#celeste shaw | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bios-hzrd · 2 months

Text

Tension, Flow, and Mastery in Action Games

Anyway here's my massive rant on game design, guest starring Mario, Kirbo, Ms. Celeste, Mr. Hollow Knight, John Miami, White (Neon Walter), err shove all night, and WELLTARO FROM HIT GAME DOWNWELL!!!

And Pizza Tower.

>------------------------------------<

I think that tension is the majority of what makes action based gameplay fun. Tension is derived from the need to make a move, particularly in deciding which one. Action games create higher levels of tension by giving the player limited time to make a decision, making the correct move uncertain, and judging how well they performed their actions. To examine further, I’m going to break down gameplay into four primary states. I’ll call them safe, hold, anticipation and window. Or shaw. That's a fun word, apparently it's synonymous with thicket.

Safe is when the player is completely safe, no tension. They could put their controller down and nothing would happen. When you’re on safe ground in a platformer, or behind cover in a shooter.

Hold is the equivalent of treading water, you’re holding a position, but you can’t stay there forever. The game generally requires that you do some simple action, like holding the climb button to cling to a wall in Celeste, or pogoing in Hollow Knight. When games try to pull extended tense sections, they often use this as the baseline to give the player time to think and recuperate, while ensuring that they know they aren’t out of the woods yet. Further this state often provides some kind of threat if they don’t get a move on. In Celeste clinging to walls drains an invisible stamina bar, and when you run out you’ll fall off to your death. In Hollow Knight you can technically pogo off a sawblade forever, but there's the unspoken threat of you messing up the pogo, screwing up the repeated simple action, and falling to your death, losing progress, so you better get to the next part before that happens.

The anticipation is defined by the player moving towards their next action. They can’t act yet, but sometimes the player is expected to line themselves up in preparation for when the anticipation state ends, which usually leads to the player finally having their window of opportunity to act, the time frame where they can actually perform their next action. Longer windows make pulling off the action easier.

For example a basic anticipation to window transition would be running up and jumping just before a ledge in Mario. If you jump too early you’ll fall into a pit, too late and the same will happen. If you pull it off during the window you’ll get across.

However anticipation does not always lead into window, for example when you’re descending from a jump onto a goomba, you use the anticipation to line yourself up, but there's no window. Once you land on him you’re set back to safe.

There’s many different ways action games use this kind of thing. It's fairly common for games that implement enemies as the primary hazard, like Kirby or Mario, to have the player turn the environment into safe zones as they go through. The player has to put themselves in anticipation and window as they say, dash towards an enemy to take them out, however they can do so whenever they please, because they’ve already cleared out all of the enemies behind them, and almost everything behind them is a safe zone.

On the other hand, some games space out their safe zones, giving the game most of the control over the pace. Thus the game can keep the pace cranked high to give the player less time to make decisions and make the gameplay more intense. Celeste and Downwell hold the implicit threat of falling to one's death over the player's head, having the player travel extended sections without being able to land on solid ground, increasing the tension by spacing out safe zones. Celeste allows the player to cling to walls for a decent bit of time, encouraging them to carefully plot out their actions but make a move before it's too late. In quite stark contrast Downwell gives gives the player a limited air stall ability, that can be used to hold them in place, allowing them to put themselves in hold temporarily, but the mechanic has many tertiary aspects in play to encourage the player to rely on it as little as possible, creating an intense adrenaline rush where you’re falling at max speed, pulsing the brake only as much as you need to steer.

Now, there's an interesting way this dynamic is changed when the player is forced to redo parts of a level. Maybe they got sent back to checkpoint, maybe they’re beating it again to satisfy a ranking system. Point is, when a player is made to repeat a level or part of a level they already beat, the way they approach it is different. I call it the flow to mastery transition.

The initial run is a pure flow run, what's important is that the player is unfamiliar with the path ahead of them, and they have to adapt on the fly. Their movement requires more care and planning. They make greater usage of the levels stills and holds to take everything in, and if they do not have control over the pace, then the tension spikes significantly such as in games like Downwell and Pizza Tower, as they have to use the few seconds the anticipation gives them to figure out their next move. The player's main focus is to avoid extrinsic flow breaks, which are factors outside of the core gameplay loop that serve as punishments for failure such as getting knocked back when you get hit and dying when that happens too many times, getting sent back to checkpoint, or the beginning of the level if you’re out of lives. The player needs to find a way through without dying.

The flow run begins a gradual transition to mastery the moment the player has to repeat an area, whenever they are sent back to checkpoint or the beginning of the level. The mastery is defined by the player using their preexisting knowledge of the level layout to try and find the most efficient route back to the new stuff. The player uses safe and hold zones much less, as they need to slow down less to take the level in, Safe and hold are treated as anticipation and window zones by the player, as they are much more likely to act as soon as the game lets them. Gameplay mainly centers around finding the perfect series of inputs to get through the set stage. The path to elucidating that series revolves around discovering the best route and picking out all of the little inefficiencies in gameplay.

The discovery is emphasized most when the player is uncertain of what the “correct” path, or the most efficient way through is meant to be. My mind flicks immediately to nonlinearity, more mazelike areas with many options, and we arrive at our first mastery case study, Hotline Miami. This game falls into the Celeste camp of 1 HP, checkpoints every five feet, trial and error your way through levels. As such the game puts all of its eggs into the mastery basket. The game is made up of a bunch of interconnected rooms, and you can hit up any adjacent one. Your goal is to hit up every room and kill everyone in it. Every death comes with the opportunity to either iterate on ones last strategy, or try a brand new one. If the player feels like they’ve hit a brick wall with their current strategy, they can choose to switch up the order in which they enter the rooms, and see if they can find a better one.

In addition to allowing the player to make their approach in any order they’d like, the game implements plenty of other tricks to increase the complexity and potential tension through new and uncertain choices of mastery development.

Guards are constantly on patrol, and if they stand beside a window or door you can get an immediate takedown. Should you wait for things to line up, barge in, or head for a different room. The important part is that the player has options, and that they are never forced to wait.

Further, the game implements what I’ll refer to as “soft blocks.” A hard block would be a wall, you can’t get through that. A soft block would be a long corridor with a guy wielding a shotgun at the end. You can’t get through there, with your fists at the least. You could go around and come in from behind, or if you grab a gun from another room you can blast him from the front.

The point is the player is provided with a number of complex choices they need to make, and a number of factors that make the optimal choice uncertain. They have many options, and all of them at least seem equally valuable.

The other interesting approach I’ve noted would be most prominent in Neon White. The game is a speedrun 3D platformer where you pick up guns represented by cards strewn across the level to shoot at stationary demons scattered everywhere, and once every demon is dead, get to the goal. Each level is designed for the player to initially blast through, then replay repeatedly to get a better time. Your first run will likely take you along the critical path. You see, the game takes place in a giant void, with a bunch of floating platforms everywhere. The player has many more options than just the ones that get them to the goal; they can get to any platform in jumping range, and many areas fill themselves with plenty of decorative platforms that seemingly only exist to make the place look nice. The critical path is communicated by the implied rules. The most famous example everyone likes to bring up is coins in Mario. They don’t do much, but the developer placed them in such a way that if you always follow them you should get to the end. Neon white uses demons and weapon cards in a similar fashion, where you’ll get to the goal with all demons defeated if you just follow.

Now, the reason this game is notable is because the critical path is rarely the fastest one. The game also throws in shortcuts. Shortcuts come from you defying the pointers outlining the critical path, and using the full extent of all options provided. You do not have to get every weapon, the only requirements for level completion are that you stand on the goal with all demons defeated. Further you do not have to get close to demons to defeat them, your guns are ranged weapons. The game just drills that mindset into you by placing cards and demons on the critical path. The player won’t have to go out of their way for extra weapons when they’re efficient with their ammo, and can skip parts of the critical path as long as their new route has line of sight with the demons.

The pointers give the level an immediate initial route, but with repeated attempts the player will gain greater understanding of all the options they have been given as their focus changes from simply getting through to getting through faster, and they will be able to discover the hidden shortcuts that rely on unused options placed throughout the level that the pointers constructing the critical path trained them to ignore.

In other words, to enhance the discovery of the mastery loop, you can either make your path an open maze, or a line with extra steps. As for the journey to perfection, to the perfect execution of inputs, there’s only one technique I know of to make that more interesting. I refer to it as intrinsic flow breaks.

Intrinsic flow breaks tend to be a short interruption worked into the core gameplay loop. They are less a failure on the players part as they are a measure of skill expression. While they have unique utility in individual games, they are generally used as something to minimize for speed incentivized players, but in both of these examples it comes packed with the bonus utility of making the game easier on your first try. They don’t necessarily have to stop the player, the main point is just that the player takes a small cut in speed.

Kirby makes for a pretty great example. In theory his ability to float over any obstacle should trivialize the majority of the game, however in practice the reduced speed from the float disincentivizes players from using it unless they absolutely need it. A metric defined by player skill where less confident players get an easy out of anything they can’t handle, while experienced ones use it as little as they can get away with so they can make good pace.

Pizza Tower shows what happens when you take a similar idea but crank the speed up to eleven. Peppino controls like a car with no brakes. Until you crash into a wall, you only ever go faster, so to help newer players get used to the games intense pace, intrinsic flow breaks are introduced. Moves where the player changes direction such as the turn around drift and super jump have Peppino pause for a moment before shiting direction, and allow newer players a second to get their bearings and break down the situation.

Pizza Tower likes to bake the intrinsic flow break into its catch all move for newer players, then add in more specific options that avoid the intrinsic flow break. For example you can avoid the pause during the super jump and turn around by choosing to climb walls instead of super jumping, or jumping off of them to turn around.

The way Pizza tower uses intrinsic flow breaks is especially notable because the methods to avoid them are context sensitive, they need a wall to pull off. They are not replacements, they are opportunities open to veteran players if they can spot them. They don’t change the gameplay, they build it up.

Other examples include having to punch enemies vs maintaining a toss combo in Gravity Circuit, bashing into enemies vs spinning through them in Anton Blast, whatever Plague of Shadows is doing. Made a whole video on that one.

Now, extrinsic flow breaks are what tie the flow and mastery together, so we’ll need to do a closer examination into extrinsic flow breaks in order to understand how flow and mastery play off each other. Just as a refresher, extrinsic flow breaks are the game's explicit failure conditions, such as getting hit and dying. They are what the player is primarily focused on doing during the flow run. Extrinsic flow breaks can be understood as two elements. The buffer, and the threat. The buffer is a degree of leniency the game extends to the player, allowing them to be inconsistent and still pass through. Most commonly expressed through health bars, their length is defined by the level of error and inconsistency the game is expecting and willing to let the player get away with. By allowing the player to slip up without losing progress, the constant introduction of unforeseen obstacles and by extension the flow run itself, is maintained. In addition, typically a degree of tension is added as their buffer shortens and they reach closer to the threat, which is of course what the game threatens to do if the player burns through their buffer. Usually sending the player back to checkpoint, it exists to demand a certain level of performance from the player. If the player's performance doesn’t match the difficulty curve, they’re made to repeat it until it does. The intention being that the increased skill from the practice will get them there, which develops mastery.

Now the following examples are just individual case studies. A small showing of games that use certain ratios of buffer to threat to accomplish a certain goal. They are in no way representative of the only thing that can be done with that arrangement.

Low health demands precision. In Mario games you have somewhat infrequent checkpoints, but also not terribly many hazards. The player has to be somewhat careful with their moves, but they aren’t expected to die terribly often, so the game doesn’t place checkpoints very often, as if the player does die they were likely either playing too risky, or had a simple mistake. Either way the player is unlikely to grind the level out, and the game focuses on easygoing flow. On the other hand Celeste only lets you get hit once and places spikes everywhere. As such it has to place a checkpoint down every couple of feet to ensure that the player keeps making progress. If the checkpoints were too far apart, then the player would surely master the first portion of the stage completely long before they even got close to the new stuff. The fun comes from the growth, but eventually the player is just grinding for a lucky run where they don’t screw anything up. The game ought to move the player along before that. Celeste can be a bit anxiety inducing at first, but when you repeat and practice the feeling transforms into a much more easygoing zen as the runs mesh together.

High health and somewhat frequent checkpoints brings to mind games like Shovel Knight and Hollow Knight, which have more focus on the player engaging the enemies with their combat mechanics as they traverse the world, and getting hit is a fairly expected part of the formula. Combat is a bit less precise compared to just platforming. Platforming tends to be about executing the correct path, while combat is more about avoiding and outputting damage. Platforming has very well defined anticipation and windows, whereas combat forces the player to constantly determine when it is safe to act through careful consideration of their current health, the enemies position relative to their own, lingering hazards, the opponents patterns, etc. The games have to place a fair number of checkpoints to catch the player if they fall in combat.

I can’t think of what high health infrequent checkpoints might represent from a general standpoint. Probably because the player would likely use the extra health to play riskier then die pretty far in and lose a bunch of progress, and that sounds very annoying.

The main issue I have with how extrinsic flow breaks are implemented with the traditional health and checkpoints system is that it’s rare that I find a game that can make both its initial flow and mastery development fun. Games that focus on flow often treat mastery as an obligation for players that can’t keep up. Without the considerations to extend mastery development, the player gets to perfection way too fast, and the mastery stops being fun. The mastery gets in the way of the flow.

On the other hand, games that put the development of mastery at the forefront lose the appeal of the flow by constantly interrupting the stream of new content with mastery development. I’d like a minute to take in all of the new stuff but the game keeps throwing me back to the start.

In search of a game that can pull off both, we come back to Kirby and Pizza Tower, as they both try to have their cake and eat it too. They try to make their flow accessible and easy to maintain and their mastery challenging with strong depth.

They put a lot of slack on the line, Kirby’s float will theoretically let you cheese anything as the player can just fly over any obstacle, ignoring the ability system will introduce a much simpler combat loop for boss fights, and the player is given a generous health bar. Peppino from Pizza Tower has infinite health, and can’t die until the escape sequence in every level, which does put the player on an explicit time limit, but gives them enough time to escape twice over. However, both of these games implement elements to incentivize experienced players to play faster, and tighten the restrictions for goals beyond completing the game.

Kirby goes the simple route and records the player's time. Oftentimes the game will implement side modes to show the player how fun it is to go fast. There will be obstacle courses and boss rushes that will give you medals if you can finish them under a certain time. The game knows it's more fun when you go fast, and tries to make sure the player gets that.

Pizza Tower has a more complex version achieved through its level rankings. In order to get the game's best rank, P, you need to meet a few requirements. You need to get a certain number of points by collecting objects throughout the level, complete all 3 secret rooms, grab the hidden treasure, complete a lap 2, and maintain a singular uninterrupted combo from the first room to the exit door. Your combo starts when you kill an enemy. It gives you seven seconds, and resets if you kill another. That means that you have to be constantly running as fast as you can to get to the next target before your combo runs out. On top of that, needing to do a lap 2 puts the excess time the game gives to newcomers to good use, significantly tightening the clock.

The most subtle mechanic however is likely the points dynamic. Points are received through killing enemies and collecting minor collectibles scattered through the level like coins in a Mario game. Smaller amounts are scattered in patterns to guide the player, but many more are hidden in big stashes throughout the level.

Because the smaller coin-like collectibles are intended to guide the player along the critical path, the player is going to miss plenty of them as they take shortcuts. This means that they’re already running tight on points, and if they need more they’ll need to find the stashes that can be collected most efficiently to make up for those lost points.

Further, the player can lose points through taking damage, and if they do they will likely have to get some of the less easy point caches placed later in the level, that may require the player perform a stylish trick or the like. The tension and challenge is enhanced by the fact that they haven’t been practicing that specific trick as they repeatedly attempt the level, which brings it much closer to the flow than mastery as the player needs to adapt to their slip up.

These games give the player a lenient formula, but ratchet up the challenge by having the gameplay radically change when you try to appease conditions that only veteran players will care about. Level rankings are about giving the game a broader range of appeal, as the player will either care, and go for the best one, or they won’t and waltz on through content with what they got. Games can keep their flow separate from their mastery development by splitting them into two separate experiences. This not only maintains the sanctity of the flow run, but makes the mastery development optional for those who strongly resonated with the game.

One method to do this that I didn't mention would be the pseudo New Game Plus, where you replay the whole game, same levels, but with a new character designed to speed through them. I know of three examples, Meta Knight from Kirby Super Star Ultra, Plague Knight from Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove, and The Noise from Pizza Tower.

To put it succinctly, Shovel Knight can jump 4.5 tiles horizontally and vertically; Plague Knight can fly. In fact all three of the mentioned characters are able to fly, in a platformer not designed around that. These games take characters with certain limits, design levels around those limits, then once you beat the game, let you replay those same levels as a character without those limits. This naturally increases the appeal of both the initial flow run and mastery development. The flow run is renewed as while you are somewhat familiar with the level layout, it’s been a while since you beat the first level, and further you don’t know how the new character navigates the first level. The mastery development is renewed because the level geometry has massively increased shortcut potential now that certain restrictions have been removed.

The new characters' much more expansive and freeing movement capabilities remove the emphasis of how the level wants you to navigate it, and places the emphasis on what your character can do.

#game design #video games #rant post #essay #super mario #kirby #kirby super star ultra #kirby super star #celeste #hollow knight #hotline miami #neon white #shovel knight #welltaro #from hit game #downwell #pizza tower #peppino spaghetti

12 notes · View notes

spiralcass · 10 months

Text

NEW X-MEN: THE ANIMATED SERIES - SEASON 2, EPISODE 5

We open on Emma Frost’s telepathy class, with 12 students in attendance. Emma tells them all it’s time for a pop quiz. She’s put minimal, by her standards, mental defenses up, and she wants them to tell her what she’s thinking of.

Immediately, the only hands that go up belong to Quentin Quire, sporting an unfortunate sweater vest and shorts combo, and the Stepford Cuckoos, who sit on opposite sides of the classroom. Emma calls on the Cuckoos first, and they answer correctly. The Cuckoos shoot Quentin a smug, superior glance.

Emma tells the class to try again with the next one, but only the same hands go up. This time she calls on Quentin, who also answers correctly. He sticks his tongue out at the Cuckoos.

Emma gives the class one more chance, but, again, only the Cuckoos and Quentin can read her mind.

Emma pinches her nose.

EMMA: “What was Jean even teaching any of you? I bet she never even invaded your subconscious.”

Emma sighs and calls on the Cuckoos.

SOPHIE, smirking: “You’re thinking about…how good Mr. Summers is in bed.”

The whole class laughs as the bell rings, Emma so glad she doesn’t need to respond to that.

As the class files out, Quentin approaches the Cuckoos, who are visibly disgusted by him getting near them, and mocks that they can only keep up with him because there are five of them. He’s obviously superior to any ONE of them.

PHOEBE: “We are one, idiot.”

IRMA: “Five-in-One, dweeb.”

CELESTE: “And One-in-Five.”

SOPHIE: “We’d only need half a Cuckoo to be better than you.”

ESME: “So just drop dead already.”

As the Cuckoos strut out, Quentin is both frustrated by the Cuckoos, and by his arousal toward them.

Out in the hall, Emma is stopped by Scott.

EMMA: “And what are you all unusually smiley about?”

SCOTT: “Well, we’ve been official for a week, so I thought it might be nice for us to take a night off. There’s a new airshow out in Queens I thought we could check out.”

Emma looks at Scott like he’s an idiot.

EMMA, as she walks past him: “No.”

SCOTT: “No?”

EMMA: “No to attending an airshow, and no to stepping foot in Queens. Jean may have simply gone along with whatever interests you have, although frankly I’m shocked you possess any, but for me, you’ll have to do better. Capiche?”

SCOTT, actually upset: “Yeah. Capiche.”

Emma hums in frustration as she turns back around.

EMMA: “I apologize. The only man I’ve been with before was Shaw. I forget I shouldn’t just walk all over you anymore.” She forms a cat-like smile as she puts her arms around his shoulders. “I suppose I can give the boy a night with his toys. Find us something better than Queens, hmm?”

SCOTT, his mood lifted: “Yes, ma’am.”

The two kiss, but the moment is sadly ruined.

“Oh, please do not tell me you two are actually dating now.”

The headmasters pull away and open their eyes, finding that Sunspot has returned.

SUNSPOT: “Disgusting at this revelation is, therapy can wait. We need to talk.”

In the medical bay, Beast says he knows it seems scary, but with these, he can still do everything he used to.

We see he’s speaking with Julian, who’s fully dressed and seems to have recovered as much as he can. In front of him are two metal hands, which Beast explains he’s designed to work specifically with his, and only his, telekinesis; they will be an extension of himself.

HANK, adjusting his glasses: “Some of my best work if I may say so.”

JULIAN: “YOU say so. I don’t. They’re uglier than Ashida’s gloves.” He sighs. From his nubs, he inches out his TK field to grab them and pull them over to his nubs. He repeatedly flexes and unflexes his new fingers. “Yeah. I guess this will do.”

Julian, without saying thank you, sullenly exits the med bay, only to shove his depression down, put on a cocky grin, and hold his arms out as he’s greeted by his friends.

JULIAN: “Guess who’s back!”

Cessily runs up to him and gives him a hug, Julian then twirling her around with his TK, as Brian cheers him on.

SOORAYA: “We’ve missed you.”

JULIAN: “I KNOW you have.”

Emma talks up from behind the kids, standing tall and imposing, but with a small smile.

EMMA: “I hope you’re well-rested, Hellion, because if you wish to keep using that name, I don’t want to hear one excuse from you about your injury impacting your performance. Understood?”

JULIAN: “Loud and clear.”

Emma softly touches her gloves hand to his face.

EMMA: “I have work to do, but come to my office later so we can talk. And be proud of yourself.”

Emma walks off, Julian’s face falling for a moment while no one’s looking. Quickly picking himself back up, however, he wants to know where the others are.

Cessily explains that Laura is still blaming herself for what happened to him, and she isn’t ready to see him yet. Nori, well, that flimsy bridge may have been burnt when the two nearly fought to the death, and Sofia…

Julian sighs.

JULIAN: “Yeah. I messed up there. Big time. But she’s still single, right?”

SOORAYA: “Yes, but I don’t think she wants –”

JULIAN: “Perfect! Thanks for the intel!” Julian cackles as he floats off. “Just watch! By the end of the day, the premiere Mutant power couple will be back!”

Cessily, Sooraya, and Brian all clearly know this is a bad idea.

CESSILY: “Ten bucks says this goes badly?”

BRIAN AND SOORAYA: “No bet.”

In Scott’s office, with Emma at his side, Cyclops questions where Sunspot has been. Leaving out a number of details, he simply tells them he’s been taking some time off. While he was doing so, he met a seemingly pleasant man named John Sublime, a name Emma recognizes as the head of Sublime Corp, a meditech corporation that formed three years ago.

Roberto says he started chatted with the man, but any potential friendship died the second he started ranting about how baselines were “entitled” to Mutant gifts, and how something should be done to erase the “inequality”.

ROBERTO: “I thought he was just talking nonsense dreams, but after reading one of Emma’s recent mission reports about the existence of the U-Men, well, it wasn’t hard to put two and two together.”

The most worrisome thing he notes is that Sublime has a Mutant working for him, possibly against their will, giving them a description of Martha. Scott apologizes for riding Roberto so hard about his absence, with the rest of the X-Men having been unable to catch any leads on the U-Men since their first attack. Still, the next time he goes off on his own like this, he NEEDS to let him know.

Roberto wipes his smile off his face, stands tall, and clasps his hands behind his back.

ROBERTO, mockingly: “Sir, yes, sir! It won’t happen again, sir!”

Roberto drops the bit and laughs as he heads out of the office.

ROBERTO: “I’ll leave dealing with him and rescuing the Mutant in your hands.”

CYCLOPS: “And where are you going now?”

ROBERTO: “My room. That was the most exhausting vacation I’ve ever taken.”

Roberto exits, but Emma follows after him, saying she’ll be with Scott to plan in a moment.

When Emma catches Beto in the hall, he asks if she needs him to do any more of her job for her.

EMMA: “Drop the attitude, Da Costa. It’s obnoxious. And that’s coming from me. I know you were doing more than taking a trip to the Galapagos.”

ROBERTO: “Oh? What do you think I was up to?”

Emma shows Roberto an article from this morning on her phone about how Da Costa International is back in business and bigger than ever, with a new headquarters in France.

ROBERTO: “Is this supposed to be a “gotcha”? It’s public news, and I’ve mentioned before this is a side project of mine.”

EMMA: “That may be, but it doesn’t change that you had to have gotten the money from someone. And I can’t think of many people with this type of money who’d be willing to back a known Mutant superhero.”

ROBERTO: “If it’s such a short list, you should have no trouble figuring it out, but that really shouldn’t be your priority right now.”

As Roberto is finally able to leave, Emma narrows her eyes at him.

Back in the office, Scott hears someone come in and assumes it’s Emma, but, in actuality, it’s Storm and Kitty, neither of whom appears happy with him.

SCOTT: “What’s wrong?”

KITTY: “Seriously?”

ORORO: “Children gossip, Scott. Especially they see their headmasters kissing in the halls.”

Scott tries to explain, but Kitty swears at him to shut up. They thought he’d made a dumb, stupid, bad mistake, but clearly, this is just what he wants.

SCOTT: “Yes! It is. And if either of you could give her the slightest chance, you’d understand why.”

ORORO: “She removed any chance of that when she broke our family.” Storm walks over to Scott and looks down at him. “I’m so disappointed in you.”

Storm walks out with Kitty, who’s sure to flip Scott off on her way. Unsure of what he can do about the state of the team he now commands, he picks up and looks longingly at his photo of the classic X-Men.

We cut to the Danger Room, where the power is still turned off. Suddenly the lights turn on. In the control room, a white-gloved hand inputs a command into the system.

An obstacle course emerges in the Danger Room, including sentries, narrow, razor-sharp hoops, massive industrial fans, and six orbs that float around the room.

Stepping inside, Wind Dancer takes a deep breath. WIth a countdown clock set, and her eyes on the high scores for completing this course set by Storm and Northstar, she does some last-minute stretches.

The countdown completes and Sofia runs through the course. In as fast a time as possible, she must fly through every hoop and touch every orb, all of which are rapidly moving around in an erratic pattern, while withstanding the fans from every corner, and eliminating the sentries.

While Sofia does cut herself on the final hoop as she attempts to pick up her pace at the end, she otherwise performs nearly flawlessly, gracefully passing through the rest of the hoops and reaching every orb, while using the fans, which are meant to be a hindrance, to eliminate the sentries for her, so she need not even concern herself with them.

Reaching the end, Sofia looks up with eager eyes and panted breaths to see if she got the high score. She did not. She achieved third place behind Storm and Northstar, but a distant third place.

SOFIA: “DAMMIT!”

“Don’t beat yourself up.” Sofia’s eyes widen as Danielle enters. “Well, beat yourself up for breaking the rules about not using the Danger Room and getting detention, but not for your performance. That was excellent, Wind Dancer.”

Sofia hangs her head in shame.

SOFIA: “I have had so much more free time to train lately, I thought I could get the number one score, but I didn’t even come close.”

DANI, giggling: “Oh no, you did better than veteran X-Men like Archangel, Banshee, and Cannonball, but fell short of the fastest man alive and the world’s greatest badass. Such a failure. You should be proud.”

SOFIA, sighing, but able to smile: “Thank you Ms. Moonstar, but I won’t be proud until I’m the best.”

“You know you already are to me, Beautiful.”

That is said over the Danger Room’s intercom. Sofia and Dani look up to, of course, find Hellion. Julian is looking down at Sofia with one of the most innocent looks we’ve seen in his eyes, while Sofia looks up at him, unsure of what to feel.

Dani pats her on the back.

DANI: “Go deal with your Degrassi nonsense. We’ll talk about your punishment and overly high standards for yourself later.”

Sofia meets Julian in the control room, with awkwardness filling the air. Julian asks how Sofia is doing. She gives a non-answer.

SOFIA: “I am…happy to see you’ve recovered. I like your new hands.”

JULIAN, snorting: “Can’t say I feel the same there, but you do have an eye for spotting the best in things. And in people.”

Julian steps forward and tells Sofia how sorry he is for how he spoke to her. No one should EVER speak to her like that. He was just going through such a hard time after everything, and he lashed out at her when he shouldn’t have. If he wanted to be alone, he should have just said that.

JULIAN: “I didn’t mean a thing I said about using you, and I never wanted to actually break up with you. I was just…” Getting the next word out takes a great deal of effort on Julian’s part. “...scared. I’m so sorry, Sofia. Please. Give me one more chance.”

Sofia, wide-eyed, stammers as she struggles to find what she wants to say. Eventually, she steps forward and takes Julian’s hands. His eyes light up. But…

SOFIA: “I am sorry, Julian. I’m sorry for what happened to you, and I’m sorry I have to tell you this…but I cannot keep playing your games.”

JULIAN: “What?”

SOFIA: “Everyone has different sides to them. The sides of you I usually see…I love.” She may as well have just plunged a knife through this boy’s heart. “But the other sides of you, the sides I feared for how they would impact me…they scare me more than ever.” Sofia pulls away. “You may not have meant it, but you broke my heart. I can’t go through that again.”

Sofia flies off, as a destroyed Julian falls to his knees.

On one of Emma’s jets, which naturally has an all-white interior, Scott notes how much more lavish it is than the jets Xavier would charter when he’d take either him and the rest of the 05 on a rare vacation, or when he’d take him and Jean with him to observe him in Washington. Emma replies that she’d HOPE she had better taste than that fossil.

Emma tells Scott that she has work to do since she wasn’t exactly planning on taking a flight to China today. Scott says that’s fine, as he’s not exactly without a workload either.

EMMA, as they both pull out their laptops: “Credit where it’s due, running your criminal business on the opposite end of the world from your legitimate one is an effective way to keep nosey do-gooders from making a connection.”

CYCLOPS: “You know you don’t always have to praise the villains’ plans and say things like that, right?”

EMMA: “Yes, but your nose crinkles in the most laughable way when i do, so I’m afraid I’m left with no choice.”

Scott laughs that off as the two begin working in silence…but Scott still has something on his mind.

CYCLOPS: ‘Sorry. One more thing.”

Emma sighs and gestures for him to proceed.

Scott explains how he’s never been Mr. Popular. He’s always been the one to make the responsible calls that pissed people off. But at the end of the day, everyone, except sometimes Logan, knew he was their friend, and they respected him. Now though? He thinks he’s on the verge of losing Storm and Kitty for good if he doesn’t do something. And after this morning, he has no idea where he stands with Sunspot.

SCOTT: “How do you deal with everyone hating you?”

Without a word, Emma reaches into her bag and paws around it. Scott questions what she’s doing. Emma proceeds to leave cocaine on the table in between them.

SCOTT: “Really?”

EMMA: “Just don’t overdo it.”

Scott glares at the coke with disgust before just hopping back onto his laptop. Emma is amused.

In the school’s gymnasium, Laura is training Sofia in H2H combat. Or, at least, that’s what they usually come here to do. Today, while they are sparring, Sofia is talking nonstop about all the confusing emotions going through her head right now. How she still hates Julian, how she still cares about him so much, if she should feel bad for holding what he said in the wake of his injury against him, etc.

Laura doesn’t have anything to say to any of this, acting as a sounding wall for her as she blocks all of her attacks, but while she can handle fighting and listening, here, she’s being forced to fight and listen, while Sofia makes repeated contact with her as she sweats profusely in her workout bra and tiny shorts, and shouts in her harmonic voice.

Laura’s face is bright red.

It’s in this moment of distraction that Sofia is able to land a clean kick on Laura’s stomach, and slightly knock her back.

Sofia cheers at this success, this being the first time she’s been able to hit her like that. Laura, tugging on her hair, tries to compose herself as she congratulates her (she doesn’t do a very good job).

LAURA: “You’re a natural.”

SOFIA: “I’ve read that fighting is much like dancing. Once I’ve learned the basics, I think I might ask Mr. Da Costa to teach me capoeira.”

Laura nods but tells her not to push herself. Unlike her, even with everything she’s been through, Sofia still has time to enjoy being a kid. Sofia falls backward and catches herself, floating on her back in mid-air. She knows she might be overdoing it, but it’s the only thing that takes her mind off Julian. She asks Laura what she thinks she should do as she swirls some wind around Laura so she can sit down in mid-air next to her.

Laura doesn’t blame Julian for anything he said because of his injury. It was her fault he was put in that position, so if she should be mad at anyone, it’s her. It comes down to trust. It’s about whether Sofia can trust his darker sides to never come for her, and if she can trust her, Laura doesn’t think she should have a problem trusting Julian. Sofia doesn’t think that makes sense, but…

LAURA: “You’ve seen Julian at his worst. You haven’t seen me at half of mine.”

Sofia is left to think, Laura lying back next to her.

In Shanghai, Scott and Emma walk down a busy street as they approach Sublime’s building, Emma wrinkling her nose at the smell of all the street food. Scott reminds her this is part of the local culture, and it’s not even like all of this food is cheap, but Emma says she’ll stick with her usual tables in this city.

Changing the subject, Scott asks about the drugs from the plane. No personal judgement, they’re both adults who’ve done worse things than a party drug, but it isn’t exactly responsible to be doing cocaine while teaching and regularly going into combat. Emma explains that, no, she doesn’t do cocaine. Anymore. Back in her Hellfire days, she was a right addict. She’s clean now, but having it around…

Emma trails off.

SCOTT: “Having it around…what?”

Emma takes a moment to respond.

EMMA: “Not important.”

The two arrive at Sublime Corp. Scott holds the door open for Emma and they pass through the lobby up to the receptionist. She asks if they have an appointment and, with a small psychic suggestion, she knows they do. As she looks up at Scott and Emma to tell them Mr. Sublime will see them right away, we see that Emma is masking the two telepathically as unrecognizable businesspeople.

SCOTT: “I should not be okay with you doing that.”

EMMA: “And yet…”

The two march off toward the stairs.

In the library, Cessily is calmly studying with her headphones on, while bopping her head to the Washingtons’ music. She’s seated at a table with Pixie, Rubbermaid, and Preview, who are also studying. Their study session is interrupted when Hellion flies in fast enough to send their books flying.

Cessily takes off her headphones and shouts at Julian for this, but, rather than apologize, he just says he needs her help. Please.

Cessily sighs and asks her friends to give them a few minutes. As the other girls get up, Preview slaps Julian.

JULIAN: “Oh come on! I thought we had a good time!”

RUBBERMAID, whispering to Pixie: “I heard Sofia broke up with him because of his tiny wiener.”

PIXIE: “Hee hee. Weiner.”

Once they’re gone, Julian sits down next to Cessily and tells her how Sofia turned him down.

CESSILY: “Shocking.”

JULIAN: “Ah, come on, be nice.”

She’s the only person he trusts who currently has a girlfriend, so he wants her advice on what he should do. It’s not like he can just pull the same thing he did at the dance again.

CESSILY: “Hmm. I know you didn’t mean it, but you said some pretty awful things to her. Maybe the best thing you can do is start from scratch. Prove to her you’re still the good guy she fell for, even if it takes a few months.”

JULIAN: “Months?!”

“What’s this?”

“Cessily Kincaid giving bad advice?”

“I’m shocked.”

Julian and Cessiy glare as they’re approached by the Cuckoos.

CESSILY: “What do you want now?”

SOPHIE: “We sensed desperation.”

ESME: “We thought it might be good for a lark.”

PHOEBE: “And it was!”

The five-in-one laugh.

IRMA: “We also needed to get some books.”

For apparently saying something wrong, Phoebe nudges Irma with her elbow.

Julian tells them that they haven’t met before, but this is none of their business, and after what they put his friends through, nothing about his life ever will be. So buzz off.

The Cuckoos, still smirking, casually shrug as they walk off.

JULIAN: “What’s their deal, anyway?”

CESSILY: “Don’t worry about it. Now, where were we?”

JULIAN: “Oh, um, right. Months?!”

At Sublime Corp, Scott and Emma, in telepathic disguise, are welcomed by the corporation’s eponymous CEO, who brandishes his trademark smile. He says he doesn’t remember his assistant mentioning she’d scheduled a meeting for him with representatives of Kilgore Arms, but hey, everybody makes mistakes.

SCOTT, telepathically: “Picking anything up from him?”

EMMA, telepathically: “No, but I’m not sensing any normal mental defenses either.”

SUBLIME, sitting behind his desk: “Please, have a seat. My condolences about your CEO’s recent disappearance. Who knows what could have befallen him?”

The X-couple take their seats.

SCOTT: “It’s always difficult to lose familiar leadership.”

EMMA: “But it opens up all sorts of wonderful opportunities.”

He asks what they’d like to discuss. Seeing how his company is purely in the Meditech field, he’s guessing they’re interested in purchasing either some of their research or patents to use in their weapons.

Emma tells him that while much of his research could be of value to them, they’re more interested in his “extra-curricular” activities.

SCOTT, doing his best to act evil: “We know you’re behind the U-Men and the assault on the Cockrum Mental Hospital. The operation may not have been a success, but we were most impressed by what we read. Mutants are a scourge, and your tools may be the key to escalating the war against them.”

EMMA: “Of course, Kilgore Arms is prepared to pay handsomely for any samples you’re willing to part with.”

Sublime laughs. He should have expected as much. Honestly, he’d hoped to have launched his next attack by now, but he didn’t want to send his boys and girls out into the field again half-cocked.

SUBLIME: “I do have to disagree about one thing. Mutants being a “scourge”. Some of them can make quite good friends.”

The door to Sublime’s office creaks open as a brain in a jar floats in. John introduces Scott and Emma to Martha Johannason. Scott nearly loses his cool and drops his act when, along with being appalled at this being done to one of his people at all, he notices a substantial laceration on her, which Beto hadn’t mentioned. Emma is able to calm him telepathically before he does something stupid.

As Martha floats over to Sublime’s side, he says she’s his right-hand girl and invaluable to his research. She volunteered to be his test subject, agreeing with his philosophy that it isn’t fair for only people like her to have powers, and while the tests did cost her her body, she’s perfectly happy as she is now.

EMMA: “I notice a cut on her. Has she been engaged in combat since taking that form?”

SUBLIME: “Oh, no, no. She was aiding me with an operation and didn’t quite meet the standards I held her to. I trust after this lesson, she won’t make that mistake again. Right, sweetie?”

Martha’s tank bubbles.

EMMA, giggling: “Finding good help can be so difficult, can’t it?”

SCOTT, through grit teeth: “Indeed.”

Sublime says that now would be the part where he asks what Kilgore Arms is willing to offer him, but, of course…

SUBLIME: “You’re not with Kilgore Arms.”

A chill runs down Scott and Emma’s spines as they’re frozen in place, and Emma’s illusion is broken.

SUBLIME: “Cyclops. Emma Frost. I’ve so been looking forward to meeting the both of you.”

Unable to move, Scott and Emma sneer at the monster sitting in front of them.

In the library, Julian exclaims to Cessily that he can’t just go back to being Sofia’s friend, or maybe even something lower than that. There are only a few months left in the school year, then he’s going home for the Summer, and in all that time, Sofia could meet someone else.

Cessily isn’t sure what else to tell him. Dramatic displays and forcing himself on her aren’t going to work on Sofia.

JULIAN: “I can’t take that risk! There has to be something else I can do. I…I love her.”

Cessily’s eyes widen.

CESSILY: “Seriously? Or, like, do you mean in a cheesy first-teen love kind of way?”

JULIAN, shaking his head, looking as stunned by what he just said as Cess does: “No. No, I think I mean it. Shit.”

Cessily stretches her arms across the table and grabs Julian’s cheeks, practically squealing.

CESSILY, grinning: “THEN TELL HER THAT, YOU IDIOT!!!”

JULIAN: “Yeah? That won’t just make things worse?”

CESSILY: “Sofia is the straightest girl I’ve ever met. I don’t think there’s anything in the world she wants more than for you to tell her that.”

Julian’s face lights up. Okay! He will tell her. He just needs to find the right moment. He thanks Cessily for her help, but as he tries to fly off, she shapeshifts into a net and catches him in it.

CESSILY: “No going anywhere till you clean those books. I’m not getting in trouble with Mahn Cao Thi Xuan because of you.”

Cessily shapeshifts back to normal and wishes Julian luck, before going to find her friends. Julian calls out to her as she walks off not to tell Rubbermaid what he’s planning; that girl can’t keep her mouth shut.

Julian starts putting the books back on their shelves with his telekinesis as he just repeats, “Sofia, I love you” over and over again under his breath.

In Sublime’s office, John taunts Scott and Emma. That was a very nice illusion they had going, one Martha wouldn’t have been able to see through.

SUBLIME, as Scott and Emma struggle to move: “She specializes in…other parts of the brain.”

Fortunately for him, he has other ways of detecting Mutants. Scott questions what those would be, but Sublime is afraid he only shares information like that with his business partners, not those impersonating them. And especially not those who’ve put his treasured men and women in prison.

As he glares at Emma, she turns her eyes away and looks at Martha.

EMMA, telepathically: “Martha, darling, I don’t believe a word he said about you. Whatever this awful man is doing to make you work for him, we can help you.”

Sublime slaps Emma across the face, telling her to pay attention to HIM. Scott shouts at Sublime not to touch her, but John just uppercuts him, drawing blood and knocking him over in his chair.

Sublime laughs. These two have some of the most incredible gifts in the world. Maybe he’s a little greedy, but after they’re dead and taken apart, he thinks he may take Emma’s brain and Scott’s eyes for himself.

SUBLIME: “I don’t think I need the diamond form though. I’m untouchable enough as is.” He snaps his fingers. “Joanna’s been a good girl! She’ll love those genes.”

Scott tells him that even if he does kill them, the rest of the X-Men know they came here and will be able to find all the evidence they need to hand him over to SHIELD.

Sublime shakes his head. If they think he fears either of them…

Sublime momentarily disintegrates into microscopic particles before reforming just as quickly.

SUBLIME: “Then you really don’t have a clue what you’re up against.” He claps his hands. “Now then, Martha. Make them fight to the death.”

Scott and Emma grimace as they’re both puppeteered to their feet.

In Julian’s bedroom…

JULIAN, with the widest eyes: “Sofia, I know you’re mad, rightfully so, but there’s something you need to know: I love you.”

We then see he isn’t actually talking to Sofia yet, but Brian, who he’s practicing on, and who’s seated on his bed eating a bag of chips.

BRIAN: “Man, you really need another guy friend to do this kind of thing with. This isn’t fair.”

Julian laughs, not apologizing, and says he thinks he’s ready. Now, he just needs to find her.

Julian flies out of the room, but before he can find Sofia, he receives a message in his head.

“You can do better.”

Julian groans, recognizing the voices, and asks the Cuckoos what they want.

The Cuckoos tell him it’s exactly as they said. Sofia may do well in class, in combat, and be popular, but from what they can see, she doesn’t treat him very well. Dancing with his heart for a whole semester and then after finally letting him in, abandoning him days later over his reaction to a traumatic injury?

SOPHIE: “That’s simply cruel.”

CELESTE: “Cruel, but hilarious.”

PHOEBE: “We’d never do that someone we actually cared about though.”

Julian’s flight is stopped as the Cuckoos stand in his way down a hallway. He plants his feet on the floor. He tells them to buzz off again. If they’re in his head, then they know he loves her.

The Cuckoos laugh. He may love her, but what makes him think she loves him?

ESME: “Would you like to hear what she’s thought about you?”

The Cuckoos play in Julian’s head the rage in Sofia’s mind over how much she hated him and how she was such a fool to ever waste her time on him, from back when she was shouting at them over Roxy, followed by what she was thinking earlier today.

Julian is deeply pained as he hears this.

The Cuckoos circle him.

IRMA: “We still wish to be friends with Bling!”

SOPHIE: “Mercury proved she’s worth our time as well.”

CELESTE: “Dust seems cool.”

PHOEBE: “And every ladder needs someone like Tag at the bottom.”

ESME: “Don’t waste your time on the girl who will never accept you as you are.”

PHOEBE: “Or the ugly, blue-haired bitch who tried to kill you while you were recovering.”

Julian, tensing up and charging up energy, grits his teeth and says he’s not going to fall for whatever their game is here. They tell him there’s no game. He’s the only guy here worth their time. And together, along with his “crew”, they could rule this place.

Julian shakes his head, telling them to leave him alone as he tries to walk past them, only for Sophie to plant a kiss on his lips. Julian is left stunned. The other four Cuckoos smirk.

SOPHIE: “We’ve been inside your head. We’ve seen how bad you can be. And we like it. Doesn’t that sound preferable to chasing the tail of a girl who will never love all parts of you?”

Julian growls as he launches them all into the walls, and finally flies away from them. The Cuckoos scoff as they dust themselves off, in disbelief that didn’t work.

Only for them to grin, as Julian returns a moment later. It’s unclear what he wants.

In Sublime’s office, he cackles as Martha forces Scott and Emma to slug it out, Emma is able to hit hard enough but clearly comes out of the exchange of blows worse, pissing Scott off more than anything.

SUBLIME: “Come now, Martha, get more creative. I want more than just punches.”

As the combat gets slightly more imaginative, Scott and Emma get covered in each other’s blood.

SCOTT, telepathically: “Please tell me you’re getting close to breaking her grip on us.”

EMMA, telepathically: “I wish I could. Charles’ “Red Triangle Defense” isn’t working either, I gather?”

A kick to the balls keeps Scott from answering but causes Sublime to guffaw.

SUBLIME: “That’s enough. Finish them.”

As Scott and Emma pant and look desperately into each other’s eyes…

EMMA, telepathically: “What I was saying before. About my drugs. In the past, when I held all the power in the world, and yet had no control over my own life, they were an escape for me. They made me feel like I was more than Shaw’s puppet. I hold onto them as a reminder of that time. Of how I can never allow myself to fall back into that position. The White Queen stands tall on her own. At least, that’s what I thought I had to do. You absolute bloody dork.”

SCOTT, telepathically: “My entire life was dictated by a man who saw me as a soldier in his war first and a child second. He made me someone I may never have become of my own choice. I was denied that choice. I was denied control. Until I met you. You uptight, condescending witch.”

The two rush each other and beat each other even more violently than previously.

EMMA: “We decide our fates.”

CYCLOPS: “No one tells us what to do.”

EMMA AND SCOTT: “Never again.”

Emma’s power signature lights up and a thin red light surrounds Scott, at the exact same time, and Sublime’s face falls as that shouldn’t be happening.

SUBLIME: “Martha! Toss them out the window! Now!”

He’s too late. A psychic blowback sends Sublime and Martha flying back into a wall. Scott and Emma, barely standing and leaning on each other, approach Sublime. He taunts that he’ll just have to kill them himself before being blasted unconscious by Cyclops’ concussive beams and Emma’s psychic lightning.

Scott and Emma take each other’s hands as they pant.

EMMA: “You asked me how I deal with everyone hating me. It is because I own my life. What anyone else thinks of what I do is of no importance.”

SCOTT: “I see. Does that include me?”

EMMA, calmly laughing: “Less than most.”

Suddenly, Sublime springs back to his feet. Scott and Emma are ready to hit him again, but he begs them not to.

“Sublime”: “Please..please don’t hurt me. I’m sorry. I…I just want to go home.”

Scott looks to Emma with concern and Emma nods before approaching “him”.

EMMA: “Do not worry, Martha. We are not angry. No one will ever hurt you again. No one will ever make you hurt others again. We promise.”

At the school, Scott and Emma, all bandaged up, introduce Matha to Karma. She’ll get to see more of Emma in telepathy class, but given the similarities between their gifts, and her needing a more tender hand, they believe she’ll be happiest on Xuan’s squad. Xuan leads her away enthusiastically, leading her to go meet her new best friends.

Once on their own, Scott brings up that they still don’t know what Sublime was really after, but hopefully, once SHIELD figures out what exactly he is, if not a Mutant, they’ll be able to get to the bottom of things. In the meantime, hunting down the remaining U-Men should be their priority.

SCOTT: “But right now…”

Scott smirks and whips out two tickets. Emma points out that they’re not exactly in any condition to go out right now, with Scott saying they’re for next month. In Berlin.

EMMA, smirking: “Better.”

Scott understands why Emma keeps the drugs on her. He does. But he knows she’s never going to let anyone control her again. Least of all him. Whenever she’s ready, he’ll help her get rid of them.

Emma nods, appreciating it, clearly more than she’s willing to express. The only thing she’s still curious about is what he’s going to do about Storm, Kitty, and Beto.

Scott responds by leaning in and kissing Emma. They’re his friends. In Storm’s case, maybe the closest friend he has. But he doesn’t need them to like him right now. He knows they won’t go quitting over personal reasons. And soon enough, they’ll move on.

EMMA: “And if they don’t?”

SCOTT: “Let’s hope it never comes to that.”

The two walk off together.

In Sofia and Noriko’s room, Sofia sits cross-legged in mid-air in deep thought, while Noriko tries and fails to toss goldfish in the air and catch them in her mouth. The awkward silence is brought to an end when Sofia plants her feet on the floor, lights up her face, and declares that she’s made up her mind.

NORIKO: “You’re swearing off men for good?”

A goldfish lands right on and bounces off of Noriko’s forehead.

SOFIA: “No. Just the opposite.”

Sofia flies off and Noriko reluctantly follows her. They reach Julian and Brian’s room, only to find they aren’t there. When they question where they are, a telepathic message plays. Not just in their heads, but in every student’s.

CUCKOOS: “Hello students of Xaviers. We are the Stepford Cuckoos. We are your newest classmates, and it is all about time you understand who we are. We are better than you. We are more powerful than you. And we are not alone. We have read every single one of your minds. We know all of your deepest, darkest secrets. From now on, we own you all. Failure to comply with whatever we tell you or reporting our “bad behavior” to a teacher will result in all of your secrets entering every other student’s mind. You may not know us yet. That will change. For now, you know our new friends.”

As this speech has been going on, Sofia and Noriko, both pissed, have been running around, trying to find the Cuckoos. When they do, they find them confidently walking down the halls, alongside Cessily, Roxy, Brian, Sooraya, and Julian, who’s making out with Sophie.

Sofia’s heart falls. Noriko takes her hand. Both are in shock at what they’re seeing.

As the new crew struts past the bewildered girls, Julian only stops to whisper, “Ladies” in the most douchey way possible.

CUCKOOS: “From now on, this school belongs to the Hellions.”

#New X-Men: The Animated Series #New X-Men #Academy X #Scott Summers #Emma Frost #Ororo Munroe #Kitty Pryde #Roberto Da Costa #Laura Kinney #Bobby Drake #Sofia Mantega #Julian Keller #Noriko Ashida #Sooraya Qadir #Cessily Kincaid #Brian Cruz #Roxanne Washington #The Stepford Cuckoos

10 notes · View notes

ash-and-books · 2 months

Text

Rating: 4/5

Book Blurb: In this heart-pounding debut thriller for fans of Lisa Jewell and Celeste Ng, a first-generation Vietnamese American artist must confront nightmares past and present…

Annie “Anh Le” Shaw grew up poor but seems to have it all now: a dream career, a stunning home, and a devoted husband and daughter. When Annie’s mother, a Vietnam War refugee, dies suddenly one night, Annie’s carefully curated life begins to unravel. Her obsessive-compulsive disorder, which she thought she’d vanquished years ago, comes roaring back—but this time, the disturbing fixations swirling around in Annie’s brain might actually be coming true.

A prominent art patron disappears, and the investigation zeroes in on Annie. Spiraling with self-doubt, she distances herself from her family and friends, only to wake up in a hotel room—naked, next to a lifeless body. The police have more questions, but with her mind increasingly fractured, Annie doesn’t have answers. All she knows is this: She will do anything to protect her daughter—even if it means losing herself.

With dizzying twists, You Know What You Did is both a harrowing thriller and a heartfelt exploration of the refugee experience, the legacies we leave for our children, and the unbreakable bonds between mothers and daughters.

Review:

An artist finds herself slowly descending into madness as she begins to question what is true or not... and whether the monster is her own mind or someone out to get her as those close to her begin to die and it's all pointing to her as the murderer. Annie "Anh Le" Shaw looks like she has it all, a thriving art career, a devoted husband, and a beautiful home and daughter. Yet Annie's struggling, especially with a mother who she has a very difficult relationship with... that ends up worse when her mother dies suddenly. Annie's life begins to unravel and her OCD begins to flare up and things only get worse... from her art patron disappearing and to the man she had an affair with being poisoned... and someone leaving her threatening messages. Annie feels like she's losing her mind, she can't tell if she's the problem or if someone else is after her. Her memory is foggy at best and she can't seem to do anything right... yet something in her knows that she isn't the one doing this... right? If not her... then who? This was an interesting mystery because I loved the portrayal of Annie dealing with her own background and childhood versus that of the cultural differences in her husband and daughter. The portrayal of the refugee experience and the relationship between mother and daughter was really interesting and I enjoyed it. The mystery itself was pretty clear and I guessed who did it early on but enjoyed it overall. I liked how vulnerable Annie felt and how her struggles were realistic. It's an interesting thriller overall and I think it makes a good read!

*Thanks Netgalley and PENGUIN GROUP Dutton | Dutton for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

#book review #bookish #you know what you did #thriller book

2 notes · View notes

chanelfunnell · 1 year

Text

NHL Q and A

After long time. Sorry, I am lazy, busy and picky. So here we go.

A) anon, Sidney Crosby looked very cheerful in Florida and he looks better now. Shame that he (and Razer) don't have children yet. Unfair on Kate but its their biz.

B) anon I admit I have read her envious or delusional jealous gibberish on Crosby Interesting but not recently. I am glad she's off from my blog and so drama. She was rude and vulgar about wags recently with slur shaming, no obsession with certain. NHLer now.

C) anon, you know what a baby girl is Calamity Jane spoilt little daddy's girl of former Blackhawk.

D) anon, my fav Blackhawks family is the Shaw family and kids.

E) anon, no idea why I'd say Leon Draisaitl does not shift apart from Celeste but they have split up recently. Mc Connor is going stenght from strength with him and so with Lauren. I think personally that Draisaitl is very chilled out and funny guy unless you cross him etc. Then he does not scream but he unleashes his cruel sarcasm or so... He can bite lol but looks quite cuddly nice guy off ice. With NcConnor in synch lol bromance. I'd not call 27 yes old, not even 32 or 35 hrs old player old. I mean 27 is the middle NHL age and the peak and 32 so. 33+ is veteran in. NHL but all changes and so in normal world 35 is pretty young. Its odd like 25 yes old model is promoting anti ageing cream.

F) my bet is on Boston Bruins and Colorado Avalanche in NHL finals. There are more teams tanking, so St Louis Blues, two top players trades, young squad of Red Wings better due to new experienced leader. There is a question of team chemistry, management..

8 notes · View notes

applepath · 2 years

Photo

Listen to this playlist on Spotify!

---

Stadium Pow Wow - The Halluci Nation

Rule the World - Walk Off the Earth

Birch Tree - Foals

I See You - Taylor Shaw

Memories - Thutmose

On My Own - Jaden

Rather Be - Clean Bandit

Golden - Parade of Lights

Barlights - fun.

You’re On - Madeon

Rainbow Veins - Owl City

Dreaming - Smallpools

Different Colors - WALK THE MOON

High - Young Rising Sons

Adventure - Cheat Codes

NFWMB - Hozier

I’ll Be There - Walk Off the Earth

Anthem - Brett Kissel

Verge - Owl City

Marry You - Bruno Mars

I’m Good - the Mowgli’s

Celeste - Ezra Vine

#grizzlystream #forgotten elegy #playlist #ribbon art #i wanted to update the album cover since she was an apprentice for the last one #also she has more music now!#it's all a kind of upbeat pop music vibe #or mostly anyways #im in a major artblock rn so thought something weird would help break me out of it #not sure i love this style

14 notes · View notes

whtequeen-archive · 1 year

Photo

One more time, then. For the children.

► GENERAL INFORMATION

FULL NAME & ALIAS: emma grace frost / white queen CURRENT TEAM(S): quiet council of krakoa PREVIOUS ALIASES: headmistress / black king AGE: 30′s SPECIES: mutant MULTIVERSAL ORIGIN: earth-616

GENDER IDENTITY: cisgendered female SEXUALITY: bisexual NATIONALITY: american ETHNICITY: white

► APPEARANCE

FACECLAIM: margot robbie SPECIAL / RECOGNIZABLE FEATURES: occasional diamond skin HAIR COLOR: brown dyed blonde EYE COLOR: blue ACCENT: posh british CURRENT COSTUME: varies, so you can pick your choice

► BACKGROUND

CURRENT HOME: krakoa PAST OCCUPATION: white queen/black king of the hellfire club/trading company CURRENT OCCUPATION: member of the quiet council of krakoa / frost international ceo SNAP STATUS: survived in another reality

► RELATIONS

SIBLING(S): adrienne, christian & cordelia frost PARTNER(S): matt murdock ( technically ) CHILDREN: celeste, esme, irma, phoebe & sophie cuckoo ( clones ) PARENT(S): winston ( deceased ) & hazel frost

► HEADCANONS/FUN FACTS

born in boston

has a bs in business administration / presumably ma in psychotherapy, with a concentration in sexology from esu

her brother christian told her that her color was white when she was wearing a dress when she was younger and it stuck

she was closest to christian even though they sent him to be institutionalized

many of her skills she telepathically stole; her absorption of astrid’s mind gave emma her british accent

although the cuckoos were cloned from her eggs without her knowledge she considers them her daughters and knows one day they’ll surpass her

she once killed shaw and seized the hellfire club to become the black king. when krakoa formed emma requested that he was brought back and given a seat on the quiet council’s hellfire section so he could handle external conflict

although working with shaw, emma went over his head to secure kate pryde as the red queen

she’s had plastic surgery but won’t say where or when ( spoiler alert: it involves rhinoplasty )

dyes her brunette hair blonde

used to wear glasses

her actions as the phoenix scared emma because she never wanted to be that person

during thanos’ snap she and scott led nation-x, the mutant extremist group, following the decimation

she and scott had a mental affair with scott while he was married

emma was jealous of jean because of how people compared them to one another. she used to want to prove she was better, but now she knows her strength. she’s had her husband. emma can move on and they can be allies

after the years they spent together, emma really did love scott but she knows she isn’t the love of his life even if he loved her back

her recruits include julian keller and douglas ramsey

with her secondary mutation of her diamond form, emma can’t use her telepathy and loses her empathy

► WANTED CONNECTIONS

christian frost -- her favorite sibling back from the dead

sebastian shaw -- enemy turned situational ally

#prompt

14 notes · View notes

loveframe · 2 years

Text

Inspirational Good Morning Quotes

Inspirational Good Morning Quotes with Beautiful Flowers

“Front-loading my day (getting a whole bunch done in the morning) is my productivity secret.” — Celeste Headlee

“If I can feel like the chaos [of the day ahead] is at least known, I can dive in with more composure.” – Wendy McKennon

“With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.” – Eleanor Roosevelt.

“In my experience, there is only one motivation, and that is desire. No reason or principle contains it or stand against it.” — Jane Smiley.

“Success does not consist of never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.” — George Bernard Shaw.

“I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.” – J. B. Priestley.

“Things of Beauty is Joy for Ever.” Inspirational Good Morning Quotes with Beautiful Flowers!

“The key responsibility of leadership is to think about the future. No one else can do it for you.” – Brian Tracy.

“Leaders never use the word failure. They look upon setbacks as learning experiences.” – Brian Tracy.

Inspirational Good Morning Quotes with Flowers Images

“Without hard work nothing grows but weeds” – Gordon B. Hinckley.

“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you, Don’t go back to sleep.”- Rumi. Inspirational Good Morning Quotes with Beautiful Flowers

“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals”- Zig Ziglar.

“Well done is better than well said”. – Benjamin Franklin. Inspirational Good Morning Quotes with Beautiful Flowers

“Perseverance is not a long race, it is many short races one after the other” – Walter Elliot.

“Either you run the day or the day runs by you” – Jim Rohn. Inspirational Good Morning Quotes with Beautiful Flowers

Spiritual Inspirational Good Morning Quotes

“We do not grow when things are easy, we grow by facing challenges.

“A room without books is like a body without a soul”. – Marcus Tullius Cicero.

“Today’s accomplishments were yesterday’s impossibilities”. – Robert H. Schuller.

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do, if you haven’t found it yet, keep looking and don’t settle”. – Steve Jobs.

“There is no limit to what you can accomplish, except the limits you place on your own thinking”. – Brian Tracy.

“Clarity is the key to leadership. What are your goals? Inspirational Good Morning Quotes with Beautiful Flowers

Inspirational Good Morning Quotes

“I learned to love myself, because I sleep with myself every night and I wake up with myself every morning, and if I don’t like myself, there’s no reason to even live the life.” – Gabourey Sidibe.

“One key to success is to have lunch at the time of day when most people have breakfast.” – Robert Brault.

“With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.” – Eleanor Roosevelt. Inspirational Good Morning Quotes with Beautiful Flowers

“For each new morning let there be a flow of love. Let there be light of happiness in every direction.” – Amit Ray.

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” – Maria Robinson.

“I never wake up in the morning and wonder why I am here. I wake up and wonder why I am not making here better.” – Jeffrey Fry.

Every one go through the social media networking platforms daily several times a day and we feel happy if we receive a good morning quote from our beloved once again.

“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” – Henry Ford.

“You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.” – Beverly Sills.

“The biggest task in the morning is to try to keep my headspace from being invaded by the outside world.” — Austin Kleon.

#good morning quotes #inspirational quotes #inspirational #morning quotes #morning motivation #morning #quotes #morning inspiration #inspirational good morning quotes #good morning inspirational quotes #beautiful good morning quotes #good morning #motivational quotes #good morning quotes images #good morning quotes for her #inspirational video #animated good morning greetings with inspirational quotes #good morning wishes #morning above inspiration

5 notes · View notes

trascapades · 1 month

Text

📚#ArtIsAWeapon Reposted from @blackwomeninvisualart 📚 Art Books + Black Women for Winter/Spring/Summer 2024 - newly released, preorder, or coming soon. ▶️ Swipe for more and feel free to comment below what other titles should be on our list!

📖 Black Artists in America: From Civil Rights to the Bicentennial - The second book in a three-volume series on Black American artists, featuring work from the 1950s to the 1970s that responded to the cultural, political, and social concerns of the era. Authored by Earnestine Lovelle Jenkins #earnestinelovellejenkins, Alaina Simone @alainasimone.inc , Celeste-Marie Bernier #celestemariebernier

📖 The Art of Remembering - art historian and curator Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw @professorshaw explores African American art and representation from the height of the British colonial period to the present.

📖 Grime, Glitter, and Glass: The Body and the Sonic in Contemporary Black Art (The Visual Arts of Africa and its Diasporas) - In Grime, Glitter, and Glass, Nikki A. Greene @nikkigphd examines how contemporary Black visual artists use sonic elements to refigure the formal and philosophical developments of Black art and culture.

📖 Mickalene Thomas: All About Love - Texts by Beverly Guy-Sheftall @bevshef, Claudia Rankine @claudiarankine, Renée Mussai @mussairenee and more. This major survey publication further affirms Thomas’ status as a key figure of contemporary art. The book also covers her distinct visual vocabulary, drawing on themes of intergenerational female empowerment, autobiography, memory and tenets of Black feminist theory.

📖 Surrealism and Us: Caribbean and African Diasporic Artists since 1940 - How modern and contemporary artists across the African and Caribbean diasporas transformed European Surrealism into a tool for Black expression. by Maria Elena Ortiz @contemporarychica with contributors Annette K. Joseph-Gabriel @annettejosephgabriel , Negarra A. Kudumu @negarraakudumu Ashley Stull Meyers @ashleyontheinternet and more.

Click on there profiles or search the titles to ADD these to your bookshelves!

#artbooks #bookshelf #blackwomeninart #blackart #BlackGirlArtGeeks

#ArtBooks #BlackWomenArtBooks #BlackWomenArtists #BlackGirlArtGeeks #ArtIsAWeapon

0 notes

torturedpoetsx · 2 months

Text

╰ ☆ ◞ kaia gerber / cis-female / she/her ——— no way is that LAYLA SHAW/SILVER? you know they’re TWENTY FIVE years old and they’ve been in los angeles for TWENTY-ONE YEARS. I hear they’re a BAND MANAGER for BAD IDOLS, which they LOVE. oh and they’re notoriously known for being UNPREDICTABLE but there are some people who have seen them be HONEST. we did a little digging on them and found out that their most played song is BALLAD OF A HOMESCHOOLED GIRL by OLIVIA RODRIGO. LAYLA ALWAYS gets recognized on the street.

part one: statistics.

basic information:

full name: layla silver (former shaw)

nickname(s): lay, lala

age: 25

date of birth: february 20, 1999

place of birth: richmond, va

gender: cis-female

pronouns: she/her

orientation: heterosexual

language(s) spoken: american english

neighbourhood: west paradise, la

living arrangements: lives with her dog in her own apartment in the aster building

family ties:

mother: celeste edwards (retired actress and remarried to step dad)

father: bradley edwards (famous football star and step father)

siblings: kaden shaw (brother)

ex-spouse: UTP silver (divorced since february 2024)

pets: golden retriever dog named aramis

occupational information:

occupation: band manager of bad idols

physical appearance:

face claim: kaia gerber

hair color: brunette

eye color: brown

height: 5 ft. 10 in.

build: lean

tattoos: a few fineline tattoos (some but not all: greek god eros, wine glass, mermaid, angel, red heart, 444, piccaso's ‘woman with dove’)

clothing style: a mix between casual / comfy / sporty / street-style

distinguishing characteristics: pronounced jawline and cheekbones

personality:

mbti: ESFP

element: earth

western zodiac: pisces

chinese zodiac: rabbit

positive traits: honest, mature, persuasive, empathetic

negative traits: unpredictable, resentful, impatient, moody

hobbies: modeling, reading, figure skating, gaming

wanted connections:

romantic/ex spouse: they met when she was 18 and at a concert, connecting over their mutual love for the band they were there to see and hit it off right away. it was a whirlwind relationship with lots of back and forth, on-and-off and on her twenty-first birthday while celebrating it in vegas they spontaneously got married. the marriage lasted until january 2023 (almost three years) before they filed for divorce and after a year of fighting over the details, they are officially divorced since february 2024. layla is still heartbroken over of how it ended (details can be discussed).

part two: questionnaire.

why don’t you start at the beginning and tell us who you are?

"Easy — The name's Layla, I'm 25 years young and a hot divorcee looking for some fun." The brunette winked at the other, smirking.

what is your place in this massive industry?

"I manage my brothers band 'Bad Idols'."

life in los angeles can be pretty intense, do you love it or hate it?

"It is intense indeed but I love it. You just always gotta look out for yourself and the people you care about and I think you'll be fine."

what inspires you to show up for the musicians you work for or collaborate with?

"Well, for one I think my brother would give me a mouthful if I chose to ditch him and the band." Layla laughed. "But other than that, it's fun and interesting to see where their journey takes them and to manage them through it."

what are some of your favourite genres of music?

"Metal or else I think I wouldn't enjoy my job that much. But I also like Oldies and Old School Rock."

what is the first record you ever bought?

"Cheesy but the first album my brothers band put out."

what’s next for you?

"Getting coffee because I've barely slept last night." She laughed. "And after that probably a Pilates class and then some more work. You'll have to wait and see where the journey will take us, I guess."

#sonicfm:intro

0 notes

norteenlinea · 9 months

Text

La Brígida Orquesta, Como Asesinar a Felipes y Celeste Shaw se unen en la quinta versión de Crimen Colectivo

http://dlvr.it/Svd83z

0 notes

bios-hzrd · 3 months

Text

I’m just gonna dump this here as a marker. To show I was almost done. I was almost free. But then I had a break and started playing Hotline Miami and goddamnit am I gonna have to rewrite this whole thing AGAIN.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate being able to adjust and evolve my perspective, I just wish it would happen at more convenient times.

Anyway here’s my mostly finished notes. Or at least they were mostly finished like an hour ago. I’m not sure now, have to play more Hotline Miami.

—-

I think the tension of action based gameplay can be best understood as four states. I’ll call them safe, hold, anticipation and window. Or shaw. That's a fun word, apparently it's synonymous with thicket.

Safe is when the player is completely safe, no tension. They could put their controller down and nothing would happen. When you’re on safe ground in a platformer, or behind cover in a shooter.

Hold is the equivalent of treading water, you’re holding a position, but you can’t stay there forever. The game generally requires that you do some simple action, like holding the climb button to cling to a wall in Celeste, or pogoing in Hollow Knight. When games try to pull extended tense sections, they often use this as the baseline to give the player time to think and recuperate, while ensuring that they know they aren’t out of the woods yet. Further this state often provides some kind of threat if they don’t get a move on. In Celeste clinging to walls drains an invisible stamina bar, and when you run out you’ll fall off to your death. In Hollow Knight you can technically pogo forever, but there's the unspoken threat of you messing up the pogo, screwing up the repeated simple action, so you better get to the next part before that happens.

The anticipation is defined by the player moving towards their next action. They can’t act yet, if they do they’ll mess it up, but soon.

Then the anticipation state ends, and the player finally has their window of opportunity to act, the time frame where they can do the thing. Hence, window. Lotta tension comes from deciding what to do and when.

The degree to which each of these are utilized are associated with the degree to which the pace is dictated. The safe and hold give the player much more control over the pace, while anticipation and window put it into the hands of the game.

It's fairly common for basic platformers with enemies, like Kirby or Mario, to turn the environment into safe zones as they go through. The player will be confronted with threats, creating an anticipation and window, eliminating the threats as they pass by, and that spot becomes a safe as the threat is eliminated, allowing the player to take the game at their own pace.

On the other hand, some games space out their safe areas, maintaining a degree of tension for extended sections by never making the player fully safe. By giving the game most of the control over the pace, the game can keep it cranked high to make the gameplay more intense. Celeste and Downwell hold the implicit threat of falling to your death over the player's head, having the player travel extended sections without being able to land on solid ground, increasing the tension. Celeste allows the player to cling to walls for a decent bit of time, encouraging them to carefully plot out their actions but make a move before it's too late. In quite stark contrast Downwell gives gives the player a limited air stall ability, that can be used to hold them in place, but has many mechanics in play to encourage them to rely on it as little as possible, creating an intense adrenaline rush where you’re falling at max speed, pulsing the brake only as much as you need to steer.

Now there's an interesting way this dynamic is changed when the player is forced to redo parts of a level. Specifically the player has to redo a part of a level they already beat. Maybe they got sent back to checkpoint, maybe they’re beating it again to satisfy a ranking system. Point is, when a player is made to repeat a level or part of a level they already beat, the way they approach it is different. I call it the flow to mastery transition.

The initial run is the flow run, what's important is that the player is unfamiliar with the path ahead of them, and they have to adapt on the fly. They take full advantage of the levels stills and holds, and take the level at their own pace with the main goal of avoiding what I’m going to refer to as extrinsic flow breaks. These are factors outside of the core gameplay loop that serve as punishments for failure such as getting knocked back when you get hit and dying when that happens too many times, getting sent back to checkpoint, or the beginning of the level if you’re out of lives. The flow run transforms into the mastery run the moment the player has to repeat an area. The mastery is defined by the player trying to find the most efficient route, trying to get through as fast as possible, so they can get back to the new stuff. It’s defined by practice elucidating the perfect series of inputs, which is why it only shows its face in set familiar environments. That series of inputs is designed around picking out all of the little inefficiencies in gameplay, which I’m going to refer to as intrinsic flow breaks.

First, a breakdown of extrinsic flow breaks. Their presence is usually considered a necessary evil, as sending the player back does feel bad through cutting into the player's progression and cutting off the flow run where the player is constantly being surprised by new things, it forces the player to hone their skills as they redo that section, which should make the game more fun in the long run as their skill better matches the games difficulty. Most games design themselves around the player beating the level once, and as such want to make sure the player has done it properly by the end.

Extrinsic flow breaks are typically represented by a few aspects we’ll break down here. Knockback, health, checkpoints, and lives.

I’m not terribly fond of knockback. Specifically I’m not terribly fond of ripping control from the players hands, and while that can generally be cut out of death screens, it's a pretty essential part here. I don’t like it because it's just a bad feeling, especially if the game draws it out. Always consider if the game would be benefitted by its inclusion. The strongest reason to include it that I know of is to discourage the player from damage boosting. I’ve mostly seen this put into play where the player has a fairly decent health bar, which usually signifies some sort of combat element where the player needs to be discouraged from considering just running through as the speedier and more economic option instead of risking taking more damage in the punch up. However there’s also Pizza Tower, where health is completely removed as it never intends to force the player to repeat gameplay, but it still needs to give some kind of immediate punishment for getting hit.

Health is just the game's buffer before it forces you to repeat stuff. It helps preserve the flow run by allowing the player a few mistakes before it forces them to do a repeat. My favorite expression of this mechanic is always when health is seen as a resource to be managed, not a dropping axe pendulum. Getting hit means that the player has to either make some compromise in their gameplay, like burning mana that could be used on spells, or risk running around without their buffer. Always adds a good bit of depth.

Health bar length is a measure of how frequently the player expects to get hit, checkpoint frequency is a measure of how often you expect them to die.

Low health demands precision. In Mario games you have somewhat infrequent checkpoints, but also not terribly many hazards. The player has to be somewhat careful with their moves, but they aren’t expected to die terribly often. On the other hand Celeste only lets you get hit once and places spikes everywhere. As such it has to place a checkpoint down every couple of feet to ensure that the player never has to repeat a section so much that they’ve perfectly mastered the first half but are completely lost on the latter.

High health and frequent checkpoints brings to mind games like Shovel Knight and Hollow Knight, which have more focus on the player engaging the enemies with their combat mechanics as they traverse the world, and getting hit is a fairly expected part of the formula. Combat is a bit less precise compared to just platforming. Platforming tends to be about executing the correct path, while combat is more about avoiding and outputting damage. Platforming has very well defined anticipation and windows, whereas combat forces the player to constantly determine when it is safe to act through careful consideration of their current health, the enemies position relative to their own, lingering hazards, the opponents patterns, etc. The games have to place a fair number of checkpoints to catch the player if they fall in combat.

I can’t think of what high health infrequent checkpoints might represent from a general standpoint. Probably because it would treat HP as more of an endurance test, encouraging the player to play carefully, and likely just reset if they lose it too early, and I don’t think that's the kind of game that I’d play. I suppose one might consider exploring in Hollow Knight, but the idea there is to use the healing system to keep yourself topped off in the event of a punch up.

When the game does send the player back to checkpoint, this is when the mastery development begins. More prevalent in the more set platforming experiences, the idea is that the player is already familiar with a functional path through, and they want to get back to the new junk as fast as they can. As such they use their knowledge of the correct path to get there with as few interruptions as possible. There’s less worry about the extrinsic flow breaks, and a bit more on the intrinsic flow breaks.

Pizza Tower shows what happens when you take a similar idea but crank the speed up to eleven. Peppino controls like a car with no brakes. Until you crash into a wall, you only ever go faster, so to help newer players get used to the games intense pace, intrinsic flow breaks are introduced. Moves where the player changes direction such as the turn around and super jump have Peppino pause for a moment, and allow newer players to get their bearings.

The way Pizza tower uses intrinsic flow breaks is especially notable because the methods to avoid them are context sensitive, they need a wall to pull off. They are not replacements, they are opportunities open to veteran players. They don’t change the gameplay, they build it up.

Other examples include having to punch enemies vs maintaining a toss combo in Gravity Circuit, bashing into enemies vs spinning through them in Anton Blast, whatever the fuck Plague of Shadows is doing. Made a whole video on that one. They do exist outside of the shift to mastery, but they are paid much more heed in those moments.

My issue with the traditional flow to mastery dynamic as expressed through checkpoints, is that it often feels like the mastery run is getting in the way of the flow run. That the demand of challenge is getting in the way of the wonder of the flow run. Particularly in those high tension games that I love so much, the energy that comes from rolling with the punches is lost when the game has to make good on its threats and kick you back to practice. That's not to say that I disapprove of challenging gameplay, about a constant drive towards perfectionism, the constant iteration, gradually seeing your own improvement as you perfect a single section has plenty of its own appeal. I just think they step on each other's feet when spliced together.

You could simply isolate one of the runs, and focus on that exclusively. In Neon White every level has a time goal for you to hit, and every run is about deepening your understanding of the game mechanics and level layout, finding every minute time save, from simple stuff like jumping over corners, to more complex stuff like interrupting your initial jump with your double jump to reduce fall time, to these massive level specific skips that’ll have you abusing the level geometry to shave tons of seconds.

My one peeve with it is that it kinda pays the flow run absolutely no heed. Your initial go through is nothing more than recon, a time to beat. It's very easy to drop the flow as the games open ended design, which forces the player to define and redefine their understanding of its layout can also make it a tad difficult on occasion to tell where to go, and a tad easy to softlock yourself.

Fortunately, there's a few games that I know of that circumvent this issue. Kirby, Ultrakill, and Pizza Tower are very generous with their healing systems and checkpoints. It seems to be a major part of their design philosophy that a beginner can always find a way to squeeze by. However these games hardly forget their veteran players, as they provide them with a new god. Most notably the timer. They are able to preserve the magic of the initial flow with plenty of leniency, not ending the flow even if they screw up plenty. However, if the player would like to opt in to the more challenging mastery run, they are fully able to do so.

I’ve already puked out an entire video essay on Kirby, so let's just focus on Pizza Tower and Ultrakill. They’re able to express this through their level rankings. Both of these games are incredibly fast paced tough as nails challenges for adrenaline junkies. But they have no penalty for playing “incorrectly” as it were. Pizza Tower is about barrelling through enemies at mach 3, racking up a combo as you react to terrain changes at lightning speed. However the player isn’t necessarily forced to go fast, you can’t die most of the time, and when the game finally does put a timer over your head it gives you a ton of slack, enough to run the whole track twice. Ultrakill puts a ton of emphasis on style, you’re constantly supposed to be switching weapons and pullin off crazy techniques. Though if you don’t there's really no penalty, you can get to the end perfectly fine just doing what's efficient. You’re free to take the game as it comes without worrying about doing well.

However, in order to get the best ranking for each level, the elusive P rank, the restrictions tighten, and you have to play the game the way the game wants you to. You’ll almost certainly attempt this after beating the game, both of these games are designed around that idea, that you return to the beginning levels a much more experienced player ready to play the game the way it was meant to be played.

Pizza Tower forces you to maintain a single combo uninterrupted throughout the whole stage. What that means, is that every time an enemy dies, you have 7 seconds to kill another, so you better be bolting at mach 3, never stopping for anything, because they sure aren’t coming to you.

Ultrakill has something much simpler though, just specific metrics to hit for each level. You need to beat the level under a certain time, with a certain number of kills, and with a certain number of style points. If you’re playing the game right it's a meaty challenge, but definitely doable.

What's special though, is that both of these games are even willing to provide crutches that specifically make the experience of getting a P rank easier. Pizza Tower provides the player with the super taunt, a screen nuke that kills every enemy on screen. You only gain access to it after building up a combo of 10 , and its main utility is as a combo extender. It's a simple panic button for when you realize you might not kill the next enemy in time, covering for the player if they slip up. A tool to keep in your back pocket that will cover for you if you need it. Ultrakill has a bit more of an interesting one though, it implements a weapon referred to as the Screwdriver that stabs itself into an enemy and deals continuous damage while raining blood everywhere, essentially creating a healing field. While it doesn’t generate any style points for the damage it does, by giving the player constant healing it significantly reduces the pressure to stay alive, and increases their freedom to pull off ridiculous stylish bullshit, which they’ll definitely need to do to make up for the lack of style given by the screwdriver itself compared to the damage it’s doing. You don’t get any points for styling on the enemies corpse after all.

This kind of thing ight not be for everyone, but these kinds of tools that will only be used by the people who need them

Combos are now your breathing. Every time an enemy does you have 7 seconds to kill another or you die.

I just wanted to note that you shouldn’t demand complete perfection on your mastery run. Mastery should not completely abandon flow. Cuphead has you go back through all the levels to get all the best ranks, and while it does force greater skill expression, the best ranks don’t allow the player to take any hits. Cuphead is an excellent tough as nails bullet hell run and gun, but it doesn’t seem to understand the idea that not demanding perfection, being just a little lenient, makes the game not just more accessible, but a thousand times more intense. Getting hit is amazing in Cuphead, the tension fucking spikes because you only have three HP and no way to get more. It's a much better feeling when the player grasps victory from the jaws of defeat, barely clutching out the dub on a single heart, than when they make a slight slip up and hammer the reset button. The mega nutcases that want no damage runs will apply those restrictions on themselves and post their achievements to youtube for their own communities. First focus on appealing not to your most ridiculously dedicated players, but to the people just looking for a solid challenge to a game they really like. Especially if it’s something simple like the win conditions, you can just appeal to those who want to squeeze out a little more runtime by showing how much they’ve learned.

On a lower level the leniency provided by the HP system allows the player to see the things that they wouldn’t be able to if the game demanded perfection, it allows them to see how much farther they have to come. On a higher level it just allows them to let their fingers slip.

If the player understands that something is just outside of their skill range, they’ll give up. If its just barely in their reach, that's the good stuff.

The mega nutcases that want no damage runs will probably apply those restrictions on themselves and post their achievements to youtube for their own communities. Focus on appealing not to your most dedicated players, but to the people just looking for a solid challenge.

Ideally the player should get through their mastery run before they get bored.

#game design

1 note · View note