#crosscode: crossed lines

[girl-who-says-hi]

I drew some art based on my crosscode fic :3

Don't worry guys it's totally just a connection issue :)

I based it on the cover art of Cadmium Colors by Jamie Paige (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U6qefKcOrg)

[eepy-jazz-musicians]

True. And I recognize half of you all from the fics you write.

i love that 90% of the crosscode tag is a very small gang of really dedicated people

[ryunumber]

Spooky from Spookys House Of Jumpscares/Spookys Jumpscare Mansion

Spooky has a Ryu Number of 5/4/does not have a Ryu Number.

(update and explanation below)

(UPDATE: Per @penndragon, Cross Impact has hit Early Access.)

(UPDATE 2: Per @mr-self-suck-by-nin, confirmation of the Cooking Companions protagonist identity gives Spooky an unambiguous Ryu Number of 4.)

Look, it's complicated. Things will be more concrete when Cross Impact hits Early Access.

Fair warning: this explanation is a bit more involved than normal, because the research hole this sent me down had me sincerely doubting my own base competence.

So, from the top: Spooky's only eligible appearance is in her own game, Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion née House of Jump Scares, as her only other appearance, period, seems to be as a trophy in Indie Pogo.

Naturally, this makes SJSM's specimens as the only connecting points. I've identified three that could work:

Unknown Specimen 1 is just White Face from IMSCARED.

This seems to be a dead end, as White Face's only other eligible appearance seems to be in the Nightmare Mode of Cooking Companions, as part of a menagerie of other horror game characters, including SJSM's own Specimen 6. But all of those also seem to be dead ends, and Specimen 6 just gets back to where we started, so that's probably no good.

How about Unknown Specimen 5?

Named Lisa. Sure looks quite a bit like Lisa from P.T. and once-prospective Silent Hills. Let's say it's that Lisa. What else has Lisa been in?

Apparently just P.T., which wouldn't be altogether unsurprising given, you know, all that happened with Silent Hills. Even the Lisa decoys for Metal Gear Solid V showcased in the Tokyo Game Show 2014 trailer didn't make it to the final game.

But there are still other P.T. references that did make it. Namely, that pleasant radio transmission, interruptions and all, can be heard from some radios in MGSV.

Now, given that audio-only appearances are broadly eligible, you could make a case that whoever's reading in this transmission is a character themself, which would in turn connect Lisa to The Phantom Pain, at which point calculating the Ryu Number is just a matter of hashing out who exactly is and is not in MGSV. The only issue I have with making this connection is that the audio is basically reused wholesale from P.T., which arguably makes it more in line with an archival recording, which is not eligible, than bespoke radio chatter, which is eligible, but hey, whatever, I've peddled dodgier. Why the hell not.

So in the search of a route with less caveats, let's consider what I've identified as the last possible eligible connection, Specimen 8. This cervine bundle of fun can be seen in Lost in Vivo as part of Lost Tape 3.

It turns out there's another character in Lost in Vivo who's been in something else: Sotiris. It also turns out that the "something else" in question is, uh,

the EEK3 2020 Virtual Show Floor. Which, to the best of my knowledge, is never referred to as a game, so if that matters to you, then we're done, and Spooky either has the aforementioned route through Lisa or nothing.

If you're willing to say that the virtual show floor is a game, which does not seem to be an unpopular opinion, then good news! There's a clear path to Ryu. You just have to go through Skully, who cameos in Toree 3D,

to the titular Toree, who's a guest character in Lunistice,

to Kit, the main character of Lunistice, who cameos in CrossCode,

to Lea, whose Ryu Number of 2 is already established, which gives Spooky a final Ryu Number of I'm sorry, I'm being handed a note.

Oh. Well fuck me, then, for not considering that the realities of game development could lead to a scenario wherein a character from an in-progress game could make cameo appearances in other games, only to be scrapped entirely before their would-be source game is released. Clearly, this is what the kids refer to as a "skill issue".

And the best part? This chain is so long that I'm genuinely expecting to have overlooked something really obvious that gives a shorter number, because the documentation I found on indie-ass indie horror game crossovers is spotty. So if you have any information that could shorten this more substantial than "White Face is graffiti in the full release of FAITH", send it my way. I'd rather be definitely wrong than dubiously correct.

Anyway, Toree's set to be playable in Cross Impact, so when that's released to the wider public most of this nonsense I just spewed at you will actually come into play. Until then, make of all of this what you will. If you'll excuse me, I need to go fucking distort.

[crosshairs-dumb-pimp-gf]

How is your husband “crosscoded?” I am curious. 🤔

We can start by transferring over the "Cross is Catcoded" vibes, that takes care of a lot of qualities.

Ex Military man more than handy with a rifle.

Absolute grumpy gus.

Though mostly because he himself relates to Crosshair. His story, his archetype. What I call "involuntary kinship". Lemme explain;

I've told this story on here before but when I realized I had a thing for Cross (WTF wtf I have a character crush tf it's been 20 years I thought I was rehabilitated) I told him while we were watching the show and his reaction was, and I quote:

"No, THAT GUY? He makes me feel so called out."

Which is husband speak for,

"I see me in this character, a lot, and I don't like it."...

And honestly explains where my attraction starts.

Now physically he doesn't resemble Crosshair, which honestly thank goodness. I DO find Cross unbelievably sexy but that's like, an effect of liking him as a person character, not a cause. (Demi)

My guy is 6'1" and broad. Swimmers build. When he's not sporting extra cushion he actually is built more like Hunter. Also not immediately intimidating. People think I wear the pants around here. I can not stress this enough, I DO NOT.

This man is aggro despite his outward stoicism. He finds it to be his life's mission to fuck with assholes. Usually by being the bigger asshole. He can and WILL (and has) call someone a cunt to their face.

One time while we were at a deli counter this uppity old lady started getting huffy about how long it was taking and began to disparage the workers. The other biddys in line started to fall in line with that Mob mentality until he pipes up, "Can you believe what a cunt this bitch is being?" Loud enough for even the people behind the counter could hear him. That shut her up. (And got us better service anytime that particular staff was working, so bonus.)

He wins fights just by agreeing to them ( in irl people who actually try to fight you in a parking lot are incredibly stupid cowards. They attempt to intimidate him cause they mistake his quietness for weakness. This is wrong. As soon as he stands up these idiots bolt.)

[idontgetmemesijustrollwiththem]

Are you the crossing codes (or whatever that fic was called) person

If you're talking about Crossed Lines, yes! I have a dedicated Crosscode sideblog too (@girl-who-says-hi)

[pixelpoppers]

Cross-Phase Challenge

CrossCode's aggressive combination of genres also results in a particularly brutal challenge profile.

I previously wrote an article defining four "phases of challenge" - in short, preparation is getting ready to deal with challenges (research, practice, grinding), strategy is defining a framework for handling challenges (making plans, choosing loadouts), tactics is making choices in response to specific situations (game state awareness, choosing what to do in the moment), and action is communicating the choice back into the game (hitting the right buttons at the right time).

Different players have different tolerance and interest levels for the different phases, which has implications for a game's potential audience. Having high tactics challenge, for example, limits a game's audience to people who enjoy that kind of challenge. Having high tactics challenge and high strategy challenge limits the audience to people who enjoy both, which is a smaller group.

CrossCode has high challenge in all four phases. Here's the breakdown as I see it for the game's main loops of exploration, combat, and puzzles:

Exploration: Note the location of quest givers, not-yet-openable chests, not-yet-passable obstacles, and other features you may need to return to later.

Combat: Understand the wide range of build options in the skill tree. Gain levels to boost stats and get skill points. Learn the behavior and weaknesses of a variety of enemy types. Navigate the trading economy to figure out how and where to get good gear and items - and farm the required trade goods.

Puzzles: Understand the interactions between all your neutral and elemental abilities and the variety of world objects that make up puzzles.

Strategy:

Exploration: Determine possible paths through an area to reach chests and other locations that are accessible through parkour. Decide when it's time to return to previously-inaccessible chests or areas.

Combat: Pick a skill build that complements your play style and accommodates a plan to use your abilities against the combat challenges you're likely to encounter. Consider the many fiddly stat- and modifier-based trade-offs of the available gear options and decide what to optimize for. Recognize the behavior and weaknesses of enemies and adjust your approach accordingly. Be aware of enemy locations so you can chain battles and maximize your combat rank (which is necessary for getting the best trade goods). Decide when it's time to return to previously-too-difficult side battles.

Puzzles: Understand the through-line and implicit goal of each individual puzzle and make a plan using your abilities to accomplish that goal.

Tactics:

Exploration: Recognize which platforms are reachable through parkour and will bring you closer to the area you are trying to reach.

Combat: React to enemy positioning and behavior and use the right skills and the right attacks at the right time. Switch to the right elemental attacks at the right time, but keep an eye on your elemental overload gauge and switch to neutral attacks at the right time. Recognize enemy telegraphs and avoid their attacks so you don't fail the fight and can continue your fight chain to increase your combat rank.

Puzzles: Watch the current state of the components of each puzzle and apply the right ability at the right time to advance the state toward the goal.

Action:

Exploration: Position and aim yourself to successfully execute parkour jumps.

Combat: With split-second timing, precisely position yourself and aim your attacks to damage your enemies and avoid taking damage yourself.

Puzzles: With split-second timing, precisely position yourself and aim your abilities to execute the correct action to advance the puzzle state.

To be clear: it isn't just that there's challenge in every phase - it's that there's high challenge in every phase.

Exploration preparation is difficult because the maps are very low-detail, your ability to mark them is limited (you can, for example, stamp that an area contains a chest, but not whether it's a normal chest that you haven't found a way to reach, a chest that requires a key you don't have, or a chest that requires multiple keys you don't have), and the need to backtrack comes up frequently (through chests you can't open yet, barriers you can't pass yet, the need to find and return to spread-out quest-givers, and quests that you probably can't really handle at the time you can first take them). Combat preparation is difficult because enemy types have differing behavior and weaknesses that you can really only figure out through experimentation and the best gear comes from the labyrinthine trading economy (with a huge number of spread-out traders offering gear that often requires intermediate trade items that you may have to trade for elsewhere, making it hard to understand your actual options, and which sometimes require trade goods that only come from completing battles with a high combat rank, which makes farming more difficult). Puzzle preparation is difficult because there are so many factors from the wide number of tools at your disposal and the high number of puzzle elements with their own interactions.

Exploration strategy is difficult because parkour paths can be quite long, often extending through multiple screens, and there are no waypoint markers. Combat strategy is difficult due to the wide array of build and gear options with fiddly stat trade-offs which make far more difference to your combat effectiveness than your experience levels and the variety of enemy behavior and weaknesses that are vital to being able to deal and avoid damage efficiently enough to win. Puzzle strategy is difficult because puzzles can become quite long and require many different interactions to complete, to the point where it can be hard to even understand the goal of the puzzle you're working on.

Exploration tactics are difficult because the 2D pixel-art rendering can obscure where platforms are relative to each other, making possible jumps seem impossible and vice versa. Combat tactics are difficult because enemy behavior can be difficult to read (again, the 2D pixel-art rendering can make it unclear when an enemy is above your line of fire or in it), you often need to fight several enemies at once and keep track of all of their behavior, some enemies can only be damaged by elemental attacks (which charge an overload meter, so you need to keep an eye on that and switch to useless non-elemental attacks periodically to decrease it, lest you fully overload and lose the ability to do elemental attacks for longer). Puzzle tactics are difficult because they can have a high number of moving parts that require very different interactions, and again the 2D pixel-art rendering can obscure the position of the elements relative to each other.

Exploration action is difficult because many parkour jumps are just at the edge of possible and require precise positioning and aiming, and failing often means you have to find your way back to the start of the parkour path and retry the whole thing. Combat action is difficult because it's fast-paced and many enemies require speedy reactions with precise aiming to make use of their weaknesses and stand a chance of victory (often while you are also dodging their attacks), significant fights are often long and multi-stage and must be fully restarted if you fail - and for some reason, even the basic melee combo is hard to use efficiently, as it has a significant delay at the end unless you use your dash as an animation cancel. (You are told about this cancel very early in the game and are clearly intended to use it.) Puzzle action is difficult because it often requires performing a lengthy sequence of varied actions with precise timing, positioning, and aim with very short timing windows, and messing up any one of them can mean having to start the whole thing over.

Personally, I'm making use of Assist Mode to reduce some of the pressure. I've got the enemy damage slider down to its minimum 20%, meaning I can afford to pay much less attention to the trading economy and complex gear/build options and I have more latitude to learn and execute on exploiting enemy weaknesses. And I've got the puzzle speed slider down to its minimum 50%, giving me more time to execute the precise positioning and aiming I need to solve puzzles (though I still need to figure them out just the same). And that helps a lot but it doesn't put everything exactly where I want it.

There's a lot going on here that's hard in different ways, and all of these elements show up intermixed with each other in the game's main path. This creates a powerful selection effect on the game's audience. The number of people who enjoy all four phases of challenge and enjoy all these types of gameplay and are capable of the performance the game requires in all of them is small. But the people who can get over that barrier to entry are likely to love this game, to be proud of their skill at it and resistant to changing it. I'm thus not at all surprised that there are plenty of people in the game's Steam forum who complained about the addition of Assist Mode. But without that Assist Mode letting players optionally reduce some of the pressure of the game's brutal challenge profile, the number of people who could enjoy the game would be far smaller than it is. And it would definitely not include me.

[girl-who-says-hi]

I decided to draw C'tron's Crossed Lines design :D

I'm not 100% happy with it but alas such is the curse of needing to practice my art more.

[girl-who-says-hi]

Fuck it, Sophie post

Sophie, an Evotar of Emilie from my fic Crossed Lines!

She's so sad and im love her.

[girl-who-says-hi]

Lilac if she met the character she was based off of:

(That is @hexacasts' OC Normal "Grace" Pentafist by the way :3)

[girl-who-says-hi]

Me: Maybe I should make the next chapter a bit lighter in tone as a nice break from The Horrors.

Also Me: Time to write about the absolute nightmare that is the concept of an Evotar operating without a body! :3

[girl-who-says-hi]

Lilac "totally not a normal pentafist ripoff" fields doodles, ft. Manuela "won't appear for another two chapters" Lavore

[girl-who-says-hi]

Today on "Crossed Lines plot points that I had no plans for until I had already written them into the story": Lilac trying to distance herself from the Sidwell part of her identity to such an extreme degree that it becomes an alter.

[girl-who-says-hi]

I would like to have some very stern words with whichever tag wrangler made Manuela Lavore redirect to the Original Character tag. I know shes only mentioned in-game like twice but still. have some respect smh

[girl-who-says-hi]

Am I about to have 3 chapters in a row named after lyrics from JamieP songs? Yes. You can't stop me.

[girl-who-says-hi]

Me write the next chapter instead of drafting a scene planned for 2-3 chapters ahead challenge (impossible)

[girl-who-says-hi]

I swear, when I started writing Crossed Lines & came up with Sophie's character, I had NO intent of writing Emilie selfcest. But then when I was writing chapters 6 & 7 it just?? sort of wrote itself? One of those situations where my brain just decided, "actually, this is how the story is going to go." And now Emilie x Sophie is just. a part of the plot I guess!?