#ship: multiplayer mode

[avas-wonderland]

A Lamar & Arielle doodle for the soul

[nomansskye]

The Enrapturing Void

[fierykitten2]

Maybe the Creators didn’t need to steal Falcon’s soul. Maybe they just realised that would have a higher success rate than just waiting for the belt to corrupt him (and also it would be much quicker to just take his soul)

[sadagios]

Icarus, and the Sunflower

A Desert Duo/Scarian AU about an avid player meeting his favorite, comfort character in a death loop video game.

I can’t write a fic, nor have time to draw comics like i used to, so we are doing bullet points on a tumblr post

PART ONE: BEFORE THE ALPHA TEST

PILOT: PART TWO

2.1k words below the cut

SOME BEGINNING NOTES: - This AU is only character shipping, and references a lot outside the life series events (evo, hermitcraft, empires, etc). This is not meant to ship the CC’s themselves and if anything alludes to it, it is purely unintentional. - This is not canon-compliant ermmmm i do what i want and i will put every idea i have into this - Tags for this part? Game dev AU, Grian is whipped for Scar, some characters are real and some are fictional, this is only the pilot, absolutely not beta'd i only have one impulsive braincell

A. Gria

Gria is a single man in his late 20s; he works at a game company called E.V.O. Games (Entertainment Virtual for Everyone). He was an architecture graduate who dabbled in game dev in his spare time during his undergraduate studies. Although he didn’t pursue that path, he utilized his skills in level design. He used to work in several indie game companies, one of which was a company founded with friends, before he was hired by E.V.O. Games. He was excellent at his job, and his ideas and inputs always improved whatever project he worked on. Because of this, after a few years, he was promoted to creative director.

His latest project was “The Evolutionists’ Portal,” a 3D pixel-style puzzle game in which the player has to navigate the world to find portals hidden in each level, and these portals progress the game. With each portal traveled into, the world becomes bigger and more complicated, making each portal harder to find. However, with multiplayer, this task is easier through working together (and doing fun shenanigans together).

It had a buggy release, especially for multiplayer, but it built a decent player fanbase; the story itself was short and simple, but it was replayable thanks to its multiplayer mode.

For visualization, it’s 3D with a top-down perspective like “Pokemon Diamond/Pear/Platinum” but has gameplay similar to “Stardew Valley”

Gria and his team get along well, and he is quite close to some of them:

Martyn: an audio engineer. This is the first game he’s worked on since he was first hired in the company.

“Big B”: a VFX artist. He and Gria joined the company around the same time and bonded over stressful deadlines and annoying seniors when they started out.

Jimmy: the project manager. Although Gria takes a lot of joy in teasing him, he is hardworking and great at keeping everyone in check with the calendar. Out of everyone, he is the one Gria is closest with. He also works on another game by the company called “Empires.” 

Pearl: an environment artist. She joined the company a bit later in the development. It is her first time dealing with pixel graphics but she did it incredibly well. She also works on “Empires” with Jimmy.

“Empires” is a free-to-play fantasy open-world action gacha RPG. It is the biggest game of the company and their title game. 

For visualization, it’s just “Genshin Impact” and “Honkai: Star Rail”.

Recently, there was a buzz around that their game, “Empires”, will have a collaboration event with another big name. Gria was too busy and overworked to take notice of this, though. 

The fruits of his labor later came as game nominations for “Best Multiplayer” and “Best Audio Design.” Gria was happy their work was acknowledged by players worldwide, even if they didn’t win.

B. Hermitopia

After so long, Gria finally took a week off. It was foreign to have no obligations for even a day. He doesn’t use this time to travel; instead, he sits at home and lurks on the internet to keep up with gaming news and updates. He uses the username “Xelqua” with a red macaw as his profile picture.

He stumbled upon a “Redstone tutorial” post by the user ”Potatonutshell”. Curious and intrigued by how such a complicated contraption is possible in a game (and bored out of his mind), he asked this user what game it was for. Potatonutshell briefly, and over-excitedly, DM’d Gria with a huge wall of text about this game called “Hermitopia 6.”

In the beginning days of his break, Gria spent time messaging this Potatonutshell fella, named “Mumbo.” Mumbo named himself after a character named “Mumbo Jumbo”, who is one of the most skilled “redstoners” in the game. He related heavily with the character and took a lot of interest in the redstone circuitry game feature as he is a programmer in real life. Gria thought the game was interesting, but not enough to install a 36 GB game for $39.99. He changed his mind when Mumbo told him more about the game, especially its base-building mechanic.

“Hermitopia 6: Hermit Civil War” is an open-world fantasy action RPG known for its base-building core mechanic. It is the sixth game in the franchise, and each game starts in a brand-new world. The player and the lovable NPCs are called hermits, a band of humans, fae, hybrids, and other species who live together on an island and work together to live a sustainable life amidst the hostile creatures that roam the world. 

For visualization, it’s like “Skyrim” with “Baldur’s Gate 3” graphics and dialogue UI.

Gria planned to try it for a few hours, only humoring his new internet friend, until he met this beautiful NPC named “Scar Goodtimes” — a human-vex hybrid with scars all over his “handsome face and carved body”, as Gria would personally describe him. He was also a builder who lived near Gria’s very odd underwater base. Throughout the remaining days of his break, and his weekends after that, Gria played Hermitopia 6 religiously.

Scar calls him “GRIAN”, which was a typo error — Gria pressed enter early in the name selection screen and he didn’t realize it until Scar first mentioned his name 3 hours into the game. He can’t be bothered to fix it, though (and he's grown fond of it.)

Gria continued to play the game in his free time, slowly falling in love with the game as he kept on playing. He also kept talking to Mumbo, who he fanboyed about the game with. He found out that Mumbo lived close by too, so they hung out frequently and bonded over the game.

Gria: I genuinely thought you had a big mustache, y’know, like Mumbo Jumbo. Mumbo: I do too! It’s... it's there! [he shows his very faint mustache] It's there! Gria: sure.

Xelqua started off as a lurker, to an active Hermitopia fan account. He was interested in the base-building aspect of the game and shared his designs online.

Hermitopia is not a dating simulator. There is no romance mechanic in the game. Anyway, Gria installed (and tweaked) a romance mod because no one can stop him from flirting with his fictional vex boyfriend.

Mumbo: Grian, if I hadn't met you personally, I would've pictured you as a crazy Scar fanatic. Gria: Wha— How— I’m not crazy. Mumbo: You downloaded a romance mod just to flirt with Scar and commissioned an artist to draw a scene from it, and now you have it framed on your bedroom wall. So, Grian, I think that’s crazy behavior. Gria: … I do what I want, Mumbo!

Gria's love for the game and Scar grew more as another hermitopia game was released (Hermitopia 7). Then, he, as Xelqua, became a notorious name because of a supposedly harmless poll about the sexiest character in the game. He was known as the insane Scar fan.

He's got every Scar merch, though there isn't much Hermitopia merch released in general. However, if someone posts about a new Scar fan merch, a certain username might appear in their notifications, like a hound trailing a scent. Haters and trolls are also dragged to hell and back because, if they aren't regretful after being berated by this insane man, they will not be able to surf through the web in peace as long as Xelqua holds a grudge. 

As insane as this Xelqua person is, Scar had become a popular character within the fandom, compared to his old status as an underrated sweetheart without much attention or fanfare thanks to Xelqua constantly (for years without missing a day) talking about him. Xelqua also organized or helped some Scar fan events and constantly supported merch creators with hermitopia merch (especially if it involved Scar.)

User Xelqua, about Scar: He is my little sunshine, my precious sunflower. He might’ve killed some men, but he was hot while doing it.

C. The Collaboration Event

Back to Game dev stuff, Gria isn’t open about his current obsession with his coworkers. When the collaboration event with the “Empires” games was finally announced, two representatives from the other company came to visit. “Skizzleman” has been a writer for Hermitopia since the 3rd game. A character from Empires, Gemini, will become a new character in the next Hermitopia game, and there will be a DLC that will add a new small map with many biomes and new materials. In Empires, Hermitopia characters will be featured in a limited-run gacha banner and a limited-time story event. 

Now a Hermitopia fan, Gria tried to interview Skizzleman about the game (while making it not obvious how obsessed he is with it). Skizzleman was the one who wrote the lore for “Impulse” as well as most of his dialogue throughout the games.

Another representative for Hermitopia, the lead designer Joel, came to visit for the collab event. He is a fanatic of Empires and a diehard “Shadow Lady” fan, which is why he is so excited to work with E.V.O. Games for the collab.

Accompaniment art for this here: link

Gria was never into gacha games, but with a mix of Pearl and Jimmy convincing him to try the game they worked on (not to mention the fact that it is free-to-play), and showing him an initial sketch of what some hermitopia characters will look like in the game (this isn’t allowed, but Jimmy and Pearl found the thought of their serious coworker playing a gacha game amusing), he finally caved. Little did they know, showing a topless concept art of Scar is more than enough to reel him in.

When the collab update was finally released, Gria grinded Empires just to get Scar. He practically paid his own salary back to his company just to get Scar to max level and his additional skins. (He loved his new “HotGuy” skin the most)

With the release of “Hermitopia 8: Moon Collision” and the introduction of co-op multiplayer mode, Gria invited Pearl to play with him with the excuse that they're only going to see how Gemini looks in the game. Gria successfully got Pearl hooked on the game.

D. The Watchers Studio

Before Gria properly applied to a game company, he developed small-scale games with his high school friends. They called themselves “The Watchers.” He met them in a small art club and they bonded over their favorite games. Gria’s favorite game growing up was an old zombie game with a title he can no longer remember.

One of their unfinished games was “The Life Game.” It was a battle-royal death game where the players had to gather resources and have limited lives.

Two of their old friend group recently reached out to Gria to catch up. They said they wanted to work on “The Life Game” again and wanted to ask Gria if he wanted to join again. Of course, Gria already had a job himself, so he declined. However, he hung out with the two and checked in with their progress, nostalgia hitting him as they relived their old game ideas.

The two invited Gria to do an alpha test and asked him to invite any friends who might find it fun. Gria invited Jimmy, Pearl, Martyn, and Big B, as well as Skizzleman and Joel who he’s been acquainted with. He also sent an invite to Mumbo, who was unfortunately busy with his job at the moment. 

To Gria’s surprise, the two had turned their game into a VR game. All seven of them played in a medium-sized studio, and although the game was fun, it was nausea-inducing, especially for Joel. They all lost to the Computer-AI characters, which concluded their Alpha Test.

After the meetup, the two lent them their CD copy of the game with the VR Headset they used (which was suspiciously generous of them).

Skizzleman liked the game a lot and asked if they could do it again sometime, which Gria relayed to his two old friends. Pearl shared the same sentiment but is too caught up with work which makes her unable to join their next session.

The gang kept discussing the game they played and its potential to become a hit with a little more polish. This made Gria feel proud of his old team and his past self, reminding him of the time he was passionate about making games despite his lack of experience. 

With limited coding knowledge and a little help from Mumbo, he made a server to host “The Life Game” online instead of LAN. He sent copies to Mumbo and Pearl in case they’d join later. According to the two, the game had more improvements to it since the last time they played it, which was months ago.

Gria had a small voice in his head telling him this was a bad idea— well, he did get a bit sick in the last session, but everyone had fun. So, he ignored the warning bells and hit “Join World.”

This marks the End of Pilot Part One Next Chapter > PART TWO: UNFIXABLE ERROR

ENDING NOTES: I've been brainrotting and hyperfixating on the idea for a while now, and I don't know how to let it all out so I'm going to try out this format. Hopefully I could add more to this! Thank you if you've read this far into the post. :) Made a spotify playlist too in case anyone is interested (I'm still working on this though)

[felassan]

Article: 'EA’s BioWare will lay off 50 and cut ties with unionized Keywords playtesting group'

[BioWare Blog post for reference]

Excerpts:

"The layoffs are a blow to morale at the studio and have made the environment difficult, said Gary Mckay, general manager of the developer, in a statement to employees today. He said EA is trying to make BioWare into a more agile and more focused studio. EA has an estimated 12,000 to 13,000 employees, and BioWare had perhaps 250 people. The moves come with a couple of related or perhaps coincidental events. A spokesperson for EA said that the company was unable to come to an agreement with a part of Keywords, a big game services firm, that provides playtesting services. In June 2022, this small part of Keywords had a group of contractors who voted to unionize. EA said it was unable to create a new contract and so will let that current one expire on September 27. It’s not clear what will happen to the contractors without the EA contract, but it’s fair to guess that some jobs will likely be lost over at Keywords unless they find other work. An industry source said EA has renewed work orders with Keywords Studios since their employees voted to unionize in June 2022. But the source added that, in this instance, the two companies simply couldn’t agree to terms. The Keywords contract requirements exceeded what EA/BioWare needed given the change in development approach at the studio.  The layoff also comes about three months after EA moved production of its massively multiplayer online game, Star Wars: The Old Republic, to a third-party publisher, Broadsword, in Reston, Virginia. The game debuted way back in 2011 and has entered maintenance mode. Broadsword has also taken over games like Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot so players can keep playing them. McKay’s leadership will not be affected. Michael Gamble, who recently returned to BioWare, serves as head of the Mass Effect team, and pre-production continues on the next Mass Effect game. Corinne Busche and John Epler, two leaders on Dragon Age, also continue in their roles. Andrew Wilson, CEO of EA, announced back in March that the company would cut about 6% of its total workforce, and these cutbacks are related to that move. EA has not said when Dragon Age: Dreadwolf will ship."

[source and full article]

[chromaji]

if you've caught yourself thinking "oh god i sure wish i had a first person dungeon crawler to play. or two... or three! In a bundle for $31.65, or perhaps $12-16 individually! But thats impossible 😔"

THE ETRIAN ODYSSEY ORIGINS COLLECTION HAS YOU!! IT DOES!!

ITS ON POOB!!! POOB HAS IT FOR YOU!!

PETRIAN

ODYSSEY

ORIGINS

BCOLLECTION

& to those who watch me stream, my next game will be EO3 HD on PC, which has a multiplayer boss-killing side mode. So if you've ever wanted to fight fish & golems & ghost ships with me, this is the time to prepare.

[whyareallthegoodnamestaken1]

mutual can you tell me what's going on with that lamb and kitty cat you keep putting on my dash i'm very fascinated but know next to nothing about this game

It's a game called Cult of The Lamb (or COTL). The ship I keep reblogging is the main protagonist (the Lamb) and their semi canon partner (the cat character called Narinder, who plays a very big role in the story). I'm afraid I can't say much more without spoiling the whole thing, but TLDR the Lamb is charged by Narinder (who is the god of death who was imprisoned and is trying to break free) to start a cult in his name. The game itself follows you playing as the Lamb running and expanding the cult, fulfilling Narinder's directives and learning about his past and life until you get to the point where you free him and get the option to make him part of the cult, whereupon you have the option to marry him. I have not played the game myself but I have absorbed a good amount of the story and lore through all the art I consume of it so this is what I would say is the bare minimum for context.

I'd say the reason this is the main ship of the fandom (and why I like to call it semi canon) is because you have control over it - you can choose to marry Narinder, and beyond that you can choose to interpret your Lamb's personality according to your own ideas and playstyle, and Narinder's own motivations, actions and arc have a very diverse representation by the fandom. It's also a thing for people to interpret them as friends or lifelong companions united by their shared immortality and loneliness. People have also created fankids for this ship (colloquially referred to as "shittens" - a cross between a sheep and a kitten)

Oh, I should mention - the goat dude that sometimes pops up is the second playable character (in the game's multiplayer mode) that people also like to add into the story. And the game itself is a roguelike that explores very dark themes in its lore, and contains loads of violence in a very cute artsyle. Which bleeds into a lot of the fanart and fanfic.

That's really the best I can offer by way of explanation, I hope this was adequate!

[moosh2727]

I FINALLY GOT ACCESS TO ISSUE 71 OMG

this took forever but finally i get to see him!! spoilers ahead :3

first of all, amazing cover. jet and the gang look amazing just in that one snippet

extreme gear dodgeball... thats interesting, reminds me of the multiplayer modes in riders zg that was not racing but fun!

HOW DARE YOU MAKE MY BOY ANGRY wave helping jet focus is nice like in zero gravity 💚

the rouges being in shock is always so funny, im glad to see wave and storm join in on the fun 💚

WOAHHH LOL dang sonic's going hard!!

i now headcannon wave has a mindfullness youtube video she makes jet begrudgingly watch LOL 💚

i love seeing them using their gear more, it fuels my autism 💚💚💚

THIS IS SO FREAKING FUNNY I LOVE IT, AND HOW DARE SHE CRASH IN JETS GEAR!! anyway love him /p 💚

AMAZING I WANNA SEE HIM ANGRYYY, BEAT THEM UP JET!!! 💚100 gonna use this part for art ref because it looks so good

the silence is so loud in this picture i love it, i wonder what jets gonna do? 😊

oh my gosh this is so heartbreaking actually what the heck- ALSO WAVE TELLING JET TO RUN IS SO ON POINT

the story telling via art is on point, theres not much words needed to convey the emotions the characters are feeling

THEY HAVE A NEW ROOM, I REPEAT THEY HAVE A KITCHEEEEEEEEN, storm being the cook fits so well i love it.

the food (curry im guessing) fits their background and double points for looking extra yummy.

jet's first sentence fits him so well, im really glad they're doing good depiction with him and everything relating to them, considering the idw special where jewel broke her wing SUCKED because of idw ppl not thinking about where jet lives on the ship, so they made it SUPER inacurate.

it makes me happy to see storm contributing and not being a stupid fat joke like in free riders. we need to appreciate this silly guy who got brain damage from amy hitting him many times, and he still manages to fulfil jets orders.

storm doing this with his eyes is as good as his eyes in free riders, but way better than his weird blink in the zero gravity black hole cutscene

jet being ahead of the game and i love it!!! NEW MISSION LETS GOOO!!!!!! 💚💚💚💚

these riders designs are really helping me in the future with my own oc 🫶

OMG THE WIFE OF THE TRAIN CONDUCTOR FROM MURDER OF SONIC THE HEDGEHOG!!!

ouch my heart

oh gosh thats so sweet but sad ugh

jet has become more thoughtful! i just hope he doesn't lose his edge, but even if he does i'll love him anyway /p 💚

i love how much talented ppl are in this community, im so glad for more jet content via idw and fan creations. jet needs all the praise and love. 💚

Overall i loved this idw issue, i can always make the excuse " use more jet content!" but they did a really good job with expressing all the characters fairly. (still, i still want more jet tho :P)

i waited so long for this issue its crazy, idk why it took so long to come out digitally since i don't have the money to buy them in person.

knowing more rooms, might create an accurate layout of their blimp soon!

anyway, i got a gaming pc and not a stupid mac earlier this week, meaning that i can finally play free riders yayy!!!

[triviallytrue]

Had my first real success with reverse engineering a game - was able to edit a few binary instructions and make a rudimentary hack for a game that works in both singleplayer and multiplayer. I'll probably convert it to an injected DLL and expand it sometime this week.

Some notes:

Hacking Unity games is playing on easy mode. They have a metadata folder that ships with the Game Assembly DLL that gives you function names and types for a lot of the code. I think for experienced reverse engineers this probably matters a lot less, but for me it would have taken at least 10 times longer to figure things out, and possibly much more.

Ghidra was my tool of choice and it works pretty well.

Decompilation (the process of turning assembly code into plausible C/C++ that could generate it) is both miraculous and reasonably messy - there's a lot of using two variables for what is obviously a cast from one variable to another, using one variable for what is clearly several different variables that just happen to use the same register, tortured syntax for what is basically just an is_null check, gotos, repeated code, etc.

I remember more assembly than I thought! Patching the instructions wasn't bad.

I've really enjoyed this thus far and am considering trying some CTF problems once I finish this current project to my satisfaction.

[askagamedev]

Hi, I want to ask is there's any requirement to emailing feedback to developers? Or should we just fill out in game survey forms and not send mails? Thank you in advance

You shouldn't email developers directly unless they've explicitly told you to do so. Game devs (especially AAA devs) aren't interchangeable and we don't all work on the same thing, have the same expertise, or even work within the same team. For example, on an enormous game like Call of Duty, there are many hundreds of developers working on it at any given time. They're split up among many different groups - single player campaign, multiplayer, zombies, UI, online back end support, build, tools, and so on. Emailing a dev who works on Call of Duty to give feedback about the zombies mode, for example, would be a literal gamble because they may not even work at the same studio, let alone on the zombies mode. Imagine sending game feedback about a particular item or game mode you dislike to the dev who works on the online store payment processing. What could she do about your feedback? Realistically, she'd just ignore it since she has other tasks to do than figure out which team it should go to and pass it on to someone from that team.

Honestly, the best way to get the feedback to the right people is to go through the proper channels, even though it doesn't feel like it. Most teams have community managers whose job it is to read player feedback and pass it on to the appropriate developers. I know it can be frustrating and feel like "cutting in line" would help, but it really just disappears into the ether 9 times out of 10. I'll also point out that it is highly unlikely to get a meaningful response on this either, because we can't make promises about future content since it's always in flux and because we're often [working 2-3 patches (i.e. 6-9 months) in the future], so any changes to the game likely won't arrive until at least the patches that we're working on ship.

[Join us on Discord] and/or [Support us on Patreon]

Got a burning question you want answered?

Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter

Long questions: Ask a Game Dev on Tumblr

Frequent Questions: The FAQ

[avas-wonderland]

Imagine Lamar showing you his Nova Explorers collection! He tells you all about the figurines and signed posters he has, and boasts of the expansive manga set he possesses. And yet, all of it ends up dull to him in comparison of the way your face lights up in awe 💙

@letsgofoletsgo

AAAAAHH YESSSS

[veritasrose]

Been having a lot of fun with the new photo mode in BG3!

The party of 4 is my multiplayer pirate group. Their ship is called The Tide. My buds and I have been playing them for over a year now!

I wish there were some body shape and tattoo mods on PS5, but I have been toying with what we do have and enjoying it.

[itssovero]

03. Deep Rock Galactic (Ghost Ship Games, 2020)

I've already talked about this one, so I'll try and be brief:

Picked this one up in 2023 as well but spent an absolute ton of time with it throughout 2024; this cooperative class-based horde shooter/mining hybrid's satisfying loadout system and fully destructible environments make for a ton of player expression, replayability, and ridiculous situations for you and your fellow miners to get yourself into.

The alien horrors and oppressive hypercapitalist world paired with the dwarves' jovial workplace humor make for a darkly humorous and relatable atmosphere, and the drip-fed allusions to a greater mystery at the heart of planet Hoxxes IV as content updates roll out have been fun to speculate on.

My only real gripe is that the game loses a bit of steam in solo mode, but it's more than worth it for such a robust multiplayer experience (especially since the game's "live service" model limits monetization to a small handful of one-time purchase cosmetic packs, while additions such as new mission types and seasonal reward tracks are all completely free).

DRG has provided me with hundreds of hours of entertainment and has become a go-to comfort game of mine. It's easily one of my new favorites and I can't stress enough how excited I am for the upcoming roguelike spinoff title, Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core.

[mistakenot4892]

Nebula devblog, July '24

Sneaking in this month's update two days before August due to Nova Lands eating an entire week of dev time and Warframe eating another 2 days. It's a hard life. This one will probably be a bit patchy or sparse as I have genuinely lost track of what was new this month due to leaving it this late. I am a highly trained and competent professional.

Nebula SS13 is an open source project based on the Baystation 12 version of Space Station 13. SS13 is a topdown multiplayer simulation game where you play the crew of a ship, station, colony, etc. depending on your fork and map, with the Nebula and Bay forks having a focus on roleplaying and simulation interactions.

Notable changes

The first phase of a major AI rewrite has gone in, separating AI behavior from mob type so human-type mobs can be given AI. This is mostly to support undead and skeletons on Pyrelight at the moment, but will be much more flexible in general going forward.

Simple wall-based windows/shutters have been added for low tech maps that need airflow and light. Penny's genius idea of having them cast a light cone towards the darker side of the shutter makes for some very aesthetic medieval interiors.

Spacefarers, a ship-based fork, has a new ship, and the painfully tricky shuttle rotation PR Penny has been working on is slowly progressing towards a mergable state. When it goes in, manual ship landing will be greatly expanded as shuttles will be able to rotate to match docking ports, instead of having to strictly dock in the same direction every time.

The atom temperature system has been disabled in several cases due to a lot of weird edge cases and bugs in the simulation. It needs more time in the oven. The disabled interactions include things like all of your blood congealing into black pudding if you stand on a stove, being able to instantly heat a beaker of beer to 5000K with a cigarette lighter, or all of your clothes melting off in a fire.

Penny has also put a bunch of work in to moving most of the 'classic' Baystation SS13 game modes into modpacks. This allows forks to pick and choose which are available, since as funny as it could have been, having high tech spacer mercenaries landing on Middle-Earth wouldn't fit the vibes.

Lots of small changes and features have been coming out of the Pyrelight fantasy map testing. Little things like honey being usable for wound disinfection, various crafting tweaks, and things like flooded turfs not putting out your lamp unless it's deeper than your waist.

Automated movement that previously relied on BYOND's inbuilt walk_to() procs now use a dedicated subsystem that calls the appropriate MayMove()/DoMove() proc chains. This essentially just means AI-driven mobs no longer completely ignore little things like pain, having working legs, or being dead or unconscious when chasing you.

Bugs of note

Trout were completely invisible because their main texture was accidentally named world-trout instead of world. This definitely impacted the trout population.

Undead on Pyrelight don't know how to pick up their weapons if they drop them, so disarming them literally or figuratively makes it turn into a slapfight.

Prosthetic limbs, like cybernetics or peglegs, were getting itchy or developing rashes. Maybe it's psychosomatic.

Simple animals like deer were dying en masse on the wilderness maps due to hail. We didn't intend for hail to be the size of hen eggs and covered in spikes, so deer and such are now unhurt by weather.

Current priorities

Personally my focus has been on getting through the Pyrelight feedback list after each test. Lots of small things come out of each test round and my limited time after my real-world job has cut into my space feature time. The Neb general issue list has been getting a bit long so I'll probably put a weekend into getting that cut down again this month.

Otherwise, I have three big PRs open waiting for me to find the focus to finish them: the floor rewrite (aiee), a wizard modpack and ability rework (needed for Pyrelight, eventually, but augh), and a bee rewrite (beewrite) to make bees and other insect nests available outside of one specific machine on space maps.

NataKillar has an amazing PR in the works that sounds quite mundane: separating liquid and solid reagents in reagent containers like beakers. However, this opens up a buttload of interesting chemical interactions down the track, not the least of which is finally getting ice cubes to not require a dedicated ice material.

[pumpkinwastaken]

10 years of elite dangerous!

game is 10 years old now! and even tho i haven't played in a good year or two, i did used to invest most of college into the game AND i was a backer. I wanna ramble about my journey below the cut but first. Frontier sent me an email with my backer account's stats! which is really interesting!

So before i do a big ramble below the cut, i want everyone to know that i'm in the top 0.1% of people who fly a hauler in the past 10 years. so take that! (for those who don't play this is like the third cheapest ship and considered by many the worst or a taxi to get to your better ships)

Thanks for reading my ramble! I wanna tell you my storyyyyyyyy So at first i must tell you just how big of a game this was for me. just like minecraft! I was really into space back then and i saw a video by scott manley about this new game on kickstarter which allowed you to fly to earth and had promises to allow you to fly inside a 1:1 scale of our universe! billions of stars! And how realistic the flight model was and how guuuuuud the sounds were. Right after that video i asked my mom if she could buy it for me with me paying her back later. I'm telling you i was HOOKED at the tutorial, in my tiny sidewinder. I saw the weapons pop out and the gatling gun ooohhh the sounds. and just how big the space stations were and detailed! I'll never forget that. I even have an accidental screenshot of it on a harddrive somewhere. I remember my first jump to another start system, i had my curtains closed and my speakers set a bit louder and i was just like, this is giving me goosbumps this is epic!

(the screenshot in question circa 2014) So what did i do after everything was explained to me by the tutorial? I started bounty hunting! And after the game released later in 2014, I got my kickstarter reward of a free eagle fighter (second cheapest ship in the game) And went back to bounty hunting! I dreamt of owning the biggest ship in the game, The Anaconda. But each ship kill was about 3k credits for me back then. And i had school and played minecraft and call of duty with friends so i didn't get the conda many years later. But i had so much fun! I ended up flying in a cobra mk3 for most of my time back then. Then around 2017 I met an artist friend online who also played! which was my first multiplayer experience in elite. I had just done the Sothis/Ceos runs which allowed me to get a python haha. For those who remember hauling biowaste back then due to the mission reward bug being insane, 07 to you!

(my biowaste luxery vessel circa 2017)

Later i remember hauling passengers with some friends i made after joining a community for the first time and that gave me so much money (another mission reward bug after the biowaste got patched) that i finally was able to just buy every ship in the game! I went and grinded all the millitary ranks to get both a federal corvette and an imperial cutter. And i was set for life! I got an exploration ship to go to the galactic core which was about 8 hours of realtime pressing J to jump to another star haha, it got so boring after a while! i wanted to return to combat but i had to fly all the way back too! (netted me so much money tho from selling star data oh lordy! i had about 1 billion credits and if you remember the anaconda i wanted years ago that one is about 120 million)

(my imperial cutter and federal corvette(The cutter costed me about 1.2 billion if i remember correctly)) In my last year of elite before i quit that account (due to drama in the player group i was in, i won't say too much but it was baaaad). I got really into mining, combat had grown stale, hunting aliens got too easy. I was basically sitting still in a difficult spot and had the ship on turret mode and was able to make lunch and come back victorious. I liked seeing the little mining drones pick up ores and put them into my ship! Also back then it was the most profitable thing you could do. But after you have everything, and so much money that you don't know what to do with it. What do you do? I bought a hauler as a joke. It was known as a meme ship. And i had some laughs! I went to a hauler meetup with a few players, Went to community missions and gave people free stuff and repairs. Even went to the galactic core again in it! And it was around that time that i realized that the hauler is actually the best ship in the game! Everything you do in it is a challenge, you have to carefully build it for a specific job. It dies super easily in combat and you only have 1 small weapon to give it. Making every encounter a fun and skillfull engagement. This post loops back to one of my previous blog posts about how space sandbox games like this reflect real life. When i started out, i want to have it all! big moneys, big ships. but in the end? I just want to do my favorite activities in a small starter boat that i love way more than anything in the entire game! Like i said, i stopped playing on that acount years ago after a falling out with a friendgroup, and after epic offered the game for free! bought the odyssey expansion on there and now i have an alt acount where i just fly a hauler on every once in a while. Doing combat or mining or sometimes trading. Thanks Elite for being probably one of my top 3 games ever! Maybe i'll install it again to fly in my ship some more. Thanks for reading and before i go have some pictures of my hauler.

[krissiefox]

Lethal Company (PC) Game Review

Lethal Company is a survival horror game that came out roughly a year ago, which I was introduced to by my little brother. You play as a scrap scavenger working for a cold and ruthless company, and must travel to different planets looking for items inside of abandoned structures. Every time you visit a planet you are given a quota to meet, and if you fail to do so, then you will be killed by your own employers upon leaving the planet!

As a survival horror game, it is very effective and atmospheric. The graphics are intentionally murky, being seen through your characters dirty helmet. Every planet is populated by all sorts of freaky creatures and monsters that can be encountered both indoors and outdoors. The sound design is fantastic, with lots of creepy ambience and unsettling background music when you're wandering inside the old structures. There are little bits of humor here and there but most of the time things are quite eerie.

Gameplay wise, Lethal Company is quite difficult for me, even when playing online co-op. It's very dark inside of buildings, and I feel it's almost mandatory to have a flashlight with you, which you unfortunately can only get by purchasing one (though they are pretty cheap) . I would have preferred a flashlight just being built into the players suit or something, but the game does seem to have a robust modding community, so perhaps someone has made a mod for that!

While the game's multiplayer mode can take away from the horror experience in some ways, it also has some nice features to it and some features that add horror in different ways! For example, some monsters in the game can hear if people are talking on their microphone, and will discover you unless you keep quiet. Another great spooky feature is that players voices can no longer be heard if they die, and they also have limited range, meaning if you get separated from your group, you won't be able to hear anyone and you'll be all alone with the monsters looking for you. Other nice general game-play features for the multiplayer include things like being able to save your teammates by teleporting them back to the ship if a monster is after them, or working with a friend to watch for monsters while they carry a large scrap object around.

Outside of the excessively dark environments at times, Lethal Company is a great horror title and a cool spooky multiplayer experience as well. I definitely recommend giving it a look, and it's also DRM free (at least in single player mode)!

More screenshots below!