#babdi

[tornioduva]

A rant about spaces in games

As a person who's not in the industry and has never been yet in a development environment, and so has mainly just seen things from a player perspective:

Many, MANY, years ago was understood that if you wanted to give the idea of a big place, a big city, a big valley, a big landscape in general, OF COURSE you wouldn't just make it 1:1 in size and just put it there, it would be a waste of resources, time, effort, all for something that's needed only to convey a sense of scale and nothing else. Instead you would put some 2d images in the distance, an elaborate skybox, maybe some 3d more detailed object and bam, you had a big scenery, though fake. if it was a city, you would just put a wagon with fruit and vegetables, or a car, in front of a road that extends and bam, you have the image of a city that extends beyond the corners of the playable map.

Now more than ever instead there is this toxic obsession with "if the player sees it, then it must be explored, or have an active gameplay purpose", and a general perceived distaste for the concept of creating illusion, while going full simulation.

Now, to clarify: this is not a condemnation of all modern games, this is mainly a thing in AAA and AA games, also i'm not blaming any developers (i don't know how a game is made, how much pressure from above you have, how this might be the only way to keep the boat afloat in terms of sales and marketing), and also i can clearly see that this is not a dead concept; the contrary even! There are a lot of modern (though indie) games that take advantage of limited visibility to convey scale, or complexity, guiding the player imagination but leaving it work by itself. The success of games like Iron lung i think speaks volume about it.

The fact is, even among AAA games i liked and had high hopes for, i can't avoid to be a little sad about how bloated they are with this mentality. The two games that sparked these thoughts are mainly elden ring and tears of the kingdom.

In TotK case, i was sad to see how little they learned from BotW, at least in this regard; instead of closing in on the freedom of the predecessor to give a different, more intense and story driven experience, they doubled down on the original formula and expanded even more. Instead of removing, or readapting, the useless empty space in hyrule, the created even more empty space somehow, and filled it with junk that bloats everything even more. I like this formula, don't get me wrong, just...more often than what i wanted to in both games i found myself on the edge of a cliff, on the backside of a mountain, in a small hole, with nothing there and nothing particularly interesting to see or get, and i thought "why am i here, why am i allowed to be here, why isn't this just background seen from a distance"

In elden ring though i think there is the perfect, more poignant example: Leyndell. The first time i was inside the walls and saw the city, i was awestruck. it was beutiful, intricate, interesting, full of peculiar places. i couldn't wait to explore it all and for once in that game i wasn't overwhelmed with "toomanythingstodotoomanyplacestogo"itis, because i wanted to see it all. i love cities, especially old and ancient ones, love exploring them, lose myself in small streets and alleys. i was genuinelly amazed by the fact that it was completely explorable, and absolutely happy for it. After i've seen it all though, it hit me: ...it's a really small city. like, it's big from a player perspective, there is a lot to do and explore. but it's a pretty small city. I live near Lucca, in Tuscany, so i have a pretty good reference to judge it on, and i think (roughly and without measures, have mercy uhuh) Leyndell and Lucca are nearly the same size, Lucca might be bigger infact uhuh. And even if it's not and Lyndell is bigger, still, after seeing it all it FEELS small. because you've seen it all. Compare Leyndell to Anor Londo instead, and tell me which one of the two FEELS like a gigantic, enormous capital, full of streets, palaces and places for people; and of Anor Londo you only explore like a handful of rooftops uhuh. This might be just a sensation of mine, but the fact the capital of the biggest game Fromsoft has made to date feels smaller than in DS1 where you were dramatically more limited in where you could go....well, that to me is a failure of environment design, at least on an artistic side, in regar to setting up the atmosphere, not in regard to gameplay.

Do i mean with this that open world are always bad, that you should always be limited in where you can go? absolutely not! i love having freedom of exploration, and i like the idea that i can go where i can see! i just wish going forward that developers with the resources to do big projects like these are given the freedom, and the guidance, to guide the players more, to build rails on which our explosive passion of playing can be directed on without letting die out on a rock in the middle of nowhere that you're standing on for no reason. A good example for this i feel is outer wilds! you're free to go where you want, but you are limited by what there actually is to explore, plus the central gimmick. also, all there is to explore is interesting and meaningful, without collectables!

Also, i'm not criticizing empty space at all even. I recently played BABDI, and that is a masterful example of empty, "meaningless" space that is there for a reason, which is the atmosphere of the game. the fact you can explore almost all of the city while there is almost nothing interesting to discover aside from few things, contributes a ton the overall atmosphere.

So, what i'm saying is: developers, go to more theatre plays; not the big budget ones, that can afford all they want, i mean the small local ones, that are able to make you fell like you are in a ballroom with a fancy chair, a stool and a lamp.

#tornio #tornioduva #torniod #torniotalk #elden ring #loz totk #zelda totk #totk #babdi #outer wilds #game talk

[thatonepizzaman]

Two refs I whipped up for artfight but I thought I might aswell show them here too.

We got cute baby and evil galactic threat to all things living

#rambles #ocs #object head oc #kirby oc #fish is just a tiny babdy #the kirby freak exists #my art #art #oc ref sheet

[hjemne]

I am a tumblr influencer, actually (went digging through 10 year old blogs looking for fanart which has now shown up on my dash after 5 different mutuals reblogged it from each other)

#lemme be the source of all your aot fanart babdy #im getting a good grade in fanart curation #i am dumpster diving and coming up with gold

[buckthefutcher]

for like the first 12 years of my life the only version of smooth criminal i had listened to was the alien ant farm one and honestly i think thats a really important formative experience

#kinda unrelated but i see my younger relatives now who still listen to babdy shark until like 7 or 8 and like...... #at that age i had full control of the tv and was watching p much exclusively pop punk charts on kerrang #not saying its good or bad but i think theres so much made for kids now that they paradoxically grow up slow and then IMMEDIATELY quicker #as soon as they get tiktok

[tvshowscouples]

If you love Ben Wheeler (Baby Daddy) and you want reblog or like,this is the link of my reblog character :)

thank you!

#ben wheeler #jean luc bilodeau #babdy daddy #biley #ben and riley

[starryguykai]

When I first started wanting to branch out with the games I played, I had no idea where to look. SO!

The following under the cut is a very long masterpost of indie games I recommend, sorted by category and alphabetical order, with short descriptions and links to their store pages.

Titles italicized are free, and I'll be updating this as I play more 👍

EXPLORATION

Babdi - Babdi is a beautiful and quiet brutalist city, with your only concrete goal in this game to get a train ticket to leave. This game takes about 1-2 hours to fully explore, and it has a lovely sense of place and scale.

Hollow Knight - A tiny bug knight explores a ruined kingdom, looking for answers. This game has had its praises sung a lot, but I cannot recommend it enough, with a melancholy atmosphere, very charming character design, and lovely art direction that balances skillfully between being cute and mournful.

Rain World - You are a slugcat, a creature in the middle of the foodchain, exploring a broken biomechanical ecosystem. You must learn about each microbiome in order to survive, and get enough food to hibernate before the deadly rain comes. This game has fantastic creature design and programming, my favorite background art direction of any game I've ever played, and insanely intricate lore. I highly recommend getting the Downpour DLC-- it not only fixes the personal gripes I have with the base game, but adds an immense amount to the story and world with five new campaigns.

Somnium - Your email got lost in transit, and you have to explore a early-2000s webscape to recover it! With art direction that captures the whimsy of the early internet, and very charming character design and writing, it takes about half an hour to play and I was smiling the whole time.

Outer Wilds - An open world game about space exploration, xenoarchaeology, and physics. This is my favorite game of all time, and in order for the game to work, you can't say much about it! It also has a horror dlc with its own story.

FPS

ULTRAKILL - Humanity is dead. Blood is fuel. Hell is full. Inspired by Dante's Inferno and Greek mythology, you play as a machine tearing its way through hell in PS1-like graphics. Its hard to oversell the strength of Ultrakill's concepts and how well they're executed-- this game is constantly saying "do you know what would be so cool" and is right every single time.

HORROR

Go to Bed - A very simple horror game about going to bed (it should take less than half an hour to play).

Signalis - A robot named Elster fights her way down through a sick facility to fulfill a mysterious promise. I can't say much about it without spoiling, but its prose, gritty combat, and art direction are phenomenal.

SOMA - Simon Jarrett goes to the doctor to get his brain scanned, and wakes up 100 years in the future, in an underwater facility full of robots with human consciousnesses. This game has a "safe mode" where the "monsters" don't kill you, which I recommend as its more accurate to the world, more convenient to play, and in the majority of cases, doesn't reduce the horror. Even playing in "safe mode" it was the most intense horror I've ever experienced by a landslide, and is very dear to me in its environments, writing, and concepts! I would highly recommend checking the content warnings, as well as playing when you're both emotionally and psychologically stable.

Subway Midnight - A young woman takes the subway, where many people have gone missing. What could go wrong? Really lovely combination of 2D and 3D that makes the most of its limitation of "walking through a subway car" to create a game that's charming, beautiful, and very unique.

PUZZLE

Freshly Frosted - A game about making donuts! You arrange donuts with a series of conveyer belts, the factory's work lining up with the music's beat. Its very relaxing, and the narration is very pleasant. A really great game to wind down with at the end of the day.

Manifold Garden - You solve puzzles by changing the gravity of an infinite world without fall damage. This game definitely has a learning curve while getting used to the physics rules, but the puzzles are clever and intuitive once it clicks! Its also very pretty.

Mini Motorways - You connect cars to their destinations through plotting roads, bridges, and motorways. Like Freshly Frosted, its a simple concept, but something nice to wind down with!

Smile for Me - A game where you communicate through nodding and shaking your head! You are the local florist's kid, staying in a "wellness resort", a bizarre cross between a hotel and psychiatric ward. Your mission? Make people happy! Really sweet with an unsettling undercurrent that gets addressed in an interesting way.

Vignettes - You rotate objects to make them transform, and explore different areas and themes as the forms fluctuate. Another simple, but beautiful game, with really fantastic art direction!

ROGUELIKES

Going Under - An unpaid intern battles her way through the dungeons of failed start-ups. A criminally underrated, super fun anti-capitalist satire with a huge variety of builds, that uses the "corporate art style" in a beautiful way!

TEXT-BASED

Citizen Sleeper - You are an escaped Sleeper, a cyborg with partial human memories, who fled to a massive space station. The company that made your body programmed for planned obsolescence: what will you make of the time you have? This is a constant game of juggling food, health, and money as you roleplay and explore, with beautiful character art and prose. It feels like a sad hug, housing a wide variety of very touching stories.

GUTLESS - A short story of an angry man traveling to the bottom of the ocean. Raw, harsh, and visceral. This story is NSFW.

In Other Waters - By the same devs of Citizen Sleeper, but an earlier game! You are the AI in a marine biologist's suit, and guide her as she navigates through the waters of an alien world. The only visuals you see are dots, walls, and elevation maps to mark your surroundings. If you're a fan of the deep sea or speculative biology, you'll love this game!

Please Tell Me You Love Me - Your old favorite online rpg game is shutting down, and you're having one last hurrah with your guild. Short, sweet, and will leave you with a smile.

The Ouroborous Incident - A notorious tech company releases a strange new product. An interesting short story with a fun conclusion, it dips in and out of sci-fi, comedy, and horror, while sharing information through different tabs of updating text threads, transcripts, and news reports.

UNSORTABLE

Inscryption - A grisly roguelike card game that takes place in an escape room, where you're trapped by a mysterious man that you can only see the eyes of. I recommend going in not knowing much, as this game has a lot of surprises. You play the story by default, but it also has an endless mode that is very fun!

What the Golf? - A very silly game about golf, made for people who hate golf. Takes the concept of "golf" and plays with it like silly putty, and has a ridiculous variety of mechanics.

#mine #idk if anyone is interested in this but i spent too long typing it up NOT to share #game masterpost #< for me so i can find this later

[barneysballsoffire]

bareny! Barny! Barry! Baby! Bagy! Bary! Bauby! Barne! Babdy! Barly! Bagnsy!

[the-crimson]

DAPPER OMG DAPPER MY BABDY DAPPER

#live blorging

[ghostlyplacetobe]

I keep forgetting Cassandra has a whole girlfriend who she actually loves -Alucard

Yeah I have a gf who’s the princess of penillians so even if i didn’t wanna date her I’d have to anyways but she’s nice guys why are you picking on her :( -Cassandra

We’re not picking on Emu we’re picking on you bc why’d you pull a baddie -Hanzo

Oh you all think I’m a baddie? Thank you :3 -Emu

I’m dating babdies too

#ask #carnival-of-carnage

[amaribelt]

RIDDLE S HAIR IS WHITE PLZ TWLL EM TI DOESNT DSYA THAY WAYS NO MY BABDY NO MY BOYS

#amari rambles #screaming crying foaming at the mouth

[kolaveri123]

#ahiranistatus #khandeshistatus #marathi #youtube #home #viral #family #viralvideo #video #shortvideo #youtubeshorts #trending #gautamipatil #ytviral #trendingshorts #shorts #lifehacks #ppgfilms #messwalirupali #Pasoori #RealMagic #CokeStudioSeason14 #SoundOfTheNation

[chamo-momile]

oh babgy babdy WHOOPS I did it’s agsian I made you believe were more than just friennnnnds

we're best friends? :)

[nakedhiddles]

#loki #loki spoilers #tom hiddleston #hiddlesedit #lokiedits #lokigifs #nakedtwh #my gifs #my edit #look i'm tired and i'll not make elaborate gifset #yes i'll be lazy and make face journeys #fuck this shit #i'm frustrated with this episode #this is what you guys have #for all time always #LOOK AT MY BABDY HE SAD #HE IS SAAAD #WHERES HIS MOBIUS #BETRAYAL 2ND PART? #tom loves a betrayal omg

[xianoii]

YOU GUSTSNSKDKDLDFJCKZKS

#゛⠀♡̶ ࣪ sol ༝ speaks . #IM SHAKING SO HARD #MY BABDY #SHES HERE #HRSLLSROSPALD #WAAAAHHHH

[adarsh00009-blog]

Dragon Ball facts Follow me @saiyan_monk #majinbuu #freeza #broly #saitan #babdi #cooler #krilin #yamcha #dragonball #anime #naruto #bleach #goku #bulmasexy #vegeta #saiyan #kakaroto #broly #gohan #supersaiyan #fairytail #onepuchman #dragonballsuper #gogeta #vegito #trunks #videl #animefan #onepiece #myheroacademia #bulmaxvegeta #dragonballsuper #gokuxchichi #dragonballlovers❤️ #dragonballislife https://www.instagram.com/p/ByKMoQbJohM/?igshid=8ow4aqizmkf5

#majinbuu #freeza #broly #saitan #babdi #cooler #krilin #yamcha #dragonball #anime #naruto #bleach #goku #bulmasexy #vegeta #saiyan #kakaroto #gohan #supersaiyan #fairytail #onepuchman #dragonballsuper #gogeta #vegito #trunks #videl #animefan #onepiece #myheroacademia #bulmaxvegeta

[ultracoolray]

Bild gerade am PC gemacht Alice Cooper

#Alice Cooper #Merry Crisis #Happy New Fear #I love the Dead #Welcome to my Nightmare #Killer #Dead Babdies #Halo of Flies #School´s Out