#adding that little bit of inter player conflict is nice

[heytherecentaurs]

I’m really enjoying Jacob’s enthusiasm. His commitment to having the highest kill count. The glee with which he participates. And the seriousness with which he takes the roleplay. His conflict with the rest of the party was fantastic and it led to that wild scene where he intends to cuck that man who’s wearing a pig snout. (That sounds like a fever dream.) This dedication to the scene and the reality they’ve built is exactly what I expected having seen his appearances on Make Some Noise and Game Changer and it’s a joy to watch because he’s so funny.

[anewenfartist]

Writing Critique for the ENF-Sports Contest

Writing Critique

The following are judge comments on the writing submissions (for people who wrote, and agreed they’d like to see the critique on their work from the judges). The critique isn’t meant to reveal what judge placed you in what spot. The comments and submissions will be in no particular order. Judges were not required to provide comments, but they were allowed to if they felt they wanted to share their thoughts with the contestants.

Even if it’s not your entry, I encourage any artists to look at this critique and consider it. Reading critique of someone else’s work could give you good insight what to do with your own art too!

If your stuff isn’t listed here, but you want it to be, let me know. I can edit your stuff in.

There is an exception to the writing comments. IGankMid did a great job of organizing their thoughts, but some tie into other critiques. Sorry if there were writers who didn’t want this public, but this one has to be posted as a whole. So everything from Gank will be here:

sta.sh/015aopok87ht

 princebuffoon.deviantart.com/a…

- The start's nervousness and build up is great with such nice little details and observations as she prepares. As it continues, it's clear word choice is definitely a strong suit of yours, fantastic vocabulary and ability to paint little moments. There are some grammatical errors here and there, though very few, and probably not as noticeable to a reader who isn't scouring it critically. The buildup continues to be great, my heart racing along with the stories character. I'm of course left wondering 'why' she entered of course, but that seems to be less and less important as you're so wrapped up in the events. A fantastic entry!

* * *  A creative and effective combination of the main contest themes. The story is well-paced, managing to keep things constantly moving while still fully explaining the premise, and held together by a view from Six’s internal narrative. A great entry!

kinkyquill.tumblr.com/post/160…

- The grandiose start with the competitors on stage made for a good scene set up. The variety of events and characters allowed for a couple of different angles to be covered.  This has the risk of some parts feeling a bit lacking in depth though. A bit of a more careful eye should also be considered for editing, some errors did seem to slip by. The characters seem a lot of fun, and it seems like a lot of stories could be told with them, as groups or even individually. Interesting risk with the ending, leaving it up to the reader.

 * * * This entry was very on-theme, good job! Since there were so many characters in a relatively short story, there wasn’t much time to get invested them all. I wasn’t previously familiar with any of the characters in the inter-narrative, but their personalities came across quickly through their actions and reactions. I didn’t expect the cliffhanger ending, but it won me over.

anonenffan.deviantart.com/art/…

- The start is a bit slow and stilted, but things pick up with the clever idea of a song from her past inspiring her. The character's personality I feel were well thought out, her want to win and do better fueling herself to push herself in other risky ways. The vocabulary at points feels redundant or too reused. You do a well enough job avoiding grammar and spelling errors. The ENF was on the light side as well at the start, but you do eventually pay off that risk with some true proper conflict and worry.

 * * * This story had one of the simpler settings, which allowed the character and plot to take center stage. The slow build of tension worked well, finishing strongly with an exciting conclusion. The details were well thought-out too, from “Run to Cure the Common Cold” to “Average Jill’s Gym.” Quality writing, as usual from Anon!

ldnnld.deviantart.com/art/Bare…

- A fierce rivalry of events with mischief abound is a good set up. The embarrassment aided upsets were a nice touch. Characters were a bit cliché and lacking much depth, but were still fun to see sabotaging each other. I feel some scenes could have used a bit more focus and descriptions, just to add a bit more zest. Still a fun little story with some classic pranks.

* * * This story had a nice symmetry to it. It was predictable, since you knew that one section would very likely build and reverse on the next, but I still found this structure aesthetically pleasant. The competitive spirit of both characters showed strongly, but I didn’t pick up much else about who they are. There were a few technical mistakes, but they didn’t get too much in the way of the story. (I’d suggest getting someone to proofread next time, though.) 

- ewong247.deviantart.com/art/Ka…

- I found the story to be fun, good use of determination to play to get her to stay so undressed. Your descriptions were good too. The biggest crippling issue with the story though is that you at times seem to really get the wrong word put into some sentences, sometimes to the point where I wasn't sure what it should be. The story would do well from a proof read where the lines are spoken out loud I believe.

 * * * This took a kernel of reality and expanded it into a whole story. Katelyn felt like a real character (although none of the background characters resonated with me particularly). There were a couple of typos (e.g. “ur was useless” instead of “it was useless”, “they naked fighterfeel” instead of I think “the naked fighter fell”?), but overall the story was still well-written.

www.asianfanfics.com/story/vie…

- I like the set up, and felt the girl's dynamic was cute. I think Eunjung gave in a bit quickly to give up her panties though, there could have been more time spent with that, to clarify it being such a big deal. Some of the dialogue feels a little stilted too. Pacing could be stronger as well I feel, but overall the story was fun. The romantic angle was also very sweet. Oh, no points were docked for this, but hosting your story on a site that won't censor it to non members is probably best in the future for contest entries. Don't want to make it tough on judges and readers to get to your content.

 * * * Definitely a cute concept. The sports and ENF are mostly confined to the first half of the story, with the second half being more romance. My main problem was that a lot of the characters’ actions felt somehow hollow to me, not really meshing with the personalities I was seeing in their words and reactions. It might have helped me follow along if the story spent more time to highlight their motivations for all these hijinks. The hijinks themselves were fun though, and the general story structure was solid.

divides.deviantart.com/art/Ane…

- Another entry with a very unique setting, taking full advantage of the openness of the contest! High stakes game that forces players to play along with ridiculous whims is definitely a great concept as well, and it's handled in as fun of a way as the fun that the princess and such seem to have with it. Only thing I feel the story lacked was getting to know a few of the characters better or focusing on some moments more. * * * A lovely take on alien Calvinball! There was a humorous undercurrent throughout the story, with plenty of cute moments from the protagonists. There were a bunch of characters, but each of their personalities came across clearly during the short story. Congrats on a fine ENF sports story!

tyvadi.deviantart.com/art/Goob…

- I would have to say this is one of the more original sports for the contest for sure. I loved the fascination of our main girl as she is so transfixed on her petrified schoolmate. A shame to see it end in such a "To Be Continued" but that's a shame because I do want to read more, and that's a sign of a good stoy for sure. Your grammar and spelling seem to be quite well done. Yet really, it doesn't feel criminally short and unfinished, so probably your greatest flaw.

* * *

This was definitely an unexpected and unique setting, compared to the other entries. Though this judge was completely unfamiliar with slime/petrification, they were integrated in a way that didn’t unduly distract from the main contest themes. The structure and details of the story were well-crafted, and it had plenty of sports and ENF elements.

rrrrrricossssssuave.deviantart…

- The setting of course stands out as pretty original, don't see many stories like this set in ancient Greece! There are few small tense errors or missed spellings, especially as the story goes on. The contrast of the many men around her, some so intimidating as our antagonist, is a strong contrast to our ENF star, which works I think for adding to her sticking out more. Very happy to see her win as well.* * *A very interesting entry! The setting and tone both match with a sort of “ancient legend” feel, which was a different take than most on the contest themes. It made for an effective story! The core structure was simple - a hero overcoming an obstacle - but it’s a classic one! The style made the story very immersive. (I didn’t notice any big English problems, except an occasional strange tense. E.g. “Clyo has never seen a more magnificent temple” was a sudden present tense.)

http://lunagold1.deviantart.com/art/Strip-Basketball-683619069?ga_submit_new=10%3A149619

- The story's biggest problem is that it's a tad straight forward. Events followed by events without much highlighting or focusing on any subjects. The overall premise is a great set up for a story. With a bit more polish and spice added, you'd have a great tale.

* * *

I could see this working well as a script for actors - it’s dialogue-focused and has the main beats for actions. I liked that there was a surprise ending. The spelling/grammar mistakes were somewhat distracting, so I’d really recommend getting a friend to help proofread.

 http://pokemorphomega.deviantart.com/art/contest-Stripshooting-680527642

- The sport is definitely a fun idea. Girls shooting and making other girl's clothes vanishing is fun. A few inconsistencies in terms of personalities and rules I felt. A few grammar mistakes like missing words cause a bit of a delay in understanding a sentence or two. The characterizations feel a bit forced and sudden without much build up too. The tonal difference between cute exposure and death is a bit stark as well.

* * *

The repeated character death really made this story hard to read for me. I had to read it at an emotional distance to get through it at all, which hampered any impact it could have had otherwise. I'm sure there's a target audience for this story, but at least for this judge, the casual killings got in the way of everything else.

 http://jawolfadultishart.deviantart.com/art/Melty-Times-at-the-Pool-Contest-Entry-682799317

It's interesting to know so clearly ahead of time what will happen. Suspense surely does build, wondering when disaster will finally strike. Really enjoying some of the attention to detail you give. Your vocabulary is definitely not a weak point either. There are few grammar hiccups I noticed as I went. Especially thought your description of the suit coming apart was pretty great. A very fun short tale overall.

* * *

A pretty simple ENF story, with a typical setup/reveal/aftermath structure. I couldn’t really get a feel for who Amanda was as a character, apart from a bit at the end when interacting with her friend. I liked the content of the two descriptive paragraphs: the one starting with “Her lungs burned” and the one starting with “The judge raises a hand.” However the first few words weren’t very representative of the paragraphs’ contents, so they would have been easy to accidentally skim over if I weren’t in contest-judging-read-every-word-mode. It might have helped to split them up into two or three paragraphs, to let the reader know which beats are important. (Erotica readers can be impatient, so you have to guide them!)

 http://disc.yourwebapps.com/discussion.cgi?disc=58894;article=58654;title=The%20ASN%20Story%20Board

You have some really good atmosphere to the story, that's for sure. Nice angle part way through as well with using commentary as an alternate way to narrate the story partway through to change it up for a bit. Good job capturing the excitement and action too. The main flaw I'd say is the story could have focused more on some ENF themes. So a bit of a miss with the theme since so many other types of emotions take over the story, and ENF was supposed to be a big deal of course.

* * *

- Cool world-building! Kate has a good character arc over the course of the story, which is the main strength of this entry. (I didn’t connect very much with Maria or the other background characters while reading, but maybe others did.) The sci-fi setting was a cool backdrop for a “dangerous racing” story.

[jeffortless]

They Really Do Mean PARTY

irst session in the books! Today I'll be talking about how I felt it went and my players' experiences. Spoiler alert: hot dang was it fun running D&D around a table again!

So the first thing I wanted to do with my brand new baby players was play a quick learning campaign with pre-generated characters. We ran through a "learn to D&D" adventure I found on the popular Dungeons & Dragons resource site, DMSGuild.com. The adventure is called "A Most Potent Brew" and was written by Richard Jansen-Parkes and is available for free, or with a suggested donation (I happily gave $5 and highly recommend picking it up).

We began our session with our characters responding to an ad looking for help. They met in a tavern (as you do) and went around introducing each other. Their pre-made characters came with plenty of juicy background info, including each character's ideal, bond, and flaw (three characteristics of character building that help inform roleplaying). Some of my players read this info, others did not. Either way, they took to roleplaying pretty enthusiastically, if only reading from their sheets at times or spitting from the top of their head.

This was an area I felt I could have done better in explaining, as some of that information was supposed to be somewhat secret, or something that a character would only share with a trusted confidant. This is to help create inter-party narratives and conflicts that will resolve over time and works to create a more dynamic, living world. Of our party of erstwhile complete strangers, everyone kinda bared all (with our paladin even going as far to make sure everyone knew that his flaw was "a weakness for carnal pleasures"), but I didn't want to "correct" anyone, as this is no great loss. There is no lack of player-generated content in D&D campaigns; any “lost” opportunities are almost immediately replaced in less than a session. However, if I were to do it again, I would have quietly asked each player what they thought their character's motivation was. Just having them deliberately consider this for a second and then ask if it was correct (trick question: whatever they think their character’s motivation is can be the answer—it's their character!) will provide an accessible framing to understanding their character and start forging a real, empathic relationship.

Of all the rules and numbers and dice and modifiers in D&D, roleplaying is hands-down the most difficult thing to teach and learn. However, any lack of experience with roleplaying can be made up with openness and enthusiasm. Thankfully, my inhibition-free (FRIDAY NIIIIIIGHT!) group really stepped up to the plate and made our table an open and encouraging place, and I'm very excited to continue sitting at it.

Altogether, we had an inebriated little blast. Our cute co-opted miniatures from a Dracula board game were dancing across the tiny surface of an iPad that displayed the scenario's grid map. We laughed as battleaxes got stuck in ceilings and rats were thunderwaved to bits against stone walls. The puzzle (with a riddle even!) presented an interesting challenge for them, but a good roll and a careful hint later (and one really nice saving throw!), and they blasted right through. Some very fun loot was found and we all finished appropriately exhausted, loopy, and ready for bed.

There was only one thing I wish had been different (and I'm sure will be in the future). The party was tackling some nasty giant rats when it became apparent that the group needed a break. This can be a difficult spot for the DM to manage, as players' priorities stop aligning with each other at this moment, creating extra-table conflict. We had a lone giant rat left and one player turn to go, and every bone in my DM body was screaming for that encounter-resolution—it can almost feel personal. At the very least, it’s hard to ask more from people who have to pee, need a smoke, have nothing in their glass, and have already given you well over an hour of their time; but I felt that it was a proper table etiquette teaching moment. I pulled everyone back to the table in a bit of an awkward manner to watch a single D20 thrown. The attack hit, the rat died, and the group took their break, a little underwhelmed at the big deal that was made over a pretty anti-climactic conclusion. It’s interesting to see how this can 100% be chalked up to game sense though; the new players couldn't quite see the writing on the wall for this particular gaming moment. The more we play, though, the less something like this will occur.

Next time, our party will take their first few steps into a much larger, and darker, world as we take on The Sunless Citadel from Tales from the Yawning Portal.

[dbltapgames]

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided – A review and analysis

Foreword

           Before beginning this review, note that the language used herein is based on the requirements of an assignment, hence the lack of first-person perspective and personality. The reader should also understand that reviews are always subjective, based as they are on the reviewers experience within the content, prior experiences, predispositions and prejudices. Accordingly, this review is based on the authors experience with the game, albeit an incomplete play-through, and the twenty-eight-or-so hours of play that included. The review will give an overview of the game and define it, breakdown the four core categories to any game: graphics, sound, story and gameplay; and conclude with a summation of the authors opinions.

           Spoiler Alert! While the author tries to keep plot-ruining spoilers out of the review it would be impossible to do a proper review or discuss certain aspects of the game without citing specific details from the content of the game. Therefore, if you do not want spoilers skip the story section. You have been warned, continue at your own discretion!

The Overview

           The game is a modernized, pocket-world, mostly-immersive sim. This a mouthful of a statement and unless one is familiar with the terms, requires a bit of defining. Modernized is the easiest to define; all that is meant by it is that a new engine was developed to best utilize “modern” technology for rendering, AI and physics. The Dawn Engine was developed in 2014 by Eidos-Montreal, specifically for use in Deus-Ex (Eidos-Montreal, 2014).

           Pocket-world is where definitions start to get tricky, open-world games are games that utilize large open spaces, which are far more often than not, seamless. Games that come to mind that fit this genre are Rockstar Game’s “Grand Theft Auto” series which boasts small representations of cities, and CD Projekt RED’s “The Witcher 3”, which features an entire kingdom. In Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (henceforth: DEMD), is set in a miniaturized Prague. The equivalent to maybe a few city blocks worth of real-estate broken into two separate zones which must be loaded individually, and a couple other separate story mission areas (also separate loads), hence the term pocket.

           Mostly-immersive sim, refers to a design philosophy described best by Mark Brown on Immersive Sims. In which he defines an immersive sim as containing: agency, systems, emergence, consistency and reactivity (Brown, 2016). Now let us briefly define each of these based on Mark’s video.

·         Agency is player freedom. The player gets an objective to complete and has the freedom and means, to go about it in multiple ways based on their own personal play-style preference.

·         Systems are the rules the game follows, which are learnable and repeated, based on AI and physics.

·         Emergent gameplay is what happens when the player utilizes or exploits game systems to complete their objectives, sometimes in ways completely unforeseen by the developers.

·         Consistency means the developers have intentionally tried to avoid scripted events and one-time events or boxing the player into doing one thing, or one thing after another.

·         Reactivity is the games characters interactions reflecting player actions and decisions.

           The descriptor “mostly” is used here because there are a few things about the gameplay make it unqualified to be called a completely immersive sim. Mainly that time is frozen until certain objectives are met and unlike other games on the market the NPC’s are not completely reactive to the player’s actions. As an example: pointing guns at civilians has no real consequences, except that they may not talk to you until you put the gun away; and rough or rude interactions are practically none existent (running into them/dropping objects on them). So, while the game falls a little short on reactivity, it measures up to the overall philosophy quite nicely.

Graphics

           In a word, beautiful. The game takes full advantage of most modern technologies and in an optimized manner. Specifications for the computer utilized in the play-through are moderate. For those with a knowledge of hardware: a first generation i7 processor, with equally aged motherboard and RAM (12GB), a standard SATA hard drive, and an NVidia GTX 970 graphics card. The lowest framerates experienced were in the thirties, with the majority of the outdoor scenes playing in the mid-forties and fifties. Indoors and enclosed areas typically were above sixty FPS.

           Only two graphical artifacts were experienced in the twenty eight hours of play. One being a characters hairline not meeting up with the face, creating a see-through area in her skull. And the other being an odd tessellation-sync issue between a table and the objects on it, causing a see-through line pattern in the objects.

           The game characters also manage to avoid the uncanny valley effect, which is described as the relation of an object (or in this case, characters) human likeness and our affinity towards it (Masahiro, 2012). Though this may be different per-player, and on a character to character basis. This may be due to the games stylization, the player’s perception of the characters being less than human or the game purposely not striving for human perfection in facial movements; or perhaps some combination of the afore-mentioned.

Sound

           Much of a games mood can be felt through its sounds and music. Every area in the game has different-ish music, all of it built around the areas theme, but centralizing around the games overarching mood; which is dark. As an example, the red-light district has a lot of club and electronic music, both in what is coming from said establishments as well as the games ambient music. While the music is high quality and well themed, it felt underwhelming in certain circumstances and areas, and overpowering in others it probably should not have. Overall the soundtrack gives a cinematic feel to the game.

           There is not a lot to say about the sound effects other than they are well done. With the exception of character speech. A lot of the game takes place in a crowded, foreign city. All these citizens talk, adding their ambient conversation to the atmosphere. That being said the majority of the general public is Czech and speak their language, broken English or heavily accented English; with the exception of your co-workers. The use of foreign language in most of these ambient conversations is a brilliant way to keep the average player from feeling as if they are rehearing the same conversations over and over; as well as keeping the theme of the game unified and create resonance (Schell, 2015).

Story (SPOILERS)

           There is far too much involved to delve into all the details of the game’s story, but here is the general outline up to the point of writing this review. The player controls Adam Jensen, a secret, special ops, anti-terrorism unit of Inter-pol based in Prague, a hot-seat of “natural” vs “augmented” tensions. During the tutorial phase of the game, the player provides backup to an undercover agent during an operation which is attacked by an unknown group of trained, heavily armed and augmented people. What follows is a series of missions that uncovers a conspiracy, traitors in your midst, being a double agent, the Illuminati (literally) and world control. All through the main story the theme of “natural vs augmented” is a shallow comparison to real-world racism.

           What is really impressive is the stories told through the side missions, which build character depth and flesh-out back story. Even more impressive are the untold stories. Those told through the level design with minimal use of verbal or written narrative. Each of these “untold” stories is a macrocosm of their respective side story or the state of the world, and in-turn support the overarching theme and story of the game; again, unified theme theory (Schell, 2015).

           While the main story has order, and cannot be played out of sequence, the side missions can be completed at the player’s discretion and are meant to fill in gaps and build the characters and their relationships. Conversely, the “untold” stories one finds are never assigned as missions, a few of them are hinted at as points of interest but are never required.

Gameplay

           There are two categories to gameplay and at least two styles for each of those categories. The first category is progression, which we will define as: the rate at which the player carries the main story forward. The second is conflict resolution, aka: combat. There are two styles of progression: quick and explorative. The quick route will take the player along the main story and ignore side missions and extra story, completing the game in a short time. Explorative play on the other hand will take the player through the games many vents and through the many houses and buildings open to the player, revealing those “untold” stories and the games many secrets and Easter-eggs.

           Combat has three routes available and can be mixed and matched as the player sees fit. The lethal route: the player makes use of their arsenal of firearms, grenades, mines and skills to dispatch the opposing forces. The pacifist route: the player has a pistol with stun ammo, a rifle with sleep darts, a few incapacitating grenades and mines, and abilities. Stealth: the player may attempt to avoid detection. Evade and avoid: the player may opt to avoid the majority of opposing forces entirely.

           The world as a puzzle-platformer. Every area is designed in such a way that there is never one way to any objective. There are ledges and pipes, vents and breakable walls, unlockable doors, hacking, passwords and a number of skills that facilitate most playstyles. Completing missions can be as easy as running and gunning, or as complex as a covert operation. This game’s mechanics complements Schell’s ten principles for puzzle creation perfectly (Schell, 2015).

The Good and The Bad

           While the author’s opinion on the game is based on an, as of this writing, incomplete play through of the game, it is none-the-less positive. The gameplay and story are immersive and engaging, there is a mountain of content to explore and challenges a-plenty to find and overcome, in an only you should determine what style of play.

           The few graphical artifacts the author ran into were not a detractor, and even the bug he encountered that crashed the game multiple times will not dissuade the continuation and completion of the game. The one major drawback to the game is loading times. Each time the player loads into the game or a new pocket there was a minimum of a two and a half minute load time. There are several missions that take the player between the two pockets of the city multiple times each, all that loading time adds up. Of the total twenty eight hours of play the author experienced, an hour of that may have been in transit loading times.

           This review was written based on a play-through done in an exploratory, passive/stealth style. Based on the opinions mentioned above the game ranks at a solid 9/10. The lost point is due to the excessive load times.

References

Brown, M. (2016, Aug 18). The Comeback of the Immersive Sim. Game Makers Toolkit. Episode retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbyTOAlhRHk

Eidos-Montreal. (2014). Powered by the Dawn Engine. Retrieved from https://www.eidosmontreal.com/en/news/dawn-engine

Masahiro, M. (2012). The Uncanny Valley: The Original Essay by Masahiro Mori. IEEE Spectrum. Retrieved from http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/humanoids/the-uncanny-valley

Schell, J. (2015). The Elements Support a Theme. The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses. Second Ed. (pp. 57-67). New York: CRC Press.

Schell, J. (2015). Game Mechanics Support Puzzles. The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses. Second Ed. (pp. 239-252). New York: CRC Press.