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inventors-fair · 27 days ago

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Select Suites: Room Contest Runners-up ~

Our runners-up this week are @bread-into-toast, @feyd-rautha-apologist, and @nine-effing-hells!

@bread-into-toast — Imaging Center / Splattered Surgery

Ewwww... Imaging... But yeah the splatterness of the surgery is awesome too. You're one of the few common rooms. Actually, were there any others? I'm too lazy to check immediately. The point is that this is a pretty solid common design, and you know that I love those. I mean, hence why I'm running those kinds of contests all the time, yeah? There's something to be said for one-mana discard that's really nasty in limited. Hard to come back from if you're really pressed for resources. But what I ike about this card is the ability to mill/discard your own reanimation targets, which is absolutely the intent.

And yet the imaging could be to see your opponent's cards, which is itself pretty neat from a flavor standpoint! Splattering over to the surgery ward, yeah, one-time reanimation is a great staple, and this one fixes up some of the black side of getting cards back to the battlefield. Duskmourn has a lot of options for that, of course, but simple sorcery-speed recursion on new tech is an excellent demonstration, and fits it into the black shell as well. In a hard week with a lot of strong entries, I appreciate this card for showing just how awesome a simple, effective common card can be. It's design chops with a sci-fi vibe that feels right at home somewhere in the massive sprawl of the mansion.

@feyd-rautha-apologist — Airlock / Hydroponics

Am I a sci-fi Magic nerd? Still not really. Does this card change my mind? I mean, not completely, but it's so well-done that I'm gonna gush a little bit about it, one half at a time. The first thing that I wanna touch upon is the fact that unlocking the Airlock makes everything weaker. Like, that's just a brilliant little piece of gameplay/flavor intersection, and the art direction makes it make all the more sense. Also, a -1/-1 counter set? Very interesting. It's been a hot minute, but I like 'em well enough, and it makes sense here that the action of the Airlock weakens the lifeforms. I don't know about how much non-biological life, but what if it only put counters on things that weren't artifacts or maybe weren't equipped (like with spacesuits!)? See, you've got me brainstorming, and that's a sign of an awesome card.

Hydroponics is also quite interesting because of the interaction with the other side; there's a lot to work through here with intended gameplay. Landfall-to-proliferate is excellent, of course, and there's this ironic bend of "every time we make landfall we collect new species and progress has led to our demise," of course—and then it just so happens that it interacts with the -1/-1 counters in a way that doesn't necessarily mesh flavorfully? But gameplay does trump flavor. Maybe the plant proliferation isn't a 1:1 exactitude with what the Airlock represents in terms of weakness. Or maybe the xenoflora thrive on the disinfectant, and the scientists didn't know that, and—ooh boy. You've got some good tendrils in me, and I'm digging it.

@nine-effing-hells — Living Room / Hungry Hearth

Some days I forget that people love to be really fun with these contests. There are a couple of names and card mixes that people added in that are...certainly choices, I'll say that much. But Living Room works so well as both a name and a card that I almost didn't think twice about it, and cards that make me do double-takes are worth a great amount of commendation for sure. I don't want to put too much of a damper on it, though, because the horizontal design brings one major challenge to this card's existence: if it somehow becomes tapped, how would anyone know? I see that you snuck vigilance onto there, but you and I both know that that's not in-pie for black at all. And yet, I want to know more and work with you here.

Dropping the deathtouch and making it white could've been fine, perhaps. But all that is fine-tuning what's otherwise a really fun design. The Hungry Hearth is an amazing card on its own, encouraging some aggression with complex choices for how you either ping your opponent or make their blockers far less effective if you've got them on the ropes. Attacking with a big room can make that even better, yeah? Huh. Does "this room" look at both sides when it's fully unlocked? Probably, although I gotta brush up on my room rules. Maybe insta-killing on attack should come with a little bit of downside. I want this card to work so badly, hence why it's here. It's clever enough to showcase as one of my favorite aspects of this contest and people's creativity with expanding upon this awesome new piece of tech.

Really hard to choose this week, honestly, lots of strong choices. I've got brownies and LGS work, but commentary will be up when we get there for y'all! @abelzumi

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #inventor's fair #commentary #room contest #runners up

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irrelevantnostalgia · 3 months ago

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Cake Mania: To the Max! (2011): Part 1

ᆞPᆞᆞlᆞᆞoᆞᆞtᆞ

Jill and Jack are looking through Jill's old photo album with their twins and come across Jill's high school days. She starts to reminisce about the days of shoulder pads, neon everywhere, and her awkward phase. These high school days become the final installment of the Cake Mania series, where this time the players time travel back to 1989 to when Jill was navigating prom, applying to college, and figuring out what she wanted to do with her life! A fairly simple plot, a nice way to wind down this series from the evil directors and time travel to 500 BC and cake-baking in an aquarium. Almost like a nod to the normalcy of the first Cake Mania game, where we see the beginnings of Jill's adult life. This game goes back to the classic Cake Mania format with 100 levels of cake-baking only.

Fun fact, this is the first time I was able to finish this game in full! When I used to play this game back in the day, the fuck ass PC wiped my data once I reached around level 60. This happened to me twice. Another time when I actually got past level 60, I would get stuck on a later level where I would be unable to achieve even the bare minimum baking goal. I raged so hard about all these instances that I avoided playing the game for years (almost a decade lol).

ᆞWᆞᆞhᆞᆞaᆞᆞtᆞ'ᆞsᆞ ᆞNᆞᆞeᆞᆞwᆞ

Interior Mode: A big change in this game is that there is an "interior mode" option for the shopping/upgrade center. Now, you can "upgrade" the walls, floor, counter and door just like you can the oven or froster. This may seem similar to the "building upgrade" in Cake Mania Main St + Lights, Camera, Action since upgrading the building also changed the interior design of the building, but unlike in those games, the upgrades are supposed to confer actual advantages in gameplay.

Upgrading the walls is supposed to help with increasing tips, the floor is supposed to help Jill get around faster, the door is supposed to help with customer patience, and the counter upgrades help make room for more customers at a time. There are two one-time upgrades you can also make--buying a flower-pot can help make the sugar-rush last longer and buying a lamp permanently stops the equipment-breaking (yes, they kept this from the last game!).

For the most part, this is an excellent way to sprinkle-up the game and add more stuff to purchase to make the game less monotonous as you progress through the later levels. Compared to the rest of the games where eventually your profits made per level rise exponentially and never get spent past you getting all the key upgrades, I was budgeting out from Day 1 all the way to the very end.

In my personal opinion, I don't think all the interior upgrades really added much to improve gameplay. The counter getting longer does actually help in getting more customers on the screen at a time and more tips from the walls is always welcome. The two one-time upgrades were both good too, especially since it takes a while for you to save up funds for the lamp so it feels like a huge reward once you do get it. However, the door and floor upgrades didn't *feel* all that helpful. Upgrading Jill's shoes had more of an effect on helping her get around than the floor, and a cookie and the right channel do more for customer patience than the door. I would even say nothing makes those fuckers happy.

Speaking of helping reduce monotony, in this game there are some differences in how equipment is upgraded. Rather than buying 3 separate ovens and upgrading them individually, you instead have one massive oven with 4 compartments. You have to buy the compartments as well as additional cake shape options, but the speed upgrades affect the entire oven instead of each individual compartment. Meanwhile, the cake froster + decorator upgrades follow the same upgrade pattern but it doesn't just stop at gold. There are additional upgrade speeds you get until the final one, which looks like some brutalist industrial bullshit.

I'm sorry but it simply did not slay. I was hoping for some tacky neon 80s realness as the final upgrade.

Essentially, the point of all the previous word vomit is that in this game there are so many upgrades that you will be hustling and checking your budget from the beginning to the end, which is not something you do in the previous games (for the most part). I won't lie, I played this game twice and took two different approaches to upgrades and there would still be places that were not fully upgraded or there would be equipment that I would not get to purchasing at all.

Similar to the upgrades keeping you on your toes from beginning to the end in this game, so do the customers in some cases. I feel like a broken record, but in the previous games once you got to a certain point in the cake-baking game you could handle whatever customer pile-up gets thrown your way without thinking too hard about it. Even in the last game where you had the Lola Fierezzas changing everyone's orders. I wouldn't say that every level in this game had me locked in devoting 50% of my brain to ergonomics, but there was a certain type of level that stood out to me that I felt like I didn't experience before in my journey with Cake Mania. Let's introduce two characters.

80s Movie Mean Girl

Favorite TV show: Aerobics

She pairs up with other cheerleaders in the line.

Her name is Cindy and she is Jill's """"love rival""". I put that in heavy quotations because the Big Jock is interested in Jill but she is not into him, and Cindy is salty that Big Jock pays attention to Jill. Cue passive aggressiveness, which even spills into gameplay because she tips like ass. I'll be making 3-tier cakes for her and getting a fraction of what I would get if I made one for another customer, which makes levels where she shows up a significant amount really annoying to play.

Now let's introduce another character

DnD Dweeb

Favorite TV show: Cooking show

Do you see my pain now? Having him make a recurring appearance in a level was an absolute nightmare when it came to me wanting to obtain all superstar baking goals. The moment this twerp would show up in line I would pray that I could drop everything and get his cake out of the way so I could keep my properly compensating customers. Ngl though, if he wanted a 3 layer cake I would just take the L. Not giving myself carpel tunnel over this shit.

To deal with his appearances I invested in an overnight fridge earlier than I usually would purchase one so I could have expensive cakes ready to fly out, and I would constantly purchase a one-time-use power-up available in the upgrade shop that gets a customer out of the way. There were multiple levels with this dynamic and it was the worsttt.

On the flip side, I actually have to appreciate the aforementioned Big Jock for coming in because....

♥ Evil Bully from 80s movie ♥

Favorite TV show: Cooking show

He orders multiple times

Honestly, I think the real bully is gonna be the DnD Dweeb for turning this guy into a no-tipping ass cheerleader and making me hustle harder to meet my goals! Plus he increases the hearts on the other customers which is another point from me. One of the most satisfying feelings was collecting profits from this guy cause you would get like a $100+ boost! Lore wise, he is just an annoying fuck who is into Jill and doesn't pick up on the very obvious hint that she does not want to be his prom date.

There is another new aspect added to this game, which really did nothing for me. Instead of having me describe it with more word vomit, let me just share the screenshots:

Before I introduce the characters used for this example Imma just keep it real: I never used this shit as a part of my strategy to make customers happier. I just feel like gameplay moves way too fast to really give a shit especially when you have tools like the TV and cookies to keep them at bay. Really, what I would use this for is to just move customers up if there was a space between them just to make walking easier for Jill. Perhaps if I played this game in a more relaxed manner I could focus on different characters and how they impacted each other just based on line placement. But frankly, I didn't notice anything super obvious, besides the two characters used for the example. Speaking of...

Megumi Fushiguro

Favorite TV Show: News

He doesn't like "new wave guy"

Yuri Plisetsky if he had a stupid haircut

Favorite TV Show: News

He doesn't like "punk guy". Someone needs to create a new manga over these two STAT! Also, my personal headcanon is that this guy is the high school version of the businessman introduced in the first Cake Mania.

ᆞMᆞᆞoᆞᆞrᆞᆞeᆞ ᆞCᆞᆞhᆞᆞaᆞᆞrᆞᆞaᆞᆞcᆞᆞtᆞᆞeᆞᆞrᆞᆞsᆞ

Businessman Sr.

Favorite TV Show: Rock Concert

This guy has to be New Wave Guy's dad.

80s Bridezilla

Favorite TV Show: News

Unlike in the first Cake Mania where her younger sister is most likely Bridezilla, she actually has a similar Pirate/Mr Dinosaur effect where her flipping out causes others to flip out and leave.

Cop

Favorite TV Show: Rock Concert

♥Doctor♥

Favorite TV Show: Aerobics

420 Blaze It

Favorite TV Show: Aerobics

Seasons may change and the years may go on by....but this guy will always be high

Klepto Kelly (ft her Emo BF)

Favorite TV Show: Aerobics

Seasons may change and the years may go on by....but her desire to steal your money is always sky-high

Birth Control Inspo

Favorite TV Show: Rock Concert

Little Kid

Favorite TV Show: Aerobics

(Dr.) Miss Lily

Favorite TV Show: Aerobics

She is That Girl cause everyone wants to change their order to hers! I would especially let it happen if these customers came in with some basic fuckass cakes that would make no money. Plus, per Jill, she is also a doctor. Based on her cute and relaxed fit (unlike the scrubs doc) I could see her being a dermatologist or endocrinologist. Maybe psychiatrist cause she knows how to convince others to change their orders

Thanks to Tumblr's 30-picture limit in text posts, I will have to split this review up into two posts. Stay tuned for part 2!

#cake mania #2000s #2010s #early 2010s #nostalgia #webcore #cake mania: to the max!#time management #pc game #pc games #old web

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yellowvixen · 10 months ago

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If Sol-equivalent Unleashed events were to happen, would Blaze become a werecat, being werewolf-like like Sonic, or would she become something else, like, for example, a vampire or a mercat (mermaid-like)?

Ooh interesting question!! The main draw of the werehog to me is the fear of losing control and no longer being yourself. We know Sonic never does lose control, that the change is only physical but the fear is still there. Especially as he's now suddenly in a big cumbersome body that can't go fast or do what he's used to—is he still Sonic if he can't run fast?

So that could be directly translated into Blaze being a werecat, I've seen a lot of cool designs for that before. BUT. The other ideas you've mentioned are very cool and I want to explore them! Also I don't think being specifically a werecat would affect Blaze mentally the same way being a werehog effects Sonic, so I'd want to find a change that does.

This got kinda long so I'm putting my explorations of the different ideas under the cut gjgjdhdg

First off: vampire Blaze! From the outside, physically not much would change. Blaze is a cat after all, she's already got sharp teeth! But inwardly, Blaze would no longer have her fire powers and would be a lot colder, and ofc have weird urges. If this is a similar case to Dark Gaia or whatever the Sol equivalent is, possibly her vampiric nature would lead to her wanting to consume others' energy rather than blood lol. So the fear of losing control would definitely still be there! What if she hurts someone that way! However it does lead to the question of is she being changed too much? Sonic was virtually unchanged aside from his looks, but giving Blaze vampiric urges is changing how she acts. So, not my first choice for a Blaze Unleashed scenario! Sick idea for another au though.

Second: mercat Blaze! Love love love this idea!! Confining her to water means again she can no longer use her fire powers, and it links in nicely with the Sol dimension being more ocean based than Sonic's world. It gives rise to the implication that the Dark Gaia (or whatever) creatures are all sea monsters too! I do wonder what would happen if Blaze is on land when the sun sets, does she just flop around? Maybe it works differently, and instead of it being tied to the day night cycle it can be tied to her proximity to water. But then she could just stay away from water... Unless for plot reasons all the sol emeralds are underwater or smth sjffdg. However! I think the fear factor would be gone. Mermaids aren't exactly beastly (of course you can change up the design, but it's more obviously just a physical change) so it would be more of just a minor set back for Blaze, she wouldn't have any fear of losing her identity. The opposite problem of vampire Blaze!

SO. I have an idea that I think merges all the good bits—ghost Blaze! Design wise, she would look similar to a mercat where her bottom half is like a tail, like Lah, Su and Uh! Possibly she would properly leave her body at night and float off while she's sleeping. Without her body she'd once again have no fire power and potentially be invisible to those around her, so that fear of losing herself would definitely be apparent! Maybe Marine (and others) are able to see her after realising what's going on, and can convince Blaze that body or not, she's still the Blaze they know and love. Also, in terms of gameplay I think it might be cool if the day and night levels are actually the same, but during the day you need to use Blaze's fire powers to finish and during the night you need to phase through walls. Essentially making the levels completely different! Her being a ghost kinda keeps in line with the Halloween theme too, and the Dark Gaia monsters can still float about scaring people.

A lot of rambling here hfjgjdhdg but tl;dr I really like the concepts of vampire and mercat Blaze, but I think for an Unleashed scenario specifically I would go for ghost Blaze!

#my blaze unleashed essay...#VERY COOL IDEAS thank u for sending this!!!#took a while bc i wanted to properly get my thoughts in order so i could answer this #might try exploring these further #draw smth perhaps >:3 #sth #answered

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nullamirrors · 10 months ago

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finally an opportunity to write out my side order theories post and stop thinking about writing a side order theories post… here is my side order rambles

main theory: octo expansion was about envy, return of the mammalians was about nostalgia, so side order will be about ambition or something along those lines. it makes sense: you've escaped. you're climbing a tower over and over again trying to reach the top. maybe this is it. maybe after octo you were only ever out of the frying pan and into the fire.

plus, we had a storyline about forgetting the past, then a storyline about rebuilding the past, so it would make sense that this one would be about the future. (is this the future we dreamed of when we stuck in hell?) the trailer shows what might be a factory producing mem cakes - a machine creating memories. now THAT'S an interesting concept. what kind of future do we want to build, and who is selling us our visions of utopia and why? if people can be made to long for a memory they never even had, what might be the extreme outcome of that?

(if it is a simulated world this time, that means anything can happen. I'm not sure they need to up the spectacle again, but they have a track record of succeeding, so… hopefully this gets wacky.)

probably they will not do this since the splatoon series has made a point of only critiquing the status quo indirectly… but if they are committed to completing this story then it should be about the sea creature society having to reckon with their own failings. the fundamental "joke" of the splatoon series is that everything that exists in it only exists because of the extinction of humanity from climate catastrophe, and yet the new dominant lifeforms have built their own hypercapitalist hellscape with presumably no self-awareness of its shortcomings. it's established in mammalians that the new culture is explicitly modelled on human culture, so logically this is what the whole thing has been building to: an environmental crisis that isn't an external threat that can be quashed through violence but something that requires societal change in order to be averted.

of course, they won't do this. (it's good that they don't. it would feel unconvincing from nintendo.) so here is my list of potential villains for side order:

• Marina: this is a popular suggestion given her general absence from the gameplay that's been shown, and while I wouldn't be totally surprised I think it's more likely that marina is kidnapped or something. maybe the spire of order was her project but something went wrong. I'm just not sure what the storyline would be if marina is the villain (unless she is the revolutionary leader from my other idea) also pearl and marina will kiss when they reunite you heard it here first

• A Mark Zuckerberg Type: there's a lot of implication that side order takes place in some sort of virtual world, so it makes sense that this would be splatoon taking on the "metaverse". (were the levels in previous games all meant to be physical spaces?) it's probably most likely that the villain would be a new company and new character, but maybe this will be the director of ancho-v games or something.

• A Revolutionary Group: this would make sense with the idea of the splatoon series always - in its surface text - being about preserving the status quo. I'm not sure how that would connect with the design of the world, though, given that it seems to be very much about ostentatious with an aesthetic that mixes neomodern instagram bland white rigidity with pastelly makeup/fashion styles and old-school gilded art-deco (or is it nouveau) temples of wealth. it basically looks like if a bank was designed for tiktok? that doesn't scream revolutionary to me, but then this could be a case where the skeleton fish things are attacking the tower rather than them being the tower attacking the characters. maybe the bad guys are trying to corrupt the virtual world before the resources required to run it destroys the planet again. maybe they were right all along…

• Acht: well, the skeleton fish do seem like their kind of style. they could easily be a revolutionary as above. I suspect their role will be more limited though - it's not like Harmony is a main character, and even the idols in octo/mammalians have pretty limited story roles in the grand scheme of things. plus, why would they ally with agent 8 while also trying to kill them? for… test data? (well, we don't know the full implications of acht's sanitisation…)

• Commander Tartar He's Back: as great as a villain as Tartar is, I don't think there'd be any value to come from a rematch. just please not a character from the past this time

• A Different AI (ORCA?): would fit with the "metaverse" idea, but like. we already had an AI villain. I guess ORCA is basically the only loose end from mammalians - a lot of focus on a character who essentially has to role in the plot - but I wouldn't be surprised if that's just because they reused so much of octo expansion's structure in mammalians, needed a new character to fill the cq cumber role, and didn't have any greater plans. but there is that ominous gladosy chamber in the main trailer, so..? maybe agent 8 is being tested, in order to simulate their behaviour. maybe agent 8 is the villain - or a virtual clone… (no that will 100% be a boss fight)

• Toni Kensa: this is probably my favourite idea. it's a character who's been around since the first game but afaik has never been visually depicted. there is an interview in the octo expansion artbook that reveals basically nothing? while the white-and-gold aesthetic of the spire of order isn't an exact match for kensa's iconic black-white-red colour scheme, it's still monochrome, and 100% looks like the kind of thing an evil fashion emperor would build. this would also fit with the idea of a threat coming from within the squid society—although kensa could turn out to be a killer whale, which would be visually interesting but a bit annoying to have another mammal villain.

• Agent 4: another loose end, but could just as easily be dealt with in a throwaway line or cutesy reunion. if it is them, hopefully they are not brainwashed and actually have motivations. (kid icarus: uprising 🤝 splatoon 2 octo expansion - ruining an interesting twist with mind control) I don't know what those motivations would be, but they could be involved with any of these other possible groups.

• There Is No Villain: all the bad stuff is just a manifestation of human cephalopod intolerance! I mean maybe, but this is the splatoon series. they like to have you shoot a big thing with paint until it dies. it would be nice to have the conflict be more nuanced (outside of subtext) but I suspect that doesn't really suit the gameplay style of Kill Things

• Craig Cuttlefish: it SHOULD be him. but it won't

like, at the very least I hope it isn't another villain from the past. they just about managed to keep it interesting in return of the mammalians, and I do love that this is basically the only time i can think of where a sci-fi/fantasy story has outright cast humanity as the villain, but it's getting repetitive.

anyway as you can tell I think a lot about splatoon and am very excited for whatever this is going to be although it would be funny if it turns out to be bad

#splatoon #side order #splatoon series analysis

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romanomomano · 7 months ago

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hades 2 thoughts as someone who only has 18 hours

The game is incredible, but i have some things that i have complaints about that i dont think just get chalked up to early access woes.

VA and Music and Environment design are top notch as always. However, there isn't (as yet) a song that grips me the same way that Good Riddance did. Scylla's themes are banger for sure, catchy earworms, fun to listen to, etc; but they dont make me stop and listen like Good Riddance did the first time i heard it. to an extent the level theme of Oceanus made me stop and listen more than Coral Crown or I'm Going to Claw. I love that Supergiant games always have one or two songs that just make you Feel Things: Build That Wall, In Circles or Paper Boats, Never to Return, In The Blood. Granted, we only got In The Blood with the full release of Hades 1 so there's still time for the ending theme of Hades 2 to punch me in the heart.

Gameplay is a solid evolution of the first game, but I think the weapons are... odd? The staff and the knives seem the most well thought out to me, with a nice fusion of range and melee, speed and deliberation, they feel good. I've had a couple good runs with the torches but they're slow and don't feel particularly good. The Axe is Big and Slow, and in a game that requires as much speed as the late game does, once again it feels a little bad. The Skull is NOT the Rail no matter how much I wish it was. I haven't played around with too many of the Alt Aspects, but they don't seem to change the gameplay nearly as much as the H1 Aspects did.

Boons. I expect a lot of balance and changes to boons in the coming months, but theres like, half of them that are just Bad. H1 had some boons that you didn't want to take, and that were bad, but I feel like there's just so many more right now that are just... eugh.

The Artstyle. It's clear to tell where things are placeholder art, and where things are early drafts of art, and where things are 'finished' art. Flatter shading and less dynamic poses compared to the first game in some instances like on the Gods, but also some portraits that are very similar to the first game like Moros and Hecate. So who knows. Chaos' glow up is mindblowing. Bathtime portraits are wild. Heracles.

Too Many Resources. I appreciate the fact that you don't have to do Heat runs to get more boss mats, but comparing h1's resources to h2's is insane. Darkness, Gems, 3 Boss Mats (Blood, Diamond, Ambrosia), Nectar :: Bones, Ash, Psyche, (currently) 6 different Plants, Seeds, and Minerals, Nectar, Ambrosia, Fishing Lures, Shadow, Moon Dust, (currently) 6 Boss Mats (Cinder, Pearl, Tear, Sand, Wool, Apple), Star Dust, Nightmare... I think thats it? who knows. That, paired with that half of the resources can only be gained by an underworld run and the other half can only be gained by a surface run, As well as the fact that you have to pick the Shovel OR the Pickaxe means that sometimes you go on a run more to get to a certain point than to actually clear the run, and sometimes you're doing upwards of 4 runs for one upgrade. I get that the game is meant to be played again and again, but like, i wanna play the game to play the game and not to grind for the stuff for upgrades. I guess the retort is that if you play enough you'll get all the upgrades eventually, so it's whatever.

It's still a fantastic game. Incredibly fun. 10/10. I am eager to see what changes throughout the early access period. it just falls into one of those things where its so good that all the minor annoyances are blown out of proportion.

#hades 2 #ramblings #long post #but its under a read more so its fine #i dont expect anyone to actually read all this but i had to put my current thoughts into words somewhere

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lollitree · 2 years ago

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Your tags under the pokemon poll are SO TRUEE and it hurts how many people dont understand that

I grew up in the change from pixel art to 3D and have nostalgia for bw, xy AND sm. So i think because of that, I can see the good and bad in all the games but don't feel like any of them 'peaked''. They're all different games, so they are really hard to compare.

On a related note tho, its so sad to see so many fans praise one of my childhood games and not the others. And like, I get it because gen 5 is more similar to what they grew up with.....but every time I say I love xy, sm and even swsh i get told they are terrible and usually imply that I shouldnt like them :/

That only happens online, though......irl all the fans ive met, no matter their ages, just say something like 'i didnt like it, but i'm glad you did!'. Growing up in irl fan spaces and having to move online during corona was AN EXPERIENCE omg

Yeah! It's super interesting how much we are affected by nostaglia.

There's usually a pattern you can notice with this stuff too. There are two lines that go up as time goes on. The one everyone talks about as being great and the newer one people hate on, usually to do with nostalgia of the now older original audience of the game.

My full reply got long so putting it under a read more skfjsh

My first Pokemon game was Colosseum, so gen 2/3 pokemon and gen 3 sound effects are pretty nostalgic to me.

Then I grew up mostly playing Diamond/Platinum/PMD2/Ranger2. I LOVED Team Galactic. I restarted the games so many times just so I could play through the story again with Cyrus and the Galactic Grunt theme. (I have also played through pmd2 many many times). I remember in my early teens seeing people on the internet hating on DPPt a lot and it making me sad. I recall someone saying that the gen 4 Pokemon sucked and I remember thinking "aw I guess they're right, some of these pokemon are really boring or annoying" and then I learned later that the pokemon I was thinking of were all gen 1 pokemon sdfkjsh

Gen 5 was hated when it first came out because it wasn't very fun for new players. I bet it also didn't help that the advertising for B2W2 was pretty poor and also came out after the 3DS did. I didn't even know it was a sequel until years later. That's why they went in the complete opposite direction for gen 6, and added gimmicks!

I have heard multiple people call the designs from gen 5 horrible over the years (And they're all wrong). Those comments are nowhere NEAR as frequent now, but they almost always come from people with nostalgia for the ones they grew up with.

I was 13 when BW first came out. I think I've only beaten it once, MAYBE twice. I'm not entirely sure why, because I was still replaying DPPt a lot. I would guess it's because the game is super linear in terms of gameplay and every playthrough will start exactly the same. You don't really get to make decisions on your team and how you play until later. Kid me loved the beginning of the main pokemon games the most because they were the most fun bits to play usually. So I suppose when you've already played it once, the beginning becomes quite boring.

And to compare. I did not like XY when it first came out. I was 16 and very against change and also my fav types at the time were dark and dragon so fairy type was the worst thing ever. I said previously that I really liked Team Galactic, so Team Flare was just a bootleg version of them to me. BUT I did immediately replay the game when I finished it. The character customisation plus the huge dex gives the game a lot of replayability. Because while I didn't like a lot about the game it was still fun to play, and it was the first time online was really accessible to me. I went back to 2013/2014 on my blog and there's SO much positivity about the game it's amazing! Over time people only remembered the bad parts and started hating it. I bet there'll be an influx of nostalgia for it before long. We can even see it in the hope people have for SV having Kalos DLC.

I need to replay sun/moon or play USUM because in my brain currently it sucks. But I'm very aware that that's because I only played it once, it's been years, and I played it when I started to grow out of Pokemon. So I'm excited to play it again now that I can appreciate it better. (Also the Sun/Moon anime is my fav so I have a lot of love for the characters now)

And finally, I loved SWSH! I didn't finish it the first time I tried to play it. Mostly because I spent HOURS trying to get a shiny hatenna before doing the fire gym skdfjhs. But then I SPED through the game with a bug type only run before Legends came out and I really enjoyed the story! One of those things that's more enjoyable if you're only focused on enjoying the story (and playing the game through with a joltik as the lead and trying to make sure they stay strong enough to beat the game with pfft) Also Leon was the first ever Champion I actually thought was cool and enjoyed seeing while playing the game (as ridiculous as his outfit is)

If I were to logically plot out the best for me based on how nostalgia works and taking into consideration that public opinion ABSOLUTELY influences me. I would have said BW was the best and XY(or SM) was the downfall, even though I had way more fun playing XY than BW as a kid

#pokemon #boy that got long #I really wanted to be transparent in sharing my own nostalgia #ACTUALLY I HAVE BEAT BW TWICE #I forgot I played it in pokeMMO with my friend like 5 years ago #it's WAY more fun in that because you get follower pokemon and I got to play with my friend #also they let you reset EVs after you beat the game so it's more balanced in that regard #man I need to play USUM soon #I want to play with a cutiefly now that I'm not a grumpy old man and don't hate fairy type #also I didn't mention it in the post because it wasn't relevant to my point but I love XY now through exposure I love it all dksbfk #Ive done so kuch research and Im so gutted at the wasted potential it really needed a 3rd version #also with the pokemas villain arc I can now officially say I like lysandre #love a villain who doesn't lie it's such an interesting trait for someone keeping quiet about wanting to murder millions of people

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bikwin5 · 1 year ago

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pikmin 4 thouts

i haven't actually posted that much about pikmin 4 now that i think about it but i finished it a while ago. as close to 100% as i think it can be. i don't have the drive to make a complete review so i just wrote down a list of things i liked and didn't like. there are no huge spoilers in this until the very end

THINGS I LIKED -adding a marketable dog is usually a sign of getting desperate. the simpsons did a whole episode about it. even in the ask the devs interview they were like yeah we added a dog to create appeal. but despite all that i ended up warming up to oatchi not just as a character but his gameplay as well. letting him swim, carry, attack, and act as a second leader all works very natural in pikmin's world and he basically acts like a very big and powerful pikmin. it takes a bit of getting used to learning the new mechanics but i think it was a good idea overall. still kind of wish they went with the playable bulborb idea instead. -the biodiversity is kind of ridiculous in this one. pikmin 4 has 100+ different creatures and a piklopedia to interact with them all, making for endless hours of fun without even playing the game. in fact there are so many creatures it felt like some had a pikmin 3 problem where they weren't used enough even though this is a big ass game!! i also like the return of pikmin 2 styled bosses in contrast to 3's where most of them felt very scripted. -the selection of things to collect is no doubt the best in this one. i like that completing a set of treasures lets you look at everything at once. -i like the hub area. its nice to walk around a bit. -having 8 pikmin types is a bold move but they pulled it off pretty well. the 3 types limit on the surface actually works well. i like that each area has "recommended" types but allows you to swap out others regardless. it makes it so advanced players can do more tag barrel switching if they want to. -the level design feels a bit of a departure from past games with how expansive each area is but i do like it, it keeps things fresh. there's still a lot of depth to clearing out each area and cave efficiently. -it was at least harder than pikmin 3!!!! yippee!!!!!! -the gwafics are goregous in this one. pikmin is one of those series that only looks better with visual fidelity. -i like the equipment upgrading system. i enjoy how it allows certain equipment to be optional even after you already make it. this lets me get rid of the power whistle because i don't like it.

THINGS I DIDNT LIKE -my #1 complaint is the auto-lockon feature. i desperately wish i could turn it off. i think they intend you to have motion controls on for more precise aiming but i don't want that. i just want to aim with the stick. the lockon makes some things trivial and some unnecessarily frustrating. there's a FUN to be had in trying to get perfect aim with pikmin! it's a BALANCE!!!!!!!!! but maybe nintendo doesn't realize that… nintendo if you patch this game to give me an option to turn off auto lockon i'll be a good kid and buy your new mario. -pikmin 4 has the best pikmin AI in the series but there some small changes are so frustrating. in particular they REALLY hate the idea of using more than the minimum number of pikmin to carry something. they physically stop you from throwing for a bit and then pikmin that are already idle don't even bother. it's a small thing but it's persistent and it drives me insane. -balancing 8 types of pikmin is not easy. that being said i think pikmin 3's types in particular got shafted a bit. rock pikmin have a weird nerf where they can die from crushing but only on hard surfaces? i guess it's to prevent trivializing certain bosses. winged pikmin don't act much different but they feel like what blue pikmin were to 3 in that they barely get a chance to shine. it's fucked because all the earlier areas probably have winged pikmin paths programmed in that most people will never see… it breaks my heart just thinking about it -ALSO the white pikmin damage nerf was totally unneccessary. as a result all the poison themed enemies are so weak and oatchi can dispatch them easily with the poison upgrade so its like why are these guys still candypop bud exclusive -the controls might be almost TOO tight. particularly the oatchi bunchup is really OP when it comes to fights. i think this game throws a lot of tough situations at you but jumping on oatchi trivializes them a lot of the time. -enemies not respawning is really weird. particularly on the surface where they NEVER respawn. it kind of strips the organic feeling of pikmin away. -everyone says this but too much tutorial. please stop making the characters talk to me every time a pikmin dies on screen. i'd say it feels like nintendo is regressing to the skyward sword era but not quite, if they did then then there would be a cutscene every time you break down a wall.

looking back at this section i sure did CAPITALIZE a bunch of arbitrary words. i think shepherd was right when she said bernard's speaking style rubs off on you.

VERY MINOR NITPICKS -i wish my man hajime wakai was still doing the soundtrack cause you can tell he didnt. pikmin 4's soundtrack isn't bad it's still pretty "pikminlike" but i think you can tell its not the same as it was -for having a "dandori" theme pikmin 4 doesn't feel nearly as incentivized to be efficient as much as 3 or even 1. the fact that night expeditions take up full days bothers me and i can't help but wonder how much replays will be affected with how much stuff they crammed in the main game.

BIG SPOILERS AFTER THIS POINT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-i think olimar and louie got a lot of fun exposition but the new characters not so much. it feels like they got disregarded later in the story. -final boss was the easiest in the whole series. yes even more than hey! to me. i lost like maybe 5 pikmin total. i think what makes it so easy is that there is very little risk in engaging, you throw 2 purple pikmin on the tail and when it falls over you rush with oatchi and that's it. the one scary thing about it is the final phase where it can do the roar that scatters pikmin into death pits but i didn't get hit by it because i'm epic and awesome like that. even then having one difficult thing at the end of an otherwise easy final boss just feels kind of cheap. -i wish the lineup trumpet wasn't a secret late game upgrade because i would have liked to play the rest of the game with it.

#pikmin #pikmin 4

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legionofpotatoes · 2 years ago

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700 hours is 29 days (+ a couple hours). Just as a thought experiment, do you think Zagreus himself would be able to achieve all that he sets out to do in Hades within that same timeframe (making all of his escape attempts, building relationships, honing his skills, collecting valuables, redecorating the entire House for the hell of it, etc.) or do you think he'd spend more/less time?

Personally, I feel like he's skilled and determined enough to maybe do it faster, but I could also see it taking much longer, maybe months, considering his journey is its own "mythological trial" and even the most stubborn of people tend to slow down and let doubt take hold (even if only temporarily)

I will try not to get distracted.

I think your question is organically answered by the individual canon of the game itself, per player? I really believe it's as simple as that! It would be however many attempts you took. The gameplay loop keys us into the physical struggle, while the per-death progression of the story unravels Zag's internal change in however long it takes us to reach those crucial milestones. That's I think one of the (many) pro-ludonarrative masterstrokes in its game design; you sort-of chart the canon timeline of that effort literally by hand, and it all conforms to your specific playthrough in the end.

Which then makes it difficult to measure how Zag "himself" would do it since it's? us? There is no framework of that game's form-and-function synergy that excludes player perspective. His engine of internal change is gated by physical milestones, and those are in turn tied to player skill/determination, who then in turn engage with a progression system with so much potential variation that it becomes impossible to really parse that into an isolated character arc in a logical way. Am I making sense? 😬 sorry if I'm blowing this out of proportion, but your question is such an interesting one lmao.

But I also think you're ultimately right in lending it a read through a mythic lens, rather than a purely logical one; if this were a linear and finite narrative with greek dramatic overtones, it would certainly allude to labors, cycles of futility, and really-really hard-earned catharsis. It's a somewhat straightfoward hero's journey all-in-all; resisting responsibility, finding purpose outta nowhere, and then through that purpose accepting the responsibility, yada-yada.

In that read, to me Zagreus feels like a small, seemingly insignificant cog in the House of Hades, struggling against personal duties, the bureaucratic whims of hell itself, and the post-traumatic abuse from his dad. He's a lonely kid rebelling against a world without his mom. Personally, I love the idea that it takes him eons. Just fucking ages. Dying hundreds of times per chamber, creating his own sisyphean torture of apathy, never really believing he can escape but keeping that north star of Persephone as a motivator to just keep trying. That becomes the kernel of his personhood that allows all of his growth and change to occur; the persistence is the key, and the game drops that key squarely into the player's laps. We get to be this kid's nagging persistence that finally, finally allows him to win.

The fact that the game then opens him up to an entirely new path of healing, once he does find his mom, is just such a. I don't even know. It's like the game is still responding to the meta of our relationship to its infinitely looping gameplay system; it will engineer a functional combat-based struggle that is eternal, yes, but will bombard us with story-level catharses the more we choose to engage with it. Eventually it will turn the entire premise on its head and settle into an idyllic vignette of a functional family and a kid that chooses to go to school and clean his room and take care of the house and enjoy it all cause his mom and dad are happy at home and his friends are on good and healthy terms with him and he's finally content.

It's like they gave us a meaningful story and bolted on a massive fix-it fic on its ass for good measure. They looked at the very DNA of roguelike narrative potential and just went for fucking all of it. What a game.

Anyway, I got distracted. Did that answer your question?

#i am simply incapable of being normal about hades. sorry nonnie. I am incapable!#anon #asks #hades #long post

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impprtante · 4 months ago

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Eira's 7 Children (their problems and their origins)

Imma go out and confess: i messed with the features of the first batch of kids.

I was very early in sims 4 gameplay, i still wanted all my sims to be really pretty paragons (yes Snow White was the pinnacle of cute as a middle schooler, shuddup) so when they came out ugly or fat (yes fatphobic tiny me, i promise im better and working unlearning anything else i got in there) and now whenever i get a sim i just find them all so precious and different im not really bothered by eccentricities.

Also, now that i look at them i'm a little creeped out by them, Just a little.

But yes, i did mess with the features of the first batch of children.

The least offensive ones is that i just wanted all their hair colors to be different so i could differentiate them. This proved not to be a problem for me now, but yeah none of these were like the original hair color.

The other thing is that, yikes, i had kids with townies. That doesn't sound like a big deal, but in case i ever want to divorce the family from the sims, have them live without it as a crutch so hard (like when people make minecraft OCs and later when they write the world for the character is has minecraft mechanics and monsters lmao) so im actually kinda like, if i write a story i don't want their names attached. The biggest offenders of this:

J Huntington III and Travis Scott

Mr. J was the father for the first child, Phoenix. I don't know how it happened anymore. How did that tied sweater work on me to think he was a good candidate ;; __ ;;. As for Mr. Travis, EIRA LITERALLY MARRIED HIM. NO JOKE. I was like "she settles in the end," and ITS HIM. THIS DUDE. It's literally like when there's the super pretty girlfriend (i thought she was super pretty) and she gets with the nerdy dude who people think isn't that attractive. Again, in real life there's other factors but in sims, i was new and hadn't formed any connections with the townies, i didn't know them at all. and i choose this dude to settle her with. Whuff.

Anyways, here's the profile of the 2nd gen as young adults:

VAMPIRE WHITE SKIN FOR LIKE, OVER HALF OF THEM. AND THE HEIR AT THAT ;; __ ;; AND LIKE ONE OF THOSE DON'T EVEN COUNT, HE WASN'T FROM THE GENE POOL. They scare me. Also, you can tell i was trying to lean into CC for Nephele but i gave that up, here lemme get you a non CC ver. Also, lol the clear women preference

Going in order (first pic bundle), we have

Phoenix. He's the eldest, child of Mr. J, and Snow 1.0, and as the first child I love him way dearly. I think he's like, my favorite, straight up. I've also played as him a lot just because he's in the starving artist catagory, and he's gotten the most character changes. I'm still uncertain whether to like, cut things or to merge things for him. His design doesn't change, I think he's cute and im too attached to him to consider it. His bad trait was being gloomy (depressed). To be talked about later.

Lamia, she was 2nd eldest. Her trait was jealous, and she was supposed to be a bitch (im currently playing as her and that kinda fell to the wayside whoops, i'll try harder). Her thing was being a pianist, entertaining at first, party person / aspiring musician. But her aspiration was joke star (._.). Her dad was a randomly generated person randomly named Adrian Buff. No, i didn't save him ;; __ ;;.

Basilisk, eh his age is kinda debatable. He's actually adopted. He was one of the babies you could adopt like, immediately starting a save file. Idk if it's different now, but when i started playing i had made (face palm) made AUs for them like i was gonna start over even tho i was on gen 02, not even that far. But for a while i kept adopting him just because i'd known he was there available in other different saves. ANYWAYS, he's a slob. I made him the stereotype of jock (ew) and he wanted to be an athlete professionally (aspiration body builder).

Next we got the twins, Griffin and Sphinx. TWINS. Challenge 7 kids going quick. Griffin was supposed to dress in black, Sphinx in white. They're supposed to be the genius troublemaker trope, and i had no idea what to do with them. Their dad (exposing myself) was a sim named Jumin Han (jwgelgdlwefnsd) no i don't have the sim saved. Their hair is genetically modified to be red, and their eye color the slightly diff blue shade. ITS ALL FAKE!!!! they were basically the same person, but one was clumsy (griff) and the other lazy (sphinx). They were so alike, i had them marry a set of identical twins at first.

Cindy, Ella, Eleanor, Nephele, was our heir. Also randomly generated sim, I think i have him saved somewhere actually. I remember Kian Cavanaugh's (randomly generated) name because i had her visit him and eventually he died on my lot (old age). Anyways, she didn't have any flaws because, heir (sigh) but she was supposed to be like, chronic foodie. So i honestly should've put glutton ._. (bruj). We'll get to her characterization later. But I didn't want her father to have been the one Snow 1.0 settled with, since i thought that was dumb (little me living for the drama of having different parents, not realizing she had no way to convey the kind of trauma and complex relationships that creates, thx).. I distincly remember her hair being a black (not me white washing her hair huiwlljlg ;;;;; __ ;;;;;)

Youngest and brattiest, Arachne. She got a shit name because she was supposed to be the most hated, the one doted on (because Snow 1.0 settled with her dad (ew travis) that spoils her) and the stand in for evil step sister. She has anger management issues. She was supposed to be bratty, then terrible edgy teen (last picture), and then mellows out, taking her outlet of writing to gain success.

There's the run down, we see what changes i've done (so far) to le Eira clan. I took the liberty of playing as them as teens (children aging up messes up the faces) so they got some relationships due to growing together :3

#gen 01 #Eira's Children #Eira Thyme #can you see me going crazy with a household full of sims #and getting completely burnt out #leaving and returning on a bored summer #can you see the vision #Phoenix White #Lamia Ivanov #Basilisk Theodokis #Griffin Laurent #Sphinx Laurent #Nephele Moise #Arachne Carello #also i literally never noticed travis scott had the name of a rapper wow that literally whooshed over my head for years #these pictures are taking forever bc multitasking

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goldlightwriting · 5 months ago

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I think the praising of LOR for its redesigns is kind of wanting validation for the bare minimum.

Anytbing would be better then Nidalee and Janna’s vanilla League designs because they where made in the early 10s where Riot was starting out and only knew “horny”.

It should be Riot’s job to improve them in game not just slapping a PNG image on a card and having people praise you.

I don't think that's entirely fair, to be honest. While it IS somewhat absurd that Riot is taking so damn long to update their outdated characters in League, which is their main money-maker, I hardly think that invalidates the effort put into Legends of Runeterra.

I mean, could you not make the exact same argument for League? If Zilean's splash art were changed to resemble something more like his card-game counterpart, would that not also just be "changing a PNG," as you put it? Ultimately, Riot doesn't need to bother updating the older characters' visuals at all. Even if characters like Zilean, Yi, Janna and Nidalee have outdated designs, you can make the argument that doesn't matter nearly as much as their actual gameplay... Especially when Riot can just give them skins with pretty particle effects to make up for it.

I guess my point is that I don't think it's fair to invalidate LoR's efforts just because it's a "side piece" to League of Legends. If anything, the fact that the artists on that game can make these outdated characters look good while staying in the framework of League's designs is a feat unto itself. Hell, they COULD just design Champions to resemble their outdated League counterparts and not bother changing anything, but the artists AREN'T doing that, taking the time and effort to overhaul characters that desperately need it... Even if they sometimes drop the ball like with Morderkaiser.

Ultimately, as long as we have official updates to the characters in any capacity, I'm content. LoR has done so much for the League IP and brand, and the idea that those efforts don't count just because they're not part of the "main game" is tad disingenuous, don't you think?

#Legends of Runeterra #League of Legends

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inventors-fair · 11 months ago

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Rewind Commentary: To Years Ahead

What a year, captain.

The Fair has been going for a lot longer than I ever though I'd be with it for, and yet, it's one of those moments where you don't think about how long something's been in your life until the rest of life starts moving faster. Like...a suitcase, a microwave, a particular book, the position of photographs on a wall. A set of draft sleeves. A pack you've never opened.

2024 is going to bring a lot more cards and lot more shakeup. The product lineup is as big as it's ever been and the cards we can make are as weird as they're ever going to get. Magic has a way of surprising us more than we can articulate until the cardboard hits the table. For the time being, though, we've got jobs to do, and that job right now is commentary.

When we go into the new year, there may be some upcoming changes to how commentary goes about. I've written a novel's worth of commentary this year alone, and we've reached a point where that's just not sustainable. We'll be talking more about this in January, but in the meantime, we do want to know: what alternate forms of commentary would be helpful for you all? The manpower that goes into writing is daunting, to say the least.

Let us know what you think. In the meantime, here's what I think about the cards this week:

@bergdg — Lekti, Naktamun Survivor

I don't know what to call this card past it being generally 'good.' It's a typally-relevant commander that fills a niche, and I do respect that. Jeskai pseudo-impulse is a good constructed archetype for sixty-card decks. Commander-wise? There's this inherent issue of every card having some kind of relevance or impact with no repeats. For variance, I get it, it can make for fun gameplay. Whether or not it feels good to lose one of two important cards makes it difficult to decide whether or not it's worth attacking.

But it's a fine blocker, too. There's a bit of a fun twist where you're rewarded for having both Bird/Phoenix cards AND having noncreature spells, so you can build off of the prowess or off of the fliers, your call. Which one would you pitch, though? I don't think that this is necessary the best benefit for either side centrally. Now if you want to have this as just a "good Jeskai card," then I can futz with it. As for whether or not is has a strictly strong identity in either direction, I'm not seeing that with this iteration.

@dabudder — The Darkin War

League of Legends, more like...reading the wiki was definitely helpful here. I have absolutely no history with this franchise or its lore. Deep, yes, absolutely, or at least expansive—impressively so. I think this is one instance where familiarity deepens the meaning far more significantly than it would be with just using guesswork or whatever, because that last chapter made no sense until I saw what the sealing process was for the, uh... I've been awake for 22 hours and forget a bunch of names, I'll admit.

What I like about the design is its clear commitment to commander-focused interaction. Two creatures fighting each other can be extremely powerful even at "sorcery speed," as it were. Even then, I'm not a huge fan of that transformation, not because it's not cool but because it's opening up a whole lot of weird doors. Counters, being permanent, can get messy when they remain on the swordified creatures. What about massive token/counter decks? Blinking? Tracking a board state can be easy on Arena, but definitely not on paper. Conditions that grant equipment cool abilities are nice, but I feel that the complexity you're asking for is more than needs to be handled.

@deg99 — Draugki, Immersturm Tyrant

I knew something was weird about this wording but I wasn't sure what. I think the problem is that you're trying to do a zillion things at once that grok but don't grok with wording. Rakshasa Vizier and Old Rutstein want to help. Each one kinda wants to be a separate trigger, and each one also kinda wants to be an "if this, then this" clause, and together... Eugh. "Whenever one or more cards are put into exile from a graveyard, if a creature card was put into..." No, because the "this way" or "that way" wouldn't necessarily work. I honestly don't know how to work with this one.

But, this second paragraph is being written several hours later, so I can say with confidence that I still don't know. Tired-me had something going on. "Whenever a spell or ability exiles one or more cards from graveyards" allows for "this way" to happen, which this card may or may not need to make all these abilities work. It's quite frustrating how well it groks versus the wording that would have to go into it. To be honest, having this be an end step trigger that looks at all the things that were exiled from a graveyard over the course of a turn might make it easier. If anything I truly want to convey how cool a card this is conceptually. I would have loved to have polished this in the workshop with you.

@dimestoretajic — Jeskai, The Way to the Eye

I had kinda forgotten that the clans were named after dragons. Were they? ... Okay, research into this reveals nothing so far, but that's how it is. Maybe the new ones were and the old ones kinda were, I have no idea. REGARDLESS. In terms of elder dragon lore, this is kind of a weird one. Even though I'm personally a fan of a big dragon teaching little humanoids martial arts in a teacherly manner, that doesn't feel exactly draconic to me, certainly not with the dragons of Tarkir. I'm not sold yet.

Mechanics are pretty great though. If there's a way to cheat spells, well, this card certainly does that. One free counterspell on each of your opponents' turns sounds amazing. Actually, that sounds awful to play against. Maybe "each of your turns" would be a little better. But the idea is solid! Let's talk about wording, though, and I wanna stress how much Oracle text helps to make these cards better for you. For the second line, you need "instant and sorcery SPELLS" instead of just "instants and sorceries." For the third, I believe it would be worded: "You may pay {0} rather than pay the mana cost for the first noncreature spell with mana value 4 or less you cast each turn." Wordier, but necessary.

@hypexion — Prism Shifter

Now this is a fun little evoke trick. Kind of. The thing is, like with Banishing Light and such effects, you'd have to know to stack the triggers in such a way so as to get the effect right and blink your target from the exhume trigger. That said, the "flashback for creature effects" feels like a sweet spot with unearth that you can do for cheaper, and this card in particular feels like a strong contender for versatility. (And, as was pointed out after I wrote this, a strong contender for making sure that you check your wording so this can't exile itself next time...)

The comparisons to unearth will be pretty stark, though—and the inability to attack would be a majorly divisive factor. But, this is still one card of however many, and I think that we're in a place that it's okay to have this kind of mechanic in a set as necessary and flavorful. I wonder where you imagined it and what kind of identity you see, because it's not really worded like Lorwyn's elementals usually are, and it implies color-crystal-y possibilities, and the mechanic itself is kinda macabre but not really... Actually that's another wonder. Why that name in particular for the mechanic? I suppose it makes the most sense. When it shares a name with another MTG card I can see where comparisons would be drawn but there really are only so many words that would fit. Maybe additional flavor exploration would yield a different result?

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes — Unexpected Voyage

Oddly enough, this vibe feels a little unnaturally mean to me—for green, I mean. Green is the color of community, and this card specifically represents a group of...villagers (?) sneaking away from a village for an unknown reason, and maybe they're being chased, maybe they're vagrants and thieves, maybe they're just adventurers, but I don't know what the mood-to-card connection is. Perhaps "mean" isn't the right word that I'm looking for. It's simply off-putting; I don't have the full idea of what you're looking to convey.

What I do know is that the one thing this card could use would've been an off-color kicker. We have anti-search and searching-punishment effects, and those are primarily in black, adjacently in blue and white and kinda red, too. Green has nothing to do with one's ability to search a library by itself, and certainly not with an effect that also locks out things like Field of Ruin effects or whatever. Even if it was, why does the ability read for the next time and not that they just can't search this turn? I don't get this card flavorfully or mechanically; it's Rampant Growth with extra steps that's expecting me to meet it halfway and I don't know how.

@izzet-always-r-versus-u — Locked Room

So something tells me that you intended to do the whole Oblivion Ring trick here, oui? Sacrificing the room with the trigger on the stack and exiling something forever? Or perhaps that's unintentional... (For those of you not in the know, what you can do with this particular set of effects is something people used to do with Oblivion Ring, where you got rid of O-Ring with its exile trigger on the stack, and so it wasn't on the battlefield when the return trigger would've happened, leaving the Thing in perma-exile.) If that was intentional, then shame on you for the exploit—only because it doesn't grok well, though. The stack is, as I've found, a pain in the butt to explain to burgeoning players.

I suppose for the "return" contest it works fine; the "sacrifice" contest was supposed to be a wee bit weirder with it. I don't hate this card but it sure doesn't sit well with me for the exploit reason and that alone. Otherwise, hey, it's kinda awesome if you think about it from a twist on the Cinderella (Beauty and the Beast?) perspective. With a little nastier sending-away, perhaps. Limited is full of these effects and that's totally fine. The question is what could be done to avoid that exploit. Perhaps two different kinds of sacrifice triggers, one to leave permanently exiled, one to just draw? I'unno, there are lots of options.

@just--a--penguin — Karrthus, Essence of Jund

I'm gonna level with you, captain: if I'm sacrificing my dragons, I want a better effect than this at a cheaper cost. If I have to sacrifice three creatures each turn in order to get a big thing, then I want it worth my while. How many dragons do you think it would take for this to be not just a waste of dragons? Maybe underwhelming-ness aside, this card conceptually would be cool. Karrthus is an awesome character—for being a giant screaming flesh dragon, anyway. The fact that he's destroying other dragons is pretty rad for him.

Still, dragons are one of those things you want to keep around. Why would I sacrifice my other dragons if I could instead keep them around? What kind of deck does this card want to be run in? If you run it in a little-creature sacrifice deck that makes lots of sacrifices, you're going to want your dragons to support that, i.e. stick around. If you're running a deck with a lot of big dragons, you'd want them to be impactful beforehand and you probably aren't making that many sacrifices each turn. Y'feel me? This card is pulling in two directions and not quite meeting in the middle.

@nine-effing-hells — The Brothers Wittebane (JUDGE PICK)

Once more we step into the territory of thank-goodness-Abel-actually-knows-a-media-property. Y'all would be astounded by how much I don't know. Witches and Alex Hirsch, though? We're right on schedule. I think that this card as well makes perfect sense for the story that it's trying to tell, and I like the fact that, in line with some of the other sagas from Magic's past, it tells the story of a long-ago moment with real-time consequences. Yeah, I know that's what all sagas are supposed to do, but this one feels more apt considering how linearly the story goes and how directly it can be followed. I also just happen to know it better and it's based on a really straightforward section of a story.

It also follows that the simplicity has led to a card that's more or less fine, but not explosively spine-tingling. It's certainly useful and good for deadly-taxey kind of decks—remarkably so, in fact. Perhaps I'm underestimating this in the late-game stages, where you can boardwipe, play this, and your opponent's locked down for a turn while you're drawing removal spells and whatnot. Is this far better than I'm giving credit for? Perhaps! It's happened before. I've also faced down some really frustrating Doom Foretold decks, so, y'know, I've had my share of run-ins with this kind of build. But overall I like this card a lot and appreciate its existence! Kinda want to make double-sided human tokens now...

@railway-covidae — Nab

I had forgotten about this contest! I liked it a lot, from what I remember. I think. I know that I was the one running it because it's a weird one. Love what you've done with it, though, great use of an action piece. On terms of having a neat name, that's a success. If I recall, I wanted something that was a little different or out of color for the piece in question, but whatever, this card is still kinda cool.

I say "kinda" because the flavor implied is great and the card's execution could use a lot of work. You've got this part where you're stealing a small artifact (or artifact token!) but not giving it haste, which is still relevant in any format that has artifact tokens. It's so narrow that, at common, it would get passed around the draft pod without having any use beyond sideboarding—and even then I dunno what you'd really want it for. And there's no fun flavor text to boot! Still, the biggest question is: at common, what could this card do to make itself more playable or prominent? How can you keep the effect with the art but lose the baggage of that narrowness?

@reaperfromtheabyss — Maroon on the Reefs (JUDGE PICK)

I think this card is more blue than maroon, but whatever, that's just a theory—a color theory. Regardless, the only mechanical thing I would change is from "you don't control" to "your opponents control" in the vein of Bond of Discipline. The way this card can curve out allows for whatever blue 3-4 drops you got to swing on in, and if you're running a second color, you can have a little extra aggro for a turn to really close out games and/or find answers to the massive cards your opponents play. But maybe the Islands are key. Is this worth going primarily into the one color? I'd argue that the amount of stunning says yes for limited.

The Islands being a limiting factor is always going to hinder a card like this, but that's just what happens, really. These kinds of cards like the BRO uncommon cycle will always be a little iffy except in the late-late game. Flavorfully, I really think you could've condensed the flavor text to be more ominous. The "thankfully" there feels almost sardonic in an otherwise serious card, and I don't feel that it's necessary all things considered. The danger of the Hullscrape Labyrinth (which is a pretty awesome name) is what I want to focus on here. Pirates in danger, y'know? More a tale to scare the young sea-dogs.

@sparkyyoungupstart — Countdown to Destruction

Power Rangers, on the other hand, is something I haven't watched since I was probably five or six. Hoo boy. Thankfully, the wiki condensed this and the finale was available online. Your art direction being a little more abstract reminded my of the Doctor Who sagas, in a way, with the portrait of the episode being a bit more spread out. I do like how sagas look, which is fun for this card. I'm praising this part because there's a lot mechanically that I'm not quite meeting. As for whether or not this fits the show precisely, I'm not one to say; I think that you did the best you could with what was available, even if I don't get the menace part necessarily.

What we have here is an issue with the downsides. Giving all your opponents' creatures menace on turn five means that you'll be dead before you get to boardwipe unless your opponent is terribly far behind. The fact that you're also sacrificing one of your blockers on chapter II says a lot as well. If your opponent just wants to swing with what they have, hey, that works, and then they'll hold back until their stuff is more-or-less destroyed. The "survivors turn into humans" is fun flavorfully but really doesn't have meaning in any average game. The minimal amount of indestructibility makes this more confusing than intuitive. The long and short of it is that this card would be fun to think about but, in-game, it'll kill you right after the novelty wears off.

@squeezyboi — Gavi's Contingency (JUDGE PICK)

I really don't think this is as powerful as Fierce Guardianship. Thank goodness. I hate that card with a burning passion, except not really. This card's still ridiculously powerful if you have a hate-on-sight Voltron-y commander, but not so much that it's comparable to any other counterspell. Plus, it doesn't counter boardwipes and stuff. The fact that it's almost better than negate is still incredible, though, with the added Preordain for one generic more at instant speed. Should this cost 2UU for that? I honestly think it might, but that may be my Legacy brain kicking in.

I don't even think I need to talk about the flavor. It's so good! Ikoria is a complicated world and I wish we had stayed there for more than one set. So many of these worlds needed more than just one set. I'm eternally pissed at WotC for skipping around to these set-dressing one-and-done theme-of-the-week places, but I've said as much a zillion times before. Gavi is a pretty cool character from what I just read up on, and a mother's love is indeed conquering here. This is a moment where she gets to exert a little more power in a way that's heartwarming, to say the least. Commander cards don't get as much love in the story that much, but this one makes me feel a bit better about her, y'know? Good card, good direction, good feelings.

@wildcardgamez — Armont and the Beasts (JUDGE PICK)

Reading up on the lore behind Armont and the story involved, this is a really interesting card that passes for a lot more mechanically than it does story-wise, and yet the story doesn't entirely fall flat. Turning everything into monsters is one thing, but then they get more powerful, and then presumably Armont destroys the curse of the monster role. Right? But there's a zillion monster roles and only one destruction, so I guess that's THAT story... Heh. All semantics. Doesn't matter when you have something this strong.

I played an incredible amount of WOE. Trample was far more powerful than I thought it would be. The ability to have a Thrive-like effect, but perma-trample and also holy crap, Tanglespan Lookout—yeah, there's a lot going on. I think in the right shell this card can overwhelm your opponents easily. In many shells, it can overwhelm folks, because again, boost plus saga, pseudo-overrun, yadda yadda. I would've loved to have played with this card! Whether or not that kind of effect would be a bit much for the set is debatable. I'm glad that Auras were the theme above something like adventures for the archetype, though. Much more powerful.

See y'all on the flip, kids. @abelzumi

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #inventor's fair #commentary #2023 rewind contest

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soundofseclusion · 9 months ago

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Sound's Games of the Year for 2023

I know we're almost into the third month of 2024, but please bear with me for a bit as I talk about my favorite games I played in 2023. I always mean to do one of these posts but never end up doing one because I take too long. Well, I may have taken too long this time, but I'm doing it anyway. This post will explain my top five 2023 games which released in 2023 and WHICH I PLAYED. Ok here we go.

Top Games of 2023

#5. Super Mario Bros. Wonder SMBW is a phenomenal game. It pushes 2D Mario beyond the staleness of the NSMB games (all of which were really good, just kind of uninteresting): something the series has been sorely needing. I believe that Mario as a franchise really needs weirdness to thrive, and for a while, they've been playing it pretty safe (with 2D Mario at least). Wonder allows for the developers to do weird and wacky stuff, all without compromising the immaculate level design the series is known for.

#4. Jusant When I was a kid, my dad used to take me mountain climbing a lot. I always really liked it, but it was pretty scary. Jusant fundamentally understands that what is engaging about climbing is that each movement feels like a small puzzle. It also understands that climbing is a connection between the self and the environment. It also understands a lot of other things in the realm of beauty, connection, design, etcetera. It also allows for all these things without the anxiety that comes with climbing, which is both a good and bad thing. Ultimately, they knew what they were going for, which was a vibes-based puzzle-exploration game, not a high-stakes action climbing game. I'd say it's better for that.

#3. Small Saga Okay so technically I beat Small Saga in 2024, but I'm still putting it on the list because it was one of the best games of 2023. It's a fantastic approach to an RPG where the battles are well-balanced without requiring any grinding (grinding isn't even possible, it's designed that way). The story is awesome and engaging and the world is fully realized and compelling. Combat is fun and the side content is fun and the writing is fun and. The game is very very fucking good.

#2. Pikmin 4 Despite never including Pikmin 4 in my 2023 media thread, I did technically beat it. I just know it features an extensive post-game which I intended to full clear, so I never posted about it and decided to wait until that eventual full clear (a line of thinking that has changed for media threads going forward). Of course, life got in the way, and distractions happened, and I put my return to the game on hiatus, but that won't stop me from saying Pikmin 4 is the second best game of 2023. I don't think I could really add much to the existing discussion about why this game is great, but I'll attempt to do so whenever I do fully complete it.

#1. Chants of Sennaar Sometimes a game comes along that manages to accomplish something so beautiful in a way I would have never considered. This is one of those games. With a wholly unique gameplay concept that it fully fucking nails, Chants of Sennaar deserves to be played and completed. It's one of those games I wish I could experience for the first time again.

Bonus! These are the best games I played to completion for the first time in 2023 from a different release year.

#5. Trek to Yomi (2022) A very cinematic game with satisfying combat, a really cool setting/story, and a good flow overall. I felt very engrossed during my time with the game, and constantly found myself impressed by the visual spectacle and atmosphere. I feel like maybe it doesn't quite live up to its potential, but it was still one of my favorite games I played in 2023.

#4. Co-Open (2021) A delightful and short experience where you are given the option to interact with as much or as little of the world as you like. The game can be beaten in like 5 minutes, but my playtime was about 2 hours. Whether or not you'll enjoy this game depends on whether you can allow yourself to view the mundane as exciting through the lens of a young person. Personally, I quite enjoyed doing that.

#3. Eastward (2021) As time has passed, I've grown more and more fond of Eastward. Its world and story are so compelling, and it's a game that you can obviously see an immense amount of compassion was put into. When I completed it, I stated that it was marred by a lot of minor issues that made the final experience less than satisfactory. And at this point, I don't think I care about the gripes so much, because I can only think of this game's world with total adoration.

#2. Red Dead Redemption (2010) I wrote a pretty lengthy thing about Red Dead last year, but the gist of it is that this game does a lot of things very right.

#1 MetaWare High School (Demo) (2020) One of the most interesting games I've ever played and which I refuse to speak on further.

#media thread 2023 #games writing #goty

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