#way back when ​i used to play minecraft with the arrow keys so at the least i want those to be silver :)

[networkcables]

Adam has a broken key (not a big deal, it's happened before 😅) but i found out there was a version of his model that had silver keys! i thought a fun way to customize him might be to swap out some of his keys with the silver ones but i'm still not sure, i'm trying to concept out where some fun places to put them would be, what do you guys think (current Adam on the left)

[syrupspinner]

i beat BIT.TRIP Runner & BIT.TRIP Presents... Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien

even reading those titles makes me winded, let alone all this running

so I've been into indie games since the 3ds. this, cave story, and riskys revenge were foundational games for me to discover. the thing is, this is the only one of those I never beat. yeah, I beat ballos but not... whatever the final boss of this is. if I remember right, I got frustrated at needing to repeat a really long stage because I kept missing one gold (on replay, I can tell you it was before the gauntlet)

revisiting it, it's hard to say that young me was wrong? the stages are designed around being musical, right. it has a shallow and improvisational tone to it, and I feel like the foundation was built on better by future not-rhythm games like geometry dash and harmoknight. the stages here are a bit repetitive, and I recognise the stylistic importance of emulating a looping chorus, but it still feels kinda lame having a level that feels like playing a much shorter level 3 times in a row.

the controls are a bit strange in my opinion too. the steam release tells you to use a controller, but I think that feels worse than kbm. space is jump, and every other action maps really cleanly to the arrow keys. on the controller it gets more spread out... down is still duck, but you can't hit left to kick. you've gotta hit y or... right trigger? since you hit up to spring and A to jump, everything feels weirdly split up. this is a bit of a nitpick, since there's always the keyboard, it just kinda stuck with me.

another minor issue I had was the art style. it's hard to tell what's in the foreground and what's in the background sometimes. it's fine with stationary obsticales, but with stuff like fireballs and blockable beats it's really easy to not register them. the scrolling is what gets me, especially with the obstacles are the same coloured voxels as the backgrounds. at least its tolerable in this one, spoilers

the game wasn't bad, mind you. none of this ruined my enjoyment. first of all, the foundation is solid, y'know? it's a fun little musical autorunner. it's too short for any of the issues to really matter that much anyway, which sounds a bit backhanded, but I appreciate a game that knows it's length. im not sure how easily I'd recommend it to someone, but I didn't have a bad time. if you've got a low spec laptop and need something to kill time on a train ride, it's kinda perfect.

oh yeah, perfection! I like how this game handles collection and death. the game uses gold to show the best way to handle things and reward good reaction time. like, the gold above the springy enemies shows you that bouncing on them is better than trying to jump over them, and the gold paths above springs are missable if you're just holding up, showing you that it's a good habit to try and time things more specifically. it's a great way to bolster player skills and reward good gameplay.

deaths too! indie games in the 10s were great with respecting the players mistakes. it's already bad enough that you didn't win, you don't need to introduce a punishment. to use psychological terms, death in a video game is arguably a negative punishment because the player loses their progress, in addition of not receiving the expected reward of success. additional punishments, like inventory loss, make it really easy to alienate the player with a perceived disproportionate reaction.

(as an aside, there are exceptions. this assumes a linear path that death prevents the player from advancing through, so Minecraft uses inventory loss well because resource collection replaces linear traversal as the players main goal)

but this game uses this in a pretty interesting way. when you die, you watch commander video fly back to the start instead of just respawning. this emphasizes to the player that they have a lot to redo, which turns a negative punishment (which is the removal of something, like keeping a kid from watching tv for a week) into a positive punishment (by introducing a punishment, such as writing lines) by making a show of what the player has to repeat. in my opinion, this transformative approach to punishing mistakes is a great way to avoid making the player feel like punishment isn't disproportionate while making sure death is still a big deal. it's balanced really well!

runner2 is pretty much just the same game, so everything i said applies here too. the only thing is that i think everything that was added to iterate on the previous game ends up exacerbating my problems with the gameplay

there's still no sense of rhythm. in an actual rhythm game, like rhythm heaven, if you know enough about music then you can effectively predict where a song's gonna go and anticipate the proper input. the way the bgm builds up to each buhbum-bum-bum in rhythm rally is a great example of this, where the music builds up to the input the same way every time so it gives your brain a clue to prepare for it. since the backing track and the musical sfx are designed to be interchangeable, where you can swap level tracks and it still works, the entire game ends up being ractive instead of predictive.

this is bad for a rhythm game, but at least manageable in the first game. runner2 does a lot to help that be just incongruent enough to ruin your fun. runner1 starts with more of a chiptune tracks that builds to a more instrumental track throughout the level, but runner2's default is already hi-fi, which makes things feel so samey already. another way this hurts is that foreground and background objects are less distinct, since theyre modeled in the same artstyle, especially considering the parallax scrolling makes the travel at the same speed. the backgrounds are distracting in general too, theres always some weird shit begging to be looked at instead of the threats.

there's also a lot of forced replayability. theres a mechanic where if you wanna unlock extra characters/costumes, you need to play though most of a world, and then unlock a side level that activates key powerups, and then backtrack to previous levels and play them again to take alternate routes. maybe its just cuz i was bit.tripped out by the end of this marathon, but im not willing to do that all again. it sucks because this and the side levels you unlock (with alternate routes that also make you replay the level, cmon guys) make up like 30% of the game. and thats not even getting into shit like those game cartridges.

remember how i said the first game was well balanced with showing you the level you completed when you die? well now its unbalanced by how sick youre gonna be of every level once you play all of them a second time, and thats assuming you never died. by the end, missing gold just made me sigh and think "fuck it, i dont care anymore, i just wanna be done" which never happened with runner1. i guess the lesson here is that you shouldnt make your side content feel like a chore. you dont get to play fun new optional levels, you have to replay old levels if you want 100%.

commandgirlvideo is a baddie though so sequel wins

no but seriously. the sequel is just a longer and more repetitive version of runner1. its just bloated with extra levels and forced repetition if you want 100%, but skipping that makes it feel too short.

im not playing runner3, it seems ever more visually noisy and i do not fuck with those camera angles

[lightns881]

DTeam Tumblr Demographics Survey Results (Part 2):

What does DTeamblr look like, what does it have to do with MCYT history, and why does it look like a rainbow?

I’ll make an educated guess here and say y'all enjoyed my last post (totally unrelated to the way I gained almost 50 followers overnight). Anyhow, thank you so much for the overwhelming support! I’m so glad a lot of you felt you could relate to my deep-dive into the leading personality type on DTeam Tumblr. It took me so many hours to write and research, and as a math major and honors student, it’s no easy feat, so I’m so grateful for the attention it got!

Today we’re discussing the general demographics of DTeam Tumblr and why they might look the way they do. Number 8 will blow your mind! So make sure to keep reading and hit that little grey heart and arrow at the bottom if you like it, so more people get to see it! Thanks for your support! Now, let’s jump straight into the post!

Your Daily Dose of Data

From the 449 responses we received, these are some pie charts displaying the gender, age, and sexuality of all respondents.

Image Description: Female (52.8%), Non-Binary (37.4%), Male (9.8%)

Image Description: 16-17 (37%), 13-15 (31.4%), 18 and over (29.4%), 12 and under (2.2%)

Image Description: Bisexual/Pansexual (54.1%), Homosexual (16%), Asexual (14.7%), Other (7.8%), Heterosexual (7.3%)

Mmhm, delicious! Y'all ready to dig into these stats? Because I don’t know about you, but they certainly don’t strike me as what the general population looks like!

Welcome to Tumblr, the Only Community Where Straight Men are the Minority

So these statistics certainly didn’t take me by surprise. Mostly because the DNF Shipper Survey I took some time ago revealed a similar trend. Not to mention, Tumblr is probably the QUEEREST internet community on the planet. 

Funny enough, the survey revealed a shocking number of ZERO heterosexual males respondents. I’ll say it louder for the people in the back. ZERO straight males were recorded out of 449 respondents for this survey!

Now, this isn’t surprising for the Tumblr community by itself, but I can say I’m somewhat surprised in terms of the MCYT Tumblr community. (Obviously, the survey specified DTeam Tumblr, but there is a big overlap between both communities, so I will be using them interchengably when it seems relevant.)

Let’s break this down. The survey reveals the largest age population is 16-17, though it’s not by a great margin in comparison to 13-15 and 18 and older, which doesn’t surprise me either. Some of the major critics of the DTeam Fandom and other MCYT Fandoms love to claim the fanbase’s majority age range lies with children and pre-teens. While it’s an undeniable fact children are drawn to Minecraft, it’s also a misconception to paint it as solely a community for younger viewers.

In the MCYT Tumblr and DTeam Tumblr communities, specifically, we see this is not the case. Only 1/3 of the respondents of this survey are under the age of 16 (you could attribute part of it to the fact younger people might be less inclined to participate in this survey, but it is still a notable difference). I can’t say these age ranges are similar in other parts of the community like DTeam Twitter, Tik Tok, or Reddit, but if I had to make a guess, I’d say Tumblr lies toward the older of the bunch, with Reddit being the oldest and Tik Tok being the youngest (I do hope to perform this survey on some of the other communities, so please stay until the end if you want to help with that).

One of the likely explanations to why the ages for DTeam Tumblr look this way is the fact a big chunk of the community has likely been watching MCYT for a long time (even with breaks in between). I, myself, used to watch channels like PopularMMOs, Aphmau, and PrestonPlayz as a kid, and I presume many of you are familiar with them as well. With the resurgence of MCYT in the past year, it likely drew a lot of the older viewers in addition to the new ones.

But enough about age. What I really want to highlight on this post is the attraction of queer individuals to DTeam Tumblr and MCYT as a whole.

Why is the current MCYT Fandom so queer in comparison to the previous generations?

This is a huge open-ended question and considering I can only capture so much of the DTeam and MCYT community, the rest of this post should be taken solely as a theoretical analysis as opposed to fact.

With that out of the way, let’s start by discussing the shift MCYT has undergone over the years (I promise this will circle back to the question of queerness in the MCYT fandom, but we need some background before we can come up with a decent theory).

When Minecraft was first released, it proved to be a monumental change in the gaming industry. This simple little indie game took the world by storm. It was so vastly different from what the general population generally viewed gaming as (first-person shooters, story-driven games, action games, etc.) Not to mention, it didn’t exactly solely appeal to only a small margin of gamers, those being white cis males.

The gaming industry has notoriously been known in the past for its heteronormative community and general prejudice toward minorities. Though it has gone through a significant change over the decades, we certainly can’t say it’s fully gone.

Yet for whatever reason, the recent MCYT has taken the interest of so many queer people in comparison to other gaming YouTube communities. Why? Why are queer people so drawn to this community? And, more precisely, why does it feel so different than the old MCYT? Lastly, how does this relate to the conclusion about the leading personalities of this fandom we made in the last post?

The Niche Communities of MCYT Over the Years

MCYT has always been a huge, over-saturated genre of YouTube with content appealing to a variety of audiences. It’s dominated gaming content for years, and I think we can all safely say it’s never been bigger than it is today.

So why is it that just now it feels like the queerness of the fandom is popping off? Why now as opposed to say five years ago when MCYT was at another one of it’s strongest stages?

It seems like the community has made a tremendous shift in relation to breaking gender norms and LGBTQ+ subjects, not only in the fans but within the creators themselves. Was flirting and calling a pretty-boy streamer pet names as normal in the past as it is today? Were straight gamer guys putting on dresses and a full-face of make-up as supported back then? Were “marriages” and “pregnancies” within Minecraft boys an everyday occurrence like they are now? How is it that MCYT has dominated a Twitch dating show where flirting with the gay host and among straight contestants themselves is just another bit of entertainment? Where is this all coming from?

Recently, I watched a 2 hour documentary depicting all of the stages of Minecraft YouTube and how it has changed over the years. If you haven’t seen it and you have some time to spare, I HIGHLY recommend it! It’s very informative, and it honestly gave me such a strong sense of nostalgia that makes me choke up every time I think about it. I’ll link it below.

The documentary does a great job at exploring the different niche communities that dominated MCYT since it first took off. Some of such communities include the basic Let’s Players, the team-based Let’s Play channels like How2Minecraft, the roleplay story-centric ones like Aphmau and Samgladiator, the tutorial, building and technical side like Mumbo and Grian, the PVP-centric Bedwars or Hypixel channels, the Machinima community, the comedy side like ExplosiveTNT, the parody music videos, and so many more. All of the mentioned communities have dominated Minecraft at one point or another, many of them still having a rippling effect and/or a loyal community today. All of these communities have certain aspects that define them, some of which parallel the current overtaking content in the present.

How can we compare MyStreet to the Dream SMP?

Taking Aphmau as an example, her MyStreet series had a TREMENDOUS success a few years ago, racking in millions of views and bringing in a lot of money that eventually allowed her to hire voice actors and increase the production of mentioned episodes. The roleplay series was so successful it ran for six seasons!

Now, let’s compare that to the Dream SMP. It seems like a big comparison to be making considering they appear so different at first glance. For once, Aphmau is just one channel whose audience caters toward girls and younger people who enjoy romance. The series is set-up in an episodic-format that resembles more of a TV series than actual Minecraft videos.

Meanwhile, the Dream SMP is a collection of content creators with a mix of improvised storylines and the occasional regular video that resembles more of a Let’s Play series than a RP series.

You could say the only true comparisons to draw out of these two are the popularity they had/have and the profit they brought to their respective creators. 

However, there’s two other key similarities that you’ll find not only within these two specific examples, but many other channels and communities as well. Story and characters.

MyStreet’s story aspect is fairly obvious seeing as it’s a episodic series that focuses on a fictional story. The Dream SMP’s story aspect isn’t as clear, but it’s evident there is a story playing out in the foreground and background, whether intentional or unintentional, or improvised or not.

Character is where some of you might start to question me. It’s obvious MyStreet has characters. I mean, it is a fictional story, after all. But the Dream SMP? Light, they’re obviously people!

Well, my answer to that is yes and no--sort of. The Dream SMP’s story heavily relies on roleplay, bits as you might call them. Events that aren’t necessarily planned out as a fictional plot like the typical MyStreet episode is, but they aren’t exactly real. Schlatt is obviously not a villain in real life, he just likes to impersonate as one for the narrative. Wilbur isn’t crazy, but it’s a way to spice up the heroic story surrounding Tommy and him.

It’s video-game improv. Except the actors behind the content just so happen to be real people playing off the personalities and “brands” they have obtained. 

Brands. It all boils down to this. In the entertainment business, without a clear vision of your project and a clear way to brand what your consumer intakes, your project will likely not find a lot of success.

There’s a reason why Tommy plays off his loudness, using an overexaggerated laugh that although may not be completely fake, it is likely not the laugh he uses everyday. Or why BadBoyHalo is this supposed innocent muffin who doesn’t understand the crafting table meme and other references that are fairly easy to google and find the meaning of. Or why Sapnap is this chaotic being who loves starting pet wars and we love to paint as an arsonist in the Dream SMP. While all of these personality traits may be a part of their true selves, they’re played up for the camera--for the story. They act as the personas that define their characters in the narrative.

They have a clear brand and vision that appeals to the audience and makes them tune in on the daily to see how they all come together. It’s like roleplaying a more extreme version of yourself, one that brings home the money.

Story and characters run across every entertainment outlet. They define their brand. Aphmau has her characters and series. Hermitcraft has a set of memorable personalities and episodic videos that formulate its own story that is less like a narrative and more of a history of the server. ExplodingTNT has his recurring cast and comedic sketches. Most of these niche communities have a form of story and character defining them. It’s how they achieve a clear sense of branding and cater to a specific audience.

Queer Theory in MCYT

Having said all that, why does the MCYT of today draw in so many queer viewers?

Let’s think about this. In my last post, I ended by mentioning DTeam Tumblr is a sort of safe haven for INFP and INxx types who might be placed in the “other” category by society. INFPs, specially, are predisposed for escapism--one common form of it being fiction and entertainment. Not to mention, INFPs are feeling types who, as introverts, seek a personable connection. It’s why it’s so easy for them to obsess over book characters or fall in love with content creators.

Now, let’s imagine a whole community of LGBTQ+ INFP and INxx types. Actually, scratch that, we don’t even have to imagine it.

It’s what our community looks like today.

And why are so many so drawn to the DTeam and Dream SMP of all things? It’s a personable storyline that essentially forms a direct tie to the viewer. Unlike pre-recorded fictional TV series you tune into on your device, the Dream SMP is a whole load of chaos that blurs the lines between reality and fiction where fans can directly connect to creators and get to know them as people through a storyline that features sub-textual queer themes and non-conforming behaviors.

The MCYT content creator community of today is more non-conforming than ever before, and knowing this whole fact, knowing that many of them might place themselves in the “other” category or at the very least aren’t afraid to break the norms and be seen in that light, is a comfort in itself for LGBTQ+ INFP types. Once again, it’s a safe space that helps you escape from the troubles of real life, one you relate to.

Okay. So although this does answer why the fans look like they do, what about the creators themselves? Are we really supposed to believe this all came through naturally? That a bunch of straight guys suddenly decided wearing dresses was something they wanted to do?

I don’t mean to sound cynical here, and I’m in no way trying to insinuate creators have solely some sort of corrupt ulterior motive. Things are never as simple as they look. However, the truth is, a part of it lies on the attention it’s gotten.

I’ve talked a lot about DreamNotFound and the way Dream uses it as a marketing ploy. I stand by my point. However, he’s not the only one who does this in the MCYT community. Why did Finn suddenly go from wearing a dress to cross-dressing as a girl for a whole week? Why are so many creators suddenly deciding wearing dresses is fun? Why does every freaking straight MCYT actively want to flirt with George nowadays?

Let’s just let Techno’s favorite word answer this for us: clout.

It gets attention from one of the largest historically underserved minority community in the entertainment business. We might not be able to see gay flirting in every Netflix TV show or guys not minding dresses and getting fake marriages, but you are certainly going to get at least one of those in every Dream SMP stream and video you tune into. It gets attention. It brings home the money. And do I blame them? Not really.

Interestingly enough, there’s a lot of analytical posts on the MCYT Tumblr community that discuss the dangers of these tactics and why gay jokes and the way queer subtext is treated by MCYT creators is harmful. Despite this, it still attracts such a huge community of queers. So why exactly would queer people actively watch something that’s offensive or harmful to us?

I have a lot more to say about this topic and the morality behind Dream’s tactics, but I’m out of breath for today, so I’ll talk about it in my next post. What better way to start the conversation about the DNF and Karlnap questions of the survey than a good ol’ discussion on the morality of queerbaiting and the likes?

If you got this far, I’d appreciate it if you liked and reblogged this post if you enjoyed it and/or learned something new! Also, important news, I would really like to perform a similar study on the DTeam Twitter Community to measure the differences in demographics across platforms. I would REALLY appreciate it if you guys could go like, retweet and share the link I posted on my Twitter about it (tweet will be linked in the reblog below) so it reaches more of the DTeam Twitter community!

However, if you filled out the survey yourself here or you associate more with DTeam Tumblr than DTeam Twitter please DO NOT fill out the survey again! I’m trying to make sure it reaches the audience that mains on Twitter, but I need a little help with that since I don’t have as big of an influence on Twitter than on here for obvious reasons.

Anyhow, thank you so much for all your support! I really appreciate y’all and make sure to hit the follow if you want to lookout for the next demographics post! <3

(Pssst, I’m releasing a MCYT DNF superpower AU longfic next month... You should totally go check out the post on that if you’re interested in it...)

[lgwebarcade]

HUD

The way a game’s HUD is laid out is really important as it both improves the experience of playing a game but also can make it really immersive. The design of the information shown on screen is just as vital as the design for the entire game itself. The information on a HUD works in a hierarchy, with the most important information being the one the player notices at first glance, and the rest of the information being noticed maybe after the second or third look. Information displayed by HUDs can come in two forms, gauges and previews. Gauges are the ones you would expect to be on most games, they are a way to show the player a value laying in the games code in a more aesthetically pleasing way than a lone character in the calibri font or something. Information in gauge HUDs include things like score, health and other values of the like which is helpful for the player to know. Preview HUDs show controls and vague outcomes of a possible action the player can make. This can be like in VR games when moving the joystick can show the player where they will end up if they move in the game, or a glowing indicator that appears then the player hovers over and object showing it can be interacted with.

When laying out the HUD for this image, the thought process was more so ‘that looks about right’ more than anything else. Things like levels and hp seem to work better on the top, in a sense it shows off their importance with them being the most prominent values. The ammo and magic meter are together because they seemed relevant to one another, both being to do with combat. In my mind it makes it easier to simply look over to one corner to see both values instead of trying to find each individually. Thinking back it may have made more sense to put the health with them as well however I was very conscious of overcrowding a corner with widgets. The arrow keys/gamepad controls or what not were a difficult one to place as I wanted them to be in a place where they would be easily noticed however I didn’t want it to stand out or be too small. Initially I was thinking about putting it in the middle of either the top or bottom of the screen however it seemed very out of place so instead I placed it next to an important value, the health. The map occupies the only vacant corner and was saved til last as it could ideally go anywhere, however having it in the bottom left feels more familiar however I can’t think of an example as to why other than club penguin and animal jam which were prominent when I was growing up.

Admittedly I haven’t played Terraria in a while however I remember being fond of the HUD design. I’m going to be focusing more on what it was in around 2014 as that was what I was more used to playing (I think the HUD changed, any examples I looked up were more complex than I remember). In terraria The hotbar was in the top left of the screen, with the health and mana being in the top right. Nothing was out of place or intrusive and it was easy enough for 8 or 9 year old me to understand. I am using Terraria as an example mainly because I think it is a similar style to the game I am making in terms of how the HUD is, health is shown in hearts with most or all information displayed at the top of the screen. In Terraria when the player opens their inventory, they can still see the majority of their surroundings which is very useful as there are enemies in the game so if one comes near while the player is rearranging their belongings then they have time to see something approaching and react.

I do talk about Minecraft a lot, however it is one of the game I play the most frequently so it’s easier to talk about. The HUD for Minecraft is very simple, hotbar in the middle of the bottom of the screen with health and hunger slightly above it. It’s good because it keeps all the information in one place and saves the player from having to try and find vital information. The inventory menu is a lot easier to understand than other games and while it does mean the player cannot see their surroundings unlike Terraria, the same goes for most games. When the player has a potion effect or something of the like it is displayed in the top right, while it might be hard to notice, the particles surrounding the player help them to notice that they still have a certain effect whether they had intentionally done that or not. When and effect is about to run out it flashes, which especially in the case of night vision works really well, as your vision flashes the same as the effect icon in the corner. Achievements and advancements also appear in the corner, although they usually are accompanied with a noise so the player knows they are there (also they are more easy to spot than potion effects). There are buttons that can be pressed that bring up additional information which is slightly harder to understand on Java. Pressing F3 brings up the coordinates and other information such as the biome the player is in and the direction they are facing. Pressing F3 with other keys can bring up things like chunk borders, tool durability and hitboxes which are all useful for certain things. 

Night In The Woods is another game I played recently but I love how they did the pause menu for it. The journal is very in theme with the game and the settings are hidden well within it but easy to find. The journal is a nice way to keep track of what interactions you’ve had with certain characters and a good way to refresh your memory on the story you’ve played through thus far.

Five Nights At Freddy’s is very good in terms of it’s HUD. There is only a few things the player needs to know and they are displayed well on the screen. The time sits along with the top right corner, and the two pieces of information sit together in the bottom left. The information the player than given is just enough so that they can grasp what they need to do, but its sparse enough so that they still feel helpless in the situation if they are playing for the first time. The VR version of fnaf 1 in help wanted is really interesting as the time and power usage is shown on a monitor of the desk along with the security cameras, so the player has to physically turn to look at them and risk looking away from the doors and possible dangers. Five nights at freddy’s is a good example of both good distribution of information and also an immersive HUD that fits in with the game.

Gorn is a game that I really enjoy playing, for both the cartoony nature of the violence but also how information is displayed. I was in awe upon seeing the settings and absolutely loved that in order to change them you had to walk up to the wall they were on and physically press the buttons. As well as that, when in the arena any information you receive upon winning is shown on a large scroll at the front, and upon losing no intruding or out of place text appears but it is clear that they have lost when their vision fades.

[infernalmachette]

Emergence, Actions for Many Branches 

The difference between positive and negative feedback is pretty simple at the root of all things. 

Negative feedback maintains the status quo of a scenario by putting a cap on what you can do, its rubber banding and it stops you from drifting too far apart (mariokart, depending on how far back you are will define which boosts you get and which you’re targeted by) 

Positive feedback gives room for change that can change the scenario entirely (monopoly. You get properties you get more rent you get to buy more properties and everyone else cries) 

So basically positive feedback is expressionistic while negative is restrictive. Both have their disadvantages and advantages

Whos the goal maker? The designer and the player. Again like EVERY OTHER THING it depends on context. If you’re playing a sandbox like minecraft the goals are yours, there are some goals the game provides but otherwise you do what you want. If you’re playing a narrative game like undertale, you just play through the narrative. Just give them like whatever the hell and see what happens- wait what if it breaks??? Playtest my dude. You gotta playtest so it doesn’t just get destroyed, but also to see if they can have fun breaking things. 

Depth, A games Soul 

Depth in a game is essentially from what I understand choice. In its simplest form it is the opportunity to pick any variety of options and gain a new experience by doing so. To create depth its best to start adding in emergence as it gives systematic variation, allowing the player to make their own stories. If you want to implement depth though you’re going to have to be careful to make these systems smooth, because if you bog the players down with complex hard to follow rules you just lock off all the depth and it becomes useless. 

Complexity is the amount of things to do with parts that you have to fit together. It’s the amount of things to consider, a system with moving parts you have to think about. The more parts the more complex. 

A game I can think of that has a excellent tutorial would be minecraft, players get given the movement and action keys, the item recipe book, and then get set loose on the world. That’s it. From there it’s entirely flexible and people can essentially build their own tutorials that cater specifically to what kind of game they want to play. You can entirely play the game with NO previous knowledge of it, or external help, and fully enjoy it at any age or skill level. There’s even actually a very cute man who does just this in a video series on YouTube, which you should definitely watch here if you’re looking for a fun cute video series to chill out with by the way. 

As for the elegance v engagement argument? I think they’re not mutually exclusive. In a ideal world it would actually be best to work towards a game that provides both because they’re both very valuable. But if a gun was held to my head and I had to pick I’d pick engagement, just because I feel like it works more towards player experience being fun and that’s always my goal in game. 

Game Feel, come get y’all’s Juice  

Celeste Classic... Now I didn’t actually play a lot of this game, just because I have kinda bad co-ordination so I couldn’t time the jumps very well. But what I did feel was Super juicy about it was the phat flashes of the character when you made the big jumps, and the way the map BUMPED when you slammed into things. I also wasn’t very used to it by the time I stopped playing but using the X and C key instead of the shift and space key to dash and jump just felt good. They line up with the arrow keys and being placed next to each other makes the dash jump easy to slap, that’s good monkey brain juice. The schaghc sound when she hops along with the dash gust puff is just so tasty because you feel the dash hop yourself. Heck even her hair flows with the jump hops. Cohesive as hell 

A E S T H E T I C, Sheriff of Nottingham’s SNAPS

Within game design there’s a thing called MDA, mechanics dynamics aesthetic. This week we were to study The Sheriff of Nottingham's aesthetic. Probably the biggest aesthetic component to the game that I like is the SNAP of the little pouches buttons, the sensation of it is just powerful even though a screen the sound of the pop is so tasty. Another example of sensation coming from a physical object that enhances it would be the simplest element of my phone vibrating when I use the keyboard, it feels like I’m really pressing the keys. 

[dany36]

SIGH so i’m done playing breath of the wild. i beat it about two weeks ago but i just now completed all shrines and sidequests. i thought about hating myself even more by trying to collect all 900 korok seeds but it’s not worth it just to have that 100% in the map screen (plus korok seeds stopped being useful a long time ago). i have 100%d all zelda games i own (except OoX) but i just can’t be bothered for this one.

having replayed all zelda games at least twice, i can’t say i will be doing the same for botw. here are my [long] thoughts about it (spoiler-free):

i can’t say i loved it. i think i was just playing just for the sake of playing it because....duh, it’s a zelda game (plus i sort of spent a crapload of money on the game+console). as a long-time zelda fan, it just...didn’t feel like a zelda game to me. i’m not opposed to change, in fact i was extremely excited to finally play this game, but the overall product just didn’t satisfy me at all. it just felt like a very dull and unfulfilling experience.  

- the overworld. i kept saying it over and over in my head while playing this game: it’s just too damn fucking huge for its own good. and it’s boring as hell to traverse. there aren’t really that many interesting things to do other than look for shrines. oh cool you can climb that mountain way over there? for what? oh haha a korok seed. most of the time, nothing. good job. it just felt tiring and bothersome to explore huge empty spaces of nothing. horses aren’t very useful since most of the time i was warping to try to not bore myself from wandering around empty spaces. i replayed the original loz at least like 5 or 6 times and i absolutely adored exploring every corner of the overworld. botw’s? yawn snore zzzz.

- weapon durability. i mentioned it in an earlier post but i hope this is something that never comes back to a zelda game. it’s especially shitty when you beat a shrine and your reward is a weapon. oh, a weapon that will break after 20 hits or less. so your reward disappears instead of it being something useful that you can actually keep for the rest of the game. this might just be a personal preference but i just hated the weapon system, especially when you find out that the master sword and the hylian shield can actually also break instead of being able to use them infinite number of times (and don’t tell me “oh it’s because otherwise you would never have used any other weapon!” bc idgaf, frost weapons and spears are cool and i would have used them either way)

- the story. oh my god. i know this is supposed to be a throwback to the original zelda, where you can go straight and kill ganon, but my goodness....it’s 2017. how is it that we got such a barebones story?? when i finally got to zora’s domain i was excited. i was finally getting to the story. boy i was wrong. the game gave me zero reason to care about saving the world and its inhabitants (except the gorons, which i think were the greatest in this game). i fucking hate that the story is mostly told through memories. the worst part is, the story told through the memories is more exciting than the one you play through the game. i hate that we are told from the start “you have to save hyrule and the princess because um....you’re a hero, you just don’t remember haha! so GO!!!!” instead of showing me actual, emotional reasons to want to save these people. through the memories we just become spectators, instead of the story actually making us bond and feel something for the people we are saving (except, again, yunobo, who i will save 1000 times if i have to). not even princess zelda’s incredible character growth (which, once again, HAPPENS IN THE MEMORIES and NOT in the present) can save the story from being lackluster. i would talk more about this but then it’d take up the whole post.

- the music. i’ve also complained about it before, but it’s a fucking joke, especially since it’s a zelda game, which are mostly known from having really good soundtracks. for me, there are zero memorable soundtracks. i think i only liked two, the one where you are near a Tower and when you are near a shrine. even minecraft, a freaking indie game, had better ambient music than botw. exploring the overworld becomes 3600% more BORING because as you’re walking, all you hear is link’s footsteps and clanky armor. so the overworld becomes twice as empty because 90% of the time, there is no music. except the five random ass piano keys you hear from time to time. it’s just bad and it makes me sad. people seemed to have hated SS’s OST, but at least it gave us Fi’s Theme and the magnificence that is the Lanayru Sand Sea theme. now THAT’S music that truly takes you into the game and gives it the proper ambiance that the overworld tries to portray. botw? a sad, sad attempt. i’m honestly wondering what they will play during botw’s section at the symphony of the goddess’s tour.

- the sidequests. 90% of the sidequests are boring fetch quests and “kill this type of enemy plz”. it’s just boring and tedious and the rewards are a joke (mostly, rupees, materials which you can easily find ANYWHERE, or food). it’s time for zelda to step up in the sidequests department and give me good, engaging, emotional-investing sidequests that tell me more about a certain character, or which tell me more about the world, or overall just make me CARE about its inhabitans that i’m trying to save. MM is the king of sidequests and botw once again pales in comparison.

- the dungeons. the first one (Vah Ruta) was cool. then it got boring and repetitive, really fast. all the dungeons look identical. the dungeons are for the most part short. there are no enemies inside the dungeons except these flying skeletons that die with one hit. oh yeah and maybe a robot here and there. so there’s some enemies but nothing tough. the premise revolves around manipulating the dungeon by rotating it to discover new areas. so it’s like playing four Stone Towers from MM. Except i guess the Gerudo dungeon, which added an element of electricity (that was cool). but other than that, all of the dungeons are pretty much the same and after you’ve played one, you’ve pretty much played them all, which is sad because it takes away the element of surprise and “oh man i wonder what the theme of the next dungeon will be?”

- the enemies. the lack of variety is a joke. there’s like 4 or 5 types of bokoblins, which just differ in their color and strength. oh and that’s the same for octoroks, moblins, lizalfos, chuchus, lynels, and wizzrobes (which are a fucking joke in this game. remember when wizzrobes were actually tough in the original game?). oh crap, i’ve actually mentioned 90% of the enemies you will face in the game... i think in total there might be 10 or 11, which is PATHETIC when you consider how fucking huge the overworld is. sad sad sad.

- stamina is stupid and so is climbing. stamina was tolerable in SS because of those silent realms you had to beat: you had to be careful of running and climbing and wearing out your stamina because of those crazy-ass guardians. so it made sense because it adds a challenge to the silent realms. in botw, for a game that focuses so much on exploring and climbing, stamina becomes a hindrance that actually makes it annoying to explore the world. you better not run out of stamina while trying to climb that mountain over there lest you run out and have to start all over!!! joy.

- the graphics. can nintendo please try something else with zelda graphics now. don’t get me wrong, i loved TWW and SS, but....these cel-shading graphics (or whatever they’re called) are getting tiresome. i didn’t like how most of the time the game looks bloom-y and blurry af (it’s especially bad when it’s raining or snowing). people complained about TP’s bloom effects but i feel like botw’s light effect (or whatever the hell that causes it to look like someone just put 200% of brightness on an image using photoshop) really takes away from trying to enjoy the scenery and view that the game tries to offer. for the next game can we try something like hyrule warriors or tp or hell even mm 3d? thx.

- the rain. it. rains. so. fucking. much.

haha oh man i never realized how many things i didn’t like about this game. i think i’ll stop here and talk about the things i did like:

- the shrines. although i didn’t like how all of them had the exact same design, the puzzles in them were cool and very zelda-ish.

- the warping system. thank god there are so many warp points to traverse the overworld because otherwise i would have never finished this game.

- the clothes system. i really liked all of the costume options the game gives you, and the fact that you can change the color of the clothes. it takes me back to the OoT days except with more variety. very nice.

- the runes. i loved not having to worry about running out of bombs and the ice rune was very cool and useful: it’s like having infinite ice arrows from MM to make platforms on the water! also the puzzles that involved stopping time with the statis rune were awesome. oh and grabbing treasure from underwater with magnesis never gets old.

- yunobo. yunobo is pure and great and needs to be protected at all costs.

- lynels. for once, a deadly enemy you actually have to be careful with and prepare yourself with good strategy to beat. i remember when i saw my first lynel i was so scared to approach it. they gave lynels such a great treatment and it’s the same one that wizzrobes should have gotten.

- the variety of the weapons.

- revali’s gale. saved me from having to climb so many mountains with its gust that elevates you so high. also after 3 it re-generates in 5 minutes. a blessing.

- the towns. i loved how lively they look. it’s like clock town from mm and it’s great.

- princess zelda. great character development and she has become my second favorite zelda (behind ST Zelda which will always be the best [while oot zelda continues to be the worst])

summary: while i enjoyed some aspects of the game, overall it just was very tiresome and unfulfilling. for a game that boasted about being open world, the world itself was just so barren of interesting things to do and explore. exploring the world of Xenoblade Chronicles, a fucking Wii game, was way more exciting because the environment, story, and music had more to offer. if there’s one thing i can thank botw for, is that it re-awoke my love for zelda games such as TWW, TP, and SS, which i will probably re-play next. i’m all for evolving the zelda series, and i thank botw for trying, but i honestly hope this game will not be the new zelda formula to follow. PEACE OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[cajjidev-blog]

Hustle Hobo (WIP) - Dev Blog #001 : 3D Level Editor

                 In our game, the player takes the role of a magical store keeper. Their goal is to use their managerial skills and tools provided to keep their store running. Off the bat, there are dozens of factors to consider for prototyping such a game; such as reward, accessibility, balancing, and- though often overlooked- environment. Though some mechanics were implemented, they didn’t mean much without a level to test them in.

               My approach to this problem was to design a 3D Level Editor to rapidly prototype varying spaces, metrics, scenarios and even speed up the final stages of developing the store when we get there. Be warned that the current state of the Level Editor isn’t considered to be a final version, but more of a tool designed with the assurance that the time spent on developing it would be worth the time saved by using it. As such, I made the decision to trade clarity for efficiency. At least for now.

 The Problems:

Needing to rapidly test store layouts in a short period of time.

Creating a smoother workflow than Unity’s default Editor.

Budgeting time towards in-game code.

 What It Does

              The 3D Level Editor can be imagined as a Minecraft-based system on the surface, but with modified features. Its most basic function is point-and-clicking to add or remove blocks. However, this is only one of the three ways to use it.

                Alternatively, you can use the “Quick-Actions” to layout your blocks entirely using the keyboard. This is faster for long or repeating patterns, but can be less effective for intricate patterns that may be easier to be done manually.

                The third way is an extension on the previous Quick-Action. By holding Shift, the Level Editor selects all newly placed blocks (including the origin blocks), and can thus be used for producing sheets of blocks for things such as walls or ceilings.

 How It Works

https://github.com/CAJJI/Test/commit/598915b5110f7b349368605b59388272d3162ad4

              Depending on your experience with such systems, you may be thinking this Level Editor is an intricate piece of work, or you be thinking it’s a poorly designed prototype. Both are valid, but only to a degree. The truth is that the basic functions are more intricate and technical, whereas the extra functions were quickly designed and conceptually simplistic.

Block on Block

              When I noted the speed and level of complexity that players are able to build houses in Minecraft, I knew I wanted to use it as the base reference.

              Similarly, in order to build, you need something to build off of. To solve this problem, I created the option of generating a ground to build on. It’s important that the ground is generated using a grid-like algorithm because each “point” of the ground must have its own Vector position for the user-placed blocks to build on top of.

              Now that there’s something to work with, the concept of placing blocks at the crosshair location seems easy enough, but there’s more to consider than one may expect. In order to get the correct orientation and placement of the newly spawned block, you must:

1.       Calculate the crosshair location using a Raycast. Use the mouse position converted from screen to world or the camera’s position (as I did) as the ray origin, then use the camera’s forward direction as the ray direction.

 2.       Calculate which side of the object you’re looking at. I did this by checking the X, Y, Z axis of the hit point and comparing it to each of the specified object’s axis. Because I was using 1x1x1 blocks, I used a range of -0.5 to 0.5 for each axis, but the range should scale-adjusted to encompass different block sizes if used for other purposes. If the Raycast’s hit.point axis value is equal or passed the object’s axis value of 0.5/-0.5, then you know the player is looking at that respective face of the block. This check will have to be repeated individually for each axis until the face is determined. *See diagram

              I also used an ulterior GameObject called “HollowCube” to help contain the active position at all times, then when a block is spawned, it’s simply spawned at the HollowCube’s position.

              Not too much work to ask for, but more than expected for such a simple outcome. This worked as a base, but still feels inefficient, as it requires the designer to run around and build in real time. To solve this, I implemented the Quick Actions feature.

 Quick Actions

              To solve the issue of overly-manual labour, special functions can be implemented to speed up the process. The first action I chose to implement was the ability to extend on newly placed blocks using the arrow keys to select a direction and Enter to spawn the extended block. I also used PageUp and PageDown to control the length of units to extend. I coded the adjustable length by using a simple loop to spawn blocks in the direction of the extension; the loop amount should be equivalent to the chosen length value. This allows users the possibility of building structures using only their keyboard and not needing to have vision of every face they wish to build on.

              There is however, a problem with this that may not be too obvious. I chose to use the arrow keys to decide which direction to extend in, but each block has 6 directions to extend in. Instead of changing the layout, I made the design choice to have the left and right arrows swap between Left and Back, and Right and Forward depending on if the key is pressed once or twice in a row. Without aided clarity it can be confusing for a while, but over time becomes muscle memory.

              Along with the extending Quick Action, I also wanted the designer to be able to highlight multiple blocks for mass-extending in the case of creating things like walls. I figured that instead of having the user manually highlight blocks, I’d code it so you can highlight all newly spawned blocks automatically. This of all things was the simplest to implement and merely required a List and a loop to handle mass-extending. However, I also implemented a ClearSelected() function to clear the list and disable highlights on the blocks.

                It should be noted that because the script only runs in Play mode, the designer will have to copy the blocks from the Hierarchy, stop running the game, then paste the GameObjects back into the Hierarchy for them to be saved.

 Why it’s Useful

               As you can see, the current state of the code is visibly rushed- and for now that’s a good thing. With a deadline in mind, as long as the tool works as needed, there’s no reason to refine it since the player will never be able to see it. It only took one night out of the schedule to design and code this version of the Level Editor, but allows us to make rapid changes that may have otherwise been too difficult to pull off farther into development.

Adapting For Other Projects

               There’s also the factor of incorporating these scripts or concepts into other games. I’ve already began working on prototypes that are based on or share code from this specific 3D Level Editor. I’ve even converted the concept into a 2D Level Editor that instead allows the designer to draw their levels from a top-down (or side) perspective using a line-tool design.

[superfreakinlonely]

Today we’re going to talk about the SteelSeries Apex PRO keyboard with new Omnipoints switches. Now we have done several videos on the keyboard and the switches during Computex – which you can check out over here, but now that I’ve actually had the keyboard in my studio for about a week I can finally make up my mind of what I think about the Omnipoint technology.

The Key Technology

The general overview of the Omnipoint switches is that there’s a magnet at the bottom, there’s another magnet in the stem, and when you press the switch it creates this magnetic flux. You can then measure that flux and through software and through different calibration processes, you can change the actuation point on when that key is registered from 0.4 millimeters to 3.6 millimeters, which gives you that whole range of movement of when that key is actually registered. So you basically can create your own speed switch or create something with a little depth for typing, basically all the way up to 3.6mm which means that you most likely will have to bottom out the key in order to activate the switch.

It is important to know that measuring this magnetic flux – known as the Hall effect – is nothing new, this is not something that Steelseries has patented and in fact we’ve seen this sort of a actuation customization that on the Wooting One and Wooting Two keyboards a via the Flaretech optical switches. So there’s a laser and it detects how much distance is passed between the stem and the bottom. So the Omnipoint direction with magnets a kind of better in a way because we have a much larger range of actuation customization. But this isn’t something that Steelseries invented, so I wanted to clarify that here.

APEX PRO & APEX PRO TKL

Overall I’m pretty happy with the execution of the Omnipoint switches, but it is an expensive keyboard for $199 or $179 for the TKL version. Now before we get into the meat of the Omnipoint switch, let’s talk about the keyboard itself. I love the low profile nature of the actual frame, there is no excessive pieces sticking out above the F keys, nothing on the sides, nothing below the space bar. I love the low profile and really smooth wrist rest, and the fact that it attaches magnetically is wonderfully executed.

There is a USB passthrough in the top left corner that is illuminated, which is why the cable is so thick. That is one disadvantage, it would be nice if the cable was removable, but you can route it across the bottom of the keyboard to channel it in whichever direction you want. The keyboard feet have one orientation angle, which is nice. However, they’re not strong enough, so if I push the keyboard from the front they might collapse and that has happened to me many times and it destabilizes one end of the keyboard and completely messes up my a finger placement on the WASD area.

Now regarding this whole OLED screen implementation in the actual keyboard. In the beginning I was like this is kind of cool, but after having used it in some games, it’s kind of pointless. I will say it is fantastic for menu customization so you can access your macros, your illumination, your actuation point, your profiles and different other settings without actually going into the driver software. All that is done through the OLED screen, and with the help of a little joystick wheel and one multi-function button, but the actual wheel feels very cheap. The scroll steps for example are kind of weak, I feel like I have no control. The actual click of the wheel is also kind of poor and for $200 this is not what I was expecting.

OLED screen

The reason why I say the screen is pointless for in-game integrations and applications is because it is so limited. It works in games like CS:GO or DOTA 2 or Minecraft and you can see your kill-to-death ratio, you can see which round you’re on, you can customize when those appear and for how long they stay on screen. But the screen is kind of out-of-sight, when I’m playing a game I’m never looking down to see what my kill-to-death ratio is and what round it is. From my perspective, given the supported games list is so little, unless you play one of the supported games this is really not a value add.

Of course, you can do cool things with animated GIFs and actually draw your own little graphic to display. But do you ever really look at the keyboard for any information outside of maybe readjusting your hand or seeing where certain characters? Basically the display on the keyboard is more of a gimmick than it is actually useful in real life. That is of course my opinion based on my recent experience.

I will say that the Omnipoint switches really saved the APEX PRO and the PRO TKL keyboards because they really are fantastic at what they do and how they feel. I’m a huge fan of Gateron Red switches, they are currently my favorite and the Omnipoints remind me of those with their incredibly smooth travel distance throughout the entire range, which is exactly what you need when you can customize the actuation points from 0.4mm to 3.6mm. Just let that sink in for a second, less than half a millimeter to press before the keys register. In game sometimes I would not realize that I’d be pressing the Shift key and my character was walking or sometimes I would be going slightly sideways because my finger weight was at registering as a keystroke.

At one point my favorite switches were MX Speed that registered at 1.2mm, so they’re really fast and I was really comfortable with that, but eventually moved on to something that actuate at 2.0mm. But here with this keyboard you have that whole customization range basically. You can make your own speed switch, you can go back to red switch, you can maybe even drop the actuation point all the way to 3.6mm in case you really want to bottom out while you’re typing, which is what makes the switch so special.

The Software

In the software you can select between one and 10, but you won’t know exactly where the actuation happens in terms of millimeters. So that makes recreating a certain switch that you’re comfortable with kind of difficult. What is five? With a range of 0.4mm to 3.6mm the 5 setting should be 1.6mm, so I guess they are expecting you do to your own math.

Also important to note Omnipoint switches are only located on 61 keys. Everything below the F keys and everything to the left of the arrow keys. The rest of the keys are Steelseries Red.

I do appreciate the per-key actuation customization for those 61 switches because my WASD area can be really fast. Same thing with my spacebar. My Shift and Control can be fully actuated so that I don’t accidentally press them or so the weight of my fingers don’t register as a keystroke. And the same thing when I’m doing something around the WASD area just to eliminate any errors while I’m in game. But when I go back to my desktop, all the keys go back to my custom 2.5mm actuation point, which I’m quite comfortable with and I like to bottom out anyway. Basically, the whole per-application and per-switch customization is awesome.

Weirdly they’ve only recently added the per-key illumination customization, before that it was just the whole board and you chose between the different color presets and different profiles. But now you can select your entire range of keys and color them to whatever you want.

Shortcomings

Now I am disappointed that Steelseries decided to use ABS key caps instead of something more premium and quality. Once you go PBT it’s hard to go back and you notice the difference in quality of the actual key caps. Just noticing the sub-optimal feel on a premium keyboard like the APEX PRO is disappointing.

You should know that Steelseries decided to avoid the analog direction of being able to detect how far you press and actually registering it that as movement. For example, like we’ve seen with Flaretech, which is on the Wooting One keyboard, you can usually use that feature to like slow down your character depending on how far you press. That is not present with the Omnipoint switches, so it’s only based on the actuation customization and that’s cool, but it’s also limited due to the tech that’s built into the switch.

If you are interested in actuation customization plus having the full analog control, check out the Wooting One and Wooting Two keyboards because through the drivers software you can remap certain keys so they are seen by the program as analog inputs, which gives you the full range of motion in terms of how far you press to, how fast your character moves. I was also hoping to see more functionalities and features built into the Omnipoints switch outside of the actuation control, so like maybe setting the recent point at certain level and having different actuation points beyond the first one, so it’s like double tabs activates something else. Basically, having dual functionalities that are built into the hall effect functionality would be amazing. However, as it is it’s quite basic with the actuation registering distance only. It is cool though to play around with different acceleration points and seeing how it influences your gameplay and your typing experience or whatever.

Given the 100 million key strokes this keyboard will last you for a while so you can switch back and forth depending on how deep you like to press or how light you like tap. All right, so that’s my experience with the APEX PRO keyboard, the Omnipoint switches are fantastic, the actuation customization is super fun, but it’s one of those things where once you set it maybe for like certain games and certain applications.

The OLED screen is pretty underwhelming, it would be nice if it was slightly bigger or maybe in a more visible area. I would like the keyboard feet to be improved. And also the actual little scroll wheel to have a bit more resistance and feel more premium, because using it to control different things just didn’t feel really good.

Thankfully, the frame plus the amazing wrist rest really kind of completes the package and makes this a really premium keyboard, so if you don’t mind spending $200 and want to play around the customization of the actuation for the 61 switches then the APEX PRO and APEX PRO TKL might be for you.

The post Steelseries APEX PRO Review – Does Omnipoint REALLY Matter? appeared first on Hardware Canucks.

from Hardware Canucks https://ift.tt/2TWa9iP

[fairyberries-blog]

Sonic The Hedgehog Pick Up Lines

I want to wear you like a Razer headset Gaming Equipment I’ll slam you against the wall like my controller General Are you a torch? Because you light up my world. Mindcraft Hey baby, you wanna see my hidden blade? Assassin’s Creed Call me Kirby, ’cause I’m talking you to Dreamland. Kirby I’d jump over a thousand barrels to save you. Donkey Kong Hay baby, can my patrol enter your Hidden Vally? Fall Out Nice pants, baby. What’s the drop rate? World of Warcraft I’ve got one heart left and it’s beeping for you. General Baby, I’ve been Z-targeting you all night. Legend of Zelda Wanna see who’s got the longer Dagger of Xian? Tomb Raider I’ll never skip the cutscenes of your conversation General They don’t call me Super for nothing. Super Mario Brothers My Heart is BOP and you just rolled Need World of Warcraft Let’s breed chocobos… the old-fashioned way! Final Fantasy You’re the Princess Peach to my Mario Super Mario Brothers Whoa! Those pants make even yer butt look buff! Tomb Raider There’s a Himalayan idol somewhere in my pants. Tomb Raider Want to touch my Staff of Rampant Growth? World of Warcraft Like Ezio, I’m great from behind and above Assassin’s Creed What do you say I take my flag to your base and score? Halo Are you a Wii? Because I love your joystick Gaming Equipment I’d rather ride you than Yoshi any day. Super Mario Brothers I’d like to fertilize your crops with my bonemeal. Mindcraft I’ll make sure the Road to Dawn is a loud one. Kingdom Hearts Zidane: You wanna see something my tail can do? Final Fantasy Is it true what they say about British duchesses? Tomb Raider Yeah, that’s right… I’m hung like a tauren. World of Warcraft I wanna make you wetter than the Zora Temple. Legend of Zelda Are you a slimeball? Cause you make my piston sticky Mindcraft If I were an NES cartridge would you blow me? Gaming Equipment I’m like an Xbox; I can go 360 all night long Gaming Equipment Are you a Deku Nut? Because you’re stunning me. Legend of Zelda You must be a pressure plate, because you turn me on. Mindcraft Wat out… I just ate a big dot and I’m coming after you. Pac-Man Are you Donkey Kong? Because I want to Super Smash. Donkey Kong Are you Mortal Kombat? Your beauty has finished me Mortal Kombat I’ve got one heart left and its beeping for you. Legend of Zelda Not even the sands of time could pull us apart. Prince of Persia Why don’t you seduce me? My resistance is low. World of Warcraft Your heart is like a dungeon; large and full of treasure General Baby, you look beautiful and pure, just like Aeris. Final Fantasy Wanna take my Swift Pink Hawkstrider for a ride? World of Warcraft Nice guns, but ya really should accept no substitutes. Tomb Raider I took an arrow to the knee! From cupid, after seeing you. General Come on, girl… I have the blessing of protection! World of Warcraft Girl, I’ve got a gold ring with your name on it. Sonic the Hedgehog Want to fuse Kinstones? I’d bet they fit perfectly. Legend of Zelda Call me Lara Croft because I’m about to go Tomb Raiding. Tomb Raider I’m no Kobald, but you can take my candle anytime! World of Warcraft Baby, not even Namine could erase my memories of you. Kingdom Hearts Can I show you how it feels to wear a Deadlock suit? Ratchet & Clank Are we playing Assault? Cause I’m pretty sure you are the bomb. Halo If you were a warp tube, I’d be in you all day. Super Mario Brothers If you were a map pack, I’d download you. First Person Shooting Game Are you Alienware? Because you are out of this world Gaming Equipment You just made me shoot a MOAB in my pants. First Person Shooting Game You must be from nether, because you are out of this world. Mindcraft Are you up for a little tactical insertion? First Person Shooting Game Without you, I feel like I’m in a world that never was. Kingdom Hearts You don’t have to turn on a game to play with me. Super Mario Brothers It’s dangerous to go alone! Here, take this! (Hold their hand) General Looking at you makes me feel like Gordon Freeman…speechless. Half-Life You gave me hardened pro in just 6 seconds. First Person Shooting Game I want to ride you harder than Mario rides Yoshi. Super Mario Brothers I’d better buy a bigger bag, because you are the BOMB! Legend of Zelda You’re not 18 yet? No problem, I know the Song of Time. Legend of Zelda You must be lava, you’re so hot and I can’t help falling in you General Flash Man must be nearby because when I saw you time stopped. Astro Boy I’ve got an idea for a dig I think you’ll be interested in… Tomb Raider Your body is like an open world, I never want to stop exploring General For you I would travel all levels around the world. Super Mario Brothers Your eyes are so blue, they remind me of 24 stam gems. World of Warcraft Are you the patch notes? Because I can’t get enough of you Online Gaming I’ve got a full set of leather equips back at my Mog House Final Fantasy If I were Cloud and you were Tifa, I’d be glad aeris died. Final Fantasy You’re so hot, you warm my cold-blooded heart. First Person Shooting Game Sitcky going out! Sorry, you’re just that hot! First Person Shooting Game Girl, is your name Roxas? Because you’re rocking that ass. Kingdom Hearts Do you have a Diamond Pickaxe? Because I’m as hard as Obsidian. Mindcraft Are you a vendor, because I’d like to browse your goods. World of Warcraft How many COD points does it take to unlock you? First Person Shooting Game I use Full Metal Jacket for deeper penetration. First Person Shooting Game I’m gonna be Bigocto this time, and I’m gonna suck you up. Legend of Zelda Full character customization could never capture your beauty Online Gaming Is that a creeper in your pants or are you just happy to see me? Mindcraft What’s a girl like you doing in a Forest Temple like this? Legend of Zelda Have you ever procced flurry on a Gizmo-tron jackhammer? World of Warcraft Cloud: My hair’s not the only thing that’s pointy right now! Final Fantasy Are you a telo-eksplosija?? Because you’re blowing up my mind Resident Evil Once you go Demacian you never go back, I Garen – tee it. League of Legends Are you sitting on the F5 key? Because that ass is refreshing Online Gaming I’m not possessed by Majora’s Mask, I’m just crazy for you. Legend of Zelda Are you a magic flower? Because you are burning me up. Super Mario Brothers You must be a redstone torch, because you’re extending my piston! Mindcraft I’m like a zombie and you’re like the sun – you light me on fire! Mindcraft Are you my somebody? ‘Cause I’d like to become one with you. Kingdom Hearts You must be made of bonemeal, cause you make me grow 10 feet tall. Mindcraft I better put on my Goron tunic, because you’re too damn hot. Legend of Zelda Do you play World of Warcraft? Because you make me say WoW World of Warcraft Care to come over for my house for a little co-op? First Person Shooting Game Are you related to Glass Joe? Because you’re an easy Knockout! Street Fighter Are you a magic mushroom? Because you are making me grow. Super Mario Brothers I was following the indicator of where to score and it brought me to you. Halo I’d better put on my Goron tunic, because you’re too damn hot. Legend of Zelda Baby, did you just cast thundaga? Because you are electrifying! Kingdom Hearts How ’bout you come back to my place and I show you my Longshot Legend of Zelda My staff can use a little enchant. I have mats and will tip! World of Warcraft Wanna leave this lobby and go into a private match? First Person Shooting Game Baby, did you just cast firaga? Because you set my heart aflame! Kingdom Hearts Do you need a Magnum because I’ve got one right here for you. In my pants. Halo Are you a part of the Triforce? Because you’re my missing Link. Legend of Zelda I think something is wrong with my auto-aim. I can’t take my eyes off you. Halo You’re like a cutscene – beautiful at first but then you never shut up. General I know my way around the cleft of dimension, want me to show you? Final Fantasy I think you might be a heartless because you just stole my heart. Kingdom Hearts If we lived in Minecraft, I’d build you a mansion out of nether quartz Mindcraft Baby, did you just cast aeroga? Because you swept me off my feet. Kingdom Hearts Wait till you see what my combo points can do in the bed room. World of Warcraft Is that a keyblade in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? Kingdom Hearts You must be whitemane, because you just made my champion arise! World of Warcraft You must be a Rogue because I was stunned when I first saw you. World of Warcraft Baby, do you need a phoenix down? Because you’re drop dead gorgeous! Final Fantasy Baby, did you just cast graviga? Because you are out of this world! Kingdom Hearts Baby, did you just cast blizzaga? Because time froze when I met you! Kingdom Hearts Is that a Handcannon in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me? Resident Evil Baby, I’m going to have to summon Shiva, because you’re just too hot! Final Fantasy That’s not an m60 in my pants, I’m just happy to see you. First Person Shooting Game I’m like a plasma grenade. Let me get on you and you are guaranteed to explode. Halo You must be ice, because I’ve been waiting to pick you up for a long time. Mindcraft Are you a vault hunter, because you’ve got a loot chest that I want to open. General I must have defeated a boss, because I just found a heart container. Legend of Zelda I would run around the world for you… without lightweight. First Person Shooting Game So it’s all about survival with you, huh? Wanna help the species survive? Tomb Raider (eyeing the breast plate) I am a master dual wielder. Mind if I give those a go? Halo Man, I feel like Sonic in the water, ’cause you’ve got breathless. Sonic the Hedgehog I think something’s wrong with my auto-aim, because I can’t take my eyes off you. Halo I have never found true love, until you opened the Kingdom to my Heart. Kingdom Hearts Don’t worry babe, I’m a gamer, so you can trust me to be good with my fingers. General Forget that rogue. As a Druid, I’ve got the strength AND the agility. World of Warcraft You should come back to my place. My master sword needs to be polished. Legend of Zelda I usually press “X” to pick up weapons. Does that work for picking YOU up as well? Halo Rose are #FF000; Violet are #0000FF; All my base are belong to you. Super Mario Brothers Warlocks are masters of shadow magic. That means we do it in the dark. World of Warcraft You should audition for the next final fantasy! You’re already one for me. Final Fantasy I would like to gain access to your base. Shall I enter from the front or the rear? Halo I’d catch a grenade for you… it’s ok, I’ve got FlakJacket pro! First Person Shooting Game How ’bout we meet at Underpass and I’ll Tactically insert you. First Person Shooting Game I think something’s wrong with my auto-aim, because I can’t take my eyes off you. General I usually press “X” to pick up weapons. Does that work for picking YOU up as well? General I know how Mario must feel, ’cause I really want to clean your pipes. Super Mario Brothers Get down with me, baby, and I’ll make you have a Limit Break all night long. Final Fantasy Are you a care package? Because you must’ve fallen from heaven. First Person Shooting Game When I came near you, the announcer said “unfreakinbelievable”… I would have to agree. Halo Watch out girl, my predator missile is coming at you from behind! First Person Shooting Game

[omgtaxtwerk]

The Incredible True Story of How a Florida Teacher Became Head of 1 of the Biggest Brands on Earth

Lydia Winters is living the dream.

As the brand director at Mojang, she’s responsible for maintaining all aspects of the massively popular Minecraft brand – from tiny collectible figurines to international events, Winters has her hands in pretty much everything. It should come as no surprise, then, that her work has landed her on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, or that she was named one of Sweden’s most powerful women in digital in 2016, or that on Nov. 18, she’ll be cohosting the company’s annual Minecon event with none other than the brilliantly funny Will Arnett. What will come as a surprise is how she got to where she is – and what her job entails on a daily basis.

I interviewed Winters by phone in October, and the first thing she told me – from her office in Stockholm, Sweden – was that she was born in Florida. “I have an elementary education degree, and I taught fourth grade in Florida for a year before I decided that I didn’t want to teach anymore – but I didn’t really know what I wanted to do,” she said, laughing. “I was just trying to figure it out, I was 21 or 22, and I started doing a lot of photography and shooting weddings, taking portraits of babies and kids.”

It was only after Winters did a photography workshop in 2010 that she was introduced to video blogging, the medium that would eventually land her in her current role. “I was making these really weird daily videos about a lot of random things,” she told me. “In the house that I lived in, I had baby turtles – so one day I’d be singing about baby turtles, and the next day I’d be like ‘I’m sick! I don’t know what to talk about!’ and the next day I’d be talking about cameras. It was always about different things.”

But despite the initial popularity of her work, Winters knew that she was very much living day to day and didn’t have a plan. After successfully raising $10,000 for breast cancer research (and shaving her head, as she promised to do if she hit her goal), she had begun to question the path her life was on once again. “I was like, ‘OK. Now I don’t have a job. I just shaved my head. I’m making videos and things appear to have gone terribly wrong. What do I do now?‘”

A post shared by Lydia Winters (@lydiawinters) on Oct 29, 2010 at 8:57am PDT

After consulting with friends, she realized that the only way to get her life back on track was to try to do something consistent with her videos, to focus all of her energy on one single topic. Winters decided to focus on video games, but there was one problem: the only video game she’d ever played was Oregon Trail.

“My friends thought it would be hilarious if I played Minecraft from the perspective of someone who doesn’t know anything about playing games,” Winters recalled. “This was after I had done this Susan G. Komen 60-mile walk, and someone had given me a hot pink wig. So I was like, ‘OK. I’ll wear a pink wig, and I’ll call myself – I wanted to be Minecraftgirl, but that username was taken – I’ll be Minecraftchick.'”

So, with a pink wig and a second-choice username, Winters began the next stage of her post-teacher life: becoming the lovable woman behind the cult YouTube series The Misadventures of Minecraftchick.

The concept was simple; Winters learned how to play Minecraft in a series of heavily edited shortform videos, interspersed with snarky, self-deprecating commentary. But in a genius twist, Winters chose to film herself as she played, using the video of her facial reactions as an overlay over her gameplay – something that was unheard of in 2010. “Everyone who was doing a very standard, ‘this is my voice, and I am playing right now,'” she said. “I got so much flak for [showing my face]. Now, everyone does it. It’s weird if you don’t show your face when you’re playing, because it’s so much more fun to see someone’s expression and what they’re doing.”

A post shared by Lydia Winters (@lydiawinters) on Oct 28, 2010 at 3:36pm PDT

“In the first video, I couldn’t even figure out how to walk,” Winters recounted. “I just opened [the game] on my screen, and was like, ‘I am starting this game. I’m so excited!’ And then I was clicking everything, and I’m like, ‘How do I move? I’m clicking the mouse, I’m using the arrow keys, and nothing is working.’ So I’m like, ‘OK. I’m going to google this. Pause!’ and then I come back and say, ‘AH! I figured it out. It’s W-A-S-D,’ which obviously I didn’t know as I had never played games. So of course then I’m like, ‘I can walk! I’m amazing!’ and I’m walking and walking and I go into water and I’m like, ‘Wait, which key do I use to swim?’ and then, of course, I drown.”

An innovative format may have made her videos stand out, but it was the combination of a severe lack of resources around how it was exactly that one actually was supposed to play Minecraft and her charming, quirky persona that really won YouTube viewers over. Winters says her “black and white commentary” – noting that she was from Florida, and as a result obviously knew how to swim even if her avatar didn’t – was what made the videos feel less like a how-to and more like a show. And that show format quickly started gaining followers; in the first week alone, she jumped from 0 to over 2,000 subscribers – and it’s then that she decided to up the ante to making daily videos. For five months, she made the videos every single day.

“I was going through a separation at the time,” she said, “and I was like, ‘Oh, man, I really don’t know what I want to do. I’m making these videos and it’s really fun, but I’m doing a lot of odd jobs on the side – little ad listings and writing for people, or editing or posting stuff – whatever friends had jobs to do, so I can support this pretty hobbyish thing.’ But I was gaining tons of subscribers and it was really fun. Every day, my dad would text me and tell me how many new subscribers I had, which was the sweetest thing.”

But in June 2011, Winters again began to question what she was doing. The revelation came while she was living with her ex-husband in her uncle’s trailer park house – “the most Florida story I can tell,” she said – and found herself once again struggling to get by. It’s then that she came up with the idea of going to video game conference E3 and interviewing the creators of Minecraft for her YouTube channel. She wrote them a cold email that said quite simply, “Hi, I’m Lydia. I’m a serious person. Here’s My YouTube channel. I used to be a teacher. If you need any help at E3, I can do whatever. I would just love to interview you for my channel. Super short, whatever you want.”

Carl Manneh, the former CEO of Mojang, wrote back with a much bigger offer: asking her to host the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play Minecraft portion of their booth. Winters questioned whether she was qualified for the role, but with nothing to lose, she dyed her hair pink to match her online persona and flew to LA.

Winters instantly hit it off with the team from Mojang, and she aced the job she had signed up to do. But things took an altogether different turn after she ran into a friend from the internet. The friend had just applied for an art position at Mojang and asked Winters to introduce her to the team – a favor that she obliged – but Manneh informed the friend that the position wasn’t in the US and would require a move to Sweden. It’s here that Winters did the unexpected.

A post shared by Lydia Winters (@lydiawinters) on Jun 7, 2011 at 10:40am PDT

“Unplanned, I turned around and I said, ‘It’s too bad I’m not an artist because I would totally move to Sweden.’ And Carl was like, ‘We want someone to work with the community. Let’s talk more about this tonight.’ And I was like, ‘What?’ And I walked away – I remember very vividly being in the LA Convention Center and trying to find some internet because I was thinking, ‘Where is Sweden? I know it’s in Europe, but is it in the middle?’ But then I googled it and was like, ‘That is SO far north. That is really far north in the world.’ But I thought it was all very funny, because obviously it was just a weird conversation and nothing else will come of it.”

Later that evening, Winters attended a mixer – and Manneh essentially told the Mojang team that they were bringing her back to Sweden when they went home. None of the staff could tell if he was serious, but for her part, Winters was over the moon. “I’m texting my mom like, ‘I’m going to move to Sweden, everyone who thought I didn’t have a plan.’ And she’s like, ‘What? No, definitely not.'”

It took until the last day of the event, however, for Winters to finally get a formal interview – and even after all that, she went home to Florida, thinking, “OK, this was all crazy, but they’re going to go back to Sweden – they’ve been swept up in this sort of very American craziness, they’re not going to follow through on this because it’s crazy and they don’t know me. We don’t know each other, and this is insane.”

Two weeks after E3 ended, Winters had been hired by Mojang full-time. Six months after accepting the job, she left Florida and started a new life in Stockholm, Sweden. And she’s never looked back.

A little over six years later, Winters still loves her job. Her American-ness and penchant toward talking (and talking loudly) made her an enormous asset to the Mojang team, composed mainly of Swedes who prefer, in her words, “next-level quiet.” The role that she took initially saw her looking after the community building related to the Minecraft brand but evolved to become a more senior role looking after all of the merchandising, events, and licensing as well.

“Each thing that has happened in the company has kind of always been like, ‘Well, I can do that,’ and you kind of raise your hand and think to yourself, ‘Actually, I don’t know if I can,'” she said, laughing. “But six years later I can spot the smallest detail in [something related to] Minecraft that is incorrect and people are like, ‘How did you do that?’ And it’s because I’ve looked at it, and I care about it, and I’ve seen it for so long. So the tiniest thing I can spot in a slide that was two slides ago, like, ‘Hold on. Can you go back a second?'”

There’s a reason that Winters has trained herself to spot these sorts of things, and it comes from the best imaginable place: for the love of what she’s doing and the people she’s doing the work for. “The amazing thing about Minecraft is that it’s way more than a game,” she said. “It’s a life-changing thing. It’s a way to spend time with people; it’s a way to communicate. It’s so big, and it’s so important that every day I’m like, ‘This is too important to screw anything up.’ I have to make sure everything is amazing, everything is perfect for this incredible brand that I get to have so much ownership over.”

A post shared by Lydia Winters (@lydiawinters) on Feb 14, 2015 at 6:00pm PST

Every day presents something new and different, and even she herself admits that no two days in a row are ever the same. I asked her to walk me through a typical day at the office, and what became immediately clear is that she really does have her hands in pretty much everything the company does. But naturally, there are some things that are set in stone.

One of those things is her morning routine. “I get up and work out with my personal trainer or at the gym, because I’m on the road to Minecon and I want to look very buff on stage,” she said, laughing. “After that, since I’m a very late person by nature, I’m always on the run from my apartment [to the office], which is on the South Island in Stockholm. My home is a 10-minute walk from work – but I can make it in seven minutes if I run. I’m usually running with a really delicious coffee that my partner has made for me, and I’m kind of spilling it and drinking it as I run into the office.”

On the day I spoke to Winters, she had kicked off her day with a three-hour meeting with one of Mojang’s merchandising partners, who pitched a whole host of new ideas for her team to consider. Winters, who said she was “maybe the eighth person hired at the company,” now has a team made up of product designers and project managers who help her with the approval process on each and every piece of merchandise. Her focus is making sure that everything that gets made has an extraspecial touch and “isn’t a label slap where the same artwork goes on everything.”

What happens when you aggravate a Wolf? Well, MinecraftChick (aka Lydia from Mojang!) found out the hard way when she first started playing the game. We’ve animated her story with LEGO stop motion, of course! All she wanted was a furry friend… #LEGOMinecraft #Minecraft #LEGO #MinecraftMoments

A post shared by LEGO Minecraft (@legominecraft) on Sep 23, 2017 at 7:30am PDT

“There’s always a reason why something is positioned the way it is,” she said. “There’s a reason why a skeleton is being chased by a wolf [on an item] and it’s because wolves like bones and that’s kind of funny, because it’s something that would really happen. A little kid is not going to say, ‘I understand this shirt was very thoughtfully picked for me,’ but they may say, ‘Yeah, that is exactly what a skeleton does.’ And then there’s the adults who buy products, and you want them to go, ‘Wow, there was extra care put into this. This is more special than I thought it would be.'”

It’s not just animals and baddies that get a critical look, either. Minecraft used to predominately focus on a guy named Steve, and Winters was instrumental in getting a second main character, a female named Alex, added into the game as well. “I was like, ‘We have all this merchandise and it’s only a guy!’ and everyone was like, ‘No, Steve is genderless.’ And I was like, ‘He has a goatee. He is definitely a guy. He can be whatever gender he wants to be, but his name is Steve. How many Steves do you know that aren’t male?'”

Alex has red hair like Jeb, the lead designer, and green eyes like Winters herself – injecting a little bit of the Mojang personality into the game they spend so many hours each day perfecting. But she’s also a focal point for many of the conversations that Winters has with her merchandising partners on a day-to-day basis, pointing out the type of relegation that can happen to a female character without a critical eye: “If you’re not really careful and vigilant, Alex is always pushed behind Steve. Or she’s loving animals, and never doing any of the fighting. They both have to be shown in many different roles, because we have so many different players – on a daily basis, I’m talking about this, and looking at it constantly.”

The conversations that Winters has on a daily basis to avoid gendered typecasting are, in her eyes, crucial to putting forth the best possible version of the game to its users. One example of this is the struggle she went through with a specific brand who didn’t understand the importance of equally weighted roles for the “male” and “female” characters.

“There was a description of Steve and a description of Alex,” Winters said. “In the description of Steve, he was an architect, a designer, or a geologist or something. For Alex, it said, ‘She likes to build, explore, and mine.’ The two were sitting next to each other, and I was like, ‘Look at the difference between these two descriptions. You are saying that because Steve is male he has a job – Steve’s not an architect, he’s just a dude that builds. But if you’re going to say he has a job, at least use the same language for both of them. Either they both have jobs or they both like to do certain things.'”

Over the years, Winters has seen countless examples of Alex being mentioned with regard to fashion and Steve in relation to great careers and always puts the kibosh on it immediately. “You know that this will never go through,” she has told numerous clients, adding, “This isn’t OK. There’s no world in which we will approve this. Rewrite it. This not gender equal.”

The statement applies not just to descriptions of the two characters, but their positioning, the weapons they use, and the real-life models that are used to show off the goods that the company signs off on. In her mind, both characters should be portrayed as badasses – not one over the other. “I’ve had pink hair, I love pink, I love purple, I love animals,” she explained. “That’s fine, but there are also girls who don’t love any of that.”

It’s clear in looking at Mojang’s myriad offerings that these “soapbox moments from Lydia” have made a tangible difference – and an unexpected extra benefit is that it has also affected the workplace culture of Mojang as well. Winters, who once saw herself as a lone wolf hopping around doing whatever needed to be done, now has five people reporting into her and a whole lot more women standing by her side when she has these conversations.

In Seattle. Photo by @vubui. Fashion by @nittygrittywomen.

A post shared by Lydia Winters (@lydiawinters) on Mar 9, 2015 at 11:08pm PDT

“I was the first woman in the office, and then there were two of us – our CFO and I – and now, I’m happy to say, we have a huge amount of women working in the office,” Winters said, noting that she spent her lunch hour after the merchandising meeting doing a one-on-one with one of her direct reports. “They’re all amazing and incredible and save me so much time and have so many amazing ideas – and I’m transitioning into a better leader and a better boss because I take it very seriously, making sure that they’re developing as much as possible, just like I’m trying to.”

But she’s not just a manager and a brand champion. She’s also a brand ambassador, so Winters spent the afternoon before we got on the phone planning out the big reveal for this year’s annual Minecon: that she’ll be joined on stage with Will Arnett.

“It’s both the most exciting thing and the most panic-inducing thing I’ve ever done, because it’s like, whoa, this is the big leagues now – I’m going to be on stage with Will. And I think he’s amazing and I have for so long that I’m like, oh my god I’m going to pass out. And it will be so bad if I just faint,” she said, noting that while she may be fangirling out now, the most exciting part of him hosting is that he’s a huge fan of Minecraft himself.

“He was super interested in cohosting Minecon because he and his kids play together. And we always care about someone having a personal connection to Minecraft. I want everyone to play, but I get that it’s not for every single person – and there’s something really special about finding someone who’s not just awesome at what they do but they also like Minecraft, too.”

It’s awesome to finally say that Will Arnett is my co-host for MINECON Earth http://ift.tt/2m4pG30

The post The Incredible True Story of How a Florida Teacher Became Head of 1 of the Biggest Brands on Earth appeared first on Tax Twerk©.

from Tax Twerk© http://ift.tt/2m4pG30 from Tax Preparation Services http://ift.tt/2j65j4y

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[fentonizer]

Achievement from the comfort of your pyjamas

Horizon Zero Dawn is a “good game.”

Strap in, folks.

Horizon Zero Dawn is peak “video games.” It is all things to all people. It is an open-world, action-adventure-rpg with resource gathering, crafting and stealth mechanics.

If you were to send one game into space so that if an alien civilisation found it they would know what human beings thought video games were all about, then Horizon Zero Dawn would be it.

None of this is praise, by the way. Not really. If you asked me to give it a score I would say that the game gets seven points out of ten points. Or I would say that it gets three and a half stars out of five stars. Or I would say that it gets sixty-eight percent (because the number sixty-nine is a meme and should be avoided in these circumstances).

Let’s take a step back. Let’s talk about open world games in general.

Open world games are a genre of video game that are as popular as they are maligned. Like most genres (of any medium), it’s kind of hard to pin down key facets that a game has to have to be open world, but I’ll try- if instead of walking the circuitous ground level path to your objective, you awkwardly try to jump up steep hills, trying to catch a piece of geometry your character can stand on, there’s a good chance you’re playing an open world game.

OK, let’s take another step back. Video games are an interactive medium. the most popular games are about either sports or shooting people with weapons. Conflict, basically. Conflict is inherently the easiest thing to make a game about as you can lose, so it’s easy to give the player a lose-condition and therefore motivation.

There are other ways to motivate the player, of course. You can tell them that there are one-hundred of a thing and they have to find a lot of them, if not all of them. This is a pretty base motivation. You could put something really difficult in the game, something that takes study and mastery to succeed at. The problem with this is that it’s much harder to make a system like that than it is to put one-hundred of a thing in a space.

Open world games often rely a lot on finding lots of a thing. I don’t know how I can say this without being rude, but open world games are generally a time sink. Without a well crafted world that you want to see, there’s no more depth in finding one-hundred of a thing in a hedge maze, or block of flats. Moreover, the only difference between an open-world game like this, and a linear story based game (something like The Last Of Us, which is more similar than you’d think) is the extracurricular padding.

Experience points is another good one to motivate people. Start at level 1, kill an enemy, get 10 experience points. Get 100 experience points and you can get to level 2, and then you’ll be strong enough to fight the thing that gives you 12exp. Get to level 5 and you'll have enough points to learn a new skill! Pretty great, huh?

Crafting is good as well. There’s a very popular game called Minecraft that, as well as lots of mining, had lots of crafting. You get some wood and that makes sticks and planks, and with some sticks and planks you can make a shitty pickaxe that can get you a few stone. Some stone gets you a better pickaxe and then you can mine coal and turn enough stone into a furnace, put the coal in it and smelt copper, and so on. The player is enticed by a branching tree of options as they find more and more things, and they are encouraged to explore and forage to build up supplies of these items.

Horizon Zero Dawn has all of this, which is why people like it. Problem is, it never gets out of the kiddie end of the pool with it. It’s the base level amount of a system, and it’s obvious how shallow it is after an hour (that’s why I said “kiddie end of the pool” because that’s the shallow end. Please fund more of this writing on Patreon).

Crafting is just some of a thing to get more space to carry stuff. That’s it. Then you can stop crafting. Levelling up gives you 10 more hit points, and 1 skill point to spend on a skill tree that is basically useless beyond 5 incredible skills that make the game a cake-walk (Double arrows/triple arrows/sneak attack/better stealth/more resources). There’s no weapon customisation beyond some modifications, but there’s no strategy here, just find the best ones (purple, because fucking obviously) and slot them in.

The story is the usual “chosen-one” power fantasy that gets bonus points for at least being about a woman. Robots threaten the world, oh no. Try to stop them ok? Second act (hugely telegraphed) plot revelation, third act triumph, post credits sequel bait. Knocked that shit out in a weekend, mate. It doesn't successfully say anything or mean anything to anyone, despite trying very hard to send a message about the dangers of hubris, or trees being super. If anything, the takeaway message is that humanity is a collection of bumbling savages and should have been consigned to extinction at the first opportunity.

To be fair, games are about systems. At least, all the games people play, are about systems. Maybe, if you want a good story, then do something like read a book, you fucker. A good story in a game is hard to come by, mostly because it’s very difficult to mesh an interactive medium with linear story telling (and even harder to do non-linear story telling).

Systems and mechanics are what keep people hooked, and differentiate the medium. But a game where the systems and mechanics can ultimately be “solved” are boring. This is the best weapon combo, this is the best armour, these are the best mods for the best weapons and best armour.

There’s some good time to be had with the gameplay, as you learn the combat. You can scan enemies and see their components, and you have you actually learn how to fight things. They’re not simply big bubbles of hit points, with a red spot on them that does double damage. There’s fuel tanks you can rupture, or you can shoot off their weapons, or tie them down, or lure them into traps, or apply statuses. And that’s fun! it really is. At least three of the aforementioned three and a half stars I would give this game come from fighting things.

The combat is good because you have to learn how to be good at it. You have to have a plan and an approach. You can’t waltz in with you spear and start whacking shit as you will lose, and personally I think that’s great. Well, fighting the machines anyway. Fighting humans is a clumsy mess, as they are actually blobs of HP with a head that takes lots of damage.

The rest of the game makes me super sad though, because it’s full of all these gamer-contrivances. It’s full of real menial shit that is only in there because most gamers (at least the most vocal ones) are time-rich kids who need something to do. So give them exp to grind, give them a map full of shit to tick off a list, none of which does anything.

Give them main story quests, side story quests, AND THEN errand type quests. Make them walk to a place, start a quest, walk to another place to talk to a person, click the now mandatory button that highlights the things you need to interact with before going to a third place to kill some dudes, before finally going back to the first person who tells you “thanks” and then to fuck off as dispassionately as the whole affair started.

Make every ledge the player character can climb obvious so when you need to scale something vertically, you’re just doing a dot-to-dot that is impossible to fail. And then make other waist-high walls insurmountable because whoever was meant to come around and paint this edge in worn white paint didn’t get here yet.

The world is large but ultimately uninteresting. There’s no sense of place or sufficient landmarks to encourage you to learn where you’re going. You rely entirely on fast travel and the numerous on-screen arrows to get around, never once did I feel lost or small, I felt the opposite. I felt like the centre of the universe, I felt like the whole place was built just for me. Which, again, comes down to the bizarre decision to make climbable objects so obvious, it breaks my immersion, because “a creator” has clearly done something.

It makes me sad, genuinely sad, because this is a “good video game.” People like it because of these things, not in spite of them. They like it because they can sit down for 3 or 4 hours and they will feel like they've achieved something... All I see, for the most part, is the total waste of time that video games are. They are the illusion of progression and achievement. They are the chips of the cultural world; objectively better than nothing at all, but ultimately of no value. No amount of “Triple-Cooked” BS is going to stop them from just being chips (triple cooked = triple-A, support me on Patreon).

If this is the height of games, if this is a masterpiece, then we truly are doomed. We don’t need to strive for better, for more meaning in our games, what we need is a dozen shallow systems that a player can indulge themselves in between school, work and masturbation breaks. That’s what gets the big bucks after all, a psychological trick-room where you’re lauded for “achievement” from the comfort of your pyjamas. You did it! Who’s good player?! It’s you! Yes it is!

And I know, I am being hugely elitist, this is a personal attack on you and the thing you like, and that makes me reprehensible. Maybe I’m just doing this to be contrarian or to be noticed. If this game had gotten bad reviews, I’d say I loved it.

A lot of people put a lot of hard work into this game and I respect that. It frequently looks stunning and... well, I don’t want to delve into consumer advice as a deflection here. It’s fine. The game is fine. It’s a fine game. Did I feel tested or challenged, did I feel I had to improve myself to overcome? Rarely. Do I feel like I learned something, anything, about the world, myself, my fellow man, or even anything about “video games?” No.

7/10. 3.5 Stars. 68%.

[allcheatscodes]

minecraft xbox 360 edition xbox 360

http://allcheatscodes.com/minecraft-xbox-360-edition-xbox-360/

minecraft xbox 360 edition xbox 360

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition cheats & more for Xbox 360 (X360)

Cheats

Unlockables

Hints

Easter Eggs

Glitches

Guides

Achievements

Get the updated and latest Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition cheats, unlockables, codes, hints, Easter eggs, glitches, tricks, tips, hacks, downloads, achievements, guides, FAQs, walkthroughs, and more for Xbox 360 (X360). AllCheatsCodes.com has all the codes you need to win every game you play!

Use the links above or scroll down to see all the Xbox 360 cheats we have available for Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition.

Also Known As: Minecraft

Genre: Simulation, World Building Sim

Developer: 4J Studios

Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios

ESRB Rating: Everyone-10

Release Date: May 9, 2012

Hints

Herobrine In Your World

One way to tell if Herobrine is in your world is: sand pyramids in water, random objects in stange places (example: a layer of long flat bedrock and finding a block of sand). Trees with no leaves on them, just wood.

Phone

Walk up to a crafting table and have: iron, glass, and black wool.

A Tip On How To Find Diamonds

First, you have to dig to bedrock. And then go up 6-9 blocks up. This does not always work but it should help you find more diamonds.

How To Find Diamonds Easily

1 . Dig a staircase down to bedrock.

2. Carve out a room with torches and chests

3. Dig 2 tunnels 1 block apart

4. Dig straight in the tunnel until you find diamonds (WARNING: THE DIAMONDS U FIND ARE PROBABLY THE ONLY ONES YOU FIND! ) It is also a good way to find coal, iron, redstone, lapis, and gold!

Exploding Bed In The Nether

When you try to sleep in the nether, the bed explodes (the explosion is more bigger than a creeper and a tnt).

A Dark World

Have a piston, a glowstone, a switch, and also glass. Put a piston down facing up. Then have a glowstone on top of the piston. Put a glass block on the glowstone. Put a switch next to the piston. [you will only see darkness].

Surviving The First Night On Any Difficulty.

An easy way to survive is to first get 8 blocks of wood, any type. Then, make them all into planks and use 4 to make your crafting table. If you spawned in a swamp biome, this is convenient as you can climb the trees with vines, and don’t have to make stairs to climb trees. Place the wood on top of a tree, so as to make a wooden platform. The reason you need to make a treehouse is that no mob can get to you, even those pesky enderman. Place the crafting table down on the platform, and if you have enough wood, make a wooden axe and sword. Then find 3 sheep, collect their wool, and head back. On the way to and from your hunting grounds, kill as many cows as you can, as steak regenerates the most hunger. Craft a bed and place it down. If you have enough wood and time, make a wooden shovel and pickaxe and start digging for stone to make stone tools. I HOPE THIS GUIDE HELPED YOU.

A Good Start

When you spawn, immediatly go for the nearest tree, and cut down as many as one day can give you, but before the sun goes downm find 2-3 sheep, make planks, make a crafting table, then make a bed and dig into the side of a hill. Then start mining the next day.

How To Make Obsidian Nether Portals

There are two ways to build a portal. 1: you need cobblestone on each corner and obsidian the rest then flint and steel or 2: you can do all obsidian you decide.

How To Make A Door

To make a door first you will need 6 wooden planks for a regular door and 6 iron ingots for a iron door.

Empty the Chest Quickly

If you have a chest and you want to get everything out quickly,you hit/mine the chest and then everything will fall out of the chest and you will collect the chest!

How To Make Charcoal

You need a furnace and wood logs and wood planks. You put the logs in the bottom and you put the wood in the top and you have made charcoal.

Nearly Unlimited Lava Supply

1) dig 5 holes in the ground to shape a plus sign (+).

2) gather 4 buckets of lava

3) fill the outer holes with lava

REMEMBER: only take from the center or this will not create more lava.

“Unlimited” Water Supply

1) dig 4 holes in the ground forming a 2×2 block square

2) gather 4 buckets of water

3) fill ALL 4 HOLES with water

4) enjoy not relying on leaving your home to get water from the ocean!

Tips for Your First Day

On the first day, it is best to find a cliffside with trees nearby. If theres trees, theres dirt. You could go two ways in the short time:

1) make a quick fort out of dirt, but be sure to give it a roof! Spiders can attack you without a roof. I made a 3x3x3 cube house, and put a hole in the top to tell time of day.

2) climb a tree and hide in the top of it, using the wood you cut from the top as a roof. This is what I did on my first go, but I wouldnt recommend it without a plan of escape.

Survive The Highest Heights

Looking for something to land in when falling off a cliff? Well, you should try doing this! Make a pool 5 blocks by 5 blocks, and at least 3 blocks deep, or if its a very tall cliff, at least 6 blocks deep. I would recommend STILL water instead of running water. I did some experiements, and still water is easier to swim up and out of instead of running water. I also wouldn’t recommend dropping your ‘useless’ materials in there and hope they despawn, because you will just pick them up. TIP: Use the shift key (or if your playing the xbox version, press the right toggle stick), before jumping off, just in case you are over to the side. CAUTION: CANNOT BE USED AS A WATER SOURCE!

Caves

Whenever you see a cave, go in it. This is because you might find gold or diamonds in the cave. And you might want to bring some torches and a pick-axe. The chances that you’ll find valuables in the cave are pretty good.

Cheats

Duplicate Items

This trick requires two people and a dispenser. Get the material you want to duplicate and put it in the dispenser. Make sure you only put in one of the item. Put it in the dispenser and have your friend on split-screen or online – it doesn’t matter) and break the dispenser. When they break it, the item you want more of turns in to a stack of 64. Put it in your inventory then put it in a chest. Then put it in your inventory and do whatever you want with it. CAUTION: Do NOT quick move the item to your inventory or chest or else that 64 stack WILL be deleted. Repeat as many times as you please.

Unlockables

Gamerpics Unlockables

If you kill ten Creepers you will unlock the Creeper Gamerpic. If you mineredstone, you’ll unlock the Gamer Picture (Steve).

Steve Gamer Photo

To unlock the Steve Gamer Picture, you just need to mine redstone. Once you do,the Steve Gamer picture is unlocked.

Avatar Awards

A Minecraft Watch : Play the game for 100 day to night cycles.

The Creeper Cap : Kill a Creeper with Arrows.

The Pork-Chop T-Shirt : Earn a Cooked Porkchop.

Xbox Live Premium Minecraft Theme

When you get to the “Pause” menu, press “Y” to take a screenshot of the world.Next, upload the screenshot to your Facebook account.

Easter eggs

Have Your Dragon Egg

First kill the end dragon push LT on the egg go to the egg put a piston behinde it put the lever next to the piston pull the lever & grab it then you get your own dragon egg.

Glitches

Guns Glitch

When you are at the cratfing table, make sure you have 8 gold ingots and some gunpowder. If you do, you should see a little box and it should show a bullet. Note: abullet gives 10 ammunition and another box by it. If you have and iron ingots, you can make some weapons and yes if you keep creating things with supplies and use to many ingots and gunpowder it may not work. It ONLY WORKS AT NIGHT. I’m not to sure how it works but it does.

Duplication Glitch

First, you need to have a dispenser which you can make from a workbench. After that, you need to start killing some creeps because you need some TNT. Place the dispenser outside and right next to some TNT. Go inside the dispenser menu and place it in the middle what ever you want to duplicate. Then quit out of the dispenser menu with your object still inside, then hit the TNT (you will take damage so try to have gear on). Go back into the dispenser menu (before the TNT explodes) and the object will change to sixty four (click it fast though) the item will duplicate even if its something you can’t stack up the number , like a diamond sword for example you can’t have two separate diamond swords and put them together to make a bundle of two but with this glitch you can. After you got the stack of sixty four press and hold down the x button in a empty slot, the sixty four will go down but then when your one sixty four pack runs down to zero from placing them your sixty four will repeat and then you will have two sixty four packs.

Infinite Health Glitch

This trick involves two people. The person who wants to have infinite health sits down in a boat, (with a bed beside him), then while in the boat activate the bed to sleep in it. Have your friend destroy the bed without hitting you. The man who was in the bed will appear in the boat again, have your friend destoy the boat. Now you are invisible, yet you have infinite health. Only you can’t activate objects until you exit the game.

Easy Duplication Glitch

First you will need 2 people, a stone pick-axe, the thing you want to duplicate and a furnace. One person puts the thing you want to duplicate in the ingredient box and hold the x button. The other person destroys the furnace. If 2 items pop out of the furnace then it has worked. 1 will be the regular piece the other will be a duplicate piece. WARNING: THE FURNACE MIGHT EAT THE THING YOU WANT TO DUPLICATE! Try with simple items first, in case your item is destroyed.

Duplication Glitch (AFTER PATCH)

This is a simple cheat to do, though it may take a while.

Items needed:

1:Furnace

2:Pick axe

3:Spade

4:Somthing you want to duplicate

Start by taking every thing out of your inventory, except the four items. Place the furnace down on the ground. Next, place the item you want to duplicate into the top middle of your inventory. The only things you should have in your tool bar are the pick axe and spade. Now start breaking the furnace with your pick axe. When its about 90% broken, (still holding the mine trigger), switch to your spade. The furnace should break, then pop back. Now, quickly open the furnace interface. Take the item you want to duplicate, and hold down A when its in the FUEL box. (must be fuel). The item you should keep popping in and out. Keep holding A until the furnace breaks. Two items should pop out. The one in your inventory is the original item. Put it in a chest. Now there shold be another item on the floor, thats the glitched item. Walk over it and it should appear in your tool bar. Switch to your spade and open the chest with it. Pick up the item ( there should be a number 64 with it now. ) Drag it to a box in the chest and hold down X. (Must hold down X! ) It should keep placing itmes. Keep holding X in each box until your chest is full. (TIP: now place the glitched strack in your tool bar, this should give you over 1000 items in 1 box! )

WARNIG: GLITCH MAY NOT WORK THE FIRST TIME, AND MAY TAKE AWAY YOUR ITEM, SO BE PREPARED TO HAVE MORE OF YOUR ITEMS ON HAND.

If your having trouble, just comment and i’ll get back to you asap. Thx.

Duplication Glitch For Dispenser

Get a dispenser, there are 9 slots in the dispenser. So put any weapon/block or basically anything in the center slot. Then while you still have the dispenser displayed someone else will break it and you should still have it displayed and it should turn into a stack of 64. Then take it out put it in your inventory, and hold down x until you have another stack of 64 keep doing that and you can have as much of it as you want. [also can be turned into more stacks in a chest not just your inventory. ].

Guides

Currently no guide available.

Currently no guide available.

Currently no guide available.

Achievements

Achievement List

Acquire Hardware (15) – Smelt an iron ingot.

Bake Bread (20) – Turn wheat into bread.

Benchmarking (10) – Craft a workbench with four blocks of wooden planks.

Cow Tipper (15) – Harvest some leather.

Delicious Fish (15) – Catch and cook a fish!

Dispense With This (20) – Construct a Dispenser.

Getting an Upgrade (15) – Construct a better pickaxe.

Getting Wood (10) – Punch a tree until the block of wood pops out.

Hot Topic (15) – Construct a furnace out of eight cobblestone blocks.

Into The Nether (40) – Construct a Nether Portal.

Leader Of The Pack (30) – Befriend five wolves.

MOAR Tools (15) – Construct one type of each tool (one pickaxe, one spade, one axe and one hoe).

Monster Hunter (20) – Attack and destroy a monster.

On A Rail (40) – Travel by minecart to a point at least 500m in a single direction from where you started.

Taking Inventory (10) – Open your inventory.

The Lie (40) – Bake a cake using wheat, sugar, milk and eggs!

Time to Farm! (10) – Use planks and sticks to make a hoe.

Time to Mine! (10) – Use planks and sticks to make a pickaxe.

Time to Strike! (10) – Use planks and sticks to make a sword.

When Pigs Fly (40) – Use a saddle to ride a pig, then have the pig get hurt from fall damage while riding it.