#unrelated but i have also been wanting to change challenger deeps title as well. its not that i dont like it but it does reference somethin

[spearxwind]

been thonking... wonder if i could get away with fusing my extinction headworld/lore with my broken horizon headworld/lore since the main focus of both of them is dragons.

pros: many dragons to interact with each other. a world on the scale of what i originally envisioned for both stories

cons: there is some conflicting lore :( and i would like the extinction chars to keep the focus on gladiator fighting, while also keeping the other ocs focus on exploration and flight racing

[playernumberv]

Returnal may be the best game I’ll probably end up leaving unfinished

But wait, I hear my imaginary audience ask - if a game is that good, how and why would I possibly leave it unfinished? And indeed, when I leave a game unfinished, it’s usually because I don’t have much good to say about it, and no longer deem it worthy of my time. I left Assassin’s Creed Valhalla unfinished after 30 hours in it, for example, because it just kept dragging on and on and on and I just got incredibly bored. That’s not the case with Returnal at all. 

In what has been for me a relatively lull year in games (with nothing having reached my personal standard for being a GOTY contender yet), Returnal has been the most compelling and fascinating title I’ve played. It is just utterly stellar. I love how intriguing the sci-fi psychological horror/thriller setting is, and while sparse, the little narrative there is compels me to want to find out more about Atropos and Selene. The third-person shooter combat is visceral and fluid, and is a mad rush of pure adrenaline and exhilaration that is complemented by an overwhelming smorgasbord of eye-melting visual effects. Audio design can only be described as majestic, with thunderous combat soundtracks that catalyze the already sky-high intensity of the game’s combat, and the deafening roar of enemy cries truly tear right into you, making you feel as if you were truly confronted by terrifying alien monstrosities. Level design and art design are similarly masterful, creating an alien world that genuinely feels alive and horrifying. And have I mentioned how indescribably good the dualsense implementation is? You can feel the pitter-patter of raindrops; you can feel the kinetic rush of dashing; you can feel the recoil of gunfire. If Astro’s Playroom was a technical demonstration of what the dualsense could be capable of, Returnal is an applied demonstration of how the dualsense can truly elevate gaming experiences. Every aspect of this game comes together and just oozes an unprecedented level of quality in the level of immersion it achieves - it bombards you with near-endless bursts of visual, auditory, as well as sensory feedback, and in so doing creates a truly next-gen gaming experience that feels extremely immersive. Short of VR experiences, I daresay no other game has ever come close to such an immaculate level of immersion, so much so that can say unironically that the game actually makes me feel like I’m stranded on an alien world.

Again I hear my imaginary audience ask - this makes no damn sense, if Returnal is as magnificent as I claim it to be, why would I leave it unfinished?

And to that, my answer is this: Returnal is simply far too punishing and inaccessible. For a working adult who—I’m ashamed to say, despite my immense love of games—isn’t especially skilled at gaming and who has relatively limited time and energy for gaming, Returnal simply demands far too much. It’s utterly soul-crushing. To begin with, I am not a fan of the repetitiveness of roguelikes, and even a roguelike as polished and well-designed as Hades did not especially impress me, as I mentioned in my earlier review of it. Yet Hades’ roguelike is, ironically enough, heavenly compared to the genuine hellishness of Returnal’s roguelike, where permanent upgrades are extremely scarce to the point of being nearly non-existent. Virtually everything resets with each death. Your weapons: gone, reduced to ashes. Your suit upgrades, health upgrades, all gone. And that may have been fine were the game itself not nail-bitingly hard—it’s not uncommon at all to have to spend an hour or even more on preparation, only for one small mistake to be severely punished before you even manage to reach the boss, and to have to restart from zero all over again. Furthermore, as is standard of the roguelike genre, there is a fair bit of randomness—and so how successful each run is may in part be determined by whether you luck out on obtaining the desired suit upgrades or your desired weapon. This randomness further compounds the amount of time that needs to be spent on preparing, failing, being unlucky, and trying all over again. That may have been fine once in a while, but repeat this cycle enough times, and Returnal becomes a miserable punishment. It’s utterly soul-crushing to have to waste hours on preparation, only to fail and have all the preparation completely reduced to nothing. And this isn’t even accounting for how gruellingly tough the boss fights can be. Returnal makes you squander hours upon hours—it severely punishes failure, to the point where its rewards, majestic though they are, become overshadowed by its punishment.

Yes, yes, I can already hear a portion of my imaginary audience chanting. ‘GIT GUD’, they say, and I don’t deny at all that I am not good at Returnal. But I am certain that there are other gamers, who like me, do not play games to be punished, challenged, and pushed to our limits—we play games for entertainment, for relaxation, and for escapism from the stresses and difficulties of the real world, something that may be especially important in the broken, pandemic-stricken world we live in currently. Returnal is the utter opposite of relaxation, and if a (mostly) healthy, able-bodied person like me finds it inaccessible, I imagine it to be even more so for a huge proportion of others out there. To be fair, I hesitate to call any of this a ‘flaw’ on the part of Returnal, and I do understand the sentiments of the ‘git gud’ crowd—there’s a strong charm to Returnal’s unflinching adherence to its vision, and its insistence on having an identity of relentlessness and challenge is in its own way very respectable and charismatic. I also do understand the immense elation and satisfaction of surmounting a seemingly-impossible challenge—beating the bosses of the first and second biomes of Returnal filled me with a raw euphoria no game has given me in ages. In part, having no recourse towards an easier way out is part of this charm. Knowing that one cannot simply choose an easier option, for there is none, truly does magnify the immense satisfaction of conquering a challenge.

With all that being said, I cannot help but think that sacrificing a small part of that charisma and charm in the noble pursuit of accessibility is a worthy cost. This need not even involve sacrificing the roguelike genre in favour of a more generic third-person action-adventure style of gameplay—although admittedly, given my general disdain for roguelikes, this would probably have been a better fit for me. I do have to say that the roguelike genre is perfect for Returnal. Its central narrative theme of being stranded on an alien planet where the main character returns by death—wait, wrong series—provides perfect ludonarrative harmony when melded with the roguelike genre, and this harmonious complementation between game-play and narrative is truly brilliant. Even maintaining its roguelike genre, I sincerely believe that Returnal could have been made to be substantially more accessible and less punishing, and to shift the mechanics away from randomness and towards granting more player control. Having difficulty options provide a convenient way to accomplish this, but I do believe the roguelike itself could also learn a number of lessons from Hades. For example, even maintaining its present difficulty levels, a larger number of permanent upgrades would go an incredibly long way in making Returnal’s roguelike far more meaningful and palatable. More forms of permanent suit or health upgrades, as well as more permanent weapons—being stuck with only a pistol at the start of every run is extremely unwelcome—would be immensely appreciable as well. Implementing these changes would indeed compromise some of Returnal’s unflinching and unrelenting vision. But would it not be a worthy trade-off if a greater number of people can experience the utter majesty of what Housemarque has accomplished here in terms of audio design, game design, art design, and narrative?

I truly am impressed by Returnal, and when awards season comes by at the end of the year, I think it unquestionably deserves every accolade it will almost surely obtain, be it in audio, narrative, or gameplay. It is the best game I’ve played this entire year so far, and even as I type this, I feel a rush of sheer awe at just how unbelievably excellent Returnal is. Unfortunately, my affections for Returnal feel unrequited. My circumstances and my relative incompetence as a gamer make it near-impossible for me to ever experience in full all that Returnal has to offer, despite my great desire to be able to. So, it seems, despite my deep affections for Returnal, I may never finish it, and I will think back to this years later with deep regret, wishing that I were in more suitable circumstances, wishing that I were a better gamer, and wishing that Returnal could have been more accessible. Alas, these wishes were not to be.

[higuchimon]

[fanfic] Justice of the New King

Collection Title: Under Comet’s Tale||Title: Judgment of the New King Characters: Juudai, Dark World Monsters||Ship: N/A Collection: 1-6||Story: 1-1||Words: 3,042 Genre: Drama, Angst||Rated: G Challenges: Diversity Writing, GX canon, I24, 1-shot collection centering around 1 person: Juudai Notes: This begins moments after Juudai defeats Brron. This is also a set of six one-shots that will feature Juudai during his rule over Dark World. Each one is self-contained and will be posted by itself. Summary: Kings must deliver justice. Even when they’re new at the job and don’t even know they’re kings yet.

He could hear their voices, whispered words cast among one another. Their gaze rested on him, skittering uneasily away whenever he twitched, as if he might kill them as he’d killed Brron.

It wasn’t that bad of an idea, Juudai thought vaguely. They kept staring at him. They’d cheered him on when he’d fought – would they still do it so happily when he turned on them?

If. If he turned on them. Not when. He wasn’t – he couldn’t – he wouldn’t.

Juudai started to raise his head. His fingers twitched, and someone took that as a reason to dart out of the arena, tiny noises squeaking in his throat. Juudai blinked for a heartbeat, not at all sure of what he could or should or might do about any of this.

He’d never been this unsure in his entire life. Always before he’d simply wanted to enjoy a good duel, win or lose. Losing annoyed him – it would annoy anyone, right? But it didn’t upset him. Even when he’d lost against Edo that first time, he hadn’t been upset. It had been – something else – that upset him then.

He swallowed and tottered to his feet. He wasn’t sure if he had a coherent thought in his head. Any time he thought something, the words and images just dipped and swirled and wandered off to do something else altogether.

Juudai had no idea of what to do. No, that wasn’t true. The longer he sat there, the more certain he felt that he knew what he needed to do. But he couldn’t bring himself to get up, to do anything at all.

Slowly, he raised his head higher. There were still a few of the spirits that crowded the area there, but most of them had vanished, off to who knew where. He didn’t care. They didn’t mean anything to him.

But as he lifted his head, he saw something else: Brron’s Duel Disk. One card had fallen out of it. He recognized it after a moment: Super Fusion. It still looked mostly blank, but the harder he stared at it, the more he knew what it could do.

But then his gaze shifted past that to Brron’s Disk and the rest of the deck. Slowly, ever so slowly, he reached over and picked the deck up, his fingers shaking so much that he dropped the cards, each one spilling before him.

He’d seen Dark World decks before; he’d even fought against one in his first year. The duelist, a Ra Yellow, tried very hard and played the deck very well. But he’d beaten it then.

Just like he’d beaten it this time, by a duelist who had been a lot better than that half-forgotten Yellow.

But that deck hadn’t had a card like Super Fusion. No card like Super Fusion existed anywhere.

Juudai stared at the cards scattered before him and automatically started to gather them up. As he did so, he could feel something twitching, and somewhere in all of that, the sensation that someone was there rose up strong and unmistakable.

“A human?” He didn’t recognize the voice. But he looked up now and in front of him there stood a tall, somewhat bony creature, wrapped in a deep green cloak, holding a book close to him.

Juudai blinked once or twice more before he glanced back down at the cards in his hand and then up again. He knew this one now. Gren, Tactician of Dark World.

“It shouldn’t be possible. Humans aren’t that good at dueling.” This one was Beiige, Dark World’s Vanguard. Complete dismissal colored his words. “What did he do to Brron-sama?”

The Hunter of Dark World, Broww, moved closer. “Well, human? What did you do?” He raised his bow. “Don’t think you can escape us.”

“I don’t know.” Another Dark World monster laughed derisively. “Some of those humans can run awfully fast.”

A whisper of chill followed the next to speak. “Watch your words, Goldd. There is more to this one than meets the eye. Gren, did you not say earlier that a strange human from another world defeated both Scarr and Zure?”

Gren’s eyes didn’t lift from Juudai. Juudai didn’t even feel like replying. Still broken and disconnected words tossed themselves inside of him, nothing making its way to his lips at all.

“Yes, I did. That’s why Brron-sama wanted to duel him.” Gren shifted away from Juudai. “I saw a great deal of that duel. it’s – not impossible that this human could have defeated him.”

“You didn’t see all of it?” The frost-voiced one asked. Juudai’s eyes flicked around until they landed on a woman’s form, tall and garbed in white, leveling a thoughtful gaze on him. Juudai tilted his head. For the first time in what he thought might be forever he spoke.

“Who are you?”

The lady of ice tilted her head into a nod of greeting. She was as bony and cold as any of the others, carrying a long staff in one hand.

“I am Snoww, Magician of Dark World. And who are you, human who has slain Brron-sama?”

Juudai swallowed. His heart lurched in his chest. Sweat tingled on his brow.

“Yuuki Juudai.”

It wasn’t his voice. Neos stood beside him, arms folded over his chest, fierce eyes staring at the monsters, as if he could take them all on without so much as cracking a sweat.

Juudai wasn’t sure if Neos did sweat. He’d created him but he’d never thought about it, really.

But now he nodded; as long as he had his deck by his side, then he could do anything. He could even take on all of these monsters. Neos would help. All of the Elemental Heroes and Neo-Spacians would. He could feel them there, ready to stand by his side.

Snoww’s gaze hadn’t shifted from him by so much as a hair’s breadth. “Human called Juudai, you killed Brron. The law of this world is the law of the strong over the weak – you proved that you are stronger than Brron was.”

Juudai wasn’t at all sure of what to say about that. He grasped for the first words that came to his lips.

“I don’t care.” Being strong wasn’t going to bring back his friends. It wouldn’t take away the words that still burned inside of his heart, seared in marks of flame and etched with Shou’s voice.

Snoww’s lips curved for a breath, something somewhat like a smile. He wasn’t sure if it really was one or not. Did the monsters of Dark World know how to really smile?

Before he could ask that, the monster that had spoken before – Goldd – did again.

“Are you as good at running as your little friend? The squishy one? He ran so well he went right off a cliff!”

He and another one, Sillva, cackled in eerie echo of one another. Sillva tossed a glance towards where the others had been – Manjoume and Asuka, Fubuki and Kenzan – with all that was left of them being the chains they’d been in.

“Looks like he’s not the only one who died, though. Brron-sama finished them off.”

Ice far deeper than whatever Snoww possessed wrapped itself all around Juudai’s heart and soul. When he spoke, there wasn’t anything in his voice that echoed of forgiveness or kindness.

“What do you know about my friends?”

Goldd and Sillva glanced at him; Goldd answered. “Brron-sama wanted us to bring them to him. They weren’t that hard to catch. A little mouthy, but we shut them up.” He raised his weapon menacingly, lips parted in an expression that Juudai thought was meant to be a smile. “Took us longer to run the squishy one down, though.”

“And he jumped off a cliff before he let us catch him. What a wimp!” Sillva mocked, wings rustling in the pale wind. “Couldn’t handle being killed with everyone else, I guess.”

Brron killed his friends – set it up so that Juudai attacked even when he didn’t want to. But he wouldn’t have had them there to kill in the first place if these two hadn’t brought them.

Hurt them.

Run Shou off a cliff.

Rage spiked in his heart. This was their fault. Still a lot of his – his mistakes with Yubel remained at the root of all of this – but they’d done enough and he wasn’t going to let them get away with it.

He didn’t need to duel them. He didn’t want to duel them. They didn’t deserve that honor – they didn’t deserve an honorable death in combat.

“Juudai…” Neos rested a hand on Juudai’s shoulder and Juudai threw it off without a single word, stepping forward.

Anyone looking at him – Snoww and Gren, Goldd and Sillva, Beiige and Broww, all of the others there – saw Juudai’s eyes melt from confused brown to furious molten gold. All around him there flared an aura of shadows, deeper and darker than any ever seen even in this world of night.

“You hurt my friends.” The words fell like tiny drops of hatred. “You’re not going to live.”

Goldd laughed, raising his sword higher. “Pretty eyes, but what can you-”

Juudai gave him no time to finish the question. He moved forward, hands grasping onto Goldd’s arms. Juudai caught a brief glimpse of confusion in Goldd’s eye before power surged through him. Life and death were his to command – he could feel all of that power surging at his fingertips in this moment. There wasn’t anything that anyone could do to stop him.

Not the Dark World monsters.

Not the Elemental Heroes.

Not the Neo-Spacians.

Not Hane Kuriboh.

In the space of a heartbeat, Goldd changed from a living, breathing creature to nothing more than dust in Juudai’s hands. The echoes of his final scream hung in the air and for a few seconds, Juudai savored them. They faded far too quickly, though, and he turned to where Sillva stood. The moment those eyes touched on him, the Army God of Dark World stumbled back.

He’d seen the unrelenting, unforgiving gaze of something far beyond a god.

“Run.”

Juudai said just that one word. Sillva didn’t hesitate, whirled and scampered out of the gates of the fortress, covering huge amounts of territory in a matter of moments. Juudai let him run – for now. There wasn’t any forgiveness in him now.

He’d done that before. He’d forgiven Kagemaru. He understood that Saiou hadn’t been in control of his own actions. Yubel – Yubel hated him personally. That was his own fault.

But this was different. This was someone who hurt the people that he cared about and Juudai would never forgive that.

He just wanted to play with his food. Just a little. To give Sillva the chance that Kenzan and Asuka, Fubuki and Manjoume, and Shou hadn’t been given.

If they hadn’t chased Shou would he have thought differently when he got there? Or would he have hated Juudai regardless? Would he have listened?

Juudai didn’t know. Juudai found, with a bit of amazement, that he also didn’t care. What happened was what happened. Time to finish things.

He ignored Neos’s attempting to speak to him. He started out of the arena, his steps taking him to a stretch of shadows. When he came out of the other side, he wasn’t anywhere near the fortress’s arena. He wasn’t sure of where he was, but not there. He could feel that Sillva wasn’t there. Too far away.

He’d have to learn to control this. He wasn’t sure of what this was but he liked it. It felt natural; felt right as almost nothing had since this last year of school began.

Again he entered the darkness, casting about as he did. When he stepped out again, he knew he was even farther from the fortress where he’d fought Brron. But he was closer to Sillva.

Once more he moved. And then again. He thought as he grew closer, Sillva knew he was coming. He did hope so. He wanted Sillva to fear him. He wanted Sillva to know that death stalked him.

“Juudai.” Again Neos tried to tug him from this path and again Juudai ignored him. This was his decision. This was his choice.

Now.

Sillva stopped; probably to catch his breath, probably for a drink of water. Juudai didn’t know. Didn’t care. But Sillva slumped for a few moments, barely looking as if he could take another step.

He didn’t need to. Juudai eliminated his need to move in moments. He didn’t give a chance for talking – Sillva had nothing that Juudai wanted to hear.

“Juudai, what are you doing?” Aqua Dolphin spoke up, hovering there briefly. “This isn’t -”

“Go away.” Juudai said quietly. “I don’t want to talk to you. To any of you.”

He didn’t think that he wanted to talk to anyone ever again. He could feel that it was getting close to what passed for night in this world. He started to walk, entering the shadows again. When he stepped out of them this time, he stood back in the arena. The other Dark World monsters hadn’t left; stood close to one another, talking in quiet tones.

When he entered, Snoww turned towards him right away. “Has your judgment been delivered?”

Juudai nodded. No words wanted to be said, so he didn’t say them. He stared again at the cards of Brron, now neatly stacked. Had he put them there like that? He didn’t remember – cared even less.

But that card remained with him. He’d picked it up before they arrived – never set it back down. Now he tugged it out and stared at it again before he looked at them all. Something hung in the air – something was about to change.

“How do I create this?”

He wanted Super Fusion. His reasons were simple – if he had it, then they hadn’t died in vain. If he had it, they would remain with him – Manjoume and Kenzan, Asuka and Fubuki.

Shou? No. Shou remained out there somewhere, with Jim and O’Brien. Shou didn’t want anything to do with him anymore. He wasn’t sure if the other two did either. He didn’t think that the others did – not that they had a choice now.

He would make up for what he did. He would make up for the mistakes that he’d made, with them and with Yubel.

Gren moved forward in the brief space that those thoughts took to filter through him.

“Death. Everyone that dies near enough to that’s card presence will become a part of the card. The stronger the duelist, the more they will contribute to Super Fusion’s birth.” Gren hesitated, cast a glance at Snoww, then back to Juudai. “The four deaths that it already soaked up did a great deal for it. The fifth person – the carrier of Doubt – could finish the card with his death.”

The carrier of Doubt. Shou. It had to be Shou. Juudai didn’t know what that actually meant but he recognized Shou regardless.

“No. If anyone sees him – leave him alone. If – if there’s a way back to where we came from, put him there. Let him go. Same for the other two with him. Just let them go.”

Gren bowed low. “As you wish.”

He’d given orders. An order, and someone else accepted it. He’d never done that before. He liked to bull ahead with what he wanted to do – he’d done that for so long. People listened when he wanted things – mostly.

But it hadn’t been like this. They feared him – feared what he could do to them. What he would do to them.

Just the thought of them not listening – of hurting someone when he’d told them not to – made him think about killing them already. They would have to know that disobeying him wasn’t allowed. He’d make that very clear from now on.

“Yuuki-sama,” Gren started to speak and fell silent when Juudai cut his golden gaze toward him.

Dreadful silence stretched out between them. Juudai broke it at last. He hadn’t really thought in that time, but the words came regardless.

“Don’t call me that. Call me ” It came in a single interior bolt, a word that he’d heard once before, falling from the dying lips of Birdman. “Haou.”

He hadn’t understood what Birdman wanted then. He didn’t know if he did now. But that would, perhaps, be a good place to begin.

“Haou-sama,” Gren repeated before he dropped to his knees in front of Juudai. The other Dark World monsters followed one by one, each one murmuring his new title as they did, until only Snoww stood on her feet before him. That icy stare did not change, nor did her expression.

Then she knelt, her head bent respectfully. “Haou-sama,” she acknowledged. “What are your orders?”

Orders. Right. He needed those. He needed to kill people. For Super Fusion.

All right. Better all of this entire world than Shou or Jim or O’Brien.

Or Johan. If Johan wasn’t already dead.

Which he probably was. Brron said so. And if Johan wasn’t dead, then so much – so much…

That thought got shoved out of his head very fast. Juudai took a look around the arena and made up his mind.

“Get everyone in this place out of it. I don’t want anyone to stay here. Is there another castle? Somewhere else we can move to.”

Gren and Snoww exchanged a quick look and Snoww nodded. “Yes, Haou-sama. It hasn’t been lived in for some time but I think it will suit your needs. It will take perhaps two cycles of the comet to reach it – at least for most people. Perhaps you can reach it more quickly.”

That wasn’t a really bad idea. Juudai nodded. Then he looked at the other monsters. “You’re all going to do what I tell you.”

No one so much as twitched a finger in denial. Juudai knew this was just the beginning. He wasn’t a student anymore. Shou was right. Right and wrong.

He hadn’t killed Brron to make himself a king. He hadn’t done any of this to make himself a king.

But now that he had the job, he was going to be very, very good at it.

The End Notes: I’m going to post a one-shot every Saturday until this little collection is finished. They should be about this length, though that may differ.

[wendibird]

A Witch with a Sandwich on a Sandy Picnic

Summary:   Rowena decided a picnic was in order, and a certain exclusive golf course had a beautiful patch of sand just perfect for the occasion. Of course, ulterior motives were at play, and she and her Road Trip buddy, Charlie, were up to some mischief, but what does one expect from two fiery red-heads like them? Characters: Rowena & AU Charlie, (Sam mentioned) Ships: None explicitly stated (though if you DO ship Rowena/Charlie, it doesn’t outright deny it) Word Count:  1536 Cross-posted to AO3 at: https://www.archiveofourown.org/works/14961677   Author's Note: This is actually my response to the GISH puzzle challenge titled "We Put a Spell On You" where we were supposed to find any creative way we wanted to depict the answer to the riddle. The answer itself is the title of my piece, and what you see here is the result of me picturing a certain red-headed witch eating a sandwich at a picnic someplace sandy. It went through a few variations, (originally, it was MUCH more bloody, but, I figured present-day Rowena is trying to turn over a new leaf and all,) and I hope people enjoy it for the fun piece it's meant to be. (I also hope the PTB at GISH will accept this as my artistic rendering, since I kind of suck at drawing anything other than trees and rocks. *LOL*)

Also, this takes place sometime between the end of episode 13X22 and most of what happens in 13X23.

The sun which beat down with unrelenting intensity was reflected back up again by the bright sand and would have proven horribly uncomfortable for the ginger-haired witch if it weren't for the large, colorfully striped beach umbrella under which she lounged on a blanket. Just next to her was a little wooden table on which perched a cocktail, the glass beading with condensation as well as a small plate with tiny cucumber sandwiches, all de-crusted and cut into dainty triangles. 

She languidly selected one from the plate, her nails, the deep red of scabs, complimented the plum-colored dress she wore, and took a bite, savoring the cream-cheese spread used, seasoned with dill and a hint of roasted red-pepper. "Och, Peter, I must say, your chefs here are quite up to par." She then laughed a little at the unintended pun as Peter, a tall, tanned, dark-haired young man smiled in a manner that could only be considered solicitous.

"We all strive to do our best, Miss Rowena," he responded, bowing his head a little, the earpiece that had formerly been in his left ear now dangling from where it emerged from under his shirt collar. He had also loosened the straps on his utility vest which had SECURITY in large, white, block letters emblazoned across the back.

On Rowena's other side another man in security clothing waved a large fan towards the witch while a third man wearing the clothes of a golf caddy was busy peeling a small bowl of grapes.

A few others in various clothing ranging from security personal to caddies to waiters all seemed engaged in some task or another for the red-head.  Some fetched food, one was plumping a pillow behind her, and a middle-aged, somewhat plump man who was wearing expensive golfing clothes was quite busy giving her a foot massage.

From further off, yet another security man cautiously approached the sand trap on which Rowena had set up her little picnic, the brilliant green grass of the golf-course contrasting sharply with his black attire. He tilted his head a little as something apparently came to him over his earpiece. "Negative," he responded in a low tone, "still no indication as to why Jones and the others haven't apprehended the... security risk," he finished, not seeming too sure of what to call her exactly. "Moving in now."

As he drew a bit closer he paused, a look of confusion blooming on his face as he got a better look at the scene before him. "Um... the Senator has been located. He... uh... he seems... er... it appears he's giving the "security risk" a foot massage." He winced a bit as a sharp response came over the earpiece. "No, I am NOT making this up!" he loud-whispered. "Everyone else is accounted for. No one appears to be injured but... no one's... well, acting right. I'll try to move in closer to see if I can make contact."

As he indeed moved closer he crossed an unseen barrier, one formed by the 5 hex-bags Rowena had placed around her little beach oasis amongst the rolling fields of green, and his eyes briefly flashed with a violet light before his entire demeanor changed. Where before he had been tightly wound, like a cat stalking its prey, he now relaxed, holstering his gun as a somewhat vague but happy smile spread over his face. When the voice on the other end of the earpiece continued squawking at him, he simply pulled it out as the others before him had done and continued walking towards the sand trap at a leisurely saunter.

Rowena looked up, lowering her sunglasses a bit to better appraise the newcomer approaching them. "Well, aren't you a tall drink o' water?" she observed of the man who flashed her a cheery grin. "Why don't ye help Julio over there with the grapes?" she suggested as she gestured towards the shorter man.

Nodding, the man hopped down into the trap and walked over to Julio who moved over just a bit to give the other guy room. Just then, the distinct tones of "Scotland the Brave" jingled from her little clutch-purse and with a world-weary sigh, Rowena retrieved her phone and answered. "Yes Charlie dear, everything's going splendid. Have ye finished with all your computer-y mumbo-jumbo yet?" She waited as the voice on the other end of the line chattered away for a few moments. "Excellent! I'll just wrap things up here and meet ye at the rendezvous in five minutes."

With that, she ended the call, dropping her phone back into her clutch purse. Seeming to know what she wanted, the Senator had already started putting her glitzy, bronze-looking sandals back on her feet, and once that was done, she beckoned Peter over who gave her a hand standing back up again. The one who'd been fanning her set about retrieving the blanket and after he and another shook the sand from it, they folded it up carefully. Julio and the newest addition to her appropriated "staff" eagerly presented her with the bowl of peeled grapes, which she happily took, along with the blanket which was draped over her other arm. Someone else had already collapsed the beach umbrella and now they handed her that too.

Seeming satisfied, she fished a 6th hex bag out of her clutch-purse and muttered an incantation. Everyone who'd been under her spell all started yawning before apparently deciding it was a great time for a nap and began laying down wherever they stood. Once everyone was down and out she dropped the hex bag and said a few more words in Latin and that one, along with the five others arrayed out around her burst into flames. She then sauntered away, heading for a gap in the fencing through which she'd entered the golf course in the first place.

Waiting just on the other side was a little yellow Prius with the hatch already popped open. After depositing the blanket and umbrella inside, she closed it and went around to the passenger side, climbing in. Extending the crystal bowl of peeled grapes to the other red-head, she removed her sunglasses and quirked an eyebrow, smiling mischievously. "Well, that went well."

Charlie giggled and happily plunked one of the grapes into her mouth before hitting the gas. "Definitely! I was able to hack into ALL of that douche-bag's tech he had with him. His phone, his tablet, his laptop. You would not BELIEVE the things he's kept on that, by the way."

Rowena sighed happily and enjoyed one of the grapes herself, leaning her head back as her co-conspirator rattled on.

"I got his passwords for his porn subscriptions, especially the VERY illegal ones, texts between him and his mistress, his account info for the rather expensive escort business he patronizes regularly, not to mention all the e-mails talking about the bribes for this, that, and the other-" Rowena made a shushing gesture as she finished chewing a grape.

"Yes, yes, I get the picture. Lots o' dirt on the filthy blighter... though, I will say he gives a good foot massage, but now what are ye goin' to do with it?"

Charlie grinned as she reached over, taking another grape herself. "Already done. While I was still connected to their server, I uploaded it to several news outlets as well as a bunch of online forums. That way if they try to trace any of it, it'll just lead back to the golf course. Which, by the way, is owned by our supreme ruler-in-chief."

Rowena just smiled as Charlie got them onto the freeway, heading for the open road. "So..." Charlie hedged a little, "Your distraction sure seemed to work. No one even noticed what I was up to. But, everyone's okay, right?"

Rowena rolled her eyes a little but nodded. "Don't be worryin' about that. None of em'll remember a thing, and no one got hurt. They're all takin a nice nap, and should be wakin up..." she took a moment to consult the gold, locket-like pendant watch hanging around her neck, "eh, in about five more minutes."

Charlie smiled with relief. "Good! Cause, they're all just-"

"Doin' their jobs." Rowena finished for her, chuckling a little herself. "I know, I know. Trust me, Samuel already gave me "the talk" before you an I left."

Charlie nodded emphatically. "So... what's next on our itinerary?"

"Ah, I don't know." Despite the attempted bored look she was affecting, mischief glinted from the witch's green eyes. "There's a certain Orange Baboon that could stand to be taken down a peg or two from what I hear."

Charlie grinned. "Oooo... Secret Service. You're actually gonna make me flex my muscles on this one."

"Practice makes perfect m'dear." Rowena sing-songed. "I have my witchery an' ye have yours. An clever witches can make strange magic happen in the world."

Charlie titled her head a bit, a contemplative look on her face. "Does this make me a technomancer?"

Since Rowena wasn't quite sure what that was, she just chuckled and popped an Enya CD into the player, and the ladies drove on towards the next destination on their extended adventure.

[rapuvdayear]

1994: Illmatic Nas (Columbia)

I guess that 2019 is the year that I officially start feeling old. Illmatic turns 25 today. It’s old enough to rent a car now. I don’t necessarily disagree with the gist of what Lonzo Ball said about the man, but I also don’t think that you can dispute that this is an all-time classic and that Nas’s influence continues to ripple through rap history.

Illmatic is considered by many to be the greatest rap album of all time (just check out the definitions for “illmatic” on Urban Dictionary). I certainly used to be in this camp as well, though I think arguments about GOAT status, while fun, are ultimately pointless due to the stylistic shifts from era to era. Besides, Illmatic might not even be the best rap album from 1994, even if it was the first debut album--and at the time seventh ever--to receive The Source’s coveted “five mics” rating (just wait until September 13 when I’ll be posting another 25th anniversary post about a certified classic)! There will likely be a ton of think pieces written about it by music critics and rap historians who know far more than I do--and you should go read those if you like this album--but I would feel remiss if I didn’t chime in with what Illmatic has meant to me through the years. To wit: I played the first cassette version that I owned so many times that it snapped, I spliced it back together with Scotch tape, and it snapped again. Why a cassette, you may ask? Because this is one of those albums that can be played front to back without any need for skipping; every track is impeccable.

Before I get into the album’s content, there are some important historical details that help place Illmatic in its proper context and explain its lasting significance. In retrospect, 1992-1996(ish) represented a sort of sea change in rap. The playful party songs of the late 70s early 80s had given way to the hypermasculine, guitar-sample-and-808-heavy posturing of the mid-80s, and then the golden age of the late 80s/early 90s that pushed rap in new directions. With a few notable exceptions, every significant figure in rap’s first decade and change was, by and large, associated with New York (this is not to say that there weren’t a ton of awesome, influential local rappers around the country, but rather that nationally recognizable acts--to the extent that there were any--were concentrated in NYC and its environs). By the early 90s, however, the LA scene was producing more interesting, genre-bending, and commercially successful raps, as the G-Funk era was in full effect; The Chronic was released in December 1992, and Doggystyle followed a year later, occupying the top spot on the Billboard 200 for two weeks in a row (Black Sunday, while not G-Funk, was another West Coast success, topping the Billboard charts in August 1993, and the Hieroglyphics and early 2Pac in Oakland were also attracting attention). The New York sound was at that point represented by the Afrocentric jazz-laden grooves of the Native Tongues clique, the funky lyricism of greats like KRS-One, Rakim, Kool G Rap, and Big Daddy Kane, and the boom bap exuberance of groups like Main Source, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, and Gang Starr. A grimier, grittier, “Tims and Hoodies” style had begun to emerge in the early 90s from the Boot Camp Clik, the Hit Squad’s associated acts (Das EFX, Redman, Keith Murray), Onyx, and the Wu-Tang Clan, whose legendary debut Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) dropped less than 6 months before Illmatic.

Into this landscape stepped Nasir Jones, a 20-year-old up and coming Queensbridge rapper who had generated a lot of excitement among rap fans (at that time still a pretty niche contingent) with his verse on Main Source’s “Live at the Barbeque” in 1991 (he ended up sampling it in the Illmatic intro above). Along with fellow Queensbridge rappers Mobb Deep and with the endorsement of post-Juice Crew Queens mainstays Large Professor and MC Serch, Nas helped to usher in the East Coast’s response to “gangsta rap.” While not as explicitly concerned with gang life as G-Funk was, Nas combined grim tales of criminality with a breathless “lyrically lyrical” flow that allowed him to legitimately stake a claim as Rakim’s heir apparent (it’s not by mistake that years later he would record U.B.R.). Now, it’s no secret that Nas wasn’t intimately involved in the criminal world, but rather “witnessed it from [his] folks’ pad.” Nevertheless, on Illmatic he displayed an almost preternatural ability to spin storytelling raps of stick ups, drug deals gone wrong, and jail bids that--to a complete outsider like me, at least--had a veneer of authenticity (whatever that means). This was his Nasty Nas persona, before he tried to emulate the image that mid-90s Bad Boy was projecting with his “Nas Escobar” alter ego, and way before his redemption on Stillmatic, legendary beef with Jay-Z, explicit political commentary, marriage to and divorce from Kelis, and transition to mature old man rapper/disgraced abuser/Bitcoin billionaire (maybe?). (You can hear Nas’s own perspective on the early days here). 

Once upon a time, Nas was my favorite rapper, and Illmatic was my favorite album, from any musical genre. Full disclosure, I didn't give it a serious listen until 1998--I was a little too young when it was released for it to have been on my radar--but I can still spit “NY State of Mind” from memory, and still get amped whenever I hear the opening bars of “Halftime.” Nas’s career might be one of the most disappointing in terms of wasted talent (there’s a strong argument to be made for 50, too). Once he moved on from Large Professor, Pete Rock, and DJ Premier, he demonstrated his inability to pick good beats, and has made some truly garbage songs. But he’ll always have Illmatic. Without further ado, here’s a track-by-track breakdown:

The Genesis (link above): A skit about Nas and his crew counting (ill-gotten?) stacks over a sample from Wild Style mixed his a sample of his own voice. 90s rap iconicity with the requisite Hennessy and Phillies references. “Representin’ in Illmatic.” It’s an intro that paints an imagined picture of Queensbridge life, and roots the album in “the culture.”

NY State of Mind: If you only ever listen to one track from this album, or even one Nas track, please make it this one. Nas shows off his full range of abilities here: deft storytelling, a relentless flow that rides the beat perfectly, and clever wordplay (e.g., “It was full of children, probably couldn’t see as high as I be”). The DJ Premier beat is flawless, with excellent and obscure sample selection. Nas announces his arrival (“I’m taking rappers to a new plateau”), and sneaks in some commentary on inequality and structural violence in Queens (“Each block is like a maze/ full of black rats trapped, plus the Island is packed”; “Cops can just arrest me, blamin’ us/ we held like hostages”). I only wish I had listened to his advice when he said, “Never put me in your box if your shit eats tapes.”

Life’s a Bitch: There may never have been a better hook in all of hip-hop, at once bleak and oddly resigned. This track also has the only feature on the whole album (well, two features if you want to call Nas’s father, the jazz artist Olu Dara, playing trumpet on the outro), from AZ, a Brooklyn rapper and member of Nas’s short-lived clique, The Firm, who never achieved mainstream success. As Nas himself put it, “My first album had no famous guest appearances/ The outcome: I’m crowned the best lyricist.” I love how wistful this track sounds compared to today’s beats.

The World is Yours: The title is, of course, an explicit nod to Scarface, the go-to media reference for 90s rappers and a prerequisite for the sort of aspirational voicing that Nas is doing here. It’s a fairly conventional track about the dreams of a small time hustler that belies its strange juxtapositions (“I sip the Dom P, watching Gandhi ‘til I’m charged”). There are also some classic lines that would be sampled subsequently, including one that led Jay-Z to infamously proclaim later, “So, yeah, I sampled your voice/ You was using it wrong.” Interesting tidbit: Toward the middle, Nas says, “Thinking of a word best describing my life to name my daughter.” His daughter, Destiny, was born almost two months after Illmatic dropped.

Halftime: The first single, released six months earlier. When I think of rolling, unrelenting, boom bap beats, this is the first track that springs to mind. I challenge anyone to listen to this and not bob their head. Halftime also contains what is arguably the most quietly brutal boast in the annals of rap: “‘Cause I’m as ill as a convict who kills for phone time.” Additionally, there’s that signature Nas rhyme structure that would be so influential on rappers who came after him (you can even hear a little Eminem in there): “And in the darkness I’m heartless, like when the NARCs hit/ Word to Marcus Garvey, I hardly sparked it.”

Memory Lane (Sittin’ in the Park): If Life’s a Bitch is about the present, and The World is Yours the future, then this is Nas’s embrace of the past... at the ripe old age of 20. This is a love letter to Queens: the chorus, with DJ Premier on the cuts, samples two Queens/Queens-adjacent rappers--Biz Markie and Craig G--and the second verse spins yarns about organized crime figures Fat Cat, the Supreme Team, and Harlem’s Alpo... all of whom would be featured prominently in Queens’ own 50 Cent’s ode to his neighborhood, Ghetto Qu’ran.

One Love: Another example of Nas’s creativity, One Love takes the form of a series of letters from Nas to a couple of friends who are locked up. He relates news from the outside, expresses frustrations with injustice writ large, and reflects on how to persevere through incarceration. And all of it over a downright playful beat from Q-Tip (the quality of the production on this album, I swear...).

One Time 4 Your Mind: Okay, so basically every song on this album is designed to smoke weed to, but in my opinion this is the most “stonerific” of the bunch. The beat is a slow, deep-fried haze that complements Nas’s braggadocio. Nothing spectacular here, but I do love the line, “Y’all ****** was born, I shot my way out my mom dukes,” another sample that would show up in latter day Nas.

Represent: If there’s a weak link on Illmatic, this might be it. Others may disagree, but I’ve never been particularly drawn to this track. It’s another Queens-centric rap, with Nas warning anyone who would try to test the borough. That being said, it does contain one of Nas’s funnier lines--“The kind of ***** who be pissing in your elevator”--and another that would also become fodder for Jay-Z’s disses. 

It Ain’t Hard to Tell: Ending on a strong note, here. I absolutely love this beat, another great Large Professor contribution. There are so many elements going on that you might miss the MJ sample if you’re not paying attention. And a bunch of these lines have been sampled to death, too. Despite his repeated assertions of “depth,” there’s not much of substance to this song, just your run of the mill Nas boasts about his prowess as a rapper. Of course, “run of the mill” for Nas is equivalent to the best that other rappers can offer, so... As he puts it, “Nas’s rhymes should be locked in a cell, it ain’t hard to tell.”

[symbianosgames]

Game Design Deep Dive is an ongoing Gamasutra series with the goal of shedding light on specific design features or mechanics within a video game, in order to show how seemingly simple, fundamental design decisions aren't really that simple at all.

Check out earlier installments, including the action-based RPG battles in Undertale, using a real human skull for the audio of Inside, and the realistic chat system of Mr. Robot:1.51exfiltrati0n. 

I’m Peter Ilves, one of the co-founders of Stunlock Studios and the Game Director on Battlerite, as well as Stunlock's previous titles Dead Island: Epidemic (Epidemic) and Bloodline Champions (BLC).

I would best describe my role as a wild combination of a producer, game designer, and programmer. I started my career by studying game design at the University of Skövde in Sweden back in 2006. I eventually made some friends at university and together we created a game as part of a development-course. This project eventually turned into Bloodline Champions (BLC) and me and 13 other students that developed the game founded Stunlock Studios.

Battlerite is the spiritual successor to Bloodline Champions, a team arena brawler that is best described as a mashup between World of Warcraft Arena and a traditional fighting game.

[embedded content]

As I’m writing this, Battlerite has been out for less than 3 weeks in Early Access and have already reached an audience of 250 000+ players.

At its core Battlerite shares a lot of the DNA of BLC. We determined that the lack of success of BLC was partly due to factors outside the game itself and partly due to the game not being approachable enough. These include: 

Getting into the game was too hard

Business model didn't work well with the core design of the game

Weak server-infrastructure

Not enough resources for community management

Stunlock Studio's Battlerite.

Bloodlines Champions was a passion project. A group of 14 students coming together to create the best possible arena game out there. Our ambitions were sky-high: a PvP Game with a dedicated server network and a focus on eSport long before the eSports scene exploded. With almost no budget, we started developing everything from our own graphics engine to our own network-solutions. Personal loans and people working with “real” jobs on the side funded the project.

Late in the process, we signed a publishing deal with Funcom that enabled us to eventually launch the game. BLC is an extremely hardcore game but it was critically acclaimed and we managed to build a small but dedicated community.

We received our first paychecks and continued to update the game post launch with new content and new features but BLC never really took off. After more than a year of struggling with making the game fly people were starting to lose confidence and eventually we had to move on to stay alive as a studio.

We were able to sign a deal with Deep Silver and started working on zombie-slasher Dead Island: Epidemic. Everyone was super excited and for the years to come there were very little talk about BLC.

Dead Island: Epidemic was eventually canceled. Having a game canceled after 2½ years into production was frustrating but at the same time, I think it was a relief for many. It had been a stressful project and in the end, it was a work for hire. 

Dead Island: Epidemic

I remember how we sat down with the studio, asking everyone what he or she wanted to do next. I was surprised by the result; we had not talked a lot about BLC during Epidemic but all of a sudden, everyone wanted to do a remake. Everyone still believed in the core values of BLC and what we started back in 2008.

Nothing similar had come up on the market over the years; nothing remotely similar to BLC at least, and we believed there to be a spot on the market for our type of game.

Everyone was aboard, and we were confident that as long as we can make this game on our own conditions we could make it into the best arena PvP game out there. We would not let a publisher hijack this project and thanks to our friends and investors at Coffee Stain Studios, we were able to develop the game on our own terms.

I believe Battlerite’s success is down to the following key points.

1. We knew exactly what we wanted to accomplish

When working on BLC we experimented with different types of gameplay, movement, game modes and so on. We did not really know what game we were making to begin with. For Battlerite we wanted to keep it straightforward, easy and approachable.

We took the core of BLC and decided to stick with that for the entire project. Focus on the Arena and the Champions, nothing else. Instead of investing resources into trying out new game mode ideas or trying to create new types of Champions, we took the best pieces from BLC and iterated, iterated and iterated.

Bloodline Champions

2. Zero Iteration Downtime

As we knew we were going to have an extremely iterative process we set a technical goal from day 1 – Zero Iteration downtime. This was a design goal that permeated every part of our content pipelines.

The toolset we have used to develop Battlerite is built from scratch for this project. We are using Unity as our render-engine while gameplay related elements as collision, network, AI, are all custom-made. We have developed a tool with the fancy name “Game Tool” in which we basically create the entire game.

The Game Tool is used to define objects, constant data, stateful data that change during gameplay, references to graphical assets and scripts as well as relationships between objects. Scripts are attached to objects and can then access the data and state for those objects dynamically, with changes to all of these available instantly without restarting. Scripts are compiled on save, constant & state data is changed in the running gameplay process as they’re made. 

We embed a standalone Unity player process into a Game Tool window that we feed with the game state for rendering. Artists import assets (models, SFX, particles, animations) into a separate Unity editor project where they’re immediately built into bundles and made available for usage in the Game Tool and its embedded Unity process. Artists and coders can add content in an incremental fashion without having to restart, reload or compile unrelated assets or code, which we believe is key to our iteration process. Iterate, save, test, iterate.

Without this toolset, we would never have been able to create the Look and Feel that we aspired to when we set out.

3. Look and Feel

When comparing BLC and Battlerite the difference in visual quality and presentation is obvious. What is not as apparent but maybe even more important is how different the game feels. This has been one of the biggest challenge to us marketing-wise. The game looks like a RTS MOBA but once you get your hands on it you understand the vast differences.

Controlling your Champion with WASD movement is a huge difference and we’ve put a ton of effort into getting the gameplay feel just right. A video cannot sell you on that feeling. We ended up branding it as a Team Arena Brawler (TAB), basically creating our own genre.

This is the biggest improvement when comparing both games. Moving around, striking down your enemy, firing your guns, charging into combat. These are just a few mechanics in the game but we have worked so much on making them feel smooth and satisfying to pull off. 

BLC has a more “choppy” feel to it, every time you use an ability you have to stand still to perform the action while in Battlerite we’ve tried to make combat more fluent. Many attacks allow you to move while using them and every attack has individual settings for how much it affects your movement. How much your champion slows down, different timers for acceleration/deceleration, different amount of post-attack time before you can perform a new action. It certainly has similarities to a fighting game.

As a player you probably will not even reflect on these settings but when balanced correctly it creates a very satisfying flow. This along with the many improvements in presentation (art-style, HUD, animations, SFX & VFX) makes the game more approachable and attractive.

[embedded content]

4. Servers & Net code

BLC is a very latency dependent game and we did not have the server infrastructure to support it. Many players were unable to enjoy the game because they resided too far away from our server locations.

Supporting BLC with a good server infrastructure was however not our obligations at that time. We had signed a publishing agreement and this area of responsibility was on the publisher's side.

With Battlerite we’ve been able to support the game with a worldwide state of the art server solution. We are fortunate to have had the chance to work with great partners that have enabled us to launch the game on a global scale already during Early Access.

When BLC launched we had one server in central Europe and one server in US East and that was it. These are the server options for Battlerite, 3 weeks into Early Access:

Battlerite's current server selection.

Beside server infrastructure, we have also put a lot of effort into optimizing and developing solid net code. With 7 years of experience working on top-down multiplayer games, we had a good understanding of how we wanted to develop the net-code for Battlerite. 

Our goal from the start has been to make Battlerite available to as many as possible. For the netcode, this meant being able to handle a large variety of network environments like high packet loss, highly variable latency as well as just constant high latency. In BLC, the netcode would fall over if a player had even slight packet loss and it wasn't a great experience to play with more than 100ms latency. In Battlerite, a large amount of systems are designed around the reality of networks around the world.

Our current server infrastructure and a more refined net-code is probably the second biggest reason for the success of Battlerite, especially in regions with developing infrastructure.

5. Pricing

BLC launched as a Free-2-Play game with a similar business model as League of Legends. There was a free champion rotation system. Players were able unlock new champions by earning and spending virtual currency and you could purchase a champion or a bundle of champions for real money.

What we realized too late was that this model was fundamentally flawed for a game like BLC. A MOBA free-2-play model did not sit well with a game like BLC. BLC is all about the champions while I would argue that a MOBA is more about the game mode. By limiting access to Champions we made an already content-thin game even smaller. New players could pick up one of four champions and would ultimately face other players with the same champions as everyone had the same rotation.

It grew stale and repetitive very quickly and players quit early as the grind for a new champion was too big.

The Battlerite Early Access grants you access to all champions as well as all future champions for $20. We have not yet decided what model we will use when the game fully launches but know what we want to avoid.

I’d say that our current price-point is a great deal. It is also worth considering how players will react to how you price your game and what reputation you want to build as a studio. We have been taking a few hits over the years due to the pricing of both BLC and Epidemic. Pricing of some items in those games have been on a ridiculous scale but those decisions were often out of our hands.

With Battlerite we are independent and we can right some wrongs from the past and rebuild some trust. A fair pricing model goes a long way in that regards.

6. Community

With BLC we tried hard to build a strong community. At that time, we were still 14 people developing our first multiplayer PvP game and we still took time aside to create webpages, we developed and branded our own community forums, we hosted community events and tried our best with the limited resources we had to stay active with the community.

Many people in the studio felt that we let everyone down when we weren't able to keep this up due to both political and economical reasons.

With Epidemic it was easier. We were actually not allowed to interact with our players via forums or other media. This is another story of course but one of those interesting aspects of working with a publisher. The good side of this was that we had more time developing the game and we were less emotionally attached to the community (which was a good thing for us when Epidemic was canceled).

For Battlerite we are solely responsible for building our community and this time around there are no political reasons keeping us away from our players. We believe in transparency and as we are still a small team (25 people) everyone that can and wants to is able to help out. Answering posts on forums, doing write-ups that explains a features or a decision, helping with support and so on.

Everyone in the studio is allowed to talk to our community. This sometimes results in miscommunications (especially in language as we only have one native English-speaking person in the office) but so far the positive side far outweighs the negative side of this approach.

During our launch week, most people in the studio spent almost all their time helping people out that had technical issues, answering questions on forums and streams and relayed important topics to our coders so we could fix it ASAP.

There are always unforeseen technical issues that will occur once you get a lot of people into your game but we were prepared for it and communicated any issue directly via our in-game messaging system. During the launch week we worked around the clock and I think our ability to respond and fix issues quickly were very much appreciated by our community.

I would say that the most important part about developing Battlerite has been our team spirit and production mindset. We’re constantly iterating on our processes and refining our toolsets to enable everyone to work as efficiently as possible.   Throughout the project we have been comparing ourselves with the biggest competitive games and we never settled for less. We didn’t have the manpower to create this type of game with the level of quality we desired. We had to come up with solutions that enabled us to work as efficiently as possible. Not only am I proud of the game but I’m proud of the toolset and pipelines we’ve developed.   Iterating on a game can be tedious and I think that’s why many settle with mediocre results. Perfecting small variable differences within a game can be very time-consuming if you don’t have the right processes. When you have powerful tools it’s more fun to work and you never end up asking yourself if a change is worth the time investment or not, you just do it. 

In the end, I believe that the commercial success of Battlerite is mostly due to how much better we were able to realize the game on our second try. Battlerite is the result of 8 years of iteration, iteration and iteration on a top-down action multiplayer game.  

[symbianosgames]

Game Design Deep Dive is an ongoing Gamasutra series with the goal of shedding light on specific design features or mechanics within a video game, in order to show how seemingly simple, fundamental design decisions aren't really that simple at all.

Check out earlier installments, including the action-based RPG battles in Undertale, using a real human skull for the audio of Inside, and the realistic chat system of Mr. Robot:1.51exfiltrati0n. 

I’m Peter Ilves, one of the co-founders of Stunlock Studios and the Game Director on Battlerite, as well as Stunlock's previous titles Dead Island: Epidemic (Epidemic) and Bloodline Champions (BLC).

I would best describe my role as a wild combination of a producer, game designer, and programmer. I started my career by studying game design at the University of Skövde in Sweden back in 2006. I eventually made some friends at university and together we created a game as part of a development-course. This project eventually turned into Bloodline Champions (BLC) and me and 13 other students that developed the game founded Stunlock Studios.

Battlerite is the spiritual successor to Bloodline Champions, a team arena brawler that is best described as a mashup between World of Warcraft Arena and a traditional fighting game.

[embedded content]

As I’m writing this, Battlerite has been out for less than 3 weeks in Early Access and have already reached an audience of 250 000+ players.

At its core Battlerite shares a lot of the DNA of BLC. We determined that the lack of success of BLC was partly due to factors outside the game itself and partly due to the game not being approachable enough. These include: 

Getting into the game was too hard

Business model didn't work well with the core design of the game

Weak server-infrastructure

Not enough resources for community management

Stunlock Studio's Battlerite.

Bloodlines Champions was a passion project. A group of 14 students coming together to create the best possible arena game out there. Our ambitions were sky-high: a PvP Game with a dedicated server network and a focus on eSport long before the eSports scene exploded. With almost no budget, we started developing everything from our own graphics engine to our own network-solutions. Personal loans and people working with “real” jobs on the side funded the project.

Late in the process, we signed a publishing deal with Funcom that enabled us to eventually launch the game. BLC is an extremely hardcore game but it was critically acclaimed and we managed to build a small but dedicated community.

We received our first paychecks and continued to update the game post launch with new content and new features but BLC never really took off. After more than a year of struggling with making the game fly people were starting to lose confidence and eventually we had to move on to stay alive as a studio.

We were able to sign a deal with Deep Silver and started working on zombie-slasher Dead Island: Epidemic. Everyone was super excited and for the years to come there were very little talk about BLC.

Dead Island: Epidemic was eventually canceled. Having a game canceled after 2½ years into production was frustrating but at the same time, I think it was a relief for many. It had been a stressful project and in the end, it was a work for hire. 

Dead Island: Epidemic

I remember how we sat down with the studio, asking everyone what he or she wanted to do next. I was surprised by the result; we had not talked a lot about BLC during Epidemic but all of a sudden, everyone wanted to do a remake. Everyone still believed in the core values of BLC and what we started back in 2008.

Nothing similar had come up on the market over the years; nothing remotely similar to BLC at least, and we believed there to be a spot on the market for our type of game.

Everyone was aboard, and we were confident that as long as we can make this game on our own conditions we could make it into the best arena PvP game out there. We would not let a publisher hijack this project and thanks to our friends and investors at Coffee Stain Studios, we were able to develop the game on our own terms.

I believe Battlerite’s success is down to the following key points.

1. We knew exactly what we wanted to accomplish

When working on BLC we experimented with different types of gameplay, movement, game modes and so on. We did not really know what game we were making to begin with. For Battlerite we wanted to keep it straightforward, easy and approachable.

We took the core of BLC and decided to stick with that for the entire project. Focus on the Arena and the Champions, nothing else. Instead of investing resources into trying out new game mode ideas or trying to create new types of Champions, we took the best pieces from BLC and iterated, iterated and iterated.

Bloodline Champions

2. Zero Iteration Downtime

As we knew we were going to have an extremely iterative process we set a technical goal from day 1 – Zero Iteration downtime. This was a design goal that permeated every part of our content pipelines.

The toolset we have used to develop Battlerite is built from scratch for this project. We are using Unity as our render-engine while gameplay related elements as collision, network, AI, are all custom-made. We have developed a tool with the fancy name “Game Tool” in which we basically create the entire game.

The Game Tool is used to define objects, constant data, stateful data that change during gameplay, references to graphical assets and scripts as well as relationships between objects. Scripts are attached to objects and can then access the data and state for those objects dynamically, with changes to all of these available instantly without restarting. Scripts are compiled on save, constant & state data is changed in the running gameplay process as they’re made. 

We embed a standalone Unity player process into a Game Tool window that we feed with the game state for rendering. Artists import assets (models, SFX, particles, animations) into a separate Unity editor project where they’re immediately built into bundles and made available for usage in the Game Tool and its embedded Unity process. Artists and coders can add content in an incremental fashion without having to restart, reload or compile unrelated assets or code, which we believe is key to our iteration process. Iterate, save, test, iterate.

Without this toolset, we would never have been able to create the Look and Feel that we aspired to when we set out.

3. Look and Feel

When comparing BLC and Battlerite the difference in visual quality and presentation is obvious. What is not as apparent but maybe even more important is how different the game feels. This has been one of the biggest challenge to us marketing-wise. The game looks like a RTS MOBA but once you get your hands on it you understand the vast differences.

Controlling your Champion with WASD movement is a huge difference and we’ve put a ton of effort into getting the gameplay feel just right. A video cannot sell you on that feeling. We ended up branding it as a Team Arena Brawler (TAB), basically creating our own genre.

This is the biggest improvement when comparing both games. Moving around, striking down your enemy, firing your guns, charging into combat. These are just a few mechanics in the game but we have worked so much on making them feel smooth and satisfying to pull off. 

BLC has a more “choppy” feel to it, every time you use an ability you have to stand still to perform the action while in Battlerite we’ve tried to make combat more fluent. Many attacks allow you to move while using them and every attack has individual settings for how much it affects your movement. How much your champion slows down, different timers for acceleration/deceleration, different amount of post-attack time before you can perform a new action. It certainly has similarities to a fighting game.

As a player you probably will not even reflect on these settings but when balanced correctly it creates a very satisfying flow. This along with the many improvements in presentation (art-style, HUD, animations, SFX & VFX) makes the game more approachable and attractive.

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4. Servers & Net code

BLC is a very latency dependent game and we did not have the server infrastructure to support it. Many players were unable to enjoy the game because they resided too far away from our server locations.

Supporting BLC with a good server infrastructure was however not our obligations at that time. We had signed a publishing agreement and this area of responsibility was on the publisher's side.

With Battlerite we’ve been able to support the game with a worldwide state of the art server solution. We are fortunate to have had the chance to work with great partners that have enabled us to launch the game on a global scale already during Early Access.

When BLC launched we had one server in central Europe and one server in US East and that was it. These are the server options for Battlerite, 3 weeks into Early Access:

Battlerite's current server selection.

Beside server infrastructure, we have also put a lot of effort into optimizing and developing solid net code. With 7 years of experience working on top-down multiplayer games, we had a good understanding of how we wanted to develop the net-code for Battlerite. 

Our goal from the start has been to make Battlerite available to as many as possible. For the netcode, this meant being able to handle a large variety of network environments like high packet loss, highly variable latency as well as just constant high latency. In BLC, the netcode would fall over if a player had even slight packet loss and it wasn't a great experience to play with more than 100ms latency. In Battlerite, a large amount of systems are designed around the reality of networks around the world.

Our current server infrastructure and a more refined net-code is probably the second biggest reason for the success of Battlerite, especially in regions with developing infrastructure.

5. Pricing

BLC launched as a Free-2-Play game with a similar business model as League of Legends. There was a free champion rotation system. Players were able unlock new champions by earning and spending virtual currency and you could purchase a champion or a bundle of champions for real money.

What we realized too late was that this model was fundamentally flawed for a game like BLC. A MOBA free-2-play model did not sit well with a game like BLC. BLC is all about the champions while I would argue that a MOBA is more about the game mode. By limiting access to Champions we made an already content-thin game even smaller. New players could pick up one of four champions and would ultimately face other players with the same champions as everyone had the same rotation.

It grew stale and repetitive very quickly and players quit early as the grind for a new champion was too big.

The Battlerite Early Access grants you access to all champions as well as all future champions for $20. We have not yet decided what model we will use when the game fully launches but know what we want to avoid.

I’d say that our current price-point is a great deal. It is also worth considering how players will react to how you price your game and what reputation you want to build as a studio. We have been taking a few hits over the years due to the pricing of both BLC and Epidemic. Pricing of some items in those games have been on a ridiculous scale but those decisions were often out of our hands.

With Battlerite we are independent and we can right some wrongs from the past and rebuild some trust. A fair pricing model goes a long way in that regards.

6. Community

With BLC we tried hard to build a strong community. At that time, we were still 14 people developing our first multiplayer PvP game and we still took time aside to create webpages, we developed and branded our own community forums, we hosted community events and tried our best with the limited resources we had to stay active with the community.

Many people in the studio felt that we let everyone down when we weren't able to keep this up due to both political and economical reasons.

With Epidemic it was easier. We were actually not allowed to interact with our players via forums or other media. This is another story of course but one of those interesting aspects of working with a publisher. The good side of this was that we had more time developing the game and we were less emotionally attached to the community (which was a good thing for us when Epidemic was canceled).

For Battlerite we are solely responsible for building our community and this time around there are no political reasons keeping us away from our players. We believe in transparency and as we are still a small team (25 people) everyone that can and wants to is able to help out. Answering posts on forums, doing write-ups that explains a features or a decision, helping with support and so on.

Everyone in the studio is allowed to talk to our community. This sometimes results in miscommunications (especially in language as we only have one native English-speaking person in the office) but so far the positive side far outweighs the negative side of this approach.

During our launch week, most people in the studio spent almost all their time helping people out that had technical issues, answering questions on forums and streams and relayed important topics to our coders so we could fix it ASAP.

There are always unforeseen technical issues that will occur once you get a lot of people into your game but we were prepared for it and communicated any issue directly via our in-game messaging system. During the launch week we worked around the clock and I think our ability to respond and fix issues quickly were very much appreciated by our community.

I would say that the most important part about developing Battlerite has been our team spirit and production mindset. We’re constantly iterating on our processes and refining our toolsets to enable everyone to work as efficiently as possible.   Throughout the project we have been comparing ourselves with the biggest competitive games and we never settled for less. We didn’t have the manpower to create this type of game with the level of quality we desired. We had to come up with solutions that enabled us to work as efficiently as possible. Not only am I proud of the game but I’m proud of the toolset and pipelines we’ve developed.   Iterating on a game can be tedious and I think that’s why many settle with mediocre results. Perfecting small variable differences within a game can be very time-consuming if you don’t have the right processes. When you have powerful tools it’s more fun to work and you never end up asking yourself if a change is worth the time investment or not, you just do it. 

In the end, I believe that the commercial success of Battlerite is mostly due to how much better we were able to realize the game on our second try. Battlerite is the result of 8 years of iteration, iteration and iteration on a top-down action multiplayer game.