#still a switch but maybe not as much of a sub as i’ve been defaulted to in the past… | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

regentcorpse · 4 years

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Added after I wrote this, I know my grammar is a mess in this. This post is 2223 words, longer than most high school essays which averaged 1500 words. If you don’t want to read all of this it has been separated into paragraphs and most of the conversation points are in the last three paragraphs. This sentence was added in after word count, the original post was on Facebook which is why the link in this does point to my own blog: My sentence structures are not correct, and this is Facebook and I don’t give a crap about that here. I did try to do my best to make it somewhat understandable with several ideas and conversations all in this. Also I didn’t originally separate it into paragraphs. If a sentence seems out of place at the start or end of a paragraph, my bad. But please read, comment opinions, not angry but constructive to build a conversation. I also don’t know how but this became more like an info blog post, but valid points and openings for conversations are made.

These newish Apple features like the Memoji, like it’s aight but still lacking in so many hair styles and facial depth, forehead, chins, and noses. Hopefully the will add a lot more features to be able to make it more like you, in a cartoon version. I’m about to check out the full bitmoji app to see what all they have, but I feel like apple should of used bitmoji, and since Apple has a version, I know android does. How is their version in your experience? (Please reply even if you don’t know me, I want to have decent conversations with people, but I hardly have anyone to talk to about random stuff like this.) Also the fact that Apple has Memoji in their database of words and not Bitmoji, is extremely weird, and pointless not to have it.

I don’t know how I feel overall about Apples decisions on these updates. They seem to be trying to almost build a legit social media around their platforms, I wouldn’t be surprised if they make something like Google+, which will most likely fail all together as a product, not because it will be awful but because we already have the social media giants that control most people’s lives, work, and reputation.

Facebook is for memes mostly and socializing with like minded people with their pages and groups. Not to mention that so many people use their marketplace now as well, which did shock me that it took of with other apps offering the same thing before Facebook did. To those who didn’t know, yes, Facebook stole that idea from OfferUp and LetGo(I think there was another around before the marketplace.)

You have Snapchat, the goofy fun social media where you can have personalized stories, private or public, and I may be wrong but they are also the ones that introduced the idea(maybe didn’t originally have the idea, but did introduce it, I think. Let me know if I am wrong please, I would like to know.) Next, the thing that made Snapchat big originally was the disappearing pictures after 10 seconds, which you couldn’t edit when the app first came out, the initial release didn’t even have filters or all the extra stuff they have now, it was so basic and simple and blew up. Another thing that made Snapchat big in the same way, disappearing photos meant disappearing nudes for both male and female, only that at first they could be screenshots, that didn’t notify you. In a future version, they disabled screenshoting photos from the default system buttons, but of course people found ways and made apps to get around it. Snapchat then started to block accounts for using those apps, then came the solution of notifying users of screenshots and then recordings when Apple released that feature. I know Snapchat probably wasn’t the first to make the goofy photo filters, but they did make it so much easier and almost more advanced with their simple facial mapping(yes it is simple since it’s meant to work with phones without facial recognition and all the other fancy face features.). Now Snapchat is a place to socialize in groups, or privately with friends through photos, messages, and video. Another big use now is the porn industry, where I think it’s safe to say only females succeed at making a lot of money with. It also seems to avoid spam bots and stuff. I’ve never received anything from a fake user or bot, besides their built in Snapchat bot, so that is honestly impressive and I applaud them for trying to keep it safe and friendly, except for the usual douchebag guys that send dick picks and stalk girls no matter their age. Danger lurks at all corners of the internet, and making friends is easier now, and just an add and a message away sometimes. But be careful who you add and honestly block anyone who harasses you or sends you unwanted images. And report them, help improve internet society and safety. This goes for all social media platforms.

Instagram is built solely around the personal sharing of photos to a feed and nothing else really. I know everyone was shocked that it became as big as it did, considering you can do the same thing in Facebook, and easily share other peoples photos to your friends. Although it is just photos, the people on there that are successful, actually do influence people and promote sponsors and their products. Some use it to get money, for their more explicit content. It followed Snapchat in adding stories, then filters, and has been successful in its endeavors. You can find everything legal on their as well as some illegal content such as drug use. As mentioned above, yes bots and fake accounts exist, be weary in who you talk to and exchange messages and photos with on here as well.

Twitter has been around for a long time and honestly, I see it being the first to die, due to overall lack of community and now with all the user interface updates and whatnot, it can be difficult to understand how the social environment of it works. Basically you get I think 140 characters to insert into the status prompt or whatever you/they want to call it. I personally don’t use it much, I get on there to see any updates from game companies and some of my favorite authors and music artists. I do this maybe once a week or two. I honestly don’t understand the point in twitter nor how getting followers and conversations started on there, if you have any suggestions for me please let me know if you are still somehow reading this.

Tumblr, ye olde blogging platform, one of the best until the pornography bam that yahoo added once their app was removed from the Apple store after I think being reported for child pornography. A lot of people lost their blogs and thousands of followers and countless hours of work. Many others had a lot of their content censored by a community guidelines photo or by being completely removed. So yes we can all agree that it’s a good thing they are trying to do what they can to combat child pornography of Tumblr, but a lot of people saw this as a complete change of environment for tumblr, whether being used for art, music, porn, pizza, cats etc.. Another big complaint that caused this change is how easy it was to lie about your age and turn off the content filter that got rid of the majority of inappropriate content. It was literally just a search option, then they tried moving it to your phone settings to the app setting in there to turn it off, which was still too easy. I can say you will still see pornographic content on Tumblr, mostly by accident, but there are people still posting getting around their image search algorithms. Past that to summarize, it’s basically a bigger version of Twitter, allowing for blog posts of most media types now, they have a reblog button to repost on your own page(these also get their own sub domains where it follows such as mine regentcorpse.tumblr.com. This is not for promotion, just an easy example(it’s a new blog with only like one blog post, but yes is my personal blog.) You can use your own domain if you own the address and route it to tumblrs name-servers, which most domain hosts have guides available to help you understand the process and set it up. They follow Wordpress in allowing themes which are only visible in a web browser and not the Tumblr mobile app, but on mobile you can edit the color scheme and fonts to what they have stock. To be like twitter with the features of Wordpress except custom plugins, it is a phenomenal platform still where you can truly be yourself and no one actually has to know who you are, you just post the content you love, the content you create(except for the porn content that a lot of people now went to Snapchat and Twitter for, and probably some private instagrams). You can find almost everything you heart desires within lawful reasons, I mean honestly you could probably find someone to buy illegal stuff from like guns, drugs, etc but I’ve never looked for that type of stuff on there. I love cyberpunk culture and there are so much content around it on tumblr. It also has pretty decent privacy setting for a blog, which can be password locked I believe and you can set permissions for it to be only people you follow or follow you, or no one or everyone can message you, ask questions(which can be anonymous), and submit content to your blog(also can be anonymous). The tumblr community can be toxic but also so helpful and beautiful seeing some of the ways people come together on there. It can range from legit bugs to books and quotes to programming and even professional use.

There is also LinkedIn, which is a very professional platform where you can add your professional resume and skills and may get recruited to jobs. I remember something like this tried to launch on Facebook but I do believe it failed out, as I haven’t seen anything about it or a link since they probably removed it.

So this leads me to ask What would an Apple Social Media Platform consist of? How would they try to outdo the others, and how would they make it appealing enough for people to use/switch to. Yes Apple is a big name, but so was google which failed at social media. They had good ideas but went about it completely wrong.

I feel like Apple would attempt to make a platform around creativity and art of all types. I feel like it would be a platform that would combine GarageBand, IMessages, Memoji, and all their other great apps into one. If they added collaboration on projects a lot easier in that aspect, and didn’t force themselves into everyone(Yes, Google that’s a shot at you.), they could make a truly great platform where we could see great things made by groups, communities, artists, and I could see them adding some sort of collaboration for web developers and programmers, which I would like to see knowing that Facebook, the corporation not social network, owns Oculus, and they already have a lot of resources for developers. Do you think Apple might be working on a social media platform, or do you think they will just keep adding out of place features? Do you think they would succeed in it or absolutely fail? Do you think Apple would stand a chance against the other giants that have been around and built up their user base? Also another issue is how exclusive Apple is with everything, just the fact you can log into Apple TV and watch it on a Windows Pc is a miracle. Do you think Apple will make it exclusive or would they put in the effort of being their media platform to everyone no matter their device? Remember everyone had a MySpace, now you never even hear about it, Facebook was a surprising switch with it having limited functionality and basically no customization options for your profile like MySpace and some other media’s had.

I want to hear your thoughts, opinions, and speculations about this, let’s start an open and friendly conversation, no hate or trolls, I don’t want all of that and your comments will be deleted and I may even block you from seeing posts like this on your feed and my page. This is at an end because my thumbs are tired and my phones dying and Facebook is lagging from how much I just put on here, but seriously comment, let me know what’s running in your mind, even what you would like to see change in social media in general or even in specific ones. I hope you all do open a nice and positive and informative conversation, I want to see that on Facebook more and I want to make friends I can talk about this type of stuff with in depth or even as broad as mostly common knowledge.

#facebook #instagram #apple #android #tech #future #social media #tumblr #art #music #books #community #programming #mobile #desktop #google

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fontasticcrablettes · 5 years

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How I Use Scrivener

Wrote this up for a friend, figured I’d post here in case it helps anyone else!

If you haven’t heard of it, Scrivener is a writing program that’s great for organizing long works. It’s what I use to write anything that has more than one chapter. It has a tonne of features, and honestly I don’t even use half of them. This is how I use it to write though.

Ok, so this is basically what the interface looks like:

You write in the middle. Documents and files are stored in the left, and the window on the right is for toggling things within the scene, jotting down notes, and some other cool things. Lots of things. Let’s break this shit down:

First: how to just write shit without worrying about all the neat features. When you first start Scrivener, go to New Project and get a box like this:

This is showing you all the templates you can choose from. I have a personal template that’s set up for how I use it. I’ve never used the non-fiction or scriptwriting ones (Like I said, I haven’t used half the features this baby has). It doesn’t really matter which one you use because you can change it all later anyway. If you aren’t sure, just go for blank.

Select blank, type your project name and where to save it, and then click create. (Tip: The project will create an entire folder with sub-documents. I like to make a folder for each project, and then put the scrivener folder in that folder, because you can’t import images that are already in the scrivener folder.) You’ll get this screen:

You can just start writing here. I’ll show you how I organize it though.

I like to make one folder for each chapter. Then, each scene gets its own page. You can create a new folder by click on the arrow next to the big green plus sign.

If you just click on the plus sign, it will create a new document. You can also change folders to documents and vice versa by right-clicking on them later. Create a document for each scene - basically, anywhere you’d put a page break, create a new document. They line up in order in all your folders like this:

I name the folders with the chapter title. You can either name you individual scenes (i.e., “Yuri goes to the store”) or let it auto-generate a title from the first sentence of the scene. This is what I usually do. Or, if you write out of order, you could create place-holder scenes and title them with what generally will happen there once you write it.

The cool thing about this is that you can move these scenes around easily. If, for example, you decide to end a chapter earlier and want to move the last scene to the start of the next one, just click and drag it into position.

Click and drag and hover over another scene (rather than between them) to nest your document within another one. This lets you use documents as folders of their own. I usually use this for notes rather than the manuscript itself (like, one page outlining a city, and then sub-documents for neighbourhoods within it).

At any time while writing, your entire list of scenes and chapters is available at the side. Need to double-check what someone said five chapters ago? Easily find the exact scene you need to re-read by finding it in the list rather than scrolling up through thousands of words in one big document.

I like to colour-code my scenes my point of view. Yuri is black, Flynn is blue, Estelle is pink, etc. You can do this over on the right window, in this box:

When you open a blank project, the top box there won’t say Point of View. It just says Label and will have different coloured boxes. Click the arrow and then hit “Edit...” to get to this box

Change the title of the label and create custom colour labels here. You don’t have to use this for Point of View; it’s just what works best for me.

Then, to get the colour to show up in the binder (the right bar where all your folders are listed, hit F6. That will toggle the little doc icon being coloured. F5 will toggle the colour appearing over the entire title, like this:

The Status box is for giving docs stamps - things like “DONE” or “TO DO”. It’s mostly useful in the corkboard view.

The Document Notes box is where you can write things down that pertain to just that scene. I use it to jot down a list of information that needs to be delivered in a conversation, for example, or I stick sentences I’m moving around over there until I find a better place for them. Use the arrows at the far right side to switch to Project Notes, which is like that but for the entire project and will be the same in every document.

The index card at the top is where you can write a summary of the scene if you need a reminder, or if you haven’t written it yet.

The camera icon takes you to the snapshots. This is for if you’re going to make some edits but you aren’t 100% confident in them. Take a snapshot before you start and it will save the document as it is. At any time, you can go back and check your previous version of the document and use Roll Back to bring it back again. There’s a little folded corner icon on any document that has snapshots.

I never use the other tabs in the inspector here. I think they’re mostly for non-fiction writing (References, footnotes, meta data, etc). And hit the I at the top to toggle the inspector open or closed.

“Include in Compile” and related check boxes are for when you’re compiling everything into one document at the end. Don’t worry about this for fanfiction; I find it easier to just copy and paste from scrivener.

Moving on from writing, you can also keep all your research and reference notes within Scrivener so that they are easy to refer to while-writing. I put mine in the Research folder.

You can create documents to write things up just as you would in the Draft folder, or import image files, pdfs, even entire web pages.

Something I like to do is create a calendar. It makes it easier to keep track of the passage of time in long fics. Create a regular document, then insert a table with 7 columns and 4/5 rows. It can be as elaborate as you want. Right click on the document within the binder and go to “Change icon...” to make it stand out.

I usually don’t use the Characters or World folders for fanfic, but for original stories that’s where I put all my worldbuilding notes, character profiles, histories, etc.

These three buttons at the top control the mode you’re in. The place document is just writing mode. That’s the default. Then there’s Corkboard mode, which is how I often do outlining. Create a new folder outside of the Manuscrupt, label it “Outline” (and change the icon if you want), and then create a document for each point on your outline. If you’re in Corkboard view, creating a new document will create a new index card (which turns into a document if you go back to Editor view).

This is where those Status labels I mentioned earlier come in. I mark a thing Done on the outline to check it off. The cool thing about it is that all documents are automatically index cards. Here’s my draft showing all the folders as individual index cards:

If I move cards around on the corkboard, they automatically move around in the binder as well. So I could spread out my entire story, scene by scene, on index cards and stamp them with completeness, label the PoV character, and summaries of the contents, and then shuffle them around right here.

The last mode is Outline mode. I’m more of a visual person so I don’t use this as much. I just use it to show me how many words a chapter has because it’s the quickest way to get that info.

You can toggle what columns you want visible on this screen. Total Word Count isn’t there by default; you have to tell it to show that.

Other cool things:

The built-in Name Generator found under Tools

Go to Tools > Options to change the fonts, colours, sizes, appearances etc.

Press F11 (this button)

To enter fullscreen mode. You can change the appearance of this under Options but it lets you write in a customized fullscreen view to help concentration.

Press ctrl+shift+’ to enter split screen view. This lets you write in one window and have reference material (or another scene) open in another. ctrl+’ takes you back to one screen.

The last important thing is Typewriter scrolling. This makes it so that when you hit enter, the lines shift up and keep your writing centred on the page. You never hit the bottom of the screen, you never have to scroll up to re-centre yourself. It’s great. I only turn it off if I’m editing because then if you fix a type near the bottom of the page it snaps that to the middle and can be annoying. I always forget how to turn this on but here it is:

Honestly this is just an overview of the most important features to me. This program is huge. I’ve been using it for almost 10 years and I’m still discovering new things about it (maybe because I am a person who never reads manuals and just figures shit out as it comes up but shhhh). I love it a lot and feel free to ask me how to do a thing because I can’t write without it now.

#scrivener

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dollsorwhatever · 6 years

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Cloe+ Collection Overview

I decided to give Cloe’s hair a shot before completely writing her off for that ugly rooting, so I straightened and gave the hair some wave/body and then tucked the front of her parting back in an attempt to even out the thin-ness and give it some balance.

She’s definitely not terrible, but her facial flaws bother me too much to consider sending this one out for a reroot or keeping her in my permanent collection. This is the one that Amazon CS told me to keep (or dispose of...lol) and I returned the last replacement for yet another replacement Cloe (So....Cloe #4) and after I get a perfect one, this girl’s head will find herself in a gift package for someone that might be able to use her. (will keep her arms and clothes tho) Thoughts on the line below the cut.

My overall thoughts on this line are still forming, since I haven’t been able to enjoy them in their best state bc of the constant exchanging I’ve been going through, but my overarching thoughts so far are: -I hate the body, I’ve hated the 2001 torso since I was a teenager and it’s frankly the worst choice for this line or any line, period. Nothing looks good on it. I would have preferred the Pixiez torso hybrid with 2010 legs and Movie arms (which Hayden/MGA did know about during the conception of this line...so idk why they chose 2001) but since that torso has a smaller chest and would therefore limit compatibility with older dolls, I’d pick the Kiani body as THE choice to be the standard Bratz body going forward, since it has a nice shape and rotational hips rather than hinges, with Movie arms added on, while fitting 2001-body clothing perfectly (better than 2001 does even lol) and the legs are gorgeous. -They fucked up the skintones. The heads are all standard Bratz skintones, but the bodies are all wrong. Cloe and Jade’s torsos are like bright reddish pink and the hands match their heads, Yasmin’s entire body is bright fucking orange, Sasha’s body is slightly more olive-toned than her OG body so I won’t be able to use her arms (though I’m willing to accept this because she has the most subtle and pretty skintone of the line and she looks good as-is). Yasmin’s skintone is the most annoying because there is no subtlety to it, it’s just blatantly orange, and her shoes won’t match any other dolls.

-The shoe sculpts. Now I personally PREFER for them to utilize one sculpt more than once and I don’t want there to be a unique shoe sculpt for every doll in every line, I think that’s a waste of sculpts especially because so many Bratz shoes are pretty versatile and can be altered with pant and designs very easily, as well as the issue of skintone matching since the feet pop off. I don’t think they utilized enough of the sculpts Bratz has done over the years and executed most of the shoes poorly. Yasmin’s ‘boots’, for example, could have easily been a pair of these boots or these boots in a dark magenta and flocked, with lace socks and it would have been a prettier/better translation of the sketch while also staying consistent with the collection. Yasmin’s second shoes should have been the Feelin Pretty heels (even matches the sketch closer than the Classic heel), Jade’s first boots should have been the PnP boots rather than the RA boots (which we’ve also seen, with that exact paint design, several times already), and switch out either Cloe or Sasha’s Classic heels for something else entirely, like more boots. Maybe those cute timberland fakes in a different color. Also they fucking destroyed the Feelin’ Pretty sculpt with Jade’s second shoes. The printed fishnet and the flame motif with the straps is just too much and really overpowers the sculpt (which btw was only used in ONE collection bitd so two pairs in this line would have been swell- especially if they used them for Cloe’s 2nd outfit instead of Jade and got rid of those fugly fishnets and flames) The fact that they used one shoe four times and remade an exact version of a pair of shoes we already have seen a billion times makes the entire shoe wardrobe of this collection feel very unfinished and poorly thought. I can only use, like, four pairs of shoes in this collection and the others are unoriginal or don’t match any dolls (Yasmin’s orange ass)

-The designs are (mostly) lame as fuck. I feel like, especially since Bratz haven’t been OG Bratz for a very long time, that they should have referenced the previous lines to make sure we were getting something new and consistent with the quality we’ve come to expect. We’ve seen several pleather bralettes already and there’s THREE in this line (we’ve seen a lot of pleather too, even), Jade’s first top is a bland PnP Meygan top and we definitely didn’t need TWO identical mesh bodysuits in this line. The clothes don’t seem to be well-rounded, just like the shoes. The quality is really lacking in some places too; Yasmin’s jacket has no inner lining (would have been a stunning piece otherwise), Sasha’s jacket is really weird and not at all what it should be (tho it is pretty well made), Cloe’s second outfit is poorly tailored especially the pants (tho her first outfit is incredibly well made, the best of the line actually), Sasha’s second dress is massive and those panels on the sides are ugly (shame bc it could have been a nice piece otherwise), Jade’s skirt doesn’t fit that well (mostly bc of the body they made it for), etc etc. And let’s not forget the fact that every studded piece, has studs falling apart in seconds. Jade’s pants and Sasha’s pants are sub par in comparison to the exquisite denim pieces we’ve gotten for Bratz in other eras, with realistic stitching and ‘thick’ denim with real belt loops and pockets and just going the extra mile to really push that ‘’Real clothing but mini’’ vibe. The chokers are very nice, Cloe’s first outfit is INCREDIBLE, the hats are very nice, Yasmin’s second outfit is the second best outfit of the entire line, the bodysuits (while there should only be one) are well made, Yasmin’s 1st top (while a poor translation of the art) is cute and versatile and Jade’s white T-shirt will be a big staple piece for collectors and is very well made. The Faces- I like all of the facial screenings on these dolls, not much to say there. I think Yasmin’s lip color should have been more subtle and Jade’s shine dots are wonky by default, Sasha’s lips are smaller than the rest but otherwise I like all of these screenings. The Hair- The rooting patterns are bad. This isn’t a QC thing, this is a design flaw; all of the dolls have thin rooting patterns, Sasha and Jade’s partings are very short and none of the dolls have dense rows under the partings or dense rows in the back, Jade’s thatched bangs are terrible and her space buns look like antennae because they’re smushed underneath her hat. Will have to send all of my keepers for reroots and that pisses me off because MGA knows how to correctly root hair, and these 50$ dolls are basically bald. -The Price. This price is really fucking high considering how little we got and how little they seem to have thought about this collection’s design and quality. If they fixed all of the things I mentioned above, this line would be worth 50$ to me. Higher quality denim, more diversity in clothing pieces and shoes, thicker hair and fixing the skintones would have made this a solid collection and I would have paid 35-50$ happily. But with the collection as it is, I feel like I’m not getting my money’s worth. Cloe and Sasha basically share two pieces (mesh bodysuits and pleather bralettes), Yasmin’s ‘boots’ are hideous and her second ones don’t match any other dolls (And she won’t match any other shoes), both pairs of Jade’s shoes are a travesty and Cloe’s heels are very been-there-have-70-of-that. The QC- a joke, garbage, terrible. I shouldn’t have to return a doll four times to get a good one, and the studs on these pieces shouldn’t be falling off. MGA had over 2 years to get this collection going and they started production in August when they should have started in April, instead they rushed at the last minute and sacrificed the QC to get stock on time.

#bratz #bratz 2018 #bratz collector

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hydrus · 6 years

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Version 306

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I had a great but full week. There are many fixes and improvements to different systems.

import folder file presentation fixed

Last week's importer unification introduced a bug in how import folders publish their files to pages and popup buttons. The files imported ok, but the pages and buttons got a single invalid entry that would then stop the session saving to db correctly.

This problem is fixed. Import folders present to buttons and pages correctly again. I have also updated my session saving code to recover from bad pages more gracefully in future.

If you have any 'poisoned' sessions still open in v305 that refuse to save, please try closing any import-folder-related pages and try again. I apologise for the inconvenience here.

subscriptions can now publish to page

Like import folders, subscriptions can now publish their files to a page. If the page does not exist, it will be created (named after the sub), and if a so-named page already exists, the new files will be appended to it. You can also turn off the file popup buttons, and even turn off all publishing.

Furthermore, you can now tell subscriptions to publish each individual query as separate buttons or pages (named 'subscription_name: query_text').

This is all in the usual edit subscription dialog, as three new checkboxes.

file import status improvements

The file import status window (launched by clicking the icon button on any file download context) has a bunch of little improvements--its menus are a little neater, and some of the behind-the-scenes code is cleaner--and it can also now 'show files in a new page' on any new imports! Just select some 'successful/already in db/deleted' results that are newish--actioned maybe since v303 or so--and you'll get a new menu entry that lets you open the resulting files in a new page, and it even works from the manage subscriptions dialogs!

This is neat if you want to revisit some files you missed or had set not to publish to ui earlier. It'll happily show trashed/deleted files (the latter with blank thumbnails) as well, which is a little odd but still maybe useful so I haven't taken it out.

Some parser work

I have added a pixiv parser that pulls the raw japanese (i.e. non-romaji) tags in lieu of the available translations. It is not the default for pixiv, but if you would like to try it out, update the parser 'link' for 'pixiv file page' URLs to 'pixiv single file page parser - japanese tags' in the network->manage url class links dialog.

The 4chan thread parser has fixed 'if there is no subject, use the first line of the comments for page name' parsing.

Newgrounds have changed how their galleries work (it is all dynamic javascript stuff now), which has broken the old parser. Thankfully, I happen to be working on a new gallery parsing engine, so I hope to have this back in the coming weeks as the other gallery stuff rolls out. But for now, Newgrounds is removed from the downloader selection ui, and I recommend you pause and Newgrounds subscriptions.

I've also done some advanced stuff to improve how pixiv and twitter post urls are checked in the db for 'already in db/deleted' status, which is another step towards manga page (and other multi-file Post URL) support. The client's "have I seen this URL before" logic is becoming significantly more sophisticated, and it can now be less of a big deal if two files have the same URL.

I also discovered that pixiv are rolling out a new ui design for some (likely older) usernames. If your pixiv downloader suddenly stops working at all, it may be that you have been selected to beta this new design. The solution for now is to make a newer throwaway pixiv account and use that instead. I hope to have a proper fix in here (and for tag searches) as I roll out the gallery downloader overhaul work.

duplicate system can now sync urls

The duplicate filter merge options now have a dropdown choice to set if 'known urls' should be copied from 'worse to better' and 'both ways'! If you are into the duplicate system, please set these how you prefer--I recommend 'worse to better' for 'this file is better' and 'both ways' for 'both files are the same'.

I've also done some layout/presentation work on that options panel. In an attempt to make it less confusing, obscure merge choices are now disabled for common operations, but please let me know if your normal workflow is now affected. Weird stuff like 'delete both files' is still on for 'custom' actions.

open in web browser

All users will now see share->open->in web browser off the thumbnail right-click menu, which can be useful if you want to use a browser plug-in to do some IQDB-type source-lookup. Unfortunately, the command can be a little buggy unless you set a specific browser path at the new option under options->files and trash.

This new browser path option will be used for all link-launching in the client as well, so if you have had trouble with that, please set this up and let me know if it works better for you.

misc

All file queries that involve multiple tags or that involve at least one tag and simple system predicates now run much faster!

The new (x/y) import page name progress status will now update reliably on any change!

Advanced users can now test specific urls for url class recognition in the network->manage url classes dialog!

full list

the file import status list now has 'open selected import files in a new page', which should show up where it is possible. this is a bit prototype and ugly--it'll show _all_ files, including in-trash and permanently deleted (which will show up with the hydrus thumbnail)

the file import status list now prefixes the already in db/deleted notes with 'url' or the hash type that lead to the recognition

these redundant/deleted notes now also propagate up from 'during import' recognition phase as well

the 'delete seeds of type x' entries on the file import status button's right-click menu are now split into three smaller individual tyes and are more explicit about exactly which status types they will remove

like import folders, subscriptions can now optionally publish their files to pages as well as popup buttons. also, subscriptions can optionally publish their files separately for each query instead of all merged together

sped up multiple tag queries significantly

sped up simple (file size, mime, etc...) system predicate queries that also include a tag/namespace/wildcard predicate significantly

added a pixiv parser that pulls the japanese tags to the defaults--users can switch to this if they prefer under network->manage url class links

fixed the 4chan parser to get part of comment as backup subject/page title

removed the 'newgrounds' entry from the normal gallery page creation ui, as the basic gallery parser no longer works due to a dynamic loading change on their end. I hope to have it back with the new gallery parsing system I will soon be writing

the edit url classes panel now has a little text box to put in example urls and see which class, if any, that they match to

improved layout of edit url class links panel

all url types are now displayable in the media viewer--only post url classes are default on

the new (x/y) import page page_name progress count is now updated on all alterations to this value (previously, this was not updating when a user interacted with the import queue, only when the natural downloader loop cycled)

added 'can produce multiple files' option to post url url classes, which informs client url-checking logic whether the url can be relied upon for 'already in db/deleted' calculations

the pixiv file page url class now has 'can produce multiple files' checked, meaning some bad pixiv url association logic due to other sites referencing it as a source url is now fixed

added a 'twitter tweet' url class, which is also a 'can produce multiple files' post url

added a 'sync known urls?' action choice to the duplicate merge options panel, which governs whether urls should be copied from worse to better or in both directions

gave the edit duplicate merge options panel a layout pass

the edit duplicate merge options panel will now disable pointless/over-complicated choices on non-custom actions, let me know if this is a pain for your workflow

added a 'manual' web browser path override to the 'files and trash' options panel, which fixes the new share->open->in web browser option for Windows and also fixes some #anchor link propagation

consolidated all URL/Path web browser launching code to one location

'open in web browser' is now available for non-advanced_mode users and the 'open' submenu of the share menu is available in the preview window and the media viewer

fixed a bug that was causing import folders to publish incorrect file identifiers, which was poisoning popup buttons and import page destinations

gui sessions that fail to load a page will recover and continue to attempt loading the rest of their pages. some popups detailing the page's serialised data and error will be presented

gui sessions that fail to save a page will recover and continue to attempt saving the rest of their pages. some popups detailsing the page's rough info and error will be presented

the core controller inside all media pages will now present itself in a more beautiful way when asked to dump itself to a log (which should beautify the above save error a bit)

wrote a subsidiary database->check->just repo update files that tests integrity of only repository update files

fixed an issue where default tag import options were sometimes not being saved from the new dialog in the networking menu

wrote a couple of layers of bad tag protection to help the new downloader deal with some occasional bad output from the old downloader

network jobs can now reattempt connection attempts up to three times on POST requests (if you ever got inexplicable immediate 'could not connect' errors on repository uploads, this should now be fixed)

replaced some archaic misc old import code with the new system, cleaning up a bunch of stuff and making space for further refactoring along the way

fixed tags blacklist not being inherited in the old (through options dialog) system

improved some invalid domain error handling

fixed an animation update issue that would pause naturally updating controls on non-main-gui frames when there were no regular media pages open on the main gui

added a BUGFIX option to 'files and trash' option page to override the default temp path for almost all client temp path requests

the minimum value for the 'vacuum period' in maintenance and processing options is now 28 days. the control also has a little explanatory tooltip

the 'try to auto-link url classes and parsers' function now always preferences parsers alphabetically

fixed a typo in the string transformations prettyfication code that incorrectly summarised 'take the last x characters' as the opposite

misc fix to file hash generation and status checking code

the 'export tags to .txt files' checkbox on the export files panel will no longer bother you with a dialog as you uncheck it

wrote some code to make it easier and more fool-proof to update the domain manager with new url classes and parsers on my end

improved some popup message manager ok-to-alter-ui logic when the main ui is minimised and so on

fixed some potential crash conditions (affecting linux mostly, seems like) in the service credential testing and access key fetching ui code

fixed a bug when 'stopping' a gallery parse during a long error pause (like when it holds on '404')

sped up some old set intersection code

some import file presentation refactoring

some url content application pipeline cleanup

misc cleanup

next week

I got splatted with hydrus reports and work this week and didn't have time to knuckle down on a multi-thread watcher, so I'd like to get back to that.

In all the rush, I also fell way behind on replying to messages this week. If I can, I would like to catch up to everything on Saturday. If you are waiting on a reply, please hang in there.

#release

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dramallamadingdang · 7 years

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Replies!

These go back a bit, because...yeah. *sheepish smile*

For @elfpuddle, @nimitwinklesims, @penig, @acquiresimoleons, @pixelated-world, @holleyberry, @timeparadoxsims, @pensblr, @an-elegant-simblr, @yarerakai, @celebkiriedhel, @mrningbrd, @princess-arystyl21, and @sim-boo. Whew! :)

elfpuddle replied to your photoset “By request, here is the “invisible” roads default I made to match my...”

In theory, then, a person could replace the road textures for each terrain with the default textures and have no roads anywhere? Does modding out signs and traffic happen only in lush hoods, or would that need to be repeated as well?

Modding out traffic is a global thing. If you put in that mod I linked to, you’ll have no neighborhood traffic in any of your neighborhoods, so long as the mod is in your downloads. You have to manually remove the intersection stop signs, though. (They’re just neighborhood deco, perfectly OK to remove as you would any other piece of deco.) But yes, you can have a road default for each type of terrain in the game and you can have multiple different ones that you can switch in and out, although you can only have one road default for each terrain type in your game at a time. So, if you use Maxis terrains, you’d just need four road defaults (one for each terrain type) with the road “pieces” painted to match the terrain.

I tried to make a road default that just consisted of all empty, transparent textures, the goal being to make it “universal,” with the roads being invisible on any terrain, but it didn’t look right. So, it is what it is, but, yes, you could take that default and replace the images with ones from any terrain you use in your game to make it match those terrains. Then you can switch your road defaults in and out as needed for different neighborhoods. That’s the nice thing about defaults. :)

elfpuddle replied to your post “Ugh, I’m so far behind on my dashboard, I don’t think I’ll ever catch...”

ICad is not a bad blogger; she needs to take care of herself first and foremost.

Yeah, I know. It just sucks being sort of chronically not-well. I want to do stuff, and the body doesn’t always cooperate. It’d almost be easier if it was always uncooperative, because then I’d get used to it and be resigned to it and learn to live with it, but it isn’t always like that. More often (at least for now) I have energy to spare and feel perfectly healthy, but sometimes I don’t, and I can’t figure out any rhyme or reason to it. If there was a pattern or a cycle to it, like a menstrual cycle sort of thing or if it was related to eating something or not eating something, then I could know what to expect and when. But there isn’t. It’s very frustrating.

Cherish your liver, people! Baby that sucker!

nimitwinklesims replied to your photo “Ahahahah! A non-ocean (as in no-waves) beach lot! This is something...”

Yay, very cool! As I just built the fisher's shack on a beach lot on a river, I'm just going to pretend the surf comes from the nearby sea... Even though they're on the mouth of the river... Yeah, well. xD But now I know about this trick for next time! \0/

It is a pretty neat thing. And I discovered it completely by accident, too! I just wanted an off-road beach lot, so I did the moving around. I figured that “Beach Lot” option in the Lot Adjuster would turn it into a beach lot, but I figured it’d generate surf, too. But it didn’t, and I was like, “Hey, cool.” But then a test Sim couldn’t swim, and I was like “Bummer!” But then I remembered the beach portals, which I’d used once before, many years ago, on a non-beach lot that edged neighborhood water, and I’m pretty sure that when I used them there, surf was generated. So, I figured the portals would generate surf on this lot, too. But they didn’t, and I was like, “YEEEESSSSSSSS!” *fist pump* Yay, serendipity! :)

penig replied to your photo “And there’s Amelia Shankel, granddaughter of Goopy GilsCarbo and Sandy...”

Maybe the cook used to know her parents and thinks she looks familiar?

Maybe! I mean, it’s the same cook in every dorm, I think, so she would have known Amelia’s parents. And she’ll probably know Amelia’s great-great-great-great-etc.-grandchildren, too. Immortal undead dorm cooks, yay! Maybe that’s how the manage to work 20 hours a day every day without, you know, dying. :)

acquiresimoleons replied to your photo “Aaron GilsCarbo, grandson of Goopy GilsCarbo and Sandy Bruty, all...”

He's fine!

Yeah, he’s definitely the neighborhood’s hottie! :) Too bad he’s gay, ‘cuz those genes really oughtta be passed around. But, perhaps he’ll get himself abducted by aliens at some point. Of course, then his genes will be eaten by the alien’s, but...

pixelated-world replied to your photoset “Sage had opening-of-the household wants to hire a maid and to…buy a...”

"the little mustache makes him look stereotypically French" -> me : (^・ω・^ ) I just laughed so much at this mustache...

I know! I saw that little mustache and my brain just went off and imagined him doing all those silly stereotypical French things, like running around exclaiming, “Zut alors!” every other second. Or saying things like, “But I am le tired!” It’s all the mustache’s fault!

penig replied to your post “Ugh, I’m so far behind on my dashboard, I don’t think I’ll ever catch...”

Why do you feel guilty about this? We don't want to be a chore!

It’s not guilt so much as regret. I enjoy seeing and commenting on people’s pics and posts. Makes me feel connected to the world, I guess, and when I can’t do it for whatever reason, I just feel regret. Sadness. That sort of thing.

holleyberry replied to your post “Ugh, I’m so far behind on my dashboard, I don’t think I’ll ever catch...”

Sorry to hear you haven't been feeling well. No worries about the Dash. Everyone has RL things that happen.

Yeah, I know. It’s just frustrating. I’ve just been really tired, not really sick, per se, but just really, really lethargic, sleeping most of the day if I don’t deliberately keep myself awake. Stupid metabolic issues. I’d sit down at the computer with grand plans to do stuff...and then I find myself nodding off and occasionally literally headdesking. *sigh* It’s been better today, though. And at least I didn’t miss your Dossanina update! :D Which I’ll be off to read when I’m done with this. :)

timeparadoxsims replied to your post “WCIF Simon's hair please? I'm always on the lookout for nice long male...”

It's a conversion by Umi-Sims2 and it's been reuploaded by sims2packrat here: http://sims2packrat.tumblr.com/post/153963303471

Ahhhhh, that’s why I couldn’t find it then! Thank you! Maybe the “Simon’s hair anon” will see this. Or at least hopefully they’ll see your reply on the post. :)

penig replied to your photo “This is generally a house of slobs which is probably why it’s...”

She's keeping her immune system strong. I've found some sloppy kids do dishes out of an apparent desire to show off how grown up and in-charge they are.

Perhaps. Allison is definitely the bolder of the twins. Her brother’s kind of bookish and apparently happy to be up in his room, playing alone, even though he’s just as outgoing. But Allison’s in everyone’s faces all the time. Even the dogs’ faces.

pensblr replied to your photoset “This is a little thing I just made. Usually, I use a different phone...”

Yes! You have no idea how much I was just grumbling to myself about this very issue a couple of weeks ago. Thank you!

You’re welcome! I’ve been grumbling about it for years, off and on...but it only just then occurred to me that, hey, if I can make something be visible in hood view, surely I can make it invisible in hood view, too! Derp......

an-elegant-simblr replied to your photoset “This is a little thing I just made. Usually, I use a different phone...”

It’s very useful really, I hated that phone booth! I use defaults for the lot (before I just hid it under rocks or underground with an OMSP, but I have lots of witches in Strangetown and it was annoying when they arrived and got trapped), but the hood view wasn’t changed and it looked really ugly in the hood view.

Really? It still looks like that in hood view even if you use a default for the phone booth? That’s...annoying. :P But if that’s the case...Yeah, it’s more useful than I thought, then. It kind of sucks, I suppose, not to have any hood view at all rather than a proper one (especially if you use a default), but it’s better than that hideous yellow-and-blue thing screwing up your hood view in a medieval neighborhood or whatever.

yarerakai replied to your photo “Ahahahah! A non-ocean (as in no-waves) beach lot! This is something...”

Many thanks ! Sometimes it annoys me also when my sims live near a river and can't swim in it.

Or, they CAN swim in it, but that’s because it’s a beach lot with the waves and stuff. I didn’t want that. I wanted to be able to put trees right up to the edge and hanging over the water, like a real river. It looks kind of silly if you do that with ocean waves coming in. :p

celebkiriedhel replied to your photoset “Jupiter became an old, fugly dog. <3”

he is looking like he needs a good feed!

Yeah, I know! He always has. Poor thing has a skinny greyhound-type body and a bulky coonhound-type head. The bulk of his head makes his body look even skinnier. Ah, game. *shakes head*

mrningbrd replied to your post “Hey iCad! Are you still thinking about sharing a custom decorated...”

i would die for an icad neighborhood. i wish hoods werent so susceptible to corruption, im sure that would make it easier

*sigh* Yeah, it probably would. Outside of corruption issues, I wouldn’t worry so much about it, but I want to make it a sub-neighborhood template, so that it can be attached to other neighborhoods or be part of an uberhood or whatever. Can’t be that if it has stealth hoods attached to it, itself. :\ One of these days, I’m going to set up a new user account on this machine and test it out. Hopefully, it’ll work...

princess-arystal21 replied to your photoset “House #1 for the new pseudo-Amish. It’s pretty much done on the...”

It's so....brown.

*laugh* Yes. Yes it is. :) But, that tends to happen with log construction. Unless it’s fake log construction and you have drywall and stuff inside that you can paint. I wanted “real” log construction, though.

sim-boo replied to your photo “When your dog has enough floof to hide in… Jupiter got his licks in,...”

I want a floof dog

I love floof dogs. I have a big, floofy Mastiff/St. Bernard mix, and I love cuddling with her and burying my face in her floof...when she’s clean. Which isn’t all that often. Which is one of the main problems with floof dogs. :) Especially when they really, really don’t like baths and they weigh more than you do. Bathing them is, like, a three-person job and everyone ends up soaked to the skin, not just the dog.

acquiresimoleons replied to your post “Some replies.”

nono not your recolors, the mesh set.

Ohhhhhhh! Maybe? But I didn’t think that Ray posted on MTS. Maybe someone included the meshes with a recolor set, though. Either way, though, it’s a beautiful set. Worth having twice, maybe! Well, OK, not because that doesn’t do you any good, but you know what I mean. :)

#replies

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pokemaniacal · 7 years

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Rowlet, Dartrix and Decidueye

Bloody hell, if I don’t hurry this up they’re going to announce another damn generation before I’m done with this one; we’re already expecting whatever this bull$#!t is supposed to be and I’ve got eighty whole Pokémon to evaluate in the next couple of months, as well as talking about Team Skull and the Aether Foundation, and Hau, and maybe Lillie too, and whoever I decide counts as the Champion, not to mention answering the neverending tide of ridiculous banal questions that keep pouring out of my goddamn inbox (obviously, gentle reader, I’m not talking about any questions you might have submitted, which are of course consistently insightful and thought provoking; it’s all those other bastards that are the problem).

I’M FINE

Let’s talk about Rowlet.

If you pay any attention whatsoever to this blog for any length of time, one of the first things you discover is that I like Grass-types. The Grass-type has been my go-to starter for my first playthrough (and most subsequent playthroughs) of every generation since the first. Rowlet’s fate was bound to mine by destiny long before I ever laid eyes on him. And I’m basically okay with this. Rowlet isn’t really in contention to unseat Bulbasaur and Turtwig as my favourite starter Pokémon, but he’s fine. He’s easy and fun to use in a playthrough, we’ve never had a birdlike Grass-type before, it doesn’t hurt that he’s just objectively adorable, and in abandoning his Flying-type Decidueye becomes the very first Ghost-type starter Pokémon ever, which is neat. Rowlet and Dartrix are clearly barn owls, with the barn owl’s distinctive pale heart-shaped face, whereas Decidueye is maybe more of a hawk owl, although I wouldn’t read too much into that. Comparisons to Hoothoot and Noctowl, who seem to be horned owls, are in order, as one of my usual criteria for evaluating new Pokémon is “is this actually new?” and I think the answer there is… probably??? Part of the problem there is that Hoothoot actually has a much more clearly-defined and interesting “personality” than Noctowl, with his heavily stylised cuckoo-clock aesthetic and metronome-like rocking from side to side (actually though, as long as we’re here, why doesn’t Hoothoot get Metronome? I mean, I get that Metronome was still super-exclusive when Hoothoot was introduced, but they gave it to Snubbull and Chansey as an egg move). Noctowl is kinda just a big owl that does owl things. Rowlet, Dartrix and Decidueye are a bit deeper than that, which I generally tend to think is good. Decidueye’s arrows and archery are an odd touch, but as with Talonflame, you can link birds and arrows conceptually via feathered fletching, so that makes sense. What might not immediately makes sense to some of us is the switch from Flying to Ghost when Dartrix evolves, and this gives me an excuse to begin one of my patented Bull$#!t Lore Digressions™, so let’s learn some more about owls.

Owls are associated with the spirit world in several different and unrelated cultures, and there are some pretty good reasons for this. Owls are night hunters, but more than that, they’re silent hunters – owls’ feathers are softer and smoother-edged than those of other birds, so the flapping of their wings is much more difficult to hear, giving them a ghostly, ethereal quality. Also, like many nocturnal animals, their eyes reflect light and seem to glow in the dark in a disconcertingly eerie manner. Not for nothing are owls omens of death in sub-Saharan Africa, of sickness and bad luck in the native cultures of the American southwest, or of catastrophe in ancient Rome. In ancient Greece, of course – mainly in Athens – owls had a more ambivalent role as the sacred birds of Athena and symbols of wisdom (an association that persists today and gives us Noctowl’s famous intellect and minor psychic abilities). Even there, though, the sinister scops owl was seen as a creature of the underworld, and the owl’s reputation for knowledge subsequently made it the familiar of witches and warlocks in mediaeval Europe. In New Zealand, where I come from, the small brown hawk owl known as the morepork or ruru is believed to be an oracle of the future in Maori culture, its different cries portending either good fortune or disaster. Finally, and perhaps most relevant for us today, on several of the islands of Hawai’i a species of short-eared owl called a pueo is one of the more common shapes known to be taken by ’aumākua, the spirits of a family’s honoured ancestors, who return to serve as guardians and as a link to the spirit world (sharks, lizards and turtles are also common; families must show respect and deference to all animals of a similar form to their ’aumākua). An owl Pokémon thus becomes an intermediary between this world and the next, a sort of warrior-shaman that protects its trainer from spiritual threats using powers of its own that are more than a little dark and sinister (we see a similar theme with Hoothoot in the anime, where he has the unique power to force hidden Ghost-types to reveal themselves with Foresight).

This “mystic guardian” aesthetic is conspicuously undercut by what Rowlet and Dartrix seem to be doing, because they have more of a “dapper gentleman” style in play – consider the Pokédex line that describes Dartrix as “a bit of a dandy” obsessed with keeping his wings groomed, or their leafy bow-ties (in Decidueye, that evolves into something more like a brooch or the clasp of a cloak, which has a more mediaeval-fantasy feel to it). It feels like a very odd fit for the direction that Decidueye moves in. If you had just given me Rowlet and Dartrix, and told me to come up with ideas for a final evolution, I might, after substantial umm-and-ahh-ing, have pitched a kind of James-Bond-esque super-spy-in-a-tuxedo concept. That seems like a more natural continuation, but easily could have turned out looking rather stupid without some very clever way of unifying the design elements (and if there’s anything this blog should teach us, it’s that I’m not quite that clever). The self-important “dandy” aesthetic, after a bit of thought, is oddly reminiscent to me of the vain, professorial Owl from Winnie-the-Pooh, genuinely wise (…relatively speaking) but perhaps just as much concerned with the appearance of wisdom as with wisdom itself, and eager to look the part of the sober, intellectual scholar of the arcane. Decidueye’s own description from the Pokédex tells us that this wise Pokémon is nonetheless easily startled and flustered (try slapping him awake in PokéRefresh and you’ll see what they’re getting at). It’s still incongruous with Decidueye as mystic archer and night hunter, but it is at least giving me a common aesthetic thread to follow through all three evolutionary stages, something that’s quite important for a starter Pokémon to maintain. Which is enough for the purposes of this review, I think.

Stats-wise, Decidueye seems to be built as a mixed attacker, with strong offensive skills, but isn’t very fast. That doesn’t bode particularly well, since he can’t really afford to not max his speed in training, leaving less to split between attack and special attack. There’s a passable physical movepool here, which includes Leaf Blade, Brave Bird, Sucker Punch, U-Turn, and… I guess Steel Wing if, like, you really hate Alolan Ninetales or something? There’s also Decidueye’s signature move, Spirit Shackle, which has several advantages. It’s a reliable Ghost-type physical attack, which a) is a rare sort of attack for anyone to have access to, and b) is something Decidueye clearly needs, c) it traps its target in play with Decidueye (unless the target is a Normal-type or Ghost-type, or has some escape mechanism), limiting your opponent’s options, and d) it fires a spiritual arrow that nails the target’s soul to the ground, which is super badass. This move is easily Decidueye’s biggest edge; you want to use him to set up critical moments where you can switch and your opponent can’t, then pressure their weak points with one of Decidueye’s teammates, or try to Swords Dance while they’re off balance. Leaf Blade and Spirit Shackle are actually a pretty solid combination; neither Grass nor Ghost gets a lot of super-effective hits, but Ghost has strong neutral coverage, so basically you’re resisted by all the Normal/Flying birds and a bunch of Dark dual-types. Sucker Punch is mostly redundant with Spirit Shackle in terms of type coverage, but it’s also Decidueye’s only priority move, and he’s fairly slow and doesn’t have any speed buffs, so at least considering it is sort of obligatory (just remember that it only works on targets preparing a direct attack, so be careful using it against support Pokémon). U-Turn is just generally a good move, because the free switch-out gives you a lot of flexibility in responding to your opponent’s actions (and especially switches), and it covers your ass against Dark-types, whom Decidueye tends to have trouble with. Trapping something with Spirit Shackle and then bouncing out with U-Turn is a decent little combo, if you like that sort of thing. Brave Bird adds a bit more of a sting than Decidueye’s other options, but lacks their utility. Some combination of four of these, or three plus Swords Dance, should probably be the default go-to. Decidueye’s kit lends itself to switching in and out a lot, and he doesn’t really have the speed to try and sweep a significant chunk of an enemy team, so I’d be more inclined to slap a Choice item on him than bank on Swords Dance, but to each their own.

Decidueye’s special attack stat is pretty solid, so in theory you can use that to mix things up a bit. Unfortunately, basically his only worthwhile special attacks are Shadow Ball and Energy Ball/Grass Knot, and if you cut Spirit Shackle for Shadow Ball then you’ve sort of forsaken one of the most compelling reasons to use Decidueye in the first place. That’s not quite the end of the story; you might be gunning specifically for some big chunky physical tank with a Grass weakness like Hippowdon, who gets stung much harder by Grass Knot than by Leaf Blade even with minimal special attack training on Decidueye’s part. Also, most human opponents are going to assume Decidueye is a physical attacker, so if you can grab him a free turn to set up with Nasty Plot (which he also learns), you might just be able to catch someone with their pants down. I’m not sure this is particularly a good plan, and again I’m not encouraged by the fact that he essentially has no third special attack, but the possibility theoretically exists. Decidueye does have a support movepool of sorts, but you can probably find better Pokémon for any conceivable support role he might try to fill. Like, Baton Pass is there as an egg move (via Togetic or Oricorio), and again, Decidueye does get both Swords Dance and Nasty Plot, so he has perfectly sound options for using it, but he just looks so unlike my idea of what a Baton Passer ought to be (poor speed, average defences) that my mind sort of recoils from the notion. Alternatively you could try to ply Roost and Light Screen with some HP training into some kind of weird tanky Decidueye – give up trying to outrun things, since he’s slow anyway, and focus on your defences. Just don’t tell anyone it was my idea.

As well as a signature move, Decidueye has a unique ability; it’s his hidden ability and isn’t currently obtainable, but I think we’ll probably get it eventually, so we ought to talk about it before we finish up. This ability is Long Reach, which lets Decidueye treat his “contact” attacks as ranged instead, bypassing enemy effects like Static, Rough Skin, Beak Blast’s retributive burn, and so on. This… ehhh, I’m not really sure what this is for. I mean, I understand conceptually why Decidueye has this: he’s an archer, so he should be able to make what would normally be close-range attacks from a distance. But that aspect of the design is already expressed by his signature move, and by the fact that he can use ranged special attacks effectively. Most contact effects aren’t that big a deal, most Pokémon that get them have better abilities to choose from, and even when they’re likely to turn up, Decidueye would often prefer Spirit Shackle to Leaf Blade anyway. I think Long Reach would probably give Decidueye an extra edge against… Wigglytuff, Electrode, Parasect, Bewear, Stunfisk, and (lord help us) Delcatty. Being able to one-shot Bewear with Brave Bird after a Swords Dance is not nothing, but I suspect the more general Grass-type damage bonus from Overgrow would probably still be more useful, even once Long Reach becomes available.

So, all in all, this is a decent start to generation VII. Rowlet, Dartrix and Decidueye are nothing amazing; they have a couple of conflicting ideas in their design, and other than Spirit Shackle there’s not a whole lot to be impressed by in their skillset. They’re still interesting, though; as fighters they are at the very least passable, with an interesting niche courtesy of that neat little signature move, and I cannot stress enough that pinning a foe in place by the shadow is a very cool gimmick. I got my cool new Grass-type starter, all is right with the world, and I can now review the rest of the seventh generation joyfully and optimistically, without a hint of malice or discontent in my heart.

…well, I mean, I can try, anyway.

#pokemon #alola #alola pokedex #rowlet #dartrix #decidueye #grasstypes #ghosttypes #flyingtypes #starters

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ciathyzareposts · 4 years

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The Legacy: Plan All Your Moves in Advance

The most legitimately scary moment in the game so far.

I’m not an adventure game addict. My experience with them is somewhat limited to the few that I played as a child and they hybrids I’ve played on this blog. What I enjoy most about them are the “aha!” moments when you realize the solution to a puzzle and, even better, when that solution cascades to other puzzles. It feels like when I’m playing a tough crossword and just starting to despair and I finally hit upon a word, and the letters that it gives me in the crossings lead to a cascade of “aha!s” as I fill in a bunch of other words. There are many times in adventure games in which I have a list of puzzles with no solutions and then suddenly solving one provides me with the object I need for another, which provides me with the object I need for another, and so on, until the end or at least the next major section. I’ve noticed this same phenomenon the couple of times that I’ve tried “escape rooms.” It can be quite a high.

If I was really addicted to this style of gameplay, then, I think I’d find the RPG parts of RPG hybrids an unwelcome intrusion. RPGs add an element of randomness, of indeterminism, that I would think an adventure gamer might find unwelcome. In an adventure game, it’s enough to figure out that the way to defeat the ghost is to douse it with holy water. You might have trouble with the parser or controls, but if you otherwise get it right, the holy water splashes on the ghost and the ghost disappears. RPGs put a “throwing” skill in between the puzzle and the solution. It doesn’t matter that you were good enough to solve the puzzle, your character has to be good enough, too. So you try throwing the holy water, and you miss or it doesn’t work, and now it’s not clear whether you got the puzzle wrong or your character just failed. So now you have to try potential solutions multiple times, with never any guarantee, statistically, that the “right” solution will actually work.

And, as the DOS prompt soon makes it clear, out of this world.

The same isn’t true of adventure game elements within RPGs. I can’t see any reason not to welcome them (if not done poorly, of course). They provide a break from the monotony of killing enemies, they give you a reason to carefully map and take notes, and they generally help establish a greater sense of setting than the typical RPG dungeon actually gives you. You can tell me that I’m exploring a crypt and maybe create wall textures accordingly, but it creates a much better sense of being in a crypt if I have to solve some kind of puzzle related to headstones or laying some bones to rest or whatever.

My thesis is thus that I, as a CRPG addict, appreciate hybrids more than adventure game addicts. I will need more adventure gamer comments to know for sure. What I can tell you from my perspective is that as I mapped the world of The Legacy, I briefly crossed over and found myself getting annoyed with the game’s RPG intrusions. The game already offers so much to explore, so many puzzles to solve, so many items to keep track of, I don’t need me exploration interrupted (or, worse, artificially channeled) by winged demons roaming the hallways, especially when I don’t know if the winged demons a) can’t be defeated; b) can be defeated, but only with better skills or items; or c) can be defeated but only with a special item. The holy water example above was a real experience in this session. Likewise locked doors: I had a number of them annotated for hours as needing a key, only to find that I just had to try “Force” at least one more time.

After our discussion on my first entry.in which you alerted me that there might be several “walking dead” moments in the game, I started over with new characters. Specifically, I made someone high in “Brawling,” as it was the only way I had to fight for now. When he died, I just used a couple of the default characters. My goal was just to map and annotate, saving the “real” gameplay for later, once I had a better idea of where to go, what resources to expend, and which to conserve. I mapped in my usual way, coloring in yellow those areas where I still had a locked door or other puzzle to solve. The nature of this game is that there are no tricky transitions between areas (e.g., leaving one square to east and arriving in the next from the south), so I could use Excel.

The main floor of the mansion was 20 x 20, using razor walls, with some squares unused–unless there’s some way of finding secret doors I haven’t yet determined. I also mapped about half of the second level (also shaping up to be 20 x 20) and bits of the basement, a third level, and a sub-basement.

My map of the ground level. The coordinates are for my own notes; I don’t think the game uses any coordinates.

As I mentioned last time, most of the rooms and hallways are typical RPG-style tiles with textures, in which you can turn and face any direction. Occasionally, however, you move forward into a more detailed room with a more artfully-composed scene, and you can only view it from one perspective. You would think these rooms had something special about them, but most of them haven’t offered me anything important or even any obvious puzzles for later solutions. Level 1’s sole room of this nature was a dining room. The dining room table had “death awaits!” scrawled in it, and a shrunken head came out of the dumbwaiter. A curtain, when opened, showed a hanging body behind it.

Level 2 had three special rooms: a bedroom, a bathroom, and a den. The den had a VCR that I needed so that was important, but otherwise I didn’t see any point to them. Oddly, the first time I visited the bathroom and opened the toilet, I would swear that the game told me that I found a key. But upon dying and revisiting a couple of times, I never got that message again. I never saw the key the first time, in any event, just the message.

The bathroom scene on Level 2.

The ground floor had about 15 zombies, and my third character was able to fully clear them, although he had to use up two first aid packs and about 12 rounds of ammunition in the process. Late in the game, I found a “Juju fetish” that causes the zombies to ignore you. I don’t know if it would still be worth killing them for the experience. For weapons, I found a fireplace poker and a revolver and several speedloaders for it, but it eventually jammed.

The only other enemy on the first level was a floating mouth with sharp teeth and tentacles–kind of like a beholder (which is what I called them on the map) without the eye. I couldn’t defeat it with any weapon, but he didn’t seem interested in attacking me unless I attacked him first. Instead, he just floated around and scared the character, which causes him to drop his jaw and stand in place, paralyzed, for a little while.

I’m not sure it’s even necessary to fight these guys.

The other floors were a lot harder. The second floor had ghosts, which I could only kill once I figured out the holy water trick, and I think there are more ghosts than holy water. Late in the session, I found what is perhaps a way to remove them all permanently at once, but more on that in a bit. The second floor also had winged demons with some kind of magic ranged attack, and I couldn’t kill them at all. Enemies are fortunately unable to open doors, so you can get away from most of them as long as you don’t get trapped in a dead end.

So far, I’ve been unable to defeat this enemy.

The basement had some other kind of demon that I could kill, but only with a lot of difficulty, and there were too many of them. I could barely explore down there at all. A second basement area had some creature (or person, I suppose) with a gun who kept sniping me from the end of a hallway. Late in the session, I found a bulletproof vest that’s probably supposed to be used here.

In addition to enemies, frequent darkness has been an obstacle to exploration. The lights go out at regular intervals (in conjunction with peals of thunder) and stay out for several minutes, the intervals of darkness getting longer and longer, until eventually they go out completely. I eventually found a flashlight in a Level 1 hallway, but it has limited battery power, which means you definitely want to select “pause” when you take time away from the game window. I eventually found a fuse box behind a locked door, but the game says that it’s broken.

Of course it is.

The only puzzles I’ve solved have been relatively obvious ones. For instance, I’ve found a handful of keys (thankfully, there’s a key ring) to open locked doors. One key opened a safe, in which I found a videocassette that played in a machine on the second level. Level 1 had a couple of trap doors that could be hidden with wall switches, plus one room where every square spun me in a different direction. A couple of illusory walls were revealed by walking directly into them.

Level 2 got a bit harder with the navigation puzzles. There are a couple of doors that teleport you to other parts of the level when you walk through them. There are a couple of squares in which you get zapped with a lightning bolt unless you press a button on either side to teleport past them.

Other puzzles to which I haven’t found solutions are as follows. I emphasize that I do not want spoilers for these puzzles unless the solution is something that I should have already figured out from the manual or something equally obvious.

Several locked doors, though it was late in the session that I realized trying “Force” multiple times sometimes works, so I have to go around to them again.

One particular locked door on Level 2 has someone knocking behind it. This is the subject of the top screen shot and it legitimately gave me a fright when I walked up to it and heard the knocking. That was the only real “scare” of the session.

A woman walking around in circles on Level 2 doesn’t seem to have any way to interact.

I can’t get her to stop, talk, or anything.

The sealed entry door on Level 1, though I suspect that isn’t a real puzzle but just something that persists throughout the game.

Some of the rooms have rune symbols on the walls. Examining them says that they’re “charged,” but I have otherwise no idea what to do with them. You can also find runes to pick up that are equally mysterious.

I hope the meaning and use of these becomes clear.

The damaged fusebox on Level 1.

Second-floor landing doors in the entry hallway that are all “nailed shut.” More than once, I’ve written off such doors only to later find a prybar, so I’m not sure what to think here.

This is the door that the opening cinematic shows you going through.

But most of my progress is blocked by enemies, not puzzles. I need to figure out reliable ways to defeat the basement demons and winged demons or I won’t be able to explore much of their levels. Your comments have made me reluctant to waste spells on them, and my last couple of characters didn’t have spells anyway.

As I’ve explored, notes, diary pages, and other bits of exposition have filled in parts of the plot. Last time, I recounted a series of notes from a Marcus Roberts, who had taken it upon himself to investigate the house and its “depraved” history, noting that local disappearances corresponded with lights appearing in the sky every 50 years. Inside the house, he found portals to “planes of darkness” that let the demons into the place. He somehow determined that he needed to find the Golden Torch, but he apparently died in the basement from the gun-wielding enemy.

One of Marcus Roberts’s notes.

One long document described the history of the house: Built “near Longport in 1639 by Governor Elias Winthrop.” There is, of course, no “Longport” anywhere in New England (although there is one in New Jersey) and no Governor Elias Winthrop, but these names sound plausibly like something that you might find in the history of the New England states, particularly Massachusetts. A John Winthrop was a colonial governor of Massachusetts only a few years after 1639, for instance. Anyway, Elias Winthrop was burned as a warlock in 1662–apparently the subject of the painting in the first room. Even then, Winthrop House was said to be haunted. Elias’s son, Hildebrand, used the house for “debauched revelries” until he died in a fire in 1699. The history notes that Hildebrand Winthrop was the last Winthrop to live in the house, but the family tree shows he had two sons who changed their last names to Maitland and Mayhew. I thus don’t know whether the history means they didn’t live in the house (and it later found its way back to their descendants) or whether they lived in the house but weren’t Winthrops anymore.

There were also diary pages written by a Robert Prentiss, one of the three family members who had recently “gone missing” and prompted the start of the game. The diary is recent. It talks about ghostly intrusions from the “ethereal plane” and Prentiss’s attempts to control them. Apparently, some forthcoming stellar alignment is going to cause (or already caused) the “final gate” to open. Prentiss also questions whether he is The One, which has something to do with the magic in his bloodline. His sister, Ellen, apparently also possessed the magic but “rebelled against it,” and Prentiss was determined to kill her, “and then nothing shall stand in my way.” One note written by Ellen calls her brother a “fool” and says that he may be summoning dark gods, including one named Alberoth, but they can’t stop her from running past them on the stairs and exploring the house at her leisure.

These notes seem to be setting up Ellen as a good guy and Robert as the antagonist, but then we come to the VHS tape titled “My Brother and I” (ah, 1993 was a more innocent time). On it, Robert says that Ellen has escaped after being locked up, presumably in the house, after she tried to burn it down in 1967 (she would have been 25). Ellen killed Robert’s wife Catherine and their mother, Karen, “and now she’s after me.” Then Ellen appears on the tape, holding an axe, and says, “Why don’t you tell ’em the rest, brother dear? About your mother and her family, about the ring, about the Dark Ones?” It cuts off there. The title suggests that Ellen survived the encounter.

I’m not looking forward to meeting her.

A third note seems to be written by a private investigator, hired by a “weird guy” to “investigate this crazy joint.” It could be Marcus, but the tone is different. He remarks that “nowhere is safe unless it is marked with a strange triangle symbol.” The book mentions this, too, as the only places safe to rest, but I haven’t found a single room with a triangle symbol. The game says I haven’t gotten tired enough to rest anyway.

Finally, I found a ghost on the second level who was interested in talking rather than fighting. He said that he and his fellow ghosts “served the cult of Melchior in life and now are enslaved to it in death.” Apparently, the cult performed something called the Rite of Opening, but Melchior deceived his followers and ensnared their souls. I can release them if I burn “the painting.” The only painting I’ve found is of the warlock in the first room, but I can’t seem to make anything happen with oil or matches or the “Flames of Desolation” spell. However, in messing with it, I noted something I missed earlier: there’s a hollow depression where the warlock’s pendant is, and the game says it’s surrounded by fragments of green glass. Thus, I suspect there’s something else to do with this painting and the one that the ghost wants burned is a different one.

Does the Cult of Melchior worship him because he brings gifts of gold?

I’m enjoying the game, but it’s clear by now this is no quick adventure game that you can win in less than an hour once you know all the puzzle solutions. Thus, I’m not sure I want to keep exploring with throwaway characters. I guess the better approach would be to do my best with a final character but save at key stages. I’ll think on it for next time.

Time so far: 7 hours

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/the-legacy-plan-all-your-moves-in-advance/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

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writin-bout-games-blog · 5 years

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Goty 2k18

Here are the best games I played in 2018; honorable mentions are for either games I played this year that released outside of 2018 or remasters that don’t count.

Honorable Mentions:

Hollow Knight (PS4/Xbox One/Switch/PC) - I didn’t play this 2017 release until the Switch version this year, but it’s the best game I played in 2018, and maybe the best Metroidvania I’ve ever played as well. It has a bit of a slow start in terms of seeing new areas and gaining new abilities, but stick with it and it becomes one of the most rewarding games I’ve ever experienced.

Yakuza 0 (PS4/PC) - Narrative oriented games have never been my bag, but I’ve rarely felt this invested in a story in any medium. The characters are immediately memorable, at once both over the top caricatures of goofy hyper masculinity and oddly thoughtful yakuza members concerned with their community and just being human. I’ve never seen a story so masterfully jump back and forth between overwrought anime nonsense and down to earth character beats, all while retaining its unique sense of self. It’s a lovable soap opera starring handsome criminal boys with hearts of gold, and shouldn’t be missed by anyone.

Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana (PS4/Switch/PS Vita) - This series has been around for decades, and I never gave it a glance until I heard a bit of the soundtrack for this entry. It lacks polish and has a pretty simplistic combat system, at least on the default difficulty setting, but it’s one of the most interesting JRPGs I’ve ever played, as the entire game takes place on a deserted island after a ship is destroyed by a kraken-esque creature. Oh, and the aforementioned soundtrack is absolutely delightful, with cheesy electric guitars around every corner. It’s the perfect game to unwind with before bed on your Switch.

Katamari Damacy Reroll (Switch/PC) - It wouldn’t be fair for the best game of 2004 to also be the best game of 2018, so it’s been excluded here. But make no mistake, this is the best purchase you can make this year.

Actual games of the year:

12. Far: Lone Sails (PC) - I fucking love games where you operate a large vessel by controlling a small character inside of it. I’m not sure how to describe this type of sub-genre, but Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime and Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime are the only other examples I know of. And while those are fast, goofy, frenetic and colorful experiences, Lone Sails takes the concept and applies it to a linear, artsy indie game. And it turns out, making one of “those” indie games and coupling it with a fun and relatively unexplored gameplay conceit makes for an extremely memorable experience; the first time my train-shuttle-car-thingie reached full speed as I perfectly managed my fuel, steam and acceleration is something that’s stuck with me all year. The only thing keeping this game from rising higher up this list is that I think it’s painfully short at around 2 hours long, and I say that as someone that loves shorter experiences. A more fully fleshed out sequel or spiritual successor has the potential to be considered an all-time great.

11. Donut County (PS4/Xbox One/Switch/PC/iOS) - The soundtrack for this game alone is clever enough to deserve a spot on this list, honestly. And clever is the best word to describe Donut County as a (w)hole. Having not heard pretty much anything about the game going in besides general good word of mouth, I was genuinely stunned as I realized the entire game was nothing but moving a hole around and growing bigger as I sucked up objects in a stylized world. In all respects, this game feels like the western equivalent of Katamari Damacy, though there are probably some poignant think pieces to be written comparing Katamari’s building with Donut County’s destruction. Regardless, Donut County is delightful. The humor may not be for everyone (I personally loved how accurately the dialogue captures the tone of texts between 20-somethings), but there’s something for everyone to enjoy here.

10. God of War (PS4) - God of War is interesting. It feels like a mish mash of pretty much all the non-shooter related hot trends in video games right now, and yet doesn’t really excel at any of them. The story’s fine, though I think both Spider-Man and Red Dead Redemption 2 told far more nuanced and interesting ones this year in the western-developed AAA space. The combat feels great for the first couple of hours, and BOY DOES THROWING THAT AXE AND RECALLING IT FEEL AMAZING, but encounters aren’t really changed up at all past the halfway point of the game, and the combat in general feels like it’s shown you its entire hand within a couple of hours. And yet, everything about the game is so memorable. From punching indestructible gods through mountains in the first 15 minutes of the game to hanging out with a sardonic decapitated head, I feel like this is the most I’ve thought about an action game after completion besides Bloodborne. It doesn’t hurt that this might be the best looking game I’ve ever seen, either. It might just be the meatloaf and mashed potatoes of video games, but it’s some pretty damn good meatloaf.

9. Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom (PS4/Xbox One/Switch/PC later) - There are plenty of sidescrolling indie metroidvania throwbacks these days. Oddly, there’s also been a fair few games in the oft overlooked Wonder Boy vein lately, the series Monster Boy belongs to. There aren’t a lot of downright pleasant games made in this style lately though, and pleasant is the perfect word to describe the time spent exploring this game. The visuals are absolutely gorgeous, the soundtrack is second only to Celeste this year, and the game somehow manages to feel like playing a Master System game without all of the drawbacks a statement like that would normally entail. What holds this game back from true greatness for me is that some of the later dungeon and boss designs are remarkably unclear in their progression, mostly the haunted mansion area. That said, these are relatively small complaints in a surprisingly large adventure, and the different animal abilities are truly brilliant. Monster Boy occupies the same space for me as last year’s truly incredible SteamWorld Dig 2, and if that doesn’t sell you on the game then nothing will.

8. Yakuza Kiwami 2 (PS4) - Everything stated above in the Honorable Mentions section applies here; Yakuza is a series about lovable handsome crime boys playing the role of boy scouts in their community, if the boy scouts kicked motorcycles at bad guys. I will say that Kiwami 2 never approaches the pure brilliance that was Yakuza 0, but most of that can largely be attributed to the fact that this game is a remake of a 12-year-old video game from two console generations ago. And don’t let that statement deter you; the story is as engaging as ever, and Kiwami 2 also shares with 0 the most fun game within a game I’ve ever played - the cabaret club management sim, which tasks you with recruiting hostesses to take on an evil circuit of club owners in a tournament of taking money from lonely Japanese businessmen. It’s as absurd as it sounds, and far more engaging than it seems, which kind of summarizes the series as a whole. My only caveat with this entry is that I would consider it absolutely crucial to play through 0 and Kiwami 1 before this, as there are some emotional seeds planted in those two games that come to tear-jerking fruition here.

7. Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of An Elusive Age (PS4/PC/Switch later) - With the sales and reception of both this and Octopath Traveler, 2018 seems like the year in which throwback JRPGs came into vogue, and I couldn’t be happier about it. I grew up loving the genre, but post high school my love largely faded for any of them that weren’t Pokemon or Mario adjacent. While I still think there’s a lot of self reflection for the genre to accomplish that Dragon Quest is existentially incapable of doing (as its own design and fandom have prevented it from making any meaningful mechanical progression in decades), DQ11 succeeds in that it’s just a really fantastic video game. Its story is always captivating and repeatedly goes in directions I never expected. Its characters are simple and painted in broad strokes (I mean that in the best way possible) while remaining some of the best written and most engaging party members I’ve ever encountered. And its battle system is oldschool, somewhat archaic and even punishing without ever feeling unfair, and it has just enough new mechanics to constantly give the player a wider swath of options than the series has ever had before without relinquishing the series trademark simplicity. It’s the most I’ve enjoyed a tradition JRPG since Chrono Trigger, and I was never once bored in my 70+ hours of playtime. Really, the only complaint I can level against the game is that the series composer is a monstrous piece of homophobic trash that deserves to be launched into a brick wall via trebuchet.

6. Mega Man 11 (PS4/Xbox One/Switch/PC) - Who would have imagined that a new Mega Man game under contemporary Capcom could end up being great? The soundtrack is extremely disappointing and the Wily stages are a series lowpoint (especially when compared to the previous two Mega Man games), but everything else in this game is operating at heights the series has never previously achieved. The mark of a good Mega Man game is how versatile the robot master’s weapons are within the actual platforming segments, and 11’s level and enemy design are completely built around using these weapons and the new double gear system as well, which allows a player to increase their firepower or slow down time at will. Every ability is not only useful but fun to use as well, even the obligatory shield weapon. Much like what last year’s Sonic Mania did for Sonic, there has never been a better time to try out Mega Man.

5. Call of Duty Black Ops 4: Blackout (PS4/Xbox One/PC) - The way in which the battle royale genre has overtaken video games is remarkable, though not as remarkable as the fact that a Call of Duty game is being included on one of my game of the year lists. I could go deep into how Blackout feels like a best-of compilation for the genre, or how remarkable it is that it retains the goofy, unpredictable nature of PUBG while actually feeling like a polished video game. But what’s most notable about the game for me is just how much fun I’ve had playing it with my friends. Video games mean a lot to me, and having a game in which our party chat can go from discussing poor life choices made by people we know to yelping as shots soar over our head as quickly as it takes for an armored truck to appear outside the house we’re hiding inside of is something truly special, and it’s something I’ve only encountered with this genre of games. Blackout may not add much of its own flavor to battle royale, and what little is there (the perk system and zombies) feels either broken or weirdly inconsequential. But sometimes, a less broken game with a slightly faster pace is all you need to become the most playable game of the genre, as well as the most I’ve ever enjoyed a multiplayer console shooter.

4. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Switch) - Smash is my all-time favorite multiplayer series, so the biggest character, stage and music roster to date makes this entry a no-brainer. I mean, I could spend multiple paragraphs absolutely gushing about how excited I am for all of the love the Castlevania series (another all-time favorite video game franchise) has received here alone. And that’s kind of the point. From Isabelle’s accidental murder sprees to K. Rool’s big belly rude boy moveset to Kirby sporting a beard after eating Solid Snake, with Ultimate it feels like nearly anyone that has ever played a video game can find something within that brings a smile to their face. And this is to say nothing of the over 1200(!) “spirits” in the game, all referencing even smaller and more obscure video game things. Will the game have an interesting competitive scene? I think so; I’m no pro, but the game feels so much better to me than any game in the series post Melee. Only time will tell how fun of a tournament game Ultimate ends up being, but as a celebration of the medium as a whole, this is a love letter to nearly all corners of the industry, no matter how niche. And that’s where my love of Super Smash Bros. has always stemmed from - its unflinching love and celebration of the things in my life that I love and want to celebrate. Plus, there’s Castlevania stuff in this one.

3. Tetris Effect (PS4) - Positivity in my life has been in short supply the past couple of years. To be more straightforward, the world has been an absolute fucking nuclear wasteland of hopelessness for the past couple of years. Hell, there’s an argument to be made that it’s been on this level for a while, and it’s my privilege that has prevented me from seeing that, which is even worse. My eyes have been opened, they cannot be closed, and while part of me wishes they could be, most of me can only stare with a grim sense of foreboding and wonder where the hell we’re going and how we fix all of this. So, Tetris then.

Tetris is simple and Tetris can be overwhelming. Add psychedelic visuals, spac- Enya-world music and the option to experience it all in virtual reality, and you have something simple, something overwhelming, and something oddly powerful. To say I had an emotional response to Tetris Effect is an oversimplification. Losing myself inside of my VR headset to clearing lines while dolphins made of light surrounded and splashed around me was beautiful, ridiculous, cheesy and, somehow, empowering. I’m under no illusion that the world is going to get better while I hide inside, literally blind to everything going on around me, and no one should be. But the best art never was able to save us; it reminds us of what there is to lose and why the things we love are worth fighting for while also giving us the strength to do so. This sounds like a lot for what basically amounts to Tetris with cool music and visualizers, and I get that. But while writing and editing this piece, not only do I not feel like any of this has been hyperbolic per my experiences, re-reading my own words really just makes me want to play some more damn Tetris Effect.

2. Celeste (PS4/Xbox One/Switch/PC) - If Tetris Effect is your overly positive friend that can seemingly never be brought down by anything, Celeste is the friend that’s been through more than you could ever imagine and came out through the other side a better person, and not only knows you can as well, but actively pushes you to be the best you can be. This is both narratively true, as the surprisingly great story deals with depression and self-loathing and overcoming anxiety, but also what the game beats into you through your own act of playing it. Well, “beats into you” might be putting it lightly; “gently yet forcefully stabbing into you” is a bit more accurate. Yes, the game is an unbelievably hard platformer (at least on the B and C side levels), and it does take a lot of inspiration in its design from fellow platformer classic Super Meat Boy. But while Meat Boy makes your repeated deaths part of the punchline, Celeste prefers those failures to be recontextualized as experiences to be learned from. “You’re going to beat this level, and you’re going to beat this game. Just keep trying.” is what Celeste wants you to take from its harsh design. And maybe that kind of motivation doesn’t work for everyone, but the people that stick with the game found what will go down as one of the all-time greats in the genre, and certainly one of the best games of the decade.

Oh, and the soundtrack is fucking incredible too.

1. Monster Hunter World (PS4/Xbox One/PC) and Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate (Switch) - I knew something special was happening when I saw multiple Playstation friends who usually only play Call of Duty and sports games devoting dozens (or even hundreds) of hours to Monster Hunter World this year. I was skeptical, having tried to get into the series previously on the 3DS, but something just clicked this time that hadn’t before, and soon I was farming Nergigantes for entire evenings. The game was full of nothing but memorable moments, but realizing for the first time how the insect glaive worked and flipping through the air whacking a giant electric flying squirrel as we were both being chased by a fire breathing t-rex was the most out of control I’ve ever felt playing a video game while simultaneously being the coolest thing I’ve ever done in a video game. And to revisit that same scenario over a hundred hours later, armed with the knowledge that only experience can give of how to actually control my insect glaive flips, was one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve ever had. All of the knowledge gained from World was then taken to MHGU on the Switch later this year, where my girlfriend and I put over 200 hours in and still have not seen all of the content within. If two grown adults sitting in a hotel room and screaming with delight when they see how cool the weapons they can forge from hunting a bubble dragon are isn’t an indication that their families should seek help, it means that Monster Hunter is pretty great.

So which game is better? My heart of hearts tells me World wins out by an inch for its extremely intelligent streamlined design and accessibility, but MHGU has dozens and dozens (and dozens and dozens) of different monsters to hunt and hundreds of weapons and armor sets to choose from, and having a full blown Monster Hunter on a portable with a decent screen and dual analog sticks is a great argument for the Switch entry. Really though, it doesn’t matter; these are both amazing games, and I wanted to give them both their due without using two slots. If weirdos on your friends list you haven’t talked to since high school who usually only buy FIFA can fall in love with Monhun, so can you.

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river-buizel · 7 years

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My thoughts on a 3D Mario Maker

Ever since the unveil and release of Super Mario Maker, I’ve seen a lot of people talk about what a 3D Mario Maker might look like, and while we’re probably not going to get one for one reason or another, I’d like to give my thoughts on what I’d like to see in a 3D Mario Maker

The main difference between 3D Mario and 2D Mario is that 3D Mario is about exploration- You’re given an area to play through and the idea is to interact with everything and look behind every corner to try to take everything in, or to just reach the objective and leave. Because of this, there’s no need of a timer in every level. In contrast to 2D Mario, where your only goal is to make it to the end.

For the overall workings of the game, I think that each person should be able to make one of three types of levels: A main level, a boss level, and a special level. A main level would consist of a world that I would probably equate to be as large, maybe a bit larger than Bob-omb Battlefield in SM64. Each level could have a maximum of either 5 or 8 stars, and probably a minimum of one star. This is probably too big for people to work with here, but if they could get away with making it, and Nintendo makes it simple enough, I think I could see people being able to pull this off. I think each main level should have a main area and a sub area, just like Super Mario Maker. It could consist of several different enclosed pipe areas, or one whole area that’s about half the size of the main level.

With worlds like this, people could make challenges that associate to each star, and people could collect these stars in any order they wish. And in order to “complete” the level, they would need to either collect all of the stars or collect at least three stars, whichever is fewer. And of course, people will be able to just leave the world without completing it if they don’t like it or find it too hard.

For online mode, I feel like an 8 level + boss level + special level campaign would be perfect. In order to reach the boss level, you need to complete each main level (the 1-3 star requirement), and then you can win what can be equated to being the Normal Mode in Super Mario Maker. If you’d like an extra challenge, you can collect all of the stars in each of the worlds, and beat the boss to unlock the special level. The special level can be an expert level if one wants, or it can be a bonus level that rewards you coins.

Another thing that’d be neat about this is being able to not only leave each level whenever you want- but also be able to go back to whatever level you’ve visited previously to collect things you’ve missed, which would be another huge difference between Super Mario Maker. So you could have something like a world map and you, as the player, could control how much of the game to complete, if not all of it.

When it comes to boss levels, I’m not really sure if it should be something of user design or if it should just be a default thing Nintendo makes to be the same for every campaign. Do we have randomized boss battles from 64/Galaxy? Do we have a completely new battle with Bowser that’s designed for just this game? Or can we have people take creatures and things from normal levels and try to make boss fights out of that? I’m not really sure, but I do still think there should be a boss level after you’ve completed the other levels in the campaign.

This isn’t to say that there can’t be bosses that we’ve seen in earlier Mario titles in the main levels. We can have koopalings (even though that’s never been a thing in 3D Mario), or some of the Galaxy/SM64 bosses as level clears. Maybe even a blooper or Petey from Super Mario Sunshine, since we haven’t seen enough of them in the game!

So I guess the next thing to cover would be the styles from Super Mario Maker. Would they make a return in this game? Well, personally, I think 3D Mario games are a lot different from how 2D Marios are generally structured. The original Super Mario Bros. was challenging, sure, but it had a simple style to it. Its mechanics are well understood and aren’t overly complicated. While later games in the series added to this, they all looked and played differently than SMB. Super Mario World had the Cape and Yoshi, SMB3 had the Tanooki and being able to carry objects, and NSMB had wall jumping. Super Mario Maker needed styles because the games were so different from one another.

This is not the case in 3D Mario. Most of the gameplay and platforming movement seen in Galaxy is very similar to SM64′s, with the exception of the Luma spin, which we could very easily add as a powerup rather than as a style. The biggest thing people would want to see is probably SM64 graphics for Mario, but I don’t think anyone would quite want the gameplay from it. And in Sunshine’s case, it had great platforming, but a jankiness to it that we probably don’t want to see come back either. So other than just to change the visuals, I don’t think any actual physics changes need to be placed in a 3D Mario Maker. They should all just be based on Galaxy, with Luma, Fludd, and the Cap power ups from SM64 being available either somewhere in the levels or by other means. There’s something else I’m skipping over here, but I’ll mention it more towards the end of the post.

So, what about designing the levels themselves? Well, this is probably the hard part. Super Mario Maker was nice in which we only had to work on a 2D Plane and only had to worry about beginning and end. But with a 3D Plane, we have so much to work with, and a lot of... empty space. Honestly, I’m not sure how people could go about designing levels, especially since the Switch moved away from the drawing screen the Wii U had, but I feel like if Nintendo did end up making a 3D Mario Maker, they’d find a way to do it that feels natural. But outside of making the levels themselves, I feel like the main thing would be to decide where you want to put stars, where you want enemies to be located, what neat physics you’d like (I said earlier there weren’t any changes in physics, and yet forgot that Galaxy’s whole thing was spheres and anti-gravity. Though I still argue it doesn’t need its own style for it) and what you want the challenges to be. It’d also be need to see secret passages, that might go to some otherwise unreachable part of the level or maybe even to another level, since you’ll be able to enter and leave levels whenever you want.

Another thing that’d be neat to incorporate into levels are special coins- like red coins, or maybe even regular coins, that you can use to buy things that are either for aesthetic, for completions sake, or possibly to unlock power ups in levels you’ve already visited. This way things like the Wing Cap or Fludd would be locked until you bought them or activated some switch for them in another area using coins you’ve found during your campaign.

Would there be lives in 3D Mario Maker? Maybe. But I think they should be tied to each individual level rather than carry through to each level. So if you die enough in one level, that would lead to a game over, but otherwise you can die a few times and not have to worry about them stopping you from being able to explore. But otherwise, a recent game has taught us that lives aren’t really all that important in a 3D Mario setting- exploring and having fun are! Maybe for the Boss and Special levels, but otherwise, they aren’t really needed.

Would Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World be showcased in this game? I doubt it. Those two games still have the start to finish format that the 2D games had. There could be references, I suppose. I mean, the Cat suit using Galaxy physics? That’d be pretty neat. But they aren’t really needed, as 3D Land and 3D World aren’t really like 64, Sunshine, or Galaxy in terms of gameplay.

Which leads to the actual important game to note: Super Mario Odyssey. I haven’t mentioned it at all in this post, or how its mechanics could be incorporated into a 3D Mario Maker, and my response to that would be... It shouldn’t.

What I want to focus on here is what a Mario Maker type of game can take away from its source, and what parts of the source games are still unique to themselves. Super Mario Maker isn’t a replacement for Super Mario Word, SMB3, or New Super Mario Bros. You can still go back and play those games, and while they’re similar, they’re still different games than what Super Mario Maker is.

With Super Mario 64, it’s old enough that its gameplay probably wouldn’t be replicated in a 3D Mario Maker game, and even if the game was remade- it has the overworld Castle, the warp paintings, and a few other things you can only experience in that game.

With Super Mario Sunshine, you had an actual story. A well as levels that changed every time you entered the world, and a jankiness that you’d only feel while playing that game.

Super Mario Galaxy, which the 3D Mario engine would probably be based on, has the most to lose- but one thing that Galaxy has is its atmosphere. Even if you do replicate the gravity physics and use spheres in your levels, it still wouldn’t be exactly what Galaxy was. It had a story, there were Yoshis, there was the observatory, among other things.

Odyssey is Mario’s biggest game yet, and while it’d make more sense to use the latest Mario engine in a 3D Mario Maker game, there’s one thing that Odyssey has that I think would really break either Mario Maker or Odyssey as a game. And that’s Cappy.

Odyssey had crazy vast levels, some cool music, neat boss fights with Bowser, and the AMAZING ability to capture various enemies in the game. Can you even imagine something like that in a 3D Mario Maker? Being able to capture Yoshi? Koopas? Bullet Bills? It’s a fantasy, for sure- because being able to capture enemies is what makes Odyssey so much different than the other 3D mario games in the series. It’s a much, much bigger change than just adding Fludd or adding Luma, or the Wing Cap. It’s an entirely different way to play the game. Enemies would have to be given hats to counter the Cappy throw, and levels would be designed SO much differently with Cappy in mind in comparison to just normal Mario. Like, if Odyssey was included in a 3D Mario Maker, I feel like it’d hurt what made Odyssey special. (Such as the 2D sections and the final boss thing that happens) Plus, like, Odyssey just came out. It’d be weird to see a Mario Maker like title for it so soon. If there is a 3D Mario game, I think it should be limited to just Galaxy and below. Most people want SM64 and Galaxy makers, and it’d give reason for Nintendo to add more content to Odyssey separately while having 3D Mario Maker being a thing.

Or, who knows, maybe Odyssey could have a level maker mode added to it and completely overthrow everything I said before.

Anyway, I’d say the biggest thing making a 3D Mario Maker difficult to make, outside of Odyssey, is just figuring out how to make the designing user friendly. I’d love to see it some day... but I think we’re more likely to get a Zelda maker before geting a 3D Mario Maker.

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ciathyzareposts · 4 years

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Futurewar: Stuck in the Future

Remember in my last post, when I was worried that I might be playing Futurewar for months on end? That this game would consume all of my free time and monopolise the blog, just like several other PLATO games have done before? That the orange glow of PLATO would once more become the only warmth in my drab, grey life? Well, nothing to worry about folks, because for now I’m done with Futurewar.

Unfortunately this doesn’t mean that I’ve completed the game. I’m not even sure what completing the game entails, aside from making it all the way to the bottom of the underworld. No, I haven’t finished it, but I have hit an impasse. For whatever reason, the stairs down from level 7 (The Battle Zone) won’t let me pass. When I enter, the game goes through its usual process of loading the next level, but then it just dumps me back in level 7. So I’m stuck, with no way forward. I’ve left a message in the game’s note files, and I see that the creators have responded to stuff there as recently as January. There’s a good chance they might fix the problem, assuming it is a problem that needs to be fixed. After all, it could be that there’s something I need to do (like maybe gain more experience points) to advance. I don’t know, and I’m not going to keep playing just in case. I’ll check back in on the game periodically to see if my question has been answered, and maybe one day I will have completed the game. Today… is not that day.

LIES!!!

I managed to fully explore all of the human-occupied zones, as well as the War Zone and the Battle Zone. There’s nothing particularly noteworthy to find in any of these levels, and I suspect that there won’t be any special encounters in the lower levels either, except perhaps at the very bottom. All I found were hazards like radioactive waste and sewage, random encounters with mutants and robots, graffiti, and stairs leading down. Even so, I was rather enjoying the process of mapping. The levels are mostly quite open and not all that time-consuming to explore. There are also no spinners, teleporters or darkness zones, so it’s a lot less frustrating to map than a lot of later games will be. My only gripe on this score is that the Barbarian Zone wraps around, but the coordinates are off by one when you cross from one side of the map to the other. I’ll put all of my maps below, so anyone who wants to can take a look.

American Zone

Guerilla Zone

Barbarian Zone

Martian Zone

Cyborg Zone

War Zone

Battle Zone

The game never ramped up in difficulty like I expected. Once I found some armour, I was untouchable to all but a few enemies, and the vast majority of those that could hurt me were only doing 1 or 2 points of damage per hit. There was just one enemy that I feared: Man-Beasts. For some reason, while all of the other monsters were trivial, Man-Beasts could hit me for around 30 points of damage per blow. At level 30 my current character Dutch has 169 hit points, and that doesn’t last long against a group of Man-Beasts. I learned to run away from them the hard way. Thankfully, Man-Beasts are only found in the Cyborg Zone and the War Zone, so once I was done mapping those I never had to deal with them again.

The monsters I encountered can broadly be grouped into four categories: human soldiers, mutants, robots, and giant bugs/larvae. (I guess there are skeletons too, but I can classify them as former soldiers if I want.) It’s very much a charming hodge-podge of late 1970s pop culture. The robots include R2-D2 and Cylons from Battlestar Galactica. The mutants include one called an X-Man; the character from the X-Men that it most resembles is Cyclops, so I don’t feel too bad gunning down hordes of them. The monster sprites (if they are sprites, I’m not sure how the graphics of PLATO work) look good, and some of them even have animations, moving their mouths and such. That surely must be a first for a CRPG..

You can also hit CTRL-H during combat, and it brings up the complete stats of the monster you’re fighting. I was tempted to go through and catalogue them all, but that would be a little too much work. I wouldn’t risk it against the Man-Beasts, anyway.

Scanning a pair of Slime-Mutants

The game has a wide variety of weapons and armour, but I only found a few of each. For armour, I found baseball caps, bullet-proof vests, flak jackets and ballistic vests. The ballistic vest seemed to be the most effective of those, but even the lowly baseball cap was enough to make me nigh-invincible on the levels I explored. I found three types of weapons: clubs, rifles, and a sub-machine gun. None of my characters were able to equip the club, and the rifle is just the default weapon that a new character starts the game with. I was able to use the sub-machine gun though, and I was pleased to see that equipping a new weapon changes the look of the gun barrel at the bottom of the screen. It even fires multiple bullets per attack. Unfortunately, I found the sub-machine gun a little glitchy. It kept defaulting back to the centre aiming position, and it wasn’t as accurate as the rifle. I ended up switching back to the default weapon, and then that character died, so I don’t even have a sub-machine gun now. Weapons have been the hardest item pick-ups to come by.

I also found some other items that aid in exploration. The first was a flashlight, which took me a little while to figure out. In my last post, I’d mentioned that I was able to see the locations where there were encounters. That doesn’t last; there are levels that are dark, and on those the encounter locations are hidden. If you use the flashlight, however, you can see them, and it also lets you see more squares into the distance.

The other items I found were a metal detector and something called “super-hearing”. The metal detector will tell you when there’s a mine on the square in front of you. At first I thought that there was nothing I could do about these mines but avoid them, but eventually I tried shooting them. Much to my surprise, it worked. The super-hearing enhances an ability that you already have. If you press shift-H, it brings up a display that shows what’s around you for about three squares in every direction. With the super-hearing that range increases. Unfortunately, both of these items stopped working for me after a while, and I’m not sure why.

Using my hearing. The o is me, the E is a base, the m’s are monsters and the x is a mine.

I’d been finding money after some encounters as well, but as of my last post I hadn’t worked out what it was for. There are no shops, at least none that I encountered, so it seemed to be pointless. An old D&D-head like myself should have worked it out faster, but eventually I twigged that the money you take back to base converts into experience points, at a rate of one experience per dollar. If I ever doubted this game’s CRPG credentials, I have none whatsoever after figuring that out.

Aside from the occasional Man-Beast encounter, I hadn’t been discouraged in my mapping by combat, but I had been blocked by hazards such as sewage and radioactive waste. Some of my first few characters had died after walking into them, so I was reluctant to try it again, but once I’d exhausted all other mapping possibilities I had to bite the bullet. With enough Hits I was able to survive walking through them, and explore the areas I’d missed on my first pass. There wasn’t really anything to find beyond them, but filling in my map was satisfaction enough. There are still some infuriating areas that I can’t get to, because they’re blocked by pits or rubble. Apparently I can get past those with a jetpack, but I never found one. (Oh, and the squares that I thought were fire last time were actually rubble. I blame that misconception on the game’s Help file, which mentions the former but not the latter.)

Here’s the current status of my character:

I gained a level while I was getting some screenshots for this post.

That’s about all I have to report on the game, I’m afraid, unless the current game administrators come to my rescue. I’ve tried going down every set of stairs on the first seven levels. I’ve tried falling down every pit. I advanced myself to level 30 on the off chance that would unlock access to the lower levels. None of that worked, which is a shame, because I’ve been enjoying the game. I think I was appreciating having something to sink my teeth into. As much as I complained about the length of time that the other PLATO games took to beat, something like that is a lot more satisfying than the string of one-post games I’ve been on lately. I was getting into the challenge, and the tension of perma-death. Perhaps I’ll be able to get back to it in time, but for now there’s nothing for to do but move on. (I won’t assign a RADNESS Index just yet, though. It’s possible I’ll be back at Futurewar sooner rather than later.)

NEXT: My next game is Mystery House, the first of the adventure games on my Priority List. I’ve also been replaying some of the earlier games from the blog, so expect some more back-tracking posts on those. I’ll try to schedule those as a bonus, rather than as replacements for my now-standard Sunday/Wednesday posts.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/futurewar-stuck-in-the-future/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

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