#this seems to be a rather polarizing pokémon

[front-facing-pokemon]

[jadeazora]

Joe Merrick got to play some of the upcoming DLC for the Indigo Disk! Here's his impressions video!

But some points from the article:

You start of by entering the Terarium in the Blueberry Academy with Lacey and Cyrano, and she explains what the Terarium projects the passage of time and the sky, and they have a mysterious globe at the top which allows for Terastalisation, but Cyrano can't seem to remember what it is made out of.

Lacey says the Terarium has four different habitats: the Polar, Savannah, Coastal, and Canyon quadrants. They house a variety of Pokémon, different in each area. In the Coastal one you'd find a lot of water Pokémon, and ones like Alolan Exeggutor on the beach, Polar is filled with Ice-types like Alolan Sandshrew & Beartic, the Savannah had ones like Kantonian Tauros, Doduo, and Canyon had ones like Alolan Geodude, Tyrogue and others. He notes that he saw both forms of Exeggutor too.

Area is larger than Kitakami, tho not quite as large as Paldea

There are some rest stops with some students hanging around but the big central one has all the amenities like the Pokemon Center station and TM Machine and all that.

Tera Raid Battle Crystals are found thru-out the area, large amounts of Pokémon and items everywhere. Tera Shards can be found in large batches. He says he picked up about 18 all in one batch. (Something I'm quite happy about, it was a pain grinding for shards.)

Trainers here seem to favor Double Battles. It's mentioned there are some Trainers that are pretty high-levelled like the Kitakami Ogre Clan, packing Lv70 teams carrying items, and using different strategies.

The trial they did in the trailers with your Dragon wasn't too tough, but BB League is another story. Amarys' battle was compared to later levels of the Battle Tower rather than a main-story battle, every Pokémon on her team had a means to counter any possible weakness.

Even if you have a Lv100 team, you may have the advantage, but it does mean less than it did in Pt1. The BB League can be done in any order, and he's curious how later parts of the story will go.

New TMs that are being added in The Indigo Disk include a mix of returning moves such as Expanding Force, Triple Axel, Skitter Smack, Meteor Beam, Breaking Swipe, Scorching Sands, Curse, Coaching, Electro Web and more, previously revealed new moves Upper Hand and Psychic Noise, and previously unknown moves like Supercharged Cell and Hard Press, a Steel-type move which does more damage the higher the target's Hit Points.

Music is very reminiscent of Unova's, with the wild battle theme being a remix of the old wild theme. There's inspiration from other regions too, but he says he can't disclose it right now.

Performance is mentioned as a weaker point, but I think we've come to expect that from SV at this point.

[flyswhumpcenter]

Bad Things Happen Bingo! The event where you send me requests according to this marvelous card! (Red cross is the completed prompt, character headshots are prompts I’ve already filled. Green deltas are for requested prompts.)

Choo choo, the Sickfic Express has just arrived in Galar, straight from Oreburgh City! 

First fic of 2020 is a sickfic oneshot. How rivetting. I've very recently beaten Pokémon Sword and loved it! I found myself really loving the characters, what they are and what they've already become in my mind, so I couldn't help myself but type what I know best... A sickfic. Also, this fandom needs more of this stuff, so here. I'm providing. Is this story OOC? Chances they are. Was it absolutely a blast to write? You bet. I'm probably gonna look back on it later down the lane and be uncomfortable with how I depicted the characters; but you do need to discover the characters first, and what better opportunity for that than a little sickfic with some angst and pre-rel dramatic tension? Anyway, I hope you'll like this lil' thing I busted out in literally a couple hours. I forgot how fun it was to write without worrying yourself over continuity or already established elements like in Earth Never Stops... Btw, this fic was originally requested to me as a FE3H fill for Hubert, so I decided I'd most likely use another square on my card for him. Sorry Nonnie for this, my inspiration got the best of me yet again! 

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Candles in the Rain

Summary: Is feverishly staggering through the damp streets of Hammerlocke under the rain with very little hope to feel warmth again and even less sense of direction a fitting end for a former Champion now that he's been defeated once? Scratch that: he doesn't have the time or brain power remaining to process such a question. Or: Leon witnesses a miracle in the form of a little dog and a childhood friend.

Fandom: Pokémon Sword and Shield (post-canon/game: beware for spoilers) Relationships: Pre-relationship Leon/Sonia

Wordcount: 3.1K words

Event hosted by @badthingshappenbingo​

AO3 version available here.

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The streets of Hammerlocke are covered by a thick layer of rainwater, typical early winter in Galar. Nobody dares going against the terrible weather, which isn’t unlike the flooding that almost ate Kabu’s region of origin, or rather how he once described it based on bedtime stories, a couple thousand years ago. Honestly, after what Galar just went through, he can believe the tale to have been real all along, no issue there…

As always, he’s lost in the grand city of his main rival, and that frustrates him. He’s cold from the water having filled his shoes and wet his hair for hours and hours on end, not even the fire of the camp being able to make him feel warmer. If it wasn’t for his partners’ demands, urging him to stop camping in the wilderness and find a Centre already, he’d have surely stayed in the Wild Area and biked to a better spot. Ah, he misses Postwick, now. At least, he can’t get lost in Postwick, there’d be Hop and his now-Champion best friend, if not Sonia paying them all a visit, and there’d be the warmth of his childhood home… Gods, perhaps he does miss the peaceful life of a ten-year-old whose only contact to the Gym Challenge is dreams of grandeur.

Ah, if it didn’t rain so badly, Charizard could be warming the both of them as he tried to make his way to the nearest Centre.

 Despite his best efforts to remain proud and confident, he ends up having to lean against a wall to stop a coughing fit from suddenly urging itself out of there. He must look pathetic and he does wish, deep down, that someone would get out of their house for a reason or another, recognize him like literally everybody in Galar; but his pride and brand would be on the line, and nobody is fighting against the terrible, terrible weather today. He’s all alone in the streets of the city, pushing himself from the wall with wobbly arms, trying his hardest to remember where to go with slow, hazy thoughts…

Even if he was cold merely moments before, his head now burns. He feels too hot under clothes that are wildly unfitting of such a muddy season, despite the hair rising on what is exposed of his arms. A Cramorant stole his jacket when he was training, a Linoone tried to steal his stuff, and he ended up having a Pokemon knocked out and losing most of his healing items in the kerfuffle. It really hasn’t been his day, lately…

 His chest hurts. Not from the outside, as if he had injured himself in one of the falls he endured trying to feel from the Wild Area with no Pokemon to battle with and the slippery grass constantly trying to get the best of him, but from the inside. He doesn’t doubt the possible existence of bruises under the shirt that sticks to his limbs like a second, drenched skin; but this isn’t it. It intensifies when he coughs and it rattles strangely. When he tries to ignore the excruciating weather wishing for his demise, he hears the strange sounds his breathing now makes. He doesn’t know them so, in a moment of out-of-character lack of reason, he gets scared of them and vaguely wonders about worst-case scenarios.

It isn’t just his chest either. It’s his throat, it’s his mouth, it’s his feet, it’s his legs. Everything in his body is tired and screaming for rest, but he cannot provide it for any of his own self at the moment, stuck trying to navigate with what little he can distinguish with almost-closed eyes from how much he has to squint. His eyes can’t focus anymore, this much he realizes with a bitter sense of resignation, so everything he sees is blurry, including the weird gooey stuff he keeps coughing out whenever he can’t breathe anymore and has to stop for who knows how long.

 He trips over his own unmade shoe tie, losing in one fell swoop what was left of his balance, and falls right into the rainwater that has accumulated on the ground. It sounds and looks and feels like it’s the end, that this is where his journey ends: in some damp street of a city that he has never been able to find his way in, alone, cold and hot at the same time, rain burying him with the rest of the pavement. Not that he even thinks he has the energy to go on… Not like that. Not when his strength, the only thing he thought he had left, has all but given up on him too. Truly alone in a time where, sitting against a giant wall, he realizes what has been going on and poisoning his breath. Hah, ironic.

Still, this isn’t how he should admit defeat. He’s been won over now, and recently at that, and it’d be more than a shame for him to all but give up now. He needs to bring his team to the Centre, he can’t not try taking his revenge on the new Champion, he can’t not at least prove his superior battle skills to Raihan yet again, he just can’t leave Hop, and Sonia, and everyone else like that…

So he rises up once again, on weak arms and unsteady legs, almost tripping over himself, shoulder stuck against the wall. He won’t let this be the end of him.

 Even with a new resolve, it still doesn’t make it much better for him. Unless there’s a miracle happening right before him, he’s stuck with his heavily weakened state trying to find a place whose location he has no idea. His phone doesn’t seem to be able to show a map, its signal disturbed after whatever happened to it while he was looking or doing the polar opposite, so he’s stuck with his truly inefficient sense of orientation.

But it’ll be okay. It’ll have to be okay, because he needs to see Hop become a Professor, to buy Sonia’s new book, to rematch the Champion and his Leader friends, to give his team at least one more chance to shine. It’ll be okay, surely it’ll be okay, of course it’ll be okay… It’ll be okay, because this is all a terrible nightmare he’s going to wake up from, where he isn’t stuck in the torrential rain with a fainted party and very little hope of finding way out.

It’ll be okay, oh so okay…

 He tumbles and falls over again, this time hitting the ground with no grace whatsoever, most likely scratching elbows and knees in the process. Even rising his head up as not to cough in water when a fit claws at his throat again takes most of the energy he has left, only for his blurry sight and cottoned-down hearing to spot the first good thing in who knows many hours: a familiar yelp and vague brown-and-yellow figure rushing towards him.

With a trembling and feeble hand, he tries reaching out to the Yamper who has guided him so many times out of dangerous situations, only for an oh so familiar voice to yell in his direction. Still, it’s hard to know if it’s real or just his imagination. Ah, well; he’ll have to see when he’ll have woken up. If he even wakes up from the darkness starting to invade his vision…

  “Yamper, where in the world are you running like that?!” This creature never stops running, doesn’t it? “Yamper, wait for me!”

If she’s used to her trusty furry assistant running around everywhere it goes and pursuing it, Sonia has to notice there’s something odd in the air. Yamper never goes this fast, especially not in a city where it could smash muzzle first into people. There’s an urgent feeling to its yelps as it runs in one precise direction.

 As suddenly as Yamper started running when she had just gone out of the vault to investigate a little bit more into the Galar mythos she had become a specialist of, it stops right in its tracks in a little street she’s frankly never seen nor noticed before. With how much it’s raining and how unlikely it is to stop pouring soon, she doesn’t want the both of them out for much longer than needed.

She stops to regain her breath, hands on her knees as she folds in two, wet red hair hanging from her head. Yamper stays in place, running around her in circles, then disappearing from her view into the old, little street covered in rain and shadows. It doesn’t seem to have any intent on leaving soon.

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“Why did you… bring me here…? Seriously, it’s raining Growlithes and Purrloins…!”

Still, Sonia gets herself together and goes on to follow her “assistant”. There’s dread building in her chest and stomach that she can hardly ignore… She’s seen enough movies as a teenager to know where this is going. She’s going to end up tangled into some messed-up situation, isn’t she…?

 Her heart skips a beat when she notices a very familiar person lying face down on the pavement, drenched to the bone. A person who hasn’t given her any response or sign of life for a few days.

Someone who’s gotten lost in Hammerlocke again.

 -------

 When he wakes up, everything feels different than the last time he’s been awake. It’s all white, dry and soft. He stills feels too hot and too cold, breathing remains a chore and he wishes he wasn’t there anyway; but he supposes he’s now safe and, honestly, he can’t think of anything much worse than treading through the torrential rain with little strength left.

Now, if he knew what the thing on his face was, he’d be doing a bit better, but his arms feel like they’re made out of lead and he lacks the energy to rise them to his mouth and at least touch it…

 “Leon?”

The voice, even if it’s muffled, is undoubtedly Sonia’s. He can’t quite put a finger on why exactly, yet he feels like this confirms something. If his chest didn’t feel so heavy and full, he’d have sighed in relief. That doesn’t prevent him from coughing again when trying to respond to his own name.

“Let me do the talking, okay? I’m sure you have a metric ton of questions to ask, but for the love of Galar, spare your voice unless necessary.”

 Now that his vision is focusing again, he notices both the pipe inserted in his wrist and the frown on her face. She seems less than content with something. What, he doesn’t quite know, and thinking hurts his head even further than it already bothers him, heavy on his neck despite resting on a pillow. Speaking of which, where is his stuff? His clothes?

“Hey, hey, hey,” Sonia rises from her chair and puts her hands on his chest, putting him back into his mattress. “You stay here and don’t cause anyone any worry more than you’ve already done!”

 He’s confused as to why she’s so adamant on him not doing anything. No speaking, no moving… If he didn’t feel this drained and lethargic, he’d absolutely get back at her with playfulness. Well, that does kind of answer his own question, doesn’t it? Or, at least, it seems to make sense to his brain which has troubles keeping up with the situation…

Yet, he sees a small smirk contrast with her frowned eyebrows. She seems… pained. Pained by what, or who, he doesn’t know; he’s most likely at least partially responsible for it, because she wouldn’t be there otherwise.

 “I don’t know how you’ve ended up in that situation exactly, Leon, but you’ve managed to surpass yourself in terms of putting yourself in harm’s way. You’ve scared us before, but not to that extent!”

“I…” His voice sounds hoarse and it absolutely feels that way. “It’s complicated…”

“Your entire party was fainted, safe for Charizard who was about to follow; you somehow bricked your phone in the process and ended up catching more than a death of cold. Where were you during all that time?!”

Sonia sounds a bit too scared for someone who’s facing her childhood friend stuck in a bed.

“The Wild Area…”

“That’d explain why you were soaked to the bone when I found you lying in a puddle… You’ll have to excuse me for using that crude language, you scared everyone on that one!”

 It’s his turn to ask a little question, even if the state of his body makes him want to remain quiet. Still, no matter how intelligent she is, Sonia doesn’t read minds, so he’s somewhat forced to go through with it if he wants his answers.

“Where are we?”

“A clinic in Hammerlocke. I forgot to add you also scared the ER staff with how bad your breathing was.” Has to be that irritating wheezing sound he’s hearing since he’s woken up. “By the way, since I know you’re going to ask me about that, your team is safe and doing much better now. They’re all gently resting in their balls while you recover.”

He misses Charizard and everyone else already. He owes them a big apology, that’s for sure, but he’s also certain his brain can’t process much right now. Sometimes, you just need to admit yourself to have been defeated… even if it bothers you to no end.

 Sonia paces around for a little bit before sitting down on the chair next to the bed, arms still crossed. She sounds more than frustrated, and, well… He can’t really hold it against her, can he? He already can barely hold anything against her to begin with, considering how much they’ve lived through together; it’s not today, in these circumstances, that he’ll try finding a reason for her not to be frustrated. Who knows how long he’s been gone without giving news: he frankly, forgot how quickly or slowly time was passing while he was wandering through the Wild Area.

“At least, you’re still here and breathing with us. Just, if you could not do that ever again, it’d be better, you know? I can’t always be there worrying after you when I’m now a Prof! Arceus, I don’t even imagine what sequence of events has thrown you into such a state. You looked absolutely pitiful when Yamper found you.”

 He tries to puff at himself to ease the tension he feels rising, but all he ends up doing is coughing. And coughing. And coughing.

“What did I say about sparing your voice? Tch, you’ll never change, will you? You’ve always stubborn, after all, so there’s no reason that’ll change now. That’s part of your charm, I suppose.” She shrugs before suddenly darting her eyes away from him. “But you’re right, I shouldn’t have to worry! You were the Champion of Galar for more than ten years, why would I be afraid of you? That makes very little sense, haha!”

“S-Sonia…”

 He only now spots the dark rings under her eyes and the hair pulling out of her ponytail, one strand at a time. How long was he out for, and for how much of that time was she there, exactly? (Hey, he does work fairly well, for someone who can’t stop sweating and whose entire frame is shaken up by chills at irregular intervals!). Too many questions, too little available brain space, he guesses…

“Go for it, make fun of your good old friend who still hasn’t gotten the memo. I should have been like Hop and blindly believed you’d come back to us, as you’ve always done…”

Oh, right, Hop! How is he doing, has he advanced in his research, does he still worry for him? Well, sadly, it’s not the time to think about his brother: his childhood friend seems to have a meltdown right in front of him.

“Why?”

 Sonia stares at him, completely silent, eyes wide. Seems like she doesn’t have an answer to her own interrogation, until pain comes back on her face like the wave crashing on the shore.

“You don’t… think it’s ridiculous?”

“What?” His throat doesn’t take kindly to his attempts at having a conversation.

“Everything! We swore we’d trust each other, but look at me, worrying over you as if we were still kids running in the fields with the Wooloos… And I’m telling you all that while you’re cooking on the inside! Really, isn’t that ridiculous?”

 Gathering his breath and his strength, he rises up with shaky arms against the bedhead, pillow still preventing his head from entirely lulling over his shoulder from how heavy it is. Whatever he’s caught, it’s one hell of an affliction he’s found himself with. Still, if it’s for Sonia, if she’s this distraught over the situation (he did almost pass away), he can put up with the migraine, the difficult breathing, the mask over his mouth, the lethargy, the chills…

“I’m sorry, Sonia.”

He does cough immediately after apologizing, as expected. For once, she doesn’t reply immediately, doesn’t make a witty remark; instead, she looks confused and maybe embarrassed, considering the red he can see with the eyes that still refuse to entirely focus for more than a few seconds.

“Sorry for what? And, again, spare your voice, you…”

“For all of this.”

 Her expression softens, eyebrows drooping and eyes shining brighter. Even if it’s slight and his eyes almost miss it, she finally smiles.

“How long…?” He’s interrupted by a fit.

“How long you’ve been out?” He nods, still trying to calm his chest down. “Around half a day. You did wake up at some point but immediately passed out again. No wonder why you don’t remember that.”

He now points at her with an unsteady finger. “Why are you… Oh, how long I’ve been here?” He nods again. “Most of that time, I’d say. I’d also say I fell asleep at some point too…”

 She crosses her arms again, just as his vision starts weakening again. It’s back to sleep, right?

“I think we both need our rest. I’m also certain Hop is waiting at the door, so you’ll even have a guardian angel watching over you, isn’t that super cool? And if you attempt rising from that bed, you’re sure to be put back into it in mere seconds!”

He’d try laughing if it didn’t trigger such a massive reaction from his lungs, so he decides to just nod instead.

“See you later, Leon. Goodnight.”

He waves at her, the lethargy still reflecting in his slow and sloppy gestures, but that’s fine enough for now. Her smile is worth it, isn’t it?

 Absolutely worth trekking through the rain with full lungs and little energy left…

[crossingyu]

can i request a yuta smut where he is your brothers best friend and for some reason u hate each other but end up fucking after having a discussion??!!? idk if i made myself clear but if u can, thank you!!

It had been a solid month into your summer vacation and nothing could be more perfect. The sun was out, a breeze always drifted by, and you were spending time with your brother as well.

Both you and Taeyong went to different universities and barely saw each other for more than five days at a time while classes were in session so being able to see him everyday was something that always brought a smile to your face.

The last thirty days had been all smiles and laughter and you were hoping it would be that way for the remaining sixty. However the streak was broken when the doorbell went off.

“Y/N, can you get that?” Taeyong yelled from his room.

“Yeah, I got it!” you quickly made your way to the door, not wanting to keep whoever was out there waiting for too long but when you opened the door, you wished you could’ve closed it just as fast.

“Oh. Hi Yuta” your voice was laced with annoyance as you stepped to the side and let him pass by.

“Well, isn’t it just lovely to see you too Y/N” he forced a smile at you causing you to roll your eyes.

“Taeyong’s in his room. He’ll be out in a second. In the meantime, don’t come near my room” you said and turned around to walk back to your bedroom.

“Please, I don’t want to go to hell that badly” Yuta scoffed as he took a seat down on the couch and you swear you’ve never wanted to yell at him so badly but rather than doing that, you continued your walk and settled on cursing at him under your breath.

“Yuta’s out there” you mumbled to Taeyong when he passed by you in the hallway.

The last thing heard from you was the sound of your door slamming shut.

Taeyong always found you and Yuta’s bickering quite funny. Ever since he introduced you to his best friend, you two immediately didn’t click. It was as if you were polar opposites and you told Taeyong that you “never wanted to see Yuta again” to which his response was that you were being a child.

“Sorry about that” Taeyong laughed as he sat himself down next to his friend.

“Oh don’t worry, I’m used to it” Yuta replied and their laughter shook the house, “You should just give me a key to the place, that way Y/N wouldn’t have to open the door for me when I come over”

“I don’t think that would make your situation any better” Taeyong’s eyesbrows raised at the thought of Yuta coming here at any time and having to hear you two argue over everything.

“Probably not but hey, it’s an option” Yuta joked and the afternoon went by just like that. You were left alone in your room as the two boys conversed outside and occupied themselves with Taeyong’s Nintendo Switch.

It was when Taeyong tapped his phone screen that his eyes widened. “It’s 7PM?! Man, I have to cook dinner tonight. Here, you can play” Taeyong said as he rushed into the kitchen.

After hours of confining yourself to your own room, you ventured to the kitchen. The smell of Taeyong’s food is what attracted you but seeing Yuta made you scrunch up your nose.

“Do you need any help?” you asked your brother and he shook his head as his hand worked on chopping the vegetables.

“No, thanks though. If you could go hang out with our guest I’d appreciate it though” Taeyong couldn’t even hold back his little laugh at his request.

“You’re joking right?” you asked with arms across your chest.

“I mean, I am but I’m also not. Yuta is staying with us for a couple of days so might as well get acquainted with him now” Taeyong said as he dropped the now cut veggies into the pot.

“I’m sorry, what?! Taeyong! You didn’t tell me this!” you whisper yelled.

“It slipped past my mind! Just as you let Yuta’s existence slip past yours when he’s here. Now go play a game with him or something? Please?”

You let out a sigh as you nodded and trudged over to the couch, choosing the spot farthest away from Yuta and he laughed.

“What’s so funny? Are we going to play a match or not” you said and grabbed one of the joycons off the table.

“I just think you’re funny,” Yuta said with a shrug, “and sorry but this isn’t a fighting game. Punch me in real life if you want to but only after you help me catch this Articuno”

“Articuno? I don’t even know how to play this game, Yuta” you told him honestly and he scooted closer to you to give a mini tutorial to you.

“Just click this button on the controller and then since we’re both playing, we have to throw the pokeball at the same time. So on my count, okay?”

You nodded. It was simple enough.

“1, 2, 3!” Yuta called out and swung his controller downwards. However you were a second off and your ball didn’t even end up being thrown.

Yuta let out a huff and scratched the side of his face at your mistake. “Let’s try that again” he said and you did. It was after one more mess up that you finally got it but the Pokémon constantly flew around and without any instructions from Yuta other than his count, you didn’t know which way he swung his remote which was crucial to getting a successful catch.

“My god Y/N, can you not throw it the same way as me?” Yuta groaned out at you.

“Well maybe if you told me which way you threw it, we would’ve caught the damn thing by now!”

“Here, throw it to the right then. One, two, three”

You two have been trying to catch the virtual bird for thirty minutes now and didn’t even come close because for one, Yuta ran out of pokeballs and two, Taeyong called you two for dinner.

You kept quiet throughout the whole thing, still annoyed with how Yuta blamed his loss on you and the two friends conversed as they had earlier.

With dinner finally finished and dishes washed, the three of you flopped onto the couch with tummies full.

“Ah I know! We should watch a movie” Taeyong grinned as he turned on the TV, “how abou-“

He was halfway through his sentence when his phone rang and he picked up. “Oh hey. Sure, yeah I can meet you right now” Taeyong slipped his phone into his pocket as he got up, “Johnny’s car broke down and it’s getting towed so I’m going to go pick him up. Please don’t tear each other’s heads off while I’m gone” he said and the front door shut behind him leaving you and Yuta back in that deafening silence. 

Grabbing your phone, you opened up your social medias in an attempt to do anything but talk to Yuta. It was just as easy to leave but you felt as if you were glued to the couch and someone else’s gaze seemed to be stuck on you too.

Yuta’s body was now turned towards yours and he rested his head in his hand as he looked at you.

“Can I help you with something?” you asked and put your phone down.

“No, nothing in particular. I was just thinking, ‘huh, why doesn’t Y/N like me?’”

“The feeling is mutual” you say as you turn to him and pull a pillow over your lap.

Oh? Does that mean I cross your mind sometimes?” Yuta smirked upon hearing your reply and you don’t know why but your cheeks flushed a pink, rosy hue.

“I could ask the same to you then” 

“You got so shy when I said that but your voice is still so harsh with me”, Yuta pouted and you don’t know how it happened but he was all of a sudden only inches away from you. “you’re breaking my heart” 

“My goal was achieved then?” you said and you both laughed. “You can check one thing off your bucket list now. Want to help me cross something off mine?” 

Taeyong must’ve put something in your food because you found yourself nodding and in the next second, Yuta’s face was leaning in closer to yours until your lips touched. 

Surprisingly, his lips melded with yours in a way that no one else’s had and just as you were about to pull him closer to deepen the kiss, he pulled away, teeth pulling at your lower lip. “Still hate me?”

“Oh, for sure” you said before pulling him in again. With your lips on one another’s it wasn’t as if you could argue but still, you two fought for dominance. It was only when he pulled you into his lap and squeezed your ass that you finally opened your mouth through a moan and let his tongue in. 

“You sound amazing when you’re not giving me attitude, you know that?” 

“Give me a reason to not snap back at you then”

“I’d gladly, just be a good girl and listen then” Yuta said and he lifted you up, relocating the two of you to your room. The door was closed behind you as you were laid down onto the bed and Yuta picked up right where he left off. 

One chaste, sloppy kiss was pressed to your lips and ventured downwards from your jaw to your neck. When he successfully found the sweet spot on your neck, you breathed out his name and this only egged Yuta on. His attack on your neck didn’t end until he saw the pretty splotches on your neck that would be sure to remain until tomorrow. 

“Pretty little thing,” Yuta smiled at his work and moved on to removing your clothing which was easy since you only wore a shirt, shorts and panties, “I think you look even prettier like this too” he licked his lips at the sight of you before removing his clothes as well and leaning down. His arms caged your frame underneath his as he pushed his clothed cock onto your cunt. 

His hips rolled circles onto yours and your essence lubed up his length. “Sweetheart, you’re absolutely soaked for me” Yuta said as he took his length and pushed the tip in and out of you, “do you always get this wet when you think of me? When you yell at me?”

“Shut up” you growled out and he laughed. “Is it that hard to admit the truth?” he asked and pushed his length inside of you. 

Yuta let out a groan at how your walls clenched around him and he stilled inside you, taking in the feeling before rocking his hips back and forth at a pace that had your head spinning. 

“You hate me?” Yuta hummed with a chuckle, “you don’t seem to hate my cock though. I wish you gave me this much love” his voice was laced with fake hurt.

“F-fuck you, Yuta” you said in between pants. 

“Someone is still bratty” he said as he pulled out of you. You were dumb to think that he would stop there.

Instead of laying on your back, you were on all fours, back dipped down as you anticipated for the return of his dick in your cunt. 

Seeing how you kept pushing back into nothing, Yuta took his hand and brought it down upon your ass making you let out a yell. 

Whimpers accompanied your yelps as he continued to spank you. It started at your neck those minutes ago and now your ass was just as marked up as that. The initial pain morphed into pleasure and your legs nearly gave out under you when he delivered the last hit directly to your pussy. 

“Maybe now I can fuck the attitude out of you” Yuta whispered into your ear as his cock entered your hot hole again. Sinful moans were ripped out of your throat and Yuta took the chance to push his fingers into your mouth. 

“Mm” you closed your eyes as you sucked on his fingers and took in this feeling of his length dragging in and out of you. Adjusting his position, he thrusted and his tip hit your g-spot, bringing you closer and closer to your orgasm.

“Be a good girl for once and cum, cum around this cock” he demanded and with his cock moving in and out of you and his words, you did just as he said and came.

Your body would’ve given out if it weren’t for Yuta picking up your hips so he could finish off, his load decorating your insides and dripped out of you when he pulled out. 

With all of his energy drained out of him, he fell down onto the bed and pulled you closer to his body, nuzzling his face into your neck.

“Ew Yuta, you’re gross get off” you pretended to push him away but he kept you in his arms.

“Nice attempt at trying to get me to go away but sorry you’re stuck with me for another three days,” remembering that made you groan and yuta only pushed it, “You have seventy two more hours of either fun or hell, you can pick” 

[trainerbluecipher]

@reguridiscordserver day 9. Stockings

Blue decided there was no better way to wake up in a Christmas morning. As he opened his eyes and was greeted by his boyfriend’s sleeping face, he knew he was the luckiest man alive. He stayed in the bed a bit longer than he would. The gym leader listened to his lover’s heartbeat, almost being lulled to sleep all over again. Blue melted under the feeling of Red’s strong and warm arms gently wrapped around him.

Red was like a physical fire type Pokémon. Strong, determined, with a hot, burning passion for everything and everyone he cared for. He was a flame, burning bright and quiet, yet powerful. But even with all his strength, he was ever so gentle with Blue, like a Darmanitan trying to hold a snow flake.

Blue was indeed like one. Like a special ice type Pokémon, he was rather delicate and small. He wasn’t exactly quiet but he was smart and rational. He liked to think he was cold, but that image would always be gone whenever the topic was Red. He was the only one who could melt Blue’s ice.

Even though they were polar opposites, they made it work when it came to themselves. Blue would try to be more patient and less selfish. Alakazam would say Blue was never selfish to begin with, not when it came to Red. His Pokémon team know better. They always did.

Blue still remembers all the times his Pokémon tried to convince him to listen to his dumb heart. Blue was never one to listen to it. Unlike Red, who fought a criminal organization because they mistreated Pokémon, Blue, who came up with a plan before acting, was more on the brainiac side. Yet, when it came to Red, his heart would always speak louder.

Blue glanced to the clock and sighed. He was hungry but it was still early. He wanted to stay in bed more and maybe sleep for a bit longer, but he was used to waking up at this hour to go to the gym. The gym leader made his way out of the bed and did his morning routine.

After he got his cup of hot cocoa, he walked to the living room and watched the snow outside. He loved the cold weather. You would expect someone like him to love the sun, but he actually preferred the comfort of the cold. The freezing wind of winter could calm his mind and give him peace.

Red, unexpectedly, liked the summer. Maybe, that’s not so unexpected for someone who picked the grass starter. Blue thinks this is a bit because of the long time he spent in the freezing mountain, but Red would always stay the whole day outside when it was sunny, even back then when they were kids. Blue never really liked getting sweaty, but Red never seemed to mind.

The gym leader glanced to the stockings hanging on the fireplace and furrowed his brows when he noticed one (his one) seemed to have things inside. Curious like only he is, he got up from the sofa and made his way to the sock. There was a box of chocolate and a small velvet box inside. Before he could open it, however, he felt a tapping on his shoulder.

He turned around to find Red was out of bed already. Blue then wondered when Red got there in the first place. But all his thoughts were thrown out of the window when Red kneeled with a smile and scarlet cheeks.

Blue glanced to the velvet box, then to the stocking behind him. He opened the box with shaking hands and his eyes began tearing when he saw the ring inside.

He wasn’t sure if he was laughing or crying, but he was sure he was the happiest man alive when he threw himself into his fiancé’s arms.

——————————————

It’s just a small thing and I kinda missed the point entirely lol

[theangrypokemaniac]

Shunned by all decent, God-fearing folk for centuries, Alola's isolation has fueled an unnatural way of looking at the world.

Rattatas were such a problem they imported Yungoos and Gumshoos from another region to control numbers.

Then why are they classed as Alola Pokémon?

Once purple, the climate has inexplicably transformed 'Retarda' into a black rat, which:

A. Eat their own babies.

B. Carry bubonic plague.

If that's not a winning combination, this beast now comes replete with the comedy villain moustache of a wartime spiv offering nylons to flustered housewives, and a side order of bovril if she's optional.

I presume facial hair on a furry scamp is what I see, not another set of polyps tearing through his face, having blocked the nasal cavity.

Raticate wasn't the prettiest of creatures, yet Alola's offering exceeds that low bar considerably.

Countless surveys attest to the dramatic boost in popularity the rodent community receives when stuffed so full they're ready to throw up.

Hey, don't knock it. Raticate are very picky in their eating habits.

It's a rat. They live in sewers. It gnaws every surface available.

Now yer telling me they're effete and squeamish?

Yes. In fact, such is their famed fastidiousness an infestation is a welcome development for restaurants.

...

Yer what?

It's true. Count yerself lucky to find a kitchen swarming with rodents. You certainly are in for a taste sensation.

Indeed. I am reminded of an early Pokédex entry on Raticate, describing its 'disgusting feet'.

Fancy them stinking tootsies treading through the crème brûlée?

And I thought they were vermin to be eaten by mongooses (mongeese?), but now caterers crave their company?

Make yer mind up!

Animals dwelling in human excrement, never mind their own, add such flavour to a meal.

Should I object to the presence of canonically dirty Pokémon in a food preparation area, I'd be the weirdo.

What a comfort that is to know.

This insalubrious patronage gets yer shut down elsewhere, but Alola's standards of hygiene are low, so low they rebranded plague rats a positive rather than bothering to dust once in a while.

If Marsh Mallow really desires a Michelin Man star for the caff she'd best designate the cleaning to her lazy-arsed dad. Then it won't be done.

Come on, he's a waster if ever there was one. He's so thick a gorilla taught him to cook, being part ape himself.

Invert the middle letter of 'Abe', and what d'yer get?

Leave Monkey Man to his own devices and the whole place will descend into a prize-winning shit-tip in no time.

That's where yer going wrong, love! There's not enough botulism at your gaff!

All I can express is relief there aren't cockroach Pokémon. Can you envision the threat to public health were they to be encouraged?

...

I'll have you know Pheromosa is very wary of germs.

You keep lying to yerself if it helps.

Yeah, because Alola cockroaches are special, so much more sophisticated than anyone else's.

So much more sexy than cockroaches in lesser parts of the world.

Yeah, it's come to that.

Biohazards Grimer and Muk are a most unsettling presence.

A supposed island paradise of endless fruit groves, clean streams and forests, should not feature sentient gunge.

Besides the technicolour nightmare, the heat has produced an unfortunate sticky side to their gooey nastiness.

Reminiscent of slugs, various detritus adheres to their bodies, to the extent cat litter lodges in their empty gums like soiled teef.

What a lot of mess there is about the streets, much more than anywhere else. Seems the populace are content to reside in their own filth.

Not true. Grimer and Muk were brought in to deal with a mountain of rubbish.

Oh? It was as I said then.

The picture painted brings to mind the wasteland of Parallel Alola, without having Guzzlord to blame.

This teaches us three things about the locals:

1. Litter doesn't chuck itself in the bushes.

For all the yawnsome preaching about living in harmony with the environment, there's a rampant lack of respect for Mother Nature.

Don't come here moralising! Yer've been fly-tipping!

2. They feed trash, dyed with luminous toxic chemicals, to Pokémon.

Pancakes is just a ruse!

Damage to D.N.A. is now obvious, given the paranoid stare in those haunted eyes.

It's not enough to use living things as bins, they're infecting 'em too!

Sod what long-term effects this may have on life expectancy, Alolans demand their rights.

These privileges being to desecrate the landscape with abandon, and someone else can clear it up.

Look at 'em! I bet they glow in the dark!

3. Incest has a shockingly deleterious effect on the mental faculties.

Can't we just burn it?

NO! The polar bears are drowning! Avoid that at all costs!

Chuck it in the sea like the recycling plants?

NO! Turtles eat shopping bags! We want an eco-friendly solution.

How about nuclear waste?

That's the ticket!

Why sweep the roads yerself when rancid slime can be shipped in as slaves?

That's Grimer, such a pollutant no life can exist in its wake, and Muk, who spreads disease?

Yes, and then we'll let it loose to multiply.

What could go wrong here?

[alessandriana]

Internet trolls don’t troll. Not the professionals at least. Professional trolls don’t go on social media to antagonize liberals or belittle conservatives. They are not narrow minded, drunk or angry. They don’t lack basic English language skills. They certainly aren’t “somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds,” as the president once put it. Your stereotypical trolls do exist on social media, but the amateurs aren’t a threat to Western democracy.

Professional trolls, on the other hand, are the tip of the spear in the new digital, ideological battleground. To combat the threat they pose, we must first understand them — and take them seriously.

On August 22, 2019, @IamTyraJackson received almost 290,000 likes on Twitter for a single tweet. Put in perspective, the typical tweet President Trump sends to his 67 million followers gets about 100,000 likes. That viral tweet by @IamTyraJackson was innocent: an uplifting pair of images of former pro football player Warrick Dunn and a description of his inspiring charity work building houses for single mothers. For an anonymous account that had only existed for only a few months, “Tyra” knew her audience well. Warrick’s former coach, Tony Dungy, retweeted it, as did the rapper and producer Chuck D. Hundreds of thousands of real users viewed Tyra’s tweet and connected with its message. For “Tyra,” however, inspiring messages like this were a tool for a very different purpose.

The purpose of the Tyra account, we believe, was not to spread heartwarming messages to Americans. Rather, the tweet about Warrick Dunn was really a Trojan horse to gain followers in a larger plan by a foreign adversary. We think this because we believe @IamTyraJackson was an account operated by the successors to Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA). Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted the IRA for waging a massive information war during the 2016 U.S. election. Since then, the IRA seems to have been subsumed into Russia’s Federal News Agency, but its work continues. In the case of @IamTyraJackson, the IRA’s goal was two-fold: Grow an audience in part through heartwarming, inspiring messages, and use that following to spread messages promoting division, distrust, and doubt.

We’ve spent the past two years studying online disinformation and building a deep understanding of Russia’s strategy, tactics, and impact. Working from data Twitter has publicly released, we’ve read Russian tweets until our eyes bled. Looking at a range of behavioral signals, we have begun to develop procedures to identify disinformation campaigns and have worked with Twitter to suspend accounts. In the process we’ve shared what we’ve learned with people making a difference, both in and out of government. We have experienced a range of emotions studying what the IRA has produced, from disgust at their overt racism to amusement at their sometimes self-reflective humor. Mostly, however, we’ve been impressed.

Professional trolls are good at their job. They have studied us. They understand how to harness our biases (and hashtags) for their own purposes. They know what pressure points to push and how best to drive us to distrust our neighbors. The professionals know you catch more flies with honey. They don’t go to social media looking for a fight; they go looking for new best friends. And they have found them.

Disinformation operations aren’t typically fake news or outright lies. Disinformation is most often simply spin. Spin is hard to spot and easy to believe, especially if you are already inclined to do so. While the rest of the world learned how to conduct a modern disinformation campaign from the Russians, it is from the world of public relations and advertising that the IRA learned their craft. To appreciate the influence and potential of Russian disinformation, we need to view them less as Boris and Natasha and more like Don Draper.

As good marketers, professional trolls manipulate our emotions subtly. In fall 2018, for example, a Russian account we identified called @PoliteMelanie re-crafted an old urban legend, tweeting: “My cousin is studying sociology in university. Last week she and her classmates polled over 1,000 conservative Christians. ‘What would you do if you discovered that your child was a homo sapiens?’ 55% said they would disown them and force them to leave their home.” This tweet, which suggested conservative Christians are not only homophobic but also ignorant, was subtle enough to not feel overtly hateful, but was also aimed directly at multiple cultural stress points, driving a wedge at the point where religiosity and ideology meet. The tweet was also wildly successful, receiving more than 90,000 retweets and nearly 300,000 likes.

This tweet didn’t seek to anger conservative Christians or to provoke Trump supporters. She wasn’t even talking to them. Melanie’s 20,000 followers, painstakingly built, weren’t from #MAGA America (Russia has other accounts targeting them). Rather, Melanie’s audience was made up of educated, urban, left-wing Americans harboring a touch of self-righteousness. She wasn’t selling her audience a candidate or a position — she was selling an emotion. Melanie was selling disgust. The Russians know that, in political warfare, disgust is a more powerful tool than anger. Anger drives people to the polls; disgust drives countries apart.

Accounts like @IamTyraJackson have continued @PoliteMelanie’s work. Professional disinformation isn’t spread by the account you disagree with — quite the opposite. Effective disinformation is embedded in an account you agree with. The professionals don’t push you away, they pull you toward them. While tweeting uplifting messages about Warrick Dunn’s real-life charity work, Tyra, and several accounts we associated with her, also distributed messages consistent with past Russian disinformation. Importantly, they highlighted issues of race and gender inequality. A tweet about Brock Turner’s Stanford rape case received 15,000 likes. Another about police targeting black citizens in Las Vegas was liked more than 100,000 times. Here is what makes disinformation so difficult to discuss: while these tweets point to valid issues of concern — issues that have been central to important social movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo — they are framed to serve Russia’s interests in undermining Americans’ trust in our institutions.

These accounts also harness the goodwill they’ve built by engaging in these communities for specific political ends. Consistent with past Russian activity, they attacked moderate politicians as a method of bolstering more polarizing candidates. Recently, Vice President Biden has been the most frequent target of this strategy, as seen in dozens of tweets such as, “Joe Biden is damaging Obama’s legacy with his racism and stupidity!” and “Joe Biden doesn’t deserve our votes!”

The quality of Russia’s work has been honed over several years and millions of social media posts. They have appeared on Instagram, Stitcher, Reddit, Google+, Tumblr, Medium, Vine, Meetup, and even Pokémon Go, demonstrating not only a nihilistic creativity, but also a ruthless efficiency in volume of production. The IRA has been called a “troll farm,” but they are undoubtedly a factory.

While persona like Melanie and Tyra were important to Russian efforts, they were ultimately just tools, interchangeable parts constructed for a specific audience. When shut down, they were quickly replaced by other free-to-create, anonymous accounts. The factory doesn’t stop. They attack issues from both sides, attempting to drive mainstream viewpoints in polar and extreme directions.

In a free society, we must accept that bad actors will try to take advantage of our openness. But we need to learn to question our own and others’ biases on social media. We need to teach — to individuals of all ages — that we shouldn’t simply believe or repost anonymous users because they used the same hashtag we did, and neither should we accuse them of being a Russian bot simply because we disagree with their perspective. We need to teach digital civility. It will not only weaken foreign efforts, but it will also help us better engage online with our neighbors, especially the ones we disagree with.

Russian disinformation is not just about President Trump or the 2016 presidential election. Did they work to get Trump elected? Yes, diligently. Our research has shown how Russia strategically employed social media to build support on the right for Trump and lower voter turnout on the left for Clinton. But the IRA was not created to collude with the Trump campaign. They existed well before Trump rode down that escalator and announced his candidacy, and we assume they will exist in some form well after he is gone. Russia’s goals are to further widen existing divisions in the American public and decrease our faith and trust in institutions that help maintain a strong democracy. If we focus only on the past or future, we will not be prepared for the present. It’s not about election 2016 or 2020.

The IRA generated more social media content in the year following the 2016 election than the year before it. They also moved their office into a bigger building with room to expand. Their work was never just about elections. Rather, the IRA encourages us to vilify our neighbor and amplify our differences because, if we grow incapable of compromising, there can be no meaningful democracy. Russia has dug in for a long campaign. So far, we’re helping them win.

[trusthz]

Pokemon brilliant diamond shining pearl

#Pokemon brilliant diamond shining pearl full

#Pokemon brilliant diamond shining pearl full

The Grand Underground has six areas compared to the original’s four segments and utilizes full online play for many of its features rather than wireless connections and the DS linkup. BDSP has expanded on that, turning the Underground into the Grand Underground. Once inside the Underground, players could explore and dig for items, build bases, play minigames with other players, exchange Spheres for other items, and much more. The Underground is a sometimes overlooked feature of Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum, sending players into an area underneath Sinnoh that spanned the entire region. All of the HMs from Diamond and Pearl have been converted into normal TMs for use in battle too. Instead, players will use an app on their Pokétch which will allow their Pokémon to utilize the handy moves as they traverse Sinnoh. Now, the feature has reverted to how it was in 2006, with a few slight differences.Īs demonstrated in multiple trailers, HMs have not made a full return. Sword and Shield partially did this through the use of Technical Records (TRs) that served the same purpose, but there were still TMs that could be used as many times as a player wanted to. ILCA did something a little odd in BDSP to try and stay true to the originals in that Technical Machines (TMs) have now become single-use items used to teach Pokémon moves again. These include the usual extra animations, chance to survive knockout blows, increased experience, and more-with all of the added text boxes that slow down battles too.��mity Square has even been updated to accommodate this feature too, so get ready for a lot of quality time with your team of choice. Using this will increase the speed at which you can increase those friendship values, which will lead to a faster route to getting the bonuses that come with it. In BDSP, players can not only have their Pokémon follow them around all of Sinnoh, but the feature will actually have several other functions too, such as playing a role in quickly increasing their happiness/affection/friendship stat-whichever one it is being called in this version, since it has changed slightly throughout the years. This number was limited to just 11 of the available 493 Pokémon included in the National Pokédex at the time, but it was the start of the following feature that would be expanded upon in Platinum and later added in full to HeartGold and SoulSilver a full four years after DP launched. Some fans may have missed it in the original Diamond and Pearl, but in Hearthome City, players could visit Amnity Square and walk around the special area with a select number of Pokémon. However, this feature isn’t entirely new to Sinnoh. One of the most beloved features ever introduced is the ability for the Pokémon leading your party to follow you while you traverse around the world of Pokémon. Outside of the HD models, textures, and animations, players will also be able to explore Sinnoh with a much less restrictive control scheme, moving freely off of a tethered axis as long as the area around them allows it. Some of the Pokémon themselves have even had their 3D models or various other aspects of their appearance changed to more closely resemble how they appeared in the original games, whether that be idle animations or simply how they are sitting. ILCA has taken the original looks of Diamond and Pearl and translated them directly into a more modern, 3D style that still retains the general approach of those early DS Pokémon games. Updated graphics and movementĪt a glance, the biggest change would obviously be the new graphics. Here are just a few key differences that make the remakes stand out from the original Diamond and Pearl. But even once you look beyond the shiny and polarizing new chibi graphics, some of the most special aspects of these remakes seem to be seen in the intricacies made to very specific areas of the Sinnoh region. ILCA took a conservative approach with the story, gameplay, and feel of BDSP itself.

[bountyofbeads]

That Uplifting Tweet You Just Shared? A Russian Troll Sent It

Here’s what Russia’s 2020 disinformation operations look like, according to two experts on social media and propaganda.

By DARREN Linvill & PATRICK Warren |

Published November 27, 2019 | Rolling Stone | Posted November 27, 2019 |

Internet trolls don’t troll. Not the professionals at least. Professional trolls don’t go on social media to antagonize liberals or belittle conservatives. They are not narrow minded, drunk or angry. They don’t lack basic English language skills. They certainly aren’t “somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds,” as the president once put it. Your stereotypical trolls do exist on social media, but the amateurs aren’t a threat to Western democracy.

Professional trolls, on the other hand, are the tip of the spear in the new digital, ideological battleground. To combat the threat they pose, we must first understand them — and take them seriously.

On August 22, 2019, @IamTyraJackson received almost 290,000 likes on Twitter for a single tweet. Put in perspective, the typical tweet President Trump sends to his 67 million followers gets about 100,000 likes. That viral tweet by @IamTyraJackson was innocent: an uplifting pair of images of former pro football player Warrick Dunn and a description of his inspiring charity work building houses for single mothers. For an anonymous account that had only existed for only a few months, “Tyra” knew her audience well. Warrick’s former coach, Tony Dungy, retweeted it, as did the rapper and producer Chuck D. Hundreds of thousands of real users viewed Tyra’s tweet and connected with its message. For “Tyra,” however, inspiring messages like this were a tool for a very different purpose.

The purpose of the Tyra account, we believe, was not to spread heartwarming messages to Americans. Rather, the tweet about Warrick Dunn was really a Trojan horse to gain followers in a larger plan by a foreign adversary. We think this because we believe @IamTyraJackson was an account operated by the successors to Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA). Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted the IRA for waging a massive information war during the 2016 U.S. election. Since then, the IRA seems to have been subsumed into Russia’s Federal News Agency, but its work continues. In the case of @IamTyraJackson, the IRA’s goal was two-fold: Grow an audience in part through heartwarming, inspiring messages, and use that following to spread messages promoting division, distrust, and doubt.

We’ve spent the past two years studying online disinformation and building a deep understanding of Russia’s strategy, tactics, and impact. Working from data Twitter has publicly released, we’ve read Russian tweets until our eyes bled. Looking at a range of behavioral signals, we have begun to develop procedures to identify disinformation campaigns and have worked with Twitter to suspend accounts. In the process we’ve shared what we’ve learned with people making a difference, both in and out of government. We have experienced a range of emotions studying what the IRA has produced, from disgust at their overt racism to amusement at their sometimes self-reflective humor. Mostly, however, we’ve been impressed.

Professional trolls are good at their job. They have studied us. They understand how to harness our biases (and hashtags) for their own purposes. They know what pressure points to push and how best to drive us to distrust our neighbors. The professionals know you catch more flies with honey. They don’t go to social media looking for a fight; they go looking for new best friends. And they have found them.

Disinformation operations aren’t typically fake news or outright lies. Disinformation is most often simply spin. Spin is hard to spot and easy to believe, especially if you are already inclined to do so. While the rest of the world learned how to conduct a modern disinformation campaign from the Russians, it is from the world of public relations and advertising that the IRA learned their craft. To appreciate the influence and potential of Russian disinformation, we need to view them less as Boris and Natasha and more like Don Draper.

As good marketers, professional trolls manipulate our emotions subtly. In fall 2018, for example, a Russian account we identified called @PoliteMelanie re-crafted an old urban legend, tweeting: “My cousin is studying sociology in university. Last week she and her classmates polled over 1,000 conservative Christians. ‘What would you do if you discovered that your child was a homo sapiens?’ 55% said they would disown them and force them to leave their home.” This tweet, which suggested conservative Christians are not only homophobic but also ignorant, was subtle enough to not feel overtly hateful, but was also aimed directly at multiple cultural stress points, driving a wedge at the point where religiosity and ideology meet. The tweet was also wildly successful, receiving more than 90,000 retweets and nearly 300,000 likes.

This tweet didn’t seek to anger conservative Christians or to provoke Trump supporters. She wasn’t even talking to them. Melanie’s 20,000 followers, painstakingly built, weren’t from #MAGA America (Russia has other accounts targeting them). Rather, Melanie’s audience was made up of educated, urban, left-wing Americans harboring a touch of self-righteousness. She wasn’t selling her audience a candidate or a position — she was selling an emotion. Melanie was selling disgust. The Russians know that, in political warfare, disgust is a more powerful tool than anger. Anger drives people to the polls; disgust drives countries apart.

Accounts like @IamTyraJackson have continued @PoliteMelanie’s work. Professional disinformation isn’t spread by the account you disagree with — quite the opposite. Effective disinformation is embedded in an account you agree with. The professionals don’t push you away, they pull you toward them. While tweeting uplifting messages about Warrick Dunn’s real-life charity work, Tyra, and several accounts we associated with her, also distributed messages consistent with past Russian disinformation. Importantly, they highlighted issues of race and gender inequality. A tweet about Brock Turner’s Stanford rape case received 15,000 likes. Another about police targeting black citizens in Las Vegas was liked more than 100,000 times. Here is what makes disinformation so difficult to discuss: while these tweets point to valid issues of concern — issues that have been central to important social movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo — they are framed to serve Russia’s interests in undermining Americans’ trust in our institutions.

These accounts also harness the goodwill they’ve built by engaging in these communities for specific political ends. Consistent with past Russian activity, they attacked moderate politicians as a method of bolstering more polarizing candidates. Recently, Vice President Biden has been the most frequent target of this strategy, as seen in dozens of tweets such as, “Joe Biden is damaging Obama’s legacy with his racism and stupidity!” and “Joe Biden doesn’t deserve our votes!”

The quality of Russia’s work has been honed over several years and millions of social media posts. They have appeared on Instagram, Stitcher, Reddit, Google+, Tumblr, Medium, Vine, Meetup, and even Pokémon Go, demonstrating not only a nihilistic creativity, but also a ruthless efficiency in volume of production. The IRA has been called a “troll farm,” but they are undoubtedly a factory.

While persona like Melanie and Tyra were important to Russian efforts, they were ultimately just tools, interchangeable parts constructed for a specific audience. When shut down, they were quickly replaced by other free-to-create, anonymous accounts. The factory doesn’t stop. They attack issues from both sides, attempting to drive mainstream viewpoints in polar and extreme directions.

In a free society, we must accept that bad actors will try to take advantage of our openness. But we need to learn to question our own and others’ biases on social media. We need to teach — to individuals of all ages — that we shouldn’t simply believe or repost anonymous users because they used the same hashtag we did, and neither should we accuse them of being a Russian bot simply because we disagree with their perspective. We need to teach digital civility. It will not only weaken foreign efforts, but it will also help us better engage online with our neighbors, especially the ones we disagree with.

Russian disinformation is not just about President Trump or the 2016 presidential election. Did they work to get Trump elected? Yes, diligently. Our research has shown how Russia strategically employed social media to build support on the right for Trump and lower voter turnout on the left for Clinton. But the IRA was not created to collude with the Trump campaign. They existed well before Trump rode down that escalator and announced his candidacy, and we assume they will exist in some form well after he is gone. Russia’s goals are to further widen existing divisions in the American public and decrease our faith and trust in institutions that help maintain a strong democracy. If we focus only on the past or future, we will not be prepared for the present. It’s not about election 2016 or 2020.

The IRA generated more social media content in the year following the 2016 election than the year before it. They also moved their office into a bigger building with room to expand. Their work was never just about elections. Rather, the IRA encourages us to vilify our neighbor and amplify our differences because, if we grow incapable of compromising, there can be no meaningful democracy. Russia has dug in for a long campaign. So far, we’re helping them win.

______

Darren Linvill is an associate professor of communication at Clemson. His work explores state-affiliated disinformation campaigns and the strategies and tactics employed on social media. Patrick Warren is an associate professor of economics at Clemson. Dr. Warren’s research focuses on the operation of organizations in the economy such as for-profit and non-profit firms, bureaucracies, political parties, armies, and propaganda bureaus.

[terryblount]

Mortal Kombat 11- Review

For every niche game genre, there is a popular, more mass-appeal entry in its genre. Like Pokémon to JRPGs and Destiny to MMOs, so is Mortal Kombat 11 to fighting games.

The Mortal Kombat series is what I like to call a dudebro fighting game. It’s got a low barrier for entry, and it’s easy to cheer during the game’s gory sequences. While that may sound negative, it really isn’t: any game that can get more people to enjoy fighting games should be celebrated.

With Mortal Kombat 11, however, we have the case of a game that’s almost confused as to what it wants to be. It’s a good fighting game, and the addition of fine-tuning characters to your playstyle certainly helps add a personal stake to games.

However, the game’s own insistence that customizing is important while also making it damn-near impossible to customize your character without dropping obscene hours into the game leads to an ultimately confusing experience.

The characters all seem to have unique start dialogue with each other, which is a pretty nice touch

Presentation

Mortal Kombat 11 is very much a Triple-A game. As far as the objective quality of the game’s presentation goes, everything looks great. The models are all intricately detailed, the backdrops interesting and its gore made abundant.

However, in its attempts to also be a Live Service, it takes many bites out of its own enjoyability as a fighting game. Silly “Dragon Challenges” cause constant pop-ups at the bottom of the screen telling you to do things like land five crouching kicks every few seconds, as well as constant score notifications on the left. Points tallies at the end of rounds, even in local splitscreen make hitting rematch take that much longer.

Due to the game’s focus on customizing things, the game loses out on a lot of basic appeal most fighting games have. Some characters’ win screens are flat-out boring, because they have several others to choose from but only if they can unlock it by spending time in other game modes.

While this may seem like a nitpick, remember: Mortal Kombat is a game all about its flash. No one does fatalities because they tell a deep and touching story, they do them because they shock and awe. So for MK11 to be anything less than that right out the box would be a serious blemish on the game’s track record.

When this fighting game is a fighting game, it’s a damn good fighting game.

  Gameplay

As a fighting game, Mortal Kombat 11 is great. Combos in this game are generally quite short, and the new feature of a separate offense and defense meter that recharge over time is really interesting. Rather than have supers, the game has certain special moves that you can enhance at the cost of one meter, dealing more damage.

However, a huge gripe I have with this game is its insistence on wasting the player’s time. In the actual fight, many animations are so focused on showing off how bloody and shocking it is that the animations feel pointlessly self-indulgent.

A good comparison to make would be 2016’s Doom, where the gory finishers were designed specifically not to interrupt the flow of combat. This game does that, but in a polar opposite kind of way. Kotal Kahn, for example, has a move that ends with him sawing through the opponent. However, the game bothers to painstakingly show him thrusting the blade in and out of the opponent for what in fighting game time feels like the pre-production phase of Anthem.

There’s also the problem with unlocking materials for your character. Many of them have specific modes you need to beat to unlock them, primarily the “Towers of Time”, which is an arcade ladder with “Konsumables” that add abilities. The problem with this is the game actively punishes you for not using Konsumables, giving you a lower score, and the only way to get more is by opening lootboxes. The opponents, meanwhile, always have the best Konsumables, making some fights nigh unwinnable as they cover half the stage in passively damaging lasers and knock you out of combos with invincible assists. Considering how much the game wants you to customize your fighters, it’s pretty obvious how much they’d want you to play this mode.

If you’re playing this game with local vs, make sure you have a separate profile with its own account for player 2. P2 cannot use any of your gear/loadouts for your character, so without forewarning prepare to feel very scummy if whoever’s playing P2 is stuck with the default loadouts while you have your customized character.

I used to have a problem with the customizable special moves in this game, but given more time I quite like them. The ability to remove certain moves that I wasn’t using with better moves or upgrades for unremovable core moves actually does help personalize the experience, and even AI games feel a little better as a result.

I could recommend this game to people just starting to get into fighting games just for its great tutorials and resources.

 Kontent Content:

Mortal Kombat 11 feels like some sort of weird reverse-logic justification for paid content in a sixty-dollar game. The game has plenty of unlockables, as well as features like Skip Challenge tokens for arcade ladders, none of which can be bought with real money.

The problem is that the game is very much designed for you to have these features, despite them all being completely random drops. If anything it feels like the game wanted to make them paid, had them built around that, then yoinked the paid option out of the game just so someone could write an article wishing they could pay to skip some of the utter nonsense this game pulls.

The game has plenty of modes, such as Story, Klassik Towers (Normal Arcade), Towers of Time (We talked about this earlier) and the Krypt. The story and basic Arcade ladders are relatively inoffensive in their offerings, and pretty much what you’d come to expect from a Mortal Kombat.

So mk11 has a "Minigame" That's just opening lootboxes with in-Game gold #PS4sharehttps://t.co/p7YhOFYlO1 pic.twitter.com/Bv4yknhv9X

— Wamirul @ [PULL MY DEVIL TRIGGER] (@Wamirul) April 25, 2019

The Krypt is the most offensive part of Mortal Kombat 11. It’s a pretend-adventure game in which you explore a huge area to spend your gold opening lootboxes.

Remember when I said Mortal Kombat feels like it constantly wastes your time? It’s never more blatant than with The Krypt, where it almost makes you wish for a generic lootbox screen. So much chaff is thrown into the lootboxes that it might actually be impossible to get anything you want. Things like concept art, crafting materials and konsumables are thrown into the pool too, making any attempt at making your character look cool turn into a wasted half-hour of getting an overworked artist’s hard work that they were underpaid for.

One thing from recent entries that I love in MK11 is its move list. All the moves, combos and even fatalities are easily accessible in the menu, with their frame data laid bare for all to see. Aside from letting more advanced players know how to plan their combos, this also opens the door to more casual players learning about the more in-depth aspects of fighting games, and I think that’s great.

Some of these end screens are a lot cooler than others, but most of them are almost blatant in how they’re meant to show off your customizable gear (in this case, Scorpion’s kunai and face mask are painfully in-view)

  Personal Enjoyment:

As said before, Mortal Kombat 11, at its core, is fun. The most fun I’ve had with this game has been just having people over and doing some best-of-threes and learning the characters. In a field test, the flashy animations and cool character designs have even won over my non-fighting-game siblings to get them to try it out.

The action-figure-esque design of the characters, the ridiculous gore of the Fatal Blow moves, they’re all fun. It’s a great party game to have, since even non-players can’t help but cheer when something ridiculous happens.

This end screen serves no purpose other than showing off Noob Saibot’s fanny pack.

Konklusion Conclusion

As said before, Mortal Kombat 11 is a great fighting game. It’s fun, relatively accessible and for most people, just flashy enough to get a crowd excited.

Yet the moment I leave local versus mode, I cannot think of anything else I enjoy in this game. Its obsession with being a live service ruins everything else in this game, especially when loading screens are enhanced by the need to connect to servers constantly. Not getting to simply buy the cool outfits for my wraith-ninja using any of the game’s multitude of currencies as I drown in konsumables and concept art really take a hit to this game’s fun, which is a shame because in the heat of a match, it’s great.

While some may argue it is commendable that they didn’t simply lock all the gear behind a paywall, I can’t say this is much better. I used to think that Dead or Alive’s progression system was mean with its costume shards, but at least I was guaranteed costumes for the characters I played. And even then, I unlocked everything in 3 days of casual play.

If I could, I’d give the actual Kombat vs the rest of the game separate scores. It’s a genuinely good fighting game buried under a pile of time-wasting chaff. It’s certainly a good party game, but I wouldn’t advise any kind of serious play with it.

Review copy provided by the publisher

Mortal Kombat 11- Review published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

[recentanimenews]

The Manga Revue, 8/27/18

It’s been a while since I added a new Shonen Jump title to my pull list. Don’t get me wrong: I love One-Punch Man and The Promised Neverland, but I find that many shonen titles overstay their welcome (usually around the fourth or fifth tournament arc). Still, it’s hard to resist the allure of a great shonen series, especially if it has snazzy art and a great hook, so I decided to check out two recent debuts: Black Torch and Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaba, both of which draw inspiration from Japanese folklore.

Black Torch, Vol. 1 Story and Art by Tsuyoshi Takaki VIZ Media, 200 pp. Rated Teen+, for older teens (violence)

Black Torch suffers from an unusual problem: it has a terrific introductory chapter with emotionally resonant scenes, followed by two additional chapters that seem stale in comparison.

The opening pages introduce us to Jiro Azuma, a sensitive young man who has an unusual talent: he can hear animals’ thoughts. At the urging of his childhood pet, Jiro has pledged to use his gift wisely and kindly by helping animals in need. A chance encounter with a wounded mononoke, however, turns his life upside down, putting him on the run from both the demon and human worlds, and pitting him against his grandfather, a ninja with serious monster-hunting skillz.

The story then makes a U-turn into conventional territory with the introduction of the Oniwabanshu, a top-secret government agency that kills demons. These scenes rehearse familiar beats as the bureau’s mission and personnel are fleshed out, one antagonistic exchange at a time. Only the fight sequences provide relief from these info-dump passages; they’re briskly choreographed affairs, notable both for their inventive use of perspective and sparing use of screen tone, speed lines, and sound effects. The same crisp, minimalist approach informs the character designs as well, giving Black Torch a distinctive look that’s not fully matched by its Tokyo Ghoul-by-way-of-Bleach plotting. Your mileage may vary.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Vol. 1 Story and Art by Koyoharu Gotouge VIZ Media, 192 pp. Rated Teen, for readers 13 and up (fantasy violence)

Demon Slayer isn’t the slickest or coolest title in the Shonen Jump catalog, but it has heart — miles ‘n miles ‘n miles of heart.

The plot is set in motion by a tragedy: the hero returns home from an errand only to discover that a demon slaughtered his family. One sibling clings to life, but shows signs of becoming a demon herself, putting Tanjiro in a terrible bind: should he kill her now, or risk being killed in a week, a month or a year? In a desperate bid to save her, Tanjiro embarks on a quest to find a cure and become a master swordsman, capable of protecting his sister from harm. These training scenes form the emotional core of volume one, showing us the emotional and physical toll of Tanjiro’s two-year ordeal.

Koyoharu Gotouge’s thin, spidery lines and grotesque monsters have a pleasantly retro feel, the kind of artwork you might have found in Weekly Shonen Jump in the late 1980s. Even though his bodies and heads are sometimes a little awkwardly drawn, or his monsters too obviously fashioned from screen tone, the overall design is visually consistent from page to page; if anything, the lack of polish makes Tanjiro more plausibly vulnerable, especially when confronting monsters who are bigger, meaner, and more cunning than he is. I’m not sure that Demon Slayer is headed anywhere new, but Tanjiro is the kind of hero I’d like to see more often: a frightened but determined character who seems like a real person confronting the impossible, rather than a resolutely optimistic kid whose pluck carries the day. Recommended.

Must-Read Manga Reviews

Over at Okazu, Erica Friedman reads Mushroom Girls in Love so that you don’t have to, and Murciélago in the hopes that you might like it, too. Elsewhere on the web, Krystallina jumps in the WABAC machine for a look at Angelic Layer, while Alexander Hoffman dedicates his latest Quick Picks column to “micro reviews” of three new titles: Shortcake Cake, Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts, and How to Treat Magical Beasts: Mine and Master’s Medical Journal.

Debut Volumes

Black Torch, Vol. 1 (Evan Bourgault, Boston Bastard Brigade)

Chio’s School Road, Vol. 1 (Sean Gaffney, A Case Suitable for Treatment)

Dr. Stone, Vol. 1 (Keith Hendricks, NerdSpan)

Hungry for You: Endo Yasuko Stalks the Night, Vol. 1 (Che Gilson, Otaku USA)

Kenka Bancho Otome, Vol. 1 (SKJAM, SKJAM! Reviews)

Kokoro Connect, Vol. 1 (Demelza, Anime UK News)

Monster Tamer Girls, Vol. 1 (David Estrella, Otaku USA)

Ping Pong Dash!, Vol. 1 (Kathleen Townsend, Looking Glass Reads)

A Polar Bear in Love, Vol. 1 (Allison, Bloom Reviews)

Shortcake Cake, Vol. 1 (Josh Piedra, The Outerhaven)

Teasing Master Takagi-san, Vol. 1 (J. Caleb Mozzocco, Good Comics for Kids)

That Blue Sky Feeling, Vol. 1 (Sean Gaffney, A Case Suitable for Treatment)

Done-in-One

A Death Wish and an Alien (Eric Cline, AiPT!)

Slum Wolf (Publisher’s Weekly)

Voices of a Distant Star (Dennis Amith, J-Ent! Online)

The Continuing Adventures of…

Anonymous Noise, Vols. 8-9 (Anna N., The Manga Report)

Assassination Classroom, Vol. 21 (Dennis Amith, J-Ent! Online)

Baccano!, Vol. 3 (Kate O’Neil, The Fandom Post)

Battle Angel Alita: Mars Chronicles, Vol. 4 (David Brooke, AiPT!)

Black Butler, Vol. 26 (Krystallina, The OASG)

Bloom Into You, Vol. 5 (Erica Friedman, Okazu)

A Bride’s Story, Vol. 9 (Johanna Draper Carlson, Comics Worth Reading)

Dance in the Vampire Bund, Vol. 13 (Julie, Manga Maniac Cafe)

Dragon Ball Super, Vol. 3 (Cold Cobra, Anime UK News)

Food Wars!! Shokugeki no Soma, Vol. 25 (Dennis Amith, J-Ent! Online)

Happy Marriage?!, Vol. 3 (Julie, Manga Maniac Cafe)

Idol Dreams, Vol. 5 (Johanna Draper Carlson, Comics Worth Reading)

Mobile Suit Gundam: Thunderbolt, Vol. 8 (Eric Cline, AiPT!)

My Hero Academia, Vol. 13 (Robert Prentice, Three If By Space)

My Hero Academia, Vol. 14 (Nick Creamer, Anime News Network)

My Hero Academia, Vol. 14 (Robert Prentice, Three If By Space)

One Piece, Vol. 10 (Julie, Manga Maniac Cafe)

Platinum End, Vol. 6 (Jos Piedra, The Outerhaven)

Pokémon Adventures, Vol. 2 (Julie, Manga Maniac Cafe)

The Promised Neverland, Vols. 4-5 (Helen, The OASG)

Slam Dunk, Vol. 16 (Julie, Manga Maniac Cafe)

A Terrified Teacher at Ghoul School!, Vol. 3 (Justin, The OASG)

What Did You Eat Yesterday?, Vol. 13 (Johanna Draper Carlson, Comics Worth Reading)

Yona of the Dawn, Vol. 13 (Kate O’Neil, The Fandom Post)

Yona of the Dawn, Vol. 13 (Anna N., The Manga Report)

Yowamushi Pedal, Vol. 9 (Krystallina, The OASG)

By: Katherine Dacey

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include Julian Gollop on Phoenix Point, the making of Typeshift & the SteamProphet contest.

Lots of interesting links this week - am particularly taken by the article on the tumultous community of Elite: Dangerous, which I thought was far less tumultuous than Star Citizen. (Well, it probably still is.) But it reminded me that when you make a game that's in a state of constant change, you'll get all kinds of views on its artistic direction - especially on the polarized Internet. Which can be tiring, and rough, but isn't a lot of the Internet? 'Til next time...

- Simon, curator.]

-------------------

Giant Sparrow creative director talks about the freaky beautiful haunting of Edith Finch (David Nieves / ComicsBeat) "What Remains of Edith Finch is developer Giant Sparrow’s (published by Annapurna Interactive) follow up to their critically acclaimed debut The Unfinished Swan. While the first game was a unique tale of an orphan boy who navigates a literal blank world by throwing paint everywhere. What Remains of Edith Finch is an eerie beautiful collection of stories about a  cursed family house in the Pacific Northwest."

The Occupation and the perils of politics in games (Chris Priestman / Eurogamer) "At 11.36am on March 22nd 2017, White Paper Games announced The Occupation with a trailer and a press release. Set in 1980s north-west England, it's a first-person narrative adventure that follows a journalist caught up in the aftermath of a terrorist attack that left 23 people dead."

Milwaukee's War on 'Pokémon GO' Could Change Tech Forever (Jordan Zakarin / Inverse) "Even now, almost a year later, Sheldon Wasserman sounds surprised when he describes what went down in Milwaukee’s Lake Park last summer. “People are beginning to run across the streets, parking is absolutely overloaded, the police are now ticketing, food trucks are showing up,” the Milwaukee County Supervisor remembers."

Picture in a Frame (Amr Al-Aaser / Medium) "I think a lot about how we frame things... It’s something that feels repeatedly relevant in games, a space where the practice of describing games as “x meets y” or “game x with twist y” is a common format for arriving at an explanation of a title."

Still Logged In: What AR and VR Can Learn from MMOs (Raph Koster / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 GDC session, MMO designer Raph Koster talks about the social and ethical implications of turning the real world into a virtual world, and how the lessons of massively multiplayer virtual worlds are more relevant than ever."

Meet the superfans still playing Populous: The Beginning (Oliver Milne / RockPaperShotgun) "So how come there’s still an active group of Populous players keeping the flame alive nearly twenty years later? I got in touch with some of the community’s longest-standing members to find out. [SIMON'S NOTE: this one's a bit old, but had no idea third parties got unofficial matchmaking running for the game.]"

RPG Codex Interview: Julian Gollop on Phoenix Point (Infinitron / RPG Codex) "Phoenix Point uses willpower as a key stat. A character's willpower rating determines initial and maximum will points for a battle. Will points are spent on most special actions and abilities. Will points can be lost through injury, morale effects (such as comrades dying or facing a horrifying monster) and special enemy attacks."

The future is in interactive storytelling (Noah Wardrip-Fruin & Michael Mateas / The Conversation) "Marvel’s new blockbuster, “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2,” carries audiences through a narrative carefully curated by the film’s creators. That’s also what Telltale’s Guardians-themed game did when it was released in April."

How Zach Gage fine-tuned the difficulty curve of TypeShift (Rollin Bishop / Gamasutra) "TypeShift, the latest game from acclaimed mobile developer Zach Gage, is part crossword, part anagram, and all puzzle. Rather than simply ask a player to solve a single jumbled word, or even several, TypeShift — which is available on iOS and Android — instead asks players to create any number of words out of several tiers of letters until they’ve used every single one."

How Final Fantasy 7 Revolutionized Videogame Marketing and Helped Sony Tackle Nintendo (David L Craddock / Paste) "In late July 1997, Sony Computer Entertainment America buzzed with excitement. SCEA was in possession of Final Fantasy 7’s gold master discs, media containing finalized code. Over the next few weeks, they would undergo mass production—pressed to millions of CD-ROMs, packaged inside jewel cases, and shipped to stores in time for the game’s summer launch across Europe and North America."

The state of Elite Dangerous (Wesley Yin-Poole / Eurogamer) "On 25th April 2017, Cambridge-based developer Frontier released patch notes for its two-and-a-half year-old space game Elite Dangerous. Buried within those patch notes, under the section "General Fixes & Tweaks", was a line that set the game's vociferous community alight: Farmed salt from the community for usage later."

Spaceplan - Based on a Misunderstanding Of Stephen Hawking (Scott Manley / YouTube) "It's a 'make numbers go up' game with a bit of a space theme and potatoes, lots of potatoes, solar masses of tubers."

Classic Game Postmortem: Seaman (Yoot Saito / GDC / YouTube) "In this GDC 2017 Classic Game Postmortem, Yutaka "Yoot" Saito speaks at length about his work creating 'Seaman', a game that left an indelible mark on the fabric of both the game industry and pop culture at large."

What I learned playing "SteamProphet" (Lars Doucet / Gamasutra) "At least 249 indie games have launched on Steam in the past 13 weeks not including VR or F2P games. That's more than 30 games every week, on average. In their first month... 75% made at least $0, 10% made at least $1K-9K, 7.5% made at least $10K-49K, 2% made at least $50K-99K, 5% made at least $100K-999K, Exactly one made > $1M."

Knack 2 is an atonement (Colin Campbell / Polygon) "Knack 2 director Mark Cerny is one of the most accomplished game developers of the last three decades, most especially in platform adventures featuring likable characters. From Marble Madness to Sonic the Hedgehog 2, from Crash Bandicoot to Ratchet & Clank, he's made his mark on a multitude of verdant, primary-hued worlds, where colorful critters boing and bounce."

Game Dev Insight: A Chat with BioWare Cinematics Lead Tal Peleg (Shinobi602 / Shinobi Speaks) "I’m super happy to be able to share a nice chat I had with Tal Peleg, a Cinematics Lead at BioWare. His previous animation work includes a bevy of notable titles such as Mass Effect: Andromeda, Uncharted 4, The Last of Us and Dead Space 2 among others. "

Why is motherhood so poorly portrayed in video games? (Kate Smith / The Guardian) "And games, you may be startled to discover, are not too great at portraying motherhood – though they seem to have fatherhood all figured out. Did you know that once you have a daughter you suddenly become aware that women are people, too? Who could have seen that coming?"

Ten Years Ago, Dead Or Alive Launched The Careers Of The Highest-Paid Women Pro Gamers (Maddy Myers / Kotaku Compete) "Vanessa Arteaga had been playing fighting games since she was a child, long before she became one of the highest-paid women in competitive gaming history—but her tens of thousands in winnings still pale in comparison to the millions that her male peers have made in competitive gaming in the years since."

'Civilization' Creator Sid Meier: "I Didn't Really Expect to be a Game Designer"(Chris Suellentrop / Glixel) "At GDC, Meier talked to Glixel for almost an hour with boyish enthusiasm about what makes Civilization work, why Firaxis turns to a new lead designer with almost every sequel, and that whole thing with having his name on the box."

Jeff Kaplan reveals the Overwatch Balance Triangle (Here's A Thing / Eurogamer / YouTube) "On this week's episode of Here's A Thing, Chris Bratt talks to Overwatch game director, Jeff Kaplan about the 'balance triangle' his team uses when thinking about hero design."

How Inside’s levels were designed (Alex Wiltshire / RockPaperShotgun) "Playdead don’t design games in the same way that other studios do. They’re the result of a process where nothing is written down. There’s no script and no design document. No member of the team owns any aspect of what they make and what will go into the final game. Everything is up for change."

Why This Very Queer Strategy Game Downplayed Its Queerness While Crowdfunding (Patrick Klepek / Waypoint) ""Essentially the game comes out to the player—if they notice, and not everybody does," said All Walls Must Fall programmer Isaac Ashdown, who lives in Berlin with his husband. "The fact is that the game isn't really 'about' being queer, but it's set in Berlin nightclubs, and those can be pretty queer spaces.""

These are the developers creating new games for old consoles (Andrew Webster / The Verge) "If you want to play Dustin Long’s most recent game, you’ll need a console that was first released more than 30 years ago. As a young musician in New York, Long found himself drawn to the chiptune scene, where artists craft sounds using classic gaming hardware."

Burn The Bikini Armour: Actionable Tips For Better Character Design (Victoria Smith / Play By Play) " By taking a look at the worst and best of costume design in games - as well as primary sources and the basics of visual design - you can elevate your character designs and create something truly unique. Nobody wants to appear on the Worst Dressed list, so why should your game characters be any different?"

I Paid Women To Play Overwatch With Me, And It Was Fantastic (Cecilia D'Anastasio / Kotaku) "Earlier this week, on Fiverr.com, I selected Biu’s “Basic” package which, in exchange for $5, granted me her company for five Overwatch games. In her profile’s image, a helicopter selfie, Biu is wearing a t-shirt with Zelda’s Link and sticking out her tongue."

Designer Interview: Crafting Flinthook's hookshot wasn't easy (Alex Wiltshire / Gamasutra) "There are many ways to express the concept of throwing out a line from a player character that attaches to a surface, something that’s familiar to many first- and third person 3D games, from Ocarina of Time to Spider-Man 2. But the hookshot is curiously underused in 2D platformers. Tribute Games’ new action platformer, Flinthook, might give some pointers as to why. Not because Flinthook isn’t good. Quite the opposite, in fact."

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[REMINDER: you can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekend at http://ift.tt/2dUXrva we crosspost to Gamasutra later on Sunday, but get it first via newsletter! Story tips and comments can be emailed to vgdeepcuts@simoncarless.com. MINI-DISCLOSURE: Simon is one of the organizers of GDC and Gamasutra, so you may sometimes see links from those entities in his picks. Or not!]

[livehealthmedia]

A digital revolution in health care is speeding up

Telemedicine, predictive diagnostics, wearable sensors and a host of new apps will transform how people manage their health

WHEN someone goes into cardiac arrest, survival depends on how quickly the heart can be restarted. Enter Amazon’s Echo, a voice-driven computer that answers to the name of Alexa, which can recite life-saving instructions about cardiopulmonary resuscitation, a skill taught to it by the American Heart Association. Alexa is accumulating other health-care skills, too, including acting as a companion for the elderly and answering questions about children’s illnesses. In the near future she will probably help doctors with grubby hands to take notes and to request scans, as well as remind patients to take their pills.

Alexa is one manifestation of a drive to disrupt an industry that has so far largely failed to deliver on the potential of digital information. Health care is over-regulated and expensive to innovate in, and has a history of failing to implement ambitious IT projects. But the momentum towards a digital future is gathering pace. Investment into digital health care has soared (see chart).

One reason for that is the scale of potential cost-savings. Last year Americans spent an amount equivalent to about 18% of GDP on health care. That is an extreme, but other countries face rising cost pressures from health spending as populations age. Much of this expenditure is inefficient. Spending on administration varies sevenfold between rich countries. There are huge differences in the cost of medical procedures. In rich countries about one-fifth of spending on health care goes to waste, for example on wrong or unnecessary treatments. Eliminating a fraction of this sum is a huge opportunity.

Consumers seem readier to accept digital products than just a few years ago. The field includes mobile apps, telemedicine—health care provided using electronic communications—and predictive analytics (using statistical methods to sift data on outcomes for patients). Other areas are automated diagnoses and wearable sensors to measure things like blood pressure.

If there is to be a health-care revolution, it will create winners and losers. Andy Richards, an investor in digital health, argues that three groups are fighting a war for control of the “health-care value chain”.

One group comprises “traditional innovators”—pharmaceutical firms, hospitals and medical-technology companies such as GE Healthcare, Siemens, Medtronic and Philips. A second category is made up of “incumbent players”, which include health insurers, pharmacy-benefit managers (which buy drugs in bulk), and as single-payer health-care systems such as Britain’s NHS. The third group are the technology “insurgents”, including Google, Apple, Amazon and a host of hungry entrepreneurs that are creating apps, predictive-diagnostics systems and new devices. These firms may well profit most handsomely from the shift to digital.

The threat to the traditional innovators is that as medical records are digitised and new kinds of patient data arrive from genomic sequencing, sensors and even from social media, insurers and governments can get much better insight into which treatments work. These buyers are increasingly demanding “value-based” reimbursement—meaning that if a drug or device doesn’t function well, it will not be bought.

The big question is whether drug companies will be big losers, says Marc Sluijs, an adviser on investment in digital health. More data will not only identify those drugs that do not work. Digital health care will also give rise to new services that might involve taking no drugs at all.

Lunches eaten

Diabetes is an obvious problem for the pharma business in this regard, says Dan Mahony, a partner at Polar Capital, an investment firm. Since evidence shows that exercise gives diabetics better control of their disease (and helps most pre-diabetics not to get sick at all), there is an opening for new services. UnitedHealthcare, a big American insurer, for example, has a prevention programme that connects pre-diabetics with special coaches at gyms.

An app or a wearable device that persuades people to walk a certain distance every day would be far cheaper for insurers and governments to provide than years of visits to doctors, hospitals and drugs. Although Fitbits are frequently derided for ending up in the back of a drawer, people can be motivated to get off the sofa. Players of Pokémon Go have collectively walked nearly 9bn kilometres since the smartphone game was released last year.

That is the backdrop to a new firm called Onduo, a joint venture that Google’s health-care venture, Verily Life Sciences, and Sanofi, a French drug firm, set up last year. Onduo will start by developing ways to help diabetics make better decisions about their use of drugs and their lifestyle habits. Later on, Onduo wants to help those who are at risk of diabetes not to develop it. The startup is a good hedge for Sanofi, which faces a slowdown in sales of its blockbuster insulin medication, Lantus, which lost patent protection in 2015.

This kind of thinking does not come easily to drug firms. Switzerland’s Novartis is one of the few to have acknowledged that digital innovation will mean selling products based on patient outcomes. But if pharma firms do not design solutions that put the patient, rather than drug sales, at the centre of their strategy, they risk losing relevance, says Mr Sluijs.

Large hospitals, some of which count as both incumbents and traditional innovators, will also be affected. The rise of telemedicine, predictive analytics and earlier diagnoses of illnesses are expected to reduce admissions, particularly of the emergency kind that are most lucrative in commercial systems. The sickest patients can be targeted by specialist services, such as Evolution Health, a firm in Texas that cares for 2m of the most-ill patients across 15 states. It claims to be able to reduce the use of emergency rooms by a fifth, and inpatient stays in hospitals by two-fifths.

Rapid medical and diagnostic innovation will disrupt all businesses that rely heavily on physical facilities and staff. A mobile ultrasound scanner made by Philips, called Lumify, means that a far larger number of patients can be seen by their own doctors. As for data-based diagnostics, one potential example of its power to change business models is Guardant Health, a startup that is analysing large quantities of medical data in order to develop a way of diagnosing cancer from blood tests. If the firm can devise an early test for breast cancer, demand for mammograms and the machines that take them would fall, along with the need for expensive drugs and spells in hospital.

From ER to AI

There is also good news for hospitals, however. Increasingly, machine-learning programs are able to make diagnoses from scans and from test results. An intriguing recent project has been to stream and analyse live health data and deliver alerts on an app that is carried around by doctors and nurses at the Royal Free Hospital in London. The app, which is the work of DeepMind, a British artificial-intelligence (AI) research firm owned by Google, identifies the patients at greatest risk of a sudden and fatal loss of kidney function. The Royal Free says that the app is already saving nurses’ time.

Naturally enough, the health-care entrepreneurs have the boldest visions. The point of care will move rapidly into the home, they say. People will monitor their heart conditions, detect concussions, monitor the progress of diseases and check up on moles or ear infections using apps, mobile phones and sensors. Last year the FDA approved 36 connected health apps and devices. A new app, called Natural Cycles, was recently approved in Europe for use as a contraceptive. Its failure rate for typical use was equivalent to that of popular contraceptive pills. A smartphone may eventually be able to predict the onset of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or even the menopause (if the information is wanted).

In emerging economies, where regulations on health data are less onerous and where people often already expect to pay to see a doctor, there is faster growth and innovation. China, which is building 400 hospitals a year, saw its two largest VC investments in digital health care last year. One went into a Chinese medical-service app, Ping An Good Doctor, which raised $500m; a video-consultations app called Chunyu Yisheng raised $183m. India is another innovator. 

To take one example, LiveHealth, based in Pune, is an app that lets patients assemble all their health records in one place, see test results and communicate with doctors.

In the short term, the greatest disruption will come from a growing array of apps in many countries around the world that give consumers direct access to qualified GPS on their mobile phones. Overall, telemedicine is expected to grow rapidly. In America, GPs will conduct 5.4m video consultations a year by 2020, says IHS Markit, a research firm. Britain’s NHS is testing a medical AI from a London-based startup called Babylon which can field patients’ questions about their health. A paid service called Push Doctor offers an online appointment almost immediately for £20 ($24). The firm maximises the efficiency of its doctors by reducing the time they spend on administrative duties. They spend 93% of their time with patients compared with only 61% in Britain’s public sector. Babylon reckons that 85% of consultations do not need to be in person.

In the longer term, the biggest upheaval may come from the large technology firms. Amazon and Google are not the only giants to be stalking health care. Apple has expressed a strong interest in it, though it is taking time to decide exactly what it wants to do. For several years it has provided a way of bringing together health data on its iPhone, and tools for health researchers to build apps. As personal-health records accumulate on its platform, from sensors such as Fitbits to medical-grade devices, it will encourage more app development.

An app using data from an iPhone or another smartphone might be able to warn users that a sedentary lifestyle will exacerbate a heart condition or that, based on social-media patterns, they are at risk of depression, for example. Apple and other tech firms may also be able to help patients take greater control of their existing health records. For now medical records mostly remain under the guard of those who provided the care, but this is expected to change. If patients do gain proper access to their own data, Apple is in a particularly strong position. Its platform is locked and fairly secure, and the apps that run on it are all screened by the firm.

None of this will materialise quickly. Regulated health-care systems will take time to deal with concerns over accuracy, security and privacy. In Britain the Royal Free is already under scrutiny over how it shared its patients’ data. That suggests a broader worry: that technology companies are too cavalier with their users’ data. Such firms typically use long agreements on data rights that are hard for individuals to understand. The medical world places importance on informed consent, so a clash of cultures seems unavoidable.

Yet enormous change looks inevitable. Investors hope for billion-dollar health-tech “unicorns”. Payers eye equally sizeable savings. Amid such talk it is worth remembering that the biggest winners from digital health care will be the patients who receive better treatment, and those who avoid becoming patients at all.

The Economist- The wonder drug

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include Julian Gollop on Phoenix Point, the making of Typeshift & the SteamProphet contest.

Lots of interesting links this week - am particularly taken by the article on the tumultous community of Elite: Dangerous, which I thought was far less tumultuous than Star Citizen. (Well, it probably still is.) But it reminded me that when you make a game that's in a state of constant change, you'll get all kinds of views on its artistic direction - especially on the polarized Internet. Which can be tiring, and rough, but isn't a lot of the Internet? 'Til next time...

- Simon, curator.]

-------------------

Giant Sparrow creative director talks about the freaky beautiful haunting of Edith Finch (David Nieves / ComicsBeat) "What Remains of Edith Finch is developer Giant Sparrow’s (published by Annapurna Interactive) follow up to their critically acclaimed debut The Unfinished Swan. While the first game was a unique tale of an orphan boy who navigates a literal blank world by throwing paint everywhere. What Remains of Edith Finch is an eerie beautiful collection of stories about a  cursed family house in the Pacific Northwest."

The Occupation and the perils of politics in games (Chris Priestman / Eurogamer) "At 11.36am on March 22nd 2017, White Paper Games announced The Occupation with a trailer and a press release. Set in 1980s north-west England, it's a first-person narrative adventure that follows a journalist caught up in the aftermath of a terrorist attack that left 23 people dead."

Milwaukee's War on 'Pokémon GO' Could Change Tech Forever (Jordan Zakarin / Inverse) "Even now, almost a year later, Sheldon Wasserman sounds surprised when he describes what went down in Milwaukee’s Lake Park last summer. “People are beginning to run across the streets, parking is absolutely overloaded, the police are now ticketing, food trucks are showing up,” the Milwaukee County Supervisor remembers."

Picture in a Frame (Amr Al-Aaser / Medium) "I think a lot about how we frame things... It’s something that feels repeatedly relevant in games, a space where the practice of describing games as “x meets y” or “game x with twist y” is a common format for arriving at an explanation of a title."

Still Logged In: What AR and VR Can Learn from MMOs (Raph Koster / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 GDC session, MMO designer Raph Koster talks about the social and ethical implications of turning the real world into a virtual world, and how the lessons of massively multiplayer virtual worlds are more relevant than ever."

Meet the superfans still playing Populous: The Beginning (Oliver Milne / RockPaperShotgun) "So how come there’s still an active group of Populous players keeping the flame alive nearly twenty years later? I got in touch with some of the community’s longest-standing members to find out. [SIMON'S NOTE: this one's a bit old, but had no idea third parties got unofficial matchmaking running for the game.]"

RPG Codex Interview: Julian Gollop on Phoenix Point (Infinitron / RPG Codex) "Phoenix Point uses willpower as a key stat. A character's willpower rating determines initial and maximum will points for a battle. Will points are spent on most special actions and abilities. Will points can be lost through injury, morale effects (such as comrades dying or facing a horrifying monster) and special enemy attacks."

The future is in interactive storytelling (Noah Wardrip-Fruin & Michael Mateas / The Conversation) "Marvel’s new blockbuster, “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2,” carries audiences through a narrative carefully curated by the film’s creators. That’s also what Telltale’s Guardians-themed game did when it was released in April."

How Zach Gage fine-tuned the difficulty curve of TypeShift (Rollin Bishop / Gamasutra) "TypeShift, the latest game from acclaimed mobile developer Zach Gage, is part crossword, part anagram, and all puzzle. Rather than simply ask a player to solve a single jumbled word, or even several, TypeShift — which is available on iOS and Android — instead asks players to create any number of words out of several tiers of letters until they’ve used every single one."

How Final Fantasy 7 Revolutionized Videogame Marketing and Helped Sony Tackle Nintendo (David L Craddock / Paste) "In late July 1997, Sony Computer Entertainment America buzzed with excitement. SCEA was in possession of Final Fantasy 7’s gold master discs, media containing finalized code. Over the next few weeks, they would undergo mass production—pressed to millions of CD-ROMs, packaged inside jewel cases, and shipped to stores in time for the game’s summer launch across Europe and North America."

The state of Elite Dangerous (Wesley Yin-Poole / Eurogamer) "On 25th April 2017, Cambridge-based developer Frontier released patch notes for its two-and-a-half year-old space game Elite Dangerous. Buried within those patch notes, under the section "General Fixes & Tweaks", was a line that set the game's vociferous community alight: Farmed salt from the community for usage later."

Spaceplan - Based on a Misunderstanding Of Stephen Hawking (Scott Manley / YouTube) "It's a 'make numbers go up' game with a bit of a space theme and potatoes, lots of potatoes, solar masses of tubers."

Classic Game Postmortem: Seaman (Yoot Saito / GDC / YouTube) "In this GDC 2017 Classic Game Postmortem, Yutaka "Yoot" Saito speaks at length about his work creating 'Seaman', a game that left an indelible mark on the fabric of both the game industry and pop culture at large."

What I learned playing "SteamProphet" (Lars Doucet / Gamasutra) "At least 249 indie games have launched on Steam in the past 13 weeks not including VR or F2P games. That's more than 30 games every week, on average. In their first month... 75% made at least $0, 10% made at least $1K-9K, 7.5% made at least $10K-49K, 2% made at least $50K-99K, 5% made at least $100K-999K, Exactly one made > $1M."

Knack 2 is an atonement (Colin Campbell / Polygon) "Knack 2 director Mark Cerny is one of the most accomplished game developers of the last three decades, most especially in platform adventures featuring likable characters. From Marble Madness to Sonic the Hedgehog 2, from Crash Bandicoot to Ratchet & Clank, he's made his mark on a multitude of verdant, primary-hued worlds, where colorful critters boing and bounce."

Game Dev Insight: A Chat with BioWare Cinematics Lead Tal Peleg (Shinobi602 / Shinobi Speaks) "I’m super happy to be able to share a nice chat I had with Tal Peleg, a Cinematics Lead at BioWare. His previous animation work includes a bevy of notable titles such as Mass Effect: Andromeda, Uncharted 4, The Last of Us and Dead Space 2 among others. "

Why is motherhood so poorly portrayed in video games? (Kate Smith / The Guardian) "And games, you may be startled to discover, are not too great at portraying motherhood – though they seem to have fatherhood all figured out. Did you know that once you have a daughter you suddenly become aware that women are people, too? Who could have seen that coming?"

Ten Years Ago, Dead Or Alive Launched The Careers Of The Highest-Paid Women Pro Gamers (Maddy Myers / Kotaku Compete) "Vanessa Arteaga had been playing fighting games since she was a child, long before she became one of the highest-paid women in competitive gaming history—but her tens of thousands in winnings still pale in comparison to the millions that her male peers have made in competitive gaming in the years since."

'Civilization' Creator Sid Meier: "I Didn't Really Expect to be a Game Designer"(Chris Suellentrop / Glixel) "At GDC, Meier talked to Glixel for almost an hour with boyish enthusiasm about what makes Civilization work, why Firaxis turns to a new lead designer with almost every sequel, and that whole thing with having his name on the box."

Jeff Kaplan reveals the Overwatch Balance Triangle (Here's A Thing / Eurogamer / YouTube) "On this week's episode of Here's A Thing, Chris Bratt talks to Overwatch game director, Jeff Kaplan about the 'balance triangle' his team uses when thinking about hero design."

How Inside’s levels were designed (Alex Wiltshire / RockPaperShotgun) "Playdead don’t design games in the same way that other studios do. They’re the result of a process where nothing is written down. There’s no script and no design document. No member of the team owns any aspect of what they make and what will go into the final game. Everything is up for change."

Why This Very Queer Strategy Game Downplayed Its Queerness While Crowdfunding (Patrick Klepek / Waypoint) ""Essentially the game comes out to the player—if they notice, and not everybody does," said All Walls Must Fall programmer Isaac Ashdown, who lives in Berlin with his husband. "The fact is that the game isn't really 'about' being queer, but it's set in Berlin nightclubs, and those can be pretty queer spaces.""

These are the developers creating new games for old consoles (Andrew Webster / The Verge) "If you want to play Dustin Long’s most recent game, you’ll need a console that was first released more than 30 years ago. As a young musician in New York, Long found himself drawn to the chiptune scene, where artists craft sounds using classic gaming hardware."

Burn The Bikini Armour: Actionable Tips For Better Character Design (Victoria Smith / Play By Play) " By taking a look at the worst and best of costume design in games - as well as primary sources and the basics of visual design - you can elevate your character designs and create something truly unique. Nobody wants to appear on the Worst Dressed list, so why should your game characters be any different?"

I Paid Women To Play Overwatch With Me, And It Was Fantastic (Cecilia D'Anastasio / Kotaku) "Earlier this week, on Fiverr.com, I selected Biu’s “Basic” package which, in exchange for $5, granted me her company for five Overwatch games. In her profile’s image, a helicopter selfie, Biu is wearing a t-shirt with Zelda’s Link and sticking out her tongue."

Designer Interview: Crafting Flinthook's hookshot wasn't easy (Alex Wiltshire / Gamasutra) "There are many ways to express the concept of throwing out a line from a player character that attaches to a surface, something that’s familiar to many first- and third person 3D games, from Ocarina of Time to Spider-Man 2. But the hookshot is curiously underused in 2D platformers. Tribute Games’ new action platformer, Flinthook, might give some pointers as to why. Not because Flinthook isn’t good. Quite the opposite, in fact."

-------------------

[REMINDER: you can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekend at http://ift.tt/2dUXrva we crosspost to Gamasutra later on Sunday, but get it first via newsletter! Story tips and comments can be emailed to vgdeepcuts@simoncarless.com. MINI-DISCLOSURE: Simon is one of the organizers of GDC and Gamasutra, so you may sometimes see links from those entities in his picks. Or not!]

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include Julian Gollop on Phoenix Point, the making of Typeshift & the SteamProphet contest.

Lots of interesting links this week - am particularly taken by the article on the tumultous community of Elite: Dangerous, which I thought was far less tumultuous than Star Citizen. (Well, it probably still is.) But it reminded me that when you make a game that's in a state of constant change, you'll get all kinds of views on its artistic direction - especially on the polarized Internet. Which can be tiring, and rough, but isn't a lot of the Internet? 'Til next time...

- Simon, curator.]

-------------------

Giant Sparrow creative director talks about the freaky beautiful haunting of Edith Finch (David Nieves / ComicsBeat) "What Remains of Edith Finch is developer Giant Sparrow’s (published by Annapurna Interactive) follow up to their critically acclaimed debut The Unfinished Swan. While the first game was a unique tale of an orphan boy who navigates a literal blank world by throwing paint everywhere. What Remains of Edith Finch is an eerie beautiful collection of stories about a  cursed family house in the Pacific Northwest."

The Occupation and the perils of politics in games (Chris Priestman / Eurogamer) "At 11.36am on March 22nd 2017, White Paper Games announced The Occupation with a trailer and a press release. Set in 1980s north-west England, it's a first-person narrative adventure that follows a journalist caught up in the aftermath of a terrorist attack that left 23 people dead."

Milwaukee's War on 'Pokémon GO' Could Change Tech Forever (Jordan Zakarin / Inverse) "Even now, almost a year later, Sheldon Wasserman sounds surprised when he describes what went down in Milwaukee’s Lake Park last summer. “People are beginning to run across the streets, parking is absolutely overloaded, the police are now ticketing, food trucks are showing up,” the Milwaukee County Supervisor remembers."

Picture in a Frame (Amr Al-Aaser / Medium) "I think a lot about how we frame things... It’s something that feels repeatedly relevant in games, a space where the practice of describing games as “x meets y” or “game x with twist y” is a common format for arriving at an explanation of a title."

Still Logged In: What AR and VR Can Learn from MMOs (Raph Koster / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 GDC session, MMO designer Raph Koster talks about the social and ethical implications of turning the real world into a virtual world, and how the lessons of massively multiplayer virtual worlds are more relevant than ever."

Meet the superfans still playing Populous: The Beginning (Oliver Milne / RockPaperShotgun) "So how come there’s still an active group of Populous players keeping the flame alive nearly twenty years later? I got in touch with some of the community’s longest-standing members to find out. [SIMON'S NOTE: this one's a bit old, but had no idea third parties got unofficial matchmaking running for the game.]"

RPG Codex Interview: Julian Gollop on Phoenix Point (Infinitron / RPG Codex) "Phoenix Point uses willpower as a key stat. A character's willpower rating determines initial and maximum will points for a battle. Will points are spent on most special actions and abilities. Will points can be lost through injury, morale effects (such as comrades dying or facing a horrifying monster) and special enemy attacks."

The future is in interactive storytelling (Noah Wardrip-Fruin & Michael Mateas / The Conversation) "Marvel’s new blockbuster, “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2,” carries audiences through a narrative carefully curated by the film’s creators. That’s also what Telltale’s Guardians-themed game did when it was released in April."

How Zach Gage fine-tuned the difficulty curve of TypeShift (Rollin Bishop / Gamasutra) "TypeShift, the latest game from acclaimed mobile developer Zach Gage, is part crossword, part anagram, and all puzzle. Rather than simply ask a player to solve a single jumbled word, or even several, TypeShift — which is available on iOS and Android — instead asks players to create any number of words out of several tiers of letters until they’ve used every single one."

How Final Fantasy 7 Revolutionized Videogame Marketing and Helped Sony Tackle Nintendo (David L Craddock / Paste) "In late July 1997, Sony Computer Entertainment America buzzed with excitement. SCEA was in possession of Final Fantasy 7’s gold master discs, media containing finalized code. Over the next few weeks, they would undergo mass production—pressed to millions of CD-ROMs, packaged inside jewel cases, and shipped to stores in time for the game’s summer launch across Europe and North America."

The state of Elite Dangerous (Wesley Yin-Poole / Eurogamer) "On 25th April 2017, Cambridge-based developer Frontier released patch notes for its two-and-a-half year-old space game Elite Dangerous. Buried within those patch notes, under the section "General Fixes & Tweaks", was a line that set the game's vociferous community alight: Farmed salt from the community for usage later."

Spaceplan - Based on a Misunderstanding Of Stephen Hawking (Scott Manley / YouTube) "It's a 'make numbers go up' game with a bit of a space theme and potatoes, lots of potatoes, solar masses of tubers."

Classic Game Postmortem: Seaman (Yoot Saito / GDC / YouTube) "In this GDC 2017 Classic Game Postmortem, Yutaka "Yoot" Saito speaks at length about his work creating 'Seaman', a game that left an indelible mark on the fabric of both the game industry and pop culture at large."

What I learned playing "SteamProphet" (Lars Doucet / Gamasutra) "At least 249 indie games have launched on Steam in the past 13 weeks not including VR or F2P games. That's more than 30 games every week, on average. In their first month... 75% made at least $0, 10% made at least $1K-9K, 7.5% made at least $10K-49K, 2% made at least $50K-99K, 5% made at least $100K-999K, Exactly one made > $1M."

Knack 2 is an atonement (Colin Campbell / Polygon) "Knack 2 director Mark Cerny is one of the most accomplished game developers of the last three decades, most especially in platform adventures featuring likable characters. From Marble Madness to Sonic the Hedgehog 2, from Crash Bandicoot to Ratchet & Clank, he's made his mark on a multitude of verdant, primary-hued worlds, where colorful critters boing and bounce."

Game Dev Insight: A Chat with BioWare Cinematics Lead Tal Peleg (Shinobi602 / Shinobi Speaks) "I’m super happy to be able to share a nice chat I had with Tal Peleg, a Cinematics Lead at BioWare. His previous animation work includes a bevy of notable titles such as Mass Effect: Andromeda, Uncharted 4, The Last of Us and Dead Space 2 among others. "

Why is motherhood so poorly portrayed in video games? (Kate Smith / The Guardian) "And games, you may be startled to discover, are not too great at portraying motherhood – though they seem to have fatherhood all figured out. Did you know that once you have a daughter you suddenly become aware that women are people, too? Who could have seen that coming?"

Ten Years Ago, Dead Or Alive Launched The Careers Of The Highest-Paid Women Pro Gamers (Maddy Myers / Kotaku Compete) "Vanessa Arteaga had been playing fighting games since she was a child, long before she became one of the highest-paid women in competitive gaming history—but her tens of thousands in winnings still pale in comparison to the millions that her male peers have made in competitive gaming in the years since."

'Civilization' Creator Sid Meier: "I Didn't Really Expect to be a Game Designer"(Chris Suellentrop / Glixel) "At GDC, Meier talked to Glixel for almost an hour with boyish enthusiasm about what makes Civilization work, why Firaxis turns to a new lead designer with almost every sequel, and that whole thing with having his name on the box."

Jeff Kaplan reveals the Overwatch Balance Triangle (Here's A Thing / Eurogamer / YouTube) "On this week's episode of Here's A Thing, Chris Bratt talks to Overwatch game director, Jeff Kaplan about the 'balance triangle' his team uses when thinking about hero design."

How Inside’s levels were designed (Alex Wiltshire / RockPaperShotgun) "Playdead don’t design games in the same way that other studios do. They’re the result of a process where nothing is written down. There’s no script and no design document. No member of the team owns any aspect of what they make and what will go into the final game. Everything is up for change."

Why This Very Queer Strategy Game Downplayed Its Queerness While Crowdfunding (Patrick Klepek / Waypoint) ""Essentially the game comes out to the player—if they notice, and not everybody does," said All Walls Must Fall programmer Isaac Ashdown, who lives in Berlin with his husband. "The fact is that the game isn't really 'about' being queer, but it's set in Berlin nightclubs, and those can be pretty queer spaces.""

These are the developers creating new games for old consoles (Andrew Webster / The Verge) "If you want to play Dustin Long’s most recent game, you’ll need a console that was first released more than 30 years ago. As a young musician in New York, Long found himself drawn to the chiptune scene, where artists craft sounds using classic gaming hardware."

Burn The Bikini Armour: Actionable Tips For Better Character Design (Victoria Smith / Play By Play) " By taking a look at the worst and best of costume design in games - as well as primary sources and the basics of visual design - you can elevate your character designs and create something truly unique. Nobody wants to appear on the Worst Dressed list, so why should your game characters be any different?"

I Paid Women To Play Overwatch With Me, And It Was Fantastic (Cecilia D'Anastasio / Kotaku) "Earlier this week, on Fiverr.com, I selected Biu’s “Basic” package which, in exchange for $5, granted me her company for five Overwatch games. In her profile’s image, a helicopter selfie, Biu is wearing a t-shirt with Zelda’s Link and sticking out her tongue."

Designer Interview: Crafting Flinthook's hookshot wasn't easy (Alex Wiltshire / Gamasutra) "There are many ways to express the concept of throwing out a line from a player character that attaches to a surface, something that’s familiar to many first- and third person 3D games, from Ocarina of Time to Spider-Man 2. But the hookshot is curiously underused in 2D platformers. Tribute Games’ new action platformer, Flinthook, might give some pointers as to why. Not because Flinthook isn’t good. Quite the opposite, in fact."

-------------------

[REMINDER: you can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekend at http://ift.tt/2dUXrva we crosspost to Gamasutra later on Sunday, but get it first via newsletter! Story tips and comments can be emailed to vgdeepcuts@simoncarless.com. MINI-DISCLOSURE: Simon is one of the organizers of GDC and Gamasutra, so you may sometimes see links from those entities in his picks. Or not!]

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include Julian Gollop on Phoenix Point, the making of Typeshift & the SteamProphet contest.

Lots of interesting links this week - am particularly taken by the article on the tumultous community of Elite: Dangerous, which I thought was far less tumultuous than Star Citizen. (Well, it probably still is.) But it reminded me that when you make a game that's in a state of constant change, you'll get all kinds of views on its artistic direction - especially on the polarized Internet. Which can be tiring, and rough, but isn't a lot of the Internet? 'Til next time...

- Simon, curator.]

-------------------

Giant Sparrow creative director talks about the freaky beautiful haunting of Edith Finch (David Nieves / ComicsBeat) "What Remains of Edith Finch is developer Giant Sparrow’s (published by Annapurna Interactive) follow up to their critically acclaimed debut The Unfinished Swan. While the first game was a unique tale of an orphan boy who navigates a literal blank world by throwing paint everywhere. What Remains of Edith Finch is an eerie beautiful collection of stories about a  cursed family house in the Pacific Northwest."

The Occupation and the perils of politics in games (Chris Priestman / Eurogamer) "At 11.36am on March 22nd 2017, White Paper Games announced The Occupation with a trailer and a press release. Set in 1980s north-west England, it's a first-person narrative adventure that follows a journalist caught up in the aftermath of a terrorist attack that left 23 people dead."

Milwaukee's War on 'Pokémon GO' Could Change Tech Forever (Jordan Zakarin / Inverse) "Even now, almost a year later, Sheldon Wasserman sounds surprised when he describes what went down in Milwaukee’s Lake Park last summer. “People are beginning to run across the streets, parking is absolutely overloaded, the police are now ticketing, food trucks are showing up,” the Milwaukee County Supervisor remembers."

Picture in a Frame (Amr Al-Aaser / Medium) "I think a lot about how we frame things... It’s something that feels repeatedly relevant in games, a space where the practice of describing games as “x meets y” or “game x with twist y” is a common format for arriving at an explanation of a title."

Still Logged In: What AR and VR Can Learn from MMOs (Raph Koster / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 GDC session, MMO designer Raph Koster talks about the social and ethical implications of turning the real world into a virtual world, and how the lessons of massively multiplayer virtual worlds are more relevant than ever."

Meet the superfans still playing Populous: The Beginning (Oliver Milne / RockPaperShotgun) "So how come there’s still an active group of Populous players keeping the flame alive nearly twenty years later? I got in touch with some of the community’s longest-standing members to find out. [SIMON'S NOTE: this one's a bit old, but had no idea third parties got unofficial matchmaking running for the game.]"

RPG Codex Interview: Julian Gollop on Phoenix Point (Infinitron / RPG Codex) "Phoenix Point uses willpower as a key stat. A character's willpower rating determines initial and maximum will points for a battle. Will points are spent on most special actions and abilities. Will points can be lost through injury, morale effects (such as comrades dying or facing a horrifying monster) and special enemy attacks."

The future is in interactive storytelling (Noah Wardrip-Fruin & Michael Mateas / The Conversation) "Marvel’s new blockbuster, “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2,” carries audiences through a narrative carefully curated by the film’s creators. That’s also what Telltale’s Guardians-themed game did when it was released in April."

How Zach Gage fine-tuned the difficulty curve of TypeShift (Rollin Bishop / Gamasutra) "TypeShift, the latest game from acclaimed mobile developer Zach Gage, is part crossword, part anagram, and all puzzle. Rather than simply ask a player to solve a single jumbled word, or even several, TypeShift — which is available on iOS and Android — instead asks players to create any number of words out of several tiers of letters until they’ve used every single one."

How Final Fantasy 7 Revolutionized Videogame Marketing and Helped Sony Tackle Nintendo (David L Craddock / Paste) "In late July 1997, Sony Computer Entertainment America buzzed with excitement. SCEA was in possession of Final Fantasy 7’s gold master discs, media containing finalized code. Over the next few weeks, they would undergo mass production—pressed to millions of CD-ROMs, packaged inside jewel cases, and shipped to stores in time for the game’s summer launch across Europe and North America."

The state of Elite Dangerous (Wesley Yin-Poole / Eurogamer) "On 25th April 2017, Cambridge-based developer Frontier released patch notes for its two-and-a-half year-old space game Elite Dangerous. Buried within those patch notes, under the section "General Fixes & Tweaks", was a line that set the game's vociferous community alight: Farmed salt from the community for usage later."

Spaceplan - Based on a Misunderstanding Of Stephen Hawking (Scott Manley / YouTube) "It's a 'make numbers go up' game with a bit of a space theme and potatoes, lots of potatoes, solar masses of tubers."

Classic Game Postmortem: Seaman (Yoot Saito / GDC / YouTube) "In this GDC 2017 Classic Game Postmortem, Yutaka "Yoot" Saito speaks at length about his work creating 'Seaman', a game that left an indelible mark on the fabric of both the game industry and pop culture at large."

What I learned playing "SteamProphet" (Lars Doucet / Gamasutra) "At least 249 indie games have launched on Steam in the past 13 weeks not including VR or F2P games. That's more than 30 games every week, on average. In their first month... 75% made at least $0, 10% made at least $1K-9K, 7.5% made at least $10K-49K, 2% made at least $50K-99K, 5% made at least $100K-999K, Exactly one made > $1M."

Knack 2 is an atonement (Colin Campbell / Polygon) "Knack 2 director Mark Cerny is one of the most accomplished game developers of the last three decades, most especially in platform adventures featuring likable characters. From Marble Madness to Sonic the Hedgehog 2, from Crash Bandicoot to Ratchet & Clank, he's made his mark on a multitude of verdant, primary-hued worlds, where colorful critters boing and bounce."

Game Dev Insight: A Chat with BioWare Cinematics Lead Tal Peleg (Shinobi602 / Shinobi Speaks) "I’m super happy to be able to share a nice chat I had with Tal Peleg, a Cinematics Lead at BioWare. His previous animation work includes a bevy of notable titles such as Mass Effect: Andromeda, Uncharted 4, The Last of Us and Dead Space 2 among others. "

Why is motherhood so poorly portrayed in video games? (Kate Smith / The Guardian) "And games, you may be startled to discover, are not too great at portraying motherhood – though they seem to have fatherhood all figured out. Did you know that once you have a daughter you suddenly become aware that women are people, too? Who could have seen that coming?"

Ten Years Ago, Dead Or Alive Launched The Careers Of The Highest-Paid Women Pro Gamers (Maddy Myers / Kotaku Compete) "Vanessa Arteaga had been playing fighting games since she was a child, long before she became one of the highest-paid women in competitive gaming history—but her tens of thousands in winnings still pale in comparison to the millions that her male peers have made in competitive gaming in the years since."

'Civilization' Creator Sid Meier: "I Didn't Really Expect to be a Game Designer"(Chris Suellentrop / Glixel) "At GDC, Meier talked to Glixel for almost an hour with boyish enthusiasm about what makes Civilization work, why Firaxis turns to a new lead designer with almost every sequel, and that whole thing with having his name on the box."

Jeff Kaplan reveals the Overwatch Balance Triangle (Here's A Thing / Eurogamer / YouTube) "On this week's episode of Here's A Thing, Chris Bratt talks to Overwatch game director, Jeff Kaplan about the 'balance triangle' his team uses when thinking about hero design."

How Inside’s levels were designed (Alex Wiltshire / RockPaperShotgun) "Playdead don’t design games in the same way that other studios do. They’re the result of a process where nothing is written down. There’s no script and no design document. No member of the team owns any aspect of what they make and what will go into the final game. Everything is up for change."

Why This Very Queer Strategy Game Downplayed Its Queerness While Crowdfunding (Patrick Klepek / Waypoint) ""Essentially the game comes out to the player—if they notice, and not everybody does," said All Walls Must Fall programmer Isaac Ashdown, who lives in Berlin with his husband. "The fact is that the game isn't really 'about' being queer, but it's set in Berlin nightclubs, and those can be pretty queer spaces.""

These are the developers creating new games for old consoles (Andrew Webster / The Verge) "If you want to play Dustin Long’s most recent game, you’ll need a console that was first released more than 30 years ago. As a young musician in New York, Long found himself drawn to the chiptune scene, where artists craft sounds using classic gaming hardware."

Burn The Bikini Armour: Actionable Tips For Better Character Design (Victoria Smith / Play By Play) " By taking a look at the worst and best of costume design in games - as well as primary sources and the basics of visual design - you can elevate your character designs and create something truly unique. Nobody wants to appear on the Worst Dressed list, so why should your game characters be any different?"

I Paid Women To Play Overwatch With Me, And It Was Fantastic (Cecilia D'Anastasio / Kotaku) "Earlier this week, on Fiverr.com, I selected Biu’s “Basic” package which, in exchange for $5, granted me her company for five Overwatch games. In her profile’s image, a helicopter selfie, Biu is wearing a t-shirt with Zelda’s Link and sticking out her tongue."

Designer Interview: Crafting Flinthook's hookshot wasn't easy (Alex Wiltshire / Gamasutra) "There are many ways to express the concept of throwing out a line from a player character that attaches to a surface, something that’s familiar to many first- and third person 3D games, from Ocarina of Time to Spider-Man 2. But the hookshot is curiously underused in 2D platformers. Tribute Games’ new action platformer, Flinthook, might give some pointers as to why. Not because Flinthook isn’t good. Quite the opposite, in fact."

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