#sucks that there's no Devs game today

[imperatorrrrr]

Welcome to T's Eastern Conference Wildcard Watch - 28 March 2024

Thursday March 28, 2024 Relevant Games + Preferred Outcomes:

The New Jersey Devils are five points out of the WC2 spot and six points out of the M3 spot.

New York Islanders @ Florida Panthers - FLA Regulation Win

Philadelphia Flyers @ Montreal Canadiens - MON Regulation Win

Washington Capitals @ Toronto Maple Leafs - TOR Regulation Win

Detroit Red Wings @ Carolina Hurricanes - CAR Regulation Win

[babblingfishes]

I continue to be. So Fucking Tired Of People

[cerbreus]

[astrxealis]

sometimes . hmm. i remember doing research (that i crammed lol) like, 2 years ago, for school and it was for SOGIE stuff and honestly that was really really enlightening and i'm so glad for what my school makes us do with that sort of thing even if i stress so much

[theliterarywolf]

WELP. In today's episode of "why we can't have nice things", the dev of "Coffin of Andy and Leyley" got doxxed, and has transferred the rights to the game and completely left the internet. People suck...

At this point, if I hear news about any creator or artist having to punch one of these entitled twits in the face or, worse, bringing out Ol' Reliable, I will feel no sympathy for the injured or maimed party.

Because the amount of entitled twits on the internet who feel like exposing people to legitimate harm just because they made a piece of media you they don't like or they called out their shitty behavior has long since gotten ridiculous.

Because, remember: Gooseworx also got doxxed recently around the time she was reiterating her 'Do whatever you want, just don't act weird to others' stance.

Not to mention the recent slew of people gleefully adopting radfem rhetoric in the name of being 'anti-fiction' (i.e.: the good old-fashioned 'women aren't capable of engaging with dark erotica and, thus, are opening the door to abuse and misogyny by reading smut' takes).

I am so sorry that the AnL dev had to go through that; what the actual fuck...

[talekinesis]

Magical Burnout

Fairly Oddparents fic

Since I'm sick, I'm also gonna make Irep sick :)

I've seen people headcanon Irep and Peri as co-workers/ co-fairies so I'm gonna jump on that too

Summary: Irep gets Magical Burnout and Peri takes care of him

Irep snapped awake and sat up, only to be pushed back down by his goody-two-shoes counterpart. He went to argue, but ended up turning away to cough into his elbow.

"Would you relax? I don't know why you wake up like you fought in war, that's the third time today." Peri grumbled. Though he couldn't help but look at his anti-fairy with pity. The poor guy was pale, thin, and despite sweating and having a fever, he was also shivering. Even his wings were pale and dry.

Dev sat off to the side, sort of just watching them, trying not to give away the fact he was worried, even though Peri had already explained that Magical Backup, and Magical Burnout weren't the same thing.

"Magical Burnout isn't lethal, it just means Irep was stupid and over-used his magic, and now he's sick. He'll be okay." He had said.

Though he told Dev he didn't have to worry, the kid still insisted on staying, and had sat quietly in the corner all morning, playing his puzzle game.

Peri helped Irep sit up and placed a bowl of soup in his lap. "I hope that shark-tornado was worth you getting this sick." He scolded.

The anti-fairy took in a wheezy breath. "Very much so-" he turned away and coughed again as Peri rolled his eyes.

"You look horrible, what spells did you even cast?" He asked, feeling Irep's forehead, and cringing when his forearm came back sweaty.

Dev looked guilty. "Hazel and I watched a bunch of sci-fi movies, and I thought they were cool so I wished for them to be real.. It's my fault-"

"No, Dev, it's not. You're a kid, he's an adult, he should know when his limit is and when to say no." Peri pinched the bridge of his nose. "What movies?"

"Sharknado, Piranhaconda, Robo-Croc, Tremors-"

Peri stopped him. "Some of those movies are too mature for you and Hazel- and I'm sorry, Tremors?? Did you at least wish them away??"

Dev shook his head and Peri groaned, though he turned his frustration to Irep. "You didn't magic them away??"

Irep gulped down the broth and lowered the bowl from his mouth. "No? Why would I do that?"

The fairy groaned and rubbed his face. He pulled out his wand and wished the sci-fi monsters away. "There. Now," he took the empty bowl from Irep and stood up, "Dev, he'll be fine, I'll look after him. You go on ahead and head to Hazel's, alright?"

Dev nodded and hopped down from his chair. Peri wished him over to Hazel's house, and looked back down at Irep, who seemed to be pouting.

"What?" Peri asked.

Irep huffed. "Why are you helping me? I left you to die when you got Magical Backup, and mine's not even lethal, I'd be fine without you're help."

"Yeah, but Magical Burnout sucks. Trust me, I've been there. It's not fun being sick on your own. No energy, struggling to get up and walk. Well, I got it when I was a kid, my mother just carried me-"

Irep scoffed. "My parents would never. My mother had a tendency to drop me-"

"Yeah, my dad too. Grand Canyon."

"And my father made me stay in- I'm sorry, did you just say you were dropped into the Grand Canyon??" He laughed, which just turned into a coughing fit.

Peri shook his head and laid him back down. Irep complied, too tired to protest, and turned over onto his stomach so his wings were comfortable, which told Peri he was planning on sleeping again.

The fairy placed a hand between his wings. "Get some rest. I'll have more soup for you when you wake up." He said. He got up from the bed and without thinking, he rubbed Irep's head before he left the room.

The anti-fairy breathed heavily into his pillow, figuring maybe working with Peri wouldn't be awful. 'He's a better person than me,' he thought.

___

hi sorry this was short or if it didn't make sense, I'm sick, tired, and I ended up rushing it so I could take a nap

I hope it was okay and ended up somewhat legible.

you can kinda see where I tried a "Oh look they're bonding now," thing but again I'm just tired and not feeling well

Anyway, I hope someone liked it

[hibischush]

can you write for olric 🫣 I'm so whipped for him. what if the reader/farmer was so down bad and constantly trying to get closer and he never notices or thinks that maybe this is an "in" to get somebody to be his brothers friend... well, that's how playing the game feels knowing he's not romanceabale

ugh i feel you. he's got such kronk vibes from emperors new groove. he's just such a sweetie 💗

A variety of clanks and clangs bounce off of the anvil and out into the open air. The heat near the furnace wafted out in wispy waves, combining in the already hot summer air.

Your hair sticks to your forehead, and it feels like your clothes are melting into your skin. Not that you mind though, since you got to sneak glances at the master blacksmith's brother.

Olric focuses on flattening down a copper ingot. His thick arms raise and strike down with great force onto the metal, and you just about drool when you watch sweat fly off his rippling biceps. His face drips with perspiration, making his chiseled face shine like an angel that descended from the heavens. Your eyes trail down his stocky frame, quickly down to his belt line--

"How long are you going to stand there and thirst over my brother?"

You nearly scream and rip your eyes away from the other (hottest) brother, and March glares at you, arms crossed. He must have snuck out of the shop without you noticing. Sparing a quick glance back, it doesn't seem that Olric overheard his brother. You mentally sigh with relief.

You roll your eyes and match his stance. "Shut up, March. I'm just here to forge my own metals."

March smirks. "Sure you are. Listen, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Olric has not and will not notice your very obvious crush on him."

You sputter. "It's not that obvious,"

March gives you an incredulous look.

"Okay, maybe it is. But either way you don't have to come after me for it."

"He's my brother. I know him better than you. And I know I can be a dick, but here's a crumb of my community service to you," He lowers his voice, and leans closer into your personal space, "Give. Up." March spat with a level of finality, walking back into the blacksmithing building.

You let out a breath you didn't know you were holding, and looked back over to Olric. You let out a sigh. This is probably not worth the heartbreak.

"Oh! Hey! It's my favorite farmer. What brings you here today? Any cool new rocks you've found?" Olric calls out, wiping his forehead with a saccharine smile.

Your heart soars. Nodding with a smile, you return his enthusiasm. "You know it! How about we head down to the Tavern to discuss it over a cold drink?"

March can suck it. You could indulge in your little crush a bit longer.

mannn it is so funny to search up olric and see hundreds of articles of players begging the devs to add him as a romanceable character 😭I don't blame them, olric is such a hunk of a man who wouldn't love this darling 💗

[kaija-rayne-author]

I guess the discourse today is about Astarion being the favourite poster boy of the devs to the detriment of the other characters.

Yes. That's unequivocally true. Wyll having so little compared to Astarion is also an example of racism.

It's also capitalism. Larian can't make more games unless BG3 does well. So far it has, so in their choice of poster boy they chose correctly.

Every business, especially entertainment ones, follows a similar model. Develop stories or games that the previous game helped fund. It's common in book publishing too.

(Which, tbf, is my realm of knowledge, but the business facts are the same.)

What you, if you're indie, or the publisher, if not, chooses to spend time on is the thing/character/aspect/story that will sell the most copies so they can stay in business.

They bet on Astarion being popular because:

1. Vampire, vampire stories don't seem to get old. People want more.

2. White hair, if you're at all into gaming or anime, you should recognize the white-haired anime boy coding Astarion has.

3. He's pretty. In games & books like these, people want to get turned on or be sucked into emotions, that's rather the point. So, of course, they made him pretty and gave him an angsty backstory about it. Have you noticed that his vampire fangs are the more traditional style and the rest have funky (and likely more efficient) chompers with the fangs on the front teeth?

4. Twink, you'd have to be really not paying attention to not notice that one. They tend to be attractive to the largest section of players.

6. Slow burn, a lot of people prefer slow burn romance.

7. Classically handsome. You could turn him into a statue (and can!) and he wouldn't look out of place.

I don't experience this type of point form character building, my characters tend to march fully formed into my head and demand I write them.

But Astarion was built as a fictional character that would (hopefully) capture a broad cross-section of players and give the game some more sex appeal.

Sex sells.

I'd lay money I don't have on every aspect of Astarion's character having been a deliberate choice to encourage sales.

And that's fine. That's what capitalism does. Don't like it? Start voting for social support programs and things like ubi so that people can create without worrying about the bills.

Is it fair to the other characters and to the gamers who love other characters more than Astarion? Absolutely not. I do hope Larian gets the message and produces more content to make them all equivocal.

Especially for Wyll, they did him so dirty.

Is Wyll having the least lines and scenes racist? Yup.

Larian, despite their faults, produced something that so few games companies have done recently. A single purchase, single player RPG without micro-transactions that was an excellent game straight from release.

Other games companies are bitching about that because it's like sand in the oyster of their business models.

Which, for a while now, has been to roll out a game that wasn't ready yet and use the players as unpaid, uncompensated labour to find bugs etc. As a gamer, I've really hated that.

Did Larian fuck up? Uh, yeah. On several issues. But they also made an amazing game that was awesome from release.

It would be a shame to lose sight of that.

It's important to call out the shite when we see it, but the current 'it has to be perfect for me, or I won't play' attitude rampant on the 'net these days is disturbing to say the least.

I've read Larian has a feedback thing on fridays. If this really bothers you, hustle on over and participate in the feedback session.

They're still actively working on the game. They can still make changes and they seem reasonably responsive to fan feedback.

But just remember... the reason Astarion is the poster boy with the most content is because of capitalism. It was likely a cold, business focused decision vs anything else.

Which doesn't make it better. I just figured inserting a bit of entertainment business knowledge might be helpful to the discussion.

[guysonroblox]

it sucks because even some of the games that Do have a lot of heart and work put into them that still profit off their game end up just feeding huge chunks of that money to roblox anyways who encourages the slop more than people who put a lot of effort and care into their games. Yeah baby let the kids on the internet create big passion projects that inevitably loop around into making roblox money. that looks great and isn't :/ at all

i've accepted that any money to be gained goes through roblox first. sucks but that's the way it is. and i can still respect a passion project, i'm just sick of the slop&slop contagion that even good games seem to pick up. stop selling crazy gamepasses and dev products. my only request. an impossible task for some people. fucking hate microtransactions bro i'm sick of this shit.

guess if roblox is gonna push the slop we should be posting cool shit we find, right? get some eyes on whatever's sick today

[ceasarslegion]

Sorry I'm so angry today guys I'm just. So fucking sick of every single person or thing anyone ever likes becoming the next "THEYRE BASICALLY HITLER" like can we go one fucking week without acting like some celebrity who is NOT a political commentator is actually Satan when idk, actual politicians are melting us from the inside out?

"This celebrity did something in bad taste" yeah, they do that sometimes. Because being a celebrity doesn't make you less of a person with both qualities and flaws. We have GOT to stop acting like some singer/songwriter or actor or game dev has to be on par with world leaders when it comes to political shit or they're monsters. Like why are you expecting that shit from a guy who writes songs about song contests against the devil and voices bowser for a living and then getting mad that he... would rather voice bowser for a living than get sucked into political instability? And said something that was in bad taste about it?

BRB going to gamestop and asking my cashier what he thinks the solution to world hunger is and getting mad when he says he just wants to ring out my order instead of talking about the pros and cons of neoliberalism

[insertdisc5]

Devlog #15: Steam Next Fest and Recap

Hello everyone! Welcome to this month’s devlog!

If you just stumbled upon this, I am Adrienne, also known as insertdisc5! I’m the developer, writer, artist, main programmer, etc of the game. The game being In Stars and Time, a timeloop RPG, which is also the next and final game in the START AGAIN series, following START AGAIN: a prologue (available here!).  You can find out more about In Stars and Time here!!! 

LET’S GET TO IT. This month is a recap of all the fun things that happened this very busy month!!!

So many things happened this month!!! Let's go in order.

In Stars and Time was showcased at The Mix, a games showcase in LA! Or, well... That was the plan.

The Mix got canceled. Which sucks.

But!!! Thankfully, Jirard the Completionist acted immediately and streamed a bunch of the demos over on Twitch! You can watch my producer Dora and marketing coordinator Ariana present the game to Jirard over here (timestamp 04:07:06)! Thank you for playing so many demos Jirard!!!

After that, we showed a new small gameplay trailer during Future of Play! It includes two little scenes you may not have seen yet :3c As well as a little announcement!

Yes, you saw that right. In addition to PC and Nintendo Switch, In Stars and Time will also be coming to Playstation 4 and 5 at release!!! YAHOO!!!

And then. Steam Next Fest. Steam Next Fest is one of Steam's events where a bunch of devs can show off demos for their game! And ISAT was in it!!! Steam Next Fest is over, but did you know you can still play the ISAT demo? DID YOU KNOW?!? One week is not enough time to experience all the games Steam Next Fest has to offer, so we’ve decided to keep it online a bit longer! Go play it! Go!!!

We have gotten so many compliments and messages about how people loved the demo, and I couldn't be happier!!! I think I watched all the times people streamed the demo, and it was so fun to see people's reactions... It made my heart feel so warm... Thank you to everyone who played the demo, wishlisted the game, or said the game looked cool!!! (And yes I've been taking notes and I will change some stuff in the full release. I promise Sif won't say there's only one stool in a room when there's clearly three!!!!!)

As part of Steam Next Fest, I did a livestream of the demo for one hour!!! I got to play the demo, answer questions, and talk with a bunch of lovely fans <3 It was so fun, it made me want to stream more... One day, perhaps...

If you missed it, you can watch the recorded stream here!

And on the development side, the console ports and the localization are chugga-chugga-chuggin'! We are working hard to fix some little bugs and add some small QOL updates.

And, oh! Someone over on Tumblr asked me about how I did the battle AI in the demo, as well as attack patterns. Here's a little passage to wet your appetite:

You can read the whole thing over here!!!

And as a last little note, START AGAIN: a prologue, ISAT’s prototype, is on sale over on Steam and Itch.io! It’s not necessary to play to understand ISAT, but mayhaps… You’d like to play it anyway…?

That’s all I have to say for today! Let me know if you have any questions, or if there’s any aspect of the game development struggle you’d like me to talk about! See you next time!!!

AND DON’T FORGET TO WISHLIST THE GAME ON STEAM ALSO IT REALLY HELPS BECAUSE STEAM’S ALGORITHM IS MORE LIKELY TO SHOW OFF GAMES WITH A HIGH AMOUNT OF WISHLISTS THAT’S THE REASON WHY GAME DEVS ALWAYS ASK TO WISHLIST!!! OKAY BYE!!!!

[retphienix]

So after many many many years I'm finally playing Starbound and it's been, interesting.

So out the gate, some context on my 'experience' before playing.

When starbound came out I was OBSESSED. I wanted it so bad because it was colloquially considered "Better Terraria".

If you weren't active in this section of gaming at the time, it really was painted that way.

Terraria at the time of Starbound's release had just hit 1.3, Moon Lord is finally a thing.... but there's something to be said of what pop culture knew vs the reality- because Terraria's time in the spotlight was finally slowing and most people thought of WoF as still being the end game. Another group still thought of the mechanicals and Plantera as the end-game range of things- Moon Lord was NEW but also the audience was momentarily distracted away from this silly 5 year old 2D minecraft.

It wasn't uncommon for the discussion around Terraria to be "Oh yeah that was fun, but did you hear about the 'kickstarter' for Starbound? It's Terraria IN SPACE!

A former dev of Terraria just up and left and made BIGGER, BETTER Terraria!"

Or that was the casual pitch between gaming circles.

The hype was heavy and I never got to play it, womp womp.

Fast forward a few years and talk starts up about Starbound again, for all the wrong reasons.

The main guy did some mega shitty things to contributing artists and didn't compensate them, videos begin appearing in my circle of the internet that both exposed this story and talked on the game at large.

I learn that this indie darling title apparently SUPER failed to meet expectations over time. That it promised ports that never happened. That updates apparently focused on aspects it didn't need to and the end result is a messy title with a TERRIBLE gameplay loop for the main quest, among other things.

At this time I decide to glance back over to Terraria, a game that had sat off my radar despite my initial love for it- and I find out Terraria FUCKING EXPLODED.

TERRARIA BECAME A FUCKING MEGA HIVE OF CONTENT AND QUALITY THAT YOU CAN DEDICATE 120 BILLION HOURS INTO AND LOVE EVERY SECOND.

From humble beginnings, lol.

So at this time I figured I lucked out, in a sense. Starbound always looked interesting, but I got to enjoy Terraria back in its humble days AND at it's height today, it's okay that I didn't play Starbound, I probably won't bother :)

Then a bud who casually enjoyed it years ago bought it for me since I was talking about Terraria and I figured "Fuck it, let's find out."

And uh, Buddy lol

Okay, my experience so far, because it's kind of a roller coaster of highs and lows.

Right out the gate my first hour or so was Not particularly fun.

Combat felt terrible, the weapon you start with has a bizarrely unfun combo it deploys and movement SUCKED- it felt bad to fight and it felt bad to explore, I was not happy- but:

I have eyes, I can see in my inventory that I'm missing "Techs" and I begin finding a couple (still bad, but less bad) weapons and start thinking "Okay, okay I'll keep going this is obviously not the game yet."

By the time I get to the outpost and unlock my techs I've also got a couple new weapons- I'm still mostly unimpressed with melee, with all the flashy energy depleting moves not making up for how they "feel" to me, especially with how many enemies either CHARGE, or shoot, but I'm beginning to enjoy combat because of the alternatives.

Shields are a nice addition that makes 1 handed weapons my immediate preference since many of them don't rely on bad combos or gimmicky (underwhelming) energy attacks.

Guns become more common and I'm REALLY enjoying the gunplay since they ALSO get secondary fires- it's at this point I realize this isn't entirely different from Terraria where most players (myself included) find ranged combat with magic, bows, guns, throwables, and even non-true melee to be more fun than true melee- I appreciate the comparison.

Movement becomes IMMEDIATELY less shit with techs. Some techs are underwhelming, but I become a fan of the multi jump and spike ball rather quickly.

I enjoy the quest to repair the ship, though I'm mostly getting the hang of things and my weapons still aren't "really" shining.

Once my ship is repaired I'm sent on the first Trek, this is both the beginning of my least favorite part of the game AND this SPECIFIC instance is 100% my favorite part of my experience thus far.

At this point I can move my ship, I get a mech, I am told to explore a planet and scan things to get access to a dungeon, and this entire process feels like a training montage of sorts- I'm learning to use my tools and I'm making some upgrades to my gear and home base, it's nice!

I gather a lot of resources but before I can really use them I've completed the scan and go in to the dungeon.

I FUCKING LOVED my entire time in the Florian dungeon.

I've got my weapons in check, I'm loving the dungeon challenges, I'm tricking enemies into traps, I'm LOVING it- at this moment I'm at the highest point, movement is feeling nice in this arena, combat feels great, the boss was fun- love it, 10/10

I can't emphasize enough that this Trek from "research stuff" to "First dungeon" was my most fun period with my grasp of mechanics growing during the Trek and then the dungeon being a REALLY fun arena to play with it all- loved it!

I even explored a hostile glitch castle for the hell of it because I had all these new toys and wanted to :D

...

Then it ended.

Then I get told to just, do it again. The research part immediately becomes my least favorite thing in the game. It was fun in the context of 'training' as I learned how to play, but now I have to travel to new planets that have 1 or 2 new ores and seek out key items to scan- I'm bored, I hate this. Where's my miniboss fight like on the first planet or when you repair the ship? Where's the hand crafted content? I'm just finding wood homes and scanning whatever is highlighted green.

I return home and realize something else I hate, crafting becomes a fucking chore. I upgrade all my benches and realize actually using them is a challenge in defeating tedium and nothing more.

You can't craft from benches using nearby chest contents- a common mod in games of this sort (which isn't available as a mod here), you can't craft from chest content AT ALL since you can't open the crafting menu and a chest at the same time (A feature Terraria has which alleviates this problem altogether), chests are TINY- even the best of which like the one in your ship are not big enough to hold every kind of crafting material you'll find, and the game FLOODS me with new resources that all do mostly nothing.

I end up with 10-20 filled 20-40 slot chests of blocks and materials and crafting immediately becomes unbearable because you can't even sort or quick stack with chests.

I hate it.

So now I'm confronted with the crafting aspect of the game becoming suddenly unusable, storage becoming annoying as hell, and the game saying "Go scan stuff, idiot :)" and I'm just frustrated.

So I opted to try and improve these aspects.

I sought out basic mod workshop support to make these 2 problems less annoying because I realized "This fucking game is going to ask me to do this SIX times, ridiculous."

I found some basic storage mods that let you manage containers so they can sort, search, and quick stack along with increasing chest size based on overworld size (It results in chests being buffed across the board)- this all told really did fix my crafting problem because while I still can't open a chest and craft from it like Terraria- I can now actually fucking find my stuff in this mess because BASIC QOL fucking exists for chests now (and I no longer need 15 chests for materials which helps too lol).

The research problem was a bit tougher to tackle because I didn't want to just change the entire game with like a "skip this part" button, or by playing an overhaul mod, I wanted to play Starbound- I just want to make it more enjoyable.

So after passing over a lot of mods I found something.... interesting to attempt and make the enforced exploration grind less annoying- an RPG mod that makes killing things give xp so you can improve and refine your character over time.

A unique solution, but my thought process was that I had just made crafting no longer a complete chore- so I have "small" reasons to explore for materials right now, but I needed another motivator on top of that and then exploring and scanning stuff would become less annoying- so "grinding xp" + "collect materials" sounded like enough to me and I installed and got started.

My second Trek was miles less fun than my first, but my solutions did help quite a bit.

Researching just feels entirely worthless- I scan a gong and get told "Yep, they swing at this thing" and that somehow eventually teaches me that they had a library someplace. It's... stupid! It's unfun and stupid. On paper it's clearly "encouraging exploration" but they didn't make exploration fun since every planet is a nothing-burger with some ore in it.

The most interesting thing I found was the hostile glitch castle and that was NOT RELEVANT to anything progression based! Every planet I find stuff to actually scan is just a boring landmass with some chests- why not toss more mini-bosses like the starter planet has onto these? Force me to fight a mini-boss to discover the next dungeon- don't tell me to go "scan a vase" wth???

My mods pan out, I end up focusing on them a lot more than the dumb scanning task (again, why not mini-boss progression instead, scanning is not gameplay) and I make it to the second dungeon.

The second dungeon.... is.... fine?

The first was SO FUN and the second is just a lot of empty rooms and far less exploration to be had? I mean the first was also a straight path but it was designed well enough to have fun- this one arguably has more routes but far less to enjoy while exploring?

No fun traps or enemies in death boxes, just tubes and mountains of books.... a severe downgrade.

That was capped off with a much less fun boss as well. Instead of being more freeform like the spider, the sword boss is just "Learn the pattern and hit them when they are stuck in animations or "exhausted"" and.... it's fine.

Just like how the dungeon on paper is "fine and expansive" but in practice feels less fun to explore than the florian one, the boss on paper is perfectly acceptable- a billion bosses work like this- the FIRST dungeon boss works like this more or less- but the damage is high to punish you and it's just not fun?

The rush ball attack is just fucking stupid to avoid or block so I just gave up and tanked half the damage during that phase because you can survive every time and fuck that move it's stupid.

But core to it all, it was disappointing and unfun. The spider was fun to shoot and avoid and spawned adds and you had an AI buddy helping- it was neat!

This boss was just "Stand on the bookcase and shoot down at her. Okay jump now. Okay rush ball so block and dodge. Okay wail on their stupid health bar while they are tired. Rinse repeat a couple times and you win."

And that's pretty much where I am now.

I had a bad first impression.

An okay time repairing the ship,

A REALLY REALLY REALLY good first trek + dungeon.

A sudden blast of annoyance at how crafting and progression is handled with bad QOL and even worse quest design (scanning).

I modded it slightly to improve this and had a decent time on the second trek + dungeon but vastly less fun than the first.

All in all, I haven't begun to experience any of the things I only half remember from retrospective videos talking about uneven development pitfalls, but my experience has been plenty uneven all the same lol.

Really it just comes down to me being annoyed that so little thought was put into QOL for crafting despite having so many materials and me being VERY FUCKING ANNOYED at the scanning progression objective- it's just not fun or properly encouraging exploration- it's busy work- it's bizarre?

I mean hell, now I'm going out scanning bird relics to find the bird coords.

I'M BIRD.

I'm looking at crates identical to the crates I've supposedly seen my entire life and going "Oh I see, this definitely gets me 3% closer to finding the next dungeon" this objective isn't good lmao.

It feels like something a version 1.2 release of the game would revamp and remove so that you instead get directed towards the proper star/planet combos to find semi-pre-genn'd towns that tell you to go to pre-genn'd dungeons to fight a mini boss like the first planet does. Like legitimately- THAT is exploration showing you each race's theme and giving fair explanation as to why you now know the coords (they tell you them for killing the boss, or the boss has it etc).

THAT is what the game should have been like 5 years ago, instead they stuck with this placeholder model which is not particularly entertaining lol.

Anywho. I'm rather enjoying myself now that I've given myself more reason to explore with mods. Hoping beyond hope that the game shakes up this scan objective going forward but uh... doubting it.

I really am sorry to have my first (only?) post about Starbound be so negative on things but it's my experience with it so far. And I really can not emphasize enough- that first trek + dungeon combo FUCKED. It was SO FUN shooting shit and rolling around and running into some pre-gen content that gave purpose to the random-gen stuff around it (the castle I stumbled upon and the mini-dungeons you go through to repair the ship followed by the good dungeon you do for the florian orb). All great there :)

[bellmo15-blog]

The OTHER Plugsuited Demon Beauty.

Oh boy, this is going to be an interesting one to talk about.

It's hardly a secret at this point but Devil May Cry 2 is widely agreed upon, when people aren't busy ragging on the 2013 reboot that is, to be the worst game in the series. And there's plenty of good and valid reasons for that. Aside from the obvious stuff that people love to meme on anyway like how over powered the guns are or that one of the bosses is literally a tank there's stuff like how the games story isn't explained very well, Dante had all the personality and charisma that made him so likable sucked out of him, the game's world looking bland and lifeless compared to the first games setting which still looks wonderful even today, the only other melee weapons you can get are just reskins of your starting one with only very minor differences and how pretty much every problem this game has could of been avoided if Capcom didn't force a completely different team who had never worked on an action game before to make it in only 2 years. And people act like publishers treating there devs like shit is a new thing this generation...

Even with all the shit DMC 2 does wrong and rightfully get's crap for there is one aspect from it I actually really do like and it might surprise you to hear what it is. Lucia. I actually kind of really like her. Not so much her gameplay because it has the same issues as Dante's gameplay and I'd argue is even worse because she has several awful underwater sections, but more just everything else about her.

Her design for one thing I really like especially since her Devil Trigger makes her look like a Mega Absol but also her story two a little. She learns during her campaign that she's actually a defective demon created by the games main villain Arius and the rest of her story she's having one big existential crisis due to a fear she's going to lose control of herself and become a monster killing everyone which for as wired as this sounds is actually kind of relatable. Because let's be completely honest here, how many of you people have learnt something about yourself that you have no idea how to react to or how to process and spend a good while worrying about it? Hell, I didn't even know I was autistic or what the concept of Autism even was until I was 14 years old and you bet I spent several days not knowing how to even process that at first. Not to mention the several years I was worried I'd grow up to be an angry and bitter man because of how my own farther had anger issues himself. I mean sure, maybe Lucia's story could of been handled a lot better in game and fleshed out a lot more but it is because of the likely un-intended relatability that does actually make me like her a bit.

Which brings me to the whole reason I decided to get her in Rei's White Plugsuit in the first place. Aside for the colour matching Lucia's original design I mean. I mentioned in the Trish Plugsuit pic ChaosCroc did for me that the whole reason I was motivated to get that was because of how Trish being a demon created in the image of Dante's mother Eve was very similar to how Rei in Evangelion was created as a clone of Shinji's mother. Only there are multiple Rei's in Evangelion in the event that one happens to die. Just like how there are technically multiple Lucia's and the one we follow in Dee Em Cee Too is a defect. And that justification pretty much speaks for itself! Lucia had some similarities to Rei and it inspired me. And I'm happy to have gotten this pic. Especially since over the years I've actually wanted Lucia to show up again in new game a little because it sucks that she's stuck in the worst game in the series and anything past that she DOES show up in is in supplementary material we might never get outside of Japan.

Artist is AmeerAshourDraws. Also fun fact, the design of his Ashour Drones was slightly inspired by Plugsuits which is peak!

[prototypelq]

Finally had some time to play Bleak Faith again! (I wasted all my free time since the last time on DRG with friends 😅)

By all means, this game is janky, the locations are enormous, with staircases four times their required size, and since some of the assets, including animations were bought by the devs on asset stores - the quality of enemies and animations does vary and faver in places.

But this game feels so right for me.

I'm not a soulslikes fan, not at all, in fact, I get very annoyed when the game acts cruel to the player (looking at you, poison swamps), but Bleak Faith, despite the jankiness, hasn't been anything like that at all.

All the staircases and the few tight corridors had me on edge, cause the souslike-subgenre takes the sadistic traits of it's original quite often, but there haven't been any jumpscares from the corners yet (even if the enemies do teleport behind you, which is sudden, the attack windup usually leaves enough time to dodge for you).

The experience itself feels like it's supposed to be more meditative, dreamlike and contemplative, rather than teeth-grinding. You explore the gorgeous artpieces before you, with gorgeous music in your ears, and when the time comes, that city, the machine, tests you back. The enemies are both sucked-dry of life husks, zombified pieces of this city, or the architecture in a way, left as decayed remnants of this place to be forgotten, and at the same time, they are the gatekeepers of these wonderful structures.

i dunno this game makes me feel meditative and contemplative and I really love that okay. also, again, the... post-post-apocalyptic high tech religious fantasy? ... the genre mix grips me very hard with this one.

also, I can clearly see why this game can be janky at times. Cause it was developed by three people, and it has:

melee fight system with tons of different weapons; ranged system, including a magic system; the fight system includes parries, dodges and jumping, which are all valid evasive options; a random dismemberment system which has limbs flying off into the depthless below; equipment system including upgrades and slots for stat boosts, with differentiation between heavy/medium/light armour; equipment crafting system; character upgrade system with stats, perks, and active abilities which diversify into builds; enemy mounting system; some perks talk about summons so a summoning system too.

and these are only the ones i've encountered in my three hours with the game.

The freakin latest installment of the souls series doesn't have ALL of these mechanics. I don't know why the devs wanted to have EVERYTHING on the 'action game' mechanics lists. I think this only lacks a Devil Trigger and a Ninjitsu from MGRR, granted, the dismemberment system is already in the game!!!! Three people developed this!!! Why haven't they cut any of features????? It's not feature bloat either, cause you will be using most of these in the playthrough, but damn, some are so situational, but they require dev time too and the fact that the devs had so much ambition both exhilarates and terrifies me a little. As a consumer, I am Not disappointed, but wow man. It's a very high mark to make your game both a visual and an auditorial masterpiece, and adding so much features on top of that seems insane to me.

okay, I think I've wrote out my emotional part, here are some screens

speaking of the size of the game - you see that ladder on the wall? I saw it from another island and wanted to check out. With the size of this game and how passionate the devs are about their spaces, I have no doubt this is an actual route somewhere, and not just a background decoration. Hopefully I'll get to explore it later, for today I have finally defeated the first boss.

Konrad is a good tutorial fight, he made me engage with pretty much every mechanic in the game - parries, ranged magic, dodges and jumps for some of the attacks. Good boss, I'd love to hear some lore of his.

On the staircase, leading below after Konrad, there was a half-broken wall. This is an idle husk, it's not an enemy and can't do anything. I love the implication it was forgotten and left to die between the outer and the inner wall somehow. Sad and mildly horrifying.

I dunno who this guy is, but he said hello and continued to stay there. This is now my bro and I love him. I'll come back for him.

Again, the genre mix of this game works wonders for me. Brick archway bridge above nothingness, leading into a tight corridor, illuminated by a red LED, where the walls seem to be covered in ventilation ways that spread like some sort of disease or organs, or simply uncaring for the needs of the residents of the lower levels. I dunno which is the right interpretation yet, but it feels like all of them are valid in a way.

The style again. Beautiful medieval architecture, big metal gate-arches with the road of paving stones, contrasted to the hrushchevkas in the background, all overgrown and forgotten.

Visually, this is a feast I cannot get enough of.

The thing I CAN get enough of is THIS.

So, I set off to explore this city, and I run into some extremely tight corridors, so much so that the character obscures most of my vision and the floating behind camera doesn't really allow you to see anything. Deeply uncomfortable. After only a few steps, I get ambushed by a new enemy that is leagues faster than anything I've met in the game before, it's pretty much an actual mugger in an alleyway. I was able to get rid of it, and headed forward, where there was a weird long curved-around corridor ahead. Seems like it follows the curved shape of the outer wall of the buildings here, so it must go through the whole thing around. It seemed the right way to go, and the long curved corridor seemed like another architectural marvel of the game, so I wasn't too worried about lack of other enemies.

I SHOULD HAVE. Cause a dozen or another steps into I saw this red-eyed spider-centipede-like Thing, which was swiftly advancing on my position. It's legs made the worst possible sound too. I freaked the hell out, and ran back as fast as possible. The curved corridor merged back into the uncomfortably-tight alleyway, which was noticeably smaller in width, and I thought that was my saving grace. Wrong again, cause this horror was unbothered, and as I finally confirmed, that the enemies do not deaggro, it chased me all the way to the checkpoint.

This thing is horrible, I hate it so much, 10/10. I became much better around spiders and other insects in latest years, so I am pretty fine around them irl, but this thing is made out of 1000000% nightmare fuel, it's running sound sounds like it has all legs accounted for, and its horrifying as hell. I was only saved by it's predictable lunge attack with long windup and winddown, but damn do I not want to meet another thing like this. (I'll most likely have to...)

[live-emotion]

I'm sad to say this, but I think I'm officially over this game. I had waited for so long and finally did a 10 pull for the starish gacha with higher rates for sr/ur, and I only got a Reiji Sr and only Rs (most of them doubles). I was so upset about it that I spent the last 1000 wish tones I had on 4 one pulls, and I obviously only got Rs. This game is obviously made for people who can spend real money on it, which I can't. The thing is, I really really liked it, but it's not worth it. Sorry for the long rant.

I know what you mean, sadly it is the reality of gacha games like this. They're not for everyone, and they're not good for everyone. I caved earlier today and spent 12 gacha tickets (because I knew otherwise I'd use my Wish Tones and I want to save them) and I got all Rs.

I do think its a bit early to fully judge the game. It definitely has its problems, but the dev team so far seem pretty responsive to fan criticism, which is super important for a game like this to keep running. I don't have any super concrete ideas myself yet. The recent big apology gift we got and the change to wish tone balance for daily missions feels like a step in the right direction to me.

You have to know your limits when you go into a game like this. They eat up so much of your time and can be extremely draining. Not to mention the extreme gambling temptation. There's a lot of pressure as well from fans to play a game like this the "right way" which can suck a lot of the fun out of it. Who knows if I'll stick with it long term or not either. If you've lost interest in the game, then thats totally fair. You can always pop in every now and then to play a few songs and then leave again!

[smudged-red-ink]

So today I decided to see exactly how hard it is to make a video game and guys it is so frickin hard (or I just suck at it, that's another completely plausible explanation). Either way I have mad respect for all devs now.