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quentinblack · 3 years

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Smoke and Mirrors

Word Count: 8.5K words

Chapter 15 - Ron IV: Australia Magizoo (link to full story on FF.net)

Featuring: Ron Weasley & Hermione Granger

Warnings: Explicit sexual content. 18+/Rated R.

Author’s Notes: At the time of writing this was pretty much the longest chapter I’d ever written. I’ve read a lot of fluff/sex scenes in fanfic over the years, some good, some bad, some ugly, so whilst writing my first proper long-running fic I was somewhat hesitant about including it. I didn’t want to have it just in there for the sake of it, but if I could find a scene or chapter where I felt like it would work well for the story and the arc of, in this case Ron’s story, then I thought I would throw it in. The cool thing about this chapter I felt was playing around with subverting people’s expectations upon reading at the start, then have it go full circle towards the end of the chapter. It’s probably not the best chapter I’ve ever written, but it was one of the more entertaining ones to actually write.

A warm breeze brushed across Ron’s face, as he felt his fringe pushed to the left hand side of his face by the summery wind.

He leaned forward casually on the white marble railing towards the end of their hotel balcony, wearing just his sky-blue swimming trunks, whilst he watched the stunning sunset taking place across the scenic artificial beach that lay not far from their room.

Ron was not quite sure what kind of magic the Australians were using to conjure up such a relaxing ambience, but he was very impressed by it all the same.

There were entire geo-magical landscapes and weather-enchantment spells surrounding the inner walls of the hotel, which were all very carefully adapted for the preferences of different guests. Their part of the hotel had a tropical theme, equipped with a synthetic summer climate, palm trees and a beautiful beach, with the clearest of seas that one could imagine.

The hotel’s colossal size was such that Ron and Hermione had not managed to venture out to any of the other geo-magical landscapes yet. However, Ron read in the glossy brochure (entirely devoid of any magical moving images in full faux-muggle style) that there was also a secluded woodland retreat theme for lovers of nature, as well as a winter wonderland, equipped with a massive mountain for skiing - and there was even a newly built and increasingly popular section entirely based on muggle Britain’s royal heritage.

Brad hadn’t been joking when he’d said that Wizarding tourism was booming in Australia – and they were even taking advantage of people’s reluctance and fear to travel to Britain too. Ron wondered how long they would be able to capitalise on that particular niche, as Kingsley’s new government was hopefully going to help usher in a new era of peace and prosperity in the coming months and years.

“Ronald!”

Ron heard Hermione’s faint call of his name, which was barely audible above the gentle whirl of the simmering bubbles in their enormous en-suite hot-tub.

He stared down into the bubbles for a brief moment.

There was something about the water that did not look quite right, but he could not put his finger on what it was that was off about it.

He was, for a brief moment, utterly mesmerised by the relentless pulse of the bubbles and he very nearly hurled himself into the warm and inviting water, but then thought better of it.

“Ronald! Oh do hurry up, it’s urgent!”

There was a more frantic tone to his girlfriend’s call this time – and it was much louder too.

Perhaps she had received word that they had found her parents.

He paced quickly across the paved floor of their balcony and back into the room to see what it was that she wanted and… and…

Hermione was laying on her back, facing the balcony door… but her eyes were closed.

Ron looked at her in complete shock.

He couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.

She was completely naked, except for a black lace bra that slightly covered her small, firm breasts.

Her eyes were closed, but not in a state of sleep – no, quite the opposite in-fact, they were closed in a state of pure pleasure, as, with the fingers of her right hand, she softly played with herself.

Ron felt his cock harden slightly and it began to bulge in his swimming trunks as he watched her caressing her completely shaved cunt.

Hermione opened her dark, brown eyes and she grinned devilishly as they met his own.

She bit her lip slightly and motioned with her spare left hand for him to join her on the bed, whilst she continued to masturbate with her favoured right.

Ron could not quite believe his luck and momentarily paused in panic.

He had been dreaming of this moment for months, or years really.

He had secretly hoped once it was confirmed that Harry was no longer coming with them to Australia that this moment might somehow present itself, but to have it fall into his lap this way really was like a dream come true.

Ron excitedly pulled down his trunks and discarded them to the floor, letting Hermione have her first look at his now fully erect penis, which burst out from a bushy bed of red pubic hair.

“Oh fuck,” Hermione moaned, as she bit her lip once more and began playing with herself with increased vigour.

Ron had never heard her say fuck before.

It didn’t sound quite right coming out of her pure, pretty mouth, but it turned him on and made his cock swell up even more, as he began to pull himself onto the bed towards her.

“Quickly Ron,” she sighed desperately, as he clamoured towards her gorgeous naked body. “I need you inside me… please… I’ve been waiting so long for you to finally fuck me!”

Ron began to slowly pull his bulging dick towards her tight, wet vagina.

This was it.

The moment of truth.

The moment he had waited so long for.

He thrust his cock towards her, but just as he was about to enter her everything went black and faded away.

Ron woke up in a panicked, nervous sweat, breathing heavily as he came to terms with the fact he had just been dreaming.

His arms were clutched around Hermione’s waist, with the pair having slept cradled together in their pyjamas in the lightly air-conditioned room.

He felt Hermione stir slightly – and, to his absolute horror, he discovered that the erect penis part of his dream had in fact been based on reality.

His crotch was positioned in such a way that his bulging erection, which was pressing mercilessly into his pyjama bottoms, was also pressing mercilessly into Hermione’s bottom.

He thought that there was no way that she could not feel it.

Ron adjusted the positioning of his thighs slightly so that he was no longer making direct contact with her with his lower body, but just as soon as he had done that she had wriggled herself backwards a bit, which meant his cock was now pushed up against the back of one of her thighs instead.

He wriggled slightly to get away from her again, but after a few moments she once again moved back towards him, inadvertently nudging his hard-on in the process.

It was almost as if she was doing it deliberately, but she was still half-asleep and probably hadn’t even noticed what was happening.

Ron lay awake in their king-sized bed still spooning Hermione for another ten minutes, with it gradually becoming less awkward as his erection slowly subsided.

It soon became apparent though that he would not fall back to sleep any time soon, so he relented and decided to get up and shower

The hotel bathroom was state-of-the-art, even by muggle standards according to Hermione – and it was all very impressive, with the hot water jets blasting against his fair-skin soon ensuring that he was fully awake and energised.

Ron spent a considerable amount of time in the shower, as once he had fully washed his hair and body he slowly lathered himself up once again and masturbated, thinking of the naked Hermione from his dream as he relieved himself and eventually climaxed.

It took several minutes to ensure the last of his cum had trickled down the drain… then, just as the last of it was washing away there was a knock on the bathroom door.

He ignored the knock as he meticulously watched the final traces of his semen slide out of sight.

There was another knock on the door, but this time it was a fair bit louder.

“Ronald! Are you alright? You’ve been absolutely ages in there!” Hermione remarked, with a slight sound of worry in her sleepy sounding voice.

Ron quickly wrapped himself in a towel and in a slightly panicked fluster he opened the door.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Just enjoying myself in the shower,” he blurted out.

“Oh, I see-

“Enjoying myself because it’s bloody brilliant!” he quickly added. “I mean, as shower’s go, its right up there… it’s really good… wakes you right up… you should try it!”

“Right, yes… well, I will have to, when I have a wash myself…” she replied, perhaps a bit confused at his feigned enthusiasm for the shower. “I was just a little worried that’s all, I know, I was just being a bit silly, but you don’t usually take that long and you locked the door and…

“You’d get used to locking bathroom doors too if you grew up living in a house with Fred and George!” he replied softly, with what he thought was a well-timed save, as he remembered the countless times that his older twin brothers had tormented him and caused many a toilet-related mishap, which were now nothing more than bittersweet memories.

“Yes, of course,” Hermione retorted. “And I know you would never wish for me to intrude or invade your privacy-

Ron momentarily considered correcting her on this point, as, on the contrary, he would’ve loved nothing more than for her to walk in on him naked, but he swiftly decided against it.

“I suppose what I’m trying to say is that I just wanted to make sure that you were alright,” she said, as she blushed slightly.

“As always I appreciate your concern,” he joked, before leaning forward and kissing her on the lips, which caused his soaking wet hair to press right up against her dry, bushy mane.

She was slightly taken aback at first, but then soon pressed her lips back to his – and she even briefly parted them, to allow him to slip his tongue into her mouth, before she reached back and broke free.

“Oh and can you believe this?” she demanded, instantly killing the moment, as she then reached down towards the bed and picked up their daily newspaper, which must have been delivered whilst he was washing.

It was The Sydney Spell, which seemed to be the Australian equivalent of The Daily Prophet.

“CROOKED KRUM SEIZED AS MATCH-FIXING SCANDAL ROCKS THE QUIDDITCH WORLD!” read the headline, which was accompanied by an animated picture of Viktor Krum catching the snitch in the World Cup final they’d seen live all those years ago, before the Death Eaters had wreaked havoc on the camp-site.

“Bloody hell!” Ron exclaimed.

“My thoughts exactly,” Hermione added in a glum tone. “You’re obviously a lot more clued up on the nuances of a Quidditch match than I am…” she added, as Ron reflected on whether this was the first time she had ever admitted that he was more clued up on something.

“You watched that match… do you really think it’s possible that it was fixed?” she asked.

“Well… I dunno,” he began, as he thought back to it. “I mean, it was a little odd that he caught the snitch in a losing position, but it does happen… it’s a very fast-paced sport so he could well have missed something or thought the score was closer than it actually was… and… well, Quidditch players aren’t exactly renowned for being the most intelligent of people -

“You know full well that Viktor is not stupid!” she hissed slightly.

“Well… no,” he conceded. “But if I remember rightly both Krum and Lynch spotted the snitch at the same time, so if Krum hadn’t have caught it when he did then they would’ve still lost anyway, just by an even bigger margin.”

“Yes, that’s what I thought,” Hermione replied, deep in contemplation. “Although Krum was, or rather, still is considered one of, if not the greatest seeker of his generation, is he not?”

Ron felt a slight flush of jealously at hearing her talk about Krum with such high regard.

“Well… I mean, some would argue that to be considered the greatest seeker of a generation you would have to win a World Cup, which Krum has never-

“If not the greatest, then one of the greatest then?” she sternly replied.

“Yes, one of the greatest, of course,” he quickly conceded.

“Then wouldn’t one of the greatest seekers of his generation always be aware of what the current score was? And wouldn’t one of the greatest seekers of his generation do everything that was physically possible to avoid catching the snitch until he was absolutely sure it would win his country the World Cup?” she asked rhetorically, perhaps now questioning herself more than Ron.

“I… I suppose-

“Think back to our 3rd year… the final game of the season against Slytherin, when Harry caught the snitch to win the House Cup,” she said, once more deep in thought.

“Oh yeah – that was brilliant!” Ron exclaimed, as he remembered the moment Harry had captured the little golden-snitch with both hands off of his broom.

“Think harder!” Hermione urged. “You remember, don’t you? Gryffindor had to win the game by at least 210 points, otherwise Slytherin would have still won the Cup on point’s difference.”

“Yeah… yeah I do remember, of course,” Ron said, as he thought he began to grasp what she was getting at.

“Wood drilled it into Harry for ages… whatever you do, Harry, do not catch the snitch whilst it is mathematically impossible for Gryffindor to win the Cup. You do remember that, yes?” she demanded.

“Yes… yes of course I remember. So what are you saying then? You actually think that this stuff about Krum is true? That he really did agree to throw the final?” he asked, slightly bewildered at what she seemed to be insinuating.

“No. Of course not!” Hermione snapped back.

Ron was completely lost now.

“But I thought you were saying-

“I don’t think for one moment that Viktor agreed to throw the match. His professional pride, desire to win and love for his country would prevent him from doing that,” she said solemnly. “However, I do think there’s a very good chance that it was fixed and that somebody may have been controlling him... but who… how… and to what end?”

Australia Magizoo really was quite something.

Their day had begun with an extremely filling breakfast that could’ve possibly put even Hogwarts to shame, as Ron loaded up on copious amounts of poached eggs, bacon and sausages.

Hermione had settled for a few freshly made French pastries and a slice of toast with something called Vegemite spread onto it. Ron was not sure what exactly Vegemite was, but it had an awful smell to it and did not look up to too much cop either – his girlfriend reassuring him that it was just a type of yeast extract did not particularly sell it either. It looked like it had been scooped out of the bottom of a cup in one of Professor Trelawney’s tea-reading classes.

Following their stomachs being filled by their respective breakfasts, they had spent nearly the entire day exploring the gigantic grounds of Woollahra’s wizarding tourist attraction – and Ron could see why it was such an attraction.

The park was filled with almost every creature that you could possibly name, with a large section even being dedicated to housing non-magical creatures of interest too - such as lions, giraffes and even wild polar bears in a sub-zero arctic section!

A lot of the magizoo’s star attractions were dedicated to beasts that Ron and Hermione had been fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to encounter before. He had never really considered how lucky they’d actually been over the last seven years, at least in terms of seeing such a wide array of creatures.

Children and adults alike were crowding round for a glimpse of a phoenix in the flesh, which Ron shrugged off as nothing too exciting, as he’d seen Dumbledore’s one countless times before in their former headmaster’s office– and he’d even been flown out of the Chamber of Secrets by it in second year.

They balked at a massive queue that had formed for rides on the thestrals, with many lucky adults and children very excited at the prospect of riding on a beast that was invisible to them. Hermione read on a sign that outside of Britain the wild populations of thestrals were dwindling quite a lot, so for many non-Brits this would be their first and possibly only chance to ever see, or indeed, not see a thestral, which any British student would obviously just take for granted - they were even used as a mode of transport at Hogwarts!

If they had thought that the queue for the thestrals was large then that paled in comparison to the one for the hippogriffs, as everyone longed to receive a bow from one of the delightful, but deadly part-horse, part-eagle creatures. They did not linger there too long, as again, unlike much of the world’s population they had also had their fair share of experiences with hippogriffs.

The next portion of the park following the hippogriffs was dedicated to the world’s deadliest beasts – and after Ron hastily hurried Hermione away from the acromantulas, they spent a while looking at the magnificent Antipodean Opaleye dragon. The purple dragon was a New Zealand-native and as such, one of the more locally sourced creatures in the entire magizoo, although they soon noticed that the next part of the tour was actually dedicated entirely to the magical creatures of Australia.

At first they were introduced to the bunyips which were based in a large swamp. They were peculiar creatures, with big tusks, flippers for feet and large bushy tails. A sign near them spoke of how over the years there had been several infamous incidents where rogue bunyips had got loose and attacked muggles, with the beasts coming out at night in the cover of darkness to attack small children, women or defenceless household pets.

One of the world’s last living muldjewangk was housed in a lake not far from the bunyips. The muldjewangk, who did not surface whilst they were at the lake, were described as kind of like a cross between giant squid and merpeople.

It was said that in centuries gone by hordes of muldjewangk terrorised muggle fisherman all over the Indian Ocean, but in the last hundred years they had become an endangered species thanks partially to pollution in muggle waters, but mostly due to wizarding-poachers hunting them for their teeth and blood, with both apparently fetching a pretty penny due to their rarity and variety of uses.

It was just as they were walking away from the lake, somewhat disappointed at not glimpsing a sight of the muldjewangk, that they bumped into Tezza, who was the porter that had taken their bags upon arrival and asked about You Know Who’s nose. It seemed that Tezza performed an array of roles at the hotel, one of which also seemingly involved working with the creatures themselves.

“Alright guys?!” he chirped excitedly when he spotted them, as they said hello and made some small talk.

“Didn’t get to see the muldjewangk? Don’t be too down guys, they don’t like coming out during the day much anyways. The kids here are always devo at missing out like, but let me show you some little buggers that I think you’ll both be stoked on seeing.”

They followed Tezza over to some large gum trees, which had magical protections placed just in-front of them, indicating how dangerous whatever beasts they housed must be.

“Now these little ones might look cute, but trust me, they’re fierce little bastards especially if they’re after a bit of grub,” he said, as he pointed to what looked like a tiny little bear climbing the tree nearest to them.

“Isn’t that a koala bear?” a confused Hermione asked, as Tezza burst out laughing.

“They might look like koalas, but take a look for yourself,” Tezza said, before waving his wand and erecting a human-like mannequin on the ground about 10 metres directly below the creature. It noticed and after a brief second of contemplation it instantly threw itself down through the sky, claws first, soon landing on the head of the mannequin, tearing it apart with both its paws and teeth.

“Bloody hell!” Ron swore.

“You can say that again, mate!” Tezza replied. “That little bugger is called a drop bear and well… it lives up to its name,” he added, as the little beast tore furiously at the prop, before Tezza conjured it up a few dead rats for it to feast on instead as a treat for its part in the show.

“Do they mind being here… at the magizoo… with all these people ogling at them?” Hermione asked Tezza.

“The drop bears?”

Ron felt a little awkward as he guessed the train of thought and line of questioning that his girlfriend would have for Tezza.

“Yes, the drop bears, but, well, all of the creatures and beasts you house here really. Do they like it here… rather than being in the wild?”

“To tell you the truth Miss Granger,” Tezza said, as he paused for a brief moment before continuing. ”For most of them now there ain’t no wild no more anyway... what with all the poachers like, and it ain’t as easy as it was years ago keeping ‘em away from exposure to muggoes neither. It’s the same way most the muggo animals are going too. Woollahra’s the best place for ‘em I say.”

Hermione seemed content enough with Tezza’s response, although Tezza was hardly going to turn round and admit the creatures all hated it there if they did anyway.

The magizoo worker began guiding them away from the drop bear enclosure and further along to a stretch of grassland in the distance.

“Course, we don’t house any beasts that are sentient,” Tezza continued, as Hermione nodded along in approval. “You won’t find no centaurs, vampires or werewolves here… ‘tho all the guests would be clamouring to see ‘em if they were, as you can imagine, like.

Fancy that ehh? Seeing an actual centaur or werewolf in the flesh, now that would be proper gnarly!”

Ron was once more left feeling a bit spoilt by his education.

He couldn’t quite believe that Tezza had never seen a werewolf or centaur in the flesh, at Hogwarts they’d had a werewolf and a centaur among the faculty at varying intervals of his stint at school.

“What about house elves?” Ron asked nervously, as he stole a quick glance at Hermione, who looked even more interested in Tezza’s response to the latest question posed to him, as they walked past a giant, yellow warning sign that read:

“CAUTION: YOU ARE NOW APPROACHING THE YARA-MA-YHA-WHO ENCLOSURE. THIS BEAST IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS! DO NOT ENGAGE IT IF IT ESCAPES! CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF 15 MUST BE ACCOMPANIED BY A RESPONSIBLE PARENT OR GUARDIAN!”

“You certainly won’t find no house-elves here!” Tezza said in a slightly bemused tone. “Not working for us anyway… course we get lots of rich families from America, India and France come and visit who bring theirs along for the trip… ya’ kno’, funny thing is I’d never even seen one in the flesh before I started working here myself!”

“Why is that?” Hermione asked. “Are house-elves against the law in Australia?” she added, with a hopeful tone in her voice.

Tezza audibly chuckled.

“Against the law? We’d have to bloody have some for ‘em to be illegal! Never really caught on down here since nobody could bloody afford one. I’m sure whoever cooked up the idea for this place could have their pick of them now though, like, you know I-

“WHAT’S THAT?!” Ron burst out, as Hermione instinctively grabbed his hand, as she too saw a giant bear-like creature waddling towards them.

It was just their luck.

The one time they visit the magizoo was the time that the extremely dangerous creature broke out.

Why was it always them?!

At least Tezza would know what to do.

He didn’t look in the slightest bit afraid, which reassured Ron that he must know how to handle the very dangerous looking beast heading towards them.

“What’s what?” a bemused looking Ted asked them, as Hermione and Ron both drew their wands, which confused him even more.

“Over there!” Hermione gasped, as she pointed over to the furry giant which was getting closer to them, albeit at a fairly slow pace.

“HA-HA! You can’t mean… oh you think that silly bugger is the dangerous beast that sign was warning yous about?” he asked with a patronising look on his tanned face, as Ron nodded awkwardly.

“HA-HA! You wait until all of the lads hear about this one!” he blurted out, with a furious grin washed across his face. “Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger frightened off their rocker by a silly old yowie! COME HERE YA BIG WALKING CARPET!” Tezza shouted, as the yowie responded to his call and quickened his pace, although only slightly.

“They’re clever creatures, yowie’s, but they’re bloody pussies. Wouldn’t hurt a mozza, even if it was biting on one of their balls!” Tezza joked, as he stretched his arms out for the yowie to give him a hug.

The yowie towered over him, it must’ve been at least seven foot, but he showed no fear when it barked softly and wrapped its furry arms right round his thin-frame, almost lifting him off of the ground with enthusiasm as it hugged him.

“We call him Chewy,” Tezza said excitedly, as the yowie released him. “You know, like the wookie from Star Wars.”

“What’s Star Wars?” Ron asked blankly.

“Only one of the greatest bloody movies of all time, mate!” Tezza replied indignantly.

“I’ve never watched any movies,” Ron responded.

“You ain’t ever seen a single movie in ya’ life?”

Tezza looked in a state of shock, perhaps he was a half-blood or a muggle-born and had grown up with the muggle television.

Ron shook his head in response.

“Blimey. Where did you find this guy?!” Tezza quizzed Hermione.

“It’s kind of a long story,” she replied, before smirking a little at both Tezza and then Ron himself.

“Now you run along now Chewy,” Tezza ordered to the yowie. “Shouldn’t be out here near the yara-ma-yha-who anyway you daft git,” he added, as he poked his bear-like companion. The yowie obeyed, sauntering off in the opposite direction after uttering what sounded like it could only be a laugh at Tezza.

“Oh my goodness,” Hermione mouthed, seemingly noticing something in the distance. “Is that… is that…

“Too right-o, Miss Granger,” Tezza replied. “That is a yara-ma-yha who.”

Ron saw it out of the corner of his eye, rested on a similar tree to the one that the drop bear had been grasping to before it flew out of the sky.

The yara-ma-yha-who was a slightly slimy, amphibious looking red creature that can’t have been much bigger than the average goblin.

Its dark blood-red body resembled a frightening cross between a frog, an octopus and a common garden gnome.

It was truly hideous.

It hung to the tree by its tiny red hands, but it also had thin, slippery suckers on the rear of its body which it used to swing around the tree too, almost like a monkey would do with its tail.

“That little bugger is damn-near the most deadly beast in this entire magizoo. If I had to face the dragon or that thing without a wand – I’d choose the dragon every bloody time… you wanna kno’ why?” Tezza asked, pausing slightly for effect.

Ron suspected that he would tell them the answer whether they wanted to hear it or not, but nonetheless he humoured Tezza all the same.

“Alrite, I’ll tell you why… you run into a hungry dragon on a bad day, it’ll smoke you alrite… but dragons don’t play with their food… a dragon will roast ya’ long before it thinks about eating ya’ to stop ya’ from runnin’ away… but these things… mate… ya kno’ what these things do to ya? It uses those suckers to drain you of your blood, but not enough to kill ya’… na’, it takes just enuff to weaken ya’ and keep ya’ within its grasp… then it will swallow ya’ whole… they can swallow up to four time their body weight… but that’s not the last of it, oh na’, wouldn’t be so bad if it was, like, but that’s only the start of it… ya’ see once it falls asleep it pumps oxygen right through the victim’s brain and airwaves… acts kinda like an oxygen tank in there… to try and keep ya alive… then as it gradually comes out of its slumber it slowly regurgitates ya’… then… when it wakes up… it starts the process all over again. They can sometimes keep their prey alive for over four days before finally killing it for good.”

Hermione said nothing, but she had a look of utter disgust and horror on her face.

“And has one of those…things… ever actually escaped?” Ron managed to muster.

“Oh Christ no!” Tezza jibed. “They’d probably shut the whole place down if one of those got out and killed a poor little ankle biter or somethin’. Can you imagine the bad press we’d-

“ATTENTION ALL STATIONS!”

A loud, slightly muffled booming voice came out from what looked like a small, portable muggle radio on Tezza’s belt.

“WHO WAS THE LAST OF YOUS TO HAVE SEEN OUR BRITISH VISITORS? I REPEAT, WHO WAS THE LAST OF YOUS TO HAVE SEEN OUR BRITISH VISITORS? OVER!”

Tezza smiled slightly.

“Funny you should ask that, Zoe,” he said into the radio. “I’m with ‘em right now. Over.”

“Is that you Terrence? Over.”

“Sure as hell is, Zoe, you see-

“What’s your nearest assembly point? Over.”

“Well… we’re just by the old Yara-ma-yha-who enclosure… so I’d say…erm… ah ya! The Great Barrier Reef café. Over.”

“That’s great. Head over with them now… I’ll meet you there in ten minutes. Over.”

“No worries, Zoe, mate. I’ll bring ‘em right down. Over,” he said into the radio, as he started heading east, then motioned with his hand for them to follow him.

The Great Barrier Reef café turned out to be a massive muggle-style aquarium, with a sizeable restaurant in the back serving up mostly seafood-based cuisine. The aquarium hosted mostly exotic fish found in the seas of Sydney, but there were also other creatures like sharks and turtles housed there too.

Tezza stayed with them in a waiting area of the main reception, which housed a large open-tank filled with different types of rays, which people, mostly children, were able to reach in and feed if they so pleased.

Whoever had designed the hotel had really gone all in on the muggle-theme, as this particular section even had a large boxed television raised up high on the wall, with some kind of muggle wildlife program playing.

“That man on the television. Is he a muggle?” Hermione asked, as the blonde, burly man in a khaki outfit stalked a large crocodile whilst he talked to the camera.

“Who? Steve Irwin?! He’s only one of the most famous muggoes in all of Australia! Surprised you ain’t heard of him,” he replied.

“But how… but how is he able to avoid being killed by that crocodile? If he’s not a wizard?” Ron quizzed, as he too began watching on at the TV in surprise.

“Beats me, mate. But he ain’t in no danger – those crocco’s love him,” Tezza said with a wry smile on his face, as he placed his left hand into the water and reached down. “Why… Steve-o up there’s in no more danger with one of those crocs than I am with this little sting-ray,” he added, as he caressed one of the floating flat creatures with his fingers.

“AH YA CUNT!!!!” Tezza blurted out, splashing water everywhere as he quickly removed his hand from the tank.

“The little bastard stung me!” he exclaimed in outrage.

“Hermione Granger? Ron Weasley?”

Ron saw a middle-aged lady with heavily tanned skin and thick dark hair, who he guessed had been the female voice from the muggle radio. She was well dressed, with a face full of perfectly applied make-up and the fixed-forced smile of someone who had probably been working in customer-facing roles for a long time.

“That’s us,” Hermione responded eagerly, with a distant sound of hope in her voice.

“I’m Zoe Federici. Head of Guest Relations here at the hotel,” Federici said, just before shaking both of their hands. “The Ministry have sent us word that they have found your parents, Miss Granger,” she added, flashing a brief smile and her bright, white teeth in Hermione’s direction.

Ron heard an audible gasp of both relief and excitement from Hermione, as she grasped onto his hand very tightly.

“Given the circumstances they thought it best to err on the side of caution and have opted against using magic to transport them here. Their current working plan is for you to be re-introduced just after breakfast tomorrow morning… meet me in the main lobby reception just after 10AM... and in the mean-time, please, if there is anything I or any of my staff can do to improve your stay with us, all you have to do is ask.”

The good news that Federici had delivered to them earlier in the day had come as a pretty big relief to Ron, but it couldn’t compare to the relief that it had taken off of his girlfriend’s shoulders. In the hours that followed Hermione had finally allowed herself to properly enjoy the extravagant and exotic surroundings that they found themselves located in.

Their first act, on Zoe’s own suggestion, had been a trip to the beach bar in their section of the resort. The Guest Relations manager had insisted on pouring their first round of celebratory cocktails herself, which had presented a new dilemma for them, as neither of them had ordered an alcoholic cocktail before in their lives.

This did not act as a set-back for Federici, more-so, it actually put a genuinely excited smile on her face, as she whipped out a strange, leathery brown hat which had several corks attached to it with string.

“This isn’t just any old hat,” she had said. “This hat has been charmed to explore your mind, body and soul to work out the exact cocktail that you would most like at that given moment.”

They had each had a go at trying on the hat over two hours ago – and were both now pretty tipsy after consuming their fair share of cocktails at the bar. Hermione drinking the refreshing rum, lime and mint mojitos, with Ron knocking back the even sweeter pineapple and coconut concoctions called pina coladas.

Ron was now drinking his fourth, or maybe his fifth, as they relaxed on comfortable cushioned chairs back up at their balcony whilst watching the artificial sun-set. The synthetic weather was still warm enough that Ron sat with his top off, just wearing a pair of swim-shorts, whilst Hermione relaxed in a white swimsuit, which was nicely cut around her cleavage.

Ron was sure that Hermione had caught him on one of the few occasions that he had stolen a quick glance at her slightly protruding breasts – and to his surprise she had not told him off, instead she had said nothing, merely looking away hesitantly with a wry smile on her pretty face.

“You know… there was something Miss Burke said back at the Australian Ministry that I found a little… odd,” a tipsy Hermione said, as Ron looked over at her, pondering his reply as he tried to avoid staring at her cleavage.

“Did you know that Kingsley had a brother?” she said with a confused look on her face before he could think of anything to say in response. “She mentioned that back when they were at Hogwarts together Kingsley and his brother used to gloat to her about the Quidditch results.”

Ron did vaguely remember Olivia Burke making an offhand comment like that, but such was his mental and physical state following that horrific portkey journey that it had completely passed him by, not registering as particularly odd at the time – or if it had, that train of thought had swiftly departed the station of his mind just as soon as it had entered it.

“No… no I don’t think he’s ever mentioned having a brother before,” Ron responded, as he searched through his less than sober mind for any recollection of such a conversation.

“Don’t you agree that that’s a little bit odd?” Hermione offered, as she took a deep sip on her straw, twirling around the little mint leaves in her sugar-coated glass as she did so.

It was a little bit odd, Ron agreed, but that sort of thing wasn’t completely unheard of in the wizarding community.

“Perhaps a little, yes… but Mum never likes to talk about her brothers… maybe Kingsley’s brother was killed in the first war too.”

“That’s a good point,” Hermione said. “I hadn’t considered that… yes… yes, you may well be right.”

“Always the tone of surprise,” he teased sarcastically, as Hermione smiled a little, then let out a tipsy laugh.

“I do understand why she never talks about them,” Ron continued, suddenly steering the conversation to a more serious direction, perhaps partially due to the influence of the alcohol, as he noticed the expression on Hermione’s face turn from a smile to one of sympathy.

“Dad always said that a little part of her died the day she found out that they’d been killed… and I know it must have been really hard for her… but I do sometimes wish she would’ve talked about them more. Even just told us some funny family stories or something. It feels weird to even say their names out loud since nobody would ever talk about them…

Hermione reached over and placed her soft, warm hand on top of Ron’s, caressing his hand with her slim fingers as he kept talking.

“… I won’t ever let myself do that with Fred,” Ron added, trying to reassure himself more than Hermione.

“When we’re married and have children of our own I’ll tell them every funny story about Fred that I know and-

Ron stopped himself as he realised what he had just said.

Hermione had already started laughing.

“Wait- that’s not what I meant- I-

“When we’re married and have children of our own?” Hermione jibed, as she sarcastically raised her eyebrows.

“No- no- I meant- you know what I-

“I’m very interested to hear what you meant to say, Ronald,” Hermione said, still giggling at his mistake, as she stood up from her chair after finishing the last of her drink.

Ron clumsily pulled himself up from his chair so that they were standing face to face in the sunset.

“Well I just meant if… you know if-

Hermione kissed his lips before he had a chance to finish.

He felt her arms wrap tightly around his shoulders, pulling him in even closer, as he rested his own arms around the back of her slender waist.

“I don’t know how much you know about the human anatomy Ron,” she said softly, almost in a whisper, as she temporary broke away from the kiss. “But it seems a little premature for you to be thinking about getting me pregnant when we haven’t even… you know…”

Ron felt his heartrate rise rapidly.

He didn’t quite know what to say.

Her skin looked so soft and creamy.

His eyes fell on her cleavage once more and he noticed the outline of her two nipples and breasts against her white swimsuit.

His cock tingled slightly as he imagined what it would be like to have one of her breasts in his mouth.

“Why is it that we haven’t yet, do you think?” Hermione asked.

“I dunno… I mean-

“I suppose I have been awfully stressed about my parents… and I’m sure it has been awfully difficult for you too… we’ve been so caught up with everything we just haven’t really had time to think about it,” she concluded, as Ron nodded in agreement, even though it wasn’t the slightest bit true that he hadn’t had time to think about it.

“You do want to… you know… don’t you?” she whispered, with a look of doubt on her face.

“Yes!” he blurted out. “I mean… if… only if you want to,” he quickly added.

“You don’t think I look awfully stupid… in this swimsuit, I mean. You don’t think I look too-

“I think you look perfect,” Ron drunkenly pronounced, as he pulled her close and passionately kissed her lips. He heard her sigh softly as he ran his hands gently down her back, eventually resting them on her bottom.

Ron squeezed her bum cheeks firmly as her tongue aggressively fought its way into his mouth.

He lifted her up and stumbled slightly, before she straddled her legs around his waist as they continued lustfully kissing whilst he carried her into the bedroom, before thrusting her down onto the bed and pressing her down against the sheets as they continued their steamy embrace.

Ron broke away from kissing her lips and quickly worked his way across first to her right cheek, then further down the side of her face before he began amorously pecking her neck.

Hermione sighed softly, then began to press her nails across his back as he remembered the technique that Lavender had taught him during their brief fling in sixth year.

He opened his mouth as if to bite her neck, but instead he sucked strongly, causing his girlfriend to gasp with pleasure. Ron wondered if he would be the first person to give Hermione a love-bite, he hoped he was – and the jealous thought of Viktor Krum, or anyone else having done this to her only caused him to suck with a renewed sense of vigour.

Hermione scratched his back in delight as he felt his penis grow harder and harder, as he broke free of his sucking to begin snogging her again, tasting the rum, lime and mint on her tongue and breathe as he did so.

His train of thought briefly went back to Lavender Brown – and he quickly pushed the horrific sight of her dead, mutilated body out and away from his mind.

He pulled back from his embrace with Hermione and got up slightly, before untying the cords and taking off his shorts, leaving him fully naked and exposed in-front of her.

Ron’s cock stood firmly to attention and Hermione studied it with enough curiosity for him to feel reassured that his was the very first that she had seen in the flesh. The excitement of her studying his naked body like it was a brand-new book made him feel about as horny as he could ever remember feeling.

She followed his lead in getting undressed and smiled shyly at him, before sitting up and slowly taking off her white swimsuit and casting it aside, leaving only her glorious, bare-naked skin in its wake.

Her body was scattered with occasional freckles, much lighter and less noticeable than his own, but noticeable in their own way nonetheless. His dick stiffened up even more as he finally cast his eyes on her beautiful breasts and perky, pink nipples. She had a small mole on her left breast and just above her belly button – and upon seeing those little imperfections he had never felt more intimate and close to her.

He stared at her bare, naked body as she did the same to him, for all his sneaky glances at her breasts throughout the last hour or so, she was more than getting even now as she bashfully eyed up his cock.

Ron looked towards the middle of her legs and unlike her smoothly shaven sex in his dream that morning, her vagina was covered by small tufts of bushy, brown pubic hair.

They caught each other’s eye at the same time and hungrily embraced once more, lips against lips, tongue to tongue, as they began to explore each other’s body with their hands. Ron fondled her breasts firmly, as she reached out and got her first grasp of his erect cock.

He was surprised he didn’t cum there and then, but he relaxed himself as she begin gently pulling up and down on his penis as his right hand trickled down from her breast to her stomach, before he eventually reached the inside of her thighs and the tufts of her pubic hair.

Hermione moaned and swore under her breath as his fingers slowly glided their way through the hairs and reached her glistening clitoris and he began to softly rub it, as Lavender had once taught him.

At the time of their break-up Ron had harboured a slight tinge of regret that they had only ever gone as far as to fondle around with each other, but in hindsight he had absolutely no regrets considering that he was about to lose his virginity with the girl that he had loved for several years now.

The sight of Lavender’s dead corpse once again entered his mind though - and for a brief moment all sense of arousal was lost.

“Don’t stop,” Hermione whispered gently – and he was soon just as horny as he was before when she increased the speed and force of her grip on his cock.

He continued to press his fingers against her, feeling her wetness increase with each stroke, causing her to dampen her pubic hairs and cover his index and middle fingers with the fruits of his labour.

“I think I’m ready,” she softly gasped, as she reluctantly relented her grip of his cock and lay back, opening her legs even further.

He stared down at his beautiful naked girlfriend, her dark brown eyes gazing down at him with a look of both excitement and slight nervousness on her face.

Ron remembered that he hadn’t yet uttered the contraceptive spell and quickly grabbed his wand from the bedside table, muttering the spell he had first seen written on a desk in one of the Herbology greenhouses in 3rd year.

A feint and very quickly invisible trail of white smoke brushed against, then evaporated onto his penis, as he held onto Hermione’s thighs and then slowly but surely entered her tight, wet cunt.

Hermione gasped heavily, with what seemed like a mixture of pleasure and pain.

So this was it.

This was what it felt like.

The sight of Lavender’s corpse once again entered his horrified mind as he came to terms with the fact that he was finally inside of Hermione and had lost his virginity.

He reached out and held one of his girlfriend’s hands, softly pulling his penis slightly out and then back inside of her again.

Now he saw Remus, Tonks and finally Fred’s lifeless body laid out in the great hall.

Ron tried to get the horrible, graphic images out of his head but they just wouldn’t budge.

He slowed his rhythm almost to a halt entirely - and felt the blood and the excitement of his arousal slowly shift away from his penis.

His eyes opened slightly and Hermione shot him a curious, concerned look.

“Are you alright?” she murmured.

Lavender – dead.

Remus – dead.

Sirius – dead.

“Ronald?”

Mad Eye – dead.

Tonks – dead.

Dobby – dead.

Dumbledore – dead.

Fred… Fred… dead.

“They’re all gone,” he mumbled, as he felt the hot tears began to form in his eyelids.

“They’re all dead.”

The tears began to slowly run down his face, before he quickly began blubbing his eyes out.

Hermione held him tight for a while, as he buried his face into her bosom and then slowly cried himself to sleep.

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cellerityweb · 6 years

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Eye Candy – Visual FX in Shadow Tactics

We hardly notice them, when they’re in the game, but we instantly know when they’re missing and something’s off – visual effects are cucial for a game’s atmosphere, no matter their size.

Shadow Tactics is a hardcore realtime stealth game in which you control a small team of specialists, each equipped with a unique skill set. Analyzing the genre, there were quite a lot of cornerstones we had to consider while doing the effects. So, let’s take a look at what these cornerstones were exactly.

Visually comforting

In Shadow Tactics you generally have pretty big maps that take you from 1 to 3 hours to play through. So it’s essential that these scenes feel natural and are visually appealing. The player has to feel comfortable being there, even if the situation itself is hostile. On average, the camera is pretty far away from the characters, so you have to carefully exaggerate certain things to ensure readability and meet the player’s expectations. For example: if a character uses his samurai sword to take out a target, it would look pretty boring from that distance, although it has to feel rewarding. Also, being a tactical game, the player always has to feel in charge of the situation and has to be able to quickly make out what is happening.

As we chose a realistic approach for the game, there is no black magic, just an advanced technology to suit the gameplay. One of our characters has a long range sniper rifle with insane accuracy. It’s neither historically correct nor too far off, meaning it doesn’t stand out in a negative way. Considering there’s only limited space, I want to focus on the following aspects:

Environment: – Ambience – Physically based

Characters: – Environment interaction – Blood

Let’s look at environment effects first, with »Ambience VFX« that are independent from the player character [1]. Constant movement on the screen is essential for creating a living scenery. You need omnipresent effects that carry the atmosphere of a level. For example, in a war zone there should be a lot of dust and smoke, maybe some ash and embers flying around. Meanwhile, up in the cold mountains, wind is blowing over the rocks, picking up and blowing away the fine powdery snow.

The thing with ambient effects like this in general is that you need a certain level of density to create an acceptable illusion. It needs to feel volumetric. A density that is too low won’t either create the required effect or break the illusion altogether. So how do we achieve the density we need? Well, we could use an emitter [2] that is about the size of the map, but that’s not really an option. Huge map equals thousands of particles at all times, but you only want the ones that you can actually see. So, what about creating an emitter around the camera?

Works fine as long as you don’t move it. When you move the camera, particles cannot respawn fast enough to reach the required density on your screen, especially when the cam covers great distance after rotating it. Even fast particles can’t catch up. Plus, effects on the ground wouldn’t work either. So we went with a grid-based solution [3]. First, you create a

2D grid across the map. Then you set up a number of subdivisions. Each of the generated cells will be fitted with a particle system where the box shaped emitter matches the cell size. Then you create a reference point [4] that is parented to the camera. At runtime, the script will ask the reference point for each frame »Hey, where in the grid are you? And are there any neighbouring cells near you? If the answer is ‘Yes’, on turn the related particle systems and stop the ones which are currently out of range.«

It’s also important to set the particle systems to »pre-warm«. That means the particle system pre-simulates a certain state. An example from Destiny [5] shows what happens if you don’t pre-warm. The waterfall doesn’t start to simulate until you get in range and then slowly builds up. That said, the option to pre-warm doesn’t come cheap. I was skeptical at first but it turned out that the performance cost is well inside an acceptable margin.

Be Water, my Friend!

On to the next topic – let’s take a closer look at a few interesting points concerning our water, which uses a second camera to create reflections. Pro: we get accurate reflections Con: it doesn’t work with water on different height levels, because you would get an offset in the reflection.

However, the large water bodies tend to be on the same level. On the smaller ones we then used a generic reflection probe. Also, we don’t have a real depth fade [6]; I won’t go into detail here, just know it didn’t work with our implementation of the enemies’ viewcones. We just used a simple mask to create transparent areas around shallow spots like shores, then we put a simple ground texture underneath. Yes, we did use transparency and yes, there are shadows on the water [7]. The thing is: transparency and shadows don’t get along too well in Unity, which means that you cannot have shadows on transparent objects, at least without pulling some deep tech stunts.

To our advantage, we already had map-sized masks in place for other stuff like blur and fog, so I just used another channel to store a top-down shadow map [8]. Of course we couldn’t have changed the light direction during runtime or have big dynamic objects cast shadows on the water, but that hasn’t been the case, so a static map worked just fine. Unfortunately particles and lighting don’t get along all too well in Unity. However, now we had a shadow map of all the static main geometry of the level at our disposal, so we used it for some particle effects as well.

Physically Based Animations

Solid objects need to behave in a physically correct manner. Pretty much all of these animations are prebaked in Unity, using a small tool. I’ll explain with the help of barrel racks [9][10] . Objects are first fitted with colliders and rigid bodies. During runtime you apply a force and let physics handle the rest. The tool will then just save each frame of the object’s transformations and store them within an animation file. In this case the rack is being pushed by this long box collider with a simple forward motion to make the rack topple over.

But why go through all that trouble and prebake everything? Well, because physics tend to be a bit random. The outcome has to be predictable because every time the player interacts with such an object, it has to react in the same way . It’s crucial that the player is in charge of the situation and able to calculate the result of his actions. For us it’s important, that there are no objects where they aren’t supposed to be any – obstructed pathways for example.

Destructibles – Bringing Us Joy Since …

Destructible objects are a ton of fun, but a nightmare for developers [12] – so much work for only a few seconds of fun. Every object is pre-sliced by using Blender, but there’s still a lot of manual labor involved. You have to prepare the object [13] and make sure that there are no open parts of the model. Also, I had problems with the newly created faces, the tool didn’t really handle the unwrappin in an acceptable way. Eventually I ended up unwrapping every single piece by hand, because I didn’t have the time to look for a better solution. Well, it wasn’t fun …

In general, every destructible object has two states [14]: – whole – destroyed, fragmented

When an object is being destroyed, you simply switch the states and play the prebaked animation.

Of course, later on you don’t have the colliders anymore, that’s why we prebake after all. The gate [13], for example, has a »pusher« object – just like the barrel rack – that drives the other objects in a certain direction. Explosion-like setups are relatively easy to make because every rigid body can be turned on from the beginning. With the force being applied instantly, the objects don’t really have a chance to just drop down like they normally would. Cascading motions, however, are much harder to achieve. If all rigid bodies were turned on and gravity was affecting them from the beginning (which they have to), they would simply fall down.

So, I wrote myself a script that is applied to each rigid body and checks its neighbours for movement. If any of them move over a given threshold, they switch themselves on. Now, when you push away your first object, it cascades from that point over the whole object.

Character Related Effects

Next topic: visual effects that are related to characters within the game. First, we will take a look at environmental effects that are triggered by players. Characters always need to feel like they’re connected to world. They should blend in – of course not to the extent that you cannot see them anymore, but just enough to make them look like they belong to where they are. Adding effects that simulate interaction with the environment helps binding them to the world, but it brings us to another problem. When your character stirs up dust while walking, for example, you’d also expect splashes while running through water; the same goes for snowy areas [15]. If that doesn’t happen, it can easily reflect badly on the immersion. That’s where terrain-dependent VFX come into play. Unfortunately, that’s the kind of stuff people hardly notice when it’s there – but it would look and feel strange, if they weren’t.

Nobody will come up to you and say »Hey dude, what an amazing job you did on these dust clouds. They’re absolutely sensational!« Still, most of the times it’s worth going the extra mile for stuff like this, but once you start there’s literally no end [16]. You stumble from one tiny detail into the next one. Fun fact: While preparing this article one of my colleagues came up to me and actually said »Wow, I didn’t know that there were different effects for that.« So much for people noticing.

Let There Be Blood!

Talking about complex issues, let’s move on to »blood«. Blood is a fluid and fluids tend to behave in a complex way. When approaching a (fluid) substance like blood, it helps to break it down into its fundamental components and think about their defining characteristics.

Let’s start with a simple blood splash particle [17]. First, I set up a fluid simulation in Blender and created a nice splash shape. Later on, however, we didn’t just want this particle to fade out to make it disappear. It was supposed to dissolve in a more natural way, like getting thinner and reshape into small drops [18]. So, in order to create kind of a dissolving motion, we needed to make a base for a treshold animation in Unity.

For those who don’t know how it works,

please let me explain real quick: At the beginning, every pixel that carries a tiny bit of color information will be shown. Over time you raise a value from 0 to 1 and cut away everything that’s lower than this value at this very moment. So, the »brighter« a pixel is, the longer the texture will be shown at the same position (To see how it works in detail, please check out this website: http://www.alkemi-games.com/a-game-of-tricks-iii-particles-fun-part1/)

So, I created a mask by spawning metaball particles inside the shape in Blender and animating their size over time with a bit of an offset. What gave me the idea was a talk by Eben Cook about the Blood in »The Last of Us« at GDC. Of course he had different tools like Houdini at his disposal, but it gave me a helping push into the right direction.

If we now take what we already have, throw it into Unity and write a small shader, we’re off to a good start, but it’s obviously not enough. Liquid that sprays into the air splits into small droplets that shape and shift around and – due to constantly changing surface angles – reflect the light in absolutely crazy ways. To simulate this effect I could have used a normal map but that would have eventually been sort of an overkill for such a small splash. Plus, it would have taken up valuable memory space. So I used a simple dotted texture that scrolls around in world space really fast. It’s actually a bit stronger around the edges for which I used another mask, but we can ignore that for explanatory purposes. The good thing is that you can’t really make out what’s happening in detail while playing, because everything happens really fast, but it does a good job simulating the sputtering of droplets in the air.

20 – Drawing blood splashes by hand and making them look realistic would have been very difficult. So, Florian reused some assets he originally created for The Last Tinker, back in his early days at Mimimi Productions. In order to create some special effects, he let watercolors drop on paper, then he scanned the stains. These assets never made it into The Last Tinker, but worked perfectly for Shadow Tactics. The lesson learned: never throw away stuff you created, just because you didn’t have any use for it yet – it might come in handy some day!

We need … more blood!

Yuki’s melee [21] attack was actually the first I created because it has a nice flow to it and was therefore perfect to test things. Once I was finished with the first draft I showed it to my colleagues and they said »Ok, this looks nice, but where’s the blood? There needs to be much more of it!« And I was like: What did they just say? More blood? Well, you don’t hear that every day – but they were right. I first went with a normal amount of blood which was hardly visible from further away, so I had to find the sweet spot between »unrealistic« and »convincing«.

To better illustrate the impact of an attack we used some blood »decals« on the floor. The reason why ‘decals’ is put in quotation marks, is because we didn’t have actual decals. They were just simple quads spawned just a bit above the ground. Whenever one of these blood splashes spawns, a script roughly checks the quad’s bounds for ground underneath – if there’s none, then the splash will not be shown. If the check results come in positive, it will pass the normal version of the surface underneath to the quad and rotate it accordingly. Spawn and despawn are basically done with the same technique that I mentioned before, only with a softer threshold and different maps.

No Gore Fest

We never wanted our game to be a virtual bloodbath. The use of blood was always meant to be justified and to give the game a realistic touch, at least to a certain degree. It was important for us never to use blood for the sake of brutality, there had to be a reason for its use. Like the scene in which a samurai who has brought great shame over his daimyo, is asking for permission to commit seppuku (ritual suicide) and thereby restore his honor – that’s pretty much as bloody as it gets in Shadow Tactics. Yes, it is brutal and messy BUT slicing open your stomach and be being decapitated afterwards … well, that’s exactly what it is: messy and gruesome. It simply underlines how desperate someone must have been to go through with an act like this. So much from me about VFX in Shadow tactics – hopefully I did not bring shame over my house.

About the Author:

Florian Smolka

is VFX and 3D Artist at Mimimi Productions.

Florian has been at Mimimi Productions for almost five years. Thanks to his outstanding work on daWindci during his studies at university, he secured himself a spot within the team. Since then, his range of tasks and responsibilities grew alongside his technical expertise, which makes him the perfect bridge between art, code and visual effects. @Smou_

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