nightlocksos

[nightlocksos]

So Disco Elysium is the only game you've ever really liked

I get it! It's a phenomenal game with superb art and writing, and its themes are consistent and deeply explored. It sets a high bar for video games. But there are other really, really fantastic games out there. This is a list that is 100% my own taste of things that aren't necessarily similar, other than the fact that they're really fucking good. (A lot of these are on sale for the Steam Summer Sale until July 11 2024!)

In Stars and Time

In Stars and Time is a time loop game where you play as Siffrin, the rogue of a party at the end of their quest to save the day by defeating the King, who is freezing everybody in time! But something is wrong: every time you die, you loop back to the day before you fight the King. You're the only one who remembers the loops, so it's up to you to figure out why it's happening, and how to break out.

In Stars and Time is a heart-wrenching dive into mental health, friendship, and love. It's about feeling alone, and how awful it is when the people who love you don't notice (and how awful it is when they do). It's about falling deeper and deeper into your worst self and your worst tendencies, and how to come back from it.

The creator also did one of my favorite Disco Elysium comics ever, which is only tangentially relevant but worth mentioning.

Roadwarden

In Roadwarden, you play as the titular Roadwarden for an undeveloped and "wild" part of the kingdom. Monsters roam the forests and roads, and it's your job to keep people safe. On paper, anyway. Your real mission is to find out what is of value in the area, and how to take it from its people. How well you perform this task is up to you. It's an oldschool text-based RPG, and I take a lot of notes by hand when I play.

Roadwarden explores exploitation and industrialization by making you look in the face of your potential victims. You can only learn what your bosses want you to report on by getting close to the residents, after all. There are mysteries to be solved, secrets to be gathered, and hearts to win.

The Longing

The Longing is an adventure-idle game where you play as the solitary servant of a sleeping king. Your task is to wait for him, for four hundred days. Time in the game passes in realtime (for the most part). There are caves to explore, books to be read, and drawings to make.

The Longing is about loneliness and depression. It's about whether or not you decide to stay in that hole, and if you do, what you do with yourself while you're there. Maybe you'll wander. Maybe you'll stare at a wall. Maybe you'll just sleep until it's all over.

Papers, Please

Papers, Please casts you as a newly hired customs officer in a country that is rapidly tightening its borders as its fascist government tightens its fist. This game is stressful. Sometimes you intend to help out the revolutionaries when they asked, but then you got so stressed out trying to make your quota so you can feed your family and pay your bills that you didn't notice the name of the person they were hoping to contact while going through their papers. Sometimes someone puts a bomb in front of you and expects you to defuse it. Sometimes someone suggests you steal people's passports so you can get your family out, and with the horror you see daily, the idea tempts you more than you'd like.

Papers, Please is all about hard choices and testing your moral fortitude. Everything you do has consequences. Being a good person in this game is hardly ever rewarded, but not in a way that feels overly cynical. Papers, Please asks you what kind of person you want to be and what you're willing to sacrifice to get there.

The Return of the Obra Dinn

From the creator of Papers, Please, The Return of the Obra Dinn is a game where you play as an insurance investigator for the East India Trading Company. The ship the Obra Dinn has just floated back into port, its entire crew missing or dead. It's your job to figure out what happened aboard the vessel. For insurance reasons.

I don't know how to go into the themes of this too deeply without giving away too much, but the mechanics of the game itself make the game worth playing. You have a magic stopwatch that allows you to go back to the moment of a person's death, allowing you to try and figure out who (or what) killed them, and how. And the soundtrack is extremely good.

Outer Wilds

In Outer Wilds you play as an unnamed alien, and it's your first day going to space! Your planet's space program is pretty new still, so there's still lots to explore and discover on the planets within your system. There are ancient ruins from a mysterious race that once lived in your system, long before your species began to record history. Why were they here? Where did they go? How are they connected to the weird thing that keeps happening to you?

The fun of Outer Wilds is in the discovery and answering your own questions. The game never tells you where to go, and it never outright tells you anything. There are clues scattered through the system, and it's up to you to put them together and figure out your next steps. It's about the way that life always goes on, no matter what, even when it seems like the end of everything, forever. I'd recommend NOT reading anything else about this game. Just go play it. Seriously, the less you know, the more fun this is.

If on a Winter's Night, Four Travelers

In If on a Winter's Night, Four Travelers, you explore the circumstances of the deaths of four individuals.

This is a short one that took me about two and a half hours to play. If for no other reason, play it for the stunning pixel art. The game explores sexism, racism, and homophobia in the Victorian era and leans heavily into horror themes. Best of all: it's completely free!

Pentiment

Pentiment takes you to the 16th century, where you take the role of Andreas Maler, a journeyman artist working on his masterwork in the scriptorium of an abbey. When someone is murdered, Andreas takes responsibility for finding the culprit.

The game is set over 20~ years and you get to watch how Andreas' actions affect the village in various ways (who's alive the next time you come by, have people gotten married and had children...). It's an exploration of how the past affects the future, and what parts of that past we choose to keep or discard. It has beautiful art, and fans of both Disco and Pentiment often compare them.

Other games you might wanna check out

Night in the Woods, Dredge, Oxenfree, A House of Many Doors, Inscryption, Slay the Princess, Citizen Sleeper, Chants of Sennar, Loop Hero, The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood, The Pale Beyond, Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, Elsinore, Her Story, Before Your Eyes, Pathologic (not delved into above because the venn diagram of Pathologic fans and Disco fans is basically a circle)

[nightlocksos]

as someone who came from the grudge (funnily, the experiences leading to my "the grudge" exploded the same time GUTS dropped) and today realizing i've reached stranger (while i was listening to GUTS (spilled) for the first time) — time, growth, to choose your life now over the one you had, again and again. every little thing people say for self-improvement: exercise, eating better, sleeping earlier, drinking water, getting therapy, meeting new people, walking outside, talking to friends, less social media, so on and so forth. moving on is a decision done day by day. it takes time. it still happens.

How do I get from the grudge to stranger

[nightlocksos]

Starting to post here :) Apex Legends stuff

[nightlocksos]

portrait of madame loba

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[nightlocksos]

collection of all my loba art so far :)

[nightlocksos]

@shea-parfait did the most beautiful illustration of Loba and Rev for me last year. Happy Kill Code Part 4 day!

[nightlocksos]

Minthara in web patterned dresses >>>>>>>

[nightlocksos]

About this Blog

Hi and thanks for checking out my blog! I make mods for Skyrim. I’m also on the Nexus as allonsywisegirl, and have a separate blog for new mod releases at my-tamriel-now. My mods focus on adding visual interest and playing with concepts based on the wider Elder Scrolls lore. Apologies to mobile users, but the Tumblr links only work on desktop.

(she/her, over 18, certified Jarth Head)

My personal posts and such are under the tag my Tamriel now.

My OCs are: Faolythe, Ash’la; smaller OCs are Aldhwen Greybriar, Fox, Darodra, Ponders-the-River

Just an FYI, if I reply to you on one of my posts it will be as @words-not-working-for-mouth​, my main blog.

I have also posted a tutorial on how to backport Skyrim SE mods to Skyrim LE mods here. I think it mostly holds up.

Released major mods:

Project ja-Kha’jay: A Khajiit NPC Overhaul

A complete overhaul of all named, vanilla Skyrim Khajiit (and some mod-added ones as well) that adds lore-friendly diversity based on the effects of the ja-Kha’jay, the Lunar Lattice, on Khajiit.

Nexus Links: Vanilla, Interesting NPCs, Moonpath to Elsweyr, Relationship Dialogue Overhaul, Asya’la the Nordic Khajiit, Khajiit Will Follow, Khajiit Child Maisha

Tag - Masterpost

Khajiit Has Wares: A Caravan Camp Overhaul

Overhauls all 6 Khajiit Caravan sites by adding more clutter and new, exotic wares representing various provinces across all of Tamriel (and beyond.)

Nexus Link - Tag

Children of the Pariah: An Orc NPC Overhaul

A complete redesign of every named, living orc NPC in Vanilla Skyrim. The goal of the mod is to give orcs a more expressive, less caricature-like appearance (with the help of the excellent Expressive FaceGen Morphs), as well as make their appearances reflect the culture they belong to and the communities they live in.

Nexus Link - Tag

Smaller Mods and Future Ideas:

Keep reading

[nightlocksos]

i'm tired of saga not getting the attention it deserves damn it

[nightlocksos]

[nightlocksos]

Wolf 359 Character Playlists: MVP Tracks

So this summer, as we released mini episodes for each of the characters, I put out a playlist for each week’s featured person. These were songs that reflected some aspect of their personality, their way of dealing with conflicts or the world around them, or just plain songs that they would enjoy and listen to. Now that the summer is over, I thought I’d go through each list and pick an MVP track for each person, and give a bit of commentary for how I think each piece links up to each person. 

Let’s do this thing. 

Minkowski - Defying Gravity 

Hilariously, this is one I didn’t come up with myself. Claire, who was doing an apprenticeship with us this summer suggested it, and as soon as she did I kicked myself hard for not thinking of it right away. Of course this is a Minkowski song. Of course it’s the Minkowski song. I am reasonably sure it’s Minkowski’s favorite song. It is everything that is at the character’s inner more core: the long held back exasperations, the need to break away from the restrictions that have defined her, and the joyous, luminous human that’s hidden in there. All, of course, in musical theater blockbuster form. So, yeah: perfect.

Too late for second guessing, too late to go back to sleep, it’s time to trust my instincts, close my eyes and leap… 

Hilbert - Wait For It

Yeah, yeah, yeah, insert your Hamilton/Lin-Manuel Miranda/Wesleyan joke of choice, but if it works it works. I was tempted to go with Non, je ne regrette rien just because of how well it encapsulates Hilbert’s unapologetic attitude towards the world and his actions, but there is something about Wait For It that really sums up the character for me. The sense of someone who’s seen and done so much, who’s been through more than what most human could ever even fathom, and is trying to assert his influence over it is just an excellent match for him. 

I am the one thing in life I can control… I am inimitable, I am an original… 

Maxwell - There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow

This one is simpler. For whatever her failings and ambiguities might be, I do think that Maxwell genuinely believes that we are headed for a brighter, shinier future courtesy of technology. She has that attitude that people in world’s fairs back in the 1950′s had - “I just can’t wait for the World of Tomorrow!” Nothing fits that better than this Rex Allen track for me - all exuberant joy at the prospects of what’s around the corner, zero interest in what it’s gonna cost to get there. 

Man has a dream and that’s the start, he follows his dream with mind and heart, and when it becomes a reality, it’s a dream come true for you and me…

Lovelace - Les Jours Tristes 

If you’re like most people, you probably met this wonderful Yann Tiersen track (the title of which translates to “The Sad Days”) in the Amelie soundtrack. Which means right now you might be going, “This song has lyrics?!” It does, and oh what lyrics they are. Of all the things that might resonate with Lovelace’s journey, for whatever reason this is the one that really leaps out at me. It’s so bare-facedly passionate about the difficulties of staying true to yourself when things get tough, and the melody builds and soars in such a wonderful way. But for me it’s all about one specific bit, which gives me the chills every time I hear it with Isabel in mind: 

‘Cause you, you are the only one left. and you’ve got to clean up this mess… You know you’ll up like the rest: bitter and twisted, unless… you stay strong and you… carry on…

Jacobi - Claroscuro

This one I’ve spoken a bit about before. Soda Stereo as a band are really good at making songs which bring together two different modes of operation. Not so much mixing different kinds of songs, but… well, almost playing two different songs at once. Claroscuro is one of those for me. It’s about tenderness. It’s about disorientation. It’s soft and gentle. It’s a dark rocker. It’s moody. It’s clear and genuine. And above everything else it’s about twilight - the contrast and blending of light and shadow. And that’s kind of Jacobi in a nutshell. He can be the kindest, most genuinely human person. He can be the cruelest, most unconcerned person on board the ship. Usually he’s both at the same time. Chiaroscuro in human form. 

 [Don’t follow me, I don’t know where I’m going…]

Hera - Gollum’s Song

No, I’m not trolling you. 

…

Okay, fine. No, I’m not just trolling you. When putting this playlist together, I really thought that Florence + The Machine’s What the Water Gave Me would be the emotional core. But then, somehow, my brain remembered this little, sad, gorgeously pathetic, agonizingly bitter masterpiece from the Lord of the Rings soundtrack. This may make more sense after some upcoming episodes, but it spoke so deeply to the dark part of Hera’s psyche, to the side of her that has had to deal with the abuse and the horror that we only get the tiniest glimpse of in Decomissioned. And there is something chilling in how the strings and Emilíana Torrini’s vocals capture all of that. There’s real, tragic, beautiful vengeful wrath in there, and it is terrifying. 

And you will weep when you face the end alone, you are lost, you can never go home… You are lost… You can never go home… 

Eiffel - Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood

Because of course. More than any other character in the series Eiffel is all about the issue of perspective. He was our POV character for so long. We’ve gotten to see other sides of him, and now we may be getting to see another one. We get him in layers, and part of our mission throughout the series is to reach a full understanding of him. And he knows it. He has to. He is so particular and so performative in the version of himself that he presents to the world that he has to be concerned - if not consumed - by these thoughts. And no song captures that anguish, that desperation, and that neurosis better than this one, and no iteration of it fit Eiffel better than Joe Cocker’s gritty blues. 

Baby, sometimes I’m so carefree, with a joy that’s hard to hide… And sometimes it seems that all I have do is worry, then you’re bound to see my other side…

Kepler - Don’t Stop Me Now

Another Claire suggestion, and another one that I am deeply ashamed to not have arrived at myself. For all of Kepler’s statements about how he’s been consumed by his job, it is important to remember: he is here by choice. He has chosen to the do the things that he’s doing, more so than any non-Cutter character that we’ve met. And there is this sense of willful forward momentum to him: even if he’s following orders he’s doing things because - and the way - that he wants to. Whether that is true or an act - and if it’s an act, whether it’s addressed at others or at himself - he is dedicated to maintaining that impression. And nothing, nothing, captures that sensation and those layers quite the way that Freddie Mercury does. 

I’m burning through the sky yeah, two hundred degrees, that’s why they call me Mister Fahrenheit…

Phew! All right, enough cryptic, pretentious music ramblings from me. Now back to your regularly scheduled podcast content… 

[nightlocksos]

🎶I’m not really feeling like myself today🎶

Quickie piece of Fionna and Cake fanart. How good were those two first episodes!! 🌟

[nightlocksos]

we'll do fine.

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known monster fucker gary prince

[nightlocksos]

Fionna and Cake so far