#literal codex entry

[codex-entry]

call me Final Fantasy XIV the way I only become fun to engage with after around 20-40 hours due to a ton of complicated baggage from the early 2010s

[codex-entry]

Been reading up on academic papers on video game difficulty and in educational psychology, this would be called the 'zone of proximal development', the sweet spot where you can do something rooted in your personal skills without it feeling either frustrating or boring, which is why this horseshoe bares an uncanny resemblance to this graph I can't stop thinking about from the paper Empirical Review of Challenge Design in Video Game Design.

It's inherently messy cause player skill is inherently nebulous, which means any difficult challenge can become boring with enough skill. There's no easy way around this other than to just keep gradually upping the challenge till it feels vaguely 'right', which is why games have difficulty selects, why Dark Souls has NG+ and summons, why MMO raids have savage or mystic versions, etc. as a means for you to decide what challenge is right for you. The frustration side of it is comparatively easier to manage though so long as you design things properly. In the paper, the authors Michael Brandse and Kiyoshi Tomimatsu identify six crucial factors to challenge that feels 'fair', namely:

The challenge has to be related to the game’s core mechanics, IE no super difficult progress gating mini-games, and why I��m never Pure Platinuming Bayonetta

It needs to be implemented properly, IE there’s no game breaking bugs or broken mechanics contributing to the difficulty, insert your least favorite 3rd person camera here

It needs to be dependent on player action, IE you can’t win or fail because of something you are dependent on the game to manage, see Escort Missions

It has to give you all the information needed to complete it, IE you aren’t stupid for not realizing the Ancient Wyvern in Dark Souls 3 is a set-piece and not a boss

It needs to make players aware of how it might affect future challenges, IE ‘if you burn all of your elixirs now, you’ll have none for the final boss’

The challenge can’t have an unfair advantage over you, IE Malenia’s bullshit waterfowl dance that seems way stronger when she uses it than you’ll ever be able to make it hit.

Any of these rules get broken and you begin to slide into the frustration end of the spectrum REAL quick.

It all comes back to finding the exact right balance between boring and frustrating.

getting mad enough at video games that i have to stop playing and make a chart

[lizzybeeee]

Prayer circle for Dorian to go back in time and prevent DATV from happening

[codex-entry]

sometimes i just think about Overwatch and just get sad

[codex-entry]

god forbid a girl love art

[sunlight-shunlight]

"the writer for anders in da2 based him (somewhat negatively) off an ex-boyfriend with bipolar disorder and was also a zionist" is truly one of the factoids that makes me nod solemnly at dragon age the most. ough... the canadian centrism is inescapable.

[veshialles]

well I guess maybe I should take matters into my own hands and do that "previously on Dragon Age"/"The Road So Far" video I kinda wanted to make after all, SINCE APPARENTLY BIOWARE ISN'T BOTHERING TO ACKNOWLEDGE ANY OF THAT SHIT! UGH!

[crossdressingdeath]

Did You Know: Bioware put the codex in the game so you could read it. Did You Know 2: They've been putting interesting and important lore details and clarifications in the codex literally since Origins. There's no excuse not to read it if you're going to engage with meta.

[veatomis]

remembering how when the tarot cards for the companions dropped i was actually skeptical abt them because. to me they didn't tell a story of who our companions really were. they felt really... "here is a character and here they are" unlike inquisition's where you can actually get a feel for each companion's personality/story/archetype but i was still excited to see how they changed as the game progressed and the events affected each character and especially. how each tarot card would look once the romance lock in happened. and then none of that happened because it was essentially a stunt to appeal to fans of the previous games without actually putting in any effort (not that they could anyway. since most of the personal quests barely affect the companions and have barely any ramifications)

[octosan]

This one was early and I forgot to record some instances but holy shit I get it.

It was kind of like this in Trespasser too but at least it was genuinely new information then.

Unrelated but I wanted to record all the times characters call them "the gods" throughout the entire game because I remember Epler making a comment somewhere about how they wanted the dialogue to "ease new players into the terminology" and iirc the example he gave was that they start out by mostly calling them "the gods" and then transition into calling them "the evanuris." And they definitely Didn't Do That. but it happened so often I just kind of gave up lol.

[codex-entry]

The catch is that the Theatre of Cruelty was done to engage the audience via their shock. It was ultimately done with at least the intent of benefiting those who were upset by it. What the site’s been doing is in fact much closer to absurdist theater as it makes us all acutely aware of our powerlessness in the face of apathy and petty whim.  Most playwrights wish they could hold this much sway over their audience. Ionesco would be proud. 

Tumblr staff doing some kind of high-art Theatre of Cruelty in their web design. "You will not be able to tell where the posts are coming form, they will come relentlessly. We will turn off your accessibility settings. There will be....a clown." Regret to say they are the avant garde

[lehdenlaulu]

You know, the fall of Weisshaupt might have had some kind of emotional impact if literally any of the Wardens we actually know had been involved.

Fine, can't have the Hero of Ferelden, can't have Anders, can't have Blackwall. Too many permutations, blah blah. What about Oghren? Nathaniel? Velanna? Sigrun??

Ugh. This game tries so hard to pretend its predecessors don't exist that it doesn't really feel rooted in anything, and that in turn makes it even more emotionally vapid. And it doesn't help me feel any more invested when the dialogue constantly lampshades how ridiculous/absurd/unbelievable/borderline lore-breaking something is. Lampshading an issue doesn't absolve it, you know.

I'm really starting to subscribe to the headcanon that this is all Varric's weird-ass fever dream.

[fade-rat]

Beyond the Veil

"A map in a hand unused to paper. Their terror was trembling and palpable. Land as empty as this new void in us, that ceases the spirit, and makes us suddenly meat."

[hallahart]

[codex-entry]

It really irks me when people are like 'lol Cloud went snowboarding immediately after Aerith died!!' NO!! NO HE DIDN'T!!!!

After she dies, a still grieving Cloud goes to the Icicle Inn where he finds the house Aerith was born in, complete with video tapes of her biological mom and a dad she never knew she had falling in love with eachother before deciding to have her. You hear them choose her name. The final tape shows Hojo gunning down her father and kidnapping Aerith and her mom, thus beginning a lifetime of Shin-ra torture, while the player is left with the heartbreaking realization that if Aerith had lived just a little bit longer, she could have known everything about herself she ever wanted to including how loved and wanted she was from the very start. And now she never will, rubbing an incredible amount of salt in a very fresh wound. and THEN Cloud went snowboarding, which is way funnier.

[cityandking]

there's really nothing quite like visiting a place in the DA games and knowing the warden squad was there at some point