#the number of ‘’walkthroughs’’ that i’ve found that don’t actually. help

[j-esbian]

see the problem with all of the puzzles in bg3 is like. sometimes the player (me) is stupid. and at least in a real dnd game you might get the dm to take pity on you

#the number of ‘’walkthroughs’’ that i’ve found that don’t actually. help #they tell you the map coordinates or whatever. what about if i cannot physically find what you’re talking about AT THOSE COORDINATES #or cannot figure out how to get to those coordinates (like when i spent three days trying to find karlach) #i’m in hell. actually still having a very hard time getting invested and like. not rly enjoying this game lmao #I AM PLAYING ON EXPLORER MODE AND SOMEONE GOES DOWN IN ALMOST EVERY COMBAT #also just. open world syndrome a little bit #too many quests that apparently i can’t actually move forward in yet. and too much open space #making me feel like. i need to go explore and grind when i just want to finish the quests i already have good lord #idrc about exploring every corner of the map. at this point??? #tried going into the mountain pass and it was like ‘hey you’re really low level. reconsider <3’ and im like #literally WHAT is there to do for me here #(it wanted me to go to the underdark. which i figured would progress the story so i was trying to find lae’zel’s crèche while we’re here??) #also on a non gameplay note #inSANE that all of the questlog items for daughter of darkness list her and i having interactions that We Did Not #got to act 2 and she’s like ‘hey i worship shar btw. this is supposed to be a reveal’ but like. the quest log told me that immediately?? #was i not supposed to read that?? she never told me that she wanted to join the justiciars. i never gave her the idol. #but it said all of those happened??? #maybe i’m biased bc my first save was trying to play as her but it REALLY feels like they’re pushing her to be the main character #like. kinda sucks how she’s the only companion you can check in with and say ‘how do you think we’re doing’ #and these fucking controls #why are the items hit boxes so weird. my cursor is a centimeter away and yet it still highlights something #the label isn’t actually next to the thing it’s describing so holding the alt key does nothing to show me where it is #god forbid you try to point at something through an open door #the fucking. camera angles. impossible to see what i’m doing or where i’m going because the trees and walls and shit keep getting in the way #straight up not having a good time #but this was a lot of money and i’ve heard it picks up #when tho #also the fact that i rly like wyll and he’s got like. nothing. id heard he has less content than other origins but #didn’t realize it was to a noticeable extent #maybe it’ll pick up and give him more to talk about once i save his dad. please god

[orcinus-veterinarius]

from your experience, do you think fully indoor enclosures (the Georgia Aquarium or SeaWorld Abu Dhabi, for example) are worse welfare-wise for cetaceans and pinnipeds than outdoor ones? they would definitely be advantageous in places where severe weather is a concern, but I feel like they should be out in the fresh air. i don’t want to make a judgment call if that’s not the case though cuz I’ve always wondered about this but don’t know enough about marine mammals to answer. thanks :)

So this is a really great question, and actually one I’ve been wondering about myself recently. From what I can tell, there hasn’t been a lot of formal research into the pros and cons of completely indoor versus completely outdoor habitats for marine mammals. My “gut” response is to agree with you that, yes, exposure to fresh air and sunlight is preferable whenever possible. Never underestimate the important of sunlight!

However, there are environments where indoor housing is more appropriate, namely urban settings. Aquariums like Georgia, Shedd, and National are literally downtown in Atlanta, Chicago, and Baltimore respectively—major cities. While this is an optimal location for reaching the highest number of people, it also means air quality is poor, and we know how sensitive marine mammals are to respiratory pollutants. In these cases, indoor habitats are probably the wiser option, and it seems to have served them well. In the 12 years since Georgia Aquarium opened its bottlenose exihibit, they have only lost one dolphin (to acute pneumonia), despite maintaining a pod of a dozen or so. Obviously, there are a whole host of factors that go into health and survival rates (Georgia does not permit its dolphins to breed, for one, which eliminates juvenile mortalities), but I don't think it's unfair to assume there would probably be a lot more respiratory problems in their pod if the dolphins lived outside in downtown Atlanta.

Another major factor that has only recently been recognized is regional microbiomes. This is one of the more viable theories as to what caused the short-lived dolphinarium Dolphinaris Arizona to tragically lose half of its dolphins over the course of a year and a half. Most of their dolphins were born either at SeaWorld Orlando or Dolphin Quest's Hawai'i locations—tropical climates, especially when compared to the arid desert climate of the greater Phoenix area. In Arizona, the dolphins encountered a new set of pathogens quite different from what they were acclimated to, and it is thought this contributed to at least a few of the deaths (one of them died of neurological disease for unrelated reasons).

Dolphinaris Arizona was a modern facility, with both indoor and outdoor habitats, and inspections revealed no issues with the animals’ care. It might’ve been horrible luck, similar to what CMA is experiencing right now. But I can’t help but wonder if all-indoor facilities might’ve prevented all this heartbreak.

The brand-new SeaWorld Abu Dhabi is now home to twenty-four dolphins—all from US SeaWorld Parks, which are found in humid subtropical to temperate coastal desert climates. Abu Dhabi, like Arizona, is in an arid desert climate. However, as you mentioned, the new facility is entirely indoors, which hopefully will aid in protecting the animals from both the unfamiliar desert pathogens and pollutants of the city. Reassuringly, the dolphin habitat is surrounded by large windows to allow ample exposure to natural sunlight. Since arriving in the fall of last year, all the dolphins have so far been doing well!

(I’m really excited about this habitat. It’s quite large and features depth variation, rockwork, a rain simulator, and live fish. I’ve also seen waves in some of the park walkthrough videos I’ve watched, although I’m unsure if this is from an actual wave machine or just the changes in depth combined with the animals’ movements).

Thanks for the ask! I hope it was helpful. I would love to be involved in formal research on the topic in the future!

#dolphins #cetaceans #marine mammals #vet med #animal welfare #aquariums #habitat design #seaworld #seaworld abu dhabi #georgia aquarium #dolphinaris arizona #answered asks #judesaintfrncis

[takadanobaba]

Prizoom Ticket Buying Walkthrough

Have you ever wanted to experience what a cheering screening is like regardless of location, even overseas? How about soundboard hell?

Well you’re in luck because there’s literally nothing stopping you because prizooms are a thing and they aren’t region locked at all!!! And I love them!!!!

I love them so much that I made a whole post just to make the ticket buying process even more easy!!!! 

If you’re interested in attending a prizoom, please participate and show your support for kinpri!!!

So to preface, “prizooms” are online King of Prism cheering screenings using Zoom and featuring a soundboard powered by Ainotte. Tickets are sold through RakutenTicket.

My first prizoom was Jin’s! 💙  I posted an impressions post here, in case if you wanted a detailed summary of what a prizoom is like! I also posted about Rei’s prizoom and will be using screenshots from buying tickets for that during this!

~

You’ll need a Rakuten Ticket account before trying to make your purchase, so if you haven’t, go to this link (the Rakuten member registration page) and make an account.

(Actually forgot most of the details for making an account when typing this but I do remember it being decently easy so.... if I’m missing anything it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out ^^;)

First part is pretty straightforward, they even have an official English translation of the registration page so you don’t have to put it through google translate! Also it doesn’t matter what language you set during registration, your account will work for buying prizoom tickets even if you don’t use the Japanese page.

For the address, I just looked up “Japanese postal codes” and put in the first result that showed up and picked the prefecture it came from (Tokyo) just to be safe. Pretty sure you can just put whatever you want though. Forgot what info I used (and can’t figure out how to see my account info to check?) but pretty sure I didn’t type in legit info and it went through anyways.

For the phone number, you can use your actual full phone number, including the country code!

(I forgot if they need to verify your phone number, but I’d suggest to use your real phone number just in case)

After that, confirm your information and create your Rakuten Ticket account!

So first you would go to whatever prizoom you’re interested in’s information page (usually found promoted on the kinpri twitter account) and then click the blue link, which will take you to its Rakuten Ticket page!

Then if you scroll down a bit, you’ll see the different tickets available for purchase! The first and most expensive option is for every showing in the event, the ones below it are specific showings.

Also!!! If you want to skip a showing, you’ll have to go through the purchasing process for each single ticket you want to buy. There isn’t a cart function as far as I’m aware, so I had to pay the service fee twice. It’s kind of a pain but I guess that just gives more incentive for people who just want to do 2+ showings to just go all the way.

(Looking back on it, I regret only doing 2 out of 3 and not just buying an all-inclusive ticket for Jin’s showing since I would’ve loved it...)

I want to attend the screening of SSS part 4, so I’ll click the red button for the 3rd option!

Next screen is where you choose which room you want to participate in!  The red option is the cheering room, and the blue is for the chat+soundboard only room. I’ve heard that the cheering rooms are more fun (and a closer experience to an actual cheering screening), but I started out with chat-only rooms and personally REALLY REALLY REALLY enjoyed them! Both rooms use the soundboard, so if you’re interested in cheering through that (seeing as most people using this walkthrough would proooobably not have much experience cheering or be confident enough in Japanese to turn on their mic), it’s okay to attend either room!

I’ll be going to the chat-only room again! So I’ll click that, and then click the dropdown and set it to the only other option so that I can buy one ticket.

After that, a confirmation screen pops up. The orange button on the left is to cancel/go back, and the one on the right is to confirm.

The next section asks how you would like to pay, you’ll probably want to (and most likely can only) pay with a credit/debit card, so just select the first option before scrolling down until you get a bunch of blanks to fill out like below.

Now here’s the fun part! Putting in some really obviously made up information!

The first line asks for your last name, and the line below that asks for your first name. Don’t bother trying to type in your name in English letters/romaji, the system will only allow Japanese letters. As long as it’s in Japanese, you can put any name you want! 

In the section below the first 2 boxes, it asks you to rewrite your name in katakana specifically. If you have trouble with differentiating hiragana/katakana/kanji, you can always just paste something into a katakana converter or go wild with google translate till something works. Though it’d be good for you to learn at least a little bit of Japanese since it makes the whole screening experience more enjoyable.

I just set my name as 高田馬場 (Takadanobaba) ジョ��ジ (Joji) because why not. For the second set of name boxes I put タカダノババ (Takadanobaba in katakana) ジョージ (Joji again, almost every kinpri character’s first name is already written in katakana). If you don’t want to bother with putting in different info then you can just paste that in haha.

For the address, make sure you put in a Japanese zip code! Non-japanese codes won’t work. You can select any prefecture you want, but for the example I put その他 / ”Somewhere else”. For the next few boxes you can type in literally anything you want, it doesn’t matter. It’s just an online event so the only place they send you anything is to your email! (They should just remove the whole address section since it gets tedious to fill out and isn’t used for anything haha...) Your address doesn’t need to be consistent with the info you used to make your account! 

ALSO!!!! If you’re running the page through google translate or something and get stuck, make sure you revert it back to its original before filling in your information and hitting the orange button! If you don’t then it keeps switching your birth month to the default 1/January and you won’t be able to move onto the next page. Your birthday needs to match up with the info you used to make your Rakuten account with!

When you’re done, click the orange confirmation button to go to the next page!

Next page just asks if you want to use your RakutenTicket points to discount your purchase. You can only use them if you have at least 50 points.

After that, put in your payment information! You don’t need a Japanese credit/debit card and can use the information for any card you want......... as long as it’s valid for you to use! Don’t steal someone’s card info or put in fake information for this. This is a transaction with actual money involved here. ^^;

Putting in the numbers on your card is also straightforward, the most confusing part would probably just be the name. Make sure you type the cardholder name in ALL CAPS otherwise it won’t work.

Should be obvious but I only used “TAKADANOBABA JOJI” for example purposes, if you’re copying my info, don’t actually put that unless if your name is actually Takadanobaba Joji and your credit card really says that. I changed it to my legal information after taking this screenshot so my purchase would go through. Use the actual name on your card!

After you put in your payment info and it’s verified, review your purchase, scroll down, and check the box at the end if you want to go through with your order.

The box before that asks if you want to receive email notifications for when events relating to King of Prism and online events have their tickets up for sale.

When your tickets are bought, you’ll get an order code like this! (You don’t really need it, this isn’t used in your prizoom ticket)

To see your ticket information, you can either check your email or go to the RakutenTicket home page and log into your account to view your purchase history.

When you click whatever ticket you want to see information for, scroll down until you find your “入室用ID” / “Entry ID” information.

From here, you’ll see your ticket info, alongside a link to the event’s bonus zoom backgrounds right above it!

You will also get an email with your ticket information!

Your ticket info will consist of numbers separated into three sections by slashes like this! The sections in order would be:

1) The Zoom meeting ID code (882 8702 1252)

2) The password to be let into the Zoom meeting (964689)

3) What you need to set your display name to before entering (6703)

(The numbers won’t be the same, also this is from Jin’s first showing so it’s long over and this information is useless outside of providing an example.)

Only one device is allowed per ticket, so don’t try to distribute the same ticket to multiple people to get out of paying for yourself or anything like that!

(Assuming you don’t need this guide to tell you how to download Zoom or find the option to join a meeting)

Put in the first number into the first box and the third number into the second box. Then you’ll get a popup asking for a passcode, so the second number.

Then it’ll show you when the event is scheduled for in your timezone! This is helpful for if you haven’t already and want to set an alarm for when it starts but don’t want to fumble through time converters. Though it would be good to double check just in case if the popup is off.

On the day of the event and a bit earlier from the first showing, you’ll get an email with a link for the prizoom soundboard! 

The soundboard is the same for all of the event’s showings and both rooms, so please only participate when appropriate so you don’t ruin the experience in showings you’re not attending if you choose to listen in on them!

I’ve annotated the buttons for accessibility  💖 

The gender/voice options can be switched in the top right corner (it’s set to the female option by default). The volume can be controlled with the sliding bar (the default is 5 which is honestly wayyy too low of a number considering how loud it is)

And with that, you’re all set! Once you’ve done all of the above, all you have to do is just wait for the event to start and then experience the prizoom sparkle!  💖

Shortly after the event ends, you get an email asking for feedback like this!

Just click the link and you can also put in any information and comments you want... whether you decide to let the staff know that there’s international interest in kinpri is up to you ^^

If you find that you enjoy prizooms, or just want to help make sure that there’s an opportunity to experience cheering screenings regardless of location, it would be helpful to comment that they should keep holding them in the future!  💖

If there’s any other questions, I’d be happy to answer!

#king of prism #kinpri #prizoom #Me being a prizoom/soundboard hell shill #I'VE JUST BEEN IN A CONSTANT STATE OF I LOVE PRIZOOMS #Prism sparkle brainrot #Can you imagine how crazy I'd get at a proper irl cheering screening #Also made it because I figured that even if someone was interested in attending a prizoom #They wouldn't want to ask me for help #Either because confrontation is scary or people just hate me haha #...... it's a little weird how tumblr lets you see when people who've blocked you like your posts.... #Like thanks............ ? #Makes me kinda sorta really upset ahahaaa.... only being good as a source of kinpri content but hated otherwise ..... #....Oh well!!!!!!!!!!!! #As long as I spread the prism sparkle!!! :'D

[votometrash]

Toshiki Kasumi Main Story Walkthrough

Romance MD Season 1:

Disclaimer: All CG’s belong to Otome Romance (Voltage Inc.)

AHHH KASUMI WHY DO YOU HURT ME LIKE THIS. I’m not crying, you’re crying (actually). Man, it was worth the long wait for his main story. From the other stories, you already anticipate the anguish and sorrow that comes from reading this title. So poignant and beautiful, our dark emperor. I was compulsively checking the love 365 app all day waiting for the story to be released lmao..

I’m finding out like I did from Professional Boyfriend that Voltage is doing some funky stuff with the love meter. Or they just gave us some freebies and I’ve stumbled upon them...but I’ll gladly take them. Typically, on the episodes with no LC choices, the choices don’t have an effect on the love meter. But I’ve discovered that for this particular story I did get a point here and there so I had to go back and figure out where those points came from. 

Furthermore, we also have limited time freebies: LC coupon for Kasumi and a mission reward of 5 free hearts for reading 3 chapters of Kasumi’s main story, giving us a total of 15 free hearts. Both expire on 2/15 JST so keep an eye out for the expiration date if you want to take advantage of these. But I have a feeling, I’d willingly spend the money even if we didn’t have all the free stuff because Kasumi is worth it and that’s how much I love him lol. I purchased the custom monthly VIP membership bc you only pay $8.99 and get $10.30 worth of coins/hearts. Needless to say, I chose the hearts just so I can spend them on Kasumi's story.

As always, I try to optimize the number of hearts needed to get the desired ending and all the CG's. If you're usually spending more than ~155, I would be concerned/I'd say there is probably a way for you to spend less. Generally, 130-145 hearts is the range you'd expect to be in.

RMD requires 25 points for the Super Happy Ending. (138 hearts or 123 hearts + LC coupon + mission reward hearts). I've also included the number of hearts needed if you just want the SHE in order to get the collector's edition but don't care about getting all the CG's (scroll to the end of the walkthrough). Also, you have until 3/15 JST to unlock the collector's edition.

Episode 2: “Nope.” (+1) Episode 4: 5 hearts (+1, CG) Episode 6: "That's adorable." (+1) Episode 7: “This is good.” (+1) Episode 8: 5 hearts (+1)  Episode 10: “I’m sorry.” (+1) Episode 12: 7 hearts (+1) Episode 14: 6 hearts (+1) Episode 15: 7 hearts (+2) Episode 16: 13 hearts (+3) *Use LC coupon* Episode 18: 20 hearts (+1, CG) Episode 21: 12 hearts (+2) Episode 25: 8 hearts (+2) Episode 27: 15 hearts (+3) Episode 28: 18 hearts (+1, CG) Episode 29: 22 hearts (+3)

Alternatively, if you don't care about getting the CG's then you can ignore the choices for the 2nd and 3rd CG's and replace them with the LC choice in episode 26, which uses up 25 hearts instead of the 38 hearts needed for the CG's (you'd only need a total of 125 hearts instead of 138)

If you found this walkthrough helpful or if you have any comments/questions, please feel free to drop a like or reply/message ;u;

#toshiki kasumi #romance md #voltage inc #voltage walkthrough #voltage otome

[phoenotopia]

2020 October Update

So... we've launched. And our launch was... actually kind of... bad...

This is a dev blog, so I'll speak on it. But before that, we do have the game's steam page up. If you're anticipating the PC release, please do visit the steam page and add it to your wish list. It would help us a lot.

VISIT STEAM LINK

...

So what didn't go so well?

1. We launched in Nintendo's Americas and Europe territory. If you've been following the release, you'd know that America got the game first. We didn't move to launch in Europe at all since I thought the EFIGS languages (English, French, Italian, German, Spanish) were pre-requisites for Europe. By the time I learned that this wasn't necessarily the case, and attempted to course correct, the damage was done. We had half the allotment of keys to do outreach, and maybe some European outlets that would've covered us, did not.

2. When the game launched, rather than a victory lap, what we experienced was more of a public lashing. We did get some reviews that praised the game highly, but just as many reviews lampooned the game for its high difficulty or other failings. I've since released two patches (or 3, depending on how you count it) to address the difficulty. A lot of overnighters. If you recall in the last blog post, I thought it'd be a good start if we got 20 or so reviews on Open Critic. But we've only 8 as of this writing, and the aggregate score isn't so hot. So that's a fail by my metric.

3. A publisher reached out to us because they were interested in physically printing the game! Yay! But... to advance our talks, they wanted to see the game's sales numbers to ensure that there's a good chance their investment could be recouped. And unfortunately, the game's sales numbers are pretty low. They backed out :(

Some hard lessons were learned. The biggest lesson for me concerns how well we playtested the game. Looking at the original playtester list, it's a short list. You may recall from a previous blog post that our ability to test was severely hampered by technical limitations. Add to that, a lot of people on this list are objectively really achieved players. We're talking power ranked in Smash Bros, regular tournament goers, and people who've played and bested every Souls game. And as the maker of the game, I am most blind to the game's challenges.

Now, I'm definitely more of the opinion that you prioritize PC development first. I still have some reservations about some stages of PC development. But if you do PC/Steam first, you have the great benefit of being able to do Early Access, which gives you access to a greater testing pool. I now view it as an invaluable part of the equation. If we had been able to do Early Access for 1 or 2 months before release, we probably could have ironed out most of the game's difficulty and balance problems. Hard lessons, indeed.

There were a lot of other notable events that occurred over the past 2 months - the travails of press outreach, realizing my own limits as a developer, feeling defeated and getting back up again, etc. There's too much stuff to chronicle or go into detail. But it wasn't all bad.

Some good things did happen...

We got a publisher to publish for Japan! It came as a huge relief, because clearly, we don't know what the heck we're doing.

The publisher has been an invaluable source of information and feedback. They've recommended some changes to the game to improve user experience. Some of these changes I was hesitant to do at first because they concerned systems I thought integral to the identity of the game. But after trying it, I have to admit, they're good changes.

So a Japanese version of the game was moving ahead. And it looked like that'd be it. I wasn't planning to move forward with any other language translations due to the game's low sales and our funds being depleted. 

But, I was approached by a translator who urged me to move ahead with translations. He told me he was willing to work for only a small price initially and then be paid the rest after from a percentage of the game's sales until the cost of the translation was paid in full.

I was surprised translators were willing to work under such a model since it's entirely likely the game's current low sales trajectory would continue and they wouldn't earn back the full cost of translation. But I was also flattered they were willing to take a risk with me. After that, I approached some others with the same hypothetical deal, and long story short, we're now moving forward with French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian translations. As for why these languages in particular, they were languages for whom I had contacts (because they reached out to me at some point in the past). And also because they were deemed more likely to be profitable based on their home country's gaming market/buying habits. I'd be personally happy to have my native language be represented, but it's not expected to be a profitable territory. But if the game does better in the future, it may justify the costs of translation. There could be a chance!

The plan right now is to get the game supporting these first round of languages and then to patch that into the Switch version as well as launch the PC version with these languages - all in December. A lot of things need to align for this to occur, so a delay isn't out of the question. It'll be busy... I'll update the blog again in latter half of December, probably near the game's PC launch date... OR to announce a delay. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Fan Support

While the past two months have been grueling, one good thing remains constant - fan art! Thank you everyone who submitted. It means a lot to me and the team!

Big thanks to Pimez who's taken on watching over the reddit community as moderator. He also combs the other communities and makes sure I see every new art piece. Despite juggling his own life and all these tasks, he still found some time to draw.

Pimez's piece reminds us that just because the new game's out doesn't mean we can't still celebrate the original flash game. The jail dog is a dog found only in jail and only in the flash game. I imagine Gail is just tossing a stick, and they're playing fetch.

A new artist to this scene æv draws both the Phoenix logo AND a super cute picture of Gail playing the flute. So precious, you want to pinch her cheek. Even the Sand Drake is enthralled!

Another new artist, beet4ppy arrives on the scene with two pictures! One features a no-nonsense battle-hardened Gail looking stoic and tough! Kinda reminds me of Vinland Saga actually. The other, a more cheerful group composition - I must say I'm a big fan of Fran's classic anime-style eye!

A returning artist, Cody G, returns with a picture depicting the tribulations of cooking. Gotta love Gail's frantic expression! I've heard the complaints, which is why we've added an option to slow the cooking mini-game down. An improved button font is also on the way.

Gamesing with two undertale x phoenotopia crossovers. Thomas being a robot builder makes sense taking a role similar to Alphys. But why is Alex dressed like a clown? Perhaps there is a hidden meaning here... 

A new artist, Warotar, draws both a pooki wearing Gail's clothes and Gail wearing pooki clothes. Awww. The pooki is a bit scary - it kinda reminds me of a tragic event in a certain anime. But the Gail is adorable!

POL#5655 submitted this one to KM's discord which made its way to me. Here, a stylized Gail appears unnerved by the dark red eyes stalking her in the background. Are they bats or something more sinister?

A new artist, MilesCPW, arrives on the scene with three rare well-vectorized arts! Love it! One scene depicts Gail balancing a bomb on her head - that's a speedrunning trick I only learned about recently after someone emailed me a video O_O

The other drawing gives us new insight into Katash - he could actually look cute if he wasn't trying to kill you.

And the bees... Okay, this one got a chuckle from me :D

A returning artist roccy_chair draws this heart-warming scene from the beginning of the new game. Aww. Mika doesn't get much screen time for story reasons, so it's nice to see her represented.

UnrealWorld_32 returns with another drawing of Gail in Panselo, this time capturing a more idyllic time. I like the tranquil nature of this piece. And Gail does in fact play the guitar, denoted by the guitar in her room.

Returning artist shafiyahh draws a nice portrait of Prince Leo - looking regal and princely. I like the storybook art style of this piece. It made me immediately think of "the Little Prince" - one of my favorite books actually!

Negativus Core returns with a beautiful group composition of Gail and the gang - flying from a Switch shaped window - totally sensible considering the game is only Switch right now. As usual, I'm impressed by Negativus Core's use of challenging angles to frame a more dynamic shot of the characters. Great job!

And it wasn't only artists bearing the banner. I'd like to give a big shoutout to everyone in all the game's little communities (from the reddit to the discords to this tumblr). I've seen this community help newcomers with gameplay and walkthrough advice, discussions, updating the wiki, and so on. It does bring a smile to my face. Thank you everyone!

#phoenotopia

[horrorbby666]

Kboovo Bonus - Exciting Launch of a brand-new Affiliate Marketing Platform

Kboovo Review: What Does It Do and How Well Does It Do It?

  Howdy! Thanks for joining me for my 100 percent objective Kboovo review. This is Joe Sturtevant from https://www.born4digital.com. I will be taking a close look at this new software by Joe Russell for you. I thought it looked pretty high-quality at first glance, so I picked it up for myself, took it on a little test spin, and I've come to possess a well-formed opinion here for this very reason. As with any software, I found that Kboovo has both its good points and its bad points. Those will be covered momentarily. Just know that, should you happen to go ahead and order your own copy of Kboovo via my link today, I've got a special bonus offer for you, which I've constructed to help you maximize the effectiveness of Kboovo. Is that fair? Great! Let's proceed...

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[necromancy-savant]

Recently I gave into the internet ads telling me to come back to Runescape for its 20th anniversary. Back in 7th or 8th grade it was my first MMO and a game I was totally hooked on for a few years. I think I played the most from about 2004-2007 and last played in 2009. After two weeks of being completely unable to tear myself away from it, I’ve compiled my thoughts into a pros and cons list, compared to what I remember from middle/high school. 

Pros:

Leveling is way faster. I don’t think it’s just that I’m better at video games now or that you can easily get xp lamps from the Treasure Hunter mini game (in fact, the easiest way I’ve found to level is to complete quests to get Treasure Hunter keys and then use the xp rewards on combat skills), the levels themselves just go up faster even when you’re doing them normally. This is great for me as a returning player because I’m now getting close to being back to where I was without having to spend months or years getting there.  

You can also make money faster and easier. Everything costs more but you also get more money, so I now have 2 mil, but this has about the buying power that 200k did back in the day. Regardless, I can’t imagine getting 200k this easily back in high school. I did it mostly by selling random items on the grand exchange, getting rewards for quest point milestones, and mining and smithing.

The combat is more similar to that of other MMOs where you have an ability bar. You can choose to ignore this and put it on autopilot or just set the combat to work the way it used to. Either way the animations look a lot better and more varied, there are way more weapons, and you can dual wield now.

Most skills actually give you more to actually do while leveling them. For example, while mining, you have to click on different rocks periodically or they won’t yield any more ore.

You now start the game with tool belt that comes with a tinderbox, chisel, hatchet, pickaxe, etc. that is separate from your inventory. 

A lot of the quests have been reworked and many new ones are fully voice acted. It is a little weird having the NPC chat heads come with audio while mine is still silent, but I just read aloud for my character and that’s fun for me.

The graphics, while still not fantastic, are greatly improved, particularly the environments. Al Kharid looks stunning. The human character models are a bit dated, but it’s come to my attention that they are in the process of completely overhauling them.

Character customization is less limited and in particular is much more convenient. You can change your hairstyle for free at any time, all the outfits from the in-game store in Varrock are free, and the gender wizard who can trans your gender (sorry, Makeover Mage) also offers services for free now.  

The Free-To-Play content has gotten a pretty decent upgrade. Skills, quests, and areas that were once Members Only are now F2P (notably, the quest where you get a kitten, Burthorpe and Taverley, and most if not all of the new fully voiced quests.) There are a number of entirely new skills, but I haven’t really tried any of them yet. I will make time for Archaeology at some point.

Many of my cons are going to be “they removed x,” but the easy solution there is to just play Old School Runescape. While I myself have been too preoccupied with RS3 to play any OSRS, I think the community over there is actually larger.

The community seems very chill on the whole and is mostly just players trying to have a good time and help each other out. Everyone is just like, getting stoned/drunk and vibing in this game.

There’s an achievement system that will direct you to specific challenges and give you something to do if you’re lost/overwhelmed. Particularly useful in the beginning.

Fast travel for everyone, no Magic skill requirements.  

The website itself links to a Runescape Wiki that has all the game info and quest walkthroughs you could want in one place.

The quests are still fun and unique for an MMO. Lots of puzzles and creative problem-solving, lots of twists and turns.

Cons:

They took away the random events. All those NPCs are now scattered around the world. The Sandwich Lady now runs a bakery stall in Ardougne.

The Burthorpe Games Room is gone. How am I supposed to play Connect Four using death runes as my game pieces so everyone knows how edgy I am? Actually, Burthorpe on the whole looks different and a lot smaller, but at least the trolls look really cool now.

They removed the Romeo and Juliet quest and now there are 0 quests based on Shakespeare plays when really there should be 37. We are moving in the wrong direction here.

The quest Imp Catcher has been revamped so that now the beads are based on the four humors and you have to recover them from imps that have swallowed them and taken on those characteristics, and yet for some reason they missed the opportunity to rename the quest “Every Imp in (or out of) His Humour.”

This is the part where I admit that I shelled out the ten dollars for a month of membership so I could revisit all my favorite areas. While many of the F2P areas have received massive improvements, not all the Members areas have. I don’t think Ardougne has seen an update since 2008, which is a shame since it was my favorite city.

The dark wizards in front of Varrock don’t attack you on sight anymore. Idk why this bothers me but I found it shocking upon discovery.

The cities and towns now each have their own coat of arms which is cool except that I disagree with the colors they chose. Varrock should be red and blue, Ardougne should be blue and white, Falador should be white and black, and Lumbridge should be green and blue. I could go on. This is every bit as vital to me as knowing which color folders/notebooks go with which school subjects.  

The fast leveling does mean that practically everyone is at least level 100 and there’s not quite the same sense of accomplishment that used to come with reaching a high level. While it used to be very rare to see someone at the level cap it is now quite common. Still, this is on the whole a very small price to pay to be able to do more of what I enjoy without grinding for hours on end (for those who aren’t aware, you unlock many quests in this game by meeting skill requirements.)

This game is very British. I don’t think I realized just how British it is when I was younger. One of the primary downsides of this is that the aforementioned wiki’s quest walkthroughs call the first floor the ground floor, which is all well and good, but then they call the second floor the first floor and the third floor the second floor and I’ve gotten lost on multiple occasions specifically because of this.

While there is an “outfit” system that lets you override whatever you’re wearing with special appearances you can unlock through various means, there is nothing like the WoW transmog system which would allow you to override it with other in-game items.

Combat abilities are sort of locked by weapon. Like you can’t really do magic without a staff.

All in all, my impression is that Jagex has made a ton of quality-of-life changes while keeping everything that made the game great.

TL;DR play this game it’s worth it.

[chilling-seavey]

Nothing Revealed/Everything Denied (c.s.) - Chapter Nine

A/N Totally forgot this novella existed ngl. Anyway, this chapter was sorta fun to write because I love the angst 😛 What do you think Christian should do??

“Smoothies all around.”

Michelle set the takeout tray on the table and the small group thanked her as they took a cup each and passed the rest around. The main ‘characters’ were gathered around the conference table again with the set director stood by the projector to go through the walkthrough of the set location in regard to the directions on the script. Christian was placed between Dean and Tom, sharing a small bashful smile with Michelle from across the table where she sat with the director and the other more cooperate staff.

She looked beautiful that day – at least that’s what Christian thought – and after their situation from Oscar’s birthday party a few nights before, he could hardly look at her without blushing. He felt like he was in high school again. Funny, he was more nervous about being in the same room as Michelle than he was sitting between two of Hollywood’s best actors.

The meeting started and the rendering and areal photographs of the trenches that were being built were scanned through on the large TV. It was truly impressive and Christian tried to pay attention, he really did, but he kept stealing glances at Michelle from across the table, having to force himself to look forward and focus.

How was he supposed to pay attention when all he could focus on was the memory of her lips on his and her hands on him like it was natural? Like it was supposed to happen?

Christian didn’t mean to, but he had completely zoned out for the entire meeting and he was startled back down to reality by the snap of the set designer’s briefcase closing. He sat up straighter and looked around as everyone started to pack up, awkwardly shuffling his papers together to make himself look busy. Had it been an hour already?

He managed to sneak out without anyone asking him any questions about what they just covered, thankful to avoid any further embarrassment.

“Come on, Christian.” he mumbled to himself as he got in the elevator alone, pressing the button for the parking garage. “Get your head out of the fucking clouds.”

“Wait up!”

He habitually stuck his hand in the door to keep it from closing and Michelle rushed in to join him, offering a wide smile and a breathless, “Hey!”

“Hi.” Christian smiled back, his heart racing in his chest just from looking at her.

“Did you like the sets so far?”

Her grin was nothing but proud and hopeful and Christian cleared his throat nervously before nodding, “Yeah. They looked really good.”

The five seconds of them he remembered.

“I got to sketch it out for them myself, can you believe that?” Michelle sighed, shaking her head, hugging her bag to her chest through her smile. “I swear I fell asleep and this has all just been one huge dream.”

“Me too.” Christian whispered, eyeing her discreetly before taking a deep breath and focussing on the elevator numbers ticking down to the lobby.

He was waiting for her to bring up the party; how it was a mistake, how she didn’t really feel like that, how she was just another girl that didn’t like him like that. But she didn’t, simply standing next to him quietly with a calm smile on her face. It was almost worse. Was she pretending that it didn’t happen?! Christian’s mind was going a mile a minute to try and wrap his brain around it himself, the silence lingering between them.

The elevator doors dinged as they opened to the lobby and Christian went to let out a small sigh as that was her stop and she would be gone to let him stew alone. Except she turned to him first, grabbing his arm, and pulled him in for another kiss that was over before it even started and she was rushing out into the lobby, her grinning cheeks a furious pink.

Christian stumbled a moment as he stood up straight and the doors slid closed again, leaving him alone in the elevator with his love-sick mind a bit woozy.

Tyler was home when he returned and Christian headed into the backyard where he heard the music playing. His older brother was grilling in the back in shorts and a baseball cap, Kobe snoozing on the stone walkway.

“Hey.” Christian called, making the dog’s ears perk up and he rushed over to greet him with eager yaps.

“Hey. How was the meeting?” Tyler asked.

“Oh…fine.” Christian shrugged, bending down to pet the dog.

“Just fine? You were looking forward to it this morning.”

“Yeah. Just…I…” Christian laughed nervously as he stood back up and joined his brother at the grill.

“What’s with your goofy smile?” Tyler narrowed his eyes at him.

Christian bit back a smile as he picked up the fork resting on the plate beside the grill and tapped it nervously against the wood, “Nothing.”

“Nothing my ass. You look about as guilty as Kobe after he pooped on Daniel’s rug. What did you do?” Tyler pressed, flipping over the chicken he was cooking.

“So…you remember the writer, right? The one I’ve been practicing lines with and stuff?”

“And going for lunch with and visiting the C4 house with? Yes.” Tyler’s lips turned up at the corner in a small smirk.

“Yeah…well…we kinda kissed on Saturday. And today.”

“Kinda kissed?” Tyler raised an eyebrow at him. “How do you kinda kiss?”

Christian sighed deeply, slightly embarrassed, and ruffled a hand through his hair, “Okay, we kissed a lot on Saturday. And once today.”

“Did you sleep with her?”

“No! Tyler! Oh my gosh.”

“Because you can’t get involved with your co-workers.”

Tyler’s sudden serious tone made Christian’s cheeky smile falter and he dropped his gaze to the fork in his hand, tapping it once against the plate as his eyebrows furrowed.

“This is your first big gig, Chris.” Tyler continued. “And based on how you came back here from that meeting something tells me you’re spending more time with this writer than with her script.”

“No.” Christian shook his head gently. “We’ve been working together on it. She’s been helping me.”

“What was your meeting about today?”

“Trenches. Sets.”

“And?”

Christian hesitated a moment, “The script. And the sets.”

Tyler sighed, closing the lid of the grill and set the thongs on the plate, “Listen to yourself, Chris. What the hell are you doing?”

“Do you not want me to have a girlfriend or something?” Christian snapped. “Because I found a girl who actually likes me and now you’re telling me that I can’t be with her or something?”

Christian was usually the level-headed brother but under the judging stare of his eldest brother, he always felt like his buttons were being pushed.

“Christian, holy shit, bro.” Tyler laughed. “Relax. You don’t need to date the first girl that gives you the slightest bit of attention. You always do that and end up laying in bed listening to your ‘Sad Songs’ playlist on repeat when she doesn’t feel the same way. You rush things, Chris. That’s just who you are. You rush things and get yourself hurt and, as your older brother, I seriously gotta put my foot down here because a lot more than heartbreak is on the line. This is your career, Christian. Your career as an actor that you have dreamt about since you were like six. A real actor, bro. You can’t be standing here telling me about this girl down to the colour socks she was wearing today but can’t tell me a single thing about the meeting you were at.”

Christian scoffed, dropping the fork onto the plate with a clank and he stuffed his hands in his pockets.

“I’m not saying this to be an asshole. This is reality. If you fuck this up, your career will be done for. You need to be putting every single ounce of concentration and passion into this movie and this character. How do you think Daniel got where he is? Spending hours and full nights practicing his music until one of us had to yell at him to shut up at 2am. And when he started touring, he only practiced harder to make it where he wanted to be; he didn’t get caught up with any relationships except for his band mates and his family. He had his priorities where he needed them to make it big.”

“Yeah, I fucking know how Daniel made his dreams come true.” Christian snapped loudly, making Kobe’s ears perk up with the sudden volume. “I know he’s the successful one and the attractive one and mom and dad’s pride and fucking joy. You don’t need to tell me!”

“Oh, come on, Chris.” Tyler sighed. “Don’t turn it into that.”

“Turn it into what? It’s the truth! If it wasn’t for him I’d still be living with mom and dad in their guest room!” Christian yelled, throwing his hand out towards the million dollar house behind him. “I’d still be driving my 2001 Honda that breaks down if you breathe too hard! I know that all my ‘fans’ are only here because of him! I fucking know, Tyler!”

Tyler stayed quiet, watching his younger brother carefully as his cheeks flushed red with anger and his chest heaved with emotional breaths.

Christian ran both hands through his hair and took a few steps back before continuing softer now, “I finally have something that I got on my own. She found me to be her actor through my college reels. This is my doing. Mine. Not Daniel’s. For once, it’s not fucking about Daniel. It’s me.”

The oldest two brothers stared at each other silently for a moment. 

Tyler nodded once, opening the grill up again, “So don’t fuck it up.”

“I won’t.” Christian mumbled, taking one last glance at him before turning towards the house.

He’d be damned if he messed up his one big break because of a haphazard half drunk kiss.

#christian seavey #christian seavey fanfic #daniel seavey #tyler seavey #why dont we #fanfic #writing #🎞

[gamutgaming577]

To my gaming friend who saved my life

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[artyrogue]

Blind Date Gaming: Pac In Time

Tonight's date was an interesting one to say the least. It was with Pac-Man, the iconic game character from Namco that helped build video games as a mainstream activity! The only issue was that it wasn't...JUST Pac-Man. No, it was a pun and a spinoff all in one. It was... Pac In Time!

Soak in the colors, 'cos from here out we're mostly back to 4-color palettes.

I've seen some of the other Pac-Man spinoffs before and they just never felt right. There was some dumb point-and-click game on the SNES where Pac-Man clearly had a lobotomy, some pinball game, and that one where he was fighting a bunch of nerds on some floating platform called 'final destination' or whatever. So yeah, they're typically lame attempts to make a buck based on the identity of one of gaming's most well-known IPs. I didn't expect much, then, going in. It was a bit bias of me, sure, but I was still willing to give it a chance. The first thing I was presented with was a super-long, slow-scrolling wall of text with absolutely no music or sound throughout the whole thing. Brilliant first impression, that.

'Crazy events' here means 'binge eating countless unmarked medications within the confines of a series of neon-infused tubes with occasional spontaneous manifestations of fruit and/or keys'.

Okay, okay, sure. Some ghost witch sends Pac-Man back in time and now he has to travel through different zones to find a way back to the present. That could have been summed up much more succinctly; in fact, I basically relayed all the information you need to know right there. It also really doesn't matter at all in the long run, so my heart reaches out to the poor writer whose hopes were squandered when Pac in Time didn't end up being their gateway to better writing gigs. What matters isn't the story here, it's the gameplay! So what do we have?

It's a platformer. A pretty floaty one at that. You always slide all over, with momentum that takes a bunch of effort to dissipate. Jumping follows the Mario 64 school of gaining height in each successive jump, but it really doesn't seem necessary. It's quite bad and takes some getting used to. There's an additional aspect to the game that helps bring puzzle aspects to it: powerups. You're given a few in each level that give you different abilities and can sometime pick up (or lose!) them along the way as well. They don't really seem to fit into the typical Pac-Man lore, though. Unless there's some fanfic where Pac-Man can shoot fireballs and swing around like Spiderman?

Yes, that is a screenshot of Pac-Man shooting a Kamehameha at a shark. This is fine.

Some levels are pretty interesting, but a lot of them are short and kind of dull. Most of the time you don't even end up using half of the powerups they give you. I will say, though, that the grappling hook was well-programmed and a lot of fun to mess around with. Sometimes there are issues canceling grappling momentum when an enemy is right in front of you, but otherwise it's liberating to swing like a monkey through a level in mere seconds.

Wheeeeee!

Somewhere around world 3, though, things start to take a turn for the worse. For the most part, enemies are tame and take a major backseat to the puzzles and powerup adventuring. In the jungle world, you start to see some annoying and poorly-programmed enemies marring your fun. Some foes relentlessly track you down, some change their velocity in unpredictable ways, some blast into the center of the screen as soon as you approach, and more. It starts feeling more like I Wanna Be the Guy, a game I loathe not for its toughness, but for it's cheap death tricks and poor design. Games like that aren't about skill as much as they are about rote memorization. That's...not fun to me. Make the obstacles visible, not surprises. I'd rather spend time memorizing something useful.  Although apparently my brain seems to define 'useful' as being able to list the first 386 pokemon and recalling room layouts for a mall that has been dead and destroyed for like 15 years?

I suddenly have flashbacks to Super Meat Boy, although that game was fair and up front with its obstacles. This buzzsaw popped outta nowhere, which I guess is standard in an ancient Egyptian tomb.

I had to look up a walkthrough on a certain level, too, where the only way to progress was apparently to walk off a cliff into a pool of lava. Then, an invisible air stream carries you across the lava to safety. Jumping the gap kills you and does not reveal an air stream, there are no indicators that walking off is a good idea, nothing. Just know the trick or be stuck. Great. The walkthrough on GameFAQs even says that the walkthrough's writer was stuck on this level until someone gave them a tip. That's...not exactly a good sign of game design. There were other annoyances, like teleporters teleporting stones higher than you: if you walk into one too quickly after pushing a stone into it, the stone appears above you and crushes you to death. Also, many levels host a plethora of arrow signs that don't make lick of sense.

Right, right...I get it now. It's all so clear where I have to go!

I got through world 4, and looking up a gameplay video reveals there are 4 more worlds to go, but I had my fill. This date isn't going anywhere I want to be. So yeah! No second date here. I've also found via the comments of that video that the game is actually a reskin of another game on DOS called 'Fury of the Furries'. They basically just turned the main character into Pac-Man and made some lame music tracks that sound like the one ditty from the arcade game. Even the enemies and final boss are the same. Boo! Get some originality or keep the Furries! I mean I know the internet in general has some hangups with them, but I've never had a bad experience with a Furry myself, let alone felt their Fury! Although if the world followed this game's lead, all furry conventions would turn into massive Pac-Man cosplay events, and I would definitely pay to go see that.

I found a furry! Except it kind of beat me to a pulp, but I guess I deserve it since I stole his game.

Before I end this, am I crazy or does part of the Beach world theme sound vaguely like some Mega Man track? Listen here and skip the first 50 horrid seconds to get to the part I mean. I swear, it sounds like something I've heard before, but I can't tell which track it was. Mega Man has too many Men to keep their themes straight. Maybe I should invest my useless memorization into Mega Man theme recall instead.

And so ends another date. I'll be looking around for something else, thank you! I will say, though, that today's Sprite of Passage is a keeper. Put this as a war decoration on your uniform and go speak of the fierce battles you went through to earn it! Don't be surprised if no one gives you any sympathy or anything though. They might instead give you the number of a psychiatrist. Maybe that shrink will give you pills and you can lay them out in a maze to eat them or something? Pac it all in!

They finally, really did it...YOU MANIACS!! YOU BLEW IT UP!! DAMN YOUUUU!!

#blinddategaming #gameboy #pacintime #pacman

[emritcheson]

I Played Grim Fandango For the First Time

So being a fan of contemporary adventure games, I’ve heard a lot of people talk about how their favorite game of all time is Grim Fandango.  But I’d never actually played it myself...until now.  And I’m here to give you a brutally honest review since I did not play this game as a child and have no preexisting attachment or nostalgia for it.

The game was originally released in 1998 by LucasArts, but the version I’m discussing is the remastered version released in 2015, which as I understand uses a new point-and-click interface, as well as higher quality graphics and sound.

And if it wasn’t obvious: SPOILERS AHEAD.

Let’s start with the plot.  This game takes place in the Eighth Underworld, also known as the Land of the Dead.  Our protagonist is Manny Calavera, who works as a travel agent to pay off some sort of debt he owes to the universe (for what reason, he doesn’t know).  When we first meet him, though, he’s in the midst of a bad streak, while his rival Domino consistently books his clients on the Number Nine, the highly coveted railway train that takes passengers to the Land of Eternal Rest in four minutes rather than the standard four years.  When Manny manages to steal a lead from Domino - an impossibly good woman named Meche - he starts to unravel a conspiracy surrounding his company and spends the next four years doing everything in his power to help Meche get the afterlife she deserves.

Now, I say all of that as one regular schmuck to another, and it sounds wacky and ridiculous and hard to follow, and I didn’t even go into every little detail.  But it’s actually really cool and I have to commend the writing and worldbuilding of this game.  They found that sweet spot of letting the world unfurl naturally - never going too hard on the info-dump - and letting the player trust in the rules that are established.  Definitely the strongest element in this game.  It helps that I’m already a sucker for that trope of explaining natural phenomena with a corporate business-esque structure.  I blame Pajama Sam 2 for that.

Speaking of which, did I mention that Pamela Segall is in this game?  And one of her characters, she performs in a perfect Pajama Sam voice, which is life altering when one of the very first lines that character utters is, “I’ll bite you, I swear to God.”

ANYWAY.

Similar to the writing, I adore the art direction and overall atmosphere this game presents.  It’s jazzy film noir meets Mexican culture in all the best ways.  Almost everyone is portrayed as a skeleton with cartoonish proportions, and their facial features are reminiscent of sugar skull decorations.  In fact, a significant portion of the characters are indeed Hispanic and the dialogue is rife with Spanish phrases and slang.  Not to mention the fact that whenever we check in on Manny during his four year journey, it’s always on Dia De Los Muertos, which is a holiday observed by the entire Land of the Dead and not just the Mexican community.  It’s a wonderful normalization of Mexican culture, rather than exotifying it.

I can’t go any further without mentioning the characters.  Namely, my favorite: Glottis, a literal speed demon who serves as Manny’s chauffer, mechanic, and friend.  He’s a big orange goofball who is, as the kids say, “extra.”  I love him so much.  And I was pleasantly surprised at the emphasis on their relationship and how much Manny genuinely cares for Glottis (and vice versa).  In the third chapter, Domino makes a remark on how demons are created to serve, and to be friends with them is unnatural.  But Manny and Glottis adore each other pretty much from the get-go, and Manny can hardly function sometimes when the plot separates them.  I’ve seen way too many comic side characters whose relationship with the protagonist is played down for laughs.  It’s refreshing when that character is, you know, allowed to be friends with their friend.

Other greatest hit characters include Lupe the Coat Check Girl Who Definitely Needed a Bigger Part, Eva, and Chepito.

Manny is also a great main character.  He’s charming, opinionated without hating everything and everyone around him, and wants to do the right thing at the end of the day.  I definitely understand the draw of this character now.

When it comes to what I didn’t like about this game, a lot of it can be boiled down to things that weren’t communicated well to the player.  For example, I didn’t know Manny had a run option for the first chapter and a half so I just had to suffer through him walking across giant, atmospheric maps at a snail’s pace.  There were also several individual locations I didn’t realize I could get to because the travel hotspots didn’t look like hotspots to me.  I’m not ashamed to say I glanced at a walkthrough more than once just to see if there was anything I missed.  There’s also a couple of just plain moon logic puzzles thrown in there and I did not appreciate them.  (I’m looking at you, signpost and anchor puzzles.)

The comedic bits were a hit or miss.  There were lines I could feel the writers trying to be just a little too quotable, if that makes sense?  But other lines got genuine, laugh-out-loud reactions from me, so I guess your mileage may vary.

I have bones to pick with the story as well (hehe, bones).  For starters, Manny and Meche’s romance happens very quickly for the amount of time they’ve actually interacted with each other by the point they start getting serious.  Don’t get me wrong, I think they’re great together, but it just happens too easily, you know?  Just because the whole game is inspired by film noir doesn’t mean the romance has to be, “Oh, we had a ten minute conversation, suddenly we’re madly in love with each other.”

Another bone: Lola’s whole story irks me so bad.  Her death in Year 2 is supposed to be this big emotional turning point, but the player barely knows her by the time we lose her.  And what’s more, Manny’s relationship with her up to that point is very ambiguous, so we’re not even sure how he is supposed to respond.  If there absolutely had to be a death at this point in the story to showcase the threat level of Manny’s enemies, I think they could have chosen a more impactful victim.

And finally, I don’t think the ending was as strong as it could have been.  Let’s be perfectly clear, Manny and Glottis saying their farewells got me a little misty, but the pacing on everything else just seemed a bit rushed.  Like, “Okay!  You killed the bad guy!  Everyone’s problems are solved now!  The end!  Go home!”  Manny is even granted a Number Nine ticket for defeating Hector, but it’s extremely glossed over.  Like, that’s a big deal!  It would have been a great character moment for Manny if we actually saw him receiving the ticket and reflecting on his transition from only wanting to escape to selflessly helping others on their journey and not caring about his own fate.

Honestly, with all the hype and nostalgia surrounding this game, I was a little scared that its legacy would be bigger than the actual product - like Firefly, for example.  But Grim Fandango holds up.  Even with all my nitpicks about emotional impact and bad puzzle design, I’ve developed a fondness for this game and understand why seemingly every other human who’s played it has as well.  It’s a game with a great atmosphere, memorable characters, and an intriguing story that says a lot about the human condition.  It deserves to be the classic it is.

#grim fandango #game review #classic game #lucasarts #manny calavera #original article

[postcurious]

A Straight Path or an Open Field?

Would you rather walk down a straight path, an open field, or something in between? In retrospect, I’ve preferred non-linear gameplay since before I knew what that meant. My feeling on this dates back to playing MS-DOS games (remember those?) in the 90’s, in which I would inevitably get stuck on some level of a platformer and never be able to move forward in the game, leaving me feeling frustrated and helpless. The first time I played a game that actually allowed some level of exploration, I fell in love with puzzle adventures. The game was Syberia, a point-and-click with a female protagonist and a strong narrative that wove the puzzles seamlessly together. Of course this was not an “open-world” game but it did allow one to complete a certain number of tasks in no particular order before moving forward to the next area. The best part about this style of design, and the biggest reason I prefer non-linear gameplay, is that it allows players a better chance of figuring things out on their own.

I would be remiss not to mention The Witness as an exemplar of this type of play. The Witness has no verbal or written instructions, and while it does start by leading you through what is essentially a tutorial, it quickly lets go of your hand and allows you to roam free about the island, but not before confronting you with a very complex puzzle that promptly causes you to realize you don’t yet have the information to solve it.

(If you haven’t played this game yet, I don’t know what you’re waiting for.) This is brilliant and immediately teaches you a valuable lesson: if you can’t solve it now, come back to it later - something I did dozens of times throughout the game when I got stuck. Having that freedom resulted in my never having to resort to a walkthrough, because more often that not, walking away and solving some other puzzles would illuminate something I was missing and allow me look at the same problem with fresh eyes.

That is not to say that open worlds are the ideal, and they can often be overwhelming when there are too many options. In a tabletop game that contains a lot of components that may or may not need to be combined with other components, it’s helpful to know a place to start. This is where gating comes in.

Gating

Gating is a way for a designer to prevent players from moving forward in the game until a certain task is complete, just like when you need to find a code to open a door in an escape room to move forward into the next area - a literal gate. A linear game looks something like the drawing on the left, and a non-linear game structure might look something like the one on the right.

I find it is a helpful practice to draw a flow chart when working on a game. It allows you to clearly visualize the structure and see where you may need to make adjustments if there is too little or too much happening at once.

What are some ways to create gating in tabletop games, when you can’t confront a player with a literal door?

Putting some items in a locked box you need to open (example: Escape the Room: The Werewolf Experiment)

Dividing the entire game into distinct chapters (example: The Tale of Ord)

Dividing items between envelopes that can be opened after a certain passcode is found (example: ThinkFun’s Mystery at Stargazer’s Manor)

Having a deck of cards in which new cards are only revealed when prompted (example: Exit: The Game series, Unlock! series)

Entering a code into a digital app or website to prompt your next actions (example: Escape the Crate, Unlock!)

Having password-protected areas on an in-game website that contain information to move forward (example: The Tale of Ord, Dispatch’s On The Run series)

Having at least one of these mechanics in place is useful so that players are not confronted with too many items or too much information at once. That can cause analysis paralysis and extra confusion, especially if there are things that cannot be solved right away, unless it is very clear that something is meant to be kept for later. Otherwise, if your player has access to an item that cannot be used until several other puzzles are solved, you risk them getting frustrated and wasting time trying to figure it out before they actually have the necessary tools to do so.

Parallel Solving

The second reason I prefer less linear games is that they allow for parallel solving of multiple puzzles at a time. Once you exceed a group of 2, it is likely that the entire group would be happier if they weren’t all crowding around the same puzzle at once, so it is best to have enough puzzles to occupy several people simultaneously. I normally aim for somewhere between 3-6 at a time so as not to leave anyone twiddling their thumbs while others are actively engaged. (I do find this to be less of an issue with tabletop games and certainly more prevalent in escape rooms, especially when larger groups are encouraged.) The bottom line is, don’t recommend 6 people play a game together if there aren’t enough puzzles to keep everyone occupied - this will cause team members to get bored and lose momentum.

All that being said, there are plenty of great linear games out there (including a few mentioned above) and sometimes a more direct approach works well. Before you commit to it though, be sure to consider things like team size and bottlenecking and try to avoid situations where a single puzzle is going to hold up the entire game (unless there is a good reason to do so, such a reveal you want everyone to see).

What do you think? Do you prefer linear or non-linear games? Why?

#puzzle puzzles puzzledesign puzzlegames gamedesign gamedev gamedevelopment linear nonlinear gating

[mamagabi-s-corner]

Borderline patch 2 notes and bugfixes

it’s on gamejolt now, go download it there too! :)

anyways as you can see, there have been more changes to the patch 2 comparing to patch 1 which had minor bug fixes and some minor additions (like sprites. it’s done, chii can take a break, I can take a break to work on Pretender, LET’S DO THIS! I might not list all the bug fixes, cuz I’ve done so much at this point, most of the fixes are just grammar and graphic errors. PLEASE NOTE: THIS BUG FIX ONLY COVERS THE MAIN ROUTE! I WILL EVENTUALLY WORK ON THE ALTERNATE ROUTES FOR EXTRA CONTENT AND OF COURSE PLAN THINGS OUT AS THINGS GO! 

Patch 2 

Starting point:

-’New’ (actually not new but you get the point) title screen (thanks to dismaluprising for helping me out with the icons and for teaching me how to code the damn thing!) -Fixed grammar errors (god English isn’t my first language and I write too fast, thanks to Puff and Chii for helping me out with the grammar errors) -If you decide to go for Pretender’s quest, you will now be shown how many items are left until you can go and visit her (that is, if you don’t end up killing off the zone. 😏😏😏😏😏😏) -Punishment game is still there... except I fixed a minor bug during the shedder scene in Zone 3 where you could actually get out while fast pacing. Changed it into a cut scene version where when you make the wrong choice, Max acts on his own. It’s a set event dammit! -Not much changes to the alternate routes, will get there when I get there, I mostly put focus on the main route, although when I was writing down defeat handlers for the Guardians (we’ll get to that), I added dialogue for all 3 alternates.  -Lost soul and Elsen sprites have been revamped (same goes for cameo elsen sprites. Also Chii did a Gabe sprite.  -More content by Chii! (Iloveyou ;w; ) -Interior panoramas have been included in certain parts of the game (my crops have grown, my depression is cured, and I have began abusing panoramas as interiors, you can NOT STOP ME!!!!!) -More cameo appearances! -Defeat handlers for the Guardians have been implemented. You will see what I mean. >w>  -More redraws from Baka27powwaa -Sprite overhaul. Because that takes me up to a day to do. ;w; -Option to find Birb has been added.  -Solution folder has been added for those who prefer a visual walkthrough instead of a text walkthrough! -Removed the OFF music, with the exception of “a thousand pounds” and the default “meat sound effect”. Meat sound effect is replaced by air speckling *eyebrow wiggles* -Gave Sneec a little buff so he is gonna be a wee bit stronger than before.  -Only Max has perks, the perks are self-boost perks to help with the final battle (there will be more perks for others in the final release.) -Fixed experience points with most monsters so hopefully the battle won’t be tedious and you won’t have to level grind as much. -Some books in Zone 2 have received their well-deserved revamp. 

Introduction: -Fixed minor graphic issues which were found in the kitchen. -Teleportation blocks (aka red cubes) are officially replaced with zodiac teleporters! An idea that I had for a while now, not to mention it would make some sense since the yellow block is replaced with Bob.  -Nameless officially appears in-game. And when I mean by that, I mean by the fact that instead of you seeing him in zone 4′s roof, he’s now everywhere.. So everywhere that there is a nowhere too. Birb what are you saying? idk?????? -world map is now a panorama. Zone 0:

-ZONE 0 GOT ITSELF AN EXPANSION AREA(tm)!! There are 4 houses and 1 bakery! -Beth is now included in the game and probably in the near future (or if I decide to go with it), she is a temporary character for post-Japhet defeat handler and only lasts for 1 Zone before she returns back to Zone 0. -On the fourth house (second house on the bottom) there is a treasure chest which gives you a fortune ticket!

Zone 1:

-Elsen has an extra area, you can find a chest which gives you a luck ticket, going to the end you will meet Nameless.  -Sam’s event is set to a cutscene to prevent you from running off and/or examining the area which was never intentional!  -You no longer have to read the note in Pentel tunnel to trigger the event (I know people skim through it so it’s for the best fghfgh) -In Shachihata, some Elsen say ‘null’ when spewing out music notes. Null is ZERO! it’s to avoid confusion when typing in the numbers so it doesn’t be like 85260, but rather 03559. (No, that’s just an example, stop asking!!!) -During an Orodemus run, you can apparently escape from the elevator. Which I THINK I fixed in patch 1, but I will re-state it. You can’t run away from the melon man. Don’t run away from the melon man, he just wants to punt you into oblivion so he can please his master! -Dedan defeat handler has been implemented! 

Zone 2: 

-Not much changes to the library, just added Nameless in and that’s it.  -More minor bugs are fixed, Im just a dumb and I forget what bugs I fixed, so work with me here..Most are graphic errors and grammar. -Uncluttered the haunted attraction of excess decor.  -An extremely minor dialogue change with Shedder.  -Added in a pathway to the adoption center which can be accessed after you finish Zone 2.. that is, if you do finish it.. from the mall, head to the left, pretty much follow the arrows. -fixed an error where you get on the door when you enter after the erika event. when aleyes lets you pass? Yea, that one.. Not sure how that happened.  -fixed a bug, even though it’s not a rare bug unless you put in the right arrows in the crying room, where when you enter wrong, and then correctly, the game doesn’t register it as complete and doesn’t give off the head. MAJOR NOTE TO SELF. VARIABLES GO BEFORE SWITCHES! VARIABLES GO BEFORE SWITCHES!!!!! VARIABLES GO BEFORE SWITCHES!!!!!!!!!!! I actually had to fix this issue by going with switches because even if you enter it wrong then right the game refuses to register the puzzle being completed. Which drove me insane!!!  -That one shedder image... yea.. I forgot to switch it with the other one, don’t judge me I work too much already.. -From the hallway in Sen’s route, instead of going back to the beginning of the hallway, you would end up going to the 3 hallways.. I hopefully fixed that issue. -You will not be able to interact with Horus from the left side as Seneca. Only from the right side.  -Japhet defeat handler has been implemented! Depending on whether you killed Dedan or not, Japhet’s defeat handler dialogue is different, but the outcome is still the same.  -Somewhat fixed Japhet’s past event??? Will need to make some changes for the final game(tm)

Zone 3:  -Grammar errors and some minor bugs have been fixed..  -Beth’s event where she talks about her past has been added. -Monorail event is fixed! There were some bugs that Puff pointed out (when you go to the lever and pull it, the timer still continues on for a few seconds before it stops. Now when you pull the lever, the timer stops immediately!) -Enoch’s defeat handler has been implemented. Once again, depending on whether you defeated either Japhet or Dedan (or both), the dialogue is different but the outcome is the same. -If Max goes through the defeat handler, he loses all of his items (equipped items) and an arm. Did a sprite where his arm is missing and re-did the battle sprite for one armed Max. To also avoid confusion, there’s an NA in brackets which means no arm. I had to add that to avoid confusion when I was doing his events. -Enoch’s past event has been changed a bit here and there, mainly some bugs fixes and shit.

Zone 4: -Not much changes there, just some minor bugs have been fixed. I forgot which ones dhfgfhh. -You now fight alone against Gabriel. To make up for it, I added a temporary solution until I figure out a way to balance it out. You has perks now. Well, Max for now.  -Defeating all 3 guardians will trigger an event where you are unable to fight Gabriel (you will see :3c) and of course. some lore! -Added a little event for a friend :) 

#Borderline related #Borderline (off fangame) #off fangame #off spinoff #off (game) #off (mortis ghost) #bug fix

[pride-vns-blog]

LGBTQ VN Week: Day One! (6/18)

Welcome to the first day of my LGBTQ visual novel recommendation week, in honor of Pride Month 2018! Every day from today (June 18th) to Sunday (June 24th), I’ll be talking about four visual novels with LGBTQ themes, characters, and/or creators that have stood out to me and explaining a little bit about why I like them! I also reached out to a handful of those VNs’ developers and talked with them about their work, so you’ll be seeing a casual interview tagged onto the end of every post, too. ✨

To kick things off today, I’m highlighting four visual novels that are practically bursting at the seams with personality, all in their own ways — Saturn’s WORST DATING SIM, Obscurasoft’s Coming Out On Top, Brianna Lei’s Butterfly Soup, and Madeleine’s Inverness Nights! 

Hit the jump to read about watching Animal Planet with punks, beta-testing hookup apps, Mario fire alarms, and why it is that so many visual novels seem to use character archetypes.

One note before we get started! This list isn't meant to be reflective of "the objectively best LGBTQ visual novels" or anything like that, which I want to be ultra-clear about upfront. It's not a list of all the ones I've ever played, either. There are plenty of visual novels with LGBTQ characters/themes that have been recommended to me frequently — while I was working on this list and over the past couple years — that didn't make it onto this list because I couldn't afford to buy them, or because they just weren't for me when I did buy them, or because of a million other reasons.

To give an example of this in action: I barely have any originally-Japanese language visual novels on here, because the number of M/M ones that get translated is already so low and already nearly 100% commercial, and I'm way more inclined to pay for M/M than anything else. (Reason: I'm gay and I like looking at hot guys.) For the purposes of this list specifically, I've also cut out a fair few BL-marketed VNs — from both Western and Eastern developers — that skirt around the issue of whether or not the protagonist is gay/bi/etc awkwardly.

I also tried to limit myself to one VN per team, picking the ones I thought were best representative of their output and leaving space to mention other works of theirs that I'd liked, with the aim of keeping this list from being totally dominated by studios who'd put out a lot over a long period of time. And then personal taste for other genre and content details comes into play, so it cuts out even more from what's left! In the originally-Japanese BL category alone, that left me with a single nominee, which was... Well, you'll see!

Basically, I went over a lot of different options to settle onto a list that's ultimately only supposed to be things that I, personally, would recommend! And I don't want to recommend things I didn't enjoy, one way or another. Nobody wants to sit through multiple paragraphs of a slog where I'm trying to talk about a game I didn't actually like (or, in plenty of cases, a game I couldn't afford) without acknowledging that I didn't like it. To be totally honest, that sounds like it would suck to try and write.

So if your favorite LGBTQ visual novels aren't on here, but you want to give people an excuse to play them, I'd love to read anyone else's personal recommendation lists! I'm not a journalist or a reviewer and this isn't anything close to a formalized games review blog that I'm planning to update ever again; I'm just a VN dev who felt like sitting down and making a list of other LGBTQ VNs I liked one day, so I went and I did it. And I felt like giving those other devs a platform if I was going to talk about their work, so I took my own Patreon earnings to pay for as many as I could, then I went and did some interviews, too.

Thanks for sitting through (or skimming, as the case may be) that wall of text! Without further ado, let's talk WORST DATING SIM!

WORST DATING SIM (SATURN)

Itchio Tagline: “MRGRGR.” Genre(s): Slice of life, shitpost. Release Date: January 22nd, 2018. Content Warnings: Brief depiction of blood; violence.

Out of all the visual novels I’ll be covering over the next week, WORST DATING SIM is the only one I haven’t seen nearly all the content for, and not for a lack of trying! Saturn’s debut visual novel, a challenging conversational simulator where a punk named Etsuji decides to follow you home and hang out with you purely because he can, features a grand total of 69 ways you can get a GAME OVER. By and large, these endings come at the hands of your newfound friend (?), who’s got a temper and a sensitive streak a mile wide. If Etsuji doesn’t like what you’re saying, he’ll knock your lights out, and you’ll get booted back to the title screen.

The way WORST DATING SIM doubles down on this challenge is by intentionally removing Ren’Py’s default save feature — if you piss Etsuji off, you’re back at square one, period. You have to either somehow retain the information yourself or turn to someone else’s successful run for help, because it’s deliberately designed to be done in a single playthrough without reloading. Even a fair few jokes in the script, like “I’m sure in several alternate universes he’s punched my lights out, but so far I’m safe,” are dropped in to acknowledge the fact that beating WORST DATING SIM is more akin to powering through a run of Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy. (But don’t worry, the Skip Text function is still there to help you out!)

As someone who does turn to guides frequently to find out what I’m missing on my third or fourth playthroughs of visual novels, I assumed from the start that at some point that I’d want to find a walkthrough in order to see any real endings. But the sheer charm of Etsuji’s responses and, to be completely frank, how much fun I was having just trying to scale Etsuji’s emotional mountain meant that I never really hit that point while playing. WORST DATING SIM’s distinct personality struck exactly the right chord in my brain that made me want to keep playing by myself, tunneling away at it persistently, and it made the ending(s!) feel all that much more rewarding.

WORST DATING SIM is available now for free on Itchio, and you can follow Saturn on his Itch.io or Twitter (NSFW) for updates on more potential WDS content or his other upcoming visual novels.

COMING OUT ON TOP (OBSCURASOFT)

Itchio Tagline: “The erotic comedy gay dating game that'll make [you] laugh, cry, and get a little boned up! Hot dudes included.” Genre(s): Comedy, romance. Release Date: December 10th, 2014. Content Warnings: Nudity; mentions of homophobia; sexual content; seriously there’s a lot of sex in this.

If you’ve played M/M dating sims in the English language sphere any time in the last five years, you’ve probably heard of Obscurasoft’s Coming Out On Top — drawing more from the Western tradition of porn by and for gay men than anything else, it tells the story of newly-out college senior Mark Matthews and his run-ins with hot guy after hot guy (after hot guy, after... you get the picture). With the help of his roommate Penny, he also takes on the hookup app scene and delves into a sea of bonus dates funded by Kickstarter backers, which were released steadily from January 2015 to December 2016.

Coming Out On Top’s steady stream of humor never goes so far as to be totally derailing from its focus on sexuality and Mark’s genuinely sincere approach to relationships, casual or otherwise; Obscurasoft manages to infuse the numerous sex scenes with enough awkwardness, humor, and personality that actually playing through them back-to-back feels less like a string of pinups and more like scenes Mark is actively involved in or growing from. As a character, especially one whose archetype has gotten a lot of mileage in gay porn since the dawn of mankind, it’d be narratively easy to let Mark remain a generally undefined slate for players to project themselves onto.

And while there is a degree of personalization, especially when it comes to how blatantly horned-up some of the dialogue is compared to other options the player can choose, Coming Out On Top is still very distinctly Mark’s story. His specific insecurities from years of being closeted don’t vanish as soon as he comes out, and hookups don’t always work out for him the way they might in ten minute long “first time” AVs. His grades still matter, and his friends still exist, and he’s still got his own sense of priorities the player can disregard (at their own fish-related peril) or see through on the slow climb to the end of his senior year.

Coming Out On Top is available now for $14.99 on Itch.io, and Obscurasoft’s website; to get early updates about what they’re working on next, you can follow their News & Updates blog or their Twitter.

BUTTERFLY SOUP (BRIANNA LEI)

Itchio Tagline: “Gay girls playing baseball and falling in love.” Genre(s): Comedy, slice of life. Release Date: September 16th, 2017. Content Warnings: Parental abuse; violence; racist language; homophobic language; ableist abuse and slurs.

The strength of Butterfly Soup’s personality, from beginning to end, is founded in its four point-of-view characters — kindhearted Diya, reckless Min, sharp Noelle, and carefree (?) Akarsha. As a group of ninth grade friends with different priorities and different reasons for joining their shared baseball team, which are as obvious as the hugely-varied color schemes of each girl’s clothes, they play off of one another easily. Lei uses her fair share of actual memes, but never ones that feel like the speaking character — usually Akarsha — wouldn’t say them, which holds true to the rest of Lei’s dialogue writing. It feels distinctly ninth grade without ever being mocking or trivializing the way everything is so extremely important all the time when you’re a ninth grader.

Part of that strength definitely comes from Lei’s willingness to lean on each character’s archetype and unpack it at the same time; Diya’s physical strength and sheer skill, combined with her reluctance to talk to strangers, could have easily seen her shoehorned into a much more detached character than she’s written as. Instead, she’s thoughtful, expressive, and deeply concerned with the people she cares about, even if she can’t always necessarily communicate that to them very well through her ever-present anxiety. Exactly how their own differences manifest and each of the three other girls’ reasons for being that way are slightly trending into spoiler territory, but I think Diya’s fellow main characters also each have their own similarly-smart tweaks on familiar archetypes that make their joke-filled banter all that much more personalized and memorable.

Although there’s a lot to love about the positive, hilarious moments in the protagonists’ everyday lives, one of the things that I think worked just as well narratively were the scenes that required all those content warnings up there. They're very much going to be a YMMV situation for different players, especially with my own caveat that my relationship to dysfunctional families is coming from white Irish ex-Catholicism rather than those two specific Asian cultures’ values — trying not to give any spoilers about which characters I’m referring to, here! — but in-text, they’re never situations without any future, because we can see that future where the group has each other, and they always have room in the moment to be angry, or upset, or hurt without the narrative itself punishing them for failing to be perfect. Instead, they get to play baseball and fall in love and set off fire alarms, and they do pretty okay.

Butterfly Soup is available now for free, and you can follow Brianna Lei on Itch.io, Twitter, or Tumblr to learn more about her upcoming work.

INVERNESS NIGHTS (MADELEINE)

Itchio Tagline: “Every relationship ends.” Genre(s): Historical fantasy, drama. Release Date: June 30th, 2017. Content Warnings: See Itch.io page.

There are a lot of things about Inverness Nights that worked for me in a way I don’t know that they would have in another visual novel — in particular, Tristram’s character is difficult in ways that pretty directly pertain to some of the content warnings linked above, and I was personally interested in seeing the text unpack that bit by bit. The eventual turn the story takes further on in your playtime, to try and phrase that in a way that isn’t super spoilery, was something I personally didn’t mind taking a little longer to get to.

Curious to hear what its developer Madeleine had to say about the story, their thoughts on character design, and what they’re up to next, I reached out to them for an interview!

IVAN: Thanks for having me, Madeleine! To get this conversation started, how would you sum up Inverness Nights to everyone reading this?

MADELEINE: Inverness Nights is a game about queer isolation and the importance of queer community outside of romantic relationships. Set in 18th c Scotland you play as Tristram Rose, an immortal gay man who has just broken up with his mortal boyfriend, and decide how he’ll cope with the loss as someone unable to tell the world around him that he’s magical and queer.

Sounds spot-on! And definitely a great summary of all the things that made it super appealing — to me, at least, haha. Before anything else, I want to note that it's been just about a year since you released Inverness Nights! Congratulations! How's the experience been, and what particular highlights or lowlights over the past year stand out to you?

It was good actually releasing a game, I enjoyed that part a lot! Aside from that, I really appreciated a couple of thoughtful reviews it got where people connected with it as a game where being queer is difficult, but not bleak. I think that because AAA games love tragic gay stories indie games can sometimes feel they need to be ultra-positive to balance that in the other direction, which is cool, but as someone who likes stories that’re more in-the-middle it was a gap I wanted to fill. There was a good reaction to that, albeit a quiet reaction. It’s a very ‘first game, niche game’ complaint but the lowlight would probably be that not many people played it — however, there are a lot of understandable reasons why it worked out that way so I’m not too hurt overall.

Haha, getting something finished and released is definitely a great feeling; I'm personally really glad you stepped in to fill that niche, as someone who likes things that are honest about their characters' pain without feeling exploitative or endlessly hopeless! In the fantastic (but spoiler-filled) Medium postmortem you wrote on your process, you say that "an important part of marketing visual novels is selling your characters"; the postmortem goes into that in fairly great detail, especially as it pertains to ensemble casts, but would you care to expand upon that observation in the scope of the visual novel genre (and how you're keeping it in mind for future projects) a little bit here?

People make fun of visual novels sometimes for their reliance on archetypes — you know, look up the average dating sim and you can probably tell in an instant who the bad boy is, who the smart girl is, so on — but when you’re selling a character driven game to people, you can’t give away the cast’s backstories and quirks up front or there’s nothing to play for, so you’ve got to find some sort of shorthand to suggest what an audience wants will be there, and that usually comes back to telling them which archetypes you’ve got. When I started Inverness Nights I kind of laughed at that reliance on archetypes and tried to do something different but I learnt the hard way why it’s important. At the moment I’m finishing a game called Catacomb Prince with my didn’t-quite-finish-it-for-a-jam group Skeleteam, and when our character artist Roxy was doing the designs I gave her very broad notes on who the cast were so they’d be more archetypical. Consequently we have a very recognisable cool girl/frat boy/petite NB slate of romance options that people’ve connected with waaay more easily and way faster than anyone did with the IN cast, which I think speaks to why it’s a sound approach.

I definitely agree in the importance of finding a good balance with archetypes; I've had people who've instantly bonded when I invoked "shy genius" or "lovestruck best friend", which ironically has given me a bit more of that freedom in telling their stories more uniquely! Could you shed a little light on what Catacomb Prince is, without too many spoilers, and what your storytelling influences for a visual novel like that have been?

Catacomb Prince is a Gothic comedy; you are Prince Vitali, trashy heir to a fantasy Renaissance kingdom, and you have woken up dead five years after a raging party. Your parents still expect you to inherit the throne despite your new skeletal appearance, but your kingdom’s laws require the King to be married. Find love, find your killer — or die again trying.

It’s mostly inspired by Animamundi: Dark Alchemist, which is an old kitschy BL VN about a guy named Georik taking up alchemy to make a new body for his decapitated (still living) sister while hiding his hobby from his friends. Animamundi has some very gloomy stuff happening but it’s so over-the-top about it that it loops around to being a very funny game, and I wanted more experiences like that in the world, so here we are. There’re also some aspects of other goofy Gothic stories in there, like Hammer Horror movies and EC Comics, though the romance aspect of it means it’s not all rib-ticklers all the time. We took care to make the love interests more than just fodder for jokes and/or horror. They’re complete, kissable people, with flesh and everything.

I am not doing a good job of easing up on the skeleton jokes but please believe me on that last point.

Glad to hear the love interests have skin! Not super fussed about that, personally, but I'm sure some players would have logistical concerns about things like skeleton-on-skeleton kissing. (I'd like to go on the record and say I'm pro-skeleton and extremely pro-skeleton puns, so I'm waiting with bated breath to get to play as your not-breathing protagonist.) Other than what we'll be seeing in Catacomb Prince, what kind of genres and themes are you interested in exploring more of in the future?

After Catacomb Prince I’m going to work on finishing an IF game I started last year called Captain Dracula, about being the last survivor on a submarine after your Captain reveals he’s Dracula. That’s also a comedy. I spent three years making Inverness Nights so taking a breather to make funny games for a while seemed like a good plan, and I’m really into classic horror, so I’ve gravitated in that direction with it. I’ve also got a regular no-pictures no-choices fantasy novel I’m several drafts through at the moment which I’ll hopefully be releasing later this year. Once those’re off my plate, I’m keen to try making either an 80 Days-style narrative travel game or a Clock Tower-style point-and-click horror for a change of pace. I want to do something that’s more about exploring a place; I do academic stuff as well as indie development and all my academic work has been on how we explore places in games, so it feels weird that I haven’t made anything that utilises my research.

It sounds like you've got a lot coming up! I'm looking forward to seeing how you can combine your academic studies with your fiction work, which already have such strong settings of place from the get-go. And last but not least, what LGBTQ visual novels from other developers would you like to recommend?

It's IF rather than a VN but I love Heart of the House by Nissa Campbell, which is a Gothic game about an exorcist trying to remove an evil presence from a Victorian manor house, and maybe also wooing some of its residents. It’s very atmospheric and you can be NB, two things I like a lot. With caveats I’m also really keen on Animamundi (like I mentioned earlier — fun, funny MLM but warning for violent horror elements and sexual abuse), and The House in Fata Morgana (a dark romance about a trans man trying to rescue his girlfriend from a cursed manor, there’s an extensive content warning list on its website). Lastly, on the lighter side, Butterfly Soup and The Duenkhy are both good VNs about queer people making friends :) probably play them when you need to smile after all the grimmer suggestions I’ve made.

Awesome — and thanks again for your time, Madeleine! It was a pleasure.

Inverness Nights is available now for $12 USD, and you can follow Madeleine on Twitter or Itch.io to keep up with all the skeleton romances and Dracula adventures they're setting their sights on next!

Thanks to everyone who read this far! Keep an eye on the Twitter thread or this blog for tomorrow’s post, where I’ll be talking about four more visual novels that I think do some crafty things with their creative design!

[goodbonesassembling]

Its been a week, let’s actually live up to our name as a tarot blog shall we?

I’m gifting a deck of mine to a friend tonight, so I thought I’d share my favorite deck interview spread.

for me, deck interviewing is a way both of giving you a framework for better understanding the readings of a specific deck and helps to construct a relationship with the deck as though it were a future good friend (which it is!)

tarot, in my mind, is most affective when its a conversation rather than an interrogation. some decks are more friendly than others, some are here to help you read for others, some are here just to help you heal old selves. the interview allows you to gain an insight into what the deck is here to speak about.

So, i like to shuffle multiple times before interviews, especially with decks that have been used by others before me (also because most fresh decks come in “order” and i harbor an anxiety-based fear that if i don’t shuffle enough i’ll get ordered cards and THAT won’t do...) 

I stack shuffle (creating a number of stacks and dealing into each of them until the deck is gone, then stacking and starting again) and I’ve found each of my decks wants to be dealt into a different number of stacks (Wildwood Tarot was more “first” and she loves a good 7 stack shuffle, while the Wooden Tarot is a hardy 5er)

Now for the actual spread: 6 cards drawn and the “shadow card” (the one on the bottom of the deck)

I like this arrangement because it feels like it has a flow of sorts, a coming together and moving apart that feels good, but throw those cards wherever your heart desires!

Card 1: Who are you? (how the deck views itself, allowing it to introduce itself)

Card 2: Who am I? (how the deck sees you. this can be an important reflective point for yourself too, a good card to remember when it pops up again in future readings!)

Card 3: What we can be together/how we can work together (because I read both for my own inner work and for others, often this card helps me to know whether this deck is just for me or one that wants to be used for “work”, as well as who might benefit from its stories)

Card 4: Messages for me? (think of this as a description of the kinds of messages you can expect from this deck, rather than a specific message you are receiving now, though it can be that too)

Card 5: Message to share with others? (pretty self explanatory, though if you mostly read for yourself, feel free to removing this position, or view it as a message about your relationships with others)

Card 6: The most important thing I need to know right now? (I LOVE this card, its a little stage for your new deck to step up to and shine. I try to write down this card and watch for it reappear in other personal readings, it is often an indicator card for future communication)

Card 7: Shadow card (some people call the bottom card of the deck the Shadow Card, others don’t and many don’t read with it at all. I use it in almost every reading as a “counter point” of sorts, another lens to view the story through)

There you go! 

This spread doesn’t have to be just for brand new decks, I find it useful to use after I’ve gotten complacent with decks, am finding the messages muddled, or have done a Big Time cleansing. Its a great way to reconnect with decks where the conversation has gotten lost and was never really started in the first place.

I plan on using it myself in the next day or so with my oldest deck and I’ll post the results as a walkthrough so watch out for that too! And of course, ask whatever questions, I’ll try to answer them as best I can!

#tarot #tarot cards #tarot readers of tumblr #tarot readers of instagram #tarot reading #tarot lessons #introduction spread #deck interview #witch #witchcraft #spread #tarot spread #tarot community

[s2he-gamewalkthrough]

Part 7: Visiting Genshitenson

Talking about the attack upgrade system, and furthering the plot. This post is a little bit image-heavy.

If you don’t know what this is about, please refer to this previous post.

[Any new comments by me will be designated by brackets.]

I might as well talk about attack upgrades now, even though it's going to be a pain...

Going back to the 2nd floor, Taiitsu's lab opens up now! Take the door in the center of the room.

If you talk to him two times, Nataku will get an upgrade here. Only Nataku's upgrades are completely "free"--mostly because Taiitsu is Nataku's master. That and the fact that Nataku constantly bullies Taiitsu to make him stronger.

Yay, two stars now! [The highest level you can upgrade attacks to is five stars, but (from my own experience) you are usually only able to upgrade attacks from four to five stars under special conditions.]

You'll get more upgrades for Nataku later on in the story/when he levels up more. Upgrading attacks is highly recommended. It allows you to do more damage, and the attack animation changes too! Which is really pretty cool, considering that this is all on the Wonderswan.

Upgrading Tensho's attacks especially are a must. Trust me, it will make the later boss fights much easier.

Okay, now on to how you can get upgrades for the rest of the characters. Talk to Taiitsu. (As a note, there are times when he won't be in his lab on the 2nd floor--like during plot points.)

Choose the first option when this screen appears:

You'll be led to a screen that looks like this:

[Alright, let me clarify things a bit more here. You’re not actually upgrading a character’s attacks/moves itself--you’re actually upgrading their weapons/paopei... which then upgrades the attacks they use in battle. So I assume that Taiitsu is “upgrading” Hitou (Tensho’s sword) here]

You can only upgrade the weapons/paopei of characters that are currently in your party. Since Nataku already got an upgrade, the only characters we can do upgrades for now is Tensho and Youzen. We'll worry about Youzen in a bit--let's focus on Tensho first, since he's the most important.

Pressing the "a" button while on Tensho's screen (it will always be the first one you are shown when upgrading weapons/paopei), you'll be directed to this screen:

Yeah... you'll need to create a three-code combination before you can upgrade anything. Remember those things I was talking about earlier? The things found in chests and stuff that seemed to serve no purpose? Well, as "payment" for the upgrades, you'll need to use those to make the combinations. From what I can puzzle out, these are essentially different types of “elements”. The numbers on the right indicate how many of each "element” you have. Each of these "elements” (indicated to the left of the numbers) are designated by different Japanese characters--what characters they are, are shown in the first character of the "word." Did... did that make sense?

Here's an example to help you understand what I'm trying to say:

Whenever you select a "element/word" on the big box on the right, the first character will be shown in the small box on the left, and you'll use up one of them each time you make a combination. (I selected the first "element", and you can see the first character of that "word" being used in the little combo box.) Each combination you make uses up three "elements". Even if you get a wrong combination. Yes, that is probably the most annoying feature they put in this game. This is why I suggest you SAVE every time you go to try this out. Otherwise, you'll waste a lot of these trying out combos.

[I’ll try to list as many combos that I know of here, but there appears to be a limited supply of them that you can get easily in the game. So I will only bother to upgrade weapons/paopei for a small pool of characters that I will be using for this particular walkthrough.]

Now you're probably wondering at this point, "How the heck am I supposed to know what combinations to use?!"

Well, if you remember what I said in the first chapter...

[Under the “books” section (sixth item listed on the start menu), you’ll see this screen:]

[If I recall correctly, you collect these hints at possible weapon/paopei combinations as you progress through the game, from treasure chests and events. But unless you know Japanese, putting together combinations can still be pretty hit or miss... so remember to save before every attempt at a weapon upgrade.]

For now, we only have one page, but we'll get more as we go through the game.

Anyway, the LV1 --> 2 indicated at the top show that these will upgrade a character's weapon/paopei from level 1 to level 2.

So let's go and upgrade Hitou, shall we?

The above screencap is the combination needed to upgrade Tensho’s weapon (Hitou).

Also, random English! Select Yes, obviously.

If you get it right, you'll hear a sound and see this sentence:

To stop upgrading, just select the second choice when given the chance:

Yay, now all of Tensho's attacks have two stars!

Youzen is in our group currently, but while his attacks can be upgraded, they can't be upgraded at this point in time. This is because we don't have the right combination listed on the “books” page to use. But anyway, let me just talk about Youzen's upgrades for a bit:

[You’ll notice that he has TWO things to upgrade. That’s because Youzen uses two paopei at this point in the game: Sansentou (the trident thing) and Koutenkun (the white dog thing). Yes, you will need to upgrade different paopei separately. Since different paopei are tied to different attacks, this means that if you only upgrade the Sansentou, only Youzen’s attacks using that paopei will be upgraded. Yes, it can get very tedious and frustrating to upgrade weapons/paopei, especially if a character uses multiple paopei.]

Since we can’t upgrade anymore at this point, I guess we'll have to come back here later... What were we going to do again? Oh yeah! Visiting Genshitenson!

It seems he now lives in some kind of mountain? Before you even get through the entrance of the "dungeon," you're treated to another convo.

When you actually get inside, you'll be treated to this:

Gaaaah, what's with this?! This dungeon is basically one big puzzle... the first one being the most annoying. See, there are tiles all over the floor with numbers. If you've seen this type of gimmick before, then you'll realize that you can only walk on tiles that are either one above or below the current number you're standing on. For example, say you're on a tile that says "4". You'll only be able to go onto a tile that says "5" or "3"... Easy enough, right? Well, it's not so easy when there are this many tiles:

And about half of them are hidden at all times due to the WonderSwan’s small screen size.

My explanation that follows might be a bit confusing, but I’ll try my best. I usually take the left side, but you can take the right side also. (Each side has a stair going down at the end of it, leading to the same floor.)

Also, forgive my crappily drawn arrows. I drew them up a long time ago in Paint.

From the entrance, go up until you come to the split path. Take the left. (I'll only detail the left side--for the sake of my sanity.) Go left two spaces and go down until you're on the "3" tile.

Go left one, and then go all the way down until you touch the wall. Then go as far as you can to the left.

Go up as far as you can, then go right as far as you can.

Go up as far as you can, then take one tile left, one tile up, and one tile to the right. (You'll be on the "5" tile) Go up one, and right one. Then go all the way up to the top wall.

Go left until you land on the second "7" tile, then go down seven tiles. (You should be on the "4" tile)

Go left as far as you can, down one, and left again. From there, just go all the way up and you should reach the stairs.

EUREKA!

Take the stairs down.

You'll find yourself in a room FULL of stairs... Tenshou will have a "WTF?!" moment here.

Compared to the last puzzle, this one's a piece of cake. (And a lot less annoying.)

Since the whole room is full of stairs, just go the spaces without them. Those are the exits. Easy as pie.

Feel free to collect any chests on the way. Also, you can encounter monsters here! At least the game producers were kind enough not to have monster encounters in the room with all the numbers... That would have made it about 5x more annoying.

Since you're in a place with new monsters, you should definitely level up your party. I think getting Tensho up to 14-15 is good. Oh yeah, I probably forgot to mention this before, but you can heal with Tensho's healing move outside of battle too. Just beware of the EP it uses!

There's a whole section of the dungeon which you can sidestep here... Just go straight to this exit:

However, in doing so, you'll miss a lot of goodies. So I'll just take the other exit on the floor to show you what you'll see.

Egads, another number room...

This one is much, much, easier than the first floor puzzle, so I won't bother drawing out the solution. It’s a very small room so even through trial-and-error it shouldn’t take too long to figure out.

After solving the mini-number puzzle, you’ll be shoved into this room:

AUUGH, WE'RE TRAPPED!

...Kidding. You can go through the walls in this "puzzle."

There are two stairs here, one that leads back to the first floor, on the right side of the room:

And one that leads to this room:

More goodies!

...Huh? Who's that guy?

[Looks like one of the Yin’s former soldiers...] I think he says something along the lines of "this is a dead end," or, "I've been lost here for many years,"  or something to that extent. The only thing we can do now is backtrack. (Of course, if you decided to just skip this whole section, then you don't have to worry about backtracking.)

Okay, getting back to the room with all the stairs, and taking the correct exit, you'll get to this room:

(More treasure! Also... this room and the one before with the dead end seem to make some kind of word if you look at the way the walls are structured. Of course, I don't understand Japanese, so I'm no help there...)

More Youkai-senin?!

Let's talk to them and find out who they are/what they're doing here.

(My current party is: Tensho at lv 15, Youzen at lv 20, and Nataku at lv 18. Didn't even bother to go back out to heal, because these guys are pretty easy.)

I remember you! (His name's Ryonou for anyone that cares)

And you! (Kousou)

These were the guys that Kou Hiko and Tenka defeated easily in the anime/manga. Really, really minor characters. Heck, they're so minor, they don't even get their own unique sprites on the overworld!

Anyway, you're quickly shoved into a triple boss fight. (As in, fighting three "bosses" at the same time.) Kohei (the big panda youkai) fights alongside Ryonou and Kousou. Luckily, the boss fights where you have to fight multiple characters are arguably less annoying than ones where you have to fight one single boss... but I'm getting ahead of myself again.

Like I said before, these guys are easy. Just use Tensho's multi-hit attack, Youzen's standard attack, and Nataku's multi-hit attack. Do team /combo attacks if you want, though it's not necessary.

Try killing off Ryonou (the guy in the middle) first, since he tends to heal his other party members like crazy.

Health isn't really that big an issue in this fight... Mainly because Ryonou will mostly be healing his friends, and the other two have pretty bad accuracy. But of course, heal with Tensho or potions when you need to.

After taking those three down, the way to the stairs will be clear. Take it down to see this place:

Hmm, a hidden underground village... It's a pretty nice looking place actually--

Annnnnd this guy crashes straight into you.

ARGH, I remember you!

It's Ryogaku, the freaky doctor guy that Taikoubou and co. (well, more accurately just Nataku) had to fight when going through Cho Koumei's Queen Joker ship.

Ryogaku shoves you aside and rushes past you... rude! Unfortunately, you can't chase after him, but you know that when a guy like that appears anywhere, it's never a good sign...

Going down, you can talk to the two villagers wandering around here. Talk to the second guy a bit farther down.

Keep choosing the second option. I think the guy tries to tell you about his history or something. If you keep choosing the second option, then he'll eventually get fed up and give you an item to make you stop bothering him.

The house near the bottom belongs to this guy:

He appears to be the “mayor” of this village.

Hitou appears to recognize this man, though.

[I initially suspected this man was an older Bukichi, but he appears to be an original character made solely for this game.]

Well, anyway, the next hut thing is a shop where you can buy power up items to equip onto your characters. They increase certain stats, and possibly other things that I haven’t figured out.

Wow, that's pricey... I usually don't bother buying anything here at this point. (You can go back here to buy stuff later, when you have more cash.)

Going left... Hey there, Hakutsuru Doji! Go over and talk to him.

Something seems to have happened to Genshitenson, as hinted in the convo. Hakutsuru moves over so you can enter the hut.

Oh no, Genshitenson's sick in bed! Grrr, it must be the work of that quack scientist Ryogaku...

There's a rather lenghty convo between Genshitenson and Youzen. I think Youzen asks Genshitenson why random youkai-senin that have been houshined already are reappearing again. (Since at the end of the HE manga, Genshitenson was in charge of the houshined souls...)

The convo is suddenly interrupted by one of Dakki's sisters, Ou Kijin.

How'd she get past security?! (And does all of Dakki's sisters just suddenly have magical teleportation powers in this game or something? I don't recall them being able to teleport in the manga...)

Tensho puts on his angry face.

And Nataku actually looks surprised for once!

Well, there's a reason why Tensho looks so angry and Nataku looks so surprised; because this

happens...

She looks mighty pleased with herself... Though I wouldn't exactly call killing someone who's already bedridden something that you should be proud of.

Yes, if you haven't figured it out already, Kijin delivers a fatal blow to Genshitenson.

Tensho...

Genshitenson's body vanishes (as per the HE series), so one can only guess that his soul flew to the houshindai... If that thing is still even in use.

And Shinkyohyou enters the scene. Dammit, why do you always have to appear at the worst moments?

He mentions something important and then promptly leaves. (As usual...)

Elsewhere!

Hey, it's the inside of the houshindai!

And it's Kou Hiko!

Then Kibi appears to kidnap Hiko or something.

Anyway, there's another cutscene after this one, but I'll save that for the next chapter, because this one is long enough. 

R.I.P. Genshitenson...

To be continued.

#houshin engi #hoshin engi #senkaiden 2 walkthrough