#then add that my favorite games are the rpgs and my favorite rpgs are the M&L ones and that it's been 8 years since the last one??

[theminecraftbee]

related ramble: genuinely if the part of decked out that appeals to you is "incremental progress in which the players must learn the map bit by little bit and also understand when to turn around and bail to learn more of the map later in another run", you don't mind games that are hard, and you like rpgs. please play etrian odyssey. please they're such good games and no one ever talks about them. please,

[illdothehotvoice]

Less than a month until Brothership I am so normal right now

[room-surprise]

New Ryoko Kui interview dropped!!!

(This is a quick and dirty translation made using machine translation, and which I've lightly edited to add clarity. I'm not fluent in Japanese so I may have gotten things wrong. I'm sure others will do a better job later.

ADDITIONAL CONTEXT: This article is from a Japanese gaming magazine, like the previous interview in Famitsu, so they focus on video games and don't discuss other influences, even though they do get mentioned and are clearly pretty major.)

Kui was able to write "Dungeon Meshi" because she was not good at eating food and participating in human relationships. In this interview, we dig deeper into the influence of games, and how Ryoko Kui focuses on things she likes and dislikes while writing. [Writers of the Gaming Generation]

Dungeon Meshi.

This manga is attractive for its unique theme of "dungeons, defeating monsters in the labyrinth, and cooking them," as well as the unique characters, detailed human relationships, and deep worldview depicted in the labyrinth. It is currently being made into an anime, and adventurers from all over the world are fascinated by the world of "Dungeon Meshi."

So I thought , "I wonder if this work was drawn by someone who loves food and people." The depiction of such delicious-looking food and the construction of delicate human relationships and characters. Surely, it must have been drawn by someone who absolutely loves it.

However, in reality, the author, Kui Ryoko, says that she "is not good at either food or relationships."

So why was he able to continue drawing things she was not good at?

During the roughly 10 years of serialization, Kui has continued to confront "things she dislikes." This interview delves into Kui's unique creative techniques... and at the same time, it also delves into her "favorite things."

That's the "game"!

Those who are familiar with the subject may already know this, but Kui is also a big gamer. And it seems that "Dungeon Meshi" is heavily influenced by RPGs such as "Wizardry."

As a result, this interview turned out to be "I asked Kui a lot about her likes and dislikes." Likes and dislikes. They are the source of all interests and curiosity.

So how do we use this knowledge in our creative endeavors? How does this knowledge manifest itself in Dungeon Meshi?

How were those charming characters and the deep world created? We spoke to the original author, Kui Ryoko, and the editor, Masaru Hiroi, about things they could only talk about after the series was completed.

This is a game with the volume of a great labyrinth. I hope you will explore it all the way to the final floor!

Dungeon food. It's eat or be eaten. There is no superior or inferior, to eat food is simply a privilege of the living. Dungeon food. Ah, dungeon food.

First, I want to ask about how Kui first encountered video games.

--What are some influences from games in Dungeon Meshi? What was your first game, Ms. Kui?

Ryoko Kui (hereinafter referred to as Kui): I played traditional RPGs such as [blank?] and "Final Fantasy."

I think the first game console I ever played was a Famicom, which my parents won in a lottery . So before I knew it, we had a Famicom at home. I think my parents bought me the Super Famicom and PS1 after that...

After that, I took a break from games for a bit around the time of the PS2, but around the time of the PS4, I was finally able to buy games with the money I had earned myself .

--Why were you able to stay away from games around the time of the PS2?

Kui: I was too busy with exams, so I thought, "Well, I shouldn't be playing games," and left. When I started living alone after that, I couldn't play games because I didn't have a TV. My computer was also a Mac. [Macs aren't compatible with many games.]

--What was the trigger that made you think, "I want to play games" again?

Kui: I think the biggest thing was starting the serialization of "Dungeon Meshi."

Fantasy stories all have different settings, but at the same time, there are also things they share in common. For example, if you want to create a fantasy work, but you only know "Dragon Quest," it will end up resembling "Dragon Quest." It's scary to copy the setting of only one work.

So I just wanted to play a ton of different fantasy games and get an idea of ​​what the most common general understanding of fantasy is.

--Did you start playing it while you were still developing the concept for Dungeon Meal?

Kui: That's right. If I'm going to talk about "eating food," I have to play a game that has a system for eating food .

So I was interested in "Dungeon Master." However, at the time there was no easy way to play "Dungeon Master" on a real machine, so I played "Legend of Grimrock", which can also be played on a Mac.

["Dungeon Master," is a computer RPG released in 1987. Time passes each time you take an action in the dungeon, such as moving, fighting, or resting, so its biggest feature is that the game progresses in real time according to the player's actions. "Legend of Grimrock," is an action RPG released in 2012. It has a game design similar to "Dungeon Master."]

Until then, I had felt that overseas games and games played on PC were too difficult, but I felt like I had overcome one obstacle there. I thought, "Oh, this is pretty easy," and started playing a lot of different games.

-- Those two games are quite heavy even among RPGs, I think, so did you actually have that much difficulty with them?

Kui: No...I would say that my impression is more that best-selling games are easy to play (laughs).

I'm not that good at games myself, so I usually play games that allow you to adjust the difficulty on a super easy setting. So, games that allow you to lower the difficulty are always a lifesaver.

-- I've heard that apart from RPGs , you also like games such as "13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim" and "Paranomasite FILE23: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo ." Do you have a favorite genre, Mr. Kui?

Kui: I guess I'm just not very good at games that require you to use your brain through trial and error.

But in RPGs, if you just level up and keep tapping, you can win and progress in the game. Also, in novel-type games, if you read the text, you can progress. By this process of elimination, I quite like RPGs and text-based games .

Personally, I like games like Disco Elysium the most, which are text-heavy, top-down, and have maps to explore.

...Even I think that's a pretty negative reason (laughs).

Everyone: (laughs).

Hiroi Masaru (hereinafter referred to as Hiroi): But, Ms. Kui, you have really played quite a lot of games, haven't you?

Kui: No, the reason I'm able to play so much is because I play in a pretty callous way ...

I often buy a game, play it, and then just don't play it. So there aren't that many games I complete... I only complete a few a year. I play around 40 games, and if I complete 5 or 6, that's good.

When I asked if I could draw at Comitia, I got scolded.

-- Have you had any exposure to fantasy outside of digital RPGs?

Kui: I think it's not just games, but also the fact that I've always loved foreign fantasy novels . I was given books like "The Neverending Story," "The Lord of the Rings," and "The Chronicles of Narnia."

-- Dungeon Meshi gives off an atmosphere of Western fantasy like gamebooks or tabletop RPGs, rather than the typical Japanese fantasy games like Dragon Quest.

Hiroi: I think I went to Kui's house before the series started. At that time, we were discussing the name of a sci-fi manga called "Drawing Inside the Brain," which I had rejected many times.

Ms. Kui said she wanted to serialize this sci-fi manga... and when he was on the fourth draft, he said, "No, this isn't going to work," and when I looked at the scribbled notes next to her desk, she had already drawn the original version of "Dungeon Meshi" ! (laughs)

Kui: ……………No, I don't remember much (laughs).

Everyone: (laughs).

Kui: But I had wanted to draw a manga about exploring a dark dungeon, like Wizardry .

Since I was in elementary school, the manga I drew in pencil in my notebooks were all fantasy stories about swords and magic, so I had always wanted to draw a proper fantasy manga. However, there weren't as many fantasy manga in bookstores at the time as there are now, so I wondered, "Maybe fantasy doesn't sell."

Hiroi: At the time, there were a lot of people in their teens and twenties posting fantasy illustrations on online communities for artists, such as pixiv, and Kui was one of them.

I thought, there are so many people who want to write fantasy, so if she writes a fantasy aimed at this generation, it might sell.

And when I saw Kui's notes, I thought to myself, "Let's make a straight-forward fantasy manga, without making it weirdly twisted."

Kui: I originally thought of making this "dungeon exploration manga" as just a hobby... When I asked Hiroi if I could draw it at Comitia first, he got angry.

[Comitia is a comics convention in Japan for original self-published comics.]

Everyone: (laughs).

Hiroi: I said, "If you're going to draw at Comitia, then make sure you draw it as a proper serialization!" (laughs)

However, at that time, Kui had already published two collections of short stories, and they were being reprinted. In other words, she had a certain number of fans even before the serialization began.

So I decided, if Kui creates a pure fantasy for those fans, we can't fail badly. If it doesn't work, we'll just learn that fantasy is difficult to sell after all.

--By the way, were there any discussions between you and Ms. Kui about the fact that fantasy doesn't sell?

Kui: I remember vaguely talking about how fantasy manga doesn't sell well and how difficult it seems. I don't know much about light novels, so that might have been there for a while.

However, since a lot of fantasy manga were coming out around the same time, it was probably a "transitional period ." Maybe it was just when people started to feel more and more like they wanted to draw and read fantasy.

Not everyone is that interested in the things I like

-- I feel that "Dungeon Meshi" is a title that has breathed new life into the fantasy genre. How did you go about creating the setting and world when dealing with fantasy?

Kui: I try to think, "Not everyone is that interested in the things I like."

I like to think about pointless settings endlessly, but there are times when I think , "When this setting is actually made into a manga, people probably won't be interested in this story." So I try to include things that will make people interested, and cut out things that will distract people as much as possible.

For example, in "Dungeon Meshi" I initially wanted everyone to speak various languages. On top of that, I wanted to make the characters "only able to communicate with each other in one language"... but Mr. Hiroi said "Don't do that" (laughs).

Everyone: (laughs).

Kui: Even when I'm drawing it myself, I think, "It takes more than six panels to explain this setting...", and if I explain the setting more than necessary, it slows down the pace of the story.

Moreover, since "Dungeon Meshi" was a monthly serialization, unlike a weekly series, there wasn't much time for extraneous stories. Specifically, I had to draw one episode of about 30 pages per month.

In that case, there was no time to add in settings like "Actually, he was thinking about this behind the scenes" or "Actually, he can speak two languages." So, rather than there being any clear choices, there were quite a few times when "there was no time to do things normally." If it had been a weekly serialization, I might have included more.

--Does the scene where Chilchuck yells insults in his own language feel rather "forced"?

Kui: That's right (laughs).I thought, this only takes one frame...it's my chance [to include information about language]!

--So you haven't thought through all of these "fictional languages" yet?

Kui: If Dungeon Meshi were to be my life's work and I were to spend my whole life creating this world, I think it would be more fun to think about it...but initially, I thought that Dungeon Meshi would end in a few years.

Hiroi: Initially, I said, "It'd be nice if it continued for about five volumes" (laughs).

However, Kui's first draft really had a lot of material... so the editors cut out a lot of it. I understand that it's the parts the readers want to read, but I cut out the parts that deviate from the main story. So it's a battle between the "author who doesn't want to be cut" and the "editor who wants to cut."

--By the way, what kind of discussion took place between the "parts you want to cut" and the "parts you don't want to cut"?

Kui: There were a lot of them every time, but I can't remember them specifically now...it was just small, unimportant details that got cut.

In the scene where the hams made by the Red Dragon go back into the pool of blood, I remember saying, "You don't need these," and they were about to cut them off, but I remember desperately stopping them by saying, "We'll need them later!" I'm glad they weren't cut off.

But once I think of the setting, I want to include things, and then they get cut out, so at first I didn't want to expand the world too much.

I also wanted to complete the story within the dungeon. I didn't want to reveal the name of the country, and I didn't want to give the characters surnames. But in the second half, Hiroi-san told me, "The world is too small, so you should make it bigger," and I was like, "Are you sure?"

--Mr. Hiroi, why did you say that?

Hiroi: As the story progressed, it became clear that "Dungeon Meshi" was no longer just about saving a sister in a dungeon. So I decided that it would be unconvincing if the story had no involvement with the outside world, since what was happening in the dungeon was something that would affect the fate of the whole world.

For example, in real life companies, the more important a decision you make, the higher your superior's rank becomes, right? When I thought about it that way, I felt something was off about the idea of ​​Laios and his friends deciding the fate of the world on their own. "How can they make that decision without anyone knowing about it?"

The fact that the Canary Team was there meant that there must have been a system of reporting, contacting, and consulting here, because that's how "society" and "organizations" work.

In short, I think we were thinking about the situation and asking, "If an organization were to get involved in saving the world, how persuasive could they make it given the society that exists in the story?"

Kui: Well, the plot hasn't changed at all.

From the beginning, I had intended to write a story about saving the world, but I also thought it was possible for the world to be saved by only a select few people in the dungeon who knew the circumstances. Changing it was what Hiroi-san thought would make it more persuasive.

When I was drawing the first half, Hiroi told me, "You don't have to decide anything yet." I was in a hurry to move the story forward and explain the world and story setting, but he told me, "It's better to limit it to introducing the four main characters until about the fourth volume." But in the second half, he said, "Introduce more people and expand the world."

Everyone: (laughs).

Hiroi: Kui-san was like , "That's not what you said originally!" (laughs) But both had meaning...

Kui: I was the one saying, "If we expand the world there, the story will never end, right...?"

After drawing it through to the end, I realized that the balance between holding back and expanding didn't work the way I had expected. I think this is one of the reasons why the serialization of "Dungeon Meshi" took so long.

-- But there are a lot of characters in "Dungeon Meshi," and the relationships between them are complicated. I heard that you also created the relationship diagram for "Taikaishu" [※3] ...

Kui: No, I haven't made one [I didn't do that?]!

[Taikaishu is a full-color web comic by Funako Tsukasa that began serialization on a website in 2005 and is still ongoing. Its unique worldview has earned it a loyal fanbase, especially on the Internet.]

-- Eh? Is that not the case?

Kui: To be precise, I just created an account on the fan wiki.

When I started reading "Taikaishu," I struggled with the complex setting and the large number of characters...and I thought "it would be easier to read if there was an explanation or a list of characters."

So I searched for a bulletin board where readers were sharing their thoughts and asked if there was a summary, but they said there wasn't. So I thought, "Maybe if there was a place where someone with more knowledge could summarize it," and I just made a wiki account.

So I didn't actually edit it. It seems like I've been given credit for someone else's work, and I'm sorry about that...

Dungeon Meshi was created from a sense of guilt about food?

-- "Dungeon Meshi" started off with the catchy theme of "cooking monsters," but little by little the darker aspects and deeper world were revealed. Was the structure of "little by little revealing the darker side" something you had in mind from the beginning?

Kui: I thought I needed a theme to serialize it so I thought I'd try "food education." There were a lot of gourmet manga at the time, but I felt like there weren't many that focused on food education.

-- Considering that the theme is "food education," it makes sense that the nutritional value of the dishes in the story is clearly written down.

Kui: With the theme of "food education," I also thought up a rough outline of the story. Rescue the kidnapped princess, defeat the evil wizard, defeat the final boss, and become king... the framework is pretty simple.

But when I actually tried to proceed with the plan, I realized, "No, this story can't be done so lightly..." At first, I thought I could draw it in a more light-hearted manner.

Hiroi: At first, you were trying to finish the fight against the Red Dragon in one episode, right? I was like, "is that possible?" (laughs).

Everyone: (laughs).

Kui: When I tried to actually tell it in one episode, it ended up feeling like a very brief summary... In order to tell the story I wanted to tell, I had to tell it more thoroughly than I originally thought.

-- Did you have any special thoughts about the theme of "food"?

Kui: No... well... if I had to choose, I'd say I have a strong grudge against food.

Since I was a child, I was a very picky eater, and mealtimes were a pain for me. I hated eating in front of other people, and there was a time when I hated seeing other people eating, so I would look for toilets that were rarely used and eat my meals in the toilet.

When I was doing it, the word "toilet meal" didn't exist, so when the term actually appeared in society I was so happy, thinking "everyone was doing it!"

[Toilet Meals are a social phenomenon in Japan.]

Everyone: (laughs).

Kui: I was thinking, "This is so terrible, right...?" but it was a relief to realize that other people were doing the same thing.

--So what made you choose the theme of "food education"?

Kui: My parents, who were struggling with my picky eating, taught me many things, including the "triple eating" method, but it was no use and I continued to be a picky eater into adulthood. My parents had instilled knowledge about food education in me, but I was not able to put it into practice.

[Kui might be talking about Triangular Eating but I'm not sure.]

So the only thing that remains is that I feel an enormous amount of guilt when it comes to food and eating...

Hiroi: If you think about it objectively, the series starts off on a very negative note.

Kui: But now I've gotten over the habit of eating with other people... or rather, I've come to like it. My editor takes me to lots of delicious places.

--When I was a student, I was trying to leave my udon bowl at school, but my teacher found out and made me eat the packet of udon by myself. There was no soup, and it was really hard to eat the udon by itself.

Kui: It must be tough. I tried to hide it, but my teacher found out and I got really angry.

Hiroi: I've tried to hide it in a drawer before. Then, something dried up came out of the drawer... (laughs bitterly).

How can I draw things I hate?

-- Or rather, is it the fact that you're not good at it that gives you a higher level of insight into the food?

Kui: I think it's because you're interested in it that you either like it or dislike it. Inevitably, you spend a lot of time thinking about it.

Since "Dungeon Meshi" depicts a lot of food, one might think "Do I like eating?", but in fact there are many times when I draw it because I dislike something .

--Aside from food, do you also draw things that you dislike?

Kui: Maybe. For example, human relationships, modern times, fashion...?

-- Perhaps the relationships between the characters in "Dungeon Food" are portrayed so delicately because the author is not good at dealing with human relationships?

Kui: I've always been very curious about things like, "(This person is usually so cold, but has such a charming smile in front of other people)" ...

I feel the same way, but I think people are different in the way they show their true colors. I think it's strange that it stands out to me...

-- I have a simple question. When you draw something you hate, how do you feel? No matter how much you hate something, do you find it fun to draw it?

Kui: The events in the manga don't directly involve me, so I don't dislike the things I'm drawing as much. Also, when I draw while looking for the good parts, it can lead to new discoveries.

Also, I think it's scary to draw only what I like.

In my work, the important thing is "what to capture with the camera," and there's no need to go out of your way to capture filthy things, but at the same time, I think the world will look bigger if you keep in mind that "there are a lot of inconvenient, dirty, and unpleasant things outside the camera." That's the feeling I have when I paint/create manga.

When playing a game, if I have to choose between a game where I only feel like I'm in the world inside the game screen, and a game where I feel like there are lots of people living on the other side of the screen, and that the people in that world could travel anywhere they wanted, I think the latter is more fun to play.

I'm always thinking about how to express that "sense of the vastness of the world" ...and I personally like games that have "a world" to them.

-- Do you ever incorporate elements from the game into your manga?

Kui: On the contrary, I think that is a part that cannot be adopted .

The best thing about games is that each person has a different experience. Games that have lots of endings are also a result screen for what you've done up until that point. When I see something like that, I think, "That's so cool."

Personally, I think that's the game's greatest appeal, and something that could never be replicated in a manga that doesn't have players.

If you're so busy, when do you play games?

-- I'm personally curious, how do you find the time to play games? Even though you're busy with your work as a manga artist, you play quite a lot of games.

Kui: I often use the Steam Deck before going to bed or during breaks between writing manuscripts. In fact, I almost only use the Steam Deck now. I keep it by my pillow, so I can take it and play before going to sleep, or during breaks...

--Is Steam Deck really that convenient?

Kui: I recommend it. The screen is small, but it can run Cyberpunk 2077 .

Also, personally, I've gotten tired of having to turn on my PC to start up a game...with Steam Deck, I can just turn it on and it starts up instantly, even when I'm lying down. How do you writers usually play games? There are times when you have to play games for work, aren't there?

--When it comes to work, I calculate backwards how long I'll be playing before I start playing...If it's a game that can be completed in about 60 hours, I usually estimate that I'll play for 3 hours a day and complete it for 20 days in a row.

Hiroi: It's a lot of work!

Kui: That's amazing... You really are a gamer.

I've always thought that I have a talent for playing games ... but I'm not really good at that. If I'm given a game that's a little difficult, I get tired of it right away, and I'm not very good at trial and error. The range of things I can enjoy is very narrow.

I wonder if game developers around the world are also struggling with the question of "Should I make my games accessible to a wide range of people, even those who aren't particularly gamers?" or "Should I make games that are challenging and can be played deeply?" The same problem exists with manga, too.

When there's a game that I can't play well, I feel happy because it means the creator decided that there's no need to pander to people who can't keep up.

-- By the way, when you play games, do you do it as a normal "hobby"? Or do you play more often to find material for your manga?

Kui: Of course, a big part of it is that I play games as a hobby, but it is alleviated by the fact that playing games might be useful for my work (laughs).

Even if I'm not that interested in a game, if I think "it might be useful for work," I'll find the courage to buy it, and no matter how expensive a gaming PC is, I can still buy it if I think of it as a work tool. So the hurdles for many things related to games are lowered for the reason that it's "for work."

--So, when you read manga, do you feel like you're reading it for work?

Kui: In my case, manga has become my job, so when I read it I can't help but think of work.

However, I still enjoy gaming as a hobby . That's why I don't want to lose this hobby... and I don't think I'll be able to enjoy it as much if I get involved in games as a job, so I don't take on any games-related jobs.

Does the depth of the world come from the fact that it is "not decided"?

-- I heard in advance that "Dungeon Meshi" was written with a clear awareness of "what should be explained" and "what shouldn't be explained," so could you tell me more about that?

Kui: Having read a variety of fantasy novels and games, I thought that the "moment of discouragement" was the "repeated use of foreign words." When you write something like "XX of XX of XX," if there are three or more katakana characters, there is a high chance that it will be skipped over by Japanese readers.

That's why I try to refer to town names as "the neighboring town" whenever possible, and refer to characters who appear in flashbacks as "uncle" rather than by their full names, so that readers can understand without having needing exposition.

The magic used during battles in "Dungeon Meshi" is depicted in such a way that you can "understand what kind of magic it is just by looking at the picture."

-- What other aspects of Dungeon Meshi are there that you deliberately left out of its concrete settings?

Kui: Numbers and language are the settings I avoided touching. For example, just by deciding the month of birth, it is first determined that there is a moon in this world. From there, it is also determined that there is gravity.

What's more, just the concept of a "birthday" means that there is a division into a "year" and that the world is determined to have a 365-day cycle. It quickly becomes complicated.

But on the other hand, if I were to set the details and make it something like "This country's currency is 1 gold, which is worth 5 yen," it would be a burden on the reader. When reading the work, the reader would be forced to convert it into "1 gold = 5 yen" in their minds every time. That's why I try to write it with "readability as a priority" as much as possible.

However, if you're creating a "fantasy" in the truest sense of the word, it would be better to create something that corresponds to that world's calendar or metric system in order to really immerse yourself in that world, so it's difficult to get the balance right...

-- I think that style of "deliberately not giving explanations" is quite amazing.

Hiroi: I think that 's definitely partly because "Dungeon Meshi" is a silly title.

The "mindset" of the reader is a little different...I think that from the very beginning, the reader is made to recognize that "this work isn't going to say anything too difficult."

Kui: Also, we had to give a bit of thought to coming up with the character names.

For example, the main characters in Wizardry are given names that correspond to their professions, such as "Warrior" or "Wizard." The "Senshi" in Dungeon Meshi was taken from that ... I named him after thinking, "I want that person to play an active role."

That's why I wanted the overseas version of Senshi's name to be "Fighter", but I was worried that overseas readers would be like, "What does that mean...!?" so I kept it in my head.

--The character names in "Dungeon Meshi" tend to be around 3 or 4 letters long and fit nicely.

Kui: If the name gets too long, it won't fit in the speech bubble...It's generally said that a line in a speech bubble should be about 7 to 8 characters long to be easy to read.

So "Chillchuck" is really long... I actually thought that the abbreviation "Chill" could be used more, so I named it that way, but it didn't work out so well, so in the end I just kept calling it "Chillchuck". Even I was thinking "that's long" while drawing it (laughs).

Everyone: (laughs).

Kui: Anyway, there are quite a few manga-like circumstances where "maybe four characters would be enough."

--By the way, are there any rules for naming the characters in "Dungeon Meshi"?

Kui: It's not detailed, but there are "settings within the story" and "meta-settings that are just for my own enjoyment."

For example, [if Dungeon Meshi was a game] the Shuro party has names that would be given by a certain type of player. When playing a games, some people give their characters themed names that follow self-imposed rules. In that sense, meta-wise, the Shuro party is played by a player who names their characters with a plant-based restriction.

Also, since the player likes girls, the party members are all girls, and so on... (laughs).

Hiroi: Oh, I didn't know that!

Kuon: ...While it's fun for myself, I also create characters by asking questions like, "Why is the party mainly made up of women?" or "Why do they all have similar names?"

However, even if I revealed these settings in the story, it wouldn't have made the story any more interesting, so they are merely "settings that only exist in my own mind."

-- What are some specific examples of "settings that you deliberately didn't reveal"?

Hiroi: I still remember when I said, "I want you to depict the elven kingdom in more detail," Kui replied, "That's going too far."

The dwarven country was depicted quite a bit, so I personally thought it could have been shown a little more...

Kui: I felt that if I depicted that, it would limit the reader's imagination.

There are definitely "lines that suggest something might happen," and when it comes to parts that are better left to the reader's imagination, I often choose not to draw them.

Also, even when we present settings that readers think they can just skim through, they often try hard to remember them...

It all started with the manga "Eating soba through your nose."

--Let's go back to the topic a little. How did Ms. Kui and Mr. Hiroi meet?

Hiroi: I think we scouted her.

I saw a short story that Kui had posted on Pixiv and sent him an email asking if I would like to draw a manga. I remember that he had a really funny four-frame manga called "Eating soba noodles through your nose ." It was about a character eating soba noodles through his nose and crying out in pain... I think I was drawn to his drawing ability, which made me feel like "Wow, that looks painful" when I saw it (laughs).

And from that point on, we have come to this point.

[This may not be the exact comic that Hiroi is talking about, but it's a comic Kui posted on her blog about someone eating soba through their nose.]

Kui: Oh, is that so? Isn't it something like "Shugaku Tenshi" [※4] ?

Hiroi: No, that's not true! The manga about eating soba noodles through the nose was made before "Shingaku Tenshi". By the way, that manga was planned to be published in "Rakugakihon" , but when I asked Kui-san "Can I publish this?", she was very against it...

Kui: No, that's fine, but... I didn't think other people would find it that interesting.

Everyone: (laughs).

Hiroi: But that was more than 10 years ago...

--By the way, was Mr. Hiroi the first publisher to contact you?

Kui: Before that, an editor at East Press had contacted me. I was originally publishing fantasy manga that I had drawn as a hobby on my personal website. I compiled them into a self-published original comic and exhibited it at Comitia, and they asked me, "Would you like to publish this long manga as a book?"

However, after the editor asked around to various people, it seems he was told that "this will be hard to sell"... so the plan was dropped. Instead, it was decided to release a "short story collection" of short manga that had been published at the same time . This is "The Dragon's School is on the Mountain: A Collection of Works by Ryoko Kui" published by East Press.

I was contacted by a few other people as well, but the two people I still keep in contact with are Mr. Hiroi and the editor at East Press.

-- When you went from drawing short stories and web comics to starting a commercial serialization, did you study anything like "how to draw a serialized work"?

Kui: I learned almost everything about how to draw manga from Mr. Hiroi and the editors and writers at Harta .

I had absolutely no understanding of whether panel layout was good or bad, so up until the middle of the serialization, I would rearrange the storyboards one panel at a time, and I would get lectured like "Don't put a panel like this here."

I was also impressed when I was shown original manuscripts by other artists. They look beautiful in print, but the real thing is even more impressive. This is what it means to be good at drawing manga.

It didn't finish as I expected

-- Speaking of "serialization," you mentioned earlier that you initially intended to end it at about volume 5. Did "Dungeon Meshi" continue longer than you had anticipated, Ms. Kui?

Kui: First of all, I didn't really understand what a "serialized" comic meant, so I didn't even know how much of a story I could get done in how many pages. So, I thought I could wrap up the story nicely in about five years, in five volumes.

But I never quite got around to finishing it. It was so hard... (laughs).

Hiroi: To be honest, when I first heard "Volume 5,"I thought to myself, "(Are you kidding me...?)" I didn't say it out loud though (laughs).

--Honestly, even as a reader, around the time of the fight with the Red Dragon in volumes 4 and 5 I was starting to feel like, "Huh? It seems like it's coming to an end soon..."

Kui: From the beginning, my goal was to "defeat the Red Dragon at the halfway point." However, I was supposed to fight the Red Dragon in Volume 4, even though it was supposed to be 5 volumes. So I thought, "Huh? It's not over yet," and I gradually lost interest.

By the time I got to around volume 10, I felt like no matter how much I drew, it would never end. I didn't want to drag it out, but no matter how much I drew, it just never seemed to finish.

Hiroi: Even from an editor's perspective, it seemed like Kui was getting very anxious from around volume 10 onwards.

-- Having finished the long-running serialization of "Dungeon Meshi," did you experience any changes in your mindset?

Kui: I think it was great to have the experience of learning that it would take 10 years to draw a story of this scale. And when I think about my lifespan and how many more works I can draw... it makes me dizzy.

Hiroi: I feel like I'm constantly fainting...

-- Ms. Kui, are there still any works you want to draw in your mind?

Kui: Not that much. But I love drawing manga, so I want to draw a lot. I don't know if I'll have the stamina to continue for another 10 volumes, but I want to continue working as a manga artist somehow.

But maybe... I don't think it will sell that well next time...

Hiroi: Stop! Don't say that!

Everyone: (laughs).

Kui: In that respect, "Dungeon Meshi" sold well, so I was able to draw what I had imagined to the end. Next time, I think it would be better to consider the opposite scenario of "if it doesn't sell" and make it shorter.

That's the next new challenge.

-- In addition to the expectations for your next work, do you feel any pressure?

Kui: In my case, the first collection of short stories I published was fairly well received. For a manga I drew for the first time, that's about it.

That was a relief, but at the same time, I felt that "Ideally, the reputation of my next work will also steadily increase, but there will definitely be ups and downs." If the reputation of the next work is bad, will I be able to continue drawing without getting discouraged? I realized that the "battle with myself" had just begun , and I was terrified when I read the first volume.

What game has cute illustrations, in your opinion?

Kui: This is a completely different topic, but you 've played SaGa Frontier 2 , haven't you? Aren't the pixel art in SaGa Frontier 2 really cute?

--The pixel art in SaGa Frontier 2 is...the best!

Kui: The illustrations in "SaGa Frontier 2" have such exquisite balance... if you try to express that in a picture, you can't reproduce that cuteness. It's like "exquisite head-to-body ratio."

-- In your opinion, Ms. Kui, are there any games that have cute illustrations?

Kui: The first one that comes to mind is definitely SaGa Frontier 2. Also, I still remember how cute the character designs were in Final Fantasy Tactics.

But back in the day, I used to trace characters from FF7 . I thought, "There are so many cool designs in the world..." (laughs).

Hiroi: Nomura (Tetsuya)'s drawings are amazing, aren't they?

Kui: I traced Cloud and Aerith on tracing paper and quietly said to myself, "So cool..." and got really excited. I noticed something while I was working on the "Dungeon Meshi" anime...basically, games and anime are made by many people, aren't they? So I always thought, "Many people must be giving various opinions to make them."

But when I got involved, I realized that one person's power is quite large. This was quite surprising. I thought that there were multiple people who wrote the script and storyboards, and that each person had their own responsibility, but... the power of one person is quite large.

──No matter how much the work is divided up, it's important to have a director or supervisor who brings it all together.

Kui: Yes, in the end, it depends on the power of the person who takes the lead ...

However, at the same time, I think that the division of labor between scriptwriting and storyboarding is something that would never be possible with manga. In the end, you have to create everything in one person's mind, so "bias" inevitably arises. So personally, I don't like the idea of ​​it becoming a "world created in one person's mind."

Hiroi: However, not only in manga but also in novels, the individual author's personality is strongly expressed. I wouldn't go so far as to say "ideology"... but the person's way of thinking is strongly expressed.

Kui: Speaking of which, people who create games alone, such as indie games, are amazing.

It's often said that manga artists "come up with everything, from the art to the story, all by themselves," but I don't think they can compete with independent game creators who create the music, programming, and art all by themselves.

Moreover, even more than manga, no one can give their opinion until the game is completed. If you think about it that way, making a game by yourself is really a "one-man battle." At the same time, what I like about games is that there are quite a few "works that are not made with much consideration for cost" ... I enjoy it a little bit.

-- Do you ever think, "I want to make a game?"

Kui: I once bought RPG Maker , but it ended up being a complete failure... (laughs).

Everyone: (laughs).

Love for "classic RPGs" was a major influence on "Dungeon Meshi"

-- I'd like to ask you, Ms. Kui, since you play a lot of titles on Steam and other platforms, have you ever had any problems playing a game?

Kui: Simply put, a "game that doesn't work" is a problem (laughs).

This sometimes happens with games made by individuals on Steam... they don't have any reviews, so there's no way to deal with it other than contacting them directly. There have been a few times when I've been stuck and wondered, "What should I do?"

Other times, I'll buy a title that just happens to pop up at the top of Steam's rankings. Sometimes I'll play it thinking, "The graphics are kind of cute, so I'll give it a try," only to find that it's incomplete beyond the framework.

--So now people are playing titles that aren't that major.

Kui: Also, when I played Planescape: Torment, which is said to have influenced Disco Elysium.

While playing, I came across a character who was suffering from a terrible curse that made his whole body smell and become sticky. A quest was triggered to ask the NPC who had cast the curse to lift it, but when I asked them to lift the curse, I ended up being cursed with a curse that made me have constant hiccups ...

So when I was walking around the town, the "hiccup" dialogue started popping up all the time. What's more, every time it happened, I would freeze up for about 0.1 seconds. All the dialogue was filled with "hiccups." Anyway, it was a troubling curse.

I had no idea how to deal with this either, so I decided to just kill the NPC who had put the curse on me. The NPC also challenged me by saying, "Maybe if you kill me, the curse will be lifted?", so I tried killing him, but... it didn't lift the curse at all (laughs).

Everyone: (laughs).

Kui: I thought maybe the quest would progress in other places, so I walked around here and there, but the curse was not lifted after all. I was really curious, so I looked back at overseas information exchange thread online, and I found someone had written a lecture that said "You know what happens if you kill an important NPC without thinking about it, right?"

So I realized that this curse can never be lifted again. Even if I wanted to rewind, it was an auto-save, so I had to go back almost to the beginning... I was really... in trouble!

-- But "Planescape: Torment" hits a pretty impressive spot. Was it something that just happened to catch your eye while you were browsing Steam?

Kui: I originally liked games in the same genre as Baldur's Gate, so I think that's how I got into Planescape.

Also, I saw information that a huge amount of text in Planescape was translated by one person... I'm not very good at English, and games like Planescape have a lot of text to begin with, so I'm at a loss if it's not translated into Japanese .

However, when extraordinary people like those who make Planescape use their precious time from their lives to accomplish great things, I feel very grateful.

-- So, Ms. Kui, do you prefer games that are closer to the classics?

Kui: That's right. The first game I played was The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and it was so much fun that I searched for "games similar to Skyrim" and played a lot of the games that came up.

All of them were completely different games from Skyrim, but they were fun. However, I don't like "old games". I think that newer games are generally more polished and well-made.

-- Wizardry, which influenced Dungeon Meshi, is also a classic work.

Kui: When I was a child, I saw my father playing Wizardry V : The Heart of the Maelstrom. As time passed, I remembered that there was a game called Wizardry. The game I played at that time was Wizardry VI: Forbidden Pencil.

I also played Wizardry V , but it was hard to see the map unless I chanted a spell. I was directionally challenged, so even though I had a guidebook at hand, I couldn't progress.

--By the way, were you more interested in making a manga out of "Wizardry" than the tabletop RPG "D&D" ?

Kui: When I was researching fantasy, "D&D" was often mentioned... but I had never even heard of "TRPG" before. First of all, you can't play it without friends, and I was shocked to find out that lots of people have friends they can play with like this...!?

Everyone: (laughs).

Kui: So when I looked up TRPGs on Wikipedia, I couldn't imagine that people actually played this kind of game. I was more confused and thought, "How can people really role-play in front of other people?"

After that, I watched replay videos on YouTube and it was only then that I understood how games like D&D worked.

Games, manga, novels. What is the purpose of all creative works?

-- What was the last game you played?

Kui: Recently I played a school management game called "Let's School." It's made by a Chinese company that also made "My Time at Sandrock."

Hiroi: You really like that kind of game, don't you? (laughs) Oh? Haven't you played "FF7 Rebirth" ?

Kui: I'm thinking about playing the remake of FF7 once it's completed.

Hiroi: No, no, if we don't do it now, we'll never finish it! It'll be a long time before we do it!

--Honestly, I also thought it would take about 10 years for FF7 Rebirth to be released.

Hiroi: I thought it would take about that long too... I really wanted it to be completed while I could still see. So, please do it!

Kui: Once it's finished...I want to play it all at once (laughs).

--Do you and Ms. Kui often talk about games?

Hiroi: Ms. Kui sometimes says, "I want to talk about this game, so I want you to play it." I played "Red Dead Redemption" because of that. Also, a long time ago, Ms. Kui recommended "13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim."

Kui: Whenever there's a game I want to discuss with someone, I always recommend it to Hiroi.

But maybe I haven't been playing games as much lately. Until now, I've been playing games because I thought of it as "for work," but now that the serialization of Dungeon Meshi has ended, I've been playing less games.

Moreover, I'm not the type of person who gets that into one game...I don't generally play through a game in repeated playthroughs, and I'm usually satisfied once I've finished the story.

Hiroi: Then we have to start [a new ] serialization soon.

Everyone: (laughs).

-- I'd like to ask you personally, do you have any "recommended indie games"?

Kui: I highly recommend "Papers, Please" and "Return of the Obra Dinn."

First of all, "Papers, Please" is a simple "spot the difference" game, so I didn't have high expectations at first. But when I played it, I felt like there was a proper "world" to it . Also, I was curious to see how the story continued.

And "Return of the Obra Dinn" had a great atmosphere. There were hints to solving the puzzles if you looked closely, but there was also a good balance of being able to force your way through, and the music and production were cool.

Hiroi: Come to think of it, you read quite a bit of the novel after the serialization ended, didn't you?

Kui: Ah, you mean "1984" by George Orwell? That was good...

I've always thought that creativity isn't necessary for life... It's entertainment, so it's not essential to life. But after reading "1984," I thought, "I guess creativity is necessary after all."

Humans need stories to experience things that should never come true, to prepare for bad things, and to prepare for understanding other people... You might think, "You should have already learned that when you were younger," but I was deeply moved by this realization.

Anyway, I feel that it would be great if people could learn things they didn't know before through this work.

Hiroi: ...Overall, it just felt like we had a fun time talking about games (laughs).

Kui: We just used the interview as an excuse to talk about the game (laughs).

-- No no, thank you very much for sharing your valuable story! (End)

I think I can understand a little bit about being interested in things you hate.

It's easy to analyze "why do you like something?" when you like it, but it's surprisingly difficult to analyze "why do you dislike something?" When you understand the reason, it seems that "why do you dislike it" is often more meaningful.

Perhaps creative works exist in part to help us understand the things we dislike.

I was able to hear a lot of deep "creation stories" that made me think about such things. Also, Ms. Kui is a huge gamer. Mr. Hiroi also likes games quite a bit. Since serious talk and game discussions alternated, the content may have been emotionally confusing. But I feel like "Dungeon Meshi" has a similar atmosphere.

If you haven't read "Dungeon Meshi," please take this opportunity to read it. It depicts a fun adventure. On top of that, it may help you prepare for difficult things that might happen in your life someday. Of course, it's also extremely interesting as a manga. I think it's definitely one of the best "entertainment" of our time.

Why does the body want to live? What does the mind want?

This is because we have a "desire" to pursue what we like and dislike. In fact, "things we dislike" are just as important as "things we like." By understanding our own "likes and dislikes" through creative works and entertainment, humans can prepare for things that happen in their future lives. Food and creative works are equally important for human growth.

...That said, I'm not sure if it has a nice punchline, or maybe not.

To eat. To experience creative works. These are truly the privileges of life. In order to live, we must continue to eat.

Now it's time to eat. What shall we eat today?

[catmask]

genuine question – and i hope it doesn't come as weird – but how do get into...pokemon? </3

pokemon universe feels so big and there are so many games and i really like their designs – both for pokemons and trainers – making ocs in this setting would be so cool but i have no idea how to. begin!

could you give some advice?

ps leaving compliments for your comic and art in general!! i really like how your pieces are so colorful! gives the vibes of some small but cozy and fun town in a videogame..

no worries!! it seriously depends on what you are interested in - gamewise, region wise, and story wise.

heres what i can say. if you like typical top-down style pixel art rpg games where you solve tile puzzles and build a little team of monsters, any of the games before x and y is a good choice. platinum is a great introduction to the series because it doesn't baby you but is still decently difficult, heartgold/soulsilver are the 'coziest' games imo but may spoil you because of how much content there is, black/white and black/white 2 are the most story-driven of the games and bw2 is probably the longest play of all the games. emerald is also great, but its genuinely a hard game even as someone whos been a fan of the series for years. i would say to start with hgss because they're my favorites, but they're so good it might raise the bar too high for all the other games pixel-art games.

if you prefer 3D graphics, but still like the 'run around catching guys and solving tile puzzles', i think sun and moon are the best of the 3D games! the story is engaging and a little more modernized so that there are actual cut scenes, i think the pokemon available are cute and the region is really pretty. i thikn after that, x and y is pretty cute! the story is less strong in comparison to sun/moon. importantly; every game in the 3D era has a new type that was not present in the pixel art era - the fairy type, so if you want to learn the MODERN type chart and balances, the 3D games are where you'd need to start.

finally, if you're not a fan of the 'catch pokemon run around region' type games, pokemon has a LOT of really awesome spin off games. my favorites are as follows...

pokemon mystery dungeon explorers of sky. its the strongest story the pokemon company has ever written, and im a big fan of the mystery dungeon style gameplay.

pokemon ranger (any ranger game!) the story and graphics are cute, and it focuses on rescuing/rehabilitating pokemon more than capturing them. really lovely expansion of the pokemon universe.

pokemon go, because its free! so if you dont want to download a rom, or sink money into a new franchise, its an easy way to get into it.

pokemon snap - this was actually my very first pokemon game i ever played! (never owned it though heha) but there was just a remake for the switch, if you've got a switch that is. the game focuses on photographing pokemon in their natural habitat, and its really quite cute. slow paced and fun if you're not sure about battling yet.

finally... if you weren't looking to get into games at all, pokemon art + fan creations are personally my favorite things in the entire fandom! artists and writers and fangame devs are the people who hold this fandom up, engaging with their creations is a great and typically free way to involve yourself... im sorry this is so long, i hope this helps!! and ppl are free to add on to this hehe

[akanemnon]

Do you like any other RPGs besides Undertale and Deltarune and do you think thar it's important to vary your game library?

I keep repeating myself, but Final Fantasy 9 is my favorite game of all time. I also enjoy the Mario & Luigi RPGs as well as some of the older Pokemon games (which are also RPGs). I grew up watching my brothers play FF7 and 8 (the soundtracks are ingrained into the deepest crevises of my brain). I also used to play an MMORPG named GuildWars 2, played a bit of Octopath Traveler and Digimon Cybersleuth but never finished them. I do wanna play Earthbound and Mother 3 especially in the future once I get my motivation back.

Other than that I watched plenty of Let's Plays of various RPGs.

I think that especially if you wanna write a story, having plenty of influences will only add to your product.

[bibiana112]

@hecksupremechips that was ABSOLUTELY part of the idea tormenting me you understand my vision

Also I was thinking again about the idea of making video essays but I sorta realized I could actually really enjoy being onscreen but only if I was in like. Full drag

[indie-ttrpg-of-the-week]

Perfect Draw

Shoutouts to this being one of my favorite queer developed TTRPGs in a while and it only fully came out after I had chosen my pride month line up

Touchstones: Yu-Gi-Oh!, Cardfight Vanguard

Genre: Card Game anime, Shonen

What is this game?: Perfect Draw is a tabletop rpg about card games and the kids who play them

How's the gameplay?: Perfect Draw is a powered by the apocalypse game, more info on that here, the narrative bits have some interesting mechanics that play into other systems, but that's not really why you're here. While Perfect Draw's narrative roleplay systems are certainly competent and fun, the REAL meat comes in the form of its extensive in-depth combat system. Players get to build their own deck of custom cards, using either custom or pre-made effects, and get to duke it out in a simplistic albeit very fun TCG, a major thing in the game design is the idea that Winning will always be a hard bargain, and sometimes winning might be the incorrect choice!

What's the setting (If any) like?: Perfect Draw technically is setting agnostic, but it does have a default setting in Shuffle City, a city inspired by the many different cities in Yu-Gi-Oh (Domino City, Heartland City, arguably Neo Domino from 5ds?), its a large city with many strange and unique characters, and a strange underbelly of mystical powers fighting each other for power! Perfect Draw's setting is very loose however, only really requiring the vague idea of magic (kinda) and card games to really get started. What's the tone?: Perfect Draw often has the tone of the anime its based on, high action friendship-fueled powers abound! It's very cute and optimistic, but I've seen darker games work decently well

Session length: Combat can take a little bit, but 2-3 hours is realistic

Number of Players: Perfect draw is, very deliberately, built around smaller groups, 4 players (including GM) is advised

Malleability: As said above, PD does not have a setting, you could theoretically run anything within it!

Resources: This is sadly where the game falters a bit, right now there's a few unofficial Tabletop Simulator add-ons, but that's about it, there's also an official card maker, a card balance calculator, and a few homebrew playbooks, also there's a huuuuge sheet of community made keywords for cards (some of which are written by yours truly!)

I'm a MASSIVE fan of card game anime, they're just so genuine and silly in ways that not a lot of media nowadays is. so seeing a game that appeals so much to me was a godsend! It's a fantastic game made by fantastic people, and I highly recommend it

[hymnism]

release the list

(i feel like i should mention these are all games ive personally played so if any of these make you go "why isn't [GAME] on here it's probably cuz i haven't played it. anyway)

(obligatory mention to hades/disco elysium/omori since they're some of my favorite games but im sure everyone already knows about them. they are lovely games and you should play them 👍)

darkest dungeon ($25) - turn based roguelike where you recruit mercenaries and send them on dungeon explorations and make sure they don't die of stress or starvation alongside the regular monster attacks. notoriously difficult. imagine bloodborne but turn based

ftl: faster than light ($10)- real time roguelike where you control a small crew and pilot a spaceship on the run from a rebel fleet. manage power and weapons on your own ship while targeting critical systems on the enemy

loop hero ($15)- a roguelike where your character will automatically walk in a loop while you use cards to add terrain with different effects such as spawning monsters to give you loot or increasing your healing. very unique with a beautiful pixel artstyle and banger soundtrack

moonlighter ($20)- a roguelike rpg where you go dungeon diving and try to bring back as much loot as you can so that you can sell it in your shop

shadows of doubt ($20)- early access. a first person sandbox detective simulator where each case is procedurally generated. randomly generates a town with npcs that all have names and addresses and relationships. put together clues from a crime scene and try to catch a killer before they strike again. work odd jobs between cases to keep yourself fed and housed

ultrakill ($25) fast paced first person shooter with a style system ala devil may cry. you play as a robot fighting through the layers of hell. mankind is dead. blood is fuel. hell is full

crypt of the necrodancer ($15)- a rhythm based roguelike dungeon crawler where you and your enemies are only allowed to move on beat. banger soundtrack goes without saying

everhood ($10)- a rhythm based rpg where you play as a red doll who had their arm stolen and is trying to get it back. battles involve moving between 5 lanes to avoid enemy attacks. if you like undertale you'll like this

spiritfarer ($30)- management and adventure game where you play as a spiritfarer who needs to care for spirits on her boat before leading them into the afterlife. incredibly charming and touching game. you will cry

let's school ($20)- management sim where you build and manage a school and help students graduate by setting up different courses. addicting and has a very cute artstyle

let's build a zoo ($20)- management sim where you. well where you build a zoo. a very silly game that includes a morality system where you can choose to be eco friendly and help repopulate endangered species or you can exploit your animals for their meat and produce. also has an animal splicing mechanic. haven't you ever wanted to make a giraffe with a duck head

the wandering village ($25)- early access. a city builder with the twist that you live on the back of a giant wandering beast named onbu. you help care for onbu as he wanders though different biomes that force you to adjust your resource production as some things become unavailable (such as water in a desert)

frostpunk ($30) a survival city builder where you build around a central core and try to prevent everyone from freezing to death in progressively colder temperatures

monster sanctuary ($20)- a metroidvania style creature collector with a unique combo meter that will continue to build and increase your damage based on the number of "hits" you can perform (healing buffs and shields also count as hits) and each monster has different skill trees that you can upgrade and customize

coral island ($30)- farming life sim with a unique underwater area where you can live and farm and raise aquatic plants and animals. you work to help restore the island after and oil spill ruined the surrounding ocean. i should mention that although this game is technically not in early access it is still unfinished and missing large chunks of gameplay/interactions/story. however there is still a healthy amount of content and is still a fun game as it is

apico ($20)- a beekeeping sim where you keep bees to make and sell honey while also breeding and releasing them to help restore their numbers in the wild

spirittea ($20)- a management and life sim where you manage a bathhouse for ghosts and help the townsfolk who think they're haunted (they're right). basically a cross between stardew valley and spirited away

cloud meadow ($20)- early access. this is a porn game ⚠️ a farming sim where instead of regular animals you have anthro characters and you can breed them either yourself or with each other and have them help in combat or on your farm. very cute artstyle and amazing animation work

[twilightprince101]

IN BUGS AND SNAX

I've recently been seeing more Bugsnax friendos get into In Stars and Time. Like, five different people I met via Bugsnax are now doing fanart and fanfics for it (if you know you know).

And I think it's a shame. Because that number should be SO MUCH HIGHER

So Bugsnax fans who are unaware of this lovely RPG, here's my pitch to you as to why I think you'd like In Stars and Time and would really enjoy it.

For ISAT fans who never heard of Bugsnax, read along if you wanna. This post is primarily for the opposite, but you may find something else to dip your toes into as well 0w0

Extremely cute / lovable cast that holds so much depth and complexity than meets the eye

Look at these goobers. Look at all of them having fun. They all seem like the kind of squishy chibi type OCs you would find on tumblr, right? Wholesome uwu babies?

Hahahaha

WRONG

Well, kind of yes but still WRONG

These characters have so much emotional complexity that it can be genuinely hard sometimes to pick a favorite character between them all. Odile isn't just the "mom of the group," she has her own reasons for being on this grand quest that stem all the way back to her family lineage, her relationship with her parents. And it all gets explored for every last character, just enough where you can fill in the gaps yourself, but you can still feel that there's so much more under the surface.

You know that bit at the end of Beffica's sidequests where she reveals that, despite her bitchiness, her reason for being like that is because she has a MOUNTAIN of trust issues? And that she never tells lies, but wants to unearth truths before she gets hurt? Remember how you felt when realizing that fact? That's there with ALL of the main cast here. Hope you've got your snorkel because there's so much for you to dive into.

2. Gameplay that adds to the narrative and puts you within that world/the player's shoes

This is my personal headcanon and I don't know if it's intentional on Young Horses' part, but I always felt that running around and catching all of the Bugsnax for the grumps in Snaxburg was intentionally designed to make you feel like Lizbert. You replace her role as town "therapist," you solve everyone's problems in a kind of regressive way that ends up hurting a lot of people. Despite the gameplay being fairly simple, it still added a lot to the plot, to give you that sense in the endgame of "oh. oh god, i really fucked up." You are forced into the shoes of that world/character through the gameplay and it hits much harder as a result.

That intentional and thoughtful game design is present from the moment you start up the game, all the way to the end. In Stars and Time has the best "ludonarrative harmony" I have ever seen. Ever.

The way that the game and story is paced makes you fully understand what Siffrin is going through, the constant slog through the castle (without it ever feeling grindy by the way!), zoning out through the same bits of dialogue. At any given point, no matter how dramatically Siffrin acts, you understand emotionally why he is at that point. You feel his exhaustion, his surprise, his desperate hope, his "i'm going to try fucking anything at this point" attitude. The entire way from start to finish, you feel it.

I refuse to say any more because doing so would spoil the game. But trust me when I say, if you noticed what Bugsnax was doing there with player/Lizbert parallels? You'd love this game.

3. "What is Straight?"

So you know how we all collectively agreed that Gramble is trans? and that Wambus/Triffany are the most bisexual straight couple?

How would you like those types of characters.... but have those conversations out loud?

Listen, I love this fandom as much as the next person, and I am a Transble believer at heart. But it's easy to forget that those are all just talked about in fanon, you know? (Despite gramble literally being trans flag colors listen i KNOW). We get certain bits of characters being introspective about their genders and gender roles, like Wambus being really stubborn with his farm and wanting to maintain a sustainable way of living, being "the breadwinner," for him and his wife. And Floofty feeling like an outcast for behaving in a way that is not "socially acceptable" while being nonbinary. But we never talk about those specific subjects directly, about sexuality, gender identity and the like. Not that Bugsnax NEEDS that, it's just something the writers never really thought to include.

But In Stars and Time... it scratched an itch I never knew needed scratched. Take the thirteen different pieces of character complexity and condense it into five. The discussions that the main party have in relation to their identities, both sexual and gender, are some of the most phenomenal pieces of writing I've ever seen. I've talked with asexual people who played this game who were like "finally, FINALLY SOMEONE GETS IT." Finally getting some characters that resonated with them so, so well. And there is a discussion about halfway through the game with a transgender character that absolutely floored me, because so many post-transition character arcs that I see are related to dealing with transphobes and accepting your slay self queen/king/my liege. And that's good. It's cool. But I feel I've seen that so many times now I know the basic plot beats. And ISAT throws in a unique twist to it that I rarely see and the influence that their past combined with cultural pressure it's just, it's SO GOOD. You gotta see it to believe it man, I'm leaving out so much shit here you need to check it out yourself.

4. It will reach into your chest and strangle your heart with its claws

Despite how cute both games can be, they can bash the back of your head with a steel chair of emotion.

You know that feeling you get when you complete a lot of bugsnax sidequests? When you realize Triffany will never get the closure she wanted; when you've helped Wiggle chase this dream of a muse that doesn't exist, and that it was (at least partially) your fault? Well how about if that was the entire game?

This game has some of the highest highs and lowest lows, emotionally speaking. A lot of ISAT also has that same sort of emotional ambiguity Bugsnax has; certain plot points will never be resolved, because that's just life. And you're forced to sit with it, sit in that guilt and resentment because this isn't a problem that can be solved so quickly but you still tried and that arguably made things worse.

Yes, an argument could be made that because Siffrin is not a self insert like The Journalist, then there's a layer of disconnect. But remember what I said in point two: you understand every step Siffrin takes the whole way through because you play it. You sit in it. And no matter how dramatically Siffrin acts, it will be hard to deny that you wouldn't do the same in their place.

5. A big mysterious twist that will emotionally gut you and leave you to dry

Obviously I can't put much here. It'd spoil Bugsnax for ISAT fans and spoil ISAT for Bugsnax fans, more than I already have. But for the fans of each respective games, you KNOW what I'm talking about. And there is an equivalent in the other as well.

If the image of Siffrin making that face intrigues you in any way, especially compared to what I've already shown you. Then go in the game blind. The scene this is from blindsides so many people and once you hit That Face, you know the true game has begun.

----------

That's about the best pitch I can give for Bugsnax fans to play ISAT. I really do feel there's a lot of emotional overlap between these two, even if they're completely different games by nature. There's a lot to love and sink your teeth into.

If this is your first time hearing about either of these games and any of this sounds intriguing to you? Trust me. GO IN BLIND. The gameplay/story blend may not click for everyone right away, but if you let yourself sink into this game, if you let yourself connect with it, boy oh boy does it connect. There is truly nothing like In Stars and Time and/or Bugsnax, and the more people experience this game, the better. Trust the process, slink into it.

I promise you won't regret it.

Thanks for making it to the end have some silly little guys

[herssian]

bg3's beautiful graphics or realistic animations that just barely manage not to cross over to uncanny valley all certainly add to the experience (and i'd be doing the devs a disservice if i didn't admit it), but... the writing, choice potential with actual consequences, the insane amount of possibly resolving a single encounter with good, bad, and horrible outcomes, and the freedom only a real life d&d campaign can produce that's not restrained by self-imposed high or low fantasy standards so many games, books, shows abide by but instead allows you to achieve the silliest of scenarios just because you had the imagination and gall to do it as long as the dice allow you... i don't see how any rpg game i get my hands on after this will ever even come close. horrifically, i don't see how i can replay my existing favorites without feeling like they lack in, well, roleplaying

[thydungeongal]

Okay I'm convinced. I want to play an old school dungeon crawl. I want encounter tables that restock, I want to track my lamp oil, I want my character to die and I'm forced to roll a new one at the table. What non-AD&D games would you recommend that do that? Is Rolemaster one of them?

Rolemaster isn't exactly conducive to that sort of play because it represents a direction of fantasy role-playing games that started to de-emphasize dungeon-crawling as an activity, but there are a couple of good ones!

Old-School Essentials is an almost 1:1 clone of my favorite old-school D&D, the Moldvay Basic/Expert version. Elf and Dwarf are classes! There's instant death giant bees! Character creation is 3d6 down the line! The benefit of using OSE, besides not paying WotC, is that the creators keep producing lots of new supplemental materials for it, and it's at the moment one of the most widely supported old-school games. It also has a free SRD with all the basic rules! The rules in the SRD are enough to get you started, and the Classic Fantasy rules are also available in PDF and print, but if you want to add some advanced classes I recommend getting the Advanced Fantasy rules, which converts pretty much all AD&D classes and races into a B/X compatible format. Confusingly, the Advanced Fantasy rules are not supplemental, but instead they contain all the same rules as the Classic Fantasy rules tome in addition to having all the AD&D stuff.

Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game is a community-driven Creative Commons old-school RPG. Rules-wise I would consider it halfway between B/X and AD&D. While the rules have the simplicity of B/X they have some of the added depth of AD&D (race and class as separate, for one). It is a fantastic project well worth supporting, and entirely free to get started on!

Errant is an interesting one because it is not a clone of any old-school edition of D&D, but a game clearly built around all the game design lessons learned from years of OSR design just poured into one. I have previously described Errant as "maximalist OSR," and that's not because it's particularly crunchy, but because it is full of neat little procedures. It abstracts some things away but it turns resource-management into a really fun little minigame. There is a free version of its rules available which only lacks the art, and if nothing else it is a great resource for borrowing ideas for other games.

And finally, Mausritter. A fantastic minimalist OSR game about playing little mice adventurers. I can't stress enough how fantastic this game is. It emphasizes the fear of being just a lil guy in a world full of big monsters that want to eat you through old-school mechanics. It's also free!

The great thing about these old-school games is that even when the rules don't agree 1:1 they are built on similar enough principles that you can easily borrow materials from one to another!

[whumpsday]

Whumpmas in July #1

(Re)Introduce yourself

hi! i'm mill, and i write oc whump! i also run the WIJ archive blog, @whumpmasinjuly-archive: if you use the official tags or @ that blog, i'll make sure your post gets reblogged to the archive!

my masterlist is here, where you can find all of my writing.

my favorite whump things to write are vampire whump, nonhuman whump in general, role reversal (whumper turned whumpee, etc), immortal whumpees, whumpees and caretakers who are enemies, and begging. i like to go heavy on both the hurt and the comfort, and enjoy both gore that goes beyond the limits of what a normal human could survive and the most tender, caring recovery arcs imaginable.

my main series is Kane & Jim, a whumper-turned-whumpee vampire whump story with 50+ chapters and a whole slew of AUs and crossovers. it's what most of my writing is!

i've recently-ish started a new series called Catharsis, a robot whump story. it's slow-going, but i'm making an effort to... not mostly-abandon this one like i have every other time i've tried to start a series.

i have a bunch of oneshots i've written, and once in a blue moon i will write a fanfiction. i'm by far an oc guy though. i also RP on discord sometimes! mostly using my characters from Kane & Jim.

for WIJ this year, i plan to post 2 Kane & Jim chapters, 1 Catharsis chapter, 1 crossover between K&J and Catharsis, 1 fanfiction, and 5 oneshots. plus one other thing for day 28 depending on what i get inspired by on day 4! (i'm hoping to write something for one of my two series for that day as well.)

WIJ is my favorite seasonal whump event and i'm so excited to participate again this year :)

❤️ Name: mill

💚 Pronouns: he/they (my dad called me his son for the first time yesterday :D)

🤍 Favorite season: autumn <3

❤️ Average amount of sleep: LOL

💚 Dream Job: teaching assistant in a public school!! hoping to start this upcoming september!

🤍 Blog established date: february 2022

❤️ Username/blog meaning: takeoff on the friday's slogan (in here, it's always whumpsday)

💚 Hobbies: writing, watching seasonal anime, the occasional video game, reading, tabletop rpgs (not like d&d and stuff, the boxed kind, awaken realms etc! if anyone wants a used copy of vampire the masquerade: chapters for only the cost of shipping, hmu)

🤍 What you love about whump: EVERYTHING

❤️ Anything else to add: see above cuz i put my paragraphs at the top <3

@whumpmasinjuly

[elbiotipo]

What are like good AIs for making up inspirations for writing and such? I was trying to make ChatGPT fulfill this function, and like it's good at coming up with names or riddles but actual stories or setting ideas are bad. Not even bad as in nonsensical or lack human touch, bad as in they look like the most generic thing possible

Well, before AIs there was this website, with all sorts of generators for names, NPCs, even random maps and solar systems and more for different settings. It even has a free Markov Name Generator where you can just put a list of names or words and it generates random names from them! I still use it for generating names when I feel lazy (I'm not a good conlanger)

But my favorite right now is one you can find here, @statsbot by @reachartwork. You can add the bot on Discord and ask them for a lot of commands, like creating you a statblock for NPCs or characters (I asked them for example for stats for the Daft Punk guys in a Cyberpunk campaign), a skeleton of an adventure or dungeon with random encounters, random monsters for all kinds of systems, descriptions of settings and places, or my VERY favorite, /elaborate, where you send them a little worldbuilding prompt (for example, "a kobold merchant republic", "a pantheon of fire deities") and it gives you a whole worldbuilding blurb that you can use as you want.

This is one of my favorite outputs:

The outputs are very interesting and creative, I don't even play RPGs that much, I just feed it prompts and see what it comes up with. I think the author is working on a solo version which can remember previous prompts which could be very useful if you are building a setting and want to develop some stuff but don't know how. Do give them a tip if you use it!

[moxpunk]

Moxie's Big-Ass Retrospective on Games She Played This Year

There's going to be a lot of games under the break, and I'm going full-hog on spoilers. Honestly, I'm going stream-of-consciousness with these, so there's not going to be a clear point made for some of them. Just how I remember them and how I feel now looking back.

Final Fantasy XIV This is my current MMO of choice, and it's been this massive part of how I spent my time this year. The patches and content continue to be great, even if I breeze through it all in a few days after the patch when plugins/mods are back up. I've definitely noticed a dip in my interest lately. I think it's because we've hit a good stopping-point for the plot and junk, so most of us are just waiting until the pre-patch of the new expansion next year. RP continues to get fucking worse and worse for someone that plays a lalafell, since the community at-large (especially the modding community) is actively hostile towards lalafells and their players. Having to check every single venue to see if my middle-aged potato is going to be treated like a child by the hosts gets exhausting after the umpteenth time. Still love the game and I poke at it on a regular basis.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom One of my favorite games I've played this year, but also one of the most frustrating in hindsight. There was a ton of lost opportunity in multiple aspects in this game, and it's sorta the thing I keep coming back to in my head. I loved the exploration and fucking around with physics and just getting to play around in Hyrule. It's a magical experience that I think transcends the fact that 2/3rds of the map is essentially re-used. The Underground was a missed opportunity to shove lore of ancient civilizations in there, Ganondorf was a missed opportunity to finally depict him as a tragic hero with Hyrule being the villains for once, and no plans for DLC or even a Hero Mode is a massive miss for me wanting to return to the world.

Baldur's Gate 3 Hands-down my favorite game of the year by a massive margin, but like TOTK, an immensely frustrating experience. The game is half-cooked in so many areas, and the bugs are plentiful to the extent that they can't really be ignored. The pathing system continues to be the Larian Special of being jank as all hell, with my characters running in the opposite direction of the path it lays out for them. I played this one on stream, and I cannot remember a single stream where I didn't have at least a handful of frustrations with the combat system. Hell, I had to completely restart my file in the middle of Act 2 because Karlach's romance bugged out. I continue to be very upset and frustrated at how goblins are treated, doubly so since in order to pursue the Good Route with Halsin, you have to attack fucking children. I don't care if they're goblins, they're kids. Also very disappointing we don't get a single short-race origin character, meanwhile half of the cast is some form of elf. At least it's nice letting me be full-on cock-out trans. Despite that, the writing and characterizations in this game are unparalleled. It's immensely refreshing to finally have a RPG where you fucking roleplay, after years of it being dialogue that doesn't matter in the slightest other than "points towards the good/evil ending". I love the Brain Slug Squad immensely. This game is probably going to become part of my "play this every year" list because there's just so many different ways to play through this game.

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk Been waiting for this game (or a game like it) for fuckin' years, and it's everything I wanted and expected. I know a lot of people went into the game expecting some massive thing that lasted hours and hours, but my memories of JSR/JSRF was a game that I could reasonably beat in an afternoon or two because I just get into the flow and know what I'm doing. Cyberfunk is the purest successor to JSF that I can thing of where it just adds to the fun formula of the past. Incredible game, love seeing the mods coming out for it, hope we get another game in the universe since Team Reptile said they aren't doing DLC.

Pizza Tower Love this game, adore the movement and the music, absolutely fell off at about the halfway mark. I think it's because a lot of stuff was coming out at the time, and I just kinda played those instead. One of these days, I'll beat it and be very satisfied, but for now my gremlin-brain that demands collecting every single collectable and getting at least an A-rank on every stage gets exhausted just thinking about it.

Elden Ring Opened the game up after upgrading to a new PC, marveled that I could run it on Ultra with the game keeping a smooth framerate, killed a few enemies, remembered about the fucking giant ants in this game and how there are zero mods to remove/change them, and then turned the game off and uninstalled. Begging someone to make a mod that gets rid of the fucking ants. Please. I've already gotten every trophy in the game last year, so any incentive I have to return is predicated on that.

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty So, I'm going to give my thoughts about the base game and the DLC, since I played both. The base game continues to be this utter fascination to me where my brain adores just existing in the cyberhell future of nonstop advertising (if I have to hear YO YO YO MY CHEWERS SHROOMERS AND FUMERS! one more time I'm going to fucking strangle someone to death) and ultraviolence. The game continues to ride that weird line of "might as well do every side-quest because they're quick enough to get to and there's hardly any compared to Witcher 3" and "oh my god I do not care about these fucking sidequests other than I have gremlin-brain". Doing anything with sniper rifles or heavy machine guns is an exercise in frustration thanks to there being zero silenced sniper rifle until late-game and there being no unique HMGs.The DLC is... fine. It's fun antagonizing Idris Alba, it's not fun that the DLC is based around a stealth build, it's extremely not fun that the changed ending is deeply unsatisfying from a narrative standpoint.

Pseudoregalia An adorable little game that I enjoyed quite a bit for the very short time I got to fool around with it. Love the movement, love the style of the graphics, love the little pieces of story. Game doesn't get enough love, so here's me giving it some more.

Potionomics I fucking adore this game. I think what helped endear me was getting to do all the voices on-stream, but who cares this is my retrospective and I get to be biased. Loved the romances and characters in there. I absolutely headcanon Xid as being trans, Roxanne turns me into a babbling idiot, and I relate to Luna so hard it almost hurts. I enjoy that characters remain your friend if you already picked a partner, and you have to have a conversation about "hey, you were kinda flirty for a while and I feel a little weird about that now" for each of them. Breaking the economy by the third competition was immensely satisfying.

Paradise Killer I slammed through this game over the course of a single sleepless night thanks to Super Depression. Love the character designs and how bold they are, love the lore behind the world, got kinda sick of it taking so long to travel from place to place, gremlin-brain refused to let me part with the game until I collected everything. Hope to see a prequel/sequel of some sort, because Lady Love Dies is such an interesting character and I liked the bugfuck-weird world.

Peglin It's Peggle, you're a goblin, you get funky ball powerups, adore playing this game on my phone in short bursts. Not much more to say, it's my potato-chip game.

Rimworld Friend gifted this to me and I got horribly obsessed for like a week. It's a lot easier to grok than Dwarf Fortress thanks to the UI and information being easier to comprehend. I never know how to do the crazy shit in these games, I usually peak at having a little self-sustaining settlement with like 4 characters that live their little lives until a plague or bandit raid sweep through and kill everyone.

Halo: Master Chief Collection Another series of games I got obsessed with and pounded out before dropping it. Halo 1 is like twice as long as I remember, Halo 2's remastered cutscenes are fucking gorgeous and it continues to be my favorite out of the series, Halo 3 I'm lukewarm on it's whatever, Halo Reach is... eh I don't care, ODST I petered out of thanks to playing it with an ex that does not understand videogames, Halo 4 is a slog. Didn't do any multiplayer.

Helltaker Finally played it, beat it in like 2 hours, thought the puzzles were fun and the art continues to rattle around in my noggin.

A Hat In Time Another game that I finally beat after owning it for like the better part of a decade. Cute little game, I don't have a clue what any of the updates and junk do these days. The big mountain level is a fucking nightmare to navigate and explore and that's why I fell off last time.

Puzzle Agent Played this one on-stream because I'm Minnesotan as all fuck and I enjoy Professor Layton puzzles. It's just as good as I remember, even if it's incredibly short.

Kingsway Love the premise, adore that it takes me back to the Windows XP era of using my parents' computer. I had like one good run that died in the middle of things, and I never really went back. I should do this game again at some point.

Loop Hero Another procedural game where progress is usually bottlenecked by gathering base resources in each run so you have a fighting chance. All my runs sorta ended up the same by a certain point and I wasn't really having much fun anymore.

Lethal Company Game scares the absolute shit out of me, I cannot play this game for extended periods because I get heartburn from fear. Excellent experience with friends.

Super Mario RPG I didn't have a SNES growing up, so I never got a chance to play the original. So far, I've been greatly enjoying the remake! I don't have much to say because I've only played like four hours of it on stream.

Katamari Reroll Just beat this game again on stream last week. Extremely fun, extremely short, Lonely Rolling Star continues to make me get emotional and cry, my memories get mixed-up with We ♥️ Katamari when it comes to the final sequence of levels.

World of Warcraft I made the return, and holy shit have things changed in-game. The UI actually looks like it's part of a cohesive artstyle, catching up with the story and questlines after bouncing in the middle of Shadowlands is honestly kind of exhausting, and the RP community is still splintered and fractured between Retail and Epsilon. Controller-support has been my biggest gripe since XIV's is fucking stellar and I do not have the wrists/hands for putting my abilities on the keyboard anymore, I either have to use my janked-out mouse buttons or a controller using ConsolePort which is... serviceable but nowhere near good. Uh, I don't particularly care for the dragon-stuff in WoW's lore, and I still haven't done a single dungeon since I play Brewmaster and I'm so out of whack with WoW tanking that I just don't bother. I'm usually doing RP on my endless ranks of characters if I'm not playing with my girlfriend. Season of Discovery has been a fun thing to do with my friend and our guild, it's sorta what I wanted out of Classic when they announced it. The "No Changes" thing was stupid because we'll never get back the lack of information and endless time we had back then, so I'm very happy to have World Of Warcraft Chopped And Screwed Edition. As much as I still have massive, major gripes with Blizzard and ABK in general... Azeroth is still home for me. It's been important to me as a person. Wouldn't have realized I was trans or poly without it.

SO THERE YOU HAVE IT My thinks and feelings on all the games I played this year in 2023. I guess to sum up the year in general? It's been a real shit year for me. Went through like three big breakups, my art output's been dogshit in quantity thanks to mental-health issues, and for the first half of the year people just sorta generally treated me poorly which exaserbated a lot of problems. I'm recovering, but I've noticed it's been a lot slower than it has been in the past. Games are a huge hobby of mine, so I'm glad I've gotten to play some bangers this year. Being more active on Tumblr's been good for my mental health, since I finally feel like I've got a community again after not really feeling like I've had one in forever. Love you guys, stay weird. 💖💖💖

Sorry not sorry for this being so long.

[mimicschest]

Fallout fans are contrarians

One of the things that I have noticed is that the fallout fandom is contrarian. Whatever is the newest release is awful; that the previous release was actually the best. I began noticing this when FalloutNV came out. It immediately became my favorite. But the internet had different ideas at the time. People ragged on it for how few combat encounters there were. They didn't like how there were much less random encounters and locations to explore that you just stumbled on. They thought the narrative was too preachy, and that a lot of the quests involved too much talking.

I looked into it, and the same thing happened when fallout 3 came out. Old players didn't like how it had been converted into a 3d game with fps gameplay. They didn't like the reused enemies and factions. Thing is? Forums prior to the release of fallout 3 were often fantasizing about it becoming a 3d game, with real time combat.

Fast forward to the fallout 4 release, almost everyone is saying that falloutNV is the best game. They hate the new features; the settlement building, the faction building of the minutemen, how the focus was put more on the locations and gunplay. These are fair criticisms. What isn't is claiming that bethesda wasn't listening to the fans.

They brought in the polished companions that were in falloutNV and experimented with in skyrim (Serana). The settlement system? It was based on one of the most popular fallout mods, called Real Time Settler, by Arkoola. They added in the survival mechanics, though they botched it at first, that were popular in both modding and in fallout nv. The Automotron DLC was clearly based on the Robco Certified mod for fallout3. Additionally, one of the most popular mods for fallout 3 was Mothership Zeta Crew. A dlc sized mod based entirely around building a new faction from the ground up. What do you do with the minutemen? Build a faction from the ground up.

I think a lot of the criticism is valid. But a lot also comes from the simple fact that the fanbase is simply contrarian. They ask for features, create mods, and then they are integrated into the next release. Then the fans rebel. What was once hated becomes beloved, and what was once loved is now vilified.

For my part; I do love fallout 4. It is a fun game, and IS a proper rpg. There are a lot of ways to express your character through gameplay. I don't love the voiced protagonist, and I think the simplification of the dialogue structure was a mistake. (I dont have any problem reading dialogue. I love morrowind after all). The survival mode adds a lot of tension and fixes a lot of the narrative pacing issues by introducing a need to take things slower and more carefully. I like how you unlock in-world fast travel options by engaging in the main quest, which actually is useful since you cant do the normal fast-travel during survival mode. I like building and decorating a house. If you build up the settlements, you can take the minutemen from a footnote, to a major faction that you can call on almost anywhere on the map. I like building settlements; It can be a city, a small trading post, an industrial center, a farm, or just a small port-of-call for you to rest and recuperate from your adventures. The perk system allows you to define your character with a lot of unique builds that play extremely differently. The dialogue system supports using perks... Though it is vastly underutilized in the vanilla game.

Do I think it is a perfect game? Of course not. I have plenty of criticism for it. However, it gets shit on a lot, and often in a way that is unfair or is laser focused on a very specific part. This lacks nuance.

Also, I am not a Bethesda Fanboy. This is explicitly not about Bethesda, but on one of their games. Death of the Author and all that.

[eldritch-elrics]

man, it's so interesting to think about "jank" and user-unfriendly design in video games. i can't yet think up a "rule" about when i like it and when i hate it. and often it's so much more than just liking or hating it -

like. i will never be over hylics 2. i will never stop thinking about hylics 2's horrendously bad platforming sections. or the weirdly complex shifting first-person dungeon maze with no in-game map. and all this alongside some of my favorite turn-based rpg battles. i love how the baffling design of that game extends well past its weird artstyle and wacky story. it's all very charming!

maybe it's good when "bad design" makes a game world feel cohesive? when hylics 2 adds in weird segments ripped from totally different game genres, it makes the world even more quirky, diverse, and disjointed. when the nier games make you replay them multiple times to continue the narrative (definitely not "bad design," but definitely frustrating imo), it contributes to the feeling that the characters are stuck in a story much larger than them whose ending they can never quite escape. when dark souls doesn't explain half its mechanics to you, it contributes to the feeling that you're just some rando dropped into a hostile world that you have to figure out through trial and error (and many missteps along the way). honestly, it's all a great reminder that "fun" should not be the be-all end-all measure of a game!