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ubtendo · 2 months ago

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Top 10 childhood videogames?

Wait, that's such a fun question, but I'm blanking on games I played in my childhood because I played so many😭

This list could have been a lot more obscure, but I tried to keep it more basic

Uhh and if anyone wants the reasoning for any game, I'm talking a bit about them under the cut

1. Tomodachi Life

One of my first actual games that I got to choose for my self and I still love it to this day. I mean if you haven't been struggling with the question "who in this ship could be a woman" because you made your favourite ship into miis with the plan on them marrying , but they are both guys and there is no option for a gay relationship, than have you even lived. I remember I got this game on my 10th birthday and I keept running back inside our house to charge my nintendo because I wouldn't stop playing for one second. Even now I still boot it up on my birthday first thing in the morning to see the mii version of my friends, family and favourite characters sing happy birthday to me.

2. Dragon Quest Monsters Joker

Hands down, if tomodachi life didn't exist, then this would have been my all time favourite game. I'm so surprised that I never see people talk about this game. If you like pokemon, then you will also like this. I watched my mom play it when I was really little, then we lost the game and my brother re-bought it a few years back, but decided he doesn't want to play it anymore pretty early on, so he gave the game to me. I only beat the final boss this year and my main complaint about this game is that lvl. grinding is PAINFULLY SLOW but I'm nothing if not patient so I got through the fight eventually.

3. Pokemon Alpha Sapphire

My first pokemon game and the one I replayed the most. If they never made a new pokemon game you would still find me playing this. I made so many memories in this game, I can't even begin to tell you any because I wouldn't stop. This holds a very special place in my heart.

4. Miitopia

Well when I first heard that there was a sort of successor / spin of of tomodachi life, I was set. I got it as soon as our store had it, and after losing all my games (story for an other day, sort of embarrassing, don't ask) I bought it again and I got my friends to play it as well and I was so happy. I remember that I was sitting in our garden and fighting the final boss only fo find out that that wasn't the final boss, I was so devastated but also so happy that the game wasn't over yet. What can I say, I'm just a simple RPG lover.

5. Animal Crossing New Leaf

In my opinion, a way better game than new horizon. I mean yeah, horizon got a lot of great features but it doesn't hold the candle to new leaf. This game just has such a sommer night vibe to me, but that might be because I keep staying up late to catch beatles all night on the island. Also THE MUSIC DON'T EVEN LET ME GET STARTED

6. New Style Boutique

I'm pretty sure I didn't buy this game myself, and it would feel weird for my parents to have bought it for me because I was a sort of tomboy-ish girl back then, but I played this game so much, and honestly I sometimes so today as well. Ok, maybe I only ever wore the bunny handbag and got the space buns hairstyle but I lived for that. I have the other 2 3ds games and the original ds game as well, but I haven't played much of them.

7. Go Vacation

Ok now we get a bit more obscure. Specially the wii version. I mentioned this before, but I loved the diving minigame and I spent hours underwater just doing that. Mainly I just loved running around the resorts and doing whatever. Me and my brother also sometimes raced down from the peak of the mountain in the snow resort and we placed bets on who would win. Fun game even tho I don't remember any other minigame except diving.

8. Cooking Academy

So my mom gave me her old laptop when I was idk seven? And she still had this game so she gave that to me as well. And I might or might have not burnt every dish that went into the oven. Honestly my cooking skills haven't improved since then, so I guess I'm just very consistent.

9. GTA 2

Ok so I actually never really played that game myself and I only watched my brother play on our uncle's old windows 98 PC. The funny thing is tho is, we were really young, like REALLY YOUNG. I'm pretty sure we never played the story and we just drove with the cars and tried to steal the police cars everytime and hunt down the hot dog car. Real nostalgic to me even tho I wouldn't play it myself even nowadays.

10. Sims 2

Again, my mom gave it to me with her PC. Sims 3 was already long out and I played that as well, but I remember this one much more. Maybe because my version had some weird graphic glitches where all the walls and the whole overworld looked like a red and black checkers board that would make your eyes bleed. Sims in general I remember very fondly because of my mama

#phew very long post #hi to everyone who read through that #should I tag each game?#tomodachi life #dragon quest monsters joker #pokemon alpha sapphire #animal crossing new leaf #miitopia #new style boutique #go vacation #cooking academy #gta 2 #sims 2 #video games #not art #ask answered

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tippenfunkaport · 2 years ago

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Inspired by a recent poll, could you tell us a bit more about the software you use for writing and the advantages with it?

Thanks so much!

Can I keep this short is the question...

So, for anyone who didn’t see the post this is referring to, I mentioned on another post that the writing software I use is...

4TheWords for drafting (brainstorming, first draft, etc)

Scrivener for all subsequent stages (editing, formatting, etc)

ProWritingAid for a final look before I submit / post

Longer version (and, like, I could talk about this all day so feel free to ask follow ups but I will try to contain myself)

4TheWords is a fantasy RPG-ish writing game where the words you write defeat monsters, earn loot, complete quests, etc. I have been playing it for five years ish and the game-ification just works really well for my brain. Earning silly little prizes and moving the game plot along keeps me motivated to keep writing when otherwise I would be a useless slug so I do most of my early stage writing on there like drafting, brainstorming, journaling, etc. It is silly but I love it and it basically saved my writing life when I was in a huge slump so they have my undying devotion. The company is also the kind you feel very good about supporting and they are HUGELY queer friendly with a big yearly Pride event with many of the main in-game characters being queer and/or trans. (The closest the game has to main characters are a lesbian couple that just got married as part of the Valentine's Day event last month!)

It costs money but a) there is a 30 day free trial of you want to check it out and b) there is a community pool if you cannot afford the fee as well as frequent sales/deals. (If anyone wants to try it out, feel free to use my referral code when you sign up because then you’ll get some extra crystals and I can send you a welcome present of some loot! If the image link above is annoying, dm me and I will give you it via text for copy and paste.)

Scrivener is very robust writing software that I use for fiction, non-fiction and scriptwriting. I only rarely use it for first drafts (bc I use 4TW for that) but I do almost all my editing / rewriting / formatting / publishing in it. I have been using it for probably about a decade and am still finding new tools and features I didn’t realize it had. I absolutely swear by it. The learning curve can be steep but luckily it’s one of the most popular writing programs in the world so there are a TON of great tutorials out there. (My advice? Just watch a video of something like the top 5-10 features and then play around and look up stuff as you have questions instead of trying to do the whole long tutorial it comes with.)

Disclaimer that I only own the desktop version. There are mobile versions that are a separate purchase from the desktop version but I don't use them.

Biggest selling points of Scrivener to me are:

while many writing services have a monthly fee, Scrivener is purchased exactly once and you can use it for life on your laptop and desktop AND you can get 50% off that one time price with a NaNoWriMo winner code (this alone is enough to buy my loyalty for life)

it’s incredibly versatile for both plotting and publishing and works really for my writing process (which is, admittedly, chaotic and weird) and has near infinite customization. It's esp great for making story bibles, organizing research, and plotting out larger works with lots of cross references and chapters you need to rearrange

as a script writer, Scrivener only cost me a one time fee of $35 and includes all updates and bug fixes until the next major version (which happens like once a decade). FinalDraft is $250 and that only includes the current version (which changes about once a year) to do the same thing. That’s a no brainer to me.

ProWritingAid is editing software. Like Grammarly but MUCH more robust with a lot more reports you can run. It’s not replacement for a human editor (AI editing can only do so much) but I like it as a second pair of eyes before I post or submit something because it does catch a lot of the basics and makes me feel a little better about sending something out. There is a limited free version and the full version can be pricey if you pay the monthly fee but I bided my time until the lifetime subscription went on sale for 50% off and paid once and now I have it to use for life.

There. That was almost short, right?

#writing #writer #scrivener #4thewords #prowritingaid #writerscommunity #writblr #writbr #writers on tumblr #nanowrimo #asks #writing software

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callmearcturus · 7 months ago

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Arc Plays Games: Nayuta no Kiseki

listen i just really like fan translated games, okay

so I've been playing what i think is a side-game to the Trails In the Sky sprawling megaseries of games, Nayuta no Kiseki. It's a PSP game that was translated by fans before an official translation came to the Switch. PSP/PS Vita and DS/3DS are my favorite game libraries right now by a whole lot.

And man I really liked this game.

It's an action RPG from the era before spectacle action became de riguer. It looks really lovely and painterly at 5x resolution on my Odin.

Basic pitch is this kid, Nayuta, is coming home for summer vacation from his time studying in university. He lives in a world that seems to be an actual Flat Earth and beyond the known boundaries is the literal End of the World, and it's vaguely common knowledge that the End is closer than its not, and a major apocalypse may happen.

The game establishes all that, then is like "here is your hometown on Remnant Island! gosh its so pretty and sunny!"

In the first hour of the game, Nayuta and his buddy Cygna stumble into another world that the locals call Terra but mythologically seems to be Lost Heaven to Nayuta's people. He misplaces his best friend Cygna but gains the fairy Noi, and Nayuta and Noi have to work together to save Terra and find Cygna.

The thing I enjoyed about the game was the gameplay loop, which is immaculately tuned. This is, to me, a Cozy Game, but I say that with the caveat that I'm allergic to what most ppl call Cozy Games these days.

The loop goes like this.

The areas of Terra are separated into medium-sized levels that take about 5 to 10 minutes to complete, tops. Each level, you run around swinging your sword, solving v basic puzzles, and using magic with Noi.

The tastiest part is that each level has a little objective for you to do to get star points that can be used back on Remnant Island. There's also money and museum items to locate.

When you collect a bunch of stuff, you go back to Remnant Island. You trade in your star points to the local swordmaster to unlock new abilities. You drop off your stuff at the local museum to get more money. And you spend money on new equipment.

You can also stop by your house to pick up lunchboxes from your older sister, and every meal is different and has special bonuses and buffs.

While at the Island, Nayuta has this job as a Handyman, so everyone on the island leaves request letters in his mailbox for him to do menial quests for them. Often, you have to help people around the island, but sometimes you need to use the other world to solve problems.

Example: the attendant at the blacksmithy wanted new fruit to make into alcohol, so she gave Nayuta a seed for a peach tree. Back in Terra, Nayuta can plant the seed then use plot magic to change the seasons and get the fully grown peach.

The game just feeds into itself really well. You get quests that lead you back to the battle stages that lead you to collect stuff that leads you back to the questgiver and helps you gear up better over time.

I've put about 17 hours in, I think? And at this point I'm happy setting it aside as not completed but done. I'm close to the ending of the game, but the plot is focusing more and more on characters that had not grabbed me in any way, so I'm having trouble staying invested in the story.

(This is another fairy creature, I love his design)

But if the game was just the main loop of island quests to battle arenas and back, I'd play it for another ten hours. It's good! Solidly 6 or 7 out of 10.

Now I want, like, the same game but better writing.

#arc plays games #anyway this game is very very easy to find if you know the site to look at #which i do so hmu

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yungvenuz · 11 months ago

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Game of the Year List 2023

Honorable Mentions: Touhou: Artificial Dream in Arcadia: I love the oddball mashup of shmup and dungeon crawler mechanics, but I ended up losing interest before the end of the game. In Stars and Time: Still playing this game. I like it so far, but I didn't want to rush it through to get it on this list. It'll go on next year's list if I like it enough. Stuffo the Puzzle Bot: Really great soundtrack. Still on regular rotation.

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10. Super Snail (IOS and Android)

This is a difficult inclusion. Super Snail is an Evil game. It's the most monetized game I've ever played. Every screen you can visit can trigger a special offer for a pile of goodies you don't need that you can buy with real money. It's a mobile gacha game, through and through, designed to eat up time and attention and offer back a distant illusion of progress that you could surely expedite, if you were just willing to kick in ten bucks for one of its dozens of customized season passes…. So, why is this game on this list?

Developer QCPlay was already on my radar from previous release Gumball and Dungeons, a similarly high effort mobile game (amusingly originally intended as a Dragon Quest game, until they failed to secure the license and were forced to sand all the iconic teardrops off their slimes and call them gumballs instead). Despite their willingness to indulge in all the awful trends of mobile game markets, these are real, proper game designers, who have buried a real, actual game under all of Super Snail's idle timers and base management bullshit.

Super Snail is constantly shifting, adding new layers of complexity and shaking up existing mechanics. It's the only gacha game I'm aware of in which your gacha machine can be stolen from you temporarily if you use it too much, forcing you to wait on spending tickets until the thief decides its rates are too shit to bother with and returns it to you. There's a dating sim mechanic in which various characters met in your travels (male, female, or both) will find out about your secret base and decide to mooch off you, which is some of the funniest writing in the game.

On that note, the writing is weirdly good for a game that's approximately 80% random pop culture references. The eight demon lords you've been tasked with defeating by the mysterious god "Earth's Will" all have detailed and consistent backstories. There are a few honest-to-god effective twists in the plot, and a lingering question about how shady the god you've signed your life to actually is.

A predatory mobile game shouldn't deserve one minute of my attention, let alone one of the coveted slots on my illustrious top ten list, but Super Snail spits in the face of all that, and god. I can't stop thinking about it, about how many interesting game design lessons are nestled within its strange and evil exterior. So, by compromise, it's grudgingly earned my #10. Just, for god's sake, if any of this backhanded review piques your interest, set a budget for yourself and don't exceed it for any reason.

9. BOSSGAME: The Final Boss is Your Heart (Steam)

BOSSGAME is an action rpg about two dirtbag lesbians, Sophie and Anna, trying to earn rent money by taking random mercenary work in the big city. The story is low pressure fun, with a little melodrama mixed in to spice things up. The plot is needs-suiting, even maybe good, but the reason this game is on the list is the gameplay.

BOSSGAME is really, really fun to play. It uses a combat system reminiscent of the Mario and Luigi rpgs in which both party members are controlled simultaneously. Enemies telegraph attacks that need to be blocked using the left or right side of the gamepad based on character, draining stamina. Attacking also drains stamina, so a careful balance of offense and defense needs to be maintained to survive. Most interestingly, there's no turns: enemies repeat attack patterns usually without waiting for a counterattack, so combat becomes a brain-bending routine of multitasking, with one character needing to block attacks while the other sneaks in some damage. A combo system encourages keeping up constant pressure, with the reward being increased progress toward a super attack that can briefly stun bosses and allow some easy hits before returning to defensive play. The end result is fast paced, engaging, and totally unique combat that was fun to learn for each of the dozens of boss fights in the game.

I'm glad this game ended up being good enough to recommend here, not just because I, too, am lesbian, but because I love designers that are willing to take a chance on unique control schemes. Part of the fun of playing BOSSGAME was getting to learn how to play without being able to rely on any of the muscle memory I've accrued over years of playing other action games. I only wish it weren't so short. Of all the games on this list, this is the one I would most want to see expanded into a full 40-60 hour RPG epic.

8. Slay the Princess (Steam)

A Myers-Briggs test for fetishes. Keep that in mind whenever anybody who tries to talk to you about their favorite "route". Great writing though

7. EDF 5 (Steam)

My official Multiplayer Game Experience of the Year. The EDF (EDF! EDF! EDF!) series is an alien invasion resistance simulator that exists somewhere between Dynasty Warriors and Monster Hunter in gameplay. I've known about the series for a long time, and I had assumed it was the kind of loud dumb fun that makes for punchy clips but wears out its welcome quickly. To be clear, it definitely is loud, and dumb, and fun, but it also has significantly more mechanical depth and complexity than I expected, which kept it fresh and engaging for as long as I played it.

Mechanics like building destruction and corpse hitboxes looks like they're just they're there for spectacle at first, but as levels progress and more and more aggressive enemy types are introduced, these seemingly incidental details take on more and more importance as you need to manage cover and enemy sight lines more effectively. This is the game's most potent tool, I think: everything that makes it great as a ridiculous carnage sandbox has been meticulously designed to also work in the higher difficulty levels to deliver a genuinely tense and highly mobile shooter.

6. Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengeance of the Slayers (Steam)

A boomer shooter in the same canon as Hypnospace Outlaw, partially developed by troubled teen ZANE_ROCKS_14 and polished up for release 22 years later. For an elaborate shitpost, it's very well made, but what most interests me about it is its contradictory nature. Outwardly, it's completely juvenile and silly about everything it does, filled with poop jokes and mouthy rats and evil stepdads. Underneath that, there's the deep melancholy of a 36 year old desperately trying to relive the last time in his life that he felt cool.

all the levels in the game faithfully recreate scenes of Zane's Idaho childhood, from ritzy suburban neighborhoods to car parks to the local fair, but they're all just a little bit too eerily empty for the settings they're trying to evoke. The protagonist's sincere love for his mother completely clashes with the badass attitude he brings to every other scene. Zane put his all into voice acting the protagonist's lines, while every other character sounds like they're reciting lines into their phone in a bathroom. The end result is a masterpiece in immersive game design, meticulously arranged to feel like it came from a very specific time and place in a fictional alternate universe. It's so effective that even the parts that don't work can be argued as a deliberate part of the overall period piece, like the confusingly short penultimate level or unnecessarily annoying final boss.

5. Cobalt Core (Steam)

A card battler built around spaceship combat. It should be immediately apparent to anybody who's played a lot of Slay-The-Spire-likes that Cobalt Core is on the easier side, but that's a deliberate choice here, in an effort to create an engaging narrative experience rather than a perfectly tuned progression treadmill. While Inscryption (another narrative card battler) managed its story by bringing the player away from the cards for cutscenes or escape room sequences, Cobalt Core delivers everything within its roguelike framework, even going as far as coming up with a time loop justification for why the player is repeating runs to progress the story.

In that regard it compares more closely to Hades than other card battlers, and I also think that's a good comparison because I really like the characters and character interactions in Cobalt Core. Each round starts with the selection of three of the (after finishing a short period of unlocks) 7 crewmates available to play with, and every combination of characters has interesting discussions and interactions between them. Characters also have lines to acknowledge specific artifacts, cards, or game states (like big damage or status effects) that offers a level of reactivity to make each run that much more unique. Also like Hades, there's a concrete ending sequence. Backstory for each crewmate is delivered piecemeal throughout the game, and while there aren't any earthshattering twists or revelations, the ending does a good job of tying everything together for a proper sendoff.

Shoutout to Riggs. Best possum in the galaxy.

!Great Soundtrack Alert!

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4. Going Down (2014 Doom wad) (Doomworld File Depot)

This year, I played MyHouse.wad. More and more people were talking about it, and I wanted to give it a try myself before someone randomly spoiled it for me. I didn't end up caring for it much! It did some interesting things, and it was definitely well made, but I'm not that interested in the creepypasta style it was going for.

It did pique my interest in the rich ecosystem of Doom modding that's been quietly trucking along for 30 years before myhouse ever released, though. A friend recommended Going Down, which I found to be terrific, and then I spent the rest of the year playing random wads (level packs) whenever I didn't have anything else to do. Doom has become invaluable to me as a podcast game, especially as I've only just been able to extract myself from Tactical Nexus's cunning grasp this year.

So, without further ado: The Official Doom Wads of the Year Minilist:

10 Struggle: Antaresian Legacy - Most of the levels in this wad focus on low-pressure exploration, but my favorites were the wide-open chaotic battles. I especially like the capstone levels of the first two chapters (maps 11 and 20), which both feature massive arenas with hundreds of enemies active at once. 9 Ancient Aliens - A collab megawad with great aesthetic and theming. Level quality is inconsistent, which makes sense given how many authors were involved, but the best levels in the wad are excellent. 8 Dust Devil - A short campaign of two interconnected levels with a bunch of interesting custom content. The use of grenade launchers and shielded enemies was especially cool, and not something I expected the doom engine to be able to do. 7 Lullaby - A stylish single-map wad in a decidedly undoomlike blue dreamland. There's only five or so major setpiece encounters, but they're all very memorable. 6 Doom 2 - I love how experimental the design in Doom 2 is, especially given that the entire genre of fps was brand new at this point in history. there's abstract levels, puzzle levels, diagetic cityscapes, and more. It's easy to see its influence in every fps to ever follow in its wake. 5 Overboard - A newer wad by the same author of Going Down with a great gimmick- the first five levels are followed by a set of hard mode remixes that use the same maps with more aggressive enemy arrangements. I particularly liked the last map of hard mode, which is identical to its normal mode variant except that it spawns all 500 enemies in the moment the level starts instead of deploying in piecemeal waves as it does in the original. 4 The Thing You Can't Defeat - An experimental remix of the first chapter of Doom 1. Very interesting premise and punchline. If you liked MyHouse.wad, I'd highly recommend checking it out. 3 Tarnsman's Projectile Hell - This is the first touhou game I've played, technically. Deviously difficult design with an emphasis on long distance hitscan enemies that would be extremely annoying in the hands of a level designer any less obviously talented than Tarnsman. 2 Unloved - An ambitious continuous campaign that takes place in a Silent Hill-esque house with several portals to distorted nightmare realms. I like that small amounts of progress are made in each level at a time with frequent revisits to the main hub, and I love the dark atmosphere. Very creepy. Also insanely difficult. 1 Going Down - My favorite by a long shot. The amount of variety in level and encounter design is incredible on its own, but I particularly like the care that went into giving each level a unique identity that still makes sense in the context of the wad's premise (taking an elevator floor by floor down into the depths of hell). Every level is meticulously designed to use the entire space, usually multiple times as later encounters in each level usually reuse the same arenas with additional twists on the layout and enemy deployments.

3. Pizza Tower (Steam)

A fluid platformer heavily inspired by the Wario Land games. Its most notable design choice is the lack of fail state when exploring levels. There's no health bar, and falling into pits only resets the room, so there's no significant pressure until the timed escape sequence at the end of each level. That's not to say the game lacks challenge, though. Far from it- the challenge comes not from reaching the end of each room, but in doing so as efficiently as possible. Pizza Tower's principle antagonist is the 5 second combo timer in the top right, forcing a constant stream of action. Every level has just enough stuff in each room to allow a single combo to be carried from start to level finish, which confers the coveted P Rank medal on level completion.

Full P Rank completion is what I spent three months obsessively chasing at the start of this year. Movement in Pizza Tower is so fluid, and so satisfying to learn how to fully utilize, that I couldn't resist going for it. I got so far into it that after finishing the game, I went back in immediately for an optional challenge that requires full P rank completion of the game in less than 4 hours, which required being able to clear each level with perfect consistency.

!Great Soundtrack Alert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWoTeTZL-C8

2. Beton Brutal (Steam)

The trailer for Beton Brutal immediately spoke to me. I've been a fan of persistent-state platforming games for ages, and it's a sorely underserved genre (mostly lurking in MMOs and player-made levels for games like Mario Maker). I like the emphasis on meditative upward progress, and I especially like the increasing pressure that builds as each subsequent jump risks losing more progress than the previous. Beton Brutal's developer was able to deliver this perfectly while also maintaining a consistent and interesting visual style (a stark contrast to the dreadful nft tie-in climbing game Only Up, which also released this year).

For weeks, I opened Beton Brutal after work and played for thirty minutes to an hour, usually seeing some small amount of new progress before inevitably taking a long fall and rage quitting for the day. I don't think I can call this the hardest game I've ever played, given that there's an entire community of people that can complete the entire climb in less than ten minutes, but I do think I'm uniquely poorly suited for games like this, given the extreme precision required. Still, that made it all the more satisfying to finally complete the game after almost exactly 20 hours of effort.

Three months later the DLC "Beton Bath", with another 500 meter tower with new obstacles, mechanics, and visual aesthetic (themed after public pool equipment, which honestly looks great decorating the tower), released. This dlc had mixed reviews, but it cemented this game as a whole as a favorite for me. The new tower has a very different design approach, with more focus on interpreting strange geometry, seeking out aggressive shortcuts, and taking giant leaps of faith. The last 100 meters particularly impressed me, with numerous falls onto trampolines 80 meters below to stride the entire tower in one jump and reach new ladders, before climbing just a few meters higher and repeating the process back to the opposite side.

trying to settle on which screenshot to include with the entry was agonizing, so I'm going to post a bunch more here. I love how this game looks.

Don't worry about the vertigo meter in the bottom left. It's probably nothing to worry about.

Void Stranger (Steam)

Void Stranger is a tile-based puzzle game featuring a magic wand that can pick tiles up and place them elsewhere. Help the noble handmaiden Gray delve into the 256th floor of the mysterious Void to fulfill her heart's desire, learning more about her past by peeking into her memories as she rests at checkpoints along the way.

…But that's not sufficient to describe it, really. The best way I can come up with to describe what Void Stranger actually is, is as a seemingly normal block-pushing puzzle game that's had an entire additional Myst-like adventure game layered over it. The puzzle game is real, and it can be engaged with honestly from start to finish, but the true fun of the game (and several of its many, many possible endings) comes from interpreting obscure clues in the lore and interface to dive deeper.

The more that's learned, the easier it is to navigate the underlying puzzle game. Almost every object in the game has hidden mechanics related to it, opening up easier routes through initially difficult puzzles or allowing the use of shortcuts to skip floors entirely. Once these tricks are mastered, only thirty or so of the game's 256 floors even need to be visited to complete a run, and most of them can be cleared in seconds.

That's a good thing, too, because there's a lot of travel to specific floors needed to find all the secrets in the game. This is a game that thrives on friction in its play experience, which means it's definitely not going to be a game for everybody. If clues regarding certain shortcuts or secrets are missed, it can add a lot of unnecessary work to completing the game. But I personally love that kind of obscurity in games, and I really appreciate that the developer System Erasure (who made the similarly excellent ZeroRanger) was willing to take a chance on a niche-of-a-niche genre that could really speak to its core demographic: me specifically.

I'm not going to talk much about the plot, because most of it is deeply tangled with the Void Stranger's deepest secrets. That said, I appreciate that every route through the game, even the ones that don't engage with all the secret hunting, have been given fully fledged stories. Even the bad ending has a fucking awesome finale, to the extent that I would recommend seeking it out before engaging with the rest of the game's content (if you get offered a fruit, go ahead and eat it!)

Void Stranger is good enough to make it onto my top ten list of games of all time. I've put it at #6, just behind Iji and just ahead of Full Bore. Everything about it is fucking awesome. Check it out!

!Great Soundtrack Alert!

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rpgchoices · 2 years ago

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2022 WRAP UP: Games played this year - useless recs list (with small review, and in vague order of my personal enjoyment):

01. Enderal: It climbed up to become one of my favourite games ever. I played it twice in a row (still finishing the second playthrough), really enjoyed the story, fell in love with the characters and definitely cried. I am reading the novel now.

02. Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous: I love this series of games, Kingmaker is still my favourite, but I loved the story of Wrath so much more. The mystery, the paths, the customizations! The only thing I missed was romance, I still have to find a romance I like and reply is hard because of how long the game is.

03. The Forgotten City: Beautiful adventure game recommended by lairofsentinel, great (basically) detective story. Interesting characters and definitely had a lot of fun trying to find out what the hell was going on.

04. Mass Effect Andromeda: For all the bad rep this game gets, I expected worse? I actually really really enjoy it. The story was nothing too exciting, and many quests were just fetch quests, but I still liked the characters a lot. The feeling of found family? Yes please. Jaal romance? Bring it on.

05. Gamedec: Among the new games that came out in recent years, this has to be one of my favs. The overall story was quite interesting, and the investigation really makes you feel like a detective. My only criticism is that there is little to no customization as by the end of the game you end up levelling up all skills, basically. Still enjoyable and good characters too.

06. Spellforce 3: Soul Harvest: I am at the very last mission. This game is adorable, even if the rpg element is a bit linear. I think, from what I understand, the dialogue choices do not have much impact. Basically, only the romance choice change the plot. Still, the art is very beautiful, the companions lovely and they are also all voiced. The plot was nothing special tho, kinda boring, but I had fun playing minimal Age of Empire tactics alongside the fighting.

07. Hatoful Boyfriend: WHAT TO SAY - this game is a big joke - not in a bad way, just in a "oh my god what am I playing" way. I would definitely recommend it. Do not take the romances seriously, the characters are just parody of usual visual novel romances - but the murder mystery is so eery and absurd!

08. Ash of Gods: I think this game is the better version of Banner Saga. The characters feels more like characters, and the story is a bit less linear and even if sometimes confusing, still enjoyable. For personal enjoyment, I would choose this over other games most times - and I did, I played it three times in a row. I am liking some of the characters so much that I am actually thinking of writing fanfics.

09. Tower of Time: If the ending had been different, this game would be in the top 3. I really enjoyed the plot, the mystery, the way you can explore this fantastical tower - the orcs!! I loved the orcs subplot! But it all comes to a big nothing that left a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth. So - well, fun but disappointing.

10. Boyfriend Dungeon: HEAR ME OUT - this game is a visual novel with hack and slash fighting. The visual novel part is a bit... meh, and the plot is kind of absurd, but I enjoyed the idea of increasing your romance with character by using them to fight. In general I actually enjoyed it even if I won't ever play it again.

11. The Banner Saga: Interesting story, that gets a bit better the more you play. Some characters are pretty good - but generally they are not the main driver of this game. Still, I liked the gameplay enough that I will probably play 2nd and 3rd, even if the plot really did not leave a big impression on me... I barely remember it.

12. The Talos Principle: This game is amazing. The story is so well crafted... my problem is that I am bad at puzzles and easily frustrated. If you like puzzle games, I recommend this one because discovering the plot/lore of the world is amazing.

13. Hades: Okay, this game is great, just not for me. I am not a fan of hack and slash, and I get frustrated pretty easily, so playing the full game multiple times to reach the ending - it gets boring a bit too easily for me.

14. Black Geyser: A classic isometric rpg. I really did want to like it, but somehow... the plot is okay, but the characters are so flat. I felt no real connection to any of them, even the companions who join you end up joining you in such random ways and the ending seemed abrupt. Still if you want an isometric game to play, go for it.

15. Gods will be watching: I am still playing this one and I am eternally confused. The plot is quite interesting and the way the playthrough is incorporated is too, but it also looks quite random - as in there is no exact rule on how to pass every level, but a big level of randomization.

16. A golden wake: I love Wadjet Eye Games and A Golden Wake was one of their older ones that I wanted to play. It was a nice good combination of puzzle and characters, but I did not enjoy the setting too much. I won't probably replay it.

17. Seven: I just started it so I have no opinion yet - a part for the fact that I am somehow very bad at it!

19. Starfighter Eclipse: This is a very very short visual novel/dating sim - the plot is minimal and the romances non existent. It is basically a very short predictable event that allow you to get sex scenes in cut scenes and that is it.

Other games played from Itch.io and in random order:

Brassica: A Marry Tale: Cute AMAZING visual novel, with wlw and mlm content. Unfortunately it is unfinished... but it will be finished! I will wait for the next chapters.

One Night Stand: HORRIBLE. I HATE this game with a passion, because everything in this game seemed to led to crime (you wake up from a one night stand and can't remember anything, and the consent was so iffy, but somehow the game is supposed to be about humans connecting??)

Speed Dating for Ghosts: Beautiful small indie game about meeting different ghosts and going on "dates", mainly dealing with their deaths. I cried at least three times.

A Short Hike: Currently one of my favourite non rpg games. This game was beautiful and so calming. I loved everything about it, and cried a couple of times too. There is so much humor too. I definitely recommend it.

Overland: Fun game where you have to escape zombies. Sad that the characters are not really characters

Arcade Spirits: I am still playing this, sadly I am not big on visual novels. The characters are all interesting so I might try to finish this one.

The corner of SHAME: Games I never finished and never will (maybe).

Greedfall - this game is one of the most boring well packaged game I have ever played Hard West - I did not even... understand the plot Stardew Valley - not for me Wasteland 2 - I expected something completely different and was disappointed Fallout New Vegas - I will definitely play it because of the great recs, but I usually do not like action games of this type Danganronpa Happy Trigger Havoc - not for me

#mass effect andromeda #the forgotten city #pathfinder wrath of the righteous #gamedec #hatoful boyfriend #black geyser #a short hike #forgotten city #mea #ash of gods #spellforce 3 soul harvest #tower of time #etc etc #useless recs

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calico-heart · 1 year ago

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10 fandoms, 10 characters, 10 tags

Basic rules: choose 10 fandoms that you are part of/support, and choose a favorite character from each of those. Then, tag ten folks!

Thanks for the tag @briar-ffxiv :3 idk how i'm supposed to pick a single favorite out of all these tho cries. Obvious fandoms are up top, but some (maybe. a little.) less common ones show up further down!

FFXIV // Alisaie Leveilluer

I think she's one of the most dynamic characters in the series, and I love love love seeing her come out of her shell as the expansions go on. Her personal arc focuses so heavily on surviving grief and learning to keep an open heart even when faced with loss over and over again, and I appreciate how well that ties into the main storyline, too.

Fallout 4 // Piper Wright

My wife <333 Piper's reckless go-gettem attitude and propensity for ruffling feathers on her quest to out the baddies really endeared me to her. Finding her soft heart under all the bravado and banter is really rewarding, and I love how committed she is to standing for her ideals, even if it means standing alone. Fo4 has such a cool setting to get immersed in overall, and I really do enjoy all the 50s/60s US tropes thrown into the mix with it.

Reth // Palia

The epitome of making objectively horrible choices for arguably noble reasons. I love this walking disaster. He made me soup. I like how most of the Palia characters have more to them than meets the eye at first meeting, and how many ways they can surprise you as you build relationships with them. But gaining the disgraced pariah Reth's trust? Becoming someone he's brave enough to ask for help from? I treasure it above all the others LOL

Gale Dekarios // Baldur's Gate 3

I'm NOT going to essay I'm NOT going to essay I'm not -- But seriously I do adore this guy's arc. I like how messy it is, even if in more subtle ways than, say, Astarion (ilu too boo.) Gale has so many "gifted kid" trademarks and strikes me as someone who's entire self worth has been based on how useful or interesting he is to others. It's hard to fault him for his ambition, when his magical prowess was the only avenue he had to make meaningful bonds up until the whole tadpole nonsense. BG3 exceeded my wildest expectations out of an RPG and continues to do so every time I pick it up.

Anders // Dragon Age II

I feel obligated to say I don't really consider myself part of the DA fandom because every time I've poked my head in I've found it to be a wretched hive of scum and villainy with the most inane batshit discourse I've ever seen in my life. But the game itself? Love the game. Love the characters. Anders broke my heart. I really enjoyed his internal turmoil and the very literal ideological battle between justice and vengeance he faced throughout the game. I'll eat that up.

Obi-Wan Kenobi // Star Wars

He's baby.

I definitely pick and choose which installations of the behemoth that is the Star Wars franchise to consider canon, and like Dragon Age I try not to actually get involved in fandom spaces. Ever. But I love Obi-Wan's story in the prequels especially, and if you've followed me very long I'm sure you know how much I like my hurt/comfort and angst, which he has in spades.

Halo 1-3, ODST, & Reach // The Arbiter

I grew up on Halo and even have a little poseable model of this guy decorating my bookshelf. Halo's a shooter game first, of course, and I spent a good chunk of my childhood rerunning levels, and playing ninjanaut with friends on splitscreen. But its lore also fell into that sort of early TES space for me, where you had enough of an idea of the world for it to capture your imagination and inspire you, without being overwhelming to keep track of. The angst. The mystique. The badass alien with a glowing sword. 10/10. My Spartan OC is called Artemis and my brother has one named Ares and yes we did slay in PvP as teenagers.

Firefly // Simon Tam

Choosing Firefly is predictable af but thats ok. It still makes me ache wishing we got to know more about the world, the characters - and maybe that unfinished homesick feeling is part of the appeal. I loved watching Simon be so out of his depth in the frontier of space, but willing to giving up everything for someone he cared about and learning to make a new place for himself with Firefly's motley crew.

Mizu // Blue Eye Samurai

I was not prepared for this show to WRECK me like it did. I thought it was going to be a run of the mill cheesy samurai anime and GOD. The thoughtful, clever storytelling and dynamic characters knocked me on my ass. I couldn't stop watching. The cast is incredible, the art style is gorgeous. Every single aspect of this show ties into this theme of being caught between two worlds, and Mizu's story is one I am not going to forget any time soon. If you haven't watched this, you're missing out.

Mal // The Dog Master

I'm not sure there's even really a FANDOM for this book. I haven't ever met anyone else who'd even heard of it, let alone read it. But a fandom can just be me, occasionally pitching it desperately to friends, right? XD The story follows several tribes, but the "main" character is Mal, who was kicked out of his tribe and survives partly by befriending a wolf and raising it. It's pretty cleverly written, with several timelines converging at unexpected moments to offer up plot twists and tie-ins that really wouldn't have been possible if it was written another way. I'm a little geeky about it just for the structural approach. But there's honestly not enough good caveman books out there, and this one has a wide cast of unique and interesting characters who feel very human.

I will tag @ronqueesha @bogglebabbles-main @sayonaramidnight @traveleorzea @orime-stories @silentletterwords @ellastara @rinka-fortemps @eriyu @jameswrites

And anyone else who wants to! I'd love to see your lists! But no pressure ofc <3

#not checking it for typos sorry if something cuts off hahahaha #tag game #10 fandoms #long post

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widgeykins · 6 months ago

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Hello! Welcome to Season 2 of Glyph RP's new fantasy based Campaign on the game Ark Survival Evolved. NEW SEASON LAUNCHED SATURDAY, MAY 11TH AT 1:00PM EST!

Looking for a new server to call home? Well Look no further! New to RP? No problem! This is a perfect server to start honing your newfound love. Enjoy a refreshing, immersive and unique experience that caters to almost all RP styles while allowing you to curate your character to your desires.

What do we bring to the table?

Ark is considered one of the best sandbox games full of so much potential. We wanted to tap into that potential and provide an experience to help you get away from it all. We realize that ARK is a game where people come to have fun after a long day of work/school so we drive to make it a fun experience for everyone. Our server is ultimately for an immersive experience full of RP potential and we heavily configured the server to do just that. Start off in a brand new world with so many potential avenues that are altered by your character's decisions. A world that is curated around our evolving storyline with plenty to explore and do.

That’s not all! Our server is heavily customized to make it very unique. Think of it as a new RPG game running inside of the ARK Game Engine. All creature spawns are custom. Resources spawns have been revamped. The ways to gain certain creatures has changed. There’s many world quests all throughout the world for you to complete to gain creatures or items. Not to mention custom spawn points, a fully fleshed out character customization method, starting questlines, reputation systems and more. Our goal here is to have a non-restrictive and fluid role-play experience for you. We provide you with additional avenues to take your character with guilds, magics, jobs and more without restricting you to template classes. All you have to do is pick out what you want to do!

There’s a reason why Glyph RP is now known to have such a high player retention rate. Our staff team works around the clock to make sure player engagement and character development stays top notch! We regularly hit the top 10 of ARK Servers in the world, consistently have a high population on every evening during Peak RP times and work to keep constant rotating content to keep you engaged every step of the way.

We appreciate your interest in our server! Hopefully this is a start to a wonderful friendship!

||For details about our server please visit https://glyphrp.com |||

Our Lore

Well, there's quite a good bit of lore as we're establishing a fantasy universe here at Glyph. However, take a look at the storyline of Atta and more here! https://glyphrp.com/lore

Server Info

Main Info

Server Name: Glyph RP: Campaign 3, Season 2: Paranoia Discord Link: https://discord.gg/glyphrp

Website Link: https://glyphrp.com/

Mod List:https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3212513557

The core mechanics that make ARK, well ARK. Plus a few features that are useful for core gameplay.

Rates and Misc

3x EXP

3x Harvesting

4x Taming - Immersive Taming

6x Breeding Interval, 16x Growth Rate, Imprint/Growth in Soul Traps

Map: Lost Island Official DLCz

Gamemode: PvP/PvE

Voice RP Friendly: Yes

Text RP Friendly: Yes

Fliers: Yes past month 1

Loot Crates: Obtained through treasure chests, events, dungeons, etc. Non-standard ark loot crates, overhauled to contain gold, kibble, trophies and other goodies.

Technology Level: Smithy Tier

Custom Character Creation

Custom world developed by our dev team

How to begin your journey!

First, read our website! It'll have all the information about our server https://glyphrp.com and then join our Discord! It will give you detailed information about our server, from plugins to server rules. You'll have to do a short application to get whitelisted. However it is our goal to get you in as quickly as possible. We understand your time is important to you and you just want to play ARK. So expect a whitelist notification very quickly. You'll be able to join immediately. No waiting till next restart here!

#ark survival evolved #Ark Roleplay #video game roleplay

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veebs-hates-video-games · 1 year ago

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Ok I should probably do the Harvestella thing before I get too far distant from it and forget everything. 13 Sentinels has consumed my brain over the past week, so let's do this before I lose what's left of Harvestella.

I know it got kind of mediocre reviews and a bunch of people were underwhelmed by it, but I actually thought it was pretty great. From what I've seen it failed to find the right audience, probably because the very little promotion it got made it look like a farming sim with kind of a Final Fantasy-style story tacked on, and people who expected that from it were disappointed. When it did manage to find the people who were into what it actually is (85% JRPG with like 15% farming sim layered on top) a lot of them loved it though.

It's kind of a weird game, because the farming stuff is simplified somewhat from games where that's the primary focus, and some of the RPG stuff is also not done quite as well or as in depth as in a pure RPG (mainly the combat), but if the combination works for you like it does for me it really does have a lot going for it.

I'm someone who loves the idea of farming games but can never really get into them and stick with them long term, whether it's Harvest Moon or Rune Factory or Stardew Valley or whatever else. I had the best luck with SDV, but after about 10 hours I just couldn't get myself to keep going, and most other stuff in the genre I don't even last that long. It's streamlined enough in this and has enough other stuff to balance it out that I actually enjoyed that part of the game this time though, so that was nice for a change.

The big surprise was the story and characters and world though. I played the demo almost a year ago and could tell that it was going to have Typical Final Fantasy-style Nonsense (affectionate) (not to be confused with most recent actual mainline Final Fantasy games, which for me keep turning out to be Typical Final Fantasy-style Nonsense (derogatory)), but I didn't expect it would do that stuff as well as it ultimately did.

The initial premise of the game is pretty straightforward, but the world turns out to be a lot more interesting than it seems at first as more gets revealed about it throughout the game, and there are a bunch of interesting characters who get their own storylines and develop pretty well through them too. It gets increasingly serious sci-fi story in the latter half of the game, but earlier on there are lots of fun and simple bits that establish various characters and the world and why you should care about it in the first place.

Interestingly in those earlier parts, and kind of in side quests in general, there's a lot more focus on the kinds of stuff you'd expect to see in Games for Girls™ that you don't usually see quite as much of in big RPGs. There are a whole bunch of side quests and storylines focusing on people's interpersonal relationships and families, and multiple things get resolved through getting people to actually communicate or listening to children and taking them seriously as people. I think that's kinda great and that more games should include stuff like that more.

Exploring for more materials and ingredients or to do story or side quest missions is fun and satisfying enough. I normally hate stamina systems and being time limited, but if you eat literally any food at all you get free stamina regen for a while so that's not a problem, and there are like eight billion fast travel checkpoints and various shortcuts that you can unlock all over the world, so it doesn't feel like you have to constantly redo stuff after running out of time. You just go home at the end of the day and can pick up right where you left off usually (after tending to your farm stuff in the morning, of course).

The weakest part of the game is probably the combat though. It's...fine? I guess? It's both too simple and too complex at the same time. Like there's not a lot of incentive to do anything but spam basic attacks against trash mobs, and in boss fights there's not much reason to do any more than that other than use your skills when they're off cooldown. But there are like 37 different damage types that your different attacks can deal, and different enemies are weak against different flavors, and against bosses you can get a "break" that causes them to take more damage if you use the right kind(s) against them enough.

There's potential there for something interesting, but it's terrible at telling you what type of damage you're doing or what kind you should be doing, there are way too many different kinds with no meaningful difference between them other than visual effects, and I'm not going to memorize what every stupid attack in the game does when I can't even see the little symbols on the break gauge that represent different types or remember what each one means anyway.

Also you don't get a block or a dodge (certain jobs do sort of get a dash ability, but it's not great), so a lot of the time against a lot of kinds of enemies your options are basically limited to just take damage and deal with it, which I'm gonna be honest is stupid and not fun. Yes it does incentivize you to cook food/throw stuff in the juicer and use those things to heal yourself, but it's just annoying going into the menu to use them, and it's not particularly satisfying cheesing boss fights by drinking 14 glasses of juice instead of like...actually using the combat mechanics the game provides you?

If you can get past that most other stuff is pretty enjoyable though. I liked the art style more than most of Squenix's big main games these days like what I've seen of FF16, and there's some unreasonably great music in it. Like they did not have to go this hard in 5/8 or whatever in the farming game about farming, but I'm glad they did because it's kind of amazing. Thank you Go Shiina for your excellent work.

So yeah, definitely not a game for everyone if you're not into the kinda weird combination of things it tries to do and (mostly) succeeds at, but if it is your kind of thing it's a surprisingly fun world and collection of characters and unexpectedly well done story. Like I liked the storytelling more than in probably 90% of Final Fantasy games I've played (which I know isn't saying that much because I perpetually complain about them, but still).

It's a game about running your own farm but also hope and the absence of it and what it means to be human, and I thought that was pretty neat.

#harvestella

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violetlunette · 4 months ago

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oooo 10 / 25 / 30 for the writer asks!!

Referring to this!

10: Top three favorite fic tropes

Hmm! So many… But the three that come to mind first are--

*Recently, I’ve been into the “rescue mission” trope. I love seeing the build up of emotions, the whump factors for the person needing rescuing, seeing the protectiveness of the rescuer, and the comfort that comes after. And the best part? The emotions are still there whether it's platonic or not!

(Just for fun, Lilia coming to save his boys!)

(Okay, that's more of an Ortho MAlleus thing, but I digress!)

*angst with a happy ending; something I picked up from old 80s movies that I used to watch with with my folks. (Fun fact: Indiana Jones and the Lost Arc was rated PG that means the face melting scene was deemed okay for kids as long as a parent was there.)

*Do AUs count? I’m counting them anyways. I love fantasy aus! Urban, supernatural, pirate--shut up they count!--fairytales, RPG—you name it! These have all the elements I like and situations/plots I love to place characters in. I love quests, the villain who knows how to villainize, the treasure, dragons, the mystery, the magic, and more.

25: Is writing the whole thing beforehand better or worse than writing it as you go?

Definitely the former for me! I tried the latter with my Runaway story and while writing as I went held a lot of perks, it also meant that scenes repeated themselves, there was plot holes, and out of no where solutions. I prefer having everything written so I can have a posting schedule, patch the plot holes, and make sure the characters aren’t repeating themselves.

The down side to doing that is occasionally I’ll spend a long time writing a story that ends up not getting the attention I want which is depressing as I used to write 25 chapters that often had had over 5000 words per chapter, so that was a kick in the gut.

(However, I should have known better as it was a rare pair fic.)

30: Describe a fic that almost happened, but then it didn't.

Again, so many! I have so many plot bunnies but not all of them grow so I have to shoot them otherwise they just take up room on my PC.

One story I had was for TWST where I did a version of Demon Slayer with Silver in the role of Tanjiro and Lilia as Nezuko. It was supposed to follow Silver’s journey to turn Lilia back to normal while feral dad protected his bby boy, even getting territorial.

(Lilia even though he didn't remember Silver)

I was also going to write a NajMalleus story that was Aladdin meets Cinderella, but then I learned that Najma was 14, so halted the presses on that.

(Shame, as I think having them as a couple would be interesting for all involved. Oh well!)

Thank you so much for the ask! I'm willing to do more of these if anyone wants to send more numbers!

#mine #twst #writing stuff #writing #ask game #tropes #twst silver #lilia vanrouge #twisted wonderland #silver twst #silver vanrouge #silver twisted wonderland #on writing #writing tropes #writing things

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sodapaladin · 1 year ago

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✨Top 10 Games of 2023✨

It’s time for my annual list. As usual, these are games I played this year, not that came out this year. So despite all the hits this year, don’t expect to see many of them!

10. Fire Emblem Engage

While I was wary of the new character designs and anniversary excuse-story, Engage turned out to be more enjoyable than I expected. Not my favorite Fire Emblem, but a good one nevertheless.

9. Paradise Killer

What *style*! I went and bought this game immediately after my friend showed me the song “Paradise (Stay Forever).” Going in blind was wild. I sure didn’t expect the protagonist to be part of an extra-dimensional cult. I love exploring the vaporwave island.

8. WarioWare: Move It!

A worthy successor to Smooth Moves. While the amount of extra context seems oddly lacking for a WarioWare game, I love all the creative uses for the joycons. With the major exception of Jimmy’s boss minigame, everything works shockingly well.

7. Super Mario RPG

I debated where to place this. On one hand, I don’t feel like the remake added too much. The QoL improvements are nice, but the SNES original is still perfectly playable. It’s also quite short for an RPG, and on the easy side. But it’s just so charming anyway.

6. Darkstalkers 3

AKA Vampire Savior, not to be confused with another game. On the quest to capture the magic Third Strike had for me, this comes pretty close. If only I could find online matches now.

5. Suika Game

I had to see what the hype’s about, and I understood. So simple and cute, yet challenging. A great way to kill a few minutes.

4. Advance Wars 1+2 Reboot Camp

I held off on this for a while, since I have both original games, and it didn’t seem like much was changed. The QoL improvements have been nice, though, such as speeding up the CPU’s turns. Most importantly, it no longer cheats during Fog of War, so you can actually strategize as intended instead of cheesing certain maps.

3. It Takes Two

Playing this co-op game with my brother was a blast. Solving puzzles through teamwork is a satisfying joy, and I’d love to play again as the other character sometime.

2. Vampire Survivors

So addicting. It was hilarious to find out the dev works on slot machines. Now it’s quite clear that they know all the right bells and whistles to set that dopamine off.

1. Monster Girls and the Mysterious Adventure 2

It’s incredible when you can feel the amount of love poured into the development of a game. I picked up this solo-dev passion project thinking it’d be a cute little indie game. I didn’t expect it to be my favorite mystery dungeon experience.

Everything from the writing and QoL features show how clearly the dev loves this genre and wants to make the best version of it. The balance is wonky, some of the recruitment requirements are questionably difficult, and the English translation is extremely rough, but I can’t help but be charmed by the whole package anyway. I’ve put in around 50 hours getting to the “final” boss of the story, and there’s still a massive postgame dungeon. I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone, but for fans of mystery dungeon games, absolutely.

#goty

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reilleclan-blog · 7 months ago

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I FUCKING LOVR THIS PORSHE

Hello hi , so I was reminiscencing about 2020. My whole life (most of my life) I only played call of duty. There was story RPGs here and there but I'd always go back to call of duty. And during 2018-2019 I was really starting to hate the State of COD. I played COD since I was little. Playing against bots b/c I couldn't get xbox online. I played the hell out of ghosts, bo4, Cold War, bo2 a bit, in total I'd probably have 4k hours racking up all together definitely more. And it's not like I didn't like story games or RPGs I think a lot of them outgrew replayability for me. The walking dead, life is strange, Bully. Most of these series I watched others play I never had money like that. But when I started working I played the hell out of these games and then I went back to multiplayers. Fortnite, was something I heavily played and Bo4. (These games I played heavily in high school 2016)

Then as time went on I stopped having ppl to play with and a lot of these games franchises I had loved , I started to despise. I never thought a company would hate their communities as much as they do now. I was strictly console player so I never had a chance to "broaden my horizons" with games and/or everyone was playing the same shit. So when I started to hate these games I took a chance on a game called "Cyberpunk 2077" I had saw clips of the game way back when, and I didn't really know shit about it except it was an open world rpg and u can hack shit.

So yeah I just wanted a change in scenery with my games I'd play. So yeah Cyberpunk released and it was broken. I was unfortunately experiencing it on ps4 anddd yeah the game barely functioned. The areas barely loaded in, yeah it was pretty bad. But I still wanted to see what the game had to offer. So as they made updates I was thrown into this new world that had me interested every step of the way. I don't usually say this but I'd genuinely want to play cyberpunk for the first time again.

Fast forward to 2020 I didn't realize other titles had released during 2020 cause all I was doing was playing cyberpunk. I had got a pc before or after it released but yeah. I was enjoying a shit ton of cyberpunk and learning Valorant. But for the most part cyberpunk was ALL I played for 4years. And idk I just can't believe CP2077 had such a hold on me. I think that's how games should be, I think CP2077 has written the best story I've seen in a very long time. And the different playstyles ppl can have was endless. During those 2 years of playing CP2077 there was countless updates and me STILL discovering new dialogues and choices thru out the game. Side quests and all.

I never thought I'd be a Virtual Photographer but CP2077 even sparked that for me and it's just made me so happy. I hope other games can take a page from CDPR's book to make these fresh and interesting. That may be easier said than done and "subjective" but I think cp2077 will be a top tier ip that everyone is going to love like gta and something like Skyrim. I hope I live long enough for the sequel and the world doesn't drop marshal law before I get to experience it 😎

I've felt this way for a long time but a lot of RPGs don't feel necessarily "fun" most stuff just feels like chores in the game. They slap a $70 price tag on these games just for the game to be broken, cliche story writing, and just bland and done before. A lot of RPGs follow a formula and I just hope these triple A companies break out of their comfort zones and actually create something new or engaging. Ppl deserve new stuff. I'm tired of seeing "10/10s" on games just cause it's "expected" to be good (but when I play it it's mid ashell)

This is my opinion please do not harass me over something like a damn video game this is just my thoughts. And I know this is wild but ppl have different opinions, and I'm not a god damn hive mind ass

#virtual photography #cyberpunk 2077 #cyberpunk 2077 photomode #black girl #black woman

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talesfromthebacklog · 10 months ago

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Tales From The Backlog: Cattails

7/10

In the simplest way I can put this: It’s Stardew Valley but with cats!

With. CATS.

At least that’s how I saw it initially described. And it’s a pretty accurate description for what it is. It was also $3 on sale with a newly released sequel. Which I view sequels as a potential indicator of quality. Not necessarily high quality but played enough where developers thought: “Yeah. More than one. People might like that.”

And I do. I do like this game a lot. It deserved an expanded sequel. It’s a life sim RPG where you are a cat abandoned on the side of the road by your owner and you are taken in by other local cats into a cat colony. It’s cute. I like this game SO MUCH. The sequel looks even better!!!

My cat’s name is Butter. Let’s talk about it!

I like cozy games. But cats aren’t really my thing? I like them. I like petting them and all that junk. But cats are like horses. The people who like cats are REALLY into cats. Just like horse people. You know? Meaning: Cat games aren’t my thing. Horse games are.

I don’t even remember how I stumbled across this game. I think it was blind luck because nothing about the art or the name denotes what kind of experience it will be other than cat.

Hence why I didn’t use it as the opener pic. The art is cute though. Though on Switch this same art is really pixelated when it was used as the title screen. And not in an intentional way. It comes across like it was blown up too big on the screen.

And I play in handheld mode 90% of the time. Not a complaint, just an observation.

Regardless of how I ran into the game, what was in this $3 package?

A pretty great experience actually. Simple. Cute. It had more content than I expected it to. It is not an empty experience.

Like Stardew Valley there are various familiar elements:

There’s the cat shrine, which is like the community center. You bring various specific goods to unlock things. In this case it unlocks little puzzles to work on throughout the map which also reward you. While not finished this is a breeze to get through.

There’s the town bulletin board in which you complete quests to earn special currency to get special items.

There are marriage candidates. You can get married to another cat. I can’t decide between Krampy and Alisa. Very different vibes.

Yes you can have kittens and they can look like a mix between the player character and your spouse. Ridiculous. I LOVE THAT. This is the gameplay I want to see!

I’m pretty satisfied with the writing of the NPCs. Not the most top tier but a lot of these style of games get overly childish dialogue. Cattails does not suffer from this problem. Thank lord. It doesn’t need to be mature but like… I don’t want to be able to hear you pronounce the word frog with a w just by looking at the text. You know?

Fwog.

The map is almost completely open world. You have to earn your way into little sub areas, but in majority you can do what you want to do and see what you want to see. The game actively rewards you for checking nooks and crannies. The game doesn’t hold your hand and direct you too much though. The game lightly nudges you in the right direction when you follow the main story. Some mechanics aren’t explained well, like the cat colony control thing (I’ll go into this more in a bit). The game is gracious enough to have a short mechanics tutorial though. I love short basic bread and butter tutorials. Some folks like this kind of stuff, some don’t. Just know that out the gate.

Then there’s the mole mines. You dig for treasure and sell it to the moles for special currency to get special items. There’s no crafting element though.

And with no crafting there is no chests, storage, etc. but this is balanced well. Prey is abundant (you will die if you don’t eat) and you aren’t crafting so storage is entirely unnecessary.

There are seasonal festivals with mini games and special prizes. Those are cute.

Then there are the differences. Starting with no farming. Kind of a special rarity. A lot of the cozy game genre leans on farming pretty hard. Maybe almost too much so despite how much I love it. At least in this first game. The second game had screenshots that had farming (Not a complaint.). This game largely depends on you hunting and foraging. It’s cute and different. I like that. The hunting is actually pretty fun too. Weather and season affects your hunting. You have to tie yourself and stalk prey.

On top of the hunting there is very light combat. This is either in the mines or against other randomly named cats in the over world (and the cat names do NOT disappoint). You get to choose which out of three colonies you join. From here on out you are in a constant territorial dispute. On your map screen you can see which areas of the map are dominated, or in the process of domination, by your colony and other colonies. There are two territorial disputes a day to help you sway favor in these zones.

And of course cats from your colony are there to help you! The only, thankfully abusable, downside is that the number of cats generated to both help and attack you are random. But if the numbers aren’t in your favor you can just literally exit and come back until they are.

Combat itself is basic. There are skills and items you can get that do small things to help (like poisoning your claws with local plants? Brutal! I love it). But while basic it is still entertaining to be in little cat wars.

Especially since it also allows for other “towns” to exist. Which a lot of these types of games really lack. There’s something appealing to me about needing to travel to a separate community as a player. I feel like it makes the world seem bigger.

Which you must earn your way in by offering gifts to these communities. It’s basic but I’m hoping by the time I finish and play the second game they will have expanded on it because it’s super fun to see your colony dominating the area. I didn’t expect this game to hit like it did.

It also has an experience point mechanic. Completing pretty much any activity successfully will net you experience points. Hunting, fighting, mining, etc. You then spend those points to raise your skills which can unlock additional special abilities. Again. Basic but in an extremely functional way. Basic isn’t always bad.

There is better cat customization once you enter the game but you gotta earn it. Which feels fair. There is nothing that is painfully out of reach. I do wish there was a baby bit of house customization but I get why it’s not there. It’s literally not needed.

…But it would be cool to have a cat tree in the house or upgrades to make it visually more appealing. That kind of stuff. I’m hoping the sequel expanded on this too.

The art style in majority is… alright. Except for Krampy. That plague doctor mask is so… good. It’s looks so silly. I kind of wish they leaned on that kind of style more? It’s good but could use a stronger sense of visual identity. Which they definitely provided for the sequel. The assets and general world look a lot more lived in and full.

There’s also small things missing that aren’t a big deal breaker but I want to see in the future. Like a relationship chart in the menu. There’s no dedicated map button. The mini map is largely useless. The game emphasizes you have to take care of yourself and I wish there were one or two more survival elements to keep the player on their toes, especially since the current survival mechanics are almost too manageable.

I like that sleeping doesn’t heal you. You need to either find meds or get healed at the doctor. And both are in plenty supply. You’re never hurting that bad where it’s not easy to get healed.

You’ll notice I haven’t mentioned much about the story. Mostly because the story isn’t terribly remarkable. You gotta get the world back in balance by finishing the community center cat shrine. That’s the story. It doesn’t need to be deep though. Let’s be real. That’s not why you’d play the game. You’re playing for cat and gameplay. It does that job fine.

Overall, I wasn’t expecting this solid of an experience. If it had a physical I’d be apt to recommend it to the folks who are more inclined to like these kind of titles. I would say likely out of the two you can probably skip the first game and just head right for the second for that expanded experience.

But also the first game was $3 when I bought it. Hard to beat that price point when you’re trying a new game out for the first time.

By the looks of it I can expect an even stronger experience from the sequel. Which I’ll get to.

…Eventually.

……Someday.

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