#TroubleshootingAndWorkarounds

[dashawfrostart]

This Month In "Time & Again" #36: We Wrote An Automatic White Frame Clean-up Script For The Broken Krita Recorder! 🥳🥂

(I SWEAR I'm not trying to write big posts; they just turn out this way every single time)

In the previous post I wrote about a couple of major workflow tweaks I made to help me out on my "Time & Again" Chapter 6 journey. Well this time, there's more good stuff - not directly related to art itself though, but very handy for something that is related to art.

Earlier (and even earlier) I, together with a bunch of other artists, complained about the broken Krita Recorder that randomly creates blank white frames that makes the final output videos virtually unwatchable. I had to manually go through all the frames that the Recorder has taken - be it 200 or a whooping 20000 - and no less manually weed out all the white frames to make the video watchable.

So, as indicated in that previous post, I finally got to address the issue to automate the process of cleaning up the folders to prepare them for the video conversion. THE TIME HAS COME. Because I started to record everything that I do in Krita to produce timelapses. Yup, all the 61 pages of "Time & Again" Chapter 6. And all the additional and extra little stuff for "Time & Again" and outside of "Time & Again" (although for the sake of clarity and honesty, I must mention that the latter category virtually doesn't exist in my artistic life anymore, for Lothar's adventures take all my creative time).

Needless to say, I urgently needed an automation tool, because I am not going manually through all of my 100000+ frames that the broken Recorder took, wasting hours and hours of time that I could've input into the actual development of "Time & Again".

So, together with the help of our friend and Brian The Editor-in-Chef, we wrote a script that cleans up the white frames without my intervention and without the need to be present while it's doing all the manual tedious job automatically. Finally. The dream came true.

In the essence, it's basically a simple Python script (running through CMD; it's so simple it doesn't have/need a UI) that also uses Pillow library that goes through an entire folder, looks for completely white pictures (completely white per channel), and then deletes them. If there's a single pixel present on a picture, the picture won't be deleted. Simple? Simple. Foolproof? Yes! And it works wonders. No need to spend hours trying to clean everything up manually.

That's what the scary "DOS window" looks like when I use our tool on a folder:

Once the entire folder has been scanned and fixed, I go back to Krita and use the other simple tool - Rebecca's Krita Tools - that I wrote about in the same older post: I reorder the snapshots in the folder, otherwise Krita will give up on assembling a video as soon as it stumbles across one of the deleted files:

Once I see the message like the one on the screenshot above, I know that the video is ready to be encoded! So lovely! So nice!

... Sadly or not, our friend's part of the Python code was entirely scrapped in the end. But I don't think they're overly upset about it. But they did point in the right direction with Pillow, so that was super valuable.

For me, this is the complete workaround for the broken Krita Recorder. Until that issue is fixed in the future releases of Krita (and I should probably open a bugfix request on the forum to accelerate the process), I'll be using those tools to make my life tenfold easier and peanut buttery smooth. Now I can actually make timelapse videos to make everybody happy without prepping everything manually. Livin' a dream.

I have other - mostly creative - musings that I wanted to quickly share in this post before I log out and dive back into the world of Lothar's depressive debauchery.

Looking into making videos for YT again, I rediscovered Glaxnimate that the newer releases of Shotcut ship alongside with. I'd really love to play with it in my spare time that I never have. That's be something totally new to me - well, with the exception of the vector design itself, but the animation part is definitely new to me! I'm looking forward to exploring a new means of creating nice and scalable things.

I've been also thinking about re-establishing my Time & Again's presence in socials again more than I do now - which I've been thinking a lot about last week and earlier, but I got totally sidetracked at this point with a couple of side endeavours/plans. I must admit, I'm really getting seriously annoyed and ethically devastated by the "regular", algorithmic socials that most people use. Let's be honest here: those socials are just terrible and are usually aimed at the addicts/doomscrollers (nope, not the type of doomscrolling you've been thinking about in regard of my persona)... I already wailed and wailed about the times that passed long ago when I used to spend a lot of time on DeviantArt and actually engaged into fun conversations with people, before DeviantArt had turned into a "social network" and a pr0nhub. I miss natural, organic discovery and therefore genuine, meaningful interactions without totally vague likes, followers instead of friends, rules like "only 5% of your subscribers can actually see your posts that they will not read anyway, so why bother?", and all the other ethical what-the-f**kery that the algorithmic socials brought along with them (and most humans just silently accepted them, and now they're even less happy with life). Out of all the social networks, I think Twitter has become the worst for the creatives right now, to the point that I don't even see any reason to be there anymore (except for the Doom modders and John Romero). I never go there anymore and I log back in for 2 minutes only and only to brashly drop another link to a Tumblr blog post. I think I will stop updating it with art stuff entirely - but I will keep my account just to occasionally share my gaming notes if I ever get to that like I used to years ago. Don't know if anyone will be interested at all, but that's the plan so far. I'm an incredibly nerdy artist after all. Ah, I also might use Twitter to send yet another dorky Doom artwork to John Romero someday; hope he likes my stuff 😁 (which reminds me: aw gawsh, it's Quake anniversary next year! Welp, gotta draw them shamblers with my signature cartoony ears then) My next stop, to fix what has been lost after Twitter has gone downhill for me, I believe, should be Mastodon, which I have discovered rather accidentally thanks to my favourite Doom modder. I just want my art to be naturally discovered like in the early/mid 2000's, like a nice bird in the bushes that I've never had a chance to see before. Like the other day when I went for a walk in the park with my friend, and we saw a cormorant in the wild for the first time. I organically discovered the dorky bird, and I was super happy. No stupid algorithms involved (RNG sure was involved though, but RNG happens in life on a regular basis 😅). The avid birder in me is overexcited. About organic art discovery, too.

Oh yeah! Not exactly art related, but I'll tell anyway! Not long ago, I got to meet a Brazilian porcupine in person, and I even got to pet them! That's so cool! I love those animals!!! I should really draw one (or two) someday. Maybe they'll be included into a specific porcupiny ark of Ɉ̵͇̥̊͛ͤͧƨ͕͈̐ɘɿ̏̈o̵̫͎̬̫̦̮ͮ̔̍͟ꟻ͍̟̔́̉͑ͪ͜ ɘ̖͖̤͞ʜ̴̸̢̮̅͒ͥ̉ͦ͒͘͜͢͡Ţ̧̛̛̝̭̥̥̮̗ͧ̌ͮ̀̀̀͂ n̶͉̥͔̩͎͌̀ͩ̋͊I̸̺̊̏̎̒͡ ƨ̛̟̺̦̃̃̽̏ͭ̀ͩ͒͊͂ͭɈ̵͎̥̩̮̾̎ͨ́̄̌͟õ̸̷̸͙̩̱̝͙̰͈̭͍̇̈́̓͐ͭi̴͚͐̇̊̔̍̄͊ͧb̶̢̮͈̬̺̞̟͋͛̐̔̍ͨ̊ͩ͐̇̚Į̛̲̖̜̳̝̞̮͚̮ͮ̀̇͋̿ͫ͟͡. Someday I guess!

Now, I got other important artistic matters to attend to; primarily Lothar's saga and everything that it requires. I will leave y'all be for now in total suspense. *suspenseful drums until the next post... whoa, that's a lot of repetitive sound!* Although before I disappear into the art dimension completely yet again only to attempt to creatively represent St. Pauli and Reeperbahn oops, spoilers😱 that only select few will be able to recognize, I wanted to mention that Arcane Dimensions for Quake is incredibly fascinating and simply awesome, especially in co-op. For those days/hours when I feel my brain doesn't exactly want to cooperate with the realistic representation of the aforementioned locations, that Quake mod truly serves as a titanite-like twinkling box of wonders and inspirations. I highly recommend. I missed the techbases, the eldritch horror, and the NIN galore of Quake so dearly. And grab a friend along for a ride with you. It's very well worth it. Yes, you can play it in co-op.

Bis dann, Freunde! 👋

[dashawfrostart]

Yet Another Month In "Time & Again" #35: I Made A Major Breakthrough In My Workflow Optimization! 🥳

Oh how time flies. I guess my plan established earlier to post bite-sized updates more frequently does not work. It's been a month, again. Mostly due to how I plan my days ahead, I usually have about 5-10 minutes of free time in the morning, and 5 minutes of free time very late at night (unless I'm drawing late at night, which also started to happen more frequently lately. Or, like right now: I'm writing this post quite late in the evening. Because daily art responsibilities must be fulfilled, I said). I had my Keep notes overfilling with the drafts of the incredibly wordy posts - almost as wordy as the buzzing hive in Lothar's head - but truth be told, within the last month, I just stopped updating them whatsoever. Instead, I organized my work schedule in such a way that allowed me to input as much time into development of "Time & Again" as I possibly could've reasonably donated. To be able to get closer to its completion as soon as possible (because heck, let's be straightforward here: Chapter 6 has been in development for far too long. The creator in me wants to move on to the next chapter already - and NOT ONLY because Chapter 7 will introduce one of my favourite characters in the entire series! 😉). Work first - extra stuff later. Priorities, meine Freunde 🧐☝️ ... And oh boy, have I moved forward within the last month, I'm so proud of myself 🤩 Awesome, innit?! Wanna know what I did? Then keep reading!

Therefore, as concludes from that massive prelude, this post has been written from scratch, without any prep work.

So on to yet another monthly update!

But first and foremost - a little teaser of a panel I *almost* finished up literally today. Cute!

And ta-daaaa! There are colours now! Things are getting funner and funner by the hour! 🤣

At the moment, the chart of completion of Chapter 6 looks this way:

The writing and the script - ✔done (long ago)!

The storyboard (drawn with a pencil on paper) - ✔done!

The Vector Stage (panels arrangement for every page according to the storyboard in Inkscape) - ✔done!

The Lineart Stage (drawing everything in black and white as it will appear in the final release) - 92,5% complete.

The Colouring Stage (colouring the lineart for the final release) - let's say approximately 40% done; some of it is dependent on the lineart that is still incomplete.

The Post-Production Stage (cleaning up everything, perfecting the speech bubbles, SFXs, and polishing everything squeaky clean for the actual release)

Some fun stats here for you: Chapter 6 features 323 panels all hand-drawn by a human, some of which are fairly simple while some others are mind-bogglingly detailed (probably unnecessarily so, knowing me).

As you [probably] could ponder - that's an huge ****ing amount of work for one person, no exaggeration.

But you could see in the chart included above that it doesn't look too bad already. I'm getting there. Maybe slowly, but it's moving. I think I have achieved a lot lately. Happy.

And finally! TO THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THIS POST. About the topic mentioned in the title of this post (therefore techy. you're welcome).

In the previous posts I wailed numerous times that I hate flatting because it takes HOURS AND HOURS of brainless mechanical work, and that I would like to discover a tool that could help me speed it up - possibly through the use of AI technology so that I could train the algorithm on my art style to make it recognize and distinguish Lothar, Jeanny, Beatnik, and everyone else from one another, only to automatically colour them according to my own predefined palette. For the sole reason of flatting being unbearable to me (especially at a huge scale such as a 61-pages-long Chapter 6).

Well... Turns out I might not need AI for that just yet.

Prior to a supermassive amount of colouring work that stood before me in Chapter 6, as soon as that 92,5% of the lineart was successfully complete, I decided to buckle up, approach, and face my arch-nemesis directly, straight in the eye. And it has been done in two grand steps.

Step One: I created a palette for "Time & Again" that contains all the swatches of all the characters in the story (including the past ones... yup, talking about you too, Edgar, you've very long overdue, sadly) so that I could switch colours on the go as fast as possible. Previously I had to open a separate Krita file prepared by myself that contained all the character swatches - which, I believe, I spoilerlessly showed off in one of the older posts - and I had to constantly switch from one file to another to transfer all the colours one by one (or rather two by two, because you could pick a foreground colour and the background colour to keep in the current memory). Needless to say how annoying it was all these years. And it required a lot of focus. No wonder I could burn out so quickly. In the meantime, I was perfectly aware that Krita Palette Docker was broken and that it wouldn't allow you to create groups of swatches (as reported in this post) - which was crucial for me. So, following the workaround from the aforementioned forum post, I unpacked portable version of Krita 5.1.0 and created my palette meticulously in there, with all the groups and swatches I needed. Then I opened my comic pages in Krita 5.2.9 which is the latest version I use - and du duuuun ta-daaaa! I could see all the groups, and everything works fine right now. I can even add more colours to already existing groups of swatches - BUT, unfortunately, I cannot modify the groups themselves, because then everything just breaks in 5.2.9. I also shared my experience here on Reddit.

I really hope that feature gets a fix soon! But for now, we have a fool-proof workaround, and I'm happy about that!

Step Two: I finally got serious and learnt Krita's Colorize Mask. And I don't regret it one bit. In fact, I'm simply astounded to see how well it works. This tool is A BEAST. I don't even know what else to say. The principle is simple: you just paint small brush strokes with an appropriate colours around the artwork - and the magical, smart, programmatically made algorithm fills out the lineart with the colours. With precision, I must say. It's just fantastic.

Below there are 2 examples (possibly not the best ones, but that's what I had so far spoiler-free) showing how powerful this simple tool is. The picture to the left is a "colour map" I made using the tool, and the one to the right is the colour output (converted to a raster layer). You can see the boundaries of the coloured areas on the colour maps.

The more directions you give it - the better it works, and requires less cleanup afterwards. It's especially effective at colouring Lothar's super pointy hair that has always been a pain to do ever since that character has been created by me 10 years ago. Now I don't have that problem anymore. And precision in colouring when using Colorize Mask simply shocks me (just like a shambler in a narrow corridor... yup. good times).

I played with settings a bit, but I ended up reverting back to the default settings. It just suits my needs perfectly as-is. I think I'll stick with it for the years to come. And honestly, flatting doesn't even scare me anymore. In fact, it has become a somewhat enjoyable process. Very good, very good indeed. 😁

So, the Palette and Colorize Mask together allowed me to deal with a huge number of panels for the chapter quite quickly. There's still a ton of work left to do - but the most tedious parts are done, so I can enjoy creating art more now.

That's how colourful my artistic life has been within the last month!

Let's be truly honest though... I'm still not certain on the release date of Chapter 6. Let's say it's "TBA". Ideally, I would love to be able to release it by the next GPop fest in October so that I could make an official reveal at the event. And there's still time. But we'll see how it goes. If you want quality (and I'm aiming at quality first and foremost) - then you should not expect fast work. Sloppy quality has never been my motto (unlike Toei Animation sometimes, lol). Moreover, Chapter 6 is incredibly conceptual and has a BIG MESSAGE in it. ... Yes, the message is, indeed, sometimes written in BIG FONT. Like, size 72 or even 102, maybe. But my cringeworthy jokes aside - yes, Chapter 6 is a twisted creature to tame, for a multitude of reasons. Time and time again, I foresee Chapter 6 to possibly become the best chapter in the entire series. So you know what to expect from my drawing pen: it's ready when it's ready, and it's gonna be perfected just at the right degree, no matter when.

Until next time, guys! Possibly in a month again - or maybe sooner. Who knows what this crazy author suddenly comes up with. 👋 Bis dann!

[dashawfrostart]

These Few Weeks In "Time & Again" #31: There Are Reasons Why It's Taking So Long 😅 (Aside From Me Writing These HUGE Posts)

Phew. I'll get straight to the point right away, and it's a bit sad: the development of the chapter has slowed down a little bit immensely came virtually to a grinding halt within the last two weeks or so, due to some life matters (and lack of necessary focus). I'm still at the supermarket scene, and it's still not done. That makes me quite unhappy. Dammit, I hate when that happens!.. (and no, in the context of this post, that was NOT said about the abandoned shopping carts that are blocking the way from the parking lot) 🤣😅 As I said before, life takes away so much time from art!.. But I'm already picking up the pace and trying to refresh the vision after being near zero productive directly on the chapter. For example, I've made a promo art - one of a few I was thinking about for a nice representation of the essence of the latest chapters, with a cryptic and surreal twist. And boy it looks goooooood 😁 In my head though, I'm still constantly working on "Time & Again" and related stuff. But I need a spark (just like Lothar?.. ... ...?). It feels too grey to me right now (and that is BEFORE I applied the desaturation filter! Unholy snapmap!). It has always been a struggle to me - to spring back to the fired up state of readiness for whatever creative matters I attend to. Never ever in my artistic life have I answered the question of how to regain my creative spark that's been somewhat lost along the way, to lift my work to a higher level of productivity and awesomeness - even up to this day. I think listening to very good (read: hearty, conceptual, wholesome, wicked crazy, etc.) music albums used to help back in the day, but I'm not certain if that helps anymore. Or maybe I have become extra picky in my selection of inspirational art, because consuming and dissolving a lot of wonderful art into oneself is quite possibly bound to make oneself more demanding in regard of quality over time. I blame Lothar's thought pattern for my misfortune. That guy is no fun at all. Get your Sch***e together, Lothar, and be happy already so that I could be happy together with you.

To complicate the matters even further, while working on another piece the other day I happened to lose my progress due to Krita crash during an autosave, which broke my file to the point of complete rubbishness. I'm sure you're all familiar with that; I always hated losing any amount of my work, and I hate throwing away hours of effort like that just because of some random crap happening, especially since spare time is often a luxury to me. I ended up cursing a lot that day - most likely as much as Lothar does on the regular basis for no reason - or even more profusely. That was sure Sch***e, no exaggeration. ... Well, good thing I back up my files regularly 😁👍 But the sad thing is still sad: I resumed work on that piece later on, as if I haven't touched it after sketching at all. And saving incremental versions is now a must, although I never used to do that before. In the moments like that, I always think AI would've been so much help, because, well, why should I redo everything again if I already spent that much time but it all went down the drain for a reason that has nothing to do with me?.. Some people don't have nearly as much time to input into their art as I do. So help from aside to compensate would've been marvellous, for pesky little situations like that that make you want to play the new Doom and cherish moments of glory kills more (... says the person who hates glory kill mechanic as a whole). AI is nowhere near as terrible as the folks who have read too many horror sci-fi stories enjoy demonizing it; people just refuse to think how it might be helpful in resolving certain issues and boosting their own creativity, or using their limited time more efficiently. (I already wrote not just once about certain AI features I would like to utilize to boost my creativity).

... But the good thing is that my automation-fixated self found an easy way to speed up my work a little! I have installed Windows PowerToys - solely to be able to have the thumbnails and previews of the SVG files in file explorer! And I am furiously happy!!! 🥳 Such a simple thing makes my work so much easier and more enjoyable. Ich bin so erfreut 🤗 Now I don't need to start Inkscape every single time I need to quickly look up the speech bubbles placement. Neat-o! Art aside, PowerToys has so many little neat features that might come in handy for the nerds such as myself. Another one favourite of mine is Quick Accent - something I 've been dreaming about for, like, almost 15 years. I like typing (especially my large texts) on computer - I am not a cellphone person (says I, after copy-pasting the draft for this blog post from my Keep notes😅); so adding extra German and Spanish characters to the texts has been a bit of a nuisance - until now. The only downside to Quick Accent is that it sometimes starts off when the games are running (regardless of Game Mode being on), so instead of adding every single one of my 500 Steam games (and beyond) to the blacklist, I simply turn Quick Accent on only when typing in a mixture of languages. That's a small inconvenience, but I can certainly live with that 😁 On a side note, to share and confirm the already long existing joy: I love shell integration, context menus, and explorer previews that Krita provides! I can just look into my folder, enable preview pane in file explorer - and I can easily preview all my SVG and KRA work-in-progress files, if need be! Just like that:

(as depicted on the screenshot above: the SVG file has a thumbnail now, too, thanks to PowerToys; Krita thumbnails and explorer previews come with the installer, and that's super useful. Also, this is a perfect example of the notes I leave on a separate layer RIGHT in my Krita files, to remember what else I need to do or how certain something must be done. Yup, it's always a mess. And it's a fun mess. Almost surprising how the final editions of my art always turn out so clean, eh?!..)

Working on a comic is a complex task after all, and it requires tying the storyboard, the written voice lines, and the intended way of representation of the visuals all together. Every single element in a work like that must have the reason to exist in a specific place, in a specific way, for a specific reason. Because I says so 🧐. (objections are not accepted. Shoo, shoo, heretics!)

Speaking of Krita... There's also one more thing I thankfully resolved the other day, so I'm sharing it here, in case somebody has the same issues and hasn't yet found a solution. I have noticed a weird stutter/lag with my pen a few days ago inside and outside Krita. And yes, you're right: it was doubly weird, because it was happening outside Krita as well, just on the desktop or when I used file explorer with my graphic monitor on. Since Krita obviously was not the culprit, I thought it might've been a problem with my Huion app. But it was up-to-date, and that never happened before until recently. So I did a quick search, and - just as quick, which was pleasantly unexpected and lovely - came across this post that described the exact same issue I had. So I followed the post's instructions. Logitech LampArray Service - disabled. Now drawing is a pleasure yet again 😁 I'm always very happy when the solutions to my techy problems are resolved so quickly and easily 🥳 (now, onto the more hardcore troubleshooting: trying to make the original 2 CDs retail version of American McGee's Alice run on Win11... Unholy snapmapadoodlemap, that's gonna be an adventure, and I am NOT looking forward to it 😵‍💫😩)

But back to "Time & Again"! Now, on to why you gotta be really patient with me right now; there's a reason. And the reasons is of a truly grand scale. Perhaps I've never mentioned that - or maybe I have only briefly - but I think that Chapter 6 is going to be the most complex chapter of all. Even more complex than the last one, Chapter 8. While Chapter 8 is primarily going to be an emotional explosion (surprise surprise *slow clapping*), Chapter 6 requires a lot of peculiar research done by me in order to represent certain things right, for the proper feel. And it's all gonna be about urban scenery. I must admit, I kinda hate drawing urban scenery: too geometric, too little nature. Everything should be perfectly straight or diagonal, depending on the view angle. That's just boring. And yet, it has to be done for my story, since it's basically a sci-fi story (the setting is definitely sci-fi). That's a personal preference, of course... But I'd always prefer to draw lush trees instead of tall concrete buildings. I bet ya that's because I am a bird nerd, and the trees often have birds on them, and the buildings often don't... Unless the birds are rock pigeons. Rock pigeons have conquered the world long ago. I bet they're planning on something mischievous right now as we speak. But I digress. However, when I appreciate other people's art, I absolutely don't mind urban landscapes and sci-fi settings; on the contrary, I actually really like them. One instance stands out especially in my memory and is still fresh even though a few years had passed since I played it: that's the supermassive office building in Infested that was incredibly difficult to navigate due to - well, as the name suggests - demon infestations. In fact, that place was the main inspiration for the layout of the mysterious abandoned building in Chapter 4 of "Time & Again". In Chapter 4, when Lothar and Jeanny travel around to see what the peck is going on, they come across something that resembles a giant greenhouse. Planning and drawing those 2 pages was so much fun for me! And although they featured geometric shapes as well, those 2 extremely green pages were a delight for me to draw through and through! I never get that feeling from drawing urban scenery. But again, a̴r̸t̵ ̷r̴e̵q̴u̴i̴r̵e̴s̶ s̴̖͚̈́a̴̹̋̈́̊̐͒c̵̱̭̋̓͂̕r̴͕̙̰̖͊̎̈̈̆i̷̘̜̼̲̎̈́͗̃̓̈́͜f̶͔̼̗͔̯̬̈́̋i̷͍̦̭̦̰̊͗̈̚͘͜͝c̶̡̝̩͔̄̆̾ͅe̴̮̖̜͚̦̓̅̏̃̀s̸̱̅̈́͜.

And, since I already mentioned Doom mods above, and how much they contribute to my artistic life, I gotta note something else. Within the last couple of days, I had a few random visions that I thought might improve the feel of Chapter 6. Quite rarely, I reconsider the parts of the storyboard and panel placements, so they ever so slightly differ from the initial sketched variation. So one of these snow-white and deer-filled winter mornings, armed with a red pen to apply corrections, I took off to look at the ending of Chapter 6, neatly and consistently outlined in my sketchbook. In my to-do list, for a long time I had a note saying, "Look at that Doom mod again for the extra inspiration for Lothar's thoughts". So the last summer, I got to play RAMP 2023, and there was that incredibly peculiar, very narrative little level called "Mirror Mirror". I played it at least twice to uncover the promised different endings, and I recorded one of the playthroughs for a future reference. And just a couple days ago, I rewatched my recording. I was stunned. I know that I might be biased. I know that I, in fact, might be VERY biased, knowing how often "Time & Again" is on my mind. But holy smokies! - the main character's thoughts in that mod bear some unbelievable resemblance to Lothar's train of thought in Chapter 6! Also has to do with depression (I think). Also has to do with mirrors and reflections. Also has to do with giving a damn or not. This fits perfectly. So I took notes as I watched the video and I'm thinking about refreshing some of Lothar's voice lines with creatively reworked lines from that level - or maybe I'll flat out keep them unchanged, for a better, incredibly subtle reference that nobody will ever get 😅. Because they are just fantastic.

I really recommend y'all to play that short level. I don't think I have ever played anything like that before. The part with the mirror puzzles was quite entertaining, too.

I think it's time to wrap it up. I usually type on computer right away, but since I don't have enough time lately, I started to type my notes for the future posts in Keep (one might say I'm finally evolving, lol). And, knowing how much I can babble sometimes - just like Edgar - my Keep note hit its symbol limit, so I had to start a new one (that didn't take me long, yup). So I have A LOT of stuff left unspoken. I believe, some of my longreads might be very cucumbersome🥒 for some people to read. But it's not that you didn't know what you were getting yourself into when you visited my blog for the first time, right? 😉 Bis dann, until next time!

P.S. I know, I know: the "peck" joke is getting really old, but I really can't get over it. A Hat In Time was a real blast to play in co-op, and it left a few really nice sweet scars on my memory that will never dissipate. I really like writing "peck", even though I know that I pecking shouldn't curse in public.🐦‍⬛ (I also love northern flickers; can't wait to go see them by the lake this summer again... but I pecking-peckity-peck-peck digress🤪)

P.P.S. In the light of the aforementioned Doominess, I also started to wonder if I could replay Unloved as well. There were references to Unloved in Chapter 3, too, after all. And I never beat it without iddqd, maybe I could try harder this time? 😅