#they inspired me to play Splatoon and influenced my art in some way

[alecatmew]

Reflections on Tableturf

This blog post goes through a few of my Tableturf inspired artworks from 2023, ending with a quick timelapse of this painting:

With the launch of Splatoon 3 came a new game mode, Tableturf! I got quite into the idea of Tableturf, even being a part of coordinating an art collab project – Arty Siege – which paid homage to the in-game cards. I did lots of work for that – creating various design elements, having fun data merging artwork in InDesign, thinking about how the physical game would really play out, coordinating artists and creating artwork!

The art that I worked on included assets for the card backgrounds, and I illustrated one of the cards.

These background images were ink paintings traced from game screenshots. After doing a little photography tour in the game I exported the screenshots and used the Find Edges filter in Photoshop. I printed these reference lines to carbon paper and transferred them to watercolour paper.

After scanning the ink paintings, I applied some gradient map adjustments to them to adapt them into the card background.

I chose to illustrate the Splattershot Jr. as my designated card for the project. I’ve drawn the newbie squid before and as a Junior player (I became a Junior main because of having to unlock kits on many, many systems) I just feel a certain connection to the default loadout.

During initial project advertising, I used this artwork. The pose is taken directly from the pose of the original Tableturf card. With this version of the artwork, I mocked up the first version of how the cards would appear, including tweaks to the card UI and creating a 3D view of the card.

My motivations for changing the UI were to make the Arty Siege cards distinct from the in-game works, but also to think about what would make sense for a real card game. The original cards put all their important information at their base, but I wanted to make all the pertinent information visible easily from a fanned out hand of cards. So I moved the grid and special costs to the left side.

I also straightened the alignment of the block grid. The angled grid was cool, and saved a little space, but I felt that when looking down at the game board and determining how to make a move, it was easier to visualise the move you wanted to play by having an aligned grid. Maybe that was just me, it’s not like things in the real world would be completely squared anyway.

Anyhow, relatively late into the project I started feeling a bit insecure about that version of the Junior being my entry into the project. I was surrounded by an incredibly talented pool of artists and felt like I needed to step up to the standards of my peers! I still like my original artwork but I also felt inspired by the work I’d done on the backgrounds to do a piece in ink and use gradient mapping to add colour.

This time, I based the pose on some promotional artwork from Splatoon 2 – I wanted to show off the square ink tank because while the flat ink pack of Splatoon 3 features in some of the cards, many of the other ones seem to take cues from Splatoon 2’s fashion options.

Here’s the final version of the Splattershot Jr. card. Please do check out the Arty Siege website for all of the other works!

One of the things I did at the end of this project was to print out all the cards, which was a lot of fun! I felt like I built a new connection with each of the artists and their artwork in the process of printing, cutting and sleeving the cards.

While wrapping up Arty Siege I had a vague idea of running a promotional Tableturf tournament – maybe something in a casual vein, or with a bit of a team gimmick to allow a mix of player skills among drafted teams. The team angle was influenced by my favourite anime – Chihayafuru – a show that features a competitive karuta game based on the Ogura hyakunin isshu.

Chihayafuru is beautiful, and the way it depicts friendly competition really hits home. And there’s just something so great about the earnest enthusiasm of the players – they’re engaging in a pretty niche hobby so having the opportunity to play is something they’re truly grateful for. Coming from a grassroots Splatoon scene, I feel the parallels between the competition depicted in the show and some of my favourite times being a member of the Australian (and broader) Splatoon community.

I wish competitive video gaming was filled with people as kind and grateful for the opportunity to play with others as the karuta players in Chihayafuru.

— David Michael Kinne (@Mewd462) May 18, 2019

This kinda sums it up!

Although I didn’t end up running a Tableturf tournament, the imagery and the idea for an art piece stuck with me.

As much as I adore Chihayafuru, I’ve never felt brave enough to try to tackle fan art for it. The gorgeous scenes, the sense of movement, the game that I only have the most superficial understanding of… it all felt quite intimidating.

But Splatoon, I feel comfortable in that universe…

(A universe which coincidentally seems to have a version of karuta already!)

However, my painting is not an attempt to retcon that karuta into Tableturf. In my headcanon, the two coexist. I just wanted to borrow the aesthetics of karuta for my Tableturf scene. I was inspired by the glowing sunset scenes of karuta which I associated with the characters practicing in the school clubroom, but also by the tournament games played while wearing kimono.

Before starting this painting I did two “mood studies” – just getting a feel for whether I could tame the contrast of yellows, oranges and purples before I started. Watercolour can be a tricky medium, and it’d be hubris to walk into this kind of endeavour without a plan.

That first image is sort of a Chihayafuru fanart, I guess – the scene is most likely Arata sitting alone with his cards – but that wasn’t the purpose of the sketch. I wanted to get a feel for how I’d depict the trees in the windows, and the light entering the room. The second sketch really sets up the composition that I’d ultimately use for the final piece.

After deciding on that sketch, I made simple 3D version of the scene in Blender.

A digital sketch then filled in the character details

Which was then printed out and transferred to stretched watercolour paper, then painted over the span of a few weeks.

I also wrote a poem to go with this painting. It’s based on poem 77 of the Ogura hyakunin isshu. Here’s one blogger’s translation and writeup about the poem (I chose to highlight this blogger because they also have a post about the Karuta that appears in Splatoon 2!)

The translation included in that post is credited to Joshua Mostow,

Because the current is swift, even though the rapids, blocked by a boulder, are divided, like them, in the end, we will surely meet, I know

Other translations summarise the scene as

Swift waters parted by the jagged rocks are joined at river's end.

The overall mood that I get from this poem, having only experienced it through translations, is a mix of urgency and yet steadfast certainty that comes from love. Apparently, the “swift currents” were not in the original poem, and were a later edit, but I think the imagery is certainly much stronger with the idea of rapid waters.

I felt the scenario could be mapped quite closely to the energy and movement of Turf War, and by extension, Tableturf. The rapid currents can be whirls of paint instead, and the boulder standing in the way of the lovers could well be a grey block, created in Tableturf when both players play their cards over the same squares.

I chose to write my poem following the rough syllabic rules of the original poetry, the lines having 5-7-5-7-7 syllables. But I put a western poetic spin on them as well, making use of rhyme throughout.

Our rapid advance, Blocked by chance or wit wherefore. Must we halt our dance? No - surge forth in this turf war! We'll unite our ink once more.

The rapid advance describes that rush to claim turf, as well as for the rivals/lovers to meet at the middle of the map. “Chance or wit wherefore” refers to how the grey block ended up in their way. Was it coincidence that they played in the same tile, or was it cunning strategising from one of the players? With this obstacle in place, the shape of their relationship (whether it be a rivalry or a romance) is affected.

The ending couplet describes the characters choosing to rise above (or work around) adversity – in-game the boulders would not be passable at all, so they must certainly have some grit! Like the swift waters in the original poem, they’ll be sure to meet again.

I love how this artwork and poem came together. Reflecting upon them I feel all those warm fuzzy feels from all the ways that Splatoon – and more recently Tableturf – have made their impact on me. I’m grateful to have had another great year of art, friends and community and I’m looking forward to more good times in the future.

"Reflections on Tableturf" was originally published on Proairesis

[inktank-thinktank]

Splatocalypse Now

My friends, the final Splatfest is upon us. And you know what that means. Plot implications for Splatoon 3.

We have been looking over the material released for Splatocalypse, and have prepared some analysis and interpretation, to not only help you make what you deem is the correct choice for the Splatfest, but also to prepare you for what is to come.

I’m warning you now, if you click into the Read More, there will be major spoilers for nearly every aspect of the Final Fest: Splatocalypse event, INCLUDING datamined material. Enter at your own risk.

First, we should note the theming. 'Splatocalypse'. This theme of a Splatoon apocalypse pops up in many places in the material we are to observe, and seems an almost overbearing theme. Nintendo is being direct this time - what happens is going to deeply impact the world of Splatoon.

Indeed, the music that plays during the trailer, according to the Live in Makuhari album coming out three days after the Splatfest ends, is called 'Haikara (Inkopolis) Memorial Mixtape', by DJ Octavio.

EDIT: OatmealDome has informed me that Haikara Memorial Mixtape is likely a NEW song that we have not heard yet! The song in the trailer is most likely ‘SPLATOCALYPSE （ファイナルフェス 告知映像BGM）’ (SPLATOCALYPSE - Final Splatfest Announcement Video BGM), the immediately previous track on the album.

After a brief summary of Splatfests to-date, we open to Pearl and Marina. When Pearl is on-screen, we get a sound effect of rushing flames, while Marina is accompanied by sounds reminiscent of computers and technology. This is notable, especially when viewed in combination with other material, giving us an... 'inkling', of what is to come. The first thing that I think needs considering in combination with this is the Splatfest gear.

What we see is quite telling.

In English, the gear names are ‘Jetflame Crest’ (the motorbike helmet), ‘Fierce Fishskull’ (the fish skull, obviously), ‘Eye of Justice’ (the helmet with the screen on it), and ‘Hivemind Antenna’ (the shades).

As per this Reddit post, which we will be referencing a lot going forward, the names are ‘Burning Broiler’, ‘Giga Fishbone’, ‘Justice Brain’, and ‘Cosmic Antenna’.

Team Chaos’ gear puts off an air of being very ‘Mad Max’-inspired, very befitting of both ‘chaos’ and the apocalyptic themes. It is also worth noting that the helmet containing the word ‘broiler’ in the name is a connection to the Salmonids, who we know from the Splatoon 2 Ikasu Art Book use cooking implements as weaponry because they see life and death and consumption of other living things as all part of a cycle.

Similarly, we know that sunglasses of the shape the Hivemind Antenna / Cosmic Antenna take have historically been linked to Octarian mind control technology, such as the hypnoshades worn by Callie and the Octolings you fight in Hero Mode 2.

It is not difficult then to surmise that Team Chaos ties in to the concept of a Mad Max style apocalyptic wasteland, somehow related to the Salmonids, while Team Order ties in to the concept of a false utopian society controlled by mechanisms of technological oppression.

Now, moving back to the trailer...

Over the course of the trailer, we are shown who is on each side, out of the major characters. I will summarize our beliefs as to why each character is on each side, as this will influence later covered topics.

TEAM CHAOS

Starting with Team Chaos, we have the Salmonids. This is quite obvious. The Salmonids have always been agents of chaos, chiefly known for overrunning early Inkling settlements and even going as far as consuming the Inklings within.

There is also Iso Padre, which may come as a surprise to some. However, as a former test subject of TARTAR’s, it is clear he would want as little to do with ‘order’ as possible when presented the option. He seems okay with Kamabo Co. in Octo Expansion, but in a way that seems...detached, wistful, almost like he’s given up on a life free of oppression.

Spyke is another obvious one, being a gangster and someone who, y’know, steals stuff and runs an actual pyramid scheme.

Agent 4 is also fairly obvious; official art depicting Agent 4 has always shown her to be a trickster of sorts, and less serious than her predecessor, Agent 3.

Callie is also an obvious one, being the spontaneous, excitable, freedom-and-fun-loving one out of the Squid Sisters.

Flow, being a ‘hippie’ of sorts, likely is on chaos in terms of ‘personal freedom’. And, y’know. Being able to be high all the time most likely.

For Annie, the first game implies that out of her and Moe, Moe is the one really ‘in charge’ of things, and, well... Moe is hard chaos. Play Splatoon Wii U, guys.

Li’l Judd is Team Chaos because as we know, he has an inferiority complex and resentment for Judd, being his clone, and generally is more of a tricksterish character. Also, being a kitten, Li’l Judd would likely be more playful, again ‘chaos’ as in ‘freedom’.

Pearl lays out her motivation for being Team Chaos rather starkly in the Splatfest announcement (which we will get to later).

And, I saved this one for last, because it’s somewhat surprising... Despite the Octarians being Team Order, Octavio is Team Chaos. This could be due to a thinking that he must win at any cost, and a willingness to use manipulation tactics to move his people towards supporting his war on Inkopolis. It could also be due to a mental slippage from so many repeated losses.

“But wait!” I hear you say. “If Octavio is Team Chaos, why are the shades, ostensibly tied to hypnosis, a Team Order gear piece?”

I would argue there that the hypnoshades, while used by Octavio, fit more into the Octarians’ wheelhouse of order through technology and regimentation.

TEAM NEUTRAL

Judd being Team Neutral is obvious. He judges the Splatfests, and unlike Li’l Judd, is generally more ‘neutral’ in tone.

Sheldon is probably Team Neutral because, well, he sells you weapons no matter what side you’re on in Splatfest, so...

And Mr. Grizz is Team Neutral because he’s out for his own interests, which exist apart from all other teams (note he’s apart from the rest of Team Neutral, and upside-down).

TEAM ORDER

Cap’n Cuttlefish is Team Order for having been part of the military, as well as actively fighting for the safety and security of Inklings.

Marie is Team Order being the more relaxed yet traditional one of the Squid Sisters.

Agent 8 is Team Order being an Octarian, and thus a part of their regimented society.

This brings us to the Octarians in general, who are Team Order being a regimented technocracy where large focus is put on people serving a specific function (see Marina’s Chat Room), as well as again the technological oppression aspects. They may also be simply following Marina, as we know that Agent 8 idolizes her, and that the Octolings who escaped to Inkopolis did so because they were inspired by her.

C.Q. Cumber is Team Order because, as Nintendo has stated, he really wasn’t concerned with what TARTAR was up to, he was just doing his job. Order at its finest.

TARTAR is Team Order for obvious reasons. It desires ‘order’ in the sense of purging the capricious, impulsive Inklings and petty, warlike Octarians, instead replacing them with a new ‘superior’ race of beings, created from its successful test subjects.

Agent 3 is Order because, well, she made the idea of ‘being the hero’ a central part of her identity, see adopting the ‘3′ cape into her outfit (something she had no reason to do).

Jelfonzo being Team Order makes sense, given that Nogami has stated that the Jellyfishes are all actually a large hivemind organism, who may have a significant hand in sponsoring Turf War, suggesting since Turf War is according to the Splatoon Ikasu Art Book largely subsidized by the government, the Jellyfish hivemind has a significant hand in Inkopolis’ government as well.

As with Pearl, we will discuss Marina’s choice more in-depth later, as it is looked at rather deeply in the Splatfest dialogue.

The only ones who we cannot seem to figure out are Murch, Bisk, and Crusty Sean, however we know that Sean has some...strangeness to him, only accepting tickets and getting defensive when you point this out, and the ‘Crustwear XXL’ shirt, a shirt advertising his food truck, being Grizzco gear. Perhaps he supports Team Order because of an involvement with corporate bureaucracy?

Similarly, my best guess with Murch is that, since he only engaged in the gear scrubbing and ordering scheme because he idolized Spyke, he realized at some point that Spyke was a criminal, and wanted to distance himself.

Now on to the leading ladies themselves. Pearl’s reasons for being Team Chaos run VERY deep, and a larger overall analysis is necessary.

Pearl’s motivation for Team Chaos seems to be primarily rooted in wanting a world that is ever-changing and not static, finding a world that stays the same boring and uneappealing. She also seems to act somewhat as an agent of chaos, declaring in the Splatfest dialogue both in English and Japanese that whichever side wins the Splatfest will be the form the world takes going forward.

In the English dialogue, she invokes ‘Splatfest law’, which is something created wholesale by Nintendo of America, however the implication either way is that whoever wins will remake the world in their own team’s image.

Additionally, in the Japanese dialogue, Pearl states “all I know is I don't want a world that's always like this!“, spoken in the same sort of way as when someone says things like ‘I wish things would be like this forever’.

Marina’s reasons for being Team Order as well are somewhat complex. She is primarily worried about stability and control over her life and her situation.

In fact, Pearl’s statements about Team Chaos, in the Japanese dialogue, are replied to in ways that show that she’s worried that Pearl would eventually even grow bored with Off the Hook, and flippantly want that to be over and ‘change’ as well.

It’s worth noting that Marina’s theming shows an erring towards technology, and technological order as we’ve seen before usually is something dangerous in the Splatoon universe. This may hint at what direction ‘her world’ would go in if she wins the final Splatfest.

Marina does, however, express trepidation in the Japanese dialogue about reshaping the world in the winner’s image, only doing so because Pearl is pushing things in that direction.

Moving forward, we will be addressing the assets and imagery the game has been preparing for the Splatocalypse event, and how that ties into the theming of a Splatoon apocalypse.

First, and the elephant in the room... ‘Dear Senpai’, or as it’s being called by Nintendo of America, ‘MC.Princess Diaries’, the new Shifty Station stage.

The stage is quite obviously based on another brush Inkopolis has had with the apocalypse, that being the NILS Statue fight from the Octo Expansion, where Pearl and Marina, with the help of Agent 8, narrowly stopped TARTAR from destroying Inkopolis. The fight, and indeed all Turf Wars in the Final Fest event, come complete with the discordant Turf War intro sound from Octo Expansion, and Dear Senpai comes with Hyperbombs and the ‘Princess Cannon’ (the Killer Wail from the first game). Information from OatmealDome states that three sets of Hyperbombs each appear throughout the match, each time consisting of two per team, while the Princess Cannon is spawned once per match for one player to use in the form of Pearl coming down from the helicopter outside the stage.

We know that Team Chaos is strongly coded to involve Salmonids, and we know Team Order is strongly coded to involve technological oppression, but again per OatmealDome we have our first look at how this would play out.

The stage chronologically takes place after the NILS Statue fight, with the wreckage of the NILS Statue seen in the background, being tended to and examined by Jellyfish, who again are part of the Inkopolis government. And, if you recall during the final fight, the NILS Statue is utterly swimming in TARTAR’s corruptive ooze, as well as the remains of TARTAR itself. Could we perhaps see the return of TARTAR via the Jellyfish hivemind? This would explain also how it would be Team Order despite being ostensibly dead.

You may wonder why I haven’t discussed the actual terrain of Dear Senpai, or the post-Splatfest dialogue. In fact, Nintendo pushed invalid dummy data in its place to prevent data mining. In the case of Dear Senpai, they pushed the Shifty Station from Frostyfest, and in the case of the post-Splatfest dialogue, barebones dialogue with nothing beyond a winning team announcement.

As most should already know, the Final Splatfest will have all 23 previous Shifty Stations on a rotation, two every two hours like the other maps, before running Dear Senpai for the final 24 hours. Interestingly, while we know that Dear Senpai is to take up the full final 24 hours , the two hours immediately preceding it also have only a single Shifty Station stage: Tentacle Warning / Sweet Valley Tentacles, the Shifty Station from the Squid vs. Octopus Splatfest. As a brief aside, all of the Shifty Station names in Japanese are puns on manga titles, and all the ones in English are puns on novels.

This is what the Inkopolis Square skybox will look like during the Final Fest. A video showing the Square with this skybox and Splatfest mode on can be found here. We don’t know what the Square‘s event decorations will be, if any, but this immediately brings something to mind: Blade Runner 2049.

Screenshot from the relevant point in the movie for reference.

Furthermore, at this screen when you press ZL+ZR, this sound plays. Sound familiar? It sounds to me like the clock tower bell in Majora’s Mask. In fact, both are the same note, a C4.

Additionally, we know that the music for the Final Fest is a combination of Off the Hook and Squid Sisters music. Per OatmealDome:

New battle music for Final Fest!

Ink Me Up by Squid Sisters (Splatoon 1)

Shark Bytes

Calamari Inkantation

Fly Octo Fly

New 1 minute left music!

Now or Never! by Off the Hook, feat Squid Sisters

Now or Never! by Squid Sisters

This suggests that the Squid Sisters are to play a major role; however they do not appear in any of the Final Fest assets, meaning this likely is hinting at them playing some role in the Final Fest’s impact on Splatoon 3. This is corroborated by their appearance in the Splatocalypse trailer, wearing Pearl and Marina’s signature crown and headphones, respectively.

In closing, I think it can be easily surmised just what is going on. Team Chaos has strong ties to Salmonids and a theme of Inkopolis being overrun or falling to ruin. Team Order has strong ties to TARTAR and themes of technological oppression and control. The Splatfest announcement dialogue implicates Pearl or Marina respectively as bringing on a possibly related, possibly simply additional, chaotic or orderly world for each bad outcome to exist in. And the strong focus on the Squid Sisters implicates that, yet again, Callie and Marie will be pitted against each other.

It is truly a matter of ‘pick your villain’. Except unlike Splatoon 1, where the loser was the one who was turned against us, and instead of being against her will... This time the winner, or at least the winning side, is the one who will turn wicked.

Who and what form will this take? Only time will tell.

[entergamingxp]

Rocket Arena Review — Remarkably Unremarkable

July 17, 2020 1:30 PM EST

Rocket Arena is a hero shooter that tries to make a mark, but doesn’t do nearly enough to help itself stand out.

The hero shooter subgenre is an odd one.

It’s not an oversaturated market, at least not yet, but instead, one that’s so dominated by a select few successes that it’s an uphill battle for any new game to come in and gain a foothold. For every Overwatch or Apex Legends, there’s a Battleborn and LawBreakers to match.

Rocket Arena — a debut project from Final Strike Games that released Tuesday under the EA Originals line — is the latest hero shooter looking to make its mark. But with minimal fanfare leading up to launch, a questionably high price of admission, and time spent playing a game that feels so derivative and uninspired, it’s a title that will have a hard time catching anyone’s attention, much less maintaining it.

“[Rocket Arena is] a title that will have a hard time catching anyone’s attention, much less maintaining it.”

Rocket Arena’s foundation is built with an amalgamation of elements from other games. Online shooter with a colorful, Pixar-esque art style? That’s Overwatch. A K.O. meter that fills up and sends opponents flying off the map after taking so much damage? That’s Super Smash Bros.

The 3-v-3 team setup? Although it’s likely a means to help differentiate from Overwatch (6-v-6) and Valorant (5-v-5), the format, and the name Rocket Arena in and of itself, brings it awfully close to Rocket League. Hell, there’s even a handball-like mode to bring it closer with a sports-focused angle. And while we’re still at spotting influences, one of the playable hero’s special abilities feels like it’s pulled right out of Splatoon.

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with taking inspiration from other games. It’s just that Rocket Arena doesn’t do anything new or interesting with ideas it’s pulling from. The aforementioned gameplay mechanics and rules function almost exactly like they do in the respective games that established them, leading it all to feel like they’re just included because they’re popular and familiar, not because the development team saw a way to expand or put a unique spin on them.

That isn’t to say Rocket Arena doesn’t try to do anything original. Its biggest selling point is that it’s a rockets (i.e. projectiles) only shooter, which on paper might sound cool. In practice, it’s quite literally hit or miss.

It takes some getting used to when you first start out. Most shooters make use of hitscan for the bulk of their weaponry (rifles, handguns, shotguns, basically anything that uses bullets), having hits register instantly so long as the aiming reticle is on target when you fire. Then projectiles (rocket launchers and grenades) are added in to help break things up, usually as secondary or special weapons that carry a blast radius, but need time to travel to their target. It’s risk vs. reward. If you connect, you can do tons of damage to one or multiple opponents, but you throw or pull the trigger knowing you might miss completely since they’ll have time to get out of the way.

Since Rocket Arena forgos hitscan almost entirely in favor of all projectiles, every shot has to be deliberate in order to consistently hit anything. At launch there are 10 playable heroes of varying skill sets, who each have their own weapons that come with different levels of forgiveness. For some, all you need to do is put a rocket within an opponent’s general area to connect, while others I’ve found you need to be dead-on with. And in the case of one hero, Plink, his automatic weapon is the closest that comes to conventional hitscan, which I found myself falling back on a couple times when I felt like things really weren’t going my way.

“The roster consists of archetypes and character designs you’ve seen before and have been done more interestingly elsewhere.”

There is a practice mode where you can take all the time you need firing away at bots to get acclimated with the game’s mechanics and find the hero or heroes that best suit your playstyle. I still found myself going back and forth on whether the rockets-only approach was a good idea or not once I jumped into online matches.

Small maps, the 3-v-3 format, timers, score limits and relatively fast respawn times are all there to keep rounds moving quickly and players constantly involved. Genuinely interesting means of traversal help out on this front, too. Shooting the ground below you mid-jump will give you an extra boost, and firing downward at a wall repeatedly will send you climbing up it in a way somewhat similar to Mega Man X’s triangle kick. It gives maps an extra layer of verticality, opening up chances to do a quick survey of the area or get the drop on opponents.

It’s mostly in combat itself where things felt like they were falling apart. Trying to anticipate an opponent’s movements and lead shots often felt like it was slowing the action down, and perhaps because the game just launched (at the time of this writing, Rocket Arena has only been out for a couple days), I’ve seen shootouts tend to devolve into just firing away and hoping for the best.

The game launched with five modes. Knockout, basically the Rocket Arena variation of Team Deathmatch; Rocketball, the aforementioned handball-style mode where goals are set up at the opposite end of each map; Treasure Hunt, a two-part mode that starts with competing for possession of a treasure chest (in simpler terms a game of keep away), then turns into a scramble to collect as many coins as possible; Mega Rocket, where teams fight to capture control points across the map; And Rocketbot Attack, a co-op horde mode. There are multiple ways to play and find success without having to deal damage thanks to the mode variety. Still, it doesn’t absolve Rocket Arena from the issues I’ve had so far with its gameplay, and the modes themselves have been seen before in dozens of other multiplayer shooters over the past decade, to the point where playing them here hardly feels like anything more than going through the motions.

Rocket Arena will reward you for mastery. Gameplay-wise, you can pull off techniques like comboing opponents off the map without filling up their damage meter through consecutive hits (another note taken from Smash Bros.). And in terms of progression, every hero has 100 levels of rewards, with experience going toward cosmetic unlocks like outfits, VFX trails, and parts for customizable banners referred to in-game as totems. Time spent playing also unlocks and levels up what are called artifacts, of which you can assign up to three to a respective hero to either boost certain attributes or reduce respawn and cooldown times.

That said, if the core gameplay isn’t enough to keep you going, progressing the heroes won’t do much to remedy the situation. The roster consists of archetypes and character designs you’ve seen before and have been done more interestingly elsewhere. The story and lore put behind them also, frankly, is nothing more than shallow justification for how a world can have pirates, magicians, dinosaur hunters, and underwater kingdoms co-existing all at once.

“Rocket Arena isn’t a bad game, it works exactly as advertised… I just found it to be really dull.”

Completing ranked and social matches also accumulates Rocket Parts, one of Rocket Arena’s two methods of in-game currency, which can be put toward purchasing specific cosmetic gear. The other is the paid currency, Rocket Fuel, which serves the same purpose. Yes, this game does have microtransactions.

On top of that, Rocket Arena has an upfront cost of $30 minimum for its standard edition (the base game only), and $40 for its Mythic edition, which comes with extra outfits, VFX trails, and enough Rocket Fuel to pre-order the game’s season 1 Blast Pass (a roughly $8 package that comes with more cosmetics and a temporary XP boost).

Maybe in isolation, there could be an argument to justify the game’s pricing model, and to its credit, the hero this season is adding will be free to everyone. The hang-up I have with it is that this game was published by EA, the same company that helped put out Apex Legends, one of the more popular hero shooters and battle royale games out there…and that’s free-to-play. By comparison, Rocket Arena is asking for way more for something that, to me, is way less exciting.

Rocket Arena isn’t a bad game, it works exactly as advertised — provided there wasn’t something else to it outside of that few minutes the game was given during the EA Play showcase a month ago — I just found it to be really dull.

It pulls from established ideas you’ve already seen elsewhere, and the one unique hook it puts at the forefront isn’t near stable enough ground for it to stand out.

The whole thing is just forgettable.

July 17, 2020 1:30 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/07/rocket-arena-review-remarkably-unremarkable/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rocket-arena-review-remarkably-unremarkable

[princevolker2788]

8, 9, and 10 please! I'm curious :3

8. Why do you choose to write?

Hmm... tough one! I guess I love the idea of bringing ideas to life, even if they’re silly, or sad, or angsty. There’s just something about writing that draws me in. I love creating complex characters with flaws, hopes, dreams and then dropping them in a scenario they aren't prepared for. It’s like watching a movie play out in my head that I just happened to write down. A moment in time, from another world captured in prose. I dunno, I guess I just write for the fun of it XD.

9. Do you ever have plans to write anything other then fic?

Oh you have no idea!

Prepare yourselves, this is a long one:

I recently wrote an entire novel (50,000 words for nanowrimo) that focuses on the fall of an intergalactic empire, from the point of view of the empire. Specifically, the Prince, Volker.

Basically I thought to myself “we always see a rebellion in sci-fi from the point of view of the plucky rebellion, but what if we saw it from the Empire itself?”

The thing is, Volker isn't a bad guy, none of the people in the empire are really, save for a few. This is the same in the Rebellion, the leader isn't an evil person outright, she has legitimate grievances with the empire, one’s that have been unanswered for too long.

So basically I wanted to write a story where you can sympathize with both the empire and the rebellion, one that focuses on love, family, anger, betrayal, learning to forgive, but in a sincere believable way.

Thats just the first idea I had ;P

Number 2:

This story focuses on a half elf boy named Bayard.

In the beginning, he's roused from sleep by his human father and told they have to leave. At first, Bayard doesn't understand whats happening, but its revealed that the King has ordered a bounty on all elves in his country. So the boy and his father retreat into the woods, only to be pursued by the kings men.

they’re destination is Elali, Bayard’s elven mother who has been absent for the past five years of his life.

Bayard is separated from his father and is forced to flee on foot, eventually making his way to his mother’s forest. 

When he meets her for the first time, she is cold, distant. When next he wakes he’s inside the Elven city and is brought before the high council, of which his mother sits. She argues that since his father is missing and he’s her son, he should stay. The council overrules this, citing that “no half-breed can remain in the city” and that he is to live with the other half elves in another part of the forest. 

Bayard in anger berates his mother for her distance, furious that she’d let this happen, eventually deciding to leave on his own. At the edge of the forest his mother approaches and tells him that she has given up her title and place in their society to come with him. From there they have to learn to be a family once again.

The thing I want to explore with this story is worldbilding and the creation of an original elven race, language and all.

The elven language will be based off of czechoslovakian, acting as the root dialect. From there I want to draw the symbols and actually have a working language that can be spoken and understood.

Those are my ideas, if you want more detail i’ll be glad to elaborate!

10. What inspires you the most?

Oi... hmm

This one’s tricky.

I guess I’m inspired by a lot of things, movies i’ve seen, books i’ve read, games I play, fic i’ve read, artwork, people, music. Its hard to pin down.

On the movie side of things I have to say that Star Wars and Indiana Jones are huge influences, along with Lord Of The Rings, Blade Runner and Alien.

Books: 

LOTR of course, Karen Traviss’s glorious Clone Wars Republic Commando series, The Airborn series by Kenneth Oppel (great deiselpunk swashbuckling goodness), A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Honor Harrington series by David Weber (Awesome hard sci-fi with a badass female protagonist, theres 14 books seriously check it out), The Witcher series (some of the best female characters i’ve seen), Game Of Thrones (I think this one is self explanatory)

Games:

Mass Effect (obviously), Dragon Age, Overwatch, Halo, Alien: Isolation, Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Bioshock Series (Made me cry, no joke), Portal Series (same reaction), For Honor (great game, terrible online service), Fallout Series.

Fic:

@xavirne obviously ;D 

Great angst, characterization, funny dialogue (read her stuff if you haven't already). Seriously when you have the time, please write more I think everyone’s dying from the drought!

http://xavirne.tumblr.com/post/146270305562/secrets-chapter-1

@mizuaoi

Seriously great, WidowTracer Everywhere, Pharmercy, all your awkward lovely British pilot fic angst fluff you’ll ever need.

http://archiveofourown.org/works/8430589/chapters/19314955

@asynca

Do not enter unless you want to cry a few times, and then laugh your ass off. She’s also written books, one of which made it to the top of Amazon’s Gay and Lesbian fiction list! 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/7828849

https://www.amazon.com/Solve-i-E-Dooland-ebook/dp/B06VTJMC8F/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

@destiny-smasher

Some of the best Avatar and ATLA fic i’ve ever read:

http://destiny-smasher.deviantart.com/art/What-I-Learned-at-SRU-1-184207314

And The Walking Dead game:

http://destiny-smasher.deviantart.com/art/Versatility-1-The-Walking-Dead-479948016

And Life is Strange, seriously, these are motherfucking novels, settle in on a rainy day and enjoy:

http://destiny-smasher.deviantart.com/art/All-Wounds-1-Life-is-Strange-568284046

Art:

@nikanono Beautiful art, funny comics, just read pls

@mollifiable once soft fluffy work, always worth a smile

@reypadawanjedi fluffy, funny, widowtracer artwork

@critter-of-habit Awesome Dragon age, Clexa, Suoergirl work

@lifeisfineandnothinghurts (occasional nsfw) great Life Is Stange work, fluffy, angst, all your needs

@artbytesslyn Distinct style, beautiful use of color and darkness

@ohnoafterlaughs Just great, 

@disteal you want overwatch comedy (and others), come here

@ynartistic Mercy76 art for all your M76 needs (and Phoenix Wright)

@cafe-cardamari The best Splatoon art ever, no question

@lackadaisycatsStill my favorite webcomic to date, read Lackadaisy

@marceline2174 Love your mass effect work

@vashito One of the best OC back stories and designs. (also worked on Star Trek: Discovery)

[synthaphone]

So my friend posted an influence board today and I realized that I haven’t made one of these since I was in high school, so I decided to make a new one for myself!

i talk forever under the cut

1. Lilo and Stitch- I love the character designs and backgrounds from this movie especially, and it was one of the first movies that I decided I wanted to go to the movies to see as a kid. I was obsessed with the characters for a really long time and loved the animated series a ton, so its definitely left an impact on me and is still probably my favorite Disney movie today (not including PIXAR movies)

2. Doug TenNapel - I no longer actively seek out this dudes work because he’s got some shit-ass opinions and I don’t like him, but his art style is really distinctive and has definitely influenced my work. The way he handled his brushwork in GEAR and the atmosphere and feel of The Neverhood are what stick out to me as favorites, as well as some of his character designs- I actively admired the way he draws legs and bug people in particular and tried to mimic those elements in my art while in high school.

3. J. Otto Seibold - I love Seibold’s approach to character design, composition, and the general aesthetic of his work. I don’t think his style carried into my work as much as I wanted it to, but he still stands out in my mind as one of the artists that inspired me most in high school.

4. Samurai Jack - I’ve only watched 7 episodes of this show, but the way it handles backgrounds and action scenes is absolutely fantastic. I usually don’t enjoy fight scenes, even ones that I know are supposed to be well choreographed, but I can watch that first big fight with the dogs and Jack vs. the robot bugs 40 billion times, and most of the other fights I can remember feel that way to me as well. 

5. Neopets - For a long time as a kid, my highest aspirations were to work for Neopets and to learn how to draw as well as their site art, which I thought was the best artwork I had ever seen. Nowadays, I’m actually more often inspired by the older, more gradient-y artwork, because it’s really specifically strange and distinct looking.

6. Beanie Babies - I loved them as a kid and they heavily influenced the way I draw stuffed toys. I remember a lot of the places where they put the seams, and I feel like it led to me having a better understanding of construction somehow.

7. Tomokazu Komiya (and Pokemon in general) - Pokemon is a HUGE inspiration for the way I approach creature design and for the world the games take place in, but more recently I’ve been specifically fond of Tomokazu Komiya’s Pokemon card illustrations. They’re very dynamic and extremely stylized, and I just really love his approach to all of the Pokemon he illustrates.

8. Rodney Alan Greenblat - His art is so colorful and whimsical and I really love his sense of character design as well

9. Calico Critters/Sylvanian Families - I avidly collected these for years, and they kind of stand out to me as a sort of weird outlier among my interests? I tend to really love sci fi, bright colors, and fantastical things, and these dolls are really subdued and old fashioned by comparison. Something about how soft and mundane they are really speaks to me though, haha.

10. Spyro the Dragon - I would play this at my cousins house when I was 4, and I was terrible at it but I LOVED it. I discovered how much I loved dragons through it and it firmly cemented things like ‘gems’ and ‘orbs’ as magical, valuable objects for years. I still really love the style, music, environments, and sound effects, as well as how cute the model for Spyro is in the game. I only really remember the first game extensively though, since that’s the one I’ve replayed some of recently.

11. Steven Universe - LOVE the backgrounds and color schemes of this show, and the simple way they approach drawing people and humanoid characters was such a good influence for me. I tend to avoid drawing human characters, and this style is a way better stepping stone to figuring out a unique style than Invader Zim was (god that style held back the way I drew human beings for years, because they were SO stylized)

12. Homestar Runner - I loved the bright colors and weird, imperfect flatness of these characters, and it definitely pushed me into stranger character designs and also influenced my sense of humor quite a bit.

13. Kirby Superstar Ultra - The first Kirby game I ever played, and the one that stands out to me as ‘Kirby’ in my mind. The abstracted nature of the backgrounds and environments is really beautiful to me, and I would love to be able to incorporate more strangeness like that in places I design.

14. The Aquabats! - Their promotional material and aesthetic is so colorful and bright and kind of has a weird subtle edge to a lot of it that definitely influenced my artwork. They were the first really unapologetically goofy thing that I ever let myself enjoy un-ironically, which still means a lot to me today. I particularly love the album cover for VS The Floating Eye of Death and used to draw a lot of pictures based off of it.

15. Poo-Chi (and other robotic/handheld electronic pets) - Still a huge reason why toy design is so interesting to me; I loved these as a kid and they still have a weird grip on me that I can’t quite explain? I never had much fun playing with the robotic pets with the batteries in as a kid, I’d use them more as cool giant action figures. Robo-Chi toys basically embodied the way I wanted robots to look, especially those weird semi-translucent colored orbs on their joints.

16. Invader Zim - Invader Zim consumed my life for my first year of high school, and radically altered the way I drew everything- however, as embarrassing as it is for me to look back on, and as much as it pushed my artwork back in some ways, Invader Zim is what inspired me to make a DeviantArt account online and start making art super frequently. I got worse before I got better, but I also believe that trying to figure out how to draw the characters accurately gave me a better understanding of construction and using angular shapes than I would have had without it (not that I figured that stuff out while I was obsessed with Zim, but it left me with a ton of oddly-proportioned original character designs that I was forced to learn how to draw better later on)

17. early Fleischer Brothers cartoons - I don’t actually enjoy these as much as I enjoy the general animation style of them. The fluidity and absurdism makes them feel really eerie and unsettling, but they also have a cutesy-ness to them that was sort of the style of the time period, and I really enjoy it. I particularly love the nightmare hell labyrinth depicted in Bimbo’s Initiation.

18. Splatoon - This game is an aesthetic dream to me. I love all of the colors, the character design, how fluid it feels to play, and I ESPECIALLY love the fashion- this was the first game I’ve played where almost all of the clothes are things that I think look super cool and want to wear in real life. 

honorable mention that didn’t fit on this image:

19. The Akiko book series by Mark Crilley - The way that Crilley depicts space is, along with Neopets, my primary fantasy space world inspiration. It's like a really cool road trip through absurd and interesting places. It feels similar to the way that Futurama, Star Wars, and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy depict space as a huge living space with aliens constantly traveling between worlds, but without the sort of cynical and threatening tone that those depictions tend to have. Crilley’s Billy Clikk books were also really cool to me- the idea of a secret team of monster wranglers who have flying vans and underwater headquarters was so cool to me, and I remember rereading the part where the main character discovers his parents’ secret lives and gets to see the headquarters for the first time over and over.

[thesodasploder]

ermm what the freak pastarru