#player design may or may not have been inspired from basics in behavior

[plumkluts]

baldi's basics brainrot is real and its winning bru😭😭😭😭

#baldis basics #baldi fanart #baldi #dr reflex #mrs pomp #the principal of the thing #gotta sweep #baldis basics null #player design may or may not have been inspired from basics in behavior #im so normal about this game #ibispaintx

[wethepixies]

Welcome to part two of our interview series, pixies! Today, we’re presenting our interview with four of the flaptastic people who make this rewrite possible. They had a lot to say, so this post is rather long - keep reading to see the full interviews!

Our first two Game Creator interviews feature two of our beloved artists - Rachel and Ci.

How did you first find out about the WTP project, and what inspired you to start working as an artist?

Rachel: In a computer graphics class I took last semester, one of our projects reminded me and my friend of Pixie Hollow, so we were reminiscing about the game and I really wanted to see if there was a rewritten version of it. When I found WTP and saw they were accepting artist applications, I was super excited because I loved the game and was starting to get into animation at the time as well. I also just adore the process of game development in general, so I was thrilled to become a part of WTP.

Ci was introduced to the project by a friend who’s also a staff member!

What is your favorite part of your job as a WTP artist?

Rachel: My favorite part is being able to contribute my work to a bigger project. Seeing the art I worked on in the game is really exciting to me. Just knowing that the work you put in is helping to further the game is really cool. As for my favorite thing to work on, it’s really strange, but I enjoy creating the UI buttons and signs for different meadows or shops.They’re super small and no one really pays attention to them, but they’re also extremely necessary so I guess I just like to make them, haha. They don’t always take too long to make but I think they’re cute. Also, I’m especially excited for all the new meadows, as I really enjoy helping to restore the beautiful art for the meadows.

Check out this gorgeous sign that Rachel restored for one of our meadow teleporters!

Ci: My favorite piece of art that I’ve created for WTP was probably a background I restored for a general winter theme/season back when I first joined. It’s not being used right now, but it’s pretty and you’ll just have to take my word for it :’)

How long does it take for you to work on art for WTP, and how do you fit that in your schedule?

Rachel: The time it takes really depends on how much of the project we have completed already. Oftentimes we’ll be working collaboratively and finish what other people have started. So if we are working on something from scratch it can take quite a while, but sometimes it’s just a matter of adding finishing touches and compiling pieces together to create a finished product. And each task takes a different amount of time. For instance, resizing something small will take a few minutes, but creating an atlas for fairy clothing can take hours, especially when you need to restore an item from scratch. Either way, I think it’s still beneficial for us to take our time to create the best product we can. Personally, I don’t always get to work everyday, but when I do, I’ll spend hours because I like to finish tasks in one sitting if I can, although I can’t always haha.  I think that working in moderation is always a good idea as long as you’re getting your work done, and knowing we have so many fans really pushes me to get tasks done and do them well. As for fitting it into my schedule, because of quarantine, I definitely have a lot more time to work on WTP, but during the school semester I would have to plan out what I needed to get done and when I needed to do it in order make sure I could get all of my school projects and WTP work done on certain days in order to avoid as much stress as possible. 

Ci: I don’t have time to work on artwork daily, but I do try to stay on top of what other people are working on, so a small chunk of my day is dedicated to discord. Sometimes I’ll be busy for weeks and do a whole bunch of tasks afterwards in one go, and sometimes I try to take on smaller things (pre-corona I’d sometimes spend time between lectures because that’s often the only time I have!). Some tasks are 5 minute jobs, like UI, but others, like adding clothing, take a few hours. Backgrounds probably take me the longest. A couple hours for a few days, if I have time to work on them daily. They’re really fun when starting!! but after day 3 it’s quite the grind. I like to sleep on those, since there’s so much detail in the PH backgrounds that I’ll inevitably miss something.

Rachel, you mentioned atlases and spritesheets - can you explain what they are and how you use them?

Rachel: An atlas and spritesheet contains all of the different variations of a clothing item or anything you can change on the fairy. So for instance, the hair atlas has all of the different types of hair you can choose when creating your fairy packed into one single file. So in order to make one you have to create all the hair pieces, position them correctly on a fairy reference, export each hair image, and then combine them all onto the atlas file. Then a json file is also created to describe where each image is in the file in order to use it in the game. The spritesheet is similar and is basically a horizontal version of the atlas with all of the images that we use in CAF to scroll through whatever you’re changing.

Do you start the graphics by hand or via some digital web design program?

Rachel: I almost always use digital programs. Sometimes I’ll plan something out quickly on paper but most of the time I’ll use Photoshop. We also use DragonBones for animation.

Ci: All of the research we do is online, so it saves a couple of steps and retains image quality to just keep everything digital. I also don’t have a scanner :’)

And finally, what’s the most challenging piece of art that you’ve made for WTP?

Rachel: The most challenging piece that I’ve done for WTP was probably the hair atlas for when a player creates a fairy because it was the first project I was taking on. All the hair was made already, I just had to resize, reposition, and fix any pieces that were lower quality, and although it was daunting at first, once I started, I was able to get the hang of it (even if it took a few tries), and now I’m super happy I learned how to do it.

Ci: We were missing a whole area of the CAF background (the part that shows up when you’re picking a name) that got passed around for one or two months, and eventually I got to work on it. It was the closest to a custom piece of art that I’ve made for WTP; the middle was a giant blur when I got to it. My motivation to complete it was honestly just being able to get it off the to-do list forever, when I was done I posted a before and after to the staff chat (which I try not to do bc it’s not really productive) because I was so excited about it :’))

__________________

We had so much fun learning more about our artists’ jobs! Next up, we decided to sit down with WTP game developer and administrator Teresa!

How did you first find out about the WTP project, and what inspired you to start working as a developer? 

Teresa: A friend I made in the Pixie Hollow community said that her favorite mini game was Bubble Bounce, so I decided to make it for her. I had started prototyping and showing it around, and someone from WTP saw my work and invited me to join the team.

As we know, WTP is a voluntary project. How do you fit working on WTP into your schedule?

Teresa: I’m actually quite good at time management, and I’ve decided to make WTP a priority. That means that I can’t always say ‘yes’ to other things I want to do, but that’s ok.

What are some of the main things you look for when adding staff members?

Teresa: You need to be able to take criticism well and communicate effectively. A certain level of quality needs to be maintained to build a good game, and criticism sheds light on any blind spots you may have. If you aren’t communicating clearly and frequently, then your value to the team is very low – everyone needs to be on the same page so that work doesn’t get redone and wasted, and to keep an accurate development schedule. Being willing to devote more than a couple of hours a week is also a major plus.

How do you decide which parts of the game you should work on first?

Teresa: There’s this concept called the Minimum Viable Product. Basically, you just strip the project down to what is necessary and work out the kinks. Then you can add new features that enhance the gameplay.

What’s the most challenging issue you’ve faced while creating the game?

Teresa: There was a problem with the animation plugin that I was hoping would be fixed by the maintainers before the demo release. It was a really big deal, the game would be entirely unplayable. At the last minute, I had to dig into the plugins source code and figure it out myself. In the end, it wasn’t actually so difficult – but boy was it stressful. Really I would say that the biggest problems have stemmed from not having enough artists on the team! There have been multiple times where we had to delay updates because we didn’t have all of the assets ready for me to use in the game.

How do you go about fixing a game bug?

Teresa: Gather all the info I can from users experiencing the bug, and try to reproduce it. Just observing the behavior is often enough to figure out the problem. When it’s not, check the logs or step through with the debugger.

Have you ever worked on or made a game before WTP?

Teresa: I’ve worked a bit on some 3D open source game projects, never worked on the multiplayer parts before, though. I also make mods for games.

Lastly, what are your favorite and most rewarding parts of being a game developer?

Teresa: Pushing the boundaries of my knowledge and comfort zone, definitely. As a developer, I’ve learned a lot of new technologies and some new domains specifically for WTP. I also find being able to fix things that I don’t like about games very rewarding. Being an administrator has benefitted me as well. As an admin, I’ve had to cultivate skills in team leadership and project management.

__________________

Finally, we interviewed Lavender Merryheart, our sound designer.

First off, how did you first find out about the WTP project?

Lavender: I found WTP from a Youtube video, and played the demo. I was excited to be able to re-visit PH and when I saw the audio designer application, I wanted to help out however I could!

Are you remaking the music from scratch based on any remaining audio from sources like youtube?

Lavender: Both! We salvage what we can, and re-create what’s needed if. In the future, there will be some new, original music too! When we need a sound effect or music, we first check to see if there’s a good quality clip preserved of the original. It needs to be clear and without extra background sounds. If we can’t find any, then I will dissect the sound or song and try to figure out how it was made, then recreate it.

You mentioned that you make new sounds if needed, how do you go about making them?

Lavender: New sound effects are made by piecing different recordings together, such as the audio you hear when you click the talent orbs, which was re-made from the sounds of a heavy book shutting and wind chimes. If we need to remake a song, I make a new track by re-recording each instrument’s part on a midi keyboard. Then it will be edited it in Logic Pro X, using instruments and synths from the Kontakt audio library.

What’s the part of being an audio designer that you’re most excited about?

Lavender: I’m most excited about getting to write new music for the game! I can’t reveal to you what it’s going to be used for yet, but in the process for the last WTP track I wrote, I thought about how to represent the area it will be used for and what instruments and mood would suit it the best. It was a lot of fun to try to both express my style and also give it that Pixie-Hollow-sound!

Finally, how do you fit working on WTP into your schedule?

Lavender: I keep a to-do list and project notes to help organize what needs to be done, and work on WTP between class assignments. To refrain from burning out, I try to spread out my different tasks and work on a variety of things.

__________________

After we learned about what goes on behind the scenes on WTP, we wanted to learn a little bit about some future plans and hopes the staff have for the game. 

Art wise, what sorts of things will be designed from scratch in the future?

Rachel: Although we still have a long way to go before creating our own work as we have to replicate what was in the original game first, I believe that new clothing and hair might be designed from scratch in the future.

Ci: Right now, we’re still committed to restoring the game in its original form–this means that we try not to design anything from scratch. We’ve discussed the possibility of custom content in the future (items + clothing, pets, meadows, maybe even minigames?), and when the time comes, all of that will be built from scratch. That said, pertaining to the look and feel of the original pixie hollow will be a priority for those updates too.

What game feature from Pixie Hollow are you most excited to have?

Teresa: Personally, I am excited for the skill system and wilderness! We have some new ideas to try out, but I don’t want to spoil anything.

Do you plan to have seasonal differences and events, as well as competitions and activities?

Teresa: Yep! Can’t wait! We are already featuring player’s outfits in the shop catalogue, so that’s sort of a mini fashion spotlight, but there’s definitely more exciting things to come. Fashion spotlight was one of the most beloved competitions/events in the original Pixie Hollow!

In the future, will the game be available for mobile and/or consoles?

Teresa: You can already play WTP on mobile! At some point we will have options that allow the game to run smoother on mobile devices. Console versions won’t be a thing, though.

Is there anything that was in the original Pixie Hollow that you’d like to change in WTP?

Lavender: I would change the whisper noise it made when you got a message, it got a bit annoying. And it would be really neat if you could choose from a few different songs to have played in your fairy’s home depending on your mood! I had the ice themed house and have heard the music a few too many times!

Teresa: There are things I want to tweak, and fully plan to! We have already added a couple of small new things, such as the second sitting pose and featuring real player’s outfits in the shop catalogue. I hope everyone enjoys them!

The last thing we wanted to talk about is the staff’s personal feelings about WTP and about their jobs, as well as ask them about their inspiration.

Is there anything new that working on WTP has teached you?

Rachel: As an artist here I am definitely learning new technical skills and developing as an artist in general. Some examples of art skills I’ve been able to develop include creating atlases and spritesheets for fairy clothing and hair, getting familiar with DragonBones as I’d never used it for animation, and just gaining more experience in Photoshop. And I basically just learned all these things by trying them out and asking questions if I needed help.

Lavender: Through WTP I’ve learned more about creating sound effects, because when remaking the old sounds for WTP, I really have to think about what each one is made out of (for example, the pouch sound was re-created using a paper bag rustling, leaves crunching, and a bell synth).

How do you feel about the community growing so much in a short amount of time?

Teresa: I really didn’t expect it, and it has been a bit stressful, but I hope we are handling it well. I would never have imagined that a TikTok would be the reason either! Having more eyes on us makes me feel restless. We had to adapt the discord server to keep it safe and make information more accessible to new members.

What do you remember about Pixie Hollow? And did it change your life in any way?

Lavender: I joined right at the beginning, and loved how it really felt like you were stepping into a different, magical world. My favorite thing to do was decorating and creating/collecting items for my house, as well as the minigames and item crafting/ baking, I’m most excited to see these features again! Also, a good memory from the game I have is going to the summer pool party in the ballroom, and playing games in the tearoom with friends! The music in Pixie Hollow was one of my earliest inspirations for pursuing a career in film/game scoring. Currently I am studying for a degree in film/game scoring! I’m obsessed with fantasy games, nature, fairy tales, magic, and mythology, and I write music to try and illustrate the stories and have the listener feel like they’re visiting the scene. You can hear some of my original music on Spotify under the name June Westfield!

Rachel: I was so young that I have trouble remembering everything. I do remember sometimes getting on the phone with my friends and talking as we played together and explored meadows, which was really fun. I also really enjoyed completing tasks and playing the minigames. I have no idea why that was so fun to me, but I just liked getting achievements and beating my scores.  

Do you feel like some people may have unrealistic expectations for WTP? And do you think it can ever be as big as Pixie Hollow was?

Teresa: Yes, but I can’t blame them. So far I am the only developer to have actually worked on this game, so it’s a lot of pressure, but of course the players can’t know that. For some reason the things that everyone thinks will be the easiest to code are always the more difficult ones, funnily enough. For example, a flying mechanic like the original game is sort of complex, whereas adding new meadows is extremely simple. Do I think WTP will ever be as big as PH? Definitely not. Pixie Hollow had millions of players, Disney advertised it, and it had a full development team behind it. A lot of the original players will have moved on. I’m actually surprised that so many people have found us already!

Are there any artists that you look up to or are inspired by?

Rachel: I don’t have anyone specific in mind who I look up to, but I do watch a lot of cartoons and really admire animation and all of the work that goes into it. I get really inspired seeing different animated works and am super impressed by the entire process of it.

Ci: I used to actively make art outside of WTP and definitely had a whole list of people whose styles I looked up to, but now that I’ve moved away from that I mostly remember individual pieces. I had to dig some up for this question! loish, gawki, and Hethe Srodawa, are a few.

Lavender: Some composers that inspire me are Enya, Faun, Loreena McKennitt, and Secret Garden. They are all fantasy/new age genre artists that create enchanting music!

The WTP community is a great place to make friends! Is there a person in the staff that you’ve formed a strong friendship with?

Rachel: I’ve definitely become a lot closer with many of the staff members, whether it be looking up to certain people like our team leads, chatting with the other artists in DMs and helping each other out, or just having fun conversations with all the other staff members and sharing funny stories and pictures.

Teresa: Asteria is probably the best friend I’ve made at WTP, as we have talked the most. I have also met Kass in real life – she’s the sweetest! I love everyone on our team.

(Kass is one of our moderators - we’ll hear from her in the final interview post!)

And finally, What does working on a game that’s so loved by people mean to you?

Teresa:  It is so heartwarming to be a part of something that brings people joy and makes them nostalgic. Pixie Hollow’s fan base can make me a bit anxious at times. Sometimes a group of players will want one thing, and then another group wants the exact opposite and it can be hard to make a choice. There’s a lot of pressure in trying to stay true to the original game’s vision while also being fresh, but it drives me to deliver the best work I can. I put a lot of time into WTP, and have actually burnt out a few times already. Luckily, I love building things so much that it never lasts long.

________________

Next up in our interview series - our social media team and server moderators! Stay tuned to hear their answers to some of your questions.

#WTP Staff Interviews #we the pixies

[seoservices1234posts]

Digital Games And Kids - A Different Perspective

The "Wikipedia problem" which means children turning to internet for readymade answers is the new age phenomenon baffling teachers and mentors globally. There are almost equal numbers of teachers who consider technology to be a solution as much as a problem. While a common belief is that technology is hindering the students' capacity to think and analyze, there is also a strong opinion in favor of video games and digital gadgets' ability to engage students and enhance learning by using more than one sensory stimulators. In spite of the growing concern about the students' deteriorating attention spans, institutions are incorporating them in the process of classroom learning.

Children are inherently inquisitive creatures. They have a curiosity to discover new things and learn by way of discovering and experimenting even before they are subjected to methods of formal education such as reading or writing. Science is a discipline of experiments and discoveries. The National Science Education Standards emphasize that "science education needs to give students three kinds of scientific skills and understandings. Students need to learn the principles and concepts of science, acquire the reasoning and procedural skills of scientists, and understand the nature of science as a particular form of human endeavor. Students therefore need to be able to devise and carry out investigations that test their ideas, mastermind rogue and they need to understand why such investigations are uniquely powerful. Studies show that students are much more likely to understand and retain the concepts that they have learned this way ". Hence, it becomes imperative to engage children in science education at an early stage.

Digital games are more capable to gain students' interests and attention than other conventional means of imparting education in a classroom. However, some educationists also regard them as culprits of exponential decline in the attention span in children. The next sections in this article discuss the involvement of children in games in the tech age, types of games available in the market and the impact of digital gaming as learning aids in classrooms.

Gaming and the New Age Kids

Digital technology has expanded the horizons of video gaming in the modern world. Kids are subjected to far more complex and challenging technological environment than their counterparts were from over half a century back. Involvement of kids in digital gaming is a result of many significant changes in the lifestyle and culture of the modern society. Easy accessibility of technology, dispensable income due to dual income families and lack of infrastructure for outdoor activities in many cities are some major contributors in making screen games an important part of the children's' lives. A study by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2010) found that only 20 percent of the census blocks are within half a mile of a block boundary. Also, the effect of peer pressure cannot be undermined in these times of social networking.

The digital gaming market is one of the fastest growing segments of the global entertainment industry. US is witnessing unprecedented penetration of digital games amongst youngsters. In the US, 97% of the teens play some type of game on a regular basis. In India, the gaming market has grown manifold in the last few years. Hence, it is imperative that educationists are continuously contemplating the use of digital gaming as a learning tool in classrooms. Institutions are also employing innovative ways to leverage the digital advantage for enhancing the learning experience at schools.

What are Digital Games?

There is no concrete definition of games as it may vary with an individual's preference and profession. Games can be defined as a "system in which players engage in artificial conflict, defined by rules, which result in a quantifiable outcome". Technology and digitization add new dimensions to games where simulations, interactivity, augmented reality, alternative reality, collective intelligence and sensory stimulators such as sound and visual effects. Digital games are also characterized by their portability and limitless accessibility.

Role-playing games, simulation games and puzzles are some of the most popular digital games. In role-playing games, the player enacts the role of a particular character in a virtual world moving from one level to the other based on the outcome of the earlier level. RPGs can be single player such as the dungeons and dragons from earlier days of gaming or multi-player games such as Diablo III, Xenoblade, Final Fantasy XIII-2 or Mass Effect 3. MMORPG or the Massive Multiple Online Role-Playing Games are an extension of the RPGs where large number of players interacts in an online virtual world. Simulation games create realistic situations in virtual worlds. The outcome will depend on the player's decision-making and responsiveness and will be closely similar to what may happen in a real world in the same situation. Widely used in training and analysis, simulation games are also popular due to their unpredictable and personalized outcomes. Flight Simulator X, Live for Speed (LFS) and Need for Speed have been extremely popular simulation games for a long time. Puzzles genre of digital games involves problem solving and analysis with varying degrees of difficulty depending on the nature of the game. Crosswords and treasure hunt games are basic forms of puzzle games in both physical and digital form.

All types of digital games involve a social involvement of players. Some need collaborative efforts to play while others may be discussed or analyzed socially. In spite of some games being accused of outright violent visual effects, a well-designed game can accelerate the thinking process by motivating, engaging, involving creativity and developing a meta-game i.e., social interactions inspired and enhanced inside or outside the game. Incorporating digital gaming in the basic education framework can lead to augmented competitiveness and multi-dimensional growth in children.

Digital Games in Science Education - Why and Why Not?

The 21st century requires the mentors and the students to integrate technology into the curriculum. Though the ultimate goal is to benefit the students in terms of learning and experience, unsupervised, unorganized or irrelevant application can lead to complete failure or have negative effects. Some of the negative impacts of digital games in general and in context with the education are listed below:

Digital games have been facing constant rebuke for allegedly enhancing aggression amongst kids and developing a violent streak at an early stage. In a study by Anderson and Bushman (2001), Children involved in violent video games are more likely to have increased aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and decreased prosocial helping. Use of weapons and being rewarded for being violent is a cause of widespread concern.

Digital games can be addictive for children and make them physically inactive. Digital games, other than social networking, are considered for reduced physical activity leading to obesity in kids and postural and skeletal disorders.

Addiction to games is also known to make kids socially secluded. Impulsive behavior, depression and increased anxiety levels are largely attributed to excessive gaming in children. Some studies also suggest that the children playing games are unable to concentrate for a long span and have reduced attention span.

Children are prone to absorbing socially unacceptable behavior through some digital games such as using profanities and ill-treating the fairer sex. Lack of adequate knowledge about screening the material available online is a growing concern amongst the parents.

Digital games are considered a hindrance to better performance in academics. Students are often found to skip homework to play games leading to deteriorated performance at school. However, despite their reputation as promoters of violence and mayhem, digital games have in fact been shown to help children learn skills, content, and vital "21st-century" skills. From digital games children can learn: content (from rich vocabulary to science to history), skills (from literacy to math to complex problem-solving), creation of artifacts (from videos to software code) and systems thinking (how changing one element affects relationships as a whole). Strong arguments in favor of using digital games as learning aids in secondary education are summarized below:

Digital games involve extreme hand-eye coordination and enhance motor and sensory skills. Sensory stimulation theory proposed by academician Laird (1985) validates that effective learning occurs when the senses are stimulated. While some studies show that digital gaming reduces attention span, there are strong evidences of improved concentration in short intervals of time. Digital games involve keeping an eye on every detail, follow the rules and respond proactively to the given situation. Complex digital games help is developing problem-solving and decision-making skills. Some games also involve logical analysis of the situation and pattern recognition and improve memorizing thus assisting in the cognitive process. Playing by the rules teaches children to accept and respect a certain level of discipline.

Multi-player digital games develop a sense of constructive competitive attitude. Collaborative games also improve team-building attitude. They develop time management skills in a team and train the players to cooperate for mutually desired goal. They teach the players to accept defeat as well as strive for better results. Digital games provide an avenue for hyperactive kids to direct the energy in a constructive system based game. They also provide an outlet to release aggression and frustration, thus helping in diffusing stress. Some games also involve physical activity such as Nintendo Wii boxing helping kids to engage mentally and physically with the kids. Complex digital games involve high level of multitasking thus improving brain's natural learning process. Brain based learning theory proposes that multi-tasking is an inherent activity of the brain and learning is enhanced by challenges at various levels. Digital games develop efficient situational analysis and strategy making in children. Since games have certain objectives at every level and a final objective of the game, it teaches players to devise short term and long-term strategies such as scoring points, retaining energy and reaching the ultimate goal of the game. Simulation games and the role-playing digital games help players gain expertise or learn by experiencing in replicas of real world situations. Experiential learning and action learning theories are based on the premise that individuals learn faster when they by experiencing and actually participating in action.

[mittensmorgul]

Who is Belphegor?

I mean, who is he, really? There’s a possibility that he’s exactly what he claims to be, but everything in me is screaming THIS IS A ZEKE SITUATION, and we don’t yet understand his true motives or identity. Since 15.01 aired, I’ve been playing around with theories, and I’ve got it narrowed down to a few I would really enjoy. I think I’ve talked about (or around) each of these theories in my tag for Belphie, and you can go read those posts here for further edification and general waffling on my part.

1. Belphegor. He might actually be exactly what he says he is. I mean, why NOT believe him? Reasons FOR the theory:

because he said so

his general behavior fits what we know about the demon Belphegor in a general sort of way

Reasons AGAINST the theory:

because he said so, and we’re watching Supernatural

the two characters I’ve seen most people ping to in reaction to him are RUBY (who lied about her entire motivation for befriending them and being helpful) and EZEKIEL (who lied about his identity and motives from the moment he showed up, and was actually Gadreel... which went over swimmingly)

his appearance was entirely too ~convenient~ to believe it at face value (he was the ONLY demon to pop out of hell in that mess, conveniently knew the exact spells they needed to get out of that predicament, is REALLY good at manipulating TFW specifically, etc. etc.)

what kind of torturer is AFRAID of the things he tortures? why would a demon fear a human ghost?

What kind of demon would ASK FOR A SACK OF SALT and then handle said salt as if it was nothing?

2. The Shadow. This was one of my first thoughts, even before the episode aired, because of the situation we knew to be true of Jack, where he was at the end of 14.20, and what he was DOING there-- i.e. having a friendly chat with Billie and the Shadow, and what the PR said about Jack feeling conflicted about returning to his body because of guilt. This felt like one of those situations that Billie would need to have HANDLED SOONEST, and the Shadow was conveniently RIGHT THERE to fill in for Jack. We already know he has the power to appear to be other beings (Cas faced him as himself in the Empty, and couldn’t tell he wasn’t Dumah in Heaven, for example), and can theoretically convincingly take on the form of whatever he wants to T-1000 style. That said, Reasons FOR:

Incredibly powerful being who could pull off everything we saw Belphegor do

snarky personality that also lines up with what we saw

INTENSE PERSONAL DIRECT KNOWLEDGE of the contents of Cas’s knowledge bank, his emotions and personality, feelings “i tiptoed through all your little tulips” style

can appear to be other types of beings in a way that Cas can’t perceive his true nature and accepts what he does see as truth

we don’t know the scope of his powers or abilities outside of the Empty or Heaven, or how he would be limited or affected by possessing a human-ish body (explaining his discomfort around a human soul since they aren’t relegated to his domain upon death, and his particular vulnerability to injury and pain in a human-ish body)

The Empty is outside of God’s purview, and therefore he may be able to operate in complete stealth without alerting Chuck to his presence on Earth in a way literally no other being could, making him the ultimate secret agent here

literally ZERO other demons seem to have escaped Hell during this containment breach. Every other being who got out has been a human soul.

Reasons AGAINST:

we just don’t know what he’s actually up to in canon. He could still be in the Empty babysitting Jack (not that we know that would be a limitation on where he could still be, if he could just scoop out a pile of goo-him and send a bit of himself off to animate Jack’s body for a while, but we don’t know if that’s possible, either)

3. Metatron. Based on what we know of how the Empty works, and how Metatron specifically died, there’s a good chance we’re seeing the return of Metatron for one of two separate reasons. He died without grace-- as a human-- so theoretically he would’ve gone to heaven, right? Like Jack did in 14.08? We know the Empty didn’t invade Heaven for HIS soul, though, so there’s a possibility that he may have gone directly to the Empty anyway. Though the way Amara killed him... there’s a chance he was “absorbed” into her (like she stated several other times happened when she “consumed” souls, you know? but we don’t know exactly what happened to Metatron other than he disappeared into a lil poof of darkness, so this is entirely theoretical conjecture). But I’ve long paralleled Amara to the Empty, and I don’t think there’s really a functional difference between being consumed by Amara and being sent to the empty, you know? They are both The Void. I literally JUST wrote this post, which inspired me to make a list in the first place, where you can read my thoughts in detail. Reasons FOR:

talk about someone ready to play foil to Chuck, the writer out of control in desperate need of an editor. Think 11.20, to the nth degree here.

golly he KNOWS Chuck’s whole “writing process,” and NOBODY is more familiar with the entire body of Chuck’s writing, going all the way back to creation

Even after he lost his mojo, he was still proficient in the sorts of spells we saw Belphegor pull out of thin air, you know?

he’s also the exact sort of snarky Belphegor has been

he was weirdly obsessed with Cas’s trenchcoat (lol, abomination) and had a MASSIVE jealous-on for Cas in general

the spell Belphegor used to erect the wall referencing river imagery (the river shall end at its source and all that)

metatron’s reluctance to engage in “direct combat” himself, and his comments to Cas from the get-go that he needed Cas because he’s not a warrior himself, which lines up with the “bad ghost! no!” behavior when faced with a direct confrontation

tangential to the above point, the fact he died HUMAN without supernatural powers would leave him vulnerable to injury from a ghost, as well as the “general pains of humanity” we saw demonstrated when Constance was able to cut his hand and cause him physical pain that way

Metatron, being the Scribe of God who basically possesses not only the knowledge of all of creation and a vast swath of human writings as well, would love the sort of game of pretending to be a specific demon this way, and would love the subterfuge of it all as well

He is REALLY good at this sort of manipulation

theoretically whether he went to heaven or the empty, billie was on hand to fetch him out and sign him up for service

Reasons AGAINST:

we don’t know where metatron went after he died, and if Amara did consume him it might not be possible to have brought him back (unless Amara is also part of this bigger cosmic plotting and helped his return the way she did with Mary, so this might not be a reason against after all)

would Metatron be able to cloak his true identity behind a false mask of a “true demon face” that Cas identified immediately? (unless he was, again, helped along with that by the Shadow or Amara... we don’t know if their powers would extend to that)

it’s a possibility that-- for whatever reason-- his soul did end up in Hell-- whether by nature of his “sins” or by design of some outside force (Bobby ended up wrongfully in Hell, too, so who knows), and he has actually become a demon, but this seems incredibly unlikely... would his soul have been demonized yet? it’s only been a few years... and again, this is pure conjecture for the sake of argument, and not based in anything in canon.

4. Balthazar. I mean, for all the reasons I stated above for Metatron being handy and ready to serve, and possibly getting an assist from Billie or the Empty to cloak his “true identity,” we know he would’ve been handily found in the Empty. Reasons FOR:

Belphegor kinda sounds like Balthazar... especially the way the being himself pronounced it (more like Belphagar)

readily to hand in the Empty and familiar with all the players on the board

broadly fits within the personality of Belphegor, known to have participated in a “menage a... what’s the french word for twelve?” aka an orgy

lol Belphegor is the Infernal Ambassador to France and that would be a hilarious coincidence... >.>

Balthazar is good at subterfuge, resourceful, good at spellwork (he was the one buying human souls in 6.03)

also pretty good at subterfuge and spy work, though Cas did see through him (sadly) and killed him for it once upon a time...

Reasons AGAINST:

would he be able to cloak his true identity? basically apply what I said about Metatron for this one

Belphegor’s speech patterns. He uses a lot of “filler words,” and Balthazar... didn’t. Then again, he uses SO MANY of them that it could be a deliberate affectation

the line about Cas’s trenchcoat (the one in the dirty trenchcoat, who’s in love with you), so he doesn’t have any particular reason to refer to it as an “abomination,” though it’s not entirely out of the question

5. A Random Reaper. Billie may have ordered one of her Reaper Babysitters to make sure Jack’s body remained safe and viable for when he was ready to return, as well as allow one of her reapers to... to quote Dean from 6.09... “interact more forcefully” with creation. Reasons FOR:

would report directly to Billie, and give Billie an on the spot window on the Winchesters

intimately familiar with the Winchesters from having kept tabs on them for the last several years

have the innate ability to control others’ perceptions of them and the world in general, so disguising their true form from Cas would’ve been easy

Reasons AGAINST:

do reapers have any other magical abilities beyond their known functions?

WHY would A REAPER be afraid of a human ghost? Literally their JOB is dealing with human ghosts

I don’t think a reaper would’ve been able to have been injured by a ghost, unless these ghosts have somehow been “supercharged” by the way Chuck forced their souls from hell... one screenshot of the ghost Cas smashed with the big stone slab showed a weird glowy-orange patch on its shoulder, almost as if it had been “marked by Chuck” and granted some sort of special dispensation of powers, like we know all those sorts of “marks” on people have in SPN canon, so this may not be an issue against.

Billie’s own “clean hands” policy for reapers... if that’s something that would still bind their actions if Billie gave them a direct order to play this specific role now.

Other theories I’ve considered are that it could be a specific reaper-- thinking possibly Tessa, since she was already in the Empty, too, and I just love her and hate what happened to her. Or possibly a random other demon, but again most of the reasons I objected to it being Belphegor apply to other demons even more strongly to Random Demon Minion #3, too. It might be a specific demon we’ve known in the past, or someone we’d known as a human who’s since become a demon, but again... that seems highly doubtful. It could also potentially be Goocifer, i.e. dead!Lucifer, but I don’t think the Shadow would’ve allowed him to just trip out of the Empty so easily. Though he did have a connection to Jack, and after death it’s possible his attitude toward everything has... shifted? the way Billie said hers did after ascending to the mantle of Death and she saw a bigger cosmic picture. If he’s had an enlightenment of sorts in death, this could be a possibility, but again... I think it’s less likely than the above notions but not something I can discount entirely, unfortunately. If he’d been “specifically depowered” like he’d been when his grace had been drained, that could explain his ability to have been injured by a ghost, for example, but would he even have the ability to hide his true form from Cas-- an angel he literally knows from the inside out, having possessed him for half a year... >.>

I’ll update this list as canon unfolds. :D

#spn s15 spoilers #spn 15.01 #belphegor #spn s15 speculation

[summerdoll8]

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Work was to a high requirement, as was the kindness as well as professionalism throughout. Design and also build extensions, kitchens, washrooms or basic modernisation. The Phantasm Shell and also Ludwig's Rifle are one of the most more effective.

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Allow your imagination cut loose as well as transform your wall surface over and over again-- no damages, no marks, simply basic. Gyproc Habito Super Stamina plasterboard is 5 times more powerful than typical plasterboard, which suggests the walls at Health Ranch are difficult as well as resilient.

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Together with that, Vigor is a crucial function of this build also concentrating on an Arcane too. The best method to make use of the cannon is to accumulate as numerous Blood Bullets as possible; the Cannon utilizes a large 10 BBs per shot, so avoid using it on adversaries. With a certain area simply build up the bullets, as well as use the Cannon's power on managers or several of the more difficult adversaries in the game.

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Other stats you'll intend to focus on are Vigor and also Endurance. One does not need to give this fabulous weapon an introduction-- any person that's played Dark Hearts will certainly attest to the truth that the Claymore is the very best greatsword readily available in the entire game. It boggles everyone's minds that one of the best weapons in the entirety of Dark Souls can be achieved from the actual beginning if the player picks the Warrior class. The Great Lord Greatsword isn't offered for an individual's initial playthrough, which is fairly a pity since this greatsword is quickly one of the more enjoyable weapons to play around with. It goes without stating that the tool of the last boss in the game was bound to make an appearance on this listing, specifically offered the incredible scaling of said weapon with both Stamina as well as Dexterity.

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You will require Building Regulations approval if you intend to carry out any new structural work or alterations to your home. Additionally, work involving these areas also requires approval, although in some of these cases, competent persons can self-certify their works for compliance: drainage.

Bloodletter will accumulate craze on yourself so prepare Sedatives and/or Vials when transforming it. Arcane is a complex stat, and we will go extra right into the details with the following area pertaining to develop samples. One of the most essential thing you need to recognize is that each stat has numerous soft caps from where the returns differ and also a last difficult cap at 99.

It's possibly the only Gun that is implied to damage instead of stagger, and also since you'll be mostly utilizing the heavy Kirkhammer, you'll find yourself utilizing it just in the most unlikely scenarios. A great deal of dodging around and selecting the best time to assault will certainly get you accustomed to shocking challengers too, which can function enormously well to launch Visceral assaults.

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rly great develop i advise, have a variation of this my self. Given that practically anything can be Quality as well as your STR as well as DEX will certainly virtually be as high as one of those committed builds you can do whatever you such as.

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The Washing Pole may not be the very first weapon that any individual considers when it comes to selecting a top quality build tool, yet this katana is still an excellent option regardless. Chikage's changed state will drain your HP, so you have to manage it.

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The Flamberge is just one of the much safer weapons that gamers can make use of if they don't intend to experiment way too much with their moveset. That being said, the Bastard Sword is absolutely among the much faster weapons in Dark Spirits-- although its highest-damaging attack very sluggish-- and is a terrific pick for an individual to finish their playthrough with. The Bastard Sword may-- ironically sufficient-- be mostly neglected when it concerns picking a proper sword in Dark Hearts, but there's no denying the legitimacy of this weapon for individuals who are seeking a Quality build. This tool is fairly comparable to the Uchigatana, so gamers that are made use of to that famous weapon can select this counterpart if they're seeking a Quality develop.

I wound up purchasing Vigor in addition to STR/ DEX after reaching 27 VIT/ 19 END - all to use the Lothric Knight Armour. That along with Havel's Ring is currently able to handle a mix of Morne and also Expatriation armours - within 70% WR. Making use of Prisoner's Chain rather than the Life Ring to compensate for the additional END levels. We have actually been constructing outstanding new homes throughout the UK for 70 years, creating exceptional homes in desirable locations. In an independent survey, greater than 9 out of 10 of our consumers would advise us to a pal.

Using the really most recent advancements designed to make living in a Heath Farm house simple and easy. Providing exceptional high quality living areas is what Lovell is renowned for, however at Health Ranch we have taken points to a totally various level. My male, arcane is exceptionally underated, additionally if you are doing a hybrid you must simply opt for 25 arcane given that A telephone call past does not actually have much usage and you will certainly have much more AR on your weapons.

He was efficient, precise and also communicated any concerns in the process to ensure that we recognized any kind of additional prices we may sustain. It did appear small, expected a big location, however the children happily picked out their bears and also had a good time. I recommend bringing a minimum of ₤ 30 per child to cover bear and also any kind of added prices for clothing, shoes, beating heart or perhaps a voice box. In this manner you keep the 50 str you missed out on in the normal quality one as well as still keep the high dex as well as str. Every little thing is simply my viewpoint though, so at the end of the day just purchase whichever statistics you really feel deserve investing.

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[per-ineptia-ad-astra]

This isn’t the kind of thing I normally do around here, but it seemed like it might be a bit of fun. I’ve absolutely no idea if it’s something you all would be interested in, though, so let me know if you like it or not—if not, I’ll just leave it as a one-off and go back to the regular memes to fill the time while I’m working on Space Seed.

Recently I’ve been playing resource management/base building type games a lot, which I suspect stems from the fact that managing resources in my real life is going rather less well, the latest of these being Stonehearth, a cute voxel game where you guide a group of beady-eyed little people into building a village for them to live in. I’d played a fair bit of it over the past winter but hadn’t touched it in several months, enough time for there to be a couple of updates to the content*, so I decided to see what had been added in the interim.

*Technically the officially-approved-but-player-created-mod-expansion.

But once I got around to selecting my starting villagers, I ran into the same problem I always have at these moments in games—what to name everybody? I’m a massive overthinker about this sort of thing, you see, the sort who will spend ages scouring Wikipedia to find the most thematically appropriate set of things to name all the characters after. On this occasion, though, as I stared aimlessly around my desk trying to come up with something, inspiration struck in the shape of the copy of Star Trek: The Classic Episodes that I still hadn’t put away. Or possibly it was the Data Funko Pop. Either way, I thought, well, why not…?

[ID: A screenshot of the ‘Customize your party’ screen in the video game Stonehearth. On the left are five miniature profiles for cartoonish voxel versions of Kirk, Sulu, McCoy, Scotty and Uhura. Their Mind, Body and Spirit stats are, respectively,  4/5/4,  3/2/6, 4/3/4,  6/2/5, and 3/4/6. On the right is an appearance customization screen with Uhura selected.]

And thus was born a quest to see the crew of the Enterprise through their colonization of wherever the hell it is they’ve ended up this time. Or at least, some of the crew of the Enterprise. I don’t think my computer could handle simulating the full four hundred and thirty of them.

Stonehearth villagers (or ‘hearthlings) have three stats—Mind, Body and Spirit-- as well as up to two traits that influence their behavior. In the starting roster, you can’t directly alter their stats or traits, but you can randomly generate villagers individually or as a group for as long as you want until you get something you like, and can change their names and appearances freely. By default, all the villagers are workers, but with the right items they can be promoted into special classes, such as warriors who defend the village, crafters who make necessary items, or resource-suppliers like farmers and trappers. My starting selection of characters was based on the roles that I judged most important to the getting this colony off the ground. (It may be helpful to keep in mind throughout this, though, that I am not very good at Stonehearth.) The traits I just kind of took where I could get them, since it would have taken an enormously long time to roll for the absolute most character-appropriate ones.

Kirk has the traits ‘Night Owl’ (he’ll stay up later at night and sleep more in the day) and ‘Jokester’ (he likes to tell jokes to the others, which has a chance to increase their moods). I was unsure what to do with him at first, since there’s not really any kind of leadership position for hearthlings. In the end I decided he would make a good Knight, a heavy armor combat class. After all, protecting everyone else in the group at the risk of his own life is a pretty Kirk-ish thing to do. He’ll have to spend some time as a Footman, the basic combat class, before he can promote to Knight, though.

Sulu has the traits ‘Green Thumb’ (he gets a happiness boost from being around plants) and ‘Pack Mule’ which means he can carry more than usual. This is a good combo of traits for a farmer, and since Sulu likes plants he seemed like the most natural choice for that role.

McCoy has the trait ‘Pessimistic’ which makes him more affected by things that cause negative mood modifiers, because of course he does. His class was far and way the easiest to pick: he’ll spend some time as a Herbalist, a crafting class that can make bandages and medicines, until he can promote to Cleric, a combat class that can heal.

Scotty has the traits ‘Gregarious’ (he enjoys talking to other villagers more) and ‘Animal Companion’ (he spawns with a pet, in this case a raccoon named Cactus). Alright, perhaps not the most Scotty-ish of traits, but hey, he had good stats. Scotty’s going to be a Carpenter, the staple crafting class for the Ascendency faction, who use wood as their primary resource. (There actually is an Engineer class, but it doesn’t come into play until much later and the Carpenter is considerably more important for the early game.)

Finally, Uhura has the ‘Empathetic’ trait (she gets a negative mood modifier from being around other villagers who have negative mood modifiers) and is going to be a Trapper, a class that traps animals for meat and fur and can promote to the Shepherd, who raises livestock animals. A bit of a stretch, I know, but hey, there’s no communications-based class, and someone had to be a Trapper. Plus, Trappers have a chance of bringing animals home as pets, which is what started The Trouble With Tribbles, so, hey.

With the starting roster confirmed, all that remains is to first pick a starting resource package—I’ve gone with the Merchant Caravan, which will give us some starting food and gold as well as the promotion items for a Trapper, Footman and Herbalist—and then roll a map. Eventually—after spending far too long generating and re-generating maps—I’ve settled on a nice location by a lake, with plenty of trees, and mountains nearby to dig for ore and stone in. The only downside is it’s a bit exposed, so hopefully nothing too big attacks before we’re able to build some walls.

[ID: A screenshot showing a zoomed-out grassy landscape near a lake, with a message box reading “Click the banner to choose your settlement’s location.” At the bottom of the screen is a blue banner that reads “Click me to place your town banner.”]

Soon after selecting our starting location, a messenger bird arrives with a letter.

[ID: A screenshot showing a message box with a voxel bird displayed above it, titled ‘A Bird...Messenger?’ The box reads “An odd bird arrives with a letter in its beak, stamped with the official seal of the Ascendency.” In smaller text: “The bird also carries a nametag, which reads ‘Harold’. Below the box are two options: ‘Open the letter’ and ‘[skip] We know what banner we want.’]

The letter reads:

Dear Expedition 142,

I hope this letter finds you well. By my guess, you’ve likely set up camp by now.

As your Capital Liaison, it is my honor to preside, remotely, over the official Founding of your Outpost! I trust that you had ample time to choose a name on your journey.

As you know, every new settlement must choose a Banner.

This Banner reflects your spirit and vision, the uniting factor which brought the Expedition together!

What future did you foresee when you embarked on your quest for Township?

Hold in your mind a vision of what your Town will one day be. Your Banner will set that course, but it is up to you to finish it.

Choose well, my friends. I eagerly await your reply.

Yours,

Mer Burlyhands

We could choose a banner of Vitality, which plants to grow faster and trees to drop more wood; Strength, which increases the amount of ore you get from mining and makes hearthlings not mind living in cramped spaces; or Cunning, which makes traders visit more frequently and traded items sell for more.

I choose the Banner of Vitality. The name of the town, of course, is Enterprise.

[ID: A message box titled ‘Outpost Established!’ which reads: “Proclamation of Outpost: By Unanimous agreement of the citizens, we declare Enterprise to be an outpost striving to be at one with the environment. Trees produce 25% more wood. Plants and crops both grow 25% faster. Plants have 2x their normal Appeal.”]

The messenger bird drops off some extra starting food supplies before leaving. Now it’s time to get to the business of actually building this town. Colony. Whatever.

First off, promotions for everyone! Except Sulu. It’ll be a bit before we can promote Sulu. Sorry, Sulu.

[ID: Four cropped shots of message boxes which read “Promote to [Carpenter/Herbalist/Trapper/Footman]. In honor of steadfast efforts and resilience, we hereby advance [Montgomery Scott/Leonard McCoy/Nyota Uhura/James Kirk]. 4th Day of Bittermun 1000.” Below the text is a stamp icon which reads ‘click to approve.’]

Then we establish a stockpile—a designated location for items to go—and cut down some trees. We’re going to need wood to make buildings and furniture, as well as for fuel.

After a bit of consideration, I decide to move the hearth closer to the lake, near to where our first building is going to go up. For the moment, however, night is falling, and everyone gathers to rest around the fire.

[ID: A screenshot showing voxel-McCoy, Uhura, Sulu and Scotty sitting around a campfire on the shores on a lake.]

...everyone except Kirk, who, for reasons best known only to himself, has fallen asleep in the stockpile.

[ID: 1. A screenshot showing voxel-Kirk laying asleep on the ground in a stockpile full of logs and food supplies. 2. A zoomed-out screenshot showing how far away Kirk is from everyone else around the campfire.]

Thus was founded the town/settlement/colony/localized disaster area known as Enterprise. What could possibly go wrong?

#and everything else #star trek #stonehearth #...starhearth? #stone trek? #anyway! i know y'all came here for star trek not video games #and i don't know if this is star trek-y enough to count #so do let me know if you have any feelings on it one way or the other

[sights-on-the-scifi]

Why is Mordin Solus so relatable?, why is he so… human?: Expanded.

RESTORED POST: Expanded with extra educational content and art.

Well, the answer is really quite simple, its because he IS HUMAN.

Despite being aliens, Mass effect’s aliens……… are not exactly very alien at all. While they may look exotic, have deeply complicated lore and speak in alien voices, overall they have very VERY human characteristics just with a few weird reversals and quirks that make them appear otherworldly to us. Well most of us…

And why would this not be the case? They are after all designed by us, and they are more so reflections of ourselves to begin with.

What sets Mordin apart from other Salarians in terms of design and story? As you all should be aware by now Mordin Solus is unique in that he is essentially a Salarian transformation of his most prominent visual inspiration Clint Eastwood. Most have associated Mordin Solus’s appearance to the likeness of Bill Nye (Entirely understandable!) who also happens to be a scientist, but this is only a fan correlation based on the context of his character and superficial reading of the appearance.

J.Robert Oppenheimer.

In terms of actually being inspired by real-world scientists as stated by writer Patrick Weekes in several interviews, a key inspiration was this man J.Robert Oppenheimer the father of the atomic bomb. A fitting inspiration since both the fictional character of Mordin and the real world man J.Robert Oppenheimer aided in the development of WMDs and as a result, developed a very similar crisis of conscience once they witnessed the effects of those efforts. Mordin in particular in a very memorable conversation sights Hinduism etc when talking about how he sought comfort in religion after what happened with the genophage modification project, in an interview following the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima Oppenheimer expressed the same sort of references to religious scripture.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Robert_Oppenheimer Learn more about him here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clint_Eastwood Learn more about the actor and director here.

In terms of actual design Clint Eastwood was the real visual inspiration for the character and in some cases relating to the backstory, the characters that actor has played, even his own personality translated to Mordin’s own personality in many ways. Mordin being a scientist is just one part of his character after all.

In real life and on the cinematic screen. Clint Eastwood holds very conservative beliefs, and by the standards of Salarian culture so too does Mordin in a weird way as it relates to his defense of the genophage. Clint Eastwood has expressed an understanding of alternative wartime perspective/complexities in his film career despite his conservative beliefs, most notably his work on the film Letters from Iwo Jima a film that follows the Japanese perspective of world war 2 in a sympathetic light.

As you are all very well aware, assuming you know your basic history. The united states dropped atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in an effort to halt and ultimately stop Japanese aggression, the result of this action would lead to Japan's surrender, putting an end to world war 2.

That is the common belief held by the US government and the most conservative in the country. But despite this, there has been a real effort to show and express an alternative perspective on the events. To show that the situation was not as clear-cut, black and white as the propaganda makes it out to be, to show that the usage of the nuclear option on Japan was actually a war crime that was not the be all end all solution to the war.

Perhaps the barbarity of Krogan society and so on is analogous to immense cruelty and ruthless fighting the Japanese army were responsible for during world war 2 in the pacific theatre. From an outsiders perspective, it can be viewed as mindless and inhuman behavior emblematic of true evil, It is very easy to dehumanize them as a result and justify dropping atomic weapons on their cities. But it is still important to understand this all has very real and complex causes that require thorough historical and sociological examination...

...Just like you as Shepard have to permit yourself to see the Krogan perspective on the genophage in ME1, 2 and 3. Do you believe that the Krogan are irredeemable for their past sins and blow Wrex’s brains out right there on the Virmire beach... Or do you listen and see the Krogan for the deeply complex species they are?

This part of human history was one of the main inspirations for the genophage storyline with its striking similarities.

I MADE A MISTAKE!

Since Mordin also shows strong compassion and empathetic qualities, he seeks to come to terms with Krogan culture and their perspective on the genophage in his long ideological exchanges with Commander Shepard, which would result in him choosing to cure the sterility plague… or if things go differently he does not. That is just one element playing a role in what ultimately makes him so human… So flawed.

Flaws that he has to overcome or… does not overcome based on how you influence his decisions as a player.

The distinct visual differences of Mordins appearance, when compared to a regular salarian are pretty subtle… But they were all in service to humanizing the character.

Sculpted recreation of his original conceptual design.

See below in this image, the fundamental design characteristics of salarians that are completely omitted from Mordin Solus. These were intentional decisions to omit the most alien-looking elements from his design so he was more able to emote and be relatable to the audience.

To sell the salarian perspective in narrative and design, there is no other salarian that looks like Mordin in the entire trilogy.

If you were to smooth down and remove all his wrinkles and even remove the unique design elements of his skin, he would probably be the smoothest salarian to have ever existed. Sort of demonstrated this effect in an attempt to make him younger in my artwork here to the right.

Finally, another factor that makes Mordin Solus so human is his love for primarily human art and music, and his preference towards it.

Mordin Solus expresses that he has a strong interest in interspecies theatre and production, but most of the time he expresses this through the performance and creative transformation of human art and music.

All these humanized design and story factors play a role in subconsciously influencing the viewer to find Solus relatable despite his status as a non-human entity, and this is the same for the rest of his species though with less focus and sophistication in comparison.

And that is why he is human.

#Mass effect #Mordin solus

[pixelgrotto]

A look at D&D’s Curse of Strahd

From about October 2018 to August 2019, I led a group of four friends through Curse of Strahd, the latest campaign book featuring a dive into the realm of Dungeon & Dragon’s most famous vampire, Strahd von Zarovich. It went well, and it was an interesting experience for me as a Dungeon Master, since this was my first time using one of Wizards of the Coast’s official modules. In the past I’ve always come up with my own homebrew adventures, and I still homebrewed a good chunk of Curse of Strahd, remixing characters and formulating story twists on the fly once I learned the ebb and flow of my group.

One of the things I love most about D&D, however, is that such behavior is encouraged, and pretty much all of the major 5th Edition releases outright tell DMs that they shouldn’t hesitate to make a campaign “their own” by only following the book when necessary. Thus, the version of Curse of Strahd that my players ran through was an experience specifically tailored to them - one where a motley crew known as the “Well-Doners” (like a well done steak...or a stake to the heart of a vampire!) were sucked into Strahd’s strange valley of Barovia and forced to ally together for the sake of survival...aided by a few key comrades, including a funny gnome mage who’d lost his magical mojo, the reincarnation of Strahd’s lost love, a grumpy monster hunter and a massive ranger and his dwarf wife. If I ever run Curse of Strahd again for another group, it’s very likely that many of these key comrades - as well as the general crux of the adventure - will turn out completely different.

To all enterprising DMs who might wish to run Curse of Strahd for their own groups, it’s worth first noting that this is very much a Ravenloft campaign. Ravenloft is the setting that sprouted from the 1983 module of the same name, originally devised by Tracy and Laura Hickman and then expanded upon during the heyday of D&D 2nd Edition. In a nutshell, it’s D&D’s horror setting, and the horror is very much steeped in the gothic tradition, with a heavy dollop of foes inspired by the Universal Monster Movies of the 1920s to 50s, sprinkles of Eastern European creepiness and a dash or two of dark romance to complete the mix. I quite like this combination because it reminds me of the melancholy yet deeply beautiful world of Mordavia in Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness, one of the formative experiences of my youth and a game that has a great soundtrack for the backdrop of any Ravenloft campaign. (Interestingly, Quest for Glory creators Lori and Corey Cole were D&D players before they went on to design computer games, which means that the gothic realm of Mordavia surely is a clear descendant of Ravenloft.)

But horror of any variety isn’t necessarily everyone’s cup of tea, and certain parts of Curse of Strahd - if run straight from the book - can veer quite sinister, because Barovia is ultimately a crappy place presided over by a crappy undead warlord. The introductory adventure of the module, dubbed “Death House,” actually deals with ghostly children who’ve died of starvation in a haunted manor due to the cultist ways of their mad parents. It’s entirely possible to make these kids untrustworthy antagonists in order to emphasize that the Ravenloft setting simply does not mess around, but since I was running this campaign for a group of four new players whose prior experience with D&D ran the gamut from limited to absolutely zero, I decided to make them into a spooky but still likable duo who could “possess” the players’ characters and offer sassy running commentary on the monsters infiltrating the manor. Like Casper but with a tad more snark, in other words - and the endearing nature of the children made the moment where my players had to lay their corpses to rest and confront their sad origins all the more compelling.

This act of balance - between ensuring that players recognize this as a dark adventure but also making sure that just enough light and humor alleviates the depression - is one that I tried to perform during every session of our game, and I’d encourage future Curse of Strahd DMs to do the same. I’d also encourage enterprising Dungeon Masters to perform a similar balancing act on the monsters and scenarios that permeate the adventure - specifically on the ones in the Death House opener as well as Strahd himself.

Death House, more specifically, is described in the book as a means to help the party quickly progress from levels 1 to 3, but played as is, it’s quite possible for players to get absolutely curb-stomped by everything within the manor - particularly a “final boss” that they’re technically not supposed to engage with, at least in a fair manner. Veteran RPG fans might relish the challenge, which is more reminiscent of Call of Cthulhu than D&D, but newbies might not like having to re-roll a character because their first one got wrecked by a Shambling Mound after only a few hours of play. So, retool Death House to suit the needs of your party - in my case, I limited the encounters somewhat to prevent a steady drip of HP and also gave my players a few tips on how to beat tricky baddies via those aforementioned ghost kids.

The opposite strategy goes for Strahd von Zarovich himself, who might be the big bad of Barovia but is surprisingly squishy when confronted by a hardy group of level 8 or 9 players, especially if they’ve found all the fancy sunlight-shooting artifacts of the adventure that can limit his powers. I can’t count the number of posts I’ve seen on the D&D Reddit or a Curse of Strahd Facebook group I’m in where frustrated DMs have written something like “Strahd was killed by my players within two rounds, where did I go wrong” - and in order to circumvent this from happening in the last session of a shared storytelling experience that had nearly spanned a year, I took a heavy pair of tweezers to Strahd’s stats and gave him three forms, each with their own HP. The first was his regular vampiric self, the second was him riding on his Misty Steed-summoned horse Bucephalus, and the third was basically Strahd going into berserker mode with black angel wings bursting from his back. (I stole the concept art of Satan from Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 for that. Worked perfectly!)

Speaking of Castlevania, I drew inspiration from the recent Netflix series - which I’ve written about here and here - when it came to developing Strahd’s actual personality, because even though the book updated his original Bela Lugosi-esque appearance into something more regal and fantasy-inspired, his essence is still something of a two dimensional bad guy, and the fact that one of his eternal missions in undeath is to make the reincarnation of his original lover fall for him is a problematic pill to swallow in 2019, even if it is meant as an ode to Dracula’s obsession with Mina Harker in Bram Stoker’s original novel. And so I decided to make my version of Strahd similar to the depressed, weary-of-life Dracula in Netflix Castlevania, turning him into a vampire of complexities - a guy who’s been immortal for so long that he almost wants the players to kill him, a man who believes he’s entitled to the love of a woman yet somewhere deep down realizes the inherent selfishness of that belief, and a lord who’s grown bored with his kingdom yet can’t quite relinquish the power he’s held over it for centuries. My Strahd, in other words, was still a bad dude, but at least a somewhat deeper bad dude that the cardboard cutout as presented in the book, and one of my players even described him as “a little like Kylo Ren,” which I took as a compliment.

Before I wrap this up, I’d like to return to the concept of the balancing act with regards to the structure and scope of Curse of Strahd, which is a true sandbox adventure. Players are not required to visit half of the locations outlined in the book, and the replayability factor is high, because the various artifacts that you need to defeat Strahd, as well as the specific non-player characters likely to assist you along the way, are dependent on a tarot card reading that occurs near the start of the adventure. The locations that I found the most important for my players were the towns of Barovia and Vallaki, the Wizard of Wines Winery, Yester Hill, Van Richten’s Tower, the Ruins of Berez, and Castle Ravenloft itself. Other groups online swear by Krezk, a third town that my players never bothered to visit (though I would have urged them to go there if we’d had any clerics or paladins in the party, since Krezk is a town with a giant church), and the Amber Temple, the lair where Strahd obtained his undead powers (a place I feel is best suited for players of neutral or evil-leaning alignments). Your mileage may vary, but if you’re going to DM this module, one of the best bits of advice I can give would be to see which locations your players are naturally inquisitive about, and then focus on those. Exploring every nook and cranny of Barovia can quickly turn into a slog otherwise.

With all this in mind, I think it’s time for the so-called “Well-Doners” to leave the world of gothic horror behind for a bit. They’ve somehow managed to find their way back to their home plane and the city of Waterdeep, and only one of the party was infected with a seemingly fatal curse after their stay in Ravenloft. What further quests await, I wonder, and what new campaign book will I hack apart to suit my players’ tastes? That’s for me to know, for them to find out, and for another long blog post examination...sometime in 2020, hopefully!

All photographs taken by me.

#pixel grotto #musings #tabletop gaming #roleplaying game #rpg #dungeons & dragons #d&d #curse of strahd

[todonintendos]

The Genius Behind The Genius

It’s been already eight years since Pokémon Black and White were released for the Nintendo DS. Time sure flies. I think we can all agree that it seems like yesterday. This just comes to prove how big the mark these games have left is, not to mention the amazing sequels we got to play. One of the many reasons why it’s hard to forget these games is their story. In fact, it took over a year to write, and seeing the result, it was definitely worth the time spent.

But what makes up a good story? A decent amount of plot twists and an interesting theme to talk about are good answers, but this time we’ll be focusing in characters. There’s no good story without characters, and turns out Pokémon Black and White has plenty of them. Cheren, Ghetsis, Bianca, Iris, Juniper... the list feels endless. Each of them have their own unique origins, story and behavior... and then there’s N.

N is an anti-villain, since he’s the king of the villainous Team Plasma, but sees Pokémon as his friends and acts nicely towards the player.

When N was very young, he was abandoned in the woods, where he was raised by the Pokémon living there. One day, Ghetsis began taking care of him, claiming to be his father. Actually, it’s still a mystery who N parents are, to the point where Junichi Masuda, the current director of the Pokémon games, even suggested he could have been born from Pokémon. When the player meets N for the first time, N is already over eighteen years old. My guess is that he’s 19, but I’ll go deeper into that theory later.

Despite not having received proper education, his IQ is stated to be extremely high. His mind exceeds any other human mind from the Pokémon world. Junichi Masuda revealed that he can look into people’s past and future. But his most recognized talent is probably his skill with mathematics. He’s a mathematical genius. It’s said that he sees everything in a black and white fashion, and uses mathematical formulas as a way to make sense of it, since being raised by Pokémon prevented him from having our generic vision of the world. This is the exact same reason why he proves to have a closer relationship with Pokémon than humans.

Being a mastermind who was raised by Pokémon, N considers himself a personification of perfection.

Little more needs to be known about N to realize how distinct of a character he is. Nonetheless, N is still a fictional character, and as with any other work of fiction, there’s a real human mind behind it. The creator of the creation and, for N’s case, the genius behind the genius.

That person is, as you may have guessed already, Junichi Masuda himself. The director and lead composer of Pokémon Black and White and their respective sequels. It’s evident that a good character is never born out of nowhere. There’s always a source of inspiration behind it, and maths were definitely the strongest influence around his creation. At plain sight, the references may not seem obvious. But the same way N has a completely different point of view of what we see, we also need to change our perception of N to see them and figure them out.

Junichi Masuda next to Shigeru Ohmori, game designers and directors of many Pokémon games. Both worked on Black and White together.

By simply looking at N’s official artwork from Black and White, the only thing that’s worth talking about is the cube hanging from his belt. Since it doesn’t have any colors other than a dark shade of yellow, it can’t be a Void Cube, a variant of the well-known Rubik’s Cube with a hole in the middle of every face. Instead, we could be talking about the second iteration of a Menger Sponge, but try to remember what I just mentioned about Void Cubes.

Understanding what a Menger Sponge is can be relatively easy. It gets more complex when we try to approach it from a mathematical point of view. First, think of a big cube of infinite dimensions, which turns out to be the first step of the Menger Sequence. Now, split that big cube into 27 smaller cubes of the same dimensions, and remove the cube that’s in the middle of every face and in the very center of the cube. The shape that the 20 remaining cubes form should remind you of the Void Cube I mentioned earlier, and the cube hanging from N’s belt, of course. Now follow the same steps for those 20 cubes, and repeat the process infinitely. 

The result is a cube with infinite surface, but zero volume, as it will have an infinite amount of holes. Two different and equally valid points of view for the same concept.

One does not realize how the cube will eventually end up having infinite holes until it’s looked from a mathematical point of view.

The truth is, this cube doesn’t take any major, or even minor role in the story of the games, but early concept artworks and notes suggest that it was initially going to be relevant to the plot of the game. However, if N still wears it in the final games, there has to be a reason for that, and it’s probably because of the fact that no-one will find anything interesting in that cube unless it’s seen from a mathematical point of view, or N’s default point of view.

Moving away from his appearance, one of the things that gets the attention of most people is how he’s named after a single letter: the letter N, which happens to be the letter that’s used to represent the set of all natural numbers, which are all numbers without any decimals starting from zero (zero is not part of that set). In fact, this isn’t just a coincidence, as Junichi Masuda has revealed that N stands for Natural Number. However, if you’ve played through Black and White, you should know that N isn’t his actual name. His full name in every language is Natural Harmonia Gropius. And yes, there’s a mathematical context behind it. Actually, not all of the context has to do with math.

The natural set (N) is the most basic mathematical set, and is contained inside all of the bigger sets (real numbers, rational numbers...)

The first part of his full name, Natural, should be already figured out, and there isn’t much more to explain. However, the next part, his surname Harmonia, can be a little bit harder to understand, so let’s focus first on the last name, Gropius, since it’s not confirmed to have a specific origin. Gropius is a rather popular last name in Germany, and is often associated with Walter Gropius, pioneer of modernistic architecture during the XXth century. This could reference the fact that N wants to build a world where Pokémon and humans can live together in... well, harmony. Though it’s debatable whether this is true or not.

Regarding Harmonia, at first glance, it may seem like it refers to the musical term harmony: combinations of chords that create a pleasant melody. While that point of view is correct, the mathematical point of view we’re focusing on leads us to harmonic functions. I won’t go into detail on what they are because it requires a rather wide knowledge on maths to understand. In fact, we don’t really have to, as this only will help us realize there has to be a relation between music and maths somewhere in N’s development history, and by analyzing the well-known N Battle Theme, we’ll find out how math also influenced this tune.

Harmonic functions are those who have a first and a second derivative that always satisfy Laplace’s equation (df^2/dx(n)^2=0)

The genius we’ve been talking about all this time, Junichi Masuda, was in charge of composing this very specific theme, and states in a post from his personal blog that he was influenced by prime numbers to compose it. But why prime numbers? Masuda defends this idea by considering N as the “one” genius, and implying that prime numbers are the ones who get closer to being as unique as number one, due to the fact that they only have two divisors.

I’ve tried finding a music sheet of N’s Battle Theme so following the song becomes easier, however, I found nothing, which surprises me considering it’s a very popular theme. However, since all of this info comes from Junichi Masuda himself, we can definitely trust on it. As a replacement, here’s a video with the song so you can try to follow along, specially if you’ve got a good musical ear.

Right at the first part of the song, you can hear several combinations of eight ascending notes. Imagine the lowest note of the eight, which is always the first one of each set, is note #1, and that the number associated to every note increases by one whenever the key of the note also increases by one position. Do this in all of the sets, and you should get the following number combination: (1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19), which happens to be number one followed by the first seven prime numbers... with seven itself also being a prime number. Also, note that following the definition of prime number, 1 is NOT one of them.

After this intro, several sequences of three notes, with the last note playing for way longer than the other two, can be heard. The fact that it’s three notes isn’t a coincidence since three is a prime number. In music terms, a bar is the segment of time that corresponds to a specific amount of beats stated at the beginning of the music sheet, which is usually four, and the longest note of the three extends for five bars... with five also being a prime number. But this doesn’t end here. This whole theme extends for 83 bars before it begins to loop... and guess what? 83 is also a prime number!

All prime numbers from 1 to 100 appear green on this chart. 1 isn’t a prime number.

We can also find some relations between N and prime numbers on the character itself and not just on his battle theme. For example, in the game, he’s said to be 5′ 11′’ tall. At this point I don’t think I should remind that 5 and 11 are prime numbers, but I’ll do just in case. His trainer ID number in Pokémon Black and White is 00002 (two is the only even prime number). And he’s also the only trainer in Generation V that uses all 17 types of Pokémon at least once during the game. And yes, 17 is also a prime number. Though this info I just mentioned isn’t confirmed, and could be just a coincidence.

Also, there’s much more in N’s Battle Theme other than all of the influence from prime numbers. The clocks ticking in the middle of the song, the sudden bursts of energy... all of these elements aren’t random, and Junichi Masuda explains all of them on his personal blog, so definitely check it out if you’re interested in knowing more about it! https://www.gamefreak.co.jp/blog/dir_english/?m=201110

...and you reached the end of the article!

As you saw, the creativity put into the creation of N is simply insane. People often tend to ignore the development stories of their favourite characters no matter how much they love them, but if you attempt to do a small research to find out, you may end up finding something as surprising as this. Authors and developers care about their characters, to the point where they end up putting all of this effort to make it stand out. Thanks for reading!

~TodoNintendoS, as part of Daily Nintendo Fact #100

[shainethecat]

Create your own blog

 Blogging: how to start a blog, using a CMS is as easy as writing an email. The whole purpose a CMS is actually by enable a person to publish content on the web simply by typing or pasting content into a website and clicking on the "publish" button.

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#wordpress

[maritzaerwin]

14 Common Interview Questions with Actionable Answers

While you can never guarantee what questions you are going to get at an interview, there is a number that you are most likely to turn up. Preparing yourself to answer these questions will also inspire you for similar questions but be ready for the outside-the-box strange question that many businesses now use!

Don’t feel like reading? Listen to the article instead!

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The key to nailing the popular interview questions is pretty simple: understand the intention behind them. Every question the interviewer poses is aimed at yanking some key information from you regarding your personality, cultural fit, skills, and career progression. Your goal is to serve them just that, plus use your answer to tout some more curious bits of your professional life.

PRO TIP:

The interviewer will want to get to know all they can about you during the interview, so prepare a summary about yourself and why you have chosen this career and be prepared to back up your answers with solid examples.

Melony Botha HR Consultant London, United Kingdom

  Now, keeping that in mind, let’s move on to the list of common interview questions, paired with sharp and on-point tips for answering them!

1. Please, Tell Me About Yourself

This is one of those interview questions you’ll get 99 out 100 times. Considering its popularity, we even wrote an entirely separate post on how to answer the “tell me about yourself” question.

Here’s a quick recap:

Start with a quick, professional summary — a one-liner summarizing your key ‘selling points’ and background.

Highlight your core technical skills and areas of expertise.

Wrap it up by saying why you are interested in this new position/company.

Here’s a sample answer to the “tell me about yourself” question:

“I’m an experienced Regional Sales Manager with 6 years of experience in CRM software sales to Fortune 500 companies. I have deep familiarity with lead scoring and Salesforce software and strong people’s skills that helped me close over $1.5 million in sales last year and win the Top Regional Manager award. Although I love my current position, I feel ready for another challenge and would love to apply my skills in the new market that your company’s pursuing.”

If the interviewer then asks “to tell some more about yourself”, bring up some more details that are relevant, but didn’t make it to the final cut of your resume. Because your resume only contains the basics, add in more information about a skill or some situation that may demonstrate your expertise in the area.

2. What Is Your Experience In This Field?

Talk about the jobs you have held but also elements within it – tools or software used, industry events you’ve attended, as well as some specific projects that you have worked on. Mention some of your key accomplishments, backed by data if possible, to further demonstrate your industry knowledge.

Career changers and recent graduates are the most likely to receive this question. If that’s your case, keep the focus on your education and passion for the field, rather than past work expertise. Mention the courses you’ve taken or brought up some recent commentary on the industry events, demonstrating that you are aware of how things work in the field.

3. Why Do You Want to Work Here?

Focus on the main aspects of the job and why this appeals to you. It might be a chance to learn new technology, work in a new environment, or work on a specific type of project. Or focus on that it is a natural extension of your skills or experience and the best step on your career path.

Read more about how to answer the ‘why do you want to work here’ interview question using our 5-step formula.

4. What are Your Reasons for Leaving a Job?

Be positive and be honest when talking about your reasons for leaving your last job. Focus on the positive reasons for changing jobs such as looking for a new challenge or a lack of career growth in your old job. Perhaps you were a victim of restructuring or the company has relocated, these are also legitimate reasons.

However, at all costs avoid badmouthing your former employer, boss, or colleagues! Even if you still have some hard feelings towards either of these people, don’t show them to the interviewer.

Also, try to turn the negative part of your leaving into a positive one. Reference the good parts of your former job and address any potential shortcomings at your end. For instance, if you were terminated due to the lack of some essential skills, mention that while the company didn’t provide any on-the-job training, you later mastered this skill on your own.

5. Why Were You Fired?

This question may seem scary, but don’t fret too much over it. The intention behind it is to learn where the problem was and if you contributed to it in some way.

So again, be honest and forthcoming. Shortly explain the reason for being fired, address your shortcomings (if there were any), and move on to talking about what you’ve learned from this experience.

6. Why Are You Interested in This Position?

This question is your prime opportunity to showcase your enthusiasm and showcase how your skills and experience can positively contribute to the organization.

The easiest way to answer this question is to use the following three-step framework:

Demonstrate your eagerness for the job

Indicate how your experience and skills match the role

Make a connection with your desired career trajectory.

Here’s a sample answer:

“Your company places a great emphasis on user experience and that can be seen in every aspect of your web app and website. I know that the company’s mission is to create more responsive and inclusive web and that is something I care about too. In your job description, you’ve mentioned that you encourage your team members to contribute wherever the interests take them and I’d be really interested in combing my branding knowledge and UX skills to create a more unified experience for users across all digital channels, and my knack for writing could be further applied towards building a more intentional UX writing process. Starting this practice in my last position has reduced our design timeline by 15%. In fact, I’d be really interested in further growing professionally in UX writing and scaling this practice in your organization — something that works well in SaaS, but unfortunately isn’t a priority for most financial companies.” 

Last tip: focus on the career benefits of the job rather than financial aspects or benefits.

7. What Do You Know About This Company?

This question is similar to the previous one, but in this case, you have to place a greater focus on why this industry and employer interests you that much.

Do a little research into the company beforehand so you know its background, its core values, mission, current focus, or general direction. Then incorporate some of the points into your answer. Again, try to ‘connect the dots’ and show how your skills and experiences align with this particular company and role.

8. What Challenges Are You Looking For From This Job?

Remember the job description and the key duties/requirements of the candidates. Then pick one specific point and explain what exactly you’d like to achieve.

For example, the job description says that “you’ll need strong organizational skills to manage multi-million dollar budgets for marketing projects”. 

You can take that part and mention that for a long time you’ve been seeking extra leadership opportunities and would love to work more as a team to realize your past successes at a larger scale.

In essence, this question prompts you to discuss your career goals so that the employer could understand your expectations, ambitions, and desired career trajectory.

9. What Kind Of Goals And Objectives Do You Have For Your Career?

This interview question is similar to number 6 on this list and you should approach it in a similar fashion. Your answer should be orientated towards the employer, what benefits them, and how you can be instrumental in achieving those goals.

10. Would You Relocate Or Be Willing To Travel?

The point of asking this interview question is to gauge your flexibility, but also practicality. Some jobs may require extended periods of on-site work at customers’ locations – something that may interfere with your work-life balance or family relationships.

Relocation is a major move that not every person is ready to take. After all, your spouse may be happy with their current position and refuse the move. Anyhow, be honest and mention your availability for travel and feelings toward full relocation.

11. What Salary Are You Seeking?

Ah, the money talks. Money-related interview questions are always tricky. On one hand, you don’t want to lowball your offer. On the other, you don’t want to appear as someone with unrealistic expectations.

When asking this question during the interview (not the job offer part), most HRs just want to make sure that you understand the potential compensation range.  Negotiating the salary package happens after the job is offered so simply state a salary range within what is mentioned in the job advert.

If there was none, do some research for similar roles on Glassdoor and PayScale to get a good median range estimate.

12. What’s The Most Difficult Situation You Have Faced And How Did You Handle It?

This is one of the most common behavioral interview questions you can get. The interviewer’s goal here is to assess your personality traits and interpersonal skills. The best way to answer this is to provide a quick example from your job.

Tell a quick story showing how you were in a stressful situation but managed to recover quickly, identify the problem, take the right course of action, and succeed. For example:

“Once, our baggage was delayed when we were traveling to the trade show. Our booth decor, posters, and corporate swag were scheduled to arrive a day after the show began. Since it was a crucial event for our company, I contacted the organizers immediately and negotiated that they provided us with another flat screen. Also, I asked the junior manager to purchase a projector, while the rest of the team, including myself, worked overnight to create a new digital presentation of our products and a set of downloadable promo materials that could be downloaded via a QR code scan.  Despite the setback, we still managed to attract good traffic to our booth and sign up 20% more leads than usual”.  

13. What Are Your Strengths and Weaknesses?

This tricky question goes as number thirteen deliberately as it’s the one place where a lot of candidates chock. Some downplay their strengths. Others get too hung up on appearing all flawless.

When posting this question the recruiter wants to accomplish several things:

Assess your levels of self-awareness

Check your honesty

Verify for any major red flags

Use this question as an opportunity to highlight what you’ve learned and addressed some of the challenges (your weaknesses) that you had to overcome in the past or things that you are proactively working on right now.

P.S. Read more tips for answering “What Are Your Weaknesses And Strengths?” interview question.

14. Why Should We Hire You?

The inevitable pinnacle to all the interview questions is why should we hire you. Don’t get intimidated by it. Instead, use it as a welcome opportunity to deliver a winning sales pitch to the hiring manager.

To deliver the best answer, focus on the next three things:

Your ability to get the work done thanks to your skills

The great successes you’ve had in the past and can replicate at the new company

Your cultural fit and enthusiasm

Here’s how all of the above can be framed in a quick answer:

“In my last position as a restaurant manager, I managed to reduce the budget waste by 25% while also raising the customer’s rating of the venue thanks to proactive mentorship work with the staff. Thanks to the exceptional levels of service, the venue received a 5-star rating from Culinary Escapades magazine and I still keep close contact with the restaurant critic, so I’d be happy to invite them over to your venue, too. Lastly, I know that organic, fair-trade ingredients are a major selling point of your restaurant, as a vegan myself, I’m always on the lookout for new  suppliers and would be happy to share my contacts.”

PRO TIP:

Prepare answers to the Interview questions listed on the site to help you feel prepared and will help the interview conversation flow at a nice pace. If the interviewer asks a question you aren’t prepared for, ask for a couple minutes to gather your thoughts by stating “That’s a great question. Let me give it some thought for a moment.

Brenda S. Meyer Certified Senior HR Consultant Arizona, United States

  Every job interview can go one way or another. But no matter which questions you get asked, remember this: be honest, polite and keep your answer on-point. Talk more about what you can do for the employer and how you can be of help, rather than merely reciting all the things you know how to do.

Lastly, remember: you’ve got it!

This article has been originally published on Nov 9, 2016 and has been extensively revised and updated on July 30, 2020.

The post 14 Common Interview Questions with Actionable Answers appeared first on Freesumes.com.

14 Common Interview Questions with Actionable Answers published first on https://skillsireweb.tumblr.com/

[syzygyzip]

Basic Premises of Game-Entrainment

Game-entrainment is psychosimulation therapy. It describes any act of participation in a game whose effects extend into the unconscious mind of the player.  To an extent, all gaming is entrainment. Whether the player is dropping blocks, zapping aliens, or kicking balls, they are, in different measure, inhabiting these games. When the player partitions part of their mind into the game world, and actions are performed upon that projected part, those actions affect the whole of the psyche. This is the basic premise of alchemy, and much has been written about the participation mystique in theater, dance, visual art, fishing, archery, tea ceremony, and almost every other human endeavor under the sun. But gaming offers a unique capacity in this task, and it deserves much more attention.

How is gaming different from other art forms? Well, let’s not get bogged down in that. But we can say briefly: in a game you perform actions (as in dance), within an artistically constructed fixed field (as in film). No other medium can offer that experience. Though you perform in theater and dance, those actions occur within the boundless and unpredictable domain of physical reality. And while a film presents a defined field of observation, it is not subject to alteration by its witness. Only gaming offers movement and performance within the confines of the fixed field.

Under any circumstance, focusing on a fixed field becomes a potential vessel for conditioning the psyche. It’s not uncommon for people to come away with their personalities transformed from looking at a painting or closely studying an anthill. The special efficacy of gaming in this endeavor is due to the immediacy of acting within the vessel and the clear delineation of permitted actions. To expedite the process further, games often give the player a clear entry point for the “I”: an avatar into which a player can more consciously self-associate. So while the entire game is microcosmically representative of the player’s psyche, the player-character provides a handy vehicle for mediation (akin to the ego). This projection of the ego into the player-character is relatively obvious (we say “I made the jump!” even though it is Mario who has jumped).

The player-character may or may not act as a reliable representative of the game as a whole, because they will have some semblance of their own identity. That is to say, no avatar can be a totally neutral instrument of mediation; even a single pixel will inspire some affective response in the player. There can be no accounting for the idiosyncrasies of each player’s relationship to their player-character.  How much of ourselves do we consciously recognize in this avatar? Which aspects of our personality does this avatar encourage us to access? This representative of our conscious will is not a clear cast into which we pour ourselves, and our relationship to this intermediary figure will evolve as we play. All this is to say that game-entrainment derives from identification with the gestalt game experience, of which the player-character is only a part.

Of course there is no set way to initiate this style of gaming. Entrainment is just something that happens when we play any game. We throw ourselves – to varying degree – into the game, and what transpires there is suggestive to the unconscious psyche. It is then helpful to bring conscious reflection to the events of the game through interpretation. But again, there is no rulebook, for the same reason that there are no true dream dictionaries.* No generic codification can be assigned to these processes because the disposition of the player, the game itself, and the relationship between the player and the game each hold countless idiosyncrasies. In order to understand how a particular play experience has conditioned the mind, it is most helpful to remain open and honest in your own impressions, and freely associate from there. What events from the game stood out? What did they remind you of? And so on.

While it is helpful to have an attitude of openness to interpretation during gameplay, it is even more helpful to play naturally. Entrainment occurs most efficiently during experiences of immersion. Gamers have pointed out that there are two primary types of immersion: mechanical and narrative, and that a flow state emerges when the two immersions are in harmony. For this reason, I would argue that games which elicit elevated concentration from the player are more effective in this practice. Concentration can be coaxed by the demands of precision movements, as in all manner of action games: shooters, bullet hells, platformers, MOBAs, fighting games. This is representative of mechanical immersion. Concentration can also be seduced into elevation by rich diegetic elements, common in sandbox games, RPGs, visual novels, detective games. This is representative of the so-called narrative immersion. It seems that an increased focus on either count leads to a denser self-projection, and all the more so when the two immersions are acting in concert.

There is one more premise of game-entrainment that is most elusive. When the mind is partitioned into these projections within games, it typically requires very selective attention. On one level, the visual vocabulary of the game is inculcated until recognition is immediate. Think of cherries, coins, blue and green potions: color-and-form compositions that indicate some beneficial effect. Then there are objects that are detriments. There are also objects that are neutral, objects that produce a random effect, and objects whose effect changes depending on other conditions. There are objects with intelligence and objects that are totally passive. The player quickly learns to codify these objects based on the expected result of interaction with them. In a modern game, there are tons of these signifiers that require different anticipations. It is no longer a dichotomy of “touching this is good, touching that is bad,” but a complex tapestry of visual elements that require individual discernment in how they are treated by the player.

So beyond acclimating to the concrete signifiers, the player also develops a fluency for the game’s patterns. Objects and events often come in specific formations. Routines and gestures are repeated. Enemies have intended or unintended tells. Certain events have rules about what precedes or follows. The player becomes intimately familiar with certain situations. In that familiarity, the player both develops conscious responses to game conditions (like learning a combo), and unconsciously accrues a lexicon of habits and shorthands (throwing a bomb at a certain enemy because that’s what you did last time).

When we distribute our focus into similar formations repeatedly, we develop postures of attention. Anyone who has played enough Tetris to see the blocks fall as they fall asleep can testify to this. This suggests that the mental hotkeys that we develop from observing patterns and responding in postures extend beyond the game and into the inner world. We find our dreams inflected with game scenarios, or that these same scenarios are overlaid upon our perception of the world in small eruptions of fantasy. When a posture of attention bleeds into other orders of phenomenal experience, that indicates to me that something new is being accessed in the recesses of the psyche – some formerly unconscious content is coming into view. I would suppose that the particular nature of the content would have some isomorphic relationship to the posture of attention, but is not wholly represented by it.

So, in allowing ourselves to be conditioned by games, we should consider not just the aesthetics and the gameplay, but also how the mind is situated in its task. Each of these elements contributes to gamefeel, the feeling of participating in games. The more aspects of a game that can be consciously understood by the player, the more material there is with which to interpret and appreciate the psycho-simulative process. Conscious game-entrainment is a valuable tool for understanding one’s own mind, providing a designated space to negotiate the complexes of the unconscious. VR games are already being considered for clinical use in the treatment of phobias, and researchers have designed a video game that functions as a CBT course. There are also the countless testimonies of people who intuitively turned to gaming as an instrument of self-care in response to a variety of behavioral disorders.

In addition to its direct therapeutic application, conscious game-entrainment has another important social capacity: the cultivation of new aesthetic fluencies. Video games and other digital media have already profoundly changed our visual habits and comprehensions (as the rising fields of UX and UI can attest). There is no common system of signification to describe the attentional postures (much less the embodied experience) demanded by new media. Yet to best appreciate and employ the forms of the current culture, we need to sensitize ourselves to their affective functioning. In their classic survey of visual media, Practices of Looking, Sturken and Cartwright lay it out: “Digital imaging’s multiplicity of perspectives and its openings for multiple entry points and potential for new combinations of [players] and objects suggest many possible entry points into engagement in the ongoing making of worlds and worldviews.” The broader our awareness of our self-association within the virtual, and the more definition given to the sense-impressions derived therein, the more we as players are able to intentionally participate in the transformation of our worldview.

It also seems self-explanatory that video games as a creative medium would benefit from players and developers consciously exploring styles of symbolic engagement.

________

* There are still a few common-sense models to make use of in interpretation. We’ve discussed the player-character’s role as a mediator of psychic content, an ego or organizing principle. So what is being organized? Levels and stages can be seen as planes of action, the psychic ground, or lattice of context that frames whatever interactions it contains. As in dreams, a light area and a dark area are likely to inspire different evaluations, as are interior vs. exterior environments, etc. The act of consuming objects or enemies for the sake of growth or progress can be handily codified into integration experiences – especially if this integration confers new abilities or areas. Key characters and bosses can be seen as personifications of the themes of their domain, or as constellations of psychological archetypes (whether they are of any particular import is determined subjectively by the player).

#games #video games #game-entrainment #psychosimulation therapy #gaming alchemy #gaming gnosis #participation mystique #gaming criticsm #new directions in gaming #sympathy gaming #game feel #gamefeel #alchemy

[isaackuo]

WIP: The Lurking Egg Tooth

WIP: Arkham Horror/Wiz War inspired hybrid coop/competitive board game

The Lurking Egg Tooth (working title)

Sorry I don't yet have any picture to go along with this. Just imagine a modular map sort of like Wiz War, but with streets and buildings like Clue/Arkham Horror.

I started discussing the sort of game I wish Arkham Horror were - greatly simplified, with a "traitor" mechanism so it's not pure co-op. I've decided to actually design this game.

The basic idea is that all players start off cooperatively trying to stop cults from summoning Old Ones, but as characters go insane they switch sides to try and summon (different) Old Ones.

The shared "good end" victory is to place seals on all altars before any Old One is summoned. Only players with sane characters (even if dead) can share the "good end" victory.

An individual "bad end" victory is to summon the Old One associated with the character. Only a player with an insane character (even if dead) can have a "bad end" victory.

If an Old One associated with a still sane character is summoned, everyone loses.

A character is dead if it accumulates (face up) injury points exceeding its injury limit. But the player continues to draw and place chits on the board.

A character turns insane if it accumulates (face down) insanity points exceeding its insanity limit. Only the character's player is allowed to peek, so other players can't be certain if that character has turned insane (it may be obvious from player behavior and/or the size of the stack, though).

There are no explicit game rules to directly make a player act less sane as their character accumulates insanity points. However, the player should judge when it looks likely the character will go insane before the game ends. Also, players should hedge their bets, favoring strategies to get Doom points on their own altars just in case their player flips.

Each character is associated with a particular cult that they have been studying or have some connection to. For example, a relative may have been abducted by the cult, or something, and this has led the character to discover more and more disturbing things about this cult. Each character initially OPPOSES the associated cult. But different characters have different insanity limits, making some intrinsically less trustworthy from the start.

The main mechanism of the game is placing doom chits face down on unsealed cult altars. The thing is, only the player associated with that cult may peek at the contents of the doom stack. All of the other players must _trust_ that player to report how close their Old One is to summoning.

The other mechanism is moving around a modular city/building map, fighting cultists/monsters and searching for items such as keys and seals, to place seals on cult altars. Here's where strategy gets really messy. As the players put seals on some altars, it will force doom chits to be placed on fewer remaining altars. Therefore, the best "good end" strategy is NOT to evenly spread the Doom chits. Rather, the best strategy is to place a lot of doom chits on one or two altars which will be sealed first. But this strategy of concentrating doom chits can obviously be risky if that character goes insane...

So, each player must keep in mind two possible victory goals: either a shared "good end" victory, while retaining sanity, or summoning the player's associated Old One after losing sanity.

This is fundamentally what this game is all about. This mechanism is meant to foster an initial alliance but for things to devolve into paranoia and backstabbing as the game progresses.

So, what's the rest of the gameplay like? I'm inspired by Wiz War. Each character/Old One has a rectangular card map showing some city alleys and the cult's main lair. These lairs are only accessible via locked doors, which require disposable single use keys to access. Within the lair is the altar, upon which doom chits are stacked. Additionally, it's possible to place a seal chit (face up) on top of the doom stack.

Each card also has a small section showing the character's insanity and injury limits. The injury stack is face up; the insanity stack is face down. Thus, everyone can see how injured a character is, but it's unclear how insane a character is.

The players take turns, going around clockwise. Each turn's sequence of play is:

1) MOVEMENT - Move, encountering objects/cultists/monsters upon line-of-sight, using keys/seals. Optionally play one number chit to add to a default movement limit of 3 squares. Picking up an object ends movement.

2) DOOM - Place all Doom chits on unsealed altars.

3) SPAWN - Place all remaining object/cultist/monster chits face down on the board.

4) DRAW - Draw three chits into your hand.

*MOVEMENT PHASE*

The default movement limit is 3 squares. You may optionally play a number chit to add to this limit. If you pick up an object, this ends movement.

Whenever you have line of sight with face down chits, you flip them over.

When a character moves into line of sight with cultists, they immediately attack. The player may optionally defend with the character's natural defense rating or a number chit. If this number equals or exceeds the cultist's attack strength, the defense is successful and the cultist chit is discarded. Otherwise, the cultist chit is placed (face up) on the injury stack.

Monsters also attack like cultists. However, a successful defense against a monster means the monster's chit is placed (face down) on the insanity stack. Additionally, there are disturbing artifacts/visions which have no physical attack. They go directly to the insanity stack on sight.

The phasing player character may make one line-of-sight attack on another player character. An attack uses a number chit exceeding the target's natural defense rating. The target may optionally defend/counterattack with a number chit. If the number chits are equal, they are both discarded. Otherwise, the higher chit played is placed on the other's injury stack.

A player character's possessions are NOT in the player's hand. They are placed face up next to their injury/insanity stacks. Picking up an object (a key or seal) ends the movement phase. Dropping and object does not end movement. A player may carry at most one seal, but any number of keys. A key in the character's possession (not in hand) must be used to pass through a door. Each key is single use; it is discarded upon use.

*DOOM PHASE*

Any doom chits in hand must be placed on unsealed altars. The players associated with the altars then check to see if their Old One is summoned.

*SPAWN PHASE*

Any object/cultist/monster chits in hand must be placed (face down) on the board. They must be placed on empty squares that are NOT in line-of-sight of any (face up) seals or (alive) player characters. This represents the nebulous activities of the cults and/or other obscure powers.

Spawning strategy revolves around trying to place "good" objects where you or allies can easily get them, while placing "bad" objects/cultists/monsters out of the way or in the way of enemies.

*DRAW PHASE*

Draw three chits into your hand. Note that your hand does NOT represent your character's possessions. Any keys/seals drawn will be spawned onto the board during your next turn.

Note that this sequence of play allows you to plan out your turn while others are phasing (one of many things inspired by Wiz War).

So basically, that's what I've got so far. I've tried to keep the rules and components simple, but to have them interact in a way that is engaging and dynamic. There are no mechanisms to heal characters or remove doom chits. Everything is about trying to juggle monotonic degrading health, sanity, and doom chits. This could be boring if it were a pure coop game. But the insanity mechanism gives the different players distinctly different agendas, and the way seals work prevents a simplistic strategy of distributing doom chits equally from working.

A really important design consideration for me is keeping the non-phasing players engaged. In many games, the first thing is to draw cards or rolling dice; you then have have to react on the spot. At worst, this can make forward planning your turn out impossible. By drawing chits last, I hope to enable players to be constantly thinking about what they're going to do next turn.

Unfortunately, spawning objects/cultists/monsters face down limits planning ability. You know you'll be encountering something, but you just don't know what until you see it. An alternative would be to spawn chits face up, but I feel face down spawning makes it easier for secret traitors to hide their secret intent. Also, I think it promotes a thematically fitting feeling of suspense and fatalism.

Also, how much do these face down chits affect your forward planning? You've got a particular place to go, and there will be only one shortest way to get there. You'll just have to plow through whatever's in the way. None of the objects/cultists/monsters impede your movement. They just eat into your sanity/health/hand.

Of course, you'll know about the chits you placed down yourself (if your memory is good enough). This will be part of your forward planning, when it comes to picking up keys and seals. And you can cooperatively place them where allies can pick them up...if, of course, you trust them enough...

#board game design #game development