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bitegore · 5 months ago

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# oh??? that also sounds so cool!!!!!, Ik for a fact that I'd play the hell out of smth like that, even tho I'm awful at combat, actually I think that'd only elevate the experience with the helplessness, anyway!!#that sounds like it'd do such a good feeling of unease and terror before the switch, and that switch would bring such an interesting crash of absolute panic down on the player when they're already in such high alert, jdgftsgbjdgduv, yeah very interesting very horrifying!!! (tags modified slightly to be a little easier to read)

Grabbing you. Talk about evil game design with me. Hi. You get it.

This is ofc one of my awful evil very-bad-no-good ocs, so I obviously know what her deal is, but the thing about the.

Well actually let me start at the beginning.

(also GOD DAMN this got wordy, so here's a cut.)

In its purely joke-level form, this started as a sort of mean-spirited jab at the spectre of the "I wish this game was in an alpine village rescuing my neighbors' cats" school of thought, which I was kind of unfairly conflating with Stardew Valley, which i was also unfairly conflating with Animal Crossing. At the time I was so sick I thought animating would be easier than drawing, so we're clear. I know those are three different games with only some vague crossover and not one coherent concept when I'm not sick, I promise, and also I don't even have anything against either of the actual games lmao. But conceptually, the idea was that - well, Erica has the demure pretty girl thing down, that's part of her character concept, that she looks like a demure pretty girl exactly as long as it takes for you to write her off as "not a threat" and then she kills you. So I was thinking to myself that it would be really funny to put Erica in a game that looked like a cozy resource management sim, and then just let her start wreaking havoc 3/4ths of the way through the game.

(That has been its own idea since forever - that most of my OCs work pretty okay as deuteragonists or primary villains, but Erica would be incapable of not coming off like a very boring side character until a late-game twist where she suddenly reveals herself to have been orchestrating all manner of problems and nursing some awful grudges behind a pleasant facade.)

Anyway the construction I came up with first was: resource management & character-driven dating sim, but then at some point, Erica starts killing characters and then she kills you and skips town. The only kind of combat system I like playing is the soulsborne-style kind that requires you to pay a lot of close attention to timing and spacing, so that's the kind of combat I was imagining. And. Well, like you said, I sure thought that it would be fun to play, actually, too.

So I settled on some mechanics.

The first part of the game is riffing very closely off games like Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon, where you have a farm, and you grow your crops and raise some animals, and then you take them into town and trade them for money and maybe points with some of the NPCs you get to interact with. You have an enemy set up - Erica's dad, petty nobility and autocrat of the town who no one likes - who will send saboteurs your way and try to price you out, but you can scare them off. There's a tutorial character (tall redhead with red sunglasses who doesn't talk much and spends most of the game writing in a notebook or making graphs; if you know my OCs you might have an idea who that is but don't worry about it!) who gives you the farm and all but demands you get into some sort of conflict with this petty noble, helps you set things up, and then generally goes about ignoring everyone and reading books while sitting around so you can click on him for tooltips if you want reminders of how the controls work. There's also a weird monster in the forest you keep hearing about and sometimes see the eyes of. Most if not all of the NPCs are neutral-to-friendly outside your established enemies, i keep going back and forth on if there should be any explicit Not-Affiliated-I-Just-Don't-Like-Outsiders characters but like there's enough going on and I want the players to get to at least the middle.

That's because, at some point about halfway through the "growing season", Erica's brother disappears off the face of the earth. The bad guy sends his cronies to run about town for a while asking the NPCs if they know anything, but the NPCs openly love you and kind of hate him, so you hear about it basically when he sends someone to your door with an apology and a letter asking you to look into it, because he cares more about his son than he does about keeping his economic stranglehold over the town or whatever. You can, like, turn this down, but if you don't, you get access to a second part of the game: PUZZLES!

(This is because the entire game is a puzzle, but we haven't gotten there yet. Kind of thing you're supposed to solve on the second playthrough.)

Anyway, Erica's brother is the first to die, but not the last. Next up is the post officer, so news can't leave town. Very scary. Then NPCs start dropping like flies but in an order that doesn't matter because I'm not introducing all of my cast here. But what you get to do is go to the scene of their (either last sighting or grisly murder), and there you get to get two pieces of "information" (old notes, 'this looks like zyx's handwriting', footprints that don't match a certain kind of shoe, etc) spelled out for you by clicking on the right items, and one puzzle you have to solve - like a cryptogram or figuring out what the code to a safe is with a note written over it - to get a third piece of information. You also get a list of 20 scenarios that might have happened, or a list of live NPCs you could blame for the murder. You have to match the right scenario to the right murder, and if you get it wrong, you only lose access to that scenario but it doesn't tell you what the correct one was, only that you were wrong, because I want to force you to do the other thing instead. Which is - if you think you know who did it, you can confront them. It'll only hurt your relationship a little, unless you're right about who it is, in which case Erica goes and does what you see above and then she KILLS YOU!!!!!!!! >:3

Well, not necessarily.

It's the kind of game where you're supposed to want to build up a relationship with the characters (so you care about them turning up dead and want to stop it from happening and all) so Erica is another character you can have conversations with, and stuff. She's actually positioned to be relatively important - she'll give you insider information if she likes you on her dad's business ventures, and she's romanceable! (But watch out.) This means that it would only be fair if I added a secret option where like.

Okay. Erica's deal is that she wants to look defanged, so that when she starts killing people, no one thinks it could possibly be her. So she watches her words, and she watches her mannerisms. Underneath that, she is a seething bloodthirsty person who hates almost everyone around her, has a ledger of slights a million incidences long she intends to repay tenfold in blood for everyone around her, and she also has the means to carry it out. What she doesn't have is a way to get away with it without someone pointing out that she did all this and it following her around. Which means: she is absolutely playing a particular role. But if you encourage her to get mean and bloodthirsty, she'll decide you like her mean and bloodthirsty because you are mean and bloodthirsty, which means... well, maybe you can be an accomplice and not a total 100% murder victim or nothing. So like. If you went the "man Erica your dad kinda sucks I think I want to kill him" route and didn't try to romance her!!!!!!!!!!!! then she'll invite you to go kill everyone in town with her actually. That's a different thing, this is long enough so I won't get into the mechanics of that one but it's a crowd rush (obviously) and designed to be a lot less Extremely Fuckhard.

But like, normalstyle, first she goes "wow omg that's such a hurtful thing to say! what's your problem :( my fucking brother is dead and you said i did it? what's WRONG with you? LOL SIKE yeah i did that shit and it was awesome. and im going to gut you like a fucking fish now" and then she hard-cut drags ydou into soulsborne-style boss combat.

She's got three phases! Uh... let me just copy-paste from my working document for this, actually, it's easier than describing it all casual. Please ignore the all-caps.

PHASE I: SPEED She is INVARIABLY FASTER THAN YOU. She has a small handful of common melee attacks that involve darting and lunging toward you. She has two less-common melee attacks where she comes close and stabs at you multiple times for combo damage, but does not block or defend herself, opening herself up to attack and knockback, which she is susceptible to. She has one rare melee where she feints and then hits you with the stick of her cane, dealing a mild bludgeoning damage but inflicting knockback, and then following up with her knife while you are dazed, dealing combo damage again. She has a dodge that triggers randomly. This phase lasts until her health is at 50%, and then the animation and then second phase is triggered. PHASE-CHANGE ANIMATION: MUH EPIC KNIFETOSS ERICA stops to inform you that she's kind of impressed, actually, she thought you'd be mincemeat by now. She then throws her knife aside, and switches her grip on her cane so that she can swing it like a bat. She does not have I-frames during this time, so she can straight up just be whacked at here. PHASE II: HAMMERTIME ERICA uses her cane as a WAR HAMMER (large, slow, blunt weapon) to deal HEAVY DAMAGE and DEBUFFS slowly. She is about half as fast as you. She has a most common melee attack that is just whacking you with her hammer. This STUNLOCKS you after a KNOCKBACK. She has a less common melee of sweeping you with the butt of her hammer, which deals KNOCKBACK, and then bringing the hammer down on you while you're stumbling in a twofer. This STUNLOCKS you. She has a least-common ranged attack that only triggers like, once per every fifteen minutes or something, where she just straight up kicks something off the ground in your direction. This is homing and cannot be dodged. It deals some minor damage but is mostly just a random thing to bother you with if you're playing ridiculously cautious. She has no dodge here. This phase lasts until her health reaches zero. PHASE-CHANGE ANIMATION: WELL NOW YOU'VE DONE IT ERICA gets annoyed and flings her hammer down, but before you can react, she is shapeshifting into her fox form. This one DOES have I-frames for coding reasons.

PHASE III: HEY GUESS WHAT IDIOT IM NOT A VAMPIRE AFTER ALL! ERICA turns into her FOX FORM, the STRANGE FOREST BEAST! This comes with a SECOND HEALTH BAR about the same size as the first, but ERICA's RESILIENCE is higher! She uses her FOX FORM as her weapon (unarmed melee is the fastest kind of weapon and she has teeth. which are basically blades). She has multiple hand grapples. She has multiple swats that deal KNOCKBACK (no stunlock). If you're really bad at dodging, she can pounce on you with both hands, which deals DEVASTATING DAMAGE, STUNLOCK, and KNOCKDOWN (not KNOCKBACK, which is a stumbling); this comes with a short period where she holds still, laughing, and you can attack her if you want. She has a mouth grapple that allows you to cheese her by utilizing the last couple seconds you have mobility to stab her through the mouth; this is very hard. The grapple deals DEVASTATING DAMAGE and inflicts BLOOD LOSS, a mechanic that only appears for this boss fight and saps your health. She can bite normalstyle, which deal HEAVY DAMAGE. She moves VERY QUICKLY because she moves at the regular speed she walks at but she is now about 5x the size of her usual sprite, which means she covers ground much faster - and she's FAST in her first phase. You have to know WHERE she's going by LEARNING HER ATTACKS or you are just FUCKED fucked. At the end of this phase, if you beat her, Erica laughs, and then collapses to the ground. WINNING the fight on the first run triggers an ANIMATION: Erica, laying down, says "Wow. I really underestimated you. You and I, we must be more alike than I thought. Fair's fair, I guess. Should've done my homework." Then she coughs and slumps. As soon as the camera is pointed away from her, there's a rustling sound, her laugh sounds, and when you turn back, she's just gone. WINNING the fight AFTER the first run triggers a different ANIMATION: ERICA, laying down, says "Ah... you've - oh, you've beaten me. Woe is me... took you long enough, but truly, I have been bested," and then she more dramatically coughs and slumps. As soon as the camera is pointed away from her, a voice line plays - she says "Sike! You don't have it in you!" and when you turn around, she's just gone.

So you see. She's kind of mean once the jig is up. She's not like that before this. But also like, even if you win you don't win. On account of this isn't the end.

Also if you don't guess that she's killing people, or you just fully ignore the entire mystery (you can get involved after the first invitation!), there's a different thing that happens. One day you come into town and everything is just on fire, and also Erica is covered in blood (see: above LOL) and holding a knife. my girl is killing people. no longer up for debate. When she sees you, unless you were doing the secret pro-murder route (which means you have to succeed at a conversation first and if you answer the wrong way she does still try to kill you) she just goes to try and kill you pretty much instantly. If you win at the conversation you get to kill everyone with her again. But either way, at the end of this one, there's still nothing to do, really. Except go home.

So you go home. Your tutorial guy is still there. He's still not talking to you. Your farm is just on fucking fire though. If you click on him, the usual tips menu is replaced with text that says something along the lines of "Tips: LOL".

There's a-- it's not a cutscene because you CAN technically interrupt by attacking them if you want, it's just a terrible plan because you'll aggro them both at once. But Erica shows up and it's basically a cutscene. She and your fucking tutorial guy (he's 'the redheaded man' on account of he never tells you a name lmfao) have a conversation that makes it very clear they were working together this entire time. Like, here's a piece of that exchange:

ERICA: You were right about schemes, turns out. ERICA: They're so rewarding to finish. THE REDHEADED MAN: Nothing like knocking down the dominos, huh? ERICA: Mm... I don't think I'd say dominos. It's too juicy. ERICA: Bringing a real mean plan into fruition. THE REDHEADED MAN: Fruit, huh. ERICA: You nurture it, watch it grow, and then when you taste it... ERICA: ...It's the sweetest thing in the world. THE REDHEAEDED MAN: You're wasted on murder. You could be a poet. ERICA: I'm multifaceted. I can do both.

Then at the end of this they agree that you're like, a perfect patsy, and fuck off to go travel the world now that someone else is going to stand accused of all their murders, since you're a stranger from out of town who showed up, openly had a conflict with the guy who ran the town, and then there were ~all those murders~. Anyway, roll credits!

Then like. There's a second thing I was thinking about and... well, honestly, almost definitely want to keep because it would be a little miserable otherwise. Which is that you can just swing a weapon at anyone at any time, but the game won't like, prompt that basically ever unless someone starts it. That's because unless you swing it at Erica or one of the enemy characters, nothing happens and they just go "[player name], what was that for? ow!" or something.

With one other exception. Which is the tutorial character, our late-game turncoat.

If you swing on THE REDHEADED MAN, he dodges and takes off his glasses. This triggers one of the only directly-triggerable voice lines. THE REDHEADED MAN: I assume that that was an accident. If you swing on THE REDHEADED MAN a second time, he dodges again and throws his hair out of his face. This triggers another voice line. THE REDHEADED MAN: What are you doing, [PLAYER]? If you swing on THE REDHEADED MAN a third time, you can actually hit him, revealing the health bar. It is fucking ridiculously huge (actually, the same amount of health as ERICA, but visible all on one bar). THE REDHEADED MAN: Are you fucking stupid, or are you smarter than I think you are? THE REDHEADED MAN: I guess we'll find out, hm? This will trigger the SECRET HAVEN FIGHT.

yeah okay that tells you his name, this is my oc Haven. in the actual story with him and Erica they DO work together to kill everyone in Erica's hometown, starting with her family but certainly not ending there; they don't quite do it like this though. Also of note is that this is the only character in the entire game who swears, because I think it's funny to have a marker on the game for profanity but it's for a route that only happens if you do something that the game doesn't tell you to do.

Anyway I haven't ironed all the mechanics of this fight out yet because I'm not sure how to make the character work while also making the fight, like... theoretically beatable. me when i have a character who likes to use mind control to tell people to hold still so he can disembowel them and then i need to make you fight them and have some way to win:

But that's what I got.

And i can't even lie. If this was a game someone else made and I could get through the resource management part without getting horribly bored I'd have such a good time with the rest of it. As long as I get the combat system right anyway.

also of note is that there's wolves who will steal your livestock and troublemakers who will steal your crops on top of the saboteurs and you can get in scuffles with them all if you want, also that there are ghost stories you can collect that are all actually about erica in her guise as The Scary Forest Monster Fox or haven/tutorial guy in weird costumes breaking into people's houses at night, there's a polyam grocer couple that wants you to be their third super badly and will bribe you for it, there is an anachronous lesbian biker gang, and you can get 'chaos jobs' that you can pick up that occasionally include 'break a window in xyz's house and we'll give you twenty bucks'. also that our tutorial guy can't be prompted to speak but, if you spend a lot of time around certain characters, has rare voice lines that trigger *eventually* that are like. mild catty insults except for erica. who he likes so he says something complimentary instead. I have a lot of things going on here.

Dont worry about it!

Stardew Valley-inspired Erica animation, drawn sometime in January while I was sick as a dog. This took ages, and all because I wanted to animate the bloodstains moving properly. The framerate isn't even quite right lol.

#hi everyone im talking to the person whose tags these are BUT you can jump in if you want.#anyway you can see why this is a back-burner 'not for a long time' project.#also most likely it won't be 2d when i finally do it. mostly so the fight stuff will be easier.

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conchelle · 2 years ago

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I completed all the routes of Yoru no Umi de Otsukisama wo Tsuru and man. I do have things to say about it.

To start things off, this game is a bit unique in terms of Towelket games. It actually plays more like a visual novel/dating sim with multiple paths to choose from and multiple endings based on those choices.

There's 11 characters to choose from and 4 endings in total (I think). All of the dialogue and scenarios for each of the characters are all unique, which just goes to show just how much effort was put into this game...but there are some issues that come up as a result of this which I'll talk about in a bit.

This game is kind of pseudo-remake/remaining of Towelket 4. It's a bit similar to how Warau Warawau is kind of a remake to Towelket 6, but unlike that game, Yoru no Umi still retains some aspects Towelket 4 such as locations and plot points though a lot of things have changed as well.

Since Towelket 4 was kind of like the only game in the numbered series that actually served as a sequel where you would have to play the other games to really get it, Yoru No Umi is very much its own thing. Though, for the most part, the parts in the game that are directly lifted from Towelket 4 just are just a bit confusing? It feels like certain plot points happen just because they happened into TK4 except without the context of why said plot point happened in the first place.

For example, early in TK4, Moochasu becomes a pirate after getting into trouble when he's led into Barrieland by Warawau. He stays a pirate for the rest of the game, and it makes sense why that happens.

However, in Yoru No Umi, the same thing happens, and it just kind of goes nowhere? Like Moochasu becomes a pirate for a brief moment and then goes back to how he was before offscreen with only a vague explanation you hear about a while later. It's a moment that has very little bearing on the plot aside from getting a certain character to stop talking for the rest of the game for...reasons. Anyone who went into this game without playing TK4 would be utterly confused on why that even happened in the first place.

Then there's Koucha's character in general, which I would go on a full-blown rant about if I had less restraint, so I'll get sum it up as, her significance in this game just makes less sense compared to TK4. It feels like her character is only as important as it is because she was the love interest in TK4 and nothing else.

On a more positive note, I do think the story this game is trying to tell is intriguing. I liked piecing together everything with each new piece of information granted in each ending. The villains are actually a lot more present this time around, which was a huge pain point in TK4 where Furi Kusukusu showed up out of nowhere towards the very end. This time around, she has a fair amount of screentime, and her motives actually make sense.

Though ironically, I kind of have the opposite problem with Yoru no Umi that I had with TK4. I really like the final act in this game, and I really wish the rest of the game was more like it.

The midpoint of TK4 was easily the highlight of the game for me. I really enjoyed the exploration aspect. Yoru no Umi's midpoint is kind of painful.

Now, this is half of my own fault since I decided to go through every single route like a maniac. I'm not sure if the game was intended to be played that way or if Kanao just wanted to give the player the option to pick their favorite character to pursue.

Regardless, all of the Barrieland residents have pretty straightforward routes and similar standard endings.

The first time around, I decided to go for Smile.dk's route because since she's a new character and it was pretty amusing.

All of the Barrieland routes are just that. Pretty amusing. The middle segment of this game is a bit less plot focused than the rest of the series. You're mostly just hanging around another character and going through their little gags and eventually helping them overcome some kind of problem. But unfortunately, I feel Kanao's character writing just isn't quite there for this format to really be interesting.

If Kanao were to make a game like this today, I would be 100% down for it since I think their character writing has improved significantly since this era. Like I remember when I was playing Yorumoru 2, and the whole time, I was thinking about just how cool it would be if there were some extra content that wasn't really integral to the plot. Like some small side-quests where you could go with a character of your choosing and get to know them a little more and solve some kind of conflict they're related to.

But the characters in this game just didn't really do it for me. I didn't hate them, but I can't say they're particularly memorable, either. It doesn't help that characters like Roppenchu, Nyanyamo, and Nekoashi Otome all have counterparts in Yorumoru 2 that are just a lot more interesting to me.

Characters like Warawau and Nekojita have a little depth to them, but their stories overlap pretty heavily, and unfortunately, you don't really get to spend much time with them compared to the other characters.

Overall, as much as I appreciate the effort, I don't see why there had to be this many routes in the first place. Again, it was probably my own fault for attempting to get through every single one but eh. (The game is 40 hours long for pete's sake)

Visually, I think this game looks really good! It has a distinct look to it, there's a couple of CGs that are really cute. The music was alright, mostly the typical Towelket MIDIs.

Overall, I liked the story the game was trying to tell, but after going through two routes, this game reaaaally starts to drag, which is unfortunate. I really enjoyed playing Warau, Warawau a couple of times despite it being a very linear game. Just getting to recontextualize everything after the ending was enough for it to be replayable. It really doesn't help that a lot of the things that happen in the midpoint of Yoru No Umi fails to have any real significance to the ending or even recontextualize it.

At the very least, I cant say that I didnt have fun the first few times around.

Also, this isn't really a criticism, but this game directly quotes Richard Chase, an actual real-life serial killer. For like. No reason. It's so jarrring

This is a game that references Smile.DK, the Swedish band that gave us classics like Butterfly and Richard Chase. An insane serial killer who actually existed 💀

Towelket is amazing

Anyway here's the Towel rating.

Warau Warawau > Yorumorukimiri = Dekapari > TK1 = TK2 > Nekoashi Otome > TK4 > Fury > Yoru no Umi de Otsukisama wo Tsuru > TK6 > TK3 > TK5

#towelket diary #not putting this under a read more go fuck yourself

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thefools-journey · 4 years ago

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So. Some of you may be wondering why we haven’t written a whole ton about the secondaries or what have you. Here’s the reason: we were waiting for them to end before we really dug into the problems we were noticing. We felt that it was only fair to wait for the routes to finish so that we had an understanding of the writers’ vision. Who knew, we thought, maybe they would see the problems themselves and course correct, maybe they are building to something we can’t quite see yet and these issues will have actual payoff, maybe-

In light of Muriel and Lucio’s endings, and the general mess that has dominated Portia’s route for a year plus now, we are breaking our silence. We are actually going to talk about this shit show.

The fandom at large has talked about a bunch of issues with the secondaries but for me, the cardinal sin, the thing that really all the issues lead back to, is this: the writers lost sight of the tarot themes which so strongly defined and held together the primary routes. Let me explain.

The primary routes each center around three thematic cores:

The Love Interest’s Major Arcana and its Reversed/Upright meanings

The MC’s Fool’s Journey, both how it can go right and how it can go wrong

A question about the MC’s identity and their relationship to said identity

Asra’s route asks: Who was the MC? How does the MC navigate a past they cannot and will not remember? What do they owe a past they cannot remember? How do they handle the revelations of what Asra, Nadia, Julian, etc did? How do you right the past? Can you?

Nadia’s route asks: Who is the MC? The MC has no past. Are they the Fool only? Are they actually the same person they were? How can they tell? Who are they, really? Are they an imposter? No one can answer these questions for them.

Julian’s route asks: Who will the MC become? How does the MC see their future? Is there anything worth fighting for for that future? What will become of them and their loved ones?

Now, if you notice, these themes are expertly woven throughout the primaries. Asra’s past dominates his route, Nadia is also missing memories and trying to construct her identity both with her family and with Vesuvia, and Julian’s fear of the future drives his flailing for control. Asra has to learn to take a broader view of his actions to get his Upright Ending, Nadia has to learn to trust herself and those around her for hers, and Julian has to learn how to let go for his. These lessons are the issues their cards stand for. The primaries are so dang elegant and delicate in their handlings of theme it is honestly awe-inspiring.

Thematically, the secondary routes have completely lost their hearts. First of all, the MC does not have strong, core questions which need to be answered. They just don’t. I suppose the writers did not want to retread old territory (which is weird considering how tightly bound the primaries are; it really tricks you into thinking you’re living the same events but from different angles depending on your route) but they did not replace the old with anything new. Muriel’s route is, on the surface, about discovering and owning his past, the good and the bad. Why not tie MC’s self-discovery to that story? Or they could have taken the angle that Muriel’s route is about convincing him to be present and active in the world while MC builds an identity for themself outside of Asra, the shop, and the memories they cannot retrieve. Why not tie the investigation themes running through Portia’s early route back to MC and their past? Portia has the unique angle of being as in the dark as MC about all of this, why not discover the past together? And for goodness’ sake, Lucio has no future when his route begins, why not tie that to his need for growth, responsibility, and MC’s own future between the Fool, the Devil, or something mortal and in between?

Secondly, the routes lost their tarot backbone. We have a primer on how to get specific endings for each LI and it still holds, but the writers did not follow through on the thematic coherence of each secondary. The Hermit is looking for something, be it perspective, insight, a solution to a problem, whatever. The key here is that the Hermit must find or learn what they are searching for, this thing must change their understanding of the world, and finally, they must bring this lesson back to the world from which they retreated. Can someone please enlighten me as what exactly Muriel learns then teaches the world around him? Nothing Muriel learns from Morga, MC, or even the Hermit ties back into anything. The Devil warns that you are out of control and exerting a lot of manipulative, destructive behavior on the world around you. It asks you to take responsibility for yourself and your actions. So can someone tell me why Lucio’s route actively avoids any interaction or reflection on two of Lucio’s biggest victims: Muriel and Julian? Why does the route only try to make amends with the “easier” of his victims in the cast? The Star is first and foremost the card of clarity, the light at the end of the tunnel. Perseverance, if you will. Yet Portia’s route has been the muddiest of the trio; the writers drop the investigation aspect of her route in favor just handing her and MC information they could have easily found and muddying the waters with Tasya (she blows up the palace but it’s all okay bc she has a secret daughter Julian never thought to bring up or mention) and the complete removal of the Devil as antagonist.

So that leaves just the Fool’s Journey trying to hold this stool up with only one leg. And well...it doesn’t go well. At best, the secondary route books pay the barest surface level homage to the themes of the individual cards. At worst, they ignore the cards completely. Muriel's Moon book has nothing to do with illusions or delusions or lies or even an Alice in the Looking Glass upside down world. Portia's back half is a complete and utter mess, starting with her Temperance book being so badly mangled that Muriel's aftermath book does it better. Lucio's route too bungles the Tower and the Star. There just isn't enough here to carry the routes alone.

Add to the core loss the loss of intertextuality. The primary routes are very good, even great but they too do have their moments and mistakes. What helps strengthen them when the cores stumble is how the trio is woven together. Things you learn in Asra's route can inform the way you play Nadia's, for example. Julian's route informs what is going on in Asra's route and slots some missing puzzle pieces together. Nadia's route tells you of the power struggles she is facing and informs the other two routes' handling of Julian and his trial. On and on, the three routes support each other because they are built out of the same basic plot beats, just tackled in very different ways. Now, the writers are allowed to try and write whatever they want. They apparently wanted to be more experimental and less tied down to an overarching plot with the three secondaries. Okay, fine, they are allowed to do that. The problem is that they sacrificed one of the key strengths of the primary trio and didn't replace said strength with anything else. They also, on some level, harmed the very premise of the game, which is that only the player's choices and route selected change the overall plot. Instead of feeling like legitimate possibilities or offshoots of the same timeline/plot, the secondaries feel almost like Arcana AUs. The secondaries throw out all relations to the primaries and each other as quickly as possible and for what?

It is probably the height of arrogance to suggest fixes for works whose behind the scenes I do not know. At the same time, some small, obvious changes could have salvaged Muriel and maybe Lucio's endings (rip Portia). Instead of having the Hermit appear as a disappointing cameo, why not have him say something cryptic to Muriel, then have MC start trying to seal the Devil. Then let Muriel use his forget me mark to cloak MC and hide them from the Devil's attacks. Protecting MC by hiding them from Lucio, keeping him focused on Muriel, seems to me a simple third solution between Muriel's desire to run and his desire to never fight again. It lets him stand up to Lucio and let him have it while holding onto who Muriel has become. The Reversed End would have MC try to draw Lucio's attention at some point, disrupting the sealing, and eventually leading to Muriel killing the Devil. With Lucio's Upright End, I just have to ask: why doesn't MC fully claim the power of the Fool instead of the Devil? We don't need the other Arcana involved in this fight; we have three routes that demonstrate that. Just have MC pull Scout into the conflict, then have Lucio tell MC he believes in them, then add his power to the mix. You got yourself a full Fool who leaves Scout guarding the realm until they and Lucio's mortal bodies fail and they return to the realm to be together forever. Boom, you're done, you can even add some ambiguous lines so that players can decide how happy their MC is with this arrangement, send me the check.

Here is the bottom line. Our group is full of aroace, and several combinations therein, individuals. We are the last group who should have gotten into a dating sim of all things. But the Arcana did something with the primaries that was special; they wrote a compelling plot with dazzling lore, complex characters, and strong themes wrapped up in a dating sim bow. The writers know better and we know they know better. I do not know what happened with the secondaries, especially around books 10-11, which is where minor issues slowly start spiraling into major ones, but it is clear that Nix Hydra needed some more planning before they released these routes. Hopefully they will learn.

TL;DR: Nix Hydra fired their tarot consultants about eighteen months ago and it has wrecked their secondary routes until they were just embarrassments. They never intended for the secondary routes to even exist and once they had to make them, they scrambled and threw out everything that made the primaries work.

- Mod Telos

#the arcana #The Arcana Game #arcana game #arcana game meta #arcana meta #arcana discourse #the arcana lucio #Lucio route #the arcana muriel #muriel route #the arcana portia #portia route #lucio morgasson #lucio montag #muriel #portia devorak #The Wheel Turns

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aion-rsa · 5 years ago

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Top New YA Books in March 2020

Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland

Type: Novel (Second in series) Publisher: Balzer + Bray Release date: 2/4/20

Den of Geek says: Justina Ireland’s Dread Nation was a buzzy historical zombie novel with a keen awareness of racial dynamics in Civil War-era America. The sequel looks to be just as intense as the first.

Publisher’s summary: The sequel to the New York Times bestselling epic Dread Nation is an unforgettable journey of revenge and salvation across a divided America.

After the fall of Summerland, Jane McKeene hoped her life would get simpler: Get out of town, stay alive, and head west to California to find her mother.

But nothing is easy when you’re a girl trained in putting down the restless dead, and a devastating loss on the road to a protected village called Nicodemus has Jane questioning everything she thought she knew about surviving in 1880s America.

What’s more, this safe haven is not what it appears—as Jane discovers when she sees familiar faces from Summerland amid this new society. Caught between mysteries and lies, the undead, and her own inner demons, Jane soon finds herself on a dark path of blood and violence that threatens to consume her.

But she won’t be in it alone.

Katherine Deveraux never expected to be allied with Jane McKeene. But after the hell she has endured, she knows friends are hard to come by—and that Jane needs her too, whether Jane wants to admit it or not.

Watching Jane’s back, however, is more than she bargained for, and when they both reach a breaking point, it’s up to Katherine to keep hope alive—even as she begins to fear that there is no happily-ever-after for girls like her.

Buy Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland on Amazon.

Cast Away: Poems for Our Time by Naomi Shihab Nye

Type: Poetry Publisher: Greenwillow Books Release date: 2/11/2020

Den of Geek says: This unique book of poetry seems perfectly suited to today’s environmental and humanitarian issues. What happens to the things we throw away? What happens to the people who aren’t wanted? The metaphor is rich.

Publisher’s summary: Acclaimed poet and Young People’s Poet Laureate Naomi Shihab Nye shines a spotlight on the things we cast away, from plastic water bottles to those less fortunate, in this collection of more than eighty original and never-before-published poems. A deeply moving, sometimes funny, and always provocative poetry collection for all ages.

“Nye at her engaging, insightful best.”―Kirkus (starred review)

“How much have you thrown away in your lifetime already? Do you ever think about it? Where does this plethora of leavings come from? How long does it take you, even one little you, to fill the can by your desk?”―Naomi Shihab Nye

National Book Award Finalist, Young People’s Poet Laureate, and devoted trash-picker-upper Naomi Shihab Nye explores these questions and more in this original collection of poetry that features more than eighty new poems. “I couldn’t save the world, but I could pick up trash,” she says in her introduction to this stunning volume.

With poems about food wrappers, lost mittens, plastic straws, refugee children, trashy talk, the environment, connection, community, responsibility to the planet, politics, immigration, time, junk mail, trash collectors, garbage trucks, all that we carry and all that we discard, this is a rich, engaging, moving, and sometimes humorous collection for readers ages twelve to adult.

Buy Cast Away: Poems for Our Time on Amazon.

Rebelwing by Andrea Tang

Type: Novel Publisher: Razorbill Release date: 2/25/20

Den of Geek says: Robot dragons? What more to say? The fantastical war story setting and high-energy cast of characters looks like it’ll make this one a good read for fans of Pacific Rim.

Publisher’s summary: Things just got weird for Prudence Wu.

One minute, she’s cashing in on a routine smuggling deal. The next, she’s escaping enforcers on the wings of what very much appears to be a sentient cybernetic dragon.

Pru is used to life throwing her some unpleasant surprises–she goes to prep school, after all, and selling banned media across the border in a country with a ruthless corporate government obviously has its risks. But a cybernetic dragon? That’s new.

She tries to forget about the fact that the only reason she’s not in jail is because some sort of robot saved her, and that she’s going to have to get a new side job now that enforcers are on to her. So she’s not exactly thrilled when Rebelwing shows up again.

Even worse, it’s become increasingly clear that the rogue machine has imprinted on her permanently, which means she’d better figure out this whole piloting-a-dragon thing–fast. Because Rebelwing just happens to be the ridiculously expensive weapon her government needs in a brewing war with its neighbor, and Pru’s the only one who can fly it.

Set in a wonderfully inventive near-future Washington, D.C., this hilarious, defiant debut sparkles with wit and wisdom, deftly exploring media consumption, personal freedoms, and the weight of one life as Pru, rather reluctantly, takes to the skies.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

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simcitybuilditcheat-blog · 5 years ago

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SimCity BuildIt Cheats

SimCity BuildIt Cheats is a tool for warm new game. I have to have touched one of the buttons with my thumb, as it had eliminated a bottle of chemical from production and charged me 28 simcash greenbacks, which seemed an extensive sum to pay for a simple mistake. I have been gambling SimCity BuildIt for about a month now, both for the purpose of this evaluation and because i thoroughly enjoy the game. I missed the preceding simcity new release, and that i figured that was the give up of the road for the franchise. Study commands below they're importent. Beta testers will get top rate access to all Cheats tool we create. Thank you again you are the cause we create Cheats gear coronary heart emoticon !!! Have you ever constantly questioned the way to get unlimited Simoleons in SimCity BuildIt? Or a way to get loose Sim Cash in SimCity BuildIt? Well we've got an answer for you! Our new SimCity BuildIt cheats and cheats tool! It'll come up with all those matters and lots of extra different stuff. It is advanced functions are unmatched on the relaxation of internet. You may want each currencies in huge amounts so that you can development quick in every degree of the game. However, earning them isn't always an clean venture except you'll use SimCity BuildIt cheats! Most of the gamers emerge as spending real money for purchasing them from the game keep. However, in case you are a bit patient then you could paintings hard and earn both currencies step by step in the sport. Listed below are a few strategies to accumulate Simoleons and simcash in SimCity BuildIt game: to conclude, when you have usually dreamt of turning into a mayor of a town then this is the proper time to begin playing the SimCity BuildIt sport. I should have touched one of the buttons with my thumb, because it had removed a bottle of chemical from production and charged me 28 simcash greenbacks, which appeared an extensive sum to pay for a simple mistake. I have been gambling SimCity BuildIt for about a month now, each for the purpose of this overview and because i thoroughly experience the sport. I overlooked the previous simcity generation, and that i figured that changed into the cease of the road for the franchise. Air shipping of products to tokyo and paris on the same time. If you have already unlocked both the town of tokyo and paris, you could send goods to any of those destinations. Simply click on at the airport to exchange the direction of air transport. Country wide flags on trucks traveling across the airport warehouse imply which u . S . A . Is currently being delivered. National truck flags suggest for which us of a goods are currently being loaded on the airport. The sport is in complete display screen mode, and i can't get out of it! The original SimCity BuildIt sport will take a lot of time to build your town and occasionally you run out of cash and sources, which makes development sluggish. Just due to this, human beings began searching out SimCity BuildIt mod apk for unlimited coins and assets. Yes there are a variety of SimCity BuildIt mod for android to be had available which you can use to get gain of everything in the game. You may down load SimCity BuildIt mod apk (limitless cash/cash) and then you definately do not have to watch for whatever in the sport. Vicinity homes strategically to hold the taxes flowing and your metropolis developing. Pinch, zoom, and rotate 360 degrees as you control and expand your town at the cross - each on line and offline. The brand new mayor's skip seasons celebrate the subculture of latin the us. Create whole neighborhoods of latin american homes, and spice up your city with buildings inclusive of the maté save and gate to xibalba. Experience the brand new simcity sports shop with new item sorts. Unencumber new town hot spots along with soccer and seaside volleyball stadiums. The cheat that loves its proprietor will attempt to divert the monster while the hunter is in chance. The pacifists see through all the conflicts in the global. SimCity BuildIt cheats will neither fight nor run away whilst going through monsters, but collect resources on their own. This running SimCity BuildIt cheat is appropriate for ios customers who do not want to have human verification at all. [[((!2020 free Cheats!))]] SimCity BuildIt Cheats&cheats - get loose Simoleons & simcash generator 2020 no verification our Cheats is operating like several others from our site and its operating our uncommon server.

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SimCity BuildIt Guide

SimCity BuildIt guide turned into lately launched. I examined it on an ipad seasoned 10.five and an ipad air 2, each running a one-of-a-kind metropolis. (there would not appear to be any top manner to run multiple city on one tool.) I first set up SimCity BuildIt at the ipad pro—that sport is now on stage 35—after which installed the app on my ipad air, curious to see if the game would be as stable on it. It is, and i am up to degree 17. the most effective distinction i have observed in strolling the app on the 2 machines is which you get a extra zoomed-in default view on the air due to the distinction in decision. Add landscape functions - from ponds and lakes to forests, you could add inexperienced regions in your city except just widespread parks. Panorama capabilities do not require adjacent roads the manner parks do. Construct leisure facilities - these are specialized homes which include inns, amphitheaters and expo facilities. The enjoyment hq is required, that is available at stage 20 or better. Construct playing centers - a playing hq is needed at stage 25 or higher. This lets in you to build a gambling residence, on line casino and other gambling related buildings. The way to earn rewards inside the season with the mayor's subscription? Performing duties of the opposition of mayors and incomes plumbob points for this, you will open new prize classes of the season and obtain their corresponding awards. On the season display screen you'll see the time till its quit and your development. At the start of each new season, your factors counter will be reset. Do i want to defeat other players inside the opposition of mayors a good way to earn subscription rewards? On the cease of production, the icons of your merchandise will seem on the economic constructing. Click on them to choose up the products. Within the equal way, they may be picked up without delay from the production cellular. In case your metropolis warehouse is full and also you can't select up the goods produced, it will stay in the commercial constructing, but you will now not be able to produce new items until you empty its production cells! Produce items and supply goods to earn Simoleons, promote items from a warehouse, check what's up on the market in international change, and additionally conclude (or reject) transactions for Simoleons with other characters for your metropolis. You can buckle and pay. Actually, some people find this a laugh. And some human beings—yeah, me—simply assume: "hmmm. Maybe i should go lower back and attempt that pc model again. It had its issues, however it wasn't something quite like this." To contact the writer of this post, write to [email protected] or discover him on twitter @stephentotilo. The purpose of the sport is simple...increase your very own city, keep your sims glad, increase your assets & alternate. Now here is the thrilling element...when they say build it they don't absolutely mean build it. This game is amusing to play, but the handiest problem its hard to get cash, its time eating and as weeks months bypass by using, u'll get uninterested in grinding. The homes & other things you want to construct takes loads of money, its so frustrating every so often due to the fact all you want to do is be creative with your metropolis but you cant due to the fact theres restrict to it!! So i hope this generator genuinely works!!!! Btw, i virtually love sim city as it enables me to experience my entertainment time!! Go to settings> help> touch us to fill out an application. Suggest a legitimate electronic mail deal with when sending, and they'll touch you as quickly as possible. Editor's note: submit up to date 7/7/17. The subsequent review is on SimCity BuildIt for android, version 1.17. you may click any screen shot to view a larger version. As soon as a gamer, usually a gamer, and whilst i may not play as many video games as i did in my teenagers and twenties, i do nonetheless experience the escape a very good game affords. Gamers can join and compete with different users for more linked gameplay. [2] the sport is freemium (unfastened-to-play with intrusive commercials and in-app purchases). It utilizes track and pix just like the 2013 simcity sport, although it is barely down scaled so one can healthy in with the ios and android devices' graphic abilties. The game begins with 25,000 Simoleons and 50 simcash reachable. There is no zoning characteristic in simcity: buildit. As a substitute, homes are moved manually. Industrial and commercial homes produce gadgets, and home zones require them on the way to upgrade to a better density. Within the city, you may building up to 6 omega laboratories. At the omega research middle, omega merchandise are made from omega material. It's far to be had in the government - offerings menu. Click on the omega research middle and deliver the omega fabric there to start processing. While the products are equipped, click on at the containers to collect them. Wherein am i able to shop omega products? Search for an omega warehouse in the offerings menu - energy. In case you need extra area, click on on boom warehouse to see what you want for this. I tested it on an ipad seasoned 10.5 and an ipad air 2, each running a exclusive city. (there doesn't appear to be any true manner to run multiple metropolis on one device.) I first mounted SimCity BuildIt at the ipad seasoned—that sport is now on level 35—and then mounted the app on my ipad air, curious to see if the sport could be as stable on it. It's miles, and i am up to stage 17. the simplest distinction i have observed in walking the app on the two machines is which you get a more zoomed-in default view on the air because of the distinction in resolution. There is not simply a storyline that you're following in buildit, however this recreation is truly greater task-oriented than the laptop model ever changed into. I'll get extra into element approximately the SimCity BuildIt financial system, however for example, the best manner to enlarge the land of your town is to purchase land tracts (rectangles of land) to permit extra time to construct. Nicely, the only manner to buy those tracts is to shop for or locate bulldozer parts. If you can not locate or have enough money the elements, you can not develop the land place of your city. You could handiest view a maximum of 20 items at a time and you cannot select what you spot. The listings seem to be completely random. Any item may be offered in gthq, including the specialized items such as vu's tower, beach, mountain and bulldozer items. Because of the limits on the gthq, it's very rare that you'll actually be able to find what you're looking for, especially if it's one of the more rare items in the game. Rather than the current market, i would suggest an auction system where you can bid on items and have more control on pricing. (there are additional items for expansion to the beach and mountainside.) To increase your territory or your city's storage capacity, you need to get a certain number of each of a set of three parts. For example, to expand into a certain 6-by-8 lot, you might need five dozer wheels, five dozer blades, and five dozer exhaust pipes. For a different lot, you might need seven of each item. To acquire these parts, you can buy them in the global trade hq (be advised that they sell quickly), or on rare occasions receive them as gifts when you travel to another city to buy something else, and click on a gift icon. If red exclamation marks appear on the icons on the right of the screen, find out immediately what is happening! These icons will tell you what can be improved to make your citizens happy. You can also visually assess the level of happiness of each individual district by selecting the government icon in the city services menu. What is city services? Your citizens have needs! As a mayor, you must consider eight key points that make up the well-being of your citizens. These goods are consumed at such a rate that they do not reach the warehouse. The increase in the city warehouse. Go to the city warehouse and click on the green button "increase warehouse" to see what special items for storage space are required to increase its capacity. Collect the necessary goods, click on the screen to confirm, and the size of your city warehouse will increase instantly. If you do not want to view icons with the opinions of your fellow citizens, you can purchase missing special items for simcash. In some cases, you can even permanently lose your city. How to download a city to a new device? Complete the training mode until the city councilor tells you that you will play next yourself. Click on the "settings" icon and log in to the appropriate account. Do not see the authorization buttons? So, you have not completed the training mode in the game. Why didn't my saved city load? Have you saved the original city? If you did not save it using the in-game settings, you will not be able to access it from any device. These videos only work while you're online. Also, sometimes if i didn't notice the movie icon quickly enough, the video would expire and nothing would happen when i clicked on the icon. Several times, i would listen to my advisor and watch the ad, but the advisor would not reappear to let me pick my reward. When that happens, i find it's best not to click on the movie icon for a while, because if it happens once, it's likely to keep happening. Athough maxis could have designed SimCity BuildIt's commerce function for single-player use, making transactions with real players and visiting their cities adds greatly to the richness of the game. The downside is that i really miss the ability to trade when i'm offline. One online feature that lets you directly interact with other players is the mayors' club, which unlocks at level 18. You can join a mayors' club, which is a group of up to 25 players who can chat or make deals with each other. As mayor, you lay down the roads, place houses, stores, and factories, collect taxes, and arrange deals with other cities. You must also provide services for your citizens, the sims, when the options become available—power, water, sewage treatment, sanitation, and education. If you neglect expanding services and the overall city upkeep, your sims move out, you lose tax revenue, and the city stagnates. First, though, they can and will talk back to you (with their words appearing in an opinion bubble above a house or other property), tell you what's working and what isn't, although their responses are admittedly canned. Some updates and upgrades may change the way we record usage data and metrics, or change data stored on your device. Any changes will always be consistent with ea's privacy and cookie policy. You can withdraw your consent at any time by removing or disabling this app, visiting help.ea.com for assistance, or by contacting us at attn: privacy / mobile consent withdrawal, electronic arts inc., 209 redwood shores pkwy, redwood city, ca, usa. Ships of battle - age of pirates - warship battle 2.6.28 apk + mod (unlimited money,free shopping) + data for android gangstar vegas: world of crime 4.4.0m apk + mod (money/vip gold/diamonds/anti ban) + data for android note - make sure that you disable your internet connection while playing this game. However, i think a better idea is to know exactly what you're looking for and to play to the requirements, not to stock. If you have a bunch of residences that are looking for a certain material, go crazy on stockpiling those as at least you know you'll be able to quickly in and spend those on actual upgrades once they are ready to go. Once you unlock the trade hq, i recommend using it to sell your excess rare parts (i.e. It'd been 10 years since its last outing - simcity 4, which retained the classic blocky approach to city building. However, the reboot overhauled the game entirely, as it surely had to - it received a brand new game engine, a fully 3d experience and an online home, where players could trade with others in close proximity. The problem is - this was the only choice: there wasn't an offline mode. Cue server issues, downtime and many more problems, and what was left was a disastrous relaunch for a much beloved franchise. Daniel is a father of two boys, husband to jenb and works in digital marketing for the 2nd largest hospital system in florida. He's founder of dadtography.com, a travel & video blogger and avid digital photographer. Daniel is a father of two boys, husband to jenb and works in digital marketing for the 2nd largest hospital system in florida. He's founder of dadtography.com, a travel & video blogger and avid digital photographer. Be a dadtographer... Copyright © 2020 dadtography, llc · read our privacy & user generated content policy · built on genesis the content of this website does not constitute legal advice and should not be relied upon as such. When traffic congestion begins to roll over, the adviser will notify you of this, and a red exclamation mark will appear next to the road icon. Modernization of roads. Click on the upgrade icon with helmet and traffic light. You will see a view of the city with a highlighted road network. Green / black roads = good. Red roads = bad! The yellow light in this view indicates average traffic congestion. In the event of a sharp increase in population in this area, residents will complain! My biggest complaint has to do with the game's decision to limit some of the cooler buildings to premium currency buys (and at amounts that you'll never earn in-game). Meanwhile, buildit's strongest facet is its graphics. Simply put, i absolutely love the visuals in SimCity BuildIt. Players have full rotational control of their town and all the structures are highly detailed and simply look great. Your city is also teeming with life — zoom in and you'll see cars on the street, stoplights, and even traffic jams when that becomes a problem for your city. But as often as not, the deals are for your storage and expansion parts. Money generated from these deals come at the expense of your city's growth, so think long and hard about giving these parts up. You're the mayor, and have the final word. Tapping the global trade hq, which i always think of as the world trade center, shows items that other sims have put up for sale. Touching the building brings up a list of offers, which you can refresh every 30 seconds. You can make the road upgrade smaller by running another road into it, this will help you save significant amount of coins. As a rule of thumb, you should request for new upgrading plan, whenever the upgrade request asking for 2~3+ items that you do not have. Always go forward with the upgrading plans that require materials only from the factory. At mid point in game with upgraded factories, you will find yourself loaded with the basic materials. 2. Slow down on building the stores, refresh the upgrades, and only upgrade if you do have the materials that can be made from your existing buildings. Your futuristic city adviser will tell you what products your neighbor wants to buy. Click yes !, to accept the offer or no, thanks !, to refuse the sale. There are ten different omega products. Based on the results of using the omega research center, you receive a random omega product. How to unlock a futuristic city? Click on the neomall site between the wu tower and the mountains. If you meet the requirements for access to futuristic cities, an adviser will appear on the screen, which will guide you into the future. If you change your mind and want to remove the lot from the shelf of the warehouse, click on the red button (but think carefully - it will cost you simcash, and the goods will be lost!). If you have run out of empty boxes at the warehouse, but you want to put up for sale other goods right now, you can purchase additional boxes for simcash. Click on the box with the yellow sticker in the lower right corner of the warehouse. Now you will send your main facebook account (that you have connected SimCity BuildIt to) a friend request that you accept. Now you're able to start SimCity BuildIt with that facebook account and you will see your main city in the friends list. If you want to build your feeder city right there are some things that you will need to mind, otherwise it might get less effective. This takes a little time, i'd say some hours but you can simply do it on breaks and don't need to do it all straight. Whenever you overbuilt, you run a chance of losing a building completely, and it can happen to your biggest building, so do not risk it! If you have to choose between placing your services, pick the area where you have the most dense population. This means if you only have enough money for a fire station or police station, you better make sure those cover your tallest buildings. Your tallest buildings will have the most impact on your city in terms of happiness and money. Because it works at the first time after you install it, but if you want to play it free forever then you must turn off any internet ln your phone forever even after you close the game because the game is still running at the background and it will sync with ea server at the background while you turning on the internet and the server will detect that it's illegal and will notify you that data is corrupt, that means your app is blacklisted already so if you don't mind with internet forever, this mod is for you, but if you still want to use internet after playing, don't download it or you will regret it losing all your record because it is already blacklisted note - make sure that you disable your internet connection while playing this game. But as often as not, the deals are for your storage and expansion parts. Money generated from these deals come at the expense of your city's growth, so think long and hard about giving these parts up. You're the mayor, and have the final word. Tapping the global trade hq, which i always think of as the world trade center, shows items that other sims have put up for sale. Touching the building brings up a list of offers, which you can refresh every 30 seconds. What are these deals that constantly offer my city? This is just a convenient way to earn Simoleons and free up some storage space. Click on the icon for the image of speech in which the simoleon is drawn as soon as it appears in your city. To close the deal, click "yes!" And the Simoleons will appear on your account. To opt out, click "no, thanks." No one will be offended, and soon new offers will appear. If at the moment you do not have a product, but you would like the transaction to take place (perhaps these products will appear soon), click on the screen outside the transaction window and then it will be saved on your card.

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kirinda-ondo · 6 years ago

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So I have some thoughts and feelings about Vishnal Rune Factory

I am aware that approximately two other people besides me care about this, but literally when has it ever stopped me from rambling at length

So basically, I love Vishnal from Rune Factory 4. Like, a lot. I never commit to anyone in farm sims but boy howdy, he managed to hit literally all the criteria I have to be considered a Favorite Character™. He did it so well, in fact, he’s earned a spot alongside characters like Cobalt or Lydia. But like those characters, while there are people who like him, I feel as though he doesn’t get enough credit. The complaints I’ve seen tend to be that he’s boring and that he has the worst proposal event. Hell, one of the first few results from googling him is a thread asking if he’s supposed to be a joke character. While I can see where this sentiment might come from, I’d like to explain the appeal in a lot of the things people find fault in him for (at least for me), and maybe offer a bit of a different perspective, I guess.

If I had to guess where a lot of these problems that people have with him come from, it’s probably the fact that he doesn’t have a lot of lore behind him. To be honest, Vishnal doesn’t really have a whole lot of plot significance. He doesn’t have any direct connection to the capitol of Norad like Arthur or Kiel (via his sister Forte), he’s got nothing to do with the Sechs empire like Doug, and he’s not a guardian like Dylas and Leon. Vishnal, despite working in a castle and serving Ventuswill (who we shall henceforth refer to as Venti), a literal dragon god, is an everyman by comparison. He’s just a guy trying to do his job the best he can.

Similarly, he also doesn’t have a whole lot of mystery or drama behind him either. With pretty much every other bachelor, there’s usually some kind of dark secret from their past that comes up and has to be dealt with, either through the main plot or through their proposal events. To just give you an idea of the kind of things we’re dealing with here, let’s do a rundown.

Doug’s entire tribe was killed by Sechs soldiers, but the empire fed him propaganda to make him believe that Venti was responsible so that he would work undercover for them in order to kill her and take the Rune Spheres.

Arthur was an illegitimate child of Norad’s king and believes that his mother hated him so much she had to take off her glasses so that she didn’t have to look at him, causing him to have severe trust issues (as well as a glasses fetish? Have fun with that, Freud).

Kiel (and by extension, his sister) is trapped in a well-meaning, but incredibly fucked up family dynamic that forced him to be incredibly sheltered while Forte took on the duties of a knight in a heavily male dominated society to protect him. However, since both of their parents are dead, they have no idea that they’re allowed to free themselves and become their own people.

Dylas sacrificed himself to become a guardian, fusing with a monster in order to act as a living life support to help keep Venti alive, but when he’s finally free, he’s hundreds of years into the future, where everything he knows is gone. It’s also implied that before he became a guardian, he was suicidal.

Leon, like Dylas, also sacrificed himself to become a guardian and was flung far into the future. However, he also has the added guilt of believing he left his childhood friend to live the rest of her life emotionally stunted because when he was younger, he made a promise to marry her if she stopped crying so much, but didn’t take it seriously as she did, and couldn’t have kept it even if he did.

Meanwhile, Vishnal has had an utterly average life. In order to help people, he wanted to become a doctor like his father, but felt he wasn’t smart enough, so when he met a butler named Sebastian, he was so impressed he decided to become a butler himself. Though he was worried his father wouldn’t approve of this way of helping people, he was ultimately supportive, helping him train and, through a friend’s connections, getting him to Selphia to work under Volkanon.

Vishnal is basically Clark from Connecticut in terms of how average he is by comparison. However, I wouldn’t say this is a bad thing. Even dealing with one of these traumatic backstories is a lot, let alone trying to harem them all (and don’t even get me started on the main plot’s drama). A lot of the resolutions to these character arcs are followed up by a proposal, and maybe it’s just my age and personal experiences (or the fact that I’m aroace), but when that happens, I don’t get the feeling of “YES, TAKE ME NOW!” I just think “…You literally just found out the thing that’s been screwing you up your entire life was a giant misunderstanding. I get that you’re happy but like, maybe take some time to sort yourself out? See a therapist maybe???”

But Vishnal, for all of his faults (of which there are many and I will get to that later), generally has his shit together. I respect that and find it a breath of fresh air compared to the cavalcade of angst in everyone else’s lives. Not to say that he doesn’t have any problems at all, because then that would be boring, but they tend to be more focused in the present, and are a bit more grounded in reality and less… spectacular. But like I said, we’ll get to that.

What he lacks in terms of dramatic backstory, he makes up for in personality. He’s very… intense, to put it mildly. While not completely hyper, he’s very high energy and it doesn’t take much to get him psyched up. He’s the type of person to put at least 110% effort in everything he does, and nearly everything he does goes towards his goal of becoming the world’s best butler. Unfortunately, as a result, he’s considered one-note. Now, I’m not going to sit here and say he doesn’t talk about butler things all the time, because he absolutely does, but for me, as someone who also tends to get super into things and talk about them endlessly (hence this entire ramble), I find him pretty endearing, if not a tad relatable in that regard. However, for all his single-mindedness, he is still a decently multifaceted character.

Probably the most important thing to note here is that he is a very good person, like “too good for this sinful earth” kind of good. He has a natural drive to help others and doesn’t have a mean word to say about anyone (though even he engages in the ultimate Selphian pastime of Teasing Doug™ on occasion). He’s also honest to a fault. It’s incredibly easy to tell if he’s trying to cover something up because he’s usually pretty much an open book and wears his heart on his sleeve. He seems to expect others to be the same way, as he has a bad habit of taking what people say at face value even if they’ve repeatedly shown not to be trustworthy. This often leads him to be the butt of many a joke or the victim of scams. Other times, lighthearted teasing falls flat as he takes it seriously and winds up getting his feelings hurt. But ever the optimist, he doesn’t let setbacks get him down for long.

He very much believes in the power of hard work overcoming any obstacle, and it seems in his mind, literally anything is possible if you train hard enough, and he’s constantly trying to prepare himself to master every possible scenario, from protecting important secrets by staying silent to becoming invincible to the common cold by constantly being soaked with water. It generally winds up doing him more harm than good, and even Doug worries about him a little bit because Vishnal will do pretty much anything if you tell him it’s special training (though this does not even remotely stop Doug from having a field day with it). Were this not a very “anime” kind of game, it would honestly be amazing if he hadn’t died from any of his training attempts.

Though it may come across as though he has no idea what is actually possible for a human to achieve, he actually seems to have quite a few hangups about his own limitations. He has a massive perfectionist complex and is incredibly hard on himself. He tends to beat himself up quite a bit when he makes mistakes (I mean the man looks utterly devastated every time he screws up lunch) and outright warns the player (who we shall henceforth refer to as Frey) that he may cause her trouble. However, he’s not quite as terrible as he might imply. While he is gullible and very much a klutz, he’s got a wide variety of skills and knowledge he rarely gives himself credit for. For instance, he’s not exactly street smart by any stretch of the imagination, but he’s well-read to a degree that he can actually read things from Arthur’s library (which says a lot because Arthur is a colossal nerd), and he’s knowledgeable on a number of subjects from farming to geography. On the lake date (when it’s not summer), you have the option to ask him more about the kind of training he would do, and he rattles off a list of insane skills (I.e. making tea so good as to become its own singularity…singularitea, if you will) like it’s no big deal. Mind you, given what someone like Volkanon is capable of, that may just be par for the course as far as butlers go in this universe, but for your average person, that’s honestly impressive, if not a bit terrifying.

His confidence (or lack thereof), however, tends to reflect in the quality of his work. In a small example, every so often, he offers Frey his attempt at curry rice. It’s hot garbage, but if she tells him it’s good, he admits he wasn’t very confident in it. However, we see in his prerequisite event (which is a much more overt example) that when he’s more confident in himself, he’s not only able to make actual food, but is downright hypercompetent in his job. For context, he is conned into buying an overpriced statue that, according to blacksmith and Professional Vishnal Scammer™ Bado, will allegedly make him an expert overnight. Wholly believing in this thing, he’s suddenly amazing… until he accidentally knocks it over and breaks it. Utterly devastated and unconvinced that his improved performance came from within, he’s suddenly infinitely worse than he was when he started. Things of course balance themselves out, but we come away realizing that if he had as much self-confidence as he did pure determination, he could easily reach a point where he’d be absolutely unstoppable.

We also see this lack of confidence manifest itself in regards to Frey. If she pursues a relationship, we get quite a bit of evidence that he doesn’t think he’s good enough for her. Before he formally asks her out, he lists all the things he does wrong; all the ways he’s a novice, essentially warning her of what she may have to deal with. However, if Frey’s conquered the RNG and made it this far, then it’s safe to say that she’s prepared to take the risk. On the airship date, he outright says once he becomes an expert, he’ll finally be the perfect man for her. Even during his own damn proposal event, he tells her he’s unreliable. This is incredibly far from the case, as even if he doesn’t really know what he’s doing, he’s doing everything he can to make this work. He works himself even harder to maximize his time with her, he buys (phony) charms from Bado to keep them together, he asks other bachelors for advice (as poor is it may be at times), he literally asks the entire town for date spot reviews, as well as just straight up reading up on how to be the best possible boyfriend.

Eventually, should the RNG gods be smiling, this brings us to the proposal event. Now, one might imagine that this event might follow the thread we’ve been building up here into him learning maybe not to beat himself up so much or becoming a little more self-confident, but no. While this sort of thing happens for a number of other bachelors/bachelorettes, where their prerequisite events foreshadow what’s to come in their proposal events, that isn’t quite the case here. While that development does occur to a degree, it’s a bit more subtle and is not really the focus of this event.

His proposal event instead mainly forces him to consider his priorities. So for some context, a butler judge has come, and if Vishnal does well, he may finally earn his first star and be one step closer to being the ultimate butler. In fact, his abilities are already recognized as worthy of the title, but there’s just once teensy little problem. You see, in butlerdom, your master and your partner being one in the same is a bit of a taboo. Dating your boss creates a whole host of problems, after all; not just for you, but your reputation. And so this is where the conundrum comes in. We already know he’s incredibly dedicated to this career choice to the point that if he doesn’t succeed, he will literally die trying, but he’s now just as dedicated to Frey. Being that this is a proposal event though, you pretty much already know how this is going to end, but just hear me out.

This is currently the biggest decision he’s ever made in his life, and is essentially the emotional equivalent of having to choose between losing your right hand or your left. He obviously doesn’t want to throw away years of hard work, but he’s also not the type to just leave someone behind in pursuit of his own interests. Frey ultimately saves him from waffling back and forth about it forever by breaking things off so he can pursue his dreams, but literally no one is happy with this. Even the judge feels bad and he’s the one who started it. But with this little problem out of the way, Vishnal is free to accept his new rank. Except he doesn’t. After a dramatic, heartfelt speech pointing out that this actually puts him in a better position to serve Frey, and how reputations shouldn’t matter more than protecting the person you’re entrusted to, he whisks her away and proposes. Before she can properly answer though, he’s called back to the castle. In the end, the judge is moved by his dedication, and so Vishnal can now have his cake and eat it too. Short, sweet, and to the point.

It’s probably about half the length of the other bachelors’ events, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad. It’s actually a pretty nice contrast between the other proposals. Leon, Arthur, and Kiel have the common thread of having to sort out baggage from their past before they decide to marry. Doug and Dylas, while their events are more lighthearted, are a bit more focused on a lack of communication and resulting misunderstandings that come from trying to surprise Frey with a ring. However, because Vishnal’s life isn’t a veritable conga line of angst and trauma, his obstacle to marriage is entirely in the present, and because he’s so open about his feelings, he and Frey actually have a chance to sit down and discuss where to go from here, so there’s no communication issues. Plus, his situation, while a bit dramatically handled because anime, is actually kind of relatable. Having to choose between a career and a relationship is a situation that happens to a pretty good number of people, and it’s rarely an easy decision. It’s a logical conflict for such a work focused character.

While it doesn’t really overtly follow up on the initial thread that seemed to have been laid out of him learning to be more confident in himself, the transition is definitely there, at least in regards to Frey. It’s just not quite as spelled out in events. Even in his proposal, he’s still self-deprecating, but it’s a far cry from the absolute list of faults he gave initially asking her out. Not to mention, it absolutely takes a whole lot of courage to one, choose love over your life’s dream, and two, to do it in the incredibly dramatic and utterly obliterating manner that he did. The relationship also changes some post-marriage. Post-marriage Vishnal is a much different beast than pre-marriage Vishnal. As we’ve discussed, in the dating phase, he’s a lot less sure of how boyfriend things work, and resorts to asking others for advice and outright studying. Now that he’s married, he’s less reliant on others and is much more forward. He actually tends to be the one to initiate romantic gestures, from goodnight kisses to using his own sappy lines as opposed to borrowing them from Leon, among other things. Truly a far cry from the days where he would agonize over whether or not to even hold Frey’s hand. Sadly, while date dialogue doesn’t really change (with the exception of the room date, where he literally states he’s past being shy and awkward), there’s definitely a more visible shift in the focus of his other dialogue from being even good enough for Frey to being more protective. Jury’s still out on how much this development has affected his work performance, as there’s no real new mentions of it after the fact (though after marriage he is finally capable of making edible curry rice…sometimes!), but at least some degree of his self-esteem is improving.

So basically, to summarize, Vishnal isn’t a bad character. He’s just handled differently than the other bachelors. He’s a bit more grounded in reality as far as his backstory and conflicts are concerned. His development also tends to happen outside of his events rather than being the feature, making it a bit more subtle, and thus a bit harder to spot from a glance, but it’s there. For as much fun as he is as a character, I admit he’s definitely very tame compared to the other bachelor options, even despite the localizers’ attempts to make him spicier, so he’s not for everyone. I can see why others might prefer someone a little more exciting or mysterious, like Leon (who seems to be like, god tier as far as RF4 bachelors go), but I hope I’ve at least adequately explained why Vishnal might be appealing to some and has more merit than just a joke character. After all, vanilla is a flavor too, and plenty of people like that.

Anyhoo, thanks for coming to my TED talk.

#kateh rambles #i know readmores don't usually work on mobile so like RIP to your dash i guess #long post #kateh's rf4 tag

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zerochanges · 6 years ago

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Chunsoft and Sound Novels

I remember when visual novels weren't quite known as well as they are today. By no means are visual novels a mainstream genre of video games--in fact you won’t be hard pressed to find some “expert” try to argue with you over how they are not games at all--but their notoriety is far more than that of even just ten years prior. For the longest time visual novels were seen as just an anime fandom “thing” that mainstream gamers paid no mind to. Very few titles were discussed outside those that had animes be it a TV series or an erotic OVA, and even some of the earliest visual novels localized into English were done so by anime and manga translation companies and not actual video game publishers.

If I had to pinpoint a time in my own memory where the genre started to get noticed more it would be when the Nintendo DS took off. With the DS there was an increase amount of western releases for visual novels thanks in large part to its touch screen interface working well with adventure style games. This wasn't just noticed by Japanese developers either as a fair share of American and European made adventure style games were developed for the console as well. It seems everybody was anxious to utilize the system’s unique features when the DS started soaring in popularity. The point ‘n click and visual novel genres really had a home on the DS, and because of that a lot of people outside of just the anime community got a taste of these kinds of games with beginner friendly titles such as Ace Attorney, Trauma Center, and Hotel Dusk.

However, despite the Nintendo DS (and later to a lesser extent the PSP and PS Vita) giving gamers a finely curated and easily digestible dose of the genre I’d say the sad thing is the push was pretty small and died out quickly. Instead what seems to be the biggest reason why most video game outlets nowadays talk about visual novels are because of the parody dating sims that started to grow in popularity. Hey, do you want to date some monster? Is your girlfriend a llama? Maybe all you need in your life is to date a pigeon. Don’t try to hide it, we all know you secretly wish you could go out with a YouTuber. Not into dorky millennials, well no problem, we got a game for you--that is if dating other people’s dads is a you thing. Yes, this is the era of the wacky, silly dating sims taking over in the English market. It wasn't always like this however, and yes Japan has had a long history of doujin dating sim parodies themselves, but lately it feels like all people know are the parodies that make good YouTube videos to react to instead of what a large amount of the games in the genre can offer.

Don’t get me wrong however, I’m by no means saying parodies do not have a place nor should they stay out of the limelight, and I definitely love that this fad has ushered in a wave of indie made English titles--but simply put this wave lacks so much variety and has been stretched so thin by this point. For every one creative title that pushes boundaries and gets new people interested in visual novels there are ten bland titles spilled all over Steam that feel like they were made by people with barley a grasp on what a visual novel can be outside of either parody dating or “boobies are pretty awesome”. Some of these bland games are even really well made and have a lot of care and attention added to their interfaces and artwork, but when push comes to shove, they are still just a basic joke stretched to its thinnest level. Visual novels don’t have to be that however, and while most mainstream gaming outlets may still be joking about how great it is to date your kitchen appliances, you don’t have to (unless you want to, in which case I recommend dating the toaster for he is the bravest of all kitchen dwellers).

A lot of this misunderstanding can be tied into the nebulous relationship between visual novel and dating sim, two “genres” that many people debate are separate things entirely yet due to the overlapping nature of the two they are often confused for each other. There’s a great article by Brian Crimmins online that actually goes into heavy detail about how visual novels came to be as a genre and how over time both visual novels and dating sims affected and evolved each other. It’s a wonderful read that I really recommend it for anyone curious about games such as these, but either way, whether or not you think visual novels and dating sims are the same thing or should be counted as separate but similar genres of games; it certainly doesn't seem to stop most western gaming outlets reporting solely on gag dating sims as visual novels and taking away a majority of people’s attention from so much more that these games can offer.

I take back all my complaints

I somewhat lost focus and started rambling today, so let’s move on now and finally discuss what I wanted to talk about--that being, despite there being well known visual novel developers to the tight knit community that follows games such as these--examples including but not limited to: Mages, Type Moon, or Nitroplus--my favorite developer often seems forgotten in the conversation. What company is that you ask? Well, it’s Chunsoft. So today I want to talk about why Chunsoft really should be talked about more in the western fandom and all their contributions to the genre.

Chunsoft is one of the many long standing Japanese developers that have been around for every major home console since the Famicom. Nowadays they are known as Spike Chunsoft after their merger with Spike Co. in April of 2012. For the sake of this blog post however I am mostly going to refer to them as Chunsoft still given everything I really want to talk about predates the merger. Chunsoft’s involvement with Japanese style adventure games and visual novels more or less are tied to the very beginning of the genre. There isn't quite a de facto known “first” visual novel per se, but most fans put the starting line at around 1982 or ‘83 depending on which game they may be talking about and which source they want to use for the release date (remember release dates were not entirely clear back in these early days).

One of the earliest contenders for this honor is Yuji Horii’s adventure game The Portopia Serial Murder Case (Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken), a game that was based around Horii’s interest in western style adventure titles, much like Horii’s later known legendary game Dragon Quest was based around his fascination with Wizzardy and Ultima and how to replicate those games in an easier to understand interface for his home nation. It’s here we can see “visual novel” wasn't even a blip on the radar yet, and there was no definitive understanding of what genres for games really were at the time. Portopia proved to be a major hit during its release however and lives on even to this day as a fondly remembered game (and also a Japanese internet meme). Chunsoft handled the porting of the title to the Famicom and this was the beginning of a long business relationship between Chunsoft president Koichi Nakamura and Enix’s own Yuji Horii as in the years to follow Chunsoft would develop the first five entries in the hit Dragon Quest franchise for Enix.

With the birth of the Super Famicom things began to change between both Enix and Chunsoft. Having developed games primarily for the publisher Enix Chunsoft felt they should move into their own publishing, and soon got certification from Nintendo to do so. After slaving away on four Dragon Quest titles on the Famicom, and also working on the fifth title for the Super Famicom, most of the employees at Chunsoft were burned out so they decided their first self published title should be a simple game. Koichi Nakamura wanted to help make gaming more accessible at the time and took both the team’s exhaustion and his desire for a more casual audience into consideration when they moved forward.

The title Nakamura needed to make had to be simple; a game that anyone could be able to figure out to navigate--even those intimidated by a controller, but despite that also needed to take advantage of the more powerful hardware of the Super Famicom by using Kanji scripts which again would make the experience easier on casual players who had trouble getting into video games because game consoles prior could only display text entirely in Hiragana or Katakana making the reading experience poor and hard to enjoy for Japanese players (see Japanese writing systems for more details). To all these ends the team at Chunsoft decided to create a game entirely around reading to tackle this Hiragana issue and show off the hardware (or at least the hardware’s Kanji capabilities) while also being something anyone of any gaming skill level could enjoy. The game would mostly be text for the player to navigate through and present choices at key moments in the story to advance, cutting out any complicated aspects from western adventure style games that might intimidate the unfamiliar such as solving puzzles or finding hidden items. This is how Otogirisō was born.

Otogirisō (Japanese for St John Wort) was Chunsoft’s very first sound novel, a nomenclature which has since confused the hell out of everyone. But what exactly is a sound novel you may ask? Well, people get kind of convoluted about it. Looking at the definition currently found on Giant Bomb a sound novel can be defined by its heavy reliance on sound effects and music to create a game's atmosphere. Usually sound novels will use minimalist visuals and choose to emphasize the text over the artwork presented on screen--most commonly covering the entire screen in said text instead of keeping text only contained in a dialogue box. Something among these lines is the definition usually seen online when you look into it. It’s not entirely wrong either, but it’s also missing something to it. The term sound novel is a creation of Chunsoft themselves, and something they own a copyright on, this is also often brought up when you search sound novel, but at the time of its creation sound novel was meant to be something really easily understood and not this tangled mess of “a certain kind of visual novel”.

When Chunsoft first created Otogirisō the brand sound novel was added to its box in order to help potential customers understand what kind of game it was. At the time it was just a way to let people unfamiliar with adventure style games (more commonly found in the west) to understand that this title will largely feature reading. In fact when Otogirisō was originally shown to the press in a 1991 Nintendo Space World show the game looked radically different from its finished project. Otogirisō was presented mostly as a book that the player would read, pretty much just like modern e-readers are now, with the exception that it included some sound effects and music. The press at the time was underwhelmed by this so Chunsoft took the game back to the drawing board and created unique visual backgrounds to give the game more flair and in doing so set a certain precedence for future visual novels to follow in.

An important factor to remember here is there was no clear cut way to define games such as these yet. The term visual novel had not yet been coined, and even gamers themselves were not very well aware of genres. As Nakamura admits in a Famitsu interview when asked about the creation of sound novels, “if you look back at the very beginning of video games, for me, the conception of “genre” didn’t exist. Take action games, for example: within that label you had shooting games [note: Shoot ‘em Ups], you had stuff like Pac Man and Dig Dug, and you had more puzzle-y games too. It was very diverse. On the same note, with adventure games, there were Ascii Magazine’s games like Ometesandou Adventure and Minamiseizan Adventure, which were pure text adventures… but you also had things like Mystery House, which had a few pictures, or war simulation games like Fleet Commander. I played all those, and while I recognized there were many different types of games, I never thought about it in terms of genres.” So basically, at the time sound novel was conceived it was just meant to be the most straightforward way to define this Japanese style of adventure gaming that Chunsoft was trying out on the Super Famicom.

But does it end there? Well no. That’s only the part of the answer. Otogirisō ended up being a modest sleeper hit upon its release and this lead to Chunsoft to making more sound novels, with their next title being a legendary game that has since eclipsed Otogirisō as the de facto sound novel; Kamaitachi no Yoru (Night of the Sickle Weasels). This game was a hit, there’s no easy way for me to describe just how big it really was back during its release--out of the pantheon of legendary Japanese games that people in the US and Europe know jack about Kamaitachi no Yoru is one of the highest. Kamaitachi no Yoru is a fantastic game and I talked about it ad nauseum a few years ago when I payed the localized version called Banshee’s Last Cry, check that out if you’d like to know more, and if you’re still somehow able to play it then you’re definitely in for a darn good time.

With the a string of successes in the visual novel marketplace after both Otogirisō and Kamaitachi no Yoru, Chunsoft kept churning out games over the years, many of which are highly respected by the fandom still such as Machi and 428: Shibuya Scramble. All these releases of theirs had a certain tone and atmosphere, not to mention a distinct presentation that didn’t change much over the years and because of that did not look like what visual novels typically look like now. There’s a certain charm and narrative style between all of Chunsoft’s sound novels that is a really strong defining link in their catalogue despite a lot of these games being stand alone--and because of that people come to expect certain things upon seeing the term sound novel. Many titles would eventually come out not made by Chunsoft that shared similarities to their brand--these games followed in the footsteps of Chunsoft’s tone, structure, style, and presentation--and people began to notice, the most famous of which being 07th Expansion’s Higurashi doujin series. This is where we begin to see that murky kind of convoluted aspect of sound novels, as they start to transcend a basic label put on a box almost three decades ago and turn into their own little sub genre or maybe better described as their own style of visual novel.

So what the heck is a sound novel then? The simplest answer is a sound novel is a dated term that Chunsoft used regularly and has since fallen out of use for visual novel; the more complicated answer is that sound novels are both a term used by Chunsoft for their brand of visual novels back before the term visual novel existed and also a certain style of visual novel that is mostly inspired by the early Chunsoft games’ presentation and ambiance.

Top Left to Right: Otogirisō - Chunsoft '92, Kamaitachi no Yoru - Chunsoft '94, and Machi - Chunsoft '98 Bottom Left to Right: Higurashi When They Cry - 07Expansion 2002, Tsukihime - Type Moon 2000, and GeGeGe no Kitaro Maboroshi Fuyu Kaikitan - Bandai '96

Over the years Chunsoft has expanded, changed, and moved beyond their sound novel brand. Despite this however, they have never really stopped putting out solid titles in the visual novel market, and it seems like each new generation of gaming is blessed with at least one visual novel of theirs. My personal favorite title out of all their work from this era would definitely have to be 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors on the Nintendo DS. It was because of this game in particular that my love of visual novels in general really started, and Kotaro Uchikoshi’s sharp writing--especially the incredible dialogue and thorough thought narration in protagonist's Junpei’s head still stands at the peak in my mind. Throw in beautiful sprite work based around art from legendary Capcom (and now freelance) artist Kinu Nishimura, and a fantastic soundtrack from the man himself, Shinji Hosoe and you got yourself a meeting of some fantastic minds. I've written about 999 in the past, and you can read about it here, but I still want to write more about it in the future, especially tackling the latest release it got in 2017’s Zero Escape: The Nonary Games.

Recent years have seen Spike Chunsoft make it big with their Dangan ronpa franchise, admittedly however the first Dangan ronpa title should be more attributed to Spike, as the game was released in 2010 two years before their merger. However the two companies together as one have since released three more Dangan ronpa games, and two (or is it three?) Dangan ronpa anime titles, and many, many rereleases and compilations. My own interest in the franchise isn't nearly as strong as everyone else’s seem to be but I did however absolutely adore the last game, Dangan ronpa V3, with how many times it managed to jump the shark, upping the game, and constant plot twist after more ludicrous plot twist. If there was ever a way to end something like Dangan ronpa it was what that game did, and oh boy did I get a kick out of that.

Finally moving past Dangan ronpa, 2019 will see Spike Chunsoft develop and publish Kotaro Uchikoshi’s newest game, AI: The Somnium Files, for the Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Steam which just got its newest trailer and release date announced earlier this week. I am very excited for it personally and love the intricate and complex alternate reality game type marketing the team has been using to build up to its release! This is some next level stuff, and has been tons of fun all on its own.

Then there’s of course one more game I simply cannot pass up mentioning, 428: Shibuya Scramble. Now I briefly spoke this title earlier mentioning later sound novels that have been highly acclaimed, and trust me 428 is definitely beloved; its perfect score in Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu really meant something back in 2008 on the Wii. But why mention this with recent Spike Chunsoft games? Well the answer is easy, 2018 saw the much beloved, super Japanese game finally get an American and European release! And much celebration was had! If anything in this whole blog post remotely sounded interesting to you I really implore you all to go check it out either on the PS4 or Steam, and see what a Chunsoft sound novel is all about. And for the impatient, I will be writing about it next on blog!

Despite Chunsoft changing over time and no longer using their sound novel brand, they have still put out many classic and fantastic games in the visual novel genre. Their later work may take a radically different presentation from their prior titles, but despite their moving away from that set style there are still other developers out there that keep up that mantle. Overall I think the effect Chunsoft has had on the genre is undeniable and anyone missing out on their catalogue of fantastic titles are really missing on some of the best titles visual novels have to offer. That’s why I really wanted to write this blog post about them and put into words my thoughts about this developer’s library that just seems so often overlooked by many others in the fandom, at least in my experience. I hope through all my grumbling, and “kids today” rant I was able to at least get somebody interested in trying out one of their games.

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maximelebled · 7 years ago

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Growing Pains - Zelda, Tony Hawk, The Sims, games and related memories from my formative years

This blog post is about my personal history with video games, how they influenced me growing up, how they sometimes helped me, and more or less an excuse to write about associated memories with them.

This is a very straightforward intro, because I’ve had this post sitting as a draft for ages, trying to glue all of it cohesively, but I’m not a very good writer, so I never really succeeded. Some of these paragraphs date back at least one year.

And I figured I should write about a lot of this as long as I still remember clearly, or not too inaccurately. Because I know that I don’t remember my earliest ever memory. I only remember how I remember it. So I might as well help my future self here, and give myself a good memento.

Anyway, the post is a kilometer long, so it’ll be under this cut.

My family got a Windows 95 computer when I was 3 years old. While I don’t remember this personally, I’m told that one of the first things I ever did with it was mess up with the BIOS settings so badly that dad’s computer-expert friend had to be invited to repair it. (He stayed for dinner as a thank you.)

It was that off-white plastic tower, it had a turbo button, and even a 4X CD reader! Wow! And the CRT monitor must have been... I don’t remember what it was, actually. But I do once remember launching a game at a stupidly high resolution: 1280x1024! And despite being a top-down 2D strategy, it ran VERY slowly. Its video card was an ATI Rage. I had no idea what that really meant that at the time, but I do recall that detail nonetheless.

Along with legitimately purchased games, the list of which I can remember:

Tubular Worlds

Descent II

Alone in the Dark I & III

Lost Eden

Formula One (not sure which game exactly)

Heart of Darkness

(and of course the famous Adibou/Adi series of educational games)

... we also had what I realize today were cracked/pirated games, from the work-friend that had set up the family computer. I remember the following:

Age of Empires I (not sure about that one, I think it might have been from a legitimate “Microsoft Plus!” disc)

Nightmare Creatures (yep, there was a PC port of that game)

Earthworm Jim (but without any music)

The Fifth Element

Moto Racer II

There are a few other memorable games, which were memorable in most aspects, except their name. I just cannot remember their name. And believe me, I have looked. Too bad! Anyway, in this list, I can point out a couple games that made a big mark on me.

First, the Alone in the Dark trilogy. It took me a long time to beat them. I still remember the morning I beat the third game. I think it was in 2001 or 2002.

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There was a specific death in it which gave me nightmares for a week. You shrink yourself to fit through a crack in a wall, but it’s possible to let a timer run out—or fall down a hole—and this terrifying thing happens (16:03). I remember sometimes struggling to run the game for no reason; something about DOS Extended Memory being too small.

I really like the low-poly flat-shaded 3D + hand-drawn 2D style of the game, and it’d be really cool to see something like that pop up again. After the 8-bit/16-bit trend, there’s now more and more games paying tribute to rough PS1-style 3D, so maybe this will happen? Maybe I’ll have to do it myself? Who knows!

Second, Lost Eden gave me a taste for adventure and good music, and outlandish fantasy universes. Here’s the intro to the game:

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A lot of the game is very evocative, especially its gorgeous soundtrack, and you spend a lot of time trekking through somewhat empty renders of landscapes. Despite being very rough early pre-rendered 3D, those places were an incredible journey in my young eyes. If you have some time, I suggest either playing the game (it’s available on Steam) or watching / skimmering through this “longplay” video. Here are some of my personal highlights: 25:35, 38:05, 52:15 (love that landscape), 1:17:20, 1:20:20 (another landscape burned in my neurons), 2:12:10, 2:55:30, 3:01:18. (spoiler warning)

But let’s go a couple years back. Ever since my youngest years, I was very intrigued by creation. I filled entire pocket-sized notebooks with writing—sometimes attempts at fiction, sometimes daily logs like the weather reports from the newspaper, sometimes really bad attempts at drawing. I also filled entire audio tapes over and over and OVER with “fake shows” that my sister and I would act out. The only thing that survived is this picture of 3-year-old me with the tape player/recorder.

It also turns out that the tape recorder AND the shelf have both survived.

(I don’t know if it still works.)

On Wednesday afternoons (school was off) and on the week-ends, I often got to play on the family computer, most of the time with my older brother, who’s the one who introduced me to... well... all of it, really. (Looking back on the games he bought, I can say he had very good tastes.)

Moto Racer II came with a track editor. It was simple but pretty cool to play around with. You just had to make the track path and elevation; all the scenery was generated by the game. You could draw impossible tracks that overlapped themselves, but the editor wouldn’t let you save them. However, I found out there was a way to play/save them no matter what you did, and I got to experiment with crazy glitches. 85 degree inclines that launched the bike so high you couldn’t see the ground anymore? No problem. Tracks that overlapped themselves several times, causing very strange behaviour at the meeting points? You bet. That stuff made me really curious about how video games worked. I think a lot of my initial interest in games can be traced back to that one moment I figured out how to exploit the track editor...

There was also another game—I think it was Tubular Worlds—that came on floppy disks. I don’t remember what exactly lead me to do it, but I managed to edit the text that was displayed by the installer... I think it was the license agreement bit of it. That got me even more curious as to how computers worked.

Up until some time around my 13th or 14th birthday, during summer break (the last days of June to the first days of September for French pupils), my sister and I would always go on vacation at my grandparents’ home.

The very first console game I ever played was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on my cousin’s Super Nintendo, who also usually stayed with us. Unlike us, he had quite a few consoles available to him, and brought a couple along. My first time watching and playing this game was absolutely mind-blowing to me. An adventure with a huge game world to explore, so many mysterious things at every corner. “Why are you a pink rabbit now?” “I’m looking for the pearl that will help me not be that.”

Growing up and working in the games industry has taken the magic out of many things in video games... and my curiosity for the medium (and its inner workings) definitely hasn’t helped. I know more obscure technical trivia about older games than I care to admit. But I think this is what is shaping my tastes in video games nowadays... part of it is that I crave story-rich experiences that can bring me back to a, for lack of a better term, “child-like” wonderment. And I know how weird this is going to sound, but I don’t really enjoy “pure gameplay” games as much for that reason. Some of the high-concept ones are great, of course (e.g. Tetris), but I usually can’t enjoy others without a good interwoven narrative. I can’t imagine I would have completed The Talos Principle had it consisted purely of the puzzles without any narrative beats, story bits, and all that. What I’m getting at is, thinking about it, I guess I tend to value the “narrative” side of games pretty highly, because, to me, it’s one of the aspects of the medium that, even if distillable to some formulas, is inherently way more “vague” and “ungraspable”. You can do disassembly on game mechanics and figure out even the most obsure bits of weird technical trivia. You can’t do that to a plot, a universe, characters, etc. or at least nowhere near to the same extent.

You can take a good story and weave it into a number of games, but the opposite is not true. It’s easy to figure out the inner working of gameplay mechanics, and take the magic out of them, but it’s a lot harder to do that for a story, unless it’s fundamentally flawed in some way.

Video games back then seemed a lot bigger than they actually were.

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I got Heart of Darkness as a gift in 1998 or 1999. We used to celebrate Christmas at my grandparents’, so I had to wait a few days to be back home, and to able to put the CD in the computer. But boy was it worth it! Those animated cutscenes! The amazing pixel art animations! The amazing and somewhat disturbing variety of ways in which you can die, most of which gruesome and mildly graphic! And of course, yet again... a strange and outlandish universe that just scratches my itch for it. Well, one of which that forged my taste for them.

I can’t remember exactly when it happened or what it was, but I do remember that at some point we visited some sort of... exposition? Exhibit? Something along those lines. And it had a board games & computer games section. The two that stick out in my mind were Abalone (of which I still have the box somewhere) and what I think was some sort of 2D isometric (MMO?) RPG. I wanna say it was Ultima Online but I recall it looking more primitive than that (it had small maps whose “void” outside them was a single blueish color).

In my last two years of elementary school, there was one big field trip per year. They lasted two weeks, away from family. The first one was to the Alps. The second one was... not too far from where I live now, somewhere on the coast of Brittany! I have tried really hard to find out exactly where it was, as I remember the building and facilities really well, but I was never able to find it again. On a couple occasions, we went on a boat with some kind of... algae harvesters? The smell was extremely strong (burning itself into my memory) and made me sick. The reason I bring them up is because quite a few of my classmates had Game Boy consoles, most of them with, you know, all those accessories, especially the little lights. I remember being amazed at the transparent ones. Play was usually during the off-times, and I watched what my friends were up to, with, of course, a bit of jealousy mixed in. The class traveled by bus, and it took off in the middle of the night; something like 3 or 4 in the morning? It seemed like such a huge deal at the time! Now here I am, writing THESE WORDS at 03:00. Anyway, most of my classmates didn’t fall back asleep and those that had a Game Boy just started playing on them. One of my classmates, however, handed me his whole kit and I got to do pretty much what I wanted with it, with the express condition that I would not overwrite any of his save files. I remember getting reasonably far in Pokémon before I had to give it back to him and my progress was wiped.

During the trip to the Alps, I remember seeing older kids paying for computer time; there was a row of five computers in a small room... and they played Counter-Strike. I had absolutely no idea what it was, and I would forget about it until the moment I’m writing these words, but I was watching with much curiosity.

The first time I had my own access to console games was in 2001. The first Harry Potter film had just come out, and at Christmas, I was gifted a Game Boy Advance with the first official game. I just looked it up again and good god, it’s rougher than I remember. The three most memorable GBA games which I then got to play were both Golden Sun(s) and Sword of Mana... especially the latter, with its gorgeous art direction. My dad had a cellphone back then, and I remember sneakily going on there to look up a walkthrough for a tricky part of Golden Sun’s desert bit. Cellphones had access to something called “WAP” internet... very basic stuff, but of course still incredible to me back then.

I eventually got to play another Zelda game on my GBA: Link’s Awakening DX. I have very fond memories of that one because I was bed-ridden with a terrible flu. My fever ran so high that I started having some really funky dreams, delirious half-awake hallucinations/feelings, and one night, I got so hot that I stumbled out of bed and just laid down against the cold tile of the hallway. At 3 in the morning! A crazy time! (Crazy for 11-year-old me.)

(The fever hallucinations were crazy. My bedroom felt like it was three times at big, and I was convinced that a pack of elephants were charging at me from the opposite corner. The “night grain” of my vision felt sharper, amplified. Every touch, my sore body rubbing against the bed covers felt like it was happening twice as much. You know that “Heavy Rain with 300% facial animation” video? Imagine that, but as a feverish feeling. The dreams were on another level entirely. I could spend pages on them, but suffice to say that’s when I had my first dream where I dreamed of dying. There were at least two, actually. The first one was by walking down a strange, blueish metal corridor, then getting in an elevator, and then feeling that intimate convinction that it was leading me to passing over. The second one was in some Myst-like world, straight out of a Roger Dean cover, with some sort of mini-habitat pods floating on a completely undisturbed lake. We were just trapped in them. It just felt like some kind of weird afterlife.)

I also eventually got to play the GBA port of A Link To The Past. My uncle was pretty amused by seeing me play it, as he’d also played the original on SNES before I’d even been born. I asked him for help with a boss (the first Dark World one), but unfortunately, he admitted he didn’t remember much of the game.

We had a skiing holiday around this time. I don’t remember the resort’s or the town’s name, but its sights are burned in my memory. Maybe it’s because, shortly after we arrived, and we went to the ski rental place, I almost fainted and puked on myself, supposedly from the low oxygen. It also turned out that the bedroom my parents had rented unexpectedly came with a SNES in the drawer under the tiny TV. The game: Super Mario World. I got sick at one point and got to stay in and play it. This was also the holiday where I developed a fondness for iced tea, although back then the most common brand left an awful aftertaste in your mouth that just made you even more thirsty.

We got a new PC in December of 2004. Ditching the old Windows 98 SE (yep, the OS had been upgraded in... 2002, I think?). Look at how old-school this looks. The computer office room was in the basement. Even with the blur job that I applied to the monitor for privacy reasons, you can still tell that this is the XP file explorer:

A look at what the old DSLR managed to capture on the shelf reveals some more of the games that were available to me back then: a bunch of educational software, The Sims 2, and SpellForce Gold.

I might be misremembering but I think they were our Christmas gifts for that year; we both got to pick one game. I had no idea what I wanted, really, but out of all the boxes at (what I think was) the local Fnac store, it was SpellForce that stood out to me the most. Having watched Lord of the Rings the year prior might have been a factor. I somewhat understood Age of Empires years before that, but SpellForce? Man, I loved the hell out of SpellForce. Imagine a top-down RPG that can also be played from a third-person perspective. And with the concept of... hero units... wait a second... now that reminds me of Dota.

Imagine playing a Dota hero with lots of micro-management and being able to build a whole base on new maps. And sometimes visiting very RPG-ish sections (my favorites!) with very little top-down strategy bits, towns, etc. like Siltbreaker. I guess this game was somewhat like an alternate, single-player Dota if you look at it from the right angle. (Not the third-person one.)

I do remember being very excited when I found out that it, too, came with a level editor. I never figured it out, though. I only ever got as far as making a nice landscape for my island, and that was it!

A couple weeks after, it was Christmas; my sister and I got our first modern PC game: The Sims 2. It didn’t run super well—most games didn’t, because the nVidia GeForce FX 5200 wasn’t very good. But that didn’t stop me or my sister from going absolutely nuts with the game. This video has the timestamp of 09 January 2005, and it is the first video I’ve ever made with a computer. Less than two weeks after we got the game, I was already neck-deep in creating stuff.

Not that it was particularly good, of course. This is a video that meets all of the “early YouTube Windows Movie Maker clichés”.

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Speaking of YouTube, I did register an account there pretty early on, in August of 2006. I’ve been through all of it. I remember every single layout change. I also started using Sony Vegas around that time. It felt so complex and advanced back then! And I’m still using it today. Besides Windows, Vegas Pro is very likely to be the piece of software that I’ve been using for the longest time.

I don’t have a video on YouTube from before 2009, because I decided to delete all of them out of embarassment. They were mostly Super Mario 64 machinima. It’s as bad as it sounds. The reason I bring that up right now, though, is that it makes the “first” video of my account the last one I made with the Sims 2.

But before I get too far ahead with my early YouTube days, let me go backwards a bit. We got hooked up to the Internet some time in late 2005. It was RTC (dialup), 56 kbps. my first steps into the Internet led me to the Cube engine. Mostly because back then my dad would purchase computer magazines (which were genuinely helpful back then), and came with CDs of common downloadable software for those without Internet connections. One of them linked to Cube. I think it was using either this very same screenshot, or a very similar one, on the same map.

The amazing thing about Cube is not only that it was open-source and moddable, but had map editing built-in the game. The mode was toggled on with a single key press. You could even edit maps cooperatively with other people. Multiplayer mapping! How cool is that?! And the idea of a game that enabled so much creation was amazing to me, so I downloaded it right away. (Over the course of several hours, 30 MiB being large for dialup.)

I made lots of bad maps that never fulfilled the definition of “good level” or “good gameplay”, not having any idea how “game design” meant, or what it even was. But I made places. Places that I could call my own. “Virtual homes”. I still distinctively remember the first map I ever made, even though no trace of it survives to this day. In the second smallest map size possible, I’d made a tower surrounded by a moat and a few smaller cozy towers, with lots of nice colored lighting. This, along with the distinctive skyboxes and intriguing music, made me feel like I’d made my home in a strange new world.

At some point later down the line, I made a kinda-decent singleplayer level. It was very linear, but one of the two lead developers of the game played it and told me he liked it a lot! Of course, half of that statement was probably “to be nice”, but it was really validating and encouraging. And I’m glad they were like that. Because I remember being annoying to some other mappers in the Sauerbraten community (the follow-up to Cube, more advanced technically), who couldn’t wrap their heads around my absolutely god awful texturing work and complete lack of level “design”. Honestly, sometimes, I actually kinda feel like trying to track a couple of them down and being like, “yeah, remember that annoying kid? That was me. Sorry you had to deal with 14-year-old me.”

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At some point, I stumbled upon a mod called Cube Legends. It was a heavily Zelda-inspired “total conversion”; a term reserved for mods that are the moddiest mods and try to take away as much of the original foundation as possible. It featured lots of evocative MIDI music by the Norwegian composer Bjørn Lynne. Fun fact: the .mid files are still available officially from his website!

This was at the crossroad of many of my interests. It was yet another piece of the puzzle. As a quick side note, this is why Zelda is the first series that I name in the title of this post, even though I... never really thought of myself as a Zelda fan. It’s not that it’s one of the game series that I like the most, it’s just that, before I started writing this, I’d never realized how far-reaching its influence had been in my life, both in overt and subtle ways, especially during my formative years.

And despite how clearly unfinished, how much of a “draft” Cube Legends was, I could see what it was trying to do. I could see the author’s intent. And I’m still listening to Bjørn Lynne’s music today.

The Cube Engine and its forums were a big part of why I started speaking English so well. Compared to most French people, I mean. We’re notoriously bad with the English language, and so was I up until then. But having this much hands-on practice proved to be immensely valuable. And so, I can say that the game and its community have therefore had long-lasting impacts in my life.

I also tried out a bunch of N64 games via emulation, bringing me right back in that bedroom at my grandparents’ house, with my cousin. Though he did not have either N64 Zelda game back then.

The first online forum I ever joined was a Zelda fan site’s. There are two noteworthy things to say here:

It was managed by a woman who, during my stay in the community, graduated from her animation degree. At this stage I had absolutely no idea that this was going to be the line of work I would eventually pursue!

I recently ran into the former head moderator of the forums. (I don’t know when the community died.) One of the Dota players on my friends list invited him because I was like “hmm, I wanna go as 3, not as 2 players today”. His nickname very vaguely reminded me of something, a weird hunch I couldn’t place. Half an hour into the game, he said “hey Max... this might be a long shot, but did you ever visit [forum]?” and then I immediately yelled “OH MY GOD—IT IS YOU.” The world is a small place.

Access to the computer was sometimes tricky. I didn’t always have good grades, and of course, “punishment” (not sure the word is appropriate, hence the quotes, but you get the idea) often involved locking me out of the computer room. Of course, most times, I ended up trying to find the key instead. I needed my escape from the real world. (You better believe it’s Tangent Time.)

I was always told I was the “smart kid”, because I “understood things faster” than my classmates. So they made me skip two grades ahead. This made me enter high school at nine years old. The consequences were awful (I was even more of the typical nerdy kid that wouldn’t fit in), and I wish it had never happened. Over the years, I finally understood: I wasn’t more intelligent. I merely had the chance to have been able to grow up with an older brother who’d instilled a sense of curiosity, critical thinking, and taste in books that were ahead of my age and reading level. This situation—and its opposite—is what I believe accounts for the difference in how well kids get to learn. It’s not innate talent, it’s not genetics (as some racists would like you to believe). It’s parenting and privilege.

And that’s why I’ll always be an outspoken proponent for any piece of media that tries to instill critical thinking and curiosity in its viewer, reader, or player.

But I digress.

Well, I’ve been digressing a lot, really, but games aren’t everything and after all, this post is about the context in which I played those games. Otherwise I reckon I would’ve just made a simple list.

I eventually got a Nintendo DS for Christmas, along with Mario Kart DS. My sister had gotten her own just around the time when it released... she had the Nintendogs bundle. We had also upgraded to proper ADSL, what I think was about a ~5 megabits download speed. The Nintendo DS supported wi-fi, which was still relatively rare compared to today. In fact, Nintendo sold a USB wireless adapter to help with that issue—our ISP-supplied modem-router did not have any wireless capabilities. I couldn’t get it the adapter work and I remember I got help from a really kind stranger who knew a lot about networking—to a point that it seemed like wizardry to me.

I remember I got a “discman” as a gift some time around that point. In fact, I still have it. Check out the stickers I put on it! I think those came from the Sims 2 DVD box and/or one of its add-ons.

I burned a lot of discs. In fact, in the stack of burned CDs/DVDs that I found (with the really bad Sims movies somewhere in there), I found at least three discs that had the Zelda album Hyrule Symphony burned in, each with different additional tracks. Some were straight-up MIDI files from vgmusic.com...! And speaking (again) of Zelda, when the Wii came out, Twilight Princess utterly blew my mind. I never got the game or the console, but damn did I yearn badly for it. I listened to the main theme of the game a lot, which didn’t help. I eventually got to play the first few hours at a friend’s place.

At some point, we’d upgraded the family computer to something with a bit more horsepower. It had a GeForce 8500 GT inside, which was eventually upgraded to a 9600 GT after the card failed for some reason. It could also dual-boot between XP and Vista. I stuck with that computer until 2011.

We moved to where I currently live in 2007. I’ve been here over a decade! And before we’d even fully finished unpacking, I was on the floor of the room that is now my office, with the computer on the ground and the monitor on a cardboard box, playing a pirated copy of... Half-Life! It was given to me by my cousin. It took me that long to find out about the series. It’s the first Valve game I played. I also later heard about the Orange Box, but mostly about Portal. Which I also pirated and played. I distinctly remember being very puzzled by the options menu: I thought it was glitched or broken, as changing settings froze the game. Turns out the Source engine had to chug for a little while, like a city car in countryside mud, as it reloaded a bunch of stuff. Patience is a virtue...

But then, something serious happened.

In the afternoon of 25 December 2007, I started having a bit of a dull stomach pain. I didn’t think much of it. Figured maybe I’d eaten too many Christmas chocolates and it’d go away. It didn’t. It progressively deteriorated into a high fever where I had trouble walking and my tummy really hurt; especially if you pressed on it. My parents tried to gently get me to eat something nice on New Year’s Eve, but it didn’t stay in very long. I could only feed myself with lemonade and painkiller. Eventually, the doctor decided I should get blood tests done as soon as possible. And I remember that day very clearly.

I was already up at 6:30 in the morning. Back then, The Daily Show aired on the French TV channel Canal+, so I was watching that, lying in the couch while waiting for my mom to get up and drive me to my appointment, at 7:00. It was just two streets away, but there was no way I could walk there. At around noon, the doctor called and told my mom: “get your son to the emergency room now.”

Long story short, part of my intestines nuked themselves into oblivion, causing acute peritonitis. To give you an idea, that’s something with a double-digit fatality rate. Had we waited maybe a day or two more, I would not be here writing this. They kind of blew up. I had an enormous abcess attached to a bunch of my organs. I had to be operated on with only weak local anaesthetics as they tried to start draining the abscess. It is, to date, by far the most painful thing that has ever happened to me. It was bad enough that the hospital doctor that was on my case told me that I was pretty much a case worthy to be in textbooks. I even had medical students come into my hospital room about it! They were very nice.

This whole affair lasted over a month. I became intimately familiar with TV schedules. And thankfully, I had my DS to keep me company. At the time, I was pretty big into the Tony Hawk DS games. They were genuinely good. They had extensive customization, really great replayability, etc. you get the idea. I think I even got pretty high on the online leaderboards at some point. I didn’t have much to do on some days besides lying down in pain while perfecting my scoring and combo strategies. I think Downhill Jam might’ve been my favorite.

My case was bad enough that they were unable to do something due to the sad state of my insides during the last surgery of my stay. I was told that I could come back in a few months for a checkup, and potentially a “cleanup” operation that would fix me up for good. I came back in late June of 2008, got the operation, and... woke up in my hospital room surrounded by, like, nine doctors, and hooked up to a morphine machine that I could trigger on command. Apparently something had gone wrong during the operation, but they never told me what. I wasn’t legally an adult, so they didn’t have to tell me. I suspect it’s somewhere in some medical files, but I never bothered to dig up through my parents’ archives, or ask the hospital. And I think I would rather not know. But anyway, that was almost three more weeks in the hospital. And it sucked even more that time because, you see, hospital beds do not “breathe” like regular beds do. The air can’t go through. Let’s say I’m intimately familiar with the smell of back sweat forever.

When I got out, my mom stopped by a supermarket on the way home. And that is when I bought The Orange Box, completely on a whim, and made my Steam account. Why? Because it was orange and stood out on the shelf.

(As a side note, that was the whole bit I started writing first, and that made me initially title this post “growing pains”. First, because I’m bad at titles. Second, because not that I didn’t have them otherwise (ow oof ouch my knees), but that was literally the most painful episode of my entire life thus far and it ended in a comically-unrelated, high-impact, life-changing decision. Just me picking up The Orange Box after two awful hospital stays... led me to where I am today.)

While I was recovering, I also started playing EarthBound! Another bit of a life-changer, that one. To a lesser extent, but still. I was immediately enamored by its unique tone. Giygas really really really creeped me out for a while afterwards though. I still get unsettled if I hear its noises sometimes.

I later bought Garry’s Mod (after convincing my mom that it was a “great creative toolbox that only cost ten bucks!”), and, well, the rest is history. By which I mean, a lot of my work and gaming activity since 2009 is still up and browsable. But there are still a few things to talk about.

In 2009, I bought my first computer with YouTube ad money: the Asus eee PC 1005HA-H. By modern standards, it’s... not very powerful. The processor in my current desktop machine is nearly 50 times as fast as its Atom N280. It had only one gigabyte of RAM, Windows 7 Basic Edition, and an integrated GPU barely worthy of the name; Intel didn’t care much for 3D in their chips back then. The GMA 945 didn’t even have hardware support for Transform & Lighting.

But I made it work, damn it. I made that machine run so much stuff. I played countless Half-Life and Half-Life 2 mods on it—though, due to the CPU overhead on geometry, some of those were trickier. I think one of the most memorable ones I played was Mistake of Pythagoras; very surreal, very rough, but I still remember it so clearly. I later played The Longest Journey on it, in the middle of winter. It was a very cozy and memorable experience. (And another one that’s an adventure wonderful outlandish alien universe. LOVE THOSE.)

I did more than playing games on it, though...

This is me sitting, sunburned on the nose, in an apartment room, on 06 August 2010. This was in the Pyrénées, at the border between France and Spain. We had a vacation with daily hiking. Some of the landscapes we visited reminded me very strongly of those from Lost Eden, way up the page...

So, you see, I had 3ds Max running on that machine. The Source SDK as well. Sony Vegas. All of it was slow; you bet I had to use some workarounds to squeeze performance out of software, and that I had to keep a close, watchful eye on RAM usage. But I worked on this thing. I really did! I animated this video’s facial animation bits (warning: this is old & bad) on the eee PC, during the evenings of the trip, when we were back at our accomodation. The Faceposer tool in the Source SDK really worked well on that machine.

I also animated an entire video solely on the machine (warning: also old and bad). It had to be rendered on the desktop computer... but every single bit of the animation was crafted on the eee PC.

I made it work.

Speaking of software that did not run well: around that time, I also played the original Crysis. The “but can it run Crysis?” joke was very much justified back then. I had to edit configuration files by hand so that I could run the game in 640x480... because I wanted to keep most of the high-end settings enabled. The motion blur was delicious, and it blew my mind that the effect made the game feel this smooth, despite wobbling around in the 20 to 30 fps range.

Alright. It’s time to finish writing this damn post and publish it at last, so I’m going to close it out by listing some more memories and games that I couldn’t work in up there.

Advance Wars. Strategy game on GBA with a top-down level editor. You better believe I was all over the editor right away.

BioShock. When we got the 2007 desktop computer, it was one of the first games I tried. Well, its demo, to be precise. Its tech and graphics blew my mind, enough that I saved up to buy the full game. This was before I had a Steam account; I got a boxed copy! I think it might have been the last boxed game I ever bought? It had a really nice metal case. The themes and political messages of the game flew way over my head, though.

Mirror’s Edge. The art direction was completely fascinating to me, and it introduced me to Solar Fields’ music; my most listened artist this decade, by a long shot.

L.A. Noire. I lost myself in its stories and investigations, and then, I did it all again, with my sister at the helm. I very rarely play games twice (directly or indirectly), which I figure is worth mentioning.

Zeno Clash. It was weird and full of soul, had cool music, and cool cutscenes. It inspired me a lot in my early animation days.

Skyward Sword. Yep, going back to Zelda on that one. The whole game was pretty good, and I’m still thinking about how amazing its art direction was. Look up screenshots of it running in HD on an emulator... it’s outstanding. But there’s a portion of the game that stands tall above the rest: the Lanayru Sand Sea. It managed to create a really striking atmosphere in many aspects, through and through. I still think about it from time to time, especially when its music comes on in shuffle mode.

Wandersong. A very recent pick, but it was absolutely a life-changing one. That game is an anti-depressant, a vaccine against cynicism, a lone bright and optimist voice.

I realize now this is basically a “flawed but interesting and impactful games” list. With “can establish its atmosphere very well” as a big criteria. (A segment of video games that is absolutely worth exploring.)

I don’t know if I’ll ever make my own video game. I have a few ideas floating around and I tried prototyping some stuff, though my limited programming abilities stood in my way. But either way, if it happens one day, I hope I’ll manage to channel all those years of games into the CULMINATION OF WHAT I LIKE. Something along those lines, I reckon.

#video games

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otome-review · 7 years ago

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The Shall We Date Series

So the first thing I want to talk about is the Shall we Date series. They are a japanese group that develops dating sim games mostly for smartphones, but you can also link the game to your facebook account and play it from there. Now I have a lot to say about them because most of the games I’ve played so far are from this company.

The first thing I’ll point out is that all of the games have an interesting system of “rewards”. Of course, all gaming apps will want you to go back to them periodically, and this series has its own system of “tickets” that you have to use to read each part of a chapter of the story. When I first started to play, I thought I could read as many chapters as I wanted (oh silly me) but it turns out each ticket takes 4 hours to reload (cries) and there’s a limit of 5 free tickets (so you have to keep using them to get more). You also have two types of currency: normally jewels/coins, which are paid for with real money or earned very scarcey in the game (I’ll probably write a post about tapjoy later lol), and some other type of currency (they vary in name: lune, token, etc.) that is earned through the mini games (or as rewards) of each game. Both of these currencies are needed in the game, usually when the story reaches a certain point where you have to chose to either take a “premium” route or a “normal” route - the premium is usually to have a more “special” moment with the character of your choosing. It makes a lot of difference in some games, I found, and I’ll write a review on that later.

In every game of this franchise there’s an avatar that you can dress up (the heroine aka you) and a mini game, that you necessarily have to play to earn enough points (lady level, magic grade, sweetie points, etc.) and demands “energy”. This energy, much like the tickets, is recovered slowly and you have the option to use recovery items. The points that you earn playing these mini games are used later in the game to pass challenges - so my advice for you is play them as often as possible so you have enough points to pass the challenges later in the game with no problems! There’s also the possibility of buying these points, but they usually cost real money (aka coins/jewels). The mini games consist, in almost every game, of something like a competition; your avatar is compared to a random one, and you have to “guess” if you have more (style points, charm level, etc) than that other person, which you acquire the more dressing items you have (I think that’s their way of stimulating you to buy more in-game clothes). You also get (romance points) from this mini game and you can “make a date” - it’s really just points to play a slot and get free things.

(Honestly, writting it down like this it seems like a lot but it really isn’t and you get used to this type of game pretty fast, and soon enough you’ll create a habit. If you’re a chill player I envy you, because I created a very methodic habit around these games lol.)

In each game you normally choose one character to be your love interest and the decisions you make in the game impact your finale with this character - you have to raise your “intimacy level” to a certain point to get a happy ending, which is a little tricky in games like Lost Alice where you have not two, but three options of dialogue to choose from. Of course, like everything in the Shall we Date games, if you don’t have enough intimacy to be with that one guy you like, you can always buy his affection.

Jokes aside, you could literally buy your way through these games - but that would cost you around US$260 for one single character (I calculated it very poorly but it would be something around that).

..................

Review time!

I like most Shall we Date games. It’s an option for you if you like sappy romances like me and enjoy shoujo mangas but wants something more interactive or different. If you’re into Harem, that’s definetely your thing. I’ll be reviewing each game individually, but I thought this one developer deserved my special attention, because their MO is basically the same with every game. There are some slight changes in each gameplay (maybe they’re trying to test which one works better?) that led me to choose one game over another - for instance, the Wizardress Heart series doesn’t demand that you “buy” a scene of MC and the love interest, they “give” you the picture, and so far I think this is the only game that does this (correct me if I’m wrong), other games usually only “give” you the happy ending picture and the rest are “premium story” pictures (can you tell I’m bitter over that?). I’ll give this game a proper review, which I’m still developing a criteria to, but I think it’s gonna be something like this (the importance of these items are in no particular order):

1. Story

2. Artwork

3. Avatar Items

4. MC’s personality

5. Mini-games

6. Reward system

7. Events

8. Love interests (ofc)

I think for now that’s it. If I find something else important, I’ll add!

Thanks for getting this far! Bear in mind english is not my first language and I’m looking forward to developing my writting skills. I’m just doing this for fun and maybe help someone who’s thinking of starting to play one of these games, and of course, this is my personal opinion on them.

#shall we date?#shall we date #otome game #otome games #otome game review #wizardress heart #love tangle #guard me sherlock #dating games #dating sim #lost alice #blood in roses #destiny ninja

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gascon-en-exil · 7 years ago

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So Who’s the Queen?: A Chess of Blades Review (Part 1)

A gay male dating sim with a recurring motif of chess references and not once are any of the guys likened to queens. How positively appalling.

That missed opportunity aside, this quick little indie visual novel caught my attention about a week ago and got me invested enough to generate two posts’ worth of discussion. Admittedly this is only the second visual novel I’ve actually played through - the first being the delightfully raunchy Coming Out on Top - but I’ve picked up a bit of other examples of the genre from fandom osmosis and watching playthroughs on YouTube so I’d like to think my reference pool is at least a little larger than that. Despite the apparent lack of a fanbase a few of my followers expressed interest in hearing what I have to say on the game, so here we are. Note that as this is one of the very rare occasions where I’m not presuming that I’m writing for an audience already familiar with my subject I’m going to do my best to avoid major plot and characterization spoilers in the event that anyone wants to check this game out on Steam. I will be talking a fair bit about the lategame sex scenes, but given the nature of Chess of Blades I don’t think anyone will be spoiled to learn that the main character gets up to an assortment of naked sweaty fun with his various love interests. This will be a review in two parts - this one covering my general thoughts on the game’s overall story, themes, and presentation, and the second one on the love interests and their individual routes.

Protagonist Rivian Varrison is a young nobleman of an unnamed kingdom modeled after a vague blend of early modern European nations. The son of a celebrated military strategist, Rivian is sent on his own to attend a week-long celebration for the king’s birthday at a remote royal castle despite his mildly antisocial tendencies and lack of familiarity with court life (and sex, because of course he’s a virgin). During his time at the castle he becomes embroiled in one of several plots by antagonistic forces that threaten to destabilize the kingdom’s foreign relations, and with the help of a collection of men who want to bone him Rivian has to avoid getting murdered, save the day, and also figure out what and who he’s going to be doing with his life once the party’s over. Oh, and there’s a quick handwave in dialogue near the beginning of the game establishing that homophobia is not a problem in this setting. Arbitrary sidestepping of serious real world obstacles, yay!

However, from my limited understanding of traditional yaoi homophobia is not often as much of a concern in the genre as might be expected, and this is one of several elements of CoB that give me the impression that, like yaoi/BL, the game is written with a female audience in mind. Rivian hits all of what I assume are defining traits of an uke intended to be identified with by a female player; he’s a waifish and inexperienced sub bottom with flowing hair and sensitive nipples, all of which come into play in some way for every sex scene. I don’t mind it though, because I just so happen to also be a waifish sub bottom who can find him quite relatable. Not the bits with hair pulling and nipple play perhaps, because I get next to nothing out of either, but I can use my imagination. Suffice it to say that CoB is clearly inspired by the conventions and dynamics of yaoi even if it isn’t always entirely beholden to them.

I wouldn’t even say it’s the sex or those particular dynamics that comprise the main draw of the game, because both the political and romantic storylines offer enough enjoyment on their own to encourage multiple playthroughs in order to see everything. It helps that the main conflict differs depending on the romantic route, and each comes with its own antagonist(s). Characters - love interests included - who act in a certain role in one route may serve an entirely different one in another, or they may not appear at all. At the heart of all the nefarious goings-on lies a shadowy organization presumably modeled after the politically divisive Jesuit order of the Catholic Church minus the religious motivations (the fact that the organization appears to be named after their founder St. Ignatius of Loyola is a dead giveaway), although there’s enough variety in the specific antagonists to allow for more than one reading of what’s really going on with all these murders and kidnappings and such. The distinct but interwoven nature of the four storylines manages to do a lot with a small cast and a compressed timeframe, and while I don’t think you’ll find anything truly groundbreaking in terms of narrative I feel like it would be rude of me to spoil the particulars.

Gameplay is...well...

...just that, really. It’s a series of fifteen or so questions with two choices each that determine which storyline and romantic route you’ll follow and then eventually whether you get the good or bad ending for that route. That’s a bit sparse even in comparison to other visual novels I’m familiar with, but it works well for what it is. The algorithm for determining the romantic route especially is less obvious than you might expect, as it’s impossible to favor one man exclusively at the expense of the others. Moreover, if you don’t favor one man to at least some degree Rivian gets murdered before the plot even gets properly started in a generic bad ending that’s almost comical in how unexpected it is.

Presentation is a bit of a mixed bag. The artwork is serviceable and even quite good at points. but there’s a fair amount of stylistic variation and the NSFW art in particular doesn’t impress me very much. The soundtrack is excellent for an indie game, with fourteen original pieces that all do a great job of matching the tone and atmosphere of the scenes. I have no complaints about the writing apart from the odd typo or awkward phrasing choice, although there are a few quirks I couldn’t help but pick up on. For instance - Rivian, all of the love interests, and several of the side characters get compared to animals at multiple points. In exactly one scenario there’s the implication that this might lead into some offscreen pet play, but aside from that it’s just a rhetorical device. Maybe Rivian is secretly a furry? The chess motif is also less prevalent than I was expecting; it’s actually more prominent in the names and icons of the game’s Steam achievements, rather than in the game itself.

Then there’s the matter of the voice acting. While I appreciate the ambition of an erotic visual novel with multiple routes having full voice acting, the execution often leaves something to be desired for a number of reasons. The most common is that the VAs affect noticeable accents for many of the characters, usually to make them sound posh and refined, and either because of inexperience or because of just how strong the accents can get some of their line reads can come across as stilted or unnaturally paced. Rivian is unfortunately one of the more notable offenders. He’s the character with whom the player is meant to identify, and yet his voice is so obviously affected that it took me some time to stop thinking of him as a parody of a nobleman designed purely as comic relief. I found his voice less distracting in major emotional scenes thankfully, although on that note I also have to point out that the sex scenes are fully voiced as well. This doesn’t help anyone on the whole, not least because of how difficult it can be to authentically vocalize getting your dick sucked or taking a cock in your tight virginal hole. Also...there are sound effects for some of the kissing and blowjob scenes, and I really wish there weren’t. In all seriousness, if you’re audibly slurping that much while doing either of those things you’re either being intentionally sloppy because your partner’s into that or you’re extremely slow on the uptake about what to do with a penis or someone else’s tongue in your mouth. I suppose I should be thankful that we’re spared tonguing sounds during the rimjob scenes or the slapping of balls on ass. It’s worth noting that the option to mute some or all of the voice acting exists, but I stuck it out because there were some performances I genuinely liked and because I was determined to get the full experience - for better or worse.

Whether what I described above justifies the rather steep price tag for an indie visual novel (because of the voice acting, possibly?) is a personal call, but for what it’s worth I enjoyed my time with the game in spite of those shortcomings and do recommend it for fans of period M/M romance, particularly the kind you’re likely to find in Japanese properties like the ones from which CoB clearly draws inspiration. I feel like I’m getting ahead of myself, though, as this post is going to have a second part. Next time I’ll be critiquing each of the four love interests both in and out of bed, which will undoubtedly make for a fun and extremely filthy bit of writing.

#Chess of Blades #M/M visual novel #BL novel

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jobsystem-blog · 7 years ago

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possibilities for pc agency in choice of games romances

long post under the cut about my feelings about romance in games, particularly choice of games (along with stuff like genderflipping characters based on the pc’s gender and sexuality), basically just wanna vent + organize my thoughts on this! [cw for sex mentions + a single assault mention]

i’ve been playing and thinking about a lot of choice of games recently. i’ve always been drawn to them because nearly every one features lgbt characters and romances, but as much fun as i’ve had with the format, as well as the individual settings and characters, that romance aspect that had me so drawn always fell just a little bit flat. a lack of individuality and character in romantic options. they generally weren’t defined, and were customizable to the point of being boring. even now, even when they have their own personalities to some degree, none of the intimate moments between your characters ever feel real or special, because they are either the same across different romance options (choice of the deathless is a sore spot for me lol), or the moments aren’t integrated into the plot and don’t have any sort of emotional basis (i.e. they’re just tacked on)

i remember my first cog that wasn’t just the basic choice of dragons, romance, etc., heroes rise. you only got one love interest, who looked just like a specific celebrity you chose at the beginning of the game. in the next game, you literally choose another love interest’s name for them. of course, genderflipped chars tend to have this issue worse than characters with established genders, not because of that inherently, but because the lack of characterization and high customizability shows even more blatantly. that being said, even non-genderflipped characters can feel cookie cutter and boring after the first playthrough (again....choice of the deathless*)

over the course of the heroes rise series, you do actually get the chance to have romances with established characters, which really intrigued me. i never actually finished those romances (particularly not jury, which REQUIRED you to nonconsensually kiss him to begin the romance, but that’s a whole nother thing), but i remember being really excited realizing you actually could have a relationship with jenny, jury, and prodigal. especially since they felt like they each had their own sexualities, rather than just being bi for convenience, or straight/gay based on your sexuality**

there was something about those romances that felt, to me, much more integrated in the plot. like i was actually having a real romantic subplot in some superhero movie, instead of it just being tacked on and empty the way some of the romances felt***

over time, choice of games have definitely focused more on character development than their predecessors, with a much higher volume of characters with set genders and sexualities. the problem is....it hasn’t been nearly enough

i get that not every game is going to have romance be a big deal. my issue with this is that if you’re going to include romance, it should feel like it’s part of the story, not just some random aside. if writers aren’t going to give as much attention to romance as other parts of their story, why even bother including it? i think cog authors need to start understanding that there doesn’t need to be romance in their games for people to enjoy them, and boring romances don’t do anything for the quality of their stories

i’ve been quietly frustrated about this for a while now, but after playing heart of the house, with its relatively well-developed romances (and surprisingly detailed sex scenes lmao), my issues with how choice of games typically handle romance have become clearer in my head. i’m realizing now that the level with which heart of the house incorporated romance into the story should be the bare minimum that a game that markets itself as having a romance element should. even the one genderflipped character had a fleshed out personality, and good romantic/intimate scenes.

that being said

heart of the house still falls into some of the same traps that virtually all other choice of games do:

1. “pick this one specific flirty option to begin the romance”

this isn’t specific to choice of games, pretty much any game with romance that’s not a dating sim does this. it’s frustrating, because it only really works with certain pc’s personalities. i wanted to romance bastian in heart of the house with a weird occult nerd who doesn’t quite understand social conventions, but finds himself falling for bastian over time. i eventually had to break character if i wanted anything to happen, because apparently in the world of choice of games, characters can only understand love/flirting if it’s in the form of a saucy pickup line, which again, works for some characters (like the one i romanced dev with in another playthrough), but not for others.

the solution: give players multiple ways of starting a romance that can suit a variety of personality types. allow multiple ways to flirt, allow ways to subtly indicate your interest to your prospective love interest for people who wanna make shy, passive characters, and give multiple points at which a romance can start throughout the story so that people can experience their characters gradually falling in love instead of having to miss out on their chance to romance a character because they didn’t imply they wanted to fuck within the first five minutes of meeting them

2. linear romance

despite giving you a bunch of other personality stats and traits for every other part of the game, romances generally tend to play out in the same linear ways across playthroughs. somehow all these things affect every other part of the story....except for romantic + intimate scenes. it really breaks me out any immersion, especially when my character has to act out of character to even access any romances in the first place.

the solution: give players more agency during romantic + intimate scenes. let them take the lead, or allow the love interest to. let them direct the flow of the scene, just like any other non-romantic scene in the game.

3. genderflipping and perspective

genderflipping is controversial among the cog player base, with the majority of people relaying a single criticism of it: accusing the author of writing a character as a specific gender (male or female), and then just switching pronouns. another related complaint, is that of authors writing love interests for specific genders of pc (for instance, the way the sex scene with dev is written makes me think it was primarily written for a female pc, particularly with the way your male pc’s sexual preferences are basically decided for him). it’s true that many games do give off this vibe. however, many of the complaints strike me as strangely essentialist, as if a character should have a completely different personality if they’re male than if they were female, it’s true, gender has a huge impact on people, but this essentialism denies the reality that we are all human, we are all suggestible and influenced by our environments (which imo, largely account for gender differences in personality trends), and there is no one personality trait that every woman has that every man does not, and vice versa. i think we can criticize heteronormativity, homophobia, and misogyny without reifying the concept that men and women are intrinsically different on an emotional and personal level. imo, this very essentialism, where characters whose genders are variable across playthroughs (both love interests and the pc) are written from a specific gendered perspective, is what causes people to be alienated during romances, one way or another

the solution: again, this is where player agency comes in. allowing players to define their own narrative based on their own idea of their character will help players feel connected to their character. additionally, having a strong idea of what a character is like is key. rather than defaulting to heteronormative assumptions of how romance and sex must play out for male love interests vs. female love interests, take a minute to actually think through the personality of your character and what their preferences would be like. this is what i loved about bastian in heart of the house, because though he was a genderflipped character, what he was doing in the sex scene felt very in line with who he was, regardless of gender. meanwhile, dev’s sex scene was...well-written, but didn’t really speak much to dev’s character, in my opinion. in some ways, it almost felt out of character, and it was certainly very ooc for my pc, who was an outgoing flirt who liked to take charge. if you have a strong handle on what kind of person your characters are, they’ll seem genuine regardless of anything else.

4. integrating romance with the story

oftentimes, you can tell right away when a romance scene is going to be happening in a cog. the story suddenly gets diverted from w/e you’ve been focusing on until now, onto either some circumstance that has very little plot relevance, but is contrived to bring you and another character together, or a circumstance that does have plot relevance, usually with a brief diversion focusing on your chosen romance, followed up by the consummation of your relationship shortly after. even when you’re romancing a major character, during plot-important scenes, their dialogue with you often does not change, regardless of the level of relationship they have with you (enemies, friends, lovers, etc., it’s often all the same). the fact that you’re in a relationship with any given person generally doesn’t affect the overarching plot (except for choice of romance, ofc), and romances often feel tacked on for extra flavor. i don’t think i’ve seen a game that combines all these issues in one (except like....choice of the dragon but i dont think that counts lol), but most games have at least one element of this. in heart of the house, the first and only intimate/sex scene you have with your love interest always happens during the ball, and at no other time. in dinoknights, you may as well not have had a romance at all, except during a few brief asides.

the solution: this one is more complicated than the others, but even if you don’t want the player’s relationships to directly affect the main story, romantic + intimate scenes often feel much more integrated when they aren’t mainly segregated to defined “romance portions” of the game. a better way of approaching it is letting the story happen as it will, making sure love interests are interesting, well-defined, and relevant to the story, and considering how a romance might affect events as they play out. in my own game concept, there is a choice you can make that determines whether a certain character lives or dies. if that character lives, the aftermath of the danger that threatened them results in a vulnerable moment for them, and is the first point at which you can start a romance with them. this event would happen in the story regardless, but the way it proceeds would change based on your relationship with and reaction to them and the event, making a pivotal part of the story a similarly pivotal part of the development of your relationship.

i don’t know if this is all i want to say on the subject, but i wanted to get my thoughts out and down, for reference and also to help me think through the subject

congrats if you managed to read and stay interested in all of this lol

*ironically, the genderflipped character in deathless was the most interesting romance, iirc **i don’t actually think this is inherently a bad thing, but having characters with a variety of sexualities makes every other character’s sexuality feel more fleshed out, imo ***that being said.....i really did love lucky when the hero project first came out djshkjhs ****i’m referring to bastian with he pronouns, because that’s what he was in my playthroughs, and i don’t actually know what the female version of his character is named

#💌#🌱

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overcastgames · 7 years ago

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Persona 3: Life on the Edge

The Persona series is my personal favorite game series. I’m not sure why, maybe it’s my love of anime, or the fantastic music associated with the series. Maybe it’s the social-sim aspects of the newer games in the series that I love. Whatever it is, Persona will always hold a place in my life.

My introduction to the series is a little strange, I had been watching a youtuber by the name of superjeenius, on a whim, I decided to check out his let’s play of Persona 4 Golden, and was instantly hooked on the series. Sometime shortly after I bought Persona 3 FES on sale from the PSN and thus my trip through RPG hell began.

The Persona series began its life as a spin-off of Atlus’ flagship series Shin Megami Tensei in 1996. With the popularity of the series however, the Persona series eventually took on a life of it’s own, surpassing its predecessor in popularity.

There are many things from the SMT series that Persona has retained though. Many of it’s core mechanics remain the same, and it still maintains a high level of Atlus’ notorious difficulty. Where it separates from its sister series though, is purely with progression.

In Persona 3 in particular, the player is given a set calendar to work their way through, all in all it amounts to about ¾ of an in game year. This time is where the Persona series shines. While some of this time must be spent doing typical RPG things, a lot of it is left to the player to decide what they want to do with it. You can do things like: spend time with key characters to boost your bond with them, and learn more about them as characters, do various activities that will increase your main characters traits, take on a list of side quests, go do some dungeon crawling, or just go hang out in your room if you don’t feel like doing any of that. There are set dates that relate to story progression, so as long as you keep that in mind, there is really no lack of things to do in Persona 3′s world.

Story wise, the player takes on the role of the silent protagonist, built on the old RPG trope of allowing players to insert themselves into the games. you can give him whatever name you want, especially since his canon name continuously changes. Anyway, the player fills the role of the blue-haired emo boy during a year in his life when he has just come to an island for school. On his way there, strange things begin occurring, a random blackout, coffins in the streets, a strangely large moon, and a girl with a gun In her hand. Together with the rest of the cast, you spend the year as SEES a group dedicated to investigating and ending these occurrences.

While some of the characters can be obnoxious, there is no doubt that Persona 3 is a character driven game. Much or your time can be spent getting to know the characters around you, and what their goals are in life, and as your time with the game goes on, the characters around you grow with you.

Mechanically, Persona 3 is a turn-based RPG. you attack, your opponent attacks, and the cycle goes on and on and on and on, except not really. The battle mechanics may seem simple at first, but there is complexity there for sure. You have the option to attack with your base weapon sure, and there is merit to that on occasion. Much of what you’ll be relying on in battle though is your persona, the avatars from which the series draws its name.

Each character in your party has their own persona, and subsequently their own base element. Persona’s are based on some character trait that each character has, and everyone gets one. Except this is an anime, so of course the protagonist has multiple. You can amass personas which give you a variety of skills to use in battle through a few different ways. The most common way you’ll likely gain a new persona is through shuffle time, a shuffling card game that can take place at the end of a battle. There are benefits that can be found in shuffle time as well, you can use it to regain hp, or sp, the latter of which is used to perform most magic in the game, you can also find cards that give you money, or even a weapon, though usually the weapons are only good for selling. Another way to get a new persona is through the fusion system, this is a carry-over from SMT. Persona fusion is largely exactly what it sounds like, when desired, there is a place you can go to combine 2 or sometimes more, personas to create a stronger one, most of the time, skills can be passed from the fusion personas to the result persona as well, though during persona 3, there is no real control over which skills get passed down. Finally, using a tool that comes later in the game, you can re-summon old personas.

Personas are important for combat because they allow you elemental attacks. Much of Persona’s battle system relies on finding and exploiting weaknesses of the enemies you are up against, this is very similar to SMT’s press-turn system, though it does take its liberties. Hitting an enemies weakness not only does extra damage, but it also knocks the enemy down rendering them immobile for the following turn, additionally, it allows the character who hit that weakness to attack a second time, either until they break the chain by not hitting a weakness, or they have successfully hit all enemy weaknesses. During the latter case an “All-Out” attack is possible, this is an attack that involves all of your current party members, and does a lot of damage in most cases. All-Out attacks are the most desirable outcome in most battles. Because of this though, you run the risk of burning through your sp pretty quickly, so it’s important to keep an eye on that. The weakness chart is pretty simple to follow, first are weapon attacks: they read as slash, pierce, and strike, these can be performed with base weapons, and some persona attacks carry these traits as well. Next are the elements: fire, ice, electricity, wind, light and dark. Light and dark are special, because they don’t do normal damage like the other attacks do, rather they are insta-kill attacks. There is one other element known as almighty, but it doesn’t really track as a weakness. What’s important to remember here is that strengths and weaknesses and the effects therein apply to your characters as well, if your weakness gets hit, you will be knocked down, and the enemy gets another turn, more frighteningly though, is that light and dark are insta-kill for you as well, I can’t count how many times I have seen an enemy use these attacks, and felt a knot in my chest as I wait to see if I’m done or not.

Though I would love to continue singing Persona 3′s praises, there are some questionable things that the game does. During battles you have no control over what your party does, only the main character, this was changed in later games, and even in the PSP release of the game, but for the moment, it leaves you helpless as you watch your ai party members do stupid things for the hundredth time. Additionally, your party members can get tired during dungeon exploration, which can be a drag early game because it happens fairly regularly, as they level up, this is less of a problem, but it still happens, and it can be annoying. Perhaps the worst thing though is the actual dungeon itself. The main area you’ll be sinking most of your time into is called Tartarus, a deformed version of the high school you attend, that is now a sprawling 200+ floor tower. Throughout much of the game, the story treats Tartarus as a side thing that can be taken on should you wish to get some level grinding in, but the reality is, finishing Tartarus is mandatory, and they don’t tell you that until the last story beats are happening. When I say 200+ floors, I mean it. Tartarus stands at exactly 264 floors tall, and you have to make your way through each of them. The floors themselves aren’t that big, but they are randomly generated, so memorizing floor layout won’t help. Not all of the floors are immediately available to you though, a new set unlocks after each major story point. For your sanity I would encourage you to take on each set as they become available, because if you wait, you’ll be in for quite the slog.

Despite it’s flaws, Persona 3 is where I discovered my love for not only the series but the RPG genre, it holds a place in my heart that most other games could not hope to have. It can be fun, and engaging, but it can also be frustrating, and painfully boring. I’m sure I will get around to the other games at some point, but for now I think this is good enough.

If you are interested in playing Persona 3, it is available on PS2, PS3, and PSP, in various forms. In my opinion FES is the best version of the game, but your opinion may vary.

#Persona #Atlus #Shin Megami Tensei #Anime #Video games #review #PlayStation 2 #PlayStation 3 #PSP #Gaming #RPG's #I've written this post 3 times

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buggerygrips · 7 years ago

Video

dailymotion

A segment about the recent news story, where Doki Doki Literature Club is part of an inquest into a 15 year old boy’s suicide.

The video clip is from Victoria Derbyshire’s programme, that I believed aired on BBC2 on the 28th June. In it, the presenter discusses this game, its age warnings and mental health risks to children. with Laura Dale, Lorna Fraser, and Helen Grounds.

Here’s a (long) transcript for this video.

VICTORIA DERBYSHIRE: Good morning, we're going to start this morning by talking about a free online game, after police and a coroner warned about the risks of it to children.

[The end of the trailer, of the characters in their cute anime style, is displayed as she talks]

VICTORIA: It's called "Doki Doki Literature Club", and it starts like a dating game set in a high school, and features a group of animated girls in a book club. Things do turn sinister, with characters self-harming and killing themselves. It's said to be suitable for players aged thirteen or over. It was launched last year and downloaded two million times in the first four months.

[Screen displays title card before returning to show Victoria again]

VICTORIA: An inquest will be held into the death of a fifteen year-old called Ben Walmsley from Bury, whose father said the game "dragged his son in", and a pre-inquest review is due to take place at 10 o' clock this morning in that case.

[As she talks, large letters on the screen appear, reading "Game is 'a risk to children'", "Emotionally vulnerable", "'Psychological horror'", "Suicide as a main feature" and "Not suitable for children"]

VICTORIA: Greater Manchester police have said "We believe this game is a risk to children, and young people, especially those who are emotionally vulnerable, and anyone with existing mental health concerns. A coroner has warned, "This is a psychological horror game, with suicide as a main feature", and notes too, "It does warn it's not suitable for children, however the graphics, etc, are clearly aimed at young people." We have contacted the game's creators, Team Salvato, but so far haven't heard back. Here's the trailer for the game, with that warning right at the start.

[A trailer for DDLC plays, beginning with a screen reading only "This game is not suitable for children or those who are easily disturbed" before showing its anime characters with upbeat music]

VICTORIA: Let's talk about this now, with the news editor from the video game website Kotaku UK, Laura Dale. Also mum of two and casual gamer Helen Grounds, she has played Doki Doki and is a fan. And Lorna Fraser is here, from the suicide prevention charity, Samaritans.

[The camera cuts to each of the three women in turn: Laura and Lorna are in the studio with Victoria, while Helen is displayed on a screen via video call. The interview takes place on a sofa in front of a screen displaying the DDLC logo and pictures of the characters. Midway through, a banner appears at the bottom of the screen reading: "Warning about online 'horror' game".]

VICTORIA: Welcome all of you, thank you very much for coming on the programme. Um, Laura. Describe the premise.

LAURA DALE: So, the basic premise of the game is that it starts off like a dating sim, as you said, that you go to this literature club, try to make friends with all these different girls, and it sort of subverts the expectations of that genre by becoming a horror narrative. Um, a little bit of spoilers for the game: one of the characters, as it turns out, is not happy that you're dating the other video game characters, and she manipulates events so that other characters will commit suicide and will sort of drive you towards dating her instead.

VICTORIA: And what's your reaction to this warning from the coroner and Greater Manchester police, about the risks to children and those who are vulnerable?

LAURA: I think that honestly it's the same as the risks of any piece of media that deals with these kinds of themes, be it video games or movies or books: if you have someone who is already in an emotionally vulnerable state, and you have them engaging with media that tackles these difficult themes, and they don't have an outlet to talk about that properly, that can be a problem. I think that a lot of it does just come down to... communication and making sure that if you've got a child who is already struggling with those themes, that you're aware of what kind of media they're engaging with.

VICTORIA: Helen, you've got two children, younger children. This game is said to be, said to be suitable for thirteen and up, and that's because it asks you to tick if you are thirteen and up, which of course any age, uh, could do. Despite the warning, do you think it is deliberately designed to look attractive to kids?

HELEN GROUNDS: Well, firstly it is a dating game, so yes aren't kids... to me, some people get the idea that anime style is "kiddy", because it looks cartoony, but in Japan anime can be for anyone, and it is over in the US and in the UK. And this type of game isn't a type of game for children. Uh, I would probably not say thirteen, um, but...

VICTORIA: So even that's too young?

[As she talks, the trailer plays again behind the video conversation window]

HELEN: I would say it's quite questionable, considering the sort of things that's in it, but it does say in the game when you actually start it up, there is ginormous text that says the game is not suitable for children, if you are easily disturbed you should not play this, it really does try and tell you, don't play this if you're under a certain age or if you are easily disturbed, and as someone who also does suffer from a mental health problem, I was thinking, ooh, should I actually play this? But I did, and it didn't affect me. If anything, some of the things that did come up kind of helped me realise that if a person sort of acts a certain way, maybe they really do need help.

VICTORIA: Right. Um. And how do you react to this warning from the coroner and from Greater Manchester police, and this is what the GMP say: "We believe the game is a risk to children and young people, especially those which are emotionally vulnerable and anyone with existing mental health concerns. I would ask parents to check the sites that children are using on a regular basis, as websites like this aren't flagged up by normal firewall settings.

[Both Helen and Laura nod]

HELEN: Yep, no, I totally agree. Uh, parents really need to know what their child is doing on the... online. I mean, I won't let my child go on my laptop on his own. He's only allowed to access certain things, and I sit with him, he would...

VICTORIA: And how old is he?

HELEN: He's... my oldest is eight years old. I, uh, he's only allowed to play a, a mouse game called "Hit the Button", which he's used in quite a lot of schools anyway. The only time he can use, access the internet is actually in school, which again, there's always a teacher there watching over the children when they're doing their IT, and I will sit with him, if he wants to do some homework, we'll go on Wikipedia together, and we research things together, we read it together.

VICTORIA: You said that--

HELEN: It's the thing--

VICTORIA: Yeah, uh, and you've said that you think thirteen is potentially too young. What would be a suitable age?

HELEN: Considering the things... I mean [sighs] it's a difficult, it's a difficult thing because, the issue is, free games like Doki Doki and Five Nights At Freddy's, they don't come under any kind of age rating, like video games that we buy in a game shop. So you can easily download them for free and not... they don't have to go through the whole stringency of going for... a, um, a certain rating like we have in the UK. Um... to be honest, I would say eighteen, considering there is quite some graphical parts in it. It is quite upsetting...

VICTORIA: Well let's be clear, when you play the game, do you see characters kill themselves? Sometimes in quite graphic situations.

HELEN: One of them especically, yes.

VICTORIA: Right. Lorna Fraser from Samaritans, how do you respond to that?

LORNA FRASER: Well, what we believe is, that this is an example of where it's really important for parents to be aware of the things that they do online. Just as you would want to protect your child in the offline environment, if, if your kids are going out, you'd like to know where they're going, who they're hanging out with, how they're getting home, this kind of thing. We would encourage parents to have these conversations with your kids, be aware of what they do online. You know, it's, it could give you a false sense of security because they're tucked away in their bedroom, or on their tablet or computer playing something, that they're safe at home. But just be aware that there are dangers. But it's also important to avoid any confusion around focusing on one particular game, because there will be others. So we don't want to give the message to parents, firstly to really alarm parents, because there are lots of good things online too, but not to give the message to parents that if your child isn't playing this particular game, then, then there's no cause for concern. You know, there are others.

VICTORIA: Laura, you're nodding your head in agreement.

LAURA: Definitely, um. There are certain, um, parts of what have been said about this particular game that do lead me to suspect that it may not have been the only game involved in this particular tragic event, um, without knowing specifically--

VICTORIA: We don't... well, we'll have to wait for the inquest, so we don't--

LAURA: Yeah. We'll have to obviously wait for the inquest, but there were statements made about this game by the father that are not things that are featured in this game, which would suggest that perhaps there were other games being engaged with that aren't the focus of this inquest. So, obviously, like... this is perhaps one game to look at and say, should your child be playing this, but also be aware of what else they're playing, there might be other potential risk factors available.

VICTORIA: I mean, the game itself warns that it's not suitable for children.

LAURA: Mm-hmm.

VICTORIA: Uh, Helen, as a mum of two, one being eight, says, "actually I think thirteen is too young". I mean, if you see in quite graphic situations, a character kill themself, would you agree eighteen would seem more appropriate?

LAURA: Um, the... games like this, as Helen mentioned, aren't rated by the, uh, any of the ratings boards in the UK. Most of the UK ratings boards would likely rate this at least a fifteen or an eighteen because it contains scenes of graphic violence relating to suicide, uh-

VICTORIA: So, um, sorry to interrupt that--

LAURA: Yes.

VICTORIA: So my question is: As a parent, if you're across all the stuff your kid's playing on tablets and laptops and phones, you might see the beginning of this, which says this game is not suitable for children. If that was me, I'd think, "Okay, so my teenager, my fourteen, fifteen in a year's time teenager, is alright playing this." And actually, if you played the game yourself as an adult, you might get to the end and think, this is not suitable for a fourteen, fifteen, sixteen year old.

LAURA: I, I certainly think that there are people who see that warning that says, you know, you should be over thirteen and would say, oh--

[The screen changes to show various scenes from the game trailer again as Victoria and Laura talk]

VICTORIA: It doesn't ,there isn't, there is not a warning that says you should be over thirteen, is there, let's be clear. All, what it says is that this game is not suitable for children, and you're supposed to tick the box if you are over thirteen.

LAURA: Yes well, my, my point being if there is a tick box that says "Are you over thirteen?", I can understand why parents would go, oh, my child is fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, he's probably fine with it, and... I think... there is definitely a concern to be made for, like, parents not paying attention to what their children are engaging with just because there's an age box that was ticked first.

VICTORIA: But I'm being realistic as a parent.

LAURA: Yeah.

VICTORIA: I mean, I might see it says thirteen, tick that box, I'd see the warning at the beginning, and then I would think okay, it's fine for my teenager.

LAURA: Yeah, I'm not saying that as a criticism of parents, like I, I understand where that difficulty is for parents, um. Yeah. I understand that, that difficulty.

VICTORIA: Um, Lorna. The NSPCC tell us the game creators, the game creators itself warn that it's not suitable for children and those that are easily disturbed. "Parents should be aware that the game contains highly sensitive and adult themes such as suicide. It's important for parents to have regular conversations with children about their online lives, that are as normal as asking about their day at school." What would your advice be to parents who are watching now, who might be concerned about this?

LORNA: To, to do exactly that, get to know what your kids are doing online, you know, make this part of everyday conversations so that it's not, it doesn't feel like you're prying into their private lives or, or doing anything like this. And, and also making mental health, emotional health part of everyday conversations, you know, these are things that families need to be talking about, because it helps to keep people safe.

VICTORIA: Okay. Thank you, all of you. Thank you very much Helen, thank you Lorna, thank you Laura. Thank you very much. A couple of messages here: Izzy on email says, "Doki Doki Literature Club is a horror game with a cute appearance, and it does tell you that when you start the game, it says children... or those who are easily disturbed, and you can go to a webpage that lists all the unpleasant content. It is up to parents to regulate and investigate the games that their children play, and ensure healthy communication, in case their child develops mental health problems." And this text, uh, from someone who doesn't leave their name: "I've been playing violent games like GTA from the first one, when I was six years old and Goldeneye on the N64, and I continue to do so twenty plus years later. I'm a successful individual with no criminal record and no tenancy to kill, rape or steal. Everyone is individual and every individual is different, but to blame the game explicitly is silly. The parents should have more of a grasp of what children are feeling like and offer support." Thank you for those, do keep them coming in. If you would like to contact someone about any mental health issues, you can find details of organisations offering information and support at bbc.co.uk/actionline. Or you can call for free at any time to hear recorded information on 08000 155 998.

#doki doki literature club #victoria derbyshire #laura dale #kotaku #lorna fraser #helen grounds #SPOILER: all three guests are very much in the ''it's not the internet's job to parent your children'' camp

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mysocialfox458 · 4 years ago

Text

Sims 4 Cc Tracker Mac

Apple Cc Sims 4

Sims 4 Cc Tracker Zerbu

Sims 4 Corrupt Cc Tracker

Download tens of thousands of free premium quality creations and custom content for The Sims, Sims 4, Sims 3 games - no login required and updated daily. Always check for updated mods after a Sims 4 Patch/Update; at the Mods Tracker on which ones are broken or now updated. Also EA Forums do a regular post for tutorials, mod usage & broken mods/cc. I use Sims 4 Studio for batch fixes it solves a lot of problems in bulk (but not all.) Also available for Mac.

The new chapter in the Sims story

This title has been a cultural phenomenon since 2000, when the first installment was released. The game crossed demographics, and everyone became a fan of the series. Now it’s on its fourth outing; how has the series held up?

From baby steps to retirement

The greatest micro simulation game is back. Sims 4 has big shoes to fill. Is this sequel up to the task?

The premise is the same: create your avatar, build your dream house, fall in love, watch your children grow - choose your life. As ever, there’s a lot that you can buy for your Sims, from stove tops to guitars and everything in between. You can share creations of your with other players online, and the detail work that’s gone into some of the objects in this game is incredible.

But you could be forgiven for thinking that there should be more in Sims 4 than there were in any of the previous games. Sadly, this is not the case.

There’s no swimming. You can’t make pools and you can’t toss your Sims in, remove the ladders, and wait for them to doggy-paddle themselves into an early grave. That was one of the most iconic things about the franchise up until now and it’s a curious thing to remove. The whole point of the game is to have complete control over the life of the Sim, so why take any of that control away from the player?

The avatars are now much more competent than they were in the last game. You don’t have to babysit them all the time, and while that might be good for some, it still takes away the player’s control.

While the game looks good and runs pretty well, it doesn’t really make up for the issues here. The loading screens take forever when you first start the game. This is a legendary trait of any Maxis game, but this time it’s really something else. If that weren’t enough, the most critical visual component in the game is broken: the camera. How can this be? Did the developers not playtest the game? Do they not realize the camera is broken?

It’s frustrating, because the team and Maxis / EA could have had a smash-hit here. But modern corporate practices are probably responsible for the underwhelming game that is The Sims 4.

Where can you run this program?

You can run this game on Mac OS and Windows computers.

Is there a better alternative?

Yes; in fact, The Sims 3 can offer you a better experience. If you’re looking for other Maxis sim titles, try any of the SimCity games.

Our take

While The Sims 4 does little to improve upon the groundwork laid by its predecessors, it’s still a fun game at its heart. The customization and in-game object shopping could take you hours alone, but it feels like this game is being purposefully left empty. Considering that the franchise has always banked on the expansion packs to turn an extra profit, that could be the reason it feels so bare.

Should you download it?

Yes. Despite its flaws, Sims 4 could be fun, and it might be more enjoyable if you haven’t played any of the previous games.

Highs

Good graphics

Attention to detail

Online sharing

Lows

Less content than previous entries

Camera issues

Long loading screens

The Sims 4for Mac

This tutorial deals specifically with fixing Create-a-Sim items. For a way to fix the CC chairs that broke with The Sims 4 in March 2021, read this article.

If you play with Sims 4 mods or CC, then you are probably familiar with the hellish visions of Sims being transformed into punctuation marks that look like they have crawled out from the underworld. (PS: Wouldn’t an underworld pack in The Sims 4 be awesome?).

Moving on. We love using Sims 4 custom content. That’s not hating on EA or The Sims 4 team, there’s just so much gorgeous stuff available. And bunk beds. There are functional Sims 4 CC bunk beds.

Apple Cc Sims 4

The problem with Sims 4 CC is that sometimes it can break. Mods and CC break with updates or sometimes you download them in a broken state. It can be quite traumatising to see the Punctuated Sims from Hell appear.

That question mark slapped in the middle of their virtual foreheads will make you question your life decisions and haunt your dreams.

If you are a bit of a Sims 4 custom content hoarder, then it can feel like a real struggle to figure out which CC is broken.

We have all had that moment where we get so fed up with broken Sims 4 CC that we just go and delete the whole mods folder and start over. Once that recycle bin has been emptied, regret follows instantly.

But there is an easier and far less traumatic way to fix broken CC in The Sims 4. It works best for Create a Sims (CAS) content that’s broken, but you can also use it to get rid of Build/Buy custom content that’s broken or that you no longer use or simply don’t like the look of.

It is also a great way to find any custom content that might be missing from your game. This is useful if you have downloaded some Sims households, lots or objects that do not show up in your game.

Best way to fix broken or bad CC in The Sims 4

To easily fix broken or bad custom content in The Sims 4, you will need to use the Sims 4 Tray Importer from L’Univers Sims. It’s a completely free download and it is safe to use. You can download The Sims 4 Tray Importer from the official website over here.

This little application is life changing for Sims 4 players who use a lot of CC. If you have a bad batch of broke custom content, it can help you clean things up in no time.

Once you have installed The Sims 4 Tray Importer (which runs separately to your Sims game), you will be able to quickly delete any broken CC whenever you want. It can even help you clean up your library if it has gotten a bit full.

To get started, you will have to save a household in The Sims 4 with Sims dressed in the broken custom content.

Don’t worry about how they look. They’re not going for a fashion show, they are going into the bin. Do you care what your garbage looks like before you chuck it out? Yeah, didn’t think so.

How to use The Sims 4 Tray Importer to fix broken CC: Step by step

As mentioned already, save your broken Sims to your library to get rid of CAS CC that is broken. If you are trying to delete build/buy CC, then save a room or lot.

We find it is quite useful to have a “delete me” room next to every build, so that we can easily put objects into it we want to delete later. For this example, we will only deal with broken CAS CC in The Sims 4.

You can access all the households, lots and rooms in your library through The Sims 4 Tray Importer. You can refine accordingly using the filters shown here.

Here is a household of ours. For our American readers, this is the national rugby team of South Africa. Well, our version of some of them anyway. For our English readers: Do you remember the 2019 Rugby World Cup?

Once you have found the offending family (they will show up like the zombies from CAS, or you can name the family “broken” or “delete this” to make it easier).

If you want to just get rid of a household, room or lot without also deleting the CC, you can switch over to the files tab. Highlight the files and right click.

Then select the “Show containing folder” option. Your Tray folder will open with the files highlighted. You can just hit delete in the folder and the files bell be deleted.

To get rid of broken Sims 4 Custom Content or find missing CC by using TS4TI, switch over to the CC tab on the application.

You will see a list of all the CC in use for that household, room or lot. Any missing mods or CC will show up highlighted in red like in the screenshot below.

If you want to find the missing CC, right-click and use the “Find on Google” option. Note: Some users recently reported that there are issues with this option showing up. If you are having problems, refer to the TS4TI support forum. There could be an issue with your firewall blocking access or you might be running an out of date version, or other similar issues. It is best to check with the app’s developers for troubleshooting. If the option is there, a browser tab will open and you will find the websites where the CC is hosted. You can then download it and add it to your mods folder. This is quite useful to help find missing meshes.

If you simply want to get rid of the bad or broken CC, click over to the CC tab, select the items and right click to open your Sims 4 mods folder by using the “show in folder” option (like you did with the household/lot/room files earlier).

Sims 4 Cc Tracker Zerbu

If you select more than one item of Sims 4 CC to delete, several windows will open up with the selected items highlighted in your mods folder. You can just delete them one-by-one by going through each window and hitting delete.

Sims 4 Corrupt Cc Tracker

And that’s it. This easy way to find and delete broken or bad CC in The Sims 4 works for rooms, lots and CAS items. If you found this tutorial helpful, sign up to our Sims 4 newsletter over here or check out the rest of our Sims 4 content here.

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