#somebody put me on a game dev team

[amicus-siderum]

I think it'd be nice if in Genshin they added the main characters into the playable world- eg. seeing Amber at the Good Hunter, or finding Zhongli at the storyteller's place and being able to interact with them. Kinda hangout style except it's not a quest or anything major. Just a fun little interaction!

I think this would make for a more interactive and realistic experience. As you know, the players love their favourite character's greatly, and often complain about not having enough interactions with them, so I believe that making them occasionally appear outside of quests would be a great solution to that.

Here are some examples I've come up with:

- Diluc can be found on Mondstadt's city wall at night, and when you try to interact with him, he is very awkwardly trying to hide his Darknight Hero identity

- Lisa can be found in the KoF library sometimes, sipping tea and reading a romance novel, and when you interact with her, she invites you to read together

- Noelle can be found around the Favonius Headquarters performing her maidly duties, and when interacted with, she says she's quite busy but will try her best to aid you in any way she can

- Jean can be found in her office late at night, and when interacted with, you can try to coerce her into resting by doing some of her work for her

- Kaeya can be found walking around the streets of Mond at any time of the day, and when interacted with, he invites you for a walk together while gaining intel from the other residents

- Beidou can be found on the Alcor, and when interacted with, she sings sea shanties or offers to tell you of her adventures out at sea

- Ningguang can be found in the Jade Chamber in the early mornings, and when interacted with, she entertains you with a philosophical discussion and is amused by your responses

- Childe can be found around and about Liyue Harbor, and when interacted with, he ends up giving you mora to "buy yourself something nice"

- Thoma can be found at Komore Teahouse in the afternoons, and when interacted with, you receive consumable food thanks to his caring nature

- Sayu can sometimes be spotted in her barrel camouflage, and when you try to interact with her, she says bad inconspicuous things such as "I am just a normal barrel, no need to concern yourself with me"

- Yoimiya can be encountered when interacting with her father at Naganohara Fireworks, and when interacted with, she gives you fireworks and you set

[iodrawsandtalks]

Criticism of Penacony and why i think HYV shouldve quit while they were ahead.

//vent towards the end, references to suicide while those references are quest spoilers Recently I've been doing world quests and grinding out the new region and been repeatedly finding myself walking straight into microagressions and slights to the point where it's been jarring enough for me to put my game down. As a black dude playing HYV games i know well enough not to act like the stupid billion dollar game company cares about appealing to minorities but its 2024 man.

First off, the obvious issue. Penacony has been repeatedly mentioned by the devs themselves to be based off of the Jazz Age from the U.S. a few decades ago.

The Jazz age was a period of time in American History between the 1920's and 1930s where the popularity of Jazz just boomed from being like an indie type of music to one of worldwide popularity. Obviously, Black people in that era are wholly responsible for Jazz itself.

So yeah, Penacony takes its origins from a key black history movement. Penacony, the region that released at the start of February. Black History Month. Star Rail is arguably one of the most popular games right now in terms of outreach because it's free, its new, and its colorful/futurisric etc.... And yet....

Just like with the rest of the HYV games that take real world inspirations, they fucked over black people and their stories.

In Honkai Impact 3rd, basically we had this one black girl who's like sandpaper brown and complains about how much her DARK SKIN ruins her look and how she bleaches her skin using various products to keep it lighter. She is ashamed of her DARK SKINNED mother who's a military woman. Her father is absent. Her mother is also a grown adult who is a B-rank soldier(main character white teenagers are S-rank for reference). Carole Peppers is her name if you want to go further down that rabbit hole.

In Genshin Impact, besides the fact that people with different skin tones are CLEARLY sectioned into certain regions(no seriously there's no real reason why i shouldnt see a black person in any of the existing regions.), and besides the unnecessary amount of whitewashing and besides the perpetuation of the idea of melanin NOT being natural, every single brown/black character in the game has awful playstyles and/or poor matching with weapons/artifacts, inaccessibilty, and they NEVER make it to the top of any meta tierlists. I'm not outright saying they're bad they're just harder and almost never get specialized weapons.

The only previously relevant example in Star Rail was Arlan, a lightning/destruction character. He chews through his own HP and unlike characters like blade/clara, does not have resistance or healing to handle that. Serval, the other lightning 4 star, out-dps's him veryyyyyyy easily. So yeah, the ashy black person character basically dies if you use him for too long and is never relevant TO ANY quests except where he needs to be the sidekick.

sometimes these games have dragons, animals that can understand and process english, or magic.... but then not black people...

Penacony has no black main characters. No black stories of relevance. Yesterday found an NPC whose name was detracted from chocolate and the player had the option to let commit suicide.

yeah ill get to that 💀. This large mass of at least 4 supernatural looking characters and yet no black person. NOT EVEN ANY OF THE CHARACTERS FROM penacony itself are black.

so yesterday I was grinding clockwork quests and had to help out some apathetic shopkeeper named Cocona. Her story was almost a bit sad but midway into going through her background i realized her name is one letter off of cocoa. now imagine being on a creative team coming up with a name for a melanated NPC and somebody decides on fucking CHOCOLATE with an extra letter. before anybody implies that one was something i shoehorned, think about how itd go if i had a bunch of POC characters and one white girl named crackerella.

Cocona and her once again sad backstory reach a hard tipping point as the player follows her to the edge of a building and can either grab her to stop her from jumping or simply let her end her life jumping off the building.

Yes we've seen how this game lets you make choices and watch the consequences of your actions, but there have been established rule-breaking predecents. Take Ruan Mei's quest where you have no choice but to eat the cake she offers you and once again lose the ability to make a choice on saying anything related to her. or any time the trailblazer gets pushed into a fight and cannot de-escalate. ....with this in mind consider why was saving the cocoa girl from killing herself NOT a forced option.

normally id be the kind of silly person looking for lore bits and stuff and making theories, (like how clockie is from the path of elation :v)but as a black dude this whole region is disgusting. THEY ARE GENTRIFIYING JAZZ AND COVERING UP ITS BLACK ORIGINS idk who said HYV cared about their audiences they fucking dont.

wouldve posted this on reddit but whoop dee do i am NOT getting doxxed today.

[beevean]

I'd have to disagree there

The handling of Hector's character alone surpasses the way Samus was treated in her own game

Sure, having Samus being reduced to a submissive little kid for the sake of douchebag who we're told is supposed to care for her is awful

...but it doesn't even come close to the sistematic stripping down of Hector's literal personhood, nor does it come off nearly as masturbatory. Sure having Samus in her Zero Suit during crucial moments of vulnerability is in supremely bad taste and I have no doubt that somebody in the dev team had a hand down their pants, but Hector is literally with his dick hanging out in the open on screen, he gets treated like a literal dog and is raped on screen for no real good reason other than shock value, same with Alucard, only for him to get mocked about it by Lenore in front of her sisters as she straddles her leg between his legs causing him to recoil in disgust-yeah no nothing in OM is even remotely in the same ball park, S3 may have more forgettable moments but when it gets bad it's not simply offensive

I can't accuse Other M of any of this, not even at its worse.

Plus at least OM has Anthony so at least it has one likeable character going for it. What's NFCV's excuse?

Bro, you have seen the insane rants I go on when someone mentions N!Hector. I 100% agree with you that his writing is beyond disgusting, humiliating, spiteful, mean, and it uses literal dehumanizing (both in-universe and meta-wise, since again, Hector barely counts as a character after S2) as fetish material, to then turn around and shove into my face the accidental theme that real maturity is forgiving your abusers if they're nice enough to you. And yes, thankfully Adam doesn't deceive Samus into sex with the purpose of forcing her to work for him. Yay.

(and thank you for reminding me of Lenore touching Hector's crotch with her foot as she gloated that he was inside of her when she put the ring on him. So much care went into humiliating him in all sorts of ways. Oh but go on and tell me how Lenore always meant well, even back then.)

But spirit-wise? OM Samus and N!Hector have a lot in common.

They are much, much weaker, meeker and more passive than the versions most people are familiar with (or were, in Hector's case :^) ). This was allegedly done in the name of "giving them depth".

Their weakness (dare I say femininity, since Hector is very much designed and written to be a feminine man compared to others) is a prominent plot point in their story. You cannot escape from the plot beating you over and over about how pathetic they are.

They are repeatedly compared to children, in a derogatory way and maybe even nonsensical. Samus calls herself a child because she disliked being picked on for being a woman and for daring to be worried about Adam's brother; Hector is called by others a manchild because he loves animals and trusted Dracula.

They accomplish nothing substantial in the story - and here OM is worse because Samus is the protagonist of the story, of the whole franchise! Well, NFCV does the same with Trevor, so I guess it compensates, hah. Even when they could do something, the story repeatedly blocks them and gives the moment of glory to someone else - Adam and Anthony for Samus, Isaac for Hector.

They mindlessly defer to an abusive figure who shows no care nor empathy for them, who orders them around like a dog and even physically subdues them.

Said abusive figure is beloved by them, with little to no turmoil. The ending of their stories is a touching moment meant to make you feel sorry for these two characters who caused nothing but harm. (at least Adam sacrificed himself for a good cause, unlike Lenore who just flounced out of an uncomfortable situation)

They are both sexualized - yes, Hector's story in S3 is nothing but him being submissive and breedable, yes they took care of drawing his penis while he was getting beaten to an inch of his life in case he wasn't miserable enough, but that doesn't make Samus' gratuituous ass shots during dramatic scenes that much better.

Again, don't get me wrong, you will never catch me defending anything from that foul show that fills me with nothing but bile and anger. But I'm not forgetting how OM made me viscerally uncomfortable too, and being less bad doesn't mean it's not bad.

The only difference is that OM got so much shit since it came out that at this point there is nothing to add to the conversation. Everyone has eviscerated Adam and plucked his bones clean, we all know how awful he is. NFCV is still beloved by and large, Lenector is still hella popular and touted as a tragic romance that should have ended with them getting together, I still read with my own poor eyeballs horrible takes about that story that would not fly if the genders were reversed (going back to the foot thing, imagine a man groping a woman's breasts for the sake of making fun of her), and this is the source of my anger.

... uhhhh well NFCV has the captain who lols and lmaos at Isaac's face for his edgy misanthropy? Can he count as the show's only saving grace?

[sapphire-weapon]

what happened with leon/ada in the ending of re6? i know i could just google it but was there something symbolic? bc somebody told me that they got together at the end of it. which i am sure i am being trolled (i haven’t played it and don’t plan on)

you are being trolled. the opposite happens.

ada gets injured by simmons, and leon has a really kind of horrifying manic breakdown where he starts to reject reality. but he ultimately kills simmons and saves ada. ada then fucks off in classic ada fashion. helena tells leon to go after her. leon looks ada dead in the face from across a building and then tells helena "no."

ada then leaves evidence absolving leon and helena of simmons's crimes that they had been accused of in a lil makeup compact with colors that DO NOT SUIT ADA idk who the fuck on the dev team put that shit together. and at the very end of the game, helena gives the compact to leon and goes "for when you see her again" and he basically gives a response that's like "lmao ok"

[kaiasky]

what exactly *is* blaseball? democratic calvinball simulator?

yeah thats approximately it. i might also compare it to dwarf fortress or goncharovposting

At its base level, there's a simulator that runs a play-by-play of a baseball game. "Caligula Lotus batting for the Flowers.... Ball 1-0... Foul Ball 1-1.... Caligula Lotus hit a ground out to Isaac Johnson".

There's an economy on top of this, where by picking players/teams who do well, one can earn money that can be used to influence the game. For instance in the past there's been various "decrees" and the one with the most votes becomes a new rule:

but like. then there's this other layer of fan engagement and nonsense. which is why the goncharov comparison comes up. because like, the characters are all blank slates, you can post a silly headcanon about your speciallest little guy. and 2 days later maybe you see somebody else incorporate that into their fanart. or completely contradict it but now u just have two contradictory versions of ur speciallest little guy.

(and then the sim is like. 'hey uhh i rolled some random numbers and um. ur speciallest little guy? we put him in a blender. yeah. like a smoothie')

a lot of it is for me just like, people make music and fanart and do weird data analysis projects like how there's earth-baseball stat junkies. the joy of being in a sports team or a fandom. telling stories about the past. 'do you remember when the Tacos got rid of all their pitchers so the devs gave them a pitching machine' 'oh yeah, pitching machine! didnt they turn into a vampire??' its silly its fun its surprisingly affecting

[each-dustbin1]

Okay, I need to make a post about this, because I kept quiet about it when it happened, but it needs to be said if this game is getting attention on here

The game is mediocre at best and the dev is a giant asshole

For context, I am a GIGANTIC fighting game fan, I will play anything and everything for a few minutes of fun, so when this was in development I was excited, and I bought it days after it came out. On release, the game wouldn't launch properly, and it wasn't fixed for a good couple of months. When I finally got my hands on it, it was fun for a little bit but was ultimately just an unfinished fighter with some barebones gameplay, and it didn't even have a proper training mode. I ended up eventually leaving a steam review, for myself more than anybody else because i'm just some random guy, and I move onto other things, wondering if maybe the game will get improved some day

Eventually, I get a response on my steam profile, asking for clarification on some stuff in my review, in a bit of an asshole way but whatever..... but strangely, they also seem to think i'm planning to release Vita Fighters?

I did not make Vita Fighters, I am not a dev of any kind, Vita Fighters was already released in fact, as a mobile fighter with an upcoming steam port (I think they assumed it was unreleased because I left a review on the steam page and didn't know its origins). So I talk to them, kind of in a dickish way myself, and say i'm not a dev while explaining my review. Which then gets followed up with this

(And here is the image they linked by the way, which they also put in their artwork page on their profile)

Some bizarre attempt at calling me, who's 19 at the time, a marketing team member for a random indie company because I made a comment on a video made by somebody who makes content videos of the game (Dayheyzeus is great by the way, check them out)

I was pretty involved in the Vita Fighters community at the time, so I wasn't as alarmed as I should have been reading this, thinking maybe it was some bizarre misunderstanding, but it's worth knowing that they didn't mention the discord sever or even any other Vita Fighters content channel, which were the only ways I interacted with the game. After this they stopped messaging me, and I didn't end up posting this anywhere other than the Vita Fighters discord server, thinking they might end up harassing me over it.

Well guess what shows up when you look at their other steam reviews.

The topmost review has a comment by the dev accusing the reviewer of using ChatGPT and getting called out for doing that

Another review has the dev rudely responding to somebody complaining about a complete lack of basic features, while also somehow not understanding what a fighting game training mode even is? It's very unprofessional to say the least

Even a review a few days ago is complaining about it crashing, which should tell you that these problems are definitely still not fixed

Hell, some of the game's main selling points, a "Prophet Mode" and whatever this is supposed to be

Are not explained AT ALL in game, and even the store page barely does it, which is a pretty big deal when both are things that are completely unique and have never been implemented in a fighting game before..... how are you supposed to understand them right after booting it up???

I can't link my steam profile on here for whatever reason but it's free to search up yourself to see the texts for yourself (I left out a lot of my rambly messages here for the sake of space), because it really is scummy. This game is a cool concept, but do not let that fool you. The dev is a prick who'd rather slander you for leaving a negative steam review than fix their own game. Don't give Write n Fight any of your attention.

furious that i am not a playable character in this game

[madmaryholiday]

with the caveat that i did in fact like the silent hill 2 remake quite a bit, here's my one major gripe with the story (spoilers under the cut) :

the way james acts in the remake is so fundamentally different to how he acted in the original game that it's almost like watching a different story entirely. and it's hard to point to examples because a lot of it is in subtle dialog and body language changes, but i guess the simplest way to put it is that remake!james actually seems like he cares about other people, whereas original!james consistently acts annoyed by the other characters he meets and how they distract him from his objective.

and it's so weird how this snowballs into him basically being a different character by the time we get the reveal that he killed his wife. in the original, our reaction is one of horror, then the realization that yeah, he totally seems like the type who would pretend to mercy-kill his sick wife when he was really just tired of her.

in the remake, it really does seem like james killed mary because she begged him to. and that is a compelling story, yes, but it's a very different one to the original SH2. OG!james killed mary in a purely selfish act and then realized he missed her. and we see his selfishness and disregard for the feelings and personhood of other people through every interaction he has with other characters in the game. the remake softens his edges until he's apologizing to maria before the final boss fight and trying to let her down gently.

it's maybe not QUITE this extreme, but it reminds me of when people try to give romeo & juliet a happy ending. like sure, you can write a story where the star-crossed overs triumph through the power of love, but that wouldn't BE romeo & juliet. the story is a tragedy. the lovers have to die. and i feel like for silent hill 2, james HAS to be a walking sack of red flags for the story to BE silent hill 2.

btw, i kinda feel like the devs acknowledged this with the changes to the UFO joke ending: instead of harry coming down from the spaceship to ask about his daughter, it's OG!james telling remake!james that he's a clone and he has to go home now. then OG!james takes his place and is implied to continue with the story. it's still very silly, and i'm sure it was changed mostly because the OG joke ending referenced a game new players wouldn't be familiar with, but like. can you blame me for seeing that and going "somebody on the team realized they were making remake!james waaaaay OOC, huh?"

again, i really liked the remake. it's just really weird to be actively sympathizing with and LIKING a character that has until now been thoroughly unlikable by design.

[scrawnytreedemon]

Can’t sleep, mind going precisely 56 miles an hour, so I think I’ll finally get around to writing this.

Couples days back, I went ahead and finally psyched myself up to do the Zant bossfight.

Because I’d picked up where I’d left off yesterday, which was just before the boss room, obviously I was taken back to the beginning of the area. This gave the whole ordeal a trek, if a short one, what with the Palace of Twilight’s laughable length, and me more time to think.

I didn’t want to do this.

It sounds stupid, but I really didn’t want to do this. I’d cried the day before trying to psych myself up and failing, and I’d cried then, before the boss door, stalling by sweeping away the crystal-fog as best I could-- A meagre attempt at housekeeping, and a futile one. Of course I couldn’t. This isn’t that sort of game. This isn’t a game for failed attempts at kindness, at least trying to clean this awful, awful place for an awful, awful man going through awful, awful things. I was supposed to be a hero.

Heroes don’t make beds.

They don’t wash dishes, or hang laundry, or hold a rival’s hand,

They kill.

The trek didn’t stop past the door, either.

We still had to walk up the stairs. To the throne.

To him.

And I was there, laugh-crying, wishing I didn’t have to. That I could skip this pathetic ordeal.

I tried to turn around and leave.

Despite it only looking like a larger one of the many, many doors we’ve passed through this awful, nonsensical, poorly-designed excuse for a palace that no one could ever live in, it didn’t budge. There wasn’t any turning back. I had to go forward, because this is an action game, and violence is key.

The game takes the reigns. Link walks up to the throne, sword drawn, despite my deliberate decision to sheathe it. The narrative begins again. Midna sneers, and throws a taunt at him.

Zant sits, and smiles. Smiles like he thinks he still has some form of control, or knows full well he’s lost it.

You know, when I was working through the Palace of Twilight, I’d come to the realisation that... Zant locked himself in the throneroom. From the outside. Logistically, despite the good laugh I had over this guy locking himself in from the fucking outside, where his opponents can grab the key, he could get out easily-- teleportation and all. But even that aside, it still spoke to a level of hasty panic, that he would even keep the key outside, behind a waterfall of yet more shitty fog-crytals in the hopes that would deter them. Deter us.

How long had the guy been here, alone in that room?

We all know what happens next. Despite this being my first playthrough, I’ve probably seen this cutscene a dozen times. Zant has what amounts to an overly-dramatised autistic meltdown expositing himself and his motivations. That he was upset and felt like everything he’d worked for had been taken away from him. That he was angry, angry and fed up of being relegated to a half-existence. Midna retorts, Zant wails some more.

What gets me is that, when Ganondorf visits him, engulfs him in this flaming ball of fucked-magical-fuckery, he just. Stares. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t do anything. Ganondorf speaks as though he’s already decided that, yes, you will do, we will make a pact and rule Everything together; I will live on through you.

Did Zant even agree to this?

I think, subconsciously or not, he accepted it, but it begs the question of whether or not Zant was capable enough to partake in it.

Whatever the answer, he’s clearly not capable enough to partake in this. This fight.

It’s laughable, that I’m expected to find victory in this.

The fight was a fucking slog, 90% of the time. Some of these boss-battles I hadn’t played in nearly two years thanks to the impromptu hiatuses I’m so fond of taking, so I didn’t know what the fuck I was meant to be doing half the time-- And when I did, it lagged to shit everytime this poor bastard fired projectiles, because I was playing on the gamepad, because why on earth would I play this on the goddamn TV? It was a sad, pitiful encounter that I had to laugh my way through and also mumble “what the fuck“ on several occasions because I guess somebody at Nintendo ate cheese before bed and the dev team were so desperate to patch something together for this guy’s sudden crisis that they threw it in-- I’m obviously having a good laugh, but What The Fuck.

I knock the guy down in the last phase of the battle, the only one where he isn’t mimicking something else and dizzies himself spinning like a hyperactive child, and the game takes the reigns again. Midna prepares her hair. I look away-- I’ve seen it before, many times before, and it’s cartoonishly grotesque for a game that relies heavily on somber semi-realism. Midna has her own crisis-- And yeah, yeah bossbabe, I feel it.

It cuts back, and there’s a Heart Container on the guy’s throne.

I.

I killed a guy, and now I’m collecting his lifeforce. I stormed into the bunged-up attempt of a fortress conjured up as a last defense by a man who’s fallen head-first into insanity, tore through any meagre security measure like butter, murder the guy when he’s having an episode, he dies a fucked up death, and then I collect his lifeforce.

Is that fucked up or what?

For all of Zelda’s endless violence, rarely do you actually kill “people.“ It’s the kind of stuff reserved for the end, for Ganondorf, or some other corrupted nigh-demigod on the brink of losing their humanity, or never having possessed it.

We kill Zant.

Zant barely puts up a fight, and we kill him. Zant gets summoned from the netherworld by Ganondorf in Hyrule Warriors; we put him there in the first place.

If we were to view this from a literal, like this shit actually happened and these characters are to be held accountable standpoint, then what we did was justified-- If not wholly, then mostly. Zant got power-hungry, committed what amounts to a bio-terroristic coup on the government, disfigured his rival, a woman notorious for her beauty, then proceeded to attempt the same thing with Hyrule, leading to the indirect death of at least the people who got transfigured into Shadow-Beasts in Kakariko, and attacks you first, then yeah, no biggie?

But I’ll be fucking real with you chief, I don’t find it... I don’t know, persuasive? Effective? Compelling, would be the best word, to think of it that way?

What Zant is, is a narrative tool. One that was set up to be this big, bad interloper who you need to Take Down and Save Everything, as per usual Zelda format. The justification for why we should hate him, if I’m going to be honest, feels contrived, most of the time. He does some bad thing off-screen, Midna gets pissed, Midna and everyone within a 12-mile radius explains why we should be pissed in a way that often feels borderline developer-hand-y-- And that’s. Well that’s how Zelda usually is.

It’s justification to commit violence.

--To be clear, I don’t say this in a political sense. I mean it in the very literal “hit/kill a guy“ sense. And in all honesty, that’s kinda inherent to the ethos of action games. We enjoy catharsis-- We enjoy taking down big things, it’s satisfying! I’ve played a little Hyrule Warriors-- Loved the feel of it. Violence is inherent to even the most benign of action games, and it is what it is.

Where it falls short for me, is that with Zant, I don’t feel like I’m taking down some great foe that I should justifiably hate.

I feel like I’m a clearly more equipped person breaking into a room, and bludgeoning a mentally ill person.

I’m autistic. I may slot in easier to NT society than most, but I am autistic, and it makes me deeply uncomfortable to see something I’ve fucking gone through be used carelessly as flavour for a prelude to violence. I have meltdowns. They’re relatively rare, and mostly in my room, alone, but I’ve also experienced one out in public. It was only sobbing, but there’s a special kind of horror, of humilation in knowing other people, strangers, family, what have you, are seeing it, and all you can think is how much you failed.

I can’t fully articulate why I cried so much during this, quite frankly, menial ordeal. I’m half-embarrassed to even talk about it-- Because then that means caring too much, and I can’t care too much over a poorly-justified character that wasn’t even intended to be sympathised with and that most of the fandom laughs at. And I can’t say I blame them.

I guess at the end of the day it comes down to the ever-present pity; some strange, childish commiseration I’d indulged in ever since I was six and cooing over Bowser and how awful everything was for him, that despite my continuous efforts, I can’t ever seem to explain.

I didn’t like the Zant fight. It felt empty,

And all did was sweep cobwebs and try to turn back.

[askagamedev]

If an interviewer asked me the reason why am I fired/resign from my last job, how do I answer?

The shorter answer is “diplomatically but honestly”. The longer answer “with a good answer you’ve prepared and practiced ahead of time”. 

In order to understand what kind of answer you want to give, it helps to understand what question the interviewer is actually asking. The interviewer isn’t actually asking why you left your last job, the interviewer is looking for reasons why they shouldn’t hire you. They want to make sure that, should you be hired, you aren’t going to cause trouble for the company. The specific dealbreakers that the interviewer is looking for with this question are usually outright lying, trash talking your former employer, or an angry/bad attitude. 

I shouldn’t have to tell you why lying is a dealbreaker - I don’t think anybody wants to work with a liar. Big lies like why a candidate left a former job at an interview are often found out pretty quickly - the game industry is pretty small. It isn’t difficult to find somebody in the grapevine who is a candidate’s former coworker, and nobody likes working with a jerk. If a candidate answers this question with an eyebrow-raising answer in an interview, we can often do a quick reference check to see if they were telling the truth. 

If a candidate trash talks one former employer, then the interviewer can immediately imagine the candidate eventually leaving the interviewing company and trash talking them as well. Nobody likes having their dirty laundry aired, especially if the candidate isn’t necessarily a good one. If the candidate has a bad attitude at the interview about this, it’s easy to imagine them having a bad attitude while working with the team. Nobody wants to put up with that.

Your best bet is to have an answer prepared - a diplomatic, but honest one. The least eyebrow-raising answer is “I was part of a larger layoff”, since that speaks to circumstances and not necessarily personal performance. Inability to work with somebody can be described as a “bad fit” - you were looking for X, while they were looking for Y, so you found it better to mutually part ways. If the prior job loss is due to performance reasons, you should make careful preparations about how you want to discuss it. You can say something like “In retrospect, I realize that my skillset wasn’t suited to the former role. That led to friction on the team and ultimately to my dismissal. I’ve since learned and grown significantly and believe that I am a much better fit today for this position”.

Don’t just think about how you’d answer the question - prepare for it beforehand with someone you trust to give honest feedback. Take their feedback to heart and improve your answer. Make sure that you’re ready to give it when asked - the delivery is almost as important as the content. If you come across as nervous while giving your answer, it may not seem genuine to the interviewer. You know they’ll ask, so practice it.

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[hoxooster]

Yeah, it was purdy hype back in the day. Most of us practically had bees in our blood--also the large influx of reinvigorated Wolfhox content was nice to witness and be a part of at the time. The trailer really rocked us all to our carbon-enriched cores and lit a fire under our asses.

Annnnnd, yeah. The surprises of more contemporary Payday aren’t really... good, aye. Most of the time it’s something cool that’s followed by frustration or even outrage. This is because--and I will always maintain this--that Almir has never been trained in PR work and he puts his foot in his mouth a lot. He’s not the only one on the dev team that does this, but he’s pushed to the forefront a lot and he actively puts himself out there all the time--which, if you’re trained in PR, you know that you shouldn’t do that. But, anyway, enough complaining, otherwise we’ll be here for hours.

I, personally, don’t think Houston’s coming back. Unless! they change his voice actor. Derek Ray was always one of the VAs that came in the least to update his lines (If you think that current Wolf is bad, Houston was actually WORSE for a long while). So, if Hous is in the new game, they’ll most likely change his VA as well. Only time will tell.

Thank you for your kind words, but I also know that my blog doesn’t contain all of the content that was uploaded over the years. There were things that I just refused to reblog ‘cause I didn’t agree with them for certain reasons. Also because of bad actors at the time who were doing or saying horrible shit--as an example, I even went back and removed some things because of a specific person’s outwardly transphobic behavior on another site (and because they were also trying to do that shit here and began targeting other users). A handful of posts were lost in the Tumblr Porn Purge when the algorithm got nasty and targeted the weirdest shit--I was only able to appeal about 3 or 4 of them to get them back. Others still were lost thanks to the Tumblr Exodus. Read mores suddenly led to dead links and entire posts were left as the top, ripped off pieces of something that used to be great (a lot of fics and art were essentially burned to ash overnight by this). But! I’m not the only source for old Payday posts. Some of the Old Guard from a couple of the different eras of this fandom are still kicking around on here--I’ve actually been following a few of them after all these years--and they still have the posts on their blogs. *Taps the side of my nose.* You just need to know where to look~

And, yeah, I’m sticking around. I still deeply love these games, even with my hang ups. Plus, somebody’s gotta be the grandpa around here, and it’s been me for years now.

Anyone from the payday the heist days, I'm very curious how it was like with hoxton being revealed to come back. And how was it like with the reveal being a fricking Christmas album?

[spencers-renaissance]

Foolishly, Completely Falling

Summary: Spencer declines to spend the night with Luke, but there's a reason for that, and things start to click into place when Spencer shows back up at his doorstep at 2am, hours after being dropped home.

Tags: hurt/comfort, fluff, angst, past toxic relationship, nightmares, est/dev relationship

Pairing: Luke x Spencer

Word count: 2.5k

Read on AO3

When Luke asks Spencer if he wants to stay the night for the first time, he isn’t as quick to agree like Luke expects. The TV is playing a game show on low volume and they’re lying comfortably together on the sofa, quietly enjoying one another’s company after a busy day. They’d had a lovely evening out at the Mexican restaurant Luke had managed to convince Spencer to try before a cuddle and far too much making out on the sofa, so he’s feeling pretty good when he whispers the question into his boyfriend’s ear. Instead of the excited agreement he expects, though -- after all, the first night in the same bed with a new partner is always exhilarating -- Spencer freezes. 

“Hey,” Luke says, tone quickly sobering up. He shifts a little to get a better look at his boyfriend’s face, worried he’d said the wrong thing. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, baby. We can just cuddle a little longer and then I’ll drive you home, yeah? Whatever you want.”

The kind voice he uses seems to slowly shake Spencer out of his frozen trance, gradually pulling himself up from the quicksand of his thoughts to respond to Luke. “No, I want to,” he explains slowly, thankful Luke is so patient when he tries to articulate complicated feelings. “There’s just… it’s because-- I don’t know how to tell you.” He sighs in defeat as he fails to tell his boyfriend how he feels, slumping down a little as he relaxes his previously stiffened muscles, collapsing into the warmth and safety of Luke’s chest. 

“You don’t have to justify it, Spencer,” Luke says earnestly, running his hands up and down Spencer’s arms gently as his face contorts with worry, a small sense of relief coming from the feeling of his boyfriend physically relaxing under his touch. He can’t help but feel a sinking pit of fear in his stomach that maybe he’s made a massive misstep, maybe Spencer isn’t as into this as he is, maybe there’s something really, really wrong.

Instead of voicing his concerns, though, he simply revels in the moment: Spencer’s head on his chest, his body flush against his own as their breathing syncs and they take in the last few moments of peace before the world switches back on and they have to part ways. 

If only he could stop his tumbling mind and enjoy it properly. 

★

Spencer seems mostly recovered from the awkward moment by the time they clamber into Luke’s car to drive him back home. He’s barely switched the engine on before Spencer is telling him about the technology of contactless keys and how they were invented, the dangers they present to society as well as the vulnerability they have to hacking before going on a tangent about a factory in Ireland that accidentally discovered a serious technological advancement. He’s chattering away happily in the passenger seat, and the tension Luke still holds in his shoulders dissipates as he listens to him ramble about things he cares about. 

It’s hard to focus on the road, really, when Spencer chooses to be so utterly adorable. He can’t keep his eyes off him when he’s passionately lecturing somebody about something everyone else finds insignificant or confusing and he finds endlessly fascinating. The team makes fun of him constantly for the way he stares at his boyfriend, and he’s not overly fond of the new nickname ‘moon eyes’ that he can’t seem to shake, but it won’t stop him from appreciating Spencer’s knowledge, making sure he knows Luke supports him no matter what. He knows that he gets shut down far too often, that people appreciate him for his intellect only when it’s valuable to him, and he’ll be damned if he ever makes him feel that way. 

He listens dutifully the whole drive back to Spencer’s apartment, managing to drive safely despite the distraction, and he can’t suppress the laugh at the surprised look colouring Spencer’s face once he sees they’ve arrived. He goes into a little bubble when he’s info-dumping, only coming out of it when there’s a significant change in his environment, but Luke can’t stop the fondness from spreading through his body as if it’s the first time he’s ever seen Spencer make that face. 

“We’re here,” Spencer observes, a slightly sheepish look spreading across his features. 

Luke absolutely cannot accept that so he leans across the console to press a deep and loving kiss to his lips, startling Spencer out of his embarrassment as he kisses back with just as much vigour. “You want me to walk you up?” Luke asks as he pulls away, bringing a hand to Spencer’s face to gently brush a few curls off his forehead.

“I’m good,” Spencer smiles, looking adoringly at Luke. If he was a more acrimonious man he’d be annoyed that everyone misses the matching looks Spencer sends his way, but there’s something special about them being just for him, like there’s a little bit of him he gets to keep just for himself. He’ll take that over Spencer getting teased even more any day. 

“Okay, baby.” He leans in to give him another kiss, quickly this time, before leaning up to peck his forehead, too. “You sleep well. If we’re not called in tomorrow I’ll swing by and we can do something together, how does that sound?”

“Perfect,” Spencer says softly. He puts his hand on top of Luke’s and caresses his knuckles gently, and for a second Luke is convinced he’s about to say something but he decides against it, settling on a soft smile before he’s clumsily climbing out of the car and walking towards the elevator into the building. 

The shy wave Spencer gives him just as the elevator doors close is enough to keep his heart warm through winter. 

★

Luke heads straight to bed as soon as he gets back home, switching off all the lights and getting ready in the bathroom before slipping between the sheets. It’s barely 11 but he’s exhausted from a busy day at work followed by the date he’d had with Spencer and he can feel the exhaustion tugging at his limbs. He’d hoped that he would be cuddled against a warm body tonight, and Spencer’s absence makes the bed feel so cold, even with Roxy warming his feet. 

Eventually, he manages to slip off to sleep, though, because he’s woken up not long after by Roxy leaping off the bed and whining at his bedroom door, startling him awake. “Roxy?” he asks, immediately on high alert. “What’s wrong, girl?” He sleepily pushes the covers off him, exposing himself to the frigid air of his apartment as he contemplates reaching for his gun when he hears it. There’s a tentative knock at the door, probably not the first, far too quiet to have woken him up if he hadn’t had Roxy. He jumps into action and pulls a t-shirt on as he walks to his front door, flicking on the lights as he goes, not wanting to trip over anything in the dark. 

It’s Spencer. He’s standing there looking nothing short of distraught as he wrings his hands nervously in front of him, that sheepish, embarrassed look Luke had been so desperate to kiss away earlier returned in full force. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, looking close to tears. “I just, I didn’t know where to go… usually I go to JJ’s but Henry and Michael are staying with Penelope tonight so she and Will could have a proper date night again and I didn’t want to interrupt but I didn’t want to be alone so I thought that maybe… maybe it would be okay if I came to see you, but I’m sorry if--”

“Hey,” Luke gently intercepts Spencer’s rambling with a careful hand on his waist and a step closer. “Why don’t you come in?”

It’s a bit of a shock to see his boyfriend on his doorstep only hours after he’d dropped him off, especially since he’s clearly in quite a state, a very different Spencer to the one who had kissed him deeply and waved him goodbye earlier in the evening, but Luke doesn’t want to do another thing until Spencer is happy again, feeling safe and comforted. He’s going to try damn hard to do that for him. 

“I’m sorry, Luke,” he apologises again, voice tight and anxious, eyes glassy as he follows him inside and hesitantly sits next to him on the sofa. “I should have asked before turning up here and I’m sure I woke you up. God, I’m such an idiot sometimes, I should just--”

“Spencer,” Luke says, voice a little louder to cut over Spencer’s panicked word vomit. “You are always welcome here. No matter what, okay? You don’t have to be afraid to come here, ever. I’m your boyfriend, I want to take care of you.”

“Really?” he asks, looking almost floored at Luke’s words.

“Really.” Luke promises, reaching over to gently wipe a spilled tear from Spencer’s cheekbone. “If I was upset, wouldn’t you feel the same way.”

Spencer’s eyes widen in understanding as he nods vigorously, causing Luke to smile fondly.

 “Now. What’s going on, baby? Did something happen?”

“Um,” Spencer hesitates, simultaneously not knowing how to properly voice his feelings and afraid of how Luke might react to them. Luckily, Luke knows how to be patient with Spencer, waiting quietly as he traces patterns on his forearm. “You know how earlier I said I did want to stay here but I couldn’t?”

Luke hums. “I do, yes.”

“Well, it’s because I was scared.”

Luke’s finger pauses for a short second in surprise before continuing its path, trying to convey his non-judgement. “What of, sweetheart?” he asks, praying that he wasn’t about to say him. 

“The last time I shared a bed with someone, he wasn’t nice to me,” Spencer confesses, looking into Luke’s eyes briefly, long enough only for Luke to pick up on the intense vulnerability swimming in his pupils. “I get… really bad nightmares. And my ex, the one I told you about, George?” He waits for Luke’s acknowledging nod before continuing. “He got… angry. I disturbed his sleep and he yelled a lot before breaking up with me.”

Luke nods slowly, finally understanding the situation. “And you were afraid that the same thing would happen with me?” he asks gently, not judging Spencer for his fear at all and hoping he can see that in his eyes. 

“Yeah,” he whispers, looking down at his twiddling fingers for a long moment before finally looking back at Luke, tears gathering in his eyes again. “I’m sorry, I should have trusted you.” 

“Oh, Spencer,” he soothes calmly, gathering him up into a hug and carding his fingers through Spencer’s curls in just the way he knows he likes. “You can’t control a fear like that. It’s a natural reaction to be afraid of repeating a previous experience, especially if that event was upsetting or traumatic.”

“I know,” he mutters miserably, face wedged close into Luke’s neck. “I’m still sorry.”

“It’s okay, baby,” he says. “Is that what made you come over tonight? You had a nightmare?” He feels Spencer nod and his heart breaks. His boyfriend has been silently suffering through these awful nightmares alone, all because some asshole had broken up with him for something he couldn’t control. “I’m sorry, Spence. Do you want to talk about it?”

Spencer shakes his head, as he pulls his face away from Luke’s neck. “I’ve tried that but it doesn’t work,” he frowns. “It just makes me relive it and the anxiety gets worse. It’s better if I just try and acknowledge them before moving past them.”

“Whatever works for you, baby,” Luke says. “Now, how about we get you changed into some pajamas again and you can come and stay with me tonight. I just want to be here for you, Spencer, comfort you if you have a nightmare, hold you even if you don’t. Nothing will happen if you do have one, alright? Except you being able to avoid travelling across town at 2am to seek some comfort, because I’ll be right next to you, cuddles at the ready.”

“You promise?” Spencer asks hopefully, finally seeming to relax a little. 

“I swear on my life,” Luke grins, before pressing a chaste kiss to Spencer’s lips and standing up. “Come on, let’s get ready for bed.” 

Spencer’s wearing a soft t-shirt already but Luke demands he change into one of his own, claiming he wants him to be as comfortable as possible, but they both know he just can’t get enough of Spencer in his own clothes. It feels like an extra layer of protection Luke can wrap around him, keep him safe and warm in his clothing, protect him from anything formidable, including his own mind. “It smells of you,” he smiles approvingly as soon as it’s settled over his shoulders, too loose for his smaller frame. 

“Well, baby, you’re gonna love cuddling with me in my bed then,” Luke winks. “I’m not sure anywhere else could possibly smell more like me.” He switches off the lights in the house and calls Roxy back to bed, before slipping underneath the duvet, which is much more pleasurable this time, Spencer curled up against his side as Luke wraps a comforting arm around his waist. 

He savours Spencer’s satisfied sigh as he curls up tighter, pressing as close to Luke as possible; his clingy nature is one of the things he loves most about him. There’s nothing Spencer likes more than climbing into Luke’s lap or laying across him on the sofa, holding his hand in public or pressing himself as close as possible until Luke gets the hint and wraps an arm around his waist. He loves being held, which works out well because Luke isn’t sure he likes anything more than holding him, drinking in the comfort that comes from the closeness, the inexplicable feeling that is being Spencer Reid’s boyfriend.  

“Thank you, Luke,” Spencer whispers, voice clearly showing how drained and tired he is, but he sounds relaxed and comfortable, and that’s what matters most.

“Anytime, baby,” he whispers back, smile playing over his lips as it always seems to do when he’s around Spencer. “You sleep now. You’re safe, I’ll be here.” 

“I know.” Spencer’s whisper is even quieter this time as his breaths even out and his muscles relax slightly, and Luke has never envied his boyfriend’s eidetic memory more. If he could bottle this exact moment -- Spencer slowly falling asleep on him, trusting him enough to stay no matter what happens, the warmth and comfort of the embrace -- he’d never stop playing it over, a personal paradise just for the two of them recorded in his mind forever. 

Just having this moment, though, having this memory all for himself, will do Luke just fine. 

@gxenbev

[reanimatedcourier]

Kinda long, but it’s actually a good critique on the mod, and doesn’t just call the Enclave based or anything.

https://youtu.be/B2bCcyYAwBI

Here's a link to the video. I'm going to start a highlight reel in this ask, because my brain is melting. Brief content warning for a discussion of suicidal thoughts in the interview with a vehicle developer.

I find this reviewing style a bit crass, but I'm inclined to agree with this. Some friends and I watched a video critiquing it and were pointing out all of the games and movies it lifted from.

Come on, now.

Brief aside: the implication that the wasteland now primarily relies on oral history, as pointed out, is intriguing. Makes me think of Indigenous stories carefully preserved through oral history.

General Blackthorne could have been an interesting exploration of nepotism within NCR and why it can lead to catastrophic failure. Sending a significant portion of your manpower and, by extension, losing half of your vertibirds in a botched rescue mission for one asshole? Who could have guessed that would go badly! (Any strategist with half an ounce of sense. But if he got placed in the position because his father sucked up to somebody, well, now the player knows why it happened.)

I wasn't expecting it but I am so glad he brought up Yes Man, who gives you all the freedom to make your decisions while still having an opinion on it like everyone else. He's not allowed to stop you. He's still mastered passive aggression, though.

About fifty minutes in, we've hit the Crusaders rant. You know, if they played the idea of divine intervention being what locks you into or out of the Crusaders quest, it may have been salvageable. Domina already believes herself to be on a mission from God. I am also not opposed to creepy missionary flirting on account of I find missionaries incredibly off-putting. FNV is too kind to them IMIO (In My Indigenous Opinion).

As I enjoy political drama, the ability to turn the Crusaders into Legion puppets in their playthrough fascinates me. I can't wait to see how they dropped this plot point.

Aside 2: that was, unexpectedly, the first example of concrete writing in line with FNV. Feels kind of like a broken clock.

What a shame the conspiracy plot is so convoluted. I have a sneaking suspicion where they got this from. I would also like to see what happens if you were to create a power vacuum in the Frontier. Maker of this video has a point in calling Rancor the Anti-House. Which might be cool! If the writers could execute it decently.

I wish the people who made this mod had written it properly. Or coherently. Then again, I don't. Oh, man. That Ebert quote is getting some serious mileage. 😬.

Objectively, this is true. I could launch into my opinion on why an imperial war machine might gun for an area full of technology and another front to advance on. We do not have time to unpack and compare all of that, however. No Legion Luddites Allowed Anymore.

Aside 3: the idea of a cultural schism could be interesting here. Nobody on the mod team thought that far ahead.

I will diverge significantly from what Soup is saying. I really, really don't want to see the NCR at war with, quote "heavily armed scavenger tribes". Yes, yes, I see what he means about plot lifting. Given how racist FNV already is, I don't want to see more tribes created within game lore that are just meant to be violent savages. Once again, I am not saying Indigenous people are incapable of doing bad things. I have no trust in pulling it off in a balanced, compelling way, given how even the vanilla game will go out of their way to call tribals "primitive", much like Soup is doing. The devs of this game already don't understand anything Indigenous. They would not handle this well.

Sorry, seven fucking years and they still put vehicle devs through crunch? I'm at the loss for words. What the fuck! It's been confirmed they didn't communicate with each other over this. It explains a lot.

To conclude this, what a dumpster fire of a mod. No communication, mediocre writers, mediocre writers dominating the writing room in general, fetish fuel, unnecessary crunch. Who says they aren't going to just do this again if they rebuild the NCR campaign from the ground up?

[svtskneecaps]

i’ve been enabled

here’s the sitch on the goddamn harry potter hogwarts mystery app game

it fucking sucks

here’s my main issues in a handy list i’ll go down later:

the gameplay

energy

art / visuals

the story

the writing

the choose your own adventure like elements (technically gameplay since there isn’t much else l m a o)

and i have receipts for most of this stuff. fun fact, i’ve been taking videos of all plot relevant events since year 1.

some context:

i’ve played up to year 3 myself. i have watched up until the very beginning of year 5 in someone’s youtube series (will bits? that was his main character [henceforth referred to as MC]’s name, however that was a year ago and it was in the background like a podcast so the details are sort of fuzzy. i have not played the game since march (it’s september, ish), but i’m loading it up as i type this just to get a feel for it

idk whether to assume my audience has or hasn’t played the game. i’ll keep my complaints as clear as possible.

i’m mainly an author so the storytelling sections are where i’m really going to pop off, since that’s something i have the most experience with and passion in, but i’ll be touching on everything else because compounded it’s all pissing me off lmao

[a couple hints at spoilers for maybe an event in year 1, and year 3, but nothing major]

let’s start with: THE GAMEPLAY

there isn’t any

literally. there’s like. zero gameplay.

you tap some highlighted figures, and then sometimes you get to trace a little shape, and sometimes you get to play rock paper scissors to fight somebody (they did manage to make duelling slightly better but it’s still not good by any standard)

sometimes you get to choose between three dialogue options, but those have barely any impact on the story or on your character. any impact they have is limited to a couple stat points, or maybe some house points, or like. some event at the end of the year. but like barely any make any real serious difference (but i’ll touch on that more later)

and then there’s the factor of stat points (and this gets kind of mathy, so feel free to skip to the bolded sentence)

for those who haven’t played the game, you have three stats (empathy, courage, and knowledge) that you can level up by taking classes, 1, 3, or 8 hours, for various rewards

back when i stopped playing, i had gained 8914 points in courage. if i recall correctly i was only about halfway to leveling up that stat. if you take an 8 hour class, you receive consistently 200 stat points, with a possibility of extra rewards that i can’t count for since those are randomly generated.

to get those 8914 points, i would have had to take 44.57 8 hour classes (while 8 hour they only take about 7, counting for the 2 hours it takes my energy to recharge to full). with 44.57 classes taking 7 hours each, to get halfway to level 24, i would have had to have done:

THIRTEEN STRAIGHT DAYS OF GRINDING, ASSUMING THAT ALL I HAD BEEN DOING WAS CHECKING ON THE HARRY POTTER HOGWARTS MYSTERY APP

and again, I WAS ONLY LIKE HALFWAY TO LEVELLING UP

I AM BARELY BEGINNING FOURTH YEAR. I AM NOT EVEN HALFWAY THROUGH THIS GAME.

i think they’ve fixed this now; it said i had 8914/1550 courage and when i got stat points it fixed itself and jumped me from level 23 to 28, so thanks for that jam city.

but it doesn’t change the fact that the grinding is fucking horrible and i’ve done my fair share of hours, and who knows what it’s going to look like when i get to a higher level again

the energy

yes, i know it’s an app game. i know they want my money. but holy FUCK the energy recharges disgustingly slowly, and every bit they expand my energy bar is an insult

“here, have another energy capacity!” they say, and then add to the amount of energy it takes to complete a task at the same time, so now shit just takes me even damn longer

it’s an insult. don’t think i didn’t fuckin notice jam city.

since it’s an app game, naturally, energy requires paying real world money or the (semi) rare in-game currency to get more if you blow through your bar. they want your money. i know they want my money, but it doesn’t make me any less disappointed by how damn blatant they’re being. app games like bakery story probably also want my money, but at least those are still fun to play.

the art / visuals

now i’m not an artist. nor am i a 3-d modeller. but if solo indie devs and 10 men teams can make video games that have to have models with a much fuller range of motion (since there’s ACTUAL GAMEPLAY and not just little cutscenes of characters moving around) and that don’t make me sick to watch, then jam city working on a HARRY POTTER GAME should be able to (jk rowling fucking sucks but her books have brought in so much goddamn money that they can afford to pay their devs enough to make the game look good; in this case i’m not entirely sure where the blame lies)

there’s like. 10 motions characters can use while in the cutscenes and talking. like 10. and i can recognize every one of them, and there is not a single motion unique to a character. the characters are something i’ll touch on later in the storytelling sections, though. just, please god give them SOMETHING even SLIGHTLY different. like make two versions of a couple of the crowd animations at LEAST, so that when people celebrate at the end of the year there’s not twenty people in the shot doing the same “pump my fists in the air in celebration” motion at the exact same time. PLEASE.

sometimes animations in story events and classes sync up too, which is. beyond distracting. like it’s completely immersion breaking and i mean please, please jam city, if you haven’t fixed that please fix it. please.

the animations that roll in flying class are fun, ONCE. when you’ve seen them eight hundred thousand times because you’re grinding up your courage stat, they get hella boring. all of the classes are like this to some extent but flying is the biggest offender since those were the longest animations. if they haven’t implemented a skip button since i last played it, they should. they fuckin should.

also the fertilizer animation in the greenhouse scenes is gross. you pick up a deformed cone of dirt with your shovel like a slice of cake and then shove it clipping through the edges of a pot, where it disappears without a trace. i hate it. jam city please make the game look good.

if you still play the game please tell me it looks better; i’ll be playing through a couple things after i post this but it’s hphm. it’s gonna take me a goddamn long time to hit all the points and confirm whether what i complained about has been fixed or not

also also, wearing dresses is so distracting, especially while dueling. the way the dress flexes around your legs is like you’re wearing clothing made from jello and when my character does the idle animation her hands clip through her skirt, and there’s all kids of glitches with hair where it clips through outfits (and why in the fuck do the necklaces float a full foot from the character’s body)

the storytelling

alright there’s a lot to cover so strap in

i’m not mad about the story having some of the same beats as harry potter. whatever, right? if it worked, it worked. having a big climax at the end of the year just works well for storytelling. having a school bully antagonist also works well for easy storytelling (it’s kinda cheap, but whatever works, right?) it’s what you DO with the archetypes you use that makes or breaks your story

jam city broke it

i don’t know how to organize my thoughts so here’s a bulleted list

it is very clearly obvious they wrote this as they went along (ex. a previously unseen character pops up in year 3 and was supposedly the best friend of your greatest enemy in previous years) and didn’t think to fix the plot holes

there’s too many goddamn characters (i love them, but with a big cast comes a whole host of problems [I WRITE FOR A KPOP GROUP WITH 13 MEMBERS, I HAVE A LOT OF EXPERIENCE WITH THAT], and we’ll get there)

there’s too much goddamn filler for the sake of forcing us to spend time and in-game energy (yes i KNOW it’s an app game and they want our money but THEY COULD BE A LITTLE MORE SUBTLE ABOUT IT)

what honestly pisses me off the most about it is that IT COULD BE GOOD

IF THE STORY WERE GOOD, I WOULD FUCKIN IGNORE ALL OF THAT OTHER SHIT

but it’s not, and here’s the biggest gripe i have:

none of the choices you make matter. none of them. to the point where it’s immersion breaking at BEST

for example, while my MC is a hufflepuff, i know a lot of people play in slytherin. scenes where snape gets upset with your character and takes away house points no longer make sense for a slytherin MC, because snape would be infinitely more likely to give you three years of nightly detentions, or pitch you off the astronomy tower, than he would be to take house points from slytherin

honestly, they should have waited. if they wanted to put choose your own adventure elements into the game, they should have planned out every single one of those story arcs in detail, and THEN released the game. they could leave some of the more basic choices in and those choices only mattering for short term effects wouldn’t irk me as much as it does right now because THERE WOULD BE CHOICES THAT MADE A DIFFERENCE.

your very first choice over how you felt about your brother’s disappearance only matters for what wand you get (which i immediately forgot which really says something about the impact of that choice :)))) ). no matter what you pick, you still end up chasing after him for the rest of the game, so who cares?

story beats don’t land different based on your house. you could absolutely play it that merula hates you regardless of your house, that’s fine. just remember that if your MC is slytherin and lives in the female dorms, she probably shares a room with merula. which makes things fucky for all kinds of reasons, none of which jam city addresses in the current game, as far as i’m aware

also, there’s the deal with rowan

rowan is a character that goes into your mc’s chosen house no matter what (and as rowan changes pronouns with your player, i’ll be using “they” [or “she” as my player is a she and that’s what i’m used to; i’ll try to refrain but i might slip up occasionally] ). as far as i can tell, rowan’s personality remains the same no matter what house you’re in. they don’t try to play up the traits that match the house, rowan is just usually a sweet bookworm. why would the hat have put them in gryffindor? rowan khanna for me has never seemed to display any gryffindorish traits; or at the very least, no traits that should be prioritized over, say, the ravenclaw traits they have VERY STRONGLY (since rowan fills a sort of hermione role; rowan knows things about things and is your go to for research)

can we just put rowan in ravenclaw? sure, it would make it hard for fans in different houses to communicate between each other about the story for a time since certain sequences of events would play out differently, but here’s the thing:

if events play out differently based on your choices, people will want to play your game multiple times to get every ending

that’s the fun of a choose your own adventure game. if events play out distinctly differently if you’re a hufflepuff or a ravenclaw or a slytherin or a gryffindor, then people will want to play through the game four times at LEAST, once for each house, to get all the fun pieces of story (WHICH MEANS, they’ll be spending more and more time and using more and more energy, so you can make the same amount of money off people buying energy and watching the ads and maybe MORE while being able to cut out some of the more shitty pieces of filler)

in the current version, your house is just, what color are your robes and who is your prefect. i haven’t watched anyone who wasn’t a hufflepuff, but i’m sure that certain scenes and conflicts play out the exact same no matter what house you’re in

as an example, your house should affect how the duelling confrontation in year one should have gone. snape and flitwick should have different dialogue based on whether you’re a slytherin, or a ravenclaw, or a gryffindor, or a hufflepuff. snape fucking hates gryffindors, so he should be far less lenient against gryffindors, and on the flip side he should be battling between himself with how strict to be if you’re a slytherin; maybe he hates your guts because of a grudge against your brother, but you’re still in his house and we all know snape plays favorites. flitwick should be more disappointed if you’re a ravenclaw, because that’s his house and he had higher expectations for you. neither of them have many ties to hufflepuff that would skew the confrontation in a drastic direction, but had this been the first version of the game, then the confrontation that plays out in the current version we have would work fine for hufflepuff; you’re one of flitwick’s favorite charms students and he taught you this skill, and he’s disappointed to see you use it in this way, but not nearly as much as if you were one of his own

AND NOW PEOPLE WANT TO PLAY THE GAME MULTIPLE TIMES TO GET ALL THE DIALOGUE, WHICH MEANS MORE TIME, MORE ENERGY, AND MORE MONEY, JAM CITY, ARE YOU HEARING THIS??? MORE MONEY!!!!! IT’S A WIN WIN FOR EVERYONE

while we’re at it, change jacob to match his house. if you’re still gonna make him have the same house as the MC, make him match it. from how all the characters describe him that bitch is as slytherin as they come, if you’re gonna make him a hufflepuff with me then give him a clear, hufflepuff motive god damnit

finally,

the characters

there’s too many.

the problem with a big cast is no one gets enough screen time and some characters end up getting shunted to the side. that’s just what happens. you HAVE to zero in on four or five side friends and let the rest of them slip to the side. looking at my friends menu there are 17 characters you can befriend, not including hagrid, the quidditch crew, dobby, talbott, and chiara (since those are, as far as i know, unlocked via side quests, which are... fine. i don’t have any particular gripes about the side quests except for the thing with lupin being twice the size of tonks which, if you’ve read the seventh book i don’t need to explain how weird that is to you)

and BECAUSE there are so many, a lot of them have to be defined by one trait. ben is a coward, rowan’s clever and booksmart, penny has her hand on the school’s pulse and makes potions, liz likes creatures, charlie fuckin loves dragons, tonks likes pranks (seriously that’s her whole personality), andre likes clothes, barnaby is a dumb jock that likes creatures

like, traits are fun. but if that’s ALL THEY HAVE, that’s when things get a little fucky

how many of these characters have dimensions? i’m in year 4 chapter 4. the first screen recording of the game i took was on december 5 of 2019, and assuming i played about a minimum of 8 hours a day (”““played”““) until the final screen recording [may 20, 2020] before i dropped the game for about six months (i know for certain it was more than that, since i had some kind of activity going on at just about all times for at least a month of that, but i’ll take the generous estimate), at bare minimum that makes 1344 hours i spent playing this game, or about 56 days (keep in mind, this is a LOW estimate)

in those 56 days of gameplay, i don’t know ANYTHING about the characters other than their utility in my quest. i don’t know penny’s favorite color or even her favorite potion to brew, or how and why she started and when [there’s a reveal in third year that i watched someone play through, but i don’t know if i ever played through it myself; i don’t have any screen recordings of the event]. i don’t know anything about ben or his family aside from the fact that he’s muggleborn. i know some basic facts about barnaby’s family, and that he’s tough and likes creatures. rowan grew up on a tree farm and i have a vague recollection of her mentioning siblings. do we know anything about them?? do i know anything about how the characters interact with each other?? are barnaby and liz friends? they both like creatures. do they talk to charlie?? do ben and penny hang out while we’re not there? are ben and jae friends?? are jae and charlie??? DO THESE CHARACTERS EXIST WHEN THEY AREN’T NEEDED FOR THE CURSED VAULTS???

why in the fuck don’t i know these characters?? why don’t we know anything about tonks other than her affinity for pranking?? there’s a sharp bias in who the writer’s favorites are (they like the characters with angsty pasts they can twist around; what do we know about ben aside from his blood status? and he’s been around since first year; he’s the second friend you unlock. i know more about barnaby and i’ve known him for a much shorter time)

if you separate the routes, you get a chance to zero in on certain characters and actually develop them. if you’re a gryffindor, you befriend ben, charlie, and jae much more quickly and they make up the closest of your friends, along with rowan, if jam city is determined to keep their tutorial character constant across all plotlines (i still think rowan should be solely a ravenclaw, but i’ll allow rowan’s house to change so long as their personality shifts to emphasize certain qualities in order to match the change in house; your house should not just determine the color your robes are)

if you’re in slytherin, maybe you befriend barnaby in place of ben in the original game, or maybe there’s an arc where you clash heads with merula (who can still be an enemy even if you’re both in slytherin; merula doesn’t like competition and the MC is exactly that) and the rest of the slytherins in your year find themselves caught in the middle; maybe there’s an arc where your MC finds themself totally alone without allies due to the conflict between them and merula (might i suggest year two, while coming up on the climax of the year?)

hufflepuffs get to focus on tonks and penny much closer. ben can also be in this plotline, but he shouldn’t take center stage (characters should cross over plotlines, but only take center stage in one, aside from perhaps rowan if rowan remains constant). maybe chiara can get implemented into the main plotline to fill out the roster, and if not, diego caplan can get implemented earlier (i haven’t met him yet and know nothing about his character)

and ravenclaws get the ravenclaw characters BUT YOU GET THE POINT, i don’t want to bore anyone by repeating myself; this is long enough as is

what i’m saying is, these characters all have a different enough base that each route will be different just by focusing on different characters; ben and jae will respond to a situation much differently than penny and tonks might, which would ALREADY shake up the storyline of each house based on which house you choose in the beginning, and then characters overlap plotlines so you could leave hints in each route to the other characters’ unique backstories and motivations that leaves the player wanting to get to know the rest of your WELL DEVELOPED CAST (((MAKE SURE THEY’RE WELL DEVELOPED OR THIS WILL NOT WORK)))

WHAT I’M SAYING IS, THIS GAME COULD HAVE BEEN SO GOOD

if they put more effort into the story then maybe i would have gunned through the hufflepuff route so quickly and then restarted to go through all the rest of them. if you want people playing your game for longer then THAT is the way to go

yes, it will take time. yes, it will take effort. but you know what?

IT’LL ALSO MAKE YOU A FUCKTON OF MONEY FROM PLAYERS PLAYING EACH ROUTE IN FULL AND THEN PLAYING THEIR FAVORITE ROUTES AGAIN SO WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU WAITING FOR

anyway, what i’m saying is, i hate this game so much because of the potential it had to succeed, and the potential it had to be a really good game. even if they didn’t change the gameplay much, even if they didn’t change the models, i could get past ALL OF THAT if the story was interesting

so uh. jam city, if you’re reading this, please. i will let you take away all of my days of playing this. i will let you render all of my progress obsolete and send me plummeting back into my first year at hogwarts to go through the game again, if you JUST, MAKE, MULTIPLE, ROUTES!!! MAKE MY CHOICES MATTER DAMN YOU!!!!!!!!

i’m also willing to let you use the ideas i posited here without credit or payment. because that sounds like a legal hassle and i am far too lazy to deal with that sort of thing, i just want to play a good game. please. please give me a good game to play.

also, make energy take 3 minutes to recharge. please.

so uh

TL;DR : i hate this game. and i wish i didn’t hate this game.

[theonyxpath]

Our Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition Kickstarter is a few days before we hit the final week, and we just passed 300% funding and over 1500 backers! Thanks for all the support out there, and be sure and talk this up if you get a chance.

Every time you can send somebody over to the KS, that’s another person who can connect to more folks who haven’t heard about it yet. And so on, and so on, and so on.

Another place where we could use our community doing a bit of outreach is letting game stores know that they can get V5 Chicago By Night into their stores. If you have a local game store, please tell your stores Chicago is available via distribution. Even if you personally already have it or aren’t interested, if you can ask them to request V5 Chicago By Night from their distributors, then that also raises awareness of all of the Onyx Path books currently available from distribution for stores.

The reason I’m pushing this is that now, right as the book is just becoming available in stores, is when we want to be able to provide it to everybody who asks. But some stores haven’t been able to get it from distribution, and others still aren’t aware they can stock it on their shelves.

Part of this is that in the US, V5 Chicago is being handled by our friends at Studio2, while outside the US distributors get the books from the gang at Modiphius. So even distributors need to talk to the appropriate folks.

We understand that the sort of mixed scenario for sales is not a straight line for anybody, but for our community, it’s what we need to do to get more books into stores so you can get them there – as well as online.

Mythical Denizens art by Pat McEvoy

It’s especially confusing if you are a long-time fan who came from the days when White Wolf controlled all aspects of the books – from creation right until they showed up in stores. We even had a warehouse that the books shipped out from that was connected to our offices.

This was really good for inventory control, and even better because we could play Four-Square in the warehouse until we got too big for there to be enough space to play among the pallets!

But, things have evolved, and the new White Wolf at Paradox is giving a lot of different folks the chance to create new awesome projects for the WoD setting with 5th Edition. This ties in well with our further efforts at putting certain books into stores, and expanding the sorts of projects that fans will be able to enjoy, it’s just not a straight line any more.

Another factor confusing some folks is that our publishing efforts consist of some of the lines folks recognize from the old WW days, and some new ones. Which, while different in some regards, is something we think is a healthy mix. Impish Ian has created this handy chart:

Hope that helps!

But, if you still have questions, please do reach out to us. You can do that here in the comments, or anywhere on our social media. For game line rules or setting info, our Forums here on the Onyx Path website are also great and we even have specific threads pinned for folks to ask questions of the developers of that line.

We are also always open to hearing from you if you need something clarified that you heard about online. We can’t be everywhere on social media, although our teams tries, and there are some pretty odd ideas floating around that we’ll be glad to give you the real deal about.

One nutty example is the rumor that Eddy owns Pugsteady (which is the true part), but then Pugsteady secretly owns Onyx Path, which secretly owns DTRPG: so Eddy owns DTRPG!

There’s also the one about CCP never actually having sold White Wolf to Paradox. Sometimes combined with the “fact” that I never stopped being employed by White Wolf and created Onyx Path to secretly still run things for them. Which is a hell of a way to spend the last 8 years, let me tell you!

Vigil Watch art by Alexander Honore

But there are also the rumors that can actually harm folks if they are spread around willy-nilly, like Onyx Path not paying our freelancers or being secretly trans-phobic, neither of which is true. Yet can impact both our current creators and also possible creators we could work with.

If you’re a long-time reader of this blog, you probably don’t need us to explain how weird these sorts of rumors are, and we love you for that! BUT, please do tell your friends to let us straighten out any concerns that they might have. They can post here, or if you’re willing, please go ahead and ask us yourself for them.

And to extend this idea, if you are one of our freelance creators, we are always here to listen to your concerns. If none of the usual project-based routes work, you can contact one of our in-house developers who oversee all of our game lines. It’s the same three folks from our weekly Onyx Pathcast: Eddy Webb, Dixie Cochran, and Matthew Dawkins. You can contact Matt McElroy, our Operations guru. All of them have contact info here on the site and are all over our social media.

And you can contact me, at richt@theonyxpath.com

Lunars art by Gong Studios

What I’m saying here is: it takes communication to create all of our many projects. Not just within those project teams, and not just between those teams and our other creators who also work on those projects. And not just between us and our sales partners and distributors and stores. And not just between all of us making and selling these games and our community who plays them and reads them.

It’s all interconnected and the more clearly we can communicate, the more likely we are to create even more projects for you to enjoy as we add them to our:

Many Worlds, One Path!

BLURBS!

Kickstarter!

Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition for Chronicles of Darkness is still ferociously on the hunt as we prowl towards starting its last week! We’re at 300% funding and over 1500 backers and are shooting right through Stretch Goals, like the Storyteller Screen Stretch Goal, the T-Shirt, and the Tending the Flame: Cells chapter for the Hunter Players’ Companion! With lots more to come!

Next Kickstarter: Legendlore!

Onyx Path Media!

This Friday the Onyx Pathcast goes once more unto the mean streets of Chicago. The Terrifying Trio explore V5 Chicago By Night once again with a deep dive into the book and what glories are within! As always this Friday’s Onyx Pathcast will be on Podbean or your favorite podcast venue! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

We keep outdoing ourselves for you on Twitch! This week you can look forward to V5, Chronicles of Darkness, Scion, Pugmire, two fantastic, new chronicles of Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition, MORE Vampire: The Masquerade, Changeling: The Lost, Mage: The Awakening, Scarred Lands, Werewolf: The Forsaken and a third Vampire: The Masquerade game! Eddy Webb’s Development Workshop starts in earnest this week too!

A special shout-out to both of the Hunter: The Vigil games running this week, which along with the Kickstarter are drawing quite an audience! You can subscribe to our channel over on twitch.tv/theonyxpath to catch up with any episodes you missed!

Come take a look at our YouTube channel, youtube.com/user/theonyxpath, where you can find the following videos uploaded last week alone:

Pugmire: Paws & Claws: https://youtu.be/wI_ffiqJg_M

Changeling: The Lost – Littlebrook Reunion: https://youtu.be/-g3gY6wM7dU

Changeling: The Dreaming – The Last Faerie Tale: https://youtu.be/3MViDZJcGxY

Changeling: The Dreaming – Gifted & Talented: https://youtu.be/V3LMOIRHNbc

Scion: Behind the Screen: https://youtu.be/R-BMJdHj20o

A special shout-out to our Paws & Claws Pugmire crew who are now in their second season! Do check out their chronicle on our YouTube channel!

In an episode that has shocked the fanbase, Red Moon Roleplaying‘s V5 Cults of the Blood Gods “The Family” chronicle saw a tragedy afflict the coterie! You can find them on their YouTube channel, Spotify, their website redmoonroleplaying.com and everywhere else good podcasts might be found! https://youtu.be/yuI8bMlTuos

More new Occultists Anonymous for all you Mage: The Awakening fans out there:

Episode 82: In Service of Another Atratus and Wyrd seek a way to bring the Goetia they’ve taken from the Temenos and bring them into the Phenomenal World while Songbird begins to equip Titus and Jimmy “Smalls” Patinko.https://youtu.be/CSH9t-E3P7E

Episode 83: Turmoil and Strife The Rookery Cabal presents their findings of El Dorado to the Council of the Consilium, and argue to ensure it’s proper use and guardianship. Hadramiel has specific words after the meeting for the cabal, in private.https://youtu.be/jAoJgjveWls

Please check any of these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games!

Electronic Gaming!

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is awesome! (Seriously, you need to roll 100 dice for Exalted? This app has you covered.)

On Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue from which you bought it. Reviews really, really help us get folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these latest fiction books:

Our Sales Partners!

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scarred Lands (Pathfinder) books are also on sale at Studio2, and they have the 5e version, supplements, and dice as well!: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/scarred-lands

Scion 2e books and other products are available now at Studio2: https://studio2publishing.com/blogs/new-releases/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin-now-available-at-your-local-retailer-or-online

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link! And NOW Scion Origin and Scion Hero AND Trinity Continuum Core and Trinity Continuum: Aeon are available to order!

As always, you can find Onyx Path’s titles at DriveThruRPG.com!

On Sale This Week!

This Wednesday, we will be releasing the first of six Vigil Watch PDFs for Scarred Lands for 5e on DTRPG!

But that’s not all! We’re also releasing the PDF and PoD versions of the Trinity Continuum: Aeon Ready Made Characters on DTRPG as well!

Conventions!

Mighty Matt McElroy will be wandering the aisles of C2E2 later this week in Chicago (by day). He’d love to say hi and chat if you see him!

More conventions will be listed for 2020 in the weeks to come-

And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

N!ternational Wrestling Entertainment (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Contagion Chronicle Ready-Made Characters (Chronicles of Darkness)

RUST (Working Title) (Scarred Lands)

Under Alien Suns (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Mission Statements (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Adversaries of the Righteous (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Novas Worldwide (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Exalted Essence Edition (Exalted 3rd Edition)

The Clades Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

The Devoted Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

Saints and Monsters (Scion 2nd Edition)

M20 Rich Bastard’s Guide To Magick (Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary)

Redlines

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Hundred Devil’s Night Parade (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Adventure! core (Trinity Continuum: Adventure!)

They Came From Beyond the Grave! (They Came From!)

Assassins (Trinity Continuum Core)

The Book of Endless Death (Mummy: The Curse 2e)

Second Draft

Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Many-Faced Strangers – Lunars Companion (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Development

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

TC: Aberrant Reference Screen (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks (Chronicles of Darkness)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Manuscript Approval

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum Core)

TC: Aberrant Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Post-Approval Development

Scion LARP Rules (Scion)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Contagion Chronicle Jumpstart (Chronicles of Darkness)

Editing

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

Pirates of Pugmire KS-Added Adventure (Realms of Pugmire)

Terra Firma (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Lunars Novella (Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Buried Bones: Creating in the Realms of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Titanomachy (Scion 2nd Edition)

Player’s Guide to the Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Post-Editing Development

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

W20 Shattered Dreams Gift Cards (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Hunter: The Vigil 2e core (Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition)

Let the Streets Run Red (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Geist 2e Fiction Anthology (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #1 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Indexing

ART DIRECTION FROM MIKE CHANEY!

In Art Direction

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant

Hunter: The Vigil 2e (KS) – Running on KS.

Ex3 Lunars

Cults of the Blood God (KS)

Mummy 2 – Starting to contract the rest of it.

City of the Towered Tombs – Recontracted.

Let the Streets Run Red – Contracted.

Deviant

Legendlore (KS) – All notes out by today for KS.

Technocracy Reloaded (KS)

Scion Companion – Contacted.

TC: Aeon Terra Firma – Contracted.

WoD: Ghost Stories (KS) – Cover contracted.

Tales of Aquatic Terror

Pirates Extra Adventure – Loboyko lined up for this one.

Scion Titanomachy – Awaiting art notes.

In Layout

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad – Ongoing.

Scion Mythical Denizens – In proofing but need some full page art to come in.

Contagion Chronicle – With Josh.

Vigil Watch – First installment this Wednesday.

TCfBtS!: Heroic Land Dwellers

TCFBtS! Screen and Booklet

Proofing

Dark Eras 2 – Sending back to Aileen for errata input.

Trinity Continuum Aeon Jumpstart

They Came from Beneath the Sea! – Getting ready for Indexing.

Chicago Folio – Out to backers for errata.

Trinity Continuum Aeon: Distant Worlds – Inputting dev changes.

Pirates of Pugmire – Gotta go over this today.

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed – Second proof being input, then over to WW.

CtL Oak Ash and Thorn – Inputting proofing comments.

At Press

Geist 2e (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition) – Shipping to backers, PoD proof ordered.

Geist 2e Screen – Shipping to backers.

DR:E – Shipping to backers, PoD files uploaded.

DRE Screen – Shipping to backers.

DR:E Threat Guide – Helnau’s Guide to Wasteland Beasties

Memento Mori – PoD proof ordered.

Trinity Continuum: Aeon RMCs – PDF and PoD versions on sale this Wednesday on DTRPG.

Wraith20 Anthology – PoD proof ordered.

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

“Diane, 11:30 a.m., February 24th. Entering the town of Twin Peaks, five miles south of the Canadian border, twelve miles west of the state line. I’ve never seen so many trees in my life. As W.C. Fields would say, I’d rather be here than Philadelphia.” – Dale Cooper

[glassrunner]

as someone who's a mercy main it's clear u don't play her... why do u think she's balanced. be honest

Lmao, are you sure you can handle it? Keep in mind that this is coming from somebody who used to main her and, once she finally played other heroes, realized how ridiculously game-breaking she is.

Let’s start with her damage boost. Damage boost and Zenyatta’s discord separately increase damage by 30% to a target. However, Mercy has much more value in her ability because unlike discord, this is something you apply to a teammate, whereas Zen requires a clear line of sight to discord a target. In today’s meta, this means you literally have to spam your discord key to get it on an enemy because there’s so many shields and you have maybe a split second if someone drops their shield/pushes out beyond it to cast it. With Mercy, you literally just hold right click on whomever you want, and switching it to another teammate is easy as pie because hey, they’re a teammate. Another thing: damage boosting a teammate increases damage to shields as well, not just the target, but Zen’s discord does not. And finally, buffing a teammate means you increase their damage (especially during ults) to whomever they end up hitting, even if it’s multiple enemies at once, while Zen can target a single person. (Don’t even try to compare nano boost to this. Yes, it does 50% damage increase and 50% damage reduction to the target, but it’s an ultimate ability that you have to earn, and lasts 8 seconds. Damage boost is indefinite and available any time.)

Mercy has the best mobility out of any healer in the game because of guardian angel. Somebody’s chasing you? Hit shift repeatedly until someone else takes care of them! Oh, you got pushed off the map? Hold space and scream at a teammate to come and get you! I can’t count how many times I’ve seen an easy envirokill get denied because of her 2-second cooldown.

And now, for the biggest joke in the game: rez. I’m so fucking glad I only started playing this game after her rework because that shit is dumb. Huge rez is a big “fuck you” to the enemy team if they happened to use ults to kill the other 5 members of your team, and you did absolutely no work to get it. You hid in a corner, waited for your team to suicide like a bunch of lemmings, and hit shift and Q, and suddenly all the work that the enemy team put into killing them is gone. I mean, what kind of bullshit is that? All those people whining about how if they got multi-rez back, they wouldn’t hide like bitches and fly in to “save the day…” that’s a lie. Literally everyone did it. I would’ve done it had I played it back then because it is the most effective thing to do. Even being able to bring back just one player right now is game-breaking, because instead of having to wait for them to come back from spawn, suddenly they’re back and ready to contest. Sure, it’s no longer an instant rez, but her head hitbox is absolutely fucked when she’s rezzing to the point that one-shotting her is inconsistent as all hell. I’ve even tried to hit sleep darts on her, watched it go straight to one of her wings or her hand (WHICH YES ARE PARTS OF HER CHARACTER MODEL AND THEREFORE ACTIVE SEGMENTS OF HER HITBOX!!!), and she did not fucking get slept. It’s easy to see that she’s still a favored character in this game.

I’m annoyed that the dev team thought it was super funny to watch the Mercy meta, because they don’t actually fucking play. I got bored of playing her maybe two weeks into owning the game, but it’s not like I could stop, because she was OP as hell, and having a Mercy on the team was a 99% increase to your chances of winning. Absolutely no hero should be a must pick compared to the others. Otherwise, why bother having different heroes?

The (honestly true) reason why people laugh at Mercy mains is because she is extremely easy to play. It is entirely impossible to miss heals on a teammate because of the lock-on beam that’s even better than old Symm’s, and switching to damage boost means hitting right-click instead = moving one finger. She requires the same amount of game sense as any other hero, if not less, and absolutely no mechanical skill to be able to play and ult with. That’s why “carrying” as Mercy isn’t really a thing… you did what literally anybody else can do and got rewarded for it, which is how so many people got boosted to Grandmaster.

She’s balanced now because a) damage boost is still pretty OP, b) rez is even more OP, c) her mobility is unrivaled, and d) the chain healing/buffing from Valk plus the extra 10 hps and the decreased time to charge her ult still makes her the most viable healer in the game.

Don’t get me wrong, playing such an easy hero was a great way to learn the game, especially considering it was my second-ever time competing in multiplayer fps games. But I’m enormously grateful that Ana and D.Va are in the game, because I’d rather die than have to play Mercy constantly. And now, I can honestly say I feel like I worked for my rank, and I’m vastly willing to improve to rank up even more.

[gaming-rabbot]

Rabbot Reviews: Far Cry 5

Great taste, empty calories.

Far Cry 5 is the latest game in quite the lineage of a series known, as you might surmise, as Far Cry. Game number 6, actually, dependent on how canon you feel Primal was. FC as it stands now, though, is a bit of a… how to put it? A long call? A distant yell? An outlying wail? A remote shout? No, a far cry from the original two games, before Ubisoft bought the franchise.

(Yeah, that’s the phrase. Glad I thought of it, though I don’t know where I got it.)

((Incidentally, Remote Shout is the name of my new indie punk garage band. Album drops: never, because this is a joke.))

Starting after Far Cry 3, Ubisoft has been telling their dev teams to make lightning strike twice. Thus, each game hereafter has been an excited waiting game of seeing how they’ll try and ultimately fail to match the demented, yet incredibly charismatic villain that was Vaas.

And 5 feels like this illogical conclusion of just that. Because you have not one, not two, but four scenery-eating, rompy villains. Less a refined, precise attempt at the concept, and more of a blunderbuss approach; hoping to tickle a little of everyone’s villain fancy.

That, I feel, is the perfect metaphor for the game in general.

Last call to avoid spoilers.

Speaking of fitting descriptions of the entire game, let’s start with the intro. Because I have mixed feelings about it, at best. There’s a lot it does right, and some things it simply gets wrong, in regards to the rest of the narrative as a whole.

The pacing and atmosphere are phenomenal. The very air feels heavy around you as you enter into the church, here to take the titular Joseph Seed away from his flock. The pressure of the stakes are established flawlessly, leaving a feeling of palpitation, and a true understanding of just how dangerous Joseph is. Surprised as I was, the game even managed to shock me a little.

In that respect, it’s fantastic.

But then the game uses the cop crew you rolled in with as your motivation for the entire rest of the game, in the form of saving them from the Seed family, and oh god, it’s Fallout 4 all over again.

Just like the Bethesda example above, this aspect of the intro simply doesn’t work. And not just because it’s asking me to unconditionally care about cops.

This sequence of the narrative focuses on every other aspect of narrative setup except for the characters that you’re supposed to get invested in. You get but the most cursory taste of who they are as people. Such a small amount of time can mainly attach their personalities to a specific emotion.

Whitehorse is the calm voice of reason. Marshall Burke is frustrated. Pratt is nervous. And Hudson is… there too, I guess. Look, I’ll be honest, I had to look up half these people’s names for this review. Which I’m sure is only a good sign.

With so little to go on, I found I simply didn’t care whenever a cultist bigwig dangled one of them in front of me on a string, expecting me to bat like a good little kitten. Instead, I yawned and wandered off to play with the packaging the toy had come in.

Like a mischievous little kitten.

Which is such a shame, because there are so many other more interesting characters I actually did care about. And in the few scenes where the Seeds held them to ransom instead, the game suddenly had actual stakes.

Nick and Kim Rye were delightful every time they showed up. Virgil was so honestly sincere, I couldn’t help but like him; and his past, as it unfolded, was interesting to dive into. And Jerome was pretty much cool by default, and an excellent concept for a foil to the cultist bad guys, and everything they stood for.

But the story feels almost unconfident in its execution. Like the team is scared you’ll get bored. So the solution, write more story, or rather, several seemingly self-contained stories across the three separate regions.

With no overarching theme or plot threads besides “Joseph Seed probably gave the command for this at some point,” however, the connection feels loose at best. And this looseness makes the narrative feel all the weaker.

I’d much rather the story had been more focused and condensed. If they’d honed in on about one third as many characters, and if the villains felt a little less redundant, the overall narrative could’ve been much more refined and interesting.

Even the gameplay, while fun, has the same issue.

When traversing from place to place, you can’t drive for five minutes without a dozen random encounters passing you by, whether they travel by wheel or foot or paw. What should be a ten minute trek can sometimes take 30.

Again, it feels like the game is nervous. Like it’s worried that if I’m not firing a gun every two minutes, I’m losing interest. Look, I know this is the age of the internet, but my attention span hasn’t deteriorated that bad.

What were we talking about again?

But it’s sad though, as it detracts from what could be some very nice vistas and scenic routes. I can barely enjoy the quiet, introspective new addition of fishing without a randomly spawned cultist with an exaggerated country accent shouting “Fay-oond ‘eem!” and scaring away all the darn fish with a wild assault rifle volley.

Speaking of guns, let’s talk about politics. Something that could only ever be fun and only ever go over very well.

I don’t want to get too deep into this, as it’s been covered to death, and more eloquently than I’ll probably put it. For a better dive into the subject, I’d recommend watching Errant Signal’s “The Art of Saying Nothing.” To sum it up though, while at face value, FC5 might seem as though it’s about to lay down a scathing indictment of certain aspects of American culture, it really doesn’t.

Not for lack of bringing it up though.

The lady who owns Peaches the cougar, that is to say, the former owner of this sweet large kitten (no I’m not looking up the name this time; she’s not even a narrative footnote), is a prejudicial old woman who lives alone in the woods.

Immediately upon entering her domicile so I could acquire my new kitty and leave, she mentioned that my player character looked vaguely Italian, and made an off-color comment about not wanting her silver/jewels to go missing.

What is this, the turn of the century, last century?

At Hurk’s place, you can meet his dad, who wants to build a wall. What, no, not a wall down there. A wall in the north, to keep out those accursed Canadians and their liberal ideology.

Addressing controversy by obfuscating the real world equivalent is cute, but it lacks the punch that makes it such that it’s proving some kind of point. Here, it’s npc’s that you’re expected to stay on good terms with, so that you can get more quests and goodies, like a new pet or ride.

(Shame you never get a new pet who is also your new ride, though.)

And why? Because they’re supposedly better than the cultists who only physically hurt and impede people different than themselves? What’s the takeaway here supposed to be, that it’s only physical extremism that’s bad and--oh god wait no, it’s Bioshock Infinite all over again.

Of course, we all know the real reason why. To offend as few people as possible. Because every offended party is a potential lost sale. Hence why despite clearly using Christian/Baptist imagery and motifs, no cultist ever actually mentions Jesus by name, and the peggy symbol only vaguely and technically resembles that of a cross.

I’ve bad news for you, though, Ubisoft; it’s too late. If you wanted to offend as few people as possible, it was already over the instant you let writers set it in a rural, dominantly Christian, dominantly white community, in America. Right wing talking heads were lining up to be officially offended the instance promos started showing bad guys toting guns, bibles, and the American flag.

Because despite bragging about having thick skin, when it comes down to it, they typically don’t.

At some point, you almost want to lean in uncomfortably close to the game’s face and tell it “Go on. Say what you really mean.” And it never does. Making it satire with no teeth, which isn’t actually satire, but parody. It’s a flag-waving, gun-toting parody of American culture. It’s an American beer commercial meets Saint’s Row. It’s a romanticized outdoorsy rural locale with tacky looking guns and gruesome murder set to made-up gospel and old rock hits.

Which doesn’t feel that far off from a Saint’s Row game, but it wildly conflicts with the tone Far Cry 5 very quickly establishes for itself. And it’s such a waste, because to use an on-theme colloquialism, “bless its little heart.”

It’s trying so hard, and there are some things I can’t help but enjoy about it.

There was a moment early on, when I was creeping through the bushes of a small neighborhood as slowly and quietly as I could. I had not but a bow and a pistol to my name. Cultists were stacking dead bodies while their speaker-mounted truck played their very own choir, singing about water washing away sin. As they were finishing up, they began to sing along.

It was as First Blood meets Jim Jones as the entire game felt, and it all just clicked. The gameplay and tone all lined up so perfectly and felt so right. Where did that go?

Luckily, the game is also pretty charming in various other inadvertent or otherwise unintentional ways.

Obviously it’s cute and wholesome that you can pet all the non-hostile animals. But it’s completely adorable how Peaches growls at you when you go where she can’t follow.

There’s also random npc’s you can recruit for the game’s buddy system, aside from the nine named specialty partners. At first, I seriously wondered how any of them could compare to Peaches, the oversized mewling kitten, or Grace, the cool as a cucumber sniper lady.

But then I found some lady named Evie, who looked like somebody’s mom, and I honestly found it hard to part with her. There was something so ernest and amusing about the idea of somebody’s mom who used to embarrass them at every PTA meeting or bake sale, now in an awkwardly-fitting militia vest yelling “Get some!” to every other cultist who dared cross our path.

The gameplay is also varied enough with timed races, and puzzling treasure hunting segments. The latter in particular, I really enjoyed. They had me doing everything navigating mazes of fire to hopping and swinging along successive grapple lines under a bridge, skirting river water along the way. It’s good, varied fun.

I also really appreciate the organic way in which story beats are unlocked, which is really saying something for a sandbox. Normally, there are specific missions that unlock the next cutscene that actually matters, and everything else feels like so much filler and padding.

Far Cry 5 had the genius idea that everything should contribute to an overall progress bar. This makes it that nothing feels like padding, as you’ll always be working toward the next story beat, even if you’re doing what feel like side quests.

But it’s one step forth and one step back with you, isn’t it Far Cry 5?

Once you’ve unlocked the next story beat, you’ll be whisked away to the next cutscene to have one of the villains get in your face for the next five minutes, whether you were ready for that or not. It gets annoying after the second time, and downright numb the fifth or sixth.

It’s also where the writing starts to fall apart some more.

You know that old James Bond trope where the bad guy has him right where they want him? But then because the villain is so contrived in how they want to handle him, he ends up getting away? Well that happens almost every time. It’s cheesy.

Also where some of the worst writing in the game comes into play.

Jacob Seed has a neat gimmick, I’ll admit. He’s all about classic conditioning, A Clockwork Orange style. Alright, interesting enough. And instead of escaping, you wake up, presumably days later, having finally escaped his mind control. It was a neat twist at first.

What’s incredibly stupid though is everyone points it out. Dutch, Eli, all characters who know about Jacob’s MO, and none of them think anything suspicious about it. Nope, just “Hey, now that I can finally get in contact with you after an entire week of you not responding, come back and get uncomfortably close to me and people I care about.”

Nobody thinks anything’s up with that? Even after it happens three or four times?? And not even my own character thinks to warn them that I’m being psychologically manipulated to kill them???

Oh. Look at that. The game made me kill Eli. How very unsurprising. What is that, something like four hours of build up to a twist anyone could see coming if they’ve ever seen a story?

“Who cares, it’s fun, isn’t it?”

I mean, yes, sure. It’s very fun, in fact. Fewer things have been more satisfying than timing it just right to take down three baddies at once, with a sniper shot from Grace, a mauling from Peaches, and a throwing knife from myself.

And like I said before, the gameplay is just varied enough to not grow dull. But what should be a good game is held back by mediocre writing and a lack of commitment.

Weirder than any of it though is the troves of people lining up to say it doesn’t matter, because the game is fun. Listen, I can enjoy the gameplay for hours of mind-numbing fun, but still be able to pick apart everything wrong with the overall experience. There’s nothing really wrong with that. It doesn’t completely impede what enjoyment I, or anybody else, was able to get out of it.

I really don’t get this, though. This is no critique of the game itself, mind you, but it is at fault for bringing it up again, even if by accident. So it bears discussion.

Clean Prince was right when he said that Far Cry 5 brought up a lot of what’s wrong with modern gaming culture. Yet I can’t help but disagree with his reasoning behind this statement. Because he, like many, asked why any of it matters, so long as the game is fun.

Look.

Gamers clamored for years, demanding our hobby be taken seriously. Entire groups and brands like Extra Credits formed, to try and gain for games the same respect film and literature already had.

Nowadays, we have critics aplenty, like Super Bunny Hop, and the above-mentioned Errant Signal, who regularly dissect games with the same attention to detail movies, shows, and novels receive.

We did it. We’re here. We made it, right?

No.

People tear down bad writing in games, and suddenly it doesn’t matter. The game being fun is the only feature that matters, now that it’s convenient to dismiss anything that seemingly gets in the way of your enjoyment.

Even though it doesn’t.

If Far Cry 5 were a film, people would be trampling over each other to repeat the critics’ disregard of its milquetoast shotgun approach to writing, and lack of commitment to an actual point, despite advertising itself as any kind of satire.

It’s not like having an actual statement is foreign to Far Cry either. Far Cry 2 had a well implemented theme of deterioration in every aspect; your character’s health thanks to the malaria, the guns falling apart from being old, fire spreading wildly out of control.

It’s not even necessarily a Ubisoft problem either.

Far Cry 3 was all about the lengths you’d go to for the people you care about, and how growing and changing as a person ends up alienating you from them anyway. There was also an underlying theme about there being no real winners in a setting so deeply seeded with violence.

Ending sucks too. That’s not a good transition, but it’s as good of one as it deserves, to be frank.

It’s awful, but not because it’s unsatisfying and you don’t get to technically win. Not every game needs to end on a positive note, just because you work for it. Spec Ops: The Line had some of my favorite gut-punch endings in a game.

But the takeaway is just bad, for either ending.

Either you walk away from Joseph at the end, and Jacob’s conditioning kicks in again, and you kill everyone you just saved, or randomly and completely out of bumbling nowhere, several nuclear warheads go off around the tristate area. And everyone you just saved dies in irradiated fire anyway.

What’s the takeaway here? That we should just let dangerous people get away with violent uprisings, because hey, who knows, they may actually have been right all along?

The nuclear ending especially is just bad writing. It’s a twist out of left field meant to shock, and take you by surprise, but only because there’s nothing to indicate it’s going to happen. It’s trying, and failing, to ape the nuke scene from the first Modern Warfare game. But that scene was the dramatic release after an entire level’s worth of building tension regarding the bomb which was mentioned earlier. Of which said established tension, there’s simply none here.

Each region even caps off with you burning out the cult’s various bomb shelters. Only to find out, what? That you should’ve given up and let them kill and maim and steal all they like, so you could huddle down next to them in their bunkers? All because some uninformed zealot who doesn’t even sound like he’s actually looked at a bible lately made a lucky guess?

No thanks.

Instead of inspiring shock and awe, the ending feels random and nonsensical. Once again destroying any coherency the overall tone the game could’ve had. Is this supposed to be a fun, silly game to be enjoyed with a beer or a friend? 

Or a serious and somber game where you face the deepest human fear of all: how people manage to justify overt acts of pure evil as “the right thing?”

All in all, Far Cry 5 is like a cheap burger from a fast-food joint. The taste is fine and it’ll tide you over, but it’s probably not very good for you. And you can’t help but think about how much better it looks in the pictures on the menu.