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inventors-fair · 2 years

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Quoted Character Commentary: Feeling things out

I think this week was overall a great success! Not everyone likes the flavor contests, I know, but creative writing is important, yadda yadda, I’ve said this all before, you know how I feel.

Strengths this week: What a wide variety of characters from which to choose! People really went ham with the ins and outs of these guys, and I didn’t expect a lot of them to show up. It’s easy to see what people find resonant, and I’m glad to see that there was more often than not a variety on feelings rather than the most powerful cards and the most popular characters. Unpopularity was almost a prerequisite, I think.

General critiques: Somehow, it happened a lot that a strong card was paired with not-so-strong flavor justification, or a really well-written flavored card didn’t have the mechanical backing. This is just one of those issues, I feel, with custom card design in general: we have to be worldbuilders and engineers all at the same time and not everyone is good at that. That’s why they have whole teams at WotC to make it happen, yeah? Understandable, but in this sphere, where the stakes are minor, I hope that the improvements on a small scale help people think about why we do what we do and how every part is indeed hard. You’re doing good with the tools we’re given.

As usual, JUDGE PICKS are cards that are highlighted for specific strengths and/or are personal favorites. Learn from them, appreciate ‘em, and read on!

@bread-into-toast — Kurbis’ Saplings

I’ll be honest: when I started this contest, I actually had it with Kurbis in mind specifically. Excuse me? A tree that’s also a party animal? I wanted to read a full story about this thing and I wanted to see how it would slaughter and/or help and/or terrify. And what sort of mood would that bring, is the question, and from here, I’m still not entirely sure. I’ll get to the art direction, but the flavor text feels like it’s not conveying a mood that the art and the card itself is showing. The middle line tries to be menacing, but honestly, I don’t feel as terrified as much as I do explained-to. The exposition feels more important than the mood, and I get that perhaps it feels important to give background, but that’s not what I’d want here. The art is incredible. I feel something akin to “Prey,” a short story by Richard Matheson (I Am Legend), which you can read HERE or watch HERE, along with the plant-based horror of many a franchise. The text itself doesn’t give me that same sense of creeping dread because it leads with a question we didn’t need asked and ends in a line that feels disconnected to the art. The mood is more than enough to carry it through.

I’m also now imagining what this card would be like in a standard/draft set, and for one, this could be a 2/2; for two, it’s “create a token that’s a copy of” for the text; for three, could this be permanent instead of creature?; and for four, I love it. I also really love what it implies about the format. What kind of format would removing counters mean, you know? I think that Lorwyn/Shadowmoor had similar things, where things got counters and could remove counters, and I loved that. Innistrad’s innovations could mean that this has even more new shenanigans in these colors, and a return of Kurbis as some kind of legend or even antagonist, and I think that that’s fantastic. Innistrad versus the nature of Innistrad, what comes when you have the true natural horror. Man, I’m getting back into the lore/world aspect, I know... But, all the same. This card’s great in terms of that. Take it for what you will.

@corporalotherbear — Aminatou’s Curiosity (JUDGE PICK)

I mean, hey, it’s good. That’s the extent that I can really be judgmental about this card, and I think that it speaks more to the nature of simplistic designs than anything. If I had to nitpick, and I will, I’d say that the flavor text specifically in the context of this contest isn’t the most exciting compared to the winners/runners/whatever. But it’s undeniably childlike, and reading up a little on her character, fits nicely. So in that regard, sure, there’s absolutely nothing to complain about on the matching front. Does it capture her voice? Well, we don’t know that much about Aminatou beside the blurb, but for an all-seeing kid, I’ll run with it.

Part of the reason I’m not passing this card up either is because of the abilities. It’s not going to be a replacement for Preordain or Opt, but it’s going to be something that limited players will enjoy having access to as card advantage. A standard environment that’s playing this means that card advantage is king over two-drop permanents/removal, but I can’t see into that future, now can I. A little bit of draw, a little “oh, what’s the harm, let’s take a deeper look” peering flavor connection—yeah, no, that connection’s great. I think the whimsy is self-contained, but it’s still doing good work. Simply nice.

@dabudder — Liesa’s Purge

To be fair, I said a “standard power level” and not specifically that you were designing a draft-oriented card, so taking that into account, this card seems like it could slot into a Commander-y set or at least be a card that people would see is aimed at Commander. But, maybe there’s an ‘everyone loses life’ aspect to the draft archetype? That’s stretching it a little. My gut says that that’s not the most fun as a draft archetype for a number of reasons. After all, if your opponent is trying to kill you, and you’re trying to hurt everyone, you’re doubly prodded if your opponent is even slightly more aggressive than you. Still, recursion is definitely a hard aspect to consider. If you ARE playing EDH, this thing feels next-to-impossible to remove without a slightly higher as-fan of graveyard hate. Thank you for putting the 2 life payment on there, because otherwise, yeesh. I think it’s strong enough without breaking the mold, even if it’s on the stronger side. Good work there.

It’s the flavor that loses me a little. I can sense the mood just fine, and the first line is decent. Reading through “The Dusk Reborn” and the story synopsis of her background, it seems she has no patience for the aggression against her. I do like that. But, “Consider this a reacquaintance” is bugging me. What would make it NOT a reacquaintance? Why would it be considered otherwise? In good faith, I’d postulate that the fiends should start to get reacquainted with Liesa, that they now need to be prepared for her, and that’s what she means, but the word still stands out oddly because both parties are being reacquainted in some way. There’s no consideration necessary because there’s no room for twisting her surprised presence. This is definitely a nitpick, but the word choice doesn’t feel specifically appropriate to the mood you’re going for otherwise. Still, viable and worth praising for general mood.

@deg99 — Goro-Goro’s Offerings

The one change I would make to this flavor text is to have it end in an exclamation point. I think that the epic desire, the humor (which lands, when you know the character!), and the feeling connected to Goro-Goro and the Akki in general—that’s all great. I think there is the small downside that you have to know a little about what’s going on, and that Goro-Goro isn’t a major player in the world. The problem with MTG’s story in general sometimes is that when you have a storyline that’s not as world-based, the factions and their motivations can feel a little muddled without central connections. The gods of Theros, for example, have tropes connected to them which means that we can point to any given person/event and connect it to a god in the world. The guilds of Ravnica have their uniqueness and conflict as well. What do the goblins of Kamigawa do? It’s not really a faction set, so what’s there to connect? This isn’t a criticism of your card so much as it is a problem with how much the average player can extrapolate about the smaller side of stories without anchoring tropes. I wouldn’t have known much about the side player of Goro-Goro otherwise, but now that I do, I love what this card’s doing.

That first ability is a little frustrated wording-wise, though. And I’m not sure exactly how to fix it. There’s gotta be something for “is or isn’t” and I can’t quite find it. If I had to say, based on Luxior of all things, I’d put the “isn’t”s before the “is”s in abilities like this and say: “At the beginning of combat on your turn, choose target creature you control. If it isn’t modified or if it’s a Goblin, put a +1/+1 counter on it.” But that seems wrong too. Is there precedent I’m missing? I’m almost positive I am. It’s throwing me off for sure. Side note, but what I AM certain of is that “that’s” takes place of “that is” in almost every single card except one from what I can tell. The second trigger is fantastic, for what it’s worth. Can’t make too many mechanical complaints about this card. I just wish that there were more goblins on Kamigawa now, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.

@dimestoretajic — Gunnerson’s Stride

I thought there would honestly be a lot more information about giants on Dominaria, but wow, there really isn’t that much, is there. And there was literally only one in the Dominaria set... Unexpected, honestly. Even so, this contest was ripe for some kind of expansion, and, uh, what’s with the font cap on your render? Is this MSE? Sorry, this card looks a little weird to me and makes the text pretty hard to read. Still, I think that the flavor here is pretty funny, the ‘walking all over’ line and all that. There are way too many fantasy names for me to get into what happened with Stromgald and all that. Dominaria’s got a lot of pedigree. I think that seeing Gunnarson in this historical period is pretty fun. It’s a little overwrought, but small edits could make it snappier, nothing too much to complain about on that front.

Certainly, I’m better disposed to it than I am to this card. Once more, I am rubbing my temples, because deathtouch and trample is a non-intuitive interaction that confuses the average player and should not be printed naturally on a card under any circumstances. This is something that happens in these contests far more often than it should. Why does it have flash? For the sake of the character, why does it have white? And almost as importantly, why is the fourth line not a trigger? The card on which it’s based, which is the only place in which the character appears in any story or blurb whatsoever, even uses a trigger, and that didn’t translate to this card! It’s frustrating to me that this card has these mistakes that feel obvious, but I know I can’t claim that they are, because I know I’m also a deeply enfranchised player. Still, as much as I do like the notion of a giant’s stride as an aura—and the name feels great in the mouth to say aloud—the mechanical errors are too egregious. For future submissions, reduce the text, simplify the mana cost, make sure your triggers are triggers, increase font size, and don’t try to make deathtouch/trample happen.

@evscfa1 — Saskia’s Vengeance

I actually didn’t know much about Saskia before this, so I think that this is a perfectly cool card, and I’m glad to know just a touch more with how she thinks/attacks/exists in the world. That was the point of this contest, after all! Now’s the time to take that energy and pare the flavor text down some. In my opinion, this card could have been perfectly fine without “I lost everything” there. The pain-sharing is strong enough on its own without the background there, y’know? It’s a pretty raw line. Not transcending poetically, but it hits hard. Destruction as vengeance, yeah, that checks out, even against an opponent who may be unprepared, because Saskia is indeed unyielding.

The mechanics are a bit of a mess, though. Why in the year of our dragon-god 2022 are we putting “can’t be regenerated” on cards? It’s not relevant to contemporary design at all. Regarding the phrasing, you’re trying to do a lot, and it feels muddled. I would have personally made it modal, but that wouldn’t have left room for flavor text. Is there a better way to phrase it? Because right now, it looks like the creature is optional but the artifact, enchantment, and nonbasic targets aren’t optional. I’m positive there’s precedent but I can’t find it at the moment. You could put “up to one target” for each, but that seems...ech. Maybe it’s best not to make it optional? Hm. This is a toughie, but the feeling is strong.

@fractured-infinity — Grist’s Subsumption

Drop that first sentence and the flavor text is totally fine. I do love that art direction, too, and it makes me wonder if you necessarily need that attribution down there? She is the main focus of the art, after all. Regardless, yeah, no great mood. She’s regal, powerful, the card’s strength plays into that drainage and the components, and yeah, I do like that a lot. That much feels like the powerful sorcery that this card wants to evoke.

And I cans see that there was a decision not to have this card require two targets, but it makes it read awfully. Sacrificing good design choices for feelbad interaction cases that are a fundamental aspect of MTG’s question-and-answer nature is not the best decision to make, to say the least. “Destroy target creature with power X or less, then choose one:” and then targeting the creatures/planeswalkers reads better, makes the card understood better, and uses the stack in an intuitive way. Taking away intuitive stack interaction is something that overall makes gameplay worse even if it might feel better for you that the card doesn’t target and therefore they can’t respond to the thing you’re buffing. I’m unusually frustrated by this.

@glassbass — Sakashima’s Trickery

Why is this card phrased the way it is? Actually, huh, why IS this card the way it is at all. I don’t mind an unblockable cantrip, but what purpose does this card serve? Flavorfully, I get it, nothing wrong with that. For a standard set, or at least a premier draftable set of some kind, the flavor is kind of overpowering the reasonability. I’m sure there are fun ways to do this, but also better ways to phrase it. I think “Target creature you control can’t be blocked this turn. Its name becomes” etc. etc. or something like that would grok better.

The real question is whether or not the humor of the flavor text is keeping this card up. To me, it’s not. The phrasing “a human myth” is the first stumbling block, because Sakashima IS a human, just a human with powerful magic—unless the intent was that he’s speaking to another group of non-humans among whom he is disguised? That doesn’t translate well here, and this is where something like art direction could help, but I’ll take that much on good faith. It’s the breaking of the walls that frustrates me. I read through the Sakashima story, and while there were lines about how he slips up his disguises, how he sees how far he can put his act, the ultimate masking is something that is indeed an act, a becoming, a translation where he does actively try to blend in. Is there some kind of introspection here, some kind of deeper insight, something meditative? Not here. It’s practically fourth-wall breaking. And I don’t buy the humor. The card translates well, “I become you and therefore can’t be recognized when I strike,” but the voice evokes glee, impishness, almost cattiness if you divorce it from some semblance of self-awareness. The characterization is marred by the insertion of the author trying to convey that they’re writing something funny. I see through Sakashima and see you. He wouldn’t be proud.

@gollumni — Ich-Tekik’s Splicery

Mana cost, appropriate and aggressive and contemporary. Type, awesome, appropriate rarity, sensible. Counter play, absolutely stunning, a powerful and terrifying card. The name is a little odd for me, but no, an artifact, I gotta read it like it’s a place, the location where he does the most of his work. Great great great. With you so far. When the flavor text hit me, I got this big screeching brake-squeal in my head. That was all? It’s a major aggrievement. There isn’t much beyond his character aside from ‘Phyrexian elf grafter who’s super good’ and that was enough, for the moment, and where could we go from there? The fact that the flavor text is describing exactly what is happening on the card makes me want to jump in and ask questions. In this case, unfortunately, it’s inquisition above curiosity, if that makes sense.

Let me step back and think about the best-case scenario, where Ich-Tekik is—wait, hold on, small quibble, I think that ‘The same is true’ should actually be ‘Do the same for’ because it’s a one-and-done action (death) and not something that’s going to stick around as a static. Anyway—where Ich-Tekik is seeing death as a form of discarding, like the things that die are giving up their abilities, even when he’s killing them. But that’s a hell of a stretch. If his voice was established, this would carry more weight, but one of the goals of this contest is to establish some more voice in the first place. Still, I can’t fault the mechanical nature of it, and that much I respect. The card itself also made me react strongly in a positive way. So! Kudos there. We’re 90% of the way. Just gotta make my skin crawl more.

@grornt — Teyo’s Intervention (JUDGE PICK)

I want to start with the flavor, because it’s quite an interesting take. I feel that this is a voiceover, and it fits here, even though it kind of takes is out of the moment. Clearly, this isn’t Teyo talking in the moment, because that’s just not when monologues happen. Is that common? I see something like Drown in Shapelessness does something similar, but that’s definitely not standard. I think that it’s a bit of a bend, but the card itself is really good, and it explains what’s happening in a way that makes me feel the development. It’s definitely expositional. That doesn’t mean it’s not impactful. Cut the spaces around the emdashes, and you have something fairly standard, but in the context of planeswalking, I think I ultimately like it. I wish there was a way to make this card not too squished, though, because as good as it is, the text is really tight and ultimately doesn’t look great.

That’s minor, though, something that could be fixed with minor tweaks. The card’s great, a return of entwine with good modes at common. It’s something you probably don’t want too many of with the double-white pips if there’s a multicolor aspect, but you also don’t NEED this early-game, so that’s okay, too. Interesting, actually, I’ve never thought about that specifically before, how color weight and gameplay needs interact... Anyway. I’d spend five mana to make a body, gain life, and get a cantrip! I’d have to be a little desperate, but that’s the strength of intervention, and where this card needs to be. It’s an ultimately understandable package with solid basis.

@hiygamer — Hazid Estate

To see the power of this card, I actually brought out some graph paper and charted what a game would look like if you played this turn one both on the draw and on the play. Ultimately, it makes no difference, and I’m not good enough at math to determine exactly when it would happen, but assuming everyone makes their land drops, you’re getting such a net gain of mana no matter what and it’s bogus. Well, I say “bogus,” it’s just very strong, an astronomical advantage, and don’t get me started on what happens if you make two of them. Getting a free extra mana every turn at the cost of giving your opponent a paradise land is... Well, I think it’s a little crazy much. By turn four, you will have surpassed your opponent in mana ability, and you’ll always be a step ahead, even missing your own drops. Free mana. I do like the design space but the math shows that this is an advantage that can go in literally every deck. For free. And you can Vesuva it but that’s magical Christmas land. Regardless, I firmly believe that it’s too powerful.

The flavor is a great feeling. It’s not very excitedly written. It wants to evoke that feeling of inequality but doesn’t read with much interest. I want to feel some kind of surprise, or at least some love of language. Really, that’s why I’m dourer—I don’t feel that love yet. Tension, perhaps, but no surprise. “From your tillage to my tills” is...something silly and a little pretentious that I just searched up with farm culture. But I get what you’re wanting to do with the forced-labor-aspect and I think that that’s strong. I want to feel something a little more smug, poetic, dastardly, cruel. “You may be sowing, but the harvest is mine.” Hm. Could use some work. But do you see what I’m getting at? I dunno, I’m just not sold yet.

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes — Adeliz’s Innovation (JUDGE PICK)

Praise to the art direction, because I can quite clearly picture what’s happening here, and the beautiful color scheme adds to it. You paint a vivid portrayal of magic! I think I wish that the flavor text was more about what she was doing, a little more poetically insightful, because the simplicity is fine but it’s still got that hint of exposition. What could Tolarian magic be missing? Perhaps there’s a specificity to the spice, a reason why she wants to bridge that gap, something about beauty or power. Motivation, that’s what I’d like to see. It’s okay that it’s general, and I don’t mind the fact that it’s a little snarky but from a Dominarian perspective. Adeliz has some charm, it seems, and that passion comes out here in a way we don’t see on her card as it’s printed, with a stony expression and a forward fist. So, we’re getting there! We’re close!

And the card itself is barfingly good. I love how this card works. The fact that it’s multicolored is definitely a plus, and I can see how a multicolored Dominarian theme could play into the evolution of the plane. I want to see a multicolored Dominaria set now, honestly! I think there’s something a little frustrating about how this could be the only red card in a mono-blue deck where you can then use something like Thriving Isle or a Signet to get this out, and then storm off in blue. You know what’s really funny? Swirl the Mists. Change everything to blue and what happens? Heh. Unfortunately, you’ve made a combo card. It could be 1 damage, or you could just switch them so that the colors do what they’re supposed to, but I still like it, and from a limited perspective, you’re not going to break anything. I think, ultimately, dealing direct damage from color sources feels too weird, but I want to like it enough to overlook it. This is definitely one of the cleanest cards you’ve made.

@misterstingyjack — Torbran’s Lancers (JUDGE PICK)

Firstly, I think this should be worded “a creature you control with first strike would deal combat damage” because I don’t think “first strike damage” is a legitimate rules term. The PDF I have saved is a year or so old, but that’s what I found scouring the comprehensive rules. Still, that’s an easy fix. Aside from that, though, this is an interesting one. The as-fan of first strike is a lot less than I thought it would be. Only two creatures in SNC can get it naturally, three in the original ELD (four with a Wolverine), SIX in VOW, etc. So yeah, no, that’s fascinating. I think that this card can be frustrating and isn’t really the rare you want to open if you’re looking to push into a specific archetype, but there’s nothing necessarily wrong with it being what it is. Sometimes someone wants to build a first strike tribal deck. They do it with flying, after all! Which isn’t the same, but hush.

The flavor text can be shortened and be far more impactful than it already is, which is still funny and gruff and dwarf-ish. Read: “Humans say we’re as slow as rocks, but I never did see anyone outrun a landslide.” Same humor, same tongue-in-cheek, same Torbranianism, just slightly more concise. Great call, though, because I did actually smile reading it. I get exactly what you’re going for and there really wasn’t enough dwarf action in the original ELD. I can offer suggestions but I can’t complain. It’s got mood, appropriate humor, and charisma. So there you go!

@nicolbolas96 — Emrakul’s Call

I read through most of the Emrakul story from the end of Elritch Moon, and I’m weirded out but not entirely without understanding of her presence. The Eldrazi are unfathomable, aren’t they, very weird. But they do have goals. The presence of Emeria/Emrakul in Jace’s mind made it fairly clear that this was supposed to be a growth or a reception. Is that freedom? How does Emrakul call? Reading through the story of Emrakul rising on Innistrad, there’s degrees of power and dehumanization, certainly...but freedom? I don’t see that at all. The perverse belonging isn’t related to that in any way, nor does Emrakul have anything to do with sanity; that’s Kozilek’s jam. I think that the mood is supposed to be more epic but even the voice in Jace’s head wasn’t truly Emrakul. Honestly, I don’t feel that this was the best choice to commit to.

As for the card, what is there to say? Thank goodness it’s not tribal, but the fact that in G/R Spawn/Scion heaven you can get this fairly consistently turn 5 or 6, then you’re in for a pretty rough go of it and your opponent will be lost to the aggro/control build. I can’t say it’s fun, but I can’t say it’s bad. I also can’t say that it’s exciting. Maybe there’s another take on Eldrazi somewhere that’s going to bring them to life. I couldn’t see this card being printed, not exactly as it is, not with this level of grandiosity. Again, it’s not a bad card. I just don’t feel what it’s supposed to be making me feel, and it’s not doing anything unusual or unexpected. I appreciate the sensation behind it and the way you’re going for that epic feel. Currently the tentacles aren’t slithering around me.

@partlycloudy-partlyfuckoff — Anya’s Sidearms

Great card, once you separate that middle ability. “Equipped creature has trample and menace as long as two or more Equipment are attached to it” re:Brass Knuckles should do it. Even though Auramancer’s Guise says that it could be one line, I think that the contingency means it shouldn’t be too condensed. The “as long as” feels wrong to be attached there. Regardless, it’s a powerful card and I think that in the right build it’s a good commander blowout and can make some powerful stuff happen. Great in a draft, great in casual.

I think the flavor ultimately loses me because it’s supposed to be something about how two halves are actually one ideal, but it’s literal. Like, yes, it’s literally two halves of the same weapon, and maybe there’s a metaphor in there for how the body is a weapon, and that’s not being explored to the point where I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. Not quite what I’m looking for in terms of expansion. Anya was a perfectly fine character to say this, though, and I can see where it’s something blunt, something that could have been smug but isn’t because of the stoic nature of the character saying it. It’s fine, just not interesting enough to stoke a fire under me.

@piccadilly-blue — Talisman of the Unluckiest

Shush, I can’t believe it. The Unluckiest Planeswalker probably got his name stolen in the fanfiction that I’m not writing about him, and that’s why he’s got that title. What a ridiculous and hilarious notion. It’s a shame that this card’s got enough for me to complain about to make it frustrating. Pithing Needle/Stony Silence/etc means that you can attach this to someone and then you lock them out of the game unable to draw answers. This is a prison card that’s built into a game where you can lock someone up and then have far too many ways to throw away the key, if you catch my drift. I think there are other taxes available to make this card function better. Currently, I wouldn’t print this. Taxes incite frustration and encourage pushing. This card incites genuine discouragement from playing.

I suppose the other half of it relies on how much players like their memes. And I don’t mind them at all! The flavor text is funny, and I think it might open up a conversation into who that guy is, and that’s a method of engagement for sure. Is that so wrong? Not really, no, I think it’s kind of cool! I wouldn’t rely on it if I was a story writer, but not everything needs to be a story spotlight, does it. It’s not that deep and it doesn’t have to be. It’s also not making me laugh aloud but it’s probably not supposed to do that either. It’s merely resonant. That’s good!

@snugz — Tyvar’s Bravado

The mechanical change I’d make is to reverse this for grokability. “Target creature or planeswalker you control gains indestructible until end of turn. Put your choice of a +1/+1 or loyalty counter on it.” Slightly easier to grok. And it’s a fine limited card that interacts with those synergies while implying the importance of combat, and I think that for two mana stretching across the realms, you’ll get your money’s worth from it, yeah? Sometimes it’s hard to talk about common cards like this that are designed for draft because they only do as much as they say and don’t stretch into big meta territory, but I think that having the possibility of planeswalkers referenced at common is something that we all have to live with. I like that it protects from those effects. Does indestructible stop loyalty counters from being removed? Unfortunately, I don’t think so, but I’m too headachey to look up the rules right now.

The flavor text isn’t pushing my buttons right now. Tyvar’s a fine character, and I get that this is what bravado looks like, but it’s... Well, it reminds me of an anime trope, and I’ve seen it before, and the insight isn’t enough to warrant me feeling excited about it. Sometimes when picking winners/runners/JPs, I think about the cards that I come back to and wonder what my justification is in my brain, if I’m biased or if there really is something in those. I thought about this card’s mechanics a couple times, but when I thought about the flavor text, I couldn’t summon the emotion. It’s expected, and that’s not necessarily an issue. For this contest it’s not something that would help, either. In the future, I recommend breaking out of the comfort zone a little.

@wolkemesser — Cub of the Lion

Technically, I don’t believe that titles were what we were looking for, and this card is ineligible. The discussion didn’t come up until later in the week. I recommend jumping into the Discord server or double-checking with these cases. I assume this was a Mageta card? Either way.

If it wasn’t for that, I think this card could be a judge pick. Well, the flavor text gets there, anyway, because it’s actually quite well-written? I can imagine Mageta saying it, even if he’s nowhere to be found in the art. Checks out with the story, checks out with the mood, checks out with what it wants to do. Yeah! There’s nothing wrong with that at all. The card itself is absolutely undercosted. A three-mana 2/3 could be strong enough to be frustrating and intensely powerful with a high enough legendary as-fan, and having it be two mana is borderline broken. I don’t think this format necessarily needs that kind of token aggression, but conceptually, I want to see this card printed, because it’s honestly a great rare at a great power level (for the ability) and it’s something I would want to open in a draft.

Tune in tomorrow! We appreciate you all.

- @abelzumi

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #quoted character contest #general commentary #inventor's fair

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ravenwolfie97 · 3 years

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2020 Art Summary

Yep, it’s 2021 already. 2020 is finally over. It felt like it lasted forever, and it felt like the end would never come, but here we are. Crazy how the time flew by.

I felt like I didn’t get much art done this year because of Current World Event, but I made a lot more than I thought I did. Even some of my new favorite pieces came out of this year, so I think that’s worth celebrating and looking back upon!

I was insanely productive during the first month of 2020, and looking back I was surprised at all the stuff I did, but then I remembered that that winter season was actually one of the best times of my life! I started being more socially involved, and I think my newfound drive at the time translated into all the art I pumped out this month. This is just a small fraction of what I made in January, but I only have so much space. Quite a few complex pieces in both style exploration and polishing my own style.

Apparently February was a rather intimate month. Things began to slow down in terms of my own art here, with me spending more time in social settings and school work ramping up, I didn’t have as much time to coop up in my room to draw. I did wanna do something for a friend’s Valentine’s Day OC art challenge, so I drew my lovey-dovey couple from Dance of 1000 Words havin’ a dance. Nothing actually came of that challenge, but it was fun to do regardless.

One of the things I was most proud of in the winter season was making more friends, and one of the closest friends I made was completely coincidental. I met a person named Kiri on the bus one night I decided to volunteer somewhere by myself, and we ended up chatting and getting along. They quickly told me their tumblr username, and I shot them a message immediately after they left. A couple days later, we met up for brunch, and we started becoming really close friends and creative partners!

Not much else happened in March cuz that’s when Current World Event started becoming an issue, but Kiri and I still kept in close touch and we randomly started developing a concept for a Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Galar Edition. These are a handful of characters we thought up, with Skipper the Scorbunny and Dross the Dreepy as the main characters, Morgrem as the main antagonist, and some shopkeepers such as those of the Greedent Bank and the Indeedee General Store. This was also my first time drawing all of these Galar Pokemon (except Scorbunny, but I also made Skipper a bit more unique than a regular Scorbunny).

Lots of events happened this month. First of all, Steven Universe Future ended, one of my favorite and most influential shows was no longer continuing. I had to do something as tribute, both as a send-off to one of the greatest cartoons in the world and as a cathartic release for my feelings towards it.

A while later, I got the opportunity to start playing an MMO in beta called Fer.al, by the same people who made Animal Jam, which coincidentally I had also beta tested for back in the day. I ended up getting really attached to my first character, a Senri I named Sasha, and though I’ve made more characters than them since, they’re still my absolute favorite. Though I haven’t touched the game in a few months, I was really engrossed for a long time and enjoyed playing through the beta and early access phases.

At the end of the month, some friends of mine invited to a roleplay group with some mutuals, and we all played characters in a crime syndicate. Just a bunch of ragtag thieves and criminals who ended up together in order to protect an artifact called the Crown of Thieves, which was essentially a flag to be taken by other groups to prove that they are the best thieves in the land. My character was based heavily on my sona (if it wasn’t obvious) and was also influenced by Cloud Strife, since the FFVII Remake had just come out and I was super into watching the cutscenes at the time. My character’s (code)name is Valkyrie, and they are a mercenary, going between multiple different employers to carry out whatever duties they need to do. They have a more complicated backstory, but presently they were recently hired by recommendation of their friend Shark (played by @shmoots-universe who is also My friend now ily maya) who works with a group called the Court Cards who are currently in possession of the Crown of Thieves. Valk never really had a place to call home, but staying with this group of people had to be the closest they could get to that feeling. They still sleep with a knife under their pillow because of trust issue but that’s okay.

Okay, so technically these examples started in April, but I continued making content with them in May, and the month was just pretty void of art in general, so here I am addressing them.

There were two main things I worked on this month: a Steven Universe AU of my own and the whole #sixfanarts thing that kicked off around then. Let’s start with the fanart bits. I did two and a half of them (six in April and nine in May), and it was so much fun to be able to draw stuff I don’t normally do! My personal favorites are shown here: Blake Belladonna from RWBY, Roll from Megaman, Yuki Konno from Sword Art Online, and Link from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. The other thing I’d been planning for a while was a Steven Universe AU, probably to cope with the show being over but also because I was inspired by a lot of those SU AU artists I started following at the time. I won’t share the details here because it’s gonna have its own blog at some point, but the example I’ve shown here is of a comic I made loosely in order to introduce a divergence in the plot of the story as well as introduce a character unique to my AU. It was a lot of fun figuring out how to draw the characters and get a feel for the style.

As the year progressed, my amount of art I made per month began to dwindle, this time mostly because school was kicking my ass especially hard with finals. However, I took what time I had to get some backburner pieces finished, like the Tigerlily picture which I sketched out a couple months back, and the Gunvolt picture which I started working on SIX YEARS AGO. I don’t quite know why I got the urge to work on it again after so long, but it was nice to finally realize. The other drawing for DOTS was done in the dead of night but I was really happy with how it came out.

Despite only having two summer classes left of school, this month was really rough because they demanded a lot of my time and attention. I did not have the gumption to do anything digital, so I stuck to my sketchbook to get out what I felt like getting out.

My friends and I did a stream of the game Helltaker, and I really enjoyed the concept, so in following my friends I made my own Helltaker demon OC named Raksha the Ravenous Demon (it’s a pun but also got mythical insp). I also got super into Hazbin Hotel at this point, mostly because the Addict music video dropped and I couldn’t get enough of it, so I doodled Angel Dust cuz I felt like it. The other drawing I did was actually a free commission I gave a friend of mine as a prize for a trivia game show I ran back in June. He along with a couple other friends got some free drawings from me for getting the top three scores, and this one in particular was fun because of how interesting it was. He wanted me to draw a video game reviewer called the Irate Gamer from a specific moment, and I decided to go ham and just make it as dramatic as possible.

University classes finally wrapped up and right after that I was in the process of moving out of my apartment and getting adjusted to living with my parents again. I did a couple of agg.io drawing sessions with my friends from the Court Cards group as well as a new Dungeons and Dragons homebrew group I had joined. I drew some more of Valkyrie and came up with a design for my DND character Qakuqtuq (or Kai for short). He is monkey grandpa and I love him.

My main focus was on finishing a polished piece for my friend Cake, whose birthday was in the upcoming month. I wanted it to be as amazing as possible, so I put a lot of time into getting more detailed and making them look good. In addition to that, I did a few TOME doodles just for fun. The creature on the bottom was for this month’s art challenge on my Discord server where we made original TOMERPG monsters, and I created Hundylow, a Crystal-element monster based on the Grindylow from English folklore.

This month was a lot more productive than the past few had been. I tried to do a 31-day art challenge called Creatober but failed to get past the third prompt because I was still swamped with other work. I’m still happy with what little I did, including the piece with my characters Kyle and Guarudan from DSWD.

I don’t remember how, but I also suddenly rediscovered an old Flipnote Hatena series called Tales of LostClan, a Warriors fan series that I would say was the most obscure thing I’ve ever been super invested in. It was what got me into the actual Warriors books, and I liked it so much I redrew the animations into a comic... twice. Didn’t get nearly as far the second time but clearly my love for this little fanfiction had not waned after nearly a decade. I felt like drawing a book cover/movie poster for the series, just to get it out there and see how much I’ve improved over all that time.

Also I felt like making a vampiresona just before Halloween because I never dress up for Halloween in art (or real life anymore, for that matter), and I wanted to do something like that for once. It was short-lived but I really liked the design!

The focus of this month was definitely on Pokemon stuff. As per usual I contributed to the current Gotta Draw ‘Em All collab, and I was tasked to draw Regieleki. It was really fun to figure out how to make it stand out and look like it was made of electricity.

I also committed a lot of my spare time to my Fakemon Gym Leaders, as I had been working on bringing them to life in the past year or so now. As of this post, I’ve finished rendering their full body poses and gym badges, but I’m still working on completing all eight VS portraits, the first half of which are shown here.

I... didn’t draw anything this month, actually. What I’m showing here was worked on in the last few days but has actually been in progress for a couple of months, and I just finished it earlier today, in 2021. But I needed to show something off, and it’s also about time I mentioned it.

Back in October, I kept seeing people rave about this game called Genshin Impact, and I was interested but not so much as to start playing it... until my friends started playing and I was like “fuck it, let’s download it”. Since that day, I have been super immersed and in love with this game, to the point I came up with my own canon based on my gameplay experiences. This also included the creation of an original player character: Astra, the non-binary Traveller. And now, I’ve finally drawn them and brought them to life.

It has been one hell of a year. I had some of the highest highs and lowest lows in 2020, lots of changes, and I have now officially moved onto the next chapter of my life now that my time at university is finally over. I’m very excited for what 2021 has to offer, and I’m going to go forward with great ambition.

#my art stuff #art summary #this is always a joy to do every year and i'm glad to keep up the tradition for the sixth year in a row #this year was super good for this as well just to look back on what i was actually able to accomplish #long post #tome #hazbin hotel

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britesparc · 4 years

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Weekend Top Ten #442

Top Ten Transformers Gimmicks

There was a time when I felt that this blog was pretty much wall-to-wall Robots in Disguise. Seems I couldn’t go more than two or three weeks without some list or another ranking my favourite Autobots, Decepticons, issues of the Marvel UK comic, issues of the IDW comic, my favourite artists, my favourite alternate modes, my favourite ways Optimus Prime came back from the dead… basically, what I’m saying is I used to write about Transformers quite a lot.

Recently, though? The last year or two? Not so much in the way of sentient mechanoids round these parts. I think partly this is a result of the ending of the original IDW continuity; whilst the rebooted Transformers comic is good, I must confess it hasn’t grabbed me the way the (for want of a better term) More Than Meets the Eye era did. I don’t think it possibly could; the interweaving continuity, the shared universe, the multi-layered world-building and puzzle-box writing, all combined to form a perfect storm around my most beloved of franchises. Did it go too deep, too dense? Occasionally. Did it end too soon, rushing into a climactic conclusion without the room to allow every plot twist and character death to sufficiently breathe? Yeah, a little. But on the whole it stuck the landing, not too shabby a feat for a galaxy-spanning epic that, under various creators, had managed to tell a more-or-less consistent story (papering over the cracks of several soft reboots) for over a decade at that point. As I’ve written before, I loved that Transformers so hard, it was almost inevitable that whatever came next would suffer by comparison, because by definition it could no longer be my Transformers.

So, yeah, that’s one reason. But another is, it’s been harder to think of things to write about. I’ve talked about favourite characters and stories; where else do I go but the increasingly obscure? However, I wanted to give it a try. Last weekend should have been TF Nation, the delightful Transformers convention held each year in Birmingham. I usually go; I gave last year a miss, but I’d been fully intending to make the trip again this year. And then 2020 happened, being all 2020 in our faces. This is a weekend where I might have shared my favourite moments from TFN! Pictures of cosplay! Of friends and creatives I admire! Of toys I can’t afford! But no; instead I’m watching my wife play Stardew Valley and writing this blog (which, I’ll be honest, is actually quite a pleasant way to spend the time, but let’s not get too deep into the weeds over here). Anyway, to celebrate TF Nation, and the stay-at-home “Big Broadcast of 2020” online show that they put on, I’m returning to the Nucleon Well once again with another Transformers-themed Top Ten.

This week: my favourite Transformers toy gimmicks!

Transformers, of course, are cars and whatnot that turn into robots or what-have-you, but across the years Hasbro has experimented with different modes and features to keep the toys fresh and unique, and also to sell a bunch of new ones to impressionable kids. Some of these are sublime; some, frankly, ridiculous. So this week I will explore my ten favourite ones; my ten favourite sub-brands of the franchise, so to speak. Some of these I think are genuinely fantastic as a concept; some, I just liked because it seemed cool, or was made cool by the fiction; and some are just daft crap that I enjoy. Make of it what you will! I’ve decided, incidentally, to focus on “gimmicks” here as being different modes of transformation, or other associated features, rather than define them by what they turn into. So there are no Insecticons or Dinobots, because whilst bugs and beasts are cool, really those are both normal types of Transformer that turn from one thing into another thing. Make sense?

Good. Now roll the eff out.

Combiners (1985): what’s better than one robot? How about, like, five or six, and they all clip together to form another massive robot? Clipping machines together to make bigger machines seems like a cornerstone of any sufficiently advanced civilisation, and whether we’re talking the complexity of OG combiner Devastator, the hot-swappable fun of the likes of the Aerialbots or Stunticons, or even Dreadwind and Darkwing combining in vehicle mode to form Dreadwing, it’s always great. Plus it makes you want to buy all the toys so you can make the big robot! Everyone’s a winner!

Headmasters (1987): robots whose heads – get this – come off and turn into little robots. What’s not to love? And the little robots (what are the heads) then can sit inside the big robots’ vehicle modes, and, like “drive” them and stuff. Although they had some plot gymnastics to perform to make sense of the fiction (quite why the heads had to be Nebulons and not just other Transformers I don’t know), but as a toy gimmick, they were fab. And that’s before you get to most-wanted Fortress Maximus, whose head turned into a robot whose head turned into a robot.

Pretenders (1988): man, I loved Pretenders, even if the concept outstripped the toys a lot of the time. Basically humanoid shells that hide Transformers, later iterations also allowed for animal shells, vehicle shells, even transforming shells; we got new versions of classic Transformers, and one of the all-time great villains in Thunderwing. All this despite the first lot of toys being bulky and awkward, and the whole idea of “disguising yourself as a thirty-foot human” being somewhat suspect in the first place.

Triple (and more!) Changers (1985): if a robot turning into a thing is cool, then turning into two things must be twice as cool, right? Right! Boggling the mind as to how this chunky figure could also be a car and a helicopter, Triple Changers were great, even if you ended up with a helicopter that really, really looked a lot like a car. Of course, they got bigger and better, with Six Changers, who turned into six different things that all looked a lot like each other.

Powermasters (1988): back to the “Masters” concept of little robots that interact with bigger robots (it’s such a shame Pretenders couldn’t have been “Disguise Masters” or something), the idea that the toys transformation – the big gimmick behind the whole range, remember – is unlocked by an “engine” robot is very cool, the smaller toy acting as a key. A tad clunkier than that, in real life, but still great fun, and of course it brought us one of the best toys of the eighties in Powermaster Optimus Prime.

Targetmasters (1987): robots turning into guns is quite cool, but for me the Targetmasters aren’t quite as successful as their other “Masters” siblings, probably because the guns aren’t quite that exciting to transform or play with. But the concept still rocks, and some of the toys were really good, and it was nice to see the Movie characters get folded into the line too.

Jumpstarters (1985): I loved the original Jumpstarters (Top Spin and Twintwist) because they were weird, with their sci-fi alien designs amidst a sea of Earth vehicles. But their gimmick was they transformed themselves. Pull ‘em back and they jump – literally – from vehicle to robot. Self-transforming Transformers are always cool, even if usually it means that their robot modes end up blocky and simple (Jumpstarters are the opposite, pretty cool robots with chunky and unreal vehicles). Also want to shout out other pull-back-and-go Transformers such as the Battlechargers (never had them, sadly) and the utterly, utterly fantastic Throttlebots. God, I love the Throttlebots. I had all six! How much did I rock.

Cities (1986): I guess now these guys are all called “Titans” aren’t they, and they have their own carved-out portion of the TF mythos. But back in the eighties, they were just big burly dudes, the biggest you could get; Transformers that turned into actual cities, playsets that the smaller Transformers could actually interact with. Metroplex was the OG city-bot, and we’d squint and pretend that he really was Autobot City from The Transformers: The Movie. Huge toys are always fun, of course, as are playsets for your other toys, so these ticket loads of boxes. Fortress Maximus, the later Autobot Headmaster base, was ginormous and never came out in the UK, giving him a mythic status few toys ever had; as I said above his head turned into a robot which had a head that turned into a robot, a sort of Babushka doll of robotic head-swapping. Shout-out too for any bot who had some kind of “base mode”, such as Powermaster Optimus Prime and his funky trailer.

Sparkabots/Firecons (1988): these were not necessarily the most fun toys to transform (the Sparkabots, anyway, I never had a Firecon), but their gimmick was cool – or rather hot. They breathed fire! Well, not really, of course; they sort of shot sparks, in what I thought was a slightly underwhelming fashion even as a seven-year-old. But having a Transformer that could, in some way, fire for real was a huge thrill. Also, Guzzle was always just legitimately cool.

Action Masters (1990): yep, I’m going there. What, did you think I’d have Micromasters on here?! Yeah, okay, the very concept of Transformers that don’t transform is inherently silly and counter-intuitive, but the toys themselves were cool, finally offering cartoon-accurate renditions of classic favourites, with nice articulation and fun vehicle playsets. There was definitely a sad sense of a brand in decline about them, but taken on their own, they were good, fun toys, full of character, and I’ve always thought they’d still be cool as a side-line to the main (actually transforming) toys.

I feel bad for slagging off Micromasters up there. They were good, I suppose, but their small fiddly nature and basic transformation just wasn’t as fun as some other toys. Plus there were so many, and they usually came in sets, so I never really had that same bond with individual characters that I got from other Transformers; they were probably the first toys I owned whose names I forgot. And they felt, even at the time, like such a response to Micro Machines that it was almost embarrassing. Action Masters were probably a response to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles but at least, y’know, Soundwave didn’t come with nunchucks and a skateboard.

Anyway, I think we can all agree, Transformers are cool, and I should write about them even more.

#top ten #tv #comics #toys #hasbro #transformers

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mystech-master · 4 years

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A while ago, I made a post discussing my thoughts on Nu and Lambda, in it I also described why I personally can’t ship them, even if I also said you could do mental gymnastics to ignore the Saya clone stuff (read it to understand what I mean).

But, they aren’t the only ones to have this issue; What about Noel and Celica, two more MAIN characters who have a similar issue in their storytelling.

I will go into that now, starting with Noel (beware possibly long-ass post)

Noel is one of the main characters, and one of the most important characters in the setting (to many fan’s displeasure), so of course she is highly tied to the MC Ragna, even getting a lot of shippy moments with him. This is in spite of her being a Murakumo.

Now in my Nu and Lambda thing I said that b/c Ars Magus is weird and not an exact science and seem to be made from Saya’s soul not her DNA you could do mental gymnastics to ignore that and make the shipping okay. Could you do that with Noel? I say NO.

Not only is Noel MUCH closer to Saya (seriously put a picture of her next to young Saya from flashbacks and she looks exactly like what she’d grow up to be), but she is also apparently made from the largest chunk of her soul.

The games seem to go along this thought process with her:

Noel is a Murakumo -> Noel is not human -> Noel is a weapon -> cue angst

but the fans have the thought process of

Noel is a Murakumo -> Murakumo Units are clones of Saya -> Saya is Ragna’s sister -> Murakumo Units are clones of Ragna’s sister -> they are Ragna’s sisters.

This gets even more stupid once Izanami comes in and we learn SHE is Saya, not Noel (her being an amnesiac Saya would’ve made things much easier), because then it is like “See, Noel isn’t Saya, THAT’S Saya!”. Also Blazblue has a while thing about roles, like Ragna has ONE little brother and ONE little sister: Jin and Saya, respectively. But fans say he can have multiple little sisters but the story doesn’t because “roles” or whatever (using the weird stage terms that Rachel and Amane use).

Like, here is an idea I had for CS’ plot with more emphasis on Noel actually being Saya rather than just a clone/copy, or at least more focus on her connection with Ragna to HAVE that sibling instead of just taking the “I am not human” thing from the Murakumo:

They escape from the Cauldron at the end of CT, and Ragna now gets a god look at her, maybe he does think that this IS Saya, and you can have a bit of an emotional scene here, but Noel runs off b/c A. she is still shy girl and a MAN is so close to her, and B. this is still the SS-Class Criminal Ragna the Bloodedge. A bit of angst there because Ragna supposedly thought something horrible happened to Saya (based on a flashback in CF with Jubei).

Much, MUCH later, he can meet up with Noel again, before she is kidnapped by Terumi for the final act of being the Godslayer, maybe with Makoto there. This is where they can actually talk and bond for a bit so Ragna has an actual reason to go running off an saving her. This is where Ragna can explain his little sister to the two, maybe thinking that he got Noel confused for Saya since she looks just like her.

But, then they start piecing together everything. Noel has weird memories of Ragna, and she has amnesia from before the destruction of Ibukido after the Ikaruga Civil War. SO, what if Noel IS just an Amnesiac Saya who has trauma induced amnesia from the Ibukido stuff? This is great for Noel because all this time she might also be worried about her humanity after the shit with Nu in CT’s true ending, and maybe a cryptic line from Terumi/Hazama, but now with this information, she reaffirms that she is HUMAN, she has a family (imagine the reaction when she learns that major dickbag Kisaragi is her big brother). We could then maybe cut back to someone watching them cryptically commentating, and when we cut back Noel is in the middle of telling Ragna, her newly re-discovered big brother, about what she’s been up to, her adoptive family and her time at the Military Academy. Maybe here we could also have a gag reel where, like a later one where they try and help Celica improve her sense of direction, Ragna and Noel cook something. We get some fun-sibling time and get to see Ragna’s cooking hobby in semi-canon action. He’d call her Saya, but everyone else calls her Noel since that’s what they know her as (think of it similar to how Vegeta calls Goku by his Sayan name “Kakarot” while everyone else just calls him his Earth name).

THEN we have Terumi come in and kidnap her.

Rachel stops Ragna from running after them for cryptic warning BS, then the fight with Jin, then the fight with Terumi, etc. everything happens the same from there. Only it isn’t some random stranger who Ragna all of a sudden is risking his life for, this is the little sister he lost so long ago.

Then comes the shit with Izanami. One idea that had was that Noel IS still a Murakumo AND Saya, but she is Saya’s good half fragmented off when Izanami was made. Izanami is one part the Origin’s Drive and one part Saya’s Darkness. So Noel breaking off from Saya is kind of like M.Bison from Street Fighter removing all the good from his soul to use Psycho Power, resulting in Rose.

Then in CP, we can have an extra layer of conflict because Noel is trying to save Tsubaki, who points out that she is affiliated with a wanted criminal, Ragna the Bloodedge. Remember, Noel just wants to be a normal girl with a normal life. She already has the issue of her humanity with being a Murakumo, but then you have the more societal BS of being related to a super criminal. She cannot be “normal girl“ Noel Vermilion, AND friends with Ragna the Bloodedge, SS-Class Criminal at the same time.

Tell me that wouldn’t all be a really good alternative.

Also being able to refer to the three MCs as “The Siblings” is just so much easier.

and then we got Celica A. Mercury.

she flops back and forth between, Ragna’s mom, and Ragna’s love interest.

Celica A. Mercury in Blazblue Chronophantasma, is well, a Chronophantasma. A copy of someone who isn’t supposed to be alive in the current timeline. Specifically, Celica is the younger sister of the Great Sage Nine, one of the Six Heroes who defeated the Black Beast 100 years before the setting of the games. the ORIGINAL Celica, after the Six Heroes were almost wiped out by Terumi, proceeded to become a nun/sister in a church built over the remains of the Black Beast’s corpse, as she has a unique Order power to nullify seithr. With her healing magic keeping her young and healthy she lived there alone until Jubei brought the three siblings, Ragna Jin and Saya, to be under her care for an undisclosed amount of time. This is where people get her being Ragna’s mom, even thought nuns/sisters are more just general caretakers instead of parents, but she is still a female maternal figure who looked after Ragna so you can see where people get that.

But then you get “teen” Celica, the one the games show in the story. She is from the Dark War, where she actually met Ragna first. Ragna was sent back in time, with Amnesia, to fill the role of the unsung 7th Hero “Bloodedge” and stop the Black Beast for a year allowing Nine to arm humanity with Ars Magus. Celica apparently fell in love with him because she is very affectionate and familiar with Ragna once she is brought to the future as a Chronophantasma.

The story really does ping pong between her being very motherly, specifically her scolding Ragna and Jin for fighting in CP, and just being a naive child, see her complaining when people get on her case about her awful sense of direction. But it is really hard because the image of the sister seems to flash over her, which the other characters seem to notice, but much like Noel and Saya, no one in the story EVER seems to connect the dots and have that change the relationship between them.

Now I personally don’t like the ship because she is a naive child in a woman’s body, with the stupid no sense of direction gag, to her scolding Ragna and Jin as if they were Natsu and Gray from Fairy Tail who are just fighting for some dick measuring contest when we all KNOW the actual reason is more complicated but the story just seems to abandon that and GGRRRR!!!

But, looking at Celica, really you can;t do the whole “Schrodinger’s Relationship” thing like they’re doing with Saya and Noel and the Murakumos. They need to COMMIT, to a role.

If Celica is Ragna’s MOM, no ifs and or buts, then 1. They need to make her less of a cutesy child. and 2. Maybe age up her design, Litchi has the design vibe of someone who is “older” than the cast, maybe something similar to that. Just imagine another angsty scene of Ragna meeting this woman who has the same face as the Sister who raised him who he KNOWS 100% is dead, so no mistaken identity shit like I already suggested with Saya/Noel, and her looking at him with her face is just MOCKING him, especially since his first two meetings with her in CP are after he gets his ass kicked (once after he is sent back in time after Nu kicking his butt, and once after Kagura knocks him out and arrests him). Also you’d have to undo ALL ship teasing in Phase Shift, or just use one of my friend’s ideas and just have Ragna be a reincarnation of Bloodedge instead of going back in time.

If you want Celica to be the cute girl love interest, and this is the option I feel most people would want either b/c shipping or the cute girl waifu factor that Japan likes (I base some of m reasoning based on “could this be made”, then you’d have to undo all connections between Celica and the Sister. My simple idea was instead of Celica living all those years she dies there, but Nine also had a bunch of other caretakers go with her to help take care of the church. I mean Nine is one of the Great Sages AND a member of the Six Heroes you’re telling em she wouldn’t use some of tat fame and authority to make sure his little sister is safe when she is all alone out there. Seems almost out of character with how fiercely protective Nine was of Celica. Of course this all means that the Sister that raises Ragna and the siblings is less important as she is just a nameless backstory character in a similar vein to Noel’s adoptive Parents, but is is a much easier thing to do than the previous option.

Either of those two options are good IMO, but I still think Celica needs to grow up a bit and release how much everyone around her is an asshole before I can fully ship her and Ragna.

So, what do you guys think? Noel being fully Ragna’s sister leading to much more interesting plot stuff, and Celica committing to either the cute girl love interest or mom role. I feel lkike my ideas are good, but what d you guys think?

#blazblue #my thoughts #noel vermillion #ragna the bloodedge #celica a mercury

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gamex2020 · 4 years

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Best SNES Games

List of All SNES Games Based on Movies

Here are the best SNES Games of all time. Check out our picks for the best SNES games!

3 Ninjas Kick Back

Release Year: 1994

Current Value: $60-$70

This is an action-platformer with co-op gameplay and great sound design. The graphics and controls are a little lackluster.

The Addams Family

Release Year: 1992

Current Value: $14-$17

Mediocre SNES platformers can often be saved with great mascots, and this is no exception. You only get to play as Gomez, and the only levels are in the family’s mansion, but it’s worth a play if you’re a fan.

Addams Family Values

Release Year: 1992

Current Value: $14-$17

This is A Link to the Past, but with Uncle Fester and friends. The password system is infuriating, but the game itself is solid. Bonus points to the developers for making an action RPG with the license instead of a platformer.

Aladdin

Release Year: 1993

Current Value: $15-$17

Aladdin is often considered one of the best licensed platformers of all time. The SNES version and the Genesis version have obvious differences, but they’re both masterpieces.

Alien 3

Release Year: 1992

Current Value: $18-$20

Ripley makes her way through a passable run-and-gun adventure. This port is leagues ahead of the NES version, which was only released a few months earlier.

An American Tail: Fievel Goes West

Release Year: 1994

Current Value: $70-$75

Fievel gets to take down some 16-bit bosses with decent gameplay variety. The colors are sharp, and the levels aren’t too long are hard; this title is very kid friendly.

Batman Forever

Release Year: 1995

Current Value: $8

This is a truly terrible game that’s great fun to watch during speed run conventions. Notably, there is a “training mode” that attempts to be a fully-fledged tournament fighter, but it fails miserably.

Batman Returns

Release Year: 1992

Current Value: $18-$20

Unlike Batman Forever, this is a creative side-scrolling action game that uses the Animated Series’ aesthetic effectively.

Beauty and the Beast

Release Year: 1994

Current Value: $40-$45

This side-scrolling game is rather generic. You play as Beast and try to save Belle, but there’s little to separate it from other games in the genre.

Bebe’s Kids

Release Year: 1994

Current Value: $33-$37

This is the slowest beat-em-up of all time. Walking is slow, attacking is slow, and enemies have seemingly infinite health. Stay away.

Beethoven: The Ultimate Canine Caper

Release Year: 1993

Current Value: $8-$10

A simple platformer where you can play as a dog that barks at enemies for damage. No, it’s not about the composer.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Release Year: 1993

Current Value: $8-$10

This is a semi-sufficient replacement for gamers that crave more Castlevania. The graphics are a little gaudy, but you came to fight Dracula, and fight Dracula you shall.

Casper

Release Year: 1996

Current Value: $85-$100

This plays kind of like A Boy and his Blob, with Casper tethered to Kat Harvey. Oddly, the Japanese Super Famicom Casper is different, with the roles reversed in an isometric perspective.

Cliffhanger

Release Year: 1993

Current Value: $5-$7

There’s less cliffhanging and more bad-guy punching. It’s a simple brawler based on a simple movie. Missed opportunity for a cliffhanger ending, of course.

Cool World

Release Year: 1992

Current Value: $10-$13

Although a mediocre adventure game, this stays pretty close to the source material. It’s a lot more kid-friendly, though, and appropriate for Nintendo.

Cutthroat Island

Release Year: 1995

Current Value: $8-$10

Lukewarm swashbuckling action is backed up by nice graphics and music. It’s button mashing, but hey, swords are cool.

Demolition Man

Release Year: 1994

Current Value: $15-$18

Mediocre platforming sometimes switches to decent top-down shooting. Don’t you wish it was one or the other? This could have been a decent Contra clone.

Dennis the Menace

Release Year: 1993

Current Value: $8-$10

You have to collect all of Mr. Wilson’s coins and find two of Dennis’ friends. Notably, there’s a timer; it’s just as anxious as the movie.

Dinocity

Release Year: 1992

Current Value: $13-$15

It’s based on the movie Adventures in Dinosaur City. The graphics and worlds are fun to explore, and the dinosaurs you choose actually affect gameplay.

Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story

Release Year: 1993

Current Value: $9-$12

Bruce Lee gets a well-deserved tournament fighter, but almost every aspect of the game is poor. At least Bruce Lee was given recognition by getting a character in every other fighting game series.

The Flintstones

Release Year: 1994

Current Value: $10-$13

This game uses its overworld as a sort of board game, where landing on a space decides the level you play. Sometimes it’s shops, sometimes it’s bosses, sometimes it’s a normal platformer.

Home Alone

Release Year: 1991

Current Value: $8-$10

Not only does it not follow the movie, but this game can be completed in less than half an hour. Even Macaulay Culkin hates it.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York

Release Year: 1992

Current Value: $6-$8

There’s powerups, and this has a little more going for it than the first game, but it’s not a significant improvement. It’s a bit nice to powerslide into enemies.

Hook

Release Year: 1992

Current Value: $23-$26

The gameplay is standard platforming, but the graphics are outstanding for the time period. It almost looks like modernized pixel art made with decades of experience.

The Hunt for Red October

Release Year: 1991

Current Value: $6-$8

There’s side-scrolling and underwater action, with Super Scope bonus levels. If you enjoyed Jaws on the NES, this might catch your fancy.

Indiana Jones’ Greatest Adventures

Release Year: 1994

Current Value: $30-$35

Few movie games effectively used the Mode 7 functionality on the SNES, but this game is a joy to look at. It’s the second most iconic sidescroller featuring whip-based combat.

Judge Dredd

Release Year: 1995

Current Value: $7-$9

Run-and-guns don’t often give you the option to arrest the enemies instead of blasting them to bits. There’s hard bosses to make it worth strolling through the brightly-covered comic book levels.

The Jungle Book

Release Year: 1993

Current Value: $5-$7

This game picked up where the original Pitfall left off. It’s platforming with vine-swinging, so of course it’s satisfying. Is there any game with vine-swinging that isn’t?

Jurassic Park

Release Year: 1993

Current Value: $5-$7

Grant has a chibi sprite in this game that utilizes alternating perspectives. Top-down shooting with explosives and tranquilizers switches to first-person gaming when entering a building. No continues and no passwords; you have to beat the whole thing in one go.

Last Action Hero

Release Year: 1993

Current Value: $8-$10

Most of the Arnold Schwarzenegger games are shooters, but this one is a beat-em-up. The final boss of the game is the final boss of the movie to boot.

The Lawnmower Man

Release Year: 1993

Current Value: $8-$10

Nothing to do with the movie, and nothing to do with the book. Yet, it’s just as weird as both. This is a first-person platformer, a first-person shooter, a sidescroller, and a shoot-em-up (with two different perspectives and three distinct styles) all at once. Each level is different.

Lethal Weapon

Release Year: 1992

Current Value: $8-$10

It’s a platformer with shooting elements where you can play as Riggs or Murtaugh. Oddly enough, the developers opted for a more cartoony style than what you’d expect for an adaptation of the movie.

The Lion King

Release Year: 1994

Current Value: $8-$10

One of Disney’s best games, this sold over a million copies in the U.S. alone. It’s really hard, but not terribly unfair.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Release Year: 1994

Current Value: $18-$20

Thank goodness you get to play as the monster and not some boring human. You can attack all of the vengeful townspeople to your heart’s content; the plot closely follows the 1994 film it’s based on, rather than the book or the old-school Universal movie.

The Mask

Release Year: 1995

Current Value: $35-$40

Gamers would pick this up for the humor and goof factor, and The Mask delivers. It’s a side-scroller with whacky attacks and ammo meters to manage.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie

Release Year: 1995

Current Value: $40-$50

Beat-em-ups suit the Power Rangers cast. Much like other games in the genre, it’s repetitive, but great for fans of the series. There’s six characters, though they do play relatively similarly.

No Escape

Release Year: 1994

Current Value: $11-$13

No Escape’s graphics are really, really good, and it has awesome cutscenes to boot. Unfortunately, it controls really poorly. Something good got lost along the way.

Outlander

Release Year: 1992

Current Value: $10-$12

Outlander was originally developed as a Mad Max game before the developers lost the rights. There’s driving and shooting, and walking and shooting. It’s a bit repetitive, but maybe it would have sold well with an actual license.

The Pagemaster

Release Year: 1994

Current Value: $7-$9

Another Macaulay Culkin game with platforming, this time with magic combat and literature worlds. It’s not bad, but he hates this one too.

Pinocchio

Release Year: 1995

Current Value: $13-$15

Old-school platforming with an emphasis on puzzles. There’s storybook cutscenes too, which are a nice reward for finishing each level.

RoboCop 3

Release Year: 1991

Current Value: $13-$15

He’s slow in the movie, but does he have to be so slow in the game too? It would be funny if it weren’t so hard, though fans will get a kick out of it regardless.

The Rocketeer

Release Year: 1991

Current Value: $6-$8

Like many other games on this list, Rocketeer tries to mix genres; it’s half flying, a quarter shooting, and a quarter brawling. The flying segments would be interesting, but it asks you to look at a tiny camera window at the bottom of the screen instead of the big landscape that takes up the rest.

Snow White: Happily Ever After

Release Year: 1994

Current Value: $23-$25

Targeted at casual gamers, this sidescroller has three difficulty levels. Though the gameplay isn’t extremely unique, you have to give credit to developers that knew their audience.

Stargate

Release Year: 1994

Current Value: $10-$13

Though it controls decently, this is a run-of-the-mill platformer. They played it super safe with this one, considering Stargate lends itself to any number of genres.

Super Godzilla

Release Year: 1993

Current Value: $12-$15

Super Godzilla is hard to classify; half of it is a slow one-on-one fighter, and the other half is tactical tile movement. The bottom half of the screen shows tiles you can move Godzilla to, while the top half shows the actual actions Godzilla is taking. It’s methodical and appropriate.

Super Star Wars

Release Year: 1993

Current Value: $10-$12

Luke starts off with a blaster, and eventually upgrades to a lightsaber! There’s even more action than the movie for this sidescroller, plus a playable Han and Chewbacca. Even though it’s not subtitled, the game is based on Episode IV, clearly preparing for sequels. Don’t worry, there’s vehicle combat too.

Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

Release Year: 1993

Current Value: $11-$13

Episode V follows the gameplay of its predecessor, adding new weapons and special moves for the characters. Plus, there’s double jumping and a final boss fight with Vader. However, the story isn’t finished…

Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

Release Year: 1994

Current Value: $14-$16

Once again, this follows the Super Star Wars formula, but adds Leia and Wicket as playable characters. There’s more content and action-packed levels, and this is about as good as it gets for licensed games of the 16-bit era.

T2: The Arcade Game

Release Year: 1991

Current Value: $9-$11

This is a conversion of the lightgun arcade game; don’t bother playing without a Super Scope or a SNES Mouse. If you have either, this game is a super fun novelty.

The Terminator

Release Year: 1992

Current Value: $32-$35

Difficult side-scrolling with no continues are punctuated by fun driving segments. It’s harder than it is long, but you’d wish it was all driving.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Release Year: 1993

Current Value: $32-$35

It’s a sidescrolling adventure game, but half of it is escort levels. Plus, it’s not always easy to tell what you’re supposed to do. In short: quite frustrating.

Toy Story

Release Year: 1995

Current Value: $10-$13

Believe it or not, this is one of the best platformers on the system. It has awesome graphics, controls nicely and has fun levels. It sold so well, they ran out of chips to make more cartridges.

Toys

Release Year: 1993

Current Value: $5-$7

This game is seriously unimpressive. You have to collect toys to fight the enemy with, but most of the screen is covered up by isometric tiles coated in eye-straining blue paint.

True Lies

Release Year: 1994

Current Value: $30-$35

Reviews for this are polarized. It’s a top-down shooter almost reminiscent of modern games like Hotline Miami. It’s short, but very sweet.

Warlock

Release Year: 1994

Current Value: $10-$12

It’s repetitive and you won’t want to finish it, but the puzzles and spells of Warlock are impressive for a couple hours.

Wayne’s World

Release Year: 1993

Current Value: $10-$12

It’s hard to be accurate to a movie like this, but the Wayne’s World game is goofy and fun. The graphics are pretty good, but it’s hard to pay attention to them with the game’s difficulty.

We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story

Release Year: 1993

Current Value: $6-$8

It uses the movie’s characters, but has a new plot to follow. The graphics are nice, but it’s a rather simple platformer. Great for kids.

The Wizard of Oz

Release Year: 1993

Current Value: $20-$25

It’s got some cool ideas; the main cast is all playable and there’s new locations to visit in the World of Oz. Unfortunately, the platforming is broken and the foreground and background blend together.

#Best SNES Games #SNES Games #gamex

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trainsinanime · 4 years

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I've not really followed the Hogwarts House discourse over the years, so there are things that I see nowadays that surprise me. Like, I've seen an awful lot of posts here that claim that Miraculous Ladybug main character Marinette Dupain-Cheng would be a Slytherin. And I am very curious where that idea comes from.

The other big house headcanon for her seems to be Ravenclaw, which, you know, sure, fine. She is indeed rather smart. Personally, I think there's nothing wrong with just admitting the obvious and putting her in the designated Heroes' House. In particular because her intelligence is less about memorising facts and formulas or spending hours thinking about the mysteries of the universe, and more about very quick thinking and resourcefulness in crisis situations. But hey, whatever you prefer.

Slytherin, though? I mean, what even is Slytherin? The obvious idea is that it's House evil and/or House antagonist, but that's obviously too simple. In fact, the books even claim that it's wrong. We get some ideas of what the house is about for example from the Sorting Hat, but his descriptions of characteristics is vague and not exactly helpful. Instead, let's look at characters who went there, and at the goals of the house's founder. Oh, and at all the Death Eaters who went there.

(For the purposes of this post, I'll consider Pottermore to be non-canon, because I've never looked at it and I can't be bothered to start now.)

That shows a very clear picture actually, and that picture is not primarily about "clever" or "ambitious" or some vague shit like that. It's all about racism and elitism. The racism should be obvious from the fact that it's only for those "whose blood is pure". When it comes to elitism, just look at who goes and thrives there. We see, broadly speaking, three different types of character who go to Slytherin:

Kids from well-established families with old money and lots of political power. People who represent entrenched power structures and profit the most from them. Draco Malfoy is the canonical example, just like most of the Black family tree.

Professional lackeys, like Crabbe, Goyle or Slughorn: The kind of people who want to rise into the first group, or at least gain social status by serving them and adopting their attitudes. These people are clearly a lower social rung than the Malfoys.

Rare social upstarts, who don't fit into the classical scheme, but who are very capable and willing to work within the rules of the ruling elite. They get a certain outsider status: Appreciated for what they can do for the elite, but never fully part of them. It's here where we find Snape and Tom Riddle.

Slytherin is, at its core, about power. Not about evil wizards seeking the most power ever (though they certainly exist there), but about the sustained power that a small elite group of families has over the rest of the magical community. Slytherin is the house for those whose family is in power and who expect to be in power themselves in the future, and the house for all those who think that helping this unfair system is their best shot at making it big. The racism against people with non-magical parents is not a stupid ancient relic, it's a key part of ensuring that only those who already know and like the unfair elite system get in. Also, note that the defining positive value for Slytherin that the Sorting Hat pulls out of its… well, inside, I guess, is friendship or loyalty. That sounds nice, but loyalty also means that criminal members of the elite class won't expose one another in order to avoid a collapse of the whole elite system. Compare how in the first book, Neville trying to stop his friends from doing illegal stuff is explicitly called out as a good thing.

This is clearly no accident; it's based on real-life British society, which does have a clearly definable elite (completely unrelated to nobility) that provides most politicians, civil servants, but also e.g. many journalists. These people go to private schools like Eton (twenty of the British prime ministers went there), then later the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, and their kids will most likely do the same. Politicians who didn't go there (e.g. Jeremy Corbyn) will often have a harder time with the Eton-educated press than those who went to Eton themselves (e.g. Boris Johnson).

For the record, I'd say that Ravenclaw seems to be about actually gaining knowledge and understanding the world better. Note how Luna is the character who is the most curious about actually finding out new stuff that nobody believes in yet, instead of just memorising books. Hufflepuff seems to be based on modern egalitarian ideas of education for everyone. And Gryffindor, well, yes, that is the Heroes' House. All its values are about heroism, doing the Right Thing™, bravery, fighting and so on.

In Miraculous Ladybug, let's try and apply this to actual Parisian situations. Imagine there's a revolution going on: Would the character in question stand on the barricades, waving the red flag of the working class? Or would the character be on the other side, outraged at this display, ordering the soldiers to fire? That's how you can tell whether a character actually belongs in Slytherin.

In ML, that's then obviously Chloe, I mean honestly, where else would she be. It's easy to forget Sabrina, but yes, she's 100% a committed enabler of existing power structures. Lila, too; she's more the kind of Voldemort character who'd try to sneak her way into the elite. Gabriel Agreste is almost too obvious, and he would have been very disappointed that Adrien "failed" to make it there.

Marinette, though? As the daughter of parents who own their own bakery, she's technically petite bourgeoisie, a group that according to Marx is more likely to emulate the elites in the vain hopes of joining them, rather than challenge them because they've been led to believe that any form of social justice would threaten the status they do have (note: In the US that's not just the petite bourgeoisie, it's everybody). But Marinette, specifically? I think we all know that she'd sew the red flag herself, and would be right up on the barricades, calling for the children of the fatherland to rise up against tyranny's bloody standard, and to fight for liberty, equality and sisterhood (And yes that is a scene I plan to write in a fan fiction some day).

If you insist on the whole "Good person in Slytherin" trope that the Harry Potter books insist is totally a thing, yo, then how about Kagami? She definitely has a very selfish and elitist world view, like in Frozer, where she announces that she doesn't hesitate (to take what she wants) and then… takes Marinette's hand. She fits right in with Slytherin. But she's also actively questioning the selfishness her mother taught her, because she's learned how much fun it is to have friends. We see that in the season three finale, where Kagami has a crisis because she wants to be Adrien's girlfriend, but she also wants to be gal pals with Marinette, and she's so shaken that she actually vents to Ladybug, who she thinks is the only other person her age. She does settle on "I'm gonna do the selfish thing", but you know, props for at least questioning it.

To sum this up: Putting Marinette, or any generally friendly character in Slytherin in your head canon, requires an incredibly selective interpretation of what Slytherin is about.

And if you try to convince me that Marinette belongs in Slytherin because Snape's story showed that Slytherin is the house for crazy stalkers who just get resentful instead of talking to their crush: Well, that's just rude. Not necessarily wrong, but wow, rude.

#miraculous ladybug #Marinette dupain-cheng #written while very tired and not proofread sorry #full disclosure i own a slytherin bathrobe and i'm not sorry because it's very soft and ilike the colors #wow this got long #if you want to write that fan fiction scene go right ahead i don't claim ownership of that idea its too obvious #slytherin #harry potter #hogwarts #mlb meta

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jesawyer · 5 years

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Unsolicited Opinions on Improvements for Mordhau’s Frontline Mode

In spite of not being particularly good at them, I’ve been a fan of competitive team-based, objective-oriented FPSes going back to Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and Battlefield: 1942. When they’re good, they’re great. The thrill of victory/agony of defeat on map like W:ET’s Fuel Dump is hard to match in either a single player game or a standard DM/TDM environment.

When I saw that Mordhau was coming out with a team-based, objective-oriented mode (Frontline), I was thrilled. Mordhau’s combat is challenging and I always appreciate when something is...

There are problems with balance (HORSES) and, as with any online competitive game, the in-game chat being a vortex of brain-destroying negative energy, but the developers at Triternion have already discussed plans to address those issues. And while they’ve also discussed plans to look at Frontline, that’s not going to stop me, who has no experience working directly on team-based, objective-oriented FPSes (other than giving advice on Armored Warfare, I guess... ), from giving my unsolicited opinions on how Frontline could be improved as a mode of gameplay.

I’m an RPG designer, so if anyone reading this wants to dismiss these ideas immediately, feel free. Take ‘em or leave ‘em, baby!

Things I’m not Going to Address (Except Here)

It’s worth saying things that I’m not going to really dive into because I don’t think they’re problems with Frontline as a mode. First, weapon balance. I have opinions on how weapons and weapon costs are balanced in Mordhau as a whole, but I don’t think any Frontline map is made or broken because of overall weapon balance. Horses and firebombs are sort of the exception here, but Triternion has already acknowledged problems with both, so there’s no point to beating on that billhooked horse.

Second, in-game chat being a cesspool of idiocy. I mean, it absolutely is, but it’s also 100% unnecessary for playing Frontline. Because Frontline has a single conflict point at any given moment of the game, it’s really rare that any deep team coordination is required. And if the mode evolves to require better coordination, it would be better served by the existing voiced in-character quick bark system (which is not dissimilar in overall structure to Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory’s) than by requiring characters to type in / read text chat.

As a reminder, you can disable the chat log entirely from the options menu. In my experience, it is only an improvement.

Asymmetry

One of the first enormous hurdles to achieving good gameplay balance on any Frontline map is that every Frontline map has either asymmetrical map layouts, asymmetrical objectives, or asymmetrical map layouts and objectives.

It’s hard to un-ring the bell on these design decisions, but it’s important to recognize that when both the layouts and objectives are asymmetrical, it’s significantly more challenging for designers to achieve what feels like (to players) a fair set of challenges for both teams.

On maps where the layouts are close to symmetrical (e.g. Mountain Peak), it’s important to ensure that the final stage objectives feel like they require a similar amount of time, effort, and focus to complete. Of course, Mountain Peak’s final stage objectives don’t require a similar amount of time, effort, and focus to complete, so whether your team wins or loses once pushed back to their final spawn can feel like a tooth-and-nail struggle (pushing the ram to red) or like you suddenly lose out of nowhere without even seeing the final objective fall (burning tents in blue).

To compare these two objective types, we can look at how they work in games like Overwatch or W:ET. The ram at red is like an Overwatch payload and other than the fact that it moves, it’s not much different from flag objectives in Frontline. Blue players stand around the ram and it moves -- unless red players stand in the area and/or kill the blue players in the area. Unlike an Overwatch payload (or the train car on W:ET’s Rail Gun), the defending team cannot reverse the direction of the ram once it starts moving. They can only stop it (reclaiming their nearest flag will also halt forward progress). The ram is easy to track and players from both teams can try to dogpile onto it (or the nearby flag).

In contrast, the tents that blue has to defend are spread out over a relatively large area. A single red player can throw a torch and light up a tent and there’s not much blue can do to stop it. Of course, red can just forget to do it, which is a real and separate problem, but all of these problems contribute to making the final objectives feel massively different in terms of the effort and coordination required to accomplish them.

It would probably be easier to change the objectives on Mountain Peak than to try to use map layout as a balancing factor. On maps like Grad, where the layout is so totally asymmetrical, making the final objectives more symmetrical could help a lot. Even if both red and blue had to destroy three carts, the layouts of the final objective zones are so fundamentally different that the experience would be inherently different. And that’s really the goal, right? That it feels different winning as blue than it does winning as red? I believe most players would rather have symmetrical objectives that feel more balanced for each side than to have asymmetrical objectives that feel massively lopsided in execution.

Map Refinement

This is related to asymmetry, but is a separate issue. There’s a lot that could be edited out or changed on each of the existing Frontline maps to make gameplay more enjoyable. A relatively minor, but significant, change on Taiga’s layout made a huge impact on the viability of blue taking the central flag. There are two types of map refinements that are important: large scale and polish.

Large scale issues are things like Grad’s subterranean dungeon. I would argue it doesn’t need to exist at all, but a reasonable argument could me made that having another path into the castle is valuable for red. Still, it could be cut in half in terms of overall complexity/size and it would still accomplish the same goal.

Another large scale issue is the distance of blue’s spawn from the center of Crossroads relative to the distance from red’s spawn. Blue’s is quite a bit farther away and their path is obstructed far more than red’s. Additionally, red horses can (and do, nonstop, every match) run circles through blue’s spawn. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that the base spawn of each team should be blocked from continuous horse access.

In general, looking at each team’s spawns relative to the capture point between them, consider if each team has a similar burden to access the capture circle in terms of distance, obstruction, and vulnerability to enemy harrying tactics (i.e., prior to even entering the circle). If they don’t, address those as part of large scale map changes.

Polish issues are things like the myriad small collision hangups that exist on almost every map. E.g. on Crossroads, overhead clearance between the ground and stairs in the central fort, the chunk of debris on the ground just around the NE corner of the base of the central fort, and red’s ramps over the palisade wall. Making movement collision accurately model every bump and nook and cranny produces frustrating experiences for players. Smooth out the collision to produce walking surfaces that don’t stop player movement because of minor, almost imperceptible height differences. If smoothing the collision out makes it differ too much from the world geometry, change them both.

Catapults, Trebs, and Similar Instant Death Machines

Speaking personally, I don’t think these add any value to Frontline. When I get killed by one of them, 3/4 times I had no indication that danger was imminent and in many situations there was nothing I could to avoid death. E.g. on Grad, it’s easy for red to launch catapult shot over the wall into the smithy, giving even players who are looking in that direction less than half a second to react (i.e., realize they will die) to the enormous stone sphere as it crests the wall.

If these siege weapons continue to be a part of Grad, Camp, and other maps, please give players an audio/visual cue - regardless of where they’re looking - that death is inbound.

Airstrikes and artillery in W:ET are preceded by colored smoke and distinctive sounds that give players a window of opportunity to get out of the way. I’m not saying there should be smoke where they will land, but a better audio cue would go a long way to making siege weapon deaths feel less random and arbitrary. Yes, silent death from a catapult is realistic, but it’s obnoxious from a gameplay perspective and can instantly change an objective from being threatened to being completely cleared.

Better Audio Cues

Players have a difficult time focusing on Frontline. It’s just human nature. There’s a reason why Overwatch focuses everyone toward a single payload that they stand on.

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory used voice of god-style announcements to indicate when major map-critical events were occurring and to tell players what they were supposed to be doing. At the start of Fuel Dump, the Axis announcer says, “Don’t let them construct the bridge! Construct the command post!” When the Allies construct the bridge, the announcer yells, “Bridge constructed! Destroy it!” The announcer keeps track of every major game state and constantly reminds the players where they stand on the map. When dynamite is planted on an objective, everyone in the game is made aware of it and it focuses their efforts on defusing it / ensuring it goes off. Critically, there is a window in which the defending team can rush to the objective and stop / reverse what has been set in motion.

In Frontline, when enemies are attacking a flag, players on the defending team don’t get an audio cue until the tide has turned in the attackers’ favor. But by that point, if a player is not already involved in the defense of the flag, it’s unlikely that they can reach the flag in time to make a difference. Better and more audio cues about the state of an objective would help focus players more on the objectives than they currently do (not much).

Audio cues can also apply to player-initiated barks being broadcast across the team. Yes, spam can be a problem, but muting players should be an easy process in any competitive online game. Mordhau already has a robust set of voice barks, but they’re only heard in proximity to the player and most of them aren’t useful in any practical sense. Being able to yell for help isn’t that appealing when it’s limited to a 15′ radius around you and everyone in that radius can already see someone feint morphing a maul into your face.

However, being able to call for help or reinforcements and having it broadcast to the team with an on-screen indicator of your location or the nearest active objective -- that could be quite helpful. Arguably one screen of the commands could be reorganized to only and always be team-wide barks: Hold, Follow Me, Help, and Charge. Need Healing or Need Repairs could also be added to the list.

Point Scoring and Display

Even players who elect to play Frontline are often awful at actually focusing on the objectives. A lot of players go into it as though it’s TDM. How many times have you seen Crossroads end and the losing team has a proud player at the top of the leaderboard with a 50:3 K:D due to running down the enemy team’s spawn with a horse for the whole match?

K:D is a fine metric for success in DM or TDM, but it’s not the point of Frontline -- at least, it isn’t when it’s away from the objectives. I think there are a variety of changes that could be made to scoring and to the display of scores to help focus people on the objectives.

First, killing and, arguably, dying on or near an active objective should be weighted as more valuable than killing random enemies 75m away from an active objective. Players currently accrue points for neutralizing and capturing an objective, but if the needle isn’t moving, they don’t earn any points for fighting on the objective. This discourages proactive defense and doesn’t motivate attacking players to push fights into the objective unless the odds are already heavily in their favor.

Damaging blockades (with anything other than firebombs, anyway) and repairing them are tedious, often dangerous activities that arguably do more to aid/hinder access to the objective than killing an individual unit. Since firebomb damage is being tuned, it may be worth considering increasing the score bonus for damaging or repairing blockades to encourage more players to prioritize taking down barriers before entering melee with people in the general vicinity.

For Frontline, consider highlighting score in a lighter color (vs. K/D/A) and either adding additional stats (healing, capture, and repair/destruction score contributions) or only showing the player’s K/D/A (no one else’s) to de-emphasize the importance of K/D/A. I’ve seen a lot of posts online where players post screenshots of someone “scandalously” at the top of a Frontline scoreboard with a poor or mediocre K/D/A. Yes, it’s not DM/TDM, it’s Frontline. The point is ostensibly about pushing objectives and helping your teammates do that. The way points are scored and displayed should emphasize that, with K/D/A only being one element.

Supply Boxes and Their Placement

I have pretty mixed feelings about deployable objects in games of this type, but rather than advocate removing any of those things, I’m going to suggest rethinking the inclusion of supply boxes and, if they stay in the game, where they are placed. Supply boxes are the easiest way to build ballistae and for that reason, where they are placed can have a huge impact on the defensive capabilities of the team controlling the space around the supply boxes.

If the developers’ intention is that ballistae should be used mostly defensively, supply boxes should be placed primarily away from central objectives, and not close to lines of sight that point toward central objectives. This promotes back-and-forth gameplay across the center, rather than entrenching the dominant team’s position at the center.

Transparency and Tuning in Objective Capture Mechanics

It’s not currently obvious to most players how the capture mechanics on an objective work. What changes the objective from Attacking to Capturing? What ratio of attackers vs. defenders are required? Some UI changes could help highlight exactly what’s happening.

Finally, I urge the developers to think about the timing of captures and how that works with spawning mechanics. It’s common for a defender on an objective to die, be unable to respawn before the objective is considered “Losing” and, after respawning, be able to reach the objective before it is fully captured by the enemy.

Is this the desired pacing of objective captures? I would guess that something more forgiving is desired. Once an objective is “Losing”, if it’s technically impossible for respawning defenders to reach the objective in time to prevent it from being fully captured, it can be extremely frustrating. Tuning the pacing of objective captures can help make the back and forth feel less hopeless, more satisfying.

Thanks for reading.

#video games #game design #mordhau

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thechaoscryptid · 4 years

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Writer’s Tag Game, Bouncy’s Edition

Many thanks to @tipsyraconteur for tagging me ❤❤ I know I said this was going to be my strictly Naruto blog but there’s definitely some of my other fandoms that are going to worm their way in heh.

Rules: brag to your heart’s content, you’re awesome, and then tag 5-10 people to do the same.

I’m tagging (if you’d like to play, no obligation): @magnustesla, @scarecrowinthewoods, @dunloth, @caped-ace, @alexianite, @benicemurphy, and @ocean-in-my-rebel-soul (you Voltron peeps, it’s Ary 😉)

1) What’s a paragraph you’ve written that you’re really proud of?

From Order and Obedience (KakaIru):

“Think Konoha’s dog is going to be an easy fuck, ranger?” Kakashi asked, eyeing every possible exit. Just in case. “That my allegiance is so easily swayed?”

“I think if you were still wearing your boots you’d be trembling in them,” Iruka said without missing a beat. “Your desire to serve the light may not make sense to me, but even I can see that the way your skin drinks in the moon would be pleasing to any god. I’m not demanding darkness, only obedience.”

2) Pick a favorite scene from your longest fic!

The scene in Wake the White Wolf (KakaIru) where Sera and Kakashi part ways. I still get chills at the lines “You are no longer my problem. I am no longer your whore.” There’s plenty of fantastic scenes from that fic, but that still remains one of my favorites. That whole arc, really, from when she finds out the news to when it’s finally 100% over.

3) Give us a snippet of your most recent WIP:

Voltron! This is a part of one of my stories for the Sheith Big Bang coming up:

A galaxy will never be enough to contain my love for you.

Mechanically, Keith’s hands go through the motions of powering up Black as Krolia’s voice comes through the comm link. It’s another diplomacy mission--another he’d rather skip in favor of liberating some far off colony from oppressors or just staying in bed, unmoving. The lion doesn’t speak to him the way she used to, and neither does anything else. The universe, for all its glory, has become simple.

Dull.

Grey, even with color sprays from passing planets and nebulas.

He chews on the side of his lip as he lets his head tip to the side, checking to make sure things are in order. His mother’s still rattling off information about the mission and he just wants to tell her to be quiet, he’ll figure it out on his own later. He wants to hear the ghost of Shiro’s voice whispering it loves him again.

Keith…

Ghosts are never enough, but Shiro’s I’ll love you until forever ends echoing in his head assuages the pre-mission blues. “Not that it’s ever anything else these days,” he says under his breath. Krolia asks what he said, and he blames it on a squeaky chair. “Gotta get in here and tune up the cockpit when I’m back. Project for Shiro and I.”

“Well, just as long as it doesn’t interfere with things now. You ready to give ‘em hell?”

Keith pastes a smile on his face, though he knows she’s not on the video link. “Would you expect anything different?”

4) If all of your published fics sparred, who would win and why?

Ohh, tough one...based off of stats, Wake the White Wolf, no question. Off of personal preference? Probably Crescendo (SakuOro) right now.

5) What’s a fic/author you’ve taken inspiration from and in which one of your works did you incorporate that inspiration?

I won’t lie, Tipsy, a lot of my recent style choices came from Scar Tissue 😅 I found I really enjoy storytelling in present tense, with longer flowing lines punctuated by short lil ones for emphasis. It’s appeared in...most of my recent stuff? I switched within the last year or so.

(putting the rest under a cut because there’s some longer answers)

6) Which fanfiction character do you enjoy writing the most? In which one of your fics do you think you wrote them best?

This is another tough one xD I think I actually have to go with a three part answer here, though really, I enjoy writing so many more.

Kakashi Hatake: Shatter Me (KakaIru), best fic

Dazai Osamu: Marionette (Dazushi), best fic

Keith Kogane: since I can’t tell which one of my bang fics yet, I’ll go with my favorite published, which is Unsteady (Sheith). Truly, it’s going to be the fic from the above snippet hehe

7) Smut or fluff? Give us a sneak peek of your favorite fluffy/smutty scene you’ve written.

Mmm, smut. I’ve really got to be in the right mood for fluff, and my not-so-guilty pleasure reading is angsty smut.

My favorite fluffy/smutty scene...I think it’s probably from Reciprocity (KakaSaku)!

He wishes he still had the Sharingan to capture these moments. Sakura’s still got her thin undershirt on, but the delicate hollows of her collarbones call to him as she reaches over to light their lantern. There will be no fire tonight save for the one burning low and heavy in his stomach, as if he’s swallowed molten rock.

“Do I need to do the rest?” she says, dragging her hands up her legs as she stands. “Should I strip for you, Kakashi?”

He stands along with her and tugs off his mask first, then his shirt. Sakura gasps as the angry red of fresh scars is revealed, fingers twitching toward him before he shakes his head. “Let me,” he murmurs.

Inch by inch, the pale curve of her stomach is revealed. Shadows flicker and dance over it along with the flames, and when Kakashi pulls Sakura’s shirt the entire way off he thinks not even the prettiest sunset could compare. There’s several scars--no shinobi makes it out without them--and no shortage of muscle packed into her small frame, but somehow she makes a battleborn body beautiful.

Sakura makes life beautiful.

Her breath hitches when he tells her this, something shifting in her at the tender touch of his lips against her forehead. “You’re sure you don’t want me to just jump you right now?” she says breathlessly.

“No jumping,” he says. “Only falling.”

8) What’s a scene in one of your fics you wish you would receive fanart for?

Uh, literally any one 😅 My top choice, though, I think would be of my favorite OT3 in Desperately:

“I’ll be a lot cuter when the day comes.” Sakura shoved the bandana up and crunched her nose as she looked back with Ibiki. “You might have to leave me at the altar to catch everyone fainting at the sight of me.”

Ibiki’s laugh rumbled through the living room as he gathered her back to his chest. “We’re never leaving you there, baby, you know we couldn’t,” he said. “Or maybe we could take turns catching them. How d’you think your clothes will hold up, Rai?”

“They’ll be fine. I volunteer for catching duty as long as it’s you two falling for me at the end,” he said, spreading his arms over the back of the couch as he watched them sway. “And of course, falling into bed with me later.” Ibiki cocked an eyebrow as Sakura giggled into his scarred chest. “What, you think I”m joking?”

“Never considered it,” Ibiki said. He pulled away from Sakura to trail his hand up her arm, urging her to spin. His uniform lifted from her creamy skin and Raidou sucked in a breath as the purple lace on the bottom of her underwear was revealed. She knew he couldn’t resist those, and Ibiki certainly didn’t mind them either.

“Come here,” he said. Ibiki let her go and gave her a gentle push toward Raidou’s outstretched arms before flopping next to them as the song began to repeat. “I saw those. You can’t hide them from me.” Her hair tickled his face as he kissed over her cheek down to her ear. “Wearing my husband’s shirt and my wife-to-be’s favorite underwear, how scandalous, Sakura,” he purred.

“I’m sure your wife-to-be will be so very displeased I stole them,” she said, pulling back with a mock pout before turning to beg a kiss from Ibiki. “I hear she picked them specifically for tonight because she wanted to get laid.”

9) Would you ever consider turning one of your fics into a podfic? If no, why not?

Not on my own? I have hearing problems, so it’s just really never occurred to me. If anyone else wanted to, though, I wouldn’t say no!

10) The best (or your favourite) 5 reviews you’ve ever gotten! Don’t forget to tell us which one of your fics received them!

There’s so many 😭😭 My commenters are all fucking awesome, but I’ll trawl my saved comments for some highlights!

P5eud0Nym on Wake the White Wolf (KakaIru omegaverse): So, I just wanted to say you’ve been doing a fantastic job. I appreciate that this isn’t, and hasn’t at any point been, a dumb tropey kink fic. That you’ve taken the time to put so much heart into all of this. The fact that you’re exploring the politics, the social issues, and writing all of the characters as being more than just their A/B/O designations, so good. The multifaceted way you write is just really and truly refreshing. It’s obvious how much work and thought you put into this. You’re tackling a lot of really important stuff, from consent to civil rights, and it’s some grade A USDA certified Good Shit. Thanks for the fic and keep up the good work <3

Lilmeliz on Monster (ShigaDabi): AAAAAAA GUARANTEED I CAN BLOW YOUR MIND mwa. Please excuse the lame dua lipa reference I’m so sorry I’m so sorry I couldn’t-- Delicious. Finally some fucking good food. I want to congratulate you. This is such a beautiful, touching, heartwarming masterpiece. I even cried a little. I usually read shiggy with his dark past and his (soul) scars and all that jazz, and venturing into the thought of him having a mere fiber of good will in himself, in his actual self, is risky and prone to be ooc. But here it sounds right. It feels personal, private and even possible, my boi :( Dabi is an angel, I’m dying. I like the reminder “they lie, they kill...” Yes he’s an angel but he’s still evil. I don’t know what else to add but really, this is stunning! IM GONNA TATTOO THISSS amazing work

Prism0467 on Forbidden (KakaIru): You have written their mutual dependency with such nurturing attention to detail I feel as if I know them. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt...embraced by a work of fanfiction before now...this may well be a first. Your enthusiasm for this pairing comes through loud and clear, I’ll tell you that :)

PearlBear on Crescendo (SakuOro): Wow. Just wow. This is brilliant, heart-wrenching, creative and extremely, extremely well-written. You have such a way with words, I was actually crying. And you adapt their lives as shinobi so seamlessly to situations that happen in real life (how many partners give up on possibilities for their significant one and get nothing in return?). This story managed to move me deeply and all the while, they all were in-character (it hurt when Tsunade looked at Orochimaru in the same way they all do, also loved how Tobirama and Madara are his parents). The omegaverse wasn’t heavy at all, instead it’s well integrated enough that I, who don’t particularly like it, barely noticed and completely accepted it. It’s just the way things are. You manage to convey so, so much in a few words. I’m amazed. So, thank you for sharing this! I am very, very excited for what’s next, whether Orochimaru experiments to save himself, whether Sakumo commits suicide (or worse, dies on this mission), whether... So many possibilities. Your story is outstanding. Thank you for writing this gem!

(insert special shoutout to Tipsy’s review of Testing the Waters...)

and no comment appreciation section would be complete without at least one from @magnustesla!

This one from Of Scale and Steel (Sheith naga AU): Ary, sometimes I am left speechless and I don’t quite know how to articulate my thoughts after reading one of your fics. Like, everything is just so...so brilliant that it’s like my brain fucks off when I try to get my thoughts down onto a page. Turning well known and beloved characters into something else entirely isn’t easy and often they miss the mark leaving the reader not really connecting with it. But you, you are brilliant and clever in all that you write because damn, I love Naga Keith. It feels like it IS part of canon. And your oc? Super adorable and she just belongs. I really loved her interactions with Shiro and the chewing on his finger had me rollling because it reminded me of when J would test everything by chomping it. Not relevant but it sparked a good laugh from me, especially because it is totally something kids do. I’m so fucking proud of you and I’m excited to see you get your mojo back with this fandom. Love you ❤

#tag game #get to know me

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keepyourpantsongohan · 5 years

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Ayesha Liveblogs Naruto Shippuden S21

What a tender intro omg also why is this filler so well animated

The introduction of modern technology will never not be funny to me. Kakashi on a laptop. Gaara sending emails. What has the ninja world come to

I know it’s just superfluous background motion but that angry little cat design was amazing. Takes me tf out

Hello again New English Iruka Voice time to feel slightly uncomfortable

Doesn’t Inuyasha have a monopoly on this baby with a red ball imagery

Why! Is! No one! Making sure! Naruto is fed! He’s a baby!!!!!!

Naruto and Sasuke were such adorable children my heart

SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN THE FAMILY WHERE ONE OF THE CHILDREN IS JUST A FROG? WHO IS DOING THESE BACKGROUND ANIMATIONS?????

In case you thought I wasn’t being literal:

[Accompanying dialogue to this image: “Did you hear the rumours that Lord Fourth died because of him?” WHO IS THIS FROG CHILD WITH A VENDETTA AGAINST MINATO]

This ninja cowboy music seems slightly misplaced but okay

Hiruzen. U r the literal ninja president. Naruto is foraging in the forest for food bc no one is taking care of him! How r u like ‘Hahah I’m hungry too :D’

“The things that we inconsequential humans worry about are often very petty indeed” “You’re right” It’s Philosophy Hours ft. Pre-Schoolers

“Are you sure these mushrooms are safe to eat? “Won’t know ‘til we eat ‘em” HIRUZEN PICK UP THE PHONE

SCREAMS FIVE YEAR OLD NARUTO JUST JUMPED OFF THE HOKAGE MONUMENT AHHHHHH

I miss Neji :((((((((((((((((

“Please make sure that you look after Neji” show us Neji’s mum you cowards!!!

“You have to be more positive, and confident!” Nejiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii my boy

“I wish that I could switch places with you, big brother” There’s a lot to unpack here and I’m wildly concerned about all of it. This episode ought to be titled Konoha Desperately Requires Child Welfare Programs

Making an mini-episode which largely depicts Neji’s tragic backstory and centring its ending on Hinata seems like an odd angle to take

“I’m alone. I don’t have anyone, but I never cry” NARUTOOOOO

KJHFKJHG THIS NINJA BASEBALL OUTRO I LOVE IT

SASUKE USING HIS SHARINGAN TO CHEAT AT BASEBALL I WHEEZE

Also not that I don’t like Genma but why is he a central figure in this ending. Has he had more than a single conversation with Naruto in his life

Lmao @ Sasuke and Itachi’s child versions going back to having their adult voices. Pick a lane SP!!!

“Things in season are always cheap and tasty” “Oh, is that so, Sasuke? Hahaha” Sasuke learning about the ninja economy

“We’re going to visit your mother’s family” Two questions: 1) Aren’t your families the same family (eep) and 2) Don’t they all live in the same part of the village

90% of this dialogue is recycled from prior episodes except delivered more slowly and it’s a little confusing

Itachi sure knows a lot about cooking for an eleven-year-old

Sasuke being a clumsy child is such a cute character detail ahhhh I love him so much 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

“[Confused laughter] You want to be like me?” What a Mood Itachi

Sakura’s hideout in the woods is so sweet yes 2 semi-normal childhoods

Poor little Sakura already concerned about her appearance they never let girls live do they

“You’re really cute Sakura, don’t hide it” Ino and Sakura are the most adorable children in the WORLD I love their relationship 4ever

“If she’s cute like you say, then I would love to meet her” who will stop all men

“But Ino, aren’t you good friends with Sakura?” “No, not really” Okay not to project but. I have a lot of thoughts on this narrative

GASP Inner Sakura’s first appearance!!

Tiny Team 7 is all I need in the world honestly I would watch a whole show that was just those three growing up

I have only just now noticed Suigetsu as third baseman. This ninja baseball game and season in general raise so many questions

Noooo Gaara don’t cry you are gonna be so loved in the future

Rasa, can I just say, from the bottom of my heart, I’m going to yeet you into the sun

“When I look up at the sky, the pain inside my heart feels a little bit better” He’s like 4!!!!!!! >:(

“Instead of a mother, you get to have me, Lord Gaara” Yashamaru: Self-Diagnosed Mumncle

Ngl baby Gaara’s recollection of Karura is nothing like she looked like

I really don’t care for this new Iruka voice I just keep listening to him like ‘that’s not the sound of Naruto’s dad!!’

I will admit him spooking the sleeping children was cute I don’t know why I always find that so funny kjhgkjhg

“Let me buy into this fight” who taught seven-year-old Naruto to gamble

Christ alive the implication that Naruto has been doing the sexy jutsu since he was seven who will put this boy in ninja therapy

If Orochimaru had just continued to be Jiraiya’s long-suffering friend he might be half-endearing but alas he is fecal matter personified

“Come on out, I made plenty, so you might as well stay and eat” Hjgjfjgfgffg I’m not sure what’s funnier about this scene the implication that Obito and Rin both independently followed Kakashi home without noticing each other, or that Kakashi did notice and rather than question this turn of events was just like “Guess I should make more fish”

“When you’re older, do you think you’ll become a chef” I would pay to see the AU where Kakashi becomes a professional chef why couldn’t that have been his Road to Ninja persona

Ngl I spent the first half of Kakashi’s minisode wondering if Sakumo was dead or simply too depressed to take care of Kakashi and I think dead is the less upsetting outcome

“It’s no fun when you’re not around, Kakashi” Obitooooooooooooooo

I’m not saying it’s suspicious that Sakumo is given two different depictions of his grave site in the anime but Sakumo fucked an alien and I stand by that statement

All I remember from Sasuke Shinden is that a character called Sasuke “Sassy” as a nickname and if they do that in the Eng dub I won’t survive

“[Deep sigh] Alright Sakura, what is it?” Fhfjhfkjh what’s your damage Kakashi can’t your kids come to visit when people start exploding

God Sakura and Ino’s relationship is the realest.... she went to the Hokage bc her gal was worried abt her family friend and then comforted her from her loss... the looooooooove

Hinata not to devalue your work in any way but why did u collapse after poking one (1) man in the chakra point isn’t gentle fist based in taijutsu

Fhjfhkjhf I’ve seen that gif before of Kakashi knowing that Sakura was thinking about Sasuke but it’s still funny

Sasuke just hanging in the woods with kittycats what kinda redemption journey is this lmao

Ehehehe I’m still not over the fact that Sasuke recognizes Sai’s jutsu and Kakashi uses it to communicate like there are six members of team 7 and this arc PROVES IT HELL YEAH

I can’t believe I forgot the circus ninja oh my god

“There’s good money to be found for performers like us” MOVE OVER EXPLODING HUMANS WHERE’S MY EPISODE ABOUT THE NINJA CIRCUS

Everyone always commenting on the pupils and sclera of the Hyuga and Uchiha but nobody caring about Old Man Demon Eyes from the Bamboo Village:

You’d think at this point no amount of genjutsu could traumatize Sasuke

They’re leaning wholeheartedly into the ninja cowboy music

That is not how I thought they would pronounce “Sassy” this show is full of twists and turns

“What about reviving the Uchiha clan? You’re the lone survivor right?” said Chino, inquiring about when Sasuke was planning to have vaginal sex

“You really think you’re going to find him inside that seriously scary looking cave?” GASP IT’S TENZO TIME

AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIE IT’S MY BOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

“You’re Sasuke, right?” asked Yamato, as if Sasuke had not provided the memorable introduction of stabbing a seasoned ANBU in the shoulder as a sixteen-year-old during a dramatic reunion with his team

“It would be easier for us to keep things coordinated, if you sent us progress reports as you went...” Okay not to be that gal but I love that Tenzo and Kakashi are an “us” in this mini-lecture about how Sasuke should call his father (Kakashi) more often

P sure that’s Yamato’s last speaking role goodbye sweet man we knew ye well

“So does this mean that you trust me?” GO TO JAIL OROCHIMARU

Every time that Orochimaru touches Sasuke I want to leap through the screen you leave that boy alone!!! Go! To! Jail!

Sasuke having to explain his social life to Taka is a dynamic I never knew I needed. What more do I want from Naruto than frames like this:

"By showing everyone that Sasuke isn’t in the Hidden Leaf Village and that he’s still out journeying around the world, it reduces the possibility that the village will be harmed” “So are you saying that Sasuke has to keep travelling forever” “That might be so” I can’t believe the entirety of Taka came up with a better explanation for Sasuke staying outside Konoha than Kishimoto himself

“Compared to me, the likelihood that Kabuto will return to evil is extremely low”

He still helped kill......... 40,000 people????? Okay dude

I CAN’T BELIEVE OROCHIMARU IS ACKNOWLEDGING HE IS STILL EVIL!!!! GO TO JAIL!!

I’m gonna pretend I don’t see Tenzo following Stranger Danger and he’s on vacation on a beach where he belongs

Fhjkhfkjhfkj what’s the meaning of this Orochimaru you’ve looked the same since you were 25:

Sasuke: No. She’s older than I am

Orochimaru: [Soft gasp] What?

Man I remember vaguely Sasuke being involved in this fight based on the Tenzo novel scene later on but hoo boy I do not like this

SCREAMMMM TENZO TRYING TO PROTECT PPL IN THE AREA HE’S HELPING

“I can’t make direct contact with him, so I better go now” I hope it is because you filed a restraining order, Yamato

“To increase the rarity, what I’ve even done is, had all but one person in a clan killed” at this point En Oyashiro is just trying to bait Sasuke

God I love how righteous Sasuke is being rn like this is the kind of dismantling of oppression I wanted for him instead of sad murder times

This battle is bonkers:

Villain: Looks like you brought a sword to a dodgeball fight

Sasuke: Looks like you brought a dodgeball to a magic eyes fight!!

Well I certainly breezed past this part of Sasuke Shinden hello Fushin

I find it hard to believe that anyone but Naruto could best Sasuke rn

I keep joking that those eyes in the sky look like Tenzo but I’m right and I should say it

What a long, drawn-out and slightly suspicious backstory for Chino (looking at you, Fushin of two personality types)

“But now you’re still able to travel freely... and that is all because you have people who love and protect you” Team 7 cutaway with closeups of Sakura and Naruto, Narusasusaku game strong

“For the Leaf’s nourishment, your entire clan was absorbed by your village’s Roots” wow what a shitty time for such an excellent pun

Unbelievable kkhkjhfk and by this I mean completely believable:

Chino: Please explain your change of heart re: village corruption

Sasuke: I got a boyfriend

Unbelievable x2:

Chino: KILL ME

Sasuke: Consider this.... you have.... boy who is friend. Good enough

Chino: Wow Sasuke, you’re right

Lmao @ Kakashi proudly announcing that Sasuke is about to enter an unsanctioned jutsu fight in a bet to free enslaved people how did this letter go “Dear Hokage-dad-Kakashi, I am writing to inform you...”

Even funnier: If Tenzo wrote the letter bc Sasuke is shite at contacting people: “Dear Kakashi-senpai, Brace yourself to be worried and proud—”

“Are you Sasuke’s...” yes Chino, whatever the end of that sentence is, you’re correct

Huh I could’ve sworn at least a good chunk of these freed people go to the Leaf. I didn’t make that conversation up. I have discussed it many times!!! My poor Tenzo cut out for more logical story lines I guess

Omggggggg the Raikage is telling Sasuke about Naruto’s most vulnerable Sasuke moment..... the love!!! Is this the only reason they invited A lmao

En Oyashiro joining Rasa and Hiashi in the Bad Dad Club

I’ve said this before but Naruto and Sakura going on a date to talk about Sasuke is the most legit representation for their relationship I’ve ever seen that’s it that’s what them dating would be like

“You’re just like a one man police force” lol @ them cutting out the fact that Sakura said this bc Sakura’s not allowed to have individual connections to Sasuke and also just like....... how much Sasuke still wants to be a cop kjhgkjhgk baby stop

I’ve belatedly realized that Kakashi types to the beat of the intro music and it makes me giggle

“The adult world can be complicated” is that ur way of saying ‘nepotism’ Kakashi

“I’m startin’ to get a belly” “I don’t want to hear about all that” PLS

“You two are really the only ones who are special to me” aw Shikamaru

That slap was A Lot, Temari, surely there are better ways to tell Shikamaru you want him to be your boyfriend

“You don’t really think that Sai has—” “Well, he is very innocent.”

Kakashi about Sai: He’s the baby of the family

Sai: I’m the oldest and most experienced of all the youth???

Kakashi: I mark ur ages by when I got you xoxo ur legal age is 3

I’m not sure that that’s the intonation I expected for Hinoko but I guess that’s on me for stereotyping teen girls hahah

“That’s my ninja way” “Our ninja way” I feel like this is shinobi flirtation

The outro with Little Team 7 fading to Big Team 7... I have but one heart

Also the implication that they took a photo immediately post war jhgkjhgkj. Kakashi still has a barely healed stab wound and twenty years of trauma. Sasuke and Naruto both just lost an arm. Also who brought a camera to the battlefield. Who took this picture. (Tenzo waking up from a 224 episode coma: We gotta take a family photo)

“You might consider yourself a member of Team 7, but I wonder if they think the same of you” [Naruto voice] Believe it!!!!!!

“If we just kill the lookouts, it’ll be like easy to get past the checkpoint” okay calm down Soku

Lmao Shikamaru struggling to deal with rebellious teens jhghjkg why are the anime episodes I watch so fitting to my own life

Man not to get 2 real it’s fucked up that Soku fears peace wyd militarism

I don’t really believe that Soku is deserting the village but it’s a good tactic

[Panning to the bird scene at the beginning of this arc] We call that foreshadowing

Komori’s judgement seems to be clouded by his lowkey crush on Soku

“I’ve just been having these really bizarre dreams lately” that’s PTSD Shikamaru

“Feudal lords are always [tyrants] no matter where you go” then why.... do you have.... feudalism.......... [Tobirama screams in the afterlife]

Not to judge these guys so much but like.... ur ANBU and a veteran ninja surely you should have a disguise after faking your death??????? Kakashi, Iruka, what shinobi standards are you teaching exactly?? U didn’t even change ur hairstyles???

“Something similar happened to me as well” what are you... are you talking about when you pretended to be asleep during the Chunin exams because that’s not the same thing as sleeping under a pile of corpses Shikamaru

NOOOOOOOOOO SAI WHY ARE THEY HANGING MY ANGEL FROM A CRUCIFIX

AHHHHHHH I don’t like seeing Sai like this, Kakashi’s right he’s a baby!!

“Let’s just say I’ve found the place where I belong” Fhdjskhfksjhf this is definitely Root Code for something because Kakashi uses this line on Tenzo in his Tsukuyomi dream

“Then why didn’t Naruto come to get me? You and I have never been particularly close, so why were you the one who came here?” LMAO SAI ‘you’re not on my list of eligible rescuers Shikamaru 😒😒😒😒’

“Fret not, to me this is but a trifle” said Ro, lying prostrate on the ground in between groans of pain (same)

I mean... Gengo makes some pretty compelling arguments abt the shinobi system

“The alliance of nations that the Leaf is currently a part of... is only going to maintain a dark, tenuous peace” I mean... Gengo’s right even if he is a dick

“Lord Hokage told me everything... and I had a hell of a time getting it out of him too” “I don’t want to know what you did... I don’t even want to imagine it” JHGKJHGKJHG I WANNA SEE TEMARI INTERROGATING A FORMER ANBU, KAGE-LEVEL NINJA I LOVE IT

Wait are these last twelve outros dedicated to each of the rookie teams + Team Guy bc that would be adorable

JHGJHGGHGJHG DO WE ACTUALLY GET TO SEE TEMARI YELL AT KAKASHI

Update from 3 seconds later: We don’t but Kakashi’s “Euh?” sound as she knocks down his door is still very funny

“Friendship is useless” “If that’s true, then why are you crying right now” he’s been taking Sasuke lessons in his spare time

“Do you know of a man named ‘Zabuza Momochi’” !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“These are my only friends” said Sai, about two giant cartoon lions

Sai’s genjutsu scene was actually much sweeter in the book bc Naruto, Sakura, Kakashi and Yamato’s chakra were all protecting him inside his own mind but I don’t mind my boy getting a hug

HAHAHAHAHA WHAT IS THIS CUTAWAY TO NARUTO BATHED IN GOLDEN LIGHT ANNOUNCING “RAMEN” LIKE IT’S A WHOLE SENTENCE OKAY STUDIO PIERROT U NEED A BREAK I GET IT

“What in the hell was that?” that was also my question Shikamaru

Shikamaru with full conviction: To be lazy.... that is my dream

Hahahaha it’s Ninja Teen Romance Hours I guess

“Oh, you don’t want to [go out on a date]?” No that’s not what I’m saying” [walks away] TEMARI PLS

“Going on a date without a strategy, would be like trying to fight a tailed beast unarmed” [Nodding] “You have zero chance of winning, that way” I suddenly understand Kakashi’s dating life a lot more

They really rely on you being aware of Naruto the Last huh gjkhgkjhgk there’s been no mention in any of this filler of Naruto and Hinata even being in a relationship to this point as far as I remember

Fhjkfhkjhfkfh poor Iruka none of the kids know he’s President of the Naruto’s Dad Society

“I know I’m supposed to be striving to get ahead in my career, but there’s also a part of me that really wants to just continue teaching kids, one on one” Irukaaaaa <3333333

Looool even as Hokage, Kakashi just drops out of nowhere to give cryptic life advice and then leaves

Smash the statue, Tsukune, don’t let the establishment tell u what to do!!

“Eating ramen everyday isn’t healthy you know” am I to believe that Kakashi, the man who told Naruto, ‘if you're going to be a ninja, you need to eat your vegetables’ is on a ramen-only diet?? Falsehoods

“And it’s all thanks to you Iruka” khjhgkjhgjhg alright.... you win this round KKIR shippers

WHO IS ANIMATING THIS SCENE IT IS BUCKWILD??? There is no character model to speak of, most of the kids don’t have noses, everyone’s upside down or spinning around, and Iruka is... hiding in a frog sign???

There is no English translation of this caption???? EXPLAIN JAPAN. TELL ME YOUR FROG SECRETS YOU KNOW I LOVE FROGS [INSERT PICTURE OF TENZO HERE]

(Update I looked it up in the sub and the caption offers no more insight. “IRUKA UMINO, AROUND 30 YEARS OLD. STEALTHILY”)

“This is for Hinata, so let’s all try our hardest” Kiba loves Hinata MOST

You know how if you pause in the middle of an animated action, you sometimes linger on an in-between image that looks goofy because it was meant to add to the motion rather than be focused on? This whole episode is animated like one of those images

It’s okay Lee the only dumbbell Naruto is fixated on is Sasuke Uchiha

I know don’t usually post so many images in these liveblogs, but I really need anyone reading this to see the Leaf Village’s semi-canonical Unofficial Mascot Konorin:

He is??? The love of my life???

“I don’t even have a boyfriend and train every day from morning til night” yes you do. His name is Neji Hyuga and he’s very alive and he’s a jonin sensei and he will buy you all the knives you want after he takes all of Hiashi’s money and redistributes it. In this essay I will—

You see what I mean??? Neji wants to be there for Tenten (and Lee)!!!

Tenten: What would Neji do if he were here now

Neji: [starts manifesting]

“It’s you since you’re a taijutsu specialist, but Naruto and Hinata aren’t” yes????? Hinata is???? She doesn’t use weapons but Gentle Fist is entirely taijutsu??? Why does everyone keep forgetting

KHKGJHKJHGKFHKJHFKJ I CAN’T GET OVER NEJI JUST. MANIFESTING ABOVE LEE’S BED TO GIVE HIM SHITTY WEDDING GIFT IDEAS

“And don’t forget: Hyuga” Neji........ what.... does this mean!!!!!!!!

Why say “Neji” like that Orochimaru and in fact why say anything at all [Konan voice] I’m the Hokage now, the entire criminal justice system is on its way you are going to jail!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I really can’t believe that the Naruto writers looked at Tenzo’s role in Naruto SD and decided “let’s do that.... but worse”

They animated?????????? A smaller Lee??????????? Into Lee’s mouth???????????? As if the animation style wasn’t enough. I need a minute

They are really going full Naruto SD huh??? Cut away skit like a ‘genjutsu’ scne. Lee and Guy playing a married couple and Tenten a baby. Neji in drag. This is a choice

“How can you misunderstand Neji so much” “Even if it’s only as a ghost, I’m sure that Neji would appear” I need. Several minutes

Fhjkhfkjfh Shikamaru’s vision of Gaara, Bee, Kakashi and Tsunade hanging out at this fancy restaurant. Is this who he thinks Kakashi’s social circle is these days (he might be right)

“Okay, I’ll hear you out!” Is this implication of this scene that Temari thinks Shikamaru’s idea of a first date is marriage... and she’s WILLING TO GO ALONG WITH THAT. TEMARI PLS

“Hey Ino, why would you go out of your way to make something I love? Bc she looooves you Sakura

“Sakura, I thought the same thing” GOD JUST GET MARRIED

“It’ll be too late once we go in, I could get all caught up in the mood or something like that” wait........ does Temari think Shikamaru wants to get married or fuck???? Or both??? OH MY GOD

Gaara: Naruto’s getting married.... without meeeeeeeeeee

God I love Gaara’s Blank Period hair it is truly careless and happy hair

“His ramen’s extravagent?” JKGHKHKJH everyone in the Leaf Village trying to convince Gaara that Naruto’s taste is incredibly obnoxious which is true but not in the way being described

Kankuro what’s your damage let Gaara buy a nice and personal present for the love of his life

Every time I think this arc can’t get more ridiculous it exceeds my expectations:

[Vaguely horrified accompanying dialogue: “The Raikage—” “—Will do the Hidden Cloud Dance?”]

“Well then, Gaara is just going to have to do the Hidden Sand Samba” Ah. Of course. The Hidden Sand Samba. Why didn’t anyone think of this plan before

Gaara is blushing because his new dream is just to samba dance with Naruto into the night

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh Teuchi giving Naruto an “all you can eat forever” coupon that’s cute our sweet boy is so loved

Gaara: My wedding gift to you, Naruto... is me :)

“I’m just disappointed that we aren’t going to get to see you dance, Gaara” you know what that’s fair Kankuro me too

Hahahaha Shino dissing Kiba’s plight for becoming Hokage to these random kids

I can’t pay attention to anything this ninja cat is saying because they’ve got Naruto’s voice and it is very distracting

There’s something to be curious about how it would be if Kiba married into a family that has a contract with the Uchiha lmao

Literally the girl who Kiba is supposed to be in love with is given Hinata’s voice #kibahinarights

“Oh, just take it. Money means nothing to me” the Beekeeper is truly one of the strangest characters in the Naruto universe just conceptually. Why are they wearing a giant bee stinger on their butt?

LMAO @ Kiba having absolutely no self-doubt whatsoever. Goals!!

Shino becoming a teacher after the war is actually one of the post-699 futures I like, good for him!

Iruka sweet man Naruto has compared you to a father like 1500 times have you not overheard him one (1) time

Kakashi is such a dumb stubborn bitch trying to find a way for Naruto to have a happy wedding... I love him

“This is my fault, I never taught him how to treat women! Not that I even really know about that kind of thing of course” Iruka Umino confirmed canonically gay

“I just have to bow my head a little” KKIR: 2; Me: 0

I love this tradition of Hokage boys bowing their heads for cooperation between villages yesssssssssssss

Outro for the whole OG Team 7.... I’m fine everything’s fine I’m good cool cool cool cool cool

The implication that they just sell Kakashi wigs in the village... amazing

I know this is about to be an emotionally poignant moment but what Naruto’s presence is reminding is that the only word he has said in the past 6 episodes is “ramen” LMAO

“I’m going to have to apologize to her for raising you as a such a thoughtless, inconsiderate man” raising you... RAISING YOU..................... TRULY PRESIDENT OF THE NARUTO’S DAD SOCIETY GOD BLESS IRUKA UMINO

LOOK AT THIS CRYBABY NINJA THIS IS WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT ONE OF MY FAVOURITE PARTS OF KONOHA HIDEN WAS HOW IRUKA KEPT BURSTING INTO TEARS OVER NARUTO EVERY OTHER MINUTE THIS IS WHAT BONDS LOOK LIKE

God..................... the Team 7 lover in me just despairs of this final episode bc they’re all separated and also Tenzo needs justice 4 being Kakashi’s co-wedding planner it’s in the book I read it!!!!

I will set aside my feelings to recognize that Kakashi looks very handsome

Goodbye Naruto you were certainly an experience and I mean that in every possible intonation

#decided to watch the last animated season i'm truly done!!!#ayesha talks anime #ayesha liveblogs nahruto shipduden #liveblogging #naruto series #long post

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brickroaddx · 4 years

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20 Days of Prototypes Challenge Complete!

I’ve just finished my 20 days of prototypes challenge and come up with 10 brand-new prototypes for the next BrainGoodGame (or games!) The idea is to be able to be able to make them quickly and then draw from a larger pool rather than getting stuck trying to “force” one idea. Anyway, I thought I’d describe each to you so I could get some feedback! (Feedback notes and challenge reflections after the list of games). Anyway, here are the prototypes!

A sort-of haiku of 9 of the 10 game prototypes.

“Lawnmower” – A simple real-time game where you attempt to control multiple lawnmowers and keep them cutting grass! You can also play new lawnmowers. This is supposed to sort of capture the feel of Mini Metro. (Non-panicky real-time)

Dividing your attention.

“Blob-Commander” – A game where you pick an “order” die (on the left) and combine it with a “selection” card (on the right) to give an order each turn. So you might “move forward twice with all archers, or move left and attack with all units that are connected in a “blob”. An interesting idea but has problems in terms of “action parsing” or proofreading.

Issue orders to groups.

“Protector” – An idea where you have 3 energy or action points to spend each turn. Most commonly you spend it moving around the map (up,down,left,right), but you can also spend the energy points on cards in your hand. Enemies move after you’re done and can be fast and slow. This one seems particularly open ended in terms of extending it. Lots of possibilities for enemy types, card types and even objectives (although I like the idea of a “there and back again” type objective because if you rush ahead and don’t fight much it’ll be harder on the way back but not impossible). Also tends to have a playful feel at least for me, as I find a lot of the time I can hit the arrow keys by intuition.

Ride forth, playfully!

“Dominion Lord” – The idea here is that for both you and your opponent, the cards in your hand correspond 1:1 with units on the board. So the action funnel is pretty explicit. If the unit is not on the board, the card becomes a “summon” action instead. One downside of this approach is that it seems much more fun to order units “near the front”. Maybe it needs a double move option for guys in the back like XCOM, or a different kind of objective. This is sort of like Undaunted.

Units in a deck.

“Farmer Dan” – This one is about moving around a single avatar on a map again (like #3). However here, as you move around a couple things can happen. If you move into a grass space, you “till” it, making it ready for new crops. If you move into a weed rock or stump you work on clearing it (some take more than one action). Then you have tetris pieces in your hand representing both crops and watering actions that you try to line up with the shapes on the board you have cleared with your farmer. There is a whole efficiency game about farmer actions, about lining up the crops properly and trying to refill water without wasting it. Pretty interesting. What this one seems to need is longer strategic arcs or something to “build towards”. Not quite sure what that might be.

Farming with tetris pieces.

“Deus Lines” – This one is fundamentally about building out action chains on the board. You place buildings that have an action on them and also allow your workers to “turn” as they activate them. Crucially, each turn you place a building and then send a worker in, but you can only send a worker from each side once. You can reactivate abilities by cleverly positioning your turns. Sort of a riff on the Deus/Wingspan “action-chains” type of thing. This one is pretty complex though to get started with, so needs some simple goals to work probably.

A maze of chained abilities.

“Minos Mana” – This one is roughly about building off of matched colored pieces on the board to make shapes. So sort of like Through the Desert network building and sort of like Minos Strategos (or Tash Kalar) shape building. Needs more definition to what shapes you’re trying to build, and whether those are explicit goals, or patterns that always work, or cards that you draw. Has a couple cool twists. One is that you pick up new dice off the board as you go. Two is that the enemies spawn based on an intersection of row and column, and it alternates whether the spawn row or spawn column switches. Three is that you are working against the “enemy score” and they score by capturing your placed pieces. Therefore there is an upside for spreading out (more patterns) and a downside (more vulnerability).

Patterns of elemental mana!

“Dungeon Beans” – Called “beans” because of the name our group uses for Bohnanza, which is a game where you can’t re-order your hand. The premise here is that you have a set amount of energy. Playing the left most card in your hand costs 0 energy, but each card to the right costs 1 more (so it’s more expensive to skip ahead). You can also always just do a “default” up down left or right move/attack by discarding the leftmost card. This one also seems super extensible and easy to see as a full game. It takes a lot from roguelikes/broughlikes in terms of structure (slay enemies, be efficient, get to the exit). Seems to be a lot of room for deckbuilding, card types, treasure, monster types, etc.

It’s hard work to skip ahead!

“Card Maze” – This one is about moving on a grid using standard playing cards. If you match “suits” you get to move and go down a card. If you match “rank” you get to re-draw at the end of the turn. If you match both you get to draw 2 (plus one card). You can also collect totems on the board that let you discard and re-draw your hand. Once you collect 3/4 totems you head for the exit. Already quite fun and very extensible with enemy types, different suits, special powers for Jacks (there are no Jack spaces on the board), pickups, starting characters etc etc. With the playing card metaphor I think it is a bit more approachable than most BrainGoodGames for non-strategy gamers. Very intriguing!

Matching feels good!

“High Seas” – The final prototype is kind of the inverse of the previous. By stepping onto ocean spaces you draw the indicated card. You’re trying to make sets of cards, runs, basically typical poker card hands and use them to “battle” other ships. Lots of ways this can work, and it’s fun to collect the hands and scout out the best cards to collect and asses the diminishing returns (you have limited time, can’t take em all and have to make your way north!). I have some ideas about how different enemies can work, different pickups and sub-goals and selling big sets at “markets” for a lot of points. Goal being have X money and get to “port” at the north of the board to bury your treasure/buy the port/retire etc. Promising!

Cannons are loaded. Full house!

So those are the 10 prototypes from the 20 day experiment! It took about 2 days for each prototype, and the process ended up mostly being

Day 1: Brainstorm ideas by reviewing design notebooks and mix and matching game mechanic cards that I’ve drawn up/seem interesting to explore.

Day 2: Make the digital implementation of the prototype.

One thing that stuck out to me was that my prediction of how promising each prototype would be was often very far from my evaluation after making it. Some were much better than I thought they’d be, others much worse. Takeaway: you gotta make em and see. Don’t get hung up looking for the “perfect idea”, because it’s hard to identify!

The goal of the digital implementations was mostly to assess each idea for how promising it seemed, and how easy it would be to take it from the current state to a released BrainGoodGame. I have ideas about the potential of some of them, but I’m curious what you guys think with just the gifs and the basic descriptions to go on. Which ones jump out at you? Let me know on the Discord or on Twitter.

If you’re interested in the games I end up making with these prototypes, please sign up for the BrainGoodGames mailing list here.

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bob-dude · 4 years

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Some Orange Jerk’s Hazbin thoughts, the longer version.

As I mentioned in a prior post, I thought the pilot was so-so. Don't hate it with a capital H but find everyone's love for this show to be... odd. Though considering the late 2000s Devinart vibe I get from the show’s art style, probably not too odd now that I think about it. So here’s my longer, more rambly, thoughts on Hazbin Hotel by some rando Orange Jerk on Tumblr. And as always, more power to ya if you do love it, obviously.

Art direction wise, I’m just not crazy about Viv’s color choice. The red and black and pinks give a Valintine’s day meets Wonderland Queen of Hearts vibe that just doesn't personally work for me on a visual level.

As for hell itself, I thought the background stuff like ‘Radio Hack’ and the main city being named Pentagram to be... eh? Like, that’s the kind of world-building we’re going with here? It felt less like Hell and more like a city with the trapings of Hell, at least for me.

So, main cast, the trio as it were. Eh. Meh. Like, Charlie is a Disney Princess of Hell... even though no one treats her as one respect wise which just strikes me as odd from a background perspective. And Charlie has that standard Disney nativity going on... even though she was born and raised in Hell? Like, why bother to make your most optimistic and native character a denizen of hell if she’s not going to look or act the part personality wise?

The reason the personality thing confuses me I guess, is that take Charlie out of Hell and we’ve seen her character a thousand times before: The bubbly sweet optimistic girl that’s been done so many times before. Is the ‘But in Hell!’ aspect really that much of a grabber for people? Guess it is and more power to em but it just strikes me as a strange creative choice where once again a character's personality doesn’t logically flow from their background.

Design-wise Charile is fine, red tux reminds me of the God from the 1977 Oh God movie so that gets a thumbs up in my book. Still a bit weird that a princess is wearing it but it makes sense with the Hotel set up and all so her outfit has a logic to it.

Then we have Vaggie. So, legit question here people: If you went into the pilot blind and Angle Dust didn’t make his ‘taco’ comment would you have ANY idea that Vaggie is supposed to be Latina? Because I legitimately had no idea that was what her design was supposed to say about her as a charchter. Also didn’t really get a moth vibe from her, either if I’m honest. As for her personality, she’s the standard ‘loving supportive’ GF but with an angry side protective side for Charile... and she’s a Latinia/Latinix. Does... Does no one else think that’s just a bit... off? Making the one clearly marked Latinia character the ‘angry girlfriend’ archetype?

Also, that weird pink X eye patch bugged the hell out of me when I was watching. Totally petty as shit nitpick, but I had to vent on that bit. Honestly, though Vaggie is also Meh? Like, she’s in a relationship with Charlie, cool and all but she just doesn’t strike me as a terribly interesting character if I’m honest. Gives me a sort of Lisa Simpson ‘stick-in-the-mud’ vibe.

And then we have Angle Dust. You know, in the words of Netflix’s Big Mouth, “Sassy and Gay” isn’t a personality. Angle Dust basically has that sort of ‘2000s Yaoi OC’ vibe and considering Vive once had a DA character sheet where she literally listed his personality is ‘Bitch’... Yeah.

Also, as I’ve said elsewhere, Viv and crew are doing too much with this guy. So he’s an ex mobster killed by his homophobic father in the 1920s (not mentioned in the pilot but it is a pilot in all fairness so you can’t throw all your cards on the table). And he’s a Spider Demon... even though per Word of Viv how everyone’s designed in hell doesn’t have anything to do with how they died on Earth (then why deign them that way?). And he’s a porn star (being ex Mob shouldn’t he be the one paying for porn stars as a power domination sort of thing?). AND he’s going for a Beetlejuice meets CJ from Regular Show sort of design.

It just seems a bit much, imo. Like, you could make him just a gay ex mob who mostly uses a Tommy Gun and design him to fit that and leave the Spider-Demon stuff out and it becomes a lot more manageable. Something like a simplified Zoot Suit, or the like. You could keep the sexual humor but throw it a bit more 1920s slang and pop culture references for characterization/comedy purposes (Vaggie, for example, has no idea what he’s talking about most of the time). Granted, I’d personally rather they ditch the ‘animal bits slapped on’ aspects of the designs as a whole but that, as always is just me.

For the record, I’m not ‘offended’ by Angle Dust as a character concept, I’m just not wowed or impressed, ultimately.

And then we have Alastor. Now, I LOVE Alastor as a character. He’s got that classic ‘reality warper’ vibe ala Bill Cipher or Discord but with a 1920s radio show host twist that I just think is amazing and the sound distortion they added to his voice was a really cool touch on top of it all. The problem, as always, comes more with the color choice. One one of your own characters can’t take someone seriously because they look like a ‘strawberry pimp’ that might be the time to maybe go with a different color pallet? Like, idk, maybe throw in some warm browns and brass golds to involve the 1920s radio vibe stronger? Radios of the 20s and 30s weren’t famous for being red, is what I’m getting at.

The other problem with Alastor is that he’s too strong a personality, ironically. He comes in at the tail end of the pilot and basically steals whatever interest a potential audience member (or at least fat orange jerks like me) might have had in Charlie's plight. It's like introducing Bill Cipher in the first episode of Gravity Falls. At that point whatever interest you might have had in the MC goes out the window and you think ‘what’s this dudes deal and can the show be about them instead please?’ Sure, Alastor in all of his pesudo deer (Those don’t look like horns in my opinion but whatever you say Viv) is fun to watch but he drowns out Charile through sheer force of charisma and showmen ship. Maybe the series itself will fix this but for the pilot at least I think it’s an issue.

Also, Nifty is Nifty and she needs her own spin-off ASAP. That is all.

Husk is literally Avocato from Final Space with wings and some gambling bits thrown in design-wise. That’s literally all I think of Husk, sorry Husk fans :(

The animation is good, but I do find it ironic that as much as people like the bitch about SU being off model, Hazbin I thought suffered from so many different animators tackling different scenes that it just felt jarring going from one scene to the next due to the difference in style and the shifts in animation pacing. Now, don’t get me wrong, a lot of it looks great but that switch in animators kinda just took me out of the experience in places. Well, that and the lack of proper scene transitions. Those are what also made the pilot feel like whiplash for me.

And now comes to Bob’s thoughts on the plot of the pilot and this is where the logical holes of the series start to get to me just a bit.

So. Charlie wants to reform the demons of hell of their sins so they can get to heaven and Hell can lower its population and angles down come down and deliver some righteous furry smiting on their asses. Okay. Stupid question but what the hell is Charlie basing this off of? I mean, was AD really THAT good an actor that Charlie thought going full steam ahead on the Hotel idea was the next reasonable step up?

Like, the Hotel was clearly a mess and her staff is literally just her and Vaggie and MAYBe Angel Dust. Even if the episode had ended with a horde of demons lining up to get into heaven by way of cleaning up their acts there’s no way two, three people could handle that (Or, you know, six if we throw in Nifty and Husk in fairness now that I think about it).

And that’s ultimately the thing with the pilot, the demons are assholes as you’d expect the citizens of hell to be but if they are assholes... why should we care if they get redeemed or not when not one of them is clearly interested in the idea? As cheesy as it would have been, the pilot ending with a horde of demons wanting to give this ‘become better’ thing a shot would have at least left the pilot on a better note to end on. As it is it just seems like Charlie is doomed to fail because no one but her gives a shit or belives about her idea for the Hotel and we have no proof that her idea will even work. Which just makes me wonder: Why should I care if no one else does?

Ultimately, the show has potential but the art style and aspects of the writing just don’t click for me. The show doesn’t say ‘adult’ to me so much as it does 'Hot Topic Teen trying to be adult' which works for a lot of people but for me I think Hellevua Boss as more potential concept-wise. And has scenes on Earth which do the red and black and pink and white colors of the demons a lot better visual justice contrast wise but that’s just me.

#hazbin hotel #sorry hazbin fans #your show is flawed and has room for improvement

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Best Movies Coming to Netflix in October 2021

https://ift.tt/3CTZWZs

You feel that? There’s a sudden coolness in the air, and the smell of freshly fallen leaves out your window. If you listen closely, you can even hear the delight of passerbys as they realize everything suddenly tastes like pumpkins. Yep, spooky season is almost here, and that goes for Netflix too.

Ironically, the most popular streaming service in the world has chosen to play a bit of a trick on those users wanting a lot of new horror content. While the streamer is providing new original horror films and television programming from its in-house productions, most of the films Netflix is adding for the month of October are not scary at all. Nonetheless, many of them are still a treat. So here are the best movies to expect on Netflix in October….

A Knight’s Tale (2001)

October 1

In the grand tradition of The Princess Bride and Stardust (although this came out before the latter), Brian Helgeland’s A Knight’s Tale is an anachronistic fairy tale that works better than it has any right to. It stars Heath Ledger in one of his early heartthrob roles as a squire who pretends he’s a knight to compete in jousting tournaments around England. However, in truth this is really a ‘90s sports movie with all the clichés and trappings that entails—a fact the movie wears on its green sleeves.

As a film which begins with Queen music playing in Ye Olde England as crowds clap in beat with Freddie Mercury’s vocals, the film is a balancing act that somehow looks effortless in no small part because of its winsome cast, including Shannyn Sossamon, Mark Addy, Rufus Sewell, and a scene-stealing Paul Bettany as Geoffrey Chaucer, the famed poet and surprise wingman to Ledger’s Will Thatcher. And as Will, Ledger once again only hints at the deep reservoirs of talent and charisma we never saw fully realized.

An Inconvenient Truth (2006)

October 1

With the West Coast constantly on fire, the East Coast in danger of slipping beneath the Atlantic Ocean, and the rest of the country subject to extreme weather events on a constant basis, it’s a damn shame to realize that this powerful documentary—in which former Vice President Al Gore travels the country, speaking out about the dangers of climate change—is as necessary and vital as ever. It’s also jarring and depressing to understand that the United States still has not taken enough meaningful steps to stop this deepening crisis and even went backwards during the last four years.

Gore is much better here than he was on most of the 2000 campaign trail, weaving personal anecdotes and sentiments into the fascinating and sobering info dump that is the rest of the picture. If you haven’t seen it yet, An Inconvenient Truth (directed by Davis Guggenheim) is both moving and profound, and the kind of film one should share with one’s kids, if only out of respect for their future.

As Good as It Gets (1997)

October 1

Jack Nicholson won his third Academy Award (and second for Best Actor) while Helen Hunt won her first for Best Actress in this 1997 romantic comedy from director James L. Brooks (Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News, The Mary Tyler Moore Show). Nicholson plays Melvin Udall, a wealthy novelist with obsessive-compulsive disorder whose misanthropic behavior turns off everyone he meets. But Melvin finds love and a family of sorts when he gets involved in the lives of a single mom and waitress (Hunt) and a gay artist (Greg Kinnear) who help him accept changes in his carefully controlled world.

Nicholson and Hunt richly deserved their Oscars, while Kinnear showed surprising range and emotion as the tormented Simon. Together, the three are a joy to watch as they begin to know and help each other. As Good as It Gets may dip occasionally (even frequently) into sentimentality, but watching Hunt and Nicholson win their hard-fought personal victories makes up for it.

Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood (1996)

October 1

Don’t Be a Menace to South Central and its unwieldy title is not necessarily what you’d call a great movie. It’s not even a good one, per se. But this early Wayans Brothers success is a genuinely hilarious flick—especially for young men who came of age in the 1990s when every Friday night offered another cautionary tale of “inner city life” at the multiplex. Yes, Don’t Be a Menace takes the piss out of great films about a distinctly Black American experience, such as John Singleton’s raw Boyz N the Hood (1991), as well as more heavy handed also-rans based in similar themes.

But at the end of the day, this is just a clever spoof on a once ubiquitous genre with moments of genuine comical brilliance displayed by Shawn Wayans and Marlon Wayans. From their riff on strapping young Laurence Fishburne as a father in Boyz to Shawn’s warning of the dire risk to young Black actors posed by rappers getting all the best roles in Hollywood, there’s still a lot to giggle about at this movie, particularly if you’ve never seen it.

Desperado (1995)

October 1

Robert Rodriguez’s first Hollywood movie is as much a remake of his career-making indie, El Mariachi (1992), as it is a sequel to it. With Antonio Banderas stepping into the role of the mysterious guitar-toting gunslinger, and his mission of revenge more or less repeating itself, Desperado feels like the movie Rodriguez wanted to make the first time. And if so, fair enough, because both flicks are a blast.

Indeed, Desperado is as stylish a mid-‘90s shoot ‘em up as you’re ever going to come across. With all the visual tricks and impossible angles that became Rodriguez’s trademark, and with Banderas at his most broodingly pouty, it’s a hard-R actioner that subtly plays like a comedy. The film also includes Salma Hayek’s breakout performance, which still sizzles to the touch 25 years later. Throw in terrific character work in the margins by Steve Buscemi, Cheech Marin, Joaquim de Almeida, Danny Trejo, and a cameoing Quentin Tarantino, and you have some fun Friday night fodder.

The DUFF (2015)

October 1

The teen rom-com heyday may have been in the 1990s and 2000s, but try telling that to Mae Whitman, who knocks it out of the park in 2015’s The DUFF, an adaptation of the 2010 novel of the same name. Whitman stars as Bianca, a high school senior who discovers she is viewed as “the DUFF,” aka the Designated Ugly Fat Friend by some of her (crueler) classmates. In an attempt to become cooler, Bianca makes a deal with her former childhood friend Wesley (Robbie Amell): she will help him pass science if he helps her un-DUFF. It’s a classic rom-com set-up, elevated by Whitman’s performance, her chemistry with co-star Amell, and the script’s savvy self-awareness.

Gladiator (2000)

October 1

When Gladiator was released, it came with some heavy cynicism from older critics who remembered the type of 1950s and ‘60s beefcake flicks it was emulating. What they didn’t get at the time—and which box office audiences and even Oscar voters eventually did—was Gladiator wasn’t trying to reinvent the wheel. Rather this a gorgeous and finely crafted distillation of those genre trapping in peak condition for modern audiences.

Movies

Why Gladiator Continues to Echo Through Eternity

By David Crow

Movies

Antonio Banderas interview: The Expendables 3, Desperado

By Duncan Bowles

As the father of a murdered son, and husband to a murdered wife, Russell Crowe is magnetic as Maximus, the Gladiator who defied an emperor. And as that emperor, Joaquin Phoenix gives a curiously both sympathetic and repellent performance, which is far more fascinating than the one he did win an Oscar for nearly 20 years later. And like both performers, the whole cast and director Ridley Scott are in top form at telling this story. Their efforts flirt with the pomp and regality of opera, yet the spectacle is at times as lurid as professional wrestling. Frankly, 20 years later we wish they still made ‘em like this.

The Holiday (2006)

October may be a little early for a Christmas movie, but Nancy Meyer’s The Holiday is good enough to watch year round. The 2006 rom-com stars Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz as two women from different countries who decide to swap their homes for the holidays. Winslet’s Iris falls in love with tinseltown, and Diaz’s Amanda falls in love with Iris’ brother. With Jack Black and Jude Law as the film’s charming love interests, and bit parts for Kathryn Hahn and John Krasinski, The Holiday is the gift that keeps on giving. Fifteen years following its relatively lackluster box office debut, it remains a part of many people’s Christmas movie must-watch list.

Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003)

October 1

Most people remember Angelina Jolie‘s initial turn as Lara Croft fondly, but fewer talk about her follow-up feature appearance as the adventuring archaeologist in 2003’s Cradle of Life. The sequel didn’t do as well at the domestic box office as its predecessor, but it is arguably a more enjoyable film, pitting Jolie’s Croft against Ciaran Hinds’ Dr. Jonathan Reiss in a quest for Pandora’s Box (yes, literally) with a hunky Gerard Butler by her side. The pulpy plot is silly and fun, punctuated by some clever fight and action sequences from director Jan de Bont (Speed, Twister). From deep-sea diving to leaps from Shanghai skyscrapers, there’s never a dull moment with Lara Croft, and Jolie somehow makes it all work.

Léon: The Proessional (1994)

October 1

As the movie that made Natalie Portman a star, Léon or The Professional (depending on which continent you are on) has come under fair scrutiny in recent years for its intentionally bizarre and uncomfortable Bonnie & Clyde relationship between Jean Reno’s Léon, an immigrant who pays the bills by working as an assassin for the nice pizzeria proprietor down the street (the always fun Danny Aiello), and the little girl next door, Mathilda (Portman). Only 12-years-old, Portman’s precocious antiheroine clings to Léon for protection after a crooked cop (Gary Oldman) kills her family, and then pressures him to train her as an assassin so she can get revenge… all as she becomes infatuated with the grown man.

It’s a strange film that shouldn’t work, yet does thanks to a dreamlike atmosphere achieved by director Luc Besson at the height of his professional talent, and because of a genuinely superb cast. Despite being a killer, Reno brings such childlike innocence and obliviousness to his titular character that he may as well be a French Forrest Gump. Meanwhile Oldman hams it up to high heaven in one of his career best scenery-chews. Then there’s Portman who’s heartbreaking, tragic, and bleakly funny all before she was even a teenager. Somehow it’s an enchanting action movie fairy tale that works better than it has any right to.

Malcolm X (1992)

October 1

Denzel Washington didn’t win the Oscar for Malcom X but he should have. In fact, this absolute masterpiece deserved many more accolades and appreciation in its time. A passion project for writer-director Spike Lee, who had to campaign for the film after Norman Jewison had been hired to direct, Malcolm X is a breathtaking epic. It might run at a length of nearly three and a half hours, but Lee keeps the pace nimble and engrossing as we follow the man who’d become Malcolm X from the 1940s through his ascension in the Nation of Islam, and his eventual assassination after leaving the organization.

Movies

The Internal Debate Within the Writer of One Night in Miami and Soul

By David Crow

Movies

Robin Hood Movies Ranked

By David Crow

The film features perhaps the most riveting and relentless performance of Washington’s career as he channels the righteousness and anger, as well as the humility and anguish, of Malcolm. Washington and Lee’s portrait is that of a mythic figure, but also a fallible one who spends his whole life growing, learning, and affecting his world for the better. It’s one of the best American films produced in the 1990s.

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)

October 1

We’re aware that this Robin Hood movie has a checkered history. How could one not be when everyone recalls Kevin Costner’s “British” accent (or lack thereof)? Kevin Reynolds’ Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves is certainly a flawed jaunt into Sherwood Forrest… but honestly it’s still a very entertaining one that’s better than you remember.

Thanks in no small part to Alan Rickman’s tremendous turn as the Sheriff of Nottingham, the movie soars while the English thespian redefines the term scene-stealing in his every walk-on. It earned him a BAFTA for his troubles. Almost as important, and less often cited, is the dynamic, thrilling score by the late great Michael Kamen, which in addition to providing one of the best adventure themes of the 1990s also led to the creation of the biggest song of ‘91, Bryan Adams’ “Everything I Do (I Do It For You).” Throw in some fast-paced action filmed on actual English locations and a seriously merry acting ensemble—including Michael McShane as Friar Tuck, Nick Brimble as the best onscreen Little John, and Sean Connery’s iconic cameo as King Richard the Lionheart—and you have what’s still the best Robin Hood movie of the last 40 or so years, at least.

Step Brothers (2008)

October 1

An admittedly acquired taste, Step Brothers might just be Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s masterpiece. The pair began their professional collaboration on Saturday Night Live before graduating to their first zeitgeist-grabbing Anchorman in 2004, with Ferrell starring, McKay directing, and both co-writing. Step Brothers is their third of four films together, but it’s also the most pure: a distillation of their disdain for a certain type of toxic and anti-intellectual entitlement which sprang to the forefront of white American life in the 21st century.

Embodying that man-child selfishness is Ferrell as Brennan and John C. Reilly as Dale, two 40-year-old men who still live at home with their single parents. That nightmarish scenario turns out to be an aphrodisiac for Dale’s Dad and Brennan’s Mom (Richard Jenkins and Mary Steenburgen), which forces these two petulant avatars of their age into sleeping under the same roof. Demented chaos ensues in a film where McKay, Ferrell, and Reilly are at last free from being forced to redeem the assholes they’re mocking.

Titanic (1997)

October 1

Beset by production problems and massive cost overruns, James Cameron’s epic retelling of the doomed 1912 maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic is undeniable populist entertainment, blending melodramatic romance with disaster movie dread and scale. Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio—in star-making performances—play a fictional couple who meet and fall in love on the voyage, escaping their class boundaries to spend just a precious few days together. And then that iceberg gets in the way.

The romance may test some viewers’ patience for the first half of this three-hour movie, but Cameron brings all his considerable skills to bear in its second half, making us see and feel each agonizing moment as the massive ocean liner goes down and takes 1,500 souls with it. Titanic is still one of the highest-grossing movies of all time, and there’s a reason for that: it’s an old-fashioned (except for the visual effects) Hollywood spectacle.

Zodiac (2007)

October 1

If you haven’t seen director David Fincher’s all-time masterpiece yet, what have you been waiting for? Fincher and his tremendous cast, including future Avengers Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr., plus Jake Gyllenhaal, Brian Cox, Chloe Sevigny, and more, trace in methodical fashion the long and fruitless search for Northern California’s infamous Zodiac Killer. Ruffalo’s detective and Gyllenhaal’s newspaper cartoonist take the search personally, too, becoming more obsessed the further their target seems to slip away.

Culture

David Fincher’s Zodiac: The Movie That Never Ended

By Don Kaye

Culture

Zodiac Killer Code Cracked After 51 Years

By Tony Sokol

Fincher’s film is suffused with an eerie, mounting sense of dread that is compounded by the fact that it never truly pays off—aside from hearing his (unconfirmed) voice on the phone at one point, there’s never a real confrontation with the Zodiac, nor any sense of closure for anyone. The feeling that time, age, and death eventually wash away everything, even the best efforts of decent people to trap a monster, is perhaps the true horror at the heart of Zodiac, which may still be the best film of its decade.

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resbang-bookclub · 6 years

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AMA Transcript: Simple Melody

For our final AMA of Resbang 2017, @alliope, @bbbutterfingers & @daciafu stopped in to answer questions about their Resbang, Simple Melody! Here’s some of what went down:

Q: My first question for Allie is what inspired you to do this AU?

Allie: Well I've generally had the idea for an Over the Garden Wall AU for a while, not necessarily for SE, but as the first check-ins deadline was approaching I ended up rewatching bits of Over the Garden Wall and it just kinda clicked? Mainly I think it came from Crona's betrayal and Beatrice's betrayal and everything fell into place from there. I thought the eerie atmospheres would work well together! So I ended up scrapping my previous idea and wrote 3k plus a summary like three days before the first check-ins, rip.

Q: For butter/dacia, what went into how you decided which scene(s) to art?

butterfingers: HM well there was some chitchat when we started about what kind of work we wanted to do and I said that I loved the Boom comics covers, and then I shouted WHAT IF I MADE COMIC BOOK COVERS! and I think Dacia went WHAT IF I DID BACKGROUNDS and I guess we just approached it as if we were doing something comic-y haha!

Allie: You two were the power duo.

daciafu: I've always been in love with the style of the backgrounds of OTGW since that's where all those cozy and spooky feelings of fall and the Unknown really shine and I'm honestly HORRIBLE at designing backgrounds so I wanted to take the challenge and push myself to get better! Mimicking other people's styles really helps me break down how they make their choices and teaches me how to make things look Decent so I was super hyped to pick up the OTGW style! And then when Butters and I were trying to figure out What Do and she said she wanted to tackle covers, I decided to do background-heavy scenes. 😊

Q: What is generally your guys’ process (writing for Allie and arting for butters and dacia)?

Allie: Well, I wrote in little scenes, like I would get an idea for a scene and just go for it, the fic wasn't at all coherent until maybe a few days before posting. This actually posed a problem since linking scenes took longer than I thought it would. Because I had most of my scenes written, I thought I had more finished than I really did. By the end of Resbang, I had 56k written but only 20k remotely post-able. I'm a super obsessive planner though, so my whole fic was outlined in detail early on, which was nice cause I knew what I was doing lol

butterfingers: I loved going through Allie's notes, I was always excited to see how they'd connect the dots! My art process is as follows: scribble something, put it aside, look at it a lot throughout the day with the thought that maybe I can surprise myself into seeing something new, find something I hate, fix it, rinse and repeat. For this project I actually... have a friend who works with Boom Comics and she was able to hook me up with a nice little gallery of illustrations for the OTGW comic so I got to go through and put together my mood board for it 😊

daciafu: I read over the gloriousness that was Allie's draft and immediately picked out some neat scenes or wanted to reimagine the classic OTWG ones. I spent a lot of time studying first! Looking at the art books, and poring over the show’s scenes and kind of getting a feel for the color palettes, textures and compositions. Then I watched a tutorial on Youtube where someone just deadass uploaded their painting process on a piece of official art that made it into the show. So that was EXTREMELY helpful to watch the way they painted back-to-front and kind of blended the planes without like, losing depth?? The internet is so, so wonderful. And then I got to work! Started with a soft brush for lineart so it wouldn't be too prevalent, moved onto base colors, then shading, and then really trying to establish textures and make the atmosphere Just Right(tm).

butterfingers: Genius!! Oh damn that sounds like such great advice vis à vis backgrounds. /takes notes

Q: You sound like the dream art partner Allie, I weep for my artists and my last minute HERE IS 10K I JUST TYPED UP BC IM A MESS.

Allie: Ahh geez, these two were the dream partners honestly, like I'm so glad they could gather stuff from my notes, cause I've always got everything together in my head, but then it gets out there and it's a mess, these two deserve all the love.

butterfingers: There was one thing I regret that I didn't have the chance to draw and it was like a throwaway line somewhere in your notes about Maka presenting Soul with a praying mantis and him freaking out. I resonated with that so hard hahaha.

Q: What was the hardest scene for you to write?

Allie: The hardest scene to write that's actually posted was anything with Justin really, I don't get his character and it was tough to write him. There were a few scenes that were hard to write because I rushed them, but I wouldn't say they were genuinely difficult scenes, I just gotta rewrite 'em! But overall the ending scene I'm still struggling to write and there's a dream scene that occurs which has been difficult to write just for making it dream-like enough?

Q: And what was the hardest to art? :o

butterfingers: I had a hard time with Maka's expressions. I had many scribbles designing a Ragnarok lantern, too, but it was very fun!!

Allie: Your design for the Ragnarok lantern was so good, I still cry over it.

butterfingers: Ahaha thank you! He was very Calcifer inspired ;)

daciafu: I struggled quite a bit with the first one I painted, just because it was all so new to me. I had to base color 3 different times because the soft lineart bothered me if something extended too far, or there was white background peeking through. And then reimagining the texture in the leaves and the ground to try to separate the planes there but also wanting them to be cohesive was a bit of a headache. If I had to go back and do that one over again I think I'd be more prepared to deal with the foliage lmao.

butterfingers: Your textures were very excellent, that was a quality I struggled with as well!

daciafu: The first one I painted was the Golden Light scene where Maka and Soul are leaving the woods and entering the fields.

butterfingers: Trees r hard.

Allie: They all came out so incredible though, I'm in awe of how you were able to create those leaves.

daciafu: Omg ;;;;; At the same time trees are so organic and flowy and the chances of getting them wrong are pretty slim considering they can get janked as hell lol they're super fun to just zone out to. "I’ll just put a happy little leaf here, ooh and how’s about another one right next to it. They can be happy friends. Oh look, the squad showed up!!" Channeling my inner Bob Ross... but yeah you can just do whatever with them and they somehow come together.

Q: Daciafu how do u.....background, like you did so well and all I hear from art friends is various levels of pterodactyl screeching when the word background is mentioned.

daciafu: I heavily based the Leafing the Forest scene and the church scene after stills from the show so I don't get composition points there, but I built the pumpkin fields just based off of the environment’s design elements. I really wanted to push the depth of that scene but also give it that same never-ending quality to it, and I'm super happy with the results. Another note is that I omitted the characters entirely while building the backgrounds. Since I'm usually a pretty character-heavy artist, I wanted to tackle it like I was preparing the scene for an animator later. And then once they were done, I added in our sweet kids. Doing it that way first really helped to cement the characters in the space rather than my usual "character is done, how can I put them in an interesting physical space?" struggle lmao.

Q: Did you guys feel like your writing/arting changed at all or that you learned anything/picked up new skills/honed old ones etc. etc. during Resbang?

Allie: Gosh yeah, it changed a lot. In hindsight a bad idea, but this was the first fic I'd ever written with intention of posting and the longest piece I'd ever written. Before this I had written very little and my longest piece was maybe 10k. Throughout Resbang I've learned most of everything from the ground up, it's taught me a lot about my limits, how I work and writing in general. I've definitely improved a lot from the experience!

butterfingers: Let me tell you all about the airbrush tool that I discovered during Resbang. Amazing. Incredible.

daciafu: I learned how to paint backgrounds!!! Which is something I've always wanted to get better at. And I got super comfortable in Clip Studio (I'd just gotten it) as well as using texture brushes, so overall it was a very helpful and wonderful experience as a Resbang participant and as an arteest.

Q: Oh that reminds me butters, what program do you use?

butterfingers: Paint Tool SAI for the most part, and then Photoshop for color correction, borders, and, like, finesse things! :)

Q: Did you guys listen to any music that inspired you or helped you create?

Allie: Ah, yeah! I had a playlist actually! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjTCaFkFU6rkD1edJwCZmHvJiUwlSUeGZ

If you want I can explain some bits of it? I use music a lot when writing aha. I like to associate certain songs with characters and character relationships, so most of the songs are connected to a particular part of the story. The Monroe Transfer, Wayfaring Stranger, and Mountains were all more general atmosphere stuff. Blame was very much related to Maka, which may not be apparent now, but yeah. Ragnarok I actually connected a lot with Willow Tree March. Soul was probably closest with A Lady. Crona had a lot of songs, but Neptune was most specific to them, as was probably Ghost Towns. Some character relationships I associated with certain songs, Crona-Ragnarok and Soul-Maka were both pretty connected to Always Gold, especially that dang last line "there were holes in you, the kind that I could not mend" oh man. Crona-Maka was definitely We Could Be Friends, Bloom, and Spell. Meet Me in The Woods I thought was a pretty good group song! Those are just some general bits of my thinking with the music aha.

daciafu: Definitely checked out Allie's dope playlist. For most of my working time, tho, I was either listening to TAZ: Commitment or MBMBaM oddly enough lol. I will forever think of Justin's uproarious laughter whenever I look at them lmao.

Q: Were any of the relationships difficult to characterize?

Allie: Mmm this may sound weird but early Maka-Crona was weird for me, cause they were kinda at that point where they want to (or at least Maka wants to) like each other, but they don’t like or trust each other at all and it's a weird spot for them. I'm used to writing them as at least interested by one another, if not enemies or already fond of one another, so this felt like a very odd place to start with them.

Q: Do you guys have future plans for writing/drawing? Aside from polishing and posting the rest of the fic!

Allie: I have,,, too many plans,, I need less plans,, someone please take them away from me, I can't be trusted with them,,,, I do want to do a sequel for this when I get it finished, playing on the detail about crows memory lasting five years so. Beyond that I have a SoMa fic to finish for the prompt challenge!! I'm working on a gift for Crescentcrona, which is a fantasy Kirona fic called Eat The Rich. I have polyam week fics that I'm cleaning up, I think my favorite so far is a Azusa/Naigus/Sid/Mifune one for Through The Seasons. And God I have so many CroMa fics I want to write, I gotta fill the AO3 tag. I think the biggest one right now is a wings-related soulmates au that I've been working on on the side since October I think?

daciafu: Yo there's one scene that I'm like sUPER hyped to do if Allie does the sequel because I already know exactly how I wanna draw it but I wasn't able to fit that in near the end, and it didn't end up in the first part. But there are a couple of other scenes Allie and I workshopped that would be super fun to do and I would love to draw them. Other than that, my drawing plans are pretty much working on commissions as they come in. Surprisingly my queue has been maxed out and I just got a full time job so of course now I'm like.... hm.... I'll get 'em done eventually!!

----

That’s the end of the AMAs for the 2017 season! Thanks again for reading along with us, and see you next year! :)

#AMA transcripts #resbang book club #rbbc #simple melody

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nintendoduo · 6 years

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34 Cool WiiWare Games That Are Going Away FOREVER*

*Unless Nintendo decides to sell them again when the Switch U 4DS VR comes out in 2025.

As you might have heard, starting next Monday Nintendo is taking away the ability to add funds to the Wii Shop, which will close down for good in early 2019. That means a whole bunch of great games won’t be able to be purchased anymore. In order to raise awareness of this, the most important issue of our times (after all the other issues), we spent the winter playing as many WiiWare games as we could over on our YouTube channel. Here’s a summary of the gems we encountered:

1. 3D Pixel Racing

A pretty challenging motion control racing game with Minecraft-esque graphics. Pro tip: use a regular old Wiimote, not a Wiimote Plus. Trust us, the Plus is too sensitive for this game and you’ll end up falling off the track every two seconds. Despite the difficulty, this one gets a recommendation because of the cool look and for giving us an excuse to use the Mario Kart Wii wheel again.

2. And Yet It Moves

Using the Wiimote’s gyroscope, this game has you move the world around you (rather than vice versa) to navigate the levels. One of those “easy to learn, difficult to master” type of games that defined many of the best on the platform.

3. Bit.Trip Runner

Originally a WiiWare exclusive, although you can now play it on 3DS, PC, Mac, Linux, and probably some Japanese toilets. You run from left to right and jump, slide, kick and... jump again to the music. A tribute to the platforming classics that deservedly became a classic itself (and the sequel, available on Wii U, is even better).

4. BurgerTime: World Tour

You know, BurgerTime! If you don’t know, this is a good excuse to get acquainted with this ‘80s arcade title. Like in the original, you attempt to assemble giant hamburgers on a series of platforms whilst dodging humanoid food monsters, only this time the graphics are in 3D and it’s all happening in space, for some reason. NOTE: Ironically, this fast-food themed game can’t be bought in North America right now, only Europe.

5. Chrono Twins DX

Originally designed for the DS, the gimmick is that the main character is fighting enemies in two different time periods at once. For the DS this used each screen for the different time zones, but with WiiWare you get a simple split-screen. It’s quite unique and challenging as you’re basically playing two sidescrollers at once.

6. Contra Rebirth

Remember when dudes with rippling muscles and mullets got to be badass gunfighters and nobody complained they were toxic? Contra sure does. Konami gave “Rebirth” to three of their classic franchises on WiiWare (CastleVania and Gradius were the other two) but this was probably the best of the bunch.

7. Dracula: Undead Awakening

If you never get tired of mowing down undead enemies then this will scratch that itch. Basically you get a bunch of different cool weapons and use them against a bunch of different cool monsters for as long as you wish, or at least as long as you survive. The challenge is so high that even lasting ten minutes on your first playthrough has the game calling you “noob.”

8. Eduardo the Samurai Toaster

A simple run n’ gun game (think Metal Slug) starring a sentient toaster facing off against flying onions, spear-toting carrots, and what appears to be an army of angry playing cards. It’s not clear what the plot of the game is, and there’s not a whole lot of depth to the gameplay, but it’s still a fun way to waste an hour (or more, depending on the difficulty). It’s supposed to be even more fun with 4 players, if you can find three other Wii-loving weirdos.

9. Excitebike World Rally

Motorcycle races. Simplicity works sometimes, and just like the original Excitebike this one proves it once more. Just like the original you get a cool level creator, only this time you can share it with anyone and not just whoever you give your cartridge to.

10. Frogger: Hyper Arcade Edition

Lots of different modes that still capture the appeal of the original arcade classic. The overall look is kinda coked-up, which captures the ‘80s arcade scene reasonably well.

11. Frogger Returns

Only the one mode this time, but it serves as a reminder of the timeless quality and endearing appeal of the core gameplay.

12. Gnomz

A chaotic 4-player party game starring sock-obsessed gnomes. You go around a single screen collecting socks and stomping other players to kill them; it’s like life itself. (Or, as many have pointed out, like the Super Mario War fan game, but less illegal.) There are three modes and a variety of scenarios. Like with Eduardo the Samurai Toaster, the more players the better, but the single player mode ain’t bad (and that way, you don’t ruin any friendships).

13. Gyrostarr

A pseudo-3D shoot ‘em up where the main difficulty is that you can actually shoot the power ups away, and you kinda need those to finish the stages -- if you don’t collect enough energy, the portal at the end of the level closes on your face. The difficulty ramps up slowly but surely across 50 levels. Another difficulty is not getting an LSD flashback on those trippy bonus stages.

14. HoopWorld

A basketball/fighting game that makes surprisingly good use of the Wii’s motion controls. This definitely falls in the “easy to pick up, difficult to master” category, since there’s a pretty wide range of ball throws and kung-fu moves you can perform by shaking your Wiimote and nunchuck in different ways. Or you can just wave your arms randomly and hope you win. The game is currently unlisted in North America, which we’re hoping is a sign that they’re planning to re-release it in modern platforms (with online multiplayer, hopefully).

15. Horizon Riders

A futuristic on-rails shooting game that you play with the Wii balance board. If you have the Wii Zapper accessory, even better (and you’ll look even sillier), but it’s not necessary to play. You aim and shoot with your Wiimote while leaning on your balance board to move from side to side. Definitely a good reason to dig that thing out of your closet. Be warned, though, that the game crashed on us in the middle of a stage, as seen at the end of our gameplay video.

16. Jam City Rollergirls

Roller derby has never been as popular to watch as it is for people to randomly talk about every few years for the novelty, usually accompanied by a movie that flops at the box office. The last time the mainstream tried to make this sport happen it resulted in this game, though, so there’s at least that. You play as characters with hilarious names roller blading through others with random power-ups and combat moves.

17. Jett Rocket

It’s a lofty ambition to offer gamers something that will remind them of Super Mario Galaxy, and it might seem foolish to do so on an indie dev’s budget. But Shin’en managed to deliver with an uncommon 3D platformer collectathon with good amounts of action sprinkled in.

18. LostWinds

When a developer approached a title with motion controls in mind, it always stood out more than other games that tried to crowbar motion controls into the scenery in the hopes of a shortcut to Wii success. LostWinds is in the former camp, making you use the pointer to create gusts of wind to elevate the main character onto platforms and knock around enemies. In fact it’d be more accurate to say you’re playing as the wind spirit rather than the story’s protagonist. Fun game with a beautiful art style.

19. Maboshi's Arcade

Nintendo knows how to make simple games that present difficulty when you don’t expect it. In the three modes of this puzzler you play as generic shapes but the controls are difficult to master. It kind of has to be seen to be believed.

20. Magnetica Twist

A connect-three type of game where you fire marbles and stuff. What ends up twisted the most are your wrists whilst trying to aim your shots with any sort of precision.

21. Max and the Magic Marker

There are plenty of side-scrolling platformers that use childhood visuals and hobbies to appeal to the player, and yet they never really get old do they? In this one you use a marker via motion controls to create platforms and defeat enemies. You also can go in and out of Max’s childhood drawings.

22. Monsteca Corral

This is a weird one. A bunch of monsters vaguely shaped like Doshin the Giant are gathered together by an unseen god-ish alien to fight robots that said alien had created earlier, but they turned against him. That’s the plot as we can best make out, anyways. There’s also dinosaurs. Recommended for those who like their fun to be completely unlike the other fun they’ve had with games.

23. Pearl Harbor Trilogy – 1941: Red Sun Rising

Old-school dogfighting in a new-school 3D game. Well, it was new when it released. Anyways you shoot down enemy planes, defend your base, attack naval fleets and get commendations you don’t deserve. Sometimes you see the action from the POV of the bombs you drop, and it works much better here than in Michael Bay’s version of Pearl Harbor.

24. Pole's Big Adventure

Chindōchū!! Pole no Daibōken is bizarre Japan-only SEGA title made to parody the crappy platform games that came out during the 8-bit era. Despite being full of intentional design flaws, like power ups that kill you or background objects that suddenly cut your head off, the game is pretty easy -- until you unlock hard mode, where the boss fights are actually challenging. Still, you’ll be playing this one mostly to laugh at the dozens of Easter eggs.

25. PictureBook Games: Pop Up Pursuit

Not many board games made it to WiiWare, but this was easily the best. It’s largely straightforward “run to the end of the board” contests, with plenty of opportunities to ruin friendships. The art style is the main hook, looking like a pop-up book, like the title indicates.

26. Rage of the Gladiator

You fight for your life against larger-than-life mythological creatures, like ogres and minotaurs and senseis. The game got compared frequently to Punch-Out!! and with good reason, but the combat is actually a more creative and the dialogue is more humorous. A blast to play through the first time, and a blast to replay.

27. Snowpack Park

Unlike most of the games on this list, there’s no combat in this one and your blood pressure won’t ever raise. There’s plenty to do but it’s fun stuff, mostly involving playing with penguins. It works great as a sort of palette cleanser to the violent action-packed games primarily showcased in this list.

28. Sonic the Hedgehog 4

The 16-bit Sonic games still hold up today as all-time greats. Sonic 4 didn’t live up to those expectations but it did get SEGA to think about their past a little more seriously, and helped lead to Sonic Mania. Episode I is on WiiWare, but you’ll have to find Episode II elsewhere.

29. Space Invaders Get Even

Another sequel to another arcade classic, but with the novel twist of playing the game from the enemies’ point of view. Word of warning: this is possibly the only WIiWare game that has DLC. The initial purchase of 500 points will escalate up to 2′000 points if you’re enjoying yourself.

30. Star Soldier R

Top-down arcade-style shooter, and if you know the type you know the drill. The amount of content is pretty bare-bones, as it’s basically just time attacks. But the replayability is rewarding if you’re a fan of the genre.

31. Tetris Party

We hope you know Tetris. This is a Tetris that has good multiplayer, interesting variants where you do things like create platforms for some guy to climb to the top of the screen or use the tetrinos to make exact shapes like that of an apple. There’s also a balance board mode, and as stated earlier it’s good to have an excuse to pull out the balance board.

32. Vampire Crystals

Vampires used to live peacefully with zombies but now they don’t, and it becomes your problem. Thankfully you get plenty of guns, some so powerful that you end up creating a bullet hell where you’re the one firing them rather than dodging them. It looks simple but the game actually is quite tough. It’s not Cuphead-level but you will fail many times over. With plenty of content and being one of the last WiiWare releases, this title approached the platform’s fullest potential.

33. WarioWare DIY

What sets this apart from the 87 other WarioWare games? The fact that players could make their own minigames, leading to an avalanche of creative, insane, and even NSFW games. Unfortunately the servers are no longer online, but you can still find thousands of fan games online if you look hard enough. The included games are pretty fun too, and if you have the DS version, you can make your own and send them over to your Wii.

34. Zombie Panic in Wonderland

Shooting galleries are perfect for motion controls, but gamers don’t get as many as we deserve. Thankfully this one helps rectify that, with an interesting story and cool comic-book art sequences that keep things moving between all the gunning down of zombies and various giant monsters.

#wiiware #wii #nintendo #luigi

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italicwatches · 6 years

Text

GAMERS! Episode 01

Nobody participated in the game! Jerks.

I kid, I kid. I love you all.

So now that we’ve hit some of the big shows I’ve wanted to do for a while, it’s time to get at some of the lighter things! And mostly, I mean lighter workload. One-cour specials that I can burn through in a fortnight. Is that how you spell the actual word? The game has been so massively omnipresent over everything I look at that I can’t tell anymore.

…Anyways it’s GAMERS!, episode 01! Here we GO!

-We begin, with a blue sky, a flying plane, and a title pop! Then we scroll down from a school roof, down into a classroom. Everyone’s staring. It’s nearly 4 PM. Two figures stand against each other. Some folks have some pretty amazing faces on. Time is still. Like, full-on ZA WARUDO level time is still.

-And then…The clock finally clicks over. The cicadas start to buzz…And then die. Alas, poor cicada.

-SPRING!

-Hard cut to a game store advertising some naughty materials, as a narrator explains how some people are ‘above the clouds’. All the hottest titles for the PZ4 are out in force, and I’m pretty sure I recognize at least one cover. A young man gathers up some older, cheaper games on sale, as the narrator explains how these people might be an idol, a world-stage athlete, someone you truly adore…And for some, it might be a 2D character. As he picks up the game Golden Memories and I swear to god that girl in the center of the cover looks like she was in New Game. Is this from the same studio?

-Most can only watch these figures from afar, a source of distant admiration…So, when the cutest girl in school walked into the game store at the same time as this young man narrating, and suddenly spoke to him, one Amano Keita lost all capacity to get his body and brain to communicate. The entire stack of games (including titles like LEGION OF THE FANTASY, BASE COMBAT, and a baseball game I can’t read but I know I’ve seen that art style in a Japanese baseball game before) falls from his hands, and his eyes turn cartoony as his thought process just breaks.

-And Tendou Karen introduces herself properly…As Keita’s brain hooks together what he knows of her. The rich, call, curvy, flawless young lady of the school, the sort that draws admiration from her fellow girls and adoration from the boys. She’s smart, she’s beautiful, and she’s got amazing athletic results too. She seems almost too perfect to be real.

-The visuals make it clear that all this is going to fall apart. And our sloppy goofy hero is the reason why.

-She’s not famous, but she IS the kind of girl who has to hold a bag under her locker because of how many love notes are gonna fall out when she opens it every day. The idol of the school. Meanwhile, Keita’s a goofy loner dork who’d rather play vidjagames and is firmly in the middle of every metric the school tests him on. Average height, B- grades, damn near perfectly in the middle of all his athletic tests. Like, it’s almost impressive how nondescript he is by the on-paper metrics.

-And his brain is snapping and oh god he’s freaking out HE’S FREAKING OUT OKAY DEEP BREATH CALM DOWN CALM DOWN. She ends up helping him pick up the games, as he begins to wonder if this is going to lead to extortion or something. (The X makes it sound cool) Because he just cannot ponder why Tendou Karen of all girls would be talking to him, in a game store, and not the kind of family-friendly super mainstream one that only sells E rated games your little brother’s heard of, either. There’s an eroge poster right outside.

-As they pick up such games as STOIC BATTLE 2, and Evil ElEmEnt. But then she asks him if he likes these games, and he freaks out so bad he drops them, and now she’s gotta pick them back up because his hands don’t work. And OKAY DEEP BREATH CALM DOWN SHE’S JUST A NORMAL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT LIKE YOU NO NEED TO FREAK O—

-She picked up Golden Memories.

-…OookAY IT IS TIME TO FREAK THE FUCK OUT MAXIMUM PANIC ENGAGED

-Oh god it’s even worse.

-The game advertises itself as specifically selling blonde-girl fantasies, and includes wardrobe malfunctions.

-You get three guesses as to what color hair Karen has and the first three don’t count.

-And thus now SHE’S having a bit of a freakout and both try to play it off and woooooo boy this somehow managed to get even more awkward. Could a spout of flame please consume him now to end this torment thank you Satan. He has to try and play off why he had a blonde-gals dating sim in his hands and he insists he just was reading it to see what it was about and of couuuurse, she totally understands, yes let us both just lean on this easy explanation that lets everyone walk away…

-But of course Keita is actually kind of a total dork for the design process of them and how tightly they managed to sell a game which is when he realizes he miiiight have oversold it OH GOD TOO FAR PULL OUT PULL OUT

-Yep she’s staring.

-PANIC.

-But she breaks out into the giggles, because she’s amazed with his passion about it…And she’s…She’s like him to…To join her…

-In the game club!

-The what now?

-Hard cut to an arcade, with a small group of folks from the same school playing a flashy mahjong arcade game, when a pink-haired young lady needs the help of one guy, Tasuku! There’s an amazing(ridiculous) looking stuffed cat in the claw machine, and he’s got the magic touch…And of course, having a desperate young lady needing his help would turn the eyes of any straight young man.

-But you’re paying for the play. You’re not cutting into his game budget with this thing.

-EVEN BIGGER EYES. Why you little…

-But, okay. Deep breath. In goes 100 yen, and okay, focus, watch the toy…And Tasuku pulls the magic trick, hooking the stuffed cat’s tag with the claw! One play, and it’s in this young lady’s hands! He tries to play it cool, but inside he feels like a total badass having pulled this off for his cute, if slightly ditzy, girlfriend. The visual cue would like to let you know that his pride will soon fall.

-That night, the whole gang finally leaves the arcade…When Tasuku spots Keita over by a bench, just kinda staring down onto the bench? What’s going on with him? …Well, it doesn’t matter. He’s just some dork without a hot girlfriend.

-The visual cues want to let you know that soon this dork and Task’s hot girlfriend will be meeting in secret and Tasuku will fail.

-So Keita is staring, because Karen is explaining. She just started the gaming club, since, well, there isn’t one. It doesn’t even entirely exist yet since she hasn’t done the initial round of recruitment to get the school to accept their existence, and youuuu are her first recruit! And wow, you’re polite. …Chill, Keita. Even her classmates are all super polite. Her teacher is polite to her! Hell, when she plays Mario, Bowser himself is polite! Okay that one has to be bullshit. Maybe it was a bug?

-It did happen after three straight days of trying to beat the speed running world record for the game… You were unconscious and dreaming! Your body collapsed from lack of capacity! The only bug is the one in your damn head that led to you thinking that was a smart thing to do!

-And Karen breaks out into the giggles, having finally gotten through Keita’s shell…As she admits that the gaming thing is a bit of a secret. Her friends don’t really know about it…She even picked this school because it once had a famous gaming club. But…It collapsed, in the time between her testing in and her first day at the school…She spent her whole first year politicking behind the scenes to get the school to let her revive it, and now she’s ready to make it stronger than it ever was! That’s actually impressive.

-But what will it be, exactly…? Well, playing games, of course. But not just that. They’ll be playing them seriously. Competitively. This isn’t just about the love of games. This is about games as self betterment. And for that, she needs the kind of souls who can slam themselves against the wall again and again until they finally, finally break through. And she found one, in you! The wind picks up, the springtime cherry blossoms swirl around them, and Keita is in awe, as he finds himself…

-Finds himself…Unsure what to say…When her mother texts her! She has to get going she’s already breaking curfew wait for her after school tomorrow BYE! Ohgodrunrunrunrunmom’sgonnabesomad

-That night in his tiny little apartment, Keita slacks upon his bed, playing his totally-not-a-PS-Vita. I think I will call it a PZ Vivio, because stupid references are the best references. So anyways he’s playing it, and he can’t help but feel like this game club thing…This could be huge! The event in his youth that he’s been waiting for! Is this a dream? A magical wonderful dream—He just got a text.

-Okay. Deep breath. Pick up the phone. See what it says.

-Oh, it’s just an alert. A game friend, Mono-san, is requesting help in a mobile MMO type deal. Sure. Sure thing. PZ Vivio go down, phone goes up…

-And then we fade over to the cutesy, curly-haired girl who is Mono-san…Just to make it clear what we’re dealing with here.

-Cut to the next day! Class just wrapped, and Keita takes a deep breath, as he has to decide what to do…And Mono-san needs help again? Well, he can take a couple minutes to dive into a boss battle, besides Karen was probably just fucking with hi—

-HEY KEITA

-Yipe!

-Yep she went and found him because waiting for him to find her sounded boring. And dang, you play mobile games too, huh? And everyone’s starting to stare. Okay. Okay deep breath they should go to the club room right now! He races out after Karen, having just declined the help request and please forgive him Mono-san…As Tasuku and his group watch this hapless dork walk off with the hottest girl in school.

-To the stairwell! Where we meet Misumi Eiichi! Keith is confused. He’s her other first recruit! She found him at the arcade playing vintage puzzlers! And he’s all kind of embarrassed, as Keita quietly realizes how much of a fucking idiot he was thinking he had a chance at this…

-But then Eiichi extends a hand, and admits he’s not a super sociable guy. But he’d love to be friends with Keita. And…You know what? There’s not a damn thing wrong with ‘just’ making some good friends who he shares a passion with. Keita shakes that hand with both of his own, and it might not be the dating sim fantasy he had in his head, but this still could work out just fine…

-As all three head for the clubroom, where Karen admits she had to do some very cunning work to get them to approve the club…But they get there, and she flips the door sign to reveal it is now OPEN! She even did a custom club sign with cute pixel art on it!

-The place is already kitted out with tons of games and setups, fight sticks and spare pads…And the other recruits. Kase Gakuto, who Karen has to introduce because he’s busy playing. Then, over there playing Guilty Gear is Oohiso Niina. Both of these two are the senpais of the group, and Niina is not listening because all that matters is the Guilty Gear.

-And Gakuto here is one of the top FPS players in the world, as he wrecks face at CSGo. Or as Keita calls it, COS. And Eiichi admits that he really only knows vintage puzzlers. Well they’ll have to teach you!

-And the best part? Everything here was bought over the last year by entering in local tournaments! The school may not be super into games, but they damn well like having trophies to display and students bringing in their own club funds! But what good is a game club if there’s no game playing? Come on, guys, pick something and play~!

-And Gakuto wants to see what these guys can do…

-Straight up first round, team deathmatches in Battlefield. Gakuto wrecks face, with Karen close behind, and the rookie guys do…Poorly. Next round! By the fifth match, Keita is better than two of the bots on his and Gakuto’s team, while Eiichi is slowly but surely improving a little. MORE ROUNDS. 30 rounds in, Keita is actually slipping from sheer exhaustion and Eiichi is getting intense too…

-A full two hours later, and Keita collapses. Karen even has to ask Gakuto to go a little easier on the new recruits, but no. He’s not running a damn training school. You learn or you fall behind. Do you want to be stuck here all on your own again, jerk?

-Also as an aside, they have a legit straight-up Guilty Gear XRD Rev2 poster up on the wall. No BASE COMBAT for that franchise.

-Also Gakuto strongly questions whether Eiichi has really never played one of these before. You got the hang of twin-sticking it really quickly for someone new…And you got three kills on him. Eiichi insists he just got lucky, but at this point I’m pretty fuckin’ sure he’s lying. But whether he’s secretly got practice or just is a fast learner…

-But as for Keita, why the hell did you just stand in that corner jumping up and down on that car in the last round?! He, he wanted to see the scenery past the wall…Well you’re making everyone else on your team’s life harder, you jackass!

-And soon Karen has to calm everyone down and call for a break, as she and Eiichi step out onto the balcony…And Keita just stares, as Gakuto goes right back to CSGO on the PC and I’m not entirely sure Niina even realizes the two newcomers are here. Karen ends up asking what got the two into games…And Keita realizes he doesn’t, really, have one…

-Contrast, say, Gakuto, whose father is in a PMC and so he came into the FPS genre with tons of core practices already in his head that got translated into game mechanics. Or Niina who is trying to pull her best friend back from the dark side. (Your friend turned out to be a Gator, huh? I’ve been there, lass. May your trials serve to bring them back to sanity.)

-And Keita suddenly feels very, very awkward…At least Eiiichi doesn’t have any good reason either, so Keita can just relax, and take a deep thorough drink from his coke can…

-He just lost his memoirs and when he came to, the only thing he was good at was vintage puzzlers.

-SPITTAKE

-Keita suddenly feels like the only sane man in a world gone mad. And Karen tries to lighten the mood and encourage them to stick around. This isn’t about being some world-class gamer. It’s just about the core idea of self-betterment through games, and anyone can do that, no matter where they’re starting off! Eiichi is sold. Give him the form, he’ll be joining!

-And Keita? Well…Keita…

-As he steps out of the room, Gakuto promises to teach him proper team play, and Niina silently shoves an old fight stick into his hands. They might be weird, they might be a bit intimidating, but there’s a kind and genuine heart in their core. This might just work. He can make this work! So he can most definitely say that he’ll—

-Pass! You guys are all super competitive and he’s into single player stuff and RPGs.

-Pardon?

-New day! Class! Keita has realized by now how much of a FUCKING IDIOT he was, when his phone buzzes! Mono-san needs his help…Sure, sure thing, that’ll clear his mi—

-Karen appears! And she’s not giving up. Join. Her. Club. She’s interested in you! And that gets everyone to go silent, as she holds out her hand…And the timer on Mono-san’s request ticks down, lower, lower…Keita reaches out, and…Taps it at the last second! What were you saying, Karen?

-…He…Look. He can’t join the game club.

-Why? Is it because you don’t think you’re good enough? They’ll take care of you, rookie or otherwise!

-…No. He’s…He’s not into competition. He likes the love of games. He’s not a competitive guy at all. Your focus is fantastic, but it’s just not for him, so…

-So Karen suddenly feels like she just got dumped. And everyone’s staring. She goes tsuntsun to try and save face but god dammit quit trying to be nice to her! She walks out in tears…Only to slip on a banana peel and faceplate so hard that she’s got to flee at top speed in a panicked sob…

-As Mono-san sends Keita a thank-you note for the save.

-Episode 01: Amano Keita and Chapters of the Chosen

-TO BE CONTINUED…

…You fucking stupid idiot.

#where I watch #recap #anime #gamers!

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