#the only game I've speedrun

[smartzelda]

Okay okay I'm gonna play Twilight Princess again soon (I can't stay away from it for long) but I need a bit of help

When I play it again I kind of want to challenge myself to do something. Preferably a challenge throughout playing, but one to do during the run is fine as well.

Here's the issue. I've already beat Twilight Princess on every console it came out on. I've beat the cave of ordeals multiple times. I've done a 3 heart run where I beat the cave of ordeals. I've obtained every golden bug multiple times. I've gotten all the poe souls. I've gotten every item in the game and upgrade. I've collected all the stamps in the wii u version. I've collected all the heart containers/pieces of heart, and I beat the cave of shadows and set things up so I could have a full set of heart containers for wolf link if I scan my amiibo into breath of the wild. I even performed multiple glitches on both the wii u and gamecube versions of the game, including following my favorite speedrun for Twilight Princess from beginning to end.

So...does anyone have any other challenge ideas?😅

[fakeasmr]

not even playing lies of p, it's just background radiation that has altered the course of my life

[forcedhesitation]

tonight. I complete the balding gay boyfriend collection. I will right the wrong to which I was made to bear witness to. I've three of four men romanced already. all that remains is kissing that sad little wizard...and moonrise towers is just on the horizon.

[korattata]

"Why do i keep having dreams in horror game format?" Says the person who spends their entire work day listening to videos about horror games

[eyepatchdate]

aaand only took 15 mins to run to final boss :)

[prokopetz]

One of the occupational hazards of being so preoccupied with game design as a discipline is that sometimes I'll have dreams that are just some unknown force explaining an idea for a game to me, and last night I dreamed what is possibly the most obnoxious mechanical premise for a game I've ever come up with.

In brief, it was a traditional JRPG-style game with an atypical levelling-up scheme. Rather than gaining XP or levelling up at milestones, party members would grow in power by finding and absorbing or ingesting these little extradimensional parasites, represented in the dream as small grub- or fetus-like creatures with smiling humanoid faces. These parasites would be found as treasure and enemy drops, and could freely be given to any party member, except for the player character; the player character alone was unable to use them for Plot Reasons, and was entirely reliant on equipment to grow in power instead.

Absorbing a parasite both granted permanent stat boosts and unlocked weird psychic powers. However, they'd also cause progressive personality changes in the party members to which they were assigned, reflected by changes in dialogue and interactions, and eventually in granting or denying access to particular side quests. This function of the parasites was undocumented, and would likely go unnoticed by the player on their initial playthrough, as they'd level up as they went and would never see the unmodified dialogues.

A further wrinkle is that this effect was mediated by the game's expected progression. Farming parasites and "over-levelling" beyond where the game expected you to be would accelerate the personality changes, while going deliberately under-levelled would slow them (i.e., by giving your party members more time to acclimate to having bugs in their brains); like the personality changes themselves, the existence of these hidden modifiers would not be hinted at to the player.

If you spent a long enough stretch of the game sufficiently over-levelled, you'd eventually receive a non-standard game over where your party would betray, kill, and eat the player character. Furthermore, this non-standard ending had a deliberate "eclipse phase" whereby it would wait for a while after you hit the required threshold before pulling the trigger, in particular making sure that you've saved at least once, leaving your save file irrevocably fucked.

As a final twist, the non-standard game over would only trigger after resting; though the game's mechanics would heavily incentivise resting on a regular basis, it would theoretically be possible to massively over-level your party on purpose and avoid the bad ending simply by never resting again, potentially as a speedrun strat. However, doing so would alter the game's ending to replace the usual final boss with a hopeless solo boss fight against your own massively over-levelled party.

[lovverletters]

Yandere! Streamer x Streamer! Reader

A/N : I'm taking a break from the bullet point format and decided to try making a drabble instead. Huuge thanks to @bloozz for giving streamer his name🌷

T/W : Streamer reader, yandere behaviour, obsessive behaviour, etc

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

"Damnit..! I lost again" He let out a defeated sigh as he watches the 'GAME OVER' screen blinking at him in an almost mocking way.

The chat of his live stream went wild upon his fifth time losing on a game that he had been playing for hours by now and yet he still hasn't been able to beat it.

"Yeahhh, thanks a lot chat! those 'L's you're spamming are definitely helpful" Micha rolled his eyes at the countless mockery his viewer was sending him. He knew it was all jokes- or at least he hope it is.

Deciding that he needed a break from the game, he cracked open a can of soda and laid back against his chair, opting to interact more with his viewers.

He had only been streaming for a few months and had gained a pretty sizeable amount of viewer and fanbase.

Bloozzclues : You should check (insert your streamer name) out! They've beaten this game multiple time and have some useful tips you can use.

"(Y/S/Name)? I've heard of them before, saw a few of their speedruns. I never understand how they manage to get that luck based glitch to work! But thanks bloozz! i'll be sure to check them out after stream" Micha replied to one of the chat and moved on to the others.

Soupispretty :(Y/S/Name) is actually watching your stream rn lol

Micha choked on his drink as he tries to contain his coughs. He almost spat out the soda onto his keyboard and it would've been a nightmare to clean it up.

Scrolling through the main page of the streaming website on his other monitor, lo and behold, the (Y/S/Name) was indeed watching his stream. Specifically, the parts where he lose to the same boss every. single. time.

He felt his cheeks reddened everytime he heard (Name) laughed or giggled at him. They wouldn't just laugh at him though, they would also insert in some advices for him to improve on which made him incredibly jittery with excitement.

(Y/S/Name) also known as (Name) has always been an inspirational figure of his when he first started streaming. To be acknowledged by his idol causes him to be so overwhelmed, he almost fainted from how fast his heart is beating.

The chimes of his subscription's notif brought him back to his senses, Micha's chats were going crazy from the streamer's trance like reaction to (Y/S/Name) stream.

Kafkaismywife : is he okay??

Peachesandcrem : bro looks possessed💀

Collecting what little composure he has anymore, Micha decided to end the stream under the guises of him being exhausted.

"Ahem.. er sorry about that guys, i think the sleep deprivation is getting to me. So, thank you all for being in this stream but I have to log off now!" He smoothly blurted out, getting back into his streaming persona.

After saying goodbyes to his viewers, he clicked the end stream button. Alone with his thoughts, Micha switches the screen back onto your stream.

He knew from then on, his adoration for you had grown into something more. Something deadly and dangerous.

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

(Name) let out an exhausted sigh as they had just finished another successful stream. They played horror games for hours and ended the stream by reacting to random clips their viewer sent via mediashare.

"I should probably take a shower and take a long nap right after.." (Name) thought.

Ping!

It was the sound of their notifications, (Name) picked their phone up and clicked on it. They were directed to their twitter where the person had messages them.

Michatwt

Hey! Thanks a lot for the advice you gave me when you reacted to my live

"Oh it's that streamer i watched earlier on stream" (Name) spoke outloud as they quickly typed out a reply.

(Name)ishere

No prob! Thought you needed some tips to beat the game haha

(Name) sent out the reply and Micha replied immediately. 'He sure is a fast typer' they thought.

Michatwt

This might sounds odd but would you be down to make a collab with me? I think it'll be more fun if you teach me on stream

They paused for a moment, thinking over their decision. (Name) have been wanting to make a collab stream before but never got to it. This would be a great opportunity to produce some new content!

(Name)ishere

Sounds good! We'll discuss about this collab later, I got something to do right now

Michatwt

Of course! See you later haha

Somewhere else, Micha was jumping out of joy and practically on his knees thanking the higher beings for this opportunity he's been given to be close to his idol, his (Name).

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

A/N : ending on a cliffnote because this has been rotting in my draft.

[passthroughtime]

so how are these months been treating you (and your wall), hmm?

re: tags from tumblr.com/jichanxo/773101415990231040 -> save that wall for later, i think you'll need it more when i'll publish the chapter 🌚

ok cool i'll get back to making a dent in this wall in a few months then

[buddierecs]

friends to finaces

all of these are general audience, teen and up or not rated (no smut) make sure to kudos/comment on these amazing works :)

baby, say you'll always keep me by: hattalove "the one in which joking about being married to your best friend is all fun and games, right up until you realize that you're not laughing." word count: 8.2k important tags: didn't know they were doing, getting together, mutual pining, first kiss but, baby, watching you blush by: calvingseason "buck and eddie go to hershey for buck's high school reunion. the only problem? everyone thinks that they're married." word count: 10k important tags: fake dating, mutual pining, misunderstandings, sharing a bed, gay!eddie diaz if you should i do i would too by: giselleslash "eddie starts telling people buck’s his husband to get out of annoying flirting situations on calls. buck starts to like it a little too much." word count: 5.8k important tags: love confessions, idiots in love, fake marriage, soft!buddie baby, you were my picket fence by: spaceprincessem "maddie wants to propose to chimney. she gets buck involved. buck can't tell anyone. he somehow proposes to eddie instead" word count: 6.1k important tags: accidental proposals, getting together, first kiss, fluff, idiots in love everything is wrong, but it's alright by: earthtolovers "buck & eddie get stuck. they have a lot of feelings about it." word count: 9.6k important tags: near death experiences, eddie diaz pov, angst with a happy ending and, daring, this is more than i've felt before by: grussell63 "kameron keeps calling eddie buck's husband and it may be time that eddie puts a ring on it." word count: 3k important tags: jealous!evan buckley, getting together, fluff cinnamon kisses by: tawaifeddiediaz "buck wakes up from a nap, cuddles eddie, proposes, and devours cinnamon rolls, in that very order." word count: 3.5k important tags: cuddles, getting together, soft!buddie feels like flying 'til the bone crush by: thelonggoodbye "eddie doesn't wake up intending to get crushed by debris during an earthquake. he also doesn't intend to propose to his best friend. but sometimes these things just happen." word count: 6.5k important tags: whump, idiots in love, getting together, injury when you know, you know by: asteriasera "after eight months of dating, natalia begins dropping hints for their future together and buck begins to question if this is what he really wants. one day later, a proposal is made in a kitchen over tiramisu." word count: 11k important tags: buck/natalia break up, pining!eddie diaz, idiots in love, season 6 the one i was meant to find by: winterbucky "friends to married speedrun with lots of feelings, sassy but supportive chris, dad buck, and a lot of sudden serious decisions" word count: 5.3k important tags: feelings realisation, love confessions, fluff, idiots in love, gaydisaster!eddie diaz, eddie diaz pov i'm going to marry him anyways by: weewooforever "4 times eddie’s elderly neighbor tells him he’s so lucky to have such a wonderful husband + the 1 time she tells buck. the only problem? they’re not actually married." word count: 10k important tags: idiots in love, getting together, flirting, love confessions

[devotion-disorder]

i have nothing to post but im itching to yap so here are random bits and pieces of DoL things™ and me yapping about them. ⚠️spoiler warning for kylar's manor and dog pound storylines⚠️ and also this is a longass post

so after 9000 years I finally got around to seeing the kylar's manor storyline because i heard there was real freaky cult shit going on (and also rare bailey content). I grinded the whitney alleyway encounters for so long (all of the events are apparently ordered so its not even rng) only to discover that I accepted the owl plushie so IT WASNT GOING TO WORK ANYWAYS

so i had to speedrun de-traumatizing robin then romancing them, which thankfully didnt take very long (sowwy wobin im usually too locked in on making money LMAO)

i think its just really funny that one of pc's method of escape is just. sending bailey an email. like can u fuckign imagine bailey getting an email thats like

Subject: EHLP Sender: [kylar's cringe email handle]

AUHXJKAUS HEEOLP BAILY IMSTUCK> IN SOME HAUNTED HOUOSE ON DABUBVE STREET I MADE MY KIDNAPPEDR MOW THE GRASS AND DANCE 4 ME BUT HES SO BAD HEELPPPP

and then he actually proceeded to believe the email and went to save pc im cryin.

i cannot believe he SNATCHED kylar mid-air LMAO????????

also,

WHAT THE FREAK JORDAN.........I WAS UNFAMILIAR WITH YOUR GAME.............................

i thought bailey would at least escort pc back home but he didnt(😔) but my pcs has already racked up so much stress i passed out immediately...which triggered the kylar's abduction event (💀💀💀💀) GOOD JOB BOZO

I also did the dog pound questline because im scavenging for any and all bits of bailey scenes, but atp my pc has S Skullduggery so i got in and got out of there in like. less than half a day

mainly i just wanna share this........oughhh what does it mean.............

speaking of bailey i also learnt that annoying him in his office is a great way to grind sadism so my pc has been waking up at 7am sharp every day to be a menace :)

I've been trying to unlock Mason's pond but I wasted most of the non-school days doing gacha for whitney alleyway events (see above) and ive never wanted there to be more rain than now

which also. I finally got one of whitney's favourite food recipes but IT JUST WONT RAIN SO I CANT GIVE IT TO HIM RAUGHHHHHH

I was going for both 'stressful challenge' feats so this has sadly been a very harperless run. though now that i think about it it's kind of a miracle i managed this despite the stimulant kidnapping questline.

i find that in late game when you inevitably accumulate more negative fame it gets kinda hard to get the 'stretcher to the hospital' outcome because noncon encounters will almost always "intercept" in a sense. i went 250 ish days without even seeing harper get mentioned lol

how did they make this flavor text even hotter.

[cerastes]

Monster Hunter World - Drimo Edition

I am going to sum up my thoughts of the pre-post game, base game experience of Monster Hunter World as someone who used to actively dislike Monster Hunter and who, in the last 2 weeks, has had a veritable blast with Monster Hunter World, and who defeated Xeno'jiiva last night. Most of the intended readers for this are familiar with my background, but in case an unrelated reader finds this to be something they'd like to read, a fast and dirty breakdown of my background is that I am in love with fast action games and in true love with FromSoft games, by which I mean not just Soulsborne, but also Armored Core, Shadow Tower and King's Field (and The Adventures Of Cookie & Cream, but that one's not important here), having grown up with FromSoft well before Demon's came out: The first Armored Core for the PS1 is a childhood favorite of mine and my first FromSoft title. I have done speedruns of Dark Souls 1, have cleared DS1, Bloodborne and DS3 in no level up challenges, and DS2 in a no death challenge. This intro is not to stroke my epic gamer penis, rather, it is to contrast this experience with my Monster Hunter experience prior to World: I gave Tri a go, and I did not like it, dropped it fast, then many years later, I gave Rise's demo a try and did Not Jive With It. I am a Complete Noob when it comes to MH. I want to credit @kc5rings for selling me an extremely compelling look into this game franchise I had basically written into my No Flight List and made me want to give it one last, third try. I want to thank @lc87 and @fractalanimus for playing the game with me when the time came to do sidequests, grind out some rare drops, and in general teach me the finer minutia of MH that you only learn through word of mouth, experience, or looking up guides, the last of which I'm allergic to. Three Wonderful People! And I want to thank a lot of different people in my notes through the Posting Of MH World that gave me different useful tips.

Very long post to it'll be under a cut.

The first thing I want to say, after this foreplay, is that to everyone that, through more than a decade, told me "dude you like Dark Souls, play Monster Hunter, you also dodge attacks, you'll like it!", you do not know how to sell your game. These games have a few overlaps, but they are very, very different beasts, they play fundamentally different and dare I say opposite in many regards. The moment I stopped trying to play Dark Souls in Monster Hunter, no, the moment I stopped trying to apply my prior knowledge of nearly all action games in Monster Hunter, was the moment it really started to click that this is more of an action positional turn based game than an action game. In Dark Souls, for example, you and enemies have really good tracking and adjustment, and even in Dark Souls 1, a game slow by the modern standards of the formula, you find speed similar to the fastest in the base World -- I've not played Iceborne -- there is a relation of economy of action and speed of action equals the amount of turns you can take. You take turns in Soulsborne as well, but the way you take and steal them is by knowing your attack speed, how many times you can swing and roll before running out of stamina, and how these factors interact with each of the enemy's attacks. This is reactive turn based action combat, where your main way of staying alive is properly timing your i-frames to the enemy's moves and then not overextending your stamina usage so you can both attack and get ready for the next affront. In Monster Hunter, you have way fewer i-frames, but conversely, both Hunter and Monster are extremely committal in their attacks, there's almost no adjustment, and the relation is instead economy of action and position instead of speed of action: Faster and less positionally important moves are weaker proportional to their convenience (Dual Blades, Bow for example), slower and more positionally important moves are vice versa stronger due to how inconvenient they are (Great Sword TCS). Your main way to evade attacks is to move to where you shouldn't be and not being there; your have a super high i-frame universal option in the sprinting dive, but this is entirely defensive and sacrifices your turn for a very safe move, which is antithetical to the offensive defense MH likes to encourage.

Once it clicked, the combat went from "holy fuck this feels awful to play" to "ohh this makes so much sense", initially there was a certain desperation of me trying to do things Fast because I like playing Fast, but that only resulted in missing attacks nonstop. You don't need to be Fast because nothing is Fast in this game. And just like Dual Blades and Bow, if a Monster is Fast And Its Attacks Are Convenient, it comes with a price tag: Odogaron and Tobi Kadashi are fast! But they are VERY linear, and what few moves they have that swipe or hit horizontally, they telegraph three business days in advance. Odogaron attacks 1 to 4 times in strings depending on its HP, but all you need to do is Move To The Side for the most part. Hunter and Monster follow the same rules, but you have to follow the rules! In fact, the reason Deviljho is so dangerous is because it doesn't follow the rules with its advancing body slam and with the Beat A Motherfucker With A Mother Fucker mode; Body Slam comes out relatively quickly compared to how it makes its entire body because a meteor sized hitbox advancing at you. And even then, it has a tell that gives you enough time to Move Out Of The Way (depending on where it cocks it head before the slam, it swerves left or right, meaning you can dodge towards the side its head is to get out of the way), as for the Holding A Monster, it gets insane and fast horizontal attacks, meaning disarming it is essential (Flash Pod).

Now, the flow of the game felt pretty good, but what I like the most: Scoutflies. For an environment rich in detail, Scoutflies allow you to properly parse the world without needing to strain your eyes by giving you all sorts of useful info and highlighting items of interest in the environment. The more you learn about a monster, the easier they track it for you. This is great, because, personally, I like the Fighting Part of the game more than the Tracking Part of it... But! The breathing living nature of World was still very fun to engage with.

In terms of difficulty, I think the game was pretty tame. It lives and dies by its rules, and I think the postgame will disrupt that with its superbosses and such, but at least the base experience was very strictly tied to the rules of combat. That doesn't mean it's boring, it was incredibly fun! Engaging with the rules per each Monster's needs means not only having to know the rules well, but also to be able to identify where a monster is not following them! So, for example, Odogaron overcommits, Xeno'jiiva has a tool for everything but only mediocre tools, Teostra is strong from the front and back but very weak from the flanks, Nergigante has good attacks but they are all highly telegraphed with high start up, Kirin has insane damage output options but can only land them on Stun, and so on. Just like your weapons diversify how you engage -- and skip some of -- the rules, so do Monsters. It's an incredibly level field between you and the Monster, almost like a fighting game where you can't pick half of the cast and the AI can't pick your half.

Initially, I thought the rhythm of having to grind the fuck out of stuff was going to make me hate it; the thing is, the fights were sufficiently fun for me to not mind doing some Monster fights several times in order to craft the gear I wanted, and this gear didn't need to get replaced often, that's great! However, this does lead to something the game disappointed me with: Weapons. The vast majority of weapons don't look good, and are small variations of the same base model for the tree. Sure, you got your Kirin Bolts and Bazelgeuse Hachets, but the majority is just... Generic weaponry with small modifications. In fact, Xeno'jiiva, the freaking final boss, doesn't get unique weapons! What the actual hell. The armor is great, but man, big fumble on the weapons to be frank!

The story is obviously just there, and the Handler -- I hope on purpose -- legitimately just exists as an entity that gets in trouble for you to see a Monster being dangerous for a while. But I didn't hate it or anything! It's Just There as a wrapper for the Monsters and the Hunters. This is pretty explicit, I think, considering all monster are named yet no human/wyverian is named. The only non-monsters with names are your Hunter and your Palico (Big Al my man). That said, I appreciated the angle of the story! We are a research commission, we are here to Learn Shit and not kill god, because god is part of the ecosystem, it's just Nature. It's Animals. We don't fuck with the environment, except when something has already fucked with it in ways that will be catastrophic to Everyone Involved, so we get involved to Unfuck It. I like that.

Overall, my experience with the game was very positive, and I am happy to have given this game a try. These two weeks have been pretty busy for me, but getting home and carving Odogaron and Deviljho to get those damn parts I am missing (Deviljho Scalp is rarer than Deviljho Gem, the spirits told me) has been a pretty fun activity to destress and beat the fuck out of Monsters with cool moves.

The Thing Is,

I Get It Now.

I get why you like this.

Looking forward to doing the rest of High Rank and then Iceborne and later on playing Rise!

[charaznablescanontoyota]

"marn i missed sgdq 2024 what should i watch"

hi i decided i'm doing another one of these. it's been a minute. this past week was summer games done quick, an annual speedrunning marathon raising money for doctors without borders and also a great way to get into watching speedrunning. a lot of their content is tailored towards being both clearly explained and fun to watch for an audience outside the speedrun community, so you can jump in with basically no knowledge besides “this person is gonna play a game really fast”.

gdq has the full week's worth of vods up as a playlist on their channel, but here are some runs that i personally think you should check out:

ken griffy jr presents mlb by peanut butter the dog: look it's a dog playing baseball. i don't know what else to tell you.

the entire silly block: speedrunners get up way too early in the morning/late at night to play games that feel like a fever dream. some of the commentators are going on 24 hours of no sleep. it's brilliant. my personal highlights of what i've seen so far are stuart little 2, mad panic coaster, city bus simulator race, and the golf it wrong hole only race that the players dressed up as golfers for

alan wake 2 alan%: alan wake clips through walls and generally has a bad time while a bunch of gamers call him a sopping wet catboy. the runner for this one is really charismatic and it's very funny to see staff rushing to open up the pit as soon as we sing starts (yes they do the dance of course they do the dance). i just love joyful runs of horror games man

super mario 64 blindfolded randomizer: what if you played mario 64 blindfolded and also the stars were in completely random locations. and also you had to do it very very fast.

kingdom hearts 2 critical any%: every kh2 speedrun i've ever seen is a work of art and this one is no different. some of the boss fights go down so fast you will literally miss them if you look away for a minute. and also two of my favorite runners are on couch commentary!

balatro showcase: genuinely made me rethink how i'm playing some of the balatro decks. also great commentary and just fun all around despite (or perhaps partially because of) the absolute struggle session going on with plasma deck in the beginning

super mario world kaizo relay: kaizo is a shorthand term for a game hacked to its absolute limits of difficulty that often requires strict precision of movement and can punish the player for thinking they're smarter than it. in this segment, two teams of 4 very very good mario runners race to complete 8 kaizo levels they've never seen before in their lives

mario maker 2 troll level race: i always like the mario maker races for the same reason i like the kaizo relays. i love watching two speedrunners thrown blindly into the shit have to make up strategies on the fly via trial and error (and error, and error, and error, and...)

kirby air ride race: two high level kirby air ride speedrunners race for an actual physical title belt. the trash talk game happening here is of the insane variety that only two very skilled people who truly respect each others' talents at their game of choice can provide

kaizo mario galaxy: what if mario galaxy hated you even more than usual and would stop at nothing to kill you. also most of the commentators are only familiar with the vanilla game and their reactions to the added-in bullshit are hysterical

tony hawk pro skater 1, 2, 3, and 4: i fell asleep watching this and woke up in a cold sweat to the sound of a bunch of people singing superman by goldfinger. good run

super mario rpg remake: this was the finale block and it's just great to see a bunch of people who really really love the original mario rpg get to hang out and talk about how good it is and also watch a world record level player absolutely stunt on the game

halo 3 four-player co-op legendary: dudes rock

[boss-poss]

See, Lethal Company's real genius is that it somehow marries two normally opposed genres, those being horror and comedy together into something greater. Mechanically it's a multiplayer looter extraction survival type game. It's designed to create stressful and scary situations by forcing you to speedrun mini randomized dungeons while monsters hunt your character to meet a certain quota (our asses are not making quota). That's not the clever part though, no, that's giving the players the ability to fuck themselves over and the hilarity that comes from it.

Anything you say into your mic is said in the game world and can be heard by certain monsters. Many items, similarly, can be used to make noise and you can bet there is little impulse control when a player finds an air horn or gets a walkie talkie. The sound of a distant honk somewhere out of nowhere is not something most players are prepared for while in a pitch black maze. Sound in this game has a doppler effect, which makes it harder to hear the further away the source is, allowing screams to fade into nothing and unintelligible yelling heard for a second before vanishing. You must rely on your senses but those are, by design, limited and regularly tricked.

Because level layouts, monster locations, and item spawns are all random, it's insanely easy to get lost or lose track of thigs, especially in the dark and especially when panicking. Seeing a bracken for the first time will almost certainly send a player running in the opposite direction and get lost, if they even see it all. No one is prepared to have a hand wrap around their face and snap their neck in an instant. It's utterly shocking and will leave you gasping in surprise to first time you experience it.

Certain weather patterns make levels harder, some even nearly impossible (looking at you eclipse), and sometimes your options are avoiding deadly lightning or not being able to see due to fog. High level moons have excessively valuable loot but also feature the worst foes and cost a fee to access, forcing a compromise between greed, ability, and resources.

Dying, likewise incurs a penalties. Your team is fined for dying and not bringing the bodies back but if you all die, all your collected loot goes poof. Gone. A team wipe can and will effectively end the run in an instant if you do something stupid like stick around when you hear "pop goes the weasel" or try to pick up that funny looking roomba. You can almost feel the pressure weighing down on your shoulders when you realize you're the last one left and you need to get back to the ship or miss the quota.

The monsters likewise, are engines of terror that are comically effective killing machines with no cohesive theme to help anticipate them. The already mentioned bracken is one of the scariest things I've seen in a game, and those technically aren't even that bad. They're completely manageable if you keep your head on a swivel and pay attention to your surroundings. Coilheads are these mannequins with bobble heads that will path to and kill you in a microsecond the moment you aren't looking at them, weeping angel style. There's a thing called the ghost girl that I have yet to see but is apparently one of the most terrifying critters in the menagerie. Forest giants. If you know, you know.

All these little mechanics, these choices that are made by and for the player, create a maelstrom of unpredictable chaos that, like a buxom blond transforming into an orgasming pooltoy, turns what would be strictly serious horror into a unique form of dark comedy that layers over it like jelly on peanut butter. You are scared, you are on edge, and it only gets worse when you know what these things are capable of, but the sheer hopelessness is something you all have in common. It's funny how little hope you have. You will die. A monster will wipe your team. There will eventually come a quota you can't beat. You were doomed from the start.

So why not get silly with it? Why not try to fight that bracken with shovel? Fuck him. Why not just run past a turret and try to nab that fat jar of pickles? Why not wander off from the group? You're just as likely to come back with arms loaded and the quota met as you are likely to not come back at all. You're already dead, so take the gamble, do stupid shit, repeat this hell until you can meet its horrors with grim determination and put in the effort to afford that goddamn boombox. Dance. Just press 1 and dance the fear away.

You are all united in your mortality and duty, fragile sacks of flesh working to break even at the behest of perhaps the greatest horror of all: The company you work for. You are so preposterously fucked beyond all belief from every angle there really isn't enough adjectives to describe it. And that's comedy baby, when things are so bad all you can do is laugh.

[rayclubs]

HxH Genei Ryodan is such a masterclass in humanizing villains, honestly to a ridiculous degree. They're legitimately terrifying, their crimes are cruel and inexcusable, the violent acts they commit are nearly always played seriously and condemned by the narrative, and yet I find myself rooting for them in every scene they're in.

It's not even the sad backstories some of them have, it's much deeper than that. I think I'm just fascinated with the intricate and peculiar friendship they all share. It's easier to get attached to comedy rather than drama, as a rule of thumb, and they're just endlessly funny.

I've been searching for examples of the interactions that stuck with me and was going to include screenshots but there are just way too many things. Like, okay, in no particular order:

Shizuku wearing Phinks' coat after her sweater gets torn in a fight.

Phinks tucking Kalluto under his arm like a chicken and carrying him out of an exploding building.

Nobunaga getting trapped in a pocket dimension and everybody agreeing that he should just stay there awhile because they've just taken a hostage and now there isn't enough space in the car.

Machi and Nobunaga hanging out like normal people, drinking beer and serving cunt effortlessly in stylistically matching outfits.

Kuroro getting a prediction that "the spider will lose half of its legs" and immediately going "nope not losing any of my men out there let's pack it"

Hisoka actually fucking saying "I can't tell you that. If I told you that, I would be telling you what I can't tell you. This is why I can't tell you that. That's all I can tell you." and they believed him. Maybe it's more normal with English subs, I dunno.

Everyone playing cards while Uvogin is fighting, all while talking about how good Uvogin is at fighting.

Uvogin giving Shalnark a little kissie. I don't even ship them, I think he just kisses all of his homies like a real man.

Franklin getting sent after a crate of beer. Like, that's just so funny to me. Errand boy.

Feitan and Shalnark calling Phinks "very feminine" and giggling.

Franklin and Nobunaga just fucking going at it, sword on gun violence, for no reason whatsoever. It seemed like they were having fun.

Nobunaga asking rhetorically how strong he is compared to the rest of the gang and them replying "7th or 8th idk" you fucking know they debated this.

Uvogin getting his dumb sexy ass captured and everyone showing up for him awww

Everyone being supportive of Shizuku being fucking stupid. Not even in a sweet way or anything, just kind of acknowledging that she has zero thoughts in her brain. "Shizuku why didn't you use your left hand" because she was spinning a vacuum cleaner in her mind, what's not clicking

Dunno what they call Kurapika in the English version but in the Russian subs they all collectively only ever refer to him as "ублюдок с цепями" or "the asshole with the chains".

Nobunaga immediately inviting two twelve-year-olds to join because he thinks they're hilarious, and everyone going "yeah okay as long as the boss is cool with it". You go Nobunaga, everybody grieves differently

The kids refuse and escape, go spying on the other members again, get caught again, and when Nobunaga sees them he's all "Wanna be friends now? ^^" <- nobody has anything against this

Feitan having his arm broken in a fight and Phinks going "HA!"

Literally every single time they toss a coin, but especially when Phinks and Bonolenov were arguing over who should fight Zazan if Feitan fucking dies???

Shalnark being a fucking gamer and inviting everyone else to speedrun Greed Island with him. Franklin going "no thanks" next shot he's in the goddamn game

Tossing the phone around. Can't remember whose phone it originally was but passing it around was hilarious every time. "We already killed the hostages" beep beep beep "Sorry I lied"

There are so many moments and I'm not even halfway done. Supreme quality villains. I need more of them. I need to inject them directly into my brain.

[popcultureoverdosed]

Reverse 1999- The Avant-Garde Rpg

R1999 is in many regards an Avant-Garde take on the gacha game genre. Everything from it's presentation to story telling is in stark contrast to its comptemporaries. Like many other fans, my first introduction to the game was the iconic trailer that came out prior to the global release. I was watching a random YouTube video when suddenly an ad pops up. I normally skip ads as soon as possible, but this one caught my attention immediately. All the R1999 trailers have a bombastic cinematic style that makes viewers feel like they're watching movie. Hearing Vertin talk cryptically about " the storm" while dramatic music played in the background made me curious just what exactly this game was about. Interlaced with all of that were images of a little girl in a tattered red dress sadistically shooting people and... a talking red apple? I knew right then that this game was something else.

When first playing the game, players slowly start to learn about an apocalyptic event refered to as the storm which erases entire eras of history. Those caught in the storm are wiped from existence. Humanity's only hope is the St Pavlov Foundation and their Arcanist agents. Opposing them is a group of Arcanist terrorists called Manus Vindictae who wish to use the Storm to serve their agenda. It takes a while for the story to build up steam.

The beginning of the story is hard to follow due to how vague and cryptically it's told.  A lot of terminology is used that players won't understand until later. Once the plot begins the thicken, players are presented with a surealist supernatural mystery conspiracy thriller unlike anything you've seen before. The story is intricately written and brings up a lot of historical and scientific concepts along the way. It's not the kind of story you can just speedrun through to get to the gameplay. Each chapter segment is fairly long and dense with information. It's honestly like playing a visual novel rather than an rpg. I'm not complaining though. I've been gripped by the lore since day one and I never know what these writers are cooking up next.

The best part of the game for me is the character roster. It's can't be exaggerated just how unique the characters are. What other game has living scarecrows, a mini UFO, a girl who hiccups balloons and a sapient piece of glass as playable characters? Its clear that just about anything can be an Arcanist in this world. I thought having inanimate objects be characters was weird at first, but I soon grew to love the idea. It was just too ludicrous not to enjoy. I also love how tastefully the female characters are drawn. Everyone either wears time period appropriate casual clothes or the most ornate pimped out dresses you've ever seen. The character designs are conservative yet stylish, creating incredibly rememberable units. These beautiful appearances are complimented by eccentric personalities. All Arcanists have their little quirks that make them endearing. They're strange people living in an even stranger world.

The true cherry on top on all of this is the stellar voice acting. The cast is composed of characters from all over the world and the voice cast reflects this. Most of the voice actors share the same nationality/ethnicity as their character which gives their performance an authentic edge. The large variety of accents makes the world feel alive with personality. In a market where usually only the most high profile gacha games bother with English dubs, it's refreshing to see the producers put so much passion into the voice overs.

In terms of art and presentation, R1999 knocks it out of the park once again. The insight 2 character portraits are immaculately drawn and bursting with details. The background art for the story section is also drawn with enough depth to get players immersed in the setting. The live 2d models help spice things up a bit instead of having to look at a still image the entire time.

Reverse 1999 isn't just some game to pass the time with. it's a clear labor of love for everyone who worked on it. It's always a pleasure to play a game where the devs are passionate about their creation.

[chongoblog]

2024 was a year in gaming. I don't have a definitive order or game of the year yet, but here are some of my favorites from this year

-Echoes of Wisdom: One of the more inventive Zelda titles and a real breath of fresh air.

-Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble: Obviously I haven't shut up about this game since I dove headfirst into the speedrunning community and the most recent update has only made me love it more

-Balatro: If you've played this game, you know. Intoxicatingly simple, well-designed, and points go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

-Animal Well: Dunkey put his whole pussy into promoting this one, and yeah I'd say it was worth the hype. An incredibly inventive Metroidvania where new discoveries and wonder are always just around the corner, all with an incredibly present and almost offputting theming and tone. Great work. Definitely worth checking out if you like exploration titles.

-Core Keeper: I played this one with Red about a year or two ago back when it was in Early Access, but it released officially in October (congrats!) and this one has to be mentioned if only because my reaction to seeing the second boss for the first time was wild. A fun little top-down terraria/minecraft type title. The idea of building a little world with friends in Core Keeper again is very tempting, if it wasn't so damn time-consuming.

-UFO 50: I need to put more time in this game before I can say a lot about it, but it's a lot of game and it's all (from what I've seen) pretty well-designed, introducing tons and tons of creative ideas.

-For some reason I still haven't played Sonic X Shadow Generations

-Pepper Grinder: A really fun platformer for if you want to kill a few hours. Got really into speedrunning this one for a bit before moving on (I think it's because they patched out Mary Poppins, but I think interest was waning a bit anyway, plus Monkey Ball kinda forcibly took its place)

And yeah those are video games