrace the power of Data Queue will be the ones that consistently generate better leads, convert faster, and grow smarter. Lead generation excellence doesn’t come from more effort—it comes from better insight. And that begins in the queue.

[indiaappdevelopers]

Hire Laravel Experts: Dedicated Developers for Secure and Fast Web Development

Security. Speed. Scalability. These are the benchmarks of successful web development in 2025. Laravel—a robust PHP framework—stands out as the go-to choice for developing secure and high-performance web applications.

But Laravel's true potential is unlocked when you hire Laravel experts who specialize in secure, scalable development. Whether you're running a tech company in Los Angeles, launching a startup in Florida, or managing digital transformation in California, hiring dedicated Laravel developers ensures your app is built for long-term success.

Why Laravel is Perfect for Fast and Secure Web Development

Laravel combines speed, functionality, and built-in security tools that are essential for today’s digital businesses:

Blade Templating Engine for efficient front-end rendering

Eloquent ORM for seamless database interaction

Robust Authentication System out of the box

CSRF Protection & Encryption

Queueing System for asynchronous processing

Built-in Caching to improve performance

These features make Laravel the first choice for developers and CTOs focused on security and speed.

Benefits of Hiring Dedicated Laravel Developers

Hiring a dedicated Laravel developer brings multiple benefits to your web project:

✅ Focused expertise on Laravel’s latest features ✅ Secure coding practices and compliance ✅ Fast project turnaround time ✅ Clean, maintainable, and scalable code ✅ Agile collaboration and continuous deployment

If your business requires custom backend logic, secure user management, or seamless API integrations, it’s time to hire Laravel programmers who can deliver with precision.

Who Needs to Hire Laravel Developers in 2025?

Laravel is ideal for building:

Enterprise Web Applications

Custom CMS and CRMs

SaaS Platforms

Secure Customer Portals

RESTful APIs for Mobile Apps

Hiring a Laravel programmer for hire ensures that even the most complex functionalities are developed quickly, securely, and efficiently.

Why Remote Laravel Developers Offer a Competitive Edge

Remote work is the new standard. When you hire remote Laravel developers, you:

Tap into a global talent pool

Lower your development costs

Speed up timelines with distributed teams

Maintain high-quality output

With platforms like Slack, Jira, Zoom, and GitHub, our remote Laravel experts are available when you need them—no matter your timezone.

Businesses across the US hire Laravel developers US companies trust for top-tier backend and full-stack work without the overhead.

Our Experience Across the United States

Our dedicated Laravel developers have helped businesses scale in:

Los Angeles: Supporting eCommerce, healthcare, and entertainment tech

Florida: Powering mobile-first platforms, real estate portals, and booking systems

California: Providing scalable SaaS backend solutions for startups and enterprises

We are the go-to App Developers Los Angeles, offer full-service App Development in Florida, and are recognized as a trusted App Development Company in California.

Why Choose India App Developer for Hiring Laravel Experts?

We are not just another outsourcing company. India App Developer is your strategic development partner with:

5–10 years of Laravel expertise

Developers skilled in Laravel 9+, API integrations, and DevOps

Flexible hiring models: hourly, part-time, full-time

Agile development with sprint planning and regular updates

NDA protection and scalable support post-launch

Whether you’re looking to hire dedicated Laravel programmers or build an offshore Laravel team, we can deliver results that match your timeline and budget.

How to Hire Laravel Experts in 3 Easy Steps

Step 1: Share Your Requirements We analyze your business goals and application needs.

Step 2: Review Our Developers Choose from our pool of pre-screened Laravel professionals.

Step 3: Start Development Begin your Laravel journey with full transparency and weekly reports.

Conclusion

Security and speed are non-negotiable for modern web apps. With Laravel and the right talent, you can deliver applications that not only perform fast but also remain protected from threats.

🌎 From Los Angeles to Florida and California, businesses trust our Laravel experts to transform ideas into scalable web apps.

[tnsigns]

Why Private Screenings in Chennai Are Perfect for Birthdays & Anniversaries

In today’s fast-paced world, the desire for personalized, meaningful celebrations is stronger than ever. Whether it's a birthday surprise or an anniversary celebration, people want more than just a restaurant dinner or a basic party hall. That’s where the charm of a private screening in Chennai comes in. Imagine booking a cozy, beautifully decorated mini theatre all to yourself – to watch your favorite movie, relive your memories on screen, and make your loved one feel truly special.

Welcome to The Dark Room, Chennai’s go-to destination for unforgettable private theatre experiences.

1. A Celebration Like No Other

Nothing beats the feeling of exclusivity. Booking a private screening in Chennai gives you a luxury cinema experience without the crowds. You get the entire theatre to yourself – no interruptions, no strangers. Whether it’s just the two of you or a small group of friends and family, this intimate setup makes the celebration feel exclusive and one-of-a-kind.

At The Dark Room, we offer a range of packages tailored for birthdays and anniversaries, including themed decorations, custom video screenings, photo walls, PS5 gaming add-ons, and more.

2. A Personal Touch That Leaves an Impact

A private screening in Chennai is not just about watching a film — it’s about telling your story. Want to surprise your wife with a video montage of your favorite moments? Or maybe play that one movie you both watched on your first date? At The Dark Room, we help you bring those ideas to life.

We specialize in:

Customized video presentations

Love memory screenings

Polaroid photo hanging decorations

Fog and bokeh entry effects for that dramatic wow moment

These are the little touches that turn an ordinary day into a lifelong memory.

3. Budget-Friendly Luxury

Think private means expensive? Think again. A well-curated private screening in Chennai can be surprisingly affordable. At The Dark Room, our packages start as low as ₹1,500 and go up to luxurious celebration bundles with fog entry, cakes, floor balloons, and more – all at a price that won’t burn your pocket.

With transparent pricing and no hidden costs, it’s a celebration you can plan without financial stress.

4. Safe & Comfortable Environment

In a world still cautious post-pandemic, safety and privacy are major concerns. A private screening in Chennai ensures your celebration takes place in a controlled, sanitized environment. No crowds. No queues. Just your loved ones and your moments.

The Dark Room maintains high cleanliness standards and follows safety protocols strictly — making it the ideal space for children’s birthdays, romantic anniversaries, and even surprise proposals.

5. It’s Not Just a Movie – It’s an Experience

At The Dark Room, we go beyond screenings. Want a live guitarist to surprise your partner during the movie break? Want a flash mob or a surprise dance entry? We’ve got you covered.

This is what makes a private screening in Chennai so unique – the ability to turn a simple idea into an unforgettable celebration.

From:

Proposal-style setups inspired by the Remo movie scene

Game nights with friends using our PS5 setup

Surprise birthday decor with neon lights and love-themed arches

You name it – we can make it happen.

6. Easy Booking and Customization

Planning a celebration shouldn’t be stressful. That’s why The Dark Room offers a seamless booking process and full customization options. Choose your slot, select your theme, pick your add-ons, and leave the rest to us.

We even help you plan surprise entries and provide decor suggestions based on your story and taste. No two experiences are the same.

7. Create Timeless Memories

Birthdays and anniversaries are milestones worth celebrating. A private screening in Chennai gives you a platform to relive your journey and create new memories — through cinema, visuals, and ambiance.

Whether it’s your first anniversary or your child’s 10th birthday, the moment becomes magical when it plays on a big screen just for you. With The Dark Room, you’re not just celebrating — you’re curating an experience that will be remembered for years to come.

Final Thoughts

If you’re looking for a unique, heartwarming, and affordable way to celebrate your special day, a private screening in Chennai is your answer. From romantic to fun-filled to emotionally touching – the possibilities are endless.

Don’t settle for ordinary. Make your celebration cinematic, personal, and truly unforgettable at The Dark Room.

🎥 Book your slot today and let us create your magical moment on screen.

[exploretheunexplored]

Is the Do Dham Yatra from Mumbai Physically Demanding? Here’s What to Expect

Is the Do Dham Yatra Physically Demanding? Here’s How to Prepare!

The Do Dham Yatra Package from Mumbai is a spiritually rich, soul-soothing journey—but let’s not sugarcoat it—it’s no casual stroll in the park. Whether you’re in it for devotion, adventure, or both, covering Kedarnath and Badrinath will test your body and mind, especially when you’re trekking 16 km up to a temple perched 3,900 meters above sea level. So yes, it’s demanding—but with the right mindset and preparation, it's also entirely doable. Let's break it down.

Understanding the Do Dham Yatra Package Terrain

This isn’t your weekend hill climb. The Do Dham Yatra Package includes rugged terrain, high altitudes, and unpredictable Himalayan weather. Kedarnath alone requires a long uphill trek, often through uneven, snow-laced paths and steep ascents. And no, you can't Uber your way to salvation.

Your legs will scream, your lungs will protest, and somewhere around Jungle Chatti, you’ll question your life choices. But when you reach the majestic Kedarnath Temple, all that pain melts into peace.

Can Anyone Do the Do Dham Yatra?

Yes, technically. There’s no age limit, and the Do Dham Yatra is open to all. But that doesn’t mean everyone should jump in without prep. Senior citizens and those with pre-existing health conditions should consult a doctor. Kids? Keep them hydrated, warm, and excited. The yatra isn't a race—go at your pace.

Universal Adventures also ensures comfort through supportive transport options, scheduled rest stops, and accommodation at standard hotels. So while it’s physically challenging, it’s not an Everest expedition.

What Makes the Kedarnath Badrinath Tour Demanding?

The Kedarnath Badrinath Tour combines long treks, high altitudes, and low oxygen levels. Kedarnath’s trek is the hardest stretch, broken down into multiple legs (Gaurikund to Jungle Chatti to Bheembali, etc.), totalling 16 km uphill. Even fit individuals will feel the burn.

Badrinath is easier on the knees—reachable by vehicle—but the cold, elevation, and packed itineraries can still be taxing if you’re not prepared. Expect early mornings, late nights, temple queues, and lots of walking.

Physical Prep Tips for the Do Dham Yatra

The Do Dham journey isn’t for couch potatoes. But you don’t need to train like an athlete either—just get active. Start walking 3–5 km daily a month before the trip. Practice climbing stairs, try some light stretching or yoga to help with flexibility, and boost your cardiovascular health.

Hydrate religiously. Acclimatise well. And don’t skip warm-up exercises before each trek day. Your knees will thank you later.

What to Pack for the Do Dham Yatra Package from Mumbai

The Do Dham Yatra Package from Mumbai covers food, shelter, and transport, but the Himalayas have their own rules. Pack wisely:

Warm clothes: Think thermals, jackets, and woollen socks. The higher you go, the colder it gets.

Comfortable trekking shoes: No sneakers. Invest in proper hiking shoes with a good grip.

Medical kit: Carry essentials—painkillers, altitude sickness meds, band-aids, etc.

Personal hygiene items: Wet wipes, sanitisers, and toilet paper go a long way.

Torchlight & power banks: Electricity can be flaky in some remote areas.

ID & Permits: As per the rules, ID proof is a must. No, PAN cards won’t cut it.

Respect the Journey: Mindset and Mental Readiness

The Do Dham Yatra Package, while physically demanding, is equally a mental test. Temples at high altitudes demand not just strength, but surrender. Be patient with delays, long queues, and sudden weather changes. This yatra is a pilgrimage, not a picnic. But it leaves your soul full and your camera roll even fuller.

Do Dham Yatra: Embrace the Divine Burn

So, is the Do Dham Yatra physically demanding? Absolutely. But with the Do Dham Yatra Package from Mumbai, you’re not alone. You’ve got experienced guides, decent hotels, and a solid meal plan to support you. Just bring your willpower, walking shoes, and a readiness to be changed forever by the mountains.

Spiritual strength is built on tired feet and sacred steps. Let the pain be your offering and the Himalayas your temple.

[universalhairclinic]

Online Hair Loss Consultation in Dublin: What to Expect and How to Prepare

Hair thinning, receding hairlines, or sudden shedding can leave you feeling frustrated and unsure of where to turn. You might be eager to speak to a specialist but feel overwhelmed by the idea of travelling into the city or sitting in a waiting room. With long commutes, packed schedules, and limited availability, it’s no surprise many people delay getting help.

That’s why online hair loss consultation in Dublin has become such a popular choice. It offers a faster, more discreet way to access expert advice—without time off work, stressful travel, or long clinic queues. Whether you’re based in the city centre or living further afield, you can now take the first step in your hair recovery journey from the comfort and privacy of your own space.

But how exactly does it work—and how can you make sure you’re prepared to get the most from your session? Here’s what you need to know before booking your virtual hair loss consultation.

What to Expect from Your Online Hair Loss Consultation in Dublin

If this is your first virtual health consultation, you might be unsure about how it works. Rest assured—it’s designed to be straightforward and user-friendly.

Most hair loss clinics in Dublin offer secure platforms where consultations take place via video. Once you book an appointment, you’ll typically receive confirmation and a short pre-consultation form. This helps your consultant prepare by learning about your concerns, any existing treatments you’re using, your overall health, and your hair loss timeline.

During the consultation itself, you’ll speak directly to a hair loss specialist or trichologist. They will ask you a series of questions to understand your situation better. These might cover your lifestyle habits, family history, stress levels, or recent illnesses—all of which can influence hair health.

Using your device’s camera, you’ll also be asked to show your hair and scalp. This helps them assess the severity and pattern of hair loss. If your camera doesn’t provide a clear view, you may be asked to send photos taken in good lighting from various angles.

Once your assessment is complete, your hair specialist will offer recommendations. These may include topical treatments, changes to your hair care routine, nutritional support, or referrals for blood tests or scalp analysis if more investigation is needed. You’ll leave the session with a clearer understanding of what’s causing your hair loss—and a personalised plan to address it.

Who Can Benefit from an Online Hair Loss Consultation in Dublin?

Online consultations are suitable for various hair loss and scalp issues. A virtual session is a smart starting point if you’re experiencing general thinning, a widening part, or shedding that seems more intense than usual. It’s also useful for people with patchy bald spots, hairline recession, or scalp discomfort such as itching or redness.

Conditions like alopecia areata, postpartum hair loss, and stress-related shedding are frequently diagnosed through online consultations. Even people dealing with conditions that may require long-term treatment—such as male or female pattern baldness—can begin their care plan remotely. It’s a great way to get early answers and avoid delays in seeking help.

There are a few situations where in-person follow-up may be necessary. For example, if your specialist suspects a scalp infection, underlying medical issue, or condition requiring microscopic analysis, they may recommend visiting the clinic for further investigation. But even in those cases, an online consultation can offer clarity and direction, helping you take the right next steps.

How to Prepare for Your Virtual Hair Loss Appointment

Getting ready for an online hair loss consultation doesn’t require much, but a little planning can go a long way. Choosing a quiet, private space with good lighting helps your consultant see your scalp clearly and ensures a smooth, uninterrupted session. Ensure your device has a working camera and microphone and that your internet connection is stable enough to handle a video call.

It’s also a good idea to think through the details of your hair loss experience before the consultation. Knowing when it started, what patterns you’ve noticed, and any relevant lifestyle or health changes will help your specialist better understand your situation.

Taking photos beforehand can be especially helpful. Clear images of your scalp and hairline provide valuable visual information if lighting during the session isn’t ideal.

If you’re short on time or want to be fully prepared, use the checklist below to make sure you’ve covered everything.

Checklist for Your Online Hair Loss Consultation

Technology Check

Ensure your internet is stable, and your device’s camera and microphone are working properly.

Test them in advance to avoid last-minute technical issues that could cut into your consultation time.

Information Gathering

Prepare a summary of your medical history, including any medications, supplements, or topical treatments you use.

Think about the timeline of your hair loss—when it started, how it’s progressed, and whether there are any known triggers such as stress, hormonal changes, or illness.

Jot down any questions you’d like to ask during the session to ensure you get the answers you need.

Environment Setup

Choose a quiet, well-lit space where you can speak openly without interruptions.

Avoid backlighting and face a light source, like a window or lamp, so your consultant can see your scalp clearly.

Photo Preparation

Take clear, close-up photos of the top of your head, hairline, and any thinning areas.

If possible, use natural daylight and ensure the images are sharp and in focus. You can send them in advance or show them during your consultation to help the specialist assess your condition more accurately.

Keep in mind, being well-prepared allows your consultation to focus on solutions rather than setup. It also shows the specialist that you’re engaged and ready to take action. This increases the likelihood of receiving personalised, effective advice tailored to your unique hair health needs.

Common Myths About Online Hair Loss Consultations

Some people hesitate to book an online consultation because they assume it won’t be as effective as an in-person visit. But for most early to moderate hair loss cases, this simply isn’t true. Visual assessments are often enough to identify common conditions like androgenetic alopecia or telogen effluvium. Combined with your medical history and symptoms, a virtual appointment provides enough insight for a specialist to recommend a treatment plan.

Another myth is that virtual consultations feel cold or impersonal. In reality, many people find the opposite to be true. Being in a familiar environment can make it easier to talk openly, especially when discussing issues that affect self-esteem or appearance. Online sessions can feel surprisingly human—especially when led by experienced professionals who can put you at ease.

There’s also the concern that a consultation will become a sales pitch. Reputable clinics prioritise education and transparency. While they may suggest treatments or products, the goal is to support you with the right information—not pressure you into buying something unnecessary.

What Happens After Your Online Consultation With a Trichologist?

The support doesn’t stop once your video call ends. In fact, your virtual hair loss consultation often marks the beginning of a tailored treatment journey.

After your appointment, you’ll receive a summary of recommendations tailored to your needs. This may include topical treatments, prescription medications, adjustments to your hair care routine, or lifestyle advice to support growth and prevent further loss.

Some Dublin hair loss clinics offer to deliver prescribed or recommended products directly to your door. This might include medicated shampoos, custom scalp treatments, or nutritional supplements designed to support hair health from within. Having these products delivered saves time and makes it easier to stick to your plan.

Follow-up appointments are also common. Your specialist may check in after a few weeks or months to see how you’re progressing, make adjustments if necessary, and offer continued support. These follow-ups are often shorter and can be scheduled flexibly to fit your routine. Ongoing support may also be available through email or secure messaging, giving you peace of mind that you’re not navigating the process alone.

In conclusion, choosing an online hair loss consultation is a practical, private, and effective way to take control of your hair health. It eliminates the stress of travel, offers rapid access to experts, and provides tailored recommendations without leaving your home. Whether you’re experiencing mild shedding or more noticeable hair loss, starting with a virtual consultation can put you on the path to real answers—and real solutions.

Ready for expert guidance tailored to your unique hair health needs? Secure your online consultation in Dublin and connect with our trusted trichologist to achieve the fuller, healthier hair you deserve. Call us now on +353 (0)1 679 3618 or click here to book an appointment!

[ecohospitality01]

Top 10 Places to go in Shimla

Shimla — “Queen of Hills,” is one of the most beloved hill stations in Himachal Pradesh, attracting visitors from all over India and beyond. It is known for its pleasant weather, colonial architecture, and breathtaking landscapes, Shimla holds a special place in every traveler’s heart. However, for many tourists, the excitement of visiting Shimla is dampened by getting stuck in the city’s infamous traffic jams. Long vehicle queues can steal precious time and leave visitors with only a glimpse of the beauty this enchanting hill station offers.

But don’t let the thought of traffic dishearten you! Shimla is full of gems waiting to be explored, and with proper planning, you can make the most of your trip. To help you enjoy your journey without missing out on the best spots, we’ve created this guide to the top places to go in Shimla. Follow this plan to bypass the usual pitfalls, avoid unnecessary delays, and immerse yourself in the true charm of this hill paradise.

1. The Ridge

The Ridge is the heart of Shimla and a bustling open space surrounded by colonial buildings, cafes, and shops. It offers beautiful panoramic views of the snow-clad Himalayas, it’s a favorite spot for tourists and locals alike. The Ridge is where most cultural events, fairs, and festivals take place. From here, you can also marvel at the beauty of landmarks like Christ Church and Mall Road. Time to Explore: 1–2 hours Location: Located in the heart of Shimla, near Mall Road

2. Mall Road

Mall Road is the bustling commercial hub of Shimla. Lined with charming cafes, boutique shops, and souvenir stores, it’s the perfect place to experience the lively spirit of the town. The no-vehicle policy here ensures a peaceful stroll while enjoying the fresh mountain air. Visit in the evening when the street lights up with activity and street vendors set up shop, adding a touch of festivity to the ambiance. Time to Explore: 2–3 hours Location: Adjacent to The Ridge

3. Christ Church

Christ Church was built in 1857 and it is one of the most iconic landmarks of Shimla. This neo-Gothic masterpiece stands as a reminder of the city’s colonial past. The church’s large stained-glass windows, intricately designed interiors, and peaceful ambiance make it a favorite spot for visitors. Time to Explore: 30–45 minutes Location: On The Ridge, Shimla

4. Jakhoo Temple

Jakhoo Temple, dedicated to Lord Hanuman, is perched on Jakhoo Hill, the highest peak in Shimla. The temple is known for its 108-feet tall Hanuman statue that towers over the surrounding forests. The statue is visible from almost any part of Shimla. Legends say Lord Hanuman rested here during his journey to find the Sanjeevani herb, adding a mythical charm to the temple. Time to Explore: 1–2 hours Location: Jakhoo Hill, 2.5 km from The Ridge

5. Kufri

Kufri is a small yet beautiful hill station near Shimla. It is known for its adventure activities and stunning landscapes, it’s a haven for nature lovers and thrill-seekers. Kufri transforms into a snowy wonderland during winter, making it a popular destination for skiing and snowboarding. In summer, its lush green meadows and clear skies are perfect for picnics and hikes. Time to Explore: 2–3 hours Location: 16 km from Shimla city center

6. Annandale Ground

Annandale Ground, surrounded by thick deodar trees, is one of Shimla’s most picturesque spots. Initially a playground for Britishers during the colonial era, it now serves as a golf course and a helipad. The serene environment is perfect for a leisurely day out. You can also visit the Army Heritage Museum here to explore India’s rich military history.

Time to Explore: 1–1.5 hours Location: 3 km from The Ridge

7. Tara Devi Temple

Tara Devi Temple is a serene spot where spirituality meets nature. Dedicated to Goddess Tara, the temple offers breathtaking views of the valleys and forests around Shimla. The peaceful environment makes it an ideal destination for meditation and prayer. The temple’s simple yet elegant architecture complements its divine atmosphere.

Time to Explore: 1 hour Location: 11 km from Shimla on the Kalka-Shimla Highway

8. Summer Hill

Summer Hill, a picturesque suburb of Shimla, offers a peaceful retreat from the city’s hustle. Known for its lush greenery and panoramic views, it is the perfect spot for nature lovers and photographers. Summer Hill is also home to Himachal Pradesh University, which adds a youthful vibe to the area.

Time to Explore: 1–2 hours Location: 5 km from Shimla city center

9. Chadwick Falls

Chadwick Falls is one of the most beautiful natural attractions near Shimla. The waterfall cascades down from a height of around 86 meters, creating a stunning sight. Surrounded by deodar and pine trees, it offers a peaceful escape for nature lovers. Visit Chadwick Falls during the monsoon season to see it in full glory.

Time to Explore: 1 hour Location: 7 km from Shimla near Summer Hill

10. Green Valley

Green Valley is a paradise for nature lovers and photographers. Known for its endless stretch of lush green hills and cedar forests, it offers stunning views that captivate the heart. The valley is often covered in mist, adding a mystical charm to its beauty. A stop at Green Valley is perfect for clicking some Instagram-worthy pictures or simply enjoying the calmness of nature.

Time to Explore: 1–1.5 hours Location: Near Kufri, 7 km from Shimla

Shimla is more than just a hill station; it’s an experience that stays with you forever. From its scenic beauty to its colonial charm, every corner of Shimla tells a story. To make your trip truly unforgettable, consider staying at property managed by Eco Hospitalities. Golden Fern Resort by Eco Hospitalities is one of the best Luxury Resort in Shimla, which is perfect for those looking for luxury and breathtaking views. The property is conveniently located, ensuring you can explore Shimla’s best attractions with ease. So, pack your bags, plan your itinerary, and get ready to explore the best places to visit in Shimla for a memorable adventure!

[nobletaxiuk]

Welcome to Noble Taxi – Your Trusted Taxi Service in Ashford, Kent

When you consider quality, value-for-money, and comfortable taxi rides in Ashford, Kent, consider Noble Taxi. Whether it's a trip to the airport, a local taxi ride within town, or a special event taxi ride, we've got you covered. At Noble Taxi, we're not just a taxi firm – we're your one-stop shop for all transportation requirements in Ashford!

Why Choose Noble Taxi?

Ashford, Kent, is a bustling town with plenty of things to do, see, and explore. Getting around shouldn't be stressful, which is why choosing the right taxi service ashford is essential. Here’s why we’re the best choice for you:

1. Reliable and Timely Service

At Noble Taxi, punctuality is our priority. If you have to catch a flight or attend an important meeting, we'll be there right on time. We monitor traffic, the weather, and flight schedules to make sure that we're exactly where you are when you need us.

2. Expert Drivers

Our drivers aren't just experienced on the road; they are also polite, friendly, and familiar with the local scene. Require recommendations for excellent restaurants or activities in and around Ashford? Ask us! Our drivers will always go out of their way to help make your trip even better.

3. Reasonable Prices

Traveling in Ashford must never cost an arm and a leg. We provide competitive and clear prices with no surprise fees. Whether it's a quick journey around town or a more extended airport run, we give you value for your money without sacrificing service.

4. Comfort and Safety

Your comfort and safety are our number one concern. Our taxis are maintained and cleaned to the highest level on a regular basis to provide you with a smooth and comfortable ride every time. With our modern cars, you can sit back, relax, and enjoy your ride with full peace of mind.

Our Services

Noble Taxi provides a variety of services to suit your individual needs. Here's what we have to offer:

1. Local Taxi Cab Service in Ashford

Whether you have to reach a nearby shop, a friend's place, or a business meeting, our local taxi service is at your fingertips. We are familiar with Ashford like the back of our hand, so we can drop you at any part of the town quickly and effectively. No more standing in queues or fretting about parking – just get in and let us drop you where you want to go!

2. Airport Transfers in Ashford

Planning a holiday? We'll take care of your airport transfers! Need to fly out of London Gatwick, London Heathrow, or any other local airport? We provide a hassle-free, smooth ride to and from your destination. We know how important it is to arrive at the airport on time, so we offer punctual pickups and drop-offs to keep you from ever being late.

3. Special Occasions and Events

Require a ride to a party, wedding, or any other special occasion in Ashford? Noble Taxi provides transportation services for any type of occasion. We'll ensure that you reach your destination in style, on time, and with no hassle.

4. Corporate Taxi Services

We also provide professional and trusted corporate taxi services for companies in Ashford. Whether you are transporting employees, clients, or partners, Noble Taxi offers a comfortable and timely solution for all your corporate transportation needs.

How to Book with Noble Taxi

Booking a taxi with us is easy. Simply give us a call or book online, and we’ll take care of the rest. Our customer service team is available 24/7 to assist with any inquiries or last-minute bookings.

Why Ashford Chooses Noble Taxi

As one of the top taxi operators in Ashford, we've built a name for ourselves based on excellence. We are dedicated to customer satisfaction and will do everything possible to make your trip a good one. If you're coming to Ashford for the first time or if you live in the area, Noble Taxi is your best bet to make traveling a breeze.

Contact Us Today!

Need a ride in Ashford? Don't wait around – book your next trip with Noble Taxi. We’re always ready to provide reliable, affordable, and safe transportation for all your needs. Visit our website or call us today for your next taxi ride in Ashford, Kent!

[limopro123]

Premium Airport Transportation Toronto

Premium Airport Transportation Toronto: The Ultimate Guide to Luxurious Travel

Meta Description: Experience the best premium airport transportation Toronto offers. Explore options for high-end airport transportation Toronto for a comfortable, stress-free journey.

Introduction

Traveling in comfort and style to and from Toronto Pearson International Airport can make a significant difference in your overall travel experience. Whether you’re heading to a business meeting or embarking on a vacation, premium airport transportation Toronto offers the luxury and convenience you deserve. A high-end airport transportation Toronto service goes beyond just getting you from point A to point B—it ensures a stress-free, comfortable, and stylish journey. In this guide, we’ll explore the benefits, options, and how to find the best premium airport transportation Toronto for your next trip.

Why Choose Premium Airport Transportation Toronto?

Opting for premium airport transportation Toronto comes with numerous advantages. Here’s why this service is perfect for travelers seeking comfort and efficiency:

1. Luxury and Comfort

When you book premium airport transportation Toronto, you’re choosing a seamless travel experience with top-tier amenities. Expect luxury vehicles equipped with plush interiors, ample space, climate control, and even refreshments. Whether you're flying for business or leisure, traveling in comfort can set the tone for the rest of your journey.

2. Time Efficiency

One of the key benefits of high-end airport transportation Toronto is the time it saves you. Professional chauffeurs ensure that you arrive on time, taking care of navigation and avoiding traffic. With personalized pick-up and drop-off services, you can rely on punctuality, ensuring you never miss your flight or an important event.

3. Stress-Free Experience

From the moment you step into your premium airport transportation Toronto, you’re free from the usual stresses of airport travel. Forget about long queues, parking hassles, and navigating through crowded terminals. A professional chauffeur handles everything, allowing you to sit back, relax, and focus on other matters like preparing for a meeting or unwinding after a long flight.

Types of Premium Airport Transportation Options in Toronto

When booking premium airport transportation Toronto, you have several high-end options to choose from, each designed to suit different needs and preferences.

1. Luxury Sedans

For individual travelers or small groups, a luxury sedan offers a comfortable and sophisticated choice. Equipped with leather seating and modern amenities, these vehicles offer a smooth and quiet ride to or from the airport. A high-end airport transportation Toronto service with a luxury sedan ensures you arrive in style without breaking the bank.

2. SUVs and Executive Vans

For those traveling with more luggage or in larger groups, an SUV or executive van is the perfect option. These spacious vehicles provide ample room and comfort, making them ideal for families, corporate groups, or anyone who prefers a bit more space during their journey. Premium airport transportation Toronto services offer a range of SUV and van options tailored to your needs.

3. Stretch Limousines

For the ultimate luxurious experience, a stretch limousine is the way to go. Whether you’re attending a special event or simply want to add an extra touch of luxury to your airport transfer, a stretch limo offers a spacious, glamorous ride complete with elegant interiors and premium features. High-end airport transportation Toronto providers offer limousines that can comfortably seat larger groups, making it a perfect choice for group travel.

4. Private Executive Cars

For those seeking a more personalized service, private executive cars provide a tailored transportation experience. These vehicles often come with additional amenities like Wi-Fi, entertainment systems, and more. Booking a premium airport transportation Toronto with a private executive car ensures you have complete control over your journey, from route preferences to in-car amenities.

How to Choose the Best Premium Airport Transportation Toronto

When selecting premium airport transportation Toronto, there are several factors to keep in mind to ensure you get the best service:

1. Reputation and Reviews

Look for services with strong reputations and positive customer reviews. A good reputation is key to finding a reliable high-end airport transportation Toronto provider. Online reviews on trusted platforms can give you insight into the quality of service, punctuality, and professionalism of the chauffeurs.

3. Pricing Transparency

Choose a provider that offers clear, upfront pricing. A transparent premium airport transportation Toronto service will ensure no hidden fees or surprise charges. Make sure you understand the pricing structure, including factors like hourly rates, distance, and any additional amenities or services.

4. Availability and Flexibility

Your travel schedule may change, so look for services that offer flexibility. A reputable high-end airport transportation Toronto provider should be able to accommodate changes in timing or last-minute bookings, especially for those with tight schedules.

Cost of Premium Airport Transportation Toronto

The cost of premium airport transportation Toronto can vary depending on factors such as the type of vehicle, the distance, and any additional services requested. On average, prices range from $70 to $200 CAD or more, depending on the vehicle and the service provider.

1. Vehicle Type

As mentioned earlier, the type of vehicle you choose will impact the price. A luxury sedan may cost less than an executive van or stretch limo. Prices for a high-end airport transportation Toronto service typically start around $70 for sedans and can go up to $200 or more for larger vehicles or limousines.

2. Distance

The distance between your location and the airport plays a significant role in pricing. Long-distance rides, especially from downtown Toronto to Pearson International Airport, may cost more. Some providers charge by the hour, while others base the fare on the distance traveled.

3. Additional Services

Some premium airport transportation Toronto providers offer extra amenities, such as bottled water, Wi-Fi, or in-car entertainment. These services may come at an additional cost but can enhance your overall experience.

Tips for Booking Premium Airport Transportation Toronto

To ensure you have a smooth and hassle-free experience, follow these tips when booking your high-end airport transportation Toronto:

Book in advance: Especially during peak travel seasons, booking ahead ensures availability and the best rates.

Confirm flight details: Provide accurate flight information to ensure timely pickups and drop-offs.

Consider additional services: If you need extra features such as Wi-Fi or child seats, discuss these with your provider at the time of booking.

Check for discounts: Some services offer discounts for round-trip bookings or corporate clients, so be sure to ask.

Conclusion

Premium airport transportation Toronto is the perfect way to ensure a comfortable, luxurious, and stress-free journey to or from Toronto Pearson International Airport. Whether you choose a luxury sedan, an SUV, or a stretch limousine, high-end transportation services offer convenience and style for travelers of all types. By considering factors like vehicle type, pricing, and reviews, you can find the best high-end airport transportation Toronto service for your next trip.

Make your next airport transfer one to remember with premium transportation that guarantees luxury, comfort, and efficiency.

[bracknellairporttransfer]

Affordable Travel: Your Guide to Cheap Airport Taxi Services

Traveling can be stressful, especially when trying to get from the airport to your destination. Whether you’re arriving in a new city or heading home after a vacation, the last thing you want is to deal with expensive and unreliable transportation. Luckily, there are cheap airport taxi options available that will take you to your destination without breaking the bank.

Why Choose Cheap Airport Taxi Services?

When traveling, the convenience of booking a cheap airport taxi is unmatched. These services offer competitive rates, comfort, and reliability—ensuring that your journey from the airport is as smooth and stress-free as possible. Whether you're heading to a hotel, business meeting, or exploring a new city, affordable airport taxis provide a reliable solution for all travelers.

Key Benefits of Choosing a Taxi Heathrow Airport Taxi

If you're flying into Heathrow Airport, one of the busiest airports in the world, you may feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of transportation options available. However, choosing a Taxi Heathrow Airport Taxi can provide many advantages:

Fixed Prices: Most airport taxis offer fixed rates, eliminating the guesswork when it comes to costs.

24/7 Availability: Whether you're landing early in the morning or late at night, you can rely on Heathrow taxis to be there when you need them.

Comfortable and Efficient: Airport taxis are designed to be comfortable, ensuring you arrive at your destination rested and ready to go.

Experienced Drivers: Professional drivers know the fastest and most efficient routes, saving you time and hassle.

Book Your Taxi Heathrow Airport Taxi in Advance

Booking your Taxi Heathrow Airport Taxi in advance is the best way to guarantee a smooth journey. Many taxi services, like Bracknell Airport Transfer, offer online booking options, making it easy to reserve a ride in advance. This ensures that a driver will be waiting for you when you land, and you won’t have to worry about long queues or overpriced rides at the airport.

Affordable and Reliable Airport Transfers

If you're traveling from Heathrow Airport to Bracknell or surrounding areas, consider booking a cheap airport taxi service like Bracknell Airport Transfer. They offer affordable, efficient, and reliable transfers with a fleet of well-maintained vehicles, ensuring that your journey is both comfortable and budget-friendly.

Conclusion

When it comes to airport travel, you don’t need to spend a fortune on transportation. Cheap airport taxi services and Taxi Heathrow Airport Taxi options provide a stress-free way to get to your destination without breaking the bank. By booking in advance and choosing a reliable service like Bracknell Airport Transfer, you can enjoy a hassle-free and affordable ride to your destination.

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Top 5 Benefits of Using Private Transfers in Cape Town

Navigating unfamiliar transportation options after a long flight can be a daunting task. Hire a Private Airport Transfers in Cape Town that can lessen your traveling stress. They offer hired services for getting from the airport to your accommodation.

Top 5 benefits of booking a private airport transfer in Cape Town:

Seamless Arrival Experience:

When stepping off the plane with excitement, you might be met with long taxi queues or confusing public transport schedules. However, Private transfers eliminate this hassle. Your driver will be waiting for you in the terminal when you arrive by air. It means that you don’t need to sit down and wait until your turn gets called. A friendly driver will assist you in the process of baggage check-in or luggage settlement.

Direct Route to Relaxation:

Public transportation could be efficient but it may take a longer time when one has to make several drops. With a private transfer, you are going to succeed in avoiding some additional time-wasting. This might be perfect if you are tight on time.

Personalized Insights:

Many private transfer drivers are locals who offer insights into the best routes. You can ask them about the hidden gems, must-see attractions, and restaurants. And this will help you to enjoy the journey.

Flexibility and Comfort:

Private transfers are personalized and meet your needs. Are you planning a family or, in large group traveling? Professional services help you acquire appropriate spacious vehicles that meet the number of people in your group and your luggage. They are not only spacious but are equipped with so many modem facilities for travelers.

Peace of Mind:

Sometimes unfamiliar surroundings can cause a bit of apprehension. When you are hiring a private transfer you have a driver with an experience in the city. Rest assured that you will arrive at your destination safely and securely. It leaves you without worry, so you can enjoy your holiday.

Pre-book Your Transfer for Added Convenience:

Don’t wait for the last time. Reputed taxi companies offer an online booking system to book your private transfer in advance.

Research different providers online and choose the one that best suits your budget. Many services also offer discounts for regular passengers. Compare quotes from different providers to get the best deal.

You need proper planning. Looking for Private Airport Transfers in Cape Town? Count on us. Enter your pickup & dropoff locations or the number of hours you wish to book a car and driver. We are a reputed taxi company, offering the best yet affordable deal. Visit www.shuttlecapetown.co.za for more information.

Resource - https://shuttlecapetown.travel.blog/2024/12/26/top-5-benefits-of-using-private-transfers-in-cape-town/