#writing about videogames

[tshortik]

There is a certain kind of beauty in rushed things I don't see many people talk about. Like unedited writing leading to unconventional, raw, weird stories, or rushed art leading to iconic comic or illustration styles, rushed music getting experimental, the art of just getting the job done, etc.

And when people try to "replicate" it after and if it actually became iconic, it just doesn't hit the same way, cuz they are creating it in a completely different environment! Idk I just find that so fascinating.

Rushed things can also lead to suboptimal quality, but there are so many things we value that exist because they needed to be done quickly or by amateurs and I don't mean that in a bad way! This is just very interesting to me. Like raw, messy strokes unintentionally finding so much appreciation from others.

[rambrandt-the-painter]

i hate reading and im checking mariam webster to figure out how to use punctuation marks but im still writing weirdly artful furry porn.

never give up on your dreams!!!!

[the-crazy-echidna-lady]

what... was that sonic magazine. Sega, you can't have had a trans woman voice Omega then allow this fire your incel beam this instant

[katyspersonal]

Ended up thinking about Yume Nikki again today. It is just one of those games that I binge-replay at the times of worst crises (the last one was almost 2 years ago), and something I can't coming back to. Absolutely unreachable standard of a storytelling that is not just nonverbal, but also symbolic. :')

Like... This is inside of the head of the young girl who experienced physical assault by someone within her immediate surrounding (family or other close ones), past which she felt isolated and scared of every grown man including her music teacher that she stopped visiting, entrusted her trauma at a sleepover after a party to the girl she thought was her friend who used it against her and spread rumours that led to her being dirtied as "slut" and thus pitied (in derogatory way), mocked, stalked and bullied by the people in her school and other peers, and in fact being socially executed ("beheaded" metaphorically), who grabbed a bicycle under strong despair and tried to run (ride?) away from her problems, her trauma and her life in a rainy night which resulted in a freak accident where someone died and another girl got crippled, and who as result of all this has been building up suicide ideation specifically through the idea of jumping to her death which she does do in the end.

And absolutely all of this is told without a SINGLE word? Not only that, but all the metaphors and symbols are so clever. They're never too blunt nor too vague, they're just the right amount to decipher what was her real life like, especially through the prism of being her dreams. This is just one of those things that I can help but hold dearly.

[beatx-mavie-archangelx]

hi the arcana fandom i was wondering did we give up or did they manage to block us all?

[killingbill]

Roach Tells Soap how he got his name 🧍‍♂️😭

sfw, mw2 09, captain mactavish x roach sanderson

It's quiet. A typical scenario where Roach was concerned. His hands are on either side of the sink, though without the gloves nor the bulk of his vest he looked a lot smaller. Yet, somehow they all looked a little more human without the gear.

The soldier is tipped off to Mactavish's presence from the moment he creaks open the door. The small bit of light peering into the dark space, or his visage roughly reflected in streaked mirror.

"Ye never told me how y'got yer name, in the first place."

The man tenses, a bit. He's not sure if he wants to speak, but he decides that it's better not to deny his captain. Besides, he'd never asked before -- and with their previously shared intimacy, it may be rude not to.

He exhales.

" . . . i survived an' es'plosion." Roach replies, watching with a soft anxiety settling in his chest as the captain comes in fully.

He softly latches the door behind him.

"S'that right, now?" He asks, lumbering up behind Gary.

"Mm. Yessir." Roach replies, easing backward slightly. His form relaxing.

"An' how'd ye manage t'do that?" Johnny asks, head over Gary's shoulder as he leans in real close. His strong arms bracketing the soldier's hips, while the heels of his palms press against the porcelain.

Gary clears his throat.

"Well, I was th'only one 'ho go' ou'." He shrugs, crossing his arms as he leans back against Soap's chest.

"Crawled inta' an open air-ven' n' closed the grate. Er, more like jumped fer m'life, but... it didn' folla' me."

"Smart man." Soap nods. "Knew I was smart in pickin' ya."

Roach blushes in the soft yellow light as Soap's lips caress the base of his jaw.

"When th'choppa came fer' m'exfil, they said i was unkillable. jus' like a bloody roach, i was."

"Mm. Well tha' explains the scars." Soap mumbles, pushing his hips up into Gary's, while fingers curl just a little bit tighter around the sink's edge.

The man in-front exhales, with his head falling to one side.

He's referring to the burn scars on Roach's face, and hands -- close to his jaw. Ones Gary looks at with a lidding of his hooded eyes.

"Mm." Is all he says in response. " -- Sir." He tacks it on for good measure.

Of course, he doesn't divulge the blast of flames that licked his skin as he closed said grate. He hadn't been sure if the tight channel was going to be enough to save him.

Seemed self explanatory.

"Well jus' keep it up, will ye' -- i ain't losin' ye on my bloody watch, that's fer sure." Soap mumbles between kisses.

"... S'why we ended up t'gether..." Roach says this unexpectedly. "Los' my old team."

Soap's head rises from the crook of Gary's neck, and he looks up at their reflections in the mirror. There's a bit of a smile that crosses rugged features, at that.

"Well, welcome t'the family, Roach. I'll make sure they take real good care a' ya."

[presiding]

How you'd rewrite Dishonored death of the outsider if it was fully fledged game with 10 missions? (like Dishonored or Dishonored 2)

Oooh!! Enrichment in my enclosure - thank you for asking! Thinking about a total rewrite was a great exercise. Fair disclaimer: I haven’t read the books & their canon-status can’t hurt me. To me, the Dishonored games stand out due to their immsim design philosophy, and thinking about some of the industry reasons for DotO’s departure from that, if I could make a standalone game with ~ten levels I would, but with the same budget I’d also happily make two DLCs made slowly over a longer timeframe with greater attention to detail.

Game structure

Finding Daud // Billie’s past

The fate of the Outsider // Billie’s future

Game story

Setting & Characters

Billie: What has Billie been doing since she’s returned to Serkonos? Knowing the Dreadful Wale will sink, she’s sold it for scrap & has set up an agency in Lower Aventa. She’s something of a detective/odd-jobs man (& assassin when it suits her). Business is booming, life is good. I think a long-running implication that she's becoming Daud in some ways would make for an interesting subplot.

Karnaca: a city that unfolds. In the first levels, Billie feels like a forgotten woman, a ghost slipped through the cracks, but as levels progress there are hints & references to how her past actions have affected others & shaped the city

Alignments: Witches, gangs, religion, industry; missions for clients who can’t necessarily pay their way. Missions that allow the player to explore/understand Karnaca in a deeper way.

Daud: Billie is unsure if Daud again will bring her any closure. She’s been thinking of him since her time with Emily, and his name keeps popping up.

Deirdre: the charm is a more functional heart, similar to Jessamine, as well as her own character design. Perhaps she doesn’t see Deirdre until she chooses the powers, or until she’s in the void (see next point)

First arc: Finding Daud // Billie’s past

Powers: the Outsider offers Billie powers even though her life is finally, actually good, so she’s pissed off. A choice - she can take them, or play no powers mode.

Breanna Ashworth is this arc’s villain - she wants Delilah back, and knows that Daud has banished her before, wants to know how he did it. Grief & desperation has changed her, and she no longer has her high society veneer. The remnants of the Karnaca coven, now powerless, have stolen from the Overseers to arm themselves to the teeth, and to neutralise Daud’s powers, in addition to black bonecharms.

Billie’s in a race against time against Breanna to find Daud, but by the last level it becomes clear that Breanna *has* found Daud, and has been torturing him for information about the void. Her dynamic with Billie is complicated by their past.

I think betrayal would be an interesting theme, so maybe one of the levels gives you the option to ally yourself with Breanna under false pretences.

Second arc: choosing the fate of the Outsider // Billie’s future

Delilah is the core villain, but she’s obsessed with killing the Outsider so she can take his place, having been violently ripped from her perfect world in her own painting by Breanna (who meant well), & knowing the Empire doesn’t hold her interest... but a perfectly mouldable void & infinite power does take her fancy.

As remorseful Daud is obsessing about preventing Delilah from taking power, Billie’s doing some detective work and learns more about the Outsider (he’s not showing up and monologuing - she’s finding this out herself. A level idea could be a raid on a ‘haunted’ houses where the void is thin)

Delilah succeeds in taking the Outsider's place, leaving the Outsider dead or mortal depending on if you are able to save him. Delilah has split her soul from herself before and she’s very much clever enough to learn the Outsider’s name to render him mortal.

Daud knows he’s dying, though, and it might be an ultimate sacrifice to save both Billie’s life, and the Outsider’s.

So during the final battle, there’s an option to make Daud the Outsider, because Daud wants Billie and the Outsider to have a shot at a normal life, and his life was forfeit in his own mind…

… or, reluctantly accepting the Outsider’s help, Billie finds a way to cut the void’s access to the world, rendering Delilah an all powerful god over a dead & silent world.

Because of the past/present focus of this you could even have levels set in the past - missions with Billie & Daud. Perhaps Billie as POV character, and Daud dropping by the way that Billie did in Knife of Dunwall. That’d be neat.

A heap of ideas here, hope there was something you liked :)

[bobthedragon]

Does Eelliot having parts cut off actually do damage or is it more of an annoyance? Like scale of 1-10 how bad is it for mr eels

THANK YOU FOR ASKING

mr eels is TIRED of getting his parts chopped off but also he is very used to it as someone who puts his life in danger for fun on the reg.

that being said he is Not used to dealing with people with ??swords?? in his urban-ass life and this is a Lot more of this specific type of damage than he is used to dealing with.

transcription under cut

Elliot is made of Eels. They can grow, shrink, shapeshift and regrow, but each eel is still part of his body. (there is a diagram of him made of puzzle pieces that are all interconnected eels. it says "diagram simplified for clarity") One of the things I don't generally draw is the clean-up process. Elliot heals fast (via shapeshifting), but life is better if he can collect all his bits first. (Elliot says "oh, there's my kidney!" while pulling a cut off eel out from under a couch.) But also, since he doesn't collect his lost blood, he ends up anemic real quick. (Elliot, looking Awful, stares at a puddle of blood and thinks "don't lick it don't drink it don't eat it don't") Also it still hurts But Whatever (elliot, bleeding from his shoulder per the final pages of the first scene of the comic, shrugging and saying "3/10??")

[metanarrates]

ive had multiple people tell me at this point that they've been at least partially influenced to read orv because my meta posts are so intriguing. so true come read my very long favorite novel so you can get to the good stuff (my posts about it)

[satorusluver]

My fatal flaw is being hopelessly in love with a character from a nearly 20 year old anime who got less than five minutes of screen time.

[outsideyourhousewithaknife]

You HAVE to love the moment after your phone dies and you are left hunched over the screen, your eyes deprived of the blue light to which they have grown accustomed, your mind deprived of the distraction from the horrors of your reality, to behold your own image (reverse Narcissus) in all its double-chinned, acne-scarred, chocolate-stained and cheeto-dusted glory, and horrified by who you have become, and you are full of guilt and (remorse) exhaustion, and you are (entirely, devastatingly) alone, and you blink, and you get up, and you (cry) (look in the mirror?) go plug in your phone and get some more cheetos

No, really, you have to love it. It's the law.

[girlwiththegreenhat]

i am never going to recover from the death shroud radio play actually

[pikkish]

idk if this is a good prompt but put doomguy in myhouse.wad I think he would find it enriching

Right, so I've been mulling on this one for a little bit now, n I'm not opposed to writing something for you, I'm just not... entirely sure what to write? Because the thing is, myhouse.wad doesn't actually really have anything to do with Doom as a story. Sure, Doom is important in that it's the vessel through which the story is told and one of the connections between the narrator and his dead companion. But as far as Doom itself goes, and the story about a man who was too angry/stupid to die, fighting demons and saving earth, none of that is at all relevant to myhouse.wad and its story. For all intents and purposes, Doomguy isn't actually a character in myhouse.wad. So I'm not really sure how exactly to fit him in there.

[active-mind-15]

Sometimes I feel like I want to do a one-shot series of Akashi just playing through switch games I think he'd like and how I would imagine he'd get through the game. But then other times I wonder, "Where the fuck would I even start something like that?"

[cthulhusaurusrex]

when the github merge request has all green everywhere green tests green everything hollylyyyy fuckck I'm gonna bust

fuck this gay "video games" or whatever I just wanna make new branches and pull requests. I'm not tryna play borderlands 2 anymore I want to see it say "all checks have passed"

[kokoshnjak]

oh god i forgot its ao3 discourse season again