#thought it would be fun to do another isometric since that was a new thing for me this challenge

[teleport-warning]

Day 30: redraw a piece from within the last year.

The piece in question:

#improvement hell #wei wuxian #mdzs #tw mild blood #oh my gosh I’m finally done I did it I did the thing #redraw #thought it would be fun to do another isometric since that was a new thing for me this challenge #idk if it is better than the old one #but it is different and it shows I learned some stuff #I did it I survived I drew so much #I will have a little much deserved rest #teleport warning draws

[exit-path]

Alright! Let’s get this done!

It’s less than 40 days until the one-year anniversary of my “Hi! I made something cool!” pinned post!

I’ve wanted do something like that again. I want to make another isometric render of something in Minecraft, all in a 2D image editing software, by hand.

But there’s a problem. I don’t know what to make.

I have a bunch of ideas on things I could make! But I don’t know which one to choose! And I don’t want to choose randomly, because the original isometric “render” actually took me one whole week to make. That’s seven consecutive days.

So that’s where you come in.

It’s hard and high-stakes to make one of these, so I don’t wanna mess up! I wanna know for sure what I should make.

If you could please, look through the list and see me which one(s) you’d like me to make. Then, tell me what your thoughts are in a reply or reblog. I’ll read through them, and in about 36 hours after I post this I’ll make my final decision on what I’ll render!

(You don’t need to interact with this post if you don’t want to. You can scroll past it if that’s the case.)

Remember, in the end, the result should be something of this caliber. This is what I made back then. And this is the level of quality I’m striving for again.

(I won’t post my render on the one-year anniversary, mind you. I’ll post it the day that I finish it, whenever that may be. I just mentioned the one-year anniversary so we’re all on the same page here.)

1) The other Skyblock islands

This is pretty self-explanatory. I rendered the main Skyblock island, right? Well why don’t I just render the other two and call it a day? I’m finishing the job. This is like the obligatory sequel for a hit movie.

One’s a sand island you reach once you bridge over from the main island in normal Skyblock. The other’s made of glowstone and you reach it when you build a nether portal and travel through the nether to link up with the portal on the other side.

Now, from a “making the render” standpoint, the problem with this is that it probably won’t be fun to make as the first one. Like, the other original Skyblock island at least had interesting shapes to work with, it had depth, and it posed a fun challenge. These other islands are just 3x3x3 cubes made of the same block.

Plus, people might not care to see the new render. People always like the sequel less than the original movie. And I’m thinking that might be true for something as esoteric as a post about a Minecraft render made with 2D image editing software.

2) My Survival House

You might be confused seeing this on the list. Like, everyone’s seen or played Skyblock so that makes sense, but this? This is my singleplayer survival house. Very few have seen it; nobody but me has ever been to it. Let me explain.

I played on this world from September to October 2020. In that time, I built a starter base, a mine, and a cow barn/wheat farm. This is the starter base. It doesn’t look like much, but that’s only because we’re on the surface. Let’s go into spectator made and bring the camera under.

Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!

Yes, the majority of my “starter base” is underground! (The image is slightly edited to highlight where it is.) If I were to render it, I would show the bit that’s at the top, connected to everything underground.

There’s a lot in this base! Immediately down the ladder from the house at the surface, there’s a room full of chests and that contains a jukebox where I can play music discs.

Then on the floor below that there’s my furnace room, my portal room, my map room, and my spruce tree farm. Down another floor you can find a room where I intended to grow cactus for a brief period of time.

I’ve spent a lot of time in this base. However, I’ve never seen it in full, in isometric view. And I sure would like to. Because perspective in 3D constantly hides different parts of my base when I view it from different angles. Isometry is an idealized reality.

If I were to render this, you’re agreeing that I’m doing this for myself. I love this world, and I’ve spent many days in the past excited to come back to it. This is a bit of sentimentality, a tribute to myself.

3) My 1.0.0 Survival Base

Now, you might be starting to recognize a pattern here. (Image slightly edited to highlight where the survival base is.) And no, it’s not that I really want to isometrically render my survival worlds for some reason.

Yes, I apparently like building my survival bases underground, I know, shut up >:P

I played on this world from March to September 2019: the longest I played on a survival world so far. Virtually only one other person knows about this world.

The entire time I played on it, it was in Java Edition 1.0.0: the earliest and first full release of Minecraft. I accessed the version by using the dropdown menu on the Minecraft launcher.

As a result of being in 1.0.0, the entire survival experience was changed, and that posed a lot of unique challenges. For example, how do you mine out large regions of land if beacons haven’t been created yet? How do you enchant tools if anvils aren’t in the game yet?

Playing on this 1.0.0 world has acted as my greatest insight into “old Minecraft” so far.

If I were to render this base, I would only render the underground portion (which I hollowed out of a naturally-generated cave, by the way). Why would I do that, if there’s probably also a house on the surface that I could render?

Because this is what that house looks like.

Yeah, this house does look incredible! I would know, I’m the one who made it all in 1.0.0. But no chance am I rendering all that.

Anyways, I want to render this world because despite all the time I’ve played on this world, I’ve never actually even seen my base as a spectator much like I’ve shown above. (Minecraft added cheats in 1.3.1. Spectator mode didn’t exist until 1.8.)

Plus, this faces the same perspective problems I mentioned for #2. So mainly, if I were to render this isometrically, I would be helping myself by letting me view my world in a lens I was never able to before.

4) A House in the Sky

This is a bit of an inside joke on my blog.

Basically, ever since August, I’ve been playing games of UHC on Minecraft minigame servers like Hypixel and Mineplex with the sole purpose of defying the point of the game and just building a house in the sky. Like a whole-ass village house. Plop. Right there.

This is the house I would build in those games. And this is what I would like to render now.

If you know me personally, then you already know what the front of the house looks like. (I’ve shown it on my blog countless times.) So that’s why in this preview, I’ve made the front of the house see-through so you can see the interior.

This is an effect I want to emulate in my render (if I ever make one). I make multiple image edits, and in one of them, both the exterior and the interior of the house are visible.

If I render this, it’s just a pointless joke. Not much else besides that 🙂

5) Something Else?

This is where I leave an open-ended answer.

Did you think of something that’s not on this list? Do you have something in mind that you’re passionate about personally, and that you’d like me to render? Do you think a couple or all of the ideas here are good, and you want me to render those couple or all of them?

Then remember to tell me in a reply or reblog!

Keep in mind when leaving your opinion that making a single render takes a lot of time and effort. Think of it this way: the original Skyblock render took one week to make.

Rendering something with half as many blocks would take four days. Rendering something with twice as many would take two weeks. Making multiple renders would take multiple weeks. So don’t forget the human aspect in all this.

Well, that’s the end of this post!

Tagging @ice-block, @gay-slime, @mojang-official, @birch-forest, and @light-blue-glazed-terracotta because they saw my original post and I’d like to hear their opinions, given that they’re big blogs in mineblr.

@emarezi and @unyanizedcatboys, I’d like to hear you weigh in on this as well.

See you in 36 hours, I guess!

#minecraft #mineblr #peysi #long post #really long post #skyblock #minecraft skyblock #minecraft base

[overanalyzingelswordiswhatido]

12 to 1 Chapter 9

Fair warning, near the end of this chapter Add has a freaky ptsd dream and it has some blood.

-

Add picked Snowball out of the snowdrift she managed to get herself stuck in. “Stupid cat,” he carried her back inside. Part of him hoped it would snow again so that he could watch it with the cats like the night before. That was nice. He fought back a yawn. Rena just called for breakfast and he was already exhausted. He was not stranger to staying up all night and it’s consequences. It was just harder to ignore them as a kid.

Add set her down after he made sure the door was closed. He also made sure he was the last one in so that no one else would open the door and let her out again. He didn’t need that stress. Once he reached the table he saw french toast, sausage, eggs, fruit, and a multitude of over breakfast foods on it. He wasn’t surprised by the amount of food Rena, Ciel, and sometimes Raven made for every meal anymore. It would all be gone by the time Elsword and Ara were done eating.

Add sat next to Ciel, on the opposite side of Lu. He was also on the outer edge of the long side of the table, next to Rena’s seat. Raven sat on the opposite side as her. Apparently, Elsword and Aisha fought over who sat at the ends of the table once the search party was big enough that it mattered. Raven and Rena got those seats at every meal now. Since Rena was going to make him have at least a little bit of each food group, Add grabbed it for himself. That way he could avoid having the things he didn’t like in favor of things he liked more.

Add took Snowball up to his room after breakfast. He pulled the small box that held a few cat toys he bought when they first brought the cats in out from under his bed. He frowned. There weren’t a lot. Maybe he could convince someone to go with him to get some. He leaped to his feet and grinned, “I could ask Chung!” It would be easy convincing him, since Sunshine took a liking to him. And Chung actually liked cold weather.

Satisfied with his new plan, Add left Snowball on his pillow and looked around for Chung. He found him in his room, at his desk. A decent stack of books and papers surrounded him. Add wondered if he was reading about Nasods again. He seemed so interested in them since meeting Eve, it wouldn’t be surprising.

Add used Dynamo as a stepping stool to climb onto Chung’s desk, “What’re you reading about?”

Chung looked surprised, “Add! I didn’t notice you come in!”

Add shrugged, “You never do when you’re reading.” He was long since used to it by now. Not that he could sneak up on Chung at all. He never jumped or yelped or anything fun. Unlike Aisha, who was plenty of fun.

Chung laughed sheepishly, “Yeah, sorry about that.”

Add shrugged again. He glanced at Sunshine, sitting calmly on the other side of the desk, “I noticed the cats don’t have a lot of… cat things to play with and sleep in and stuff.” He turned back to Chung, “And I was wondering if you would take me to go get some. Rena said I couldn’t go out without someone.”

Chung petted Sunshine, “Sure. I don’t know a lot about cats though so…”

Add shrugged again. He dropped off the desk and turned to grin at Chung, “That’s why I’m here!” He led Chung down the stairs to tell Rena where they were going. He didn’t want her asking where he went when he got back again. Besides, Add wasn’t trying to get Chung in trouble. He just wanted toys for Snowball to play with.

“We’re gonna get the cats stuff,” Chung said.

Rena glanced at them. She nodded, “Okay. Make sure to be back before lunch.”

“Before it’s made or before you start it?” Add asked since those were two very different times.

“Before it’s made,” Rena chuckled.

Add nodded. He hurried over to the door and waited for Chung to reach it before he pulled it open. The snow had gotten thicker since he was outside. If he tried to walk through it, it would reach well above his knees. But that was what Dynamo was for.

Add pulled up an isometric grid map of the town. He pointed to the pet store, “This place has plenty of stuff. I’ve been in there a couple times.”

“You have?” Chung looked from him to the grid and back.

Add nodded, “Yep.” He did have a little bit of an image to uphold so he didn’t offer an explanation. It’s not like anyone would take him seriously if they found he fed and played with neighborhood cats in his free time. At the very least, Aisha would hold it over his head. He led Chung along the route Dynamo picked to the pet store. On the way, he listed off the things he thought they should get to Chung, including toys and beds and climbing towers. “Maybe we can even get Raven to make ramps and ledges and stuff!”

Chung chuckled, “You know a lot about cats, huh?”

Add stopped, his mouth still open. His face got hot with embarrassment and looked away. “It’s not that much actually…”

Chung smiled, “It’s more than me.”

Add shrugged.

When they reached the store Add dropped off Dynamo and went straight for the toys. He made sure to get a good mix and helped Chung pick out beds. He wasn’t sure the cats were going to use the beds but it was better to have them. Once they were done, Add piled everything onto Dynamo. He stopped by the door.

Chung turned back to look at him, “What’s the matter?”

Add shook his head, “Nothing.” With everything stacked up on Dynamo he was going to have to walk through the snow. That was fine though. At the very least it would help him stay awake. His legs sank almost completely into the snow when he stepped into it. Add whined, “It’s cold.”

“I could carry you if you want,” Chung offered.

“No.” Add turned away stubbornly, crossing his arms over his chest. He managed to take a few more steps but it was exhausting. Reluctantly, he let Chung carry him home on his back. Despite fighting it, Add fell asleep before they reached the house.

Add’s eyes opened to bright white lights shining directly into his eyes. Hazy silhouettes leaned over him. He couldn’t tell if it was one person moving around or if multiple people stood around him. Indistinct voices echoed in his head. He looked around in confusion but his vision refused to clear. When he tried to move, his body didn’t respond at all. Strangely, that barely elicited a response from him.

Black slowly crept in from the edges of his vision. It seemed to take forever to completely block everything out. Add’s body could move now. The sound of his shoe coming into contact with the ground when he took a step echoed loudly for far too long. Add flinched. He didn’t take another step. Instead he reached out to see if there was anything he could touch.

A low rumbling growl reached his ears and he whipped around. Two sets of glowing red eyes stared at him from the darkness. Add’s eyes widened. He took an involuntary step back. The sound echoed around him again. Two large vaguely wolf-like shapes were outlined by Dynamo. What do I do? With as small as he was, he didn’t stand a chance.

While he debated, they continued their approach. Their growls turned to snarls. The sound echoed deafeningly around him. Add covered his ears but it did nothing to drown it out. He couldn’t think like this. After another moment of hesitation Dynamo suggested a course of action.

Fight.

Add looked at the creatures approaching him. The outline shifted until he could see their hearts. His eyes narrowed. If he could make it, it was one hit each. He didn’t want to think about what would happen if he tailed to take them out in that single strike. Without hesitating, he leaped forward.

The moment he hit the second creature’s heart, white light flashed brightly in front of him. Add stumbled back and shaded his face with his hand. When he could see his eyes widened in shock. Human eyes stared blankly into his own. He looked down and saw himself covered in blood. It soaked into his clothes and was splattered on his face. It dripped off his fingers and pooled around the two bodies lying at his feet.

Add lurched backwards. He stumbled and fell. Icy claws dug into his arms and legs and held him there while the blood continued to pool. It rose and rose until he was drowning in it.

Add’s eyes snapped open. He stared at the ceiling without blinking until his eyes burned. Finally, he very slowly and carefully sat up. He needed something to wash the salty taste from his mouth. Before he went anywhere near the stairs to do that, he washed his hands. He looked through Dynamo’s files, trying to find some sort of possible explanation but he found nothing.

“Hey buddy! You’re awake!”

Add jumped. He glared at Elesis and got himself a glass of chocolate milk without saying anything.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you,” Elesis apologized. “How’d you sleep?”

Add shrugged indifferently, “No better than usual.”

“So… Not great?”

Add rolled his eyes and muttered, “No. It was fantastic. I dreamed of sunshine and rainbows and chocolate fountains.”

“Yeesh. That was some heavy sarcasm,” Elesis commented. She patted his head, “Don’t worry, buddy. We’ll look after you.”

Add snorted. That was only gonna be true for as long as he wasn’t too difficult and he knew it. Instead of commenting on that he asked, “Where’s Rena?”

“Her room, I think.”

Add left the kitchen. He knocked on the elf’s bedroom door, “Rena?”

“One second.” Rena answered her door a moment later. She smiled, “How’d you sleep?”

Add stared at her for a moment. He shrugged and buried his face into her side.

“Is something wrong?” Rena sounded both concerned and confused.

Add hesitated. It wasn’t really wrong. It’s not like anything could be done about a dream. He didn’t want to talk about it anyway. Eventually he responded expressionlessly, “No.”

Rena seemed to understand. “Do you want to help me make the wreath for this year?” She offered.

“I can watch right?”

“Of course,” Rena nodded.

Add followed her to her desk. A mini coniferous tree sat next to it in a pot. He curled up against her side and watched her weave various winter plants together. He was silent and nearly completely still, very different from the near constant activity levels he had before.

Rena clearly noticed. She paused semi-frequently to gently pat his head once or twice before continuing. Add didn’t have enough energy to respond to it in any way. His dream drained him almost completely. Snowball found her way into the room at some point and curled up in Add’s lap.

Add was attached to Rena for the rest of that day and the entirety of the next.

#elsword #elsword online #12 to 1 #chapter 9 #elboy #aisha #rena #raven #eve #elesis #chung #add #ara #lu #ciel #ain #rose #lord knight #elemental master #grand archer #reckless fist #code empress #grand master #iron paladin #lunatic psyker #sakra devanam #noblesse #royal guard #erbluhen emotion #storm trooper

[kinsie]

Overly Belated Game Impressions from PAX Aus 2018

Every year I go to PAX Aus with some close friends to check out the Incredible Future of Games that everyone else already checked out six months ago. This is usually coupled with checking out some wonderfully well-preserved old games and hardware, along with some typically wonderfully weird indie stuff I've never heard about before. Every year, I've written up a little review of things I've played (or watched get played) on an old private forum some friends maintain, but this year, I've figured, fuck it, I might as well post it publicly, right?

Not Indie Games

Super Smash Bros Ultimate sure is a Smash game. That's not a bad thing, but since this was the same demo build from E3 (so before the Castlevania reveals) there wasn't a huge amount of surprises - just a damn good fightfest. Amusingly, the demo booths were split into two groups - For Fun (items on, Switch Pro Controller) and For Glory (items off, the new Gamecube controllers). New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe has a nonsensical name and spawned an even more nonsensical meme. The demo had six levels to play - three from the base game, three from the Luigi expansion - with both the new and old characters to play. It doesn't look like anyone other than Toadette can get the meme crown, meaning players using that character won't have to jostle for powerups in multiplayer. I didn't play Pokemon Let's Go Eevee because the queue was like 90 minutes long, but my friend braved it and gave it a resounding "ehhhh" with a hand gesture resembling a teetering see-saw. Apparently the co-op stuff wasn’t available in the demo, either, which concerned my friend since that was specifically what he was interested in.

V-Rally 4 looks nice aesthetically, but the gameplay seems pretty "eh". The name seems to be about the most interesting part. Dragonball FighterZ for Switch seems like a pretty decent port. I don’t know much about the source material or original game, but it ran fast and I didn't notice any obvious hitching or whatever.

Luigi's Mansion for Nintendo 3DS is... a 3DS port of the Gamecube launch title. It ran at a solid 30fps... a whole lot better than I recall Luigi's Mansion 2/Dark Moon running, but I was also using a vanilla 3DS for that game while the demo units at PAX were New models.

Indie Stuff

The Xbox Adaptive Controller was present as part of a demo setup for a version of One More Line. I wasn't expecting to have to push the Big Novelty Button as hard as I did, I thought it'd be a lighter touch for some reason. Although I know the button kinda isn't the point of the thing...

Supertrucks Offroad is a PC adaption of a mobile take on old top-down racing games. There's promise here, but the current handling and physics leave a lot to be desired. Hopefully it continues to develop and evolve.

Infinity Heroes is a card game with some simplified mechanics and animated versions of all the card graphics. Has potential, but still plenty of rough edges and pre-alpha grit to sand out.

Metal Wolf Chaos XD sure is a port of an Xbox game. It feels pretty well done, all things considered - the framerate is great, the controls are responsive, and the English subtitles are sometimes even connected to what's being said by the characters!

Ghoul Britannia: Land of Hope and Gorey is a point-and-click adventure game that, unexpectedly, uses a Fallout-esque isometric perspective instead of the usual side-on.

Table of Tales is a VR tabletop RPG where you control an entire party of Scoundrels by moving pieces around a constantly-changing board and playing ability cards. Since it was a VR game, there was a long sign-up queue to play, so the developers set up a little booth where Arbitrix, the game's DM (and, incidentally, a mechanical talking bird), would cheerfully explain the game for you. He said my goatee was perfect for a pirate adventure. It was probably intended as a compliment.

Supermarket Shriek is very similar to a game I prototyped years ago, except it's got a Supermarket Sweep theme and shrieking goats. Also, it's actually getting finished and has more than one level, which is another differentiator. Use the shoulder triggers to make the characters inside a shopping trolley scream their lungs out, propelling the trolley and allowing you to steer it through silly retail-themed obstacle courses.

You probably think, based on the squat protagonist and camera angle, that Tunic is a riff on Zelda: A Link to the Past. Surprise! It's actually a riff on Zelda: Ocarina of Time! The combat is very similar, with a dodge/roll button and Z-targeting (although I guess it's more RT-targeting now) that jumps to the next enemy upon beating your current one. I can't say enough nice things about the graphics... One thing that's interesting is that the entire game is in a fictional language. This includes stuff like the pause menu!

Dash Blitz is a pretty amateurish attempt at a Smash-esque platform fighter. The "feel" just isn't there, sadly.

Nom Nom Apocalypse is a top-down dual-stick roguelite about fighting off food monsters. It looks pretty interesting, but sadly I didn’t get to go back and give it a hands-on look.

Henry Mosse and the Wormhole Conspiracy is a good old-fashioned point and click adventure. The graphics are wonderfully drawn in a cartoon style, but they suffer from really puppet-y animation like an old Flash cartoon, and it breaks my heart.

No Moss Studios bought along Beam Team, a couch co-op game about fighting a giant donut that I didn’t get to try, as well as a collection of weird little Patreon-funded oddities like Sprout Up, a simple little mobile game about weaving through vines, and My Magpie, a bird-aiding simulator of sorts. 

Little Reaper is a platformer with a fun movement twist in that you can throw your scythe - which travels in an arc like a hammer in Mario - and teleport to where it lands. I'll have to give this a closer look.

Mars Underground is an Earthbound-esque RPG-style adventure game with a Groundhog Day-style conceit of being stuck in a time-loop. I can't really say it struck me, to be honest.

Scout's Honor is a co-op party game where four players team up to set-up a camp-site in a limited amount of time while dealing with hazards and such. It looks kinda cute, reminds me of Overcooked a bit.

Ice Caves of Europa is a rather odd-controlling game where you pilot a hover-drone controlled by an artificial intelligence. This one probably takes a bit more time to wrap your head around than a convention center allows.

Introspect looks really cool - a Shadow of the Colossus-style boss rush with an emphasis on movement tricks and agility. I didn't get to play it while I was there, but the developers were handing out download codes for the show floor build. It seems pretty fun, although it still needs a good deal of polish.

Soundfall is a dual-stick rhythm-shooter where you have to get to the end of a course before the song ends, with rewards for shooting and slashing to the beat ala Crypt of the NecroDancer. One to watch. 

Ticket to Earth is a tactical strategy RPG ala Fire Emblem with a tile-matching mechanic that makes how you move to your enemies even more important by limiting your movement and charging your special abilities. The comic artwork is nice, although the talking heads only seem to have one or two facial expressions.

Nova Flow is a first-person speedrunner that reminds me of a blend of Mirror's Edge's DLC maps and that one paint game that got incorporated into Portal 2. One of the demo levels was apparently one of the hardest levels in the game, and the developer was quite impressed at my getting within inches of completing it before the demo timer ran out...

Dawnblade seems to be an attempt at doing the whole Diablo thing on a phone, with the player hacking their way through short, pre-made maps. Visually, it looks like any of a million other games riffing off of Warcraft 3, and it seems to have some weird mobile game trappings like a stamina system to limit the amount of time you can play in a period of time.

Little Bit Lost is a survival game where you've been shrunk down to the point where ants tower over you and are powerful monsters. This one felt real early. It has promise, but needs a lot of polish to truly deliver on it.

Rogue Singularity is a 3D platformer with procgen levels. The feel didn't gel with me, and I can't really say I liked it all that much. It didn't help that the Switch port I played seemed to lack anti-aliasing entirely, giving the entire scene an unpleasant jagged look.

Ashen looks utterly fascinating - an open-world Souls-esque action RPG with Journey-style "passive" co-op where you can occasionally meet other, anonymous players out in the world and either help them or leave them to their fate. It looks really pretty.

Speaking Simulator is a hilarious puzzler where you have to manually operate a human mouth in order to say Entirely Normal Phrases in order to convince people that you are absolutely a human and not a murder robot in disguise.

Untitled Goose Game had a massive queue that I was absolutely not going to fuck with. :(

yeop

#gaming #paxaus2018

[sikorawrites]

Commodified Lying

Synopsis

To continue on the trend of games, I want to discuss a specific genre through the lens of a couple examples: hidden role games. In essence, a hidden role game is a game where various players have roles that are hidden. It’s rather self explanatory. These games vary in their execution, with some hidden role games giving everyone a role while other games merely have one type of “evil” role that is given to one or multiple players giving them abilities that the rest of the players do not. These games tend to be incredibly socially-oriented in that they require multiple people to play, the primary way for the non-evil roles to deal with the evil roles is by a vote, and lying is mandatory. The actual mechanics of the games tend to be quite diverse, from top-down isometric puzzle games to first person shooters, but they all are deeply rooted in deception. They’re popular, too; throughout 2020, Among Us was one of the most viewed and played games on YouTube. As a result, the purpose of this post is to delve into the idea of deception and lying, and how to accurately utilize it in writing as well as portray it organically.

Prompting Observation

Hidden role games have become quite popular. This isn’t something new, nor is it exclusive to YouTube, as games such as Mafia and Werewolf have been around for quite some time in various social circles. I had previously mentioned Among Us, which was released a few years ago and has since become a smash hit due to a massive surge in popularity. I’ve played that game quite a bit with my friends, and whether we have four people or we have ten people, we always manage to find ways to entertain ourselves in it. We somewhat pulled back from the exact specificity of the game, wherein we are expected to completely cut off all contact with one another during the actual gameplay up until we have an in-game discussion period, and have instead enjoyed a casual game where we all have the general understanding to not cheat but otherwise speak liberally about things unrelated to the game. In contrast, the game Unfortunate Spaceman is somewhat on the other side of the spectrum for me. Very few of my friends play it, and I completely rely on strangers online to play it. It’s a relatively unknown game from years ago that still has a loyal fanbase, and it is a first person shooter that revolves around completing a very small amount of consistent tasks. It also comes with a built-in proximity voice chat system, meaning you can activate it to have vocal communications with individuals in a short in-game radius. I’ve played both of these games quite a decent bit now, and though they have their differences, they are both quite enjoyable and satisfy the same investigative urge in a general sense.

Essential Elements

The primary element to both of these games is, of course, lying and deception. These games are built upon human curiosity and the investigative spirit, as well as the inverse of that instinct in lying. Humans lie and investigate to some capacity in every interaction, though it very much so isn’t a major part of every day life for every person. That’s why it’s very interesting to look at hidden role games, entertainment activities that actively involve betraying the trust you have garnered with your friends and loved ones, and to parse out what about them is “fun.” If they weren’t fun, they wouldn’t be as popular or long-lasting as they are. I believe that the idea of success is what drives these sorts of games. Every game is driven by success, be it to win the race or defeat the enemy team, but those all have a sort of impartiality to them. You demonstrated to your opponents that you are more skilled or luckier, be it other players or AI, and that you have a mastery of the game in some capacity. Hidden role games, though, are far more personal. While there might be mechanics to keep track of, they primarily rely on how clever of a player you are, meaning any time you beat someone, you outwitted them. You demonstrated you were more clever. I think that draw to demonstrate superiority and that human relishment in mental engagement is something to keep in mind.

Applications

The main point of this post is about lying and deception, as well as the human draw to it. I suppose that means I can boil it down to “write a mystery,” but in the interest of keeping this widely applicable I’ll try my best to make the applications more useful. The first that comes to mind is the idea of adding lies and deception into an otherwise straightforward piece. As long as the reader or character can intuit that something’s wrong, it will engage the reader so long as it is addressed in the story. A lie that doesn’t go anywhere feels more like a plot hole than anything. That’s why it’s important to contextualize the lie in the situation it is presented in. Who is lying? Why are they lying? What is their relationship with the person they’re lying to? These sorts of questions are the sort of thoughts to keep in mind when you want to dive into a believably bad lie, i.e. a lie that doesn’t sound completely truthful but also doesn’t sound completely made up. As the writer, you are in complete control of what every character says and does, meaning you could make it so that every single lie any character says is completely unnoticeable until you point it out, but at that rate why would you include it? After a point, it feels less like intentional lying and more like retconning. That isn’t to mention that obviously poor lies that other characters just completely don’t address break the reader’s suspension of disbelief. You want to strike a healthy balance, and a good way of achieving that is by adding in a decent amount of believability into lies and a small amount of unbelievability into truths. Not only is that realistic, as human memory is fallible and red herrings are a well established literary trope, but it also gives the reader a break. Sometimes, you have to throw your readers a bone and give them an easy lie to spot. That gives them a sense of accomplishment and makes betraying their trust with a far more secretive lie all the more satisfying

#writing #write #writers #written #My writing #poetry #poem #poet #poets on tumblr #poetsandwriters #spilled ink #spilled words #spilled in poetry #spilled prose #spilled writing

[shylaxgameblogs]

Shylax’s Top 10 Games (Played in the Year) of 2017

Yep, it’s the return! You’re going to be here a while, so...

10. Mario Golf World Tour (2014)

Yep, that’s right, a golf game. It wouldn’t be right without one, and here it is.

I really wanted to play this game because @pawelcyril kept gushing about it, but I don’t really play it anymore. It’s not a bad game, it wouldn’t be on this list if it wasn’t, but it could have been a lot better than it was. There are a lot of 9 hole only courses, which is disappointing. The single player story mode is fun, but short. Online’s loading times are disappointing. Being able to create and customize a Mii golfer is fun, but the Mii’s driving distance sucks compared to Star Mario. The tournament system is fun, and solves World Invitational’s cheating problem by just letting you go as many times as you like, but...Hot Shots Golf World Invitational was so much better. That game had so much more staying power, even with its own flaws.

9. Fire Pro Wrestling World (2017)

I remember playing Super Fire Pro Wrestling X Premium on a SNES emulator. That was my first experience with Fire Pro, and it was so much different than any other wrestling game I had played before. Probably the closest that comes to the Fire Pro experience are the aki wrestling games, most notably WWF No Mercy.

If you’re a fan of American-style wrestling, this game will probably disappoint you, because even though you can create your American favorites and have them battle each other, this game doesn’t feature the wild and crazy antics that make American wrestling tick. There are no storylines here, and no cutscenes. This is pure puroresu. Japanese wrestling is treated more like a legitimate sport, and so does this game. It’s all about the competition.

This game has no license, but it has a robust Create-a-Wrestler system, allowing you to create your favorite wrestlers, characters outside of wrestling, or original characters. You can even create bear wrestlers if you’d like, which is a major plus in its favor in my book.

However, the meat of the game is its robust wrestling engine. It’s 2D at its very best, relatively unchanged since the SFPWXP days, although it does look much better. The action is displayed in a 3/4 isometric view, and the grappling system is unique, and unlike American wrestling games, punishes button mashing, instead of rewarding it. There are three styles of grapples - weak, medium, and strong. You have to build up with successful weak moves before moving up - if you try to go for medium and strong moves too early, you’ll get countered.

The only reason I don’t play it more is it’s still in Early Access, and more features are being added and refined. Online play is there, but the netcode is pretty laggy. There’s not a story or career mode, so unless you have friends who are ubercompetitive at this game, its only other real use is as a supreme @tangobunny Watch Mode game.

8, Parascientific Escape Gear Detective (2015)

The sequel to 2014′s Parascientific Escape Cruise in the Distant Seas, which was a refreshing take on the Zero Escape formula, adding in powers you could use during “escape” sequences, and being able to backtrack to rooms you already completed, was a huge improvement over the original. The first game felt like a teaser for a much larger story, and felt pretty generic and cheap (the localization didn’t help).

Gear Detective (the Parascientific Escape games are eShop only games for 3DS) wasn’t anything groundbreaking either, but it was a much better use of your $5 than the original. While it seems to abandon the story the original set up, it is a more fully fleshed out story, feels more complete, and has multiple endings, which the original did not feature.

It still doesn’t compare to more full-budget and full price titles like the Zero Escape series, but the escape room genre is pretty limited, and this game is well worth your $5. I’m hoping to play the third game in the series soon so it can be eligible for next year’s list.

7. Pokemon Moon (2016)

This game was a mixed bag for me. I really enjoyed it, but there were some annoying decisions that prevented me from playing it more.

First, the good. I really liked the character designs in Sun/Moon. I enjoyed Alola more than Kalos, I enjoyed the new Pokemon in Alola more, and I appreciated that they tried to do something different with the Trials instead of the Gyms. I liked that they tried to breathe new life into old Pokemon with Alolan forms.

The downsides: Breeding is still a hassle, even with quality of life improvements, so competitive is still a hassle. Online was a huge step back, no more Super Training, no more being able to access online features while playing, you have to go to a separate screen. For its flaws, the PSS >>>>>>>>>> the Festival Plaza. Let us be able to chat via text and speech online, you cowards! There was a golfer character, but no golf minigame.

6. Pocket Card Jockey (2016)

Pocket Card Jockey was an unheralded 3DS eShop game that combined horse racing and solitaire. But while I played it, it was oh so addictive. I loved raising my horses, racing them, and naming them after obscure video game systems. If you don’t have it, you should definitely buy it. It’s a great way to pass the time.

The art style is incredibly cute as well, you’ll love your horses.

5. Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator (2017)

I almost forgot this game. @hopeies would have killed me if I had, so I put it on the list. I’m not super keen on romance-based visual novels, although I did put Katawa Shoujo on there last year. Being a heterosexual male, I did not think I would enjoy this game, but I was pleasantly surprised. I got to enjoy meeting and getting to know the various dads (Damien and Hugo were my favorites), but the game got some things right with the whole visual novel experience (and some things wrong).

My favorite thing about Dream Daddy, is that you can romance who you want. You can just go, “I want to romance that guy”, and YOU CAN FUCKING DO IT. No decrypting mysterious route conditions, no looking up a guide. And if you don’t know who you want to romance? You can get to know the various dads before committing to one. It also makes it very clear when you’ve pleased or displeased a dad, and pleasing or displeasing a dad is obvious if you’ve paid attention to what they like and don’t like. It takes a ton of the crypticness out of visual novels, and other VNs should take heed.

On the other hand, it doesn’t feature basic visual novel features like being able to backtrack or see a chat log, which is disappointing. DDADDS manages to mix up things by including minigames, made possible by the Unity engine. It also allows you to create your Dadsona, averting the typical blank slate protagonist of most visual novel games.

4. Mystery Chronicle: One Way Heroics (2016)

I bought the original One Way Heroics for 78 cents on Steam and loved it. It was a delightful hybrid of 16-bit JRPG and roguelike, and I was so excited when I heard Spike Chunsoft was doing an enhanced remake of this game. I haven’t played it as much as I want to, but it’s the original game but better, and that’s all I wanted.

To keep you from dawdling, you have to keep moving forward, or else the left edge of the screen will consume you. You also have to keep track of HP and hunger levels. Once you die, that’s it - but you can transfer items between playthroughs and gain perks that will help you do better in future playthroughs.

It’s such a delightful throwback to the old days, and a fun roguelike.

3. Love Live! School Idol Festival (2014)

This is the first ever mobile game to make the list. I knew I wanted to download this once I joined the mobile world - Cute girls, trading cards, and music? What’s not to like? The rhythm game aspect is very good. It’s very responsive, and fun. The visual novel aspect is kind of hit or miss, but I love the girls, so it’s all good. It’s basically just the characters being themselves, and no real story of importance. I wish the game was a bit less stingy with love gems, but otherwise, I love it.

2. Nier (2010)

Nier is kind of punching above its weight here. While the game itself isn’t anything special, it’s wrapped up in this awesome music, beautiful graphics, and innovative storytelling that makes it something special. Besides, Yoko Taro is just a great guy. I can’t wait to get a chance to play Automata, so I can surely put it on a future list.

1. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (1997)

This is the video that convinced me to give SOTN another try:

It truly is a masterpiece, but some of my own thoughts: It’s a shame Sony discouraged 2D games on the PS1, because the 2D games on the PS1 are timeless. 2D is timeless. 3D ends up looking like shit later, and the PS1 3D games surely do look like shit.

#shylax original #text #video games #shylax top 10 of 2017

[felipaynst717-blog]

Wie erhalte ich kostenlose spiele von rtl und zahle nicht The Outer Worlds

Review The Outer Worlds

A year ago, Obsidian published The Outer Worlds on the say of dangerous complaint of Outcome 76. Today, when Bethesda no longer presents the quilt of the bad RPG release, things happen so attractive anymore.

From the beginning, a muted voice behind the skull warned us hostile to The Outer Worlds. That undertaken to convert myself that this game is not exactly what I became expecting – that it will not necessarily exist a new magnum opus from Obsidian Entertainment, value any volume of funds with any amount of times of your kick. The silent voice was not very well... but it became completely wrong either. The Outer Worlds walked away only a good game.

But that project took every risk in the planet to be a great success. After all, Feargus Urquhart's group used the same framework as with the past games, with Pillars of Eternity at the forefront. They catch on the origin in the RPG genre – however, the beginnings of the Fight series – and gone work the same dish, according to the same recipe, maybe adding some more modern flavors, such as original imagination and using more modern hardware. The controls was conquered from the best people imaginable – Timothy Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, without to whom, the Tomb Boy would never get happened conceived.

Obsidian dropped the isometric perspective (their latest experiments proved that the growth for games with like perspective had stopped) and moved to a 3-dimensional environment. And that wasn't the first time he'd accomplished this – Fallout: New Vegas is still widely acknowledged with the followers of the RPG genre, most of which believe that the best part of the entire series. What might spread so wrong regarding The Outer Worlds? Unfortunately, lots of things – actually within the districts to should not present a problem to equally experienced developers.

Waiter! There's Borerlands in my Fallout!

You'd think, perhaps, to my analysis of The Outer Worlds would turn largely around the game's archaic technology. That's right, and I have a lot to say about it, but I'll choose a less noticeable, and simultaneously much more valuable element of the game. I'll focus on the deciding.

Don't get me wrong – Obsidian created a unique and gaining universe. The fierce border in the space, ironically titled the Arcadia, dictated next to a unpredictable, retrofuturistic company, is surely an interesting place on an adventure. Especially because creators allowed the head go natural and hurled in the lot of crazy ideas, finishing it happy with a little absurd humor.

Unfortunately, someone decided that this frivolous planet will have a very important story, with serious ethical dilemmas. Sounds somewhat like Fallout? Sure, it was unquestionably the plan of the developers – but they've seemingly needed this much; we'd ordered black tea, then understand Regent's Punch rather. The mixture causes a serious cognitive dissonance.

The world of Results was uniquely heavy, gloomy, and no sum of black humor from the game can difference to – absolutely the opposing, actually – that generally expanded the cold fact in the post-apocalyptic USA. The general format of the mark of The Outer Worlds – the struggle for survival of a colony faced with starvation – echoes some personal themes. The problem is the game is undoubtedly overloaded with jokes, as for such an important story.

Humor almost pours through the screen. The power of the company is absurd. By every turn, we are confronted with preposterous regulations and procedures, and the pioneers, every single one, are lots of helpless administrators and complete idiots, that lay their banal issues for the protagonist. Want examples? Just take a look at the screenshots within the text. Maybe it's amusing – but then how is the person supposed to heal the gossip really? And Obsidian ultimately care for their production to get selected seriously, since this carousel of enjoyment sometimes unexpectedly freezes, and we're facing a perfectly serious choice, such as whether to lose human energy in the designation of growth.

Participating in The Outer Worlds feels like looking at The Hitchhiker's Lead for the Universe, yet with quotes from Dune, The Foundation, or Solaris popping up every couple of leaves. Or, working a gaming analogy, it is like playing Borderlands, and then unexpectedly jumping to the many intense themes of Majority Effect, or maybe possibly the horror of Deadly Place every occasionally. The disagreement is hella strong.

New Vegas 1.1

Let's observe The Outer Worlds plays. In terms of gameplay, Obsidian Entertainment's latest development bares the dagger. It's a pure-blood RPG with a gameplay model in which inspirations of Fight are revealed much more clearly than from the setting. The character progress is mysterious and development, there's great liberty with participating in the task you want, the quests remain open and imaginative, as is the history itself – those are the bases in the game, and they prepare deliver a great exchange of entertaining.

The end of these be the most impression on us in The Outer Worlds. The voyage begins the moment the idol developed by the person, a element of the thousands-strong team of the lost colonization ship Dream, is got up from hibernation by the "mad scientist," Phineas Wells. He shows a rather bleak state to the character – the Meeting, a group governing the institution, is steer the Arcadia to their decline, having broken the promising grip of mankind into the undernourished hell plagued with red tape.

The only way to salvation, explains Welles, is to develop the best concentration of Anticipation, and bring down the Congress with their help. Now, you might reflect that the structure with the history gets lately become created, with the great with negative characters introduced. But the game quickly recommend a subversive thought: why not team up with the company, and allow them the fugitive scientist? Of course, the Congress is probably also aware of how serious things try the colony, and it needs a solution to that. Also the reason not solely ignore the entire affair and try to work with your own thinking to stuff with your own pockets? Or just drown the Arcadia with body, killing anyone at your way?

The game isn't a straight sandbox, but the history of The Outer Worlds experience nearly quite bright sandbox (or rather: nonlinear) features. And even though we only have two simple endings (achieved through a progression of quests which occur essentially the same vision), the participants could accomplish much different effects depending in they way they choose to finish the objective, treat certain makeup, with manage different factions. The persons that enjoy changing the account with news may love it.

Do everything you have to do

Thus, we visit the back strongest aspect of the game, that is. the independence of solving problems. Obsidian doesn't also try to cover the foundation of the mechanics in The Outer Worlds – and especially the character development – is gained straight through Fallout's SPECIAL. On the middle are six capabilities that will govern over a dozen abilities, plus the abilities further revise the stats (they're an equivalent in the famous perks, but while there are only certain aptitudes, the organism isn't that making).

Yet, that provides player a huge liberty in answering problems during the quests. In addition to formulaic combat talents – melee weapons, fire, or blocking – you can spend statements in stopping, hacking, pressure, or sciences. And, what's much more interesting, we constantly come across the possibility of blending and applying these abilities. That's because there's almost invariably more than one way leading to any position, and earlier fighting hostile NPCs, the player's are always able to go and crack the dangerous condition with diplomacy. Do this to say that the campaign with the final boss (and the entire combat sequence preceding it) might be prevented through the use of combined logical and rhetorical abilities.

The independence to act a spirit regarding the mechanics goes hand in hand with the way conversations work. It is another aspect that will get waves of Fallout feel at home. Talks with NPCs are lushly turn out, present the participant a broad variety of possible actions. Just as you can eliminate any NPC, you can also just insult anyone you're talking to, be cruel fun of these, and appropriate their final money. In the word – acting like a complete asshole. And a new interesting fact here – having a character with really small intelligence opens a special, "children's" style in the dialogue. Not a very practical business, but this a nice addition.

The paradox in the next dimension

Up to this point, The Outer Worlds seems able to continue their ground being a very capable RPG, in which the greatest issue is the gimmicky world. Unfortunately, Obsidian do another strategic problem when designing the game – they gamble in three-dimensional graphics.

Despite numerous conflict avoidance decisions for nerds and representatives, TOW still puts a lot of emphasis on deal with. This becomes apparent just seconds after you dump the shelter with the location walls. The query of the not-so-big portions in the forests – even if done all along the chief routes – is regularly "diversified" in chance meets with units of enemies, whose sole purpose of existence is waiting for a chance to kill somebody. And that wouldn't be something in particular bad if the combat became as ordinary.

Eight days have crossed since launch of Outcome: New Vegas, and also the beat mechanics of The Outer Worlds seem like the experience was generated only a year later on. The clumsy animations, dumb AI-controlled opponents, and primitive weapon mechanics, which don't let you feel any influence with the weapon, make the entire experience largely similar to FNV, and seldom offer any satisfaction. And if you think melee weapons offer something greater, think again – it’s actually worse here. You can evaluate and choose designed for a quiet methodology with escape combat altogether (here, Obsidian tried to offer something up-to-date also begun hiding in tall grass), but it is not really cool either... Besides, sparing enemies doesn't yield XP, so there's no reward here.

Technical level – Obsidian

The retrograde technical layer is plain just from the start. Take area and shops, for instance – in many cases, these positions are filled separately, but they're not even substantial in mass. Details are remarkably base in the cities, disturbed with empty seat and miserable imitations of a living atmosphere in formula of tiny companies if motionless dummies (character activities is an additional concern – equally depressing). There's not enough background noise to supply the impact of being in the actual city. The previously mentioned wild areas and seem archaic – they're trying to discover being straight window without actually being really start.

If the above picture in the "technological wonders" presented in The Outer Worlds wasn't quality entertainment for you, let me talk about optimization for a while. Sorry – "optimization." I participated in on the decent computer with a Central i5-4570 (3.2 GHz), 16GB of THRUST, also a GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB) at very high situations in 1080p motion, plus a constant 60 frames per minute was not anything I could enjoy frequently. The framerate often dropped to about 40fps for no apparent reason. As if that remained enough – even on an SSD – I frequently felt short freezes created by pile of data, then following getting to a new, larger field, the surfaces and purposes would pop-up right or my senses for a few seconds. It was grotesque.

On the other hand – in at least 30 hours of comedy, rarely encountered any major problem. The game of course incorporates a light total of glitches (like as bodies flying about), but a serious mistake occurred just the moment: At one feature, the game concluded that one of our buddy had expired – several seconds later talking to him, during a completely safe spaceship flight. But that was possibly a difficulty of bad luck. After all, we're referring to a game by Obsidian Entertainment.

Perhaps this completely doesn't matter?

"If Fallout: New Vegas survived a sensation despite many it is technical shortcomings, why must that vary with The Outer Worlds?" There are two things in play here. First, FNV isn't remembered as an outdated glitchfest simply because it allowed us a fantastic narrative. TOW doesn't get the same worth from the story – and the idea not just about the bitter-sweet, incoherent setting.

The game certainly has it's share of interesting journey and inventive jobs, but ultimately, it might get been there a lot better. The best way to illustrate this is with the staff. That a bunch of nice personalities, whose dialogues were produced with plenty of skill as to produce them think alive. Hier finden Sie weitere Informationen One would, still, require more charm from them – particularly by their own private threads, often quite brief, seeming rather forced. Same goes for many quests, even the main ones – plenty of them feels purposeless.

Another big difficulty of The Outer Worlds is that many has gone on in the RPG genre since the announcement of Consequences: New Vegas. We've witnessed a major convergence of the Act with RPG genres; self-identifying as role-play is no longer a free for crude combat mechanics. If we think about FPP games, there's not exactly the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077, yet yet the poor Fallout 4, falling short of most real shooters, is miles ahead TOW in terms of gunplay.

All that contributes to the unhappy conclusion to Obsidian Entertainment just did not have enough money to generate The Outer Worlds the kind of game they'd meant. I believe the lion's bit on the budget went to recording dialogues (with a moderately successful answer) with the job of the designers who had to go Arcadia a unique think (that, used for a switch, gone away reasonably clearly). Aiding the Fantastic Engine was likely a dance aimed at but some money – this, theoretically, ensured nice graphics for a little price – further reduced with the deal with Epic Games Store.

However, the developers didn't have the means to enhance the mechanics, be the world a little bigger, and, above all, allow more head with explaining to the chronicle – making it longer, with more cut-scenes and poses. Do this to say that the ending from the primary plan can properly be range into moral 15 hours (side quests should produce another 15).

So, why the make? That's because The Outer Worlds should be regarded primarily as a traditional RPG – and really, if we assess that from this area, we have to admit that some really good craftsmanship. If you miss the good other evening of "rolplays," in which nameless heroes willingly hurried to help collect (or eliminate) the world for no actual purpose, and spent their own time about any trifle mission in the character of acquiring experience points along the way – The Outer Worlds can contract a grab of nostalgia from your eyes. Unfortunately, for everyone also, those will be mainly tears of trouble with grief – of the wasted potential.

#The Outer Worlds #PC Review

[islandsdevlog]

Islands 0.0.1-alpha.20190112

Added a very simple system that generates and places world objects – currently only apples, rocks, and trees – on the terrain. It tracks the objects in a tilemap data structure and updates it when objects are removed (when an apple is picked).

The goal of this iteration was to establish a baseline for managing and generating world objects. Apples are interactive items. Rocks were used to add collisions to the world. Trees to work on depth sorting. I didn’t want to spend so much time at this point on terrain and object generation, better to focus on gameplay and mechanics. Yet I still got sucked in. Though I did have to build this baseline to work from sometime soon.

There’s a lot of nuance in finding the right data structure for managing tiles; there are multiple layers; some objects move, some are static; there can be objects that span multiple tiles. There’s always a trade-off between performance and developer productivity. I’ve picked one format to start with, but I’m not holding on too tightly. If things become unreadable, if I’ll need a better interface, or to squeeze more performance out of it – things will change. As long as the innards of the tile system will only be handled by select few entities and through a strict interface, changing things down the line won’t be too painful.

Thought and read on how to handle multi-tile objects. Couldn’t find an elegant solution. All are clumsy and will affect pathfinding, world state tracking, and performance. I’m avoiding this for now, even though it will be less painful the sooner it gets done.

To make the math easier, moved to using a Unity unit as the size of a tile in the tilemap. Previously each tile was 0.16 units. Changed all existing assets to work with the new setup. The highlight interactions overlap box check was hardcoded to the previous values and had to be changed. So did the offset of the interaction progress bar above the player’s head. After the change, the tiles looked worse. Changing the import settings of the assets to use a point instead of bilinear filter mode helped. I want the camera to be kept close to the player and not show too much of the surrounding area. For now, everything related to positioning is hardcoded to assume that one tile equals one unit. This was a good change to do early. It would have been much more painful later on.

Starting out, I worked on an items manager. It made sense when the only object we were dealing with was the apple. Adding rocks as an item was pushing it, but with trees it really made no sense. The items manager was changed to a world objects manager. Some of the world objects can be items, some aren’t.

Having to refactor and separate between items and world objects made me realize how cumbersome, harrowing and error-prone refactoring will be in large Unity projects. Even with static typing and reference search, sweeping changes will not be fun.

Added an ItemType struct with None and FoodItem options. Added an ItemType type property to ItemData. It’s not actually used. Added it working with one direction in mind, then switched to another. Since it will almost definitely be used at some point in the future, and since I’m not immune to feeling bad throwing away code, I’ve kept it.

Added a WorldObjectGenerationData scriptable object which references a specific prefab for the object and notes the object’s spawn probability. Created instances for the apple, the rock, and the tree prefabs.

Added a WorldObjectsLayerTile struct. An array of these is used as the tilemap for the world objects manager. It holds a reference to a WorldObjectGenerationData instance and to the object’s game object. The first is used to mark the tile while generating, the second to reference the game object that has been instantiated in a tile. It’s not the best format, and I already have some directions in which I want to change it, but best to run with it and change when needed.

Short cleanup of the TerrainTileMap generation. Used better property names. Removed a (currently) unnecessary data structure to track the tiles. Moved things from Start() to a GenerateAndRenderTilemap() function (which still gets called at the start).

Added a GenerationSettings global with a default instance. It holds the height and width of the map we want to generate. Both TerrainTileMap and the WorldObjectsManager use it when generating the terrain and placing the world objects.

Added a WorldObjectsManager class to manage world objects generation and lifecycle operations.

Based on a HideObjectsInHierarchy boolean setting, generated objects can be hidden or shown in the Unity editor.

An array of WorldObjectGenerationData is used to generate the objects. A two-dimensional array of WorldObjectsLayerTile is used as a tilemap.

At the start, it first marks on the tilemap which world objects should be generated, and in a separate step instantiates the objects and keeps a reference to them in the tilemap. Later on there will be further steps that alter object generation between these two.

When an ItemInteractionCompleted event is raised, the world objects manager removes the item in question from the tilemap. OnActiveInteractionCompleted() handles the event and extracts the item position from the event data, and RemoveWorldObject() does the deed.

GenerateWorldObjectsMap() iterates over all the world objects and on each of the tiles. At every tile it rolls a dice against the object’s spawn probability to see if it should be placed there. If so, it makes the tile with the object’s generation data. The check is skipped if the tile is already occupied. This means that objects lower down the list will have less tiles for them to be generated on. It’s a quirk, but it can be solved by storing all the objects that successfully rolled the dice at the tile and adding a sweep stage at the end of the generation process that selects one of them at random. Using probabilities gives less control to the designer but makes the implementation much easier than trying to work out the constraints of a fixed number of items. Still, some items will need to be placed in fixed fashion with strict rules, but the less of those there are, the easier it is to implement.

InstantiateWorldObjects() and InstantiateWorldObject() are then used to instantiate the objects based on the generated tilemap markers.

Added a RigidBody2D and a collider components to the player. Added collider to all world objects. Fixed the player to not rotate on collision.

In the player’s check that selects an item interaction to highlight, only objects tagged as an interactiveItem will now be considered. Tagged only the apple as such. Tags might not be the best way to do the filtering, but it’s okay to start with.

The player’s movement is now done using its RigidBody2D velocity rather than changing its transform directly. This was done to prevent the camera from jittering when colliding with objects.

Put the sorting layers into order. Added two scripts to all world objects and to the player to manage their depth sort. DynamicDepthSort is used for moving objects and StaticDepthSort is its counterpart. The scripts look very much like the one described here.

Added a FadeObjectsInDirectLineOfSight script to the main camera. On every frame, it uses a raycast to find all objects (with a collider) directly in front of the camera. Any that are not the player are faded out to be half transparent so that the player can be seen. Previously faded objects are tracked and set to full transparency before we run the check again. Had to add a second, trigger, capsule collider to the top of the tree to make this work. I’m not completely happy with this interaction, but it will do for now.

Tweened the fade out and the fade in using Surge. I don’t much like to use packages from the Unity asset store, but this one seems to do the trick, has a decent API, and keeps to itself. We’ll see.

Created a docs folder and a checklist for adding new world objects and items. It’s surprisingly long for this stage of development.

Added RequireComponent attribute to scripts as needed. Forgot it exists.

The GameEventsLog now ignores and does nothing for any event other than an ItemInteractionCompleted event. A bit of defensive programming.

[terryblount]

Below – Review

It seems our industry is going through a phase lately where gamers really place value on skill. New speedrunning videos flood my YouTube feed, 16-bit games are making a comeback, and esports champions are regarded as gods in some circles. Then there is also the surge of new rogue-lites on Steam to consider.

It is in this latter category that the latest release by Capybara Games, named Below, wants to make its mark. On paper, Below has the makings of a classic, bona fide rogue-lite. It features uncomplicated yet challenging gameplay, a robust crafting and combat system, and, of course, the infamous ‘permadeath’ (dying marks the end of your progress).

In other words, the game could have been endlessly rewarding to observant and cautious players, and relentlessly punishing to reckless ones. Yet, after repeatedly making my way through the labyrinthine caverns that make up Below’s setting, I found myself reluctantly admitting that I was not having fun.

Can you spot the character? I swear I did not use Ancel to zoom out

Instead of coaxing me into that ‘just one more time’ stupor that is the privilege of this genre, the overall experience just made me yearn to put my controller down. The gameplay is fun, the aesthetics are brilliant, and the world begs to be explored. However, the game’s slow pacing combined with repetitive gameplay inevitably spilled over into monotony.

Stories around the campfire

From the opening mini-cinematic, Below shows that it embraces minimalism. The story, the environments, and the audio-visual style only reveal what is absolutely necessary, which means that it is up to the player to figure things out. It is actually a very effective way of getting your imagination deeply involved in the gameplay.

As a result, Below manages to be every bit as immersive as games that are far more elaborate in their execution. The game slowly opens with what at first glance appears to be a vast, starry sky until I realized that I was actually looking at an ocean. Once the camera started its slow, downward zoom, the white dot in the middle of the screen turned out to be a tiny ship sailing across the stormy waters. It was heading for an ominous-looking island.

The tiny ship eventually reached the shoreline, and an equally small figure with a sword and shield disembarked, waiting for me to take control. I guess I am a knight then? It is hard to tell because the game’s isometrically-angled camera is placed at a considerable distance. Even playing on a 30 inch screen (with my glasses on), I struggled to make out exactly what I am.

Furthermore, the game doesn’t provide an objective, dialogue or button prompts, and pulling up the ‘map’ button just displays a little circle attached to two lines. Throwing caution to the wind, I set off anyway and eventually reached a dead camp fire. Can I light it? Yes, and activating the blazing hearth opens two symbols.

Lighting the camp fire on the shore

One symbol is inactive for now, while the other opens an inventory of sorts with blank slots. Aha! I think I just found what must be my crafting roster. After leaving the fire I did indeed discover various foodstuffs, minerals and pieces of wood that can be combined into things like arrows, powders, or even caltrops.

I also stumbled upon other menus where I can swap between secondary weapons like a hammer or a bow, and another menu which indicates what keys or armor I am carrying. More exploring also yielded a lantern which uses little diamond shaped shards as fuel. When its beam is concentrated, the lantern can even open magical, rune-covered doors.

Let there be light – opening a door with the lantern.

So far, so good. The exploration was clearly rewarding, and the controls are snappy and intuitive. I think I am now ready to proceed through the huge door I just opened with my lantern to where the real game begins. What happens on the shore of the island is basically just to prepare the player for the depths that are to come.

Into the abyss

Whereas the island’s surface hosts a busy, hectic atmosphere that just makes you want to take cover, the underground, where 95% of the game takes place, is wholly different.  Down here, the game adopts a dark, quiet and foreboding tone. Exploring on land was nothing compared to how vulnerable and isolated I suddenly felt.

Perhaps my map now has an objective? Nope, but at least I know the circle or square represents a room, and the lines signify the routes connected to it. Saving my lantern for later, I pull out a torch and begin to wade cautiously through the foggy darkness. I appear to be in a cavern of some sort since I hear echoing drops of water trickling in the dark.

Never mind finding your way, where the hell is the character!?

When I saw the dark, shadowy figure scuttle toward me, I realized I was about to experience the game’s combat. It moves too fast to make out what is on the attack, but my sword is ready. I block with my shield and slash at the shadowy foe. It proves no match for my little explorer, and I stash away the lantern shard that the creature drops after it dies.

After searching the whole area, I proceed to the next, randomly-generated room to find more enemies for the picking, along with more loot to gather. I also make short work of this lot since I am really getting the hang of the engaging combat mechanics. Before I know it, a number 2 slowly appears at the top of the screen to inform me I have descended to the second level. Nice.

Sadly, the spell would be broken around level 3. Here I faced slightly larger versions of the shadow creatures, but using my explosive arrows ensured that they met the same fate as their lesser counterparts. It was also at this point that I began to hear a resonating bass note for the first time, and two symbols resembling a stomach and a drop of water pulsed in the upper corner of the screen.

Guess that means I am hungry and thirsty. No problem, since I have a steak stashed away, and there happens to be a drinking puddle to my left. After gaining some sustenance, I noticed a weird rock jutting out the ground and decided to inspect it. I got close… and WHAM!! I got killed instantly by what now revealed itself as a spike trap.

Don’t worry. This is a part of the level. I did not die this many times!

I was still sitting with my mouth agape when the next ship was already en route to the island. Only this time, the ruins of the ship on my first try was lying in the shallows, and the knight/hero looks a little different. I later found out I could even get most of my stuff from the corpse off the guy I just strolled face first into the spikes.

Hey, this is a rogue-lite. You have to ‘git gud.’ I said a word that starts with ‘f’ and rhymes with ‘luck’, and started over.

 Enjoy it while it lasts

It was round about here that I already started liking Below a bit less. It took quite some time to reach the spikes bit since this game’s style really encourages the player to explore and take their time. However, to do ALL of this again (especially without any immediate sense of danger) brought on the first feelings of boredom.

Now factor in how long it takes to get to, say, level 16 only to die of another inconspicuously placed trap and you can imagine why I said enough is enough. By the umpteenth time you pull up on that shore, it will become incrementally difficult to stay excited and engaged in the gameplay.

At least the repetitiveness is mitigated somewhat by ‘The Pocket’ which is an area accessible through a portal activated at the little camp fires. It acts like a bank in which you can permanently stash any kind of supply and it remains untouched upon your death.

You can also toss 25 gems into said camp fire turning the flames blue on the later levels. This then acts as a shortcut, so when your new little wanderer pulls up on shore, they can fast travel to this point and thus cutting out quite a bit of the (re)grind.

Most unfortunately, the developers thought it wise to only allow this once. If you happen to die after teleporting through the flames (without making a new shortcut), then you lose the checkpoint. This means you are stuck right at the beginning of the game with no supplies or gems, and your previous wanderer’s corpse might be 10 floors down along with the lantern.

See the little white skeleton? That was my previous attempt

Also, as a teenager my mother used to accuse me of eating her out of the house, but this little fellow would put even my pubescent metabolism to shame. I often lost substantial progress not due to deadly traps or enemies, but starvation. One of the most frequent sounds the player will hear is that ominous bass tone signifying thirst or that their tummy is rumbling.

Perhaps you are playing as a hobbit, which would explain why the character is so small and constantly getting peckish. Either way, if the player is caught without food, the only way to avoid death by lack of num-num is by means of tedious backtracking looking for mice, bats and snakes to kill. Is this anyone’s idea of a thrilling quest?

Sad but true

I can only tell myself so many times that this game is a rogue-lite and that I should learn from my mistakes. A game with a more laid-back pacing and insta-kill traps is simply not built for this kind of repetition. There are far better methods of creating a sense of challenge or danger that do not rely upon excessive farming for supplies, or replaying large portions of the levels.

What makes the state of Below so tragic is that it has such solid gameplay and aesthetics. Yes, you might be viewing the action from afar, but the withdrawn perspective of the camera really creates a sense that you are this tiny, exposed figure in an enormous space.

For the same reason, Below also boasts exquisite sound design. The deep, guttural background effect combined with realistic reverberation enhances a sense of depth for the in-game environments. The experience is a testimony to the fact that immersion is a product of atmosphere, and not necessarily the GPU-heavy special effects that AAA games so eagerly use.

Made it to the next level… again

I suspect that the developers wanted to combine the resource gathering of a survival game with the combat mechanics of a rogue-lite. As such, their game never really commits to either genre, and I feel like they have produced a game that has something of an identity crisis. What they have come up with feels too much like a house of cards – the whole structure just ends up crashing down due to a few small but crucial issues with the cards at the foundations.

I really hate to say this, especially since Below is an indie game, but I cannot recommend this one. The developers have stepped into the rookie trap of confusing the line between ‘challenging’ and ‘unfairly hard,’ which seems to happen one too many times nowadays. When placed next to other, more refined attempts with similar ambitions, Below just cannot hold up.

Great visual design

Enthralling audio design

Level design

Exploration

Pacing too slow

Single use shortcuts

Instant death traps

Periodic crashes

Survival mechanics

Lantern retrieval

Playtime: 37 hours total. To complete all 20 levels of the game

Computer Specs: Windows 10 64-bit computer using GTX 1070, i5 4690K, 16GB RAM – Played with Xbox One Controller

Below – Review published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

[dapperkobold]

Review at Random: Diablo 3

Just finished the main plotline of Diablo 3, and I have some thoughts on it. If you’re settling in to hear my analysis of its in-depth systems... don’t. I just finished my first playthrough of the basic story, and while it’s a good game those in-depth systems I basically didn’t notice.

Presentation

The Diablo series of games is pretty much the iconic example of the isometric hack and slash RPG, and while not a lot wowed me the presentation is without a doubt solid. Graphics, performance, voice acting, music, UI, it’s all really solid. I never hit a bad bug, or something that was just ugly, or wonky voice acting, or any such nonsense.

You’ll spend a lot of time in dungeons, and the rest of the time in I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-a-dungeons, and each dungeon has its own unique tileset and atmosphere. Really, they clearly went the extra mile to get good graphics and environmental details, such as one point when you’re on the walls of a fort and sometimes you can look down and see a battle raging on the ground, without letting them overtake the gameplay and writing.

That said, those dungeons aren’t perfect and especially the longer ones with larger floors got a little monotonous. More on this later, but the issue is partially presentation; I realize that these dungeons are procedurally generated but having one or two kinds of halls and maybe half a dozen rooms per tileset was FAR too few. Since those tilesets are really the core of the presentation of the game, it was disappointing. 

Overall, while everything was solid nothing was spectacular. Nothing really made me stop and say “that’s so pretty!” I don’t want to really force games to do that to please me, but it’s still an area that could have used improvement. Nothing even was too shocking to me, each area has a custom tileset but never really has a surprise in store. As a result I really focused on the gameplay and story instead of the presentation, which I’m all for but doesn’t really say good things about the presentation itself.

There is one more issue, though. I feel a need to address it because it has a sizable impact on the game: The always on-line connection. Now, I’m not militantly against always on-line games. I’ll sigh about it, I’ll roll my eyes about it, I’ll note a good long list of reasons why it’s a bad idea if asked, but I’ll generally only throw a snit over it if there is just NO reason to enforce an always on-line model. For example, Overwatch is so focused on online play that singleplayer is borderline unheard of, so an always on-line connection is (while still not needed from my point of view) understandable.

Diablo 3 has NO excuse.

Yes, it does have a co-op mode, yes it has challenges, BUT that’s no reason to lock the singleplayer campaign from offline access. And this has been a problem for me, Diablo 3 has the touchiest netcode of any game I have ever played. I’ve had this game for a long time (since the necromancer expansion) and only now have I gotten around to finishing it, because every time it was “but do I want to suffer the threat of it disconnecting right now?” This game has disconnected me more than any other online game I have ever played, including ones I have logged a lot more time in.

Yes, it is honestly that bad. The saving is consistent enough that I never lost a meaningful amount of progress (with one weird exception) but it was just aggravating enough for no good reason that I’d go as far as to call it this game’s fatal flaw.

Final Presentation Sore: B

A solid core, no doubt, but the not enough breadth in the tilesets and no wow factor for extra credit keeps this at an A or A-. Then the connection issues kick it down a letter grade. YES, I am that grumpy about them.

Gameplay

The real meat of this game, make no doubt, this is clearly a very deep complex and nuanced system I do not give a whit about!

...yeah.

Class mechanics seem solid. Okay. Mechanical character customization? Mainly just what you choose for your ability loadout. The famous loot? I basically just equipped up a new piece when the total + from the three broad categories was more than the total - and I was fine.

“But but but what about elemental damage, and heal on kill vs heal per attack, and intelligence vs dexterity, and thorns vs straight damage?” I didn’t care. The game did not explain how all the stats worked together, I did not need to know how the interactions worked out, I just played through and had some fun. Did this result in me making less than idea decisions? Yes. 100%. I likely would have made MORE nonideal decisions if I had all the information, that’s just the kind of person I am!

But I didn’t care, and didn’t need to care. I guess that could have a good spin on it, ‘good depth for those who care that can be ignored by those who don’t’, but I’m not sure it’s quite that true. You see, I’ve only completed one run through on Expert level, and it was pretty easy. I only died once, chasing a treasure goblin into a mass of angry super-enemies, and after that I only really gave respect to arcane enemies and other outliers that did a lot more than normal damage. For all I know that becomes massively untrue on higher difficulties, it’s possible that by clicking over to torment you suddenly need to actually know stuff to go anywhere.

That said, ‘Expert’ could have afforded to be more challenging. I basically found one loadout of skills that I used the entire way through, never changing because I never hit something that it couldn’t take on. I was playing a crusader, if it matters, but I solved basically all my issues by throwing hammers or occasionally calling down a sky laser. Ideally a ‘takes all comers’ loadout should have trouble in one situation or another, but the only time I changed was when A. I got a bit of equipment that gave a huge boost to something or B. I got a new customization option that did it better.

And I know what you’re saying. You’re saying ‘so turn up the difficulty!’ You can’t turn it up past expert on your first play-through. I would have if I could have.

It doesn’t help that basically all the enemies are interchangeable. Okay, I mean, sure some have range attacks, and some have knockback, and some cast spells, but there’s nothing I hit that made me say ‘ooh, these are trouble!’ Or ‘oh this is bad’ other than running into two groups of rares at the same time. I just tanked and threw hammers. Sometimes straight hammers, sometimes hammerangs, sometimes sky lasers, sometimes I became big so I could throw infinite hammerangs for a bit. I never found a situation that made me change up my strategy.

The only monsters I remember as being of note are the tremblers, because I thought at first they were protected from the front but they weren’t, the fat demon casters that were annoying, and the punishers from the start of the expansion act because I recognized them from Heroes of the Storm. Turns out they were just generic big enemies with hops.

Yes, maybe it is my fault for not experimenting more, but I was just never given a reason to experiment. And if the problem isn’t there at higher difficulties, why force the player to play at ‘low’ difficulties the first time through?

That said, the mechanics clearly are very in-depth, and barring when it drags on it IS A fun game, make no mistake. It’s just that it does tend to drag on.

This isn’t helped by the dungeons being large and not having much variety. Yes, I already said this above but it’s true for mechanics, too. There’s basically no puzzles or challenges of wit, just enemies, things to loot, doors, and the occasional trap. The big exception to this is a keep level where you need to activate things or defend some NPCs for a bit, but that’s the only time I remember odd mechanics other than one quick townsfolk saving bit. I seem to vaguely remember something from a prison that was slightly unusual, but I think that just boiled down to activating a thing before killing the things.

Maybe this just isn’t for me. I dunno.

Final Gameplay Score: C+

The gameply isn’t bad, or even just disappointing, just... not a big deal. It’s a little disappointing, I guess, to not have to worry about the advanced systems even a little. It was too easy and became monotonous, but (despite my gripes) it’s not a bad game. Maybe it’s just not my thing, but by the end I just didn’t care.

Writing

I had heard good things about the writing in this game. I went in with high hopes, and was... well, I was a little disappointed. It has a good plot for a non-narrative-focused game, but it wouldn’t make it in the ring if put up against gaming history’s writing heavyweights. A lot of the twists are really obvious, not a single one of the villains are the least bit trope-savy, and the logic partaken in by some of the characters is laughable.

Likely this game’s biggest saving grace is some of the character writing, however. There’s a fair amount of it scattered around and a good chunk is quality stuff. My favorite characters are, without a doubt, Lyndon the Scoundrel and Covetous Shen.

Neither of those are main characters. It’s that kind of game.

That said, I would like to take a moment to give a shoutout to whoever wrote the Crusader’s dialogue. This is how you do Lawful Good without being a pain, people. If you want to play a paladin in D&D or Pathfinder and want to know how to do it without being That One Paladin, check out the D3 Crusader.

Final Writing Score: B+

The poor plot logic is the vast majority of lost points here, but some honestly lovable characters and solid writing around the shaky plot means that it’s still enjoyable.

Overall

I mean... it’s fine?

Okay, this game is a success, and it deserves to be a success make no mistake, but it’s not amazing. The gameplay doesn’t stand out for me, the presentation doesn’t stand out for me, and while some of the character bits are good the core plot is pretty trite stuff. There was no one point where I went ‘ooh’, no one thing that grabbed me. Maybe it’s meant to be played several times, with friends, and I’d be all for playing it some more with friends, but it doesn’t really stand tall enough that I want to turn around and play it again right away.

Presentation: B

Gameplay: C+

Writing: B+

FINAL GRADE: B

It’s fine, make no mistake.

Awards:

Fatal Flaw

Get an Interior Decorator

The Most Honest Thief You Will Ever Meet

#Diablo 3 #reviews at random #Maybe I should have played a caster class #whatever #I'll try it sometime and do an add-on if I feel it warrants a change. #Humans are the only source of common sense in the diablo uniververse #no really #think about it

[crystalized-dreams]

PC Gaming Show

So, as I mentioned yesterday, I would be talking more about Ooblets today! I was so excited to see a new trailer that not only showed a bit more of the customization aspects (with a clothing store and getting your hair done), but also more areas and even two new Ooblets, Glanter and Snurfler. I just genuinely can’t wait for the game? It looks so cute and charming and it’s really going to be a game I can see myself doing both updates here and videos like with Animal Crossing. I can’t wait until it comes out next year. Dooziedug and Petula are probably my two favorite Ooblets right now, but they’re all incredibly cute.

I will say though that I’m not sure what exactly is with the PC Gaming Show, but it always comes off a bit boring. When it shows Game Trailers, great, but things like random commercials and long spiels are just often kind of awkward. Despite that though, I was happy to finally see another game capture my attention–Tunic. The trailer mostly walked through some combat and a few level designs, but it’s really pretty and I love the isometric style of it. Unfortunately, they didn’t really say much about the game–I’m not sure if maybe they would have if sound didn’t cut out, but oh well. The game is actually about two years old now having originally been called the Secret Legend. It’s nice to see it back and looking forward to playing it in 2018 🙂

Oddly enough, even though I know Sea of Thieves will be on PC and it’s how I plan to play the game, I wasn’t expecting to see it on the PC Gaming Show and was excited to see it pop up. The Mixer stream was… glitchy, sadly, so I was excited to see more of it today. I signed up for the Insiders Programme so fingers crossed ❤ Ylands was up next and definitely looks pretty interesting to me. There was a lot I really liked about it and since you can make your own kinds of things and visit others' creations, I feel like it'd give me a lot to do similar to how much I played LittleBigPlanet. My only worry is about the Survival part. I don’t care much for Survival games and just don’t really enjoy them. I prefer things a bit more easygoing. Regardless, if it can be turned off (which, the site barely mentions the feature at all so maybe??), I feel like I’d enjoy the game a lot. I hope you can customize the player character too, though.

The PC gaming conference was definitely longer than I expected it to be, but I’m glad I found a few things that interested me during it.

Ubisoft

Ubisoft’s up next and I’ll be honest–I’m happy they didn’t go to a celebrity host this year. I haven’t enjoyed the hosting of their press conference these last few years now and the jokes were just… never funny. That said, it is Ubisoft so even without a celebrity host, I’m still expecting things to be kind of crazy.

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle was first up and even though it was essentially leaked already, I still have no clue how to feel about it. The Rabbid in Peach’s outfit is cute. Also Miyamoto bringing out the lifesized weapon was kind of cool too: I’m still going to wait to see actual gameplay of it to decide, but I don’t really think it’s a game I am going to want to play just from the promotional material and information alone. At the very least, the world DOES look quite nice: #gallery-0-5 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-5 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 50%; } #gallery-0-5 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-5 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

But I’m not too into the combat itself so I feel like it may be a game I’d rather watch than play myself. I mean, it does look fun and silly, but I just don’t think I’d enjoy that kind of combat system. I do like the cute little bunny-robot thing that moves them when in combat, though.

Similarly, Skull & Bones got my attention from the graphics, but considering the main gameplay sounds like hardcore PVP which is like… one of my least favorite kinds of gameplay, I’ll most likely end up passing on it.

It was then time for the annual Ubisoft concert to go with Just Dance and it was probably one of the most eclectic group this time. I liked the Panda though. The Panda was cool.

So, the first game I wasn’t expecting that I got interested in was Starlink: Battle for Atlas which features ships that you essentially can own and customize in real life and play with in the game and yes, please. My husband will probably talk more about it, but we’re likely getting it for the Nintendo Switch–especially due to the neat Joy-con Add-on. In the meantime, I really like this ship: Fingers crossed for a light pink one.

Also fingers crossed for more Imagine games, but considering it’s been four years since the last ones, my hopes and dreams are already crushed there. More Imagine Detective games would have been nice (SPEAKING OF DETECTIVE GAMES, I STILL WANT DETECTIVE PIKACHU. I will continue this discussion tomorrow with Nintendo). Going back to things that were actually being shown during Ubisoft’s press conference, Beyond Good & Evil 2 looks quite interesting. I never played the first game, but I still find myself intrigued by it.

Surprisingly, I feel like Ubisoft actually did pretty well? Between the hype from Miyamoto showing up, mostly focusing on the games and when they were talking about them, actually keeping it interesting… Like sure, there was the one weird concert part for the latest Just Dance title, but besides being expected, it was actually shorter than usual? And still kind of worked? I definitely didn’t like everything (I still don’t see the appeal in South Park at all for example) and heck, I may not even get any of the games shown (Maybe one??), but it was still really enjoyable and I feel like it’s been a long time since I felt that way from a conference.

Sony

So, I didn’t expect much from the pre-show, but this locket for the special Undertale physical edition is beautiful and also a music box and I need it: Moving on, I just really hope Sony fixes their issues because there have been so many audio issues and we haven’t had any stream buffer this much. It’s a little better on Twitch’s stream for it, but even their audio is kind of messed up. But well, at least we have sound now.

I don’t have much to say about Marvel vs Capcom Infinite, but it seems less like a Versus and more like an Alliance. Still looks kind of interesting though. They then got into their VR section which is frustrating because I’m just… not a fan of VR and Moss looks so cute and interesting, but I just would not play that as a VR game and I wish it could be a normal PS4 game. Like I would probably buy this at launch/preorder it if it was a normal PS4 game? But nope, VR only

Detroit Become Human still looks quite interesting and this was a completely different trailer compared to the first we’ve seen. Still no release date though… I’m not sure if I’d personally play it, but I think it’s a game I’d really enjoy watching.

We then got to see more of the upcoming Spiderman game which just… genuinely does look really good. Another game that I’d be watching over playing myself though. The conference was definitely a bit shorter than I expected, honestly. I guess because they showed a decent amount during the pre-show, but still. All the technical issues were terrible, though. I still want to know who this character is though…

I think Ubisoft, surprisingly, was my favorite for today. Tomorrow is Nintendo’s and the start of Nintendo Treehouse Live so I’m looking forward ot it!

#E32017 Thoughts – Day 3 ( PC Gaming Show, Ubisoft , and Sony) PC Gaming Show So, as I mentioned yesterday, I would be talking more about Ooblets today!

#Beyond Good & Evil 2 #Beyond Good and Evil 2 #Detroit: Become Human #E3 #E3 2017 #Imagine #Imagine Detective #Imagine Series #Mario + Rabbids #Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle #MarioRabbids #Marvel vs Capcom Infinite #Moss #Nintendo Switch #Ooblets #PC #PC Gaming #PC Gaming Show #Playstation Vibe #Playstation VR #PlaystationE3 #PS4 #Sea of Thieves #Secret Legend #Skull & Bones #Skull and Bones #Sony #SonyE3 #Spiderman #Spiderman PS4