#it's a free game! on Android and switch

[deathbypufferfish]

recent sky screenshots 🌬️🪽

[konnetwork]

Suikoden makes a grand return! A Suikoden II anime, a new mobile game, and the long-awaited HD remaster of Suikoden I & II are on the way. Get all the details here!

[kyri45]

About today's new ISAT Sky:Cotl!AU update:

heyo! since last update was around 6 months ago, lots of new people probably joined this blog.

So-

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN READING THIS COMIC, YOU NEED TO HAVE FINISHED BOTH GAMES!

This story is HEAVY on spoilers of both games! You can play "Sky:Children of the light" for FREE on ALL devices! Mobile, android, IPad, Switch, Steam, PS, XBox, ALL! The endgame only takes a couple of hours (but be careful cause you might fall in love and play forever like me)

And you can play In "Stars And Time" on Switch, PS and on Steam for less than 20 bucks!

ESPECIALLY today AND future updates will be heavy on endgame spoilers, so just be alert!

And thank you for following and your patience!

[ohandcounting]

Getting The Most Out Of Deltarune Chapters 1+2+3+4: A Guided Experience.

Experience Deltarune the same way we did as it was releasing

Want to read this as a google doc instead?

If you are the rare person who heard about Deltarune (the parallel story to Undertale, by Toby Fox!) through the recent Nintendo Switch 2 Direct, this is for you. This is also a good resource for anyone that's just been out of the loop, or wants to make sure they've "seen it all" before getting to the next chapter.

It details not just what to play before Deltarune's new release content, but also has tips to make sure you don't miss anything important while getting through it without wasting time and detailing what happened between releases so you can go in with the same full experience I've had waiting for it to release for the past 7 years. The best time to get started was 2015, the second best time is now. All of it is below this read more, and it comes with only the necessary spoilers to save you some time. You can read it all in one go before starting any of the games, if you want. It's like, 10 years of stuff in here though. Take your time. If I missed anything, tell me and I'll edit it in. The best way to read this post is on my blog so you can see any of these edits. Feel free to share this around, make a video essay where you just read this off word for word, and/or repost it in any other fashion. I just want people enjoying the games! Credit is appreciated of course.

The Undertale Essentials

1

Go play Undertale! (you can skip any steps you've done before) It's on Steam, Xbox, Playstation, Switch. You can find android mobile ports of it pretty easily too, apparently. You can find a way to play it, I promise.

Just get to the end however you want, it largely doesn't matter what you do since a large appeal of the game is it reacting to your decisions. But if you get an encounter with no enemies, that means you've killed enough of them to activate an optional mode that skips a lot of the normal stuff in the game. So I would quit out to reload your save in that instance. You absolutely need to experience the game that started it all because a lot of Deltarune's enjoyment comes from the knowledge you'd have after playing this game first! Including the music! Don't mute the game just because you think the Ruins music is kinda mid!

2

Play Undertale...Again! This time, you need to be going for the True Pacifist Ending. Which just means you do all the important side quests, and don't kill anyone at all.* Don't worry about this being boring, there's actually plenty of unique dialog for a second playthrough.** If you don't super-kill The Flower™ from the trailer and all the marketing during a playthrough, he'll give you tips and hints on how to do it without having to look up a guide after the normal final boss. But really just try and maximize the dialog you see in this playthrough and you should get it. Just make sure you pour water on the blue lady after she passes out in the lava area, if you leave the screen on accident before pouring the water on her it locks you out of a side quest and you'll have to load a save from before the boss fight. If you save after this, that means you have to start all the way over...again again! *If you never killed anyone in your first playthrough and didn't lock yourself out of any important side quests, you can just hit continue to load into the room before the finale, and go back to do the side stuff you missed. **If you can't tell that the dialog is new, that means you can't complain about it being boring since you didn't remember the original dialog anyways! (This is a spiteful remark towards my biological older sister)

3

Play Undertale...Again Again Again! In step 1, I mentioned an optional mode that skipped a lot of the normal parts of the game. Well now you're going to do that on purpose, by not fighting an area's boss until you've exhausted the encounter limit. It's one of my favorite parts of the game to play. This can only be done by Fighting enemies until they fall to ashes before you, and stop showing up entirely. After the first area, save points start giving you an enemy count so you can't miss them on accident. Do this for the whole game, and you'll be able to reach The Final Conclusion to Undertale.

...Or...

You could watch someone else do it. (Don't click that out of curiosity if you're not at this step yet, it starts with super spoilers for the True Pacifist Ending!) This video playthrough features no commentary and uses YouTube's chapters feature, allowing you to skip through the monotonous enemy grinding if you just want to see what's new. Not everyone wants to do this playthrough, for obvious reasons.

This step might feel optional, but it's so important that I would highly recommend watching the video if you don't want to play it yourself. (You can check the end of this video yourself even if you played it, as this ending does change some things in other parts of the game!)

Congratulations! You've now finished The Undertale Essentials! (or you already did all of this like 10 years ago) Time to move on to...

The Extracurriculars!: Part 1

I don't believe any of this section is skippable if you want to really get the most out of Deltarune, despite the name. Feel free to use this time to think about Undertale even more, on a deeper level. These are events that happened between Undertale and the surprise release of Deltarune Chapter 1. Starting with...

The UNDERTALE Anniversary Q&A

Just make sure you read those instructions! It's not very long, so you could read it all in a single bathroom break.

The UNDERTALE 2nd Anniversary Alarm Clock announcement

This has since been cancelled, but it has some unique dialog for the characters found nowhere else. Again, very short.

The trailer for UNDERTALE's Switch release I guess?

This one is just funny, I really like this trailer. It didn't even release for the third anniversary on time outside of Japan. However, there is a fan favorite Exclusive Boss Fight and also Whatever This Is (<- 1/100 chance) that you'll miss if you didn't play the game on Switch! These are essential to know about going forward, as it's effectively two entirely new characters.

Here's the Exclusive Dog Shrine for the Playstation release, which is...Not Important...I'm watching this just now for the first time and it kind of sucks...badly. Okay just this one is skippable.

The Deltarune Essentials: Chapter 1

0

I want to take a moment to set the mood here for you. We just had the Switch release for Undertale, for the third anniversary. Nobody is expecting anything from Toby, who's now a multi-millionaire off of game sales alone (official merch comes from Fangamer, I wouldn't look at it yet though as you might run into spoilers) and if he does release anything else, we expect it to be just his "next project."

Then, the morning of October 30th, the day before Halloween, the official Undertale account tweets this and this. (<- start that one at the bottom I formatted it wrong) Then, after waiting a full 24 hours and finally downloading the new thing it greets you with THIS terrifying premise. We were terrified!

Now, after reading that, it is finally time for...

1

Playing Deltarune! But just chapter 1. It's free! After installing it, if it's the steam version, right click it and open up the "properties..." menu. Then go down to Betas and set it to "chapter1.2.lts.test - 11-25-24" to make sure you're playing the latest version, if you can't it's not a big deal but this does make some changes that will be in the final game. Meaning it's just a way to play the final-ish version of chapter 1+2 a bit early!

It's your first playthrough, just do whatever you like. It's only a single chapter rather than an entire game, so replaying it won't take nearly as long even if you mess something up. I will warn you though, you will need at least 90 minutes in a row after fighting the final boss of Card Castle to complete the next section that has no save points. This is, technically, for the best. You'll see. But please, for your own sake, do not start Chapter 2 yet. I promise, it's worth it.

2

Playing Deltarune But Just Chapter 1...Again! Or don't. While I do personally recommend playing through it again and doing the opposite of what you did the first time, that's not really important. At least not that we can tell yet. What you will want to do is load your first save file, and then making sure you have the White Ribbon armor item and watching the chapter 1 portion of this guide (it starts in partway through the video to avoid spoilers, make sure you stop the video before he starts talking about Chapter 2) to make sure you didn't miss anything important for Chapter 2! You will need to get to the ending cutscene again to make sure any changes to your file transfer to Chapter 2 properly.

This is just a general playthrough tip: When you're in town, you can just go all the way down to the bunker at the south-most area first thing. This will let you explore through the town in "layers", making it hard to miss anything that isn't hidden (the guide does mention the hidden part of the town!) Really, the most important part is just talking to sinks before anyone else in the room though.

Now that you've finished Chapter 1, it's time for...

The Extracurriculars!: Part 2

At this point, you're probably thinking to yourself "Why should I wait? Why would I not just go into the next part of the game now? Why do all these extra parts?" The simple answer is, Deltarune uses its Chapter releases to give you time to think about it. Probably, too much time, given the way some of us react to it. But this does play into its strengths as a series, giving us tidbits and mysteries to dive into. Trying to predict and figure out what's being foreshadowed and find the characters hidden and all the little interactions you could of missed. This really is the true strength of the series, and why people love talking about it. There's so much to find, there's almost always more you haven't seen.

This section covers the events that happened between chapters 1 and 2 of Deltarune. It's honestly quite a doozy, but less of it as vital as last time. Starting with:

Toby Fox talking about his thoughts on the game he's been working on since 2012.

Yeah, it turns out Deltarune started development before he even started working on Undertale. This is more or less unimportant if you don't care about Toby Fox or the creation of the game.

Honestly a lot of what's here and between the 5th Anniversary is mostly little tweets here and there. If you DO care about a little behind the scenes stuff, you'll just have to open the Toby Fox's twitter account and scroll down until you see the big blue "Windows protected your PC" images because everyone's PC's thought he was releasing a virus because he called the game "SURVEY_PROGRAM" lol. (then you can start scrolling up to see the stuff!)

Also the Chapter 1 Demo released on Switch with a very funny trailer

Seriously though, it's all just other stuff he's worked on, jokes, behind the scenes/scrapped content, or previews for chapter 2 which you're about to play anyways.

This all changed on the 5th anniversary however...

THE UNDERTALE 5th Anniversary Orchestra Concert

This doesn't have much exclusive in it (excluding the music itself, of course) other than a commercial for some merchandise that was released on the 5th anniversary. There are also some piano covers from Toby Fox himself at the 3:03:00 mark, including a song you might not have heard yet. It's a very fun listen and watch, but it isn't vital if you just care about the story and characters instead of the music. Somehow. (If you played through the game muted you're doing it wrong [Unless you're deaf. Sorry.])

The UNDERTALE 5th Anniversary Alarm Clock Dialog

Unlike the other alarm clock dialog, this is actually very entwined with the characters, to the point where despite it being their Undertale versions, it actually gives insight for their Deltarune versions as well. A very important read, if you ask me, and very enjoyable if you just like the characters. Not nearly as short as last time, but it's sectioned so you can come back to your spot easily if you get interrupted.

The UNDERTALE 5th Anniversary Deltarune Status Update

This is more or less just talking about how far along chapter 2 was, and why it's been taking so long! Non-vital if none of that interests you, but there are some cool screenshots of Chapter 2.

Microsoft (probably) paid Toby a ton of money to release the game on Xbox for some reason lol

Again: really funny trailer. Here's most of the Exclusive Xbox Stuff (the rest can be found here, thanks @undertale-encyclopedia for having such a good pinned post) which doesn't sucks and gives more information on a few characters, even some we only meet in Deltarune!

Now for the 6th anniversary we have something very special.

The UNDERTALE 6th Anniversary SO WE PLAY deltarune CHAPTER 1 FOR SOME REASON live stream featuring 3 dads

This is really cool and important to the experience if you ask me! I genuinely recommend watching it, beginning to end, skipping nothing and keeping your eyes peeled throughout. It's not a very "normal" playthrough, and the waiting periods have exclusive songs & information.

You'll see why at the end of it, but now that you've definitely watched that entire video (it's okay if you did it at 2x speed) it's time for...

The Deltarune Essentials: Chapter 2

0

More spooky tweets...So Spooky... (again, bottom to top. Just like manga!)

1

Playing Deltarune Chapter 2! Your first playthrough, do whatever you want. There aren't any long stretches without save points this time either. I highly recommend getting at least 1 of everything you come across and keeping it safe, with your new storage ability this shouldn't be too hard. There's plenty of secrets to find too, so keep an eye out!

This will save you a lot of time though: There is a part in Chapter 2 where the party changes in some meaningful way I'm being intentionally vague about. As SOON as this happens, use the new Chapter 2 save menu to copy your save into an unused save slot (I recommend the bottom slot) and don't touch it or save over it for the rest of this playthrough.

There is a hidden B-side route, requiring either a guide to go through it or someone behind your shoulder telling you what to do. Saving at this moment will allow you to do this B-side route, without having to start the chapter over from the beginning. Having someone telling you what to do is the recommended way to do it.

2

Do the hidden B-side route, which is significantly shorter than a normal playthrough. If you saved in the correct spot, you should have a save file ready to go right before the branching point. Again, someone else telling you what to do is recommended. But if you need a guide for it, there's one on the wiki in the "Method" section near the top. Try not to read anything outside of it.

I recommend to stop reading the guide as soon as possible, as once the route is initiated a low-pitched sound will play whenever you successfully keep the route going. If a different sound plays, you have aborted this B-side route, meaning you need to reload your last save. If you get stuck, you can go back to the guide as necessary. Do note that you WILL need to find The Dumpster and buy from it.

After you Do-The-Thing with the Dumpster-Thing-You-Need-To-Remember-To-Equip, you'll be locked in, so you won't need to consult the guide anymore for the rest of the playthrough.

3

You can now watch the entire "Making PERFECT Deltarune Save files..." video beginning to end.* I originally linked it at the 6:40 mark, so you can watch what was before that to see what spoilers I skipped. If you just want the Chapter 2 guide portion, it starts at 13:30. This step of "making perfect save files" is technically skippable, but there are some REALLY good items in Chapter 2 that are VERY missable! This will make sure you get them all, maximizing your Chapters 3 & 4 experience. But this one really isn't vital if you're enough of a gamer to not need strong items for "optional" hidden bosses. Oh, and make sure you talk to sinks before people whenever possible. *if you’d rather just read a checklist, here’s one by @brixbraxium. It covers both chapters 1 & 2, so I couldn’t link it earlier. It doesn’t cover absolutely everything like the video guide, but if you just want the big points this is perfect.

The Extracurriculars!: Finale

The Finale. All the extra bits and pieces that have been dropped for us here and there as we've been waiting for the past 3 and a half years for that Trailer. You may not want to read this section until after you're done with Chapter 2! It's easily the longest section to get through. But I'm sure you've been wondering...

Who the hell is that guy from the intro that's been making those spooky tweets before chapter releases? and Part 2 of it. These videos are, of course, not gospel (something like this really can't have one) But it's a very good summary of the information we have and what the common consensus was/is for some things.

Also there's been this unused code that has a person talking the entire time lol. This actually changed between the chapter 1 and chapter 2 release. This is probably Dess? Who you may or may not even know exists at all. Hope you've been paying attention!

The UNDERTALE 7th Anniversary Deltarune Status Update

This one has content you, someone who just played Chapter 2, will actually care about! It previews content and music for chapters 3 & 4, but still effectively tells us nothing! It's awesome! More importantly though it tells you about

THE SPAMTON SWEEPSTAKES

Don't watch the video at the top. This is for your own safety. You can't handle it. Not Yet. This features tons of exclusive music, previews of stuff you already saw and other stuff that wasn't featured in the Switch 2 direct trailer, and ads that you actually SHOULD click on. Can you find all 40 hidden pages? No? Are you sure you checked the product descriptions really thoroughly? Both homepages? Okay here's the wiki page that lists them all. Really do go through them all though, there's a lot of character building that just won't happen in the game here! Also, here's a live Spamton FAQ that got buried in Fangamer's twitter for some reason. Very funny and informative.

Successfully managing to get through all 40 hidden pages, and reading all of the text on the normal pages, and the FAQ, should inoculate you to [Spamton's Essense] allowing you to now watch the video at the top of the sweepstakes page. I am not liable for any [injures] you suffer.

THE NEWSLETTERS

After this, everything became consolidated into Seasonal Newsletters (sign up here, I recommend truck freak) that are archived here on Toby Fox's website. Just click into the Newsletter archive, and scroll down to the bottom first and work your way up. Seriously, just go up through them and enjoy what we've been waiting for months apart.

These talk about everything Toby Fox has been working on and have cool stuff like interviews with the characters and also real people who work on the games! It'll cover a couple things that happened before this section too, so don't worry about me missing anything if you think I haven't mentioned it here. However, there are some Famitsu articles linked, and you may notice that when you try to read them...that you do not speak Japanese...

Here's translations by @chartcarr of pretty much every Toby Fox Japanese only interview! You can find the one's mentioned in the newsletters under the "Toby Fox's Secret Base" link if they're not on the front page. (Chartcarr is going to re-do most of these at some point. That might have already happened, check’em out again if you’ve already read them!)

Newsletter Issue #5 Has 3 Random Valentine's Day Cards. Here's All Of Them In One Page. We had to hunt these down as a community, together! It was brutal! A lot of them only went to a few people, and if those people weren't online or aware we didn't have theirs yet, we just didn't have it! It was great.

All that's left for you now is to remember to click the snowman at the bottom of Issue 8.

Don't want to miss anything once Chapters 3&4 come out? Here's a speculative checklist by @brixbraxium (again!) that predicts everything we'll need to do based on the previous chapters. If I never update this, it can't ever be spoilers! Woohoo!

Big Questions FAQ:

This Series Has Irrevocably Rewired My Brain How Do I Cope With This

Watch this. It's a great video, even if you don't have this problem. It's basically what happened to me.

How Do I Become A Theory Lord With All Of This In My Brain Now?

Here's Device Theory, by @m0llystars, it should get your gears turning just watching it. Yes all 3 parts are out. It's especially worth your time if you like thinking about this game perhaps a bit too much really.

I Really Need Specifically More Undertale Not Deltarune Right NOW!!!...Please?

Here's an Undertale exhibition by Shayy on the show "That's Never Happened Before." You can probably just google "Undertale Theory" or something though if this isn't enough.

I Need To Give This Man More Than The $1-$35 I Have Already Given Him For His Game(s), How?

Official Merch can be found here, there are also EU and JPN sites linked at the bottom of the page. Here is the Bandcamp page to Buy the digital versions of the soundtracks (also on most streaming platforms)

I Like Music Theories

Here you go!

All Of This Happened So Fast I Need Something To Help Analyze The Characters In This Largely Character Driven Series! Help?!

Here's Dorked's Undertale & Deltarune Analysis playlist who you can also find on this website running the blog @megaderping

I've Managed To Consume All Of This Before Deltarune Chapters 3 + 4 Released, Or Came Back After They Released, And I Crave More. Now What?

The biggest inspirations for Undertale and Deltarune are Earthbound, Mother 3, Live A Live, OFF, Yume Nikki, MOON: Remix RPG, Brandish, Cave Story, and the TouHou series. (and a few more not mentioned here!)

OFF The RPG is getting a re-release on Switch & Steam soon with new music (some is by Toby Fox!) and revamped combat, so look forward to that. Or you can play the original OFF for free.

Earthbound is on every Nintendo console ever. Here's an excellent Let's Play of Earthbound you can watch if you don't want to play it yourself. It will show you more than you could possibly find on your own. A great series just in general, if you need something to watch.

Here's a video on how to play Mother 3.

Live A Live can be purchased on Steam or Nintendo Switch, and is excellent. Each campaign is relatively bite sized so you'll never be stuck on anything for long. I recommend disabling tutorials and starting with Imperial China, it's very linear and simple so it's perfect to learn with. Looking up guides to make sure you don't miss anything is fine though!

Cave Story is just free.

Yume Nikke is just free.

MOON: Remix RPG is on steam and Nintendo Switch. If you're a theory head, I highly recommend playing this one through to the end.

TouHou has a very dedicated unofficial translation scene, as there is no official translation for most of the games, so you'll need to go through them to play the games unless you can read Japanese.

I don't really have anything for the Brandish series, I just absorbed information about it from a blog that's no longer active. If anyone knows a truly exceptional let's play of it or the best way to play it, I'll edit it in here!

Stuff from other people who worked with Toby Fox

Temmie Chang has made a couple short games that Toby Fox has helped with

Splendidland (Mickey’s Dicksmasher Person) has done several things, including making Franken RPG. Which is fantastic.

Space Funeral isn’t really related at all but if you liked Franken it’s an obligatory recommendation. A friend of mine played it because they just got into Deltarune and didn't want to burn out replaying it before release, then immediately recommended it to me.  

Toby Fox helped with the music for Soul Of Sovereignty, by ggdg, who did some art for Undertale and got interviewed in one of the newsletters.

Fred Wood has his own website, definitely check out LOVE 3.

Taxiderby, creator of UNDERTALE RED, has their own itch page also.

I can also strongly recommend ZeroRanger & Void Stranger if you just want that feeling of digging deeper. Finding obscure interactions and details buried deep within the game, challenging but deeply rewarding in gameplay and lore discovery...Also play them both if you want to hear the music do that thing where the motif is established in the first game to give hints towards stuff in the second game in action. It's very cool.

Wait that's really how you're ending it? A random game rec where all you say is they're very cool without explaining anything about them? One of these wasn't even a question!

[sofia-d-asb]

Twine/SugarCube ressources

Some/most of you must know that Arcadie: Second-Born was coded in ChoiceScript before I converted it to Twine for self-publishing (for various reasons).

I have switched to Ren'Py for Cold Lands, but I thought I would share the resources that helped me when I was working with Twine. This is basically an organized dump of nearly all the bookmarks I collected. Hope this is helpful!

Guides

Creating Interactive Fiction: A Guide to Using Twine by Aidan Doyle

A Total Beginner’s Guide to Twine

Introduction to Twine By Conor Walsh (covers Harlowe and not SugarCube)

Twine Grimoire I

Twine Grimoire II

Twine and CSS

Documentation

SugarCube v2 Documentation

Custom Macros

Chapel's Custom Macro Collection, particularly Fairmath function to emulate CS operations if converting your CS game to Twine

Cycy's custom macros

Clickable Images with HTML Maps

Character pages

Character Profile Card Tutorial

Twine 2 / SugarCube 2 Sample Code by HiEv

Templates

Some may be outdated following Twine/SugarCube updates

Twine/Sugarcube 2 Template

Twine SugarCube template

Twine Template II

Twine Template by Vahnya

Sample Code and more resources

A post from 2 years ago where I share sample code

TwineLab

nyehilism Twine masterpost

How to have greyed out choices

idrellegames's tutorials

Interactive Fiction Design, Coding in Twine & Other IF Resources by idrellegames (idrellegames has shared many tutorials and tips for Twine, browse their #twine tag)

How to print variables inside links

How do I create a passage link via clicking on a picture

App Builder

Convert your Twine game into a Windows and macOS executable (free)

Convert your Twine game into a mobile app for Android and iPhone (90$ one-time fee if memory serves me right) // Warning: the Android app it creates is outdated for Google Play, you'll need to update the source code yourself

[kifflepiffles]

In light of the recent Nintendo boycotts, I come bearing a gift

I'll copy/paste a message I've been sharing in discord servers

If you like Nintendo games but hate the company, today's your lucky day

This is totally illegal and you absolutely shouldn't do it because its wrong, so I'm gonna tell you exactly what to do so that you guys know not to do it!

You guys absolutely should not download Azahar Nintendo 3DS emulator and then go onto Citra-emulator.com to find old Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS games and then open the games through Azahar for to play free, including Tomodachi life, ACNH, The Sims 3, Nintendogs + Cats and Flipnote Studio.

You really shouldn't do this stuff its its illegal but if you did it, it would totally work and no one could stop you. Also I work in tech and virus scanned random files and they all came up clean so its safe but its still illegal don't do it................. (But you totally could and no one would stop you)

The Citra emulator doesn't work because the dev got hit with a lawsuit. He went on to work on Azahar. They say not to do this for legal protection, but it fully works.

As far as I know, these games do not have piracy barriers EXCEPT Tomodachi Life (A large red cross over the character faces). I have a debug file that fixes this. If you guys come across another game that has a barrier let me know and I'll search for a debug

Tutorial

Use this link to download the emulator

https://azahar-emu.org/ scroll all the way up to "Download". Download the version that corresponds with your system (Windows, Mac, Linux, Android)

And this link to download the game files

https://citra-emulator.com/ Scroll all the way up to "3DS ROMS". There is an incomplete but still extensive collection of games, both Japanese and English titles as well as Pokemon ROM hacks

On Windows, place the game files on your desktop and open them. It will ask you what app you want to open the file with. Choose "Select app on PC", search for Azahar and select it then press "okay"

(I'm not 100% on the process for Linux and Mac but I'm sure they're similar. On Android I know for certain they are)

You'll know if it works because the game icons will switch from a paper file to the Azahar flower

Once you see these flowers, you are all set and ready to play!

And here is the error fix for Tomodachi life. Download this file and open it like normal. It will ask you what app you wish to open it with. Open it with Azahar.

Don't panic! A lowkey scary looking dialogue box will pop up for a moment and text will very quickly load onto it. This is Azahar reading the file and saving the commands. It will very quickly close itself. Once that window closes itself, you're all set to open Tomodachi Life and play like normal!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_BQfoGycmpaaOvBEm29LU1FKqy7cgG6j/view?usp=drive_link

(This is an upload from my own personal google drive account. I pinkie promise there's no virus on this. and if there is you have full permission to yell at me and put me on blast)

and that's everything I got! Feel free to reblog with other sites or tips you have! <3 Have fun lovelies!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Why Millennials aren’t leaving Tiktok

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW NIGHT (Mar 22) in TORONTO, then SUNDAY (Mar 24) with LAURA POITRAS in NYC, then Anaheim, and more!

The news that Gen Z users have abandoned Tiktok in such numbers that the median Tiktoker is a Millennial (or someone even older) prompted commentators to dunk on Tiktok as uncool by dint of having lost its youthful sheen:

https://www.garbageday.email/p/tiktok-millennials-turns

But "why are Gen Z kids leaving Tiktok?" is the wrong question. The right question is, why aren't Millennials leaving Tiktok? After all, we are living through the enshittocene, the great enshittening, in which every platform gets monotonically, irreversibly worse over time, and Tiktok is no exception:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

To understand why older users are stuck to Tiktok, we need to start with why younger users relentlessly seek out new platforms. To some extent, it's just down to youth's appetite for novelty, but that's only part of the story. To really understand why people come to – and leave – platforms, you have to understand switching costs.

"Switching costs" is the economists' term for everything you have to give up when you change products or services. Switching from Ios to Android probably means giving up a bunch of your apps and purchased media. Switching from an airline where you're a high-status frequent flier to another carrier means giving up on free checked bags and early boarding.

In an open market, rivals have lots of ways to lower these switching costs (it's an open secret that you can call an airline and say, "Hi, I'm a 33rd Order Mason on American Airlines, will you make me a Triple Platinum Diamond Sky-Baron if I switch to Delta?"). Of course, big incumbents hate this, and do everything they can to increase their switching costs, finding ways to impose high switching costs that punish disloyal consumers who have the temerity to go elsewhere.

With social media, lock-in comes for free, thanks to the "collective action problem." Getting people to agree on a given course of action is hard, and as you add more people to the picture, the problem gets harder. It's hard enough to get half a dozen people in your group-chat to agree on where to go for dinner or what board-game to play. But once you're reliant on a social media service to stay in touch with friends, relatives around the world, customers, communities (say, rare disease support groups), and coordination (like organizing your kid's little league car-pool), the problem becomes nearly insoluble. Maybe you can convince your overseas relatives to switch to a Signal group, but can you do the same for your small business's customers, or your old high-school pals?

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/29/how-to-leave-dying-social-media-platforms/

Taken together, switching costs and collective action problems make platforms "sticky," and sticky platforms inevitably enshittify.

Platforms, after all, generate value. They connect end-users with each other (say, little league parents) and they connect end-users to business customers (you and your small business's customers). That value needs to be parceled out among end users, business customers, and the platform's shareholders. A platform can make life better for business customers at its end users' expense by increasing the number of ads (hello, Youtube!), and it can make life better for its shareholders at its business customers' expense by decreasing the share of ad revenue given to publishers or performers (oh, hello again, Youtube!).

From a platform's perspective, the ideal state is one in which end users and business customers get no value from the platform, because it's all being captured by the platform's shareholders. But if Youtube interrupted every 30 seconds of video for ten minutes of ads and paid the video creators nothing, both users and creators would ditch the platform – and advertisers would follow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dab8sKg8Ko8

So platforms seek an equilibrium: "what is the least value we apportion to end-users and business customers without triggering their departure?" Maybe that means giving more value to end-users (for example, keeping Uber fares low by suppressing wages), or to business-customers (crowding more ads into your social media feed).

Every business – including brick-and-mortar, non-digitized ones – wants to find some kind of equilibrium between the value going to its suppliers, its customers and its owners, but digital businesses have an advantage here: digital systems are flexible in ways that analog, hard-goods businesses are not. Digital businesses can alter pricing, payouts and other dynamics from moment to moment – second to second – and make a different offer to every supplier and customer. They have a bunch of knobs, and they can twiddle them at will:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

Well, not quite at will. Businesses face constraints on their twiddling. If they get too greedy, users or business customers might weigh the cost of staying against the switching costs and decide it's not worth it. But the more expensive – the more painful – a platform can make leaving, the more pain they can inflict on the people who stay.

In other words, there's two ways to keep a customer or supplier's business: you can make a better service so they won't want to leave, or you can make leaving the service so painful that they stay even if you mistreat them.

There's three ways a digital company can make things worse for their customers and users without losing their business.

First, they can eliminate competition (think of Mark Zuckerberg buying Instagram to recapture the users who'd fled Facebook to escape his poor management):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/03/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself/

Second, they can capture their regulators and avoid punishment for trampling their suppliers' or users' legal rights (think of how Amazon has raised the price of everything we buy, both on- and off Amazon, through its "most favored nation" deals):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

Third, they can use IP law to prevent competitors from modifying their services to claw back some of that value (think of how Apple used legal threats to block an Android version of Imessage, blocking Apple customers from having private conversations that included non-Apple customers:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones

Companies can't just use this tricks at will, of course. Antitrust laws can block companies from making anticompetitve acquisitions or mergers. Regulators can punish companies for cheating their customers, workers and users. Technologists can come up with clever ways of modding or reconfiguring existing services with "interoperable" add-ons that let users bargain for better treatment by refusing to accept worse:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

Day in, day out, the decision-makers at tech companies test these constraints, twisting the knobs that shift value away from users to shareholders. Their bosses and boards motivate them with "KPIs" that dangle the promise of huge bonuses and promotions for any manager who successfully enshittifies part of the company's products:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

Decades of pro-corporate, pro-monopoly policy has loosened those knobs. 40 years of lax antitrust meant that companies had a lot of leeway to buy or merge with rivals – that's changing today, but it's tough sledding:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion

As sectors grew more concentrated, they found it easier to capture their regulators, so that they no longer fear punishment for price-gouging, spying, or wage-theft, so applying the same amount of torque to the "break the law" knob cranks it a lot further:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/05/regulatory-capture/

Once you've captured your regulators, you can aim them at your competitors. A monopoly-friendly policy environment has transformed IP law into a bully's charter, allowing powerful companies to strangle would-be competitors who dare to offer their customers tools to shield themselves from enshittification, like scrapers, ad-blockers and alternative clients. Big companies can crank the enshittification knob all the way over and know that smaller rivals knobs won't turn at all:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/benevolent-dictators/#felony-contempt-of-business-model

At one point, bosses faced one more constraint on knob-twiddling: their workforce. Many tech workers genuinely cared about their users' welfare, something bosses encouraged as a sneaky trick to get techies to put in long hours without exercising their leverage by quitting rather than destroying their lives to meet arbitrary deadlines. These workers would fearlessly slap their bosses' hands when they reached for the enshittification knob, threatening to quit rather than allowing the products they'd given so much for to be enshittified. Today, after hundreds of thousands of tech layoffs, tech workers are far less like to challenge their bosses' right to twiddle, and far more likely to get fired if they try:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/10/the-proletarianization-of-tech-workers/

All this means that tech bosses don't have to change their approach at all, and yet, their services will grow steadily worse. The boss who twiddles the enshittification knob in exactly the same way as he did a year or a decade ago will find it turning much further, because his customers are locked into his platform, his regulators won't protect them, the same regulators will stop his competitors' attempts at countertwiddling, and his workers fear losing their jobs too much to speak up for their users.

That's the contagion that produced the enshittocene: the forces that constrained companies (competition, regulation, self-help and labor – all melted away, allowing every company's MBA-poisoned knob-twiddling leaders to shamelessly caress their knobs with every hour that God sends:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle/#ich-bin-ein-bratapfel

Which is why people want to leave platforms. When a platform loses its users, those users have weighed the switching costs against the pain of staying and decided that it's better to bear those costs than to stay.

So why have Tiktok's younger users found the costs too high to bear, and why have their elders remained stuck to the platform?

For that, we have to look at the unique characteristics of young people – characteristics that transcend the lazy cliche that kids are easily bored, fickle novelty-seekers who hop from one service to another with unquenchable restlessness.

Whether or not kids are novelty-seekers, they are, fundamentally, a disfavored minority. They want to do things that the platforms don't want them to do – like converse without being overheard by authority figures, including their parents and their schools (also: cops and future employers, though kids may not be thinking about them as much).

In other words, kids pay intrinsically lower switching costs than adults, because a platform will always do less for them than it will for grownups. This is a characteristic kids share with other supposedly technophilic, novelty-seeking "early adopters," from sex-workers to terrorists, from sexual minorities to trolls, from political dissidents to fascists. For those groups, the cost of mastering a new technology and assembling a community around it is always more likely to be worth bearing than it would be for people who are well-served by existing tools:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/21/early-adopters/#sex-tech

Pornographers didn't jump on home video because of its superiority as a medium for capturing flesh-tones. Home video was a good porn medium because it was easier to discreetly get into the hands of porn consumers, who could, in turn, discreetly view it. The audience for porn in the privacy of your living room is larger than the audience for porn that you can only watch if you're willing to be seen marching into a dirty movie theater.

Every new technology is popularized by a mix of disfavored groups and neophiles, who normalize and refine it – and yes, infuse it with their countercultural coolth – until it becomes easy enough to use to become mainstream. As more normies drift into the new system, the switching costs associated with leaving the old system declines. It gets easier and easier to find the people and services you want in the new realm, and harder and harder to find them in the old one.

This is why tech platforms have historically experienced sudden collapse: the platform that gets more valuable and harder to leave as it accumulates users gets less valuable and easier to leave as users depart:

https://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2022/12/05/what-if-failure-is-the-plan.html

If you're a Gen Z kid on Tiktok, you experience the same enshittification as your Millennial elders. But you also experience an additional cost to staying: as late-arriving adult authority figures become more fluent in the platform, they are more able to observe your use of it, and punish you for conduct that you used to get away with.

And if you're a Millennial who isn't leaving Tiktok, it's not just that you experience the same enshittification as those departing Gen Z kids – you also face higher switching costs if you go. The older you get, the more complex your social connections grow. A Gen Z kid in middle school doesn't have to worry about losing touch with their high-school buddies if they switch platforms (they haven't gone to high school yet – and they see their middle school friends in person all the time, giving them a side-channel to share information about who's leaving Tiktok and where they're headed to next). Middle-schoolers don't have to worry about coordinating little league car-pools or losing access to a rare disease support group.

In other words: younger people leave old platforms earlier because they have more to gain by leaving; and older people leave old platforms later because they have more to lose by leaving.

This is why Facebook is filled with Boomers. Yes, their kids bolted for the exits to avoid having their parents (or grandparents) wading into their sexual, social and professional lives. But the reason the Boomers were late joining younger users' Facebook exodus – or the reason they never joined it – is that they stand to lose more by going. Facebook deliberately cultivated this dynamic, for example, by creating a photo hosting service designed to entice users into uploading their family photos while disguising how hard it would be to take those photos with them if they left:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

The irony here is that tech has intrinsically low switching costs. All other things being equal, a new platform can always build a bridge to ease the passage of users from the old one. There's no (technical) reason that moving to Mastodon, or Bluesky, or any other platform should mean cutting ties with the people who stayed behind.

A combination of voluntary interoperability (where old platforms offer APIs to allow new services to connect with them), mandatory interop (where governments force tech companies to offer APIs) and adversarial interop (where new companies hack together their own API with reverse-engineering, scraping, bots, and other guerrilla tactics) would hypothetically allow users to hop between networks as easily as you change phone carriers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/19/better-failure/#let-my-tweeters-go

Tech platforms tend to offer APIs when they're getting started (to ease the inward passage of new users) then shut them down after they attain dominance (locking the door behind those users). The EU is tinkering with mandatory APIs through the Digital Markets Act (though bafflingly, they're starting with encrypted messaging rather than social media). Restoring adversarial interoperability will require extensive legal reform, which is getting started through Right to Repair laws:

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/03/13/oregon-passes-right-to-repair-law-apple-lobbied-to-kill/

The people who are stranded on social media platforms shouldn't be mistaken for uncool, aging technophobes. They're not stubborn, they're stranded. Like the elders who can't afford to leave a dying town after the factory shuts down and the young people move away, these people are locked in. They need help evacuating – a place to go and a path to get there.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/21/involuntary-die-hards/#evacuate-the-platformsr

[raimi]

8 free android games with no ads and no in-app purchases

(note for those using screenreaders: all images in this post are screenshots of the game currently under discussion. unfortunately i struggle much more with describing images than with games.)

1. CoffeePack

you know those addictive little merge-style games that are fun except for being completely overloaded with ads? it's like that, but without the ads. trays of coffee come in three at a time, and you put them into the grid to make full trays of six of the same kind.

you can download CoffeePack here.

2. Fast like a Fox

this one's a fun little platformer with a unique control method—you make the fox run by tapping the back of your phone! (there is an option to change that to something more normal, though.) true to the name, speed is very important here. you're not on a timer unless you're trying to get the third gem of a level, but the game keeps track of your record times.

you can download Fast like a Fox here.

3. Simon Tatham's Puzzles

it might not be visually impressive, but there's no funny business here. you came for puzzles, and that's what you're getting. there's a huge number of puzzles included in the app (under different names from their usual, admittedly), and you can customize the difficulty all you want.

you can download Simon Tatham's Puzzles here.

4. Stray Dog: Bone Quest

this is another puzzle game, but it's more timing based. you need to maneuver the dog around each level to collect all the bones on the ground while avoiding hostile cats and humans.

you can download Stray Dog: Bone Quest here.

5. Unciv

it's civilization 5 for your phone. i'm sure you know what civilization 5 is.

you can download Unciv here.

6. WordSmith

word game fans, don't think i've forgotten you! in WordSmith, you're given an assortment of letters that are color coded as starts of words, ends of words, intersections (taking priority over starts and ends), and middles of words, and tasked to put them all into a crossword. there are several difficulty settings, and the timer in the bottom right corner is completely ignorable if you so choose.

you can download WordSmith here.

7. Cobble Climber

this one's very simple! your character climbs up the wall on the side of the screen, and you tap to have them jump to the other side to avoid rocks. the goal is to see how far you can go!

you can download Cobble Climber here.

8. Curve Quest – Endless Game

in this game, you control a ball that travels along a line, switching directions whenever you tap the screen. the line starts out straight, but becomes more and more curved over the course of play. you're also under constant bombardment from obstacles you need to protect your ball from, and there are occasional power ups on one end of the line or the other.

you can download Curve Quest – Endless Game here.

[disobey-disappoint-deviate]

Ok, but you know what I noticed?

The meaning of "deviating" kinda switches a little when it comes to Connor.

With both Kara and Markus, deviating is portrayed as 'making the decision to obey or disobey their orders'; in a way, deviating is basically developping a free will regardless of what the android chooses to do with it after. That means that Kara can still stay in that spot and not move, and Markus can still decide to listen to Carl and not defend himself against Leo after they become deviants.

So why can't Connor deviate and still decide to obey and finish his mission by capturing Markus? It's not... impossible for a living being with a free will to make a fucked up decision. It's not impossible for a brainwashed individual to turn against their own people.

Of course, it doesn't make that much sense to deviate if he doesn't wanna disobey, but it doesn't for Markus either, imo. I admit that it's a 50/50 with Kara as she can deviate and still "decide" to obey Todd only if you don't do anything which is just the default and not an actual action by the player.

But Markus does feel like he is being treated unfairly by Leo and Carl, he feels it's too much and that he needs to decide for himself how to react, so him enduring being pushed around after deviating doesn't necessarily make a lot more sense than Connor deviating and still capturing Markus.

Maybe Markus decides to endure because he sees that Carl is suffering a heart attack and misjudges the situation by believing that defending himself is more likely to lead to Carl's death because it would stress the man out. That's a valid response.

On the other hand, it would also be valid for Connor to try to capture Markus after deviating if he believes that's the better choice - Jericho is about to be attacked, and he already told Hank that he believes the deviant uprising will cause chaos. And moreover, Connor went there looking for answers and for "himself", as Lucy says. There is enough conflict in him to make him deviate just so he can know for sure who he is and where he wants to stand, without actually abandoning his mission before he finds these answers. He basically tells Hank he will find out whether or not they are on the wrong side before he leaves for Jericho and deviates - he is already torn before meeting Markus.

You know what I'm saying? The whole "become a deviant" vs. "remain a machine" dialog before the red walls could have just been replaced by an alternative dialog, which could appear after he breaks the red walls and goes like "join Markus" vs. "stay loyal to Cyberlife".

Ultimately, I don't know if that would have been better, tbh, but it would have been more consistent. The way it is now feels like with Kara and Markus, deviating means "making the conscious decision to obey or disobey", but with Connor, deviating suddenly means just "disobey".

And must deviants be good people? Must they be on the right side if it benefits them more to be on the wrong side? If they are anything like humans, at least 10% of them would have betrayed Markus, hoping to get immunity from Cyberlife (ofc it would have backfired, but well, that's anothet topic).

Anyway, please, feel free to discuss and prove me wrong, I don't claim to have understood everything about the game yet :D And I love discussions!

[yuri-game-tournament]

Yuri VN/Game Tourney S2: Semifinals

Bad End Theater vs Blue Reflection: Second Light

Info and propaganda under the cut! Not guaranteed to be spoiler-free

BAD END THEATER

Description/Propaganda:

through the bulk of the game, you play as four protagonists in a basic fantasy setting, and the choices you make as each protagonist affect what happens to all the others when you switch perspectives. of note for this tournament are the maiden and the overlord who fall in love (the overlord is a girl!) but destiny seems to only tear them apart, as this is BAD END THEATER and there's seemingly nothing but bad endings in store for them.

(major spoilers beyond this point!)

once you get everyone's "true ending", you have the opportunity to jump into the story and save the four yourself, which causes the theatre's owner, TRAGEDY, to challenge you to a fight. once you win, everyone gets their happy ending. but what about TRAGEDY...? well, if you collected every single bad ending in the game, you have a chance at the very end to meet up with TRAGEDY. she tells you how she fell in love with a girl, but society tore them apart. she based the maiden off of herself, and the overlord after her girlfriend. she opened the theater hoping to find her lost love, as TRAGEDY always loved to write sad stories, and her girlfriend would give them happy endings. just as she thinks there's no hope left for her, YOU reveal yourself to be her girlfriend after all, and she gets her happy ending, too.

Content Warnings/Other Info: violence and blood (in a cartoony pixel art style). Available for $9.99 USD on itch.io, GOG, Steam, Google Play, and Humblebundle (Windows, Mac, Linux, Android)

Blue Reflection: Second Light

Description/Propaganda:

A rare non-VN game/RPG with yuri at its centre! Blue Reflection Second Light is a magical girl RPG made by Gust (the Atelier company), and is the sequel to Blue Reflection, but can be played on its own. While its predecessor was mainly yuri bait, the second game has explicitly sapphic relationships in it.

The main character, Ao, finds herself awakening in a mysterious school surrounded by endless ocean, with only herself and three other girls inside it. The four of them build a new life for themselves inside the school while trying to recover their lost memories. The game is full of yuri hints. The girls live and work together in the school, and in their free time, go on "dates," which range from fully platonic to very romantic. Ao has ship teases with many of the girls, most of all the villain-turned hero, Uta. Additionally, you get a special ending with whichever girl you spend the most time with.

While the whole game feels yuri-esque, what makes it explicitly a yuri game is the revelation that two of the girls, before they lost their memories, were in love with each other. Their story before they lost their memories ended tragically, but now, they have a second chance to be in a romantic relationship with each other. Their relationship is cute and heartfelt, and it was such a pleasant surprise to hear them say "I'm in love with you" explicitly.

Blue Reflection: Second Light is a heartfelt, cozy, and exciting game deeply focused on the relationships between girls, whether platonic, romantic, or somewhere in between. It's fun to play, has beautiful art and music, and wonderful relationships. Please give it a try and consider voting for it!

Content Warnings/Other Info:

referenced self harm, death, and animal cruelty referenced terminal illness

available on Switch and Steam (Windows) for $59.99 USD

[lilac-rose-writes]

do you guys ever think about how penny clings to her memories of innocence and childhood pre-accident to cope and finds so much comfort in simply acting her age, but she's withheld from doing so by her mother for so long that she physically cannot take it anymore, and the moment she breaks free from that, her life is cut so short that she's never able to grow and move past the childhood she lost? :)

there's a potential parallel to be called on with cindy here too. cindy also has the doll for a while, and we see that playing house is one of her favourite games. however, where penny is stripped of the chance to act like a child, cindy takes a child's game and integrates elements of adulthood into it. cindy wants to be mature, and to feel powerful. she likes to be a danger so she carries a knife, she copies the adults around her and tries to get on their level. penny just wants to feel safe. the doll could be some sort of metaphor for protecting their inner child. despite her own experiences, cindy treats her 'daughter' like a kid. penny 'plays' with the doll in a way that's undeniably innocent. but the world they live in doesn't give them time to act like kids, no matter how much they want to.

neither of them get to keep the doll, and if they hold onto it too long they get hurt- which could be representative of how acting their age is quite literally dangerous, and they have no way of holding onto that innocence without being injured or killed.

also- cindy's constant switching of boyfriends correlates with the impermanence of her other experiences. her dad stays and leaves and comes back again. her mom has boyfriend after boyfriend after boyfriend. biscuit's there and then she isn't. same goes for billy, then later for lily in kg2. she goes from school to school to school.

cindy adapts quickly, and doesn't linger on what's gone. she won't date the same person twice. however, there are elements of her life which stay steadfast because she forces them to. cindy doesn't want to be a vegan, but she doesn't give up the diet. nobody tells her to, but she bullies lily every chance she gets. she wears the same hairstyle every day. she clings to biscuit's disappearance because biscuit was hers and biscuit cared.

cindy never lets herself form a close bond with anyone, because the moment she does, they seem to disappear. it's easier to impress the boy of the day and drive away any attempted friendships than it is to deal with another loss, so that's what she does. cindy likes to pretend she has a family. the dolls can't run away. cindy likes to feel wanted, and to feel loved. even the victory of having a boyfriend listen to her is enough for her to feel a little more in control of her life. she's lonely, and refuses to let herself be anything but.

penny, however, wants friends. she tries to make them at every chance she gets, stashing bracelets in her pockets and offering a smile at every chance she gets. penny longs for a connection, to find someone who likes being around her. the other kids think it strange that she's so chirpy, so even aside from the android aspect, she's considered an outcase.

i think that the contrast between cindy being "popular" because she's mean to people and penny being a "weirdo" because she's nice is especially interesting considering that neither of their strategies actually work.

the accident caused by her mother prevents penny from having any chance at a normal childhood, and the subsequent roboticisation of her body makes her a threat to them. she wants to retain her innocence and have friends, but she can't because of outside influences.

cindy actively tries to get people to leave her be, only interested in the company of her latest boyfriend. buggs let himself get attached to her, but cindy refuses to entertain him for long. she's afraid of forming those sort of bonds, so doesn't want to.

penny's forced to shoot, cindy wields her own knife. both of them are alone.

cindy seeks stability and money in her relationship with felix, and he views her as a good investment for applesoft. both of them are mimicking their parents and putting their core beliefs into action. felix prioritises the company and familial expectations over his own desires, and cindy won't let herself form a connection until she's certain it'll last. felix seems like the epitome of stability. he's a billionaire, he likes her back, and he reciprocates her nicknames and sappiness.

penny doesn't mind who connects with her. when kid does, she's overjoyed. but even that still gets her hurt. if the female principal catches kid in the hallway, she says it's suspicious that he's been hanging out with penny, and has him sent to the principal's office. penny is forced to kill her only friend. and if the mission lasts until the end of the day, she's killed by the magnet kid fixed. there's no way for her to win.penny hurts people who get close to her. she's a minion for the person she loves most; her mother sees her as a weapon, so that's what she's made to be, regardless of her own feelings. cindy kills the janitor out of grieving rage after finding out he killed biscuit (biscuit, who meant more to her than any person could). she stabs kid when he doesn't play along, and sends him to the principal when she's mad at him. cindy doesn't care about getting others hurt, and will gladly do so if it means she's left to her own devices or gives her a way to enact vengeance on those who've forced her to be so alone.

neither of them can act their age, because doing so simply isn't safe enough. thank you for coming to my ted talk xx

[yuespropagandablog]

Hello esteemed mutual. If you are reading this, then that means my propaganda is working. But you might still have questions, so I am here to answer them. Well. Actually. My propaganda already worked without the help of Captain America, but I also like writing these posts and SOME OF Y'ALL haven't bought it yet after I posted a lot so here I am after all.

What is Spiritfarer?

Spiritfarer is a management game by Thunder Lotus Games about death. Yup, death. I have... an interesting history with this game, that you can ask me about later, but I read multiple times that it's a great game to deal with grief and yes, it is. Also, apparently it's been renamed to Spiritfarer: Farewell Edition, but that basically means that the game is complete. After release, there were some major free content updates. Now that the game's been finished, I might replay it as the full package.

You play as Stella, who upon her death, arrives in an afterlife of sorts and takes over from Charon (yes, that Charon) to become the Spiritfarer. In life, Stella was a palliative care nurse in charge of helping increase the quality of life of patients with a serious illness, who stayed with these patients till the end in order to ease their pain. That's why she is fitting for this role. Stella inherits Charon's boat and sails around, picking up spirits of deceased people who haven't really moved on 'to the great beyond' just yet. Stella houses them on her boat, makes them feel comfortable, helps them with unfinished business, and eventually lets them go.

Yup. You need to let them go.

Anyway, have a trailer:

What's so great about it?

Personally, I think this game excels at the combination between story and gameplay. As in, I am usually fine if a game prioritises one over the other (like Tears of the Kingdom's gameplay is better than its story, and Night in the Woods's story is better than its gameplay), but this game is just right. It's a management sim, so you need to care for these spirits, update your boat for more rooms with activities to do, collect resources, farm, cook etc. Your management influences the mood of your spirits, which in turn impacts the game.

Once you're off your boat, there's some platforming and 2D exploration. There are also special events for certain kinds of items that lead to a special mini-game.

It would've been a cosy and relaxing game if it weren't, you know, about death. I mean, it's still relaxing and chill. It's really nice to play. The impending goodbyes just loom over you.

And aside from satisfying gameplay, the story is just amazing. The amount of characters that Stella meets is great and everyone has their own story. It's a game about death, as I said before, and it shows how death can occur in different ways. Prepare to weep. A big part of this game is about saying goodbye. The game simulates a grieving process. You may foolishly believe that it's just a game, and you control it, and you may hold on to some spirits, but in order to progress, you need to let them go. Oof.

The story is well-done in a way that it surprised me, but looking back on them, all those surprises were predictable. Those kinds of stories are the greatest. It still makes you feel something, but it wasn't a left field either. It's just good shit.

Where can I play this?

Thank you Wikipedia for listing it: Linux, macOS, Windows, Switch, PS4, Xbox One, Stadia, iOS and Android. I think the mobile port is done through Netflix Games. I played it on Switch.

Can we play together?

There is local co-op. Stella is joined by her cat Daffodil, even in the soloplayer mode. But in multiplayer, the second player controls Daffodil. I have never played it in co-op, and Daffodil cannot do everything that Stella can do. I think he's like a better Cappy. But again, I have no experience with it myself.

Are there content warnings?

It's about death, and as I said, it's about different ways death can occur. Death isn't always natural. In fact, people unfortunately die from illness, unnatural causes, or from self-inflicted harm. And not everyone reaches old age. Also, you delve into the lives of the spirits, and not everyone had a rosy life. Topics like abandonment issues and unhealthy relationships are part of the story.

Is there DLC?

Nope. That's because the content updates were free. I do have, you know, things to say about content updates in general, but I have more to say about paid DLC so I respect the hell out of Thunder Lotus for not charing extra money for it.

Are there German characters in Spiritfarer?

GUSTAV IS GERMAN, BABY!!!!

[cometrose]

my thoughts on khux and kh mobile games

Now that the dust has settled, missing link has been cancelled and I think this marks an end to kingdom hearts mobile games as whole (or at least for now). Unchained X released in 2016 and Dark Road released in 2020 and ended in 2022. For about 6-7 years we received kh mobile games and it's difficult to describe their impact and influence on the series.

Pros

A brand new story told in a new way.

When khux released on ios and android it introduced an brand new, live update form of storytelling on probably the most accessible kh platform to date. It's practically impossible to do anything without a cellphone and khux covered that market. Like fans waiting for a weekly manga or tv show, khux regularly released new story cultivating a fanbase and tension that other kh titles can't do.

Plus khux added a lot of new characters and a lot of lore and story that can't be done in the traditional titles. Being a cute 2D mobile game allowed devs to shove hours and hours of content and characterization which wouldn't be possible outside of novels or books or multiple games.

We met so many new characters and grew alongside them. Union Cross and Dark Road despite their cute aesthetics managed to craft unique and at times gruesome storylines that many argue are some of the best in the series.

A sense of community

I am still in the discord with my khux guild and I still remember those raid bosses. Not only could you create your own avatar and "keykid" but you got to talk with other guild members and other content creators about the story. Fan theories about whose the traitor, or the future of ventus and laurium, about the master, about ava. Sure we still theorize about what's to come in every kh game but not in the same manner.

I still remember the day lauriam was revealed as a dandelion because strelitzia died mere moments prior and everyone was convinced he was the traitor. The whole fandom was shaking and yelling and there was so much excitement and energy. Being able to experience those moments with everybody at the same time was wonderful.

Accessibility

I touched on this briefly earlier but by being a mobile game, khux was potentially many people first interaction with the series.

In 2016 there were no All-in-one collections, we had just started received the 1.5 and 2.5 editions but those were only for playstation so most of the series was out of reach for a lot of people. A large portions of the franchise was still spread across a lot of platforms (DS 3DS PS3 PS4) and khux was on a platform that many people had access to. It brought new fans and new people to the franchise.

Especially in regions like Japan, mobile games are incredibly popular. A lot of people don't have time to go home and turn on their huge PS5 or want to lug their Switch around to school, having mobile games is a great way to play games virtually anywhere you can get a signal.

And besides most importantly these are free to play games. You don't have to spend $60 to $70 on a game and another $500 on a console to play these games.

Cons

predatory gacha game

Khux was a gacha game period. Yes it had colorful gameplay, fun characters, and interesting story but you really couldn't access any of that if you weren't strong enough to beat story missions and for that you needed medals and hours poured into the game to level up your keyblades.

These games are fundamentally exploitive and exist to drain consumers of money. As someone who has played many gacha games (sw, gi, wuwa, love nikki, crk, crob) and continues to play them the biggest stain on their existence--no matter how fun the combat, or interesting the characters, or how beautiful the world and music is--will always be that they are money hungry projects designed to strip you of your money.

Sure kh3 alone for the ps4 is like $60 + $400 for a ps4 but regular gacha spending rates can easily climb to the thousands with $30 packs, $100 packs, battlepass, other subscriptions. $5 montly battlepasses will cost $60 within a year. If you spend any regular amount of money on these games over time the prices skyrocket far beyond any console platform game.

Daily login rewards that force you to login everyday for in-game currencies or limited time events that are designed to keep your screentime and money focused on the game. All of these are just ways to keep you spending and nothing to do with crafting or enhancing the kh universe.

that's not to say that can't be fun or that you are obligated to spend money but they are gambling covered in cute aesthetics. khux's value in my regard will always be less than the others titles just for being fundamentally what it is. A game whose purpose and story will always be overshadowed by the amount of jewels and money you pour into it.

Accessibility...

the problem with live service games is that they will one day come to an end. Outside of the ginormous ones who have been running for decades, many of these mobile games will eventually die. khux was no different and doubt missing link would have stood the test of time either. These games were fated to die and all of the hours and money you have spent in them were doomed to die along with it.

you can still play 358/2 days, you can still play re:coded, you can still play the original chain of memories for the gameboy advance. Those games will exist forever! They are physical games with physical hardware (though you can pirate them too) their stories will always be told and their gameplay will always be accessible.

the only way to experience khux is to watch 10 hour videos on youtube.

this accessibility issue is only amplified by the value it has on the series. Everything in khux from the dandelions to the foretellers will impact the rest of the kh franchise. Such crucial and vital storytelling is effectively lost forever.

Will kh remedy this? Yes probably. The plotpoints in khux will likely be rehashed and retold in future kh titles. But will every detail and characterization from khux make it into kh4 or 5 or whatever? No that just not feasible nor really necessary as the story focuses on Sora. Sure they can integrate some lore through books or collectibles but this experience can't be replicated outside of brand new game.

Especially for dark road. You have backstory about the main antagonist for the first 15 years of kingdom hearts be locked away in gacha hell and eventually completely gone. You can't even download khdr they took them off the app store!

khux was the most accessible and inaccessible kh property to date. And given square enix's current executive moves and strategy I don't see them reinstating khdr any time soon or dedicating any time to it outside of integrating story elements into the next major installments.

Gameplay and Investment

When khml was announced I think many of us were excited until we saw Mobile GPS game. With combat and gameplay locked behind gacha and being so different from the traditional action rpg mechanics of the main titles many old kh fans were fundamentally disinterested in anything mobile. Personally, myself included. With kh4 sitting right next to missing link I found it hard to care about anything about it when it wouldn't exist in 5 years.

When khux came out it filled a void in the kh series. Post DDD was chronologically the penultimate title to KH3 and there was nothing coming out between that time (other than 2.8). khux gave players something to do while we wait. While I think missing link intended to serve the same purpose I think it fundamentally failed to capture the interest of many.

Whether it be the GPS mechanics, its short lifespan, or that KH4 loomed right next to it, many people didn't want to invest time and effort into something that would reach end of service the second KH4 released.

No matter how fun khux was the game was not meant to live long after kh3 and I think many people have learned from that.

Conclusion.

Do I think the khux and the mobile games are wholly bad? No.

The light of the past from KH3 and watching all those names appear on the side of the screen was one of the most magical feelings I have ever felt in this series (and one of my favorite moments ever I remember filling out that form before kh3's launch). Knowing that even though khux is gone, the fans and people who played it are forever engraved into the series makes me happy.

Arguing with people over whether ventus was the fake or who killed strelitzia or the future of the dandelions was great. Decorating my keykid with cute outfits or messing with medals was fun. I remember waking up in the morning to do Raids and running around disney worlds with our friends.

But I also remember spending $80 to get Illustrated Kairi EX in her debut then NOT getting her and becoming disillusioned with gacha games forever and never spending a dime on a another one (maybe thats also a good thing).

All things come to an end, and I have long gotten over the money I spent on the game because at the time in made me happy. khux granted players a more personal way to interact with kingdom hearts. We were keyblade wielders! And the fact even now all of characters live within the series as dreameaters is a praise for how kh integrated all of us into its wild story.

However, community is one thing and games are another.

You can't play khux anymore and that is the most important thing. It's frustrating to have hours and hours of lore and story hidden within a game that won't exist in a decade that often has derivative gameplay in a franchise that is known for having exciting and well thought out combat and mechanics.

When the KH4 trailer came out many people didn't have clue who Strelitzia was because they didn't play the mobile games. While I think is a minor issue as the game will definitely reintroduce her (guys Sora doesn't know who she is either) many people are frustrated to be locked out of story and lore for the future because they didn't play khux. This issue is only amplified in today's time because the game is gone! And not many people want to just sit on youtube watching cutscenes.

In an era that has become saturated with gacha games to point of oversaturation I think it's fair that people don't want to waste time and money on a temporary game. And I also understand why people are upset that we lost a kh game. Brain's story, the lost era? Even if I wasn't heavily invested in the game itself I definitely wanted to know the story and the fact it is gone is disheartening.

Also I don't think cancelling khml suddenly means kh4 production is going to skyrocket. They were probably different teams from the get go.

Plus for square to cancel a game that had multiple betas, music and voice acting ready, means years and years of money and time has been wasted. We don't know what will happen with IV but considering khml was stated multiple times to have very important lore for IV, I won't be surprised if the game suffers a couple delays as the devs and writers are forced to incorporate or even remove khml lore from the story. A game being cancelled so late in development is not a good thing guys.

And again, it might not impact KH4 that much or it might impact it greatly we don't know and Square Enix's total lack of communication on Kingdom Hearts in another rant entirely.

I love Kingdom Hearts and I will probably enjoy any game I play but I feel I am in the crowd that would have loved a console game. KH is no longer spread across 10 different platforms any kh game that comes out today will be on ps, xbox, switch, steam and epic almost immediately. There is no need to limit ourselves to ios and android games and there are countless co-op mmos on console as well. There are so many ways to have vast online communities without locking fans in phone gacha hell.

As fun and as interesting as these stories are the issue will always be their fundamentals. It's a shame missing link is gone truly, but I do hope kh steps away from these kind of properties.

Did they do more harm than good? I'm not sure yet. But having so much story and content be stripped away from fans feels awful no matter what.

TLDR: khux are fun games but their short lifespan and predatory gameplay are so frustrating I think it's fair the series move away from them.

[fuutaprotectionsquad]

What scenes the Milgram instrumentals would be for if they were video game soundtracks.

Except I make an entire game layout with it, including three mini boss fights and a final boss. They're in order of when they appear in the game, and color coded based on the area.

This took so long why did i do this-

[If you want me to design these bosses based on like. mvs and the character designs. i will.]

Parasite - The music at the starting area, before you've began your expedition. Like the home village. Possibly shows up at the epilogue too, when you return to the village, if you enter certain buildings.

Tear Drop - The salon that acts as an equipment shop. Except the shop keep has intense lore. Is maybe evil. We dont know. It pops up all through the game, or theres a way to get back to it and its in a neutral area.

Delusion Tax - You begin your journey into the first area! It looks very rocky and lava filled, with the stone buildings melded with the rocky mountains.

I Love You - Investigation scene. For what, I have no idea. Probably something related to your mission. The beginning of ILY is like. you find something very shocking and kinda scary, but then the rest is like. you + ur group(?) using it as a cataylst to keep looking and journeying. (its giving danganronpa udg honestly)

[Possibly more Delusion Tax after]

Backdraft - The 1st mini boss fight. A very overconfident, fiery kind of boss, despite being the weakest. This is the first part of the fight, where you're chasing them while they effortlessly hop through/set off many traps you have to dodge.

Salamander - Second part of the 1st boss fight where the boss actually stops to fight you. They fight with fire (...wow who would have guessed)

Purge March - When you get to the second area, and you're. continuing with your journey. Or something idk. I'm thinking this area is circus themed. Many animals.

Vampire - You first meet the boss. You think they're just a friendly child. They're so cheery and happy and childish and innocent. And then 1:19 in Vampire, you realize they're a little fucked up. But thats okay, because they're just a kid and they could never hurt anyone-

INMF - Now they're trying to murder you, so you're running away as they chase you and throw shit at you. Like uh. A million gruesome ways to die from billie bust up.

[More Purge March]

Animal - The second boss fight, filled with many circus props used as weapons. The softer parts of the song are when you're fighting different animals this boss sends after you, like lions and other circus animals.

Android Girl - Adventuring theme for the 3rd area. This area has a glitchy, techy hallucination theme. Like the boss is hacking the area to make illusions. Everything looks very glitchy, and has a kinda cyberpunk city look.

MKDR (DSCF) - Some part of the journey through the 3rd area where you've been completely absorbed into a hallucination, likely before you know that there are hallucinations here. When this happens it becomes a lot less glitchy looking and more real.

[Android Girl part 2]

Reversible Campaign - Phase one of the 3rd mini boss fight. They have a very techy theme. Like ig spamton.

Double - Phase two of the 3rd mini boss. You've pissed them off now, and theyve switched forms. The parts of the song that are softer (when mikoto's singing) are when you're deep in a hallucination. Then when you break free, it goes back to the glitchy harsh vibe.

Neo-Neon - You've defeated the three mini bosses and are filled with a newfound sense of determination. Now you go through the final area (likely a castle?) to get to the final boss. This area is a lot shorter.

Deep Cover - The final boss fight begins ! This is the first phase, which is very long distance and not quite near the boss yet. I imagine this one has a very celestial, crystal / star theme.

Streaming Heart - You weaken the boss via long distance, and they become more enraged. They haven't given up though, and fight with even more determination. This is where you can finally get face to face with them and have an all out battle.

AKAA - This is where their tough exterior cracks. You have a brief conversation, in an attempt to persuade them to stand down. But they put the broken pieces of their form together, for one last stand.

Cat - You've defeated the boss!! Roll end credits. Yeah thats it cat's just end credits. I. could not think of anything else </3

Triage - Epilogue after the boss fight when you're talking with everyone. Everything is happy and good, but there's also those very sentimental convo scenes.

[Some Parasite sprinkled in]

[shannonsketches]

Can you elaborate on how you see Vegeta's loss against Perfect Cell forced him to grow up? In which aspects do you think he matured and how did it affect his relationship with Trunks and Bulma? Also how much seeing Trunks die added to it in your opinion?

Oh nonnie I have so many thoughts on this thank you uhHH

So generally!! I think that Vegeta fell into the bad habit of being so confident he was going to win that fight that he didn’t really consider the consequences of losing it. Even if he had taken a moment of doubt to imagine the risk, Trunks told him the androids killed him, but 18 didn’t — and I think that (along with 19 and 20, and the arrival of Cell) primed him to think that Trunks was wrong about everything, including his assessment of Cell’s threat.

I don’t know if Cell’s absorbing the androids made Perfect Cell’s ki hard to judge accurately — Because Vegeta could immediately feel how overwhelmingly fucked he was when Freeza evolved — but either way, I think the result of him, this extremely proud, highly skilled elite, having his battle instinct being So Utterly Incorrect (twice in a row! Although he couldn’t sense 18’s power at all, which is a convenient band-aid to slap on his busted ego) wasn’t destabilizing enough to knock him on his ass (that would come when his mistake cost him his son’s life and Goku’s and almost Gohan’s) but it was enough to make him sit down.

I also like to think Bulma absolutely shredded him when they got back. That super cool saiyan pride of his might have cost his son the future that Trunks came all the way back here to save, abd while she’s mad at everybody for ignoring her advice three goddamn years ago, Vegeta’s behavior is especially insulting. Even when he was being a jerk, at least he was smart. But ever since they found out who Future Trunks was, Vegeta’s head’s been so far up his ass he can see out his mouth, and now the future they all worked so hard to change might be even worse off than it was before.

I think that reality started hitting home, and I have a little personal hc in my pocket that Vegeta tried to convince Bulma to take the boy and the other boy and go back to his timeline because at least that way they’d live they probably had a better chance of fixing that one even without the dragon balls, and Bulma thinks that’s probably the nicest thing she’s ever heard Vegeta say (the bar is in hell), but she’s not going anywhere. 

The little exchange that lives rent free in my head about them both being resigned to wait for Goku is,

“Do you really have that much faith in him?”

“Don’t you?”

Because they’ve both seen Goku do the impossible at this point, and while I think that’s another gut-punch and a bile-inducing feeling for Vegeta, he is the one to ask for Goku’s read on the situation. Vegeta’s still pretty new to losing fights (I think he’s only lost…six fights? In his whole life? By this point?), and I like to read it as his first step toward believing in the concept of a safety net that’s not Himself. When Freeza came back to Earth Vegeta was like “lol welp, we’re all dead” but now he’s like “Well? Can you beat him?” and I really enjoy reading that as Vegeta inching toward Caring Out Loud.

And I love his unreliable narrator bit in this arc, because up until the tournament he is still “I’m the only one we need, I’m the one who’s gonna beat Cell” and he shows up to the Games alone before everyone else, but he doesn’t act selfishly. He’s not preening, he doesn’t start a fight, he doesn’t act recklessly, he’s not boastful, he tells Goku to do whatever he wants.

It’s a huge change from rolling up to the fight with a shit-eating grin and a pocket full of trash talk. Vegeta’s back to being stoic and locked in. His goal at this point is to make sure Cell doesn’t leave here alive. He’s back to being a professional. He’s all but reverted to his original role as his troop’s kill switch. 

(Although I also personally love to think part of Vegeta watching Hercule was a little bit of a wake up call too. Like, “Wow cringe that guy is so loud and full of himself and all he’s doing is making things wor…oh. Oh No.”)

Trunks’ death and his inability to avenge it I think was the nail in the coffin for him, though, in terms of his faith in his instincts and his title as a warrior and an elite. He swore off fighting after that battle, and even though Trunks was ultimately fine, one of my big headcanons is that Vegeta is really not used to those safety nets. Krillin was like “Why’d he do that we could just with Trunks back” but Vegeta’s not used to the convenience of the dragon balls. 

Trunks died for real to him. Trunks died forever to him. That ego and pride and error in judgement cost him his son. This young man who Vegeta knows as this tiny little boy spent all of this time and energy trying to create a future in which his dad didn’t die, only to take his place in the grave. Vegeta can’t forgive himself for that. Vegeta will never forgive himself for that. 

I talk about Gohan being the first person to put himself between Vegeta and danger, and I think losing Trunks really forced Vegeta to face the emotion of having someone really, genuinely care about him, even at his absolute worst, in a way that was not transactional. I think that concept is brand new and dreadful for him. I think caring about things is terrifying to him, because he knows how quick and easy it is to lose everything and he knows how quick and easy it is to take everything away. 

But I think his instinctive, emotional reaction to losing Trunks forced him to accept that those  feelings do exist in him, and I think it helped accept that they exist for Bulma too (and slowly but surely for the people he would eventually consider friends). And I think learning to accept that as true forced him to navigate a lot of other emotions he’d been numb to. And I personally think it’s an important underlying factor in why he tries to bottle himself up again in the Buu saga.

I think that moment of losing Trunks is also part of what fuels his decision in the Buu saga; He’s fighting the normal way, but when Trunks tries to get involved Vegeta’s immediately like, “Mm-mm, no, Absolutely not, Piccolo get these kids tf out of here” and even in DBS’ manga Vegeta does not let those boys anywhere near a serious battle if he can help it, and consistently puts himself in front of Adult Trunks and the threat during the Goku Black arc. He’s not losing his boy again.

[satoshi-mochida]

Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road adds Xbox Series and Switch 2 versions, launches August 21 - Gematsu

Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road will launch for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, Switch 2, PlayStation 4, Switch, and PC via Steam on August 21 with cross-play and cross-save support, LEVEL-5 announced. The Xbox Series and Switch 2 versions are newly announced, and the iOS and Android versions are seemingly no longer planned. Pre-orders will begin today for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PlayStation 4, and PC. The game will support English, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese language options.

Globally, including Japan, the game will be a digital-only release available in the following editions:

-Standard Edition ($69.99 / £57.99 / €69.99 / 8,910 yen) (TBA / 9,920 yen for Switch 2)

-Base game

Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road

-Deluxe Edition ($79.99 / £65.99 / €79.99 / 10,010 yen)

-Base game

Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road

-Fei Rune (character unlock item) – Use the legendary Fei Rune right from the get-go in both the Chronicle and Competition Modes!

-Football Clubroom (Bond Object) – Objects you can place in your Bond Town!

-Rai Rai Noodles (Bond Object) – Objects you can place in your Bond Town!

-Promise Pendant (equipment that boosts EXP gained) – Equipment that boosts EXP earned! (The Promise Pendant’s effect applies only to the character who has it equipped.)

-Victory Jump (Goal celebration) – Grants an exclusive goal celebration!

-Purchase bonuses

PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Xbox Series – Early Access

Steam – Advanced Access

-Downloadable Content “Edition Upgrade” ($13.99 / 1,650 yen)

Fei Rune (character unlock item)

Football Clubroom (Bond Object)

Rai Rai Noodles (Bond Object)

Promise Pendant (equipment that boosts EXP gained)

Victory Jump (Goal celebration)

Users who purchase the PlayStation 5 or PlayStation 4 version of the game will receive the alternate PlayStation version free of charge. However, the Switch 2 version is will require a paid upgrade. Pricing for the west has yet to be announced, but the Switch 2 version will cost 9,210 yen in Japan—300 yen more than the other versions.

Pre-orders for all platforms include the downloadable content “Advanced Booster Bundle,” which contains the following content:

-Equipment Item: Bracelet of Victory – Equipment that boosts EXP earned! (The Bracelet of Victory’s effect applies only to the character who has it equipped.)

-Kit: Dark Emperors – Allows you to play while wearing the Dark Emperors’ kit.

-Character Training Item: Complete Set of Training Beans

Kick Strength Bean (x5) – Increases a character’s Kick stat when used.

Acuity Bean (x5) – Increases a character’s Control stat when used.

Finesse Bean (x5) – Increases a character’s Technique stat when used.

Steadfast Bean (x5) – Increases a character’s Pressure stat when used.

Velocity Bean (x5) – Increases a character’s Agility stat when used.

Intellect Bean (x5) – Increases a character’s Intelligence stat when used.

Toughness Bean (x5) – Increases a character’s Physical stat when used.

The following platform-specific bonuses will also be available:

-The platform you purchase on determines which rare characters will have increased appearance rates in Chronicle and Competition Mode! And that’s not all! If you use Cross-Save, the bonus effects from both platforms will apply! (This bonus only increases the appearance rate. All characters can be obtained on all platforms.)

--PlayStation 5 / PlayStation 4

Protocol Omega

Protocol Omega 2.0

Protocol Omega 3.0

--Xbox Series

Zeus

Little Gigantes

Dragon Link

--Switch / Switch 2

Prominence

Diamond Dust

Zanark’s Domain

--PC

Team Ogre

Eternal Light

Ancient Darkness

Finally, users who participated in the beta test demo will receive the following special bonuses based on their progress:

-Playing the Beta Test

Equipment Item: EXP Boots – Equipment that boosts EXP earned! (The EXP Boots’ effect applies only to the character who has it equipped.)

-Winning against the Alius Masters Bots in GODHOOD Rank

Bond Object: Royal Academy Armored Carriage – Object you can place in your Bond Town!

-Winning against the Alius Masters Bots in LEGENDARY HERO Rank

Bond Object: Inazuma Tower – Object you can place in your Bond Town!

-Reaching NATIONAL Rank in Ranked play

Spirit: Ray Dark – Ray Dark (Manager) can be used in the Chronicle and Competition Modes.

-Completing the Beta Test Story, Chapter 1

Bond Object: Soiled Ball – Object you can place in your Bond Town!

The following schedule of updates is planned ahead of release:

End of May 2025 – Making-of Trailer featuring cast interviews and behind-the-scenes footage

End of June 2025 – Story Trailer featuring ending theme and artist reveal

End of July 2025 – Final trailer

LEVEL-5 also shared the following post-launch roadmap:

August 19, 2025 – Early Access

August 22, 2025 – Game Release

September 21, 2025 Week – Chronicle Mode: Galaxy Route Unlocked

October 5, 2025 Week – Chronicle Mode: Ares Route Unlocked

October 19, 2025 Week – Chronicle Mode: Orion Route 1st Half Unlocked

November 2, 2025 Week – Chronicle Mode: Orion Route 2nd Half Unlocked

November 16, 2025 Week – Victory Road Beta Kickoff (FF)

January 18, 2026 Week – Victory Road Beta Finals (FF)

Here is an overview of the game, via LEVEL-5:

About

O smoldering clouds, let INAZUMA’s lightning split the sky! The newest title in the hyperdimensional football RPG series Inazuma Eleven is finally here! A new story featuring a new protagonist, over 5,200 characters to collect and train, as well as an intense competitive mode; there is no shortage of activities to enjoy!

Story Mode

This new story takes place 25 years after the first Inazuma Eleven. In search of a world without football, protagonist Destin Billows enrolls at South Cirrus Junior High. Meanwhile, within the prestigious Raimon Junior High—renowned as the top team in the nationals—rises a “football monster” named Harper Evans. When these two cross paths, a tale begins to unfold…

Chronicle Mode

A roster spanning over 5,200 characters from previous entries in the series! Relive past Inazuma Eleven matches with Victorio, the boy who came from the future. Take on various teams, collect and train characters, and build your ultimate dream team!

Next-Gen Football Systems

Play the game your way, taking direct control in “Manual Mode” or guiding the team strategically with “Commander Mode!” Commander Mode lets you direct players with a variety of tactical inputs, providing an easy way for anyone to enjoy a match! Find a style that suits you, jump into the action and unleash jaw-dropping Special Moves to secure victory!

Bond Station

Freely arrange nostalgic objects from the Inazuma Eleven series to create your own “Bond Town”! Customize your avatar, invite friends over and enjoy socializing and playing matches together! Your custom made avatar can also be used in matches!

The Ultimate Anime Experience Brought to Life by MAPPA

In-game anime cutscenes were made in cooperation with animation studio MAPPA! With the longest anime runtime in the series’ history, the story’s intensity will reach new heights.

The official website has also been updated with new information on the game’s Story Mode, Chronicle Mode, Competition Mode, Bond Station (Kizuna Station), and characters.

Watch a new set of trailers below.

Promotional Trailer

English

Japanese

Final Specs Reveal Trailer

English

Japanese

Heroes Showcase 2025: Release Date & Final Specs Presentation

English / Traditional Chinese

Japanese